Hot Gadget Hacks How-Tos
How To: Save Your Place in Lengthy YouTube Videos So You Can Return Where You Left Off
If I'm in a hurry, sometimes I'll just turn my computer off and rush out of the house. Sometimes, I'm in the middle of a long YouTube video when I dash off, only to come back and find that my video position has been tragically lost. Hopefully I don't lose my place in that motorcycle accident compilation video when I get ba... damn it.
How To: Keep Your Smartphone Charged During a Power Outage
When the power goes out, having the ability to contact others becomes extremely important, and your cell phone can be one of the most important tools to have. But if the power is out for an extended period of time, battery life becomes a constant problem.
How To: Control iTunes via Your Android Device Using the Retune Remote App
For a long time, Apple has had Remote—an app that can be used on any iOS device in order to remotely control iTunes. Remote allows users to walk around their home and change the music by simply going through their phone. And now, Android has released its own version of the Apple Remote app! Retune is a free app found on Google Play that has the capability to control iTunes—change songs, TV shows, and movies—using your Android device. You can view the entire iTunes library on your Android devi...
How To: Customize Your Wireless Doorbell to Play Any Sounds You Want
Doorbells are useful and all, but most of them are boring as hell. They use the same old generic sounds to let you know when guests have arrived, as demonstrated below.
How To: Privacy? What Privacy? Quora Now Publicly Shows the Posts You View: Here's How to Disable It
In an effort to help posters see the various ways that people discover their posts, Q&A site, Quora has decided to make who views each post, public, along with information on how each viewer came to see the question (ex: through an email, a followed tag, or other public stream). This would probably be an interesting, helpful, and universally liked feature, except for one thing...
How To: Polish And Buff An iPod
Materials Needed: iPod
How To: Download and install the Firesheep Mozilla Firefox browser add-on
Eager to try the Firesheep Firefox extension yourself? It stands to reason that you'll need to download and install it from its official GitHub page first. You'll find all the details, including easy-to-follow, step-by-step instructions on how to find and run the Firesheep XPI installer, in the clip. Get started capturing your friends' Facebook passwords with this video guide.
How To: Receive Facebook notifications on your Windows desktop
This Facebook user's guide will see to it that you never miss another poke, comment, friend request, tag or wall post. Receive Facebook notifications on your Windows PC desktop. This clip will show you how it's done. It's simple! So simple, in fact, that this home-computing how-to can present a complete, step-by-step overview of the process in just over a minute. For more information, including complete, step-by-step instructions, take a look.
How To: Make a sneaky, snake spy camera that records video
Snake cams have become the epitome of high-tech gadgets on television and in movies. In 24, Jack Bauer is always using a snake camera to check for terrorists on the other side of the door. The video game Splinter Cell has made the snake cam an integral part to Sam Fisher's arsenal. And almost every spy movie features its use at one point or another.
How To: SSH into a iPod Touch or iPhone using Filezilla
This video tutorial from iTouchMaster2 shows how to SSH to iPod or iPod Touch using FileZilla application.
How To: Build a mini hovercraft with household items
Learn how to build a mini hovercraft. With a few items found in almost any desk or tool drawer, you can make your very own mini hovercraft capable of gliding over any flat surface.
How To: Extract an RFID chip from a card & make it wearable
Here's how to remove the RFID chip and antenna from a London Oyster travelcard. You can then put it in anything you want. You need a jar and acetone.
How To: Use NETSTAT.EXE to detect spyware and malware
Learn how to use the NETSTAT.EXE function in Windows/DOS to help detect spyware and malware on your computer.
How To: Download and Install iPadOS 17.8 Beta on Your iPhone to Explore New Features Before Everyone Else
Apple has already released iPadOS 18, but there still may be work to complete on iPadOS 17. That brings us to iPadOS 17.8. Is there one, and can you test-drive it on your iPad?
How To: Apple Integrates Game Center Leaderboards into News+ Puzzles with iOS 17.5
There are a few significant improvements for your iPhone with the iOS 17.5 software update, released May 13, but my favorite is Apple's enhancements to the Apple News app, which is making its Puzzles section even more fun with Game Center integration and even a new type of word puzzle.
How To: Apple Just Gave Your iPhone 15 or 15 Pro Better Battery Health Stats
If you're ever curious about your iPhone's battery health, there are easy-to-access stats that let you know the last charge amount, which apps are eating away at most of your power, and even your battery's remaining capacity. Now, a new update makes it easier to know how well your battery is doing.
How To: Share Account Passwords or Passkeys with People You Trust Easily from Your iPhone, iPad, or Mac
Previously, you'd have to use a third-party password manager on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac to securely share passwords with other people or groups outside of AirDrop range. And while apps like 1Password, Bitwarden, and Dashlane let you store passkeys, only 1Password has added support for passkey sharing so far. Now, Apple itself makes sharing passwords and passkeys much, much simpler.
How To: Apple's Clock App Finally Lets You Run Multiple Timers at the Same Time with iOS 17
Aside from the addition of bedtime sleep schedules five years ago, Apple's Clock app has largely been ignored with each new iOS software update. But that just changed with Apple's iOS 17 software update. With the updated Clock app, you can finally set more than one timer to run at the same time.
How To: 12 Quirky Accessories You'll Actually Want to Use with Your iPhone or Android Phone
There is a whole world of smartphone accessories out there, some of which are more quirky than others and don't get the recognition they deserve. But these sometimes strange, sometimes embarrassing products can really make life easier on your iPhone or Android phone.
How To: The Volume Trick You Never Knew You Could Do on Your iPhone
There's a world of hidden features on your iPhone just waiting to be explored, and one of them is hiding in plain sight right in front of you. You likely see it multiple times a day after performing a routine action without ever thinking twice about what else it can do, and you're not the only one.
How To: Make Google's Messages App on Your Phone Write or Rewrite Text Messages for You Using GenAI
Text messaging is a core component of the mobile experience, and Google has added several AI-fueled features to help you text better, such as Smart Reply for quick response suggestions. But Messages by Google's newest AI-powered tool is possibly the best one yet, giving you improved response suggestions and your own personal copyeditor to fix all your message drafts.
How To: The Most Important Photos App Feature You Should Be Using on Your iPhone or iPad
Your iPhone has a powerful feature that can keep your secrets hidden from other people, and you'll never have to worry about sharing or showing someone something embarrassing or incriminating ever again.
How To: Create a 3D Cinematic Photo in Google Photos from Any Image in Your Library
The cinematic photos feature in Google Photos can create impressive three-dimensional views of normally flat images, turning ordinary pictures into life-like representations of the moment captured. Google Photos would automatically pick images from your library to apply the effect to. Now, you can choose images on demand from your library — it's just not super obvious that you can.
How To: Change the Cover Images on Your Spotify Playlists to Get Rid of All Those Ugly Album Art Grids
Spotify lets you customize some aspects of your experience, whether on the desktop, web, Android, or iOS app. And one of the simplest yet coolest customizations you can perform is changing your playlist cover images. However, it doesn't work on all playlists.
How To: Uninstall Specific Software Updates on Your iPhone When You Experience Performance Issues
While most iOS updates will only improve the experience on your iPhone, some can cause more havoc than good. If an update unexpectedly breaks or degrades certain functions on your iPhone, you may be able to roll it back to the previous software.
How To: Your iPhone's Contacts App Is More Powerful Than Ever with These Killer New Features
In the past, Apple never really put much work into its Contacts app for iPhone, making the tool much less useful than its Mac and iCloud counterparts. But now the Contacts app for iOS is a force to be reckoned with. Packed with new features (some hidden), it's finally good enough to beat all of the third-party contacts apps that previously reigned supreme.
How To: The Trick to Using Your iPhone's Portrait Mode in Other Photo and Video Apps
Your iPhone's Camera app isn't the only place you can use Portrait mode for selfies. An easy-to-miss feature built right into iOS lets app developers leverage Apple's powerful Portrait mode effect in their own apps, so you can add a shallow focus effect to photos and videos when using the front-facing camera in FaceTime and apps like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Zoom.
How To: Instantly Turn Gray Skies Blue to Brighten All Your Dull, Gloomy Photos
When you expect to take photos of landmarks, buildings, landscapes, and other outdoor scenery with clear blue skies in the background, you may end up with nothing but overcast weather, resulting in a completely different mood in your pictures. Instead of forgetting about all your images with dreary gray skies, try turning those grays to blues for happier, more shareable photos.
How To: Take Full Control Over Siri's Audible Responses on Your iPhone for Silent or Spoken Replies When You Need Them
Apple's iOS 16 update changes the way Siri speaks responses, defaulting to a more "automatic" solution that lets your iPhone decide when it should or shouldn't talk out loud. That may sound like a good thing, but it makes it harder to keep Siri quiet when you only want muted responses. Thankfully, a new iOS update gives you back some control.
How To: The Apple Health Feature Every iPhone Owner Should Be Using (Even if They Don't Like the Health App)
Your iPhone's Health app has a new medications hub that can be a one-stop destination for all the medicine, vitamins, and supplements you're taking. Adding new entries is easy and well worth the effort to get reminders to take your meds, learn about drug interactions, easily share your routine, and track your history to see what is and isn't working for you.
How To: Get iPhone's Dynamic Island on Your Android Phone for Quick Access to Notifications, Alerts, and Activities
Apple's Dynamic Island is an animated, interactive isle surrounding the front-facing camera on the iPhone 14 Pro series. It's a small capsule when nothing is going on but fluidly stretches across the screen for notifications, alerts, and ongoing activities like music, timers, and directions. It can even expand with controls and more information. And now, you can get Dynamic Island on your Android phone.
How To: Apple Just Improved Messaging on Your iPhone with 26 New Must-Try Features
If you haven't noticed yet, there are a lot of new features hiding in your iPhone's Messages app, and some of them are things users have been requesting for a long time. While iMessage is getting a lot of attention by letting us edit and unsend messages, it's only just the start of a pretty big update.
How To: Customize Your iPhone's Lock Screen with These 27 Killer New Features on iOS 16
Apple just made its most significant update ever to the iOS lock screen, with a lot of features to be excited about. The theme of this upgrade is customization, giving you complete control over the look and functionality of your iPhone's lock screen.
How To: Make Your iPhone Automatically Close Old Tabs So Safari Doesn't Become a Hot Mess
It's easy to accumulate hundreds of Safari tabs on your iPhone, which makes hunting for specific tabs more difficult, especially when they're spread across different groups. Having too many tabs can even slow down Safari itself. You can close all tabs in a group quickly, but not if you want to save some. To prevent this mess, Safari can automatically weed out the tabs it thinks you don't need.
How To: Upgrade Safari on Your iPhone with These Powerful Add-Ons
You may use Safari on your iPhone or iPad to open links and browse the web, but there's so much more it can do for you. On updated software, you can implement third-party Safari extensions in your browser that go above and beyond content blocking, sharing, and performing basic actions.
How To: Use a Custom Gesture to Clear All Apps from Your iPhone's App Switcher in Seconds
After just a few hours, your iPhone's app switcher can become cluttered and even chaotic enough that you won't even want to use it. If you like your app switcher clean and tidy, with only your current session's apps accessible, there's a trick to force-quitting all apps simultaneously rather than one by one.
How To: Change Safari's Background Image on Your iPhone for a More Customized Start Page
One of the biggest grievances with Safari on iPhone was always its lack of customization, and iOS 15's browser upgrades tackle that problem head-on. Apple added many great features, including Safari extensions, Tab Bar, and Tab Groups, but the most prominent feature caters to those obsessed with finding the perfect Home and Lock Screen look.
How To: Scan Real-World Text with Your iPhone's Camera to Copy, Paste, or Share It Using iOS 15's Live Text Tool
Whenever you need to digitally share large bodies of real-world text, you'd likely show a photo of it or manually type everything into the document or chat. But iOS 15 has a much better way for your iPhone.
How To: When It Comes to iPhone 12 Series Cases, Smartish Is All You'll Need
I drop my smartphone a lot. Like an absurd amount of times. Practically multiple times a day. So it's surprising that my iPhone 12 Pro has lasted nine months without a cracked screen yet. Part of that has to do with the late-2020 model's durability, and the other part is thanks to my protective case.
How To: Mute Any iPhone App's Notifications for One Hour or All Day with iOS 15
Notifications keep us connected to our apps and contacts, but sometimes, they just get out of hand. While you can make blanket adjustments to your notifications with iOS 15's new Focus modes, you don't have to go that extreme — if there's one app bugging you right now, you can temporarily disable its notifications.