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iOS 18 Tips, Tricks, How-Tos, News

How To: Unlock the Bootloader on the Latest Motorola Android Phones

Motorola may have changed its mind about making its devices hard to unlock by creating a tool to do it for you, but they've been slow to update it to include the latest and greatest models. Want to beat them to the punch? Just consult djrbliss over on XDA-Developers, who came up with a root exploit that will unlock all the newest Motorola smartphones, like the Motorola Atrix HD, Photon Q, and new Razrs. It's simple. Just connect your device to your computer, download and extract the zip file ...

How To: Add an Actual Shutdown Button to the Windows 8 Start Screen

Windows 8 the biggest update to Windows yet. The new gesture-friendly version replaces the aging start menu with a dynamic new Start Screen, complete with live tiles that give you a glimpse into your apps before you launch them, not unlike the new Windows phones. With such a radical departure from the past, some familiar features have been moved around, which will take some getting used to. It's worth noting that the new Windows 8 does not abandon the old desktop model completely; it still ha...

How To: Include Yourself in Photos You Take of Your Family and Friends with Your iPhone

Sometimes there's no one around to take a picture of the entire family or group of friends. That means that one unlucky person is chosen to be the photographer and left out from the moment. Sure, you can set up a timer and run, but that's not a viable option during interactive moments. You could always edit yourself into the picture, but who has the time and proper skills to make it look genuine?

How To: Repair or Replace Your Broken Headphone Jacks

If you haven't met a person that's broken a pair of headphones, you might need to get out more. No matter how expensive or cheap a pair of headphones are, the sound can get buggy, the wire can get cut, or the headphone jack itself can be broken or ripped off the cord. But instead of buying a new set of headphones or borrowing the ones from your cousin with the earwax problem, you can easily fix it yourself.

How To: Sync Your Google Contacts with Your iOS Device Using CardDAV

If you have an iPhone or iPad, but use a Google account for most of your communication, syncing your contacts just got a lot easier. Google recently announced that they added CardDAV support, an open protocol that lets you seamlessly integrate Google Contacts into other services. Google states that "Syncing via CardDAV is only available over SSL for Apple devices on iOS version 5.0 and above." So, if you're running an older iOS version, you'll have to use Google Sync instead.

How To: New Malware App Turns Your Android Phone's Camera into a Data Stealing Spy

Robert Templeman from the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Crane, Indiana and several of his friends from Indiana University recently developed an Android application that is capable of gathering pictures and videos from mobile devices in order to reconstruct a user's environment in 3D. The malware would come coded inside of a camera application that the user would download. The malware, called PlaceRaider, would then randomly take pictures throughout the day and carefully piece them together ...

How To: Undo Instagram's Photo Filter Magic with Normalize for iPhone

Tired of the Instagram wave? If you're sick of having to view the world through low-contrast and sepia-toned filters, there's a way to get them back to how they're supposed to look, and it's called Normalize, which undoes the magic filtering that Instagram and similar photo filter apps provide. The process of un-Instagramming your (or anyone else's) photos with Normalize is perhaps easier than Instagramming them in the first place. All you need to do is copy and paste them into the app and wa...

How To: Turn Your Smartphone Pics into Extra Cash with These Android and iPhone Apps

Everything is documented these days, thanks to the Internet and mobile devices. Most people who own a smartphone use it to take lots of pictures. If you're one of those people, an app called Scoopshot can help you turn some of those photos into extra cash. Scoopshots lets you post your pics so that news organizations can pay you to use them. Companies can also post tasks, so if someone is looking for a particular photo in your area, you can accept the task, go take the photo, and earn money f...

How To: Cloak Your Private Email Address into an Anonymous, Disposable One with Gliph

Want the convenience of a throwaway email address without all the hassle? How about anonymous text messaging so you can get to know someone before giving them your real information? Gliph has you covered. Gliph is a service that lets you create an identity around a set of three to five symbols called "artifacts" instead of your name, phone number, or email address. You choose how much information you reveal, and anytime you communicate with someone else who has Gliph, the data is protected us...

How To: Block RFID Signals, Build an RFID Reader Detector, and Make Custom RFID Tags

RFID chips are everywhere. They're in passports, credit cards, and tons of items you've bought in the last 5 years or so. Big retailers like Walmart started using tracking products with RFID as early as 2004, and today, they're used in everything from mobile payments to hospital record systems. Chances are, unless you're a hermit (in which case you wouldn't be reading this anyway), there's an RFID tag within a few feet of you. Photo by sridgway

How To: Download TED Talks Videos onto Your Computer with the TEDinator

The TED website offers hours and hours of amazing streaming videos, with subjects including why videos go viral and sixth sense technology. With so much great content, it make sense that you'd want to save some of it to your computer, perhaps for a long plane flight or bus ride home. Unfortunately, because TED uses a proprietary video player, you can't use the normal stream downloading sites that you would for, say, YouTube. Luckily, there's a way around that.

How To: Get Free Internet on Your Laptop from Your Phone

Tethering your Android phone basically turns it into a mobile hotspot, allowing you to funnel a 3G or 4G internet connection from your phone into your PC or laptop via USB. As you might expect, phone carriers brought the hammer down in an effort to stop users from getting around the fees they charge to normally allow you to do this.

How To: Create an Invisible Folder in Windows

Have you ever wondered how to create an invisible folder? I mean an invisible folder, not a hidden folder. Nowadays, we are facing lots and lots of problems requiring us to keep our data safe and secure. There are millions of hackers all around the world that are trying to steal our information whenever we get onto the internet. Even some of our friends are trying to lay their hands on our personal and confidential information.

How To: Create Double Exposures with Your Cell Phone

In photography, creating a double or multiple exposure photo involves combining two different images to make one single image. This technique has been used in film photography by exposing a piece of film twice to two different images. The second image becomes superimposed onto the first image, creating various effects that may mirror one another or seem ghostly.

How To: Secretly record people with your own spy sunglasses

Hack a pair of sunglasses to secretly record audio and video and spend less than $40 in the process with this how-to video. To replicate this hack for yourself, you will need a spy camera and black solar shield sunglasses. For detailed, step-by-step instructions on building your own spy recorder sunglasses, watch this hacking how-to from Kip Kay of Make Magazine.

How To: Turn Off 4G on the HTC Thunderbolt Smartphone

So you own the latest smart phone beast, the HTC Thunderbolt, but you don't get 4G service in your area yet and it's killing your battery life because of the constant 4G searching. What to do? The 4G network is spreading throughout the country which is great, but it's not provided in your area or you've traveled to a non-4G destination. Why not turn off the 4G and save battery life? Turning off the 4G on your HTC Thunderbolt is very easy to do and the procedure is reversible.

How To: Change Your Etsy Privacy Settings to Protect Your Profile from Prying Public Eyes

Nothing on the web is ever private. If you thought you can control your privacy, you were wrong. Websites may give you security options to better hide your information from the world, but ultimately your privacy resides in the hands of the website itself. We've seen how websites let ad companies track our private usage. We've seen how Facebook mucked up their privacy controls. We even saw how websites like Gawker are prone to hackers stealing user information. And now, Etsy has made what was ...

How To: Hack Your Nook Color into a Full (But Cheap) Android Tablet

Thanks to online music services like eMusic and iTunes, compact discs are becoming a far distant memory, turning local music shops around the country into desolate wastelands. The once mighty movie rental store Blockbuster is now bankrupt because of online streaming services like Hulu and Netflix. And Borders and Barnes & Noble are closing stores left and right thanks to eBooks available on eReaders, like the Amazon Kindle. Everything is moving to the digital world, and everything is finding ...

How To: Perform a master reset on a BlackBerry Curve

Alright BlackBerry users, it's time to wipe all that information before you sell, or pass on your BB to someone else. This simple how-to video will let you wipe it all, simply and easily. If you desire you can also choose to leave in your sim card and wipe the contents of that as well. The tutorial hose will guide you you step by step on how to remove your personal information from your Blackberry 8350i Curve. This instructional video is a simple but very detailed tutorial that instructs you ...