Hot Gadget Hacks How-Tos

How To: Burner Protects Your Real Phone Number with Disposable Aliases on Your iPhone

There are tons of situations that require you to give out your phone number, and I think just about everyone has regretted doing so at some point. It can be incredibly convenient to have a secondary or temporary number on hand, so if you don't want to provide your real digits, you can still get the call without revealing your true numbers. And that's where Burner comes in. Burner is a mobile app for iPhone and Android that lets you create alias phone numbers that you can take out of service a...

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: See If Anyone's Hacked into Your Dropbox, Facebook, or Gmail Accounts

Dropbox announced Tuesday that a recent security breach compromised a list that included the email addresses of certain Dropbox users. To avoid future complications, the service announced that it would be implementing two-factor authentication, and even more useful, a security page that lets you monitor all activity on your account. In light of this and other recent web security threats, you might also want to know that services like Gmail, Facebook, and Yahoo! Mail have similar pages where y...

How To: Convert Protected M4P Files to MP3 Songs with iMovie and iTunes

I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but it's awesome that you can now download music from the iTunes Store that's free of DRM (digital rights management) limitations. That was always my biggest problem with buying music from iTunes. Paying a buck for a song that I can only play on Apple devices? Really? That's what finally led me away to other legal music downloading services like eMusic and Amazon.

How To: Turn an Old Scanner into a Keyboard Light

Do-it-yourselfer Kipkay salvaged parts from an old parallel port scanner and made a flexible, super-bright light in this how-to video. The modification is done by extracting the lamp and running it through clear tubing. He mounted the new lamp above his keyboard for night typing. Watch this video tutorial and learn how to turn an old scanner into a keyboard light.

How To: Hack a toy radar gun into a real one

Turn a 'toy' radar gun into the real thing! Cops don't even have one like this! While this is a completely new and different design, the inspiration for this video is from an article by Ken Delahoussaye in MAKE Magazine. Just watch this video tutorial on how to hack a toy radar gun into a real one.

How To: Excellbook Hides Your Facebook Addiction at Work in a Fake Spreadsheet

There's an epidemic on the Internet, and the disease—Facebook. It's an addiction comparable to a hot cup of coffee in the morning or a soothing cigarette throughout the day—in worse case scenarios, a hit from the crack pipe. If you're on Facebook, you know what I'm talking about. You're addicted to finding out what's going on with your friends and addicted to telling those friends everything you're doing. You can't stop, even when you're at work.

How To: Use Google to download music

Looking for the best way to find and download new music? Check out this video to learn how to use the Google search engine to download music. You'll learn what search operators will help you find the artists and songs you are looking for, in the file format you want.

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: Hack and control anyone's webcam using Google

Consider this reason 1,001 why we love the internet: Using Google, you can hack into almost any webcam or security cam, in any part of the world and even control the webcam to move around so you can get your full panoramic shot. Don't believe us? Then check out this video tutorial to learn the steps you need to take.

How To: Make an iPhone secret spy camera

This how to demonstrates how to use your Apple iphone as a spy camera to spy on others. If you're suspicious, paranoid or just downright creepy, this video can show you how to convert your Apple smart phone into a device for surveillance on others.

How To: Use an iPhone as spy camera

If you're looking for ways to get all James Bond on someone, you may want to check out this video. In it you'll see how to turn your iPhone into a spy camera, letting you take photos or videos at set intervals, or, whenever the mic detects any sound. It's pretty cool and not hard to do! Requirements: 1. iPhone 2. iPad 3. Wi-Fi (bluetooth works aswell but not as good) 4. a place to put iPhone 5. spare time! So remember, the name is phone. iPhone.

How To: Bypass Facebook's privacy and Like to See settings

Tired of clicking on interesting looking links in Facebook, only to discover that they are hidden behind a page you have to 'Like' before you can see? If you're surfing using Google Chrome, you can completely bypass this privacy setting. When you get to the page, go to the menu bar and click on 'Inspect Element.' Then you'll see the code for the page, and you'll be able to get around the block to see the page you want.

How To: Block someone from calling or texting you on your iPhone

If there are people you just don't want to talk to, or texts you want to stop recieving, you can use the MCleaner app for iPhone. This app has a white list of approved numbers and a black list of disallowed numbers. You can even choose to let in phone calls from one number while letting in their text messages, or vice versa. MCleaner will also log your blocked calls, so you can see who has been trying to get through.

How To: Hack your Facebook status updates and profile page

Want to add a dislike button to your page? Or want to make an update about what you did last night, but don't want your grandmother to read it? This video shows you ten ways you can hack your Facebook page. You can also pre-schedule certain status updates, set your Facebook language to 'Pirate English', create a status update word cloud, tag your friends in updates, add symbols to updates, and even redirect your friends back to their own profile page!

How To: Put Gameboy emulator (Gba) on your Blackberry Storm

Well your friend's won't stop dissing your BlackBerry Storm, and you need to show them it can actually play some games. This video shows how-to install the Gameboy emulator on your BlackBerry Storm so that you can play a whole host of cool video games. This method is pretty simple and requires your smart phone be connected to your PC, and that you go and get some software as described in the video. Give it a try and show them you ARE cool!

How To: Get Your Facebook Chat History

If you want to get your Facebook chat history, here's a way to do it, even if your friends aren't currently online. This video walks you through the steps to recover chat that you previously had, even with friends who are currently offline. Click here for more details.

How To: Remove Amazon's DRM from Any Kindle eBook

Want to drop Amazon's DRM from a Kindle eBook you've purchased? As the saying goes, where there's a will, there's a way. And, in this case, there are actually a couple of ways: One method uses Calibre and works for both Windows and Mac users, the other uses an AppleScript and is Mac exclusive. To maximize the usefulness of this guide, we've chosen to excerpt a tutorial that uses the OS-agnostic method. Mac users looking to find a writeup of the latter method, however, should look here.

HowTo: Stay Safe Using Public WiFi

For travelers on-the-go, or penny pinchers who like to surf the web for free in public places, there are necessary precautions one must take when accessing sensitive information over a public WiFi connection. For advice on doing this safely, check out Glenn Fleishmann'sguide to staying protecting your private information. Fleishmann outlines how to:

How To: Change the Google Logo to Your Favorite Google Doodle All Year Round

We all love it when the Google logo changes to celebrate or commemorate special events— pop-culture touchstones, civic milestones, scientific achievements and holidays— their latest one for this holiday season is a Christmas card to everyone— an interactive Google Doodle with 17 artworks from different artists, each depicting a seasonal greeting from a variety of cultures and countries.