Writing secret notes with lemon juice was one of my favorite pastimes as a child. All it took was a small flame to lightly scorch the paper and reveal the hidden message. Now that I'm tall and pay bills, lemon ink just isn't exciting enough anymore. Luckily, we can use another ...more
Android Messages, formally named simply "Messages" now, has built-in spam protection. This doesn't get every spam SMS message, however — in fact, you can still get unwanted texts multiple times daily even with the feature enabled. Thankfully, you can manually block numbers, to ...more
Sometimes you may need to send a message out at a specific time. Say a thought strikes you late at night, but you don't want to wake anyone up. You could do this by waiting to sending it at your desired time — or, you could schedule your message at a precise time. Telegram ha ...more
A while back, Facebook released a killer feature called "Chat Heads" to its Facebook Messenger app. Messages from users would "pop up" in small bubbles that floated on the screen that could be seen, accessed, and moved around from within most apps. Users applauded the innovat ...more
A lot of people text nonstop, but there are situations where it's either not allowed or considered rude to use your phone. Let's say you're in class or in a meeting at work, band you're expecting an important message or phone call. Rather than trying to check your phone discre ...more
As it is right now, you can only send 5 images by email at the same time from your Camera Roll in iOS 7. There are some workarounds to increase that number, but a new feature in iOS 8 is finally making them unnecessary. In iOS 8, the five-image limit is now gone. In addition, ...more
With the plethora of programming that we promote at Null Byte, I figured a lot of you newbies that stop by IRC will need a big boost in the right direction to make your dive into programming a lot easier. A hot question that has been thrown around in IRC a lot when making the ...more
One thing that makes Signal Private Messenger better on Android over iOS is that you can better secure the app with a password or passphrase. Best of all, you don't need to install an app locker to get this working — you can do it right from inside Signal. Your messages alway ...more
There are some calls you really don't want to miss. Whether it's "I'm going into labor" or "We have some questions about your résumé," not being able to answer or respond to certain messages can cause some serious problems. No matter what the case may be, missing a call or fo ...more
Do you have to send someone a really long text message? Did you know that you can do so from your computer? Watch this video to find out how easy it is to send an SMS message to nearly any cell phone.
Now that there's a working jailbreak for every iOS 6.1 device, there are more and more people jailbreaking their iPhones (including me) for better customization. But for those of you who have no desire to jailbreak, you can still do some pretty cool tweaks. One such non-jailb ...more
Add pictures always seems to mess up your document— but not anymore. In Word 2008 for Mac, adding photos doesn't have to be stressful. Words and pictures can coexist beautifully now. The Microsoft Office for Mac team shows you just how to make text wrap around pictures in this ...more
Placing images inside text is nothing new. However, the old way involved converting the text to outlines first and thereby making the text uneditable. In this video you'll learn how to fill your text with an image while maintaining complete edit-ability of the text using Illus ...more
Pasting on your iPhone has never been easier. You're familiar with the old way of doing things — long-press in the text field to bring up the "Paste" option, then tap that option to paste your text. It's not necessarily hard, but trust me when I say there's a better way. Wit ...more
We've all received those impersonal mass text messages, whether we're getting invited out to a birthday party, graduation celebration, or just a group dinner or outing. Usually when I see those sort of text messages, I delete them, mostly because they're not personal. If some ...more
A highly useful, yet unrecognized and under-appreciated feature in Apple's iOS 8 is the ability to seamlessly convert incoming texts regarding future dates into calendar events. Messages like "Let's chill tomorrow" can be tapped on and quickly added to the calendar. It's conve ...more
I'm sure you've been there—halfway through typing something out, you realize that one word you've been using more than any other has been misspelled. Perhaps it's a single word, acronym, or line of code that you find yourself typing quite often at work, but this one requires c ...more
Many users have reported Android's speech-to-text feature adding an 'Oh' before each comma. How annoying is that? Fortunately, Reddit user Jay-jay1 has found a solution to this pesky problem. This quick-fix should make your 'Oh' so annoying problem disappear. If every time yo ...more
Ever wanted to display text in Minecraft? It's actually not overly difficult. In this tutorial, I will endeavor to guide you through the process between storing and displaying text from memory. To do this, we will examine two different methods of displaying and storing text in ...more
At first glance Facebook chat may seem like a pretty simple application, but there are actually some more complicated things you can do with it. Learn how to customize your chat experience by changing the font and adding smileys with this video. Need to make a point? Then bold ...more
Early last year, Google purchased Quest Visual, acquiring the immensely popular augmented reality translator app Word Lens in the process. While Google did put the feature on the Google Glass, they spoke more about implementing Word Lens into their Translate app sometime in th ...more
Aharon Rabinowitz shows you several popular techniques and tools for creating 3D extruded text in After Effects. Some of the solutions he discusses are the shatter effect, plug-ins like Zaxwerks and another shadow and RGB value method. Create 3D extruded text in After Effects. ...more
This Corel Draw vector graphics drawing software tutorial shows you how to type text along a curve. Specifically you will learn how to draw a curve, and get text to follow the curve as part of making scroll saw patterns. If you are a pattern maker or not, you can learn how eas ...more
Learn how to quickly add text titles and lower third graphics to your video editing or motion graphics projects in Sony Vegas and Movie Studio with this tutorial from Bill Myers.
Google's Android Device Manager makes it extremely easy to track down your phone or tablet, but while it's simple to set up and use, it does require your device to have an active data connection, which can be an issue in some areas. SMSLocator, by T3KBAU5, works a little diff ...more
Google has recently been pushing to replace the decades-old messaging technology we've been stuck with. SMS was never meant to handle the high-quality multimedia content we consume with our smartphones today, so in comes RCS, which is a universal platform that aims to change o ...more
It hasn't been a great year for Facebook. Recently, Android users had to discover on their own that the company was logging their calls and texts in Messenger. However, according to Facebook, all users did approve of the data collection, and as such, all affected users can dis ...more
A few things on Android and iPhone have not been perfected. For instance, selecting and copying text is a task I often find myself fumbling over. But recently, we stumbled across a nifty way to select text that's a huge improvement over how we've been doing it. To best explai ...more
Since iOS 6, "Respond with Text" has allowed us to quickly respond to a call we can't (or don't want to) answer. But Apple only gives you three options to choose from, and if you don't have time to type out your own response, those three might not cut it. Luckily, you can cust ...more
Need a little help making your 3D letters? This quick tutorial on how to draw embossed or three-dimension letters makes it look pretty easy, revealing secrets on how to get perfectly-shaped three-dimensional lettering for your next art project or handmade holiday card! Write 3 ...more
Brian Tong shows you how to avoid awkward text message situations on the iPhone and Android platforms.
Learn how to load HTML-formatted text for an external .txt file into a dynamic text field or textarea component within Adobe Flash CS3, CS4 or CS5. See how to use the Code Snippets panel to add ActionScript functionalities to your Adobe Flash CS5 projects. Whether you're new t ...more
There are many reasons you might want to increase your text size in Google Chrome. The browser's accessibility options have a few tools to help the readability of text on websites. Changing the text scale, enabling zooming, and toggling the simplified view can customize Google ...more
Love Microsoft Excel? This clip contains a tip that just might induce you to. With this free video tutorial from ExcelIsFun, the 45th installment of his "YouTubers Love Excel" or YTLE series of free video MS Excel lessons, you'll learn how to use the SUMPRODUCT & TEXT function ...more
Next to spam calls, few things are more annoying than being inundated with spam, scam, and smishing texts. Your iPhone's Messages app should be a place for your friends and family to stay in touch, not a minefield of phishing attacks, malicious links, and viruses. Luckily, the ...more
We may all have a Nexus 7 tablet, but we don't all want to have the exact same look and feel, which is why we softMod for a more personalized vibe. There are hundreds of cool mods you can perform on your Nexus 7, whether stock or rooted, but one of my favorites in Android 4.4 ...more
Sometimes, you encounter words in a non-native tongue while using your Android device. The Google Translate app has an awesome feature where it will translate any text you highlight. An overlay will appear, and on this overlay, there will be the translation of the foreign word ...more
With so much of our personal data floating around the web, it's nearly impossible to get away from spam calls, texts, and emails. Unfortunately, this isn't just limited to the online world — filling in your contact information in a raffle ticket with the hope of winning that s ...more
In this video tutorial, learn how to create a really beautiful, eye popping, neon light "magic effect". Brighten up your asthetic presentation with this cool Photoshop trick, originally found on this blog. This tutorial is constructed using Adobe Photoshop CS3, but please note ...more
This three part tutorial shows you how to use Photoshop to create Star Wars text and then make it scroll up like in the movie intro using After Effects. Part 1 of 3 - How to Create Star Wars scrolling text in After Effects. Part 2 of 3 - How to Create Star Wars scrolling text ...more
Whether or not you believe that the government is snooping around in our private emails, texts, and phone calls, it wouldn't hurt to protect ourselves a little better in the digital realm. If you're worried about them (or whoever) eavesdropping on your digital messages, takin ...more
Safari has a convenient "Find" feature to search for specific words and phrases in a webpage, and Apple Books has a similar feature for e-books and PDFs. But those do nothing for you when searching text in the real world. Hardcover and paperback books are still very much a thi ...more
My standard text greeting to friends is something along the lines of "Wazzup biznitch?"—but apparently the auto-correct function on my Samsung Galaxy S3 has a problem with that. Time after time I have to retype it or just add all my made-up words to the word list—and I use a l ...more
You've probably heard of RCS messaging. The new standard has been promoted by Google as their answer to iMessage and is the backbone behind the new "Chat" features in Android Messages. With RCS, Android phones will now enjoy enhanced messaging like iPhone users have had for ye ...more
In places like underground bars or national parks, your phone's Internet service is sure to slow down to a very sluggish pace, making it difficult to surf the web. Or worst case, data will be non-existent, leaving you with only low-level network support for calls and SMS text ...more
Learn how to add use text wrapping in your Microsoft Word 2010 documents. Whether you're new to Microsoft's popular word processing application application or a seasoned MS Office professional just looking to better acquaint yourself with the Word 2010 workflow, you're sure to ...more
Edit your video footage like a pro with iMovie. This informative video from Vimeo's excellent Video 101 series of tutorials reviews the steps involved in using the software to create basic text overlays in the popular Mac-based non-linear editor.
Texting something as simple as "What up, bruh?" can be transformed into something way more baller by adding emojis, emoticons, GIFs, and textspeak. Some people would even argue that texting is a form of art, similar to Shakespearean sonnets, but it still has a ways to go if yo ...more
It feels like someone just overheard me talking shit about my iPhone. I really hate when I need to edit an email, text, iMessage, or whatever because of the way you have to select words and phrases. You either hold down on the screen where you want to bring up the menu, or do ...more
Text bombing isn't a very nice thing to do, and sucks for whoever you're doing it to, but it's certainly fun for you! Annoy the hell out of a frenemy, or simply pass the time in your boring Biology class with affably evil fun, by spaming your friend's text inbox with loads of ...more
Silencing my phone always gives me mild anxiety; while my Android is muted, my girlfriend or boss may be trying to reach me with some urgent news or task. On the one hand, I want to enjoy some peace and quiet, but on the other, I don't want to come back to a phone with 100 mis ...more
When you want to distort text, make sure to have the pathfinder tab open. This tutorial will show you how to manipulate text by moving around the letters and parts of each word, and using different effects that are pre-built into Illustrator. Simple, but well explained, this t ...more
In this web development software tutorial Paul Wyatt reveals three fantastic Dreamweaver tips: how to edit, crop, and optimise images; create Flash text; and add Flash buttons to your next Dreamweaver project. Learn three get tops for working in Dreamweaver all in one tutorial!
First, they came for our Pokémon...now it's an emoji takeover. Adding to the flurry of Google related April Fool's Day jokes, Chrome for Android and iOS has a new hidden functionality: translating the web to emoji! If you haven't already, grab the Chrome Browser for Android o ...more
This software tutorial shows you a very easy way to reveal text in fire using After Effects. There are so many effects you can do with text and it's an easy way to start learning After Effects. So why not get started and practice with some fire footage and text effects in Afte ...more
Want to know when you have a visitor, even if you're not home? You could always set up a security system and live-stream it with your iPhone. But if you don't have a spare iPhone, or just don't want to go to the trouble, this simple hack will add text message alerts to your do ...more
If you're a fan of sending audio messages on your iPhone, you might be disappointed when tapping the microphone button in the Messages app on an Apple Watch. You'll see it when crafting a message, but it won't send any audio because it's for Dictation, which turns your speech ...more
Making titles in After Effects is fun, relatively easy, and sure to make your film make a better first impression. This video will show you how to make a cool light ray text swipe effect with particles, like the one in the thumbnail. This isn't too hard as far as our After Eff ...more
One of the most frustrating things about full touchscreen phones, especially for those coming from one with a physical keyboard, is typing and editing text. Whether it's a quick text message, or Swyping out a full e-mail, it sucks realizing you've messed up a few words and hav ...more
This video describes how to use Adobe Photoshop CS4 software to create and manipulate text in animated .GIFs. GIF stands for Graphic Interchange Format, a type of image file which allows short animated sequences to be displayed. A preselected scene from a television show is op ...more