Rooting usually means sacrifice. With most root methods, you lose access to apps like Netflix and Android Pay when SafetyNet gets tripped. More importantly, you lose the ability to accept OTA updates, forcing you to manually flash new Android versions. But there's a way around ...more
Organizing contacts is a bitch, especially on the iPhone. Some contacts will have multiple entries, you can only delete contacts one by one, and certain types of contacts can't be deleted at all. If that isn't enough to make you pull your hair out, then I don't know what will. ...more
There are many ways to take a screenshot in macOS (previously Mac OS X), but all of the well-known options give you a drop shadow in the picture when snapping application windows. If you use the Command Shift 3 shortcut, it takes a screenshot of the entire screen. If you use ...more
Probably SSH is not as clean and fast as other useful tools like netcat, but it has some features which are very useful, and when you'll need them, here's how to behave with that huge amount of computers all over your house. Probably, you already know what SSH means, but for ...more
If you're an AirPods owner, you know the sound — that decrescendo of little beeps and boops means imminent "death" for your wireless earbuds. Other than that infamous chime, however, it's not overly clear how to check your AirPods, AirPods Pro, or AirPods Max power levels. Tha ...more
On May 17 2018, Valve released the Android beta version of their Steam Link app, which allows you to stream Steam games from your computer directly to your phone. You'll probably also want to connect your favorite controller to your phone, but you may run into some issues if y ...more
While it may not be an obvious feature, Apple actually built a way into iOS that lets you hide specific pictures and videos in the Photos app that you want to keep on the down-low, for your eyes only. If you show off your photos a lot or stream slideshows to your TV, this is a ...more
Apple's iOS 11 is finally here, and while they showed off several of the new features it brings to your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch back at WWDC 2017, they've only just touched the surface of what iOS 11 has to offer. There are a lot of cool new (and sometimes secret) feature ...more
If you maintain a digital library of your favorite movies, Plex is the perfect solution for bridging the gap between your computer and your mobile device. All you have to do is install the server program on your Mac or PC and point it to the folder where you store your movies, ...more
When it comes to sharing files between a smartphone and a computer, there are several solutions available for a Windows and Android pairing. But for those of us with Apple devices, the selection of apps in this category isn't quite as great. You can use AirDrop to quickly shar ...more
Although I know it will never happen due to Apple and Google's tempestuous relationship, I sometimes wish I could cast iTunes or Apple Music from my Mac to Google's Chromecast. When you don't have speakers to blast your music, the television is a great alternative to amplify y ...more
Remembering keyboards shortcuts can prove difficult, especially when there are so many to remember, not to mention that they differ from app to app. While tools like CheatSheet can make them easier to use, today I'm going to show you how to enter them without using your keyboa ...more
With Apple's Yosemite build of Mac OS X came Continuity, a feature that has allowed us to connect our mobile devices to our computers, letting us access apps, send text messages, answer phone calls, and more while seamlessly switching from one device to the other. Pushbullet, ...more
It's pretty logical for your MacBook to sleep when you close its lid, but under certain circumstances, you may not necessarily want this feature to kick in. Personally, I'd prefer my MacBook's lid to be closed while relaxing and listening to music. Also, I don't like having t ...more
Coffee shops are a relaxing place to get work done on your laptop; there's free Wi-Fi, fresh coffee, and people generally leave you alone. Inevitably, those cups of coffee will go straight through you, resulting in a much-needed bathroom break. But while you're attending to yo ...more
Mac OS X has finally added a way to use two apps side by side in full screen mode, à la Microsoft's Windows Snap. But since it's only available in 10.11 El Capitan right now, those of us with older systems will have to wait until the El Capitan Public Preview or final build is ...more
Linux may not be the most popular consumer operating system out there, but what it lacks in consumer app variety, it definitely makes up for in flexibility and security. And if you've ever tinkered with a Linux distro, you know how easy they are to install—most of the time, I ...more
Continuity is a new feature for iOS 8 and Mac OS X Yosemite which allows users to connect their Apple devices to their Mac in order to access applications, send text messages, receive phone calls, and more while seamlessly switching between devices. Inside Continuity exists a ...more
Apple has just released iOS 8 beta 5 to developers, which is speculated to be the second-to-last beta build before they launch the gold master (GM) edition at the end of this month. While the final version of iOS 8 is still over a month away from general availability, you can ...more
These days, we increasingly have more and more devices in our everyday possession. While a notebook computer, a tablet, and a smartphone may seem like overkill, they do work to make our lives easier and even help reduce clutter in certain ways. A single one of these devices c ...more
Browser customization is one of Firefox's best attributes. You can personalize your Firefox with extensions, add-ons, themes, and so on. And if all of that still doesn't cut it, you can even customize the Firefox Menu button to say whatever you want. To start off, you'll need ...more
There are a number of reasons why you might want to trick a web server into thinking you're on a different operating system (OS) or web browser. One might be that you want to test the mobile version of your website from your computer. Or perhaps for some reason a website is re ...more
There's a new trend on Instagram Stories: People are making viral AR filters where images of popular characters from TV shows, movies, and other mediums shuffle above your head until one sticks. The filters range from Disney and Pokémon characters to Harry Potter and Friends, ...more
Hello ladies and gentlemen, I'm back with another informative(hopefully) article for you all. Once again I would like to apologize for my absence for about a week or so. I have some stuff going on with my life and university and I haven't found enough time to make a fully in-d ...more
Straight out of the box, the Nexus 5 is an awesome device, but even it can be faster with better battery life. Luckily, one of the things that makes it so awesome is that there are tons of developers creating mods for it, since it runs stock Android by default. When it comes t ...more
Apple's Notes app has an important feature many users overlook, yet it's arguably the most crucial thing you should use for all your notes synced across iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and iCloud.com. And Apple makes the feature much easier to use than years before, so there's no reason y ...more
When you want a helpful task manager on your iPhone or iPad, any of the nine apps in this guide should be at the top of your list. But we'll review each app's features to help you determine which one might be best for your workflow. Using a task manager on your iPhone or iPad ...more
Safari has a helpful feature that shows your most frequently visited webpages whenever you open a new tab or window, but it's not for everyone. If you never use it, would rather have a minimalist start page, or want to prevent other people with access to Safari on your iPhone, ...more
Believe it or not, there are legitimate iOS apps beyond the App Store that you can install on your iPhone. Some of them even work for iPad, Apple TV, and Mac, and there are also benefits to using them over apps found in the App Store. Not all of you will want to try these app ...more
In iOS 15, Apple unveiled a new feature called Focus, an extension of Do Not Disturb that lets you focus on the one thing that's important at any particular moment. It does so by minimizing distractions from your iPhone and other Apple devices, but there's a lot you should kno ...more
You're in a Zoom meeting, and you're click-clacking away at your keyboard, typing important notes from the call. More realistically, you're doing something unrelated to the meeting, such as browsing the web, playing a game, or messaging friends. Whatever it is you're typing, i ...more
Apple said goodbye to iTunes with the release of macOS Catalina, breaking up music, videos, and podcasts into their own respective apps, Music, TV, and Podcasts. But without iTunes, what app's in charge of interfacing with your iPhone? That would be Finder, and you use it to s ...more
One of Android's biggest strengths is its ability to interact with other operating systems. When you plug your phone into your Windows PC, you instantly see all of the files it holds—and all it takes is a simple syncing app to do the same with Mac. To top that off, apps like P ...more
If you're running iOS 10 or lower, there is no built-in way to make a screen recording on an iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch directly from the device, but that doesn't mean there isn't a way to record your screen at all. Occasionally, there will be an app in the iOS App Store tha ...more
Microsoft has invested years and countless man-hours in an effort to get their cloud storage service on par with competitors like Dropbox and Google Drive, who have long resided at the top of this market. Their hard work has definitely paid off, as OneDrive (formerly SkyDrive) ...more
This how-to is for everybody who faced the problem of intercepting personal data sending through the Internet and is looking for fast and secure method to protect his activity in the global network. For these purposes I recommend VPN connection (creation of special tunnel thr ...more
One of the best features of Android is the fact that it's open-source, giving developers the ability to use it on pretty much any device they can think of, like on a Windows PC using Andy. That's what drove the creators behind the Android-x86 project to port over the mobile OS ...more
I'm all about saving time. If there's a quicker way to do something, I'm going to find it. For this reason, whenever I need to search through old emails or compose new ones in Gmail, I do it directly from Chrome's address bar, or as Google likes to call it, the omnibox—and you ...more
If you're like me, you spend a lot of time on your computer, which can be damaging to your eyes in the long run. Studies have shown that staring at a computer screen or television up close for extended periods of time can have harmful effects on your vision. An application ca ...more
I was kinda disappointed with last year's James Bond movie, Skyfall. Don't get me wrong, it was a solid flick, but only made me jealous with all its super spy hacker stuff. So, I figured it was time to add some Bond to my daily life by beefing up on my data deletion know-how, ...more
We've all been there. Your phone is on your nightstand, but you're on the couch in the living room browsing the web on your Nexus 7. Then you hear it—a faint sound for a new text message notification from the bedroom. Ugh. Don't you wish you didn't have to get off the couch. ...more
One advantage to using Apple's ecosystem is Continuity, which allows you to move files, media, and tasks seamlessly between all your Apple devices. It even lets you use one device to help with actions on another, like unlocking your Mac with your Apple Watch or using your iPad ...more
After teasing the feature in Android 10, Google finally added proper native screen recording to Android 11. But when you start a capture, you'll see a small red indicator in your status bar as long as recording is ongoing, which can really distract from your video. Thankfully, ...more
Android 9.0 Pie moved the status bar clock from the right corner to the left to accommodate phones with notches, but there's one major downside for Samsung users: since no Galaxy phones have a notch, all this did was take away space for the notification icons that would otherw ...more
One of the best gifts that someone with an iPhone can receive is a paid app, hot new movie, bestselling album, gift card, or anything else in iTunes, Books, or the App Store that costs money. Even if it's a small $0.99 game that you heard a friend talking about, a gesture like ...more
Jailbreaking gives iPhone users almost unfettered access to their devices, offering a slew of customizations, new features, and improved apps that you just can't get elsewise. Unfortunately, Apple has clamped down hard on the latest iterations of iOS, making jailbreaking extre ...more
Kodi, formerly known as XBMC, is one of the most versatile media players available. With it, you can play virtually any internet and media file in a large variety of formats, and it can be used on practically every single operating system out there, including iOS 10. Kodi, an ...more
We're nearly done getting our Mac set up for hacking. If you haven't checked out previous tutorials, I'd recommend you do so first before diving right into this one. While macOS is a powerful POSIX-compliant operating system, some of our Linux tools do not work out of the box ...more
If you're all out of prank ideas for April Fool's Day, we've got a few that your Apple-loving friends will enjoy (or hate?). You can have a little bit of fun if you don't have access to their iOS device or Mac, but for the best pranks, you will need access to their devices, ev ...more
If you use Google Chrome as your default desktop/laptop browser, then Chrome OS will be pretty easy to get up and running if transitioning from Windows or macOS. Google has created an operating system that is fast, lightweight, and versatile enough to be adopted by pros and no ...more
Like the majestic mountain structure it's named after, Apple's latest version of OS X, El Capitan, goes a little deeper to expand on the foundation laid by Yosemite. While the update may not be as monumental as some have hoped, it is an improvement and includes tons of useful ...more
When most people think of "gaming computers," they're probably thinking of Windows-based PCs. They offer a huge variety of devices with better equipped software and hardware for a cheaper price, and there are more available games than there are for OS X-based systems. But tha ...more
In most cases, when the free trial of software is over, that's it—you're left to either pay for it or find an alternative. But what happens if the trial wasn't long enough to sell you on the product? It'd be nice if there was a way to test it out again without having to whip o ...more
Uninstalling an app on your Mac isn't as straightforward as you would think. When you drag and drop an app into the Trash, then empty it, the main app itself may be gone, but many associated files and folders are left behind. So how do you get rid of them? There are a couple o ...more
All of Apple's products are praised for being extremely easy to use. So much so, that your grandma can pick one up and be a "pro" within a few hours. However, this isn't necessarily a good thing for us real power users who want more granular control of our devices. Luckily, M ...more
NFC, or near-field communications, is a hardware feature that has been built into most Android phones for the last four years. It's essentially a low-power data connection that can be used to initiate a quick command by bringing your device within range of a compatible receive ...more
Just because you have a Mac doesn't mean you can't root your Nexus 7 tablet. In fact, rooting Android 4.4 KitKat on both the 2013 and original 2012 N7 models is easy, if not easier than rooting it using a Windows PC. After rooting, you can enjoy many of tomorrow's features to ...more
While new features in Safari, Camera, Photos, Notes, Weather, Messages, and other Apple apps may steal the show on iOS 17, there are some impressive new features you need to know about when it comes to FaceTime audio and video calls. A step beyond mere upgrades, Apple nudges ...more
Apple's iOS 16.3 update for iPhone had impressive new features, but iOS 16.4 might impress you even more. The latest iPhone update was released on Monday, March 27 — a day earlier than Apple Music Classical, Apple's new classical music streaming service — has at least 30 more ...more
Apple's latest big software update includes an entirely new Apple app, a controversial change in the TV app, better Siri control, an improved Shortcuts app, interesting Safari upgrades, Apple Music Sing, and more. Keep reading to see what iOS 16.2 has to offer your iPhone. Th ...more