Life Is Life

How do you call 9-1-1 when you need to remain silent or can't speak? It's a great question that will finally be answered on May 15th. Mobile providers AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless have announced that they will support texting to 911 during emergencies. Althoug ...more

One of my least favorite tasks is crouching in front of the kitchen oven or gas heater, and burning my fingers as I try to restart the pilot light with regular matches. I end up cursing the fact that I don't own extra-long matches or a stove lighter, but then I never go out an ...more

As reported by Android Geeks, the Verizon variant of the Samsung Galaxy S4 will finally see its update to Android 4.4 KitKat. Based on the leaked image of an internal Verizon document, the update (OTA) will be released on May 2nd. This comes about two months after all other U. ...more

Garlic—it stinks so good! It's one of nature's most wondrous foods, being both delicious and incredibly healthy. What's not to love? Well, it is kind of a pain to prep, whether you're peeling a couple of cloves for a sauce or a whole head and trying to mince it finely. One way ...more

Numbers are everywhere in life, and some are better at doing the math than others. Unless you're Gert Mittring, it's safe to say you use the calculator app on your tablet just as much as I do, and it's often disrupting your other tasks. Whether reading an email, editing a Wor ...more

April Fool's Day, aka National Screw with Your Friends Day, is finally here. You can always pull a conventional prank, like strategically placing a whoopee cushion on your mom's chair, but that joke has been exhausted generations before smartphones were around. We live in a d ...more

About ten years ago, Western research figured out that green tea was a nutritional powerhouse. After all, in Asian countries where green tea is consumed throughout the day, cancer rates tend to be much lower, although there are probably other factors contributing to that fact, ...more

Volume markings on large pots and mixing bowls make life so much easier. They cut out the step of measuring and save you the trouble of washing measuring cups. However, there aren't many containers out there that actually have volume markers in them. Good news is that you can ...more

I can't begin to tell you of the many times my friends and I get into arguments that eventually lose any semblance of structure, becoming shouting matches where we just lob the stupidest, meanest insults we can fathom. You could call it a unique art form, but honestly, being ...more

It may be cheesy, but whipping out an origami flower while you're at the dinner table can really make someone's day, whether it's made out of a napkin, dollar bill, or burger wrapper. It's great for showing your waitress how much you appreciate the service, or for breaking the ...more

Good battery life is one of the most important things any phone or tablet should have, but iOS 7 isn't always that great at handling power consumption. That leads to tunnel vision on the status bar's battery meter. After all, you don't want to be stranded in the middle of nowh ...more

We softModders come from all walks of life, and sooner or later, our devices begin to reflect who we are. Maybe you've followed one of our guides on customizing your Nexus 7, such as getting the exclusive Google Experience Launcher or hiding the navigation buttons for more scr ...more

Have you already abandoned your New Year's resolutions? Maybe you need a refresher on how to stick to your goals and avoid succumbing to your worst temptations and unproductive habits. No matter where you are in life right now, all of us can benefit from increasing our sense o ...more

When lending our iPhone to our kids, siblings or friends, it's not uncommon to have it returned with what seems like a million apps open in the background. What's worse is being too lazy to close all those open apps, in turn having our battery drain much faster than normal. Y ...more

Earlier today, @DesignGears leaked an unofficial KitKat build for the Galaxy Note 3, and now they've dropped one for our Galaxy S4s, too. How to Install the 4.4.2 Build Check out my install guide on Galaxy Note 3 softModder for step-by-step instructions, just make sure to sub ...more

Every day it seems like new information comes to light about how the National Security Agency creeps into our lives. Knowing that they can backdoor into our seemingly private devices is a scary thought, whether you have information to hide or not. Blackphone wants to change s ...more

Conversations can be a little stale sometimes, so a little color help add some life. AOL realized this In the early days of AIM, and let you customize your colors just the way you want. Unfortunately, Apple doesn't let you go into your settings to customize your messaging app' ...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

If you want to succeed at your New Year's resolution, stop thinking of it as a resolution. Instead, frame your resolution as a daily, manageable habit you want to develop into you day-to-day life. Don't think in vague terms like "I want to lose weight" or "I want to become fl ...more

I am writing this to first pregnant moms. I am 25 weeks along and I have some advice as to getting through an uncomfortable pregnancy. Step 1: Sleep I am 25 weeks along with my first baby and the biggest thing that I have learned in order to have an easier pregnancy is to sl ...more

At the beginning of regular gameplay in Grand Theft Auto 5, you play the role of Michael robbing a bank in North Yankton with his accomplices—shooting police and evading a high-speed train in the process. While you do revisit North Yankton during regular gameplay in Los Santos ...more

It's easy to forget sometimes that even when you're sitting in the basement playing Grand Theft Auto 5 Online that you're not really alone. Everything you say into the mic can be heard by anyone else in that same session. Most of the time, I only hear people bitching about ge ...more

I'm not ashamed to admit that I've spent a fair amount of time at the various strip clubs in Los Santos in Grand Theft Auto 5. Some of my characters may have even met a few "overly friendly" dancers. Nonetheless, having a strip club in a video game is great, and they're so muc ...more

Good posture is more important than pleasing your mother. A lifetime of bad posture basically ensures spine complications, back pain, muscle aches, and other not-so-pleasant physical health problems. So how about taking a literal stand to improve and maintain a good posture f ...more

There's a lot of cool features rumored to be included in next year's HTC One 2 (M8), the follow up to the flagship HTC One smartphone, including a fingerprint scanner, Android 4.4 KitKat, and Sense 6.0, but it's just too far away to get really excited about yet. Besides, that ...more

One of the biggest problems in data security is authentication of data and its source. How can Alice be certain that the executable in her inbox is from the venerable Bob, and not from the not-so-venerable Oscar? Clearly Alice wants to know because if this file is actually sen ...more

Call of Duty may be one of the best video game franchises ever, but I doubt you'll see very many people dressed up as COD characters this Halloween. As awesome as the games are, there just aren't any memorable characters when it comes to looks—besides one. Simon Riley, otherw ...more

Just about everyone I know has broken a phone at least once in their life. It's almost inevitable considering we carry them everywhere we go, but that doesn't make it any less irritating. A cracked screen is difficult to read and can actually be a little dangerous if there are ...more

There have been those times in everyone's life when we have kept our phones on silent mode and forgotten where we kept it. Well, if you have an Android powered phone there is a way by which to find your phone by ringing, just when you want it, even when it is kept on silent mo ...more

We have all had buyer's remorse. It's an inevitable fact of life that we get things only to want another. For those of us with a Samsung Galaxy S3, some of those new Moto X features are probably looking pretty tempting. But there's no reason to jump ship for a few cool gimmic ...more

Next time you go to the beach, stash a bottle of baby powder in your beach tote—even if you're not planning on changing any diapers. Before you head back home, dust your hands and feet with baby powder to remove sand particles quickly and easily, so you don't track any into yo ...more

Is your beloved silver bracelet looking a little worn? Stick it in a bowl of tomato ketchup to remove the tarnish. The acid in the tomatoes oxidizes with tarnished silver, which helps make your silver items look newer than ever before. If you're not keen on the idea of mixing ...more

Katie wanted to make a difference in the world, and thanks to the ACUVUE 1-DAY Contest, and Disney Channel star and singer, Bridgit Mendler, her dream became a reality. Watch ACUVUE's video below and check out our tips on how you too can begin the transformation and motivate o ...more

There was a time in my life when I could think of nothing but getting home and playing Super Smash Brothers on my Nintendo 64. It was just something about tossing Mario across the map with Donkey Kong that seriously made me feel like an OG, not to mention that it was the first ...more

Most of us have conducted an investigatory science project without even knowing it, or at least without knowing that's what it was called. Most science experiments performed, from elementary to high school students and all the way up to professional scientists, are investigato ...more

First off, Rooting Your Device voids the warranty on the device. If you want to root your device but are afraid of "bricking" said device, rooting it may not be good for you. Okay, now that we've got that out of the way, its time for... Why should I Root my device? Reason 1: ...more

Mascara application for me is not only for the eye lashes, but also for the water line and eye lids. Through the different techniques I tried, I can certainly and undoubtedly say that it works like a charm and is truly two-in-one. The only thing I applied to my eye was just m ...more

Eyebrows are made to frame your eyes. See how well-shaped and defined eyebrows creates a huge difference to one's face? Yeah, but most of the time, girls experience a hard time creating the perfect outline that would complement their eye shape and defining while making it look ...more

If smartphone video games have a weakness, it's probably their inability to emulate the riveting and immersive experience that consoles offer. Sure, there are mobile gaming products out there like the PlayStation Portable (PSP), but when we're constantly lugging around tablet ...more

Throughout history, almost every superstition dealing with evil has had something to do with left hands. In the seventeenth century, it was thought that the Devil himself baptised his followers using his left hand. Today, studies show that left-handed people are more likely to ...more

When it comes to multitasking, the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 is the master of all smartphones, thanks to its huge screen size and many features. The phablet's display compliments its multi-window mode, which lets you run two apps simultaneously side by side Another cool feature is ...more

In this Windows 8 Tutorial you will learn how to disable automatic maintenance. Their are really two situations I can think of when you would want to disable automatic maintenance in Windows 8. The first being if your Windows 8 computer came with a Solid State Disk then you wi ...more

C.R.E.A.M., aka Cash Rules Everything Around Me. There have never been truer words spoken in real life, or even in a video game. After playing BioShock: Infinite for a few days know, I wish I came across this little glitch a little earlier. The lifeblood of your BioShock char ...more

In this web design tutorial, you will learn to use the Xara Shadow Tool. Use the Xara Web Designer shadow tool to add shadow types such as: floor, wall and glow. In addition to that, you will learn how to add other Xara Web Designer effects, including adding blur and transpar ...more

If you've recently jailbroken your iPhone 5, there's a likely chance that you're overwhelmed by the huge numbers of themes, add-ons and tweaks littered throughout the Cydia directory. The tweaks, of which there are over 1,000 in Cydia, resolve many issues and inconveniences t ...more

YouTube is the first place I go to watch funny videos online—me and about a billion other people. But one thing that always annoys me is having to sign in time after time to view age-restricted videos. There should be a function to designate me as an "Explicit Is Legit" user, ...more

This tutorial is for those who are new to Windows 8. A few months ago I was frustrated with learning my way around the new operating system. In fact, for the first time in my life I wanted to throw my computer away. The interesting factor is that I have been using computers a ...more

Video: . Step 1: Today We Are Going to Draw a City in One Point Perspective -- Buildings in the City Going into One Point Perspective. Let's Start Our Drawing with the Vanishing Point and Horizon Line. In Order to Get the Feel of the Drawing We Need to Determine Where Vanishin ...more

Having to read a bunch of articles and tweets everyday can be tiresome, but if you can have a sweet-ass personal assistant read them for you, you're pretty golden. While Siri gets a lot of love for her virtual assistance, she doesn't have the power to read social feeds or art ...more

When it comes to melee combat, two swords can definitely be better than one. Throw a stun gun on top of that and you've got a seriously terrifying weapon. That's exactly what YouTuber jonathanj9969 did with his homemade double-bladed stun sword. Video: . The stun sword is basi ...more

The lock screen is your friend. It shows you the most basic information (time, date, battery life) and hides your apps and contacts until you wish to access them. But the lock screen is also a great place to open up commonly used apps very quickly. And that's where Shipoopi co ...more

Since the emergence of GoPro, the company's cameras have been been on a steady incline for the past several years. Adventure enthusiasts had difficulty recording their extreme activities without a huge price tag before the GoPro came along in 2002. Now, every surfer, skateboa ...more

Warm water is an essential part of life that we sometimes tend to take for granted. Over one billion people, or roughly one-seventh of the world's population, have no access to hot water. Warm water is not only comforting when showering and bathing, but also helps the body ge ...more

Altruism was first explained as kin selection: "I would lay down my life for two brothers or eight cousins", as J.B.S. Haldane put it. Then Robert Axelrod showed that in repeated interactions, individuals will sacrifice well being in return for an expectation that those with ...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

In the early 20th century, some people decided that it would be a great idea to play polo with cars. Sounds like a great idea, right? It was, and it wasn't. Thousands flocked to see auto polo games from the 1910s to the 1920s, but it was ridiculously dangerous. As you may not ...more

Every group of friends has that one person who's always late. Luckily, I've never had to deal with that issue because all of my friends are always late. Never fashionably, either. I'm talking hours late. Oh, we're having lunch at noon? Nah, it's at 3 p.m. now. Great. The most ...more

If the annual tradition of buying a new wall calendar at a heavily discounted price at some mall kiosk by the end of January is not exactly your scene, then how about making your own nifty DIY wall calendar for 2013? Depending on what you'd like your blank wall to look like a ...more

In yesterday's tidbit, we learned that across the planet women seek material wealth in their mates. This stems from our hunter-gather past in which females depended on male hunters to provide them and their children the meat necessary to support their large brains. Women beco ...more

The thing about building your own stuff is that it's incredibly satisfying. There's just something about taking the time and dedication to construct something beautiful out of virtually nothing but the necessities. Another reason we build things is because it's cheaper. We've ...more