You've finally got an invite into Google+. Now what? At first glance, things can be a bit overwhelming. We've got some great tips to help you get started. 1. Fill your Circles The circles feature is the core of how Google+ lets you manage your online relationships with your ...more
Today, we are going to combine what we learned from the Introduction to Cryptography article with our Java programming skills. If you are new to Java, check out Matthew's Learn Java: Part One for a quick beginner's lesson, or check out some of the Java tutorials directly on Or ...more
PDF is a convenient format for documents that can embed text and pictures and can be read by almost any device—personal computers, laptops, smartphones, etc. However, PDFs are mostly read-only files, so sometimes it's necessary to convert them to JPG images, a universal format ...more
Google is great. They provide us with tons of free services and open source APIs that we can code fun tools for, one of which I don't think gets enough credit: Google Voice. Haven't you ever wanted to be able to protect your privacy when handing out your phone number? Or mayb ...more
This week, in addition to the double exposure weekly challenge, we have a promotion specifically for iPhone users. The International iPhoneography Exhibition has asked for Phone Snap's best iPhone shots to enter for a chance to win a spot in the exhibition which will be taking ...more
Anonymity is something that doesn't exist today. Everything you do in the world is tracked, from the purchases you make to surfing the internet—even taking pictures on your iPhone. Everything you have ever said and done on the internet is still there—somewhere. This is called ...more
Here at Null Byte, we've spoken a lot about securing and anonymizing traffic. This is a big deal. With all of today's business taking place electronically via computers, we need to be secure when on-the-go. A lot of businesses don't even train their employees to secure their c ...more
Welcome to the second Goonight Byte! Our second coding session was kindly hosted by th3m, so props to him for letting this happen. Our task this time was to hack the bot that we made the week prior, which was only capable of connecting to the channel and then printing message ...more
Our first Community Byte went well! We had around 8 people in the room coding collaboratively and watching to learn. LukeStav did the kind task of hosting it on Gobby for all of us, so big thanks to him! At minimum, our task was to create an IRC bot for #nullbytez that could ...more
Minecraft might still be in development, but that doesn't mean a creative guy like Notch doesn't have time for other projects. A few months ago he and his company Mojang announced their second game, a digital collectible trading card affair called Scrolls. A simple title (perh ...more
These are the KGB Agent Guidelines as taken from 542542.com/guidelines. kgb Guidelines The Ten Principles of kgb’s 542542 text answering service We are in the answer business because we believe in the value of building a collaborative knowledge community where every member ...more
Having fun with those sentences So now you have about 30-50 sentences sitting in front of you and you've read through them, but don't quite have a feel for how they are supposed to sound. This is very demotivational because if you can't hear the flow of the sentence, you may ...more
There are plenty of options and shortcuts available on the iPhone, and one notable feature is the ability to copy, cut and paste text or images, just like you would on a normal computer. So how do you do it? Best Buy has answers. The Best Buy Mobile team explains how simple it ...more
mIQ? What is it exactly? It's a handy web service that helps you manage your mobile life, with free and easy online access to all of the content and information stored on your mobile device. How does it work? Best Buy has answers. The Best Buy Mobile team explains how simple i ...more
Learn how to follow proper netiquette rules. You may be a model of decorum in person, but a bonehead online. Check out how much you know about Internet manners. Step 1. Be clear Be clear in your e-mails and text messages. Don’t include acronyms unless you’re sure the recipie ...more
Grab your thinking caps and get your hack on. Null Byte is officially seeking contributors on a weekly basis who are willing to take the time to educate the Null Byte community on anything, from hardware hacks to life hacks. Contributors that write tutorials will be featured o ...more
Here's something fun for the Null Byte community to do—a coding competition! This week, I wanted to get everyone involved by offering you all a nice library of possible program types to choose from and try to code. At the end of this competition, all of the submitted programs ...more
Having an SSH or Secure SHell to tunnel your traffic through is something we have talked about many times at Null Byte. As we know, it allows us to securely route and encrypt our traffic through a remote server, effectively anonymizing us and protecting our traffic from all fo ...more
Skype is a great service. It allows a free solution for VoIP to VoIP calls, and cheap VoIP to landline calling. However, a very disturbing, little known fact that might push you away from Skype does exist. If you closely read the terms of service agreement, it clearly says tha ...more
Just installed the new iOS 5 on your iPad, iPhone or iPod touch? There's a lot of great features to check out and play around with. After messing around with it on my iPhone 4 for a few minutes, these seven additions caught my attention. Check them out below—and tell us what y ...more
Welcome to the second Null Byte in a series educating you on Social Engineering awareness and techniques. Today, I'm going to show you how a saavy Social Engineer would trick a friend into unknowingly surrendering their Facebook password. My intent is to warn and demonstrate h ...more
Sure, you go online to email and shop and do research. But have you ever been curious about how the internet actually works? Don't worry, you don't need a degree in computer science to get a handle on how your info gets from point A to point B. Learning the basics of the inter ...more
You may want to create a list of certain friends so that you can post certain status updates, photo albums, links, or application posts for just them to see. I'll show you how to set up lists Select 'edit friends' from the top right corner of the screen under 'account'. Crea ...more
A press release should be about news. It should have a sense of urgency about it and grab the reader’s attention from the outset. A good press release must quickly answer the journalist’s immediate questions: Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? The release should ideally conta ...more
Haven't you ever wanted to live in a futuristic home? I think that homes are headed towards an era where they will be controlled by our computers and smartphones. No longer will you have to find your keys to unlock your door, or wait until you get home to monitor your security ...more
Filter effects aren't a new thing. But when Instagram hit the market, everybody began using them because it was simple. Take a picture, add an effect. It wasn't only easy, it was fun. It started a craze among smartphone users everywhere, prompting a slew of retro photo filter ...more
At GDC 2011 this past March, three of the world's best game designers participated in a contest called Game Design Challenge. Each presented their vision for a game that fit the prompt "Bigger than Jesus: games as religion" before an audience, with applause to determine the wi ...more
This week, Google held back on introducing a slew of new Google+ features, and introduced new Chrome extensions instead. The new additions won't replace of your favorite Chrome extensions, but they are very useful, and elegant. Google+ Chrome Extensions From Google +Timothy ...more
In many of my articles, I will refer to applications designed to empower Mac users to automate various tasks on their computer. One such application is called Hazel. Like smart folders, smart playlists, and smart albums found in Mac OS X and iPhoto, Hazel can automate the task ...more
Spent the weekend with Sprint's new phone, the HTC Evo G4. Specification wise, it's better than Verizon's Incredible and T-Mobile's HD2. Apple will be announcing the new version of their phone this week. If it's comparable to leaked phone shown over at Gizmodo, then to say whi ...more
Since the invention of the printing press, books have been a dominant and iconic paradigm in our culture and throughout the world. During my years in elementary and high school, the digital world was on the rise sparking the conversation: Are Books Obsolete. Over the last year ...more
Homemade circuits are amazing. You can build any kind of circuit on a simple perfboard, as we have seen in previous projects. However, some projects require very tiny circuit boards. We could special order some boards from a printed circuit board (PCB) factory, but that will m ...more
You walk over to your laptop, wiggle your mouse to wake up the screen, then fire up your browser to come visit Null Byte. Catching the article about Anonymous and how they presumably will not take down the Internet, you find yourself wondering... how would someone take down th ...more
+Nik Cubrilovic discovered last week that Facebook could track your web activities even after you logged out of your Facebook account. After some blatant denials from Facebook spokespeople, Facebook decided to fix the logout issue, but not before +Michael Arrington, on his new ...more
I've seen numerous tutorials on how to create a "strong" password. This makes me laugh. These titles imply "one" password, which is wrong in and of itself. A person should have many passwords, all different, and all extremely long. People may ask how they're supposed to rememb ...more
It may not be your number one spot for finding cool apps for your Android device, but the Amazon Appstore for Android is running a new promotion this week called "Geek Week," where eight of the most popular productivity and utility apps are now on sale for 48 percent off or mo ...more
Just how private is your Facebook profile? To some extent, that's up to you. Many Facebook users share and poke their days away, never knowing about the plethora of custom privacy settings that lie just a click away. Facebook's privacy menus can look a little complicated to th ...more
Spam is everywhere and Facebook is no exception. In fact, spammers are constantly stepping up their game by tricking unsuspecting Facebook users to participate in quizzes, games, apps, or "new features" that are actually dangerous computer viruses, spyware, or other trojan hor ...more
Okay, stop me if you've heard this one. You have a document that you want your co-workers' advice on. You attach said document onto a mass email. The first reply comes back with an edited version of the document. You begin to make changes, but another email comes in, with yet ...more
Time to confess a personal bias: I love Gmail. I think it's the best thing since sliced bread. I try to be impartial when I write about software and online services, but seriously -- of all the free email services out there, why would you use anything else? A quick point of o ...more
Remember what life was like before your iPhone? Before there were palm-sized smartphones with seemingly endless features, there were phones like Motorola's RAZR that peaked with its embedded camera. Before that, there were simple flip phones with texting capabilities, bulky tw ...more
ClariTrans is a requester on MTurk (www.mturk.com) they pay very well for transcribing short snippets of audio. Here is how you can transcribe their audio snippets properly to ensure your text will be approved and you will be paid: ClariTrans Transcription Formatting Guide S ...more
Over the past few months I've written up several helpful How-To guides to help you with various FarmVille related issues. It's about time I put them all in one place so they are easy to find, learn from and share! It has been a pleasure writing for you all and I do hope I have ...more
To create an elegant WordPress blog or website from scratch without being noticed that you're a complete beginner, you need that drive and pairs of eyes and ears. It may seem difficult at first but it can truly be fun and exciting. In order for you to have a long lasting blog ...more
Test messages are a fast, discreet way to keep connected on a mobile phone. Sending SMS messages on an LG Rumor are easy with a QWERTY keyboard and predictive text. Watch this video cell phone tutorial and learn how to send an SMS text message on an LG Rumor. Send messages on ...more
In this tutorial, we learn how to bypass Captcha codes on Facebook. First, go to Facebook and log into your account. Next, go into your settings, then your accounts settings. In this section, click where it says "mobile". Next, it will take you to a section where you can activ ...more
YouTube user diabeticHOWIE instructs you on how to enable MMS (Multimedia Messaging) for your iPhone 3G or 3GS. He claims that this may not work for the first generation iPhone. Using his step-by-step tutorial, you will be able to send multimedia messages to your friends and f ...more
Traveling abroad can be a hassle. Between the flight, hotels, food, and the languages barriers, it can be a lot to manage. There's one tool you have that can help with all of this — your smartphone. Fortunately, nowadays, you don't have to change your carrier to continue using ...more
If your iPhone is rebooting or your Messages app is constantly crashing, you might be the victim of an iOS exploit or just a buggy software update. While one problem sounds worse than the other, they both can get annoying real quick when you can't send any messages or even rea ...more
Depending on your carrier and the texting app that you use, sending long SMS messages from an Android phone often results in the recipient being hit with a barrage of fragmented, out of order texts. Even if the messages arrive in order, the glorious, sprawling passage that yo ...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
The very first text message was sent on December 3rd, 1992 by Neil Papworth, an engineer for Vodafone, and it simply said "Merry Christmas." He may have jumped the gun on the whole Christmas thing, but you trying coming up with the first text message in history! Today, there ...more
If you haven't noticed yet, there are a lot of new features hiding in your iPhone's Messages app, and some of them are things users have been requesting for a long time. While iMessage is getting a lot of attention by letting us edit and unsend messages, it's only just the sta ...more
Back in its infancy, the App Store was filled with text bomb apps that allowed users to send a barrage of text messages to friends, family, and foes. It was a fun way to annoy people, but Apple quickly scrubbed the apps because of technical issues. Although text bombs are stil ...more
With iOS 7, Apple is finally fighting back against spam, offering the option to block certain phone numbers from sending you text messages or iMessages (plus, phone calls and FaceTime too). With this new feature, you can block telemarketers, spammers, and their ilk from spamm ...more
You're hiking up a beautiful mountain when all of a sudden you remember it's your mother's birthday. You begin to panic—you forgot her birthday last year, and you know if you don't say something soon, you're as good as dead. But there's a problem—amongst a beautiful landscape ...more
In spite of the degree of difficulty it is to install, CyanogenMod has steadily climbed the ladder to become one of the most popular third-party firmwares for Android devices. To increase its fan base, they even put an easy-to-download installer on Google Play to help people ...more
Recently, Android Police highlighted one of the downfalls of Android 10's new privacy protection: the fact that it broke the ability for apps like Pushbullet to sync your clipboard across devices. While third-party apps can potentially find a way around this, there's no guaran ...more
You're a busy, on-the-go professional, so you deserve an email client that keeps up with you. "Mail" on iPhone wasn't always the best option, but thanks to iOS 13, it feels like a completely different app. That said, there are plenty of alternatives that offer a different expe ...more
Your Nexus 7 may be a tablet, but it can also be used as a phone, thanks to the continued upswing of VoIP applications, which send voice and media messages over the Internet—not over a cellular network. There are many VoIP apps on Google Play that let you make free phone call ...more