How-To Guides from Gadget Hacks: Page 101

Maybe it is narcissistic to take selfies, but it has become a socially accepted norm, no matter how stupid you might look doing it. Since so many people are seemingly in love with themselves and mobile photography, I thought it was about time to show you how to step up your selfie game.

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.

Last week, I showed off a deeply buried accessibility feature built into iOS 7 and 8 that lets you disable screen touches in certain apps. While useful for many reasons, I found it most helpful for preventing nosy family and friends from swiping through the Camera Roll when showing them a photo.

Arguably Chromecast's biggest feature since its launch, screen mirroring functionality started rolling out to select devices earlier this week, and in a word, it's awesome.

Google Now is a quick and intuitive way to tailor your device to work for you and, unlike other personal assistants, provide you with up-to-date information based on search habits, emails, and the general all-knowingness of Google.

If you have a custom recovery installed on your Android device, the first thing you should have done as soon as you finished installing it was to create a Nandroid backup. But if you didn't, I'm not here to judge—I'm here to show you a much easier way.

As great as the Internet is, it is not without its dangers. Hackers at any time may be breaking into your online accounts and compromising your sensitive information. Last year, hackers broke into Facebook, Gmail, and Twitter and made off with 2 million stolen passwords.

Amazon's Appstore has come a long way since it launched in 2011, with over 250,000 apps to its name. That being said, their app numbers pale in comparison to Google's Play Store, which currently boosts over 1.3 million apps.

Your new LG G3 is fast, no doubt about it. With a state-of-the-art Snapdragon 801 processor and 3GB of RAM (dependent on model), there is more than enough under the hood for blazing fast speeds. The problem is, the device actually slows things down on purpose.

If you're one of the millions of people who use the WhatsApp service for messaging, you've probably noticed a recent propensity that the app has had for adding buttons to its interface. Two such buttons have made their way into the message thread screen, cluttering up the interface with functionality that is a tad bit redundant.

When the Google Maps web app got a massive redesign earlier this year, I was pretty excited to try it out, but it was a fairly disappointing update for me. The slower load times, confusing street view, and bicyclist neglect are just a few of the reasons I don't enjoy it over the old classic Google Maps. The brand new drag-and-drop measuring tool released this week is actually pretty useful, but not enough to change my mind.

Emoji icons can vary greatly from manufacturer to manufacturer. Normally, this isn't be a problem, unless all of your friends use iPhones and you're the only one that receives a different icon than the rest of your group. And for the record, they don't all correspond to each other, which only makes using them that much more difficult.

Most times when you take your smartphone out of your bag, pocket, or purse, you probably know exactly what you're going to do with it. Make a call, send a text, take a selfie, browse viral videos on YouTube, or one of the other many things a smartphone can do nowadays.

It seems like every cloud service out there is offering tons of upgrade options and free promotions to give people as much space as they need to store their files online. I personally have over 100GB of Google Drive space which is shared between multiple computers, phones, and tablets, so keeping track of everything can be a huge pain in the ass.

Canvas fingerprinting is the web's trickiest privacy threat, but it's not impossible to stop. With allthemediaattentionit'sgottenlately, it's time we lay out exactly how to detect and prevent this invasive tracking technique.

Google's upcoming Android release hasn't even received a name or version number yet, but the third-party development community is already having its way with the firmware.

It seems like custom Google Now commands are a dime a dozen these days. With Commandr for Google Now giving non-rooted users their first taste of custom voice commands just a couple weeks ago, you may wonder why we're covering this subject again.

Security is a priority for many when they first set up their mobile devices. Nobody wants to have a stranger or nosey friend go through their phone and discover risqué photos or embarrassing text messages. These days, the closet is gone—everyone keeps their skeletons in their phones.

When the Samsung Galaxy S5 launched a few months ago, I was pretty envious of the new UI elements Samsung included on it, as I'm sure you were. The flatter interface provided for a more polished and less cartoony feel, bringing the device more in line with Google's design elements.

This video will show you how to search Twitter by parameters without sign up or log in. Here a person can use search parameters to find the desire twits. So there is no headache for signing up or logged in for searching. So please Watch the video and follow all the steps to do it yourself.

Much like the high volume warning, there are various minute features on Android that users either hate or just find annoying. Thankfully, there are developers out there that sympathize. It may seem frivolous, but one feature that a lot of people want eliminated is the screen waking whenever a charger is plugged in.

Even though there are over 1.3 million apps available for Android, we normally confine ourselves to a select few for day-to-day usage. With an average of 41 apps installed per user, most apps on our smartphones lay idle for the majority of the time we spend using them. Instead, we find ourselves constantly coming back to that small set of apps that meet almost all of our needs.

When people first learn that their Android device is capable of dual-booting different operating systems, e.g. Linux, they almost universally respond with, "That's so cool." And for those of us ambitious enough to actually try one out, we are typically filled with glee as we see Ubuntu, or something similar, boot up for the first time on our tablet or phone.

Surely you've heard of the wildly-popular custom ROM CyanogenMod, right? As the longest-tenured third-party firmware for Android devices, CM has been able to maintain its popularity by supporting a wide array of devices and offering many customization options.

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past few weeks, you're probably well aware that the Android world has been buzzing with excitement over the recently debuted Android L preview build that was released for the Nexus 5 and Nexus 7 at Google's I/O conference.

Of the sixty or so "must-have" apps that are installed on my Samsung Galaxy Note 3, there's only one that I need to use and hate with a passion. Skype. Whenever using it, I'm consumed by dropped calls, mic issues, poor quality, and random crashes, among other things—and I'm not the only one.

This video will show you how to set finger print scanner for phone unlocking in Samsung galaxy S5. The finger scanner option allows you to register your finger print for unlocking your phone. This method of unlocking your phone saves your time over typing password. This way no one can open your phone except you. Watch the video and employ the tricks in your Smartphone.

Sense 6 came with a ton of new features for the HTC One, but for some reason, HTC decided to keep one of them hidden to all non-Harman Kardon editions.

While some mobile sites have built-in text-resizing tools, many do not. A lot of those that don't won't even let you pinch-to-zoom. That makes it difficult for people with low vision to read small fonts on their iPhones. In some cases, like with photo captions, even those with perfect eyesight suffer.

With AirPlay for iOS, Chromecast Screen Mirroring, and even third-party PC-pairing apps to play around with, getting your devices to interconnect could not be any easier than it is today.

This video will show you how to connect ms outlook with Gmail to access and backup all email in outlook express. Google mail will be connected to MS outlook and copy of your each email in Google mail will be send to MS outlook. This way outlook will be a backup of your each Gmail. You could open your all emails from outlook offline. Watch the video and employ the technique in your PC.

Gather up a few household items and make this neat iPhone stand to watch your movies on your phone.

In the Apple's iOS beta 3, we were introduced to a new iCloud Drive feature, an option to disable QuickType, time indicators for Recently Deleted pics, and a way to keep "self-destructing" media.

Apple released iOS 7.1.2 just over three weeks ago, mostly to address some big security issues and a few minor bugs. Unfortunately, the update came with a problem of its own regarding missing contacts and iCloud syncing.

One of the most feature-packed camera suites out there resides on the Sony Xperia Z2. Along with the regular camera and video modes, it comes with Motiongraph, AR Effect, and Social Live.

There's a lot you can access from the Notification tray on your Galaxy S4. Quick settings toggles, brightness controls, and of course, notifications. However, despite the power this simple pull-down gives you, you're still left with a boring, black background for the shade.

BoomSound has spoiled me when listening to music on my HTC One M8, but when someone comes into my room, it can be a hassle trying to quickly pause or mute my music.

Ever use an open hotspot on your Note 3, only to find out that it's severely restricted to what sites you can access? While getting online with free Wi-Fi is great for those who have a limited data plan, when that one site you absolutely need to visit is blocked, you're left frustrated and sent back into the Wi-Fi menu for another access point.

Thanks to a recent back-end update to Google's Search app, every KitKat-running device can use "Okay, Google" from within any app—even the lock screen. However, the default settings for the OnePlus One's mic leave it unable to detect your voice unless you have it right up to your face. That isn't a good look for anyone, but thankfully there is an easy fix to get this working correctly.

With all of the personal data that's stored on our smartphones, it's of vital importance that we have some sort of lock screen security enabled. One of the Galaxy S5's killer features is obviously the fingerprint scanner. It makes the process of dealing with a secure lock screen a bit easier than typing in a password or PIN.