How-To Guides from Gadget Hacks: Page 117

When life gets boring, you change it up. A little tweak in your schedule goes a long way in making your existence fresh again, and it could be anything from putting on deodorant to seeing a movie with someone you don't know. The more flexible you are in life, the more dynamic it should be.

Vibrate is not as inconspicuous as one might think, which means silent mode is usually the option that many stick to when in class, at work, or anywhere that forbids loud noise.

When it comes to the user interface, you're pretty much limited to the stock one that comes on your Samsung Galaxy Gear smartwatch—a carousel of large black and white icons representing the features and applications on the watch.

With the Samsung Galaxy Gear smartwatch only several weeks old, the extent as to what you can do with it is limited since there are only about 70 apps in the Gear Store right now, and a lot of those need the full app installed on your Samsung Galaxy Note 3 in order to function properly.

How many of you have appointments that start at 11:07 in the morning or 4:46 in the evening? Probably none of you.

If you're reading this, chances are you're a softModder, someone who doesn't let anything stand in his or her way from ultimate customization.

No offense to T-Mobile, but if you head over to their support page for the Samsung Galaxy Gear, you get the information below on how to take a screenshot of your smartwatch.

Twitter's video-sharing app, Vine, had some very stiff competition once Instagram added video sharing to its repertoire. Recent figures show Instagram at 130 million followers compared to Vine's 40 million. Many think that Vine is on its way out, but on the contrary, I think it's here to stay.

There are a ton of cool things you can do with your iPhone's camera in iOS 7, from taking burst photos to bouncing the camera open and taking nice parallax-friendly wallpapers. However, nothing tops the camera's super secret hidden feature—turning you into a spy photographer.

If you didn't already know, Apple is giving away their newest operating system, Mavericks, for most of your computers. While the folks over at Microsoft surely despise this tactic, those of use Mac users still running Snow Leopard surely do appreciate it.

A great aspect of using Android is having the ability to change and tweak aspects of the user experience to your liking. You can easily change things like home screens, widgets, and icons on your Nexus 7 tablet, but also core system settings if you want, like volume settings.

If you are willing to teach online, you might have thought of making online courses.But if you found it too hard, you can start with micro-courses, that can be created in 10 to 30 minutes.

My favorite type of video game is first-person shooters, and the one that started it all for me was GoldenEye 007. There was just something about the controls, fast-paced action, and free-roaming environment that got me hooked.

Phone interruptions are commonplace, as is evident by my historically epic missed phone call list, ranging from annoying sales people to my mom checking in every five minutes to see if I'm still alive.

YouTube may have started out as a video-sharing site, but these days a lot of people use it as a source for music. When I'm browsing the internet on my desktop, I usually have a YouTube tab open in the background playing some music.

While still extremely awesome, the Samsung Galaxy Gear smartwatch is limited as to what you can download on to it, especially apps. It also doesn't have its own internet access (only Bluetooth), so apps like Instagram, Facebook, and Vine have yet to make their way to the Gear Store.

If you had the original Microsoft Surface with Windows 8 and a Type or Touch cover, you know how big a pain in the ass it was to change the scrolling direction of the trackpad.

If you're an iPhone user, iMessage is great for cutting down on SMS costs from your carrier, but it doesn't always work right away.

When we're dead tired but need to stay awake, we humans can do many things to make the drowsiness go away, from taking a cold shower to downing energy drinks or coffee to acupressure.

One of the more challenging things about using the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 is the ability to use it with one hand, due to its enormously large (but wonderful) screen size.

With over 8 million active users, CyanogenMod is definitely the most popular ROM for Android devices, which explains why venture capitalists invested $7 million last month for future development.

Apple is no newbie when it comes to color.

Unless you like paying exorbitant prices for out-of-contract phones, most of us are stuck with the one we already have for two or more years. The tech industry moves fast, and as new phones are released seemingly every month, your Samsung Galaxy S4 might start looking older by the week.

I read, walk, and do lunges all at once. Time is money, and I'm all for multitasking whenever I can. Thankfully, my Samsung Galaxy S3 is extremely good at it, but extremely good could still be extremely better.

When you lose an S Pen, it creates an unwelcome void in your Samsung Galaxy Note 2 that collects dirt and dust like a vacuum cleaner would—not to mention you don't have a freaking S Pen anymore. Thankfully, Samsung incorporated an alert to keep you from losing that precious S Pen, and they brought it back for the new Samsung Galaxy Note 3.

If you're into photography, you're probably no stranger to the myriad of ways you can take macros with your smartphone. Your phone's built-in camera may not take great pictures up close, but you can modify it to do so with anything from a magnifying glass to a drop of water. However, those types of DIY macro lenses can only get so close.

When you're on the go, it's important to keep your belongings organized and at an arm's distance so you're not fumbling in public for your keys, cards, or phone.

The day I picked up my iPhone 5S was a very exciting day. I had taken all the correct steps in backing up my old device so that after a quick restore-from-backup (which turned into half an hour), I was right at home on the new hardware.

Let's face it, the stock YouTube app for Android kinda sucks. It has limited capabilities, at-time wavering connectivity, and the pop-up player it comes with is just not very good. If you want to enhance your mobile YouTube experience to how it should be, the answer lies within a third-party app called Viral HD YouTube Popup Player by Android dev Mata.

We've all been in a similar situation before—you set your phone's ringer to silent before heading into class, and when you check your phone hours later, you find that your silenced phone didn't alert you to 8 missed calls and 17 text messages.

Regardless of how great your friends and family are, they'll more than likely go through your photographs if they had the chance. Hell, if my friend were to leave his/her phone lying around, I'd go through it—no doubt.

One of the best-selling video game consoles of all time is the Nintendo Entertainment System, better known by its acronym, NES. However, cartridge-based gaming consoles are a pain now when compared to the newer download-and-play alternatives.

I know it's a very first-world problem, but I really can't stand it. Email was invented to speed up communications between people across the world, even just across the office, yet when I'm on my super awesome iPhone running iOS 7, I have to go back and forth between my gallery and my email to send more than five photos at one time.

If you're a self-described multitasker, Samsung has a feature that's perfect for you called Multi-Window, which lets you display two apps on your Galaxy S4's screen simultaneously.

Headphone cords are one of those things we all deal with because it beats the alternative (no music). But they can be so obnoxious—they're always getting caught on things, and they seem to be perpetually tangled. If you have ear buds, you can make a simple a cord container to keep them organized, but over-ear headphones are a little more tricky.

If I were a math major, I'd probably be rolling in dough somewhere in Silicon Valley right now, but since multiplying numbers and figuring out tangents gives me panic attacks, I went the English route... pays much better.

The Nexus 7 is a huge jump in screen size when coming from a phone, but obviously this tablet is still smaller than some of the major players such as the Nexus 10, Galaxy Tab, etc. One way to squeeze out a little more space is to eliminate the navigation and status bars.

So, I wondered whether there was a possibility to integrate Facebook even further into my life! (I still wonder why I wanted that actually...) Here's the way to do it!

Most hardcore Android fans loathe carrier or manufacturer additions to the Android operating system. Whether it's bloatware or changes to the user interface, many enthusiasts prefer the clean look of stock Android.

Whenever the word "popup" pops up, I immediately cringe because all I can think about are those obnoxious ads that ruin my everyday browsing experience. But, not all popups are evil.