Android is a highly customizable operating system. Sometimes, we use these capabilities to add core functionality or streamline the user experience, but there are other times when customization is just about having fun and making your smartphone's interface more enjoyable.
If your mechanical home button or capacitive navigation keys are on the fritz, doing something as simple as navigating your phone's interface becomes a tedious chore. In this situation, some users have turned to root mods that enable Android's software navigation bar to solve the problem, but not everyone is willing or able to root their device.
When WhatsApp first came out in 2010, it quickly gained notoriety as a great way to meet new people all over the world thanks to group chats, which allow multiple admins for each group that can all add participants from their own contacts lists.
Paranoid Android has always been one of the most popular custom ROMs because of the inventive features its developers add to Android. Two of the biggest draws in particular have to be the "Halo" notification bubble, and the "Pie" navigation buttons, which can both fundamentally change the way you interact with your device.
For some strange reason, Google Now is unavailable in several countries across the globe. Users from Albania, China, Cyprus, Malta, Nepal, Puerto Rico, Tunisia, and many more big countries have reported for years that the service doesn't work in their area, mostly likely because Location Reporting is not available in their region. This is really a shame, because Google Now has some great features.
In case you didn't know, Google has an awesome app that gives you free money to spend on apps, games, movies, books, and virtually anything you can buy on the Google Play Store. The app is called Google Opinion Rewards, and all it asks in exchange for the Play Store credit is that you answer a few questions every now and then.
Google's Pixel phones have a feature that lets you swipe down on the fingerprint scanner to open your notification shade and Quick Settings panel. It's one of those features that make you wonder why it wasn't there in the first place, since it gives you another way to interact with your device, and your fingerprint scanner isn't being used while you're screen is on anyway.
When Google released the first Developer Preview build of Android 7.0 Nougat, users were happy to see that a new "Night Mode" was included among the changes. The feature would cancel out any blue light emitted from your screen to help you get to sleep a bit earlier, quite similar to f.lux for desktop computers, or Apple's Night Shift for iPhones. It could be set to turn on automatically based on time of day, or you could manually enable Night Mode with a Quick Settings toggle.
Samsung's latest flagship devices, the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge, as well as the Note7, have a useful feature called "Always On Display." With this one enabled, the clock and some other information will continue to be shown on the screen, even when you lock your phone or turn your screen off.
Over the years, YouTube ads have become more and more integrated with the videos themselves, which means traditional Android ad blockers can no longer block the ads without blocking the videos. It's gotten to the point where the only ways to get rid of the ads are to either subscribe to Google Play Music and YouTube Red, or go through the complicated process of installing the Xposed Framework.
When Google released the Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P, they added official support for fingerprint scanning to Android's main code base. On the surface, this was done to ensure that the fingerprint scanner in their own devices could be used to its full extent, but because it was added to AOSP, this meant that the new Fingerprint API could be used by any Android manufacturer.
The Nexus 6 uses an Ambient Display notification system that was heavily inspired by the Active Display feature on the Moto X. Essentially, the device shows a black-and-white version of the lock screen whenever you receive a new notification or pick the phone up. This is all made possible by the N6's AMOLED display that doesn't have to waste any battery to power black pixels on the screen.
Reading articles on an Android phone using Chrome Browser can be a little bit of a battle; it often times requires adjusting the page to fit the screen in order to make it easier to read and scroll through. I sometimes lose this struggle and give up trying to read on my device, saving the article for a later time when I'm on my laptop.
I'm the type of person that rarely has an audible ringer enabled on my phone. Haptic feedback (vibration) is enough for me... most of the time. When my phone isn't in my pocket, I become the type of person who frequently misses calls and texts—and no one likes that person.
One of the easiest ways to adjust brightness on an Android device is to use the slider found in the notification shade. Unfortunately, for some odd reason, the Sprint variant of the LG G3 does not have this feature.
Losing your phone is a much bigger ordeal today than it was just 10 years ago. Our smartphones carry with them lots of sensitive data that, in the wrong hands, is capable of being used for identity theft and fraud.
You hand your iPhone to a friend to show them a picture. What happens? They swipe. Left, right, it doesn't matter. You don't remember what lies in either direction of the photo in question, and you don't want anything compromising exposed to the unassuming viewer. Luckily, Apple includes a safety net in iOS to prevent this scenario from ever happening, so long as you set it up ahead of time.
HTC pulled out all the stops when designing the HTC One M8. From it's sleek body, to it's incredible sound quality, this thing just oozes sophistication. While all of these add-ons are great, they can be incredibly taxing on the CPU, in turn causing some serious lag.
When our Nexus 7s upgraded to KitKat, one key piece of functionality was lost in the mix—Flash support. Of course, even before that we never had official support on the Nexus 7, but hacks seemed to do the job just fine. As it stands now, Google remains on the warpath against Flash, opting instead for HTML5 use, specifically in Chrome (where Flash never worked anyway), and of course Adobe stopped supporting Android long ago.
One little known feature on Android devices is TalkBack, which provides you with spoken feedback and vibrations in order to help you navigate your device. Obviously, if you're not blind or visually impaired, this isn't a feature you're likely to use.
In this video from AppleGenius0921 we learn how to enable a Live/Hotmail account on the Mail application on a Mac. Open Mail. In full name put your full name. Type in your email address and password and continue. Leave the account type on POP and name the description what you'd like. The incoming mail server is pop3.live.com. Type in your live.come username with @live.com in it! Click Continue. The outgoing mail server should be smtp.live.com. Check use only this server and check use authenti...
No other operating system can create this awesome effect. Sure, not many people will want to use this fire effect, but this is just one of the many perks of owning a Ubuntu system. This video will show you how to use this fire paint effect via an eye candy plugin that enables you to draw on the screen with animated fire particles. You can also paint water all over your screen. Click here for more information.
In this video, we learn how to set your PS3 to an internet connection. Start off by enabling the internet so you can play online through your PS3. Go down to your network settings and then make sure this is enabled and connected to your wireless network. If you don't have a Wi-Fi router, you need to either change this, or you need to plug your Ethernet into your computer then to your console. After you do this, you will be able to connect your console onto your internet, then you can play you...
This video tutorial is in the Electronics category where you will learn how to enable Emoji icons on your iPhone. These icons are the yellow faces with emotions that you use in any internet messenger program. On your iPhone search for a program called spell number. Tap on the program and download the Spell Number Emoji. It's free. After it is downloaded, tap on it and type in 9876543.21 to unlock the Emoji icons on the key board. Now go to general > keyboards > international keyboards > Japan...
In this tutorial, we learn how to install themes for Google Chrome. First, enable user scripts by visiting the website Chrome user scripts. Install the Chrome 4.0 onto your computer, then type in "chrome.exe --enable-user-scripts" into your run menu. After this, scripts will show up on your page. Scroll through the different types of themes until you find one that you like the best. To use these, you simply just click on the image and then download which one you like. You can install differen...
Want to know how to play MKV files with subtitles in Windows 7? You just need to download a few codecs to enable DVXA H.264 decoding for MKV files and subtitles working in Windows Media Player. Watch this video to see how.
You can use your Ipod touch to SSH from windows. To do this go to Cydia and download Open SSH and Toggle SSH. Download and install these two applications. You will need to download and install Win SCP on your windows computer to work with the SSH. Now go to your Ipod applications and open the Toggle SSH application. From the welcome screen you can either enable or disable the SSH. Go ahead and enable it. Now close the application and open Win SCP on your desktop. From the first screen in the ...
Llewyn demonstrates how to configure your router for Wifi. Access the router by opening up your internet browser and typing in your router's IP address. That will bring up the router configuration page. Now, click on the wireless tab. You can set the wireless network mode to accommodate your computers. As a precaution, set the mode to mixed for greater flexibility. Set your wireless SSD broadcast to enable which will enable your wireless card to actually see the webpage and the internet. You ...
This video demonstrates how to connect your phone to your Mac computer via Bluetooth. First, make sure that you have Bluetooth enabled. On your Mac computer, begin by searching 'Bluetooth'. When the search results appear, click on Bluetooth File Exchange. A new window will appear where you can get to select a certain picture that you want to send to your phone.On your mobile phone, go to the settings where you can choose to enable the Bluetooth. In the Bluetooth settings of your phone, select...
This video talks about protected mode for internet explorer 7 and Windows Vista. The person tells you that protected mode helps protect your computer from types of spyware. It is not the best solution and they tell you one should not rely on this alone. By default protected mode is on. You want to make sure it hasn't accidentally been disabled. To check your settings, double click on the area on the bottom of the screen that says protected mode. The security tab will pop open. Look to see if ...
This video tutorial from pirateskool presents how to enable screen share function in iChat application in Leopard operating system.Firstly, you need to ensure Screen Sharing function is enabled. From menu dock on your desktop, choose System Preferences option.In the opened window select Sharing. Make sure Screen Sharing is checked.Now you can close system preferences window.To establish screen sharing you need another user, who has Leopard operating system and iChat communication application....
Enabling Telnet in Windows Vista is a little bit more difficult than its predecessors but it still can be done. This video will demonstrate exactly how to enable Telnet in Windows 7 and Vista.
1. To disable the UAC (User Account Controls), first click start button and type "msconfig" into the start search text box.
This video contains instructions about how to disable or enable the user accounts on Windows Vista. It is very simple; just go to control panel -> user accounts and safety -> user accounts. You can click the check box on or off to disable or enable the user accounts. This can also be done by using command line. Open run and type the following command:
The video below describes how to enable the battery percentage on iPhone 3GS, which will show up right next to the battery icon in the status bar up top.
This video explains how to right click on a Mac laptop like Macbook Pro or Macbook. First you need to check if your right click is enabled. You can do so by right clicking and seeing if the menu opens up. If the menu does not pop up, it needs to be configured. The video explains how to enable the right click by going to the system preferences and then to the trackpad. Once you are in the trackpad menu, the video explains the options that need to be checked in order for the right click to work...
Learn how to setup internet connection on your play station 3 in simple steps. First take any wireless enabled router and to find if its wireless check if the router has an aerial. Now go to 'Settings' in your PS3 and select the network settings option. Enable the internet connection, go to connection settings, select custom method and then select the wireless option. Now scan for any access points, go through and set all the settings according to your router. Finally save the settings and te...
Many people have complained about the lack of autofocus in video mode on the Canon 5D Mark II. Fortunately, this video demonstrates a solution by utilizing the live mode, thus enabling the still camera's autofocus features.
Windows' new Aero interface is a nice, clean style to use on your desktop. Aero is included with most editions of Windows Vista and Windows 7 and is also available on Windows Server 2008. Aero is a cleaner, more powerful, more efficient and more aesthetically pleasing user interface than the old theme and includes fun things like live icons, animations, and a funky new design.
Learn how to do a rotation in geometry with this video! First step is to pout the pencil into the compass. Adjusting the pencil and compass needle is same. Suppose you want 165 degree size circle. Measure the reading with compass in protractor. Note the point and adjust the compass. After place the sharp end of the compass at the point and rotate the compass the circle will enabled. Next use protractor. We see 75 degree acute angle. Place the protractor on the line and mark the reading we wan...
