Finding the formula to the perfect cup of coffee for your taste can take a while. I finally got around to buying a French press a few weeks ago and I'm still tweaking the right ratio and brewing time to get it just right (though I am drinking it at the right times each day).
Google Chromecast is only 35 dollars. That's about 2 and a half drinks at a decent bar in Los Angeles. So, my roommates and I looked to make the investment. The small box arrived in the mail and the setup couldn't be easier. Simply, plug the Chromecast into the HDMI port on your TV and pair the two devices. Done and Done. Having the ability to stream anything on our computers or cellphones right to the TV was the main reason for getting Chromecast. Now, for streaming through the Chrome browse...
Android's deeply customizable platform has long been the attraction for those of us looking to make our smartphones more unique, but that doesn't mean that it's always easy. Flashing mods and installing custom ROMs can be difficult at times, as well as dangerous.
Hey dolls! I love my new infrared hair straightening iron by MUK. I thought it was a gimmick but really, the technology makes sense. I love that you can adjust the temperature unlike GHD straighteners. So if you if have fine hair you can turn it down and if you have thick crazy hair like me you can turn the bad boy up!
My wallet is useful for pretty much two things. The first, holding my credit cards, lottery tickets, and money (or lack thereof). Second, making my ass number whenever I'm driving.
According to Nielsen, the average American spends about 34 hours per week watching television. That may sound like a lot, but when you factor in multi-screen viewing, it could be even higher—81 percent of Americans use their smartphones or another device while watching TV. It's the new picture-in-picture.
Hair products can work wonders, but the good stuff is usually super expensive. Plus, most of the major brands use a ton of ingredients you can't even pronounce, so it's safe to say a lot of us have no idea what we're putting in our hair. The good side is that most products can be made at home using basic ingredients for a fraction of the cost of commercial brands. Hairspray is no exception, and actually one of the easier ones to make.
Live wallpapers are part of what make Android's features so unique and wonderful, making your homescreens come alive and much more interesting. The wallpapers are extremely customizable and interactive, many times sensitive to swipes, finger-tapping, and other multi-touch gestures—Ditalix being one of the frontrunner apps in the field. The only problem with these live wallpapers is the toll it takes on the device's battery. While not all live wallpapers kill the battery, there are many of the...
You know that guy who does the cheesy card trick to get the attention of all the girls at the party? Well, we kinda hate that guy don't we? But, if we could be that guy, it might not be so bad.
I'm all about safety in my life. I even put on safety goggles when someone opens a bottle of champagne—high life problems. But when it comes to driving, you have to be double safe, because the other drivers on the road may not have your safety in mind.
While websites may run smoothly without any noticeable vulnerabilities, there's always the looming threat that any background weakness in the site can be exploited by hackers. Once a site is compromised, it can be difficult to get it fixed without the proper help. Google has recently launched a new series entitled "Webmasters help for hacked sites”, which teaches web developers and site owners how to avoid getting hacked and how to recover their website if it gets compromised in any way.
Who doesn't hate Auto Correct? There's nothing worse than hitting 'Send' only to realize that your phone betrayed you by changing a word so that your message doesn't even mean the same thing anymore—especially when it's going to someone like your boss or parents.
If you've never heard of cookie butter, it must be because you live in a town where there's no Trader Joe's. It was their most popular item in 2012, and when it started to become popular, the Internet promptly went nuts, posting recipe after recipe using it as an ingredient. For those of you who don't live near a Trader Joe's but still want to see what all the fuss is about, there's good news—you can make it at home—and you don't need spiced Speculoos shortcrust biscuits either!
As a kid, I remember begging my mother almost every single time we went to the mall to buy me a pretzel from Auntie Anne's. Now, whenever I pass one of those little blue and white stands, that delicious, buttery smell instantly takes me back to being an impatient four-year-old who wants a pretzel right now. The only bad thing about Auntie Anne's is that you usually have to deal with annoying places like malls and airports to find one. Wouldn't it be nice if you could just whip some up at home...
YouTube is home to some of the most vile commenters on the internet—completely void of literacy, accuracy of facts, respect, and goodness in general. Known to many as the cesspool of the internet, the YouTube comment board can be a tough place for a person who's not accustomed to hostility on the web. "Tracking my cookies? They will never get my recipe!"
As someone who writes an extreme amount, it's a necessity for me to have an organized and multifunctional text editor. The stock iPhone Notes application is useful to an extent, but it sorely lacks in features and design. Writing and text editing applications are nothing new to the iPhone, but many of them are overloaded on features, making it even harder to keep organized. Here are just a few alternatives that I find helpful in my day-to-day writing.
In photography, bokeh refers to the blurry or out-of-focus parts of a shot. Bokeh can be good or bad—it all depends on how you use it. There are tons of ways to create a bokeh effect, whether you go the traditional route with lens filters, digital with Photoshop, or even from your iPhone. With filters, you can use the blurred spaces to produce different shapes and colors. If you have a DSLR and want to experiment with bokeh, this tutorial by Chris Perez over on Apartment Therapy will show you...
Some people hate cold weather, but there are also plenty of things to look forward to in the wintertime. The holidays, building awesome snow sculptures (or igloos), and hot chocolate, to name a few. But with all the good also comes one gigantic downside—more people get sick during the winter than any other time of year.
While the Google Play Store is filled with big name magazines like Time, Forbes, Sports Illustrated and Maxim, it also panders to smaller audiences, like with Coin Prices, Soap Opera Digest, Watch Journal and Quilter's World (which yes, is all about quilting). If you have a select few that you enjoy reading, prices aren't usually a problem; issues range from $1.99 to $4.99 for each one, or from $19.99 to $39.99 for yearly subscriptions. If you're someone that is a magazine connoisseur, prices...
Economists have long since known that people want to be rewarded for taking on risk. Investments are thus judged by their risk-adjusted returns (Sharpe ratios). A typical hedge fund has a Sharpe ratio of around 0.5. This means that its excess annual return over the risk-free rate is about half its annual standard deviation.
Before lead was removed from gasoline, lead from car exhaust got into the air, was breathed in by kids, lowered their IQs, and increased crime rates (there is a very strong correlation between IQ and criminal behavior).
Depending on what mobile device you own, you'll see something that says "via device name" next to the date of your post on Facebook. If you're device is not recognized, you'll simply see a "via Mobile" note, which is what happens when I post from my phone. If you allowed your iPhone to be called iPhone when you logged into the app, it'll show up as a recognized device on Facebook, and will post "via iPhone." Same thing goes if you have a Samsung Galaxy S3 or Nexus 7 or iPad. It could also jus...
Last week, Instagram stopped supporting media Cards on Twitter, meaning that in order to view a full photo shared in a tweet, you have to click through to Instagram rather than seeing it on your Twitter feed. Otherwise, the photo will appear to be cropped.
When you have a lot of equipment, dragging it everywhere with you can be a pain, especially when the weather's bad. Sure, you can put it in a camera bag, but a lot of them don't protect your stuff from water, and waterproof cases can get expensive.
Last month, Google changed the placement of search options from the left side of the page to the top, right above the first result. In theory, this shouldn't be such a bad thing—it's just looks, right? Well, not quite. Turns out, it actually got rid of a few of the options as well, and a lot of people were not too happy about it. The problem is that the change gives you less functionality, and makes the options that are still there harder to get to. One of the most frustrating changes was how...
Solving long and extensively complicated equations in grade school was tough to do by hand. Keeping track of which part of the equation to solve first took time, training, and lots of bad grades.
Apple's new iPhone 5 has enjoyed three weeks out in the public since its September 21st release. Millions of consumers have been shelling out big bucks and waiting in long lines just to get their hands on it. But sometimes users forget to actually keep their hands on their new phone, causing something like this... It only takes a second to drop your new iPhone 5, but the pain of picking up the phone and turning it over to reveal a cracked display lasts a lifetime. Well, not exactly a lifetime...
Earlier this week, we learned that you can get people to put more money in a tip jar simply by drawing eyes on it. But what if you want to keep them away from something? Eyes can do that, too, especially when they're Putin's.
If you're at all like me, you constantly get frustrated that repeaters only boost redstone signals in one direction. It's annoying!
If you like wearing stickers on your fingernails, nothing beats the beauty and awe of homemade nail stickers, and this video will show you how to paint miniature butterflies using nail polish and a piece of plastic. It's a careful mix of nail polish colors that takes a delicate hand, but anyone who paints their own nails probably already had the skill of steadiness.
Do you have what it takes to join the elite and become a sniper? Maybe not in real life, but in a video game, you surely have the guts to become a military sniper. In Sniper: Ghost Warrior, you control a highly trained sniper, amongst a team of US Special Forces, as you try to control a military coup d'état (or just "coup") in the island of Isla Truena, which is a small fictional Latin Amercian country. Can you and your sniper team save the country from ruin?
This video game is available on both the Xbox 360 (XBLA) and PlayStation 3 (PSN). But this walkthrough for Castle Crashers focuses on the Xbox Live Arcade version. This series is played with two or more players at all times. Check out all the videos for the full gameplay!
Learn how to add a flange effect to your tracks or beats using the Flanger effect in Ableton Live.
In this video Jaxter discusses the finer points of coordinating your breathe in sounds and breathe out sounds. Shaker, bass, snare and more are explained in this brilliant exposition of beat boxery.
This is a video teaching how to freestyle rap using three rules. The first rule is to freestyle all the time. Freestyle by yourself. Listen to some beats by yourself in your room with the first thing that comes into your mind. The second thing is to make sure it flows. Do not stutter. Keep practicing until it comes out smoothly. The third rule is do not stop rapping. In other words, don't take breaks for weeks or months otherwise you will get rusty. It will take time to get good at it again i...
If you want to improve your violin technique then this how to video is the place to start. This video teaches you to play slurred 3 octave G major scale. This exercise, based on the Galamian "Contemporary Violin Technique," is designed to help you increase your comfort and agility in all positions, develop confidence and accuracy in all positions, and improve coordination. When practicing this exercise you should memorize fingerings, bowings, and positions; use the whole bow on every slurred ...
If you want to improve your violin technique then this how to video is the place to start. This violin lesson teaches you to play a G major scale in 3 octaves. This exercise is designed to help you increase your comfort and agility in all positions, develop confidence and accuracy in all positions, and improve coordination. When practicing this exercise you should memorize fingerings, bowings, and positions; use the whole bow on every slurred stroke, half the bow on the martelé strokes, and a...
If you want to improve your violin technique then this how to video is the place to start. This video teaches you to play 3 octave G major scale. This exercise is designed to help you increase your comfort and agility in all positions, develop confidence and accuracy in all positions, and improve coordination. When practicing this exercise you should memorize fingerings, bowings, and positions; use the whole bow on every slurred stroke, half the bow on the martelé strokes, and at the very tip...
The volleyball middle hitter attacks from both in front of the setter and sliding behind the setter. Learn how to be a middle hitter in this volleyball video tutorial.
When it comes to working with people, the photographer can face quite a challenge. Everyone has a mind of their own, and with these few tips you will know how to advise your subject so they look fantastic in a picture. Join Erin Manning, professional photographer, as she shows us 5 handy tips for working with people.