Dedicated Community Search Results

News: G+Me Makes Google+ (Almost) Perfect: An Interview with Huy Zing

G+Me is one of our favorite Chrome extensions here at Google+ Insider's Guide. We love it because it's one of the most comprehensive extensions out there. It attempts to address the "noisy streams" issue, with list mode, and collapsible posts and comments. The creator, +Huy Zing, is very responsive to feedback, and he's been quick to address any issues that arise, including privacy concerns. He's even created a G+Me (Paranoid Edition) extension, for the extra careful Google+ user. And if you ...

News: The Stupid Orchestra

How can an orchestra be stupid, one may ask? Well, when musically measuring a toaster next to a cello, one device certainly comes across as inherently… dumber. Think 200 vintage vacuum cleaners, blenders and washing machines assembled into a whirling, ringing, humming cacophony of daily function. It's not exactly music to the ears, but a kind of robotic harmony is formed.

How To: Make These Sonic Distance Sensors for the Bad Driver in Your Life

Today's fancy cars come with all sorts of options, from power mirrors to working seat belts. Some of us condemned to live in the reality of capitalist recession have no car, or perhaps a very modest one. But your modest car can still have some cutting edge technology wedged into the trunk and dashboard if you know what you want and where to look for parts. Today, we make a parking sensor using a sonic range finder, just like in the vehicles our owners drive!

Null Byte: Never Let Us Die

If there ever was a time for Null Byte to need people to contribute, it's now. Let's make Null Byte a place where anyone, from novice to master computer user, come and learn. It has been sometime since the last "Call to Arms" for Null Byte, and even longer since the last "Weekend Homework". We all know that this time of year is busy for everyone, but that didn't stop occupytheweb otw from creating a great article in his continuing "Hack Like a Pro" series.

DIY Scientists Beware: When NOT to Use Household Chemicals for Your Projects

The only thing better than successfully pulling off a new experiment is doing it with household materials. You get to laugh in conceit as professional scientists everywhere spend all their grant money on the same project you just accomplished with some under-the-sink chemicals! However, there are times when DIY gets dangerous. Some household chemicals are not pure enough to use and some are just pure dangerous. Let's take a look at two problems I have encountered in the course of mad sciencing.

Glass Cutters Are for Tools: How to Dissolve Glass Using Sodium Hydroxide

Glass is one of the least reactive substances known to chemistry. It is the standard container material for almost all lab chemicals because it's so inert. But there are a couple of substances that have strong reactions with glass. Sodium hydroxide, aka solid drain cleaner or lye, can easily be stored in glass as a solid, but when molten, it reacts violently with glass and can actually dissolve it away! So, the next time you clog up your drains with broken glass beakers and flasks, rest assur...

How To: Hack Together an Accelerometer-Aware Mobile Website by Accessing Motion Sensors in JavaScript

Christian Cantrell, Adobe's Air Product Manager and Evangelist, has released a video to demo websites that take advantage of the motion sensors in a mobile phone, tablet, or laptop via JavaScript. Now, let's take a look through the code and break down the core pieces that you'll need in order to build your own sites that can determine the 2-axis tilt, 3-axis gyroscope, and compass direction of the mobile device it's being displayed on.

Listen In: Live Social Engineering Phone Calls with Professional Social Engineers (Final Session)

We had a blast during last week's social engineering calls. One of our attending social engineers was so clever that she convinced several people on Craigslist that lost items were hers, even if it seemed she couldn't be trusted. But females are better social engineers, naturally. Some say that females have a special knack for manipulating men, but I think that's preposterous. I can't see why that would be true in a million years (note my sarcasm).

How To: Observe the Quadrantid Meteor Shower

Note: This shower is only visible in the Northern Hemisphere. The Quadrantid meteor shower is one of my personal favorites, mainly because of the amount of meteors it produces. You can sight more than 100 meteors per hour- that's more than 1 meter per minute. Even though that doesn't sound like much, it will make your observing experience much more exciting. The peak is short, typically lasting no more than an hour or so. It is more easily observed on the fourth, with its peak at 1:00 AM EST.

News: 20 Amazing Minecraft Costumes at MineCon 2011

MineCon 2011 (held at the Mandalay Bay in Vegas) was in a word, awesome. The crowd was overwhelmingly young, the vibe was fun and nerdy, and best of all, the costumes were inspired. Below are my favorites, which unfortunately aren't of the best quality (lighting was low and super yellow, which wasn't helped much by my standard point-and-shoot). If you happened to attend Minecon as well, post about your experience to the community corkboard... if you're pictured below, please comment!

Goodnight Byte: HackThisSite Walkthrough, Part 1 - Legal Hacker Training

Friday's Community Byte was weird. The intent was to do a HackThisSite mission, but upon time to begin, everyone in there was programming without my assistance, with the help of Sol Gates. This is great! It's really awesome that everyone enjoys programming that much and will make the effort to learn even when I am not present. So, a tip of my hat to Mr. Sol Gates and the rest of you fine people.

News: Google+ Pro Tips Weekly Round Up: Google+ Is Google

"Google+ is dead." How many times have you read that in the past few weeks? It seems like I can't get away from this notion that Google+, as a social network, is a total failure. Don't feel too sorry for them, though. +Bradley Horowitz isn't worried. In an interview with VentureBeat, he explains, “Six months from now, it will become increasingly apparent what we’re doing with Google+. It will be revealed less in what we say and more in the product launches we reveal week by week.” Indeed, som...

News: Hideo Kojima and Fox Engine Make Special USC Appearance

Hideo Kojima is one of the biggest names in Japanese game design. He's the man behind every Metal Gear game, each of which has been beautiful but divisive. He's an auteur, a rarity in AAA game design, managing business, design, and programming for Kojima Productions. Last week he made a rare public appearance at the USC School of Cinematic Arts, which contains the school's video game programs, and gave a 90-minute talk about his career, influences, and the specifics of his new Fox game design...

How To: Make Art Out of Everyday Objects

After taking a beginner’s art class at my local community college I realized two things: one, art supplies are extremely expensive, and two, I am not talented at painting. Although my painting skills are comparable to those of a five year old, I still enjoy art and being creative. Therefore, I began to look for ways to be creative that didn’t require much skill or too much money.

News: Free Protein Folding Game Cracks HIV Molecule Riddle

Foldit is definitely a niche game. The sole gameplay mechanic is attempting to fold complex proteins into smaller and more efficient shapes following the rules of molecular physics and biology. Points are awarded based on how small one can make the protein. Online leaderboards track players' relative progress and allows them to view and manipulate other players' completed designs. It's original, certainly, but no developer is going to ship a million units of a game about molecular-level prote...

Google+ Pro Tips Round Up: Week 8

It's been an eventful week for Google+. Facebook decided to up its game and start rolling out several major updates intended to address privacy concerns. We got a glimpse into the future of Google+ via an insightful discussion between +Bradley Horowitz and +Tim O'Reilly. And Google decided to integrate the +1 button more fully with Google+ by allowing users to share directly from the +1 button. That's not all, though—scroll down for more news & updates that occurred in the past week.

News: Google+ Updates Name Policy—Still No Pseudonyms

As Google+ became available to more people, it started running into issues of accounts being suspended due to names that did not sound "real". According to Google+'s community standards, names that users "commonly go by" were encouraged, but not pseudonyms. Those who were using pseudonyms in their Google+ profiles quickly found themselves suspended from using Google+.

The Aether: Welcome to Minecraft Heaven

Minecraft has been out nearly two years now. Hard to believe, isn't it? Fans of the game have been spoiled with a lot of new content over that span from its creator Notch, as well as its modders. A couple months ago, Notch tortured the Minecraft community by tweeting some screens of a "Sky Kingdom" that he was working on.