Existing Routines Search Results

How To: Make Crop Circles or Are Aliens Among Us?

Does this video prove that otherworldly intelligent life has visited Earth? No. It does not prove anything other than there are designs ‘etched’ onto the surface of a field. Does the video immediately above prove that otherworldly intelligent life hasn’t visited Earth? Yeah, you saw it coming; no, it proves nothing more than humans are able to ‘etch’ designs in a field of grain.

The Rdio App for Mac: A Desktop Alternative to iTunes

A few weeks ago, I wrote about why I think streaming music services like Rdio.com are better than Apple‘s iTunes Music Store. This week, I follow up with a how-to about Rdio for Mac, a desktop music player that streams music from your Rdio.com account. Even though Apple is introducing new iTunes features, I think you will find Rdio for Mac a much more affordable option—especially if you like to listen to new music on a weekly, or even daily basis.

How To: Remove A Very Tight Lid

How to... Remove A Very Tight Lid? Use Items You Have Around The House! Step 1Want to remove a very tight lid? Do you have a weak grip or arthritic pain in your hands? Have you already tried tapping the lid with a spoon? Thumping the bottom of the jar with the palm of your hand, and it still won‘t come off? An easy, quick way to remove a very tight lid is to put on rubber gloves! Yes. Ordinary household rubber gloves. Hold the jar in one hand, then use the other hand to twist the lid off. Thi...

How To: Stop Facebook's Facial Recognition Software from Automatically Tagging You in Photos

It seems like nowadays, whenever Facebook rolls out a new feature, it's immediately controversial. Social Ads put your name and face in the spotlight, Instant Personalization shared your information with partner sites, third-party apps were allowed to access your home address and phone number, and now Tag Suggestions implement facial recognition software to automatically identify your friends in uploaded photos. Most are calling it problematic or creepy, some insinuate CIA involvement, and it...

How To: Market a Self Storage Facility

Self-storage may not be a new industry, but it is one that is rapidly reshaping its operations to suit a progressively more modernized customer base. In order to stay competitive with your self-storage facility, you'll need to keep an open mind, embrace current marketing trends, and most importantly, have a well-defined set of marketing goals. Your main focus should revolve around the following points:

How To: Litter Box Train Your New Kitten

I love cats (dogs too - but that's a subject for a different article...;o)). There are few things more enjoyable than welcoming an adorable little kitten into one's house; watching them inspect their mysterious new surroundings - timidly at first - and then quickly make it their empire.

Windows Security: Software Level

As many of you know Windows is not the most secure Operating System in the world, but then again no OS is really secure if the user doesn't know how to protect themselves. Later I will show you how to lower the risk even more on your (the user's) end.

CISPA: What You Need to Know

Though under a lot of the average consumer's radar, the CISPA is now making rounds again with a coalition of advocacy rights groups. The act, known as the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, forces companies to ignore existing privacy laws and share information with the Federal Government. This short article will bring you up to date on this bill. The CISPA is another bill 'designed' to help prevent thefts and prevent them in cyberspace. But again, like all the previous bill before...

News: The Cosmic Connection

The recent report of the ubiquity of extrasolar planets coupled with the fact that it bodes well for searches for life friendly Earth twins, brought me back to my reading of Carl Sagan's 1966 Intelligent Life In The Universe and later article in Sky & Telescope where he came up with a remarkable number in favor of such.

News: Flaw in Wal-Mart Returns System Allows Major Thefts to Go Unnoticed

We love tearing apart security here at Null Byte. Several years back, upon returning items to Wal-Mart due to a malfunction, I noticed something very peculiar about the way their overall procedure goes. I brought the item up to the desk, and the woman asked if it didn't work, which I responded affirmatively. Without a moment's notice, she takes it right off to the defective items area and asks if I would like cash or store credit.

How To: Defend from Keyloggers in Firefox with Keystroke Encryption

Null Byte is looking for moderators. More threats to computers exist every day. Not only do we have computer viruses and malware, but we have rootkits and other nasty pieces of code that can log your keyboard strokes or even add your computer to a botnet to attack other websites. Your computer can be infected even if you have anti-virus software installed. I can't stress enough how easy it is for a hacker to write a piece of code that gets around every piece of anti-virus software.

Goodnight Byte: HackThisSite Walkthrough, Part 2 - Legal Hacker Training

Welcome to the closing of the second HackThisSite and programming Community Byte. First and foremost, I would like to ask that people start showing up on time to the Community Bytes. If you need help converting your time zone to PST, go to Time Zone Converter. When users do not show up on time, we have to go backwards and catch everybody up. This wastes time and will also make other users' experience less enjoyable when they have to watch and listen to the same thing 100 times. Punctuality as...

How To: Enable Code Syntax Highlighting for Python in the Nano Text Editor

With the plethora of programming that we promote at Null Byte, I figured a lot of you newbies that stop by IRC will need a big boost in the right direction to make your dive into programming a lot easier. A hot question that has been thrown around in IRC a lot when making the initial dive is, "How do I write code?". People who do not know much about computers can't understand how code is written. Code that we write here is usually scripted and written in Python, so we will use it as our examp...

How To: Permanently Delete Files to Protect Privacy and Passwords

Permanently deleting files is something that a lot of people aren't aware of. Actually, most people think that once a file is deleted, it is gone forever. This is not the case. Hard drives write to the disk via magnetic charges, positive and negative correlate to 1s and 0s for binary. This is then interpreted into information for the computer to use and access.

News: Scrabble Beats Words with Friends to NOOK Color

Electronic Arts (EA) and Hasbro have always been a little slow at adapting Scrabble for the cyber culture. They failed to beat Scrabulous to the Facebook market by a whole year, but managed to save face by targeting the mobile market, specifically iPhone and iPod touch, making Scrabble one of the very first mobile apps in the iTunes App Store.

How To: Make an Unbreakable Linux Password Using a SHA-2 Hash Algorithm

In Linux, all password hashes are normally stored using the MD5 hashing algorithm in the /etc/shadow file, but MD5 is algorithmically weak due to collision vulnerabilities. The new recommended standard are the higher level SHA-2 hashing algorithms, SHA256 or SHA512. As a friend pointed out to me, Ubuntu is currently the only distro implementing SHA-2 as the default. With SHA-2, your passwords take an unreasonably larger amount of time to calculate. This will greatly decrease how many password...

News: Finally! A Practical Use for Arcade Game Skills

Most kids who play video games will never become professional gamers. Those that do are part of a very select group— it's like being a professional actor or athlete. It's nice work if you can get it. For everyone else, the sad realization usually arrives sooner or later that time spent playing games might not have the practical rewards that homework or working hard at your job might deliver.

News: Super Mario Gets a Portal Gun in Stabyourself's Upcoming Mari0 Game

Many of the indie games featured at PAX Prime have been in development for years. That's how long it takes to make a great game. But the two-man development studio in eastern Europe called Stabyourself has existed for less than a year and has already created two games—three more are on the way. They may be spitting out games left and right, but they've got a few to be excited about.

The Google+ Project: Google's Social Network Takes On Facebook

Google recently unveiled the start of their new social network Google+, which is set to compete with Facebook and fix the awkward, broken aspects on online sharing they claim exist. It's currently only open to a limited number of Googlers during its "field trial," and if you weren't one of the lucky ones given an invitation, you can still sign up to be notified when Google+ is available in your area. You can also stay up to date on its Twitter page, GooglePlus.

News: First Steps of Compiling a Program in Linux

This article describes the very basics of compiling a program on Linux. It is targeted at the absolute beginner. Sometimes beginners search for programs on the web for their Linux systems, and is faced with the reality that they have to compile the program themselves, either because there exists no binary for their architecture, or the author of the program just doesn't release any binaries at all, but only sources.

How To: Add a Dislike Button to Your Facebook Page

Are you one of countless Facebook users who find the classic Thumbs Up symbol tiresomely sycophantic? You're not alone. Back in August of 2010, the widespread addition of an "official" Thumbs Down symbol to Facebook pages quickly revealed itself to be a scam, but only after countless users opted in.

News: Creepy Theremin Utensils Howl the Pain of Slaughtered Ghost Chickens

One of the creepiest musical instruments ever is undoubtedly the theremin, a device originating from the early 20s that emits eerie sounds with a just a wave of the hand. If you've seen the original movie The Day the Earth Stood Still, you know what I mean—freakishly creepy. Playing the theremin can be off-putting for some, since it's a relatively pricy gizmo, but a new geek gadget called the EaTheremin aims to make all of us professional, dinnertime theremists.

News: You Have to Ask, "What Were They Thinking?"

There really are depths of dumbth up with which I will not put, so I won’t be spending nine coins to build a Detective Agency in FrontierVille.Historically, the Pinkerton National Detective Agency was started 1850 but came into its own working for Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War (1861 to 1865, for foreigners and the home-schooled) catching Confederate spies and running their own networks in the South. The US didn’t have a national police force until the Bureau Of Investigation started up...