How To: Trick Spotify into Playing Any Song in Its Free Android App
With over 20 million songs, Spotify has become my go-to source for music. I can stream tunes to my desktop or phone, without ever having to worry about storage space being eaten up.
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How To: Add Any eBook Format to Your Kindle Fire HDX
Loaded with a gorgeous display and a powerful processor, the Kindle Fire HDX is an impressive all-around tablet, especially when it's used for what Amazon Kindles were built for—reading electronic versions of novels, textbooks, and other printed works.
How To: Cast Podcasts with Podcast Addict for Android
Podcasts have been around and popular for close to a decade now. For the uninitiated, podcasts are like radio shows that can be downloaded directly from the web and listened to on any device. Up until now, only paid apps allowed podcasts to be casted via Chromecast, but with the latest update to Xavier Guillemane's Podcast Addict, you can now do the same thing for free!
How To: Get Android's New "L" Keyboard on Your HTC One or Other Android Device
Google has finally announced the newest flavor of its mobile OS, Android L (Lollipop?), and I couldn't be more excited. While we won't see its official release until the fall, there are still some features we can get our hands on right now.
How To: Improve Wi-Fi Performance on Your Rooted Nexus 4
One of the most common complaints that people have about the Nexus 4 would have to be its intermittently poor Wi-Fi performance, a problem that for many, persists through the installation of updates and even custom ROMs.
How To: Sync Your Entire iTunes Library to Spotify's New "My Music" Section
Included in Spotify's new darker, slimmed down redesign is a much needed My Music section, which consolidates all of your starred music, local files, and playlists into a personal collection of songs, albums, and artists, similar to how iTunes organizes your music. This makes me wonder...
How To: You Can't Stop Gmail from Scanning Your Emails—But You Can Limit Their Ad Targeting
Google recently updated their TOS to reflect the email scanning practices they use in Gmail, which are used to display more relevant ads, among other things.
How To: Get the S5's New Rounded Quick Settings Toggles on Your Samsung Galaxy S3
Samsung's TouchWiz skin gets a lot of flak for its appearance, namely the garish colors on the quick settings toggles. The bright green on dark blue scheme is definitely an eyesore compared to the ones in stock Android, and even other manufacturer skins like HTC's Sense.
How To: Get Even Better Sound Quality Out of Your HTC One's Speakers
One of the hardest tradeoffs when installing a non-Sense-based custom ROM on an HTC One is the loss of Beats Audio. Due to a patent restrictions from Beats and compatibility issues, it's currently impossible to port it to a non-Sense ROM, but with ViPER4Android you can get almost identical results, bringing life back to the BoomSound speakers on your device.
How To: Install ADB & Fastboot in Mac OS X to Send Commands to Your HTC One
If you're looking into rooting your device yourself, you're going to need ADB and Fastboot on your computer.
Hack Like a Pro: Linux Basics for the Aspiring Hacker, Part 16 (Stdin, Stdout, & Stderror)
Welcome back, my budding hackers! In previous tutorials, we've looked at some of the basic commands and concepts for using Linux. Along the way, I realized that I've failed to provide you with some basic background material on the stdin, stdout, and stderror.
How To: Root Your Nexus 7 Tablet Running Android 4.4 KitKat (Mac Guide)
Just because you have a Mac doesn't mean you can't root your Nexus 7 tablet. In fact, rooting Android 4.4 KitKat on both the 2013 and original 2012 N7 models is easy, if not easier than rooting it using a Windows PC.
Never Miss an Alert: View Your Galaxy S3's Notifications Directly on Your Computer Screen
Having quick and immediate access to your notifications is one of the most important features for any modern day phone, but these alerts can be easily missed when your device isn't in the palm of your hand.
How to Hack Databases: Hacking MySQL Online Databases with Sqlmap
Welcome back, my amateur hackers!
How To: Set Your Wi-Fi Card's TX Power Higher Than 30 dBm
Do you have an Alfa AWUS036NH Wi-Fi adapter that claims it can go to 2000 mWs, or some card that can supposedly transmit power over 1000 mW? If so, you may have run into problems setting your card's TXPOWER higher than 30 dBm, which is about 1000 mW. Well, I will show you how to break that barrier and go as high as you want!
Hack Like a Pro: How to Create a Nearly Undetectable Backdoor with Cryptcat
Welcome back, my fledgling hackers! Awhile back, I demonstrated one of my favorite little tools, netcat, which enables us to create a connection between any two machines and transfer files or spawn a command shell for "owning" the system. Despite the beauty and elegance of this little tool, it has one major drawback—the transfers between the computers can be detected by security devices such as firewalls and an intrusion detection system (IDS).
Hack Like a Pro: How to Spear Phish with the Social Engineering Toolkit (SET) in BackTrack
Welcome back, my rookie hackers! Many newbie hackers focus upon the technical aspects of hacking and fail to give enough attention to social engineering. In fact, I would say that technical hacks should ONLY be attempted if social engineering attacks fail. Why bother spending hours or days trying to hack a password if someone will simply give it to you?
How to Hack Wi-Fi: Cracking WPA2-PSK Passwords with Cowpatty
Welcome, my hacker novitiates! As part of my series on hacking Wi-Fi, I want to demonstrate another excellent piece of hacking software for cracking WPA2-PSK passwords. In my last post, we cracked WPA2 using aircrack-ng. In this tutorial, we'll use a piece of software developed by wireless security researcher Joshua Wright called cowpatty (often stylized as coWPAtty). This app simplifies and speeds up the dictionary/hybrid attack against WPA2 passwords, so let's get to it!
Digital Tinfoil Hat: How to Block the Government & Other Privacy Invaders from Connecting to Your Nexus 7 Tablet
The NSA's massive internet spying efforts will continue. In President Obama's latest press conference, he went public to (in so many words) say that the NSA's spying efforts will continue uninterrupted. This, coming just weeks after the Amash Amendment which would have defunded the program, was narrowly defeated in the House (you can check if your congressmen voted against it here).
How To: Install Sony's Sketch Drawing App on Your Nexus 7 Tablet for Improved Doodling
"What's the point of having a Nexus 7 for drawing if all of the drawing apps suck?" That's what my girlfriend said after buying her new Nexus 7 tablet. She draws a lot and was hoping to hone her doodling skills on it, but she's right—most of the drawing apps available on Google Play aren't that great.
Hack Like a Pro: How to Conduct Active Reconnaissance and DOS Attacks with Nmap
Welcome back, my nascent Hackers! In my last blog, we looked at a passive way to gather information necessary for a hack. The advantage of using passive recon is that it's totally undetectable, meaning that the target never knows you're scouting them and you leave no tracks. The disadvantage, of course, is that it's limited to only some websites and not entirely reliable.
How To: Watch the 2013 Super Bowl XLVII Commercials Live Online
It's almost here. Another year has come and gone, and it's time to watch the Baltimore Ravens and the San Francisco 49ers battle it out in New Orleans for Super Bowl XLVII. For the truly football-obsessed, this Sunday is a day almost as exciting as Christmas. Personally, I just use it as an excuse to cook food that's way less healthy than usual since I never quite became a football fan (sorry, Dad).
Hack Like a Pro: How to Embed a Backdoor Connection in an Innocent-Looking PDF
Welcome back , my fledgling hackers! Lately, I've been focusing more on client-side hacks. While web servers, database servers, and file servers have garnered increased protection, the client-side remains extremely vulnerable, and there is much to teach. This time, we'll look at inserting a listener (rootkit) inside a PDF file, exploiting a vulnerability in Adobe's Reader.
How To: Clear All Caches and Free Up Disk Space in Windows 8
Clearing the cache on your computer is (usually) a quick and easy way to help speed it up. Deleting those temporary files frees up space, helping you computer run smoother, especially if you have not cleared the cache for a extended period. However, finding the different caches in Windows 8 is a little trickier than in previous Windows systems.
How To: Share Your Samsung Galaxy S3's Screen with Other Devices
Sharing screens is a great way to showcase projects, photos, or videos without having to download and upload those files on the other devices. This is made easy with AllSharePlus. You can download the AllSharePlay application for your Samsung Galaxy S III or Tab 2 right here. If you would like to download it for sharing on your laptop, you can visit the Samsung website. For now, the desktop app is only compatible with Windows XP or Windows 7 and the devices shown above. Nevertheless, it is gr...
How To: Create a Restore Point in Windows 8
Restoring your computer to a previous point is an extremely important thing if something goes wrong. I've restored my computer at least a dozen times after downloading some suspicious software or running into an error I couldn't remedy on my own.
News: Post-TIFF Micro-Blurbs
Every year the fine folks at Row Three do a post-TIFF mega-wrap up, collecting the micro-blurbs of a bunch of attendees into a giant meta-analysis of what everyone liked, loved, hated, etc. etc.. We'll link to that post when it goes up on the weekend, but in the mean time, here's my contribution:
How To: Most Credit Card PINs Are Easy to Crack—Here's How to Strengthen Yours
You've probably noticed how we like to stress the importance of a strong password. After all, there are still people out there who continue to use passwords like 123456 and even just "password". But passwords aren't the only barriers that protect your information.
How To: Upgrade to the Minecraft 1.9 Pre-Release
Check out this guide to installing the Minecraft 1.9 prerelease update to your Minecraft folder. After replacing your Minecraft.jar file with the new one that you'll download from the link below, you'll be able to play with the snow golems and try the Minecraft 1.9 pre-release for yourself!
How To: Download and Install Minecraft 1.9 Pre-Release on a Mac
The Minecraft 1.9 Pre-release is now available to download for those who wish to upgrade their current Minecraft 1.8 and Minecraft 1.7 games. If you're running Minecraft on a Mac, and want to download and install the 1.9 prerelease, make sure you catch this tutorial.
How To: Hack the game TowerMadness for more money
In order for this tutorial to work, you will need a jailbroken iPhone or iPod Touch. Once you have this, download the OpenSSH protocol from Cydia and then download WinSCP onto your PC. Once you've hooked everything up and logged in, navigate through your Applications directory until you find the TowerMadness app. Once you have opened the TowerMadness app, all you need to do now is find the right file and change it around to increase the amount of money you have!
How To: Optimize exported video for Vimeo in iMovie
Export your video to share on Vimeo with iMovie. This video shows the different steps involved in exporting video, including setting the video width & height, bit rate, frame rate, audio settings, and saving to a file ready for upload.
How To: Export video to share on Vimeo with Windows Live Movie Maker
Export your video to share on Vimeo with Windows Live Movie Maker. This video shows the different steps involved in exporting video, including setting the video width & height, bit rate, frame rate, audio settings, and saving to a WMV file ready for upload.
How To: Prank your friends by scaring them in the middle of the night
This is a very easy tutorial - all you need is a chosen sound effect file (like a creepy growling animal or a person screaming) and a sneaky sound system. Play it during the middle of the night and freak out your friends.
How To: Fake 3D and slow time in After Effects
Use After Effects to simulate a 3D stereoscopic effect, and remap time to speed up and slow down footage (a popular video effect used throughout the 2007 movie '300'). This tutorial from motion graphics designer James Zanoni shows you how.
How To: Share really big files over the Internet with Drop.io
In this video tutorial, we learn how to share anything too big to send in an email attachment quickly and easily over the web with the Drop.io hosting service. For all the details, and detailed, step-by-step instructions, take a look.
How To: Enable Picture in Picture (PIP) in your Camtasia Studio projects
Show a separate clip in your larger video file, like an inset of yourself on a webcam when you're making your own tutorial video! This will show you how to set up your project to enable picture in picture viewing, for all or part of your video.
How To: Use free MediaMonkey software to organize your music collection
MediaMonkey is a freely available app you can download onto your music that will help you organize all your music files. No matter where they're hiding, MediaMonkey will find them and make them avaiable for organizing (and you can use MediaMonkey to listen to your music, too!)
How To: Author Blu-ray Discs in Adobe Premiere Pro
Create your own Blu-Ray discs and switch between Adobe Premiere Pro and Encore! This tutorial will show you how to get the most functionality from these programs, and how to be able to switch between the two without having to re-render your file each time.
How To: Move picture files from a Windows PC to a BlackBerry smartphone
Learn how to use BlackBerry Media Sync 3.0 to move your digital images from your PC to a BlackBerry smartphone. This clip will show you how it's done. Whether you're the proud owner of a BlackBerry smartphone or are merely considering picking one up, you're sure to be well served by this video guide. For detailed information, including step-by-step instructions, take a look.