Making a good pie crust can seem intimidating to the uninitiated, but once you master this skill, a whole world opens up to you. Not only can you make all manner of fruit, custard, and cream-filled pies once you know all the tricks, you can branch out into the world of quiches, savory pies, and flaky, crispy turnovers, too. We've already told you how to get perfect, firm fruit pie fillings, so now, let's learn about crust.
Thrift stores! As a Steampunk, they can be your best friend, but it's easy to make a tragic mistake. This hands-on guide will help you navigate the murky waters of successful thrifting in order to find the hidden gems that will make your Steampunk outfit complete!
You can set a GIF as the wallpaper for your iPhone's lock screen, but it won't animate like it does when looking at the image in the Photos app. It's an annoying limitation on iOS, but one that's easily bypassed with a tiny bit of work.
You may not always want to, but there will probably be a time when you'll want to know if an email you send — like a job application or a support request — is opened by the recipient. It's actually easy to implement, and you may be using an email client on your device right now that supports email tracking.
It's super easy to add filters, adjust levels, and crop images using the default photo editor on your smartphone, but there's rarely any built-in tool for removing the background in a photo. A third-party app can help isolate people and objects in your pictures, and we've found a free one that's easy to use, works with high-resolution images, and is available for Android, iOS, iPadOS, and the web.
One of the most aggravating things that can happen on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media apps is when a friend shares an exciting story, and a paywall prevents you from reading any of it. You could pay for a subscription to unlock it, but there are so many news sites that it can be both confusing and expensive to spend money on all of them.
It's common knowledge these days that Apple puts great cameras into their iPhones. So, it probably comes as no surprise to learn that the iPhone 12, 12 mini, 12 Pro, and 12 Pro Max sport some excellent shooters. What you might not know, however, is that these cameras are quite literally capable of Hollywood-quality video. So don't be surprised to see one of these filming a Netflix series.
When it comes to washing clothes, the laundry symbols on your tags might as well be hieroglyphics. They're difficult to interpret, easy to forget, and even easier to ignore. But if you don't want to ruin expensive designer clothes, blankets, and other fiber-based materials, you need to figure out the meaning behind those tiny icons. Thankfully, your iPhone can help out.
Samsung's stock Galaxy Themes system leaves much to be desired with its restrictive and expensive theme packs. Back in the day, the gold standard for Android theming was CyanogenMod Theme Engine. And while it no longer exists, a successor has emerged to fill the void.
The top five apps of the 2010s were all social media apps of some kind, and the fact that's not surprising to you says a lot. We may use them for other reasons here and there, but our phones are social media machines at their cores. The thing is, some make better machines than others.
In a time where we're more connected than ever, privacy and security have never been more important. Maybe you're not concerned, but I'm sure there's someone in your life who is, and shopping for them can be daunting. However, with these gifts, you can provide them the tools they need to enhance their protection.
With a cheap computer, smaller than the Raspberry Pi, an attacker can create a remote hacking device. The device can be attached to a target router without anyone's knowledge and enable the hacker to perform a variety of network-based attacks from anywhere in the world.
While hackers know and love the Raspberry Pi, many don't know of its cheaper cousin, the microcontroller. Unlike a Pi, which can be used more or less like a regular computer, microcontrollers like the Wi-Fi connected ESP8266 require some necessary programming skill to master. In this guide, we'll build an Arduino program from scratch and explain the code structure in a way anyone can understand.
Smartphones are now indispensable when traveling. Domestic and overseas travel alike require food, navigation, translation, and so much more to make work or vacation successful. Gone are the days of lugging multiple tourist books around with you everywhere you go — you need to let your smartphone handle the dirty work.
It feels strange to be walking through an open field in a small village in the English countryside. There's no one else around — just the four of us: me, my husband, my 12-year-old son, and my adult niece. The day is spectacular, particularly for England. The sun is shining, and the temperature is in the low '70s.
The OnePlus 7 Pro is definitely a beast on paper. With a specs page that ticks virtually every box and a price point that undercuts the competition by hundreds of dollars, it's hard to overlook this phone. But before you get too excited, know that OnePlus has repeatedly shown to be misleading with their official specs.
Whether it's for health reasons or just to look better, many of us want to get in shape. It's a long process that starts with nutrition, and dieting is never easy. Fortunately, there are some great food-tracking apps that will make it a lot easier to become a healthier version of yourself.
These days, it's easy to cut the cord. Thanks to a new crop of streaming TV apps, you can get the same service offered by a traditional cable subscription at a fraction of the price. After some extensive testing, we believe we've found the absolute best apps for cord cutting.
It is almost indisputable that smartglasses and head-worn displays are the future of augmented reality. However, at this precise moment, they are still a very niche market.
The iPhone XR has touched down alongside the XS and XS Max, and it utilizes tried and tested materials found on the iPhone 8, while being molded in the same vein as the iPhone X. The budget-friendlier flagship comes with its own set of design elements to set it apart from its more expensive brethren, but is powered by the same SoC, making it is a solid choice if you're thinking of upgrading.
Give an 18-month-old a shoe, check back 10 minutes later, and it's a very big maybe he will have it on his foot. But give him your smartphone, and in a mere five minutes, he can take 100 pictures of the carpet, send weird messages, and delete essential apps. Imagine what your child could do if they were able to harness this technical aptitude and put it to good use — and they can, with learning apps.
I was in college, and my 15-inch Sony Vaio laptop was my prized possession. It was my first PC and probably the most important thing I brought with me to my dorm — it was both how I completed my assignments and my primary source of entertainment. How could it turn its back on me in my time of need?
Defcon is the largest hacker conference with something for everyone, whether it be the talks, parties, villages, or any of the hundreds of events. In this guide, we'll take a holistic view at everything that goes into attending the con for the first time, from securing your electronics and making the most of your time to the logistics of getting there and finding the right place to stay.
Around this time in 2016, the predictions for the next year had reached something of a consensus: 2017 would be the year of augmented reality. But a funny thing happened on the way to the future — nothing much, really. At least not for the first half of the year.
The iPhone X was released in November 2017, and the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus dropped right before it, but the hottest news right now revolves around the 2018 iPhone releases. The rumor mill regarding the iPhone X's successor started churning out speculations on names, cameras, display size, and more almost immediately after last year's devices, and there have been many new leaked details since.
Your iPhone has a lot of personal information contained within it, so of course you want your device to be secure. You don't want that information getting into the wrong hands — or any hands other than your own, for that matter.
Aircraft equipped with ADS-B are constantly shouting their location into the radio void, along with other useful unauthenticated and unencrypted data. In this guide, we will make an ADS-B receiver using a Raspberry Pi with a software-defined radio (SDR) dongle, which we can use to track aircraft anywhere in real time.
One of the most popular usages of modern-day smartphones is listening to music. It doesn't matter if you download or stream your tunes, you are part of a massive group of users who do exactly the same. While statistics are a bit foggy on how many smartphones users download music, we do know that over 68% of American smartphone owners stream music on a daily basis.
On July 20, 1969, humans set foot on the moon for the first time. But some say our microbes beat us there. With the Space Age came new questions about microscopic invaders from outer space and concern about where we are leaving our microbial footprints. The questions are even more relevant today.
While music may not technically be a "universe language," it is the one language listened to by all. There are over 1,500 music genres today—rap, classical, rock, jazz, trap, hip-hop, house, new wave, vaperwave, charred death, nintendocore... and the list goes on. And if you're like most people, you now probably listen to the majority of your music on your phone.
The new iPhone 16, 16 Plus, 16 Pro, and 16 Pro Max are worth upgrading to, but if you want more advanced features, especially for the camera, you may want to take a closer look at the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max.
While Apple keeps the Pro and Pro Max iPhone models nearly the same this year, there are still a few differences between the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max. Knowing them may help you decide which Pro model to get.
If you bought an iPhone or iPad equipped with USB-C but didn't max out the local storage, there are some great external storage solutions beyond iCloud and other cloud storage services. And now that the iPhone lineup comes with USB-C ports, you have better-performing external drives available to you than anything you could ever get for a Lightning-based model.
When setting up your home office or giving it a makeover, the desk is the key to making the room a functional workspace. And if you're in there all day, it also has a significant impact on your health. Standing desks can help offset some of the adverse health risks associated with sitting all day, but it's hard to find a decent standing desk that won't break the bank. That's where Flexispot comes in.
Remember when water and iPhones couldn't mix? Pools, tubs, and toilets would suck down the working iPhones of clumsy and careless owners and spit out expensive paperweights like they were nothing. Times have changed, however, and the newest iPhones can take a swim without fear of certain death. But a dip in liquid can still cause muffled music and audio from the speakers.
To the end user, mobile apps are sometimes expensive. To the developers, those costs are justified for all the hard work put into making the apps. Sometimes app creators will meet in the middle by putting their apps on sale or giving them away for a limited time to gain more traction in the App Store.
Apple doesn't include its Calculator app on the iPad and never did. One almost appeared over 12 years ago but was nothing more than a blown-up version of the iPhone app. Since then, the company still hasn't made an iPad-optimized calculator, and there is no shortage of third-party alternatives to fill the gap. It may happen one day, but for now, these are the best calculator apps for your iPad.
On an iPhone, it's easy to blur or cross out faces and sensitive information found in your images — just use Apple's Markup tool for all your obfuscation needs. Things aren't as simple when it comes to videos. There are no built-in iOS features to blur, redact, or otherwise obscure people, objects, and text in videos, but we've found a free solution that gets the job done well without any watermarks.
On May 17, Apple announced that Lossless Audio playback for Apple Music was finally coming to subscribers in June. The long-awaited option will let users stream songs at a much higher quality than ever before. Still, in the fine print, Apple noted that you wouldn't be able to listen to the best sound quality — Hi-Resolution Lossless — on your iPhone without a DAC.
If you lose your AirPods, AirPods Pro, or AirPods Max, you can turn to Find My to locate them. But sometimes, things don't go according to plan, and many things can go wrong. For example:
