Increased Efficiency Search Results

How To: Get Your Chromecast to Stop Lagging

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...

News: I'm a Mac, and I Kicked PC's Ass Last Year... Or Did I?

Apple computers have long been maligned as the computer for Starbucks aficionados and graphic artists. "Dude, have you used Excel on a Mac? It's terrible," says everyone that owns a Dell. The whole PC versus Mac battle was encapsulated in what I think to be the greatest ad campaign of all time, "I'm a PC and I'm a Mac." And yes, I know that PC really stands for Personal Computer, which means that a Mac would be a PC, but for the sake of the article, it will mean all things non Mac.

News: Sketchy Chinese App Store Removed from Evad3rs iOS 7 Jailbreak

The internet was ablaze this week after it was found out that evasi0n's newest jailbreak for iOS 7 secretly came bundled with a highly obfuscated Chinese app store. The application, called Taig, was filled with pirated software and was rumored to have permissions capable of tracking your information and sending it elsewhere. It was reported that the team at evad3rs financially benefited from this move, netting them a very high six-figure number close to a million dollars. The controversy incr...

How To: Create a Light Painting Vortex Using a DIY Reusable Steel Wool Cage

There's no shortage of uses for steel wool, but the majority of them tend to be on the pyromaniacal side, like DIY fireworks. This trick by Mike Mikkelson is no different—it uses a homemade reusable "wool cage" to create a spinning vortex of light, like in the photo below. You can do this with just a piece of steel wool on a cable, but Michael wanted something he could easily reuse no matter how many shots he took, so he built a small cage to house the steel wool out of chicken wire, a small ...

How To: Save Some Cash on Apple's New Hybrid Fusion Drive and Make Your Own!

At the most recent Apple event, the company announced its new Fusion Drive, a hybrid hard drive designed to increase performance and speed by combining traditional and flash storage. It's composed of a small solid-state disk and a larger spinning hard disk drive, and files and applications are moved back and forth between the two based on how often you use them. A chunk of memory is reserved for whatever task you're currently doing, which means that multitasking doesn't slow down your compute...

News: This DIY Passion Fruit Battery Can Power Lasers!

It's been proven over and over that you can make batteries out of fruits and vegetables such as lemons, potatoes, and even apples. Turns out, passion fruit is also acidic enough to power a battery, but Maui Makers member Ryan K decided to take it a step further by adding a laser. Passion fruit, or Lilikoi as it's called in Hawaii, is usually over-abundant in Maui, so Ryan decided to put it to good use. Using anodized bolts, copper pipe, wire, switches, and some LEDs, he built a battery that c...

News: This Cardboard Bicycle Cost Only $12 to Make—And It Works!

Stop me if you've heard this one before. A man walks into a bicycle shop, hears about a canoe made of cardboard and is inspired to make an awesome, fully-functional cardboard bicycle. Sound far-fetched? Wait until you hear how his guy actually did it. Israeli entrepreneur Izhar Gafni says that the idea for his method came from Japanese origami. Folding the cardboard increases its strength by 2-3 times, making the material much more durable. Essentially, he made the basic shape for each part w...

How To: Minimize your icons on the iPhone SpringBoard

Want to make maximum use of your iphone/ipod-touch screen? Shrink is a software that does this by reducing the size of the application icons down to 75%, 66%, 50%, 33% or the ultra small 25% of it's original size. This video highlights the user friendliness of this app and the ease of switching from one icon size to another. There's also a mod to increase the size of the icons to increase the accessability for people with vision impediments. The iphone on the video is displayed using DemoGod ...

How To: Make TCPO (for making glow sticks)

How to make TCPO or bis(2,4,6-trichlorophenyl) oxalate, used in glow stick reactions. WARNING: This procedure should only be performed by, or under the direct supervision of, an experienced chemist. Please refer to the material safety data sheets of all chemicals for their hazards. Synthesis must be performed in a fumehood.

How To: Practice Emotional Freedom techniques

Craig Brockie delivers the goods with a how to video on Emotional Freedom Techniques, or EFT. Learn these powerful techniques to reach your highest potential and reduce stress, increase focus and will, and overall acheive positive results. Watch this tutorial and you will be able to overcome cravings and reduce stress with EFT.

How To: Cool down after exercise

Cooling down after exercise is necessary to prevent injury. This how to video teaches some simple moves you can do after your workout to help prevent injury and increase flexibility. Watch this stretching tutorial and you will be able to maximize your workout by cooling down afterwards.

How To: Transform a photo into a puzzle in Photoshop

This video from photoshopuniverse shows us how to make your picture look like it's a puzzle by using Photoshop! First you want to open up the layers palette and duplicate the layer. Now add a new layer and bring it down to the middle and fill it in with black. Now to get the puzzle into place, go to Filter---Show Menu Items---Texture---Texturizer. Click the arrow to load texture. Load in puzzle texture. Now you can set the scaling to however many puzzle pieces you want. He put it at 75% and t...