Our workdays are typically filled with one thought: get as much completed as possible. Whether you face an inbox filled with tasks or just a project or two, both our bosses and our inner workhorses encourage us to knock out as many tasks as we can each day. But is being super-productive the best course of action for our minds and our employers?
In the aftermath of the unindicted police killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, we've been told that the system worked as intended. When our legal system's outcome is at conflict with what a majority of Americans believe is just, it's clear that some changes are needed. But what specifically needs to change? And what can an average citizen with a moral and just cause do to prevent these kinds of tragedies from repeating themselves again and again?
Android Lollipop's new Material Design interface does its best to strike a delicate balance between intuitiveness, usability, and aesthetics. For some folks, though, the use of a lighter color palette throughout the interface disrupts this balance.
From parents and other family members to friends and peers, personalities are built by environment. Though people are important in the development of our own individual personality, there are other, different influences, including what you choose to read. The books you take the time to enjoy can make you nicer and more understanding, or leave you overall unchanged.
With its white Apple logo on a plain black background, iOS 8's animated boot screen isn't very interesting. While there is no built-in way to change this boring animation, you can customize this boot screen animation if you have a jailbroken iPhone, and the process is fairly easy. You can even create your own using your favorite GIF file.
No one wants to appear stupid. Whether you rely on lengthy, complicated vocabulary to show your smarts, or enjoy highlighting your speedy mental math skills, everyone prefers emphasizing intelligence over hiding it.
Cold pizza is the holy grail of leftovers. That's a statement that elicits a slew of impassioned feelings. Either you love the idea of biting into soft crust and cold, fatty cheese, or scowl at the idea of pizza that isn't hot, crisp, and melty. Yet if we were to stand by the former sentiment, how would we argue on its behalf? Food Science Explains Why Cold Pizza Rules
Aside from the occasional "creative" collage, most of your friends on social media are content with pretty basic image and video posts. You can easily one-up them with celebrity cameos or awesome time-lapse videos, but to truly outshine them, try your hands at some creative double exposures.
While it's true that the once ubiquitous cupcake no longer strides the culinary landscape like a mighty colossus, it is still a force to be reckoned with, especially when certain holidays roll around, like Halloween.
Apple has a built-in way to protect you from opening up potentially malicious apps on your computer in Mac OS X Lion, Mountain Lion, Mavericks, Yosemite, El Capitan, and macOS Sierra. This setting, named Gatekeeper, will never stop you from installing apps from the Mac App Store, but it could from anywhere else. If it's an app you're sure you want to install on your system, here's how to do it.
While the adoption of Apple's newest mobile operating system, iOS 8, was smoother than its predecessor, there were still a lot of bugs and features that needed ironed out. There were lost cellular signals, missing Camera Rolls, a confusing iCloud Drive, and no functioning Apple Pay yet, among other things. Now it's just over a month later from its first release to the public and things are finally looking pretty good.
As much as app developers would like to simplify things with icons and visual cues, text is still a huge part of a smartphone's interface. Much of our media consumption is text-based, and while Google's Roboto font is a beautiful typeface, a little variety here and there certainly wouldn't hurt.
Chrome, Firefox, and Safari all provide built-in features that allow you to save your username and password for your favorite sites, making the process for entering your credentials a breeze when you revisit them.
Google Keyboard, which comes pre-installed on Nexus devices (and is available for all others from the Play Store), is one of the most functional keyboards currently available for Android. With features like gesture-based typing, next-word prediction, and even text expansion macros, it's a very capable form of text input.
Since its creation, Arduino has been growing exponentially more popular as DIY enthusiasts and Makers alike realize its potential. As new versions of the device are released, many easy-to-use peripherals are showing up on the market also.
Sometimes, it helps to be prepared before jumping into a new relationship; look before you leap! To have a healthy relationship with someone who has an STI, it is advisable that you enter the relationship knowledgeable about sexually transmitted infections and what your risks might be.
While we now know that iCloud was not exploited by hackers to steal private celebrity photos, Apple did admit that guessed (aka brute-forced) passwords and/or iCloud security questions were to blame for the breach.
A couple months ago, I attended a Pokémon-themed party. Everyone dressed as their favorite Pokémon or trainer, Poké balls flew around the backyard, and more importantly, there was a lot of Poké booze. My friend who created the colorful drinks you see below informed me that they were infused with Skittles. This, my humble readers, was a defining moment in my life.
There are tons of good reasons that you might want to use Android on your desktop. Perhaps your favorite game is only available on Android, or maybe you use a messaging service that doesn't have a Windows companion app.
Most times when you take your smartphone out of your bag, pocket, or purse, you probably know exactly what you're going to do with it. Make a call, send a text, take a selfie, browse viral videos on YouTube, or one of the other many things a smartphone can do nowadays.
Yes, I know. Nexus owners aren't exactly the biggest Apple fans out there. That "Pure Android" experience was one of the main reasons we bought our Nexus devices. But give the other side some credit—the iPhone's operating system has come along way, and is still the champ when it comes to aesthetic design (at least until Material Design dethrones it this fall).
The weather widget on the main home screen of a fresh-out-of-the-box Galaxy S5 is meant to show off the screen. Super-high contrast and crisp definition on the individual blades of grass in the background let you know that the phone you're holding has one helluva display.
Not too long after getting a new device, you probably start installing any and all apps that seem fun and interesting. But after having used the device for a considerable period of time, those extraneous apps begin to take their toll.
The book that started it all (published in 1967). When Virginia Harvey wrote this book, she remarked that macramé was almost a lost art...
Text input on a touchscreen device is constantly evolving. From early beginnings of pecking out each individual character to today's predictive text and gesture keyboards, we've already come a long way.
Last year, The New York Times wrote that certain restaurants in Manhattan and Brooklyn banned patrons from taking photos of their meals. That means no flash photography, no standing on chairs for a better angle, not even a quick pic for your Instagram followers before the first bite. Little do these restaurants know, this ban can actually make their customers' food taste worse, so to speak.
If you have a hard time remembering what you've just read on your iPad or Kindle, try changing the font next time. The typeface you use to read books, newspapers, and online articles is either hurting or helping your memory, and you'll be surprised which ones are killing your brain cells.
To-do list and reminder apps are a dime a dozen on Google Play, so trying to find the right one for you could take hours as you sift through hundreds of similar apps and widgets. Well, search no more, as we've found one of the most well-designed and easy-to-use reminder apps out there.
When it comes to pizza, everyone has strong opinions about how they like their pie, whether they prefer deep dish, thin crust, Chicago-style, or gluten-free. However, most people agree that a pizza is composed of some basic parts: a single layer of crust (usually wheat-based), sauce (usually tomato-based, cheese, and toppings. Yet enterprising cooks out there are putting a spin on the classic by turning pizza on its head. Sink your teeth into these pizza hacks before it's too late!
Reading is no longer a leisure activity—it's an on-the-go activity that requires speed and less attention. That's why speed reading apps are growing in popularity. As smartphones and tablets increasingly take over the traditional book market, reading skills need to be adjusted accordingly, so you can cram in 5 pages in-between texts and emails.
I have an embarrassing habit: I type with six fingers. Just as your grandma pecks at the keyboard with her two index fingers, I rely solely on my index, middle, and thumb fingers only. But it's not as slow as you think, and I'm not the only one out there that does it.
There's a lot of personal information residing on your phone, possibly even more than on your computer, so it's only a matter of time before someone tries to access it.
It's been rumored ever since the 2012 release of the Kindle Fire, and now Amazon's first smartphone is set to debut a little later this year.
What's the point of having a 1080p screen if you're not using it to get in some quality gaming time? Google Play is great for downloading games, but you probably already have an extensive library of games for your consoles, so use those!
Dropbox, the cloud backup tool that is a mainstay on many of our devices, has added two companion apps to its service. Earlier today, we showed you a glimpse into a new testing version of the Gmail app, with features like pinning and snoozing to keep your inbox in check. Now, Dropbox has released Mailbox for Android, about a year after they purchased the company and its iOS app, with a simple goal: taming your inbox.
If you've seen ParaNorman or Fantastic Mr. Fox, then you have some kind of idea of what stop-motion animation is. Basically, these artists make objects, or small figures, appear to be moving on their own by manipulating and repositioning them in the smallest increments, then capturing each frame after doing so. When all the frames are compiled together, the final product is something spectacular like The Nightmare Before Christmas, which took roughly 109,440 frames in all.
By this point, you've definitely come across an app or two that wasn't designed with the HTC One in mind. Either the resolution is too small, the status bar stays active when it shouldn't, or the font isn't the ideal size. There are ways out there to get that changed, but up until now it wouldn't just change one app—it would change all of them.
Windows 8's interface was met with criticism when it was released, mainly directed at the tiled Start screen, a departure from Windows versions of old. Many felt that this new home screen style was better suited for mobile devices like Microsoft's Surface tablets and Windows Phones.
Your smartphone has a ton of ringtone options built in, but ringtones haven't really changed much in the past decade, and it's definitely not cool to hear someone in the supermarket with the same lame ringer. While replacing the stock sounds with a song of your choosing is the best way to keep your phone personalized, why not go a step further using a video?
If you've been using Google's hidden App Ops to lock down and prevent some of your Android applications from exposing your privacy, then think twice before updating to the new Android 4.4.2 software.
