Our dog has tons of energy and always wants to play. However, play time can be exhausting to the humans of the house. We found out a few months ago that the dog loves to play ‘chase the red dot.' Boredom leads to creativity, so we attached a laser pointer to her head with a bandana and small piece of tape. This kept her continuously occupied until we removed it after 20 minutes. I assume you could try this with a cat if you were daring enough – good luck with that. Caution: Laser pointers (ev...
Apple's keyboard has a set of media controls to navigate the music playing on iTunes, allowing you to play, pause, skip, and replay songs and videos. Unfortunately, these controls are exclusive to iTunes; if you're playing music from Spotify, Pandora, or the myriad of other online web-based services (Amazon, Rdio, SoundCloud, etc.), you're out of luck.
Adjusting the brightness on your Android device is a simple but highly utilized action. For the most part, aside from the Sprint LG G3 variant, the brightness slider can be conveniently found nestled in your notification panel. And though it is easy to access, there is a small drawback to this feature.
Third-party keyboard support, introduced earlier this year by Apple with iOS 8, was initially pretty awesome. I loved playing around with all of the different options available in the iOS App Store, including SwiftKey, TouchPal, GIF Keyboard, and Swype.
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.
On earlier Android versions, you were able to hold down on an app's icon in the recent apps menu (aka app switcher) and jump straight to the app's info page. From there, you could easily uninstall the app, force-stop its activity, or clear its cache and data.
Amazon is currently offering over $80 in free Android apps in the Amazon Appstore, but only for Friday and Saturday, so make sure to grab them quick before they all go back to normal price. Highlights include the Fleksy Keyboard (normally $3.99), Oxford Dictionary of English with Audio (normally $24.99), and EasyTether (normally $9.99).
While the new Lollipop wallpapers are great, they'll eventually get stale like all of the others. I've covered a bunch of cool Android wallpaper apps previously, including ones that give you psychedelic and shake-to-change options, but this time I was on the hunt for some geometrical-based ones.
While we wait for our chance to get our hands on Android Lollipop, Google has already released Material Design updates to most of their apps. I love the new direction of the updated UI, but something just seemed to be lacking in tying everything together.
Apple Pay is ready for use at over 220,000 outlets across the United States. By using your iPhone 6 or 6 Plus, all you have to do is point your device at any NFC-enabled point-of-sale system compatible with Apple Pay, press your fingerprint on the home button, and voilà—you've just paid for something with your card. As a matter of fact, the store doesn't even need to have Apple Pay compatibility to work with your phone. If their machines have NFC-technology, they'll recognize your device (unl...
Although sleep mode and screen savers contribute to the security and energy preservation of my MacBook, it can become a nuisance when they initiate unwelcomely. Yes, I could just change these settings in System Preferences, but to do this every time I momentarily leave my Mac unattended would be tedious, to say the least.
The OnePlus One comes with CyanogenMod 11S built in, but there are certainly some traditional CyanogenMod features missing from this version. One of the most obvious missing ingredients is the lack of a native SuperUser app, most likely to prevent inexperienced users from causing unintentional damage to their device's software.
Whenever a picture is sent via MMS, a certain amount of compression needs to be done in order for a carrier's network to send it. That compression is meant to ease strain on the network, but in the end it leads to heavy downsizing and increased graininess in pictures.
Lending someone your phone to make a call is always an awkward situation, as you closely monitor them to make sure they stick to a phone call rather than wandering off into private applications like your photo or messaging apps. You don't necessarily want to eavesdrop on their conversation, but trusting people with your phone is difficult, especially if you have some risqué or embarrassing pictures stored on it.
For the most part, Finder has had the same basic functionality through the various releases of OS X. But Apple's lack of interest in adding new bells and whistles to the backbone of their operating system simply means that 3rd-party developers get to shine, and Tran Ky Nam is one such developer. He created his own extension for Finder that adds tabbed browsing, dual pane mode, cut & paste functionality, and much, much more.
There are those who hold their phone or set it down when they're not using it, and others, like myself, who pocket it. If you're like me and are rocking the pants pocket fade, then you'll love the new Android app I found.
I may not be a well-traveled man, but one thing I've learned from my few excursions across the world is that currency exchange rates are a serious pain to keep up with. With global markets seemingly in a continuous flux, I started looking for anything to make staying on top of them easier, and thats when I found Price Helper.
The Billboard Charts have been a measurement of commercial success for pop songs since roughly the time that radios became a household item. In its modern form, Billboard ranks the sales and performance of all singles with its "Hot 100" chart, as well as many other genre-specific rankings.
Google's Chromecast streaming device is a marvel of functionality and form. Even with powerful features such as screen mirroring and collaborative party playlists, it's the device's idle screen that first catches the eyes of most folks.
Oddly enough, stock Android does not come with a "do not disturb" function out of the box. Samsung has their own version built into to TouchWiz called "Blocking Mode," and Apple has had their "Do Not Disturb" feature since iOS 6, so why is stock Android so late to the game?
Watching a YouTube video while surfing the web is real multitasking, and easily achievable on the LG G3. Like the "Multi Window" feature on Samsung Galaxy devices, the G3 has the ability to run two separate apps simultaneously with its Dual Window feature.
Whether you are just starting or returning to college, or have already been out in the real world for some time, it's always a good idea to stay on top of your game by keeping your intellect sharp. While it may be easy to just sit in front of your TV, watching reruns of The Big Bang Theory, why not use that time to brush up on some chemistry, calculus, or general learning strategies?
Screen mirroring was a long-awaited feature for the Chromecast, now available for select devices (and even more with root). While great news for those who couldn't wait to play games, watch movies, and browse pictures on a big screen, it did mean that you had to keep your device's screen on the entire time it was being mirrored.
The first thing you probably noticed after turning on your LG G3 for the first time was its gorgeous Quad HD display. The G3 is the first device to offer the soon-to-be standard QHD screen, and it's a beauty. That being said, the colors can look flat and dull, especially when compared to my previous device, the Galaxy S4.
Last week, I showed off a deeply buried accessibility feature built into iOS 7 and 8 that lets you disable screen touches in certain apps. While useful for many reasons, I found it most helpful for preventing nosy family and friends from swiping through the Camera Roll when showing them a photo.
Does it seem like everybody you know is declaring that they're gluten-free? Some wonder if the number of people with celiac disease are on the rise or if it's the latest fad diet. And it even goes beyond food: now there are beauty products that tout themselves as being free of gluten.
On a recent trip to Palm Springs, I found myself navigating with Google Maps and virtually exploring my destiniation using its built-in Street View feature. The thing is, using Street View can make keeping track of your exact location difficult as you zoom in, out, and about. It's a little discombobulating.
Facebook may connect millions of its users to each other with its messenger service, but it can also make it very difficult to avoid those annoying "friends."
For any multitude of reasons, some apps require you to be connected to Wi-Fi in order to function properly. This could be because they would rather you have a stable connection to enjoy their content, or that they don't want users complaining about the amount of data being guzzled from carrier data plans.
If you want to try out some of the new features in Android L, but can't run the developer preview on your Nexus—or simply don't want to—there's still hope. You don't actually need to be running Android L to try out some of the new improvements.
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.
If you thought the price of Photoshop was outrageous, you'll be thrilled to know that Adobe has found yet another way to grab your hard-earned dollars—but this time, it isn't software. Ready to take your drawings to the next level, the company has created the Adobe Ink and Slide. Together, these products will make drawing on an iPad a whole lot easier.
Tequila is a hard liquor that's often been misunderstood. Produced from the agave plant, this aged spirit has complex flavors that bloom the longer it's aged and can rival the finest scotch.
It looks like Snapchat, it feels like Snapchat, but after using it for a few minutes, you realize there is a huge difference between Facebook's new Slingshot app and the Snapchat we've all grown so accustomed to.
Long-exposure photography gives us the ability the capture some pretty amazing shots by delicately capturing moving elements in an image while keeping the shutter open at a slow speed. While that's great for things like traffic, scenery, and carnival rides, it can come in especially handy for 4th of July fireworks.
Loving parents can suffer bouts of insomnia when their children leave the house. Not just when they move out, but when hanging out with friends or during out-of-town weekends. Others may worry about their significant other who has to work late all week and their only option for getting home is that sketchy nighttime bus.
Twitter found a sweet spot with its 160-character limit, but Snapchat sports a social media low of 31 characters, forcing us to condense our ideas into a few short words when typing in picture captions because of their ephemeral nature. While this severely limited amount of words is Snapchat etiquette, I've got so much more to say than 31 characters!
I don’t buy socks—I get a pack from my parents on Christmas Day, so I’ve got to make sure they last all year. Other than losing them mysteriously in the dryer, the biggest threat to my limited sock collection is a stretched out cuff. Nothing's more frustrating than a loose sock sliding down into your shoe.
Released last year for iOS devices, Frontback is a simple photo-taking and sharing app that not only snaps a picture of what's directly in front of the camera, but also behind it, which is to say, a selfie.
Utility tool apps provide extremely powerful and useful lightweight replacements for your parents' heavy archaic tools—everything from flashlights to tracking systems and more.
