How To: Use Real Currency on Xbox Live Right Now Instead of Those Confusing Microsoft Points
For the most part, Xbox Live is amazing, but there is one thing that has been annoying for pretty much everyone, to say the least. Microsoft Points.
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How To: Revoke Facebook's Location Privileges on Your Samsung Galaxy Note 2 (So They Can't Track You Anymore)
Facebook knows who all of your closest friends and family are. When you backpacked across Europe last summer, they went along on the trip. Remember that break up two years ago? Yeah, they were there. The breakfast you ate this morning? They probably have a picture of it. They're even right under your own feet.
How To: Make Your Car Read Texts Out Loud the Moment They Arrive on Your Samsung Galaxy Note 2
Last month, Alexander Heit drifted into oncoming traffic after being distracted from the road. His sudden correction forced his vehicle to roll and flip over. He was pronounced dead at a local hospital shortly thereafter. All because of a freaking text message. He was only 22 years old.
How To: Recycle Red Plastic Cups into a Sweet Set of Stringed Party Lights
Plastic red cups are synonymous with college parties, beer pong, and generally a good time. The reason these cups are so rampant in the party scene is because they're cheap, easily disposable, and, well... who wants to drink out of a blue cup?!? Oh, to be young and in debt.
How To: Keep Tall Boots from Slouching (And Organize Your Closet Chaos)
During the colder months, it seems like almost everyone wears boots. Even when it's hot out, people can be spotted with knee-highs and westerns. Whether it's for fashion or because you live in a place where 3 feet of snow is common, a good pair of boots (or five) is nice to have.
How To: Is Facebook's New Graph Search Creepy or Cool?
Facebook has been looking to launch a new product for a while now, and it seems they've finally realized what they're best at—being as creepy as possible. If you thought your boss checking out your girlfriend's beach photos was weird, Facebook's new Graph Search has only upped the ante. Now, I don't want to be an alarmist, because I'm sure there are a bunch of great things a Facebook search would find. If you're single, perhaps you could search "Girls that are single that like Goodfellas." Th...
How To: Turn Ordinary Water into Explosive Gas That Goes KABOOM!
Maybe not water per-se, but with this simple technique you can turn one of the most abundant materials on earth into a highly explosive gas.
How To: Repurpose Your Old LEGO Bricks into a Functional Hanging Key Holder
LEGO may no longer be in its heyday, but those colored building blocks of joy can still make some really cool and creative things. I mean, take a look at these pieces from LEGO artist Nathan Sawaya. While making something like that is undoubtedly impressive, it could be just a little too difficult for the common LEGO enthusiast—and expensive (LEGOs aren't cheap these days). So, for the regular LEGO-builders, usefulness is more important that extravagance.
How To: Are Your Cloud Documents Safe from Hackers? Make Sure with These Free Cloud-Worthy Encryption Programs
The convenience of storing things on the cloud can definitely make life easier, but if you're storing sensitive files, it could be a total disaster if anyone hacked your account. Some encryption services can be expensive, but if you just need it for personal use, there are some really great ones that don't cost anything. Here are three programs that let you encrypt your cloud storage for free. BoxCryptor
How To: Stop Facial Recognition Software from Finding Out Who You Are on Camera
Facial recognition software is being more widely used with every passing day. Your local law enforcement is probably already using it, and it will be even easier for them now that the FBI handed out its own facial recognition software to state authorities. Even the fine folks at Facebook are using this technology. Obviously, this brings up some pretty serious privacy concerns amongst most people, because honestly, who wants to be tracked? Right now, there's not a lot we can do about it being ...
How To: Save Money Barbecuing This Summer with One of These Inventive DIY Grills
Sometimes you just want to grill. It doesn't matter where you are, what you have, or whom you're with—you just want a delicious burger and you don't care what it takes.
How To: McDonald's Secret Sauce Revealed: Here's the Official Big Mac Recipe
If you've ever wondered what exactly goes into a McDonald's sandwich (or what the heck that secret sauce stuff is anyways), you might be a little surprised to learn that all of the ingredients are readily available at your local grocery store. In an interesting move, McDonald's has released a video featuring Executive Chef Dan Coudreaut showing, step by step, how to make your own Big Mac sandwich at home. Here is the video, and if you'd like to read along with Coudreaut's instructions, you ca...
How To: Grow fresh garlic indoors
Love fresh garlic but don't have the outside space or right climate to grow it? Not to worry! This video is here to show you how to grow your very own fresh picked garlic indoors. Follow these easy steps and you'll have a delicious seasoning in a couple of weeks, and full grown heads of garlic in a couple of months!
How To: Remove stains from your car seats and carpet
In this tutorial, we learn how to remove stains from your car seats and carpet. To start, you will need cheap orange cleaner that you can find from your local Dollar Store, as well as cheap carpet cleaner. When you find the stain that is on your carpet, you will first spray it with the orange spray, then go over it once more with the carpet spray. After this, use a scrubbing brush and wash cloth to scrub out the stain in the affected area. When finished, let dry or use a vacuum to soak up any...
How To: Check your internet speed without software
In this video you will learn how to check your internet speed without using any software. In order to do that just follow these simple and quick steps and instructions: The first thing that you need to do is to double-click on your Local Area Connection icon. A window will appear and you will see what your speed is on the right of it. The speed of your internet will be in Mbps. If you follow these easy and quick steps you will now how to check your internet speed without using any software or...
How To: Use a cold frame to extend the growing season
A cold frame is a great way to extend the growing season in your garden. When you set up a cold frame, you can keep your plants healthy and growing, even when it's cold outside. In this video tutorial, you'll learn how to set up and use a cold frame.
How To: Aerate your soil using a broadfork
Aerating your soil is an essential part of gardening, but it can be long and back-breaking work. In this episode of Growing Wisdom, Dave Epstein will teach you how to use a broadfork to aerate your soil. Using a broadfork, you can aerate the soil without damaging the soil's ecology.
How To: Preserve fresh fruit
With the growing popularity of buying local, many people are rediscovering the benefits of preserving fruit at home. Concerns over food origin, additives and preservatives are driving this trend and in just 20 minutes you can enjoy fresh produce all year long. Watch this how to video to learn more about picking fresh food and the preservation process.
How To: Make a light board
Looking for a great idea for a science project? In this video series you'll learn how to build a battery-run light board which can test the electrical conductivity of various objects. You can find these supplies easily at your local hardware store.
How To: Massage data in Houdini 10
Get a crash course on HScript Expressions, Variables, and Attributes in Houdini 10. If you don't even know what this means, then you probably need to check this video tutorial series out. Understanding how to massage data in Houdini is key to giving yourself the creative edge and allowing you to unleash mind-blowing visual effects. This 18-part video series covers a variety of simple yet essential weapons in your arsenal including Global, Standard and Custom Variables to Math and String Modif...
How To: Convert WordPress into an Adobe Flex 3 application
In this tutorial series Mike Lively shows how to convert Wordpress into the Adobe Flex 3 application Flexpress.
How To: Read a golf scorecard
When you start to play golf, you will need to know certain things like how to keep score and follow the game. When looking at a golf scorecard, there is typically a list of local rules listed, and these rules should be taken into account in addition to USGA rules. Find out how handicaps indicate the difficulty of a hole in golf in this helpful tutorial. So, if you are ready to start playing, follow along with this video and start taking proper score.
How To: Plant seeds using a pinpoint seeder
It can be a real challenge to plant your seeds in evenly-spaced lines. In this episode of Growing Wisdom, Dave Epstein will show you how to use a four-row pinpoint seeder to plenty your seeds. Using devices like this, planting seeds in even lines will be a whole lot easier.
How To: Breathe while swimming
Breathing is a skill to master before trying advanced swimming strokes. Learning to breathe while swimming will enable rapid progress. Get expert tips and advice in this swimming video tutorial.
How To: Make filenames case sensitive in Windows and Linux
It may not seem like a big deal, but sometimes when your filenames are being saved in the incorrect case, it is. If you save a file with uppercase letters in the name, your computer may change them to all lowercase. This occurs when downloading files form a host server to a local hard drive. But what if you want them back how you had them? Well, there's a small Windows tweak you can use to stop it from happening. Learn how!
How To: Use Postenum to Gather Vital Data During Post-Exploitation
Post-exploitation is often not quite as exciting as popping the initial shell, but it's a crucial phase for gathering data and further privilege escalation. Once a target is compromised, there's a lot of information to find and sift through. Luckily, there are tools available that can make the process easy. One such tool is Postenum.
How To: Use Zero-Width Characters to Hide Secret Messages in Text (& Even Reveal Leaks)
You may be familiar with image-based or audio-based steganography, the art of hiding messages or code inside of pictures, but that's not the only way to conceal secret communications. With zero-width characters, we can use text-based steganography to stash hidden information inside of plain text, and we can even figure out who's leaking documents online.
News: Billionaire Silicon Valley Tech Leader Wants Businesses to Stay Open, but Healthy Public Must Come First vs. Coronavirus
There are times when leadership is tested. This is one of those times. As government and business leaders around the world are grappling with the unfolding coronavirus pandemic, the real-time responses to the crisis from many leaders have been great and, at times, less-than-optimal.
How To: 7 Tips to Improve Your Privacy & Safety on Twitter
As fun as Twitter is, it can also quickly turn scary. Anonymous, aggressive, and troll accounts can attack you for your tweets and stalk your every move. While you could make your profile private and block users, there are lesser-known privacy and security features that you can switch to improve your safety online.
How To: Hack UnrealIRCd Using Python Socket Programming
UnrealIRCd is an open-source IRC server that has been around since 1999 and is perhaps the most widely used one today. Version 3.2.8.1 was vulnerable to remote code execution due to a backdoor in the software. Today, we will be exploiting the vulnerability with Metasploit, examining the underlying code to understand it, and creating our own version of the exploit in Python.
How To: Quickly Gather Target Information with Metasploit Post Modules
Post-exploitation information gathering can be a long and drawn-out process, but it is an essential step when trying to pivot or establish advanced persistence. Every hacker should know how to enumerate a target manually, but sometimes it is worth it to automate the process. Metasploit contains post modules that can quickly gather valuable information about a target, saving both time and effort.
How To: Bypass UAC & Escalate Privileges on Windows Using Metasploit
UAC is something we've all dealt with on Windows, either as a user, administrator, or attacker. It's a core feature of the Windows security model, and for the most part, it does what it's supposed to. But it can be frustrating as a hacker when attempting privilege escalation, but it's easy enough to bypass UAC and obtain System access with Metasploit.
How To: Manually Exploit EternalBlue on Windows Server Using MS17-010 Python Exploit
EternalBlue was a devastating exploit that targeted Microsoft's implementation of the SMB protocol. Metasploit contains a useful module that will automatically exploit a target, as long as it's vulnerable. But what if we wanted to exploit this vulnerability without Metasploit holding our hand? It can be done using a Python file to exploit EternalBlue manually.
News: Turn a Vacation into a Treasure Hunt with Just Your Phone
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.
Opinion: Apple's New Credit Card Is an Essential Piece of Its Impending AR Smartglasses Rollout. Here's Why
On Monday, Apple unveiled its Apple Card, the company's boldest move yet toward becoming a truly mainstream mobile payments company. And the product has vast implications for our augmented reality future, some of which may not be immediately obvious to many.
How To: Scan for Vulnerabilities on Any Website Using Nikto
Before attacking any website, a hacker or penetration tester will first compile a list of target surfaces. After they've used some good recon and found the right places to point their scope at, they'll use a web server scanning tool such as Nikto for hunting down vulnerabilities that could be potential attack vectors.
How To: Detect Vulnerabilities in a Web Application with Uniscan
With the number of web applications out there today, it comes as no surprise that there are just as many vulnerabilities waiting for hackers to discover. Finding those vulnerabilities can be a difficult task, but there are plenty of tools available to make the process easier. While it won't help find any zero-days, web scanners such as Uniscan will detect common vulnerabilities.
How To: Brute-Force Nearly Any Website Login with Hatch
The tactic of brute-forcing a login, i.e., trying many passwords very quickly until the correct one is discovered, can be easy for services like SSH or Telnet. For something like a website login page, we must identify different elements of the page first. Thanks to a Python tool for brute-forcing websites called Hatch, this process has been simplified to the point that even a beginner can try it.
How To: Take Control of Sonos IoT Devices with Python
Many popular IoT devices have terrible security. For instance, a hacker who's on the same Wi-Fi network as a Sonos speaker can assume direct control over the device's behavior. If an IoT device doesn't secure the messages used to control it over a network, it's easy for somebody to write a few Python scripts to make it do whatever they want.
How To: Use SQL Injection to Run OS Commands & Get a Shell
One of the ultimate goals in hacking is the ability to obtain shells in order to run system commands and own a target or network. SQL injection is typically only associated with databases and their data, but it can actually be used as a vector to gain a command shell. As a lesson, we'll be exploiting a simple SQL injection flaw to execute commands and ultimately get a reverse shell on the server.