Machine Traits Search Results

How To: Give Your MacBook's Battery a Longer, Healthier Life with These Power Tips

Apple's MacBook line of laptops is quite famous for their extensive battery life, thanks to various technologies that Apple has utilized. However, all things must pass, and over time your MacBook's battery will degrade. Certain use scenarios can accelerate the degradation of the battery—from excessive usage to high temperatures to overloading the system—and this can all lead to the untimely obliteration of your battery.

How To: Get Rid of Microsoft's Annoying Ads on the Windows 10 Lock Screen

For the past three or four months, Microsoft has been pushing advertisements onto the lock screens of some Windows 10 users as part of its "Windows Spotlight" feature. This feature normally shows you scenic photographs and gives you the option to learn more about them by launching an Edge window once you log in. However, the aforementioned users have reported seeing the image below for the new Rise of the Tomb Raider game. Rather than taking you online in Edge to learn about it, you're given ...

How To: Make Coffee Mugs Gleam Like New with This Little-Known Cleaner

If you consider yourself a regular coffee, tea, or hot chocolate drinker, you probably have a kitchen cabinet full of stained mugs that refuse to scrub clean. Thankfully, there is a better solution that doesn't involve continuing to fight those stains with a sponge, bleach, and elbow grease. The answer to your coffee or tea stain problems is Cafiza: an awesome espresso machine cleaning product that is popular amongst professional baristas... but also doubles as an extremely effective ceramic ...

How To: Hack into a Mac Without the Password

Hello, my fellow hackers. My name is cl0ck. I am a senior majoring in Computer Engineering with an emphasis is Security. I have been lurking the site for a while now reading and learning from the great minds that reside here. I, too, have some knowledge that I would like to share with all of you. This post actually comes from a personal problem I faced and had to find a solution for. Without further ado, here it is:

News: 9 Notorious Hackers

I found this article a while back and I found it underneath a bunch of junk. Anyway, it's a article on 9 notorious hacker including Walter O'Brien (You know the T.V. show Scorpion? Well that's him). Not to mention the weird names:

How To: Do a Simple NMAP Scan on Armatige

How to do an NMAP scan on Armitage to find IPs within a certain range. Armitage is a gui interface of Metasploit, and advanced hacking/exploiting program. It can be downloaded from http://metasploit.com/ and http://fastandeasyhacking.com/ and you will need NMAP. http://www.nmap.org/

How To: Make a Client/Server Connection in Ruby

Recently, I've been learning Ruby as a second scripting language. But one topic I never covered with the many lessons online were sockets. So I did some research and came up with a very simple client/server connection that sends a string over the socket.

Food Tool Friday: Meet the Big Green Egg—The Ultimate Cookout Machine

At first glance, the Big Green Egg looks like it was created by Dr. Seuss or some other whimsy-driven being, like Zooey Deschanel. And while this earthenware cooker may look cute, it produces serious results that can rival the best barbecue or grill. In fact, it's got quite a large cult following. Entrepreneur and former Navy serviceman Ed Fisher fell in love with the taste of food cooked in kamodos (traditional domed, covered earthenware vessels in Japan) and began to import them for sale in...

How To: Scan & Save Old Printed Photos to Your Smartphone

Believe it or not, there was a time when smartphones weren't the primary tool for taking photos. People actually walked around with bulky film-based cameras on their necks, and some even used cheap disposables. While photography wasn't introduced to the world when smartphones came out, it's definitely more accessible—and everyone is a photographer now.

Hack Like a Pro: Linux Basics for the Aspiring Hacker, Part 22 (Samba)

Welcome back, my aspiring hackers! Those of you who use Windows in a LAN environment understand that Windows machines can share directories, files, printers, etc. using "shares." This protocol dates back to the 1980s when the then dominant computer firm, IBM, developed a way for computers to communicate over the LAN by just using computer names rather than MAC or IP addresses.

How To: Tweak System Settings & Activate Hidden Features in Yosemite with TinkerTool

Most diehard Mac users have used TinkerTool at some time or another, and if you haven't, it's time to start. Whether it's to change your system's font or to disable UI animations, it seems like anything you could ever think about tweaking in Mac OS X is doable through TinkerTool. And now, developer Marcel Bresink has updated his app to work with Yosemite, so let's see what it can do now.

How To: Make Delicious Horchata

You know how you can go to those little Mexican restaurants that have the refreshing drink machines full of that sweet rice drink, horchata? Did it ever seem like some kind of arcane powdered mix or a secret recipe you would never know? If you've ever found a recipe, did you imagine it needing all these crazy ingredients that you can't find for cheap at your local supermarket?

Hack Like a Pro: How to Exploit SNMP for Reconnaissance

Welcome back, my rookie hackers! The more we know about a system or network, the better our chances of owning it and not leaving a trace for investigators to follow. One of the often overlooked sources for information is the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP). Many rookie hackers are not even aware of it, but it can prove to be a treasure trove of information, if you understand how it works and how to hack it.

Hack Like a Pro: How to Create a Nearly Undetectable Backdoor with Cryptcat

Welcome back, my fledgling hackers! Awhile back, I demonstrated one of my favorite little tools, netcat, which enables us to create a connection between any two machines and transfer files or spawn a command shell for "owning" the system. Despite the beauty and elegance of this little tool, it has one major drawback—the transfers between the computers can be detected by security devices such as firewalls and an intrusion detection system (IDS).

How to Hack Databases: Hunting for Microsoft's SQL Server

Welcome back, my fledgling hackers! The database is the hacker's "pot-of-gold," as it contains information that is very valuable to both the business and the hacker. In this, the second of my series on hacking databases, we're on the "hunt" for Microsoft's SQL Server. Although far from the most commonly used database (Oracle hold's that title), Microsoft's SQL Server is very often found in small-to-medium sized businesses. Even a few big businesses use it.