Most of us have traded our desktop systems for laptops, tablets, and mobile devices, meaning there's a lot of outdated hardware sitting in attics. Want to give your old computer a new purpose? Matthew Chappee turned his iMac G4 into an HDTV using the guide by Dremel Junkie. One thing to note before you take on this project yourself is that if you want to use it to watch cable, you'll need a converter box to get around the MPAA's HDCP restriction. But, a converter box is considerably less expe...
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...
For over three years, Facebook users have been able to clog up their Facebook chats with little pictures of smiley faces and red hearts, but now it has finally gone a step further...
Harnessing the power of the sun is something that Captain Planet made cool before it was the go-to for renewable energy. Solar-powered energy is quick and cheap, and can make for some really cool DIY projects. And for those of you wondering what you should do with your old satellite, look no further. Aaron from Sharealikelicence offers up a way to create a DIY outdoor satellite cooker. He started with an old Ku Band dish and covered it with aluminum tape, for better reflection of the sunlight...
Portal, the popular game from Valve, has been critically acclaimed since its release in 2007. Its unique gameplay and humorous storyline is the reason for its popularity amongst nerds everywhere. This has also spawned a large community in cosplay and prop design. The most popular aspect of the game has to be the awesome portal gun. The gun creates companion portals on almost any surface that allow the player to jump form place to place with ease and also allows you to move heavy objects with ...
The newest update of the Firefox web browser was released yesterday, and whether you were upgraded automatically or manually, Mozilla is advising that you downgrade to Firefox 15.0.1 as soon as possible. Firefox 16 is Mozilla's latest release, and is apparently extremely susceptible to malicious sites hacking their users complete browsing history.
Michael Faraday was awesome. He discovered electromagnetic induction, diamagnetism and electrolysis, and he invented the Bunsen burner (before it was the Bunsen burner). Because of his work, we can make suits that can withstand 1,000,000 volts of electricity and cases to protect our gadgets from nuclear attacks.
Earlier this week, we learned that you can get people to put more money in a tip jar simply by drawing eyes on it. But what if you want to keep them away from something? Eyes can do that, too, especially when they're Putin's.
An isomorphic (or self-transposing) keyboard is "a musical device where a grid of notes is displayed to the user and the interval change between notes in constant for any given direction." For those of you who didn't grow up playing the piano like I did, that basically means that it lets you move between keys easily without having to learn new patterns because the keys are laid out so that a chord is the same pattern in every musical key.
Most of the spam messages are commercial advertisements, phishing websites and get rich quickly messages that asks users to provide personal details and other confidential information.Spam filters in Gmail prevent its users from these spam messages and restrict them to enter in user’s Gmail inbox.Generally, it acts like a firewall between spam messages and Gmail Inbox.Gmail filters detect the sender’s email address and accordingly send the received messages in Inbox or Spam folder.
It seems like every other day there's a new security threat or data leak in the news. Whether it's your credit card PIN or your smartphone's apps leaking your email address, no one wants their personal information out there, especially passwords. And if you use the same email address and/or password for more than one site, the effects of someone getting hold of your credentials can be catastrophic.
Want to know when you have a visitor, even if you're not home? You could always set up a security system and live-stream it with your iPhone. But if you don't have a spare iPhone, or just don't want to go to the trouble, this simple hack will add text message alerts to your doorbell so that it lets you know when someone's there.
To say that I am disappointed with the new Maps application in iOS 6 is an understatement. And it seems like the rest of the world is with me, so I needed to find a solution—and quick. Installing the Google Maps web application is a nice quick-fix, but those looking for a beefier navigation solution should check out one of these free map apps.
Want to take advantage of your neighbor's super fast Wi-Fi connection? If they're smart, they probably have it password protected (otherwise you wouldn't be reading this, would you?). But if you have an Android phone, you can get back at them for always parking in your spot and slamming the door when they get home at 2 a.m.—by stealing...er, borrowing, their connection.
Dried out markers are the worst. They take up space, and for some reason, even though they're totally useless, most of us have at least a few lying around just for the sake of not throwing them out. Luckily, Julie Finn over at Crafting a Green World has come up with a way to repurpose them into alcohol ink, a versatile type of ink that can be used on non-porous materials like plastic, glass, and metal. This is truly a tutorial for the pack rat in all of us. First, a little primer on what you ...
Whether you want to use it to keep your guests safe or just to see who's the most drunk, it's always fun to have your own breathalyzer at a party. We've seen DIY breathalyzers before, like this one by Craig Smith, but how about an Arduino breathalyzer?
Most of us have given up our big, bulky stereos in favor of smaller, sleeker models, but how many of us actually get rid of the old ones? If you don't like the idea of throwing out or giving away electronics you spent good money on, you can always upgrade them instead!
So you've made a somersaulting robot, one that delivers your beer, and even a robot you can ride, but you want to try out something really different. Why not add a steam engine?
One of the most played-up features of Windows 8 is that it's so much faster than previous versions. So fast, in fact, that Microsoft had to change the way that users access the BIOS because 200 milliseconds just isn't enough time to hit the right key. It may take some getting used to, but it's probably a welcome change for most people, considering that the "right" key is different depending on what type of computer you're running the OS on.
There's a lot of firsts that President Barack Obama can claim, like being the first POTUS from Hawaii, the first to publicly support same-sex marriage, and of course, the first African American to hold office. One of his coolest firsts, though, is that he's the first American president to ever brew his own beer in the White House. And thanks to a Redditor who filed a Freedom of Information Act request, two recipes have been released so that home brewers everywhere can give them a try.
You've probably seen the classic fruit battery science experiment a thousand times, but I doubt you've ever seen it turned into an art project! Photographer Caleb Charland uses everyday objects like apples, coins and vinegar to create makeshift batteries, then takes these gorgeous long exposure photos. For the apple tree photo, Charland got about 5 volts for every 10 apples, so he had to wire 300 apples to power the lamp for several hours. He used a zinc-coated galvanized nail and copper wire...
If you've ever been on your way to a party and felt that your outfit just wasn't flashy enough, engineering student 'Rambo' has got just the thing for you. His homemade LED suit lights up and dances to the beat of the music, and can even be controlled via Bluetooth.
Security researcher Nadim Kobeissi has discovered that the Windows 8 SmartScreen feature, meant to screen downloads for malicious software, actually reports the data about which applications users are installing to Microsoft. He also says that "the Microsoft server is configured to support SSLv2 which is known to be insecure and susceptible to interception." The two main concerns are the ability of law enforcement to subpoena Microsoft for the information and of hackers to intercept user data...
Shooting a photo or video in a car can be rather difficult without a proper mount, and if you want to secure your camera outside the car, it can be just plain expensive. Luckily, there are tons of DIY camera mounts for both inside and outside your vehicle, and most of them are pretty cheap to make. Here are some of the best.
Hate answering the door, but don't trust your friends with a set of keys? This RFID front door lock made by Steve Pomeroy will solve all your party-hosting problems. It reads the RFID tags in his friends' public transit cards and decides who's allowed in based on "groups" that Steve defines. And I have to say, it's also rather stylish. It's controlled by an Arduino serial console and a custom Android app to add and remove cards. The reader can store 50 or 100 tags at a time and allows 7 diffe...
Security researcher and iPhone hacker pod2g has brought attention to a flaw in Apple's iOS that allows the user to change the reply address of an SMS message. This bug has been a part of the iPhone's SMS since the first iPhone in 2007, but Apple has yet to address it. Basically, there's a section in the text payload called User Data Heading (UDH) that controls some advanced features, one of which is the reply address. By changing the reply address of a text message, you can make someone send ...
As if the world needed one more reason to be obsessed with Shark Week, Volkswagen has teamed up with Discovery Channel to create this awesome "underwater car" that's actually a mobile shark cage.
One of the most annoying things about summer is mowing the lawn. Depending on how big your yard is, it can mean spending hours out in the hot sun while you could be doing something a lot more fun like watching the Olympics or making giant soap bubbles. Reclaim your summer with this remote control lawn mower that does all the hard work for you.
Want to build your own life-sized, working replica of WALL-E? Be prepared to take on a second job! Mike Senna spent two years perfecting his own version, working 25 hours a week and totaling somewhere around 3,800 hours for the whole project. He had no blueprints to go by, so he spent a lot of time watching the movie over and over to get everything just right. The video below shows some of the construction; skip to about the one minute mark to see WALL-E in action.
One of the biggest time-consuming nuisances for any barbecue is prepping corn on the cob. If you've got a lot of mouths to feed, shucking corn is just downright painful, thanks to all of those silk strings that hide in the crevices of the kernel rows.
AdSense. It's a beautiful thing, isn't it? Google AdSense is something every website owner or blogger should use… it's what every blog needs… if you plan on making any money and surviving. So, how much traffic do you need to actually start making money via AdSense? This video will try and answer that question for you. You must have targeted traffic to drive your blog.
StumbleUpon is one of the biggest ways to draw attention to a blog, website, or webpage. If you're not using StumbleUpon, you're doing something wrong. It's just like Digg. If you take action now, you can start reaping the benefits of StumbleUpon traffic to your blog. By using StumbleUpon advertisements also works, too. There are many tricks to use for increasing web traffic, and this is just one way.
With the nation facing a shortage of ventilators for COVID-19 patients and no apparent ramp-up in the production of new ones, engineers, medical resistents, and do-it-yourselfers are sharing plans for homemade versions.
The 280-character limit for tweets on Twitter is double what it used to be back in the day, but it's still not enough to express in-depth thoughts, ideas, commentary, rants, blogs, stories, and the like. These tweetstorms, as they're called, are the reason why Twitter created its threads feature.
Every step in the evolution of computing brings an in-kind leap forward in user input technology. The personal computer had the mouse, touchscreens made smartphones mainstream consumer devices, and AR headsets like the HoloLens and the Magic Leap One have leveraged gesture recognition.
Last week, Twilio showed off how avatar-based chat communications will work on the Magic Leap One, and now a new startup has unveiled yet another way that augmented reality telepresence and remote collaboration can take place on the device.
WordPress did not become what is arguably the most popular blogging and CMS platform on the planet because it was difficult to use. Rather, its user-friendly and rich feature set led to it finding a home on somewhere north of 70 million websites—and that's just counting blogs hosted on WordPress.com.
For many of you, this is common knowledge. But I still regularly see comments posted here and elsewhere asking, "This <AV bypass> doesn't work, because when I upload my payload to VirusTotal...."
Want to impress your friends by showing that you're hot stuff? Put your face on a magazine. This short tutorial shows you how to create a fake magazine cover on the web, using your own personal pictures. Just go to MagMeNow.
Add even more personal touches to your crocheted items. This how to video is a tutorial on how to embroider crochet projects using the lazy daisy stitch. You can embroider just about anything with the daisy stitch. Watch and learn.
