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How To: The Hardware Hacker's Introduction to Microcontrollers, Part One: Anatomy of an Arduino

In this article, I'll be explaining the basics of how microcontrollers work, physically and virtually. First off, microcontrollers are no simple thing, so don't be discouraged if you find it mind-boggling! The world of microcontrollers is fascinating, engaging, and an awesome hobby; it never gets boring. I'll be focusing more on I/O and analog based microcontrollers, such as those running Arduino, and using Atmel chips as examples (these are most commonly available, and easy to program).

How To: Customize Your Weekly & Daily Goals in MyFitnessPal

When you set up your MyFitnessPal account for the first time, it asks for a checklist of personal info to create nutrition and fitness goals for you. Whatever you decide then, it's important to know that the goals provided to you are not fixed. If your doctor or nutritionist recommends a new plan, or you simply want to change up your routine, you can customize your weekly and daily goals.

How To: The Best Learning Apps on Your Phone for 18-Month-Olds

Give an 18-month-old a shoe, check back 10 minutes later, and it's a very big maybe he will have it on his foot. But give him your smartphone, and in a mere five minutes, he can take 100 pictures of the carpet, send weird messages, and delete essential apps. Imagine what your child could do if they were able to harness this technical aptitude and put it to good use — and they can, with learning apps.

How To: Most File Cleaners Are Trash — Here's Which Ones You Can Trust

Since the release of the T-Mobile G1, the Play Store has been flooded with apps that claim to improve performance by clearing cache and storage. These apps are typically useless, rarely providing more than a temporary fix which Android undoes immediately. As Android has continued to improve cache and storage management, such apps have become more trivial. However, there are few decent ones out there.

How To: Factory Reset Your Android the Right Way

Whether you're performing a factory reset to get your device ready for sale or trade-in, or you're wiping your device in the hopes of fixing software issues, there's a right way and a wrong way to go about it. Sure, it seems like a simple task on the surface, but if you're not careful, you could end up wasting a lot of time or losing precious data.

How To: Watch Free Movies on YouTube

If Netflix's $9.99/month has deterred you from signing up for its streaming service, you're probably looking for cheaper alternatives to stream movies and TV shows, like Crackle (free with ads) or Hulu ($7.99/month with some ads). And now there's a new option for you when it comes to movies—Paramount Vault.

How To: Record Phone Calls on Android

There are plenty of legitimate reasons that you might want to record a phone conversation. Let's say you operate a business and take orders over the phone, and you don't want to miss an item. Or perhaps you need to jot down some notes from a recent conference call, and things were just happening too quickly in real time.

How To: Make Homemade Jerky Without a Dehydrator

Jerky is one of the tastiest snacks in existence. It's packed with richness, saltiness, and spiciness, and it's one of those things that you can't stop eating once you start. It's also fairly expensive, unless you're opting for the gas station variety which is… er… jerky in the same way that Folgers is coffee.

Food Tool Friday: Cut Your Cooking Time with a Pressure Cooker

Kitchen tools are a personal thing. One hard lesson for me to learn is that just because something is popular doesn't mean that it's right for me. Take the slow cooker, for instance. Many rave about it, but I never cottoned to the thing. However, the more research I do, the more I think the pressure cooker might be a game changer for my cooking style.

How To: Make Custom-Shaped Chocolates at Home

It is a truth universally acknowledged that food molded into fancy shapes somehow seems tastier. That's true even with chocolate, which is inherently delicious. Now, while you can buy chocolate that's been pre-molded into fancy shapes, you can have a lot of fun and save a few bucks by making your own specialty chocolate molds. All you need to get started are items you most likely already own.

How To: Get VPN Connection

This how-to is for everybody who faced the problem of intercepting personal data sending through the Internet and is looking for fast and secure method to protect his activity in the global network.

How To: Replace a Headlight Switch for a 1998-2003 Dodge Durango.

If your headlights are not working when you pull the switch or if your turn signals are the only things working, Then your headlight switch might be broken. This is often due to loose connections or wear and tear on the part itself. The first thing I would highly recommend before starting this project is to make sure that your connections at the headlights are tight. You can test this by simply putting a piece of foil in the connector or by bending the prongs slightly. Also check to see if yo...

How To: Turn Apps into Home Screen Pages on Android

There's a never-ending selection of app launchers that want a permanent spot on your Android device. While some keep the stock-Android look with beefed-up versions of Google's launcher, Blur is relatively new on the scene, with a unique approach to app management that sets it apart.

Your Fridge: You're Using It Wrong

When you come home from the grocery store, you probably put away every single fruit and vegetable in the bins and drawers in your refrigerator. Any fifth grader knows that fridges work to preserve food, thus everything should go in there, right? Nope!

How To: Survive Your First Night

This "How-to" is how to survive your first night on Minecraft. This is for new Minecraftians to Minecraft. The first thing you want to do is find wood. This is very essential to survive your first night. Then, you want to make wooden planks. To craft anything, press E or I. After that, there should be a 2x2 box at the top. Put two wooden planks on top of each other. If you did this right, there should b four sticks to the right. After that, you want to make a Crafting Table. To make a Craftin...

How To: Make a Simple Herbal Extract

Hello there, people. Today, I am going to show you how to extract the essence from a useful plant, using either alcohol or olive oil. This is how you take a plant and turn it into a useful (and preservable) medicine. For those of you who know nothing about herbal medicine, let me explain it for you in a nutshell...

How To: Code a Simple Java App to Kill Any Process After a Specified Time

I may be a bit weird, but I enjoy listening to music at night as I fall asleep. Sure, you could create a playlist of songs so that it stopped after all the songs finished playing, but I have a rather extensive database of music and I enjoy listening to them randomly. Also, I like to ensure it terminates after a specific amount of time (I don't want it playing all night). Or sometimes I use it when I am cooking so that when the music stops, I know I need to check on my food, etc.

How To: Fix Defective Pixels & Improve Image Quality on LCD & LED Monitors

I have owned quite the plethora of electronics in my life. A commonality between most of these devices' screens is frozen or dead pixels. This is probably the most annoying thing about buying new hardware—your LCD, or worse, LED display has one or more pixels that continues to stay lit. Most of the time, this will appear in the form of a brightly colored pixel that never changes, or a pixel that never displays the right color. Once you notice it's there, you just can't stop staring at it. It ...