Standards Limit Search Results

How To: Diagnose Your Car's Check Engine Light Using an Android Phone

Whether you're a professional mechanic, a hobbyist, or someone who just wants to know why their check engine light came on, your Android device and an OBD-II adapter can provide insight as to what's going on with your car. Most adapters sell for less than $10, and once you plug it into your vehicle, you'll just need a good app to help you make sense of all the data it can gather.

News: Antibiotics Could Be Contributing to Dramatic Drop in Bee Populations

Add antibiotics to the possible list of culprits responsible for honeybee decline around the world. While it may come as a surprise, antibiotics are commonly mixed into feed used by commercial beekeepers to maintain their hives. In a recent study published in PLOS Biology, researchers from the University of Texas at Austin found antibiotics used to treat honeybees may be a contributing factor in individual bee death and colony collapse.

News: Do the CDC's Suggested New Quarantine Rules Give Them Too Much Power?

When Kaci Hickox, a Doctors Without Borders nurse, returned to New Jersey from working with Ebola patients in West Africa in 2014, she was surprised by her reception. Instead of a quiet return to her home in Maine after four weeks on the front line of Ebola treatment, she was quarantined by the State of New Jersey in Newark. She later filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for violation of her civil rights, false imprisonment, and invasion of privacy.

News: How Researchers Could Use Bacteria to Determine Time of Death

When a dead body is discovered, finding out when the person died is just as important as finding out how the person died. Determining the time of death has always involved lots of complicated scientific detective work and less-than-reliable methods. However, a study by Nathan H. Lents, a molecular biologist at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, is the first of its kind to show how microbes colonize a body's ears and nose after death.

How To: Buy Used Phones Without Getting Screwed

I've seen my fair share of heartbreaks when it comes to used phones. As a repair tech, I often had to try and help out customers who bought used handsets which turned out to be useless, either because it was stolen or not working on their carrier's network. More often than not, there was very little I could do. To help you from being stuck in the same situation, here are some tips to prevent you from getting scammed out of your hard earned money when buying a used handset.

How To: Unlock Home Button Shortcuts on Your iPhone

If your iPhone has a Home button, such as either iPhone SE model, old or new, then it has a secret triple-click gesture to activate a suite of shortcuts. These options, dubbed accessibility shortcuts, can work wonders for folks that are hearing impaired, have limited use of their hands, or have vision problems. Still, the shortcuts have plenty of everyday applications that everyone should know.

Networking Foundations: Subnetting Madness

Hello everyone! How's subnetting going? Did you practice a lot? I hope you did, but even if you didn't we will go through some more examples so you can be feeling confident after reading this article. It's all about that bad boy binary!

How To: Make Copycat Trader Joe's Spices at Home

The spice selection at Trader Joe's is both inexpensive and truly top-notch. According to their site, they deal with some of the highest-quality spice manufacturers in the world and, in working with them directly, they eliminate hidden costs spent on promotions, brand-building, and advertising. This allows the customer to experiment with new flavors and build up their spice rack—without the usual limiting factor of high cost. If you don't have access to a Trader's in your culinary neck of the...

News: A Brief History of Hacking

Welcome back, my fledgling hackers! Hacking has a long and storied history in the U.S. and around the world. It did not begin yesterday, or even at the advent of the 21st century, but rather dates back at least 40 years. Of course, once the internet migrated to commercial use in the 1990s, hacking went into hyperdrive.

Dissecting Nmap: Part 1

Welcome aboard my inquisitive comrades. I am starting a new series that nobody expected coming. It may not seem very exciting at first, but await the last few parts as many startling discoveries will be made. This is a series which I plan to continue after the completion of Nmap, unless you have major objections.

Android Basics: How to See What Kind of Processor You Have (ARM, ARM64, or x86)

Starting with the release of Android Lollipop, the process of installing the Xposed Framework got a bit more complicated. Not only are there separate installers for each Android version, but now, you also need to know exactly what type of processor is in your device to make sure you're downloading the right files. In fact, CPU architecture is becoming a factor in more and more scenarios these days, including certain sideloaded app updates and, of course, custom ROMs.

How To: Record Phone Calls on Any Android Device

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.