Tag Archives: how to

Find Places Recommended By Top Reviewers & Your Circles In The New Google Maps

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Last week was pretty big for Google; in its I/O conference, the company announced a new design for Google+, a music subscription service and the new Google Maps, among other product improvements. We've taken a detailed look at both the new Google+ UI with its card-based UI and Google Play Music All Access. The updated Google Maps interface is invite-only at the moment but if you’re among the lucky ones who have received their invitation, you might be curious about the new search and just how it works. Google’s stated on its blog that every click will give you a new map, and they weren't kidding. Not only is the new search amazing, but it also lets you narrow down places suggested by people in your Google+ circle or by top reviewers. This helps you find places, whether they’re restaurants, hardware stores, or a good place to have your car checked out, that your friends or industry experts recommend. Here’s how it works. Read More

Disable Two-Finger Horizontal Swipe Gesture For Chrome Or Any Other Mac App

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The swipe gestures in OS X are an impressive way to move between desktop spaces, open the Launchpad, or do a number of other impressive things. Though they can also be annoying at times because they work system wide and there are some apps where a two-finger swipe function wouldn't make sense or even cause inconvenience. Unfortunately, the OS offers no way of customizing these gestures. A common beef that some of you might have is the way the two-finger swipe gesture, when accidentally executed in Chrome, will move you to the next or previous page in your browser’s history. Fortunately, there is a little script to disable it. The method works not only for Chrome, but for any other app as well, only requiring a change in the command to refer to the appropriate app. So, let's get it up and running, and get rid of this annoyance from Chrome on OS X. Read More

How To Upload EPUBs & PDFs To Google Play Books And Read On Web, iOS & Android

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Google announced and discussed updates to almost all of their major services yesterday at what is being regarded as one of the biggest Google I/O event yet. Many of you must already be aware of the feature additions in Search, Maps, Play Services etc. by now, but you may have missed one very useful feature update to Play Books in all the chaos that is the technology blogosphere on the day of a new keynote. The latest version has a couple of new features that give it a serious edge over competing products from Apple and Amazon. This includes the ability to upload your own eBooks in EPUB or PDF format to your Play Books account, and keep your reading progress across all your devices in sync! Check out the details after the jump. Read More

How To Create A Rovio Account & Sync Game Progress Across Devices

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Game Center in iOS has always played the primary role in keeping record of any game achievements, but it does very little beyond that. Sure, you can challenge friends to a fruit slicing competition in Fruit Ninja, see what’s the farthest they've run in Temple Run, or find out who knows more words in Letterpress. As far as saving game progress is concerned though, there are little to no options. In the event that you accidentally (or purposely) wipe an iOS device and restore it from a slightly dated backup, you may lose some or all of your achievements and game data. Having personally gone through such a situation where my game data was lost, I can relate to the sinking feeling of losing so much hard work. Rovio - the makers of the famous Angry Birds game that has spawned a broad line of merchandise and its very own animated series - have announced Rovio accounts that will allow users to sync their game progress across devices. Read More

How To Reset Lost Facebook Password With The Trusted Contacts Feature

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Identity theft is very real; in the past, it has meant someone impersonating your identity to gain unauthorized access to important information and committing crimes under your name. In today's age of digital media, however, it can also mean someone hacking your social media accounts and putting your online reputation at risk. That's why Facebook has introduced the Trusted Contacts feature in a bid to help you fight identity theft and regain access to your Facebook account should the worst ever happen. It allows you to select three to five people in your Facebook friends’ list who can help you recover your compromised Facebook account. Here’s how to set up and use your trusted contacts to regain access to your account. Read More

How To Remotely Access & Troubleshoot A PC Via A Google+ Hangout

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Video chat apps and services aren't very useful if they don’t allow you to send files or invite several people to the same chat session. Another much in-demand feature is the ability to remotely access the desktop of whoever you’re chatting with, in order to help them do something or troubleshoot some problem. There's great news on this front for Google+ users - the feature, has been added to Google Plus Hangouts in the form of an app. The great thing about Google Plus Hangouts, like Gmail Chat, is that your browser is the only thing you need to start a video call and invite multiple people to it, and you can now remotely control someone’s desktop just as easily. Here’s how. Read More

What Is TWRP Recovery & How To Install & Use It On Android Devices [Guide]

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Till just over a year back, ClockworkMod (aka CWM) was the go-to custom recovery for pretty much every mainstream Android device. Things have changed a lot since, with a newer player entering the game and gaining a lot of critical acclaim, as well as a huge user base. TeamWin Recovery Project – or TWRP for short – is a fully touch-based custom recovery that was initially developed for Nexus devices, but has since been made available for countless other smartphones and tablets as well, in form of both official and third-party builds. Just like we took you through a very detailed tour of ClockworkMod recovery and its features, we’re going to guide you through all the features of TWRP right after the jump. Read More

Create Custom Symbols In Windows With Private Character Editor

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The Character Map utility in Microsoft Windows is quite popular and known to many Windows users as a part of the OS since its very early times. It allows you to insert special characters i.e. symbols or fonts that are not available otherwise, into your documents like essays, articles, reports, stories, email etc. Though did you know that you can create your very own special characters using a tool that also comes built right into Windows? Private Character Editor is an integrated Windows app that lets you carve out custom characters from scratch. In this tutorial, we’ll guide you through the step-by-step process of using Private Character Editor to make your own special characters. Read More

How To Add Transparent Icons To iOS Home Screen Without Jailbreak

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Earlier, we discussed how it was possible to use custom icons for any app on iOS without jailbreaking. Well, in the words of Steve Jobs, there’s one more thing: adding blank, nearly transparent app icons to your iOS device home screen without jailbreaking. In case you're wondering why would anyone want to do this, there are design enthusiasts out there who want to be able to customize the way their devices look, and since iOS doesn't offer much customization options for the Springboard, one way to tweak things your way would be to use a custom wallpaper designed with to work with transparent icons on top of it to add the visual effect you want. Check out how you can go about pulling off this apparent wizardry after the jump. Read More

How To Change iOS App Icons Without Jailbreak [Guide]

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Apple's mobile operating system isn't exactly known or praised for offering users a lot of control. In fact it is notorious for being a walled garden, with Apple pretty much enforcing upon users what it thinks is right, and not giving them many options to tweak it to make it suit their individual needs best. Without jailbreak, iOS offers significantly limited customization when compared to Android; you can’t replace the keyboard, switch to a different launcher, customize app icons… or can you? Yes, we've come across a method that allows you to change the appearance of your app icons without fondling saurik’s beard! Check it out after the jump. Read More

Toggle Quiet Mode, Manage & Turn Off Desktop Notifications In Chrome

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Notifications are one of the best features that several modern browsers now offer, not simply because they alert you on events happening in a tab in your browser, but also because they do for web apps what Notification Center in OS X & iOS and Notifications in Windows 8 do for system-wide apps. Granted that browser notifications are not as powerful as the notification feature of an operating system, browsers are definitely moving up in this regard. Chrome for one has implemented an experimental feature that allows you to mute notifications either for a day, an hour, or indefinitely. It is similar to the Do Not Disturb feature available for Notification Center in both iOS and Mountain Lion. Read More

How To Get Stickers In Facebook Messenger For Android Right Now

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After it was released in a pool of hype, Facebook Home instantly became the target of heavy criticism from tons of disappointed fans, most of which found the lock and home screen replacement app impractical as a daily driver. There was one feature, though, that was and continues to be lauded by users - the globally accessible Chat Heads. While Facebook Messenger and thus, Home, for Android were the first to receive this feature, it was soon rolled out for the iOS variant of the official Facebook client, but to select users and heavily tied down by the limitations of Apple's mobile OS. Perhaps to give their iOS userbase something to be happy about, Facebook included chat Stickers in the update, which can be best described as enlarged, glorified emoticons. Although Stickers are yet to make it to Messenger for Android officially, they've been discovered hidden away within the current version of the app, and you can get early access to them with a simple trick, discussed past the break. Read More

How To Add Facebook Chat To The Mac OS X Messages App

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Both the Facebook app itself as well as the dedicated Facebook Messenger app allow you to chat with your Facebook friends on your smartphone, giving you two very easy ways to keep in touch with them. When it comes to OS X though, despite Facebook’s integration in Mountain Lion, no native chat feature exists in the OS itself that would allow you to connect with your Facebook friends. If you would like to integrate Facebook chat with OS X itself without having to resort to a third-party app, you need look no further than the Messages app in OS X that is more than capable of acting as a chat client for Facebook. Here’s how you can set the app up to send and receive chat messages from Facebook, Read More

How To Enable Two-Factor Authentication For Your Outlook Account

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Microsoft has added two-factor authentication for Outlook accounts, allowing users to protect their accounts better. Unlike Google that allows you to receive your authentication code on your phone, Outlook offers three different options for setting up and receiving the authentication code. Naturally, with two-factor authentication, you will lose access to the service from some connected apps when you enable the feature, and will have to sign in to them again. For those familiar with how Gmail’s two-factor authentication works, the whole process should be fairly simple. Read on for a step-by-step on how to enable two factor authentication and connect any apps that may have stopped syncing. Read More

How To Fix Adobe Photoshop CS6 Background Flickering In Windows 8

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Microsoft took a leap of faith with Windows 8, and for the first couple of weeks after its release, it seemed the dramatic change of direction wouldn't pay off the way the Redmond giant hoped it would. The new OS and its Modern UI seem to be catching on, but at a snail's pace. Apart from the fact that quite a majority of users find themselves out of their confort zone when using the new interface, Windows 8 currently has quite a few compatibility issues as well; some with drivers and others with apps. One of the latter happens to be with the (currently) latest version of Adobe Photoshop, namely CS6. Read More

How To Create A Split Zipped Archive From Mac OS X Terminal

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OS X comes with the aptly named Archive Utility that can be used to extract contents of compressed zip files, or create zipped archives of your own from your files and folders via the options provided in the right-click context menu. With no UI to speak of, the app works in the background and is fairly basic. What the default utility can’t do is create an archive of a folder that’s split into smaller zip files that can later be extracted as a whole into a single folder. There are several third-party apps available that allow you to do this but if you just want to quickly do it without using a third-party app, and don't mind typing in a command for the purpose, you can easily do so from Terminal. In what follows, we are going to show you how to use a Terminal command to easily create split zip archives of the contents of any folder. Read More

How To Install & Run Facebook Home On Unsupported Android Devices

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As announced at Facebook's "New Home on Android" event, and a few days after its APK was leaked to the interwebs, Facebook Home was released to the Play Store today, but only in the US, and that too for a limited number of devices, namely HTC One X, One X+, One, Samsung Galaxy S III, Galaxy Note II and Galaxy S4. Where Facebook might be justified in localizing their product, we're sure there are countless users pouting in disappointment at having such a major release kept out of reach, and that too without an ETA on support for other regions and devices. Now, if you're a resident of the US and happen to own one of these devices (two of which are yet to hit the shelves), you needn't read on. If you own a supported device, but are in an unsupported region, you should only need to sideload the APK of the final release. If, however, you don't fulfill any of these requirements, as should be the case with quite a majority of Android-toting Facebook users around the world, join us past the break for a step-by-step guide on making your device Facebook Home-compatible! Read More

How To Password Protect Spreadsheets In Google Drive

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Passwords have protected our computers, phones, and files for a long time. Just about any device can be locked with a password, and files. folders, and drives, can be encrypted with no hassle using tools built for the purpose. What’s less common is a way to encrypt files selectively in the cloud. You can always encrypt them before you upload them to services like Dropbox or Box, etc but for services like Google Drive that allow you to view files online, the encrypted files become inaccessible. This method details how you can password-protect a spreadsheet you've uploaded to Google Drive, while retaining the ability decrypt it right from your browser in order to view or edit it. Read More

How To Easily Access & Use Screen Sharing In Mac OS X

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Mac, like Windows, has a built in remote desktop tool. It’s also got a screen sharing tool that is super easy to use, but not as easy to access unless you enjoy going to the System Preferences each time you need to share your screen. If you often share your screen or remotely access another Mac (or PC), then perhaps you might be interested in a more convenient way of doing it. Screen sharing in Mac is commonly accessed from the System Preferences under the Sharing head, and it's entirely possible that some users aren't even aware of what it can do, due to there being no prominent shortcut for it like many other system apps have. In truth, screen sharing exists as just another app that - for some reason - hasn't been added to Launchpad or the Applications folder. This post details how you can access and use Screen Sharing as easily as any other OS X app. Read More

Get The Old Style Right-Click Context Menu Back In Chrome

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Following its last update, Chrome did something rare: it made a UI change that modified the appearance of the right-click context menu. The new look is not bad in any sense; in fact it feels quite nice and clean. When I first saw it, I thought it had something to do with one of the extensions I had installed, though a little looking around made it clear that the change was brought about by the browser itself. As pretty as the context menu is now, not everyone might like it because they might have grown accustomed to the old one. If you miss that old appearance and are having difficulty adjusting to the new look, getting it back is super-simple. Read More