How To's

How to Use Drop In on the Amazon Echo, Echo Dot, & Echo Show

I first used drop in on the Amazon Echo Show when I was having a party and had to run out while people were still there to get some things we needed. When I got to the grocery store, I decided to test it out and see how everyone in the party reacted. I opened the Alexa app on my phone and dropped into the Echo Show in my kitchen, instantly opening up a video call with some of my friends who visibly jumped at the abrupt sight of my face holding a few limes in my hands. “Is this all we …

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How to Download Other People’s Instagram Stories (iOS/Android)

So I’m not sure I can think of a why you’d want to download someone else’s story necessarily. Maybe you’re a big fan of someone and want a keepsake? I don’t know. But I did think it was super interesting that you even could save someone’s story so figured I’d do a quick tutorial on how to do that for anyone who has a reason to or just wants to see how it’s done. Essentially, we’re going to use one of two apps, one for iOS and one for Android. How to Download Instagram Stories on iOS First up, iOS …

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How to Turn Any Android Phone into a Security Device (Using Edward Snowden’s New App)

Edward Snowden, the guy who leaked government documents to the press revealing numerous secret surveillance programs, has released a security app. Snowden, referred to as a hero or a traitor depending on who you ask, revealed last week that he has made an open source app that allows any Android device to be used as a secret recording device. Download Haven from the Play Store Or Download the APK from here The app allows you to set thresholds for motion, audio, etc and you can then leave the phone, in say your hotel room when you leave and it would …

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How to Check if Apple is Slowing Down Your iPhone (& What to Do About It)

Welp, Apple recently admitted to slowing down users’ iPhone processor speeds when iOS detects that the device has a battery that is suffering. Along with this admission after the outrage from people calling Apple out for deliberately slowing down their iPhones to get them to upgrade to new ones, Apple also announced that if you have a phone with an affected battery you can go to an Apple store and get the battery replaced to bring the performance back for $30 instead of the usual $80 during 2018. Without getting too much into why this was super not okay of …

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How to Make Any Android Phone Look Like the Pixel 2 (Video)

If you’re not going to buy a Pixel 2 but are still slightly feeling the sting of jealousy at how clean the software looks on the new devices sold by Google themselves, here’s a quick video on how to get all of that stock, slick Google software on whatever Android device you have–including those new live wallpapers that I’m personally in love with. So in this video, I’ll show you how to make any Android phone look like the Pixel 2. Allow Unknown Sources Before we get started we’re going to be downloading apps that aren’t in the Play Store …

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How to Mount a TV (The Easiest Way Possible) (Video)

We’ve all been there. New apt, new house, new TV maybe? The living room is all set, maybe that TV is even on a stand on a media console, but you can’t help but feel like it’d just make the room look so much better if that TV was on the wall. TV’s aren’t light really, they’re expensive, and so they’re a bit daunting to think about attaching with some bits of metal to the wall. On top of that, what mount do you use? How much do they cost? Why are some of them so freaking expensive (are you …

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How to Fix the iOS 11.1 i Glitch (Video)

Figured I’d quickly do a video to show people how to fix the iOS 11.1 i glitch. If you aren’t familiar iOS 11.1 has a pretty nasty glitch that causes autocorrect to turn your lowercase “i” into an A and a Unicode symbol that shows up as a question mark instead of capitalizing it to “I”. Apple has said they’ll fix it with an update but they give a workaround to help in the meantime. Here’s how to do it. Head to Settings > General > Keyboard > Text Replacement and tap the plus sign at the top right. In Phrase …

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Why You Won’t Miss the Home Button on the iPhone X (Video)

One of the biggest complaints, I’ve seen online about the iPhone X (besides the loss of TouchID) is the fact people are angry about having to learn how to navigate iOS without a home button. Instead of the home button and normal swiping up to get to control center, down to get notifications, etc. things have been swapped around. All of this, of course, begs the question: what’s even real anymore?! Don’t panic though, turns out the notorious gesture system is actually pretty intuitive and didn’t take me long to get the hang of. Let me show you what I …

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How to Use Animoji (Video)

Welp, the iPhone X is finally here and with it, Animojis. These animated emojis (get it??), as annoying as some people find them, are getting a lot of attention. I have to admit, I’ve sent the poop one more times than I probably should have in the short time I’ve had the phone. Regardless, they’re novel and it is pretty impressive how it’s able to track the muscles in your face as well as it does. In case you’re still waiting for your iPhone X though, I figured I’d do a quick rundown of how you can use animojis properly …

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4 Best Uses for the S-Pen That I’ve Come to Love (Video)

One of the new Note8’s most stand out features, as with all of the Note devices, is the pen. For some people, it’s why they’d choose the Note8 over the S8 or S8 Plus and while I think there are other reasons for doing that, which we can talk about in another video perhaps, I kinda get what they’re on about. Originally, I didn’t really think much of the pen–telling myself I’ll probably never use it, but then a funny thing happened: I forced myself to use it for a bit and now, now I like it. For anyone curious, …

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How to Turn Your Watch into a Smartwatch (Video)

So what if you want the features of a smart watch but you don’t want to actually go out and buy a smartwatch? Maybe you have a watch that you already love or maybe you don’t need all the features of a fancy touchscreen smartwatch and don’t want to spend the money on one. Is there a way to just get notification alerts, fitness tracking, control your music, etc.? Short answer? Yes. This little coin-shaped gadget called a Chronos is sort of all about that. The way you install it is by taking the included wetnaps or whatever these …

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How to Use Portrait Lighting on the iPhone (Video)

With iOS 11 and the new iPhone 8 Plus and X, Apple added a new feature to the cameras that I think people will definitely like an probably overuse on Instagram, social in general, etc. Regardless it is a cool feature and it’s called Portrait Lighting. Just like Portrait mode that we’re used to by now that uses the dual cameras on the phone to judge depth and create that bokeh depth of field look using software, this mode uses the dual camera setup and takes the software magic a step further. Instead of just being able to create a …

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How to Remap the Bixby Button (and Launch a Different App Instead) (Video)

So a lot of people, aren’t the biggest fans of Samsung’s new voice assistant, Bixby and by default the new hardware button used to launch Bixby. Now, you can try and root the phone to get system permissions to change the button’s action, but it turns out there’s an easier way. Apps have been popping up on the Play Store that, through using the accessibility options on the phone, allow them to sort of hijack the button before Bixby can launch and assign it to another action (i.e. opening the camera, launching another app, etc.). You can even have it …

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How to Remove an iOS Beta (& Get Back to Stock Firmware)

OK, so a new version of iOS is officially out and so now you’re done with messing around with the beta and just want to get back on the stable OS track. You’d like to think that maybe the beta software would just update to the latest stable version of iOS (and then maybe move to the next beta when that’s available?), but no, it doesn’t work that way. You need to actually remove the beta profile and then force the device to find the stable update and replace the software, for whatever reason. In case you aren’t sure how …

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How to Disable Chat Heads in Facebook Messenger (Because It’s Evil)

Chat heads are one of those things that I can only assume Facebook created to make sure they could sufficiently annoy you when not using the app to go back into it. There is never a time that while I’m using my phone I need a notification and a floating head of my friend messaging me over what I was originally trying to do. AMIRITE? It’s pretty easy to figure out why Facebook added this feature to the messenger app–the longer you spend in the app the more time for you to be shown ads and the more revenue Facebook can …

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How To’s