Hacking in the movies is crazy exciting: fingers fly across the keyboard, and the screen is an ever flashing array of cryptic characters. It’s all so…interesting. Real hacking, sadly, isn’t that intense. However illegal what you’re doing may be, you’re still just someone sitting at a computer. Most the time you’re just trying to get people to use a fake Google sign-in page.
Stupid Geek Tricks: Convince Your Friends You’re a Hollywood-Style Hacker with These Tools
Hacking in the movies is crazy exciting: fingers fly across the keyboard, and the screen is an ever flashing array of cryptic characters. It’s all so…interesting. Real hacking, sadly, isn’t that intense. However illegal what you’re doing may be, you’re still just someone sitting at a computer. Most the time you’re just trying to get people to use a fake Google sign-in page.
A video’s bitrate is a key piece of information in determining the quality of said video. Even if two videos have the same resolution, a lower bitrate is going to result in less detail and clarity. Here’s how to see the bitrate of any video you’re playing in real time with VLC.
With Firefox 57, scheduled for release in November 14, 2017, Mozilla will end support for legacy extensions, and only support newer WebExtensions. Here’s how to check if your extensions will stop working—and how to keep using them after November, if you need to.
Your computer stores the time in a hardware clock on its motherboard. The clock keeps track of time, even when the computer is off. By default, Windows assumes the time is stored in local time, while Linux assumes the time is stored in UTC time and applies an offset. This leads to one of your operating systems showing the wrong time in a dual boot situation.
Whether you work at your computer or just enjoy the occasional long gaming session, it’s important to take breaks regularly. Getting up to take a walk, grab a coffee, or do some stretches helps reduce eye strain, prevent repetitive strain injury (RSI), and is otherwise just plain good for you. And one study from the University of Illionoise at Urbana-Champaign shows that breaks might even enhance productivity by increasing focus.
Everyone who regularly uses the command line has at least one long string they type regularly. Instead of entering all that again and again, quickly search your history to find the complete command.
Let’s say you’re trying to be quiet, browsing the internet at home, work, or a public space. You’re secretly filled with dread that anything you click will open a new tab with an autoplay video or blare an obnoxious audio ad. End that fear forever by keeping all your new tabs muted by default.
Command line users know to how read the manual: type “man” followed by the name of a command—you’ll see a detailed explanation. These manuals are useful but verbose, using hundreds of words to explain every detail of a command.
When burning a CD, you can either burn it as a data disc or an audio CD. A data CD can hold up to 700 MB, while an audio CD can hold 80 minutes of sound. If you have 200 MB of MP3 files that add up to three hours of music, you can still only burn 80 minutes to the disc. Why is that?
When large-scale flash storage first came to the consumer market as an alternative to conventional hard drives, the biggest concern (aside from price) was longevity. Tech fans had a pretty good idea of the general reliability of hard drives, but SSDs were still something of a wild card.
Have you ever used one of your favorite programs on your desktop, only to find that in later updates, that program changes in ways you don’t particularly appreciate? It’s a common phenomenon: a single program, like a chat client, might break with your specific computer setup after a recent update. It’s easier (and less disruptive to your workflow) to switch to an older version of the program until the problem is resolved.
For the most part, the Plex Media Server experience is pretty flawless. You install the server software, you point your Plex clients at it, and start watching your movies. But sometimes, you’ll go to log into your server only to be mysteriously shut out. Let’s dig into some arcane settings and get you back to media nirvana.
If you let someone use your computer, they could gain access to your saved passwords, read your email, access all your files, and more. Instead of looking over their shoulder, just use your operating system’s guest account feature.
The Plex mobile apps for iOS and Android have a really neat but frequently overlooked feature: you can turn your mobile device into a tiny media server to share synced content with nearby devices, including other mobile devices and streaming apps.
If you’re working at your computer and your phone goes off, you can grab it, unlock it, and check the notification, likely throwing off your workflow. Or, you could just sync your notifications to your computer, so they show up right there—which really makes a lot more sense.
The builtin commands in Bash can be extremely useful, but what does “builtin” itself actually do? Today’s SuperUser Q&A post has the answer to a curious reader’s question.
I was walking through the dorms in 2003 when I saw it: a desk with three computer monitors, all with a Matrix screen saver scrolling green text. It’s laughable in retrospect, but I thought it was just the coolest. Don’t lie, you would have too.
Stardew Valley, the smash hit indie farming simulation role-playing game, is the kind of game players get quite attached to after sinking a lot of time into their farms, their relationships with the characters, and building their skills. Let’s look at how to safely backup your game so your farm is always safe.
Comic books as a medium seem tailor-made for tablets, even if the timeline doesn’t precisely add up. But there are a surprising amount of comic reading applications meant for old-fashioned desktop machines, too. This stuff comes in handy for gadgets that blur the lines, like the Microsoft Surface, or for someone who’s amassed a large collection of DRM-free comic book files.
Building a gaming PC is an expensive proposition, even on the “value” side of things—we’re talking about at lest $500 for a new machine. Penny-pinchers often forego unnecessary extras. And since most CPUs come with a cooler right in the box, why bother with a big bulky aftermarket cooler, especially if you’re not going to overclock anything?
This weekend, while most of the technology and gaming press wasn’t working on anything particularly important, Warner Bros. Interactive tried to slip a small news item past their attention. Middle-Earth: Shadow of War, the highly-anticipated sequel to the Tolkien-themed adventure game Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor, will include microtransactions. This $60 game—up to $100 USD if you spring for the special pre-order versions—will ask players to pay even more in bite-sized chunks to unlock some of its content faster.
Do you ever feel like software is just changing back and forth for no good reason? Windows 8 dropped the Start button, then Windows 8.1 brought it back—both decisions being touted as big improvements. Windows 7 brought Aero transparency before Windows 8 dumped the transparency, and both decisions were proclaimed design improvements at the time. Now, Microsoft is bringing transparency back again with Fluent Design.
Games are expensive. Want to play the latest headline-grabbing entry from EA or Activision? Be prepared to shell out $60…or $100 for the real version with a name like “Ultimate Edition.” Maybe that’s why so many developers are extending their horizons into the free-to-play arena. Here are ten online multiplayer shooters you can play without spending a dime.
Whether you’ve given a computer to your child or just want to keep things clean on your own machine, blocking sites that serve malware, porn, social networking, and gambling en masse is useful. And while there’s lots of third party software out there for the job, the hosts file is a built-in option for every major operating system.
Technology often yields ridiculous conveniences, like being able to turn on your computer from miles away without pushing the power button. Wake-on-LAN has been around for a while, so let’s see how it works and how we can enable it.
