This article was written on June 05, 2009 by CyberNet.
Windows only Tabs are undoubtedly a hot thing these days with more and more applications moving to some sort of tab-like interface. Web browsers are probably the first thing you think of, but other apps like Microsoft Office even have a tab-like interface with the Ribbon. Why not go a little further? With WindowTabs you can extend the tab interface to pretty much any app.
We’ve seen other programs that are capable of doing this, but after having played with it for a bit I’d say it’s one of the smoothest and best looking solutions I’ve seen. As you can tell from the screenshot the tabs currently take on a Chrome-like appearance, which may or may not be something you like. Unfortunately at this stage it’s not something you can customize, but skinning capabilities seem like a natural next step for this app.
What’s cool with WindowTabs is that you can group together any apps, regardless of whether they are the same program or not. Each group will then show just one Taskbar item, and the title/icon will reflect the currently selected tab. So not only does it de-clutter your desktop, but it also frees some space on your Taskbar.
Still not sure if you should try it? Check out this video demonstrating WindowTabs in action. You’ll see just how smooth the whole tab-grouping process is.
There’s just one catch. The free version is considered a “trial” even though it doesn’t have any nag screens and isn’t time limited. Instead you’re not allowed to have more than 3 tabs per grouping. If you want to buy the full app you’ll need to shell out $19. The developer did a great job on this, but I think somewhere around $9.99 would have been better suited for a program like this.
Google Voice, which lets users consolidate all their phones under one number, archive your texts and voicemails, and much, much more, is two things to most people: vaguely promising, and totally confusing. Here’s how to make the switch, in plain English.
The Pitch
It doesn’t really help to describe Google Voice in terms of what it is—a bizarrely fragmented hodgepodge of different telecom and internet technologies, drawn together by Google—so you just have to start with what it does. In short, it can completely change how you use your phones, more or less for free.
• It can give all of your phones the same number for incoming calls. Google will assigned you a new, Google Voice-specific phone number for free, which you can forward to as many phones as you want. What always drives the point of Google Voice home for people is when I have them call my number, which causes three of my phones to ring at once. You can keep this number forever, too, without ever having to worry about porting it from carrier to carrier. • It can give your phones the same outgoing number as well, with which you can make free domestic calls (well, sort of—more on that later), and very cheap international calls. Since Google Voice routes your calls through their phone system, they can connect you directly to cheap VoIP services to the rest of the world. It seems like you’re just making a regular call, but behind the scenes you’re doing something more akin to Skyping. End result: money saved. • You can send and receive unlimited text messages for free. To make things even better, they’re all all archived in your online Google Voice account, where they’re fully searchable. • It’s got the best voicemail system in the world. Leaving a message at a Google Voice number is nothing like leaving your voice on a regular voicemail service—that is to say, it’s not like sending your voice into a barely accessible technological horror pit where it might get listened to, but will probably be ignored. No, Google Voice is different: It stores your messages online, and converts them to text (which can then be sent to you as an SMS or an email). You can archive, forward, delete or save these messages from a simple interface on your phone or computer. Think of it as Gmail, except with voices. Plus, it’s flexible in lots of little ways—you can change your voicemail greetings on a per caller basis, for example, or opt to listen to voicemails as they’re being recorded. • This voicemail system isn’t just for Google Voice numbers, either—you essentially replace your carrier voicemail with Google Voice voicemail, without using a new number. It’s brilliant. • You have full control over your calls. You can record them for later listening, and have them transcribed into text. • You can screen callers. You can block numbers, or have callers record their names for your approval. You can have certain contacts only forwarded to certain phones,
Each of these features is compelling enough on its own—together, they’ll totally change how you use your phones, changing you from a mere mobile customer to a full-on switchboard operator, self-spy, info hoarder and telco executive. It’s like you run your own little phone company, just for yourself. For free. Spectacular.
The Catch(es)
Now that I’ve got you all riled, it’s time for me to pour an icy bucket of water down the front of your pants. Google Voice, as incredible a concept and service as it is, isn’t perfect. In fact, there are a few things you need to know and accept before taking the dive, and they might be dealbreakers:
• You can’t use your own phone number. At least, not in the way you wish you could. In an ideal world, you’d be able to port your old cellphone number to Google Voice, and have that—the digits people have been using to get in touch with you for years—be your new all-inclusive point of contact. You can’t do this yet. For now, the closest you can come is to port your voicemail to Google Voice. That means that your T-Mobile, AT&T, Verizon or Sprint number’s voicemail can be outsourced to Google, but not its calls. You can unify all your phones under your new Google Voice number, but that means you have to switch. Along with the basic inconvenience of telling everyone about your new number, you’re trusting an awful lot in a beta service, the terms of which could change quickly and without notice. It’s not something I worry about, but it’s not nothing, either.
• You can’t record calls that you’ve placed, just calls that you’ve received. And every time you initiate recording, Google Voice notifies the other person on the line. This is all makes perfect moral and procedural sense, but just in case you had the impression that there were no limits on your recording abilities, well, there are.
• The mobile app situation isn’t ideal. There are apps for Android, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and iPhone via jailbreak, and they all work. That said, they’re not perfect—they can be slow, poorly integrated, glitchy, or hard to figure out. And since they’re supposed to replace the dialer on your phone entirely, this isn’t wonderful. The online mobile interface is a good fallback for placing calls and sending texts, but navigating to that adds an extra step to any call or text that can get tiresome after a while.
• Lastly, the way American phones work, you’re still going to end up paying for your minutes, somehow. Just because Google Voice says you can make free domestic calls and cheap international calls doesn’t mean that you actually can: in both cases, you need to dial out to Google Voice’s external system in the first place, which means you’re still using your monthly minute allotment. There are ways around this which I’ll discuss later, but Google Voice, as good as it is, isn’t magic.
Discouraged? Don’t be. Google Voice is still well worth you time and effort, and it’s only going to get better. Now, for God’s sake let’s get started already.
The Process
Signing up. This is simultaneously the easiest and most irritating part of Google Voice: It’s still invite only. Lucky for you, “Invite” in this case doesn’t mean you actually have to wait for an individual to select you from the masses; it’s just Google’s way of saying their keeping the signup pace down at manageable levels while the service is still in beta. Just submit your address, after which Google “anticipate[s] that it will be a short wait before you receive your invitation.”
What’s a short wait? My invite took about four days. Some come within 48 hours. At worst, they take about two weeks. Lots of you will have already received your invite, and just not done a whole lot with it—you guys can keep reading—while the rest of you should just bookmark this post, and come back to it once you get your invite. Protip: check your spam filters.
—
Ok, hello again, people I was talking to anywhere between two seconds and two weeks ago! How are you? Now that you’ve got your invite, you can log in to your Google Voice Dashboard. It’ll look familiar if you’ve used any Google Service before:
Logging in. Follow your confirmation link, or navigate here. Click around for a while to get a feel for the interface. This is how you’ll manage your phones from now on. It’s liberatingly simple.
Picking your number. You’ll be given a choice of numbers, which you can choose from practically any available area code. Choose wisely: this will be your primary number from here on out. Choosing your first number is free; changing it in the future will cost you $10. Boo, waah, etcetera! But really not a huge deal.
Adding your phones. This is assuming you want to forward a single number to all your phones, which is kind of the point here, so: Go to the Google Voice settings page (up in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. In the first section, called “Phones,” click “Add a Phone” or “Add Another Phone.” Give it a name “My iPhone” and enter its phone number. That’s it.
Now you’ll be given a passcode, which you’ll use to authenticate your existing phone. Clicking “Connect” will call your phone from your Google Voice number, and a friendly robot will ask for you code. Enter it. That’s it!
Setting up your voicemail. Now that the phone is added, it can accept calls directed to your Google Voice number. If the call is ignored, it will forward the voicemail to Google Voice, where it will be stored online. Alternately, if you only want to use Google Voice for voicemail, you can disable the calling feature (by unchecking the box next to the phone), and set up the service to hijack your actual cellphone number’s voicemails—even when the call didn’t get routed through Google Voice.
This is much easier that it sounds: Just click “Activate Google Voicemail” next to your newly-added phone, and enter the number they give you exactly as it’s written, symbols and all. Once you “call” that number, you’ll get some kind of message on your phone. On the iPhone, it looks like this.
Your voicemail has been switched—all you need to do now is set up a quick bookmark in your mobile phone to Google Voice, which provides a functional, if sparse, interface for your Google Voice messages. It’s like visual voicemail, except through your browser. (Or a mobile app, which I’ll get to soon.)
Choosing the rest of your settings. Now you’ll see your phone listed under the “Phones” settings tab. The other tabs contain a few pages of settings for your Google Voice account. How you toggle these is up to you, but here are the most important ones: If you want to forward SMSes to email, you’ll have to enable that in the “Voicemail and SMS” tab; call screening settings are located under the “Calls” tab; and international call credit can be added under the “Billing” tab, from a credit card. Finding your feet. Take some time to experiment with some of Google Voice’s core features now. Place a call using the button at the top left of the Google Voice homepage. Enter your recipient’s number, and choose which of your phones you’d like to place the call with. Google Voice will call your phone first, which upon answering will immediately call your recipient’s phone, which will think it’s getting a call from your new Google Voice number. It might sound odd in writing, but once you see it work, it just kind of clicks. You can also place these calls from the mobile web interface, without a computer. Texting is more direct—you can send those directly from the web interface without any intervention from your phone.
Placing calls. The aforementioned methods is the most obvious, and it will reliably work. It’s a little cumbersome, especially if you’re used to just tapping on a contact and placing a call. Thankfully there are a few more ways to place calls from your phone, and have it routed through Google Voice:
• Apps: This is by far the best way to use Google Voice. Android has an official Google Voice app, as does BlackBerry.These automate the dialing/texting out process, so you don’t need to mess with a web interface—you just opt to make some or all of your calls through Google Voice, and the app takes care of the rest. Windows Mobile has unofficial clients that do the job pretty well, as does the Pre, in the App Catalog. iPhone clients are available, but they’re not approved by Apple: You’ll need to jailbreak your phone and install them from Cydia.
• The call-in method: Simply dial your new Google Voice number from your cellphone or landline, press 2 once it’s connected, then enter the number you want to dial. This is less convenient than the web interface method, even, but it’s vital to the next one:
• The contact method: This is a little cheat to automate the aforementioned process. What you’re doing, basically, is saving your Google Voice number, a pause, the number 2 (which selects “call another phone” from the Google Voice automated menu tree), a pause, then your recipient’s number.
Adding a pause is different on each phone—on the iPhone, for example, you need to save a number as a contact, and in the number editing screen, press the “+*#” button at the bottom left of the keypad. The zero will be replaced with a “pause” button, which when pressed inserts a comma into the number. Google is your friend for this one, though most smartphones make the option available in their respective contact editing screens.
• The 406 method: Have the person you want to text send a message to your Google Voice account. When you receive the message, it will be from a number you don’t recognize, with the area code 406. It will be labeled with the sending contact’s name, and any replies to that number will return to the person who sent them, but the number is completely new. This is a Google Voice alias, which you can use forever: Just save it as part of your friend’s contacts—perhaps as a secondary cellphone or a work number, whatever you can remember—and use it as their primary contact number when call through GV.
Sending Texts. Again, using the web interface is a great way to send texts, as are the mobile apps. But the best solution? The 406 trick listed above works for SMSes too.
The Hacks
As you’ve probably noticed, Google Voice is kind of a loose system—and a system that’s ripe for a little gaming. There are two methods that currently work for getting truly unlimited, free calls over Google Voice. This is where things get really interesting. Interesting in a good way for you; interesting in a terrifying way for the phone companies.
• The Calling Circle Method: You know how some carriers let you designate a few contacts that don’t count toward your monthly allotment of minutes, like T-Mobile MyFaves, or the AT&T A-List? By making your Google Voice number one of your friends, you can filter all your calls through Google, whether they be free domestic calls or cheap international calls. Once your Google number is added to your circle, making free calls is simply a matter of dialing into your Google Voice number and, using Google’s audio menu system, dialing through to your recipient. (The contact method listed above will work too.)
To make incoming calls—including outgoing calls initiated from the Google Voice web interface—free, you’ll need to change your Google Voice settings under the “Calls” tab. Select “Display my Google Voice Number” under the “Caller ID (in)” setting, and you’re good to go. A full setup guide for the calling circle method can be found here.
Note: Designating Google Voice as one of your preferred contacts may be against your carrier’s user policies—check with them if you’re concerned.
• The VoIP method: By signing up for a number with free VoIP service Gizmo5 and adding to to your Google Voice account as a phone, you can place unlimited free calls from your VoIP number to landlines. You can also forward the calls through to Skype, if you’d prefer. This isn’t a solution for mobile phones, but it’s a great way to make yourself an effectively unlimited VoIP landline for free. Lifehacker’s got the whole rundown here. UPDATE: Registrations for Gizmo5 have been closed. Sorry!
Easing the Transition
Lifehacker has assembled a fantastic guide for easing the transition from many numbers to one, covering everything from how to convince people not to call your old numbers, to coping with voice latency.
That’s pretty much it! If you have any tips to tricks for getting the most out fo Google Voice, please drop some links in the comments-your feedback is hugely important to our Saturday How To guides.
And if you have any topics you’d like to see covered here, please let me know. Happy Voicing, folks!
This article was written on May 22, 2007 by CyberNet.
Time Saving Tuesday
We’ve already shown you how to setup an FTP server in less than 30 seconds, but now I thought I would show you how to retrieve your IP address when you’re not at home. After all, you do need to know the IP address of your computer before you can remotely access it, and if you have an Internet Service Provider (ISP) that is always changing your IP, it can be hard to keep track of.
There are many tools that will tell you what your IP address is when you request it, such as my favoritethis-ip.com which tells you the information you want to know without a bunch of clutter. However, it could pose a problem if you’re not in front of the computer you want to know the IP address for. That’s where these tools will come in handy.
I wanted to write about this because a reader emailed me asking if I knew any utility that would let them know when their IP address changes. Luckily my ISP never changes my IP address so I haven’t had to worry about it, but I started looking around to see what kind of freeware solutions I could find.
The first application that I found is called IP Observer and it is essentially a zero-configuration solution. All you have to do is download the program (download mirror for version 0.8.4), unzip the folder, and run it. Then you can optionally enter in your email address(es) for it to send the notifications to. Click on this screenshot to see just how easy it is:
Most software applications (even the ones you pay for) require that you take the time to setup your mail account in order to send the emails. Not with this one! They do offer the option to use your own mail account, but I like being able to just enter in my email address and let it do its work. Here is what the email notification looks like that you’ll receive each time your IP changes:
You can let IP Observer check for IP address changes every 10 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, 2 hours, or 6 hours. It will even show you the computer’s local IP address (in case you’re behind a router) and MAC address, which is something many of us are always searching for.
There is, however, a small downside to this program and it’s that it lacks the ability to minimize itself to the System Tray. Normally I would say that is a big downside, but there are plenty of applications (examples: DM2 and TrayDevil) that most people will already have installed which makes doing this possible.
While I really like that application, there is something that I’m a little more partial to because of how useful it is…LogMeIn! I’ve written about the service before because it lets you remotely control any computer using just a Web browser, and it also needs no configuration. It is a free service, but there is a feature that let’s you view the IP address of the computer as well. When you’re on the “My Computers” screen (which you’re taken to after logging in) just click on the Edit link of the computer who’s IP you want to view:
Then you’ll be taken to the screen where you will see the IP address of that computer:
LogMeIn is also nice to have because you can always connect to the computer that you’re having troubles with. It’s a nice service to have and I use it all the time, but if you’re looking for something a little more straightforward (and something that doesn’t require installation) then IP Observer (Download Mirror) might be the better solution.
If you know of any other great freeware tools that will email a user their IP address feel free to post them below in the comments.
We cover a lot of tips every day on Lifehacker, but we get our greatest pleasure from putting together in-depth, step-by-step guides. From Windows 7 to Hackintoshes and beyond, here’s a look back at our most popular how-to features of ’09.
Google Wave made a serious splash this year, and while a lot of people still aren’t sure how to best put it to use, there’s no doubt that there’s a lot of interesting technology going on there. We did our best to help you understand how you might use it yourself, starting with our Google Wave first look, moving onto a few best use cases for Wave, and rounding it our with a guide to Wave keyboard shortcuts, filters, searches, and more with our Google Wave 101 guide.
Windows users had the Windows 7 release, Mac users had the Snow Leopard upgrade, and this guide detailed how to prep your Mac for Snow Leopard for a painless transition.
The future of home entertainment isn’t in your cable box as you know it today—it’s in powerful home theater PCs. There was a time when you’d need a big, noisy box next to your computer if you wanted to impress with your HTPC, but this guide to building a silent, standalone XBMC media center on the cheap turns an inexpensive, tiny nettop computer into a standalone XBMC set-top box.
Ever been interested in building your own PC from the bottom up but always been a little scared of rolling up your sleeves with computer hardware? Building a computer from scratch is easier than you think, and it’s also one of the most satisfying projects a tech enthusiast can tackle.
Whether you just want to do some simple scripting or you want to start down the road to an entirely new skill set, our 101 guide for teaching yourself how to code is a great place to get started.
If you didn’t already fix every one of your relatives’ computers over Thanksgiving, don’t worry—the holidays are quickly approaching, and you know your the resident IT person for your friends and family. Our guide to fixing your relatives’ terrible computer can help.Photo by Justin Marty.
Twitter may be taking the world by storm, but it’s often- and much-maligned by many of our readers. (47 percent of you say you’d never even use it.) Say what you will about tweeting, but if you’re not using Twitter for at least search, we think you’re missing out.
A whopping 40% of the used hard drives on eBay contain easily recoverable personal data. This guide details how to properly erase your physical media when you get rid of anything containing a hard drive so your personal data doesn’t end up in someone else’s hands. Photo by Robert Scoble.
Spend a lot of time on the road and out of the comfort of your home or office? Our definitive guide to finding free Wi-Fi can help you find some fast internet while you’re out of your home territory. Photo by °Florian.
The web is an amazing place. It can also be an extremely annoying place. Skip the annoying flashing ads, turn off auto-playing movies and sounds, skip the auto-refreshing pages, and more with our guide to fixing the web’s biggest annoyances with Firefox.
Your data is the most important thing you’ve got on your computer—in fact, it’s everything. If you aren’t backing it up correctly, one bad move and all that information—and all those memories—goes the way of the dodo. If you’re not sure if you’re backing up the right way, this how-to will steer you in the right direction.
If your inbox is overflowing and you feel like you’ve lost control, these 10 must-have Gmail filters will get you started slicing and dicing your inbox into a more manageable place.
If you spend a lot of time outside your home or office, your smartphone is likely your lifeline to the rest of the world. Problem is, your pesky battery can die pretty quickly if you’re not mindful of how you’re using it. Follow our exhaustive guide to saving your smartphone’s battery and you may be able to squeeze a few more hours out of that gadget of yours. Photo by [177].
Got a favorite Lifehacker guide on or off this list that we covered in ’09? Let’s hear about it in the comments. If you’re feeling nostalgic, you can also gander back at the most popular how-to features of 2008.
Still haven’t gotten that Android 2.0.1 OTA update on your Droid? You’re not alone (most people are still waiting for 2.0 on their Android handset, you self-centered power user, you), but luckily there’s a simple solution. Basically you just have to manually download the update file, copy it to an SD card and restart your Droid while tapping out a simple succession of hardware keys. You can check out the “detailed” and “badass” versions of the instructions at the two respective source links below.
Hey, you, your gadgets are disgusting. And wiping them with your greasy shirt sleeve isn’t making things any better. Here’s how to clean your gadgets, the right way.
HDTVs and Monitors
This is the number one cleaning question I get from friends and family, and it’s one of the simplest to answer. HDTVs and monitors are the worst kind of dirt magnets, begging to be touched—by your boss who wants to show you something on your computer screen, by your greasy little cousin who’s getting restless during his umpteenth viewing of Finding Nemo, by your drunk old buddy from college who somehow still thinks it’s funny to grope actresses onscreen on his way to the bathroom—and sitting in total vulnerability: in the case of your LCD screen, within sneezing range; in the case of your flatscreen TV, in your dusty living room.
The tempting, nearly instinctual response to a oily, dusty, mucousy panel of glass or glasslike material is to reach under the sink, grab that bottle of Windex and the paper towels and spray that stuff down. Do not do this. There are some TVs and displays for which Windex will do the job—CRT televisions, for example, and some glass-paneled screens—and if you’ve been using Windex in the past without incident, don’t worry too much. But also, stop.
Spraying any kind of cleaner onto a screen isn’t a great idea. These panels aren’t weatherproof, so if your sprayed solvent runs into the crack between the panel surface and the display bezel, there will be tragedy. Furthermore, Windex is a glass cleaner: a lot of your screens’ outer layers aren’t glass, or have some kind of delicate coating. Ammonia-based cleaners, for example, can microscopically abrade some plastic surfaces, causing your screen to become slightly foggy over time. And for your cleaning tool, paper towels aren’t terrible, but they’re also somewhat risky—screen coatings can be extremely delicate, and paper towels can sometimes be a little rough. Plus, they’re prone to leaving streaks, no matter what liquid you’re using.
So, what’s the trick? Water. Water and a soft, lint-free (ideally microfiber, which is better at picking up greasy smudges) towel. To clean your panel, dampen your cloth and strain it out as best you can—you don’t want any drippage here—then run it, folded, gently across your screen, repeating until the screen has been thoroughly covered and any sticky residue has been removed. (For larger displays, perform cleaning in sections, so as not to let the water dry or collect and run.) Now do the same with a dry cloth, applying slightly more pressure, to lift away the dirt and moisture. Repeat if there are still grease deposits. That’s it! A few bucks for some soft cloths, a little bit of water, and your screen is as good as new.
And those specialty cleaning kits? They do work, for the most part, but they’re not necessary.
TV and Game Controllers
By the time your TV is in need to a deep cleaning, your remote—or your videogame controller—is probably in even worse shape. The kind of dirt a remote gathers is an order of magnitude more disgusting (and more human) than your panel, so you’re not just cleaning, you’re disinfecting. Interestingly enough, the cleaning method isn’t too far from the one above: A damp cloth, with some water. This time, though, you’ll want to throw a little isopropyl alcohol in the mix—a 40/60 booze and water split works—to help disinfect the buttons, and remove the oily brown buildups you can get between buttons. Again, soft cloth is better than paper towels, this time it tends to be a bit better at reaching between buttons than stiff, thin paper. Use wooden toothpicks for reaching into cracks, but nothing harder.
These are unique in that they’re shared gadgets. And shared gadgets are, almost without fail, fantastic vectors for germs. So what I’m saying is, clean them or die.
Cameras
Body: Cleaning your camera body is like cleaning almost any other gadget—a very slightly damp towel will do the trick. (Though be gentle around openings, since point-and-shoot camera guts lurk awfully close to the surface, and any intruding water can wreak serious havoc.)
Lenses: Lenses are dirt magnets, and if they’re dirty, you simply don’t get good pictures. They’re also delicate and expensive, so you can’t just reach in there with a paper towel and be done with it. Lens cleaning kits are available at every camera store, and include a light cleaning solution and microfiber cloth. These are safe bets, but don’t spend more than $15 bucks on them. Lens pens also work, but they’re a riskier proposition—there’s such a limited cleaning surface on those things, and I always get the sense that after a few uses, the cleaning element has been sort of tainted.
Again, though, stay safe with this one: Buy a microfiber cloth, and simply rub the lens with a circular motion until all visible smudges are gone. Never apply too much pressure—any dust or dirt on the lens can get picked up in your cloth and scratch your lens—and fold/refold your cloth to ensure you’re using a fresh surface at least once during a lens cleaning.
Two small notes on lenses: Don’t forget the clean the rear glass on any DSLR lens. There’s a lot less surface area there, and since it spends most of its time inside the camera or a locking lens cover it probably won’t be as dirty, so this should take much effort. And if you can, treat each of your DSLR lenses to a UV filter. While this is called a filter, it only block light that humans can’t naturally see, meaning that in most photos, the effect will be generally unnoticeable. (More on that here) Point is, you don’t have much to lose by buying one of the dirt-cheap filters, and it will provide a layer of transparent protection from dirt and scratches over your lenses at all times. And since they’re flat and thin, they’re easier to clean than convex lenses.
UPDATE: I’ve gotten a couple of emails from photo pros about this, and I think it bears mentioning: Before rubbing your lenses, it’s good practice to blast them with a little air. Air pumps (like the one mentioned in the following subsection) and canned air will do the job, as will, in a bind, your lungs. The thinking here is that you should remove any potentially abrasive particles from the lens before rubbing it, so as not to drag them around, causing permanent damage. —Thanks, Jody and Ned!
Sensors: Point-and-shoot and bridge camera users don’t have to worry about this, but DSLR users, who provide a chance for dirty to enter their camera bodies every time they change a lens, may need to clean a sensor one day. It’s not as scary as it sounds!
First of all, you’ll never have to actually clean a sensor, since DSLR sensors all have some manner of filter, either IR or UV, built in. But still, the surface is delicate, so you’ll want to be cautious. Most cameras include some kind of sensor-cleaning function in their software; since most sensor taint is comprised of a stray speck of dust or two, a quick, severe vibration will usually do the trick.
If that doesn’t work, and your photos are showing persistent, faded, unmoving spots in every photo, it’s time for phase II: air. For this, I defer to Ken Rockwell:
After 17,000 shots I finally got a speck on my D70. Remember I also change lenses a lot. The Shop Vac wasn’t enough. This time I used an ear syringe (blower bulb) from the drug store which you can get here. I put the D70 on BULB and pounded the bulb with my fist to create a jarring blast of air. That worked.
Rockwell advises to use an ear syringe; I’d say go with a purpose-design lens blower, since they’re still only about $10, and you’ll get better results without running the risk of pulverizing your DSLR’s guts while trying to get muscle enough airflow through a hard rubber earwax remover.
Beyond built-in sensor cleaning and a few blasts of air, there are plenty more methods for cleaning a sensor, but they’re all risky to varying degrees. Unless you’re supremely confident (and careful) it may be best to leave this one to the guys are your local camera shop, assuming you still have one. A ruined sensor, in most cases, is a ruined camera, so tread carefully.
Laptops
Screen grime is the most common cleaning problem with laptops, and with the display cleaning section of this guide, we’ve got that covered. That said, laptops collect filth in a variety of other ways, and they can get real microbial, real fast.
To clean a typical keyboard—that is, a non-chiclet design—you’ve got three steps to try. First, use a damp cloth with the aforementioned 40/60 alcohol/water mixture, turn off the laptop, and run it across the keys. Fold it a few times and use the edge to reach between the keys. You can use this same cloth to clean the rest of your laptop as well, excluding the screen, but including the touchpad. If that doesn’t do the trick, and you can spot some dust or hair in between keys, it’s time for some canned air. You can pick this stuff up at most big box electronics stores or online for $10 or less, and using it is as simple as tilting your laptop sideways, and blowing air in the cracks.
If this doesn’t work, it’s time to start popping off keys. Since you’re disassembling a keyboard that really isn’t meant to be taken apart, there’s a definite inherent risk here, but the results are practically guaranteed to be good. Here’s an extremely thorough guide, if you’re game for it. To give you an idea of what this entails, there’s a point in this tutorial at which all your laptop’s keys are swirling in a cereal bowl full of soapy water. It’s gruesome.
Another problem area for laptops is fans, air intake vents and heatsinks. These all stand in the pathway between outside air and your processor, which needs said air to keep cool. Any blockage can cause your laptop to run hot, your fans to run high, and consequently, your battery to run low. Disassembly instructions will vary from laptop to laptop, and typically will involve removing your entire keyboard. Once you’ve done this, though, removing the dust is a matter of blasting with air, scraping with a clean toothbrush or even just wiping with your finger. It’s not about total cleanliness here, it’s about clearing your computers’ windpipe.
Another helpful trick: Those white, last-gen MacBooks have a disgusting tendency to accumulate a beige (then brown, then black) residue where users’ palm touch the laptop. This discoloration is more of a stain than a buildup, so you can’t fix it with water or alcohol. The fix? Acetone. Seriously, the best way to wipe that crap off is with nail polish remover.
Desktops
We’ve covered how to clean most of the external pieces of a laptop already: any plastic surface gets a moist wipe-down; keyboards get compressed air. That’s it! Your desktop is sparking clean! This feels so good! Now slide of your desktop’s side panel, and weep. If you’ve had your desktop for more than a few months, and particularly if you keep it in a carpeted room, it’s probably an absolute horror show.
The first thing to do is, you guess it, pull out that microfiber cloth. Wipe down every surface that’s finished, which is to say covered in rubber (wires) painted (the inside of the case, and the plastic shell of an internal optical drive, or the decorated exterior of a video card) or inert (the blades of a fan, or the exterior of your heatsink). You can slightly dampen the cloth to help pick up dust from the corners of the case, but your probably don’t need to, and it’s best to keep this a dry operation, beginning to end. Next, whop out that can-o-air, and have at it. Pay special attention to dust buildup areas, like the heatsinks on your processor and video card, and the fan inside your power supply. This will likely cause some dust to resettle elsewhere, so you may need to repeat your wipedown/blow process once more. Again—cleaning the inside of your tower is less about maintaining a spotless appearance than it is making sure dirt, dust and hair buildup won’t negatively affect your computer’s performance, so don’t get too anal about it, cosmetically speaking.
Cellphones, iPods and other media players are designed to be pocketed, so you can be a little rough on them during the cleaning process. A very slightly damp cloth or paper towel will remove whatever fingerprint or residue your shirt or jeans won’t.
As much as these gadgets are intended to live in pockets, they have an irritatingly high number of places for dust to hide itself. Cellphones have keypads, or, increasingly, sets up buttons at the base of a touchscreen or on the sideof the handset, all of which give dirt a place to accumulate. The grilles over cellphones’ mics and speakers is another refuge for sludge, and they’re totally immune to simple wipedowns. For this, you’ve got to go one step further. Luckily, you’ve probably got all the supplies you need in your house already.
Wooden toothpicks and old toothbrushes help reach into cracks and crevices, like those around buttons or running around the perimeter of some display panels. (Samsung and HTC are particularly guilty of leaving spaces in places like that.)
Sometimes, as in the case of the tiny little mic/speaker grilles on some phones, you don’t want to push dirt in, but rather pull it out. For those situations, lay a strip of scotch tape over the afflicted area, run your finger over it a few times, and pull it off. If that doesn’t work, upgrade to duct tape—though you’ll want to be a bit more gentle with that, since applying too much pressure can leave adhesive on your device, which is a pain to wipe off.
Your Tips and Tricks
If you have more cleaning tips and tools to share, please drop some links in the comments-your feedback is hugely important to our Saturday How To guides.
And if you have any topics you’d like to see covered here, please let me know. Happy housekeeping, folks!
This article was written on June 07, 2008 by CyberNet.
Free digital issues of several popular magazines are available via www.zinio.com/iphone for free to iPhone users and those using Safari who change the user agent in their browser to “Mobile Safari 1.1.3-iPhone.” It’s also available to Firefox users who change their user agent accordingly. They’re not no-name brands of magazines either. Here’s a quick run-through of the full magazines that they offer as listed on the Zinio site:
U.S. News & World Report
Playboy
Saveur
Popular Photography
Men’s Health
Kiplinger’s
Popular Mechanics
Penthouse
Viv
Car and Driver
PC Magazine
Elle
Technology Review
Outside
Macworld UK
Esquire UK
NME
Macworld
Lonely Planet
Reader’s Digest
The only thing you have to do is enter in an email address which then subscribes you to their mailing list, and you’ll be able to view the full digital issues of the above listed magazines. When you choose a magazine, you’ll be able to scroll through the pages (they recommend landscape mode) and then tap on a page you want to view in a larger version.
To take advantage of this, on your iPhone just navigate to www.zinio.com/iphone. In case you don’t have an iPhone but you’re using Safari and want to take advantage of this, here’s how you change the User Agent:
Open Safari and go to preferences
Click the Advanced tab and check the box that says “show develop menu in menu bar”
Go up to the Develop Menu > User Agent > Mobile Safari 1.1.3 – iPhone
We knew about this for a couple of weeks now but decided not to write about it right away just in case it was something that was done by mistake. It’s still around though, so it may be here to stay…
This article was written on December 18, 2008 by CyberNet.
Windows only The other day I was having troubles with one of my machines regarding the .NET framework. As you probably already know many Windows applications require that you have a specific version of the .NET framework installed (1.0, 1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, etc…) in order for them to function properly. Unfortunately Microsoft doesn’t make it very easy to repair or reinstall the .NET framework should it decide to go haywire on you.
The first thing I tried to do is uninstall .NET through the add/remove interface with the hopes of reinstalling it again once that completed. Those hopes were quickly dashed once the uninstall process failed miserably, and left me with a half-installed product that didn’t work. To make matters worse I couldn’t reinstall the .NET framework since the computer was saying that it was already installed, and repairing it was never offered as an option.
I began searching around the Internet to find out that I was far from the only person finding themselves in this little crisis. While looking for a solution I stumbled upon a handy little tool created by a Microsoft employee that will cleanup any .NET installations you have on your machine. It removes both both files and registry settings that .NET creates when it is installed on a computer, but it is recommended that you try to use the standard add/remove programs interface before resorting to this.
What makes this tool so nice is the fact that you can have it remove one specific version of .NET, or remove all of them at once. Just select the corresponding option from the drop-down menu, and you’ll be on your merry little way.
Not everyone may have the same problem I did, but it’s obvious that issues like this are fairly widespread. Maybe Microsoft will fix this in future releases of .NET, but this is one tool I’ll always keep handy.
This article was written on June 18, 2009 by CyberNet.
When Apple announced that the iPhone would be capable of tethering a computer to the Internet a lot of customers in the U.S. shrugged their shoulders because AT&T wasn’t on the list of carriers who were ready to roll the service out. So even though the iPhone 3.0 software (released yesterday) supports tethering all AT&T customers won’t be able to take advantage of it, well, not in a legit way that is.
AT&T has pretty much just shot themselves in the foot because now this has started to make people look for a way to utilize the functionality without needing to Jailbreak their device. And they have done it. 9to5Mac has already posted instructions for an extremely simple 3-step process that will fully enable tethering on the iPhone 3G (and presumably the iPhone 3GS?). Plus you can choose whether you want to tether via Bluetooth or through the USB cable where your iPhone will be charged at the same time.
Sounds great, huh? There are a few things you should know before trying this out:
You’ll need a Mac in order to get your iPhone ready for tethering. BUT once your iPhone has been setup this will also work on any Windows machine as long as you have iTunes installed. I tested it out on a Windows XP computer, and there were absolutely no problems accessing the Internet. If you do some searching you might find instructions on how to prep your iPhone using a Windows machine.
You’ll likely have problems accessing your visual voicemail after applying the changes, and I eventually found that downloading the ICC file from here and using that instead fixed both. So I recommend using that file instead of the one from 9to5Mac. Reading through the comments on 9to5Mac will also tell you how to revert the changes if you want to go back to how it was.
There’s no confirmation whether AT&T can recognize that you’re tethering, which means there is a possibility you’ll be charged extra.
I gave this a whirl despite the risk of seeing extra fees on my phone bill next month, and the results were rather spectacular. When stationary at my house I could get download speeds of about 2.3Mbps, and while rapidly moving on a train I consistently got between 0.9Mbps and 1.2Mbps.
There’s a very good chance that once AT&T finally lets people tether their devices that there will also be a hefty fee associated with it. I only tether a few times each month, and there’s no way that I’d ever pay for tethering if it was more than $10 a month since it’s not something I see as vital. So hopefully this “hack” will remain in working order, and any charges will stay clear of my bill. If that’s the case this trick is perfect for me.
If you don’t mind the risk of getting charged for tethering, and you have access to a Mac, check out the instructions.
P.S. I took the screenshot above to show you what the iPhone displays when you’re tethered.
To think, it’s been over five years since we last tackled how to get music off your iPod, as opposed to the other way around. Back then, the classic model had only recently added the infamous click wheel (while still rocking the monochrome screen, mind you), iPod nano was still called the mini, and viewing photos was a brand new feature worthy of having its own line. It’s time to take another look at how to transfer media of all sorts — audio, video, and pictures — from a variety of iPods and iPhones back to your Windows or Mac OS X machine.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
Windows only 
Picking your number. You’ll be given a choice of numbers, which you can choose from practically any available area code. Choose wisely: this will be your primary number from here on out. Choosing your first number is free; changing it in the future will cost you $10. Boo, waah, etcetera! But really not a huge deal.
This is much easier that it sounds: Just click “Activate Google Voicemail” next to your newly-added phone, and enter the number they give you exactly as it’s written, symbols and all. Once you “call” that number, you’ll get some kind of message on your phone. On the iPhone, it looks like this.
Placing calls. The aforementioned methods is the most obvious, and it will reliably work. It’s a little cumbersome, especially if you’re used to just tapping on a contact and placing a call. Thankfully there are a few more ways to place calls from your phone, and have it routed through Google Voice:
Sending Texts. Again, using the web interface is a great way to send texts, as are the mobile apps. But the best solution? The 406 trick listed above works for SMSes too.
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When Apple announced that the iPhone would be capable of tethering a computer to the Internet a lot of customers in the U.S. shrugged their shoulders because AT&T wasn’t on the list of carriers who were ready to roll the service out. So even though the iPhone 3.0 software (released yesterday) supports tethering all AT&T customers won’t be able to take advantage of it, well, not in a legit way that is.
