customization

The Best Apps for Customizing Your Android Phone

One of the reasons for choosing Android over iOS is the extra customization options you get—you can really dive deep when it comes to tweaking the appearance of Android, pixel-by-pixel, and there are a huge number of apps around to help. Make use of some or all of these to give your Android device a…

How to Upgrade Your Computer’s Login Screen

The login screen greets you every single time you boot up your computer, but it’s often neglected when it comes to tweaking and customizing your system. Here’s how to make changes to the login screen on macOS Sierra or Windows 10 so it’s very much your own. Customizing the macOS login screen By default, macOS…

How to Make Your Windows Look Any Way You Want

After a spending a couple of years with it, the standard Windows desktop can get pretty boring. If you’re looking for something a little more exciting, Rainmeter is a tool that will help you get there. It’s been helping PC users customize, tweak, tailor, and enhance their desktops for years. The cool thing is that…

How To Make Any Android Phone a Nexus

Nexus phones are essential tools for any Android fan or developer because of their lack of bloatware and regular system updates. Now, thanks to tweaks to the latest version of the operating system, it’s not that difficult to get a Nexus-style experience on any handset. Here’s how you can do it. For the purposes of…

How to Change Any App Icon on Android

One of the main reasons many people choose Android is for the extra customization possibilities of Google’s mobile OS—and that extends to the way you can tweak and replace app icons, if you know what you’re doing. With the right tool, you can change any of the icons on your home screen, and here’s how…

How To Make Windows 10 Change Color to Match Your Desktop Wallpaper

Now that you’ve installed Windows 10 and mastered the basics of Microsoft’s new operating system, you’re going to want to start digging deeper into some of the customization options available—like automatically changing the system interface colors whenever you pick a new wallpaper image. Windows has a long and proud history of letting you tweak the…

How to Customize the File Explorer Interface in Windows 10

File Explorer (formerly known as Windows Explorer) is your way into your PC—whether you’re looking for settings, files or peripherals, this is often where you’ll be starting your search (it’s pinned to the taskbar for a reason). Windows 10 brings a new look to the File Explorer interface, and here’s how to tweak it to…

How to Transform the Look of Your Gmail

Unless you’re the rare breed that uses Outlook, or have switched to Inbox, you’re no doubt familiar with the look of Gmail’s web interface. Now, through Gmail’s settings, themes and some selected add-ons, you can easily transform that look to better suit your tastes. Settings and Layout Click on the cog icon on the right…

How to Add Customized Gesture Controls to Your Android Phone

Get yourself an Android phone or tablet and you can hack it to work in pretty much whatever way you want—and that extends to input as well. All In One Gestures is one of several apps on the Google Play Store that let you create customized gestures for controlling your apps and the OS itself.…

Soon, You’ll Be Able to Build Your Own Moto 360 Smartwatch

People want their smartwatches to be fashion statements. And some have gone to extreme measures—including one enterprising, sandpaper-equipped individual—to make them uniquely their own. Now, Motorola is making it way easier to build your own Moto 360 smartwatch—no sandpaper required. Moto Maker, the online customization tool previously reserved only for the Moto X smartphone, will…

Want a Moto X but have been holding out for pretty colors? Good news, Moto Maker customization is no longer exclusive to AT&T, and has now expanded to Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile as well. And now it’s only $100 on contract.

9 Reasons to Root Your Android Device

To root or not to root? That is the question. Rooting your Android device definitely pushes you up a level or two in your geekdom. It requires a certain level of commitment, at least a little savvy, and even a modicum of risk. So, why would you want to bother? We’ve got nine good reasons…

Top 10 Awesome Android Features that the iPhone Doesn’t Have

We love both Android and iOS, but the open nature of Android just means it can do things others just can’t. Here are our favorite Android apps and features that you won’t find on its Apple-clad brethren.… [Lifehacker]

Getting Started with Linux: The Complete Guide

If you’ve been meaning to try out Linux but felt too overwhelmed, we’ve got all the info you need to get started. Here are our five lessons on getting a working Linux partition up and running. Lesson 1: Why Install Linux? – Everyone’s heard about this thing called Linux, but you may still be wondering…

How to Customize Your Jailbroken iOS Lockscreen

The default iOS lockscreen is little more than a glorified wristwatch; functional, but not very useful for much else than checking the date. Having a jailbroken iOS device opens up a Pandora’s box of possibilities, allowing you to add more info and a personal touch to the most basic of your phone’s functions: the lockscreen.…

Wooden iPhone 4 Backs: Tackily Awesome, or Awesomely Tacky?

When we first screwed on Material6’s wooden iPhone 4 replacement backplates, we weren’t sure what to think. Would we get looks of envy? Looks of scorn? Were they just straight up ugly? A few weeks later, we’re in love. We were worried at first. Was it a little douchey to add wood paneling to your…

A Celebration of Design Without Designers

The basic premise of TechnoCRAFT, a new San Francisco gallery exhibition, is that something’s gone wrong in the history of people making things. These days, designers have all the power—and maybe it’s time to put users in control. The show is curated by renowned industrial designer Yves Béhar, whose work you unknowingly recognize from the…

Match Your TV to Every Other ColorWare’d Gadget You Own

ColorWare’s now accepting orders for painted HDTVs, however there’s a small catch—you can’t send in the one you already own, instead you’ve got to order the whole shebang through them. Now you can color-coordinate with your carpet! [ColorWare]

Pray That Your Kratos Case Mod PC Doesn’t Get a Virus

If you’ve been looking for a case mod that will strike fear into all the other computers you come across, well, look no further. But be careful, this guy gets cranky when he needs to defrag. A lot of us subject our computers to quite a bit of abuse. We overcrowd their hard drives and…

Quick-Change Car Colors (1958)

Imagine a Hypercolor t-shirt. Now, instead of a t-shirt, imagine a car. And instead of a lame 90’s fashion fad, imagine a lame 90’s automotive fad. The September 21, 1958 edition of Arthur Radebaugh’s Closer Than We Think illustrated just such a possible fad. I mean… innovation. The automobile industry is studying a new kind…