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How To Skip Activation on The Samsung Galaxy S3 and Samsung Fascinate

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samsungGalaxyS3

Sometimes you find yourself wanting to use a phone for Wi-Fi, gaming only, or maybe you just need to access content on an old phone but you can’t seem to get past the activation screen.

There has to be a way to make an “un-activated” phone more useful. Well, there is, and it only requires a secret key press combination to get you past the activation screen.

Obviously, you will not have the “full” functionality of the phone, but at least you don’t have to use it as a paperweight.

For the Samsung Galaxy S3 press this key combination:

  • Bottom left corner
  • Bottom right corner
  • Bottom left corner
  • Bottom right corner
  • Volume up

* TIP: You should be on the language selection screen when entering the key combination.

For the Samsung Fascinate:

  • Enter the emergency dialer
  • Dial *#83786633
  • Press Send
  • Press Home Key

 

 

Hack Makes Chat Heads Persistent Throughout iOS

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Chat Heads was recently brought to iOS but it wasn’t quite the same as the Android version which allowed for the ‘Chat Heads’ to be visible even when the Facebook app isn’t open. Facebook mentioned that they couldn’t do the same for iOS due to it being too locked down.

It didn’t take long though for someone to Jailbreak hack this thing apart and make it happen, well sort of. It’s a bit buggy at the moment but appears that having ‘Chat Heads’ be persistent throughout iOS is possible if you have a Jailbroken phone and the people at the Verge show us how.

A Quick Look at How Lightning Works and a Cool Video

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It’s that time of year again in most the United States when we start to see warming temperatures and that means a lots of thunderstorms. We see the flash and then hear the rumble of thunder as we witness the power of our planet’s weather system.

Although many of us have experienced a thunderstorm, few truly understand what’s going on out there when lightning strikes. It’s quite clear why it would be difficult to determine exactly what’s going on when a thunderstorm produces lightning, after all, lightning happens in a split second. Thankfully, there are lots of people out there studying storms and using high speed cameras to slow everything down, this helps us get a clearer picture of what’s happening. One of those people is Tom A. Warner, a photographer who has captured some amazing footage of lightning, among many other things.

Lightning occurs when a storm becomes electrified. As the storm moves over an area, it’s negative charge causes the ground around it go become positively charged. This build up and difference in electrical charge is why lightning occurs. What’s even more interesting is that the lighting doesn’t just come lying out of the cloud, at least not initially. A Stepped Leader (-) begins to make it’s way down from the cloud as streamers (+) move upward from the ground. When the streamer meets the step leader then connection is complete and we see the resulting discharge as lightning. In the video above you can clearly see the Stepped Leader searching for the best path for the lightning to take.

Anything can produce a streamer towards a storm cloud, it’s usually a tall object but even you could be producing one. What’s worse is you could become part of the circuit and bam, you’ve been hit by lightning. That’s why it’s important to follow safety guidelines if your caught in a storm

Lightning Animation B
Stepped Leader Animation (Credit: NOAA)
Lightning Animation A
Streamer Animation (Credit: NOAA)

 

 

 

Featured App: Whims

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Whims is a social media app similar to Instagram, except instead of photos, you create text.

Whims Detail

You start off by signing up and making a profile. Then you pick a style sheet, they give you so many to choose from. A style sheet has a theme based on people, such as Harry Potter style. There are two types of font in that style and three color options. You can choose which specific words you want to change to the second font choice, if at all. Other options are, alignment, text size and text spacing.

Afterwards when you click “create” there is another option called “add texture”, this will give your background a different look. You can choose from no filter, crumpled, rust, stationary, vintage, water spill, and notes. These can be layered all together and the more you click, the more intense the texture becomes.

Once you have perfected your design, you can add a comment or tags and share on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, text message, and email. This will post to the Whims page, but there is an option to save as a “Private Whim” which will only save the image to your phone.

I love this app because it has so many beautiful styles for free, unlike other apps that make you pay for packages and different fonts.

Download for free from the App Store

 

Potter Stylewhims styles

Catch The Lyrid Meteor Shower This Weekend

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lyridsFromSpace
The Lyrid Meteor Shower as seen from the International Space Station (Source:NASA)

Every year the Earth passes through an area of debris in space that is left behind from Comet Thatcher. When we pass through this area of dust, we on the Earth’s surface get to see quite a show.

This meteor shower is known as the Lyrid meteor shower and the radiant of the shower (where the shower appears to originate) is near the brightest star in the constellation Lyra, Vega. The shower will be at it’s peek this weekend on April 21 and 22 (Sunday night and early Monday morning).

Unfortunately, many of us will have difficulty observing this event as the Moon will be very bright, almost full. No need to get discouraged though as you should still be able to see many of them anyway, especially farther away from sources of light pollution like bigger cities. As you watch space debris streak across the sky, think about how they are moving at over 100,000 mph or 160,934 km/h, it’s pretty cool stuff.