Few routers utilize their full potential out of the box because their firmware limits their functionality. Thanks to an open-source project called DD-WRT, you can unlock your router’s potential to broadcast a stronger signal, manage network traffic, remotely access all your home computers, and a whole lot more. Here’s how to install it, set it up, and supercharge your network.

What You’ll Need

You don’t need much to get started with DD-WRT. All it takes is a little time to find the right version for your (hopefully) supported router:

• A supported router: Many popular routers released at least six months ago have DD-WRT support, but DD-WRT does not support all routers. Search the database to find out if yours is supported. Many have functional beta firmware, if not a final release, but read any notes on your router’s page to find out if you need to do anything special in order to successfully install DD-WRT.

• DD-WRT: When you look up your router using DD-WRT’s router database search (mentioned in the previous step), you’ll have a few downloads. Most routers will have a few downloads and you just want to choose the latest stable build. In some cases, like with the popular Asus RT-N66U, you may need to first flash temporary firmware to install DD-WRT. Most routers don’t require much work, but some need a little extra effort. Read your router’s page carefully so you don’t accidentally install the wrong thing and brick it.

• About a half an hour of your time to handle the above steps, install the DD-WRT firmware, and configure your newly supercharged router.

That’s it. Once you have your router and its corresponding DD-WRT firmware you can start setting it up.

Install DD-WRT

Installing DD-WRT varies depending on your router, but the general instructions tend to stay the same. Here’s how it usually works:

1. Log into your router’s admin page. This page lives at varying locations, but it’ll either resemble 192.168.x.x or 10.0.x.x. For example, most Linksys routers host their admin pages at http://192.168.1.1. Consult your router’s manual for its admin address if you don’t know it.

2. Go to the Admin(istration) section and choose Firmware Upgrade.

3. Choose “Select File” and find your DD-WRT firmware.

4. Upload it and wait for your router to update. Do not unplug or do anything to the router until it finishes updating.

Again, these instructions will differ depending on the router you choose. DD-WRT will include specific instructions for your router if you need to do anything special, so make sure you read them.

With DD-WRT successfully installed, reconnect to your network over ethernet or Wi-Fi (with a new network SSID of dd-wrt) and visit your admin page. In most cases it will still live at the same address of its predecessor (e.g. if you went to http://192.168.1.1 to upload the DD-WRT firmware, go there now). DD-WRT may request a username and password, which by default is root/admin (which you should change to your own if this happens). Newer versions will ask you to choose your own. After logging in, you’ll see the DD-WRT admin page. Now you’re ready to get started!

What You Can Do With Your New Super Router

With DD-WRT installed, you’ll have access to tons of awesome features. Let’s take a look at some of the best.

Note: You might notice that some of these features are available in existing routers that don’t run DD-WRT. Some routers offer more features than others, but DD-WRT always expands on those features even if they’re already present in the default firmware. So, don’t discount DD-WRT just because you already have certain features. DD-WRT can make them better.

Boost Your Wireless Signal

DD-WRT offers a few ways to improve your wireless signal. First, you need to pick the best wireless channel with the least interference. To do that, use the Meraki Wi-Fi Stumbler to see which channels are occupied by the fewest nearby routers. For more exact results, DD-WRT offers a bunch of tools to locate the best channel. If you’d like to take a deep dive into this process, read these instructions.

Once you know the channel you want, you have to tell DD-WRT. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Choose the Wireless tab from the admin page.

2. DD-WRT should select the Basic Settings sub-tab by default, but if not you should click on it.

3. Find the Wireless Channel drop-down menu and select the channel you want.

4. Click Save, then click Apply Settings.

Wait for the router to reboot with its new wireless channel, connect to your network, and you’ll be good to go.

DD-WRT can do more to improve your wireless signal by actually making your router transmit more powerfully. While it may seem like you’ll want to transmit as powerfully as your router allows, you might end up frying its motherboard that way. Instead, setting its transmit (Tx) power to 71 mW will give it a slight kick without any burnout. You can change by clicking the Wireless tab and then the Advanced Wireless Settings subtab. You’ll find a Tx Power setting. You may see it at 71 mW already as more recent versions change this for you, but if not you can make the change in that section.

If all of that doesn’t do it for you, there are always signal-boosting DIY projects that can help as well.

Use QoS to Prevent Bandwidth Hogging and Network Overloads

QoS (Quality of Service) is a set of rules that prevents bandwidth hogs, whether that’s a person (your roommate) or application (BitTorrent). QoS provides a lot of power and control and setting it up can get pretty detailed if you want. We’ll take a look at the basics here, but check out our full QoS guide for more information.

To get started, navigated to the NAT / QoS tab and then click the QoS sub-tab. Before you can do much, you’ll have to enable QoS (by selecting the Enable radio button) and fill in a few settings:

• WAN, LAN, or Both: Generally you’ll use QoS to handle traffic from outside your local network, so you’ll defaults to WAN (Wide Area Network). Unless you have a reason to change it, just leave this setting as-is.

• Packet Scheduler: This can be set to HTB or HFSC. HTB is the default method that uses a "token" system to manage bandwidth. Don't change this to HFSC unless you know what you're doing.

• Uplink and Downlink: Here you can set a limit for the total network bandwidth can be used on your network. If you don't want to max out your connection, you can set these speeds to less than their theoretical maximums. DD-WRT recommends 80-95% for uplink and 80-100% for downlink.

Once you've got those global settings taken care of, you can start specifying rules. DD-WRT splits these rules up into three categories: Services, Netmask, and MAC priorities. Here’s what they mean:

• Services Priority lets you set bandwidth priorities for different applications. These applications are pre-set and include everything from SMTP to BitTorrent to Xbox Live. If a particular service isn't listed, you can add it yourself.

• Netmask Priority can give bandwidth priority to a range of IP addresses. For example, if you have three computers that use the IP addresses 192.168.1.10, 192.168.1.11, 192.168.1.12, you can specify that range to receive priority. This can be useful if you want to ensure that your machines will always take priority over any guest computers that show up on your network.

• MAC Priority is a way to set which specific devices receive priority over others. Here you enter your device's MAC address (a MAC address is a unique identifying address for your computer's network adapter) and set a relevant priority.

Once you've chosen a service, IP range, or MAC address, and added it to your priorities list, you have to actually define the priority. By default the priority will be set to Standard, but you can promote it to Express or Premium to give it a higher bandwidth priority over other items on the list. These categories are good for applications that will sometimes require additional bandwidth, such as video chat and VOIP. You can also set any item to Exempt to let the app or computer use as much bandwidth as it wants and Bulk if you want it to only use bandwidth that is left over from other applications.

After you've finished adding all your devices and setting their priorities, you can save your settings and let your router reboot (if necessary). That's really all you have to do to get QoS working, but if you want to take a deeper dive you should check out our full QoS guide.

Set Up Port Forwarding to Access Your Computer from Afar

In most cases, your local network is local and cut off from the rest of the internet and you have just one IP address that's shown to the world (even though your router distributes several to your individual computers and devices locally)—your WAN IP. Port forwarding does takes a port on your WAN IP address—the one available to the rest of the web—and forwards it to a port on one of your local machines—a LAN IP address—so you or others can access a specific service on your local network when they’re connected to another one.

To give you a real-world example, web servers run on port 80 by default. If you wanted to run a web server from a machine at home, you’d open up port 80 on your WAN IP address and tell it to forward to port 80 on the LAN IP address of your local machine. Let’s say your WAN IP is 75.43.111.3 and the LAN IP of your desktop computer—the one you want to use as a web server—is 192.168.1.104. When someone goes to http://75.43.111.3 in a web browser (HTTP assumes you want to use port 80) they’ll get forwarded to the web server on your local machine and see whatever site you set up.

Setting up port forwarding is pretty straightforward, but before you get started you need to know what ports you want to open up. Most of the time, you'll set up port forwarding on an as-needed basis—say after you've set up a new service on your computer, like a web server. Sites like PortForward.com can help, as they provide a handy list of common ports for specific services. You can use this list to check which ports you need to open for whatever services you want to make available from outside your home network.

Once you know which port you want to open, click on the NAT / QoS tab in DD-WRT and then the Port Forwarding sub-tab. Once there, click the Add button to create a new port forwarding rule and fill out the following:

• Application - The name of the application you're forwarding this port for. You can use any descriptive text you want—this field is here to help you remember why you set this up; like the name suggests, you normally want to use the name of the application you're setting up port forwarding for. I also include my computer's name along with the service, since I forward ports for the same applications on different computers. This helps me quickly find the rules should I need to change them later on.

• Port to - "Port to" is the port on your local IP address. If you were setting up VNC for a local computer, you'd fill this in with 5900 as that's the port number VNC uses.

• Port from - "Port from" is the port on your external IP address. Generally you'll also enter the same port as you would in the "Port to" field. This works just fine when you're configuring only one machine for one type of service. But say you wanted to be able to remotely access two or more computers using VNC. If you used 5900 on a single, external IP address they would be in conflict. The router would see a request for port 5900 and not know which local IP address should handle that request since the port forwarding table has two. To solve this problem, you can use the standard port for one and not for the other—kind of like an apartment building has a single address but multiple apartments. As you can see in the sample routing table above, Grey's "Port from" is set to 5900 while Hunter's "Port from" is set to 5901. If you try to use VNC normally on my external IP address, you'll be asked to log in to Grey because it uses the standard port. If you want to access Hunter, however, you can easily do so by just using port 5901 instead of the default. This way you can set up identical services with a single external IP address without conflicts.

• Protocol - This is where you specify whether or not your service uses the TCP protocol, UDP protocol, or both. When you look up your ports you'll also want to make note of the protocols used. In most cases it will just be TCP.

• IP Address - This is where you specify the LAN (local area network) IP address of the computer you want to use for this port forwarding rule. You can easily find this information in your computer's network settings. The IP address will generally be in the 192.168.x.x or 10.0.x.x format. Because these IP address are generally dynamic (meaning they can change), you'll want to either set up static IP addresses or DHCP reservations. More information on that is available below.

• Enable - You need to check this box to enable the port forwarding rule. If you don't check it, you'll still be able to save the rule but it won't be active or function in any way.

When you’re done adding a port forwarding rule, click Save. When you’re done adding all of your rules, click Apply Settings. These are just the basics of port forwarding, and you can do quite a bit more with DD-WRT. For more information, read our port forwarding guide.

Learn More

These features just scratch the surface of what you can do with DD-WRT. If you want to learn more, you’ll find tons of tutorials over at the DD-WRT Wiki. It’s not only a great resource for DD-WRT router setup and administration, but networking info as well. Whether you stop here or learn more, enjoy your new super router that cost you nothing to upgrade.

Exercise: most of us hate it and wish we did it more often. The key? Finding a routine that doesn't take too long but also doesn't try to pack two hours of work into four minutes, leaving you feel like you're lucky to be alive. Over the last couple of years, tons of of quick exercise routines you can actually stick to have surfaced. Pick one and get started this weekend.

Simple Circuit Training

Circuit training workouts are great because you can pick a few key exercises for the day and just keep doing them for 20 minutes (or until you can't go on anymore). The downside, of course, is that these workouts tend to be a little difficult in the beginning but if you stick with them and don't expect too much of yourself right off the bat, you'll get in better shape with a small time commitment.

Our guide to getting a complete workout with nothing but your body features plenty of simple exercises you can start with. Just pick three to five that focus on different parts of your body and swap them out with other routines during the week. You can also spend different days concentrating on specific parts of your body (e.g. arms, legs, or core) when you want more focus but try to work in some sort of cardio whenever possible. For some assistance, check out previously-mentioned mobile and webapp Sworkit. It creates randomly-generated circuit training workouts, walks you through them, and tracks your progress. The app is free to use, but a pro version offers additional features.

Tolerable Interval Training

Interval training proves that you only need about 20 minutes worth of exercise per day to get in shape. Like circuit training, interval training tends to require harder work for a shorter amount of time but it can be a lot easier than you might think.

Researchers found that the single most effective exercise regimen may be spending 20 minutes on a stationary bike performing micro intervals. You simply pedal slowly for 12 seconds, pedal as fast as you can for 8, and then repeat this process 60 times (for a total of 20 minutes). The exercise itself isn't that hard, but it requires a lot of attention. Thinking about exercising for 20 minutes can feel like torture even when it isn't. To help solve that problem, I developed an app to keep you on track with this specific flavor of interval training. That way you can watch TV, listen to a podcast, or engage in a variety of other activities and only sort of pay attention to the fact that you're working pretty hard.

A Comprehensive Micro Routine

A full body workout doesn't require a gym or much time at all. In fact, you can manage on in just seven minutes. The American College of Sports Medicine's Health and Fitness Journal highlighted an effective, quick routine that uses your body weight to provide a comprehensive work out and help you get you in better shape. Like the bike interval training method mentioned about, this routine was essentially developed in a lab to find a simple and quick way for people to exercise on a tight time budget. If you're in a rush, this is the routine for you.

Don't Forget About Your Diet

Exercise is only one piece of the puzzle. A healthy diet matters just as much. Different diets work better for different people, so you'll have to find the right one for you, but you should be able to make a significant impact by simply limiting your portion size to only what you need and making healthy substitutions for unhealthy foods. Whatever you do, don't expect exercise to turn you into a Greek sculpture. Diet matters, too, so don't make it an afterthought!

Good luck, and happy Friday everyone!

At some point you've been told to fake it 'til you make it, and that's because with a little effort you can delude yourself into believing—and then becoming—whatever you hope to be. As A.J. Jacobs, author of Drop Dead Healthy, points out in this quote, we're a lot more flexible and less stubborn than we may think. He explains:

Our behavior greatly affects our thoughts and attitudes. If you are feeling a lack of confidence or have an urge to change something within yourself, you must “act your way into a new way of thinking,” rather than trying to think your way into a new way of acting.

Not sure how to fake-act? A few body language changes can make a big difference.

Insights from A.J. Jacobs, Joe Gebbia, Charlie Todd, & More at the 2013 99U Conference | The 99U

Photo by VLADGRIN (Shutterstock).

Cooking at home can save you a lot of money, but you can also rack up a huge grocery bill learning to make certain dishes that don't always turn out better than their cheaper counterparts. What are your favorite inexpensive, home-cooked meals?

Personal finance blog Wise Bread shares a number of recipes that cost as little as $2 each to make. That seems a little on the excessively cheap side, however one of my favorite cheap meals—which comes out to about $2—is just rice, beans, and veggies. What's yours? Share a recipe if you've got it!

Best Money Tips: Dinner Recipes for $2 or Less | Wisebread

Photo by wavebreakmedia (Shutterstock).

Google didn't announce the latest version of Android at I/O, their annual developer conference, leaving our devices feeling sad and unloved. Android 4.3 may still be on the way soon, but for now, here's what we wish they announced—and how you can get many of these features right now.

A Smarter Lock Screen

Android's lock screen has evolved in many ways to include widgets and a Google Now shortcut, but it could use a bit more. We've wanted more shortcuts to our most-used apps, notifications, and extensions to add even more. Fortunately, a few apps can give you those features right now.

Dashclock (Free) supercharges your lock screen, and we've got a great guide to help you set it up. Not only does it look great, but it'll provide notification via icons and/or text, useful information like weather and appointments, provide audio controls, and a lot more. Most importantly, you can extend Dashclock to do a number of things to make your lock screen incredibly useful.

For those who prefer a more iOS-like interface, try LockerPro ($4). Due to its higher price and fewer useful features it comes hard to recommend in comparison to Dashclock, but some may prefer its interface if they like the way iOS handles its lock screen.

If you want quick settings to your favorite apps, you can grab something like WidgetLocker or flash a ROM like CyanogenMod, which give you a more dynamic lock screen. Not only will you get your favorite widgets, but you can add buttons to your most used apps for quick access—no swipe-to-unlock required.

Profiles for Settings

Android does a great job of taking care of things for you so you don't have to waste your time doing them yourself. One great example that just got a little bit greater? Google Now. But Android doesn't manage your settings based on your location or needs right out of the box. When our sister site Gizmodo went through the 15 features they want from Android, this was one they mentioned, and we agree: the ability to create setting profiles and switch between them easily. Custom ROM Cyanogenmod adds this feature, but if it doesn't support your phone you'll want to check out Setting Profiles ($4, Lite).

Setting Profiles allows you to automatically activate different settings on your phone based on your location, battery condition, and other rules. For example, when your battery gets low you could have a profile that automatically disables power-hungry features like LTE, GPS, and high screen brightness.

A Unified Messaging System

Google Voice provides anyone with the ability to send/receive text messages and receive calls from their Android phone or computer. It's a really great service, but it has yet to see a significant update in quite a long time. Meanwhile, Apple's iOS offers a nice unified messaging system in the form of iMessage. While both have their faults, it would be nice to see Android take Google Voice a step further and support picture messaging and group messaging (MMS)—at the very least.

If you want an alternative to Google Voice that offers these additional features, try MightyText. It provides access to your text messages on any computer, via a web interface, and on tablets as well. This way you can not only keep all your messages in sync, but also receive MMS on every device. Future versions of MightyText will include photo sync, too, so you'll get new features as development progresses.

Simpler App Management

Installing apps through Google Play works great, and organizing your home screen doesn't take much effort either. When you want to remove an app, however, you can uninstall it from your home screen—you can only remove it. We'd like to see simpler app management with options. Custom launchers, such as NOVA Launcher, allow you to press and hold apps and decide whether you want to remove them from your home screen or uninstall them from your phone. You also get quick access to app info pages so you can clear their caches and manage their other settings with ease.

Alternative launchers provide a number of other great features that enhance your home screen's abilities and its interface, so we highly recommend installing an alternative to the default if you haven't already.

Also, check out Andmade Share if all of this isn't enough. It'll allow you to reorganize Android's share menu and prioritize the apps you use most.

Other Features Google Needs to Improve

Unfortunately we can't add every feature and fix we'd like to see in the next version of Android. Here are the major items on our wish list:

• A consistent back button: Android's back button doesn't always work quite the same way in every app, so it takes a little trial and error before you know where you're going. We'd like to see Google set some guidelines for how the back button should be used so users always know what to expect.
• Clean up the notifications drawer: While we've always loved Android's notification drawer, we'd like to see a little more organization. Even something as minor as notification categories or organization by app would make a big difference.
• More resizable widgets: We like the ability to resize widgets, but some can't be resized at all. Custom launchers help a little bit in some cases, but not in all. Additionally, sometimes certain sizes of widgets leaves them feeling unevenly spaced on your home screen. We'd like to see a few updates to make everything fit better and look nicer.
• Social media integration in the notifications drawer: iOS offers the ability to tweet and post to Facebook from its Notification Center, so why shouldn't Android? Also, if Google made notification drawer widgets an option we could do much more (like check weather or search the web).

All of this said, Google made Android pretty amazing since 4.1 and a lot of the features we want we can wait for. But part of what makes new versions of Android great is that we get a bunch of cool features we couldn't have thought of ourselves. With Android 4.3 rumored for June 10th, we may see a decent update. Hopefully it'll bring some excitement many felt was missing from this year's I/O keynote.

We all intend to remember to put our laundry in the drier, but sometimes life gets in the way and we return to a stinky clump of clothing that often smells stale even after you dry them. Instead, DIY Life suggests a half cup of white vinegar will do the trick:

Many people already know that white vinegar in a small bowl will remove smoky or musty odors, and that you can put the bowl on a closet floor or shelf if those odors happen to be stuck in your coats and jackets. What many people do not know is that, if you put white vinegar in your wash water at the beginning of a laundry load, it will both freshen and soften the clothes being washed. The scent of vinegar will have miraculously disappeared by the end of the wash cycle, but everything will smell very clean. You don't need much vinegar: a half cup is sufficient, a full cup is plenty, and exact measurements probably aren't necessary. Don't forget to add your usual detergent, too!

You don't need to run the wash for quite as long the second time. Make it short and sweet and say goodbye to that stale smell.

Vinegar: Laundry's Best Friend | DIY Life

Photo by Marie C. Fields (Shutterstock).

Google broadcast the I/O 2013 keynote live on YouTube today, giving a detailed peek into the latest updates to their various technologies across Android, Chrome, and the web as a whole. The I/O conference consists of a lot more than announcements, however, with displays showing off all kinds of technologies Google and third parties employ to make the web and mobile devices better.

We registered on Tuesday to ensure we didn't run into any delays when getting to the keynote the next morning. Registration was super simple. You just checked yourself in with a QR code or confirmation number on a Chromebook and proceeded to the appropriate table to pick up your NFC-enabled badge. If you had an NFC-enabled Android phone, you could just tap it to the badge to get a variety of information. It also included personal data for I/O conference workers to confirm your identity.

Whitson and I had a surprise visit from Pash at our hotel, who brought along his Google Glass. It's very interesting to watch someone use it because they're having a very specific experience, seeing something only they can see. It looks like they're rubbing their glasses but they're actually navigating an interface. When Glass talks to you, it uses the bones in your head to amplify the sound so it tickles a little when making noise.

We woke up at 6:00 AM to get ready for the keynote and headed to the Moscone Center around 7:00 AM. From there we got to hang out in a press room and eat pastries while we waited for Google to escort us to the keynote room. After that, we waited outside the doors for a bit then went into the press area up front. It was a great view, and we were surrounding by some of the most enthusiastic developers I've ever met. People came from all over the world. It was really neat to see different development teams from so many different cultures.

Despite Google's advanced technology, they still can't get Wi-Fi to work well in the Moscone main room. I was able to get a hotspot running on my Nexus 4, but Whitson and I couldn't use it at the same time. He needed to relay instructions to the other writers so he used the connection and I made due with the Wi-Fi when it worked. It gave me a chance to enjoy the keynote a bit more and take lots of pictures.

Google announced a lot of little things during the keynote, but Google Maps provided some of the best imagery.

Larry Page came out to talk in front of one of the most stunning images.

For the first time, he answered questions live during the keynote. Naturally, Robert Scoble was first in line.

Two young people made it to the front of the question line. Google seems to be sponsoring a lot of young, intelligent developers. It's great and almost intimidating how smart kids are now.

Also, this Jon Hamm look-alike.

After the three-and-a-half hour keynote, we were all very hungry. Fortunately Google had lots of good food and excellent cupcakes.

Beyond the keynote (and lunch) there were lots of awesome booths and displays. Everywhere you looked, you could find plenty of Android guys—including these flying ones.

A big roundtable let people try out and learn about Google Glass.

I'm not entirely sure what this Chromebook Pixel display was supposed to do, but it was interesting to watch.

The Chrome display had all sorts of Chrome web app demos and developer resources.

Then there was the photosphere, which displayed—you guessed it—photospheres!

Inside you could watch different photospheres from various locations around the world.

We were told to expect some Google TV updates but didn't really find any. It just seems a few new TVs are running the latest version we already knew about. No surprises here.

Although mostly just for display, this Google Voice Search Phonebooth was pretty awesome.

There were tons of other cool booths. This one was really fun to look at.

There were so many other things to see at I/O—too many to show them all. This Google Maps hiking bot was pretty amazing, though. They let people strap it on and see what it's like to map out a hiking trail for Google Maps.

Lastly, this motion-tracking flying game was a lot of fun and reminded me of Pilotwings.

Beyond the booths were tons of sessions on the future of Android, Chrome, and the web. While not as outwardly exciting as the sorts of announcements that come out of I/O each year, some very cool technologies are coming that will make mobile devices and web apps significantly better. By 2014, the web, especially, should change for the better in some pretty amazing ways. If nothing really excited you at I/O's keynote today, stay tuned—some really great stuff is coming not necessarily from Google but the developers they help to create great things.

For more photos of I/O, check out the full Flickr collection.

OS X loves to devote resources to the user interface to fill your world with drop shadows and animations everywhere you go. That's fine on a powerful, newer Mac, but if you want to speed up an old one you need just one terminal command.

To disable superfluous window animations, just enter the following command in the Terminal:

defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSAutomaticWindowAnimationsEnabled -bool false

In the event you decided you want to undo this, just change the false at the end of the statement to true instead.

Mastering Terminal To Hack Your Mac’s User Interface | Cult of Mac

We know electricity powers our computers, but that doesn't mean we can't pretend their insides are a whole lot cooler. Check out these awesome steampunk wallpapers and add the illusion of steam power to your desktop.

Steampunk

Download this wallpaper | *zy0rg on deviantART 1920x1080

Train

Download this wallpaper | The Paper Wall 1900x1343

I'll Catch You

Download this wallpaper | The Paper Wall 1920x1080

Remnants

Download this wallpaper | The Paper Wall 1600x1050

Rose

Download this wallpaper | The Paper Wall 1920x1080

Diver

Download this wallpaper | The Paper Wall 1920x1080

Hall

Download this wallpaper | The Paper Wall 2560x1440

Steam Punk Star Ward

Download this wallpaper | The Paper Wall 1920x1080

Giant

Download this wallpaper | The Paper Wall 1920x1080

Lightning

Download this wallpaper | The Paper Wall 1366x768

For more great wallpapers, check out our previous Wallpaper Wednesdays. Got any great wallpapers you'd like to share? Email me a link with "Wallpaper Wednesday" in the subject line. Submitting your own work is highly encouraged!

Android: Do you ever need to split a bill with friends at a restaurant but struggle through the math? Grouptuity helps you figure out exactly how much everyone owes, including tax, tip, and any discounts you may have, without too much hassle.

Tell Grouptuity who's eating, what they ordered, and if there are any discounts. It'll keep track of it all and split the bill with the exact tax and tip owed for each person. If anyone in the party shares a dish, you can assign it to both and they'll each pay half. Grouptuity is free to use for the most part, but requires three credits to see the final split bill with full calculations. You get 25 credits when you download the app, providing eight split bills for free. After that you have to pay $1 for an additional 100 credits. We find this a little irritating and would rather pay a few bucks for the app outright, but are glad you get to try it out for free. Definitely give it a look if you ever have trouble splitting bills with large parties. You can test it out eight times before you decide if you want to pay.

For those of you with iPhones who want a similar feature set, check out Billr instead.

Grouptuity (Free-ish) | Google Play Store via Grouptuity Official Site

If you want a loaf of sweet bread or a cake, starting with ice cream can save you a lot of time. Because ice cream contains many of the ingredients you need for these recipes—sugar, eggs, and fat—you can save yourself some time with just a few scoops.

All you really have to do is melt the ice cream, add flour, baking powder, and salt, and bake at about 350 degrees. When finished, you have bread! I've also heard that melted ice cream works as a substitute for the liquids you need for cake mixes and produces a more rich and moist cake. Check out the recipe at the Hungry Housewife for bread, and the post at WonderHowTo for additional possibilities.

Ice Cream Bread | The Hungry Housewife via WonderHowTo

Dear Lifehacker,
I want to eat a healthy, balanced diet, but does that actually include a multivitamin? If I eat well, shouldn't I get the nutrients I need by default? I assume a multivitamin won't hurt me, but I don't want to bother if it isn't necessary. Should I take a daily multivitamin or not?

Sincerely,
Vexed by Vitamins

Dear Vexed,
We all want a simple diet, but unfortunately those two things rarely match up. Although multivitamins can provide health benefits, they can cause problems as well. Ultimately you should speak with your doctor or a registered dietician about any significant health choices you make, but we spoke to Dr. Carly Stewart, medical expert at Money Crashers, to get some general advice.

The Pros and Cons of Multivitamins

According to Dr. Stewart, multivitamins offer a number of health benefits:

Multivitamins give people sufficient amounts of both vitamins and minerals that their current diet may not be providing. They can improve many bodily functions and assist with mental health. They can also help decrease stress.

That said, taking them can make us a little less diligent:

Taking multivitamins can cause people to pay less attention to their diets. Every effort should be made to get as many vitamins and minerals out of actual foods as possible.

Dr. Stewart notes that multivitamins cause the largest problem when they provide too much of something we don't need:

One of the biggest risks of taking multivitamins is that you may be ingesting too much of a particular vitamin, depending upon what your diet consists of. Some vitamins, if taken at a high level, will simply pass through the body without any negative effects. But both Vitamins A and D, which are fat soluble, build up in the body's tissue if too much is taken. Taking too much Vitamin A can increase the risk of osteoporosis, and taking too much Vitamin D can damage both the kidneys and blood vessels.

As previously suggested, we recommend discussing any important health choice with your doctor. You want to avoid taking vitamins you don't need and causing severe issues. It's also important to monitor and understand what you eat so you know when you're ingesting too much of a particular vitamin. Keep yourself informed and you'll stay safe.

How to Choose a Multivitamin

If you choose to take a multivitamin, how do you pick the right one? Dr. Stewart offers a few guidelines:

Consumers should stay away from multivitamins that contain more than 100% of any daily recommended dosages, as that can cause vitamin toxicity. Most multivitamins are geared towards either men, women, or even the elderly. Consumers should choose a multivitamin based on their age and sex. For those who have difficulty swallowing large pills, gel-coated capsules and liquid vitamins are also available.

You'll also see food-based vitamins offered on some shelfs, but for a much higher price. Marketing arounds these types of vitamins claim they offer better absorption and aid in digestion, but we currently don't know enough to validate those claims. Dr. Stewart explains one advantage:

Food-based multivitamins contain powdered fruits, vegetables, and other food ingredients, something that traditional multivitamins don't have. Taking food-based multivitamins can decrease the risk of an upset stomach and can generally be taken on an empty stomach without issue.

Whether or not that's worth the higher cost is up to you. Either way, you'll want to consider your specific situation when choosing a vitamin as well. For example, prenatal vitamins exist for pregnant women to provide additional nutrients they made need. Dr. Stewart explains:

The type of multivitamin does matter, depending upon your personal situation. Women who are or looking to become pregnant should take a multivitamin high in folic acid and iron, which can help prevent birth defects. Women in general should consider a multivitamin with Vitamin D and calcium, which can stave off osteoporosis. Most seniors need a multivitamin with higher levels of Vitamin D, which improves bone strength.

Ideally we'd all have a multivitamin tailored to our specific needs. While personalized vitamin services exist, they require frequent testing and monitoring and therefore cost a lot of money (and are so rare that few people have local access). While a one-size-fits-all option may help a lot of people in most cases, visit your doctor and discuss what you need before you make your decision. Plenty of variety now exists, and you can get individual vitamins if you don't mind swallowing multiple pills and wish to essentially create your own mix. Pick what suits you best based on your doctor's recommendations and it'll help provide what you're missing.

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