I'm haviing some trouble remembering how. Are there any tricks to make it easier? Like how would I factor -12X^2 + 8x +1 ? It's that darn coefficiant that throws me off!

This one does not factor nicely. Maybe that's why you are having trouble.

You can use the quadratic formula if you want to find the solutions.

To check and see if it is factorable or not, check the discriminant. If it is a perfect square, then it's factorable.

a=-12, \;\ b=8, \;\ c=1

The discriminant is b^{2}-4ac

8^{2}-4(-12)(1)=112

112 is not a perfect square, so it is not factorable.

If you want to nitpick, you can factor out the negative 1 and get -(12x^{2}-8x-1)