IT General

German performance sedans have long promised speed, precision, and flair—but rarely peace of mind. Toyotas, by contrast, just work, year after year, without fuss.

If you're thinking about getting a cheap USB flash drive, hear me out. Instead of getting a cheap but very sluggish flash drive, consider buying a USB SSD that looks like a regular thumb drive but is way faster and only slightly more expensive.

Whether you're embarking on a long-awaited skiing trip or live in an area that experiences extreme weather, protecting your phone from the cold can be crucial for protecting its battery life and overall device health.

Are you looking for a better way to enjoy content from your Jellyfin server? There are tons of clients to choose from made by passionate volunteers, and each brings a unique experience. These are my favorite.

The Raspberry Pi is a computer like any other, with a “proper” desktop OS in the form of Raspberry Pi OS that is packed with options. Whether you’re new to the world of single-board computers or are looking for blind spots you might have missed, here are some settings you should consider changing and how to do so.

If you get an unexpected password reset email that appears to be sent by Instagram, it's likely a good idea to ignore it. Users on social media have reported an uptick in a scam relying on fake — but very convincing — password reset emails from Instagram.

The cybersecurity-focused TikTok account @ohhackno posted a helpful explainer about the apparent scam, which has racked up some 4 million views.

A thread on the cybersecurity help subreddit has garnered hundreds of upvotes and comments, too. The scam is particularly frightening because the emails do appear to be quite convincing. Folks have reported that the email appears to come from a legit Instagram address and the design looks good, too.

Forbes reported that the sudden uptick in the scam is "related to a breaking story about a leak of 17.5 million Instagram user accounts by a threat actor on BreachForums." The outlet itself reported getting the scam email. Mashable reached out to Meta for further information but did not immediately receive a response.

The best advice in most scam situations is to avoid clicking on any links. It's unclear what scammers could be after, but clicking a sketchy link can put your data and account at risk.

If you receive a password reset email, @ohhackno helpfully pointed out that you can check recent emails sent by Instagram in the "password and security" section of your account settings. That'll allow you to confirm if the message you received was, indeed, a fake.

So be careful what you click out there — as always, slow down and think it over.

PC gamers often obsess over keeping their systems cool. After all, adding a few more RGB fans is one of the easiest ways to make your system look cooler and physically run cooler as well.

3D printers have come a long way when it comes to convenience and being user-friendly, so much so that it's easy to forget you're looking at a miniaturized industrial robot. Like any manufacturing equipment, you need to do maintenance and inspection, and some habits and practices when using these machines can potentially shorten their lifespans.

You might have heard that Linux has a reputation for breathing new life into old computers, but that's not all it can do. It can also make your current PC stay current for longer. Here are the many ways Linux keeps my computers running like new, year after year.

What’s the point in having a smart home if you can’t depend on it? You should have confidence that your Home Assistant setup will “just work,” just like a dumb home would. In pursuit of this goal, you might need to make a few executive decisions and investments along the way.

New year, new television. If you’re like me, you spent the last two weeks of 2025 catching up on shows you either missed or never watched entirely. For me, that show was Tell Me Lies, an addictive drama on Hulu about a messy college relationship full of deception and betrayal.

When the cold winter weather arrives, your tire pressure is no longer an afterthought, but rather something you'll need to keep a close eye on. Car maintenance doesn't have to be difficult, and managing your tire pressure is an easy yet important step that keeps you safe on the road, especially during the cooler months.

Did you upgrade your Wi-Fi router over the holidays, and now have the old one sitting in a closet somewhere? That old Wi-Fi router is actually more useful than you might think it is. Here are five ways you can repurpose the Wi-Fi router instead of throwing it out or donating it.

We've gotten a look at what 2026's new emoji could be and the big additions? A pickle and a meteor.

The good folks at Emojipedia spotted that Unicode had quietly updated its archives with nine proposed new emoji concepts for September 2026's Emoji 18.0.

Here's the full list of proposed additions, as described by Emojipedia:

• A smiley face with squinting eyes

• A leftward thumb sign gesture

• A rightward thumb sign gesture

• A monarch butterfly (as opposed to the non-specifying 🦋)

• A pickle (as opposed to a 🥒 Cucumber)

• A lighthouse

• A meteor (as opposed to a ☄️ Comet)

• An eraser, for removing pencil markings from paper

• A net with a handle, like those used to catch bugs

In my opinion, the pickle and meteor are the big additions here. A pickle is distinct from a cucumber and could come in handy. And, well, with the way things have been going, a crashing meteor emoji could prove useful, too. Here's what the proposed new emoji look like.

To be clear, just because these emoji are proposed doesn't mean they'll ultimately be approved. And even if they are approved, there's quite a long process before you'll see the new emoji on your keyboard. Unicode is the organization that approves designs for new emoji, but then the big tech companies need to implement the changes.

But, still, we could soon have a pickle and meteor emoji at our disposal. So that's nice.

When I started the move away from Spotify, I had no problem finding replacement music services. But finding a new podcast player was harder. There's no shortage of choice, but each one has its own strengths and weaknesses. I ended up back with an old favorite that's always quietly got everything right: Pocket Casts.

Whether you're assigning random shifts, anonymizing a study, or shuffling a deck, randomizing rows in an Excel table manually is guaranteed to result in mistakes. So, instead of dragging and dropping rows to shuffle your data, try these two methods to achieve the same outcome in seconds.

Fuel-sipping hybrids are a smart choice for many buyers, but not all electrified powertrains are created equal. In 2025, a handful of hybrid vehicles stand out not just for efficiency, but for real-world reliability that’s been proven over years of ownership. These models have consistently delivered dependable performance, low repair costs, and long-term durability, qualities that matter just as much as headline mpg numbers when you’re deciding what to buy.

I used to hop from one project to another, thinking I’d get better at solving problems with code. But after three years as a freelance software engineer working on backend solutions, I learned that writing more code doesn't make you a better developer — it requires critical thinking too. Many developers assume they have this skill, not realizing it's what separates the average developer from solution-driven ones. Here are five exercises I do to improve.

Google kicked off the new year with a pretty major announcement for the future of Android. After nearly 20 years, it's cutting the frequency of source code releases in half. Starting this year, Google is shifting to a biannual schedule, and it could have some sneaky implications for you.

There’s a lot of misinformation and supposition regarding what most now refer to as AI, or artificial intelligence. Though the technology has seen widespread adoption, there are some fundamental truths that still go unnoticed that can definitely color your perspective of what the technology is capable of and what the future may hold.