How-To Geek

Even though it's August, Hulu's Furious, which premiered in late July, might be my favorite show on television. The new crime drama has already captivated my attention. Add it to your list, especially if you enjoy cat-and-mouse thrillers.

Meta is finally entering the AI coding agent space dominated by the likes of Anthropic's Claude Code and OpenAI's Codex. The social media giant has released a Muse Code beta that it claims can be affordable while matching rivals in performance.

Lunch is one of my favorite times of the day. Who doesn't love a break with some delicious food? For me, lunch is a reset—a bridge between my work in the morning and the projects in the afternoon. During lunch, I try to focus on something else besides work for at least 30 minutes. Sometimes, that involves streaming a TV show.

Electric cars have always sounded like a great way to save money. They cost a whole lot less to run than gas-powered cars, and they don't need as much maintenance. However, for a long time their high starting prices have kept them out of the mainstream, bar a few options. If you wanted a cheap EV, one of your only options for a long time now has been the Nissan Leaf, which largely cornered the market.

Discord has become the go-to communication platform for gamers and enthusiast communities for the last several years.

There aren't all that many cars left on the market that feel affordable, practical, and fun to drive. For enthusiasts on a budget, it is becoming harder and harder to find something that truly satisfies all three of those pillars. The Honda Civic Si is often seen as one of the last bastions in its segment. It doesn't stand alone, though, and it has a Japanese rival that few actually know about.

Times are tough for us PC enthusiasts. Nvidia's RTX 50 Super is most likely done for, RAM and SSDs cost a bazillion dollars each, and we're all left to rely on things like Lossless Scaling to get us through the day when new games need newer hardware. I wanted to upgrade my PC a bit this year, but all of that is on hold until the prices calm down. (They will one day, right? ... Right?)

I've gotten a lot of use out of open source projects over the years. Eventually, I decided I wanted to give back. What can you do though when you've never coded an app or have money to contribute? It turns out, a lot.

Blank rows are one of those Excel problems that seem like they should have a simple solution. But removing them safely isn't always as straightforward as it sounds. I tested six approaches to find out which ones have hidden problems, and which ones I would actually trust with important data. By the end, only three made the cut.

When an Android phone starts to feel sluggish, a factory reset is often the first solution people think of. While restoring your phone to its factory settings might sound like the easiest way to restore its performance, it's far from the silver bullet you might think it is.

There was a golden age, maybe fifteen years ago, when setting up RAID 5 felt like the single smartest thing you could do with a stack of hard drives. Great capacity, one-drive protection, dirt cheap. What's not to love?

Luxury SUVs have built their reputations on comfort. They glide over rough roads, keep road noise to a minimum, and make long journeys feel effortless. The catch is that buying one often means paying luxury-car maintenance bills once the warranty runs out.

If you just picked up your first budget TV, you might have noticed it probably doesn't look great the first time you turn it on. I had a similar problem with a budget TV I purchased a while ago (it was a small Hitachi and absolutely a budget model). But I found a few settings that improved the image, which I've used across several TVs since then.

Being able to control your smart home with your voice can be very useful in the right circumstances. If you're a Home Assistant user, you can buy ready-made smart speakers or build your own. However, if you have an Android phone, there's also another option.

Cloud storage has made file sharing convenient, but that convenience comes with a cost most people don't think about. Every file you send through Dropbox or Google Drive leaves the network at your house, travels to a remote server, and then gets routed back down to the device a few feet away from you. Stop paying for cloud storage when LocalSend cuts all of that out and keeps your files in your own hands.

There is so much to love about mini PCs. These tiny little boxes pack all the capabilities that used to require a bulky desktop tower. I want one, I really do—I’ve just never had a practical need.

You now have a modern, practical option to use iMessage on your Android phone. Sunbird has revived its namesake Sunbird Messaging app after three years of relatively dormant test releases, letting you chat with your iPhone friends without breaking threads or appearing as a green bubble outsider.

Notification fatigue is a real problem. I was sick to death of having so many notifications filling up my phone. Even after culling many of them or moving some to the Notification Summary, I was still getting more than I wanted. I decided it was time to get rid of some of my Home Assistant phone notifications and move them elsewhere.

Your computer's USB ports can be confusing. Some are color-coded; some are super fast; some are super slow. But beyond all that, they're pretty flexible: if the cable fits, you've got yourself a connection.

People everywhere use Android Auto for its excellent traffic and navigation tools, streaming music, and more. But for some, the experience is a little slow and laggy. You don't need to replace your phone or stereo to try and fix things; instead, change these settings or enable a few features, and you'll be all set.