How-To Geek

No matter where you park or how many precautions you take, cars get incredibly hot, especially when left in direct sunlight. Sometimes, you have no choice but to leave your phone baking in the car, but what happens to its battery while you're gone might make you think twice.

Are you sick of having Wi-Fi problems? Yeah, so was I. And the internet is full of hacks that supposedly help so much, but most of the time, you'll be changing some settings and then scratching your head, trying to determine what exactly is now so much better.

Everyone is always so focused on new, new, new. But Netflix's back catalog of movies has legs, too. A week after I pointed you toward Straight Outta Compton and Alien, both are still holding strong on the U.S. charts. This week, Angelina Jolie joins them with her thriller Those Who Want Me Dead, which I get into below.

There's a saying that "the internet never forgets, "which is a nice soundbite, but in truth some things are lost forever on the net. Once a server goes down and the last copy of that data is disconnected, that's it.

My current phone, a Pixel 10 Pro, is the first phone I've ever owned that packs 256GB of storage space. Almost six months into owning it, I've still got plenty of storage left, and I'm in no hurry to free up space. But when I recently looked up how much storage I could free up on it for a piece I was writing, I discovered that Spotify took up almost 15GB of space. This wasn't new, but I completely forgot about it after upgrading to the Pixel.

When you set up a brand-new Windows PC, you probably want to get through the setup screens as quickly as possible so you can start using your shiny new computer. That makes it easy to click through Microsoft's privacy options without paying much attention to what you've actually enabled. One of those settings allows Microsoft to collect samples of what you type or write.

A jailbroken Kindle can do a lot more than simply allow you to install better reading software such as KOReader. If you combine a Kindle with a Raspberry Pi, you may be surprised at what even an old Kindle is able to do.

When was the last time you took stock of what storage types you were using? If you have an older computer, it’s possible at least one of your drives is using a tech that’s 40 years old. Here are five storage types that are officially too old to use in 2026.

I am not a professional red teamer or security researcher, but my background is in systems engineering and DevOps, so I spend a lot of time working with Linux, networking, firewalls, virtualization, and infrastructure security. I already knew the obvious security rules.

With the Emmys dominating the conversation, it's a quiet week for movies being added to streaming services. That said, I still found some fun selections to add to your watchlist this week. Hulu is adding a Fast & Furious spin-off, while Kanopy adds a gritty creature feature.

Windows Media Player (WMP) used to be the best. It didn't quite whip the Llama's behind, but I remember a time when it was fantastic. But, as these things tend to do, it got worse over time. Streaming came along, people shifted away from local media players, and Microsoft just shifted its focus elsewhere. Windows 11 replaced it with Media Player, but you can still access the legacy version of WMP. Better media players that could handle more formats appeared, and Microsoft kept breaking WMP features. WMP lost me completely last yearwhen I tried to rip a brand-new CD I bought and discovered the database that used to pull metadata no longer worked (the CD in question was Richard Thompson’s The Old Kit Bag, if you're curious). Fortunately, there are a bunch of fantastic open-source alternatives. Here are some of my favorites.

It's always frustrating when you can no longer use a perfectly functional gadget because the company behind it shuts down the service or stops developing the software. Thankfully, the open-source community has found plenty of ways to keep using old devices that would otherwise become e-waste.

One of the perks of Linux is that both the operating system and the vast majority of apps are free. Yet if you try to buy a PC that comes with Linux, you might end up spending more than buying one with Windows. Why spend that extra money when you can install Linux on an existing computer for free?

Time is a valuable thing. As much as I would love to watch and finish a show in one sitting, it's unattainable to do every weekend. If you're like me, you're always on the go. Thanks to streaming, you can take your favorite shows on the road and watch them on a phone.

For most of my Windows-using life, there was an annual ritual we all got to know very well. When your computer started getting slow and creaky, you'd back up all your files to a separate medium, format your system disk, and reinstall Windows.

While SSDs get all the glory these days, mechanical hard drives are not only still in use, they're advancing in both speed and capacity. These devices hold huge amounts of data all over the world, but that data is just not likely to be in your house.

Two years ago, I refused to use AI in any way, shape, or form. Today, I use it heavily, but not necessarily in the ways you might think. I don't use AI to think for me, but I have definitely turned my $100 ChatGPT Pro subscription into a virtual assistant for my small business. Here are three projects that have justified my subscription, and I can't wait to find more ways to continue justifying it without increasing what I spend.

When you buy an iPhone or an Android phone, you'll not only get the underlying operating system, but also the apps that form part of a specific ecosystem. So, for example, you'll find Google Drive, Google Play, and various other Google apps that are not actually part of the core Android build.

After years of complaints about how little you could customize the Windows Start menu, Microsoft is finally overhauling it in the 26H2 update. In reality, though, they are only catching up to something an open-source app figured out years ago. Meet Flow Launcher, a keyboard-first app launcher that is superior to the current Start menu from all directions.

My current phone is the most expensive one Motorola sells — the Razr Fold. But I've fallen in love with many more adorable Moto phones over the years: a Moto E, a Moto G, a Moto G Stylus, and a Moto Edge. Some of these were very cheap, but they punched above their weight, and it's possible to jazz them up even further still.