How-To Geek

Are you ready to ditch Google Photos and self-host your own photo server? There are a number of ways to go about doing that, allowing you to store your pictures without giving Google the rights to crawl through them all.

We’re used to hearing about GPUs overheating or power connectors melting. But this time, the threat comes from software that monitors NVIDIA’s GPUs and could have allowed attackers to disrupt vulnerable servers.

Android's default home screens are good enough that most of us no longer feel compelled to swap them out, but I still do. Hear me out — if you want a launcher that's willing to try something different and that you know isn't tracking what you do, here are some of the cream of the crop on F-Droid today.

Why did I end up buying soundbars for my TV? That's the question I've been asking myself recently. The obvious answer is that the sound that's built into my TVs was awful. But that's not a problem I created. That's a problem TV makers created when they got into a "mine's flatter than yours" race, which left no room for decent audio.

If you're using Windows 11, you've probably seen the recent backlash over Memory integrity. The alarmist voices say Windows is forcing this feature on everyone, and people are paying for it with loss of performance, driver incompatibilities, and games refusing to work.

If you're looking for a large-capacity NAS for your home or small business, there aren't a ton of choices out there. Ugreen recently upgraded its DXP8800 series with an all-new Ultra model, featuring a new processor and a higher RAM capacity. Is it worth the upgrade? It might be difficult to tell.

Excel has a funny habit of giving you useful little tools and then making you work to find them. That can be frustrating, but you can fix a lot of Excel annoyances with a few small tweaks until it works the way you want. That's where I landed with table names. I wanted them to be easier to see, and it turns out Excel gives you a couple of ways to make that happen. That small change has made life far easier than I'd imagined.

Let me be clear about something — I've been looking for a way to desperately cut down on my screen time. Not just for an article, but like, actually. I think it's a problem. Turns out, actively integrating your smartwatch into attempts to curb that is actually a great idea.

Ryobi's popular 18V ONE+ line of power tools includes over 350 products that all use the same battery, and you'll love just about all of them. However, if you're a new homeowner just getting started or on a budget, once you get a battery or two, here are some essential tools worth adding to your collection for under $80.

Are you curious about how Ryobi, Craftsman, and Hyper Tough tools compare? My answer may surprise you, but here's how each store brand power tool stacks up against the others.

Some people like ads tailored to their interests, but many don't want their app usage, browser activity, and location information recorded under a personal ID. That's when marketers, ISPs, and app developers can use or sell unidentifiable but profiled information about your activities to third parties for marketing and data-harvesting purposes.

I've been using Home Assistant for more than a decade, but I still come across things I've never seen before. Several great features make Home Assistant more powerful and easier to use, and I wish I'd started using them sooner.

Netflix's U.S. top five is predominantly earthbound at the moment, which is no real surprise. Jacob Tremblay plays a young Ted Kaczynski while Shailen Woodley gives chase in Unabomber, Tyler Perry's Doing Life keeps his chart streak alive, and the true-crime doc TheWidower: 'Til Death Do Us Part is mesmerizing nonfiction (more on it in my weekly documentary roundup).

I’ve been running a homelab for about eight years now, and during that time I’ve used both mini PCs and NAS systems for all kinds of workloads. I’ve also gone through several generations of Mini PCs and NAS. After all that experimentation, there is one I would recommend to most people starting their first homelab.

Every extension you install adds startup time, uses memory, and gives you one more thing that can break after an update. Over the years, VS Code has absorbed many once-essential extensions by replacing them with built-in features. That means you might be running an extension for something VS Code can already do natively, making your setup more cluttered than it needs to be.

Google's one-handed gestures for the Pixel Watch have quietly grown from a niche trick into a real way to control the watch. With Wear OS 7 on the Pixel Watch 5, double pinch and wrist turn reach far more screens. Here's what they do and whether they're worth enabling.

I still clearly remember the first time I installed Windows 8 Professional on my computer. I was excited because I'd scored an amazing launch deal good enough that I could actually afford two copies of the OS for my computers.

The pace of technological development is frightening, with AI tools doing things we would have barely believed just a few years ago. That doesn't mean newer is always better; I still use several gadgets daily that are 10 years old or more.

You're lucky to get a handful of ports on a new laptop, so it's worth investing in a docking station, like this one from Acer, to connect multiple monitors or other devices. It has a slimline design that fits most laptop bags, and you'll never have to stress about your limited port selection again.

Android tracker tags have improved significantly over the past couple of years, but there are still a few areas where AirTag still reigns supreme. The focus is often put on software features, like notifying you when an item is left behind, but I think the real downside is something nobody talks about: their actual physical design.