How-To Geek

2025 is the year I bought both a Nintendo Switch 2 and a Samsung Galaxy XR headset, but my favorite tech purchase isn’t either of those things. That would, surprisingly, be a night light. But this isn’t just any night light.

If you work with PDFs a lot, you often have to choose between expensive proprietary software or free alternatives that have lackluster features or questionable privacy and security. But what if I told you that you can have the best of both worlds? It's called BentoPDF.

Whether you're looking to download a GPU-specific driver, trying to determine whether you'll be able to play a new game at a reasonable frame rate, or checking the specs on an unfamiliar PC, knowing exactly what GPU you're dealing with is an important piece of information. Here are a few ways you can do it.

I've always struggled to concentrate on work. When I should be working, my mind starts to wander, or I end up falling down a tech rabbit hole trying to fix something that takes far longer than I expect. I've tried Pomodoro timer apps, but they never worked for me, so I decided to build my own using Home Assistant.

I recently realized that my phone's chaos didn't come from the apps—it came from a lack of direction. It was powerful enough to do anything, so it ended up distracting me with everything. To fix this, I decided to give it a dedicated purpose—turning it into my personal project management system!

During its half-century of existence, Microsoft has brought forth a plethora of products, but the company also has a number of inventions under its belt. While some are quite popular, you probably wouldn't guess they were invented by the Redmond Giant.

If you’re the type that throws away the packaging your PC parts come in, thinking it’s just fancy cardboard, you’ve come to the right place. I diligently collect the boxes my PC parts come in—and here’s why you should consider doing the same.

Alfa Romeo is making a dramatic statement with the return of its twin-turbo V-6, but this time, exclusivity is the name of the game. The new Giulia and Quadrifoglio Stelvio special editions will be offered only in select markets, and U.S. buyers won’t see a single example. With extremely limited production numbers, these models are shaping up to be some of the rarest Alfa Romeos ever produced, rarer than even some hypercars.

One thing that really slowed me down when tinkering with my Raspberry Pi 500+ is not being able to seamlessly copy and paste between it and my MacBook Pro. I went searching for a solution and, after a few failed attempts, found something that works.

I’ve only got one device left running Windows 10. It's an older tablet PC that I mostly use for media playback. It’s been a reliable little workhorse for years, but it isn’t eligible for Windows 11, so it’s stuck where it is. I still use Chrome on it every day, and like a lot of people holding onto older hardware, I’ve started to wonder how much longer that’s going to last.

Winter is here, and you may already be tired of taking off your gloves every time you get a notification. Stores are full of those cheap "touchscreen compatible" gloves, but they're often not very good. I found a pair that actually works, and I’m never going back.

Chromebooks have a good reputation for being low-maintenance computers with solid security and privacy. By and large, this is true. It's why we trust them for use by children and college students, or why some companies like to issue them to employees who only need a basic computer.

Smart plugs are among the most useful smart home devices you can buy. You can use a smart plug to turn almost any electrical device into a smart device that can be turned on and off remotely. With the right automations, however, smart plugs can offer something even more valuable: peace of mind.

I used to see the double dash (--) in Excel spreadsheets and wonder what it did. It's an essential shortcut to force Excel to treat TRUE and FALSE as the numbers 1 and 0, meaning you can easily sum or count the results of a logical test across a range. Now I know, and I want to share this powerful trick with you.

Smartphones used to have a stronger sense of personality. In the early days, it wasn't just the hardware that left an impression—the default wallpaper was a defining feature you'd see at the launch event and every ad that followed. Here are some of the most iconic smartphone wallpapers of all time, in no particular order.

On balance, USB-C has been pretty great. I would be the last person to suggest that we should go back to the bad old days of USB-A (insofar as we've actually left it) or, even worse, micro-USB.

No one wants to be spied on. A VPN is one piece of the cyber security puzzle to help protect your personal information—and you should install it on all of your devices.

This is a PSA: Please stop abusing your SSD. Mistreating it is easier to do than it might seem. We all do it to some extent, but if you do it too much, it'll eventually backfire.

Do you often feel uncomfortable with symptoms like nausea, dizziness, or headaches when you're traveling in your car or other moving vehicles? There are some tricks you can use to look at your phone without feeling sick.

When you secure excellent components for your PC, you expect things to run smoothly. Smooth frames, fast loading times, the works. So when you've shelled out for an awesome GPU and still have game stuttering, it can be immensely frustrating, but the problem might be something less obvious.