How-To Geek

Onyx Boox makes the best eReaders available to the human species, and there's no debating me on that. The new Boox Picco is a brilliant little pocket eReader that used to come with a MagSafe case, but Boox stopped selling the case with it recently. Third-party sellers haven't clocked this gap yet, so there aren't any alternatives at the moment. That's why I took matters into my own hands and decided to add that feature myself. What could go wrong?

Slim, modern TVs leave very little room for good speakers, so a soundbar is one of the simplest ways to improve the way your shows and games sound. If you want a compact option, the Samsung HW-S50B Soundbar is a good place to start, and it's 35% off right now as part of an early Black Friday sale.

My phone kept nagging me about storage, and every warning came with a button to pay for more. I'd been renting space for my own images for years, and the price only ever moved in one direction. Then I looked at the old desktop gathering dust in my closet and wondered if it could do the job. It could, but I could have done it faster had I known what I know now. Just make sure you have an 8GB flash drive to start with.

Home Assistant really is incredible software. It's come a long way from its origins as a few lines of code that could turn on a smart bulb. There's very little that Home Assistant can't do these days, but there are still one or two things that even Home Assistant can't manage alone.

What's new on Netflix in the U.S. this week? If you're searching for a new movie, look no further than Heartland, a mystery thriller starring Jessica Chastain as a former country music star searching for her missing niece. I'm a gambling man, so I'll bet that Heartland shoots to the top of Netflix's Top 10.

A smart thermostat is one of the easier ways to add voice control to your heating and cooling, and it doesn't need to cost a lot, either. The Honeywell Home Wi-Fi Smart Color Thermostat is Energy Star certified and works with Alexa, Google Home, and SmartThings, and you can grab it now for just $80.

If you didn't live through the transition from PATA (Parallel ATA) to SATA (Serial ATA) in the early 2000s, it can be hard to understand how much of a revolution it was. PATA was finicky, bulky, and slow. SATA was the first proper redesign of drive interface technology in decades, and for a time, it was good.

SSDs (Solid State Drives) were not created in a vacuum. Since these flash-based storage devices had to fill a (literal) gap left by hard drives, it was necessary to create them in a way that bridged the gap between the two technologies.

Smart furniture is stupidly expensive. On my hunt for full-length mirrors with smart RGB lighting, it hit me. I don't want to pay $150 or more for something that does not even connect to my smart home ecosystem. That's why I decided to make it myself, all on a tight budget. Going the DIY route let me create something perfect for my needs, instead of sifting through the boring, overpriced options on the market. The total cost of making my own smart RGB mirror was astonishingly cheap. Here's how I did it.

Dremels have long been trusted by people who want a comfortable, reliable rotary tool that works for everything from odd jobs around the house to professional daily use. The brand's latest 8150 takes things to another level with upgraded design features, and now you can get it at its lowest price ever on Amazon.

One of 2026's new movies on HBO Max has found a substantial audience in streaming. That movie is The Invite, an excellent comedy starring Olivia Wilde, Seth Rogen, Penélope Cruz, and Edward Norton. The Invite hit HBO Max on Oct. 23, and it's seemingly been in the top three ever since. I cannot recommend it enough; it's that good.

I have been using Fedora as my daily driver for years now. In fact, it's been so long that I don't even remember exactly when I switched to it, and I really like it. I have tried several Linux distros over the years, including Ubuntu, but I always find myself coming back to Fedora. Part of that comes down to personal preference. I have always felt that Ubuntu is a little bloated, and even when I tried it again recently, I couldn't quite shake that feeling. Fedora just feels cleaner to me, particularly in how it handles the GNOME desktop.

NFC tags are a simple and effective way to trigger smart home automations. You can scan a tag with your phone to do things such as turning on lights or starting timers, but there are plenty of uses you might not have considered.

Apple has changed its trade-in values once agin. While many of the company's products now offer more during trade-ins, several key products — including some iPhone Pro versions — are now worth less when you turn them in. Apple hasn't publicly explained why it changed trade-in prices today, but it arrives amidst over seven updates in the past year alone, including its most recent update in late October.

Most Android phones come loaded with apps you never picked and don't always want. I got tired of working around them, but I didn't want to just delete or deactivate them. That is why I went to open-source replacements on F-Droid. These apps cover the basics without asking for an account.

Room lighting often clashes with what is happening during a movie, but keeping a room completely dark isn't feasible for most, either. A TV backlight kit like the Govee TV Backlight 3 Lite adds reactive lighting behind your set, making the spectacle of watching movies all the more immersive.

Microsoft Outlook users have experienced widespread disruption on November 12, with hundreds of thousands reporting problems accessing Microsoft's email service.

GPU prices are a bit of a sad joke right now, so much so that many people turn to handhelds. And even before things got this bad in the PC hardware market, the Steam Deck was a popular alternative for people who wanted versatile gaming in a small footprint.

We've been talking about OLED TVs as the ultimate TV display technology for years, and they've finally become affordable enough that many of us can bring one into our living rooms.

Even the most open and trusting person in the world would tell you they aren't comfortable with people snooping through their phone. There is nothing wrong with wanting a little bit of privacy. With our phones becoming more integrated into our personal lives, they tend to contain more sensitive information that you wouldn't just want anyone seeing. Sometimes, this can make things a bit awkward when someone asks to use your phone for something.