How-To Geek

Most Linux users never think twice about the kernel running under their system. It just works. But for those who want stronger security guarantees, there's an alternative worth knowing about—and living with it taught me more than I expected.

AV receivers can be finicky or hard to understand at first, so it's easy to mess a thing up or two during setup. Here are some settings to check if you're having any audio problems in your home theater.

When it comes to reading, I’m kind of the queen of it, at least in my family. You really can’t find me without a book at my side, headphones in my ears blasting an audiobook, or, in this case, an eReader in my hands. My Kindle and I have come a long way since I started, and there have been some great times so far.

Whether you’re sick, playing hooky, or just taking a mental health break, nothing recharges the body’s batteries like a good day of rest. The best way to get that, at least as far as I'm concerned, is to settle in on your couch and binge-watch a good TV show.

When you're busy on a home repair, DIY project, or renovation, do you just reach for the biggest battery pack for your power tools? If so, you might not be doing yourself any favors. If anything, it only weighs you down and makes things more difficult than they need to be.

Ever tried building a second brain, only to abandon it three weeks in? I have—more times than I’d like to admit. Capturing ideas is the easy part; organizing, tagging, and maintaining everything is where it falls apart. But I’ve found a cheat code: using Obsidian to capture ideas while Claude handles the organization. Here’s how my system works—and the exact prompts I use.

It's easy to spend a lot of money on your home network in an attempt to make it faster, more stable, or more flexible. Faster Wi-Fi standards and upgrading to a mesh router system can all give your LAN a big kick in the pants.

Earlier this year, Pixel phones got several cool new features. Aside from finally giving the Now Playing feature its own app, there were also a number of Gemini upgrades, but buried under all those additions was one small feature that noticeably improved the experience of using my Pixel phone: Comfort View.

We've all been there. Your PC starts to feel sluggish, or you're staring at a "low storage" warning, and the first instinct is to reach for a third-party cleanup tool. I've done it more times than I'd like to admit. Install it, run a scan, watch a bunch of "issues" pop up, and hope it magically fixes everything.

Finding yourself with a bit of extra cash is a great feeling. Maybe you landed a raise or a promotion at work, put in a few extra hours on a side hustle, or spent a weekend helping a friend or family member move. When that unexpected money hits your account, it’s good to pay down debt when and where you can, and your vehicle is a good place to start.

After expanding into color with devices like the Paper Pro, reMarkable is back to black-and-white. The company has unveiled the reMarkable Paper Pure, a third-generation E-Ink tablet that catches up in performance without making you pay for the color display you might not need.

Do you remember LaserDisc? It was an optical format with twice the resolution of VHS, and it was clearly the superior medium for home movies, yet VHS absolutely dominated it. The most plausible explanation for this I've heard is that VHS allowed people to record TV programs to watch later and that buying home movies wasn't something they knew they wanted.

For any job you can do on Linux—or Windows—there are at least a dozen GUI apps that can do what you want. However, to keep distractions to a minimum, I use the terminal for most of my day-to-day jobs, and I don't miss out on any productivity.

I am suspicious of cloud services, so much so that I avoided the entire premise of a smart home until the Matter standard eventually presented me with a local-only option. Yet in the process of living with a local-only hub, I’ve encountered some issues that you just don’t face when your smart home platform is based in the cloud.

To some degree, every Windows user should know at least some basic drive optimization. And in that regard, the OS has a bunch of party tricks you can use for that purpose. One of the most overlooked ones is Storage Sense, but what is it, and should you actually use it?

Saddle up, boys and girls, because the Yellowstone universe is expanding once more with a new spin-off that also acts as a direct sequel to the mothership series. It will follow Dutton matriarch Beth (Kelly Reilly) and her husband Rip (Cole Hauser) as they embark on a new path together on their new ranch outside of Montana.

Months after Amazon made Alexa+ available through its own devices, it's now coming to third-party hardware.

Looking for a good show on HBO Max this week, to put on after a long day of work? The legacy prestige service is definitely known for its iconic series of the past, but it still has mojo for new shows—like Hacks, The Pitt, and Rooster, and more coming this month, too.

I recently swapped out my beloved Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 for a de-Googled Android phone, but I was devastated to learn that my group chats would no longer be accessible. I’ve since switched back to regular Android, but I’ve learned a much simpler way to de-Google in the process—one that comes with fewer compromises.

I'm someone who regularly sleeps with earbuds in my ear, but the thought of buying earbuds specifically for sleep has long seemed hard to justify. After all, my current buds were functional, so they were good enough, right? No. I was not right. Sleep earbuds have become my favorite, most important pair of buds.