How-To Geek

Fall is one of those seasons that makes staying in with a good movie feel like the better plan. And while cozy watches usually bring warm small towns, books, and sweeping romances to mind, sometimes all you really need is a simple story that helps you relax after a long day.

Programming languages like BASIC, C, Java, Pascal, and so many more exist because it's hard for humans to code in assembly language, and basically impossible to do in pure machine code. High-level programming languages are meant to be the middle road, where humans can still interpret the code, but a compiler can still make half-decent binaries that aren't too inefficient.

Password managers are essential for most of us. We can’t remember dozens of unique passwords, yet we need them almost every day. For years, we’ve paid for password manager subscriptions because they’re convenient and let us access our passwords across all our devices.

So, you have a 3D printer, but you’re not super happy with the results of your prints. Well, have no fear! Tuning your printer used to require searching for and downloading tons of models, but OrcaSlicer is here to save the day. Follow me as I walk you through all the steps you’ll need to completely dial in your printer for near-perfect prints every time.

As much as Android phone cameras have improved over the years (it's a lot), there's still only so much a small sensor can do with poor lighting. You can't just snap a photo in low light and expect it to be good. A few helpful tricks can make all the difference.

In a sense, the platters of a hard drive, or the magnetic surface of a floppy disk are blank sheets. There are technical limits on where and how you can write and read binary data, but for the most part, you can arrange and manage how that data is stored however you like.

There is a difference between two operating systems having their own ways of doing things, and making something needlessly complicated. It's easy to think of Linux as "harder" than Windows, simply because you're familiar with Windows. If you were a blank slate, most things would be equally new and "hard" for you.

I've seen good routers. I've seen bad routers. I've seen routers that were just there, with nothing special about them, which might arguably be the best type of router.

Over time, I've discovered several Docker containers/apps I can't work without. FOSS apps are consistently high-quality, but some apps kick it up a notch. I loved the app so much and got to thinking about similar apps. Apps you might jokingly say "do things you wouldn't expect from a Docker container" because they're premium-level, feature-packed programs that are (usually) free, self-hostable, and containerized. Here are a few of the best ones I've found.

I bought a Galaxy Watch to track my health metrics and enjoy the convenience of having a mini smartphone on my wrist. Over time, however, I realized that my smartwatch should act as a filter, not another screen where I spend time mindlessly. Instead of focusing on health and fitness tracking, I found myself distracted by promotional app notifications, spam emails, and group chat memes.

Are you wanting to buy some power tools that are made in the USA? You'll be hard-pressed to find them among the main companies. DeWalt, however, does have a handful of power tools that are still built in the United States, though one does come with a caveat.

Whether you are a dedicated Milwaukee fan or want another Milwaukee power tool for your arsenal, you don’t have to pay full price, sales and specials run year-round. You just need to know where to find them, and many deals are set by the manufacturer.

Our phones aren't just personal computers we carry with us — they're the ones we use to control everything else, from speakers and smart home devices to portable power stations. In this world of devices we connect to our phones, there are some quirky but fun accessories you might not even know exist.

Did you know that Walmart makes power tools? Hyper Tough is Walmart's in-house brand, and like most things at Walmart, it's fairly affordable. However, many tools are overlooked, so here are four affordable Hyper Tough tools released in 2026 that you might want to add to your DIY toolkit.

Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery have merged to form Skydance. The David Ellison-led media company now owns some of the most important franchises from two legacy studios, including Game of Thrones, the DC Universe, Mission: Impossible, Yellowstone, and Dune.

If you look at your Pi-hole dashboard after a few weeks of use you'll see thousands, if not tens of thousands, of blocked queries. Yet, despite your best attempts, there are still ads playing on your TV.

Excel is a brilliant tool for managing data. You can store data, organize, analyze, and even visualize it. However, Excel is not a database, as it lacks many of the primary features a database system offers. No relational integrity, data constraints, or foreign-key support. That's where DBeaver earned a spot on my PC.

Google Pixel has a good reputation in the Android world — this is the brand you buy if you want Android as Google's designers intended. But Google's vision for Android seems increasingly at odds with what matters most to Pixel owners, and it's starting to push people away.

The Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 (WSL 2) runs a real Linux kernel inside a lightweight virtual machine right inside your copy of Windows. It's an awesome piece of technology that lets you run Linux apps and do Linux things from within Windows with no dual-booting or any of that other malarkey.

If there's one thing that annoys me about modern internet-connected technology, it's that everything is a subscription these days. Features that should just be part of an appliance, or performed locally by an app, now depend on siphoning a few dollars from your account every month.