How-To Geek

Most Excel sheets are dumb—they contain static text that has no connection to the real world, forcing you to manually update prices and stats by hand. Value tokens change that. These smart pills link your cells directly to live data from the web, turning a boring, stagnant grid into a professional, self-updating dashboard.

So you keep hearing about how Home Assistant is the ultimate smart home platform, but you still feel lost. Here are some burning questions you might need answered before you can take the next step.

Amazon Prime Video is wasting no time ushering in hit flicks. I, for one, appreciate the fresh rotation. This week, we’re closing out January with a wee bit of drama, thrills, and action, and then we’re strolling into February with an easy-going cult classic.

Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and most other major social media sites will feed you content based on how you interact with the site and what the company knows about you. However, I wanted to set up something that was curated to my interests without being algorithmically driven, so I set up my own personal start page.

I use Plex almost every day, and I’ve noticed several massive “improvements” over the last year. While I’m happy with most of the changes, one of my favorite features—and very underrated—was on the wrong end of them. Allow me to explain.

What's the biggest smart home device that you own? For many of us, the answer may come as a surprise, despite the fact that the smart capabilities of this device are explicitly included in its name.

I love shiny gadgets as much as the next person, but few things bring me as much joy as splitting wood. As someone conditioned to look at specs, I thought a bigger chainsaw would be a better chainsaw for the job, but I’ve since purchased a tiny one, and I’m quite glad I did.

If you're looking to upgrade your home theater setup, you've likely encountered the terms 5.1 and 5.2 (or 7.1 and 7.2) being tossed around. So, what's the difference between these two systems, and more importantly, does it actually matter?

For most of us, SUVs are just the smart choice for daily driving. They handle everything from school runs and commutes to weekend trips with ease.

Raspberry Pis are popular because they're small, don't consume much power, and are extremely versatile. However, the default method of booting one—from the microSD card—is best avoided if possible. Here's how you can do it.

People have been using Android phones for nearly two decades, and some bad habits have been passed down over the years. Even some of the oldest myths persist today. The good news is that it’s really very easy to avoid these mistakes once you know about them.

Not all of your storage is the same, and you shouldn't treat it as such. There are many advantages to tiering, and organizing said tiering, over just dumping everything on your storage in no particular order.

If you want a good TV, or any TV these days, you're inevitably going to buy a "smart" TV. On paper, a smart TV sounds like an upgrade over a "dumb" model, but in practice, smart TVs have turned out to be of limited value. The list of cons is indeed long, and it's why I disable the smart functions on my own TVs completely.

Running old CD-ROM games on modern Windows isn't too hard if you know how to manage Windows' compatibility software. But what if you have a Linux desktop and don't want to leave your old Windows games behind?

Windows' built-in search has never really clicked for me. It’s often slower than I expect, mixes in results I didn’t ask for, and somehow still struggles to surface the exact file or app I’m thinking about. Over the years, I’ve tried to make peace with it, tweaking settings and changing habits, but I always end up feeling like I’m working around search instead of letting it work for me.

One of the biggest shows available to stream concluded in 2025, with a finale that sparked mixed reactions and criticism. But the reactions were not surprising, nor was the way the finale fell through.

Android has evolved by leaps and bounds since the early days, and as a result, dozens of helpful features are hiding all over the place. Whether you're a long-time user or just switched from the iPhone, here's a hidden feature I use daily that most people have forgotten even exists.

We all dream of having a perfectly organized home with a place for everything and everything in its place. Achieving that dream is harder than it seems, but I've found a techie solution that's extremely cheap and easy to set up.

The prices for PC storage drives have been on the rise lately, particularly fast NVMe drives, so people are looking for alternative ways to meet their data storage needs without breaking the bank. One storage upgrade that’s a lot cheaper and more appealing than it seems at first glance is the humble external hard drive.

Imagine an operating system that forgets everything you did once you shut down your computer. One that not only erases all traces of your activity, but also protects your privacy online. That's exactly what Tails is meant to be.