How-To Geek

Robot vacuums are supposed to save you time by keeping your house clean, so they shouldn’t require additional work on your part. Thankfully, a 3D printer can help solve some of the most common problems people encounter with robot vacuums.

I have long been intrigued by locally-run AI models, but I've never had the hardware to do it—until now. The Cephalon Lucy Max is a small cube-shaped mini PC and NAS combo that delivers AMD's Ryzen AI Max+ 395 chip with 128GB of RAM, and it's actually capable of running some pretty impressive local models. So impressive that it almost got me to ditch my cloud AI subscription.

Milwaukee batteries are actually quite versatile. While you might think they can only run power tools, you can actually do a whole lot more with them. Here are six genuinely odd (yet super useful) things that you can definitely power with Milwaukee batteries—and one that you probably shouldn't do.

It's now easier to support your favorite podcasts beyond listening to ads. Spotify is launching Memberships, or paid podcast subscriptions, that can provide perks to loyal listeners.

Information wants to be free. But to get the most out of it, you need some sort of organization. Having an Obsidian database full of notes, kanban boards, outlines, and information from unconventional sources is fantastic. But it is kind of useless if you can't find anything. I considered creating a Table of Contents or organizing my tabs better than I already do, but that's kind of a pain. So I built a Dashboard instead, using a few different plugins.

It's just the understood thing that if your Ryobi battery has four flashing lights, it's dead and it's time to buy another. What if I told you that wasn't the case? There are actually a few things to try to bring a "dead" battery back to life—and one basically involves performing surgery on the battery. Here's what the lights actually mean, why it happens, and what you can do before recycling that "dead" battery and buying a new one.

Most homeowners have a power tool or two, and there's a good chance it's made by Milwaukee, Ryobi, Kobalt, or some other company. While many of these brands typically offer the same tools, like drills and impact wrenches, each has a few unique or specialty tools you probably don't know about.

Google has a bit of a problem when it comes to supporting old Pixel phones. They were promised to get five years of support, but the reality of that promise isn't what people expected. Thankfully, GrapheneOS exists as a simple way to extend the life of an old Pixel phone.

Home Assistant offers a ton of ways to interact with your devices, from voice control to virtual buttons on dashboards. Sometimes, however, the most convenient option is to use a real physical button. The KeyBridge project allows you to use your old USB keyboards as smart home controllers, giving you a whole keyboard full of smart buttons.

TVs have progressed when it comes to image quality at a steady pace. From small black-and-white tubes to full-color broadcasts, EDTVs, HD, and today's 4K UHD. From the 300K-ish pixels in a 480p SD image to the over eight million pixels in a 4K TV. It's an enormous leap.

The era of Googlebooks has arrived (if Google has its way), and that means a lot of time spent learning how to get the most out of a brand-new operating system that aims to combine the best parts of ChromeOS and Android. That also means a new Screen Capture tool for the moments you want to record the action happening on screen, or to take a simple screenshot. Here's what you need to know to master this new tool.

Physical movie collections are still a common sight in a lot of households, and they're usually a mix of two media types: DVDs and Blu-rays. You might think the DVDs would have been thrown away by now, but if you think about it, why would anyone do that? Watching older media on an older format is hardly jarring, and if you know you have the DVD, reaching for that is much easier than trying to find out which streaming service, if any, has what you're looking for.

After years of building spreadsheets, reports, and dashboards in Excel, I've developed my fair share of habits. Some are genuinely useful, while others stuck around simply because they were familiar. Trying these seven overlooked Excel features showed me better ways to work, and several now get daily use.

I love a good modded tablet. Whether it's a regular Android tablet or a modded Amazon Fire tablet, I usually like to tinker with the things that I own. The Fire tablet in particular is one I can't seem to stop messing with. I've used Fire Toolbox and other methods to improve its performance and functionality. But Fire OS has built-in system settings you can use to speed up your tablet. Here are a few that work for me.

When I was in college, the tech available to us was a lot more limited than it is today. Now, a phone or laptop and a few free apps can help you identify birds, make your own music, or even build entire 3D worlds, leaving your money for takeout, late-night snacks, and the occasional questionable night out.

One of the things I like the most about being a Linux user is the wide variety of perspectives and experiences people have on the OS. Earlier this year, I lost an important work machine to a misbegotten Windows update. So I committed to using Linux Mint and Debian 13 for my daily work tasks. I'd already been using Linux for personal stuff, but that botched update really made me go all in on Linux. Several HTG writers have done something similar. So I asked them what prompted them to make the switch (and what they switched to).

After using a Samsung Galaxy S21 FE for a good while (more than three and a half years, if I remember correctly), I switched to a Pixel 10 Pro in March 2026. So far, I’m mostly enjoying the ride, but the Pixel experience feels limiting in ways that really rub me the wrong way, and it lacks some features I took for granted on my Galaxy and now miss dearly.

If you're looking for affordable yet capable power tools, there are two main options to consider: Ryobi at Home Depot and Kobalt at Lowe's. Both brands constantly release new products for fans, and if you're into the Kobalt ecosystem, we've seen several exciting new tools hit the shelves in recent weeks.

I'm not a programmer, so all I can do is watch the events unfolding in the world of coding. Since the first programmable computers, there probably hasn't been a bigger shake-up in software development than the advent of AI-powered vibe coding. It's a little ironic that programming as a human activity is being threatened (or at the very least transformed) by AI.

Some movies entertain us for a couple of hours, while others stay with us long after the credits roll. Classic movies have a way of telling timeless stories that remain relevant while introducing unforgettable characters, performances, and ideas. Whether they make us laugh, cry, question the world around us, or simply see life from a different perspective, these are the movies that earn their place in cinematic history.