How-To Geek

GNOME aims to be simple to use, with a minimal interface, a small set of core apps, and basic customization available by default. But GNOME extensions can offer almost anything you might miss from a fuller-featured desktop environment.

In 1986, Jim Henson joined forces with talented fellow filmmakers and a musical icon to tell the story of Labyrinth, resulting in an everlasting cult classic that has endured for 40 years. While he may be best-known for the charming characters of The Muppets, Henson and his company have either been involved in projects with darker tones or crafted them themselves, such as The Dark Crystal. Features such as The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth retain the careful, practical work behind Henson's creatures with more mature and riskier storytelling.

Notion is one of the most popular note-taking apps out there, and for good reason—it has a ton of well-developed features. However, I wanted something that was a bit simpler and more private. That's why I started using Joplin.

There’s plenty to say about how a smart home can make day-to-day tasks easier, but some devices can have positive health effects too. By automating these devices, you can reap the benefits without having to remember or manually trigger a thing.

When it comes to homelabbing, there are a lot of services and apps you might want to run. While installing them individually is an option, I chose to go the Docker route instead—and there's no going back.

When a vehicle is recalled, the owner never has to pay for repairs out of pocket; the manufacturer picks up the tab. But that doesn’t mean owners don’t pay a price.

After having printed in a single filament color for years, I found the idea of a multicolor 3D printer extremely appealing. There's no arguing with the results either. Multicolor prints are a big step up aesthetically, and there are big practical upshots too for functional prints.

Excel formulas are great until you need to stack 10 of them inside each other—one wrong bracket can ruin your entire afternoon. You can skip the headache by moving that logic into Power Query. Conditional columns let you build "if/then" rules visually, keeping your data clean and easier to manage.

RAID 6 is the best form of RAID to run in a homelab, right? I don’t think so. RAID 6 might offer slightly more protection than RAID 5, but I prefer RAID 5 for my NAS systems—here’s why

Android in 2014 was a playground for innovation. The ecosystem was much simpler, and everyone was kind of doing their own thing. This led to more frequent fresh ideas compared to what we have today. Here's some of the stuff we thought was groundbreaking back then—and I would really love it if a lot of these things were still around.

Windows 11 reworked many of the fundamental interfaces that we use day in and day out, and only a few changes were more controversial was the right-click context menu. It is difficult to customize, harder to declutter, and changes elements we'd been familiar with for decades.

All modern TVs come with at least one USB port, but aside from powering a Roku stick, what is it any good for? One option—streaming media off a storage drive—is hardly a secret, but life finally gave me a reason to put this feature to use.

Moisture sensors are usually intended for specific purposes, but there's nothing to stop you from using them however you want. I've tried placing moisture sensors in some unusual places, and the results have been excellent.

After a four-year hiatus, Euphoria makes its triumphant return to television tonight. Season 3 of the polarizing TV show starring Zendaya and Sydney Sweeney premieres on April 12 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on HBO and HBO Max.

I installed Linux over the weekend, and not just any version of Linux—an immutable one by the name of Fedora Silverblue. Now that I don't have to worry about my underlying system, my switch back to Linux has been easier than it's ever been, and nearly all of my frustrations from the past are gone.

Having a 3D printer can change the way you think about outstanding home repairs. Sometimes, a fix is just a few minutes away, and it only costs a few cents in filament and a bit of spare time.

Adobe Premiere is one of the most popular video editors out there today, but as time has gone on, I've realized that I don't use it nearly enough to justify the cost of a subscription. I tried 5 alternative editors, but one stood out from the crowd.

The Govee Outdoor Chromatic String Lights are, as the name suggests, a more saturated take on outdoor string lights. They may be pricey, but their attractive design and durability join Matter-compatibility in making these lights a compelling addition to the exterior of a modern smart home.

Home Assistant may be smart home software, but that doesn't mean that you're limited to using it inside your home. There are plenty of ways that I use Home Assistant outside my home, and they're some of my most useful automations.

There was a time when the luxury car experience was inseparable from the badge on the hood. If you wanted rich leather upholstery and cutting-edge tech (like CD players and heated seats back in the day), you paid a prestige tax to a handful of legacy brands. In that landscape, the logo was a status symbol that told your friends, neighbors, and colleagues you’d arrived.