How-To Geek

Having USB ports built directly into your monitor is awesome. They’re in a convenient spot, making it easier to plug in things near the monitor, like light bars or frequently used USB devices such as controllers and flash drives. However, most people aren’t aware of the limitations of monitor USB ports and think they can use them like any other USB port.

When Wi-Fi goes down, the first instinct is usually to reboot the router and hope for the best. That's the first advice anyone will give you, and in all fairness, it does often work. But it doesn't always work, and it also wipes away some of the evidence you may have needed to help explain the problem.

When Amazon first introduced Alexa, I thought it might turn out to be the main way that I interacted with my smart home. The reality was something of a disappointment; Amazon's smart home ecosystem is heavily locked down and nowhere near as capable as alternatives such as Home Assistant. I'd already started to move away from Echo devices, but wanted to see what was going on at a network level.

A new car is already a big enough decision before you start thinking about apps, subscriptions, software updates, and trial features. I was reminded of that recently when my mother-in-law needed to replace her car. She had bought a hybrid a year earlier, and unfortunately, it gave her enough problems that she was ready to move on. So I was enlisted to help with the search.

Matter was supposed to be the protocol that saved the Internet of Things. Instead of smart home devices all communicating using different proprietary protocols, Matter was meant to make all devices interoperable so that devices from one brand would play nicely with devices from any other brand.

Do you find yourself constantly getting distracted even with a deadline hanging over your head? You’re not alone. The modern digital world is designed to be as captivating as possible, which also makes it one of the most distracting environments to work in. So I decided to take matters into my own hands and build a PowerShell script to save myself from all these distractions.

USB4 sounds like it should be super simple to navigate (although, in all fairness, all USB standards are really confusing). You buy a USB4 dock, plug one cable into your PC or any device of your choice, and suddenly your monitors, storage, Ethernet connection, keyboard, mouse, and charger all work through one neat little box. If only things were really that simple.

Arch and Arch-based distros get a lot of buzz, and it’s easy to find myself wondering whether I‘m missing out—but I‘ve learned from experience that Arch isn’t for everyone. It’s a phenomenal project, but there are many reasons it isn’t the best option for most of us.

Modern 3D printers are so much more refined than the early machines I tried just over a decade ago. They are almost plug-and-play, the quality of the results is often almost perfect. Also, you don't need a lot of technical knowledge to run a printer anymore.

I loved my foldable Galaxy Z Fold, but I was so enamored by the idea of a repairable and open-source phone that I was willing to go back to a traditional slab in order to give this experiment a shot. So I bought the Murena Fairphone 6 with the idea that this would be a device I could preserve for many years to come. Then, out of the blue, this dream came to an end.

After almost a decade of rocking NVIDIA GPUs, I got an AMD RX 9070 XT in early 2025 and have been using it for almost a year and a half. In general, I haven't had any major complaints. The performance has been great at my resolution of choice (1440p ultrawide), FSR 4 looks almost as good to my eyes as DLSS 4, the drivers have been very stable, and ray tracing performance is more than usable in most games.

As summer hits its stride, HBO Max is keeping the momentum going with a July lineup that features buzzy originals, franchise expansions, and fresh cinematic arrivals.

I have an old Chromebook with a slightly broken casing that used to belong to my wife. It's still perfectly usable, and I hate throwing tech away unnecessarily. I decided to set it up as a dedicated Home Assistant terminal, and it's way more useful than I expected.

If you've ever found yourself sweating through a heatwave waiting for a contractor to quote you for central air installation, you already know the problem. Traditional HVAC systems work well enough in theory, but the reality of getting one installed, running it efficiently, and maintaining it over time is a different story. Mini-split systems have been quietly solving that issue for years, and with newer models like the COZEWARE Visio, the case for going ductless has never been stronger.

Summer is here. The days are long, the temperatures are rising, and millions of Americans are hitting the road for their epic summer adventures. However, nothing spoils a summer road trip faster than a busted air conditioning system.

3D printing is an intoxicating hobby, but it's so easy to get caught up in printing useless things. The prints look cool, but they don't actually serve a purpose. So, I've challenged myself to 3D print something useful every day for a month. Here are the first four projects I'm starting with.

I love physical media, you love physical media. Physical media is awesome, and generally just better than digital streaming or downloads, if a little bit less convenient.

AI tools can be useful, but the costs add up quickly once you start looking beyond the free versions. ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and other platforms all have their strengths, but paying for multiple subscriptions just to get the best parts of each one isn't something most people are going to do casually.

One of the oldest hardware features in smartphones is vibration motors. While the technology has improved, the functionality hasn't really changed much over the years. However, I recently discovered a feature on my Google Pixel phone that makes vibration a lot smarter.

Cleaning up data by hand in Excel is a recipe for mistakes, and even well-built formulas can become difficult to maintain as spreadsheets grow. Power Query is often dismissed as a tool for data experts working with massive datasets—but it's actually one of the most practical tools for everyday Excel tasks. It offers a safer way to automate spreadsheet chores without the complexity most people expect.