How-To Geek

If you’ve just upgraded to a brand-new, lightning-fast boot drive, you don’t have to get rid of the old one. The same goes for those ancient HDDs we all have sitting in a dusty drawer, like the ones we used to boot our Windows XP PCs from.

Modern displays are amazing when it comes to detail, brightness, color, and all the ingredients that make for an impressive picture—except motion clarity.

The Mercedes-Benz GLB-Class was designed to bridge a gap in the automaker's product line and luxury SUV market as a whole. Although the subcompact GLA served as the entry point, its smaller cabin could feel cramped over time for growing families.

Lots of people will use an IDE like VS Code or a regular editor like Vim, but for my work in data science and statistics, I need something different. Here's why I use IPython and Jupyter notebooks for exploring datasets.

Modern Android phones have a number of built-in utilities aside from the ones we've all heard of and used, like the torch. Some of these tools allow you to convert any photo (as well as webpages and emails) into a PDF file, extract text from photos, and more.

My Alexa smart speakers were meant to usher in a future where I controlled everything in my smart home with my voice. Instead, they turned out to be a closed system with limited capabilities and some serious privacy issues. I decided it was time they were replaced.

Every TV today has at least one HDMI port on the side or back. It’s used to stream content from another device to your television—whether that’s a streaming device, tablet, or computer.

Gaming routers are everywhere these days, and they're sold with all the subtlety of a neon-lit race car. Big antennas, aggressive fonts, tri-band this, Wi-Fi 7 that, and a very simple pitch: buy this, and your games will run faster.

Everyone dunks on Ubuntu for being bloated, and honestly, they're not wrong. There are far more powerful Linux distros that offer more features while consuming less resources than Ubuntu. In fact, at the time of writing, Ubuntu now demands higher system requirements than Windows 11. So I ran both to find out if that weight actually matters.

Pixel phones aren't exactly known for being adventurous. Google mainly sticks with clean designs and simple features—that’s part of the appeal. However, it did once experiment with nifty touch-less gestures. Now you can bring them back to any Android phone.

Voice typing on desktop computers usually promises efficiency but rarely delivers, despite many wanting to ditch the keyboard for voice typing. Dictation is meant to save time and lower keyboard use, but you constantly have to correct errors, manage software crashes, and fight incompatible interfaces. The primary problem is not that you lack choices, but that these applications do not fit your workflow, vocabulary, or environment. I spent several weeks testing seven different applications on Windows, ranging from free system defaults to expensive enterprise software. I think I've found the one you've been looking for, since it works well for me.

Despite coming from competing companies, Android and Windows are two platforms that are quite compatible and capable of interaction. Here, I'll show you several ways to connect and run Android apps on your Windows PC.

Everyone who uses i3—or any Linux window manager—has some version of the same story: excited going in, and confused right after installing it. People on the internet will show you what’s possible with i3, but very few talk about what it actually takes to get there. I pushed through, figured it out, and now I’m sharing the three things I wish I knew before I started.

A local library of music is almost always cheaper than paying for a subscription, which is why home media servers have become so popular. In a weird way, Google Play Music was the first taste of this concept for many people. Despite what you may think, it still lives on today.

Raspberry Pi-based Plex servers look like a DIY-friendly, low-power way to build a compact Plex server. They're readily available, easy to work with, and have fantastic community support. Unfortunately, the builds you see on YouTube and social media only look good because they avoid one of the Raspberry Pi's greatest weaknesses.

Luxury is often associated with premium badges, but the badge itself doesn’t always guarantee the best ownership experience. In the used market especially, some overlooked mainstream models deliver the same refinement, comfort, and road presence as traditional luxury cars, often for far less money. One German liftback proves that stepping outside the usual premium brands can be a surprisingly smart move.

Choosing the right tool for multiple jobs can be tough, especially with so many brands to choose from. Then, once you decide on a brand and start stocking up, you'll realize you forgot something important. Earlier this year, I finally bought a RIDGID 4 Gallon wet/dry shop vac, and not only is it a tool I sorely needed, but it's something everyone should own.

When it comes to the most popular streaming websites, one we can all agree on is Netflix. Sure, the Netflix prices have gone up, and sometimes, you wonder if there are better alternatives out there, but at the end of the day, the platform has a ridiculous amount of content on it that gives you plenty of options.

A couple years ago, I purchased a pair of AR glasses and wore them as a replacement for my computer monitor. I worked in them. I played games with them. I loved them, briefly and passionately, before eventually allowing them to disappear onto a shelf. Despite delivering on their promise, I grew tired of them after only a few months.

For a long time, the standard for digital writing was consistent. Whether you wrote a short memo, an academic paper, or a novel, you probably used the same word processor and typed into a blank white page, and that was usually Microsoft Word, even with hidden features. However, relying on a single app limits you, and there are better apps out there to use. Instead of forcing work into a rigid format, you should use a group of specialized tools where each program serves a specific purpose.