How-To Geek

I'm lucky enough that my current car has a built-in dashboard infotainment screen that supports Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. So all I have to do is plug a cable into my phone, and leave it down in the change bowl, or even secure inside the armrest storage, which has enough of a gap in the lid for a USB cable without pinching it.

The glory days when every Android phone had expandable storage are long behind us. The first to go out were flagships and high-end options. The rest of the market slowly followed suit, starting with upper-mid-range offerings and trickling down to lower price brackets.

I discovered the joys of homelabbing and self-hosting earlier this year when I turned an old laptop and a hard drive into a home server. It started out as a simple NAS, but quickly turned into a full-blown hobby.

How old is your oldest spool of 3D printing filament, and where do you store it when it’s not in use? The idea that filament might go “bad” over time might seem odd, even though we don’t have the same long-term durability expectations for the items we print.

After upgrading my Steam Deck's SSD, I threw the handheld's original 256GB drive into the bottom of one of the tin boxes I keep all kinds of knickknacks in and quickly forgot about it. The SSD had gathered dust there for years until I remembered I had it and decided to do something useful with it. So I went to Temu, ordered a 2230 external SSD enclosure, and a few weeks later, I ended up with a teeny-tiny DIY external SSD that blows all of my USB flash drives out of the water.

I have spent years switching Linux distros for practical reasons such as hardware support, package availability, performance, and documentation. This time, my motivation was entirely superficial: I saw Pop!_OS with its new Frosted Glass interface and thought it looked incredible.

A Kindle is primarily intended for reading eBooks. While you can use one to browse the internet, it's nowhere near the experience of using a smartphone. You may be surprised to learn that it's possible to stream video on a Kindle.

I switched to Linux as my daily driver several years ago, but sometimes Windows is still necessary. When that happens, I'm stuck using a workflow that feels oddly clunky. I found myself reaching for programs and tools that didn't exist and trying to use window management options that didn't exist.

I spent years repeatedly rearranging the same Excel worksheets for different tasks: I'd hide columns, change filters, adjust the zoom, and then undo everything later. Then I discovered the overlooked Custom Views option, which lets me save those layouts and switch between them in seconds.

Ford has sold hands-free highway driving capability under the BlueCruise name since 2021, when it debuted on the F-150 and Mustang Mach-E. Buyers get a 90-day trial included with an eligible Ford vehicle, then pay $49.99 a month, $495 a year, or a one-time fee of $2,495. The one-time option guarantees at least seven years of BlueCruise service, with no additional payment required as long as Ford continues to offer the feature.

In June 2023, Mercedes-Benz and Microsoft ran a three-month ChatGPT beta on the automaker's MBUX Voice Assistant. Before that, the assistant could only recognize a fixed set of pre-programmed commands or phrases drivers had to memorize and repeat back, almost word for word, to get a scripted answer.

I've used Linux seriously for over 20 years. I love it, but as with a lot of things I like it's not necessarily for everyone. Still, more people are talking about Linux, and looking to switch to it, more than ever. Over the years of using Linux, here are the users I believe would get the most out of Linux.

Samsung discontinued its Messages app earlier this year, leaving Galaxy owners without the One UI messaging experience they'd grown used to. The Android community tends to right these wrongs, and a replacement app that recreates the app closely has been released—it even works with RCS.

Paramount+ dumped a mountain (see what I did there?) of catalog titles on its service at the beginning of the month, and U.S. subscribers responded by watching The Hangover so much that it's the No. 1 movie right now, according to Flixster. The most thrilling thing near the top 10, though, is Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, but I think we can do better than that.

Google finally unveiled its own answer to the AirTag, and on paper, you'd think the Pixel Tag will dominate, given Android's install base. That's far from a given, though. In practice, there are four major problems that will likely keep it from being the category leader it was hoping to be.

The modern hypercar has become a numbers game. More horsepower, quicker acceleration, faster lap times, higher top speeds, and of course bigger price tags. These are the measurements many manufacturers use to grab the attention of the public and potential customers. Making 1,000 horsepower doesn’t raise any eyebrows nowadays. You can go to your local Chevy dealer and pick up a Corvette that makes more than that. So, hypercar manufacturers are pressing for more, more, more.

Any machine with moving parts that touch needs some sort of lubrication to minimize the effects of friction if you don't want them grinding against each other. Apart from perhaps your car, there are probably few devices in a typical home with more moving parts than a 3D printer, so naturally you'll need to keep it lubricated if you want it to work correctly.

You might have deployed Pi-hole to stop all tracking on your network, but it actually can't do that. Pi-hole is a fantastic tool, and it can definitely block trackers from working on your network, but it's not a perfect solution—here's why.

Most people have a drawer, a box, or a pile somewhere full of physical documents they know they should digitize and never do. Scanners are either slow or too bulky when attached to a printer, even when you find the right one. And a phone app tends to upload everything to a server you didn't choose while not having the quality needed. A webcam you already own, pointed straight down at your desk, can replace all of that.

The 2026 Kia Niro Hybrid isn't the kind of SUV that grabs attention in a crowded parking lot. It doesn't have the size, power, or rugged image of many of its competitors, but it does something far more useful for everyday drivers: it keeps fuel costs remarkably low.