How-To Geek

Samsung smartwatches like the Galaxy Watch 8 are incredible fitness trackers and productivity tools. However, the NFC (Near Field Communication) feature on the Galaxy Watch is largely out of bounds for smart home use, and that's a shame.

Most programming languages and compilers are designed to be practical. Maybe reality falls short—perhaps performance is worse than it should be, syntax becomes confusing or esoteric, or compiler optimizations wind up breaking code, but they're designed to be useful.

I've owned my Kindle 4 for more than a decade, and it's served me well over the years. When Amazon announced that it was ending support for this model, I finally bit the bullet and jailbroke it. I installed the KOReader app not really knowing what to expect, but it can support way more formats than the default Amazon software.

Microsoft is most famous for Windows and Microsoft Office, but in their 50-year history, they've tried dozens of unusual experiments. Some of them flopped completely, while others informed and inspired later technological innovations.

Does it ever feel to you like there's so much going on in the world it's hard to keep up? A lot of events mean a lot of news, and I was tired of wasting time reading news I didn't really care about instead of news that I did. I decided to set up my own daily newsletter that I could read on my Kindle, full of things I was genuinely interested in.

Android Auto has been one of the biggest quality-of-life upgrades for drivers over the past decade. It's made navigation, music, calls, and messages far easier and safer to access on the road.

Last year, I bought a small Cudy TR3000 travel router with the kind of confidence people have before a project quietly disappears into a drawer. The idea was simple enough. I wanted a router I could carry around, plug in anywhere, and reach the devices on its local network from outside. Then I did what many of us do with small useful-looking gadgets. I put it aside, told myself I would set it up soon, and let it sit around for months.

I used to work in broadcasting. One of my first jobs in television was running cables from a production truck all over football fields, baseball stadiums, and makeshift studios. We worked with coax cables frequently during that time, mostly using the N-style connector for truck-to-field links and BNC connectors for indoor, lower-powered work.

Windows is packed with features that rarely get the spotlight. While most users stick to the basics, there are plenty of useful tools and settings buried deep in the operating system that can make everyday tasks a little easier. I decided to explore the deepest layers and found some worth sharing.

I've been a gearhead for as long as I can remember, with a particular weakness for muscle cars, motorcycles, trucks, and anything that feels a little different. The problem is that most of the new vehicles I find exciting today, including Rivians, Corvettes, Teslas, and Hemi-powered vehicles, cost far more than I'm willing to spend.

If you enjoy something enough to do it in your spare time, use it to brighten your day, or see it as a platform for self-development, it’s totally worth your hard-earned money. But there’s a point of diminishing returns, where you feel inclined to buy more things for little gain.

With SSD prices still sky-high, I wanted to check my SSD’s health to see whether I actually needed a replacement. Windows gave me a concerning percentage, but no context—no trend, no cause, no countdown. I was on the verge of buying an expensive new SSD, but decided to get a second opinion. That’s when I turned to CrystalDiskInfo. It gave me the missing context and showed that my SSD still had plenty of life left, giving me the confidence to delay the purchase.

The Goodwood Festival of Speed started in 1993 as a modest gathering on Charles Gordon-Lennox's estate in West Sussex, England. The then Lord March, now the Duke of Richmond, expected two or three thousand people for a hillclimb up his own driveway. Around 25,000 came instead.

Wireless chargers are very convenient, whether you're determined to minimize cord clutter or just tired of plugging in your phone every day. However, there's a hidden cost: your charger is wasting electricity, and that's costing you both money and time.

Modern performance cars are faster, more efficient, and packed with technology, but many of them have lost some of the raw character that made enthusiasts fall in love with driving in the first place. For buyers willing to embrace the used market, there are still a few machines that deliver an experience no new car at the same price can replicate.

You've done the work—you picked a solid router, set a real admin password, maybe even splurged on a mesh system and a VPN subscription. Your home network feels locked down, and honestly, it probably is. Then, one day, you want to check your security cameras from the office, and you flip on one innocent little setting to make it happen.

Android Auto keeps its settings simple, for good reason. The app is based around the things you need every day, with minimal distractions. But if you unlock the developer mode in Android Auto, you can access a few more features. Most are designed for testing and debugging, but some are actually quite useful for everyone.

As a voracious consumer of television shows, nothing excites me more than a premiere episode so good that it’s impossible to avoid rolling right into the next one. These shows have characters that feel alive, narrative twists you never see coming, and cliffhangers that have you promising yourself that you’ll stop after just one more episode.

Ever wanted to quickly check something on your PC while you're away? Or maybe grab that one file you forgot to transfer to your phone? Here's what I use to seamlessly access my Windows PC from my Android phone, no matter where I am.

It's not a great time to replace your GPU right now, which means it's time to give it some love and try to make it stay with you for a while longer, even if it feels like it's officially too old at this point.