How-To Geek

Netflix's release slate for June packs a punch, with exciting new titles and nostalgic watches alike coming to the platform. And whether you're looking for an underdog story, a family comedy, or a historical romance, Netflix has a string of award-winning movies worth adding to your watch list.

The compact SUV segment has become one of the most competitive corners of the market, but also one of the most predictable. Many models prioritize practicality, comfort, and reliability above all else, often at the expense of design flair and driving engagement. As a result, buyers looking for something more premium or enjoyable to drive are frequently pushed toward higher-priced luxury alternatives.

GM's refusal to support Android Auto and Apple CarPlay on its EVs might be irksome, but there is a way around it if you're willing to take a chance. EV Play is selling an adapter, the $199 EV Play LT, that provides wired and wireless versions of both technologies on electric cars from Cadillac, Chevy, and GMC.

The stock Jellyfin Android app gets the job done, but it's hard not to notice just how much more polished the Plex app feels. Frankly, it's no contest—and it’s one of the reasons so many people drift away from Jellyfin. Fortunately, Jellyfin’s open-source nature has allowed developers to build their own clients, offering far more refined ways to stream your content.

Most people think of a NAS as a box that stores backups, media, documents but undersells what a NAS can do when it is already sitting on your network all day.A NAS is one of the few machines in a home lab that is usually powered on, connected by Ethernet, and stable enough to trust with small infrastructure jobs. That makes it a good place to run a private DNS server.

Automating a bedtime routine is harder than you might expect. You don't want your smart home to shut down for the night when someone is still up, or you're reading a book in bed. An NFC tag stuck under the nightstand was all it took to solve the problem.

Paramount+ is having a loud start to the summer. The Taylor Sheridan machine is still purring along with Dutton Ranch, The Madison, and Marshals, Michael Fassbender's The Agency is back for a second season, and, whether you like it or not, the whole streaming platform is bracing for June 14, when the UFC descends on the White House lawn.

You probably don’t think about your subscriptions until the moment you do—and when you finally add them up, it’s never a comfortable number. The good news is that you can replace many of these subscriptions with free, open-source software. Here are three FOSS apps that can help you save money by canceling some of the subscriptions you’re probably paying for right now. The only catch is the setup, which can take a couple of hours—but that’s exactly what weekends are for.

Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive and other cloud sync services are great options if you need to collaborate with other people. However, when you're only syncing files between your own computers, those services are often more overhead than you need.

If you're a Netflix subscriber in the U.S., you likely have your gaze fixed on either J.Lo and Brett Goldstein's new romantic comedy, Office Romance (which Goldstein wrote for Jenny from the Block) or the new season of Tina Fey's dramady series The Four Seasons. But there's also a good chance that you've been waiting for some great new documentaries to appear on the streaming service, and that's where I come in.

People buy 3D printers for all sorts of reasons. I recently saw someone cite their NERF dart blaster hobby as the catalyst for their printer purchase. The more I dug into the scene, the more I realized that 3D printing and NERF are a match made in heaven.

There was a time when you could get by with a few minor tweaks to the default settings, or even some lightweight de-bloating script when setting up a fresh Windows system. That time was before Windows 11. The vanilla version of Windows 11 is practically unusable for me, and it takes a whole rigmarole to make it usable. This is how I customize my Windows installation.

Printers are pretty old tech made for a job that's already losing relevance in many contexts. They really don't need to do anything other than connect to the devices we want to print from. So, imagine my surprise when I fired up my router logs one boring Sunday and saw my office inkjet chatting away to a bunch of servers I never asked it to talk to. As suspicious as it seems, this is apparently what printers do now: constantly send data back to the mothership. Pretty cool, I suppose. Or is it?

Gone are the days when we would willingly put Instagram filters on our photos because we thought they looked good. Now, your photos are still being edited, even if you're not the one doing it. Most people don't even know what a real photo taken on a smartphone (with zero processing) would look like. Thankfully, I've found an app that lets me snap away with no processing — and I'm shocked by the results.

When you want to do something in Home Assistant, it can often be a time-consuming process. You can spend a long time configuring devices, building dashboards, or making repairs. Wouldn't it be good if there were some shortcuts you could take to make things a little easier?

If you have kids, you know the drill—one school run, one snack in the backseat, and suddenly your car looks like the floor of a movie theater. Cookie crumbs in the seat creases, potato chip pieces ground into the carpet, mystery debris lurking in every crevice.

Regardless of the operating system you're on, you'll notice that they all open applications inside these boxes we call windows. These windows pop up in unpredictable positions on the desktop, and they're not always the same size either. This is one of those things you just accept without ever questioning it. At least, I never did. But there's a better system for these windows. One which helps you stay focused on your work and operate your computer faster. Welcome to the wonderful world of tiling window managers.

Got a few spare hours this weekend? Instead of relying on paper habit trackers that never survive a full week, forgetting when your car is due for maintenance, or juggling handwritten grocery lists, you can turn Excel into a set of simple tools that actually solve everyday problems. These three beginner-friendly projects show just how powerful spreadsheets can be when you move beyond basic data entry.

There’s no arguing that smartphone battery life has improved by leaps and bounds since the early days. Go back just a decade, and most phones needed to be recharged several times a day. Now phones will generally get you through a day, from your morning commute to your evening return home. But what if that’s not enough?

Just got your hands on an ESP32? Don’t dive into a complex first build; start slow with something simple. These projects will introduce you to basics like flashing your microcontroller, adding components with a breadboard, and simple coding.