How-To Geek

I usually defend Excel come hell or high water. However, when it comes to regular expressions (regexes), even I admit that open-source LibreOffice Calc is superior: it treats them as native search rules, simplifying conditional tasks to a single, clean formula.

Are you trying to figure out if you need an RTX 5070, 5080, or 5090? Let me help you decide—don’t let VRAM be a factor in your decision-making process. You really don’t need more than 16GB of VRAM for most use cases, especially gaming.

Demogorgons are cool and all, but sometimes the best stories on Netflix aren't the scripted ones. I love delving into a good documentary because they offer glimpses down the rabbit hole of odd and fascinating topic you never knew existed, as well as unprecedented access behind the scenes of some of the world's highest profile people and their lives.

Ever recorded a college lecture and found the audio crystal clear, only to have your concert footage from that very day come out sounding like trash? This happened to me, and after some digging, I found the specific setting to blame—and why you shouldn't actually deactivate it completely.

Calibre just dropped version 8.16.1, and it brings a new feature that lets you ask an AI what book you should read next. This latest update builds on the AI capabilities the Calibre team has been adding over the past few months, which follows the trend of adding AI whenever possible.

Homebrew (or “Brew”) began as a tool to ease installation on macOS, where Apple likes to lock everything down to its App Store. But does it have a place on Linux too, where package managers are commonplace, and the user has more control?

Stop me if this sounds familiar—Google Messages is changing how you pick, send, and view media like pictures and videos inside the app. After running a test and overhauling the entire UI this summer, then rolling back those changes, it now appears that Google is yet again revamping media controls for its text and RCS platform.

Bluetooth is a well-worn technology that you might be tempted to write off in your smart home, especially if your server doesn’t already have Bluetooth capabilities. I wasn’t going to bother, but then I saw an opportunity to pick up a cheap adapter and gave it a shot.

If you're anything like me, you've already hastily consumed the first four episodes of Stranger Things 5. Don't sit there twiddling your thumbs, though. Netflix has plenty more shows to keep you entertained.

As we march toward one of the last weekends of the year, it’s time again to take a look at some homelab projects you should tackle. This weekend, I think it’s time you get your network in order. From setting up VLANs and configuring static IPs to having a VPN available to access your network when out of the house, here’s three homelab projects to tackle this weekend.

You need a plan for when disaster strikes, and I don’t just mean being prepared for a hurricane or wildfire. What do you do to stay connected and preserve your data when your phone is shattered or, worse, lost for good?

As Microsoft continues giving everyone reasons to drop Windows in favor of a more reliable and open platform, there's no better time to explore what Linux has to offer. Here are a few good apps worth your time if you've got a Linux computer to play with this weekend.

The weekend is so close I can almost smell it—and that means it’s time for another roundup of Raspberry Pi projects to try out over the next few days. This weekend, I’m focusing on building out self-hosted media servers and controllers to help simplify audio listening and controlling.

I spend most of my time in Windows, so I’m used to thinking about malware as a fact of life. You stay patched, you avoid sketchy downloads, and you accept that a bad attachment or sloppy update can ruin your day. macOS has always felt different to me. I only use it when work requires it or when I’m in my home studio recording, and in all the years I’ve owned a Mac, it has stayed blissfully untouched by anything resembling a virus.

Picture this: yet another Excel report lands in my inbox, and, once again, it's a nightmare of leading spaces, inconsistent spelling, and useless rows. Previously, I would spend hours fixing it manually. Now, however, I use Power Query to profile the mess, sanitize the text, clean up the structure, and remove all the needless clutter.

Spotify is back with its highly anticipated annual recap, Spotify Wrapped, which rounds up your top songs and albums, favorite artists, listening time, and more interesting music insights for 2025.

I've never been a fan of Christmas lights, but I do love Matter, and that's the only reason I had any interest in the Govee Christmas Sparkle String Lights. But it's the fun I had with this product that makes it a welcome addition to this year's tree.

Now that the Steam Deck is starting to show its age, gamers are searching for upgraded handhelds that can fill the void of a not-yet-realized "Steam Deck 2." For me, the Legion Go S is that handheld, and it's just generally a great platform for on-the-go PC gaming.

Nothing spells cozy like kicking back and snuggling up with your favorite, binge-worthy shows during the holiday season. Netflix is lending a helping hand to this comfort with its December lineup of new and returning shows for your holiday watch parties.

Discord has finally introduced its own version of the popular annual recap feature with the rollout of Discord Checkpoint for 2025 activity. This is the first time the platform has given users a comprehensive, personalized look back at their yearly habits, and the results are interesting.