How-To Geek

When you think of a backyard pool, you probably think of relaxation, cooling off, or maybe a bit of spirited splashing if the kids get involved. It’s generally not the right type of pool if you want to do some serious swim training. Even if you’re lucky enough to have a spacious residential pool, it’s probably nowhere near large enough for training.

There's a point in your drive's life when it will just give out. It's not a question of if, but when—some will only take longer than others.

Milwaukee is one of the most popular and recognizable names in power tools, and users love its extensive collection of M12 and M18 options. We all know its power tools are heavy hitters, but did you know Milwaukee also makes some excellent hand tools?

Remember when phones ditched the headphone jack, and we were all annoyed that phone makers had just taken away such a useful feature? Well, streaming boxes have lost an important connection too, but for some reason people didn't raise the same level of protest.

If you’re like me, you probably have a wide range of accessories spread throughout your smart home. Chances are, they aren’t all from the same manufacturer either; instead, they come from a mix of different brands.

Desktop Linux can often be a great choice for revitalizing old hardware, but some hardware is still too old. Not even Debian with a lightweight desktop environment could make my 2009 netbook a usable computer, so I tried again with a completely different operating system: Haiku OS.

I still remember it like it was yesterday—I was watching homelabbing YouTube and scrolling the r/homelab subreddit, wishing my homelab could look like those “real” homelabs. I told myself that, one day, I would have a “real” homelab like those guys. I later realized that those Reddit homelab upgrades aren’t actually necessary at all to have a real homelab, and I wish I would have avoided some of them.

Walk into any hardware store like Home Depot, Lowe's, or Harbor Freight, and you'll see all sorts of power tools displayed in a rainbow of colors. It's hard to know what to buy or where to start. Ryobi is extremely popular at Home Depot, but when you're at Harbor Freight looking for a deal, the obvious choice is Hercules power tools.

For years, the Toyota Prius has been the default choice for drivers who want maximum fuel efficiency from a hybrid. Its reputation for reliability and low running costs helped define the modern hybrid market. But today’s hybrid technology has evolved far beyond what the Prius originally pioneered, and some newer models now offer far more than just impressive fuel economy.

Desklets are my favorite Linux Mint customization feature because they make adding desktop widgets super easy, which you'll appreciate if you want a Windows-like widget experience after switching to Mint.

I wanted a TV in the bedroom. My wife didn’t. So I was tasked with finding a way for us to still be able to watch movies and TV shows in bed, but without a TV on the wall. Little did I know that the solution was a small, Coke-can-sized piece of tech that we could fit under the nightstand when not in use.

A Raspberry Pi Pico is very different from the rest of the Raspberry Pi family, and can be very daunting if you've never used one before. Luckily, there is a free website that lets you try things out before you dive in.

If you're the person friends and family call when their computer starts acting weird, you've probably opened Task Manager more times than you can count. It's the first place most of us go when a PC feels slow, an app stops responding, or the fans suddenly spin up for no obvious reason. For decades, it has been Windows’ built-in diagnostic dashboard, presenting CPU, memory, disk, and GPU activity in neat graphs that look authoritative enough to settle debates about what’s slowing your PC down.

If you've been holding off on an Android upgrade because your current phone is still chugging along, or you're waiting for the next big phone launch, you might want to reconsider. All signs point to 2026 flagships costing more while delivering the same or less than last year's phones.

Cascading drop-down lists—where choosing a category like "Fruit" narrows the next list to "Apple" or "Pear"—are a staple of high-level data entry in Excel. The old INDIRECT method works, but it's clunky and hard to maintain. Instead, use dynamic arrays to build lists that handle the modern workflow more smoothly.

The modern digital workplace is moving away from separate apps and files toward a single, shared workspace. Microsoft Loop components fix the major problem of switching back and forth between tools and losing information, especially in Team Chats, but Loop commands are how you summon them.

AI safety has been all over the news recently. The US Department of War asked Anthropic to allow use of its AI for "any lawful use," and the AI company ultimately refused. While this is seen by many as a positive step, it still seems the case that AI companies only really have a conscience when it suits them.

Client URL or cURL is a powerful command-line utility that's pre-installed on pretty much every modern computer (whether its Windows, macOS, or Linux). Think of curl as a web browser that lives in the terminal and works with raw text. This idea sounds pretty simple, but it's also why curl is omnipresent in modern tech. Even though modern alternatives exist (like wget), curl is not going anywhere. If you spend some time working with Linux, you will inevitably end up running a curl command.

2026 Subaru Outback Touring and Touring XT owners can now receive a free dealer-installed software update to activate a hands-off highway driving system.

Home Assistant, the open-source smart home server, just received another significant update. Home Assistant version 2026.3 is now rolling out with more automation improvements, wake words for Android devices, and much more.