How-To Geek

The mainstream car market has gotten a lot more competitive in recent years, and luxury brands have had to work harder to stand out. For many buyers, a European badge like the Audi A3 or BMW 3 Series is still the natural step up into something more premium.

Routers range from affordable to outrageously expensive, with some flashy gaming routers priced at well above $600. But the best way you can truly improve your connection doesn't cost any money, although it does cost some amount of compromise. For some, that compromise can be a lot more significant than for others.

For years, midsize pickups have pretty much followed the same playbook—body-on-frame builds, off-road toughness, and a reputation for lasting forever. At the center of that world is the Toyota Tacoma, a truck known for durability and strong resale value. But as buyer needs shift, that old formula doesn’t feel quite as untouchable as it used to.

You probably assumed Micro USB was dead—quietly retired sometime around 2024 after the EU mandate. But then you bought something recently—maybe a fitness tracker or an IoT device—and there it was: that familiar flat little port staring back at you. It’s not a manufacturing error or leftover clearance stock. Micro USB is still very much in production, and there’s a surprisingly logical reason why.

For years, the formula for picking a sports sedan was pretty simple: big horsepower, quick 0–60 times, and serious track cred. If that was your checklist, the BMW M3 usually ended up near the top.

Most TVs ship with default picture settings that are anything but optimized for home viewing. What you get instead is a blown-out, oversaturated image that may look great at a glance in a store but is simply too much for enjoying movies and TV shows in the comfort of your home.

Navigation is not the only thing you can do with Google Maps. In fact, you can even travel between different points in time! Maps is known for having hidden gems that you can access daily, but they come in clutch when you need them.

The warmth of May is starting to seep through the cracks, you've opened the lid on your barbecue for the first time since November, and soon you'll be off the couch and digging in the garden. But there are still a few weeks of evening and weekend movie nights left, and Netflix has a bad habit of ghosting titles without warning. Consider this your nudge to get caught up before the titles below are gone for U.S subscribers.

Keeping your home, garage, shop, and even vehicle clean is all about finding the perfect vacuum. A big part of that task is having a capable shop vac that'll handle jobs you don't want to tackle with your household vacuum. While Ryobi is most known for its wide array of 18V ONE+ tools, the company also makes excellent accessories, including this new tiny shop vac.

Using an AI chatbot to draft a document, build a table, or sketch out a structured project plan means spending the next ten minutes copy-pasting the result into a real document. Getting the output into a usable file hasn’t been as seamless as using the AI itself. Now, Google is addressing this pain point with a new feature in Gemini that can generate files you can actually download and use.

The Volkswagen Golf GTI has long been the benchmark for drivers who want practicality, performance, and everyday refinement in one compact package. Its blend of sharp handling and premium feel has made it the default choice for enthusiasts who still need a usable daily driver. But one Japanese hatchback is quietly offering a different kind of appeal, one that makes the GTI feel less like the obvious answer.

Motorola has unveiled a wave of new Razr foldable phones for 2026, including a release date and price for its flagship Razr Fold. The top-tier device will be available in the U.S. on May 21 for $1,900, with pre-orders starting May 14 at Best Buy and Motorola's website.

The three-pointed star on the hood of a Mercedes-Benz has always been associated with luxury and status. Yet as new-vehicle prices continue to climb to all-time highs, a shift has occurred in which mainstream brands are designing vehicles with powertrains, infotainment features, and interiors that rival those of established luxury manufacturers.

One of my top shows on Disney+ (or any platform for that matter) for April has been Maul: Shadow Lord, a dark animated Star Wars series that will have its season finale, fittingly, on May the Fourth. It's a good thing, then, that Disney+ and Hulu have a whole new lineup of shows and movies ready for the taking for United States subscribers to the streaming services in the month of May.

There’s no denying that modern smartphones are more powerful and versatile than ever. You can easily go half a decade without upgrading, thanks to the sheer performance of the hardware and the long-term software support many vendors now provide. Phone cameras have matured to the point where most of us no longer need a dedicated shooter, and you can even use your Android phone as a desktop computer that’s powerful enough to get real work done without feeling limited by its hardware.

Here in the automotive industry, we have grown accustomed to what is known as static technology. In other words, once a vehicle leaves the assembly line, its hardware and software are typically locked in time. Unlike your phone, which can receive real-time updates to enhance its performance (and auto-download a ton of spammy games), your vehicle has historically remained the same since you drove it off the lot.

If you spend Mondays copying data from email attachments into a "Master" sheet, you're not working in Excel—you're doing manual labor. Power Query fixes that. Master these three core data consolidation workflows to turn hours of copy-pasting into a single Refresh click.

It’s long been a poorly kept secret that AirPods technically work with Android phones. However, certain features have always been broken due to Apple’s disregard for Bluetooth standards. That’s finally been fixed, and an app called LibrePods unlocks the possibilities.

I originally found Canva while working on a website redesign and collaborating with people across the U.S. What started as a quick way to share visual ideas and mockups quickly turned into something I kept opening for everything else. I used it for concert posters when my band had local shows, personalized cards for my wife printed on nicer paper stock, and eventually presentations too. It was faster, easier to share, and didn't come with the usual back-and-forth of sending files around or wondering which version was the latest.

One of the best third-party text editors has come to macOS at last. Notepad++ is now available as a free Mac app, 23 years after its first Windows release.