How-To Geek

I've always loved how much freedom Linux gives you to customize your desktop. I've spent years ricing GNOME and KDE Plasma, but I've always avoided window managers (WM) like i3 and Hyprland. Without a graphical interface, customization feels more like programming than personalizing your desktop. I recently decided to give WMs a try, but building a polished setup would easily consume an entire Saturday for me. That's when I had an idea: what if I let Claude do the heavy lifting? The result wasn't just dramatically faster—it looked better than almost anything I'd built myself.

Oversharing on Google is almost a bit too easy. Google is designed for seamless collaboration, which means the system tends to default to settings that reduce the amount of friction you encounter when attempting to share. Unfortunately, that also means some of the default settings are overly permissive by default.

Most people chasing better audio head straight for a DAC upgrade. It's the obvious move when your music sounds flat or cluttered, and the marketing around premium converters makes it easy to believe you're leaving quality on the table by using the chip built into your motherboard. The thing is, that chip is almost certainly not your problem, but your amplifier is a different story.

Six in 10 drivers say headlight glare is a problem after dark, and nearly three-quarters of those affected believe it has worsened over the past decade, according to a survey done by AAA in February 2026. Among those who experience glare, 92% identify oncoming headlights as the primary cause, and about one-third of respondents report being blinded by glare reflected in their rearview or side mirrors.

OpenBSD is known for its devotion to security, but can it work as a desktop? The BSDs are great alternatives to Linux distributions, but this OS is probably better suited to a router or homelab project, right?

Once you’ve bought a 3D printer, you can keep the hobby ticking along with a steady stream of relatively cheap filament. The less filament a print uses, the lower the material cost.

I've been a YouTuber for years, and like most people who have to create video content, I'm chained to Adobe's Creative Cloud subscription seemingly forever.

This month on Paramount+, August is bringing the heat with its lineup of new content. It is more sports-heavy than other months, with three Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Fight Night matches, a new season of Dana White’s Contender Series, and MTV's The Challenge: Cutthroat, and more basketball, golf, soccer, and bull riding than you can stand. You can find more information about those competitions in Paramount’s complete August lineup. If you aren’t a sports fan, though, don’t worry—you’re covered.

Performance sedans rarely deliver everything in one package. German rivals offer incredible speed and technology but can become expensive to own over time, while many Japanese alternatives prioritize reliability at the expense of outright excitement.

Tom Holland has cemented himself as one of Hollywood's leading stars under the age of 35. After becoming a child star in Billy Elliot the Musical on the West End, Holland transitioned into movies, where he slowly became a reliable supporting actor in several films. In 2015, Holland's life changed when Marvel cast him to play Peter Parker/Spider-Man in the MCU.

Mercedes-Benz is ready to release an EV edition of one of its most popular cars. The automaker has introduced a redesigned GLA for 2027 that includes a pure electric model alongside hybrids.

Hybrid SUVs dominate the conversation whenever fuel economy comes up, but they're no longer the only way to keep running costs under control. Advances in turbocharging, engine efficiency, and lightweight platforms mean there are now several crossovers that comfortably clear the 30 MPG mark without any form of electrification.

The TV is by far the biggest screen in my home. I have smaller screens all around the house that I use to display useful information, but the 49-inch screen in the living room is mostly going to waste. I decided to build a custom TV dashboard that could be displayed on the TV when we weren't watching anything.

When a laptop starts showing its age, the usual advice is to install Linux to make it faster. While that certainly helps, there’s an even better approach to stop thinking of it as your everyday computer. Instead, turn it into a Linux appliance.

SUVs have become the default recommendation for family buyers, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're the smartest choice. For many households, the extra cost, weight, and fuel consumption simply don't deliver enough real-world benefits to justify moving away from a traditional sedan.

I could bore you with yet another “everything costs more these days” rant, but for those of us who love technology, high prices are nothing new. It’s always been hard for me to justify the full retail price of a brand new smartphone or laptop—so I don’t pay it. I’ve been buying used tech for years, and it’s never let me down.

Self-hosting is both an entertaining hobby if you like computers, and a reasonable way to save a few dollars if you swap out your subscription services for something you host yourself. It does come with a bit of risk, however, if you put your self-hosted services online so they're accessible from the internet. I was curious about what kind of attacks my server was getting, so I set up a honeypot to see what happened.

When it comes to laptops, Windows on Arm seems to be taking center stage lately. The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5x Gen 11 is right in the middle of Windows on Arm, with the Snapdragon X2 Plus processor in tow. I was surprised at just how performant this mid-range laptop is, and actually think it's a better buy than its more expensive Snapdragon X2 Elite brothers.

Plug-in hybrids offer a unique middle ground between conventional hybrids and fully electric vehicles. They allow drivers to complete many daily trips using electric power while keeping the convenience of a gasoline engine for longer journeys.

I use Excel for pretty much everything. So when I wanted to keep track of the 2026 FIFA World Cup stadiums, my first instinct was to open a spreadsheet and start building a list. The problem was that a table full of addresses didn't give me a clear picture of where those venues actually were.