How-To Geek

You might associate IKEA with flat-pack furniture and meatballs, but the Swedish homeware giant is also a big player in the smart home world. After entering the market in the mid-2010s, the company has built on its success and is preparing to overhaul its smart home lineup for a more interconnected future.

Are you installing Linux for the first time and wondering if you should let the installer automatically partition the OS—or if you should brave the manual option? Well, here’s a detailed guide on when you need manual partitioning, what the different partitions are, and how to set them up!

Spotify recently picked up lossless streaming, something that should have been a win for audiophiles everywhere. Despite that, Spotify's lossless option hasn't won me over.

When it comes to photo editing, Photoshop is the 800-pound gorilla in the room. It is so universal that the name has even become a verb.

Every photo you take is secretly telling a story you might not want to share. Buried inside the image file is hidden metadata that can show exactly when and where you took it, what camera or phone you used, and even your camera settings. This information can then be misused by anyone online to find your home address or track your movements.

Your iPhone has gotten a ton of updates and improvements recently that you might not know about. Beyond the divisive Liquid Glass design and a few new Apple apps, some features and tweaks have been flying under the radar. One seemingly small change goes a long way to improve user navigation on big iPhone screens.

While there is still only one Windows, Linux distros come and go. While some early distros have stood the test of time, others have fallen into computer history. I'll look back on some pioneering Linux distros you can't get anymore, at least in current versions.

Viewing and editing spreadsheets on a tiny phone screen can be a challenge. However, there are some tricks and workarounds when using the Excel mobile app that make the experience surprisingly straightforward, turning frustration into productivity.

Microsoft has improved Windows 11 a lot over time, but one thing it still hasn't paid attention to is the context menu. If you feel the same way, I highly recommend using Nilesoft Shell to customize your context menu.

The Now Playing music recognition feature that's built into Google Pixel phones is pretty useful if you use it. But if you don't feel comfortable with Google always listening in the background, or would rather use a dedicated app instead, it's easy enough to disable.

By any measure, there is an enormous number of programming languages. Some lists contain hundreds, while the Historical Encyclopedia of Programming Languages lists just under 9,000. You’ve probably only used a handful, and you might not be too surprised to discover that many of the rest are obscure, archaic, and just plain bizarre.

Google Tasks is a competent to-do app, especially if you're already using Gmail and Google Calendar. But if you own a Galaxy phone or tablet, there may be a better option. Samsung Reminder has been my go-to for the past year, and after the recent One UI 8 update, it has only gotten better.

Driving these days requires you to be aware and keep your eyes completely focused on the road. Google Maps shows you a lot of information on your dashboard, but you should keep your eyes on the road as much as you can while actively driving. A good way to do this is to use voice commands.

Are you beginning Docker and finding it a little overwhelming? The commands can be unwieldy, and best practices are not clearly spelled out. I have three things I wish I knew when starting Docker, which may help you.

VPN kill switches are an additional security measure for when you're browsing the internet—but what exactly do they do?

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard the same story, someone’s hard drive dies, and with it go years of photos, videos, music, and memories. It’s one of those frustrating moments that’s entirely preventable, yet many don’t think about it until it’s too late. The truth is, the biggest mistake people make with their media files isn’t that they don’t back them up at all, it’s that they only back them up once. One external drive, one cloud folder, all your memories in "one safe place."

While modern flat panel TVs aren't literally dust magnets like CRTs with their static charges, your TV will still gather dust and dirt as time goes by. This isn't only bad because it degrades the quality of the image, but also because dust and dirt making its way into your TV can interfere with its normal operation and even shorten its life.

The internet can be a dangerous place, and there is more at stake if your device is compromised by malware than ever. Your passwords could be stolen, sensitive details, like your bank information, social security number, or medical information could fall into the wrong hands. If nothing else, it is just extremely inconvenient to have a PC infected with malware.

I recently tried the Spotlight feature on my friend's macOS running the latest Tahoe upgrade, and I must say, it's awesome. I wish Microsoft would bring something similar built into Windows as well.

Whether you wanted to unarchive a file or take a screenshot, you had to install a third-party app for most of the actions you wanted to perform on Windows back in the Windows XP days.