How-To Geek

Do you have a habit of "closing" apps running in the background on your phone, hoping it'll improve performance or save battery life? If so, you should probably stop, because it's doing more harm than good.

Niagara Launcher has quietly become one of the best Android launchers available today. It originally grabbed attention for completely reimagining the Android home screen, and it has continued to improve upon that concept. The latest update brings a brand new customization tool and a company rebrand.

If you have fond memories of being able to upgrade your laptop’s components, I’m here to tell you that I’m right there with you. Except, in 2026, my view on that has changed, and I totally understand why companies stopped building user-upgradable laptops—and that’s okay.

Some jobs seem to get put off forever, regardless of how important they are. Though I’m always tinkering with my smart home, rarely do I put my audit hat on and check the nuts and bolts.

At first glance, Excel's ISNUMBER seems almost too straightforward to be useful—it simply tells you if a cell contains a numerical value. However, its true power lies in its ability to act as a logical gatekeeper, turning messy errors and function outputs into clean TRUE or FALSE values.

If you want your SSD to stay in peak condition without leaving even a smidge of performance on the table, I'd like to acquaint you with the TRIM command. TRIM not only keeps your SSD running at its best, but also reduces unnecessary operations that can, over time, negatively impact its lifespan.

There are so many ways today for readers like me to consume content. You could check out an Audible subscription and, in turn, listen to some awesomely narrated audiobooks by celebrities, or check out some new releases. Or you could do it the old-fashioned way and head to your local bookstore to pick up the latest release. But for me, I’ve leaned more into e-reading.

If you've spent any amount of time configuring and customizing your Linux environment, shell, or CLI tools, you've likely done so by editing configuration files. These config or dot files (they're called dot files because the file names usually begin with a dot) can get pretty complex over time. If these files are lost or overwritten, you'll have to recreate all your configurations and customizations from scratch. That's why it's a good idea to back up these files. If you run Linux on multiple devices, it's also a good idea to sync the dot file changes between computers instead of making the same changes everywhere by hand. I use this tool to do both those things.

Bambu Lab is a company that has taken the 3D printing world by storm. Its latest printer, the Bambu Lab X2D, is a long-awaited follow-up to the company’s 2022 debut, and it’s causing quite a stir in the 3D printing community.

I'll be honest—I completely forgot that NVIDIA's RTX Video Super Resolution existed. I was looking around the NVIDIA app the other day trying to sort out a custom resolution issue and spotted the setting again.

Self-hosting is now more popular than ever, and it’s not hard to see why. Day by day, more of our digital lives is moving into subscription-based cloud services that often fail to deliver.

There is a quiet assumption that if you choose Xfce, you have made peace with a certain aesthetic. Functional, stable, slightly frozen in time. It works, it does not surprise you, and it does not try to look like anything else, and much like others, I also accepted it. Then I started making small, almost trivial changes, and something odd happened. The desktop stopped feeling like a compromise and started feeling intentional.

You might not have to worry that a shady Android app will steal contacts or constantly share your whereabouts for much longer. Google is introducing features and policies that will limit how apps request contact and location information.

Remember TeraCopy? This utility software was quite famous back in the Windows 7 era and offered a better way to move files between locations than Windows Explorer. You might be surprised to know that the tool still exists; in fact, I still prefer it over what we have in Windows 11.

Desktop PCs are super upgradeable—that's one of their biggest perks. But if there's one upgrade that feels like a chore and actually is a chore, it's the processor.

Streaming binges come in different forms. Sometimes, you want a show that you can finish in one sitting or over the weekend. It's usually a limited series or single-season show with eight or fewer episodes. I enjoy watching those shows when I can't commit to something with multiple seasons.

Usually, if you want to send ADB commands to your phone, you'll connect it to your PC (either via Wi-Fi or a USB cable) and use the terminal. However, if you don't have a computer nearby, it's possible to run ADB commands on your Android phone—this is the easiest way I've found.

Hosting a party, whether it’s a barn-burner or just a handful of friends over for a few, is all about mastering the atmosphere. Music is key, obviously, but what about that big, black wasted rectangle of space reflecting back at your guests? Don’t drape that dolphin-patterned sarong you got in the Bahamas over it, put a movie on in the background instead.

A new Plex update has been released for Android and iPhone, and it has fixed a couple of recent annoyances. Plex users have been facing several issues on the “Manage Favorite Channels” screen lately, and the new update claims to have finally fixed some of them.

It will soon be easier to charge your EV while you grab your morning coffee or afternoon slushie. Circle K has teamed up with Ionna, the charging alliance formed by eight major car makers, to widen access to fast EV chargers at its U.S. convenience stores.