How-To Geek

3D printing hasn’t just made it possible to fabricate items at home; it’s changed lives and industries with its unique approach to manufacturing. Though 3D printing has its drawbacks, some items wouldn’t exist (or would be much harder to make at greater cost) without it.

Paying for Claude feels fine until you start doing real work with it. The per-token costs through the API climb faster than most people expect, rate limits cut you off at the worst moments, and every prompt you write travels through infrastructure you don't control. You should take the time to learn how to replace that setup entirely with a local, self-hosted alternative. It runs on your own hardware, costs nothing per query, and keeps everything on your machine.

My Roku TV is old enough that I genuinely considered replacing it last year, mostly because every menu felt like it was wading through mud. Apps took a bit too long to open, and they buffered a lot. I assumed that was just the price of holding onto older hardware. It turns out most of that wasn't the hardware giving up; it was the software asking too much of it.

Google loves to brag about how smart Pixel phones are—usually in the same sentence as Gemini. However, some of my favorite features that are available on Pixel phones don’t require AI, yet they make my phone feel even smarter.

It's hard to miss the giants of coding because they show up everywhere in college courses, dominate job postings, and run huge, enterprise-level systems. However, there are more options than just the big names, and they deserve a lot of attention too.

Windows notifications can provide pertinent information, but in many cases, all they do is hinder your workflow. That's not surprising considering that, with the default settings, you're likely bombarded with superfluous alerts left and right, minute after minute. They not only invade your workspace visually, but also add a constant stream of sound alerts that can easily break your focus.

3D printers rely on a slicer to convert solid 3D models into a set of instructions that the printer can build, layer-by-layer. This is where you can customize various parameters that will decide the outcome of your print, but you can also make big changes to the print too.

I've been using my 2014 iMac 5K for more than a decade, and the 27-inch 5K screen is still a joy to use. Sadly, some of the apps I use on a daily basis will no longer work. Rather than buying a new Mac, I opted for a different solution that cost me nothing.

A good weekend of real documentary viewing relies on a nice mix of fascination, education, and exasperation. A little music is also welcome, too. Luckily, HBO Max has been in the documentary game long enough to have a deep library of films and series that tick all those boxes and more, and it's just there for the taking.

Netflix has been rolling out some pretty sweet shows and movies so far this summer. Harlan Coben's I Will Find You and the streamer's latest chilling docuseries, Worst Neighbor Ever, have both been squatting comfortably in the Netflix Top 10, and Hamnet is pulling on all the heartstrings. Not a bad problem to have.

My Google Pixel 10 Pro is an excellent phone with a ton of exclusive features, many of which I use every day. Pretty darn good cameras, slick performance, and a stunning design. But there's something that sticks out like a sore thumb. I'm talking about the Pixel Launcher.

For years, we've been told that SUVs have made the traditional sedan obsolete. Automakers have cut four-door lineups, buyers have flocked to crossovers, and it seemed like the writing was on the wall. Yet the latest sales figures tell a far more interesting story.

There are plenty of benefits to running local LLMs, not least of which is that you don't have to share all your personal data with an AI company. The problem is that even fairly small LLMs run slowly on my mini PC or MacBook Air. Despite this, there are plenty of ways that I use local LLMs every day.

Netflix's catalog usually steals the spotlight with its Originals, but every month, it also adds licensed classics that deserve just as much attention. July's lineup includes several acclaimed films that earned major awards and critical praise, making it a great time to revisit some of cinema's best.

Kia is recalling 462,869 Telluride SUVs due to a front power-seat defect that can potentially cause a fire, although many owners may have already had the defect in question repaired under a different recall in June 2024. This updated recall notice covers 2020 through 2024 Telluride models built between January 9th, 2019, and May 29th, 2024.

I prefer local external storage to the cloud, but until now, I've been missing out on the most cost-effective kind. I've used external hard disk drives, but I never tried building one myself. But when I bought a hard disk drive enclosure, it turned out to be the solution I didn't know I needed.

Upscaling and frame generation are critical features today, especially since game optimization has seemingly only gotten worse. If you're using a GPU that doesn't natively support either, you're in luck: There is a third-party option that works on any GPU.

Excel has hundreds of features, and I still discover new ones every year. Some solve very specific problems, while others become so useful that they quietly earn a place in every workbook I create. Whether you're building your first spreadsheet or your thousandth, these are the built-in Excel features I rely on to keep my data organized, accurate, and easy to work with.

The internet is all around us, but when you aren’t taking advantage of public Wi-Fi, you have to pay for it—and hotspot plans can be particularly pricey. Fortunately, I've come across a hotspot that works in exactly the way I want—one I can buy outright, use every month, and never pay for again.

Netflix helped end the dominance of cable. However, it might resurrect some of cable's concepts to stay afloat. Insiders claim the streaming video giant is considering the introduction of live TV and bundling to make up for sagging interest.