How-To Geek

Windows' Snipping Tool has come a long way, but it still falls short for anyone who screenshots regularly. Flameshot, a free and open-source alternative, fills in the gaps with surprisingly little fuss.

Rental cars are fine until you actually have to drive one. Android Auto doesn't just make everything feel smooth, and you may not be ready to try a whole new style. Instead of going to pick up the car with nothing ready, you should make a checklist with some hardware choices, software prep, and small configuration decisions that will make the car feel like your own.

Collecting stuff is a fantastic hobby. In my younger days, I would scour flea markets, yard sales, thrift stores, Craigslist, and eBay for the stuff I liked. I enjoy collecting entire artist discographies on CD whenever possible. Ditto comic books (mostly omnibus collections) and retro games (NES and SNES, if you're curious). Since I like to dabble with Docker applications, I used Koillection, an open-source utility that helps me keep track of my physical media easily.

FaceTime is a feature that has become almost as well-known as the iPhone itself. Android has simply never had an answer to it—except for the fact that they literally can answer FaceTime calls. This has been possible for five years, and you’re not alone in forgetting about it.

HDDs are reliable, but do they live forever? Nope. In fact, while modern drives are highly reliable, unexpected mechanical failures can still strike early in a drive's life span. And of the ones that fail, half fail within their first year of operation, according to a recent Secure Data Recovery study.

It's happened to all of us at some point. You're cleaning up your PC, or uninstalling something, and then you realize you've deleted something important. It's not in the recycle bin, it's not in any of your cloud drives, and you don't have any backups. So what to do?

Smartphones have great cameras, and Samsung Galaxy phones are some of the best, but I always end up tweaking a few settings for an even better camera experience. If you're looking for the easiest, fastest way to instantly improve all your photos and videos, you'll want to turn on one setting.

Windows 11 is still my go-to operating system, but using it sometimes feels like a constant tug of war between how I want to work and how Microsoft thinks I should work. I like Windows, I know my way around it, and it fits my workflow better than the alternatives. What frustrates me is how often Microsoft gives me plenty of ways to customize the little things while making some of the bigger annoyances much harder to change.

While the television and streaming landscapes are littered with many excellent crime shows, not all of them maintain a consistent level of quality for their entire run. In fact, few offer flawless seasons throughout their run that have kept fans hooked from start to finish with their tight, high-stakes narratives and exceptional character development, eliminating the need for any filler episodes.

So you’re thinking about a second 3D printer. You’re enjoying the hobby to the extent that you’re rubbing up against limitations that can only be solved with a hole in your wallet.

I held off jailbreaking my Kindle for a long time, as I was afraid of bricking a device I was still using. When Amazon dropped support for my Kindle 4, there was no longer anything holding me back, so I performed the jailbreak and installed KOReader. Now I wish I'd done it sooner; KOReader's PDF support is so much better.

Flat Ethernet cables give you a sleek, out-of-the-way option instead of those big, round cables that are just tough to conceal and many are great for gaming. Its thin, ribbon-like shape makes it great for tucking under carpets, along baseboards, or neatly behind your entertainment center. This helps you get that clean, professional look without needing a lot of in-wall wiring.

If you're having trouble landing IMAX tickets to The Odyssey, another Matt Damon movie now streaming on Prime Video. The sci-fi epic is the perfect weekend watch, especially for fans of the famous Boston native.

I love my Kindle. I've used it for 15 years, and it's served me well throughout that entire time. The problem isn't the hardware; it's the ecosystem that goes with it. That's why I won't ever buy another Kindle; I don't trust Amazon to give it the long life it deserves.

I'm frustrated with various companies because we live in a time when everything is licensed to us; we don't own it after making the purchase. Amazon has never been one of my favorite corporations. But, like many of you, I've bought things from them numerous times over the years. That includes quite a bit of my current music collection.

If you want to monitor your home network, router apps can often provide useful information. Some of these apps require paid subscriptions to access the most useful data. I built my own network monitoring dashboard in Home Assistant, and it cost me nothing.

Anyone building a homelab today has more choices than ever. A few years ago, Unraid was often the first recommendation for anyone who wanted to store files and run Plex. It made home servers approachable, especially for users who did not want to learn enterprise virtualization.

I like to think that my house is full of interesting things, but I’m very aware that the walls are a bit bare. One option is to use a 3D printer to brighten the place up since there are so many decor options available.

Free and open source software (FOSS) is the default choice when you're running Linux—it is a huge talking point and a very real part of Linux culture. However, while that is an ideal worth striving for, the reality is that some of the best tools available for a given job don't yet have FOSS alternatives.

Modern life sure is hectic. It seems like there's always something going on. We can all build bad habits along the way. Watches, trackers, and all the different productivity apps are fine; but I found something that worked even better for me: a few formulas on an Excel spreadsheet.