How-To Geek

Running a capable language model entirely offline used to mean owning a powerful desktop. That assumption no longer holds. On my hardware, a phone app from Google runs the same model noticeably faster than Ollama does on my PC, and the reasons are more interesting than you might expect.

It’s probably not your recording equipment that’s stopping your videos from achieving that polished, professional aesthetic. You don’t actually need an expensive production setup to create sophisticated video content. It’s often the editing details – color profile, movement, tracking, animations, layering – that make your footage feel like an entire team spent hours putting it together.

I'm not a huge fan of smart home dashboards; I want my smart home to work as automatically as possible. However, when I had an idea for building a retro game version of my house that I could use to control my smart home, I knew I had to make it happen.

The usual narrative is that a Windows user switches to Linux and then complains about the app gap. That said, I’ve been using Linux for over 10 years, and when I switch back to Windows, I notice an app gap, too — in both functionality and quality.

At one point in time, USB drives were all the rage for file transfers. I kept one in my pocket at almost all times and I had several around the house for various purposes. Over time, USB drives quietly stopped being so popular. But I still have uses for them in my homelab, so here are the main reasons why I’ll never throw away old USB drives.

I'm a huge fan of free and open-source software. Whether it's a productivity tool or an entertainment app, open-source apps are often among the best, if not the best, solutions.

The Android status bar has been largely unchanged since the very beginning. Consistency is great, but so is adapting to modern needs. Some of the icons in the status bar have never been useful to me. Let's clean things up.

Makita fans know the company makes a little bit of everything, from capable 18V LXT tools to smaller CXT models, or even battery-powered coffee machines. And if you have a few Makita tools and are looking to add more to your collection without breaking the bank, here are a few worth considering.

I bought my first 3D printer expecting to make toys, gadgets, and the occasional product prototype. Instead, one of my most useful prints is simply a plastic clamp whose whole job is to get chewed up by my CNC bit. Plastic clamps save my bits when a cut goes wrong, but buying injection-molded ones over and over got old fast. Now I print them for pennies a dozen at a time.

Of all the Pixel 11's new features, Rambler voice typing is the one that will benefit the most people, even if they never realize that it's there. But does Rambler actually require a new phone? I forced it onto my Pixel 8a to see how well it can work on an older device, and I was impressed by the results.

I have a lot of appliance manuals that I've collected over the years. They rarely need looking at, but when they do, finding the right manual can be a chore. I decided to stick NFC tags to my appliances so that I could access their manuals more easily.

Halloween is the perfect excuse to revisit some horror favorites, and Netflix has a few additions that fit the season. From supernatural scares and gory survival thrillers to creature features and classic slashers, the platform hosts a variety of titles you can pick from.

Pi-hole is one of my favorite services that solves an everyday problem without requiring expensive hardware. Install it on a Raspberry Pi, configure your devices to use it for DNS, and you can block unwanted domains while monitoring DNS activity across your network.

Beyond frequent updates and native integrations with some AI tools that reduce busywork, Photoshop's easy access to thousands of third-party plugins is another reason why it still manages to maintain its spot as the industry standard.

Having the right power tools helps you work faster and more efficiently, so you can meet your deadlines. They aren't cheap, but price won't be a limiting factor when you get 41% off the DeWalt 20-Volt Max 6-Tool Cordless Combo Kit and save $370.

Getting to my destination using Google Maps is only half the job. I still need to find parking, track fuel expenses, and decide which stops are worth making on a road trip.

If you're like me, you like to have subtitles on when you're watching movies and shows. One reason is because I watch quite a lot of foreign-language content, like anime, and the other is that no one can hear anything the actors are saying anymore, thanks to modern audio mixing.

Googlebook's clumsy launch made me wish that I wasn't a product reviewer. I had to spend two weeks using a laptop with what felt like an unfinished operating system (cue the world's smallest violin), and throughout the entire process, I just kept thinking how nice it would be if Google had taken all of its biggest Googlebook features and slapped them on a mainline Linux distro instead of trying to reinvent the wheel.

When you look at a roll of 3D printing filament you've never seen before, it comes with a lot of on-paper information. You know the primary materials, roughly what additives are in them, and the recommended temperatures and settings.

Switching to a rival smartwatch is always tempting when a new model lands. Google’s recent updates make it easier to justify staying put. Three of its newest additions, spanning health tracking, on-device AI, and GPS, change what a Pixel Watch can do day to day.