How-To Geek

When I put together my new server, I pooled two old SSDs I'd had sitting around from an old PC into a single big drive. Superficially, combining the drives has worked perfectly so far, but I regularly regret one thing: "striping" them together.

I've spent years fixing Windows shortcuts that silently break in updates, so I've updated this list to reflect Windows 11's current reality. The old Control Panel isn't going anywhere, but its access methods have shifted. Here are the ways that actually work for you right now.

I've had my LG TV for several years. It's still going strong, but there are a lot of things that it does that are really annoying. I decided to see if Claude could help me fix some of the biggest annoyances.

I love that Android allows me to swap keyboard apps, but if I'm being honest, I rarely stray from Gboard. That being said, I'm not entirely comfortable with how much it talks to Google. That's why I was intrigued by a privacy-focused mod of Gboard.

The cost of living right now is crazy, and gas prices are going through the roof, despite what certain people might try to tell you. Putting gas in my car has never been so expensive, so I decided to use my smart home to track gas prices and alert me when it's a good time to fill up.

I've never really been a guy who spends much time on the command line or terminal on any computer or OS, but these days, as I get into more self-hosting projects and take remote control of devices on my LAN, I find myself SSH-ing from my Mac's terminal at least once or twice a week.

Similar to eyesight, everyone's hearing is unique. Some of us can hear most frequencies audible to the human ear, while others struggle with certain ranges, which can affect their experience when listening to music and watching videos.

Product recalls are just a fact of life, but we're all busy, which means you don't always realize you've bought something dangerous. I only found out my Toyota's airbags had been subject to a recall three years after it happened! Now that could have ended poorly indeed.

With it being the heart of hurricane season in the States, power outages are pretty common right now. When the lights and the internet go out, you've got to have something to do to pass the time, and having your favorite Netflix series downloaded and ready to go can be a lifesaver.

I figured plugging my NAS straight into my PC would be the fastest way to move files. I did not think I really needed a router in the middle to act as an extra hop. I had thought just one cable meant full speed. The idea is common enough that plenty of people try it. I didn't expect the router to be doing so much in the background.

Obsidian is, in my opinion, incredibly powerful because it keeps its core feature set intentionally lean. It’s designed to be customizable, and the community plugins are what fill those gaps. But sometimes, those plugins don't just add cool features—they fix fundamental problems that, honestly, feel like things the app should have out of the box. Here are the three best plugins I've found, in no particular order.

After a long day, you probably plop your smartwatch onto its charging puck on your nightstand and leave it there overnight. Or, if you wear it to bed to track your sleep, you might leave it charging all afternoon after getting home so you can put it back on right before bedtime.

Where do screenshots go on Windows 10 and Windows 11? The answer depends entirely on how you capture the image. There is no single central folder for all screenshots, but every method has a specific default location.

Most people start by simply installing a Linux distribution and then spend weeks tweaking it. When you build your own fork, though, and get a distro working for your personal use, the whole thing flips around: you bake your choices into the system from the ground up. It's probably the only way to have a true frictionless zero-setup install.

Learning to code can feel intimidating when you are starting from scratch, especially if you have never worked with electronics. You might have written a few scripts or followed programming tutorials, but making software interact with physical hardware introduces an entirely different set of challenges.

I hate having to unlock my phone just to find one little detail before driving. It could be an appointment time in Google Calendar, a hotel address buried in Gmail, or a place I saved in Google Maps after seeing it on an influencer’s page. I usually end up opening three different apps before I find what I’m looking for.

Overclocking used to be a hobby reserved for enthusiasts willing to sink hours into tweaking voltages and clock speeds before testing stability to squeeze every last bit of performance out of their hardware.

A recent YouTube video by Gamers Nexus exposed the fact that LG TVs are sending huge amounts of data from your home to LG's servers. This can include information about what you're watching, even if you're watching a DVD or Blu-ray through a connected device. A lot of people have started rooting their TVs to try to stop this from happening, so I decided to give it a try.

Long gone are the days of reblogging random posts or customizing your online profile with flashy backgrounds and autoplay music. But your old accounts may still be out there.

Keeping notifications on my phone under control is a constant battle. I try to disable annoying ones when they arrive, but sometimes it's just easier to ignore the problem. That's where Android's "Notification History" comes in handy, but not for the usual reasons.