How-To Geek

Ten years ago, a buyer shopping for a fun, rear-wheel drive sports car under $40,000 had some decent choices. Today, that list has shrunk, and the ones that remain have largely shifted to automatic transmissions as the standard treatment. In some cases, a manual may be offered, but only as an upgrade for enthusiasts willing to pay for it. The 2027 Subaru BRZ goes the other direction. The six-speed manual is standard. The automatic is the upgrade.

Many of us still remember the infamous Samsung Galaxy Note 7 incident, which highlighted just how volatile phone batteries can be when they fail. In that case, faulty batteries could overheat, enter thermal runaway, and in some instances catch fire. Since then, manufacturers have put a lot of effort into making modern batteries safer, and serious failures like that have become extremely rare.

While Excel is ubiquitous, I prefer Python for my data analysis. Spreadsheets are great for formatting data, but it's Python that's allowed me to build my own super calculator out of regular Python libraries. Here are my go-to Python tools

For a long time, the light on my porch was turned on based on sunset. When sunset arrived, the light would come on. While it worked okay, it was far from perfect, with the light sometimes coming on when it was still fairly bright, or not coming on despite it having gotten quite dark. Automating the light using the weather solved my problems.

If you ask Apple users why they keep buying Apple products, the answer will almost always boil down to one word: “ecosystem.” The seamless integration between Apple devices is genuinely impressive, and for many people, it’s the main reason using anything else feels like a compromise.

Terminal tools are magnetic to shell-focused users. They look cool, and we're always driven to make our workflows faster and more efficient. I have three tools you've probably never heard of, but they solve persistent niggles you've yet to fix.

Wi-Fi is endlessly convenient - I don't think that anyone's going to disagree with that. But convenience has a price, and in some cases, it's a hefty price to pay. You might be trading a stable, performant connection for an unpredictable mess when you choose Wi-Fi over Ethernet.

Excel usually warns you about obvious formula mistakes, but some of the most damaging errors never trigger an alert. From shifting cell references to hidden lookup failures, these silent bugs can skew your results while leaving your spreadsheet looking perfectly normal.

Do you think you have to always dry your filament before printing, and always store it in a dry box when not printing? What if I told you that I've never dried my filament, and it hasn't affected my print quality at all? Here's why I don't dry my 3D printing filament.

Google Messages has become the de facto way that we send text messages, not just on Google Pixel phones, but on all Android phones. It's not a bad app, but Google's purpose for just about any product can be assumed to be data collection—an assumption that's been backed by outside research. Here are the privacy choices I make to minimize how much information Google or anyone else is able to gather.

If you dual-boot Windows and Linux, you've probably run into this issue before. You boot into Windows to get some work done, open File Explorer to grab a file from your Linux drive, and the drive just isn't there. It's plugged in, it's healthy, and Windows even acknowledges it in Disk Management—but the actual files are nowhere to be found.

If the movies have taught us anything, it's that the best way to protect your home from burglars when you're on vacation is to accidentally leave your young son behind. Since this is generally frowned upon, the next best option is to use the Presence Simulation component in Home Assistant, which can convincingly make your home look lived in while you're away.

Ryobi makes over 350 tools you'll love, but if you're a new homeowner or simply on a budget, certain tools are must-buys. If you already have a cordless drill and a few other items, here are six more Ryobi tools worth adding to your collection.

While many features on your Pixel phone, exclusive or not, are enabled by default, a good chunk aren't. Worse still, some handy features are not only disabled by default but also buried under a deluge of menus and rarely mentioned in Pixel promo materials, in true Google fashion.

I have many PCs in my home. Most run Windows, some run macOS, and a few run Linux, but the common thread across them all is that I typically end up on a Logitech wireless keyboard. The exception is when I'm sitting down for a longer writing session, where I prefer to use a mechanical keyboard. That's not because it's the fanciest keyboard I own. It's because it's easy, familiar, and already sitting where I need it. For a long time, I treated it like any other keyboard: press the keys, maybe use a few media controls, and move on.

Some smart home devices that demand a premium price tag, whether that’s in service of features you depend on, reliability, or to guarantee safety. Thankfully, there are plenty of opportunities to save money too.

On the one hand, it's truly impressive that Windows is backwards compatible with software that stretches back decades. In theory, you could run some apps meant for Windows 95 on Windows 11. But, backward compatibility isn't free, and it's debatable whether enough Windows users need this level of backward compatibility to justify the downsides.

The Aqara Thermostat Hub W200 is a feature-rich smart thermostat that can serve as a hub for other smart home devices. I love the concept, but the project fails at fundamentals that make it hard for me to recommend.

The average new-vehicle transaction price is hovering at or near $50,000 today, the highest it’s ever been in the automotive industry. It seems the days of ultra-affordable cars have passed, and even a six-figure salary may not leave enough margin when factoring in the total cost of vehicle ownership.

I have used Samsung DeX as a PC replacement for much of the past two years. In the process, I learned a lot both to love and not love about Samsung's Android-based desktop. Here are some of the more exciting aspects I wish I had known about sooner.