How-To Geek

Linux has a reputation as a difficult operating system for enthusiasts only or as the operating system running in a data center. However, it is more widespread than that. It runs countless devices you see and use regularly—and a few you don't—even though it isn't immediately obvious.

It's a very common issue to try to unplug an Ethernet cable and it won’t move. You squeeze the tiny clip, yank back, and the plastic refuses to budge. I've broken one before, so my first instinct is to assume that I broke another one. Don't let your anger get the best of you and try to pull more. Your method is likely the problem.

Earlier this year, I bought a 6TB hard drive and hooked it up to an old laptop for one simple task: to back up my photos and manage them through Immich so that I could finally stop paying for Google Photos. Between my wife and me, we had around 50,000 photos to move over, but even after loading them all onto the server, I’d barely scratched the surface of the drive’s capacity.

Now that smartphones are firmly ingrained in our lives, we've seen "minimalist phones" rise in popularity. The problem is, these phones are often too simple, and a regular smartphone is still required. LTE smartwatches are a nearly perfect middle ground, but what if you don't like wearing a watch? I've got a solution.

Changing layer height is the easiest way to balance print quality and print time. It’s a simple, one-size-fits-all approach you can make with a few clicks in your slicer before you send a job to the printer. For a smarter approach, try varying the layer heights throughout the print so that you get the best of both worlds: detail where you need it, raw speed where you don’t.

I've always dreaded turning on my car and getting nothing but that dry click from the battery. When nobody is around to give you a jump, scrolling through quick internet hacks sounds tempting, but don't be fooled. People post clips making power tools look fast and harmless, but rigging them together can damage what's actually under the plastic casing.

So you've found an old CRT PC monitor, or maybe you inherited it from your grandpa. Either way, it's just a heavy old piece of junk, right? Best to just send it off for recycling, because there's no good use for these anymore. Wrong!

Does it really matter what brand or model of GPU you buy? Regardless of who the board partner is, the GPU on the card still comes from AMD, NVIDIA, or Intel, right? So why are you paying more for a "premium" card?

I do a lot of writing on my laptop, but it's far from ideal. The problem is that my laptop is full of distractions that can steal my focus, including access to the entirety of the internet as well as highly addictive games such as Slay the Spire. I decided to turn my old Kindle into a distraction-free writing terminal, and it worked better than I was expecting.

We're getting to the point in October where it's perfectly reasonable to put the tombstones, skeletons, and giant spiders on the lawn in anticipation of Halloween. But if you're like me, you'll still want a couple of comedies on your pre-spooky season movie night list to keep things light before all the horror arrives.

When Valve released the Steam Deck in 2022, it wasn't a cutting-edge device by any means, and that was a deliberate choice. Valve carefully balanced performance, power consumption, and cost to create a machine that was almost perfectly suited for its intended purpose.

I'm a big fan of Docker, especially with apps like Papermerge and Actual Budget. Over time, I've ditched some containers like Wallabag for alternatives that work better for me. While I use it for many different tasks, I often spin down containers for apps I'm not actively using at any given time. However, I run some apps 24/7 on one of my homelab laptops. These apps help me monitor, control, and manage my work every day.

When Samsung decided to stop the side button from acting as a power button, a lot of people, myself included, were a little annoyed. There are still some good arguments for why it was a poor decision on Samsung's part, but what the side button has transformed into might be good enough to overshadow the power button for a lot of users.

Do you, like me, use Claude every other minute as your go-to thinking partner? If so, you probably already know how annoying it is to keep opening the Claude app every time you want to fact-check something, proofread an email draft, or bounce ideas off it. Sure, you could keep the app open all the time, but then you'd have a different problem, with one more app window cluttering up your desktop.

That Ryobi lithium-ion battery for your tools rarely dies without warning. You'll start seeing little hints, like a slight loss of power, or a battery that gets way too warm, and before you know it, you're reaching for a new pack every 15 minutes. While there are several little things to watch for, three main signs will tell you that it's time to head to Home Depot soon and get a new battery.

Solid-state drives last a long time, but not forever. Some familiar utilities, and stuff you do on the daily without giving much thought to it, quietly write far more data than most people realize, shortening the usable life of the drive. Here are three kinds of software that deserve a second look before they become a regular part of your routine, or if they already are.

If you feel like you can't be as productive on your iPad Air, there's a simple solution to start maximizing your productivity, and it's as easy as adding a detachable keyboard. Apple's Magic Keyboard for the 13-inch iPad Air is now over 20% off on Amazon, and even though it has been at this listed price for some time, it's still the lowest price it has ever been on Amazon.

I was one of those people who bought into the promise that our phones were about to change overnight thanks to 5G. The carriers promised instant downloads, zero lag, and full coverage everywhere. It was hard not to feel like someone sold us an expensive upgrade that did not deliver. There's more to it than that, but the user definitely did not win this one.

The 1990s were one of the most important decades for personal computing. During the '90s, PCs finally became affordable enough to enter many homes, we saw the rise of the internet and mobile phones, Intel released its first Pentium CPU, and Microsoft released Windows NT in 1993 and Windows 95 just two years later.

There are so many new things to watch on Netflix this month that the scroll could eat your whole evening. Russell Crowe's Unabomber and a Tyler Perry movie are still dominating the Top 10, and the rest of the month looks amazing with documentaries about Mike Tyson, Norm Macdonald, and Matthew Perry on deck, right up to Halloween.