How-To Geek

Modern PCs can set you back by a considerable amount, so it makes sense to protect your hardware from heat and excessive voltage. Over the past few years, there’s been a noticeable rise in CPU failures linked to overvolting on default motherboard settings. What’s causing this, and is there a way to prevent it?

I recently got into microcontrollers—and by recently, I mean last week. Thanks to the help of Google’s new Antigravity IDE, an Arduino R4 WiFi, and a 7-color e-paper display, I was able to get an e-ink photo frame built in less than a week.

We evolved from chisels on stone to typewriters and keyboards—but every step still tethered us to a place. Will the next evolution in writing technology finally set us free? I’m a professional writer, and here’s how I walk and talk to write entire articles.

Smart lighting is the gateway drug of the smart home, but replacing all the bulbs in my home would be a non-starter. We just built our home, and the ceiling is filled with recessed lighting. Fortunately, there was a way to add intelligence to my bulbs without swapping out a single one, and I saved a bunch of money in the process.

All of my most recent wireless keyboards have built-in lithium batteries. At first, this seemed like a step-up, but it turns out that when we're talking about peripherals, there are plenty of reasons to prefer good old removable AA batteries.

Why is everyone suddenly obsessed with wall-mounted dashboards and control panels in their smart homes? These displays can take the form of touchscreens with controls or E-Ink panels that just display information about your home. For most, the usefulness of such a project is severely limited.

The FORMULATEXT function is often dismissed because it merely transforms a formula into text. However, that raw text is exactly what makes it so valuable. So, stop thinking of it as a one-trick pony—it's the perfect tool for auditing, input control, and logic validation.

BitLocker is the most common way to encrypt your Windows PC to protect it against data theft in the event that someone steals your PC, but it isn't the only option. If your PC doesn't have BitLocker and you want something more fully-featured than Device Encryption, VeraCrypt is probably the tool for you.

Another year, another long list of changes to Windows that "nudge" you into making choices or adopting behaviors that aren't in your interest. At some point, it really feels like Windows stopped existing to make the actual users of PCs happier, and now serve a different master. I think these changes are the most worrying.

You've heard that the world's infrastructure runs on Linux, and how important Free and Open Source (FOSS) software is to just about all the technology we enjoy every day, but there are some (to bring out the old cliché) unsung heroes of FOSS without which your stuff just wouldn't work—and you should at least know their names.

Self-hosting your own services is one of the best ways to save money on subscriptions and increase your privacy. Since you're running the services on your local network, no one else ever sees the data.

Self-hosting your own services is one of the best ways to save money on subscriptions and increase your privacy. Since you're running the services on your local network, no one else ever sees the data.

Windows 11 users are getting a frustrating new bug that completely hides the password sign-in option on the lock screen, making it incredibly difficult to log into their PCs. This isn't a total lockout, but it's certainly a massive headache if you use a real password.

Windows 11 users are getting a frustrating new bug that completely hides the password sign-in option on the lock screen, making it incredibly difficult to log into their PCs. This isn't a total lockout, but it's certainly a massive headache if you use a real password.

For the longest time, smartphone battery life was a real issue. I remember my first few smartphones basically traveling with me from charger to charger. They would charge at my desk, charge in my car, and charge next to my couch. While phone battery life is now much better, the real revolution has come from fast-charging.

For the longest time, smartphone battery life was a real issue. I remember my first few smartphones basically traveling with me from charger to charger. They would charge at my desk, charge in my car, and charge next to my couch. While phone battery life is now much better, the real revolution has come from fast-charging.

So you buy a Kindle and you think to yourself, "I sure would like to turn the pages from way over here, surely there's a solution for that?" Well, to my personal surprise, I have recently learned both that people who want to turn eReader pages at a distance exist (it makes sense when you think about it) and that Kindles in particular have no elegant way of achieving this goal. Hence, the existence of weird and wacky "Kindle page turners."

Google and Amazon are particularly good at selling the smart home vision, but these platforms have some big drawbacks, too. Consider switching to or starting out with a more capable and reliable alternative, which will save you money and frustration in the long run.

I use all sorts of software when I travel: a VPN, streaming music apps, cloud storage, and more. I turned my Raspberry Pi into a one-stop-shop travel router that combines all of those uses into one device, so I don't have to worry about them individually on my phone, laptop, or console.

Home Assistant includes a large number of native integrations that can do everything from allowing you to connect specific smart home devices to tracking daylight hours from sunrise to sunset, so your lighting automations know when to turn on and off. Here are some lesser-known Home Assistant integrations that are worth exploring if you're not already using them.