How-To Geek

Reddit is full of posts from people who have designed yet another launcher for their rooted TV. There's so much more that's possible, however. I decided to bring back a TV feature from the good old days before the internet was even a thing, and it's become a genuinely useful part of our lives.

Finding a file on Windows is far too slow for its own good. I have waited minutes only to never find the file I was looking for. I tried the popular fix, and it worked well enough that I kept it around for a long time. Then I found something that did the same job without making me feel like I needed a manual.

Back in the day, before Android had support for gesture navigation, custom launchers were on a level playing field with the stock launcher your phone comes with. But starting with Android 9 Pie, when Google introduced gesture navigation to Android, something changed.

Adapting a video game into a movie is more than a little tricky, as plenty of studios have discovered over the years. From the 1980s to today, we've had our fair share of really poor video game movies, some so bad that they've gone down in history among the worst movies of all time. It isn't all doom and gloom, though. While it definitely feels like there have been more bad adaptations than good ones, occasionally we get a gem that reminds us just how good a video game movie can feel when it is done right.

The more software you install on your computer, the longer it may seem to take to start up Windows. Many programs add themselves to the list of programs started when you boot your computer, and that list can get long. Here's how you can disable startup programs in Windows to speed up your boot time and free up system resources.

Windows Search is one of the features I use most in Windows 11. Most of the time, I'm looking for something simple: an app, a file, or a setting. That's why I've never been particularly keen on Search trying to do other jobs at the same time.

Phone brands aren't playing when it comes to pricing these days, and you can easily spend over $1,000 on current flagships. Samsung's Galaxy S26 FE offers some respite with premium features and performance for a fraction of the price.

When you think of synthesizers, a $50 USB-C rechargeable slab of plastic isn’t what normally springs to mind. But that’s exactly what has set the internet alight at the tail end of 2026, and it’s having big implications for an established market of music hardware manufacturers.

Let's face it, major PC upgrades are kind of a no-go this year. The RAM-pocalypse has made sure of that in every way possible. Fortunately, there are still ways to give your PC a boost, even to the extent of gaming at 1440p, without spending $7,000-$10,000 on an RTX 5090. (Yes, those price brackets are very much real.)

Power tools have certainly improved over the years, with more features, durability, and convenient designs, but portability has become an important part of everyone’s lifestyle. This is why you find newer tools coming out all the time that are smaller but powerful and useful, like the Milwaukee M12 series tools.

Adobe Acrobat offers plenty of useful PDF tools, but paying a recurring subscription just to edit, sign, or convert documents can feel excessive. Especially when a self-hosted alternative can handle most of the same everyday tasks.

When it comes to cloud storage, the difference between ubiquity and security is that the most common software solutions usually don't have your best interests at heart. Microsoft OneDrive and Google Drive offer few protections for your data, which is a problem when you just want to make sure your family photos are safe and a downright liability if you're working with sensitive information.

Are you still designing scripts and automations that target single entities, or listing devices one by one? This might work, but you’re leaving functionality on the table and opening yourself up to more maintenance in the future when you inevitably replace devices or expand your smart home.

When shopping for a new laptop, storage space is one of the most important specs to consider. However, there’s no one-size-fits-all number for how much you’ll need, because storage requirements can vary widely. So, let’s break down a few key factors to help you decide how much laptop storage to get.

Full-screen gesture navigation was supposed to be the future when Google followed Apple's lead and added it to Android in 2018, but 3-button navigation is better, and I'd argue it's still objectively faster. Nothing beats the instant muscle memory of an actual dedicated button. Here's why I'm never giving them up.

I'm a firm believer that a good smart home should work mostly like magic; when you walk into a room, the lights should turn on, and they should only turn off again when you leave. Sometimes you still need manual control, but I could never make a dashboard that really worked. I finally cracked the problem and now my dashboard is actually useful.

Microsoft's latest Windows 11 version 26H2 update that was released on November 3 introduced a set of optimizations specifically designed to help machines with only 8GB of RAM. This is excellent news for everyone stuck on a machine where upgrading the RAM isn't currently an option.

When I upgraded my Wi-Fi router, I stored the old one away in the box it originally came in. I could have easily thrown it away, but I didn’t — since technically nothing was wrong with it — so it stayed where it was, collecting dust.

Analysis ToolPak is one of those Excel features I'd mentally filed under "I'll look at that one day." I'd seen it mentioned in tutorials, knew roughly what it did, and knew where to enable it if I ever needed it. The problem was that I never felt like I needed it. When I wanted to understand a dataset, I'd usually reach for formulas, Power Query, or lately, AI.

Apple unveiled the “Dynamic Island” four years ago, and Android fans have been mocking it ever since. Why would you want to make the camera cutout more noticeable? Recently, though, I’ve been using an Island on my Android phone, and I finally get it.