How-To Geek

Running a Plex server starts out as a tidy experiment and then quietly turns into infrastructure. At first, it is a few movies in a folder, maybe a TV show or two that you swear you will organize later. Then one evening you open the library and realize half the metadata is wrong, some files refuse to match, and someone has just messaged you asking if you can “add that one show with the guy” (this description is somehow expected to be sufficient). That is the moment Plex stops being a media server and starts behaving like a system that needs tooling around it.

If you've already made the switch from VLOOKUP to XLOOKUP in Excel, you've taken the first step toward better formulas. But most people still only use it as a drop-in replacement—they're missing one of its most powerful capabilities.

Your 3D printer can turn photos and other images into physical objects using a variety of techniques. This includes—but is not limited to—lithophanes, a 19th-century technique that traditionally relied on porcelain but has since been updated for the modern age.

Nissan's plans to shift away from EVs in the U.S. will have consequences for its manufacturing in the country. The Japanese automaker has confirmed that it's dropping plans to make electric cars at its Canton, Mississippi plant.

The QX60 was Infiniti’s first three-row crossover, although when it was launched in 2012, it was called the JX35. Its current name, QX60, dates back to the 2014 model year and Infiniti’s then-updated naming structure for its vehicles. Since that time, the QX60 has become one of Infiniti’s best-selling models, appealing to families who need utility but want a more refined and premium cabin.

May 2026 on Paramount+ is shaping up to be stacked around big franchise expansions, fan-favorite returns, season and series finales, and a steady mix of reality, drama, and library additions. It’s also delivering a number of comfort-watch hits alongside a few headline premieres.

Sideloading is a hot topic in the mobile sphere, and Google recently made a huge change for how it works on Android. I think it’s a fantastic change, and I wish Google would have added the 24 hour delay for sideloading unverified apps years ago, but I’m glad they’ve finally done it.

Unlike its rival Apple, Samsung products run on various operating systems, such as Android, ChromeOS, Windows, and Tizen. While this is great if you prefer flexibility, it also means that users rarely get a consistent and cohesive experience across their devices. But this could be changing with a new product that's reportedly in the works.

A cozy, long weekend is here, which means it's the perfect time to dive into our watch lists for the day and night. Netflix has many new releases to explore as May rolls in, but if you're looking for something a bit more classic, nostalgic, or acclaimed, we have you covered.

The turn of the millennium was a good time to be into tech. Devices we use every day, like digital cameras, portable media players, and early handheld computers, were becoming mainstream, yet they all ran into a bottleneck with storage costs. Floppy disks held too little data, and the new solid-state flash memory was expensive, costing hundreds of dollars for only a few megabytes. This gap let established companies try to innovate, and one firm tried to use its history with removable media to launch a tiny, affordable format meant to act as the first reusable, digital roll of film. This was clever engineering that ultimately could not save a product line already collapsing under the weight of its tarnished brand history, and then market pressures finished the job.

When it comes to content, there's little I love more than a good, gritty crime drama. From their dark, cynical, often realistic portrayals of criminal underworlds, violence, and justice systems to their heavily flawed, obsessed, anti-hero protagonists and intense, gritty tones, it all sucks us in, and it’s why we can’t look away. These types of criminal shows have carved out a powerful space in television by refusing to glamorize the worlds they depict and being willing to confront uncomfortable truths.

The Toyota GR Corolla has quickly become one of the benchmarks for affordable performance, offering serious capability and all-wheel-drive grip in a compact package. But that reputation comes at a cost, with pricing that pushes it beyond what many budget-conscious enthusiasts are willing to spend. And once you look past the hype, it’s not the only car delivering that level of excitement.

California police will finally have the authority to issue tickets for robotaxis running afoul of the law. The state's Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) will enact a law on July 1st, 2026 that allows citations for driverless cars.

Looking for a good documentary to watch this weekend (or whenever)? Don't be wooed by Netflix's big red logo—they don't have the market cornered on docs. In fact, HBO Max has one of the most prestigious libraries of excellent and award-winning documentaries of any streaming service, and they're all there for the taking.

Are you ready to try out some fun new homelab projects this weekend? Well, today I’m showing you how to save some cash by deploying actually useful services in your homelab, like social media automation, invoicing software, and a Linktree replacement you’ll actually like.

Modern GPUs have soldered memory. What you see is what you get, and while some PC hardware modders have been adding more VRAM to graphics cards (and handheld PCs) by soldering memory chips and modifying the BIOS, regular people like you and me are stuck with the original amount of memory our graphics cards shipped with.

It’s the first weekend of May, and I’ve got three Linux apps that earned a spot in my workflow the hard way—by actually being useful. These picks solve specific problems I didn’t even realize had better solutions. If you’ve got a few hours free this weekend, they’re definitely worth installing.

It may be May, but documentary zealots still have a few new titles to check off their lists on Netflix that squeaked in at the tail end of April, and are just getting traction on the streaming service now. Which is really good news, because as we enter the month and wait anxiously for everything coming to Netflix to arrive, there are still some good doc options to be had for U.S. subscribers.

To be productive, human beings need periods of focus without interruption. If you're constantly interrupted, you keep wasting mental energy to get back on track, and that gets old fast.

The Linux community is dealing with its gravest security risk since 2022's Dirty Pipe. Researchers at cybersecurity firm Theori have shared details of Copy Fail, a vulnerability that gives attackers root access to nearly all Linux distributions with relatively little effort.