How-To Geek

When you switch on your 3D printer for the first time, set it up, and load your first spool of filament and get ready to go, you're probably wondering what you should print first.

I've been searching for the perfect weather app for years. I've tried just about every popular option on the Play Store, and while some free weather apps are better than others, none of them quite get it right. The Google Weather app is the closest, but I don't use a Pixel phone. As it turns out, I don't need one.

If you're looking to set up a media server for your movie and TV library, Plex and Jellyfin are the two obvious choices, but I avoided choosing at all by running both together. It means I get a very powerful media server setup, and it doesn't cost me anything.

After setting up a NAS, it is easy to assume that your data is protected because the storage pool has redundancy, snapshots are enabled, or another NAS is receiving copies of your files. Those features can protect against particular failures, but they do not prove that your backup can be restored when you need it.

The end of Google Assistant is in sight. Starting on September 3, 2026, Google Assistant will be discontinued on some devices. While the rollout will happen over several weeks, if you use Google Assistant, there are some things you should do before Google Assistant completely disappears.

Pocket eReaders (aka a "purse Kindle") like the Xteink X4 have gone viral for good reason: there's an allure to having your favorite eBooks on hand in an extremely easy-to-carry form. To me, however, Samsung's new Galaxy Z Fold 8 is the ideal pocket eReader.

Windows 11 does most of what I need it to do, but I've never been completely happy with some of its interface decisions. The taskbar feels too big and prominent, the Start menu shows me things I don't want, and I've grown tired of Windows putting familiar controls behind extra clicks.

The billions of music enjoyers around the world are flush with streaming options thanks to platforms like Apple Music, YouTube Music, and the green monarch that rules above them all: Spotify. The streaming giant used to be my app of choice for all my music needs, too, but I happily abandoned Spotify years ago in favor of Tidal, another strong contender in the space.

PowerToys 0.101 is officially here, and it brings the most meaningful set of new additions to the toolkit in a while. The utility suite has received incremental improvements and stability fixes since the April 2026 update. With the newest update, six tools across PowerToys get notable changes spanning window management, display control, clipboard AI, and more.

As part of Gamescom 2026, ASUS has finally announced the release date, pricing, and preorder availability for the special edition ROG XBOX Ally X20 gaming handheld, and there's some good news alongside the expected pain point. Yes, the ultimate handheld celebrating 20 years of Republic of Gamers and 25 years of XBOX is just as expensive as we knew it would be, but ASUS is no longer forcing us to pay even more for bundled AR glasses many people won't want.

Ikea has embraced smart home tech—so much so that it is becoming one of the more interesting tech companies. I've bought quite a few IKEA gadgets over the past year, and now that I have firsthand experience, let me tell you which ones I would buy again.

Vehicles used to be finished the day they left the assembly line. Whatever the powertrain output, whatever the infotainment system menus, and whatever extra options and packages there were, they all stayed the same for as long as the buyer owned that vehicle. If they traded it in or sold it later, the second owner had all the same "fixed" features.

Bluetooth is a great technology, especially if your expectations are low. However, anyone who has switched from using a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse to ones with proprietary USB receivers knows that the ease of use and improved performance are very much worth it.

One way to become more efficient in Excel is to learn keyboard shortcuts. The problem is that there are so many that trying to remember them all is pretty much impossible. That's why I narrow my shortcuts down to a select few that really help with my workflow—and Ctrl+Enter is one of those. You might already know that this shortcut lets you commit a value or formula without moving to the next cell, but it has some even more useful tricks up its sleeve.

Not every 3D printing problem ends in a failed print or a mess of spaghetti. In order to catch problems early, you should keep an eye out for warning signs that things are wrong. Doing so can prevent greater problems down the line, and even result in better quality prints.

Picking up new skills can be tricky, and the Linux command line is so powerful, there’s always something more to learn. Fortunately, you can have a bit of fun while you do it.

It doesn't take too much digging around on Paramount+ to find a few movies that you might consider favorites—comfort food flicks you could watch again and again, quirky classics anchored around one famous line, or, in the case of my top pick this week, something to pay homage to a star gone too soon.

The 2026 Subaru Forester Hybrid delivers something many hybrid SUVs don't: standard all-wheel drive while keeping most trims below $40,000. With 35 mpg combined fuel economy, a roomy cabin, and a starting price of $34,730, it gives family buyers a rare combination of efficiency, traction, and value.

Even as we barrel down to the last days of what has been an exciting August for movies (The Last House, Don't Say Good Luck, Big Chicken: A Fast Food Conspiracy among the highlights), Netflix's Top 10 has still been filling up with some solid choices for U.S. subscribers to the service—not to mention The Whisper Man still to come.

The Pixel 11 series’ reception has been less than stellar. Google is taking it on the chin for iterative changes, half-baked ideas, and increased prices. As a long-time Pixel owner, I somewhat agree, but much of the outrage is overblown. These phones are not bad.