How-To Geek

A 4-bay NAS isn't cheap—they'll often cost you around $500 before you start including hard drives, which are now quite pricy. Even budget 2-bay NASes come in at around $200.

Using a single charging cable for all my devices was a pain, so I switched to a 3-in-1 charger and never looked back. Acer's 3-in-1 Wireless Charging Station for Apple is 45% off and lets you wirelessly charge your iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods wirelessly at the same time.

You might often hear Plex and Kodi being mentioned in the same breath, which makes it sound like the two media applications are ones that force you to choose a side.

AI models need huge amounts of data to train on, and researchers are warning that AI companies could run out of high-quality public data to use. Your own data isn't safe; even if you're unaware of it, AI companies may be training their models on your social media posts and more.

I've never been a big fan of physical keyboards on phones, but I decided to give one a try earlier this year. The experiment didn't last long. The phone has been collecting dust on my desk for months — until I turned it into a Game Boy.

Linux has a reputation for being difficult or tedious to work with because it involves using a command-line interface all the time. Today, that reputation doesn't hold up. While some modern Linux distros are still very terminal heavy, many are every bit as approachable as Windows or macOS—you only really use the terminal when you want to use it.

Windows 11’s right-click menu has been cluttered for a long time now. There are delays when opening a file menu and an overload of options added by Windows and installed applications. Now, Microsoft is finally fixing this by rolling out a redesigned context menu and giving users greater control over which commands appear. The update also brings layout choices that make the menu adaptable to individual preferences.

Of all the AI-powered video editing tools out there, Adobe Firefly might be the mightiest and the most convenient of the bunch. It's packed with features that smoothly integrate into your workflow when you need them. If you're starting from the beginning and want to generate material from a prompt, you can use Firefly. Not just for video, either. It lets you add stock images and even audio. Or if you have your media already and need to tweak it closer to perfection, there's an extensive set of editing tools that offer studio-level quality and control over everything from lighting to sound effects.

3D printing may not be the most expensive hobby, but it's certainly not cheap. The more you print, the more filament you need to buy — and there are different colors, finishes, and materials to consider. That's why some people are using plastic water bottles.

Switching your DNS server to 1.1.1.1 is common advice, and for good reason: it is reliable, fast, and theoretically, better for your privacy.

I love a good thriller, but finding one I haven’t already watched (or had the ending spoiled for me) is another matter. Netflix has plenty of thrillers to choose from, although it’s easy to keep coming across the same familiar titles when you’re deciding what to watch.

Chrome is constantly eating up at least 2GB of my computer's memory, and that's when I'm not doing anything particularly demanding.

Your Raspberry Pi is actually capable of helping you save money if you put it to use in the right way. If you’re currently paying for cable with a DVR service, your Raspberry Pi can take over that task. Still paying for a password manager? The Raspberry Pi can handle that, too. Need to track prices for Black Friday? Yep, your Pi is fully capable of doing that, as well. So, here are three projects you can do this weekend on your Raspberry Pi—and none of them will take long to set up.

I spent years writing everything in Microsoft Word. But over time, its cluttered interface, messy formatting, and sluggish performance began to distract me from what truly matters—writing. That’s when I tried Markdown. Its clean, distraction-free approach won me over—and I haven’t looked back since.

Running a capable language model entirely offline used to mean owning a powerful desktop. That assumption no longer holds. On my hardware, a phone app from Google runs the same model noticeably faster than Ollama does on my PC, and the reasons are more interesting than you might expect.

It’s probably not your recording equipment that’s stopping your videos from achieving that polished, professional aesthetic. You don’t actually need an expensive production setup to create sophisticated video content. It’s often the editing details – color profile, movement, tracking, animations, layering – that make your footage feel like an entire team spent hours putting it together.

I'm not a huge fan of smart home dashboards; I want my smart home to work as automatically as possible. However, when I had an idea for building a retro game version of my house that I could use to control my smart home, I knew I had to make it happen.

The usual narrative is that a Windows user switches to Linux and then complains about the app gap. That said, I’ve been using Linux for over 10 years, and when I switch back to Windows, I notice an app gap, too — in both functionality and quality.

At one point in time, USB drives were all the rage for file transfers. I kept one in my pocket at almost all times and I had several around the house for various purposes. Over time, USB drives quietly stopped being so popular. But I still have uses for them in my homelab, so here are the main reasons why I’ll never throw away old USB drives.

I'm a huge fan of free and open-source software. Whether it's a productivity tool or an entertainment app, open-source apps are often among the best, if not the best, solutions.