How-To Geek

The Ford F-150 has been the best-selling vehicle in the United States for more than four decades. The 2021 model year brought the most significant redesign in a generation, with new exterior styling, a reworked interior, and a powertrain lineup that expanded to six options.

Cloud-based coding assistants are definitely helpful, but they come with recurring subscriptions or pay-as-you-go costs, and you're putting potentially proprietary information onto the internet.

There's nothing quite like a good movie night. A projector and screen combined with a surround sound system give me a taste of the real movie experience, and a bowl of popcorn adds to the impression. What's missing is a movie poster for whatever I'm watching, so I decided to see if I could find a way to make that happen, too.

As much as I love tinkering in the garage and mowing, trimming, or edging the lawn, not everyone enjoys the process or has the time. And as a new dad with a toddler running around the house, my time is limited. After using the latest Segway Navimow X430 robot lawn mower, I'm convinced this is the future.

Luxury electric SUVs have quickly become one of the most expensive corners of the automotive market, with many premium compact models routinely pushing well beyond the $60,000 mark. Buyers are often forced to choose between cutting-edge technology, strong performance, and upscale interiors, all while paying a significant price premium for the badge on the hood.

Most people are told never to use a Wi-Fi extender, and in most situations, that's sound advice. Many Wi-Fi extenders cut your bandwidth in half, increase latency, can interfere with your main router's Wi-Fi signal, can be unreliable, often have limited range, and are usually the worst way to extend Wi-Fi to dead spots in your home.

Reality makes for some stellar storytelling. If you're looking to stream movies that are based on true events, Netflix has an extensive collection of biographical-style dramas that go beyond your typical selection of documentaries.

I’m admittedly very much a Phone Guy, but my love for smartphones hasn’t translated to a love for accessories. However, there’s one particular accessory that I’ve become very attached to, and I never would have expected it.

If you're a gamer, you probably hate lag just as much as I do. While I definitely enjoy a single-player game, I play online quite a lot, which means that lag or disconnects both result in terrible gameplay. Not just for me, but also for my teammates (if I have any at the time). My various internet issues made me the laughingstock of my entire team for a time.

Luxury three-row SUVs have quietly become one of the hottest corners of the automotive market. Families with bigger budgets aren't willing to give up comfort, technology, or badge appeal just because they need extra seats and more cargo room.

When you switch to Linux, you'll notice that sometimes there are apps which don't have a native version on Linux. At that point, you might be told that you need to run your app through a compatibility layer. However, before you try to open that can of worms, it's a good idea to look for an open-source replacement for that app.

The summer blockbuster is one of the greatest things about this time of year. Originally established in the 1970s, Jaws proved summer movies could be profitable. A few years later, Star Wars proved a movie could become a year-round cultural empire. Action and fantasy movies thus created a new archetype for box office hits.

It's convenient to keep some things default, including some router settings. If you're still using these default router settings, then you need to change them immediately—even if you don't think you'll get hacked.

Ten years ago, a buyer shopping for a fun, rear-wheel drive sports car under $40,000 had some decent choices. Today, that list has shrunk, and the ones that remain have largely shifted to automatic transmissions as the standard treatment. In some cases, a manual may be offered, but only as an upgrade for enthusiasts willing to pay for it. The 2027 Subaru BRZ goes the other direction. The six-speed manual is standard. The automatic is the upgrade.

Many of us still remember the infamous Samsung Galaxy Note 7 incident, which highlighted just how volatile phone batteries can be when they fail. In that case, faulty batteries could overheat, enter thermal runaway, and in some instances catch fire. Since then, manufacturers have put a lot of effort into making modern batteries safer, and serious failures like that have become extremely rare.

While Excel is ubiquitous, I prefer Python for my data analysis. Spreadsheets are great for formatting data, but it's Python that's allowed me to build my own super calculator out of regular Python libraries. Here are my go-to Python tools

For a long time, the light on my porch was turned on based on sunset. When sunset arrived, the light would come on. While it worked okay, it was far from perfect, with the light sometimes coming on when it was still fairly bright, or not coming on despite it having gotten quite dark. Automating the light using the weather solved my problems.

If you ask Apple users why they keep buying Apple products, the answer will almost always boil down to one word: “ecosystem.” The seamless integration between Apple devices is genuinely impressive, and for many people, it’s the main reason using anything else feels like a compromise.

Terminal tools are magnetic to shell-focused users. They look cool, and we're always driven to make our workflows faster and more efficient. I have three tools you've probably never heard of, but they solve persistent niggles you've yet to fix.

Wi-Fi is endlessly convenient - I don't think that anyone's going to disagree with that. But convenience has a price, and in some cases, it's a hefty price to pay. You might be trading a stable, performant connection for an unpredictable mess when you choose Wi-Fi over Ethernet.