How-To Geek

Android is often seen as a Google product, and in many ways it is. Google and its services sit at the center of the experience, but underneath all of that, Android is still built on an open-source foundation, which means the core system doesn’t actually require Google to function the way most people assume it does.

Some smart home devices are so good that I fall in love with them the instant I start using them. That's not always the case, however. There are plenty of smart home devices that I soon grew to hate, although I still use some of them every day.

If your Netflix queue has been feeling a little repetitive lately, it might be time to revisit some of the platform’s most critically acclaimed original shows and refresh your watch list.

If you've just moved into a new home and found out it has Cat5e Ethernet wiring, don't fret. The same goes if you're considering upgrading your home Ethernet from Cat5e to Cat6 or Cat6a but don't want to turn your house into a trench while running new cabling. Cat5e is, in fact, more than fast enough for most people. Unless you specifically need 10Gbps connections all over your house, you should stick with Cat5e wiring.

When the pandemic hit in 2020, major rental car companies sold off more than 770,000 vehicles to stay afloat amid the lockdowns. When national travel returned faster than expected after the lockdowns ended, those same companies didn't have enough cars to meet demand, and daily rates nearly doubled at airports across the country.

If you spend time around serious Linux users, you'll likely hear a reference to "swap space." Or maybe you wondered what the swap partition that your Linux installation program created is. Virtual memory and swap space can be confusing. Here's what you need to know on Linux.

The combination of Termux and Android devices is the perfect pairing for any home lab enthusiast or tech hobbyist. Fire Tablets, in particular, offer a unique twist on home lab experimentation.

Changing your DNS server used to feel straightforward. Pick Google, Cloudflare, Quad9, or whatever else. Type in some IP addresses. Call it a day.

Ryobi once offered a clever fix to many issues, but time has proven to be the death of a few of them. As tools age, we find better, easier ways to use them, and problems of the past tend to disappear even more quickly than their solutions did. Ryobi was fixing niche problems while it was fixing garage problems, but that time has ended. Today, you may have something in your pocket or garage that caused the end of a tool line. Luckily, this only meant that problems disappeared, since their solutions are gone too.

When you use Linux, there are two dominant and well-established desktop environments that reign supreme: KDE and GNOME. I prefer GNOME, but there's one KDE feature so good that I've found a way not to do without.

I love Android, but that's mostly because I can install whichever apps I need to fix the issues I have with how things ship out of the box. When setting up a new phone, I start by disabling disappointing apps and installing replacements. Here are four of the open source alternatives I turn to for features that the default Google apps just don't handle.

Over the past decade, Fedora has earned its reputation as the go-to cutting-edge Linux distro. But the landscape has changed. Today, several popular distros offer newer packages, faster updates, and comparable stability—making Fedora no longer the obvious default for Linux power users.

Installing Linux has a reputation for being difficult or technical, and depending on your choices, it could be. You'll find dozens of tutorials about dual-booting from one drive and manually working with partitions. Luckily, for the vast majority of people, none of that is necessary.

I was looking for smart home devices online when I stumbled across a smart knob and immediately wanted to buy it. Then I noticed that exactly what I needed was staring me in the face. My mini hi-fi system on my desk has a large knob that feels gorgeous to turn, so I wondered if I could turn it into a smart home controller.

Spreadsheet formulas used to feel fragile. One wrong column number could throw off an entire report. But when I finally replaced VLOOKUP with XLOOKUP, Excel started feeling predictable, flexible, and surprisingly hard to break.

Many "dead" electronics aren't actually dead. Cracked joints, loose wires, and worn-out connectors are extremely common problems, and they're all easily fixable if you have a decent soldering iron. Over a few years, the small repairs you can make with a soldering iron will save you money and reduce the amount of waste going to the landfill.

If you're having issues with your home internet and urgently need a connection for work or some other reason, or if yet another outage has flat-out taken down your connection, there's a way to get your router back online and reconnect all your devices to the web.

I’ll admit that I was quite excited when I found out that my 3D printer could be fully integrated into Home Assistant. If you have a smart home server running, you might as well connect as many devices as you can, right?

Whether you're tracking monthly spending, utility bills, hobby data, or other recurring numbers, predicting future trends usually means wrestling with complicated formulas. But Excel already has a built-in forecasting tool—and most people never realize it's there. Here's how to use it.

There's nothing quite like going to the movies, but a good projector can bridge the gap, giving you a small taste of the theater experience at home. A budget projector may be a more affordable option than a giant TV, but the results can sometimes be disappointing. A few simple and affordable upgrades can make your projector experience far better.