How-To Geek

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We explain technology. Learn more with our articles, reviews, tips, and the best answers to your most pressing tech questions.
Updated: 59 min 39 sec ago

Do cases really protect your phone?

Wed, 11/19/2025 - 15:30

You shelled out a grand for a new smartphone, and the last thing you want is to see it lying on the ground, cracked and damaged. The natural inclination is to slap on a case, right? While cases are pretty standard practice, you should know that not all are created equal.

Categories: IT General, Technology

Yardcare's N1600 Pro brings big technology to big lawns

Wed, 11/19/2025 - 15:13

For many, maintaining a perfect lawn is a constant battle. Thankfully, robotic mowers are turning this chore into a hands-off experience. Yardcare is no newcomer to the world of garden solutions. With popular models like the Yardcare E400, V100, and M800plus selling tens of thousands of units and finding their way into homes everywhere, the brand has earned a stellar reputation and user trust in the lawn and garden equipment space.

Categories: IT General, Technology

7 tips for choosing your first Linux distro

Wed, 11/19/2025 - 14:30

Choosing your first Linux distro can be a daunting experience. Ask the community where you should start, and you’ll get ten different answers. If you know what to look for in a Linux distro, then you'll be able to choose on your own. The key is to do a little research and understand what actually matters when you’re starting. Your first Linux experience depends less on the distro's name and more on a handful of practical things I'm going to cover here.

Categories: IT General, Technology

The most well-balanced Japanese luxury–practical sedan for 2025

Wed, 11/19/2025 - 14:15

Finding the right sedan in 2025 often means choosing between comfort, efficiency, or everyday usability, but one Japanese model manages to deliver all three without compromise. It offers upscale refinement, intuitive tech, and a cabin that feels far more premium than its price suggests, making it a standout for drivers who want luxury without luxury-car headaches.

Categories: IT General, Technology

4 advanced git commands you probably haven’t heard of

Wed, 11/19/2025 - 14:00

Git is an enormous program, with nearly 200 sub-commands and countless options among them. You probably only use a handful, those reliable stalwarts like init, add, commit, and branch. But some commands go way further than the basics, and can radically improve your coding life if you get to know them.

Categories: IT General, Technology

What is globbing and how do I use it in Linux?

Wed, 11/19/2025 - 13:30

Globbing is like regular expressions for your filenames. Unfortunately, it’s often misunderstood, despite being an essential command-line skill that everyone knows at least something about. Turn that superficial knowledge into a better understanding.

Categories: IT General, Technology

These open-source DNS tools block annoyances and speed up your browsing

Wed, 11/19/2025 - 13:00

Most people don’t think about DNS at all. I know I didn’t, at least not until I started running into those little internet headaches that never quite go away. You know the ones I'm talking about, pages that hang for a second before loading, apps that stall when they try to reach the internet, or smart home gadgets acting like they're waking up from a long nap. A lot of that slow, messy behavior can be traced back to DNS, the quiet system your devices rely upon to look up every site and service. When your ISP’s DNS is slow, unreliable, or quietly gathering more data than you realize, you'll likely feel it even if you're not sure why.

Categories: IT General, Technology

6 common Linux mistakes that beginners make

Wed, 11/19/2025 - 12:30

A lot of people come to Linux because they think it's magic, but they also make a lot of mistakes. Here are some things you want to avoid if you want to get the most out of Linux.

Categories: IT General, Technology

Arduino's new DIY electronics starter kit has an UNO R4 board

Tue, 11/18/2025 - 23:32

Arduino boards are a popular choice for DIY electronics, but it's not always clear how to get started with building projects and programming. There's now one more solution to that problem: a new starter kit built around the UNO R4 Wi-Fi board.

Categories: IT General, Technology

Cloudflare's outage took down half the internet, but this open-source app saved my homelab

Tue, 11/18/2025 - 23:00

Self-hosting and homelabbing can be a great way to save money on subscriptions and reduce how much you depend on big tech companies for your essential services.

Categories: IT General, Technology

I use this AI tool to read anything out loud for free

Tue, 11/18/2025 - 23:00

You don't need to pay to have something read out loud to you. The free tier of ChatGPT can read any text aloud in an impressively natural way. You can do it on your phone or desktop, and you're not limited to how long the text can be.

Categories: IT General, Technology

Speakers are ugly. This 'hidden' speaker is $80 off for Black Friday

Tue, 11/18/2025 - 22:48

Large speakers, to put it bluntly, are a pain. They're difficult to find just the right place for, and it's even worse if you are in a small space. Smart speakers can be a decent solution, but their designs may not be to everyone's tastes. Sure, a black or white speaker is the norm, but it can still look bad sitting on a shelf, especially if your decor is set up in a way that's less tech-focused.

Categories: IT General, Technology

GitHub is down right now, it's not just you

Tue, 11/18/2025 - 22:17

GitHub is the world's biggest software development platform and code repository, and right now it's having some problems. Even though the GitHub site and most web functions are working as intended, Git operations are failing for many people.

Categories: IT General, Technology

Hook-and-loop strips are the best way to keep your computer desk tidy

Tue, 11/18/2025 - 21:30

Desk space is a limited and highly valuable resource. If you have a gaming PC, you know how quickly accessories, peripherals, and gadgets pile up. Fortunately, with a single accessory, I managed to move most of the clutter off my desk without sacrificing functionality or convenience.

Categories: IT General, Technology

Google just made its own Visual Studio Code

Tue, 11/18/2025 - 20:42

Google just released Antigravity, a brand new agent-first development platform that was announced alongside the Gemini 3 Pro model. This is an integrated development environment, or IDE, with a chatbot that takes the lead on complex, multi-step tasks.

Categories: IT General, Technology

Of course Energizer made a laptop with a battery so big it's banned on airplanes

Tue, 11/18/2025 - 20:30

Did you know that Energizer started making laptops recently? I didn’t either. The iconic battery company’s laptop is pretty on-brand, though—it has a massive battery in it that’s supposed to last for up to 28 hours of actual use.

Categories: IT General, Technology

AMD might soon increase the price of its Radeon RX 9000 GPUs

Tue, 11/18/2025 - 20:12

AMD's RX 9000 GPUs represent a cheaper alternative to NVIDIA's ultra-powerful, but ultra-expensive RTX 5000 GPUs, but they're not quite the budget kings they used to be. Now, they might be getting even more expensive. And you can probably blame AI for this.

Categories: IT General, Technology

Linux is getting this popular game library manager next year

Tue, 11/18/2025 - 20:10

The developer of the popular open source Playnite game library manager, which has so far been limited to Windows, announced that we can expect the first Linux release in 2026. This coding push is part of the developer's personal interest in leaving Windows in favor of Linux as an operating system.

Categories: IT General, Technology

Why I decided to build my own Android app from scratch

Tue, 11/18/2025 - 19:30

Have you ever wanted to build your own Android app? I have, and I recently made the choice to start down the journey of Android development once again.

Categories: IT General, Technology

5 CPUs that are officially too old for gaming in 2025

Tue, 11/18/2025 - 19:00

When it comes to upgrading their graphics cards, gamers have no problem spending hundreds of dollars on the latest models. After all, the graphics card is the main performance driver for all rendering-related tasks, so that’s the piece of hardware worth splurging on, right?

Categories: IT General, Technology

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