How-To Geek

One of the best advantages when it comes to desktop PCs is the ability to reuse parts from your previous build in your new system, but it can also be a trap that ends up costing you extra time and money that could have been avoided if you'd used a new replacement part from the get-go.

I've installed smart switches to control my indoor lights, but as much as I appreciate what this has done for my home, I'm starting to feel that smart lighting is even more useful when I take it outdoors.

Are you shopping for your first NAS? I made a lot of mistakes when I bought my first networked storage system, and I still regret some of the decisions to this day. Here are five ways I messed up, and how you can avoid making the same mistakes I did.

Your phone's storage is bound to get depleted over time. We often blame it on photos and videos, but apps use a lot of storage, too. There are, however, some apps that use much more storage than others. Here are 5 to keep an eye on.

I do almost all my computer on Linux devices these days, and I don't manage that without a lot of useful Linux software. One of my favorite formats for Linux software is AppImages, and these are the ones I always keep on-hand.

Fast solid-state drives have effectively replaced hard drives as the main storage devices on our computers. However, the hard drive itself still has a lot going for it where SSDs fall short. This means that not only are hard drive still common today, but that development of them has been ongoing.

While the Linux command set is great on its own, it seems that programmers can't stop reinventing it. Here are some of the best modern takes on classic Linux tools that fix some common annoyances with Unix-like systems. You might wonder how you ever got by before you knew about them like I did.

One of the reasons why I use Home Assistant to run my smart home is that it is focused on offering local control. I'd always wondered just how much of my smart home was truly local, so I decided to test it out. I disabled internet access for my smart home, but kept my local network up and running, and this is what stopped working.

While it might be true that time speeds up as you get older, what never changes—at least for me—is my inner child’s desire to consume quality entertainment, and that’s where Amazon Prime Video comes into play.

When you think of a terminal app, it might seem like a program stuck in time—just a solid window that interacts with your shell and displays text. However, modern terminal apps have come a long way. And I've found no terminal app better than Kitty. Give me a chance to convince you to switch to it.

The huge increases in RAM costs are forcing some companies to raise their own prices. In December 2025, a new model of the Raspberry Pi 5 was introduced, with just 1GB of RAM to try to keep the price down. Having so little RAM doesn't make this Pi useless; there's still a lot you can do with it.

Excel gurus love to tell you, "Always format your data as a table." While that's usually solid advice, it's not always the best move. In some scenarios, a simple range outperforms a table entirely. Here's when to skip the table and stick with the regular grid.

Not everyone wants an iPad, but there aren't many options for high-end Android tablets. Thankfully, Lenovo just revealed two tablets to help fix that problem: the Idea Tab Pro Gen 2 and Legion Tab Gen 5.

Streaming services love autoplay. Whether it's playing a trailer for a show you don't want to watch or automatically starting something else when you've finished watching, autoplay features can quickly become annoying. Here's how you can turn autoplay off in your favorite streaming apps.

I am writing these words on a foldable tablet that fits in my pocket, but my dream of a big touchscreen goes back to a much older era of Android tablets. All the way back to the beginning, in fact, when Google unveiled the first version of Android made for larger screens.

These days I have a bit of a mini-PC addiction, but when I bought my first one I didn't quite know what I was getting into. So, in case you're looking at all the cool mini PCs that are for sale these days, I thought it would be a good idea to go over some aspects of mini PC ownership that I wish I knew right from the start.

If you're still using Excel's default layout, you're making things harder than they need to be. The software's interface is surprisingly flexible if you know where to look, and making just a few tweaks can turn a standard spreadsheet app into a personalized number cruncher.

Guillermo del Toro is one of the most celebrated filmmakers in modern Hollywood, who has built up an incredible reputation for making the uncanny beloved. The director has tackled a wide range of genres through his unique lens, championing the practical work of artists while calling out unfair practices. Del Toro is beloved within the industry and by audiences across the world.

I've recently been on a little bit of a self-hosting and homelab kick, so I'm trying to get the most out of the hardware I have lying around. It recently hit me that Kindles make excellent dashboards because of their low power consumption and beautiful E-Ink displays. So I've been using mine as a Spotify remote control and dashboard.

Phone prices have been creeping upward for years due to a long list of factors. Most of the time, the increases felt gradual, fair, and manageable. However, the recent memory price spikes have hit the entire tech industry hard, and phones are no exception.