How-To Geek

USB 2.0 was released to the world early in the year 2000, making it over a quarter-century old at this point. Yet, your new laptop or desktop motherboard almost certainly has at least one USB 2.0 port. Why include such an old standard on modern computers?

Even with all the shared knowledge about dialing in slicer settings, getting layer adhesion just right, and finding the next exotic filament, it's easy to make mistakes with your 3D printer. Those small errors that come from rushing things or not quite understanding can put a big, lasting strain on delicate parts.

Outlook is one of the most versatile email clients out there, even if you don't use Microsoft's own email services. If you're anything like me, you probably leave thousands of unread emails accumulating over time, but it turns out Outlook is pretty good at culling this.

You don't have to wait for your SSD to go sideways before testing it for issues. Instead of waking up one day to sudden crashes and other erratic behavior, you can take preventive measures from time to time to check your drive's health and back up your data before it's too late.

When you start thinking about DIY projects, a Raspberry Pi is often the first thing that comes to mind. However, if you want to build some ultra-low power, portable, or embedded, you should also consider an ESP32.

Home Assistant can help you to do useful things, such as turning lights on and off or controlling your heating, but not every automation has to be completely practical. These are some of the coolest things I've done using Home Assistant.

Speaker technology moves a bit more slowly than our other gadgets, but that doesn't mean that their connections lag behind. Optical cables were sufficient 30 years ago, but these days, they're holding your sound system back.

If you are reading this, there is a 90% chance you have VS Code installed. It is the industry standard for a reason. It has an extension for everything from Kubernetes management to a pet cat that walks across your status bar, but as we move through 2026, many of us have started to notice the "Electron Creep" and the lag it brings. The reality is that VS Code is essentially a web browser pretending to be a text editor.

RAM prices have soared in the last year, and what used to be an inexpensive component to upgrade now can cost as much as a GPU used to. If your PC is running low on RAM, there are a few things you can do to mitigate the problem.

I like to experiment as much as the next tech guy. I’m always trying new tools, tweaking my setup, and looking for ways to work a little faster or with less friction. I've complained about Windows plenty over the years, too. The bloat, the telemetry, the way it tries to push you into doing things a certain way. On paper, Linux often feels like the escape hatch, a cleaner, more flexible alternative where you're actually in control.

Whatever the world of Linux may be short of, it isn’t opinions. You may be struggling with a command-line tool, confused by distributions, or failing to take perfect security measures; whatever it is, someone will tell you the right way to do it.

Choosing a family SUV has always been a balancing act between power and practicality. While most SUVs today, especially large luxury models, offer plenty of horsepower and torque for merging on the highway and pulling a trailer, not all their cargo space is created equal.

As the month of March comes to a close, many movies will be departing Netflix for the foreseeable future. When they return, your guess is as good as mine. Every genre will lose movies, including thrillers. One of the movies on this list leaves on April 3, which we'll note in its entry below. The other two will be on Netflix for at least the next month, so if you can't watch them this week, no worries—catch them when you have some time.

Scrolling through Paramount+ can sometimes feel like you're flipping channels, old-school style, with that glazed look on your face, as you hope to land on something to snap you out of it. With a new month upon us, the streaming behemoth has re-upped its library of crowd-pleasing, critically acclaimed movies, which are here for the taking.

Nearly all graphics cards are expensive right now, but the ongoing RAM shortage is at least partly to blame for the current state of things. But, all shortages aside, few people would call Nvidia's graphics cards cheap, and neither would I. They're not, and they haven't been for years (if ever).

Range anxiety is one of those things that electric vehicle owners know too well. Road trips feel a lot like guesswork, especially when the battery percentage starts dropping faster, and you are not sure if you will make it to the next charger. Fortunately, Google is stepping in with a solution that might put those worries to rest with AI-powered battery predictions and trip-planning features for over 350 electric vehicle models that work with Android Auto.

Four years ago, Dodge CEO Tim Kuniskis saw the compact SUV market booming and wanted in. The result was the Dodge Hornet, a sporty, attitude-packed SUV meant to bring Dodge’s performance vibe to a new segment.

The three-month, 3,000-mile oil change interval was the standard for ages. Today, synthetic lubricants and more advanced engine technologies have pushed those intervals into a much broader range, typically between 7,500 and 15,000 miles. Overall, this shift from the previous 3,000-mile benchmark has made the oil life monitor a standard feature in every new vehicle.

I've been a Plex user for over a decade, but Jellyfin has some compelling features — especially when you consider that Jellyfin is 100% free. So, if you're out to save some cash, here are five reasons to run Jellyfin alongside your Plex server.