How-To Geek

This week, a message popped up on my wife's Facebook page. It asked her if she wanted to continue seeing ads on Facebook and Instagram, or whether she would prefer to remove ads by paying a monthly fee. I was intrigued by how much Meta was charging for the ad-free service.

Winter is tough on your car. Snow and ice make driving more challenging, cold temperatures can cause starting issues, and, more often than not, frozen doors leave you scrambling to find another way to get to work in the early morning hours.

Own a Kindle Scribe and looking for avenues to use it beyond reading and jotting down notes? Here are eight things you can do with it that go beyond its battle-tested use cases.

Do you still pay for third-party antivirus software like Norton or McAfee? You may be surprised to learn that there’s no real benefit to doing so. Software like this is mostly obsolete today.

In recent weeks, Microsoft has focused on improving Excel's end-to-end efficiency. Whether you're looking to create complex files more efficiently, import data via formulas and clean it in the cloud, get help to fix errors, or send your analysis as PDF reports, these updates are set to transform your February workflow.

Self-hosting is both an entertaining hobby if you like computers, and a reasonable way to save a few dollars if you swap out your subscription services for something you host yourself. It does come with a bit of risk, however, if you put your self-hosted services online so they're accessible from the internet. I was curious about what kind of attacks my server was getting, so I set up a honeypot to see what happened.

Home Assistant can feel intimidating, especially when there are a whole bunch of extra terms that you need to understand. Here’s a cheat sheet so that you can quickly get up to speed.

Linux has a somewhat contradictory reputation. On the one hand, it's known as a rock-solid operating system that never goes wrong and offers countless hours of uptime. On the other hand, it's also known for being easy to break in the wrong hands when you start digging around under the hood.

We tend to think of the M.2 NVMe slots on our computer motherboards as "SSD" slots used only for storage. However, fundamentally, these are just a different form factor for the PCIe slots we plug all sorts of peripherals into. Most of the time these days, an M.2 NVMe slot offers four lanes of PCIe connectivity, which makes it equivalent to a PCIe 4X slot in its full-size form.

When we think "high-tech" we tend to think of devices like smartphones that have a short life cycle. When it comes to home appliances that we don't replace often, it can be easy to fall into the trap of thinking that the latest washing machines, vacuums, stoves, and other mundane devices are still pretty much the same as they've always been.

Among all automakers today, there is a renewed focus on customer service and the dealership experience. Not unlike many industries, legacy auto manufacturers and their dealer networks face the same headwinds in attracting consumers. They are competing against emerging brands, negative public perceptions, and the background noise of everyday life.

If you don't have $100 (or more) for a standalone Windows license, then you can download any distro of Linux for free right now and have a working computer in just a few minutes. However, the cost of something can be measured in more than just dollar bills, and there are more than a few ways Linux ends up costing you more than a commercial operating system like Windows or macOS.

Paramount+ has released its February lineup, and tucked amongst all the glowing mid-season TV premieres are new shows and movies worth highlighting. Most notably, the month kicks off with the 68th Annual Grammy Awards and features the series finale of Showtime’s frantically thrilling character study Coldwater.

Tired of your laptop crawling with Windows updates? Considering switching to Linux on your laptop but overwhelmed by hundreds of distro options? Well, here are the three best Linux distros for laptops that promise excellent hardware compatibility and user experience.

I adore books, and not just reading them. I mean, I truly adore the physical nature of books. How they smell, how they feel to read, and I like seeing them on a shelf. It's a promise of knowledge or adventure to come. As I write this, I own a few hundred physical books. Enough to take up three or four moderate bookshelves, and a few boxes on top of that.

I'm always excited to try out a new sort of keyboard, so when the "world's first ceramic keyboard" came around, I couldn't resist reviewing it. Unfortunately, the Keychron Q16 HE 8K is an awful keyboard by even basic metrics, let alone as a new and unique build.

When you first gain access to a 3D printer, you might be tempted to print everything and anything you can. This urge can be amplified by the number of models available online and the passion of the 3D printing community.

Kia arrived in the US in 1993 with the Sephia and Sportage 4x4. Back then, it was all budget-friendly cars with few bells and whistles, but that’s no longer the case.

It's safe to say that the ongoing component shortage has well and truly hit SSDs now, too. Many models are sold out entirely, but there's still plenty of options if you want to shop—provided you don't mind spending way more than you should, that is.

It’s summer here in Australia, and in the sub-tropics where I live, that means high temperatures, harsh sun, and punishing humidity. This prompted a pricey investment that we’ve been putting off for years: a whole-house ducted air conditioning system.