Home Office Setup & Equipment

The pre-Super Bowl hype weeks have begun, and with them comes the annual American tradition of calling the NFL rigged. Local drunks, AM radio sports show hosts, and message board experts are all in agreement: The fix is in. Last year, the most interesting conspiracy theory held that the Pentagon rigged the entire 2024 NFL season so the Chiefs could appear in the Super Bowl and Taylor Swift could help Democrats get re-elected in 2024. (Oops.) This year's football truthers have a less esoteric theory for why the Chiefs are definitely going to win the Super Bowl: Follow the money. They make a compelling case, but they're wrong. Why "they" would fix the Super Bowl The rou…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. I know I’m not the only person with exercise equipment an arm’s reach (or a short walk) from where they spend most of their day. And you can pop down to your home gym a couple times a day, is that better than doing a whole workout all at once? Or if not better, is it just as good? Sometimes it is! Let’s discuss the nuances. For purposes of argument, I’ll assume you’re trying to decide between two schedules: A traditional strength workout, where you warm up and then do four or five different exercises, with several sets of each. The whole thing might take you anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and a half, depending on wha…

DeepSeek is having a moment: With the release of its impressive R1 model, the AI company overtook ChatGPT (and every other app) to become the number one free app on both the iOS App Store and Google Play Store. If you gave the app a try this week, however, be warned: Your chats may have been exposed. As reported by The Hacker News, DeepSeek left one of its online databases exposed. While the company has issued a fix, this database is a treasure trove of user information. It contains over one million lines of log streams, which includes chat history, secret keys (used to encrypt and decrypt data), backend information, and other important data. As of this article, DeepSe…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. For those looking for affordable smart security without monthly fees, the TP-Link Tapo D225 Video Doorbell is now $79.99 (down from $99.99). It covers all the basics, plus a few features that even pricier models skip, earning itself an Editors’ Choice award from PCMag. At about 6 inches tall, the Tapo D225 isn’t the slimmest doorbell out there, but it’s built to handle the elements with an IP66 water-resistant rating. And should someone try to steal your doorbell, its built-in 98dB siren is loud enough to scare off intruders. …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Over the years, I've accumulated dozens of makeup brushes, which means I’ve also spent far too much time cleaning them. Dirty brushes can screw up your glam, but can also cause breakouts and distribute bacteria and whatever else lurks in your makeup bag across your skin. In worst-case scenarios, you could even get an infection. Cleaning them regularly—every seven to 10 days—is important, but so, too, is doing it right. Some cleaning methods are ineffective and others are downright bad for the brush. Here's what to know about cleaning not only your brushes, but your sponges. How I clean my makeup brushes There are loads…

Anyone on the hunt for a new home knows how quick the turnaround can be on a listing. I’m currently looking to rent an apartment in New York City, and know well the pain of seeing a dream listing get posted in the morning and snagged by someone (presumably wealthier and faster than I) within a few hours. You might not be able to control the time of year you need to move, but you can control how you time your search for specific listings. If you want to optimize your house or apartment hunt, you need to know the best times to look for new listings. When to search new house and apartment listings Let's do a little reverse-engineering here. In order to figure out the bes…

If you’ve ever hunted for a house, you know that it can be a long, involved process. While a lot of that time is taken up just finding the right house, another big chunk of that time is taken up by the negotiation. Most people focus on the price of the home, which makes sense—it’s a huge purchase for most people, so getting the price right is crucial—but you can negotiate for a lot more than that. You may already know that you can (and should) ask for repairs or financial credits if the inspection reveals problems, but it never hurts to ask for concessions or contingencies that can make your new home more appealing, comfortable, and affordable in the long run. Here are s…

As convenient as the internet is, when big tech companies chase endless growth, that can mean bloat. Nowadays, it feels like every company wants to lure me into an algorithm trap, convince me to use their AI services, or try to make me pay a premium to browse like I used to. One of my favorite tools for fighting back against these trends is Tapestry. It's a timeline app for iPhone and iPad that lets you combine multiple feeds from blogs, YouTube, podcasts, and social media, then view them in chronological order, with a beautiful interface. Essentially, you can use it to make your own curated version of (nearly) the entire internet. Tapestry is designed by The Iconfactor…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. If you’ve ever painted a room in your house or apartment, you know the pain of storing leftover paint. You pour the excess from the rolling pan into the paint can, you tap the lid back into place with a hammer, and you stick the old can somewhere out of the way, where you promptly forget about it. Then the day comes when you need to touch up the room or repaint it entirely, and you haul that old can out from its hiding place, only to discover that time has not been kind to your paint. If your old paint hasn’t aged well—it’s skinned over, chunky, or otherwise dubious—but you really don’t want to spend money on a fresh can j…

Whether or not you plan on observing the Christian season of Lent, celebrating Mardi Gras (or Fat Tuesday) is a great excuse to chow down on some desserts. In the past, Lent meant abstaining from indulgent foods like butter, sugar, and eggs. As Christianity spread across different parts of the globe, during a time when food spoiled relatively quickly, there was no hope in preserving these ingredients during the 40-day period of fasting. Instead of tossing it all, there was a massive clear-out feast: Everything had to go. In the wake of this food-liquidation period, many creative and indulgent treats were born. Most of them are fried. All of them are carbs. Here are nine…

Breaking news: Apple has another update for you to install. While it seems like there's always a new update for us Apple users to install on our devices, this one is quite important to prioritize. That's because it's not a simple feature update, changing the software you're used to. Instead, it's a security patch, fixing issues with iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and other Apple OSes that, left unpatched, leaves you vulnerable to hacking. Security patches vs. software updatesSome platforms separate security patches and software updates as two distinct processes. Not Apple. Usually, the company couples security patches and software updates together, which creates some interesting si…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Welcome to “Cookbook of the Week.” This is a series where I highlight cookbooks that are unique, easy to use, or just special to me. While finding a particular recipe online serves a quick purpose, flipping through a truly excellent cookbook has a magic all its own. Casseroles, soups, cakes, pastas, and roasts—many cookbooks give us plenty of ideas to feed a family of four or a crowd of 12. I don’t run across as many recipes made for only two people. As much as I appreciate leftovers, I feel tethered to those containers in my fridge, which is one of the reasons I chose to spotlight Table for Two this week. Yes, Valentine…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. We might not live in a Jetsons-like future with robot maids and flying cars, but we do have the technology to transform our standard houses into futuristic smart homes. There are some very compelling reasons to do that, including having more control over your environment, increased automation for repeated tasks, and even improved security. But smart homes—and the devices that comprise them—have one enormous downside: privacy. Smart home devices work by allowing access over a network, and as a result, every single smart device in your home, from the lock on your door to the light bulbs in your fixtures, is a potential wea…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Like it or not, Valentine’s Day is right around the corner. “But the holiday is made up!” you cry. “All holidays are made up,” I reply. “You need to get your partner a gift." No matter how badly you want to stick it to the Hallmark industrial complex, and no matter how much your loved one assures you they “really don’t want gifts,” the fact of the matter is that we’ve all been conditioned to feel the need to meet a bare minimum for romantic gift-giving every Feb. 14. And no, you’re not going to successfully overcome a lifetime of Valentine’s propaganda by deciding to stiff your partner on the gift front. Hallmark will neve…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Home improvement projects large and small can make us happier, our homes more comfortable and livable, and our property more valuable. But there’s a reason many people hesitate to take on some of these projects: They seem really complicated, difficult, and even dangerous. If you’ve never done any DIY home improvement projects, it’s easy to imagine that you'll quickly get in over your head and make matters worse. All of this is exacerbated in the bathroom, which is vital to our everyday health and hygiene. There are plenty of bathroom repairs best left to the professionals—but even if you’re totally inexperienced and woul…

There are a few tricks with home bread baking that make the difference between a lackluster loaf and a spectacular one. One of them is having a heavy duty baking surface to get a nice bottom crust, and another is creating a steamy environment for a lofty loaf. Managing these requirements might sound like a challenge, or like expensive equipment might be involved, but you can actually solve both needs with a common piece of cookware: the Dutch oven. Why you should bake bread in a Dutch oven A heavy duty baking surface, like a baking stone, is easy enough to come by, but a steam injected oven like the bakeries have is not as common at home. Steam is essential for a fully …

Bluesky has steadily been replacing X (formerly Twitter) for me, but I've really missed the ability to bookmark posts for future reference. While X still has Twitter's old bookmarks feature, the only way to save a Bluesky post is to like it, since you can access a list of your liked posts on your profile page. That's not always convenient—what if you dislike something, but want to be able to find it again later, say if it's an article about bad but important news? That's where Kyst comes in. It's a browser extension for Chrome and Firefox that lets you save Bluesky posts in one click. Installing Kyst and signing in …

Lift heavy to build muscle: That’s advice you’ve probably seen in a million places, whether you're aiming to get stronger, get "toned," or simply reap the health benefits of putting on a little muscle. But how heavy is “heavy,” and how do you know if your workout qualifies? There’s no specific number of pounds that will constitute “heavy” for everyone. What’s heavy for a teenage girl picking up a dumbbell for the first time will be a lot less than what’s heavy for a pro strongman. (If you do want to compare your lifts to other people's, sites like Symmetric Strength can show where you stand—but please consider these comps as just for fun.) In basic terms, training “heav…

While many of us only have one Apple Account to manage, many others have two, and are using both with their Apple devices. I know someone who once created an Apple Account using an employer-linked email address, and at some point, created a second account with their personal ID. Now, they're using two accounts on their devices, with one linked to iCloud and Apple Music, and the other one for all other apps. If you've had Apple devices for a long time, you might have two Apple Accounts of your own. Despite this, Apple didn't allow users to merge purchases onto one account. So, if you wanted to access purchases on an old Apple Account, you needed to sign into it, even thoug…

The healthcare sector is one of the most common targets for hackers and cyber criminals, and yet another data breach has put the personal data of more than a million patients at risk. Community Health Center (CHC), a nonprofit healthcare provider in Connecticut, has disclosed that hackers gained access to its system in October and stole sensitive health and personal information belonging to 1,060,936 individuals. What happened with CHC? According to reporting by Bleeping Computer, hackers had access to the CHC network for several hours on October 14, 2024, though the breach was not discovered until January 2, 2025. Stolen data may include names, birthdates, addresses, …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. When you're scrolling TikTok for cleaning inspiration or looking to beef up your product arsenal, it can be overwhelming to see how many products there are out there—and how much they all cost. You don't need to spend a small fortune to keep a clean house, though. There are some excellent budget-friendly products on the market that work wonders all over your home and should be your new cleaning staples. The best cleaning solutions for the price I've mentioned this before, but if you want true bang for your buck in the cleaning space, you should consider swapping your standard cleaning solution for those that have double…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Noah Wiley can't seem to escape the emergency room. After spending more than a decade on NBC's '90s mega-hit E.R., he's back in scrubs for HBO's buzzy new doctor show The Pitt. If that show hasn't quite scratched your itch for medical drama, there are plenty of other shows to stream. The genre's roots can be traced back to the early '60s, and the sexy Dr. Kildare, but it really exploded in the '70s with shows like Medical Center, Emergency!, and Quincy, M.E., all of them fairly soapy dramas with plenty of action and occasional doses of silliness. Later in the decade, M.A.S.H. became a hit by lacing the sit-com formula w…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Today, I'm throwing a lot of spring cleaning content at you, from checklists that can help you remember every spot that needs sprucing up, to suggestions for products that can make it all easier, but I am just one person who, for better or worse, cleans my house in a specific way. To make this series on spring cleaning more comprehensive, I decided to ask some pros for their advice and share expert tips I've received. Speed up drying time on your laundry When you're reading through my spring cleaning checklists today, you'll notice that the step-by-step guide for each room starts by suggesting you put the linens, fabric…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. If you own a Lectric XPeak 2.0 e-bike, it's possible to modify a ton of aspects of the bike right from the onboard screen, including changing the top speed, adjusting the throttle and pedal assist, controlling the lights, and more. But these settings are not readily understandable from the display alone, so here's a step-by-step guide to how to change settings on a Lectric e-bike, as well as some suggestions on which settings you should change, and which you definitely shouldn't. (You can check out my review of the Lectric XPeak 2.0 right here.) How to adjust the settings on a Lectric XPeak 2.0 e-bike Here's how to acce…

While it's generally useful to get notifications on your phone, there are times when it's too much, too fast, such as after you disable Airplane Mode or when your family text thread is blowing up while you're in the middle of a meeting. On Android, you can turn on silent mode or snooze or disable notifications entirely—or you can rely on the new Notification Cooldown feature, which temporarily lowers the literal and figurative volume on your alerts so you don't have to manage those modes yourself. We've known this feature was coming for a while, and it finally arrived on Android 15 with the March 2025 update. How Notification Cooldown worksNotification Cooldown manages…