Home Office Setup & Equipment

It happened again: Across sprawling tabs, dozens of windows, and countless unread messages, you've somehow lost your cursor. Maybe it's hiding in the corner of your screen, but, hmm—nothing seems to be popping out of any of them. What's more, if you have your Mac connected to multiple monitors on your desk, your cursor could be anywhere. Tell work to push your deadlines; you're gonna need a minute. But before you damage your reputation, there's a better way. Well, a couple of ways, actually—but one of them is far more fun. To save yourself from this grief in the future, try "Googly Eyes," a free app that adds, yes, a pair of googly eyes to your Mac's menu bar. Googly Eye…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Being both a lightweight and a lover of sparkling wine means I often end up with a leftover half-bottle of the stuff, or I choose not to open one at all. Neither of these options feels right to me. While I don’t mind pouring the occasional $11 flat prosecco down the drain, my partner and I just got engaged, and we've been gifted a few bottles of fancy champagne—stuff way to good to waste. The inevitable leftovers must be protected. After testing a few hacks to preserve sparkling wine’s fizz, I found one that works. The testing optionsA friend gave me a Le Creuset champagne stopper along with a bottle of bubbly around Chr…

When the Nintendo Switch 2 was officially announced, it was hard to feel like it wasn’t just more of the same. With no weird 3D gimmicks and no absurd naming scheme, did it even really feel like a new Nintendo device? But eagle-eyed viewers picked up on something else—Nintendo, it turns out, might be the first console maker to build a mouse right into its default controller. At about 1:01 into the announcement trailer, you can see what looks like an optical sensor pop up on the side of one of the Switch 2’s Joy-Con controllers (or whatever they end up being called), and just a few seconds later, those same two controllers glide along a desk on their side, as if t…

Google I/O, the company's annual developer's conference, doesn't start until May 20, but expectations are already swirling about what will be announced during the event. Here's what we think might show up at this year's Google I/O, plus details on how to watch. When and how to watch Google I/O 2025This year's Google I/O is scheduled for May 20 and 21, with the first keynote beginning at 10 a.m. PT (1 p.m. ET). The event will be live streamed online at io.google and on YouTube. Anyone can view the keynotes and sessions without registering, though developers can register for free to receive event communications. What's coming to Google I/O 2025The schedule for I/O 2025 has…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Before I moved to Portland, I didn’t understand how passionate people can be about strawberries. But once I started growing strawberries, I came to understand that a disproportionate percentage of berries I grew would be lost to bugs, wildlife, and disease. Since summer is short, I’ve worked hard to minimize my losses, and I have suggestions for protecting these precious garden jewels. Keep strawberries off the ground This is how most people grow strawberries—on the ground. Credit: Amanda Blum …

If you're wondering what your computer's BIOS or UEFI is, and whether or not you need to update it, you've come to the right place. I'll explain what these terms mean, what these pieces of software do, and why it might (or might not) be a good idea to install updates for them. What does BIOS and UEFI mean?The BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) or UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) is something every computer has, though unless you're running an ancient computer, you'll have a UEFI installed rather than a BIOS. And we're dealing specifically with Windows computers here: Macs take their own custom approach to this, as Apple is in control of the operating system and …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. After a long winter of planning, strategizing, and buying seeds, you can finally start to plant this month. Most of that planting will happen inside, beginning the seedlings that will eventually move into your spring and summer garden. All the seeding tools like trays and heat mats come out of storage for a cleaning. As excited as you may be, it's important to exercise some restraint: You don't want to start all your seedlings at once. This is a game of timing. March only sees us starting a few spring seedings, as well as some seeds that take a long time. Everything else will get started next month. Once you start seeding…

The Apple Watch Ultra 2, which came out in 2023, is Apple's latest and most expensive smartwatch. After Apple's latest event and the release of the new Apple Watch 10, it was expected the Ultra 2 would drop in price. As is the case with most Apple flagship products, the discounts aren't massive, but at this price point, anything helps. The GPS + Cellular Apple Watch Ultra 2 is currently $679 (originally $799), the lowest price it has been since its release, according to price-tracking tools. Apple Watch Ultra 2 [GPS + Cellular 49mm] Smartwatch with Rugged Titanium Case & Blue …

The Nintendo Switch 2 is quite a bit different than the OG Switch: The Joy-Cons are beefier and connect via magnets; when docked, the console supports 4K 60fps output; and you can finally charge the console when playing in tabletop mode. But at the end of the day, what matters most about a new console like the Switch 2 is the games: If there's nothing new to play, what's the point? Of course, Nintendo shared a number of Switch 2 exclusives during its big Direct on Wednesday. This isn't a repeat of the Nintendo 3DS launch: There are games to play if you buy a Switch 2 on day one. But there are also a number of interesting titles coming soon and later this year. (There's ev…

As anyone who has ever tried to design their home knows all too well, neutral always works. Beige, white, and various subtle shades of gray are the safe choices in any room—they may not be exciting, but they also won’t irritate you over time or cause your guests to whisper about your choices behind your back. That safety combined with a long-running trend toward minimalist and uncluttered spaces has led to the color “pop”—a blast of vibrant color as an accent to add a dash of drama to your otherwise bland spaces. But as concepts like “unexpected red” demonstrate, you aren’t confined to painting an accent wall or buying a big red sofa when you want that pop of color. While…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. This post is part of Find Your Fit Tech, Lifehacker's fitness wearables buying guide. I'm asking the tough questions about whether wearables can really improve your health, how to find the right one for you, and how to make the most of the data wearables can offer. A fitness tracker’s job isn’t done when you finish your workout, or even when you take your last steps of the day. There are devices that excel at tracking how long and how well you slept, and devices that attempt to tell you when you’re well-recovered and ready for your next challenge. Here are my picks for the best of this category. What to look for in a slee…

If you went on the internet Tuesday morning, you likely experienced some issues. Popular sites like X and ChatGPT were unresponsive, returning error messages rather than their usual homepages. The culprit? A massive Cloudflare outage. The upside is that the outage appears to be ending. Cloudflare says it has identified the problem and issued a fix, so affected websites should be coming back online this morning. But that doesn't change the fact that so many websites went dark today, all because one company experienced unexplained downtime. How is it that a Cloudflare outage can seemingly break the internet? What is Cloudflare?Cloudflare offers a number of products for sit…

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. Another Italian cookbook—I know. But trust me, you’ll want to be here for this one. Milk Street Backroads Italy is a cookbook that may make you question some of your “rules” about cooking Italian food. Constantly stirring polenta? Adding slabs of mozzarella to your eggplant parm? Loading Italian wedding soup with meatballs? While I will probably continue putti…

When everything bagel seasoning dropped as a supermarket seasoning blend, I admit, I bought a giant container of the stuff. The powerful concoction that transforms consolation prize, plain bagels into the most coveted bagel could now be mine? And I could use it on everything? And by golly, I did. I put it on everything—that is, until everything tasted the same. I lost myself for a while in that hoi polloi of seeds and dry onion, and I had to reset. Now when I crave a savory, oniony flavor, nigella seeds are my secret ingredient for better breads, salads, and spreads. What are Nigella seeds?Nigella seeds are from the nigella sativa plant. They’re small, black seeds that lo…

This week Google added Veo 2 to YouTube Shorts and—wow, this article is already gibberish. Let me back up. YouTube Shorts is YouTube's TikTok knockoff competitor. Veo2 is Google's AI tool for generating videos. As of this week, you can use that AI to make clips for YouTube Shorts. This innovative and revolutionary change will forever alter the vertical videos most people scroll past so they can find the thing they actually wanted to watch. According to a confusingly worded announcement post, you can now create clips to add to your Shorts simply by typing a sentence. Anyone can create a Short right in the YouTube mobile app either by combining footage already saved to thei…

Heads up: If you've rented a car from Hertz, your data may have been exposed in a data breach. While Hertz itself was not attacked, affected customers had sensitive data leaked—including, in some cases, Social Security numbers. What happened with Hertz?This week, Hertz posted a "Notice of Data Incident" on its website, informing customers about a 2024 episode involving Cleo Communications. Cleo operates a file transfer platform that Hertz uses for "limited purposes." Despite those limited purposes, Hertz confirmed that actors exploited zero-day security flaws in Cleo's network and accessed Hertz customer data. It appears actors accessed this data in both October and Decem…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. If you're looking for a budget-friendly phone that gets the job done, the Motorola Moto G Power 5G (2024, Unlocked) is currently $179.99 (down from $299.99)—its lowest price ever, according to price-trackers. Available in midnight blue and pale lilac, this PCMag Editor’s Choice winner features a vegan leather finish, which while giving it a premium feel tends to attract dust and pet hair (so a case might be a smart investment). On the upside, the textured surface provides a secure grip, making accidental drops less likely. It also packs a side-mount…

I've tried all kinds of time-tracking apps over the years and they can be helpful, but it's easy to get bogged down in the numbers. Sometimes all you need is a little self-awareness about how long you've been on the computer, either all day or during the current session, without the burden of long-term metrics. Pandan is a totally free Mac app from indie app developer Sindre Sorhus that that does exactly that. The application mostly lives in the menu bar, telling you how long your current computing session has been. You can click the menu bar icon to see how long the previous session was and how long you've been on your computer today. …

Spotify's AI DJ is like if ChatGPT decided to switch careers. The DJ curates a playlist of music based on Premium subscribers' previous play history, including new and old songs in the mix. Of course, the headline feature is the DJ's voice, as the AI bot announces which songs are up next, as well as some information about each. Whether you love or hate AI, it's a pretty harmless feature, and seems fun for those who pay for Spotify. While DJ feels interactive, it really isn't. Aside from skipping songs, it's mostly a passive feature. That's now changing: In a blog post on Tuesday, Spotify announced that you will now be able to make requests to the DJ with your voice. If yo…

You might not think about it, but you're probably pretty used to how Gmail's search function works. You type in your query, wait a moment, then scroll through the results, looking for the email in question. These results are always in chronological order, with the most recent results appearing at the top. After years of searching this way, you're likely subconsciously expecting this order, scrolling backwards in time to find the result you have in mind. I imagine it's going to be a bit confusing the next time you search for something in Gmail, and the results are not sorted by recency. That's because Google is changing the way it returns Gmail results for users: Google an…

The speedy progress of AI development continues to dominate headlines, but the latest story to hit the news cycle is more bad press than good press: It turns out that Google's latest Gemini 2.0 Flash image editor is rather adept at automatically removing watermarks from images. Google pushed out the experimental native image generation capabilities a few days ago, promoting its capabilities in terms of combining images and text, editing images through conversational prompts, and improving its "world understanding" to give users AI-generated pictures that are more realistic overall. As TechCrunch reports, the newly upgraded tool was quickly put to one specific and …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. When you watch a piece of media produced in a language you don't speak, you have a couple of options. You can, of course, turn on subtitles and follow along by reading. But in some cases, you can switch the audio track to whichever language you speak. This is called the "dub," and it usually requires voice artists to record the lines in this new language—in a way that matches the original tone of the show or movie. This requires time and money, something studios aren't always willing to part with. As such, not everything has a dub. But what if it could? On Wednesday, Amazon announced "AI-aided dubbing" for Prime Video. O…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. One of the biggest considerations when shopping for a new place to live is whether to buy a new-build home or an older home. Surprisingly, only about 25% of home buyers are looking for new-build homes, and more than half of Generation Z-age homebuyers are more than willing to buy a fixer-upper home. The cost of buying a house has a lot to do with that, of course. And that means a lot of folks can’t afford to immediately renovate that fixer-upper to their liking and will have to wait until their bank account recovers from the home-buying process. But that doesn’t mean you have to live in a shabby house designed by strangers…

In the old days, we'd post our photos and videos on social media for the world to see. Right now, it's far more common to send these pictures and clips to friends and family through private chat groups—but what you might not have realized is that they get pretty heavily compressed along the way. There are many reasons for this: It means the files get sent faster, for example, and that the companies behind these messenger apps don't have to spend quite so much on cloud storage (imagine millions of images being sent by millions of users, all the time). However, the recipients of these photos and videos are missing out, and getting copies that are of a much lower quality. A …

The Find My Device app for Android is getting an update: The new Find My Device app is now split up into two tabs, one for Devices, and one for People. With it, you can easily coordinate meet-ups with friends or check that your kids have safely arrived home. You'll find the app preinstalled on Pixels, and it's a free download for other Android devices. It's also available on the web, but there's no iPhone app. Despite that, you can still keep tabs on the real time locations of your contacts if they have iPhones—more on that in a moment. The new People tab in Find My Device. …