Home Office Setup & Equipment

Max's May lineup brings the return of two of the streamer's original comedy series. First up is the second installment of Conan O'Brien Must Go (May 8), an unscripted travel series in which Conan reconnects with fans he previously met on his podcast, Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend. This season's three episodes will debut weekly. At the end of the month, Sex and the City spinoff And Just Like That... (May 29) returns for its third season, following original SATC characters—plus a few additions—navigating life in New York City in their 50s. On the film side, Max will debut HBO original Mountainhead (May 31), starring Steve Carrell, Jason Schwartzman, Cory Michael S…

While the world mourns the passing of Pope Francis on April 21, the Catholic Church is preparing to choose a new leader. Cardinals are traveling to Vatican City from all over the world to take part in the papal conclave, an ancient ritual/election that ends with the selection of a new Pope. You might be wondering whether that new pope could be you. It almost definitely won't be, but I suppose it's possible. So If you're interested in the job—or just curious about what the process involves—here are the nuts and bolts of how popes are chosen. The leader of the Holy Roman Catholic Church is a prestigious position that offers excellent perks, including international travel, …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. If you’re tired of websites bombarding you with intrusive banners, pop-ups, trackers, and ads, this AdGuard family plan is worth a look: It's a lifetime subscription that is currently $39.99 on StackSocial (down from $169.99), but it gets even better—applying the coupon FAMPLAN drops the price further to $15.97. That’s a lifetime of ad-blocking for less than what some services charge per month. That said, this plan is only for new users, and you’ll need to redeem your code within 30 days of purchase. You can access and utilize this plan across nin…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Ankle weights seem to have tunneled through a wormhole from the 1980s to the present moment, appearing in countless TikToks and Instagram posts. Do they really help tone your legs? Are they worth buying at all? The promises are overrated, but in some cases ankle weights do actually work. Here’s what you need to know. Where ankle weights work bestAnkle weights’ best use is to add a little bit of resistance to exercises where you are moving your legs against gravity. For example, side-lying leg raises become substantially more work for your muscles with even a pound or two of weight on the ankle that you’re raising in the a…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Whether you just finished your big spring cleanup or you're waiting until the last minute, a robot vacuum can help you toward your mission of keeping a cleaner home. It can either keep the place tidy after you finish all the hard work, or help you whip your home into shape while you focus on other things. But for maximum results, you're going to need a good one. You can get a cheap robot vacuum that will do a decent job, or spend big bucks on a technological behemoth that can also mop your floors and even automatically clean. Today, during Amazon'…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. The Amazon Fire Max 11 feels like the grown-up version of the Fire Tablets that used to be just good enough. It's bigger, cleaner, and doesn’t stutter when you try to do more than scroll through a book or stream a show. Right now, you can grab a certified refurbished unit with 128GB of storage and no lock-screen ads for $139.99 (down from $239.99). And it’s not old tech, either—it came out last summer and earned PCMag’s Best Budget Tablet of the Year 2024. Like-New Amazon Fire Max 11 tablet …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. A good kitchen appliance should last you years. And like any long-term relationship, you want to make sure it’s the right fit before you invest your time or money into it. Right now, with Amazon’s Big Spring Sale, you have an opportunity to start a relationship with a kitchen appliance you’ve been flirting with, and at prices that feel less risky. Here are some of my favorite discounts popping up this week. Vitamix Ascent X3 Blender, Professional-Grade, 3 Preset Blending …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. If you like to buy in bulk or just want one less thing to worry about during weekly errands, this sale might be worth the look: You can get a one-year membership to Sam's Club for $25 right now on StackSocial. It's half the usual price, but the catch is that it’s only for new members in the U.S. If you're eligible, though, the sale opens up access to warehouse prices on groceries, household staples, electronics, furniture, and even tires. It’s not just bulk cereal and 40-roll packs of paper towels anymore—there’s a surprising amount of variety on …

Scroll through TikTok or Instagram, and you'll find influencers swearing by unconventional treatments, posting dramatic before-and-after photos and glowing testimonials about their rejuvenated skin. And the skincare "It Girl" of the moment? It's salmon sperm. Yeah. As we kick off the new year—prime time for beauty resolutions!—a growing number of people are seeking out "salmon sperm facials." Before your imagination paints an extra fishy picture (pun intended), understand that people aren't really smearing straight-up salmon sperm on their face. The secret ingredient is something called PDRN, or polydeoxyribonucleotide, a compound extracted from salmon DNA. So, what exac…

Firefox 138 is now publicly available worldwide, and this version brings full support for tab groups, profile management, a quick way to check the weather, and much more. These updates bring feature parity with other browsers and could prompt people to ditch Chrome and switch to Firefox. Here are all the new features in Firefox 138: Tab groups are now available more broadlyMozilla began the rollout of tab groups with Firefox 137, and the company says the feature is now available to almost all of its users across the world. Using tab groups, you can group similar tabs together to bring some semblance of organization to your open tabs. Creating a tab group is easy—just drag…

Roku was one of the original names in streaming, and even with so many options now available from Amazon, Apple, Google and others, it remains one of the most popular options thanks to its affordable boxes and streaming sticks and widespread availability as an integrated operating system on some TV sets. The platform is speedy, simple, and supports just about every streaming app out there. If you've got a Roku or two in your life, you may not be using it to its full potential. These tips, hacks, and hidden features should help you go beyond the basic business of launching your streaming apps and get more out of your hardware, whether you've just unboxed your first Roku de…

Last month, Spotify announced "Prompted Playlist," a new feature the company claimed let users "steer the algorithm." This was a bold—if not vague—claim, to be sure, but it was backed by everyone's favorite tech trend of the last three years: AI. The pitch was that Spotify would let subscribers use the company's AI models to better control their listening experience, so long as they lived in the country of New Zealand. That's a very small slice of Spotify's very large user base. Luckily for those of us in the United States and Canada, Prompted Playlist is expanding to our side of North America. Spotify announced the move today, Jan. 21: Now, Premium subscribers in any o…

DuckDuckGo has been my default search engine for years. Its big selling point is that it doesn't track you nearly as much as Google does, but there's more to DuckDuckGo than that privacy claim. You can use DuckDuckGo to anonymously try AI chatbots (including ChatGPT and Claude), filter out AI-generated images from results, and shorten URLs without leaving the site. If you're using DuckDuckGo, try these 10 hacks to make the most of the search engine. Turn off AI features to simplify your search experience DuckDuckGo recently added a bunch of AI features, but, luckily, you can turn off most. To disable AI-related features in DuckDuckGo, go to the search engine's settings p…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. I'm Lifehacker's resident marathon runner and senior finance writer. And now, I'm merging my two worlds. Running is often touted as one of the most accessible sports—just lace up and go, right? But as many runners discover, what starts as a "free" activity can quickly transform into a significant investment. Last week I broke down what it looks like to invest in proper running gear. And now, I'm turning my eye to the world of races. You might think you'll never get into races. I was like you, once: a casual runner who scoffed at the idea of paying money to run. Then you get coerced into running a 5k for charity or somethi…

Hades II introduces a new mechanic called Forget-Me-Not, which allows players to pin recipes they don't have enough crafting reagents for. While they're out in the world, the path to those resources will be highlighted, making it easier to keep track of what you need. I love this feature, in no small part because I've been making my own version of it for other games for years. It's just one of the many ways I use spreadsheets to improve my gaming. To be clear, I am not recommending that you follow in my footsteps and create a spreadsheet for every game you play. I am deeply unwell, the world is on fire, and creating little charts and tables is how I exert some semblance o…

GIMP, the free and open source image editing application long seen as the best free Photoshop alternative, just released a major update: Version 3. The update brings long-awaited improvements to working with filters, layers, and text. There's also a sleeker user interface with improved UI scaling. Among the biggest changes is nondestructive filters. Previously applying filters, such as blurs, was final—you could use the undo function to get back to a pre-filtered state but you couldn't simply edit or remove the filter. You can now tweak the settings of filters, or even remove filters entirely from the layer panel. …

In recent years, iOS has started to catch up to Android when it comes to customization, but Android is still well in the lead. That's partly because it supports alternative launchers, which replace of the default software interface to completely revamp the look of home screens, menus, icons, and dialogs. Using a launcher, you can take pixel-by-pixel control over the visuals of the Android OS. If that sounds like too much time and effort, you can take advantage of one of many preset templates instead. This article will tell you what you need to know about launchers, and suggest a few of the best that you can currently install. How Android launchers workWhen you go "home" o…

Whether you're filling a prescription, rebooking a flight, or asking a question about your taxes, it seems like the first line of defense between you and any sort of real human helper is a never-ending string of automated prompts. But not all questions can be answered by a computer—especially when it comes to your taxes. The IRS expects more than 140 million individual tax returns for 2024 to be filed this season, which has a deadline of April 15, 2025. That's a lot of taxpayers on hold. Over the past few years, the IRS has certainly made improvements on its phone service, as well as expanding online tools. Still, anyone who has tried calling the IRS knows it can seem i…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. As someone who has fully bought into the Apple ecosystem, my earbuds of choice are, obviously, AirPods. But it's not just because I'm a fanboy (although I definitely am one): AirPods, particularly the AirPods Pro 2, are fantastic earbuds for so many reasons. And while they're usually a bit pricey, Amazon currently has them on sale for a very reasonable $170, down from $249.99, during its Big Spring Sal AirPods Pro (2nd Gen) …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. With dietary differences and grocery budgeting, eggless dessert recipes are more sought after than they used to be. Of course, eggs play an important role in the structure of your batter, so you can’t just leave it out. (Well, sometimes you can.) You’re better off knowing what sorts of egg replacements you can use for different types of baking. Here’s a list of the best egg replacement you can lean on during lean times. By the way, if you find yourself modifying recipes a lot, I highly suggest you buy The Elements of Baking. It can give you the tools (and ratios) you need to modify almost any recipe for different diets; y…

It's no surprise that companies continue to experiment with new AI features. Artificial intelligence has been the center of emerging tech for nearly three years now, and it's not going anywhere anytime soon. But whether you love generative AI or you find it useless, I think we can all agree that using AI to write Instagram comments is pretty stupid. And yet, Meta appears to be testing exactly that. As reported by SocialMediaToday, some Instagram accounts are now seeing a new icon to the left of the text field after choosing to leave a comment on a post. When you tap this icon (a pencil with a star), you pull up a new Meta AI menu, which presents a series of comment choi…

AI video generators are rapidly improving and becoming more widely available, with Google's Veo 2 now built into the Gemini app for anyone paying for a Google One AI Premium plan. Like OpenAI's Sora, Runway, Adobe's Firefly, and others, Veo 2 enables you to create a professional-looking video from nothing more than a text prompt. With Veo 2 now available to paying users, it seems like a good opportunity to test these different AI video generators against each other, and compare their strengths and weaknesses—and to assess where we're at with AI video in general. We keep being told that these tools will transform movie-making, or at least fill the internet with AI slop, bu…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Since its release 2023, the Boox Palma e-reader—and its successor, the Palma 2—has sown confusion. It's the same size and shape as a cell phone and it has an e-ink screen, but it isn't an e-ink phone, because it doesn't have a SIM card slot or eSIM. Well, today Boox's parent company, the Chinese device-maker Onyx International, announced the new Palma 2 Pro, and things aren't getting any less opaque. As I wrote about last month when the new device was first rumored, the Palma 2 Pro does have a SIM card slot, but it still isn't really a phone—while it can handle mobile data (meaning browsing the internet, streaming video, r…

Sometimes the trickiest part of cleaning is knowing where to start—and, once you've started, where to go from there. A handy checklist can help you move through the task systematically and easily. That's where these room-by-room checklists can help. Below, you'll find links to advice on how to complete many of the tasks you'll be facing. I've also turned the cleaning checklists into a downloadable spreadsheet you can print out, so you can mark off each chore as you go. Your kitchen spring cleaning checklist Before you start cleaning, take a minute to make sure you have everything you need. Nothing saps your mojo quite like having to leave the house to buy supplies, so ma…

OLED is a fantastic display technology. Unlike an LCD, which uses a single backlight for all the pixels of the display, all of the pixels on an OLED display can be individually lit up or turned off entirely. That means dark areas of the screen are inky black, while brighter areas can be selectively illuminated. It just looks fantastic, and if I have the option, I always try to choose it. OLED isn't new tech at this point, and yet, Apple has been slow to adopt it into its products, especially when compared to some of its competitors. The company's first device to feature OLED was the Apple Watch in 2015, then the iPhone X in 2017, whereas every Samsung Galaxy has featured …