Home Office Setup & Equipment

I'm totally totally cheesin over Mixtape and not cheesin at all about TikTok's AI cat videos. Scuba! If none of that makes sense to you, you're about to be educated and embettered by this week's Out-of-Touch guide, where the secret world of young people is either explained or misunderstood, depending on whom you ask. What does "cheesin" mean? And how does it differ from "cheesing?" The slang word "cheesin'" refers to smiling, particularly a big, goofy smile. It comes from the common exhortation to "say cheese!" when a photograph is being taken. Here's an examples of how cheesin is used online: The word "cheesing," with a "g" at the end, often means the same thing, bu…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. If you’ve been eyeing a headset that toes the line between immersive tech and affordability, the Razer Kaira Pro for PlayStation is currently down to $89.99 on Woot (for six days or until it's sold out). That’s about $30 cheaper than Amazon’s current price and the lowest it’s ever been, according to price trackers. It ships with a 90-day Woot warranty, but do note: shipping isn’t available to Alaska, Hawaii, or P.O. boxes. Razer Kaira Pro for PlayStation …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Audio enthusiasts need no introduction to Sony's 1000X series. They've been around since 2016, improving on the previous iteration to eventually land on the latest Sony WH-1000XM6, the best over-ear headphones for ANC your money can buy in 2025. As you can imagine, that means the still excellent 1000XM5 is dropping in price. If you're willing to splurge, it's a good time to do so during Amazon's Memorial Day Sale. The WH-1000XM5 are currently $298 (originally $399.99), matching Black Friday and Christmas prices, according to price-tracking tools. …

I don't mean to be alarmist, but I do think it's time to start assuming everything you see online is fake. The internet is full of content produced by real people, of course (this article included). But AI-generated media is getting so realistic, that it almost puts you at a disadvantage to presume the content you're scrolling past on your feeds is legitimate. Don't skip this article because you know what AI content looks like—the current stuff your algorithm delivers to your social media feeds is easy to spot if you know what you're looking for. But even if you can identify AI slop the second it hits your eyeballs, you need to know you're not ready for the next wave …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. If you’ve been eyeing a lightweight, all-purpose Chromebook for casual work, school, or everyday browsing, this open-box ASUS Chromebook CM30 might be worth a closer look. Currently priced at $179.99 (down from $329.99), it’s one of those mid-range 2-in-1s that doesn’t try to be everything, but nails the basics with enough flair to feel premium. The 10.5-inch WUXGA touchscreen is responsive and sharp, and thanks to the Kompanio 520 processor and 8GB of RAM, general multitasking is smooth, whether you’re juggling docs, Google Meet, or your Spotify …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Samsung announced the new Galaxy S25 Series back in January, a three-phone lineup with a fourth variation that was teased a month later, which you can preorder right now with a $50 Amazon gift card before its May 30 release. Out of those four, the Galaxy S25 is the most basic model with the lowest price, and currently, it's hitting a new record low price of $624.99 (originally $799.99), according to price-tracking tools. SAMSUNG Galaxy S25 128GB AI Smartphon…

Did you know you can customize Google to filter out garbage? Take these steps for better search results, including adding my work at Lifehacker as a preferred source. Australian indie game studio Team Cherry released Hollow Knight: Silksong on Sept. 4, and within three weeks, the combat/platformer climbed up Steam's most played chart, made Xbox's most played list, and gained legions of fans on Switch and PlayStation consoles. So a lot of people are playing it. If you're one of them, and you've uncovered every secret in Pharloom (or you just need a break), here are 10 more games you might like. They're (roughly) all in the metroidvania family of games, so they feature 2D …

If you use Firefox, and you're lucky, then you might be getting a free VPN. Over the next few months, Mozilla says it will be testing a "free, browser-only VPN" for some users, but you'll need to rely on the luck of the draw if you want to try it yourself. That's because Mozilla is only enabling the feature for randomly selected users, at least for now. The announcement technically came in June, but fortunate writers at a number of different tech sites are now reporting that they're finally starting to see the feature pop up. How Firefox's free VPN comparesThe VPN, once fully implemented, would put Firefox in competition with Opera and Microsoft's own Edge browser, but ah…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. If you just need a tablet for streaming, browsing, and the occasional recipe lookup, the Amazon Fire HD 10 (2023) is tough to ignore at its current price. It’s down to $79.99 (from $179.99), and according to price trackers, this is the lowest it's ever been. The 32GB version costs $10 less, but spending that extra ten bucks is worth it if you plan to download movies or books for offline use. Whichever version you pick, you can expand the storage by up to 1TB with a microSD card (sold separately), so space won’t be an issue. Also, the battery life …

When I reviewed the Nintendo Switch 2 launched earlier this June, my assessment was that it would be worth buying eventually, but probably not right away. The console then went on to have the biggest gaming launch of all-time, so there's egg on my face, but I stand by what I said: Until now, the Switch 2 has been a great way to play enhanced Switch 1 games, but hasn't had many exclusives, so you could generally still play Nintendo's newest titles without upgrading your device (unless you're an impatient Mario Kart or Donkey Kong fan). But now, it seems that's about to change, and if you haven't gotten the Switch 2 yet, it might finally be time to take the plunge. In a …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. The PlayStation 5 Pro’s price has finally eased up a bit, dropping to $648.99 from $749.99, which is the lowest it has gone on Amazon so far according to price trackers. For anyone who has been eyeing a console upgrade but didn’t want to spend full price, this discount makes it easier to consider. Sony - PlayStation 5 Pro Console - White $648.9…

I am not a morning person, and I never have been—well, unless I have to make money. For years, my start time at my old job was 5 a.m. and, against all odds, I made it in every day. Now, I teach a 6 a.m. spin class twice a week after being moved off the more-tolerable late morning shift. Until a few months ago, though, I was sleeping through every alarm on all the other days, even though I knew I should be getting up and going to the gym early as a solid way to start my day. It took me a long time, but I have managed to force myself into being the kind of person who is up before the sun and done with my daily exercise routine before my friends are even out of bed. Here's …

Season's greetings and all that. In honor of this most special time of the year, I'm taking a look at commonly held Christmas myths and misconceptions. I busted a ton of Jesus myths a couple weeks ago, then got secular and finally revealed the truth about Santa Claus, so this week I'm doing a round-up of seasonal misinformation, both religious and secular. Religious Christmas myths Jesus was born in a stable The Gospels aren't specific about where where Jesus was born, other than "Bethlehem." Here's how Luke 2:4–7 is traditionally translated: "And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no roo…

There are fewer and fewer hardware differences between iPhones and Androids as the years go on, but back in the day, that was far from the case. At one point, many major Android devices came with dedicated LEDs that would shine whenever you received a notification. It was a passive way to know whether you had something on your phone to attend to, without having to actually wake up the display and risk getting unnecessarily sucked into your device. iPhones have never had this specific feature, but Apple included a workaround for anyone interested in a similar experience. For years, you've been able to dive into Accessibility settings to turn your iPhone's LED flash into a…

Scammers frequently target shoppers who are looking for a good deal or a rare find (or both). As holiday sale season winds down, the Better Business Bureau is warning buyers about a scheme in which fraudsters charge you for "out of stock" goods and fail to refund your money. The out-of-stock purchase scam is simple: After you buy a product online, scammers send you a notification that said item is no longer available, cancel your order, and tell you that you'll get your money back. Obviously, the refund never arrives, and no one ever responds to further inquiries. As the BBB points out, in most cases, the item you thought you bought probably never existed in the first p…

There are a lot of methods to try in the never-ending quest for a way to sort through and slim down our bulging inboxes. They're different enough that there's certainly one out there that matches or comes close to matching your exact needs, but they do all have one thing in common: They rely on the chronology of when each email came in. Let’s try turning that approach on its head, and instead, sort by sender to weed through the mess. Why you should sort your inbox by sender When purging your messages, you probably have an organizational system you follow, like the 4Ds. You go through and decide what gets deleted, done, delegated, or deferred—but there’s not much pattern …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. For many of us, New Year's Eve represents not just the climax of a long holiday season, but also a time to simultaneously reflect, and to look forward to what's ahead—sometimes with optimism, sometimes with sheer dread. (Lately, mostly dread.) Movies have frequently recognized the simultaneously hopeful and perilous nature of the time. It can be a period of reassessment, or renewal, or massive change. This selection of choice New Year's Eve movies reflects that range of possibilities, including everything from romance and murder, to comedy and tragedy, to wild sex and heartbreaking loneliness. When Harry Met Sally (198…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Those of us who only have on-street parking know the frustration of waking up on a snowy morning to find our vehicle completely buried in snow—a situation often made worse by passing snowplows that block it in even more. Digging your car out can be a challenge, but taking a few precautions and having the right tools ready can make it easier. Here’s everything you need to dig your car out when it is buried by snow. Digging your car out from the snow actually begins before the storm hits. Prepping the car ahead of time will make it a lot easier to extract from snow drifts. Here's what you need: Battery blankets. Your battery…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Google is releasing their budget a-series version of the Pixel 10 on March 5, a whole month earlier than the 9a was released in 2025. There is not much dividing the 10a from the 9a, but there are a few software updates that can make it worth it for some people. Throw in a $100 Amazon gift card, and it's hard to say no. Google has the pre-orders for the Google 10a out already, going for $499, plus the gift card. Alternatively, you can get their Pixel Buds 2a instead of the $100 gift card for the same $499 price. …

If you want to understand a generation, look at the athletes they revere. The post-war generation's suburban conformity found a hero in baseball's ultimate company man—Stan Musial—and his 22 seasons on the Cardinals. Boomers were drawn to Broadway Joe Namath, a self-important celebrity who wasn't even a good quarterback. Gen X saw itself in Tiger Woods' stoic, lone-grinder-in-a-high-stakes-vacuum style. This year's Winter Olympics introduced the world to the first iconic athletes that express Gen Z's vibe, and they're amazing. But first, let's talk about Baby Boo Syndrome. What is "Baby Boo Syndrome"? It seems like everyone on TikTok has come down with Baby Boo Syndrome…

If the cost of signing up for a Spartan Race or Tough Mudder has ever given you pause, good news: You can now use your Health Savings Account (HSA) or Flexible Spending Account (FSA) funds to cover race registration fees. Spartan has partnered with Flex, a platform that enables HSA/FSA payments across fitness and wellness brands, to make this possible. How using your FSA to pay for a race works A quick refresher on how HSA and FSA accounts work: Both are funded with pre-tax dollars, meaning the money goes into them before the IRS takes its cut. When you spend those funds on a qualifying purchase, you're effectively getting a discount equal to your tax rate. For most peop…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Nvidia might be courting controversy with its recent DLSS 5 tech, but the company’s GPUs are still pretty powerful devices for running your games. If you have an RTX card in your desktop or laptop, you might be able to get even better performance out of it than you’re already seeing. Here are some of my favorite hacks to optimize your Nvidia GPU. Enable DLSS to boost your frame rates (or disable to save on performance) Nvidia’s Deep Learning Super Sampling (or DLSS) is actually a suite of features collectively aimed at improving the resolution and frame rate of your games. Some of this involves rendering lower-resolutio…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Samsung announced the new Galaxy S25 Series back in January 2025, a three-phone collection that competed with Google's Pixels for the title of the best Android phones you could buy in 2025. Out of the new lineup, the Galaxy S25+ is the middle-of-the-pack model, and a cheaper alternative to the top-of-the-line Galaxy S25 Ultra. Currently, you can pick one up for $749.99 ($250 off the original $999.99 retail price). With prices of many tech products going up, including Samsung phones, it's nice to see others going down. After the discount, the S25+ is…

One of the main appeals of a Chromebook is its simplicity: You've essentially just got a row of browser tabs, running web apps, with minimal background activity going on and everything instantly saved and synced to the cloud. As Chromebooks have developed though, they've add more to this basic Chrome foundation. They can run Android apps now, for example, and they actually come with several pre-installed apps that are genuinely useful. Open up the Launcher (the Google icon, bottom left), to see what's available. These are the best built-in apps you get right now, if you buy a new Chromebook Plus model—that's the slightly higher spec series, capable of supporting all the G…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. We're living in the best time in history for bringing karaoke to your home. I've had the pleasure of using the new Soundcore Rave 3S karaoke speaker, which turns any song into a karaoke track with the push of a button, and Ikarao's ultra-portable Shell S1 karaoke speaker to host many house parties. But if you're looking for a great deal on a more powerful speaker that is still compact and portable, consider the Break X2, also from Ikarao, currently $349.98 (originally $469.99), the lowest price it has been, according to price-tracking tools. You c…