Home Office Setup & Equipment

When ChatGPT first launched, it was strictly about dealing with text. You could ask it to write you a poem, to check your code for errors, or to build you a grocery list from a recipe. Fast forward three years, and the app has changed completely—for better or for worse. Not only has ChatGPT's large language model (LLM) improved dramatically from GPT-3.5 to GPT-5.2, but the bot has gone multimodal. It can understand text, but also images, video, and the internet at large. 2025's ChatGPT is hardly the same product as 2022's. One of the many upgrades to ChatGPT over the past three years has been app integrations: You've been able to connect OpenAI's chatbot to ask it to do…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. As you build your DIY toolkit, you'll quickly discover there's rarely just one version of any given tool. Of course there are Phillips head and slotted screwdrivers, but even hammers—possibly the simplest tool of all—come in a surprising range of varieties designed for different tasks. When it comes to power tools, the differences can be more complex to suss out. Take drills: When starting out on a job, how do you know if you need a standard power drill, a hammer drill, or whatever an "impact driver" is? While you can get pretty far in your home maintenance career without knowing the difference, but there will come a poin…

I really like my Pixel 9a, but there’s one glaring issue with my Pixel that stares at me every time I unlock my phone. And it’s the At a Glance widget on top the screen that Google just won’t let me remove. I like a clean lock screen, and eventually, I got so frustrated looking at this totally uncustomizable widget that shows the time and the weather that I gave up and switched to Niagara Launcher. And if you think that this is just my own pickiness, I can confidently say it’s not just me; Reddit is filled with people complaining about this. But seems like after 10 iterations of Pixels, Google is finally letting people get rid of this widget, clearing space for something,…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Meta has made virtual reality accessible to many more people, offering good VR headsets for much cheaper than the competition. Right now, the 128GB Meta Quest 3S Gorilla Tag Bundle is on sale for $249.99 (originally $299.99) and comes with a $50 Amazon gift card by hitting the "redeem" button or using the code "QUEST3S50" at checkout. This is the lowest price it has been, according to price-tracking tools, and the gift card makes it an even better deal. You can also double the storage with the Meta Quest 3s Batman: Arkham Shadow bundle for $349 (ori…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Considering we're awaiting word of a (likely) sixth season renewal, it's undeniable that Emily in Paris has been an unqualified success for Netflix, a reliable hit that rivals the success of buzzier genre shows like Stranger Things. Lily Collins stars as the faux pas-prone Emily Cooper, who moves to Paris and lands a temporary job at a glitzy French marketing firm kind of by accident. She doesn't speak the language and doesn't get the culture, but slowly manages to ingratiate herself to the locals while juggling work and romance in a new country. The series hails from Darren Star, creator of Sex and the City, so her buddin…

One of the ways AI models are rapidly improving is in their image editing capabilities, to the extent that they can now quickly take care of tasks that would previously have taken a substantial amount of time and effort in Photoshop. This is undoubtedly one of the main reasons Adobe has decided to introduce its own ChatGPT plug-ins. Want your t-shirt to be blue rather than red? Need to cut out a person or an object from an otherwise perfect group selfie? These are tricks that AI chatbots are now able to do cleanly and professionally, from just a text prompt. You don't need to have any digital photo editing skills; you only need to describe what you want to happen. Over th…

If you get a letter from a company called 700Credit, don't ignore it. Your information may have been compromised in a massive breach affecting more than 5.8 million consumers, and you should take the necessary steps to protect your data. 700Credit supplies credit and identity verification services to more than 21,000 vehicle, RV, powersport, and marine dealerships in the U.S., so if you've purchased a vehicle and applied for dealer financing—or even been pre-screened or pre-qualified to do so—your information could have been affected. What happened with 700Credit?According to the company's filing with the Maine Attorney General, 700Credit's systems were hacked between O…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. For parents shopping for a first kids’ tablet that won’t turn into a headache or break after one drop, the Amazon Fire HD 8 Kids (2024) might be worth a look. It usually retails for $149.99, but it’s currently marked down to $74.99 on Amazon, its lowest price to date, according to price trackers. Amazon Fire HD 8 Kids tablet $74.99 …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Efficient time management takes, well, time to perfect. There are a variety of hacks out there to help you schedule, focus, and complete your work, but it’s still hard to actually do all of that without the right guidance and mindset. If you’re struggling with time management, it might be worth spending some time digging deep on the topic and reading what experts have to say. Here are some of the best books I recommend to help you improve your time management skills. The 5A…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Call me immature, but I’m about a thousand times more likely to participate in activities that are good for me when they can be gamified. Even the simple pleasures of watching a number go up or earning a digital milestone badge can motivate me to get to the gym, track my meals, or form a new habit. Gamification can be used for focusing and studying, too, and a wide variety of apps exist to serve this purpose. Here are some of the best. Gamification apps for focusingFocusing is notoriously difficult, especially in this hyper-connected era in which many of us can’t go five minutes without getting a text or eat a meal withou…

The AI wars continue to heat up. Just weeks after OpenAI declared a "code red" in its race against Google, the latter released its latest lightweight model: Gemini 3 Flash. This particular Flash is the latest in Google's Gemini 3 family, which started with Gemini 3 Pro, and Gemini 3 Deep Think. But while this latest model is meant to be a lighter, less expensive variant of the existing Gemini 3 models, Gemini 3 Flash is actually quite powerful in its own right. In fact, it beats out both Gemini 3 Pro and OpenAI's GPT-5.2 models in some benchmarks. Lightweight models are typically meant for more basic queries, for lower-budget requests, or to be run on lower-powered hardwa…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. America is a car-centric culture—more than 90% of U.S. households have at least one vehicle. There are a lot of different kinds of cars, from old classics being maintained with love, to snazzy new electric rides, or luxury cruisers filled with cutting-edge tech. Whichever kind you drive, getting the most out of your vehicle demands regular maintenance and sensible driving practices, but you can also goose just a bit more out of any vehicle with these universal car hacks. Throw some anti-seize lubricant in your trunkIf you’ve been driving for a while, you know that flat tires only come at the worst possible times. Sunny day…

AirDrop is one of Apple's best features. I use it on a daily basis to share files between my various Apple devices, but it really shines when I'm sharing stuff with other people, or vice versa. It can be tricky to find a quick solution to send larger files. Emails have too low a file size limit, chat apps can compress files, and cloud storage can fill up fast, but AirDrop is simple, built-in, and reliable. It even works with Android now, albeit just the Pixel 10. If AirDrop has one flaw, it's that it's not particularly easy to use with strangers. Apple has changed how this side of AirDrop works over the years. For the longest time, you had two AirDrop settings: "Contacts …

Another PayPal phishing scam is circulating, this time with email notifications about recurring or automatic payments. The messages originate from a legitimate PayPal address, allowing them to evade some security filters and leave recipients worried that their accounts have been compromised—perhaps just enough to ignore the obvious red flags and call or email scammers back. I personally have been targeted by this scam with at least five separate emails, though all have gone straight to my spam folder. Here's how scammers are exploiting PayPal settings to land in your inbox. How the PayPal scam worksIf you're targeted by this campaign, you may receive an email with the s…

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…

Following the major image editing upgrades added to Google Gemini back in August—under the whimsical codename Nano Banana—it's OpenAI's turn to supercharge the tools you get for image manipulations inside ChatGPT. The new update is called GPT Image 1.5, and is rolling out now for all users. One of the key improvements here, as was the case with Nano Banana, is the way that ChatGPT can now edit a specific part of an image while keeping everything else consistent. You can add or remove something, or change the color or style of something, without ending up with an entirely different looking picture. Another feature ChatGPT has now borrowed from Gemini: the ability to combin…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. For anyone who’s ever been tempted by Marshall’s signature guitar-amp look in headphone form but couldn’t justify the premium price, the Major V wireless on-ears just hit their lowest price ever, according to price trackers. Originally $169.99, they’re now available on Amazon for $89.99. That’s a 47% drop for a pair of headphones that stand out mostly for their sound signature, battery life, and retro design. Marshall Major V On-Ear Wireless Bluetooth Headphones …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. A good productivity method can mean the difference between a disorganized, unfulfilling day and one during which you get a lot done and feel great about it. That tradeoff is why so many of these methods, techniques, and hacks exist. Some are over 100 years old, some were accidentally discovered by everyday people looking to improve their lives, and some come from self-styled gurus who publish entire books on their findings. And some are better than others—though maybe not objectively. To find the one that works best for you, take a look through this guide to seven of my favorites. Notably, these are the ones I like, but t…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Outfitting that garage with the right gear is the difference between a useful and organized space and a chaotic black hole of junk. If you want your garage to be a place where you can get work done, where you can actually find stuff, and maybe also where you can park your car, here’s what you should have, ranging from the must-have essentials to some luxuries you could stretch for. What every garage needsIf you want to get the most of any garage, here’s the short list of essentials: Overhead storage. An empty garage might seem like endless storage, but it fills up fast. If you don’t want to navigate a maze of junk every ti…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. My smart home routines are ready for a refresh. As new standards have emerged for connecting gadgets in the home, and Google and Amazon have been updating their respective hardware and apps, I've been lagging in keeping things sharp and running smoothly. So, I'm doing something about it now. If you've been feeling bored by your smart home and its current routines too, keep reading. These are ways to configure the smart devices around you to make them for more than just turning the lights on and off (although there's always plenty of that). Although my personal smart home is in the Google Home ecosystem, these features als…

The iPhone's Focus modes are perhaps its most underrated feature. Once customized, they can become incredibly powerful tools that put you in control of how your iPhone can grab your attention. They can take some time to set up, but it’s worth it. Once you've got everything squared away, you'll have timed boundaries from certain apps, people, and even your work, for that mythical work-life balance. Forget having a personal phone and a work phone—a couple of well-tuned Focus modes might be enough. Diving into Focus modes Credit: Khamosh Pathak …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Christmas movies have been a tradition for decades, but the days when our choices were limited to George Bailey contemplating jumping off of a bridge and Ralphie washing his mouth out with Lifebuoy soap are well past us. Holiday movies are an industry in and of themselves, with dozens of new seasonal offerings released each year, starting as soon as the leaves start to turn colors. Most of them are cozy cookie-cutter offerings—relaxing, if largely disposable. But among the seasonal glut, new classics do occasionally emerge. Here are 30 more recent holiday classics, from silly comedies, to cozy dramas, to gruesome horrors,…

It's 2025, so every piece of technology now needs to have an AI component. It doesn't matter if these AI features are useful (though some are), they just need to be there, however ham-fisted or useless they may seem—though the line between those extremes often comes down to user preference. To that end, if you've ever been reading a book on the Kindle app and wished that you could ask your device a question about the text, Amazon has an AI bot for you. Last week, Amazon announced "Ask this Book," a new AI feature for the Kindle app. Now available on the iOS version of the app, it lets you ask Amazon's AI questions about whatever it is you're reading, whether you bought o…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. The Amazon Echo Spot is one of four Alexa smart speakers you can get right now. It's between the older 5th-generation Echo Dot and the new Echo Dot Max. It's currently $44.99 (originally $79.99) after a 44% discount, the lowest price it has reached according to price tracking tools. Amazon Echo Spot (2024) $44.99 at Ama…

Generative AI has advanced to the stage where you can ask bots such as ChatGPT or Gemini questions about almost anything, and get reasonable-sounding responses—and now renowned gadget repair site iFixit has joined the party with an AI assistant of its own, ready and willing to solve any of your hardware problems. While you can already ask general-purpose chatbots for advice on how to repair a phone screen or diagnose a problem with a car engine, there's always the question of how accurate the AI replies will be. With FixBot, iFixit is trying to minimize mistakes by drawing on its vast library of verified repair guides, written by experts and users. That's certainly reassu…