Home Office Setup & Equipment

Did you know you can customize Google to filter out garbage? Take these steps for better search results, including adding Lifehacker as a preferred source for tech news. One of the best ways to retain knowledge when studying for a test is to maintain a particularly strict study schedule. The technique is called “distributed practice,” and I won't pretend it is easy to set up, but it's much more efficient than trying to cram. Here's what to do so you actually remember what you're supposed to be learning. What is distributed practice?Distributed practice, like a number of the most common study techniques you can try, has its roots in the work of Hermann Ebbinghaus, a Germa…

Did you know you can customize Google to filter out garbage? Take these steps for better search results, including adding Lifehacker as a preferred source for tech news. If you want to truly grasp what you’re learning, not just memorize it short-term for a test, you should familiarize yourself with Kolb’s learning cycle. Hell, even if you do just want to pass a test, you should familiarize yourself with Kolb’s learning cycle. Educational theorist David A. Kolb published his experiential learning theory in 1984 and it’s been popular ever since, at least among teachers. If you haven't heard of it, that's no issue; let's go over what it's all about so you can learn better. …

Did you know you can customize Google to filter out garbage? Take these steps for better search results, including adding Lifehacker as a preferred source for tech news. I really don't recommend studying with other people. In my adult life, I've accumulated an Associates, Bachelors, and Masters, plus a bunch of certificates—in all those years of studying, I was frustrated with group work much more often than I was not. Sessions would devolve into chit-chat and venting sessions or someone would try to avoid pulling their weight by foisting work off on the rest of us. I became the person who would complete the entire project and let everyone put their name on it because I j…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Amazon Big Deal Days is on October 7-8, and Lifehacker is sharing the best sales based on product reviews, comparisons, and price-tracking tools. Follow our live blog to stay up to date on the best sales we find. Subscribe to our shopping newsletter, Add to Cart, for the best sales sent to your inbox. New to Prime Day? We have a primer on everything you need to know. Sales are accurate at the time of publication, but prices and inventory are always subject to change. Rowing is in. And for good reason: Rowing offers a full-body, low-impact workout that engages up to 86% of your muscles, seamlessly combines cardio and streng…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Amazon Big Deal Days is October 7-8, and Lifehacker is sharing the best bargains, based on product reviews, comparisons, and price-tracking tools. Follow our live blog to stay up to date on the best sales we find. Subscribe to our shopping newsletter, Add to Cart, for the best sales sent to your inbox. New to Prime Day? We have a primer on everything you need to know. Sales are accurate at the time of publication, but prices and inventory are always subject to change. LEGO sets don't go on sale often, so when they do, I try to act quickly. And for P…

I love Severance as much as the next TV obsessive (though I admit I'm a serial avoider of Ted Lasso—sorry), but I must be honest: Nobody calls the service those shows are hosted on "Apple TV+." And now, they don't have to, because the streamer is getting a new name. I get what Apple was going for with that "+" symbol. It already had a streaming box called an Apple TV, and a pay-per-view app called Apple TV, so it needed to call its subscription-based streaming platform something else. But everyone I've ever talked to about an Apple TV+ show, whether online or in-person, tends to drop the "plus" from the name, perhaps even forgetting it was there in the first place—especia…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Did you know you can customize Google to filter out garbage? Take these steps for better search results, including adding Lifehacker as a preferred source for tech news. If you’ve been looking for a great pair of noise-canceling earbuds that don’t cost a fortune, the JBL Tune Buds are now down to $44.95, their lowest price yet, according to price trackers. That’s less than half of what they’re originally sold for, which makes them a strong contender in the under-$50 range. JBL Tune Buds …

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. When Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022, he repeatedly promised to reduce the amount of bots on the site, and pitched plans to "authenticate all real humans." Now, in 2025, the social media site known as X's true bot numbers are unknown, although a cybersecurity firm speaking to Mashable said that 76% percent of traffic coming from X during last year's Super Bowl was fake. Toss in the fact that those plans to authenticate real users have now been replaced by a paid verification scheme, and it's clear the site …

Did you know you can customize Google to filter out garbage? Take these steps for better search results, including adding Lifehacker as a preferred source for tech news. There are a lot of popular study methods to choose from and they can all work well depending on the type of learner you are. One that isn’t as commonly discussed is the THIEVES method. Use it the next time you break open a fresh chapter for school or need to retain a lot of new information for work. What is the THIEVES method?The THIEVES reading technique, recommended by universities like Kent State, is designed to get you thinking critically while you read. THIEVES is an acronym for the following element…

If you haven’t logged into X for a while but still want to keep your X username, you might want to log back in soon. According to a recent post on the website formerly known as Twitter, the company will soon start selling “handles that are no longer in use” to paying subscribers. The feature, called the X Handle Marketplace, is currently only being teased, but a waitlist for it is live. Once active, it’ll allow X Premium+ subscribers (at the $40/month level) and Premium Business accounts to both request free (with their subscription, at least) handles, and directly purchase especially rare ones. Rare usernames could cost $2,500 or moreAccording to an FAQ page, pricing for…

If you don’t like Halloween, we can’t be friends. I don’t care whether you celebrate with a drunken costume party, pumpkin carving, door-to-door candy begging, or a more personal observance like watching horror movies alone, but respect must be paid to the awesomest of all holidays. But where did Halloween come from, and how did it end up like the modern holiday we now celebrate? The origins of Halloween are surprisingly slippery. Oct. 31 is next door to a Christian religious holiday, and it's around "harvest time," which might generally explain the date, but no one really knows why we put on costumes and beg for candy. There are a ton of theories describing how modern H…

It's now more expensive than ever to stream shows like House of the Dragon and Hacks. On Tuesday, Oct. 21, Warner Bros. Discovery announced that all HBO Max subscription prices will increase, effective immediately. In fact, for some plans, it is now more expensive to subscribe to HBO Max than it is to subscribe to Netflix. Here's the deal: Prices are going up across all three of HBO Max's subscription tiers. That includes the following: HBO Max Basic With Ads: $10.99 per month (was $9.99 per month), or $109.99 per year (was $99.99 per year) HBO Max Standard: $18.49 per month (was $16.99 per month), or $184.99 per year (was $169.99 per year) HBO Max Premium: $22.99 per mo…

Walk through any park these days and you might spot them: people sporting bulky weighted vests, adding 10, 20, even 30 pounds to their morning stroll. Scroll through social media and you'll find countless influencers touting weighted vests as the secret to building unbreakable bones and sculpted muscles. Many videos have gained hundreds of thousands of views with claims that weighted vests will "transform your body"—a claim that, to be fair, is par for the course in any fitness trend. "Weighted vest walks" are popular enough to be parodied, and even if I find those videos a little mean-spirited, they do point to an important question: Does this trendy fitness accessory ac…

Last week, YouTube started rolling out a new look across both the web and its various apps, promising a "more expressive and intuitive interface." In reality, the reaction has been mixed. The TV app, for instance, no longer automatically rewinds or fast forwards when you press back or forward, instead navigating between buttons including "like" or "subscribe." More than once while on TV, I've accidentally subscribed to a channel without meaning to, before realizing that I now need to press up first to get to the progress bar. Now, the changes have reached the YouTube mobile app, as first spotted by 9to5Google. While they're a bit more mild than you'll see on TV, there's s…

You know a theory is janky when even its Wikipedia page has “(pseudoscience)” in its title. That’s the case with so-called “biorhythms,” or periods of 23, 28, and 33 days that supposedly predict how mentally, physically, and actively on-point you’ll be on any given day. The concept of biorhythms is all over social media and has been for years, so you might think there's some legitimacy to it, but it's essentially hogwash. There are, however, other ways to track your “peaks” in productivity that are more scientifically sound. The difference between a biorhythm and circadian rhythmThe idea behind biorhythms is that over the course of month-long periods, your physical, emoti…

You know the feeling. You sit down to work on something important, and within minutes, your hand is reaching for your phone. Maybe it buzzed. Maybe it didn't. Either way, you're suddenly 20 minutes deep into Instagram Reels or doomscrolling through news you'd rather not read. When you finally look up, your focus is shattered, and you can't quite remember what you were doing in the first place. If this sounds familiar, you're not alone. The average American now spends over six hours a day staring at screens, with much of that time devoted to mindless scrolling on smartphones. I don't go a day without lamenting my "phone addiction" and vanishing attention span. If smartphon…

I'll say it: There are too many messaging apps out there. There's WhatsApp, Messenger, Snapchat, Discord, Signal, Telegram, and iMessage (if you're on iPhone), and that's just the dedicated chat apps. You might have to keep up with new messages on Instagram, TikTok, Threads, even Spotify. If I install one more app with a messaging feature, I'm going off the grid. As it happens, another non-chat app is joining this list. On Tuesday, Zillow—yes, Zillow—announced its app will also now support messaging. Starting today, you can send people messages in the app you use to look at houses you will most likely never actually buy. We live in interesting times, indeed. Of course, …

While I updated my iPhone to iOS 26 as soon as I could, I haven't yet pulled the trigger with macOS Tahoe. I love my M1 iMac, but I worry that Apple's first version of this new update isn't quite optimized for the five-year-old chip, and have been waiting to see if a future version of Tahoe performs a bit better. As it happens, that next version is well on its way—and does seem improved, at that. Apple has been beta testing macOS Tahoe 26.1 alongside iOS 26.1 since September, and it dropped the release candidates for both of the updates on Tuesday. The "RC," as the name implies, is what Apple thinks is the finished version of any given software release. Barring any major…

Sticking to a workout schedule is tough even when everything is going normally and you have a pretty standard daily routine. Once you add travel into the mix, it can feel impossible. Sure, hotels have fitness centers, but if you've ever gone to one only to learn it's nothing more than a few dumbbells and an ancient treadmill, you know how aggravating those can be. There are two apps I use to stick to my routine and prioritize my health while I'm on the road, but I use them quite differently. ClassPassAfter discovering last month that ClassPass houses a little-known, but varied, selection of at-home workout classes to stream, I happily re-downloaded the app for the first …

For me, part of the appeal of TikTok is seeing smaller, less polished videos from people who don't fashion themselves as influencers. But what do I know? The company has announced it is holding its first U.S. awards show later this year. It seems the Oscars-ification of short form video is here. In a blog over on the TikTok site, the company said the show, fittingly called the TikTok Awards, will be held in the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles on Dec. 18, 2025, and will "honor the creators who have inspired, entertained, and connected communities across the country." To that end, the site also says it will invite users to "vote for their favorite creators" starting on N…

The kind of productivity method you need depends largely on the kind of person you are. Some methods are adaptable, open to interpretation, and fluid, which is nice if you just need a little guidance. Others, though, are detailed and rule-driven, which is great if you need to be told exactly what to do and when to do it. Agile Results, a system devised by J. D. Meier, is in the second category; it's stricter than others, but for some of us, that's what's needed to get things done. With Agile Results, you schedule and plan around all your goals, from the short- to long-term, so everything gets taken care of—even the biggest big-picture tasks. Here’s how it works. What is …

Scammers never miss an opportunity to prey on people's fear and confusion—and now they're capitalizing on the ongoing federal government shutdown to steal money and information from vulnerable targets. As Axios notes, reports of imposter scams—in which fraudsters impersonate government officials or agency representatives—rose in October as Americans experienced the loss of federal services and benefits. The Better Business Bureau's (BBB) Scam Tracker received 211 such complaints last month. Scammers are also taking advantage of shutdown stress to pull people into investment schemes and other malicious (and AI-driven) activity. Common government shutdown scams One common…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. It's a good day for Apple shoppers looking for the latest Apple Watches. The Apple Watch Ultra 3, Apple's latest and most premium smartwatch, dropped to its lowest price, and now, the Apple Watch SE 3, their most affordable smartwatch (and truly, the best one for most people), also dropped to its lowest price yet, according to price-tracking tools. Despite being released just this past September, you can get the GPS 40mm Apple Watch SE 3 for $199.99 (originally $249). The bigger 44mm case is $229.99 (originally $279), also with a $50 discount. …

Finally—two years after its release, and one year-long beta later—the PlayStation Plus handheld can finally officially play games without needing to connect to a PS5 console first. The portable machine is not strictly playing them all by itself, and you do need a PlayStation Plus Premium subscription to do it, but the latest system update brings the PlayStation Portal a lot closer to being a true PSP successor. The news came earlier today via the official PlayStation blog, where Sony announced that cloud streaming for the PS Portal will soon officially go live for everyone with a compatible subscription, a little less than a year after the company started testing it with …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Pennywise is back, baby, and pop culture's favorite freaky clown is going back in time to kill the kids of Derry, Maine, in 1962, with future seasons (should they materialize) visiting other time periods. If my hometown saw mass slaughterings of children every generation or so, I might be tempted to pick up stakes and head on out—but the Stephen King IP train must keep rolling, and so here we are. So far, the show isn't hitting the heights of previous It adaptations, but it's shown an admirable willingness to shock—the opening scene includes an impressively graphic and rather unconventional birthing sequence, and the show…