Setting Up Your Home Office

I’m sure you’ve seen the studies that come out from time to time showing that diet sodas are arguably kinda-sorta bad for you. (Their evidence is never very strong.) But did you see the new study that found diet soda was better than water for people with type 2 diabetes? Not only is it a real study, it was well-designed and we should be paying attention to it, according to an epidemiologist I talked to who was not involved in the study. That epidemiologist is Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz of the University of Wollongong, who wrote about it here. When I asked him if it was a good or a bad thing that this study had mostly escaped notice by news media, he said “this is far more ro…

If you're a Pixel owner, you may want to update your settings for Phone by Google. 9to5Google reports that a handful of users have experienced a bug with the Take a Message feature that records and sends audio to callers as they are leaving a voicemail. Take a Message is a recently introduced feature for the Phone app that activates when the recipient is not available to answer (or declines the incoming call). The caller hears the following: “The person you have called is not available. Please leave a message after the tone.” If you, as the recipient, tap the Take a message notification on your device, you can see a transcript of the audio in real time and hit Answer if …

Forming a habit is a powerful tool. You work the new thing into your daily routine, and soon enough, it becomes automatic. That's the dream, anyway—in reality, you have to work at it. But how long does it take to fully form a habit? Despite what you may have heard, it’s not necessarily just 21 days. The number of days it takes to form a new habit depends on the habit, on you, and on what strategies you’re using to build and maintain that habit. Scientific estimates have ranged from as little as 21 days, to eight months or more. Let’s look at why that range is so big, and what you can do to build habits faster. The myth of the 21 day habitThe idea that a habit takes 21 day…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Samsung announced the Galaxy Watch Ultra in the summer of 2024, and then refreshed it last August with double the storage and new color options. As we all know, older versions get big discounts, and if the extra storage and colors aren't a big deal to you, you could be in a great position to get a flagship Samsung smartwatch at a big discount. The 2024 Bespoke Edition 47mm LTE Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra is selling for $389.95, originally $649.99 at launch. This is the lowest price it has reached, according to price-checking tools. The Galaxy Watch U…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. This winter is looking rough, with one of the biggest winter storms hitting nearly half the U.S. this weekend. It's safe to assume many people will be without power, especially those in cities without the proper infrastructure to take on record-breaking winter storms. A power station is a great device to keep the lights running in a pinch—and the standalone Anker SOLIX C1000 is 41% off, with the options with Solar Panels going for up to 56% off right now. Mashable voted the Anker SOLIX C1000 the best one for most people. …

This week's out-of-touch guide is a mélange of internet nonsense that reflect real world anxieties. A gritty part of London is going viral for a taxpayer-funded water park that only exists thanks to AI videos made to enrage racists. Inside the kid-centric videogame Roblox, users are protesting both ICE and age verification without ever leaving their avatars. And in the darker corners of the online world, looksmaxxers are determining who is a HTN, while everyone on TikTok is saying, "Screw it. We're going to pretend to be birds." What is a Croydon Water Park?It might sound like the name of an outré sex act or a cocktail from the 1980s, but a Croydon Water Park is something…

Back before Reddit became the unofficial "front page of the internet," you would dig up your next long read or binge watch on Digg. Starting in 2004, the original version of the site worked much like Reddit does today, with community members submitting content they found interesting to premade category pages and others voting on it until an algorithm eventually decided what should make its way to the front page. Aside from the lack of user-made pages like subreddits, it was generally pretty familiar to what modern users might expect—and, speaking from experience, it was a big deal to be featured on Digg. Unfortunately, starting in 2010, the site went through a few drasti…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Mobile gaming stopped being a casual distraction a while ago. Big-budget titles, console-quality ports, and cloud streaming have turned phones into credible gaming machines. The problem is still input. Touch controls work until they don’t, especially once games demand precise movement, aiming, or long sessions. The Razer Kishi Ultra is built to fix that gap. And it’s currently $79.99 on Amazon, which online price trackers confirm is its lowest price to date. It fits most phones, even with cases, and can expand wide enough to hold an iPad mini, which…

Your eyes don't deceive you: You did just read a headline in the year of our lord 2026 about Yahoo! Despite losing out to other search engine and email companies like Google, Yahoo! is very much still a thing. In fact, one statistic claims Yahoo! Mail still has 225 million daily active users to this day. That's a ways off from Gmail's 1.8 billion daily active users, but way better than AOL's eight million users. (Yes, AOL is still a thing, and is actually a part of Yahoo!—at least until its sale to Bending Spoons goes through). But I'm not here to talk about Yahoo! and AOL's marketshare. Instead, I'm here to sound the alarms to the millions of people that use Yahoo!, and,…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. We’ve covered portable power stations like the Anker SOLIX line, but if you’re looking for a heavy-duty, large-capacity model that can handle sump pumps, large AC units, multiple appliances, and even whole-home backup with extra batteries, brands like EcoFlow will better suit your needs. One of their award-winning models is the EcoFlow Delta Pro 3 power station, which is currently available at a 46% discount, bringing it down to an all-time low of $1,999 (originally $3,699). EcoFlow Delta Pro 3…

My number one hack to consistently exercise is my ability to lose myself in the moment. When the music fades, your doubts quiet, and you're simply there—fully immersed in the rhythm of your workout—is what psychologists call a "flow state." And it's not reserved for marathon runners, or professional dancers, musical geniuses or chess masters, or what have you. Whether you're lifting weights in your garage, following a YouTube yoga video, or taking a morning jog, tapping into flow can transform your workout from a chore into something genuinely energizing. What is a flow state?Flow state, a concept popularized by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, describes a mental sta…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. It took me a while to get comfortable with wearing earbuds. I grew up in the era of headphones, and never quite liked the idea of sticking something into my ears on the regular. If that sounds like you, Sony's got your back. Its newest earbuds, the Linkbuds Clip, are clip-ons. Sony's not the first brand to take this idea to market—Anker's Soundcore brand has a number of more affordable options. But for premium clip-on earbuds, it's pretty much this, the slightly more expensive Bose, and the slightly sportier Shokz. Compared to that competition, Sony's new model is looking like a solid choice. These earbuds fit snugly aroun…

Netflix's February slate is heavy on returning original series, not least of which is the second half of Bridgerton season four. The last four episodes of the period romance drop on Feb. 26. In the third installment of thriller The Night Agent (Feb. 19), FBI agent Peter Sutherland, played by Gabriel Basso, investigates a dark money network alongside a journalist while trying not to get killed by assassins. The Lincoln Lawyer (Feb. 5) and Love Is Blind (Feb. 11) are back as well. For Olympics fans, there's docuseries Glitter & Gold: Ice Dancing (Feb. 1), which goes behind the scenes with the couples competing in ice dancing in the 2026 Winter Games. Also on the sports…

Heads up, workers of the world: Microsoft 365 is currently down. Microsoft's flagship work suite, which includes tools like Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Outlook, is currently experiencing issues impacting users. It's not yet clear exactly why these problems are occurring, but according to Downdetector (owned by Lifehacker parent company Ziff Davis) thousands of users are reporting issues. There are any number of causes that could trigger a widespread outage like this, and in all likelihood, Microsoft will have the issue isolated and fixed soon—especially considering how many companies and users rely on Microsoft 365 to function. But it does follow a number of high-profil…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. 2026 kicked off with great deals on gaming monitors from Samsung, like the Odyssey OLED G8 and the more budget-friendly Odyssey G50D. But if you were looking for a bigger, curved monitor, Samsung just added the 49-inch Samsung Odyssey OLED G93SC to the mix, which is currently $899.99 (originally $1,599.99 at its release). Samsung 49" Odyssey OLED (G93SC) QD-OLED, 240Hz, 0.03ms, DQHD, G-Sync Compatible, AMD FreeSync Premium Pro,Height Adjustab…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. We're going back to Westeros, baby! Not that we ever really left, given that we're merely between seasons of that other Game of Thrones spin-off, and with several more allegedly in development. It seems the only place the Game of Thrones universe is completely stalled is on the page—but I digress. Where the original series saw a kingdom in decline and House of the Dragon takes us back to the Targaryen Dynasty at its height, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms occurs roughly in-between, shifting the focus from the realm's power players to more tangential (at least for now) smallfolk: Ser Duncan the Tall (Peter Claffey), a lowbo…

The funny thing about smartphone addiction is that it makes low-effort tasks feel totally productive. When I finally quit doomscrolling through Instagram and TikTok and watch an actual movie or TV show, I feel like I've just spent the afternoon studying physics. Platforms like Netflix, which could once be seen as time-wasting entertainment, now seem like antidotes to endless, useless scrolling. But Netflix doesn't seem to appreciate its new role. Instead, the company apparently sees short-form video apps—and smartphones themselves—as a direct threat to its business, and is jumping on the bandwagon. It's not only that Netflix is reportedly now making content with phone s…

A workout habit has a way of building momentum: Once you’re doing something, anything, it’s easy to build on that. Video workouts are a simple way to get started, but if you're having trouble following along, I'm here to help. Below are some ways to make common exercises more accessible, and what to do if you can't get through a whole video yet. If you can’t squatLots of “easy” bodyweight programs ask you to perform a squatting motion without any added weight. But if that’s already more than you can do, try one of these instead: Sit in a chair, and stand back up. Lean your back against a wall and slide down until you’re in a sitting position (this is called a wall squat…

A malicious ad-blocking extension on Chrome and Edge is using the ClickFix attack to infect devices with a remote access payload capable of spying on and taking over a system. NexShield pitched itself as a privacy-focused ad blocker from the developer of well-established and highly trusted uBlock Origin. However, as security firm Huntress found, the extension initiates a variation of the ClickFix attack that has been dubbed "CrashFix"—a reference to the browser crash that precedes the fake security warning and malicious command prompt. How NexShield's 'CrashFix' attacks your deviceAs BleepingComputer describes, the NexShield extension creates a denial-of-service (DoS) l…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. The Samsung Galaxy S25 FE is the least expensive member of the Galaxy S25 lineup—more affordable but still filled with enough features and Galaxy AI tools that PCMag named it an excellent choice for those who want to be in the Galaxy ecosystem without paying top dollar. Right now, it’s available at an all-time low price on Amazon: $509.99, 28% off the original $709.99 asking price. Samsung Galaxy S25 FE Cell Phone (2025) …

If you just tried to open Instagram on your phone or computer, only to find that nothing would load, don't worry: It's not your wifi, nor is Verizon experiencing another outage. The fault instead lies with Meta, as Instagram is currently down. That's according to Downdetector, owned by Lifehacker parent company Ziff Davis, which shows over 2,000 user reports of issues with Instagram at the time of this writing. The issues seem to affect Instagram in all forms. While the mobile app was working last time I checked, I couldn't get it to load in Safari. That means you might not be able to check out posts, add new posts, or send and receive DMs—at least until Meta figures out…

The totals are in for 2025, and it's been a great year for measles. According to the CDC, the number of cases of the disease identified in the US has risen from 285 in 2024 to 2,144 in 2025, the highest number of measles cases since 1990. We've already seen at least 171 measles cases in the first two weeks of 2026. As you'd probably guess, experts pin the rise in measles to lower vaccination rates. I covered a number of vaccination and measles myths in this column months ago, but there is a new spin on measles that seems to be gaining some traction: A lot of people think contracting measles is good for your heath. “There’s a lot of studies out there that show that if yo…

The latest craze in the fitness world—from gym culture, to nutrition planning, to recovery protocols— is hyper-personalized optimization. But is there really a benefit to at-home microbiome tests that reveal the optimal diet for your gut bacteria? How about a device that tells you whether you're burning carbs or fat with each breath? Personalized fitness advice used to be largely limited to factors like height and weight, but now you might have a Whoop, Oura, or Apple Watch wearable tracking your track heart rate variability, skin temperature, blood oxygen, and so much more. Continuous glucose monitors, once reserved for diabetics, are now worn by biohackers and CrossFit…

Another wave of malicious browser extensions capable of tracking user activity and compromising privacy have been found across Chrome, Firefox, and Edge, some of which may have been active for up to five years. The campaign, known as GhostPoster, was identified by Koi Security in December and included 17 Firefox add-ons designed to monitor users' browsing activity. Threat actors planted malicious JavaScript code in the extension's PNG logo, which served as a malware loader to retrieve the main payload from a remote server. Researchers at LayerX have found an additional 17 malicious extensions across multiple browsers that have collectively been installed more than 840,00…

Selling a house is one of the largest transactions most of us will ever make. Considering how much you’ve invested in the place in terms of both money and sweat equity, it’s natural to want to get as much profit from the sale as possible. One strategy to maximize profits that most real estate professionals will recommend is staging: temporarily dressing, furnishing, and arranging the home to make it as appealing as possible. Staging works—it’s been shown to speed up the time to sale and to increase the sale price of a house. But it’s not magic—there’s a specific psychology to staging a house that you have to keep in mind, especially if you’re choosing to do it yourself in…