Setting Up Your Home Office

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Tariffs on products being imported to the U.S., especially from China, Canada, and Mexico, have been a hotly debated topic in the news, and many people are predicting a hike in prices on things like tools and materials for DIY projects as the tariffs are enacted. There is a lot of conjecture about how to keep your home improvement and DIY projects prices down, with many commentators advising people to simply “buy American"—but that probably won’t work. The economy is increasingly international, with parts of almost everything made in the U.S. being imported from all over the world. Most tools made in the U.S., even from b…

They say the best camera is the one you have with you. But if everyone has at least a pretty good camera in their phone, why would Gen Z (and really, everyone) be drawn to retro photography? Despite the downsides of bulky, standalone film cameras, the aesthetics and tangibility of old school photography still has a lot to offer. When we talk about “retro” photography, there’s a lot we could mean, but there’s a distinct revival trend around 80s- and 90s-style camera gear and aesthetics we want to focus on. Think Polaroid cameras and standalone point-and-shoots. And if you’re not already drawn in by the appeal of tangible photos and nostalgic vibes, allow me to make the cas…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. This morning, upstart smart glasses company Even Realities launched Even Hub, an open app store and developer platform for its G2 line of display style smart glasses. This could be the first salvo in a war between open- and closed-platform display smart glasses. On one side is Meta. The Goliath of the smart glasses market has thus far taken a completely closed approached to its newish Display glasses: Meta decides what your smart glasses can do and determines what apps you can access. The David to Meta's Goliath is Even Realities, a boutique tech company that just launched a storefront with over 50 apps made by third-part…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Although the practice of making solid blocks of soil for growing seeds isn’t new (it may go back over 2000 years), soil blocking has gained popularity in the last few years. It’s not a complicated process: You form blocks of compressed seedling mix, lay them out on a tray, then plant into them. It works much like growing seeds in a plastic seed tray, without the tray. Using less plastic is only one benefit—the real reason people love soil blocking is that it creates seedlings with incredibly strong root systems, without getting root-bound. The air around the block acts as a pruning mechanism; the roots grow to the edge of…

Losing something you spent time working on, or photos that you can't replace, is devastating. You might think this is a problem of the past because of cloud storage services like Apple's own iCloud, but that's not completely true. For one thing, users sometimes get locked out of their cloud accounts, which makes it impossible to retrieve their files. For another, not everything on your Mac is stored in iCloud. Things like settings, applications, and customizations aren't easy to recover should something happen to your Mac. It's also a lot faster to retrieve files from a local backup than a cloud one, which is important if you're backing up things like videos or photo libr…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. The Apple Watch—and other smartwatches—are designed to be worn on your wrist. But why not wear it elsewhere? I’ve worn an Apple Watch on my ankle to keep it out of the way during kettlebell workouts, and that’s also a common placement for people who walk while they work, or who have a job or hobby that isn’t compatible with constant watch-wearing. So how do you do this, why might you do this, and is the data really just as accurate? Here’s what you need to know. How to wear your Apple Watch on your ankleLet’s get the “how” out of the way first. If you have small feet (and ankles), you can just slip your regular wristband …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Pretty much every fitness tracker and smartwatch has an optical heart rate sensor, but they're not always perfectly accurate. Not only can you get better accuracy by wearing a chest strap heart rate monitor, you can even use a chest strap without a fitness watch—just connect it to your phone. Chest straps don't break the bank, either; my favorite is around 30 bucks. CooSpo H808S Chest Strap Heart Rate Monitor $29.87 …

If you went on the internet Tuesday morning, you likely experienced some issues. Popular sites like X and ChatGPT were unresponsive, returning error messages rather than their usual homepages. The culprit? A massive Cloudflare outage. The upside is that the outage appears to be ending. Cloudflare says it has identified the problem and issued a fix, so affected websites should be coming back online this morning. But that doesn't change the fact that so many websites went dark today, all because one company experienced unexplained downtime. How is it that a Cloudflare outage can seemingly break the internet? What is Cloudflare?Cloudflare offers a number of products for sit…

The phrase “get ready with me!” sends shivers down my spine. Somewhere between the gratitude journal and the seventh supplement of the morning, "wellness" stopped being a refuge and became another item on an impossible to-do list. And when I don’t accomplish the items on my to-do list, I’ve introduced a new way to feel failure in my daily life. I’m burning out trying to prevent burnout; I’m anxious about not doing enough anxiety-reducing practices; I’m tired from all my “energy-boosting” protocols. All the self-care that’s supposed to leave me “restored” is utterly depleting me. I’ve reached a paradox of wellness culture, and I can't be alone. The surveillance state of s…

If you used the internet at all on Monday, you probably noticed a lot of things weren't working all that well. Sites and services around the world experienced interruptions, including the likes of Facebook, McDonald's, and even Fortnite. You might have heard by now that the issues were caused by an AWS outage. If you don't know what AWS is, however, that explanation might not be all that clear. "Amazon Web Services" runs the internetAWS is an Amazon subsidiary, short for Amazon Web Services. The company offers over 200 cloud-based products to customers, including applications for all of the following: Accessing AWS services Analytics Application integration Blockchain Bu…

If you want your iCloud data to be as well-protected as possible, you need to turn on Advanced Data Protection (ADP)— but that's no longer going to be an option in the UK. Apple is pulling ADP from the country, reportedly following a request from the UK government for a backdoor into encrypted iCloud files, and the fallout is likely to have global consequences. What is ADP? ADP applies end-to-end encryption (the gold standard for data security) to just about everything you've got backed up in iCloud, making it virtually impossible for anyone else to access it. If ADP isn't enabled, only certain types of data get this protection, such as passwords and payment info, Message…

Not every Black Friday deal is as sweet as it seems. With electronics in particular, that fresh price tag might mean getting tricked into buying a cheaper model of the thing you actually want. Or, you could be buying last year's model that has actually been on sale since the summer—maybe even at a better price a few months ago. Here’s how to avoid impulse buying a misleading Black Friday “deal” and make sure you’re getting the best bang for your buck. Why you shouldn't impulse buy electronics on Black Friday When you see products like food, clothes, or home goods with a big ol’ Black Friday tag slapped on them, it's probable safe to take advantage of that deal. Chances …

Cardio and strength training are both important, but it's easy to end up only doing one of those and conveniently forgetting to get around to the other. I’ve been on both sides of the fence. As a runner, I would go months without lifting a weight or doing any purposeful strength training, because who has the time? And in my more recent life as a lifter, I’d join in the joking about how more than 10 reps is cardio, har har. But here’s the truth: we all need strength training and real cardio. I think it’s easy to gravitate to one type of exercise because we find it fun or convenient. Then, when we feel like we’re sufficiently challenged, there’s no need to look further, ri…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. My question about virtual reality has always been, "But what is it for?" I finally have an answer: Guassian Splatting. We've always tried to capture our past, whether it's through physical photographs, VHS tapes, or every picture you have stored in the cloud, but we've been limited to viewing our personal histories in flat media, usually from a behind a screen, and always from a single angle. But Gaussian Splatting changes that. This technology allows you to create volumetric 3D models of objects, people, or spaces, so instead of a picture of your child's favorite toy, you can have a realistic scan of it that you can exami…

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. Memory is a tricky thing. Scientists have figured out how many units of information you can store in your short-term memory (around seven, though there are great workarounds for remembering more than that), but if you really want to remember something, you have to go over it a bunch of times until it lodges deeper in your brain. There are quite a few ways to do that if you have some time to devote to the practice of repetition, but if you’re getting ready for a test at school or a presentation at work, …

Manually or automatically wiping your browsing history is a well-established way of protecting your privacy and making sure the digital trail you leave behind you is as short as possible—but it's important to be aware of the limitations of the process, and to understand why deleting your browsing history isn't always as comprehensive an act as you might think. In short, the records of where you've been aren't only kept on your local computer or on your phone, they're found in various other places too. This is why fully wiping away your browsing history is more difficult than it initially appears. Modern browsers typically sync your browsing historyJust about every modern…

Last week, one of my meekest, weakest friends (said with love) asked me to go boxing with her. This may have been wildly out-of-character for her, but for me, it confirmed a trend I’d already been noticing. Boxing, Jiu-Jitsu, Muay Thai, and all other sorts of combat-style workout classes are having a mainstream moment. In many ways, this is nothing new—how could I erase the legacy of Tae Bo nation?—but I’m not the first to clock an uptick in “fight-style” workouts across social media and gym class offerings these days. So what's actually driving this trend? And more practically: Even if you're not planning to step into a ring, what can you take from the way fighters train…

If you missed out on a better era of consuming news and other online content, RSS either stands for RDF (Resource Description Framework) Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication, depending on who you ask—even Wikipedia includes both expansions of the initialism. Whatever the linguistic details, one of the main roles of RSS is to supply directly to you a steady stream of updates from a website. Every new article published on that site is served up in a list that can be interpreted by an RSS reader. In earlier, simpler internet times, RSS was the way to keep up to date with what was happening on all of your favorite sites. You would open your RSS reader and tap through new…

Remember when hands-free shopping was going to be the next big thing? In 2017, the Echo Dot was the single best-selling item on Amazon during its Prime Day sale, outselling both the Nintendo Switch and Instant Pot. Amazon's goal was partly to heavily discount the device in order to install its voice assistant, Alexa, in as many homes as possible—likely in hopes to capitalize on the voice commerce revolution that industry analysts predicted would be worth over $40 billion by 2022. But something went awry. Despite Amazon's complete domination of the home-voice-thing market, by 2022, Alexa was being called a "colossal failure," 10,000 people were laid off from Amazon, and t…

This week, the Consumer Product Safety Commission announced that Fitbit has agreed to pay a $12.25 million settlement over one of their older smartwatches, which had a battery defect that left some users with serious burns. Meanwhile, Fitbit itself announced that some of its more recent smartwatches—the Sense and the Versa 3—may also have an issue with overheating batteries that could pose a hazard to wearers, and is updating their software to fix the issue. What is the problem with Sense and Versa 3?According to a notice posted on the Fitbit Help Center, some (not all) Sense and Versa 3 devices have a defective battery that could overheat and possibly cause burns. Both o…

It's been a little over a week since Discord said it will take its age verification mandate global, and despite promises that most users wouldn't need to verify, the company is still in hot water with gamers. Most recently, Discord's been discovered to have worked with Peter Thiel-backed company Persona, which itself is embroiled in multiple scandals. These include allegations that it was keeping personal identifying data from Discord users longer than was initially stated, and a reveal that the company accidentally left some of its data available to view on the open internet. Discord now says it's backing away from its partnership with Persona, but is it worth sticking …

On Thursday, Google rolled out a number of previously-paywalled Gemini features to free users. You can now use Gemini custom chatbots, which the company calls "Gems"; Deep Research, which runs AI models that "think" through each step of a problem; and upload files to Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking, whether you pay for Google's AI services or not. But that's not all: The company also introduced new experimental feature for Gemini—Gemini with personalization. This feature, which runs on Google's Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking model, connects Gemini to your Google apps and services, with the goal of offering you a more personal AI assistant. The idea is, by connecting your Google Acc…

When you're planning a trip with friends, there's a good chance your group chat will be full of links to and screenshots of places you want to visit or cafés you want to hit. To help you keep track of all that, Google is now rolling out a new feature to add multiple locations to a Google Maps list for you using screenshots. This feature scans your phone and uses Gemini AI to work out the places mentioned in your screenshots. It's starting out first first on iPhones (which is odd for Google), and it's limited to the US for now. However, Android and global releases are planned for the future. How to automatically add places to Google Maps using screenshots …

Making a pizzeria-quality pizza at home is completely achievable, but it does take a little bit of know-how to make this happen. You can read my nine tips to get started, but you should know that there’s one very special tip on that list. Doing this one thing makes a huge impact on your pizza, requires literally no work on your end, and costs no money. In short: You should be aging your pizza dough. I do it every time I make pizza now and I haven’t looked back. Homemade pizza makes for a fun, shareable family dinner, but I actually love making personal pizzas for lunch. I’ll buy a pound of pizza dough from Trader Joe’s or Shoprite and cut it into four equal parts. I wra…