Setting Up Your Home Office

The old turn-it-off-and-on-again adage has helped successfully troubleshoot computers for years, but there's more than one way to restart your hardware and software—including a lesser known option on Windows that may well be new to you. Having spent many years writing about tech, it isn't often that I come across something I didn't already know about. So when I stumbled across this old BetaNews article about an emergency restart feature in Windows, I was taken aback. It showed a screen and a keystroke combination I had genuinely never heard of before. A bit more digging revealed that this has been in Windows for decades, making it even stranger that I'd never come across …

Sharing files or accessing messages between a Windows PC and an iPhone can be an utter pain in the rear, mostly because, without third-party utilities, you can’t rely on AirDrop to do it. There’s the Phone Link app, but even that requires opening up a separate window—your PC won’t even be able to serve you iMessage notifications unless it’s open. Meanwhile, Android users currently have a smoother experience, able to access their connected phones’ battery levels, messages, and calls right from the Windows Start menu. Now, iPhone users are finally about to get the same. In a blog post on its site, Microsoft announced that its Windows Insider beta testers are currently getti…

Microsoft is testing a new way to make sharing files a lot easier. In a beta version of Windows 11, the company has released a temporary shelf that appears when you drag files to the top of the screen. You can use this to drop files directly to the apps you use the most, such as Outlook or WhatsApp. Additionally, the company is also testing an improved version of Windows Search on CoPilot+ PCs to help you find photos in the cloud, and two new layouts for the Start menu. All of these features are a part of the Windows Insider program, but they're available in different channels of this program. Here are some details about each new feature and how you can try it if you want…

Originally launched by Microsoft last July, Windows Recall was swiftly pulled in response to a barrage of security and privacy complaints. Now it's back, with some tweaks to make it more palatable for users—but there remain plenty of concerns about what happens when it's enabled. If you're new to the story, Recall is an AI-powered feature that acts like a memory for your computer. It regularly snaps and analyzes screenshots of whatever you're doing. It's handy if you want to get back to a document or message you vaguely remember from three weeks ago, while at the same time sounding several alarm bells in terms of having all your past Windows activity stored on your system…

Windows has a rather patchy history when it comes to native photo viewing and editing, but the latest Photos app is quietly becoming genuinely useful. It may not be a full-blown Photoshop alternative, but it does now offer a variety of basic editing functions, and even some generative AI to help get your images looking their best. Photos combines a photo viewer and a photo editor, so the first job it takes on when you load it up is cataloging all the pictures you've got on your system. Use the gear icon at the top to change the configuration of this photo viewer, and the buttons just above the images to alter the order that pictures are shown in. When you're ready to star…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Prime Day and Black Friday may get most of the internet sale fanfare, but as a deals writer, I can tell you that Woot quietly beats Amazon prices quite frequently. Right now, Woot (still an Amazon company, mind you) has an incredible sale on headphones and earbuds that beat Amazon prices by far, according to price tracking tools. Remember that Woot only ships to the 48 contiguous states in the U.S., and if you have Amazon Prime, you get free shipping; otherwise, it’ll be $6 to ship. This Woot sale on headphones goes on until Feb. 20 at 2:59 a.m. ET…

There’s an art and a science to picking a good starting word when you play Wordle. And now that the New York Times has announced it will start repeating previously used words, it may be time to rethink your strategy. While previous solutions used to be off-limits for future puzzles, that rule has changed. As of February 1, 2026, they're fair game again. That rule change matters because every word choice in Wordle has to be split between two jobs—gaining information about what to guess next, and trying to solve the puzzle with your guess. If you don't care whether your starting word might be a solution, then the rule change may not affect you. But some solvers prefer to us…

I find it satisfying to do a word puzzle (or three) each day. Wordle is great, but it’s not really exciting anymore. Crosswords are fun if you have the time (I love an NYT Thursday puzzle) but I don’t always bother. My sweet spot, lately, are games like Minute Cryptic and Parseword—which are entry points into the incredibly bizarre world of British “cryptic” crossword clues. What is a cryptic puzzle?Cryptics are a type of word puzzle unlike anything else. There exist whole crosswords full of them, but the daily puzzles I’m writing about are just one clue per day, so you can focus on exactly what’s going on in that single clue. Cryptics look like a regular crossword clue…

Here's a question you've probably never considered before: Would you buy a new iPhone if it didn't have any physical buttons? Sure, the part of the phone you interact with most is the touchscreen, so maybe it doesn't seem like such a big deal. But think about it: The side button, volume buttons, Action button, and Camera Control button would no longer click. Could you live without the clutter? While Apple sells no such iPhone, and likely won't release one next year, it very well might roll out a buttonless iPhone in 2027—at least, physically buttonless. That year will mark the 20th anniversary of the iPhone, and it'll come as no surprise that rumors suggest Apple is pla…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Over the past few years, the Chinese-made Boox Palma e-reader has gained a cult following in the U.S. for its phone-like form factor, Android compatibility, and less-addictive grayscale screen—I've personally credited it with helping me spend more time reading and less time scrolling on my iPhone. But as much as I love it, I do still always need to carry my phone with me, because the Palma—even the newer Palma 2 Pro with mobile data—just isn't a good match for many of the tasks I use my phone for, including navigation and tap-to-pay. Soon, though, there may be a dual-purpose device that will serve both masters. Bigme, ano…

If you use the X app on iPhone, there’s a good chance any links you open today will look different than they did yesterday. That’s because the platform is trying to up engagement on posts with links in them, by keeping the like, comment, repost, favorite, and share buttons active in a new footer even when you click through to an outside article. When you click on a link in X, it doesn’t actually navigate away from the app, but instead uses a special version of either Chrome (on Android) or Safari (on iPhone) to open the article within X. That hasn’t changed. But what has is that, on iPhone, you’ll now continue to see interactable elements at the bottom of the page, with b…

It's not just you: X is down, and will not load. I discovered the issue myself just after 9:30 a.m. ET. I was scrolling on my feed, when all of a sudden, new posts wouldn't load, and I was greeted by an option to refresh. When I did, the site reloaded, but now without any posts—only the futile option to try reloading again. You can see a steep spike in user reports on Downdetector (which, for full disclosure, is owned by Lifehacker parent company Ziff Davis). At the time of writing, roughly 25,000 users had reported issues with X, I among them. There are a number of potential reasons why X won't load this morning, but it doesn't appear to be a larger issue with a cloud h…

While many X-pats have flocked to alternatives like Bluesky and Threads, there are still plenty of users checking Elon Musk's infamous platform. If you're one of them, you might have noticed something odd today: X is down. Depending on when you see this article, X may be back up and running. But multiple times Monday morning, the platform was unreachable. According to Downdetector, most of the complaints funneled in at three peaks: The first came around 5:41 a.m., the second at 10:11 a.m., and the third around 11:11 a.m., which is when I initially noticed the issues. There are a large number of reports associated with event, as well. Scanning through the Downdetector gra…

The site formerly known as Twitter has been "X" for over two years now. Nevertheless, many of us still call the site by its old, iconic name. In fact, anytime I feel the need to visit, I go to twitter.com, not x.com—even though the site always redirects to the latter. Is it muscle memory? A small protest? Probably a little of both. But my days of typing "t" in Safari's address bar and clicking the autofilled twitter.com URL are likely coming to a close, as X seems poised to finally retire its Twitter domain for good. That news started with a post from X's "Safety" account on Friday. The post stated that, by Nov. 10, all accounts using a security key for two-factor authen…

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 …

On Friday afternoon, X officially launched XChat, the company's proprietary chat app. Unlike other chat app options, like WhatsApp, Telegram, or Signal, you need an X account to use XChat, which limits the user base to one specific social media platform. X users with a large enough social circle on the platform may find this new app to be useful, but XChat does come with some security contradictions that all new users should be aware of. XChat is a standard chat app for X usersXChat's biggest sell, apart from being a place for X users to communicate, is that it is end-to-end encrypted. As the app reminds you upon setup, this encryption means there is no way for anyone—i…

After weeks of pressure from both advocacy groups and governments, Elon Musk's X says it's finally going to do something about its deepfake porn problem. Unfortunately, after testing following the announcement, some are still holding their breath. When did the X deepfake porn controversy begin?The controversy started earlier this January, after the social media site added a feature allowing X users to tag Grok in their posts and prompt the AI to instantly edit any image or video posted to the site, all without the original poster's permission. The feature seemingly came with few guardrails, and according to reporting done by AI authentication company Copyleaks, as well as…

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…

Until now, Xbox Game Pass has been sorely lacking in retro games. There are no titles for the original Xbox on the service, and only a scant few Xbox 360 games. There are a few games from earlier eras, like Goldeneye 007, but even those are rereleases. Since most older games don’t get that kind of treatment, they’re ultimately still few and far between on Xbox Game Pass. But now, finally, Microsoft is doing something to address this gap, bringing a new “Retro Classics” collection to its subscribers. While Activision might be better known these days for Call of Duty, back in the ‘80s, it got its start developing games for Atari consoles. When Microsoft’s merger with Activi…

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,…

If you're shopping online, or just trying to access certain websites, and things aren't loading properly, it's (probably) not your internet: Amazon is down. As of Thursday afternoon, Amazon services, including both Amazon.com and AWS, are having issues loading and running. You can see that from Downdetector, a site used to track user reports of issues with websites and services. (Disclosure: Lifehacker's parent company, Ziff Davis, owns Downdetector.) As of this article, Amazon.com has tens of thousands of user reports, while AWS has thousands. Prime Video, Amazon's streaming service, also has user reports at this time, though they aren't as drastic. It's not clear what'…

If you picked up your iPhone to round out your Apple Music Replay for the year, or turned on your TV to watch a show like Pluribus, you might have noticed something odd: Neither service is working. It's not just you: Apple Music, Apple TV, and Game Center are currently down. That's directly from Apple's "System Status" website, which tracks all of Apple's web-based services and identifies which ones may be experiencing problems. While most of Apple's services, like the App Store, Find My, and iMessage, are all "Available," four of these services are experiencing an outage: Apple Music, Apple TV, Apple TV Channels, and Game Center. If you click on each, you can see the…

Responding to posts on social media claiming that ChatGPT will no longer offer legal or health advice, OpenAI is clarifying that "model behavior remains unchanged" and there is "not a new change to our terms." The clarification follows a since-deleted viral post from betting platform Kalshi, which claimed "JUST IN: ChatGPT will no longer provide health or legal advice." Since then, concerned users have repeated the claim, while others have attempted to push back against it. The confusion likely stems from an Oct. 29 update to OpenAI's Usage policies, which appeared to add a stipulation that users cannot use OpenAI for "provision of tailored advice that requires a license,…

AI inspires strong feelings. Some love it, some hate it, few are indifferent. But, usually, AI's biggest proponents are the companies that make and sell the tech. You expect OpenAI to tout ChatGPT's benefits, or Google to talk-up how useful Gemini is. For a company like these to say that their AI tools are nothing but a plaything would be a ludicrous concept—and yet, that's apparently what Microsoft did. As reported by TechCrunch, Microsoft's terms of service for Copilot aren't too laudatory of the AI tech or its capabilities. The policy, which was last updated on October 24, 2025, says the following: “Copilot is for entertainment purposes only...It can make mistakes, an…

Most of my adolescent free time was spent in the kitchen making Thai food with my mom. She was firm in the practice of using up every last bit of an ingredient. If there was any leftover coconut milk, it went in the fridge and we used it for random stuff (coffee, cereal, rice) until it was done within a day or two. It never went in the freezer because it would become a disgusting, curdled mess upon defrosting. I’ve previously addressed what a person should do with a leftover half-can of coconut milk before it spoils, but it turns out I’ve been thinking about the conundrum all wrong. My entire life, I believed freezing it was not an option. But it is. Yes, you can (and yo…