Setting Up Your Home Office

As someone whose job involves testing and writing about Mac apps, a crowded menu bar is an occupational hazard. Until its ownership change last year, my go-to recommendation for tidying up your menu bar was Bartender. But once it became clear that we don't really know who owns Bartender now, I tried a few alternatives, and none of them had all the features I was looking for. So, I abandoned menu bar managers until recently, when the apps in my menu bar began extending more than halfway into my screen and I was finding it hard to even locate which app I was looking for. That's when I discovered Barbee, a powerful menu bar manager for Mac. It can do everything from hiding …

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. This week, neurotech startup Neurable launched its MW75 Neuro headphones with a pretty seductive pitch—one that I'm not quite buying. Just slip on this pair of headphones, and you’ll gain unprecedented access to your brain's inner workings. Track your focus. Measure your mental fatigue. Quantify your cognitive performance. It's supposed to be the quantified-self movement's next frontier—moving from steps and heart rates to the most intimate data source of all: your brainwaves. If you ask me, a pair of hea…

You (hopefully) know by now that you can't take everything AI tells you at face value. Large language models (LLMs) sometimes provide incorrect information, and threat actors are now using paid search ads on Google to spread conversations with ChatGPT and Grok that appear to provide tech support instructions but actually direct macOS users to install an infostealing malware on their devices. The campaign is a variation on the ClickFix attack, which often uses CAPTCHA prompts or fake error messages to trick targets into executing malicious commands. But in this case, the instructions are disguised as helpful troubleshooting guides on legitimate AI platforms. How attacker…

For many of us, Monday was a workday defined by the AWS outage. Amazon Web Services experienced intermittent issues, throwing a huge fraction of the internet into chaos, as the sites and services built on it faltered or stopped working altogether. It was a sobering reminder that a lot of the world relies on AWS for networking, computing, and data storage. Truth be told, I was surprised to learn just how owned we really are, especially after a number of my work apps experienced issues. In fact, over four million business with a physical address use AWS for cloud-computing needs. It is the largest cloud infrastructure servicer in the world, with a whopping 30% of the marke…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. From viral hacks to your grandmother, someone or something has, at some point, told you to clean with baking soda and vinegar. Even I have told you to clean with baking soda and vinegar. Yesterday, sadly, I learned that this approach isn't all it's cracked up to be. Let's discuss. Why you shouldn't mix baking soda and vinegar to cleanThe good news is that this mixture isn't toxic or dangerous in any way. You're not poisoning yourself over time if you mix vinegar and baking soda to get a bubbly paste to scrub onto your walls, countertops, or tile. The bad news is that it just doesn't do much. See, yesterday, I wrote about…

As a teen, I was confused when I read a box of taco directions. I remember the step after cooking the ground beef was something like “drain off the water.” What water? It only took one time, and then I knew what water they were referring to. Cooking ground beef often results in gray, rubbery nubbins, and browning it is even harder because of that pool of liquid. Luckily, there’s an easy remedy for this problem: Cook faster, more tender ground beef with a sprinkle of baking soda. The best way to cook ground beefI have no issues making this claim: This is the best way to cook ground beef. Full stop. Baking soda is a household chemical most folks have readily available in th…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Apple announced new products this week, all of which are all already available for preorder and will be released on March 11. But before you place your order, it's best to compare the preorder deals from various retailers. Walmart has the best iPad Air preorder deal, for example, offering $40 off the listing price. If you're interested in a new MacBook, however, Best Buy is the place to look: it's the only major retailer offering any preorder deals for all three new MacBooks. …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Two TVs are better than one, especially when you only had to pay for one of them. Best Buy is currently offering a free 40-inch Samsung Class 5 Series LED Full HD Smart Tizen TV (a value of $249.99) when you buy one of three massive Samsung TVs. Here are your three options, followed by a quick description of each to help you determine which is best for you. Resolution: 4K (2160p), Screen Size: 85 inches, Display Type: LED, …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Best Buy has joined the battle against Amazon's Big Spring Sale, the spring version of Prime Day, with the Best Buy Tech Fest sale in full swing. Below, I've rounded up all the key details, as well as highlighted some of the best offers you can already find. How long is Best Buy's Tech Fest sale?Best Buy's spring sale is a week-long sale that started Monday, March 16, and continues through Sunday, March 22. There will be a Deal of the Day throughout the sale— they have this during non-sale times, too, but the deals will be a bit better than usual th…

Customers of automated investment platform Betterment are being targeted with a cryptocurrency rewards scam following a data breach that allowed threat actors to obtain some user data and send fake emails promising huge returns on Bitcoin and Ethereum deposits. According to a Jan. 12 security update posted on Betterment's website (and sent to users via email), hackers gained unauthorized access on Jan. 9 to a third-party platform used for marketing and operations. Following the breach, they sent fraudulent messages to some customers with offers to triple crypto investments. Betterment crypto rewards scamThe scam emails were sent to Betterment users on Jan. 9, soon after…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. The makers of Bevel, a health app for the Apple Watch that turns the device into a Whoop-style fitness tracker, have announced on social media that nearly all of the app’s functions will soon be available for free. Until now, Bevel required a $5.99/month (or $49.99/year) subscription. That said, the paid tier isn't going away completely. What does Bevel do?You can read my review of Bevel here, but in brief, it’s a tracking app that uses data from your Apple Watch (and other devices) to give you a Whoop-style dashboard that collects your health data in one place and analyzes it. Bevel can give you advice about how recovered…

Fraudsters are increasingly using recognizable and trusted domains to perpetuate phishing schemes that trick people into handing over their personal and financial information. In recent months, bad actors have exploited settings for both Google and PayPal to lull targets into a false sense of security, making these attacks harder to spot. Another way scammers are trying to look legitimate while evading detection is through Google Forms that request sensitive data. How scammers use Google Forms to steal your personal dataPhishing via Google Forms is not new. As a recent report from ESET Security points out, Google Forms are free, easy to create and implement, and trusted…

The The President tariffs we've seen so far will increase costs for the average American household by about $4,900, according to an April analysis from The Budget Lab at Yale University. And as you're forced to spend more money on daily luxuries, it's all too easy to adjust to a new normal. I've previously covered how too many people overstate the impact of your morning iced coffee on your long-term finances—but at the same time, it’s all too easy to fall into the trap of spending more money on an everyday basis, which can make it difficult to save for the future. This "new normal" of spending money falls under the umbrella of something known as “lifestyle creep.” And giv…

Holiday shopping season is ripe for scammers, as consumers rush to find and take advantage of some of the best discounts of the year, and potentially overlook red flags that signal fraud. Security researchers are warning of an uptick in scams capitalizing on the Black Friday and Cyber Monday hype. Fraudsters know that they can prey on shoppers' sense of urgency and excitement for limited-time, exclusive deals—and AI is making these campaigns even more difficult to spot than usual. New data from McAfee suggest that nearly half of Americans have come across an AI-powered scam while shopping, from deepfakes impersonating celebrities pushing promotions to near-flawless spoof…

The deadline for obtaining a REAL ID has come and gone. If you're planning on flying or entering a federal building, you'll need a driver's license or state identification card that complies with the Department of Homeland Security's new requirements (or an alternative like a passport or Trusted Traveler card). There are plenty of people who still need to upgrade to a REAL ID for upcoming travel—in some states, fewer than half of residents have a compliant license and may encounter long lines to obtain one. And where there's urgency, there's opportunity for scammers to strike. Here's what to know about REAL ID scams and how to avoid them. How REAL ID scams workScammers …

While many of us iPhone owners just installed the recent iOS 26.3.1 bug patch, Apple is currently at work on another update altogether: iOS 26.4. This update is in beta testing, and brings new features and changes, like AI playlists for Apple Music and support for end-to-end encryption for RCS. But Apple's most recent beta for 26.4 includes something new that most iPhone users will likely enjoy: eight new emojis. These new emojis aren't necessarily Apple's creations. Instead, they're based on the Unicode Version 17.0, an emoji standard released on Sept. 9, 2025. When the Unicode Standard releases new emoji standards, it's up to developers to create their own art for thei…

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…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Adding more visibility to a driveway or backyard is cheaper than you might think. The Blink Wired Floodlight Camera is currently selling for just $44.99 on Amazon, down from its usual $99.99, and price-tracking tools show that's the lowest it has ever been. It’s a wired camera, so it replaces an existing outdoor light and runs on household power. In exchange, you get a 1080p camera with a wide 143-degree field of view and dual LED floodlights that emit 2,600 lumens. Blink Wired Floodlight Camer…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. The new Blink Outdoor 2K+ (5-Camera System) is currently $226.99 on Amazon, down from $349.99, and price trackers show this is the lowest price it has reached so far. Spread across five cameras, that works out to about $45 per camera, which is cheaper than buying them individually. A five-camera kit like this generally makes the most sense for a typical single-family home or townhouse, where you might want coverage at the front door, backyard, garage, and a couple of side entrances. In a small apartment, it may be more cameras than you need, but for…

It's the old days of Twitter all over again: Bluesky is launching an official verification process for awarding the blue check mark to "notable" user accounts, adding to the platform's existing option to self-verify using an owned domain. Since 2023, Bluesky has allowed individuals and organizations to "verify" their own accounts by setting their domain as their user name—NPR is @npr.org, for example, and NPR journalists are on the subdomain @name.npr.org—in a decentralized approach to signaling authenticity and building trust. Because connecting a domain required users to own or have access to that domain, this was one way of proving identity. However, Bluesky still sa…

Blue Shield of California shared the protected health information of 4.7 million individuals with Google over a nearly three-year period, a data breach that impacts the majority of its nearly 6 million members, according to reporting from Bleeping Computer. This isn't the only large data breach to affect a healthcare organization the last year alone. Community Health Center records were hacked in October 2024, compromising more than a million individuals' data, along with an attack on lab testing company Lab Services Cooperative, which affected records of 1.6 million Planned Parenthood patients. UnitedHealth Group suffered a breach in February 2024, resulting in the leak…

I'm one of those folks who has completely moved from X to Bluesky, and for the most part, it's been a pretty seamless experience. It's not hard to move your following list over; you can upload (almost) all of your old tweets if you want; and the scrolling and posting experience is almost identical to what you'll remember from the old days of Twitter. The only feature I've missed? Drafts. Finally, drafts have arrived. In a post to the official Bluesky account, the company announced that it's added drafts to the platform, and that they're rolling out now. To create a draft, just start writing a post, and instead of tapping the Post button, hit Cancel or Drafts instead and c…

Bluesky is setting itself up to be a social media jack of all trades. There's the main experience, of course, which replaces something like X or Threads. But it's not all about the text posts: Soon, you'll be able to use an app like Flashes to transform Bluesky into a kind of Instagram. Before that drops, however, you can use a different app to turn Bluesky into TikTok. It's not quite there yet, but it's a fascinating look into a unique kind of social media client—an app that turns one platform into something else entirely. Introducing Bluescreen for Bluesky Bluescreen is a Bluesky client with one singular purpose: It identifies the videos from your Bluesky feed and deliv…

Bluesky's latest update adds a few more useful options to its impressive arsenal of anti-harassment tools. The changes make it easier to hide direct messages (DMs) from strangers, and to mute accounts even faster. You don't need to do anything to receive these features, too. As long as you're using the latest version of Bluesky's apps or log in to the website on any browser, you should see them. Here's everything that's now available as a part of Bluesky's 1.99 update. Block DMs from strangersNo one wants a bunch of DMs from strangers, and Bluesky has now acknowledged that. If you're on the end of a targeted harassment campaign, you'll now be able to sort out DMs from str…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Black Friday sales officially start Friday, November 28, and run through Cyber Monday, December 1, and Lifehacker is sharing the best sales based on product reviews, comparisons, and price-tracking tools before it's over. It's Cyber Monday, and Lifehacker is sharing the best sales based on product reviews, comparisons, and price-tracking tools before the sales are over. Follow our live blog to stay up-to-date on the best sales we find. Browse our editors’ picks for a curated list of our favorite sales on laptops, fitness tech, appliances, and more…