Setting Up Your Home Office

If your iPhone has been lost or stolen, you'd probably be relieved to get it back, even if it is has been weeks or months since you've replaced your device. Having your old phone in hand may provide some peace of mind that your data is secure, and if nothing else, you can sell or trade it in or repurpose it for another use. Unfortunately, you're pretty unlikely to see your missing iPhone again, but bad actors are hoping you hold out enough hope to fall for a phishing scam promising that your device has been found. How the lost iPhone scam worksAccording to a warning from the Swiss National Cyber Security Center, some iPhone owners whose devices were lost or stolen are r…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. When you’re new or returning to running, the last thing you need is one more barrier. Shoes, appropriate clothes, sweat-resistant sunscreen: These things are hard to do without. But those running watches that it seems like everyone else is using? You don’t need one, and certainly not on your first day. You don’t even need to run with your phone. It's off how "fitness" has become almost synonymous with tracking fitness. How many steps are you taking? How many calories are you burning? How many minutes per mile was your pace when you went jogging this morning? What was your heart rate? Each of these numbers can be worth tra…

Apple Music's selection is exceptional, but I've never enjoyed using its Mac app much. It's slow, buggy, and lacks the razor sharp focus on albums that I sometimes desire. On my iPhone, I often turn to the excellent Albums app to scratch that itch, which is why I'm excited to say that the same app has recently arrived on the Mac as well. I'm always looking for excuses to avoid opening the Music app on the Mac, and Albums has arrived at exactly the right time for me to make the switch. While I do enjoy listening to individual songs or playlists, I am going through an albums phase right now. For this, the Albums app is perfect. Its sole focus is on playing whole albums from…

Windows 11 users are getting a long-awaited Start menu redesign this week. While the features have been available in beta for awhile, Microsoft is rolling out the updated interface to everyone alongside November's Patch Tuesday. What's new with the Windows 11 Start menu The Start menu will now be scrollable, so you can see all of your apps on the homepage instead needing to click All apps to open a separate page. Below pinned apps and recommendations, Microsoft will now automatically categorize similar apps into groups—the Productivity group may include your browsers and Microsoft 365 suite, for example—and place remaining apps under Other. Categories are created with th…

AI has been the tech buzzword over the last few years, but it's stolen attention from other technological advancements that are possibly more impactful in your everyday life. Take satellite connectivity for example: For most of the time cellphones and smartphones have existed, losing cell signal meant your mobile device was largely useless. With satellite connectivity, however, as long as you're within range of a satellite, you can continue to make calls and send texts. It's remarkable, for both the convenience of communication, as well as your safety. Right now, there are only a few companies leading the satellite connectivity charge, at least as far as consumer technol…

Contactless payment, also known as tap-to-pay, has become a fast, easy, and relatively common way to complete a transaction using your smartphone or credit card. It relies on Near Field Communication (NFC) to transmit data between your device and a payment terminal when the two are in close proximity, up to an inch or two away. While NFC technology does provide some additional security—transmitting a virtual account number instead of your actual card details, for example—scammers have found a way to capitalize on tap-to-pay to steal money from unsuspecting targets. These "ghost tapping" schemes may exploit both cards and mobile wallets. How tap-to-pay scams workAccording…

Following posts on social media last week where some YouTube TV subscribers noticed a $60 credit waiting for them in their account settings, Variety is reporting that YouTube is now sending subscribers an additional $20 credit. The company has not yet made an official statement on the matter, although a YouTube spokesperson confirmed the timetable for the credit's rollout to TechCrunch. The news follows promises from YouTube to give YouTube TV customers a $20 credit if the blackout of Disney content on the Live TV service continued. According to the report, emails with instructions on how to claim the credit began sending out yesterday, and "all credits will be issued by…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. It's a great time to be shopping for some new AirPods. You can get the non-ANC AirPods 4 for $84.99 (originally $129.99), the lowest price they've ever been, according to price-tracking tools. The ones with ANC are $149.99 (originally $179.99), also at their lowest price ever. Apple AirPods 4 (without ANC) …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Amazon’s early Black Friday sale just made one of Samsung’s best midrange OLEDs a lot more tempting. The 65-inch Samsung S90F OLED TV is now $1,397.99, down from its regular price of $1,997.99—the lowest price so far, according to price trackers. SAMSUNG 65-Inch Class OLED S90F 4K Smart TV $1,397.99 at Amazon …

I've defined a ton of slang since I started posting this column in 1878, but this week, I'm going all in on the funny little words the kids use among themselves. That's right: It's all-slang week! From “clock that” to “rawdoggin boredom,” consider this a crash course in what the kids are babbling to each other. As always, remember, you shouldn't use these slang words because they're not your words. Stick to calling things da bomb and saying "23-skidoo," gramps. (If this isn't enough slang, somehow, check out my constantly evolving glossary of Gen-Z and Gen A slang.) What does "clock that" mean?I'm old enough to remember when "clock" was slang for either punching someone…

Your personal productivity may be dependent on your unique needs, personality, and circumstances, but there are still general “laws” governing time management and potential output that apply to pretty much everyone—like, actual "laws" named after the people who came up with them. Economists, philosophers, and scientists have spent a lot of their own time researching what practices make a person more productive. Here’s an overview of the rules all that research has given us. The Yerkes-Dodson LawThe Yerkes-Dodson Law says a person is most productive when they have just the right amount of stress pushing them—not too much and not too little. It models the relationship betw…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. To do deep work, you have to focus on one task, and to focus, you have to avoid distractions. That's a common-sense idea, and it's the basis for Carlson’s Law, named for Swedish economist Sune Carlson. He determined that interrupted work is always less effective and more time-consuming than un-interrupted work. It's a lofty goal, but that doesn't mean a distraction-free zone is easy to achieve. If you want to beat Carlson's Law, you have to have a plan. How to eliminate distractions when trying to focusBefore getting to work on anything, make sure your space is free from distractions—not just physically, but mentally. Her…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. You get a one-year Costco Executive Gold Star Membership plus a $60 Digital Costco Shop Card on sale for just $130 on StackSocial right now. The card works both online and in-store, and it arrives via email within two weeks of activation, providing an immediate way to recoup nearly half of the membership cost. This offer is available to new members only, or to those whose membership expired at least 18 months ago, and must be redeemed online before visiting a Costco location. The offer is valid until January 21, 2026. Once activated, you can shop at…

Plex has been rolling out a new user interface for a while now, and to say it's been divisive among users would be an understatement. Users on Reddit regularly complain about the interface being confusing and slow; others wish the application would focus on personal media servers instead of things like movie rentals. Plezy is an alternative Plex client that solves these issues. The application, which is available for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS, focuses entirely on personal media servers. Plez has a simple user interface, but the real advantage over the official Plex app is its speed. Everything about Plezy is faster than the official Plex app—it launches fast…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. The Microsoft Surface Book 3 isn't the newest model on the market, but it's one of the few laptops that can serve as both a tablet and a creative workstation, which helps explain why it initially launched at nearly $1,700. Currently, StackSocial is offering the 15-inch 2020 Surface Book 3 on sale for $929.99, equipped with 32GB of RAM and 512GB of SSD storage, or on sale for $999.99 for the 1TB version. The smaller 13.5-inch models are also available, priced between $699.99 and $799.99. Each one is refurbished to Grade A condition, meaning it looks …

Two years ago, Peloton recalled seat posts on its classic Bike models. Now, the brand is doing the same for seats on its older Bike+ models (but not the new Cross Training Bike+ that came out a few weeks ago). If you have the old model of Bike+, you'll need to reach out to Peloton to arrange a replacement. Which Peloton models are affected by the recall?Per Peloton, this is a voluntary recall of seat posts for Bike+ models made between December 2019 and July 2022 and sold in the U.S. and Canada. If your Bike+ has a PL02 model number on the label inside or behind the front fork or behind the flywheel, it is impacted by the recall. If you've checked and you're still not s…

iPadOS 26 is a huge deal for anyone who wishes Apple would just make a touchscreen MacBook already. The update rolls out a major multitasking redesign that introduces macOS-like windows, a macOS-like menu bar, and a macOS-like file management. The iPad even has the Preview app, for crying out loud—though, to be fair, so does the iPhone. Apple has toed the line with its tablets over the years, introducing features and functions that make the experience more like using a computer, while never really committing to the bit entirely. To that point, iPadOS 26 probably won't replace your MacBook, but it comes pretty close. If your major concerns have to do with things like win…

Flight cancellations under the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) government shutdown order have begun, with hundreds of flights and thousands of travelers across 40 U.S. airports affected. This could continue for as long as the shutdown lasts (and potentially impact many more travelers as the busy holiday season approaches). While flight cancellations are never fun, the cascading effect of due to the government shutdown could make dealing with one even more frustrating. Here are four actions you should take right away if your itinerary is cut. Enable alerts from your airlineFlight cancellations often happen with little to no notice, sometimes when you're already e…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Thanksgiving should be one of the least stressful holidays—the sole achievement you’re trying to unlock is to eat yourself into a coma, which many of us can do any time, with zero prep. But there are some sneaky sources of stress, from the expense of pulling it all together to the travel arrangements needed to make sure everyone arrives in time for appetizers—not to mention the stress of cooking Thanksgiving dinner. The unlucky host has the responsibility of not only feeding a large group of people, but making sure everything comes out more or less on time—and then cleaning up the spectacular mess afterward. Luckily, moder…

The New York Times has announced a new feature that allows you to make your own Wordle puzzle to share with friends. You need to be a Games or All-Access subscriber to create puzzles, but no subscription is needed to solve them. You aren't roped to regular Wordle's five-letter structure, either: Allowable puzzles can be anywhere from four to seven letters long. They must be on an allowable word list; as with regular Wordle, this means no proper nouns, for the most part. Profanity is not allowed, nor are gibberish entries like “ASDFGJ” (I tried). Here’s a link to a Wordle-style puzzle with four letters that I created for you—because I consider all of you my friends. (Thi…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Creator/writer/star Mae Martin's Wayward is Netflix's biggest show right now. It's a sly mystery involving cult behavior and cycles of trauma at a school for troubled teens, given added relevance by its proximity to real-life stories of abuses at similar facilities. Wayward does a few different things well: It's a mystery box show, first of all—meaning that we're presented with not just one but several intriguing puzzles right off the bat, with resolutions handed out frugally. It's also a great example of the "small towns are weird" subgenre, one that likes to remind us that there are strange and ominous doings in even the…

Poshmark has been implementing a lot of changes lately, like lower shipping fees (that come with a downgrade from USPS Priority mail to standard ground mailing) and Smart Sell features. It's most recent change, though—the removal of the bulk-share option—has many users (including myself) frustrated. The removal of bulk sharingPoshmark has long functioned in a more social way than other resale platforms like Depop or Mercari. You can follow sellers the same way you can on Instagram or X, for instance. Notably, users have always been encouraged to "share" their own listings and others' listings, which would then appear in the homepage feeds of anyone who followed them. A fe…

On Tuesday, Apple dropped the first developer betas for iOS 26.2 and macOS 26.2. While these updates aren't as massive as iOS 26 or macOS 26 were, 26.2 includes a number of new features and changes, including the ability to add alarms to reminders, and changes to how Apple calculates the Apple Watch's new Sleep Score. Despite these fun adjustments, I couldn't recommend that users install the new updates on their personal devices. Three days later, I still don't recommend it, but I won't necessarily dissuade you from it either, as the public betas for both updates are now available. Developer vs. public betasBefore Apple releases any major software update to the general p…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. A Costco membership usually pays for itself, but this deal makes it even easier to justify: You can get a one-year Costco Gold Star Membership, plus a $40 Digital Costco Shop Card, on sale for just $65 on StackSocial right now. That effectively drops the cost of membership to just $25 for the year, and it's sent straight to your inbox within two weeks of redemption. If you were planning to shop there anyway, it’s a no-brainer, but this offer is only available to new members or those whose membership has expired for at least 18 months. The Gold Star …

This morning, orders from the Federal Aviation Administration led U.S. airlines to cancel hundreds of flights across the country. The FAA's unprecedented orders are due to air traffic controllers missing their paychecks, which is due to the unprecedented government shutdown (now the longest in U.S. history). These air traffic control staffing shortages have been disrupting flights at 40 major U.S. airports, leaving thousands of passengers scrambling to figure out backup plans. Unlike weather delays that clear up on their own, this could continue as long as the government shutdown continues. Airlines are scrambling to adjust schedules on short notice, which means chaos and…