Setting Up Your Home Office

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Garmin announced a new fitness watch today, the Vivoactive 6. Its predecessor, the Vivoactive 5, is my pick for the best smartwatch to replace a Fitbit (beating out the Pixel Watch 3), and, if you ask me, it's the most underrated device in the Garmin lineup. The Vivoactive 6 is poised to be even better, adding a few new features, including a "smart wake" alarm and on-watch coaching for walking and strength training. The Vivoactive 6 will be available for preorder on April 4, with a suggested retail price of $299.99, the same initial price as the Vivoactive 5. (If you’re looking to save money by going with the older model,…

If you're out and about with your laptop, or just in a different room than your charging cable, you want to eke out as much time as possible before the next recharge—and an important part of that is knowing which apps are draining the battery the quickest. Once you know who the worst offenders are as far as battery drain is concerned, you can do something about it. Maybe you can use the programs in question less often, enable any battery-saving features (if they're available), or uninstall them altogether and switch to less power-hungry alternatives. Take Google Chrome, for instance—not a program known for its light touch on system resources. If you find it's putting a lo…

On Wednesday, April 2, Nintendo will finally host its first Direct entirely dedicated to Nintendo Switch 2. While we all know what the console looks like by now, there are still plenty of questions left for Nintendo to answer (and I'm expecting answers.) Here's what I'm looking out for, and where you can watch the Nintendo Switch 2 Direct. The truth is, we really don't know what Nintendo is going to share during Wednesday's Direct. What we know for sure is this: The presentation itself is going to run about 60 minutes. That's a long time for a Nintendo Direct. The company's last presentation on March 27, for example, was just under 37 minutes, which means Nintendo must ha…

When it comes to chickpeas and aquafaba, the liquid and the legume are two very different residents of the same can. Just because you used garbanzo beans in your salad doesn’t mean that you’re craving these fluffy pancakes on the same day—but you might on Saturday. In the event that you have leftover aquafaba—or really, any time you’re eating chickpeas and find yourself about to drain out the liquid—stop your hand. It freezes incredibly well. How to use aquafaba Aquafaba has gained a lot of traction since it was discovered in 2014 as being a surprisingly effective replacement for making a fluffy and silky meringue (read more about the history here). However, it has more a…

Apple just released iOS 18.4 and macOS 15.4 for the iPhone and Mac, respectively. Once you complete the update, you'll see a prompt informing you that, as part of the update, the company has enabled automatic updates on your device, even if you had previously switched them off. This means that, unless you do something, Apple will start downloading and installing future software updates to your devices on its own. To test this out, I disabled automatic updates on my iPhone and on my Mac, and then began updating to iOS 18.4 and macOS 15.4. Sure enough, once the updates were complete, Apple duly informed me that it had gone ahead and enabled automatic updates on my devices. …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. The Bose Smart Soundbar wasn't very well received by reviewers when it came out last fall, citing small improvements for a larger price tag. But now with a $100 discount, we can have a serious conversation about who it's good for. You can get the Bose Smart Soundbar for $399 (originally $499), the lowest price it has been, according to price-tracking tools. Bose Smart Soundbar Channels: 3.0.2, Physical Connections: HDMI, optical, IR, subwoofer, USB. …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Every year around this time, I prepare to move my living room lemon tree outside for the season. In the fall, when temperatures drop below 40 degrees overnight, Daisy (yes, she has a name) gets rolled into my living room, where she winters under a grow light, and then as soon as the overnight temperatures stabilize in spring, back out she goes to live on the patio. Since I live in the Pacific Northwest, this is the only way to keep a lemon tree; they simply aren’t built to withstand a real winter outside. But, even if you are unwilling or unable to host your trees inside your home or greenhouse over the winter, you may st…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. The Max streaming app has always benefitted from being the home for HBO hits like Game of Thrones, The White Lotus, and The Last of Us, but the streamer has also produced some quality original programming. Hacks is a buzzy award winner, and shows like Peacemaker and The Sex Lives of College Girls have drawn eyeballs toward the former "HBO Max." More recently, The Pitt is burning up social media, and Spanish-language import When No One Sees Us is drawing critical acclaim. Given the volume of streaming content out there, and the number of shows Max has already produced, there are some great choices that might have flown unde…

If you ask me, graphic design peaked in 2001 with Windows XP's bright blue taskbar and green start button. Every UI design choice since was made by cowards. OK, you might not share my passion for the Windows XP taskbar, which is fine (I guess). But maybe you miss the simple grey aesthetic of Windows 2000, or the comforting orb of Vista. Whatever your taskbar preference, you can bring it back with RetroBar, a free, open source application that replaces the taskbar in Windows 11 with something better. (It will also work if you're running an older version, including Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8.1, or Windows 10.) To get started, download the application from Github. There's an i…

Want to turn a video file into an MP3? Or any video into an MP4? If you have PowerToys installed on Windows, you don't need a third-party application—a quick copy-and-paste will do the job. We've talked about Powertoys, the longstanding Windows utility that offers all kinds of customizations to the operating system. One of the many tweaks added is the Advanced Paste feature, which can convert copied text into other formats. This is triggered by using the keyboard shortcut Windows-Shift-V to paste, instead of the usual Ctrl-V. A pop-up window asks which format you'd like to paste your text as—Markdown, HTML, and JSON are all offered. You can optionally set this up to use A…

Google search has steadily been getting worse, but most of its free alternatives just aren't as good at surfacing the things I'm looking for. Since Google makes money through advertising, its primary incentive is to boost revenue by showing you better ads. Of late, this has resulted in a noticeable decline in the quality of my search results. That brought me to the idea of using a paid search engine instead of Google. Enter Kagi. What is Kagi?Kagi is a paid search engine developed by the people behind the Orion browser. It lets you make 100 searches for free, but after that, you can pay between $5/month and $25/month for different tiers of its service. Thanks to search gi…

Nintendo just wrapped up its long-awaited Nintendo Switch 2 Direct, and the experience was almost surreal. The company has avoided talking about the console for so many years, and even after it shared an early preview a few months ago, it's still odd to see Nintendo walk us through the console in such depth. Mind games aside, it's finally official-official, and we now know a lot about Nintendo's upcoming console. The Direct didn't answer every question about its capabilities, but if you're interested in the hardware specs, here's everything there is to know right now. How powerful is the Switch 2?From games to accessories, there's a lot to get excited about with any new …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. If you’ve been eyeing a Nintendo Switch OLED but haven’t wanted to pay full price, you might want to check out this refurbished model (with white Joy-Cons) going for $249.99 on Woot—that’s a solid chunk cheaper than Amazon’s $289 sale-price tag. However, this price is only live for four days or until it sells out, whichever comes first. This is a refurbished unit (tested and certified to work like new), so it may show light cosmetic wear, but performance-wise, you’re getting the same console that PCMag called the “Best Gaming Console of the Year” in…

Producing video content is a particular challenge for generative AI models, which have no real concept of space or physics, and are essentially dreaming up clips frame by frame. It can lead to obvious errors and inconsistencies, as we wrote about in December with OpenAI's Sora, after it served up a video with a disappearing taxi. It's these specific problems that AI video company Runway says it's made some progress in fixing with its new Gen-4 models. The new models offer "a new generation of consistent and controllable media" according to Runway, with characters, objects, and scenes now much more likely to look the same over an entire project. If you've experime…

The Nintendo Switch 2 is quite a bit different than the OG Switch: The Joy-Cons are beefier and connect via magnets; when docked, the console supports 4K 60fps output; and you can finally charge the console when playing in tabletop mode. But at the end of the day, what matters most about a new console like the Switch 2 is the games: If there's nothing new to play, what's the point? Of course, Nintendo shared a number of Switch 2 exclusives during its big Direct on Wednesday. This isn't a repeat of the Nintendo 3DS launch: There are games to play if you buy a Switch 2 on day one. But there are also a number of interesting titles coming soon and later this year. (There's ev…

There are many ways to copy text that can't be easily selected, but few that are as simple and fast as Text Lens ($6)—a new Mac app by prolific developer Sindre Sorhus. Text Lens lets you select any part of your Mac's screen and automatically copy all of the text from that part. This makes it easy to copy text from images, videos, scanned pages, settings menus, and other types of text that are otherwise impossible to grab. Text Lens vs. Apple's Live TextLive Text, which is built into macOS, allows you to capture text from screenshots. While it's good enough to get you started, it works only with Safari, Preview, and the built-in screenshot tool. You can't select text fro…

For decades, the only way to buy a car was to physically go to a dealership. If that idea gives you an anxiety attack, you’re not alone, so it’s a relief to know that the industry is finally embracing online shopping—even Amazon has gotten in on the act, and about half the buyers in one survey shopped for their car online. But just like anything else on the internet, buying a car online comes with the risk of fraud. Scammers are setting up entire fake online dealerships and ripping people off to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars. You might think you’re too savvy to get fleeces like that (who buys a $50,000 car sight unseen anyway?), but the risk is real. These fake…

Zelle has been around as a convenient digital payment platform since 2017, but has now closed down payments inside its standalone apps for Android and iOS, as it promised it would last October—though the move is a sign of Zelle's success rather than its failure, and most Zelle users aren't going to need to change anything. If you're one of the 150 million or so people who make use of Zelle, you're no longer going to be able to use the Zelle app to send money to friends, family, and businesses. However, Zelle lives on as a platform: It's now integrated into the operations of more than 2,200 financial institutions, so you'll still be able to use it through your banking app.…

Nintendo Switch 2 is officially coming to stores on June 5. In just over two months, you might have the opportunity to own Nintendo's newest (and most expensive) console and play the latest Switch 2 exclusives (Mario Kart World looks ridiculously fun), assuming you can snag one of them. Because if you want to boot up a Switch 2 on launch day, you'll almost certainly need to preorder it. Unless you're lucky enough to find a store that has extra consoles in stock, or there turns out to be exceptionally low demand (unlikely given eight years of building anticipation among the Nintendo faithful), these things are going to be a rare commodity. One option, of course, is to pre…

Zelle, the digital payment platform that allows you to send money directly to friends and family, has shuttered its standalone app. But while the Zelle app is no longer, you can likely still send and receive money with Zelle through your bank or credit union—Zelle is already integrated into over 2,200 bank apps, and you can use this search tool to find out if yours is one of them. Otherwise, you'll have to send money using another tool. Here are four of the best Zelle alternatives for peer-to-peer payments. VenmoVenmo allows you to request money or pay other users and send up to $60,000 a week once you've verified your identity within the app. You can transfer funds in y…

On Monday, Apple released iOS 18.4, iPadOS 18.4, and macOS Sequoia 15.4 for compatible devices. But Apple Watch owners might have noticed watchOS 11.4 curiously missing from the list. Apple pulled the update at the last minute, something of a rarity from the company that likes to release all software updates together. But now, the new watchOS update is finally available to everyone, and the slight delay was worth it. This update enables a feature that many Apple Watch users have wanted for a long time: the ability to break through Silent mode when an alarm goes off. The iPhone already does this really well. You're in Silent mode, or you have Do Not Disturb enabled, but y…

Nintendo has never been known for high-performance hardware, but that certainly hasn't hurt its bottom line—especially in the Switch age. The company's decision to use more basic components for the Switch back in 2017 helped keep the console cheaper than any of its competitors. It's tough to get too hung up on the lack of 4K 60fps support when you can play the latest Zelda on a handheld that can cost less than $200. But lo, a new Switch is here, and with it, a new price. The Switch 2 is, indeed, a more powerful version of the Switch, and comes with a number of advantages: a larger 1080p HDR display with a 120Hz refresh rate, a dock equipped with a fan to support 4K 60fps …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. If you've never considered the Kindle Kids e-reader because of the label, you've been missing out on some sweet perks. The 16 GB Amazon Kindle Paperwhite Kids is $139.99 (originally $179.99), the lowest price it has ever been, according to price-tracking tools. Here's why this is a great deal for everyone—not just kids. (16 GB) – larger 7" glare-free display – Cyber …

Although home burglaries are trending downward overall, there are still more than 800,000 break-ins every year. Aside from the potential damage to your property and the loss of your belongings, there also the concern for your family’s safety—no one wants criminals wandering around your house. The obvious solution is to go with technology—alarm systems and security cameras. While these kinds of systems can definitely help defend against unwanted guests on your property (and give you peace of mind), there’s more you can do to keep your home secure. Your landscaping is a surprisingly key element of your home’s security—or it can be, if you plan it thoughtfully. Here are a fe…