Setting Up Your Home Office

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. 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. Subscribe to our shopping newsletter, Add to Cart, for the best sales sent to your inbox. Sales are accurate at the time of publication, but prices an…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Just in time for Memorial Day grilling, barbecuing, and smoking, the thoughtful folks over at ThermoWorks have put together a sale that you won’t want to miss. Starting today, you can get my favorite meat thermometer 30% off. It’s the Thermapen One, and I like it so much, I even bought one for my dad. ThermoWorks Thermapen ONE, No. 1 Recommended Instant-Read Thermometer - Cayenne Pepper Red …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Finally, AI is being put to good use, without taking anyone's job (I think?). The Soundcore Rave 3S uses a unique AI feature to turn any regular song you play over Bluetooth into a karaoke track by digitally removing the vocals. I praised it highly in my review, and I've had a lot of fun making it a centerpiece at my parties this year. Right now, the speaker has gotten its first significant discount—you can pick one up for $299.99, $50 of the usual price. Soundcore Rave 3S …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Everyone has their opinion on how to make a perfectly boiled egg—is it boiled from a cold start, hot start, steamed, pressure-cooked, or sous vide? This argument will rage all the more feverishly as periodic cooking enters the fray. According to science, periodic cooking yields the perfect boiled egg. The test required two pots of water at different temperatures, a two-minute timer, a notepad, and 32 minutes of uninterrupted focus. I must admit, the results were fantastic—but I’d never do it again. The special thing about eggs is that you have two substances: the egg white and the egg yolk, one encapsulating the other. As…

I love an easy, impressive dessert. It must have few ingredients, require little to no elbow grease, and have a big payoff at the end. The galette des rois delivers on all fronts. Often made for Three Kings’ Day at the beginning of January, there’s really no better time to make this dessert than whenever the heck you want it. Why should January have all the fun? Make it for your partner’s birthday, friends dropping in for dinner, or a fancy spin on the king cake for your upcoming Mardi Gras party. With the wonders of pre-made puff pastry, all the hard work is done. In about 40 minutes, you can have a stunner of a dessert. What is a galette des rois?A galette des rois, Fre…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. You can fuss over a turkey in a million different ways, but I don’t. With all due respect to the delicious turkey recipes and clever turkey-cooking techniques we have featured on this site over the years, I make our family bird every year by doing as little as possible, and I always get compliments on how pretty it looks and how good it tastes. Follow these instructions, and you’ll have a simple bird that comes out with juicy meat and crispy skin, while allowing you plenty of time to either relax or make extra side dishes—whichever suits your personality. Overview of the processBelow I'll tell you in exhaustive detail exa…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. It never fails to annoy me when I tell my friends here in New York City that I am cold and they reply, "But you're from North Dakota! This is nothing compared to what you grew up with." I know. Why do you think I left the coldest state in the continental U.S. as soon as I turned 18? I hate the cold in North Dakota, but that doesn't mean I hate the cold in New York any less. Indeed, wherever I am in winter, I'm at war with the cold—midwestern cold, northeastern cold, it's all cold. This is why I've devised a number of plans to mitigate it, and the most useful of my anti-cold measures is the collection of heated accessories …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. My house has precisely one outdoor area, which makes it precious. It’s the only spot where we can hang out outside without actually leaving. Since I’m a dedicated introvert who enjoys fake conversations with his cats more than real conversations with people, that’s incredibly important. As a result, I put a lot of time into keeping the deck comfortable and in good repair. A few years ago, I replaced some of the composite decking with new pieces that didn’t quite match the original color, so I painted the decking to keep things uniform. This past winter was pretty rough on the deck, though, which was starting to look a litt…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. If you’re building a cordless tool set for the first time, or replacing an older set that’s worn out, a combo kit is a good way to save money on several tools as well as batteries and chargers. Because batteries can be an expensive component to a cordless tool set, getting a kit that includes them is a good way to keep your costs down. If you’re trying out a new battery platform, you can expand your set as your needs change by adding new tools that will work with your existing batteries. Why the Milwaukee five-tool combo set is a good dealThe Milwau…

AI tools are suddenly everywhere, and you've probably tried out using an AI program to generate text and images, or perhaps even audio and video. But AI isn't just coming for media you passively experience: Companies are also using interactive entertainment, including video games. We've seen examples of this over the past year or so. Google's Genie model, for example, aims to generate playable video game environments from user prompts. Earlier this year, Microsoft unveiled a similar AI model, called Muse, and that model's first mainstream experience is now here: The company is offering an experimental version of Quake II, a game originally released in 1997, that is power…

Claude has always been focused on text and code, but a few days ago, it rolled out image-generation capabilities—ways to get graphics, mock-ups, slideshows and other similar materials created by AI. The suite of tools is called Claude Design. Then ChatGPT, already much more invested in AI image generation, rolled out a substantial update called Images 2.0. Promises were made of a "step change" in accuracy, consistency, and instruction following. So what can you now do with these AI tools that you couldn't before? And how do the capabilities compare? Claude Design is focused on business and enterpriseClaude Design is available for Claude subscribers, and is intended, in t…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. I broke one of the biggest rules in the running book and lived to tell about it. Everybody knows you need to replace your running shoes after 300 to 500 miles to avoid injury (or 200 to 400, or whatever running companies are saying these days). Well, I put over 1,000 miles on mine, and I’m not sorry. I know it’s been over 1,000 miles because I’ve been tracking my shoes’ mileage in the Garmin Connect app. My watch logs the mileage, and I make sure the credit goes to the appropriate shoe in the app. I carefully ported my shoe miles to and from the Coros app when I switched ecosystems for a bit this past summer. Some of my r…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Last weekend I strapped two different Garmin running watches to my wrists and raced a 10K. On one arm, I wore the Forerunner 970, Garmin's top-of-the-line, $750 running watch. On the other, I wore the Forerunner 165 Music, which is far more budget-friendly at $300. I wanted to see if having a fancy running watch really makes a difference during a race. The answer is complicated. Consider this: The weekend before my race, the winners of the London Marathon competed wearing the Forerunner 55 and the Forerunner 255—two watches that are, by tech standards, practically ancient. This fact was certainly in the back of mind as I r…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Earlier this month, I strapped on two different Garmin watches to race a 10K—a mid-range model on one wrist, a premium one on the other—to see how they stacked up. This time, I branched outside of Garmin's ecosystem. For the Brooklyn Half-Marathon, I wore the Garmin Forerunner 970 ($749.99) on my right wrist and the Amazfit Cheetah 2 Pro ($449.99) on my left, pitting one of the most trusted running watches in the game against Amazfit's more affordable and most ambitious claim to the long-distance running space. Here's how it went. Garmin® Forerunner® 970, Premium …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. 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. I've tested a lot of smart glasses for Lifehacker, and it's tricky to compare them because the category is all over the place. Some "smart glasses," like Chamelo’s Music Shield, are stylish accessories with built-in speakers; others, like the XReal One Pro, are cutting-edge display glasses packed with tech. So lining them up side by side is like kiwis-to-tangelos. But there is one thing that almost every pair of smart glasses shares: they play sounds. So I de…

I'm strongly in favor of using password managers to store your credentials, but, so far, I've resisted the prompts that ask me to switch to passkeys—even though passkeys are better than passwords in just about every way. You don't need to remember or store a long string of random characters if you use passkeys, because they don't actually use a password at all. Instead, you use your device's authentication method, such as a face scan, a device passcode, or fingerprint unlock, to log in to your accounts. Passkeys are also more resistant to phishing attacks because your password manager won't let you use a passkey to log in to dummy websites created by scammers. Despite the…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. I've never really felt the need to own a power station, but when my city got hit with winter storms that took out our power for multiple days, that changed. They're the kind of thing you don't know you need until you need it—so consider learning from my mistake and get one ahead of time. When I finally bought one, I went with the EcoFlow Delta 3 Ultra Plus, which is now $1,499 (originally $2,199) after a 32% discount. The EcoFlow website is also having an up to 45% sale on multiple products right now. EF EcoFlow DELTA 3 Ultra Plus Portable Powe…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. 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. After years of wincing through aggressive massage gun sessions, I just assumed muscle relief required enduring a little bit of pain. There's a reason for the saying, "hurts so good," right? But it turns out you don't need to suffer to see results: The Rally orbital massager, which I have previously reviewed, has completely changed my hard-ass approach to recovery. Don't get me wrong—percussive massage guns have their place. They're powerful and effective at w…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. I've always been the kind of person who needs to write my thoughts down, for fear I'll forget my latest brilliant idea. I used to keep multiple notebooks at the ready for this purpose, but they would invariably get lost, get messy or damaged, or just be too annoying to keep organized. I switched to using apps, but I never built the muscle memory to keep it consistent, and opening a phone has never been good for my productivity. Then I learned about the Rocketbook Core reusable smart notebook. I tried it out, and now it has replaced all my productivity apps and my paper notebooks—and the best part is, it's super affordable…

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. 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. Subscribe to our shopping newsletter, Add to Cart, for the best sales sent to your inbox. Sales are accurate at the time of publication, but prices an…

Valve's Steam Deck has quickly become my go-to gaming handheld. I've clocked—oh god—500 hours just in Hades II on the Steam Deck. Yet I spent full weeks of my life using this device without diving into its most powerful feature: its customizable controls. Here's why you should be using them, even if you think you don't need to. At first, I avoided customizing my controls because I usually like to play the way the developer intended. That ended when I sprained my left wrist while in the middle of replaying Chrono Trigger. I wanted to keep playing, but I needed to rest my wrist. What could I do? That's correct: Obviously, I should remap the in-game controls so I could acces…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Two years ago, I reluctantly inherited a cat. The cat is both mine and not mine: Sky belongs to my daughter, who owns her in the way a pet can "belong" to a minor while an adult operates silently in the background, managing its costs and responsibilities. Chalking it up as an opportunity to teach my kid new skills, I rarely feed Sky, brush her coat, or clean her litter box. Instead, I chose the worse task of incessantly reminding a teenager to do them. If you have a cat, you're likely familiar with the challenges that come from a dirty litter box. And if you have a teenager, you know how frequently they can resist complet…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. The big shopping outlets are gearing up for another Black Friday sale season, and we’ll be on top of all those deals. In particular, I’ll be looking out for deals on fitness gear including fitness trackers and smartwatches, so let me give you a preview of what I’m expecting—and hoping—to see. My predictions here are based on what sales we’ve seen from these models in the past, and what last year’s Black Friday looked like with respect to the then-current models. This year, most of the companies on my list have introduced new watches, but are also still selling their older models. Here are the prices I’ll be looking for t…

There was a time, not so long ago, that I was completely abusing my right to use boxed mixes. I made a crumb cake out of muffin mix, peach dump cake, very convincing black and white cookies, and a super tender boxed cake by adding too much oil and not enough egg. I’ve learned a lot from all this screwing around with boxed mixes (for science, of course). With the recent surge in egg prices and the rate of birthday celebrating as consistent as ever, I began to wonder if there was a way for folks to make boxed cakes without using up all of their precious eggs. Then I remembered, of course there is—you can skip them completely. It was when I was trying to manipulate boxed ca…

There’s the egg price problem for sure, but whether you’re trying to save grocery money or you have an aversion to eggs for dietary or health restrictions—you too deserve cake. Cake for a birthday or cake on a whim, there should be nothing holding you back from achieving your sugary dreams of the moment, least of all a lack of eggless cake recipes. I tested out five common and accessible egg replacement options to see which one produced the best eggless cake. The batterI decided to test a basic yellow cake recipe I’ve used before. It uses a combination of butter and oil, sugar, milk, flour, baking powder, salt, vanilla extract, and usually eggs. It’s a good layering cake …