Setting Up Your Home Office

Shopping has always been a battle. Companies work hard to convince you that their product is better, while also trying to ensure you pay the highest possible price for your purchase. That’s fair enough, and most of us are accustomed to researching everything we buy to make sure we’re not being ripped off. But modern technology has changed the game. Companies have been hoovering up information about us for years now, and that means they have a pretty good idea about our shopping habits—including what we’re willing to pay for specific products and services, something called Individualized Consumer Data (ICD). New tools like artificial intelligence are now making it very, ve…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Some people don't need to have both a TV and a monitor in their office or bedroom. There might just not be enough space, or money might be a factor. If this sounds like you, consider the beautifully designed Samsung M8, a smart monitor that doubles as a TV and a gaming hub, currently $399.99 (originally $699.99) after a 43% discount. SAMSUNG 32-Inch M8 (M80D) Resolution: 4K, HDR: HDR10+, Features: Gaming Hub. …

If your iPhone is running iOS 18.4, you might have noticed some significant new features, like AI-powered Priority Notifications and seven brand-new emojis. However, one change in particular might be a bit controversial: Safari's Search feature now shows a list of your most recent searches every time you search for something new. Useful? Maybe. Privacy-compromising? Definitely. Don't be alarmed: If you're not a fan of Safari's new "Recent Searches" screen, you can turn off this feature entirely, or clear all recent results quite quickly. How the new Safari Search screen worksWhen you open a new tab and tap "Search or enter website" in iOS 18.4, you'll see a new screen sho…

I'm sure there was a point in time when it was cool to receive a text from a business or service, but it's not today. Our phones are sounding off way too often these days, in part because of the rise in spam messages. Many of these messages arrive because your number happened to end up on an organization's subscriber list for one reason or another. Perhaps you donated blood one time, and now you are contacted every other day about setting up your next appointment; maybe you gave money to a political candidate, and now that candidate's party is blowing up your phone for more money. In many cases, you can send a STOP text to end the madness. But if the organization doesn't…

Even if you're on top of your finances and never miss a payment, in the current economic climate, managing your bills can feel like swimming frantically and just keeping your head above water, with your paycheck evaporating before you even have a chance to appreciate it. If you’re on salary and get paid bi-weekly, however, there are two months out of the year in which you are paid three times instead of two—and May is one of those months. Because your budget is probably based on getting paid twice per month, that thirdpay day can feel like a bonus—and it actually can serve you very well, if you play it smart. Here’s how to make the most of this month's "extra" paycheck. …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. I used to regularly read more than 125 books a year, each meticulously logged on my Goodreads profile. I read during my commute and to wind down at night. I always had a paperback in my bag or an audiobook in my ears. Then I got a smartphone. Then I got on Twitter. Then the 2016 presidential election happened. Then there was a pandemic, and for a while I stopped commuting altogether. With every year, it seemed like there were more things to spiral about online, and less hours in the day to relax with a novel or read some stimulating non-fiction. Suddenly I found it hard to meet my much more modest reading goals, which dro…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. If you’ve finally purchased your first air fryer, let me start by saying how happy I am for you. I've been cooking and crisping with mine for a few years now, and during this time I've put a lot of things in that basket. Not everything has worked out (it's not an appliance for steaming, friends), but many of my experiments have been so delicious and reliably repeatable that they're now staples in my household. Below are 12 of my favorites things to cook in the air fryer that either save me time, money, or both. (If you're still on the fence about whether to get an air fryer and you're reading this as research, allow me to…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. There are a lot of phones that promise top-tier performance for under a grand, but not many manage to deliver it quite like the Motorola Moto Edge+ (2023). Now available for just $399.99—down from its original $649.99—this unlocked model is sitting at its lowest price ever, according to price-trackers. That’s a steep drop for a phone that PCMag named an Editor’s Choice. It comes in Interstellar Black with 8GB RAM and a generous 512GB of storage. The design lives up to its name with curved edges that wrap around a nearly bezel-less 6.7-inch display w…

There’s a new star in the firmament of fake new: White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. Known for her combative press conferences, Leavitt is at the center of a tornado of misinformation that is being spread on both sides of the political spectrum. To set the record straight on two of the most viral fake Leavitt stories: She did not say people will love tariffs if they “avoid woke things like math.” And she did not appear on the Stephen Colbert Show. So if you believed either of these things, you’re wrong, Before you feel too bad for the lies being told about Leavitt, she is okay with spreading fake news of her own, so it's a huge mess. Karoline Leavitt did not s…

AI bots want to help with your web searches as well as everything else, and Claude is the latest artificial intelligence assistant to get the ability to look up information online—whether that's the latest news headlines or the latest prices on gadgets. "With web search, Claude has access to the latest events and information, boosting its accuracy on tasks that benefit from the most recent data," says developer Anthropic. The feature is available now across all paid plans, and is "coming soon" for free users. Web search is a different kind of challenge for AI models, testing their ability to sift through and assess content published on the web, rather than embedded in its…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. A quick public service announcement: Mother’s Day is this Sunday. If this holiday snuck up on you again this year (I’m in the same boat), it’s not too late to grab a thoughtful gift. Here’s a list of gift ideas for the chef, baker, coffee connoisseur, and everyone in between. While you may not have time to get something engraved or monogrammed, these gifts still say “You deserve to do more of what you love.” The vendors listed below offer expedited shipping so your gift will arrive on time. Just make sure to check the two-day shipping option during checkout. …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. There are plenty of places worth investing your money for long-term growth. But what about short-term savings? Shouldn’t you be able to earn a little something extra on that, too? A high-yield savings account functions like a traditional savings account but offers significantly higher interest rates. More specifically, the average interest rate on savings accounts is currently 0.41% per the FDIC. Compared to those meager returns on a traditional savings account, high-yield alternatives can deliver more than 4.50% APY—turning a potential $50 annual return on $10,000 into $450 or more. These accounts are typically offered b…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Hot on the heels of Oura’s AI Advisor, another app feature from the smart ring company is leaving beta and becoming available to all users: meal logging. But this isn’t just another calorie tracking app—Oura’s Meals feature provides feedback on what you’re eating and when, without judging you for how much. Oura Ring 4 $349.00 at Amazon /images/amazon-prime.svg …

Phone notifications are tricky to balance: too many of them, and you're constantly distracted by buzzes and pings. Too few of them, and you risk missing something important, from a relative in trouble to a great deal on headphones (two ends of the importance scale there, but you get the idea). Over the years, Apple and Google have tweaked and refined the notification systems built into iOS and Android, but there's still room for improvement. The native features that are currently in place work fine, but lack the sort of granular control you need to properly manage the alerts you want and the alerts you don't want. Enter BuzzKill: It's Android only (sorry, iPhone users), a…

The modern internet is full of annoyances designed to make your experience worse. Sites disable copying, right-clicks, and shove all kinds of massive banners and autoplaying videos in your face, even when they hide the content you're there for. If this kind of thing bothers you, and you happen to browse on your iPhone or Mac, there is a solution: the StopTheMadness Pro app ($15). It works with Safari on your iPhone or Mac, and with Firefox and Chrome for Mac. StopTheMadness Pro is a one-stop solution to reclaiming the internet. It has so many features that it's hard to list them all in one article, but I'll highlight the ones I like the most (for context, I primarily use…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. The reality of home gardening is that you rarely have as much space as you’d like. For many people, all they have is one raised 4x8 foot bed. While that doesn’t feel like a lot of space, you can fit a whole lot of plants into 32 square feet. With a smaller space, you just have to find new and inventive ways to get more variety in your beds. Around where I live, we call this "cramscaping. " Take advantage of plant timing and growth patternsEvery vegetable and fruit out there has recommended spacing (for instance, tomatoes should be 18 inches apart), and in an ideal world, you’d accommodate them perfectly. However, you can p…

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,…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. If you’re trying to avoid Microsoft 365’s monthly fees but still want the full suite of tools for work or school, this one-time purchase of Office Professional Plus 2019 might be worth a look. It’s currently on sale for $29.97 on StackSocial, which is a fraction of what you’d usually pay. Just to be clear—this isn’t a trial or a cloud-based subscription. It's a lifetime license for one Windows PC, and you get full offline access to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, Publisher, and Access. There are some limitations you’ll want to keep in min…

Dark or light mode: Some people prefer one over the other all day, every day, and they're wrong. The enlightened among us know the truth: It's best to use light mode when it's light and dark mode when it's dark. That's why macOS, in the Appearance section of System Settings, offers an Auto option, which switches to dark mode at sundown. This works well enough if you're working in a room with windows, I suppose, but that's not everyone's workspace. There are all kinds of reasons you might be in a dark room during the day and a light room during the night. These are the exact situations DarkModeBuddy solves. This tiny open-source application uses the light sensors built in…

The Department of Education announced Monday that the Federal Student Aid (FSA) will restart collections on defaulted student loans beginning May 5. Even before this news, millions of borrowers were already seeing their credit scores plunge in recent months, and loan servicers are warning that a record number of borrowers are at risk of defaulting by the end of the year. I recently covered the basics of what you need to know about the upcoming changes, as well as how to prepare for them. Now, let's dive a little deeper into how borrowers suffering through collections can navigate their financial future. What the end of the pause means for your finances"Many people have be…

The Gboard interface can be a lot. In addition to the keyboard, there are so many features stuffed inside this little utility that there's a whole customizable toolbar on top of the keyboard to help you navigate them. And this kind of maximalist interface applies to the Emoji keyboard as well... or at least, it used to. Now, Google is finally doing something about it. Google has starting rolling out a new beta redesign to the Emoji menu that makes it simpler to use, with a more categorized layout. Gone is the old "All" screen that showed all of your recently used emojis, customized Emoji Kitchen stickers, and GIFs all in one long, confusing list. And, with a little bit …

The pace of AI progress is showing no signs of slacking. Following ChatGPT's big image upgrade a few weeks ago, it's now Google's turn to show off new models for generating videos and pictures from text prompts: We've got Veo 3 (for video) and Imagen 4 (for pictures), announced during Google I/O 2025, and they come with some significant improvements. Starting with Veo 3, it's the next step up from the Veo 2 model that was recently pushed out to paying Gemini subscribers last month. Google says Veo 3 brings with it notable improvements in real-world physics (something AI video often struggles with) and details such as lip-syncing. In short: Your clips should look more real…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Even though the residential burglary rate has been dropping steadily in recent years (down 26% between 2019 and 2023), many of us still worry about being robbed or experiencing a home invasion. Alarm systems and other high-tech security are really effective—a study once found that 83% of criminals check for an alarm before selecting a house to rob—but they don’t actually stop someone from breaking into your home. If you want to prevent a determined criminal from getting inside in the first place, you don’t need to spend a fortune turning your house into some sort of smart home fortress—there are plenty of cheap, low-tech s…