How to Deter Burglars from Breaking Into Your Home
Getting your home broken into is a scary experience, but you can do a handful of things to prevent a burglar from even thinking about coming close to your house.
5 Google Sheets Features You Should Know
You’re probably familiar with the basics of Google Sheets, but Google’s spreadsheet offering boasts loads of features that aren’t obvious at first glance. Here are some of our favorites.
How I Use Slack as My Own Personal Assistant
Slack is most known as a glorified chatroom app for workplaces, but it’s also a great tool for individuals. Here’s how I use Slack as my own personal assistant of sorts.
How to Fix Plex Showing the Wrong Movie or TV Show
If you recently added a new movie or TV show to Plex and it’s showing up incorrectly, there are a couple of things you can do to fix it. Here’s how to fix broken metadata in Plex for your movies and TV shows….
How to Use Alexa Blueprints to Create Your Own Alexa Skills
There are a ton of Alexa Skills that you can get for your Echo, but now you can create your own basic skills quickly and easily using Alexa Blueprints.
Gigabit Ethernet vs. Fast Ethernet: What’s the Difference?
Not all Ethernet is created equal. These days there are two available standards, Fast Ethernet and Gigabit, which are completely distinct speed interfaces. It’s important to understand the difference between them and which on…
6 Things All New Home Server Users Should Have
Whether you’re running a Plex media server, virtual machines galore, or just maintaining your own cloud storage system, there are a handful of things aspiring home server aficionados should have in their arsenal….
Should You Build Your Own DIY Security System?
There are plenty of security systems out on the market that come with professional installation and support, but what about DIY setups that offer many of the same features and are often much cheaper? Here are the pros and con…
Which Synology NAS Should I Buy?
Synology offers a plethora of NAS models to choose from, but the selection can be a bit dizzying if you’re not sure what all the differences are. Here are some things you should know to help you narrow down your ideal choice….
The Best Ways to Send Money with Your Phone
If you need to pay someone back for dinner, send rent money to a roommate, or send someone cash when they need it, you can do it all easily from your smartphone. We’ve rounded up the best mobile payment apps that help you sen…
Is 24/7 Professional Home Security Monitoring Worth It?
Having 24/7 professional monitoring of your security system might seem like a great way to keep your home safe and catch burglars in the act, but is it really? Or does it just provide a false sense of security on which you’re…
Not Getting macOS Notifications? Here’s How to Fix It (Without Rebooting)
If your Mac is mysteriously no longer showing notifications, restarting your Mac will most likely fix the problem. However, here’s a quick way to remedy the situation without restarting.
How Much Electricity Do All Your Appliances Use?
You know how much electricity you use overall each month, because you pay the bill. But, you can also figure out how much electricity each appliance uses individually and how much it contributes to your total usage….
How Apple’s New Business Chat Works
iMessage isn’t just for texting your friends and family anymore. With Apple’s new Business Chat feature, you can now text businesses and brands with your questions right from iMessage. Here’s how it works….
5 SimpliSafe Settings You Should Change
Most of the default settings for your SimpliSafe security system work fine. However, for full customization, you’re better off digging into the settings and changing some things around to meet your needs….
How Much Electricity Does the Amazon Echo Use?
Alexa can be super useful thanks to the Echo’s always-listening capabilities that keep it ready for action at a moment’s notice. But how much electricity is that convenience costing you?
How to Adjust the Brightness Range of Your Lutron Caseta Dimmer Switches
Lutron’s Caseta dimmer switches are great, but if you’re having some issues with your lights flickering or turning off prematurely, you can adjust the dimming levels to eliminate these issues.
How to Temporarily Disable Your Lutron Caseta Light Switches
Lutron Caseta dimmer switches are typical smart light switches with on/off buttons and dimming controls. However, there’s also a hidden pull-out tab at the bottom for disabling the switch and cutting power when you need to….
How Can I Get Better Wi-Fi Reception Outside?
If you spend a lot of time surfing your phone on your patio or streaming music while you do lawn work, you need a decent Wi-Fi signal. Here are some things you can do to get the best outdoor signal from yours….
How to Back Up Your Mac to Your Synology NAS
MacOS’s Time Machine backup utility lets you back up your entire computer to an external hard drive, but you can also back up to a NAS that’s on your local network. Here’s how to do it.
Why Smart Fridges Are the Future
People love snarking at tech like smart fridges. While the price isn’t exactly affordable just yet, you can’t deny that smart fridges could actually be pretty useful.
How to Install and Set Up the SimpliSafe Security System
If you want to keep your home safe from the occasional bad guy, but don’t want to pay the premium for a professional system, SimpliSafe is a security system that you can easily install yourself. Here’s how to get it up and ru…
Stop Complaining About Vertical Video
People have strong feelings about which direction video should be oriented. There are good reasons for that, but in some contexts, vertical video is completely fine and you should stop complaining about it….
How to Set Static IP Addresses on Your Eero Router
Most of the time, having your router assign dynamic IP addresses to your devices is fine. Sometimes, you want the additional control of assigning a static IP address that doesn’t change. Here’s how to do it on the Eero router…
Backups vs. Redundancy: What’s the Difference?
Backups and redundancy schemes are both data protection methods, but they are not interchangeable. Join us as we explore what makes them different, and why that’s important to you.
