Tag: how-to

How to Use Apple’s Live Translation on Your AirPods

At the same time Apple announced the AirPods Pro 3 last year, the company also introduced a new feature called Live Translation. It makes the idea of the Babel fish, so evocatively described in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a reality: Something sitting in your ear that can instantly translate between languages, on demand. […]

How to Set Up Your Own NAS Server for Backups and Content Streaming

I’ve been toying with the idea of setting up my own network-attached storage (NAS) server for a long while, but I figured it would be a hassle. Lured by the idea of automatic backups and centralized content sharing that are detached from big tech’s increasingly untrustworthy servers, and further motivated by the creep of ads […]

Spring Cleaning? Here’s How to Declutter Responsibly—and Maybe Earn Some Cash

Spring cleaning feels like an impossible chore. Where do you start? How do you even know when you’re done? Rather than feeling mentally blocked, make the process more manageable with these tips. Start by defining “spring cleaning.” It is in fact two separate tasks: decluttering and deep cleaning. Don’t try to do both at once. […]

How to Watch the Oscars (2026)

Will the ping-pong picture prevail? Will they make Sean Penn a special trophy for Best Walk? Will Conan O’Brien’s ICE jokes get bleeped by Disney? Who knows! That’s why the Oscars are so much fun—but they’re especially fun this year. Oscar fever has hit an all-time high. The list of nominees is unusually stacked with […]

How to Avoid Getting Locked Out of Your Google Account

Many of us have a lot of digital data locked away in our Google accounts: emails, photos, chats, documents, schedules, restaurant reviews. Losing access to that data is likely to be fairly high on the catastrophe scale. There are steps you can take before that happens to minimize the chances of you and your Google […]

How to Survive Daylight Saving Time: Start Early (2026)

Daylight saving time is coming, and it’s my least favorite version of the dreaded time change. Losing an hour ruins the sleep of everyone in my household. It was one thing when it was just a pair of irritated adults, but now we have a 3-year-old who doesn’t understand what daylight saving is or why […]

How to Monitor Your Blood Pressure at Home (2026)

The Apple Watch is not calibrated with a cuff. It takes 30 days of cardiac data from the existing optical PPG sensors, analyzes it, and gives you a probability that you might have hypertension. It’s also significant that this is the first year that the Apple Watch has had a true 24 hours of battery […]

Video Doorbell Advice and Settings for Opting Out of the Surveillance State

There’s also the risk that footage falls into the wrong hands and ends up enabling politically-motivated investigations, police harassment, or stalking without you intending or even knowing about it. Maybe company employees or third-party contractors gain access to videos, or your cameras are hacked. Amazon settled a privacy lawsuit brought by the FTC that mentioned […]

Which Water Filter Pitchers Filter PFAS? How to Check

It’s boom time for water filters, ever since the EPA announced that as many as 10 percent of US water systems may have unsafe levels of PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals,” in the water. Lead pipes are still all over the place, even if they’re no longer in Flint, Michigan, as of July 2025. […]