Blog

Hacks & Workarounds

1185 articles

All articles tagged Hacks & Workarounds.

5 Prime Video Thrillers Worth Streaming This Week

Prime Video's lineup this week leans heavily into action and suspense. The standout is Jack Ryan: Ghost War, a feature-length extension of the popular spy series. The rest of the list mixes western grit with psychological tension.

Huma Shazia·25 May 2026

Hacks & Workarounds·5 min

Calibre: The Free App That Breaks eReader Vendor Lock-In

Your Kindle or Kobo locks you into one bookstore. Calibre, a free open-source app available since 2006, lets you manage any ebook format across any device. Here's why every eReader owner should install it.

Manaal Khan·25 May 2026

Hacks & Workarounds·5 min

6 Hidden Windows Folders That Open Buried Settings

Microsoft has tucked away powerful configuration panels behind obscure folder commands that most users never discover. These CLSID-based shortcuts give you instant access to over 200 settings without digging through menus.

Huma Shazia·25 May 2026

Hacks & Workarounds·7 min

Stop Using Claude Like a Chatbot: How to Unlock Its Full Power

Most people treat Claude as a fancy search engine, typing questions and reading answers. But that approach captures maybe 20% of what Claude can actually do. Moving from chat to agentic tools like Claude Code and Claude Cowork transforms it from a reactive assistant into something that can autonomously build, analyze, and manage projects across your entire system.

Manaal Khan·25 May 2026

Hacks & Workarounds·6 min

ReadEra Wins: The Best Reader App for Modded Fire Tablets

After testing multiple reader apps on a modded Amazon Fire Tablet, one tech writer found ReadEra to be the clear winner. The free app handles 15+ formats, avoids intrusive ads, and treats your library like a library, not a storefront.

Huma Shazia·25 May 2026

Hacks & Workarounds·7 min

5 Self-Hosting Mistakes That Trap Every Beginner

Self-hosting your own apps sounds liberating until you hit the same walls everyone else does. From overbuying hardware to exposing ports directly to the internet, these five mistakes cost beginners time, money, and sometimes their data.

Huma Shazia·25 May 2026

Hacks & Workarounds·5 min

How One User Built an AI Meal Planner to Cut Food Waste

A tech writer used Claude to create a personalized meal planning system that selects recipes based on leftover ingredients. The approach shows how conversational AI can tackle everyday decision fatigue without requiring coding expertise.

Huma Shazia·25 May 2026

Hacks & Workarounds·6 min

4 Android Tricks You Can Only Do With ADB and a USB Cable

Android Debug Bridge isn't just for developers flashing ROMs. A USB cable and a few terminal commands unlock phone mirroring, bloatware removal, and app data wipes that no settings menu can touch. Here are four practical ADB tricks that require zero root access.

Manaal Khan·25 May 2026

Hacks & Workarounds·5 min

6 Prime Video Psychological Thrillers That Will Mess With Your Head

Prime Video's psychological thriller library offers films that trade jump scares for slow-burning dread and ambiguous endings. From Tim Robbins' disorienting Vietnam veteran nightmare in Jacob's Ladder to the identity-shattering twists of Identity, these six picks reward viewers who want their movies to linger long after the credits roll.

Manaal Khan·25 May 2026

Hacks & Workarounds·5 min

Nissan Rogue Outsells RAV4 in Q1 2026: What Changed

The Nissan Rogue beat the Toyota RAV4 by thousands of units in the first quarter of 2026. Toyota's slow rollout of the new RAV4 and rising prices opened the door for Nissan's more affordable, well-equipped crossover to capture buyers who once defaulted to Toyota.

Huma Shazia·25 May 2026

Hacks & Workarounds·6 min

6 Red Flags That Signal a Linux Distro Will Fail You

With hundreds of Linux distributions tracked by DistroWatch, picking the wrong one can mean broken systems, security holes, and abandoned projects. Before you install, look for these warning signs that separate sustainable distros from future abandonware.

Manaal Khan·25 May 2026

Hacks & Workarounds·5 min

5 SUVs Built for Summer Family Road Trips

Summer road trip season is here, and the 2026 SUV market offers standout options for families. From the rugged Subaru Outback starting at $34,995 to efficient hybrids and long-range electrics, these vehicles prioritize comfort, cargo space, and highway refinement over flashy specs.

Manaal Khan·25 May 2026

Hacks & Workarounds·6 min

Why Samsung Users Can't Switch to Pixel After a Month

A month with the Pixel 10 Pro revealed why long-term Samsung users struggle to make the switch. Despite Google's clean software and strong camera work, the absence of Samsung's deep customization tools and automation routines creates friction that specs and benchmarks never capture.

Manaal Khan·25 May 2026

Hacks & Workarounds·6 min

Blu-ray's 2026 Collapse: Why Your Favorite Films May Never Get a Disc

The Blu-ray format is dying faster than most collectors expected. Best Buy stopped selling discs years ago, Walmart's selection has shrunk dramatically, and streaming exclusives are permanently locked behind subscription paywalls. For tech-savvy consumers who value ownership, the options are narrowing to boutique labels and DIY archiving.

Huma Shazia·25 May 2026

Hacks & Workarounds·5 min

Why Being Rude to ChatGPT Gets Better Results Than Politeness

Research shows that dropping 'please' and 'thank you' from your ChatGPT prompts improves accuracy by nearly 5%. The reason comes down to how large language models allocate attention across tokens, where every polite filler word competes with your actual instructions.

Manaal Khan·24 May 2026

Hacks & Workarounds·5 min

5 Ways a Jailbroken Kindle Beats the Stock Experience

Your Kindle is a Linux-powered tablet disguised as an e-reader. Jailbreaking unlocks features Amazon never intended, from smart home dashboards to retro gaming. Here's how to get more from hardware you already own.

Huma Shazia·24 May 2026

Hacks & Workarounds·6 min

OpenAI Codex vs Claude Code: Why Developers Are Switching

OpenAI's refreshed Codex platform has overtaken Claude Code as the preferred AI coding assistant. After Anthropic's Opus 4.6 disappointed users with quality issues and downtime, developers are migrating to Codex's new agentic architecture that promises 65% faster pull requests and a million-token context window.

Huma Shazia·24 May 2026

Hacks & Workarounds·5 min

8 Home Devices That Should Be on Ethernet, Not Wi-Fi

Your Wi-Fi network is probably overloaded with devices that would perform better on a wired connection. A tech journalist explains which gadgets to move to Ethernet and why smart home devices need a different approach entirely.

Huma Shazia·24 May 2026

Hacks & Workarounds·4 min

5 Netflix Originals That Scored Over 90% on Rotten Tomatoes

Netflix's library is vast, but only a handful of its original films have earned critical acclaim above 90% on Rotten Tomatoes. These five titles, spanning war dramas to psychological thrillers, represent the streaming giant's strongest critical achievements.

Manaal Khan·24 May 2026

Hacks & Workarounds·6 min

3 Open-Source Alternatives to LM Studio Compared

LM Studio dominates local LLM tools, but its closed-source nature has spawned open alternatives. A hands-on comparison of Jan.ai, Ollama, and other options reveals distinct use cases for each.

Manaal Khan·24 May 2026

Hacks & Workarounds·5 min

8 YouTube Channels That Stream News 24/7 for Free

Major news networks now offer free, around-the-clock livestreams on YouTube. These channels cover everything from breaking news to weather to financial markets, no subscription required.

Manaal Khan·24 May 2026

Hacks & Workarounds·6 min

4 Open-Source Projects That Have Been Unfinished for 20+ Years

Some open-source projects have been in development for over two decades without reaching a stable release. ReactOS, GNU Hurd, Haiku OS, and others prove that big ambitions and small developer pools create software that never quite finishes.

Manaal Khan·24 May 2026

Hacks & Workarounds·6 min

How to Read Linux Command Usage Guides Without Confusion

Linux commands tell you how to use them, but only if you know how to ask. This guide breaks down the cryptic syntax of man pages and usage output into plain English, so you stop guessing and start controlling the terminal.

Manaal Khan·24 May 2026

Hacks & Workarounds·7 min

How to Run 70B LLMs Free Using Kaggle's Hidden GPU Tier

Google's Kaggle platform offers 30 hours of free dual-GPU compute weekly, enough to run massive open-source models like Llama 3 70B. By combining Jupyter notebooks with secure tunneling, developers can create private API endpoints without spending a dollar on hardware.

Manaal Khan·24 May 2026