Lifehacker

Even if you only travel a few times a year, a hotel credit card with no annual fee can be worthwhile just for the perks alone. Many of these entry-level cards include free nights on rooms, insurance coverage, priority reservations, and no foreign transactions fees. Here’s a closer look at some of the best deals.

iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 are solid updates to the iPhone and iPad. Yes, there’s not a whole lot going on this year, and we’re still waiting on features like SharePlay and Universal Control, but this is the year of small, stable updates. That said, every year Apple tends to add some features that are less than ideal, and…Read more...

A garage is a wonderful thing to have: It protects your car from the elements and can absorb a shocking amount of random clutter. But if you’re not careful, all that random clutter will turn even the most spacious garage into a pit of despair. If yours has taken a dark turn, here’s how to pull it back from the edge.

One of the best new features of Safari in iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 is its support for extensions. They’re cool new ways to add some excellent features to your web browsing experience, but unfortunately, the App Store doesn’t make it easy to find the best ones on iOS 15. We’re here to fill the gap though—by the time you’re…Read more...

I fear the children of today do not value the Muppets like they should, and I find that very sad.Read more...

This weekend I took my 5-year-old daughter cabin camping. We had our own shower, but there was no bathtub anywhere for miles around. She was clear with me that she would not take a shower, so I made sure that she had a bath before we left home and I figured we could survive the weekend with baby wipes and such. But…Read more...

With Bitcoin taking a 10% bath earlier this week, you might be wondering whether you should invest in something less volatile, like stablecoin. After all, the cryptocurrency already has the word stable in its name. But what is stablecoin exactly, and is it a worthwhile investment? Here’s a look how it works and how it…Read more...

When you hear “tinted windows,” you probably think first of cars—and the various degrees to which you can tint their windows within (or outside of) the law. But you can tint your home’s windows, too, without the pesky legal drama—and you might want to.Read more...

If you’ve found yourself opening multiple tabs while comparison shopping on your phone, you probably wouldn’t mind a quick way to copy all of them to share with someone else, so you can avoid texting them one link after another. One of the updates to Safari in iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 has made that very easy to do: You…Read more...

While having a low credit score definitely affects your ability to qualify for loans at reasonable rates, the upper range of your credit score doesn’t really matter as much. In fact, trying to boost your score beyond a certain range is pretty much a waste of time if you’re trying to snag the best interest rates.

It is now fall, and it’s time to shift gears, produce-wise. Every tomato, every ear of corn, every stone fruit that you buy is now a gamble. Sure, you might get one of the last sweet peaches or nectarines (which are also peaches), but the likelihood of that happening dwindles with each passing day.Read more...

With recent surges in COVID infections, many workplaces are as uncertain as ever about reopening. Many workers, however, aren’t so confused about where they stand on the return to in-person work; according to a survey reported by Bloomberg, 40% of employees said they would consider quitting rather than giving up the…Read more...

If you’re like 87% of tax filers that take the standard deduction, you probably don’t think much about deducting charity donations. However, a provision in last year’s COVID relief package lets you do just that, without having to itemize your taxes—up to $600 for joint filers. The only catch is that you’ll have to…Read more...

The automatic dark mode is a great way to soothe your eyes when you’re using your iPhone or iPad late at night. But what happens when you then open a web page in Safari? A blinding white light hits you out of nowhere, that’s what, because not all websites support the dark mode. If you’re using iOS 15 or iPadOS 15,…Read more...

As you know if you’ve ever broken up with one, a toxic person’s impact on you can long outlast the time they were actually in your life. A particularly bad relationship can lead to trauma, a lack of trust in future relationships, and serious emotional scars. Toxic people can somehow still find a way to get to you,…Read more...

Whether you have a slow leak or are just looking to spruce up your kitchen, updating your old faucet can help conserve water and make your kitchen more efficient. Though handling the job yourself may seem intimidating, it’s totally doable, and it will pay dividends in the form of lower monthly bills and avoiding a…Read more...

It’s nearly impossible to keep a freezer 100% frost-free. Opening the door lets moisture in, and that moisture freezes, building up on the walls, ceiling, and floor of your ice box. You can treat the inside with special frost-prevention sprays—or cooking oil!—to keep the frost from sticking, but most people do not…Read more...

As the days get shorter and the temperatures drop, it’s time to start thinking about prepping your garden for winter. Conventional wisdom has it that tilling the soil—digging it up to loosen the structure and break up weeds, either by hand or with a power tiller—should be your first step. But does it actually help?Read more...

Wobbly furniture can lead to all sorts of minor tragedies, from sloshed drinks to scratched floors—but you can make your furniture more stable with just the use of the humble hammer, screwdriver, and drill.Read more...

If remote work has taught us anything, it’s that many of our meetings are unnecessary and overly complicated, especially if teams are spread across time zones. Unless collaboration is essential to the agenda, we can often get everything we need in just a few minutes on our own time. Slack has been working on a tool…Read more...

The funny thing about Netflix’s original streaming content: All of it basically ceases to exist roughly one week after it drops on the service.Read more...

If you, like me, have an oven with a convection setting, there’s a good chance you may not know exactly how it works, what it’s for, or how to actually use it. In conventional ovens, the heat comes from heating units placed at the top and bottom, while a convection oven has a fan and exhaust system that circulates the…Read more...

Ever tapped on a link from a Google search on your phone and found the results a little... off? Tapping the top of your screen won’t scroll you to the top, scrolling in general seems janky, and the URL bar shows “google.com” instead of the name of the site you’re trying to visit.

So you never got around to “finishing” your basement, but that doesn’t mean it should go unused. If you have a lot of space down there to enjoy, but not enough time or money for a complete overhaul, here are some tips to make it cozier, even when it’s not finished.

Safari has been revamped in many ways in iOS 15 and iPadOS 15. There’s a new tab bar, a fresh Start Page, and support for Safari extensions. Browser extensions are a huge part of the desktop browsing experience, but these remain much rarer on mobile platforms. The Safari extension ecosystem on Mac isn’t anywhere near…Read more...

In the pandemic era, it’s easy to forget about another important inoculation—the flu vaccine. While we got off lightly in 2020, health experts are suggesting that flu season could be much worse this year—even more reason to get your shot this fall. For further incentive, consider choosing a pharmacy or grocery store…Read more...

When people talk about frying fish, they are usually referring to deep frying—or at least that is what I am usually talking about. But pan frying is also a valid form of fish preparation, especially if you don’t feel like dealing with a large amount of hot oil. Not only is a vat of frying oil kind of annoying to…Read more...

Slasher movies are often seen as the lowest tier of the movie pyramid, but you should reconsider this unfairly maligned sub-genre. In an effort to change your mind, I submit these ten influential, worthwhile, and interesting slasher flicks.

Apple will happily sell you a new iPhone 13 for $800, $1,000, or even $1,100. But unless you’re desperate for a 120 Hz display or the latest and greatest smartphone camera money can buy, you might find more value in the used iPhone market. While you can find any iPhone ever made for sale online, there’s one that’s…Read more...

If you’re trying to reach new Instagram followers, hashtags are still one of your top tools in 2021. But where should your hashtags go? For years, there’s been fierce debate over where to put those pound signs: Team Caption versus Team Comment. And for years, most sources claimed there was no functional difference…Read more...

If you feed—or plan to feed—your newborn formula, you might be wondering for how long you will need to do so. When is the right time to wean them? How will you know when they’re ready? While there’s no magic “formula,” here are a few basic guidelines.

Are you switching from an older iPhone to a new one? The online backup process is usually smooth, as long as you have enough free space on iCloud or a computer to use iTunes for the backup and restoration. However, if you don’t have enough iCloud storage, you no longer need to use your computer.

Sometimes talking with our children about their school day is akin to a dentist pulling a crocodile’s teeth: It’s lengthy, it’s risky, and it doesn’t seem to benefit either party. But we know it’s important to connect with our kids about their day, to keep a pulse on any challenges in school and the quality of their…Read more...

When you’re using an app like Safari on the iPad, a single window is rarely enough. While it’s easier than ever to create new windows and window pairings on the iPad, finding windows is a different question altogether. But it’s all good—there’s a new feature in iPadOS 15 that wants to make this easier for you. It’s…Read more...

Aluminum foil is a very useful, flat, and malleable material, perfect for making impromptu roasting racks, pie crust shields, and simple food wraps (for non-acidic foods). Lining pans with foil can help speed up the cleaning process—just toss the foil in the garbage—but there is one thing in your kitchen that you…Read more...

Ah, the attic. That traditionally forgotten receptacle of luggage, tax files, old games, holiday decorations, and broken appliances you might one day fix. It is often unfinished and mostly forgotten, but there are several ways to convert it into an actual valuable, functional area of your home. You may need to finish…Read more...

The Apple Watch packs a lot of power into a small design. But for all of their speed and utility, performing certain tasks on one of them can still be painfully slow. Take updates, for example—they’re notoriously sluggish on Apple Watch. If you’re dreading how long your watchOS 8 update is going to take, you can tweak…Read more...

Most recipes that use the oven call for preheating it to a certain temperature, which can take a little while. If you, like me, are a rather absent-minded sort of cook, there will inevitably come the time when you finish prepping your dish and go to put in the oven, only to realize that you forgot to heat it ahead of…Read more...

There’s a new key modifier in town, and it’s the Globe key.

A sticky door knob might not be the most pressing update your home needs, but fixing it can improve your quality of life every day. As hardware ages, knobs can come loose or develop other problems that prevent the latch from engaging or disengaging when you turn them. Although the inner workings of a door latch can…Read more...

As of this month, there are 3,633 “official” emojis available across the world. The tiny pictographs can convey tons of emotions and ideas, but like any form of symbolic communications, their meanings change over time and among different groups of people—especially if one group is millennials and the other is Gen Z.…Read more...

Putting your phone out of reach or, heaven forbid, turning it off entirely, can be an unreasonable option for minimizing screen time. What if there’s an emergency? What if someone actually does need to get in touch with you? Fortunately, you don’t actually have to go all or nothing—an alternative is to turn on your…Read more...

If you had StubHub tickets canceled early in the pandemic, you’re now entitled to a full refund. Although the company had abruptly adopted a credit-only refund policy at the height of the pandemic, now, as the result of a settlement, they must pay you back promptly—and not change its refund policies without your…Read more...

It’s very hard to go wrong with frico, aka cheese crisps, aka a pile shredded cheese that has been fried in a pan so it feels like you’re eating something fancier than a pile of shredded cheese. It’s a pretty perfect snack, and one that I did not think could be improved upon until my friend Danielle sent me a TikTok…Read more...

Apple is good at what they do; they release something new—like, say, the iPhone 13—and instantly you think I need that. But do you?

For many of us, the space underneath the bed holds nothing more than a stack of old photo albums, a few stray socks, and a layer dust you’ve been meaning to do something about for, oh, a few years now. However, the space under your bed is actually prime storage space—especially if you live in a small home—and one that…Read more...

Raking leaves is a universally dreaded annual task, and for good reason—it’s hard, physical work that creates more hard, physical work. Once you’re done raking, you still have to find a way to get rid of all those leaves.Read more...

Safari’s iOS 15 redesign has generated controversy, if only because the initial designs were a bit too radical. However, if you can get over its placement at the bottom of the screen, the tab bar arriving today in the final build of iOS 15 is a delight to use. There are even a few gestures that can make it a lot more…Read more...

Sure, movie ghosts and masked-slashers are scary, but if you want real, uncut horror you have to go to the source: Real life. These 10 documentaries would be scary enough as fiction, but the fact that they’re real is terrifying.Read more...

As soon as the world finds out you’re pregnant, especially if it’s with your first child, you will be blasted from all sides with recommendations of “products every parent needs.” Family will ask if you have the latest nursing pillow, friends will offer to “help you scan” (that is, tell you exactly what they want you …Read more...