Practical how-tos, pro tips and the occasional opinion.
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How to convert home-video DVDs to MP4
Home-video DVDs degrade, and most new computers can't read them because they don't come with a DVD drive any more. Here's how to get the footage off the discs and into an MP4 format that can be played on smart phones or saved safely to the cloud.
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Uninstalling Xbox, Clipchamp, and the rest of the bloat from your Start menu isn't enough. Windows 11 puts them back after updates unless you work through a few extra layers.
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Part 2 of a three-part series on backing up family photos. I cover picking an external drive, organizing folders so you can find things later, and rotating drives so one failure doesn't wipe you out.
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There are five ways to move photos and videos off an iPhone.
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Winterizing an outdoor spigot takes about ten minutes. You disconnect the hose, shut the interior valve, and watch for the frost-free trap.
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The small tricks that separate a crisp-looking wrapped gift from the lumpy-tape-everywhere version. Nobody teaches you this stuff, so here it is.
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Most people either overvalue their old stuff or sell it for pennies. Here's how to price your items.
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Vibe coding doesn't have to produce a tangled mess. Set the rules up front and check the AI's work as you go.
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Apple Maps returning results from the wrong city? Here's why the location gets stuck and how to reset it.
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A plain-English guide to picking a video editor — from the free built-ins to the enthusiast tools, and when the phone is the right answer.
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Two common Microsoft 365 tasks: enabling users to change their own password (it's off by default) and moving an email account to a new laptop.
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A 5 to 10 year old computer that feels slow can usually be brought back to life for under $110 in parts — if you know which upgrades are worth doing and which machines can't be upgraded at all.
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Part 1 of a three-part series on backing up family photos: the basic rule and the three common setups that feel safe but leave everything exposed.
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Five months after my heart attack I'm down 30 pounds and feel healthier than I did before. What worked came down to food, exercise and stress.
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Chasing a high-pitched whine through your car stereo? Here are the fixes everyone recommends first, and the one that killed mine.
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Before you rage-buy a new printer, check these five things. It's usually one of the same handful of problems.
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Your kid just started a real job and HR handed them a 401(k) enrollment form they don't understand. Here's the 10-minute conversation to have with them before the default settings make the decision for them.
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Scam sites look better than ever. Here's what to check before typing a credit card into a website you don't already know.
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Two months after a stent for a 90% blockage in the widowmaker, here's what cardiac rehab, a Mediterranean diet, and daily blood pressure checks have taught me.
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Before you blame your ISP and let them sell you a faster plan, run through a few quick checks. The bottleneck is usually the router, not your internet connection.
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Tankless water heaters get pitched as the obvious upgrade, but they're a great fit for some houses and a bad financial call for others. Here's how to tell which situation you're in.
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Water heaters show warning signs months before they leak. A 10-minute inspection twice a year gives you time to shop the replacement on your own terms.
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I built Cliopanion, a daily-routine app with an AI companion named Clio. It tracks your routines, holds you to what you said you'd do, and reflects with you on how the week went.
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The trade-offs between claiming Social Security at 62, 67, or 70, and how to figure out which age works best for your situation.
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Code Claude hands you can look authoritative and be subtly wrong. Here's how to smell the bluff before you paste it in.
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Part 1 of a build log. I'm making a 10-foot semicircular bar and a dance floor for my daughter's August wedding. I used ChatGPT to design the bar and drop the render onto a photo of the actual yard — here's how that worked.
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Preserve your Hi-8 and VHS memories by converting them to digital movies and saving them to DVD before the tapes wear out for good.
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I wrote FlowPro in 1997 as a Visual Basic port of a Fortran open-channel-flow program. This week I asked Claude to convert it into a web app.
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The dealer negotiates for a living. You don't. Here's how the game works, why the monthly-payment question is the trap, and the script I used the second time I helped a daughter buy a car.
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Ten security findings from an AI-run audit of my own apps — high, medium, and low severity, and how each one got fixed.
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Buying a used car is mostly about catching problems before they become your problems. The full checklist I run every time — exterior, drivability, interior, and the bottom line.
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Vibe coding drops the barrier to building software. But the difficulty doesn't ramp up gently — and the gap between "looks like it works" and "actually works" can be huge.
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Here’s how to send photos and videos to another iPhone – even when there’s no cell phone coverage or wifi – using…
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Quick Response Codes – QR codes for short – can be linked to web pages. Here’s how to create one that links to your…
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Question: I have a lot of books on my Kindle, but sometimes I’d like to read them on my laptop instead of on my Kindle. Is there a…
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Macs have a built-in way of letting you transfer files from one Mac to another using Airdrop over a wireless network connection. According…
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This handy, low-cost tool can revive dead sections of your lights in minutes—saving you money, time, and a lot of holiday frustration. It…
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Back in December 2008, Mother Nature dumped a few inches of snow on Oregon and the kids and I built an igloo. Here's the video — and the modernized how-to for sharing YouTube videos on Facebook.
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You can almost always recover files from your memory card, even if your system is saying the card is corrupted. Here’s how……
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Photos, music and contacts each move onto an iPhone a different way, on both Mac and Windows.
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NO AC means your sprinkler system is not getting power and is running on it’s backup battery. Here’s how to check…
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Question: How do I transfer an image from my mac to my Samsung cell? And is there any mac apps that I can use to edit an mp3 for a ring…
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With the foundation completed, it’s time to lay down the deck boards. You’ll spend the bulk of your money on this part,…
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We all hope our kids will grow up and live much longer than we do, but if your kids are off to school like mine are, then you’re…
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Question: Have you any info on formatting the memory chip for a camera after deleting all the photos? I tried to make an 8×10…
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Question: I’m getting ready to sell my laptop to someone on Craigslist, and want to be sure they can’t use a restore program to…
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I’ve heard of companies finding data that people thought they had deleted from their work computer. How do they do that? Might be…
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How to transfer pictures from a Samsung digital camera to your computer. Question: I recieved a SAMSUNG DIGITAL CAMERA for my birthday but…
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Impress your friends with this simple and easy holiday-themed spice infused Bourbon recipe. Imagine the feeling of curling up by the fire…
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Macbooks come with a built-in trackpad that you can press anywhere to manually “click” the mouse (with the mouse being your…
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There are three decisions to make before your first website goes up: where to register the domain, which host to use, and which plan. Here's how to make each one without getting trapped.
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Hot tubs are extremely heavy when loaded with water and people, and you’ll need a solid platform to ensure the hot tub doesn’t…
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FaceTime is a great way to stay in touch with friends and family, and even the people you work with… but sometimes it’s a…
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I have developed a tight system for putting up and taking down lights over the past few decades, that makes it fast and easy each year to…
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I’ve used Craigslist to sell dozens of household items over the years, and I’ve noticed the larger-priced electronics are…
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Transferring photos from your iPhone to your computer is a much easier proccess with Windows 10 and here are the steps to…
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Question: Where can I download a free Christmas screensaver? Answer: There are a lot of free screensavers that you can download, but be…
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I do a lot of photo and image editing on my Mac and typically use Preview for grabbing screenshots. After quitting Preview with too many…
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Question: Can you recommend an affordable data recovery program for my Mac? Answer: Before you spend any money on data recovery software,…
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Have you ever been midway through a software development project, and had your client request a change in features? That never happens in…
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Hi Ricky, I need to find an electrician near me in the Beaverton, Oregon area. Who do you recommend? Hi Ricky, I need to find an…
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Linux and Unix-based systems have a built-in scheduling service called cron, that runs in the background and executes commands defined as…
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There’s nothing worse than realizing too late that you accidentally deleted hundreds of precious photos from your iPhone or iPad.…
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A domain, hosting, and something to build the pages with. What each one costs in the first year, and the simplest path if you’ve never done it before.
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Question: I have an idea for a new website, but how do I get the web site name, and how much will it cost? Question: I have an idea for a…
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Centos comes with a powerful firewall called iptables, that gives you very granular control over access to your server. Iptables is…