By a show of hands, how many of you clean your power tools? I didn't think so. Those Ryobi tools in the garage are built to handle life's daily wear and tear, tackle DIY projects, and more, but when they get covered in dirt, sawdust, and other grime, a proper cleaning is more important than you think.
Despite all the negative comments and jokes online, Ryobi fans are an enthusiastic and passionate bunch. If you're anything like me, you own a large selection of its brightly colored tools, along with some older blue models. Ryobi releases a little bit of everything, many of which end up discontinued, but those forgotten tools have become collector items, and people are still hunting them down.
Putting sensors all over the home and connecting them to Home Assistant is fun, I know, but it isn't for everyone — not yet. Thankfully, there are smart home upgrades that don't require any apps. I may have replaced every light switch in my home with a smart one, but my favorite smart home upgrade doesn't connect to my Homey Pro at all, and it's an improvement my entire family likes as much as I do.
The Philips PM5139 is not famous. It won no great victories on the battlefield, nor was instrumental in changing the political landscape. It was just a useful function generator that you might find on a workbench somewhere, doing its job quietly and relatively accurately. [doctormord] has been doing the work to reverse engineer this humble piece of hardware.
The PM5139 is poorly documented; the only existing service manual out there is for the PM5138A, a less-capable sister model. Hence, there was some value in reverse engineering the device to understand it better. Work started with two EPROM dumps capturing what Philips put in the box all the way back in the early 1990s. From there, the code was examined and tinkered with until [doctormord] felt confident to modify it and improve upon what was already there. This was achieved with the aid of an 8051 emulator that could run the code to make it obvious what was going on. The result was a custom “V2.0” firmware that adds six arbitrary waveforms to the function generator and the ability to play simple music, amongst other tweaks.
We love to see old hardware given new functionality, even decades down the line, and we love some good reverse engineering, too. Video after the break.
Battery-powered tools are now powerful enough to tackle most jobs, with an ever-growing range of options from impact drivers to nail guns and everything in between. These live in your shed or garage when you’re not using them—but this could be a big mistake.
Canva has shipped 100-plus Visual Suite upgrades in 2026. Here are the changes most likely to reduce tool-switching, rework, and workflow friction.
The post Canva Hits 100 Visual Suite Updates: What Matters for Teams appeared first on TechRepublic.
The $399 reMarkable Paper Pure trades apps, notifications, and color for focused writing. Review its features, limitations, battery life, and value.
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If you're a fan of Ryobi's bright, neon-colored tools found at Home Depot, you likely already know the company makes far more than just tools for around the yard and house. One of its best-kept secrets is how the 18V platform can power camping and outdoor gear. I own a ton of Ryobi products for camping, and here are several that are absolutely worth buying.
One of the worst feelings is realizing you're unprepared for a situation, whether that's stuck on the side of the road or during a big weekend project. That's why I always have a selection of dependable tools ready to go for flat tires, stubborn bolts, and other situations. With that in mind, here are five affordable DeWALT tools you'll want in your trunk or in the back of your truck.
Deciding between Asana and Planner? This comparison guide will help you evaluate their features, pricing, and more.
The post Microsoft Planner vs Asana: Which PM Tool Wins in 2026? appeared first on TechRepublic.
Meta’s Muse Voice Transcribe delivers real-time multilingual speech recognition, speaker labeling and adaptive latency for developers and Mac users.
The post Meta Launches Muse Voice Transcribe for Real-Time Multilingual Speech appeared first on TechRepublic.
Google Pics is rolling out to eligible Workspace customers with AI image generation, editing tools, and admin controls enabled by default.
The post Google Pics Rolls Out to Workspace With Default-On AI Image Tools appeared first on TechRepublic.
Having access to a planer opens up a lot of options for woodworking. It enables a craftsman to work with much rougher lumber and the finished results generally have tighter tolerances. But as [DendroLabsDev] found out, the height adjustment wheel on a planer needs a lot of turns to go from its lowest to highest position, and this gets tiresome when greasing parts during maintenance. So what started as a quick hack to quickly perform this single maintenance task eventually resulted in this programmable height adjustment that’s in use on the planer full-time now.
The motor attached to the height adjustment for the planer is a stepper motor, capable of around 1000 steps per inch. Since revolutions on this tool with the stock wheel adjust only a small amount per revolution, this can in theory enable very small tolerances to be dialed in consistently. Not only that, but [DendroLabsDev] has programmed it with a few different modes, the first of which allows a board to be planed to a certain thickness by making several passes, mimicking the workflow of a human-controlled machine. Then a device to zero the position was added, and then the ability to save the height adjustments to make replication across different boards was added, and then a mode to step through set amounts per pass.
What [DendroLabsDev] has essentially made is a high-dollar planer control that is actually available in the most expensive planers, but adapted for a DeWalt planer easily available and semi-affordable at many local hardware stores. It is also theoretically adaptable for any planer with an adjustment wheel, and [DendroLabsDev] has some plans to improve the control system and package it with a PCB and enclosure that would allow it to be a more accessible product for other woodworkers. Adding electronics to woodworking tools other than routers is a popular pastime, take this CNC-controlled scroll saw for example.
OpenAI restored a five-hour Codex usage window for ChatGPT Plus users, adding another limit developers must track alongside their weekly allowance.
The post OpenAI Brings Back 5-Hour Codex Limit for ChatGPT Plus appeared first on TechRepublic.
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