There’s no shortage of advice from productivity gurus telling you how your Windows desktop should be. A minimalist taskbar, fewer shortcuts, folder organization, and an empty desktop look great in YouTube videos and promotional images. But I found that the reality is not exactly true. The picture-perfect setup never survived more than a week on my PC.

Large language models (LLMs) might be the most accessible and flexible technology we've ever had access to. By default, they're presented as chatbots—but that's just one way to interact with them. With the right prompts, you can transform an LLM into something that behaves like an entirely different app, complete with its own custom interface.

Obsidian has hundreds of community plugins—so many that simply browsing the list can feel overwhelming. Most plugins are built for specific workflows, and not every plugin will be useful to everyone.

If you've ever used Win+Shift+S for quick screenshots, you'll know how handy it can be and how much time it can save. But there's another shortcut that's even more useful. On recent versions of Windows 11, Win+Shift+T extracts editable text directly from your screen, turning information trapped in images, PDFs, and presentation slides into text you can immediately reuse.

Gemini Notebook’s new Collections help users organize growing research libraries as Google expands the former NotebookLM across Gemini and Search, although the feature remains more limited than a proper folder system.

Opening a PDF, reading its contents, and closing the window is one of the most basic tasks you can perform on a computer. It seems as passive as reading a physical piece of paper. In reality, two things are happening behind the scenes that you don't see: your reader is communicating with the software developer, and the document itself may be sending information to whoever drafted it.

There are hundreds of productivity apps out there, and I think that's part of the problem. A productivity app is just a system—a means to an end, not the end itself. If any of these apps actually delivered, we wouldn't need hundreds of them. The sheer number suggests something fundamental is missing, which is why people keep hopping between them, hoping the next one will finally be the answer. I was one of those people, and I'm happy to say I've finally figured it out—and it has nothing to do with apps or any digital product at all.

Since Linux is so widely used for servers, it has a lot of utlities for monitoring network information and accessing remote resources. There are some networking commands people still use because they know them, but some are outdated and deprecated. Here are some deprecated utilities along with what you should use instead.

Pop!_OS has a strong following, and one reason is its COSMIC desktop. Being unfamiliar with both, I decided to take a look at COSMIC and see what all the fuss was about. Could it make me give up my go-to Xfce?

Are you deeply invested in the Google ecosystem? Do you actively use Google Keep, Tasks, Calendar, and Drive in your day-to-day life? Individually, each of these is an excellent tool—minimal by design but solid in functionality. The only problem is that these apps are mostly isolated from one another. But if you add Gemini as an orchestration layer, all of these tools can start talking to each other. That's exactly what I did, effectively turning Gemini into my personal project management system.

While people think of Linux as a modern operating system, it embodies ideas that are more than 50 years old. Here are some of the oldest ideas and why they stick around in modern Linux distros.

There's an assumption that free software means you're settling: fewer features, no support, and a worse experience overall. However, the open-source world is full of free apps that match—and sometimes beat—their paid counterparts. If you've got some free time this weekend, here are three worth installing.

My relationship with to-do apps usually follows a predictable course. I install one, spend an unreasonable amount of time choosing colors and categories, enter every task I can remember, and then stop opening it after three days. The task list survives somewhere in the cloud, quietly preserving plans that even I have forgotten.

Microsoft is redesigning Windows Search with improved local results, fewer promotional elements, better file previews, and more control over web-based search.

The post Windows Search Gets a Major Revamp Focused on Usability appeared first on TechRepublic.

Microsoft is redesigning Windows Search with improved local results, fewer promotional elements, better file previews, and more control over web-based search.

The post Windows Search Gets a Major Revamp Focused on Usability appeared first on TechRepublic.

Make Windows 11 feel faster with nine cleanup tips for startup apps, storage, background processes, updates, malware scans, and more.

The post Windows 11 Cleanup Guide: 9 Ways to Make Your PC Feel Faster appeared first on TechRepublic.

Make Windows 11 feel faster with nine cleanup tips for startup apps, storage, background processes, updates, malware scans, and more.

The post Windows 11 Cleanup Guide: 9 Ways to Make Your PC Feel Faster appeared first on TechRepublic.

Humans are odd creatures, and no two are exactly alike, which is likely why so many different methods exist for tracking the progress of tasks that must be accomplished. [Simone Giertz] has graced us with her own spin on task tracking that adds an element of chance.

[Giertz] tells us that she started with written lists that she tackled in dice-determined order to keep her from overthinking or cherry-picking tasks. While this worked fine, she longed for a more elegant solution. Approaching the UI first, unlike any Open Source project ever, she determined that a marker that could randomly point to a task on a vertical list would be most pleasant.

The bulk of the project was evaluating different mechanisms to make the marker pick tasks at random while not selecting a task that had already been completed. A set of magnetic toggles that could repel the marker proved ineffective, but a simpler solution involving moving the completed tasks past a divider won the day. The finished product has a satisfying selection mechanism that makes interacting with the chore chart a joy, which probably helps make it more likely things get done.

We’ve seen many productivity hacks over the years, including Arya’s Hacking the Self, this rotary time tracker, or this e-ink macropad.

Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 8 teasers point to a wider foldable design, but specs, pricing, and launch timing remain unconfirmed.

The post Samsung Drops Galaxy Z Fold 8 Teasers With a New Shape appeared first on TechRepublic.