Let’s start with the basics. “DNS” stands for “Domain Name System.” An easy way to understand DNS is to think of the Contacts app on your phone. You simply search for a person’s name and click the “Call” button, but the phone number is what actually connects you to them.

A DNS server is the Contacts app – it acts as the middleman that translates simple domain names into the IP addresses that your phone needs. Your internet provider has its own DNS server, but it’s very simple to plug in a custom DNS server. There are several free, high-quality third-party DNS servers to choose from.

For most people, the standard ISP-provided DNS server is perfectly fine. However, there are some clear advantages to using a custom DNS. It boils down to speed, privacy, and security—three very important things.

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What is the Android Debug Bridge (ADB)?

ADB is a tool provided by Google for developers to debug and test their software on Android phones. It provides access to certain features that aren’t available to regular users, and since anyone can technically use ADB, you have a way to use these advanced features even if you’re not a developer. The internal structure of ADB is based on the classic client-server architecture. There are three components that make up the entire process.

-The client, i.e. the PC/Mac/Chromebook you have connected to your Android device. We are sending commands to our device from the computer through the USB cable or wirelessly.

-A daemon (known as “adbd”) that runs commands on an Android phone. The daemon runs as a background process on each device.

-A server that manages communication between the client and the daemon. The server runs as a background process on the computer.

Because there are three pieces that make up ADB (the client, the daemon, and the server), certain pieces need to be up and running in the first place. If you have freshly booted the computer (and you don’t have it set up to start the daemon on boot), then you will need it to be running before any communication can be sent to the target Android device.

Most of the best phones on the market run Android, and it’s preferred by many for being a more open operating system than Apple’s iOS. However, there are many things on Android that are also hidden from the average user. Thankfully, many of these capabilities can be accessed by using the Android Debug Bridge (ADB).

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Your Linux command line is filled to the brim with commands you can use to learn about and use your device more effectively. Recently, I figured out a few handy uses for the lsusb command.

In case you aren’t familar, the lsusb command gets its name from the ls command you might already be familiar with. ls is short for “list” and of course usb refers to the Universal Serial Bus, the category of computer port we’re all using all the time.

Identify a device’s vendor

Sometimes, when you get a flash drive or a computer peripheral, it’s unclear who the manufacturer is. So-called white label products may have one company’s logo on them, but that company simply bought it from another and stamped it themselves. If you want to find out who the real manufacturer is, otherwise known as the vendor, you can check that with the lsusb command. You’ll see a bunch of devices listed the first time you run it, but if you unplug the device and run lsusb again, you can identify the one you’re investigating because it will disappear in the second readout. For example, here’s an entry I identified for a flash drive I have:

Bus 004 Device 011: ID 13fe:6700 Phison Electronics Corp. USB DISK 3.0

I identified it by noticing it was missing from lsusb’s output after I removed it.

In this case, the vendor’s ID code is 13fe, and lsusb has identified that vendor as Phison Electronics Corp. If I wanted to learn more, or if lsusb for some reason couldn’t produce a vendor name, I could do a web search like “device vendor ID 13fe” and an online database will likely be able to identify it for me and show me other products it produces.

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I had never been big on maintaining backups until an update recently broke my CachyOS setup. The computer was bricked, and I had no way to recover the OS or my data. Since then, I’ve made it a strict rule for myself to maintain regular backups of my Linux systems.

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Whether you’re choosing an employee of the month, picking giveaway winners, or assigning tasks, Excel is the perfect tool for a bias-free draw. These simple formulas allow you to generate a single result or a full list of unique selections in just a few steps.

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Reinstalling Windows is sometimes unavoidable. I’ve done it plenty of times when a system was truly beyond saving. But it is also one of the most disruptive fixes you can choose. You lose time reinstalling apps, reconfiguring settings, and chasing down little tweaks you forgot you ever made. In many cases, Windows is not actually broken beyond repair. It is just confused, partially corrupted, or stuck after a failed update.

Before you wipe everything and start over, it is worth running a handful of built-in repair commands from the Command Prompt. These tools can fix damaged system files, repair the Windows image, clean up update components, and resolve common disk issues. When run in the right order, they can bring a sluggish or unstable system back to life and save you from doing a full reinstall that you never needed in the first place.

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Most of us have downloaded something that made us hesitate before double-clicking on the file. Maybe it was a utility from GitHub, a driver mirror you do not fully trust, or an installer that Windows Defender flagged as “unknown.” In those moments, the usual options are not great. You can either roll the dice, run it on your main PC, and hope for the best, or you can skip it entirely.

Windows gives you a third option, and it is one most Windows users overlook.Windows Sandbox lets you run untrusted software inside a disposable Windows desktop that disappears the moment you close it. There is no cleanup, no lingering files, and no direct risk to your real system if something goes wrong. Before getting into how to use it, it helps to understand what Sandbox actually is and why it works the way it does.

Windows Sandbox is a built-in feature that allows you to spin up a clean, isolated copy of Windows inside a window. It looks and behaves like a normal desktop, but it’s completely separated from your actual system. Anything you install, download, or change inside Sandbox stays there and nowhere else. When you close the window, the entire environment is wiped and the next launch starts fresh. Think of it as a temporary Windows PC that exists only long enough to answer the question, “Is this safe to use?”

This makes Sandbox ideal for short, disposable tasks like testing unknown installers, opening files you are unsure about, or poking around software before deciding whether it belongs on your real machine. It is not meant for long-term testing or daily use, and it doesn’t save anything between sessions. It’s also worth noting that Sandbox isn’t available on every edition of Windows.

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The more programs set to auto-launch on startup, the longer your computer takes to boot. That’s doubly true for machines with older hardware. Allow me to show you different ways to identify and disable startup apps and speed up your PC’s boot time.

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