Crappy Wi-Fi is the worst

March 22, 2024

Your walls, furniture, baby monitor and microwave might be making your connection worse. Let’s fix that for you with a few tricks of the well-connected trade.

Choose the path of least resistance. Ceilings, furniture and other physical obstacles can weaken your signal. Instead of putting your router in a cluttered room, go for an open space.
Get it away from metal, brick and concrete; they’re notorious for blocking Wi-Fi signals.
Put your router up high, like on a shelf or mounted near the ceiling if you can.
If your router has antennas, move them around so they’re all pointing in different directions.
Keep your router around three feet away from other devices, especially baby monitors, kitchen appliances, cordless phones and Bluetooth-enabled gadgets.

Tags: router, Wi-Fi

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I’m a tech expert and you need to make these tech changes now before it’s too late

Sometimes in life, you just can’t go back. I’m thinking of all the folks I’ve talked to who lost crazy amounts of money to scammers pretending to be in love.

We can’t go back to our old devices, either — as much as I miss that hot-pink Razr. On second thought, the iPhone it is. The same goes for certain steps in our digital lives. Follow the steps below, then pat yourself on the back for a job well done.

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Don't want your ISP or Big Tech seeing what you look up? Do this

Doing online searches without a VPN is asking your internet service provider, Google or your search engine of choice to snoop on what you do. All that information — the products you look up, medical conditions you search for, people you Google — is compiled into the dossier about you.

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Selling something in person? Meet in a public place, and bring a friend if you can. Libraries, police departments and municipal buildings are all safe bets. Check out police department safe-trading zones in your area.

Would you pay $2,565 for a good night’s sleep?

I feel like crap if I don’t get a good night’s sleep. I bet you do, too. We’re not alone. The National Sleep Foundation says one in three of us isn’t getting enough ZZZs.

Shorting yourself on shut-eye can cause big problems, everything from less creativity and heart issues to increasing your risk of depression. And that means some folks are shelling out major cash on luxury sleep retreats, aka “sleep tourism.” Just when you think you’ve seen it all.

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🛑 Twofer: Getting texts you didn’t sign up for? If it’s a marketing text you opted into for a coupon code, just text back, “STOP.” But remember, that works for spammers, not scammers. Scammers want you to text back to confirm you’re on the other end. If you never signed up for texts, hit the Report Junk button on your iPhone or forward the message to 7726 (that’s SPAM) for most big U.S. carriers.

Free tax help — and I don’t just mean filing! There are some guided tax software services you can use for free. There’s always a catch: Most of the offers are for people with an adjusted gross income of $79,000 or less. Use this IRS tool to see if you qualify.

Picture in picture: You’re at your sister’s house and she’s bringing out the old family photos. There’s a better solution than scanning them or taking a crappy photo of them. PhotoScan by Google Photos is free and gives you a high-res digital copy without that weird glare.

Simple scheduling: Emailing back and forth is a time-suck! If you use Gmail, appointment scheduling is now built right in. On another provider? Try Calendly. The free version gives you one type of appointment. Set the hours and dates, and it’ll check your cal to make sure you don’t get double booked. Nice.

🕹️ Old-school brain break: Get in a quick game of Atari Breakout without downloading a thing. Type Atari Breakout into Google and hit Enter for a fun, playable version of the classic.

Declutter your Mac: Go to Spotlight Search and type Storage Management. It’ll help you Marie Kondo your Mac storage with recommendations like iCloud and Mail storage, and you can see the biggest files cluttering your computer. You know that old Zip drive does not spark joy!