Tips & tricks

Choppy Video Call? A Cable Fixes What Wi-Fi Can't

“You froze” usually doesn't mean slow internet — it means unstable Wi-Fi. An Ethernet cable is the single most reliable upgrade for calls.

The Two-Screen Meeting Rule: One for People, One for Notes

Put the meeting window on the monitor with the camera, notes and materials on the other. You look people in the eye, never share anything private, and minutes write themselves.

A Digital First-Aid Kit: Insurance and Warranties in One Shared Folder

An insurance claim or a warranty issue comes up once a year — which is exactly why you can never find the paperwork. One cloud folder shared with your partner fixes it for good.

A Kid's Account: Limits and App-Install Approval

A child's first phone doesn't have to be a battle. Family Link and Screen Time give parents install approval and time limits — set up in advance, not after the conflict.

In-depth guide · 19 min

A Song With Your Child's Name In It: A Family Anthem and Birthday Song from AI

A complete guide with prompts: Claude writes the lyrics, Suno writes the music — a family anthem, a lullaby, a tooth-brushing song, even a birthday tradition. And it works for free, too.

Cornell Notes, Stripped Down: A Folded Margin and a Summary Line

The most effective note-taking format doesn't need a template: fold a margin for questions and leave a line at the bottom for a summary. Your notes turn themselves into a practice test.

In-depth guide · 15 min

What loops are: the agentic cycles said to replace prompting

An explainer with prompts: what it means to let AI run in a loop, what's true in the hype, what's overblown, and how to safely try your first loop.

In-depth guide · 23 min

Beeper as your message hub: Claude pulls promises out of your chats before you forget them

A complete guide with prompts: Beeper unifies WhatsApp, Messenger, and Slack into one app, and Claude pulls promises and deadlines out of them via MCP on a regular schedule and writes them into Notion. Includes a patient introduction to the terminal for anyone who's never opened one.

A Ten-Minute Subscription Audit: Search Your Own Inbox

You don't have to painfully recall every subscription you're paying for — searching payment confirmations in your inbox plus two system screens puts the list together in ten minutes.

Quick Share: Files From Android to Windows, No Cable

AirDrop's counterpart is built into every newer Android phone — and with a free app from Google it sends photos and files to Windows too.

Swiped Away a Notification by Accident? Android Has a History

Notification history shows everything from the last 24 hours — including notifications you swiped away before you had a chance to read them.

Gboard Has a Clipboard History — Win+V in Your Pocket

The Gboard keyboard remembers what you last copied, and you can pin important items permanently. Just turn it on.

Ask AI What It Assumed

Gaps in your prompt get silently filled with the model's own assumptions. Have them listed out — see what the answer is standing on before you build work on top of it.

A Letter From an Agency: Have AI Translate It Into Plain English

Paste an official letter into AI and get four answers: what they want from you, by when, what happens if you don't, and exactly what to do. No legalese, no panic.

Stop Correcting AI Forever: Edit Your Original Message Instead

Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini can all edit a message you've already sent and answer again from a clean slate. A lesser-known button that rescues tangled conversations.

Test Data on Demand: Fictional but Realistic

Testing a spreadsheet, a form, or a mailing? Have AI generate fifty fictional rows with names and amounts instead of copying real data.

A Table Locked Inside a PDF: AI Puts It Back Into Excel

Copying a table out of a PDF turns the columns into one tangled noodle of text. Upload the PDF to AI, ask for CSV — and check the control total.

Word on the Tip of Your Tongue: AI as a Reverse Dictionary

You know the meaning but not the word? Describe it to AI and get ten candidates with the shades of difference between them. Works for technical terms and cliché-free synonyms too.

A Glossary for Your First Meeting: AI Explains the Acronyms in Your Materials

New project, and a document full of acronyms and jargon? AI pulls out every term and explains it in context — flagging what it's only guessing.

Added to a 30-Email Thread? AI Tells You What's Expected of You

A forwarded conversation, “see below,” and thirty emails of history. Drop the thread into AI and ask: who's claiming what, where's the agreement, and what are you supposed to do.

Regex Without the Learning Curve: AI Writes It, Explains It, Tests It

Describe in plain words what you want to match, and AI returns a regular expression with a part-by-part explanation and test cases. For Sheets, editors, and bulk edits.

Recipe for Four, Seven Guests Are Coming: Let AI Do the Math

Servings, cups to grams, Fahrenheit to Celsius, and a shopping list to go with it. One prompt solves the kitchen math nobody wants to do.

Two Lists Side by Side: AI Finds What's Missing

Attendance against sign-ups, payments against orders: paste two lists and AI lists what's in one and missing from the other — even through typos.

Ten Questions Your Audience Will Ask After Your Presentation

Before you present, have AI generate the audience's questions — curious, skeptical, and the one from your boss about money. You'll find out which ones you can't answer while there's still time.

Mail Merge in Czech: Let AI Get the Vocative Case Right

In Czech, “Dear Mr. Novák” is wrong — it has to be “Dear Mr. Nováku,” the vocative case. AI adds a properly-declined salutation column to your contact table, for hundreds of names at once.

Proofreading That Doesn't Rewrite You: Fix Only the Errors

AI loves to improve your style, even when nobody asked it to. Tell it to fix only spelling and punctuation and list the changes — your voice stays yours.

Where's the Setting? Ask AI Instead of Digging Through Menus

Tell AI the app, version, and what you're looking for — you get the exact path in the settings. No more clicking blind or following guides written for a five-year-old version.

Text With Missing Accents? AI Restores Them

An email typed on the wrong keyboard layout or an export from an old system: paste the text into AI and get it back with the accents in the right place. It works in reverse too.

Paste the Error Message Into AI, Not a Search Engine

Instead of trawling ten-year-old forum threads, paste the error message — or a screenshot of it — into AI and ask three things: what it means, what to do, and what not to do.

Smart Quotes and Dashes: Typographic Proofreading by AI

Before you publish, have AI fix only the typography: smart quotes, dashes instead of hyphens, spacing around numbers and units. It leaves the wording alone.