MakeUseOf

Hulu’s best hitman drama is only 30 minutes long, and it has a 98% audience score

Bryan M. Wolfe — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 23:00:13 GMT

I almost passed on Mr Inbetween because the runtime looked like a red flag. Every prestige crime drama I actually finish runs 50 minutes or more, like the still-making-news Breaking Bad and The Sopranos — shows that need the extra time to let a scene sit before it turns violent. Twenty-five minutes felt like a show that hadn't put in the hours yet.

These Windows storage rules make no sense until you remember DOS

Oluwademilade Afolabi — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 22:00:13 GMT

Windows 11 looks every bit like a modern operating system, with rounded corners, Fluent Design, cloud services woven throughout, and plenty of technology that would have seemed ridiculous a few decades ago. Dig underneath all of that, though, and you start running into architectural decisions that have been hanging around for a very long time.

6 power tool specs that don’t mean what you think they mean

Jonathon Jachura — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 21:00:13 GMT

Walk the power tool aisle and every box leads with a big number. It's printed large because it sells the tool, and it tends to skip the fine print that decides how the thing behaves in your hand. I've bought more than 20 Ryobi ONE+ tools over the years, and I've learned to read the line under the headline spec before I trust it. Some of these numbers mean less than they look like they do. A couple mean something else entirely. Once you know which figure to weigh and which to wave off, the aisle gets a lot less intimidating. Here are six power tool specs that don't say what most people think.

A $999 Android phone with a detachable GoPro inside just won an IFA innovation award

Hamed Paydarfar — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 20:37:12 GMT

This year's IFA featured some promising new technology, including Anker's laptop accessories and a local-first home hub. Just when we thought smartphones had plateaued in design, an interesting new Android phone proved innovation is not dead yet: enter the RugOne Xsnap 7 Pro, a bulky, outdoor-ready phone with a detachable GoPro-like camera on the back.

Your Windows PC is full of junk it can delete automatically, you just have to say yes

Brandon Miniman — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 19:30:13 GMT

Windows is not good at taking out the trash, and anyone that has left temporary files, old installation files, and an increasingly heavy recycle bin go unchecked knows what I am talking about.

I ditched online file converters for a Docker container with 1,000+ formats

Abhijith N Arjunan — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 19:00:13 GMT

For the longest time, I'd relied on online file converters for all those quick conversion needs. As someone working with various types of media, I found an additional tab in my web browser convenient. However, I wouldn't rely on these sketchy file-conversion websites nowadays, knowing the serious privacy concerns they pose. At the same time, I like the idea of opening a new tab to convert a file. A Docker container I came across recently, namely ConvertX, solved this problem for good!

Microsoft finally admits Windows 11 needs a serious cleanup, but the update is for developers only

Hamed Paydarfar — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 18:48:39 GMT

The market for LLM-capable computers is hot, as we've previously seen with a surge in local LLM builds on Apple Silicon Mac Minis. Now Microsoft is targeting developers and people handling demanding AI workloads with Project Zenith, hoping to strengthen Windows’ appeal as an alternative to macOS-based development setups. Project Zenith is a new “ready-to-code” Windows 11 experience designed to remove distractions and come preconfigured with tools developers would typically install themselves.

Arduino’s new board wants to be a Raspberry Pi and an ESP32, but the timing is awful

Yadullah Abidi — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 18:30:13 GMT

Arduino just dropped its most ambitious hardware in years, and on paper, it's irresistible. The UNO Q, and its bigger sibling the VENTUNO Q, are dual-brain boards that pair a full Linux-capable application processor with a real-time microcontroller on a single piece of silicon-studded PCB.

I gave my old USB drives a second life on Android for $5

Tashreef Shareef — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 18:00:13 GMT

Your old USB flash drive has many uses on a computer, but on an Android phone, not so much, even though your phone can technically recognize, read, and write to it. The obvious limitation is the USB-A interface, so you can't connect it directly to a phone.

This cable you already own can carry internet, HDMI, USB, and more

Jonathon Jachura — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 17:00:14 GMT

I wired the basement of our new build myself and ran Cat6 to every drop, crimping my own ends as I went, so I know the cable behind our drywall better than most wires in the house. It took me a while to clock that those runs do more than carry internet. Put the right adapter on each end, and one twisted-pair cable will push HDMI, USB, power, audio, or control signals down the same wire. My spool of Cat6 turned into the handiest cable I keep around, and I quit thinking of Ethernet as a one-job wire.