Popular Mechanics: Technology: Tech How-To Central

How to Quiet Your Loud Personal Computer

Anything that moves makes noise. And your personal computer is an assemblage of whirring, spinning, vibrating parts. Depending on your particular machine, this can amount to a comforting white noise, or an irritating background drone.

How to Set Up the Ultimate Desktop Recording Studio

With the right software and a few plug-in instruments, anyone (really, anyone) can be a rock star in his own home. Here's how to use a MIDI keyboard and software like M-Powered Essential and GarageBand to become the next Beck.

The (New) Home Theater Setup Guide

Just when you thought you'd mastered the mess of wires, plugs and ports required for HDTV and multichannel sound, the new era of networked home entertainment is changing everything-again. Here's what you need to know to hook up the ultimate home theater.

The Cable Guide: Know Your Computer and TV Wires

The lines between data, audio and video cables now completely blurred. And many devices can now communicate wirelessly. But that doesn't mean the world of wiring is simpler. There are more cables than ever-here's how to use them.

How to Convert a Netbook Into a Touchscreen PC

Tablet PCs may be the next big thing in computers, but netbooks are cheap and widely available now. Why wait for Apple (or TechCrunch) to do it for you? Here's how to make your own touchcreen PC, starting with an off-the-shelf netbook.

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How to Sketch By Computer (For Cheap)

The technology to translate doodles, sketches and ideas into detailed drawings is surprisingly affordably and acceptable. Here's what you need to get started-and tips to become a pro.

Does Cold Weather Injure Cell Phones? Abusive Lab Test

You know that cold weather can make your cell phone sluggish, or make a fully charged one read low battery. But can cold weather damage to your phone? We subjected six phones to progressively lower temperatures until they stopped working.

How to Get Dust off a DSLR Sensor: Digital Clinic

If your digital SLR camera doesn't have a function that removes dust automatically, over time, you may notice intrusive dots in your photographs. Here's how to clean your camera's image sensor without damaging it (or spending a lot of money).

How to Build a Powerful Home Theater PC for Less Than $500

Building a dedicated home theater PC used to be expensive and time-consuming. But today, the process is a lot easier-and cheaper. Here's how to build a tiny, loaded HTPC for less than the price of most off-the-shelf Blu-Ray players.

How to Eject Discs from Mac Pro Towers: Digital Clinic

A reader who no longer uses his Apple keyboard is having trouble ejecting CDs and DVDs from his Mac Pro. Here are several workarounds for the eject button-less computers.

How to Ditch Wi-Fi for a High-Speed, Ethernet-Wired Home

To take full advantage of your high speed Internet, you should hook up your networked appliances with Ethernet cables instead of slower Wi-Fi connections. PM shows you how to wire your home so that all your devices get real high-speed Internet.

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How to Get a More Connected, Intelligent Home Theater

HD was just the beginning. New screens, networked devices, remotes and video gear change what we watch and how we see it. Here is how to chase the ultimate home theater upgrade-and avoid buyer's remorse.

How to Use Less Energy in Your Home Theater

Surround sound systems are great for movies, but they can drain power and be overkill if you're just watching the weather report. Here's how to save money on your electricity bill without losing the immersive experience that your AV equipment provides.

How to Get Your Gadgets Off the Grid

Senior technology editor Glenn Derene shows that with a small wind turbine, generator, solar charging kit and two very powerful batteries, you won't have to abandon your gadgets (or beer fridge) after an emergency.

How to Install In-Wall Surround-Sound Speakers: DIY Tech

Speakers should be heard and not seen. So when PM tech expert Anthony Verducci decided that his standing home theater speaker towers took up too much space, he replaced them with five nearly invisible in-wall speakers. Here's how he did it.

Seeing the Impossibly Small: 10 Wild Scientific Visualizations

Every year, Science and the National Science Foundation team up to award prizes to visual works "that engage viewers by conveying the complex substance of science through art." PM talked to some of the artists and scientists that designed our fav

How Much Life Is Left in the Trans-Alaska Pipeline?

The oil companies that run the Trans-Alaska Pipeline suggest that if oil flows drop too low, the line could be compromised.

The Race to Build a Real Star Trek Tricorder

The X Prize Foundation has announced its next multimillion-dollar contest. The X Prize is asking scientists to envision and build the equivalent of Star Trek's medical tricorder, a device that can remotely diagnose any malady in patients.

PM Visits Mojave's Burgeoning Private Spaceport

At the Mojave Air and Space Port out in California, spacecraft builders like Scaled Composites, XCOR, and Masten Space Systems are hard at work testing the next-generation private vehicles. PM paid a visit to this hub of the private space industry.

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Next Up in Nuclear: Small Modular Reactors

The Obama administration’s next move in boosting energy techonlogy will be nearly $500 million in support of small modular reactors.

Brown Fat Revelations May Lead to New Weight Loss Drugs

Scientists have found a new way to rev the body's metabolism: Activate its fat cells. Here's the science behind what may be the weight-loss breakthrough of the next decade.

5 Weird Planetary Systems

It's confirmed: alien "Tatooine" planets orbiting double suns exist. But they might not be the strangest things in space. Here are five extraordinary planetary systems that could be out there.

Scientists are Starting to Read Your Mind

By taking strides toward understanding how the brain processing images, researchers are figuring out how to project a person's neural activity onto a TV screen.

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The Looming Threat of a Solar Superstorm

A radiation storm is pummeling the Earth, and experts warn this isn't the first warning shot sent by the Sun. the next one could immobilize modern technology, and civilization, altogether.

Solar Storm Will Slam Earth on Tuesday

A blast of charged particles from the sun is quickly approaching our planet, and the brunt will arrive on Tuesday morning. Here's what to know about these cosmic events.

Spotted: The Death Throes of a Sun-Grazing Comet

This week scientists announced that they’d been able to see through the light to catch the final moments of a comet as it approached the sun, vaporized, and finally disintegrated.

Burt Rutan on Designing the World’s Largest Aircraft

Burt Rutan is best known as the designer of the first privately built craft to send people into space, is now one of the driving forces behind an attempt to build the world's largest aircraft for Stratolaunch.

Inside SpaceX: We Visit the Company's California Headquarters

This year, SpaceX hopes to become the first company to send a privately built and owned spacecraft to dock with the International Space Station. And CEO Elon Musk is already thinking far beyond that. Recently, we paid a visit to his company's home base.

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Is United Space Alliance About to Disappear?

For a decade and a half, Boeing and Lockheed Martin have been joined at the hip through United Space Alliance, the partnership that was responsible for launching the space shuttle.

Is the Universe Riddled With "Tatooine Planets?"

Just months after the discovery of the first planet orbiting two stars, scientists have found two more such planets, hinting that the universe might hold millions of these strange systems.

Almost Nome: U.S. Icebreaker About to Reach Cut-Off Alaska Town

The people of Nome, Alaska, know well what it takes to survive the long, cold winter. But a confluence of bad weather and other circumstances has left them lacking the fuel needed to heat homes and power vehicles.

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6 Spider-Silk Superpowers

For years, scientists have been trying to tap into the power of spider silk, one of nature’s most amazing materials. Now, a research team may have invented a way to produce the stuff in large amounts.

What Levitating Fruit Flies Say About the Science of Weightlessness

Using superconductors, scientists can levitate small creatures such as fruit flies for long periods of time.

Could the Northeast Store Its CO2 Right Beneath Its Feet?

For years, researchers across the country have been investigating potential underground formations that could store CO2 trapped at power plants and keep it out of the atmosphere.

How Ants Create "Supersoldiers"—And Why More Species Don’t

Across a broad group of ants, just eight species were known to naturally create freakishly huge "supersoldiers" to defend the colony.

Presented By:

Seeing the Impossibly Small: 10 Wild Scientific Visualizations

How Much Life Is Left in the Trans-Alaska Pipeline?

The oil companies that run the Trans-Alaska Pipeline suggest that if oil flows drop too low, the line could be compromised.

The Race to Build a Real Star Trek Tricorder

Presented By:

PM Visits Mojave's Burgeoning Private Spaceport

Next Up in Nuclear: Small Modular Reactors

The Obama administration’s next move in boosting energy techonlogy will be nearly $500 million in support of small modular reactors.

Brown Fat Revelations May Lead to New Weight Loss Drugs

Scientists have found a new way to rev the body's metabolism: Activate its fat cells. Here's the science behind what may be the weight-loss breakthrough of the next decade.

5 Weird Planetary Systems

It's confirmed: alien "Tatooine" planets orbiting double suns exist. But they might not be the strangest things in space. Here are five extraordinary planetary systems that could be out there.

Scientists are Starting to Read Your Mind

By taking strides toward understanding how the brain processing images, researchers are figuring out how to project a person's neural activity onto a TV screen.

The Looming Threat of a Solar Superstorm

A radiation storm is pummeling the Earth, and experts warn this isn't the first warning shot sent by the Sun. the next one could immobilize modern technology, and civilization, altogether.

Solar Storm Will Slam Earth on Tuesday

A blast of charged particles from the sun is quickly approaching our planet, and the brunt will arrive on Tuesday morning. Here's what to know about these cosmic events.

Spotted: The Death Throes of a Sun-Grazing Comet

This week scientists announced that they’d been able to see through the light to catch the final moments of a comet as it approached the sun, vaporized, and finally disintegrated.

Presented By:

Burt Rutan on Designing the World’s Largest Aircraft

Inside SpaceX: We Visit the Company's California Headquarters

Is United Space Alliance About to Disappear?

For a decade and a half, Boeing and Lockheed Martin have been joined at the hip through United Space Alliance, the partnership that was responsible for launching the space shuttle.

Is the Universe Riddled With "Tatooine Planets?"

Just months after the discovery of the first planet orbiting two stars, scientists have found two more such planets, hinting that the universe might hold millions of these strange systems.

Almost Nome: U.S. Icebreaker About to Reach Cut-Off Alaska Town

6 Spider-Silk Superpowers

What Levitating Fruit Flies Say About the Science of Weightlessness

Using superconductors, scientists can levitate small creatures such as fruit flies for long periods of time.

Could the Northeast Store Its CO2 Right Beneath Its Feet?

For years, researchers across the country have been investigating potential underground formations that could store CO2 trapped at power plants and keep it out of the atmosphere.

Presented By:

How Ants Create "Supersoldiers"—And Why More Species Don’t

Across a broad group of ants, just eight species were known to naturally create freakishly huge "supersoldiers" to defend the colony.