MakeUseOf

The real reason Microsoft bundled Solitaire with Windows had nothing to do with games

Oluwademilade Afolabi — Sun, 06 Sep 2026 23:00:13 GMT

If you used a PC in the 1990s, there’s a decent chance green felt and pixelated card backs are burned into your muscle memory. Microsoft Solitaire became the default way to kill a few minutes at a computer, then a few more, until it was practically shorthand for office procrastination.

Samsung Notes' new AI features work just fine with your finger, and no stylus required

Rob LeFebvre — Sun, 06 Sep 2026 22:00:13 GMT

TheGalaxy Z Fold 8 is my first Galaxy phone ever, so when I opened Samsung Notes a few weeks ago, I had no history with the app and no idea what had just changed with One UI 9: a redaction tool, a new pen style, and, less happily, a dead OneNote sync feature. A week of actually using it later, I get why longtime Samsung people call this an underrated app, and I got there without any of the baggage (or the S Pen) that usually comes with that opinion.

I tried a phone with a battery over triple the size of the Galaxy S26 Ultra's

Brady Snyder — Sun, 06 Sep 2026 21:30:13 GMT

So, you want a smartphone with an incredible battery life. You shouldn't go out and buy the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra, iPhone 17 Pro Max, or even the OnePlus 15. There's a niche smartphone brand putting massive batteries inside Android phones, and its latest model has a capacity more than three times larger than the Galaxy S26 Ultra, iPhone 17 Pro Max, or Google Pixel 11 Pro XL. It's called the Oukitel WP70 Ultra, and it packs a whopping 16,000mAh battery into a (relatively) thinner frame.

Your Ryobi, DeWalt, or Milwaukee batteries are more useful in a blackout than you think

Jonathon Jachura — Sun, 06 Sep 2026 21:00:13 GMT

I've ridden out a power outage on the same batteries that run my drill. A small clip-on inverter turned one of my 18V packs into a working outlet, keeping phones topped off and a lamp burning until the grid came back. Hardly anyone buys tool batteries with blackouts in mind. They get bought for deck projects and shelf brackets, then sit in the garage fully charged, holding more usable energy than every flashlight in the house. Ryobi, DeWalt, and Milwaukee owners all have this option waiting, and the battery platform was always the smart buy anyway. Pressing those packs into emergency duty costs a fraction of what dedicated backup gear runs.

Stop paying for these 5 apps, their free open-source rivals are just as good

Digvijay Kumar — Sun, 06 Sep 2026 20:30:13 GMT

Open your subscription list and count how many of those tools have a free alternative. Free software once meant missing features and clunky interfaces, but that's no longer true across the board. Today, five have reached the point where cancelling the paid version doesn't mean giving up the tools you actually use.

I made my NAS feel like the microSD card my Android phone never had

Oliver Haslam — Sun, 06 Sep 2026 19:30:13 GMT

Remember when buying a new phone meant sliding in a microSD card with all of your data on it, just ready to go? High capacity microSD cards meant that buying a phone with tons of storage simply wasn't a requirement. All of your photos, music, and videos were stored on a little bit of plastic that you could move from one phone to another. But no more.

The ridiculous 3D prints taught me more than the useful ones ever did

Yadullah Abidi — Sun, 06 Sep 2026 19:00:14 GMT

When I finally pulled the trigger on a 3D printer after putting it off for years, I had a whole list of practical justifications ready to go. I was going to print cable organizers, replacement parts for broken appliances, custom mounts for a bunch of gadgets, and even custom PCBs for quick prototyping.

Netflix's most overlooked war drama looks like nothing else on the service

Jack Mitchell — Sun, 06 Sep 2026 18:30:13 GMT

After decades of World War II movies and TV shows, it’s become difficult to find something that you might call truly original. However, The Liberator proves there is still room for a fresh approach to the genre.

I turned on 4 Android settings and spam calls basically stopped

Abhijith N Arjunan — Sun, 06 Sep 2026 18:00:13 GMT

No matter where you live and which phone you use, spam calls are annoying. Somehow, they happen at the worst possible moment, too. One solution here is to install anti-spam apps on your smartphone, but they often bring a new set of problems. If you are on Android, however, you don't really need that third-party option. Instead, the latest versions of Android ship with multiple features to improve your calling experience, and I enabled them by toggling on 4 settings!

Microsoft hid 5 Word tools behind the ribbon — here's how to get them back

Saikat Basu — Sun, 06 Sep 2026 17:30:13 GMT

When Microsoft swapped Word's old menus for the ribbon back in 2007, a handful of genuinely useful tools went "missing". They didn't disappear from Word entirely; Microsoft just stopped putting them on the ribbon by default. You can still find them under the hood in the Customize Ribbon and Quick Access Toolbar menus.