Kim Komando

A vintage Pyrex dish, the kind sitting in a million cabinets, sold for nearly $6,000. Before you donate that box, photograph the item, let AI identify and price it, then confirm on eBay’s sold listings. Free appraiser, already in your pocket.

Two of the biggest names in home security, breached four months apart by the same crooks using the same trick. Not malware. A phone call to an employee. Here’s what they took, and the five rules that keep you out of the follow-up scam.

GoGuardian watches about 27 million students, roughly half of America’s K-12 schools, and it doesn’t clock out at 3 p.m. Gaggle scans essays, emails and chats in about 1,500 districts, and kids have been flagged for song lyrics and a Bible verse. Four house rules protect your family, starting with the postcard talk.

The average household pays $69 a month for streaming, and 73% are fed up with the price hikes. Nielsen says free services like The Roku Channel beat some paid giants, and Tubi alone has 300,000 free titles. Cancel your least-watched app for 30 days and try one of these instead.

A reader named Julie asked how to reach her mom with music. The science is real: The brain’s music regions are among the last dementia touches. One playlist, built from the songs of her mom’s youth, can open a door for a few minutes at a time. Here’s exactly how to make one.

Techs know the “dead” TV usually isn’t dead, the phone that won’t charge just needs a toothpick and the check engine light can be decoded before you ever call a mechanic. Five trade secrets pros use at home but rarely mention at the counter.

📝 This copy-and-paste prompt helps you review expense ratios, admin fees, overlapping funds, and cheaper plan options before your next meeting.

Hackers hit 30+ Minnesota water systems over two days. Here’s what could’ve happened, along with your 15-minute prep plan.

Every blinking clock and standby light is on your electric bill. A $10 gadget stops it and doubles as a burglar deterrent while you travel.

Google’s free Storybook tool takes one photo of your kid’s pencil drawing and turns it into a 10-page illustrated book, drawn in their own style, that reads itself aloud. Two minutes, no design skills, print it as a PDF keepsake.

Crooks run AI-generated videos of senior FBI officials and copycat versions of ic3.gov, all aimed at people who already lost money once. The bureau issued the alert on July 20. Four rules keep you out of danger.

AI smart glasses are the fastest-growing gadget in America, and almost nobody can spot a pair. Learn how to tell when the camera is rolling, what your state allows and three things you can do about it.

Magnetic tape lasts 10 to 30 years, and your wedding video is older than that. Worse, the last VCR on Earth was built in 2016. For less than $200, here’s the weekend kit you’ll need to rescue the whole box, including the exact eBay search phrase that finds a working player.

Three maxed-out credit cards. A $250,000 mortgage application. And a full set of dentures in Florida, ordered by a woman using Barry’s name. He did nothing wrong. It still took months to undo. Here is exactly what we did, in order.

Krisp strips barking dogs, traffic and coffee shop noise out of your calls in real time, using AI that runs entirely on your device. Works with Zoom, Teams, Meet and Slack. Free tier covers about an hour of noise-free calls a day.

VIN etching can cost $199 to $499, and paint or theft packages can hit $2,500. This gives you the AI prompt to audit a dealer quote, spot padded fees, check your state’s doc-fee cap and send a firm out-the-door counteroffer.

An estimated $10 trillion crosses these cables every day, and roughly 60 ships on the entire planet keep them running. Ship anchors do more damage than sharks ever have, and Starlink’s whole fleet still can’t match one cable’s capacity.

You can take a single page of your loved one’s handwriting and turn it into a font that works in Word forever. A son used this free tool to preserve his mother’s handwriting as Parkinson’s slowly took it away. Print the template, fill it in, upload the photo, done in 15 minutes.

A 20-minute setup stops half the panicked calls. A carrier with a real human who answers stops the rest, for your folks and for you.