March 2025

Block DMs from strangers

No one wants a bunch of DMs from strangers, and Bluesky has now acknowledged that. If you’re on the end of a targeted harassment campaign, you’ll now be able to sort out DMs from strangers quite easily. Go to the Chat tab in Bluesky’s apps or website, and you’ll see the new Chat requests button up top. This is where all DMs from strangers will now end up by default. You can accept these requests to allow the people behind them to DM you on a case-by-case basis, or reject them to stop them from pinging you again.

Faster account muting

Bluesky now lets you mute accounts directly from any post. If you’re scrolling through your feed and you see a post you dislike, just hit the three-dots button next to the post and select Mute account. This will mute the account until you choose to unmute it. This is useful if you encounter accounts posting things you’d rather not see, such as spoilers, political content, or incendiary posts. It’s much faster than having to go to their profile to mute them.

Longer videos on Bluesky

Bluesky has increased the length of videos you’re allowed to post on the service. Previously, you could post videos up to 60 seconds long, but with the 1.99 update, you can now post three-minute long videos, too. This brings Bluesky closer to its competitors. Threads allows you to upload individual videos that are up to five minutes long, while X (formerly Twitter) has the limit at two minutes and 20 seconds for people who don’t pay for its premium subscription.

Other notable improvements

This update has a few other improvements, including translations to three new languages—Esperanto, Scottish Gaelic, and Welsh. It also has better layouts for those accessing Bluesky’s website from tablets. The company also claims that it has improved the process of reporting posts to moderators and the error reports you see when you encounter an issue during the signup process.

Renovating your house has serious upsides in terms of your enjoyment of the property and the return on your investment—but there’s a price to be paid in time and discomfort. Renovation projects can take weeks or months to complete, and during that time your home will mostly likely be filled with dust, debris, and workers. It’s little wonder people choose to move out of their homes and live in a rental while the work is being done.

Not everyone can do that, of course—and not everyone can spend the next few months living in a construction zone. If you’ve got limited time (and limited tolerance for the mess and disruption), you might choose to put off home improvement projects until you have more of each. Or you could re-calibrate your expectations, because there are several one-day renovation projects (including clean up) that will have a big impact but have you relaxing on the couch by dinner time.

Refresh a bathroom

A complete bathroom remodel can take weeks or months to complete, which is seriously inconvenient—especially if you only have one bathroom in the house. But you can accomplish a pretty dramatic refresh of your bathroom in one day if you keep your focus narrow:

Re-caulking the shower should take just a few hours. This not only gets rid of unsightly stained, discolored caulk—it will also help prevent future leaks resulting from failing old caulk.
A new showerhead can be installed in less than an hour. Alternatively, clean the one you have: Remove the existing showerhead and soak it in white, distilled vinegar for about an hour, then rinse, scrub, and re-install.
Similarly, a new faucet on the vanity can be installed within an hour, unless accessing the supply lines and drain is difficult.

Boom! A day’s work and your bathroom can be dramatically improved. You could also consider intalling a bath liner, instantly transforming your shower or bath in (theoretically) just a day.

Paint

Paint is the easiest and cheapest remodel of them all, and you can get a lot done with one day and a gallon of good-quality paint:

Paint a room—you can absolutely paint an entire room in one day. You’ll need to budget in a few hours between coats, so get an early start and have a plan.
Paint furniture: Any piece of furniture in your house that’s looking a little drab can be upscaled with a coat of paint—including upholstered pieces.
You can also paint floors that have seen better days; additionally, lampshades, fireplaces, radiators, and kitchen appliances can all be successfully painted in just a few hours.

Update your kitchen’s details

Just like your bathroom, a full-scale kitchen remodel can take a long time, and have your house filled with dust for ages. But you can transform your kitchen in one day by targeting a few relatively easy but visually powerful spots:

New pulls. Swap out the old, tarnished, probably outdated pulls on your drawers and cabinets for shiny new ones.
New faucet. Swapping out the old faucet for a new one shouldn’t take more than a few hours.
Lighting. Adding adhesive lights under your cabinets will a) make the space brighter, which in turn will make it look cleaner and fresher, and b) add a touch of glamour to the space.
Cover the backsplash with peel-and-stick tiles for a whole new look.

Install vinyl plank flooring

If your current floors are a little sad and worn out, you might think that installing a whole new floor will take at least several days, if not a week. But you can install brand-new vinyl plank flooring in a day, as you can see here (and this guy tore out and replaced his subfloor, then installed vinyl plank, all in one day).

Granted, your mileage will vary on how comfortable you are measuring and cutting the planks, but this kind of flooring is one of the easiest to install—and it looks great and wears well.

Replace bathroom vanity

If you’re thinking about replacing the faucet in your bathroom as noted above, why not take it one step further and upgrade the entire vanity? Disconnecting the plumbing, removing the old vanity and faucet, and installing new ones requires just some basic plumbing knowledge and the use of a power drill, and should only take you a few hours from beginning to end—even if you include going out to buy the new vanity.

Add new light fixtures and switches

If you’re not afraid to do a little basic wiring, you can change the light fixtures in your house, the plates over the outlets and switches, and even the outlets and switches themselves all in one day. Once you’ve turned off the power so there’s no chance of killing yourself, changing out existing light fixtures can take just a few minutes for each one, so unless you’ve got a football field of lights in your house it shouldn’t take more than an hour or two to tackle them all (or however many you want to change).

Similarly, swapping out outlet and switch plates takes just a few minutes each (and requires just a screwdriver). And upgrading your light switches to dimmer switches is a similarly quick and relatively easy project that you can do all over the house in one day, easily.

Stick decals on your tile floors

If you’ve got tile floors that need a little upgrade but you don’t want to install a floor over them or tear them out entirely, you can cover them up with peel-and-stick tile tiles or decals very quickly. While you shouldn’t rush, because the end result depends heavily on how accurately and neatly you cut your pieces to fit your space, you can definitely complete an average-sized room within a day, and you can probably do multiple rooms in one day if you’re focused once you get the hang of it.

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Tomorrow Apple will be releasing new MacBooks and iPads, which is why you’re seeing discounts on the older MacBooks and iPads. There are two iPads being released tomorrow, the M3 iPad Air, which you can pre-order right now for $559 (originally $599) for the 11-inch version, or the the 11th-generation iPad for $329 (originally $349) for the 11-inch version, or $749 (originally $799) for the bigger 13-inch version. Impressive by Apple’s standards considering they haven’t even released yet. However, this could be because the older versions might be a better deal for you.

Brand: Apple, Model Name: iPad, Memory Storage Capacity: 128 GB, Screen Size: 11 Inches.

Apple iPad 11-inch (A16 chip)

Brand: Apple, Model Name: iPad Air, Memory Storage Capacity: 128 GB, Screen Size: 11 Inches.

Apple iPad Air 11-inch (M3 Chip)

Brand: Apple, Model Name: iPad Air, Memory Storage Capacity: 128 GB, Screen Size: 13 Inches.

Apple iPad Air 13-inch (M3 chip)

Brand: Apple, Model Name: iPad Air, Memory Storage Capacity: 256 GB, Screen Size: 11 Inches.

Apple iPad Air 11-inch (M2)

$699.00
at Amazon

Yes, it’s always nice to get the shiny new toy, but as Jake Peterson, Lifehacker’s Senior Technology Editor explains, the new iPad Air might not be worth it when you can get the very capable M2 iPad Air for cheaper. Most people can justify an M3 chip over an M2 chip on a laptop, where there’s more multitasking, heavier applications running, and speed is more important. But unless you’re looking to do those things on a tablet, the difference between the M2 and M3 chip’s speed might not be worth the money for you.

If you can wait until after the release of the new iPads on March 12 to make your purchase, that will be the most sensible decision, as the M2 iPads will likely drop in price and be a better value than the new iPad Air (if you can find the M2 iPads in stock). While Apple might not sell the older iPads in new conditions, Amazon and Best Buy will.

However, if money is not an issue and you want the best iPads available, both the iPad 11th-generation and the M3 iPad Air will be your best options.

Yankees handled by Paul Skenes, fall to Pirates 9-1 in spring training

Celtics-Lakers draws 4.6M viewers, largest NBA audience for non-Christmas regular-season game in seven years

Celtics-Lakers draws 4.6M viewers, largest NBA audience for non-Christmas regular-season game in seven years

Tylor Megill impresses, Luisangel Acuña and Brett Baty notch hits as Mets lose to Astros

Bluesky Now Lets You Hide DMs From Strangers