Last week, Apple launched their developer beta for iOS 18.4. The update brings fresh changes to iOS, including Priority Notifications, a new Genmoji button, and additional supported languages.

While it may be some time before iOS 18.4 is launched to all iPhone users, those curious to try out the new features can do so by installing the beta. However, doing so may cause some issues, so proceed with caution.

How to install the iOS 18.4 developer beta

It’s worth mentioning that there is some risk involved in installing a developer beta. The software can be unstable, as it is currently in testing and designed mainly for developers to make sure their apps are compatible with the latest iOS update. There are also likely bugs and glitches in this developer beta, which Apple is still working on fixing ahead of the public rollout. Those bugs can lead to data loss if you don’t properly back up your device before installing the beta. If you have a idea of what you’re doing and still want to try the new features, then go forth and have fun with the beta. However, it may not be a great idea to install the beta on your main iPhone.

As mentioned, you should back up your iPhone before installing the iOS 18.4 beta on your iPhone. I recommend backing up with your Mac or PC using Finder or iTunes. While you can use iCloud to back up your iPhone, this can be tricky with betas: If your iPhone backs up to iCloud while running iOS 18.4, you won’t be able to retrieve the data should you need to downgrade to the public iOS version. Backing up to your computer helps to ensure all your data from your iPhone stays intact.

Next, you’ll need to enroll your Apple ID in Apple’s developer program. To do so, first head to the Apple Developer site, then select Enroll. Log in to your Apple ID, fill out your information, and agree to Apple’s terms and conditions. While Apple has made it free to access developer betas, if you want to publish apps to the App Store, you’ll still need to pay Apple’s $99 yearly fee for full access to their developer program.

Once you’ve backed up your iPhone and enrolled your Apple ID, you’re ready to install the new developer beta. To install the beta, open Settings > General > Software Update. Below Automatic Updates, you should see an option for Beta Updates. Choose iOS 18.4 Developer Beta, then hit Back. Let iOS load for a moment, and you’ll see an option to Download and Install the beta.

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When you’re feeling awful because of a cold, you just want something to fix you—if not to cure you, at least to help you temporarily feel better. Unfortunately a lot of remedies are placebos, but some things in the drugstore work better than others.

Before we talk about which medicines are best, here’s an important note to consider: Cold medicines do not cure your cold, nor do they shorten its duration. If you’re reading this because you want to know how to get rid of a cold fast, or what a doctor would prescribe you to get rid of a cold—sorry. Colds are caused by viruses, and there’s no medication that will kill them off the way that antibiotics can kill off bacteria. The point of cold medicines is to help you be a little less miserable while you wait for your immune system to fight it off.

Ignore brand names on cold medicines

The companies that make cold medicines rely on our stuffy-headed memories. If you bought Sudafed (or Mucinex, or Dayquil) the last time you had a cold, they hope you’ll buy the same thing this time, while makers of store brands are hoping you buy something the same color and figure it’s good enough. But the brand name tells you next to nothing about what’s actually inside the package.

Each of the major cold medicine brands sells a variety of products with completely different ingredients. Sometimes, there are so many that the same brand will sell the same thing under two different names. My favorite example of this is the labyrinth of Mucinex products: Their Maximum Strength Fast-Max Severe Congestion and Cough has the same dosage and ingredients as their Maximum Strength Sinus-Max Pressure, Pain, & Cough. Meanwhile, Maximum Strength Sinus-Max Severe Congestion & Pain—which sounds like it should be very similar to the other Sinus-Max product—takes out a cough-related ingredient and swaps in some acetaminophen (that’s Tylenol). You are never going to have much luck navigating the cough and cold aisle on brand names and symptoms alone.

So where to go instead? Well, for quick relief of congestion, you’ll need the good stuff they keep behind the counter.

Pseudoephedrine (original Sudafed) is the good stuff

If you have a stuffy nose, pseudoephedrine is the real deal. In the old days, you could find it on the store shelves. Sudafed was one brand name. (Sudafed, pseudoephedrine, get it?) But pseudoephedrine can be converted into methamphetamine, so a 2006 law restricted its sale. It’s still an over the counter medication, but you’ll need to take the time to show your ID to the pharmacist if you want to buy some.

Studies have shown pseudoephedrine to be effective at clearing nasal congestion. When you feel like your nose is “stuffed” with dried or gooey mucus, that’s not literally true. Blood vessels in the lining of your nose and sinuses swell up, and that’s what narrows the air passages. Pseudoephedrine makes those blood vessels constrict, reducing the swelling and opening your airways so you can breathe easier.

(Pseudoephedrine also constricts blood vessels in other parts of the body, which is why it can increase blood pressure in some people, and why it is sometimes used off-label for priapism, also known as prolonged erections.)

Anything with “PE” in the name isn’t worth buying

Phenylephrine is the decongestant that replaced pseudoephedrine in over-the-counter products. Phenylephrine, the “PE” ingredient, has been known for years to be useless at treating cold symptoms when taken by mouth. This led two pharmacists to write a paper in 2022 entitled “Why Is Oral Phenylephrine on the Market After Compelling Evidence of Its Ineffectiveness as a Decongestant?”) Finally, as of November 2024, the FDA agreed that phenylephrine products will (eventually) be removed from store shelves.

Phenylephrine is what’s in Sudafed PE. This is another case of brand names leading you astray—regular Sudafed is the good stuff, but Sudafed PE has the ineffective ingredient. Don’t be fooled—anything with a PE in the name won’t work.

Most cough medicines don’t work, either

But that’s not the only cold medicine that probably does little to nothing for your cold. The “active” ingredients in cough medicines are probably useless too. Dextromethorphan is considered a cough suppressant, though there’s not much evidence to suggest it actually does its job. Nor does guaifenesin, an “expectorant” that’s intended to thin out mucus to make it easier to cough up. A Cochrane review concluded that there’s not enough evidence to say whether these or any other over-the-counter cough medicines actually work.

By the way, children under 4 years of age should not use any of the cough or cold medicines we’ve mentioned so far, according to the FDA. Fortunately, home remedies like drinking fluids and getting their snot sucked out with a bulb syringe are safe, and tend to bring actual relief.

Tylenol and ibuprofen can help with fevers and pain

There is one more category of over-the-counter medicines that may actually help you feel better when you have a cold, although they’re probably not what you’re thinking of when you think of cold medicines.

Acetaminophen (regular Tylenol) and ibuprofen (Motrin or Advil) are known as pain relievers and fever reducers. They do work for these jobs, and they are considered safe to use even in young children. That said, the American Academy of Pediatrics warns that you should always contact your pediatrician for a fever in a baby less than 3 months old, and not give medication unless directed, since fevers at that age can be life threatening and need to be evaluated in a healthcare setting.

If you’re used to looking at brand names, please make sure you turn the package around and make sure it contains what you’re expecting on the ingredients list. Regular Tylenol is just acetaminophen, but the company also makes a Tylenol Cold and Flu that contains all three of the ingredients mentioned above that do not work for colds or coughs. Advil makes a similar product. These aren’t the ones you want.

Another important note: Tylenol, or acetaminophen, is in a lot of cold medicines as part of a mixture of ingredients. It’s also potentially toxic if you take more than the recommended amount. If you’re combining medications, make sure you’re not double-dosing on this ingredient.

The best cough syrup is honey

So you have a decongestant that works (pseudoephedrine), and something to bring your fever and headache under control (acetaminophen or ibuprofen). Is there anything we can do about that nasty cough? There is, but you’ll want to leave the pharmacy aisles and head over to the grocery shelves.

Honey isn’t going to cure your cold, but it seems to soothe sore throats and relieve coughing, at least a little bit. Studies often show it works better than over-the-counter cough syrups. (Is this because honey is great or because cough syrups kind of suck? Possibly the latter, to be honest.) But don’t bother with honey-based cough syrups—yes, these are a thing—just grab some actual honey and mix it into some hot water or tea. That’s cheaper and easier.

An important caveat on honey, by the way: honey is not considered safe to give to babies under 1 year old. There’s a small risk of botulism, and babies are particularly susceptible. Honey isn’t going to help that much, so it’s not worth the risk.

Children’s cold medicines are almost all scams

Pretty much every “children’s” cold medicine is garbage. After all, the ones with decongestants and antihistamines aren’t considered safe for kids under 4. But since you’re in the medicine aisle anyway, “natural” brands are there to fill that gap with concoctions of vitamins, honey, and herbal supplements. These don’t really do anything, either, but somehow they cost like eight bucks a bottle.

But it gets worse. In both the kids’ and adults’ sections, you’ll find homeopathic remedies, which are pretty much scams and should be illegal. Watch out for anything that says “homeopathic” or that has ingredients measured in “X” or “C” instead of a real unit like milligrams. These aren’t simply natural supplements, as the labels sometimes suggest, and homeopathy is not another word for home remedy. Homeopathic “drugs” are beneficiaries of a bizarre loophole in FDA and FTC policy that allows them to be marketed as drugs while claiming to work by magic. I wish I were making this up, but I’m not. Save your money.

Maintaining a home is expensive, with many financial advisors recommending you set aside around 2% of its purchase price for upkeep each year. That cost is well worth it, as it prevents small problems from becoming bigger ones, and keeps your home in good shape so you can actually enjoy living there.

It’s reasonable to assume that if you’re doing at least the bare minimum home maintenance tasks, you can rest easier. But even if you repair stuff as needed and do all the recommended annual checks and upkeep, you might still be damaging your house in a myriad of ways. That’s because many things homeowners without thinking about it can actually damage a house over the long term.

Doing these 10 things occasionally likely isn’t a big deal, but over time and with repetition, they can contribute to some major headaches.

Using too many bath bombs

If you soothe the stress of home ownership with a nice hot bath spiced up by a fizzing, colorful bath bomb, you may be slowly ruining your home’s plumbing. Bath bombs typically contain stuff like citric acid, cream of tartar, Epsom salts, and baking soda, not to mention scented oils, glitter, or other decorations intended to give your bath a whimsical or romantic vibe. Over time, all that stuff can easily congeal in your pipes, or get caught on existing clogs, making them worse. A bath bomb once in a while won’t cause much trouble, but if you have a regular habit, you’re risking paying a plumber a lot of money sooner rather than later.

Using chemical drain cleaners

If you have a clogged drain and you turn to a chemical drain cleaner to open it up, you’re probably not going to destroy your house in the process. But if you have frequent clogged drains that you use drain cleaner to clear, you’re not only putting a band-aid on a bigger problem (why are your drains always clogged?) you’re probably damaging your pipes. Most of the drain cleaners you buy in a store are either caustic or oxidizing, and both release heat as part of the process of turning clogged material into something more easily dissolved and cleared away. That heat can soften PVC pipes and warp metal pipes over time. If your drains are always clogged and slow, it’s probably better to call a plumber and implement some basic drain maintenance steps.

Putting your appliances in the wrong spot

Just about every appliance in your home, from the refrigerator to the television, generates heat as a byproduct. If you place an appliance or two near your home’s thermostat, this can have a real negative impact on two things: Your heating or cooling bills, and your HVAC’s lifespan. That’s because the heat from the appliance will fool the thermostat into thinking your home is hotter than it actually is, causing the air conditioning to run more in the summer and the heat to run less in the winter. With the former scenario, your HVAC system will suffer more wear and tear, leading to a shorter lifespan, more repair bills, and more frequent replacement costs. In the latter scenario, you’ll find yourself turning the heat up to compensate, leading to a similar situation.

Painting over brick

If you’ve got exposed brick in the interior of your home that you’ve painted, congratulations: You may have just lit the fuse on an expensive home repair bomb. Brick is a porous material, and it needs to “breathe” properly. Paint can seal the brick, trapping moisture within, which can lead to deterioration of the brick, mold growth, peeling paint, and spalling. The problem is worse when it’s an exterior brick wall, but even a totally interior wall can be slowly destroyed if improperly painted.

If you must paint that wall, prepare the surface carefully and use a paint designed for masonry work. Then keep an eye on it. Inspect it regularly for bubbling, peeling, and brick dust—all evidence that moisture is doing your walls dirty.

Painting over rot

Speaking of paint, it’s important to note that it’s not magic. If you notice that wood in your home’s interior or exterior is suffering a bit of rot, cleaning it up and painting over it will absolutely not arrest the progression. It will, in fact, make things worse as the paint traps moisture, likely accelerating the process of rot that is eating your house alive—plus, that trapped moisture will cause the paint to bubble and peel soon enough anyway. Even if the rot you’ve discovered is minor, you have to figure out where the moisture is coming from and address that, then repair or replace the wood as needed before painting.

Flushing wipes down the toilet

It’s a weird fact of late-stage capitalism that items clearly marked “flushable” on their packaging are often not flushable at all. Neither is a long list of stuff that seems like it should be flushable, like food (which can persist a long time in your pipes, forming cement-like clogs) or kitty litter, including the clumping kind. If you’ve been flushing “flushable” wipes down the toilet, you’re on a countdown to plumbing disaster.

Using the wrong cleaners

Cleaning your house requires time, elbow grease, and the right cleaning products—which is more important than you think. Vinegar can be an effective cleaner, to the point where it’s suggested for just about any cleaning job. But vinegar is a weak acid, and as such it can damage surfaces like natural stone, television and monitor screens, hardwood flooring, and wood furniture. It can also do a lot of damage to washing machines and dishwashers if you toss it in to freshen things up, because the vinegar will weaken the rubber seals inside those appliances over time. Similarly, bleach is a powerful cleaning agent—but it’s powerful it can actually corrode metal surfaces (like those on your kitchen appliances) and natural stone. If you’re cleaning your house with vinegar and bleach regularly, you’re basically slowly dissolving big parts of it over time.

And if you’re using a steam cleaner on wood or laminate floors, you’re probably slowly ruining them, too. Unlike a spilled liquid, steam is pushed under pressure into the tiny seams in your floor, infiltrating the wood and making it swell-resulting in permanent and irreversible damage.

Not sweeping enough

Even if you’re not steaming your floors, you might be ruining them by not doing something: Sweeping (or vacuuming) regularly. As in, daily. Even if the floors look superficially clean, dirt that’s invisible to you is busily destroying your floors. It gets pushed into the tiny cracks and seams, dulling the finish and discoloring the floor. And the tiny particles of dirt and debris act like sandpaper, and as you walk around you’re grinding that stuff into the floor, creating scratches. When you do sweep, notice how much stuff you’re cleaning off a floor that didn’t look dirty to the naked eye, and realize that you’re scraping that stuff along your floors all the time.

Planting climbing vines

If you think a vine enveloping your house is charming, think again: Creeping and climbing plants that grow up and over homes are eating those homes bit by bit. They trap moisture and open up cracks in your home’s exterior that allow that moisture to infiltrate, their weight can damage siding and other exterior cladding, they offer shelter to damaging insects and small animals—they can even tear stuff off your house, like gutters and downspouts.

Misusing your garbage disposal

Garbage disposals are garbage (if you ask me, anyway), but if you have one, you probably use it. And if you use it, you might be setting yourself up for a big repair bill in the future because people seem to believe that garbage disposals are magical bags of holding that simply make anything disappear. The list of stuff that will wind up clogging your pipes and/or septic system includes most fats, oils, and grease (including stuff like peanut butter or heavy cream), egg shells (or any kind of shell, actually), vegetable peels, and corn husks. The list is so long you might wonder what even is the point of a garbage disposal, anyway, and you would not be wrong.

Secretary Rollins traveled to four states to hear directly from farmers and ranchers and to see their operations firsthand.