One of my favorite everyday treats to make is a simple loaf cake, with an un-iced bundt cake trailing as a close second. Both cakes are casual-snacking gems, and both cakes have a penchant for over-browning in my rental apartments oven. Its not their faultdeep cakes require longer cooking timesbut overbrowning can dry out your cake, and I simply wont stand for it. Preventing overbrowning is easy with an extra sheet pan.Why do my cookies and cakes burn?You could be doing everything right and your cake will still turn out overcooked. There are a few reasons why your cookies, cakes, or pies might be browning too fast, or even burning before the interior is finished. Older ovens or lower quality ones can have "hot spots" that throw off your temperature goals; your sheet pans might be made of cheap, thin metal; and it could just be an inherent downside to the item youre baking. For example, it's not uncommon for loaf cakes to take an hour or more in the oven. The bottom and sides in direct contact with the baking pan are going to cook the fastest and also be the first to brown before the center even gets going.Use extra sheet pans to dampen the direct heatIf you notice your first tray of cookies are overbrowning on the bottoms, or you remember this same cake recipe gave you trouble in the past, put an extra sheet pan under the cake. If you don't normally bake pies and cakes with a sheet pan underneath, start with one and see how it goes before adding a second one. Doing this adds another layer, albeit thin, between the cake batter and the hot metal grate its sitting on. It sounds like no big deal, but it actually makes a big difference. (And isnt that exactly what a good hack is all about?) If youre using a second sheet pan thats a size smaller than the one above it, youll notice that it does an even better job at insulating the bottom of the cake because of the air pocket it creates underneath.Any sheet pans will work, but here are a couple sets I like: Williams Sonoma Cleartouch Nonstick Sheet Pans, Set of 3 $61.95 at Williams Sonoma Shop Now Shop Now $61.95 at Williams Sonoma Wilton Bake It Better Steel Non-Stick Baking Pan Set, 3-Piece $14.58 at Walmart $9.92 Save 0.00 Shop Now Shop Now $14.58 at Walmart $9.92 Save 0.00 SEE -1 MORE The sheet pan protects the bottom. Addressing the sides of the pan is slightly more of a to-do, but still easy. Wrap a layer of aluminum foil around the sides. Shiny aluminum foil reflects energy and adds protection to your food in the oven. I usually do this as a secondary precaution. If my cake has been baking and I notice that its nowhere near cooked through the center but the edges are already golden, Ill loosely wrap some foil around the sides. I do the same thing for pies when the crust looks like its taking on lots of color before the filling cooks.Always observe your foodKeep in mind that youll likely have to increase the amount of cooking time a bit because the heating will be less aggressive. Unfortunately, I cant give you a set number for this because it will vary a great deal depending on what youre making and your ovens personal problems. This might look like adding two minutes for your cookies, or an extra 15 minutes for a bundt cake. As always, just keep an eye on it, and check for doneness as usual. Youll get better at assessing what needs an extra sheet pan underneath, and how long to cook it the more you practice.

Mistakes happen, especially when it comes to the mail. Carriers sometimes misread an address, letters can shift around in the back of the truck, and people move without updating their addressesall circumstances that could result in you receiving mail intended for another recipient. Heres what you should do if you get mail that doesnt belong to you.What to do if mail is delivered to the wrong addressIf the mail youve received is not only for someone else, but for a different address than yours altogether, you have two options to correct the mistake:Deliver it yourself. If the letter is clearly intended for a nearby neighbor, and you can physically open their mailbox, feel free to deliver the letter to the correct address yourself. It is not illegal to open someones mailbox (as long as its not locked), and its not illegal to personally forward mail to the correct address as long as the mail has proper postage. You could also knock on their door and hand it to them if you know them (or feel comfortable doing so). However, be aware that there are laws against placing other thingslike flyers, notes, advertisements without postage, etc.in mailboxes.Write a note and stick it in the outgoing. If the correct address is far away or you just dont feel like dealing with delivering it yourself (which is totally fine), simply write a note that says something to the effect of wrong address and attach it to the wrongly delivered piece of mail (a sticky note or a paperclip are good ways to do so). A mail carrier will pick it up next time around and it will be delivered to the correct address in the next couple days.Its best not to write your note directly on the envelope or article and risk defacing someone elses mail. If you use a marker or Sharpie and it bleeds through, it could cause the intended recipient more grief than is necessary. Attach it with a paperclip or a sticky note instead.What to do if you receive mail for a former residentIf youre receiving someone elses mail with your correct address, you need to inform the mail carrier and post office that they no longer live there. Again, you can do that with a paper clipped note placed on the letter. To return to sender, simply write "Not at this address, return to sender" on the note and attach it to the piece of mail. Stick the mail in the outgoing box in an obvious way, to make the error clear to your mail carrier the next time they come around. This might take a few tries, and you may even have to contact the post office if it continues. Check that the mail doesnt say [other persons name] or current resident; That mail is technically addressed to you as long as you live in that residence, whether you want to receive it or not. If you keep telling the post office person doesnt live here with or current resident mail, they might assume the residence is vacant and stop sending mail there entirely. When in doubt, a trip to the post office or a phone call can often clear things up.Is it illegal to open someone else's mail?You bet it is. It's also illegal to throw someone else's mail away on purpose. Both are considered tampering. When you get someone else's mail, do not open it and do not throw it away, since both are punishable offenses (and no one likes offending or punishment). Don't worry, if you were mindlessly tearing open your stack of mail and realized you'd received someone else's and opened in error, you won't be taken away in cuffs. The law is intended to protect against unsavory types looking to gather personal information.

You almost certainly have a hamper you use to collect your dirty clothes (right?). But still, your clothes end up on the floor. Even if you have all the storage and organizational tools you need, if they're not easy to use and/or provide serious benefits, you're just going to go the floor route. Upgrading your hamper to something more accessible or useful can be the push you need.Upgraded laundry hampersA hamper can be pretty much anything. I regularly send my laundry out with a service that comes to pick it up and brings it back to me, so my "hamper" is the branded bag they insist my clothes come in when they arrive to pick them up. For anything I'm not sending out, though, I have a hack: I put my dirty clothes directly into the wheeled cart I push to the laundromat. I do this because I know I am a lazy person. If I had to transfer the clothes from a different hamper into the wheeled cart, I would postpone it and they'd pile up. Streamlining the process works for me and it might work for youbut a cart like this does take up space. I store mine in my front entry closet. Foldable shopping cart $39.99 at Amazon Shop Now Shop Now $39.99 at Amazon Not everyone is a struggling urbanite, of course, so your laundry may well get done right inside your home. Lucky you! You can still use my wheeled-cart hack. In fact, you should. There's no reason to break your back carrying a big basket from room to room. You can get a simple plastic hamper with wheels for $23.98. But why stop there? I also recommend looking into hampers with sections or dividerssome of which come with wheels, too. You can use the sections however you want. They could be for lights and darks, clothes made of certain fabrics, clothes that need to be washed sooner than others, or clothes from different family members or housemates. There are a number of configurations out there, from two-section hampers to four-sectioned ones ($39.99). I really like this two-section one that hangs vertically ($59.99) because it has a small footprint that makes it easy to store. This wicker hamper with three sections is also nice, especially if you keep it in a more public room and need it to look a little classy: Laundry hamper with lid $65.99 at Amazon $74.99 Save $9.00 Get Deal Get Deal $65.99 at Amazon $74.99 Save $9.00 And yes, all of those have wheels. Our goal here is to make laundry day easier, after all. You could also try a hamper with a built-in bag, however. The rigid exterior keeps it upright, so it's easy to get your clothes into, but the interior is lined with a bag that makes it easy to pull the laundry out, take it to the machine, and bring it back around the house to put away once it's folded. Slim laundry hamper with lid $32.80 at Amazon $39.99 Save $7.19 Shop Now Shop Now $32.80 at Amazon $39.99 Save $7.19 Maybe your issue isn't ease of transportation, but storage space. In that case, try a hamper that hangs behind a door. It can easily fit into a closet, making use of the empty space between your hanging clothes and the door. There are some really inexpensive options here, too, so you can have one in multiple rooms. This fabric one is $11.99. You can also upgrade to a behind-the-door style with a higher capacity and additional pouches to store detergent or smaller items, like socks, for $23.99.

You can get Microsoft Project Professional 2021 for Windowson sale for $19.97 right now (reg. $249.99) through September 3. It comes with built-in reports offering easy-to-read information that can help save project managers time and frustrationthings like automatically populating start and end dates, running what-if scenarios, and visually representing complex schedules. It can also sync up with Project Online and Project Server, and Microsoft Project also supports Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) and compatibility with Office LTSC and Office 2021. This offer is only available to new users, though.You can getMicrosoft Project Professional 2021 for Windowson sale for $19.97 right now (reg. $249.99) through September 3 at 11:59 p.m. PT, though prices can change at any time.

This week, OpenAI announced it has started rolling out advanced Voice Mode to ChatGPT Plus users. While not all Plus subscribers will see the feature right awayOpenAI is reserving the initial round for a small pool of testersthe company will continue to release the update to more users as time goes on, giving more paying customers the chance to (maybe?) experience the AI future the movies promised us.Advanced Voice Mode turns ChatGPT into HerChatGPT has had a Voice Mode for some time, allowing users to have the same interactions with ChatGPT that they'd normally have via text, but by speaking their queries aloud; ChatGPT will then "speak" its responses. Advanced mode is different, though: According to OpenAI, this grander version of the vocal chatbot is much more natural, allowing you to have a conversation in real-time with ChatGPT. The company says you can interrupt the bot whenever you want to change the direction of the conversation, and it should be able to understand the tone of your voice, rather than simply the contents of your questions and requests. If it all works as advertised, talking to ChatGPT should be the closest we've come yet to having a true-to-life conversation with an AI.The company first showed off Advanced Voice Mode in May, exhibiting these abilities via a series of live demos. At the time, the company was promoting the "Sky" voice, which sounded remarkably like Scarlett Johansson, prompting comparisons to the 2013 movie Her, in which a man falls in love with his AI assistant, perhaps a bit too well. The company soon paused use of the voice following criticism that it sounded too much like Johansson's. OpenAI denied using the actor's actual voice for the service, but the company clearly knew there were similarities, as evidenced by CEO Sam Altman posting simply "her" on X shortly before the presentation: This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed. Based on the demos, the bot does try to match your tone of voice, and does allow for some real-time back and forth in conversation. However, the demo certainly wasn't perfect: The bot stopped speaking abruptly when it thought it was being interrupted (even when it wasn't), and the tone of its responses at times could be a bit too friendly, verging on flirtatious. We'll have to see how well it actually performs now that it's rolling out to actual consumers.How to try ChatGPT's advanced Voice ModeIn order to have a chance to try advanced Voice Mode sooner rather than later, you need to be a ChatGPT Plus subscriber. Voice Mode will be available for free users in the future, but this initial rollout is only for customers paying OpenAI $20 per month. That said, paying doesn't guarantee access to the alpha for advanced Voice Mode. OpenAI is rolling this feature out gradually at first, so whether you get access to it now will simply be the luck of the draw. When you do, however, you should notice a new "Try advanced Voice Mode" pop-up appear above the Voice Mode icon in the ChatGPT app. Tap it and you'll see a "You're invited to try advanced Voice Mode" message explaining the feature. Tap Continue, and you'll now be able to converse with ChatGPT in advanced mode.

As someone who loves trying and writing about new Mac apps, it's pretty common to see a cluttered dock on my laptop. I don't manually quit apps that often, unless they're actively hindering my ability to use my Mac. Unfortunately, when I was buying my M1 MacBook, I didn't have enough cash to buy the 16GB RAM variant, and I am regretting that now. With about 50 open browser tabs and a bunch of apps running in the background, my MacBook sometimes slows down. Of course, connecting it to a 34-inch ultrawide monitor doesn't help, but that's not something I am going to give up.That leaves me with the painful task of manually quitting unused apps to free up RAM space. I grudgingly did this every once in a while until I found MagicQuit, which is a free Mac app that automatically quits unused apps for me.How to use MagicQuitMagicQuit is fairly simple to set up and use. When you launch it, the app asks you to configure how long you want unused apps to remain open. I chose two hours, because that's about as much time as I need to be sure I won't be using any given app for the rest of my session. After you select a time out window, MagicQuit will automatically quit all apps that have been inactive for longer than the time you set.But what about apps you want to keep running indefinitely in the background, like utilities that make it easier to connect to bluetooth? Thankfully, MagicQuit allows you to set up exceptions for these. Click the app's menu bar icon, and unselect the apps that you want to always be running.Naturally, you'll worry about losing data when apps shut down. Even though MagicQuit promises not to close any apps that have unsaved data, I recommend unselecting apps that could have important work. For example, I've removed my image editing app (Acorn) from the auto-quit list. It's worth noting that MagicQuit doesn't quit menu bar apps, which is a good thing for me, because the menu bar is home to some of my favorite Mac utilities.