MakeUseOf - Cable Management

I bought a desk gadget on a whim and now it's the one thing I'd never replace

Mahnoor Faisal — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 21:00:17 GMT

Between 2 coffee cups, a water bottle, a few devices I'm testing, a tripod, a sunset lamp, my laptop and iPad, and a bunch of charging cables to fuel up all these devices (the coffee and water fuel me, thankfully), my desk is always a mess. Now, most of these I'm fine with. A messy desk is a lived-in desk, whatever.

Not all Ethernet cables are created equal — this label means it'll never hit its rated speeds

Rob LeFebvre — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 13:00:17 GMT

You just got home from a run to the tech store with your brand-new Cat 6 cable rated for gigabit speeds, but now that it's hooked up across your home office, your connection continues to crawl. The cable looks fine, no kinks or slices, and the router seems to be performing at its peak. The problem might actually be three letters printed on the cable itself: CCA.

I bought the wrong "HDMI to USB-C" cable three times before learning this one thing

Shaun Cichacki — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 20:00:17 GMT

When you walk into your local big-box store to pick up a new HDMI or DisplayPort cable, you can typically grab one off the shelf without thinking twice, right? HDMI to HDMI works exactly as you'd expect, and the same goes for its more PC-centric counterpart. Heck, even a DisplayPort-to-HDMI converter will work exactly as you expect when you plug it in, providing a beautiful picture on any display.

I stopped buying random USB‑C cables after learning what 'USB4' actually means

Oluwademilade Afolabi — Sat, 28 Feb 2026 18:00:16 GMT

I used to consider USB-C cables as office supplies. Cheap, interchangeable, and unworthy of much thought. A cable is a cable, right? Wrong, as it turns out, embarrassingly wrong. The moment it finally clicked for me was when I plugged a brand-new external SSD into my laptop and watched files crawl across at dial-up speeds. It's the exact same underlying issue that explains why your USB-C cable isn't charging your device fast enough. That was the day I had to stop pretending and ask the obvious question: why does the same USB-C port behave so differently depending on which cable I grab from the pile?

Why cheap HDMI cables are actually fine (and when they're not)

Pankil Shah — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 12:30:16 GMT

Somewhere along the way, HDMI cables became luxury items, with fancy packaging, bold claims, and price tags that make them seem special. But the truth is, most HDMI cables meeting the required standard work exactly the same.

Please stop buying flat Ethernet cables — they’re not as good as they look

Yadullah Abidi — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 13:00:17 GMT

Ethernet cables come in all shapes and sizes, but few look as sleek as flat ones. They look good, promise easy cable management, and seem like the perfect solution for your desk setup or home network. They're cheaper than their round counterparts, they slip under doorways like butter, and they don't eat up half your desk real estate. So what's the catch?

Please stop using old HDMI cables

Ben Stegner — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 16:00:16 GMT

It’s easy to assume that all HDMI cables are the same. You plug them into your TV and connected device, and the picture you expect pops up. But while all HDMI cables provide basic functionality, old cables don’t bring the modern features that let modern devices look their best.

I stopped replacing accessories once I learned these 5 simple longevity tricks

Oluwademilade Afolabi — Sat, 13 Dec 2025 23:00:15 GMT

We baby our smartphones and laptops with glass protectors and rugged cases, yet the accessories that keep them alive, such as charging cables, expensive earbuds, power banks, dongles, and essential smartphone accessories, are often treated as disposable.

Stop buying “gold-plated” HDMI cables — here’s what actually matters

Ben Stegner — Sun, 07 Dec 2025 16:00:16 GMT

Marketers love using tech buzzwords to trick you into spending more money than necessary. And ever since HDMI has become the standard way to connect devices to TVs, companies have offered gold-plated HDMI cables that are supposedly of “superior” quality.

You can finally toss these old cables because you’ll never need them again

Ben Stegner — Fri, 05 Dec 2025 12:30:14 GMT

Cable standards for tech change slowly, given how long many devices last and how much effort is required for manufacturers to shift the ports their devices use. And while there are plenty of outdated cables you should still hold onto because of this, you don't need to keep everything.