After years of use, one morning I went to turn on my PC, and I was met with the dreaded blue screen of death sporting a clinical, unforgiving stop code: INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE. After troubleshooting everything I could, I finally managed to access my PC again via Windows Safe Mode. However, it gave me the shock I needed to double-check my SSD's health, and I realized I wasn't far from total data loss.

The importance of creating redundant copies of essential data was something I learned shortly after putting together my first PC, and my backup-hoarding tendencies only grew once I stepped into the home lab ecosystem. While maintaining regular backups of my server rigs and their virtual guests is pretty simple (I have PBS to thank for that), the situation is a bit different when it comes to my Windows 11 PCs.

If you're a music maker of a certain age, then you probably once dabbled with a pirated copy of a little app called Fruity Loops. These days it's called FL Studio, and Constantin Koehncke, is the man responsible for shepherding the pioneering digital audio workstation (DAW) through the modern age. As CEO of Image Line, the company behind FL Studio, Constantin has overseen the introduction of a number of AI-powered features like stem separation and its Gopher chatbot.Before taking the reins of Image Line in 2022, Constantin was the head of Native Instruments, where he spearheaded the shift towards digital services, did a stint in marketing, …Read the full story at The Verge.

Ollama has been my go-to choice for experimenting with local AI models for a long time. It is simple and reliable, and it works with almost every local AI tool I throw at it. Naturally, when I started looking for an alternative, LM Studio was the first name that came to mind. I had used it before and knew exactly what to expect. But while exploring other options, I came across Msty AI and decided to give it a try. I wasn't expecting it to replace anything in my setup. A few days later, though, I was using it far more often than I had planned.

Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield had been seeking documents from Paramount related to its takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery. Rayfield also asked a state circuit court judge to delay the closing of the deal by 60 days so that his office could review the documents. But according to Deadline and Variety, he's now dropped his civil investigative demand for the records.Obviously, Paramount is pleased with Rayfield's decision to withdraw his request, but the AG's office isn't exactly satisfied with the outcome.Jenny Hansson, communications director for Rayfield, told Deadline that, "Paramount made it clear that they weren't going to compl …Read the full story at The Verge.

I spend a lot of time trying to shave a few dollars off 3D printing costs, and most of the obvious methods come with some penalty. Cheap filament can be fine, but I’ve also bought rolls that needed more drying, more calibration, or more patience than the price difference justified. Hardware upgrades can reduce waste, but they usually start with me spending more money and hoping the savings arrive later. Switching to filament refills was much less dramatic, and that’s exactly why it worked: I paid less for material I already trusted, stopped bringing home another plastic spool with every kilogram, and barely had to change how I print.

When I first started building out my Proxmox environment, creating a full virtual machine for every service felt like the safe choice. Each application got its own operating system, virtual disk, memory allocation, and clearly defined place on the server. It looked organized and, more importantly, felt properly isolated. After a while, though, I had several nearly identical Linux installations running just to support small services that barely used the resources I’d assigned them. Moving most of those workloads into Linux containers, or LXCs, made the waste much harder to ignore, because the same hardware suddenly felt quicker, less crowded, and much easier to maintain.

More mint green synths please. | Image: Nopia After setting the music gear corner of the internet on fire back in 2023 with the first glimpse at the Nopia, creators Martin Grieco and Rocío Gal are almost ready to bring it to market. The duo brought it to the MusicRadar offices for an in-depth first look and revealed that it will be launching in "a couple of months" for around £550.Nopia is built around harmonic interplay in a unique way. Rather than a few knobs and a keyboard controlling a single synth patch, it blends multiple modules - keys, bass, arp, and pad - into a single performance, not unlike a drumless groovebox. There's a one-octave keyboard called the Chord Builder, a 12-b …Read the full story at The Verge.

If there's one term that describes most of my life perfectly, it's organized chaos. I've always been the type of person who needs a million things going on in her life simultaneously to be able to actually focus. Ultimately, I'm doing as much as I realistically can at any given moment, and the only way that doesn't collapse into pure chaos (and lose the organized element entirely) is by having certain systems in place. I've tried practically every productivity app that you've heard of. Notion, Obsidian, Todoist, Structured, Tana, Google Keep, a dozen more I don't even remember the names of anymore.

When you spend all day working on your computer, finding new ways to be more productive and speed things up is very important. Many people look to debloating Windows 11 as a way to speed up their computers so things load and happen faster and they get work done more quickly. But sometimes the solution is simpler: you just need the right app.

Dual monitors are a kind of upgrade that feels like an obvious win. What's not to love, after all? Ever since moving to a dual-monitor setup, I have more screen space, better multitasking, fewer Alt+Tab gymnastics, and most importantly, YouTube on the second screen as I work on the primary display. These are all things I looked forward to when I brought a second monitor home. I'd definitely make the same decision again in a heartbeat, but owning two displays has definitely come with a surprising number of little compromises that I never saw coming.

I'm not trying to come across as condescending, but I've lost count of how many times my gaming friends have complained about lag while playing ranked matches. They're quick to blame the ISP, but I usually ask them if they're downloading anything in the background or if someone else at home is streaming Netflix or downloading updates. More often than not, that's exactly what's happening.