Our digital workflow requires taking notes, writing documentation, and creating content at a rapid pace. While you are probably using the best tools for the job, you might be missing out on the simplicity and efficiency of Markdown. By offering a clean and intuitive approach to formatting text, this lightweight markup language is changing the way we write.

Chrome extensions are never completely safe, even if the developer would never dream of infecting their user base with malware. Unfortunately, it's these kinds of loyal developers that bad agents love to target; if a scammer manages to trick them into handing over their login details, they can use their established foundation of trust against them. Such is the case of 35 Chrome extensions, which were caught performing malicious activities after their developers were phished.

Apple’s 42mm flagship is down to just $329 with various bands. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Whether or not you subscribe to them, New Year’s resolutions are a capital-T Thing for many people in the US. Thankfully, if your goals for 2025 revolve around health and fitness, the 42mm Apple Watch Series 10 is on sale at Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy starting at $329 ($70 off), matching its Black Friday low. You can also pick it up in the 46mm sizing at Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy starting at $359 ($70 off), which remains the best price we’ve seen on the larger model.While there are certainly better fitness trackers for hardcore athletes, none of them offer the kind of robust third-party support you’ll get with a flagship Apple Watch, nor do they integrate as well with Apple’s larger device ecosystem. The Series 10 is a pretty minor update over the previous model, but it’s still a solid bet for casual athletes, with a terrific wide-angle OLED display, sleep apnea detection, a thinner design, and a larger charging coil that lets you juice it from zero to 80 percent in just 30 minutes.The more substantial fitness updates come in the form of watchOS 11, Apple’s latest software update for the Apple Watch, which brings a selection of new training features to the midrange wearable. These include the new Training Load feature, an app called Vitals that can contextualize a set of recovery metrics, and the long-overdue ability to pause your Activity Rings (praise be). I wouldn’t say any of them are revolutionary, but if you’re upgrading from an older model or you’ve never owned an Apple Watch before, they’re certainly welcome. Read our Apple Watch Series 10 review.More deals, discounts, and ways to saveNomad is still running its annual Holiday Hangover Sale, offering you a chance to save 20 percent on select items with coupon code HOLIDAY20. The promo applies to an assortment of Apple Watch bands and mobile accessories, including Nomad’s Traditional Leather Case for the iPhone 16 Pro (now $48), the keychain-friendly ChargeKey (now $20), and the second-gen Stand One charger (now $88). You can even grab a sleek leather case for the latest AirPods Pro for $32, assuming you want something a bit more rustic.Anker’s Soundcore Sport X10 earbuds are available from Amazon and Anker (with promo code WS7DV2YU66HE) for $49.99 ($30 off), matching their all-time low. The relatively cheap pair of earbuds offers quite a bit for the money — including powerful bass response, an IPX7 rating for water and sweat resistance, and flexible, wraparound hooks — all of which make them a great pick if you want a pair of wireless workout buds for the new year.Looking for an Android-based alternative to the Apple Watch Series 10? The Google Pixel Watch 3 is currently on sale at Amazon, Best Buy, and the Google Store starting at $299.99 ($50 off), which remains its second-best price to date. The handsome third-gen smartwatch is one of the best fitness trackers you can buy thanks to a host of excellent Google integrations and a slew of running features, not to mention a new battery-saver mode that activates when your watch falls below 15 percent. Read our review.

With the end of 2024 comes a recap of everything that happened prior, and Steam is no different. For a while now, gamers have been nominating and voting on titles to win the esteemed Steam Awards for 2024. Now that the dust has settled, one game has managed to snag Game of the Year 2024, alongside two more awards.

Qualcomm and Arm haven't had the best of years, have they? 2024 was rife with conflicts and accusations as Arm accused Qualcomm of breaching licensing law after it bought up Nuvia. Well, after a year of trading punches, Qualcomm finally won the legal battle against Arm. Well, most of it.

If you use your PC every day, there may be several tasks you perform repeatedly. They might be as simple as launching your favorite browser or opening a set of apps you use for work. Regardless of the type of actions, manually performing steps to recreate the scenario every single time takes up time. Instead, you can use certain tools for automation on your Windows desktop or laptop. These automation tools can be programmed to perform any function or a set of functions using commands and triggers.

Blender is a fantastic tool for 3D modeling, rendering, and animation. Since Blender is an open-source tool, you benefit from better privacy and cost — although Blender is totally free — but if, for any reason, you need an alternative to Blender for 3D modeling, there are options. Most creative software has great alternatives, whether you have to pay more for better features, or you can find them for free for more straightforward offerings.

If you use a work-issued laptop or desktop computer, you can safely expect employee monitoring software to be installed on it. This software, as the name suggests, allows your workplace to view every site you visit, every email you’ve sent, and even all the personal passwords you save. In the most watchful of workplaces, this may also include keyloggers that can see everything you type or screenshot tools that track your productivity. How strictly your employer monitors your activity depends largely on the nature of your job, but you still shouldn’t store certain things on your work PC.

PC builders are often left with a spare CPU and motherboard when moving to a newer processor and motherboard socket. Other components, such as the graphics card, RAM, storage, cooler, and power supplies, are easily carried over to the new system as long as they're compatible with the new CPU and motherboard. This leaves users wondering whether to scrap their old CPU & motherboard combo or find an alternative.

We love our practical Raspberry Pi projects here at XDA. Just ask Jeff Butts, who recently wrote our tutorial on turning a Raspberry Pi into an air monitor. While Jeff is always on the hunt for something to make or 3D print, he may want to revisit his old project for 2025, as someone has shown off a Raspberry Pi-powered air monitor you can take wherever you go.

Considering the prices of the best graphics cards today, this question is more relevant than ever. I'd like to start with a disclaimer, though: this article isn't about telling people what to do with their money. Of course, you can spend whatever you like on a gaming GPU, but my intention is to analyze multiple factors and arrive at a realistic price that allows gamers to enjoy a reasonable quality of gaming in 2025.

Despite its roots as a general-purpose operating system, it’s possible to turn your Windows 11 machine into a reliable server. From Type-2 hypervisors like VirtualBox and VMware Workstation Pro that can simplify VM deployment to support for WSL2 and Docker containers, you can use a myriad of apps to create an experimentation-cum-self-hosting environment within Windows 11’s simple UI. Heck, I’d go so far as to say that it’s one of the easiest server OS for beginners to the home lab landscape.