If you thought gaming was an expensive hobby, you’d be surprised by all the cool (and expensive) products you can add to your home lab. From low-power, budget-friendly SBCs and mini-PCs to server rigs, enterprise-grade switches, and NAS enclosures, there’s a battalion of useful devices in the tinkering landscape.

A keyboard might be just another input device for many, but a highly personal and valued part of their PC setup for others. While many parts come together to determine how good a keyboard sounds and feels, the switch is perhaps one of the most important. Users typically have three kinds of keyboards to choose from, depending on the switch type: mechanical, magnetic (Hall effect), and optical.

Samsung makes some of the best storage solutions out there. So, whether you're looking to upgrade your PC or laptop with a new SSD, or just want to have some lighting-quick external storage, you can't go wrong with something from Samsung.

If you want to write beautiful documents, LaTeX is undoubtedly the best way to do so. It's basically a programming language that you can use to make documents, with an easy-to-use syntax that can be made as easy or as advanced as you want it to be. What's more, gone are the days where you need to set up your own LaTeX environment to write in (though you can), as there are tools like Overleaf that act exactly like Google Docs, but allow you to write in LaTeX with support for packages, too.

Besides writing articles like these, I occasionally make videos about cool gadgets. I have a Sony a6400 APS-C camera that I use to make videos and I absolutely love how compact yet powerful it is. However, there are times when I use my smartphone to record, since it's more convenient, and I have some of the best smartphone cameras in my arsenal. It's also useful for when I haven't charged my camera's battery and need to record something quickly. While working with a phone is rather straightforward, the only disadvantage is the limited visibility on the small screen.

VRAM is a key component of what makes up a fast graphics card. It’s much faster than system memory and has much higher bandwidth, allowing for rapid access to things like game textures. It usually comes at a premium, with the last few generations of graphics cards having as high as 24GB and as low as 6GB.

There’s no denying that Linux distros are perfect for self-hosting and containerization workloads. But once you’ve completed the grueling task of setting up WSL2 and Docker Desktop, you’ll be rewarded with the ability to run containers on your Windows 11 machine. While most Linux containers will work just fine on Microsoft’s flagship OS, there are a handful of services that you must try out on your Windows 11 workstation.

Have you run into situations where you need to grab text from a screenshot or image you downloaded? Doing so used to take some work, but Microsoft is making it easier using built-in utilities. For instance, you might need to get the text from a PowerPoint slide, an infographic, or anything you screenshot. Once you extract the text, you can post it into a document or other apps. Luckily, the modern Snipping Tool on Windows 11 includes OCR (Optical Character Recognition), so you can do just that. Let’s take a look at how to do it.

A NAS system is a useful addition to any home or office. There are a ton of uses for a NAS, like media streaming, photo and video backup, security cameras, or just as a general storage system that you can access from anywhere.

Linux was never as user-friendly as macOS and Windows ... for the masses, at least. It was great for those (like myself) who enjoyed messing around for hours but attempting to convince others to give it a go over their favorite OS was a difficult task, largely due to all the annoyances that came with most Linux-based distros, including Ubuntu. It's a completely different story today with many of the leading Linux distros offering far superior experiences than years past. Things are on more of an even playing field with Windows. Although we're not quite there yet, here are some ways Linux is less infuriating.

I don't know about you, but there's something about the older Microsoft accessories that have that certain charm to them. Unfortunately, the Redmond giant had to let go of its accessories, but it did partner up with a company called Incase to continue their legacy. Now, we're seeing the first entries from the range, which makes me shed a retro-loving tear.

There are a lot of great mice to choose from if you're in the market for something new. And one of our favorites for this is the Logitech MX Anywhere 3S, which offers excellent accuracy, feels good in the hand, and is also easy to pack up if you're looking to take it with you. Of course, this mouse isn't that cheap, coming in at $80. Luckily, this rare deal knocks $10 off, dropping it down to one of its lowest prices to date.