Have you noticed that some of your custom Windows icons have reverted to the default look after the latest update? If so, don't worry; you're not alone. Microsoft has made some tweaks to how custom icons are handled with Windows 11, and if the operating system cannot verify that they came from a good source, it will silently change them back to defaults without warning you. Yes, it's one of those rare moments where what may seem like a Windows bug is, in fact, entirely by design.

Proxmox is my favorite hypervisor platform, and it scratches my itch for testing multiple apps and distros at once. I've started using LXCs more lately to replace resource hungry VMs, and it's been going well. At least, until it came time to update them all.

If you think far back, you'll notice that for as long as technology has been applied to learning, the central challenge has remained the same, for at least the past few decades. Abstract concepts resist verbal explanation, and the tools available to "visualize" them have always demanded both a high level of professional skill and a significant investment in time and capital. The widespread access to generative AI is set to change all of that, and we received the first hint with the introduction of Claude's interactive visuals.

Microsoft's plan to fix Windows 11 has been in full swing for several weeks now. We've seen a notable reversal on AI Copilot integration, as well as confirmation that long-requested features like the ability to change the taskbar position, cleaner Windows Update rollouts, a less busy Start Menu, and a refresh of the Control Panel are all on the way.

When setting up your living room for an immersive movie night, your first instinct might be to switch off all the lights to replicate that pristine movie theater experience.

PC gaming handhelds are fantastic devices. Thanks to them, PC games are more accessible and portable than ever, and thanks to the power of modern integrated graphics, they still play at decent quality on these low-power devices.

Sooner or later, a NAS or home lab that's pulling double duty hits the same wall: too much data, not enough space to store it. You go to add one more drive, reach for a SATA cable, but find that there's not a single spot available, or you've had your attention caught by a used enterprise drive that has very compelling price-per-terabyte value. Either way, the solution is largely the same, and it's in the form of a PCIe add-in card called a Host Bus Adapter, or HBA. HBA cards aren't sexy, but they're incredibly useful cards that add a ton of potential capacity to your home lab or NAS, and they're worth exploring if you haven't already. As with any used enterprise gear, though, they come with their own unique edges that need some ironing out.

Given how disastrous Microsoft Edge's initial launch was, the company has managed to pull through. We're at the point where Microsoft's browser now commands 7% of the US market share, leaving Firefox in the dust at 3.8%. Well, it seems the Redmond giant has decided to make itself comfy with its decent share, as it's now going to update Edge twice as fast as usual soon.

Amazon's rolling out a free software update for Echo Hub devices that gives the home screen a much-needed update to the interface it launched with in 2024. It had already added Alex Plus AI support, but the new interface has a cleaner, fully customizable layout that fits more smart home info and controls on the screen than the previous version. The Echo Hub is also getting access to Ring AI's Video Search feature that lets you use natural language to search through your smart home camera footage, as well as Alexa Plus summaries of detected camera events. These are the five new features Amazon highlighted for the Echo Hub:Organize by r …Read the full story at The Verge.

The funny thing about home lab hardware is that “too much” usually has a very short shelf life. I set up a LattePanda Sigma with 32GB of RAM and a 500GB NVMe SSD, expecting it to be excessive for most of what I do. On paper, it looked like the kind of board that should spend half its life waiting around for a workload worthy of it. In practice, it took almost no time at all before I started finding jobs for it.

We've seen plenty of retro consoles built using a Raspberry Pi or an ESP32 chip, but they often require an external controller to play. However, what if you could have a handheld console where the screen is on the controller itself? Or, better yet, if you had an ESP32 device that could act as a handheld or a controller? Well, someone has made just that, and you can help fund it right now.

I know that SSD endurance ratings don't really matter for the average user. Even if you're gaming, browsing, and working every day for 10 years, you'll probably exhaust only a third of your SSD's TBW rating. The condition, though, is that you use your consumer SSD like an average consumer. And that doesn't include running heavy, 24/7 server-grade workloads on your consumer SSD. These drives can handle some productivity workloads, but hammering them with constant writes can chew through their endurance rating faster than you think. If you've had a consumer SSD fail on you prematurely, chances are you might be using your PC as a home server. There's a reason people use different systems for different use cases. If you've been using your humble consumer drive for relentless, always-on workloads, it might be time to stop. Enterprise SSDs are built to handle these kinds of environments, and they don't even cost that much on the used market.