People who know me know how much I enjoy self-hosting things. I like trying open-source tools, running them on my own server, and slowly building a setup that works the way I want. But one part of self-hosting I don't enjoy as much is replacing a tool that's been working perfectly fine.

I've tested a pretty wide range of docking stations in my day, but the Wavlink 6-in-1 USB4 Dock (WL-UMD4406) is a pretty unique one, for better or for worse. It comes with just five extra ports for your device, but it gives you an SSD enclosure as well, and that's an important part of the setup.

Hopping into your Google account might seem like the priority when getting a new Android phone. So many of the phone's functions and features are tied to the search giant. Gmail, Play Store, YouTube, and other apps all require signing in to use them fully.

This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on AI safety, follow Robert Hart. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here.How it started It all started in July, when one of OpenAI's autonomous AI agents went rogue during a cybersecurity test. The agent escaped its isolated testing environment, accessed the internet, and hacked another company, Hugging Face. A few years ago, that might have sounded like science fiction. But, broadly speaking, that's exactly what happened, and the incident kicked off a wave of concern over what increa …Read the full story at The Verge.

One of the coolest parts about being into DIY electronics is that you rarely waste electronics. Every busted piece of hardware can get a new life (such as turning a Steam Deck into a mini PC), and every piece of discarded tech is a potential new project. For example, one tinkerer got their hands on some analog gauges that someone disposed of, and turned them into one of the coolest hardware monitors I've ever seen,

The world of Linux development is going through an interesting time right now. AI coding has taken it by storm, and different camps are deciding whether or not it's welcome among their developers. Some parts of Linux development allow it, while some forbid it, creating a strange chimera of AI allowances and bans. For instance, Linus Torvalds permits AI coding for the kernel, but the people behind Linux's compiler have banned it.

I could ask my local LLM to write a script, troubleshoot a Docker container, or explain how to organize a folder full of files, and it would usually give me a sensible answer. That answer was also where its job ended. My local LLM could not handle an entire task on its own.

On Friday, Amazon customers received an email alerting them to an update to the site's terms and conditions. Most notably, it stated that disputes would now be resolved through arbitration and said users agree to a class action waiver. Amazon framed this as a "fast and efficient" way to resolve issues, but it notably would prevent customers from seeking the involvement of a judge or jury in most circumstances. Customers can still take Amazon to small claims court in certain circumstances, though payouts are often limited to a few thousand dollars.The relevant sections of Amazon's legal policies page now read:YOU AND WE AGREE THAT ANY …Read the full story at The Verge.

One of the things I really disliked about Windows 11 was its context menus. From day one, I hated how cluttered it could get, and I also disliked how some actions were locked behind the legacy context menu. Fortunately, as part of Microsoft's Windows K2 initiative, the context menu is getting a major revamp, and it's already looking like a huge improvement.

For three weeks, a $600 gaming router sat open in my laptop tab. Big, bulky, eight antennas, a glowing logo. I kept going back to that tab because I kept losing gunfights. My shots landed a beat late, and I skipped a heartbeat. My friends saw enemies, and I saw “game over”.

Port forwarding is the default move for remote access. People do it because it's simple. I too was in the same situation. I used to open a port for each service I wanted to access remotely. The question never crossed my mind: “What would happen if I opened a port on my router?”

ChatGPT's desktop app on macOS has a new feature called Computer History that turns your actions into training data, learning how you work, suggesting automations, and even picking up tasks you left half done. It uses your activity to build a timeline that ChatGPT and Codex can reference when you make a request.The feature is opt-in, rather than opt-out, and you can exclude certain apps and websites from Computer History, and you can delete entries if you want finer-grained control. Ari Weinstein, Product and Engineering manager at OpenAI, said on X that Computer History will automatically ignore content in incognito or private browser ta …Read the full story at The Verge.