It doesn't take a genius to conclude that the PC hardware is going through a massive rough patch, well, for consumers, at least. The enterprise AI demand is being fulfilled, no questions asked, and PC builders are left to fight for scraps — grossly inflated scraps. It started with RAM selling at 4 times the regular price, then spiraled into SSD prices getting doubled, and finally took graphics cards down, too. PC builders with upgrade plans in 2026 have to wait at least two full years before even thinking about buying new hardware. If you still need to upgrade your gaming PC, the used market can be your savior, as long as you find a decent deal. You should also keep older-gen CPUs in the mix to further maximize your return on investment.

It's 2026, and AI can do a lot for the average consumer, ranging from writing an email to summarizing a research article or planning a trip. So, the question has to be asked: can it provide similar utility to someone looking to build a gaming PC, specifically, a newbie with no real knowledge of PC parts? To answer that, I decided to use ChatGPT to help me scout for the best PC parts for a given budget.

Running multiple Proxmox nodes doesn't require clustering them together. While clusters offer high availability and live migration, they come with strict requirements. Corosync needs a latency under five milliseconds, making cross-site deployments nearly impossible. There are always split-brain scenarios that can corrupt data, and Quorum loss can render your infrastructure read-only.

Even though I’ve already built a pretty solid open-source graphics stack at this point, I’m always on the lookout for new tools or hidden gems. That’s exactly how I discovered some of my favorites, like Photopea and PhotoDemon. Recently, I came across a tool called miniPaint. It’s a free, open-source, lightweight image and graphics editor that runs in your browser, and it’s self-hostable too.

You've probably heard it a few times before, but Windows Search isn't good. Whether you're trying to find apps or files, the search bar on your taskbar and Start menu almost always falls short. It functions alright for some things, but I'd always recommend replacing it.

It's not surprising when the guy who's been yelling about the horrors of late-stage capitalism on Instagram for the last five years turns his ire towards ICE. But something different has been happening over the week or so, following the most recent shootings of civilians by federal agents - even accounts that stay laser focused on golfing, chopping wood, and playing cats like bongos have started to speak out. The tenor on social media and Reddit took an even sharper turn yesterday, following the killing of Alex Pretti by ICE. Even the moderator of normally politics-free r/catbongos (a subreddit "Where gentlemen, gentlewomen, and gentlethem …Read the full story at The Verge.

Microsoft hasn't been alone with its aggressive push for the concept of the AI PC. This new category of personal computers was launched to highlight available processing power that could be dedicated to artificial intelligence. Unfortunately for everyone involved, it turned out to be quite the mess for consumers and partners alike, and confusingly, Copilot+ PCs are a different beast altogether since Copilot has been mired in confusion and frustration from consumers.

I've owned a lot of different hardware over the years, from ex-enterprise hardware to consumer parts, specialized industrial PCs, and off-the-shelf mini PCs. If it had a CPU and I could get my hands on it, I did, because I have insatiable curiosity and can't resist the allure of what looks like a good deal.

I've always been interested in my data's privacy to some extent, but the continued overreach of Big Tech and the use of user data to train generative data has pushed this interest further.

Operating systems are fairly complex pieces of software, and typically, they're the foundation of your computer experience. You don't usually expect to be able to run one operating system like Windows 11 inside another unless you get into virtual machines. But the idea of running an OS inside your browser still sounds like something of a dream.

SSD caching has become one of those features that NAS brands plaster everywhere in their marketing materials. The push is so strong that forums are full of people querying which NVMe drive to buy for caching these days. It has stopped being a niche optimization that only advanced users did if they needed it, and has become a sort of default upgrade that one must do when buying a new NAS.

Internet outages are an inconvenience, for sure, but sometimes they turn into real problems. Like the major AWS outage in October 2025, which took out a substantial amount of the internet as we know it, from social media apps to popular video games, and plenty of smart home devices.