Many variants of newer mini PCs are so compact that they appear to only support what you see on the I/O panel, but beneath their exterior, you can sometimes find a hidden SATA port that you can utilize.

When I started with Docker, my biggest challenge was to get a container up and running. While copy-pasting docker run commands felt straightforward, I’ve often forgotten the correct flags and had to change volume directory details. Over time, deploying Docker containers via the CLI felt empowering as I learned the ropes of containers.

My home lab has grown significantly since its humble beginnings of an Ubiquiti EdgeRouter X and a couple oflow-cost mini PCs. It's now a mix of Proxmox nodes, OPNsense firewalls and various storage machines, but there's one piece of equipment that keeps everything together and connected. That's a fairly expensive managed switch, which was just under $400 when I got it, but I'd rebuy that in a blink if it died on me.

NotebookLM has become my default research and learning companion, but it’s never been a real note-taking app. Gistr, on the other hand, positions itself as exactly that. It has block-based note-taking features, as well as more powerful YouTube transcript handling, while still offering AI on top. That’s why it’s a viable alternative for anyone who doesn’t want to commit to Google’s NotebookLM.

Almost a year ago, I started my self-hosting journey. While I'm impressed with how much I've learned, there were also plenty of bumps along the way.

As a freelance tech blogger, my productivity lives and dies inside the browser. Almost everything I do, including researching tools, reading documentation, collecting links, writing drafts, translating content, and managing logins, happens in Chrome. When the browser gets cluttered or slow, my entire workflow suffers. That’s why I’m very selective about what I install. Over time, I realized the right Chrome extensions can quietly remove friction from daily work. Open-source extensions, in particular, have become my go-to choice: lightweight, transparent, and built to enhance focus rather than steal it. Here’s the list of open-source productivity Chrome extensions that keep my browser fast and organized.

It’s no secret that Windows 11 has a bloatware problem. I began to notice it when we transitioned from Windows 7 to the world of Windows 8, which had an app store to download apps. Soon, the preloaded apps started making their way into the operating system, and it became more evident with Windows 10 and 11. Microsoft began cluttering the lean operating system into a concoction of preloaded apps, suggestions in random places (you can call them ads), and more bothersome stuff.

After using a NAS for a good few years, you eventually have to make a choice. You could either replace your aging NAS or keep pushing it with hardware upgrades year after year. Just out of curiosity, I kept track of new NAS enclosures, and what surprised me the most was the price of an empty enclosure. That’s because I knew what all would go into making it a complete system with NAS-specific drives and other critical upgrades.

Billy Woods has one of the highest batting averages in the game. Between his solo records like Hiding Places and Maps, and his collaborative albums with Elucid as Armand Hammer, the man has multiple stone-cold classics under his belt. And, while no one would ever claim that Woods' albums were light-hearted fare (these are not party records), Golliwog represents his darkest to date.This is not your typical horrorcore record. Others, like Geto Boys, Gravediggaz, and Insane Clown Posse, reach for slasher aesthetics and shock tactics. But what Billy Woods has crafted is more A24 than Blumhouse. Sure, the first track is called "Jumpscare," an …Read the full story at The Verge.

The goal of building automations is to make your life easier. Let the basics run on their own, with fewer switches to bother with and things to remember. Or at least that's the idea. But there are downsides to automation. The biggest being that if and when things break down, there's usually no way to find out unless it's too late. Be it a cron job or a script that failed, or perhaps a backup that didn't complete, automations tend to stop running without much of a heads-up. This is, obviously, problematic.

Earlier this month, The Guardian published an investigation that showed Google was serving up misleading and outright false information via its AI overviews in response to certain medical inquiries. Now those results appear to have been removed. According to the original report:In one case that experts described as "really dangerous", Google wrongly advised people with pancreatic cancer to avoid high-fat foods. Experts said this was the exact opposite of what should be recommended, and may increase the risk of patients dying from the disease.In another "alarming" example, the company provided bogus information about crucial liver func …Read the full story at The Verge.

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed when choosing your first distro. You want something easy to use that won't waste your time fixing issues. But when you’re new, every distro sounds like a good choice because of all the features they have to offer, and half of them assume you’re already familiar with Linux.