When I first bought the Alienware AW3423DW curved OLED monitor in 2022, I was convinced it would benefit not only gaming but also productivity and everyday use. The idea of having a curved ultrawide screen wrap around my field of view was enough to convince me to splurge over $1,000 on it when it launched. I thought the curve would make multitasking feel more natural, reduce eye strain, and make games feel like they were drawing me into the scene.

As a tech blogger, my computer doesn’t just run programs; it runs my business. My entire workflow relies on rock-solid automation, including running nightly backups, cleaning up massive image folders, and executing custom scripts that process my blog drafts before proceeding. For years, I relied on the default Windows Task Scheduler simply because it was built in and familiar.

Whenever CPU temperatures creep into uncomfortable territory, the first thing many of us think about is upgrading the cooler. I did that too for many years because it seemed like the most direct and logical fix. After all, bigger and thicker radiators should mean lower temps. But the thing is, you don't always need to spend $100-$150 on a new AIO just to get better cooling performance for your CPU. In fact, you can improve temperatures by a few degrees without spending any money at all.

On every GPU box, you'll find a core clock and a boost clock, and these are the numbers your GPU should be able to reach out of the box. If you've ever monitored your GPU while gaming or benchmarking, you may have noticed that those numbers aren't always what you get.

There's a high likelihood that you still have an old USB relic rattling around in a drawer somewhere in the house. It could be that flash drive you've not touched in years, not even for reinstalling Windows, or the SD card reader you have no use for anymore, or even the USB coffee warmer that you used a few times and got tired of. Many USB-powered devices, whether functional or recreational, used to add a bit of flair and whimsy to the PC experience, but ever since some of them were made obsolete, things haven't been the same. I put together a list of five USB devices that I fondly remember, and I wish they would somehow re-enter the zeitgeist.

Sigh... here we are, doing something that is an endlessly subjective thing ripe for getting you yelled at in any gaming circle — ranking the Call of Duty Zombies games. And yet, that's exactly what makes it fun. Everyone has their favorite era, their comfort map, and that one round they will never, ever forget when it comes to Call of Duty Zombies.

With the release of the Asus ROG Xbox Ally family, Microsoft debuted a new Windows experience for gaming handhelds, offering a streamlined UI that is easily usable with a controller and touch screen. It was a long-awaited moment, and something I called on Microsoft to do over a year ago, though I was far from early to make that appeal. Even before it was officially rolled out, you could already enable this experience with some tinkering if you were a Windows Insider, which we also did here at XDA, and it was quite good.

In all the years that video games have been a popular form of entertainment, there have been debates and discourse about various aspects of it. Different people take stands to support or represent their favorite games and brands that they enjoy, which can at times ignite into fiery debates between fans about what they love. This was often referred to as "console wars" in the late 80s and early 90s, after the rise of video game home consoles became a mainstream part of entertainment. Originally coming from the phrase "cartridge wars", it described the idea of fans taking sides to support their favorite console that they enjoyed playing games on.

Ubuntu has always been my favorite Linux distribution for its stability, good support, and out-of-the-box performance. I installed it in one of my older laptops because of all these qualities. However, like any other OS, it isn't immune to slowdowns, especially when I use it for most of my Linux experiments and testing. After several months of using Ubuntu 24 and testing various applications, I noticed my system wasn't as snappy as it used to be.

Reading about NAS drives, I was led to believe that the perfect home server setup had to be complicated. After all, the more the lights, cables, and complexity, the more nerd points you get. I'm kidding, but building a dedicated Proxmox box running multiple virtual machines, Docker containers, backup scripts, and more taught me a whole lot about self-hosting. It looked great on paper, and made me feel like I'd built a data center in my home office. But the constant maintenance and effort needed to keep it running optimally is less than fun. Every small change required SSH access, configuration edits, and hope that I didn't break something I didn't quite understand. As good as Proxmox is, it requires a certain time commitment and willingness to learn when things go south. While the latter wasn't an issue, I just don't have that kind of time on my hands.

For the longest time, I thought upgrading a NAS only meant adding more drives or expanding storage — after all, it has storage in its name, right? Faster disks and cache should speed up everything, and adding larger drives should solve my problem of constantly running out of storage.

If you've ever tried to connect to your home server from outside your network, you've probably encountered at least one of a few obstacles, such as firewalls, double NAT, ISP restrictions, or any other wide range of issues. That's why Tailscale's new "Peer Relays" feature is a game-changer, and while it's currently in beta, it might improve your network's connectivity dramatically.