When it comes to building a NAS, choosing the OS is almost as important as selecting the underlying hardware. Between the sheer number of file systems, network share options, backup utilities, and other server-oriented features, each operating system has its own perks and quirks that you have to consider before committing to one.

Chromecast was revolutionary when it launched because it turned your normal TV into a system capable of running multiple streaming apps. Even a smart TV that dropped support for apps could gain a new life with a Chromecast. However, there have been several Chromecast iterations, and now the cheaper alternatives are being phased out to make room for the Google TV streamer, which starts at $100. However, you can use a Raspberry Pi as a Chromecast replacement to enjoy a better TV experience.

Premium Plus and Premium Business users will soon be able to browse and request inactive usernames on the X Handle Marketplace. Handles are going to be broken up into two broad categories. Priority handles will be free and “often include full names, multi-word phrases, or alphanumeric combinations.” Rare handles, on the other hand, will be a paid option, and “may be priced anywhere from $2,500 to over seven figures, depending on demand and uniqueness.”X is treating this not as a one-time perk, but as an ongoing service to lure in more paid subscribers. If you secure a new handle, your old one will be frozen. The company says it may eventually offer a redirect option as a paid add-on. But more importantly, if you ever downgrade your X subscription, your account will revert back to your original username, and you’ll lose access to the one you snagged through the marketplace.The X Handle Marketplace is our industry-first solution to redistribute handles that are no longer in use. Eligible Premium subscribers will be able to search and make requests, with both complimentary and paid options available.— Handle Marketplace (@XHandles) October 19, 2025

X is testing a change to the way it handles links on iOS so that the buttons to like, reply, and repost will always be visible. Normally, when you click a link on X the page opens up and completely covers the original post. Apparently, this leads to fewer people clicking like or otherwise engaging with the content. A good chunk of people probably just don’t return to Twitter at all after following an external link. So the company is collapsing the original post to the bottom, instead of letting the web browser take over the whole screen, and pushing further towards Elon Musk’s vision of X as an “everything app” that you never have to leave.We're testing a new link experience, starting on iOS — to make it easier for your followers to engage with your post while browsing links.For creators, a common complaint is that posts with links tend to get lower reach. This is because the web browser covers the post and… pic.twitter.com/oWraLpPwji— Nikita Bier (@nikitabier) October 19, 2025It’s a common complaint that posts with links on X don’t perform well. The post announcing this new feature seems to suggest that the reason is because of the way the interface leads you away from X, and thus lowers engagement. Elon also said in a post on X that there would be changes to how the recommendation system works, which could result in increased reach for posts with links. He claims that the company is four to six weeks away from “deletion of all heuristics,” meaning likes and replies will have less of an impact. Instead, he says that, “Grok will literally read every post and watch every video (100M+ per day) to match users with content they’re most likely to find interesting.” The shift to an AI-based understanding of the actual content of a post, instead of a more rules-based algorithm, has been a clear goal for X for some time. These changes could lead to increased reach even for accounts with very few followers. 

Since 2020, ray-tracing has been heralded as the next big thing in gaming technology. Gone were the talks about poly-count and animations, and ray-tracing was on a pedestal as the be-all and end-all of gaming. Five years later, there are still just a handful of PCs and consoles that can truly use ray-traced lighting features in their games, without absolutely tanking their frame rates. Five years later, RT isn't dead, but it's no longer the must-have checkbox feature that it once was. In fact, some of the most technically impressive and smoother-running AAA games of the past year have one thing in common: they don't use it.

If your home network feels sluggish, unreliable, and constantly bombarded by digital noise, you are not alone. After all, we spend fortunes on fast internet and mesh Wi-Fi, yet our experience is constantly affected by pop-ups, trackers, and unwanted requests.

Would you feel brave enough to set up a system where people could send you random messages anonymously? What if each message were printed off on a cute little receipt printer? If that sounds like something you'd want to do, then you're braver than I. You're also, apparently, in good company, as a Raspberry Pi tinkerer called Andrew Schmelyun has done just that. And if you don't have the guts like I do, you can at least send him a nice message on his printer.

So there's a good mantra in the technology world where you always have to ensure that the backup plan designed to save your hide will actually save your hide. There are a few data-related horror stories where people reached for the backup when things went into meltdown mode on the primary drive, only to discover that the backup had also broken somewhere along the way.

I'm not going to try and go into statistics, but if you were a gamer in the '80s, '90s, and even the 2000s, the chances of a racing game being one of your first-ever gaming experiences are pretty high. If not, there's still every likelihood that a racing game made its way into your heart and has stayed there forever. Some racing games have genuinely withstood the test of time, and one of the biggest reasons why some of these titles live on forever in our memories? The cars they let us drive.

Five months ago, I made my first splash into the world of open-source operating systems when I gave Linux Mint a try as a Windows fanboy. At first, it was just a fun side project, afterseeing PewDiePie do the same thing and wanting to see what all the fuss was all about. I didn't expect to actually use it daily, as my opinions of Linux were based on a single impression I had over a decade ago, where I just fed everything I wanted to run through WINE and got frustrated with it.

A compute stick is about as compact as a PC can get. These mini computers bearing the resemblance of a USB drive have slipped under the radar in recent years, but I wouldn't count them out just yet. Weighing just a couple of ounces and running full desktop operating systems, they still have some pleasantly surprising use cases when it comes to productivity and home entertainment.

If you've spent a serious amount of time managing servers, SSH is basically an essential tool. You know the drill. SSH into your home server, Pi, or NAS, poke around the file system with essential commands, open some files via vim, or transfer files across. It's a familiar routine for anyone working with servers, but at no point is it elegant and simple. That's where Termix steps in. This self-hosted, Docker-based app turns your browser into a platform for logging into your server over SSH, and even file management. You don't just get terminal access, you get a full file manager inside your web dashboard.