AR and smart glasses aren't exactly new. Nor is it new to use them with a gaming handheld, but glasses technology has improved significantly over time, and no set of glasses makes that more obvious than the Lenovo Legion Glasses Gen 2. This second iteration of Lenovo's AR facewear features a 126-inch virtual display, USB-C connectivity for streamlined video output, edge-to-edge visuals, and lighter lenses for increased comfort.

For over a decade, the SATA interface was the backbone of consumer PC storage. Before NVMe drives in M.2 slots became the new norm, every SSD, HDD and optical drive in your system used SATA to communicate with the rest of your computer. It had universal support, and beneath the unassuming spec came a pretty cool feature that I barely saw anyone use. SATA port multiplexers are super neat, and I wish it caught on a bit more.

The productivity world got a nasty shock when Microsoft announced it would raise the monthly cost of Microsoft 365, especially given that it had cost the exact same for years before. And while some people didn't take the price hike so well, others discovered proof that Microsoft may have deliberately hidden the option to continue paying the old price for Microsoft 365 without any AI features. Now, the company is in hot water in the Land Down Under, as the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has sued Microsoft, accusing it of misleading consumers.

If you've ever researched web automation, you've likely come across Zapier. It's an extremely popular choice for connecting disconnected apps and services. Some might even call it the default choice. The service lets you set up workflows that do things like send a Slack message when someone fills out a form, all without touching a single line of code. But Zapier has its limits. The entry-level plans have pretty low limits on tasks, and if you've got multiple workflows, costs can ramp up pretty quickly. There's also the fact that all data is processed on the cloud. So, I've been looking for an alternative. Turns out there is an open-source solution to achieve much of the same results while running on my own hardware. You might've heard of n8n already. Turns out, this open-source automation platform lets me handle all my automation needs for free and is surprisingly flexible.

Modern CPUs are capable of squeezing as much performance as they safely can out of the box, but that potential heavily depends on not just temperature, but also how your motherboard's BIOS is configured. That's because the BIOS decides how much power your CPU can draw, which directly affects how high it can push its boost clocks and how long it can sustain those speeds. Even if you have the best cooler for that extra thermal headroom, your CPU can still fall short of its potential if the BIOS power limits are too conservative.

Dabbling in self-hosting, it's inevitable that you've heard of or come across MinIO. The software has traditionally been the go-to solution for anyone setting up self-hosted, S3-compatible object storage, whether for a web server or for backups. It's been a fast, open-source, and simple solution to integrate with popular backup and file management tools. But every good thing comes to an end, and the developer's recent changes have raised significant concern in the open-source community. Effectively, a recent update has stripped the community edition of a significant amount of utility, including essential admin functions. Predictably, the developers are pointing towards the commercial version as the solution. While that might work for larger teams, this bait and switch has home labbers, small teams, and independent developers worried. Suffice it to say, if you are still running MinIO today, it's worth looking at alternatives.

I used to bounce between Asana for task management and Google Sheets for content tracking, constantly copy-pasting deadlines and losing track of which platform held the truth. Then I discovered Airtable's free tier could do both jobs.

The Linux ecosystem is quite the wild west of innovative distros that range from convenient general-purpose operating systems to wacky distributions with their own niche use cases. Home lab distros, in particular, are what I really love to tinker with, and have cycled between multiple virtualization and containerization platforms ever since I built my first server. Interestingly enough, while there are a handful of server and NAS-centric distros out there, it’s hard to find a Linux flavor created specifically for sysadmin tasks.

The release of Ghost of Yotei has been great for PlayStation 5 owners. The game has an interesting story about revenge and family to follow with a likable character, but the environment in this version of Ezo, Japan is a beautiful landscape to traverse and gaze upon. Players have been able to ride on horseback through the many fields and tree-covered forests of Ezo, while completing a variety of quests set in the many towns and encampments in the shadow of Mount Yotei. But while Atsu's story is a main focus for what players will interact with in Ghost of Yotei, there are tons of other things scattered throughout Ezo that will grab the attention of everyone as they travel the land. One of those is how nature has a strong presence that is felt throughout Ezo.

Steam users have had a bountiful week so far, despite the Steam Autumn Sale still being fresh in our minds. Recently, we saw one of the best roguelikes ever go really cheap, which was great to see. However, there's only one thing better than a cheap game, and that's a free one.

As the season of autumn arrives and the leaves begin to change their color, the Halloween vibes begin to cover everyone and everything. It's the perfect time to play games that are related to the horror genre, whether they are terrifying or fit in line with the spirit of the holiday. But some people aren't always in the mood to play something that will scare them straight, especially if they aren't too keen on being scared in a big way. Luckily for everyone, there are still games that one can play to get into the spirit of Halloween, while keeping the frights far away.

For me, the decision to start self-hosting services and apps was gradual, beginning with an innate curiosity about what I could run. I'd be lying if I said it wasn't also partially morbid curiosity about what I could break, which all feeds into my personal risk profile. My big thing? I wanted to cut my reliance on the cloud so that things inside my network still run even when the internet is down.