Thanks to its incredible versatility and massive extension ecosystem, VS Code has been the undisputed champion of code editors. But lately, that convenience has felt heavy with sluggish performance and unusual resource consumption. That’s why I have decided to move on from the comfort zone and switch to a new open-source competitor that promises to redefine my coding setup: Zed.

Laptops have afforded us a level of flexibility in our work that could only be dreamed of a few decades ago. At any point, you can be working on a laptop, whether you're riding a train or sitting at a library, and just close your laptop to continue working on it later.

One of my laptops now serves as a dedicated Ubuntu machine, acting as a perfect test device for testing apps and self-hosted services. But there's a severe lack of disk backup and system image creation apps in the operating system. You can understand my frustration with copying each file from a directory to an external disk, which is not feasible for large copy operations. However, it's no longer a problem for me, as I use Clonezilla to create full system backups, saving me time.

Trump is demolishing the East Wing of the White House to make way for a gilded grand ballroom. The president says taxpayers won’t be footing the $300 million bill and that private donors, himself included, will pick up the tab. Big Tech will be paying for a lot of it, if the list of donors released by the White House Thursday is anything to go by (though it does not say how much each contributed). Featured are some of the country’s biggest tech companies, including Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, and Microsoft. Google-owned YouTube has already agreed to pay more than $20 million to the project as part of a controversial settlement to end a lawsuit Trump filed in 2021 and the companies are big donors to Trump’s “nonprofits.” Crypto is well represented, too, with donations from Ripple, Tether America, Coinbase, and both Winklevoss twins (Cameron and Tyler feature separately). Defense and telecom giants like Lockheed Martin, Comcast, T-Mobile, and Palantir also appear.

Modern motherboards usually come with a mix of USB 2.0, USB 3.2, and USB4 ports, but many people don't think twice about which ones they use for their peripherals, even if they know those ports vary in bandwidth. The truth is, some ports offer better latency for input devices like your keyboard and mouse, whereas others deliver more power for external drives.

Microsoft just announced the next Halo game. As rumors suggested, it's a remake of the game that started it all for the franchise. Titled Halo: Campaign Evolved, it's an Unreal Engine 5 recreation of the campaign from Halo: Combat Evolved, which was the first game in the series and a launch title for the original Xbox.

We all love a good horror game, don't we? They've always left us genuinely rattled, making us pause mid-hallway just to breathe, open the inventory just to be able to take a break from the monstrosities that keep on coming. Things have changed lately, however. I've found that even while huddled in the dark with my headphones cranked, I'm... fine. Started, sure. Impressed, often. But scared? Not quite.

The Home Assistant Yellow is no more. Nabu Casa, the company behind Home Assistant, decided it was time to end manufacturing of this smart home device that could power Home Assistant OS and handle all your IoT hardware. The primary reasons behind this decision were slowing sales and a difficult supply chain for sourcing components. The Yellow launched in 2021, and the self-hosting and smart home landscapes have altered since, making this hub a less viable option.

Facebook and Instagram are breaching Europe’s Digital Services Act (DSA) rules related to the handling of illegal content, moderation, and transparency, according to a preliminary decision issued by the European Commission. TikTok and Meta have both also been found to be violating transparency obligations under the DSA. The Commission says that Meta is imposing “confusing” obstacles for Facebook and Instagram users to flag illegal content and challenge moderation decisions, finding that the platforms “appear to use so-called ‘dark patterns’, or deceptive interface designs” that can hinder the removal of content like child sexual abuse and terrorism materials. Meta and TikTok are also found to have “burdensome procedures and tools” in place that prevent researchers from accessing public data. Both companies are now facing fines of up to six percent of their annual worldwide revenue, pending an official ruling. The platforms can challenge the EU’s findings or take measures to address these concerns before the Commission issues a final decision.

Guess what’s one of the first things I check when planning my travel itinerary? Internet access. I’ve tried using USB 4G/5G modems with Raspberry Pi, but they turned out to be expensive, and mobile coverage wasn’t always reliable. These days, I don’t worry too much about public Wi-Fi networks, thanks to my VPN setup. But it gets tricky when I want to share that secure connection with friends or family.

I've wanted to come clean for years, because I lumped productivity apps into the same category as corporate team-building exercises. They were a well-intentioned, over-engineered hassle that got in the way of actual work. Mind maps were the worst offenders, and I thought of them as glorified flowcharts consultants throw on whiteboards to justify their $500-per-hour fee. Sure, I used small flowcharts as an extension of analog note-taking in college, but it still felt like a convoluted, arts-and-crafts way to visualize a simple bulleted list.

Want to flex your Wordle habit beyond just keeping your streak? The New York Times has added badges to recognize certain achievements in Wordle, Spelling Bee, and Connections.“Have you achieved the infamous Wordle in 1? What about the Perfect Connections Puzzle? How many Pangrams are under your Spelling Bee belt? Badges are rewards you can earn through gameplay that let you look back on the moments that made your NYT Games journey special,” according to the NYT. In the app, you can even see your badges in “your very own trophy case.”The NYT says there will also be “seasonal events and special challenges,” like badges that celebrate “special holidays or special puzzles,” and if you have an NYT Games subscription, you’ll be able to access some exclusive badges.Right now, the badges are “currently” only available for Wordle, Spelling Bee, and Connections, but you can “look forward to more Badges coming across NYT Games.”