Chess sits in a weird spot with technology. We once had AIs fighting one another and against human grandmasters in the 90s as tech companies pushed the boundaries of what a system can do. Then the computers just kinda solved chess, and now you can hop on an online chess game and get rocked by an AI that would have taken a supercomputer to calculate back in the day.

As an avid traveler, over the years I've considered investing in a travel router simply because hotel Wi-Fi tends to be terrible, and I hate logging into the same captive portal over and over again. The usual recommendation tends to be something like a Gl.iNet Slate or a similar compact router. These devices are extremely useful, but they are yet another thing to charge, to pack, and one more gadget to keep an eye on while backpacking.

Many tools promise the ‘all-in-one’ workspace to simplify our lives, but often end up being more fragmented than ever. While dedicated productivity apps struggle to balance features with performance, Visual Studio Code has emerged as a dark horse in the space by offering the exact opposite: a lean, local-first environment that adapts to any workflow.

One thing I've learned from using Claude Code is that, sometimes, you just have to let Claude cook. Ideally, Claude will generate a ton of code in a heartbeat, but sometimes it needs to chew the cud for a little longer, which usually means it's time to stand up and grab a mug of coffee. But what if you wanted to know what Claude is up to without being tied to the monitor?

Vibe-coding has quickly become the new productivity hack for everyone. Instead of spending hours setting up boilerplate, configuring databases, or wiring APIs, AI tools can now generate working applications from a single prompt. But after seeing countless demos of polished dashboards and landing pages, I wanted to test something closer to real software development. So I built the same backend-heavy SaaS app using Lovable and Claude Code to see which tool actually improves developer productivity once the project becomes complex and difficult to debug.

If you were in my shoes, you'd understand that photography is a professional requirement more than an artistic endeavor, and though I enjoy clicking pictures, I need them to convey specific details, such as the machined texture of an aluminum encoder or the subtle tones of custom keycaps on a keyboard. My workflow isn't very different, though. I still spin up Lightroom or an open-source photo editor like RapidRAW, import my files, and color-grade them meticulously.

Whenever people think of Linux, the first thing that springs to mind, regardless of whether they're an open-source vet or if they've never even touched a Linux PC before, is Tux. Tux is the penguin associated with the Linux kernel as a whole, and he's found his way onto operating systems, merch, and various memes that depict the image creator's distaste for Windows.

Every NAS I've bought over the years has been laser focused on storage and backups. Like most people who get into home servers, I started with the simple and straightforward goal of keeping my files organized in one place, and ensuring that nothing important got lost if a drive failed. But over the years, I've taken to using my Synology NAS for more than just storage.

For a long time, I thought a proper homelab needed segmentation to be responsible and professional, and setting up VLANs was the next obvious step. From all the Reddit threads and self-hosting forums I visited, I noticed the same thing: every advanced homelab seemed segmented. There was always an IoT VLAN, a trusted VLAN, and a guest VLAN. The more segments there were, the more serious it looked, and the complexity looked like maturity.

Moving into a home advertised as pre-wired is a massive win for us technophiles and networking enthusiasts. Those small square plates with RJ45 termination in every room help us envision endless possibilities ranging from zero-latency gaming to crystal-clear video in every morning stand-up. A friend was reveling in similar joy recently, assuming he'd just need to hook up a router and a switch for gigabit nirvana, but it was an older house and the reality was far more complex.

I’ve spent a lot of time trying to find a Plex alternative.

I'm a huge fan of Linux's KDE. It's my favorite desktop environment by far, and sometimes, simply learning that an OS uses KDE is enough of an excuse to give it a try. So, when I heard that the Bluefin distro had a KDE fork called Aurora, I knew I had to give it a try.