It had been a long time since I last built an SFF PC, and just this past weekend, I was tasked with doing just that. This person wasn't going for an ultra-compact, save-all-possible-space sort of build; just something that would easily fit on their desk in their condo without being an eyesore. Simple enough.

Synchronise your watches, folks. In just over a month, Windows 10 will reach the end of its support. From then on, people still on Windows 10 will have a choice to make: either upgrade to Windows 11 (officially or unofficially), ditch Windows altogether and move to another operating system, sign up for a year of continued security fixes (if they haven't already), or stand defiant and continue using Windows 10 without any support (not recommended if it's connected directly to the internet).

It's no secret that people enjoy playing video games. Some experiences that we get from games are often so good that we want to experience them again and again, many times over. For some people, revisiting a game after an extended period of time is fun because they get to have a similar feeling to when they first played. But outside of nostalgia, there are certain things with game releases these days that can get us to return to our favorite video games for another run.

I don't say this lightly: if you're a huge fan of horror games, but you've never given the original Dead Space a try, you really, really have to. The first game set a foundation for a series spanning multiple titles, and even to this day, the scares still hold up.

This might sound like I'm a PC Luddite, but at a time when Wi-Fi 7 is becoming common on motherboards and devices, I'm still powering my home with a humble Wi-Fi 5 router. The ISP here provides Wi-Fi 5 routers for plans up to a certain speed, so our 200Mbps connection doesn't qualify for a Wi-Fi 6E router. Instead of buying my own, I'm content using the ISP's router for the foreseeable future, because there's nothing I'm missing out on.

Managed switches are fantastic devices with a wealth of features to enhance your local area network (LAN). Most people can get by with a simple unmanaged switch, which handles traffic routing and that's about it. But if you wish to take your network game to the next level, a managed switch can bring with it virtual LAN (VLAN) support, which allows you to segment your network and keep various clients separate. This can be especially handy with a smart home and/or home lab.

Building a budget gaming PC inevitably comes with compromises; my objective for the build in question is to make only the right ones. That means avoiding AM4, so that there's a legitimate upgrade path for the future. It also means GPUs with 8GB of VRAM are out of the running, which increases the price of this "budget" build, but that's where we are right now. I'm also avoiding components of questionable quality that might come back to bite you later.

I'm a huge fan of Perplexity, which is an AI search engine as is, and rely on it heavily for college and research purposes. So, it's safe to say that I had high expectations for its AI-powered browser, Comet. Unfortunately, when I first tried Comet out, I didn't really see what the hype was all about.

Apple has postponed preorders of the iPhone Air in mainland China, which were due to open today, with regulatory issues around eSIM almost certainly to blame.The Chinese store page for the super-slim iPhone says that “release information will be updated later” (translated from Chinese). Apple had originally announced that the Air would go on preorder in China at the same time as in the US, 8AM ET today, with full availability from September 19th. Its other three new iPhones — the 17, 17 Pro, and 17 Pro Max — are all available to preorder now, and ship from next week.The issue is most likely Apple’s decision to make the Air eSIM-only worldwide. eSIM has never been widely available in mainland China, and phones manufactured for the local market still don’t include support (which has tripped me up a few times when I’ve gone traveling in Europe with a review unit of a Chinese phone!). None of Apple’s previous iPhone support eSIM in China, nor do any of the three iPhone 17 models.Earlier this week Apple’s support page for eSIM in China declared that “China Unicom is the only supported eSIM carrier for iPhone.” That page has now been updated, and says that “pending regulatory approval” all three of the country’s state-owned main carriers will offer eSIM, including China Mobile and China Telecom.The South China Morning Post reports that Apple has told Chinese media that it is “working closely with regulatory authorities to bring [the iPhone Air] to China as soon as possible.”

When setting up your network-attached storage (NAS) device, you have a few options for the filesystem. You could choose to run absolutely anything you desire, but I'm here to tell you that the correct choice is actually the Zeta File System (ZFS). You'll often come across Btrfs, NTFS, and Ext4 on your travels, but ZFS is the way to go if you wish to maximize availability, reliability, and data storage redundancy. I'll cover data integrity checks, ZFS's Copy-on-Write (COW) design, compression, scalability, and advanced caching.Once at the end, you'll agree that ZFS is the best filesystem for your NAS.

If you're looking to get a monitor that delivers the best of both worlds, featuring vibrant colors and crisp text, you're going to want to go with one that has a QD-OLED panel. You really can't go wrong here with this tech, delivering exactly what you need, when you need it. And while QD-OLED monitors do cost more, we think it's worth the extra money.

Online shopping is super convenient, but keeping track of everything after you've made your purchases can be a hassle. Usually, when you purchase something from an online store, it will send you an email receipt containing the details of your purchase, including the tracking number. So, if you want to track your package or simply double-check your purchase, you can do so from that email.