Power consumption can be a major concern when it comes to home labbing, and for a few reasons. Not only does higher power draw typically correlate with higher temperatures (and thus, either more throttling or louder fans), but it incurs a cost, too. Adding a new server to your home can actually have a noticeable impact on your energy usage, and whether it's for environmental reasons or purely cost-saving reasons, chances are, you would see an increase in power draw as a negative thing. I found a neat way to reduce energy usage, and it cut down my usage by about 25%.

How it startedI carry a lot of different phones around, and I rarely get questions about them because most people stopped talking about which phone they own around 2017. I could be using an unreleased iPhone 18 Pro Max Air Ultra to pay for my coffee and nobody would raise an eyebrow (present company excepted, of course). To the majority, a phone is a phone; no matter who makes it or what software it runs, they're all roughly the same size and shape. Unless that phone happens to be a flip phone. Flip phones attract attention from the kind of people who have seen every type of phone in existence, which makes sense: they're very obviously d …Read the full story at The Verge.

After being a lifelong Windows user for over 20 years, I started testing various Linux distros earlier this year, and I've been learning a lot about what makes it great and what makes it not so great. It's obvious that, despite some annoyances, Linux has a lot that Windows could stand to learn from in terms of user freedom and customization options.

Have you tried disabling Windows Updates? If you have, you'll know that you can't keep them down for long. Microsoft will allow you to turn them off for a limited time, but once your period is up, the OS will download and install the newest updates whether you want them or not. It wasn't always like that, but it became the norm once Microsoft wanted people to update their operating systems and get the newest fixes.

In a recent episode of Post Games, host Chris Plante explores how video games can help players understand death. He's interviewing Kaitlin Tremblay, who is working on Ambrosia Sky, a game about death."What is it about games that is so useful for exploring the topic?" Plante asks."I think there's something really lovely about the way in which games invite players in," Tremblay says. There is "something quite lovely about asking a person to cooperate and to be a part of the story, and to move through the space."It's a tone, and a substance of conversation, unlike any I've heard on a gaming podcast before. And it underscores what's so uni …Read the full story at The Verge.

Windows is becoming challenging to run on old hardware due to its focus on robust security mechanisms and demanding UI. Linux becomes the obvious pick in such cases. It’s the perfect candidate to revive an old laptop or PC that is struggling or not supported by Windows. However, not all Linux distros are created equal; some focus on performance, some want to be a visual spectacle, and some try to strike a perfect balance.

I thought I had my home lab management figured out with SSH, remote desktop, and a few clever automation scripts, but PiKVM proved me wrong. The first time I used it to address a boot issue without touching a single cable, I knew it was going to change everything. What I expected to be a handy side tool quickly became the backbone of my entire management workflow, letting me control, power cycle, secure, update, and recover my systems faster and more reliably than ever before.

Using a popular app or service is a double-edged sword. On one side, you have all the nice benefits and features that the service provides; there's a reason why it's the most popular offering on the market, after all. However, whenever an app gains traction, scammers and hackers are always close behind to leverage its popularity to spread their wares as far as they can. After all, what good is trying to spread viruses and scams on a service nobody uses?

The adoption rate for Wi-Fi 7 is steadily climbing, and will get another big boost in a month or so when the next iPhone is launched. That's good news even if you're not planning on upgrading, because Wi-Fi 7 brings a few neat tricks that make the network faster for every device connected wirelessly, even if they're using previous Wi-Fi numbers. And Wi-Fi 8 is already underway, with a recent release from Qualcomm giving us more information on the next generation of wireless connectivity.

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 94, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome, did you hydrate today, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) This week, I'm visiting LinkedIn way too much because of Mini Sudoku, looking at the fake texts in Apple's marketing materials, marveling at tiny doodles on microchips, listening to Taylor Swift's New Heights podcast episode, learning about model railroad power debates, reading about the death of expertise, catching up on my favorite HGTV home renovation show, and watching a very good drumline.I also have for you some …Read the full story at The Verge.

By now, it's well-established that AI has become an incredibly important part of education. Some use it to cheat, some use it to make studying a little easier, and some use it to learn faster and smarter. Admittedly, I’ve done both at some point, but I lean more toward using it to actually improve how I study and retain information.

Like most homes, mine has a router and devices with an RJ45 connector, commonly referred to as an Ethernet port. I wanted to upgrade my home network by replacing RJ45 interfaces with SFP+ (Small Form-factor Pluggable Plus) to make the best of your high-speed internet connection. Who doesn’t want to enjoy faster speeds and the lowest possible latency? However, you shouldn’t order SFP+ modules mindlessly and expect them to work with home networking devices that primarily feature an RJ45 interface. Before jumping the gun on SFP+ interface-based solutions, it's essential to understand how SFP+ differs from RJ45 in your home network.