After years of relying on Microsoft 365 as the default for productivity, I’m finally making a change – and I’m not looking back. Lately, Microsoft 365 has become a bloated, frustrating experience. From a lack of meaningful innovation and a clunky user interface to sketchy AI features and ever-increasing subscription costs, I have had enough. So, after a long and sometimes painful search, I’m making the switch to something better: LibreOffice.

The library of games for the Nintendo 64 includes a number of popular releases and niche titles that people really enjoyed playing. Some of my favorite memories of the N64 come from games that weren't massive hits, but were still incredibly fun to experience. Whether someone was a fan of single-player or multiplayer games, there was always something intriguing to play on the console in one way or another. Unfortunately, game series that never found massive success were destined to fade into obscurity, while other franchises rose to prominence and continued to thrive on other Nintendo platforms. But those lesser-known games still managed to remain part of my gaming memories while growing up with Nintendo's 64-bit console.

During summer, your PC feels the heat just as much as you do. When the ambient temperature is high, your fans and coolers work harder to make sure your components don't overheat. Even a properly ventilated PC can run hotter and noisier than usual, and in some cases, the higher room temperature is enough to cause thermal throttling during extended gaming sessions. I experienced this firsthand while playing the Battlefield 6 open beta, where I saw my CPU temperature creep past 85C.

The ESP32 is one of the most versatile microcontrollers out there, capable of Wi-Fi connectivity and, in the case of the original ESP32, full-on Bluetooth, too. However, nearly every ESP32 device can at least do Bluetooth Low Energy, allowing them to capture data from a wide range of smart devices. However, with a custom Home Assistant integration and ESPHome, we can turn a few ESP32s into a way to track the presence of devices, like Apple's "Find My" network, but built for your home, instead.

My gaming PC isn't exactly up-to-date, considering I have a 5-year-old graphics card and an AM4 processor. The temptation to upgrade my hardware has been there since the RTX 40 series launched, but I've managed to keep it at bay. Strictly speaking, my PC doesn't need hardware upgrades — it's just that it doesn't feel as high-end as it used to three years ago. To address that complaint, however, I've been using some performance-boosting techniques to extend my PC's lifespan. Hardware upgrades will come eventually, but they'll be my last resort.

The inner workings of Windows 11 can sometimes be a mystery to a lot of people, and it's easy to ignore the fact that some of the features enabled by default can actually hurt your experience. One of these features that you might not know about is called memory compression, and while it's generally a good thing, there's a chance it could be hampering your PC's performance.

Artificial Intelligence software is more popular than ever, and cloud-based AI systems feature the most powerful models. OpenAI's GPT-5, X's Grok 4, Anthropic's Claude 4, Meta's Llama 3, and Google's Gemini 2.5 are all massive large language models used for a variety of purposes, including text and image generation, document summaries, and conversation partners.

Knowing where your data lives is the first step towards securing your digital presence. That sounds obvious, but you'd be surprised by how many people ignore that advice. Not on a corporate server in an undisclosed location, not being shuttled between CDNs, but right here on your own server. For years, I, like most others, have embraced the convenience of cloud-first tools for the promise of convenience. Anywhere access, instant syncing, zero maintenance. Can't complain about that. But what you get alongside is a bit more sinister. The constant threat of dependence, rising subscription fees, a lack of control over your own data, and the pervasive fear of services being shut down.

Though the NotebookLM team is constantly adding new features and updates, the tool is far from perfect. Some tasks still take longer than they should, which isn’t surprising for a fairly new, niche tool compared with AI giants like ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude.

As a perpetually absent-minded person, I've always loved the thought of a smart home that could automate the tasks I always forget. It's a nice thought, but the state of the smart home means that several large companies control the bulk of it, and no one company makes enough devices to use those in your home exclusively. I've got Home Assistant set up to fill the gaps between functionality and control.

Before the time when Nintendo dominated the console space in the 80s, and long before the console wars of the 90s took over the world, video games had a different industry leader. Atari was the company that captured the attention and minds of young people who played games at home or in the arcades, and it was a force to be reckoned with. The Atari 2600 is one of the most important video game consoles of all-time, and is still beloved to this day by people who did and didn't grow up during its heyday. The console itself was released at a point when video games as a medium were young and still evolving, with titles that were at the starting point of creativity with limited technology that pushed people's imaginations. You couldn't go anywhere in the late 70s or early 80s and not see a fan of Atari's home video game system.

Intel is making its XeSS GPU tech hardware-agnostic, similar to AMD's FSR. This will bring Intel's XeSS super sampling, frame gen, and Xe low latency to AMD and Nvidia GPUs. Intel has made its GPU tech available in the XeSS 2.1 SDK, which brings the Xe Framework to any GPU that supports Shader Model 6.4 or newer, meaning the Nvidia GeForce GTX 10-series and AMD Radeon RX 5000 series onward. Intel does recommend a GeForce RTX 30-series or Radeon RX 6000-series GPU or newer for a better experience.