You know, I have a real soft spot for open-source hardware that's also sold as a complete product. It gives you the best of both worlds: you can either make your own if you have the DIY moxie, or you can purchase one if you don't feel up to the task. Everyone wins.

The Nintendo Switch 2 has been out for nearly a month, and the console has proven to be a massive improvement over its predecessor when it comes to technical performance. While it doesn't compare to the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S in terms of power, it's got more than enough for the games Nintendo makes. It's also made old games run better with free and paid upgrades, most of which provide free upgrades to old games, improving resolution and FPS. It's done wonders for Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, and with the console able to handle up to 120 FPS, there are a few indie games that would benefit from the extra frames. For this list, I went with more action-focused titles, since those are the types of games that benefit the most. I've also avoided games that aren't totally suited for it, like Cuphead, which has a unique animation system that doesn't get the performance punch up from the extra power.

Video game narratives have some incredible highs, and a ton of lows, as the art form has evolved and matured over the past few decades. As part of that evolution, gaming started using narrative conventions from other mediums, including twists. A twist is when a story takes a sharp turn. While the best twists are set up in the story, but not made too obvious, there are also plenty that aren't supported and don't work. The best twists in gaming come as culminations of hours' worth of build-up across the game, before getting hit with a twist that changes everything. While these are often emotionally devastating, they also tie into the themes of the game, creating incredible moments of storytelling.

Have you ever tried downloading Google Chrome while using Bing on Microsoft Edge? If you haven't, you'll learn just how clingy Microsoft can get. Searching for Google Chrome with Bing will summon a header at the top of the search results claiming that "there's no need" to download a browser other than Edge. Clicking on the Google Chrome search result and proceeding with the download will summon another header, claiming that Edge provides a Microsoft-approved experience. In short, it's really adamant that you don't use Chrome.

Over the course of my computing journey, I’ve built, upgraded, and replaced several PCs. But rather than labeling my older systems as e-waste and sending them to the scrapyard for pocket change, I try to come up with cool ways to leverage them in my home lab. For example, any mid-tier PC or laptop released in the last 5 years can be reborn as a solid general-purpose machine with a Linux distribution.

I've been upgrading my home network lately, and while I was figuring out how some of the wired connections would go, I opted for RJ45 SFP+ modules because some of my devices have 10GbE NICs. I could have gone with a mix of Ethernet and fiber, but I wanted everything to be the same, so it'd be easier to install and have some spare parts.

Have you given Elden Ring a try yet? If not, you're missing out. People have clocked thousands of hours into it, and with DLC continuously adding new elements to the game, it's a must-have for people who enjoy FromSoftware RPGs and difficult games.

After the launch of the current-gen GPU lineups, especially AMD's RX 90 series, it feels like the old definitions of high-end and mid-range GPUs have become blurred more than ever. It used to be that high-end gaming was confined to high-end GPUs, but with cards like the RX 9070 XT, mid-range GPUs suddenly feel like all I need for enjoying top-tier gaming. Even 4K gaming is no longer the domain of $1,000 GPUs. Plus, a mid-range GPU doesn't require an overkill power supply, or lock you out of frequent upgrades.

For years, I have been using multiple productivity apps for various work tasks, including Google Calendar for appointments, Evernote for quick notes, Trello and Asana for task management, Excel sheets for contacts, and 1Password for password management, among others. Although all or most of these apps are individually good at what they are meant for, using them all together was a total mess. It felt disjointed and inefficient, with the constant anxiety of overlooking something important.

NotebookLM started off as a Google Labs experiment, under the code name "Project Tailwind" in 2023. If you aren't familiar with Google Labs, it's basically Google's experimental playground, where the company tests out early-stage AI tools and features before deciding whether they're worth rolling out widely.

For any gaming PC, the monitor is an integral part of the setup. It might technically be just a peripheral, but it defines how immersive your gaming experience will be. Although I own a great monitor now, the one I used for over three years before this was hardly what you'd call a "gaming monitor." It was a small 22-inch 1080p display with a 75Hz maximum refresh rate. It was an IPS panel, but that was about it. I wish I had spent slightly more and gotten a more immersive display for arguably the best gaming years I had.

Files are a funny thing; they're essentially just a collection of data all inside of one container, and that data is organized into a single-dimensional array of bytes. Many modern operating systems will use a file extension to determine what the file is, and this, in turn, specifies rules of how the data is organized so that it can be interpreted in a meaningful way. However, when it comes to a "file" being a collection of data, it isn't anything too special. You don't need a file type on any file. You can save a JPG as a .zip file if you want, and if you force your photo editor to open it, chances are it will just... open anyway.