Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 86, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome, hope you've cleared your schedule for some Karting this weekend, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) This week, I've been reading about privacy experts and spreadsheets and Dropout, watching Stick for fun and Mike and Molly for a wedding toast (long story), learning some sweet new Raycast tricks, talking into my phone with Wispr Flow, replaying Jon Bellion's new album, holding space for the next Wicked movie, and seeing if maybe the solution to my to-do list chaos is just a piece of paper. So far, it's working, and I hate it.I also have for you a delightful new way to take pictures on your iPhone, the big new title for the Switch 2, a long interview with a Microsoft CEO, a fun way to soundtrack your pool parties, and much more. It's going to be a game-filled next few weeks, friends. Let's do it.(As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What do you want to want to know more about? What are you playing / watching / reading / listening to / plugging into your TV this week? Tell me everything: in …Read the full story at The Verge.

I’ve been experimenting with self-hosted services for a long time, and I have several quality-of-life-enhancing apps running on my home lab. In the past, I’ve gone over my self-hosted gaming, coding, and automation apps. This time, I wanted to shed some light on my networking tools. Whether it’s keeping intruders at bay, monitoring my traffic, or simply documenting the plethora of devices in my arsenal, I consider these self-hosted utilities an essential part of my home network.

I think a huge part of what makes a cyberdeck cool is what it's enclosed in. I mean, in theory, you could put a cyberdeck in any container with a hinge on it, but for some reason, I give additional points to any build that puts them in something really cool and special. Well, I don't think anything can get cooler than a metal Back to the Future lunchbox, so the fact that someone turned it into a fully-themed cyberdeck that looks like it came out of the movie itself is just icing on the cake.

The launch of AMD's AM5 platform was a confusing one for the press, who had to review chips and motherboards on day one. We were among them and found a few issues too, but the most confusing change was the lengthy time to train memory for DDR5 RAM. This could take a minute or so, sometimes more, which would confuse everyone since nothing would be displayed on-screen other than an LED or system BIOS code for memory. Although the initial boot time takes a while, subsequent boots are notably faster, but there's a quick UEFI change to address this issue altogether.

Every device on the internet is identified by an IP address, which your Internet Service Provider (ISP) assigns to your home network. This is essentially your "address" online, and ISPs assign these addresses to end users in one of two forms. There's a static IP address (permanent) and a dynamic IP address (changing), where a static IP stays the same every time you connect, and a dynamic IP address will change periodically. For context, most residential internet plans use dynamic IPs by default via the ISP's DHCP servers, and in nearly all cases, this is actually beneficial to users.

Over the last few years, I've shifted most of my digital life onto servers I manage. My media streams through Plex, my notes live in a self-hosted editor, my files sync via Nextcloud, and even my password manager runs on hardware I maintain.

Something strange is going on with Microsoft’s Xbox app on Windows. Over the past few days, the Xbox PC app has started showing Xbox console games inside the library. While you can’t install games like the original Alan Wake for Xbox 360, it shows up if you own it as part of the “My PC Games” list inside the Xbox PC app.I don’t believe this is a simple bug, but more the result of Microsoft’s plans to more closely combine its Xbox and Windows stores. I wrote about this effort in March, when I revealed in Notepad that Microsoft is working with Asus on a Project Kennan handheld. “It’s part of a larger effort from Microsoft to unify Windows and Xbox towards a universal library of Xbox and PC games,” I wrote at the time.View LinkThis effort also involves enabling Steam and Epic Games Store games to be visible in the Xbox PC app library. Microsoft accidentally revealed mockup images showing Steam games in the Xbox PC library earlier this year, and at the time sources familiar with the company’s plans told me Microsoft was working on an Xbox app update that will show every game you have installed on your PC.Microsoft has also been working on making the Xbox app the home of PC gaming over the past year, and it has recently started referring to its Xbox PC app as simply “Xbox PC.” This new branding first showed up in Microsoft’s announcement of Gears of War: Reloaded, and a new gameplay trailer for MIO: Memories In Orbit also shows off the Xbox PC branding and logo that we’re going to see whenever Microsoft wants to let PC players know the game is available on its Microsoft Store.Microsoft is also combining ‘the best of Xbox and Windows together’ for handhelds, in changes that we should see later this year. Microsoft is in desperate need of a response to SteamOS, particularly as PC makers like Lenovo are starting to put SteamOS on their own handheld gaming PCs.All of these Xbox PC changes and the handheld work means we’re probably close to seeing exactly how Microsoft lists additional games in the Xbox PC app. The big question will be whether Xbox console games will actually be playable on PC, and Microsoft may need to leverage its cloud infrastructure for that unless it has an emulation breakthrough ready to finally make the dream of playing old Xbox games on PC a reality.

When it comes to playing games on PlayStation 5 consoles, it's necessary to get a subscription to PlayStation Plus. And while there are multiple levels to the service that open up different features, the one with the most value for the monthly fee is the Premium tier. With it, PS5 owners gain access to a number of new and classic releases to download, so even a new owner of the console can have a good selection of titles to play. New games are added periodically, with some extra perks for being subscribed to the service. While some may argue whether the service is better than Microsoft's Xbox Game Pass in different ways, PlayStation Plus Premium is still a good subscription service for those who want to become engaged with the PS5 ecosystem.

Microsoft has been enhancing the Settings page on Windows 11. You'd be forgiven for not noticing, as the changes have been pretty slow and gradual and only in small bites. They usually involve moving something from the Control Panel to Settings in a bid to finally sunset the older application, but sometimes, we also see an effort to tidy up and streamline the process. Such is the case of a new change spotted in the works, which should make the Search options in the Settings panel a lot easier to use.

Like most freelancers and remote workers, I also work from home the majority of the time. There are instances where I head out to a café or a co-working space to work for better productivity. Regardless of where I work from, though, I constantly face issues with accountability. I have a fixed schedule every day, based on which I take up work for multiple clients. A lot of times, though, I end up procrastinating -- leading to delayed timelines. Thankfully, I decided to fix it before it got too late. I employed a bunch of methods, like using a to-do app to make a note of my deliverables, prioritizing my tasks, and, more recently—logging the time I spent working on a certain task.

How small is too small for a computer? Trick question; there's never "too small." In fact, the smaller the better, especially if the computer comes with its own screen. So, when I heard that someone made a Linux computer that's smaller than a US passport photo, I had to check it out. This amazing device really pushes the limit as to how small a computer can get, and yes, it even has its own built-in screen that's surprisingly readable.

We've learned that the Switch 2 gives original Switch games a performance boost for no additional cost or download, but it begs the question: do these improved framerates and fewer stutters give Switch 2 players an edge when they play a competitive Switch game? While the answer is still up in the air, it turns out that using the Switch 2 to play Splatoon 3 does give players an advantage, albeit it's not quite a performance thing.