It's been quite the month for Google's AI-powered research assistant, NotebookLM. The team has been dropping update after update. If you haven't been actively keeping up, Google finally began rolling out the much-awaited Video Overviews a couple of days ago. Though the feature is only now starting to appear on most people's accounts, I luckily got access to it last weekend and talked about three ways I'm already using it in a separate article.

When it comes to home lab devices, every tinkerer has their preferences. Many DIY lovers use energy-efficient mini-PCs as their server nodes, while others (including yours truly) drool over old enterprise-grade hardware that gulps energy like there’s no tomorrow. Likewise, some enthusiasts prefer building their home lab on top of their favorite Linux distros from scratch, but you’ll find plenty of folks relying on virtualization platforms for their computing projects.

We've all grown up playing some games that we fell in love with, always wanting more through sequels, expansions, or just replays. Now, while we might have grown up significantly, it's a shame that some amazing game franchises couldn't, mainly because they never got closure.

AI now powers everything from search tools to video calls, but some laptops still struggle to run those features smoothly. That’s because some CPUs aren’t built to handle real-time AI tasks efficiently. When you first bought a computer, you probably looked at the CPU and RAM specs, but not whether it had an NPU. That’s starting to change.

I found VPaint while stumbling around the internet recently. A new graphics tool, I thought. It seemed exciting to me. But I soon realized VPaint is actually an old graphics tool, left in its experimental beta phase, and it's barely been updated much in the last decade. But that doesn’t make VPaint a bad tool. In fact, it’s got some features I’ve not seen anywhere else and might become part of my open-source creative toolkit. Its developers are working on more experiments that encompass the vibe of VPaint for the modern day, and I’ll happily incorporate these tools into my creative workflow, especially animation.

Have you heard of Dwarf Fortress? If you haven't, you really should. Released back in 2006, its two developers have been adding more and more features to it over the years. Now, almost twenty years later, the game is chock-full of content, systems, and stories waiting for you to explore.

OPNsense is a powerful firewall software package that can take your local area network (LAN) from zero to hero, replacing ISP-provided hardware with a custom device you have full control over. One advantage of replacing your ISP router with an OPNsense-powered firewall is the unlocking of many advanced features, many of which are often omitted from ISP router firmware. Here are some OPNsense features you're likely not using that could massively improve your home network, some involving a single setting change.

If you're thinking about moving on from your current desktop PC, then a mini PC might be a great way to go. Not only does a mini PC have enough power to handle a range of everyday tasks, but it's also quite compact, making it easy to work with. You use the same monitor and keyboard you have now. Just swap in your new mini PC and you'll be good to go.

I've been a PlayStation fanboy since the PS3 era, and I'm not even ashamed of it. Sure, I had an Xbox 360 — I'd begged my folks for it to play Halo 3. But once I beat the campaign, that console collected dust while I spent every waking minute out of school playing on my friend's PS3.

Given how long Steam has been a dominant player in the PC gaming market, I'm a little surprised that Valve hasn't already added system monitoring tools to its software. However, it's better late than never, as the gaming giant is slowly adding some much-needed monitoring apps to its in-game overlay via the Performance Monitor.

While Windows 11 catches a lot of flak for being filled with bloatware and not providing a lot of the features actually want, Microsoft has been putting a lot of good stuff into its side project, PowerToys. And while I've written at length about some of my favorite features like FancyZones, there's one that often gets overlooked, called Mouse Without Borders.

I have an odd problem that I've been trying to find a solution to. As an avid fan of RSS feeds, I like to sift through thousands of interesting nuggets of info and headlines every day. However, I'm also trying to reduce my screen time. Moreover, the increasingly algorithm-driven news cycles have made me feel like I'm losing control over the information I consume. Now, most of us newshounds rely on read-it-later services, but these are increasingly ridden with ads, locked behind subscriptions, locked to specific platforms, or, shudder, pivoting to AI-enabled recommendations. Basically, if you, like me, prefer to use an eReader for your reading and prefer a clutter-free long-form experience, these options fall short.