If you're not looking to go all out with your desktop PC, playing graphically intense games, or doing heavy photo and video editing, the chances are pretty high that you're going to be happy with an affordable mini PC. It's pretty easy to dismiss these products since they're so small, but most models today pack plenty of power that can easily handle most things you throw at it.

Out of all the components in your computer, if you were to rank order them by their impact on performance, RAM would not be very high on the list. Its impact on performance isn't linear, and you'll start seeing diminishing returns sooner than you would with other components. Despite that, I've upgraded my system to 64 GB of memory, far beyond what I actually require for my day-to-day workflow. I can see the comments already. "What a waste!" "What a stupid upgrade!" Your cries of "too much RAM" are not being heard. I love my 64 GB of RAM for one key reason: it allows me to be lazy, and you should give it a try.

When buying PC components, it's always important to have a balanced build — both overspending and cheaping out on certain parts can hurt your build. And I'm not talking about the CPU or GPU alone; even the storage and CPU cooler demand equal attention. After building several gaming PCs and making some mistakes along the way, I've decided not to use certain PC components ever again. Some of the realizations grew out of hard-learned lessons, while others are simply inevitable reactions to the current PC hardware market.

Remote access has become an essential tool, whether for troubleshooting a family member’s computer, managing a server from afar, or collaborating with colleagues across different locations. While TeamViewer has long been a dominant player in the remote desktop space, its increasing costs have left many users and small businesses searching for a viable, free alternative. Among them, two strong contenders have stood out from the crowd – RustDesk and AnyDesk.

Well, we're rapidly approaching four months until Microsoft stops supporting Windows 10. At that point, people still on the older operating system have a few choices: they can either buy a new PC, upgrade their current PC to Windows 11 (if their PC supports it), force-install Windows 11 on it (if it doesn't), truck on with Windows 10, or install a different system. And one such "different system" is Linux.

For a while now, I've wanted to move away from Google services and also test out more open-source and self-hosted software. Immich meets both these goals by being a Google Photos alternative that I can self-host on my own device. In fact, some people argue that Immich is better than Google Photos.

I recently did something sort of unusual: I went to a preview event for a game that's been out for almost three years.I've played around 400 hours of Pokémon Scarlet, according to my Nintendo Switch, since it was released in late 2022. It's safe to say I know the game pretty well. And yet, when I was invited to preview Pokémon Scarlet and Violet on the Nintendo Switch 2 ahead of the new console's launch, I gladly took the opportunity to see three-year-old games I already own. I wanted to find out just how much they'd improved.I have a high jank tolerance with games - it builds character - but I'm well aware of Scarlet and Violet's shortcomings on the original Switch. There's lag. The frame rate is… inconsistent. There are online connectivity issues. For a lot of people, performance problems overshadowed what was otherwise a great new generation of Pokémon games. With the release of the Nintendo Switch 2, and the accompanying free performance update for Scarlet and Violet, that might finally change.View LinkStarting up the demo of Pokémon Scarlet on the Switch 2 at The Pokémon Company International's office in Bellevue, Washington, I knew immediately where I wanted to go firs …Read the full story at The Verge.

I'm not very good at managing finances and often lose track of how much I've spent throughout the month, usually ending up counting pennies by the end. I've tried a lot of expense trackers to sort out this mess, and while they worked, I never felt comfortable giving them access to my emails and messages.

Network-attached storage (NAS) devices have become central to home labs and small office setups, acting as backup solutions, media servers, self-hosted Docker app platforms, and whatnot. But in the rush to set them up and get them running, we often overlook basic security hygiene. While NAS makers have improved default configurations quite a bit in recent times, we often tend to leave some gaps that could potentially expose our data. Whether you have a branded NAS or an old PC brought back to life with TrueNAS, it’s worth finding and reconsidering the blind spots.

If you haven’t signed into your Samsung account for a couple of years, then you should probably do so if you want to keep it. Samsung has started to notify customers that it considers any accounts that haven’t been used or signed into for two years as “inactive” and they will be “subject to deletion” after a new policy comes into effect on July 31st.“If an account is deleted, access to the account will be restricted and all data linked to the account will be deleted,” reads an email issued to customers on Wednesday. “Accounts and data that are deleted cannot be restored.”That could be a pain if you were previously a Samsung user and want to switch back in the future without losing your account data. The Galaxy Store and proprietary Samsung apps for things like Health and Galaxy Wearables also require a Samsung account to sign in, meaning you risk losing access to the data connected to those services. Some data may be retained after account deletion, but Samsung says this is only in accordance with legal requirements.The new inactive account policy makes exceptions for registered family accounts, accounts with “a record of accumulating/using reward points,” and accounts used to purchase products on Samsung’s website, all of which will be considered active. For anyone who falls outside of those exceptions, account deletion is thankfully easy to evade — according to Samsung, all you have to do is have “at least one” usage or activity detected for the account every two years. This includes account creation itself, logging into the Samsung account, or using a connected service while signed in.If you have no intention of ever switching back to Samsung, however, you could allow the company to nuke your account and data instead of doing it yourself manually. Just make sure you won’t be locked out of connected apps in the process.

Last week, Elon Musk’s media tour included telling CBS Sunday Morning he was “disappointed” by the Republican domestic policy bill backed by President Trump. Now, the former White House employee is calling it a “disgusting abomination” and claiming that Congress is making America bankrupt in posts on X on Tuesday.Elon’s problem isn’t the provisions we noted that would strip state legislatures of AI oversight and scale back consumer protection and climate initiatives, while funding increased border surveillance. Instead, he claims, “It will massively increase the already gigantic budget deficit to $2.5 trillion (!!!) and burden American citizens with crushingly unsustainable debt.” The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has reported that the bill’s tax provisions would increase the deficit by $3.8 trillion over the next decade.Despite Musk continuing and threatening that “In November next year, we fire all politicians who betrayed the American people,” the White House and other Republican political leaders have not shown much regard for his statements. In a briefing Tuesday afternoon, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters, “…look, the president already knows where Elon Musk stood on this bill. It doesn’t change the president’s opinion; this is one big beautiful bill, and he’s sticking to it.”Democrats had a different response, as ABC News reports that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer held up a printout of Musk’s tweets during his press conference following a policy luncheon. Schumer told reporters, “Trump’s buddy says the bill is bad — you can imagine how bad this bill is,” while his counterpart in the House, Hakeem Jeffries, said, “…breaking news: Elon Musk and I agree with each other.” Politico reports that Speaker of the House Mike Johnson told reporters he spoke to Musk on Monday for about 20 minutes regarding the bill, and said, “With all due respect, my friend Elon is terribly wrong about the one big, beautiful bill.” In the Senate, Republican Majority Leader John Thune told reporters, “On this particular issue, we have a difference of opinion,” and that he believes Musk is using outdated data.

Xbox Game Pass is one of the most popular subscription services in gaming, offering 100s of games for a monthly fee. That's an overwhelming number of games, with even more getting added throughout 2025 and beyond, but we have collected a handful of special games to give you a place to start. This list includes a combination of indies and AAA, across several different genres. Game Pass has continued to expand its offerings, adding bonus in-game goodies for free-to-play titles like Call of Duty Warzone and adding a selection of retro games to stream. While more excellent games will come to the service in the future, here are seven excellent games on Xbox Game Pass.