While learning the ropes with Home Assistant, I set up a dashboard that gives me access to all my smart devices and other information in a single view. From the default cards on the Home Assistant dashboard, the weather forecast details appear overwhelming with icons and numbers. Drawing on the experiences of my XDA colleagues in running local LLMs, I wanted to explore whether generative AI models could enhance a weather report and provide clothing suggestions.

Your laptop's battery life is an important factor, especially when you are working on the go and don't have easy access to power outlets, such as during travel. As a freelancer, I sometimes find myself in such situations and anxiously watch the battery percentage of my laptop drop.

I bet I am not the only one with digital documents scattered all over the place — emails and cloud storage. Their digital nature makes them extremely convenient to send via email or cloud storage links. But it’s a headache searching through emails and several folders for that one file you want to refer to or send. Yes, Paperless-ngx does appear as a recommendation for managing files, and rightly so. However, I discovered that Papra was the straightforward and minimal solution I was looking for.

For every game that changed our lives, there's often a sequel we never got. Chalk it up to publisher misfires, licensing nightmares, or the cruel erosion of time, but there are hundreds of sequels that millions of players over the world have always wanted, but never got.

Artificial intelligence can help you write an email, parse large amounts of information, and much more — but did you realize it can also help you decide on a new design for your home? For many people (myself included), interior design does not come naturally. Trying to decide on a decorative style for my home is a task that involves multiple Pinterest boards, numerous visits to the furniture store, and enough back-and-forth decisions to give a metal band whiplash.

The Raspberry Pi 5 is undoubtedly a fantastic addition to the dominating Single-Board Computer family. But as someone who has used the SBC ever since it hit the market in 2022, I have to admit that the device isn’t as powerful as it should be. Contrast it with x86 boards, and the lack of firepower of the Raspberry Pi’s Arm processor becomes even more apparent.

Needing something to run Proxmox and Frigate, I bought a used Dell PowerEdge R210 II for the job. This was to run alongside a Lenovo server and a few other systems inside the cabinet, creating quite the fleshed-out home lab. The only drawback to this server was the CPU it came with. Although a bargain, it didn't have the guts to handle Frigate detection and decoding. So I installed a T1000 GPU I already had and decided to perform an upgrade, creating the ultimate NVR for our home.

Most Logseq users stick to the basic features like linked notes, tasks, and text-based journaling. But Logseq has much more to offer if you dig a little deeper. As someone who uses it daily to journal, organize research notes, draft content, and manage projects, I’ve come across a few hidden features that surprisingly bring ease to my workflow.

We all face situations where we need to transfer large or important files between two computers, but don't have a USB stick or hard disk at hand to rescue. Cloud storage solutions can be convenient but often fall short due to slow upload and download speeds or unreliable internet connections.

With the rise of personal LLMs, you don't need to purchase a product like the Amazon Alexa or Nest devices. With a little ingenuity and some tinkering, you can create your own voice-activated assistant to help you with whatever you like. Best of all, because you're the one who set it all up, you know exactly what's happening with your data, meaning you don't have to worry about who's snooping through it.

As excited as I was when OLED gaming monitors began to emerge in 2022, I was skeptical about owning one. PC enthusiasts on Reddit and reviewers on YouTube shared myths and misconceptions that made OLED monitors seem more trouble than they were worth. I don't blame them, though, because nobody knew how these monitors would hold up in the long run back then. Burn-in was one of the biggest concerns about using an OLED monitor for desktop work, along with text clarity issues compared to traditional LCD panels.

Despite the emergence of a handful of rivals, Home Assistant remains my primary utility for managing my smart devices and IoT gizmos. After all, it’s compatible with all my smart devices, includes plenty of automation provisions, and lets me create beautiful dashboards for my IoT-heavy living space. Best of all, Home Assistant meshes well with my arsenal of self-hosted services, be it my Frigate surveillance system or even my Proxmox home lab!