Microsoft keeps encouraging users to install the latest version of Windows, or at least pick the one that is still eligible to get monthly security updates. In addition to new features, one of the reasons behind this is that the latest updates include fixes for newly discovered security threats and vulnerabilities. However, things can be a bit tricky with fresh Windows installs using ISOs.

Ask any productivity seeker about their favorite tool, and you’ll probably hear several note-taking apps come up in the conversation. Whether it’s keeping track of cool ideas, summarizing meetings, or documenting projects, note-taking utilities are a great fit for practically every user. That’s probably the reason why you’ll find a host of note-takers and to-do list builders in the computing space.

TrueNAS is the gold standard of NAS operating systems for anyone building a NAS from scratch. It’s so flexible that it suits both home and enterprise users — you can make it as easy or complex as you like. And once you move past the basic file management setup, TrueNAS opens up a whole ecosystem of features that elevate your simple storage box into an all-capable home server. I discovered some of its handy features along the journey, and every single time, I thought — why didn’t I see this earlier?

There's nothing that strikes fear into the heart of a PC gamer quite like a CPU bottleneck. Not only does a CPU bottleneck limit your performance in games, it can also be difficult to nail down and access the severity of. Thankfully, there are a handful of quick ways that you can check how severe your CPU bottleneck is, and even more ways to combat the bottleneck without coughing up the cash for an upgrade.

Raspberry Pi boards are powerful little machines, but they come with a few surprises you might not expect until you're already in the weeds. Whether you're eyeing one for retro gaming, home automation, or running your own cloud, there’s more to know than just plugging it in and going. These are the kinds of lessons most people learn the hard way—unless you get ahead of them.

Sharing the internet connection at home with family and various devices is exhausting. I experience the struggle during team video calls while my family streams content on their devices nonchalantly. These network slowdowns or congestion will occur at certain times. That posed a question: Should I upgrade my quarter-gigabit (250Mbps) home connection or spend extra bucks on more bandwidth and an expensive router? Before making that call, I sifted through the router settings and found that I must enable the Quality of Service (QoS) since it's off by default.

I've got a ton of hard drives, even in 2025, and I don't see that changing much in the years to come. I use mine mostly for archival storage, but I still have the odd one or two inside my desktop PCs for files that don't need SSD speeds. Over time, they need to be re-optimized for peak performance.

As Valve rolls out official support for handheld consoles outside of the Steam Deck, we're seeing people compare Windows versus SteamOS performance on the same hardware. After all, if swapping operating systems scores you better framerates and less power drain, jumping ship for the performance gains alone would make a ton of sense.

You know, for a gaming controller, the NES Zapper was an impressive piece of kit. It may be pretty basic in today's standards, but given how it allowed people to "shoot" ducks on their screen all the way back in 1985, it certainly did a lot of things right.

Say what you want about Microsoft's security apps, but they've come a long way since their introduction. There was once a time when recommending that people use Windows' built-in antivirus app was a death knell for their computer, as the app would take up a ton of resources and not do much in terms of preventing malware.

Innovation keeps racing forward, yet a growing number of people are deliberately stepping back—especially as a constant onslaught of unwanted AI from every angle is being used as a corporate excuse to raise subscription prices for software we can't even own. They're trying to make it so nothing is ours anymore; everything is rented to us, from video games and SaaS to movies and books. Even hardware faces planned obsolescence, forced upgrades, and a long fight for the right to repair.

The Witcher 4 is still a long way out, with CD Projekt Red not even offering a release window or a look at gameplay for the highly anticipated sequel. But we do know the general setting, and we know that Geralt is hopefully enjoying retirement, as Ciri takes the leading role. The trailer makes it look like The Witcher 4 takes place a few years after The Witcher 3, one of the best single-player games of all time, with a slightly older Ciri, who is now a full-blown Witcher.