The idea of bringing all your preferred digital services under your own roof, through self-hosting, is undeniable. While many prefer a NAS as the cornerstone of this setup, the reality is that you can get the job done without the investment or complexity of a NAS.

Swimming in the frenzy of smart home gadgets and automation, I often forget the pain of managing them. Making smart home apps talk to each other seems like a fool's errand. All changed to sunshine, rainbows, and unicorns when I stumbled upon the Home Assistant. Its open-source project badge can be daunting to a layperson - it could involve a lot of work and a steep learning curve. Being a DIY enthusiast and perennial tinker, I thought it wouldn't faze me.

Nvidia in 2025 is behaving much like a celebrity who continues to bank on past laurels, but expects the same devotion from their followers that they once rightfully claimed. While AMD and Intel strive to deliver improved graphics cards every generation, Nvidia seems to be regressing. Whether it's generational gains, price-to-performance, or sufficient VRAM, Team Green is failing on all counts.

If you've ever felt uneasy about where your files are stored online or wanted a truly private and secure alternative to mainstream cloud services, then listen up. I tried Mega, pCloud, Nextcloud, and a bunch of other solutions, but they all fall short in one way or another. Then I stumbled upon Proton Drive, and the experience has been nothing short of amazing. This isn’t just about storing and accessing your files; it’s about taking control over your data with a level of encryption, privacy features, and an ecosystem that stands out.

IKEA is the Swedish home furnishings titan with a decades-old product range and presence in every major market worldwide. If you’ve ever set up a desk, office, or gaming station, chances are you've picked up something from the local IKEA. Its beauty lies in standardized design and sheer ubiquity. Product lines like Alex drawers or Skadis pegboards have stuck around for years. Still, despite constant evolution, the emphasis on design standardization may leave users yearning for more personalization, and that’s where the magic of 3D printing comes in. Armed with even a basic 3D printer or a reliable print service that ships to your doorstep, you can transform these mass-produced canvases for modification into highly personalized, purpose-built solutions for your home office.

Despite massive improvements to their specifications, modern Raspberry Pi SBCs just don’t have enough horsepower to run triple-A PC games at 4k 60FPS. However, old-school titles – especially those designed for ancient consoles – are fair game for your tiny tinkering companion. If you’re into retro gaming, you’ll also find several emulation platforms compatible with your Raspberry Pi ecosystem, with each one bringing its own set of emulator cores, UI aspects, and features to the table.

One of Netflix’s biggest shows is about to end — and you can get a brief glimpse at it in the first teaser trailer. The streamer just released a new clip of Squid Game’s third season, and while it doesn’t show much, it manages to evoke the series’ distinct brand of tension, this time with a gumball machine as the centerpiece.Here’s the set-up, according to Netflix:Picking up from season 2’s devastating cliffhanger, season 3 thrusts Gi-hun (Player 456) back into the brutal heart of the games, determined to dismantle them once and for all. Still haunted by the betrayal and loss of his closest ally, Jung-bae (Player 390), Gi-hun faces new perils — including the Front Man, who shockingly infiltrated their rebellion disguised as Player 001.While season 1 of Squid Game debuted in 2021, its sequel didn’t start streaming until several years later. There isn’t quite such a big gap for seasons 2 and 3 though; the second season streamed last December, and the third will premiere on June 27th. While the show itself is ending, Netflix seems intent on keeping the larger Squid Game universe alive in various forms. The mobile title Squid Game: Unleashed launched last year, and there are reports of a David Fincher-helmed spinoff as well.Of course, Squid Game isn’t the streamer’s only hit series coming to an end: the fifth and final season of Stranger Things is also due out in 2025.

Google has had its fair share of weird AI experiments. Its dedicated Google Labs website showcases these experiments and lets users take a few of them for a test run. For instance, Google's latest experiment is Little Language Lessons, which are essentially three bite-sized experiences built using the company's beloved AI assistant, Gemini.

Windows 11 may be Microsoft's best operating system in many ways, but it's also a downgrade from previous versions in many others. There are numerous tools designed to help restore certain parts of the Windows experience to their former glory, and one that I find myself having to recommend is ExplorerPatcher.

With the release of the first commercial version of Photoshop in 1990, Adobe started its rise to stardom in the software industry. Over the last couple of years, Adobe has added a barrage of tools to its creativity-oriented suite, with each utility offering some unique features to aid your projects. Despite taking numerous anti-consumer steps, Adobe’s feature-rich application stack makes it hard for creative professionals to switch to other tools… assuming you’re on Windows and macOS.

If you missed the news, Microsoft really wants you to trade in your Windows 10 PC so you can buy a Windows 11 one. However, as I explored before, you won't get much for it. If you're currently sitting on a Windows 10 PC and you want to purchase a new one once support runs out, it may feel like the only alternative is to throw it out.

Phil Spencer, CEO of Microsoft Gaming, surprised everyone last year by announcing that four Xbox-exclusive games, including Hi-Fi Rush, Pentiment, Sea of Thieves, and Grounded, would come to PlayStation and Nintendo Switch. This was one of the company's key steps in its multi-platform strategy and was also used to test players' reactions. And it looks like the company liked the kind of response it received, so much so that it didn't stop introducing more Xbox-exclusives to rival platforms like PlayStation.