I thought I had my home lab management figured out with SSH, remote desktop, and a few clever automation scripts, but PiKVM proved me wrong. The first time I used it to address a boot issue without touching a single cable, I knew it was going to change everything. What I expected to be a handy side tool quickly became the backbone of my entire management workflow, letting me control, power cycle, secure, update, and recover my systems faster and more reliably than ever before.

In a recent episode of Post Games, host Chris Plante explores how video games can help players understand death. He's interviewing Kaitlin Tremblay, who is working on Ambrosia Sky, a game about death."What is it about games that is so useful for exploring the topic?" Plante asks."I think there's something really lovely about the way in which games invite players in," Tremblay says. There is "something quite lovely about asking a person to cooperate and to be a part of the story, and to move through the space."It's a tone, and a substance of conversation, unlike any I've heard on a gaming podcast before. And it underscores what's so uni …Read the full story at The Verge.

The more I build out my home lab, the more I love it. Being able to tinker with operating systems, services, and networking gear is a fulfilling hobby for me, and the parts that work out make my home better to live in. I've learned a ton over the years, but the one thing that I've not loved is what it does to my electricity bill. Old ex-enterprise hardware can be power-hungry, and quite honestly, much of it was surplus to my actual needs.

Like most homes, mine has a router and devices with an RJ45 connector, commonly referred to as an Ethernet port. I wanted to upgrade my home network by replacing RJ45 interfaces with SFP+ (Small Form-factor Pluggable Plus) to make the best of your high-speed internet connection. Who doesn’t want to enjoy faster speeds and the lowest possible latency? However, you shouldn’t order SFP+ modules mindlessly and expect them to work with home networking devices that primarily feature an RJ45 interface. Before jumping the gun on SFP+ interface-based solutions, it's essential to understand how SFP+ differs from RJ45 in your home network.

Following on from the release of the XIAO 7.5-inch ePaper Panel from Seeed Studio, the company has now released the TRMNL 7.5-inch DIY kit, a way to build your own TRMNL device to put in a shell of your choosing. However, despite being aimed specifically at TRMNL (which requires either hosting your own TRMNL server or paying for a bring your own device license), you can do a lot more than just TRMNL with it, too.

First launched in 2018, the open-source SerenityOS offers its users a stripped-back GUI-based operating system that melds a 1990s desktop aesthetic with a focus on productivity for power users. It isn't Linux, but SerenityOS is a UNIX-like OS, built on a custom core and uses no licensed components. So, while it can run MP3s, other media and related codecs currently covered by licenses are not supported.

After being a lifelong Windows user for over 20 years, I started testing various Linux distros earlier this year, and I've been learning a lot about what makes it great and what makes it not so great. It's obvious that, despite some annoyances, Linux has a lot that Windows could stand to learn from in terms of user freedom and customization options.

If you maintain scripts in multiple languages, switch between projects, or just hate Googling the same code solutions repeatedly, a snippet manager is a lifesaver. While there are many options out there, if you are after a self-hosted and open-source one, look no further than massCode. It is a code snippet management app designed for developers to collect, organize, and quickly retrieve code snippets. massCode is cross-platform, available on Windows, macOS, and Linux.

If you're looking to upgrade your home office setup, opting for an arm for your monitor or monitors can be a simple way to gain more screen space and desk space. Armatures are also more flexible than traditional monitor stands, allowing you to better adjust your monitor to the best ergonomic position.

The adoption rate for Wi-Fi 7 is steadily climbing, and will get another big boost in a month or so when the next iPhone is launched. That's good news even if you're not planning on upgrading, because Wi-Fi 7 brings a few neat tricks that make the network faster for every device connected wirelessly, even if they're using previous Wi-Fi numbers. And Wi-Fi 8 is already underway, with a recent release from Qualcomm giving us more information on the next generation of wireless connectivity.

Home Assistant is the most popular self-hosted service for managing smart devices, and for good reason. It’s compatible with tons of IoT paraphernalia, includes robust trigger-action automations, and has a handful of neat add-ons that further bolster its functionality. HASS also offers custom dashboards, automation blueprints, and some other useful settings hidden inside a barrage of menus. Then there’s the Home Assistant Community Store, an underrated utility that can up your HASS game.

Setting up Proxmox Linux containers (LXC) and virtual machines (VMs) is what makes this hypervisor an invaluable tool for home labs. It's powerful, light, and fast, but there are a few tweaks one can make to make it even better. One is to enable community updates, unless you have a subscription, of course. But another may not be too obvious, especially if you're just starting out with your first Proxmox deployment. I'm talking CPU passthrough to VMs and how selecting the right one ("host") can improve performance.