If you approach any Raspberry Pi fan and ask them about their favorite free apps for the SBC, there's a good chance you'll be given a full shopping list of ideas. Not only are there a ton of different tools available to perform all kinds of jobs, but you also have multiple apps that all perform a specific job and are good for specific reasons. Basically, what I'm trying to say is that there are a lot of choices.

When setting up a Proxmox server, there are some things I always do before setting up a virtual machine or container. These aren't necessarily required to get the most out of Proxmox, but they can help make your journey into virtualization an easier pill to swallow if this happens to be your first time booting up the OS.

I've been building out a lot of my home network for the past few months, deploying OPNsense on my Ugreen NAS, investing in a managed switch, and generally just taking control of as much of my network as possible. That's included the deployment of a Pi-hole, for the obvious tracking and advertisement benefits, but also the ability to deploy local resolution for domains that I would use to access my self-hosted services externally. With that said, I've now opted for two Pi-holes instead of one, and if you have the spare resources, I highly recommend it.

Lately, it feels like older GPUs across the board are under relentless attack by a combination of forces. Poorly optimized games, rising VRAM overhead, and modern features have together brought into question the remaining lifespan of old GPUs that were bravely soldiering on till now. While your 5-to-7-year-old might not have been an FPS champ in the last few years, it was at least enough for excellent 1080p gaming and basic productivity. However, those credentials might be under threat if your graphics card falls into the following buckets.

Since its initial messy launch back in 2020, Cyberpunk 2077 has become an incredible RPG, thanks to large updates and the addition of Phantom Liberty, and an overhaul of the progression system. Now, that complete package is now available on the Nintendo Switch 2, and while having another place to play this generational RPG is great, the Switch 2 probably shouldn't be your first choice. That said, it works quite well on the new console, especially in handheld mode, and new features like gryo aiming and mouse controls make this a fully-featured console port.

With so many different PC cases available, choosing the right one can be challenging. If you're on a budget, it can be even more difficult, but it doesn't have to be, especially if you have a solid recommendation that fits most of your needs. That's where the Lian Li SUP 01 case comes in, delivering a fantastic design that's both functional and great to look at.

So, regardless of which devices are in your smart home, and whether they're inherently smart or controlled by smart plugs and other gadgets, they all need reliable communication protocols to work. Whether they use Zigbee, Z-Wave, Matter, Thread, or plain Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, all of them need ways to announce their existence, and so that other devices can control them or take information from their sensors.

I thought my workspace was organized, until it wasn’t. Over time, USB dongles, flash drives, SD cards, and microSD cards began to pile up. I kept trying different ways to corral them: boxes, drawers, even small pouches. Each attempt worked for a while, but the clutter always came creeping back. Eventually, I realized I needed a solution that would stick.

I have used air coolers for the majority of my PC building journey, only switching to liquid cooling as recently as 2022. Well, it turns out AIO liquid coolers aren't universally better than air coolers, not even in the performance department. Sure, if you compare the best liquid coolers on the market against the best air coolers, liquid cooling will win, but the average user doesn't need the best and most high-end coolers.

I've never been a Linux-first user. Great respect to you if you are, but like most of the planet, I was introduced to Windows first, and I've used it as my main operating system ever since. Still, I've dabbled with Linux, and over the past few years, it's slowly started to take over my PC gaming setup without me even realizing it.

23andMe co-founder and former CEO Anne Wojcicki is set to buy back the company after it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection earlier this year. On Friday, 23andMe and TTAM Research Institute, a nonprofit public benefit corporation run by Wojcicki, announced in a press release that TTAM would be buying “substantially all of the Company’s assets” for $305 million. As of last month, New York-based biotech company Regeneron Pharmaceuticals was set to buy 23andMe for $256 million. But the new purchase agreement with TTAM is “the result of a final round of bidding that occurred earlier today between TTAM and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals,” according to the release. Wojcicki made the “unsolicited offer” earlier this month, according to The Wall Street Journal.23andMe is well-known for its at-home genome testing kits, and at one point the company was worth about $6 billion, according to CNBC. But it so far has been unable to turn a profit and dealt with a massive data breach in 2023. The company paid $30 million to settle a lawsuit over the breach last year. When 23andMe filed for bankruptcy in March, Wojcicki resigned as CEO.TTAM will comply with 23andMe’s “privacy policies and applicable law” and has made “binding commitments to adopt additional consumer protections and privacy safeguards,” including establishing a consumer privacy advisory board within 90 days of the close of the deal. The release says the transaction is still subject to court approval but is expected to close “in the coming weeks.”

Your PC might have plenty of SSD as well as HDD storage, but external drives still fulfill important functions. I have a 2TB Adata external hard drive that I use to store much more than just archival data. If you're a fan of external hard drives, you should know how not to handle them to ensure they don't die prematurely. From physically handling the drive and unplugging it incorrectly to ignoring signs of failure, you might be unknowingly damaging your external hard drive.