IT General

Picking a tool platform is almost more difficult than picking what house to buy. For some reason, it feels very permanent. However, two tool platforms can definitely coexist. I run both Milwaukee's M12 and Ryobi's 18V ONE+ platform in my workshop, and this is how I make the distinction of which tools I use for what job.

I use Android Auto every day, and honestly, I keep coming back to the same apps. Google Maps for directions, Spotify for music, and WhatsApp for those last-minute messages. It works, but there’s more to Android Auto than the apps I open out of habit.

The great thing about ESP32 projects is that often someone else has done all the hard work for you. For example, if you've always wanted a desktop weather display that can tell when you're in the room, then this project can provide everything you need to build your own.

Google TVs come packed with some pretty smart tools. Part of the appeal is that they obviously come loaded with built-in connectivity features, access to many apps, and integration with your Google account. Unfortunately, this all comes with a major drawback, with your Google TV tracking your behavior and collecting tons of information about you.

The '90s and the '00s were one of a kind, and this isn't just my millennial nostalgia peeking through here. In the tech world, they were most certainly special, because they were filled with bold, brave, often useless innovations that may have crashed and burned, but will be remembered longer than the same-y laptops and smartphones we get every year now.

For years, Python threads could not use more than one CPU core at a time. That changed with the free-threaded build, which is now officially supported as of the time I'm writing this. Here's a brief introduction to it, and why it could be a big deal.

Being a Google Pixel user is hard, especially when you spend most of your time around tech enthusiasts raving about Samsung Galaxy phones. You see, Pixels offer a close-to-stock Android experience, while Samsung’s Galaxy phones are packed with features that naturally appeal to enthusiasts. And while I do love me some minimalism, I also like having access to powerful features that make my life easier.

Whether you've encountered an issue with Googlebook OS, you're planning to sell or return your Googlebook, or you just need a fresh start, a factory reset is something you'll need to know how to do. Fortunately, like with most things on Googlebook OS, a factory reset is simple to do, even if it's different than factory resetting a Chromebook. Here's everything you need to know about preparing your Googlebook for a reset, and then safely removing all of your user profiles, data, and apps.

Cordless power tools are wildly convenient, and they're getting better or more powerful all the time. By now, you've probably replaced several older corded tools, but that doesn't mean you should get rid of them.

I know I am just a drop in the ocean of people who've grown tired of artificial intelligence worming its way into everything. AI can legitimately improve our lives in many ways, but it also often makes things more complicated than they need to be. This sentiment applies to everything from simple productivity apps to creative tools.

Elon Musk doesn't own TikTok, but the short-form video app is evidently sensitive to criticism of the Tesla CEO.

The Hollywood Reporter reported that TikTok has "permanently suspended" the official promotional account for Musk, a new documentary that is critical of Musk's recent activities and is playing in nearly 500 theaters across the United States. The reason given was "political content" that violates TikTok's policies, but THR's report didn't include any specifics as to what, exactly, the account was doing to warrant the ban.

Bleecker Street, the film's distributor, is appealing the move, but the suspension remains in effect during a weekend when audiences are more likely to see the movie. That likely will not help Bleecker's attempts to market the movie; THR reported that the plan was to spend ad dollars to boost TikTok posts about the movie before the ban was enacted.

As THR noted, Musk has no financial (or otherwise) affiliation with TikTok, but the app is partially owned by Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison. The documentary does apparently feature a scene in which Ellison offers to help Musk pay for his acquisition of Twitter via text message. Of course, that may have nothing to do with the suspension. Until TikTok offers comment on this, we will not know the specific reasoning for the ban.

In Mashable's review of Musk, Senior Tech Reporter Matt Binder called the documentary "scathing," but also noted its fairness, stating that "it features Musk, via his own actions and words, punching himself in the face over and over again."

I never like to leave my family's two cats, Benni and Comet, home alone for too long. For one, Comet is a young cat who likes to stalk the senior Benni like the Predator, and two, it just doesn't feel great leaving my fur babies in a silent house.

Docker makes running software feel lightweight, but that convenience hides a costly default. Containers start with no cap on memory or CPU, so a single forgotten service can quietly consume your machine’s resources around the clock. Here’s why it happens and what you can do about it.

It's hard to believe that there have already been five generations of the Pixel Watch. With Google's typically low trade-in values, you may have decided to hold on to old models. The good news is that there are some creative uses for an off-wrist smartwatch.

There's currently some tension between the video game industry and the proliferation of AI tools.

You can see the evidence of this in a recent development regarding the upcoming indie game Drunken Goddess Reflux. It's a game with the objective of imbibing alcohol until a demon vomits up her soul, a decidedly unique premise that would be hard for any AI to come up with.

As spotted by Rock Paper Shotgun, though, the developers had to cancel an upcoming public demo session. The decision is partly due to concerns that AI could quickly clone it for someone else's financial benefit. Instead, they will hold closed sessions for a "limited number of participants."

"We're concerned that the demo's content could be used to quickly imitate or replicate the game's presentation and gameplay with AI or other tools, and that such works could be released before our launch," the developers at Alliance Arts said in a post on X.

To be fair, that wasn't the only reason given for the demo's cancellation. There were also concerns about being able to properly enforce a rule against livestreaming. But it's clear that the widespread availability of AI vibe-coding tools influenced this decision, as well.

Kotaku reported earlier this year that indie games were being cloned with AI quickly and effortlessly, and Steam has recently become rife with games that used AI in their development. While cloned products may not be as good as the original games made by hand, they can still harm the developer's bottom line and muddy the waters about which came first in the public eye.

Nothing disappoints me more than a TV show that fails to live up to the expectations set by its first season. It's called the "sophomore slump." It happens more often than you think. Some shows deliver a near-perfect first season before taking a noticeable dip in quality.

Ubuntu was my first distro. I started with 20.04 LTS Focal Fossa and am still running it to this day, trying out every long-term support version along the way. The reason why I chose Ubuntu? It was everywhere.

Understandably, many people have concerns about the information that their smart home is sharing. If you use Alexa or Google Home, you might not want your location data or voice commands ending up on cloud servers. Home Assistant lets you store your data locally on your own hardware, and I use it to spy on myself on a daily basis.

Stop thinking that you have to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars to get started with self-hosting. If I were starting from scratch today, this is the homelab starter kit I would build for just $50.