IT General

My homelabbing journey started off like many of you, with just one server. I finally moved to using multiple servers about a year ago and I can say that my homelab has never been more stable than it is now, and I couldn’t be more happy with the setup.

Equipping a vehicle as advanced as the Tesla Cybertruck with functional accessories doesn’t always mean spending thousands of dollars. While Tesla’s engineering is world-class, you can make a few strategic upgrades to the Cybertruck for about $200 on Amazon. These accessories will enhance the experience of driving a Cybertruck, whether you are on a Tuesday morning grocery run, a hot Friday night date, or a long weekend off-grid excursion.

The Raspberry Pi Pico, and its newer sibling, the Pico 2, isn't designed to be a tiny mini PC like most of the Raspberry Pi family. Instead, it is designed for hardware projects and embedded applications. This is how to get started with one.

Are you looking for ways to cut your reliance on the cloud, bring the services you use in-house, and bolster your online safety? If so, then you absolutely should replace cloud-hosted services with self-hosted alternatives. Here's 12 privacy-focused self-hosted apps and the services they replace.

There are so many streaming services out there that have taken over the world with their movies and TV shows. Netflix has some great shows (even if their recommendations are broken), HBO Max has released some awesome films, and several other platforms have joined the party and created their own projects.

Home Assistant is a smart home platform that operates on a PC in your home, not in the cloud—so if you don't already have spare hardware lying around, you're going to have to find some. But what if I told you there's one type of computer you can buy that will save you money upfront, provide you with excess performance, and keep energy costs low at the same time?

RuPaul's Drag Race fans are calling out the show over alleged use of AI-generated artwork.

The artwork appears in Season 18, episode 14, when host RuPaul Charles "paints" portraits of contestants Juicy Love Dion, Myki Meeks, Darlene Mitchell, and Nini Coco. Viewers were quick to point out that the portraits fell into the uncanny valley of AI slop, from the faint yellow filter on some images to some strange incongruities, like Juicy Love Dion's boa having three separate ends.

On social media, fans and even former contestants like Season 16's Plasma expressed frustration over the show's possible use of AI. After all, RuPaul's Drag Race is a celebration of the art form of drag. Allegedly using AI feels like a betrayal of the very authenticity the series hopes to promote.

This is not the first time RuPaul's Drag Race has come under fire for its use of AI. Last year, RuPaul's Drag Race released a short film on its YouTube channel titled "Jinkx & Plasma’s Gay Adventure!" The short featured AI-generated recreations of iconic RuPaul's Drag Race moments, resulting in major criticism from fans. It has since been made private on YouTube.

Mashable has reached out to RuPaul's Drag Race production company, World of Wonder, for further comment.

You've paid the premium subscription fee, invested in a beautiful 4K television, and your home network is humming along far beyond Netflix's minimum Mbps requirement for Ultra HD and 4K streaming. Despite checking every box, you still catch distracting digital squares in dark scenes, or subtle color gradients turn into harsh, discrete stripes.

Long-time Android users know that there is a hidden set of developer settings where you can customize aspects of your phone not intended for the wider public. Turns out the same is true about Android Auto—sort of. Just like with your Android phone, there is a hidden page with car-related options that aren’t intended for the general populace, but it's not as deep nor nearly as good.

The clipboard, used when copying and pasting, is one of the most useful features on any computer or smartphone. Most platforms also have an even more powerful companion feature that's easy to overlook, but is a complete game-changer once you start using it. It's the clipboard history.

If you’re like me, you’ve had a rejuvenation of your love of reading that spurred you to buy an eReader like a new or used Kindle. There are so many different versions of Kindle out there, but what do they all have in common? The amazing Kindle Unlimited subscription.

Windows is prone to errors and bugs, and you might be tempted to download third-party optimization apps to solve the problem. Sometimes they can be helpful, but as often as not, PowerShell has a command that'll get the job done more quickly.

Got an old Mac mini or looking to pick one up? Apple’s smallest computer isn’t just a pint-sized box of tricks, it’s a very capable streaming device and media player. For many, it’s a better buy than the Apple TV 4K.

Proxmox is one of the most popular distros among homelabbers and self-hosting enthusiasts because it allows you to convert almost any PC into a server in the amount of time it takes you to install the operating system.

On paper, the character of Rocky in Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary sounds like a nightmare: a dog-sized, five-legged rock spider with no face. Yet, in the 2026 film adaptation, he has become one of the most beloved characters in modern sci-fi. In this installment of How It Hits, writer Belen Edwards explores how the filmmakers used a combination of facial psychology, shared scientific culture, and old-school practical puppetry to create a genuine, "movie magic" connection between Ryan Gosling and his extraterrestrial co-star.

Project Hail Mary is now in theaters.

Recently, I’ve noticed the battery life on my Android phone is not as good as it used to be. So, I went digging around the battery settings to see what I could find. What I discovered was a few apps that have been sucking up battery despite rarely being opened.

Pirating TV shows and movies used to be a major problem that cost the industry huge amounts of money. Nothing seemed to be able to stop its rise until Netflix came along. Piracy declined sharply, but it's becoming increasingly popular again.

If you're a fan of Ryobi's bright neon-colored tools found at Home Depot, or even own several, you likely already know that the company makes a lot more than just tools for around the yard and house. The company has a bunch of obscure tools you'll love, along with outdoor items like coolers, camping lights, and so much more.

Animorphs, the sci-fi YA series with the greatest, most cursed book covers ever, is headed to Disney+.

As reported by Variety, the streamer is developing an Animorphs TV show. Bayan Wolcott (The Testaments, The Summer I Turned Pretty) is set to write and executive produce the series, and Oscar winner Ryan Coogler, Sev Ohanian, and Zinzi Coogler are executive producing through Proximity Media.

Based on the series co-written by Katherine Applegate and her husband Michael Grant, Animorphs follows a group of teenagers who stumble across a powerful alien technology. It allows them to morph into different animals, but it also thrusts them into a galactic war between the Andalites and the parasitic Yeerks. As the Yeerks begin a stealthy invasion of Earth, it's up to Animorphs Jake, Rachel, Tobias, Cassie, and Marco — along with Andalite ally Ax — to rebel and save the world.

There are 54 books in the primary Animorphs series, along with eight companion novels that enrich the world's lore. There is also already an Animorphs TV show, one that ran on Nickelodeon for 26 episodes between 1998 and 2000.

Obviously, 26 episodes is not enough to get through 62 books' worth of plot, so there's still so much more Animorphs glory to explore. And Disney+, you'd better listen to me when I say I need all of it. I need the grotesque animal transformations, I need them to look as messed-up as they do on the book covers, and I need the show to lean into the darkness of the books. That means including the many war crimes these teens commit — never forget the instant maple and ginger oatmeal! — as well as the psychological toll they take.

There are a lot of things Windows 11 has been criticized for, but some of the big problems are with seemingly basic features. Even years after they were implemented, these four Windows features are still giving me trouble.