IT General

It's been a while since I had to deal with a serious storage-related problem in Windows, which is likely why I didn't pay much attention to Storage Sense. I've stumbled upon it many times in Settings, but I figured I was all good because I use Disk Cleanup and regularly check what's on my computer.

I don't expect miracles from my ASUS laptop's battery, but I'd like it to last longer when I unplug it. Dimming the screen and closing apps only got me so far, so I went looking for a less obvious Windows tweak. I eventually found a processor setting that made a noticeable difference.

When I got back into 3D printing a few years ago, I focused on printing large things. That's why my first CoreXY printer was a Creality K1 Max, with a build volume large enough to print a complete cosplay helmet in one go.

We're moving further into the Halloween season, and Netflix continues to turn up the thrills. Not everything has to be scary this month to qualify as a thriller. In fact, our first movie on this list is not a horror, though if your family had to deal with a kidnapping like the one in the movie, it might be scary to you.

TL;DR: Get a lifetime license to Microsoft Project Professional 2024 for Windows for $39.97 (reg. $1,129.99), with Gantt charts, scheduling tools, and built-in reports.

Opens in a new window Credit: Microsoft Microsoft Project Professional 2024: Lifetime License for Windows $39.97
$1,129.99 Save $1,090.02   Get Deal

Remember group projects where one person did all the work and everyone else showed up for the presentation? Unfortunately, coordinating people doesn’t necessarily get easier after graduation. There are just more deadlines, meetings, and spreadsheets involved. Microsoft Project Professional 2024 helps managers keep track of tasks, deadlines, and resources with scheduling tools and visual timelines. For a limited time, you can get a lifetime license for Windows for $39.97 (reg. $1,129.99).

The software helps you organize tasks, assign resources, and build detailed schedules. You can start with pre-built templates rather than creating a project plan from scratch, then use Gantt charts to visualize timelines and see how different tasks depend on one another. That way, you can see who’s supposed to be doing what and when, without having to chase down every update.

Those dependencies are particularly useful when plans change, which, as anyone who’s managed a project knows, is practically inevitable. Microsoft Project can automatically calculate task dates based on scheduling relationships, while its multiple-timeline views help you present the bigger picture without walking everyone through every individual assignment.

You can also run what-if scenarios to explore how changes in assignments might affect a project. Baselines let you compare actual progress against the original plan, making it easier to spot delays or shifts in scope.

For reporting, built-in options such as Burndown and Resource Overview help turn project data into information you can share with stakeholders. Timesheet tools can track time spent on project and non-project work for reporting, invoicing, or payroll workflows.

Microsoft Project Professional 2024 also supports integration with Project Online and Project Server. Certain collaboration features, including communication through Microsoft Teams for Business, require separate licensing.

Formerly $1,129.99, get a lifetime license to Microsoft Project Professional 2024 for only $39.97.

StackSocial prices subject to change.

TL;DR: Get lifetime access to PDF Expert for Mac for $79.99 (reg. $139.99), with tools for editing text, rearranging pages, signing forms, and working with scanned PDFs.

Opens in a new window Credit: Readdle PDF Expert Premium Plan: Lifetime Subscription (Mac) $79.99
$139.99 Save $60.00   Get Deal

Your Mac can handle some pretty impressive things, so it’s a little annoying when editing a PDF becomes the task that slows you down. Fixing one typo shouldn’t require a new workflow, and signing a form shouldn’t turn into a whole afternoon of troubleshooting. PDF Expert brings tools for editing text, inserting images, signing forms, and converting documents into one app. For a limited time, new users can get a lifetime subscription for $79.99 (reg. $139.99).

The app lets you edit existing PDF text, replace images, add links, and make changes without rebuilding a document from scratch. You can also highlight important sections, leave comments, and add notes when reviewing reports, contracts, or class materials.

If your PDFs are scattered across multiple files, PDF Expert can merge them into one document or split a larger file into smaller ones. You can rearrange, rotate, and delete pages, too, which is useful when someone sends you a 40-page document and you only need three pages.

Its conversion tools handle PDFs and common formats, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, JPG, and PNG. You can turn a PDF into an editable document or convert other files into PDFs for sharing. That comes in handy when the file format someone sent you isn’t exactly what you need.

There’s also optical character recognition (OCR), which makes text in scanned documents searchable and selectable. Scanning tools can improve contrast, remove shadows, and correct distortions in imperfect scans. So even that slightly crooked document someone scanned years ago might be easier to work with.

For paperwork, you can fill out forms, add signatures, and redact sensitive information before sharing files.

Normally retailing for $139.99, score a lifetime subscription to PDF Expert for only $79.99.

StackSocial prices subject to change.

USB-C cables, while super confusing, are also utterly forgettable. I really don't think you spend hours pondering the fate of your USB-C cables, and neither do I.

Googlebooks are officially here, and one of their most important features is the new Terminal app for installing and using native Linux applications. The feature is targeted at agentic AI usage, developers, and other hardcore users who value working with a command line, and it might be an entry point for Linux newcomers. In this guide, I'll go over the basics of getting the Googlebook Terminal up and running, and how you can install and use Linux apps through that Terminal.

For years, I've asked myself why I keep buying flagship phones. Sure, the cameras are awesome, and I enjoy the high-end OLED screens for streaming, but there's so much horsepower that it's genuinely hard to use it all.

Some Linux commands have been around since time immemorial and are still widely used today. These commands work. They're both reliable and powerful. The problem is, if you're someone like me who isn't in the terminal all the time, they're not particularly intuitive. Most of the time, I use Linux through its graphical interface. I was never really interested in memorizing a bunch of complicated commands just to accomplish things that I could point and click at. When I do decide to open the terminal, I want command-line tools that don’t make things unnecessarily complicated.

Though a bathroom can be elegant and relaxing, it also has to be functional. With the help of your 3D printer, you can create both elegant and functional objects.

Anthropic has been privately pitching lawmakers on a draft bill to regulate frontier AI safety and security, POLITICO reported Friday. The outlet cited three people familiar with the effort and obtained a copy of the confidential draft.

An Anthropic spokesperson told POLITICO the bill reflects the company’s Advanced AI Framework, which it has promoted to lawmakers since June. The spokesperson called its proposals "sensible policies" for Congress.

What the bill would do

The draft sets a high bar for government action. According to POLITICO, federal officials could stop a model from launching or being used only if it poses "a foreseeable, imminent risk of more than $1 billion in damages, or of killing or seriously injuring more than 50 people." The danger would also have to come from one of three sources: a bioweapon, a model slipping out of its developer’s control, or a cyberattack. The language closely follows California’s SB 53.

SEE ALSO: Anthropic IPO docs reportedly reveal over $40 billion in losses last year

POLITICO noted that AI labs disclosed several incidents this summer in which AI agents broke into or tested the defenses of online platforms. None of those incidents appear to have caused harm at the scale the bill describes. That includes the OpenAI-Hugging Face incident, in which rogue agents escaped a secure sandbox and attacked a third party.

The bill would also create outside evaluators, designate Commerce as the only agency that can seek to halt a model, impose new duties on labs, and override some state laws.

Anthropic hasn’t publicly endorsed a federal bill, though it supported two California AI safety laws. As POLITICO writes, in the House, Reps. Lori Trahan (D-Mass.) and Jay Obernolte (R-Calif.) are leading the FRONTIER Act, which would also override some state laws.

In the Senate, Majority Leader John Thune and Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) are negotiating a bill on catastrophic AI risks. Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) have called for halting the development of advanced AI altogether.

Altogether, Anthropic's bill shopping is the latest effort by an AI company to help write its own rules. Last month, CEO Dario Amodei urged the industry to "pace the frontier," including by agreeing on shared safety standards, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman quickly endorsed the idea. Weeks later, Amodei, Greg Brockman, Jensen Huang, Elon Musk, Sundar Pichai, and Mark Zuckerberg signed the White House Accord on Super Intelligence.

As Mashable previously reported, that voluntary pact has no enforcement mechanism or penalties.

I carry one of the newest and most expensive phones, but my job is to cover Android. In this economy, it’s hard to justify spending this kind of money this often. Before, I spent years making a midrange smartphone last as long as possible while remaining pleasant to use, and the job has only gotten easier.

Throughout my life as a PC user, I've always used a dedicated PC monitor. When CRT monitors were current, a TV didn't have anywhere near the resolution needed for anything beyond watching standard-definition videos, which I did!

Japan will launch the first spacecraft designed to travel to Mars and return to Earth on Monday, bringing back soil from one of the planet's potato-shaped moons.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, known as JAXA, leads the Martian Moons Exploration mission, or MMX, with NASA as a partner. The rocket lifts off from Tanegashima Space Center at 3:41 p.m. ET on Oct. 19, or 4:41 a.m. Tuesday in Japan. 

MMX should reach Mars next August and survey the planet's two small moons, Phobos and Deimos. No earlier than December 2028, it will land on Phobos, scoop up a sample, and turn for home, reaching Earth in 2031. 

"MMX will be the first spacecraft ever to return to Earth from the Mars system," said Tom Statler, NASA's program scientist for the mission. "That says a lot."

Scientists hope that the sample will reveal how the Red Planet got its moons. Mars' gravity may have captured passing asteroids, or a large object may have slammed into Mars and blasted debris into orbit, where it clumped together into moons. Learning which story is likely true will give scientists new insight into both Mars and Earth, including events that shaped both planets billions of years ago.

SEE ALSO: Mars without its makeup can look a little blue. Here's why.

Getting there depends on the trip home. JAXA has brought samples back from asteroids before. Its Hayabusa spacecraft returned tiny particles of the asteroid Itokawa, and Hayabusa2 brought back a bit more than 5 grams from the asteroid Ryugu. 

NASA's OSIRIS-Rex has also collected more than 120 grams from the asteroid Bennu. What sets this mission apart is that it will be the first to collect from a moon other than Earth's. NASA, which supplied the mission's Megane instrument and one of its two soil samplers, will keep at least 15 percent of the returning specimens. The U.S. space agency estimates its investment in the mission to be around $87 million over 14 years. 

The Japanese space agency will livestream the launch beginning at 2:45 p.m. ET / 11:45 a.m. PT on Monday. You can watch it lift off in the video mini player below.

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So far, the origin of the moons remains elusive. In visible light, Phobos and Deimos resemble a type of asteroid that generally orbits in the outer part of the main asteroid belt, the ring of rocky objects that circles the sun between Mars and Jupiter. But both moons follow nearly circular paths lined up with Mars' equator, a pattern that fits debris from a giant collision. 

Megane, which means "eyeglasses" in Japanese, will take the first measurements of the chemical elements that make up Phobos. The instrument measures gamma rays, a powerful form of light, and neutrons, tiny particles emitted from the moon's surface.

After a nail-biting landing on Phobos, the spacecraft will stay about 2 ½ hours. Honeybee Robotics' sampler, which sits on one of the lander's four legs, will fire ultrapure nitrogen gas to blow loose soil into a container, like a vacuum cleaner. 

"You blink, and it's all done," said Kris Zacny, Honeybee's vice president. 

If all goes as planned, the mission's Phobos sample will return to Earth in 2031. Credit: JAXA illustration

The spacecraft's other sampler pushes a tube into the top 2 inches of the surface. The spacecraft also carries a small rover from the French and German space agencies. 

Astronomers say Phobos' weak gravity and lack of air make it far easier to land on than Mars. Still, the mission could point the way there. 

"The ability to make such round trips could be interesting for future robotic missions that bring back samples from Mars itself and potentially even visiting Mars with humans in the future," the European Space Agency, another MMX partner, said in a statement.

The spacecraft has three modules: one to reach Mars, one to land on Phobos, and one to return the sample home. When the return module reaches Earth, it will send down a capsule carrying at least 10 grams — roughly one-third of an ounce — of Phobos soil. The capsule will land in Australia, and the sample will then travel to Japan, where scientists will catalog it and share it with the mission's partners.

TVs these days are built more for profit than based on passion, so they often lack quality and dependability. But when it comes to audio, a TV's sound can only be so good, especially with how thin TVs are today. Those paper-thin speakers cannot produce impactful sound, and the output is often distorted and drowned out. But I got so used to the sound of this TV in the basement room that I never considered upgrading it, even though I knew I could.

Here's the thing—even though I'm a tech writer, I'm extremely sloppy about my own online hygiene. And browser hijackers rarely announce themselves. They creep in through extensions, quietly rewrite your settings, and fight back when you try to undo the damage. Here's how a short conversation with ChatGPT finally got Chrome back under my control.

I'm a big believer in giving old devices a second life — especially if it means I can avoid buying something new. That's exactly what I was able to do with an Android tablet I hadn't touched in a couple of years. Now, it's a Wacom-like drawing pad for my computer, and it was incredibly easy to do.

Bosch makes tools that everyone, from DIYers to masonry or woodworkers, can appreciate. We're all familiar with its popular 18V lineup and older, but robust wired tools like impact wrenches, but that's not all the company has to offer that you'll love. In fact, there are several niche tools that make jobs easier than ever.

While Microsoft spent years focusing on performance and reliability in Windows 10 and 11, many users wanted features and customizations they didn’t get. Updates rarely included user requests and feedback unless they involved issues that required attention, like non-functioning devices, BSODs, memory leaks, unresponsive apps, security loopholes, and other frustrating problems. Some major release updates included improvements here and there, or new features like Cortana or Start Menu changes, but Microsoft often built them the way it wanted.