Despite the alternatives, I still prefer Cat6 for my home lab

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Spotify, YouTube Music, Apple Music, Deezer, Soundcloud, there are a lot of options out there for listening to music. I'm a Spotify user and have been since a year or so after its launch, but I'm considering switching to another platform in the future. YouTube Music has a lot of features that I'd like, and I already have a YouTube Premium subscription as well. I'm just so used to using Spotify that it would be hard to switch!

Unlike Windows and macOS, the Linux landscape is teeming with countless distributions that bring their own set of unique features to the table. But with so many options, you're bound to have a distro or two as your favorites. Personally, I find it quite difficult to hone in on one distro. Instead, I have several options that I cycle through depending on my needs. For example, I love NixOS' unique (and downright eccentric) nature in my coding-oriented projects, while Pop_OS! is my go-to choice when I want to use an Nvidia GPU inside Linux. However, I'm also quite fond of Debian's stable nature, and even prefer it over Ubuntu. Then there's Q4OS, which can rejuvenate any old PC when combined with the ultra-light Trinity desktop environment. But that's just me being indecisive after years of distro-hopping. What about you?

Microsoft released Windows 11 version 24H2 starting yesterday, October 1st, and it's making its way to PCs across the world gradually. Of course, you can install it manually by going to the Windows 11 download page and using the Installation Assistant to force your computer to upgrade.The question is: did you do that? What features, if any, prompted you to upgrade right away? Of course, I upgraded my main PC immediately because I always want to be on the latest thing, but realistically, there isn't a lot about this update that would get me to install it. It's a relatively light one in terms of new features, though things like sudo support are pretty cool to see. But I suspect many people will probably wait until a broader rollout or even until the update is forced. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

As someone who writes for a living, you might think I'm someone who's learned the most efficient method for typing quickly, but I have to admit, I can't manage typing with every finger on my hands. I remember having some typing lessons back in college where we learned how to type more quickly by using all fingers, and I did try back then, but today, I simply can't do it without feeling like I have way less coordination. Maybe it would be worth adapting to it, but the time it would take to learn would significantly hurt my productivity. I mostly type with just four fingers, those being the index and middle fingers on both hands. I occasionally use other fingers for accents or to press the Shift key, but that's about it. Does that sound crazy to you, or do you also type with just a few of your fingers?

After over a year of using a static image on my QD-OLED Alienware gaming monitor, the worst possible thing happened. Yep, burn-in, with the swirly flame-like design from the iconic Windows 11 wallpaper showing up in other apps. I caught it early, so it only shows up on some colors, mostly grays, and it's fading after using the Windows spotlight wallpaper, which changes every few hours, but it's still frustrating. Then again, it took a year, it's still in warranty, and I've had monitors fail more spectacularly. It still won't dissuade me from how good QD-OLED or OLED is for gaming use, although I'll be picking up a newer generation panel next time.

I may call myself a hardcore desktop user, but there's no denying that a laptop was responsible for my downward spiral into the world of tech. As a kid, I loved tinkering with the Dell Inspiron 8500, which was more of a family laptop than something I had full sovereignty over. After going through similar non-gaming laptops for almost a decade, I finally made the switch to a desktop, as I wanted the extra oomph that my laptops were unable to provide. And I haven't looked back ever since. What about you? What was the laptop that kickstarted your journey into the computing landscape?

Microsoft has been trying increasingly hard to push Windows users to try its other services, and OneDrive is a big example. After introducing the ability to backup entire folders from your PC, the company started enabling this feature by default on Windows 11 computers, which I personally hated. One of the first things I did when I learned of this was write a guide on how to disable it. Basically, OneDrive backs up your Desktop, Pictures, and Documents folders to the cloud by default, so they're accessible everywhere, but in my opinion, it causes more trouble than anything. You end up with a bunch of duplicate icons on your desktop, most of which don't work. But I also disable it for other folders to save space in OneDrive. What about you? Do you leave these backups on or do you also find them to be a nuisance?

Despite being a huge hardware nerd since childhood, I had to wait until 2014 before I could finally purchase a discrete GPU. After a lot of internal debates, I ended up choosing the GTX 760. Of course, I'd used my fair share of PCs before I got my hands on the GTX 760, but most of them were laptops that lacked a dedicated GPU, and I had to wait for years before I could finally build my own GTX 760-powered desktop.It's not something I'm proud of, because I feel like I missed out on the golden age of multi-GPU setups that began in the early 2000s and ended with the GTX 600 series in 2012. Eventually, I moved on to better GPUs after realizing the limits of my budget-friendly GTX 760, and my trusty RTX 3080 Ti is currently the most powerful graphics card in my arsenal. But what about you? Which graphics card did you start your PC-building journey with?

We've talked about File Explorer alternatives quite a bit here on XDA, and I've personally already found one of my favorites in OneCommander, which I wrote about in the article I've linked here. But there are surprisingly a ton of options available if you want to change your file manager on Windows 11.From Total Commander to Directory Opus, I've heard of a ton of options mentioned by our readers and while looking around for myself. So, if you've replaced the default File Explorer, what are you using? Or are you one of the people who feel that Microsoft's solution does everything it needs to do just fine? I'd love to hear people's thoughts.

As someone who frequently writes how-tos and guide posts, taking screenshots (and editing them) is one of my everyday tasks. Over the years, I gave the Print Screen method a lot of chances, but I found it to be rather finicky and unreliable, as Windows would often fail to take screenshots even after using the Windows and Fn combos. So, the Snipping Tool was my primary application for taking screenshots until a certain Windows Update in 2022 broke the functionality for me.In desperation, I tested a handful of apps before eventually settling down on Greenshot. And let me tell you, it was the best decision I ever made! Sure, there may be better apps with more features out there. But Greenshot has the holy trifecta of a simple UI, responsive performance, and open-source nature, which makes it my preferred companion when working on long tutorial posts. But enough about me. What's your favorite app or method of capturing screenshots?

Linux distros are known for their endless customization options, and for good reason. Not only can you modify the widgets, dock, and taskbar, but you can also fine-tune the appearance of the terminal emulator, file manager, and other desktop apps to your liking. Heck, you can even choose from a variety of desktop environments to further enhance the UI to your liking. Personally, I'm a fan of KDE's aesthetics - to the point where I'd call it the prettiest desktop environment in the Linux space. What about you?

I self-host a lot of services on my NAS, and I've recently been playing around with Vaultwarden to migrate my password management to a local solution. It's been an interesting endeavor and one that largely proved to be surprisingly easy to do. Now it's all about securely locking things down and ensuring that everything is kept safe. My favorite is still Jellyfin though, especially when paired with WireGuard so that I can access my media streaming library from anywhere in the world.

The Game Boy SP era of handhelds was around when I got into PC gaming, so while I loved the clamshell device, I was laser-focused on online multiplayer with my mates. Now I'm less inclined to want to play stuff that needs lightning reflexes, and have been looking for something that I can carry around to reduce my phone usage. I know we reviewed the Anbernic RG35XXSP last year, but I must have skipped past it because I would have bought one instantly. Which is what I did while browsing the internet for pocketable retro gaming consoles the other night. It's arrived, and I've been reminded of how irritating emulators can be to set up, but that's only because I don't want to use the stock OS that Anbernic ships the device with. I look forward to clearing my cartridge-era backlog, even if it's not on original hardware.

For someone who works in tech, I've often been surprisingly slow at caring about new technologies, even when it's apparent to everyone else that it's so much better. In most cases, it's just because I ahven't truly experienced what those technologies can do — like how I resisted buying monitors over 1080p for a long time.But with HDR, despite testing multiple devices that support it, it took me forever to see a meaningful difference that I appreciated, and even when I did, it was only for gaming. Every now and then I'll turn on HDR on my desktop and it just looks so much worse for day-to-day use. The brightness seems way off and I need to crank it up much higher for content to be visible, and I just don't like it. This seems to be worse on Windows compared to macOS, but I still can't think of a reason to use HDR outside of playing games or watching movies. I would much rather just have HDR kick in when playing content that uses it rather than have it on the entire time.

Intel announced its Core Ultra Series 2 platform last week, codenamed Lunar Lake, promising to beat Qualcomm in both performance and battery life. Both João Carrasqueira and I have the hardware, and we're ready to test it.He's got the Asus Zenbook S 14, while I've got a pair of Dell XPS 13 units, one with an FHD screen for maximum battery life and the other with the tandem OLED panel because it's just awesome.So, what do you want to know? We're not allowed to publish reviews until September 24, so if there's anything you want to see tested, tell us here!

Despite starting my journey into the fascinating world of technology on a laptop, I had many reasons to drool over the prospect of building my own PC. For example, the thin and light laptops I used were terrible at running games. Even when I managed to run some lighter titles at low resolutions, they'd start overheating like crazy. Not to mention, there was no viable way to upgrade the laptops I owned, and repairing them was a different nightmare altogether.After years of toiling away on laptops, the box art for the original Titanfall game was the primary reason why I jumped into the PC-building rabbit hole. As weird as it may sound, that cool-looking poster of a pilot standing atop their titan in the middle of debris and rubble was what finally kicked my nerd meter into overdrive and forced me to save up some money for my first PC build. That's because I knew there was no way I could run the game on any of my laptops. But enough about me. What pushed you to assemble your first deskt

Valve has been credited with having a lot of industry influence, and the Steam Deck is just one in a long string of changes that the company has brought about. The proliferation of gaming handhelds came shortly after the Deck's release, but all of them had something the Deck didn't: Windows. Windows is a great operating system, but Valve's SteamOS with Proton is a significantly better experience than most of them, even if it's not as powerful. With "Powered by SteamOS" branding guidelines recently being published, it seems like it's finally time for SteamOS gaming handhelds that aren't made by Valve. And I'm so excited.

I love convertibles and 2-in-1 laptops. Whenever I think of buying a laptop, I feel like it has to have that form factor. I love using the touchscreen for little things occasionally, and the idea of using it as a tablet sounds great... but that's about it.I'm currently reviewing what I would say is one of the coolest laptops ever, the Lenovo ThinkBook Plud Gen 5 Hybrid. I love everything about this idea, and I really want Lenovo to make more of these products, but when it comes to using the tablet portion of the device, I just don't know what to use it for. I installed my usual browser on it, and I have YouTube, of course, but I rarely stream proper shows, and I don't do much reading, either. I've been forcing myself to use it to keep up with some online forums or watching some YouTube while I eat, but it never really feels like something I'm doing because it's convenient, I'm just trying to use the tablet for something.I'm never lounging around with nothing but a tablet. If I'm on

The Linux ecosystem is rife with amazing distros. But when it comes to unique features, few distributions can surpass NixOS. For example, the ability to manage all your packages and apps just by editing a single configuration file is a game-changer for developers. If you like installing different packages and experimental updates, the rollback facility offered by the OS lets you restore NixOS to a stable state in case things go wrong.I'll admit that it's one of the most difficult Linux distributions for beginners, as you'll have to learn the Nix language to make full use of the OS. Plus, it can take a while to familiarize yourself with its unique features, even if you're a Linux maestro. But if you're looking for a robust OS that can serve all your software development needs, NixOS is hands-down one of the best options.

I've mentioned multiple times in the past that paying for software is somewhat difficult for me, and I understand how that's a bad mindset to have. But even as frugal as I am, there is one piece of software I've come to absolutely depend on in recent years, and it's Photoshop along with Lightroom.Even as expensive as this bundle is ($20/month is no joke), I can't imagine doing my job without them. It's a lot of little tasks that make all the difference for me. Removing backgrounds from an image precisely? It's so much easier with Photoshop's cloud selection and easy refinement tools. And just fixing up the lighting in a photo is super easy with Lightroom's auto adjustments, along with lens correction and the incredibly impressive AI Denoise feature.This is the pair of tools I am okay paying for, even if I do so begrudgingly. Do you also have a tool that you pay for despite trying to avoid it? What is it?