I rebuilt my VS Code setup from scratch this year, and it's the fastest it's ever been
…Sure, it doesn’t have the same bells-and-whistles as its AI-heavy offshoots, but it’s the perfect companion for my local-only setup. In fact, I’ve been using…
Search
Top stories
Maingear's new MG-1 is the first PC to feature AMD's dual 3D V-Cache Ryzen 9 9950X3D2
…However, after finding his home at MakeUseOf in February 2019, he would eventually move on to its sister site, XDA, to bring the latest and greatest in Windows, Linux, and DIY electronics…
I stopped asking Claude Code to build things, and that's when it got actually useful
…human judgment The obvious objection is that letting an AI help with infrastructure can quickly go sideways. That’s fair, because home lab automation is still automation, even if it starts with…
n8n, Dify, and Ollama might be the best self-hosted AI automation stack right now
…Related I thought AI and LLMs were dumb and useless until I self-hosted one from home I finally get it. The stack that gets AI automation right It separates three things…
I stopped self-hosting these 4 services after realizing maintenance wasn't worth it
…My homelab is home to services I use every day , including my local AI stack , document management, media server, note-taking tools , file conversion utilities, and other productivity apps. They save me…
I ditched Plex, Google Photos, and iCloud for self-hosted alternatives, and Pangolin made it actually work
…The photos were backing up automatically even when I was not home. Features like timeline and AI face recognition never felt like they were running on my old home server. I could…
I tried replacing my phone's cloud AI with a local model for a week, and here's what I gave up
Mahnoor Faisal Jul 13, 2026, 1:00 PM EDT Mahnoor Faisal is a tech journalist covering AI and productivity tools with bylines at XDA , SlashGear , MakeUseOf , Laptop Mag , and Android Police . She…
Wi-Fi 7 is ready, but your devices aren't — and that's costing you hundreds
Jasmine Mannan Apr 28, 2026, 3:31 PM EDT Jasmine is Software and PC Hardware Author at XDA with years of tech reporting experience ranging from AI chatbots right down to gaming…
Most people use Ollama or llama.cpp for local LLMs, but these are the tools I switch to when it gets serious
…If your local LLM has become backend infrastructure for your home lab, vLLM and SGLang are closer to the right shape of what you need. vMLX gives Macs a more serious local…
The gaming mode on your router is a marketing lie — here’s what actually lowers your ping
Jasmine Mannan May 19, 2026, 3:30 PM EDT Jasmine is Software and PC Hardware Author at XDA with years of tech reporting experience ranging from AI chatbots right down to gaming…