Brian Fagioli

When it comes to art, some people paint. Other people write music. PC builders express themselves artistically too, by creating beautiful computers. If you don’t think PC building can be art, you are quite mistaken.

One of the most important components of a PC build is the case. True, it doesn’t make much of an impact on performance, but a well designed chassis can technically improve cooling. Ultimately, having an aesthetically pleasing case does matter, as it can make the PC user happy. Today, CORSAIR launches a drool-worthy full ATX case called "Obsidian Series 500D."

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The best smartphone experience that one can have is the iPhone. Not only are Apple's devices well made, but iOS is a spectacular operating system that gets consistent updates. The top model is the iPhone X, and its starting price is a sky-high $999. If you can afford spending that much, more power to you. Let's be honest though -- despite being a great product, a thousand dollars for a phone is just insane.

How crazy is the iPhone X price? Well, for comparison, today, BLU announces a flagship Android flagship called "VIVO X" that costs just $299.99 (currently $249 at Amazon). Yes, you can pretty much buy four of these devices for the same price as the base model iPhone X. Blu's phone is no slouch either -- it has a 6-inch display, an Octa-Core processor, and 4GB of RAM. Unlike the iPhone X, it has a fingerprint reader. Photographers will appreciate that it has a total of four cameras -- two on the rear, and two in the front for selfies. Even the battery is impressive -- a monstrous 4,010mAh with fast-charging technology!

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You don’t truly appreciate a Logitech mouse until you try a bad model from another brand. While some other companies make quality mice too, many models on the market are terrible. I will sometimes buy a cheap mouse from a lesser-known company on, say, Amazon.com, and I'll almost always be disappointed. Why do I bother? I’m a sucker for a "sale". These poor quality mice often have lousy tracking, and even worse, problematic clicks -- nothing frustrates me more than having a click go unregistered. Grrr!

Logitech’s M235C portable mouse is a classic -- a no nonsense product that will last a long time. It is reliable, affordable, and comfortable. This wireless mouse can be a lot of fun too, as Logitech often releases it in specialty colors and designs. Today, the company unveils the 2018 Art Collection for that mouse. These designs aren’t new, however -- it is a "best of" collection of artistic designs from years past, such as Purple Peace and Black Taboo.

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Solid state drives are much faster than mechanical hard drives. From a capacity perspective, however, the old-school hard drives typically offer more storage space. It is for this reason that many individuals and businesses still rely on hard disk drives for larger backups.

Today, Samsung throws all logic out of the window by announcing it is mass producing a solid state drive with monstrous capacity. The "PM1643," as it is called, offers an insane 30.72TB of storage space! This is achieved by using 32 x 1TB NAND flash.

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Windows Phone can be chalked up as yet another failure for Microsoft. Consumers hated it, and as a result, developers avoided it. It joins other disastrous Microsoft projects like Windows RT, Kin, and Zune in the graveyard.

If you are still clinging to a device running Windows Phone 7.5 or 8.0, I feel sorry for you. Your phone is already terrible, but on February 20, it will get even worse. You see, Microsoft is killing push notification services.

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If you have a new 4K TV, one of the best complementary devices you can buy is the Xbox One X. Not only can it play UHD streaming content, but it supports 4K Blu-ray too -- something the PlayStation 4 lacks. Best of all, Microsoft's newest console variant can handle 4K gaming -- yet another thing Sony's gaming machine fails to do.

Anyone with $500 can score an Xbox One X -- that's a basic move. If you really want to be the envy of your friends, a limited edition version of the console is what you want. Microsoft is currently running a giveaway for some extremely limited Xbox One Machines. You see, to celebrate the Air Jordan 3 sneaker (for whatever reason) the Windows-maker is giving away three unique consoles. There are three styles, but only one of each is being produced. In other words, these Air Jordan Xbox One X consoles are about as rare as they come.

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In 2016, I bought my very first Mac -- a beautiful MacBook Pro with Touch Bar. Since then, the laptop and I have been inseparable. The computer comes with me when I go to, say, a coffee shop, but it also serves as my desktop when I am home by connecting to a large monitor, keyboard, and mouse. In other words, I love the computer, but also, I really admire macOS.

When I first began using the Mac, I downloaded a bunch of software I thought I would enjoy. As a big Twitter user, I obviously installed the official app for that social network. You know what? It sucked. I tried to make it work, but ultimately, using a web browser was just a much better experience. On any desktop operating system, users are wise to use a browser. Let's be honest -- Twitter apps are best saved for smartphones and tablets. Twitter the company apparently agrees, as today, it officially kills the Mac app.

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Samsung makes excellent products -- it cannot be denied. While the company is probably best known for its wildly popular Android smartphones, the Galaxy-maker is much more than that. You can pretty much outfit your entire home with Samsung appliances and electronics -- televisions, Blu-ray players, refrigerators, washing machines, and more.

Where Samsung doesn't shine as brightly is with computers. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying the company makes bad Windows 10 laptops and Chromebooks -- quite the contrary -- but consumers are probably more likely to think of companies like Dell, Lenovo, and Acer for this market. Samsung has seemingly been trying to change this, however, as it has been pumping out some beautiful machines. Today, the company announces that its anticipated trio of Windows 10 laptops -- the Notebook 9 Pen, the Notebook 9 (2018), and Notebook 7 Spin (2018) -- will finally hit stores on February 18.

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Nowadays, much is made of mechanical keyboards. While I swear by them, understandably, not everyone likes that style. Some people prefer a nice soft membrane typing experience. Neither preference is wrong -- it comes down to the individual. For an office setting where many people work in earshot of each other, however, membrane can be preferable as it is typically a quieter experience. Even non-clicky mechanical switch types can be audible.

Today, Logitech unveils a new keyboard and mouse combo that should appeal to membrane lovers. Designed for both home and office, the MK540 Advanced Wireless Keyboard and Mouse Combo, as it is called, is affordable, well-designed, and offers insane battery life. If you are left-handed, you will appreciate the ambidextrous design of the mouse too.

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As someone that typically loves Apple products, I was initially interested in HomePod. After all, it is gorgeous and designed for use with Apple Music -- my choice for a streaming music service. Once common sense set in, however, I realized it was not something I wanted. Why? Well, the $350 asking price is just too high compared to competitors. I'd actually be willing to pay a premium for a quality product, but Siri just cant compare to Alexa at this time. And so, I passed on HomePod.

And thank God that I did. You see, there have been reports from people that HomePod was ruining wood furniture. Consumers were claiming that both the white and grey versions of the cylindrical speaker were leaving white rings on some wood surfaces. Sadly, this was not a hoax or rumor, as Apple has now acknowledged it is aware of the "problem." The company will be issuing a recall, right? Oh no -- that would make too much sense. Instead, Apple hilariously states this is totally normal ("not unusual")!

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While Windows remains the dominant platform for PC gaming, Microsoft’s stranglehold is slowly eroding. True, Linux and macOS won’t overtake Windows 10 on the desktop anytime soon, but as developers are learning, you can make money by supporting alternative operating systems. With Linux in particular, users are very loyal -- many won’t dual boot with Windows for gaming. The only way to get their dollars is to embrace the penguin.

Developer Feral Interactive has seemingly gotten the message, as it is bringing one of its top-tier titles to both Linux and macOS. The game to which I’m referring is Rise of the Tomb Raider, featuring the iconic cave-explorer Lara Croft.

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Learning can be fun. Actually, scratch that -- learning should be fun. If a child or adult is bored while studying or being taught a new lesson, something is wrong. True, not all subjects are interesting to all students, so that is why it is imperative to match students with topics that truly interest them. In other words, it can be better to focus on strengths rather than weaknesses.

If a college student is interested in coding, for instance, there is no shortage of curriculums to support that -- depending on the university, of course. The thing is, you can only learn so much from books and lectures. Like anything in life, hands-on experience can trump everything. That's why Google's "Summer of Code" program is so important. If you aren't familiar, it gives university students the opportunity to work on an established open source project. The mentor organizations that are participating aren't third-rate either. For example, students can work with Kodi, GNOME, and LibreOffice, to name a few.

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Kodi is excellent software. I mean, an open source and cross-platform media center -- what's not to love? Hell, it can even be used to emulate classic video games! And even though I don't do it, I know it is popular with the piracy crowd, thanks to easy-to-install add-ons that allow free streaming of paid content. I'm not judging -- I know many of y'all are hurting financially, so do what you've got to. I prefer to just watch movies when they come on TBS, TNT, and the like, but I digress.

The next version of Kodi is called "Leia," and it is currently under development. With that said, you can run pre-release versions now with great success. If you are waiting for an official "stable" version of Kodi 18, however, you are probably wondering how the development is going. Well, according to a new blog post from the developers, everything is coming along swimmingly. In fact, they have shared some details and statistics about version 18. Some particularly interesting aspects? Kodi 18 will get Google Assistant support for Android and the ability to handle 8K video.

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Do you care about your data? If yes, I hope you are backing it up. While I swear by the cloud for backups, only a fool would trust their important data to another company’s servers alone. In other words, it is smart to leverage the cloud, but you should also store your data locally. Redundancy is key, folks.

For locally stored data, I recommend external storage solutions. Why? These drives can be easily taken with you in an emergency, or physically locked in a safe if needs be. To take things further, a rugged external drive with water resistance is ideal. Today, ADATA unveils a new USB 3.1 gen 1 (USB 3.0) durable drive that meets that need.

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While Firefox has been much better lately, Chrome remains the best overall web browser. Quite frankly, it isn’t a very fair fight, as Google essentially has unlimited resources to innovate. Chrome is fast, feature-full, and very secure. It does a great job of delivering the web to consumers while also helping to keep them safe.

Continuing its trend of protecting Chrome users, Google today makes a big announcement regarding web safety. Starting in July of this year, all HTTP websites will be marked as "not secure." This follows the company marking just some sites this way.

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