Category Archives: computer tips

MacBook Neo GPU Compared: A18 Pro vs Snapdragon X2, Radeon, Arc, and RTX 5060

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The MacBook Neo is Apple’s $599 fanless entry Mac, built around the binned 5-core-GPU variant of the A18 Pro. I covered its CPU, thermal behavior, silicon economics, and 8 GB RAM tradeoff in the main MacBook Neo benchmarks article. This post is the GPU companion to that piece, and it exists for a specific reason. Why this post exists This post puts the MacBook Neo’s A18 Pro 5-core GPU against Snapdragon X1 and X2, AMD Radeon iGPUs, Intel Arc, and

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Dell WD19TBS Mouse Lag: Firmware Update Fixed Every Device

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TL;DR: If you’re chasing WD19TBS mouse lag, try the Dell Dock Firmware Update Utility before anything else. My dock was stuttering on every device I plugged in: a Dell laptop, a Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra, a MacBook,  and my Lenovo Legion 7. Running the utility fixed it. The updater showed only one component actually changed: the dock’s embedded controller, 01.01.00.14 to 01.01.00.15. The mouse cursor stopped stuttering! 💪 The Issues Any device I connected to my Dell thunderbolt dock would

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How to Enable Wake-on-LAN (WoL) on a Synology NAS (DS925+ and Others)

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TL;DR: On a Synology NAS, enabling Wake-on-LAN takes two steps in two different DSM screens. Turn on Enable WOL on LAN 1 in Control Panel > Hardware & Power > General, then get the NAS MAC address from Control Panel > Info Center > Network, not from Network > Network Interface. Why Wake-on-LAN for your NAS? Wake-on-LAN, or WoL, lets you wake a powered-down device by sending a small network broadcast called a magic packet. I wanted it on my

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Gigabyte AORUS RTX 5090 AI BOX w/128GB Framework Desktop: Real-World AI Workstation Setup

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5090 eGPU

Last year I was able to pick up a killer deal on a Gigabyte AORUS RTX 5090 AI BOX, an external GPU enclosure that packs a full desktop RTX 5090 (32GB GDDR7) into a compact box that connects over a single Thunderbolt 5 cable. My goal was to pair it with the Framework Desktop running AMD’s Ryzen AI Max+ 395 chip and see how well it worked as a portable AI workstation. Short answer: surprisingly well. The Setup: Framework Desktop

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How to Find Your New Synology NAS IP Address (DS925+ and Others)

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TL;DR: Synology NAS devices use DHCP, so there’s no default IP address. To find your new DiskStation on the network, open find.synology.com in any browser. It will detect the NAS and hopefully show you the IP address in seconds. The Problem You unbox a new Synology DS925+, slot in your drives, plug in Ethernet and power, and wait for it to boot. Now what? Unlike a router with a sticker on the bottom showing 192.168.1.1, Synology NAS devices don’t have

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MacBook Neo vs. Windows Laptops in 2026

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Disclosure: This is my own personal opinion. I have not been paid by Apple, Intel, Qualcomm, AMD, or anyone else to write it. TL;DR: The MacBook Neo is not the most powerful laptop here, and it is not the best specs bargain. At $599, it is the simplest smart laptop buy in a very messy 2026 market. Buy the Neo for the cheapest Mac that still feels fast and polished. Buy the M4 MacBook Air for the better long-term Mac.

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I Tested 13 Local LLMs on Tool Calling: March 2026

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I built a deterministic eval harness and tested 13 local LLMs on tool calling (function calling) to find out which models work decently well for agentic tasks. The result that surprised me most: a 3.4 GB model scored higher than everything else I tested, including models five times its size. If you’re running a local AI stack with Open WebUI, LM Studio, or any OpenAI-compatible frontend, tool calling is one of the key features that enables agentic behavior. It lets

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Gmail to Claude: Line Breaks Disappear on Paste (Fix)

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TL;DR: When you copy text from Gmail and paste it into Claude (or Claude Code), all your line breaks disappear and the text runs together into one giant wall of text. The fix: right-click and choose “Paste as plain text” (or press Ctrl+Shift+V on Windows/Linux, Cmd+Shift+V on Mac). Your line breaks will be preserved. The Problem You’re working in Claude and need to paste an email from Gmail. You copy the text, hit Ctrl+V, and… all your carefully formatted paragraphs

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