We’re less than couple of weeks from the start of hockey season, and the streaming situation looks just as complicated as baseball was over the summer. As pay TV subscriptions decline and the regional sports business model collapses, NHL teams are moving in different directions. Some are spinning up new regional sports streaming services, while others are partnering with broadcasters to distribute local games for free over the air. Others are still clinging to the regional sports model, requiring bloated pay TV packages with no cheaper standalone alternatives. It’s a mess, and it doesn’t help that the information you need can be scattered all over the place. Just like during baseball season, I’ve put it all back together again. Here are all the NHL streaming and over-the air options for the 2024-2025 season: NHL in-market streaming options: An overview for 2024-2025 Below is a chart showing every National Hockey League team, its corresponding local channel or regional sports network, the live TV streaming services that carry those channels, and whether a standalone alternatives exist. (You can also view a version of this chart on Google Sheets.) Note that these options only apply for locally-televised, in-market games. They won’t help for games that air on national TV, including most playoff coverage. NHL TeamLocal channel/RSNStreaming bundle optionsUnbundled optionsAnaheim DucksFOX 11 Plus (KCOP Channel 13)YTTV, Hulu Live, Fubo, DTV Stream, SlingVictory+ (Free)Free over-the-airBoston BruinsNESNDTV Stream, FuboNESN 360 ($30/mo or $330/yr)Buffalo SabresMSGDTV Stream, FuboGotham Sports ($30/mo or $280/yr)Bundled with YES ($42/mo or $360/yr)Calgary FlamesSportsnet–SportsNet+ ($180 per year)Carolina HurricanesFanDuel Sports Network SouthDTV Stream, FuboFanDuel Sports Network ($20/mo or $190/yr)Chicago BlackhawksChicago Sports NetworkDirecTV StreamCHSN ($20/mo)Free over-the-airColorado AvalancheAltitude SportsDirecTV Stream, FuboAltitude+ ($20/mo)Columbus Blue JacketsFanDuel Sports Network OhioDTV Stream, FuboFanDuel Sports Network ($20/mo or $190/yr)Dallas Stars–NoneVictory+ (Free)Detroit Red WingsFanDuel Sports Network DetroitDTV Stream, FuboFanDuel Sports Network ($20/mo or $190/yr)Edmonton OilersSportsnet–SportsNet+ ($180 per year)Florida PanthersFt Laud: WSFL-TV 39Palm Beach: WHDT 9Ft Myers: WFTX 36.3–Panthers+ ($70/yr)Free over-the-airLos Angeles KingsFanDuel Sports Network WestDTV Stream, FuboFanDuel Sports Network ($20/mo or $190/yr)Minnesota WildFanDuel Sports Network NorthDTV Stream, FuboFanDuel Sports Network ($20/mo or $190/yr)Montreal CanadiensTSN–TSN ($20/mo, $80/half-year, $120/yr)Nashville PredatorsFanDuel Sports Network SouthDTV Stream, FuboFanDuel Sports Network ($20/mo or $190/yr)New Jersey DevilsMSGDTV Stream, FuboGotham Sports ($30/mo or $280/yr)Bundled with YES ($42/mo or $360/yr)New York IslandersMSGDTV Stream, FuboGotham Sports ($30/mo or $280/yr)Bundled with YES ($42/mo or $360/yr)New York RangersMSGDTV Stream, FuboGotham Sports ($30/mo or $280/yr)Bundled with YES ($42/mo or $360/yr)Ottawa SenatorsTSN–TSN ($20/mo, $80/half-year, $120/yr)Philadelphia FlyersNBC Sports PhiladelphiaYTTV, Hulu Live, FuboPeacock sub required, plus $25/moPittsburgh PenguinsSportsNet PittsburghDTV Stream, FuboSNP 360 ($18/mo)San Jose SharksNBC Sports CaliforniaYTTV, Hulu Live, Fubo, DTV StreamPeacock sub required, plus $18/moSeattle KrakenKONGDirecTV StreamAmazon Prime Video (no extra charge)Free over-the-airSt. Louis BluesFanDuel Sports Network MidwestDTV Stream, FuboFanDuel Sports Network ($20/mo or $190/yr)Tampa Bay LightningFanDuel Sports Network SunDTV Stream, FuboFanDuel Sports Network ($20/mo or $190/yr)Toronto Maple LeafsSportsnet, TSNSportsNet+ ($180 per year)TSN ($20/mo, $80/half-year, $120/yr)Utah Hockey ClubUtah 16 (KUPX-TV Channel 16)DirecTV StreamUtahHC+ ($15/mo, $70/yr)SEG+ (Jazz bundle, $175/yr)Free over-the-airVancouver CanucksSportsnet–SportsNet+ ($180 per year)Vegas Golden KnightsScripps SportsDirecTV StreamKnightTime+ ($70/yr)Free over-the-airWashington CapitalsMonumental Sports NetworkYTTV, Hulu Live, DTV StreamMonumental ($20/mo or $200/yr)Winnipeg JetsTSN–TSN ($20/mo, $80/half-year, $120/yr)Note: DTV Stream stands for DirecTV Stream, and YTTV stands for YouTube TV. What about nationally-televised games? For the past few years, NHL TV rights for nationally-televised games—including most playoff coverage—have been carved up between Disney (ESPN, ABC) and Warner Bros. Discovery (TNT). Those channels are included with several live TV streaming services, including YouTube TV, Hulu + Live TV, and DirecTV Stream. Sling TV carries ESPN, but is missing ABC in all but a handful of markets. Alternatively, Warner’s sports coverage is currently included with Max, which starts at $10 per month with ads or $17 per month without. Warner says it will eventually charge an extra $10 per month for live sports, but hasn’t turned on the paywall as of September 2024. As for ESPN, most of this year’s nationally-televised games will stream on ESPN+, which costs $11 per month, or $15 per month as part of the Disney Bundle. (Those prices are increasing to $12 per month and $17 per month, respectively, on October 17. Some games will be reserved for ESPN’s cable channel, which is not included with ESPN+ and is not available without a live TV streaming service, though a standalone streaming version of the channel is coming in 2025. You can see ESPN’s hockey broadcast schedule here. Out-of-market NHL games ESPN+ has streamed out-of-market NHL games exclusively since 2021. That means if your favorite team plays in a different market from where you live, you can watch without navigating the regional sports mess. That said, you’ll still run into blackouts for games that are televised nationally, necessitating some of the other options mentioned above. Even when streaming options seem straightforward, complications have a way of arising. For more help navigating the streaming sports landscape, check out these useful tools. And consider signing up for my Cord Cutter Weekly newsletter to get money-saving streaming advice every Friday. Read...

Microsoft is expanding the toolbox of recovery options for Windows 11. After recently adding the ability to reinstall Windows via Windows Update—at least in version 24H2—the company is now introducing Quick Machine Recovery (QMR). The new feature currently being tested in the Windows Insider Program’s Beta Channel. Quick Machine Recovery is the first tangible result of Microsoft’s work following the massive CrowdStrike incident of 2024, which knocked out large parts of the global IT infrastructure. QMR allows IT administrators to fix boot problems remotely, even when a problem is so grave that the computer can no longer boot as usual. The recovery is done via the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE), where the system connects to the internet and sends diagnostic data to Microsoft. Based on this, targeted updates can be sent back to the computer via Windows Update, Thurrott reports. Previously, the feature was mainly aimed at business users, but now Microsoft confirms that private individuals will also have access to it—and it will be enabled by default. In managed IT environments, administrators will be able to control availability. QMR is available in the Windows recovery menu as an option under “Advanced Options.” According to Microsoft, the feature contributes to increased system resilience by automatically detecting errors and applying solutions, without any manual troubleshooting. Read...

In 2015, I saw the best demo that you’ll probably never see: the press-only demo of the Microsoft HoloLens. This week, Microsoft celebrates its 50th anniversary on April 4, 2025, and at PCWorld we’ll be spending some time looking back on how it got here. But PCWorld also celebrated something else even more important: the life of our colleague, Gordon Mah Ung. Gordon passed away from cancer last December, and over the weekend PCWorld staff both past and present gathered together to talk about what made Gordon special. For me, it was a time to reflect. My own career began about 30 years ago, about the same time that Gordon moved over from newspapering into technology journalism. Now that he’s gone, it’s made me realize something our society struggles with; asking Gordon about his life would be a tacit acknowledgement that it was ending. It’s a shame. I wish I asked him what PCs, products, and demos made the biggest impact on him over his decades of covering technology in magazines and on the web. What stood the out strongest to a person who saw almost everything tech had to offer this century? In honor of Gordon, and just in time for Microsoft’s 50th, I want to share the coolest tech demo I’ve ever seen: the closed-doors HoloLens hands-on that Microsoft showed off on Jan. 21, 2015. Microsoft The mother of all (Microsoft) demos Microsoft doesn’t often invite journalists to its headquarters in Redmond, Washington, and for me this was my first time stepping foot on its campus. In 1968, Douglas Engelbart gave what’s known as the “mother of all demos,” showing off what became the computer mouse, hyperlinking, and more. For Microsoft, that day was pretty close! Microsoft showed off Windows 10, Windows 10 Mobile, the HoloLens, and related apps and services, such as the Windows Xbox app. I was there for the news, but most importantly for the demos: how everything looked, felt and worked. And at the end of the presentation, there was the HoloLens. Thurrott.com’s YouTube channel shows off what the journalists in the room saw: Microsoft made a number of computers, tablets and phones available for us to try out Windows 10 and the new Windows Phone OS, and I remember being pretty impressed with Windows 10 and especially Cortana, a cheery, responsive “AI” who could answer questions and perform a number of tasks. Microsoft’s operating systems usually swung back and forth between a professional business focus (Windows 2000, for example) and excessively consumer-y, such as Windows 8. Windows 10 felt like it took some of the best elements of both worlds. While my memory of that day is a little fuzzy, what I do recall is that the HoloLens wasn’t just available to try on. It was a curated experience, and required signing up for one of several groups. At a certain time, a small cohort of reporters was escorted downstairs into the basement to try out the HoloLens in a series of one-on-one demonstrations. The most important thing for a HoloLens viewer was getting the inter-pupillary distance correctly measured. Looking the HoloLens was a bit like looking through a porthole, as the field of view was limited. Naturally, it was important to get that aligned correctly with our eyes. The demo HoloLens that the world saw that day was the slick, Daft Punk-inspired headset that eventually shipped, but we were strapped into a two-piece visor and NUC-like device, tethered by a cord. This was it: Minecraft magic I chose to highlight a virtual walk on Mars as the highlight of the HoloLens launch event, but what still sticks with me, years later, is the Minecraft (“Holo Builder”) demo. We all know Minecraft. It’s a first-person game, where you walk about and, well, mine and craft weapons and tools and building materials. While the game is randomized, the interface isn’t. You’re just a blocky person with a sword or pickaxe, wandering about. The HoloLens changed all that. I walked into a standard living room: sofa, coffee table, a couple of chairs, maybe a plant or two. The HoloLens turned them into the game. This Microsoft concept art is as close as you’ll see to what I saw. I just remember it being less complex but much more vibrant.Microsoft That blew my mind. I’d never thought of actual physical surfaces as a game board, even for someone who had thought that the “battle chess” holographic setup in Star Wars’ Millennium Falcon was pretty cool. The HoloLens allowed me a godlike view, walking around Minecraft plateaus on the couch — even allowing me to peer through “holes” in the coffee table into the fiery Underworld of the game. Of course, there was TNT — and that blew up, too. Could you flick Creepers into the abyss? I don’t really recall if “I” as a player was represented, meaning that I’m not sure if the perspective allowed by the HoloLens really allowed a “game,” per se. It was a fantastic demo, certainly, but that’s all it ever was. But that was part of what made the HoloLens (for the time) so cool; its ability to “scan” your surroundings and apply virtual reality to it. Microsoft did this with several HoloLens apps you likely never saw: a murder mystery that put “clues” in your vision, and a surprisingly fun version of the Conker platforming franchise that allowed you to basically send your character bouncing off desks and stairs. When I had my own HoloLens I literally snuck into an office building and tried playing Conker in an empty room with a staircase and other furniture. Then some lady came out and threatened to call the cops on me, ending that little adventure. Little did she know how close she was to a piece of computing history. The HoloLens would have been a great assistant What sticks with me as the second best demo was the integration of Skype into the HoloLens. Microsoft asked us to rewire a light switch — a real one, with live current flowing through it. As someone who had almost spot-welded a socket wrench while changing a car battery, I had and still have a healthy respect for electricity. What Microsoft had us do was connect to someone who knew what they were doing via Skype, allowing me to share what I was seeing. The remote person then visually highlighted what I needed to do and how to do it. Sure, it was child’s play for someone who knew what they were doing, but it validated all of the “remote assistance” business cases that Microsoft would promote throughout the life of the HoloLens and beyond. Today, how-to YouTube videos have basically replaced this idea, unfortunately, and if you still don’t understand, a handyman or plumber is always on call for a substantial fee. But a decade ago, it seemed like if I could call a call center for assistance, why shouldn’t they be able to remotely help me via the HoloLens? Objects in space may be cooler than they appear One of the people I saw this past weekend was former PCWorld games guru Hayden Dingman, who wrote a superlative series of articles on gaming and the emerging VR space. He and I both loved Tilt Brush, the “painting in space” application that both Hayden and I originally saw in 2015. Microsoft had its own take on Tilt Brush, known as Holo Studio, which allowed you to create 3D objects on the fly, basically allowing you to create them and then pin them various places in virtual space, if I remember correctly. Again, it lacked the emotional resonance that characterized Tilt Brush, and served more as an introduction to showing how the HoloLens could preserve objects in 3D space, even when you weren’t looking at them. Looking back, I’m not really sure why I loved the final demo so much, a HoloLens excursions across the surface of Mars. To be fair, the HoloLens “painted” the ground, preserving the illusion that you were walking on another planet. But peering at virtual rocks and landmarks seems less momentous now than it did at the time. (I still say — as I do every time I think about the HoloLens — that there’s still a fantastic opportunity to recreate Dream Park, the 2017 novel by Larry Niven and Steven Barnes where players LARP an augmented-reality game overlaid over real actors and objects.) Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair A year later, I was in a hotel room in San Francisco, getting an exclusive look at the HoloLens days before Microsoft allowed other reporters to test it out. In 2019, I couldn’t help but bring it out again for a night of playing with it in a darkened office and a retro review. What strikes me, of course, is that the HoloLens ultimately failed, probably doomed by the same lack of applications that ultimately led to the Windows Phone’s demise. Microsoft did produce a HoloLens 2, only to get rid of it, too. Windows Mixed Reality, the offshoot marketed at PC makers, bombed even harder. So did the metaverse. Alex Kipman, the creator of HoloLens, departed Microsoft after allegations of harassment. Ultimately, the HoloLens is the iconic product representing an entire generation of VR failure. I’ve seen early versions of smartphones and computers and consumer electronics, and even prototypes that I agreed not to talk about. One of the only other products that left me dumbfounded was the ability to “pause” live TV during the launch of TiVo and ReplayTV. But really, that was simply because of the instant, transformative effect on culture. The iPhone? No, not even that. For me, the single most mind-blowing tech demo I’ve ever experienced was the ability to peer into a coffee table, light a fuse, and launch skeletons into the air via a virtual block of TNT. I’d love to see something as cool as that yet again. Read...

By now, you’ve heard of the U.S.’s decision to levy tariffs on imports—all goods made in China, as well as select materials worldwide, like steel and aluminum. At the time of this article’s publishing, taxes on products coming from Canada and Mexico also were likely to begin early April, with additional tariffs proposed for more materials and products worldwide. I covered the details about these tariffs in a FAQ, as well as a set of highlights for a shorter way to get up to speed on the situation. I also created a breakout of sample cost increases so you could better see what actual purchases could look like. But most news has focused on the immediate dollars-and-cents effect of these new taxes. What’s been talked about less are the other ways tariffs will impact the tech industry—consequences that could dampen or even drive back certain aspects that we currently take for granted. At best, we’ll see a temporary blow. At worst, we could feel this hit for years to come. Harder to obtain Technology has become more available to the masses over time. Long ago, personal computers were a rare luxury, found only in homes of enthusiasts or the well-to-do. But as popularity rose, devices and hardware became easier to get. People wanted to spend their money on fresh gear—and so supply became more plentiful. Remember when EVGA made graphics cards? Yeah, they don’t any longer, after looking at the cost of that part of their business. Let’s hope the tariffs don’t cause other companies to make similar moves within tech.Brad Chacos / Foundry But when prices go up, demand goes down. Companies already have an incentive to slow the rollout of new products due to the economic instability brought about by the tariffs. If you add on a weakened appetite from consumers for discretionary purchases, vendors have reason to pull back on the production. They may become slower to release successors to products or even a wider variety of products. In particular, smaller companies decide to pause or stop product lines.  Industry insiders expressed this very sentiment to me when discussing the tariffs and their effect. Without the ability to make accurate forecasts, businesses have to proceed with more caution. They’ll either produce less of their usual devices or hardware—or opt out of selling certain items altogether. After years of ever-growing options for consumers, shrinking down to fewer choices will be a sad step backward. Price stagnation (or even increases) Intel’s Kaby Lake Core i7-7700X launched just a couple of months before AMD’s first-generation Ryzen CPUs, sporting a 4-core, 8-thread processor. By fall, its Coffee Lake Core i7-8700K successor had added two more cores and four more threads. Competition makes a difference.Adam Patrick Murray / Foundry Innovation and competition help lower costs for technology. Manufacturing becomes more efficient, growing demand spreads production costs over a wider field, and/or the tech is succeeded by something even fresher. But if tech gear becomes less varied and harder to get, those factors won’t be as dependable as an influence on price. How much you’ll pay for a laptop, phone, or piece of hardware will likely stick where it is—or go up. As my colleague Gordon Mah Ung loved to point out, Intel sold consumers 4-core, 8-thread CPUs for years, always at similar MSRPs. And when Team Blue launched its first 10-core processor, the suggested price was a staggering $1,723. Fast forward a year, after AMD released its first generation of Ryzen chips, and Intel’s top consumer chip had inched up in core count, with the $359 Intel Core i7-8700K sporting 6 cores and 12 threads. Its closest rivals? The $329 Ryzen 7 1700 and $399 Ryzen 7 1700X, both of which sported 8 cores and 16 threads. This history lesson shows that consumers get less value when fewer options exist. Companies can charge whatever they want when faced with less pressure to keep pushing the envelope. Slower release of new products Should early adopters become more reluctant to try out new gadgets, companies could stop trying novel new form factors, like this tri-fold smartphone.Luke Baker If you’re a company facing economic uncertainty, how much would you want to invest in different products? Likewise, if you’re a consumer looking at devices with fewer or smaller upgrades that cost as much as the previous model, will you want to buy anything new? It’s a bit of a standoff, and one that the tariffs could spark. For example, let’s say you’re used to buying a replacement phone every two years. But if the features don’t change dramatically, and prices remain high (especially for flagship models), perhaps you’ll stick to what you’ve already got in your pocket. Companies might then not push novel form factors as hard, like tri-fold phones and other variants. Similarly, Nvidia and AMD could continue to delay their attention to budget gamers, instead choosing to focus on graphics cards that will bring in more cash. Sure, Intel is the lone holdout for the budget range, but its market share remains low, and its launches aren’t as regular. Budget gamers might then continue to hold out, biding their time with progressively lower graphics settings and frame rates. (But real talk, if your GTX 970 still does it for you, keep rocking that GPU until its well-deserved retirement.) So while engineers will continue to announce newer protocols and standards (think Wi-Fi 7 or PCIe 7.0), the time to an actual launch may be much further in the future than we’re used to. And that pace change could feel like a screeching halt compared to the boom of the past couple of decades, depending on how big a slowdown is. Unpredictable pricing A close up of a circuit board. Copper is often used in circuit board traces.Michael Schwarzenberger / Pixabay Until recent years, technology’s progress also often resulted in a predictable routine for prices, too. Current devices got cheaper, and the stuff that replaced them often stayed the same price or even lowered, thanks to improved manufacturing or higher demand. Before the tariffs, that reliability in pricing trends started to waver due to factors like rising production costs. And now with these additional taxes dropped on top, we consumers may no longer be able to trust in steady pricing. First, as companies shift manufacturing locations, their logistical costs will increase. But how much is still to be determined, based on resources (e.g., new staff hiring, training, etc.) and the ability for a business to absorb current tariff costs. Some larger corporations may take a hit in an effort to keep their part of the industry more stable, for example. Additional tariffs could also cause sudden changes to MSRPs. Given how the current U.S. import tariffs were enacted, more could be announced very suddenly as well, with a notice of just a few days. Graphics cards enthusiasts (and just PC gamers in general) know how painful supply shortages can be, especially when it comes to street prices.EVGA The prospect of new tariffs looms large, too—in February, the U.S. executive branch proposed a 25 percent tariff on all semiconductors, with the intent to sharply raise the tax over time. More recently, a 25 percent tariff on copper was suggested. (You’ll find copper in circuit boards, wiring, and a lot more related to tech.) If these tariffs stack on top of the existing 20 percent on all Chinese-made goods, you could see a sharp rise in costs for products with multiple components affected by these additional taxes. Another wrinkle: When I last spoke with industry insiders, multiple sources told me they were still learning exactly how the tariffs would be applied. So they themselves are scrambling to adjust and adapt. Finally, if costs go up and availability decreases (as discussed above), you may have more trouble predicting actual retail prices. Street prices could go a bit wild, too. We can look at the GPU market for a glimpse into that chaotic, terrible universe: Few cards are available at the announced price, and any remaining stock is higher due to partner cards adding on extras. Any other cards are only available through resellers at huge markups. Before the pandemic, you could easily shop for devices and hardware, with the expectation of regular sales or discounts. Now surplus budgeting may be a requirement whenever you’re preparing for a new purchase. Read...

Newly appointed Intel chief executive Lip-Bu Tan said all the right things in his opening statement as Intel’s new chief executive, pledging to earn customer trust and return to an engineering-based culture at the chipmaker. Tan, who has served about two weeks on the job, didn’t indicate any major changes would be forthcoming. For now, he emphasized that Intel’s next-generation Panther Lake chips would ship this year, on the Intel 18A process node that is the legacy of Tan’s predecessor, Pat Gelsinger. Gelsinger, a former chief technical officer at Intel who also promised a return to the engineering-driven days of Intel legends like Gordon Moore, was forced out in December after pushing through a series of layoffs, and watching the company’s stock price plunge. Chief financial officer David Zinsner and Intel Products chief Michelle Johnston Holthaus served as co-CEOs before returning to those positions. Now, Tan will take the helm. Tan is well-regarded, though he served in the semiconductor-adjacent industry of electronic design automation as the chief executive of Cadence Design Systems from 2008 until 2021. He studied quantum physics in Singapore, moved to the United States to pursue a doctorate in nuclear engineering at MIT, then dropped out of the program after the Three Mile Island accident occurred. He later became a venture capitalist and a member of Intel’s board. Tan cited a visit to Henry David Thoreau’s cabin, where he spent a half hour just admiring the craftsmanship. “A lot of our business is building craftsmanship,” Tan said. Now, he’s being asked to lead one of America’s largest chipmaker as it extends those chipmaking abilities to third-party customers as well via an Intel foundry plan. Tan pledged to build “strong teams to correct the past mistakes and start to earn your trust,” speaking in front of customers and partners at Intel’s Vision conference. Though not a semiconductor executive by trade, Tan said that’s he was friends with the late Intel senior vice president (and Pentium 4 chief) Albert Yu and former Intel senior executive Sean Maloney, who retired from Intel in 2013 after recovering from a devastating stroke. Tan said that Intel will “refine some of our strategy and then free up some of the bandwidth and some of the non-core business, we will spin it off.” Intel’s core business — whatever it is, as he didn’t specify — will be expanded using AI and “software 2.0.” He also pledged to work with the Trump administration on advancing Intel’s foundry business. “My motto is very simple: under promise and over deliver,” Tan said. “I love this company,” Tan said. “It was very hard for me to watch its struggle. I simply cannot stay on the sideline knowing that I could help turn things around. I also fully recognize it won’t be easy. It had been a tough period for quite a long time for Intel, we fell behind on innovation. As a result, we have been too slow to adapt and to meet your needs. You deserve better, and we need to improve, and we will, please be brutally honest with us.” “We may not be perfect in the beginning, but eventually, you can count on it, I will make it perfect,” Tan said. Read...

Fonterra Co-operative Group Ltd today announces the appointment of Elizabeth (Liz) Coutts ONZM as Chair-elect of Mainland Group, the proposed divestment entity of Fonterra’s global Consumer business Read...

There is a business case and a “proposed master plan” but no time frame for when these will be released to the public. Read...

TL;DR: Create a white label website, automate communication, and more with Sellful’s AI, now $399 (reg. $1,497) for life. Calling all small business owners or entrepreneurs—are you juggling multiple roles in marketing, invoicing and sales, and/or customer outreach? You might be feeling stretched thin, but you don’t need to rely on a third party to perform those tasks for you. Meet Sellful, an AI-powered platform designed to help small businesses and agencies streamline their operations, providing a single, organized space for you to manage daily growth tasks, automate outreach, and even create a website. Get lifetime access while it’s available for only $399 (reg. $1,497). Sellful is designed to relieve business owners and entrepreneurs of many of its day-to-day tasks. Check out what the software can help you with: Website building: Use the white label website builder to create a page for your brand or a client. You’ll be able to develop sales funnels, landing pages, and more in seconds with the help of Sellful’s AI. Have the platform handle customer relationships and automate several customer-facing tasks, like communication, outreach, etc. Receive payments quickly and securely through payment gateways like PayPal, Stripe, and Square. Have the AI assistant and chatbot handle customer inquiries with a positive attitude. Get assistance with managing internal processes like employee recruitment, payroll, and more. Grab a Sellful lifetime subscription, now $399, to organize and grow your business.   Sellful – White Label Website Builder & Software: ERP Agency Plan (Lifetime) Only $399 at PCWorld StackSocial prices subject to change. Read...

OPINION: If your identity is tied to your business shutting the company is to lose part of yourself. To abandon what defines who you are. Read...

I’ve been using Windows for as long as I can remember. It was on the very first PC I recall using, literally on my father’s knee. But I don’t need it anymore. That’s a weird thing to say as a writer for a site named PCWorld. But it’s been a long time coming, a slow mix of broad tech trends, feeling betrayed by multiple brands, and a little bit of intention on my part.  To be clear, I still use Windows. It’s what I’m using right now to type this, on a beefy gaming desktop I assembled myself, with triple monitors and all sorts of googaws attached. But I don’t need all that anymore, and for the first time in my adult life, I can see myself transitioning to an entirely different operating system.  That’s a big deal for me, and I suspect I’m far from alone. Microsoft might want to make a note of it.  Why I don’t need Windows So here’s what I mean when I say that I don’t need Windows anymore: Every tool, program, and piece of information I rely upon is now essentially separate from whatever machine I’m using at the moment. I’m writing the words you’re reading right now in Google Docs. When I’m done, I’ll edit them in WordPress. Throughout my work day I’m talking with my coworkers and bosses on Slack, I’m chatting with my friends via text, WhatsApp, and some other platforms. I’m managing my own to-do list in Google Keep, updating my work tasks in a tool called Monday, and checking personal and professional email in Gmail and Outlook, respectively. I’m keeping an eye on news and social trends in BlueSky and The Old Reader for RSS.  I still use local files, of course. But they’re all backed up weekly via Backblaze and accessible wherever I go, with whatever hardware I have to hand. Most of the time I don’t even need that. Aside from installed game files, the odd business/tax document, and a huge library of photos, both my own and my family’s, I barely even think about the storage on my PC.  Michael Crider/Foundry Here’s a screenshot of my main Windows taskbar: Vivaldi, Gmail, Outlook, the PCWorld logo for WordPress, a certain green “P” I’ll address shortly, Slack, Explorer, Monday, Google Keep, Google Docs, YouTube. If you haven’t spotted the common thread here: every single one of these experiences is either a web tool or has a web interface. I use my favorite browser, Vivaldi, to access almost all of them, usually in a progressive web app (PWA) or merely a shortcut wrapper without a full browser interface. It’s one of my most essential features of modern browsers, allowing me to separate these tools more easily and focus on them when I need to.  Every one of them is accessible on the web, and on other platforms. I can use all of them on a tablet or even my phone, and most of the time not lose any functionality. In fact even though I work from home, I access a lot of that on my phone during the day, on the same platforms. At this point Windows is basically just a means for accessing the web in a comfortable way, on expensive hardware I’m familiar with. I think a lot of users feel the same way, especially younger folks who grew up post-iPhone. Further reading: The best Chromebooks we’ve tested Photoshop was the last holdout The very last domino to fall in this chain was image editing. I’ve been using Photoshop for over 20 years. Since I learned it in a high school media class, it’s been incredibly difficult to break myself of the reliance on it for creating article header images or editing review photos. Not that I didn’t want to — I’ve had a chip on my shoulder for Adobe for almost as long, especially after it transitioned its extremely expensive Creative Suite software to an even more expensive Creative Cloud subscription setup. It reeked of “you’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy.”  I liked owning Photoshop, and I was not and am not happy that the option was taken away. Until a few weeks ago I was still keeping an ancient copy of Creative Suite 6 from 2012 (the last time it was offered as a real purchase) alive and kicking. I’ve tried alternatives many times, including the tastelessly-titled GIMP, Affinity Photo, and Pixlr X. All are pretty good tools, but to my shame, I kept crawling back to the familiarity of Photoshop.  Foundry My memory, both conventional and muscle, made it difficult to use any of these programs, even though each one of them covers the vast majority of Photoshop’s core functions. I’ve spent years of my life using Photoshop, a few of them using it for up to eight hours a day in a print shop. It’s a hard experience for me to quantify if you’re not married to a piece of software like that — imagine it as the feeling you get from wearing someone else’s prescription glasses. It’s that kind of functional discomfort.  I’m fairly certain Adobe banks on this, and that’s why you can access Photoshop and other programs at a huge discount if you’re a student or otherwise working at a school. To paraphrase Aristotle, “Give me a high-schooler until they are 17, and I will show you the foundations of a life-long subscription customer.”  But after a long-overdue Windows reinstallation, I decided to forego the hassle of getting my trusty, rusty copy of CS6 operational. Instead I tried out Photopea, an online raster image editor with a shameless and wonderful clone of the Photoshop interface.  Attack of the Clones I’ve tried Photopea a few times before, with this exact aim in mind. And I couldn’t quite get it to stick. To be honest I can’t recall if it was a lack of performance in the tool, or simply that it wasn’t as capable as CS6 even over a decade later. But whichever part of the equation has changed — the performance in a modern browser on a powerful desktop, the server-side performance, or the image editing options being improved — it just clicked.  Now I’m using Photopea (pronounced “photo-pee” if you’re wondering, but the creators don’t really care) in place of Photoshop for all my work purposes. I don’t even have the latter installed, though I still have my copy just in case. I’m paying $5 a month for the ad-free version of Photopea, which still rankles my “just let me buy it” heart a bit. But the fact that it’s completely free with ads, not to mention far, far cheaper than an Adobe subscription even if you banish them, is a balm to my skinflint soul.  Photopea’s interface apes Photoshop closely enough that I can use it without problems. And yes, I used it to edit this story’s header image, and even this screenshot. Photopea And after all, Photopea is a web tool hosted on a server — it at least has a basic justification for charging a subscription. Nothing stops Adobe from selling a stand-alone, non-subscription version of Photoshop. Except greed. Photopea is a clone of Photoshop, not a perfect replacement. There are things it can’t do, notably load up custom fonts without a lot of extra steps, that would make it unsuitable if I were still doing graphics full time. And to be perfectly honest, I’m not quite as good at it as I used to be with Photoshop. Some of the effects I’d throw together with ease just don’t look as good. That could be equal parts my own unfamiliarity with the deeper tools and the web-based program’s lack of Photoshop’s most powerful, deeply buried options. Maybe I’ll get back to my old expertise in time. But I’m not a graphic designer anymore. I’m a keyboard jockey who needs a lot of cropping for PR images, a bit of background work, clone-stamp and color adjustments for original photos, that sort of thing. And I can do all that, without sacrificing speed or most capability, and without local software. I can do it on any machine, from a laptop or a tablet or even my phone in a pinch (with a mouse and keyboard), and I can log in on all of those to get access to it ad-free.  Samsung Oh, and even if you prefer to pay Adobe’s exorbitant prices, you might still not need a local installation of the program. Photoshop has an online version now, very similar to Photopea, included with the subscription. Everything I need to do my job, and most of whatever else I want, is completely divorced from Windows. Or if not divorced, then at least amicably separated. I realize that a lot of people got to this place before I did, people younger than me, older than me, both more tech-savvy and less. But it still feels like a personal milestone. Gaming still lives on Windows…for now I’m still using Windows 11, warts and all, even while I moan about ever-encroaching advertising in allegedly premium software, not to mention the hard upsell for “AI” tools I don’t want. These are where Microsoft is hoping to get that real (read: recurring) money out of me, and where I refuse to let it go. But Windows is still my personal and professional home, even as I increasingly “live” on my phone, just like everyone else.  Gaming is a big part of this. I own a Switch and a PS5 and a nice tablet and a few other wingdings for games — over a recent vacation I even played through Skies of Arcadia to the end on an Android emulator. But PC gaming is where I really sink my teeth into the medium, and that’s unlikely to change. Not just because I like building desktop PCs (again, check the name of the site up top!), but because Steam is my primary means of acquiring and playing games.  Lenovo/Valve And even that is not a sacred cow I’m unwilling to eat. Valve is making Steam its own OS, spreading into hardware from partners like Lenovo and Asus, and I think it has a legitimate shot at dethroning Windows as the home of PC gaming. To say nothing of trends that let you access your games anywhere, including Nvidia’s cloud-powered GeForce Now (which plays my Steam games!) and Microsoft’s own Xbox Game Pass streaming. I’ve used both of them on the go, enjoyably if far less smoothly than on my fancy-pants desktop at home, and been keenly aware of their platform-agnostic nature.  I played the PC version of Fortnite, complete with mouse and keyboard, by using my Samsung phone’s DeX desktop mode, a USB-C monitor, and GeForce Now. Hey, at least one tiny sliver of the future doesn’t suck.   A new world of options This newfound freedom is liberating, if only in a consumer sense. For the first time I can seriously consider a Mac or a Chromebook laptop, safe in the knowledge that everything I need will be accessible with barely even an adjustment to my routine. An iPad Pro, while not my first choice, would probably be doable. I could even see myself trying out Linux on the desktop, though I confess I’d probably keep it dual-booting at first. And maybe using SteamOS or a derivative like Bazzite, just to satiate my degenerate gaming needs.  I don’t need Windows anymore. There’s a pretty good chance you don’t, either, or at least that it’s easier than ever to work around it. I think you should keep it in mind…especially if you’re a Microsoft executive who wants me to buy a new laptop.  Further reading: Windows survival skills: 8 things every PC user should know how to do Read...