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1 week ago | 
pranav-bhardwaj.medium.com | Pranav Bhardwaj
Learn how to quickly check if your email or password was exposed in the massive 16 billion credentials data breach – and what to do next. I just came across a worrying headline: 16 billion login credentials leaked in one of the world’s largest data breaches. According to Cybernews, these leaked credentials include accounts from Apple, Facebook, Google, Telegram, GitHub, and even government services.
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1 week ago | 
xda-developers.com | Pranav Bhardwaj
I've been using Nextcloud for some time. At first, it was everything I wanted: a self-hosted solution with numerous features. It has file syncing, calendars, contacts, media previews, and even collaborative document editing. It was like having my personal workspace, similar to Google Workspace. However, over time, Nextcloud began to feel bulky. Running it on a Raspberry Pi or a low-powered VPS meant constantly tweaking settings, tuning databases, and disabling background services I didn't use.
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1 week ago | 
pranav-bhardwaj.medium.com | Pranav Bhardwaj
Not sure whether to put your PC to sleep or hibernate it? Here’s how to decide which power mode suits your needs best. Okay, I’ll admit it – for years, I had no idea what the difference was between “Sleep” and “Hibernate” on my laptop. I’d just shut the lid and hope for the best. Sometimes it would wake up in two seconds, other times it took forever, and acted like it had amnesia.
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2 weeks ago | 
xda-developers.com | Pranav Bhardwaj
I've been using Obsidian for a while now as a place to draft my articles. It's fast, local-first, and I love how it lets me build a personal knowledge base in Markdown. I started with just a few simple daily notes, and before long, I had folders filled with interconnected thoughts, writing drafts, and reference material. It became the central hub for most things I work on.
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2 weeks ago | 
pranav-bhardwaj.medium.com | Pranav Bhardwaj
Discover 10 must-have Microsoft Store apps to boost your Windows 11 experience — from productivity tools to media players, all free and easy to install. Ever since I moved to Windows 11, exploring the Microsoft Store has become one of my first missions. And surprisingly, it didn’t disappoint. It’s no longer just a dusty corner of the OS you visit by accident – it now houses genuinely useful apps that can seriously enhance your day-to-day Windows experience.
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3 weeks ago | 
xda-developers.com | Pranav Bhardwaj
Recently, I was on a hunt for a new notes app as Windows Notepad wasn't enough for me. Although Notepad has improved in Windows 11, my work required more advanced features in my note-taking app. I just wanted something light, fast, and simple, unlike comparatively heavy tools like Notion or Evernote. In search of the "perfect" notes app, I stumbled across Zettlr. I wasn't expecting much, just another Markdown editor, right? But within a few hours of use, I realized I had found something different.
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3 weeks ago | 
xda-developers.com | Pranav Bhardwaj
Ever wanted to monitor which programs are constantly reaching out to the internet, block Microsoft from collecting telemetry data, or manually control Windows updates effectively? I have done it with Windows' built-in firewall, and it is pretty challenging and confusing. It works, sure. But unless you've spent time learning about its terminologies or poking around different options, it's not exactly intuitive. That's when I realized I needed a more transparent and user-friendly firewall app.
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4 weeks ago | 
xda-developers.com | Pranav Bhardwaj
It happened to me once — I lost my small 64GB USB drive I'd used for work. I was pretty sure it had nothing too important in it. But then I started wondering… what if it contained some sensitive files, perhaps a copy of my national ID card or driver's license? Probably some important scanned documents? That was the moment I realized that USB drives are small, portable, and ridiculously easy to lose, and storing any unencrypted data on them can be dangerous to my privacy.
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1 month ago | 
pranav-bhardwaj.medium.com | Pranav Bhardwaj
After building my first PC, I realized why I’ll never go back to buying pre-built. When I first decided to get a new PC, I was overwhelmed by the two obvious options: buying a ready-to-go, pre-built system or building my own from scratch. One promised convenience – plug in and play. The other promised customization – a machine built exactly the way I wanted it. I’ll be honest, building a PC sounded intimidating at first.
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1 month ago | 
xda-developers.com | Pranav Bhardwaj
I’ve used Windows Task Manager for years to quickly check what’s using up my system’s CPU or RAM. But after I started testing different types of software for my work, I occasionally faced system-level problems like apps that wouldn’t close, services that wouldn’t restart, and processes that looked suspicious but gave me no details. At such times, I realized the Windows Task Manager wasn’t sufficient for me. I wanted to understand why things were failing.
