Jamaican Oblique Seville captures gold in the men`s 100 metres at the world athletics championships. Read...

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I don’t know how your tech drawers look, but mine are filled with wires I’ll likely never use again because technology has advanced quite a bit. Thankfully, USB-C seems to be here to stay since there is no wrong way to plug these things in. It’s not just smartphones, tablets, and laptops that use these, however, but also a long list of gadgets. We’ve scoured the market for hidden gems: 12 gadgets that will make you think “Wow, I didn’t know I needed that, but it will make my life so much easier!” Let’s dive in and see what cool devices you’ll be able to use your type-C cables and ports with. Wowstick 1F+ mini electric screwdriver Wowstick If you often have to fiddle around with your computer or other gadgets, this Wowstick mini electric screwdriver may be just what you need. This pen-shaped screwdriver features three LED lights so it’s easier to see what you’re working on and rotates 200 times per minute so you can finish the job faster. The screwdriver has a stylish base so you can hold it on your desk, and a whole collection of 56 aluminum alloy bits. The screwdriver can be charged via USB-C and it can last for hours. This super fun electric screwdriver usually goes for $41. Anker Nano Power Bank Anker One thing you need to have in you bag/pocket/backpack is a power bank because you never really know when your phone will fail you and cry for a recharge. Well, the Anker Nano power bank is tiny enough to fit just about anywhere. It comes with a foldable USB-C connector and a port on the side so you can charge two devices at once if you need to. The 5,000mAh capacity is just about enough for a full phone recharge, so it will be great in a pinch. It’s also only $30, but we’ve seen it as low as $16. Endoscope camera with light Ennovor Although it’s not something you’ll use every day, this Ennover endoscope camera can definitely come in handy. You just plug it in your phone, install and app, and see everything your camera does. Our team swears by it, using it for finding whatever they dropped behind the desk, while working on the car, or looking for pipe leaks. Since it has an IP67 rating, you can even plop it in your aquarium. The camera comes with a 16.4ft semi-rigid cable and several accessories, including a hook, magnet, and a mirror. You can get this one for $23 right now. Blukar flashlight Blukar I don’t care who you are—you need a flashlight. The smaller, the better, because you get to shove it into any pocket. This model from Blukar comes with a built-in 1800mAh battery that you’ll recharge with one of those many type-C cables you have in that tech drawer we were talking about. It can work for up to 16 hours on a single charge, which is pretty decent. There are four different lightning modes to cycle through, including one that will help you signal for help. Plus, one of these is only $10, so no excuse to pass on this one. Heat It insect bite healer Anyone plagued by mosquitoes in the summer will be particularly pleased with this ingenious gadget. This tiny device, which can be easily connected to your smartphone via USB-C, can significantly reduce the itching of bites and stings with targeted heat. You simply charge the small Heat It bite healer via the app and then hold it on the bite. The heat then does the rest, breaking down the proteins in the mosquito bite that cause the area to swell, itch, and hurt. A true must-have for summer, and it costs only $20. A tiny air pump Also perfect for summer is this small air pump from Cycplus, which fits in any bag while on the go. Not only can it inflate a bicycle tire in two minutes at the touch of a button, but it’s also USB-charged. According to the manufacturer, it’s suitable for mountain bikes, road bikes, motorcycles, and even cars! In addition to being an air pump, this practical gadget can also be used as a flashlight or power bank for on-the-go use — all things that come in very handy on a bike ride. And at just $57, it’s highly recommended if you need quick help with a flat tire. USB-C mini fan These little fans are also pretty ingenious; you can easily carry them in your pocket in the summer and quickly use them whenever you need them. Anyone who’s ever sat on a crowded subway train in 30-degree heat and wished for at least a little fresh air will love this gadget. The mini fan, which costs just $20, has a USB-C port and can be easily powered by power banks, computers, laptops, or USB chargers. There are even smaller and cheaper fans available that can be connected directly to your phone, costing under $10 each. But these also provide less powerful airflow, so we recommend the standalone version. Reading light with a book clamp Anyone who enjoys reading a lot, sometimes late into the night, will appreciate this little gadget: a reading lamp that you can simply clip onto your book. It may not be groundbreaking, but with a total of three color temperatures and five different light modes, you can individually adjust how much light you need for reading. The Gritin reading lamp costs just $15 on Amazon and features a 1200 mAh battery that lasts up to 80 hours depending on usage. Afterward, you can easily recharge it via USB. You can swivel the neck of the lamp back and forth as desired, and there’s even a small charging indicator. What more could you want? External DVD Drive Amicool If your laptop is like mine and lacks a DVD drive, then this little gadget will come in handy for you. This Amicool external DVD drive uses a USB-C (or USB-A) to connect to your laptop and give yout he optical drive you sometimes need. It can read and burn DVDs and CDs with ease, allowing you to install software, copy files, back up data, play games, and so on. You won’t even need to install drives as this thing is plug and play. While this thing’s usually $29, you can often get it for around $20, which is an absolute bargain. Samsung flash drive Samsung The vast majority of flash drives have a USB-A connector, but this one from Samsung has a Type-C connector. With transfer speeds of up to 400MB/s, you’ll move files around in no time. The beauty of this thumb drive is that you can even pop it in your smartphone to record 4K vids directly on it. The Samsung Type-C flash drive comes in multiple storage options, starting at 64GB and up to 512GB and they start at $14. The 256GB version, for instance, is $27 at the time of writing. Type-C microSD card reader Ugreen Most laptops nowadays don’t come with a card reader anymore (I know mine doesn’t), so finding other ways to get data off those little buggers is a must. Whether you need to pull data off your dashcam’s card or if it’s from your camera, this tiny Ugreen USB-C microSD reader will work just fine. This reader is tiny enough that you should probably put it on a keychain of some kind. If you’d rather a slightly more versatile version, Ugreen has a model that also works with SD cards and features both USB-C and USB-A connectors. Any of these will cost you less than $10, so they’re worthwhile investments. USB-C to HDMI adapter Anker If your laptop has a USB-C port but you haven’t updated your monitor in ages, your display won’t feature a Type-C port. This Anker adapter fixes this problem for you, enabling you to connect the regular HDMI cable you plug in your monitor with this gadget. The adapter supports resolutions of up to 4K at 60Hz, which is pretty awesome. This is also a nifty way to connect your phone or tablet to your monitor or TV. This thing’s $20, but we’ve seen it as low as $12. Editor’s note: This article was originally published on May 16, but was updated to include additional devices. Read...

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Social media has recently been lit up with claims that a recent Windows update is killing SSDs. According to Microsoft, Windows isn’t at fault. In fact, recent reports show that this problem only occurs on drives with pre-release firmware updates from storage manufacturer Phison. (Pre-release firmware updates are internal builds that never should’ve seen the light of day in actual consumer hardware.) The good news is, the latest Windows update won’t kill your SSD. Even if you’re affected, you can restore your drive with a firmware update. The bad news is, your SSD can still fail for a number of other reasons. Putting Windows Update aside, let’s talk about some of the other real threats to your SSD and what you can do to protect it. Check for SSD firmware updates SSD manufacturers provide utilities that check for firmware updates and monitor your drive’s health. They’re worth installing—and it’s especially true since this recent issue is related to pre-release firmware updates. It’s a good idea to check if your drive has the latest stable firmware installed. Firmware updates may fix bugs and prevent other problems with your SSD. Avoid any beta firmware update files you may see for download on your SSD manufacturer’s website. First, you’ll need to figure out what SSD you have in your PC. One easy way to check is to open File Explorer, right-click your “C:” drive, click “Properties,” and then look under the “Hardware” tab. Or you could just download and launch CrystalDiskInfo. (It’s one of our favorite Windows apps for checking the health of your PC.) Pick the right utility based on your SSD manufacturer: Samsung Magician, SanDisk Dashboard, and Crucial Storage Executive are some big ones. (Despite the name, SanDisk’s utility also handles firmware updates for Western Digital drives.) Perform a web search for the name of your laptop manufacturer and “SSD utility” to find the right utility app. If you have a laptop, your laptop manufacturer’s software may handle firmware updates for the built-in drive, too. This isn’t guaranteed, though. You may need to run a utility created by the company that manufactured the laptop’s built-in SSD instead. Chris Hoffman / Foundry Since I have a Samsung SSD in my desktop PC, I downloaded Samsung Magician. Look for an “Update” option in the app and check if there are any available firmware updates for your drive. If so, make sure you get them installed sooner than later. Ensure your SSD is properly cooled SSDs can generate a lot of heat—especially PCIe 4.0 SSDs and PCIe 5.0 SSDs! Some SSDs come with heatsinks and some don’t, and you can also install an aftermarket heatsink on a standard M.2 SSD. But whether you need a cooler for your SSD really depends on the particular drive you have and the general thermal profile of your case. CrystalDiskInfo is a great way to check your SSD’s temperature, health, and other statistics. If you’re curious about how well it’s cooling, you might also want to run a benchmark using CrystalDiskMark (a synthetic benchmark we use to test SSDs here at PCWorld), which can stress test your drive and monitor it during real-world operations like file transfers. But make sure you check its temperature while writing a lot of data to the drive, not just while reading data from it. Chris Hoffman / Foundry As a rule of thumb, it’s best to keep your SSD below 70 degrees Celsius. If you see the SSD getting hotter than that, that’s a sign it may be throttling itself and not performing at max potential in an effort to stay cool. The exact temperature you need to watch out for depends on your drive—look up its specs in the manual to find its rated operating temperatures. If it’s too hot, look into improving the airflow in your PC’s case and/or installing a heatsink on your SSD. Don’t completely fill the drive Solid-state drives wear down faster when they’re near maximum capacity. That means if your SSD has been at 95% capacity for a long time without much breathing space, it has likely worn down more than necessary. This is less of an issue these days thanks to overprovisioning—many SSDs have a good chunk of “extra” storage—but it’s still a good idea to keep a decent amount of free space on your SSD. Nor Gal / Shutterstock.com For utmost longevity, you should aim to keep your SSD below 80% capacity whenever you can. One added bonus here is that SSD write operations are also faster when the drive is less full, so keeping a lot of free space can help boost your drive’s overall performance. Don’t cheap out on your SSD Not all SSDs are made equal. They differ in capacities and write speeds, and some SSDs are rated for more intensive write cycles, which means some drives wear out faster than others. For consumer-grade SSDs, the biggest difference is TLC (Triple-Level Cell) vs. QLC (Quad-Level Cell) flash memory. Drives with TLC storage have a higher TBW (terabytes written) rating, meaning they can perform more writes before the flash memory cells wear out. The trade-off is that QLC drives tend to be cheaper, for obvious reasons. Mark Hachman / IDG A QLC drive is fine for light PC use, but a TLC drive will hold up better if you’re doing a lot of writing to the drive. For example, a 1TB QLC drive may have a 220 TBW rating while a 1TB TLC drive might have a 600 TBW rating. The exact numbers will depend on the individual drives. If you’re a high-demand PC user—whether you’re downloading huge PC games, editing big media files, or performing any other kind of work that involves regularly writing a lot of data to the drive—you’ll get more mileage out of a TLC drive. The next time you buy a drive, check out our recommendations for the best SSDs for all budgets. Just in case: Back up your files Everything breaks eventually. While a modern SSD doesn’t have the fragile moving parts that made traditional mechanical hard drives vulnerable to failure, it can still break down. You may turn on your PC one day only to find your SSD has failed due to a hardware problem or electrical issue, even if its firmware is problem-free. Aiseesoft The only way to truly protect your data is to maintain backups. Back up locally, back up to the cloud, or both. But whatever you do, make regular backups so you aren’t caught off guard when your SSD fails. One final ‘smart’ warning Windows Update isn’t the main threat to your SSD. Firmware bugs, excessive heat, and write-related wear and tear are all problems you can avoid. Electrical issues and hardware failures are also possibilities. Keep on top of those and your SSD should last a while. Note that some SSDs show a “health status” via something called a SMART early warning system, and you can view this using tools like your SSD manufacturer’s utility app or CrystalDiskInfo. But SMART isn’t foolproof. There’s no guarantee you’ll get an early warning when your SSD is on the brink of failure. An SSD could be showing “in good health” and still end up bricked and unbootable the next day. Here’s the takeaway: a software bug probably won’t take out your SSD, and most SSD risks are things you can see coming and adequately protect yourself against. Ensure you’re using current stable firmware, keeping your drive cool, not filling it to the brim with data, and regularly backing up your files just in case. If you do all that, there’s a good chance your SSD will outlast most of your PC’s other components. Subscribe to Chris Hoffman’s newsletter, The Windows Readme, for more real-world PC advice from a real human. Read...

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