When we last left off, I had just set up a new SLA resin printer and was on the verge of doing the initial round of printing to see just how resin printing in 2026 compares to way back in 2020. Surely SLA printing had to be easier and less fussy than it was in 2020?

During these weeks of printing, setting up printers and taking a gander at the various workflows that certain printers and their manufacturers try to push you into I have both produced a series of not too shabby prints and some delightful spaghetti. I also flipped a few proverbial tables and formed some strong opinions on 3D printing workflows, of which some can considered to be family-friendly.

Without further ado, let’s get into some updates, a bit of ranting, and even some printing results.

Going With The Flow

Although workflows are a fairly personal thing in terms of preferences, we’re all creatures of habit with a strong tendency towards laziness. We also tend to prefer workflows that are easier for that reason. This is where after the very manual approach of the Ender v2 I really liked much about the Neptune 4, ranging from its much faster and open source Klipper firmware to a semi-automatic bed-levelling procedure, and of course the Fluidd web interface.

With this I can just pop open an interface in a browser tab and manage the printer, watch the webcam view, etc. from there. Somehow there’s now a third option that seems to be taking over, however. Although a web interface seems straightforward and easy for the average user, there’s been this move towards requiring the use of the slicer via a special API or such that leads to fun access situations as we have recently seen with Bambu Lab printers.

Out of a sense of morbid curiosity I decided to look at what I’d be dealing with if I were to upgrade to the latest & greatest Elegoo (CoreXY) printer if I ever grew tired of my Neptune 4, and noticed that they seem to have gone more in the direction of Bambu Lab. The firmware is Klipper-like but closed, with the most recent FDM printers like the Centauri Carbon series also requiring access via a slicer and/or a special mobile app with a lot of Cloud things mixed in.

To me this seems hugely cumbersome, since one of the things I like with the Neptune 4 is that I can access it from anywhere on a system with a slightly modern browser and print models that are stored on the internal memory. This is where the the GK3 Ultra scores pretty well in my book, too.

Certainly, this resin printer doesn’t do fancy web UIs or APIs, or much in terms of remote-anything. You do get Ethernet, a Wi-Fi USB dongle and the rather nifty ability to set up an SMB file share that you can dump sliced models onto before waddling over to the SLA printer. It’s low-tech yet also universally supported and open, while more convenient than plain Sneakernet, though that’s also an option using the front-mounted USB-A port.

Can I just briefly say how much I love having a USB-A port for Sneakernet purposes, rather than a tiny USB-C port or microSD slot? The Ender 3v2 offered either microUSB or microSD for inputs, none of which really made me like that printer more.

Finally Some Printing

For this first printing round, I printed the same parts on the Neptune 4 in white PLA and black PLA. For the GK3 Ultra I just used the ABS-like (AL) clear-blue resin, to not have to switch resins just yet. The prints include a range of items like bottles, some figurines and a bunch of LEGO Technic-compatible parts. The latter two serve to give dimensional accuracy a good workout, along with basic durability testing.

Starting with FDM printing, this was largely uneventful, though I upped the difficulty challenge with the N4 by using a spool of extra-brittle white PLA. Somehow even that came out fine, aside from an unfortunate spaghetti incident that required some PVA glue to be slathered onto the PEI build plate.

On the resin side of things, it was pretty much as I remembered it from my LD-002R days, just with an absolutely massive build plate, the auto-feeding of resin and of course the use of this rather nice transparent blue ABS-like (AL) resin.

On the slicer side of things I kept things as boring as possible, with OrcaSlicer for FDM, and ChituBox’s free version for SLA. I did look at Lychee as well, but they require registration for even the ‘free’ version, so that one was out for now. I’ll also say that ChituBox got a bit heavier resource-wise than since I used it six years ago, and somehow its UI still feels rather unintuitive, though that’s a bit of a central issue with slicers.

To be fair to Uniformation, they also provide their own slicer on the USB stick and as a download, but since the latter involves a random Google Drive, it triggered my system security-related anxiety. It’s probably a perfectly cromulent slicer, but using ChituBox was the less exciting option for me here as a first try.

Comparing Parts

Since both Elegoo FDM printers come with an example model in the form of this happy Buddha figurine, I figured that I’d also print it with the GK3 Ultra. Here you can see how these compare in a sloppy smartphone photo for which I apologize:

The model was clearly intended to be printed on FDM printers, so the SLA version doesn’t really add a lot, other than a lot of weight. Unlike FDM prints where you have aspects like ‘infill’, an SLA printer can print everything 100% solid with zero time penalty. In fact you want to do this so that you don’t need to drill a hole in it for liquid resin to leak out.

Of course, you can totally hollow out models to save resin and weight, but in that case you do need to add those drain holes lest you end up with liquid resin sloshing inside forever.

Moving on, I also printed a miniature knight figurine on the N4 and GK3 Ultra, which was a bold decision for the former:

Removing supports on this approximately 32 mm tall model was a bit of a nightmare with the SLA version, and I still need to clean it up better, while also rethinking ChitBox’s insistence on angling it upside-down for some reason.

I didn’t even bother with removing supports on the FDM version, although I was somewhat surprised at how much detail it still had when pushing layer height to its ‘super fine’ 0.12 mm setting, though the SLA printer with the ‘sloppy’ 0.1 mm layer height preset is simply in another universe when it comes to preserving fine details.

Clearly layer heights between SLA and FDM are at best the fuzziest of all overlaps, with even the knight’s cape in the SLA version capturing the flow of the fabric and details in the helmet that the FDM version had obliterated.

Finally there are the LEGO Technic-compatible shenanigans:

There is obviously a lot of variability and improvement possible simply by the orientation you print things in, the type and placement of supports. SLA has the massive advantage here that support points on models can be made absolutely tiny and correspondingly leave almost no mark. This made e.g. printing LEGO-compatible parts a snap on SLA, but a nightmare on FDM where I struggled to find an orientation and support/brim configuration that didn’t lead to misprints and/or interfered with the part’s functionality.

The thing where ChituBox really did me dirty, however, was that it went crazy on supports, even adding lots of supports inside these latter parts that still have to be painstakingly poked out if I want to actually properly use them. This is however a slicer issue and potentially a skill issue on the side of yours truly.

Flipping Of Tables

Even after just this first round of printing there’s quite a bit to unpack. On the FDM side of things the workflow is definitely the easiest, especially in terms of post-processing. I did have some bed-adhesion issues, however, which is where SLA tends to be significantly less fussy with just the long-exposure first layer. For the FDM side of things I had a few misprints as a result, which was annoying.

On the SLA side of things there wasn’t too much to upset me, other than some table-flipping at the automatic resin feeding system which I mentioned in the first article. After starting the print, the system seemed to work and began filling the vat with resin, albeit very slowly. At some point I got a ‘material in/out time-out’ error, following which I retried printing, with the resin system again trying to fill the vat for a long period of time.

Ultimately I decided that since I only needed just over 60 mL for the print, and it had already poured in about half the resin bottle, I’d just cancel it. It’s likely that I missed a step here, such as I’m not sure whether you need to pop open the bottle for this to work, but the manual did not mention such details.

Popping over into settings I disabled this auto-feed system and tried to printing again, which worked without issues, other than the backstabbing by ChituBox and a persistent resin smell. This latter issue I tracked down to the slot for the resin bottle, which may or may not be related to the auto-feed issues. After sealing up the gaps the resin smell faded quickly, making it seem at least plausible that the active-carbon system of the machine does something.

After printing I did the usual post-processing, just with a scraper to knock the supports loose instead of something more gentle with a flex plate. The parts were tossed into IPA for a quick clean, including a trip through the ultrasonic cleaner. This was followed by another quick IPA rinse and finally some tanning with a UV lamp in a water bath. This latter step is to keep oxygen away from the curing process and thus speed up the curing, which is one of those details that have worked well for me in the past.

First Conclusions

Despite some flipping of tables, it’s been a fairly positive experience that at least has allowed me to set a bit of a baseline. My overarching feeling at this point in time is that FDM is rather okay for large parts with little detail, such as a CD rack that I already printed in PLA. Not having to deal with smelly resin and involved post-processing is also generally nice.

That said, the sheer quality and level of detail you get with SLA is just a whole other ballgame than FDM. Although it’s been a few years since I previously printed with resin, I still have quite a few prints from that time, including an absolutely miniscule fox figurine that I scaled down on the LD-002R for fun and which still is very much recognizable. The SBC cases and such printed in resin from back then have this level of smoothness and solid feeling to them that you just don’t get with FDM.

An elephant in the room remains that of ABS and ABS-like printing. Such engineering-grade materials are essential for anything in production, and I definitely have to give this Uniformation ABS-like material a good workout. That said, I’m still very hesitant about printing ABS and ASA filaments with FDM, due to the health hazards this poses, mostly caused by the release of styrene.

Although I already wear a respirator with A1 filters backed up by P2 prefilters against VOCs and kin while processing SLA prints, styrene pushes the hazard levels a few notches higher, since unlike most organic vapors it’s not just an irritant, but a known mutagenic toxin. Here an active carbon filter in a closed-chamber FDM printer would seem to be at best optimistic.

To me this aspect alone makes the idea very appealing to use SLA to print high detail models and production parts, while using FDM for sloppy prototyping in PLA, PETG and of course TPU, but this is something that I’ll have to poke some more at. Any input here would be most welcome so that I can do even better with the next article.

In brief: The Steam Machine’s software is fully customizable, allowing users to install non-Steam apps and even different operating systems. However, the living-room PC’s locked-down hardware is far from high-end, an issue some users have addressed with ambitious modifications.

Two recent modding projects aim to substantially boost the Steam Machine’s performance. One modder discovered a roundabout method of adding external graphics, while another built a water block from scratch to achieve dramatically lower temperatures.

Valve’s Linux PC offers a comfortable living-room experience with a controller-friendly interface and a tiny form factor, but its 8GB RDNA 3-based graphics card struggles with high-end games, especially on 4K TVs. Most other desktop PCs would allow users to resolve the issue via upgrades, but the Steam Machine’s unique chassis makes this significantly more complicated.

For example, many likely wish that Valve had included external graphics support out of the box. Handheld PCs from other manufacturers can be docked into high-end desktop graphics cards via USB4, OCuLink, or Thunderbolt 5 ports, none of which the Steam Machine includes.

However, Redditor “Large_Customer_3840” successfully connected an AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT to the device by running its M.2 drive through an OCuLink adapter. Since the Steam Machine’s sole M.2 drive manages the system’s boot storage, he had to reroute the NVMe SSD through a USB-C adapter.

While the process introduces some quirks, Large_Customer claims that the PC booted up immediately. The new GPU ran Crimson Desert at between 40 and 100fps on high settings at 1440p, though there were audio glitches, likely related to SSD bandwidth. The modder recommends that anyone else interested in repeating the process seek an NVMe enclosure with active cooling and at least 40Gbps of bandwidth.

Meanwhile, a recent video (above) from German YouTuber Techmagnet outlines how to completely disassemble the Steam Machine and insert a custom-built water block. A subsequent video on Reddit shows the construction of the water block using 3D-printed components.

While the process leaves large tubes protruding from the Steam Machine, Techmagnet claims it lowers temperatures by 20 to 30 degrees Celsius. However, using the extra headroom for overclocking would require a custom BIOS. With additional work, water cooling the SSD might also be possible.

Ultimately, the Steam Machine’s biggest weakness is its price, which starts at $1,049 due to soaring memory costs. While the RAM crisis has affected virtually every hardware manufacturer, Valve was particularly vulnerable due to its relatively small presence in the hardware market. Still, the company is selling as many Steam Machines as it can build, and new orders are currently waitlisted.

For many security teams, the expected route into the corporate network begins with a phishing email or exploited vulnerability. Certain techniques differ, exploiting the hiring process to gain legitimate access.

In July, the US Department of State released an alert warning of North Korean IT workers impersonating nationals of other countries for the purpose of obtaining work. Once employed, those workers then send their salaries back to parent agencies in North Korea.

The FBI has also warned that fraudulent workers may use their access to copy source-code repositories, exfiltrate proprietary information and support other cybercriminal activity. After being discovered or dismissed, some have attempted to extort their employers by threatening to publish stolen code and data.

These operations expose a gap between checking an identity and proving who is using an account. For instance, a résumé may appear credible, and a laptop may arrive at a domestic address. But, neither of those controls, on its own, proves that the person interviewed is the person who receives the device, or the person who ultimately signs in.

The challenge for service desk agents is how they can confirm the person requesting access is both real and a legitimate new hire.

How Fake Remote Workers Defeat Recruiting Controls

Changing their nationality or identity: This is a key tactic of North Korean IT workers, who will falsify information when registering for online platforms. This might include forging identification documents, impersonating another person, or using a proxy to register an account.

Create fake profiles using AI: To add legitimacy to their identities, fake workers may also create professional profiles and social media accounts. They use AI to support these efforts, matching tone and language to real IT professionals.

Unorthodox payment methods: Fake workers may attempt to avoid being paid by direct deposit, instead favoring money transfers or cryptocurrency. North Korean workers have been observed using a third party for salary deposits, paying the third party for use of the account.

Disguising their location: Tools such as VPNs and remote desktop software may be used to hide the fact that a person is working from abroad.

Using overseas facilitators: Some fake workers will use proxies for device delivery and use. Employer-issued computers are delivered to an address in the country where the worker claims to live. The facilitator keeps the devices powered on and connected, allowing workers overseas to control them remotely.

Why Employment Checks do not Prove Who is Using the Laptop

Background checks, right-to-work checks and identity screening are built to confirm that the details supplied by a candidate are credible. However, fake remote-worker operations exploit the gaps between several different forms of verification.

An organization may confirm that an identity exists, that the named person is eligible to work and that a laptop was delivered to an approved address. It can still issue credentials to an account that is ultimately controlled by someone else.

The tactics employed in operations like the North Korean IT workers are designed to satisfy specific controls:

• The stolen or proxy-supplied document satisfies the identity request.
• The fabricated résumé satisfies the recruiter’s initial review.
• The proxy or skilled worker satisfies the interview panel.
• The facilitator’s address satisfies the equipment-delivery process.
• The laptop farm satisfies location and device expectations.
• The third-party account satisfies the payroll process.

Warning Signs of a Fake Remote Worker

No single indicator proves that an applicant is part of a fake worker operation. However, there are several warning signs to watch out for, as outlined by the US Department of State:

• Frequent changes to registered information.
• A mismatch between the account holder’s name and the name on the registered payment account.
• Multiple accounts created using the same ID.
• Multiple accounts accessed from the same IP address, or a single account accessed from multiple IP addresses in a short period.
• Unusually high hours logged in.

Securing the Onboarding Process Against Fake Hires

Organizations need robust vetting processes for freelance and remote hire to mitigate the risk of fake workers. Solutions like Specops Secure Onboarding allow organizations to confirm identity at a crucial point, by adding government-issued identity-document scanning and biometric liveness detection to the onboarding process.

The document check helps confirm that the identity document is genuine, while the biometric check compares the person completing onboarding with the photograph on that document.

Liveness detection then establishes that a real person is physically present, rather than a photograph, recording or manipulated video being presented to the camera.

A valid identity document may still have been stolen or supplied by a third party. Similarly, a face that appears to match an uploaded image may be presented through a replay or deepfake. Document validation and biometric liveness work together to provide stronger evidence than either control can offer alone.

With support for more than 16,000 document types, Specops Secure Onboarding can apply this process across a wide range of remote and international hiring scenarios.

Turn Identity Proofing into an Access Control

The central lesson from fake remote worker operations is that identity should not be treated as a one-off hiring record.

Organizations need to confirm that the approved identity belongs to the live person receiving access, and they need a reliable way to repeat that check when access is recovered or changed.

By combining government-issued document validation with biometric liveness on day one, then requiring identity confirmation before service-desk agents act, Specops Secure Onboarding provides trusted identity-proofing checkpoints at the moments most likely to be targeted.

Contact us today to see how Specops solutions can secure your service desk against increasingly sophisticated identity attacks.

Sponsored and written by Specops Software.

A proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit for a critical Microsoft SharePoint vulnerability, published by cybersecurity company Rapid7 on Tuesday, is already being used in attacks.

Tracked as CVE-2026-55040, this authentication bypass security flaw in the JWT token validation pipeline can be exploited by attackers without privileges to perform operations as a SharePoint site user or administrator.

Microsoft patched the vulnerability as part of the July 2026 Patch Tuesday updates, when it warned customers to patch systems running SharePoint Enterprise Server 2016 and SharePoint Server 2019.

“The authentication feature could be bypassed as this vulnerability allows impersonation,” it said. “Exploiting this vulnerability could allow an attacker to disclose files and modify data, but the attacker cannot impact the availability of the system.”

A detailed technical write-up on CVE-2026-55040 was published by Rapid7 security researcher Stephen Fewer on Tuesday, together with a PoC exploit.

Earlier today, threat intelligence company Defused reported that Rapid7’s exploit code has already been weaponized in attacks targeting its honeypots.

“Attackers are now using the @rapid7 POC for CVE-2026-55040 against our SharePoint honeypots,” Defused warned. “The vulnerability is a Microsoft SharePoint JWT auth bypass for which Rapid7 published a technical writeup and proof-of-concept code yesterday.”

Internet threat watchdog Shadowserver currently tracks over 8,500 Microsoft SharePoint servers exposed online. However, there is no information on how many of them are honeypots or have already been patched against this security flaw.

While Microsoft has labeled this security flaw as an attractive target for attackers, it has yet flag it as successfully exploited in the wild.

Likely based on Microsoft’s exploitability assessment, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) warned network defenders on July 15 to secure their SharePoint servers against potential CVE-2026-55040 attacks.

CISA urged security teams to avoid directly exposing SharePoint servers on the Internet unless necessary and to review Microsoft’s official SharePoint Server security-hardening guidance.

It also recommended blocking external access to SharePoint Central Administration and restricting farm and database communication to the required systems. Where Internet exposure is required, CISA recommends placing servers behind a Layer 7 reverse proxy or similar application-layer security control.

Since November 2021, the cybersecurity agency has flagged 14 actively exploited Microsoft SharePoint vulnerabilities, with eight of them also exploited in ransomware attacks.

On Tuesday, CISA also confirmed that a high-severity Microsoft SharePoint remote code execution vulnerability (CVE-2026-45659), flagged as actively exploited since early July, is now also being exploited by ransomware gangs.

Overall prevention scores can hide what happens after initial access. Once attackers are using valid credentials, prevention drops sharply.

The Blue Report 2026 measures defenses technique by technique across 338 million simulations run in customer production environments.

Get the report

Photo printers can be an essential addition to any workflow, with a lot more versatility than the average printer. However, there’s a lot to know about these photo-first devices, but when you shop with our tried and tested buying advice, you can’t go wrong. Here are the best photo printers to buy right now.

Although we’re big fans of all that photo printers can do, it should be said from the outset that if you’re only interested in printing out occasional documents to be signed or posted, then you’re better off with one of the best printers available. Standard printers tend to be cheaper at the point of purchase, and even cost less in the long run as you won’t need to use quite as much ink.

Where photo printers really come into their own is for anyone who works in a creative industry and would prefer the convenience of being able to print things out at any time of day, rather than having to be reliant on a nearby printing service. Because of their ability to recreate colours more accurately than standard printers, photo printers are perfect for professional photographers and graphic designers.

Photo printers also have the capacity to print things out in sizes beyond the standard A4 template. This is ideal if you have an A3 poster that you need to print out in time for a show, or you want to have a compact A5 photo that can then be framed afterwards. There’s no shortage of reasons as to why photo printers are a worthy investment, but we take the time to test each one that appears at our offices so that you get paired up with the right one.

In order to make the buying process as simple as possible, all the photo printers on this list have been highlighted for their best feature, whether it be pure value for money or smartphone connectivity, so you can start whittling down your options quickly. For those who might be tempted by a camera upgrade alongside their new photo printer, our guides to the best cameras and the best camera phones have you covered.

Best Photo Printer at a glance

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