Table of contents for June 2020 in APC

Intel has unveiled its 10th-generation Core CPUs for desktop, codenamed Comet Lake-S. The new range is an evolutionary upgrade of the 9th-generation range, with the headline improvements being higher clock speeds, improved overclocking control, a rebalancing of the range to offer better value, and a higher thread count at each respective price point. The flagship Core i9-10900K (KF models come without graphics) features 10 cores and 20 threads, up from the eight and 16 of the 9900K. Clock speeds have also been increased, with up to 5.2GHz now possible, or 5.3 for a short duration if the system cooling allows it. At US$488, it is priced to compete against AMD’s 12-core Ryzen 9 3900X. Budget-minded users will be pleased to note that the entire Core range, including the i3 and…

“A number of third party engineers had reengineered the code for the app ahead of this and confirmed that the app doesn’t collect location data and deletes encrypted logs after 21 days, which ensures that this data cannot be stolen and used inappropriately by hackers” Australia launched its COVIDSafe contact tracing smartphone application on Sunday April 26th and within the first five hours of it being available more than a million people had downloaded it. That so many people downloaded this software is a feat on its own, but this application is one of the first of its kind (at least we hope) to keep track of the population’s movement using an encrypted identification number in a way that links directly to your medical records. A few years ago the…

A lot of workers will be working from home in the coming weeks. As a result, they will rely on communication and collaboration tools as stand-ins for being at their desks or in meeting rooms. There are offerings from the likes of Google, Microsoft, and Zoho, but there are lots of great open-source offerings, too. A prime contender is Keybase (https://keybase.io) and its collaboration tools. While Keybase’s first goal is to facilitate easy encryption tools, it offers Slack-like teams and private chat. Keybase also offers private, encrypted online file storage (like Dropbox) that can be shared with individuals or teams. Keybase recently added a Google Meet bot, which when invoked with “!meet” creates a link to a Google video conference. Slack and Atlassian’s HipChat are big players, but to get…

From $2,199, asus.com AMD has been dominating the desktop CPU scene for the past couple of years now, and while we have seen a couple of interesting AMD-powered mobile devices like Microsoft’s Surface Laptop 3 and Asus’ TUF Gaming range, and their performance and price was competitive, there seemed to be a number of important features that they missed out on. So while the ROG Zephyrus G14 is the first device we’ve tested with the new Ryzen 9 mobile processor, we were a little reserved on our initial expectations… which is probably why we ended up so impressed with it overall. The ROG Zephyrus G14 is a 14-inch laptop designed to be as powerful and affordable as possible, with entry level options starting at $2,199. For this you’ll get an…

$749, www.tp-link.com/au Over the past few years, TP-Link has greatly impressed us with its well-designed, well-built products, that are simple to set up and use, come with reasonable price tags and often showcase the latest Wi-Fi technology before the competition. Here’s its latest three-node mesh kit, which uses Wi-Fi 6 meaning there really shouldn’t be any coverage / performance black spots left in any reasonably large premises. So, should you buy it? The kit can either be used as a standalone router or access point that boosts coverage from your existing router. As with most mesh systems, set-up is simple and revolves around downloading TP-Link’s Deco app, which locates and automatically configures your primary node. We found that simply turning on the other nodes was enough for them to be…

LINUX, www.untangle.com Untangle is one of several firewall appliances, but it stands out for its intuitive interface and an impressive portfolio of add-ons. Like all of its peers Untangle is designed to take over the entire disk, which makes it pretty easy to set up. On the downside, though, you can install the latest version on 64-bit machines. This is especially frustrating since the distro has modest requirements and repurposing an old 32-bit machine as a gateway server is one of the best uses for pushing underpowered hardware back into active duty. We tested Untangle on a machine with two network cards; one connected to the internet and the other connected to the local network. Untangle calls this the Router mode, in which it acts as the router and the…

If you’ve built your own PC, you may need to install drivers yourself from various sources – start with your motherboard’s manufacturer. Look out too for related utilities – for example, MSI Live Update for MSI motherboards – that can simplify the sourcing of drivers (and subsequent updates) for you. Repeat for other core components – including your graphics card – before moving on to your peripherals like your printer or game controller. Struggling to find them all? Consider installing Driver Booster 6 (www.iobit.com/en/ driver-booster.php) to seek out drivers across your entire system, including updates not normally detected by Windows Update.…

When transferring programs and settings using CloneApp you may have already transferred some of your data too – specifically files stored in supported cloud-based folders like OneDrive and Dropbox. Transferring them this way before setting up your cloud sync accounts is actually a good idea – it’s quicker (and uses less internet bandwidth) for your new PC’s installation to compare all the files you’ve copied across with the copies in the cloud rather than download a fresh copy of them all to your PC, which could literally take days if you’ve hundreds of gigabytes to transfer. Even if your cloud provider isn’t supported, don’t rush to install and sync just yet. You can transfer those – and other files – using several alternative methods, but first stop for a moment…

“Before we can really assess what deep learning might do for our gaming rigs in five or ten years’ time, it’s important to pin down what exactly’s happening in those Tensor cores” As sales pitches go, Nvidia’s deep learning supersampling (DLSS) is as revelatory, and preposterously sci-fi, as it gets. Specific cores dedicated to machine learning, harnessing bleeding-edge algorithms, take resource-friendly 1440p resolution images and blow them up to super-sharp 4K proportions – and all without the performance hit of actually running at that higher resolution in the first place. Along with that quietly revolutionary real-time ray tracing capability, DLSS was the big selling point of Turing cards. But while the advantages are real, and available to you in a generous swathe of games, its uneven execution from title to…

Whichever web browser you choose, consider the following three add-ons essential. First, Bitwarden (www.bitwarden.com) is our go-to password manager, ensuring all your online accounts are protected by strong, unguessable passwords – the browser add-on makes it easy to autofill logins and forms. Next, filter out potentially dangerous ads, trackers and malware sites with the help of uBlock Origin (https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock) – don’t forget to whitelist trusted websites. HTTPS Everywhere (www.eff.org/ https-everywhere) ensures you always get a secure connection to any website that supports it and doesn’t automatically redirect you. Firefox users should check out two further add-ons courtesy of Mozilla: first, Facebook Container (https://addons.mozilla.org) blocks all Facebook trackers on third-party websites to prevent it from spying on your online activity. And secondly, Facebook Multi-Account Containers lets you create isolated ‘identities’ within Firefox.…

Video comes in all shapes and sizes these days, and VLC Media Player (www.videolan.org/vlc) is the player that can handle it all, whether you’re watching digital video files, streaming over the internet or wanting to enjoy a good old-fashioned DVD through your PC. The program has been designed to handle just about any format you can throw at it – which makes it the only video player you need. You can open a wide variety of files directly from the Media menu – choose Disc and you’ll see options for both DVD and Blu-ray. Note, however, that encrypted Blu-rays aren’t supported (we recommend LEAWO Blu-ray Player for watching Blu-rays on your PC – see www.leawo.org/ blu-ray-player/). No such problem with DVDs though – you can browse menus and point and…

These days, even the built-in protection offered by Windows is pretty robust, but you can never be too safe. Whether you rely on Windows Security or go for more fully featured protection from the likes of Bitdefender, Avast! or Norton, you need Malwarebytes Anti-Malware (www. malwarebytes.com). The free version of the program allows you to periodically scan your PC for nasty intruders missed by your main package – MBAM excels in detecting potentially unwanted programs that fall into the grey area between safe, but annoying and outright dangerous. It’s simple to install and run – just get in the habit of launching it weekly to scan for potential threats. The Premium version ($39.99 a year) offers realtime protection to block threats before they get on to your PC – you…

Sometimes, despite your best efforts, data loss occurs. It may be as simple as accidentally deleting a file or as major as a partition or entire drive disappearing. Once upon a time, recovery involved expensive fees (and if your drive is physically damaged, you may still need to employ the services of specialists like Ontrack – www. ontrack.com/au/ – to see if anything’s recoverable). Nowadays, though, armed with the right tools you can often get that data back at no cost. One of the most powerful free tools is DMDE, capable of all kinds of recovery – even from drives rescued from broken enclosures that have been formatted in such a way as to make them impossible to access when removed from their original housing. Download the GUI for Windows…

A text editor does far more than provide the means to edit plain text files. It’s often used to edit code, from HTML web pages to configuration files used by programs to store preferences. Notepad falls short on several fronts, but those shortcomings are all fixed by EditPad Lite (www. editpadlite.com). First, it allows you to open multiple text documents at once in a single, multi-tabbed window. There’s a more powerful search-and-replace tool with support for regular expressions, and – a game-changer – recently added support for syntax highlighting when writing code. All you need to do is select the correct programming language, from HTML to Python or C++, via the Options > File Type menu, and you’ll see your code coloured according to its formatting to help ensure you…

Looking through the first ever issue of APC (Australian Personal Computer as it was called back then) it’s quite amazing to see just how far computer technology has come since the magazine first started. Apple IIe, Commodores, TRS80, Compucolor II and more, all dinosaurs now with their monochrome CRT monitors and floppy drives. The Compucolor II that was reviewed and tested back in that first 1980 issue touted a minifloppy disc capacity of just 51.2KB, with access times of 400ms and a transfer rate of 76.8bps. Laughable by today’s standards and apparently even slow for its time according to the article, but it does help illustrate just how far computers have come since. My PC journey began properly when I was given a Hewlett Packard PC sporting an Intel 486-DX2…

WINDOWS Fix Windows Update My laptop has stopped installing updates since the 1903 update a couple of months ago. It gets to seven percent, then rolls back. Can you help? RAYMOND WHITEHALL We stepped Raymond through all the standard procedures, including downloading the update manually and running the built-in troubleshooter under ‘Settings > Update & Security > Troubleshoot’. We also helped him take his first ever system backup using Macrium Reflect Free (www.macrium. com/reflectfree.aspx) in case anything disastrous happened with our more root-and-branch repairs. Once done, the next step was to elicit the help of the free version of Windows Repair. Download and install it from www.tweaking. com – once done, you’ll need to reboot into Safe mode. To do this, press Win-R, type “msconfig” and press Enter. Switch to…

IT WILL TAKE 45 minutes YOU WILL LEARN How to take control of your email inbox using Spark YOU’LL NEED Spark for macOS There’s no shortage of email apps to choose from on the Mac, and with Apple’s own mail app getting a decent upgrade in Catalina, you might wonder why you’d bother with anything else. Well, in Spark’s case, the answer is productivity. Whether it’s customising smart inboxes to surface important messages, collaborating on a draft message with a team, delegating messages, or using actions to move them, Spark has a ton of features to help. Spark is also available on iOS and iPadOS, so you can sync messages with your iPhone and iPad. Spark also allows you to create template messages so that if you have emails you…

System administrators have long favoured command-line utilities for myriad activities ranging from setup, configuration, and maintenance of the machines under their charge. A necessary part of the job involves keeping tabs on the different machines. On a local installation, tools like top, htop, etc. have long reigned supreme. But if you want all the features of these, and many more, with the added convenience of keeping tabs on remote machines, Glances is just the tool for you. Whereas utilities like top will help you gauge the CPU and memory usage, Glances goes quite a bit further. It can be used to monitor filesystem I/O, network I/O, and even sensor readouts to display CPU and other hardware temperatures. It can also show you disk usage by hardware device and logical volume,…

The way that In Other Waters imagines humanity’s first encounter with alien lifeforms is a bit different from other sci-fi stories. Beneath the waves of the planet Gliese 667Cc is a thriving eco-system brimming with strange alien lifeforms. The vivid descriptions of a scientist and a minimalistic computer interface tell a story of awe and trepidation, creating a serene underwater adventure like no other. You play as the AI of an exo-suit piloted by xenobiologist Ellery Vas, a scientist who has come to Gliese 667Cc to study the alien lifeforms of this uncharted ocean. These strange beings aren’t the only mystery though, Ellery is also trying to solve the disappearance of her fellow scientist, Minae Nomura. The story follows Ellery as she traces her lost colleague’s footsteps through the depths…

Positioning is everything in this clever blend of roguelike and puzzler, where you play as a helmet with a spiky shotgun attached. Every time you move from one tile to another, you twist your log-like body, either rolling across the ground horizontally, standing on end, or falling down. The exact nature of the move matters hugely, as you’ll either deal damage, or leave yourself open to attack, depending on your position and facing. If you fall onto an enemy, or it makes contact with your spiky end, said enemy will perish. You also have a few shells, for a ranged attack. But when you’re tipped over onto the ground, you’re vulnerable to enemies. So you’ll need to roll away, or stand upright as soon as you’re able. If there’s a…

Playing out like a trauma-free Papers, Please, PanComOS is a game that invites you to make seemingly simple decisions, as you drag emails into either the ‘Send’ or ‘Trash’ folders on a desktop. Of course, you know what spam looks like: it’s a grammatically suspect plea for money. And those emails are pretty easy to spot. But, as the game gradually insists, you now have to whitelist certain email addresses, and (weirdly) to watch out for extra-terrestrials, and to scan thumbnails for the signs of malware. But, where PanComOS begins to shine is with its subtle moments of moral deliberation. There’s no real pay-off for your decisions, other than momentary payouts or fines, out of a pot of money you can use to purchase visual themes. It’s a bit disappointing,…

AMD has launched its Ryzen 3 3100 and 3300X CPUs, rounding out its Ryzen 3000 range. Ryzen 3000 CPUs have been very well received but budget models have been absent from the market until now. Both CPUs are built on the same Zen 2 architecture as the higher end models, and bring four-core and eight-thread computing to all but the very cheapest PCs. The Ryzen 3 3100 features a 3.6GHz base clock and a 3.9GHz boost clock. At just US$99 for an eight-thread processor, it looks like a genuine game changer at the low end of the market. The 3300X has a higher 3.8GHz base clock and a 4.3GHz boost clock. It too offers tremendous value at US$120. Both CPUs come with the added value of a Wraith Stealth cooler.…

A little slice of Pi could play a big role in the fight against Coronavirus. The Raspberry Pi Foundation is ramping up production of the Raspberry Pi Zero because ventilator manufacturers are using the $5 computer to power their life-saving devices. Demand for all Raspberry Pi Models has surged in recent weeks as people use the inexpensive computers for tasks such as remote learning and doing maker projects at home. As the need for ventilators grows, manufacturers are looking for control boards to serve as the brains of their devices. Recently, Intel was reportedly asked to produce 20,000 Broadwell processors to meet demand from medical companies. Because of its production abilities, Raspberry Pi Foundation is able to provide those orders quickly. “I believe the interest in Zero is mostly down…

Can you believe that APC has been around for 40 years? I was the tender age of one; PCs and technology weren’t that high on my priorities back then, but oh boy did that change over the coming years! My first computing experience was with a Commodore 64, complete with its cassette tape drive. To be honest I don’t recall too much of my user experience with it, beyond sinking hours into games such as Bubble Bobble and Boulder Dash. What came next was a machine that really got me into computing, the mighty Amiga 500. “That magical 486 machine came with a CD-ROM, and included a Microsoft Encarta disc. Fancy having an entire encyclopedia on a single disc!” The Amiga 500 ignited my love of gaming, and to this…

Samsung proudly touted its hot new Galaxy Z Flip’s folding glass display and the “layer of fibers” built into its hinge at the company’s Unpacked event. We managed to get hold of one, and now it’s time to put it to work – for a teardown. Major tech specs • 6.7-inch foldable ultra-thin-glass AMOLED Display, 21.9:9 aspect ratio, 2636x1080 pixels (425ppi) • 2.95GHz, 64-bit, octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 855+ SoC • 8GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage • 3,300mAh of battery power in two cells • Two rear cameras, both 12MP, one ƒ/1.8 wide-angle and one ƒ/2.2 ultra-wide; one 10 MP ƒ/2.4 selfie cam • “Sweeper technology” made up of a layer of fibers inside the “Hideaway Hinge” to repel dirt and dust Key findings • Open the Z…

Which type of keyboard is best? Mechanical keyboards have been around for longer, but were supplanted by keyboards with softer, quieter membrane keys. Some gamers swear by the clickety-clack of mechanical setups, while others favor the new kid on the block, optical keyboards, which use light rather than physical metal contact filaments. We’re going to try to put this issue to bed, but we fear that even the APC team might remain divided. Value Straight out of the gate, optical keyboards stumble. Using a combo of sturdy mechanical keys and lightbeam-based switches results in a costly manufacturing process, and optical keyboards tend to be expensive. “Mechanical keys vary significantly when it comes to input response, with more expensive keyboards typically having less delay, but optical key switches register input at…

From $1,599, apple.com/au Apple decided to discontinue the MacBook in July last year, so it makes sense to have such a large update to the MacBook Air range this year. The new MacBook Air range sees a reduction in the base price by $100, so you can get a configuration with a 1.1-3.2GHz dual-core Intel Core i3 CPU, 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage for the reasonable price of $1,599. If you’re doing any more than the lightest of web browsing and document processing you’ll probably want to go for the 1.1-3.5GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 CPU, 8GB RAM and 512GB storage configuration for $1,999. This is the first quad core processor on a MacBook Air, so the performance bump will be dramatically larger than that of previous generations.…

WINDOWS, US$6, Microsoft Store Because Windows 10 supports so many different types of applications, you can end up with a variety of Start Menu icon styles on your PC. UWP apps appear one way, Win32 programs appear another way, and progressive web apps (PWAs) have their own style. This results in an inconsistent Start Menu with icons of various sizes and styles. EdgeTile Creators aims to fix that by allowing you to create custom tiles for just about anything. It works with files, folders, websites, and apps. It can even work with progressive web apps, but that takes more work than it should. In addition to unifying the style of your Start Menu tiles, EdgeTile Creators is a helpful tool to swap out logos you don’t like. For example, I…

The next step with your new PC is to set up all your favourite applications, plus transfer across your carefully crafted settings from your old PC. Before going any further, we recommend taking a drive image of your old PC’s system drive using Macrium Reflect Free (www.macrium. com/reflectfree.aspx). Save this image to your backup drive, then install Macrium on your new PC and take a drive image of its hard drive as your baseline backup: Windows 10, all updates and key system utilities only. Should you need to roll back for any reason, you’ll save yourself time by skipping the previous section’s instructions. Plus, with Macrium installed, you can mount your old PC’s drive image as a virtual drive to access any missing files – more on that over the…

What happens if, having transferred your files and disposed of your old PC (see over the page), you discover that you forgot to copy across a key file or setting? This is where that fail-safe Macrium Reflect backup we recommended you take earlier comes into its own. You can mount this as a virtual drive on your new PC in File Explorer, then copy any missing data from it to your new PC. To do this, install Macrium on your new PC if you haven’t already, then navigate to the drive image file and double-click it. Allow Macrium to launch, then place a tick next to the drive or drives and make a note of the drive letter each is going to be assigned (you can change these by clicking…

Everyone needs to edit images at some point in their lives, and while Windows ships with the Photos tool, it’s more of an organiser than an editor. At the other end of the scale are expensive tools such as Photoshop that come with complexity on top of the asking price. For most people, though, something in the middle is what’s required, and Paint.NET is that tool. It’s relatively straightforward to use – load an image, and you’ll find all the basic tools you need to crop, rotate, resize it and so on. There is a variety of selection tools for working on part of the image – including the magic wand and magnetic lasso for irregular objects. You’ll also find various correction tools, from brushes and erasers to a clone…

01 CHROMECAST Open the Playback >= Renderer menu, and if your Chromecast device hasn’t already been detected (in which case simply select it), click Scan to search for it on your local network. Then start playback in VLC – its screen will remain blank, and the video will appear through Chromecast. 02 WATCH WITH SUBTITLES If you’re watching a DVD, or your video file has embedded subtitles, switch them on via the Subtitle > Sub Track menu. You can also download subtitles directly into VLC via the View > VLsub menu – just enter your search terms if needed, then click ‘Download selection’ next to a match. 03 BUILD A TV PLAYLIST Selecting TV channels by frequency isn’t elegant: stop playback and return to the playlist where you can configure…

Gone are the days when the only alternatives to Microsoft Office cost money, with no easy way to move files between platforms. Free office suites are ten-a-penny now, but many are limited to just the core three apps – word processor, spreadsheet and presentations tool – and are ad-supported. None of these restrictions apply to LibreOffice (www.libreoffice. org), however. Not only is LibreOffice ad-free, it offers replacements for Access (Base) and Visio (Draw) to provide database and drawing/flowchart functionality in addition to Writer, Calc and Impress, plus bonus tools in the form of Math (a formula editor) and Charts, a tool for producing pie charts and the like. Getting started LibreOffice’s components can be opened independently, or through a centralised launcher. This provides convenient access to each application as well…

Many of the apps we’ve covered in this feature are available as portable applications, allowing you to store them on a USB flash drive and run them from any PC – or simply use them in the knowledge all your preferences are stored in one convenient location easy to back up and restore after a Windows reinstall. They include Firefox, FastStone Photo Resizer, VLC, LibreOffice, DMDE, Recuva, MusicBee, Winyl, Openshot, EditPad Lite and Notepad++. The centrepiece of any portable toolkit has to be PortableApps (www. portableapps.com), which gives you a handy launcher tool for managing and running portable apps. After installation, launch this and choose Apps >= Get More Apps >= By Category to install direct from the extensive PortableApps catalogue. But you can also add portable apps manually too…

With Windows Media Player slipping into obscurity, those who love to listen to music on their PC should install MusicBee (https://getmusicbee.com/) instead. Think of it as Windows Media Player on steroids with everything you need to build, organise and – of course – enjoy your audio collection. It even boasts native support for Groove Music. The app is also geared towards audiophiles with playback controls designed to fine-tune the sounds coming out of your speakers – including a handy graphic equaliser (10- or 15-band) with smart auto-select option to switch the settings depending on what genre of music is currently playing. Get started On first launch you’ll be prompted to select the location of your music. You can also opt to import tracks and artwork from either WMP or iTunes.…

The problem is clear and simple: Sometimes games produce screen tearing and stuttering. They don’t mean to, it’s just a function of the way your graphics card and monitor interact – GPU spews out frames as quickly as it can, monitor uses those frames at a set refresh rate, gamer looks on at torn images in frustration. This being the wonderfully infuriating world of personal computers, it’s the solution that proves far more complex. V-Sync is the simplest band-aid over frame pacing issues, telling your GPU at the software level to only provide as many frames per second as the current refresh rate – usually 60. It’s effective in its own way, but often introduces noticeable input lag and tanks the frame rate down to 30 if your graphics card…

I reckon there’s no better feeling in computing than successfully designing and building your own PC system. But while we might agonise for hours about buying that slightly faster video card over that higher clock speed chip, or mull over which motherboard we really need, the component that’s actually most important of all often barely rates more than a mention at the end of the build. Power Supply Units or PSUs are an ecosystem with a language and specs all of their own. But if you can learn ‘PSU-speak’, you’re well on your way to a system build that gives you a long, happy and trouble-free life. What a PSU does We all know a PSU ultimately supplies power to the PC, but more precisely, it turns the nominal 240VAC…

While Bleeding Edge may be a 4v4 ‘brawler’, don’t take that to mean that it plays like Ninja Theory’s DmC. Instead, it’s a game of timing, positioning, and cooldown management. But without a complex meta or satisfying combat, it whiffs on the ‘Overwatch-but-melee’ promise. Whereas Blizzard’s shooter ends each match with highlights, I’m yet to see a highlight-worthy feat of skill or teamwork here. Every fighter has either a melee or ranged basic attack, three special abilities, and an ultimate. Most abilities don’t have to be aimed, so winning fights is all about focusing damage in the right direction while capturing map objectives. A compelling byproduct of Bleeding Edge’s focus on melee combat is the importance of verticality and movement as a way to avoid enemies and pick fights. Part…

Somebody clearly took a look at the choice-driven adventure genre, and said, “Can I king it?” Yes, you can! You see, while Reigns seems like a logical reference point – you play as a king, making various decisions that affect both your subjects and members of the nobility – this game delivers a meatier, more traditional gaming experience. To begin with, it’s all pretty straightforward. Entertaining lords and smelly peasants alike in the throne room, I listen to their wants and needs, and decide whether I feel like improving their dull lives. It’s not quite as simple as that, of course. I only have a limited supply of gold, and the ominously generic, Soylent Green-y sounding ‘Supplies’. But as time goes on, I find that I have the need to…

If you’ve ever been a Star Trek fan, you’ve probably imagined what it would be like to sit in the captain’s chair of a Federation starship. Over the years there have been dozens of Star Trek videogames on PC, from point-and-click adventures to first-person shooters. But Star Trek: Bridge Commander is the closest a digital recreation of the show has ever gotten to deeply simulating the experience of being in command of a Starfleet vessel. The game starts with a bang, literally, as a star mysteriously destabilises and explodes, killing the captain of the USS Dauntless. The ship’s relatively inexperienced first officer (that’s you) is then forced to take over command and find out what caused the explosion. Your character is a completely blank slate who never speaks and is…

From its jaw-dropping audio-visual demos, to its brilliant sound and image editing, the Amiga would quickly establish itself as an industry favorite among artists and content creators. In spite of a slow start, its multiple advanced processors and 16-bit CPU would eventually usher in a new era of gaming possibilities. Despite its success worldwide, Amigas are relatively rare, leaving emulation the only real option. Emulating it isn’t always easy, so let us do the hard work, so you can hit the ground running with this beautiful machine. Once upon a time… The Amiga’s story begins at Atari. Disgruntled engineers had left the company after failing to interest management in a 16-bit machine, based on the Motorola 68K CPU. In 1982, they created their own company: Hi-Toro, later renamed the Amiga…

UPDATE ADDS AN OPTION FOR DONATING TO COVID-19 RESEARCH SPECIFICALLY. Folding@Home allows people to donate extra CPU and GPU cycles to researchers fighting diseases, including COVID-19, from home. But there hasn’t been an option for users to select COVID-19 researchers specifically as the recipient of their efforts. Now, Folding@Home has added the priority option in its latest update. Previously, there were five options in the web interface for which diseases you could help fight: any disease, Alzheimer’s, Cancer, Huntington’s and Parkinson’s disease. The way to contribute to COVID-19 research was by selecting “Any disease” and hoping you’d get assigned work for your cause. Folding@Home assured users that most of the resources sent to “Any disease” would get put towards fighting COVID-19, but it left many users confused.…

For those lucky enough to work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic, video conferencing has become a central part of our lives. While many have used the likes of Google Meet and Microsoft Teams for ages, somehow a lesser known video conferencing app called Zoom has become the go-to service in 2020 – so much so that the word Zoom itself has become shorthand for video chat. The app’s star rose unexpectedly in February, but it wasn’t long before experts started to poke around. In late March, Motherboard found that Zoom was secretly sharing data with Facebook – even for users without a Facebook account. After this report was published, Zoom disabled the sharing, which it maintains did not involve personal data. “The service has also birthed a culture of…

08 HyperX Alloy Core RGB HyperX clearly decided to flex with the Alloy Core RGB, delivering an effective membrane keyboard that looks great for under a hundred dollars. 07 Logitech G Pro X The G Pro X might appear at first glance to be feature-light, but the inclusion of easily swappable key switches for physical customisation is brilliant. 06 Corsair K63 Wireless Corsair’s high build quality and style make for an excellent wireless keyboard, complete with Cherry MX Red switches and a soft rubber wrist rest. 05 Das Keyboard 4 Professional Functionality over frills. No key backlighting or dinky touchscreens here, just a solidly designed keyboard, perfect for typists who prefer mechanical keys. 04 Steelseries Apex Pro A sleek deck with RGB lighting, a tiny OLED display, and incredible customisation,…

APC is a magazine about machines and technology, but it is made by people. For four long decades our writers, editors, designers, production people and the ad team have lived through the most impactful technology-driven change in society the world has seen. And it continues today. Over the following pages many of the old team members have shared their thoughts and experiences about seeing technology change, and writing about it for you. These unique perspectives offer a rich insight into the tech of the time, and we asked each of them to nominate products or technologies that took off just as they predicted, plus the failures that never took hold, despite their expectations. APC went through many transitions, too, in the ultra-competitive Australian magazine market, launching several spin-offs as well…

$2,999, msi.com There’s a lot to like about the Prestige 14 – in fact, MSI’s latest push into the creator ultrabook realm looks nothing short of awesome on paper. It’s got a 10th-generation Intel Core i7 CPU, 16GB or RAM and a dedicated Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 GPU – which seems like plenty of grunt under the hood. It’s not short on looks either, with the option of a vibrant 14-inch 4K HDR screen that offers 100% Adobe RGB colour reproduction and professional-level colour accuracy (Delta E is less than two). You can grab one of these new MSI Prestige 14 laptops in Pure White, Rose Pink or Carbon Gray, but all of them offer the stylish sophistication that we first saw from MSI in its popular GS series from…

MACOS 10.13 or later, US$129, telestream.net ScreenFlow is a screen capture and editing package that lets you create screencasts, which have become increasingly popular in our always-on world. While QuickTime has basic screen recording tools, ScreenFlow is much more advanced with animation, titling, graphics and ‘callout’ tools, amongst other things, to let you create professional-looking and sounding videos. To its already-impressive feature set, version 9 adds some new tools to improve workflow. To begin with, there’s the customary under-the-hood improvements that ensure compatibility with the latest version of macOS, and the graphics cards in the most recent Mac models. Although ScreenFlow is very user-friendly, the technology behind high-resolution screen recording is complex, so it’s always good to have the latest version. The headlines The first headline new feature is multi-screen…

Your first steps with your new PC will vary slightly according to the route you’ve gone down. If you’ve purchased a laptop or off-the-shelf desktop PC then you’ll find Windows 10 will be installed, but paused at the initial setup process. If you’ve built your own PC and purchased your own copy of Windows, then obviously you’ll need to install that from scratch. Ready, get set… After switching on your new computer, you should be taken through the Windows 10 post-setup process where you’ll probably be asked to confirm your country and region, connect to your Wi-Fi network and sign into Windows using your Microsoft Account. If you’re coming from Windows 7 this may require clicking ‘Create account’ if you’ve not already got some form of Microsoft account (for example,…

If you simply want to transfer everything (possible) across from old PC to new, and aren’t worried about paying for the privilege, then take a look at EaseUS Todo PCTrans (www.easeus.com/ free-pc-transfer-software/). This program makes it easy to transfer across programs, settings and files from old PC to new – you can transfer directly via your network or create an image file on your old PC that is subsequently transferred across and restored to your new computer. To transfer this data over your local network, download and install the program on both machines, then choose PC to PC on either machine, select your other PC and enter your user password. Choose which direction the transfer should take, then wait for the files, setting and data to be analysed. Finally, choose…

Your new PC is ready and raring to go: your programs, settings and files have been safely transferred across and your old PC’s fate has been decided (the step-by-step guide reveals what to do if you plan to pass it on or dispose of it). But before you take full advantage of that extra speed and power, it’s time to make sure your new PC is at least as secure as your old one was. Start by setting up your backups if you haven’t yet done so – both File History and the old Windows 7 backup tools are accessible in Windows 10 via Start > Settings > Update & Security > Backup. File History is more flexible – it stores more versions of your files for example – and…

These days, Google Chrome reigns supreme as the desktop browser used by most, so why do we prefer to use Firefox? The pure and simple reason is choice: Mozilla Firefox is one of the few browsers left that uses its own browser engine (Gecko) to render web pages. Other rivals – Opera, Vivaldi and even Microsoft Edge – all make use of Google’s Chromium engine. Following a single standard is all well and good, but lack of competition inhibits innovation, which is why we say stick your colours to the Mozilla mast. It helps, of course, that Firefox is a capable browser in its own right – its rapid-release cycle means it’s constantly evolving (although if it changes too rapidly for your tastes, install Firefox ESR – Extended Support Release…

01 INSTALL BROWSER Visit https://forums.getpaint.net and navigate to ‘Plugins – Publishing ONLY’. Open the pinned ‘The Plugin Browser’ thread and download PluginBrowser-Installer.zip to your downloads folder. Close Paint.NET, then extract and run PluginBrowser-Installer.exe. 02 LOCATE NEW PLUGINS After installation, open Paint.NET and choose ‘Effects >= Plugin Browser’ to view currently installed plugins. You’ll also see a keyword search tool: this can be used to search the plug-in index online to track down more plugins – just click a hyperlink to be taken to the relevant page. 03 INSTALL NEW PLUGIN Plugins are downloaded as zip files; if no installer is provided, simply extract the .dll file inside the zip archive to the relevant subfolder inside C:\Program Files\Paint.NET – this is typically Effects or FileTypes (note that you’ll need administrator access…

Put the right backup plan in place, and you need never worry about accidental data loss, system crashes or botched Windows Updates again. Windows’ own File History provides limited protection for key folders and files, but the only foolproof backup is a drive image – an exact copy of an entire hard drive or partition. The best tool for the job is Macrium Reflect Free (www. macrium.com/reflectfree.aspxSelect the drive(s) or partition(s) to back up – choose Create an image of the partition(s) required to backup and restore Windows to protect your system – and then once you’ve chosen your backup destination, create a schedule that mixes full and differential backups (the Differential Backup Set is a good template if you’re pushed for time). Make sure you click Advanced Options to…

01 FIND EXTENSIONS Browse to https://extensions. libreoffice.org to browse through the nearly 400 available extensions via the Extensions tab. Use the navigation tools on the right to narrow the list by supported application or type (such as macro or dictionary). Click an entry to visit its own page. 02 REVIEW, DOWNLOAD Review any requirements and dependencies (some add-ons require additional programs to be in place), then scroll down to locate the download link and save the file to your hard drive or – if offered the opportunity – to open it directly in LibreOffice. 03 INSTALL AND RUN If saved to your drive, open your target LibreOffice application and press Ctrl-Alt-E to open the Extension Manager. Click Add to select the file. The extension should appear in the list. Click…

After retiring the excellent Windows Movie Maker, Microsoft didn’t bother to develop a replacement. We’ve yet to see anything truly replace it, but for those looking to edit video in a professional manner – complete with fades, wipes, special effects and title sequences – OpenShot (www.openshot.org) fits the bill. Version 2.5 was recently released, and should address many of the performance issues in earlier versions, allowing you to focus on pulling together your raw materials – video, plus additional images and audio files – before compiling them into a professionally edited movie using OpenShot’s various tools. “For those looking to edit video with fades, wipes, special effects and title sequences, OpenShot fits the bill” Movies in just a few clicks The program’s simple drag-and-drop interface is as intuitive as things…

01 ADD GRACENOTE By default, MusicBee only interrogates the MusicBrainz database for CD information – click ? and choose ‘Edit Preferences >= Tags (2)’. Click the hamburger (three lines) next to tags, then tick ‘Gracenote’ followed by Update >= Apply to improve your chances of finding a match for your CD. 02 TAG BY ALBUM Click ‘+’ at the top, then use the File pane on the left to navigate to an album folder containing your untagged files. Press Ctrl-A to select all the files in the middle pane, then right-click and choose Auto-Tag by Album to open the Album Auto-Tagger window. 03 ENTER SEARCH TERMS Type the name of the artist (Various if it’s a compilation) and the album name into the relevant fields, then click Find. Browse the…

Some apps, such as WhatsApp, work with CallKit, so you can use Siri to call via that app. Tell Siri “call [name] with WhatsApp audio” and Siri will initiate an audio call with that app. If Siri doesn’t pronounce a contact’s name correctly, correct it by saying “that’s not how you say that name”. Siri will then ask you for a sample, and will provide you with three options in an effort to match the sample. Repeat if the options aren’t close enough. You can also create a shortcut (with the Shortcuts app) to call/message a contact with a third-party app like Skype.…

Here we’ll use the scientific powerhouse Sense HAT board with Scratch 3 to create three projects; using LEDs to scroll our name, joysticks to trigger input and sensors to read temperature and orientation. With the power off, connect the Sense HAT to all 40 pins of the GPIO, ensuring that the board fits neatly over the Pi. Use the brass standoff provided with the Sense HAT to fix the board firmly in place. Connect your peripherals, then power up the Pi to the desktop. From the desktop, go to the main menu and click on Programming > Scratch 3, if Scratch 3 is missing we have a solution in our Quick Tip for this project! Scratch 3 has three main sections. From left to right they are: • The blocks…

“While the source of the video footage leaks is unknown, rumours suggest they were leaked by a former developer on the project.” Sony delayed its highly anticipated PlayStation 4 exclusive The Last of Us 2 in March, due to logistical problems resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. The indefinite delay was not taken well by the fanbase, but Sony has since announced a June 19 release date. It’s unclear whether this is what Sony had in mind the whole time though, because a recent leak of some of the game’s major plot beats angered both fans and the game’s developer Naughty Dog. While the source of the video footage leaks is unknown, rumours suggest they were leaked by a former developer on the project. Reports in March suggested that the studio…

Journey is coming to Steam on June 11, just over eight years after it made its debut on PS3 and one year after it arrived on PC exclusively on the Epic Games Store. If you still haven’t played Journey, this will be the perfect time to give it a shot – and honestly, the less you know going in the more floored you’ll probably be. If you’ve already played before, it will also be a lovely time to go back in for a second (or third or fourth) Journey years later on this new platform. Minor spoiler warning: as an online multiplayer game, seasoned Journey- ers can always go back in and help out neophytes on their first expedition through the desert and up the mountain. Like a Destiny sherpa…

Finally, a hunting simulation with little of the associated squick factor, thanks to you playing as a pack of foxes rather than a murderous human being. In Rev, you’ll wander around a gorgeous set of woodland ruins, looking for meat that you can drag back to your foxy den. To locate prey in Rev, you have to let go of the movement keys. Sitting. Perfectly. Still. Tracks will gradually appear on-screen, glowing as they reveal the multitudinous paths of the woodland critters. It can be somewhat difficult to decipher these, but they do provide a general idea of which direction you need to head in. Take too much damage from your defending prey and, well, nothing happens. You can take as much hurt as you like. The penalty is time…

In the very near future, a woman on the London Underground coughs up blood and is rushed to a facility its employees refer to simply as The Complex. Her body has been invaded by nanocells, an advanced technology with the potential to revolutionise medical science, if only its creators – and our protagonist, Dr Amy Tenant – could sort out that whole coughing up blood thing. The Complex is an interactive movie, and I don’t use that in the pejorative sense – it’s literally what it is. You sit and you watch a series of events unfold, occasionally making decisions that alter the course the story takes. Sometimes your decisions have a major impact; sometimes they barely change anything. It’s the most basic kind of branching interactive narrative, but with…