Indice dei contenuti per December 2019 in APC

I’ve just come back from Microsoft’s launch event for the new Surface range, and once again the company has dazzled with some really beautiful machines. But the really big takeaway is that the company has crossed some age-old borders and not only launched devices with CPUs from its long-term partner Intel, but also AMD and Qualcomm! This is one of those shifts that will have significant influence and give other system makers confidence to adopt a similar approach. Now, this is absolutely not a move away from Intel. The 10th-gen Ice Lake CPUs used in the Surface Pro 7 and 13-inch Surface Laptop 3 are high performance and low power parts that fit the Surface’s enterprise aspirations perfectly. Ice Lake incorporates Wi-Fi 6, too, and that’s going to be an…

Semiconductor market research firm IC Insights has predicted that chip maker TSMC’s sales would jump 32% year-over-year in the second half of 2019. The firm expects the rest of the integrated circuit market’s sales to rise by 10% in that same period, meaning that TSMC could experience growth at over three times the rate of the rest of the market. Much of that extra growth can be attributed to the popularity of AMD CPUs made with its 7nm process.…

By examining Safari’s Fraudulent Website Warning disclaimer, users discovered that iOS 13 (and possibly other versions of iOS starting at 12.2) sends data to Tencent Safe Browsing in addition to Google Safe Browsing, where it helps protect users from phishing scams. The disclaimer states that “these safe browsing providers may also log your IP address”, but it’s not strictly clear whether Tencent collects any information on users outside of China.…

2019 has been the year of AMD. Desktop Ryzen and enterprise Ryzen Pro, along with Navi GPUs have been the big tech highlights of the year. Probably sick of being off the front page, Intel has been taking steps in recent months to tell the world (that is, the tech media) that it isn’t going anywhere and to keep an eye on it in 2020 and beyond. We attended a recent tech day in South Korea where we were given a look at some of the things Intel is working on with regards to its storage products. With 10nm products yet to really see the light of day, there’s not a huge amount to talk about with regards to new CPU architectures and process technology. We want to see something…

60% of new passwords are secure against guessing attacks – meaning it would take an attacker over a hundred million guesses before identifying the correct password – according to figures from Google Password Checker. 75,000 is the number of cassette tapes predicted to be sold by the end of 2019, in an unlikely uptick for the dreadful old format. 50,000 were sold in 2018, accounting for 0.2 percent of album sales. A return to software sales on cassette remains unlikely, but we’ll keep you posted. US$5 BILLION is the amount of money lost by ride-sharing firm Uber in the three months to June 2019, the biggest loss in its history. The company, valued somewhere north of US$80 billion, has never made a profit. 10 The version number of the latest…

There aren’t any 4K OLED panels for 17.3-inch laptops this year… so unlike its smaller sibling the Aero 17 has to settle for either a 4K IPS panel from AUO or a 144Hz FHD IPS screen from LG. Considering the 4K display can reproduce 100% Adobe RGB colours and that both the Aero 17’s screen offerings come with a Pantone XRite certified colour scheme, it’s not exactly much of a sacrifice, even for colour-conscious creatives. The higher-res version even carries a new VESA HDR 400 certification, which means it is capable of reproducing a larger range of colours than regular SDR monitors at a peak brightness of 400 nits. The range starts with the entry Aero 17 SA which comes with the FHD screen, an Intel Core i7-9750H CPU, 8GB…

Following on from this year’s mid-range Galaxy Tab S5e, Samsung’s latest Android tablet is clearly gunning for the iPad Pro crowd with its new (and very premium) Galaxy Tab S6, a productivity-focused device that just might score itself a few converts. For those who want to get some serious work done, the Tab S6’s built-in Samsung DeX mode provides the tablet with an optional desktop-style interface, complete with folders, overlapping windows and all the usual PC conveniences. Naturally, you can improve your productivity by pairing a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse to the device, or simply purchase the Tab S6’s official keyboard cover ($199), which has its own touchpad for precise pointer control. Like Apple’s top-tier tablet, the Galaxy Tab S6 can be used in tandem with a specially-designed stylus, in…

“The board design itself is unique because of that cutout around four (of six) SATA ports which should allow for easier access when in a case. ” The Z390 Steel Legend focuses on cooling and usability and has a unique cut out area around four of the SATA ports. The board includes a large aluminium alloy heatsink, dual full-coverage M.2 SSD heat sinks, and 60-amp power chokes that are usually found on boards a bit higher up the product stack. Asrock’s says its Steel Legend design philosophy is centred around durability and its own unique design aesthetic that appeals to the mainstream enthusiast market. The board design itself is unique because of that cutout around four (of six) SATA ports which should allow for easier access when in a case.…

We love a beautiful desk, where function is the strongest attribute any peripheral can have. Which brings us to the Asus ROG Strix Carry, a gaming peripheral that indeed bucks the trend. There are no lights. There’s really nothing in the way of glitz, outwardly, and indeed no room for it, because Asus has carved away just about all it can in pursuit of creating a portable wireless gaming mouse. And we like that: This doesn’t look out of place on any desk, it’s (technically) pocketable, if you don’t mind a mouse-shaped bulge in your pants (or you could use the included pouch, like a sensible person), yet Asus has kept itself calm enough to avoid cutting the size down beyond the point of usability. Sure, if you’ve been mousing…

FREE/$10.99 ALL UNLOCKS / HIPHOPKANGAROO.COM Hip Hop Kangaroo & Friends is an app for young children that heavily promotes its main selling point: there are no ads. You can hand your preschooler a phone or tablet with this app running without worrying about them accidentally spending all your money or get influenced by advertising, providing they don’t know how to close the app and jump onto YouTube. Which they might, I suspect, because as cute and nice as Hip Hop Kangaroo and his pals are, there’s not a lot of stuff here. Your kids can watch videos of the eponymous kangaroo, along with his platypus and koala puppet pals, singing about the alphabet, counting, and exploring all over Adelaide. They can play around with sound boards, or take part in…

All the big router manufacturers have Wi-Fi 6 routers available already, or are due to launch them imminently. For example, Asus’s RT-AX88U is the company’s first Wi-Fi 6 router. It’s dual-band and offers up to 6,000Mb/s of Wi-Fi throughput, along with four antennas, and eight LAN ports. It costs $525. Asus also has the gaming-oriented ROG Rapture GT-AX11000, a tri-band router that can keep one 5GHz band dedicated to gaming, and costs $750. There’s also the Asus AiMesh AX6100 Wi-Fi System, which is a mesh Wi-Fi system that can cover the whole home. It should launch around the time you read this issue. As one of the biggest names in networking, it’s no surprise that Netgear is going all-out on Wi-Fi 6, and the company has a number of Wi-Fi…

As you’ll see over the page, it’s increasingly tricky for malware to infect your PC with little or no resistance. That’s why modern malware is increasingly based on deception, designed to trick you into clicking a web link or opening an infected file. Many of these so-called phishing attempts originate from emails or instant messages. They attempt – with varying degrees of success – to make themselves look genuine, with the aim of getting you to open a file or click a link to visit a fake website where you’re asked to enter sensitive security information to ‘verify’ your details. In actual fact, what you enter is captured by the hacker. There is also a growth in emails claiming to have hacked the user’s computer. They claim to have recorded…

1 INITIAL STEPS Download and install Windows Firewall Control from www.binisoft. org/wfc – once installed, type ‘wfc’ into the Search box to launch Malwabytes Windows Firewall Control. The original status screen will reveal it’s currently set to Windows Firewall defaults, allowing all outbound connections. 2 SWITCH THE PROFILE SETTINGS To start monitoring outbound connections, switch to the Profiles section and select ‘Medium filtering (recommended)’. Also tick the failsafe ‘Automatically set’ box. Now switch to Notifications and select ‘Learning mode’ to switch monitoring on. 3 REVIEW AND ALLOW All digitally signed and trusted apps will be given network access automatically, but you’ll start to see pop-up notifications for other apps. If they’re trusted (not all safe apps are signed), click ‘Allow this program’. If you’re not sure, press ‘Block for now…

Windows Security has plenty of built-in protection against system exploits, rootkits and the like, but there are still gaps – many behavioural related – that you can close with the help of free software. Start by keeping an eye on programs that need software patches with the help of Patch My PC (https://patchmypc.com/home-updater-overview). Add protection against PUPs with Unchecky (www.unchecky.com),while IObit Uninstaller (www.iobit.com/en/advanceduninstaller.php) has a Bundleware section that can help root out PUPs already on your system. Worried about the security of sensitive data backed up to the cloud? Ensure your files are protected by an extra layer of encryption before being uploaded with Cryptomator (https://cryptomator.org/). Add extra protection against potentially harmful websites by adding traffic-light security ratings to web pages and search engine results using one of Norton’s Safe…

Holding things to ransom is an ancient idea, and one that has been shown to work very well. Kings, nobles and precious works of art have been ransomed since antiquity. Likewise using smooth talking to hoodwink people into doing things they probably shouldn’t – grifting, if you will. But in the digital age these practices take on a whole new, sinister dimension. On the face of it having files held to ransom is in an entirely different league to having a family member kidnapped. But what if people’s lives depended on the integrity of those files? Terrifyingly enough, this has happened on more than one occasion. The Wannacry ransomware outbreak of 2017 infected some 300,000 computers in 150 countries –making it, according to veteran security researcher Mikko Hypponen, “the biggest…

“Ransomware that phones home to some central server could use symmetric encryption to perform its sordid garbling.” Unfortunately, if you fall victim to a ransomware attack and don’t have any backups, it’s probably too late to do anything about it. The usual asking price to unlock is around $500, though many variants will threaten to increase this amount after a couple of days, and may even threaten to make decryption impossible after longer. These threats just provoke anxiety in the victim, who’s then more likely to pay up before considering the merits of doing so. What is important to remember is that while there’s a possibility that whoever’s in control of this malware is reasonable enough to provide a decryption key, there’s also the possibility that they won’t. Their business…

It’s widely supported, not just on Google sites, so if you have an Android phone this is a free way to boost your security and reduce the chance of unfortunate takeovers. The magic of this is that, once a token is generated and shared between the site and the app, the same code is generated independently based on the current time. The algorithm can tolerate clock skews and network latency, so the app and the site don’t need to both keep exactly the same time. Authenticator codes can theoretically be spied on, though an attacker would have to be watching you in real time for this to work, so for ultimate security we recommend using a hardware solution such as one of Yubico’s YubiKey range. These support a variety of…

PC Case Gear Venom 2080 $2,699 TINYURL.COM/APC474PCC This system is purely focused on gaming and achieving the best performance without breaking the bank. It’s certainly costly but it’s not over the top. This laser focus on value, though, has resulted in some compromises. Simply put, Intel CPUs are best for gaming in general thanks to their high clock speeds. However, due to Intel’s manufacturing shortages they’re currently far more expensive per core. In order to keep costs down this build serves up a non-overclockable and slower i7-9700 (compared to the K variant) which is seated in a rather low-end motherboard with limited expansion and rear IO, and only given 256GB of SSD capacity. This system will play games faster than all the others featured this month thanks to the included…

Don’t remember where you saved that important file six months ago? Sometimes you may not even remember the name of a file. If you don’t use a filing or naming system, things can be tough. However, with the variety of tools built in to macOS, finding that elusive file can be less stressful. Siri and Spotlight are simple and straightforward to use, if you know what exactly you are looking for. Entering the file name, format, date (week, month or even the exact date) will bring up all the relevant results. However, the user interface can often be cluttered, and the results inaccurate. To find exactly what you need, Smart Folders come in handy. Here, your Mac can be automated to group files by multiple parameters, and you can save…

Firstly, what do we mean by “production-ready”? We’re taking the assumption that you’re setting up a server with some critical data, where wasted time means wasted money if it were to collapse or otherwise break down. Uptime is paramount to a fully functioning web server. Of course, there are a lot of different types of Linux-based operating systems to choose from, so what would make a good base for a web server? Well, we need it to be rock-solid stable, with few breakages (and preferably none at all) during a package upgrade or kernel installation. Debian or Ubuntu are both good choices for this, and while there isn’t anything actually stopping you using Arch or Gentoo, they’re probably best avoided – we’re looking to make it rock-solid, rather than anything…

Borderlands 3 is stuck in a time when memes lasted months rather than days, when referential humour was still a novelty and not exhausting, when you could point at something the slightest bit abnormal or gross and call it a joke. Simpler times, not necessarily better times. Borderlands 3 feels like a retro shooter rather than alive and present in modern humour and pop culture. It’s simultaneously repulsive and compulsive, an FPS RPG that excels when its weapon generation system spits out guns that feels great to shoot, adorned with broken attributes capable of turning hordes of goons, bugs, and soldiers into clouds of red mist, elemental particles, explosions, and big damage numbers. Then it tells one of its many long, bad jokes and the cloud dissipates. It’s still a…

You can fit San Andreas into Grand Theft Auto V several times over, yet the former still feels bigger. That’s the most surprising takeaway from my time revisiting Rockstar’s ’90s crime epic, which has sold a staggering 21 million copies in its lifetime. Released on PC in 2005, a year after the PlayStation 2 version, it’s a massive step up from the previous game, Vice City, in pretty much every respect. In the early-to-mid 2000s you couldn’t move for GTA clones: True Crime, The Getaway, Scarface: The World is Yours, Saints Row. But while these games were largely, or entirely, set in a single city, Rockstar used its unmatched financial might (and, some might say, hubris) to take things to the next level, presenting an entire state to cause mayhem…

The fundamentals of the Gears series are a tried-and-tested cover shooting formula that’s still enjoyable, six games on. The Metal Slug-style active reload, which gives your weapon a boost when you time your reload perfectly, still excites on a primal level, adding an extra wrinkle and a chance to feel adept where most games are happy to have you sit passively and do the reloading for you. Familiar, yes, but fun. What stops the fatigue from setting in is, as ever, Gears’ knack for throwing you into Hollywood set-pieces with just the right regularity. It knows when to let you you bask in the perfectly teed-up moment where you only need squeeze the trigger to save the day in a confetti cloud of bombast. And the answer, obviously, is: often.…

ISSUE 474, DECEMBER 2019 Please note that these exclusive downloads will only be available for a limited time, from 4/11/2019 to 22/12/2019. REVERSE TRAGIC ERRORS RESPAWN DELETIONS WITH ASHAMPOO UNDELETER. FULL VERSION WORTH $15 In our daily lives with computers small and big disasters can always happen. It is very annoying, if for example a beautiful picture, an important document or favourite MP3 is lost or accidentally deleted. In such a situation Ashampoo Undeleter is your salvation. With this program deleted files are recovered in next to no time. If you accidentally deleted your favourite song from your PC, this isn’t a disaster any more. Just use the effective search function of Ashampoo Undeleter and have the program generate a list of all deleted files. This shows whether the files…

The Windows 10 May 2019 Update continues to be plagued by problems, with update KB4517389 breaking the Edge browser for some users, leaving them unable to open it, which is in addition to the Start Menu being unable to operate for some. Meanwhile, macOS Catalina is in similar strife, with users updating to the latest version of the OS reporting that their emails have completely disappeared in the native Mail client.…

It’s hard to tell if Blizzard knew how much crap it was stepping into. In mid-October, Hearthstone pro gamer Chung ‘Blitzchung’ Ng Wai gave an interview during a Hearthstone Grandmasters tournament stream, during which he donned a gas mask and goggles, and then shouted “liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our age!”. He was suddenly disconnected from the stream, and hours later, Blizzard announced that the pro would be suspended from competitive Hearthstone for 12 months, and that his prize money would be forfeited. This punishment was meted out in keeping with its Hearthstone Grandmasters competition rules, which forbid engaging in any act that “in Blizzard’s sole discretion, brings you into public disrepute, offends a portion or group of the public, or otherwise damages Blizzard’s image…” This elicited an outpouring that…

Samsung’s penned the death of the headphone jack with its newest phablet, the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink Galaxy Note10+ 5G, but what does lie within that monolithic slab? MAJOR TECH SPECS ■ 6.8-inch AMOLED Infinity-O display with 3040×1440 resolution (498 ppi), HDR10+ certified ■ Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 paired with 12GB RAM and 256GB internal storage ■ 4,300mAh battery ■ Four rear-facing cameras (16MP ultra-wide, 12MP wide-angle with OIS, 12MP telephoto with OIS, VGA DepthVision camera), plus a 10MP selfie cam ■ Ultrasonic in-screen fingerprint sensor ■ S Pen stylus with Bluetooth connectivity and 6-axis sensor ■ IP68 dust and water resistance rating KEY FINDINGS ■ As we slice away at the adhesive, we notice that the cover is contoured around the volume and power buttons. A few Phillips screws hold down the midframe…

This year’s Inspiron 27 7000 has gone through a rather large metamorphosis, transforming from a stock monitor-looking AIO to a device with a pair of TV-esque legs and a soundbar running along the bottom. This speaker is wrapped in a grey mesh that connects it to some of the more adventurous PC systems we’ve seen from Dell over the past few years and while we’re on the fence on the overall design, the tilting mechanism seems to work well enough to make it practical. Wrapped in a set of compact bezels is the hero feature – a 27-inch FullHD display that can be configured to include multi-touch compatibility. The glossy display looks vibrant and the white screen surround highlights this bright display even further. In addition to opting whether or…

When it comes to the design, Fibit’s mantra seems to be one of ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. The ‘squircle’ design of the Apple Watch and the original Versa seems to have been embraced by users and Fitbit has carried that on to the Versa 2. At first glance, the new fitness watch does look strikingly similar to its predecessor, but closer inspection reveals a few small tweaks giving the Versa 2 a very stylish look indeed. With a depth of 0.47 inches (12mm), it’s only a tiny bit thicker than the Apple Watch 3, but since the chassis tapers inward toward the heart monitor underneath, it actually looks slimmer. And, with a screen size of 40mm, it should fit most wrists. Thankfully Fitbit has removed its branding…

With the arrival of the new Gigabyte Aorus Gen4 SSD, we’re beginning to wonder whether solid-state storage should include active cooling. The Aorus is notable for its double-sided copper heat spreader, which lowers temperatures by 16 percent. The question is whether this improves performance. After all, do SSDs actually run that hot? We have answers for you, but first let’s cover off the Aorus’s speeds and feeds. It’s the second SSD we’ve seen with support for the latest 4.0 specification of the PCI Express interface, the first being the Corsair MP600. It probably shouldn’t come as a surprise that both drives feature the Phison PS5016-E16 controller chipset, given it’s one of the first to support PCIe 4.0. For the record, the Phison PS5016-E16 features eight NAND channels, DDR4 DRAM caching,…

Nzxt has carved out a bit of a niche for itself with its range of thoughtfully engineered cases that focus on refinement and the user experience rather than all out ‘look-at-me’ bling. The H510i matte black case we have for review is one of the more refreshingly subtle cases we’ve seen in recent times, and that alone is a good thing. A visual inspection of the H510i immediately shows it to be a well thought out and engineered case. It comes with one of the most impressive cable management systems we’ve ever seen. All of the front panel and power cables can be discreetly routed away behind the motherboard tray or behind a vertical insert. There’s complete watercooling support, though the H510i can only accept 240mm or 280mm radiators. If…

After over three years on the market, HTC Vive is finally ready to retire its original VR headset, the HTC Vive, and replace it with a new model. In many ways, the HTC Vive Cosmos is a big leap forward from the original headset. But in other ways, it feels like a step in the wrong direction. The Cosmos seems full of potential. It has great displays, is well-built with nice speakers that produce clear, loud audio, and the inside-out tracking system removes a handful of pain points that have stopped many from investing in VR – namely base stations. But the Cosmos also has a few glaring problems. It’s more expensive ($1,299) and less comfortable than the original Vive. I also have critiques on the controllers, and the platform…

$79.99 | AFFINITY.SERIF.COM NEEDS MACOS 10.9 OR LATER Behold – a brand new desktop publishing app for the Mac! Serif’s Affinity series (Photo, Designer and Publisher) – developed from scratch for both Mac and PC, with Publisher expected to join the others on iPad too – was originally conceived with a page layout function at its heart, tying the whole creative process together neatly. That’s exactly what Publisher now does. If you buy all three apps (optional, but still over 50% cheaper than an annual subscription for InDesign alone), the StudioLink feature lets you switch to Photo or Designer tools while working in Publisher. To tweak a picture to better match other elements on a spread, for example, you can apply adjustments to it right there, instead of switching to an…

Threats to your privacy and security come in many shapes and forms these days. Let’s start by taking a brief tour of the different types of malware around to provide you with a better understanding of what to look out for. VIRUS/WORM Traditionally malware was conflated with the term ‘virus’. However, viruses are a specific form of malware: code inserted into other files (such as macros in Microsoft Office documents, which is why macro supported is now disabled by default in Office). Along with worms – standalone programs rather than malicious code hidden inside other files, viruses are primarily a mechanism for delivering so-called malicious ‘payloads’, and are designed to replicate themselves as far and wide as possible, such as through copying to shared network folders or hiding inside emails.…

When it comes to protecting your Windows 10 PC, both antivirus and firewall protection are built into the operating system, and while it’s strictly no-frills, Windows Security is capable of keep most malware off your system. We tested it with a range of live malware samples, and it detected them all, throwing up a warning dialog offering to remove or quarantine the malware in question. Windows itself is also packed with malware-thwarting technology too. User Access Control (UAC) is the confirmation dialog you see whenever you open a file or program that wants administrative access to your system. Windows 10 also introduced the SmartScreen filter, which automatically pops up a warning about program files that aren’t digitally signed. Many are legitimate, but it provides you with an extra step of…

When your security protection works as it should, you’ll either enjoy a hassle-free life or see the occasional alert pop up when your antivirus tool spots – and blocks – a potential infection from taking hold. But if your security regimen is compromised, you’ll have to take remedial steps to clear any infection from your machine – sudden sluggish performance, random popup alerts and other strange behaviour might all point to infection. The simplest thing to do is try and run a scan with your existing security tools having first attempted to install the latest updates – if they detect the threat, let them attempt to clean or quarantine it, then reboot and run full scans again. If infections keep cropping up, or you’re unable to open your security tool,…

1 INSTALL DISCONNECT Go to https://disconnect.me/  disconnect and click ‘Get Disconnect’ to locate the plugin in your browser’s add-on store, then install it from there. Once installed, you’ll see the Disconnect button appear in your browser toolbar. You do not need to donate if you don’t want to. 2 MONITOR WEBSITE Now browse to one of your favourite websites. You’ll see the Disconnect button display a number – this is the number of trackers it has detected. Click the Disconnect button for a summary, split into four sections – click one to reveal the specific requests made. 3 BLOCK TRACKERS Any trackers ticked and marked green are blocked by default; grey trackers are safer, but can also be blocked by ticking the box. You’ll see statistics revealing how much time…

For many years Intel’s High-End Desktop (HEDT) range has been the platform for higher tier enthusiasts or prosumers that need more than what the regular consumer grade parts have to offer. HEDT has typically offered more cores than consumer parts, more IO and connectivity options, plus higher RAM capacity support and more memory channels. Basically, if you want to beat your chest and boast about how big your numbers are, or you really do need the extra grunt for the things that you do, HEDT is the place to be – if you can afford it. Another unique feature of Intel’s HEDT platform is that due to the popularity of the platform for use in business and enterprise workstations, Intel supports each HEDT series across two or three CPU product…

Prices have been climbing across the board this month, much to our frustration. Even the trusty Crucial BX500 cost us a few dollars more, although it refused to be unseated from its throne as the king of bargain-bin storage. Team Group’s T-Force Vulcan Z memory also remained the best-value 8GB kit around. There wasn’t much we wanted to change; rising GTX 1660 prices necessitated a quick switch over to a Gigabyte model of the GPU, although we were tempted by the similarly priced single-fan 1660 Phoenix from Asus. The main change this time around was downgrading back from the AMD Ryzen 5 2600X to the regular 2600, retaining the six-core model, but losing 0.2GHz of base clock speed. Only a minor saving on the mid-range build this time around, primarily…

HARDWARE LAPTOP SCREEN PROBLEMS I have a HP 15-ac152sa laptop that I purchased in 2015. I switched it on recently, and the display showed some kind of tearing effect. Is it worthwhile getting a replacement screen, or can you advise me on a similar model or two-in-one model to replace it? Maranda Greenidge This might be anything from a loose cable to a failed screen. If you felt brave enough you could try and track down a service manual, then follow the disassembly instructions to see if the problem is as simple as reconnecting (or replacing) the ribbon-like cable that connects the display to the motherboard. If the screen was faulty, a replacement would cost you around $100 including delivery from a screen parts specialist — this assumes you can…

Often, searches can bring up everything from bookmarks, to Safari history and iTunes content. If that’s not what you need, go to System Preferences > Spotlight > Search Results to narrow down your search. Here you can select the categories that Siri and Spotlight search upon. Turn off unwanted categories. You can also restrict where Spotlight searches using the Privacy tab. Click the + icon, and select the folder/s you don’t want Spotlight to include. Searching networked drives is turned off by default, but can be enabled if required.…

With a publicly available web server to administer, it’s now more important than ever to keep a check on log files for any suspicious activity. One such file is auth.log, which checks for any failed login attempts to the server itself – likely using an SSH connection in an attempt to break into the server. You might be thinking that nobody would bother trying to take over a small server with nothing going on, but you’d be wrong. A lot of these attacks are automated, so rather than being a person trying to break into the server, it’s a program looking for vulnerable machines to take over. These programs often just take over a server, install some other pieces of software or malware, then move on to the next target…

Well, that’s the end of an era. Since the arrival of version 1.5 ten years ago, Android has managed to capture child-like enthusiasm for each new release with a new scrummy confectionary codename. But, presumably not finding anything decent beginning with ‘Q’ (quinces have always been under-rated – and yes, they’re a fruit), Google has given us a much more grown-up ‘Android 10’. While there’s been plenty of talk about new dark themes and other new features, like gesture navigation, we’re taking a look at the new OS from a hardware perspective – and what you’ll see coming in your next phone. BREAKING THE SPEED LIMIT One of the ‘slow burn’ changes coming to Android phones isn’t exactly the result of Android 10, but looks like coinciding rather nicely –…

Image recognition is one of the hottest areas right now, not just in ‘artificial intelligence’ circles, but in tech in general. It’s used in everything from detecting postal addresses on mail to faces in the street and weeds in the paddock. But how does it work? How does AI not only distinguish between different images, but recognise what an image contains? PATTERNS AND ALGORITHMS This will sound dopey, but go with me for a sec. Take a look at your family photos and you’ll recognise your family members. Why? Because you’ve seen them before – your brain has been ‘trained’ to recognise those people by associating different images with different people. Machine-learning is no different. Most machine-learning algorithms can’t do much on their own – they need to be trained…

There aren’t nearly enough games that let you play the villain. The beauty here is that, as much as it might feel like it on occasion, geese are not evil creatures. I, on the other hand, take immense pleasure in being horrible and therefore, I love this game. Controls are simple, never getting in the way of your desire to wreak havoc. Hold one button to run rather than waddle, one to lean down, another to flap your wings, another to grab or drop things – and that’s it, really. Objectives are presented via a ‘to do’ list in the pause menu, and almost exclusively involve making the lives of the villagers miserable. The game begins just outside a small garden and, once I’m in, I’m giggling with glee within…

1 SAN FIERRO Rockstar’s version of San Francisco. Landmarks include San Fierro Bay, the Gant Bridge, and the Big Pointy Building. There are a lot of hills in the city and the weather is often rainy. 2 BAYSIDE Cross the Gant Bridge from San Fierro and you’ll end up in Bayside, a small town modelled after Marin County. Alas, other than the Bayside Marina, there isn’t much of note to find here. 3 BONE COUNTY The largest continuous landmass in San Andreas. Here you’ll find the Sherman Dam, a few small desert towns, and Area 69, a heavily guarded military base where you can steal a jetpack. 4 LAS VENTURAS Rockstar’s take on Las Vegas. Like its real-world counterpart it’s a city of sin, with a…

FREE | SNACKYCACTUS.ITCH. IO/MR-FLIPPER | BROWSER It’s a pinball game, except it isn’t. You’re the titular Mr Flipper, a sentient flipper who, at the touch of a button, can walk around. Your ultimate goal is not to set a high score, but merely to transport a single ball to the top of a vertiginous, scrolling pinball table. This is easier said than done. Obstacles are numerous, including enemies determined to munch the ball, the inexorable pull of pesky gravity, and a steadily rising pool of lava that will completely destroy the ball if it’s left too long within. In the traditional pinball style, you flip the ball upwards, before quickly upping sticks and chasing it around the board. If you’re fast, and skilful enough, you can intercept it before it…

Bots are bad for bonuses says San Fran. bank They might not be taking your jobs, but they’re pinching your pay rise. While US workers are apparently becoming more productive, there hasn’t been a pay increase to reflect this transition and the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco is blaming robots. In an Economic Letter by Sylvain Leduc and Zheng Liu on behalf of the FRBSF published in September, they suggest that even though robot uptake isn’t taking jobs directly at an alarming rate, yet it is giving employers leverage to keep wage-growth down. Some proponents are taking this as support for the need to establish a universal basic income provided by the government, with American Presidential candidates like Andrew Yang using this policy as an election centrepiece. Amazon duped…

Intel has lifted the lid on its upcoming Cascade Lake-X family of processors for the high-end desktop market (HEDT). Similar to the way Intel’s Cascade Lake based Xeon Scalable processors are a further revision of their Skylake Xeons, offering clock speed increases and security fixes in hardware, the new HEDT processors will grant higher frequencies, more memory capacity, and better protection against side-channel attacks. The key numbers however are the big drop in Intel’s pricing: Intel will be releasing its 18-core part, the Core i9-10980XE, for under US$1,000. This pricing is a significant shift in Intel’s strategy, and there can be little doubt that AMD made this happen. AMD is set to launch its 16-core Ryzen 9 3950X at US$749, which will offer 16 PCIe 4.0 lanes for slots (+4…

“The biggest news is that it will use AMD Ryzen 7 Surface Edition (custom silicon for this product only) with Radeon RX 11 Graphics. ” The company has launched new Surface devices, including the Surface Laptop 3 in both 13.5 and 15-inch configurations, as well as the Surface Pro 7. It also showed off devices for next year, the foldable Surface Neo and a Surface Duo Android phone. The Surface Laptop 3 has a 20% larger touchpad with a machined aluminium finish. It uses both USB Type-C and Type-A ports and will come in 13.5-inch and 15-inch versions. The Surface Laptop 3 features fast-charging over Surface Connect and a removable hard drive. The biggest news is that the 15-inch model will use AMD Ryzen 7 Surface Edition (custom silicon for…

PLANTRONICS BACKBEAT PRO 5100 Lightweight, true-wireless earbuds that listen to you. $299 | PLANTRONICS.COM There are a lot of true wireless earbuds out there, and while many are great for audio quality, with some even featuring active noise cancelling, very few are any good at taking phone calls. Plantronics has a long history of designing communication headsets and have drawn on these roots by designing the BackBeat Pro 5100s with four noise-cancelling microphones that are particularly adept at removing wind and other background noise from calls, to boost voice audio quality. This vocal clarity also provides better audio recognition by your digital assistant, for anyone who would rather not have to take their phone out in order to check something. SONOS MOVE A Wi-Fi speaker that isn’t afraid to get…

“This ad will have been seen by millions of people, with the vast majority taking it at face value. ” Early in October, Judd Legum from Popular Information reported that Facebook amended its Advertising Policy to be less restrictive about ads that contain ‘misinformation’... particularly when they come from elected government representatives or budding political candidates. Previously, Facebook would have been bound by its policies to remove ads containing any “deceptive, false or misleading content”, but the new policy significantly limits this by only banning ads that have been “debunked by third-party fact checkers”. What’s more dramatic, however, is that the new policy exempts any “political figures” from these ‘Misinformation’ restrictions altogether, allowing elected officials and candidates to use patently false information in as many ads as they want. This…

The top contenders for the best student laptops put value over having the top-of-the-line processors and graphics cards. And yet, they still have enough juice to get you through your demanding workload at school – as well as let you partake in some post-school entertainment like light gaming and Netflix. In fact, some of our picks for the best laptops for students are among the most wallet-friendly devices on the market. But make no mistake: just because they’re very affordable, doesn’t mean they look cheap. In fact, they also exude style, tout power and offer portability, all without breaking the bank. 01 HUAWEI MATEBOOK 13 $1,599, WWW.HUAWEI.COM Available for much less than its RRP online, the MateBook 13 comes closer to striking that perfect balance of price and performance than…

“The whole system purrs very quietly when idling and, frankly, feels like one of the best, most solidly-built PCs we’ve seen from any of Australia’s systems integrators” I still talk about the day I bought my son his very own full-sized jumping castle for $200 from Aldi. Ever since I’ve been looking for a better bargain to beat it. Can the famously-cheap store do so with this gaming PC? Medion is a German computer brand and Aldi is the exclusive distributor in Australia. The Erazer X67127 is based around a modified InWin 301 mini-ATX Tower which sports illuminated RGB detailing at the front, an LED exhaust fan at the rear and two, easily-removable matte-black side panels (one of which has hexagonally-detailed vents) that match the rest of the chassis. In…

The X570 Aorus Master isn’t much to look at. Gigabyte has never been known for overly flashy motherboards, but the Aorus Master feels like it’s reached a new level of function over form. With an almost brutalist black and gray design and barely any lighting – just a few LEDs around the rear I/O – this isn’t a mobo for those trying to make their build look as bright and colorful as possible. Those LEDs are addressable, yes, but they’re distinctly underwhelming in action. Thankfully, appearance isn’t an indicator of quality. The Aorus Master might look dull, but it functions well. Looking at the raw numbers, it pretty comfortably outperforms previous-generation X470 motherboards when equipped with a new 3000-series Ryzen CPU. The performance differences are small but notable, with the…

Everything from 4K resolutions and high refresh rates to true HDR visuals, massive panel sizes, and more are on the menu, in this product space. At first glance, therefore, Asus’s ProArt PA34V looks pretty pedestrian. With a 34-inch curved panel, a mere 3440x1440 pixels, and 100Hz refresh, it’s hardly poverty stricken when it comes to features. It all comes down to remit. The ProArt is pitched at professional content creators. What’s more, while a 34-inch curved 1440p 100Hz gaming panel isn’t novel, it’s unusual in the pro space. Asus hasn’t spared the pennies from a design and engineering perspective either. The stand is beautifully machined and the screen enclosure feels expensive. It’s all a clear cut above the usual consumer electronics fare. The positive vibes continue when you fire the…

Targeting advanced users, like creators, software developers, engineers, analysts and other professionals, the MX Master 3’s innovative electromagnetic scroll wheel and per-app customisable settings mean you can fine-tune this mouse to be an ideal companion for any software you use. Additionally, you can control and send info across up to three PCs (Windows, MacOS and/or Linux), so the mouse can be with you for every step of multi-device activities. The scroll wheel has been updated with electromagnetic technology – dubbed MagSpeed – that lets you toggle between smooth (‘Freespin’) and precise (‘Ratchet’) scrolling modes. It’s the only part of the mouse made in Switzerland (the rest in China). While the older MX Master mice’s wheels can also scroll in small, line-byline increments or spin freely, they make some noise when…

There’s always something. When you dip down below $100 in the headset market, you know you’re going to be making compromises somewhere. Perhaps it’ll be comfort, or sound quality, or features and functionality – there’s always something. The trick for manufacturers operating at this price point is effectively disguising what that something is, so that when it eventually reveals itself, you don’t mind much. So it goes with Corsair’s new HS35 headset, which takes a lot of design cues from the company’s HS50 and HS70 cans, but keeps the outlay under $100. And it just happens that this one’s especially good at playing down the inevitable compromises the pricing requires. Starting with build quality, well sure, it’s not encrusted with precious gemstones or elaborate RGB lighting arrays – and it’s…

$22.99 | FILMICPRO.COM | NEEDS IOS 11.1 OR LATER (CERTAIN FEATURES RESTRICTED TO NEWER DEVICES) Filmic Pro has won a number of awards for harnessing the power of Apple’s iOS camera hardware. Indeed, some genuine feature films have been shot with this app. The redesign introduces three shooting modes. The manual ARC sliders provide quick and easy control over focus, ISO, and shutter speed. These slide in on the left and right of the screen, and are simple to operate with your thumbs. A second mode provides on-screen selectors for focus and exposure control. Simply tap on an area to focus on it, or adjust exposure based on its brightness. The pro Hybrid mode lets you combine the previous two, and also has a digital zoom slider. The app is well…

“Wi-Fi 6 is exciting in a number of ways. Although Wi-Fi has been around for 20 years, understanding it has always been a challenge for consumers. This year, the Wi-Fi Alliance has answered the need for clarity by using numbers (4, 5, and 6) to differentiate Wi-Fi generations. It’s a lot easier to understand the step up from Wi-Fi 5 to Wi-Fi 6 than 802.11ac to 802.11ax, so we’re really pleased about that progress. Not only that, but it will help with educating consumers on the different speeds and versions available, to ensure that when it’s time to upgrade, they’ll know they are buying the latest standard. “As you might expect, Wi-Fi 6 brings major improvements in both speed and coverage. While each improves up to four times, of equal…

One grey area when it comes to malware is that related to Potentially Unwanted Programs, or PUPs. Some application installers offer you additional programs, toolbars and other software during the set-up process – most are perfectly legitimate, but there are question marks over the practice. This so-called ‘bundleware’ is used to help fund development of programs, ensuring they remain free of charge, but the practice can be abused. Most PUPs are harmless – and definitely not malware – but some can harbour spyware, browser hijackers and other unwanted programs. The major problem is that they’re often pre-selected for installation by default, and the terminology for rejecting the offer can be confusing. What exacerbates the problem is that most security software ignores program installers that offer PUPs as they technically require…

While Windows Security performs well against malware, there’s one weak link – its firewall. The Windows Firewall is configured only to monitor incoming connections – in other words, those made to your PC over your network or the internet. It assumes all traffic originating from your PC is legitimate – but this can include any malware that’s sneaked through your defences and has established a backdoor connection to the internet. These can then dial home to begin wreaking whatever havoc they’ve been designed to inflict. This step-by-step guide reveals how to add two-way protection to Windows Firewall using a free add-on package from Malwarebytes, but if you want a more user-friendly alternative then reputable Internet Security packages from the likes of Norton, Kaspersky and Bitdefender all ship with two-way firewalls.…

You’ve got the essentials sorted – anti-malware software in place, plus any tools you’ve downloaded from the previous spread on cleaning malware infections (even if your PC is currently behaving itself, now is a good time to collect them together somewhere safe, like on a USB flash drive). Now you’ve locked down your PC, what other steps can you take to secure other parts of your online life? SECURE ONLINE ACCOUNTS Browse to www.haveibeenpwned. com where you’re almost certain to discover your trusted passwords of old have been involved in at least one security breach – even if you weren’t personally affected, common passwords like ‘fred1234’ are bound to have been used by others and subsequently exposed too. We recommend installing a strong password manager like BitWarden (www.bitwarden.com) to store…

There’s no shortage of backup tools available for Linux. Timeshift is great for backing up system files. It’s vaguely analogous to System Restore in Windows or Time Machine on macOS and it comes as standard with Linux Mint. For backing up personal files we recommend DéjàDup (https:// wiki.gnome.org/Apps/DejaDup) – it has a simple GUI and can automate everything for you. In its own words “It hides the complexity of doing backups the Right Way (encrypted, off-site, and regular)”. It also comes by default with Ubuntu, so check out our handy six-step guide to using it, opposite. Behind the scenes DéjàDup uses the Duplicity command line tool, so if you prefer to do things old-school you can hack up some scripts, cron jobs and what have you to invoke this directly.…

There are all kinds of devious ways that unscrupulous scammers will use to get hold of unsuspecting marks’ data – whether it’s tricking them to install ransomware or some other kind of malware such as a keylogger, or having them visit a booby-trapped website and enter valuable credentials. Most people nowadays know better than to reply to an email purporting to come from a Nigerian prince who needs some help organising a wire transfer for his considerable inheritance. Indeed, most scammers no longer bother with these kinds of ruses; their game has been considerably upped. They may play on local events, especially natural disasters. They may also send targeted email based on public information harvested from the target’s social media accounts. For this reason you should be awfully careful about…

Thanks to the arrival of PCIe Gen 4.0, slightly older Gen 3.0 M.2 drives are becoming more affordable, so now’s a great time to pick one up if you haven’t yet upgraded to a new X570 motherboard. The 970 Pro is an awesomely fast product, perfect for workstations or gaming PCs, with a maximum read speed of up to 3,500MB/s. With a nickel-coated heat spreader and a five-year limited warranty, there’s very little to dislike about this drive. Even if you are rocking a Gen 4.0-compatible motherboard, this is still an excellent SSD.…

Over the years, Microsoft has found itself on the receiving end of great deal of flak – not least because of its Internet Explorer web browser. But in recent years, the company has switched its focus to the Edge browser, and this has resulted in a huge improvement in both the quality and range of features that are available. With Edge, Microsoft’s web browser is no longer a joke. It no longer plays second fiddle to the likes of Firefox, Chrome and Opera. The number of features available has been massively increased, meaning that opting to use Microsoft’s web browser no longer means having to make compromises. Having gone through a few iterations, Edge is now a highly accomplished browser which is a more than capable alternative to the more…

The way Numbers thinks about a spreadsheet is a bit different from the likes of Excel, and makes structuring it more like looking at page of paper. A blank document in Excel is an endless grid of cells into which you can type numbers, formulae and text labels; if you add charts or graphics, they float over the top, like interlopers. In Numbers, cells only exist within tables. When you pick the Blank template, it starts you off with a table of an arbitrary size, titled ‘Table 1’. You can adapt that, or delete it and start from an empty page. The default table is sized to fit across A4, as you’ll see if you tap the three dots in the small toolbar at the top right of the screen…

It’s worth mentioning that if you do opt to run this server from home, you’ll need to forward any incoming connections to the appropriate web server. Let’s say someone tries to connect to your IP via a web browser: without port 80 being open, all their data packets will get dropped at the firewall and they won’t be able to connect to you. To fix this you need to know the IP address of your server – the physical device, that is. If it’s on the LAN it probably has a 192.168.0.xx address. Next you’ll need to navigate to the default gateway on your browser – it’s commonly 192.168.0.1, but other variations exist, depending on the setup and the router. Log in as admin and look around; there should be…

We’re going to create a web interface using Anvil that uses just Python. This interface will enable us to control real components: a red and blue LED along with a buzzer, connected to a Raspberry Pi. The hardware build for this project is just two LEDs, one connected to GPIO17 and the other to GPIO27. We used a 330 Ohm resistor to connect each LED to the GND pins of a Raspberry Pi 4. The buzzer is connected to GPIO22 and GND, and requires no resistor. Please see the diagram in the download for this project for detailed information. WRITING THE CODE On a PC visit https://anvil.works and create a free account by clicking Start Building. Follow the sign-up instructions, then click Create App,appear then select the theme Material Design.…

Nvidia is retrofitting ray tracing into more classic games THE COMPANY HAS TASKED LIGHTSPEED STUDIOS WITH MAKING FANCY REFURBISHMENTS. Nvidia is keen to show off what its RTX cards can do, with the company tasking an internal studio with refurbishing classic PC games with ray tracing support. It has already released a Quake 2 update, and a Minecraft update is forthcoming, but a recent job listing suggests that more are coming, with speculation rife that the likes of Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 might be among them. Postal is back FOR BETTER OR WORSE. Postal 4 has been announced and released in October, launching to Steam’s Early Access program. The mayhem mostly involves fire and pee being rained down on the new town of Edensin by the series’ protagonist the…

FREE | BIT.LY/ DISCOMFORTING | PC Discomfort can be a pretty uncomfortable game to play. You’re a woman in a house trying to summon a folkloric creature, a process that involves adventure-game-style scene examining, item collection and simple puzzling. Discomfort successfully transports you back to the glorious 1990s, first with its crude textures, and then with its control scheme, which not only places you in the body of a ’90s protagonist, but in the body of the ’90s player controlling her. Discomfort is fully realised, mostly uncompromising nostalgia. You’re attempting to bring the monster to you, in a house that may not be your own, and where there’s a dead body lying unceremoniously in one of the beds. Following a set of instructions, you’ll supply a summoning circle with a…

Crying Suns is both a good strategy game and a bad roguelike. It walks and talks like FTL, the indie hit that directly inspired it, but ultimately fails to mimic the endless replayability and daunting challenge that makes FTL so enchanting. Like FTL, I captain a spaceship through a randomly generated gauntlet of solar systems trying to keep my crew alive while navigating increasingly difficult encounters with the local populous. But where FTL gave these decisions as little narrative dressing as possible, Crying Suns creates a grim and vivid world that tees up an ambitious story. Crying Suns’ setting is fun to discover because it’s so meticulously thought out and grandiose. Transcendent robo-gods and 800-year-old emperors juxtaposed with an intimate tale of friendship and betrayal make for genuinely a good…