Indice dei contenuti per June 2018 in Computer Shopper

WHEN I FIRST sat down to start writing my monthly missive, my plan was to focus on our cover feature detailing how to get perfect Wi-Fi, and easily. Surely the Holy Grail of modern computing, and no doubt why many of you picked up the magazine and are reading this now. The good news is that the article is a thorough and easy-to-follow guide to sorting out all those niggly wireless issues you’ve been suffering from for years – poor range, dropped connections, slow speeds. I’ve finally got reliable Wi-Fi after much trial and error; following this guide should mean you avoid wasting time testing solutions that won’t actually fix the problems. The bad news is that as soon as I started to think about all the examples I could…

Tech pioneer and all-round good egg letters@computershopper.co.uk ISN’T IT GRAND to be a motorist in the future! Long ago, when I was a motorist in the past, I tried to negotiate a relationship with a snot-green Morris Minor that really sulked. I had to fondle its handle and crank it for ages until it fired up, and every weekend I had to get down on my knees to grease its nipples and oil its dashpot, all to keep the relationship going. And it never answered me once when I talked to it. Maybe it never answered because of some traumatic early garage experience. Maybe it had been involved in a suicide pact. There were traces of lipstick round the exhaust pipe. Meanwhile, here in the future, my shiny modern car…

Fresh flaws revealed in AMD processors SAY WHAT? AMD PROCESSORS FROM the Ryzen PC and Epyc server range have been found to contain security flaws that open up the CPUs to hacking. Israeli security firm CTS Labs found a total of 13 flaws, which mostly affect the Secure Processor found in AMD’s CPUs. This is a co-processor that contains and controls a computer’s sensitive data such as encryption keys and passwords. The bugs were placed into four categories: Ryzenfall, Fallout, Master Key and Chimera, and all could allow a hacker to cause havoc if exploited. Ryzenfall allows a hacker to infect the Secure Processor with malware that allows access to secured data. With that data the Windows Credential Guard, designed to stop hackers from taking over a network, can be…

Multilingual assistants Amazon’s Alexa virtual assistant keeps getting smarter and could soon acquire the skill to translate languages in real-time Cloud gaming Game streaming powered by the Microsoft Azure platform will form the future of Redmond’s gaming division Computer cheating An AI beat the top score in classic game Q*Bert by cheating in a fashion human players have never thought of or discovered Saving Skype Microsoft released a ‘Classic’ version of Skype after its Universal Windows app version of the communication software unimpressed some long-time users…

MICROSOFT’S CURRENT HARDWARE is pretty slick, with the Surface range offering swish tablet-cum-laptop hybrids and the Xbox One X holding the crown as the most powerful games console ever made. But the Redmond company has plenty of failures to go alongside its successes. Back in the early 2000s, Microsoft was doing well, with Windows XP dominating the operating system market and the original Xbox challenging Sony’s PlayStation 2. So Microsoft decided to take a swipe at the iPod, the device that helped fuel Apple’s resurgence. To take on Steve Jobs’ company in the portable media player market, Microsoft came up with the Zune brand. Consisting of media players, software and a music subscription service dubbed Zune Music Pass, Redmond hoped to steal the iPod’s thunder, which had been building since…

£270 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT It’s got some rough edges (and sharp corners) but generally, the Xperia XA2 is a worthy mid-ranger SONY’S XPERIA XA2 was just one of a long, laundry list of smartphones to launch at this year’s CES, doing so alongside the plus-sized Xperia XA2 Ultra and the budget Xperia L1. Take it out of the box and you’ll spot that the XA2 cuts a familiar figure, both to its new stablemates and to older Xperia phones. Aside from the smaller footprint, narrower top and bottom bezels and (slightly) more rounded edges, this looks identical to last year’s Xperia XZ1 (Shopper 359), which is no bad thing. GETTING THE POINT However, like the rest of Sony’s handsets, this design decision comes at a cost. While the XA2…

£279 • From www.fossil.com VERDICT The Q Control is Fossil’s first fitness-focused smartwatch, but it lacks several key features MAINLY BY VIRTUE of including a heartrate monitor, Fossil’s Q Control is its first Android Wear device to be described as a ‘Sports Smartwatch’. How, then, does it compare to other fitness-minded wearables such as the Apple Watch Series 3, Samsung Gear Sport (both Shopper 363) and Huawei Watch 2 (Shopper 355)? For one, it’s no less nice-looking. The chunky steel casing exudes a certain degree of style and sophistication, as you’d expect from a brand that’s associated with fashion accessories. Once it’s on your wrist, however, you might become less enthusiastic about the chunky design, as it’s quite weighty, which isn’t ideal when you’re taking it out on a run.…

01 A basic PC costing around £350 will be able to run everyday office, multimedia and education software and will easily cope with surfing the internet. It might even be able to run some modern games. Many PCs can be sold either with or without a monitor. If you don’t like the display that the manufacturer is offering, you can always use your current one, or buy another one separately. 02 If you want to play games, you’ll have to upgrade the graphics card. Budget cards such as the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 will cope well with many 3D games, but to play the latest 3D games smoothly (and enjoy the best-quality graphics) it’s worth upgrading to a more powerful card such as the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070. 03 All…

01 All tablets rely on an operating system (OS) to run apps. You have three main choices: Apple’s iOS, which runs on the iPad, Android, which Google licenses to various manufacturers, and Windows 10, which is slowly becoming more common in hybrid tablets and convertibles. If you own an Apple or Google smartphone, you can download your apps, music and so on to a tablet that runs the same OS, so it makes sense to stick with a compatible device. 02 It’s important to pick a tablet that has a good-quality high-resolution screen. Many budget tablets have 1,280x800-resolution displays, but better tablets have Full HD 1,920x1,080 panels, and we’re starting to see tablets that have even higher screen resolutions. Some are as high as 2,560x1,600 or even 4K. Entry-level tablets…

01 A 32in Full HD TV costs around £200 and will suit smaller living rooms. TVs look much smaller in the shop than in your home, so measure the space available before you buy. Curved TVs are becoming increasingly more common, but bear in mind that these typically take up more floor space than a traditional flat set. 02 A 1,920x1,080-resolution TV can display a 1080p image. You can still buy TVs with a 720p (1,366x768) resolution, but they’re no cheaper and the image won’t be as sharp. 3,840x2,560 Ultra HD resolution, or 4K, TVs are finally available at reasonable prices, although you’ll still pay a premium for one over a 1080p model. 03 Consider the number of inputs you’ll need to connect the rest of your equipment. Two HDMI…

01 Wearable tech can include anything from chest-strap heart-rate monitors to augmented reality glasses, but the two most common types are smartwatches and fitness trackers. Both are designed to sit unassumingly on your wrist, and are almost always meant to be used in tandem with a paired smartphone. 02 Smartwatches are typically more complex and expensive, though more closely resemble a traditional wristwatch. You can use them to receive and reply to text messages and emails, quickly check maps and even play games – like a smartphone, most smartwatches allow you to install your own choice of apps. 03 Fitness trackers are much more dedicated to healthy pursuits. Step counters, heart-rate monitors and even sleep tracking are all common, and the data collected is fed back to you so you…

01 A network-attached storage (NAS) device lets you store documents, media, and other files on its hard disks so you can share them with other devices on your network. Some have disks already installed, while others are empty enclosures into which you install your own disks. Buying an empty NAS can often be the more cost-effective option, as they’re usually less expensive and give you the freedom to expand the number of disks at a later date. You should buy one with a Gigabit Ethernet interface, as these provide the highest transfer speeds. To use a NAS device at these speeds, you’ll need computers with Gigabit Ethernet network adaptors and a Gigabit Ethernet switch or router. Computers with Fast Ethernet adaptors can still access the NAS device, but only at…

£600 • From www.cclonline.com VERDICT It’s a bit plain, but the Bazooka’s gaming prowess and built-in Wi-Fi display a quiet confidence THERE’S NOTHING TOO fancy about the CCL Bazooka, and certainly nothing fancy about how it looks. Everything is contained within a plain black Thermaltake Versa H17 case, with no side windows or flashy lighting. The closest it comes to extravagance is the slight faux-brushed aluminium effect on the plastic front panel. However, inside are some tried-and-trusted components, including a 4GB GeForce GTX 1050 Ti – the best-performing budget GPU on the market – and a dual-core, four-thread Intel Core i3-7100, along with 8GB of DDR4 RAM. It’s hard not to be wistful for the (significantly stronger) Coffee Lake Core i3-8100, but we’ve no specific gripes with this Kaby Lake…

£600 • From www.meshcomputers.com VERDICT Just as good as its rivals for gaming, but its Ryzen 5 processor takes things up a level IN TERMS OF cold, hard specs, the Ryzen Gaming PC – CS looks a titan among budget PCs. Besides the SSD/hard disk combination, a rare quality shared only by Cyberpower’s Ultra 3 GTX, it has something we never thought we’d seen in a system this cheap: the hexa-core AMD Ryzen 5 1600. This is a bona fide mid-range CPU, sitting below only the 1600X in the Ryzen 5 range; an echelon above the Ryzen 3 and Core i3 families. Mesh has teamed it up with 8GB of RAM and – surprise, surprise – a 4GB GeForce GTX 1050 Ti: this time, a miniature Asus model, albeit not…

£600 • From www.wired2fire.co.uk VERDICT Besides a deftly overclocked CPU, the Pyro Stryker is happy to play things safe THIS DINKY LITTLE desktop is even shorter top-to-bottom than the Chillblast Fusion Crossbow, but don’t be fooled: the key internals are no less competitive. Besides the not-at-all-surprising-at-this-point GTX 1050 Ti graphics card, Wired2Fire has included the quad-core Ryzen 3 1200 and gone a step further by overclocking it up to 3.7GHz. Despite this clever touch, because the Cooler Master Masterbox Lite 3 case mounts the PSU at the top, without a shroud, this PC has more of an overtly ‘budget’ look than the others. Exacerbating things are the plain black styling and the numerous cables at the bottom, visible through the small plastic side window. CLAIM TO GAME Still, this is…

Here, we’ll show you how to configure a 2.4GHz router, improving range and performance. For 802.11ac routers, you should follow this advice, and the instructions on the opposite page for configuring a 5GHz network. Please note that all routers have slightly different layouts and use different terms, so check your manual as you follow this guide. 1 CONNECT TO THE MANAGEMENT PAGE Connect to the web-based management page by opening a web browser and typing in your router’s IP address. This should be written in the manual that came with the router, but you can find the address simply enough from your computer. In Windows, bring up a Command Prompt from the Start menu and type ipconfig. Note down the Gateway address, as this is your router’s IP address. If…

Using two routers is often the best solution to a poor wireless connection, giving you a seamless and quick way to extend Wi-Fi range. If you’ve gone down the HomePlug wireless access point route, the instructions here are similar, but check your product’s manual for full instructions and how to configure it. 1 CONNECT TO YOUR PRIMARY ROUTER Connect to the web-based management page of your primary router (the one connected to broadband) and navigate to the DHCP settings, which will most likely be under the LAN settings. DHCP is the protocol that deals with network addresses for connecting devices, as each one must have its own unique IP address. An IP address is made up of four numbers separated by full stops, such as 192.168.0.2. The DHCP server information…

Technology manufacturers have improved their green game, says Greenpeace’s Gary Cook (pictured), making efforts to switch away from hazardous materials in production and trying to reduce the carbon footprint in their supply chains. That said, the IT sector is still responsible for up to 12% of electricity demand globally, with e-waste set to hit 65 million tonnes – enough, Greenpeace notes, to “bury San Francisco at a depth of more than four metres”. The big tech firms don’t score well on the activist group’s Guide to Greener Electronics, with all but Fairphone scoring a C grade or below. It may feel as though there’s nothing you can do – you need a smartphone, after all – but there are steps we can all take to be greener with our technology.…

Clive Webster has been tinkering with computers ever since Windows 98 forced him to manually install his drivers clive@computershopper.co.uk MANY PEOPLE STILL view Windows XP as Microsoft’s crowning glory, the pinnacle of PC operating systems, the perfect balance between simplicity, reliability and flexibility. Some people just need to use XP because a vital or favourite piece of software was never updated to run on anything else, and even the Compatibility Modes of later Windows versions couldn’t help. Whichever camp you’re in, there is one significant flaw: Windows XP no longer receives security updates. XP is therefore a sitting duck for hackers, leading to many XP users running their PCs in total isolation – no internet, no USB drives, no chance of ingress for any malicious software. Obviously that’s a pain,…

Photographer, musician, sound engineer, designer and video producer Ben Pitt guides you through a multimedia project ben@computershopper.co.uk PHOTOGRAPHY ENCOMPASSES everything from holiday selfies to fine art, but what makes a photo a work of art? One answer is when it’s not just the subject matter that’s important, but equally, the way the subject is presented in the frame and the shapes it creates. A photo can transcend its subject matter to become visually interesting in its own right. Abstract photography takes this one step further. The subject matter becomes secondary, irrelevant, perhaps even unrecognisable, pushing the viewer to concentrate on the shapes, colours and textures that fill the frame. These photos might not be to everyone’s taste, but it’s a useful exercise to improve your general technique. It will help…

letters@computershopper.co.uk Fitting tribute @ I’ve just read your touching editorial on Dave Neal (Shopper 362), and have one suggestion. How about readers write in with their best fake computer company names, so they can bamboozle these scam callers? Maybe all the better if they make little or no sense, just to further twist these scumbags’ noodles further, such as Dave’s Computer And Gurgle Centre, or The Eek Computer And Watermelon Company Ltd? It could be called Dave’s Anti-Scam Call Corner, but I’m sure you can come up with something snappier. I once had one of these people arguing that the Xbox One isn’t a computer. John Malcolm What a great idea, John. That would make a fitting tribute for Dave, who we’re feeling the loss of at Shopper. Home win…

HOW MANY TIMES have you been in a situation where you’ve tried to log into a little-used online account – you know, where you finally figure out what your username is, struggle through and enter your password after a few failed attempts, and then hit the list of questions? “Please enter the first name of your first pet’s best friend,” you’ll be asked, or, “What was the name of your home town in Roman times?” Or, the worst one I’ve encountered was simply, “Please enter your memorable information”. Of course, I had no idea what that was, which kind of defeats the point. In all cases, the experience is one of frustration and annoyance. It’s easy to see why companies have added these extra questions: it’s an attempt to protect…

For the wallet The Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ is the Pi Foundation’s first flagship micro PC since 2016, and even though its Wi-Fi upgrades and processor speed improvements are small individually, together they add up to something truly special. The organisation hasn’t bumped up the price, either: rather excellently, the Model B+ costs no more than the original Pi 3, and for those who need reminding, that’s a mere £32. Besides showing an impressive amount of restraint on the part of the Pi Foundation, that leaves this little computer as an even better buy than its popular predecessor. (Page 24) For the den This would perhaps also be ‘For the office’, depending on where you keep your PC, but the Philips Brilliance 241B7QPJKEB is outstanding value wherever you put…

Autonomous driving A self-driving Uber car killed a woman in Tempe, Arizona, by failing to spot her as she crossed a dimly lit road, raising questions around driverless car testing Slingshot spyware A US cyber spying operation was found in the form of spyware hiding on MikroTik routers for the past six years Tax-free tech The European Commission plans to charge companies with significant online revenues a 3% tax on online turnover, which could hit the wallets of tech firms such as Facebook, Google and Amazon Takeover deals Donald Trump blocked Singapore-based Broadcom’s takeover of chipmaker Qualcomm, claiming it raised “national security concerns”, thereby preventing the $117bn deal from going ahead…

500,000 The number of bugs found and fixed in GitHub’s public code repositories 1x1mm The size of IBM’s new ‘world’s smallest computer’ 270% How much macOS malware increased over the past year 6 YEARS How long New Orleans police and Palantir Technologies carried out a predictive policing trial without citizens’ knowledge 500 NEW SECURITY THREATS CROP UP EVERY MINUTE, ACCORDING TO McAFEE 4.35GHz THE CLOCK SPEEDS AMD’S RYZEN 2 PROCESSORS ARE EXPECTED TO HIT $71,000 Value of bitcoin pilfered from Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak £25m THE AMOUNT TO FUND 5G TRIALS ACROSS THE UK…

Private browsing isn’t that private after all, say MIT boffins MIT RESEARCHERS HAVE discovered the private and ‘incognito’ modes of popular web browsers leak data and fail to protect a user’s privacy. The academics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory noted that browsers leave various leak vectors wide open to give away your identity: the file system, the browser cache, the DNS cache, as well as “on-disk reflections of RAM such as the swap file”. These files can remain on your PC for days, and even if browsers knew where they were stored, they wouldn’t necessarily be able to delete them. To tackle this, the researchers have come up with a privacy-protecting framework called Veil, which aims to take the onus of privacy from a…

£739 • From www.amazon.co.uk VERDICT An impressive phone with a superlative camera, but even that isn’t quite worth the money CHANCES ARE YOU already know at least something about the Samsung Galaxy S9: leaks, rumours and educated guesses have been rampant, and there were certainly no gasps of surprise when the Galaxy S9 was finally officially revealed at MWC 2018. It probably didn’t help Samsung’s pre-release buzz that the Galaxy S9 looks so much like the Galaxy S8 (Shopper 353); to an extent, this is a smartphone that builds on previous successes, rather than aims for a complete reinvention. Despite this, it costs £739, making it even more expensive than the infamously dear iPhone 8. However, there are two key upgrades here: the new 12-megapixel f/1.5 rear camera, which promises…

£230 • From www.carphonewarehouse.com VERDICT The P Smart isn’t a bad phone, but the Honor 9 Lite offers more and costs less THE P SMART is Huawei’s latest budget phone, finally making its way to the UK after being announced in December 2017. Budget phones have come a long way in terms of design. Long gone are the days of ugly bricks; the Huawei P Smart looks as elegant as any flagship handset, with its rounded edges reminiscent of its older sibling, the Huawei P10 (Shopper 361). Although antenna lines are visible, they smartly complement the phone’s design. The P Smart comes in a range of four colours (black, blue, gold and rose gold), but right now only black is available in the UK. It looks tasteful enough, although it…

01 A basic laptop costing around £300 will run everyday office, multimedia and education software, but it won’t be suitable for 3D gaming or processor-intensive tasks such as video editing. Many laptops at this price have a 15.4in screen and weigh around 2.4kg, so they’re best used around the house and for occasional journeys. 02 If you want to play modern games, you’ll need a laptop with a dedicated graphics chip such as the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060M. Good gaming laptops tend to have large 17in screens and weigh around 3kg, so they’re best suited to use at home. 03 If you want a laptop that you can take everywhere, look for a model that weighs less than 2kg. For the best portability, buy one that has an 11in or…

01 A basic digital camera will suit someone who wants to take pictures to view on their computer and create 7x5in prints. It should cost around £80, but there may be hidden downsides such as slow performance and very basic user controls. 02 Spend a little more and you’ll get a higher resolution. A 16-megapixel sensor has the potential to produce sharp prints up to A3 size, but only if it and the lens are of a suitably high quality. Very high resolutions in compact cameras tend to boost noise more than detail levels, so many of the best models strike a sensible balance by using a 12-megapixel sensor. Back-illuminated CMOS sensors tend to produce less noise than CCDs, but check our reviews to find out how a particular model…

01 If you don’t have space in your home cinema setup for a set of surroundsound speakers, a soundbar is the next best thing. Whether you opt for a soundbar (which typically sits in front of your TV stand) or a soundplate (which sits underneath your TV), you’ll be getting significantly better audio than the weedy speakers today’s flatscreen TVs provide. 02 If you want to cut down on cable clutter, look for a soundbar with multiple HDMI inputs and outputs as well as Audio Return Channel (ARC). Not all soundbars use HDMI, with many making do with digital optical audio connections instead. This means you’ll have to connect Blu-ray players, games consoles and set-top boxes to your TV and run all audio through a single cable. Also look for…

01 A smart thermostat can save you a lot of money by intelligently controlling your heating. Most smart heating devices are designed to be used with hot water central heating systems, with the boiler directly controlled by the system. These typically require a relay to be wired into your boiler, with a wireless thermostat giving you direct control. Smartphone apps then tie into the system to give you remote control. While it’s possible to fit controls yourself, you may want to pay an experienced plumber to do the job: expect to pay around £150 for a typical installation. If you have electric heating, there are very few choices, and the big names (Nest, Honeywell and so on) do not directly support these systems. 02 Want smart hot water control? If…

01 A basic 1TB internal hard disk should cost around £40. This will be fast enough for general use and will provide enough storage for most users. Make sure the hard disk you choose has the appropriate interface type for your PC. Some mechanical hard disks still come with SATA2 interfaces, but newer models and most solid-state drives (SSDs) have faster SATA3 interfaces. You’ll need a motherboard with a SATA3 port if you want to benefit from SATA3’s faster speeds; SATA3 disks will work with SATA2 ports but can only transfer files at SATA2 speeds. 02 SSDs can make the most of SATA3’s extra bandwidth for fast file transfers. They use flash memory similar to that found in USB flash drives, and although they tend to provide less capacity than…

AOC G2460VQ6 £130 • From www.amazon.co.uk In many ways, this is a pretty run-of-themill 24in monitor. There’s nothing special about its contrast ratio, which we measured at 706:1, nor its slightly confusing OSD layout. Then again, for £130 it’s a good little display, especially for gaming. It has a 75Hz refresh rate instead of the more common 60Hz, for example, so if you’re hitting 70-75fps you’ll be able to see the difference, instead of being capped at 60fps. sRGB coverage is also high, at 96.8%, even if you need to enable sRGB mode manually to get it. Doing so will improve colour accuracy as well, with the G2460VQ6’s delta-E measurement lowering from 3.1 to 2.7. SPEEDLINK ULTOR £42 • From www.amazon.co.uk Think that saving money means being stuck with a…

£600 • From www.chillblast.com VERDICT This pint-sized PC sticks to cheap components, while showing why that’s not always a bad thing CHILLBLAST IS FOND of the CiT F3 mini-tower case; this is something like the third budget Chillblast PC we’ve tested to arrive inside that aggressively angled chassis, this time wearing a bold green-and-black colour scheme. That’s not a complaint, as the F3 is one of our favourite low-cost cases for microATX systems. Besides being nice and compact, with minimal wasted space, it has the rare quality of built-in SD and microSD card readers, positioned conveniently on the front I/O panel alongside two USB2 and one USB3 ports. This is no image-editing rig, but the ability to slide in an SD card should be welcome to anyone who owns a…

£600 • From www.palicomp.co.uk VERDICT Upping the graphics card’s clock speeds is a winning tactic for this powerful system CPU OVERCLOCKING CAN be a cost-free way of boosting your PC’s performance, and as long as you don’t push the chip too far, it’s easier and less risky than you might think. GPU overclocking isn’t much different, but it’s usually possible simply to buy a card that’s been pre-overclocked by the manufacturer. However, this service inevitably means the card will cost more, which is probably why so far we haven’t yet seen one of these cheap PCs include an overclocked graphics card. That changes with the Palicomp i3 Pulsar, which comes with a 4GB Asus Cerberus GeForce GTX 1050 Ti OC Edition. Also of note is the Intel Core i3-8100 CPU,…

Knowing what the issues are with your home network is one thing, but dealing with them is another. The solution will depend on the age of your network and what you want to achieve. We’ll help you make the right decision based on your particular problems. FIXED DEVICES HAVE INTERNET PROBLEMS A wired network will give you greater reliability, deliver faster throughputs and help you eradicate any interference issues. The downsides of a wired network are twofold. First, you have to be tied to one place, so you can’t move around. Second, you have the hassle of running network cabling, which isn’t always easy. For that reason, wired networking is the best answer to devices that are fixed in place, such as a TV, set-top box or games console. We…

Networks on the 5GHz band are similar to 2.4GHz networks to deal with, but there are a few more options. If you have an 802.11n router that supports both 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks, you may find that it supports only one at a time, forcing you to make a choice. Most likely, you’ll need to choose the 2.4GHz network for compatibility and range, so you shouldn’t need the advice here. With 802.11ac routers and some 802.11n routers, you can run both networks simultaneously, so the 5GHz network has to be configured properly. We’ll assume that you’ve logged on to your router already using the steps on the opposite page. If your router supports two 5GHz networks, we’ll show you how to configure both. 1 CHECK NETWORK NAME Check the name…

Wireless mesh networks are a great and new way of boosting wireless around your home. They work with your existing router, replacing its Wi-Fi. With satellite access points around your home, you can kill all dead spots. Unlike doing the job yourself, mesh systems have smart technology in them that will push connecting devices to the strongest and best access point. The configuration is similar with all mesh networks, so we’ll take you through some tips and tricks to get them set up perfectly. 1 CONFIGURE THE FIRST ACCESS POINT Your first access point must be plugged into your router via its Ethernet port. Do this and place the access point so that it’s clear of obstruction. Ideally, access points should stand on a shelf, not inside a cupboard. Follow…

The best way to think of ReactOS is as a reverse-engineered Windows NT clone. We’re being fussy about the distinction between NT and XP here, as ReactOS is more interested (at least at this point) in replicating the ‘Windows NT architecture’ rather than XP specifically. Windows NT was originally the workstation version of Windows, but Microsoft did such a great job with NT 4.0 that it used this as the basis for Windows XP. As Windows XP is essentially Windows NT 4.0 with a pretty interface, your XP-only software should run on ReactOS. However, you won’t see the default XP colour scheme, countryside desktop background or the enthusiastic search puppy in ReactOS. We are also going to be fussy about the term ‘reverse-engineered clone’, as the ReactOS developers haven’t just…

Light relief @ I always get a burst of enthusiastic excitement when the magazine drops through the door. Get a coffee and sit down for the read. Am I the only one who starts at the back? Zygote is the first article to be read, the choice bits out loud to my wife. Then it has to be Ben Pitt. I was looking forward to his Lightroom versus the rest report. Sadly, I was disappointed. I agree with his main finding as I have used DxO Prime for years to reduce noise before going into Lightroom. I was not so sold on Ben’s comparison choices. Where was Capture One, long seen by photographers as the main competitor to Lightroom? I also thought it sad that the superb open-source Darktable, available…

LONG-STANDING ELECTRONICS retailer Maplin has gone into administration after the ailing business failed to find a buyer. Blaming the fall in the pound’s value after the Brexit vote, along with the withdrawal of credit insurance and poor customer confidence, Maplin was on the hunt for a buyer to save it. “This necessitated an intensive search for new capital that in current market conditions has proved impossible to raise. These macro factors have been the principal challenge, not the Maplin brand or its market differentiation,” said Graham Harris, Maplin’s chief executive. “We believe passionately that Maplin has a place on the high street, and that our trust, credibility and expertise meets a customer need that is not supported elsewhere.” In March, Maplin called in PwC to take care of the administration…

US Rage against the machines San Francisco residents have been laying down beatings on defenceless driverless cars and robots. Reports have surfaced of people showing their dislike of autonomous tech in a very physical fashion. One taxi driver hopped out of his car and slapped the window of General Motors’ Cruise driverless car; another incident saw a car of the same make under attack from a pedestrian. Meanwhile, a Knightscope autonomous security robot used by an SPCA animal shelter to shoo away homeless people got pushed over, covered with a tarp and smeared with BBQ sauce. Serbia/Kosovo It’s slow time! Electronic clocks ran up to six minutes slow across 25 countries after their power supply was disrupted. The bizarre loss of time was down to tensions between Serbia and Kosovo,…

“If robot vendors don’t act quickly, ransomware attacks on robots could cripple businesses worldwide” Lucas Apa, senior security consultant at IOActive, on exploiting robot vulnerabilities “Boring Co urban loop system would have 1,000s of small stations the size of a single parking space that take you very close to your destination & blend seamlessly into the fabric of a city, rather than a small number of big stations like a subway” Tech entrepreneur Elon Musk appears to have accidentally reinvented the bus “In order for humanity to leave the cradle of Earth, we need to develop infrastructures beyond our home planet” Robert Böhme, CEO of PTScientists, on putting a 4G LTE network on the Moon “The Acorn team in the 1980s accomplished such groundbreaking achievements that didn’t just change Acorn,…

£138 • From www.ebuyer.com VERDICT This redesign improves the cooling from last year’s H500P, while keeping its neat-freak tendencies IT WASN’T TOO long ago that the original gun-metal grey MasterCase H500P first went on sale, but Cooler Master has been quick to release an updated version that fixes some of the earlier version’s foibles. As the name implies, the MasterCase H500P Mesh’s most significant change is greater use of mesh panelling. If this doesn’t sound like much of an upgrade, consider that the H500P had a solid piece of acrylic running right down its front, so while its dual 200mm intake fans were capable of sucking in huge amounts of fresh, cooling air, they could only gasp for small breaths through relatively slim lines of mesh down either side. Now…

01 A smartphone’s operating system (OS) dictates its basic features and which third-party software you can install. There are three main contenders: Apple’s iOS, which is found on the iPhone, Google’s Android, which is used by various handset manufacturers, and Windows Phone, which has few options. Apple iOS and Google Android have the most apps available but Windows Phone is slowly catching up. 02 All smartphones have colour screens, but their resolutions vary. Basic models have 800x480 pixels, but text can be indistinct. Look for a display that has at least 1,280x720 pixels so it’s easy to browse web pages. Don’t worry too much about built-in media players or Office document editors; you can always install apps to replace these with better versions later. The image quality of smartphone cameras…

01 A basic 24in LCD monitor costs around £100. It will be fine for typical Windows work but is likely to have poor viewing angles, so you’ll need to sit straight on for the best picture quality. Its colour accuracy may not be very good, either. 02 A VGA input lets you use the monitor with any PC, but the quality may not be as good as it is over DVI or HDMI. Both are digital connections and require a compatible graphics card but they avoid the need for digital-to-analogue or analogue-todigital conversions, which can reduce image quality. A digital connection achieves the best picture automatically, so you won’t have to adjust clock or phase settings as you do with analogue connections. Many DVI and all HDMI connections support HDCP,…

01 Media streamers have come a long way from the hard disk-based set-top boxes of a few years ago. They now come in two main forms: flash drive-sized dongles that plug directly into the HDMI port in the back of your TV, and larger microconsoles that sit under it. Whichever model you choose, it will stream content from the internet rather than storing media files locally. 02 Most streamers use their own operating system, which you can navigate with a bundled remote control, but Google’s Chromecast dongle requires a paired smartphone, tablet or laptop to stream content on the big screen. If you’re looking to set up Netflix for someone who doesn’t have a smartphone, buy a standalone streamer such as a Roku or Amazon Fire TV device. 03 A…

01 Laser printers used to be much more expensive than inkjets and were typically restricted to offices. They are now much more affordable, however, and offer several benefits over inkjets, including lower per-page printing costs and faster print speeds. 02 A decent laser printer will typically cost around £80, and will happily print hundreds of black-and-white pages per hour. If documents are your priority, you’ll want a high minimum speed and low print costs. However, you’ll probably be limited to black-and-white printing at this price. 03 Although you can still buy singlefunction laser printers, multifunction peripherals (MFPs) are now far more common. These models can scan and photocopy documents as well as print them, and some of them also have fax capabilities. Laser MFPs start from around £200. 04 Heavy-duty…

01 It’s essential that you buy the right type of motherboard for your processor. Intel’s older Haswell processors require a motherboard with an LGA1150 socket, but newer, fourth-generation Skylake chips need an LGA1151 socket. A board for a Haswell processor must also have an H97 or a Z97 chipset, while Skylake processors use the new Z170 chipset. Skylake CPUs also use newer, faster DDR4 memory. 02 All current Intel processors have built-in graphics chipsets, so if you want to use your chip’s built-in graphics, make sure the motherboard has the video outputs you need, such as VGA, DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort. If you want to play the latest games, you’ll need to fit a dedicated graphics card in the motherboard’s PCI Express x16 slot, although this may block one of…

Chat and Communication UPDATED Evernote 6.9.7.6770 Store your notes, ideas and plans in the cloud, and synchronise them between computers. UPDATED Mailbird 2.5.1 A free desktop email client for Windows. Miranda IM 0.10.77 Chat with friends across multiple messaging platforms, including AIM, Facebook, IRC and MSN, all from one simple interface. UPDATED Skype for Windows 8.16.0.4 Make internet voice and video calls for free, and buy credit to make calls to mobiles and landlines. Telegram 1.2.6 This free IM app synchronises your conversations across multiple devices, and can spruce up chats with stickers and GIFs. UPDATED WhatsApp Desktop 0.2.8361 A free PC and Mac version of the popular messaging app, letting you chat from your desktop. Customisation iolo System Mechanic Free 17.0.1 Speed up your system with iolo’s PC optimisation…

£550 • From www.box.co.uk VERDICT This otherwise fine PC makes a gamble on integrated Vega graphics that doesn’t quite pay off THE CUBE REDWING 3 is interesting for a couple of reasons: first, it’s £50 cheaper than the other PCs in this group test, and second, it gives us our first look at AMD’s latest Raven Ridge APUs in action. In this case (no pun intended) it’s the Ryzen 3 2200G, something of a successor to the entry-level Ryzen 3 1200 but with a higher 3.5GHz base clock and, most importantly, integrated Radeon Vega 8 graphics. AMD has promised that this would vastly outperform the integrated graphics on comparable Intel chips, which would need to be true here, as the Cube RedWing 3 relies on it entirely – there’s no…

£600 • From www.cyberpower.co.uk VERDICT The balance of processing, gaming and storage performance make this a fantastic all-rounder FOLLOWING ON FROM the Cube RedWing 3, this is another PC built around AMD’s Vega-infused Ryzen 3 2200G APU. For the Ultra 3 GTX, Cyberpower has wisely opted to pass on integrated graphics and include what is evidently the graphics card du jour, the MSI 4GB MSI GeForce GTX 1050 Ti LP. Once again, the Ryzen 3 2200G together with the expected 8GB of DDR4 RAM manages to pierce the 100-point barrier in our 4K benchmarks, scoring 104 in the image test, 105 in the video test, 101 in the multitasking test and 103 overall. That’s better than what you’d get from either a stock-speed Ryzen 3 1200 or Intel’s Core i3-7100,…

£599 • From www.pcspecialist.co.uk VERDICT Bottlenecking is a problem for this GTX 1060-based PC, but not enough to spoil it completely A CURIOUS THING is happening to the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060: as the card itself continues to suffer from sky-high price inflation, the amount you have to pay for a PC with one already installed seems to be getting lower. First there was the £670 Medion Erazer P4408 D (Shopper 361), now there’s the £599 PC Specialist Obsidian Elite, which, like the Medion, packs the 3GB version of Nvidia’s mid-ranger. That’s hardly a huge compromise, as most in-game benchmarks put the 3GB GPU only a handful of frames per second behind its bigger 6GB brother. Before you get too excited, however, take note of which CPU it’s being paired…

PHOTOGRAPHY EPSON Expression Photo HD XP-15000 True, at £281 this is expensive for a printer, particularly one that can’t scan or copy as well. But when you’re making prints of your best photos, the one area you shouldn’t be skimping on is quality, and here the Expression Photo HD XP-15000 delivers. None of the other seven devices comes close on crispness and colour vibrancy, thanks mainly to the 5,760x1,440dpi resolution and the use of six individual ink cartridges rather than the usual four. What’s more, its relatively large maximum paper size of A3+ means your shots don’t have to be cramped on to a sheet of A4. THE HOME OFFICE HP OfficeJet Pro 7720 Don’t bother with a bulky laser printer: the OfficeJet Pro 7720 is more or less a…

A wired Ethernet network is, if you can achieve it, the best option. With Gigabit Ethernet, you’ll get better-than-wireless speeds and incredible reliability. For a fixed desktop computer, NAS or entertainment devices that won’t move, such as a smart TV, an Ethernet connection is often the best idea. ROUTE ONE All routers have an Ethernet switch built into them. An Ethernet switch lets multiple devices talk to each other at maximum speed. The router can convert the traffic from the switch to wireless (and vice versa), letting all devices on your home network talk to each other. Your wireless router will most likely have four Gigabit Ethernet ports. This lets you connect up to four devices directly to the router. Ethernet cables can have long runs, of up to 100m.…