Table of contents for April 2019 in APC

The new 11-inch iPad Pro sports narrower bezels, curvy LCD corners, and cutting-edge silicon. This is, apparently, the iPad Apple dreamed about building from the beginning, but what we dream about is a device that’s easy to repair… MAJOR TECH SPECS ■ Fully laminated, 11-inch, LED-backlit, Oxide TFT Liquid Retina display, with 2,388x1,668 resolution (264 ppi) ■ Octa-core Apple A12X Bionic CPU, with M12 motion coprocessor, and integrated seven-core GPU ■ 12MP rear camera with 4K video recording at 60fps, and 7MP TrueDepth camera with 1080p video ■ Self-balancing, four-speaker audio, Face ID, five microphones, ambient light sensor, accelerometer, barometer, and 3-axis gyro ■ 802.11a/b/g/n/ac dual-band MIMO Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.0 ■ 4GB, 256GB, 512GB, or 1TB of on-board storage KEY FINDINGS ■ Final notes before we dive in: No…

Hello and welcome to my new Two Bits column. Each month I’ll take a look at something from the world of PC tech, whether it’s a juicy piece of news, a rumour or analysis of a burning tech topic. Let’s begin with a look at the state of Nvidia’s RTX series of graphics cards and what it means for gamers, as well as Nvidia going forward. At the launch of the RTX series at Gamescom in August 2018 — if Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was to be 100% believed — the new Turing GPU brings a graphics revolution. There’s no doubt that the industry will increasingly integrate ray tracing into games, though for now game support is limited to minor effects. We’re a long way from seeing fully ray traced…

Razer has always offered some of the best looking laptops money can buy, and the 2019 black-anodised aluminium Razer Blade Stealth is no exception. Returning to the 13-inch form factor, we’re continually surprised by how small modern ultrabooks can be. Sliding in at a 1.48cm thickness, the new Stealth earns its Razer name, and the 30.5 x 21cm footprint and 1.28kg weight mean this device is just about as portable as a laptop can be. Despite being so compact the Blade Stealth manages to maintain a nicely weighted keyboard that has a decent travel distance for an ultraportable. This keyboard is skirted by a pair of subtle speaker grills that combine with an additional two undercarriage speakers to create Dolby Atmos three dimensional sound, which isn’t bad for personal cinematic…

The Turing-based Nvidia RTX 2000-series cards released to date perform well and have a very forward looking set of features. One thing they aren’t known for, though, is great value. Mainstream gamers — the ones buying cards in the $200-$400 range — have been patiently waiting for Nvidia to release something that caters to them. The cheapest card in the RTX range, the RTX 2060, still starts at around $600, a price that’s too far outside of the range of mainstream gamers. Does a typical gamer playing Fortnite or Overwatch or MOBA titles need ray tracing capability? The large die GPUs found in the RTX 2060 and up are simply not economical to sell at prices to cater to the mainstream market. Enter the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti. It omits…

AX Wi-Fi has arrived and it aims to enhance wireless network performance by boosting speed and responsiveness while reducing network congestion. There are many technical improvements but they vary in complexity. We’ve seen MU-MIMO before but it’s been less-than-thrilling as a bolted-on addition to earlier technology: we’ve higher hopes for it now that it’s integrated into the standard. The key improvement is called orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) which supposedly “Increases average throughput by a factor of four in high-density scenarios.” In basic, technical terms it ups the number of independently-modulated and simultaneous sub-carriers in a single 20MHz channel from 52 (AC wireless) to 234. There’s also band steering to automatically ensure that less-crowded bands are used. Unfortunately, compatible AX computer adapters won’t become available until the second half of…

While pricy at $569, the set of ports here is impressively comprehensive. It connects to your machine via a single Thunderbolt 3 cable, which also allows charging at an impressive 85W. The front of the aluminium case has a pair of USB 3.1 Type-A ports, combo headphone and mic jack and seperate SD and microSD card slots, and around the back there is a headphone jack, Gigabit Ethernet, DisplayPort 1.2, a pair of USB 3.1 Type-C ports, a pair of Thunderbolt 3 ports (thoughtfully labelled distinctly to differentiate them from the USB Type-C ports) – one of which is used to connect to and recharge your laptop – plus the power plug. Both headphone jacks are power amplified, too. It’s winning versatility without compromise. Twin monitors are supported via Thunderbolt…

Whe first thing you need to do when setting up your backup regimen is to ensure you have at least two suitable backup destinations in place. One should be ‘local’, as in the same room (or network) as your PC, so typically an external drive of some kind, connected via USB or network cable. The other should be ‘remote’, so housed in a separate location in case you’re subject to fire, theft or damage. NETWORK VERSUS USB When it comes to your local backup location, you’ve a straight choice between a drive directly attached to your PC, or a network hard drive (also known as a NAS – Network Attached Storage). The latter is accessible to other PCs in your network, so if you’re looking to set up a backup…

Your data is now backed up, ensuring your precious files and memories are protected. But what about the rest of your computer? What if you’ve inadvertently missed a critical folder or file? And what about Windows itself, along with all your applications and carefully crafted program settings? If Windows falls over, you could lose these, never mind the hours required to bring everything back up to speed. The solution lies in taking what’s known as a ‘drive image’. As the name implies, a drive image is a complete copy of one or more drives or drive partitions on your PC. The next time you run into problems – after a botched Windows Update, say – you can simply roll your computer back to its previous self within minutes, with nothing…

The unthinkable has happened. You’ve lost a file or – worse still – Windows won’t boot. This is the moment when all the hard work you’ve undertaken to protect your data comes riding to the rescue. In this portion of the feature we’ll reveal how to get things up and running again with a minimum of fuss. RECOVER FROM FILE HISTORY If you’re looking to restore a lost or accidentally deleted file – or undo recent changes to a file – your first port of call is your data backup. Start with File History – type file history into the Search box and click ‘Restore your files with File History’. A window will open showing all the folders currently in your backup, along with the date the backup was taken.…

THE FINAL DESTINATION Your destination drive should be formatted macOS Extended (Journaled) and bigger than your Macintosh HD so it can be booted from if you need to in the future. SELECT YOUR SOURCE For a full clone of your Mac’s hard drive, select Macintosh HD (unless yours is called something different) as your Source in Carbon Copy Cloner’s Task Plan interface. ALL THE FILES Under the Source section you’ll have the option to choose what you clone. As we want to be able to boot our Mac from this backup, ensure that ‘All files’ is set. SET A SCHEDULE For a fully bootable clone of your hard drive, we recommend setting it to be remade weekly or at least monthly so that you’ll always have relatively recent data ready.…

Well, that’s impressive: we managed to shave a total of $19 off the final cost of this build, and swapped out two major components at the same time. That’s surprising because, given Nvidia’s latest release, we expected the GTX 1060 to either hit EOL stock limits, and in turn shoot up, or the prices to shift regardless. But, no, it actually reduced. So, time to swap? Well, we’ve gone for a better spec motherboard this time around, ditching the no-longer-available AB320 ASRock mobo for an AB350M instead. It’s a slightly higher specced chipset, with slightly better connectivity, and it only cost us $21 extra. So no hardships there, then. We saved $40 on the GPU, which helped negate the new swap-outs as well. We went for a 120GB ADATA SSD…

WINDOWS FILE EXPLORER’S GLITCHY BEHAVIOUR I’m currently having two problems with Windows 10: clicking on the Recycle Bin icon on the desktop opens File Explorer, so I can’t empty it, and if I open File Explorer from the Taskbar I’m unable to create a new folder – clicking the button does nothing. Can you help please? Dave Carlile We were able to ascertain that the Recycle Bin was working correctly – clicking it does simply open File Explorer, and Dave confirmed he was able to empty the recycle bin from there or by right-clicking the bin itself). The second problem is almost certainly linked to a third-party program that adds additional commands to File Explorer, typically through the right-click menu. What you need is a program that enables you to…

Reddit calls itself “the front page of the internet”, and there’s certainly no shortage of stuff to read on the website. The site is divided into sections (‘subreddits’), each of which is a forum full of threads and topics. From Apple discussions to adorable dog videos — if you can imagine it, there’s probably a subreddit for it. Despite that, reading Reddit topics in Safari or the Reddit app on your iPhone can be less than satisfactory, and that’s where Apollo comes in. Developed by a former Apple engineer, Apollo is a fantastic way to read about subjects you love on your iOS device. Apollo combines ease of use with lots of excellent features. It’s quick and painless to add your favourite subreddits to the app, and Apollo gives you…

1 ONE MORE ICON BETWEEN FRIENDS Bartender adds its own icon to the menu bar. Click it and the app will toggle the menu bar icons between two states: those whose visibility is set to Show and those set to Hide. Icons you need only occasionally are good choices for the latter category. 2 ALWAYS SHOW AN ICON There are some exceptions. Set an icon to Always Show and it’ll be visible regardless of Bartender’s state. Pick Always Hide and it’ll appear only if you: press the Search hot key and type its name; press the Show All Items hot key; or follow our third step. 3 REVEAL ON STATUS UPDATE No matter which visibility setting you pick, ticking ‘Show for updates’ will cause the icon to reappear for a…

For this tutorial we shall take our first steps in creating a video ‘demo’. These were popular in the ‘80s and ‘90s on the Amiga and Atari computers. They showcased the power of the computer and the prowess of the coder. Typically, these demos (http://ada.untergrund.net) were used by rival “crack teams” who broke copy protection on games. But they grew into an art form that led to many bedroom coders becoming big names in the computing industry. We’ll be using Pygame Zero to create our own demo using a little Python code combined with some assets created in image editors and music applications. More on that later. To write the code for this project we need to install Mu, a simple Python IDE for beginners. We install Mu because it’s…

$99.95 | PC, XO, PS4 | WWW.CODEMASTERS.COM Back in 2004 the Last Great Rally Sim was released. Richard Burns Rally is a rare pinpoint of ultra-hardcore sim physics in a world of arcade rally games. Then, in 2015 Codemasters released Dirt Rally and it blew sim racers away with unexpected levels of sim authenticity. It was an immediate hit and, being far fresher than the ageing Richard Burns, the game reinvigorated interest in rally siming. Codies has lifted the game with the successor, which is clearly pitched at the sim scene. You can tell, because the car physics feel terrifyingly, beautifully real. There’s almost no OSD while you’re driving, and tweaking around with the car setups yield appreciable and satisfying results. As tricky as the handling is, it…

FROM $28.95 | PC, PS4, SWITCH, XO | WWW.WARGROOVE.COM As a ‘loving homage’ to Nintendo Game Boy and DS series Advance Wars, Wargroove hews pretty closely to its inspiration. With cutesy pixelated graphics and near-identical lite tactics-strategy gameplay, if you enjoyed any of the Advance Wars series, you’ll undoubtedly fall immediately in love with Wargroove, the new game from British Starbound dev Chucklefish. With the last Wars game having appeared way back in 2008 on the Nintendo DS, it’s been a veritable age since gamers last got to experience this kind of turn-based strategy gameplay — and as such, you can’t really blame Chucklefish for sticking closely to that winning formula. As in Wars, you’re put in charge of a small army in a series of asynchronous battles,…

ISSUE 466, APRIL 2019 Please note that these exclusive APC magazine downloads will only be available for a limited time, from 25/03/2019 to 12/05/2019 PERFECT YOUR DIGITAL PHOTO LIBRARY ORGANISE, OPTIMISE AND EDIT WITH ASHAMPOO PHOTO COMMANDER 15 FULL VERSION WORTH $12 The new Ashampoo Photo Commander 15 is the comprehensive solution to view, edit and organise your photos, geotagging included! Bring order to your photo library, batch-optimise multiple files at once or create and design your own calendars, greeting cards and slideshows with ease. Control and navigate through your slideshows on your PC while the slides appear on an external display or beamer! With just a few clicks, beginners, amateurs and professionals alike will achieve stunning results. DOWNLOAD LINK: www.ashampoo.com/lpa/apc KEEP YOUR DRIVE SPICK AND SPAN ORGANISE…

From May to December of 2018, hackers directed credential abuse attempts at retail sites more than 10 billion times according to new research from cybersecurity company Akamai. The firm’s 2019 State of the Internet report sheds light on the fact that the retail industry was the most targeted segment by hackers while also highlighting the prevalence of API-call traffic on the web and the misrepresentation of Ipv6-based traffic. Akamai studied the credential abuse technique known as credential stuffing for its report and examined how hackers have begun to employ botnets to steal login credentials from retail websites. These stolen credentials are used to compromise accounts from which hackers acquire retail merchandise and resell it for cash. According to the report, the AIO bots deployed by hackers are multi-function tools that…

“While the specification will be backward compatible with devices as far back as USB 2.0, those faster transfer rates will require “40Gbps certified cables. “ Soon, the incredible speeds of Thunderbolt 3 ports in laptops and computers will be available to all future USB Type-C (USB-C) ports, thanks to the brand-new USB4 standard. Hot on the heels of announcing the USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 specification – which itself is yet to become available – the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF) revealed that the tech behind Intel’s proprietary Thunderbolt 3 port will be made available to generic USB-C ports. This means 40 Gigabits per second (Gbps) data transfer rates and multiple 4K display support. While the draft of the new specification is due to be published mid-2019, it’s unclear how long it…

Mobile phones evolved from initially being large devices to smaller clamshells (or flip phones like the Motorola Razr), shrinking with each passing year. Then, in 2007, Apple launched the first ever iPhone, ushering in the era of the smartphone. Since then consumers have been asking for more and more screen real estate. Turns out even the plus-sized handsets and phablets aren’t enough, so phone manufacturers have decided to design a device that has a folding screen, so it’s pocketable when necessary and unfolds into a tablet when needed. Enter the Samsung Galaxy Fold and the Huawei Mate X, both hitting shelves this year. Developing foldable OLED displays Being flexible wasn’t enough. The structural design of glass OLED screens aren’t conducive to a folding phone. Instead, plastic made for a more…

In 2019, most parents with their finger on the pulse will already be aware of the dangers of letting children consume so-called “kid friendly” material on YouTube. But the point was driven home further in February when reports emerged of a pattern of predators leaving timestamps in the comments of videos depicting young children. These timestamps highlighted moments in videos where children are depicted in compromising or inadvertently suggestive positions. Revealed by YouTuber Matt Watson, the report proliferated fast and lead to many companies — including Fortnite studio Epic Games — removing all pre-roll ads from YouTube. To make matters worse, barely a week later reports emerged of kids’ videos having suicide instructions spliced into them. In one instance, a Let’s Play for the Nintendo Switch game Splatoon 2 had…

The modern monitor market is marvelous: 240Hz refresh, resolutions of 4K and beyond, and latterly eye-popping HDR capabilities. But all three in a single monitor? That’s an awfully big ask. And it’s an awfully big ask because upping the refresh and resolution, or adding HDR (high dynamic range) capabilities, all increase the required bandwidth. You simply can’t have the highest available resolution, the fastest refresh, and HDR all in one monitor. Something’s gotta give. But what should that be? It all depends on your chosen remit. Round 1 GAMES Pumping more pixels has always been a problem when it comes to gaming. Higher resolutions put more strain on your graphics subsystem. And that means lower frame rates. When nearly all monitors ran at 60Hz, however, that often didn’t matter. If…

Western Digital’s Black series of NVMe SSDs have impressed us in the past, though perhaps they lacked that final edge that put them ahead of the likes of the class-leading Samsung 960 and 970. Fast forward to today, and we have the latest iteration of WD’s Black NVMe SSD, the SN750. It hopefully irons out a couple of the quirks found in earlier generation models. Western Digital is now fully integrated with SanDisk, meaning WD SSDs are now completely designed and built in-house. This means WD joins a small club along with Samsung that has this capability. Can WD now go head to head with the Korean king? The WD Black 1TB is a standard 80mm M.2 2280 NVMe drive that makes use of a PCIe 3.0 x4 interface. It…

Asus’ Maximus Apex series motherboards have quickly built a reputation for superb overclocking. While all Republic of Gamers (ROG) boards are highly capable overclockers, it’s the Apex series that takes things to the next level. Asus usually takes its time with Apex development. Z390 motherboards have been available for some time, and despite being teased for many months it’s only now that the Maximus XI Apex is making its debut. This is a board built from the ground up for overclocking. It’s got a best-in-class power delivery system with chunky heatsinks to keep it cool. Despite being an ATX board, Asus consciously equips the Apex with only two memory slots for an optimal electrical design with minimal interference. As you’d expect with a pricey motherboard, it comes with good set…

Asus’ new RT-AX88U is from the alien attack fighter school of router design, so its angular black chassis, four large antennae and gold detailing will look awesome or awful, depending on your personal taste. The theoretical speeds offered by AX6000 routers are (roughly) 6,000Mbps: 1,148Mbps on the 2.4GHz channel and 4,804Mbps on 5GHz. We’d love to have tested maximum speeds but, unfortunately, AX Wi-Fi adapters won’t be available until around Q3 2019. While we had an AX-compatible Samsung Galaxy S10+ phone on hand, this could not beat older AC Wi-Fi speeds using the Asus, even when used as a tethered, USB Wi-Fi dongle. We also tried to transfer files from a directly-attached, fast USB SSD but, try as we might, we could not convince the router to enable transfers. This…

“Setting up is simple via the Deco app: it walked us through setting up the network, setting the password, updating the firmware and adding the second node. ” While TP-Link is the first to market with the Archer AX6000 AX router (see page 32) it might just be the last to market with its AC1200 M4 Mesh system. It’s not even TP-Link’s first mesh, so we’re intrigued to see what it brings to the table in a mature market where prices from some competitors have tumbled. Our package included two nodes. We placed one downstairs next to our router and connected it via one of its two Gigabit Ethernet ports. The other we placed one floor up in a bedroom. Setting up is simple via the Deco app: it walked…

If you want the convenience of cloud storage – the ability to keep data synced between multiple computers and accessible via mobile devices, for example – but don’t want to store it on the web, look to invest in a hardware solution in the form of a network hard drive, also known as a NAS (Network Attached Storage). More powerful solutions offer a built-in personal cloud solution where the central copy is stored on the drive itself. If you’re particularly concerned about security, you can restrict access so only devices directly connected to your local network have access. Most NAS manufacturers offer their own proprietary solutions – My Cloud for Western Digital, for example. This is adequate for most people, but if you want want a non-proprietary solution, you should…

Back-up tools like Paragon and File History employ clever techniques to help keep the size of your backup to a minimum as new changes are recorded. After a single full backup is taken, Paragon offers two types: differential, which record the changes made since the last full backup was taken; and – better still – incremental, which only records those changes made since the last incremental backup was taken, helping keep the size of your backup down even further. If offered a choice between the two, choose incremental to maximise free space; if free space isn’t a problem, differential backups are quicker to restore from.…

As things stand, your backup regimen now protects you from disaster, but why not go further? Paragon supports multiple back-up jobs, so you could, for example, take a single drive image the next time you reinstall Windows after you’ve finished setting things up. Next time you need to reinstall, just restore this drive image and save yourself time getting things set up. If you partitioned your drive to hive off your data from Windows you might also want to take periodic drive images of that too, in case your regular backup inadvertently misses out certain files. Here a chain of backups comprising one full and three incremental or differential backups on a weekly schedule would prove adequate without taking up too much space on your drive backup. If you go…

If Windows ever loses contact with your File History backup drive – for example, after reinstalling Windows from scratch – then reconnecting it should be handled with care. Type control panel into the search box, click Control Panel and choose ‘Save backup copies of your files…’ under ‘System and Security’. Click ‘Select drive’ and, if necessary, ‘Add network location’ to connect to your backup drive. Select this and you should see an option to select a previous backup to reconnect to it. Once done, you can continue backing up as before, plus recover data from this backup if you need to.…

When it comes to backing up your iPhone or iPad, you’ve got it easy. Apple provides a solid, built-in system for backing up that works automatically and keeps a copy of the most important files on your iOS device safe in the cloud should the worst ever happen. With iCloud Photo Library, the photos you take are covered perfectly too. Although iCloud backups and iCloud Photo Library are very much ‘set it and forget it’ systems, we’ve covered that first below to help you get started. 1 OPEN SETTINGS Launch the Settings app and then tap on your Apple ID at the top of the screen. This provides access to all aspects of your iCloud account as well as all of the Apple devices that you are connected to. 2…

Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 $600, WWW.NVIDIA.COM Yes, we spent time in the last issue moaning about it, but still recommend it as “Upgrade of the Month.” It’s difficult to compete with this right now — the fact you can find it for less than $600 makes it impeccable value for money. It’s a very strong 1440p gaming card, and with the added bonus of DLSS and potentially some ray-tracing elements in the future, it has a strong footing for the days to come. Unlike its top-heavy brethren, we’ve yet to hear of anything going wrong with these cards with regard to memory burn-out either (although it is early days), so hopefully there should be far fewer RMAs than we saw with the first gen.…

One of the simplest and most effective edits you can make to a photo is to straighten it. We humans rarely have built-in level indicators, and it’s easy to end up taking a photo that’s wonky. Even with in-camera levels, which project information into the viewfinder, your images can still come out with a lean. Even worse is the effect that lens distortion can have on tall buildings. As you lean back to fit a skyscraper into the frame, the bottom of the tower block can bulge out, while the top shrinks rapidly, becoming narrower as it moves away. That’s if it’s in the centre of the frame – put a tall building at the edge of a photo taken with a wide-angle lens and it can appear to lean…

We love the free version of Apollo, but its paid-for Pro edition has even more on offer. Some are subtle improvements, such as setting a default subreddit to load or an automatic dark mode that changes based on the time of day. Others give you more power, like the ability to add custom gestures and multiple accounts. Apollo Pro lets you log in with Face ID, Touch ID or a passcode, and it even gives you custom app icons. Unlocking these features and more requires a one-off ‘donation’ of either US$2.99 or US$4.99 – it’s up to you which you pay.…

Our demo uses two images and one audio file. But where can we get them from? Well, if we need images we can use the artwork at openclipart.org because all of the images there are royalty free and in the public domain. For audio, take a trip to YouTube, which has a selection of copyright-free music tracks and sound effects.Go to www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/music to see the vast selection on offer. You can also visit https://cchits.net, which is a curated list of the top 15 Creative Commons music tracks. If you want to create your own assets from scratch, then consider using Inkscape (https://inkscape.org) or Gimp (www.gimp.org) to create images. Inkscape is a vector image editor and is excellent for accurate drawings. Gimp is similar to Photoshop and can be used to…

THQ Nordic, publisher of titles like Darksiders 3, Pillars of Eternity II and many more, came under fire last month when its PR department conducted an AMA (“Ask Me Anything”) on an image board known for the alleged hosting of child pornography, as well as its active role in the 2016 Gamergate debacle. The company announced the AMA via its Twitter account on February 27, quickly drawing the ire of many in the industry — including employees of some of the studios the company publishes. Nonetheless, it proceeded. While a meek apology followed shortly after by a PR spokesperson, THQ Nordic CEO Lars Wingefors issued an official apology the week after. “As Co-Founder and Group CEO of THQ Nordic AB, I take full responsibility for all of THQ Nordic GmbH‘s…

You may recall that a while back AMD had a ‘Windmill’ demo to illustrate how the original FreeSync worked to mitigate stuttering and tearing, and now there’s a second demo about to be unleashed to show off the benefits of the firm’s improved FreeSync 2 HDR technology. The new ‘Oasis’ demo (note that it isn’t a benchmarking utility) has been built using Unreal Engine 4, supports HDR10, and runs through various intricate landscape scenes to make the benefits of FreeSync 2 HDR clear. It will be possible to control the speed of panning, rewind the demo, or change various graphics settings (effects, shadows, bloom and so forth). On top of the titular HDR support, monitors with the new version of Freesync are also guaranteed to feature LFC (Low Frame-rate Compensation),…

GOOD TIMES I started reading APC in about 1990, and used to read it from cover to cover. At a certain point the content (from my point of view) slipped, with far to much emphasis on games (of which I have no interest) and nowhere near enough on the PC. I nearly didn’t renew my subscription to this year! Then came along the merger of APC and PC & Tech Authority. I have just finished reading the January Issue no 463 and I have to say that it is probably the best PC magazine I have read in many years. I read far more pages in this issue than I have done for a long time. A quick flick through issue 464 also looks like lots of interesting things to…

Ever since the launch of Nvidia’s RTX series, AMD has been a non-factor in the high-end GPU market. That changed when AMD CEO Dr Lisa Su took to the stage at CES in Las Vegas earlier this year and proudly showed off the simply named Radeon VII. It’s been some time since AMD made an attack on the high end and with the Radeon VII, AMD finally has a weapon to fight with. We were somewhat surprised by the Radeon VII announcement. While AMD’s Ryzen CPU range has been well received by both the PC market, not to mention Wall Street, GPU enthusiasts waiting for something to shake up the market in a similar way have been left waiting. AMD’s Navi architecture is on track for later in 2019, perhaps…

“Acer claims the hood is there so you can focus on your game. Like a horse on a racetrack wearing blinkers” Acer’s had a good run with their Predator monitors, releasing some truly excellent gaming displays to the market like the X34 and X34P. The 27-inch XB273KP is Acer’s latest addition to the Predator range. It boasts UHD 4K, IPS, DisplayHDR 400 certification, Nvidia G-Sync and a 144Hz refresh rate, making it truly worthy of the Predator branding. Let’s start this review by looking at the exterior of the XB273KP, because it comes with a rather unique feature not normally seen on gaming monitors — a hood. If you’ve hanged around professional photographers or graphic designers, you might have noticed a plastic frame around their displays to keep stray sources…

In the world of increasingly similar, shiny, glass oblongs that is the smartphone market, the annual launch of the latest Samsung flagship traditionally represents a breath of fresh air — even if it’s not always for the right reasons. Has the new S10+ let the side down? Let’s see: unnecessarily thin bezel? Check. Bonkers new innovations that don’t work properly? Check. Superlative camera performance? Check. Same flaws that haven’t been fixed for years? Check. Genuine innovation? Check. Overcrowded interface that’s packed with bloatware? Negative. Samsung is launching four flavours of the S10. The standard version has a 6.1-inch curved screen while the S10+ is 6.4-inches and a second selfie camera. A forthcoming 5G version has a 6.7-inch screen while a new, ‘budget’ S10e has a flat, 5.8-inch screen. CLASSY DESIGN…

If you can’t afford a dedicated NAS solution, but don’t trust cloud providers to look after your data either, why not add an extra layer of encryption to that data using a free client-side tool like Cryptomator (https://cryptomator.org). Cryptomator creates a special ‘vault’ – a virtual drive inside which all your most sensitive files can be stored, which resides in your cloud folder. The vault’s contents are encrypted by Cryptomator before they leave your PC, and the encryption keys remain off limits to your cloud provider (or anyone else). The vault itself functions like a regular USB drive, although there’s a performance hit as files are individually encrypted when copied into the vault or updated inside it. Rather than save directly to the folder, then, use it as a secure…

1 CHOOSE FILE-BASED BACKUP From the main screen click ‘+’ next to My Backups. Click ‘+’ under Backup source to select Files/Folders. You can opt to choose specific folders or drives to include in your backup – tick a box or click ‘>’ to expand a drive or folder to view its contents before ticking what you wish to back up. 2 BACK UP BY FILE TYPE Alternatively, choose ‘Select files by file type’ to choose specific types of files such as documents, music or video. Click the down arrow next to each to see which file types are included in the selection. From here you can exclude selected file types by unticking them as shown above. 3 MORE FILE-TYPE OPTIONS Click ‘Add your file types’ to enter your own…

1 SELECT BACKUP You can restore individual files and folders from within Windows itself – launch Paragon Backup and Recovery and select your backup from the left-hand pane. Roll your mouse over the dash immediately to the left of the clock in the Backup timeline to view its type and when it was taken. 2 CHOOSE VERSION To explore earlier backups, switch to the Table Layout view by clicking the button in the top right of the main screen. Select your chosen backup, then click the folder button as shown above, which will enable you to explore its contents within Paragon Backup and Recovery. 3 EXPLORE CONTENTS AND RESTORE Make sure you’re on the ‘Files and folders’ tab. You’ll need to know which folder your missing file is in (hint,…

If you’re looking for a quick way to start backing up your Mac, look no further than Time Machine. All you need is a hard drive, and the software is free and installed on every Mac. Once you’ve set it up keep your hard drive plugged in and your Mac will regularly back up automatically. We’ll show you how to get started and how to make Time Machine work even harder with a few tweaks. 1 CONNECT DRIVE Grab a hard drive and hook it up to your Mac. Ideally, you’ll want a fresh new one with at least double the space of what you have with your Mac’s internal storage. 2 THE PREFERENCES If you’re not prompted with the option to use your drive as a Time Machine drive,…

Although iCloud backups of your iOS devices can generally be relied upon, it never hurts to have a secondary backup in a different location. That’s where iTunes comes in. If you’re familiar with the world of iOS before iCloud, then backing up like this might be covering old ground, but if you’ve always relied on iCloud it’s time to start backing up with iTunes. It’s best to keep your iCloud backups running, but use the manual back up and restore options for iTunes. They’ll need encrypting too if you want to save things like passwords and Health data. Let’s go. 1 FIND YOUR IPHONE Plug your iPhone or iPad into your Mac or PC and fire up iTunes. From here, find the small device icon in the top-left corner of…

We all have our favourite open source apps that work for us better than any available alternative. But take a moment and step back from the Emacs vs vim type battles raging on in the Linux-verse and marvel at the sheer number of apps at our disposal. Your distros’ software repositories give you access to thousands of apps, and you can install everything from fully featured app suites to nifty command-line utilities literally with the touch of a button. There are open source apps and tools for all kinds of applications today. There’s hardly any use case that isn’t catered for by a community contributed app. Many of these apps have proved their mettle and offer features and performance benefits that surpass their proprietary counterparts. They have also proved themselves…

A friend of ours approached us at the end of last year with a question. His rig was getting dated, his Core i5-4690K quad-core processor wasn’t as punchy as he’d like, and although he had a fairly solid GPU (a GTX 1070), he wanted to know what we’d recommend he do with a roughly $3,000 budget. Cue a quick trip to PCPartPicker, and a few select questions. “He wanted to know what we’d recommend he do with a $3,000 budget. Cue a few select questions. ” The first thing we always ask people who throw that particular query at us is: “What are you interested in doing with your rig?” It’s a very open-ended question, but it makes a lot of sense to ask, because there’s no perfect solution that’ll…

1 STRAIGHTEN IN PHOTOS If you have an image with a horizon that’s non-horizontal, it can be sorted out in a couple of seconds using the cropping and rotation tool in Windows 10’s Photos app. Open your image in Photos, and launch the Crop tool by dropping down the ‘Edit & Create’ menu. Choose the top option – Edit. If the menus aren’t visible, click once anywhere on the image and they should fade in. 2 PHOTOS’ CROP TOOL Using the Crop tool to straighten a photo is effective, but often means you lose some of your image. Click ‘Crop and Rotate’ (top right), and you’ll get a white rectangle around your image. You can pull its corners in to crop, but to straighten use the Rotate tool at the…

Regardless of which Mac you have, you always want to make sure that three areas are given your personal touch; the Dock, the desktop and the menu bar. While the first two are relatively easy to organise, it’s a slightly more complicated affair to keep the icons at the right end of the menu bar under control. That area can get crowded, making things hard to find or notice. This is where Bartender 3 ($21.93 macbartender.com) is useful. Its purpose is to declutter and rearrange the menu bar icons to your needs, providing you with the option to hide and reveal icons as and when you want. Let’s get down to giving your menu bar an unseasonally early spring clean! After you install the app, you’ll eventually close its preferences…

1 QUICK ACTION BUTTONS The toolbar offers a quick and easy way to access HomeBank’s most popular functions. 2 ACCOUNTS LIST All your accounts are listed here, grouped by category. Double-click one to open its own account window. 3 REPORTS HomeBank provides several reporting tools that give you visual insights into how your finances are performing. 4 TRACK SPENDING The pie chart shown on HomeBank’s main screen gives you a convenient look at how your money is being spent. 5 SCHEDULED PAYMENTS See which recurring transactions – incomings and outgoings – are due in the next few days. 6 ACCOUNT WINDOW Manage each account in its own separate window. Here, you can add new transactions as well as view existing ones.…

1 CONTROL WHAT YOU SEE Filters enable you to restrict what HomeBank shows you. They’re based on a tightly defined set of criteria, and can be applied both to the Statistics report and any account screen. Set up a filter in a report by clicking the Edit Filter button at the top of the report window. When viewing an account, you’ll need to select Tools > Filter. 2 SELECT FILTER TYPE AND OPTION There are eight filter types available, including Dates, Payees and Accounts. You can select one or more types to construct your filter. Start by selecting a filter option: ‘include’ means only those transactions meeting the criteria (say a date range) are included; ‘exclude’ means transactions falling outside the criteria are included instead. 3 SET YOUR FILTERS Each…

Nintendo of America president and COO Reggie Fils-Aime, regarded by many as the amicable face of the company, is retiring. As the company announced today, Fils-Aime’s last day will be April 15, 2019, after which senior marketing VP Doug Bowser will take his place. “Nintendo owns a part of my heart forever,” Fils-Aime said. “It’s a part that is filled with gratitude — for the incredibly talented people I’ve worked with, for the opportunity to represent such a wonderful brand, and most of all, to feel like a member of the world’s most positive and enduring gamer community. As I look forward to departing in both good health and good humour, this is not ‘game over’ for me, but instead ‘leveling up’ to more time with my wife, family and…

FREE | PC, PS4, XBOX ONE | DAVID20321.ITCH.IO/GRIDLOCK Gridlock takes place in a cyberpunk city, after wrong-’uns have dognapped your pet, leaving you to infiltrate their lair, batter everyone and rescue your pooch. That doesn’t actually happen, I’m sorry to reveal, as the developers only found time to include one level. Gridlock is a crawl that feels just lovely to control, with a rewarding sense of heft to the strictly gridlocked movement. Combat, too, feels impactful, even if it is fairly basic, lacking any verbs other than ‘bash’, an interaction you achieve by rubbing up against your enemies, roguelike style. It helps that this is a particularly attractive game, its pixel art sprites and textures enhanced with some sophisticated lighting effects. This is a world that looks satisfyingly chunky and…

FROM $99.95 | PC, XO, PS4 | WWW.METROTHEGAME.COM This third entry in the first-person shooter series switches from a largely linear design to a more open-world approach, and continues the story of Artyom, survivor of the nuclear holocaust who, for the last 20 years, has managed to eke out the semblance of a life by sheltering in the network of train tunnels beneath the ruins of Moscow. With Exodus, 4A Games has successfully taken the gorgeously-gritty environs and strong storytelling that were the hallmarks of the first two games and expanded the playing field, providing players with a series of larger areas that are presented in a similar style to last year’s Red Dead Redemption 2. Riding a train that serves as a mobile home base, Exodus sees…