APCSeptember 2018的目錄

ISSUE 458, SEPTEMBER 2018 Please note that these exclusive APC & TechLife magazine downloads will only be available for a limited time, from 13/08/2018 to 30/09/2018 NEVER LOSE YOUR DATA AGAIN BACK UP WITH PEACE OF MIND WITH ASHAMPOO BACKUP 2018 FULL VERSION WORTH $20 If you’ve ever sat in front of a black screen because your Windows refused to start, you know the value of backups. But it’s so easy to keep your data safe! Backup entire disk partitions in just a few clicks and restore your files even in the event of a total system failure — that’s what Ashampoo Backup 2018 is all about. This application was specifically designed to do the heavy lifting for you, that means safety without the need for constant user interaction or…

Microsoft’s Surface Pro has been a success, to the surprise of some, as Microsoft’s record with PC hardware is patchy. It has a funky, moderately innovative design, and an air of class. The smaller Surface models fared less well, initially being underpowered, and lacking full x86 compatibility. Microsoft stopped selling the previous small model, the Surface 3, in 2016. Now it’s back with the Surface Go. The Surface Go follows the established design pattern with a detachable keyboard, a back stand, 3:2 Gorilla glass touchscreen with stylus support, front and back cameras, and a magnesium case. Only it’s smaller and lighter than any previous model at a svelte 24.5x 17.5cm, and just 8.30mm thick. It weighs in at 522g (not including the keyboard). The 10-inch screen has a resolution of…

TICWATCH PRO A smartwatch that ticks all the right boxes. US$249.99 | WWW.MOBVOI.COM While most APC readers will have drooled over a smartwatch at some point, for many, they’re a decadence that doesn’t quite offer enough obvious usefulness to justify splurging on another device you’ve got to charge every (other) day. If that’s you, serial Kickstarter brand Mobvoi wants you to take a look a their latest TicWatch Pro, an ‘affordable’ Google Wear OS smartwatch with IP68 water resistance, heart rate and GPS tracking, NFC payment and a dual AMOLED screen that’s able to give the device a 5-30 day battery life. Mobvoi’s software team started out in natural language processing, so its entire range of devices offer first-rate Google Assistant integration too. JB SONY WI-1000X In-ear headphones…

OnePlus adds one more to its arithmetic-themed line of smartphones. The OnePlus 6 looks pretty good on paper, but how will these fancy specs add up on the teardown table? MAJOR TECH SPECS ■ 6.28-inch Samsung-made AMOLED display with 2,280 x 1,080 resolution (402 ppi), and 2.5D Gorilla Glass 5 ■ Octa-core, 64-bit Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor with 6GB or 8GB LPDDR4X RAM ■ Dual main camera with 16MP (f/1.7 with OIS) and 20MP (f/1.7) modules; 16MP (f/2.0) selfie camera ■ 64GB, 128GB or 256GB built-in storage ■ USB Type-C and 3.5 mm audio ports ■ OxygenOS based on Android Oreo 8.1 KEY FINDINGS ■ An Android phone with a glass back? Thankfully, we’ve seen this before. The heat gun softens things up, and the iSclack and opening pick take…

“The itch to go further was still there. Our final overclock was achieved at 5.4GHz across all six cores, at 1.48V.” CPU $649 | WWW.INTEL.COM.AU Where do we even begin with this? For those who are already on Intel’s 8th-gen platform, the 8086K processor simply doesn’t make any sense. In short, it’s a pre-binned Intel Core i7-8700K, released to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the x86 architecture. There’s a limited run of them — around 50,000 in total — and that’s all there really is to it. There’s nothing new here. Apart from the guaranteed 5GHz turbo out of the box, of course. However, this CPU is nothing short of awe-inspiring. It’s a phenomenal piece of history, and it tells a story. It takes the very best of…

GAMING ULTRABOOK $3,399 | AU.MSI.COM MSI’s new GS65 Stealth Thin is unlike anything we’ve ever seen before from the Taiwanese laptop maker. This 1.8cm-thick unit ditches the usual brushed metal ‘gaming’ facade for a laser cut near-unibody metal case that’s hemmed with a gold beveled top-edge. This compact square and slim profile is garnished with a mixture of fractally perforated air inlets and two architecturally inspired exhaust vents that look great, and also represent a largely re-engineered thermal design that pays serious performance dividends. The GS65 even has the first MSI trackpad we’ve been genuinely impressed by and while the keyboard is a little softer than we’d like, it’s serviceable for a device this thin. Up front is a speedy 15.6-inch 144Hz Full HD IPS display that squeezes…

LAPTOP $2,599 | WWW.ASUS.COM/AU Ultrabooks may have been with us for over six years now, but it still feels like we haven’t quite hit the perfect balance of performance in a slimline package. The ASUS Zenbook range gets close with bang up-to-date components, and an even sleeker chassis. The headline component on the spec sheet is the processor, and in this machine that’s just half an inch thick, you’ll find a quad-core, eight-thread Core i7-8550U (Kaby Lake R). This chip has a base clock of 1.8GHz, but generally runs quicker, thanks to the joys of turbo boost. But how much it boosts is a bit of a contentious affair: Intel says it’ll peak at 4GHz, ASUS says it’ll run at anything up to 3.7GHz, while in testing we…

MONITOR $799 | WWW.PHILIPS.COM.AU Now you can call thata monitor! This 43-inch monster display aimed at those who aspire to 4K, and want to be able to see the extra details when they run in this mode from across the room. But how practical is a screen this big — and what’s been sacrificed to hit that sub-$800 price point? As designs go, the Brilliance BDM4350UC doesn’t break any moulds or challenge any expectations. It’s a 43-inch IPS panel – with a 1cm border on three sides and a marginally thicker bezel on the bottom – that most people will immediately assume is a TV. It weighs nearly 10kg, though there are VESA 200 mounting holes for those who like wall mounts or desk pillars. One annoyance we…

KEYBOARD $339.95 | WWW.ROCCAT.ORG Mechanical keyboards laden with Cherry switches provide those who invest in the pricey products with a feeling unlike any that a membrane or chiclet keyboard could produce. The responsiveness and the immediate and tactile nature exuded by those switches is second to none. Once you’re adjusted to the noise they make there’s no going back. Since the start of this trend, we’ve seen plenty of refinements. So where do you go from here? How do you stand out in such a crowded market? Roccat believes it may have the answer. Known for its budget-oriented headsets, mice and keyboards, Roccat’s not typically at the premium frontier of PC gaming peripherals. The Vulcan 120 stands in stark contrast to the German company’s traditional offerings. It’s clean,…

“Part of the problem is that there’s no immediate pay-off for using your valuable time to set up a backup regime. It’s like dealing with climate change, the national debt or car insurance: It’s someone else’s problem, isn’t it?” Backing up is the single most boring subject on the face of the planet; think watching paint dry crossed with 24 hours of Canadian curling in slow motion. Keep reading, though, because it’s also quite possibly the single most important task you can do on your PC. So how can we make backing up sexy for the Millennials? The usual answer would be to add a little gamification, but as we’re not app writers, that’s not going to happen. Our next best answer is to make it easy, quick, and as…

When is a backup not a backup? When it’s the only copy of a file you have. Archiving data usually means transferring it to a new medium for long-term storage — an old external hard drive or DVD or Blu-ray disc, for example. Make sure you remember to back up your archive, too — burn another disc and store it somewhere separate to the original archive to protect against fire or theft. If you’re compressing files to save space, make sure you keep a backup copy of the file in its original format, in case the ZIP archive becomes corrupt.…

You might find that one account — OneDrive — is particularly suited to collaboration, while Google Drive or Box’s more generous free plans provide enough space for housing your digital music online, for example. You can sign up with as many providers as you like, but each desktop sync app consumes that bit more system resources along with internet bandwidth. How many you can run side-by-side will depend on the speed of and spec of your PC. If you’re running less than 4GB RAM on a non-SSD drive, for example, you may struggle running more than a couple together at once. It’s a good idea to set each provider up separately and enable each one to perform an initial sync of your data without interference from the others. Once the…

There are numerous worries about trusting your backups to the cloud. Who can see or access your data? What happens if your cloud provider ceases trading? Several have over the years, and while they usually give you notice, you’re still left with the task of retrieving your files and transferring them elsewhere. There’s also the ongoing cost, particularly if you’re storing hundreds of gigabytes of data online. If you’ve the money for a one-off purchase, you can invest in a ‘cloud’ network hard drive instead, with the capacity for terabytes rather than gigabytes of data. These are like regular network-attached storage (NAS) devices, so accessible to any locally connected computer, but go further by providing cloud-like functionality in the form of a desktop sync tool, remote access (enabling you to…

Prior to Samsung releasing its T1 external hard drive, portable solid state drives (SSDs) were a little expensive to be a particularly appealing alternative to portable external hard disk drives (HDDs). But it’s been a few years since then and the portable SSD market has matured into an appealing category, attracting the efforts of big hard drive players like Western Digital and LaCie, and even sporting a few second or third generation drives from SanDisk and Samsung. The latest external SSDs benefit from some hardware innovations that give sequential read and write speeds of 400–500MB/s — some 100–200MB/s faster than the first generation fast flash drives. That’s an increase of roughly 25%! While this isn’t quite enough to make RAIDed fast drives obsolete just yet, the traditional, spinning-plate 250MB/s dual…

“Innovation in hardware has always influenced and even shaped how games are played in the future,” games industry veteran and CEO and co-founder of Terra Virtua Gary Bracey tells us. “Whenever we see a significant development in gaming hardware, we also see a notable transformation in gaming software — both in terms of gameplay and visuals.” Historically, this has tended to feel like the norm. Each new console hardware generation or each new significant leap forward in PC performance opens the door to greater processing power, and creators devise innovative new ways to exploit that potential, coming up with new ideas in the process. Could Portal have existed without the processing power of modern machines to create its dimensional gateway mechanics? Could Minecraft have existed without the seeding and server…

“I’m really curious to see what comes out of AR,” says Tribute Games’ Jean-Francois Major. “I feel like no one really figured out how to properly use AR. I wish I had the answer to this one, but I know it’s not overlaying a game world in your living room.” He’s right; augmented reality can and should be a lot more than that, and we’re already seeing some of that in the most popular games of the last few years. Pokémon GO was a huge step forward for the visibility and popularity of AR gaming, bringing the creatures to life not only on screen, but in the world around us. “Games will trial other forms of AR (for example, handset AR, as in Pokémon GO) more and more, but the…

YOU’RE THE OWNER 1 So breaking down things to the basics here, Blockchain is essentially peer-to-peer file sharing gone large and super encrypted, but what that means for you is there’s no middleman holding onto your data or leasing you access to the things you make (profiles, characters, save data and so on). It belongs to you, giving you the power over it, including the option to sell it if you wish. CROSS-PLATFORM IDENTITY 2 Since it all belongs to you, you’re also able to take it anywhere you like. So create an avatar in one game, build up credit in a particular service, and there’s no reason why that shouldn’t be transferable to something else. It creates the opportunity for massive shared experiences across platforms, titles and apps. TRADING…

SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST With the games industry becoming larger, stronger, more influential and more diverse, it’s crossing into the path of older forms of media, and that’s going to cause frictions and opportunities moving forward. “Our industry is probably the most rapidly changing industry there has ever been,” says David Braben. “Mobile phones are probably the next most rapidly changing. This rate of change is both disruptive, but also a very strong test of fitness in a Darwinian sense, meaning that the companies that can survive tend to be pretty tough to have done so. As the boundaries between the different entertainment sectors continue to blur further and further, we will see challenges from legacy media companies acquiring games companies, so this change will continue!” MORE DIVERSITY AND MORE…

Docks used to be all the rage when OS X appeared in 2000, but the clamour has died down more recently, replaced by the full-screen touch Launcher, we guess. It’s a shame docks were often just visual fluff, as to truly replace the Taskbar, they need to offer task management and more. Two well-known docks are Rocket Dock (rocketdock.com) and Circle Dock (circledock.wikidot.com/start), but both have been put out to pasture for almost a decade, though they still both work. One of the few docks still maintained worth a look is WinStep Nexus (www.winstep.net/nexus.asp),which offers a fully featured free version and a paid-for extended option. It supports Win XP through 10. The paid-for version does enhance its features greatly, including nested folders, desktop replacement with icon management, monitoring widgets, themes…

Clips isn’t your everyday video-editing app. Apple designed it with social media in mind — which is obvious from the way it works with square video clips, and images that look best on mobile screens and in web browsers. Although it can be used on the go — snap a clip, make some adjustments and share it on social media — there are lots of clever and powerful tools hidden away behind the scenes to help you deliver striking video clips complete with a veritable smorgasbord of filters and effects. You can also import clips from your iPad’s library — or if you’re looking for a way to spruce up an old video sitting on your Mac’s hard drive, the quickest way to send it across is via AirDrop. MASTER…

Machine learning can feel like a hard nut to crack at first. Its combination of computer science, statistics and mathematics can seem impenetrable. Yet, it’s like any skill — you have to start slow, learn the basics and just start doing it. The more you do it, the better you get at it. The machine learning online community is growing constantly and there are plenty of good resources available to help speed up your journey. This month, we’re combining two of those resources — the online platform Kaggle, plus the popular Python programming language, to try and predict the survivors of the Titanic. KAGGLE The boom in machine learning has seen numerous data-mining communities spawn in the last decade and Kaggle is probably the largest. What makes Kaggle that little…

PC, PS4, XO | $99.95 | THECREW-GAME.UBISOFT.COM As is often the case with blockbuster online games, 2014’s The Crew had a disappointing launch but, over the years to come, blossomed into something great. Fingers crossed this is the trajectory for its sequel, because at launch, it’s a decent racing game but it lacks flair. Ubisoft has wisely opted to avoid an edgy narrative this time around, choosing instead to layer a social media meta-game over the open world racing. As you travel this condensed United States, participating in races and tournaments, you’ll gather social media followers, and the more clout you have, the more access you’ll get to events and vehicle types. It’s shallow and dumb, but no more so than Forza Horizon’s festival conceit, and so long…

45% THE NUMBER OF IT SECURITY PROFESSIONALS THAT ADMIT TO RE-USING PASSWORDS During the Infosecurity Conference 2018 in London, a survey of over 300 security professionals found that almost half of them re-use the same password across multiple sites and services. That figure would be a little scary (albeit unsurprising) if it were just taken from a portion of the general public — but to have the experts in the field not practising what they preach is even more alarming. The security risks associated with password re-use are obvious, but this can easily be avoided with password management tools (such as LastPass, KeePass or 1 Password) or a personalised system for creating unique passwords. 23.6TB THE AMOUNT OF DATA DOWNLOADED BY THE NBN’S HEAVIEST USER EACH MONTH Recently released figures…

There’s a lot going on in keyboards, and it’s time to put the key technologies in a jar and shake them. Note, though, that by membrane, we’re referring to dome-switched keyboards (rather than the flat variety you might have on your microwave), and we’re looking at the Wooting One as our prime example of optical. Mechanical, at this point in its evolution, is something we can’t pin down as accurately, so we’re taking a broader view of that… Round 1 RESPONSIVENESS We have convinced ourselves that the faster a keyboard reacts, the better it is. And in many ways, we’re right: Earlier key switch actuation reduces tendon strain by allowing a lighter touch and preventing the shock that bottoming out sends back down to the wrists; it also gives you…

“Apparently, the Japanese do not use the terms ‘Phillips-head’ or ‘flat-head’. They refer to their tools as ‘plus’ and ‘minus’ drivers, respectively.” TURNING THE SCREWDRIVER JAPANESE Just writing in to say thanks for the PC Builder’s Bible feature in the May 2018 issue (see APC #454, page 48). I’ve been building custom rigs for my family and friends for nearly 30 years, and I still learned a lot from your article. (Magnetic bowl! D’oh! I feel so stupid...) One thing hit me in the ‘Tools of the trade’ item (apart from not mentioning wire-cutters) and that was the mention of a ‘good old trusty Phillips head screwdriver’. Apparently, the Japanese do not use the terms ‘Phillips-head’ or ‘flat-head’. They refer to their tools as ‘plus’ and ‘minus’ drivers respectively. I…

INTEL Z370 MOTHERBOARD $639 | WWW.ASUS.COM/AU Formula boards are the kings of ASUS’s consumer lineup. Consider it a luxury and the 10th iteration of this design ethos has lead to this: a $639 masterpiece of connectivity, rear I/O, BIOS, liquid-cooling, and armour-plated PCB. And it looks marvellous. That thermal armour — which was introduced with the TUF series, way back in the Z77 era — is hardly a new concept, and whether it actually reduces overall stress and temps on the PCB is still highly debated. That said, there’s no denying just how impressive this thing feels in your hands. RGB lighting is subtle, with only four illuminated zones: the now-standard one baked into the rear I/O cover, one outlining the integrated on-board power and restart buttons, one…

2-IN-1 FROM $2,499 | WWW.LENOVO.COM/AU Lenovo’s ThinkPad range has always been about high-end performance, resilience and reliability and this third-generation ThinkPad X1 Yoga is no exception. It combines the latest Intel silicon and NVMe storage with a 2-in-1 design that offers laptop and tablet functionality in a flexible package. The price we quoted above will get you a Core i5 CPU, a less impressive display and SATA storage. The headline cost of $2,999 for the high-end model puts it in direct competition with the Microsoft Surface Pro, HP Spectre x360 and Dell Latitude 7285. For the money, you get an elegant machine with a slick matte black or silver finish plus the signature red dot motif. The case is made from a carbon-fibre hybrid material that offers durability…

LAPTOP $1,099 | WWW.LENOVO.COM/AU Lenovo’s V Series are laptops for those of us who want the latest technology, but can’t stretch to an ultrabook or 2-in-1 equivalent design. The low cost and high spec approach has been highly popular before, can it be so again? Here we’re taking a look at the Core i5-powered Lenovo V330. It looks the biz, finished in Iron Grey high gloss plastic with a brushed metal-skinned lid. It also comes in a lighter Mineral Grey. The 15-inch form factor allows plenty of space for the keyboard, touchpad and the side-placed ports, and optical drive, avoiding the cramped nature of smaller devices. At 2.05kg it isn’t the lightest machine to carry around. The V330 has an excellent selection of ports, too: HDMI, VGA, two…

SCREEN $269 | AU.AOC.COM There’s one big problem with carrying a MacBook or ultra thin PC laptop around: the lack of screen space for your windows. Without a generous helping of screen estate, it’s just not possible to function quite as efficiently as you might with a desktop arrangement. But AOC’s clumsily-named I1601FWUX offers a straightforward path to getting an extra 15.6 inches on the go. Presuming you have a Mac or Windows laptop that’s USB-C compatible, this screen couldn’t be simpler to set up: plug it in using the single cable, and in a few seconds it’ll be detected and activated as a second display. The magnetic cover also acts as the screen’s stand, enabling portrait or landscape mode with a reasonable level of adjustability. We wish…

GRAPHICS TABLET $1,399 | BUYWACOM.COM.AU Straight out of the box, the display on the Cintiq Pro 13 is striking, attractive, and well-balanced, making it comfortable to hold. Professional designers or those who dabble in digital art should take note, albeit for different reasons. The top right side of the 13.3-inch 1080p display features a set of minimal touch controls and there are three USB-C ports on the sides (one left and two right), and the back features a nifty 20º pop-out stand for desktop work. And then, inevitably, you need to chain it to your desk with various cables. Depending on the setup, that means you could be forced to work with a power cable plus signal-out to Wacom Link Adapter, then USB and Lightning cable snaking to…

A backup is a separate copy, stored on a separate system, and ideally you have another copy offsite. You can follow the line of disaster: If your main system explodes, you have a backup on your spare system; if that system explodes, you have a copy on your main system; but if your home explodes, you have a copy offsite. Enough exploding. What RAID is great for is redundancy, and as we all know, redundant systems are there to increase system reliability through duplication of functions. In the case of RAID 1, 5, and 6, an entire drive can fail, and the parity (or mirror) the system uses can enable it to recover the local data. RAID 5 can handle a single drive failure from three or more drives, while…

There’s no excuse for catastrophic data loss these days. In an ideal world, you’ll already have a comprehensive backup plan in place, with a minimum of one backup (and preferably two or three, each one isolated from the other). One of these should ideally be stored online, taking advantage of cheap, plentiful and easily accessible cloud-based storage to house your data in a physically separate location to your PC. If you’ve not yet explored the benefits of backing up your critical documents, photos and other data to the cloud, this is the feature for you, helping you choose the right cloud provider for your needs. But there’s also plenty here if you’re already backing up to the cloud: you’ll find out how to trim your data to maximise the available…

1 REMOVE DUPLICATE FILES Duplicate Cleaner Free (www.digitalvolcano.co.uk/duplicatecleaner.html ) will help you track down identical copies of files based on their content as well as their filenames. Simply add the parent drive or folder containing the files you wish to backup and then run a full scan. 2 REVIEW AND REMOVE Matching files are conveniently colour-coded for easy identification. You can manually choose to remove the duplicates or make use of the filters on the left to choose files based on a specific setting, such as a particular folder. Once done, you can remove your unwanted files. 3 REMOVE SIMILAR IMAGES If you’re the kind of person who takes multiple photos on your camera or smartphone in search of the perfect one, the chances are that dozens of similar —…

While RAID mirroring on two-bay drives is one touted option, it only protects against drive failure, nothing else, including accidental data loss. Hooking up a USB external drive (either solid-state or hard disk based) provides more redundancy, but neither options will protect against fire or theft. Ideally, you’ll set up a backup in a different physical location. You could trust the cloud with a subset of your most critical data, syncing certain files and folders to a Cryptomator vault for extra security. Or you could purchase a second identical model and store that off-site at a trusted friend’s or family member’s home. Alternatively, persuade them to invest in their own network hard drive and trade spare capacity on your drive for some space on theirs — if both drives support…

One of the biggest trends of the last five years has been the growth of live streaming play sessions on Twitch and YouTube, something that the industry would have been hard-pressed to predict, and has generally been slow to adapt to. However, being able to watch someone play a game is now a massive part of the appeal of a new game, and that’s something Overwatch’s Jeff Kaplan thinks we should be looking to as a big area for expansion and innovation going forward. “I think the most notable change happening in gaming right now is the influence of streaming and viewing and the generational shift towards the streaming culture,” he explains. “For many, watching games is as fun as playing games. As developers start to embrace the concept of…

“While VR is an exciting platform that offers the potential for more immersive experiences, we’re still some way off it being the radical change that many people have suggested it would be over the past couple of years,” says Creative Assembly technical art director Jodie Azhar, and we have to agree. While we’ve enjoyed a lot of the output on PSVR, HTC Vive and Oculus Rift in particular, nothing in the VR space has struck us as truly essential just yet. But change could be coming. “I believe immersive realities generally will turn the existing traditions of interactive entertainment on its head,” insists Terra Virtua CEO Gary Bracey. “It might take a year or two, but undoubtedly a whole new genre will be created, offering more accessibility to the many…

APPLICATIONS VIRTUAL TECHNICIAN WON’T RUN My Windows 10 upgrade has come unstuck after running like ‘oiled silk’. After safely installing McAfee Anti-Virus, I tried and failed to install the complementary Virtual Technician package. McAfee’s technicians point the blame firmly at Windows 10, with numerous errors in the Event logs pointing to ‘Microsoft Jscript runtime error 800a01a08’. Can you suggest anything I can do to resolve this problem? John Ellinghouse McAfee’s technicians are being a bit disingenuous blaming Windows 10 — a search online revealed the error had been reported as far back as 2010, with the finger firmly pointed at the Virtual Technician program itself. We had no problems downloading and running the tool this end, and after a virtual chat with Microsoft, John returned to McAfee. This time, the…

You don’t need to know about every email the moment it arrives in your inbox. (Don’t lie, nobody’s that important.) Most mail apps don’t distinguish between spam and messages that tell you a family member has uploaded a photo to your shared album in iCloud. However, with Mail on your Mac, iPhone or iPad, you can ensure you’re only informed about messages from people that matter to you. The trick is to add those people to your VIP list. That list is handled differently than other email. It gets its own inbox, and you can get VIPspecific notifications. That means you can have Mail notify you silently of everyday messages, but get the trumpets out for a message from your boss, partner or pal. The VIP list carries across to…

For searching alone, Spotlight and/or HoudahSpot are great. But if you want to perform actions on the files you find, there are more comprehensive choices available. In Alfred (from £19, about $34, alfredapp.com), select a file and then press right arrow to choose from a range of commands, including email, get info, copy and move options. LaunchBar (from US$29, about $40, obdev.at) is similarly powerful, and particularly great for quickly drilling down into categories and getting at item details. Trial versions of each are available.…

We’ve seen how Linux identifies the drives attached to your PC, and you’ve also discovered that Linux treats everything as a file — including folders (which is basically a file listing the files that make up that folder’s contents). But how are these files organised on your hard drive, and how do you access them through Ubuntu’s graphical file manager, Nautilus? Let’s start with the raw basics. Linux organises files in a tree-like structure that’s a little bit similar to Windows, the major difference being that, while Windows physically separates drives into individual trees, with the drive letter at the top, Linux lumps everything together in a single file tree, with a top-level root (/) directory and everything else — including drives — placed relative to that directory. This can…

There’s no question the whole Android OS update process is a bit of a mess — some major-brand phones promised an Android Oreo/8.0 update that was announced back in September last year still hadn’t received them by early July this year (mine included). In fact, we think we’re at the stage of just assuming your phone won’t receive an upgrade until it’s booting up on your device screen. Meanwhile, if you still want to tuck into some Oreo flavour, trying pulling out an old laptop or create a virtual machine — thanks to Android-x86.org, you might just get Oreo running on a PC sooner than some phones. ANDROID-X86 If you’ve never heard of it, Android-x86 is a group dedicated to bringing Android to Intel-x86 hardware. The team has built installable…

PC, PS4, XO | $99.95 | ONRUSHGAME.COM Onrush isn’t really a racing game. Yes, it involves the driving of vehicles around circuits, but whether you’re in front of, or behind, other vehicles doesn’t really matter. In fact, being in front can be a huge disadvantage, because it means you’ll have trouble destroying your enemies. But then, destroying other cars isn’t (always) the point of the game either. The game is divided into four distinct modes, each of which feels like its own distinct game, and none of which require reaching any finish line first. The circuits are wide, vertically sweeping, and full of shortcuts and side passages, and the sense of speed is incredible. Especially when you’re boosting, which is core to the competitive hook of most of…

If Android phone manufacturers want access to the Play Store, Google requires them to preinstall Chrome and Search apps on the device, and European antitrust regulators are none too happy with that. The European Commission has accused Google of forcing phone makers to preinstall the browser and search tool, of paying larger manufacturers and mobile carriers to ensure Google Search is the exclusive search app and preventing phone makers from installing ‘forked’ Android versions not approved by Google. The internet giant has been slapped with a record €4.3 billion fine for abusing the Android operating system’s dominance in the smartphone market, the largest fine imposed on a company in EU history. The ruling against Google stipulates that the company will need to unbundle its Chrome and Search apps from Android,…

Far from terminating, exterminating or deleting all human life, artificial intelligence is (for now, at least) still an ally of our squishy ape-based species. The last time we looked at this subject, NASA was using Google’s AI to detect new planets and social robots were being created to give the elderly somebody to talk to. The application of artificial intelligence is, indeed, vast and wondrous — and we’re going to throw a few more examples at your eager eyes this issue, including in the law department (not quite to the status of silly-wig-wearing, but we live in hope), flight and the ever-developing medical industry. AI can now fly drones Crazyflie 2.0 is a super-small nanodrone. Researchers from university ETH Zurich and the University of Bologna have constructed an autonomous flying…

It’s been just over a year since reports emerged that Medicare card details were being sold online. Dubbed ‘The Medicare Machine’, the darkweb storefront made it possible to obtain the details of any Aussie citizens on Medicare’s records for a mere $30. According to the vendor, they were “exploiting a vulnerability which has a much more solid foundation which means not only will it be a lot faster and easier for myself, but it will be here to stay.” Barely a year later, the Australian Government is set to re-launch its online health agency My Health Record (MHR). Previously an opt-in system when it was introduced in 2012, the medical history database will become an opt-out system from October 15, thanks to legislative amendments made in 2015. The site will…

EXTERNAL GPU ENCLOSURE $469.95 | WWW.RAZER.COM With the latest-gen mobile CPUs from Intel now offering six-core CPUs that can fit into super slim ultrabooks, an external GPU (eGPU) accelerator that bolts onto your ultrabook has perhaps never made more sense. Working over Thunderbolt 3 or USB 3.1, Razer’s Core X is the company’s third eGPU enclosure, and it lets you outsource graphics-heavy tasks from your laptop to a desktop PCIe graphics card — in theory giving even an ultrabook a serious kick in the graphics department. Compared to its forebear, the Core V2, the Core X offers a bigger power allocation, uses the newer Thunderbolt spec and comes at a significantly cheaper price. The release of the Core X also neatly lines up with a new macOS feature…

LAPTOP FROM $2,800 | WWW.HP.COM/AU The EliteBook offers a very wide range of performance and price points, with the 840 G5 being on the higher end of that sliding scale. The first thing that strikes you about the G5 is how well made it is, without it falling into the obvious trap of over-engineering; the chassis avoids any sharp edges or flexible structures. The top lid is metal skinned and feels invitingly cool to the touch, while the underside is plastic and less visually appealing. Opening the G5 reveals a spacious backlit keyboard. The touchpad is of the highest quality, has both buttons at the top, with more under an edge at the bottom, and it’s compatible with Microsoft Precision Touchpad gestures. In terms of ports, on the…

GAMING MONITOR AU PRICE TBC (EST. $999) | WWW.VIEWSONIC.COM/AU Puny pixels are a big deal. The smaller the pixels, the sharper, crisper, and more detailed the display. For smartphones and tablets, pixel density is all the rage — pixel counts offered by such devices are on the up, while the size of individual pixels shrinks ever smaller. For the PC — and desktop rigs with large displays — it’s more complicated. For starters, achieving so-called “retina”-style pixel density on a monitor measuring, say, 30 inches or more would a require a monumental pixel count, measuring in the high tens of millions. The kind of pixel grid, in other words, that existing display interfaces can’t cope with. Then there’s the minor matter of scaling. With a handheld device, the…

“The drive is more than just an external SSD: it offers the travelling photographer a way to back up images from an SD card directly to the drive with a single tap.” PORTABLE SSD FROM $429 (250GB) TO $1,399 (2TB) | WWW.WDC.COM Storage giant Western Digital is no stranger when it comes to creating gear that serves the needs of pro photographers. Over the last few years, it’s focused on this segment with a range of devices that makes transferring and backing up photos while in the field quicker and simpler — chief among them its two Wi-Fi hard drives. The company has now added a third with this new SSD model, with the main draw being the additional speed and durability that solid-state storage provides. Like its…

GAMEPAD $65 | AU.MSI.COM There are games out there that don’t fit so well with the PC staple of a mouse and keyboard environment. Sure, a good tab-targeting MMO can take advantage of all those extra buttons, but if you’re on a budget, and can’t afford that full-sized racing cockpit, trying to get your brain around using digital key switches to pilot your decidedly non-digital motorized vehicle of choice quite simply sucks. While you can opt for an old-school Xbox 360 USB controller for a little under $30, it’s outdated and definitely not wireless. SteelSeries, Razer, and Logitech all offer their own expensive variants. Enter MSI’s Force GC30 — and their first foray into peripherals hasn’t been a bad run at all. The abundance of connectivity will catch…

CREATE PERFECT WINDOWS BACKUPS In a world ruled by the God of Clouds, surely backing up your system should be easy? Good thing that it is! BACKING UP TO THE CLOUD Learn everything you need to know about giving your data a spring clean and then backing it up securely to the cloud. BACK UP YOUR MAC WITH TIME MACHINE How to back up all of your important data and restore it when you need to. TERABYTE SHOWDOWN Whether you need storage on-the-go, space on your desktop for documents or room for your games, we test the best external hard drives for just that. EXTERNAL SSDs PUT TO THE TEST Portable SSDs have become faster and more affordable over the past couple of years, but are they still too flashy…

Your online backup space is likely to be limited — particularly if you’re relying on free storage — so it obviously makes sense to go through the files and folders you want to back up before you start uploading. Some judicious pruning now won’t simply give you more room to work with, it’ll also speed up the initial backup process as less data will have to be uploaded. A complete spring-clean of your PC isn’t required here — instead, you want to focus all your attention on the folders you plan to back up to the cloud. Typically, these will be your user folders — Documents, Photos and so on. REMOVE DUPLICATES One obvious way you can reclaim space is through the removal of duplicate and similar files. The step-by-step…

When it comes to storing your files in the cloud, you’re presented with a bewildering array of options. There are literally dozens of providers out there, offering a mixture of free and paid-for storage. In the table on the page opposite, we’ve summed up some of the best-known services. Of these, Microsoft’s OneDrive is integrated into both Windows 8.1 and Windows 10. FREE STORAGE PLANS If your data storage needs are modest — basically, all your documents, a relatively large collection of photos, perhaps a portable applications collection and little or no video or music — then there’s no real need to pay for online storage at all. All the major providers offer free storage — these top out at 15GB per provider, although you can, of course, sign up…

1 GET CRYPTOMATOR Go to www.cryptomator.org/downloads and click ‘Download 64 Bit’ or ’32 Bit’ depending on your Windows system type (press ‘Win-Pause/Break’ if you’re not sure). Once saved, double-click the setup file and follow the install prompts. Leave ‘Launch Cryptomator’ and click Finish. 2 ADD VAULT Click ‘+’ as directed by Cryptomator and then choose ‘Create New Vault’ to create your first encrypted vault. Navigate to your cloud folder, give your vault a suitable name — this will become a folder on the drive, so don’t make the name too obvious — and click Save. 3 SET PASSWORD You’ll be prompted to enter a password — you’ll need this whenever you link to the vault from a new computer or device, so make it a strong one: a random mix…

The Time Machine app on your Mac is there for peace of mind. It provides a handy means of backing up all of your important data without you having to lift a finger. It then allows you to delve into your backups and pick individual files to restore in the event of them getting lost or corrupted. Setting up your Time Machine is quick and easy, just go to System Preferences, click on the Time Machine pane and then connect an external HD to your Mac. Once you have chosen your disk, the first backup will occur almost immediately (and then every hour afterwards) and that really is all the setup that’s required. If you find that you need to restore a backed-up file, then you can enter your Time…

LOWER PRICES This one will take more time, as right now the technology is still expensive to produce, and therefore relatively expensive to retail. If VR can keep interest simmering for another couple of years though, costs may drop enough to make it much more competitive. WIRELESS HEADSETS There’s been some experimentation with this, and the Vive Pro and Oculus Go will provide wireless headsets going forward. This needs to become the industry norm, though in the coming years. HIGHER RESOLUTION SCREENS Vive and Rift have thus far offered the best visual experience for VR, but the pixel density of the screens is still a little below what we would want. Higher resolutions should smooth out the fuzzy look many games have in VR. LIGHTER WEIGHT The weight consideration is…

Representation matters. It matters because it brings more voices into the industry and into the world of gaming, and that’s important because more gamers means a stronger community, and a stronger community means more games. A more diverse industry means more perspectives, and with so much of what we love about games being the escapism of the experience, more diverse perspectives can only be good for the creativity of the projects that come our way. So representation matters, and it's a big way in which the industry will be changing going forward. “I hope that we see more investment in diverse games and the building of diverse teams,” says Creative Assembly’s Jodie Azhar. “Despite a much wider range of game genres and experiences being available now than ever before, we’re…

On 12 June 1987, President Ronald Reagan famously said, “Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” Over 30 years later, and it feels a lot like the games industry is calling for something similar: an end to hostilities between platforms and the beginning of open borders for multiplayer gamers. We’re beginning to see the early beneficiaries of it through Rocket League, Minecraft and even Fortnite being playable across PC, console and smartphone, but more can be done. “Fortnite and PUBG recently made a huge impact on gaming by having cross-platform experiences that spanned the PC, consoles and mobile,” says Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan. “Cross-platform experiences, especially in social games or games with persistent progression, are very exciting.” The only real barrier to this thus far appears to be Sony, which prefers…

Readers as old as your humble writer will know that Windows Icons Menus and mouse Pointer (WIMP) is the ancient acronym that describes the original mouse-driven graphical interfaces that span out of Xerox labs. Despite Windows 8, Microsoft was never able to kill off the classic icon-based desktop that most PC users know and love. We should admit to the truth, though: The classic desktop is terrible; it’s as bad as a real desk. You’ll leave your garbage scattered all over it — empty coffee mugs, Tim Tam crumbs and worse. It is, however, a little draconian to utterly ban the ability to keep recent items left handily on your desktop. Surely there’s a helpful middle ground? Thankfully, there’s a host of clever, useful and possibly silly add-ons for Windows…

1 SEE YOUR VIPS There are two ways to add a person to your VIP list. You can go to the Mailboxes list and tap the ‘i’ icon next to VIP to reveal your VIP list. (If you can’t see VIP, tap Edit, then its row.) Tap ‘Add VIP’ to add a known contact. 2 ADD FROM EMAIL The second option is to tap Details at the top of a message, tap the sender’s address or name, then tap ‘Add to VIP’. This adds the sender to your VIP list without creating a Contacts card, though you can do that, too. 3 SEE WHAT MATTERS In the Mailboxes list, tap VIP. Here, you’ll see only messages from the people on your VIP list. The messages are from your inbox: if…

You’re probably familiar with Spotlight — press ‘Cmd-Spacebar’ and a search window appears. When you type, a list of results is displayed, based on what you typed, and will update dynamically as you edit your search term. Although Spotlight is great for opening apps — and even System Preferences panes — it comes into its own for finding documents. You can quickly navigate the results list using the up and down arrow keys, and see a preview of what you’ve selected in the list. To jump between categories, use ‘Cmd-up arrow’ and ‘Cmd-down arrow’. Open an item with Enter, or use Cmd-Enter to show the item, if it’s a file, in Finder. It’s possible to use natural language when searching, with phrases like “photos from last week” or “PDFs from…

1 BREADCRUMBS As you drill through the folder tree, use these ‘breadcrumb’ folder icons to see where you are — click one to jump back to that folder. 2 CSEARCH This provides convenient shortcuts to key parts of your system — the top section is self-explanatory, and includes a handy list of recently accessed files. 3 NAVIGATION PANE You can find out how the drive has been partitioned by examining the ‘Partitioning’ section of its summary. It’ll be GUID or MBR — see the main text for more information 4 ATTACHED DRIVES All recognised drives — internal and external — are listed here. The ‘Computer’ shortcut provides you with a link to the root of your Linux file system. 5 RIGHT-CLICK Right-click a file or folder to reveal more options…

Last issue, we revealed how to build your own multi-room audio system for the fraction of the cost of a Bose or Sonos setup using your Raspberry Pi as a server with the open-sourced Logitech Media Server (also known as Squeezebox). This issue, we’re going to fill in the missing gaps by adding a range of touchscreen controllers, which provide a more convenient means of playing and managing your library. Think of the controller as a glorified remote control, with the added benefit that it enables you to control any or all of the players in your home setup. When Logitech was selling its own Squeezebox multi-room system, its primary touchscreen controller took the form of a hi-tech remote control, which can still be found second-hand if you know where…

There are few things in life as rewarding as making or fixing something yourself — not only do you gain new skills, but you’ll likely save money into the bargain. When it comes to electronics and making your own tech gear, it might seem pretty daunting at the beginning, but getting yourself a toolkit and learning how and when to use it is a good place to start. What’s more, it won’t cost you a fortune. Here’s what you need. DIGITAL MULTIMETER No electronics toolbox can do without a digital multimeter or ‘DMM’ for short. A DMM is used primarily to measure voltage across a component, the current in series with a component and the resistance of a component. Almost every DMM will do this much, but what separates them…

PC, PS4, XO | $30 | WWW.EA.COM/GAMES/UNRAVEL We admit that we never actually played the first Unravel when it came out back in 2016, but if you’re in the same boat as your humble reviewer, then you needn’t worry — Unravel Two stands up on its own woollen feet. Couch co-op games are few and far between these days, so we were eager to give this one a whirl, especially as some of the platforming puzzles on offer actually rely on two distinct characters doing separate things. No, that doesn’t mean you have to play with a friend, but the experience is definitely more rewarding if you do. Playing in single-player mode gives you control over both the familiar anthropomorphic Red Yarny (who now has a different shaped…