A

N
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R
O
I
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L
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I
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WHAT CAN IT DO FOR SMARTPHONES AND TABLETS?
?
Plus
Smart Appliances:
Innovation Or Gimmick?
Dont Get Locked Out: Easy,
Effective Password Management
Interesting Ways To Use An
Old Android Phone

THE

S
E
I
N
A
P
COM
&
HAVE
BOUGHT 14!
0
2
E
C
N
I
S
-

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ASUS recommends Windows.

EXPERIENCE POWER FROM WITHIN

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Contents
This week...

08

Microsoft & Google

Acquisitions

08 Microsoft And

Google Acquisitions

Two of the biggest technology corporations in the world

have been busy buying smaller companies left, right,
and centre over the last year and a bit. So what exactly
have they purchased and, more importantly, why? David
Crookes looks at whats been bought and what it all
means for you

20 Smart Appliances

Were used to seeing smartphones, and now even smart

watches, but what about smart lightbulbs and smart
kettles? They might sound strange, but there are plenty of
companies that are betting on the publics desire for such
things. We check out whats available and ask whether
theyre actually worth buying

24

Smart
Applications

26

Minetest

Issue 1196

26 Minetest

Minecraft took the world by storm when it was first

released, and its made a whole ton of money, on the way
to being bought up by Microsoft. Its no surprise that there
have been tons of imitators already, including Minetest,
which has the distinctive advantage of being open source.
David Briddock tell us more

46 On Test:

Standing Desks

For centuries, people were happy to sit at desks to do their

work, but with modern office jobs sometimes requiring us
to stay at a computer all day, weve begun to realise that
sitting down for extended periods might not be that good
for our health. With that in mind, David Hayward has been
looking at desks that allow you work while standing up.
Tiring, perhaps, but better for your back

56
66

Uses For An Old

Android Phone

Group Test
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
38

Android Lollipop

56 Uses For An Old

Android Phone

Every two years or so, many of us upgrade our

smartphone to something newer and shinier. What
happens to the old one, though? Well, you might sell it or
trade it in, but why bother when you can actually use it
for something? We take a look at some interesting ways
to put an old handset to use

62 Password

Management

Were constantly being told about the importance of

having strong passwords, but trying to remember them
all is hard work. If you struggle to recall yours, then
what you need is a password manager. With one of
these, you can have all your passwords protected by one
particularly strong one. Aaron Birch has been checking
out your options

66 Android Lollipop

From being a hopeful upstart, Googles Android operating

system has grown in strength in a relatively short time.
Now the latest version, Lollipop, is with us but what
does it actually offer thats so different from the previous
versions? Here to answer that question is David Briddock

Also In
This Issue...
70 Apps Group Test

Keir Thomas turns his

attention to social media
apps for Android

74 Remembering

Doom, a game that David

Hayward lost far too
much of his life playing

75 Frustrations

Sarah Dobbs looks at

how to make using
Internet Explorer more
pleasurable. No, really

39
40
42
43
44
45
90
92
76
77
78
79
80
32
53
54
82
84
86
96

Standing Desks

DeskRite 200
Ikea Bekant
Varidesk Pro
Brenta Wall Desk
Herman Miller Alvar Lite
NUDO Standing Desk
Sum up

Reviews

TP-LINK Archer C9
AC1900 Dual Band
Gigabit Router
XMG Prime
Dell Latitude 7350
IRIScan Pro 3 Wi
VideoStudio Ultimate X8
Dying Light
Crucial MX200 1TB SSD

Experts
Ask Aaron
Ask Jason

Specialists
Linux Mart
Amiga Mart
Mobile Mart
Hardware Mart
Gaming Mart

News

The Latest News

Your Letters

Regulars
Subscriptions
Ad Index
IT Essentials
Classifieds
Logging Off

95 App Of The Week

David has a go at being

a gun for hire. In a game,
of course

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Issue 1196
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51

Companies
Microsoft And
Google Have
Bought Since
The Start of 2014

The

David Crookes looks at what two of the planets biggest and

most cash-rich computer giants have been buying and why

n recent years, barely a week has

seemed to go by without news of
a major acquisition by a technology
company, whether it be Facebooks
$19 billion purchase of WhatsApp,
the takeover of Autonomy by Hewlett
Packard for a whopping $10.3 billion,
the $7.4 billion paid by Oracle for
Sun Microsystems or any of the host
of smaller acquisitions. The large
monetary figures involved and the
ubiquity of technology ensures these
deals take on a meaning all of their
own, not least because the companies
doing the buying have managed to
infiltrate our lives like never before.
There are many reasons for these
deals. Most often, firms are looking to
snap up an admirable pool of talent.
Other times, they want to make
in-roads into an area in which they
have no history of influence. Thus by
snapping up the patents, technologies,
specialised systems and equipment
their targets hold, companies can
integrate new processes into their own
and expand their reach.
Microsoft paid $8.5 billion for
Skypes technology as a long-term
successor to its aging Live Messenger
service, in a deal that also bought
with it a customer-base willing to
pay, rather than one that one which
expected a service for free. It also
eliminated a competitor, which some
companies do simply by buying a
company and shutting it down.

Issue 1353

Indeed, over the past year or so,

Microsoft has been very active in
acquiring companies. It has bought
smaller firms at a rate of around one
every month. Thats impressive, but
pales when compared to the activities
of Google which, over the same time
frame, has opened its wallet for 38
acquisitions. Added together, these
51 firms have not only made billions
of dollars for their founders, they
have brought new ways of working
to both tech giants, and allowed
them to become bigger than ever.
Whats more, neither firm shows sign
of slowing down. By the time you
read this, we wouldnt bet against the
number being higher than at the time
of writing. The impact, however, will
be the same.

Microsofts Money

So what companies are being snapped

up? Taking Microsoft first, we can see
that at the beginning of 2014 it was
rather interested in expanding its cloud
computing portfolio. It announced an
agreement to buy Parature in January
a decision Bob Stutz, corporate
vice president of Microsoft Dynamics
CRM, said would be a perfect fit for
every business, enabling it to offer
customers one of the best cloud-based
solutions for customer self-service.
A few months later, it was buying
GreenButton a leading provider of
integrated on-demand solutions that

allow customers to manage computeintensive workloads in the cloud,

according to Microsoft, which again
was aiming its bows at businesses.
On the same day May 1st it
also bought the mobile application
Capptain, a Parisian start-up which
provides app developers with
analytics and the ability to send push
notifications based on customer
usage patterns. Like GreenButton,
Capptain was integrated into
Azure, Microsofts cloud for modern
business. The deal was akin to a final
piece of the Redmond giants jigsaw.
It allowed enterprises to build mobile
apps using Azures suite of services
while offering analytical powers. The
Capptain deal also allowed businesses
to target messages, announcements,
information and offers depending
on the behaviour of employees and
customers. Suddenly, it was allowing
Microsoft to catch up in an area
it has long been left behind in:
marketing services and the lucrative
mobile ad space.
Most of Microsofts acquisitions
have been of a similar nature; that
is, under-the-hood development
tools to help solidify its position in
a market. InMage became part of
Microsoft Azure last July, allowing
for backup, replication and recovery
of data to the cloud during a
system failure. Aorato built upon
these security features by allowing

MICROSOFT&GOOGLE
ACQUISITIONS
been a success. By adding new IT
controls, it has been positioned as
the business app of choice which
combines calendar synchronisation,
contacts and email and it has been
able to make use of the cloud-based
initiatives which previous acquisitions
have brought to the table. Outlook
on Android has also been given
customisable swipe gestures and there
is across the board support for mail
sync and push-like behaviour as well
as real-time notifications.
It is clear from all of this, then, that
business is very much at the forefront
of the minds of Microsofts decision
makers, which is why they sanctioned
purchases such as text analytics service
Equivio (it will be closely integrated
in the cloud-based Office 365 and
enable businesses to sift through
their mountains of data to help them
work out their relevance in legal and
compliance matters). The scooping
up of Revolution Analytics has built
upon this, showing an understanding
that many companies are using the
statistical and predictive analysis
language R and so need a way of
realising the potential of big data.

Minecraft Billions

Sell, Sell, Sell

Companies such as Google and Microsoft dont

exclusively buy other companies. They sell them
too. Although they are rich enough to fold
and forget purchases that havent worked out
(Microsoft has dropped the Nokia branding for
phones, for example), they dont always do this.
At the start of 2014, Google sold what was
left of Motorolas mobile phone operations to
Lenovo and, at a stroke, told the world that it
wasnt interested in such manufacturing. Its not an
isolated incident either. Google sold SketchUp in
2012; Microsoft sold Bungie in 2011.
Sales are rare, though. There is always a risk that
a sale could be successful for another company
and diminish the products of the likes of Google
and Microsoft. Of course you could say that these
companies are not afraid of selling data but thats
another story for another day.
for a better cloud-based defence
for business. It is able to detect
suspicious activity on a companys
network and Microsoft deemed this
such a useful tool that it made it its
own in November.

Microsoft has been keen to

bolster its toolset for developers,
too. SyntaxTree was the creator of
the UnityVS plugin for Visual Studio,
allowing developers to author,
browse and debug code for their
Unity applications. Microsoft was
able to use it to integrate support for
Unity more deeply into Visual Studio
when it bought it last July. When it
subsequently purchased HockeyApp
in December, it provided additional
support to mobile developers with
tools equipped for Windows Phone,
Android and iOS. Hockey App
provides user feedback tools, a beta
distribution platform, test analysis
and live crash reports.
Indeed, mobile is an important area
for Microsoft and so, in December,
it bought an app called Acompli, a
mobile personal information manager
for iOS and Android devices. It was
very quick to re-brand Acompli as
Outlook Mobile during a relaunch
in January this year. So far it has

All of this is interesting stuff to

business-watchers, but a tad dry to
the more general public which is
probably why these purchases have
attracted far fewer headlines than
some of the more consumer-focussed
buy-outs. Chief among them have
been the staggering $2.5 billion
acquisition of Mojang last November
and the more recent purchases of
N-trig and Sunrise. Together they have
seen many words written about them,
creating a pool of analysis to which we
are about to add.
Of the three, the Mojang deal
was the one which had most people
talking. For Mojang is the creator
of Minecraft, the online buildingblock game that has become a
monster following more than 60
million downloads and its grabbing
of the coveted title of best-selling
independent game of all time
according to Guinness World Records.
Over the past three years, fans
have created more than 225 million
Minecraft worlds on the Xbox 360
alone, which is not bad for a quirky
indie title that gives gamers a blank
slate on a deserted island, unleashing
player creativity and allowing them

Issue 1353

2014

12

Issue 1353

PARATURE

Business type: Customer service software

Country: USA
Value: $100 million

GREENBUTTON

Business type: Cloud computing

Country: New Zealand
Value: Undisclosed

CAPPTAIN

Business type: Mobile application development

Country: France
Value: Undisclosed

SYNTAXTREE

Business type: Developer tools

Country: France
Value: Undisclosed

INMAGE

Business type: Disaster recovery solutions

Country: USA
Value: Undisclosed

MOJANG

Business type: Computer software

Country: Sweden
Value: $2.5 billion

AORATO

Business type: Enterprise Security & machine learning

Country: Isreal
Value: Undisclosed

ACOMPLI

Business type: Mobile Email Apps

Country: USA
Value: Undisclosed

HOCKEYAPP

Business type: Mobile Beta Distribution & Crash Analytics

Country: Germany
Value: Undisclosed

EQUIVIO

Business type: Text Analytics Service

Country: Israel
Value: Undisclosed

REVOLUTION ANALYTICS

Business type: Statistical computing and predictive analytics

Country: USA
Value: Undisclosed

SUNRISE (CALENDAR)

Business type: Calendar Applications

Country: USA
Value: $100 million

Microsoft Acquisitions

to build, hunt, explore and fight. Who could

have foreseen that players would produce
their own narratives and be actively involved
in such a rich community?
Minecraft also changed the way games
were played by running in a browser, opening
it up to everyone with a computer. It altered
the way developers approached their own
games by dispensing with stories, putting the
player in control, emphasising creativity and
giving a fresh spin to the fantasy genre. In
fact, its far less a game, more an experience
so for Microsoft to come in with an offer to
buy the company was big news, and pundits
rushed to have their say on its motivations.
It was also a controversial decision. Leading
gaming magazine GamesTM splashed with the
headline Will Microsoft Kill Minecraft? an
incendiary question that set the tone for a
debate that still rages today.
So why did Microsoft buy Mojang? Quite
aside from the fact that Minecraft will
continue to make money (it will generate
more cash for Microsoft than if its money was
just sitting in a bank), the purchase of Mojang
makes Microsoft an even stronger player in
the gaming market. Games make up the bulk
of purchases for mobile apps, they appeal
to a young audience and they can attract a
loyalty unseen in many other media. Given
the success of its three Xbox consoles to date,
Microsoft already has a good understanding
of the gaming market and has made a
commitment to it with Windows 10. By
buying the developer of what is, perhaps, the
most iconic and well-regarded game of the
current day, it has a very valuable digital asset
and one that it can bring to Windows Phone
in an attempt to give that particular platform
a boost among young purchasers.
Certainly, as weve seen with the purchase
of Acompli, the mobile market figures highly
for Microsoft. In buying Sunrise, one of the
best calendar apps for Android and iOS, the
company is going for quality to exemplify
Microsofts ambition to rethink the productivity
category, says Rajesh Jha, corporate VP of
Outlook and Office 365. It also gives Microsoft
an overarching umbrella in the calendar app
space because Sunrise works with Gmail
accounts and Facebook events and birthdays.
It integrates well with a host of other
apps from Google Maps to TripIt and it will
fold well into Outlook, which was no doubt
Microsofts intention. This would not only
make Outlook very relevant for business,
but also ensure its strong position among
consumers. Throw in a desire to push ahead
with inking capabilities (Microsoft bought
N-trig, an Israeli provider of digital pens and
chips for touchscreens last month) and it
shows how the company is straddling the
business-consumer line so well.

N-TRIG

Business type: Styli

Country: Isreal
Value: $200 million

2015

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Google Acquisitions

Googles Purchases

So what of those 38 acquisitions by

Google? The last time we looked at
Googles business activity in Micro
Mart was in January 2014 when we
noted some clear trends. We could see
that Googles acquisitions were relating
to services in which the company
could make more money from its own
existing services (it had bought SageTV
for the benefit of GoogleTV) as well
as new markets. One of these was the
field of robotics its Google X arm
had snapped up Schaft.inc, Redwood
Robotics, Meka Robotics, Holomni,
Bot & Dolly and Boston Dynamics.
It had also acquired Nest and it was
positioning itself at the heart of the
internet of things. Google bought
Nest in order to learn about this world
where even more information is going

14

Issue 1353

to be accessible by computers, said

Forrester Research analyst Frank Gillett.
The Nest deal was firmed up at
a cost of $3.2 billion in January
2014 in what was a busy year for
Google. It snapped up Revolv, a
hub allowing people to control
all of their smart devices from
one app on their smartphone,
and which is being integrated
into Nest for greater compatibility
between devices. It bought a few
internet security firms Impermium,
SlickLogin and spider.io and
it became active in the Artificial
Intelligence space with DeepMind
Technologies, figuring it could use
the technology within robotics and
as part of the internet of things,
thanks to AIs application in making
computers think like humans.

Artificial Intelligence has been very

important to Googles acquisitions. In
the last six months, it has concluded
deals for the UK-based companies,
Dark Blue Labs and Vision Factory,
which are being integrated into
DeepMind. Both were spun-off
from Oxford University start-ups and
specialise in computer vision and the
machine learning of natural language.
They will help to bolster products that
rely on understanding what humans
are attempting to say, making voice
searching more fluid.
As well as those two firms, Google
bought a company called Jetpac that
uses AI to create city guides using
photographs taken by members of
the public. Jetpac uses neural network
and image recognition technology
and it is able to work out which

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MICROSOFT&GOOGLE
ACQUISITIONS

places are the most popular and

which are the most scenic. Bought
so that it could be integrated into
Google Maps, Jetpac is so advanced
that it can even pick up on how much
lipstick is on display on someones
face and the shape it is forming. If it
appears to be on a smiling face, then
Jetpac can gauge the happy mood
being displayed in a photo.
Such innovations will position
Google well in the lucrative advertising
market, encouraging more people
towards its services. Meanwhile,
and leaving nothing to chance, the
company has been ensuring it stays
ahead of the field by buying ad-specific
firms as wide-ranging as Adometry
(which allows companies to see how
well an online advert is influencing
someone to click or buy an item),

Issue 1353

15

What Next?

It is never easy to forecast what big companies will

snap up next, but with Google having just bought
Softcard the mobile payments app owned by
Verizon, T-Mobile and AT&T in a deal that allows
Google Wallet to be pre-installed on Android
devices, you can bet that more payment systems
will be acquired in the coming months and years.
Microsoft, meanwhile, appears to be moving into
app development, which we have seen with Outlook
and Sunrise. More canny purchases that can be
integrated into its business-focussed offerings are
sure to follow and we can expect to see more cloud
service firms also purchased as a result.

mDialog (a video advertising firm that

was integrated into another Google
acquisition, DoubleClick) and Red Hot
Labs, which latterly became known as
Toro and which helps developers to
promote their apps on Facebook. This
will help the search engine giant to
cream off more money through Google
Play purchases, it can be assumed.

Google+ Acquisitions

Whether or not it will use Toro to

help people promote via Google+ is
unknown at this stage, though (Red
Hot Labs was only purchased last
month), but it seems the social media
site is here to stay for a while longer.
Polar was bought last September to
make Google+ more user-friendly on
mobile devices according to David
Besbris, Googles vice president of
engineering, and it is set to make
good use of its staff. Polars core
business asked simple, black-andwhite poll questions such as Do you
like apples or bananas? but the team
has enough social media awareness to
make them a real asset for Google as
it sticks with its plan to infiltrate the
social media space.
Google+ has also benefited from
the acquisition of Odysee, which it
may well use to add more private
sharing features. Odysee works by

18

Issue 1353

automatically backing up videos and

photos from mobile devices to home
computers while allowing for private,
auto sharing. Google immediately
pulled its app from the App Store and
Google Play, leading to speculation
that it was the features, rather than
the app itself that it desired.
Indeed, the firm has been
bolstering Google Cloud with lots of
acquisitions. The cloud monitoring
service, Stackdriver, delivers solid
information about usage and it has
been integrated into Googles offering.
Appurify has enabled automatic
testing and optimisation of websites
and mobile apps for developers and
has been a good fit alongside the
Google Cloud Messaging and Android
Studio development tools. Zync Render
allows for visual effects to be rendered
in the cloud and Firebase helps
developers to build more effective realtime apps. The latter still appears to
be a standalone service, however, with
prices starting at $49-a-month.
Google seems keen to promote its
consumer products for businesses,
too. In buying Directr, a mobile video
app that allows small firms to create
and upload marketing videos, Google
has been able to make use of what is
now a free tool to bolster the presence
of such companies in Maps and

searches. Added to the collaborative

video editing tool Vidmakeris, which
Google has also acquired, it suddenly
has facilities to allow companies (and
creative groups) to bring multiple
people together in the editing and
sharing of videos in real time.
Google hasnt forgotten
consumers in all of this, though. By
purchasing the apps firm, Launchpad
Toys, which develops TeleStories,
a cool app that allows children to
make their own TV shows, YouTube
for Kids has become a reality (and it
offers a load of childrens favourites
from the likes of DreamWorksTV and
National Geographic Kids).
Is all of this a good thing, though?
It would seem so. While some claim
the swallowing up of companies by
giants like Microsoft and Google
leaves smaller firms are unable to
grow and become direct competitors,
the skills the individual companies
and their staff bring to the table
ensure that established core products
become better and more widely used.
The competitive element remains
because new start-ups emerge
with their own ideas, safe in the
knowledge that, should their product
or service be attractive enough, they
can strike it rich. Their ideas then
go into a larger melting pot but the
money they have generated can,
further down the line, be reinvested
into new initiatives.
At the same time, ideas snapped
up by one company deprive another
but as long as technology is being
used and remains part of every day
life (and we cannot seem a time
when it wont be), well undoubtably
continue talking about such buy-ups.
For the companies involved and the
watching public, that can be very
exciting indeed. mm

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Issue 1353

19

Smart
Appliances:
Innovation Or
Gimmick?
Are you ready to hook-up your house to the Internet of Things?

or many people its almost impossible

to remember what life was like before
they had a powerful computer sitting
in their pocket at all times. By providing
instant access to email, maps, entertainment
and applications, the smartphone has
definitely replaced the bog-standard mobile
in the popular imagination. Developments
havent stopped there, though.
The rise of the smartphone has been swiftly
following by a raft of other smart devices: TVs,
watches, and even cars are getting in on the
act making your old, non-smart versions look

practically Victorian by comparison. Theres

more to come, as more and more devices
become computerised and connected, though.
This is the so-called Internet of Things
non-standard devices taking on qualities and
capabilities that were once only associated
with desktop and mobile systems.
Of course, theres no official definition
of what makes a device smart, but smart
devices tend to share a few qualities.Interdevice connectivity is the big one; smart
hardware can generally relay stats and
information via Bluetooth or wi-fi, while

at the same time accepting instructions so

that you can control it remotely. The ability
to access to web is also common, whether
over a mobile connection or wireless
signal, and on the most sophisticated
devices you can install apps to extend the
capabilities of the hardware.
Today, youd expect to find these
features in a smartphone, smart TV or
Blu-ray player, but what other smart
devices are there, and are genuinely they
the future or just riding a wave of
gimmickry? We looked into it.

Smarter iKettle/Coffee Machine

Whether youre a fan of the classic British cup of tea or a more European
Coffee, Smarter has you covered, having produced the smart iKettle and a
wi-fi connected Coffee Machine.
The iKettle, which comes in a variety of colours, costs 100 and can be
controlled directly from an Android or iOS phone. Activate it remotely when
you wake up and receive notifications when its ready to pour, the water needs
refreshing or if it empties out. You can boil to any one of four temperatures
depending on the type of tea youre brewing (the app will help you choose)
and theres a keep warm mode. All you need is a Wireless N or AC connection
and a phone or tablet running at least Android 4 or iOS 7.
On the other side of the fence, Smarters Coffee machine (which is due out in
May) will cost 150 and have similar smart controls, including the ability to grind
and brew beans on demand, brew anywhere between one and twelve cups,
and adjust the strength depending on your preferences. Again, you get timer
functionality and notifications, and the app is available for Android and iOS. Its
even compatible with the online service IFTTT (If This Then That), so with a little
tweaking you could set it up to brew your coffee automatically whenever you
get close to home after work. If thats not the future, what is?

VERDICT:

20

Issue 1353

SMART
APPLIANCES
Samsung WF457 Washer & Dryer

Samsung were one of the first big manufacturers to incorporate smart

functionality into its washing machines and tumble dryers, although only
in the most high-end models. The feature is far from standard, but there
is at least one product line that allows you to get technical about your
washing, and thats the WF457, which contains one washer and one dryer,
depending on your preference.
As well as having an 8 touchscreen to help you select programs, the
appliances can connect with your smartphone so that you can receive a
notification when your laundry is complete, or check what part of the wash
cycle its currently going through the idea being that you dont have to
run up and down stairs or between rooms just to check. Unfortunately you
still have to load and unload the laundry yourself, so were not quite in the
brave new future yet. Soon, maybe?
While remote notification isnt necessarily the most useful feature (though
it does mean an end to incessant beeping) the diagnostics the onboard
computer can also supply is the really interesting thing. The app will give you
an idea of how the machine is performing and when it needs a service or
repair, as well as whether there are ways to make it more efficient. Its maybe
not the coolest use of smart technology, but if you spend several hundred
pounds on a washing machine at least it helps you protect that expense.

VERDICT:

Hive Smart Thermostat

There are few things in most houses as difficult to master as the timer on a
thermostat, so anything that makes the process of adjusting your heating
simpler has to be a good thing. Smart heating systems such as Hive take that
one step further, allowing you to adjust and administer your heating remotely
as long as you have an internet connection available to you.
Costing just 199 (including installation) Hive allows you to control your
heating from any internet-enabled device, so you can activate and deactivate
it remotely depending on whether youre at home or not, or control the
thermostat from your bed. The app helps you keep track of your expenditure
so that you can minimise bills, and the greater, more intelligent control over
your heating allows you to save even more money.
The success of Smart Thermostat systems is clear from the number of
systems that have been put on the market. While Hive is one of the most
popular (its made by British Gas), alternatives include Googles Nest, Tado, Heat
Genius, HeatMiser, Honeywell and more besides, all with their own features
and software. Clearly, this is technology to look out for.

VERDICT:

Issue 1353

21

LG Internet Fridge

The internet fridge concept is perhaps the ultimate expression of, and the grim
punchline to, the Internet of Things. In theory, its an idea with purchase. In
practise, its a gimmick. The first internet fridge was manufactured in 2000 by
LG, and was considered a failure, and yet the idea never goes away.
The theory goes that an internet fridge can keep track of your purchases, let
you know when youre out of food you need, and warn you if food is going
off. The reality is that you probably have to input the information yourself and
can tell long before the fridge can if the milk needs replenishing. Although its
theorised that the internet fridge would one day order food for you before you
even need it, theyve never become that sophisticated much to the delight of
Tesco delivery drivers, wed imagine, as they have so far avoided being asked to
deliver a single pint of milk.
Nonetheless, LG has a new internet fridge. Part of its Smart ThinQ range, the
LFX31995ST is a $3,000 investment with a built-in 8 touchscreen to help manage
its contents, check expiration dates and match your ingredients with recipes. Fine
temperature control, performance diagnostics and more advanced stats can all be
accessed from the touchscreen or through the smartphone app.
So as long as you have an internet connection, you can have access to your
fridge in every way other than physically. Useful on shopping trips, maybe not
that useful if you need a snack.

VERDICT:

Gimmick

Philips Hue Lightbulb

Coloured lighting might be a little bit Seventies, but you can bring
the concept fully up to date by investing in a Hue lightbulb. Wirelessly
controlled using software on your smartphone, this otherwise ordinarylooking bulb is capable of emitting light of any colour and brightness,
leading to all sorts of practical applications.
In theory, you might set it to gently wake you up by gradually
illuminating your room in the mornings. Or turn your lights on and off
remotely while youre out of the house to deter burglars. You might
illuminate the room before you enter, to save fumbling with a hard-tofind light switch. Or use one of the pre-existing light recipes to set the
ambiance of your room to a specific mood.
Lets face it, though: the real reason anyone might want to buy a Hue is
because its fun. As well as a timer, the software includes a colour-picker that
allows you to select a hue from any image youve taken and use it as the basis
for your light colour. You can integrate with popular web-service IFTTT to create
lighting that changes colour when you get an email, or tweet, or if someone
uploads a photo of you on Facebook. The possibilities are near-endless.
Though compatible with multiple devices, Hue bulbs are only available from
the Apple Store, where the starter pack of three bulbs and a wireless bridge
costs 180, with additional bulbs available from 50 and up. So, er... better
start saving for this one, then.

VERDICT:

22

Issue 1353

The Orange Chef Prep Pad

If youve ever wished that your kitchen scales could be less passive when youre
trying to cook dinner, then weve some good news: The Orange Chef the
company that brought you the combination iPad Stand / Chopping Board
and Chef Sleeve tablet covers to keep your screens clean has also devised
something called the Prep Pad. Which, as absurd as it sounds, can only be
described as a set of Smart Kitchen Scales.
As well as using the Prep Pad to weigh food as you prepare it, you can
use your tablet to retrieve detailed nutritional information based on food
type and weight, with graphics showing things like calories, amount of carb/
protein, and more. There are 250,000 food types supported and a database
of barcodes so that you can directly scan the food (thats US-based, though,
so it probably wont work in the UK).
It undoubtedly has high production values, with a body made of solid
aluminium and a top made of an easily sanitised recycled paper-based material,
and its even simple to set up. One touch of a button allows you to pair it, over
Bluetooth, with your phone or tablet and the associated Countertop App.
Its even compatible with some fitness trackers, so that you can log your meals
even as you make them. All it needs is 4x AAA batteries, and it can be yours
for just $110. They do ship to the UK, so if you really cant resist then youre in
luck. Precise nutritional information can be yours.

VERDICT:

Gimmick

August Smart Lock

You probably think that allowing your house to be unlocked using Bluetooth
is asking for trouble, but August clearly dont agree with that assessment. The
August Smart Lock is, according to its makers, a simple, secure, and social
(well explain that in a second) way to manage your homes lock without
requiring a set of keys.
Technically speaking, security isnt much of a concern. The encrypted
connection, in real terms, is no less secure than a standard lock, and has the added
benefit of allowing you to place time restrictions on access to your home. The
social function of this gadget means you can issue keys to your friends, who can
then enter your home using just their phone (as long as its within the limits youve
specified). As well as this, you can see a log of whos entered and when, meaning
theres no way for someone to sneak in without you realising.
Other features include Auto Unlock (which opens your door as you get near),
Everlock (which automatically locks the door every time its closed) and a virtual
guestbook people can sign when they use their keys. The system is powered
by 4x AA batteries, which ensure it stays working even in a power cut, and it
doesnt require a wi-fi connection to work. When the battery runs low youll get a
reminder to change them well before it becomes a problem.
Of course, while all of that sounds like it might be fun and futuristic, weve just
got one question: what do you do if your phones battery runs out when youre
outdoors? For $199, youll be able to get your own Smart Lock and find out.

VERDICT:

It remains to be seen whether this Internet of Things is going to

cause a lasting change in the way home appliances are made and
how we use them, but its clear from the range of items already
on the market that manufacturers, at least, are keen on the idea.

24

Issue 1353

Although that doesnt always work out, theres a chance a

strong one, at that that connected home appliances are the
future, even if it isnt necessarily in the form of internet Fridges
and Bluetooth chopping boards. mm

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MINETEST:

AN OPEN
SOURCE
MINECRAFT
ALTERNATIVE
David Briddock compares this free block-based sandbox with its more
famous Microsoft-owned rival

icrosofts recent $2.5 billion acquisition of Mojang,

the company behind Minecraft, resulted in an
outpouring of dismay, uncertainty and confusion
within the huge and fiercely loyal Minecraft community.
To allay fears, Microsoft released statements saying
its intention is to keep Minecraft just as it is. After all, it
says, doing anything that upsets the Minecraft community
would be foolish not to mention a huge waste of money.
However, as 2015 begins to unfold, Microsofts long-term
plans for Minecraft are still unclear.

Holographic Attractions

Theres certainly a concerted effort to position the Minecraft

game in such a way as to draw people to the forthcoming
Windows 10 platform, but also to attract developers, from
novice and experienced, to Microsofts development toolset.
The holographic HobLens and Holo Studio announcements
made on 21st January help enormously in this regard. Yet
despite the possibility of a future holographic version, the
Minecraft community is rattled.
Many are willing to explore other options, such as an
indie and open-source alternative. Which brings us to the
Minetest project.

The Minetest Alternative

At first glance, Minetest looks to be a realistic alternative.

It has the same infinite-world sandbox-style concept, a
strikingly familiar look and feel (as seen at minetest.net/
screenshots), the same constructional exploration gameplay

26

Issue 1353

scenario, multiplayer server mode, and a similar range of

game modification and customisation options.
So lets dig a little deeper and see if Minetest really would
satisfy a Minecraft gamer.

Platform Choice

Probably the biggest difference, and one of the most

attractive, is that Minetest is fully open source. This means its
licence (LGPL 2.1) gives anyone the freedom to own, distribute
and modify Minetest. This type of freedom typically results in
wide platform availability, and Minetest is no exception.
Minetest downloads are available for Microsoft Windows
(XP/Vista/7/8 in 32-bit/64-bit format), Apple Mac OS X,
various flavours of Linux (Ubuntu, Mint, Debian, Fedora,
Puppy and others) plus FreeBSD. Android is also supported
with package downloads for both AMD and Intel x86 chipbased devices.
Importantly, Minetest is a lightweight application, which
runs on fairly old PC desktops or laptops, such as machines
running Intel 945GM graphics. However, a dual-core CPU is
highly recommended for smoother gameplay.
Of course, as its open source, anyone can download the
Minetest code and port it to another platform. For example,
some enterprising hackers are currently working on a
Raspberry Pi port.

Basic Game Play

As you might expect, Minetest single-player mode is all

about getting your on-screen character to explore, dig,

MINETEST

construct and terraform all while surviving the dark nights and
those hostile mobiles (or mobs).
However, just like Minecraft, theres much more to Minetest
gameplay, including crafting items, smelting new materials and
applying non-default texture packs.
Crafting is the art of fabricating objects and tools from
resources like trees and various types of ore. Things like sticks for
a pickaxe, planks for house building, coal for torches and so on.
A pickaxe is a particularly important tool, as it helps mine stone
and ores.
One of the more important crafting activities is to construct a
furnace (built using cobblestone). Once youve built a furnace,
you can start smelting, namely using various fuel resources to
heat up and transform one material into another. There are many
smelting recipes on the online wiki help pages, such as converting
flour to bread, clay to bricks and sand to glass.
A texture pack alters the texture of blocks, items, mobs and the
graphical user interface. Its essentially a collection of files, which
can be downloaded from various online sites and then added
using the appropriate Minetest menu option. Due to the games
blocky nature, these custom Minetest textures are composed from
16x16 pixel squares.

Subgames

Many players will be quite happy to stick to the out-of-the-box

gameplay. Yet its possible to create different styles of Minetest
gameplay though a feature called subgames.
A subgame defines a foundation for a particular style of
gameplay, and each one can have its own set of objectives. For
example, survival challenges, building projects or competitive
player versus player scenarios.
The official website lists some of the more popular Minetest
subgames. These include Dreambuilder (a building based game
crammed with building materials), Carbone (with a focus on fun
and intuitive gameplay) and Big Freaking Dig (mine and extract
multiple ores, create new tools and battle mobs).

But there are many more subgames to discover and explore.

Just point your browser at the various Minetest forums (see
Minetest Links boxout).

Mods

User designed and coded modifications, called mods, are a big

deal in Minecraft. Mods can offer players a wider choice of types
of bricks, items and tools plus additional game characters, animals
and other mobs. The result is enhanced gameplay. Therefore its no
great surprise to discover Minetest has its own modding capability.
Popular Minetest mods provide new types of ores and blocks
(including the Minecraft-Redstone-like Mesecons), passive or hostile
mobs, plant life, carts that run on rail tracks, decor for your house
and Minetest world editors. You might not find an exact duplicate
of your favourite Minecraft mod, but as many mod inspirations
come from the Minecraft community, you never know.

Servers

Minetest doesnt just offer a single-player option. It also supports

multiplayer scenarios with its server mode. In server mode, you
connect to a Minetest server, hosted on a local machine or over the
internet, and join in a live game with players from around the world.
Each server will have its own gameplay flavour, as defined by
textures, subgames, mods and mobs. Theres an ever growing list
on the Minetest web pages and forums.
Once again, this is a close replica of Minecrafts multiplayer
capability, but with such a large, active community there are far
more operational Minecraft servers, many more online players and
a larger diversity of game-enhancing mods.
However, to rebalance the odds a little, you could always build
your own Minetest server and invite the community to play, as
well see later.

Texture Packs Creation

Would you like to create your own custom texture pack? To start,
edit the default texture files. You can use just about any image

Issue 1353

27

Minetest Links
editor, as long as its able to save the image as a PNG file and
supports transparency (also called an alpha layer). The free and
open source GIMP application is a popular choice, but select the
one that suits you best.
In theory, textures can be any size. However, square images
with sizes like 16x16, 32x32, 64x64, 128x128 and so on are likely
to work best in this blocky world.
When youre done editing, put the amended files in a new texture
pack folder. This folder is then compressed into a zip archive, which
can be uploaded to the internet for others to use, along with a
suitable announcement post in the Texture Packs forum.

Build Your Own Server

As we mentioned above, Minetest supports multiplayer servers,

but maybe you just cant find the sort of gameplay option you
and your friends are after. Or maybe youve seen (or coded) a
cool Minetest mod that youd like to use and share with others.
Well, you can. Just like Minecraft anyone can build their very own
Minetest server, with a bespoke collection of textures, mobs and
mods a server to host games between family members and friends
or an internet-connected server for the whole Minetest community.
The steps are fully documented and relatively straightforward
(see Minetest Links boxout), and anyone whos already built a
Minecraft server will find the whole process very familiar.

Build Your Own Mods

As weve seen, Minetest has a modding capability and

community, just like Minecraft. However, modders are offered
greater flexibility with Minetest.
With Minecraft, modders have to use the Java development
language, the language used to code Minecraft game, but with
Minetest, modders have a choice between the powerful C++
language or the user-friendly Lua scripting language.
Using C++ gives the ultimate control, as all the core source
code is written in C++, so you can literally do anything you like.
However, C++ does take a while to learn, and the resulting code
listings are typically pretty long and quite complex in nature.
Lua, on the other hand, is a more approachable, easy-to-learn
scripting language. In many respects, Lua is rather similar to Python.
What we have with Lua is something similar to the Minecraft
for Raspberry Pi scenario, with its Mojang-provided Python
hacking module. However, Minecraft for Raspberry Pi is a one-off,
cut-down and severely limited implementation of the full game.
In contrast, with Minetest you can create Lua-script mods on
the complete and unrestricted game. In fact, by default, Minetest

28

Issue 1353

Screenshots: minetest.net/screenshots
Basics: wiki.minetest.net/How_to_build_your_first_house
Blocks: wiki.minetest.net/Blocks
Items: wiki.minetest.net/Items
Crafting: wiki.minetest.net/Crafting
Smelting: wiki.minetest.net/Smelting
Mobs: wiki.minetest.net/Mobs
Texture packs: wiki.minetest.net/Texture_Packs
Servers: minetest.net/servers
Mods: wiki.minetest.net/Mods
Sever hosting: wiki.minetest.net/Setting_up_a_server
Texture pack creation: wiki.minetest.net/Texture_
Packs#Texture_Pack_Creation
Mod creation: dev.minetest.net/Main_Page
Source code: github.com/minetest/minetest/blob/
master/README.txt
Discussion board: forum.minetest.net
IRC channels: minetest.net/irc
Reddit forum: reddit.com/r/Minetest

has a generic collection of Lua mod plug-ins contained in a set

called minetest_game.
Of course, Microsofts acquisition could radically change the
Minecraft modding picture. The .NET development framework
offers an advanced set of tools and, more importantly, a wide
choice of coding languages.
Still, until we hear more from Microsoft about its Minecraftspecific plans, Minetest can claim it offers the coding community
more flexibility.

Community

As you might have guessed, Minetest cant begin to compete

with Minecrafts huge, intensely loyal, highly active community,
which reaches every corner of the globe, and after spending so
much cash, Microsoft sincerely hopes this will always be the case.
Yet the Minetest community is growing all the time, and there are
a number of ways to become involved.
For example, you can visit one of the many forums on the
official Minetest discussion board (forum.minetest.net) or the
Reddit forum pages (reddit.com/r/Minetest) or chat on one of
the IRC channels (minetest.net/irc).
If youre interested in the development side of things,
you can browse, download and code-share on the Minetest
projects GitHub code repository pages (github.com/minetest)
or interact via the dedicated development pages (minetest.
net/development). mm

nt

Componhe
Watc

Component Watch
Looking for a bargain external drive? Here are five that will do the trick

SD drives might be fast becoming the go-to storage

medium for desktop systems, but when you need lots of
storage you still cant beat a mechanical drive. Luckily,
external versions of this older technology seem to be
getting cheaper by the day, and are packing in more storage than
ever. Thus, If youre in the market for a new external hard drive,
but dont want to spend a lot of money, then its good news: this
weeks component watch is all about sub-100 models that offer
a very handy terabyte of space.
Deal 1: HGST Touro Mobile MX3 1TB
RRP: 50 / Deal Price: 40
The HGST Mobile MX3
provides 1TB of portable
storage for an incredibly
reasonable price. Its
certainly enough to
store most peoples
collections of photos,
music and documents
(and some movies too)
and it comes packaged
in a secure and stylish
enclosure. Plug-and-play simplicity twinned with USB 3.0 support
means its both easy and fast to use, and that theres no need for
a separate power supply. The two-year warranty thrown into the
bargain only sweetens the deal, so if youre not into comparing
stats and just want an easy option, this is probably it.
Where to get it: Pixmania (bit.ly/1nNppY9)
Deal 2: Verbatim Store n Go 1TB
RRP: 65 / Deal Price: 47
For those who are concerned
with such things, the Verbatim
Store n Go is available in
colours to suit any taste
(including bad) bright orange
and metallic pink among them.
Luckily, for those that arent so
bothered with sartorial matters,
its also a pretty good hard
drive. Simply designed and
simple to use, with a single USB
3.0 port that both powers the
unit and transfers data, its one of the lightest drives weve seen.
While that may seem as niche a concern as colour coordination,
its a definite boon if youre planning to use it on the move.
An interesting extra is the energy-saving green button, which
quickly powers down the drive when its idling. Not bad.
Where to get it: CCL Online (bit.ly/1lNDgLr)

30

Issue 1353

Deal 3: Samsung M3 1TB

RRP: 57 / Deal Price: 48
Available in a variety of sizes,
the Samsung M3 drives are
excellent quality with a robust
casing and stylish design.
The 1TB is the best value of
the lot at just 50 but, as
external drives go, its about
as basic as the HGST Touro
the only feature is a USB
cable to connect it to your
system. It is USB 3.0, though,
which means you get some super-fast transfer speeds when
reading and writing to the drive, but other than that its as plain as
they get. Lucky its so good at what it does, really.
Where to get it: Pixmania (bit.ly/1DEuk3Z)
Deal 4: Seagate Backup Plus 1TB
RRP: 70 / Deal Price: 50
Seagate has strong
credentials in the hard
drive world, and this drive
shows why. Available
in four colours, the
unit is under 50 long,
and weighs only 225g.
Seagates proprietary
USM module means
that the same drive can
be connected to USB
3.0, Thunderbolt and FireWire connectors if you buy additional
adaptors, although it comes with USB 3.0 as standard!
Where to get it: Maplin (bit.ly/1EJrdfm)
Deal 5: Western Digital My Passport Slim 1TB
RRP: 78.50 / Deal Price: 55
There are plenty of decent,
cheap external hard drives
around, but few are
specifically for portable use.
The Western Digital My
Passport Slim is, though.
A USB-powered USB 3.0
device capable of storing
1TB, it has an ultra-thin
form factor that allows it to
be carried around with greater ease than most devices in its class.
Theres even a pouch included so that you dont scratch the case!
Where to get it: John Lewis (bit.ly/1F4TMSu)

5G Is A
RecordBreaker

University researchers achieve 1 Tbps

Samsung Lifts HTC Working

Veil Off Galaxy On Half-life
S Smartphones

Curved face at heart of firms plans

amsung has revealed

the latest in its
Galaxy S range, and
its all about the

curves.
Probably the most significant
feature of the S6 Edge,
arguably the biggest release yet
for Samsung, is the fact that its
edges are beautifully curved.
Hailed in some circles as
Samsungs finest-looking
smartphone yet, this will be an
important launch given the
relative failure of the S5 to set
any hearts racing.
Showcased at the Mobile
World Congress show in

32

Issue 1353

Barcelona, the S6 Edge

sat proudly alongside
the non-curved S6, and
Samsung is hoping that these
are successful in its longstanding battle against
Apple. As for other key
features, the mobiles are
powered by Samsungs
64-bit, 14-nm Exynos
processors, batteries cannot
be replaced, and wireless
charging is included to allow
for powering up without a
dedicated Samsung accessory.
Just take one more look at
that curved look, though. It is
very, very tempting...

VR Title?

BBC reports on possible collaboration

h, we love the
Mobile World
Congress. As
trade shows go,
there is always something to
talk about, and 2015s event
has been no exception.
One of the more
interesting stories has been
HTCs teaming up with Valve
in its development of a virtual
reality headset of its own.
The HTC Vive is planning on
taking on the likes of the
Oculus Rift, and a public
version of the product is due
for sale later this year.
Powered by SteamVR,
HTCs vision for the headset
is rather grand. Imagine
standing on the bridge of a
starship rocketing across the
galaxy, or strolling through
the streets of ancient Rome,
or shrinking down to
subatomic size and watching
molecules collide goes the
blurb on the htcvr.com
website, accompanied by
some lovely, sweeping video

imagery. To achieve this

visionary perspective on
gaming, the Vive headset
will place a 1200 x 1080
pixel screen in front of
each eye, complete with a
90fps refresh rate.
Gyrosensors, accelerometers
and laser position sensors
track your movement,
and ergonomic game
controllers in each hand will
allow you to interact with
your virtual world.
Clearly this is all a bit
exciting, more-so when HTCs
chairwoman told Auntie Beeb
that she hoped a Half-life
title would be released for
the headset and that the
company was co-operating
with Half-life to make it
happen. The BBC also
reported that software
developers at Valve denied
working on any such game,
so confusion abound on this
one. Whatever the situation
with Half-life, this headset is
very much a reality.

QUICK BITS... The desktop and mobile versions of the Windows 10 Technical Previews have been signed up to by more than

ome researchers
working at the
University of Surreys
5G Innovation Centre
have broken data connection
records by reaching speeds
of 1Tbps.
To put that into some
perspective, thats over 65,000
times faster than average
download speeds for 4G
networks. Equally exciting is that
the 5GIC boss is hoping for a
live public demo in 2018. Ofcom
wants 5G to be viable for Britons
by 2020, and this is clearly a
step in the right direction.

Prior to this, the quickest

speeds under test was

Samsungs 7.5Gbps. A heck of a

big step forward, then.

VR Headset
For Not Much
Money
Y
Sub-30 glasses to take you into virtual worlds

ouve quite possibly

bought something
from the Firebox.com
site in the past. The
gadget website has quite the
paraphernalia of gifts galore
some good, some not so good
and its now added a virtual
reality headset to the mix.
The Immerse Virtual Reality
Headset lets you watch 3D
movies, play simulated games
and take a whirl in virtual
simulations with free content
thats available directly for
smartphones from the App Store
and Google Play. The 29.99
wireless headset comes with
360-degree head tracking, an
Ultra Wide Field Vision, plus
contact foam and adjustable
head straps for better comfort.
Theres no getting around it:
they look ridiculous. In the
comfort of your own home,
youll be quite happy to wear
them, but on the train?
Doubtful.
2.8m people, says Microsoft

Remember the BBC

technology show Tomorrows
World? I have fond memories
of watching it as a child,
awestruck by the amazing
advances engineers and
inventors were making in the
sciences. It helped kindle in
me a strong, lasting love of
technology part of why
Ive embraced smartphones
and tablets.
As much as I enjoy smart
devices, I do wonder if were
taking things beyond their
logical conclusion.
Smartwatches, which seem
like a good idea on paper, are
already struggling to gain any
real interest. So why would
anyone want a smart kettle?
Or a smart fridge?
Are these things really
improved by giving them
internet connectivity? And
does this logic apply to
everything? Personally, when
Im having my lunch, I dont
think, This sandwich is okay,
but itd be better with cheese.
Oh, and a broadband line.
Im not convinced just yet,
Im afraid. That said, though,
let it be known that the
internet sandwich was my
idea, just in case.

Anthony
Editor

Issue 1353

33

Meanwhile... On The Internet...

een readers of Micro Mart may remember that,

at the start of the year, James Hunt made the
case that Google+ was not the failure that
many perceived it to be, and that it had actually
done the job it was supposed to do. If you dont remember,
you can read the article at tinyurl.com/MotI1353a and
then you can look upon reporting of Googles proposed
changes to its oft-less-than-vibrant social network as
something of a vindication of his theory.
It appears that Google plans to split up the features
of Google+ and dedicate its time to optimising Streams
and Hangouts, rather than trying to roll everything into
one platform and compete with the combined might of
Facebook and Twitter but rather accept that the market
has fractured into services, and there will never be just one
stream to rule them all (tinyurl.com/MotI1353b).
It has its little +1 buttons everywhere, so it seems like its
Mission accomplished, lets get back to work, eh?

he trend for finding worrying weaknesses in internet

systems thought to be secure continues apparently
unabated. Last week we had the discovery of FREAK
(Factoring attack on RSA-EXPORT Keys), which exploits the use of
weak keys in SSL to allow man-in-the-middle attacks to scoop up
info or spoof secure sites (tinyurl.com/MotI1353c), a worrying
vulnerability that potentially effected pretty much everyone.
Its explained in some details at tinyurl.com/MotI1353d,
if you have the stomach, but expect updates and patches
imminently. If youre wise, youll get up to date.

Aaaaaaaand Finally...

Yeah, so the whole llama thing got replaced by the whole

weasel/woodpecker thing (tinyurl.com/MotI1353e), which
was inspired by a snap by wildlife photographer Martin
Le-May (tinyurl.com/MotI1353f ) but sort of ended up
feeding into the whole we-cant-stop-Photoshopping-KimJong-un-into-stuff thing thats seemingly been going on for
ages (tinyurl.com/MotI1353g) and we all laughed. Again.
Then there was that thing where Vince Vaughn promoted
his new movie by producing a load of stock images that
parodied the ones you see in the very worst PowerPoints
and the occasional Micro Mart caption competition
( tinyurl.com/MotI1353h ). That was great.

fter we made a point last week of justifying

why our reporting of the net neutrality debate
in the US was relevant to a UK-based magazine,
it would be a little ironic not to report on movements
happening in the European Union that cover much the same
ground. Last week, ministers charged with looking after
telecommunications within EU member countries came to
agreement on the matter, but it was one that seemed to
please neither the industry nor activists. Thats democracy for
you, we suppose (tinyurl.com/MotI1353i).
Depending on which side of the ideological fence you fall,
this Telecoms package either ensures that companies that
provide internet access treat traffic in a non-discriminatory
manner (the words of the official statement) or leaves
wiggle room for telecoms companies to set up a so-called
two-speed internet further down the line.
If implemented (which would be on June 30th 2016,
should it be ratified by the parliaments of EU members), it will
ban outright blocking or slowing down of specific content
or applications, and set rules on the management of traffic.
It does, however, provide provision for so-called specialised
services, a term vague enough to have some people worried.
Quoted by The Register, Marietje Schaake of the
Netherlands Democraten 66 party, said the proposals were
disappointing to the point of insulting, that the councils
wording was vague, and that We need clear principles
and definitions. These are not in the council text, and I dont
think thats an accident. Ultimately, she thought the proposals
would struggle to find approval all across the Union.
The European Telecommunications Network Operators
association was also less-than-pleased, noting that while
it was in favour of an open internet and supports a
harmonised, principle-based approach, Any future
regulation must recognise how networks function: We
need balanced rules on traffic management as well as
measures that allow the development of specialised
services and innovative offers.
Thats a stance that mirrors the controversy building around
Netflix, which seems to want to support net neutraility as
long as its allowed to do deals when it suits. (tinyurl.com/
MotI1353j). Unfortunately, it seems that net neutraility is an
g thing,
g though.
g Youve g
all-or-nothing
got it or yyou havent.

.AVWhy?

Were sometimes wonder if YouTube runs on musical

parody, but even by its high (low?) standards there
seemed to be a lot of it to get through last week. While we
do want to point you in the general direction of a natty
little Taylor Swift parody (tinyurl.com/MotI1353k) that riffs
on the internet fandom surrounding Game Of Thrones, we
dont think its lyrically strong enough to a) match the
tremendous production values of the video (nice work
www.nerdist.com, Freddy Scott, Andrew Bowser and Ben
Mekler) or b) take the prize as the best sing-a-long-a-meme
this week.
No, that would have to go to vocal gymnast and YouTube
celeb Mikey Bolts (tinyurl.com/MotI1353l), whos made a

34

Issue 1353

name for himself performing pop hits of the day using the
voices of Peter and Stewie Griffin and a host of other
popular US cartoon characters. This Uptown Funk cover
(tinyurl.com/MotI1353m) doesnt deviate wildly from that
MO, but its certainly funny. Whats more, youll never hear
that Uptown Funk riff again with Peter G singing along in
the back of your head. Youre welcome.

QUICK BITS... PandaLabs detected and neutralised 75 million malware samples in 2014, more than double the number in 2013

Caption Competition

has
That new intern
me.
d
ar
big... oh she he

Sadly, its too late for us to do a Happy New Ear joke, so lets just get
on with this weeks captions:

An ear-ly adopter of a new battery-free hearing aid was soon

to realise her big mistake. Pete Heaven
Im all ears. Geoff
Darwins theory of ear-volution is real. Thomas Turnbull
NHSs new treatment to save on the cost of hearing aids is
here. Thomas Turnbull
A common problem with some Print It Yourself Implants was
the mis-conversion between Imperial and Metric scaling in
some popular software packages Geoff Clarke
Sallys tribute to Leonard McCoy had just one flaw...
Sean McDougall
I was given some Monster Earphones for Christmas, so I got
these to match. JayCeeDee
Just because I can hear a pin drop at 100 feet, theres no
need to call me an old bat! JayCeeDee
Ear, Ear, I ll second that! wyliecoyoteuk
Go on, said Alice. Im all ears wyliecoyoteuk
Redmond executives publicity shot we are listening but we
will still do as we please. doctoryorkie
I had plastic surgery in memory of the giant African
elephant. JB
The new wi-fi range extenders were not as unobtrusive as
she would have liked. idunno

And this weeks winner is doctoryorkie, with That new

intern has big... oh she heard me.
To enter this week, head to the Other Stuff section of our
forum (forum.micromart.co.uk) and say something funny
(but not too rude) about the picture below or email us via
caption@micromart.co.uk.

Google
Computer Wins
Videogames
AI takes another leap

ith fond
memories of
playing on the
Atari always
fresh in our minds, it comes as
quite exciting news that a
machine put together by
researchers at Google has taught
itself to play, and win, a bunch of
classic Atari games.
Bods stationed at the Google
DeepMind project have said in the
Nature journal that this is the first
time that a computer program
had taught itself how to master a
range of complex tasks. Thats

significant in the sense that

Google is among several
companies investing big in
machine learning, having laid out
400m for UK-based DeepMind
Technologies last year.
For this particular test,
DeepMind was provided with
the basic data in order to play
videogames, including Pong and
Space Invaders, and it
succeeded in learning how to
win the games put before it.
Hardly Deep Thought level of
AI, then, but significant enough
for all those involved.

Patent
Defeat For
Apple

Over $500m called for in payout

pple has been

told to pay $533m
to technology
patent licensing
firm Smartfish.
As big as an amount as
that undoubtedly is, Smartfish
actually wanted even more.
However, its been quoted
as being happy with
the case result. For its
part, Apple is going to
appeal the verdict.
Patent trolls have
become a sad fact of
legal cases in the tech
industry, and this win,
should it be held up,
could prove significant,
not least for Smartfish
itself, which isnt stopping
here, as its due to go to trial

QUICK BITS... The Apple Watch will be released in Europe and the US in April

against Samsung, having

already sued Amazon and
Google
alongside
Apple.

Issue 1353

35

Snippets!
Bill Gates Is Still
Considerably Richer
Than You
Heres a surprise. Bill Gates has
been named as the worlds
richest man for the 16th time,
no less, by Forbes magazine.
Its annual ranking of global
billionaires is a relatively
big deal, and its latest list
suggests that Gates net
worth is now valued at
around $79bn. Wowsers.
There are 1,826 billionaires in
the world, dont you know, and
Bill is in good company, with
Warren Buffet and Larry Ellison
also included in the top ten.

WHO: Listen To Music

For Less Than An Hour
A Day
Listen up, audiophiles. It turns
out that listening to music for
more than an hour a day might
be bad for you.
Yes, the World Health
Organisation has warned
that over a billion teenagers
and young adults are risking
permanently damaging their
hearing by listening to too
much loud music and that half
of people in the 12-35 age
group are exposed to unsafe
sound levels from personal
audio devices.
Ironic that the WHO should
tell us how loud we should be
allowed to listen to albums by
The Who, no?

New Chinese Character

Shared On Weibo
Over to the Far East now and it
would seem that a new Chinese
word, which doesnt exist in the
dictionary, has been doing the
rounds on Weibo.
By doing the rounds,
we mean that the duang
character has appeared over
eight million times on the
micro-blogging website, with
a hashtag that was doing
some great trending business.
Also popular on search engine
Baidu, this is all rather odd.
It has apparently stemmed
from a shampoo advert starring
Jackie Chan. And that seems
like a perfectly odd place to
finish the Snippets!

36

Issue 1353

Lenovo
Apologises For
Superfish... Again
Six-month subscription of McAfee LiveSafe offered

enovos lengthy
apology for the
Superfish scandal
continues further as
the firm has announced that
its offering all Lenovo PC
users affected by Superfish a
free six-month subscription to
McAfee LiveSafe.
Existing subscribers to the
security product get an

additional six-months for free,

and this is of course on top of
Lenovos release of various
anti-virus tools to take the
software off your system.
Lenovo wants to be the
leader in providing cleaner,
safer PCs and its working
towards this goal with a
promise to launch standard
images of Windows 10

products that will only include

the OS, related software. and
absolutely nothing else. This
should, states Lenovo,
eliminate adware and
bloatware. We hope so.
Superfish was a big, big
issue, for Lenovo in some
ways to its credit has, at
least, addressed it fully now.
Maybe thats that, then.

TalkTalk
Customers
Details Stolen
Scammers looking to nab bank details

f youre a TalkTalk
customer, y,ou should
have received an email
from the company
explaining that hackers have
stolen account numbers and
names from its systems.
The hackers are using that
stolen data to try to scam
customers into handing over
their banking details, and a
few thousand accounts were
affected by the hack. Even so,

TalkTalk took the decision to

email every single customer,
and it has also noted that it
doesnt think any particularly
sensitive data or payment
data went missing.
How did TalkTalk find out
about the breach? Well, it
suspected foul play following
a spate of customer
complaints over scamming
phone calls at the back end of
last year.

QUICK BITS... The top 100 YouTube channels have increased their monthly views by more than double over

Tinder Charges Mario Figure

Selling For A
Older Users
Song On eBay

Dating app throws in premium features,

at a price

ating app Tinder

has finally got
round to
announcing
premium features, but its
going to charge for them.
Controversially, Tinder Plus
is going to charge users over
28 four times the basic cost
for younger users, which
seems a strange move.
Tinder has
defended the
move as being
based on
extensive tests
of the
marketplace, but
by segregating

the market like this, it surely

runs a big risk of alienating
users from wanting to use its
services.
Some of the premium
features include Rewind, to
undo an accidental flick past
a possible date, and a
Passport feature, which lets
users check out Tinder users
in other countries.

Wallmart exclusive proves people have

more money than sense

f you had 65 in your

back pocket, what
would you spend it on?
Some new PC games,
perhaps, or maybe some new
peripherals or storage
solution? Or would you spend
it on a figurine of the
computer worlds favourite
plumber?
The figurine is one of
Nintendos Amiibo characters,
a limited-edition gold one, in
fact, that was being sold
exclusively at Wallmart for

$13. Those figures sold out

within 15 minutes of being on
sale, and now theyre reselling
again on eBay for $100 and
upwards. The technology
industry has a long and
illustrious history of selling
character-based models and
accessories, so its perhaps not
hugely surprising to learn that
someone is prepared to spend
more money than sense on
these wee figurines.
Just know this: we are not
the ones doing the bidding.

Smartwatch
From LG Offers
Smart Looks
W
Fourth watch from the firm

earable
smartwatches
were one of the
big draws of the
Mobile World Congress, and LG
was among the companies
wanting to make its mark.
The fourth watch from the
firm, the LG Watch Urbane is
certainly a looker. Centered
around a 1.3, 320x320 plasticOLED display, it promises all the
communication capabilities of a
smartphone in a polished, metal
wristwatch, making and
answering phone calls, push-totalk capability with other devices

the course of the past year

on the same network, and

a display with always-on
ambient mode.
The watch runs Android Wear
and is powered by the 1.2GHz
Qualcomm Snapdragon 400
processor, and three physical
buttons on the right-hand side
allow for easy access to functions
without having to swipe through
a bunch of menu screens.
Wearables havent really taken
off yet but with something this
good-looking in the works, it
might not be too long before the
industry has a genuinely
interested market on its hands.

Issue 1353

37

REVIEWS

TP-LINK Archer C9 AC1900

Dual Band Gigabit Router
Mark discovers that AC class wi- can be had at a reasonable price
DETAILS

Price: 125.38
Manufacturer:
TP-LINK
Website:
uk.tp-link.com
Required spec:
Wired network or
wi- devices

he theory of AC class
wi-fi is marvellous, and
if you happen to have
devices that can use
both 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands
simultaneously, it can be
wonderful. But very few people
have, and what AC ends up
being mostly used for is n
connections or splitting your
devices between the two
frequency ranges.
Because of that, Id probably
not recommend a huge
investment yet in this technology
or finding an affordable router
like the TP-LINK Archer C9.
This is an AC1900 cable
design (no modem), which
provides a theoretical 600Mbps
at 2.4GHz and another
1,300MBps at 5GHz, and it
allows simultaneous use of
both through three detachable
antennas mounted on top.
Around the back are two USB
ports, one being USB 3.0 spec,
and four gigabit Ethernet ports,
along with a fifth for connecting
to a cable modem.
The white and silver styling is
pleasant enough, if a little Apple
influenced, and the impression
of high quality is somewhat
undermined when you realise
that the silver stand is plastic
and not metal.
However, rather than what
it looked like, the critical
performance aspect of these
devices is how they handle wi-fi,

38

Issue 1353

and in that respect the news is

generally good.
On 2.4GHz this unit effectively
utilises the available broadband,
and at 5Hz it is actually better
than most of the AC1900
routers Ive tested so far a
somewhat curious development,
given that they almost all use the
same Broadcom AC1900 chip
that the Archer C9 also employs.

So where does this design

fall down? There are a few
places, most notably in respect
of the web-based user interface,
which looks exactly like it was
designed on a spreadsheet.
Users need more consideration
than smacking them with an
Advanced Menu that contains
another 19 submenus. The lack
of a defined access point mode

Specifications:

Wi-fi: 5GHz up to 1300Mbps, 2.4GHz up to 600Mbps,

AC class

Processor: 1GHz dual-core ARM CPU

USB ports: 1x USB 3.0 port + 1x USB 2.0 port

Gigabit WAN/LAN ports: 4x 10/100/1000Mbps LAN,

1x 10/100/1000Mbps WAN port

Antennas: 3 detachable dual-band antennas

Dimensions (W x D x H): 221 X 86 X 168.5mm

was also a little irritating, and

other features like VPN support
are missing that youd probably
find on a Belkin or Asus design.
My other whine, and its
becoming incessant, is the USB
3.0 port performance. It doesnt
deliver anything close to that
spec, and writing speed is below
USB 2.0 levels.
For these reasons Id put
the Archer C9 into the mildly
frustrating category, where
TP-Link missed having a truly
excellent product mostly by
assuming the market was
exclusively geeks. Most people
arent, but theyd still like the
better wi-fi performance that the
Archer C9 can actually deliver.
If TP-Link sorted out the web
interface and accepted that it
just doesnt have the power to
drive USB 3.0 properly, then
this would be a workman like
AC1900 router that many might
consider owning.
For those that like what they
hear about the C9, but need
ADSL, TP-Link makes an almost
identical D9 model with that
features for about 20 more.
mm Mark Pickavance

A solid AC1900 cable

router in need of a GUI
upgrade

7
8

Quality

Value

Overall

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Reviews

XMG Prime
Reassuringly expensive but immensely powerful
DETAILS

Price: From 758

Test model: 1514
Manufacturer:
Schenker/XMG
Website:
goo.gl/xI9Hx9
Required spec:
Monitor, mouse,

e recently reviewed
one of the gaming
laptops from XMB,
which turned out
to be quite an impressive piece
of kit. Now is the turn of the
desktop, with the XMG Prime,
a mini-ITX gaming PC thats
exceptionally powerful and eye
wateringly expensive.
As you would expect,
the XMG Prime is a fully
configurable system, something
which can be done via the
XMG Prime site. The system
we were given features an
impressive mix of hardware
starting with an Intel Core
i7-4790k 4GHz CPU and
8GB of Crucial Ballistix Sport
1600MHz memory, all fitted to
the rather excellent Gigabyte
Z97N-Gaming 5 motherboard.
Added to that is a Samsung
850 EVO 250GB SSD with
Windows 8.1 pre-installed and

a further 2TB Western Digital

Red spinner. And cooling is
provided courtesy of a Corsair
Hydro Series H80i, with two
large 120mm fans either end
of the self-contained coolant
radiator. Combine that with the
i7-4790k and the stability of
the Z97N-Gaming 5 board and
youre looking at some serious
overclocking potential.
The result from all that
is a very powerful machine
and one that makes the
benchmark scoreboard light
up. The 3DMark score was an
impressive 11,873 better than
97% of all other results. The
same goes for the PCMark 8
score at 5,163, which again is

a number considerably higher

than what were generally used
to here.
It goes without saying that
this is quite a formidable
gaming PC. There isnt
anything it cant run, and the
chances are there wont be
for quite some time to come
either. Its not often we get a
machine of this performance
through our doors, so it makes
for a pleasant change when
we actually play everything
with the highest possible
settings. And thats without
rolling up our sleeves for some
overclocking shenanigans.
The design of the XMG Prime
is quite stunning too, with a
matte black finish the chassis
complete with a flash of lime
green trim on the front, various
LEDs and the option to fit a
similar green drive caddy and
120mm fan inside for added
effect. Its enough to raise the
eyebrows of the performance
system builder, at any rate.
The inside of the Prime is
superbly built, considering
the compact interior space of
the Fractal Design Node 304
case. The pipes of the Corsair
H80i are probably the most
intrusive aspect of the cable
management, although to be

fair theyre not all that bad

and theres little that can be
done regarding effective water
cooling pipe management.
Aside from the initial burst
of fan speed from the GTX980,
the Corsair H80i and the two
front mounted 90mm fans, the
system is reasonably quiet
enough that you dont notice
its running.
Overall, the XMG Prime
is quite a stunning gaming
PC capable of dealing with
anything you could possible
throw at it with aplomb.
However, this kind of setup
doesnt come cheap. The
starter system specification
for the Prime comes to 758,
which isnt too bad for a wellbuilt gaming machine. The
system we were privileged to
test, however, cost a wallet
emptying 1,514.
But if youre prepared to
part with that amount of cash,
then this is certainly the PC
to consider. Even the lesser
powered entry-level 758 Prime
is a capable enough machine.
As the saying goes, you get
what you pay for, and in this
case its top-of-the-range
performance and quality.
mm David Hayward

An extremely powerful
gaming PC with quality
components

9
7

Quality

Value

Overall

Issue 1353

39

Dell Latitude 7350

Dell reimagines Microsofts Surface into a more practical business tool
DETAILS

Price: 969
Manufacturer: Dell
Website:
www.dell.co.uk

ver since Microsoft

launched its Surface
hardware, PC makers
have been trying to copy
the concept, even if it was an
unmitigated commercial disaster.
These days it's widely
reported that the Surface Pro 3
is a success, though oddly for
a runaway best seller Microsoft
is oddly coy about how many
it's sold.
Whatever the reality, Dell
is one of those companies
attempting to steal whatever
thunder Microsoft has going,
with its Dell Latitude 7350.
Latitude systems by definition
are aimed at business which,
considering this is a Windows
8.1 system, seems a tough sell
right from the get-go.
Its latest design is the
Latitude 13 7000 series,
which unlike the overly bendy
Inspiron 15 reviewed recently,
on first inspection appears

very well made and beautifully

engineered.
Inside its metal surface
chassis is an Intel dual-core
M-5Y10 processor (0.8GHz, 4M
cache, 4.5W), 4GB of DDR3L
at 1600MHz and a 256GB
SSD drive. The 13" Gorilla
Glass protected display is full
1080p resolution, and there are

Owners will enjoy the

excellent 13" IPS panel and a

responsive keyboard

40

Issue 1353

cameras front and back, NFC

and networking via 802.11
a/b/g/n/ac wi-fi.
Along with all the things youd
reasonably expect, there are also
some business specific features,
including a fingerprint reader, SSD
encryption and a smart card reader.
But the stand-out aspect is
that you can detach the display

entirely from the keyboard part

of the 7350, where it becomes
a touch-driven Windows 8.1
tablet.
Doing that, however,
does introduce a number of
sacrifices, and Im not just
talking about having to type
on a screen. The first of these
I noticed when I decided to

ON

TEST
Reviews

plug a USB key in: Dell put all

the USB ports on the docking
portion of the system. Once in
tablet mode youve got no USB
ports, no SD card slot and no
access to a second screen.
But you also disconnect from
a portion of your battery power,
reducing the operating life of
the computer one of its more
compelling aspects.
On some designs youd flip
the keyboard underneath, but
the hinge doesnt allow that
angle or for it to be connected
flipped over.
The message, if youre not
getting it loud and clear, is that
the Latitude 7350 is best with
the backlit keyboard attached,
and youre encouraged to leave
it that way.
If you do that and ignore the
like-a-Surface party trick, then
you are rewarded with a truly
excellent keyboard, fantastic
battery life and great usability,
even if it flies logically in the face
of the whole concept.
For those who like to
upgrade their systems, the
7350 is surprisingly featured for
a Dell computer. The internal
memory can be bumped to
8GB, the M.2 SSD can be
swapped, and the battery even
looks easily replaceable.
Performance is fine for office
application use, though nothing
that would excite mobile
gamers. Intels M-5Y10 is built
to deliver passively cooled
computing for a working day,
although it can turbo boost from
800MHz up to 2GHz in a pinch.

Specifications:

CPU: Intel Core M-5Y10 processor (dual-core, 0.80GHz, 4M Cache, 4.5W).

OS: Windows 8.1 Pro (64-bit) multi-language English, French, German, Dutch, Italian.

Memory: 4GB1 DDR3L at 1600MHz.

Storage: 256GB Mobility solid-state drive.

Support: Three-year ProSupport and next business day on-site service.

Security features: Fingerprint reader, drive encryption, smart card slot.

Weight: 3.67 lbs.

Intels video is the HD Graphics

5300 standard, which in testing
scored almost identically to the
modest HD Graphics 4200 its
derived from.
Cynical people might consider
this the specification of an
expensive netbook, but its built
to operate on battery for a full
eight-hour working day and not
just half of it.

Owners will enjoy the

excellent 13" IPS panel, a
responsive keyboard and
excellent build quality. But what
Id contend is that after a very
short amount of time theyd
entirely forget undocking it and
using the tablet mode.
The problem Dell has here isnt
the hardware design, because
thats mostly fine; its the concept
of a Windows 8.x tablet that it
has a hard time pushing. Because
however you slice and dice things,
the Microsofts app store is a pale
and limp shadow of what both
Android and Apple are offering in
their respective marketplaces.
Unless that radically changes
in the next six months, and I see
no progress, then the Latitude
7350 has been engineered to
perform a trick that most people
wont need.
Thats a shame really, because
those people at Dell who
designed this system did some
excellent work in packaging the
technology in it.

If you want a mobile system

that is truly portable and you
can convince your company to
purchase a system that comes
with Windows 8, then you wont
be disappointed by what the
Latitude 7250 does well. mm
Mark Pickavance

A hybrid clamshell/tablet
that is much better as a
laptop

8
7

Quality

Value

Overall

Issue 1353

41

IRIScan Pro 3 wi-fi

With a cry of 'Have scanner, will travel', Michael reports on an IRIS product

DETAILS

Price: 168.19
Manufacturer: IRIS
Website:
www.irislink.com
Required spec:
Windows XP or later /
Mac OS X 10.5 or later

he IRIScan Pro 3 wi-fi is a

portable scanner from the
IRIS branch of the Canon
family. This scanner can
handle single pages and business
cards, as it is powered by a
rechargeable li-ion 3.7V 1700mAh
battery capable of scanning up to
200 A4 pages at 300dpi from a
single charge. A fold-away ADF
(automatic document feeder)
feature allows eight pages to be
stacked for scanning.
Eminently portable with
dimensions of 295 x 81 x 41mm
(L x W x H) and weighing
800g, this scanner can accept
documents of up to A4 size from
the top of the unit and business
cards from a slot positioned at
the rear of the unit. A second
slot, also located at the rear,
is available for inserting a SD
card to increase the scanners
memory from its default offering
of 128MB. This memory is used
to store scans when immediate
access to either a Windows or
Mac computer is not available.

An on/off power switch and

micro-USB port are located on
the left side of the scanner.
The USB port is used when
recharging the battery or
linking to a computer for direct
scanning. A standard-to-micro
USB lead is provided in the box.
As mentioned earlier, documents
are fed into the top of the
scanner while an area over to
the right holds an LCD screen
for providing feedback and the
units touch-sensitive control
panel. As well as activating scans,
this control panel allows you to

Specifications:

Dimensions: 295 x 81 x 41mm

Weight: 800g

Scanner display: 1.2" LCD

Built-in memory: 128MB

Max Document size: 216 x 356mm

Min Document size: 88 x 50mm

Output File Format: JPEG / PDF

Resolution: 300dpi / 600dpi

ADF capacity: 8 pages

Memory card: SD card

Battery: Li-ion 3.7V 1700mAh

Battery life: 200 pages (A4 colour at 300dpi)

Software: Readiris Corporate 14, Cardiris 5.0

42

Issue 1353

switch between 300/600dpi,

monochrome/colour, JPEG/PDF
and the destination to which the
scan will be directed. This can
either be memory or a computer
linked via the USB lead.
The products wi-fi feature only
comes into play after documents
have been scanned to memory.
Like some other manufacturers,
IRIS has opted for a wi-fi system
that requires the computer to
join with the scanner rather than
the other way round. As a result
both elements are not part of
your home network but form a
one-on-one link up. Once set up,
this wi-fi link allows you to access
the scans stored in memory via a
browser. Various housekeeping
tasks, such as downloading scans
to a computer or deleting those
no longer needed, can be carried
out. While not as convenient as
scanning direct to a computer,
this method does remove the
problem that can be caused by
the lack of a computer.
When scanning documents or
business cards, this IRIS device is
no slowcoach. Perhaps not in the
same league as Usain Bolt, this

scanner took eight seconds to scan

an A4 page at 300dpi, rising to 12
seconds at 600dpi. A business card
was scanned at 300dpi in three
seconds with a 600dpi version
requiring four seconds.
Included in the box with this
product are various software
applications for Windows and
Mac platforms. You get a copy
of Readiris Corporate 14 for OCR
and document management
features plus Cardiris 5.0
Corporate for creating a database
of business cards that have been
scanned. mm Michael Fereday

A scanning device that

does not initially require a
computer connection

8
7

Quality

Value

Overall

ON

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T
Reviews

VideoStudio Ultimate X8
Corels new VideoStudio Ultimate X8, comes with XAVC S
support and a huge collection of additional content
DETAILS

Price: 79.99
Manufacturer:
Corel Corp.
Website:
www.corel.com
Required spec:
Dual-core 2GHz CPU
Windows 7 or later, 2GB
of RAM

orel VideoStudio was

introduced in 2008 when
Corel acquired ULead and
with it its VideoStudio
product. Since then it has
changed considerably, with new
features and plug-ins added with
each new update. The product
under review here is the latest
Ultimate edition, which, because
of the extras it includes, represents
the best value.
With this update Corel has
taken a good look at the method
users adopt while working with
the program. Consequently
many of the changes to this
version are designed to help
you become more productive
and as a consequence more
creative. Take the edit list mode,
for example, it's made it much
easier to decide what clips to use
by adding much more on screen
information. Whereas before you
would have to right-click and view

properties, all this information is

now instantly available, you get
date, resolution, FSP, length, video
and audio codecs used. Another
admittedly small but important
addition is a tick box in the corner
of any media you use. This is only
available in the thumbnail view,
but instantly shows when a clip is
in use, so you don't inadvertently
add it a second time.
In order to keep pace with
changing technology, Corel has
now added support for Sonys
XAVC S format. This is based
on MP4-AVC/H.264, a new
standard for video cameras that
can support resolutions up to 4K
- 3840 x 2160. It's also improved
the support for the ever popular
MKV format.

Going back to my earlier

comment, the ultimate edition
includes a huge array of 64-bit
special effects and presets.
There are ten new add-ons, with
names like New Blue, Boris and
ProDAD. They cover everything
from image enhancement and
motion effects, to pro titles,
transitions and animated pen
effects (you might use this with
maps to show where youve
travelled, for example). All these
are in addition to the fairly
comprehensive range of facilities
Corel originally provided.
Another worthwhile effect
new to this release is Freeze
Frame; with this you can stretch
the timeframe to highlight some
event within the video. Perhaps as
someone is about to dive or just
before a surfer gets wiped out.
Dont you find its difficult to
find copyright-free music tracks to
finish off your productions? Even
then you generally end up editing
the footage to fit the track, which
is not an ideal solution. Yet the
new Score Fitter in this version will
create a track to fit your video.
You don't have to worry about
repetition either, because there are
different genres of music, broken
down into categories, songs
and finally versions. If that's not
enough, there are 17 free tracks

from Triple Scoop Music to choose

from as well.
If you produce tutorial videos
or commentaries, the new Audio
Ducking feature will be quite
a time saver. It automatically
reduced the volume of the
background audio, making the
voiceover much easier to hear;
previously you would have to go
in and tweak the volume settings
for each voiceover individually.
This release of the Corel
Capture utility has become more
usable; it now records from
full screen, a region or window
and can include the system and
microphone audio as well. I did a
number of test captures recording
both full and partial screens; the
output is good, achieving high
quality yet keeping the files
sizes manageable.
Finally if youre struggling to
find inspiration, you can turn to
the instant projects, these are a
selection of video beginnings,
middles and ends or even
complete projects if you like. They
come with effects, music and
transitions, all you have to do is
slot in your own video content.
Theres very little that Corel has
missed with this release, which
considering the price to content
ratio, is exceptional value.
mm Joe Lavery

A massive update to
what was already a very
comprehensive suite

9
9

Quality

Value

Overall

Issue 1353

43

Dying Light
Anthony has a go at walking with the dead

DETAILS

Price: 39.99
Manufacturer: Techland
Website:
Required spec:
3.3GHz dual-core CPU,
4GB RAM, 40GB disk
space, Nvidia GeForce
GTX 560 / AMD Radeon
HD 6870 GPU, DirectX
11, Windows 7 64-bit
or later

ump into the Micro

Mart team first thing
on a Monday morning,
and you might well
think the zombie apocalypse
has already started. But it
hasnt, and after a few strong
coffees and a pile of pain au
chocolate, the horror of that
vision mostly dissipates.
In Dying Light, though,
youre not so lucky. You take
the role of Kyle Crane, an
undercover agent, dropped into
the quarantined city of Harran,
which is being overrun by not
only zombies but also bandits,
led by the ruthless warlord Rais.
But things dont get off to
the greatest of starts. Pretty
much as soon as landing, Crane
is bitten by a zombie, so he
spends the entire game infected
with the virus. Fortunately, he
gets an injection of a medicine
known as Antizin, which
despite not being a cure, will
delay the symptoms.
From a plot perspective,
theres nothing particularly new
here. The main protagonist
enters the drama with
certain, somewhat selfish and
inconsiderate intentions, but
pretty soon he bonds with the
ordinary people of the city and
eventually begins to put their
needs before the commands
of his superiors. Its all quite
standard road to redemption
fare, but its well acted, and
the graphical presentation
is excellent.

44

Issue 1353

What makes Dying Light

really worth playing, though, is
not the story but the freedom
it gives you to explore the city.
Using a parkour system, similar
to the one in Mirrors Edge,
youre encouraged to leap over
rooftops, run along walls and
generally jump around like a
well-trained ninja. With no fast
travel system in the game, this
is essential if youre to traverse
the city efficiently, and its also
vital for escaping from the more
difficult enemies that only come
out at night (the good news is
experience points are doubled
when the sun goes down).
And as you explore, you also
discover. Everywhere you go,
there are things to pick up and
cupboards to loot. And every
little thing, from bits of string
to bottles of alcohol, can
used to craft something more
useful, like weapon upgrades
and med kits. Again, thats
not hugely original, having
featured in many zombie
games, such as Dead Rising
and Dead Island (which was
created by the same developer
as Dying Light), but its fairly
straightforward, meaning
you dont have to spend ages
messing around in menus.

On top of this, there are

plenty of side mission to carry
out, and as you progress you
get to upgrade your character
with new moves and statistics.
Plus you can play the campaign
mode in co-op mode with up to
three other players. Its all
competently put together, but
clearly its also somewhat
derivative. Throughout the
game, its hard to shake off the
feeling that youve seen it all
before. The voice work and
some of the animations make
you think of Far Cry 3, while
some of the interactions with
secondary characters are
reminiscent of Fallout 3 or
even Borderlands. Deja vu is
almost inevitable.
Familiarity isnt the only
problem with Dying Light either.
For a start, the controls are a
bit awkward, and they seem
geared more towards playing
with a gamepad (an Xbox
controller is perfect, of course).
Thankfully, you can edit the key
mapping to suit your tastes, so
its certainly workable.
More of a problem, however,
is how badly optimised it seems
to be. Running on a quad-core
i7 chip and an AMD 6970,
it frequently dropped below

30fps, even when we lowered

the resolution. Yes, the graphics
card is pretty old, but it should
still be able to run this game,
seeing as it can render Far Cry 4
effectively at 1080p.
Of course, thats an individual
problem, and if youre lucky
enough to have a more
powerful system, then its not
one youll experience. Bearing
that in mind, what you have
with Dying Light is a solid piece
of entertainment, which offers
plenty of play time and a lot
of fun. It might borrow heavily
from other games, but thats
not necessarily a bad thing.
mm Anthony Enticknap

Not hugely original but

entertaining nonetheless

8
7

Quality

Value

Overall

ON

TEST
Reviews

Crucial MX200 1TB SSD

Crucial addresses some subtle technical points in the MX100 with a new drive
DETAILS

Price: 250GB 93.59,

500GB 171.59
1TB 365.99
Manufacturer: Crucial
Website:
uk.crucial.com
Required spec:
SATA-3 port and SATA
power

d be the first to accept that

not everyone is in the market
for a 366 1TB SSD,
although the fact Crucial
now makes one strongly
suggests that there is a market.
This is the flagship design in
its new MX200 series. Building
on the positive reactions to
the MX100, it has looked to
address the weak points of that
generation with the new drive.
However, testing this unit I
ran into some problems that
arent really of Crucials making
but represent well where
SATA technology and SSDs
are currently.
All three MX200 drives are
rated to 550MB/s reading and
500MB/s writing, but getting
that level out of any of my
systems proved challenging. My
cap on whatever system I use
appears to be about 532MB/s

reading, though I did manage

nearly 514MB/s writes faster
than specified.
The problem isnt the drive; its
how close this hardware takes a
system to full saturation of the
SATA-3 bus, a problem that only
SATA-3.2 or PCIe-connected M.2
drives will actually resolve.
To be fair, these numbers
arent far away from what the
MX100 could do, so where
is the justification for MX200
customers? Theres a pretty big
one if you hammer your SSD
drives hard and would prefer
they didnt expire in the middle
of a critical exercise.

The 256GB MX200 has

roughly the same TBW (total
bytes written) as the MX100
had, at 70TB. However, you
can double that with the new
512MB MX200 and quadruple
it with this 1TB option. Thats
a whopping 320TB, or 175GB
every day for five years.
Obviously, I cant test this
assertion unless I wanted to
bring you this review in 2020,
but if it was horribly wrong it
would probably undermine the
companys profitability. However,
given this predicted reliability,
it does seem a little odd that
Crucial only gave it a three-year

warranty, whereas Samsung is

now offering five years on its
850 EVO design.
Along with the 2.5 SSD
package covered here, Crucial
also has MX200 modules in
mSATA and M.2 (Type 2260 and
2280) form factors. However,
in the other form factors
the maximum size is 500GB,
whereas the 2.5 drive has a
1TB option.
When the MX100 arrived, it
was pitched as not replacing
the flagship M550 but providing
a more cost effective second
string. The MX200 looks very
like it just took the M550
position as the SSD weapon of
choice in this arsenal.
The MX200 is a generally
positive story all round,
because not only does it deliver
100K IOPS even in the entry
level 250GB drive, but it also
offers significantly higher
levels of durability in the
larger capacities.
And only ten months on from
the MX100, it's also about 50%
cheaper.
The 1TB MX200 is still
probably more than most people
would probably want to spend
on a desktop/laptop drive, but
the 250GB and 520GB look
highly desirable for anyone
wanting an effective upgrade.
mm Mark Pickavance

High performance,
massive capacity and
great endurance

8
7

Quality

Value

Overall

Issue 1353

45

GROUP

TEST

Standing Desks

DeskRite 200

Standing
Desks

Sitting down all day isnt

good for you. Unless
youre very strict when it
comes to your posture,
and the length of time
you spend working when
sitting, there can be
some drastic health
side-effects. Standing
when working improves
your posture, burns
more calories and keeps
you in better general
health. With that in
mind, David Hayward
stands to attention with
six standing desks to
see which are best to
work with

46

Issue 1353

DETAILS

Price: From 467

Manufacturer:
DeskRite/Posturite
Website:
goo.gl/UQgtwR
Required spec:
Phillips screwdriver,
two-person
construction

he DeskRite 200 is one

of the cheaper models
of ergonomically
designed desks from
Posturite.co.uk. However, that
doesnt mean its lacking in any
particular aspect.
It's of a solid construction:
wood-topped, with a Maple
MFC finish and a pair of cable
access holes either side at the
rear of the desktop. It also
comes in a variety of widths,
from 1100mm to 1800mm,
all of which are fitted to a
sturdy and easy to assemble
aluminium frame complete
with rubberised feet for extra
stability. The desk depth is a
reasonable 800mm deep, with
a thickness of 25mm, which
makes it ideal for most any
computing purpose.
In its default position, the
table is at a height of 720mm,
but thanks to a hand crank
(located at the front right-hand
side of the desktop) it can be
raised to a height of 1180mm,
around stomach height for a
six foot person. That full
extension will only suit a taller
users though; someone who is
6ft would probably need to
lower it an inch or two so their
elbows arent raised too high.
The desk itself has ample
room to fit a workstation, even
a dual screen monitor setup.
Add to that the fact that the
weight limit for the DeskRite
200 is rated at 60kg, and
youve got a perfectly

functional and capable

standing desk. Mind you, as
with all the desks were
looking at in this group, youll
have to check what your
preferred placement of a PC
will require in terms of cable
lengths for the peripherals, if
you don't want to be 'caught
short', so to speak.
After using the desk for just
a few hours we certainly felt
we'd found a much better
working posture. We found it
to be very comfortable and
certainly less of a strain on the
back and shoulders.
This is not the most stylish
desk weve ever seen, however,
if were being honest. When all
is said and done, though, once
you have a pair of monitors,
keyboard, mouse and mat
alongside sundry other notes,
writing pads and so on the
last thing on your mind is what
the desktop actually looks like.
At least it that's how it is for us.
The winding up and down of
the desk is a smooth motion
and one thats easy to do. The
handle is plastic, which we did
think was a little cheap-looking
and potentially flimsy,
considering the high quality of
the rest of the unit, but its
functional enough for the job at
hand. We did like the fact that
the handle can fold away

against the underside of the

desk when not in use, though,
which alleviates the potential
for forever knocking our hip
bones on it as we move around.
The instructions were
reasonably clear, some of the
images did seem to be a little
faint but not enough to stop us
from working out what part went
where. Thankfully, and as you'd
hope, everything was in place
without the need to call the
support centre for any spares.
It is a little pricey, though, we
have to admit. With the costs
beginning at 467, and moving
up just over 500 for the
1800mm width desk, it's a
decent sized investment. Yet,
this is a desk thats capable of
lasting a good number of years
if looked after properly, so it all
depends on how much you
value the health benefits, really.

8
6

Quality

Value

Overall

GROUP

TEST
Standing
Desks

Ikea Bekant
DETAILS

Price: 445
Manufacturer: Ikea
Website:
goo.gl/sZMUEZ
Required spec:
Philips screwdriver,
spirit level, two person
construction

e cant have a
group test about
furniture without
including the
king of the flat pack, Ikea.
Surprisingly, the number of
standing desks from Ikea rival
that of any other specialist
supplier, and the quality too
is of a much higher standard
than you would expect. The
Bekant, for example, may look
fairly unassuming with its flat
desktop and lack of cable tidy
holes, but theres a lot more
going on with this desk under
the surface.
To start with, this is a 1200mm
long, 800mm deep desk thats a
tad under 23mm thick. The top
itself is Melamine foil coated
particleboard with plastic trim.
This means its easily cleaned and
amazingly pretty sturdy too, with
a weight rating of 70kg. The

corners are rounded, which

equally match the feet and the
overall aesthetics of the rest of
the construction.
In its default position the desk
stands at around 650mm in
height, but can be raised to a
less modest 1250mm should you
wish. This is more than enough
for those who exceed the six foot
mark, in fact its uncomfortably
high for six footers and at it
maximum height will suit
someone whos as much as six
inches taller than that.
The desk is also electronic,
meaning that rather than a
utilising a manual crank handle,
raising the height is simple affair
involving a pair of buttons one
for up, one for down. The cables
for these electrics run on the

underside of the desktop in a

narrow channel down the centre
thats covered with a piece of
netting and secured on all four
corners by a set of pins. We
didnt like this too much,
though, as it felt like more of an
afterthought rather than an
integral part of the design. This
is a shame, as overall the
electronics are a great feature to
have. It does manage, though,
is to keep the cables from
looping down and dragging on
the floor or snagging with any
kit you may have stored under
the desk, so in essence, while
it looks pretty awful, it is at
least functional.
Construction of the desk is
actually fairly easy, considering the
reputation of Ikea for driving DIY-

ers crazy, and that there are a pair

of motors and various cables
running to and from them to deal
with. It did take us the best part
of an hour, but then we were
reviewing the steps and taking our
time over it. One thing we did like
regarding the setup was the fact
that you can place the control
box, the two button box,
anywhere along the long sides of
the desktop. So both right and left
handed users are catered for, and
youre not penalised for preferring
one side over the other.
The motors are well made
and extremely quiet too. You
dont really hear them whirring
unless you pin your ear to one
of the legs. We did have some
vibration in one of the legs to
begin with, but after shifting
the motor over slightly we
must have placed it slightly
wrong to begin with the
vibration stopped and we were
left with blessed silence.
The Bekant is a very sturdy
desk. Even when you lean on
one side or leaning against the
side while standing, there was
no movement or wobble. For
445, the Ikea Bekant provides
an excellently made, motorised
desk, thats simple to use, clean
and capable of being a
functional workstation.

8
7

Quality

Value

Overall

Issue 1353

47

Standing Desks

Varidesk Pro
DETAILS

Price: 295
Manufacturer:
VariDesk
Website:
goo.gl/hN6PRW
Required spec:
No construction needed,
comes fully assembled

hile its all fine

and well having
your desk move up
and down, its not
always practical. For example,
were not always at the same
desk or we may already have
a desk or some work surface
thats built in to the area were
currently working at, and a
new desks dimensions may not
fit that area.
Varidesk offer an answer to
such problems in the form of
the Varidesk Pro. This is actually
a riser unit that is designed to
stand on an existing desk, and
allows the user to move from
a sitting position to a standing
one in a matter of seconds.
The Varidesk Pro is actually
quite an ingenious idea. The
unit is made up of a solid plastic
desktop that measures 914mm
in length and 685mm deep,
with a slide out keyboard and
mouse section that is 330mm
deep. The top is enough to fit
a couple of decent 24" sized
monitors side by side in a dual
screen setup, and the keyboard
section will house a standard,
more office based keyboard
and mouse combination well
enough; although some of the
more elaborate gaming sets may
be a bit tight when squeezed
into their allotted section.
The genius part of this
setup is when you grasp the
two handles either side of the
desktop. This activates the spring
loaded pneumatic mechanism

48

Issue 1353

If you can work around

the issues, then this is

certainly one to check out
which gently raises the desktop
section 410mm from its start
position. This means that when
placed on an average height
desk, which is around 700mm,
the height of the desktop can be
raised to a standing use height
of 1110mm.
Its not the highest position
weve seen so far, but for
someone of average height
which, we told, is now 5' 10"
its plenty. However, those

who are taller, even just a

couple of inches (say, 6ft), may
find it just a tad too low.
To put the Varidesk Pro back
to the sitting position, all you
need to do is grab the handles
again and gently push it down
until it locks into its lower
position. This all sounds great
on paper, but we did have a few
issues with the Varidesk Pro.
The main problem is with
the keyboard section: while

in the sitting position it

works well enough and is
ergonomically positioned but,
when you pull the handles to
raise the desktop, the keyboard
section is left on the desk
the Varidesk is sitting on, so
you have to move it to the
desktop to work. For a wireless
keyboard and mouse setup this
isnt a problem, but for a wired
keyboard and mouse youre
going to have route the items
through the back of the frame
and on to the desktop.
The second issue is regarding
the cables, the monitor and
anything else thats dangling
down and connected to the
base unit. When you lower
the Varidesk from the standing
position it has the nasty habit
of snagging the cables and
trapping them in the back
of the frame. So you need
another set of hands to move
the cables and close the
desktop up.
Saying that though, there
are ways around such minor
annoyances, and we did like
the Varidesk Pro. For many
people, at 295, the Varidesk
Pro will represent a more
enticing option than buying
whole new desk even with
the product video that declares
youre at risk of premature
death if you sit around all day.
If you can work around the
issues, then this is certainly one
to check out.

7
8

Quality

Value

Overall

GROUP

TEST
Standing
Desks

Brenta Wall Desk

DETAILS

Price: 169
Manufacturer:
Brenta/John Lewis
Website:
goo.gl/xOfaog
Required spec:
Philips screwdriver,
drill etc.

hile the Varidesk

Pro may have
diverted somewhat
from the standing
desk format, the Brenta Wall
Desk from John Lewis is
positively straddling the border
line of the concept.
That's not to say it isn't a
certainly a novel idea and a
viable way of avoiding having
your desk permanently on show
and taking up valuable space in
your bedroom or home office.
As such, the Brenta Wall Desk
is exactly as its description
portrays: a desk thats fitted
directly to your wall.

If space saving and/or hiding

unsightly work is a must, and
you still wish to stand up when
working from a laptop, then
this could be the ideal solution
for you. All you need to do is
screw the item together, fit the
gas filed hinges and fix the unit
to a convenient wall at a height
that suits you best.

A novel idea and a viable

way of avoiding having your

desk permanently on show

The Brenta has a sturdy oak

trim to which a metal desktop
measuring 420 x 720 x 81mm
is fitted. Youll need measure
the correct height thats most
comfortable and ergonomic
for you personally and take
the bottom of the unit as that
measurement when fitting it to
the wall.
Fitting everything together
is easy enough, taking around
half an hour from unpacking.
The only real issue of course
is the quality of the walls on
to which youll be fitting the
Brenta. The recently plastered
wall, behind which is a 120
year old crumbling brick
wall, we used was adequate
enough, although we didnt
fancy the idea of putting too
much weight on the tray.
As you can surmise, this
isnt a desktop that will house
a traditional monitor, base
unit, mouse and keyboard
set, along with all the other
elements that could make up a
users computer. This is purely
for the laptop or tablet and
fold out keyboard user. While
that in itself is something of
a negative, its not all bad.

For one, the Brenta is quite a

stylish looking unit, and when
folded out in to a working
position its perfectly functional
as a laptop workstation.
When folded up though its
quite unsightly, we must say.
The oak finish around the trim
is pleasing enough, and we
think that a matching finish
could have easily been applied
to the underside of the fold
down tray, that way when
folded you have a wooden
unit on display on the wall.
To further that idea, perhaps
John Lewis could include a
way of fixing a picture to the
underside, to make it look
more like a picture in a frame
rather than something that
resembles a dumb waiter.
Aesthetics aside, for 169
the Brenta Wall Desk is a
functional concept thats a lot
more affordable than a near500 desk if you can successfully
apply it and we have to admit,
we did like the fact that, when
it's not in use, we have all that
extra floor space available that
would otherwise be used up and
wasted on a desk. Depending
on the thickness of device youre
using, you could even close the
tray with the laptop still in place.
All in all, the Brenta Wall Desk
is a good, if niche, standing
workstation. Just check your
walls before committing to
buying and fitting.

6
7

Quality

Value

Overall

Issue 1353

49

Standing Desks

Herman Miller Alvar Lite

DETAILS

Price: From 936

Manufacturer:
Herman Miller
Website:
goo.gl/2L2JgM
Required spec:
Philips screwdrive,
spirit level, two-person
construction

erman Miller is a
company that has seen
quite some success
over in America. The
company often attends the CES
and show off its range of chairs
and desks to an eager
audience, yet it doesnt seem
to have made much of an
impact here in the UK.
The Herman Miller Alvar
Lite is at the entry-level of the
range of Alvar height-adjustable
desks. This particular model
comes with a wide range of
options, but the default desk on
offer has a width of 1200mm
and a depth of 800mm, with
a 25mm thick square edge
detail. The dimensions can be
increase though, at a price of
course, from the initial 1200mm
through 1400, 1600, 1800mm
to an impressive 2000mm
which incidentally adds 86 to
the starting price (which well
cover in a moment).

50

Issue 1353

The desk also comes in a

bewildering range of finishes,
from a rather sterilised looking
'Chalk White' (Melaminecoated particleboard) and
running through such choices
as Maple, Folkstone Grey,
Havana Cherry, Napoli Oak and
Charcoal Ash. Needless to say,
theres a colour and finish to
suit most people.
The height adjustment side
of things starts at 650mm
and rises to a maximum
of 1250mm, either by a
mechanical crank handle or
through an optional electrical
motor, which provides three
memory settings for you to
can select from beyond the
simple up or down function.
1250mm is ample for most
users, catering for the average
height a modern human,
although much taller users
may need something that
can raise the height to a few
more centimetres. There are
also indents along the rear of
the desktop that act as cable
runners, and theres an optional
cable tray to help tidy things up.
Construction of the desk,
the mechanical version, is fairly
simple. Although it took us a
while due to the fact that it's
quite heavy and a little unwieldy.
Its definitely, we feel, a two
person job. Anything less and you
youll risk doing yourself an injury.

c Everything about this desk

has an option and can be

upgraded or changed
Everything about this desk
has an option and can be
upgraded or changed should
you feel you need to do
that, which we liked. The
choice of how you want the
desk to appear and work is
commendable, but with that
comes a bit of hefty price tag.
The standard, mechanical,
Chalk White, 1200 x 800mm
desk costs the princely sum of
936. When you factor in the
electric height adjustment, a
2000mm by 1000mm desktop
and a cable tray to fit that size,
youre looking at spending an
eye-watering 1095.
The quality of the Herman
Miller Alvar Lite is very good.
Its a classically designed,
sturdy desk that will no doubt
last you a good number of
years, and naturally theres the
ergonomic benefits of standing
too. However, we cant really
justify spending nearly or,
more likely, over a thousand

pounds on a single desk, not

when there are other examples
out there that do an equally
good job for around half that
high price.
Although it's good, and it's
wonderful that their's such a
variety of shapes, leg shapes
and sizes, and other variations
on the theme, the Herman
Miller Alvar Lite is just a little
too expensive for our (and, we
suspect, most other people's)
taste to warrant a higher score.

8
5

Quality

Value

Overall

GROUP

TEST
Standing
Desks

NUDO Standing Desk

DETAILS

Price: 684
Manufacturer:
Jonas & Jonas
Website:
goo.gl/dsPt31
Required spec:
A very light laptop,
and perhaps a locking
bolt for the tripod

e here at Micro
Mart like to spread
our groups tests to
as many corners as
possible. With standing desks,
these corners are numerous
and can be filled with
everything from the functional,
as weve already seen, to the
excessive and not so functional,
which is what were about to
look at.
The Jonas & Jonas branded
NUDO standing desk is one
of the more simple concepts
we have seen so far. Designed
by Karsten Weigel and Brend
Benninghof, this tripod desk is
made up of two main sections.
The first is the desktop itself,
which measures 600 x 450mm
and is a Melamine coated MDF
plate, with a slightly rough
texture for extra grip.
The second section is the
large stainless steel tripod
stand, which comes to a height
of 990mm initially and can
be extended to a maximum
of 1140mm. At the top of
the tripod is a section where
the desktop slides into via a
stainless steel shaft protruding
from its underside. The shaft

is then locked into place, once

you have the desired height,
with a thumb screw.
The top isnt any good for
a traditional desktop, that
much is pretty obvious, but
for a tablet or smaller laptop,
netbook or whatever, then its
ideal. Plus, the angle of the tilt

There a few aspects of

this desk we dont like.

The rst is the price

of the desktop can be altered

from flat to around 45-degrees,
to make it more ergonomically
pleasing to use.
There a few aspects of this
desk we dont like. The first
is the price, which comes to
684. Yes, you read that right:
684 for a tripod with a flat bit
on top. Even those with wads
of folding stuff to spare would
probably baulk at spending
that kind of money on this,
regardless of how well designed
it is or by whom.
Which, unfortunately, leads
up to a second problem: the
stability. While the tripod design

is uniform and reasonably sturdy,

we did find the top section
wobbled slightly, and the thumb
screws did have the tendency to
work loose only slightly, but
enough to make one continually
worry about whether they
would eventually loosen enough
for the technology sat on top to
come crashing down.
Although this is designed
to be a very trendy item to
own, no doubt by the hip and
modern minimalist, it is pretty
useless as a workstation. Even
the trendy London gallery
boutique worker will find this
an irksome thing to work on.
So, while were tearing into the
design, we may as well mention
the fact we were constantly
tripping over the splayed legs.
Something which you dont
want to do when theres
potentially an equally expensive
laptop sat on top of it.
Theres not much to endear
the NUDO standing desk to our
hearts. Its far too expensive
for a lump of stainless and
MDF, and its not particularly
functional either when you
take into consideration the trip
hazard and lack of stability.
Unless you have an investor
who showers you with golden
largesse or you have money to
burn, then theres little point in
taking the NUDO standing desk
into consideration for your next
desk purchase.

6
4

Quality

Value

Overall

Issue 1353

51

DED
EN

HO
SC I

IGHLY

MM
CO

DITOR

CE

Ikea Bekant

Varidesk Pro

We liked the Ikea Bekant. It was a practical,

simple, well-built, sturdy and reasonably
priced height adjustable desk and one that
will last for quite some time to come, we
imagine. It also had the additonal electric
adjustment facility; that was a winner, despite
the less than ideal cabling system.

Although we highlighted a few issues with the

VariDesk Pro, when it comes down to it, we
think its a sterling idea and one that could be
used to great effect. It's a good problem solver
for those who need or want to stand at work.
The VariDesk Pro Plus, which is slightly more
expensive, offers a height adjusting keyboard
stand as well, which eliminates one of the main
issues we had.

How We Tested

Each desk was tested with a tablet, laptop, nettop and full desktop base units, with either single or dual monitor setups.
It also involved two of us constructing the desk, where necessary, with a third watching and offering unwanted advice throughout
the entire process (optional).

DeskRite 200

Ikea Bekant

VariDesk Pro

Brenta Wall Desk

from John Lewis

Herman Miller
Alvar Lite

Jonas & Jonas

NUDO standing
desk

467

445

295

169

936

684

Desktop width

From 1100mm

1200mm

914mm

720mm

From 1200mm

600mm

Desktop depth

800mm

800mm

685mm

420mm

From 800mm

450mm

Initial height

720mm

650mm

127mm
from desk

Custom

650mm

990mm

Max height

1180mm

1250mm

410mm
from desk

Custom

1250mm

1140mm

Electric
movement?

No
hand crank

Yes

No pneumatic
spring loaded

No pull down
oil-filled hinges

Yes
optional though

No
Tripod locking nuts

Max weight
allowed

60kg

70kg

16kg

9kg

60kg

? not much

Desktop PC
capable?

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

No

Laptop/tablet
capable?

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Price

52

Issue 1353

Ancient Computers

I very much enjoyed your article

on Ancient Computers Still In
Use, as it brought back many
memories. I started working in
October 1979 in engineering
computing. I was writing,
maintaining and transferring
calculation programs from one
computer to another.
When I started, the
department had been using an
ICL 1906A mainframe computer
for the larger programs and a
PDP 11/70 minicomputer for
smaller ones. The operating
system for the 1906A computer
was George III for its day,
a very capable system. It was
quite easy to use even for those
of us who were mathematicians
or engineers rather than
computer scientists.
About this time ICL shot
itself in the foot, though. When
it replaced the 1900 series
mainframes with the 2900
series, it wrote a completely new
operating system (VMEB - K) that
was nowhere near as easy to use
as George III.
As an example, if you wanted
to create a data file in George III,
the command you typed in was:
in filename,T////
Then you typed in the data,
and signalled to the computer
you had finished data entry by
putting the four terminating
characters (////) on a new blank
line. As I remember, while
George III only required that one
line for the task, VMEB required
you input 14 separate steps.

When the computer services

people tried to teach us how to
log into the 2960 computer, it
took all morning.
VMEB was useless for us.
Someone realised that this
would not be acceptable in our
situation, and decided to change
from ICL to the DEC VAX 11/780
computer. ICL had thus thrown
away an important customer.
Some of our departments
work was done in George III
scripts. So, when the 1906A
was no longer supported, these
programs had to be reworked
for use on the VAX 11/780 that
replaced it. The operating system
version for the new computer
would not do what George III
had done, so it was decided that
all non-trivial programs were to
be written in FORTRAN IV.
Some programs had been
written in FORTRAN IV but
this was ICL FORTRAN IV. It had
non standard extensions such as
a set of linear algebra routines.
These were embedded in the
coding, so copying the source
code to the new computer did
not work the program had to
be rewritten.
Another problem we had
was the word length of the
1906A it was 48-bit. Some
routines like matrix inversion
routines, which were fine in a
48-bit word length, fell over
when the program used 32-bit
variables so we had to use
64-bit variables. However, for
some things, such as in labelling
graphs created by bought-in
software packages we had to
use 32-bit integer variables.

Every computer had its own

operating system. I understand
that IBM had a different operating
system for each of the three
size ranges of its computers. I
have never worked with IBM
computers, so cannot be sure,
or even say if learning one
would help with others. I did
work briefly with a PDP 11/70,
its operating system rejoiced
in the snappy name of RSX
11M which probably meant
something to someone. It was
quite primitive there was
limited physical memory, and
virtual memory management
had not been invented. Only
part of the program could be in
memory at any time, and it was
the programmers responsibility to
organise this.
I worked for several years with
a VAX 11/780. Documentation
for the operating system used
on this computer filled a six foot
high double door filing cabinet.
If you needed to really understand
what the computer was doing,
you needed to learn the operating

system. I very much suspect that

the old computers mentioned in
your article are still in use because
of the cost of program transfer
the lack of the necessary expertise
and the lack of political will at the
top of the organisation to invest
the necessary resources to do the
work properly.

JJ Reynolds

GET IN
TOUCH
By email

letters@micromart.co.uk

By post

Micro Mart
30 Cleveland Street
London
W1T 4JD

Online

forum.micromart.co.uk

Issue 1353

53

Life In
The Old
Droid
Yet

an ol
d And
Andro
roiid ph
pho
hone
ne to
to us
use,
e, ra
th
er than
than
We look at how to putt an
old
one
rath
ther
trashing it or selling itt

ust got a new phone? Well, then

youre probably aware that in 24
months, youll be popping out
or heading online to find another
new one. Yes, you might be excited
about having the latest technology in
your pocket right now, but after two
years, your amazing new gadget will
inevitably look a bit rubbish.
So what do you do with your
old phone when the time comes to
upgrade? Do you just sling it in the
nearest bin, while trying to silence
the nagging voice in your head,
scolding you for doing something so
environmentally unfriendly? Probably
not, unless its damaged beyond repair
(the phone, not your head).
You could sell it, of course, and
youd no doubt find plenty of takers
on eBay, assuming its a decent
handset and in good condition. Or
you could try to trade it in, to get
some money off whatever new deal
you end up signing. If youre feeling
more generous, you could even just
give it away, whether thats to a
family member or friend, or just some
stranger from Freecycle.
These are all good options, but
theres also another choice you could
make that you might not have even
considered: you can keep it. And
no, we dont just mean throwing
it into a drawer somewhere and
forgetting about it (along with those
parallel cables and floppy disks youre
holding on to, because they might
come in handy one day). What we
mean is actually making use of it, so

56

Issue 1353

it genuinely enhances your life rather

than just being another piece of clutter.
And even if you dont already
have a drawer overflowing with old
smartphones, then one of the ideas
here might make it persuade you to out
and buy a few.

Media Centre

If youre lucky enough to have an

old phone that comes with some
kind of TV output, then you have
all the makings of a highly portable
media centre. For example, if your
smartphone supports MHL (media
high-definition link), then you can use
an adapter that goes into the USB
charging port at one end and provides
an HDMI port at the other. This gives
you the option of hooking up to
an HD TV or even a projector. Find
yourself a handheld pico projector, and
you can easily carry your own home
theatre with you wherever you go.
Without the speakers of a television,
youll need something to provide a
volume boost, but that problem is
easily solved with a speaker connected
via Bluetooth or physically using a
3.5mm jack.
As for content, you can, of course,
play video or music files located on your
phones memory or SD card, although
youll likely need to install a third-party
media player, because many video
file types wont play on most phones
built-in players. Theres no shortage of
options here, both free and paid for,
but MoboPlayer and mVideoPlayer are
among some of the best.

You also have the choice of

streaming. Services such as Netflix,
Spotify and the BBC iPlayer can
all offer a large selection of
entertainment, assuming you have an
internet connection.
If youd prefer to stream content
from your home network, which might
be stored on a PC or a NAS drive, then
thats also possible. For that, the app
BubbleUPnP will be perfect. As well as
being able to stream content from your
phone to other devices and computers
on your network, it also enables you to
access their stuff too.

Remote Control

If you already have a media PC, then

you dont need to hook up your old
phone to watch films on your TV. But
that doesnt mean spare mobile devices
cant form a part of your home theatre
setup anyway. With the right software,
you could easily use an old handset as a
remote control for your media system.
Although some phones do have
infrared transmitters (including the
Samsung Galaxy S5), this is relatively
rare. Anyway, its great for remote
controlling TVs, DVD players and other
dedicated technology like that, but its
not so useful for media PCs. Even if
yours does have an infrared receiver,
the sort of commands you can send
are fairly limited, compared to what
you can do if you use wi-fi or Bluetooth
remote control apps.
There are loads of these available
for Android, but one that were
rather keen on is Unified Remote. It

USES FOR OLD

ANDROID PHONES

You might

be excited about
having the latest
technology, but
after two years,
your amazing
new gadget will
inevitably look a
bit rubbish

TeamViewer is just one of

many great remote access apps
Use an MHL cable to get HDMI

in the way of you using it for this

purpose. Normally, you might find that
a message comes through, and to read
it you have to switch away from the
remote control, then switch back to use
it again. If your old phone doesnt have
a SIM card, thats not going to happen.

Remote Access

supports connections over Bluetooth

and wi-fi, and it comes with tons of
preconfigured remote controls for
popular apps such as Windows Media
Player, VLC and Spotify, but you can
also use the app to create your own
custom remotes. It also offers you the
ability to use your phones touchscreen
as a trackpad and to input text on your
PC with the mobiles keyboard. You
need to have the server app installed
on your PC, but its pretty non-intrusive
and just adds a small icon to your
notification tray.
Another way to remote control
programs is using the mobile versions
of said software. For example, if youre
watching something on Netflix on your
PlayStation 3, when you open the app
on your phone, youll see a streaming

symbol in the top right. Tap this and

you get prompted to decide where
youd like to play videos from. If you
choose the PS3, then whatever you
open on the Android device will play on
the console, rather than on the phone
itself, and you can use the handset to
control playback. This makes browsing
far more intuitive, and its also a feature
that youll find in Spotify and YouTube,
among others. If youre a Virgin Media
customer, check out the TV Anywhere
app, which enables you to do all this,
as well as being able to access the TV
guide and set up recordings (if you
have a Tivo box).
The great thing about using an old
phone instead of your current one
as a remote is that you dont have to
worry about messages or calls getting

Taking the idea of remote control

to the next level, remote access
software grants you the ability to
see your computers screen from any
location with an internet connection
or another device in your own home
network. We can personally attest
to the usefulness of this technology,
having averted a minor publishing
catastrophe by remotely accessing
an iMac using an HTC Desire (yes,
it was quite a few years ago) and a
somewhat ropey 3G connection.
At that time, we used LogMeIn,
which was one of only a few remote
access apps for Android, but these
days you have far more choice, and
the features they offer have grown in
number too. For example, you could
try a Splashtop product. Theres a huge
range of its apps available, and the free
one will allow you to stream over a
local network from a PC or Mac to an
Android device, which could be useful
for a media centre or for moving files
around from a different part of your
house. It also offers access over the

Issue 1353

57

Sites like uSwitch will help you

get a good deal on a 3G SIM card

internet, but this requires you to pay

a fee for the Anywhere Access pack
($1.99 monthly or $16.99 a year).
There are also various paid-for versions,
which dont require a subscription, so
its worth researching them all before
settling on one.
Also, bear in mind that there are
quite a few free apps that do the
same thing, such as TeamViewer and
Microsoft Remote Desktop. We havent
tried them all, so we cant say how
good they all are, but what we can
say is that weve been able to quite
satisfactorily locally stream a PC game
with full audio to an Android tablet
using Splashtop, so perhaps you get
what you pay for. (On a side note, take
a look at the app Kainy for dedicated
PC game streaming, because it features
a number of gaming-related tweaks
and optimisations.)
Nevertheless, wed recommend
trying the many free options first,
before laying down any cash. Of
course, if you buy an app you dont like
from the Play store, you always have
the 15-minute window to decide you
dont like it and get a refund.

Mini Games Console

Whether youre hooking your old

smartphone up to an external display
or just using its built-in screen, it can
function as a pretty decent gaming
machine. Of course, it very much

58

Issue 1353

depends on the spec of the phone, but

any flagship handset from the past five
years should be more than enough for
this purpose.
Obviously, there are tons of games
you can play on in the Play store, but
there are also loads of emulators for
retro systems. Its no surprise that
consoles like the Super Nintendo and
Genesis are easily emulated by most
Android devices, but you might not
realise you can even run PlayStation
One games, as well as titles for DOS,
N64, PSP, and Amiga, among others. Of
course, you also step into pretty murky
waters, legally speaking, when youre
using game ROMs, so you shouldnt
download any games you dont already
own, and we wont go into where
you can acquire ROMs. What we will
say is that there are plenty of excellent
emulators, but also more than a few
not so good ones, so make sure you
look at the reviews before handing any
money over.
Regardless of whether youre playing
emulated or native games, you can
greatly enhance your experience using
a gamepad, and there are two ways
to do this: USB or Bluetooth. If you
want to connect a USB controller to
your phone, you need to make sure
your handset supports USB host mode,
which means you can use an OTG (on
the go) adapter to plug in USB devices,
including external storage, mice,

keyboards and, of course, gamepads.

Most controllers should work just fine,
including Xbox ones and those that
support USB HID class. PlayStation 3
controllers will also work, but youll
need to find and install the Sixaxis
Controller app from the Play store.
Currently, it costs 1.64, but its worth
every penny if you like PS3 controllers,
and you can download a test version
for free to see if the full app will work
with your phone.

The Moga
Pro Power

USES FOR OLD

ANDROID PHONES
If youd rather go wireless, then
you can use Bluetooth controllers. The
Sixaxis Controller app will allow that
too, if your device is rooted. There are
also apps that enable you to use a Wii
Remote with Android, but its not a
great controller for this purpose, so we
wont go into that here.
There are also quite a few dedicated
controllers on the market, made
specifically for phones, with one of
the most well-known brands being
Moga. The firms Moga Pro Power,
for example, is similar in shape to an
Xbox 360 controller, it connects via
Bluetooth, and it even comes with an
on-board battery to both power itself
and to charge your phone. With one of
these, your old phone can easily give a
3DS or PS Vita a run for their money.

Portable Storage

If you have a few old phones kicking

about, then you probably have quite
a bit of wasted storage capacity. 8GB
here, 16GB there it soon adds up.
Rather than ignoring this potential, you
can just hook it up to a PC via USB, and
you have yourself a brand new (sort of),
rather fancy-looking flash drive, which
is also possibly expandable through
SD cards. You could even connect to it
wirelessly, using something like AirDroid
(www.airdroid.com), whereupon that
old phone becomes a basic NAS unit.
But you dont need a computer
to make use of this capacity. Thanks
to OTG cables, you can plug in other
external storage devices and upload the
data onto your phone. This could be
handy if you want to quickly copy data
from a flash drive, or if you take a lot of
photos or record a lot of videos while
out and about. If youre on holiday,
for example, and the SD card in your
regular stills camera fills up and you
dont have a spare on you, then you
could transfer everything to this old
phone, and also instantly view the shots
on a screen thats likely to be much
more pleasant to look at than the one
on the camera itself.

Portable Hotspot

most reasonably modern ones do, so

that shouldnt be a problem.
Why would you want to do it this
way, though, rather than just using
your current handset? Well, one good
reason is battery life. Using both 3G
and wi-fi at the same time will drain
your battery at an alarming rate, and
you dont want it running dry in the
middle of an important call. You could
plug it into the mains, but that makes
it difficult to use for calls and naturally
limits your movement.
With a separate phone, all of these
problems are eliminated. You can
have your old handset plugged in
permanently, and you can also place
it wherever the best spot is to receive
a cellular reception, without worrying
about having to get to it when
someone calls.
Another key advantage to this
approach is that you dont have to
rely on your usual network provider.
You might be on a contract with O2,
for example, but prefer the look and
the prices of the packages from EE or
some other company. Assuming your
old phone is unlocked and can accept
SIM cards from other networks, you
can shop around and find the best
deal, whether thats pay as you go or
another contract. Its probably a good
idea to use a comparison site such as
uSwitch.com to see what kind of deal
you can get.

workstation. A few years ago, there

were loads of paid-for office apps in
the Play store, but these days most of
them are either free or subscription
based. If you do want to make an
outright purchase, then OfficeSuite

xxxxxxxx
Unified Remote

Mini Workstation

By using your phone as a media centre

or games system, youre essentially just
making it function as a small PC. And
just like a real PC, it can also be used
for work-related tasks, such as word
processing and editing spreadsheets.
Plug a mouse and keyboard into
your handset (Bluetooth or USB) and
hook it up to an external monitor,
then all you need is the right app
to have your very own portable
Google Docs is simple and free
An OTG cable is recommended

Another one that could come in handy

when youre away from home. By
inserting a 3G (or even 4G) SIM, you
can carry your own personal wi-fi
hotspot with you, potentially saving
loads of money by letting you avoid
hotel connections and so on. Of course,
your phone has to support this, but

Issue 1353

59

Pro 8 is a powerful choice, which

supports a vast number of file formats,
including Microsofts. For 6.60 (at
time of writing), you can view and
edit Word, Excel and PowerPoint files,
and you can save locally or to various
cloud services, including Google Drive
and Dropbox. There are also more
advanced functions, such as a PDF
camera scanner.
As good as OfficeSuite Pro is,
however, its hard to recommend
when there are so many free options
available, including Google Docs,
Docs To Go, Polaris Office and even
some entries from Microsoft, such as
Microsoft Office Mobile. Some of these
require internet access to edit and
create documents, but others dont.
Either way, theyre all perfectly suitable
for everyday tasks.

Internet Phone

Thanks to the power of VoIP, people are

able to talk to each other for free, no
matter where they are in the world, just
as long as they have a decent internet
connection and either a computer or
some other device that supports this
technology. No prizes for guessing that
Android phones are perfectly suited
to this, and there are plenty of apps,
including Skype and Viber, that will
allow you to make calls over the net,
using your home wi-fi connection.
Most of the time, it would be more
convenient just to use your current
phone, because thats your dedicated
communication device and will be the
one you have in your pocket all the
time. Where it might be useful to use
a secondary smartphone, though, is
in a multi-user scenario, such as your
average family household. Rather
than having personal VoIP accounts,
you could set one up for your whole
family. So if granny calls and she isnt
fussy about who she gets hold off, she
no longer needs to spend money on
calling your landline; she can phone
your household VoIP line instead
for free. Indeed, this makes a pretty
decent replacement for a traditional
landline, with the added benefits of
being free and allowing for video calls
and file transfers.

Torrent Downloader

You might not like leaving your

computer on all day and night, but you
probably dont have any reservations
about doing the same with a
smartphone. That makes them perfect

60

Issue 1353

Apps like Viber can offer you a way

to make free calls

for torrent downloads, because you can

leave them running overnight, helping
you avoid traffic-shaping periods or just
letting you extend your downloading
time into your sleeping hours.
There are actually quite a few torrent
clients for Android, including some
no doubt familiar names (uTorrent
and Vuze, for example), so you wont
have trouble finding one. Which one
you choose is a matter of personal
preference, of course, so its worth
trying out a few to get the right one.
Downloading with torrents with
these apps is as simple as it could be,
and the biggest problem youre likely
to encounter, other than running out
of capacity, is speed. Youre limited
to a wi-fi connection (or potentially
3G, but that will expensive fast),
and youre unlikely to get the kind
of download speeds you do with an
Ethernet connected PC, so dont expect
them. What you do get, though, is
convenience, and that could well be
all you need to make this endeavour
worth the effort.

VR Headset

Thanks to the Oculus Rift, virtual reality

has once again found itself a firm
foothold in the publics imagination.
But thats an expensive option, and we
dont really do expensive. No, were
more interested in Googles solution:
Google Cardboard.

Using your phone for torrenting means you can leave it

downloading overnight

Google doesnt actually sell this

product, but it did create it and release
the design, as well development tools.
For those who arent familiar with
it, its a cardboard headset, which
includes two lenses and a section for
you to place a suitable smartphone.
The phone will display two images side
by side on its screen, but when you
peer through the lenses, you see one
combined, 3D picture.
In conjunction with the phones
camera, accelerometer and other builtin sensors, it makes for a surprisingly
effective virtual reality experience.
One major drawback, though,
is that when youre using it, your
phone is in a pretty inconvenient
place to make or receive calls, and if
a notification comes up when youre
playing a VR game, it rather breaks
the illusion.
With an old handset, that
obviously doesnt have to happen,
plus theres also the possibility that
you could improve the experience by
using the spare phone as a Bluetoothconnected game controller for the
one in the Cardboard.
We recommend trying out Trinus
Gyre if youre interested in using your
phone as a VR device for your PC.
This Android app streams video from
your computer, but also maps mouse
movements to the accelerometer of
your phone, so you can look around

USES FOR OLD

ANDROID PHONES
in PC games by moving your head.
Setting it up isnt easy, but its worth a
look if you think you have the time and
patience to figure it out.

Security Camera

Because your average smartphone

will have storage capacity and a
video camera built in, they have
pretty much everything they need to
function as security cameras. In fact,
they might even offer better quality
video than a lot of dedicated units,
and thanks to their internet access
through wi-fi, they can even work
as IP cameras, meaning you can see
whatever theyre seeing, no matter
where you are in the world.
Of course, theres more to doing
this than just putting your old phone
in a corner of a room and setting it
to record while youre out. You might
be able to catch intruders in this way,
but youre betting on there being
enough recording time and that
whatever unwelcome guests you have
dont just steal the phone too, taking
all the evidence away with them.
A far better method is to have the
camera record only when it needs to
and to send the images to your email
or someone other internet-based
location, so you can catch whoever it is
in the act.
What you need is the right apps,
and there are a plenty of them
available in the Play store. One
good one to consider is SECuRET
SpyCam, which boasts motion
detection abilities, which will trigger its
recording, whereupon it will capture
either video or images, depending on
Give your old phone a new lease of
life as part of a home security setup

what you want, from either the front

or rear camera. From there, it can
email you the results, save them or
upload straight to a Dropbox account.
It costs 2.99 but theres a free demo
version you can try first.
Another good option is IP Webcam.
As the name suggests, you connect this
to your home network, and then you
can access it from anywhere, whether
thats within your home or on the other
side of the world (as long as you have
an internet connection, of course). It
works slightly differently to SECuRET
SpyCam, because it offers continuous
streaming, so you can see whats
going on at any time of the day. On
top of that, though, it also has motion
detection and sound triggering, and
many other notable features. The free
version has advertising and a couple of
extra features disabled, but if you want
to go for the Pro edition, itll only set
you back 2.38.

Final Thoughts

When you think about how much

smartphones cost and the degree
of technology packed into them, its
amazing that we change them every
couple of years. Hopefully, weve been
able to convince you that older phones
dont have to be abandoned and can
have many uses you might not have
even thought of. If not, then please
do trade them in or recycle them
anything other than putting them in
the bin. mm

Google
Cardboard

Selling And Trading

Although this article is about not selling or trading

in an old handset, if do want to do that, then you
have plenty of options. For a start, many networks
themselves will take your old phone in part
exchange for a new one, or theyll give you cash.
Carphone Warehouse also does this, as do Mazuma
Mobile, Sell My Mobile and more. Prices vary, as
youd expect, so it will pay to look around to get the
best rates for your old devices, rather than settling
on the first reasonable offer you get.
Some, but not all, of these companies also sell
phones, but if youre looking to get a second-hand
device, then youre not going to be short of choices.
Familiar names, like Cash Generator and CeX, are
worth checking out, and there are also plenty of
other reliable, independent sellers. Then, of course,
theres eBay, where you might be able to pick up a
bargain directly from its previous owner, although
for peace of mind, you might be better off buying
from an eBay Shop or from Amazon Marketplace,
where you have a bit more protection against
unreliable or dishonest sellers.

Issue 1353

61

Password
Management
PC security is more important than ever before, so password
management is paramount

here have been a whole lot of high-profile hacks recently, on

both PC and consoles, and many of these attacks (as well as
a lot of those we may never hear about) involve the theft of
user data. This data includes passwords. This is a potential major
issue for any PC user, as we now use passwords to secure a huge
amount of information online. Think about it. Youve got email,
internet banking, shopping sites, gaming services, social media,
online data storage and so much more. All of this is locked behind
a password, which you create when you sign up for a service. Along
with your username, which is still your email for many services, the
password is all thats needed in order to access your data. With this
information, anyone can access your email, bank, and social media,
can shop online if you store payment details, and can even access
your online storage. The aforementioned social media can also be
a major issue, as people can pretend to be you, which can cause all
sorts of problems.
Because of this, its essential that all your online services are
secure, and you may think youre perfectly fine with that usual
password, but this may not be the case. If you use the same
password on multiple sites (which is common, as we can only
remember so many), and should this fall into the wrong hands, a
good portion of your online presence could be accessed. Even if you

62

Issue 1353

have a strong password (more on this later), using the same one
everywhere just for convenience negates this, and should someone
guess just one sites login details, theyd have access to many more.
Therefore, its important to not only use good passwords, but to use
multiple ones, keeping all your online services unique.
But I cant remember different passwords for email, Facebook,
banking, Amazon, cloud storage and all of my other services! you
may cry, and you certainly wouldnt be alone. In todays online age,
the amount of passwords, logins, security questions and PINs we
have to remember is crazy, and writing this down as a memory aid
is not a good idea, lest it fall into the wrong hands. So what can
you do? Well, in terms of PC and online use, you can employ the
services of a password manager, a program thats designed to help
you stay secure online and to take the difficulty out of remembering
a multitude of passwords.

Managed Access

Some would argue that password managers have become essential

security programs, just as, if not more important than anti-virus and
firewalls. With recent hack activity seemingly growing at a steady
rate, its hard to argue with this assessment, and having a password
manager set up can not only save you time and remove the need to

PASSWORD
MANAGEMENT
remember masses of logins, but it also boosts your online security,
leading to greater peace of mind.
At their core, password managers do just that: they manage
and house all your passwords, along with login details for various
services. This data is encrypted and stored within the program or
within an online database, and its later accessed by the program
when needed, often for the automatic filling in of forms online. You
dont need to do any of this manually, you simply let the password
manager do it all for you. When you first fill in data on a websites
forms, the password manager will take note, storing the new details
for future use so you dont have to do it again. Theyre both secure
and convenient, although they can take a while to set up. Password
managers also often have a useful feature of analysing your
passwords, telling you how secure and effective they are, so you can
avoid using weak passwords that may be easy to crack. Most even
suggest new and secure passwords.
Initial setup of a password manager application can take a while,
as youll need to enter all your details and passwords, but the effort
is more than worth it in terms of security. Its also a good idea to
ensure you pick a new password for each service, if you havent
done so already.
If you already use a password manager, including browser
versions, youll need to check to see if your new manager is able to
import data from your old one, otherwise youll have a lot of data
entry to do, and it could take longer to migrate than it did to set up.
Luckily, most password managers have the ability to import from a
number of sources, so this shouldnt be a problem. Once this setting
up is done, theres the matter of the master password.
A master password is the password used to secure the actual
password manager application and, as you may expect, this needs to
be as secure as possible. Should anyone break this, all your details are
there, ripe for the taking. So when using a password manager for the
first time, you really need to pick a good, strong password. For help
with this, see the Password Strength box elsewhere in this feature.

Windows has its own built-in password

management functions

Once the password manager is set up and running with all your
data, the need to enter passwords will be reduced, and eventually
youll rarely have to enter any details at all, as the manager will do it
all for you. So that long list of passwords and credentials you used to
need to remember is no more. Nice, eh? Certainly worth the time to
set it all up.
Were going to take a look at some password manager options
you can find, many of which are free, but we should also look at the
options you likely already have right in front of you.

Built-in Protection

If youre a Windows user, youll already have access to some

form of password management. Windows 8s Credential Manager
can store all sorts of credentials, including passwords, which
can be viewed at any time to jog your memory, should you need
to. The Credential Manager can store credentials for both online
and local system accounts (such as details for Metro apps),
and you can easily control this information, removing any you
need to. Its a decent option, but like so many built-in tools, its not
the most feature packed, so you may want to consider a more
specialised tool.
That said, some of the more useful and convenient options can be
found in built-in form, such as the ones featured by many browsers.
Firefox, for example, has the option to remember passwords and
also lets you specify exceptions, so some site credentials are never
remembered useful for especially sensitive sites like banks. It can
also make use of a master password, used to secure all the others,
adding that all-important extra layer of protection.
Many other browsers, such as Chrome, also have password
managers, and as theyre your gateway to the internet, its only
fitting that these programs hold your credentials. However, if
youre looking for the best level of protection, as well as more
expansive features and options, youll want to have a look at a more
accomplished, dedicated program.

Firefox is able to remember and secure passwords, and

also utilises a master password

Issue 1353

63

Top Password Managers

Lets have a look at some of the best password managers

available. These are all recommended and will all ensure your
passwords are safe and secure.

LastPass
lastpass.com
LastPass is considered by many to be the best password manager
around, and its perfectly clear why. Its quite possibly the most
powerful and feature-packed password manager you can find,
and it comes in free and premium forms, with the free option
including everything most home users could want.
As well as being able to store and use your passwords and data
to fill out forms online automatically, LastPass includes some of
the best security features to ensure your password collection is
safe, including a two-pronged authentication, including the use of
Google Authentication, YubiKey or USB devices. The latter option
is a great way to secure your LastPass data, as you can turn any
USB drive into a physical hardware key that can be used to unlock
the program.
LastPass also features a password audit, and should a
password or service become compromised, it will automatically
change your password for that services, thus keeping you
secure, even after an attack.
Over time, LastPass has also undergone some refining, and
it now boasts a clean and very easy-to-use interface. The free
version is perfect for pretty much any home user, while the
paid-for version adds some advanced options, and support for
mobile devices.
KeePass
keepass.info
Although it has a rather awkward name, KeePass is another fine
password management tool, but unlike LastPass, this is an opensource application thats totally free, so you get everything the
program offers without a premium cost. Whats more, it may be
a more appealing option for users worried about storing their
passwords and personal details on a remote server (as LastPass
and many others do), as it instead stores all of your data within
an encrypted, local database. So you have total control, and
ownership of all of your data.
Another great feature of KeePass is its portable nature,
and it can be stored on any device, including USB drives, and
taken with you. Itll also help to generate passwords, and the
auto entry works in all windows and browsers, giving it more
functionality in terms of auto form filling than many competing
password managers.
1Password
agilebits.com
1Password is another password manager thats focused on local
storage, and its also by far one of the best available, with a
superb GUI that makes it very easy to use, and it has nigh-on
flawless integration into any and all browsers, making it useful for
just about everyone.
The password management is top notch and comes complete
with a powerful password generator and suggestion system, as
well as a digital wallet for banking information, secure document
storage, password note functions, and much more. You can even
tailor the suggested password to you, instead of using whatever
random string the programs algorithm comes up with.

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Issue 1353

LastPass is possibly the most popular password manager avaialble

KeePass is one of the best open source and free password managers

1Password is powerful but easy to use, and it works

perfectly with all browsers

PASSWORD
MANAGEMENT
Password Strength

Choosing a password is important, regardless of where itll be used. Whether youre securing your banking details, shopping online
or simply logging into Facebook, its always important to pick a good, solid password that no one will be able to guess. And if
youre using a password manager, you must ensure the master password is as secure as can be.
Picking a good password isnt just about the number of characters and use of alphanumeric strings; its also important to avoid
picking anything that can be easily tied to you. It may be a tip thats been used over and over again, but its very important to
never use family names, such as your children, birthdays, birth places, favourite movies, books or anything else that someone could
guess. All it takes is someone to carefully look through Facebook or Twitter or to dig up your personal details, and with time such
passwords can be guessed.
Instead, try to pick a password that means little to you, and use words that cant be directly linked to you or your interests. As
well as this, a good password should always contain both letterers and numbers, and it should be at least eight characters long
preferably longer if you want more security.
When using a password manager, it may be a good idea to let the program choose your password for you or at least use its
suggestions and edit them. This way, youll have a password that will be hard for others to guess.
The local storage will please many, but if you prefer online,
1Password also lets you do this, and you can make use of services
like Dropbox to share passwords and the programs functionality
across multiple devices.
1Password isnt free, but if you decide to opt for this package,
its a one-time fee and not a subscription, as used by many other
password manager services.

RoboForm
www.roboform.com
One of the oldest password managers around, RoboForm
specialises in password management and form completion, and
it boasts a simple and intuitive interface and solid password
encryption. Your data can be stored locally or synchronised to the
online services, and you can take the entire program with you on
a USB stick. It even supports multiple accounts, so one program
can store security information for the whole family.
RoboForm has the advantage of time behind it, and as one of
the oldest password managers, its stood the test of time and has
been refined over the years into a great application for password
security. Whats more, its free for the first ten logins. If you need
more, youll need to purchase the RoboForm Everywhere version.
Norton Identity Safe
identitysafe.norton.com
Coming from the minds behind one of the worlds most popular
anti-virus and internet security suites, Norton Identity Safe
wears its pedigree on its sleeve. This is a simple, yet very secure
password management tool that can store passwords and
synchronise them across multiple devices, including your PC, tablet
and mobile phone. It can also warn you of any unsafe websites
and is able to block potential threats, and it stores your data in a
secure, encrypted online vault.
As it comes from Symantec, you may think this would be an
expensive option, but youd be wrong. Norton Password Safe is,
in actual fact, free. Yes, this tool is offered gratis, and you can
download and use it for nothing, which is great. There are also
free mobile apps too, so youre covered, regardless of which type
of device you use.
There are plenty of other password managers around for the
picking, but these are some of the best, and if youre looking for a
good place to start, these will all do the job and will likely become
an essential applications on your PC. So dont keep your personal
data or important passwords at risk any longer. Give a password
manager a go. mm

RoboForm is one of the oldest password managers,

but experience makes for a solid security product

Like many password managers, Norton Identity Safe

can help generate strong passwords

Issue 1353

65

ANDROID

lollipop
And Material Design

David Briddock investigates whats different about Googles

Android Lollipop

ecent figures confirm that

these days its Android devices
that dominate the smartphone
and tablet marketplace. In fact,
Googles Android operating system
has secured over 80% of the total
smartphone space, dwarfing iPhone
sales, and Android smartphone
shipments for 2014 are expected to
top the one billion mark. This years
sales will be equally strong.
Meanwhile, Android tablet
shipments exceeded 120 million
in 2013 and are far higher still for
2014. Once again, Apples iPad came
a distant second, and other platforms
hardly feature at all. And to cap it all,
Googles Play store now has as many
apps as the Apple App Store.

New Version

But in the tech world nothing stands

still. Now theres a new release to
replace the previous version, 4,
which was more commonly referred
to as KitKat. Version 5, also known
as Lollipop, is a major update, so as
youd expect, there are plenty of new
features and functionality on offer.

66

Issue 1353

But theres more. The user interface

experience has been re-engineered
from the ground up. In fact, Lollipop
ushers in a brand new and radically
different interface design paradigm.
Google calls this new interface vision
Material Design.
Well take a detailed look at
Material Design shortly, but first lets
investigate some of the new features
in Android Lollipop.

Improved Usability

Firstly, many apps exhibit a small yet

noticeable increase in performance.
This is largely down to optimisations
in Lollipops new Android Runtime
(ART), a 64-bit compatible
replacement for the previous Dalvik
implementation (see ART boxout).
However, as far as Android
games are concerned, the majority
are written with the Native
Development Kit (NDK). This means
they use C++ libraries and precompiled executables instead of ART
or Dalvik bytecode, so unfortunately
they wont benefit directly from
ART technology.

Multitasking control has also

been improved. The Recent Apps
facility has been replaced with
Overview, which displays all the
background running apps as a card
stack. Its slicker in operation and so
much easier to shuffle to the app
youre after.
Ever better, the Overview
display shows individual tasks
within a single app, so if youre say
in the middle of writing a Gmail
email but also checking your
inbox, it will display task cards for
each task.
Android notification settings are
applied from the Menu/Sound and
Notification/App menus, rather
than configuring similar settings
on each separate app. In the new
Priority mode you can select which
notifications youll hear or see.
Fine-tuning options allow call
and text notifications to be
restricted to a discrete list of people.
In addition, theres a Do Not
Disturb mode for those who wish
to set aside periods of uninterrupted
focus and concentration.

ANDROID LOLLIPOP
ART

ART is the Android runtime replacement for the previous Dalvik

implementation. Its this software that runs the Java-coded Android apps.
Google wanted to provide a rebuilt foundation for the rapidly changing
hardware landscape, such as eight-core CPU devices, fast growing solidstate storage capacities and ever larger amounts of memory.
Performance-centric features include Ahead-of-Time (AOT) compilation
(Dalvik used a just-in-time (JIT) compilation approach). AOT compilation
means that apps are pre-compiled into runtime byte-codes on installation,
so instead of having to be interpreted on-the-fly, they instead act like native
Android apps, optimised for the hardware.
JIT-work is very CPU intensive, but AOT needs fewer CPU cycles,
which also means longer battery life. These native app translations do
take up more space, but with todays low-cost storage, space this isnt
an issue anymore.
ART also has a more efficient garbage collection implementation.
This means it will release memory more quickly, which in turn
helps performance.
The upshot is that ART delivers noticeable performance gains,
ains,
sometimes two or even three times better than with Dalvik, and as
Google says, In many cases it improves performance of the
e device
with no action required by the developer.
Theres also been a number of improvements to the Java-based
based
development and debugging environment. These will not only
nly prove
helpful to new developers but also assist existing developers port Dalvikcentric apps over to the ART model.

Battery Historian app

Battery Life

Battery life is something that

everyone notices and often has a
good moan about too. The good
news is that Android Lollipop should
extend the working duration of each
battery charge.
Google developers considered
the battery life impact of each core
Android app, module and operating
system function. See for yourself
how good a job theyve done by
opening the new Battery Historian
feature. To take maximum advantage
of the new power-sipping features,
switch your Lollipop device into
Power Saver mode.

Security

In addition to pass codes

or passwords, you can now
optionally unlock a device using
face recognition, namely the bioverification Trusted Face feature.
Alternatively, you can unlock it
with a previously paired Android
device for instance, a smartphone
or smartwatch.
A more generic pairing capability
allows both Bluetooth devices and
NFC tags to be recognised, so just a
cheap and simple wristband could be
all you need to unlock any Android
Lollipop gadget you own. And, of

course, face recognition or dedicated

device pairing is much faster than
entering pass codes or passwords.
Another new security feature
ensures all your data is now
encrypted by default, so if your
device is lost or stolen, someone
needs a password to see your data.
This encryption does result in a
small system performance hit, but
with todays multi-core processor
hardware, theres invariably more
than enough power to cope.

Android TV

Android Lollipop also supports TV

via the Android TV service. This isnt
too surprising after the popularity of
Chromecast and Googles new Nexus
Player (google.com/nexus/player).
It delivers TV, films, games and so on
right onto the big screen. Press the
home button and youll return to the
standard Android display.
Android TV has a voice interface,
so you can search for something
on a smartphone when connected
to the Android TV, and youll have
the option to watch the video
either on Google Play or any other
compatible app.
Android TV appears to have been
endorsed by some big names, with
offerings from Sony, Philips and

Sharp, while Asus and others are

promising to release Android TV
compatible set-top boxes.

Google Chrome OS
Interaction

At the 2014 Google I/O conference,

Googles Android and Chrome
chief, Sundar Pichai, announced
an array of new features designed
to consolidate the Android and
Chrome OS user experiences.
For example, theres a facility to
automatically unlock a Chromebook
or Chromebox when your Android
phone is nearby. Behind the scenes,
it uses Bluetooth to access your
smartphones Google account
credentials. When activated, just
having your Android smartphone in
your pocket means youll be able to
start immediately, avoiding a tedious
manual sign on.
Communication events from
your Android phone can appear
in real-time on your Chrome OS
device, so youll see incoming calls
notifications, scan text message
contents or even take calls without
having to continually break away
from the large screen to check
your smartphone. You can even
see that your phones battery is
about to expire.

Issue 1353

67

Do Not Disturb settings

And an Android smartphone or

tablet can act as a Chromebook or
Chromebox remote control, which is
particularly useful when the device
is operating as an audio or video
media player.

Material Design Overview

Googles goal is to develop a single

underlying system that allows
for a unified experience across
all platforms and sizes of device.
But what does Material actually
mean? Well, Google says Material
is a metaphor for a unifying theory
based on space and motion. The
material itself has a tactile reality,
in the same way paper and ink
does, but technology adds an
element of magic.
With Material Design, surfaces
and edges provide familiar visual
cues, but with software that makes
it easy to go beyond the rules of
our physical world. Lighting, colour,
texture and movement all help to
convey how interface objects relate
to each other and interact.
Google insists that Material Design
will feel more intuitive, but theres a
bigger idea at play here. A Google
master plan, if you like.
Material design is an attempt to
remove the fragmented way Android

68

Issue 1353

Theme Pack example

looks today, to ensure consumers see

a consistent interface and set of apps
no matter which device they own.

Material Lighting & Colour

In a material environment, virtual

lighting illuminates the scene,
causing objects to cast shadows,
both strong directional and multiangle soft shadows via ambient
lighting.
Shadows result naturally from
the relative elevation (z-position)
between interface objects. An
object with a higher z value casts a
bigger shadow.
Material can be any shape and
colour. Advanced features include
applying bitmaps as an alpha mask
to create colour tint effects at
runtime. Content, displayed on the
material, can also be in any shape
and colour.
In practice, all material objects
have a uniform thickness dimension
of one, as content doesnt increase
the overall thickness.

Material Motion

Very early on, the Google design

team realised motion provides
meaning. Motion serves to focus
attention and maintain continuity,
with a subtle yet clear feedback.

Messenger app

This motion extends into the

3D space, so each object has x,
y, and z dimensions and can move
along any axis. However, typically
z-axis motion is the result of
user interaction.
Material can also change shape.
It can grow and shrink, but not
bend or fold. In addition, sheets
of material can join together to
become a single sheet, and when
split, material can self-heal, so if a
portion of material is removed from
a sheet, it can become a whole
sheet again.
All this means developers can
create sophisticated animations
for touch feedback, state changes,
activity transitions and other
interface events. These can be
naturalistic animations with
noticeably curved motion.
Many interface views, such
as buttons, already have built-in
animations, which are nevertheless
fully customisable.

Material Design
Guidelines

Such a radical new approach to

interface design must be supported
by clear documentation and
informative tutorials. Google has
stepped up to the mark with a

ANDROID LOLLIPOP

Googles Android

operating system has

secured over 80% of the
total smartphone space
Material Design Resources

Material Design 3D Layers

Google has posted plenty of Material Design

resources online for developers and anyone
interested the concepts, mechanics and
nd
appearance of Lollipop.
For example theres a Material Design
gn
visual introduction at google.co.uk/design/
esign/
spec/material-design/introduction.html,
html,
and a comprehensive Material Design overview
at developer.android.com/design/index.html.
ndex.html.
ng apps or
For anyone wishing to update existing
n of Material
to create new ones, theres a collection
d.com/
Design tutorials at developer.android.com/
training/material/index.html.

comprehensive guide for visual,

motion and interaction design
across platforms and devices, so
anyone can use material design in
their Android apps by following
these guidelines.
Android 5.0 (API level 21) and
above embody new components
and functionality. New elements
include a theme, widgets for
complex views, plus APIs for custom
shadows and animations.
The dark and light material
themes provide styles for apps and
system widgets, but developers can
set their own colour palette and
specify default animations for touch
feedback and activity transitions.
Android 5.0 provides two new
card and list widgets with material
design styles and animations. The
newCardView widget displays
important pieces of information
with a consistent look and feel,
while the newRecyclerView widget
is an enhanced ListView that
supports various layout types and
has snappier performance.

Teething Troubles

With such a major update, its no

surprise that early adopters found
a few teething troubles. Early
complaints included sluggish video

performance, random crashes and

virtual keyboard problems.
As you might expect, installing
Lollipop on older devices with
slower CPUs and less advanced
graphics cards resulted in a nonoptimal experience. However, even
Googles own Nexus 5 smartphone
suffered a serious wi-fi issue, which
also caused battery life problems.
A more serious long-term issue
is related to the new Android
Runtime. To ensure faultless
operation and to take full advantage
of the enhancements, Dalvik apps
need to be optimised for ART. So
apps written for earlier versions
of Android, and therefore older
Dalvik implementations, may suffer
problems. Problems that include
crashes, which could result in losing
your unsaved data or games status.
In fact, in some cases it caused the
Android OS to fail, requiring a
full reboot.
This isnt a two-minute code fix
for an app developer. In fact, for
a large and complex app, it may
involve months of code changes and
retesting, and of course, developers
will still need to support Android
devices running Dalvik, so now they
have two completely different target
execution environments.

Even now, its not clear how

many of Googles own apps have
been optimised, let alone the
millions of third-party Android apps.

Lollipop Updates

The good news is a 5.0.1 update in

December 2014 did fix quite a few
problems, and theres been a steady
flow of Lollipop-ready app updates at
the end of 2014 and start of 2015.
Consequently, recent Android
Lollipop blog postings and social
commentary have been much more
favourable; some owners appear to
have enjoyed a 30% improvement
in battery life since upgrading from
KitKat and, as I write, it appears
Lollipop 5.1 is due soon.
So the future of Android is
already here, and regardless of
these initial problems, theres no
going back. Lollipop, with its new
look Material Design and enhanced
Android Runtime, is here to stay.
In fact, indications suggest
many of Material Design concepts
are highly likely to appear in a
future version of Googles Chrome
operating system, so we may well
see a Lollipop-like user interface
experience appear on those valuefor-money Chromebook laptops and
Chromebox desktops. mm

Issue 1353

69

Social Media
Apps For
Android
Get busy with your online social life
as Keir Thomas looks at five
intriguingly useful tools

ocial media has changed our lives,

and its rise has mirrored that
of widespread mobile devices.
Nowadays you'll struggle to find a phone
or tablet that isn't tuned into Facebook
and/or Twitter in some capacity. And
that's the topic for this week's group test,
wherein we look at apps that provide
access to social media or that bring
interesting new functionality. With one
exception, we're not interested in the
official clients (why review something you
already know about?), and instead were
interested here in what third-party efforts
can bring to the table.
As usual, all the apps below are
available in Google Play and were reviewed
on a phone and tablet running Android
4.3 Jelly Bean.

Facebook Home

The page in the history book for Facebooks

experimental Home app is still being
scribbled, and until then, the app remains
available in Google Play. The last update
was in December last year, and Facebook

70

Issue 1353

The page in the history book for

Facebooks experimental Home app is still

being scribbled

recently switched to a two-week update

cycle for its key apps. So whether Home yet
qualifies as abandonware is open to debate.
To remind you in case you missed the
extensive coverage a few years ago, Home
is an Android-exclusive app that came
pre-installed on several phones from HTC
and Samsung, as well as being offered in
Google Play. Sadly, these phones proved
a little less popular than desired by Mr
Zuckerberg. This was widely believed to
be because of how Home works it turns
the phones lockscreen into a social media
dashboard. Itll optionally take over your
launcher too. The consensus appeared to
be that Home was a nice idea, but people
didnt really want social media pushed
against their noses in such a way.

However, to Facebooks credit,

Home isnt just about its own service,
and it also lets you follow friends on
Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest and Flickr
(but not arch rival Twitter Facebook
aint that generous).
Theres a reason the app is an Android
exclusive, and thats because this kind
of thing is impossible on Apple iOS. In
fact, technically speaking Home isnt even
compatible with all Android phones
support is limited to older Samsung, Nexus
and HTC models. Sorry, Sony fans! Home
is not available for tablets at all. However,
youre allowed to install it on any phone.
Facebook just doesnt guarantee itll work.
What surprised us most about Home is
how simple it is and how well designed

SOCIAL MEDIA
APPS FOR ANDROID
too. It simply shows social media
notifications and updates at the lock
screen. As such, it attempts to shift the
paradigm of how we use our devices and
social media.
Swipe left on the lock screen and you
can see updates from friends. Swipe right
and a camera appears for quick snapshots
that you can then optionally upload to your
social media services (although strangely
theres no option to automatically upload to
Facebook). The Settings panel lets you alter
the lockscreen wallpaper so that you can see
pics youve taken and put on Facebook, or
pics of your significant other (if youve told
Facebook who this is), pics of your family
(ditto), pics of your close friends, and simply
pics of your FB friends whoever they may
be. Smaller pics are scaled to full screen
pretty messily and this is also an issue when
viewing updates from your friends pictures
are dynamically zoomed and panned in the
background, and most of the time youll see
the ugly JPEG artefacts.
A key feature missing, at least on our
test setup, was the inability to set up a PIN
or other type of lockscreen protection. This
is a mind-blowing omission. Its called a
lockscreen for a reason!
Facebook Home has all the hallmarks of
a superb app. It looks great and on paper
is a great idea. However, its answering a
question nobody has asked, which is: How
can I have instant access to Facebook?
Even if youre such an immense Facebook
fan that you might ask such a question, the
answer provided surely cant compromise
security and privacy like Home does.

Hootsuite

Favoured by the social media intelligentsia,

Hootsuite lets you unify access and posting
to your social networks, whether that
be Facebook (including Pages), Twitter
or LinkedIn. Youre also able to check in
to Foursquare, the location-based social
networking service.
Unfortunately, resurfacing immediately
was the same problem we had when
reviewing the app last week in our
equivalent iOS group test: although we
could log in with Facebook, we werent
able to post anything or view our wall or
feeds. We suspect this is because we have
two-factor authentication activated on
Facebook, an additional security measure,
but this is hardly unusual nowadays.
This technical difficulty shows up
Hootsuite for what it is: a third-party
client thats limited to what Facebook,
Twitter or LinkedIn allow it to do via their
programmer interfaces (APIs). Things can
break easily. That said, Hootsuite clearly

sees it outsider status as no hindrance.

Alongside the ability to post to all your
social networks at the same time, you can
also schedule postings to take place at
some point in the future. This is arguably
the strength of the app for many people,
and Hootsuite talks of 'managing brands'
via Facebook Pages. The clever PR person
can queue up postings on a Monday
morning and never look at their Pages
again until the following week.
The app works on a tablet but during
setup switched between portrait and
landscape settings so much that it made
us dizzy. We suspect that, as with so many
Android apps, Hootsuite treats a tablet as
if its a large phone. There was certainly no
visual difference between the phone and
tablet interface layouts in our tests, and the
design was overall sparse and basic. You
simply tap on a heading to see postings
Home Feed, Mentions, Direct Messages
and Sent for Twitter, for example. Notably
and rather strangely, theres no way to
mix and match feeds. The ability to read
your Twitter and Facebook updates in one
long list is an obvious need, but you wont
find it in Hootsuite; you must look at each
consecutively. And if youre going to do
that, you may as well use the default apps
for each service, which offer a superior
look and feel, as well as full access.
Composing is similarly basic, with the
ability to attach images and add a check-in
location via GPS. A drop-down menu at the
top right of the screen allows you to select
which of your social networks you want to
post to.
Ultimately, Hootsuite does one thing
well, and a few other things in a fairly

basic way. That said, the ability to

scheduling postings is useful and for some
reason not found in the official client apps.

Socially

Like all social network sites, Facebook has

its own livery in the form of specific colours
and fonts, and its perhaps not surprising
that one of the biggest markets for thirdAll the clever design in the world cant make
Facebook Home into more than a white elephant

Hootsuite lets you schedule social media postings so they appear in the future

Issue 1353

71

party add-ons is in personalising the service

theming the interface or turning off
annoying aspects. Socially focuses on the
latter, otherwise referring to itself as a fully
fledged Facebook client.
Once again this is an app designed for
phones that looks odd and stretched out
on a tablet display to the extent of barely
being usable. On a phone, however, it
looks pretty good, and three levels of
customisation are offered: you can add a
wallpaper background, which also tints
the colour scheme to match, or change
the colour tone on its own, and a separate
control panel lets you change the font,
as well as font size and colour. Perhaps
usefully, you can also apply the wallpaper
or colour you choose to the entire device
as launcher wallpaper.
Socially provides access to most but not
all aspects of Facebook. You can look up
your friends, view notifications, read and
send messages, view photo albums and
make postings. But noticeably missing from
that group is the ability to manage your
Facebook Groups or Pages. This isnt a tool
for 'pro' Facebookers managing the social
presence of a business. Then again, even
Facebooks own apps arent stellar in this
department but at least the functionality
is present.
Unfortunately, Socially appeared to have
a serious issue in our test in that it simply

didnt reflect what we were seeing on the

Facebook website or in the Facebook app.
There are two ways of seeing updates
on Facebook: sorting by most recent or
by most popular. Socially appears to use
some other method. On its list as I write
are stories from 17 minutes ago, and 31
minutes, one hour, two hours, three hours,
four hours and so on. On Facebooks page
online only a handful of stories were even
over an hour old. Our first thought was
that Socially tunes into the mobile version
of Facebook m.facebook.com but even
that was different when compared side by
side with Socially. Curious.
So in Socially we have an app that lets
you make Facebook look pretty, which is
to be admired, but that might have trouble
delivering the basic content although our
problems could be unique to the account
we used for testing. The rather intrusive
always-seen ad at the bottom of the screen
tips us over the edge, however, and made
it so we really cant recommend this app.

UberSocial

If youre going to build a third-party client

for a popular social network, then its
essential to add something new to the mix.
UberSocial is a fine example for Twitter that
provides a paradigm others might follow.
In addition to a standard Timeline view
showing tweets from your friends, along

UberSocial is everything the official Twitter app should have been: fast and feature packed

72

Issue 1353

with Direct Messages, Retweets, Trends

(that is, hashtags) and Mentions headings,
you can select to filter your feed by those

A somewhat bizarre obsession with older

stories means Socially cant be recommended as a
Facebook client

SOCIAL MEDIA
APPS FOR ANDROID
that contain videos and also filter according
to an Inner Circle of people you actually
want to hear from (as opposed to all those
people you friended out of politeness
dont worry, we all do it). The Inner Cirlce
particular heading also contains a count
of tweets, so you can see when new stuff
pops up.
As if that werent enough, UberSocial
can also lock onto your GPS coordinates
(if your device features the functionality)
and show you Nearby Tweets, which are
tweets geotagged as originating from
somewhere near to you. All these options
are presented on the UberBar, which runs
across the top of a phone when held in
portrait orientation, and are limited to
the left-hand quarter of the screen on
a tablet in landscape. Yes, this is one of
those rare Android apps also designed for
tablet use. On both tablet and phone you
drag the UberBar left and right to reveal
more options, while tapping a tweet
opens any URL it contains for viewing
within a built-in web browser. This
browser is what occupies the remaining
three quarters of the screen on a tablet,
although on a phone, the list of tweets is
simply shifted out of the way so you can
view the page.
Composing a tweet is mercifully simple,
with a character counter at the top right
and the ability to add in photos and
video or your geotag your location by
tapping the relevant button. You can also
simultaneously post to Facebook, and
this is perhaps one of the most surprising
aspects of UberSocial its not just about
Twitter. You can view your Facebook feed
and comment on postings from others.
Compared to dedicated Facebook apps its
a bit primitive (you cant even view your
photo albums, for example, never mind
manage Pages or Groups), but if Twitter is
your main means of social networking and
you like to check Facebook occasionally,
then it more than suffices.
UberSocial is pretty quick in everyday
use, and ultimately were left thinking this
is the Twitter app that Twitter shouldve
produced. A superb notifications system
whereby the gist of tweets is shown at

the top of the screen while youre using

other apps is just the icing on the cake.
Theres still room for improvement itd
be terrific to be able to schedule postings,
for example but theres simply a lot
to like here. Income is generated for
the developers via a somewhat intrusive
always-visible ad at the bottom of the
screen, along with occasional full-screen
ads. A Pro version removes the ads and
will set you back just over 3, which
seems like a reasonable price to us for
what you get.

ProStatus

Its fair to say that some people like to

post on social networks more than others,
and ProStatus is an app to designed
to make their lives easier. It lets you
post to Facebook, Twitter and Google+
simultaneously, including posting photos
and also lets you schedule posts.
First things first, however, and although
we had no issues logging into Facebook
and Google+, attempting to do so with
Twitter resulted in the same error on
both our phone and tablet. We have
the maximum security turned on with
all our accounts, including two-factor
authentication, and this may have caused
the problem. Alternatively, it could be
a problem with the Twitter API, which
only allows a certain number of thirdparty client connections. Either way,
its annoying, although your experience
may vary.
Once the apps up and running, the
interface splits into two halves: Archive
and Scheduled. The first shows cards
listing ready-made postings, which you
can use repeatedly (although theres also
an option within Settings to delete them
upon use). These cards can be coloured
to aid recognition, and tapping any opens
it for viewing and editing. The Scheduled
heading is almost identical in nature but,
as you might expect, shows postings that
have been scheduled.
At the bottom right of each view is a
pencil icon that lets you compose new
postings, and theres nothing complicated
to navigate you type at the top of the

Its fair to say that some people

like to post on social networks more

than others, and ProStatus is an app to
designed to make their lives easier

ProStatus does one thing only: post to

Facebook, Twitter and/or Google+, either using
ready written messages or by scheduling

screen, attach photos beneath if you wish,

then select which of your networks you
want the posting to appear on. At the
bottom you can select to schedule the
posting or add it to the archive, while
tapping the button at the top right shares
the posting immediately. A letter counter
appears to the right of the text entry
field, but we saw no complaints when
we surpassed the magical 140-character
limit. Because we were unable to sign in
with Twitter, we dont know how the app
handles this, but wed guess it splits the
text across multiple postings.
Missing from the compose screen are
the ability to tag others or to geotag.
Automatic URL shortening would have
been nice too.
If you want to view your social
media feeds, then youre out of luck,
because ProStatus is about posting and
nothing else.
Adverts are visible all the time, and you
can remove them for just 69p. Sadly, the
app doesnt have a tablet mode and merely
stretches the interface to fit, which looks
silly although is functional.
ProStatus does one thing and does
it well. The inability to tie into other
social networks like LinkedIn is a notable
omission, but if your work involves posting
to the 'big three' on a regular basis, then
ProStatus is well worth a look. mm

Issue 1353

73

Remembering
Doom

Despite the restraining order, David Hayward still follows John Romero
around with his iconic game

he early 90s saw some great games appear on the PC, and one
in particular took the gaming world by storm: Doom.
Doom was iconic in many ways. For a start, it was the
title that really kicked of the first-person shooter genre, and you
could get hold of the first third of the game through the BBSs
(bulletin board systems) of the time as shareware. It was also quite
controversial, with its blood, guts, killing and of course the satanic
imagery that developed throughout the many levels. Needless to
say, more conservative members of the public took to denouncing
it. The rest of us, though, didnt really care and loved the game to
bits.
v was iconic on a more personal level for me. I recall turning up for
an interview for a techie post, having just rushed out from college and
missing the train. I turned up at the interview all flustered and had
one of the worst face-to-face interviews of my life. After that, me and
the other applicants were tasked with networking several machines
and proving that the network we made was sound.
Being a little off to begin with, I decided to dig out the copy of
Doom I had in my college bag and installed it on the PCs I networked.
The result was me, the supervisor, director of IT, HR manager and
senior technician playing Doom for over two hours. In my eyes, I got
the job thanks to Doom.

height, improved graphics and the addition of more dynamic features

such as platforms, hidden areas and other such sections of the
individual levels. When combined, of course, the key ingredients made
for an exceptional and highly addictive game.
Another element that made Doom such a well-played game was
the use of the modular data files, called WADs (Wheres All the Data,
apparently). A WAD could be unpacked, and the user could then
import their own graphics, level designs and even sound effects. Once
done, the user could repack the files into the WAD and play the game
with their own custom enhancements.
A year later, Doom II: Hell on Earth was released, and we got to
wield the double-barrelled shotgun and John Romeros head on a
stick behind the final demon. And around ten years after that, I think,
Doom 3 was released, with much improved graphics and engine.

Its History

Conclusion

Doom was uploaded to the Software Creations BBS on 10th

December 1993. Developed by id Software and programmed/designed
by John Romero, John Carmack and a host of other equally talented
visionaries, Doom found almost instant fame and very quickly became
the game that id Software later announced as The number one
cause of decreased productivity in business around the world.
Distribution of the first third of the game as shareware made sure
that the game was played by millions; the rest of the game could then
be purchased, which obviously unlocked the remaining two thirds.
The groundwork for Doom, though, was pretty much already in
place, through id Softwares previous game, Wolfenstein 3D. The
game and environment engine was then reworked, with added

Did You Know

If you played the demonic voice at the end of Doom II

backwards, it says To win the game you must kill me,
John Romero!
Bill Gates appeared in video where hes actually inside a
Doom level.
Some companies formed policies to detract its
employees from playing Doom on their networks.
The BFH was originally supposed to stand for Blast
Frequency Gun 9000. However, its other meaning soon
took over.
I once met John Romero and tried to beat him at
network Doom. I lost.

The Good

Networking several machines and playing Doom against your mates.

Sheer 90s bliss. And of course, being able to customise the game.

The Bad

Not getting your work done on time. Getting caught playing network
Doom instead of working.
id Software, John Romero and John Carmack, we salute you. Thank
you for an ace game.

With nothing but your trusty pistol, you take on the hordes of Hell

Those horrible pink demons were enough to give you nightmares

74

Issue 1353

FRUSTRATIONS

The Things That

Frustrate Us About...
Internet Explorer

It might feel like an easy target, but when youre forced to use Internet Explorer
it can really get on your nerves

T
?

here are some programs and some

companies that could start handing
out free puppies and chocolate bars
and people would still hate them.
Internet Explorer (IE) seems to be one of
those programs. Yes, in the past, there were
lots of things wrong with it, and compared
to newer browsers it seemed clunky,
awkward, and even sometimes unsafe.
In recent times, Microsoft has made an
effort to overcome some of the long-held
prejudices people harbour towards IE, and
recent incarnations are very different from
the Explorer of old. At this point, its even
got most of the features you love Firefox
or Chrome for. Still, ask almost anyone
who uses the internet a lot for work or
pleasure and youll find a rich seam of
resentment towards Microsofts oncedominant browser. So why do we hate it
so much? Well

Eeek! How Secure Is IE?

Bah. Its Just So Pushy!

That is a bit like asking how long a piece of

string is, because it depends what version
youre running and on what operating
system. The older the OS and the older the
browser, the less secure its going to be.
Thats worrying because surveys keep
telling us many businesses are reluctant
to upgrade their systems, and dont let
employees install alternative browsers. Later
versions of IE are more secure, but even last
year we were seeing security firms warning
people to switch browsers because Microsoft
was reacting slowly to vulnerabilities.

This is an annoying hangover from the bad

old days when Microsoft was doing its
best to make sure IE was the only browser
in town. Many that remember the times
when Internet Explorer was bundled with
PCs, and was thus the default browser, are
still resentful.
Even now, if you open IE for some
reason, itll still ask you to make it your
default browser. In fairness, lots of
programs will ask you if you want them to
be your default whatever, but somehow
its more irritating when IE does it.

Fix it: If youre concerned, the obvious

thing to do is switch browsers. If thats not
practical, though, at least make sure youre
running some decent anti-malware software.

Fix it: Install something else, and be

decisive about clicking no. No, you cant be
my default browser, Internet Explorer, and
thats the end of it. mm

Argh! Broken Websites!

Ever come across a swish-looking website

that then doesnt look quite as swish when
youre using Internet Explorer? Thats probably
because Microsoft doesnt always concern
itself much with web standards; in fact, in the
past its been openly hostile to standards of
the World Wide Web Consortium.
Thats annoying, especially if you have to
browse with IE on a work computer. Its even
more annoying for developers, though, who
often find their beautifully rendered websites
just look crap in Internet Explorer.

Fix it: In fairness to Microsoft, its been

working on it. Even now, though, the HTML5
test site (html5.test.com) shows that IE 11
scores just 336 out of a possible 555 points.
By comparison, the latest version of Chrome
scores 501. So IE still has some catching
up to do, and if youre a web developer,
youre going to need to test your sites in the
browser before launching them if you want
everyone to get the best experience. Sorry.

Issue 1353

75

Specialists

Keeping Your Kit Alive

How far can we stretch old hardware?

Linux

David Hayward has

been using Linux
since Red Hat 2.0
in schools, businesses
and at home, which
either makes him
very knowledgeable
or a glutton for
extreme punishment

76

Issue 1353

wrote an article for Micro Mart

the other week, Old Hardware
Still In Use, about computers
from the 70s, 80s and even
one from the 40s, which are still
in active use and serving
organisations and companies as
well as they did when they still
smelt of the packaging they
arrived in.
The article, though, wasnt so
much about the age of these
machines; it was really about how
much we, today, seem to go
through hardware like nobodys
business. As I said in the body of
the article, these things were
made to last, and if the vast
majority of users are only using
their machines for browsing the
web, going on Facebook,
watching YouTube clips and
maybe some very light gaming at
best, then why do they need a
500-plus computer?
This is where Linux comes into
its own. We all know you can
install a copy of Ubuntu, Mint,
Arch or one of hundreds of
other distros on a PC with very
modest hardware, but Im
wondering how many out there
dont realise this.
True, theres a slight learning
curve when it comes to using
Linux, but for the sake of the

user who just uses a PC to surf,

type out a few emails and so
on, theres little need to get
behind the scenes of the OS
and learn every command line
instance going.
So it got me thinking.
Wouldnt it be novel for a
supplier to sell refurbished,
older hardware? Kit thats still
good enough to run a decent
modern(ish) distro, without
costing an arm and a leg.
Maybe something like an early
Hyper-Threaded Intel chip, on a
reasonably good board? Or
maybe the older AMD FX
processors when they first
came out? Heck, you could
even go further back and take
advantage of the last
generation of MMX processors.
It also made me wonder what
you have up and running these
days? Do you have any old
hardware thats still going strong
and runs a Linux version? If so,
then whats the hardware, what
distro do you use, and what do
you use it for?

Out With The New

And In With The Old

I suppose if you were to try out

an older system with Puppy Linux
or something, then the classifieds

section of Micro Mart may be

a good start or better yet, flea
bay. But I did think what about
offering to buy ex-hardware from
schools or colleges?
Most of education buy in new
hardware every year and often
salvage what they can from the
machines that are being put out
to pasture. Is it okay for members
of the public to approach them
and ask if they have anything for
sale? Surely a little extra cash
from the sale of old hardware will
help the school kitty? Even if it
goes toward a few bottles of
something nice for the dinner
ladies at Christmas time. Again, I
dont know.
I do games and hardware
reviews, so in my case a modern
PC helps me with my job, as does
running Windows 7. Linux,
although great, has been
sidelined to a virtual machine as
the majority of my work involves
true Windows and not a
virtualised version.
I may get around to buying
some old hardware one day and
seeing if its possible. I also want a
BBC Micro too, though. Maybe
one day
Can an older PC with Linux installed
still be of use in todays world?

The Amiga Years

Sven Harvey catches up with some news

Super Stardust Ultra

With Housemarque busy with DLC for Resogun and further

up and coming titles, Cheshire-based d3t, a Sony Computer
Entertainment Europe contractor linked to SCEE through SCE
XDEV, has completed a conversion of Super Stardust to the PS4,
based on the PS3 version, which was, in turn, based on the
Amiga 1200 and Amiga CD32 game.
Super Stardust Ultra retains all the features of the base Super
Stardust HD game on the PS3 but is enhanced with new modes
and some new planets without it getting in the way of the
award winning gameplay mechanic, which is of course based
on Asteroids but with twin stick controls (left for movement
and right for firing direction.) The game runs at 60 frames per
second in 1080p resolution (unlike so many games) and is one of
very few PS4 games that function in stereoscopic 3D on 3D TVs.
Rather more interesting, however, is that the game is referred
to as 'Project Morpheus Ready', which makes sense as it covers
the technical bases for the VR headset and could produce a very
interesting VR experience. The game is currently available on the
PlayStation Store for 9.99 on PS4.
Amiga and its peers, from
development to launch, and the
key developers and games that
made the format so important
to the way videogames
production, especially in the UK,
developed. The film will also
look at the development of the
demo scene as the initial skills
honed in the 8-bit programming
environments developed into
the more powerful 16- and
32-bit era with graphical
upgrades alongside. I would
personally expect the likes of
Deluxe Paint and Lightwave to
get major mentions.
Equally, musicians found more
tools and higher capabilities to

Amiga Mart
On Facebook

You can find a Facebook

page for Amiga Mart
with links and the like
at www.facebook.
com/AmigaMart see
you there!
create on the new formats as
music became more realistic and
rounded in the days prior to full
CD-soundtracks in games.
Interviews with musicians will
explore some of the iconic
soundtracks to games from the
era. Interviews with journalists
will also reveal another side of
the era where writers who had
been consumers and enthusiasts
at the dawn of the 8-bit gaming
era led the magazines that
brought news of developments
with more enthusiasm than
other quarters of the press while
reviewing games that are
now legends.
The download version of the
film is available from the first
pledge level of 10 on the
Kickstarter (I think I'll be going
for the Blu-ray myself), which
you can find at goo.gl/ugdbfc.

Sven Harvey has

been our Amiga
specialist for over
15 years drawing
on his 24 years
retailing computer
and videogames (25
Christmases, no
less) and even longer
writing about them.

Amiga

nthony and Nicola

Caulfield , who had
success with a
Kickstarter campaign
for 'From Bedrooms To Billions',
have announced a new
Kickstarter campaign for a new
documentary film as a follow-up,
entitled 'From Bedrooms To
Billions: The Amiga Years!'
The original film will be
available to the general public to
buy as a digital download, DVD
or Blu-ray shortly, and guides the
viewer from the start of the
computer and videogames
industry to the present but with
a heavy emphasis on the 8-bit
years (from 1979) and looking at
it all from the point of view of
the UK's leadership in the field
of home computer games and
the market it developed into.
You can find out more about the
first 150-minute film at www.
frombedroomstobillions.com.
The new campaign is to fund
the production of a new
90-minute documentary focusing
on the developments in the
computer and videogames
industry from 1985 to 1994
the main years of Commodore's
Amiga from launch until the vast
majority of its development
community made the move to
Sony's PlayStation. The film
makers will be recording a whole
new series of interviews to allow
them to chart the story of the

Issue 1353

77

Galaxy Quest
Ian McGurren investigates two mystery objects approaching

Mobile

Ian is a professional
IT analyst, a semiprofessional writer
and a pretty amateur
electronic musician.
He likes gadgetry and
loves making gadgets
do things they were
never designed to do

78

Issue 1353

t's that time of year again

(well, that time of the year
for the Android fanbase): the
Mobile World Congress expo
and the unveiling of arguably
the leading Android device,
Samsung's new Galaxy S.
Off to a bit of a slow start,
the original Galaxy S was
released in 2010 against the
then-dominant iPhone 3GS /
4 and made its mark with a
superb AMOLED screen and
also looking suspiciously like
the aforementioned devices.
Things picked up with the
Galaxy S2, the first flagship to
begin to offer the iPhone some
actual opposition, a position
cemented with 2012's Galaxy
S3, a phone still available and
usable today. At this point,
Samsung seemed to be going
from strength to strength, but
the Galaxy S4 wasn't met with
the same acclaim, with many
claiming it too close to the
S3. Spec and sales plateauing
really bit, however, with the S5
arguably the least well received
S series device since the
original. Barely distinguishable
from the S4 visually, were it an
Apple, it would have been that
year's 'S' revision.
And so to 2015 and the
new Galaxy S or Ss, plural, as
there's not one Galaxy S6, but
two. More on that later, though;
lets look at the 'basic' S6.
First thing you notice is
the front still bears the same
design hallmarks as the Galaxy
S3/4/5. The body, however,
resembles another well-known,
non-Android smartphone,
with curved metal sides, small
charging port and tiny speaker
holes. But Samsung would not
be pleased to think of the Galaxy
S6 as the result of a late night
fumble between a Galaxy S4
and an iPhone 6, no no... That's
not to say it isn't attractive, as
this is its most attractive device

since the S2 with bevelled glass

and gorgeous colours. The glass
back, however, didn't work on
the iPhone 4 or the Nexus 4,
and chances are it won't work
here either.
The S6 is the first S device to
no longer feature a removable
back or battery, something
introduced with 2014's Galaxy
Alpha designer device. The
company points to wireless
induction charging and fast
charging as the upside of this,
and 10 minutes for a four-hour
charge isn't to be sniffed at, nor
is the 11-hour talk time.
The screen takes an
unsurprising turn to the QHD
side, while still remaining at
5.1 inches and hewed from
finest AMOLED, giving a very
healthy 577ppi density, pretty
much flooring the competition.
Whether they've finally nailed
pure white on AMOLED is yet to
be seen, though.
Hardware-wise, Samsung is
tight lipped as to the full spec.
All that is known is that it's a
64 bit octo-core Exynos chipset
for the international LTE model
(the one we will get in the UK),
and the device will come with
32, 64 or 128GB storage. That
last part is especially notable,
as not only is the battery nonremovable, there is no micro-SD
card slot either.
And so to the S6 Edge.
Those of you familiar with
Samsung's line may recall a
curio released at the end of
2014, the Note Edge. As the
name suggested, the Note
Edge took the Note 4 and
added an edge, literally, in the
form of a curved OLED screen.
This right-hand edge screen
functioned as an additional
form of interactive screen that
would work in conjunction
with the OS, like a Twitter feed
ticker, for example. It was seen
as a test run and was critically

received well but didn't sell

much, due to the astronomical
price and limited availability.
Samsung seemed pretty
pleased with the results,
though, enough for curved
screens to be unleashed on its
prime product line. The result
of this is the Galaxy S6 Edge,
and it's pretty much an S6 with
some Edge embellishments. For
this taste of the future you'll
pay a hefty premium over the
S6, but given that the S6 is a
device born of its forebears
and the S6 Edge is literally the
cutting edge, there will be
those willing to pay the price
for futuristic bragging rights.
As for Samsung, the S6
needed to be good after two
middling performers. With the
S6 and S6 Edge, the company
should feel it has done enough
for now to continue to live long
and prosper.

Shielded From Boredom

Nvidia's exciting new Shield console casts a
welcome cloud over Andrew Unsworth's TV

although Ive always admired

the idea of one, the consoles
Ive seen, such as the PlayJam
GameStick, havent been as
good as Id hoped.
However, this console has a
trick up its sleeve. Although
its an Android-based console,
itll play PC-quality games
thanks to Nvidias Grid gaming
service. Grid lets you stream
games straight to your Shield
device, whether its the Shield
tablet or the new console,
and the games range from
Lego titles to more graphically
challenging games such as
Metro Last Light Redux and
Saints Row IV. There are
a good number of games
already on the service (tinyurl.
com/o6njw2s), but more are
being added every week.
The Shield
console is
powered by
Nvidias powerful
Tegra X1 mobile
CPU, but even
better than that
is its Maxwellpowered, 256core graphics
chip, the same
type of graphics
processor used in
Nvidias desktop
and mobile
graphics cards.

Nvidia says this graphics chip

will enable games developers
to produce Android games
with PC-quality graphics. Thats
something I think wed all love
to see.
However, Nvidias website
says you need at least a
10Mbps connection to stream
Grid games. As someone who
lives in the industrial heartland
of Britain and still only gets a
3Mbps download speed, Im
of the many people who wont
be able to use the Grid service
thanks to this nations crazy
broadband infrastructure. This
is disappointing. If people cant
access the Grid service, a major
appeal of the Shield console,
even though the problem has
nothing to do with Nvidia,
then people may not fork out
for one.
I wish Nvidia every success
with the Shield console.
Having one device plugged
into your TV that satisfies all
your viewing, listening and
gaming needs is obviously a
good thing, but buyers need
to be convinced before parting
with their cash. The Shield
console could and should
appeal to people who are not
your typical computer geek or
gamer, and I hope Nvidia has
set enough money aside for
promotion to snare such users.
Heres hoping.

Andrew Unsworth has

been writing about
technology for several
years, he's handy with
a spanner, and his
handshaking skills
are second to none

Hardware

efore I kick off this

column properly, may I
first apologise for yet
another column about
Nvidia. Recently, not a week
has gone past without Nvidia
attracting attention, whether
wanted or not. This is partly
because Nvidia seems on fire at
the moment and is seeking to
move into and conquer new
markets, and partly because
last week it didnt properly
brief its marketing department
about the way its GTX 970
graphics card works.
This week, Nvidia has
revealed its Shield console
(tinyurl.com/oxhl3j2), an
entertainment device intended
to revolutionise the way we
acquire and enjoy our music,
films and games. From Nvidias
description of the Shield
console, the device sounds like
a cross between an Apple
TV, an Android-based
games machine
and the OnLive
games streaming
service. Weve
seen Androidbased consoles
before, and

Issue 1353

79

Specialists

Ryan Lambie has loved

videogames since he
first stared up in awe at
a Galaxian arcade
cabinet in his local chip
shop. 28 years on, Ryan
writes about gaming for
Micro Mart. Hes still
addicted to chips and
still useless at Galaxian

The World Warrior

This year sees the release of three of the biggest names in the brawler genre: Dead
Or Alive 5: Last Round, the ultra-violent Mortal Kombat X and Street Fighter V

This week, Ryan checks out the major fighting games on

the horizon, and takes an early look at Lionhead's MMO
Fable Legends...

Gaming

Plug & Play

80

Issue 1353

The one-on-one brawler may

not be quite the phenomenon
it was in the early 90s, when
eager gamers were queuing up
to play games like Street Fighter
II, King Of Fighters or Fatal Fury
in arcades, but 2015 sees the
genre in rude, feisty health.
First, there's Tecmo's Dead Or
Alive 5: Last Round, the latest
update to a game originally
released nearly two years ago.
Out on 30th March, Last Round
provides improved graphics,
additional characters (including
four from Sega's Virtua Fighter
series) and, erm, improved
'jiggle physics'.
A series that has long placed
its emphasis more on fast-paced
action than complex moves and
tactics, Dead Or Alive has, for
some reason, always been sold
on its roster of barely clothed
female fighters. A pity, because
puerile voyeurism aside, the
DOA games have always been
a lot of fun. It's as though
developer Team Ninja is locked
in a battle with the creators of
the Soulcalibur series to see who
can display the most bare flesh in
their fighting games.
The Mortal Kombat series,
meanwhile, has its own selling
point: fatalities and gore. Where

so many videogame franchises

from the 90s have long since
withered and died, Mortal
Kombat has clung on, and its
latest entry, Mortal Kombat X,
is out on 14th April. Familiar
faces like Sub-Zero, Raiden
and Scorpion are joined by a
range of new characters, while
developer NetherRealm Studios
has brought the Mortal Kombat
series up to date with detailed
3D environments and physics
effects. What everyone really
cares about, however, is the
quality of its finishing moves
and, true to form, Mortal
Kombat X looks nastier than
ever: there's an X-ray mode,
which allows you to see which
of your opponent's bones you're
breaking, and it's now possible
to pull off heads, pop out eyes,
melt faces with acid, and all
kinds of other hideous fatalities.
Towering above both Mortal
Kombat and Dead Or Alive is,
of course, the Street Fighter
franchise. Since Capcom
redefined the fighting genre in
the 90s, the Japanese company
has, to its credit, taken good care
of the Street Fighter franchise.
Street Fighter IV was a superb
update, bringing its carefully
balanced combos and iconic
characters to a new generation

while remaining true to the

games that preceded it.
Street Fighter V appears to
continue the trend, with new,
more detailed iterations of
characters like Ryu, Chun-Li and
Charlie, and some spectacularlooking effects when a combo is
successfully executed. Although
we don't know exactly when
Street Fighter V is coming out
yet, we're guessing it's not
too far away; Capcom recently
announced that it's set to launch
the "largest and most ambitious
online beta program in franchise
history" over the next few
months. If Capcom can repeat
the crowd-pleasing brilliance of
Street Fighter IV's multiplayer,
then the franchise and the
fighting genre as a whole
should be in solid form for many
more years to come.
You can keep up to date
with Street Fighter V's progress
at www.capcom-unity.com/
street_fighter.

Online

Announced in January,
Lionhead's Fable Legends
will take the studio's RPG
series online for the first time.
Allowing up to four players to
join forces against a fifth player,
who'll take on the dungeon-

GAMING

Incoming

Lionhead takes its hit RPG online with the forthcoming MMO, Fable Legends. While it's
free to play, the studio maintains that it won't be a "play-to-win" type game

master-like role of controlling

opposing characters, Fable
Legends will, the studio recently
announced, be free-to-play.
Legends will introduce
a two-tier currency system,
with silver and gold coins.
Silver coins will be the most
commonly encountered: either
found or earned by completing
quests, they can be spent on
everything from new equipment
to cosmetic items. Gold,
meanwhile, is purchased with
real-world cash, which will allow
players to get their hands on
equipment more quickly than
collecting silver during quests.
Despite this approach, Lionhead
reassures us that "everything
in Fable Legends that affects
gameplay can be earned by
simply playing the game".
The studio will also monetise
the game via its roster of
characters. "At any time, there
will be four of these Heroes
available to play for free,"
Lionhead says. "We will rotate
the four Heroes available on free
rotation, so you'll have a chance
to play them all."
Here's the potential sticking
point: you could have made a
significant amount of progress
with one character, but after
three weeks, you'll be forced
to choose another. Although
your progress with the previous
character will be saved, the
system could make for a jarring
experience, as you shuttle back

and forth between heroes

with lots of steadily acquired
experience and those with none.
You will, however, be able to
buy characters with gold and
silver and keep them forever,
though we'll have to see how
much that option will cost in
terms of real-world cash or
in-game grind.
Free-to-play minutiae aside,
Fable Legends looks like a
promising MMO. Lionhead
is working on a story mode,
which it will dish out in regular
episodes, but it's the villain's

role in the game that intrigues

us most. For villains, Fable
Legends will unfold like a realtime strategy game, as the
player selects creatures and
traps to place on the game map
and hamper the progress of the
heroes. In-game purchases rear
their heads here too you can
buy creatures and other objects
with silver or gold but it
could, nevertheless, prove to be
a lot of fun.
You can find out more
about Fable Legends at www.
fablelegends.com.

Like a mirage in the middle

of the desert, the PC release
of Grand Theft Auto V seems
to recede further into the
distance as we approach it.
Once scheduled for 24th March,
Rockstar's crime sim has now
been pushed back to the middle
of April its second delay in
recent months.
"Our apologies to PC gamers
worldwide who have been
counting down the days until the
launch of the game," Rockstar
said, "but a bit more time is
needed to ensure that the game
is as polished as possible, and
to make certain that both Heists
and the GTA Online experience
are ready to roll out on day one
for PC."
The good news is that GTA
V certainly looks like a highly
polished advancement on the
game that console owners have
been enjoying for months. And
if the long-awaited Heists the
GTA Online DLC that will add
a series of high-stakes robbery
missions to the mix is all
we're hoping for, then the
PC edition might just be the
definitive version of an already
acclaimed game.
Grand Theft Auto V is now
scheduled for 13th April.

Grand Theft Auto V's long-awaited PC port has received another delay. It's now due out on 13th April

Issue 1353

81

Index

AD INDEX
2/3 CCL

19 Tier1Online

6/7 Morgan

23 Falcon

10/11 PC Specialist

99 Cisco

13 Mesh

100 Microdream

16/17 Aria

To advertise contact Karl Taylor

t: +44 (0)20 7907 6706
e: Karl_Taylor@dennis.co.uk

NOTE TO ADVERTISERS
Micro Mart Dennis Publishing, 30 Cleveland Street, London W1T 4JD. Company registered in England No
1138891. This publication may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form in whole or in part without the
written consent of the publisher. Quotations for re-prints or other use of material are available on application.
THE BUSINESS ADVERTISEMENT DISCLOSURE ORDER 1977 (effective from 1st January 1978) requires all
advertisements by people who seek to sell goods in the course of a business to make that fact clear. It is the
responsibility of the advertiser to comply with the order. Lineage trade ads in Micro Mart carry this *T symbol.
It is an offence for which you may be prosecuted not to advertise the fact that you are a trader.

MICRO MART is published weekly by Dennis Publishing. Subscriptions rates available on request. Micro Mart
welcomes the submission of articles and reviews for publication. Please enclose a stamped self adressed
envelope; otherwise the return of material cannot be guaranteed. Contributions accepted for publication by
Dennis Publishing will be on an all-rights basis. Views or opinions expressed by freelance contributors are not
necessarily those of Dennis Publishing. Advertisements and goods/services offered are the sole responsibility
of the particular advertiser and Dennis Publishing cannot be held in any way responsible. Whilst every care
is taken the publishers cannot be held legally responsible for any errors in articles or advertisements or any
resulting unsatisfactory transactions. We will however investigate incidents on a written complaint. Dennis
Publishing 2006. This publication may not be reproduced in or transmitted in any form in whole or in part
without the written consent of the publishers. ISSN 956-3881. Blimey.

82

Issue 1353

IT

Essentials

84

Issue 1353

TO ADVERTISE CALL
KARL TAYLOR

0207 907 6706

karl_taylor@dennis.co.uk

Classifieds

Please mention Micro Mart when replying to adverts

To place an ad in our classifieds, simply fill in the

form at www.micromart.co.uk or send your ad
by post to Maaya Mistry, Micro Mart, Dennis
Publishing, 30 Cleveland Street, W1T 4JD

HARDWARE FOR SALE

Have you got any old kit lying
around youd like to get rid of?
Fancy making a few pounds while
youre at it? Why not advertise
in the Micro Mart classifieds? Its
easy and its free, just email what
youve got, how much youd like
for it, and your contact details
to micromartclassifieds@gmail.
com, and well do the rest. There
are thousands of readers out
there looking for components
every week, and you may have
something unwanted theyve been
searching for so get in touch and
save your kit from going to the tip!
LAPTOP HARD DRIVE. 160GB
SATA 2.5". WESTERN DIGITAL.
Model: WD1600BEVT. Fully tested.
Perfect working order. Partitioned
and formatted NTFS. Free postage.
Price 22. Paypal accepted.
Email: geofry@tiscali.co.uk
DESKTOP HARD DRIVE. 640GB
Western Digital 3.5" SATA model
WD6400AAKS. Perfect working
order. Partitioned and formatted.
Only used as back-up drive. Free
delivery. Price: 33. PayPal accepted.
Email: geofry@tiscali.co.uk
Vintage Amstrad PC1512 HD20.
Colour Monitor 20MB Hard Drive
5.25 Floppy Original Amstrad
Disks Manuals spare Keyboard
and Mouse. This is a rare fully
functioning collectable. 60.
Tel: (01949) 876235
Email: hc4203@gmail.com

Corsair Vengence 16GB

(2x 8GB) DDR3 Memory
CMSX16GX3M2A1600C10. Never
used but box opened. Selling due to
wrong voltage, these are 1.5V and
I needed 1.35V. Asking 85.00 inc.
postage to the UK.
Email: fabstock1@gmail.com
HP Microserver n40l / windows
7 Pro / 4GB RAM / 400GB drive
/ MS Office 2003. This HP n40l
Microserver is in excellent condition
and comes with Windows 7 reallocated, activated, & completely
updated Feb 2015. Also installed
is Minitools Partition Magic, MS
Office 2003 HP basic, with codes/
coas. Buyer may have Linux Mint,
or a completely bare drive. 2 spare
drive frames. I have the original
packing as per HP original delivery.
So far as I can see, this Microserver
will take 16Gb memory and up
to five hard drives. See it working
before buying, (by arrangement).
No refund under any circumstances.
Collect from Harrogate, North
Yorkshire. 140. Cash on collection.
Delivery might cost 8 via Hermes,
maybe much more to Highlands/
Islands. Payment by Cheque O.K
subject to clearing, Paypal at 25
additional.(to cover their fees).
Tel: (07794) 528857
Email it_central@ntlworld.com
Used Asus Wireless Router for sale.
Dual-band 4 x GB Ethernet Wi-Fi
RT-N66U N-900. 65.00 O.V.N.O.
Selling cause I have no need for it
since upgrade to BT Home Hub 5.
Email: beme12355@googlemail.com

4x 1GB DDR2 Ram (OCZ Nvidia

SLI PC2 6400 epp 4-4-4-15).
40.00 for all 4 + Post/Packing.
Perfect working order.
Email: ken.toole1@virginmedia.com

For sale SKY PLUS and SKY PLUS

HD REMOTEs. Original 7.50
+ P&P please email or call me for
more information.
Tel: David (01616) 888119 Email:
pcmadnessltd@yahoo.co.uk

XFX GeForce Nvidia 8800Gts

Graphics Card For Sale. 40.00 +
Post. In perfect working order
Email: ken.toole1@virginmedia.com

2 x 2GB DDR3 1600 MHz RAM.

Recently taken from a 2012 mac mini.
As new 25.
Email amstereofan@gmail.com

86

Issue 1353

XFX GeForce Nvidia 8800Gts

Graphics Card for Sale. 40.00 +
Post/Packing. Perfect working order.
Email: ken.toole1@virginmedia.com
4x 1 GB DDR2 RAM (Ocz Nvidia
SLI PC2 6400 epp 4-4-4-15)
for Sale. 40.00 for all 4 + Post/
Packing. In perfect working order.
Email: ken.toole1@virginmedia.com
Custom Built modified
watercooled gaming desktop. i5
4670K, R9 280X, Silverstone RV01 USB3, 1000W PSU: parachord
sleeving, Z87M OC Formula, 8GB
Kingston Fury 1866MHz, 180mm
and 120mm Radiator. Numerous
mods, Yellow and Black colour
scheme! No Storage. Email for
pics and info. Buyer collect:
Gloucestershire. 800 ono.
Tel: Adam (07426) 874117 Email:
flaming_monkey95@hotmail.co.uk
Asus A8V motherboard, socket
939. Clips holding CPU cooler
broke, CPU overheated & shut
down. M/B should be OK and
there is 4GB of ram on board.
Free, collect only. North Wales.
Tel: (01286) 678584
Email: gw7hav@googlemail.com
CPU sale. Intel Core 2 Duo
E4400 2.0GHz 10, Intel
Pentium 4 630 3.0GHz 7, Intel
Celeron M 350 1.3GHz 5, Intel
Celeron Mobile Dual core T1500
1.866Ghz 6, Intel Pentium 4
630 HT 3.0Ghz 2MB cache 8,
AMD Athlon 64 3200 5 Athlon
64 3500 6 Athlon 64 3200 Dual
core 10 postage 2.
Tel: Jeremy Gill (02089) 430683
Email: arthur.pewty1@virgin.net
Laptop DDR2 memory sale. 2
Corsair Value Select 533mhz
1GB 18 pair, 2 Hynix 800mhz
2GB 26 pair, 2 Generic 533mhz
1GB 15 pair,1 Generic 800mhz
1GB 10,1 Nanua 666mhz 1GB
, 1 Samsung 666mhz 1GB 8.
Postage included
Tel: Jeremy Gill (02089) 430683
Email: arthur.pewty1@virgin.net
2 x 512MB PC3200 DDR400. These
two sticks were removed from my
working system, now redundant. 5,
plus 1 P&P.
Tel: Alan (02084) 202322
Email: alan@asandco.co.uk

DDR2 memory sale. 2 x Nanua PC2

3700 256MB 6 pair, 2 x HP PC2
4200 256MB 7 pair, 4 x HP PC2
4200 512MB 10 pair or 18 for four.
Tel: Jeremy Gill (02089) 430683
Email: arthur.pewty1@virgin.net
Asus M2N2-SLI Deluxe
motherboard bundle. With AMD
Athlon 64 4000 CPU, 4Gb Corsair
ram, fan, backplate, manual,
driver CD. 40
Email: david.white38@ntlworld.com
IBM/LENOVO SFF BASEUNIT.
P4/ 2.8 H-T, 2GB RAM, 40GB
Hard Drive, CD-Rom, 10/100
Network, sound, USB, Clean
install XP-pro, fully updated,
Office Suite, Anti-Virus, & all
usual utilities, COA Licence
Sticker & Install media, 25
Tel: Pat (07710) 348638
Email: pat4cars@aol.com
FUJITSU-SIEMENS
MINITOWER. Pentium D 2.8
Dual-Core, 2GB RAM, 80GB
Hard Drive, DVD-RW, Gigabit
network, sound, Clean Install
XP-pro, fully updated, Office
suite, Anti-Virus & all usual
Utilities, Legal COA sticker &
System Image. 35
Tel: Pat (07710) 348638
Email: pat4cars@aol.com
DELL OPTIPLEX GX240 SFF.
P4/1.6, 20GB hard Drive, 768MB
RAM, CD-Rom, 10/100 network,
Sound, Front USB, Clean install
XP-pro, fully updated, works
OK but slow by modern
standards, 15.
Tel: Pat (07710) 348638
Email: pat4cars@aol.com
LG Flatron W2246S 22 monitor
with power and VGA leads. No dead
pixels in very good condition. 50
Buyer Collects (Verwood, Dorset)
Tel: (01202) 826057 Email:
geoffandcynth@themailspot.com
2x 1GB PC2100-648. These two
matched sticks were removed from
one of my redundant systems. Plus
one PC2700 (DDR 333Mhz) and
one 512Mb PC3200 DDR400 stick.
All for 5 plus 2 P&P.
Tel: Alan (02084) 202322
Email: alan@asandco.co.uk

Classifieds

Please mention Micro Mart when replying to adverts

SAMSUNG GALAXY Tab 3 for

sale. 2mths old, 8GB, wi-fi, 80
open to offers. Willing to post at
a charge.
Tel: Christine (01386) 831836
Two 120GB Maxtor DiamondPlus
9 Drives plus one 80GB
DiamondPlus 10. Can be supplied
with two plug-in caddies. No
reasonable offer refused.
Tel: Alan (02084) 202322
Email: alan@asandco.co.uk
HP Elitebook 8760w i7 2820QM
@ 2.2GHz 32GB RAM 750GB
HDD Quadro 4000M GPU. Only
2 small marks on whole machine.
Cost 3500 when new. 900 ONO
Tel: (07772) 926632
Email: stedaley19@gmail.com
WD 2TB desktop hard disk.
Formatted ready for an OS. Runs
very nicely. New laptop means
my desktop items must go! 40
includes free tracked postage.
Tel: (01619) 501218
Email: jmbest2@sky.com
Toshiba C500D-B-11 laptop.
Virtually new cost 279 will accept
150 O.N.O.
Tel: (01217) 535324
Intel 3930K processor. Used, but
not overclocked. No box or fan.
220 ono. Will ship to UK address.
Tel: Tim (01623) 624509 Email
tim.stirland@btinternet.com.
Amstrad PcW 9256 in good
working order with software. Offers.
Tel: John Adams (02088) 641202
Email: meeching@uwclub.net
Asus P8Z68-v LX socket 1155
motherboard. Original box 1/0
cover user guide driver disk fitted
core i3 2100 CPU 3-1GHz and 8GB
PC1300 memory. No fan. Working
fast and fine. 125 + free postage.
Tel: (01619) 501218
Email: jmbest2@sky.com
SoundBlaster Audigy SE 7.1
soundcard for sale. Perfect
working order. Selling due to not
being needed any more. Just 12
plus postage.
Tel: Ian (01132) 629028
Email: ianmatthewuk@yahoo.co.uk

Asus p8h61-mle motherboard

socket 1155. Original box
1/0 cover driver disk manual
together with Celeron 91620
dual core CPU and 4 9195
pc1300 memory. Working fine.
No fan. 70 + free postage.
Tel: (01619) 501218
Email: jmbest2@sky.com
Toshiba Satellite SA60 laptop.
Model PSA60E-092058EN.
Windows XP Home Edition with
Certificate of Authenticity. For
spares or repair - broken power
connector on mobo. No power
cord. Otherwise in very good
condition. 40.00 + p&p
Tel: Peter Scarth (01452) 372350
Email: pscarth@blueyonder.co.uk
Apple Touch 32 GB iPod.
Virtually new cost 199 will a
ccept 100 O.N.O
Tel: (01217) 535324
400GB IDE drive 3.5 inch
formatted ready for use. Only
20 plus 3 for p&p. I can load
genuine XP Professional from
Microsoft with genuine certificate
of authenticity for an extra 10.
Refurbished.
Tel: Dave Thomas (07828) 982930 or
(01942) 706571
Email: davethomas96@aol.com
Amstrad PcW 9256 in good
working condition with software.
Offers.
Tel: John Adams (02088) 641202
Email: meeching@uwclub.net
Panasonic KX-P7105 mono
laser duplex printer. Some
toner left. Up to XP only hence
25. Buyer collects from N2,
East Finchley
Tel: (02083) 431527
Email: pnnikiel@gmail.com

HP 4GB memory Microserver

with two hard disc drives.
110. One with Linux MINT.
Other with Linux FreeNAS.
This will also run Windows 7
and Windows Server or Home
Server. (Win 8 Ive not tried
it) Two spare HD slots with
appropriate caddies. Slot for
your SATA DVD drive also,
(or use external usb or DVD
drive if needed. four usb sockets
on front, two on rear. VGA,
network, power sockets on rear.
Supplied in original HP box with
CD and leaflets etc.
Collect from Harrogate, North
Yorks, or posted via Hermes
for 12 (or less if I can do it
cheaper). Cash on inspection
and collection (Highlands and
Islands might obviously cost
more to be delivered).
Tel: (01423) 872045
Email: it_central@ntlworld.com
400GB IDE drive 3.5 inch formatted
ready for use. Only 20 plus 3
for p&p. I can load genuine XP
Professional from Microsoft with
genuine certificate of authenticity
for an extra 10. Refurbished.
Tel: Dave Thomas (07828) 982930
or (01942) 706571
Email: davethomas96@aol.com
EPSON PRINTERS T715 12
multipack F.O.C. to good home,
just pay postage 2.50. (Tesco
equivalent original cartridges
120 current special offer!)
Perfect crisp printing etc.
Tel: Pete Dew: (07526) 988594
EPSON PRINTERS T711 6
multipack F.O.C., just pay postage
2. Perfect crisp printing etc. May
have others F.O.C. if model older
than 12 months.
Tel: Pete Dew (07526) 988594

Amstrad PcW 9256 in good working

condition w/ software. Offers.
Tel: John Adams (02088) 641202
Email: meeching@uwclub.net

Lexmark Printer Z601,

still working and in good
condition, 25.
Tel: (01386) 832758

GEFORCE 1GBYTE 24- PCI

express PC card. HDMI DVI
VGA PC video card. 10 plus
p&p 4.50. 2 for sale. 10 each.
Tel: (01707) 339063
Email: awhishaw@aol.com

Intel 3930K processor. Used,

but not overclocked. No box
or fan. 220 ono. Will ship to
UK address.
Tel: Tim (01623) 624509
Email tim.stirland@btinternet.com.

Apple Mac G4 Tower. 400MHZ

cpu, 640MB Ram, 2xHardDrive
40GB,20GB. DVD & ZIP Drive.
OS X v10.3 Panther+OS9. NO
KEYBOARD OR MOUSE. 25
ono Buyer collects
Tel: (07941) 254296
Email: jasonnd@hotmail.com
Wireless Motorised IP
Surveillance Camera. White
In Colour - Control from your
mobile phone/tablet/pc when
out of the home - ideal for home
security, baby monitoring, has
sound and remote recording etc
BNIB - 25 Price includes post
and packing.
Email:omendata@gmail.com
Dell Inspiron 660 Intel i5
QUAD CORE with ACER 23
Inch LED monitor. AS NEW.
Operating System: Windows
8.1. MPN:620MT. Memory
(RAM): 4 GB. Hard Drive: 1TB.
Processor Type: Intel Core i5.
Primary Drive: Optical DVD+/RW, Processor Speed: 3.0 GHz,
Features: Graphics Card GT620
1GB. Acer LED monitor 23
HD. 520
Tel: Hitesh Rao (01163) 198895
PRINTER CARTRIDGES.
Suitable for Epson printer range
T711 - T714. Work perfectly. 50
pence each, plus postage (brand
new unused sealed). Over a
dozen available.
Tel: (07541) 222678
Email: petedew@gmx.co.uk
PRINTERS T481-T486 6 multipack
F.O.C. to good home, just pay
postage 2. Perfect crisp printing etc.
Tel: Pete Dew (07526) 988594
INKJET CARTRIDGES suitable for
Epson Printers T711 - T714 range,
and T481 - T486 range. 79 pence
each, plus postage. Work perfectly,
good crisp printing quality.
Tel: (07526) 988594
Email: petedew@gmx.co.uk
Powered PCI Express x1 To x16
Riser Card Extension via USB 3.0 +
Power Cable Adaptor. Allows you
to add an extra Pci-ExpressX16 slot
to your Pc converting an existing
x1 slot to x16. Useful for adding
an Extra graphics card to create a

Issue 1353

87

Classifieds

Crossfire triple configuration or

for Bitcoin data mining up to 7
cards can be installed using these
adaptors. Quality model - Brand
new still boxed. 10. Price inc. P&P
Email:omendata@gmail.com
Laptop Removeable drive tray.
Allows you to add an extra hard
drive to your laptop by taking out
the CD/DVD drive. This device
inserts into the Cd/Dvd Empty
Slot and holds 1 Hard Drive.
Excellent Engineers Gadget Great for data recovery or just
beefing up your laptop. Two types
available - standard Sata To Sata or
Sata To Ide (Pata) Slot type. Brand
New Still In Box. 20.
Email: omendata@gmail.com
Amstrad PCW 9256. In perfect
working order including on-top
printer with a few 3" disks. Offers.
Tel: John Adams (02088) 641202
Email: meeching@uwclub.net
2 HP Laserjet 3100 printer-faxcopier-scanners. In good working
order. 25 each.
Tel: John Adams (02088) 641202
Email: meeching@uwclub.net
Lian Li PC-X2000 Computer
Case. Supports mATX, ATX,
eATX; hot swap SATA drives,
six 3.5" & two 2.5" hot swap disc
holders. Three 140mm intake
plus two 80mm and one 140mm
exhaust fans. 140.
Tel: Ian (01932) 856971
Email: a2345@btinternet.com
1.5TB SATA drive. Fully
refurbished by government
acknowledged company. All data
taken off (some drives are still
under Western Digital warranty)
ONLY 40 including P&P
Tel: Dave Thomas (01942) 706572
Email: davethomas96@aol.com
1TB SATA drive. Fully
refurbished by government
acknowledged company. All data
taken off (some drives are still
under Western Digital warranty)
ONLY 38 including P&P
Tel: Dave Thomas (01942) 706572
Email: davethomas96@aol.com
Blueberry I-MAC. Good condition,
all in working order, 55.
Tel: (01386) 832758

88

Issue 1353

Please mention Micro Mart when replying to adverts

2TB Western Digital SATA

drive. Model WD2002FYPS
64mb cache, fully refurbished
by government acknowledged
company. All data taken off
(some drives are still
under WD warranty) ONLY 50
including P & P
Tel: Dave Thomas (01942) 706572
Email: davethomas96@aol.com
Motherboard Bundle. 2.4Ghz AMD
Athlon XP 32bit CPU 512MB Ram
5xpci 2IDE LAN sound good for
gaming, office work, surfing the net,
watching movies generally a good
all round system spec can slightly be
changed if required please email or
call me for a price.
Tel: David (01616) 888119
Email pcmadnessltd@yahoo.co.uk
750GB SATA drive. Perfect
working order. Formatted ready
to use. Only 25 plus 3 p&p.
Genuine Windows XP with COAy
can be pre installed for 10.
Tel: Dave Thomas (01942) 706572
Email: davethomas96@aol.com
4GB (2 x 2GB) of OCZ Reaper PC2
6400 ddr2 memory. Fast gaming
memory, used but in excellent
condition, 49.95 inc postage.
Email: baslake@blueyonder.co.uk
HP 5101 5102 5103 Netbooks and
Notebooks. Lots of parts available
down to the tiniest screw. Contact
with requirements.
Tel: (01892) 833413
Email: fwfkent@gmail.com
Retro Commodore 64 with
1541 disktrive tapedeck. All in
original boxes, mags. Pick up
from Somerset. 75 ono.
Tel: (01278) 691606
Brand new USB brackets. Add
2 extra USB2 ports to your
computer at little cost. Simple
to fit cable connects onto
the motherboard and uses a
spare slot on the back of your
computer. No drivers required.
Please email or call for a price.
Tel: David (01616) 888119
Email: pcmadnessltd@yahoo.co.uk
6 P3/4 PC bases for sale. 100 the
lot. All with XP. Must be collected.
Tel: (02387) 333212

Email: zen96403@zen.co.uk
MAC BOOK PRO A1151.
Spares and repairs 17 " screen
2.16GHz Intel CPU looks in
good condition screen appears to
work. Please email or call me for
a price and more information.
Tel: David (01616) 888119
Email: pcmadnessltd@yahoo.co.uk
Six p3/p4 PC with XP. 100 the
lot. Buyer collects. Get in touch
for more information.
Tel: (02380) 733312
Email: zen96403@zen.co.uk
Socket 775 System. Coolermaster
Case, audio + USB. Asus P5KPLAM EPU E6600 CPU. 250
GB Hdd. DVDRW, ATI 5450.
Boxes, drivers. Samsung 19"
Monitor HDMI USB. Keyboard
mouse. Windows 7 Professional
SP1. 100 collect from Louth,
Lincolnshire.
Tel: (01507) 602914
Email: flipinek@hotmail.co.uk
500GB SATA drive. 3.5 formatted
ready for use. Software can be
installed for an extra charge.
Windows 7 extra 35 includes
disk and certificate of authenticity.
Only 23 including P&P.
Tel: Dave Thomas (01942) 706572
Email: davethomas96@aol.com
Vintage Apple Macintosh
Classic II PC for sale. Complete
with keyboard, mouse and
microphone. Offers.
Tel: 07733 628986
Email 576924@tiscali.co.uk
AGP, PCI and PCI-e graphics cards.
Please email or call me for a price.
Tel: David (01616) 888119
Email: pcmadnessltd@yahoo.co.uk
2 x 2GB Samsung DDR3 pc38500 1066 SODIMM. 204 pin
as new laptop memory. 15 inc
postage to inland UK.
Email: jvital@mail2web.com
Dell OptiPlex 755 (80 GB, Intel
Core 2 Duo, 2.33 GHz E6550,
1GB memory, DVD/CDRW)
Ultra small form factor. Fantastic
small and very fast computer.
You will need to load the drivers.
XP Pro or Vista Business can

be loaded for an extra 10. The

hard drive and memory can be
upgraded for an extra cost. 70
plus 10 for delivery.
Tel: Dave Thomas (01942) 706572
Email: davethomas96@aol.com
Motherboard Bundle. 3Ghz
AMD 64bit CPU 512MB Ram
5xpci 2xSATA 2IDE 1Gb LAN 6
channel sound firewire. Comes
with driver CD and manual.
Good for gaming, office work,
surfing the net, watching
movies, generally a good all
round system. Spec can slightly
be changed if required. Please
email or call me for a price.
Tel: David (01616) 888119
Email: pcmadnessltd@yahoo.co.uk
Desktop cases. AT and ATX
types and tower and flatbed form
factor different sizes and colours
can be posted or picked up from
Manchester please email or call
me with your requirements.
Tel: David (01616) 888119 Email:
pcmadnessltd@yahoo.co.uk
PC gaming hardware. I have 1x
force feedback steering wheel, 1x
force feedback joystick, 1x normal
joystick, lots of game pads. Please
email or call me for a price.
Tel: David (01616) 888119
Email: pcmadnessltd@yahoo.co.uk
6x P314 PC bases for sale,
100 the lot, all with XP, must be
collected.
Tel: (02380) 733312
Email: zen96403@zen.co.uk
Laptop RAM. 2x1GB PC3-8500
DDR3 1067MHz pulled form a
working mac book pro but can be
used in other laptops this is the
quickest way to boost your laptops
speed. Please email or call for price.
Tel: David (01616) 888119 Email:
pcmadnessltd@yahoo.co.uk
Internal 3 1/4 floppy drives.
Choice of white/black/silver/no
face plate. Please email or call me
for a price.
Tel: David (01616) 888119
Email: pcmadnessltd@yahoo.co.uk

Classifieds

Please mention Micro Mart when replying to adverts

Brand new Laptop bag. Still sealed

in the plastic bag and never used
(it came as part of a bundle).
Please email or call me for a price.
Tel: David (01616) 888119
Email: pcmadnessltd@yahoo.co.uk
Brand new flatbed scanner. Still
boxed and never used (it came as
part of a bundle) Please email or
call for a price.
Tel: David (01616) 888119
Email: pcmadnessltd@yahoo.co.uk
Internal Card Reader. Compatible
with most memory cards. Also has
a USB port. Colour: black or silver.
Please email or call me for a price.
Tel: David (01616) 888119
Email: pcmadnessltd@yahoo.co.uk
CISCO CONSOLE CABLES. I
have a lot of Cisco console cables
all new let me know how many
you would like please email or
call me for a price and more
information.
Tel: David (01616) 888119
Email: pcmadnessltd@yahoo.co.uk

HARDWARE WANTED
Trying to breathe life back
into an old machine? Why
not submit a wanted ad and
see if any of the thousands of
computer enthusiasts who read
the magazine each week have
what youre looking for?
WANTED: Bluetooth dongle and
driver for Philips Crystal 650.
Telephone: (01994) 231112
Email alancox2823@gmail.com
WANTED: Working Dot Matrix
Printer in Good Condition. Thanks!
Email: printer.20.odaily@
spamgourmet.com
WANTED: Acorn computer either
an A5000 or A7000. Also book on
teaching yourself binary.
Tel: (07817) 861011
Email: Johnhaviland73@gmail.com
WANTED: Corsair PSU cable bag.
Please email me if you can.
Email: Paul@planetvoodoo.co.uk
Wanted: HD 3850 Graphics card,
must be AGP. Tel: (07817) 861011

Wanted: Fully working

mainboard for AMD socket
AM2+/AM3, micro ATX size.
Must use DDR2 RAM.
Tel: Brian Taylor (07570) 452557
Email: bmorgant@yahoo.co.uk
Wanted: Factory system restore
disc for a Dell Inspiron 1750.
Tel: Darren Day (07707) 556193
Email: ddshaggy@btinternet.com

SOFTWARE FOR SALE

Do you have any old software
that you simply don't use? Why
not advertise is with us and see
if anyone else can make use of
it you may well be surprised
to find that someone is looking
for exactly what you don't need!
Cyberlink PowerDVD 12
Standard. Runs under Windows
8, 7, Vista or XP. Original CD
with unused product key 7.50
Tel: Ian (01932) 856971
Email: a2345@btinternet.com
Nuance Omnipage 18. OCR
Runs under Windows 8, 7, Vista
or XP, Original CD with unused
product key 25.
Tel: Ian (01932) 856971
Email: a2345@btinternet.com
Acronis True Image Home 2012.
Bootable CD. Application runs
under Windows 8, 7, Vista or
XP. Original Acronis CD with
unused product key 5.
Tel: Ian (01932) 856971
Email: a2345@btinternet.com
Acronis True Image Home 2012.
Bootable CD. Application runs
under Windows 8, 7, Vista or
XP. Original Acronis CD with
unused product key 5.
Tel: Ian (01932) 856971
Email: a2345@btinternet.com
Windows 7 ULTIMATE 32 Bit
and 64Bit DVD disks incl. SP1
This is my "Get Genuine Kit"
from Microsoft not OEM. New
install or legalise your copy with
full Product Key. only 50 incl.
reg. post
Email: Dave ochdgh@aol.com
Norton Family Premier 2.0. Runs

under Windows 8, 7, Vista or XP,

Original Symantec unused
product key 15.
Tel: Ian (01932) 856971 Email:
a2345@btinternet.com
Microsoft Office 97
Professional. Original disc with
key 18 inc postage.
Tel: Andrew (01376) 512118
Windows XP Professional. New
and sealed. Book, software
and license (certificate of
authenticity) 100% genuine and
unopened. (Dell branded but
will install on any machine)
ONLY 15 including P&P.
Tel: Dave Thomas (07828) 982930
or (01942) 706571
Email: davethomas96@aol.com
Cyberlink PowerDVD 12
Standard. Runs under Windows 8,
7, Vista or XP. Original CD with
unused product key 7.50
Tel: Ian (01932) 856971
Email: a2345@btinternet.com
Nuance Omnipage 18. OCR
for Windows 8, 7, Vista or XP,
Original CD with unused product
key 25.
Tel: Ian (01932) 856971
Email: a2345@btinternet.com
HP Windows XP Pro SP2 Re-Install
Cd. Allows You To Restore Your
HP PC / Laptop Without A Licence
Key. Brand New, Packed. 10. Price
includes p&p.
Email:omendata@gmail.com
Windows Vista 32bit for sale.
Genuine item with genuine product
key. 35 including P&P.
Tel: Ian (01132) 629028 Email:
ianmatthewuk@yahoo.co.uk

SOFTWARE WANTED
Wanted: Windows 98 CD ROM
operating system with boot disk,
instruction manual and serial
number. Tel: Craig (07867) 930265
or 01912093677
Email: craigtin44@hotmail.com
Wanted: LG GSA 2164 D software
disc to replace broken original.
Tel: Glen Fremantle (01387)248976
Email:bldamsys@yahoo.co.uk

IMPORTANT
BUYING ADVICE
We work very hard to
police our classified
ads, and make them
as secure as possible.
However, please do
your bit too and use the
following guidelines:
Never - NEVER - pay by
bank transfer or post out cash,
unless you know the trader
already, or are sure it is okay
to do so. Pay by cheque, Paypal,
Nochex etc wherever possible.
Be wary of anyone who insists
on you paying by the above
methods if in doubt, get us
to check them out by mailing
editorial@micromart.co.uk
Keep copies of all
correspondence
When sending out goods, at
the least obtain a certificate of
posting from the Post Office
If you are in any doubt,
feel free to send us a mail
via editorial@micromart.
co.uk.
Every year, thousands of
successful transactions
take place through our
classifieds, and that's just
how we like it.
Help us help you
keep them one of the
safest and most secure
places to buy and sell
computer kit.

Issue 1353

89

ASK
AARON

Meet Aaron Birch.

Hes here to help
you with any
general upgrading,
software and system
building issues. Hes
got advice aplenty,
and youre very
much welcome to it!
Send your questions to:

Aaron Bich
Micro Mart
Dennis Publishing
30 Cleveland Street
London
W1T 4JD

Contact Aaron by email at:

aaron@micromart.co.uk

Please try to keep your

queries brief and limit
them to just one question
per letter, simply so we
can squeeze in as many as
we can each week. Please
include relevant technical
information too.

Aaron
90

Issue 1353

Window Locks

I've been a reader of the magazine for a good

few years now, and find it really helpful and
informative. I've recently had a small windfall
and built myself a new rig with the remaining
money after getting my home up to scratch, and
have gone for Windows 7 rather than Windows
8. I have a Samsung 250GB 840 EVO SSD as my
system drive and a WD 1TB HDD, split into three
partitions, as storage.
However, I have a problem with placing and
sizing windows on the desktop in as much as
it doesn't matter where I size and place them,
when I reopen them they seem to open in a
different screen location. I often need the three
WD partitions open to move items around
and find it annoying and frustrating having to
manually size and place them. Is there any way to
make Windows 7 remember the size and position
that I place them in?
I have looked in the registry (without making
any changes) and have found a key named
WindowMetrics, under HKEY_CURRENT_USER/
Control Panel/Desktop. Could you please tell me
if there a registry edit I could make to resolve
this problem, and am I even on the right track?
I tried Window Manager, but the trial has
expired, and there doesn't seem to be much help
online. If there is any other software you could
recommend, I would appreciate it. If you can
help, many thanks in advance.
Moss

It's crazy that Windows isn't able to remember the

placement and positioning of its own windows,
but sadly, it's the case for the most part, and the
only real way to add the kind of functionality
you're looking for is to use a third-party program.
The registry can be used to tinker, but it's not
really advised. The key you found deals with
window positioning, but won't really help here.
This being the case, I'd have to advise the use
of other programs, such as Window Manager,
which is one of the best options. As you've found,
however, it's not free, and if you don't really want
to pay for this feature, an alternative is needed.
A good option is an older program called
WinSize2 (winsize2.sourceforge.net/en). This
should still work for Windows 7 and is used
by a lot of people to add the very functionality
you're looking for. It's also free, which ticks all
of the boxes.
Other options you may want to check out
include MaxTo (www.winsplit-revolution.com)
and AutoSizer 1.71 (www.southbaypc.com/
AutoSizer). MaxTo is a replacement for the older
tool WinSplit Revolution, and sadly, isn't free, but
AutoSizer is free and should also be useful. Like
many options, this memorises window title names,
along with their position and dimensions. So once
you close and reopen them, they should open as
you left them.
Autosizer is one option for users wishing to keep
windows positioning and size locked

THE
EXPERTS

Testing Patience

I am having problems with my HP PSC 1500 all-in-one printer.

Every time I turn it on, it prints a test page.
I have cleared the print queue, but it continues to print a test
page, even when printing a letter or other document.
I've tried everything I can to clear this problem but without
success. The Help and Support files are a waste of time.
I'm getting very frustrated, especially due to the amount of
ink and paper being wasted and the cost of replacement ink
cartridges.
Can you suggest a solution to this problem, please?
Nina

and the alignment process should begin. Allow this to finish, and
when it's done, remove the test page.
You should now be able to turn off the printer and then turn
it on again as much as you like without being harassed into
performing the alignment test.

Some of HP's printer have a rather annoying and nagging alignment

process, so it's best to get it out of the way quickly

I can sympathise with you on this one, Nina. There are a few
HP printers that have this same problem, including a couple I've
owned, and until it's sorted it can, indeed, be quite costly in
terms of ink and paper. Luckily, there's a simple way around it.
The problem isn't actually a fault, as it may seem, but is just
the way the printer deals with cartridge changes. Basically, it's
asking for the calibration process to be completed, and until it is,
it'll keep trying to complete this test. So to banish the problem,
you just need to perform the full alignment a process that HP
doesn't do a great job of explaining. This isn't helped by this
rather obnoxious insistence of the printer to get it done.
To begin, turn off the printer and then load some paper. Turn
on the printer and allow it to print a test page. When this is
done, lift the scanner lid and place the test page face down on
the glass and close it. Now, press the Start button on the device,

Browser Migration

After many years of dependable browsing, Firefox has succeeded

in forcing me away, thanks to a never-ending series of crashes,
lock ups, errors and now the total inability to open any web
pages without the browser shutting down. I've uninstalled,
reinstalled, run in Safe Mode, removed add-on, you name it. Still,,
Firefox just refuses to work.
t, but to be
I'm aware that there's probably some way to fix it,
honest, I've had enough. Firefox was a great browser
er once, but
now I find it's just a buggy mess, and I would like to move to
pastures new.
So I've decided to give Google Chrome a go, as I've
've heard
it's a very good browser, and one that a lot of people
ple use
e any
as their main app. I have one question first: is there
way to migrate all of my Firefox settings to Chrome?
e?
In particular, I'm keen to keep my bookmark toolbar
ar
es.
links and, if possible, passwords and other favourites.
I don't want to lose them. Because of this concern,
I've held off on moving to Chrome, so I'd
appreciate your input.
Graham

first open the new browser, you should see all your bookmarks
and other favourites.
Google's Chrome browser can import a lot of your old browser's
settings, so there's no need to manually add in everything

Chrome is a very good browser and one a lot of

Firefox users have migrated to for one reason or
another, including technical problems. Luckily,
as part of the installation, you can carry over
a lot of Firefox data, saving you plenty of time
and effort. This data includes favourites, the
bookmark toolbar (which will be recreated in
Chrome) and even some passwords and logins,
although not all may make it.
Simply install Chrome, and when prompted,
allow it to import date from Firefox, and when you

Isssue 1353
Issue

91

ASK
JASON

Meet Jason
DAllison, a veteran
of Micro Marts panel
of experts. Hes here
to help with any
technical questions,
including anything
to do with tablets or
smartphones, as well
as PCs
Send your questions to:

Jason DAllison
Micro Mart
Dennis Publishing
30 Cleveland Street
London
W1T 4JD

Contact Jason by email at:

jason@micromart.co.uk

While we try to cover as many

questions as we can, we regret
that Jason cannot answer your
questions personally, but hell cover
as many as he possibly can each
week. Please ask one question per
letter and remember to include the
full specification of your computer,
including its operating system.

Jason

92

Issue 1353
1350

Chrome Finish

I recently bought a
Chromecast. Its in the HDMI
port on the lounge TV and
happily streaming Netflix via
my Hudl tablet (the original
model). On the Hudl Ive also
installed the AllCast app, so I
can now stream locally stored
content, files Ive downloaded
to the micro-SD card. For some
reason, though, not all files
work the TV just goes blank.
Do you think the Chromecasts
faulty, or havent I set
something up properly?
George, TalkTalk
Nothings faulty or set up
incorrectly, George. Rest easy
about that. The problem is that
the Chromecast supports only
a very limited set of containers
and codecs. Containers can be
identified by a files extension,
and these are listed below.
.mp4 (video and audio)
.webm (video)
.wav (audio)
.aac (audio)
.mp3 (audio)
Containers can hold media
encoded in a variety of audio
and video codecs, but in the
case of the Chromecast only the
following are suitable. These are
the ones necessary to support
the Chromecasts apps and
delivery methods Netflix, the
BBC iPlayer, Google Play Movies,
and so on.
H.264 (video, used in .mp4)
VP8 (video, used in .webm)
HE-AAC (audio, used in .aac
and .mp4)
AAC LC (audio, used in .aac
and .mp4)
MP3 (audio, used in .mp3 and
.mp4)
Vorbis (audio, used in .webm)
WAV (audio, used in .wav)
I expect the videos youre
struggling with dont use the
right containers or codecs.

Banned Width?

Many videos downloaded from

the web especially those
from dubious sources use
the .avi container, which is a
non-starter. Also, while the
audio in such files is often
MP3, the video will typically
be encoded in DivX or Xvid
(derivatives of MPEG-4).
Again, thats a non-starter.
The answer is to transcode
(convert). The are transcoding
tools that let you tweak every
possible parameter a codec has
to offer, and you can waste
days trying to achieve optimum
quality. Most of us, though,
want a tool that gets the job
done without fuss quick and
dirty. Try the accurately but
unimaginatively titled H.264
Encoder: www.h264encoder.

My current PCs getting on a bit, but its still

reliable and does the business. However, its an
LGA 1156 system, using a Core i3-530 and an
ASRock H55M Pro. Naturally, there are no USB
3.0 ports, so Id like to add some. Transcends

com. Its free and weighs in at

under 10MB (under 30MB once
installed).
It really is a click-and-go
affair, yet the results are
perfectly acceptable (use the
High Quality preset). Even on
my ancient Turion II M520
laptop, a one-hour video can
be transcoded in only around
twenty minutes.
Note Another option is to
buy a 99p micro-HDMI cable
and get the videos onto your
TV that way. The Hudl and
Hudl 2 are quite unusual these
days in having built-in microHDMI ports.
Making videos Chromecast-ready
doesnt get any easier than this

two-port TS-PDU3 PCIe 1 card, costing about

8.50, seems to fit the bill, but I think I read some
while ago that there are PCIe bandwidth issues on
some older motherboards. Am I likely to come a
cropper?
C Howell, Rutland

THE
EXPERTS
In theory, USB 3.0 moves data at 625MB/s. Sadly, the 1 PCIe slots
on LGA 1156 motherboards that is, the PCIe slots coming from the
chipset or southbridge rather than from the CPU conform not to
PCIe 2.x but only to PCIe 1.x (LGA 1155 and later platforms rectify
this). Throughput in each direction is therefore 250MB/s, whereas its
500MB/s for PCIe 2.x. On paper, youd be wasting your money if you

installed a USB 3.0 card into your ASRock H55M Pro.

Or would you? In practice, USB 3.0 actually tops out at about
200MB/s (USB 2.0, with its theoretical limit of 60MB/s, hits the wall
at about 40MB/s). Acquiring that two-port Transcend card may
not be such a bad idea, then. Of course, both ports will share the
slots single 250MB/s bandwidth allocation, so realistically youll be
limited to one USB 3.0 device at a time. Plug in two devices and the
bandwidth for each will plummet.
Heres a question for you, though. What do you plan to use
USB 3.0 for? Really, its only purpose is for transferring data to,
from, or between external storage devices. For all other tasks
with the possible exception of high-end printers USB 2.0 is
easily fast enough. Remember, too, that even the best spinners
(mechanical hard drives) have transfer rates of only about
150MB/s some green or backup-aimed drives offer barely half
that. You may not see the benefits from USB 3.0 you expect.
Often, USB 3.0 only becomes worthwhile if youre using SSDs
or top-drawer memory sticks. Having said that, as the Transcend
card costs just 8.50, why worry?
Is it worth fitting a USB 3.0 card to an older motherboard?

Two Sides To Every

Story

The contract on my Galaxy S4 finishes in

a month or so, and Ive got my eyes on
the Galaxy S6 Edge as its replacement.
As you know, the S6 Edge is pretty much
the same as the standard S6 but with
curved sides on the screen. Can you tell
me what resolution these curved sides
are? The single curved side on the Galaxy
Note Edge is 2,560 160, added to the
main panel. Are the sides of the S6 Edge
the same?
Paul, Gmail
The panel on the S6
Edge has a resolution
of 2,560 1,440, and
Im afraid that includes
the curved sides. The
panel on the Note Edge
also has a resolution of
2,560 1,440 but thats
just the *primary* panel. As
de
you say, Paul, the curved side
ry
is its own thing, a secondary
panel with a resolution of
2,560 160. Technically,
theres only one panel, but the
d as
two sections are configured
separate arrays.
On the Note Edge, when youre
browsing the web, say, or watching
a video, the image fills onlyy the
hings
primary panel. This keeps things
ng off
centred, with nothing rolling
nse.
the side. Makes perfect sense.
The curved section can
also be used for news

tickers, media controls, Facebook updates,

and so on. It comes into play in various
ways, too, with the excellent S Pen stylus.
On the S6 Edge, however,
*everything* rolls over the sides. For
this reason, the curves are gentle, much
gentler than the curve on the Note Edge.
If you look at the Note Edge straight-on,
the right-hand side appears to have no
bezel. With the S6 Edge, the bezels are
obvious. When the phones face-down,
the sides the slivers still visible can
be made to flash different colours for
different contacts when calls come in,
but thats about it. There are no
proper news tickers or anything.
In my view, Samsungs dropped
the ball with the S6. With the S6
Edge, Im not sure its even on
the pitch. The engineers were
clearly told to push form over
function, with the sole purpose
of the curved sides being to
add sex appeal. Worse,
both models lack
a micro-SD
slot and

removable battery proud mainstays of

every Galaxy S released previously.
Furthermore, the S5 was waterproof and dust-proof, despite having a
detachable rear cover (to allow access
to the battery and micro-SD slot).
Quite an achievement. The S6 and S6
Edge have sealed, unibody frames, yet
utterly bizarrely Samsung has elected
to ditch the water-proof and dust-proof
abilities altogether (apparently these will
be brought back with the S6 Active).
Staggering.
Galaxy S phones are often maligned
gp
for being
plastickyy ((a flawed observation,
Samsu
I reckon), and its clear Samsungs
now
attempting to address this by using
res
premium materials. As a result,
the
companys lost focus and the phones have
lost their identity. The new m
models are
little else but iPhones running Android.
you needs,
If the S6 Edge still meets your
Paul, by all means crack open the piggy
ma sure you
bank. Please just make
unde
understand
what
youre
buying.

Samsungs
Galaxy S6 and
Gal
Galaxy
S6 Edge:
ov function?
form over

Issue 1353
Issu

93

Crowdfunding Corner
Like birds of a feather, these two Kickstarter projects are sticking together.
Well, one sticks on your screen and the other sticks on any other surface. Fun!
ScreenStick

Gaming on a tablet sounds like a great idea, but in practise a lot

of titles just dont suit touch input. Short of buying a Bluetooth
controller for which support is far from guaranteed theres not a
huge amount you can do. Except, maybe, look at something like this.
The ScreenStick is a device which uses rubber sucker pads to
attach a joystick to your screen. The base contains capacitive
contacts that mimic touch input, making it instantly compatible with
a huge number of games. The input is far more precise than touch
alone, making it ideal for action titles and fast-paced games that
would otherwise be difficult to play on a tablet.
The ScreenStick comes in two varieties. The Simulator Stick
(pictured) replicates the look and feel of remote-control joysticks,
making ideal for simulator apps and high-precision input. The
Gaming Stick, on the other hand, looks more like a console
controllers thumbstick, giving it smooth movement and making it
great for controlling cameras and navigating 3D worlds.
The cheapest tier costs 11 and gets you both a simulator and
gaming stick and everything you need to attach it to your tablet for
30% off the RRP of 16. The project has blown past its 6,000 goal
and delivery is scheduled for April 2015, so you shouldnt have to
wait long to start playing!

URL: kck.st/1DDiOFQ
Funding Ends: Sunday, March 15th 2015

Podo

If youre a little too self-conscious (or generally upset with modern

life) to use a selfie stick, dont worry the Podo will take care of all
of your self-photographing needs. This Bluetooth-controlled camera
can be stuck and re-stuck to any surface, while allowing you to view
the image from it via your smartphone. As soon as the shot is lined
up, hit a button and itll take the picture and transmit it instantly to
you. It couldnt be simpler, really.
The camera itself is comparable to modern smartphones,
with an 8MP sensor and 720P video capabilities. Its re-usable,
washable sticking pad allows it to attach to almost any solid
surface, but theres also a powerful magnet to help it stay on
curved metal surfaces too. With an eight-LED flash, two hour
battery and 4GB of internal storage, it looks like it would be a fun
accessory for any casual photographer.
Earlybird pricing allows you to get a Podo for $79 (51), against the
suggested retail price of $99 (65). If you miss the first wave of low
pricing, though, you can still pay $89 (58) but if you pay the full
$99 you get a free Kickstarter-exclusive photobook worth $20 (13)
on its own. Again, its passed its $50,000 goal with plenty of time
to go, so at this point youre as close to pre-ordering as Kickstarters
allows (which, admittedly, isnt THAT close).

URL: kck.st/1M2gzR4
Funding Ends: Tuesday, April 21st 2015

Disclaimer: Images shown may be prototypes and Micro Mart does not formally endorse or guarantee any of the projects listed. Back them at your own risk!

94

Issue 1353

APP OF THE WEEK

App Of The Week

Guns 4 Hire

A Windows 8.1 app thats sheer carnage

he Windows 8 Stores gaming section

is becoming quite a crowded place
these days, with many of the featured
games being free to play. Most arent worth
the bandwidth, but some are actually quite
good hidden gems, if you will.
Guns 4 Hire is one such gem. Published
by Rebellion Games, this top-down, semiisometric game makes for an interesting
time waster and can be quite brutal as you
move through the sections.

Total Destruction

You control four mercenaries, quite possibly

the toughest squad of meat-heads on the
planet. Lovers of the Expendables movies
will no doubt see similarities between certain
characters and the layout of the game.
The aim of the game is fairly simple: take
on some crime lords and ruthless dictators,
blow everyone and everything up and get
paid for doing it. As it happens, pretty
much everything in the game can be
blown to smithereens, be they oil drums
carelessly discarded to add a tactical
advantage when blown up near the enemy
along with cars, road blocks, boxes,
trees you get the picture.
The gameplay is fairly linear: youll follow
a well-beaten track through the level,
gunning all in sight, with the occasional
jaunt down a side alley to collect a semi-

hidden reward of some much needed funds,

health or a weapon of some description.

Guns. Lots Of Guns

After the end of each level your payment

is calculated and your score taken into
account. The amount of damage dealt, how
much of the mission you completed and
side missions such as wiping out a most
wanted target will earn you extra cash to
spend in the store.
The store itself will grant you the ability
to heal your team, purchase upgrades for
the weapons you already have and add
more to your arsenal. In addition, you can
use real-world money to unlock further
enhancements in the form of more in-game
cash, better weaponry, armour and support
items like mini-gun turrets, mines and
grenade packs.

Looks Good

Surprisingly, Guns 4 Hire isnt a badlooking game. Youd expect a free app/
game to come with some okay graphics,
but G4H is actually pretty good. Those of
you who used to play the PS3 title Zombie
Apocalypse will be familiar with the kind of
game G4H comes across as.

Features At A Glance

Manic battle ensue!

Free
Loads of gun play
Not a bad looking game

The graphics are big, bold, colourful and

full of detail. The explosions, splattering of
the enemy as they walk into one of your
grenades are graphically splendid, if you
like that kind of thing, and the game has
a good flicker-free backdrop to wander
around in.
Its all about tactics as the game
progresses, and rather than ploughing in,
guns blazing, then standing there soaking
up the bullets, you begin to use what
cover is available and consider the careful
deployment of the various means of support
at your disposal.

Conclusion

As to how far youll be able to progress

without having to spend real-world cash is
debatable, but for a free romp around and
shooting everything for a few hours, you
cant go far wrong with Guns 4 Hire.

Oh, the simple joy of making stuff explode!

The hard looking editorial team at Micro Mart

Issue 1353

95

ere is a weird complaint, but Ill make it all the same.

Flash drives are getting too big!
That might appear to be a counter intuitive thing
to say in this publication, but Ive been frustrated by
the way that Im forced to use 16GB or 32GB drives when the
job I use them for needs 4GB or even less.
Theres probably a psychological profile I fit, but there is
something about transferring a 4GB DVD .iso to a 32GB flash
drive and never using 28GB of it that really irks me.

EDITORIAL
Editor: Anthony Enticknap
theeditor@micromart.co.uk
Designer: Kevin Kamal
Bonus John: John Moore
Contributors: Mark Pickavance,
Shaun Green, Jason DAllison, Joe
Lavery, Sven Harvey, Simon Brew,
Shaun Bebbington, Ryan Lambie,
James Hunt, Mark Oakley, Ian
Jackson, Roland Waddilove, Lamb
Stew, Sarah Dobbs, David Hayward,
Leo Waldock, Ian McGurren, Aaron
Birch, David Briddock, Ian Marks,
Craig Grannell, Kevin Pocock

Caricatures: Cheryl Lillie

ADVERTISING
Group Ad Manager:
Andrea Mason
Tel: 020 7907 6662

andrea_mason@dennis.co.uk

Sales Executive:
Finan Tesfay
Tel: 0207 907 6898

finan_tesfay@dennis.co.uk
Sales Executive:
Karl Taylor
Tel: 0207 907 6706

karl_taylor@dennis.co.uk
US Advertising Manager
Matthew Sullivan-Pond

matthew_sullivan@dennis.co.uk
MARKETING
Marketing Manager:
Paul Goodhead
Tel: 0207 907 6393

PRODUCTION
Production Assistant:
Maaya Mistry
0207 907 6079

maaya_mistry@dennis.co.uk
Digital Production Manager:
Nicky Baker

A quick expedition to a popular online retailer revealed

the extent of the bias towards bigger drives, because of
the 137 different designs that were sold, 94 of them
were 32GB in size. Only one drive was 2GB, two were
4GB, and 11 8GB.
Therefore, at the moment this isnt a critical issue,
as the likes of Lexar still make the smaller units, but
the writing is patently on the wall for 16GB and
less. Logically, a couple of years from now 64GB will
be the default or even 128GB, making my capacity
gripes even greater.
What I really need a flash maker to do is design,
say, a 64GB drive that you can sub-divide into 8GB
chunks that you can select with a button. Yes, I
know its possible to already do this to a degree,
through partitioning and a menu, but that wont
work well if the PC reboots as part of the install of an
operating system.
But flash drives aside, the more I think about this, the
real issue here is probably my mind-set rather than the
continuous strive towards greater capacities.
From the very beginning of my computing experience, space
was always a challenge. If it wasnt someone trying to squeeze
chess into 1K on the Sinclair ZX80, they were compressing PC files
on the fly with Stacker or overburning DVDs.
Each new scale of storage we were presented was never
actually sufficient, so all manner of tricks were deployed to use
it more efficiently. But were reaching a new threshold boundary
now, where all my efforts to be space efficient might be a rather
pointless and arcane exercise.
In the same way that most computers these days are generally
fast enough, unless youre either massively impatient or running
something exceptionally demanding, storage is generally bigger
than you really need.

SUBSCRIPTIONS

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NEWSTRADE SALES
Newstrade Director:

COO: Brett Reynolds

CEO: James Tye
Company Founder: Felix Dennis
PUBLISHED BY
Dennis Publishing
30 Cleveland Street
London
W1T 4JD
Tel: 020 7907 6000

www.dennis.co.uk

PRINTING
Printed By: BGP
Distributed By: Seymour

David Barker

DENNIS PUBLISHING
Group Publisher:
Paul Rayner

paul_rayner@dennis.co.uk
Managing Director:
John Garewal

Group Managing Director:

Ian Westwood

Certified Distribution:
13,712 average copies
Jan-Dec 2010

It wasnt many
years ago that every
hard drive I owned
was actually in use,
unless it was so
small Id retired it.
Now I have some
large capacity devices that arent in computers, which wait
patiently on a shelf for me to use at some future date.
A quick fag-packet calculation reveals Ive easily got
50TB or more in drive space, which is more than I can
reasonable use unless my movie collection migrates to 4K
or I record the entire rest of my life.
The future may be populated with storage devices
where what is actually on them is miniscule compared
with their overall size something that those from my
computing era would find perverse.
I sadly accept now that Ill either need to come to
terms with the notion that storage space is inherently for
wasting or be progressively irked from this point onwards.

Mark Pickavance
LAST WEEK'S CROSSWORD
Across: 7 Lexicographer, 8 Pliant, 9 Libran, 10 Cloaked,
12 Staid, 14 UNCLE, 16 Jaggies, 19 Redcap, 20 Sonata,
22 Bibliometrics.
Down: 1 Bell, 2 Picasa, 3 Bootleg, 4 Troll, 5 Spybot,
6 Metafile, 11 Linkedin, 13 Napster, 15 Locale, 17 Genera,
18 Spoof, 21 Tact.

DISCLAIMER
The views expressed by
contributors are not
necessarily those of the
publishers. Every care is
taken to ensure that the
contents of the magazine are
accurate but the publishers
cannot accept responsibility
for errors. While reasonable
care is taken when accepting
advertisements, the
publishers cannot accept any
responsibility for any
resulting unsatisfactory
transactions. We know it
happens every year, and we
know we should be used to it
by now, but we simply cant
help getting excited the first
time the sun properly comes
out each year and we can
comfortably walk around
outside without a coat on. For

THIS WEEK'S CROSSWORD

Across
7 A comic magazine based on
the British hero Dan Dare,
featuring full colour stories
written and drawn in the style of
Frank Hampson. (9,4)
8 A style of orthography
characterised by rounded capital
letters; found especially in Greek
and Latin manuscripts of the 4th
to 8th centuries. (6)
9 Flight simmers will know the
name of the company that makes
the Pro Flight X-55 Rhino
H.O.T.A.S. system for PC. (6)
10 An angular measurement in a
spherical coordinate system. (7)
12 The official regulating body
for TV, radio and other
communication industries in the
UK. (Abbreviation) (5)
14 Land determined as
contaminated under Part 2A of
the Environmental Protection Act
1990. (Abbreviation) (5)
16 Open topped or convertible
cars. (7)
19 Relating to or resembling the
stars. (6)
20 An object of love. (6)
22 The notion that work expands
so as to fill the time available for
its completion. (10,3)

Down
1 Ctrl + O (4)
2 A split or division between
strongly opposed sections or
parties, caused by differences in
opinion. (6)
3 Separate in order to protect or
prevent interaction. (7)
4 An unwholesome atmosphere.
(5)
5 A listing of prices for different
goods or services. (6)
6 A periodic comet, which passed
close to the sun in the spring of
1997 and was one of the
brightest of the 20th century.
(4-4)
11 This states that given some
corpus of natural language
utterances, the frequency of any
word is inversely proportional to
its rank in the frequency table.
(5,3)
13 A trial environment where you
can test something out online
without worrying about breaking
anything or catching a virus. (7)
15 To form an electric arc
between electrodes of an arc
lamp. (6)
17 A self-evident statement. (6)
18 An alternative strategy. (4,1)
21 The ability to connect to a
mobile service away from home.
(4)

us, that happened this week,

and we were as happy as pigs
in erm the back of van
driven by animal rights
activists, in the opposite
direction to the pork farm
from which weve just been
liberated. Or maybe just
poop. Anyway, the point is
this week actually wasnt like
walking around on the dark
side of the moon, which were
guessing is probably pretty
nippy (and dark). So praise Ra
and every other sun god. No
doubt in a few months well
be complaining its too hot,
but lets not dwell on that just
yet. For now, lets all enjoy
the little bit of sunshine we
have in the country while we
still have it. You know itll
probably rain non-stop for the
next two months anyway.

Issue 1353
1351

97

In Next Weeks
Micro Mart*
Security special!
Keep your files safe with
secure storage options
How to choose
an effective
password
The big guide to
viruses and other
malware
Plus loads more,
including the usual
mix of news, reviews
and advice
*

May be subject to change

ters,
u
p
m
Co nology
Tech ccasional Cat
he O

And T

2015 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Intel, the Intel logo, Xeon, and Xeon Inside
are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries.

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