PCA Weekly Newsletter

Can't view? Click here to view it online.

Tech Advice you can trust

Thursday April 5, 2012

EDITOR'S NOTE

The biggest news of this week was the new-look relaunch of the PC & Tech Authority website. Our new website is a major revamp that focuses not on gimmicks, but on making the core of the site better than ever - our reviews, benchmarks, technical discussion and analysis of the latest and greatest products and technologies. You can see what all the fuss is about by clicking on the article links below.

Plus: Get all the latest tech news, group tests, product reviews, galleries and downloads from the past week.

TOP STORIES THIS WEEK

		NEWS We've upgraded - the new and improved PC & Tech Authority site By William Maher \| Apr 3, 2012 Allow us to introduce something exciting – the new and improved PC & Tech Authority site!

		NEWS Thunderbolt cable sold separately By John Gillooly \| Apr 5, 2012 Thunderbolt is finally coming to the PC, but at $50 cables are set to kill the technology before it takes off.

		NEWS Linux, the game By William Maher \| Apr 5, 2012 Coding. It's arguably one of the quintessential geek skills.

		NEWS Microsoft introduces the HomeOS By Staff Writer , Chris Jager \| Apr 5, 2012 If Microsoft has its way, everything in your house will be connected to its own dedicated operating system. Introducing HomeOS.

		NEWS Double your Dropbox space By Chris Jager \| Apr 5, 2012 Very handy if you're already shovelling photos and documents and miscellanous files using Dropbox - you can up your storage holding.

		NEWS Motorola outs Gleam flip phone By Sophie Charara \| Apr 5, 2012 Go retro with Moto's budget update to its Gleam featurephone, complete with LED matrix display

		NEWS Ice Cream Sandwich delayed for unlocked Samsung Galaxy S II phones By Luke Edwards \| Apr 5, 2012 If you thought being free of a network and buying your smartphone outright was a good plan, think again

		NEWS Taposé reimagines Microsoft Courier in split-screen glory on the iPad By Mark Wilson \| Apr 5, 2012 Packing notes, maps, a word processor, web browser, drawing tools and much more, Taposé is one iPad app that is worth checking out.

		NEWS iPhone PRO: DSLR in your pocket? By Luke Edwards \| Apr 4, 2012 Meet the DSLR future of the iPhone – as imagined by a very clever brain indeed.

		NEWS Instagram for Android is here By Sophie Charara \| Apr 4, 2012 Get ye over to Google Play as photo filter app Instagram finally leaves the clutches of iOS.

		NEWS Canon EOS 60Da astro-photography camera unveiled By Luke Edwards \| Apr 4, 2012 Would-be star gazers can now snap, compile and scour the skies for heavenly bodies with this new Canon.

		NEWS Tongue controlled Kinect? By Sophie Charara \| Apr 4, 2012 One step too far for gesture controlled Kinect hacks? No such thing. Especially where Japanese researchers are concerned.

		NEWS 14 tools to rip, convert and stream video from DVD and Blu-ray By Nick Peers \| Apr 4, 2012 These days, more and more of us watch video in a variety of different ways. The ease and versatility of modern media can leave you looking at your old collection of videos and DVDs with...

		NEWS SSDT View (64-bit): a basic but very easy way to look for stealthy malware By Mike Williams \| Apr 4, 2012 Security vendor NoVirusThanks has released SSDT View, a 64-bit (only) tool which can show you the contents of your System Service Descriptor Table, perhaps highlighting changes made by rootkits and other stealthy malware.

		NEWS Mass Effect 3: how cheaply can you get it for PC? By William Maher \| Apr 4, 2012 With game prices going haywire, we look at how much you pay for a blockbuster title like Mass Effect 3.

		GROUP TEST CPU Megatest: 59 chips reviewed and rated By Staff Writer \| Apr 3, 2012 We put every mainstream desktop processor from AMD and Intel through our brand-new 2011 real world benchmark.

		GROUP TEST Group test: USB 3 hard disks By Staff Writer \| Mar 15, 2012 With a USB 3 hard disk, you can add huge amounts of superfast storage to your PC. We test 14 models in various capacities to help you choose the perfect drive.

		GROUP TEST Group test: seven Ultrabooks compared and rated By Staff Writer \| Mar 14, 2012 Ultrabooks have breathed life back into the PC. In this feature group test, we review seven of the ultra-thin laptops.

		REVIEW Review: Xara Web Designer MX 8 Premium By Mike Williams \| Apr 5, 2012 Xara Web Designer Premium MX 8's new features and usability improvements make it easier than ever to create and maintain your own website, even if you've no web design experience.

		REVIEW Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 Beta By Dave Stevenson \| Apr 4, 2012 A promising beta of a terrific photo-editing application, but Adobe must address pricing.

		REVIEW HP TopShot Laserjet Pro M275 review: an all-in-one laserjet for By David Bayon \| Apr 4, 2012 An innovative take on the all-in-one, but a mini photo studio on top of a printer is extremely niche.

		REVIEW Belkin Screencast AV4 review: make any HDMI device wireless with this innovative gadget By Matt Wilson \| Apr 4, 2012 Remove the mess around your TV cabinet -- chuck your DVD player in a cupboard thanks to this ingenious little device from Belkin.

		REVIEW Viewsonic VP2365-LED review: an affordable monitor that doesn't skimp on image quality By Chris Jager \| Apr 4, 2012 An efficient monitor with superb colour accuracy, but the backlight is disappointingly uneven.

		REVIEW AMD Radeon HD 7950 review: a mid-range graphics card that packs a real punch By Mike Jennings \| Apr 4, 2012 Superb speed, slightly more palatable price than the HD 7970, but still expensive for most gamers.

		REVIEW Sony Tablet P review: full marks for originality, less for execution By David Bayon \| Apr 3, 2012 The clamshell design makes the tablet neat and portable, but the two screens create too many issues for this to be a viable alternative to standard Android tablets.

		REVIEW Nokia Lumia 710 review By Jonathan Bray \| Apr 3, 2012 Poor battery life under load and a below par camera undermines an otherwise decent Windows Phone handset.

		PHOTO GALLERY Gallery: Inside high-tech factories of the world Apr 5, 2012 From mechanisation to high-tech clean rooms, step inside the post-industrial environment of the high-tech facility. A selection of images from the last decade.

		PHOTO GALLERY Hands on with HTC's One X Apr 4, 2012 First look at HTC's flagship.

		PHOTO GALLERY Hands on with the ASUS Padfone Apr 4, 2012 We recently visited ASUS headquarters in Taiwan and had a chance to spend some time with its upcoming smartphone/tablet hybrid, the Padfone.

		FEATURE How do you make a homemade NAS? By Staff Writer \| Apr 4, 2012 We show one reader how to turn his spare motherboard into a NAS device.

		FEATURE How do you locate inaccessible drives in Windows 7? By Staff Writer \| Apr 4, 2012 We show a reader how to locate unrecognised drives and assign them letters with the Windows Disk Management tool.

		FEATURE What's the best way to mix different RAM speeds? By Staff Writer \| Apr 4, 2012 A reader with an older PC wants to mix different RAM speeds without compromising on performance.

		FEATURE How secure are passwords? By Davey Winder \| Apr 3, 2012 Why there's no such thing password as an uncrackable password and how to keep yours as secure as possible.

		FEATURE We can rebuild it: 12 weekend PC projects By Staff Writer \| Mar 26, 2012 Some trash it, others rebuild. Here are 12 upgrades done time and time again by thousands of PC owners the world over.

		NEWS Best Android apps this week (30/03/12) By Sophie Charara \| Apr 2, 2012 Here are five of the best Android apps from the past seven days -- and they're all free.

		NEWS April Fools! Best online tech gags of 2012 By Chris Jager \| Apr 2, 2012 From Google's Click-to-Teleport app to the Apple/Blackberry 'Crumble' phone: here is a selection of April Fools tech attempts that appeared in 2012.

		NEWS LG reveals flexible ereader display By Luke Edwards \| Apr 3, 2012 Plastic ebook displays that bend, can bounce back from drops and even survive hammer blows are the future – and it’s coming this month.

		NEWS New iPad (iPad 3): Apple's most breakable tablet yet? By Paddy Smith \| Apr 3, 2012 It’s Apple best iPad to date, but if you’ve got the new tablet, it’s worth knowing that it’s also the most likely to end up cracked or smashed.

		NEWS Roundup: 37 of the biggest and best downloads from the last 7 days By Mark Wilson \| Apr 3, 2012 The past week has been particularly busy, with a huge number of software releases to keep track of. If you feel like you may have missed out on some of the biggest releases, this roundup is here to get you back up to speed.

		NEWS Geek tech: Build your own Star Trek-style tricorder By Luke Edwards \| Apr 3, 2012 Sci-fi has become reality with this working hand-held super sensor – and you can make your very own one, because it's open source.

		NEWS Tech deals: Get a free PC diagnosis suite By Mike Williams \| Mar 29, 2012 Get this free PC suite for monitoring motherboard, BIOS, RAM, hard drive, sound card, network adapters, PCI and USB-connected devices, fan speed CPU and more.

MOST READ THIS WEEK

In the May issue of PC & Tech Authority, we provide you with practical advice to avoid data bill shock, spend 24 hours with Windows 8, review 16 internet security packages in a huge group test, review the HP Envy 14 Spectre ultrabook, and show you how to create your own smart home. All in the May issue of PC & Tech Authority, on sale now.

Purchase this issue or a subscription now