Home//APC/August 2020/In This Issue
APC|August 2020Good thingsThere’s so much going on in the world of the PC that it’s almost ridiculous. For yet another month the CPU takes centre-stage – this time as AMD kicks down the door into the budget segment, while Intel has its long-standing relationship with Apple hitting the brakes. I’ll spare you my usual CPU rant this time and let Chris tell the Ryzen 3100 and 3300X story in his reviews, which is a good new tale, along with his round-up of B550 motherboards – which is less rosy as we see motherboard prices continue on their relentless upward trajectory. A couple of reviews that really stand out are the Intel NUC 9 Extreme and Microsoft Surface Go 2. Both teeny little things – one immensely powerful, the other far less so,…2 min
APC|August 2020Intel’s Jim Keller resignsIntel has published a news release on its website stating that Jim Keller has resigned from the company, effective immediately, due to personal reasons. Jim Keller was hired by Intel two years ago to the role as Senior Vice President of Intel’s Silicon Engineering Group, after a string of successes at Tesla, AMD, Apple, AMD (again), and PA Semiconductor. As far as we understand, Jim’s goal inside Intel was to streamline a lot of the product development process on the silicon side, as well as providing strategic platforms though which future products can be developed and optimised to market. We also believe that Jim Keller has had a hand in looking at Intel’s manufacturing processes, as well as a number of future products.…1 min
APC|August 2020WD addresses SMR controversyIn response to heated criticism for not disclosing that some of its hard drives use slower SMR technology, WD penned a blog post outlining its plans to release a new line of WD Red Plus drives that use standard conventional magnetic recording (CMR) tech as an alternative to its slower SMR drives. WD’s change in course comes after widespread criticism from its customers about its surreptitious use of slower shingled magnetic recording (SMR) technology in some of its hard drives without disclosing that fact in marketing materials or specification sheets. Those claims of false advertising touched off a wave of class-action lawsuits, with one even calling for a ban to block WD from selling SMR drives for NAS usage.…1 min
APC|August 2020Intel launches low power Lakefield hybrid CPUsThe new CPUs – a Core i5 and Core i3, have a 10nm single Sunny Cove core for heavier workloads and four low-power Tremont cores for background tasks that are less intensive. While ARM laptops, like those running Qualcomm’s chips, have used a special version of Windows 10 for ARM that emulated 32-bit apps and doesn’t support 64-bit, the Lakefield chips will natively support both. It’s going to be in the Samsung Galaxy Book S, a clamshell laptop that previously only came with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx and is launching only in select markets, as well as Lenovo’s upcoming ThinkPad X1 Fold. Intel says that the Foveros CPU package is 12 x 12 x 1 mm and gets there by stacking the two logic dies and two layers of DRAM.…1 min
APC|August 2020Do I need to upgrade to Wi-Fi 6?Wi-Fi 6 is the next generation of wireless network communication protocols and since it’s been in existence for a couple of years now it’s probably something you’ve heard of at this point. Yet with the first routers really only becoming available at the start of 2020 there’s a good chance you don’t actually know what Wi-Fi 6 really is, why it was created, and whether it’s worth upgrading to yet. If you’re anything like us you’ve accumulated a lot of smart home tech over the years, but even if you’re not into installing smart speakers in every corner of your home, chances are you have a TV that can stream Netflix or a printer that’s Wi-Fi only. Between the smart lights, Wi-Fi scales, smartwatches, and network-connected gaming consoles there’s likely…3 min
APC|August 2020Nintendo Virtual BoyThe Virtual Boy is a strange piece of gaming history. Nintendo called it a “32-bit, 3D experience” that “eliminates all external stimuli, totally immersing players into their own private universe.” Even so, Time magazine listed it as one of the worst inventions of all time, and PC World called it one of “the ugliest products in tech history.” So let’s delve into the mystery behind the Virtual Boy. Major tech specs • 20 MHz, 32-bit RISC Processor • 128KB dual-port VRAM • 384 x 224 pixel resolution • 2-bit monochrome display (black and three shades of red) • 16-bit stereo sound Key findings • Taking the Virtual Boy apart is no walk in the park. Our 1/4” drive gamebit didn’t fit into some of the recessed screw holes, so we…3 min
APC|August 2020Headsets vs speakers vs headphonesWhat’s the best audio solution for PC users? Audiophile headphones are designed with music in mind, aiming to deliver the ultimate audio quality for professional and enthusiast users, while speakers – that’s proper 2.1 speakers, not the tinny ones built into your monitor – are more about loud, room-filling sound. Then there’s gaming headsets, brimming with cool features and designs to benefit PC gamers. All are good, but which option is best? Value This is a tricky one, since there’s a broad price range for all three options. The more you spend, the better quality you get – mostly, anyway. So we’re going to consider price against purpose, and price against performance. Gaming headsets take an early lead here, as they almost always include a built-in or detachable mic, and…6 min
APC|August 2020Synology DS3617xs“Dropping in six Seagate Ironwolf Pro drives is the work of minutes, and the Synology software walks you through your desired setup.” $3,600 | www.synology.com Aimed at small to medium businesses that need a lot of performance, the $3,600 Synology DS3617xs is not your average NAS. Think Rackstation server in a NAS form factor, optimised for virtualisation and performance intensive tasks, as well as backing up loads of data. While the underlying hardware is getting a little long in the tooth, the Synology software is continually updated with new features. The flexibility of the NAS server and associated ecosystem and add ons also means it can perform well across a broad range of businesses. Accessible via lockable hot swap bays, the DS3617xs has 12 drive bays that can handle up…3 min
APC|August 2020Asus TUF Gaming A15$2,099 | www.asus.com/au We’ve been fond of Asus’s TUF (‘The Ultimate Force’... oh please, Asus) branded gaming laptops ever since they emerged in 2018 with a reengineered fan design that repelled small particles to prevent dust build up and help prolong the life of the unit. This strive for longevity continues today in the TUF Gaming A15 which sees the return of an upgraded version of this self-cleaning cooling system and novel features like an optional 90Wh battery to keep the device running longer in day-to-day use. The most striking feature of the A15 is a new chassis design that marries a number of interesting elements into one cohesive design. The top shell can either be a flat silver polished piece of aluminium or an angular brushed metal and carbon-fibre-looking…3 min
APC|August 2020Logitech G915 TKL Wireless Gaming Keyboard$379 | logitechg.com For some, less is more when it comes to their gaming or work space. Less clutter, fewer cables means more space on your desk for moving your mouse or having a snack. The Logitech G915 TKL wireless gaming keyboard frees up space in multiple ways, including a tenkeyless design that saves space by dropping the numpad and G macro keys. It also brings an ultra-slim build and the option to connect via Bluetooth or a wireless USB Type-A dongle. The G915 TKL is a near replica of the full-sized G915 Lightspeed. That means it embodies the same svelte, classic and mature tone, with a layout thoughtfully designed for the functionality gamers need. The first thing you’ll notice is that the G915 TKL doesn’t have a numpad or…3 min
APC|August 2020Labs Roundup AMD B550 motherboardsThe launch of 3rd generation Ryzen alongside X570 motherboards brought AMD many well deserved plaudits, but that success has mostly been restricted to the enthusiast segment. Until now there’s been no way to buy into 3rd generation Ryzen without spending several hundred dollars for a Ryzen 5 3600. We’ve been waiting for more affordable 3rd generation options and that time is now here. With the launch of B550 motherboards and quad core Ryzen 3000 series processors, mainstream buyers can now build systems that offer levels of performance, connectivity and I/O that promise to shake up the ‘budget’ end of the PC market. Note the inverted commas around the word budget. B550 is something of a curious beast. Motherboard pricing across all Intel and AMD product lines has taken a large…3 min
APC|August 2020Gigabyte B550 Aorus Master$439 | www.aorus.com Say hello to the Gigabyte B550 Aorus Master. It might ostensibly be based on a budget chipset, but this is no budget-oriented motherboard at $439. One look though and you’d never mistake it as such. You wouldn’t be alone in assuming that this was a good quality X570 board. As expected, the Aorus Master easily features the best specification in the lineup. There’s plenty of fan and RGB headers, six SATA ports, debug LED and Gigabyte’s audio implementations are usually impressive like the one here. In the past Gigabyte really went all out on the RGB lighting, but this is a much more tasteful and mature design. Perhaps we have passed peak RGB! “It’s the only board in the roundup to feature three M.2 slots, all of…3 min
APC|August 2020Front and CenterMACOS 10.12 or later | US$4.99 | FROM John Siracusa, hypercritical.co Way back in the days before OS X, when you clicked on a window in a Mac application, all the windows for that application were brought to the front. In OS X and now in macOS, only the window you click is brought to the front, the others remain in the background. For applications that have a separate window for each document, like Word and Excel, that’s an issue. Front and Center fixes that by restoring pre-OS X behaviour and bringing all the windows in an app to the front when you click one. Front and Center’s interface is a menu bar item with two options: Classic and Modern. The former restores pre-OS X, aka classic behaviour, while the…1 min
APC|August 2020Copwatch“Not only does Copwatch allow you to record interactions but it also will let you set up safety contacts to alert them to your location.” Around the world we are seeing police brutality brought to light and this is largely thanks to footage shot on phones. I can’t recommend enough that everyone has an easy method for this purpose because as we’ve seen, it can happen to anyone. Unfortunately, it happens to our First Nations people more than any other, which is exactly why Copwatch was made. Not only does Copwatch allow you to record interactions but it also will let you set up safety contacts to alert them to your location. It also offers helpful information about your rights when recording and interacting with police and advises people to…1 min
APC|August 2020Regolith Linux 1.4LINUX | regolith-linux.org Regolith Linux has the goal of “reducing unnecessary clutter and ceremony” from the desktop. This piqued our interest because (a) frankly we can’t stand unnecessary pomp and ceremony and (b) Regolith uses the i3 window manager on top of Gnome. It’s a wild combination. Why? Tiling window managers, and i3 in particular, are hard to get to grips with. You may have seen screenshots of hardcore Linux users’ desktops with translucent, titlebar-less terminals with razor-thin borders, the characteristic i3 status bar displaying tens of Emacs-ridden workspaces and stock prices, and Conky on the desktop displaying local weather and system resource usage. You can set all that up on any minimal Linux distro. However, it takes time and patience… lots of patience. And then, when you’ve got everything…3 min
APC|August 2020WIN IT!You could win this stunningly built and immensely powerful PC! Western Digital generously approached APC at the outset of this project asking if we wanted to be involved, and to run a competition to give it away to one of our readers. That could be you! The PC is valued at over $6,600, and that’s for the parts alone which is not taking into account Stuart’s time and talents in creating a PC that is beautiful and unique. To enter, head to TechRadar, the home of APC online, and enter at www.techradar.com/news/apcmag Closing date for entries is Sunday August 9th at 11:59pm. The winner will be chosen on Monday August 10th 2020 and notified by email and phone (if a phone number was provided on the entry form). Full terms…1 min
APC|August 2020Encrypt in placeIt’s possible to encrypt an existing data drive without wiping it in VeraCrypt using Encrypt in place. But there are drawbacks. Unlike encrypting your Windows installation, the drive won’t be available while it’s being encrypted. Also, when done, you’re prompted to assign it a different drive letter – this isn’t necessary as we’ll explain shortly. Choose Encrypt in place, click Next, read the warning, and click Yes. You’re prompted to set encryption and authentication options, then asked to move your mouse randomly to strengthen the encryption keys, before ending up at the ‘Wipe Screen’. This allows you to shred unencrypted files after the drive has been encrypted to prevent them from being recovered by undelete tools later. Only the most paranoid should consider anything other than None (fastest) or 1-pass…1 min
APC|August 2020Download files from the shellHow about downloading files from various online resources? The wget tool is your friend, capable of pulling content from HTTP, HTTPS, and FTP servers, like so: $ wget “http://url.com/file.zip” Add the -O flag if you would like to save to a different directory ( wget -O /home/username/Desktop/ http://url.com/file.tar ). As the file downloads, wget provides you with a progress bar, but if you’re downloading a particularly large file, press Ctrl-C to cancel the current download, then use the -b flag to download in the background: $ wget -b -O /home/username/Downloads/ http://url.com/download.iso Type ls -l -block-size=M and hit Enter periodically to see how far the download has got by reviewing its file size. A better tool for accessing FTP servers is the interactive ftp tool: type ftp and press Enter to…1 min
APC|August 2020Market snapshotAftershock PC Ultracore Set in a showy Lian Li O11D, this system has all the underpinnings of a great gaming rig. A water-cooled i7-10700K has much of the speed of an i9 for gaming and with some minor overclocking tweaks, equal performance. With eight cores you’d think it wouldn’t be as competitive in multi-threaded productivity tasks, but with such high clock speeds it does rather well. A speedy RAM pairing is nice to see, as is a comfortably sized 1TB NVMe SSD for all your OS, gaming and project needs plus a 2TB hard drive for everything else. With ample custom cosmetic choices at checkout, this could be the glitzy system you’ve been waiting for. CPU: Intel Core i7-10700K, COOLER: Aftershock Spectra Glacier 240mm, MOTHERBOARD: Asrock Z490 Steel Legend, GRAPHICS:…3 min
APC|August 2020Benchmark your GPU like APCLast issue, we showed you how to benchmark your CPU just like the system-testing impresarios here on APC. Never let it be said that we can’t follow a theme; this time, we’ll be running through the tests we often use to benchmark GPUs, for both builds and reviews. Unlike our CPU benchmarking process, some of this software isn’t available for free. Free trials are available for certain programs, but GPU testing ideally uses multiple gaming benchmarks, which could cost you. We’ll go through some of the games we use for testing later on, but if you don’t have any of those you may want to look into whether any of the titles you already own include a benchmark. Plenty of games have one nestled away in the graphical settings to…9 min
APC|August 2020Collaborate with your teamLet’s face it, we’re all busy enough that we don’t want to be wasting precious time micro managing our schedules and wrestling with planning apps. Yet all too often keeping on top of our daily calendars becomes a time-consuming task itself, eating into the hours we really should be spending on more important things. “Use it to manage your team’s workflow and you’ll find it makes your work life run that much smoother” For years, Fantastical has been a staple of Apple fans everywhere, with Flexibits’ organisational apps making serious waves on Mac, iOS and even the Apple Watch. Now, the popular app has been updated to version 3, which brings a new level of organisational nous to the table. Get familiar with its tools and your calendar will never…3 min
APC|August 2020Playing chess in your terminalKnown to be over 1,200 years old, chess remains a key test of strategy, mental ability, computational power and is generally a good way of passing the time. If you can represent an eight by eight grid with suitable symbols for the pieces then you can have a game of chess. So why not play chess in your terminal? Partly this was all kicked off by stumbling across a dreadfully written bespoke open source chess game, which had some ginormous fixed-state machine built from an unfathomable number of nested if statements. So, stuff that for a party. There’s no need to reinvent the chess-shaped wheel. There are a host of accomplished open source chess engines which any front-end that feels the need can plug into. The most common is one…4 min
APC|August 2020Network Address TranslationNetwork address translation remaps one IP address to another IP address by changing the network IP address information in the header of the PDU. The technique is used extensively to optimise the use of public address space. With the number of public IP addresses being used up, NAT enabled multiple private IP addresses to be remapped to one public IP addresses. In our project we’re using NAT to change IP addresses from the wired network to the wireless network. The preferred method would be to have routers in each network find and route PDUs between their respective networks, but routers have a cost exponentially higher than the cost of a Pi. Furthermore, router placement and configurations can be complex. If the routers aren’t configured correctly, they can cause any amount…1 min
APC|August 2020FIFA 21 for PC will be a port of the PS4 and Xbox One gameElectronic Arts announced FIFA 21 at its EA Play showcase in mid-June, and it looked impressive: vague improvements such as improved “player humanisation” and a “deferred lighting system” seemed to suggest that the glacially iterative soccer game might receive a dramatic facelift. But if that proves to be true, PC owners will not benefit from the “next-gen” visual upgrades in the same way owners of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X will. Following the announcement an FAQ appeared for the game, which seemed to confirm that PC players will be stuck with the last-gen version of FIFA. In a statement sent to APC, EA confirmed it directly. “The PC version will be the same experience as the Xbox One and PS4 versions of the game,” the statement said, “so…1 min
APC|August 2020Destiny 2 on PS5 and Xbox Series X will be a free cross-gen upgradeThe latest Destiny 2 expansion, Beyond Light, will support free cross-gen upgrades for PS5 and Xbox Series X players, alongside all expansions for the game. Announced as part of a recent Destiny 2 reveal stream, players who buy Beyond Light on PS4 and Xbox One can expect to upgrade their copies of the expansion for free when they move onto next-gen consoles. Game director Mark Noseworthy confirmed that all content you own, past and present, will also be cross-gen. Destiny 2: Beyond Light will be part of the Xbox Smart Delivery service, which ensures that your purchases will play best on whatever platform you’re running them on. Bungie also confirmed that PS4 purchases will upgrade to PS5 for free. The studio will share more Destiny 2 next-gen news over the…1 min
APC|August 2020Minecraft Dungeons$29.95 | PC, Xbox | xbox.com/en-AU/games/minecraft-dungeons It’s safe to say that Minecraft Dungeons doesn’t take itself too seriously. It’s set in the same universe as its sandbox predecessor, but there’s no crafting or building in his world. It’s a dungeon crawler that challenges you to furiously hack-and-slash your way through hordes of enemies with an arsenal of fun enchantments and items. I’ve cleaved a swathe through hordes of slime cubes, shot a mass of burning (and exploding) arrows at spiders, and gone toe to toe with sinister, teleporting Endermen. It’s bombastic, frantic fun, and it offers four-player local or online co-op so your friends can get in on its blocky brawls too. The story is fairly straightforward. The main villain is the evil Arch-Illager, who finds a powerful artefact called…2 min
APC|August 2020Team Fortress 2DEVELOPER VALVE PUBLISHER IN-HOUSE RELEASED OCTOBER 10, 2007 WEB teamfortress.com The received wisdom is that Team Fortress 2 has changed, and not for the better. The argument, often made by former players, is that everything Valve has added to the game over the last 13 years – the hats, the achievements, the jars of human piss – has diluted the spirit of what TF2 once was. I’ve fallen into the same trap myself over the years, bemoaning that the game I once loved no longer exists. It would be absurd to suggest that Team Fortress 2 hasn’t changed; it was arguably the poster child for games-as-a-service design. It’s evident in everything from the menus to the way you start a match. Nevertheless, returning after years away, I’m struck by how…6 min
APC|August 2020Exclusive downloadsPlease note that these exclusive downloads will only be available for a limited time, from 13/07/2020 to 30/08/2020. Full version after registration. Spit and polish your PC Keep your system fresh with ASCOMP Cleaning Suite Download link: https://www.ascompsoftware.com/fullversion/cleaningsuite_apc.php If the system boots up more and more slowly and the hard drive gets fuller, then it is high time for a thorough system cleaning! But which data can be deleted without risk, which are still needed for the smooth system and program flow? Cleaning Suite gives the answer! A total of six helpers analyze your system and enable deep cleaning operations. For example, you can delete temporary files, clean browser histories, caches, and cookies from all popular Internet browsers, and prevent installed applications and tools from starting automatically at system startup.…1 min
APC|August 2020Oculus Go discontinuedFacebook and Oculus announced that it will discontinue its Oculus Go VR headset to allow the company more room to work “on the next chapter in VR”. The announcement came in a blog post on Oculus’ website as well as an email to Oculus owners that thanked them for their interest in the headset and gave them a timetable for when the headset will set off for greener pastures. Oculus will continue to maintain the system software with bug fixes and security patches through 2022, according to the post. However, it also says that it won’t be adding or updating apps and games after December 4, 2020. If you have one, now’s the time to load it up with software.…1 min
APC|August 2020Nvidia’s latest driver lays the groundwork for next-gen gamesDX12 Ultimate is a collection of technologies which Microsoft say deliver “an unprecedented alignment between PC and Xbox Series X.” The API supports next generation graphics hardware features, including DirectX Raytracing [DXR], variable rate shading, mesh shaders and Sampler Feedback. At this very moment, Nvidia’s GeForce RTX stack is the only one to support each and every one of those features. That will change when AMD’s next-generation RDNA 2 graphics architecture arrives, which will power the Xbox Series X, PlayStation 5 and PC graphics cards. Nvidia does not mention any specific game optimisations in the release notes for its latest 451.48 driver package, so there is not a whole lot to be gained in the here and now.…1 min
APC|August 2020Five surprising things we learned about Android 11The 4GB size limit for video recording has been removed For a long time, Android has had a file size limit of 4GB whenever you record a video. That wasn’t so bad when you were shooting a low-bitrate 1080p video and saving it to an SD card that couldn’t process files larger than 4GB anyway. But with 4K capable cameras, it meant that even a 15-minute video would be chopped into more than one file because it’s too big. With Android 11, that’s all a thing of the past as the software classes and APIs that write media has been moved to use a 64-bit file size versus the original 32-bit. That means the theoretical maximum size is about 2,305,843,009 ((2^64)-1) Gigabytes. Android 11 has a hidden Recycle Bin If…3 min
APC|August 2020Are certain AMD motherboard manufacturers cheating?Every so often I’m reminded of how ultra-competitive the motherboard market is. Sadly we may be witnessing something devious, as a result. Reports are that one or more AMD motherboard makers are altering the telemetry sent to the Ryzen CPU to make it think it’s using less power than it actually is. This fools the CPU into thinking it has power headroom available to boost to a higher Turbo mode. AMD power user ‘The Stilt’ posted an article at the HWinfo forum regarding the misreporting of certain AM4 motherboard-sourced telemetry. This data is used by Ryzen CPUs to set clocks based on information such as power budget, temperatures or voltages. If the information coming from the motherboard is outside of the normal specification, well, you can see how the CPU…3 min
APC|August 2020The best microphones for home use08 Blue Yeti Nano A more compact model of Blue’s classic Yeti mic, this is a great starter microphone for anyone who is looking to break into streaming or podcasting. 07 Samson Meteorite A shiny spherical mic with a magnetic base, the Meteorite is feature-light but not too expensive, and the recording quality is excellent. 06 Røde NT-USB A pop shield and tripod make this a professional-looking microphone that apes studio-level hardware without breaking the bank. 05 Beyerdynamic FOX A rare combination of USB-A connectivity and hi-res 96 KHz/24-bit audio support, the FOX is a multipurpose beauty, equally at home recording music and speech. 04 Razer Seiren Elite The best free-standing mic from Razer. It’s not cheap, but the Seiren Elite packs effective audio sensitivity and a high-pass filter into…1 min
APC|August 2020Intel NUC 9 Extreme$2,399 (barebone kit) | www.intel.com.au In 2020 the stereotypical gaming PC is still a large black box, probably adorned with some form or RGB lighting, powerful AiO cooling and multiple fans. ITX has been with us for many years, and it has developed a loyal following, but for some reason, the words gaming, subtle and discreet rarely go together. That’s what makes a device like Intel’s NUC 9 Extreme appealing. It’s a tiny high performance gaming machine that completely rejects any form of ostentatious theme that many gaming products too often embrace. NUCs, or Next Unit of Computing machines are not new. Applications such as digital signage, office use or media streaming are naturally fitting applications. Gaming NUCs also exist, with the likes of the Zotac Magnus or MSI Trident…5 min
APC|August 2020Synology DiskStation DS920+ NAS$1,000 | www.synology.com/en-au Synology’s four-bay DS920+ NAS is the follow-up to 2017’s incredibly popular DS918+. At a glance, not much has changed and the fact it runs the Synology’s constantly updated software means there’s virtually no difference in operation, either. Nonetheless, the improved memory and processor speeds make this a welcome update to Synology’s vast army of enthusiasts and if you’ve been thinking of buying a NAS, this may be what you’ve been waiting for. The NAS has four, lockable 3.5-inch drive bays which offer easy, hot-swappable access to what’s inside. There are also two, M.2 2080 NVMe drives for fast caching and increased storage. At the rear is an eSATA port which can be used to connect additional drive bays plus a USB 3 port that can connect storage,…2 min
APC|August 2020Tenda 4G09 Wi-Fi 4G+ LTE Router$199 | www.tendacn.com/au/ We reviewed our first Tenda Wi-Fi device a few months ago. It was mesh system most notable for the fact it was available from Officeworks and, subsequently, could be purchased on a whim (or in an emergency) when shopping-around wasn’t an option. Now here’s another Tenda device and this one will be available primarily via amazon.com.au. It’s a dual-band, AC1200 router that uses 4G as the primary internet source. It resembles a kind of robot rabbit, replete with bunny-ear antenna. We slotted a full-sized SIM-card into the bottom, powered it on and it worked. Even in a world where Wi-Fi set-up has become a ‘few-click’ process – thanks to well-designed apps – Tenda wins the simplest set-up award for basically having no set-up. It just works. There’s…3 min
APC|August 2020Steelseries Apex Pro$389 | steelseries.com Steelseries’s Apex keyboards are all respectable offerings – high-quality peripherals for the discerning PC enthusiast. Each model has a dinky display and textured wheel for multimedia controls, and the same degree of overall design polish. But the Apex Pro brings something more than build quality and RGB lighting; it offers an end, finally, to the key-switch debate. Mechanical or membrane? Linear or tactile? Clicky or quiet? The arguments may rage across reddit forever, but Steelseries has provided the answer with the new OmniPoint mechanical switch. This switch already ticks all the boxes for performance, with an incredibly fast 0.7ms response time an actuation point below 1mm, but here’s the kicker: the Apex Pro’s OmniPoint keys (which includes the entire main keyboard block, save the function keys, arrow…3 min
APC|August 2020Asrock B550 Phantom Gaming ITX/ax$399 | www.asrock.com As the name suggests, the Asrock B550 Phantom Gaming ITX/ax is a mini-ITX motherboard, the sole such entry in our roundup. The mini-ITX form factor has a loyal following and B550 ITX boards should sell well as they are suited to the lower power characteristics of the Ryzen platform. Being a mini-ITX board, you’ll always have a lack of PCB real estate to fit heaps of extras in, but surprisingly the little Asrock competes well against the bigger boards. You still get dual M.2 slots, though only the primary slot is equipped with a heatsink. The other slot is on the back side of the board. Asrock managed to include the premium ALC1220 audio codec, though surprisingly there’s no optical output on the rear panel. The little…3 min
APC|August 2020MSI MAG B550 Tomahawk$309 | www.msi.com At $309, MSI’s MAG B550 Tomahawk is a reasonably priced ATX B550 entry. It’s priced far below the luxuriously appointed Aorus Master but it’s hardly a barebone budget board. The B550 Tomahawk comes across as a no frills type of board. The design and presentation is rather unassuming. You won’t see it on display in an all out water-cooled show rig, but you will find it powering plenty of gaming rigs. Like the impression you get from a burbling V8 at low RPM, the Tomahawk’s got it where it counts. The B550 Tomahawk has two M.2 slots, both of which feature heatsinks, and the second one is thoughtfully placed away from the hot air of a GPU. It’s got six SATA ports, plenty of fan headers along…3 min
APC|August 2020BlueHarvest“The BlueHarvest app sits in your menu bar and can work automatically on any storage device you connect, or you can set it to prompt you for action.” MACOS 10.12 or later | US$4.99 | FROM John Siracusa, hypercritical.co One of our favourite things about Mac developers is that if something annoys you, a developer feels your pain too and will create an app to soothe it. With BlueHarvest, the pain is all the stuff your Mac (or a Windows PC) leaves on external drives – vital for the OS but a pain if you’re sharing content with your in-car audio or your smart TV, or if you work with PCs as well as Macs. The BlueHarvest app sits in your menu bar and can work automatically on any storage…1 min
APC|August 2020Deadly Tots“It focuses on telling you what your child would be learning at that age, how they process emotions, and what they need from you during that time.” I don’t have kids, and this is in no small part due to how daunting I believe that would be. I wanted to check out Deadly Tots because it has good reviews and an app designed specifically around raising children through a First Nations perspective sounds excellent. However, what really enamoured me to Deadly Tots is it has a real emphasis on love, stories, and family. I created a few fake children and the advice was always clear without sending me into a headspin. It focuses on telling you what your child (real or otherwise) would be learning at that age, how they…1 min
APC|August 2020The WD Editor Box“The final design I went with is a beasty editing spec’d system with a bit of flair. It not only looks good, it has the ability for some late-night gaming or even just processing huge files.” Wind back the APC clock a year and you will have seen the very special modded PC built by pro-modder Stuart Tonks, and made possible by WD. It was a stunner, and we gave it away to a very happy APC reader. And now, we’re doing it again! Stuart has gone in a different direction with this build and it’s aimed ostensibly at video editors – but, really, is simply a powerhouse able to tackle anything, including gaming. Once again, we are running a competition to give this beauty away; see the boxout for…8 min
APC|August 2020PROTECT YOUR DATAWorried about the security and visibility of your data? Do you have sensitive files you want to keep away from potentially prying eyes? Worried that your cloud backup isn’t as secure as it might be? Concerned that the data on your laptop might be vulnerable to theft? Want to dispose of files – or an entire PC – without compromising the data (including previously deleted files) on it? You’ve come to the right place. In this feature, we explore numerous options for protecting your data, both data stored on your PC and that backed up elsewhere, whether on local storage or in the cloud. We also reveal how to ensure all data you delete is shredded beyond recovery, too, enabling you to pass on a PC or drive to a…17 min
APC|August 2020Shred data securelyWhen you delete a file, it’s not physically removed from your PC; instead, the first few bytes of the file are overwritten with a tag that tells Windows that the file is deleted and the space it currently resides in is available when writing other files to disk. It speeds things up, but it’s not good for security. Until the file is physically overwritten by another file, its contents are still retrievable. What’s more, even if the file is overwritten, it might be possible to retrieve part or all of it using sophisticated file recovery techniques. So, how do you protect yourself against that kind of technology? Thankfully, there are tools that can securely wipe data from your drive. One that’s free and open source is Eraser (grab the latest…1 min
APC|August 2020Fun and gamesThe command line doesn’t have to be a dull place to visit. If you fancy indulging in a little fun, try these entertaining tools and tips. First, fancy viewing any photograph or image in ASCII art? Type sudo apt-get install imagemagick aview , and then type the following to view it in ASCII-rendered glory: $ asciiview Path/filename. png If you receive an “invalid magic-not” error, you need to convert the file first, as follows: $ convert filename.png filename.pgm How about producing text-based banners? Use FIGlet ( sudo apt-get install figlet ), which can be as simple as: $ figlet APC rocks! FIGlet can also write banners using different styles – first, discover what options are supported with the showfigfonts command, then you can use one of them like so: $…1 min
APC|August 2020System NewsThe core wars between Intel and AMD continue to rage on. Intel has released its 10th Gen Core processor line-up (Comet Lake) and despite being on the back foot, still stuck on its 14nm++ process node (the number of pluses one can append to that is something of a humorous meme in the industry now), it has put out some products that are not only better than the outgoing 9th Gen parts but continue to go toe-to-toe with AMD’s parts. With no architectural improvements, Intel is scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of pushing what the silicon can do and is finding innovative ways of taking advantage of the one solid strength it is still king of the hill of: clock speeds. Intel’s parts clock very high in…3 min
APC|August 2020BLUEPRINTSPC BUILDER Budget When beans matter. Welcome to the new-and-improved APC Blueprints! We’re happy to announce that we’re shaking things up in this section, and from now on we’ll be including both an Intel and an AMD build for each tier. To kick things off, let’s take a look at our new budget builds. Our AMD build has changed only a little from last month, with the big change here being the jump away from Nvidia to AMD’s Radeon RX 5600 XT 6GB, specifically Asrock’s Challenger D model. Now, we’re not going to be sticking rigidly to only using AMD GPUs in the AMD builds each issue, but it felt appropriate this time around. This AMD machine was cheaper overall than the budget Intel build, so splashing out on the…5 min
APC|August 2020Frame rate checkingFor real-time tracking of frame rates in games, you may need some extra software. While some games include live fps counters (like Destiny 2), you’ll likely need to activate a separate overlay to monitor your frame rate while playing. If you’re on Steam, then good news: Steam packs an in-game overlay that includes an fps counter. You can turn it on under “Settings >= In-Game,” and then it’ll activate automatically in any game you boot up. You can’t turn it on while playing, though. Otherwise, you’re going to need some external software. Unfortunately this does mean there’s a bit of extra load on your CPU, but you shouldn’t notice much of a difference on modern systems. The GPU overclocking software MSI Afterburner is our go-to program for this, as it…1 min
APC|August 2020Get even more from FantasticalBonus features to boost your workflow Fantastical is full of other great collaboration features. For instance, while you can assign each calendar its own colour, you can also set colours for certain events within an individual calendar. That’s useful if you have a shared work calendar and want to easily differentiate team meetings from your own tasks, say. Just control-click an event and click Color. You can also attach files to events. Double-click an event, click the down arrow to expand it, then click Add Attachment. Everyone on the event will now get a copy of the attachment.…1 min
APC|August 2020GNU ChessYou’d be right to think that we’ve missed an obvious chess playing option and that’s the Free Software Foundation’s GNU Chess. This is another terminal-based game, but not as visually pleasing as chs. If this is a problem then there’s a GUI that plugs into the GNU Chess engine and you can pick up things from there. It has the advantage of being GPLv3 licenced and is a middle-aged 36 years old. You’ll find out all about GNU Chess over at www.gnu.org/software/ chess. To get up and running in a terminal use sudo apt install gnuchess and start it with gnuchess. It uses the same standard algebraic moves as we’ve discussed and will present a board after each move. To get the GUI in place type sudo apt install xboard…1 min
APC|August 2020IP Address Classes32-bit IPv4 addressing is divided into classes: Class A (default Subnet Mask 255.0.0.0) 1.x.y.z to 126.x.y.z 1.0.0.1 to 126.255.255.254 valid range of host IDs 0111 1111 (127 decimal) reserved for testing 10.0.0.0 to 10.255.255.255 reserved private networks RFC1918 128 networks 16,777,214 usable host per network Class B (default Subnet Mask 255.255.0.0) 128.0.y.z to 191.255.y.z 128.0.0.1 to 191.255.255.254 valid range of host IDs 172.16.0.0 to 172.31.255.255 reserved for private networks RFC1918 16,384 networks 65,534 usable hosts per network Class C (default Subnet Mask 255.255.255.0) 192.0.0.z to 223.255.255.z 192.0.0.1 to 223.255.255.254 valid range of host IDs 192.168.0.0 to 192.168.255.255 reserved for private networks RFC1918 2,097,152 networks 254 usable hosts per network Don’t get comfortable with 32-bit IPv4 addressing. 128-bit IPv6 addressing is already changing the landscape. IPv6 is designed to accommodate the…1 min
APC|August 2020The Order 1886 and Lone Echo studio acquired by OculusThe creator of PlayStation 4 exclusive The Order 1886 and Oculus Rift VR series Lone Echo has been acquired by Facebook. Vice president of AR/VR content at Facebook, Mike Verdu, shared the news today in a blog post, where he confirmed that the studio will continue development on Lone Echo 2. The acquisition follows Facebook’s 2019 purchase of Beat Saber studio Beat Games. Like Beat Games, Ready at Dawn staff will continue to work from their current offices situated in California and Oregon, but all will be absorbed into Oculus Studios. “The tight-knit community at the studio and their focus, in turn, on cultivating passionately engaged gaming communities are aspects of the company we admire and intend to maintain,” Verdu wrote. Ready at Dawn was founded in 2003 and cut…1 min
APC|August 2020Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone matches now begin with Infinity Ward’s Black Lives Matter statementCall of Duty: Modern Warfare has received a new update from Infinity Ward, with an in-game statement in support of the Black Lives Matter protests now appearing at the start of every multiplayer match, including those in Call of Duty: Warzone. “The systemic inequalities our community experiences are once again centre stage. Call of Duty and Infinity Ward stand for equality and inclusion.” reads the statement. “We stand against the racism and injustice our Black community endures. Until change happens and Black Lives Matter, we will never truly be the community we strive to be.” The update arrives after Activision announced it would be delaying both Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Season 4 and Call of Duty: Mobile Season 7, explaining that “now is not the time” to focus on…1 min
APC|August 2020ManeaterRepetitive tasks take a big bite out of the fun. $TBA | PC, PS4, XB1, Switch | tripwireinteractive.com Sharks only do three things, according to Matt Hooper in the 1975 film Jaws. They swim and eat and make little sharks. In Maneater, Tripwire’s action-RPG, you just swim and eat (and sometimes bellyflop onto a golf course), which doesn’t sound like enough to propel you through an entire open world RPG. And, unfortunately, it isn’t. There’s a lot of appeal in growing from a little shark to a hulking leviathan, but there’s just not enough variation in the things you do along the way. Eating ten of something – humans, turtles, fish, seals, other sharks – is initially fun. Humans scream, animals struggle, blood fills the water and coats beaches and…2 min
APC|August 2020Keep it AliveFree | PC, Mac, Linux dmullinsgames.itch.io Here you’re running a train all by yourself, by shovelling coal to keep the engine running, aiming a pistol to shoot those hangers-on, and pumping the big freaky heart you’re transporting across the wasteland – keeping it alive, as per the title. This is a one-screen game where you have to keep those multiple plates spinning, on each leg of a journey between the wasteland’s surviving stations. If the heart slows down, you’ll need to dart back to pump it up, and if the engine slows down, a zombie-style monster will attempt to jump onboard. Your energy might be limitless, but your bullets and coal reserves are unfortunately not, and these will only replenish when you arrive at a train station. Keeping the trains…1 min
APC|August 2020ValorantFree | PC | playvalorant.com It’s wild how quickly Valorant has captured the collective consciousness of FPS fans. Riot’s competitive shooter is just barely out of beta, yet it already stands toe-to-toe with the biggest games in its genre. It helps that Valorant comes from a gigantic studio and that its deviously smart partnership with Twitch streamers to selectively hand out beta access gave it a running start. But that enormous marketing push wouldn’t mean much if Valorant weren’t also very good. Valorant manages to reproduce Counter-Strike’s greatest qualities while tossing magical ice walls and drones into the mix. The deliberate detachment from reality allows traditional support tools like smoke, flash, and fire grenades to become playful abilities with varied uses. It’s been especially cool to see Sova’s tricky recon…2 min
APC|August 2020NEVER GO HOME AGAINAPRIL 29, 2008 GOLD RUSH UPDATE The first major update added the payload mode and began the process of giving each merc an alternate weapon set. OCTOBER 29, 2009 HAUNTED HALLOWEEN SPECIAL The first Halloween event added koth_harvest and also filled out the lore of the ridiculous Mann family. AUGUST 15, 2012 MANN VS MACHINE This added a co-op horde mode against robotic versions of the mercs. MAY 21, 2009 SNIPER VS. SPY UPDATE This added the hats. And also the piss. SEPTEMBER 30, 2010 MANN-CONOMY UPDATE TF2 gets item trading and loot boxes. At its height, stories about the wild TF2 earbud market were more fascinating than the game itself. JULY 7, 2016 MEET YOUR MATCH UPDATE Arguably the last of the real game-changing patches (so far?), this added…1 min
APC|August 2020BBC Micro (1981)For many Brits, the BBC Micro would be their first experience using a computer, inspiring new coders across the country. With a production run reaching into the mid-90s, it was a national institution. Indeed, it was the BBC Micro that inspired both the Raspberry Pi and its Model A and B naming scheme. Although the BBC Micro was too expensive to be a popular home games machine, those who indulged it were rewarded with a beautiful version of BASIC and lots of great games, such as Chuckie Egg, Exile, Citadel, and 3D Dotty. Nevertheless, BBC Micros are hard to find in Australia, leaving emulation as Australians’ only real option. So, join us as we take you through a history of the BBC Micro, and provide instructions for getting you gaming…6 min
APC|August 2020CHIP CHATVisit a Minecraft photo exhibition during lockdown Aussie photographers document 2020 bushfires in the online virtual gallery. A photographer from the south coast of NSW held a photographic exhibition to raise money for bushfire relief entirely in a built Minecraft arena. The exhibit, titled Still Burning, was intended as an online fundraiser to help those affected by the 2019/2020 bushfires and can be accessed at ‘still_burning.apexmc.co’. While the Minecraft gallery setting was initially intended as a joke, it was also one of the only ways to hold such an event during the COVID-19 lockdown conditions. It might seem straightforward enough to host a Minecraft exhibition, but the game doesn’t actually allow you to insert image files into it, so the host, Jason De Freitas, had to convert each photograph into…2 min
APC|August 2020Inside APCAPC is Australia’s oldest consumer technology magazine – having been consistently in print for forty years, since our first issue way back in May 1980 – and we take that heritage and responsibility very seriously. While our focus is obviously on the personal computer the very definition of the PC has changed and shifted markedly since the early 1980s. As such, we touch on many other areas of tech, too, from smartphones and apps to peripherals, accessories, and beyond. We have two goals: to find the best modern tech and to help you make the most of it. We’re also an open church in terms of platforms. We know most people aren’t wed to a single brand’s products and use a variety of devices. And, like you, APC’s journalists want…2 min
APC|August 2020Apple begins a two-year plan to dump IntelIt is no longer a matter of if Apple will make a switch from using Intel hardware to ARM-based processors for its Mac lineup, but when, and the answer is soon... very soon. Apple made the announcement at this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), saying it is embarking on a two-year transition to its own custom silicon, calling it a “truly historic day for the Mac.” To be clear, the transition is already well underway. Apple will ship the first Mac with “Apple silicon” inside by the end of the year, some 15 years after making the switch from IBM’s PowerPC hardware to Intel’s x86 processors. That will be the beginning of the transition period. “With its powerful features and industry-leading performance, Apple silicon will make the Mac stronger and…2 min
APC|August 2020AMD launches new Ryzen 3000 XT chipsAMD has fired back at Intel’s Comet Lake processors with three new XT-series Ryzen 3000 processors that slot in as the new leading chips for the Ryzen 9, Ryzen 7, and Ryzen 5 families. The new processors bring AMD’s Radeon XT branding to its desktop processor line, but they are physically similar to their respective predecessors. That means they come with the same 7nm process and Zen 2 architecture, number of cores and threads, L3 cache capacity, and TDP ratings, but serve up an extra 100 to 200 MHz over the standard boost frequency. Base frequencies remain unchanged. AMD says the incremental clock speed improvement provides up to four percent higher performance in single-threaded Cinebench benchmarks. In a shift from AMD’s standard practice, the Ryzen 9 3900XT and Ryzen 7…1 min
APC|August 2020END USER Big corporations support for social justice movements don’t always check out“It’s hardly “brave” or “controversial” for major corporations to pledge support for a popular movement, especially one as unambiguously moral: it’s a great branding exercise and will probably prove profitable.” Following the May 25 murder of Minneapolis man George Floyd by former police officer Derek Chauvin, demonstrations have surged in the United States and throughout the world to protest racial injustice. In addition to the massive public demonstrations, most corporations have taken the opportunity to pledge support for the movement. In the weeks (and months) following the May 25 flashpoint, every brand from Apple through to Starbucks has thrown its weight behind the Black Lives Matter movement in some manner or other. Indeed, it’s basically a prerequisite: any major company that dares refrain is eventually castigated online; such was the…3 min
APC|August 2020The Nvidia A100 is the largest GPU ever createdLet’s start with the raw specs. The full GA100 chip has 128 SMs (streaming multiprocessor), which are the main building block of Nvidia GPUs. The previous-generation Volta GV100 for comparison maxed out at 84 SMs (with 80 enabled), so right away we’re looking at more than a 50 percent increase in potential performance, though the initial Nvidia A100 will “only” have 108 SMs enabled. Like Volta (and Pascal GP100), each SM has 64 FP32 CUDA cores, plus 32 FP64 CUDA cores. Where it gets interesting is in the other cores. Like Volta – and unlike Turing – there are no RT cores for ray tracing. That obviously puts the kibosh on these becoming gaming chips, if the size and transistor count didn’t already clue you in. More importantly, however, the…3 min
APC|August 2020GADGETSOptoma UHD50X A speedy gaming screen that’s 30 times bigger than your average monitor. $3,199 | optoma.com While for many the fact that Optoma’s UHD50X is a 4K projector capable of throwing a 302-inch picture across a wall in your house is impressive enough, but it also happens to be the world’s first 240Hz gaming projector. Now, pro gamers shouldn’t get their hopes up just yet since there’s still a 15ms+ response time on its fastest setting, but for more casual console gaming this shouldn’t be much of an issue. The UHD50X even supports HDR10 using its 3000 lumen peak brightness to display many more colours than conventional SDR TVs this is one of the closest things we’ve seen to a fully fledged cinema at home. Fitbit Charge 4 Fitbit’s…3 min
APC|August 2020Surface Go 2$879 | microsoft.com As our most used work applications continue to be integrated into web browsers, our files become increasingly stored in the cloud, and the advanced processing power required for gaming or technical work can now be easily outsourced via remote desktop subscription, the need for having a really powerful laptop is decreasing by the day. Well-priced compact devices like Microsoft’s Surface Go 2 are perfectly positioned to cater to that seemingly inevitable future, and we honestly couldn’t be happier about it. The price and performance balance The most affordable Surface Go 2 you can grab locally starts at $598 and comes with an Intel Pentium 4425Y processor, 4GB of RAM and 64GB of onboard storage, which is an offering that seriously competes with some of the best Chromebooks…5 min
APC|August 2020Viewsonic Elite XG270Q$1,299 | www.viewsonic.com A quick glance over the specs list suggests there’s not actually a lot of new tech here; we’ve had 165Hz, QHD, IPS gaming monitors with G-Sync for some time now. But there’s more to the Elite XG270QG than that. It’s a combination of design aesthetics and some new tweaks to the technology that makes it truly impressive. It all comes down to the panel at its heart. Viewsonic’s taking advantage of LG’s pioneering IPS Nano Color tech. It’s actually a relatively new panel type, first debuting in about 2018, and we’ve seen very few manufacturers actually take it up in the gaming monitor space. The reason for this is that it adds a fair amount of cost to a screen, but improves colour accuracy quite remarkably. With…3 min
APC|August 2020Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Hero$729 | www.asus.com/au Traditionally the ROG Hero line of motherboards has been aimed at the mid to high-end gamer. Whether that’s with Intel or AMD, usually you can see these floating around the $400-$500 mark. The current one we’re reviewing? $730 at the time of writing. That’s a lot of cash to drop on a motherboard, and it’s honestly hard for us to swallow. Even taking a step back in time for a moment, on launch the X470 Crosshair VII Hero was $379. Sure, X570 is more complex to produce than previous iterations, and there is PCIe 4.0 to consider, which we’ve been told since the beginning is far more advanced and therefor more expensive to manufacture, but can you really justify a price increase of $350 over the course…2 min
APC|August 2020AMD Ryzen 3 3100 and Ryzen 3 3300XAMD Ryzen 3 3100 - $175 | AMD Ryzen 3 3300X - $205 | www.amd.com Remember that time just a couple of years back when a quad core CPU was regarded as high end? How far things have come! The new Ryzen 3 3100 and 3300X bring 4-core/8-thread computing to the masses. Along with 10th Generation 4c/8t i3’s, serious multi-threading power will now be found in all but the very cheapest PCs. The bar has been raised. Zen 2-based Ryzen 3000 processors launched in July 2019, with the range slowly filling out over the following months. Curiously, AMD hadn’t address the low end of the market until now, with discounted Ryzen 2000 series and the Zen+ APUs filling this market segment. That’s all changed with the release of the $175…5 min
APC|August 2020Asus TUF Gaming B550M Plus (WiFi)$279 | www.asus.com It’s nice to see fans of mATX get some love! Asus’ TUF brand has expanded to include partnerships with many different manufacturers who sell products to match the yellow tinged aesthetic. Though we wouldn’t call it a particularly attractive board, it has a rather understated and subtle appeal that users opposed to RGB lightshows will appreciate. It also offers very good value, something we don’t always see from Asus. “Though we wouldn’t call it a particularly attractive board, it has a rather understated and subtle appeal that users opposed to RGB lightshows will appreciate.” The mATX form factor means PCB space isn’t as limited as it is with mini-ITX, but with M.2 slots taking a lot of room, the PCB is still quite packed with components. The…3 min
APC|August 2020MYOB EssentialsWINDOWS | From $13.50/month | myob.com MYOB has been a dominant provider of Australian small business accounting software for decades. With the 2020 release of MYOB Essentials, you get the latest cloud-based tech in an accounting package that draws from the maker’s long history of supporting SMEs. With functionality to cover micro and growing business, Essentials offers all of the key components required to remain compliant and competitive if you’re doing business in Australia. The platform rolled out a new look and feel in March of this year, which new subscribers will see immediately upon registering; existing users should expect to see the upgrade rolled out to their accounts before September. Every small business needs a strong understanding of its cash flow – ideally, you want to use a combination…2 min
APC|August 2020Microsoft OfficeIOS 12 or later | Free (IAPs) | office.com Microsoft Office has been available on iOS for several years as individual apps, but the new Microsoft Office app is an all-in-one that combines Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Office Lens in a single app. Although it’s listed as iPad compatible, it’s very much an iPhone app and doesn’t take advantage of your iPad’s bigger screen. The core app is free and enables you to subscribe to Office 365 in Personal or Family versions for $6.99 or $9.99 per month respectively. That upgrade doesn’t affect what the Office app can do, but it boosts OneDrive storage to 1TB and unlocks power features in the main Office apps for your Mac or PC. The app opens with a list of your available Office…3 min
APC|August 2020Koori Radio“You’ll hear a lot of local music that might not have otherwise reached your ears and really good conversations from the perspective of First Nations people.” The next time you’re looking for a new jam to listen to, download Koori Radio and let it show you the way. As far as apps go it’s a super basic little radio player without many options but it does give you a nice clear broadcast from Sydney’s only First Nations radio station. There’s a section that lets you check Facebook and its website to see upcoming programs but they’re just inbuilt browser links. Instead, it’s all about the content. You’ll hear a lot of local music that might not have otherwise reached your ears and really good conversations from the perspective of First…1 min
APC|August 2020What’s in the box?Top-spec components abound, and being backed by Western Digital the storage in particular is generous and speedy, to say the least. The star of the show is the WD Blue SN550 NVMe SSD, which we reviewed back in APC March 2020, and awarded it a stellar 5/5, describing it as “the best mainstream NVMe SSD on the market right now.” With two 1TB WD Blue SN550s onboard this beast will fly. The SN550 makes use of Western Digital’s latest 96-layer TLC NAND. The use of TLC with its inherent endurance advantages over QLC means the SN550 has an excellent endurance rating of 600 terabytes written, a 1.7 million hour MTBF rating (190 years+!) backed with a five year warranty. Chunky HDD storage comes in the form of a whopping 24TB…1 min
APC|August 2020BitLocker Drive EncryptionIf you’re using a higher-end version of Windows – Professional, Education, or Enterprise – and you’re looking to encrypt an entire drive, you might like to use the built-in BitLocker tool. It can be used to encrypt fixed and removable drives, as well as your Windows boot drive, making it possible to protect the contents of your laptop should it be stolen. Type “bitlocker” into the Search box and click Manage BitLocker. You’ll see a list of all available drives in the main window. Expand one and click Turn BitLocker on. If you’re looking to encrypt the main system drive, you may see an error about your PC not having a compatible Trusted Protection Module. Check your motherboard specifications – you may be lucky and simply need to enable TPM…1 min
APC|August 2020Encrypt backups in the cloudYou’ve encrypted the files on your hard drive, but what about your backups? By default, backup tools store your files unencrypted on a local or network drive, which is fine if the drives have been encrypted with VeraCrypt or BitLocker, but what if you just want the backups to be encrypted; perhaps you’d like to store them securely in the cloud? The answer lies with the free and open-source backup tool Duplicati, currently in beta (www. duplicati.com). This has been engineered like Cryptomator for the cloud, but specialises in file-based backups. After downloading and installing, let Duplicati launch – configuration is done through a browser window. Click Add backup to work your way through the backup wizard. You’re prompted to set your encryption level (the default AES-256 is more than…1 min
APC|August 2020Shop TalkWhat are your thoughts on Intel’s new 10th-gen CPUs? How popular are they with customers and how has availability been? RICHARD, AFTERSHOCK PC: “We have not seen a big uptake in the new Intel 10th Gen CPUs, AMD still seems to be dominating, especially with its recent price drops. Availability of the lower end units has been ok, however given there are only Z490 motherboards available for them, it doesn’t really make a lot of sense as it’s an expensive motherboard with a lower end CPU. The 10900 and 10900K are very difficult to get, yet the appropriate matching Z490 motherboards are the only ones available. We have seen the biggest uptake in the 10700k as using a Z490 motherboard with it still works as a good combination. The 10600k…1 min
APC|August 2020APC experts solve computing problemsAMD USB problems I have an AMD R9 3900X build with an MSI X570 MPG Gaming Pro Carbon motherboard. I was having thermal issues with the voltage regulator modules, which meant the CPU was being throttled when the VRMs hit 95 degrees Celsius. I decided to replace the mobo with an Asus ROG X570 Crosshair Hero VIII, which runs a lot cooler. I originally stuck with the same Windows install, which settled down after several reboots and driver updates, but have now run into some weird issues. USB flash drives are only recognized 50 percent of the time when plugged into any USB 3.0 port, forcing me to unplug and reinsert them. Sometimes I get an error saying the USB device wasn’t removed properly, even when nothing is plugged into…7 min
APC|August 2020Budget benchmarkingWhile most of the software and games we’ve listed here aren’t free, there are still ways to test your GPU’s capabilities without spending a dime. 3DMark has a free edition with limited features, but if you don’t want to pay, we’d recommend Unigine’s Heaven benchmark. The Heaven benchmark is a heavy-duty graphics test that can be used for systems running DirectX 11 and OpenGL 4.0, testing all the usual elements, such as ambient occlusion and real-time lighting. A free “gamer: edition” of the benchmark is available online, with the paid versions offering additional (often unneeded) features, such as benchmark looping and frame-by-frame analysis. Heaven is straightforward to set up and run, and comes with a few useful GPU monitoring tools too. Another way to benchmark your system is to use…1 min
APC|August 2020Master Safari for iPadAt a glance, Safari for iPad in iPadOS might not seem that different from Apple’s browser in iOS 12, but a lot has changed. The latest version is packed full of new features, a dozen of which we’ll explore in the walkthrough. The main underlying change, however, is that Safari for iPad is now effectively a desktop-grade browser. What this means is that instead of taking the iPhone’s version of Safari and blowing it up for iPad, what you get on your tablet is now akin to the browsing experience on a Mac. So when you’re using the likes of Google Docs and WordPress, you’ll get full-fat versions rather than cut-down mobile equivalents. Of course, there may be times when you want the mobile version of a site on your…3 min
APC|August 2020Route traffic between networks using a PiA deep-dive into Pi networking solutions resulted in this tutorial. The goal was to uncover a Pi configuration that would enable the routing of network traffic from a wired network to a wireless network. The aim is to build a network router using a Raspberry Pi. The Pi router would be responsible for moving network traffic between a wired Ethernet network and a wireless Wi-Fi network. The Ethernet network is a local area network (LAN) with hosts (PCs) connected. The Wi-Fi connects to a larger network via a network access point (AP). A router is required to move traffic between the two networks. We’re going to build that routing device while exploring the network theory. Strap in, people! The Pi router will use a number of networking services. The LAN…13 min
APC|August 2020PSU201: Going for GoldOver the last couple of months, we’ve covered simple PSU ratings and how you’d choose between anchored, semi-modular and modular designs. Now that we’ve considered the basics, we’re moving into ‘PSU201’ and some deeper concepts. Buying a PSU on watts alone is like buying a car just by its colour, except with PSUs, colours actually do mean something. This month, we talk PSU power efficiency – we investigate those ‘Gold’, ‘Silver’ and ‘Bronze’ ratings, what they mean and why they matter to your hip pocket. Power efficiency Back in PSU101, we said a PSU’s role is to convert the mains outlet AC voltage into a series of low-voltage DC sources or ‘rails’ to power your PC components. Now that we’re in PSU201, we can flesh that idea out and now…5 min
APC|August 2020Cyberpunk 2077 skips September, will ship in November insteadThe most anticipated game of the year is still a while off, with Cyberpunk 2077 releasing on November 19 instead of its previous September date. The game was originally scheduled to launch in May, but The Witcher 3 studio CD Projekt RED seems determined to ship a game that will prove just as awe-striking as its last. “The quests, the cutscenes, the skill and items; all the adventures Night City has to offer – it’s all there,” the studio wrote. “But with such an abundance of content and complex systems interweaving with each other, we need to properly go through everything, balance game mechanics and fix a lot of bugs. A huge world means a huge number of things to iron out and we will spend the additional time doing…1 min
APC|August 2020Microsoft has shut down MixerMicrosoft’s answer to Twitch is an answer no more: as of July 23 the service will be closed. The news comes less than a year after Microsoft paid millions of dollars to popular Twitch streamers in order to secure their exclusivity. Ninja, a popular Fortnite streamer, is reported to have been paid up to $30 million dollars to switch to Mixer. These streamers are now free to return to Twitch, or else to Facebook Gaming, which will honour existing partnership agreements, though it appears the streamers themselves will be under no obligation to accept. “Ultimately, the success of Partners and streamers on Mixer is dependent on our ability to scale the platform for them as quickly and broadly as possible,” Microsoft said in a statement. “It became clear that the…1 min
APC|August 2020Swallow the SeaFree | PC, Mac, Linux | bit.ly/SwallowSea You play as a little cell that levels up by swallowing orange, blobby things, before using your newfound power to smash through barriers, and reach new parts of the world. You’ll do this a fair few times, gathering even more blobby things, and breaking down bigger barriers, all the while increasing in presence until you resemble a human embryo encased in a bubble. But the sea isn’t kind to people, even when they’re weird fish-baby creatures, and most of the things down here are keen to gobble you up – or at least to trap you in place so you’re easier prey for their carnivorous mates. So, you have to dodge and dash to give these increasingly horrible sea creatures the slip, while…1 min
APC|August 2020Deep Rock Galactic$44.95 | PC | deeprockgalactic.com You’ve no doubt heard that Deep Rock Galactic is like Left 4 Dead, if Valve’s co-op classic swapped zombies for alien arachnids and took place exclusively in dark, confounding tunnels. That’s more or less accurate, but Deep Rock Galactic’s eponymous depth is more than just environmental. The breadth of approaches possible here makes Vermintide 2 look like Desert Bus, and frankly it’s all a bit much for the first few hours. An opening tutorial mission does a fantastic job of conveying the basics, though – this is your pick, use it to hack away at valuable minerals and carve tunnels. Right. Cool. Shoot the gun on the bad spiders – with you there. Call the M.U.L.E. to you and deposit mined resources, press 3 to…2 min
APC|August 2020Samsara RoomFree | PC | bit.ly/3dEhTPz Developer Rusty Lake has already made 15 games in its five years of operation. The team’s latest room-escape-ish adventure game is actually a remake of an older title, updated with new art, music, more puzzles. Themes of life, and death, and rebirth, and having a fish for a head lie at the heart of this puzzle game, whose best feature is its surreal, Twin Peaks-y atmosphere. It may take place inside one room, but you’ll test that premise to its limit by turning the contents upside down, by filling it with water, and by getting a worm’seye view of your environment. It’s room escape taken to a fantastical extreme: a spiritual journey, as you escape the realm of the dead. Puzzles are everywhere, satisfyingly tactile,…1 min
APC|August 2020Find softwareThe list of commercial BBC Micro games isn’t enormous, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of games. The Micro’s real scene was in DIY coding, as was the BBC’s intention, so the real gold is in program listings. Archive.org has magazines such as BBC Micro User and The Micro User, with listings to be typed out verbatim, enabling you to try out games and learn BASIC as you go. As for commercial releases, fan archives exist aplenty, and are easily searched, but we can’t advocate these for legal reasons. BBCMicro. co.uk is the most thorough and convenient (everything is on a simple disk image), but we doubt it has legal rights to do so. Something we can recommend, however, are the websites www.rucksackgames.co.uk and www.retrosoftware.co.uk, where you can get…1 min
