Home//PC Pro/May 2019/In This Issue
PC Pro|May 2019A big investment ought to make a big differenceFAREWELL, SWEET FRIEND. I refer to the ViewSonic VP3881, a ridiculous 38in widescreen monitor that I would never have contemplated buying – until it landed in my office for review (see p73). For one thing, it’s huge, dominating even the 1.8m-wide desk I paid almost £1,000 for last year. Second, it costs more than that desk: £1,200 including VAT.But now, having been apart from that beautiful monitor for four days, I’m rethinking my priorities. It’s all about productivity, that terrible and overused word. I found I could sit in front of the ViewSonic for two solid hours without losing concentration. Every piece of information I needed was there, on tap. There was no barrier between my brain and the final result; nothing to get in the way.That’s in stark contrast…3 min
PC Pro|May 2019Five stories not to miss1 Google on defensive over “hidden” microphoneGoogle was forced to issue an explanation over an “error” that hid a microphone in the company’s Nest Guard home security devices from consumers. The undisclosed mic was discovered after an update enabled voice-controlled features in Assistant for the security device, but the existence of listening tech appeared nowhere in the product’s specifications, sparking outcry from privacy-conscious consumers.2 Facebook branded “digital gangster” in fake news probeFacebook was labelled a “digital gangster” in a UK parliamentary report following an obstructing the investigation. investigation into disinformation campaigns on the social network. The report called for the company to face urgent statutory regulations in the wake of its failure to clamp down on fake news and accused Facebook of intentionally3 Microsoft accuses Russian network of mass EU…1 min
PC Pro|May 2019Privacy toolkitsDisconnectDisconnect relies on a blacklist of tracking companies to automatically detect when a browser tries to make a connection to anything other than the site being visited, blocking requests from alien sites and tracking companies.GhosteryA stalwart of the privacy brigade, Ghostery blocks adverts, but also blocks trackers on websites to control who can collect data. An enhanced Anti-Tracking feature also anonymises data to further protect privacy.Apple’s Safari ITP 2Intelligent Tracking Prevention is an on-by-default tracking blocker in Safari that attempts to beat snoopers. Websites can send requests to be allowed to drop a cookie, allowing them to track users with permission.Privacy BadgerThe Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Privacy Badger is a browser plugin created using underlying technology from Disconnect and has many of the same benefits. Its unique selling point in that…1 min
PC Pro|May 2019YouTube lets anyone be a filmmaker – and I hate it@dariengs“My best hope is that soon it will be possible to skip over the dross and waffle, and jump straight to the most relevant parts”I don’t know what I would do without YouTube. Being able to instantly call up any music video you can think of is heaven to a music nerd like me. Add in all the million other sorts of video it hosts, from documentaries to video-game playthroughs, and there’s a case to be made that YouTube is the genuine most important site on the entire internet.Sadly, it’s also responsible for one of my least favourite things about the online age. Back in the Web 1.0 days, if you had something to say, you would type it up and publish it on your blog. Today, thanks to YouTube,…5 min
PC Pro|May 2019Don’t fret about the AI bang, but the digital whimperVisit dickpountain.co.uk“This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper”TS Eliot’s famous last line hangs on an auditory metaphor, the two opposite ends of a spectrum of disquieting sounds. He wrote The Hollow Men well before the Second World War and the atom bomb; in a 1958 interview, he said he’d not use that metaphor now “bang” had acquired new force. He didn’t live to see the internet, which might have done the same for “whimper”.An equally popular dichotomy is the one between “co*ck-up” and “conspiracy”. We’re supposed to consider these opposites too, although personally I believe it’s possible to have both simultaneously, in the shape of incompetently executed conspiracies, or a well-executed ones that have unintended consequences. And it’s starting to look as though…4 min
PC Pro|May 2019Shadow Ghost Do you even need a PC at all?While this feature examines ways to boost laptop graphics, maybe it’s best to leave the laptop to the grunt work it was bought for and buy a dedicated device for gaming. The Shadow Ghost, pictured opposite, is just that.This sleek little box is effectively a thin client for the Shadow streaming service. It’s not a great deal larger than an Amazon Echo Dot or Google Home Mini, but it packs in all the components you need to stream 4K UHD video at 60fps or 144fps in Full HD.The rear of the device houses two USB 2 and two USB 3 ports for plugging in peripherals – the necessary keyboard and mouse, and optional games controller. Bluetooth is integrated if you have wireless peripherals, although even one of our wired keyboards…2 min
PC Pro|May 2019GAMIFICATION: good or bad for security?Two of the experts we interviewed had very different views on the use of gamification to heighten cybersecurity awareness.Mary-Jo de Leeuw, director of Cybersecurity Advocacy at (ISC)2, told PC Pro that using tactics such as gamification to heighten interest and trigger a behavioural change is one of the more effective ways to modify attitudes and get individuals engaged in security. Gamification is where cybersecurity is made a competitive process, where best practice results in peer success and reward. Using technology can also help, such as “running spoof phishing campaigns to intercept and highlight users who are easily caught out by these threats”, de Leeuw said, “along with implementing web filtering to intercept and neutralise the majority of deliberate or inadvertent attempts to access compromised websites.” While she admits that none…1 min
PC Pro|May 2019ENABLING SSHSSH stands for Secure Shell, a handy service that lets you remotely connect to a Linux system and enter commands as if you were sitting in front of it. It’s particularly convenient for administering “headless” systems, such as a Pi-hole, which doesn’t normally have a keyboard attached.However, SSH isn’t turned on by default. In Raspbian, you have to activate it in the Raspberry Pi Configuration tool (which you’ll find under the Preferences menu); click on the Interfaces tab, then click the Enabled radio button next to SSH, then click OK. The service should start working immediately – but just to be sure, it’s a good idea to test that you can connect before you unplug your keyboard and mouse. For other Linux distributions, check the support documentation to see how…1 min
PC Pro|May 2019Motorola Moto G7PRICE £200 (£240 inc VAT) from motorola.co.ukMotorola’s G range has been the budget phone king since 2013, but the competition is fiercer than ever. Not only does the Moto G7 face an expanded Moto G range – the Moto G7 Play, Plus and the Moto G7 Power – but now a stiff challenge from Honor, too.Motorola’s answer to this in the past has been to bump up the price and the quality of its phones, and the approach is much the same now. Over the next five pages, we review the new crop of Motorola’s budget handsets, starting with the G7. What’s new?The G7’s biggest new feature is its edge-to-edge display. This fills most of the front of the phone and ensures that, despite being 0.5in larger than last year,…7 min
PC Pro|May 2019Motorola Moto G7 PlayPRICE £124 (£149 inc VAT) from pcpro.link/295playThe phrase “last but not least” does not apply here. Despite its playful name, this is an out-and-out budget phone – yet there are still reasons to like it. First of all, it’s hard to argue with the G7 Play’s specifications. The same Qualcomm Snapdragon 632 processor found in the G7 powers the phone, and that provides a big performance boost compared to last year’s G6 Play.In Geekbench 4, it almost doubled the results of its predecessor (1,199 versus 639 in the single-core test, 4,265 versus 2,394 in the multicore benchmark). It’s also a respectable gaming phone, scoring a 20fps on-screen average in Manhattan 3 versus 14fps of the G6 Play. But it ships with a paltry 2GB of RAM, which means the phone…4 min
PC Pro|May 2019Scan 3XS LG15 Vengeance Max-QRTXPRICE £1,542(£1,850incVAT) from scan.co.ukIwas initially going to write “Nvidia’s RTX chips are an obvious example of jam tomorrow”, but that’s not fair. Really, they’re an example of jam today with cream and sprinkles tomorrow. The jam comes in the form of magnificent gaming performance in modern games; the cream and sprinkles the promise of ray tracing when games start to implement it properly.Even better, we’re now seeing RTX in laptops, and not through the use of desktop components crammed into huge chassis. Nvidia has performed the physics trick of packing even more grunt into the same space, which means a chassis designed for a Max-Q Design GTX 1060 can now include a Max-Q Design RTX 2070 – with all the speed improvements that involves.Just don’t expect identical performance to a…7 min
PC Pro|May 2019Synology MR 2200 acPRICE £110(£132incVAT) from scan.co.ukWe’ve seen plenty of mesh Wi-Fi systems that come with two or three nodes in the box. The Synology MR2200ac is something different: it’s a fully featured standalone router, but you can turn it into the hub of a mesh system by simply buying additional units – up to a maximum of seven – and configuring them as connected Wi-Fi “points”.It’s a clever approach – but is it smart and cost-effective enough to compete with existing routers and complete mesh kits?Let’s start with what you’re buying. The MR2200ac is a tri-band 802.11ac Wave 2 router. Its twin 5GHz radios are rated at 867Mbits/sec apiece, while the 2.4GHz band has a maximum data rate of 400Mbits/sec.Interestingly, the MR2200ac is the first router we’ve seen to support WPA3, the…8 min
PC Pro|May 2019Huawei Mate 20XPRICE £667 (£800 inc VAT) from johnlewis.comI’m a fan of big phones; I owned a Samsung Galaxy Note 2 when all my friends were adamant no handset should ever have a screen larger than 4.5in. So when the opportunity to review the 7.2in Huawei Mate 20 X appeared, there was no way I was turning it down.To put that size into perspective, it’s about the same as a Nintendo Switch, minus Joy-Cons. Or think of it as a super-sized version of the 6.39in Mate 20 Pro (see issue 291, p68), and they have much in common. The same processor, the same camera and the same style. For the Mate 20 X is a handsome handset. Available in only one colour – Midnight Blue – the glass back glitters in the…5 min
PC Pro|May 2019Google Pixel StandPRICE £58 (£69 inc VAT) from store.google.comThe 10W Pixel Stand is designed for the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL. Using Google’s proprietary charging technology, it tops up a Pixel 3’s battery from zero to around 40% within 30 minutes. You don’t even need to remove your phone’s case. It also supports Qi wireless charging speeds at a not-so-speedy 5W. My Huawei Mate 20 Pro took roughly twice as long to reach the same battery percentage, for example.Much like the Show Mode Charging Dock for the Amazon Fire HD 8 tablet, it also turns your Pixel 3 or Pixel 3 XL into a semi-smart screen. In Amazon’s case, that was a cheap Echo Show; here, it’s a slightly cheaper version of the Google Home Hub. Simply ask Google Assistant some…2 min
PC Pro|May 2019SECURE YOUR DATAYour data isn’t safe. Sorry to be blunt, but there it is. No matter how carefully you file your documents, or how meticulous you are about installing security updates, disasters do happen. An electrical fault could fry your hard disk, a thief could make off with your laptop, a zero-day ransomware attack could lock up your documents – even that cloud company you’ve relied on to store safe copies of your files could be shut down tomorrow.And when we talk about data, we don’t just mean the odd saved email, or your old contributions to the parish newsletter. Increasingly, our computers are the hubs of our personal and professional lives. Irreplaceable family photos and videos rub shoulders with sensitive market data and painstakingly assembled spreadsheets. Losing your virtual assets could…1 min
PC Pro|May 2019Acronis True Image2019PRICE £35 (1 PC, Standard edition); £35/yr (1 PC, Advanced edition, 250GB cloud storage); £70/yr (1 PC, Premium edition, 1TB cloud storage) from acronis.comAcronis True Image is arguably the first name in PC backup – and not just alphabetically. The suite has been around since 2002 (the name hearkening back to its original incarnation as a disk imaging tool), and during that time it’s been a regular presence on the PC Pro A-List, largely thanks to its unbeatable feature set. This new 2019 version is the most multitalented yet, with a lineup of truly distinctive features.Before we get to those, though, let’s review the basics. Acronis True Image comes in two formats: the standalone Standard package, which you can buy for £35, and the cloud-enabled Advanced and Premium subscription plans,…7 min
PC Pro|May 2019Carbonite Safe BackupPRICE $6/month (1 PC, unlimited cloud storage) from carbonite.comCarbonite was the first backup service to offer unlimited online storage; nowadays that’s far from unique, but the service still has other things going for it.Admittedly, the front end is hardly fancy. A single window lets you configure backup settings on the left-hand side, and browse backed-up items via a link on the right, with a restoration button in the middle. By default, all personal files on your computer are automatically selected for backup; if you prefer, you can choose to start with nothing selected, and add locations manually.Whatever you choose, your protection status is never in doubt, thanks to Carbonite’s trademark feature: small green and yellow dots, overlaid onto the Explorer icon of every file in your backup set, give you…2 min
PC Pro|May 2019SpiderOak One BackupPRICE $6/month (unlimited devices, 150GB cloud storage) from spideroak.comWith Backblaze and Livedrive both promising unlimited cloud backup for $6 a month, you might wonder how SpiderOak expects to get away with offering only 150GB for the same price. The answer is that, unlike those services, SpiderOak One isn’t locked to a single PC. You can use your allocated storage to back up as many devices as you like, running Windows, macOS or Linux.Unusually, to help you make the most of that space, SpiderOak employs deduplication, effectively a form of block-level differential backup. This allows it to store unlimited historical versions of your files, without wasting large amounts of storage (although if things get tight, you can purge old versions manually).Another thing that sets SpiderOak apart from the crowd is its…2 min
PC Pro|May 2019Choose the perfect multifunction printer for your businessMultifunction printers (MFPs) are ideal for small businesses. Not only are they space-efficient, they can help you streamline your management processes, reduce your environmental impact – and save money, compared to separate printing and scanning devices.Some of the biggest advantages of MFPs are to do with efficiency. Today’s models make it easy to share documents over the network and send them directly to many popular cloud storage providers, saving time and reducing consumable costs. By centralising document printing and processing in a single place, an MFP also makes it a lot easier to manage resource usage.Many businesses are already seeing the benefits of the multifunction approach, and consistent demand has helped drive costs down to the point that a fully featured colour MFP is an affordable option for even the…5 min
PC Pro|May 2019Oki MC 363 dnwPRICE £225excVATfromokidirect.co.ukOki’s MC363dnw is a bona fide multifunction printer that costs no more than many single-function lasers. It may not be a winner in the design stakes, but this chunky desktop unit can print, scan, copy and fax, with competitive print speeds of up to 30ppm in mono – and it gives you the choice of Ethernet, Wi-Fi or USB connection.As you’d expect, the feature set isn’t quite as rich as some rivals’. For one, the 50-page ADF is of the simplex variety: when you scan a double-sided document, each page gets fed through the scanner twice, which slows things down considerably.The lack of a touchscreen is also a shame. The 9.5cm flip-up mono display makes it easy enough to find your way around the various settings, but if you…4 min
PC Pro|May 2019BuffaloTechnology BS-GS2024PPRICE £323 exc VAT from ebuyer.comBuffalo Technology is best known for its NAS appliances, but it’s recently staked a claim in the SME networking market with the launch of no fewer than 13 products. The range starts with simple Gigabit Ethernet switches with a choice of port densities, and extends up to managed PoE+ models – of which the BS-GS2024P is the top dog.The basic specs are simple: you get 24 standard copper Gigabit Ethernet ports, along with a pair of SFP fibre uplink ports. The latter are of the dual-personality variety, which means they share a connection with the last two copper sockets.In addition, there’s full PoE+ support. The BS-GS2024P’s power budget of 180W isn’t enormous, but it should more than satisfy most medium-sized offices.Although this is officially a…4 min
PC Pro|May 2019Five things to get off your network NOWNetworks have much longer lifespans than the computers that connect to them. It’s not at all uncommon to find that the wires over which your traffic is moving are 25 years old – and that can extend to the switches, backbone fibres, and even DSL routers. Wiring cupboards have been neglected for so long that a generation of workers nowadays just assumes everything is wireless.But the game is changing. When I say that I don’t do any online banking unless I’m on a wired connection, people no longer suppress a titter: they nod wisely. My insistence has gone from being a tinfoil-hat choice to an understandable caution. As while, in theory, your network ought to be a safe space, it’s more like underneath your bed from when you were six…8 min
PC Pro|May 2019Dark dataDark data? Is this another bit of hacker slang?You would be forgiven for thinking that, but no. In fact, it’s almost the opposite – it’s information that your business has acquired legitimately and is storing safely. What makes it “dark” is the fact that you’re not using it for anything. Nine times out of ten, it hasn’t even been examined to work out whether and how it could, in some future scenario, be useful. Is this like that old rule about 80% of documents never being read?It’s not dissimilar. However, that rule of thumb has a lot to do with multiple copies of files being forwarded back and forth over email. This sort of human-mediated data ballooning is peanuts compared to what we’re dealing with now that the machines have…3 min
PC Pro|May 2019“Even companies such as Google and Sky have jumped on the mesh bandwagon”Consumer-grade wireless mesh networking has really taken off recently, but the technology isn’t that new. Mesh Wi-Fi has been around for decades, but couldn’t previously be found on the shelves at your local electrical store. Mesh networks have mostly been used in the enterprise or to provide public Wi-Fi at events and across city centres.But now all the big manufacturers seem to have at least one domestic mesh product, and some have several. Even companies such as Google and Sky have jumped on the bandwagon.Some technical snobbery is creeping into this area. Whenever I write about products offered by mainstream manufacturers, people ask why I haven’t mentioned certain alternative, niche players. There’s an easy answer: I’ll happily write about those smaller companies when their products start to offer something special,…11 min
PC Pro|May 2019“It seems as though Zimbabwe’s ISPs have been working in concert with the government”Easy to manage is a holy grail of networking. The sheer horror of coming up to a vital, high-end, rare device and not knowing how it’s configured is a thrill stronger than any rollercoaster ride or shoot-em-up. Most of these have cute-looking web interfaces, but a common trait among anything useful is that the settings you tick in those web pages are essentially petitionary, not orders.Some might work: others might not.The purpose of the web pages is to produce little temporary scripts that are left to run, and then you’re left to figure out what state that inscrutable machine is now in. At this level of complexity, it’s far too easy to put these devices into an internally incompatible state.It’s true. The high priests of communication technology – the developers…12 min
PC Pro|May 2019Three robots that have already been firedLOSING A JOB can upend someone’s life, put them in debt, and be a serious hit to their confidence and mental health. Unless they’re a robot – then, fire away.Plenty of studies suggest robotics and automation are coming for our jobs. Research by the University of Oxford suggests 47% of jobs are at risk, leaving us humans to consider options such as a four-day work week, taxing companies that use robots and universal basic income. We have time to get this right: while automation is already a force in manufacturing, more effort is needed to get robots ready for the rest of our working world. Here are three robots that have already lost their jobs. Check-in, check-outJapan leads the way in many areas of tech – including laying off robots.…3 min
PC Pro|May 2019CONTRIBUTORSDarien Graham-SmithBacking up your data may be easy to put off, but with modern services and software it’s also easy to put into action. Darien tests 12 products from p76Paul OckendenBefore you invest hundreds of pounds on upgrading your wireless network, it pays to understand how the technologies work. Paul explains all from p113Dick PountainDick explains why you shouldn’t fear malevolent robots but rather the slow replacement of helpful humans by stupid AI. See his reasons on p26Darren DaviesIf you’ve ever wanted to get more from an old laptop, take a leaf out of Darren’s book – he explains why he often helps clients switch to Linux on p116…1 min
PC Pro|May 2019Unveiled MobileWorldCongress Special▶ Nokia 9 PureViewPRICE $699AVAILABILITY To be confirmedWith five cameras on board, the Nokia 9 PureView is the most interesting phone we’ve seen for ages. They’re not there to help you get a wider angle or a zoomed-in view of your scene, but to boost the dynamic range of the camera. That is to say, the range of light intensities from black to white, an area in which smartphone cameras have traditionally struggled.In fact, every time you hit the shutter button, the phone captures at least one frame with all five of the cameras – that’s 60 megapixels worth of image data – before fusing them all to create one image. Nokia worked with Light (you may remember its crazy L16 camera) on the proprietary chip that controls the capture…7 min
PC Pro|May 2019The A-ListPREMIUM LAPTOPSDell XPS 13 9370Ultraportable from £1,199from dell.co.ukThis 2018 update to the all-dominant Dell XPS 13 keeps tweaks to the minimum: slimmer bezels, eighth-generation Intel Core processors and the promise of even longer battery life are the most important benefits. Just keep in mind that Dell has embraced USB-C ports at the expense of the old-fashioned Type-A variety.REVIEW Issue 284, p54ALTERNATIVESApple MacBook Pro 15in (2018)A machine for true power users with amazing specifications, including that infamous Core i9 – and up to 4TB of SSD storage. From £2,349 from apple.com/ukREVIEW Issue 288, p48Dell XPS 15We all know what to expect from Dell’s XPS 15 range, yet it continues to reign supreme – this time thanks to sheer speed, courtesy of Intel’s latest chips. From £1,179 from dell.co.ukREVIEW Issue 289, p62Huawei…15 min
PC Pro|May 2019The doctor won’t see you now – they’re too busy@bazzacollinsThere’s an old expression: what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. If only that were true. Because every year when I return from CES, I bring back some ghastly bug – no doubt contracted on the Boeing germ incubator that flew me home.Without diving too deeply into my medical hell, that trip to the States always aggravates another underlying medical condition of mine: eczema. Any sharp change in weather conditions – such as moving from damp Sussex to the dry, massively air-conditioned Nevada casinos – prompts my own skin to start attacking me. Thus, I return to the UK a feverish, itching, bleeding mess. (I know, ladies, form an orderly queue.)I went to the pharmacy to see if I could get the special, more gentle steroid cream required to treat…4 min
PC Pro|May 2019Readers’commentsSmartphones vs real cameras“The smartphone camera’s little lies” (see issue 294, p38) was probably one of the most biased articles ever published in your magazine. The author identifies issues with smartphones but conveniently overlooked those inherent in DSLRs.For example, a smartphone costs between £450 and £1,000, but DSLRs cost an additional £3,000 to £5,000 including lenses, tripods and other necessities. With a smartphone you just select an app and shoot, but with a DSLR you need to set it up on a tripod, select shutter speed, ISO, aperture and focus point, then press the button. Smartphones are easily carried in a pocket, readily accessible, and need only a few seconds to take a shot; DSLRs, meanwhile, need a camera bag, weigh a few kilos, take minutes to set up on…7 min
PC Pro|May 2019Were you born a CYBER VICTIM?It was back in 1990 that the five-factor model of personality, also known as “the big five” personality traits, defined the human psyche. The big five are: an openness to experience (the inventive, imaginative and curious type), conscientiousness (the organised, efficient and selfdisciplined type), extraversion (the energetic, outgoing and assertive type), agreeableness (the friendly, compassionate and tolerant type) and neuroticism (the sensitive, nervous or self-conscious type). You will probably recognise yourself in more than one of these categories, but have you ever wondered if your personality type can determine your risk of becoming a victim of cybercrime?Here’s the thing: cybercriminals have and threat methodologies are designed to exploit these emotional triggers. This is bad news for anyone born to be a cyber victim, and bad news for the businesses they…9 min
PC Pro|May 2019GOOGLE DRIVE SECRETSIt’s fair to say that we at PC Pro are fans of Google’s online productivity tools. This feature was written in Google Docs, and much of the copy that appears in print has been shared using Google Drive. So over the years, we’ve gathered more than our fair share of tips for getting the most out of the online office suite: here, Nik Rawlinson shares the best of themGOOGLEDOCSTypelessGoogle Docs is a word processor, and that means typing – right? Well, not necessarily. If you have an Android phone or a Google Home device you’ll be familiar with Google’s impressive voice-recognition capabilities; what you may not realise is that they’re also built into Google Docs. Voice input is accurate, fast – and free, so you’ve nothing to lose by trying…12 min
PC Pro|May 2019The Pi-hole web admin interface1 DashboardThe Dashboard gives you an at-a-glance view of what Pi-hole is doing for you. You might be surprised at how much it sweeps out of your traffic – the amber box reveals that fully one-eighth of the connection requests from my own home network are to blacklisted domains. I can also see that my home internet usage peaks after dinner, and the pie chart at the bottom reveals that a quarter of my connection requests are made over IPv6.2 QueryLogThe Query Log lets you browse recent connection requests, and see which were allowed and which were blocked. To whitelist a blocked domain, or restrict a permitted one, simply click the button next to the log entry. To search for a particular domain, you can use the search box at…1 min
PC Pro|May 2019Motorola Moto G7 PlusPRICE £224 (£269 inc VAT) from motorola.co.uk“I’m a fan of its front-facing 12-megapixel camera, which has an AI feature that can take a photo when it detects a smile”The G7 Plus is the most expensive of the new Moto range, and veers dangerously close in price to a mid-tier smartphone. But do its extra features justify a higher price over the regular Moto G7? And is it really that much better than last year’s Moto G6 Plus?On paper, yes. Besides a larger 6.2in display to the Moto G6 Plus’ 5.9in, the resolution has had a minor boost to 1,080 x 2,270, and there’s a new Qualcomm Snapdragon 636 to replace the 630 found in the Moto G6 Plus – the regular Moto G7 and Moto G7 Power have a Snapdragon…4 min
PC Pro|May 2019How we testLaptops and PCsWe run our own benchmarks on every Windows and macOS system we test. These are based around image editing, video editing and multitasking (where we run the video editing benchmark while simultaneously playing back a 4K video). At the bottom of each laptop and PC review you’ll find the system’s score in each of these tests, plus an Overall score.If a laptop scores 70, say, then it’s 30% slower than our reference system – a PC with a Core i7-4670K and 8GB of RAM. If it scores 160, then it’s 60% faster.We test laptop battery life by playing back a full-screen video until the battery runs out. We set the screen brightness to 170cd/m2, or as close as we can get using its settings, and switch to Flight…3 min
PC Pro|May 2019Asus ROG Zephyrus GX531GW-ES008RPRICE £1,917 (£2,300 inc VAT) from pcpro.link/295rogWe’ve seen how fast the Max-Q RTX 2070 graphics can be in the Scan 3XS LG15 Vengeance (see p56), but Asus is more ambitious with its implementation. The ROG Zephyrus GX531GW is a sleek, distinctive laptop, measuring 16mm at its thickest point.Why distinctive? First, there’s stylish gold edging around the lid. Second, the lid’s finish is diagonally split in half, with the top right finished in a plain matte black and the bottom left in a brushed metal design (plus huge ROG logo). Third, the hinge starts an inch from the back, giving the laptop a folio-like look. And fourth, lifting the lid also opens a slim ventilation panel at the back, complete with backlighting.Then we come to the keyboard, which sits flush to…4 min
PC Pro|May 2019Your bonus softwareOkay Freedom VPN 12-month licence with 5GB per month of data, worth £15 okayfreedom.comWHEN YOU BROWSE the internet, your location, your ISP and many other personal details can be easily discovered. You might be surprised how easily you can be tracked. A virtual private network (VPN) hides all of this information, connecting you through a private tunnel, using an IP address that can’t be traced back to your router.OkayFreedom uses VPN technology to let you browse as though you were in a different country. As well as giving you privacy and safety, this lets you access content that’s not available at home: you can quickly switch back and forth between servers in the United States, most European countries, Australia, Brazil and Russia.It’s effortless to use, too: it starts automatically on…4 min
PC Pro|May 2019Optoma UHD51 ALVePRICE £1,250 (£1,500 inc VAT) from projectors.co.ukWe wouldn’t normally dedicate a page to a projector pitched at home cinemas, but the 3,200 lumens Optoma UHD51ALVe is different. Not only does it have a resolution of 4K (3,840 x 2,160) and support the HDR 10 standard, it’s the first projector we’ve seen with Alexa voice control.As with all “cheap” 4K projectors, the imaging engine isn’t native 4K. You only get that with much pricier projectors such as the Sony VPVW270ES; instead, the tiny mirrors on its DLP projection chip refresh the image four times per frame, each one slightly offset from the other to give the impression of true 4K. The system works well, however, with the BenQ TK800 using the same technology – yet costing only £960.With that in mind,…4 min
PC Pro|May 2019Cooler Master SK630PRICE £108 (£130 inc VAT) from scan.co.ukThere are two types of people who will appreciate this keyboard. The first is the competitive gamer who wants to bring their own high-performance keyboard to events, with Cooler Master even including a velvet-esque carry pouch in the box. I weighed the SK630 at 521g, so you’ll barely notice it in your bag. Just remember to sling the braided, 1.8m USB-C to USB-A cable in there with it.It will also appeal to anyone who’s desperate for a proper mechanical keyboard but has limited space on their desk. Or perhaps they just like clean, minimalist lines. With the backlights switched off to accentuate the brushed aluminium base, this board would look amazing in a Habitat catalogue.“With the backlights switched off to accentuate the brushed aluminium…2 min
PC Pro|May 2019SIX QUESTIONS TO ASK WHEN PROTECTING DATA1 Do I want cloud or local protection?This should be your first question – and the answer is a big fat “it depends”. Cloud protection has one definite advantage: because copies of your files are kept in a remote data centre, you can be confident that they’re safe regardless of what happens to your home computer. Not fire, flood, theft nor virus can harm your uploaded backups.Cloud protection also has its downsides, however. One big one is that you have to keep paying for it, for as long as you want your backups to be retained. The monthly fee is often quite small, but over the years you’ll save money by choosing a local backup system and a USB hard disk, or even a NAS appliance.The online transfer process is…7 min
PC Pro|May 2019IDrivePRICE Free (5GB cloud storage); $52/yr (unlimited devices, 2TB cloud storage) from idrive.comIf you’re looking for the most cost-effective cloud backup solution, you won’t do much better than free. Sign up with IDrive and you’ll get continuous fuss-free protection, along with 5GB of online storage, without even having to enter your credit card details. It’s not as generous as the 15GB you nominally get with Google, but it’s not shared with anything, and it’s enough to protect your most important documents and projects. And if you later decide you need more, you can expand it to a whopping 2TB for a very reasonable $52 per year – equivalent to £40 at current exchange rates.It may seem a bit mean that, unlike some other cloud services, you don’t get unlimited storage.…4 min
PC Pro|May 2019THE FREE BACKUP TOOLS BUILT INTO WINDOWSWindows File HistoryFile History is an often overlooked feature of Windows 8 and 10 – which is a shame, as it could rescue you from digital calamity. When enabled, it keeps a regular backup of nominated folders, writing copies to an external hard disk or NAS appliance, and allows you to review and recover changed and deleted files dating as far back as you like: the only limit is your available space.File History can be found in the Windows 8 Control Panel, or in the Windows 10 Settings app under “Backup”. From here you can tailor which locations are protected and set the update frequency (from every 10 minutes to daily). To bring back a lost file, simply click the History button in the Windows Explorer to open a historical…3 min
PC Pro|May 2019Genie Timeline Home 10PRICE £30 (1 PC) from genie9.comGenie Timeline is a local backup tool that provides a similar rollback function to Windows’ File History tool (see p87). But it doesn’t just protect your personal data: it also backs up your system files, so you can recover your Windows installation in a disaster. Even better, it’s not limited to protecting specified folders, but will back up certain types of file – such as pictures, email archives and Office documents.The interface is garish, but the setup process is painless. There’s almost nothing to configure: this isn’t a tool for setting up multiple backup jobs with a mix of destinations. You just need to choose a destination for your Timeline backups, and indicate if you want your backups compressed.Scheduling features are similarly minimal. The standard…2 min
PC Pro|May 2019NTI Backup Now ProPRICE $30 (1 PC, Pro edition) from nticorp.comAt first blush, Backup Now looks not dissimilar to Macrium Reflect. There’s a couple of key differences, though. First is the price, which converts to £23 – meaning NTI’s product is just under half the cost of Macrium’s. Second, while Backup Now stands perfectly well on its own, backing up to local and network media, it also integrates with NTI’s own cloud storage service, which you can subscribe to separately.Unfortunately, the cloud offering is expensive. A modest 64GB of storage will cost you $10 a month, while plenty of rival services offer unlimited storage for less. What’s more, we found it horrendously slow, taking well over an hour and a half to upload our 550MB file, and nearly an hour for our folder…2 min
PC Pro|May 2019ADDING THE CLOUD TO YOUR BACKUPSIf you want to know that your backups are safely stored in a remote data centre, the easiest way is to choose a product that includes cloud storage. It’s not the only way, though: with a little configuration, you can add the benefits of online protection to any backup system. Use your sync storageOne option is to make use of the free storage that accompanies the major cloud syncing tools. Dropbox gives you 2GB when you sign up, while Microsoft’s OneDrive comes with a free 5GB allocation and Google gives you a whopping 15GB to share between its various services.If you’re not already using all that space for file syncing, why not use it for cloud backup instead? Simply sign up to get your free space, install the client, and…3 min
PC Pro|May 2019Brother X-Series MFC-J6945 DWPRICE £317 exc VAT from printerbase.co.ukBrother’s Business Smart printers promise big printing on a small budget – and the MFC-J6945DW is certainly affordable. This A3 colour inkjet MFP costs not much more than £300, and running costs are low.That’s true from the outset: rather than a half-empty “starter cartridge”, the printer ships with a full set of high-yield ink cartridges. Once you’ve used these up, you can replace them with the super-high-yield versions, which work out to just 0.9p per A4 mono page and 3.6p for colour – costs no rival in this price range can match.The MFC-J6945DW is well connected, with Ethernet, 802.11n, NFC and USB 2 built in. Mobile users can take advantage of both Wi-Fi Direct and AirPrint connections.Installation was quick and easy. The printer located the…4 min
PC Pro|May 2019Xerox VersaLink C405 DNPRICE £499 exc VAT from printerland.co.ukThe Xerox VersaLink C405DN is perfect for busy workgroups that want every feature at their fingertips. Like all VersaLink models, it benefits from Xerox’s ConnectKey technology, which allows its capabilities to be extended and customised via a selection of business apps – all of them easily accessible from its large 5in colour touchscreen.Connectivity options are flexible, too. The C405DN supports USB 3, Gigabit Ethernet and NFC as standard, while an optional snap-in dongle costing £47 adds simultaneous 802.11n Wi-Fi. While you’re buying add-ons, consider the £230 Productivity Kit, which provides an encrypted hard disk with immediate overwrite, for securely erasing sensitive documents once they’ve been printed.The touchscreen makes it easy to get started, with a wizard guiding you through the business of configuring security and…4 min
PC Pro|May 2019Do I need an SSL certificate? And how do I get one?“It’s very rare for Google to reveal how it ranks websites,” said Daniel Foster, technical director of 34sp.com. “But a couple of years ago, it did say that SSL was a factor it used in ranking, and that secure sites would rank better than insecure ones.”This is probably the worst-kept secret in SEO, yet many site owners still haven’t secured their online presence using SSL – Secure Sockets Layer (see Paul’s Expert View opposite on why this isn’t technically the right name). The most widely deployed cryptographic protocol, SSL provides end-to-end encryption for web connections. It’s what’s responsible for turning browser bars green and producing the padlock icon.“I doubt it’s a major factor,” explained Foster, “but in a tie between someone who’s using SSL and someone who’s not, the person…6 min
PC Pro|May 2019NETWORK HALLOWE’ENComputerisation was supposed to make life easier, but when implemented poorly it has the opposite effect. High-end switches whose web interfaces demand – and check for – ancient releases of Java thereby open up more security holes than the management capability closes. And don’t get me started on the semi-mythical fridge-freezers that got turned into spam email relay servers. These are the sorts of thing that no one needs on their network.Sadly, it’s a fact of life that network devices have a long replacement cycle, and that’s partly because of the pain involved in making changes. When an American hotel hosts a Russian computer convention and all its Windows-XP powered guest-room TV sets wake up hacked at 4am, they can’t quickly swap the whole lot out for a more secure…1 min
PC Pro|May 2019Keeping dark data at bayDark data can be very revealing, but there are good arguments for seeking to minimise the amount that your business generates. It all costs money to store, and if your log files contain personal information about clients and customers, you could face dire legal consequences if they’re not properly handled.The solution is tightly functional systems design – something that you should be embracing even if you don’t care about dark data. Ditch unneeded services and devices, and disable any non-essential logs. You might even draw up a software-defined networking specification that only allows packets on your LAN that match a whitelist of origins and properties; most workers only need a very limited range of traffic types required to do their job. Filtering out unknown datagrams before they get anywhere near…1 min
PC Pro|May 2019“I sold my iMac after five years of service, and it was running faster than when I first took it out of its box”It may be a sign of the times, but quite a few people have been asking me to refurbish their laptops lately. There appears to be a trend towards keeping kit for longer. This is a great idea. Why throw away a laptop if it can be rejuvenated by a software rebuild or modest hardware upgrade? Perhaps the laptop in question doesn’t have enough RAM, or has a very slow hard disk, and grinds to a halt on a regular basis. In those cases, such a machine can have a very fine upgrade applied, combined with the installation of an OS appropriate to the machine, to make a computer better than when it originally came out of its box. Such a refurbished machine can then offer several more years of…7 min
PC Pro|May 2019The debate Should we block ads on sites?Tim Danton Question for the masthead. Do you use an ad blocker? If so, how do you justify it and do you block all sites?Jon Honeyball Happy to run an ad blocker all the time. Ghostery in Firefox, Ghostery and Adblock Plus in Chrome.Tim Thanks Jon – and how do you justify lost revenue to sites that rely on it?Jon They should ask for subscription. That this is a mess is the industry’s fault. And I can see why Apple is going in all guns blazing with the new News service. It’s simply laziness by the site. Stuff any old ad on my view and grab the money.Paul Ockenden Subscription is interesting. Would you buy a sub for Tim and Barry’s The Big Tech Question site? If I’m honest (sorry…4 min
PC Pro|May 2019What is… a rectenna?Wi-Fi could do a lot more than connect us to the internet. Thanks to researchers from MIT, Madrid and the University of Southern California, Wi-Fi signals could be used to power devices from smartphones to wearables, removing the need for batteries with a rectenna.The idea has been decades in the making. Rectennas were first suggested in the 1960s, but it took until 2015 for researchers Baratunde Cola and Thomas Bougher of Georgia Institute of Technology to build the first optical model. Those first versions produced only tiny amounts of power, but their efforts since have boosted efficiency enough to double the voltage created. Here’s what that means for the future of power.What’s a rectenna?It’s a portmanteau for “rectifying antenna”, or the combination of an antenna and a rectifier, which converts…3 min
PC Pro|May 2019Geek Day Out: AI: More Than HumanArtificial intelligence (AI) is everywhere – across the Barbican, at least. The London arts centre is taking a comprehensive look at AI developments across the scientific and creative spheres with its exhibition AI: More Than Human. The show tucks art, music and science into every corner of the brutalist estate.“It’s a really big exhibition that takes place all over the Barbican Centre – in The Curve gallery, across the foyers and in The Pit theatre, so there will be something appeal to everyone, from families and kids to those already working in the field,” said Neil McConnon, head of Barbican International Enterprises.AI: More Than Human covers the breadth of technology: from Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage’s experiments to research in the 1940s, all the way up to current research at…3 min
PC Pro|May 2019One false click could lead to along jail termCLICKING ON JUST one link could see UK citizens imprisoned for up to 15 years under changes to anti-terror laws.As part of the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill draft, web users were expected to have wiggle room in case they visited web pages accidentally, with a “three strikes and you’re out” system. However, the legislation quietly came into effect with that key clause removed.The changes update the existing offence of “obtaining information likely to be useful to a terrorist”, both widening the scope of what constitutes a crime and increasing the potential penalty from seven to 15 years.“Instead of three strikes, even one instance of accessing the material is sufficient for an offence to be committed – it’s a one-click offence,” said Neil Brown, of internet and tech law firm…4 min
PC Pro|May 2019After the death of Do Not Track, what next?The demise of the Do Not Track (DNT) standard is a tale of “cynical” behaviour from advertising companies that fought hard to undermine the standard, yet the growing mistrust of media platforms could yet see consumers given tools to fight back.Apple’s decision to remove DNT from its Safari browser is widely seen as the end of the standard that allowed browsers to send a notification to websites and advertising partners requesting that users are not tracked.In theory, it was the privacy tool that should have given consumers power to reduce intrusive cross-site data mining – but it was never widely adopted by the advertising firms.“The biggest issue for DNT was that it was not selfenforcing and had no regulatory teeth,” explained Alan Toner, a data protection special advisor to the…6 min
PC Pro|May 2019Latent LogicIf you’ve ever played a game such as Grand Theft Auto, you’ll know how unrealistic the road traffic simulation is. Cars are spaced uniformly at traffic lights, they stop dead on the lines, they wait patiently for jams to clear. It’s about as lifelike as Fireman Sam.That’s slightly jarring in a computer game, but it could be lethal when it comes to training automated vehicles. Self-driving car manufacturers can’t just put their prototypes on the roads and hope for the best. Instead, they have to spend millions of compute hours training algorithms to react to road conditions in simulators. But if the other “drivers” in such simulations don’t behave in the same erratic, unpredictable way as human drivers would, that’s a complete waste of everyone’s time.Enter Latent Logic, an Oxford-based…7 min
PC Pro|May 2019I miss the good old days of email. There, I said it@njkobieThe death of email is frequently heralded, and it’s no surprise why people hate their inboxes overflowing with work, spam and annoying forwards from relatives. But I’m starting to lament the shift from email to instant messaging.Don’t get me wrong: my inbox is also congested with utter garbage. I have, at time of writing, 5,554 unread messages in the Gmail account that hoovers up both my work and personal emails, making it impossible to reach inbox zero without starting a new account.It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve ditched an email account, leaving it sitting unmonitored but active on a server for years. I was recently sifting through emails in an older account, set up in my university days back in Canada; it’s so retro it’s an original Hotmail address.…3 min
PC Pro|May 2019Turn any laptop into agaming greatLet’s face it, integrated graphics aren’t up to much. If, like the vast majority of laptops sold, your notebook is using Intel HD graphics or their equivalent, your gaming ambitions shouldn’t stretch much further than Football Manager.Minecraft might run at modest graphics quality – and those retro 8-bit-alike indie titles you can buy on Steam shouldn’t cause it any great distress – but if you’re thinking about dabbling with Grand Theft Auto V, Fortnite or Red Dead Redemption 2, drop that idea now: your laptop just isn’t up to it.At least, not by itself. In this article, we’re going to explore the different options for bringing a run-of-themill laptop up to full gaming speed. We’re going to examine both local and remote hardware that can deliver top-end gaming performance, no…10 min
PC Pro|May 2019Test your own CYBER-RISK RATINGIf you want to see how susceptible you might be to the persuasive methods that online threat actors use, this psychometric test developed by researchers at the Universities of Cambridge and Helsinki only takes five minutes to complete.It measures personality traits such as the ability to premeditate, consistency, openness to experience, self-control and the need for similarity, as well as measuring your attitude towards advertising, cognition and risk. The answers, which are all anonymised, are then compared against a large dataset to return a written indication of your chances of becoming a victim.The researchers behind this test found that the strongest personality trait was the ability to premeditate: those people least likely to weigh the possible consequences of any particular action are most likely to be fooled by the fraudsters.…1 min
PC Pro|May 2019HOW TO BUILD ARASPBERRY PI BLACK HOLENobody loves online ads. Some people consider them a fair price to pay for online content; others are, shall we say, less understanding (see p123). Either way, we’ve all encountered websites that take things too far, pestering you with intrusive overlays, or tricking you into following links that you never meant to visit. What’s more, recent research has found that ads massively slow down the web, increasing the average loading time of web pages by a shocking 60% (pcpro.link/295bbc).So how can you take control of the situation? One option is to use a browser-based ad blocker such as AdBlock or uBlock Origin. These tools let you support publishers by viewing adverts on the sites you trust, while stripping out ads elsewhere.They’re not a perfect solution, though. Because they operate inside…10 min
PC Pro|May 2019A COMPLETE WEB-FILTERING PLATFORM FOR UNDER £20Pi-hole is a perfect fit for an old computer that’s otherwise gathering dust. But if you don’t have a spare machine knocking around, you can build a brand new dedicated Pi-hole server very cheaply indeed: the tiny Raspberry Pi Zero W has all the power and networking capabilities you need, and can be bought for just £9.30 (pcpro.link/295pi).You will, however, require a few accessories, starting with a microSD card to install Raspbian and the Pi-hole software on. An 8GB card is ample, and you don’t need a superfast model, so you can buy this for less than a fiver online. We’re assuming that you already have a monitor and keyboard that you can use to set up the server, but you might need adapters to plug them into the Zero…1 min
PC Pro|May 2019Motorola Moto G7 PowerPRICE £149 (£179 inc VAT) from motorola.co.ukThe Moto G7 Power looks virtually identical to the G7, so much so that on a couple of occasions we’ve picked up the wrong model by mistake. It’s a large 6.2in device with a 19:9 aspect ratio, a small chin at the bottom and a notch at the top. Despite this design faux pas, it hasn’t followed the annoying design trend of ditching the 3.5mm headphone jack – it’s still there, ready to accept your trusty old earbuds.Flip it over and the first hint that you’re not dealing with a flagship device appears. Rapping your knuckles on the back reveals that this isn’t a glass back, but a polycarbonate one. It looks fine but a slippery feel means you’ll probably want to buy a…4 min
PC Pro|May 2019Lenovo ThinkPad X1 ExtremePRICE £2,206 (£2,647 inc VAT) from laptopsdirect.co.ukWe’re unashamed fans of the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (see issue 290, p65), svelte dimensions come at the cost of high-end power. There just isn’t enough room in its chassis for a heavyweight processor. So no prizes for originality should go to Lenovo’s engineers for inventing the ThinkPad X1 Extreme, which looks awfully similar but comes ready with a larger screen, an even more powerful CPU, discrete graphics and a host of added features for business customers. Practical designThis is a 15.6in laptop, so it was never going to be the most compact clamshell. Still, considering what’s inside it’s reasonably portable at 1.8kg and 18.7mm thick when closed.Build quality is excellent thanks to the typical ThinkPad mix of magnesium alloy and glass fibre. The…9 min
PC Pro|May 2019LG Gram 17PRICE $1,699 from pcpro.link/295gramLG may not be the first name you associate with laptops, but its Gram series has turned heads. Last year, the South Korean firm released a 15in version that gained lavish praise for its phenomenal battery life, low weight and stunning display. When LG announced a 17in version at CES this year, suffice to say expectations were high. Slimline tonicThe svelte and lightweight design of the LG Gram 17 is one of its biggest selling points. As the photographs here attest, it’s a lovely-looking laptop, and equally pleasant to hold. It’s deceptively light for its size and it surprises everyone who picks it up. And little wonder, with a 17in screen in a laptop that weighs only 1.33kg. In contrast, the Dell XPS 15 weighs 2kg.Alight frame…6 min
PC Pro|May 2019TP-Link Archer C5 400XPRICE £283 (£340 inc VAT) from pcpro.link/295archThe Archer C5400X isn’t the most expensive home router we’ve reviewed recently: that was the £390 Netgear R9000 Nighthawk X10 (see issue 288, p83). But the C5400X is a similar proposition: a premium router aimed at those willing to pay for exceptional performance.While marketed as a gaming router, its key feature is speed, with a 1.8GHz quad-core CPU that should ensure the router doesn’t succumb to lag even under heavy load. As the photos make abundantly clear, it also has eight chunky aerials to help provide a strong, fast Wi-Fi connection over long distances.It’s a tri-band MU-MIMO 802.11ac router with a theoretical bandwidth of 1Gbits/sec on the 2.4GHz band and 2,167Mbits/sec on each of its two 5GHz radios. Like most high-end routers, it doesn’t…4 min
PC Pro|May 2019View Sonic VP3881PRICE £992 (£1,191 inc VAT) from pcpro.link/295viewCurved monitors have not taken the world by storm. Unlike super-high resolutions or 144Hz refresh rates, there’s no clear benefit to make someone immediately part with their money. Especially when you can buy multiple monitors for the same cash. In fact, you could buy four 32in Iiyama ProLite X3272UHS-B1 screens (see issue 288, p72) for the VP3881’s hefty asking price.Where the ViewSonic wins out, though, is colour accuracy and uniform brightness. With a 38in display that’s been calibrated before it leaves the factory, you can confidently sit this down on a designer’s desk and know it will display the right results. You also have only one monitor to worry about, no unsightly bezels between two displays sat next to one another, and the curvature…5 min
PC Pro|May 2019Fossil SportPRICE £208 (£249 inc VAT) from fossil.comThe Fossil Sport is the most exciting Wear OS smartwatch in recent memory. Why? Because it uses the new Snapdragon Wear 3100 chip, which Qualcomm promises will deliver improved performance and extended battery life over its previous Wear OS chipset.It’s also a great-looking watch. I was sent the “Smoky Blue” model, but you can buy it in red, grey, pink and green. Whichever variant you choose, it has a part-aluminium, part-coloured plastic casing, and comes with a matching silicone rubber strap.Measuring 43mm in diameter, the Sport is noticeably smaller than the fourth-generation Fossil Q Explorist and it should suit a much larger range of wrist sizes as a result. The only problem is that those with the skinniest wrists might be left wanting an…4 min
PC Pro|May 2019Can’t I just rely on cloud sync?If you work across multiple PCs, or need to share files with friends and family, there’s a good chance you’re already using a cloud sync service such as Dropbox, Google Drive or OneDrive. These systems helpfully copy all the files in your sync folder up to the cloud, and onto multiple PCs – which means, if one computer dies, your files aren’t lost. That’s a reassuring thought, and indeed many cloud backup services include their own equivalent syncing service.This isn’t a true backup solution, though. Only files in the sync folder are protected, and while it is possible to recover lost files and roll back to previous versions, this is typically limited to 30 days. There’s also no support for hybrid backup, no way to back up a system image…1 min
PC Pro|May 2019Live drive Backup PersonalPRICE £5/month (1 PC, Standard edition, unlimited cloud storage); £15/month (5 devices, Pro Suite, unlimited cloud storage) from livedrive.comNext to Acronis True Image and IDrive, Livedrive feels a little basic: it’s a cloud-only backup system, with no option to supplement your remote backups with local ones. Still, the promise of “set and forget” backup with minimal configuration has its appeal, and that’s what you get here. To be protected, all you need to do is tick off a few folders in the uncomplicated interface, and then carry on with your life. You don’t even need to worry about how much space your files take up: your subscription includes unlimited remote storage in the company’s UK-based data centre.For those who want to get more technical, there are a few settings to…4 min
PC Pro|May 2019Back blaze PersonalPRICE $5/month (1 PC, unlimited cloud storage) from backblaze.comBackblaze is the cheapest way to get unlimited cloud backup. It costs just $5 per month, or $50 for an annual subscription. Currently that works out to a mere £38.It feels like a cheap product, though. The interface looks like it was knocked up in Visual Basic, and the feature list is pretty minimal. There’s no support for multiple or selective backup sets: your entire system is backed up, with the exclusion of OS files, applications and user-specified files, and the only available destination is Backblaze’s cloud servers. There’s also no way to back up an image of your system disk, although you could upload an image created with a separate tool.Only basic scheduling options are on offer, too: the default is…2 min
PC Pro|May 2019Google Backup and SyncPRICE Free (unlimited devices, 15GB cloud storage) from drive.google.comEveryone with a Google account gets 15GB of free cloud storage, so using some of that for remote backups makes a lot of sense. And Google’s Backup and Sync service is very easy to deploy. On installing the client you’re asked which folders you want to be backed up, and whether you want photos and videos to be uploaded at full quality, or automatically downsampled to 16MP or 1080p respectively. That’s an intelligent way of saving space, and Google makes it particularly appealing by offering unlimited storage for smaller items.Next, you’re prompted to set up your Google Drive – which means nominating a separate folder that will be kept in sync across however many clients you install the software on.And that’s basically…2 min
PC Pro|May 2019VIEW FROM THE LABSAt the end of this month’s testing, I was preparing myself to make a humiliating admission: I’ve been guilty of not taking backups as seriously as I should. That’s despite writing about their importance for years.Because, as I suspect 90% of those reading this column will know, setting up a backup regime is very easy to put off. There’s no exciting, transformative impact on your day-to-day life to look forward to. And data disasters don’t – thankfully – happen all that often, so it’s hard to attach much urgency to getting your backups in order.Yet I’m here to tell you that it’s not a big job. This month I’ve installed a dozen different data-protection services, and none was especially painful. Perhaps more to the point, I’ve also uninstalled each of…3 min
PC Pro|May 2019Epson Work Force Pro WF-C8690 DTWFPRICE £1,761 exc VAT from printerland.co.ukNearly everything about Epson’s mighty WorkForce Pro WF-C8690DTWF is big. With its multiple A3+ paper inputs, it weighs a desktop-bending 57.4kg, and it boasts a huge 75,000-page maximum monthly duty cycle.The model we tested has twin 250-page and 500-page A3+ paper trays, plus an 80-sheet rear tray supporting A3+ stock at weights up to 256gsm. You can optionally add two more 500-sheet trays, and a wheeled floor cabinet to mount it all on.Though the printer itself is hefty, its high-capacity DuraBrite Pro ink tanks deliver small running costs, beating most lasers in this price range. Choose Epson’s XXL cartridges and you’ll be paying just 0.9p for a mono A4 page and 5.1p for a colour one.After downloading the latest drivers and software from Epson’s support…4 min
PC Pro|May 2019BrotherADS-1700WPRICE £184 exc VAT from ebuyer.comHigh-speed business scanners can be bulky things – but with a footprint of just 300 x 103mm, Brother’s ADS-1700W will fit into the smallest of spaces. It offers scan speeds of 25ppm at 300dpi in both colour and mono, and will work over USB 3, wireless or Wi-Fi Direct.While the ADS-1700W is small, it’s not exactly portable: it needs an external power supply and at 1.41kg it’s a tad on the heavy side. Part of that is down to the integrated 20-page ADF, which flips down to protect the scanner’s innards when not in use. Note that there’s no output tray, so you’ll need to leave some desk space in front to catch your documents.Despite the ADS-1700W’s size, Brother has managed to cram in a…4 min
PC Pro|May 2019The expert view Paul OckendenMaking your website available via https:// is a no-brainer. A few old-timers might tell you that adding an SSL certificate to your site is going to slow it down, and ten years ago they might have been correct, but that’s no longer true. In fact, in some situations https can actually be faster than http!We talk about SSL, and call the things that we install on the server SSL certificates, but SSL has long been superseded because of security concerns. These days https access to a website usually uses the TLS protocol instead. It’s just that nobody calls them TLS certificates.Other old truths no longer hold, either. In the past, every secure site needed to sit on a unique IP address, but Server Name Identification (SNI) changed all that. Just…2 min
PC Pro|May 2019OTHER PEOPLE’S OPINIONSIncreasingly intimate data links between businesses mean that it’s not just business intelligence that gets exchanged, but information about procedures and risks. This sounds like a great thing; the hitch is that any two businesses are likely to have radically different computing histories, especially when it comes to clean-up jobs, breaches and outages. One company’s hard-learned iron rule is another’s passing irrelevance.For example, in preparing this feature, we kicked around some very plausible sounding rules of thumb identifying whole classes of device that might be barred from someone’s network, such as appliances outside of their service contract, Internet of Things-type devices whose firmware can’t be inspected and remote-access facilities that aren’t 100% locked down. All of that might apply to you – it probably won’t.Even so, it’s becoming regular practice…1 min
PC Pro|May 2019“In the bizarre alternate reality that pervades Facebook, this seemed to be a perfectly reasonable thing to do”The news that both Facebook and Google have used their enterprise developer certificates to distribute apps outside of their organisations comes as no great surprise to me.First, let’s quickly cover the back story. Apple has cast-iron control of its App Store, priding itself in strict code checking and the imposition of strong security standards on apps submitted to it. This is clearly a “glass half full/half empty” situation for users, depending on perspective. Some maintain this is an entirely unwarranted oversight and control of the choices available to the user; that an app store should be an open place where development can flourish.The flip side is that the App Store has shown itself to be extremely robust and trustworthy for consumers on the iOS platform. And there’s certainly no sign…13 min
PC Pro|May 2019“Convenient half-decent security that gets used is a darn sight better than in convenient strong security”One of the things I love about having been part of the PC Pro family for so long is that readers feel comfortable reaching out for help. Okay, I’m not going to lie; workloads and trying to shoehorn in time with my real family means I’m not able to offer free consultancy of the kind some think will be forthcoming. If the complexities of your security situation are such that you need professional help, emailing a magazine columnist with a request for an urgent site visit 250 miles away in return for a cup of coffee isn’t exactly displaying great business acumen. As a member of the family, I feel comfortable enough in suggesting, in the nicest possible way, that “doing one” might be in order.However, I try to find…9 min
PC Pro|May 2019Perils of renting a smart homeSmart locks can be hacked by criminals, bricked by buggy updates and invade our privacy – those challenges mean it’s perfectly sensible to baulk at the idea of replacing your physical key with an IoT device. On the other hand, they can offer security and convenience, so it’s no wonder landlords choose connected locks to more easily allow maintenance staff in (plus it removes the need to replace locks when tenants depart).Security researcher Lesley Carhart faced this quandary at the end of January when networked smart locks were installed at her rented apartment in the US. “Now I have to move, again,” she tweeted, saying the forced installation gave her “pure unadulterated rage”.Carhart isn’t against smart homes – who wouldn’t want to live in a Star Trek-style home, she notes,…6 min
PC Pro|May 2019Surprising sense on automated cars from the British publicMost Brits are concerned that self-driving cars aren’t safe and don’t believe they’ll arrive within the next couple of years, despite hype and promises from the industry. That’s according to research from Thales, delivered at a roundtable event I attended with the engineering firm – the roundtable was in fact four arranged in a square, but close enough. The panel of speakers, which included experts from academia and industry, found those results surprising and disappointing, but I’ve never been so pleased with the British public.We’re told that driverless cars are worth the effort because of safety, with more than a million people killed on roads globally each year, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). That, we’re told, will be practically eradicated with the advent of this technology. Except two…2 min
PC Pro|May 2019Next month's issueOn sale Thursday 11 April 2019WorkstationsWith AMD piling the pressure on Intel, this year’s workstations look even more compelling. If you’re serious about computing power, find out which one is right for you next monthSubscribe todayStart your subscription to PC Pro and claim a free three-in-one USB charging cable, while stocks last. You can read PC Pro in print, on your iPad, iPhone or Android device. See p108 for detailsFEATURESAlexa, do some workHow is Alexa being used in British workplaces? Barry Collins sets to work to find out how the smart speaker has changed everyday tasksAmazon’s box of tricksFrom fake adverts to devious selling techniques, we reveal the trading secrets that the world’s biggest retailer doesn’t want you to knowPimp your Android phoneMake your phone something that better reflects your…1 min
PC Pro|May 2019Don’t blame Google for building a mic into Nest, argues Jon Honeyball–take responsibility yourselfThe news has broken that Google’s Nest Secure home security system has a microphone hidden within it, and that Google can now enable it to work with Google Assistant. Some users were annoyed to discover that the microphone was fitted to the product, but that there has apparently been no mention of it since the product launched 18 months ago.There’s an argument that functionality can and should be part of a longer term development plan, and that fitting a mic up front, even if it isn’t used, is a good thing in the long run. There is minimal production cost in doing this, and you can bring the capability to users when it’s ready.The other view is that there has been an undeclared microphone in a product in your house,…4 min
