Maximum PC - Features

5 Freeware Apps to Enrich Your Starcraft 2 Experience!

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 01:00:23 +0000

I’m amazed you’re even reading this. Not because the quality of the prose is lacking in this week’s roundup of open-source and freeware applications, mind you. Rather, if you haven’t noticed by the coverage (and advertising) permeating just about every known tech site in the universe right now, Starcraft 2 just came out. It’s a miracle I’ve been able to tear myself away from defending humanity to write this but, well, my heart for free software is just too strong.

While it would be awesome to give you some kind of “Top 5 ways to get Starcraft 2 for free” article or something like that, it’s just not happening. And no, before you ask, there really aren’t any launchers or applications specifically designed for the game that can give you some kind of competitive edge or awesome third-party tie-in just yet. Wishful, if not silly thinking, no?

However, that’s not to say that applications don’t exist that could otherwise enhance your Starcraft 2 gaming experience in some capacity. Like I said, nothing’s been written specifically for the title, but there are a number of useful, free apps that you can use to otherwise bolster your gaming-life-that-just-so-happens-to-be-Blizzard’s-latest-title. I apologize for the tongue-twistedness of it all; simply put, you can use the following 5 apps to make Starcraft 2—or any game—rock just a little bit more.

 

Auto Mute

This one used to happen to me in middle school computer class all the time. You finish your work early and think that you’re going to outsmart everyone by firing up some Duke Nukem for the remaining 30 minutes of class—you’re in the back row so nobody will notice, right? You double-tap the executable and… blammo. Duke Nukem’s theme song is blaring from the PC speakers and you’ve just earned yourself a one-way ticket to some time after school.

Auto Mute is a program that’s designed to prevent such a situation from occurring (and foster stealthy game playing) by automatically muting your speakers whenever your system starts up. It’s as simple as that—a somewhat small utility in its execution but one that’s nevertheless a real lifesaver when you don’t want others to hear what you’re up to (if the incessant clicking doesn’t give it away, that is).

Download it here!

 

Start My Day

This one’s just fun. Suppose you, like me, are extraordinarily lazy and would much prefer to come home to all the lights in your apartment already on, the dinner cooking, the tv playing your favorite show, and your favorite beverage of choice simmering on the coffee table. Well, Start My Day is the digital equivalent of being able to have Starcraft 2—or any app or game—up-and-running the moment you walk in the door.

Simply put, use this app to schedule when you want the various programs on your system to run. You can set them to auto-start with Windows (boring) or at a specific time all alarm-clock style (awesome). Because nothing says “I’m home from work” like a fresh batch of Zerg killing.

Download it here!

 

Volmouse

Let nothing stand between one’s game and one’s system settings. In this case, I’m referring to configuration options like the various volume levels you can set for individual programs in Windows 7, your screen’s brightness, and other various settings you can toggle in the OS. Volmouse is a simple application that allows you to assign hotkey and mouse wheel combinations to such settings. In effect, this gives you a way to alter Windows properties like sound, brightness, and transparency just by holding a predetermined key and flicking your finger.

Download it here!

 

Taksi

Recording videos from the various games you play (for Youtube-based bragging rights) is a real pain in the Protoss. And while the open-source app Taksi makes it a lot easier to get these movies from most titles on your system, it’s not and end-all solution for all titles. I haven’t gotten a chance to try this myself with ol’ Starcraft 2, but some users have reported that it doesn’t work very well with Blizzard’s latest creation. Suffice, it’s completely free and allows you to specify the custom codec by which your movies will eventually, er, be saved. Take that, Fraps?

Download it here!

 

GameProtector

As always, I’ve saved the big one for last. Let nobody touch your multitude of saved games, achievements, and general Starcraft 2 record awesomeness, for it would be a real shame if a friend, roommate, or loved one got on your account and started losing game, after game, after game. Get the point?

The handy utility GameProtector allows you to password-lock any game on your system such that nobody will be able to log on as you (or merely fire up the game) and affect your hard-earned accolades in any fashion. Your saved games will be safe; your perfect multiplayer record will stay pristine; and you will probably be hated by anyone you share a living quarters with. But, hey, they’re your games! Nobody else’s!

Download it here!

 

David Murphy (@ Acererak) is a technology journalist and former Maximum PC editor. He writes weekly columns about the wide world of open-source as well as weekly roundups of awesome, freebie software. He probably needs to go spawn some more overlords now, however.

Freeware Files: 5 Free Apps to Replace Microsoft Office

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 22:28:19 +0000

Microsoft Office: Can’t live with it, can’t live with… ok, so that’s not entirely true. A number of you likely live without the Microsoft Office suite and, for that, I commend you. That’s not because there’s anything wrong with Office per se; it’s a pricing thing. I don’t always have the money to fork out for a new Office license for whatever systems I acquire, especially when compelling freeware alternatives present themselves in an easy-to-use (and easy-to-download) kind of fashion. Same goes for you.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. “But Dave,” you ask, “why not just install OpenOffice.org and be done with it?” That is certainly a solution for your Office woes. However, that doesn’t mean that the OpenOffice.org suite is the end-all be-all alternative to Microsoft Office Insert-Year-Here. From Web apps to downloadable programs, it’s entirely possible to recreate some of the best parts of this paid-for hunk of apps without resorting to the tried-and-true OpenOffice.org open-source bundle.

And guess what? By going the piecemeal route, you’ll be able to find some new features that simply don’t exist in either aforementioned bundle! So, that said, click the jump to check out some of the best freeware and open-source Microsoft Office replacement apps for your system!

 

Excel: Gnumeric

 

Why does Gnumeric rock? Because this is exactly how accurate of an Excel replication this app is: “The open source spreadsheet package 'Gnumeric' was such a good clone of Microsoft Excel that it even had errors in its statistical functions similar to those in Excel's statistical functions. When apprised of the errors in v1.0.4, the developers of Gnumeric indicated that they would try to fix the errors. Indeed, Gnumeric v1.1.2, has largely fixed its flaws, while Microsoft has not fixed its errors through many successive versions.”

‘Nuff said!

Download it here!

 

Word: OxygenOffice Professional

Consider OxygenOffice to be a bigger brother to the standard OpenOffice.org suite. As such, you get all the sweet functionality of the latter alongside OxygenOffice’s large chunk of templates, graphics, fonts, sample documents, and tools—like the ever helpful OOoWikipedia app, which lets you search Wikipedia directly from your word processor. In short, you can do a lot with this kitchen sink of a Microsoft Word replacement (though, really, it replaces the entire Office suite as-is).

 

Download it here!

 

Communicator: Tinychat

What the heck is Microsoft Office Communicator? I’ve never used it myself, but it’s apparently a chat system akin to a more professional version of good ol’ Windows Messenger. In theory, one would use it to converse with contacts that one acquires through a centralized Exchange server or Outlook address book, along with fun features like screen sharing and what-have-you.

Well, as far as office communication goes, it doesn’t get much simpler than the Web app Tinychat. Within but a few clicks of a mouse, you and up to 11 of your coworkers can fire up a huge, Brady Bunch-style video chat interface complete with an accompanying text chat. Pony up $20 a month and you’ll even get the chance to share your screen, amongst other features. I normally wouldn’t outright recommend a Web app in place of a downloadable piece of software but, seriously, Tinychat rules.

“Download” it here!

 

Powerpoint: Prezi

Unfortunately, Powerpoint is another instance where I have to go the Web app route instead of a true, downloadable piece of software because, simply put, there just aren’t any good ones out there. Prezi allows you to create slideshows in a super-easy and, dare I say it, fun fashion. You can slap in transitions, insert images, group and layer your various bits of information, and generally create this moving, almost cinematic kind of a display that’s quite a bit removed from the standard slide-after-slide Powerpoint route.

Once you’re done, watch your presentation via the Web (or share it, or embed it in a blog, etc.). Or, if you’re feeling adventurous, you can also download it straight to your system and fire it up using Prezi Desktop.

Download” it here!

 

Project: QuestTracker

There are plenty of offline project-tracking tools akin to what one would find in Microsoft’s Project application. Here’s the problem: They aren’t fun. What is fun—albeit not quite as practical—is software that can turn the mundane elements of a typical project into World of Warcraft-style quests to complete.

I kid you not; that’s how the authors describe QuestTracker. Alas, though, it’s not as if you’re walking up to some 3D avatar and hearing that familiar cadence play when you mash the big ol’ Accept button after reading a particular task’s details. QuestTracker is just a slimmed down task manager—a pretty to-do list that renames said “to-do” items as quests. Not a bad app at all, but not quite World of Warcraft, eh?

Download it here!

 

David Murphy (@ Acererak) is a technology journalist and former Maximum PC editor. He writes weekly columns about the wide world of open-source as well as weekly roundups of awesome, freebie software. Befriend him on Twitter, especially if you have an awesome app or game you're dying to recommend!

Comic-Con 2010: Intel Dishes about Smart TV

Sat, 24 Jul 2010 00:59:54 +0000

At this year's Comic-Con, Maximum PC's own Editorial Director Jon Phillips got to interview Intel about the future of TV and the Smart TV concept. Check out what we heard below!

Check out the Original Dream Machine!

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 00:51:05 +0000

It's that time of year again - Dream Machine time! In honor of our 15th Dream Machine we thought we'd go back, way back, to the very first Dream Machine. We got Online Reviews Editor Michael Brown, the only current staff member who was also around back then, to share his thoughts on the experience and we've got the whole original story. Come with us now on a journey, a journey of 24MB memory, reminisce with us over SCSI, laugh over recommendations to upgrade "later this year" to IEEE. And stick around for the rest of the week - we've got more Dream Machine retrospectives on the way, as well as this years wicked rig!

Anyone who tells you life was better “back in the good ol’ days” is either a fool or a liar—maybe both. I was Reviews Editor when we euthanized the shambling zombie of a magazine known as CD-ROM Today so that it could be reborn as the too-cool-for-its-own-good boot (the progenitor of Maximum PC). That was back in September 1996, and the components we used to build a no-holds-barred PC—the very first Dream Machine—were so weak by today’s standards that the machine would likely die in a pile if it tried to run Peggle.
The idea of building your own PC was a whole new concept back then. Most people bought prefab boxes and upgraded the weaker components (if the PCI slots weren’t blocked by ribbon or power cables, that is. Most manufacturers assumed no one would ever open the case.) Looking back, I’m proud that we recommended high-end components—including a 200MHz Intel Pentium CPU and Matrox’s MGA Millennium videocard with a 4MB frame buffer—but I’m disappointed that we used a generic “full-height metal tower” and “any 300-watt power supply.”

What Kind of Machine Will Run StarCraft II? We Find Out!

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 01:30:13 +0000

StarCraft II’s only been out for a day, and while everyone else in the tech world is still buried in the long campaign or the cut-throat multiplayer, our thoughts are already turning to the game’s ramifications on the hardware world. Blizzard is famous for their commitment to making games that work on a wide range of systems, and we wanted to see to what extent that’s true with StarCraft II.

Toward that end, we’ve installed the game on 4 different systems. A top-of-the-line gaming machine, a more-realistic aging gaming PC, a non-gaming laptop, and a netbook. Hit the break to find out how the game ran on each system. The results are suprising!

The Rig: Predator

We wanted to take a look at StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty running near its full potential (our Dream Machine is a little bit of overkill, and we'd like to keep this within more of a consumer-friendly range), so we tapped Acer's 2010 Predator computer as our testing system of choice. And for good reason.  Sporting an Intel i7 930 clocked at 2.8 GHz, 12 GB of DDR3 RAM, and a single GTX-470, we figured it would have more than enough power to deliver some high performance numbers.

That being said, StarCraft performed quite admirably, typically hovering between 75 and 100 FPS at 2560x1600.  We did witness minor slow down, but not for the usual reasons--tons of enemies hitting the screen with hardly any slowdown. Some of the levels in the single-player campaign feature pretty detailed and particle-rich environments, but the lowest dip we saw was still 42 FPS, and this was in very rare instances.  The Predator handled multiple enemies and strands of AI—we set the difficulty to brutal for benchmarking purposes--without a hitch. We waged some pretty epically crowded battles in the challenge mode that ran stably at around 100 FPS. No surprise here.

 

It's a pleasure to report that StarCraft 2 isn't simply a good lucking RTS. It's a good looking game, period. It's smooth, responsive, colorful, and the particle effects and in-game movies are all top notch. And the FMV cutscenes are probably making people at Square squirm a little.  We'll be touching more on quality as we have more time to play it. 

The Rig: The Aging Beast

This computer is something a lot of our readers might have—a capable gaming PC with some parts that are a little less than top of the line. The machine we tried it out on is running a 2.67GHz quad-core Core i5 with a GTX 295 and 4 GB of RAM. In other words, it’s definitely no dream machine, but it’s got a lot of life left in it. How does StarCraft play? Amazing. With all settings maxed out at 1900 X 1200 this computer still plays Starcraft with an average 70 fps. Even in intense battles with lots of units, the game rarely dips below 60 fps. This computer’s more than enough to get the most out of StarCraft 2.

The Rig: The IT Special

StarCraft II has already proven itself to play fantastically on dedicated gaming hardware, but we wanted to see how it runs on a machine that’s not originally designed to play games. For that, we used an IT-issued Dell Latitude E6400 notebook. This 2-year-old laptop’s all business—a 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo proc and a respectable 4GB of memory, saddled by integrated graphics.

How does StarCraft play?

 

Well, alright. Sort of. If you turn all the graphics all the way down (and we mean all the way) the game is actually thoroughly playable. We saw an average of 40fps at the laptop’s native 1440 X 900 resolution, staying above 30fps even in the heat of battle. The game doesn’t look very pretty with the settings this low, but it’ll still get you your StarCraft II fix during your lunch break at work.

 

The Rig: The Little Guy

Watching StarCraft hum along at 42FPS on Alex Castle’s two year-old business laptop struck a strange note of curiosity in all of us, mostly because it was clear that Blizzard has made a real effort to make sure that gamers with varying degrees of computerized sophistication can own and enjoy the experience.

We could have tested progressively slower and slower laptops to see just how little power could be used to run the game smoothly, but opted instead to test the worst of the worst, the slowest of the slow.  We decided to test StarCraft 2 on a netbook. 

The verdict?  Ehhhh...

 

We installed SC2 on a Samsung N210, running an Intel Atom N280 with a gig of RAM.  We didn’t have high hopes, but were hoping at least to achieve a playable, albeit bad looking version of the game.  Unfortunately we did not achieve the “playable” part of the game, even with the settings dumped to their lowest capacities.  Granted, the little guy was able to load a map, complete with an entire squadron, and move them from place to place at (we’re guessing) around 5 FPS.  But the moment any sort of battle began, the slowdown became un-bearable.  This wasn’t necessarily a huge surprise, but showed us that even developers as talented as Blizzard can’t quite make everyone across the playing field happy.  

The History of a Dream: How the Ultimate PC Has Evolved In 15 Years

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 18:14:38 +0000

As we worked on this years 15th Dream Machine, we couldn't help but think about how far we've come. From the original 200MHz, 8MB-of-RAM 1996 Dream Machine up to this years 12-core, 24-thread, 24-gigs-of-RAM version, the ultimate computer has grown exponentially more powerful. But that's not much of a shocker (we've all heard about Moore's Law, and all) so we decided to delve deeper into the history of the Dream Machine. We collected data about the vital statistics of each years machine, and made a bunch of graphs showing how they've grown. Some of what we found out surprised even us.

Keep reading for all the charts, as well as our thoughts about why they look the way they do. And since it wouldn't be any fun if we couldn't gawk at the old beige-box beasts, we've included a gallery of every year's Dream Machine cover at the end.

Processor

Since almost every Dream Machine has featured the fastest CPU available you can see the influence of clock speeds over the last 14 years. From Pentium to Pentium II and Pentium III clock speeds grew pretty slowly. In 1999, for our basic build it, we used a simple 500MHz Pentium III when a faster 650MHz chip was available. But fast forward to 2001 and you see the influence of the Pentium 4 and the NetBurst microarchitecture. Bred by Intel to climb to higher clock speeds rather pack in more instructions per clock, Dream Machines with NetBurst took off like a rocket from 2001, to 2002, 2003 and finally peaked in 2004. That year,  we took a stock 3.6GHz Pentium 4 560 and clocked it up to a stable 3.97GHz. Yeah, those Prescott’s really clocked up something fierce eh? Not. 

That 90nm Prescott signaled the end of NetBurst. Intel’s 3.8GHz Pentium 4 570 would be the end of the line for the clock speed race. The next year saw clock speeds plummet back to earth yet we still saw higher performance. In 2005, we built a dual-Opteron machine with clock speeds of 2.2GHz. and the clock speeds have pretty much stabilized since then. 

Here we take into account the overclocked speeds of each Dream Machine. It pretty much reflects the same pattern we saw with the stock CPU clocks. From Pentium to Pentium III the clock speeds gradually increased and then took off like a rocket with the Pentium 4. What’s really interesting is the our flatlining from 2008 to 2010 at 4GHz. Much of that is due to the platform we choose. In 2008, we featured another dual-processor machine using a pair of Xeon, ahem, Core 2 QX9775 chips. In 2009, in a world being swept away by financial disaster, we were happy to have electricity to power the Dream Machine. And we were happy to take our 3.33GHz Core i7-975 Extreme Edition to 4GHz – the point where it would pass our stress tests.

Look at this chart and then look at the one that shows the climb of clock speed. It’s no coincidence that in 2004, when the Pentium 4 hit the wall at 1,000MPH that we started to see the push for more cores. In 2005, we used a dual, dual-core machine.  The year after, a dual-core Core 2 Extreme X6800. From there, we’ve been trying to get as many cores in the Dream Machine as possible. This year’s is truly triumphant though with 12 cores and well, another 12 virtual cores thrown in for good measure.

RAM

It may look flat, but the chart is deceiving. The amount of system RAM has increased exponentially several times. Hell, 8MB in 1991! Seriously? We do admit, there were some long stretches where system RAM did not increase. It’s one of the things that led Intel to push so hard for Rambus in the late 1990s. You see, since main memory wasn’t going to explode, users were going to need the super duper fast Direct RDRAM which offered incredible bandwidth. Yes, you can be a hater on Rambus and Direct RDRAM (we were once the same) but RDRAM was actually ahead of its time and it is a shame politics and legal shenanigans muddied it up. It took DDR several generations and years to surpass the first iteration of PC800 RDRAM in performance.  The Dream Machine actually featured RDRAM in 2000, 2001, and the most insane implementation of it in 2002. That’s the year that we used a crazy 512MB RIMM4200/PC1066 module. In essence, the RIMM4200 module combined two RIMMs into one to give you dual-channel performance in one slot. Ultimately, the idea was to have two dual-channel RIMM4200 modules in a PC that would give you a PC with quad-channel memory. Alas, we know how that ended. By 2003, Dream Machine moved on to DDR and never looked back. Our write up in 2002 even acknowledged that the days of RDRAM in the PC were done for once DDR emerged. DDR, DDR2 and DDR3 are the lingua franca of today’s PC. 

You should also note that main memory is tied into the OS. That spike you see in 2005 came from the use of a dual-core, dual Opteron machine (dual’s usually demand more RAM than single processor machines) and our dual booting of Windows XP Pro and 64-bit Windows XP Pro. Of course, 64-bit became more of a reality with the introduction of 64-bit versions of Vista (Windows XP 64-bit was nothing more than a science experiment and even we recognized that) in 2006. But the resistance to Windows Vista was so high, that we bypassed 64-bit Vista in favor of Windows XP Professional. Things were still so bad for Windows Vista in 2007, that Dream Machine 2007 dual-booted the machine with the primary OS being Windows XP. This kept the system RAM down at 2GB, albeit, high-clocked. We weren’t comfortable with Windows 64-bit Vista until 2008 when we finally used it as the primary OS for the Dream Machine. With its 64-bit capability and most of the early bugs squashed by SP1, it was finally the primary OS in Dream Machine 2008 which featured 8GB of RAM for its dual processor configuration.

Up Next: video cards, power supplies, price, and the gallery.

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Video Card

Old timers will wistfully recall the late 1990s when the pathetic amount of graphics cards frame buffer sizes led to such ideas as Intel’s direct memory execute which was implemented in many AGP cards. Since, you know, videocard frame buffers would always be so pitifully small, DME allowed textures to be accessed from main memory and directly accessed from the graphics core. This would allow games to grab large textures across the awesome 266MB/s AGP port without the need for huge (and at the time, prohibitively expensive) frame buffers. Obviously, frame buffer sizes have shot up. The big uptick was in 2006 when Nvidia and ATI began a war to see who had the largest frame buffer. From there, frame buffers have advanced at an incredible pace. What’s that 2GB frame buffer tick? That’s ATI’s Radeon HD 4870 X2 which features two GPUs and separate 1GB frame buffers. In reality, the frame buffer for that generation of card was 1GB. Of course, cards with freakishly large frame buffers have been available for many years but for the most part but the frame buffer sizes didn’t always match the GPU’s performance.

 

Look at this chart and you’d think that Dream Machines have been running SLI or CrossFire since the late 1990s. That’s not actually true though. The 1997 and 1998 machines had dual-cards, but not in a traditional SLI/CrossFire manner. Instead, both of those early rigs had 2D cards (from Matrox and ATI) combined with 3D cards using the Voodoo and Voodoo II graphics. With 3dFX a goner by the turn of the millenium, the world had decided that cards that were fast in 3D and also had 2D functionatlity were the rage. It wasn’t until 2005 that dual-cards made a comeback to the Dream Machine with the GeForce  7800GTX cards in SLI. From there, dual-cards and more have been a standard check off list for any power hungry machine. Here’s a trick question though, which machine had the most GPUs? Not 2010. The correct answer is 2008’s dual ATI Radeon 4870 X2 cards. Each card featured two GPUs and 1GB of frame buffer. 

Power Supply

OK. It may not be the internal combustion car that’s causing global warming. Instead, maybe it’s our incessent need to have ever faster computers. From 1996 to 2010, we’ve gone from 300 watts in the most pimped out PC to 1,650 watts. Who do we blame? The GPU. You can overlay this chart with the frame buffer size and number of GPUs and you’ll see that as GPUs went from singel card to dual card and tri-card, the power requirements have seriously jumped up. It wasn’t always so. The 1997 and 1998 machines featured multiple graphics cards too. But by 2005, multicard configurations were a must have in powerful computers. The CPU doesn’t get a total pass though. The spikes in PSU sizes in 2000, 2005, 2008 and 2010 also coincide with our dual-processor builds. Realistically, if this year’s machine had been a single processor box, we could have gotten by with a 1,200 PSU or on the highend, a 1,500 PSU. Still, that’s no salve if you’re looking at a 1,650 watt or 1,500 watt requiement and and you have a wall socket rated at 15 amps. Even those with more modern homes and 20 amp are going to wonder what happens when you have a Dream Machine cranked up on a summer day and someone on the same circuit decides to microwave a Hot Pocket. Poof! We can’t make predictions, but will this year finally be the end of the insane power consumption by the graphics card?

Storage

Oh how far we’ve come eh? From 2.1GB of storage in 1996 for $729. The two 2TB drives used in this year’s machine cost $400. Looking at the chart, you can see that densities really took off in 2005. That year four 500GB drives gave us our 2TB RAID array. By 2007, those four drives became four 1TB drives. In 2008, we actually used five drives with lower density to get to 3.6TB – two were VelociRaptors and three 1TB drives as backup. The financial melt down of 2009 is apparent in our chart where the capacities dropped all the way to a mere 1.7TB of storage using a 1.5TB Seagate and a 256GB Corsair P256 drive. That Corsair drive, however, was the first apparence of the SSD. We actually think that this year would have featured 6TB or 9TB of storage but none of the hard drive vendors are willing to yet ship internal 3TB hard drives due to booting issues with current motherboards. 

Price

The pursuit of waton performance. The obsession with computing power. The incredible amount of money you can blow on a computer is easily seen by looking at the ever increasing prices of the Dream Machine. We actually looked at the price of each  system adjusted for inflation and even then, some of the prices are hard to explain. So what explains some of the blips? The 1999 machine flipped the standard Dream Machine story on its head and showed readers how to build a powerful (but realistic) PC in step-by-step manner. The price of 2000’s machine broke shattered previous prices though with its $12,000 price tag. The big ticket items were the pair of 1GHz Pentium III processors ($2,200), the 512MB of PC800 Direct RDRAM  ($1,980!). The three hard drives also drove prices prices up with $2,115 for the pair of 15K Barradua drives and $615 for the 75GB Deskstar (Yes, the ill-fated 75GXP). Another big ticket item: the Sony F500 CRT for a cool $1,900. Makes you feel pretty good about how much a 30-inch LCD cost today doesn’ t it? The price of the Dream Machine actually settled down from there. The most expensive Dream Machine ever, however, was 2008’s. The most expensive component was the custom nickel plating job at $5,000. That’s not even to mention convincing HP to essentially sell the case from its Blackbird 002. It’s no surprise that the record breaking 2008’s machine was followed by a financial collapse that had us wondering if we weren’t going to be running a Pentium Pro in the 2009 rig. 

Finally, the gallery:

1996

1997

Next Page: All the rest of the dream machines!

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1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

Best Costumes of Comic-Con 2010

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 22:49:39 +0000

A headline seldom embodies the entirety of an article, but in this case, it does!  We've got hundreds of photos to sift through and will be posting them Monday, but to hold you over, here are some of our favorite costumed super nerds from Comic-Con 2010.  Enjoy! 

 

Check back Monday for more! 

Giveaway: Clash of the Titans on Blu-Ray and DVD

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 17:59:44 +0000

 

 

Did Our 6-Year-Old Dream Machine Predictions Come True?

Sat, 31 Jul 2010 00:39:50 +0000

Back in September of 2004, we ran a sidebar in the Dream Machine issue where a couple of editors made their predictions about what the Dream Machine of 2010 would look like. Well, it just so happens that the 2010 Dream Machine issue is on newsstands now, so we thought we'd take a look at how those predictions held up. First, the predictions in question:

So how'd we do? Well, Logan (now the Editor in Chief of PC Gamer) pretty accurately described the modern smartphone. Still, don't expect to see an iPhone on the cover of the September issue of Maximum PC any time soon. Josh Norem.... Well, the less said about his predictions, the better. We will, unfortunately, have to wait for another 90 years before we can test Will's predictions.

But Gordon's predictions... Not half bad! Being as he's right here in the office, we asked him to tell us about his predictions, and about the reality of this year's Dream Machine. Here's what he had to say:

"As some of you may know, I successfully predicted many months before the iPad launched that it would have an Apple OS, CPU, and no keyboard. 

But how did I do in my 2004 prediction of what Dream Machine 2010 would have? Let’s take a look:

Cooling: I predicted that liquid or phase-change would be standard in power rigs and I was right. I haven’t seen a high-end gaming rig without liquid-cooling. Of course, most of that is due to the hotter than hell GPUs, but the CPU also gets a lift from it.

CPU: I predicted a CPU with four cores on a single-die. Sure, I was off a couple of cores but my single-die prediction was right. That may not seem like much of a prediction now, but in 2004, a single-core 90nm Prescott was state of the art. From there Intel went to two chips on a die, but still connected to a front side bus, to dual-cores on a die and then two dual-cores in a chip. We didn’t really see the first “real” quad-cores from Intel until the Core i7 was introduced. AMD, of course, got there first.

RAM: I predicted 16GB would be the high-end with 8GB as standard. I’m off a bit. Today, I really believe that the standard enthusiast machine packs 4GB/6GB with power users running 8GB and 12GB.

HDD: OK, right on the money here. I predicted 4TB of “storage” running on “SATA III.”

Motherboards: I predicted that the BIOS would be gone by 2010 and I’m wrong – by a bit. Obviously, we’ll soon be moving to UEFI in the next 12 months so I was a little ahead of the curve.

Interface: Right on the money. The mouse and keyboard is still the premier way to game then and it is now.

Formfactor: You know, it didn’t even take more than a couple of years for my prediction of BTX being standard to proved wrong. I was wrong technically but I am right morally. I still see our clinging to ATX as irrational considering the needs of today’s computers. BTX may not be the answer but there needs to be some evolution.

But enough about today. I’ve been experimenting with overclocking to FTL  speeds using trilithium thermal grease and having returned from 2015 I can pronounce that Dream Machine 2015 will have:

CPU: a single 24-core CPU with graphics functionality.

GPU: a single multi-GPU card with a 6GB frame buffer.

HDD: Three 10TB hard drives on SATA9 and a 2TB SSD

Formfactor: ATX.

RAM: 72GB of RAM.

Don’t believe me? I’ll meet you here in 2015."

 

Master Your Smartphone: The Best Android Tips and Tricks

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 18:10:26 +0000

Everything you need to know to master Google's smartphone OS

From its auspicious start as the brainchild of Internet giant Google, Android has matured into a well-rounded, extremely capable smartphone operating system. Advocating open source, Google released Android to the masses, opening the doors to application developers. There were a few growing pains, of course, such as weak Bluetooth support and a lack of multitouch support, but today Android is knocking on the door of the iPhone mansion, and it's knocking hard.

Android hardware offers some of the most powerful smartphones we've ever seen. The Android Market app store is growing strong, and the Android user base is growing just as fast. Android phones are flying off the shelves faster than they can be created, so we think it's about time we put together a guide for the Android power user. On the following pages, we’ll walk you through what you need to know about Google’s mobile OS and how to make the most out of it.

General Usage Guide

Using Androids basic touch-screen interface is relatively straightforward. You'll find that many applications and functions utilize the "long press," where you hold your finger to the screen rather than just tap it. Think of a long press as a right-click on a mouse; it will bring up additional functionality for the object you press. All of this will be familiar to anyone coming from any other touch-enabled smartphone.

When coming from an iPhone, though, the transition can be somewhat awkward because the Android platform brings several additional buttons over the iPhone's single button interface. Get comfortable with Android’s Menu button, as it’s essential. You'll find that many settings, functions, and options can only be accessed via the Menu button. Holding the various hard keys can also bring up additional functions; for instance, holding the Home button will open a list of recently used apps.

For the Android devices with a hardware keyboard, you also have the option of using keyboard shortcuts, which are done through combinations of keys. You can also create custom shortcuts under the Quick Launch option in the Applications section of your phone's settings.

Default Keyboard Shortcuts

Quick Launch

Search + B = Browser
Search + C = Contacts
Serach + E (or) G = Email (or) Gmail
Search + M = Maps
Search + S = Messaging

Inside the Browser

Menu + B = Bookmarks
Menu + W = New Window
Menu + R = Refresh or Stop page load
Menu + F = Find on Page
Menu + J (or) K = Navigate Backword (or) Forward

Inside Maps

Menu + D = Directions
Menu + M = Change Map Mode
Menu + O = My Location

Optimize Your Android Experience

One of the key features Android offers is the ability to customize nearly every aspect of your device. You can download widgets to keep information available right on your home screen, install custom skins and keyboards, and create notifications and ringtones.

Stay Up to Date Using Widgets

Widgets are like small applications that run on your home screen and keep information right at your fingertips. A simple long press on an empty space on your home screen will bring up the option to add widgets. Because many apps in the Android Market have widgets, there are widgets for just about everything including texting, Twitter, and email; weather, stocks, and news information; and music controls. Because Android lets you configure several home screens, you can group messaging widgets on one screen, news and weather on another, your music library and Pandora on the next, and so on, keeping all of your important information just a finger swipe away. Widgets on your home screen are kept active and update regularly, so you have to be careful not to add too many, especially on older and lower-end devices. If swiping between home screens begins to appear sluggish, you may want to consider removing a few widgets.

Stay Organized with Shortcuts

Just as with widgets, Android lets you add shortcuts directly to your home screen. Adding a shortcut is done the exact same way as adding a widget; just long press on an empty space and you'll see the option to create a shortcut. If there's anything you find yourself doing often with your phone, creating a shortcut can make it even easier. Shortcuts can be created for launching a bookmarked website, calling a specific contact, accessing settings, playing a music playlist, opening a specific inbox, and, of course, applications. If you find your home screen becoming cluttered with shortcuts, you can create home screen folders that let you group similar shortcuts together. For instance, you can put all of your email inboxes into one folder, your work contacts into another, and your personal contacts into yet another. One common practice is to create application shortcuts on your main home screen for your top four to eight apps, generally messaging, email, browser, and maps. Then, one screen over, put the runners up, like the Market, contacts, calculator, etc. It doesn't particularly matter where you put your shortcuts or how you group them as long as it's intuitive to you, and you can find them quickly.

Find Your Perfect Software Keyboard

One of Android's most criticized features is its default software keyboard, but thanks to Android's unrestrictive nature, there are several great alternatives available both on and off the Android Market. We recommend Better Keyboard (available on the Android Market for $2.99), the HTC IME modified keyboard, and Swype.

All of these keyboards offer significant improvements over the stock Android keyboard. Better Keyboard has a multitude of skins as well as many customizable settings. HTC IME modified keyboard is a well-made imitation of the keyboard found in HTC’s popular SenseUI custom Android skin. Swype offers a unique and original text input interface that greatly improves texting speed. Installing a custom keyboard is not entirely straightforward, though. You will need to both enable the keyboard in the Keyboard and Language section of your phone's settings, as well as long press on a text box and select the new input method.

Use Identifiable Ringtones and Notifications

Like all modern mobile phones, the Android platform lets you select and create your own ringtones. Creating ringtones and notifications can be done manually or with the help of an app from the Android Market. Manually adding a ringtone to your phone involves creating several specific directories on your SD card, based on the type of ringtone you'd like to add. The other method is far easier. Simply download the Ringdroid app free from the Android Market and use it to edit and trim your audio files before saving them as a ringtone, notification, or alarm. You can customize notifications and ringtones on a per contact basis by opening the desired contact's information and selecting Set Ringtone. You can change email notifications within the Gmail app (though you might want to select Silent if you receive a lot of emails).You can also set a different song to wake you for each day of the week by creating an alarm ringtone of your favorite songs, and creating an alarm for each day of the week, then selecting the desired song.

Create a Unique Look

The keyboard and ringtones aren't the only things Android lets you customize. You can also select your own background wallpaper, which for many Android 2.1 devices, includes Live Wallpapers that actually move and react to your interactions. Wallpapers are just the tip of the iceberg, though. Apps like aHome, found on the Android Market for $4.99, let you apply skins to just about every aspect of your interface. With aHome, you can download skins, themes, fonts, and widgets to make your Android phone look as unique as possible. Some themes not only change colors and add flare, but also make significant changes to the interface itself, allowing you to customize the way you interact with your phone to exactly how you want it.

Next page: Under the Hood: Tweak Your Settings >>

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Under the Hood: Tweak Your Settings

With GPS, Bluetooth, 3G (even 4G), and astounding processor speeds, smartphones are smarter than ever. All of this extra intelligence means that the apps can be more complex, information can come faster, and battery management is far more critical. It's important that you configure your settings properly to get the most out of your phone.

Sync More with Integrated Accounts

When first setting up your Android phone, you have the option to add several different types of accounts, including Facebook, Flickr, Microsoft Exchange, and of course Google. You can always add more accounts after setting up your phone by going into Accounts & Sync under your phone's settings, although only Android version 2.0 and later allows for multiple Google accounts. Here, you'll be able to add additional Google accounts for syncing calendars and email, Facebook accounts, which can sync your contacts (including contact photographs and phone numbers), Exchange accounts for syncing with Microsoft Exchange servers, and Flickr accounts for sharing photos.

Network Speed vs. Battery Life

Having 3G connectivity is extremely convenient, especially when accessing large amounts of Internet data, like when streaming music or videos, but there are still some areas where 3G just isn't available yet. When you live in an area where a 3G signal is poor or nonexistent, it can have adverse effects on your phone's battery life. When a 3G phone is on a 2G network, it significantly boosts its transmitting power in hopes of finding that faster 3G tower, which drains your battery even faster. Fortunately, Android lets you disable your 3G antenna if you are on the edge or outside of a 3G coverage area. You can do this by going into your phone's settings under Mobile Networks in the Wireless & Networks category. You will see an option called Network Mode or Use Only 2G Networks, depending on your device. You will want to select the GSM Only option or check the box for 2G Networks. This same concept can also be applied to 4G phones like the EVO 4G.

Configure Your Search Settings

Being a creation of Google, it's not surprising that Android offers a plethora of search functionality. If you're constantly using your phone to search the web, you've probably found the Android Search widget and have it smack in the middle of your home screen, but there's more to that little search bar than meets the eye. Hidden under the Search category in your Android phone's settings are some very useful tools. Under the Google Search Settings, there is a check box that enables web suggestions. When you're typing with your thumbs, this is extremely useful, as it lets you type the first couple letters of your query and returns a list of probable entries. You'll also want to look into the Searchable Items option where you'll be able to configure exactly where that Search widget looks. You can set it to search the Internet, your contacts, your music, your mail, even your text messages.

Location, Location, Location

Mobile phones have had Assisted GPS for quite some time now, but it wasn't until somewhat recently that true turn-by-turn directions and other location-based services came to the mobile phone platform. That being said, you'll notice a couple options under the Location settings of your Android phone. The first, Use Wireless Networks, is a course-positioning system, which triangulates your approximate position based on tower signal strength. It's accurate to about 1.5 miles, which makes it useful for most any location service that goes by zip codes. The other, Use GPS Satellites, is the true AGPS setting, which can be accurate up to three meters. This must be enabled for features like turn-by-turn direction and track recording. While using network location only will save some battery power, Android is actually very adept at managing the GPS receiver to the point that you will not see much of a difference in battery life with both settings enabled at all times.

Get More out of Maps with Google Labs

Google Maps is by far one of the most used apps on the Android platform. You can use it to search for nearby businesses, complete with addresses and contact information. It can also give you directions, and for the devices with Android version 2.0 and later, live turn-by-turn instructions. While all of these features are great, there are actually more, somewhat hidden features, available through Google Labs. To access these features, hit the Menu button while in the Maps app and select More. You'll see the Labs option, inside of which is a list of independently created and unreleased features, such as a scale bar, a point-to-point measuring function, and additional shortcut buttons.

Root Your Phone for Extra Functionality

Although Android is an open platform, cellular carriers still like to put certain restrictions on their devices. Wireless tethering is a prime example. The Android platform is more than capable of wireless tethering, but without root access to the system, it’s impossible. Up until the release of Android version 2.2 Froyo, you had to “root,” or hack, your Android phone to get wireless tethering (with a few exceptions). Prior to Froyo, running applications from the SD card was also not possible without hacking root privileges. Rooting also allows for various other functions that apps on the Android Market provide, such as overclocking and taking screenshots.

Rooting has another great advantage, as well. It allows you to install custom ROMs. While Froyo is bringing a lot of root-only functionality to official Android releases, it's hardly available on a single model. By way of a custom ROM, Froyo can be ported to devices that do not yet have Froyo or may never get it. The same has already taken place for 2.1 Éclair, bringing it to devices months before the manufacturers released an official update. For a more detailed guide to installing custom ROMs see our article.

Next page: Staples in the Android Arsenal >>

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Staples in the Android Arsenal

Just like the iPhone, Android is nothing without apps. We consider to the following applications to be essential for getting the most out of your Android phone.

Astro File Manager

Today's smartphones are quickly approaching the capabilities of modern computers. They can already browse the web, play music and video, take photos, and edit documents, all while streaming it up and down the internet. Managing all of this data would be impossible without the help of a file manager. Astro File Manager, available on the Android Market, is currently the pinnacle of Android file managers, and, at least for now, is completely free. Astro doesn't just let you look at a file tree of your SD card; it gives you a full-featured toolset for managing your files. With Astro, cut, copy, paste, and delete as well as zip and unzip files, install apps, view photos and documents, play videos, and search and transfer files.

Add a Task Manager

Android is touted as the king of multitasking, and it certainly does that very well. Unfortunately, this puts a lot of faith in the developers, trusting that they will manage their resource consumption fairly and diligently, but this isn't always the case. There are always a few apps that will run unnecessarily in the background, slowing down your phone and eating up your battery. A task manager allows you to close the background processes you don't need, freeing memory and saving battery life. There are several great task managers that can be found in both free and paid versions in the Android Market, the most popular of which are Advanced Task Manager and TasKiller, which both allow for configurable automated task killing. Both are available in free "Lite" or add-supported versions, but the full versions are less than $1.

Upgrade Your Messaging App

Apart from the standard keyboard, Android's stock messaging app, while perfectly functional, is another weak link in the platform. It's biggest downfall being a bland interface and barren feature list. Fortunately, all of this can be remedied with a quick trip to the Android Market where you can find Handcent SMS and Chomp SMS, both free, feature-packed messaging apps. Each offers a similar feature list, capable of sending and receiving MMS messages, saving attached files to the SD card, and customizing conversation threads. Which to choose is primarily a personal preference. The most significant difference is that Chomp SMS has a powerful widget while Handcent SMS instead has a sophisticated popup notification box. Both offer a great alternative to the standard messaging app.

Locale

Available on the Android Market for $9.99, Locale is relatively expensive, but it’s one of the best apps on the Android platform. With Locale, you can program your phone to be aware of its location at all times, and adjust its settings accordingly. For instance, when you get home or arrive at work, Locale can automatically enable Wi-Fi and turn it off again when you leave. It can put your phone on vibrate when you walk into the conference room at work or into your favorite movie theatre. It can block calls from specific people based on your location or the time of day. There are also plugins available that allow other applications to launch or perform specific actions with location or time cues from Locale. With the proper setup, you may never have to manually change your settings again.

WaveSecure Mobile Security

Losing your cell phone can be a nightmare. Smartphones are expensive to replace, and then there's always the fear that should someone find it, they can potentially wreak havoc with the information that might be on it, usernames, passwords, phone numbers, maybe even credit card numbers. WaveSecure, a free app from the Android Market, gives you several lines of defense. If you've only misplaced your phone, WaveSecure can enable your phone's GPS and relay its exact location to you. If it turns out that your phone has been stolen, WaveSecure can lock it remotely, back up your data, and even wipe your data clean, ensuring that the thief can't do anything like steal your identity or rack up a huge phone bill.

If Android's So Great, Is There Any Need for Chrome?

Android's adoption rate has been growing steadily, and so has the Android platform, from its humble beginnings on a single device as Android 1.0, to its numerous hardware and software upgrades in its current form as Android 2.2. Of course the updates will keep coming, introducing new features and utilizing new technologies. Just recently, rumors of Android 3.0 surfaced, suggesting that Android was branching out from the mobile phone market. Google was quick to denounce these rumors, of course, as Android is and always will be a mobile phone OS, but that hasn't stopped the OS from spreading its wings.

Android's open nature has allowed manufacturers to experiment with the OS on other platforms, including tablets and netbooks. Even Google's newly announced Google TV is created for Android, giving way to Android-powered HDTV's like Sony's Dragonpoint. It's possible that Android's success has exceeded Google's original intentions and has become a potential threat to the company’s upcoming Chrome OS, an operating system designed to be as lightweight as possible, ideal for tablets and netbooks.

Android and Chrome OS have some similarities. Both are designed to have a small operating footprint, are ideal for ultra portable devices, and utilize an app-driven interface. The similarities end there, though. Chrome OS puts an entirely different spin on the operating system. Instead of providing you an interface with your hardware, Chrome OS is simply an interface with the Internet, basically a web browser with a few system management features. The goal behind Chrome OS is to alleviate the need for local storage; everything is stored on the cloud. Its applications are almost all web-driven, capable of being run in a standard web browser. As Google has stated, "Chrome OS is being created for people who spend most of their time on the web."

Android, while capable of always being connected to the Internet, is designed as much more than just a web browser, and if Android were created to work in the same sense as Chrome OS, every Android user would have his or her data plan revoked due to exorbitant data use. While the two operating systems overlap, Chrome OS has a much more specific target than Android, and the two should be able to survive together without much issue.