General Gaming Article |
- 9 Components That Didn't Make the Dream Machine
- IM Showdown 2011: Four Chat Clients Face Off
- The 10 Coolest Windows Shortcuts You Never Knew About
- Google Planning to Retire Picasa and Blogger Brands During Google+ Rollout
- New Paper Says Evidence "Increasingly Against" Cell Phone Cancer Risk
- Games For Windows Dead, Consumed By Xbox.com
- Sentey Arvina GS-6400 Review
- Byte Rights: We Can't Afford No Education
- China Wants to Acquire $1.2 Billion Stake in Facebook, Should You Be Concerned?
- Toshiba Shows Off Glasses-Free 3D-Sporting Qosmio F750 Laptop
| 9 Components That Didn't Make the Dream Machine Posted: 05 Jul 2011 04:57 PM PDT We've got a lot of great content lined up for the week leading up to this years Dream Machine, but there's one thing we just won't do: tell you what's in it. We know you're all dying to know what we chose for this years build, so we'll throw you a bone--we'll tell you 9 components that aren't going to be in the Dream Machine. Check them out, then hit the comments and give us your predictions for what Dream Machine 2011 is going to look like. |
| IM Showdown 2011: Four Chat Clients Face Off Posted: 05 Jul 2011 02:04 PM PDT Ding! Ding! Ding ding ding! We've come a long way since the early days of America Online, a time when instant messaging was but a one-ISP fad and that unnatural blast of noise from your sound card (if you were lucky enough to have one) was the run-to-the-living-room signal that a new message awaited. Well, OK, maybe the message noises haven't much changed, but the instant messaging itself has blown up into a digital smorgasbord of chatting platforms and all sorts of different ways to access them. We have the main instant message chatting services from Yahoo. From AOL. From Google. We have chatting services built into our favorite social websites (Facebook). Into our gaming platforms (Steam). Into our voice-chatting applications (Teamspeak). What is Twitter if not an instant message account to the world? And we're not just instant messaging each other on our personal time. Instant messaging permeates our entire day. According to a survey commissioned by Microsoft this year, 42 percent of 1,268 professionals consider instant messaging the most effective method for communicating with colleagues at the office. Even more eye-opening, 14 percent of those surveyed think their instant message use has grown at work over the past year (and 71 percent felt it stayed the same). Made my case yet? Great. So now that we're all chained to our various instant messaging networks, what's the best way to access them? That's where we come in. We'll be pitting four of the top instant messaging clients in a no-holds-barred battle for supremacy: To the victor belong the spoils, or a happy home on your desktop and laptop PC forevermore. Let's begin.
Pidgin
Part of Pidgin's beauty stems from its simplicity. At its core, Pidgin is just an instant messaging app: No frilly tie-ins to other social media components, no 85 pop-ups to appear each and every time one of your friends Tweets a cat picture, no absurdly complicated user interface with more buttons than you have instant messaging friends. You don't have to create an account on any kind of Pidgin service to use the app; instead, you simply enter in your login credentials to your accounts on one of 18 different protocols (as of this article's writing), which includes services like Google Talk (or anything else based on XMPP, like Facebook chat), AIM, Yahoo, ICQ, and Bonjour, to name a few.
Pidgin uses simple, tabbed chat windows to hold your conversations. It's easy to change up some characteristics of your font on-the-fly, but you have to do so over multiple clicks on a small menu—you can't just select a new typeface and size using a typical Word-style drop-down selector. Pidgin can log your conversations as simple .HTML files, and the app can even execute a separate application, sound, or specific notification whenever a buddy performs a range of actions (including logging on). Pidgin comes with plugins that you can enable to add other features to the IM program, but there's no central repository delivered within the app to allow you to download more. Digsby
When you set up an account with Digsby, your account settings for the various services the program supports (12 in all, including Google Talk, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, AIM, and ICQ) will follow you wherever you happen to install the application. That includes a "portable" option that can even install a self-contained version of Digsby on a USB key. One of the first things you'll notice about actually using Digsby is the ads. Yep, alongside Digsby's centralized instant messaging services you get, by default, ads at the bottom of your IM windows. While this initially seems like a sizeable detraction from the service, the ads can be turned off by going to the Conversations menu and unclicking the box next to Support Digsby development with an ad. We especially like how Digsby manages to mash all the various ways you'd need to contact a person within a single window. It's super-useful to be able to both IM and e-mail a person without having to switch out of the IM client, and you can even add a personal email address to any contact that's more accurate than Digsby's default selection (it's doubtful that you'd want to email your friends through their AOL Mail addresses, for example). Also built into the program is support for all the major social networks—Well, mainly Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, and Myspace (does that even count anymore?). You can view the latest updates on any of these via Digsby, although the implementation is a bit crude for our liking.
While Digsby's layout looks like a cacophony at first, it's easily cleaned up. Merging multiple contacts is as easy as drag-and-dropping them over each other, and you can detail the look and feel of your Buddy List exactly as you want to via Digsby's advanced layout settings. Although Digsby comes with no third-party plugin support per se, you can use the app to create your own Web-based widget to talk to various strangers online—and that's pretty cool. You know what would be cooler? Digsby apps for mobile devices!
Trillian
Trillian feels like the gold standard of IM clients at first: It offers more features than Pidgin, with options and accounts centralized across a single user account in the same style as Digsby. It's prettier than Digsby, although it does ditch the service's ability to email directly out of chat windows and, as far as we can tell, any remote way to view a user's information within any of the services that support it (AIM profiles, anyone?) While Trillian supports video chat, we found it impossible to actually do so with any of our friends across a variety of IM networks. Apparently video chatting is Trillian user to Trillian user only–while Digsby eschews the client entirely and uses a third-party provider to connect users via a Flash app, at least this workaround… works! The tabbed chat interface is fairly simplistic within Trillian. Like Pidgin, you can't pick specific fonts or font sizes in a manner similar to Microsoft Word. Rather, you're just presented the option to apply tweaks to said font, like increasing the size over, and over, and over until you've reached an acceptable mass. However, we love Trillian's IM-specific settings: You can configure elements like timestamps, text formatting, and logs on an individual basis for each chat. And whoever built the "close the IM window immediately after you send a message" option is a lifesaver. For the workplace, this function can't be beat!
We love that Trillian's add-ons are built right into the app itself, which you can toggle on and off in a style similar to Pidgin. And Trillian's chat history feature is definitely one to behold: With but the click of the mouse, you get both a full, organized listing of every conversation you've had with an individual, as well as an activity graph to show just how chatty you are… and when! Raptr
Gotta have something for the gamers, right? Raptr is the instant messaging client that attempts to bridge the world of quick communications with some of the biggest gaming platforms one could possibly play on. So we'll split this mini-review into two parts: The instant messaging and the gaming support. As far as instant messaging goes, Raptr's client is pretty ho-hum. You can't change your font size or style in the slightest within the chat window, nor can you change the look of how your conversation is presented. It's a bummer, because there are definitely some user interface elements we'd like to adjust: Like why the client feels the need to make every line of a conversation into a two-line chunk of one's user name on top and one's written text below it. Wasted space! Want to video chat? Not happening. Insert an image directly into your conversation? Nope. Invite multiple users into a chat room? Nuh-huh. Check out a history log to find that really important thing you told your buddy just the other day? No way. Change the kind or location of the Raptr notifications that appear in the lower-right corner of your screen? You get the picture. While we were a bit bummed that no amount of cajoling could get our Steam account (and friends) to appear within Raptr, the service does support the inclusion of Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, and Xfire friend onto the program's master buddy list. Your interactions with these people are basically limited to "IMs," although the style of the sent messages will vary by platform (e.g. You aren't really in an instant message conversation per se). Raptr gives you quick access to one's profile across any of the aforementioned services, which we suppose is nice.
Raptr also keeps track of your own gaming accomplishments via its own portal and tracking system. Giving each Raptr user his or her own little gaming portfolio on the Web is a great touch, amplified by the fact that you can actually launch your PC's games via the Raptr client itself. Cool, but are these must-have elements, especially given the weaknesses present in Raptr's instant messaging itself? We don't think so. The Winner?If you've been paying attention, you'll have noticed that each instant messaging program falls within its own little sphere. Raptr's a gaming app. Digsby and Trillian are cross-computer centralization apps. Pidgin is instant messaging simplified. So which of these reigns supreme? Which of these deserves the most prominent place on your desktop? It depends. Raptr's right out—we didn't like this app no matter how nice it was to have all of our gaming friends under one digital roof. The instant messaging stunk. Pidgin is awesome for a simple set of uses: If you have no need for an app that blends a whole ton of different social networks and chat services into a single program, you can't go wrong with this app's simple IM treatment. But we wager that most of you–ourselves included–are approaching the power user stage of instant messaging. You want everything to work perfectly by using only a single login to access your friends; you want to have a whole ton of news, information, and email at your fingertips; and you want an unobtrusive way to sort, access, and ultimately view everything you've slapped within your app of choice. Trillian isn't perfect, but we think it squeaks out over Digsby for a multitude of reasons. We love the layout, we like the app's more restrained use of advertising over Digsby's annoying default setup, and we appreciate that we can take Trillian on our various mobile devices and benefit from the same, single-user setup as we would in using the app on a bunch of different PCs at once. The comprehensive chat logging–saved to the cloud, if you buy Trilian Pro–is just the icing on the cake… and all the different ways you can interact with Trillian, and use Trillian to interact with all of your favorite Web apps, is like a new cake in itself. Former Maximum PC Editor David Murphy logged into four different apps at once to write this article. His IM-happy friends let him have it. |
| The 10 Coolest Windows Shortcuts You Never Knew About Posted: 05 Jul 2011 12:29 PM PDT Keyboard shortcuts are the essence of PC productivity. While newbs slowly mouse around their screens in search of buttons to click, seasoned tech vets hammer through a day's work with ease thanks to a wealth of arcane hotkey combos that knock out useful tasks in seconds. Of course, every PC user knows a few handy shortcuts, and hardened system tweakers like yourself have forgotten more hotkeys than most users will ever learn. But here are 10 cool combos that even you might not know. 1. Windows Logo + L
Walking away from the screen for a while? Keep prying eyes out of your stuff with this quick shortcut that locks the PC instantly. 2. Shift + Delete
The lazy way to delete stuff in Windows is to drag it to the Recycle Bin. An even lazier way is to highlight the file and press Delete. And if you're ultra-lazy (and smarter than the average user), you can bypass the Recycle Bin entirely by pressing Shift + Delete. The downside is that you won't get the opportunity to easily restore the file from the Recycle Bin if you later decide you want it back, but you also won't have to bother emptying the Recycle Bin if you use this method to ditch unwanted files. 3. Alt + F6
If you've got multiple windows open within a given app, this handy shortcut will let you quickly switch between them, so you don't have to waste time clicking around in search of the right window. 4. Shift + CTRL + N
Windows 7 made it a little easier to create new folders in Windows Explorer. Now you can just hit Shift + Ctrl + N in any folder to create a new untitled folder right where you are. The new folder will appear with the name 'New folder' already highlighted so you can type in your own name for it and hit Enter to move on to the next task. 5. Windows + M
Got a bazillion windows cluttering your screen? Press Windows + M to instantly minimize all current windows to the Taskbar. It's a great way to restore your sanity, and an even better way to hide what you're working on from unexpected interlopers. When you want all the windows back again, press Windows + Shift + M and every currently running window will pop open again. 6. Windows + Spacebar
If you just want to take a quick peek at your desktop (for instance, to locate a file you've dropped there), there's no need to completely minimize all your windows with the Windows + M shortcut. Instead, press Windows + Spacebar, and all of your open windows will turn transparent so you can see right through them. This even works with maximized windows and full-screen views. To return your view to normal, simply let go of the keys. 7. Windows + Shift + Left or Right Arrow
If you use a dual-monitor setup to maximize your screen real estate, you might like to use one monitor as your primary working screen and the other as a holding pen for active windows. Or maybe you just need to move a window from one side to the other for some reason. In either case, hitting Windows + Shift + Left Arrow will move a current window to from the right display to the left, and using Right Arrow will move it from the left display to the right. If you only have one monitor, these commands will dock your window to the designated side of the screen. 8. Windows + 1, 2, 3, etc.
Windows 7 introduced a new feature that lets you pin apps to your Taskbar for quick access. An even quicker way to access those apps is with this slick keyboard shortcut. Press Windows + 1 to launch the first pinned app in your Taskbar (from left to right). Windows + 2 launches the second one, Windows + 3 launches the third one, and so on. 9. Windows + T
Windows + number launches pinned apps in your Taskbar, but if your apps are already open, there's a quick way to scroll through them. Press Windows + T and you'll highlight the first open app in your Taskbar. Press it again and you'll move to the second open app. As you scroll through them, you'll get a preview box just as you would if you were hovering over the icon with your mouse. When you get to the app you want, hit Enter to bring it to the foreground. This shortcut only works with open apps, and ignores unopened apps that you've pinned to your Taskbar. 10. Windows + (+/-)
Want a closer look at whatever's on your screen? Hit Windows and + to zoom in for a magnified view. While you're magnified, moving the mouse around the screen will move you to the far corners and bring them into view. Windows and - zooms you back out again. |
| Google Planning to Retire Picasa and Blogger Brands During Google+ Rollout Posted: 05 Jul 2011 12:09 PM PDT
The names currently floating around are probably what you expect: Google Photos and Google Blogs. Picasa and Blogger were acquisitions, so this move would not be without precedent. Google does occasionally rename services that it acquires, like it did with JotSpot (Google Docs) back in 2006 or GrandCentral (Google Voice) in 2009. The transition is expected to occur within the next 4-6 weeks, which jives with the rumored date for the public launch of Google+. We also expect Blogger to have increased integration with Google+. Picasa is already tightly integrated. |
| New Paper Says Evidence "Increasingly Against" Cell Phone Cancer Risk Posted: 05 Jul 2011 11:49 AM PDT
It is important to note this is not a new study, but rather an analysis of all previous studies along with increased scrutiny of their methodology. Some well-publicized studies were found to hold up poorly on their own, but when taken together, a pattern emerged. Multiple studies over recent years have failed to find an increase in tumors up to 20 years after cell phones reached a community. The group also found no compelling evidence for any biological mechanism whereby radio frequency radiation from a phone could produce cancer. This is far from the final word, but a scientific consensus may be emerging that is in favor of the safety of mobile devices. |
| Games For Windows Dead, Consumed By Xbox.com Posted: 05 Jul 2011 11:16 AM PDT
While many gamers might just shrug and go back to the free Team Fortress 2 action on Steam, ditching Games for Windows is sure to irritate PC fanatics who hate the encroaching tentacles of Xbox Live. On its end, Microsoft's Games for Windows website says "Games for Windows Marketplace will fully transition over to Xbox.com. Now you can get all of your gaming needs in one place. It's convenient, it's concentrated, and it's a whole lot of great games." We're all for convenience, but we can't help but wonder when Microsoft will stop trying to shoehorn PC gamers and console gamers into the same "One size fits all" box. The July 11th transition date comes courtesy of a Microsoft clarification to Eurogamer. "All account information will remain the same and community members can still take advantage of their Xbox Live profile in their Windows games and stay connected to friends who are playing on the PC," Microsoft told the website. |
| Posted: 05 Jul 2011 11:06 AM PDT Big form factor, big value
With the steel side panels on and the LEDs powered, the Arvina is a pretty sleek-looking case, although opinions about its appearance were mixed in the Lab. Sentey's Arvina GS-6400 has a lot of things going for it, especially given its $89 price tag. The question is whether a bunch of fans and a ton of space are worth the inclusion of some cheapo parts and a somewhat tacky appearance. Sentey calls the GS-6400 a "high tower," but we call it a mid-tower. The Arvina has a steel frame and side panels, with plastic trim and a mesh front panel. The front panel is removable, exposing a 14cm front intake fan and four optical drive bays. Up top, you'll find the power switch, four USB 2.0 ports, audio jacks, and a set of four fan-control buttons.
The Arvina has a lot of space for a mid-tower chassis, though we're curious if that's worth its 28-pound heft. Speaking of fans, Sentey says that the Arvina is made for gamers, and it packs plenty of cooling. Out of the box, the GS-6400 comes with six LED fans—two 8cm side intake fans, one 12cm rear exhaust fan, two 12cm top exhaust fans, and the aforementioned 14cm front fan. That's a lot of stock fans for a case, at any price point. The five hard drive bays, seven PCI expansion slots, and four 5.25-inch bays all feature plastic latching mechanisms that, while tremendously easy to use (particularly those for the hard drive bays), feel a little cheap and fragile.
The hard drive trays are handy and colorful, but feel flimsy. Inside, the GS-6400 is extremely roomy for a mid-tower chassis, though at 8.4 inches wide, 20.5 inches high, 21.65 inches deep, and weighing more than 27 pounds, it's a little big for its class. So maybe there is something to this "high tower" concept. The space inside is much appreciated, however—you can easily install a 12.2-inch GPU without removing any hard drive bays, and the extra room allows for more airflow. The motherboard tray, which supports ATX, microATX, and E-ATX motherboards, also features five cutouts for cable management inside the case, which made our test build easy and organized. There are two grommeted cutouts in the back for liquid-cooling tubes. We're not sure how we feel about the GS-6400's looks. From a distance, with the side panels on and the fan LEDs active, we must admit that the Arvina looks pretty beastly. The design of the translucent side-panel window is very unique, and latches make removing the side panels a snap. The case still looks sleek upon closer inspection, but the large swaths of glossy, fingerprint-catching plastic on the top and front panels make the case look cheap. We're not thrilled, either, that the toolless drive bay and expansion slot brackets are all made of flimsy plastic.
The two 8cm side intake fans cool the GPU area. We have a couple more minor problems with the Arvina. If you're looking for USB 3.0, you're going to have to look elsewhere, though we haven't yet come to expect USB 3.0 integration at this price point. What we have been getting used to, however, is the inclusion of drop-down SATA docks, which are becoming more and more commonplace in this price range. The Arvina doesn't include this, though it does have a top eSATA port and a full SATA data and power pass-through that requires an included cable. The case gives you an integrated multiformat card reader. For an MSRP of $89, you get a solid, well-ventilated case that is quick and easy to build into and looks decent—albeit a little low rent. We've never been huge fans of plastic components, but we can't help but be impressed by what Sentey has put together for such a low price. If your next build is a simple one and you're looking to cut costs, the Arvina is worthy of your consideration. |
| Byte Rights: We Can't Afford No Education Posted: 05 Jul 2011 10:23 AM PDT
Puppy punching image courtesy trulyoddplanet.com In their ongoing quest to punch every puppy they can find, rights holders have turned to suing those most rapacious of pirates, professors. Academic publishers are asking a judge in Georgia for an injunction against Georgia State University for a liberal fair-use policy. What these publishers are objecting to is unapproved and unpaid-for book and article excerpts in class materials—essentially quoting and anthologizing. They want everything that can be paid for to be paid for. Specifically, professors couldn't use more than 10 percent or 1,000 words of an in-print book, whichever is less. That's about two pages. And it's campus wide—if I use two pages of Robert Jackall's Moral Mazes in my class, no student or teacher can use a third page without paying or getting sued by the publisher of Moral Mazes. See what's funny there? It's got "moral" right in the title. The publishers believe that anything in print isn't subject to fair use, a recently made up idea called the Market Failure Theory of fair use.
Fair use image courtesy freedomforip.org But that's not what fair use is about. It's a limit to copyright baked into the law. In the act itself, it cites a teacher making copies of classroom materials as a fair use. It's part of the copyright bargain; we grant these rights in exchange for material that improves our society as a whole, not so a group of publishers can get a piece of that mad college student money. These publishers not only want to make education more expensive, they want to make the university peer over the shoulders of teachers, making sure they don't copy that 1,001st word, or risk being sued. Hopefully, the court will rule against them, but even if it does, it's a sign of how publishers are treating the society that grants them their rights these days—badly. Quinn Norton writes about copyright for Wired News and other publications. |
| China Wants to Acquire $1.2 Billion Stake in Facebook, Should You Be Concerned? Posted: 05 Jul 2011 10:17 AM PDT
As Business Insider reports it, Citibank is trying to acquire up to $1.2 billion of Facebook stock for two sovereign wealth funds, one from the Middle East and the other Chinese. That sounds big, but Business Insider argues a billion dollar investment wouldn't buy China much influence in a social networking site expected to fetch $100 billion or more when it goes public. What's more, Business Insider says Beijing would be acquiring nonvoting stock, and shareholders wouldn't even have the right to look at what's on the site. That's all fine and dandy, but according to Forbes, "there are other reasons to be concerned." Forbes argues that "Chinese leaders clearly view social media as a threat to their rule, especially after seeing its force-multiplying effect in the ongoing Arab Spring protests that have topped governments." Forbes believes that Chinese leaders have set their sites on controlling social media. Forbes points out that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg visited China in December and is set to return. Image Credit: Technorati.com "After the disastrous China experiences of Yahoo and Google and the troubled history of Microsoft there -- not to mention Beijing's recent tirade against foreign social media -- the Facebook founder appears both arrogant and naïve.," Forbes says. You can read the rest of Forbes' perspective here. |
| Toshiba Shows Off Glasses-Free 3D-Sporting Qosmio F750 Laptop Posted: 05 Jul 2011 10:03 AM PDT
Toshiba revealed the laptop in London earlier today, Engadget reports. Display-wise, the Qosmio F750 sports a lenticular 15.6 screen with 1920x1280 resolution, an HD camera and the ability to display 2D and 3D images simultaneously in different windows. You'll also be able to convert plain old 2D images to 3D using the laptop's built-in conversion technology. The Qosmio F750's doesn't stop with a fancy-schmancy 3D display, though. The guts of the computer are built for gaming and movie-watching, with Nvidia Geforce GT540M graphics, an Intel Core i7 processor, Harmon Kardon stereo speakers and Dolby Advanced Audio, a built-in Blu-ray drive, 6GB of RAM and a 640GB hard disk drive. All the standard connections, ports and Wi-Fi options are on-board, too. You'll be able to boot your friends off your couch and pick up Toshiba's Qosmio F750 for $2100 in August. |
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Business Insider recently reported that China is trying to buy a $1.2 billion stake in Facebook, giving the country "a huge chunk" of the world's most popular social playground. If you're an active Facebook user, China's interest in Zuckerberg's social networking site is a scary one given the country's penchant for censorship. But should you really be concerned?
Those newfangled 3D displays are awesome for gaming and movie-watching alike, but there's two things about them we don't like. Wearing those silly glasses for the full 2.5 hours-plus of Avatar 3D kind of sucks, and owning a 3D TV or monitor attracts Blu-ray-loving buddies like flies – flies that leave pizza boxes and beer cans strewn across your once-clean living room. Toshiba's taken care of both of those concerns with the Qosmio F750, a laptop with a glasses-free 3D display that will let you watch your 3D Blu-ray collection from the comfort of your friend's couch. | You are subscribed to email updates from Maximum PC - All Articles To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's 
