With the current rate of speed gains in component tech, today's top specs soon become tomorrows budget parts. This is great new for people trying to build a gaming rig with limited funds. Smart shoppers can build a decent rig for as little as 300 of your finest English notes. So does anybody really need to pay 10 times this for the very best of everything? Next issue, we're going to find out in our blind test. Benchmarks aside, the real proof is in the game pudding when we perform real-world gaming tests on our budget and 'money is no object' PC builds. That's all in issue 263, on sale 16th of February.  read more »

Seemingly not the most exciting subject or indeed anything you'd think you need any extra instruction with. Surely this is one of the most basic functions computer users are familiar with, right? It should and would be if programs uninstalled cleanly as they're meant too. In reality almost all programs leave file, folder and registry trace clutter behind in their wake. Broken installers can cause another brand of inconvenience too. To the rescue is our Web Pack dedicated to sort out all these problems, plus a couple of other interesting finds we folded into the mix for managing your installed software.  read more »

Welcome in the New Year with some new games demo's! As usual, we've picked out the most interesting finds over the past month, and played them for you. It's tough work, so I hope you appreciate these hours of effort we go through playing games during office hours.   read more »

When I was a wee lad I wish my dad told me never skimp on buying a monitor. You only realise this mistake when your brand spanking new budget model greets you with washed out colours and bland detail, and the odd dead pixel. And you simply can't ignore those dead pixels can you ladies! They taunt you every day and you focus and fixate on them until you lose your goddamn mind!

Back to sanity mode... The problem with monitors is specs from budget to premium pretty much read the same, but in reality specs alone don't reveal the real quality of their components. This makes shopping for a monitor that you'll be using for the next few years is quite a large challenge, and that's why next issue we're having ourselves a bumper monitor group test so you won't make the mistake my dad made of not fully preparing me for my first monitor purchase. In this vein, our third Web Pack for this issue is dedicated to the monitor.  read more »

Anything with the moniker Cloud inserted somewhere it is quite a current hot topic. But really it's not quite as revolutionary or new, particularly in the world of online backup services which have been around for a good decade. But it's taken that long to be taken seriously, and it's becoming big business in the consumer sector since the bandwidth required to make them worth using has finally caught up with home Internet speeds. Our Round-up this issue is taking look the best online storage providers, so I've prepared my own Web Pack Round-up of free backup software and a few of my recommended cloud storage providers that are kind enough to give away some space to the lowly freebie hunters like me.  read more »

Password protection masterclass is one of our featured tutorials this issue so the Ed asked me to cook up a Web Pack on any free password related software I could find. The fruits of my labour is this collection of utilities to protect your private files behind military-grade virtual locks and ways to manage your all important passwords.  read more »

This is our final games demo roundup before the end of the year. If you're seeking for anything festive, then look away, there is nothing for you to see here! What we have is some games based on movies,  climate change, terrorists being naughty, and post apocalyptic mutant shooty fun times.  With it's wintry landscape, try Skyrim for size to get anywhere near any seasonal  gaming action. For the finishing touch it needs a mod to transform a creature infested cave into Santa's grotto. And of course a naked texture pack!  read more »

Besides digital photo editing, we're exploring another area of creativity, the wondrous world of machinima. We thank the folks behind the brilliant Halo Red Vs Blue machinima for popularising the art form. To follow our editorial, we've built this Web Pack filled with software we used in the tutorial and a few extra finds that will help you along the way to unleashing your inner Michael Winner. Issue 216 will be on sale the 22nd December.  read more »

Like a lady, Windows needs maintenance every so often to keep it in good working order. Fortunately PC's don't have legs to shave, but you understand analogy! Though to be fair if all you had to do was shave your PC's legs once a week then maybe it wouldn't be so bad. Sadly Windows is complex (like a lady too) and needs attention in many different areas to ensure things are running optimally.

One area of neglect is keeping on top of unused files and background system and application junk files. You'd simply be amazed on how much waste is sitting on your drives, all have a negative effect on performance. Next issue (on sale 22nd December) we're giving you some tips on how to keep on top of your system cleaning, and have come up with the perfect Web Pack to compliment the feature.  read more »

Digital photography photo editing  is one of our covered subjects next issue (261, on sale 22nd December), so it seemed like a good idea for the basis on one this issues Web Packs. Here you'll discover a compilation of the best photo editors, image processors, and a few image effects editors. As always, these are all free so the only cost is your time and bit of bandwidth. 
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