The computing relics unearthed in the PC Pro Labs

Tuesday, December 27th, 2011

The PC Pro Lab is a dark, dingy place full of cardboard boxes, benchmarks and more motherboards, processors and PCs than we care to count, but it’s also home to a variety of kit that’s slipped through the net –  some of it even dating back to before PC Pro launched in 1994.

From iconic machines like the IBM PC to the silliness of Sony’s £1,190 netbook, we’ve scoured the darkest corners and blown dust off some of the oldest, oddest and rarest kit we can find – starting with a true icon of the industry. (more…)

Apple keynote: live(ish) from a London pub

Tuesday, June 7th, 2011

I’ve watched all manner of events on a big screen at the pub: football, rugby, that weird version of rugby that Americans in riot gear play, to name but a few. Last night, however, the London Macintosh User Group (LMUG) invited me to sample a whole new viewing experience over a pint of Guinness and a pack of pork scratchings: a Steve Jobs keynote.

Of course, nobody really watched the Apple keynote except the thousand or so US journalists and developers who were granted an Audience With Steve Jobs. Bizarrely – for a company that makes the Soviets look like corduroy-wearing liberals when it comes to exerting control over the media – Apple decided not to stream the event live.

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Glossy vs matte screens: why the PC industry’s out of touch

Monday, May 23rd, 2011

The following charts neatly encapsulate exactly how out of touch the PC industry is on the issue of glossy vs matte screens.

We asked PC Pro readers which type of screen they prefer. They answered as follows:

And this is the type of screen used on the nine ultra-value laptops from our recent Labs in issue 200:

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The genius of the Lego Printer: video

Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010

Let’s be clear on one thing: Lego is brilliant. The block-based toy started life in Denmark and, since its current design was patented in January 1958, over 400 billion of the little plastic bricks have been produced.

We assumed that this simple toy would never go hand-in-hand with computers, but we’ve been proved wrong by a particularly inventive member of the B3ta forums. While the site is normally full of offensive pictures and jokes that Frankie Boyle wouldn’t tell, this show of ingenuity is guaranteed to put a smile on your face: by combining the diminutive plastic bricks with a Mac and a felt-tip pen, he’s built a fully-functioning Lego printer:

I hope you’ll agree that it’s work of genius. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a date with a boxful of knobbly plastic bricks. That Lego server won’t build itself.

Adobe: friend or foe of the web design community?

Monday, April 26th, 2010

It would be easy to see Adobe as the injured party in its current war with Apple over the absence of Flash Player from the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. With the release of its flagship CS5 series of products, however, it’s clear that Adobe is a company with ambition and plenty of ideas intent on continuing its own brand of world domination. Ironically, the world it dominates is “Planet Apple”, with products such as Photoshop and Illustrator as synonymous with the web design community as Apple’s iMac and MacBook Pro.

As a developer, my main interest when it comes to CS5 is the new release of Flash Builder (aka Flex 4) and its interaction with Flash Professional and Flash Catalyst, and I’m looking forward to seeing whether Adobe has succeeded in creating the new, more productive workflow it was aiming for.

However, I’ve recently been attempting to peek through the fashionable spectacles of a young web designer so that I can advise a particular individual on how to get started in their own freelance business. And it’s a frighteningly expensive vista.

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Steve Ballmer signs a Mac

Sunday, January 24th, 2010

Never let it be said that Steve Ballmer doesn’t have a sense of humour. Nor that Nashville students don’t have cojones. Because it takes a brave man to ask the Microsoft boss to sign his computer, when said computer is blatantly a MacBook Pro.

The big question: is the MacBook worth more or less than it was before?

The worst part of Windows 7? Internet Explorer

Monday, October 26th, 2009

In the latest instalment of our experiment to see whether Windows 7 can convert a hardened Mac user, Chris Brennan tries to get to grips with Internet Explorer

A few years ago I really, really liked Internet Explorer for Mac, but Steve Jobs called Bill Gates a sissy and the Macintosh business unit in Redmond ceased making it. That’s what I was told happened anyway. So it’s been a few years since I used IE in anger.

The Internet is central to what I do professionally and, for better or worse, where I get most of my news and a good chunk of my entertainment, too. On my Mac I use Safari and, I’m not just saying this, it suits me fine. It’s not the greatest thing since sliced bread and neither is it full of magic and ponies.

However, I’ve found Internet Explorer on Windows 7 to be a pain in the proverbial: slow, stuttering and prone to crashing. In all, IE is just a bit rubbish. In fact, so far IE has been the only part of my Windows 7 experience that’s been anything less than moderately good. Perhaps it’s my Apple-centric way of working, but Internet Explorer simply isn’t a tool I’d trust to get me through the day.

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How to stream Spotify to Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and digital radios

Monday, September 7th, 2009

Spotify may have launched its iPhone and Android apps, but how about streaming the Spotify sounds to other devices in the home, such as games consoles and digital radios? After all, many of us have expensive speaker systems connected to the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3, while the speakers found on the average laptop give even Barry White the nasally whine of the Bee Gees.

Although the Spotify software itself doesn’t support streaming to other devices, it’s perfectly possible to do so with the third-party software, Jamcast. What’s more, the Jamcast software is completely free of charge and (unlike the iPhone/Android software) you don’t need a premium Spotify account to take advantage.

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My guilty secret ad the problem with my “” key

Monday, June 30th, 2008

I have a guilty secret; although I work o PC Pro, I’m actually a avid Mac ethusiast. I fact, I’ve bee called a fa-boy by some in the past.

They’re everythig I eed from a PC. After a day istalling bechmarks, swappig out hardware ad searchig for drivers, all I wat is a machie that works well ad ever eeds tikerig with. The gorgeous OS and chassis desigs are a ice bous, too.

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