at arc Scr) Cre Ue eRe ed See sc he fakse tom hc »> Essential downloads for Android, |OS, Chrome and Windows eens eo diac ceedacal Peer eee New suite will change Pou neces PUTER gScanning a sea of documents. Xerox makes it simple. Considering the amount of documents you work with every day, we know scanning can get in th hat make s rox offers a wide range of scanning solutions equipped with all the industry-leading to ining easier and faster. So you can keep moving—no matter how many documents stand in your way. GF %108 Docunte® 4799 +112 ppm /224 pm at 300 dp *A3 (11 x17") papersizeen es wo PCPRO PovcasT Thursday epre.co.uk/ odeast ‘88 Best apps pring¥ou 88 esental downloads forall the major mobile platforms, How Photoshop changed the world Adobe Photoshop has tweaked and enhanced layered reign, Rise of themakers Tinkererstunite! The world of the maker fs ‘growing - find out how youcan join in aa 82Google Analytics We introduce Google's ree web-analyss tool and show how you can employ to track 36 Use Twitter to build your business Find out how Twitter can help you connect with your customers, \ 40 Careers Mark Wood explains the ups cine ig D9 G vtexrounranincesstesae den June2015 Issue 248 Lo poneaeien peter) oi 10 Apple MacBook: the end of physical connectors? Apple's new laptop features only asingle port for both charging and connecting peripherals ~is thisa signof things to ‘14 Election Special: technology With the General Election approaching, find out here the three main parties stand on tech 16 How Microsoft will make money SUBSCRIBE: fromits “free” OS THREEISSUES I¢Windows oisfree, how willthecompany FORE keep the cash rolling in? We find out 22 Scout? fe Discover how this Birmingham-based company visi subserbe, has turned to bigdata tofind theSteven Gerrard popre.coukn9 of the future DARIEN GRAHAM-SMITH Computer users are opting for convenience over security JONATHAN BRAY Is Microsoft's new ) approach finally going to pay off Pay NICOLEKOBIEGoogle’srelianceonothers’ El a Amazon needs to useits secret weapon, Te N aWWW.Orid.co.UkK e: sales@aria.co.uk Sect Join us on GiD GLADITOR GTAV ELITE Processor: Intel i5 4690K 3.5GHz Quad Core eA PRC eRe ie) erotic ie} Storage: 250GB SSD / 2TB SATA Ill Hard Drive Operating System: Windows 8.1 (64Bit) pease Ri Quick Code #63401 ““€1249:99 ox | SUPER SPECIAL PRICE £19049: Ma GD GLADITOR GTAV PRO Processor: Intel i5 4460 3.2GHz Quad Core eee PIR R CeO ELE) Irn tcl Toleie) BSc eric PPM RUE A 1] CURSE UE aCe) HARDLINE) peer ee Dd ——— Pane = z ; ite i] aia ro SOG SUPER SPECIAL PRICE £699: ea ia GD GLADITOR REDSTONE ACN aU eer eee na ery PUN eee colird iy Sees AA Opearting System: Windows 8.1 (64Bit) Quick Code #63385 “£456 00 & SUPER SPECIAL PRICE £370 80" eae a CUSTOMISE YOUR PC FURTHER a | WITH GLADIATOR COMPUTERS www.gladiatorpc.co.uk | t: 0161 248 1618 | sales@gladiatorpc.co.uk Cass 4Years Warranty | Finance Available | Express Builds & DeliveryOcrcero @pcrro.co.ux June 2015 Issue248 Crcn net eas Dick mantra? ee, Editorelettor 1 Subscriptions 76 TheA-List 18 Coding challenge 129, Readers'comments 28 Onelastthing.... 130 PTHENETWORK 94Network-monitoring software Find yourself firefighting network problems? Weexplain how you can regain contro 106 What happens whenthe power goes out? Fleetrical failures area fat of ie, Discover how you can help your busines to keep disruption toa minimum. 108 Cheat Sheet: Connection Vouchers Upgrade your business broadband with the help ofthis government-funded scheme 124 Material worl what's next for 3D printing? With manufacturers workingon the ability tomake abjects from wood, m tal and ceramies, sD printing about to hit ‘themainstream? 126 HTTP/2 andthe UK's spaceport Surfingthe web sabout togetfaster-and more secure; plus, we reveal the five locations being Considered forthe UK's first spaceport REVIEWS/LABS HEADLINE REVIEWS DelxPS13(2015) 6 ‘Apple MacBook Protin with Retna display(201s) Dell Venue 7840 a SamsungGalay$8 6 SamoinaGelaxyS6edge 6B_—AsusEeeBook X2OSTA 2 HTC One MO 69 Lenovo 850-20 2 DeliLattuder37000Series 70 Del ienveare 1? R2 72 NETWORK-MONITORING Microsoft fice 2016 ITPro SOFTWARE and Developer Preview 73 Ipswitch WhatsUp Microsoft Office appsfor Gold Premium vib2 96 Windows Technical Preview 74 —ManageEngine OpManager 5. 97 Paessler PRTG Low-cosTLaProPs. Network Monitor 15 98 HPStreamtt 86 Solarinds OnonNPMTLS 100 ‘cor AspiroESI-TIM. 88 ‘sus X200MA 89 BUSINESS Toshiba Chromebook 2 {Drive Online Backup 0830-8-104 90 forBusiness 102 ToshibaSatelite CLIO 81 WOSentinelDx4200 104 7G uss iow-cosriarrorscoversroRY ‘Anew breed of super-cheap laptop isemerging withthe flexibility ‘youneed, but withoutthe compromise onpecformance andusabity. Wehave even ofthe ery best ontestthismoath. JON HONEYBALLK roll Ontrack has level ofexpertise in, hard drive, tapeand optical disc technologies that makes ta trustworthy go-to when things go wrong, PAULOCKENDEN We investigate printing options for mobile ‘workers, look into cheap thermal-Imaging technology and attenda virtual wine tasting, IESTYNLLOYD Developing virtual-and augmented.-reality ‘content Is exciting, but 'san education andone that's throwing up many challenges. DDAVEY WINDER How can the issue that makes Superfish a ‘vulnerability bea safe, trustworthy function within security vendors’ products? STEVECASSIDY Getting to grips with hyperconvengence, and trying our best to explain the virtues of virtualisation toa business that ought foemploy itHere’s an idea: Design the smallest, fastest, smartest LaserJets ever. ‘The all-new HP LaserJets. Now 40% smaller and 40% faster.” \We started with a blank page and asked “What do businesses need now?" We carne up with the all-new HP LaserJets, built around a breakthrough in toner chemistry. Thanks to new Original HP toner cartridges with JetInteligence, the new LaserJets are up to 40% smaller, up to 40% faster and use up to 53% less energy.’ See them at work at hp.com/go/newlaserjets ee ——————_ ‘The world’s most preferred printers. ~— /Oercero @Pcrro.co.ux June2015 Issue 248 ‘rage incnx on your right hand ~ or the internet?™ This was the question posed on Facebook earlier this seek by Real World Computing columnist Paul Ockensden, I didn’t have to ponder for long: mentally sacrificed one of sy digits ina heartbeat. Afterall, if Homer Simpson needs only three fingerson each hand, I don’t see why Ishould be sogreedy as to require four. Butit'sa terrifying thought. mean, who could ive without the net? While there are times'' pay good money togiveup Facebook, to delight in life without Twitter. even {oforegoonlineshopping, o wholly sacrifice the amazing Iinternet-protocol-based organism that supports my digital life would be too much to bear. And if ’s ficult for me, sparea thought for those who don't remember time when youhad to check the Encyclopaedia Britannica to find out what Joseph Stalin's ‘middle name was (Vissarionovich, Just for the record). Such digital upstartsare increasingly amongus,even hhereat PC Pro: the youngest member of our team, Vaughn Highfield, was born in 1990. That'sthe year in which Photoshop sprung nto life, with consequences we explore ‘on ps4, the same year Tim Berners-Lee was beavering away on a formal framework for the world wide web, Of course, I was happily unaware of either workd- changing event at the time, For me, using a computer in 1990 was an insular experience. The programs [recall boll down to WordPerfect, XTreeGold and Prince of Persia: one for writing, one for file management (Pye always been an Interesting chap) and one for gaming. The idea of hooking up oan international network of PCs would have seemed » Editor'sletter When youlook back through this prism at computing 2 years ago. it's striking how the nascent technology ‘wasattempting tomimic the real world. Now itis the real world, and in some sensei’ getting smarter too: map, tall the major internet “nodes”, and the connections ‘between them, and the Earth becomes overlaid with ‘hat looks remarkably ikea neural network, In the space ofa generation, internet access has become such an intrinsic part of our lives that the United Nations is calling for itto bea human right. And I can see itsargument too. Asan illustration, flick through the 88 apps we've selected for our main feature (see p42). How many of them are there to improve your fe, to save you time, tomake youa better, fitter person? Why should we have that advantage and others not? Reading through the list hammered home to me just how dependent I've become on the internet. 'm not ‘merely talking about those apps find handy but could easily live without -the likes of SwiftKey and Shazam ~ but those that are now such acore part of my daysand weeks ‘that I'd struggle without them. For me, that’s Tuneln Radio {for on-demand radio, Sirava for keeping track of my ‘running training and Pocket for capturing interesting, articles to read on the train home. ‘Those life-enhancing toolsare the real reason I'd willingly sacrifice my little finger for the internet. Which leaves just one question unanswered: what, exactly, does aul want with all those spares? bizarre: computers were for completing a specifictask, or Tim Danton ‘making one set of pixelsattack another set of pixels. Editor-in-chief Pe Ue tS ‘Adam Banks David Court Testyn Lloyd | Barry Collins As the former editor-in- chief of MacUser, Adam knows athing or two about Photoshop. On p54, hedolves intoits controversies. Want to know how to exploit Google Analytics tohelpgrow traffic? Then David, online editor of pepre.couuk,has some tips to sharecon p32. Former editor of PC Pro, Barry isnow adirector of Lewes FC.On p22 he talks toScout7, maker of the scouting software used by Premier League clubs. ‘What'sit ke developing software for Oculus Rift? BAFTA winner lestyn Lloyd reveals on pli6whatit takes to create virtual: reality experiences.@June2015 Issue 248 EDITORIAL DIToR.in-CHIEF TimDanton: edtor@pepreco.k DDEPUTYEDITOR Darien Graham Smith EALWORLD COMPUTINGEDITOR DickPeuntain:rweapepro.couk BRIEFING FUTURESEDITOR Nicole Kobe REVIEWS EDITOR Jonathan Bray:revewsepepr0 co.uk DDEPUTYREVIEWSEDITOR ‘Seshautlor OWLINEEDITOR DavidCourt ‘SEMORSTAFF WRITER ‘Vaughn Highild STAFF WRITER aneMeCalion [ART PRODUCTION DESIGNER PaulDuggan FREELANCE DESIGN BitBagnal, Sarah Rate, Heather Reeves PRODUCTIONEDITOR Monica Horidge ‘SUB-EDITORS incon Forester. PritiPatel ‘CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Tom Arah, Steve Cassidy, Jon Honeyball Simon Jones, Dave Mitchel, MarkWewton,Paul Ockendon KevinParter, Davey Winder ‘CONTRIBUTORS ‘Swart Androws, Adam Banks, Devi un. testy Loyd. Adam Shepherd ‘ave Stoventon, Mark Wood PHOTOGRAPHY & PRE-PRESS ‘anny Bird, Henry Carter, PhiDawson, Jon Leskinn, Rus Nicholas ADVERTISINGTEL:0207907 6602 F#X:02079076600 ‘SENIOR ADVERTISING MANAGER ‘Ben Topp:ben.toppadennis.co.k SALES EXECUTIVE ‘THishitaShav-tishita_shahdenns.couk STRATEGIC ADDIRECTOR OIGTIAL Paul Lazarra: paul lazarragdennis.couk STRATEGIC ADDIRECTOR (DIGITAL) ube Pree jule. prieeg dennis co uk COMMERCIAL DIRECTOR(OIGITAL) Hannah Dickinson: hannah dckinsongdenns couk ‘STRATEGIC AD MANAGER DIGITAL) ‘Matthew Sullvan Pond: 00164671 9555. ‘matthew, sullvan@dennis.0.uk ‘ADPRODUCTION TEL:0207807 6055, ‘GROUP PRODUCTIONDIRECTORRobin yan PRODUCTION MANAGE RKerryLambird PRODUCTION CONTROLLER Amisha Mogra CIRCULATION SUBSCRIPTIONS Tot: 0844844 0083 peprogservicshalpline 2k CIRCULATION MANAGEREmma Resa [NEWSTRADEDIRECTORDavidBarkor CCOVERDISC TECHNICAL SUPPORT coverdscsaserviceelpie co.uk REPRINTS TEL:0207807 6625 Ben Topp: ben, toppedennisco.uk Oecrcrro @pcrro.co.ux a PRO o(TORIAL Tet. 02079076000 LETTERS ettrsapepro.co.uk TWITTER @pcpro FACEBOOK wwnedaeebook.com/pepra SSUBSCRIPTIONENQUIRIES 08448440083. 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PCProisa trademarkofFeliDennis. ‘This publication may notbereproducedortransmittdin anyform Inwtoleorinpart without the written permission of thepudlihors. odo bo useless at buying plonk:thanksto Wotwine now bing home botleafter bot ofthe goodstut” su@scrIPTiONs Price: UK £49.89;Europe £70: Rest of World £90, Vis denniemags. couk/pcprofer our bes ofes. Torenew asubscription, change ‘anadressorreportany prblams.isitsubsnfecouk White every carehasbeentakeninthe preparation ofthis ‘magazin, the publishers cannot beheldresponsbleor the accuracy fhe information herein, or any consequence arising ‘rom Please note thal judgements veer madeinthe context of equipment avaiable to PCPro attime of review. and “DogoiePubs-agrestway —that“valuefor money" comments are based onUK pricosat tho ‘ofindadoo-riendly —__umeofrevew, whicharesxbjecttofluctationsnd reonly hostelry when my best sppicabletothe UK market. friendfanciesaswiftpint” SYNDICATION INTERNATIONAL LICENSING PcProisavalbleforcensing overseas Licensing contact: Nicole Adams nicole adams dems. co.uk 44207907 6184 Reprints and syndication: Wright's Media, 08000518327 (tole. Er CCERTIFIEDDISTRIBUTION ‘31198 Jan Dec 2018) “Thavethememory of afch solcartivewithouty ‘ay planner sad knaw “Theadsteamhas exchowedbonevalance andnow relies onthe Round apptodecide whose rounds.”NS igor 2860 Series The Ultimate ‘xDSL’ Router IPV6 support - The new Intemet protocol 3G/ 4G (Cellular) Modem support Built-in simultaneous dual-band WiFi Comprehensive and robust firewall VPN site-to-ste and teleworker connectivity Configurable QoS (traffic prortisation) 6-Port Gigabit Ethemet Switch Content Filtering (by keyword or data type) 802.1q VLAN tagging & multiple subnets Twin phone ports for VoIP (Option) Managed Wireless for DrayTek APS - New — : = aes eee caret ea hegeainee Y a + ADSL2+ and VDSL and broadband routerfirewall Do you use a router or WiFi ? If you use or operate a router or = WiFi network, of any brand, you are a target for hackers or B criminals. Read our essential { white paper “The 27 things ‘= every router user should know". 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Nicole Kobie asks whether this isa sign of things to come roxaur Tux £1g,500 Watch Edition: for ‘many, Apple's boldest revelation at its launch event this month wasa laptop featuringa single USB port for both charging and attaching peripherals, The latest version of the Apple MacBook iseven thinner than current MacBook Airmodels,and partners Retina display witha lightweight Core Mprocessor, therefore needing no Internal fan. It also includes new “Force Touch” trackpad that can differentiate light taps from harder 4 This certainly isn't the first time Apple has made an early move to abandon whatit sees as legacy technologies 99 presses (as does the new MacBook Pro;see p66 forour review), ands the irst Apple device touse the USB Type-Cconnector, which carries data, video and power viaa single cable peripherals are connected - at east, not without an externaladapter. But perhaps we shouldn't be surprised: Apple has never been risk-averse ‘when itcomes to making changes,” sald IHS isupplianalyst Rhoda Alexander. "It makes total sense given what the flrm was trying todo, which Istominimise the footprintorthe device while maximising features. It's the direction consumers are moving In increasingly clean design elements, with fewer ports that are universal And while the lack of traditional UsBand Thunderbolt connectorshhas frustrated some, this certainly isn’t the firsttime Apple has made an early move toabandon what it seesas legacy technologtes: the original iMac ditched floppy disks in 1998, and the 2008 MacHook Airshipped without an optical drive. The new MacBook Isdesigned for a wireless future and Appleis bankingon the older ports being seen assuperfluous. upertuous possible, and ifyoulookat the a ee ofasingeperthas AirPlay and Bluetooth all reduce the need for physical connections. The only irreplaceable connector is the charging port: wireless charging {sstlltoslow,and requiresa dedicated charging pad, so for now it's more convenient tocarry around a regular power supply. @ Abreath of fresh Air? The new Mactlook soshakes up. Controversilly, Apple has direction inwhich thingsareheading, anabledAppleto Apple's product line, *To design a new Includedonly onesuch port, meaning | i'sachievable,” sald Alexander creatotsthinest product that’s slimmer, lighterand thelaptopean’tbe charged while | notingthatsystemssuchasAirDrop, tatapyet thinner than the Air products was an 1TagHeuer 3 Twitter cracks smartwatch downontrolis ‘TagHouerhas fyoursmartphonebattory ‘wittorisaguintryingtobatto createditsown iathandfrom Dyson, cnlinetrolsthstimobyroling ‘AndroidWear maker of vacuumcloaners. The ‘outa"qualityfiter"thatlets ‘evic.Designedto British frmhasinvestedin ae, usersoptoutofsecingtweets look kets hxury Carrera iichhopesitssobd-stat rom“suspicious"aceounts, or ‘watch tincorporatessmart batteries wiloffer ‘thosethatcontainthreatsor features such aslocation twice thecapacty offensivelanguage.Sofar, ‘trachng. CEO Jeary Claude Biver eflithiumion itsonyavaiableonvertied isnitconcerned about Apple's units. Tteould ‘accounts. Thecompanyhas.lso rival decaringitwdlpetyourg lesdto smal | promisednewmeasurestodeal oopleusedtowearinga watch.” simmer devices. ‘withabusive tweeters.Ocrcero @rcrro.co.ux/news Briefing \ows @ {interesting move,” Alexander said. She suggested that the decision not touse the word “Air* inthe device's branding gives Applean opportu to*reset the price point’ - inother ‘words, 1 increase it, Thenew MacBook startsat £1,049 with 25668 ofstorage, while the cheapest nin Mactlook Airnow comes in at £749. “Ifyougo back to the MacBook name, You raise the bar at which you can put ‘the price point - which is appropriate with the kind of innovation that the firm has put into the device." That doesn't mean the Airbranding fs dead, however. Alexander predicted ‘that thecompany’snext move might bea s2.9in Pad Airthat canbe paired witha keyboard, tooffera middle spround between the standard iPad andthe MacBook line. © We'vealways said, welltake ourtimeto createanexperionce that srealy unique. ‘With pple Watch, we've been stringing ‘outthe launch or anincredible seven ‘months now. That's somethingno-one intheindustryhasever managed. Inthattine, the other guyshave come ‘long with watchesoftheirown.Butthose Jow-costproducts comeand go. We've ‘beonworkinghardtomake Apple Watch somethingyouwerit wanttoraplace, and ‘our pricing strategy isabigpartothat ‘Andlasty-thisisthepartthatthinkis ely excing-inside Apple Wate yout find our ightest,slimmestbattery ver I's ‘anamazig pice ofinovaton and think youre goingtolovechargingt. Yahoo ditches passwords youstiluse Yahoo mal, thon passwords may oon bbocomea thingofthenpast. Insteadofrememberings socrotphrase, during lognyoull serve, piggybacking on E's Desskedtoenteraone-tine network BTisinthe midleot vonfietoncodethstuilbe buyingnetworkoperatorE, sonttoyouviatext Sofar.the sol’sanobviousmove-one owsystomisavaiableonlyin thateeesBTreturntothe ‘hoUS,buti¢sexpectedtoroll consumer mabitemarket ‘outmore widely soon atoratSyear absence. Windows 10: what'snew for the next-genOS Windows is ontsway.andMicresfthas been sony unvelingits ext operating system's features cheadofsful release later tis year. Here arefvntriguing revelations about the rest generation of Windows thatyeuneedt know. Goodbye IE, hello Spartan WindowsiOvairelaette noch maignd Internet Eorr 10 wth anew browse, tabbed Spartan Merotf has buiitrontha round uptobe ihter-wight eee ee eee ee eee em eee te amataten recy onto web pape BUTE Gex=Rwillbemase ‘value forntrsines and aryone ssw reeds th ony browser foraps. Windows for free iecosofthas als revealed that most Windows users wilreceive the new 0S asa free upgrade. you're onWindows Tor8..itwil be freeifyu're onWindows youl need to updatetoversion B first Windows 10 won'tbe avaiable for devices running Windows RT-the ARM versionofthe S-whichinchdes Microsoft's Surace RT tabats Smartphones running Windows Phone®.1willbeupdated verter, butthose running Windows Phone or B wnt Pirates prosper ‘These upgradesalso apply to computers running "non-genuine versions of Windows inother ‘words, devices running piratedcopies. Microsoft announcedata openly acknowledged that he was standingon the shoulders of others when he started working with objects, and [find itodd that the two inventors of OOP aren't given a place in your article. Itean’t be because Ole-Johan Dahland Kristen Nygaard were also Turing Award winners (in 2000). It ‘must be that they really are forgotten, utsideof academic computer science. Havard Hegna (retied), ‘The Norwegian Computing Center ivan Hegna provided rumber of references detaiing Alan Kay's connection toDah and Nygaard including Kay's own aril on the early story of Salta, Which s wal worth area, at pepe. link/24Bkay. Windows subscription? Nothanks ‘Windows 10 Isn't going to be free: thereare no free hunches in this world {suspect Microsoft will push the price uptoatleast £5 per month - whichis well over theaverage daily wage ina developingcountry. lean’t think of any good reason why the firmshould charge memorethan Itchargesanybody else on this planet ‘Whatifwesign up. toasottware-rental agreement and then some accounting error occurs? Will ourcompaters freeze? And will Microsoft take its usual "not our fault” lineand charge 0 putieright?Isit goingtotake possession of the dataon my computer fandhold meto ransom? Or, doesthe sOercero @rcrno.co.ux Viewpoints &% firm, in its arrogance, now believe the data belongstoitsinceits software helped create it? Peter Roulston (See PCProbe, p16, andour reader poll, opposite for more on the subject.) What'sa watch for? ‘Tag Heuer's decision tolauncha smartwatch has been described asa response to Apple “encroaching on its business”. Really? Since when does a watch that lastsonly oneday encroach” into the market foranyone ‘who actually appreciates watches? Givemea few nuggets ofsmart {information builtinto areal wateh, however, and I might be interested. [tiny Elnk screen on the rear of normal watch would be great, Then ‘when it dies I'm left witha watch that canstilltell methe time -gasp! Nila Aghast at Avast. ‘What Is tabout Avast Free Antivirus ‘that makes PC Pro reviewers think it's less intrusive than the AVG. equivalent? The frst time linstalled Avast, [went back (0 AVGaftertwo ‘weeks because of he constant pop-ups. Now 'm tryingit again Aandit'snagging me to upgrade and register thas also tried to sneakein adownloadof the Chrome browser while updating ise. 4 The first time I installed Avast, I went back to AVG after two weeks because of the constant pop-ups 77 Additionally, Avast has prevented ‘me from installinga Photoshop filter T'veused for years, and won'tallow ‘me o installa Firefox plugin for an ‘online service [wish tojoin, Yetin its, newly updated state, itiells me that ‘can now "manage my PCs remotely through my Avast account”. That doesn’t sound sectretome. This isan irritating and intrusive plece of software. Are your reviewers recelving doctored versions for review? Roger Whiteway Reviews editor Jonathan Bray replies: Intrusiveness maybe party amattor of Personal taste: Ive used Avast for along time and have never foundit partcuarky ‘annoying. The problems you've encountered vith the Photoshop fiter and Firefox pluginare unfortunate, though Obviously ‘we cant test very plugin or software package ontheplanetbutwedo test for se positives, andinthese tests Avast performed quite well overall And ican assure youwe dn'treview doctored ‘versions of antivirus softwarewe ovmoaditjust ike everyone se! Readers’ pol We asked you: if Microsoft were to introduce subscription fees for Windows 10, what's the maximum you'd be willing to pay for personal licence? peur) 0) Bx) aU) Itmight make sense for Microsoft to offer Windowsona subscription basis (see p16), but the model certainly has its opponents-more than half of yousaid you'd insist on aperpetuallicence,orswitchtoa different platform. On average, those who were willingto pay consideredaround £3.50 month fair price for personal use. When asked about the sum businesses should pay, youconsidered that 25a month per workstation, on average, wouldbe reasonable. Jointhedebate Joint roving? Pro commit facenkat cbr compe Cette est ewe sed pate foleingsopcp0 Ematusztietersopene cea Addyar commons tonnes andfenuresatepacouk etree ieee tnt mt eee Sorc ee ens Ta anything (56%) 46 £60 is fair for anOS with a five-year lifespan - so that’s £1 per month 77 44 If your financial position changes unexpectedly, you don't want your computer to stop working as well! 99 44 £5 a monthis reasonable if it covers all six Windows computers in my house 77 441 might not upgrade my computer if the new one came with an extra cost every month after i) oatWWW.SCAN.CO.UK :01204 47 47 47 SCAN COMPUTERS Crafting PCs the Scan way: Specification. Service. Satisfaction. 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This very power CPU is parnored with the high-end 4GB NVIDIA Quadro 1200 ‘Graphics card. Also incided is 16GB of high bandwidth 2566NH2 CCorsar DOR4, a 250G8 Samsung SSD and 2TB Seagate nar csk 3X$ GW-HTX30 1 Two Intel® Xeon £5 2640 V3 + 4G NVIDIA Quadro K4200 +3 Year Premium Warranty £3859 ot ‘The GW-HTXO marks giant lap forward in performance tharks to having two 8-core Intel Xeon E5 2640 V3 CPUS. These are parinored with a-4GB NVIDIA Quadko Ka200 professional graphics card and 64GB. (of 1600NHz ECC Registered DORS plus a 240GB 8S0 and 278 HOD ‘Sean 3xS Overciockes A cuit by award +} winning 3XS team calulas) abil x 980 £1529 vovir A (Our highly popular Vengeance gaming system is based around the immensely powerul NVIDIA graphics card, the GB GeForce GTX 900. Tomake thatthe GTX 980 ian'theld beck this awesome gaming PC also includes an intel Gore i7 4790K overclocked to 4.7GHz which 1 accompanied by 8GB of RAM, a 20GB SSD and 2TB hard disk 3X$ Graphite 161720 + Ine Core™ 7 4720H0 processor + 8GB Corsair 16006 Hz DOR memory 19GB NVIDIA Gof Year Pru Ws £1159 wow a | The LG1720 is a 17.3" high-ond gaming laptop that includes a choice of powerful NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M or 980M graphics card ensuring siky smooth frame ratesin all games. The LG1720 sad for next-day delivery and has a 2 Year Warranty. Beye. SAS SYSTEMSProspects © edulis Seo aa Moet Unicom ssn De ec eure cy Bue et tency Boost your traffic with Google Analytics David Court introduces Google's free web-traffic analysis tool, which lets youtrack how visitors use your site—and helps you find and fix the pages that aren't working so well etheryou'rerunninga \ K ] vereonatnomepage or corporate website, Google Analytiesisa powerful tool for ‘monitoring the number of visitors toyoursite. Itdoesn't matter ifyour sitegetsone hundred orone million Impressions per month - Google will record what every single visitor gets upto, helpingyouto understand and Improve thetr experience. Indeed, we use Google Analytics on the PC Pro website, togaina real-time overview ‘ofhow the site fs performing, and to ‘examine how individual pages and sections ofthe siteare doing. you'renew toonlineanalyties then the Google Analytics interface ‘can seem daunting.at first. But as we reveal below, you need tolearn only afewsimple techniques to start working out what isor isn't working ‘on your website. This incredibly valuable data can then guide youn ‘developing the site attract new Visitors, encourage themto spend ‘more time browsing and have them leave happier. 1 Why choose Google Analytics? Thereare many different web analytes providersout there Some, Suchas Adobe's Siecatalytchargea Steepfee for the service Others offer only basiesoftware or re, inthe hope you'll upgrade toa pad fo service at alate date, Google Analytics isa free service = atleast, ‘until you reach around 10 million hits per month, Frankly, i'you have those Agures. the 150.000 annual fee for the premium service shouldn't bea problem. Forthe rest ofus, setupean be achieved in a matter of minutes (see ‘opposite for our guide to integrating Google Analytics into your site). ‘The only real downside to Google Analyticsis that it isn't the most Intuitive service out there, Once you familiarise yourself with the front end, however, you'll have access t0 aan ocean of data that, when used properly, can effectively sevout your web strategy for the next six months. Even though Google Analytics is free, there's virtually no limit to how ‘much Legaey data you can store, so you can analyse how your site has ‘grown and evolved over time. Hereat PC Pro, we have analytics data going, back t024June 2008 ~ with afew clicks, wean confirm that the top ABOVE DavidCourtis enlinn eto of PCPro BELOW Youean easy jumpbackintmeand spotehangesinvistor ‘trends-poodor tad ECMO Bu ae articleon the site that day was "Murdoch famesas Facebook overtakes MySpace”, with 4.79 views. (Needless to say, our online presence hasgrown since then.) While historical statistics ean be revealing, analytics can also provide valuable insights through real-time data, Here, Chartbeat isa good alternative to Google Analytics, offering easier access to in-depth data andafriendlier interface too, A baste subscription to Chartbeat costs $299 a ‘month - butifyou thinkit might be right for your needs, youcan find out ‘more and sign up fora free trialat chartbeat.com, 1m What can Google Analytics tell m Google Analyte reports information Inout keyareas your audience how many people visited yoursite, acquisition how they got to yoursite, behaviour what they did while they were on yoursite) and real-time dctivity (what'shappeningon your right now) You'l find ll this information inthe navigation bar ontheleh ofthe webpage Let's start by lookingat audience dat, Thisis where youcan find ott tow many sers visited your ste the proportion ofthese that were new or Feturing: how many Individual pages ‘vere seen by each visitor, andthe $Nverage ime they spent on your site Thereare lsosome metre here that aren't sef-explanaory. Your 2Ocrcero @rcrro.co.ux Prospects (000!e Analytics © [ABOVE AheaRnyrateofretumingtraficis a eodsignthatyu're ding omething right site's “bounce rate" represents the proportion of visitors who land ‘on yoursiteand then leave again without clicking on anything. Asa general rule, a bounce rate below 50% Is good ~ there’sa lotof casual browsing on the web - buta figure above 80% suggests that something about your site, or an individual page, Is driving people away, and that ought tobeaddressed. The total number ofsessions ‘measures individual periods of activity onasite. Essentially, asession ‘srecorded whena user leaves your siteand doesn’t return within 30 ‘minutes (you can adjust the timing by oingto Admin | Property Tracking Into | Session Settings), or is simply {inactive on your site for that perlod. ‘The easiest way to understand this {sto pleture a visitor spending 29 ‘minutes clicking around yourssit. During this time they foliow multiple inks, navigate to several different pages, and then leave. Google Analytics counts thisasone session. Ifthe user had gone away for 30 ‘minutes or longer at any point, ‘and then returned and continiied Interacting with yoursite, this would be registered as two sessions. Session data helps you understand ‘how many pages users view ‘on visit to your ite, which canbe usefulin deciding ~ for example how often to serve full-page promotions toavisitor. Serving afresh promotion oradvert 0a user every five pages might annoy them ifthey skip pagesin quick succession; doingso ona per-session basis!sUkely togive you more clicksand be less annoying, Youcandrilldown even further into youraudience. Within twomore clicks you [ABOVE Brows staistiesreveal whether your ‘sersaremostlymoiloron desktop platforms ‘can nd out where inthe world Visitorsare accessing your site from, Who theirbroadband provider is, and What OS or device they're using, a8 ‘wellas the distribution of age and sex. This sort of information ean be particularly valuable when it comes to tailoring your content or advertising, tosuit theright demographic. Acai n Acquistion data refers tothe origin ‘ofyouraudience. This doesn't mean ‘where n the world they're located (that’s under Audience, as mentioned above), but rather what online source directed them to your website Ifyou've pald foran SEO (search- ‘engine optimisation) company or social-media guru to overhaul your site, this sa section on which to focus closely. ‘This tab tracks which websites your users were visiting before they followeda link toyoursite, and iters this information into four types of acquisition: organic search, direct trafic, referral tafficand socal. ‘Organic search basically means through search engines, Ifsomeone has landed on your site from Google, Bing, Yahoo, oreven Lycos it does still exist!) then it willbe reeorded here. Direct trafficis when a user arrives on your site ‘with no previous browsingactivity -inother How toinstal Google Analytics ‘Alyounoodto setup yourfreeAraiteseccountisa Goosleloginanéasmallsnipet of rackingcade. This canthenbeambeéded onyour ste with ont abasic ‘grasp of HTML anda itebitoftime after whichyour ‘ke statistice willbe vibe inthe main Google ‘Aesapesietrtace, Cone = nn OBE F (Createanaccount andsignin ‘Start going to google.co.k/analyicsand Saringinwithyour Google account(orereatingitit _youdortareadyhave one). Next sole the Admin tab atthe topof the page, Cickon the Account dropdown rmenuand select“Ceate new account Choose what youwant to track Yostthenbetakentoa page that sks: "What \wouldyou hetotrack?” Here youhave toentersome basic iformationabout your account and website. Thisinformationisrimariyfer your ownreference. ‘Whenyou're done clckth Gt Tracking IDbuton, Inserttraching information onto your ste Youlbe prompted to accept theterms of service: oncethsisdaneanen pagewilappenr wth your unique Tracking ID and Tracking Code Youll need tocopythiscodeandpaste tntoevery page ofyour ‘website that you want to track Googlerecommends ‘lacngitireey before te closing aad ta) ‘Adding code to multiple pages at once yourwebsite uses dyramicaly generated pages, youmaybeablotosimpiyadthotracking senpttoa standardheadererfoter,andhaveit automatically includedin every page that served Ifyou seis bosedon WordPress thre arenumerous gis tht canhelp withths. aot. we reconmend downloading the ree program Notepad++ andusingts "Search| FindinFles.”eaturetofndalloccurences of in your HTML flesandinsrt the tracking cadeimmediatlybefreit. ont forgot to include “atth endolyour"Ropace with” text© Prospects (000! Analytics Oecrcero @rcrro.co.ux ‘words, when they typein your web addressby hand, soyoucan expect ‘your homepage toget the bulk ofthis ‘irect raffle. I's advisable totake this figure asa guide rather than fact, however, sinceit's thought that Google Analytics counts any sourceit can't properly traceas direct traffic. Referral trafficrepresents links from other web pages. Thiscan be misleading, since big aggregating sites such as Google News and Reddit are shown here, sothe line between ‘search results and referralscan bea bit blurred, The last acquisition type Issocial. Here, you can see how much traffle comes via soclal networks, as wellas discovering which of your pages are most popullaron each platform - thats, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedinandsoon, Knowing where your trafficis ‘coming fromean help you make decisions on how to market your ‘website. For example, fyou see that a hhuge proportion of your trafficcomes via Facebook, you might want to Investigate why thats, and see if ‘whatever isdriving your success can work for other types of traffic too. Behaviour Google Analytics” behaviour data lets yyousce which pages on your site are attractingots fof visitors, and which re ess popular. You can track the exact numberof views anduserseach page has received, and f'yourstte hasan internat structure then the taxonomy view also knownas thesitemap lets ‘yousee how each Individual section ofyoursiteis performing Under the heading Site Content, you'llsee four options. Youcan ‘choose toview either page URLs or tes; Ifyou want toseea list of your top articles, click on the All Pages tab, Here you can see view counts for Individual pages, plus details of lunique views, the average time spent ‘on each page, entrances, bounce rates andexit percentage. Ifyou're looking, for traffic information froma specific page, aneasy way tofind it isto paste itsadaress (minus your domain name) Into the search box. The content drilldown tablets you see how entire sections of your siteare faring. On pepro.co.uk, forexample, weean see how many users are Visiting our reviews section, versus the number heading to our in-depth section, Such data can help you make decisions about where to focus ‘youreffortsand resources ~for ‘example, you might choose to invest Inshoringupa section that isn'tas Popullaras it shouldbe, or focus your ‘energy on the parts of yvoursite that receive the most attention. For the more advanced user, the next two sections will be important. ‘Theseare the Landingand Exit pages tabs. Landing pagesare simply the pages to which users are arriving to ‘your ste, while exit pagesare the last LEFT Comet Drildownis onset ‘themost vale metric. reveaingat ‘glance whichpages arepertormingbest ‘ones people visit before leaving your site. Any pages that stand out in either seetton deserve closeattention, since these may be driving up your overall bounce rate. Onefinal section worth paying attention tois theSite Speed tab. We recommend you sort the results on this page by average page-load time, and try manually loading theslowest pages ina separate web browser, Visitors will lose patience if page doesn't appear almost instantly, so {fyou feel the page takes too long to Toad, consider reducing its complexity or reducing the size of images. 1m Real-time analytics Google Analytics’ real-time datacan give youa ‘right now" countofactive ‘afore toyoursite-and youcan also Investigatefurtherinto who's doing wat, Onthe overview page you can Seestts regarding op lve referrals, active pages, social trafic top locations and top keyword searches although Google has started hiding Alargepercentage ofthis data to tiscoureg etek chaser from gaming thesystem.(Youcanalso feces feal-time statistics under the Behaviour tab; bat that's daly and the data etarned nt particaariy easy toread) ies eaxy tomake too muchoflive Statistics, I'you' ein charge “Knowingwhere your ofawebsite, youshouldn't trafficiscomingfrom make any decisions based canhelp youmake decisions onhow to solely ona singlesnapshot lof visitor activity, However, real-timedatagives youa marketyourwebsite” —\atuableglimpseatwhat BELOW Thefve ‘ovevewshowshow muchtracyo're receiving rghtnow, work scoming content isthe most popular atcertain points. Unexpected, patterns ofactivity canalso expose bugs: many commercial sites keep aliveanalytics view runningona dedicated terminal tall times, We've certainly found that thisapproach can bring server-based errors or broken links toour attention before many automated services, The great thing about Google Analytics s that al the information about what yoursite sand isn’t doing isgathered automatically. You don’t need to liftafinger to build upaninvaluablestore of data that can guide you to making informed changes toyour site. And. ofcourse, ifthechanges you make don't have the desired effect, you'll beable to see trapidly via Google Analyties* real-time reports, soyoucan revert back before serious damage is done. (On the plusside,ifyour data-led ‘changes do work ~and there's no reason they shouldn't - Google Analytics will confirm i through presenting ego- boosting graphs. ‘which youcan then use to continue ‘making your site even better.@ PnSAY YES to securing your passwords and data with ShieldToGo°® acer 6 to the Cloud, online wm — apps and notebooks to > A powerful encrypted USB manage your passwords password and login jock! Sd > 1 ® —— eo www.shieldtogo.com Protecting your passwords and data wherever you go. Includes up to 8GB encrypted storage, £29.99-availabletobuyfrom AMAZON.CO.UK — “eentycompatible with: O@ £2 Windows7 Em Windows 8Use Twitter likea pro- and build your business Dave Stevenson explores how Twitter - used correctly-can bring your business closer to its customers | like a simple way for businesses to connect, ‘with their customers: Just type ina message andsend. But t'seasy togetitwrong. Tweet atthewzong time ofthe dayand your message willbe missed, Use the elses forbidden, Thereare stories of “organisations doing it without consequences, but failing that, abit of creativity adding anunderscore, or appending UK, for example) should find yyoua unique handle Once you start ‘oweeting, you want 10 set your tweetsin front ‘ofas many peopleas possible. Building, followers is best achieved “organically” by replying to fellow Twitterers with relevant Information or joining ‘conversations. For ‘example,anoffice furnituresupply ‘company may search for*whatchair?" and advertising channel and your audience will drift away And those are the relatively benign pitfalls, Allowing ‘employees to tweet ‘on behalfof your ‘organisation can lead totrouble, as retailer HMV found in 2013, whenagroupof former employees ; ; weigh in with advice took the company's fed to 1 Buildinga following and ofers to potential customers. complain about mass firings. Signing up fora Twitteraccount Thereare other ways togrow your Usedin the correct way. however, | Issfmpe, but finding the right followers, Some Twitter users simply Twitter can be a positive tool for username for your business may follow vastnumbers of people inthe your business Here, welook at not be: with hala billion users signed hope they'll geta reciprocal “ollow what youshould tweet andwhen, | up, there's chatice your pref back’. This isn'ta good look, though pls power-aser tricks stichas ‘option will have gone Twitter won't i followinga huge number Schelling tweets thi your helpyouclaimaname that'salready | “Allowingemployeesto _ofirrelevantaccounts followersat the best times, and been taken unessit thinks the tweet onbehalfof your smacks ofdesperation, thetools youneed tomanageyour encroachment misleading, and isatie and teones who do organisation's social media needs. buying a username from someone erganlcation canleadte follow back are unlikely trouble, asretailerHMV 0 be genuinely interested CC ER foundin 2013” in your message anyway. . Growing a Twitter account organically takes time, ‘est ume to tweet but the result is more valuable. What totweet Twittercanserveas a reminder tofollowers of yourexistence, but alone t won't keep people following Your tweets need to offer followers LEFT Socldeos | something valuable or interesting “Besttinetotwost? —_ Specialoffers, announcements, reporthighights introductions to key members of ‘whenyourfolowers staff anything that rewards your 6 arenostikalyto—_followersor helps personalise your bonne business canbe useful.Oecrcerno @rcrro.co.ux Prospects |itier {or business © Don't be too stiff either. TwitterIs. | eye-c ee el conversational medium, sofeel free aa tochat, askquestionsand retweet ‘tems youthink your followers will appreciate, even ifthey’re only loosely relevant toyour core business. Web service Butler (bufferapp.com) ean help: its primary roleisto let you queue uptweets forscheduled posting, but italso highlights existing tweets from users it thinks willft with your normal subjects Incertaincitcumstances, a picture can have far more impact than 140 characters. You might simply want toposta photoof the officecat to brighten your followers’ day. but vot can also use images to post messages that wouldn't fitinto tweet. Forinstance, ifyou're tweeting toadvertisean upcoming event, you could tweet the specifics (The company CEO will take to the stageat apm’), then attachan image spelling out more details ofthe event. Don't jo overboard, though ~ big blocks of text won't be appreciated Note that ifyour picture too big aletterboxed preview will be shown, ‘and users will have taclick to see the full picture. Give your imagesa2:1 aspect ratio, suchas 1.024512, and the whole image will be immediately visible inthe timeline IN Targeted tweets wi TweetDeck and Hootsuite Thanks toTwitter'sopen API, there are plenty of apps availableto help, youget the most from the service These range from the basic - those that allow users to see thelr Twitter stream without opening a browser ‘window -to advanced client suites That supportmultipleusersandlet_ | AROVETwestDek, | name. Thatway,tfauser“subtweets” | accounts; admins arealso able toad yousctiduletweetsandirackhow | tapteasertowse, | you~that uses Yourcompany name | new members o the teamand remove followersengage with you IncHostutedevers | rather than yourusername- you'llsce | oldones. No-one can change your Oneotthemost popularclents | mereeorgerata | thelr tweet anyway. ‘Twitter loginctedentials, and access TweetDeck (weetdeck twitter.com), powerfeties TweelDeckalsoallowsyouto can berevokeat your discretion, Originally third-party. itwasbought Schedule tweets soyoucan Uimeyour _ protecting you from rogue employees by Twitter inzon, and presents Posts for when you think you'llgtthe | and from having tochange your san easy-to navigate formal. The best results (moreon thisbelow). You | Twitter password every time you ‘main column, Home, shows the canscheduleas many tweetsforthe | want to remove someone. {weetssent by Your followers, while futureas ou tike, and they appear For larger organisations, val Notifications rolls yourmentions, quewed in heScheduledcolumn, 30 client Hootsulte(hoatslte-com) replles, new followersand favourites, Youcankeepaneye out | offerssignifcantiy more poser, intoone handy stream: ‘Advancedclientsuites —fortyposorinformation although witha steeper learning What's greataboutTweetDeck is supportmultiple users that becomesout-of-date. curve. Ityouhavea numberof Kekcrgielcnesncrena se | Ma EO Cicerads.os | nocitinaonayontomnporngeot specificphrases, Toset thisup,click Ndtrackhowfollowers — TweetDeck doesn'ineed _tweelsasa CSV fle: the first column ‘AddColuimn |Search, then typethe — engagewithyou” toberunningat thetime | stores the dateand ime your tweet ‘word or phrase you vant to search yourtweetsarescheduled. | shouldbe broadest; the second the Torand tap Enter. You'lscea dialog ifyouwant matiple members of tweet itself and the thirdany links borallowmngyou torefineyournew yourteam tobe abletotweet,youcan you wish toappend. column you can exchude certain dothisfromheretoo:cllek Accounts|__ Hootsutealogives you the abi ‘words, for example, or iit search Team, andyoucanenterthe sername | torunateam with differing levels of Fesullstoshow only tweets that ofthose youwanttohave accessto. | access toan account, although for this have been retweeted or favourited a yourTwitteraccount. Twolevels _ You'llneeda Proaccount, which eosts certain numberof mes. The obvious Ofaccessare offered: adminsand around 7 per month. I works by pproach for businesses Is tohave contributors. Hothcanwritenew setting up an “Organisation” to which a search column for your company tweets, and follow and unfollow other | other members can beaded; inthis© Prospects | vitter for bu Ines: Oecrceno @Pcrro.co.ux way, your Twitter account details don't need tobe dished out, and permission toaceess accounts can be assigned and revoked as people join and leave your company. (See right {for our gulde to setting this up) With Hootsuite's Enterprise subscription (priceon application), You can do even more: tweet approval forexample allowsyouto signoff on tweets before they're published, so you-can stop the office intern accidentally tweeting from the ‘company account ona Friday night. Understand your audience The basic principlesof howto tweet are universal keep your messages ‘conversational, react to people who ‘get in touch with you, and avoid Tepetitivesales messages. What's ‘more difficult is finding the right balance for your particular business. For example, received wisdom tells us that 9am, midday and mid-afternoon are good times to tweet, but you're tuying to reacha market ofstudents ‘or travellers, mid-morning andeariy ‘evening may work better. Although Hootsuite includes analytics tools, atacostof St (about ‘5p) per month, you'll probably want tofirst make use of free third-party services to help you understand how, When and why your followers react. One way togauge engagement Isto ‘ereatea freeaecount with bitly and use to shorten every link you post Youcan then check yout bit.!y account to see how many clicks each linkattracts. For TweetDeck users this Iseasy, as youcan opt touse bit ly as your default URL shortener. Socialliro(Soclalbro.com) also offersanalyties tool for free. You can define your follower base by gender, location, language and more. You ‘can also viewa breakdown of your Twitter “community”, revealing Which of your followers has the biggest following -and therefore highlighting the followers with whom you should build relationships. SocialBro can help you with timing your tweets too: is “Best time to tweet” reports illustrate when your followersare most likely tobe online, inparticular when influential, followers reonline. Tag clouds can show you the kinds ofsubjeets your followersare weeting about tooffer ‘guidance on what to write. With plenty ofautomationon offer, ltmay be tempting toqueue up few weeks" oftweets, but to get the most from Twitter, a combination of scheduled and impromptu tweets works best. I'your followers feel your feed is being run by aPC, they won't be motivated to tweet back or retweet ‘Asmall, engaged audiences better for business thana large dormant one.@ Setup a Twitter team with Hootsuite IyeuirenewtoHootaite you'nged toenableyourTwittraccountonthe servic. Chek Add Social Network” ‘ndfelow hepromptstoauthariseyour ‘account Youcan now afew columns toyourfrst stream ary scheduling ‘afew tweets, Yournexttack relieve yoursetfofsome pressureby adding Feowcontnbutor Yyoulineedtodetine an organisation (Cickyour prafileiconinthetoplett ‘ofthe Hootsutewindowandchoose *Startcollaboratingwith others” This ‘wilpromptyoutocreate an organisation ‘enter your companyname,cheosean inage.adayourTwiter account and ‘lek Creat Organiaton’ Oaxaca twams ahichinturncontainindiidua 3: orgarisaton containsindvidual members. Yoviineedtoclck"Adda “Team evonifyeunaveontyancother person ‘working on your Twitter fod. ek’ Adda ‘Team’ anafMinteblanks. pladan avatar icon for your team=blank ieorscan be dzaremating toinvitoyourfirstaddiional sor. Youeanchoose whether thay haves ‘efaltor an adminaceount amine ave ‘thepowert add andremave now andold rmombers your new user doesnt havea Hoctaite account theyilrocaiveanemall Invting therm tocreateone 4 it Create Team’ and youre ready ‘As anadnin,youcan now dv up “Twitar asks For example, hovortho rmovsepointer over arecentrop and ‘clekthedoumarrowonthefar ght You ‘eannowassign to annual ‘member or theentire eam). Appening anotewaletyourteamknow what it's ‘expectedtodo:they ireceveanema rotifcatononceyoucKekASsign. Hoctauitecanscheduletweetsto coincitewtheventsornewsto which youwantyourfolowersto respond Cickthe Compose textborat the ‘wpotHootsute’smainscren.thenclck ‘thocalendaricen.Choose"Try the bulk message uploader’ hn "Choose Flin thesutsequent window. Youllneedto have yourtwoots prepared the required (SVformt agoadidea to are aT Bs nom Comte ter 5 pe ® Py8S el) a —. Sto 2 ; ~~, Fast > Resilient > Exhilarating Unlimited Business Intemet from £29 per month, with free connection and router* FibreStream® CopperStream® DualStream°SF VStream® ** Fibre Ethernet + Copper Ethernet * SDSLM and VStream® + Fibre Broadband (VDSL) Leased Lines GEAVEFM Leased Lines. 2b voice and up * Upto 7eMb + 10Mb to 1Gb * 2Mb to 35Mb to 76Mb data erate renner ortionel ‘+ Auto failover (optional) * Auto failover (optional) Auto failover * From £21 per month ‘+ From £300 per month + From £125 per month» From £99 permonth _ Free connection and ‘+ Free connection* * Free connection" router on most services" SPITFIRE ees {= =© Prospects 0210's Oecrcero @rcrro.co.ux Mark Wood What does the job involve? [work at Fasthosts Internet, wheret'm head of operations ‘essentially. I'm responsible for keeping the data centres powered and cooled, as well as installing and removing hardware. Itsounds ‘imple, but i's big job: we have two data centres, onein ourmain premises that has6o racks, and another dedicated data centre with ‘more than 170 racks spread over two floor. It'salsoa constantly evolving ob, asthe equipments upgraded frequently. I's my responsibility toplan and ensure there’s enough space and power foreverything. There's lot of maintenance Involved (o0- Itest devices such as air conditioners, uninterruptible power supplies, emergency generators and soforth. What shils do younced? ‘ominimise disruption, so the hours can There's lot of planning involved - you need tothinklogically.That sometimes be antisocial tn act due wo the sald, italso helps tobe flexible and have the ability tothinkon your 24/7nature of data centres, vou have tobe feet. You might gearedupfolnstallanew setof servers, and then n prepared tobe called on-site in an emergency {Mast-minutechangecomesdovn theline~perhapsa suppliers | Appraximate | Wherevertam,{'mmnever oo faraway from my swapping the hardware tuses,oramanufacturerhas ranoutot | startingsalary | work mobile, athough lean only recalltwo stock ofa certain ype of hardware and we have to find an alternative. fut-oF hoursincidentsin the past 12 months Although thisdoes’t happen often thelps to becalm ina cris ‘soltisn't to0 bad. And Hove what da, ‘ good graspof the underlying infrastructure of your systems sothat really balances out the stress isessental. When things go wrong.in the datacentre. t's usualy serious, in terms of critical services going down. Vouhave tobe lHlow would someone get into this earcer? ready toget your systemsback up and ranning quickly. Thankfully Having an ITbackground certainly helps, Uhisdoesn'thappen toooten either bputalot of day-to-day functions ae process driven forexample, we receive automated ‘What does your day look tke? reajuess to rack new servers when stocks Notwo daysare the same, Somedays, bein rontof my PC start to runiow, and, conversely, we're ‘Working on spreadsheets, capacity planning, ralsing purchase orders prompted to remove ol serversonce a andsoon, On other days I might spend time getting hands-on with Customerhas finished with them, So you theservers and cabling: [supervise ths personally, because palling require little in the way of formal knowledge fone wrong cable could createan incident. My team sstltguitenew | PEMMANENE}ODS |e started, youjust nedan ability to tothisaspectof work, burit’slearning,soovertime Ishouldend | (itjobswatch. earn andapply yourself. When tt comes to up doing less and less of this ype of work. co.uk) climbing the ladder, the prime requirements areexperienceand exposure toreal What attracted you tothe job? environments. There are training It’sfairtosay that thedata centre found me, rather than vice courses available, but nothing versa, Before takingon the role, Ispent around ten years in comparesto hands-on experience various systems-support roles, which included regularly helping ‘out in data centres, This naturally led toan offer to takeupa ‘What's the pay like? position asa full-time data-centre engineer. Within acouple Payin the sector generally seemstobe pretty ‘of years!" worked my way up to manager. good, Employers realise the huge responstbility Involved, so they don't skimp on salarles~ It How technical isthe role? ‘would cost thema lot morein the long ran AsI've mentioned, knowing your own systems inside-out is valuable, {ohire inexperienced, unmotivated staff soyou can apply quick fixes need be. My teamand also helpout | Average ‘who couldn't be relied on to keep things with hardware diagnostics and replacing server components,soa | earnings inning smoothly. © ‘00d grounding in hardware isusefl, often stil use my network Knowledge when dlagnosingeablingconneetivty sues too. dare saya more hands-offdata-centremanager mightnotusethosesors | Where to start oftechnical skill, but find them useful sce peaaialieemaeee , ‘Data entre News (datacentrenews co.uk) ‘What are the working conditions lke? Ia Cust raion geal eacroars taster mre ‘TheJobeambestressfulat times: Fin alwaysawarethatit See eameaarinarelE/eaeE something goes wrong in thedata centre, many people's work tan be aflected, Somejobs can only be carried out overnight ‘0SIP*Commitnicator™ The flexible and cost-effective option - however big your business family grows SIP Communicator™ is ideal for: Benefits of SIP Communicator™: ‘+ Small to medium sized businesses * Business features - voicemail, call Pen Gress caro forwarding, hold, transfer and more ‘+ Multiple locations alice caneoererlenee! Nao + Extremely cost effective to set up f=] Seermless working between locations! * Minimum contract of just 3 months provides maximum flexibility SPITFIRE ese enn ice cae Ohdaeine wiaesienia ia Call Spitfire on 0800 319 6300 Com el at www. spitfire.co.ukBEST APPS Contributors: David Court, Darien Graham-Smith, Vaughn Highfield, JEssential apps © Berceno @rcero.co.ux eee Pe GOOGLE FILEBROWSER = SPOTIFY MUSIC ceed oe. nag Free; also on Andro, Windows Phone Thectfcal Googleapp doesnt Justseareh:itsyour gateway toGoogleNow,pre-emptively presenting information com Aicectionsto sports results. tals supports"OK Google” ‘wicecommandstocarry out ‘searchesand setreminders- justdorttllSi ee ened Se een? De aad Cea en Cd Cee nL’ ee ey Pee ey SHAZAM Fres:alsoon Android, Windows 8, Windows Phone Shazamcanidenttyasengia seconds, (roma database of rmorethan tt milion racks. 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ZOMBIES, RUN! £2.99;at200n108 Tisclevr app inspires youto getfitandrunfurtherby dropping youinoan (imaginary) zambie GAMEDEVSTORY —_spocaspse,whorefroniod £1.40;ale0.0ni08 fesivfeedersarechasing you Presentedinsinplticisometric down. Keep your headphonesin 82-bitsylegraphics,Game Dev asyourunandyou"beinstrcted Storyitanunexpectedybriiant where toruntonext. whieyour te game, asking youth phone's GPSdatermingsif youre buldngagame-developmert _flesigfast enough osurvivethe stuifromthegroundup.Game pursuing horde.OD : EL hanvaed the worla Adobe Photoshop has tweaked, brightened ana enhanced our lives for 25 years. Adam Banks unmasks its many-layered reignFr E U's hard to believe there ‘was no Photoshop before 1990. ts impact hassince been magnified by the rise of digital photography land social media, and continues through an endless variety ofrival products, but fora quarter ofa century we've been living in the Photoshop age. “Photoshop changed the ontology ofthe photograph,” said Caroline Bassett, professorof mediaand commuinicationsat the University of Sussex. “It revolutionised our sense of the relationship ofthe photographic {Image to the reality itremade. Before Photoshop, it was easier tobelieve photograph captured the truth ‘Alter, we knew Itwas constructed, [think t's thesingle most influential software packageof the PCera.” This judgement would have surprised University of Michigan postgraduate Thomas Knoll when he began codinga graphics tool on his Mac Phusin 1987. “Painting” programs existed for the Mac and ther early PCs, but Knoll's PRD wasin computer vision, His brother John was working for George Lucas’ visual-effects company, Industeal Light & Magle (ILM), and theirfather, Glenn, had a darkroom in their basement. Coming atbitmap editing from this fresh langle, they first sold their application bbundied with newfangled seanners. Before long, John had struck deal with Adobe, which had just catapulted the Macintosh into the graphics business thanks tothe Adobe LaserWriter printer. Priced tess than $1,000 launch - half the price ‘of Letraset’ ColorStudio software Photoshop appealed to users who had latched on tothe Mac asa way to get into cutting-edgecreative workat a fraction of the cost. Previously, photo retouching had been performed by ‘bureaux on six-figure workstations from companies such as Quantel and Scltex, charged ata going rate of £200 perhour. Now, in-house rt staff could attempt it with Mae setups costingaslittleas £5,000 ~and pros andamateursalikecould begin to {invent new kinds of mages. Photographer andillustrator lan MeKinnell has used Photoshop since its days asa beta shared around ILM. “For the firstyearor two, lused it only for ilustrating, but around that ‘ime there was a huge boom in photography, which pal far beter so Iconcentratedon that, There was so much dreadful retouching at first Joften worked inthe backgrown fixing other people's disasters.” Writer and photographer Martin Evening recalled how “more photographers started havinga go atdoing the work, twas period ofexeitement fora few of us who ‘were perhaps more nerdy’and looked forward to seeing what could be done.” Notall attitudes were so positive: “There were photographers who saw it as contaminating pure, ‘real photography; there were advertising clients who had contracts ‘with the high-end retouching houses.” As Photoshop spread through the ‘industry, retouching quickly became faster, cheaper and moreextensive {nits capabilities, offering creative directors the opportunity to tweak every shot. Theeffect was much greater -and more controverstal than the sum ofits toolset “In the fashion industry, there wasalwaysa clique of influential designers who strongly influenced the look of models," noted Evening Models had alway’ tended to be undersized. Now, where a model or celebrity didn’tmeet that idealised look, they could be sculpted into it.” Interviewed by GQ in 2003, Kate Winslet asked why “women think in order tobe adored they have tobe thin”. Her own picture on the cover ‘wasthen Photoshopped to make her look thinner. “They've reduced the size of my legs by abouta third,” she later complained. In 2013, Lady Gaga ABOVE Photoshop hastrantormed shotogranhy froma roduc fighting, ‘make-wpandcamera ‘sattngs ef 02 rocessofereating theperectedimage wquredbytheart drector gh) was so offended by the retouchingof her Glamour cover that she used the magazine's own awards ceremony to attack “too perfect” images, assuring fans Idonot look like this when | ‘wake up inthe morning” Nor, though, did any published mage of Greta Garbo of Hatshepsut reflect their subjects’ dally reality. Is Photoshop really to blame? In 2014, British Vogue editor Alexandra Shulman explained to Lily Alen on BBC Radio: “Nobody really wantsto ‘seeareal person looking like areal personon the cover of Vogue.” As Photoshop spread, retouching quickly became faster, cheaper and more extensive nora, Jennifer Lawrence told Elle that, by Hollywood standards, she was a fatactress” -a perception that highlighted the unachievable body shapes favoured by the industry. But asked ifher 2014 Dior campaign had been Photoshopped, she made no apologies: “love Photoshop more than anythingin the world, Ofcourse {t's Photoshop - people don’t look like that.” Her image was no morea representation of reality than the works of the cubists in Christian Dior’s gallery acentury earlier@ Photoshop Gercrao Gverno.co.ux E E E E E Pe E § _ So.what'sartand what's fakery? basisfor nearly commission. “Igot {| Margot Huysman, a picture researcher hiishead from lots of angles; the low § forthe Daily Mirror, stresses the need resolution didn't matter" recalled © todistinguish between typesof Caplin, who was using Image Studio, & content. “Abigdifference between the precursor to Corel Painter. news nd commercial photosis that Photoshop's support for colour was we wouldn't airbrush step forward, bat of little use in an age news. Wehavea duty of black-and-white newspapers and E toshow reality | monitors. What converted Caplin = unaltered.” Even vias that Itcrashed les, § celebrity shotsare . By 1904, Caplin had regular 2 treated with integrity pphotomontage eartoon stripsin The 4 ‘Assoonasyou mess Guardianand Punch. The arsival of * with someone’sskin Photoshop changed the game again toneor the sizeof their with independent layers. It's hard to hips, you're in trouble putsomething into | ABOVE LOnél express just how significant this was. Pd never dream of makeitmoreobviously climadthatJula | You could doamontage and move retouchinga pieture anillustration.” Roberts perfect | things around afterwards, Previously, that way.” More typically, | camplesanwasdown | once you'd placed somethingin, ou Photoshop, however, Caplin’s, seen tobervnaturaly | were stuck with it I¢launched inthe Isadept at blurring ines. by millions in newspapersand heathyandglowing | same week my son was born, and 1 In2o0s, Newsweekmarked magazines, offersabrand of hyperreal | skin*-notitspreduets | remember thinking, ‘don’t know hhousehold-advice mogul Martha ‘conceptual mashup that’s inextricably ‘which willhave the bigger impact on Stewart'scomeback froman insider- | linked with the emergence of image ‘my life, [think twas Photoshop 3," trading scandal witha cover that editing softwares the British Isles he said, only halfjoking, depicted her perkily pushing carved from bacon; Prince Charles asa Caplin's workalso extends to backstagecurtains. When rival USA trashy action figure. His work began advertising, where Photoshop Today questioned tsauthenticity, | in1987 witha video cameraanda provides the tools tostretch the Newsweekexecutives admitted it | capturecard for the Mac Plus. With | ruleson how far images ofa product. wasa*photoillustration” based on | usable digital photography adecade | B£10W Photeshp | or itseffects, can be synthetically nothing more than a headshot. away, videograbbingwasthefitst | hasmadeiteasyto | improved. Here the limitsare Such images have their place practical source of images. rmanpuateimages | policed by the Advertising Standards, within a tradition of metaphorical When Margaret Thatcher was Authority (ASA). In 2011, chief illustration, When Newsweekran ousted from Downing Street, a whendoingsa.is | executive Guy Parker told the BBC cover story on Barack Obama's Newsnightinterview with her geodpraciceto | that adegree ofretouching was support forlesbian, gay, bisextaland | successor, John Major, provided the | makeitebvis | acceptable, but that an ad would be transgender (LGHT) rights witha pulled if it was “likely to mislead” rainbow haloand the coverline “The . Defendingonesuch ad, L'Oréal first gay president”, nobody thought | declined to reveal just how much Julia tmeant Obama was gay, oF that he Roberts’ face had been Photoshopped hhad been canonised. Self-defeatingly, attributed her “Idon’t think anyone would be fawless complexion “naturally fooled into thinking David Cameron's healthy and glowingskin” face Photoshopped onto raver’s body Singer-songwriter Lorde in2014 'veactually done that! -isareal tweeted the unedited version of an picture." said Huysman. But the {image of herself that had been spread. Stewart montage risked confusion. “Remember flaws are okay,” she sad. Readers might think she had posed for Nodoubt she wasthinking about a the photoas self-promotion. More feedback loop any teenager can subtly, the claim that she'd emerged confirm: we see flawless faces and “thinner” gained support from the bodies pictured: we buy products that Image, “Ithere were people who promise to help match them; we take were misled, that'sa problem,” s | setfies and edit them closer tothe Newsweekassistant managing, deal; we post them on social media ‘editor Lynn Staley conceded, the cycle repeats. . . ‘Consumer apps rtually rea turn Photoshop. Steve Caplin, author ofthe How to techniques into Cheat in Photoshopseries of books. Y one-click effects hhas wrestled with similar concerns ‘that subtract the Oneexample involved the Sunday experimental Telegraph, which wanted him to creativity and Ulustrate Gordon Brown holding reinforce popular ‘meeting with business leaders: norms. So, ate we When it was published, thought, Photoshopping Ths looks too real’ Ishould have reallife? 5 2 18) oe: 1. 74Mi6 bytes > ieQo PAESSLER PRTG monitors your network and everything else! \> You are looking for a way to avoid expensive outages? Look no further! Besides all classic IT components PRTG Network Monitor can also monitor the unusual. For example luxury yachts. You don't have any? No problem, we neither. Let's start with: * classic IT — think of LANs, WANS, servers, websites, appliances * virtual and cloud environment PIN ‘© weather stations or coffee machines if you do fancy the unusual NEED MORE INFORMATION? READ THE ORGOTO [7 r) www.paessler.com/prtg PRTG (~ NETWORK MONITOROoercero @pcrro.co.uK In’san issue that goes well beyond the Photoshop itself ean bea powerful tool for revealing Photoshopping, using tonal adjustments to increase the visibility of cloning, changes in digital “noise” and other telltale signs. But Higgins said thisis rarely necessary, since manipalated images are “not as common as people think. ‘you're more likely tocome across {mages from other events that have been reused.” Again, reverse image search isthe answer, but with *huge amounts of content [being posted] it will always be hard to get everyone checking every image they see" Twenty-five years on, Photoshop {still the first choice of graphics professionals. Increasingly, ts main ‘competition comes from specialised tools; Adobe's own alternative, Lightroom, focuses on optimisation rather than manipulation. Although {t's now seen as less of sin torely on Photoshop toclean up an image Caplin said some purists who felt using Photoshop was cheating now Most Photoshopped images ABOVE Toman accep Lightroom as “ust replacing, fromcontlictzonestend to hefalrly | whostartedieat | darkroom techniques” basic:flags orlogossuperimposed | Phatoshopereater =» Where morecomplex works onto existing photos. A quick Thomaskrot needed, It's shifting back towards cosmetic. Flot Higgins has blogged since 2012 on the Syrian civil war and related conflicts under the pseudonym Brown Moses. Pionceringa "citizen Journalist” approach to image analysis, he monitors YouTubeandsocial media for photos and footage of weapons on the ground, piecing together conclusions that have been cited by human-rights groups, MPs and journalists, Spotting fake images, he says, iseasier than you think - but that’s not where the problems end. Photoshop and race With Photoshop's increasingly sophisticated tone controls. anything dark can belightened ‘and vico versa. Thatincludes skin 1n2008, UOréal was accused of whitening” Beyoncé pictures deseribed by celobrity site TWZas“severely Photoshopped”. The company's response, thatitwas"categoricaly untrue that ithad alteredher features rskintane’ oly highightedtheelusivenessoftruthin photography. Everyimagewe seehasbeen altered-aswe were reminded in 2015, when untouched imagesleaked of anaturalybimished Beyoncéinanother Oréalcampsign. ‘Writing for The Guardian, im crite Vanessa Walters noted that 2008 “racially ambiguous” styling was"atacticBeyoncé appearstohave used herself previously- perhaps tomakeherimage 2% oS Dee 1.74m70 byes > Google image search identifies the originals.” A widely circulated satellite picture supposedly showing the downing of fight MHi7 over Ukraine turned out tobe a composite ofseveralimages automatically, but noc online communities familiar with the source material, “That made a harder to match allengefor ‘numberof experts’ and news channels look extremely foolish,” Higgins sai, ‘more commercial’ reflecting the slavery or colonisation’ ‘diferent pecspective comes rom Rachel His author of The Sex Myth, who has worked asa picture dito Shequestionedin 2010 biog postuhetherso-called"whitewashing' was “racismor ustbad Photoshop". Hil explained that artworkers would uee Photoshop's Curves controltomakethe image brighter andereate “that lowy luminescentlook’-but“on images cof non-white peopl ithas the unfortunate effect cofmakingthem look whiter. Darkeningalsoraises questions of artistry ‘vorsusather motivations. Atthetime ofthe (0Simpsontrialin1994, Timeand Newsweek sed the same mugshot ofthe former sports star;on Time'scover,he appearedmuch regacyof being an outsourced job, as offshore services undercut thecost ofthe photographer'sown time. The most skilled retouchers can still command hgh fees - but they're earned with the same toolsanyone can install for £8.57, per month. "Photo manipulation has become so everyday wedon'teven remark on I,” sald Caroline Bassett. “Yet we remain attached to the idea that photographs should tell the truth -even if we know they don't @ ABOVE Oscar nominatedsctr Cabourey Site leokedvery diferent ona Elecoverthaninwire shots, right arker. Although the intontionhedbeento cast himinto shadow. the perceived play on the negative connotations of darkness was widely crtcisedChillblast.com Chillblast Fusion Silencio Ultra Quiet PC Manufactured and designed in conjunction with the experts at Cooler Master, the Chillblast Fusion Silencio is ideal for people expecting near silent operation with formidable performance and an excelient feature set. CPEGbIE bit BEST CASE MANUFACTURER CuUSGOMPG Cooler Master: Silencio 652s Silent Case Hyper 612 Ver.2 CPU Cooler VSM 550W 80 Plus Gold PSU Silencio FP 120 Silent Fan Asus! 297-k Motherboard GIX 970 STRIX OC Graphics In association with coolermaster.co.uk CChillast is an award-winning computer manufac: turer based in the south of England specialising in gaming Desktops and Laptops that utiise quality arts, offering superb performance.Tinkerers unite! It's time to make the world a better place. Peau EER KT Ue eNO RT COK RU UEC MERTON Ce 09 LUNRiseofthe makers hemakersare coming. Ifyou haven't yet heard the maker movement, oF got involved, now Is the time tosit upand take notice: opportunities abound tojoinan existing maker community create Your own around your interests. Even Inte is joining in, with anew Maker section on its website offering support and resources for those wanting to get involved, You don’t need any special skills. What about appears to unite makers isa curiosity how things work, desire to improve upon what already exists and in some cases -an urge tocreate something entirely new The defining feature of the maker movement is{tsadherence to the theory of constructivism: the argument put forward by psychologist and philosopher Jean Piaget that social play isan effective method for education, both in children andl adults, The result isa community that values social interaction alongside creativity the basis of anew technological revolution WHAT IS A MAKER? So, what exactly makes a maker? “I's curiosity about the world around you,” says Paul Beech, «co-founder of Shetfield- based maker-centrie electronics company Pimoronl. “Rather than saying, Oh, that’s a nice thing, ll use that, is How does it work? Whats inside it? Ml have a look, ll make something mysel’ You don't need to make anything it’s stuff that has been around for years; the whole ‘making movement isjust putting a name toit and gathering people around the same campfire.” Amaker Issomeone who will learn a process toachieve what they want todo I think generally nuch programming, but ifyou want to achieve orereate something, and you're prepared o learn and do t yourself then, be a maker, becatse or me, that pretty much coversit.” Pimoroni isa great example ofthe transformative nature of the mal jor to the formation ofthe company, Jon ‘wasa programmer, while Paul earned aliving ingraphieand web design, That all changed in 2022, when the lowcost Raspberry Pi development board hit the market, “Iwon the -ompetition [to desigal the Raspberry Pi logo, ee ey ee ees Ereneornrsnernrneg Paul says, “which meant wewere watching the projeet closely and got to be nside right a the star.” Disappointed with the case designson. offer, Paul and Jon set out to design something better. “We thought it deserved to look uf There wasa major hurdle to overcome Id become before their “Muffy” Pibow caseco a reality, however: neither Paul nor Jon hat any manufactai jence or equipment forthe funds to buy i. That’s where thelr introckiction to the maker movement really took hold, thanks toa visit toa local hackspace ENTER THE HACKSPACI Few scenes epito er culture like @ hackspace, Known under various names depending on their focus or affiliations hackspaces begin as a meeting of minds, ‘We started meeting ina pub about every third Wednesday,” freelance maker Dominic Morrow recalls of the origins of Nottinghack, the hackspace he co-founded in 2010. ‘We dreamed of a place where we could start collecting tools and leave projects stored. Westrucka deal torenta walk-in, bathroom: sized store cupboard. Itopened out ontoa shared room, andon our frst night it rained so hard the electrics started totrip and fizzle twas awesome ‘While the cupboard, situated “Iiterallya Nerf dart-shot from Nottingham ack’s first physical facility, Dominic Isclear that hackspacesaren’t defined by a building. “I'v seen hackspaces stall because they couldn’tfind a pub swith Wi-Fi tomeet in, or the landlord wouldn't let them use soldering irons. None of that matters, however, People STIX STEPS TO STARTING A HACKSPAC station®, was Nottn Cas pene eeterenceeens keen to starttheir own hackspace eee willing to meet up regularly and get involved is key. Ifyou have a big group of people you've got a hackspace.” Regardless ofits name o facilities, a hackspace tend toattracta certain type of Ce rion poeinets Do eum) Pa ee! een ny Seer eet ead ence ena’ Potente eer ene’ Se Perea) eee ny peor Trust everyone untithey give eee raed prey aeons pormeereen Peer ore irene tad rte eae end asesses eae eae ABOVE Theburgeo person. “Something youseein here that ‘you don't see nengineering cirelesasmuch tspeople who rally aren't afratd to fal,” John Cole, founder of educational roboties fem Dexter Industries, explains with achuckle “They'lltry anything, and maybe that's central othe whole ethos: there area lot ‘of failures, but that’s because people aren't afraid to try. They don't know thellimitations ‘of what canbe done, so they're not afraid to try something new, out thereand interesting.” think the culture around fhackspaces] Ispretty accepting of people who don't know anything,” adds John’s co-worker Taryn. Sullivan, who had no electronics oF ‘engineering background before joining Dexter They're coming to thisspaceat this time in their day and it's tocontribute, [think it'sa unique thing about this community that fosters alot of great education and acceptance ‘ofanyone, mean, ofcourse L wasalittle bit nervous when Iwent tothe ist one. L was like, know it's going tobe all gays there’ ~ and it ‘was, but everyone was super-nice. Hackspaces are even appearing within more traditional educational establishments. Chris Leach of Winchester House School has recently been working to set pa collaborative hackspace within the school grounds, dubbed TinkerShed, "We havea small band of Year Six pupils acting as ‘consultants’ on the project,” he explains, “so we know what they would like to achieve inthe Shed. We've been lucky that our PTA has funded some ofthe initial renovation work, and we hope that by using it ‘asa marketing tool forthe school we'll get more budget next academic year to equip it further.” ‘When a haekspace such as Nottinghack makes the shift rom a meeting of minds to physical workshop. Ittypically comes with selection of tools, The march of technology has brought mechanised manufacturing down from glant, multibillion-pound factories toa level that’s affordable toa motivated group of hobbyists ~ and even toan individual with abit ed ee eee THERE ARE LOTS OF FAILURES, BECAUSE PEOPLE AREN'T AFRAID TO TRY of disposable income anda desire to tinker. Hackspaces often lay host to equipment ranging from pillar drills ‘and Soldering stations to 3D printers and laser-cutters, and provide ‘members with tool training For Pimoroni’s co-founders, it was the latter that caught theirattention: “There wasno laser-cutter in Sheffield that we could get access to when this dea was first creeping around our heads. We popped over to the Fab Lab inManchester,” recalls Paul of his efforts tobring the layer-based acrylic Pibow case to market, “Itwasaltle ‘unapproachable, and getting time fn the laser-cutter was hard, but then Access Space in Sheffield gota Jaser-cutter through some European funding. [was immediately knocking ‘on its door. That's what kicked it off.” Pimoront now has laser-cuttersaplenty housed in ts dedicated industrial unit in the heart of Sheffield, That sudden growth from a couple of people withan idea anda hackspace ‘membership toa company with itsown Industrial pemisesand manufacturing ‘machines came from necessity *We did few rounds of the local hackspace, ‘made the case and then put up forsale -and Itwent nova. When you have 4,000 orders, you haveto start acompany to full the requests. Pimoroni happened because itneeded 10 ‘happen, because we needed someone toown the laser-cutters, sign for the premisesand soon. Without the help of the local hackspace, however. ‘the company might never hhavebeen founded at all “Ifthat hadn’tbeen there, itwould have beena very different story. Itmight havehappened later, it ‘might not have happened at all, but having the tools there, and people who could show us how touse the tools, was instrumental." The low barrier toentry, thanks tothe ability toshare equipment, was another piece of the puzzle. “There wasa total cost of lessthan £50, Including Perspex, tostart cutting prototypes That's money alot of people can scrape together. Not everyone who joinsa hackspace will 30 fon to found their own company, of course. Many ‘membersalready have obsandaren’t looking for new ones, while others attend simply for assistance with personal projects orto share thelr own expertisein a particular area, SHOW METHE MAKING Many of the outputs of maker cultureare Intangible: its focus on education and its collaborative working process mean that even failed projects can be of use, and makers frequently take portions of others‘ creations usually, although not always, shared under permissive licences such as Creative Commons. asa base on which to build something new. Other results, though, hit the mainstream, ‘TheSlice, a media player powered by the Raspberry Pi Compute Module and created byRiseofthe makers Pimoronl in partnership with membersof the Raspberry Pi Foundation and musie producer Mo Volans, hit Kickstarter last year and raised ‘almost £230,000 from more than 1,500 backers to fund production, Without the maker-centele Raspberry Pi, theSlice would likely never have existed, yet ils appeal extends well beyond, ‘maker culture into the mainstream, Some projects are more niche, reflecting the passions oftheir creators rather than any desire tobring something lucrative to market. "We ‘were looking fora group project to build at the hackspace that we could use as our debut exhibit atthe UK Maker Faire in Newcastle,” explained Bob Stone of the York hackspace Spacelack The device - powered by a central Raspherry Pland BeagleBone Black boards n its four control modules -aets asa physical incarnation lof Henry Smith's Spaceteam mobile game: playersare givena control panel each, and ‘must carry out various tasks within certain timeframe or disaster befalls the ship. To ‘complicate matters, the controls are randomised ‘with each turn, Instructions are different for each playerand the directions on oneplayer’s control panel frequently refer to controls held by another player “i’susually the young kids who get the hang offt fastest, come back toplay again and start {getting good,” laughs Bob. “The game's timers speed up each round you survive, and it quickly reaches a point where it'shard toeven speak the game's technobabble instructions before it'salready timing out. think we were seeing, some kids get tothe fifth orsixth rounds before blowing up. Organised by the community, there are regular national Maker Faires, plus regional Mini Maker Fare offshoots, at which makers ‘can meet and share their ereations. Visit ‘makerfaireuk.com to find one near you Another product ofthe maker movement is therise of companies that target makers, which are typically born from that culture, Many choose to give back to the community; Dexter Industries" most famous creation, a Raspberry Pi-powered robotics kit dubbed BrickPi, was funded viaa Kickstarter campaign, butreleased toall undera permissive licence; US maker store Adafrait has a learning portal that shares tutorials and projects, most based on componentsand devices sold on its main website Sometimes the creationsare insular. The Arduino project, founded in 2005 to teach studentsat the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea about mlerocontrollers isthe perfect example:it Created a low-cost microcontroller development ‘board witha low barrier toentry. Released under permissive Hence, Arduino boards and third-party variants power numerous maker projects, but are rarely used by those outside the community except in an educationalsetting, MakerBot Industries sought similar success with a range of relatively low-cost 3D printers, butt attracted eriticism in 2012 when it began closing ts creations, keeping the design files ‘and source code proprietary HOW TO GET INVOLVED Hackspaces and thetr various offshoots are popping up nationwide, from Access Spacein Sheffield to various manufacturing: centric Fab Labs throughout the nation: you've almost certainly got ‘onenearyou, Many “ofMital” hhackspaces choose to list themselveson the website of the UK Hackspace Foundation athackspace org.uk. For those in locations without ahhackspace, getting started is raightforward. "Anyone can set up and call themselves a hhackspace and use the logo," Nottinghack’s Dominic said. Inthe future, there may be guidelines outlining what is or isn’ta hackspace, funding toget ‘one started, tools to help people find each other tf they're hoping tostart, and links to useful information on starting one.” Fornow, Dominichasthe following tongue-in-cheek advice:"Withdrawall your money incash andthen throw It out of your window. Find the heaviest things you own, Pick them up and carry them upstairs few days later, pick the sametthings upand carry themall downstais, Repeat. Have aparty, buy booze and cakes and invite all the people you know. Sit and wait forno-one toarrive. Hold the same party every week. Eventually ‘people will arriveand criticise you forthe typeof cake you purchased and tel you what beer you ought tohave bought them. Pimoront’s Paul has simpler Start doing something, you haven't gota hackspace setone up. Hackspacesaren't about laser-cuttersand 3D printers,” heinsisted. “Those areanice fringe benefit. But hhackspacesare about people and space, tart finding like-minded people, star talking to them; that’s community. Youdon’t start doing stuff and it grows.” advice: INTEL’S MAKE) Intelhas long been thedaminant oreein ‘mainstream computing butthe company wa ‘aughtonthe hop bythe ‘maker movement. When the RaspborryPi, powered bychips designed byits ‘val ARM, began sling in ‘eamest Intelresponded by creating boards ofits own: the MinnowBoard, the Galileo and, most recent, thetiny-yet-powerful Edison and the wearable centricCurie Although some, such 18 Pimoron's Paul Beech, dismiss Inte screations as“frankenboards” made by combining unsuitable individual components, the company continues toshow genuine ine MAKING IN Us tpe leit ei and equipment that would previouslyhave been eee ee for thehobbyist. Hare's some ofthe most popular paternal ee Cee eer Wiringtomake programming the eens per meere enter ica eer ey Se ud Reece ans Cee ere etd eee read nen ees Pocetey

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