APC May 2022

"Unlike the boring old internet that hardly anyone looks at anymore, magazine pages are finite, so to fit in the good new things some old things must go." Hello everyone. I hope your 2022 so far has been a delightfully breezy and effortless cruise through a problemless panorama of success and joy. Last month, I used up all the space here telling you about the new regular sections we’ve added to APC. Very exciting stuff it is, and I hope you’ve taken a shine to our new bits. If you missed the last episode of APC in Action, we added Futures (page 22) to look ahead, Retro (page 110) to look back, A-List (page 26) to tell you what’s hotter than hot, and Jon Honeyball’s One More Thing column (page 18), where…

ASHAMPOO BACKUP 2021 Backup software to easily back up and restore entire partitions. Ashampoo Backup 2021 backs up and restores entire disk partitions, including bootable Windows installations, in just a few clicks. Incremental auto-updates ensure backup files are always up-to-date and prevent data loss. The user interface was designed with simplicity in mind and is intuitively usably by anyone. Backups are always restorable, even in the event of highly corrupt or ransomware-infested systems, thanks to a built-in rescue feature that requires no technical knowledge. This backup software is self-explanatory and streamlined to cover the most essential features so there is no learning curve. Backups are automatically and incrementally updated without the need for manual intervention. Download link: www.apcmag.com/exclusives F-RENAME Quickly and easily rename files. Every computer user knows them: meaningless file names, generated by the…

“Championing technology doesn’t mean we’re unrelenting yes-men and -women, however, and APC aims to be as objective as possible in all our coverage.” Independent reviews Championing technology doesn’t mean we’re unrelenting yes-men and -women, however, and APC aims to be as objective as possible in all our coverage. That means identifying the best products from multiple perspectives – the best performance, best value and best features and, ideally, the products that offer the best mix of these three attributes. As a matter of policy, reviews published in APC are not shared with product-makers prior to print. We will contact vendors under certain conditions; for example, if we have a problem testing a product that seems to indicate it may be faulty, or to invite a vendor to clarify how a particular feature works.…

A privately owned collection of more than 500 pieces of retro computer and technology history has been destroyed by a Russian bomb in the city of Mariupol. The war in Ukraine is a tragedy on so many levels, but while it in no way matches up to the senseless taking of lives by the invading Russian forces, the destruction of the Mariupol Computer Museum is still saddening. The destruction was highlighted by Mark Howlett on Twitter, and confirmed by the Ukrainian Software and Computer Museum account, which operates museums in Kharkiv and Kyiv. The owner of the Mariupul collection, Dmitry Cherepanov, is reportedly safe, though his collection of computers, consoles, and assorted tech from fifty years of computing has been wiped out.…

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Tuesday warned US organisations that hackers are now targeting Internet-connected uninterruptible power supply (UPS) devices. Such attacks can literally fry PCs, or at least their power supplies, but the more dangerous outcome is that they can cause fires in datacentres, homes, and offices. In a bid to avoid attacks on mission critical machines, CISA recommends organisations ensure that their UPS is not reachable via the internet. Since this is sometimes impossible to do, CISA also recommends using strong passwords or passphrases, enabling multifactor authentication where available, implementing login timeout/lockout policies, and hiding any UPS devices behind virtual private networks.…

The Arc A-Series mobile GPU lineup will see the first laptops sporting the new GPUs slated to arrive in April. But desktop users need not worry: Arc graphics cards for desktops are still coming, just not first. Intel Arc Alchemist officially enters the GPU fray, turning this two-pony race into a three-way battle for supremacy. The Arc A-Series mobile GPU lineup will see the first laptops sporting the new GPUs slated to arrive in April. But desktop users need not worry: Arc graphics cards for desktops are still coming, just not first. Similar to its CPU stack, Intel’s Arc Alchemist will have multiple tiers of performance: Arc 3, Arc 5, and Arc 7. The various models will be based off two chip designs, one with up to 96 Xe Vector Engines (XVE)…