Technology Toolkit

Notebooks are basically a small laptop. They have all the attributes of a laptop, just on a smaller scale and with a smaller screen. As with all new models, there is a vast difference in price depending on the brand. Luckily for us, as far as the new notebooks are concerned, the budget models are just as easy to use and have everything that you could want. Okay, they may be lacking in a few features which bunk the price up, but if you just want a solid and reliable notebook that does exactly what it says it does, check out the following 5.

First up is the Gateway NX250X. This is a very smart and stylish notebook which boasts a Pentium M Processor and an incredibly long battery life. There is a 40GB hard drive which runs at a very impressive 5400 rpm. The 8x DVD burner is an excellent addition and also has a 6 in 1 card reader, so this little beauty is raring to go. The feedback on this model has been fantastic, and it well deserves its place on our list of top 5 notebooks.

Everyone has heard of Dell, it is a name that has become synonymous with computer systems both for business and personal use. With this in mind, it should come as no surprise that the Dell Inspiron 2200 makes our list. It has a Pentium M 1.7 GHz processor which can handle most applications with consummate ease. Other features include a 512 mb memory, a mighty 24x CD-RW/ DVD combo, a card slot and 3 USB ports. The only thing it doesn`t have is a media card reader.

Averatec is maybe not the first name that springs to mind when you think of computers, but the AV3715-EH1 notebook shouldn`t be dismissed for this reason. It has a Sempron 3000+ processor, and while this isn\’t as powerful as a Pentium, it is perfectly adequate. Other benefits are an 80GB hard drive, DVD burner, Firewire, USB ports and a 4 in 1 card reader. The wireless capability makes it ideal for computing on the move.

Acer laptops are known as budget priced, no frills machines which do exactly what is expected of them. The Acer TravelMate 2413LCi notebook carries on that tradition. The processor is a 1.50 GHz Intel Celeron M, again less powerful than a Pentium but adequate for most basic office applications. This notebook also has 512 mb of DDR Ram, 60GB of HDD, DVD-ROM /CD-RW and Windows XP Pro. The battery life is pretty good and there is also a USB port and a type 2 PC card slot.

Last on our list is a return to a previous entrant; Dell. The second notebook they have on our list is the Dell Inspiron 1200. This model comes with a 1.30 GHz Pentium processor, 256 MB, 30GB, HDD, DVD/CD-RW and windows XP.

Everyone wants the latest technology, and our list shows that that is available to everyone at a budget price. Choose which one best suits your requirements and get yourself a brand new notebook.

EBooks are ordinary books produced on a digital format. You can download them and read them on your PC or laptop, but if you want to read them on the move or take them on holiday, you will need an eBook reader. Many manufacturers have jumped on the band wagon and are churning out these devices. It`s incredibly difficult to say for definite which is the best eBook reader, so I`m not going to waste your time or mine by trying to pin it down because, to be honest, they are all very similar and the differences can only be in the technicalities. The ones listed below are the best selling ones available at the minute.

In my opinion, the most important attributes that go to making a really good eBook reader are weight and portability, battery life, memory capacity, an easy to use interface that is simple to navigate, and a good screen. All of these have those qualities. Sony have two of the top selling eBook readers on the market. The PRS-300 SC is Silver in color and is incredibly lightweight and has a clear 5“ screen. There are 3 adjustable fonts to make reading even easier, and 512mb gives you the capacity to store up to 350 books at any one time. The second Sony is the more expensive PRS600BC/C. This black eBook reader benefits from having a 6“ touch screen facility and a virtual keypad. Again it has an internal memory of 512mb.

The Aluratek Libre eBook reader is not an instantly recognizable name, but is made by Dell, so you know it is good quality. It is one of the easiest to connect to a laptop or PC so you can constantly update your library and also download those timeless classic we love to read on vacation. A classy white color, this eBook reader is low in price but exceptional in quality.

The Kindle 2 made by Amazon, is generally reckoned to be one of the best eBook readers on the market, and the testimonials do make pretty impressive reading. The 6“ screen is very clear and the battery can last up to 2 weeks from one single charge, which is quite something. It can store a might 2Gb of data at any one time and supports all many different formats; including Kindle, AZW, MOBI, TXT and also the convertible formats such as Microsoft Word and PDF. It also has two innovative features that the competition have yet to latch onto; the text to speech facility and also the Whispernet wireless internet connectivity.

Last on our list is another Kindle, the DX latest generation. This comes with a whopping 9.7“ E-ink screen, making reading a doddle for those who need larger fonts than are normally available. The overall size is 10.4 x 7.2 x.4, which makes it small enough and light enough to carry around easily, although it is slightly heavier than the Kindle 2. This also has the addition of TRF in its convertible formats, which is no bad thing.

Technology is changing all the time, but it is hard to imagine what else can be brought to an eBook reader to further enhance your reading experience. Suffice to say, if you purchase any of the ones on our list, you will be using them for years to come.

As with its predecessors, Final Fantasy XIII is a role playing game for use with games consoles. It was first released in Japan for the Playstation 3 in December 2009 and March 2010 saw its release to the rest of the world on the Playstation 3 and also the Xbox 360. It has been well received, as have all the games in this series and the die hard fans rate it as the best ever. There are, however, those who see it as a game too far and that instead of bringing something new it is simply a revamp of what has gone before.

The biggest change since the last instalment has been in the battle system. To try and keep the strategic battles feeling fresh, it has tried to recreate the systems used in the FF VII, with a few twists. Unlike FF XII, when you encounter enemies you do not fight them there and then, you are transported to a separate battle screen, away from the main playing area. There is the welcome return of the ATB (active time battle), but the difference is that you can link together a chain of commands to create an attack, and thus receive attack bonuses.

The Role system still exists, so that all the characters benefits from different strengths and weaknesses, and aren`t all the same. A bid deal has been made of this is the marketing campaign, but to be honest, it should come as standard, as what fun is there is controlling lots of different characters who all possess the same qualities?

There is a new levelling system in FF XIII, known as the Crystarium System. This is similar to the Sphere Grid which was a big feature of FFX, but instead of gaining experience points after you have dispensed with an enemy, you now get CP (Crystogen Points) which can be saved up and then spent on various attributes, maximizing your HP for example. Every player has their own Crystarium, and it includes sections which correspond to the roles that the character has available to them. The Crystariums are not there at the outset, and are reached by making your way through the sequence of stories. As you go on, more and more levels are unlocked until you reach the maximum that your character can achieve. You start with the choice of three specialist areas for your character, and then more roles are unlocked.

The setting for FF XIII is a planet called Pulse, which is home to a race of mechanical beings known as the fal`Cie. They have god like powers and contain crystals which effectively control them. They set their sights on various characters, which are known as l`Cie. These all have jobs to do and goals that the fal`Cie have given them, and obviously, its up to you to figure out what these are and stop them first.

Overall, this is an enjoyable game with a lot going for it. The graphics are, as ever, exemplary, and the characters a lot of fun to control. It just has a feeling of finality about it, which may be no bad thing. This series has to come to an end sooner or later, maybe this is a fitting final Final Fantasy.

Internet security makes for big news when it is breached, particularly in the cases of the social networking sites. The big 2; Facebook and MySpace, have over 350 million members between them, and it only takes one person to rock the boat.

There is a big deal on both these sites regarding privacy and security, but they are in fact two very different issues. If privacy is breached, where private information is accessed without authority, it doesn`t necessarily mean that there are security issues, if security is breached however, the results can be catastrophic. This arises from a hacker gaining access to the sites private coding or language. This can result is anything from a virus to identity theft.

The most famous, so far, is the Samy worm virus which effectively shut down MySpace in October 2005. Named after its creator, this was a fairly harmless malware that proclaimed `Samy is my hero` at the top of the homepage of everyone infected by it. This was more of an inconvenience than anything else to be honest, as no private information was gleaned and no identities stolen. What it did do, however, was make the MySpace team realize that their security wasn`t anywhere as tight as it should be, and they quickly addressed the issue. There have been no such security breaches since.

It is the way that the sites are used which makes them vulnerable to breaches. The various applications ask for all kinds of information, and if you are a frequent user with lots of friends and numerous applications accessing your information, it stands to reason that you are making things easier for hackers. A Ph.D candidate at Berkeley made headlines last year by exposing a hole which had been left in Facebooks framework. This involved the 3rd party API and allowed for the easy theft of potentially private information. There are thousands of new and unmonitored applications finding their way on to Facebook every day. These are run by 3rd parties and people who sign up for one thing, say a game for example, find that the application changes and is extracting more information than it needs to function. The security of these sites hasn`t, unfortunately, matched their growth in popularity. A great example of this is MySpace. Imagine that it is a prison with 50 inmates, 5 years later there are 250 million, yet still only the same amount of warders, not great statistics and clearly asking for trouble.

Facebook set a great store by their privacy settings, but these are only any use is the users actually bother going into their accounts and setting them! There is no automatic privacy on these sites, and this is where a lot of problems start. To protect your self from potential breaches, there are a few steps to take. Only allow access to longstanding and trusted applications, ensure that you set your privacy to high, do not give any extra information to any application, they don\’t need your address or bank details to let you play on a farm! When you are chatting with those `friends` who have added you through applications, tell them nothing, you don`t know who you are talking to!

Toy Soldiers is classed as a tower defense game, these have been known in the past to be incredibly frustrating and restrictive in game play. Thankfully the creators have eliminated this problem by allowing you to jump in to any of the defenses, giving it a much more strategic feel about it. The ability to man the guns yourself is always more rewarding!

The Toy Soldiers of the title are fighting in WWl, a welcome change from all the current games which have literally saturated WWll (you don`t need me to tell you which ones I`m referring to!) It is a bit of a history lesson into the much more primitive fighting methods than were used in WWll. The story itself is displayed simply, with slide shows to recount the major battles. As the name implies however, the soldiers are toys, they aren`t characters and the game is very much looking at war from the perspective of a child.

It has a nostalgic feel, as if trying to represent the days when young boys rushed home from school and acted out war games with their friends, using sticks as guns etc, long before the word Xbox had ever been invented. The vehicles portrayed in the game are typical of the period, with whippet Tanks and Sopwith Camels at your disposal. Once you have entered a tank unit, you can exit it to upgrade or build new units, but only in short time spans of 10 seconds at a time. The tank then self destructs and some innovative counter attacks begin, giving rise to some very intense game play. This is a very rewarding addition as the tanks are both mobile and powerful and can easily turn the tide of a battle.

Despite the additions, which are very welcome, it doesn`t really stray far enough away from the statutory tower defense, and I think this is one area that could have been done so much better. There are, of course, the obligatory big bosses who appear every few levels to try and relieve you of your firepower. At this stage it also lacks in inventiveness, and those used to tower defense games may well find this too easy to be satisfying.

It does, however, redeem itself somewhat in the extended game play that it has available through various game modes. Once the first campaign is completed a, second one unlocks providing new stages and also German units. Your wits will be well tested in the survival mode, where you have to both build and repair while undergoing an overwhelming onslaught of enemy fire. The Elite difficulty is practically a separate mode altogether, as the units will only fire when you have direct control.

All in all this is a perfectly adequate game. It provides hours of fun and has some interesting twists. I was left with the feeling that it was missing something, and can`t help but think that if a few more tweaks had been applied, a good game could easily have become a very good, if not great, game.