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 The
HUB Computer
Paper Contents November 2008
6 T h e Feed 27 P,t:x41L Ave. 70,011i0, ON, L16K 3E7
All the latest from hubcanada.com including Tel: 416.348-9666 To.'-free'. 866 757 7179 Fax 11 5 34,9 9553
mobile film festivals, Earth-friendly tech companies,
new products and more Editor-in-Chief Andrew Moore-Crispin
[email protected]
12 Social Networking
Wherein the simple act of knowing people becomes Editor-at-Large David Tanaka
[email protected]
a fine art
Co-Editor Dorian Nicholson
16 The Anti-Social Net dorian©ppublishing.ca
Debating the merits of social networking w i t h a
few reasons why not to partake Contributing Editors G o r d Goble
Mike Palermo
Marc Saltzman
18 I n the Lab: Web Browsers Chad Sapieha
Browsing for the best of the Net Ray Richards
Helen Bradley
ea "At, 22 Facebook Apps: Awesome or Annoying?
The popular social networking site offers near Advertising Sales
4110$88)ipiwpiP4—c-
Ontario/Toronto Karim Rizk
limitless customizability... for better or worse [email protected]
(416) 348-9666 ext. 252
23 The Doctor is in
Your questions answered by the HUB PC Doctor Montreal (866) 757-0179

24 Fun with PowerPoint Western Canada Vivian Jin

Sick of slideshows? Here's how to create a fun, [email protected]
game in PowerPoint (6041 696-1389
Business Group
25 Industry Giant Goes Light-Weight
Dell's Inspiron Mini 9 marks the company's first foray President S c o t t Piccolo
into netbooks Key Accounts Manager scottUppublishing.ca
(416) 348-9666 ext. 226
26 Building the Ultimate Media PC pt. 1 Art Director Steve Stoner
Gathering the parts for the 10-foot PC [email protected]

29 Everybody's Got Something to Hide Production Co-ordinator Liz Van Der Wee
[email protected]
Online anonymity and what you have to lose
Webmaster Duane Hass
30 The Online Photo Album [email protected]
Finding a needle in the photo sharing haystack
Office Administrator/ D o n n a lovescu
32 Online Dating Accounting d o r i n a @ p p u b l i s h i n g . c a
Looking for love in all the virtual places
IT Manager Steve Quinney
[email protected]
33 Deface Book Canadian Publication Mad,
With the Social Net, it's easier than ever to ruin Sales Product Agreement #41037518.
political aspirations Printed in Canada.ISSN 1710-0143 HUB: TCP (B.C. ed.) ISSN
1710-016X HUB: TCP (Edmonton ed.l ISSN 1710-0178 HUB: TCP
(Eastern ed.) ISSN 1710-0186 HUB: TCP (Montreal ed.l ISSN
34 Gigabyte GA-MA790GP-DS4H 1710-0194 HUB: TCP (Prairie ed.) ISSN 1710-0208 HUB: TCP (SW
Proving that AMD still has muscle to flex Ont. ed.) ISSN 1710-0216 HUB: TCP (Toronto ed.) HUB: The
Computer Paper is published monthly by Piccolo Publishing Inc. All
35 Power Pellets: Top 10 PC Game Studios rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without the
permission of the publisher is strictly prohibited. Information
These development companies hold the fragile presented here is compiled from sources believed to be accurate,
future of PC gaming in their collective hands however, the publisher assumes no responsibility for errors or
omissions. The publisher reserves the right to refuse ads. The
38 The Last Byte opinions expressed in the articles and columns and ads are those
of the writer/advertiser and not necessarily those of HUB: The
The Social Net @ work Computer Paper.

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 The Feed
from www.hubcanada.com
online, from communications, to research, to banking and even working in many
cases. The steadily falling price of Wi-Fi laptops and 3G-enabled phones has helped
to make the Internet a necessity, not only for all things, but in all places...
www.hubcanada.com/feed/493

Panasonic Sponsors VVWF's Arctic Program

Breaking News: By Dorian Nicholson
Game Developers Conference to Hit BC Melting glaciers, stranded polar bears, increased water levels... Anyone who has
By Matt Smith seen The Day After Tomorrow or An Inconvenient Truth knows the scenario. That's
Building on the success of the first ever Vancouver Game Summit in 2007, the why the WWF's International Arctic Program is working to combat climate change
Game Developers Conference (GDC) has announced that it will be coming to and save the ice caps. Thanks to Panasonic, the program will be getting some much
Vancouver for Digital Week in May of 2009. The Vancouver Game Summit is needed support to implement its four-pronged approach to protecting the environment...
dedicated to bringing the Canadian sector into the forefront of game development... www.hubcanada.com/feed/500
www.hubcanada.com/feed/489
MS Office '07 Goes Retro With Addintools
Nev./egg Hatches in Canada By Matt Smith
By Dorian Nicholson Tired of trying to memorize your commands for Microsoft Office 2007? Well,
Good news arrived recently for those looking to purchase computer supplies or Addintools has announced a new face-lift feature for 2007 that brings the interface
equipment online, as a new e-retailer has come up from the United States looking to to something a little closer to the more familiar Office '03. The newest version,
expand into the Canadian market. After seven years operating solely in the States, v3.93c, sports a light-weight interface that will make MS Office users...
Newegg.com will be broadening its horizons with the launch of Newegg.ca... www.hubcanada.com/feed/504
www.hubcanada.com/feed/495
New Products:
First Ever Mobile Film Festival Scheduled for '09 PSP Launches New Family Bundle
By Matt Smith • By Dorian Nicholson
What if you found yourself attending a film festival and taking your seat beside silver In the middle of last month, Sony announced the release of a new package deal for
screen icons Robert Redford and Isabella Rossellini? And what if Redford or Rossellini the PSP, a family-oriented bundle that would include Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters,
were there to judge movies on their mobile phones? Well, that is likely what is going as well as a voucher to download another title from the Playstation Store. The PSP
to take place at the inaugural 2009 Global Mobile Film Festival... included is also an updated model, the PSP 3000, which features glare reduction...
www.hubcanada.com/feed/492 www.hubcanada.com/feed/508

Canon and Avril Lavigne Team Up Seagate Unveils Momentus 5400.6 Hard Drive
By Kevin Freeman By Dorian Nicholson
Canon has officially paired up with Canadian rocker Avril Lavigne in order to sell its The laptop computer has evolved considerably over the past several years, changing
Rebel SLR series and the ELPH compact line of point and shoot cameras. from a device meant to perform a small portion of the tasks a desktop computer
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www. hubc anada. com/feed/514 hard drive capacity and access speed that desktop PCs have...
www.hubcanada.com/feed/490
Macleans OnCampus Virtual Fair Debuts
By Matt Smith Nero Releases New Media Software
Attending a college or university fair in person is time consuming and the crowds By Dorian Nicholson
and speaker presentations can make the fair overwhelming. But what if you could With the release of Nero 9 last month Nero is attempting to provide their customers
attend a university fair without ever having to travel there and stand in lineups? This with a product that is both an improved version of the classic software and also an
is what Macleans.ca has created Macleans OnCampus Virtual Fair... all-in-one solution that will allow users to manipulate a variety of files in a multitude of
www. hubca nada. com/feed/509 ways. Many of the features of the improved software are the result of listening in to
what the customers wanted to see...
GSM Association to Make Broadband Ubiquitous www.hubcanada.com/feed/491
By Dorian Nicholson
The advent of the Internet has made many tasks easy and convenient to perform See the full versions of these stories and more only at www.hubcanada.com.

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 Our 19th Year!
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www.greytech.com H A R D W A R E • SOFTWARE • ACCESSORIES

Seagate BluRay Entertainment Computers

FreeAgent- Wry/me
Liven u p the living r o o m with a h i g h - d e l media c e n t e r s y s t e m with r e m o t e
control p o w e r e d b y Microsoft's Vi s t a o p e r a t i n g system! ViewSonic
Compact High-Definition Televisions
External Hard Powered by A
syWindowsVista-
S SHOWN (#064402) $ 1 0 8 9 . 0 0
2 0 0 0 g b storageCore2Dinprocessor,debmemory,Bb Ray payback
Disk Drives v Combination BluRay drive and DVD/CD
OW/CDpbybedt& milky remote,operatingsystemand trafies
PORT L E VERSION (#064755)$ 9 8 9 . 0 0
With features like a HDTV
tuner and HOW input,
Seagate's' line o f FreeAgenta, xTreme burner with complete software bundle Not trees as gaveexceptina pertabremicrocuberommiwitha single you'd expect to pay a lot
✓ HDMI, DVI, and VGA connection ports 5000 oive and2gbof moray. Optionallyexpoodatie to moon. more f o r these n e w
external triple interface hard drives offer Viewsonic wide screen
great protection against system failures, v Easy on-screen menus to view movies
photos. and play MP3s & other files televisions. Both can be
virus attacks, o r hard disk failures. ✓ nVidia high-del graphics controller wall mounted
Simply plug it in and your ready to go! ✓ Component-style theatre chassis
Includes eSATA, USB, a n d Eirewire ✓ Microsoft remote control & receiver Model 611630W 16"
interfaces, Automatic backup software ✓ Dual 1 terrabyte Seagate drives o • •
V Uses your TV as a giant monitor for 1 9 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 r $ 3 0 6 9 5
for Windows included movies, surfing, work, etc. Model N1930W19"
5 0 0 G B D r i v e Kit1 8 0 "
$ 3 5 r 6
1 0 0 0 G B D r i v e Kit2 5 6 9 5
1 5 0 0 G B Drive Kit3 0 1 9 5
(Search for 'FreeAgent' on our website)
inter PROCESSORS AMD
LCD TELEVISIONS I N T E L Pentium Dual Care
2 . 0 0 G h z (800 Mhz, lmb. E2160)
3 . 1 6 G h z (1333Mhz, 6mb, E6500) 2 2 2 "
7995 3 , 3 3 G h z (1333Mhz, 6mb, E8600) 3 2 1 9 5
3 . 2 0 G h z (1600Mhz, 12mb, Q9770 6 ' 4 1 7 5 2 "
A M D Athlon64 X2 Dual Cori
VIDEO CARDS
VIEWSONIC N I B -Inuit— 16' TV. 720p support 80" ASUS
2 . 2 0 G h z m a Mhz, lmb, E2200) 8 7 " I N T E L Core2Quad Quad Core 5 0 0 0 Nihon X2 (2.6Ghz, 2mb. AM2)
1366x768 res. ATSC tuner2 9 6 9 ' 99" 8600G1 540mhz Silent 512" 9 6 9 0
I N T E L Core2Duo Peal Core 2 . 4 4 G h z (1066Mhz, 8mb, 06600) 2 2 1 " 5 6 0 0 Athlon X2 (2.8Ghz, 2mb, AM2)
VIEWSONIC N193ob...- 19' TV. 720p support 9 6 0 0 o i 650mhz 512". Silent 20DVI 1 5 0 0 0
2 . 4 0 G h z (800Mhz, 2mb, E4600) 1 4 7 " 2 , 5 0 G h z (1333Mhz, 6mb, 09300) 2 9 5 " A M D Athlon64 X2 Td Core
1440x900 res. ATSC tuner3 4 4 9 5 122" 9800G1 600/725mhz 512", 2xDV1,. 1 6 2 ° ° / 1 6 3 "
2 . 7 0 G h z (800Mhz, 2mb, E4700) 1 7 9 " 2 . 6 6 G h z (1333Mhz, 12mb, 09450) 3 4 8 " 8 4 5 0 Phenorn (2.1Ghz, 3.5mb, P102.0
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1680x1050 res. ATSC tuner4 0 2 ' 4 8 7 0 750mhz DDR5 512", 2xDVI 3 4 1 "
3 . 0 0 G h z (1333Mhz, 6mb, E8400) 19800 3 . 0 0 G h z (1333Mhz, 12mb, 09650 Ex01 2 1 4 " 9 5 5 0 Phenom (2.2Ghz, 4mb, AM2+) .. 1 9 3 9 5
SAMSUNG 2 2 5 m s 22" TV. 720p support G T X 2 6 0 / 2 8 0 896'a/1024" _._. 33695/541"
1680x1050 res. No tuner3 7 8 9 5 BFG
VIEWSONIC N 2 6 3 5 w 26' TV 720p support MOTHERBOARDS HARD DRIVES 3.5" MONITORS 9800GT 625mhz 512", 2xDVI 1 7 2 "
1366x768 res. ATSC tuner5 7 7 9 5 FOR INTEL PROCESSORS IDE (PATA) ACER G T X 2 6 0 / 2 8 0 asbm"nozes 3 2 2 9 5 / 5 6 9 9 5
Asus P5N-EM-HDMI wrnmco Nam8 8 " Seagate 80GB (ST380215A) 2mb 5years 4 7 9 5 17" V173wb 5ms 500:1 4:3 Analog 1 5 3 " SAPPHIRE
VIEWSONIC N 3 2 3 5 w 32' Tv. 720p support
Asus P5K-SE vn6tmrnawur>o 9 9 9 5 19" V193b 5ms 3000:1°, 4:3Analoo 1 9 2 e s X2400pR0 25640, hdmi 4 2 "
11366x768 res. ATSC tuner7 2 2 9 ' Seagate 160GB (ST3160815A) 8mb 5years55"
Asus P5QL-pRof.wwww‘rw, 1 0 7 9 5 19" X 1 9 3 W B w b a r b o x 0 1 ° 153" 3 8 7 0 DDR4 512", hdmi 1 4 0 "
VIEWSONIC N 3 7 3 5 w 3T 'TV. 720p support WD 320GB (WD3200JBRTL) 8mb 3years10095 4 8 5 0 625mhz DDR3 512", 2xDVI 1 9 9 0 0
Asus P5E-vm-oo OX5.13Ilm/u awwww 1 4 2 " WD 500GB (W05000JBRTL) 8mb 3years1 3 2 " 20" X203wbd 5ms 2500:10 Digital 1 8 5 "
1366x768 res. ATSC tuner. DNX8 0 9 " 4 8 7 0 750mhz DDR5 51200, 2eDVl 3 5 3 0 0
Asus P 5 Q Pafiteld40On Ulls,010 - - 1 4 5 " S E A G AT E SERIAL (6ATA3) 22" X223wbe 5ms 2500:1° Digital 1 9 6 9 5
VIEWSONIC N 4 2 8 5 p 42' TV. 1080p support Asus P 5 E-VM-HDMIGaSMEW4.5m. maeuefia15195 24" X243wtki 5ms a000l. Digital 3 4 0 " Palit/Sparkle/Chaintech
1920x1080 res. ATSC tuner 1 2 1 4 " 8 0 G B (ST380815AS) 8mb 5years4 5 " 8600GT 400mhz 512". DVI,PCIE 8 9 "
Asus P5N-D oeuwse sm.glmwwet 1 6 4 9 6 24" G 2 4 Gaming 5ms 50000:1° HDMI 3 9 1 9 5
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2 5 0 G B (sr3250410a5) 16mb 5years 6 2 9 5
3 2 0 G B (ST3320620AS) 16mb 5years 7 4 9 5
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960001 400mhz 1024",2xDyi 1 3 6 9 5
9800GT 600mhz 512"/102400,209vi 16795/2149"
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4 8 5 0 625mhz DDR3 512", 20091 2 3 1 9 '
TP-Link Wireless Router WR642g (G108) 3 2 ° 5 A s u s S T R I K E R 2 Extreme ow,wwww, 4 7 1 " 5 0 0 G B (ST3500320AS) 32mb 5years 7 7 9 5 24" E2400bd 2ms 1000:1, H M I 3 3 1 "
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Intel DG31GLG1100:to.ww,awwwo 7 4 9 5 5 0 0 G B (ST350032ONS) Enterprise 1 0 5 9 ' DELL
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Intel' DP4.3rpwww,...,ww.40.,,,Ww.ww. 12195 7 5 0 G B (ST3750330AS) 321b 50ters 1 2 5 9 ° 19" 1908rp 5ms boat 4:3 Digital - 2799' G T X 2 6 0 576mhz DDR3 896". 2x0VI3 7 7 9 5
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22" 2208wrp 2ms 2000:1° DVI w/welacam309"
24" 2 4 0 8 * Ems 3000:1° HDMI • 5 9 9 0 0 PROJECTORS
Linksys Wireless RouterWRI160N M U 9 4 9 1
Linksys WrelessRouwWRTMON M E M .... 1 2 0
Intel DX488Tzwabw.wwwww.,,wwww,aw.. 3 2 6 95 POWER SUPPLIES 30" 3008wM arms 3000:1° HDMI 1 91 8°9 A C E R
X 11 6 0 DLP Business Un0 M a k 4 4 7 "
FOR AMD PROCESSORS ACE SAMSUNG
WIRELESS ADAPTERS Asus 7 8 , 5 Performa 35014501520 watts .. 3895/5885/64" 17" 723n 5ms 600:1 4:3 Analog 183" VIEWSONIC
TP-Link Wireless PCI Card WN651g (G1m) 2 4 9 5 PJ 551 D DLP Business Unit 1024,768 5 5 6 9 5
ASUS M3Ativiwatu.nownwev 1 0 5 " 19" 920nw 5ms 6001 Analog 184"
ANTEC INFOCUS
TP-Link wireless uss wksztb (cia) 2 4 " Asus M3A32.mvpmr....wwwwwwwwww 213" 20" 2053bw 5ms 1000:1 Digital 2269' I N 2 1 0 2 EP DLP Business Una 800x600 5 5 9 9 5
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TP-LinkwtrelessoSB W140210216M3 2 " Asus M3N-HTax-inpw.ww.. 2 6 2 9 ° 22" 22206m 5ms 1000:1 Digital 23995
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TP-Link Wireless PCI CardWH851n O W E - 3495 G i g a b y t e GA-M61PM3.52nrxt, maw. „.,va . 6 1 " 22" 225ms 5ms 700:1 Digital 4209' HC1 600 DLP Home Theatre 1280x720 9 8 5 9 '
Sie nature Esomsow (silo 2 0 9 9 5 / 2 5 4 9 5 38295 B E N Q
Trendnet Wireless PCI Card 4230 (G54) 3 0 " 24" 2 4 4 3 6 , 5ms 1000:1 Digital
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Trendnet Wireless USB424ub (G54) 3 0 9 5 SCANNERS G a m e X s t r e a m 700/050w 0 0 0 1 2 2 0 / 1 7 2 e ,
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27" 275t+ 6ms 1000:1 Digital F/S
6 4 3 " W 5 0 0 LCD Home Theatre 12809720 8 6 6 "
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Trendnet Wireless USB624ubli/HRE 7 1 9 ' Canon Lide100 Photo 1200X2400 6 2 9 5 PC Power and Cooling
Linksys VkiessUS8WUSB54G (054) 6 6 " Epson V 2 0 0 Photo 4800X9600 8 8 " VIEWSONIC P T- A E 2000 Home Theatre 192091080 . 2 9 6 5 "
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S P I (for 2U Racks) 350w 3 9 9 5 19" VG930m 8ms 6001. 4:3 Digital 2 5 6 9 '
Tr e n d n e t Wreless PCICard 623pi1:'NITE7 1 9 ° E p s o n V 7 5 0 -M 6400x9600 professional
Dlink wireless PCI Card DWA542013HE6 8 " scannner with high-pass optics/firewire . . 6 7 6 9 '
OPTICAL DRIVES
19" V P 9 5 0 b 2ms 800:1, 4:3 Digital F/S, 32095
20" VA 2 0 2 6 w 5ms 1000:1 Digital 2 2 2 9 5
DVD I CD CASES
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P i o n e e r (DVR-116) 20x +1200-!100 DL 3 20" VG2030wrn 5rrs800:1 Digital 2 8 3 9 '
WIRED ADAPTERS HARD DRIVES 2.5" Liteon (20A4P) 200 . 200 - DL 3 395 21" V P21306 8ms 1000:14:3 FiS 6 9 0 9 5 Pack of 50...'11°°, 1 00...'22c°,200...s40°°
Tr e n d n e t 1000011000 Card TEG-PCITXRIPCI) 2095 S E A G AT E EIDE (PATA) LG (GH22NS) 22x +122x . DL SATA 3 4 9 5 22" VA 2 2 2 6 w 5ms10001 Digital 2 5 0 9 ' Vinyl C a s e Single C.Shell 2 5 0
SWITCHES 1 6 0 G B (ST9160821A) 5400 RPM 5years 7795 LG (GH22LP) 220 +1220 - DL IDE wILS , 3795 22" VX2240w ars local Digital FtS 2 7 5 " Pack of 50...811°9, 100...820°,200...F3E09
Trendnetswathsbononanconto-sarxE 66" S E A G AT E SERIAL (SATA) Pioneer (DVR.216) 20x SATA DL 3 5 9 5 22" VG2230wm 5ms700:1 octal 3 1 7 9 5 J e w e l C a s e Single Acrylic (Slim) 2 0 0
SMCswitch 6px10f100100DSMCGse 6 3 9 ' 8 0 G B (ST980825AS) 7200 RPM 5years 10695 Liteon USB DVDRW slim external kit 8 0 9 5 22" VP2250wb 2rrts t o w p o o l s , 3 8 3 9 ' Pack of 50..5850, 100...616°°,200..3213°°
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Editorial
Parting is such sweet sorrow. Tis better to learned a lot about in my years at the helm. That said though, my role will be a small
have loved and lost. Goodbye. Fare thee one and it's Dorian's baby now. It's in good hands.
well. Good day sir... I said good day! A But in true narcissistic fashion, I'd like to talk about me some more.
thousand other clichés and ways of saying I'll be working with some sharp minds at Tucows, working on a new user-focused
the same thing. website. This new site will see the benefit of the team's collective years of
Long time HUB: The Computer Paper readers experience and aims to simplify computing for beginner, novice and intermediate
will recognize this as another parting editorial, computer users; we'll even have something for the more advanced as we leverage
That makes it the second that I've written in the Tucows' huge, downloadable software library to help computer users do more in less
five or so years I've been editor of HUB: The time. The concept is for "soft, sticky technology content." We soft launch shortly •
AComputer Paper and its previous forms and after this issue of HUB: TCP hits the streets. More on that in the weeks to come.
formats. Last time, I wrote my parting editor's This new role started when former TCP and HUB: Digital Living products editor Sean
letter while sitting on a plane somewhere over Carruthers approached me with the details and as I learned more from general
the ocean on my way to Kuala Lumpur, manager Andy Walker, its fair to say I got excited about this new pioject. We'll be
Malaysia, where I was to be editor of a city working together closely and I can't wait to start down this new road and see what
Restyle magazine. That turned out to be more possibilities it has in store, to say nothing of the chance to work with friends and
of a sabbatical than a true parting of ways, as this editorial now attests. colleagues I have a lot of respect for.
But this time it's a little different. The kicker is that I'll be working a mere 700m away from the Piccolo Publishing
This time, I've accepted a new editor position in Toronto, working with some great offices (according to Google Maps) in the Liberty.Village neighbourhood that's been
editorial and business minds, friends and in some cases, HUB: Digital Living and such a great place for us to work and play. Moving the HUB office to this new locale
HUB:The Computer Paper alumni. represented a change of more than just scenery for the HUB team; it was something
The HUB: TCP reigns are being passed to Dorian Nicholson whose byline you will of a fresh start. So now, while I am looking forward to some new lunch time, work
have seen on our website, www.hubcanada.com, and in print within the pages of the time and bar time conversations with my new colleagues, I can still meet up with my
magazine you hold in your hands. Dorian will bring a new way of thinking about the friends at HUB for lunch, coffee or a couple of pints after work.
magazine and website and I look forward to seeing them both grow and change Though I am certainly excited to start my new project, I'm disappointed I won't be at
under his editorship as, I believe, should you. I've genuinely enjoyed working with him HUB to see the improvements, the growth and the new ideas that this publication will
over the past several months and he gets my sincere best wishes. So long as he enjoy from behind the editor's (rather messy) desk. That said, I'm looking forward to
doesn't try to lay claim to the mountains of pens, USB keys, Halo 3 helmet / DVD seeing what's next for HUB: The Computer Paper and www.hubcanada.com. Both as
case holders, Lego Batman figures and various other PR detritus I've accumulated a bit-part player and — perhaps more importantly — as a reader.
over the years.
Though I'm leaving the HUB: TCP editor's desk, you can't get rid, of me quite
that easily. Enjoy the issue,
I'll continue to consult with Dorian and with Piccolo Publishing so we don't lose sight Andrew Moore-Crispin
of where the magazine came from-and where we hope to take it — things I've Editor-in-Chief

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Wherein the simple act of knowing people becomes fine art
According to Internet research firm Alexa.com, social networking goliath Facebook is Numbering in the hundreds arid covering oodles of topics, CompuServe's forums
the world's fifth most popular website. Video-sharing service YouTube sits two spots proved tremendously popular and paved the way for the modern iterations we
ahead in third, and Facebook competitor MySpace resides comfortably in seventh. In know today.
Canada, Facebook ranks even higher, at number two, while YouTube and MySpace More old school computer user interplay could be found in the form of the "BBS"
are fifth and fourteenth respectively. What can we glean from all this? We can say (Bulletin Board System). Often more local in nature than the CompuServes of the
that people really, really enjoy using the Internet as a conduit for human interaction. world, BBSes were usually run by hobbyists who carefully nurtured the social aspects
Considering that the Internet is, ultimately, all about people and communication, one and interest-specific nature of their projects and even arranged for in-person meet-
might think that social networking has been part of the landscape since the very and-greets between members.
beginning. And indeed it has. In fact, both the urge and the facilities to network It was, after all, darned exciting in the early and somewhat isolated days of the PC
socially via linked computers existed even before the Internet became a publicly to know there were other computer fanatics out there who shared the same
available and publicly accepted entity. passions as you.
Anyone old enough to remember the early days pf the personal computer (hint: Soon, commercial online services such as AOL (America Online) grew to
think Rubik's Cubes and non-ironic mullets) will likely also remember those first few prominence, essentially offering most of the features and capabilities the Internet
primitive PC-to-PC societal links. CompuServe, which has since morphed into an would eventually bring, all within a self-contained but heavily-monitored format. AOL in
Internet service provider of some note, was one. Though it began life in the pre-PC particular is noteworthy for the member-created communities it encouraged. If there
days of the 1970s as a mainframe computer communication solution for the .is a true precursor to today's social networking sites, it was likely spawned under the
business world, by the late 1980s CompuServe had expanded into the public domain AOL umbrella.
as a hub of sorts for the growing legion of PC proponents and enthusiasts. But everything changed as the 1990s marched on. The Internet went mainstream.
Personal computers grew from a quirky luxury to a necessity. And social networking
You are not alone became an entity unto itself.
CompuServe allowed- members to share files and access news and events, but it It's debatable which site can lay'claim to being the first, though Classmates.com
also offered something far better — interaction. Not only could members send certainly fulfilled some of the modern definition of a social networking site when it
messages to one another via a newfangled technology called e-mail (the concept of launched in 1995. Still, it was primarily a Who went to my school?" service until
e-mail wasn't exactly newfangled, though widespread public access to it was), but much later in its history. Early users could not, for example, create profiles. Nor
they could also communicate en masse via CompuServe's discussion forums. could they really break free from the site's virtual reunion philosophy. Still,

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 Classmates.com has survived — and at times thrived — to of Linkedln (www.linkedin.com). Designed as a resource for
this very day. businesspeople to maintain and append a list of trusted
contacts, make new connections and network amongst
m e d i c s distributors c a n a c i a
Kevin Bacon: Leader of the revolution themselves, Linkedln resonated well out of the chute and
The same cannot be said for the site that's most often today has more than 24 million registered users.
Your Digital acknowledged as the first to deliver all the parameters of
true social networking. Based on the six degrees of
An even greater success story can be found in the form of
MySpace (www.myspace.com). Also launched in 2003,
Media Source separation theory that asserts no person is separated by
more than six degrees from another, SixDegrees.com was
MySpace replicated many of Friendster's most popular
features and capitalized on its shortcomings through a
born in 1997. It allowed members to create profiles, invite campaign designed to seduce alienated Friendster members.
friends, organize groups, and surf other profiles. And of Strong with the much-cherished young adult demographic
course, it asked its user base to continually test the six and very friendly to musical artists and bands, MySpace sat
degree concept by encouraging them to bring more people alone atop the social networking throne until unseated by
into the fold. upstart Facebook earlier this year.
As time went on, even the site's organizers got in on the act
by trying, via virtually any means, to increase membership. Why Facebook?
The unfortunate result? A frightfully loose association of Indeed, a big reason Facebook has become so incredibly
computer users and numerous complaints of spam-filled popular is its presence in countries such as Canada. While
membership drives. SixDegrees.com eventually closed its MySpace maintains its lead in the United States, it's a
doors just after the turn of the millennium, thus proving the completely different story north of the border. Why?
old axiom that bigger is not always better. Explanations abound, but it likely boils down to a
But the stage had been set. By the early years of this phenomenon known as the "tipping point." In simple terms, a
decade, a wide variety of social networking websites had tipping point occurs when "the momentum for change
appeared, each trying to capture the imaginations of becomes unstoppable." It seems that here in the true north
potential members. Some, such as Epinions.com, strong and free, Facebook — either through its interface, its
established in 1999, kept the social interactivity in the ease of use, its features, or something as basic as its name
background in favor of consumer information. Others, such — gained popularity so quickly that people interested in
asAsianAvenue.com (1997 to date) and BlackPlanet.com social networking couldn't help but join its ranks. Regardless,
(1999 to date), targeted specific demographics. And we it's currently the place to be seen in the Canadian social
won't even get into the phenomena of online dating - networking world.
(chronicled elsewhere in this issue) except to say that it had But viill it still be the place this time next year? Or the year
become a viable entity long before the debut of the first after that? Not if the folks running Twitter (twitter.com) have
commercial matchmaking services. their say. Not content with being a typical social networking
service, Twitter adds blogging to the equation and asks its
In need of a friend? users to answer the simple question, "What are you doing?"
Nevertheless, it was with the 2002 launch of Friendster That it already sports over two million registered accounts
(www.friendsterOom) that the template for today's social and a separate version designed for the Japanese market
networking website became firmly established. Like bodes well for its future.
SixDegrees.com, Friendster made use of a degree of Of course, where there's a Twitter, there's bound to be
separation routine, but it also promoted the idea that a rich copycats. And to date, the most promising of these is
online community can exist only between people who truly Finnish-founded Jaiku (www.jaiku.com). What does Jaiku have
have common bonds. An interface that shared many of the that Twitter doesn't? It was purchased this time last year by
same traits one would find at an online dating site certainly Google. 'Nuff said.
didn't seem to hurt. There are dozens and perhaps hundreds of other social
The concept worked, and just a year after it began, networking concerns that, at one time or another, believed
Friendster boasted more than three million registered users. their concept was the way of the future. Some still exist
Though the service has since seen its fair share of technical today, but many more have fallen by the wayside. And so it
difficulties and a drop in its North American fortunes, it goes in the online world.
remains a huge force in Asia and, curiously, a near-necessity One thing is certain: this battle is just heating up.
in the Philippines. By Gord Goble
In 2003, social networking got serious with the introduction

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than racking up a massive cellphone bill or sending out onsomeone based on what they discover in the information
impersonal, form-style e-mails to all of his friends describing people post on their Facebook or MySpace profiles.
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Real-world repurcussions resources they check.
' This was likely the interviewer's way of taking an impromptu "Moreand more, social networkers who are not obsessively
measurement of the degree to which she had integrated careful face the prospect of identity theft, inadvertently
personal networking technology into her life, as well as a marring their own reputation or even inviting the threat of
quickmeans of determining how connected she was. Few physical harm," wrote Matt Hartley of the Globe and Mail after
friends — or, worse yet, no Facebook account — would have conducting a two-monthinvestigation this summer into what
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Lenovo V 100 froe. $ 6 4 9 on a Facebook application called WordTwist (think Boggle, but numbersand home addresses to detailed calendars listing
with just six letters and online multi-player functionality). As a personal and social events.
(rroms449") matter of fact, I recently attended a meatspace (that is to
say, offline) party hosted by a WordTwist-obsessed friend in Keeping it private
Ofcourse, many social networking services provide
PP whichlovers of the game were organized into groups for a
friendly competition.
Despite these and other benefits that come with adopting
extensive privacy options to let users keep their profiles
unsearchable and hidden from everyone save those whom
social networking technologies, I have repeatedly refused to they personally invite to have access. But this rather defeats
hopon board this particular cultural train. the primary purpose of social networking, which is to create
Myaversion to social networking might seem incongruous interconnecting communities that allow people to easily
with my chosen profession — surely a tech journalist ought to communicate with friends and family, meet new people with
beamong the first to adopt new web-based services — but it similar interests, and connect with professional colleagues to
isprecisely my experience as a technology enthusiast that do business.
HP NC6000 from $ 4 9 9 originally kept me from joining any online networks. However, if I'm being completely honest, the real reason I
HP NC 8000 'min $ 4 9 9 continue to not become involved in social networking is the
HP D 2000 from $ 7 9 9 Caughtin a web samereason I've switched off of instant messenger services:
Myunderstanding is that most popular cultural websites and time.
onlineapplications are essentially fads that come and go with Over the years I've watched my friends, family, and
romS1149.° societal moods. What's more, no one site or service ever colleagues become obsessed with checking their MySpace,
becomes the standard for all users — Facebook may be the Facebook, and Linkedln profiles. I've seen them spend whole
mostpopular social network amongst Canadians at the hourson these sites as they play games, comment on
moment, but there are still those who prefer MySpace, friends' pictures, take quizzes, post comments on other
Microsoft Live Spaces, Linkedln, or any of a number of users' profiles, and hook up with themed groups. I don't want
smaller, niche services. to knock any of these activities. They all have their own
Theupshot: I have no interest in taking the time to set up a purpose and value.
personal profile on a site that becomes all but defunct a Butthey're also serious time drains that I feel I can ill afford
couple of years from now. Nor do I want to take the time to • to get roped into.
regularly update my profile on half-a-dozen different sites to Sosocial networking just isn't my bag. I understand its
IBM T41 from $ 4 9 9 makesure that my friends who don't happen to use my importance, significance, and value, but, in my case, its
IBM T42 from $ 5 4 9 chosen social network can see what's happening in my life. benefits simply don't balance out its disadvantages.And if
IBM Z6OM from $ 5 4 9 Thenthere's the trolling factor. I realize that plenty of people this little treatise doesn't get my friends, family, and
enjoyusing social networking applications to find long lost colleagues to stop sending me invitations to join their various
acquaintances and either reconnect with them or gossip networks, I don't know what will.
(From $ 4 4 9 . ° ° ) aboutthem with their current chums. This functionality simply By Chad Sapieha
Excellentquality RefurbishedLaptops at Exceptional Valois doesn't appeal to me. I have no particular desire to connect
Wholesale and Retail with friends past.. What's more, I prefer that people I once
Software Package • ' Money Back Guarantee
knewnot to have the ability to easily find out information
✓ Internet Ready U p to 70% off about me.
Showroom in Dovmton Toronto on Bay & Moor
70 Yorkville Ave.
Blear - l o f
416-975-0748
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 In the Lab: Web Browsers
Browsing for the best of the Net

The web has become ubiquitous. So much so that we may not even think about how IE is not friendly toward customization, either for moving the essential buttons on
we go about accessing it. Since virtually all PCs come preinstalled with Windows and the toolbar around or for installing plugins.
therefore Internet Explorer, its easy to ignore the fact that there are other viable Accessing browsing history and favourites is similar to previous versions and
alternative web browsers available. clearing Internet history is as easy as clicking the first option under Tools.
Web browsers such as Safari have been available for years on the Mac, but only a Opening four tabs in IE (Hotmail, HubCanada, eBay, and Yahoo.ca) took up about 85
short time on the PC. At the same time, browsers such as Mozilla Firefox have MB of memory, which is about average.
established themselves on both Macs and PCs, and Google's Chrome browser
which was released only a couple of months back has a Mac OSX version in the Java speed test: 1646.6 ms (avg)
•works as well. It's a well known fact that IE has trouble with Java. Whether it's a business decision
This month in the Lab, we are going to test out some of those other browsers — or a lack of foresight, this browser has largely neglected Java. Still, more than a
and Internet Explorer, too — to see how they stack up against each other. We'll be second and a half to pass this test makes IE the slowest browser by more than four
focusing on overall usability; security, while an important issue, has been covered times. Ouch.
previously in HUB and won't be touched in this article.
The browsers will be tested for their ease of use, features and reliability among Firefox (v. 3.0.3)
other things, and will also be put through a simple Java speed test. Available on: Windows, Mac OSX, Linux, Unix derivatives
This test was found on a website (celtickane.com/webdesign/jsspeed.php) where a Selling point: Customizability, plugins
simple Java button is set up and various data is collected, most importantly the
duration of the test. I took ten tries with each browSer after freshly opening them Pros: Cons:
and found the average speed. Open source The sheer number of add-ons can
There are also results given there, which you may compare with my results, or even be daunting
your own if you're so inclined. Thousands of add-ons available Resource intensive

Internet Explorer (v7.0.5730.13) Supported by many OS

Available on: Windows XP SP2 and up (IE 7.0) Originally built on Netscape Navigator code after it went open source, Mozilla Firefox
Selling point: The first web browser most will lay hands on (which is also open source) is now the second most popular web browser in the
world. In addition, the release of Firefox 3 was met with more than 8 million
Pros: Cons: downloads the day it was released, which set a Guinness World Record.
The default web browser of Windows PCs Proprietary to Windows If that doesn't speak to its growing popularity then perhaps the sheer volume of
add-ons, plugins, and other modifiers will. New ways of customizing Firefox are
World's most commonly used browser Version 7 demands Windows XP SP2. coming out all the time from sources all over the world, making it one of the easiest
or higher browsers to tailor to your specific needs. This is undeniably Firefox's strongest
Web developers generally develop Internet Explorer and Windows are selling pciint.
for 1E standards practically joined at the coding hip Simply go to Tools and click Add-ons and you will get a list of suggested plugins
Anyone who has used Windows has probably used Internet Explorer (IE). Simply put, that you can install directly into Firefox: And if you decide you don't like one of them
it is the browser to beat. Although there are other options for PC users now — after using, just click either disable to temporarily turn the extension off, or choose
thankfully, some might say — IE remains the default web browser for any and all PCs uninstall to remove it completely. Its as easy as that.
that come with Windows. Because of this, most computer users have had at least Once a new plugin is installed it will modify some aspect of your browsing
some experience with IE, possibly before switching to something different. experience after a browser restart — which is unobtrusive as Firefox can easily
Regardless, everyone knows what IE is, what it looks like, and some of the basics of restore browsing sessions. This modification can range from something simple like
what it does, and it therefore deserves some points for being the most widely used • Speed Dial, whith you can use to turn your home page into a quicklist of frequently
web browser in the world. visited websites for convenient browsing, to plugins that allow users to navigate
Produced and developed by Microsoft, IE first came out in 1995 shortly after through Firefox by using "gestures," mouse movements that function as hotkeys (a la
Netscape Navigator arrived on the scene. The simultaneous presence of these two Black and White, if you remember that game).
browsers caused the browser wars of the late '90s, which IE eventually won. Firefox also works on a wide range of OSs, from Windows and Mac OSX to a variety
IE 7 is the current version, has seen a decline in overall user base over the past of Linux versions.
years and has alienated some users by being compatible only with the Windows OS, Firefox 3 also added a searchable and predictive address bar. Type in a few letters
and, more specifically, only with Windows XP Service Pack 2 and up. Also, there found in a site in your history and you can select it in the address bar (hit1-1 for
have been reports of instability in the new IE which has proven most reliable with hotmail, etc.) saving time without needing a plugin. Also typing in phrases or words
Windows Vista. will initiate a Google search, which is convenient.
Despite those criticisms, Internet Explorer has improved its overall usability in Yet despite these strong points,-even Firefox is not without flaws. For one thing,
recent times, with version 7 adding tabbed browsing and an RSS reader, two Firefox is even more resource intensive than IE. When testing the browser with the
features that were sorely lacking in previous versions. four tabs loaded to the previously mentioned test pages, Firefox was using up just

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 Internet Explorer Firefox Chrome Opera Safari

under 100 MB of memory. That's a lot, and that number could easily go up with Chrome's minimalist approach eschews even a Menu bar — although some of the
more tabs or, presumably, with more extensions. more essential tools are available by clicking on the wrench button to the ,
Also, the sheer number of plugins and such make it somewhat daunting to initiate right of the address field. This grants access to the bookmarks and history as well
the whole customization of Firefox, and can get a little out of hand. However, too as downloads.
many options is better than having none at all. Chrome also showed less stress on the memory when the browser was tested on
the four test sites. With four tabs in one window Chrome took up roughly 62 MB of
Java speed test: 359.8 ms (avg) memory, more than 20 MB less than IE, and almost 40 MB less than Firefox. It also
Pretty good, especially when compared to IE. In fact, only one browser, Opera, seemed to do so in four separate tasks as shown in task manager. This would be
scored better on the Java speed test. However, it was roughly 12 per cent faster on due to the safeguarding technology known as "sandboxing" that Chrome employs.
average than Chrome or Safari. What this does is it keeps the resources for each tab separate in case of a fatal
error, so if one tab goes down, the whole browser doesn't fall apart as is the case
Chrome ( v. 0.2.149.30) with its competitors whether one is browsing in multiple tabs or multiple windows.
Available on: Windows XP SP2 and up Aunique feature offered by Chrome is its integration with online apps. Within the
Selling point: Lean, light, and simple limited menu options is an entry that lets users create desktop, start menu or quick
launch shortcuts to online applications. This feature is designed to bridge the gap
Pros: C o n s : between online and offline apps.
Integration with online apps like W i n d o w s only While early adopters of Google's Chrome browser were required to [from the end
Google Docs user license agreement (EULA)] "give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide,
Incognito browsing for a F e a t u r e -anemic royalty-free, and nonexclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish,
non-logged session publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post
Uncluttered interface S c a r y terms of use or display on or through, the Services," this was apparently an oversight. A
As the newest addition to this battle of the browsers, Chrome, which was put out by subsequent update of the EULA has removed this sentence, making the browser
the folks at Google not three months ago, has already gained some fans for its novel much more palatable.
approach to browsing. Even more simple in interface than Safari, the open source

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 Java speed test: 390.2 ms (avg) as far as Windows users are concerned, Safari is pretty bland and bare-bones. For
•This is an acceptable speed, although not an ideal one. Coming in at the slow end of Mac users I'm sure there's more to it but the Windows version is severely limited.
the four browsers that didn't take an entire second and a half to pass the Java test, Safari does have a couple of things going for it though. With a built-in RSS feeder,
Chrome is slightly faster than Safari, but more than fifteen per cent slower than top- spell checker, and a resizable search bar, there are a few features that Safari has
ranked Opera. going for it by default. The address bar also doubles as a fairly accurate loading bar,
if that helps.
Safari ( v. 3.1.2 (525.21)) Safari also took up around 75 MB of memory with the four test tabs open. That
Available on: Windows, Mac OSX makes it the second best in terms of efficiency, next to Chrome. Not bad, but I
Selling point: The Mac's default suppose if your Safari was totally "pimped," you might get some different numbers.

Pros: Cons: Java speed test: 400 ms (avg)

Simple and efficient by default Manyplug-ins aren't Windows Clocking in at 400 ms, Safari Is the second slowest browser to take the Java speed
compatible test. With Opera managing to come in at around 330 ms, that means that Safari is
Add-ons enable customizability Lack of predictive address bar 17 per cent slower. On the other hand, it's more than four times as fast as IE.

Developed by Apple, ideal for Mac S h o r t c u t s common to other browsers Opera ( v. 9.60)
don't apply Available on: Windows, Mac OSX, Linux
The Safari browser should be the one most familiar to Mac users, and, conversely, Selling point: Speed and custcmizability
least familiar to Windows users. That's because Apple's proprietary browser only
made its debut on Windows PCs in June of last year, controversially bundled with the Pros: Cons:
PCversion of iTunes. It was only released in a stable PC version in March of this One of the oldest browsers Some compatibility problems reported
year and has yet to gain significant traction in the PC world. Since its introduction in
early 2003, Safari replaced Netscape Navigator as the Mac's default browser. Lots of room for customization Killer features have been usurped by
The default interface is simple and straightforward. The toolbar at the top has the other browsers
expected standard buttons (File, edit, view, history, bookmarks, etc.) and the initial Faster than most
layout has a sleek and simple slate grey colour scheme. Opera is one of the oldest web browsers around, and has made a lot of progress
However, that isn't necessarily the layout you need to stick with. Safari has its own over the years. Originally, Opera was not free software, and was only available on
plugins and add-ons you can install if you wish, many of which can be found at trial periods. It then progressed to being ad-driven, and now is completely free.
PimpmySafari.com. Unfortunately, the majority of these will only work on Macs at While it may sound a little strange nowadays to have a browser that one has to pay
the moment. for to use, there were reasons behind this. For one thing, Opera was the first
There are many different add-ons that give Safari the abilities of other browsers and browser to offer tabbed browsing. Now a feature that is barely worth mentioning —
compensate for its weaknesses (making searchable address bars, history, etc.) but all of the browsers in this article have it — tabbed browsing was revolutionary when
it first came out, as were many of the other features in Opera.
Opera also had plugins before Firefox, although Firefox surely has more plugins now.
The thing is, some of the features that you can put into Firefox with add-ons are
already ingrained into Opera by default; the two examples of plugins that I gave —
P R O M O T I O N VA L I D F R O M O c t I . 2 0 0 8 W W W _ M M - L . c u m
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Another feature that Firefox borrowed from Opera is session restores. Whenever
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Opera has a handy Panels button to the left of the tabs line, which users may click
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from favourites and history to notes and widgets. Widgets are extra feature-specific
windows that users can download in order to be more productive, or possibly less
(SimAquarium is a prime example of the latter).
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Java speed test: 331.6 Ms (avg.)

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the hat. With all of thoSe aforementioned features and potential plugins, the browser
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The popular social networking site offers near limitless customizability... for better or worse
Facebook fans know exactly what to expect when they visit their profile page each Wall has more than 18 million active users each month, making it one of the most
day: public wall posts, private messages, and, most of all, invitations to install yet used apps of all.
another Facebook add-on, those free third-party applications designed to "enhance" Oh, and when you're bored to tears, Mindiolt's nearly 500 playable games can
your online experience. really help make the time fly by with its collection of online puzzle, arcade and
There are literally thousands of applications available and we all have that one friend strategy diversions.
who has chosen to install each one. But for every one of these handy or fun apps, there are 20 annoying ones like Pet
Yes, it seems we're not content to merely let the world know what we're doing at Sabotage, so you can hurt a friend's virtual pet; Moods, where emoticons show
that precise moment ("Marc is eating a sandwich"), catching up with high school other Facebook users how you're feeling at that time (like, who cares?); Pig's Milk
flames or showing off photos of our kids to the world — Facebook is now the ("mad experiments and moments of reflection") and the self-explanatory Food Fight!
gateway to movie trivia; vampire bites, booze mail, horoscopes, or a SuperPoke if application. Sigh.
that doesn't sound too painful for you. Facebook is fun folks, but remember: less is more!

Apply yourself Facebook security and safety tips

In all fairness, some of these Facebook applications are pretty cool, such as Where On a related note, a recent report published by the Better Business Bureau of
I've Been. This application places a world map on your Facebook profile page so you British Columbia says young people are exposing themselves to identify theft by
can show others where you've been, where you've lived or where you want to go to posting personal information on the Internet, especially on social networking sites
(and with the latter, you might just get a newfound Facebook friend to join you). such as Facebook.
Similarly, TripAdvisor offers pushpin maps for Facebook users. If you (or your kids or younger siblings) are spending time on Facebook — and
Wealso like iLike, a social music application that lets you share and discover music many millions of Canadians are — then take heed to the following tips on better
with other Facebook users: share iTunes playlists with friends, access free MP3s to protecting yourself or loved ones from online scams and other dangers:
match your tastes or sign up for concert notifications when your favourite artists are
playing near you. 1. Never give out personal info: Posting your name on your Facebook profile page is
And then there's Video and Super Wall, both of which let you upload videos perfectly reasonable, but you need not list your address, birth date, phone number,
(including YouTube clips) or get more out of your photos by creating collages and work details or any other private information. Also, be cautious about what kinds of
slideshows or by drawing over pictures. According to Facebook, Rock You's Super photos you're posting in case they reveal personal info.

2. Close your network: Rather than making your profile public to everyone —
meaning all your details pop up if someone types in your name or clicks on your
name on someone else's site — you can choose to close your Facebook network to
everyone except for a small group of friends.

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TO22 H U B : TheComputerPaper - Toronto - November 2008 hubcanada.coallit
 www.acronis.com/homecompufing/products/trueimage/
Once you have an image of your hard drive, you can choose to create a new image
The Doctor is in whenever you want, and backup important documents to CD/DVD between image
creation dates.
Here's your chance to send your PC
Hi Doc
•woes to our resident Techspert, the I have a secondary hard drive (older type Maxtor DiamondMax 20 GB) that shows up
HUB PC Doctor in device manager as working properly. The problem is that it is not showing up as a
second drive in'"My Computer." It used to work fine but suddenly disappeared.
I hope you can help me solve this as I had some fairly important things stored on it.
Hi PC Doc, Thanks,
My computer has an ASUS P4S800-MX SE motherboard and the C: drive connects Brian
via IDE.
I tried to replace the IDE drive with a SATA drive, but when I try to install Windows XP Hi Brian,
it does not see the new drive. I have verified that the SATA drive is working. Is there Windows is usually pretty good about keeping track of hard drive letters but given
a setting I need to change so XP can find it? that Windows still sees the device there may be some hope.
Thanks, Try opening Disk Management by right clicking on "My Computer" and choosing
John Manage. Along the left hand side of the "Computer Management" window expand the
"Storage" category and click on Disk Management. In the top right you should see
Hi John, your disks listed. Assuming Windows is installed on your C: drive disk 0 is the drive
The problem you are encountering is due to the fact that the XP installer doesn't that Windows is probably booting from — it should display information stating the
have drivers for the hardware that controls the SATA drive. Without these drivers the Volume is C: the File System as NTFS or FAT32 and the Status as healthy. Look for
installer can't "see" the hard drive, thus the installer can't install XP on it. The Disk 1, if it displays the disk as healthy and the file system as NTFS or FAT 32 but
solution is fairly easy, but will require a floppy drive and a blank floppy disk, so has no Volume assigned, right click on the volume and choose Change Drive Letter
hopefully you have those. First you will need to download the drivers that Windows and Paths and select a drive letter.
requires to be able to use the SATA drive. You can get a copy of the drivers at If the file system is unknown or unrecognized and the data is important you should
www.tinyurl.com/P4S800. You will want to click the + sign beside the word RAID, take the hard drive to a data recovery company. Be aware though that this can be an
and download "SiS RAID Driver Package Version 3.02 for Floppy Disk maker." Once expensive solution.
you have downloaded this, put a blank floppy disk in your disk drive and run the
program to create a driver disk. Simon Bolduc is the HUB PC Doctor.
Once you have made the driver disk you can start installing Windows XP. During the Questions, comments and queries can be sent to [email protected]
first part of the Windows installation some text will appear at the bottom of the
screen that says "Press F6 if you need to install a third party SCSI or RAID driver...,"
press F6 when this appears. The setup program will detect the floppy disk and the
driver on it. Choose to install the driver and then continue the installation. Windows
XP setup should now detect your hard drive properly. More than just a n
Dear PC Doctor, I Provider
I finally quit procrastinating and recently did a full back up of my C: (Vista boot)
drive. The image (about nine GB) was written on three DVDs. All went well with the
first two, but during the verification stage of the third, the computer hung. Does this
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what files are not recoverable in the event of failure. If the first two DVDs contain the
Vista installation and programs you have installed, and the third, and problematic,
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hubcanada.con1 HUB:The Computer Paper- Toronto - November 2008 T O 23

 Fun with PowerPoint
Sick of slideshows? Here's how to create a fun game in PowerPoint

Applications like PowerPoint aren't always all about serious presentations. You can
easily put your PowerPoint skills to work and use the program to create fun games
that anyone can play. This month we have a small game for you to make. You'll use a
range of PowerPoint features that you'd use when creating a presentation but this
time the purpose will be entertainment and not work.
In creating this game you'll see how to create random numbers and then use the
number to go to a specific slide in your show. You'll see how to write a simple macro
and how to attach it to an image. You'll also see how creating a slide show that has
no transitions and a single background colour looks more like a regular program and
less like a PowerPoint slideshow.

Getting started
The PowerPoint game needs to be static so it looks more like a program with
changing elements than a slide show. To create this effect, start with a new
presentation and choose View > Master > Slide Master. Set the background color to
a neutral dark color by choosing Format > Background and select the colour to use.
Remove both text placeholders on the slide and the footer boxes, add a new text
box and place the page title into it. Ours reads "Throw the dice & play the game."
1, W e l l o n e
Choose Insert > Picture > Clip Art and locate and add six images of boxes or bags
casual dress for you
onto the slide. These are the images the user will see when they first launch the
tom() row
application. Locate an image of someone throwing dice. This image came from the
Microsoft Office Clip Art gallery online. While the animated GIF won't play while you're
building the slideshow it will play when you run the show later on.
To make the dice image do something you will need a Visual Basic macro. To create
your macro choose Tools > Macro > Visual Basic Editor and choose Insert >
Module. Type this code into the module window: The game page is set up with an animated GIF
arid some simple clipart images.
Private Declare Sub Sleep Lib "kerne132" (ByVal dwMilliseconds As Long)

Sub rollDice() Add a textbox to the slide and type some text explaining the prize.
ActivePresentation.SlideShowWindow.View.GotoSlide (1) Repeat this for each of the other slides. For each slide you will want to create a
Dim MyValue filled rectangle over one of the images on the slide and then add an image
Randomize representing the prize and the text that describes it. One of the six images needs to
Sleep 1000 be covered up on each of the slides.
Beep When you are done, save your PowerPoint file and you're now ready to test it. To do
MyValue = Int((6 * Rnd) + 2) this choose Slideshow > View Show and click the dice to start the game. Every time
With SlideShowWindows(1).View you click the dice image a different prize will display.
.GotoSlide MyValue By default PowerPoint is set to prevent macros from running and you may need to
End With alter your macro security level for this application to work. To do this, choose Tools
End Sub > Macro > Security and set the level to medium, save your file, close it and exit
PowerPoint. Restart PowerPc int and reload the application to test it.
When you are done, choose File > Close and return to Microsoft PowerPoint. This
macro uses a random number routine to return a value between two and seven. Applying the techniques
Ultimately your slideshow will have seven slides and this macro will display any one The macro in this.game can be used in a regular PowerPoint presentation to take
of the slides when the appropriate dice number is rolled. you to a random slide. You could use it to create a test that plays differently every
To assign the macro to the dice image, select the image on the slide master, right time the test is run. Using a slideshow that has essentially the same look for every
click it and choose Action Settings. Click the Mouse Click tab, click the Run Macro slide and no inter-slide transitons creates an application that looks more like a
option and, from the dropdown list, choose rollDice and click OK. You can add a program than a PowerPoint slideshow. Here too, you've seen how to use a slide
sound to the action by downloading a sound, saving it to disk and adding it to the master to configure the look of every slide in the presentation without having to do it
action in the Play Sound area. manually each time.
By Helen Bradley
Creating the slides
Once you have added the macro action to your image click the Close Master View
button to return to editing your slide. Remove the text placeholders on the slide and
then duplicate it by choosing Insert > Duplicate Slide. Repeat five more times until
you have seven slides in total.
Slide 1 appears when the presentation is run so you don't need to do anything to
Trusted
this slide. Slide 2 is the equivalent of throwing a one on the die, Slide 3 is equivalent
to throwing a two and so on. You now need to configure each of these slides to
show the "prize" that you win if you get that number.
Click slide 2 and create a filled rectangle using the rectangle tool from the drawing
Connected
toolbar and drag it over the first container to hide it. Now locate and add a picture to
the slide that represents the win or lose for that roll of the dice. For example, for a
prize of casual dress tomorrow you might use an image of some casual clothing. Canadian
TO 24 H U B : The Computer Paper - Toronto - November 2008 h u b c a n a d a . c o n l l i
 Industry Giant roes Light-Weight
Dell's Inspiron Mini 9 marks the.company's first foray into netbooks
Inspiron Mini 9 slots in above the keyboard, I would much ratherhave seen a compromise struck..
Dell $359 - $569 Price as tested: $ 569 www.dell.ca They could have opted for a rounded batterypack, as seen in other netbooks like
Acers' excellent Aspire One and category creatorASUS' Eee PC line.
Specs as tested: Onthe left side of the lnspiron Mini 9 is an SD/MMC/MS card slot, two USB ports
Intel Atom N270 1.6 GHz / 533 Mhz FSB processor and the power input. On the right side are the headphone and mic inputs, one USB
Windows XP Home Edition port, VGA out and Ethernet.
1.3 MP webcam We managed to get over three hours of use out of the 4oell battery with wireless
1GB DDR2SDRAM 800 Mhz on and we can expect to see an extended life battery before too long. No word on
16 GB SSD hard drive cost though. With three plus hours of batteryuse, the Inspiron Mini 9 bests many of
Bluetooth 2.1 its competitors, most of which use a 3-cell batterypack in the base configuration
802.11g Wi-Fi and generally offer just over two hours of use.
4-cell battery •
Deal or no deal? -
Pros: Cons: While a top end Inspiron Mini 9 clocks in at almost$600, a configured option using
Sleek case styling Only two colours available Ubuntu as the operating system, opting for 512 MB RAM, accepting the smaller solid
4-cell battery for -3.5 hrs uptime Strange keyboard layout and dead space state hard drive, and doing away with optionslike Bluetooth 2.1 and a webcam and -
Highly configurable Can be expensive the price comes more in line with the competitionat around $350. The fact that it . •
offers some configuration options puts it aheadof the competition in customizability.
The latest to jump into the netbook fray, desktop and laptop giant Dell recently If you have stock in Dell, if you have traditionallyliked their products, if you want to
released its lnspiron Mini 9. have some control over how your netbook is put together or if you specifically need
Some of the bigger manufacturers are steering clear of the netbook category — we left and right click buttons mounted below the mouse trackpad and can sacrifice on
can only assume because the profit margins are so low that the manufacturers don't keyboard layout, the Inspiron Mini 9 may be just the thing.
want to cut the bottom out of their existing notebook sales — so it's interesting to The fashion-conscious computing set will needto see more than the black and white
see one of the bigger players stepping up. With that said and given some of Michael case colours before considering the InspironMini 9 as a serious contender though.
Dell's recent comments about the 30-minute computing limit for netbooks, the Dell For-what it's worth, I'll be sticking with the Acer Aspire One I purchased recently.
Inspiron Mini 9 does feel a bit like a "me too" produCt offering that doesn't bring •By Andrew Moore-Crispin
anything truly unique to the table.

Configuratiop nation
At the upper end of the Mini Inspiron spectrum, a top of the line configured Inspiron
FUJITECH -
180 Steeles Ave.W, Unit 2A, Thornhill
Mini 9 with Bluetooth 2.1 capability, 1 GB of RAM, a 1.3 MP webcam and 16 GB
solid state hard drive costs $569. As the sub-$700 laptop article by Chad Sapieha
Fulitech Tel : (905) 604 2270 o f f e r Va •
Mon-Fri :10am-7pm,Sat: clam -7u , ajar Intersection
that appeared in our October issue attests, when you start nearing the $600 mark Sunday : CLOSED YONGE/ STEELES
the value proposition of a netbook becomes fuzzy. Do-it-Yourself.
Fulitech $99T $29V-
The case against a top-of-the-line Inspiron Mini 9 as we tested comes when you do
WirelessHomeSecurity System Wireless 70W
the cost-benefit analysis. Sure, it's light at just a hair over 1 kg and could still be Internet
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considered relatively inexpensive. It has a decent battery life with the 4-cell battery
PCMCIA GSM/GPRS Notebook
offering about 3.5 hours and lOoks slick. However, for $70 less, you could opt for NOContracts Wireless Modem Adapter / Charger
the Dell Inspiron 1525 offering a CD burner / DVD reader, full-sized keyboard and a .. . . - NO Monthly Fees $999 - ' \
15.4-inch screen. Still, the lnspiron 1525 offers a paltry single core processor and 1
$14-99 0
Includes:Voice Panel,1 Door Contact & 1.Motion Sensor Class I
GB of RAM, and so suffers under the weight of its charge, Windows Vista Home l*Remote Control Webcam

Basic. It also clocks in at 2.7 Kg. KeyControl,

Optional:Remote padS
, mokeDetector , 4 Fulitech
Fulitech
Auto dial-out to your presetCellular/Tel. no. when USB Bluetoot
Adt-
Lower down the price spectrum are the Inspirori Mini 9 netbooks running Ubuntu, Twinklecam
there is an break-in notifying you of nature of intrusion. Adapter,100M
which start at $359. However, at this bargain price, you'll have to do without a ro9 $649,Keyboard Stickers Fulitech
Fullitech $ 7 —
webcam (0.3 and 1.3 MP cams are $20 and $40 options, respectively), you'll be DB9F + 4 4 / 4 1 support Chinese Digital Camera Bags
stuck with 512 MB RAM (1 GB is $30 more), a 4 GB SSD HDD (8 GB and 16 GB are DB25M V I S T A I l k
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$30 and $70 respectively). Add in any of the other options and the price tag creeps Support H D T V C-, areebrc
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The user experience 220 Characters
29uCPU
Our tester notebook ran smoothly; its 1 GB of RAM and 1.6 GHz Intel Atom SOM $ 1 9 9 2 5121,10 DDR Parallel Port
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keyboard and excellent mouse track pad with left and right click buttons positioned Network Cables TouchPOS System Receipt Printer POSPole Display
below the track pad as opposed to mounted on the left and right, as has become $64L' , $99t3 $105 ,1.. , , , , $99'
increasingly common in netbooks to answer some of the main end user concerns.
KeyboardWedigN g i l l
However, the bottom-mounted click buttons and near standard-sized keys of the Keyboard 12_____ 1
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InspirOn Mini 9 come at a cost. Most notable is the fact that the keyboard sacrifices CCD Laser POS LiquidCooling
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huncanada.conftw HUB:TheComputerPaper - Toronto - November 2008 T O 25

 Building the Ultimate Media PC pt. 1
Gathering the parts for the 10-foot PC

When Microsoft introduced its Media Center Edition version of Windows XP in January The Case
of 2002, it laid clear another of its battle fronts as the lowly PC made its march from Thermaltake
basement to den to family space and, finally, into the living room. Or at least, that DH-101 VF7001BNS —$240
was the hope. Windows XP Media Center Edition was never released as a stand- www.thermaltake.com
alone operating system. Instead, it was only volume licensed to system builders. And We'll be opting for Thermaltake's DI-I-101 from the Digital Home chassis series. As
not your local boutique computer shop either; only PC powerhouses like HP, Dell and tempting as the DH-102 model is with its 7-inch colour LCD touchscreen is, the
Sony were able to build systems around this new media-friendly OS. $500 price tag is a little over the top for our needs.
This move was understandable in many ways. For one, it allowed Microsoft to TheDH-101 is a stylish chassis with a piano black case and a black, brushed
create a seamless experience and focus its support on a smaller grouping of aluminium face. The form factor is more like a desktop than a tower and this,
standardized hardware — TV tuner cards, video cards, audio hardware and the like combined with the overall look, make it perfectly suited to a home entertainment
— and make sure that they worked without issue. However, it also cut off the centre where a standard tower-format PC would look out of place.
potential for hobbyist or boutique computer builders to get involved with Windows TheDH-101 also ships with a full-sized remote for looking after common media PC
XP's new media functions. Computer hobbyists tend. not to opt for branded machines functions as well as controlling the cursor on screen. We'll still need a mouse, but for
as they simply don't offer the flexibility for future-proofing, choice of components, simple functions like launching the media front-end to watch, record or schedule TV,
upgrades and so on that a custom-built machine does. play a DVD and so on, the virtual mouse on the Thermaltake remote will suffice.
While Windows XP Media Center Edition put the media PC movement on the
mainstream map, other OS solutions became the driving force within the hobbyist The Power,
media PC community. Most notably, MythTV, an open source project built on Unix Cooler Master
with a large and growing driver base for common (and not so common) media PC UCP700W RS-700-AAAA-A3 —$165
components, support for remote controls and TV-friendly interface (among other www.coolermaster.com
things) gave the software a strong foothold among the hardcore. MythBuntu, an As is often the case with custom chassis, ours ships without a power supply unit
Ubuntu installation that contributes back to the larger Ubuntu developer community, (PSU). This allows users to choose the best PSU for the application, including
makes for a system that pulls double duty as both an entertainment interface and, choosing the wattage, the cooling method, the noise level and other key concerns.
potentially, as a main PC too. The caveat is that, even though Ubuntu is among the We're opting for the quiet UCP line from Cooler Master and choosing the 700 watt
friendliest distros going, you have to be comfortable working within Linux. model. 700 watts might prove insufficient in a gaming rig running dual video cards in
Windows Vista — at least in the higher end of its product offering, the Home SLI (nVidia) or CrossFireX (ATI), along with multiple hard drives and other touches.
Premium and Ultimate editions — bundles in Media Centre functions and a living However, our media PC only needs to run a single video card, saving any available
room friendly window into video and other content that's most at home when played PCI and PCI-E slots for future expansion. This setup will allow us plenty of room to
back on a big plasma or LCD screen, projector or, well, anything bigger than a add in more hardware later on — another video card or more hard drives. Balancing
standard computer monitor. The "10-foot interface," as it's often called. price and performance, 700 watts should be more than sufficient and will still allow
These media functions, which include recording live TV, watching or authoring DVDs, .some room for future system additions or expansions.
listening to music and viewing pictures, combined with all the usual Windows Vista
standards equate to a computer that really can pull double duty without asking The CPU
potential users to make the switch. It also means that computer hobbyists and Intel
boutique computer shops alike can dip their toes into media PC waters without Core2 Quad Processor Q9650 —$630
losing the comfortable Windows operating system environment in the process. www.intel.ca
With that in mind, we're going to embark on a two-part series that endeavours to The brains in the operation, we're opting for a quad core CPU from Intel, the Q9650
bring you the Ultimate Media PC build, pulling together the components to build a with a 3 GHz clock speed, 12 MB L2 cache and 1333 Mhz bus speed. Built on the
capable media PC that won't feel out of place in the living room. This first instalment 45 nm process, the Q9650 packs a lot of punch on a small die. Packing so many
will look at the hardware we're going to use (bear in mind, it's subject to change.) transistors into such small architecture means a healthy speed•boost but also, a lot
The second instalment will follow along with the actual building process and then put of heat. A good CPU cooler will be a necessity.
the Ultimate Media PC through its paces. With four cores, our CPU will be more than up for whatever tasks we can think to
At the end of the series, we'll give the Ultimate Media PC away to one lucky reader. throw at it. With our ideal of recording from multiple sources at once and given that
Contest details and entry form are on our website at www.hubcanada.com. we want to be able to render video quickly and smoothly, the Q9650 is a perfect —

Thermaltake DH-101

TO26 H U B : TheComputerPaper - Toronto - November 2008 hubcanada.con*

if pricey — CPU. We'll also be able to render or record video in the background while The RAM
doing other computing tasks. An earlier generation CPU would be up to the task and Kingston
would be an easy way to shave a few hundred dollars off the overall price tag but KVR800D2N6K2/4G - $ 7 5
would sacrifice some of this performance. www.kingston.com
Atough choice, we ended up deciding to go with 4 GB of RAM from Kingston's Value
The Motherboard RAMseries. This 4 GB is spread across two 2 GB DIMMs, leaving us room to expand
Intel later up to 8 GB. Kingston's Value RAM series offers an excellent balance of price
Media Series DG45ID - $ 1 4 5 and performance, and with 4 GB of the 800 Mhz DDR2 RAM, our Media PC should
www.intel.ca perform well. Doubling the RAM later — a distinct possibility as more is always
For the sake of simplicity, we're opting for an Intel motherboard to go along with our better — will mean another -$75 investment. This choice would serve as an
Intel Core2 Quad processor. And a capable mobo it is. With HDMI- and DVI-out, the inexpensive and easy upgrade that would provide immediate benefits.
DG45ID is ready to hook up to an HDTV display or your standard computer monitor
— or both. With six SATA ports, we'll have plenty of space for hard drives and The Tuner
optical drives along with some space for future expansion. Six USB ports plus six Hauppauge
USB port headers (for front-mounted USB ports) means we'll have plenty of room to WinTV-HVR-950Q $199 (part of Nero Liquid TV)
hook up all our digital and video cameras along with other peripherals like a printer, www.hauppauge.com
keyboard and mouse. While there are internal solutions available, we're opting to use the WinTV-HVR-950Q
And as a part of Intel's Media Series of motherboards, it seems an ideal choice. USB stick N and HDTV tuner from Hauppauge, included as part of the Nero Liquid
That said, it is in miniATX format, which leaves us with fewer PCI and PCIe slots TV suite. It's a good thing that the tuner is bundled with Liquid TV / TiVo PC as the
available for add-in cards. For expansion, we get one PCIe x16 graphics slot, two xl WinTV software that ships with.Hauppauge products is slow to tune in and far from
PCIe expansion slots and a single PCI slot. Not a lot of room to grow but it should the most user-friendly software out there.
still be sufficient. Included with the bundle is an HDTV antenna for catching free-to-air HDTV
The integrated graphics solution on the DG45ID is capable of pushing full HD and broadcasts, an IR blaster for controlling a connected satellite or digital cable box, as
beyond, up to 2,048 x 1,536 resolution. It also has native support for H.264, VC I well as a TiVo remote.
and MPEG2.
Four DDR2 DIMM slots allow for up to 8 GB of DDR2 RAM. We'll be opting for 4 GB The Software
in a 2 x 2 GB configuration, leaving two DIMMs open for expansion. Nero
The on-board graphics solution and the fact that it's HD-ready means we could Liquid-1V $199
easily get away without using a discrete graphics card. We're adding one in though, www.nero.ca
which will allow our Media PC to play the latest games, though likely not with all the While our friends to the south were enjoying TiVo for several years before it finally
graphical eye candy turned on. arrived in Canada, Nero's LiquidTV / TiVo PC is launching at the same time both
south and north of the 49th.

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products with aspirations of becoming one of the top 3 networking brands and striving for a larger global market share.

hubcanada.con* HUB: The Computer Paper - Toronto - November 2008 T O 27

 It's a compelling package: the excellent Nero LiquidTV software, a TV tuner, The Media ,
antenna, IR blaster and all the cables to hook it up in one box, along with a remote Pioneer
and a 1-year subscription to the TiVo service, including the extensive programming 4x Blu-ray DVD Burner BDR-202BK —$500
guides and scheduling it offers. www.pioneer.com
The beauty of having TiVo on your PC is that it's easier than ever to get TiVo'd Our Thermaltake case only has one 5.25" drive bay — the size required for an
content into other formats and transferred to different devices you own, from iPods internal optical drive. So, we'll have to make sure that our optical drive is a do-it-all
or other video-capable digital audio players, to DVD or PSP. While it is possible to device.
get content from a stand-alone TiVo box to your PC legally using TiVo's own We're opting for the Blu-ray burning Pioneer BDR-202BK which, in addition to being
software, it's far from a simple endeavour. Recording TiVo content directly to a PC bleeding edge with its ability to read and write Blu-ray discs, can handle reading and
hard drive eliminates the biggest and most problematic step involved: physically writing to previous optical media too, specifically, DVD and CD. So in addition to
moving the content between the TiVo box and the PC. being able to watch the latest Blu-ray movies on the big screen, we'll be able to take
HDcontent straight from an HD-recording camcorder and burn it to disc for archival.
The Storage Likewise, we can take HD content recorded to our hard drive and burn off archived
Western Digital copies to Blu-ray discs. That means entire series of some TV shows on one disc.
Caviar Black, 1 TB WD10000LSRTL —$240 How's that for efficiency?
www.westerndigital.com
Our case has three 3.5-inch drive bays (for hard drives) and one 5.25-inch bay for Coming up
optical media. We're opting for a single 1 TB hard drive but that storage could easily Next month we'll detail the actual build process of our Ultimate Media PC. We'll also
be upgraded later. install all the requisite software and we'll report on the results of our benchmarking
The WD10000LSRTL (more easily referred to as the 1 TB Caviar which we'll do and testing. When that's all done we'll give the Ultimate Media PC away to one lucky
from here on) is a SATA drive, as are all modern hard drives on the market. We're reader.
opting for Western Digital here given the company's excellent reputation, extensive Visit www.hubcanada.com for details and to submit your entry. And good luck!
product line and low drive failure rates. By Andrew Moore-Crispin
This is a 7,200 RPM drive with a 32 MB cache with a transfer rate of up to 3 Gbps.
Since we'll be doing a lot of recording of live TV as well as transferring home videos
to the Media PC (or rather, we would were it not being given away), storage capacity
and transfer speed are of utmost importance. While opting for a solid-state drive
(SSD) might be tempting given the super-fast access times they offer, the cost-per-
GBis too high to be practical. And in a PC whose killer app is going to be recording
and playing back TV broadcasts along with home movies, feature films and more,
capacity is king.

Want to be part of an exciting and d ynamic industry?

Come join our team!

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Paper hubcanada.con*
TO 28 H U B : The Computer Paper - Toronto - November 2008 hubcanada.conlik
 Everybody's Got Something to Hide
Online anonymity: The sanctity of your online information
"If you haven't done anything wrong, you should have nothing to hide." This is the discovered online and brought to public light. The bugbears of prevailing public
commonplace refrain of those who stand opposed to the concept of privacy, if not opinion spawn witch hunts leading to all sorts of unintended consequences.
total anonymity in the wired world of today. I can't tell you how many times I've heard Post a photo of your child in the bathtub and perhaps you should get ready to be
these words spoken or read them in a forum when the topic swings to the latest charged with child pornography. Don't expect the paper to report on your
excess of government surveillance or lawsuits launched by the recording and film subsequently being found not guilty, should that verdict be reached.
industry associations, the RIM and MPAA respectively. So, how well does this Offer some controversial remarks in an online debate and watch your job prospects
argument stand up? What does the data you inevitably generate as you go about evaporate as prospective employers probe Google's long memory.
your daily life say about you and how, given that you are a law abiding citizen, is it Organize a peace rally online in support of ending an unpopular war and be
anything but innocuous? prepared — years later — to obtain the new security clearance required by your
Currently, the majority of this information resides in a variety of silos, each unaware employer should that rally have attracted some "people of interest."
of other troves of your personal data scattered about the digital domain.
However, in a previous article on the topic of Web 3.0 or the Semantic Web, I Staying off the radar
endeavoured to outline the nascent attempts to allow servers to talk to each other The opinion has-been proffered that total information awareness equals security. In
by employing a mechanism whereby they would understand the nature of the content fact, the opposite is more likely to be the case. Ask any survivor of the Japanese
they contained and the services they were each capable of delivering. This internment camps whether they thought the "nationality" question on the census
mechanism allows them to cooperate in achieving complex data mining tasks, seemed innocent enough when they were fulfilling their civic duty by completing it.
including building an accurate profile of you. The less your neighbour or government knows about the personal details of your life,
the better off you are for it. This is certainly just as true in western democracies as
Onthe list it is in totalitarian and communist states.
This profile is an ever-expanding electronic fingerprint which, as our immersion in the So, in this age of ubiquitous monitoring and data gathering how does one undertake
digital world becomes more complete daily, is startling in its breadth and scope. As online activities with some measure of anonymity? There are many tools at your
barriers to information sharing come tumbling down, the view inside your private life disposal to obfuscate your location and identity while online including the Electronic
becomes all-encompassing. Elements of traditional data recorded include the Frontier Foundation's Tor (www.torproject.org). For anonymous e-mailing check out
following: Purchasing history, credit rating, marital status, medical records, travel Mailinator (mailinator.com) or, for a completely separate and private version of the
history, driving record, banking activity, criminal record, and so on. Internet, why not give Freenet (freenetproject.org) a try. It's4ime to give Big Brother
However, new sources of available data, freely offered up by users online may and his nosy neighbour a little taste of myopia.
include: Opinions, political leanings, tastes in entertainment, sexual orientation, By Ray Richards
physical location, hobbies, religious beliefs, friends, etc.
Sowhat? Still have nothing to hide? Let's turn this argument on its head shall we? If I
were to say to you instead, "Would you agree that identity theft is a huge problem
and that you should take measures to protect yourself from it?" I'm certain you'd nod
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hubcanada HUB:TheComputerPaper - Toronto - November 2008 T O 29

 The Online Photo Album
Finding a needle in the photo sharing haystack
There sure are a lot of photos online, don't ya think? that have nothing to do with flowers. relatively new kid on the block. It has parlayed its
Unless you've spent the last few years off planet, you Other developers have developed new ways to search photo album software into a photo sharing site. One of
know that the Net has become a huge repository for on Flickr's tagging system. Tag Galaxy (taggalaxy.de) Picasa's recent developments is face-based tagging.
digital photographs. Flickr marked the two billionth uses a solar system metaphor to visually refine search The site uses clustering technology to group photos
photo posting more than a year ago. PhotoBucket's parameters. Typing in the tag "Canada" shows it as the with similar faces. This allows you to batch name them
image counter is ticking away at over six billion central "planet" with smaller satellite tags with labels rather than finding and naming them one at a time.
images. This embarrassment of photographic riches such as Toronto,-lakes, BC, and so on orbiting it. Click
can be a problem: How do you find exactly what you on one of the satellites and it is promoted to the Leaving your prints behind
are interested in seeing? central body position around which other satellites Google acquired another property called Panoramio,
At the most basic level every photo hosting site gives orbit. Successively clicking on the satellites refines the which specializes in geotagged photos. Geotagging
you a lot to choose from. Every time you go to your search, but if you click on the central body the search has become its own special interest group on many
favourite photo site you'll find a fresh batch of images. refinement ends and the interface begins to populate photo sites. For photographers, it helps to write
No heavy lifting required — just click and enjoy. Most the sphere with thumbnails. You can then spin the location information into the metadata fields of the
sites are designed to provide different images each "planet" to see all the thumbnails of the search result. images before uploading them to Panoramio — the
time you visit and the randomness of presentation is One product of Flickr's data mining efforts is the term database automatically scans the fields and maps the
also engaging — you never know what you might see "interestingness." Flickr describes interestingness as images, so uploading to the site isn't much different -
from one session to the next. "a ranking algorithm based on user behaviour around than uploading regular images. However, it's not
the photos." These could include factors such as the essential. You can also geotag after the fact, if you
Worth 1,000 (key)words number of comments a photo receives, how many happen to know the location coordinates for the photo,
Sites also use non-structured keywording so you can times it has been viewed or ranked as a favourite, etc. or if it is a landmark location that is easy to locate on
pick virtually any descriptive word that pops into your amap, such as the CN Tower.
head and use it to search for images: cities, countries, From interestingness to searchability As you might expect, Panoramio uses Google Earth
natural formations, colours, adjectives, months or Flickr Hive Mind (fiveprime.org/flickr_hvmnd.cgi) uses as its mapping engine, and so does Picasa. In addition
common objects. The traditional photographic genres interestingness along with tags, tag pairs, groups, to geotagged content, Picasa has a game on its home
like landscape or black-and-white work too. users and other data to mine interesting sets of page called Where in the World? that makes good use
Sounds good so far, but because of the sheer volume images. When I typed in "bridges" Hive Mind searched of Google Earth. It's simple but addictive — random
of images being posted even the most (seemingly) Flickr using a number of tags such as HDR (high photos appear next to a map of the world and you
unique or obscure keyword can produce hundreds or dynamic range) and architecture; tag pairs such as have to guess where the photo was taken. Flickr has a
thousands of hits. To improve search success, you bridge+night; and a number of users who presumably huge store of geotagged photos and uses Yahoo Maps
need to cast a net with a finer mesh and go beyond had made some reference to bridges in their as the underlying mapping engine, but I've seen one
the simple keyword search. descriptions or comments. Hive Mind is just one of developer who has figured out how to use Google
Flickr favours the term "tag" instead of keyword, and more than 100 tools that have been developed using Maps to map Flickr's geotagged images.
on its site you can refine your searches by using tag Flickr's Application Programming Interface. With Flickr and Panoramio, geotagged photos are
clusters. Clusters are groups of tags that most often Other sites are also using social networking presented differently — a map is the dominant feature
appear together. Implemented by Flickr a few years technology to refine searchability of images. Last year, with map pins or hot areas to indicate photos that can
ago, clusters can refine searches, but can also take for example, PhotoBucket added Digg-ability to its be viewed at various locations. However you can use
you off into a completely different direction. For photos, and now its popular images page lists images the same search tools available in the rest of the site,
example, one of the tags clustered around the primary having the most Diggs. from simple tags to data mining systems in order to
tag "flower" is macro; If you follow macro, you can While Yahoo-owned Flickr is today's dominant photo find images.
soon be looking at collections of close up photography sharing site, Picasa, now owned by Google, is a By David Tanaka

TAG GA
TORONTI
ARCHITECTURI
-1)0WITOW
-Cl

TO30 H U B : TheComputerPaper - Toronto - November 2008 hubcanada.con1

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 Online Dating
Looking for love in all the virtual places
Whoamong us can honestly say they envision the Indeed, when you consider the alternatives and the lucky guys or gals who simply ooze self-confidence,
conclusion of a relationship when they embark into other potential scenarios (see above), online dating you'll likely find it easier to approach really gorgeous
one? While the joy of discovery is still so fresh, when may be one of the best options today — especially for people online than on the street. There's just
the hours between each date seem to stretch into those too old for nightclubs but far too young to give something about the buffer of the Internet that makes
days, when that chemical connection is so strong that up on love. the whole process less intimidating.
every shared experience throws you into a state of Before you mock the idea entirely, consider the
euphoria, how can you possibly think of that time when following: Going fishin'
you might separate...forever? Online dating goes a long way toward reducing Of course, online dating is not without its pitfalls,
Yet the statistics are far from upbeat. Give or take a geographical barriers. In the "real" world, chances are arguably the most important being the simple yet
few percentage points, one of every two marriages in your sphere of interaction extends just a few miles. undeniable fact that not all sites are equal. Indeed,
Canada will end prematurely. So while it may be true Online, you can meet someone from thirty or forty while some online dating services deliver tremendous
that nobody gets married to get divorced, half of us do miles away jyst as easily as people from your own bang for the buck and are totally and completely above
end up that way, against our best efforts. neighbourhood. Granted, you may want to think twice reproach, others are... substantially less impressive.
This may not be particularly problematic for younger before responding to that suspiciously lusty note from Certainly there's no shortage of alternatives. One of
guys and gals, who gravitate in circles where the a gorgeous 25-year-old "supermodel" situated in some the most popular choices in this country is eHarmony
majority of their friends and associates are still single, unpronounceable third-world country, but it generally (www.eharmony.ca), a matchmaking service that's both
and are fairly likely to spend a chunk of their social goes without saying that your chances of meeting the comparatively pricey and comparatively strict. It does
time in bars and clubs that cater to the under-30 right person are that much more enhanced when your not cater to gay individuals, it won't help you if you're
crowd. But what about those of us over the age of 30? horizons are broadened. merely separated" (you must be legally single) and it
Or 40? Or 50, for that matter? What do we do when When you meet someone online, you'll have at least discourages open, unsolicited communication between
we're on the prowl? some idea in advance as to what makes them tick. Are its members. Instead, eHarmony uses a series of
Wecould hang out with our married friends, hoping - they a soft-hearted romantic or a party animal? Do they parameters and personality traits to match you with
against hope they might finally invite some other single enjoy extreme sports or extreme antique hunting? Are others, then passes the results on to you and allows
person along, but more likely will end up watching they happy and confident with themselves, or do they interaction from there.
rented movies and playing boring board games. still carry a crazed obsession for their most recent Substantially different is Plenty of Fish
Wecould hit the neighbourhood pub, where we might, partner that manifests itself in daily stalking rituals? (www.plentyoffish.com). The most important distinction
if we're really lucky, find that perfect match amongst Unlike hockey rink hot dogs, online dating sites between Plenty of Fish and eHarmony is price — the
the usual gaggle of ne'er-do-wells and town drunks. theoretically contain no filler. Everyone who signs up is former is completely free. And while that's great news
Heck, we could even become a regular at the local there for one reason — to meet Mr. or Ms. Right. The for those of us who don't believe in sinking mega-
produce store, pathetically hoping we might same cannot be said for the shopping mall. Or the dollars into the search for our perfect mate, the
inadvertently touch hands with our dream spouse office. Or even the local watering hole, where you're flipside is that a freebie site encourages those who
whilst sorting through the over-ripe tomatoes. more apt to find three-sheets-to-the-wind Karaoke might... exaggerate the truth. Still, a no-charge service
hacks than a future wife or husband. that promotes freedom of interaction between
Abrave new world For most of us, it's simply easier to take that tentative members, doesn't restrict on the basis of sexual
Or we could go online. Once regardedas a last resort first step, concoct a good opening line, and deal with preference or marital status, and is based right here in
for total losers fearful of showing theirface in the real possible rejection when we're not in a face-to-face Canada (Vancouver, to be exact) is a pretty good thing.
world, online dating sites have come a long way. situation. Furthermore, unless you're one of those Lavalife (www.lavalife.com) is a sophisticated site that

TO 32 H U B : The Computer Paper - Toronto - November 2008 hubcanada.conill

 offers its members perks such as integrated instant messaging; webeam
support, a variety of discussion forums, and three distinct "communities" It wasn't just the circa-1970s Harley tank top. Or the tattoos. Or the pronounced
-(Dating, Relationship, and Intimate). Lavalife charges for its service, but those belly, swinging to and fro below the beltline. It wasn't the bigoted attitude that
charges aren't as steep as some other sites and they do serve to reduce the immediately conjured up memories of Archie Bunker at his worst or even that she'd
number of insincere participants. stretched the truth substantially about her age.
Billing itself as Canada's Speed Dating Service, 25dates.com No, it wasn't any of the above. It was that this woman had somehow made it through
(www.25dates.com) intends to bring you together for a series of three-minute the screening procedure. She'd painted a picture of sweetness and femininity in her
encounters with up to twenty-five potential suitors. The downside? If twenty-five online bio. She'd peppered her profile with ancient photographs that gave no
consecutive three-minute dates doesn't faze you, maybe geographical limitations indication of her current condition. And during each and every phone call, she'd
will. After all, what are the chances of even finding twenty-five other singles in spoken without the grating ignorance that now seemed so obvious.
your age bracket when you live in Milk River, Alberta?
If, conversely, you reside in the city and have money to burn, Its Just Lunch Laugh in the face of danger
(www.itsjustlunch.com) will not only act as a matchmaking service, but,also set Ultimately, she and her beastly automobile would disappear into the night, and no real
you and your date up at a top-notch restaurant —thus eliminating safety harm was done. Yet the lesson had been learned. Trust no one. It's a lesson that
concerns. everyone considering the online dating world should remember.
Don't, for example, rely on e-mails and photos as reliable precursors to a first date.
Prepare thyself Instead, get the phone number of your prospective suitor and really talk it up. Are
There are, literally, dozens more online dating sites from which to choose. they bitter over past romances? Are they plagued by verbal quirks that'll drive you
Unfortunately, many of them are not without issues.. Some, for example, have crazy over the long haul? Do they like to laugh, or are they too serious for their own
been known to send false, inappropriate, or geographically ridiculous matchups. good?
The key is to know in advance what you're getting into. Check the membership Ask them a few hard-hitting questions — they shouldn't mind at all if they have
numbers — particularly "active" members — and see how many are situated nothing to hide. And, if you're pursuing a relationship rather than a one-off
within a reasonable distance. Decide if you prefer sites that offer unfettered e- rendezvous, keep the lines of communication open for a week or more before
mail and chat capabilities, and act accordingly. Google your favourite sites for meeting to determine if the object of your desire is just as interested in a future.
professional reviews and user opinions. Pick a busy, public location for that first get-together, take a cell phone along with
Look carefully at the membership small print and make sure you're not on the you, and let a few friends know where you're going — and whom you're meeting. And
hook for more money than you can afford or a longer time period than you when you arrive, try your best to relax and have fun. Remember, one date isn't really
want. If possible, sign up for a freebie trial or a reduced-privilege membership a big deal in the grand scheme of things. There's always plenty more fish in the online
and look carefully at both the demographics and the quality of the members. dating sea.
Ultimately, weed out the sites that don't work for you and experiment with a By Gord Goble
trial membership at the sites you like. It won't take long to recognize which
service you most enjoy frequenting.
But even the best site is no guarantee of a successful dating experience. Your
humble writer has dedicated portions of 2008, urn... researching various sites
and delving into the world of online dating after spending much of his adult life
in a long-term relationship, and can attest to the uncertainty of the process.
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 Gigabyte GA-MA790 GP-D S4H
Gigabyte GA-MA790GPOS4H
Proving that AMD still has muscle to flex
GA-PAA790GP-DS4H motherboard performance gets an increase of as much as 10 per cent, further stretching the gap
Gigabyte - 5 1 7 9 www.giga-byte.com between competitors' onboard graphics offerings.

Pros: Cons: Rounding out the set

Great Integrated graphics performance NoDDR3 version Joining AMD's 790GX northbridge is their equally outgoing SB750 southbridge.
Hybrid and CrossfireX support CurrentAMD CPUs are slightly less Typically the southbridge is responsible for all of the I/O functions of the chipset —
Decent price powerful than Intel's the slower PCIe lanes, SATA ports, integrated audio, networking, the USB and
FireWire ports, etc.
Ever since the introduction of the Core Duo, Intel has been steadily eating away at In the past, AMD's southbridges were, for lack of a better word, weak.
the ground AMD worked so hard to gain with their Athlon line of processors. It's a Compromises were made that the other chipset manufacturers had no problems
shame, too, because it's not that AMD's latest Phenom processors aren't decent achieving, which put AMD at a disadvantage. Fortunately the SB750 has everything
enough but rather that Intel has really stepped up its game. Luckily AMD has we've come to expect from a chipset released this cycle, so when buddied-up with
continued to fight the good fight, releasing plenty of intriguing products in order to the 790GX the two make quite a team.
lure back all those AthlOn XP users of a few years ago. Aside from all the major mainstays like 12 USB 2.0 ports, six SATA ports, a
Ironically, in the chipset departmentAMD has experienced quite a bit of growth in FireWire Port and ALC889A HD audio codec, the SB750 is poised to give AMD's
the past couple of years due to its acquisition of graphics chip designer, ATI. It's no Phenom processors an additional overclocking boost (if you choose to overclock,
surprise that their integrated graphics solutions are some of the best available and that is). Included in the southbridge is AMD's Embedded Controller for AMD
are also offered at surprisingly competitive prices. As you'll find out in this review of OverDrive and Advanced Clock Calibration (thankfully dubbed EC-AOD-ACC).
Gigabyte's GA-MA790GP-DS4H, their latest 790GX chipset is no exception.
Maximum OverDrive
The graphics in the 790GX Linking up with the SB750's EC-AOD-ACC is AMD's OverDrive software. This
At the heart of the MA790GP-DS4H is the 790GX northbridge, whose claim to fame software suite can be accessed through the OS to not only overclock with the click
is an integrated DirectXlO, Shader Model 4.0 capable Radeon HD3300. The Radeon of a mouse, but also to monitor all of your system's settings (voltages,
HD3300 is trumped only by the lengths at which Gigabyte has stretched the GPU to temperatures, etc). They've also included an automated stress testing application to
reach its maximum potential. This is the first integrated graphics processor I have ensure system stability when tweaking.
seen that has not only a standard 15-pin VGAand DVI connector but also has an The OverDrive software is so straightforward that it seems as if AMD is trying to
HDMI port built directly into the motherboard's rear I/O panel (our Ultimate Media PC make a point of being overclocker friendly... In fact, I'm almost convinced that AMD
motherboard, the Intel DG45ID features a similar HDMI port, though they are rare. - is encouraging users to try tweaking their system as the software is easy enough for
ed). Gigabyte has gone ahead and made sure the connector itself adheres to the even entry-level users to understand and use.
latest HDMI 1.3 certification in order to deliver the highest available digital audio and Not to be outdone by AMD, Gigabyte has also put their own personal spin on the
video signal as well. GA-MA/90GP-DS4H. The wonderful Ultra Durable 2 makes its return, so the
The MA790GP-DS4H is compatible with two different multi-GPU graphics card improvements made to the SB750 southbridge for stability are compounded further
configurations by delivering both ATI's Hybrid Graphics and traditional CrossfireX with all-solid capacitors and sturdy design. Gigabyte has also gone along and
support. Hybrid Graphics is essentially a CrossFire setup that utilizes the onboard attached all-copper passive heatsinks to cool potentially vulnerable components. The
Radeon HD3300 as one of the two cards in the setup. If, of course, you'd rather intention of Ultra Durable 2 is to increase system stability and component longevity
have the best of the best, there are also two full-sized, PCIe 2.0 x16 slots on the in even the most grueling conditions.
motherboard as well. This makes upgrading from entry-level all the way up to ultra
high-end feasible on the MA790GP-DS4H — everything from using the included IGP, The Gigabyte touch
to having two 4870 X2s (for nearly five teraflops of graphics-pushing power) is Gigabyte's DualBIOS has also been added to the MA790GP-DS4H, so you needn't
possible. fear a failed flash attempt. Generally speaking the average user won't update their
Another cool graphics-related feature of the MA790GP-DS4H is the inclusion of 128 BIOS since an improper flash will leave you with a dead motherboard. But with
MB of blazingly fast 1333 MHz DDR3 used as SidePort memory. Whereas most DualBIOS you have no need to worry as there are two physically separate BIOS chips
integrated graphics solutions borrow memory from the system RAM (often referred on the motherboard. If one craps out the other automatically kicks in, avoiding the
to as "shared memory" and is usually adjustable in the BIOS), Gigabyte has decided catastrophe altogether.
to use this additional 128 MB to try and eliminate the memory bottleneck associated Another perk that Gigabyte threw in was high quality audio in the form of Dolby
with sharing slower system RAM. With this SidePort memory, the integrated graphics Home Theatre with support for 7.1 audio channels as well as two additional
independent stereo channels. Not only is the audio quality better than the standard,
but Dolby Home Theatre certification requires that the device completely supports
Blu-ray lossless audio as well. When you consider the motherboard's built-in HDMI
port, the MA790GP-DS4H could make for one heck of a home theatre PC.

Conclusion.
Supporting all AM2 and AM2+ processors (even up to a whopping 140 watts),
having Hypertransport 3.0, and support for DD2 1066 MHz (1333 MHz unofficially)
means the Gigabyte GA-MA790GP-DS4H should be a viable option for quite a while.
Tack on the incredible room for graphics card expandability and this board has quite
a bit of futureproofing up its sleeve. With that said, the board's highlight feature, its
integrated graphics, is currently the best available, so if you choose to go without
discrete graphics hardware you'll still be able to play the latest HD multimedia and
games. The GA-MA790GP-D.S4H is another reason why we shouldn't completely
count out AMD.
By Mike Palermo

TO 34 H U B : The Computer Paper - Toronto - November 2008 hubcanada.conlik

 Power Pellets: Top 10 PC Game Studios
These development companies hold the fragile future of PC gaming in their collective hands

The PC used to be the platform of choice for players interested in experiencing the What they're doing: Creating new PC-exclusive games Space Siege and Demigod
latest and most advanced role-playing games, first-person shooters, and real-time Gas Powered Games' epic Dungeon Siege RPGs have proven worthy competition to
strategy games. However, the last decade has seen a steady stream of talented PC Diablo in the dungeon crawling category, but the Redmond-based studio is branching
game development studios redistributing their talents and energies to the world of out with the upcoming PC-only games Space Siege (a sci-fi themed action RPG) and
console gaming. While companies like BioWare (Neverwinter Nights), Epic Games Demigod (an RPG/RTS hybrid).
(Unreal), and DICE (Battlefield) continue to make PC titles, their focus has undeniably
shifted toward the more lucrative Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 markets. A.C.E.S. (subdivision of Microsoft Game Studios)
But it isn't all doom and gloom for hardcore PC garners. There are several What they've done: The Microsoft Flight Simulator games
developers that remain quite dedicated to the Windows platform. Ten of them are What they're doing: Developing MSFS 11
listed below, along with the means by which they will contribute to the PC gaming Among the longest running active game franchises (the first edition was made back
industry in the near future. in 1977), the Flight Simulator games have a massive global following, a magazine
dedicated to the franchise, and scores of developers creating new add-on content.
Blizzard Entertainment As long as the Windows platform exists, new Flight Simulator games will be made.
What they've done: The Diablo games, StarCraft, World of Warcraft
What they're doing: Developing Diablo 3, StarCraft 2, content for World of Warcraft Crytek
Not much explanation required here. Blizzard made one of the most profitable PC What they've done: Far Cry, Crysis, the CryENGINEs
video games of all time in making World of Warcraft. What's more, they remain What they're doing: Marketing CryENGINE 2
completely focused on PC gaming. Legions of players are dying to get their fingers Crytek has carved out a reputation for creating the most technologically
on the latest Windows-exclusive Diablo and StarCraft games. sophisticated games around, but their main contribution to PC gaming has been the
CryENGINE, the software that churns out the amazing graphics seen in their games.
Gas Powered Games Crytek is currently trying to license CryENGINE 2 — which powers the acclaimed
What they've done: The Dungeon Siege series, Supreme Commander Crysis franchise — to other developers.

hubcanada .corrilt HUB:The Computer Paper - Toronto - November 2008 TO 35

The Creative Assembly What they're doing: Developing supplementary content for Spore
What they've done: The Total War games The Sims games are second only to Nintendo's Mario games in total number of
What they're doing: Developing Empire: Total War, Stormrise franchise units sold, and they're still going strong. However, the recently released
This U.K.-based studio has used its Total War franchise to deliver some of the most evolution simulator Spore w h i c h happens to be PC-only (not counting a dumbed-
epic and compelling real-time strategy games of the last decade, and will soon be down version available for the Nintendo DS) — has given the company's brass a new
adding a fresh entry in the form of the American revolution-themed Empire: Total focus.
War, which is set for release early next year. Also watch for Stormrise, an original
post-apocalyptic RTS game. Turbine Inc.
What they've done: Dungeons & Dragons Online, The Lord of the Rings Online, the
Firaxis Games Asheron's Call games
What they've done: Anything preceded by Sid Meier's name What they're doing: Developing new content for Lord of the Rings Online
What they're doing: It's unknown for now, but Civilization V is a. pretty good bet With three successful MMORPG frandhises under their belts, Turbine is a force to be
Firaxis has dabbled in console gaming over the years, but they always come back to reckoned with in online gaming. Their titles may not have the same user base as
Windows — and with good reason. The PC is still the only platform that facilitates World of Warcraft, but they're nonetheless quite polished and critically adored. Mines
the sort of sophisticated but accessible interface necessary to let players dig deeply of Moria, a new expansion to Lord of the Rings Online, is set to hit shelves Nov. 18.
into Firaxis' particular brand of turn-based strategy.
Relic Entertainment'
Valve Corp. What they've done: Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of ItVar, Company of Heroes
What they've done: The Half-Life games, the Steam digital distribution platform What they're doing: Developing Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 2, Company of
What they're doing: Refining Steam, creating a new Half-Life 2 episode Heroes Online
Nowadays, Valve releases most of their games on consoles as well as PC. However, ATHQ subsidiary based in Vancouver, Relic delivered one of the most engaging
the company's real value to the PC gaming community is Steam, a digital distribution action/strategy games in recent years in the WWII-themed Company of Heroes.
system that hosts 440 games, has some 15 million active users, and was recently They're currently working on an online edition for the booming Asian market, as well
rumoured to have caught a longing gaze from Google. as a sequel to the successful Warhammer series of sci-fi RTS games.
By Chad Sapieha
Maxis Software
What they've done: The Sims games, Spore

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 The Last Byt
The Social Net @ work
Facebook as a business app? What next, Macs based marketing, mobile (smartphone) marketing, social networking sites and
on the corporate desktop? direct-to-purchaser news releases.
I jest of course; both are today's realities — What the board is underlining is something some businesses have already
not necessarily mainstream but realities understood and implemented. As a tech writer I get a steady stream of e-mail from
nonetheless. The Social Net is dressing up businesses inviting me to taste this or that new service they provide on the Net.
for work. Being also. involved ih publishing, I have a higher interest in blurbs related to that
If you look at the recent elections here and in industry. Book publisher O'Reilly comes to mind as a paper-bound company that
the US, you'll see the footprint of social has transformed itself and is now fully engaged on the Net.
networking everywhere. Candidates without Sure you can buy books online from O'Reilly's site, but that's not necessarily the
blogs risk being perceived as "out of it." most compelling draw, nor the biggest potential revenue stream. O'Reilly's tech
Yet sometimes it backfires, as when a couple books, such as the In a Nutshell series are popular and cover a broad range of
of candidates in Canada dropped out because subjects.
of inflammatory blog posts they made a year But rather than just selling the books, O'Reilly allows you to access them through a
or two earlier. Oops. Agenda item for the next caucus meeting: On the Net, smart- fee-based service called Safari Books Online. The company's School of Technology
ass vitriol lasts forever. offers self-paced courses with credit towards a certificate from the University of
South of the border headlines tittered that the Obama people Twittered — a sure Illinois that further support its book business.
sign that they were "with it." And everywhere, YouTube was both political stump and O'Reilly has also moved into the tech conference business, hosting conferences on
parody extraordinaire. many technology topics that cover the same subjects as the books they sell,
As an event concentrated in time, the elections provide lab-like conditions to study including the Web 2.0 conferences since 2004. (O'Reilly Media Inc. CEO Tim
the impact of social networking on stimulating discussion as well as influencing and O'Reilly is also often credited with introducing the term Web 2.0)
tracking opinion. There will no doubt be many doctoral theses written on the impact OK, I don't want to turn this into a shill for O'Reilly, but I know people working in
of the blog sphere on the 2008 elections or other Web 2.0 illuminations on the other book publishing companies and their play towards this online ecology and
entrails of the elections past. digital economy are nowhere near as evolved.
In business the short-term intensity of an election campaign is missing, but It's a common problem with all businesses whose playing field has been turned
companies are attracted to these new technologies for many of the same reasons: upside down because of the force of the Net. If you look at the Conference Board's
targeted impact. It's the new sign of business savvy to have execs post blogs on five web-based strategies you'll see commonalities with the things that O'Reilly
the corporate website or to pitch on YouTube. has implemented.
At the beginning of October the Conference Board of Canada announced its report Some will get it and grow, some won't.
on business and the Social Net. In Customers and the Web: Web-Based Solutions
That Improve Customer Acquisition, Loyalty and Retention, the Conference Board Until next time,
presents five web-based strategies for improving the stickiness between companies David Tanaka
and their customers.
The magic five on the Conference Board list are blogging, podcast and webcast-

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