Table of contents for September 2017 in Tech Advisor

It’s surprising that Alienware doesn’t already have a lengthy lineup of peripherals. Sure, there are other companies that only make boutique PCs – Origin, Falcon Northwest – but they seem content being known for their niche. Alienware’s always had such a distinctive aesthetic, and aimed at mainstream appeal. So the question in our mind, as Alienware unveils its AW568 Advanced and AW768 Pro keyboards and AW558 Advanced and AW598 Elite mice, is: “What took so long?” Not that Alienware hasn’t tried before – if you dig through the depths of the Internet you’ll find reference to the TactX, a keyboard Alienware sold for a hot minute around 2010. It’s nowhere to be found on Alienware’s site nowadays though, with Roccat the preferred peripherals partner for the last little bit. We’ll…

Is your computer running slower than usual? Are you getting lots of pop-ups? Have you seen other weird problems crop up? If so, your PC might be infected with a virus, spyware, or other malware – even if you have an antivirus program installed. Though other problems such as hardware issues can produce similarly annoying symptoms, it’s best to check for malware if your PC is acting up and we’ll show you how to do it yourself. Step 1: Enter Safe Mode Before you do anything, you need to disconnect your PC from the Internet, and don’t use it until you’re ready to clean your PC. This can help prevent the malware from spreading and/or leaking your private data. If you think your PC may have a malware infection, boot…

One of the many unsung features of the Steam desktop gaming client is that family members and friends can use it to simulate a shared gaming console. I’m not talking hardware here, but the ability for everyone to play the same games regardless of whether they paid for the right to play it. The feature is called Steam Family Library Sharing, and when it’s set up it allows you to share games from your account library with family members and vice versa. Before you get started, every account that wants to use family sharing must first have Steam Guard enabled, which is Steam’s two-factor verification security feature. Once you’ve met that prerequisite, click on Steam > Settings, and when the Settings window opens select Family from the left-hand navigation column.…

It’s not just AMD which hopes its Epyc server processor will break Intel’s stranglehold on the data-centre chip market. Enterprise users, web hosting companies and hyperscale cloud providers all want competition and choice in server chips to curb costs and fuel innovation. “OEMs have been looking for an alternative to Intel for a long time, and with Intel having 98 percent market share I can say that there’s absolutely a need, from the OEM point of view and the channel point of view,” said Patrick Moorhead, principal at Moor Insights & Strategy. Judging from specs, performance benchmarks and memory features as well as the supporting voices from software and hardware makers in the data centre ecosystem, Epyc has the best shot of any chip to hit the market in years…

After nearly 20 years as a Mac user, I’m switching to a Windows PC. Despair drove me to switch from a Mac to a PC. I’ve used Apple computers since college, starting with a Apple Mac Classic II in a computer lab. It had a low-resolution monochrome display. And a floppy drive. Soon I bought a used PowerBook 100. From then on, I was committed, steadily working my way through PowerBooks, iBooks, MacBooks, a MacBook Air and MacBook Pros. Fast-forward to now: I’ve come to rely heavily on Apple-exclusive software that syncs data with my iPad Pro, iPhone SE and my current computer – a 13in 2015 MacBook Pro Retina with 8GB of RAM, a 2.9GHz Intel Core i5 processor, and a 512GB SSD. My 400-film and 11,000-media collection lives…

A couple of months ago, I took a good, hard look at my dual-screen setup and thought maybe I should get another monitor. A bigger monitor. Then, after an hour or two of researching 27in monitors online, I walked into my living room and was struck with a brilliant idea: maybe, instead of purchasing an entirely new monitor, I should just move my 32in HDTV into my office and call it a day. Bigger is better, you know, and this way I wouldn’t have to drop a couple hundred pounds on a new piece of equipment. But just because HDTVs look a lot like computer monitors doesn’t mean they can replace them. Or does it? Here’s what you need to know if you’re thinking about sticking an HDTV on your…

With Internet traffic set to triple over the next five years or so, according to recent estimates from Nokia and Cisco Systems, Nokia thinks the time is right for a new range of high-end routers that can boost core capacity by a factor of six – and even help 10-year-old devices to double their capacity. Nokia predicts that by 2022, total Internet traffic will reach 330 exabytes per month. (That’s 330 million terabytes). For its part, Cisco forecasts it will grow at 24 percent per year from a base of 96 exabytes per month in 2016 to 278 exabytes per month in 2021. That traffic growth will be driven by three things, according to Nokia: cloud services, 5G mobile networks, and the Internet of Things. In a recent report on…

Ransomware doesn’t sneak into your PC like ordinary malware. It bursts in, points a gun at your data, and screams for cash. And if you don’t learn to defend yourself, it could happen again and again, as the Petya (or NotPetya) outbreak is demonstrating. A form of ransomware similar to a piece of malware called Petya has attacked the Ukraine and other sites around the globe, encrypting files until a ransom has been paid. Researchers, though, have moved quickly to block the spread of the ransomware, also known as Petrwrap, exPetr, Petna and SortaPetya. There’s no real way to remove the Petya ransomware, but researchers have come up with a way to ‘immunize’ your PC, and malware companies are already working to block it. Petya is the second major ransomware…

There’s nothing handier than turning one of your devices into a mobile hotspot so that all your gadgets can get on the Internet when a router isn’t available. Usually when it comes down to sharing an Internet connection, it’s your phone or tablet that does the heavy lifting. But there are times when your PC could end up being the device of choice. If, for example, you’re on hotel Wi-Fi. Or say you want to share your Wi-Fi at home, but you don’t want to share your network password and your router doesn’t have a guest mode. Those are just two possible scenarios that you might run into from time to time. Sharing your PC’s Internet connection is easy in Windows 10. The feature allows up to eight devices to…