Great games

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Far Cry 3
I've been playing some great games recently. Since Christmas, Far Cry 3 has been a fun return to the lush tropical island with plenty to shoot at, some wonderful graphics, a few puzzles and tasks and a good story.

Battlefield 3
I still keep going back to this game for some armoured action. Again great graphics and trying to attain the next rank gives the game lasting appeal. Provided that you don't die too often!

Borderlands 2
I played this game a lot before Christmas and still keep going back to it since then. Again the story line keeps dragging you back to the sequel of one of my all time favourite games. It was great to be back in Pandora and meeting Claptrap again.

The value for money that these quality games offer is amazing. All well produced and scripted. Fantastically modeled locations shown in the highest graphics quality. No bugs and crashes to spoil the action. Hours of play and virtual escapism. I suppose some people just play for a couple of days, finish the plot and then go onto the next purchase. It takes me months to get tired or complete these games. And not because I get stuck too often. The Tequila Sunrise outpost in Far Cry 3 frustrated me a lot until I learnt to place C4 explosive booby traps.

I know piracy is a problem with gaming but I usually buy the games that I want and are put off by excessive DRM on games like the latest SimCity. There are plenty of other quality games to play.

Windows 8 Start Menu

Coming to the rescue of the awful Windows 8 Start Menu is this neat, free utility from IObit. I've tested it on my only Windows 8 system and it works really well.

It forces the system to boot into the normal (Windows 7) desktop and disables the usual Start Menu and Charms bar. It adds all your program groups together with usual access to Documents, Pictures, Control Panel, etc.

Thank you IObit for providing this essential Windows 8 utility. Download from www.iobit.com/iobitstartmenu8

Another DELL terrific PC

I've been selling DELL computers for over 10 years now. I've bought most models and every now and again I find a really great, value for money, well built computer. Just this month, I've bought my first DELL Vostro 270s small desktop and it is a real cracker. Neat and understated, quiet yet powerful with the very latest technology at a reasonable price.

As the trend is for computers to get smaller, DELL have designed this really compact unit which contains everything that most customers will require. It comes standard with Intel's latest third generation Core i3 or i5 CPUs, USB 3 sockets, HDMI connector for HTPC use, an integrated media card reader, WiFi card included, etc. At the moment you can get it with Windows 7 Professional but I doubt that this will last too much longer before we are forced into the Windows 8 disaster. Also, because of the small form factor upgrade-ability is somewhat limited and the 220W power supply won't support any 3D gaming graphics cards.

Well done to DELL in designing and manufacturing this little beauty. I'm sure I will be recommending and selling many of these perfect PCs in the near future.

Starting the New Year

For me, a good way to start the New Year is with a new watch. I purchased my new Seiko Chronograph SSB037P1 in November from Amazon for just £48. It was reduced to £60 for a couple of days and I also used a 20% off clothing coupon. A bargain!

It is an impressive timepiece with a big, modern look. I prefer the stainless steel watch band as I always have trouble replacing the leather ones. The strap needed a slight adjustment which was a bit tricky and fiddly. A small hammer helped.

I probably won't use the stopwatch too often, but it is good to have and gives the chronograph a professional look. For a watch that has a recommended retail price between £200 to £250 (depending on where you look) it is a great purchase and a stylish start to the New Year.

Hits and misses of 2012

Looking back on this year there have been a number of success stories and a couple of real blunders. On a personal level the birth of my first grand-daughter and the 1st birthday of my grandson stand out as really momentous occasions. A great family holiday in Spain will also be remembered with fondness.

In technology, the rise of the tablet to the detriment of desktops, laptops and the complete decimation of netbooks is a major change in the way people want to access the Internet and their data. Tablets are for the future and Apple and Android-based devices reflect a new effective IT force. The experience I've had with my own Google Nexus 7 tablet has shown me the way and I've been so impressed with it especially at just a relatively low cost. You can even play some great, addictive games on it!

The recent improvement in my broadband speed by Virgin Media must also go as plus for 2012. Playing multiplayer games benefit hugely from this as well as the increasingly frequent large downloads.

One of those large downloads was the software disaster of Windows 8, which I'm now being forced to sell from DELL in collaboration with Microsoft. It will surely be viewed as the turning point in Windows operating systems. I do have a system running Windows 8 for testing and support purposes but I'm still not happy with it and neither are my customers.

My own computers have not been upgraded at all this year, not even my gaming system. I suppose the economic downturn has contributed to this as well as the level of existing performance is sufficient for my purposes. My reaction times are also getting slower!

Thank you Virgin Media

My broadband download speed has tripled! Virgin Media upgraded my connection last month and improved by 10Mbps connection to 30Mbps. This greatly reduces download times, games pings and latency. What a bonus! And it didn't cost me a penny more.

Also, they sent me a Virgin Media Super Hub for free as well. This is a quality bit of kit manufactured by Netgear with Wireless N networking and a Gigabit Ethernet switch included. This will boost any LAN. It is an elegant device which only need one mains power connection and integrates all the home networking requirements. It was easy to install and really works well. Thorougly recommended.

Being responsive

I'd acquired a four year old DELL Vostro 200s desktop with an Intel Core 2 E4600 2.4Ghz processor, 2Gb DDR2 memory, 80Gb hard disk drive and integrated graphics running Vista Home Premium. A nice little system that unfortunately was one of those that whatever and whenever you clicked on something it took an age to respond with a new window or application starting up, etc. It obviously needed a mid-life upgrade to save it being disassembled for spares.

As it was a branded system, overclocking the CPU was not an option, so I tried replacing the memory with 4Gb faster memory. No difference was perceived or benchmarked. Adding a relatively new graphics card also had similar non-results. Then I saw an offer last weekend for a relatively cheap but slow SanDisk 128Gb SSD for just £50. Not an Extreme or Ultra just a basic SSD.

A quick clone of the hard disk to the SSD and the system rebooted a lot quicker. Now this is to be expected and is often used as an example of why you should buy an SSD. For me it is not so important as I typically only start a PC once a day and a few seconds here or there doesn't seem that important. What is important is when you click on an icon, I expect to see the system respond with a new window filled with information, an application splash screen, a positive message, etc. Click on another icon and the same should happen immediately. Put the cursor somewhere and type and I expect to see the letters appear as I type not a few seconds later. That is being responsive.

Needless to say, that is what this humble little system did. Yes, I benchmarked the file data bandwidth to be over four times faster, and the overall PCmark shows more that a 50% increase, but the responsiveness improvement was fantastic. And the system was an awful lot quieter too! Also, if you turned off automatic defragmentation the little disk light doesn't keep flashing.

I've decided to keep this little system and upgrade it to Windows 8 when it's released later this month to see if it finally is any good at all on the desktop.