How to Choose the Best Case for Your PC Build

A computer case

One of the last components most people think about when building a computer is the case in which it will reside. That's because one needs to have a general idea of what PC components are going to be used to actually build the PC in order to get a case that fits. However, building a computer cannot really get going without the case so its importance cannot be overstated.

Although the case is the least technical component of any PC build, which may make it appear to be the easiest part to choose, it is more than just a box into which all the other components are placed. There are several things to consider when choosing a PC case, and with the plethora of PC cases out there, this can make the PC case buying decision a difficult one. One of the ways to decide which case is right for you is to establish the criteria, in order of importance, that the new case should conform to.

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How to Choose the Best Power Supply for Your PC Build

Computer PSU

Choosing a power supply for a gaming PC or high-end desktop (HEDT) computer may seem straightforward enough, but modern power supplies today have multiple specifications that need to be carefully checked to ensure compatibility with the computer system under construction. In this article, we examine the important characteristics of a power supply unit (PSU) and demonstrate how to go about choosing the best power supply for your personal computer (PC) building project.

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Why You Should (not) Use ManageWP’s Local Sync

WordPress logo on an iPad

One of the ways website creators produce content for their websites is to first use a staging environment to make that content before deploying the finished post or page to a live website. There are a couple of different ways to set up a 'staging' environment. One option is to use a bespoke facility on the webserver that hosts the live website, or alternatively, a 'staging' environment can be hosted locally on one's own 'server' in the form of a MAMP or XAMPP installation on a personal computer.

From an efficiency standpoint, it is usually better to use the bespoke staging environment provided by the live website host as changes can usually be deployed to the live environment relatively easily. However, from a security perspective, having a local copy of one's website that has never been exposed to the internet can be very useful. If a live website is ever compromised with malware and needs to be replaced with a clean copy, the local copy of the web property can often be used to replace the infected one. This makes the troublesome process of searching through an infected website for hidden malware unnecessary, although you still have to work out how the website was hacked in the first place to patch any vulnerability.

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How to Customise Tables in TablePress

When building a website, one often needs to display data in the form of a table. One very popular (and free!) WordPress plugin that many-a-webmaster uses today is TablePress by Tobias Bäthge.  

TablePress Logo

TablePress is an excellent plugin and in its default configuration can generate tables that often need little or no modification. However, sometimes tables need to be customised to fit the data they are displaying or the website they are being displayed on, and TablePress is often flexible enough to accommodate many of these bespoke needs. 

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Gravity Sketch Tool Belt: The Normals Tool

Gravity Sketch is an excellent virtual reality 3D sketching and modelling application that continues to be developed apace with new updates to its interface regularly. As a result of this heady momentum, new tools and features are appearing all the time and sometimes it can be a little unclear initially as to how they should be used. One such tool is the first tool in the Gravity Sketch Tool Belt as its layout currently stands: the Normals tool.

The Normals tool in the Gravity Sketch Tool Belt

What is this tool in the Gravity Sketch Tool Belt?

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How to turn on the Tool Belt in Gravity Sketch

One of the awesome productivity tools to use in Virtual Reality is the 3D modelling app, Gravity Sketch, which can be used to design all sorts of things right within VR. The user interface on Gravity Sketch is excellent but the app is still very much a 'work-in-progress' so controls and settings are often updated, moved around or adjusted in an effort to optimise usability.

The Gravity Sketch Tool Belt

The Gravity Sketch Tool Belt

One such control interface, the 'Tool Belt', houses specialist tools such as the tape measure and the precise movement tools which are critical when designing objects that are destined for becoming real products. Although Gravity Sketch is not (yet) an app that is ideal for working in CAD or for creating models for 3D printing, the potential is there for the VR interface to be an excellent environment for such designing in the future. And Gravity Sketch's Tool Belt will likely be a critical element as Gravity Sketch moves closer to helping CAD and 3D printer users.

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Universal Laptop USB Docking Station Reviews: How to Choose the Best One for You

laptop docking station

​​If you have found yourself on this page and you are obviously reading this, then you must be thinking of ways to make your digital life more efficient. And the universal laptop USB docking station could be just the thing. In today’s digital lifestyle, almost everything and everyone has gone mobile crazy with most of us working and playing on laptops and other mobile devices. However, there are often times in one’s digital day when the small screens and limited connectivity of those mobile devices are just not adequate or efficient for the task at hand. Enter the universal laptop docking station. This relatively small device can convert just about any small-screened laptop into a powerhouse of a computer, running multiple displays and connecting to multiple devices. ​It allows us to move our digital workspace on to a far larger setup without having to do any sort of transferring of files or computer synchronisation.

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A Review of Hands-On Throttle-And-Sticks (HOTAS): Which is the best?

Image of an aeroplane cockpit throttle

In the flight simulator and newly-emerging space simulation gaming genres, using a Hands-On Throttle-And-Stick (H.O.T.A.S), or HOTAS as it is commonly known, is a must have for any serious gamer, as it brings much more realism to flight simulation and also provides a better more intuitive control of the simulated aircraft or spacecraft being commanded. In recent times, Virtual Reality (VR) headsets have also increasingly entered the gaming ecosystem bringing even more realism to flight simulation but with the unwelcome consequence of obstructing the view of the computer’s keyboard where so many of the controls are often located. As a consequence, VR gamers have become even more dependent on the controls in their hands and having strategically-placed buttons and other control hardware on a HOTAS is now often essential in order to interact sensibly with the game (although with the advent of voice controls, such as VoiceAttack software, this can be mitigated to some extent).

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What is the best 2TB Drive for PS4?

Image of a Playstation 4 and its controller

The PlayStation 4 (PS4) games console comes installed with an integrated 2.5-inch hard drive on which the system software, the games and the game data are all stored. The size of the hard drive included with the PS4 varies between different PlayStation 4 models, with the basic PS4 having either a 500GB or a 1TB hard drive, while the PS4 pro comes with a 1TB hard drive as standard. Avid gamers often find that they fall short of hard drive space as they accumulate games over time often necessitating a PS4 storage space upgrade. Other more pro-level gamers find that they would like to upgrade the PS4 hard drive to one with superior read and write speeds in order to improve the game load times as well as the start up time of the gaming console itself. The included hard drive in the PS4 is not unlike the hard drives found on many laptop computers and, although it is housed within the body of the game console, it is not difficult to access, making it relatively easy to replace.

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Review: Reference Tracker

Until now, many assignments have left college students with a pile of books stacked upon their desks; sticky notes popping out to mark places of importance. In the twenty-first century this really shouldn’t be an issue. And now for Mac it isn’t thanks to Reference Tracker by Maklinware.

Getting Started

Image of a pile of books

To start using Reference Tracker you simply open it and click on the bright green “New Reference” button. From there you get a drop down menu which allows you to select the appropriate text that you are going to reference. There are a whole host of options to choose from varying from a chapter in a book to a article in a newspaper. Of course there is a generic “Book” option if you can’t find the exact template for your needs.

Bookmarks

Below all of the information that you enter is the cited text field. So if you have some quotes that you think you will use in the essay or paper that you are writing, you can drop them in such that they are easily accessible at a moment’s notice. Sticky notes are an added bonus as well. If you have something that you need to remember but have no special place to put it, just open up a sticky and place it wherever you want it in the window.

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