Dani ♡

The 89th Academy Awards on Sunday are a reminder of how many great performances are not even nominated for an Oscar. For those of us who watch films largely – or even or solely – for the cars on display, here is a biased, subjective and completely partial selection of cinematic masterpieces in which the car really is the star. As a drama, Checkpoint is somewhat lacking, but for anyone who appreciates magnificent cars plus various tweed-jacketed Rank contract players saying “Gosh!” it is compulsive viewing. The production was assisted by Aston Martin and the central vehicle is the Lagonda, appearing under the nom-de-film of Warren-Ingrams. Much of the acting is fairly stagey, but this matters little in a production that makes extensive use of footage from the 1956 Mille Miglia road race in Italy and features two DB2/4 Mk1s plus the Lotus Mark Ten. Plus such very 1950s lines as “Women are as tricky as the devil and best driven fast”. This year is the 60th anniversary of this great British film noir, in which various no-hopers and drifters sell the last vestiges of their dignity to a corrupt haulage firm. Their pleasures are restricted to driving like maniacs through the Home Counties, starting fights in dance halls and 1/6d worth of egg and chips at the local transport café. The incredible cast includes Stanley Baker, Patrick McGoohan, Peggy Cummins, William Hartnell, Herbert Lom, Sid James and a very young Sean Connery, while the action sequences are as well-crafted as any major Hollywood production. Just ensure that you are never issued with the keys to truck number 13… School For Scoundrels (1960) – Aston Martin DB3S “Bellini” Few actors could outshine Terry-Thomas but the automotive star of School For Scoundrels comes close as his onscreen transport is a “Bellini” – aka a disguised 1953 DB3S that was once the personal transport of Sir David Brown before it was raced by Stirling Moss, Roy Salvadori and Pete Collins. The plot has Terry-Thomas playing Raymond Delauney, a bounder prone to uttering “Hard cheese, old boy” when he is not otherwise engaged in attempting to seduce Jannette Scott’s heroine or merely laughing at Ian Carmichael’s “Swiftmobile” (actually a modified 1928 Bentley 4 ½ litre Le Mans Tourer). In fact, this is a picture in which cad and car are in perfect harmony. The Fast Lady (1962) – “Red Label” Bentley 3 Litre Speed Open Tourer One of the many joys of The Fast Lady is its seemingly effortless air of joi de vivre. The chase between a Jaguar MkVII, a Wolseley 6/99, a Park Ward-bodied Bentley R-Type Continental Drophead and the eponymous Red Label (which was then fitted with a 4½-litre engine) took weeks to shoot while the stars, especially Leslie Phillips and James Robertson Justice, give masterclasses in the art of light comedy. Then there is the Morris Cooper driven by Julie Christie, the driving school Austin A40 and the trad jazz theme tune, all of which combine to create a picture that only a curmudgeon would dislike. Catch Us If You Can (1965) – Austin Mini Moke and Jaguar E-Type Roadster (joint nomination) A thoughtful and downbeat British road movie thinly disguised as a vehicle for the Dave Clark Five pop group and the film that introduced the Mini Moke to the big screen. The plot has a stuntman (band leader Dave Clark himself) and a model (the delightful Barbara Ferris) escaping the capital for the Devon coast in a borrowed E-Type and the scenes of the Jaguar speeding along the London Wall have a fascination of their own. The Moke was a pre-production model and it was chosen by the director John Boorman for its resemblance to a “toy jeep”, a description unlikely to have pleased BMC’s marketing team. The Italian Job (1969) – Austin Mini Cooper 1275S Mk1 No matter how many times you have winced at the fate of the Lamborghini Miura during the opening credits or watched Michael Standing blowing more than “the bloody doors off” a Morris-Commercial LC5, The Italian Job is always worth watching. Yes, it is unlikely that a Mini Cooper S laden with bullion could outrun an Italian police Alfa Romeo Giulia Ti but in a production with music from Quincy Jones and Matt Monro, guest appearances from a Fiat Dino Coupé and Noel Coward, as well as featuring Benny Hill in particularly good form, this is of little importance. Best line: “In this country they drive on the wrong side of the road.” Villain (1971) – Rover 3.5 Litre Coupé A great crime drama in which a bank messenger’s Vanden Plas Princess 3 Litre is hijacked by a Jaguar S-Type, a Ford Zodiac MkIV and a Triumph 2000 Mk1 in a heist controlled by Richard Burton’s gang boss. The actor saw Villain as the chance to appear in “the kind of ‘bang bang - calling all cars’ stuff that I’ve always wanted to do and never have”. His character, gang boss Vic Dakin, is a patriotic, Rover-driving gangster much given to moaning about the decline of standards. There are no Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels-style faux Cockneys here, just a calculating amoral figure who regards his P5B as proof of his status and who enjoys nailing people’s heads to a Vauxhall Viva.

As everyone with a sweet tooth knows, Britain is a paradise for chocolate lovers. But when it comes to the best chocolate bar, we might not all be in agreement. From Twirls and Toffee Crisps to Curly-Wurlys and Crunchies, the confectionery aisle can be a divisive place - especially if you're trying to share a four-pack. Help us compile the ultimate ranking of chocolate bars by voting up your favourites (and giving the thumbs down to ones you dislike), below. 1 Cadbury's Dairy Milk What a classic. 2 KitKat Always a pleasure - but we miss that old-fashioned foil wrapping. 3 Twix So good straight out of the fridge 4 Twirl A bit like a Flake, but, you know, better. 5 Flake The crumbs go everywhere, but it's worth it. 6 Snickers Caramel, peanuts, chocolate. Genius. 7 Galaxy It's so SMOOTH. 8 Mars Out of this world. 9 Bounty Oooh, it's just so tropical. 10 Aero It's got bubbles in it!

He is also, in some respects, the antithesis of his predecessor, the garrulous former Secretary of State John Kerry. For the man who is the public face of US diplomacy, Tillerson keeps a remarkably low profile. Which has left staff at the State Department, and the journalists who cover it, wondering how he will fare against competing power centres in the White House, and how he will represent America to the world. Early signs have not been promising. For the entire first month of the Trump administration the State Department has given no public briefings. It's just been announced that they're set to resume early next month after an unprecedented six-week hiatus. It was not just the matter of being absent from the cacophony of a new order asserting itself in Washington. It was the noticeable absence of an American voice to the world, a tool of diplomacy that has regularly inserted US positions into the internal debates of allies and foes alike. Tillerson himself has rarely spoken publicly. On his inaugural trip to a G20 Foreign Ministers meeting in Bonn and again in Mexico, he read prepared statements but didn't make room for reporters' questions and didn't respond when we tried to ask them anyway. This reticence is consistent with both his corporate background as former head of Exxon Mobil, and his personal style - a lifelong Eagle Scout who values actions more than words. He does at least avoid the pitfalls of Kerry, who thoroughly embraced the public role of top diplomat, but whose shoot-from-the-hip style sometimes left his aides backtracking after he'd departed the podium. Still, says one State Department employee, "I think Tillerson hurts himself with this quiet diplomacy approach, because Washington is not a quiet town." This reluctance is perhaps understandable given the freewheeling approach of the noisiest voice in town, the White House. It has, at best, sent mixed signals on key foreign policy issues such as Nato, Russia and China. But Tillerson's recent absence from Donald Trump's meetings with key foreign leaders has left many questioning just how much influence he has. State department officials point out that his acting deputy Tom Shannon was in the room for the visits of the Canadian and Japanese Prime Ministers. And that Tillerson was travelling during the official part of Benjamin Netanyahu's Washington trip, so he met the Israeli leader separately before he left. Yet while they were at dinner, the White House appeared to blindside him with suggestions it might depart from a long-standing insistence on a two-state solution to the Mideast conflict. "If there's going to be a policy change, the State Department needs to know about it," a US official told the BBC. To a large degree, Mr Tillerson's understated performance reflects this confusion in the administration over who's in charge. The National Security Council - the traditional centre of influence in the White House, which usually works closely with the State Department - has been paralysed by staffing shortages and a leadership change. Meanwhile alternative centres of power with undefined parameters have emerged: Trump's Chief White House Strategist Steve Bannon has set up a "strategic initiatives" thinktank to inform policy making. And his son-in-law Jared Kushner has been tasked with taking the lead on foreign policy issues like Middle East peace, with no formal connection to established State Department channels. Tillerson has his own channel to the president, says his aide, RC Hammond: "The secretary and the president are in frequent contact, meeting in person and speaking regularly over the phone." The secretary has, however, reportedly been frustrated with the administration over staffing appointments. The president had promised to let him pick ambassadors for many of the top-tier postings, two people close to the transition process told the BBC. But they said White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus circumvented the arrangement by winning Trump's approval for at least 10 nominees before Tillerson was confirmed. These are still going through the vetting process. Battles between the administration and government ministries over appointments during transitions are not necessarily unusual. "It sounds like part of the usual Washington game," said a senior State Department official. "But what is unusual right now is the absence of a clear process, of who's in charge of policy formation or policy appointments." Even if it was clear, the State Department is not fully equipped to help make policy. The White House did not approve Tillerson's initial choice for a deputy and almost all of the high level jobs are still vacant. Just two out of the 116 requiring congressional confirmation have been filled, according to the non-partisan organisation Partnership for Public Service: the secretary of state and the UN ambassador Nikki Haley. Shake ups on the top floor are standard practice in changeovers between administrations, but this one was done "in a manner considered highly offensive to all of us," said the State Department official. Some were given only 48 hours to vacate their offices and none were left to backfill until new appointments could be made, which is the normal procedure. Tillerson's role in these decisions was not clear, as much of it happened before he was confirmed. And there is plenty of expertise on hand to run the department in the meantime. But those who are acting in senior positions do not necessarily wield the same authority as those who've been officially confirmed for the roles, especially in the uncertain policy environment. We are "treading water" said one career diplomat, noting the difficulty of getting guidance on even routine policy decisions from the top floor. With such an introduction to the Trump administration the diplomat had been "highly sceptical" about Tillerson's appointment but was "pleasantly surprised" by his debut. He came in strong with an opening speech that said all the right things - promising to make full use of the expertise on hand and suggesting that he'd have an open mind about dissenting opinions. That is what he seems to be doing, working his way through the building in methodical consultations that include not just senior officials but mid-level officers, as he navigates the steep learning curve from CEO to diplomat. This approach has been well received, although I understand there are concerns that he is not as accessible as was hoped. I have met Mr Tillerson in off-the-record settings and he seemed to me a thoughtful, deliberate man with an interest in taking a long-term strategic view. And while he is not anti-establishment in the iconoclastic mould of Mr Trump, he is an outsider - to diplomacy but also to the city. Perhaps that makes him less inclined to play by its rules. Whether that will work in this town, and with this administration, is too soon to say.

Most of us know that it is possible to perform folder and file copy or move operations in Windows by either using your mouse to copy and paste, drag and drop or by using a number of keyboard shortcuts. Obviously the single biggest factor affecting the speed of any transfer is what medium you’re copying from or to such as hard drives, SSD’s, USB sticks, network etc. Another factor is how Windows itself deals with these operations, and all versions of Windows have never been quite as efficient at it as they could be. With this in mind, it is entirely possible to shorten the duration of any copying or moving of files if you use a piece of third party software to take over operations instead of relying on the Windows built-in function. Not only can this help the speed of transfers, but you can also get other benefits like better information, queuing copies, pausing, skipping, and dealing with problematic files far better than what Windows does. We were curious to find out just how fast some of these programs actually are when copying and moving files around in Windows, so have gathered together 15 freeware tools to have a closer look. A few simple tests were carried out to try and determine which file copying tools are the fastest at performing file transfers in a few different real world scenarios. To try and cover some common file copy operations, 3 tests were conducted; Test 1: Copy a number of small to medium files from one HDD to another. 4GB totaling 24,185 files / 6193 folders with sizes of a few bytes to 320MB. Test 2: Copy 2 large files using the same source and destination as test 1. 2x Windows 8 ISO’s (x86 and x64) totaling 5.8GB. Test 3: Copy over a 10/100 LAN network to the same destination as tests 1 and 2. 450MB totaling 5665 files / 723 folders with sizes of a few bytes to 320MB. The source drive was a 10,000 RPM WD Raptor and the destination was a standard 7200 RPM SATA drive, both defragged. All the 3rd party software was run using their default transfer settings on a clean and fully updated install of Windows 7 64-bit. Each test was run twice and an average of the times was taken. If you want to jump straight to the results table and a summary of the findings about who performed best and worst, they can be found on page 2. 1. Copy Handler 1.32 Copy Handler is a tool that while it sits in your system tray, can take over the file copying operations from Windows or monitor the clipboard for files. During a copy a small and simple window will appear with basic details, double clicking will give you the full window with a wealth of stats and past / present operations. There’s a number of pause and resume buttons, context menu entries can be added and an options window to configure most areas of the program. 2. ExtremeCopy Standard 2.1.0 There are 2 different version of ExtremeCopy, the standard free one and the full shareware version. Functions such as copy or collision options, window position, failed file recovery and the buffer size are disabled in the free version, but you can still integrate it into Explorer to take over the standard Windows file copy functions. Pause, skip and verify are also present. A small options window pops out from the copy dialog using the arrow in the top left. For the USB stick a slightly older portable version is also available. 3. FastCopy 2.11 FastCopy is a tool that’s been recommended by a lot of people over the years because it’s a simple and yet incredibly fast file copier. There are a number of buffer options to tweak the performance even further, basic or advanced file filters, an NSA method wipe and delete option, verify and copy / sync / differential / overwrite copy modes. It also has several options for adding context menu entries and extensive command line options, although something missing is a pause or skip button. Watch out for the weird uninstaller where you have to rerun the setup exe. 4. FF Copy 1.0 FF Copy is relatively simple copying tool where you select or drag and drop multiple selections of files and folders onto the window and they will be copied or moved to the destination you select from the button or drop down. There are no other options to speak of and this tool probably functions best when you want to quickly send files from multiple locations to several different folders and then let it process them. 5. KillCopy 2.85 KillCopy is a copy tool that doesn’t look too great out of the box and the theme below called “Standart” was about the best built into the program. There are some downloadable themes from the website but they aren’t that great either. The program itself has several useful features such auto resuming after a system crash, parallel copy mode and several boosting and buffer settings to try and eek out that extra few MB/s. KillCopy can place copy and move entries onto the context menu and can also be setup to be the default copy handler replacing Explorer.

Thermaltake obviously really likes the idea of RGB lighting, given that so many of its recent models employ it. The company's Toughpower Grand RGB Gold Series consists of three members with capacities ranging from 650W to 850W. Contrary to the DPS RGB PSU models, there is no digital interface. As a result, you cannot configure the LED RGB lighting through software; instead, you have to use a push-button on the front of the PSU. All three models are 80 PLUS Gold-certified and come equipped with a 140mm RGB fan featuring 256 colors. Thankfully they include a built-in memory function that remembers your last selection. This is very convenient because you won't have to select the RGB lighting mode each time the power supply is turned back on. We're looking at the middle model of Thermaltake's Toughpower Grand RGB Gold line today, the TPG-0750F-R, rated for 750W of maximum power. Its aforementioned button allows you to switch through a 256-color RGB cycle or turn the lighting off completely. In order for the fan's LED lighting to be in clear view (given that you have a windowed chassis, of course), Thermaltake recommends installing the PSU with its fan facing upwards. The company also claims this configuration facilitates lower temperatures inside of your case. Two IR shots on the product's webpage show the internals of a running PC with the fan facing up and down. Clearly, the first shot depicts lower temperatures. However, we can't help but wonder about the effectiveness of a PSU fan aiding thermal performance, given that it's installed at the bottom of your chassis with its fan sucking air. It's common knowledge that hot air rises, so if we want to improve airflow inside a chassis, we have to help move hot air up and out with fans installed on the top or back. We'll have to revisit this topic in a story about PSU orientation and its effect on case cooling. An 80 PLUS Gold certification means this PSU has to be at least 87% efficient at 20% and 100% of its maximum power. Under typical loads of 50% maximum-rated capacity, it should hit 90% or higher efficiency. Gold-class PSUs used to be super expensive. They're a lot more affordable now, though, making 80 PLUS Silver basically obsolete. Sirfa manufactures the PSUs in this family, arming them with all of the necessary protection features except for inrush current protection. We're happy to see the max-rated temperature for continuous full-power delivery is 50°C, just as the ATX spec recommends. A 140mm HDB Riing fan uses blades designed for high static pressure requirements, offering increased airflow to the PSU's internals. The hydraulic bearing augments reliability over time and also helps reduce operating noise. Further, Thermaltake uses rubber pads on the fan frame's corners to absorb vibrations. A semi-passive mode makes it possible to achieve silence under light loads. Or, if you'd rather have some air flowing through the PSU at all times, a switch on the PSU's front allows this feature to be deactivated. Thermaltake affixes a highly competitive ~$100 price tag to the TPG-0750F-R, and a 10-year warranty instills confidence in the product's quality. Not long ago, only a handful of high-end PSUs were covered by such lengthy warranties. But tough competition is forcing everyone to rethink their guarantees. Only time will tell if this is a good move in the mainstream space. Then again, so long as manufacturers use high-quality components, it's not unreasonable to expect 10 years of service under normal operating conditions. Don't put all of your eggs in that one basket, though, particularly if you live in an area prone to frequent thunderstorms or brown/black-outs. The quality of your incoming power affects the PSU's longevity. Consider putting your whole PC behind an uninterruptible power supply, or at least a surge protector. In our lab, we use numerous UPS'. And although the mains network is bad where we're at, we've never had a PSU fail for mains-related reasons. The minor rails have more than 100W combined capacity, while the +12V rail can deliver up to 62.5A. It's strong enough to support a couple of high-end graphics cards, to be sure. Finally, the 5VSB rail is a little bit stronger than what we're used to. Unfortunately, Thermaltake only gives you one EPS cable/connector, restricting the PSU's compatibility with high-end mainboards that need more power in the CPU area. The number of PCIe connectors is sufficient for a 750W power supply, and the same goes for the available SATA and peripheral connectors. Cable length is adequate, and the distance between connectors is long enough to avoid compatibility issues. Some folks do prefer shorter runs between PCIe connectors since graphics cards with two auxiliary inputs have them installed next to each other. We're agnostic on this issue, though.

Volkswagen will show the new Arteon at the Geneva motor show press day on March 6. The fastback-styled four-door car replaces the CC in VW's line-up and will sit above the existing Passat range and compete with the likes of the BMW 4-series Gran Coupé. Details are scant at the moment (although expect further details early next week) but the company makes great play of the Arteon's frontal styling. In what is likely to spread throughout the range, a new-look front features merged LED headlights with the chrome cross-bars of the grille. Volkswagen says that the interior is "exceptionally spacious – with ample head and leg room at all seats – which is extraordinary for this body form". Style and a premium feel appear to be key elements in the Arteon's conception, incorporating features that usually are the preserve of luxury cars. Modestly, Volkswagen says that the Arteon is "one of the most attractive products in its segment". Other equipment features making their debut in the Arteon include the latest generation of driver assistance systems.

Life’s been a bit rough of late; terrorist attacks, bombings, coups, a seemingly endless wave of migrants fleeing war and poverty; it’s enough to make you want to seek comfort of home and never leave. But what would that achieve? We should love the world we live in. Getting out can cure that negative mindset. Pack a bag and just go, seek out the beautiful landscapes; enjoy the stars shimmering; smile at strangers; and you’ll realise how lucky we all are. Here are 10 experiences from the last year that, in no uncertain terms have reminded us WHY we love the world. 10 Reasons To Love The World #1 Because travelling the world together reminded us that journeys are better shared with someone else #2 Because, from the moment we arrived in Nepal, we felt a spiritual side to life we’d never known and it was awesome #3 Because, standing on the soaring sand dunes of Sossusvlei in Namibia, we felt small again #4 Because we visited a community based ecotourism project in the Cambodian jungle and realised that communities working together can make positive change #5 Because watching the sunrise sitting atop a 1000 year old temple in Bagan reminded us how wondrous the world can be #6 Because during Sinhalese new year, the locals on Sri Lanka’s public transport helped us whenever we needed it, which reminded us that 99% of people are good #7 Because we lived in Cape Town for a month and can now say we’ve lived in the world’s most beautiful, vibrant and friendly city #8 Because, after visiting Seven Women in Nepal, we realised that one person’s vision is enough to make a huge difference to the lives of many underprivileged women #9 Because, walking through Rome’s ancient streets made us realise that great empires can crumble, and that’s important to remember #10 Because views from the top of a mountain in Nepal are the best views in the world, especially after walking for a week to get there We’d love you to share what experiences made you love the world again!?

The passengers were boarded on the 20 January flight to Medina despite every seat being filled, the airline said. Details of the flight have only emerged now because of extensive investigations by Dawn newspaper. Staff issued additional handwritten boarding passes, the paper reported. Such an over-crowded flight would have caused problems in an emergency evacuation, aviation experts said, and passengers would not have had access to oxygen if it was suddenly required. In December all 48 people on board a PIA plane were killed when it crashed in the north of the country. But this this is the first time the airline is known to have boarded excess passengers on a flight. The flight in question went from Karachi to Medina carrying a total of 416 passengers, on a Boeing 707 with a total seating capacity of 409, including staff seats. of "not taken punitive action against the airline or its staffers for putting the passengers' lives at risk". The newspaper quoting airline sources accuses PIA ground traffic staff of issuing handwritten - rather than computer-generated - boarding passes to the extra passengers. It quotes flight captain Anwer Adil as insisting that he was not told about the extra passengers until after take-off. "I … noticed [that] some people were those who were categorically refused jump [staff] seats by me at the check-in counter before the flight," he was quoted by Dawn as saying. "I had already taken off and the senior purser did not inform me about extra passengers before closing the aircraft door. "Therefore after take-off [any] immediate landing back at Karachi was not possible as it required a lot of fuel dumping which was not in the interest of the airline." PIA spokesman Danyal Gilani told the BBC that "the matter is under investigation and appropriate action will be taken once responsibility is fixed". When asked how long the inquiry will take, he said it was "not possible to put a time frame on it".

Drivers are very critical in Windows because a badly coded driver will make the Windows unstable and causing crashes with blue screen of death. Most of the time a driver file has a .sys extension. When someone uses the word “low-level”, “kernel” or “ring0” in Windows, it also actually means driver. For example, a low-level keylogger such as Elite Keylogger by Widestep uses a signed driver to capture the keystrokes on your keyboard. Royal Hack, a famous cheating tool for CounterStrike uses ring0 driver to avoid Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC) detection. Rootkits is a type of malware that uses driver to hide its existence and preventing it from easily being detected. A lot of security software such as antivirus, Zemana Anti-Logger, KeyScrambler Premium are also using drivers. As you can see, drivers are very powerful and fortunately it is not something that any programmer can code. There are quite a few really powerful tools such as GMER that can be used to check for rootkits but they can be a bit too confusing for normal or inexperienced computer users. One tool that I can suggest you to try out is DriverView created Nir Sopher who is famous for releasing useful tools that are free and portable. Basically DriverView is a very small tool at only 33KB in size that lists all the drivers currently loaded in your Windows operating system. It shows a lot of useful information about the drivers such as the file name, company, product name, description, version, created and modified date, path, file type, service and display name. Most of the loaded drivers are by Microsoft and generally they are stable and safe. You can easily shorten the list by clicking on the View from the menubar and select Hide Microsoft Drivers where only third party drivers will be displayed. Now you can investigate the non-Microsoft drivers to see if you have any possible malicious drivers by searching for the file name in Google and uploading it to VirusTotal to have it scanned with 42 different antiviruses. Do take note that DriverView don’t have the ability to remove or delete the driver. You should notice that there are 3 unknown drivers which are dump_dumpata.sys, dump_dumpfve.sys and dump_msahci.sys listed in DriverView on Windows 7. If you right click on any of the 3 drivers from DriverView and select File Properties, you will get the error popup saying “Windows cannot find C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\dump_msahci.sys. Make sure you typed the name correctly, and then try again“. This 3 files are not rootkits or anything dangerous but are related to creating memory dumps when Windows 7 crashes. You can easily disable the 3 unknown dump_dumpata.sys, dump_dumpfve.sys and dump_msahci.sys drivers from being loaded by going to Control Panel > System > Advanced system settings > click the Settings button for Startup and Recovery > click on the drop down menu from the Write debugging information and select (none). Click OK to close all the Windows, restart your computer and the 3 drivers will no longer appear in DriverView. As useful as DriverView is, after further testing I discovered that DriverView reads only the VERSIONINFO resource which can be found in the Details tab when you right click on the a file and select Properties. It lacks of the capability to read the name of signer for the Digital Signature. One can easily edit a malicious rootkit driver file properties using a resource editor or a crypter and DriverView will think that it belongs to Microsoft and even possibly hiding it from being displayed when the “Hide Microsoft Drivers” option is enabled. However, getting a digital code signing certificate is not easy. The animated screenshot below is a proof that DriverView reads the VERSIONINFO but not the digital signature. Please refer back to the first screenshot to see the information displayed by DriverView for the RDPCDD2k.sys file. DriverView is free, portable and works on Windows 2000, Windows NT, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2003/2008, both 32-bit and 64-bit.

As display prices fall, it becomes inevitable that rather than spending less money, users will simply devote the same budget to a larger screen. It wasn’t long ago that 19" 4:3 monitors were the bread-and-butter of both PC and Mac desktops. That size gradually grew to 22", 24", and now 27". When we first saw 27" IPS panels combined with QHD (2560x1440) resolution, the cost was fairly high. $600 was the low end and we saw a couple of monitors top $1,000. These days, $600 is the high end and value pricing begins south of $400. Smaller manufacturers like Nixeus fill an important niche in the market. If you’re looking to save a bit of coin, and you don’t mind considering something outside the mainstream, these products can anchor your system competently and reliably. Last year, we looked at the NX-VUE24A, FreeSync effort. Today we’re checking out the PRO Vue 27P, an enterprise display. It’s an IPS panel with QHD resolution and 10-bit color. By the numbers, the PRO Vue 27P is a high-end enterprise display. It offers 10-bit color and an sRGB color gamut coupled with an IPS panel lit by a white LED backlight. A large array of inputs makes it flexible and adaptable to a wide variety of systems. In fact, it’s getting harder to find DVI and VGA ports on many modern displays. We don’t blame manufacturers for omitting them. After all, few computers even have the necessary outputs these days. But if you want to pair a shiny new screen with an older PC, Nixeus has you covered. The PRO Vue 27P is billed as professional, and we agree with that designation when it comes to resolution, color depth, and panel type. But it does not offer a wide gamut. sRGB is the max. So if you need Adobe RGB, you’ll have to look elsewhere, and spend a good deal more money. What we’re seeing here is a solid screen with a good basic feature list and relatively low cost. How will it measure up against the competition? Let’s take a look. The carton, while very thick and heavy, is fairly shallow. Our sample arrived double-boxed and unscathed. If yours shows up only in its factory packing, check carefully for damage. Internal foam is flexible and better-able to absorb vibration than the stiff blocks most companies use. Bundled cables are of high quality and include DisplayPort and DVI. The power supply is external and runs fairly hot so be sure it’s given some room to breathe. A printed quick-start guide is included but further documentation must be downloaded from Nixeus’ website. The front screen layer is shiny and of very high optical quality. Reflections can be a problem depending on the position of windows and overhead lighting but it offers exceptional clarity. It’s not bonded to the TFT layer like our reference Planar PXL2790MW, but the PRO Vue 27P has one of the sharpest and cleanest images we’ve seen in a while. The picture is bordered by a wide frame that sits flush so there’s no bezel per se, but if you plan to run multiple screens, be warned that the dividing lines will top two inches. Control buttons run along the bottom right of the screen and click solidly and loudly. Menu navigation is quick and responsive, though its design requires more presses than most monitors. See our comments on the next page for more detail on the OSD. Thanks to the external power supply and some efficient packaging, the panel is only a bit over 1.5" thick. Internal components are all contained in a bulge at the center. That includes the small stereo speakers. They don’t offer a lot of power, but for typical system sounds, they are adequate. Around back you can see a 100mm VESA mount with the lugs exposed for easy installation. We suspect more than a few users will be taking advantage of these because the stand is pretty much an afterthought. It offers no adjustments save tilt, and that movement is stiff and imprecise. The hinge point is at the bottom so when you rock the screen back the top gets further away while the bottom stays put. Some costs have been cut here for sure. Inputs are conveniently placed on the side of the rear bulge rather than the bottom. This makes them easy to access while still keeping cables neat. You get one each of HDMI, DisplayPort, DVI, and VGA. There’s no headphone output, but you do get an analog audio input. Sound can also come over the HDMI and DisplayPort inputs. Source selection is included in the OSD.

Long gone are the days when you bought a Hyundai simply because it was cheap. The Korean brand now builds cars that compete with the best in class, and no model is more competitive in its segment than the i10 city car. Revised for 2017 but offered with the same 1.0- and 1.2-litre petrol engines as before, the i10 continues the formula of offering class-leading space in a car that is also good to drive and now better equipped than ever before. Whether that’s enough to keep it ahead of rivals such as the Volkswagen Up we are about to find out. The i10 offers more passenger space than any of its rivals. A six-footer will be comfortable enough in the back, even when they’re sitting behind a similar-sized driver, although it’s worth noting that the Blue Drive version of the car has four seatbelts, whereas every other i10 comes with five. The i10 also has a slightly bigger boot than rivals such as the Toyota Aygo and VW Up, so you won’t have to fold fold down the rear seats unless you’re transporting something the size of a suitcase. That said, there’s a large drop down from the edge of the boot to the boot floor, which makes it awkward to load heavy items. With supportive seats and a slightly raised driving position, it’s easy to get comfortable in the i10, despite there being no reach adjustment in the steering wheel. It’s also worth noting that the most basic S model lacks seat height adjustment. It’s once on the move that the i10 really starts to impress though, thanks to suspension that is good at soaking up bumps and potholes, making it more comfortable than many would expect a small car could be. Both the 1.0- and 1.2-litre engines are quiet, and the i10 is also brilliant at shutting out wind and road noise, which makes it surprisingly capable at doing long journeys. The i10’s interior features a lot of hard plastics, but because they are nicely textured it doesn’t feel particularly cheap. Opt for the top-spec Premium SE model and you also get a 7-inch touchscreen complete with satnav (with seven years worth of live updates) and full smartphone connectivity in the form of Apple Carplay and Android Auto. All of the i10’s controls are clearly labelled and easy to reach. And cars with front and rear electric windows let you operate every window from the driver’s door - a rarity in car’s of this size. All-round visibility is excellent, which combined with the i10’s narrow body and light steering make it easy to drive through congested towns and cities. We would though like a bit more feedback through the clutch and accelerator pedals, because as it is stalling the i10 is all too easy to do until you become accustomed to the control weights. Both engines perform well, with the 1.2-litre car unsurprisingly offering slightly faster acceleration and feeling more comfortable on long journeys. It’s also the engine you’ll need to choose if you want the optional automatic gearbox. Look at its tall, narrow body and it’s hard to imagine how the i10 could be much fun to drive. Sure enough, it’s not as good in this area as a Volkswagen Up, but it still feels very stable, its body resists lean surprisingly well, and the engines are happy to rev. It’s disappointing that the steering is completely devoid of feedback, and can feel overly light once you get up to speed, but otherwise the i10 isn’t at all bad.As with all Hyundais, the i10 comes with an excellent five-year unlimited mileage warranty (including breakdown cover for the same period). A VW Up on the other hand makes do with three years and 60,000 miles worth of cover. However, the brand’s performance in the 2016 JD Power Vehicle Dependability Study was a little disappointing. It finished 18th out of 24 manufacturers, whereas its sister company Kia recorded a third place result. About average for the city car class Officially the 1.0-litre averages 60.1mpg in standard form and 65.7mpg if you go for the Blue Drive version, while the 1.2 manages 57.6mpg. Mid-40s is more realistic in the real world, though, no matter which i10 you choose. This is comparable with the fuel economy you can get out of other small, petrol-engined cars. As proof of Hyundai’s ambitions to move upmarket, the i10 is not priced below its main rivals. Nor, though, is it any more expensive to buy or lease, and Hyundai often offers some very good discounts. It will be very cheap to insure, too - particularly if you go for a 1.0-litre version. Speaking of which, we’d recommend the regular 1.0-litre over the Blue Drive, because the Blue Drive’s slightly lower running costs are unlikely to save you enough to make up for its higher list price. Hyundai’s “Click to Buy” web ordering service also removes the need to haggle. You simply order online and collect the car from your local dealership (or even have it delivered to your house). The i10 scored well for child occupant protection when it was crash tested by independent safety assessors Euro NCAP. However, it still had to settle for a four-star overall rating, whereas the Skoda Citigo and VW Up achieved the maximum five stars. In reaction to this, Hyundai improved the safety specification for the 2017 model by offering lane departure and forward collision warning systems as part of an optional Driver Assist Pack on the top three trim levels. There’s also a stability control system that can help you regain control if the car starts to slide. And unlike most of its rivals, the i10 comes with a tyre-pressure monitoring system. The i10 range kicks off with the S model, which features electric front windows, remote locking and a USB socket that lets you play your iPod music through the car’s stereo. We’d recommend upgrading to an SE version of the car, though, which adds air-conditioning, DAB radio, electric rear windows, cruise control and electrically adjustable door mirrors. Premium spec adds a dock for your smartphone, tinted windows and LED daytime running lights, while SE Premium adds the 7-inch touchscreen satnav system. SE Blue is based on SE spec but with smaller wheels and only four seats in order to save weight and maximise fuel economy.

A former leader of Hong Kong who was knighted by Prince Charles hours before the city’s handover to China was jailed for 20 months on Wednesday for misconduct in public office. Donald Tsang, who was one of the city’s most well-known politicians both before and after British colonial rule ended in 1997, is the highest ranking official to be convicted in Hong Kong. The former politician, who was known for his fondness of bow ties, was led away from court in handcuffs to a hospital he had been staying at since Monday after experiencing chest pains. His wife, who had been crying in court, immediately signaled that her husband would appeal the sentence, reports said. The charges relate to Tsang's failure to disclose plans to lease a luxury flat in Shenzhen, which is just across the border from Hong Kong. His negotiations were conducted with property tycoon Bill Wong Cho-bau, who was a major investor in a now defunct broadcaster which was at the time seeking a licence from the Hong Kong government. Tsang was acquitted on a second misconduct charge, but will face a retrial for a third charge for which jurors failed to return a majority verdict. Judge Andrew Chan had signaled that he would sentence Tsang to 30 months, but reduced the term for his “public service” over the last 40 years. Senior figures from Hong Kong’s political establishment wrote to the court to vouch for his good character. Tsang joined the colonial civil service in 1967, rising to become Financial Secretary at the time of the handover. He was knighted by the Prince of Wales shortly before the ceremony, but has chosen not to officially use the title. Tsang served as chief executive between 2005 and 2012, a position that is elected by a committee of pro-Beijing ’special interest groups’. Hong Kong’s democracy is known to be relatively free of corruption, but concerns have been raised over the close ties of the city’s leaders and influential business titans. Rafael Hui, one of Tsang’s leading officials, was jailed for seven-and-a-half years in 2014 after he was found to have taken bribes from property tycoon Thomas Kwok, who is from one of Hong Kong’s richest families.

Modern pull-start mowers are a lot slicker than their predecessors, I am told, but there are quite a few heavy-duty petrol mowers that conveniently have a key ignition system. The Honda model that I owned a few years ago is still on its lists, I see, and Mountfield and Hayter are other big-name manufacturers that make key-start machines. However, might I take the opportunity to (yet again) loudly sing the praises of the latest battery mowers that you start with the press of a button or two? The range available is ever-increasing as their po[CENSORED]rity grows. Many, such as my small, trusty Bosch Rotak 37LI Ergoflex, are not self-propelled like your existing mower is, but being exceptionally light and manoeuvrable, they are brilliant for small lawns like mine. I recently put a really big self-propelled battery beast through its paces on a much larger lawn than my own, in a friend’s big country garden. The thoroughly snazzy-looking machine did absolutely everything that a petrol mower does – but with no fumes and, of course, much less noise. Despite the lack of a heavy roller on the back, I actually created “stripes” as I swished back and forth on a single battery charge, and the whole caboodle even folded up for storage on its beam end. As a final embellishment, it had headlights for those late-night mowing moments. All in all, it (almost) made me hanker after a larger lawn. The beast on trial was the EGO LM2100E-SP. I strongly suggest you try to think beyond the familiar and take a look at it. Tip of the week For those who have never tried simple softwood cuttings, Gel2Root (nugel.co.uk) contains a rooting hormone and allows you to watch the roots form. Insert cuttings through slits in cling-film-covered glass or clear plastic pots containing the gel. If you are intending your hedge to grow a lot taller (griselinia, a bright and shiny New Zealand evergreen, will go to 6½ft/2m plus in a sheltered site), you should let it find its feet and wait until next year before pruning it in mid-spring, preferably using secateurs or loppers rather than a hedge-trimmer. Internet gardening forays can be, on occasions, a mixed blessing. “Worldwide” advice has to be carefully filtered, particularly about pruning, hardiness and so on. The unsure would do well to look at the RHS for helpful pruning pointers for specific plant groups (Google “RHS pruning groups”: there are 13 groups in all and advice about hedge cutting). Broadly speaking, even though it might be tempting to tidy them up in winter, evergreens should be pruned in late spring – March/April, or even later in cold or exposed gardens – so that subsequent new, tender shoots are less likely to be singed by late frosts. The exception to this are flowering evergreens (e.g. Viburnum tinus, Choisya ternata): pruning can be delayed until their flowers bow out, maybe even June/July. Timing of evergreen hedge cutting should take into account the bird-nesting season. Rosemary Webster in Kendal has couch grass growing strongly in a row of (dormant) raspberry canes, and wonders if she should spray it with a weed killer now. I think not, on balance. Glyphosate does not have much of an impact on couch grass, so if these raspberries were mine I would grapple with the couch to curb its vigour as much as possible, not let it flower, and possibly try to contain its shallow rhizomes with a barrier – basically learn to live with it. Raspberries seem to triumph over all sorts of weediness around their feet. Emailers Ian and Beverley Cadwallader want to move some autumn raspberry canes to another part of their garden and ask “when?’’ Now, sharpish, having cut them down to about 30cm and before they burst into action. They should move well. A final thought: maybe Rosemary Webster could move her couch-invaded canes too and plant them elsewhere: digging up the best, washing their roots to remove every scrap of the couch’s bright, white rhizomes as she does so. The vacated couch patch could be stripped of the top few inches of soil containing the rhizomes and/or cleansed under black plastic for a year (at least).

V2 effect, blur

Goodbye my friend.. I hope u always succes We will miss u bro..

Billions of dollars are spent every year on antivirus software alone by enterprise because they know that computer virus can cause a lot of down time and making the company lose money. A computer virus can be programmed to do anything such as stealing sensitive information, locking up or slowing down the computer, data loss through corruption or deletion, and etc. With so many brands around and they all claim to be have the best detection and lightest in system resource, it is certainly not easy determining which is really the best. As for home users, most antivirus companies also offers a cheaper version that works on Windows operating system and requires an annual subscription. However, there is also a wealth of anti-virus software offered for free with the catch of disabling some of the extra defense system such as firewall, behavior blocking and also only allowing you to use it for personal home use only. After extensive research, we have come up with an up-to-date comprehensive list of free anti-virus programs for your convenience. 1. avast! Free Antivirus Recently avast! Free Antivirus has gained a lot of po[CENSORED]rity and has even taken the first spot in CNET’s Download.com overtaking AVG and Avira. After installing avast! Free Antivirus on our test computer, it didn’t even feel like running a crippled slim down version of an antivirus program because it has all the features from the paid version except SafeZone, Firewall and Anti-spam. The comparison chart displayed on their website says that the sandbox feature is unavailable on the free version but in fact it’s actually still there. Other than blocking virus and spyware, what we really liked about avast! Free Antivirus is it takes up very little memory usage and comes with extra features such as auto sandbox, boot-time scan, remote assistance, non-annoying browser protection plugins, 8 different real-time shields and cloud reputation service. 2. AVG AntiVirus Free The free version of AVG AntiVirus used to be the most po[CENSORED]r and well known free antivirus software and they are currently at the second spot after avast! Free Antivirus. AVG has an updated graphical user interface to match the Windows 8 modern UI. It helps protect your computer from viruses, malicious emails, web-based attacks, and identity theft. The anti-spam, firewall and performance fix functions are excluded from the free version. Surprisingly phone support is available to free users but only for certain countries such as US and UK. We were quite annoyed by the whole installation process because it takes 3 steps to get it completely installed and updated. Firstly we need to download a small 4MB web installer to download the full installation file. After installation, there’s another 60MB of definition file to download. They do have the full distributable setup file buried somewhere deep in their website. Pay attention during install as the AVG Security Toolbar will install by default. 3. Ad-Aware Free Antivirus+ We were eager to test Ad-Aware Free Antivirus+ because it used to be a very good anti-spyware program that in recent years has turned into a full fledged antivirus program and taking the third spot. The free version of Ad-Aware uses the Vipre engine but weirdly Ad-Aware Total Security uses G Data’s engine. The user interface looks a bit dated and not very user friendly at first as we had to look a bit harder to find the button to manually check for definition updates. Most of the advanced protection features that is taking most of the space on the GUI are unavailable in the free version. The installation process wasn’t that bad as the 6MB installer automatically downloads and installs the latest version of program and definition on your computer. There is a gaming mode where you can turn off all notification to prevent you from being kicked out while you are playing a full screen game. 4. Avira Free Antivirus Avira is well known for its superior detection where it tags everything that moves silently in the Windows operating system. After installing Avira, you should see that most of the features are grayed out and only the button to enable/disable the real time protection against virus, trojan, spyware and malware is accessible. Avira Free Antivirus used to rank number 1 but has dropped to 4 probably due to them embedding a toolbar and changing the web browser’s default search provider to ASK.com. Although the SearchFree toolbar by ASK.com can be opted out of during installation, it is with a cost of disabling the web protection feature. Moreover the daily notifier popups of recommending you to upgrade is a bit annoying as well. 5. ZoneAlarm Free Antivirus + Firewall ZoneAlarm (now owned by Check Point), well known for their firewall applications has added an award winning antivirus engine by Kaspersky. If you didn’t know, Kaspersky has always been a shareware that is at the top spots for independent detection rate tests even if they do not take the first place. Thanks to ZoneAlarm, they made it possible for anyone to use the excellent Kaspersky engine from their ZoneAlarm Free Antivirus + Firewall product. Most free antivirus software offers very minimal functionality other than the real time virus detection and protection but ZoneAlarm wins in this area by offering a really good antivirus engine, identity protection and a firewall if you need protection against hackers getting in to your computer. Both the user interface and settings are straight forward and not confusing. The game mode can be enabled from the Tools menu and you can even password protect the application to prevent against unauthorized access to the program.

Last summer’s H110M Pro D review successfully tested my theory that even the cheapest motherboard can provide full graphics performance when all of the CPU's 16 PCIe 3.0 lanes are connected to the primary graphics card slot. My subsequent H110M Grenade review showed that for a few dollars more you could get an M.2 slot and some additional ports. Intel’s H170 offers RAID and even more ports at the top of the mainstream motherboard segment, and the B150 sits between it and the H110. Today's question, then: Is MSI’s B150M Mortar Arctic worth its premium over the company's own well-equipped H110M Pro D? The most notable improvements appear to be that we’re gaining some USB 3.1 Gen 1 (aka USB 3.0) ports, another pair of DIMM slots, and a PCIe x4 slot. We’ll have to go to the tests to look for more differences. A unique look fits the Arctic name, and looking at it actually made me feel a chill. Even the CPU socket cover is snow white. The board is nice and thick, with no notable flex, even if picked up by a corner. The primary PCIe slot also has a metal frame to reduce any flex from a heavy graphics card. There is plenty of finger room where needed, and clearly silk-screened pin-outs near the front panel and speaker headers make referring to the manual unnecessary. Looking at it from the front edge and starting at the left rear, the audio circuitry is surrounded by an LED-illuminated border, which can be given a breathing effect (I just think it’s a good pilot light). Moving forward along the edge are the front audio header and the SYSFAN1 header. Next is a JLED1 header, which is intended to provide power to a single color LED strip controlled by MSI’s Gaming App software. COM1 and TPM headers are next, then a two-pin JME1 header that is not described. The single USB 2.0 header comes next, with a shroud around it. Intrusion detection and the CMOS-clearing pins (labelled JBAT1) are next, then the front panel headers. These have clearly silk-screened labels near them, making references to manual images unnecessary. There is no manual entry for a JSPI1 header near the front corner. Along the front edge, the SATA 6Gb/s and USB 3.0 headers are angled to face the front of the board. The SATA ports do not alternate, so you’ll need to remove the top one to access the latch on the one beneath. The ATX power connector is next, followed by four diagnostic LEDs for each of four subsystems, boot device, VGA, DRAM, and CPU. If the board won’t boot, one of these may tell you why not. Another undescribed two-pin header labelled “J1” is next, and the SYSFAN2 header finishes the front edge. The SYSFAN3 header is the first feature moving back along the right edge, and the CPUFAN header is behind the right DIMM latches. Both sides of the DIMM slots have latches. The CPU Power connector is the only other feature on the right edge, and has plenty of finger room between it and the I/O panel connectors. Behind those and to the left of one VRM heatsink is the M2_2 connector, meant for a WLAN card. The rear panel I/O plate has punch-outs for a pair of antennas. The first PCIe slot has a metal frame around it. The M2_1 slot is to its left, and will be covered by a double-slot graphics card. There is only one PCIe x1 slot on this board, and there's a full length PCIe slot that is only wired to four lanes. In addition to the board you get a pair of SATA cables, driver CD, a quick installation guide, and an 8-1/4” x 5-1/2” manual. It has 36 pages in each of only four languages: English, German, French, and Russian. It is glue bound and won’t lie flat, but the type was easy on my older eyes, and there are also some good diagrams. Some of those pages were given over to more descriptions of the BIOS than I’ve been used to seeing recently. Here are some of the screens from that BIOS: If you’ve used a MSI board recently, you’ve seen this intro BIOS screen. It is worth pointing out that the M.2 drive I installed never appeared here, even after it had been partitioned, formatted, and tested. The only thing I typically change here is to turn off the abominable NumLock. If that dates me to the original IBM PC keyboard, so be it. (As an overclocker, I love NumLock -ed.) This is the default fan curve, which starts out very low at low temperatures. I tweaked this a little, as a mere 13% seemed too low. There will be a comment about this later in the results; it made a difference. Here, you can click over any highlighted area and see what is installed there. It’s not perfect. As you can see I have highlighted the M.2_1 connector, and it does not show the installed drive. Everything else was there.

Is there a half a million dollars worth of metal sitting your grandfathers barn? It not unheard of. What you’re about to see are incredible cars found rotting in bars and backyards all over the world. Their previous owners either died, or gave up on restoration and those who inherited them either have no clue what is in their possession, or they sold them and made a small fortune. 1953 Cunningham C-3 Coupe What you see on this image above is one of the only 25 produced C-3s in the world. It was made by a small car manufacturer called Cunningham, owned by the American motor-sport legend Briggs Cunningham that only produced four models during its brief existence. In May of 2015, one of these fully restored was sold for $869,000. 1964 Shelby Daytona The story of this car is rather tragic. It belonged to a woman, whose late father bought this car. The woman committed suicide, and for the next 30 years, her Shelby Daytona sat in storage, forgotten. All the automotive historians believed that only five of six Daytonas ever made, survived. The sixth one, the one in the picture was also the prototype. That’s how important this car is. Fully restored, it’s worth $4 million. 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Gullwing What apparently became a garage ornament to someone, is considered to be one of the most iconic cars that ever rolled out Mercedes-Benz. It was the fastest production car of its time, and there were only 1400 ever made. This particular piece is worth anywhere from $3 million to $4 million depending on the condition. 1962 Ferrari 250GTO This one is especially disturbing one. Discovered in Ohio, this incredible 1962 Ferrari 250GTO was a topic of many furious discussions between the owner and numerous Ferrari collectors. The owner wanted to “restore” this GTO he bought in 1972, so he decided to leave it outside in the field, to rot. It sat there until he finally agreed to sell it in 1986. The new owner restored this forgotten 250GTO and its value is now in tens of millions of dollars. BMW M1 Le Mans One kid had a dream. He wanted to build his own BMW M1. After searching for body kits, he found an eBay auction for a full body kit which he quickly purchased for 2,000 Euros. What he didn’t know, but later found out, is that this was no body kit. These were genuine body panels of BMW M1 that raced at Le Mans in the 80’s. It wasn’t long before BMW got wind of this, and offered to help in rebuilding this relic.

Whether you're Irish, of Irish ancestry, or just like wearing comedy leprechaun hats, St Patrick's Day is undoubtedly one of the best excuses for a knees-up. The drink of choice, of course, is always Guinness - but before you knock back every pint you can lay your hands on, why not consider using a splash of it in your cooking too? First made in the late 18th century, the Irish stout lends itself to a whole variety of dishes, both savoury and sweet. It is perhaps showcased the best in a traditional beef stew, Irish or otherwise, where it takes the place of the usual red wine or cider, and gives the dish a moreish, umami depth. At Avoca, a po[CENSORED]r cafe and food hall chain in Ireland, the also use it in a sweet, dense treacle bread which pairs wonderfully with smoked trout. Though putting a bitter drink in a cake might sound madness, Guinness chocolate cake - made famous by Nigella - is a moist, grown-up treat with a lovely tang. Our version below adds a touch of ginger for a spicy kick. Once you're finished in the kitchen, ofcourse, any leftover Guinness is a chef's perk. Happy cooking.

Pakistan says it has killed more than 100 militants in a security crackdown following Thursday's attack on a shrine that left at least 80 people dead. A suicide bomber blew himself up among devotees at the Sufi shrine in the town of Sehwan. Pakistan has reacted with raids across the country and by lashing out at Afghanistan which it accuses of tolerating militant sanctuaries. So-called Islamic State said it had carried out the attack. It was the latest in a string of bombings by the jihadist group. In response, some 18 militants were killed in southern Sindh province, where the Sufi shrine is located, and another 13 in the north-west, officials said. It is unclear where the other alleged terrorists were killed. Funerals for victims have been taking place on Friday and the Sindh provincial government has announced three days of mourning. Some 250 people were also wounded in the attack. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif condemned the bombing and immediately vowed to track down those behind it. Pakistan's army chief, Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa, said in a statement: "Each drop of the nation's blood shall be avenged, and avenged immediately. No more restraint for anyone." Armed forces spokesman Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor said more than "100 terrorists" were killed and many others arrested in 24 hours as part of operations across the country, including Punjab province. He said more details would be shared later. Correspondents say crackdowns of this type are a regular response from the state following a major militant attack. However the number of militants the army is claiming to have killed this time is higher than normal, says the BBC's M Ilyas Khan in Islamabad. The military needs to offset the impression that it is losing the war against militants, he adds. Earlier, the paramilitary Rangers said they had targeted militants overnight in Sindh, while police said further raids were carried out in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the north-west. The army also summoned officials from the Afghan embassy to its headquarters in Rawalpindi, protesting that Afghan soil was being used as a base for militants to carry out attacks in Pakistan. The army said it handed over a list containing the names of 76 "most wanted terrorists", insisting that Afghanistan take immediate action against them. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Friday condemned the shrine attack, saying: "Terrorists once again proved that they have no respect for Islamic values." Devotees continued to flock to the shrine of Sufi saint Lal Shahbaz Qalandar in Sehwan on Friday. The mood was defiant, with the customary naqqara (drum beating) taking place at daybreak as usual, and worshippers vowing to hold their routine dhamal (sacred dance) in the evening. There were also angry scenes, with some worshippers complaining to police that they had not provided enough security despite previous threats to the shrine. The shrine attack was the most deadly in a series of militant attacks since Sunday that have killed more than 100 people across Pakistan, including civilians, police and soldiers. A number of militants, especially many members of the Pakistani Taliban group (TTP), moved to Afghanistan after the Pakistani military's operation in North Waziristan in 2014. They are mostly based in eastern Afghanistan in areas considered to be outside the Afghan government's control. Some of these militants later joined the Islamic State group. The Afghan government insists it has been targeting them and has killed several Pakistani Taliban commanders over the past two years. When an attack takes place in Pakistan, officials generally point the finger at Afghanistan. Pakistanis blame elements in the Afghan intelligence agency and India's Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) for supporting militants who carry out attacks against Pakistan. Afghan officials view this as hypocrisy, accusing Pakistan of discriminating between "good" and "bad" militants. They accuse Pakistan of allowing on its soil militant groups that attack Afghanistan and India. They also point to the presence and killing of a number of top-ranked militant leaders, including Osama Bin Laden and the Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour, in US strikes in Pakistan. The "blame game" has become a norm as the countries accuse each other of using militant groups as proxies. The border closure and fresh allegations by Pakistan will further erode the little trust that exists between the two governments.

There’s probably quite a few users reading this who have got at least a couple of bootable CD’s laying around for performing various repair tasks. A lot of developers these days make available ISO images which can be burned onto CD of even transferred onto USB stick. From Antivirus scanning and Linux distro’s, to password resetting tools and data backup or recovery, there’s a massive selection of disks that can really give you a comprehensive repair and recovery collection of disks. Oh, and not forgetting a lot of peoples favorite repair utility disk, Hiren’s Boot CD. For a long time though, when you downloaded one of these CD’s, it had to be one ISO image to one CD or DVD. That makes it rather inconvenient if you wanted to take your whole repair collection with you to another location. There are tools that let you write an ISO onto a USB stick such as Rufus and UNetbootin which is helpful but still doesn’t make the best use of your disk space. In recent years things have become much easier because there are utilities around that can enable you to put several ISO’s onto one CD, DVD or pen stick and allow them to be multi booted making more effective use of your media. A couple of these tools that will set up a multi boot menu on your disks are Yumi and SARDU and they’re pretty good. Another program which also does this and a few other things besides is XBoot. The program can create nicely ordered menu’s for a number of ISO images and then either output them as an ISO image to burn onto a disk or write everything straight out to USB stick. And when completed, it will then offer to test the finished result by running it through the Virtualization tool QEMU. XBoot is a standalone executable and is free to use but does require the .NET Framework v4 to run. ISO’s are added to the program by means of dragging and dropping onto the window. If XBoot doesn’t recognize the ISO automatically, you will be asked to select what it is from a list. It is up to you to then choose the matching name or closest match. Images such as Hiren or DOS based CD’s are recommended to use ‘Grub4dos emulation‘, where something like a live Windows distro would likely need the related ‘PE, MSDART,ERD‘ selection, and something like Linux Mint will work with the ‘Ubuntu‘ option. Not all ISO’s are supported and you may have to experiment a bit to test if something not listed will work, but it’s known and made clear by the author that trying to use XBoot as a multi boot to install Windows does not work. The currently supported list is shown below: If anything in the list above looks interesting, click on the main window’s File Menu, and select Download. From the dropdown you can select any image in the list and then click ‘Open Download Webpage‘ to take you to the related website or download page. On the main screen the image name, category and Help Text can be edited by double clicking on it. Choosing a category will place the entry in a sub menu on the boot screen, so if you want everything on one single screen, delete the category from all entries. Once all the ISO’s have been added the total output size will have been calculated so make sure the size isn’t going to be too big for its destination. There is also a checksum calculator if you want to verify any images before writing. Then you are ready to click the ‘Create ISO‘ button or ‘Create USB‘ to begin the process. Creating an ISO will simply ask for the destination of the file and will then create it for you. The option to create a USB multi boot is also very easy, just point to the USB drive from the dropdown and select OK. The option is there to change the Bootloader from the recommended of Syslinux to Grub4dos if you know what you are doing. Something XBoot can’t do is prepare the USB stick for you or burn a disk inside the program. It is advisable to format the stick in FAT32 for the greatest compatibility because some Linux distro’s cannot boot using NTFS. When the process has completed, XBoot will ask if you wish to test the result in QEMU to see how it looks and performs. If you select ‘Yes’ a new window will pop up and begin booting. The menu certainly looks better than some other multi boot utilities I have seen! The other two tabs in the main window are; The QEMU tab will let you drag and drop any ISO or select any USB stick which will then be booted using QEMU, useful for testing any other images you have from elsewhere. The ‘Edit MultiBoot USB’ tab can be used to edit the menu.lst of Grub4dos or the Syslinux.cfg menu configuration files, and will let you reinstall either Bootloader on USB stick again. I’ve used this a few times and it works pretty well and a multi boot USB stick certainly makes things easier with something like multiple antivirus CD images crammed onto it. If you’re just looking for a simple tool to get Windows Vista, 7 or 8 onto a USB stick to install, you might like to try this tool. Compatible with Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 32bit and 64bit

What would happen if your SSD lost its memory? Contrary to po[CENSORED]r belief, DRAMless SSDs are not new. The first consumer SSDs shipped without a DRAM cache and experienced a stuttering issue, so the industry addressed slow performance with DRAM. Later, SandForce released controllers that leveraged a small amount of memory tucked inside the flash processor, a technique that we still find in most SSD controllers. We're examining several new retail DRAMless products, along with two next-generation models featuring NAND we've never tested before. By the end of this article, we hope to know if modern DRAMless SSDs take us back to square one, or if these products extend from where SandForce left off. For various reasons, over the years several companies have invested in technology to eliminate the DRAM cache. Some of the companies don't manufacture volatile memory--only Samsung, Sk hynix, and Micron (Crucial) manufacture both NAND and DRAM. The other SSD manufacturers have to purchase the memory from a competitor that is also trying to sell SSDs. The DRAM also consumes more power than flash, is subject to wild price swings, sometimes is in short supply, and is a critical component that most companies do not control. Your computer keeps frequently used and application data in memory, which you may know as SDRAM, DDR, DDR3 or DDR4. SSDs use memory a little differently, though it can be just as important. SSDs do not store data the same way as an HDD, primarily because NAND has a limited lifespan. Your operating system was built on the assumption that it would store data on a hard disk drive, so it steers data to specific locations (addresses) for storage. The SSD controller shuffles the data around to different addresses to ensure the flash wears out evenly, but the operating system isn't aware of the data movement. The SSD also conducts garbage collection operations to provide enough free blocks to ensure high performance, along with several other background tasks that result in a completely different set of internal data addresses. In effect, the operating system has one map of data addresses where it thinks the data is located, which the SSD considers the logical map, while the SSD has its own physical map that reflects where data is actually located. The SSD maintains the two separate maps, and it references or updates the maps every time the operating system needs to access data. The Flash Translation Layer (FTL) coordinates all of the processes. SSDs will keep all or a portion of the map in DDR2 or DDR3 (usually). DRAM is much faster than NAND, so the SSD can access the map quickly to increase performance. DDR-type memory loses data when there isn't any power, but NAND stores it even when the power goes out. The SSD keeps a copy of the map on the NAND to reduce the chance that it will lose the map from a power loss. (Technically, the SSD doesn’t lose the data, it just loses the map, so it can't find it). There are a few different approaches to eliminating DRAM. We only know of a few because the deep inner workings and algorithms tend to be closely held trade secrets. A common method is to build a small amount of memory into the controller. The Phison S11 controller we have in our tests pool features 32MB of SRAM built into the controller, but that is a very small amount of memory compared to an external module. Other techniques include compressing the flash translation layer map (essentially, it is a complicated spreadsheet, so it compresses easily) or caching a portion of the map in system memory (HMB). The SSD controller accesses as little as 8 percent of the map frequently, so there are ways to reduce the performance loss. Unfortunately, DRAMless SSDs also have a sinister side. Updating the map directly on the flash requires small random writes, which takes a bite out of the SSD's endurance. This is a particularly vexing issue with low endurance planar 2D TLC NAND flash. At Computex last June, one SSD vendor told us about an OEM 2D TLC SSD that will burn through the rated endurance in a little over a year. The SSD has to last a year because of the notebook's one-year warranty, but anything beyond a year's worth of use is up to the user to fix. Tactics like that are the driving forces behind putting cheap DRAMless SSDs in $500 notebooks.