Posted 10/14/09 at 10:30:00 AM by The Maximum PC Staff

We like you. We spend all year being nice to you—giving you the scoop on hardware, software, games, and news from the industry. We may not always be nice to companies or products, but we're always nice to our readers.

Well, nearly always. You see, every year the editors at Maximum PC get together in a big room with no windows or doors or air and hash out a series of questions for our annual Geek Quiz. Some are easy. Some are not. Some might have you pulling out your hair in frustration (those are our favorites).

But we're not doing this just to be cruel. See, if you do well, you get the satisfaction of showing us up, plus a standardized score that you can show people to prove how awesome you are. And if you don't do so well, hey, you get to learn stuff! Looking up answers on your favorite search engine, by the way, is strictly verboten.

So, whip out those #2 pencils and that slide rule, step away from the Google, and get ready to prove your mettle.

Take the Geek Quiz after the jump.

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Posted 10/07/09 at 01:45:22 PM by The Maximum PC Staff

Ninety percent of the time, when I attempt to turn on my PC it powers up for a second then immediately shuts down. The other 10 percent of the time, it boots but I get no video signal. I’ve had it looked at by a local shop, which tested each component individually (except the mobo) and found them working properly. I’ve done some troubleshooting myself and I’ve gone through the wire diagrams and everything seems to be plugged in right. However, it doesn’t sound like my hard drive is turning on. I was hoping you had some ideas before I try a new hard drive. I’ve already put in a new power supply but that didn’t change anything. Any ideas?

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Posted 10/06/09 at 01:45:47 PM by The Maximum PC Staff

I have a Gateway P-7811FX gaming laptop. I was looking at getting a 37-inch 1080p LCD TV to hook up through the HDMI port to extend the monitor/play games/watch movies on. I found an external Blu-ray disc drive that hooks up through the USB port on the laptop. Will this setup give me good quality video to watch on the large TV? If not, any other suggestions?

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Posted 10/05/09 at 02:05:00 PM by The Maximum PC Staff

I have an Acer L310 that runs Vista Home. Recently, I have only been able to start in Safe Mode. When I try to start in normal mode my monitor won’t work, but when I go with Safe Mode with Networking the monitor works. How can I get around this?

Read the answer to Terrence's question after the jump.

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Posted 10/02/09 at 02:50:47 PM by Gordon Mah Ung

Pardon us if we’re so oversaturated with so-called “extreme” potato chips and soda that we’re skeptical about anything bearing that moniker.

It doesn’t help that Nexto’s eXtreme ND2700 hardly looks the part. When we actually fired up the ND2700 and started copying files to it, however, we almost had to let out a whoop. Using a 16GB SanDisk, umm, Extreme III CF card, the ugly little ND2700 copied roughly 8.3GB of image files in 11:27 (min:sec). That’s about how fast it would take you to dump the files to your desktop via USB and that’s good news for people who think the microwave is too slow.

The ND2700 comes with a standard USB cable, as well as an eSATA cable and a short USB pig tail that lets you hook up a USB flash drive or hard drive so you can also back up all your files with the push of a button.

Continue reading this review after the jump.

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Posted 10/02/09 at 12:15:07 PM by The Maximum PC Staff

What would be the best way (time efficient) to capture video from my DirecTV DVR to my PC? I don’t want to capture Hollywood movies—I can buy those. My interest is in capturing the near 100 hours of Brazilian Carnival on my DVR, then editing it down to a “best of” DVD or two. My PC has plenty of USB ports and free PCI-E and PCI expansion slots available.

Read the answer to Jeff's question after the jump.

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Posted 10/02/09 at 11:45:07 AM by Norman Chan

Web applications are quickly gaining popularity over desktop programs for day-to-day tasks like email and calendar management, but you have to run a web browser and be tethered to an Internet connection to take advantage of these services. Luckily for you, both Google Chrome and Firefox actually offer the ability to turn these web apps into desktop applications.

Hit the jump to find out how!

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Posted 10/02/09 at 11:30:00 AM by Logan Decker

Not many games let you turn your arm into a long steel blade and cut people in half—top half going this-a-way, bottom half going that-a-way. Even fewer let you turn your hands into giant claws to cut off your victims’ legs, too. And as far as we know, not one has ever let you run diagonally up the side of building, skitter over a collapsing fire escape, and take a leaping vault off the roof as your hand—now a 50-yard whip—tags a hovering ’copter and reels you toward the cockpit to the horror of the doomed pilots. Such is the awesome power you’ll wield in Prototype, Activision’s apocalyptic and wildly entertaining third-person action-adventure.

Events begin grimly, as Alex Mercer wakes up in a morgue. He quickly discovers that he’s become a nearly indestructible shape-shifter capable of creating weapons out of his flesh and disguising himself as anyone he consumes, among other interesting abilities—such as making giant spikes pop out of the ground to skewer his enemies. So, when the amnesiac Mercer wanders topside into a plague-ridden Manhattan and finds himself pursued by crazed pedestrians, the military, and genetic mutants, he doesn’t hesitate to break out the cutlery.

Continue reading this review after the jump.

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