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Game Theory: A Good Year or the Best Year?

Thomas McDonald — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 19:20:25 -0600

Now that we’ve closed the book on 2007, we can finally say what some of us have been thinking for a while now: Best. Year. Ever.

Across all gaming platforms, we have seen not only a marked increase in sales but an undeniable renaissance in content. There have been single years with more groundbreaking, successful, or “classic” individual titles, but we’ve never really seen a year when so many of the artists who create our entertainment were firing on all cylinders. These were not radical new designs or bold new advances, but an absolute refinement of the art of game design. Witness: BioShock, Portal, Call of Duty 4, Unreal Tournament 3, Team Fortress 2, Gears of War (PC), Quake Wars, Crysis, World in Conflict, Supreme Commander, Mass Effect, Assassin’s Creed, Halo 3, and more.

That’s right, I’m including those last three non-PC titles, and for a good reason. They were at the pinnacle of gaming for the year, and they were made by companies with deep PC roots: BioWare, Ubi Montreal, and Bungie.

That’s what makes 2007 a bittersweet year for computer gamers. PC stalwarts like BioWare, Infinity Ward, Irrational, Epic, Big Huge Games, and others turned their sights toward the console for the mere promise of riches, fame, and glory—and were amply rewarded for their treachery.

Paradoxically, this is a good thing for PC gamers. We will benefit because while the non-MMO PC market remains vastly smaller than the console market, it’s still profitable, and growing. PC game sales are keeping pace with the rest of the industry, which grew more than 25 percent in 2007. (Granted, it’s humbling to see the best and boldest, hardware-crunching PC titles of the year, Crysis and UT3, post sales of, 87,000 and 34,000, respectively, in their opening weeks, while COD4 for the Xbox 360 blows through 1.5 million copies in November alone. On the other hand, UbiSoft still sells more games for the PC than for the Wii or PSP.)

PC gamers will feel a kind of trickle-down effect from these shifts, as console games created by developers who have traditionally worked on the PC migrate back to that platform with enhanced content, as Gears of War already has. Let the console sales foot the bill for increasingly expensive game development. PC gamers will still reap the rewards in the end.

Thomas L. McDonald has been covering games for 17 years. He is Editor-at-Large of Games Magazine.

Maximum PC's 2007 Gaming Awards

The Maximum PC Staff and Norman Chan — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 13:05:37 -0600

Boy howdy have the past 12 months been an eventful time for gamers! With a spate of unbelievably good titles—and a fair number of lemons—we had one helluva time deciding which games to pick and which to pan. So let’s get on with the business of presenting this year’s honors! Or just go straight to the Game of the Year!

Special Achievement for Opening New Doors in Gameplay

Portal

Within four short hours of gameplay, Portal reminded us of a time when game developers could afford to take chances. By eschewing the run-’n’-gun mechanic that’s integral to first-person shooters and replacing it with a series of increasingly difficult physics-based puzzles, Valve created the first new game genre in years: the first-person puzzler. This new gameplay mechanic, combined with a subversive and irreverent sense of humor, not to mention the best baddie since Bowser, makes for an experience that appeals to newbs and hardcore gamers alike. And by selling Portal as an itsy-bitsy part of The Orange Box, Valve proved that taking a chance on something new doesn’t have to be risky.
http://orange.half-life2.com, ESRB: T

The Best of the Bargain Bin

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl

The premise: brilliant. Mutants surround the nuked-out husk of the defunct Chernobyl power plant, where you must travel to do stuff that saves people, and… OK, we weren’t paying attention to the story, but we loved the setting. Unfortunately, no combination of quality settings could get this game to run at launch, especially if you were cursed with Vista. Luckily, six months later, the game has finally been patched to the point where it will run on most rigs, making it worthy of reconsideration.
www.stalker-game.com, ESRB: M

The Been There, Done That Award

Unreal Tournament 3

If Unreal Tournament 3’s gameplay feels strikingly similar to that of its previous iteration, it’s because UT3 is pretty much the same game wrapped in a fancy new graphics engine. Not that we’re complaining, since Epic arguably achieved deathmatch perfection with its 2004 classic. We’re more peeved that we waited so long for UT3, only to find several of our favorite multiplayer modes missing, including Assault and Onslaught.
www.unrealtournament3.com, ESRB: M

The Hiroo Onada "Keepin' the Fight Alive" Award

Medal of Honor: Airborne

Like the famed Japanese soldier who did not surrender his post until 1974, Medal of Honor: Airborne desperately holds to the notion that gamers still want to play WWII-era shooters. Armed with a new parachuting gameplay mechanic and sheer force of will, MOH: Airborne defies its anachronistic shortcomings and delivers a fairly gripping shooter experience. We salute its zeal and conviction, even if less honorable gamers haven’t given it the recognition it deserves.
www.ea.com/moh/airborne/index.jsp, ESRB: T

Best Multiplayer

Team Fortress 2

In a year chock-full of great multiplayer experiences—Supreme Commander, Call of Duty 4, and World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade, to name a few—the Best Multiplayer Award was a contentious subject among the editors. After much debate (and some name calling), we eventually settled on Team Fortress 2. It not only captured more of our collective multiplayer time than any other game but also brought us night after night of pure joy. TF2 delivers in every way that’s important—allowing you to torch an entire scout rush with a pyro, build a turret that takes out the whole other team, or simply heal your pals so they can keep fighting. With nine very different classes, each with its own specialty and Achilles’ heel, there are literally thousands of strategies to master in the game’s six maps. And at no time did the limited selection of maps feel limited. Oh no. The game’s sublime balance and exquisite design would have made a single map sufficient—as long as it was 2fort.
http://orange.half-life2.com, ESRB: M

We Paid $10/month For This?

Hellgate: London

We have no problem paying monthly subscription fees for a good MMO. But Hellgate: London is neither good nor an MMO, based on the common definition of a “massively multiplayer online” game. Hellgate’s gaming experience is a bitter pill—and the voluntary $10-per-month subscription model is pure poison.

Pony up, and you’ll be treated to awesome features like “hardcore mode” and increased in-game storage space. Neat as it is to pay for a means to permanently die, we’d much prefer new weapons, classes, enemies, and achievement rewards and PvP—all more promises than reality at this point.
www.hellgatelondon.com, ESRB: M

The Timmy! Award for Inspiration in Gaming

Shadowrun

We love console gaming, but it’s time to face facts: The gamepad simply can’t compete with a mouse and keyboard in first-person shooters. The gamepad can be precise or fast—but not both at the same time. Shadowrun’s fast-paced combat leaves us with a deep appreciation of the, umm, handicaps our console-bound brethren must endure. Sure, we were annoyed when we out-circle-strafed our enemy and they accused us of “hax,” but now we know what Fatal1ty feels like when he plays commoners. And believe us, it feels good.
www.shadowrun.com, ESRB: M

Evil This Good Leaves Us Longing for Dungeon Keeper 3

Overlord

Chugging through Overlord brings back fond memories of one of the greatest minion-commanding, good-smiting games ever to come to a PC: Dungeon Keeper. While you control a complete—and completely menacing—being instead of just a disembodied hand, Overlord nevertheless reinvigorates the best elements of the classic DK series: wry, dark humor; silly, smelly monsters; and oodles of replayability.

It takes time—and a big ax—to control a good land afoul with armies of diversely powered imps. Once you’ve rebuilt your domain and found a mistress, you’ll be an evil fanboy for sure—just like all the Dungeon Keepers of yore.
www.codemasters.com/overlord, ESRB: T

The Hobson's Choice Award

Call of Duty 4

Choice. As gamers, we’re frequently presented with choices, both good and bad. And generally, choice is a good thing for gamers. But some games eschew the whole choice thing, instead creating intensity the old-fashioned way, with scripted events. Call of Duty 4 represents the pinnacle of choiceless gameplay, building one experience upon the previous one until you reach a climax so unbelievable, you really have to play the game to appreciate it.
www.callofduty.com, ESRB: M

The Top of the Mountain Award for Extreme Dewness*

Peggle

The concept is simple, really. Peggle is digital pachinko, with crazy powerups, a trippy cast of characters, and an unrelentingly cheerful theme that would be pure saccharine if it weren’t executed with such unrelenting earnestness. With hours played soaring into the thousands, we blame Peggle for more lost productivity at Maximum PC HQ than anything else this year.
www.popcap.com, ESRB: E

*The Top of the Mountain Award for Extreme Dewness is in no way affiliated with Mountain Dew or Spike TV.

We Would Have Been Even More Excited if it Came Out Last Year

Gears of War

We’ll admit that by the time Gears of War finally arrived on the PC, we’d already beaten it twice on Insane difficulty and unlocked most of the multiplayer achievements on the Xbox 360. And can you really blame us for caving? With so much hype surrounding the visceral shooter, we crossed the PC fanboy picket lines and drank the sweet console Kool-Aid. But more steadfast PC gamers needn’t fret—the PC version’s extended campaign and additional multiplayer maps are a worthy consolation for your admirable resolve.
http://gearsofwar.com/, ESRB: M

We Love the Smell of Napalm in the . . . Well, Anytime.

World in Conflict

We’ll say it: There’s nothing more fun than calling down airstrike after unholy airstrike while playing World in Conflict. Although “playing” is perhaps the wrong word to use. Fighting to retake the upper chunk of the United States is more a matter of “turtling” than anything else. And we can’t get enough of it.

Light artillery, heavy artillery, napalm, fuel air bombs, laser-guided missiles: This game drips chaos with its massive amounts of targetable air ordnance. You can’t help but smile the first time you toss a nuclear missile in a multiplayer match. We cackled with glee.
www.worldinconflict.com, ESRB: T

The Most Anticipated Game of 2009

Crysis

Long development times and delayed release dates are something gamers have grown accustomed to with many of today’s high-profile games. And most of the time, an extra six months or a year of waiting is a small price to pay to ensure that Triple-A titles are polished and tested for bugs. With Crysis, the problem isn’t that the game was released before it was ready—the conundrum is that Crytek released a game before our PCs were ready. Screenshots of Crysis running at max settings taunt us like a photo of Albert Pujols—both are emasculating reminders of our inadequacy. Sure, we could enjoy Crysis’s nerve-racking stealth gameplay without the next-gen graphics, but that’s a disservice akin to driving a Rolls-Royce without leather seats. We’d rather wait a year until our systems are worthy enough to play the game in all its glory. www.ea.com/crysis/, ESRB: M

We'd Have Been Pissed About the Crap Port if the Game Didn't Suck So Much

Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock

Take away all of the port problems in this game—crazy system requirements, unoriginal content, lack of crossover leaderboards between the PC and Xbox 360 versions—and what do you get? A game that’s just not fun.
It’s the same ol’ button-mashing rhythm game reskinned with a snazzier interface. Sure, you get new songs, but the difficulties have been cranked to finger-bleeding levels. And it’s not even a gradual ramp up; if you make it past the game’s crippling battle modes, the final chunk of five songs will rain blood on your fun parade.
www.guitarhero.com, ESRB: T

What Can Brown Do For You?

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars

In many ways, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars is a drastic departure from the deathmatch origins of the classic id Software franchise. But even with its startling team- and objective-based design, we are comforted by the familiar earth tones that saturate almost all the game’s maps. The terra palette is deeper now for sure—bronze, sienna, and hazel now blanket the tawny battlefield—but when the dust settles, brown is brown. We wouldn’t have it any other way.
www.enemyterritory.com, ESRB: T

Fail

Halo 2 for Vista

We’ve come to love the occasional port from the console world—after all, Gears of War turned out OK. But releasing Halo 2 for the PC almost three years after the Xbox version shipped is silly. It’s bad enough that after all that time the game was essentially the same as the original Xbox edition, but Bungie added insult to injury by tying this 3-year-old, last-gen console port to Vista. Instead of ratcheting up the Halo experience for an audience that may not have been previously exposed to it, and potentially selling some more consoles and copies of Halo 3, the publisher added a few achievements and required a wonky OS.
www.microsoft.com/games/halo2/, ESRB: M

Game of the Year (February 16, 2007 - August 20, 2007)

Supreme Commander

Oh, how we love Supreme Commander. Its lightning-fast pace and emphasis on balancing economy and massive unit production makes for an entirely new kind of strategy game. Where most RTSes have focused on smaller and smaller conflicts, Supreme Commander is strategy writ large. Instead of taking 10 units to battle, you command 1,000 minions on a map 10 times larger than those of any other RTS. Now that’s maximum!
www.supremecommander.com, ESRB: E10+

The I'm a Lumberjack and I'm OK Award

Crysis

Forget the gorgeous graphics and repetitive combat for a moment and remember your first time. It’s just you and your machine gun, alone in the jungle. You tentatively lift your rifle, gently nestling its butt against your shoulder. Your finger caresses the trigger as you align the target in your sights and slowly… slowly… slowly pull the trigger. Bang. It’s over.

If you’re like us, we’re sure you’ll never forget your first time. Your first time shooting down a tree.
www.ea.com/crysis, ESRB: M

Best Lyrics in a Closing Credits Song

"Still Alive" from Portal

Capping off an absolutely magical game with this hilarious ditty (specially written for the game by Jonathan Coulton - look him up!) is the win. We’ll let the lyrics speak for themselves.

This was a triumph!
I’m making a note here:
“HUGE SUCCESS!!”

It’s hard to overstate
my satisfaction.

Aperture Science:
We do what we must
because we can.

For the good of all of us.
Except the ones who are dead.

But there’s no sense crying
over every mistake.
You just keep on trying
till you run out of cake.
And the science gets done.
And you make a neat gun
for the people who are
still alive.

I’m not even angry...
I’m being so sincere right now—
Even though you broke my heart,
and killed me.
And tore me to pieces.
And threw every piece into a fire.
As they burned it hurt because
I was so happy for you!

Now, these points of data
make a beautiful line.
And we’re out of beta.
We’re releasing on time!
So I’m GLaD I got burned—
Think of all the things we
learned—for the people who are still alive.

Go ahead and leave me...
I think I’d prefer to stay inside...
Maybe you’ll find someone else to help you?
Maybe Black Mesa?
That was a joke! HA HA!! FAT CHANCE!!

Anyway this cake is great!
It’s so delicious and moist!

Look at me: Still talking
when there’s science to do!
When I look out there,
it makes me GLaD I’m not you.

I’ve experiments to run.
There is research to be done.
On the people who are still alive.
And believe me I am still alive.
I’m doing science and I’m still alive.
I feel fantastic and I’m still alive.
While you’re dying I’ll be still alive.
And when you’re dead I will be still alive.
Still alive.
Still alive.

http://orange.half-life2.com, ESRB: T

Next: The Game of the Year!

Game of the Year

Bioshock

“A man chooses, a slave obeys.” With those six words, THQ Boston opened the door to a new era of gaming. Ken Levine’s team built a gorgeous undersea world, filled it with interesting and believable characters, invites you to kill said characters using a perfectly balanced combat system, and then uses the game to do more than simply tell a tale. Unlike every other game we’ve ever played, BioShock uses the medium’s interactivity to explore concepts in a way that is simply impossible in films and books.

While other designers would have taken the underwater wonderland that is Rapture and driven the player through increasingly difficult mazes, Levine uses the framework he built to explore objectivism and free will with the player as an active participant. By allowing the player to choose whether to save or harvest the Little Sisters, but not whether to kill Andrew Ryan at the game’s climactic moment, Levine forces players to make difficult ethical choices, while confronting them with the fallacy of free will in games.

Sadly, the final act of the game doesn’t match the brilliance of the first two parts, and the “big finish” is an offensively clichéd boss battle. Even with its flawed third act, BioShock represents everything that we want to celebrate with our Game of the Year Award. Bravo.
http://www.2kgames.com/bioshock/, ESRB: M

Best of the Best 2007

The Maximum PC Staff — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 13:11:52 -0600

Every year, a procession of PC parts enters our Lab. Each component is tested mercilessly, but only a handful manage to win us over with a combination of killer performance, unique skills, and an all-inclusive feature set. Over the following pages, we pay tribute to those proud few and explain what makes them stand out among their peers in each major PC category. Ladies and gentlemen, we present this year’s hardware best in show!

Best CPU: Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650

Intel’s been on cruise control for more than a year, but that doesn’t mean the giant has been asleep at the wheel. On the heels of its proven 65nm Core 2 Quad design, Intel gets tiny with a new 45nm process chock-full of under-the-hood enhancements that boost performance 10 to 15 percent over its predecessor in a clock-for-clock comparison. But the real story of the 45nm Penryn chip is its clock-speed headroom. While the 65nm quad cores top out at 3GHz (with overclocked chips pushing 3.73GHz), the QX9650 promises to push clock speeds far higher thanks to the more efficient 45nm process. The only downside to Penryn is that it won’t work in some older motherboards. Nevertheless, this is the best CPU in town. $1,000, www.intel.com

Best Motherboard: Asus P5E3 Deluxe

If you don’t like controversy, stop reading. After taking Asus’s new P5E3 Deluxe motherboard and its new Intel X38 chipset for a ride, we’re willing to toss aside conventional power-user wisdom and embrace this DDR3 non-SLI board as our top pick. Wha, wha, what?! Just hear us out: First, the board supports Intel’s new 45nm Penryn—our favored CPU. Second, DDR3 is beginning to hit speeds that make it attractive—at 1,800MHz, who gives a damn about latency? We’re also willing to forgo SLI support—for now—when single-card performance is so damned fast. (In the meantime, maybe Nvidia will finally unlock SLI on Intel chipsets.) The hardcore features and killer performance of this board make it worth the trade-off.
(Reviewed at http://tinyurl.com/2cvl4b) $280, www.asus.com

Best Air Cooler: Zalman CNPS9700 LED

The fact that we’ve adopted the CNPS9700 as a benchmark against which we compare all other coolers is a testament to the raw strength of this shiny little guy. It’s just that powerful; it’s loud too, but if you want your CPU temps lowered to the extreme, the CNPS9700 is the cooler to do it.
(Reviewed February 2007) $80, www.zalmanusa.com

Best Case: Cooler Master Cosmos

We’ve read the pages upon pages of forum posts complaining about the Cosmos: that it’s too bulky, that it’s too warm, that it sucks. Well, you disbelievers are wrong! We’ve found nothing but blissful joy when using this holiest of holy chassis. Its adherence to screwless construction and soundproofing, not to mention its front-panel eSATA support and durable exterior, made the Cosmos the natural choice for this year’s Dream Machine, and it remains our favorite to this day. To praise this case more would require ticker tape and a flashy car.
(Reviewed October 2007) $200, www.coolermaster.com

Best Videocard: Asus EN8800 GTX

The videocard market has been a one-horse race this year. Nvidia obliterated AMD without doing much of anything new. And while this might seem out of character for Maximum PC, we’re not anointing a card with Nvidia’s absolute fastest GPU—the 8800 Ultra—with our Best of the Best designation.

No, we’ve decided to stick with the 8800 GTX, as represented by Asus’s EN8800 GTX. It’s fast, it’s quiet, and it delivers incredible performance with DX9 (its DX10 performance is admittedly less impressive). Yes, the Ultra is faster. It’s also hotter and a whole lot more expensive. We just don’t think the modest speed bump justifies the mountain of cash you’ll need to acquire one.
(Reviewed January 2007) $550, www.asus.com

Best Optical Drive: Samsung SH-S203B

It’s all well and good to have next-gen hardware—if it makes sense. And right now, with a format war raging and hardware and media costs still sky high, next-gen optical is a foolish choice for most folks. The majority of disc-burning and -reading needs are best handled by a good old-fashioned DVD burner, and Samsung’s SH-S203B is our fave in this category, offering a SATA interface, 20x write speeds, and a competitive price.

(Reviewed October 2007) $70, www.samsung.com

Best Monitor: Gateway XHD3000

While we’re still admirers of the large 1920x1200 native-res LCDs we’ve been recommending the last few years, the widespread adoption of these screens has definitely diminished their cachet. So we’re thrilled that a really, really high-res screen is now a viable option. Thanks to Gateway’s XHD3000, power users can enjoy all the benefits of a 30-inch, 2560x1600 panel without suffering any of the indignities inherent to other 30-inch LCDs. The XHD3000’s unique use of an internal scaler means you can choose among multiple interface options, adjust the screen’s image in a variety of ways, and play high-def content at its intended res. Righteous!

(Reviewed on here) $1,700, www.gateway.com

Best Wi-Fi Router: D-Link DIR-655

It’s been a long wait, but 802.11n wireless routers are finally worth buying—even if the IEEE hasn’t published the final spec. After testing models from every major vendor, we found that D-Link’s DIR-655 offers the best combination of features and performance. With unparalleled tweakability, customizable quality-of-service settings, best-in-class range and throughput, and a built-in Gigabit Ethernet switch, no other router comes close.

(Reviewed November 2007) $130, www.dlink.com

Best Backup Drive: Seagate FreeAgent Pro

Let’s get the messy details out of the way first: The single-drive FreeAgent Pro is slower than Western Digital’s RAID-enabled MyBook Pro Edition II. But that’s only if you consider the storage mediums themselves. The MyBook Pro II supports only USB and FireWire connections, while the FreeAgent Pro provides support for both those specs as well as eSATA, making it the ultimate winner for file transferring. And unlike the MyBook, it works perfectly in Vista!

(Reviewed here) 300, www.seagate.com

Best Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 (1TB)

We were inches away from declaring Hitachi’s 7K1000 terabyte drive the best hard drive of 2007, when—whammo!—terabyte offerings from Western Digital and Seagate hit the Lab within a day of each other. Storage competition makes us salivate, so we couldn’t wait to run the drives through our benchmark obstacle course.
It’s a good thing we did: Seagate’s four-platter Barracuda 7200.11 drive is the fastest terabyte drive we’ve ever tested, with an average read speed of 86.6MB/s—a whole 15 megabytes a second faster than the 7K1000. Attribute the win to the Barracuda’s increased areal density. At 250MB per platter, the ’Cuda packs more for a decisive read/write punch!
(Reviewed Holiday 2007) $330, www.seagate.com

Best Thumb Drive: Corsair Voyager GT 8GB

Corsair’s Voyager GT is the zenith of zippy thumb drives. Sure, there are larger keys—including the 16GB Voyager—but their speeds don’t compare to those of the blazing-fast Voyager GT 8GB. It’s fast and spacious enough to swallow nearly the entire contents of a dual-layer DVD; Corsair’s Flash Voyager GT is hands-down our pick for petite portable storage.

(Reviewed February 2007) $150, www.corsair.com

Best Digital Media Player: SanDisk Sansa Connect

There’s plenty of buzz about Apple’s new iPod Touch, but that device didn’t ship in time for us to consider. No matter, we’ll happily give SanDisk’s Sansa Connect the win in this category. The Sansa Connect’s built-in Wi-Fi capabilities tie into Yahoo’s Launchcast Internet radio and Yahoo Music Unlimited services to provide a nearly unlimited source of music you can share with other subscribers.
(Reviewed July 2007) $150, www.sandisk.com

Best NAS Box: QNAP TS-109 Pro

It’s hard not to love QNAP’s TS-109 Pro network attached storage (NAS) box. For starters, it sprinkles magic dust over your data transfers—it was the speediest of all the NAS devices we’ve ever tested in both our small- and large-file transfer tests. The TS-109 also comes with a plethora of outstanding features: It can stream music (iTunes supported!), download BitTorrent files, act as a server, back up your PCs, and even pull files from USB devices. Consider us smitten!

(Reviewed here) $330—drive not included, www.qnap.com

Best Earbuds: Shure SE530

We’ve auditioned a number of innovative and great-sounding earbuds this year, including Etymotic’s wireless ety8 and M-Audio’s bass-boomin’ IE-20 XB, but nothing caressed our drums as tenderly as Shure’s SE530.

Three microdrivers in each earbud—one tweeter and two woofers—deliver the entire sonic spectrum with crystal clarity and plenty of oomph at the bottom end. They’re pricey, to be sure, but we think their excellent fit and audacious sound fully justify their cost.
(Reviewed August 2007, as model SE530PTH) $500, www.shure.com

Best Speakers: Audioengine 5

2007 was a good year for speakers, with a number of great systems going through the Lab’s sonic chamber. TBI’s passive Majestic Diamond I and B&W’s incredible Zeppelin (reviewed on page 88) were both exceptional. But we’re giving the nod to the Audioengine 5 bookshelf system, which combines outstanding character with features that render it useful for nearly any application.

It makes a great near-field stereo monitoring system, yet it can fill a room with sound. There’s a built-in USB port on top for charging your portable media player, and an AC outlet in back that’s just the ticket for powering a streaming box.
(Reviewed May 2007) $350, www.audioengineusa.com

Next: Worst of the Worst!

Worst of the Worst

With so much killer hardware in our midst, you might think we’re strangers to crappy products. Not so! Here are some of the lemons from 2007 and what we had to say about ’em

Reservoir Dogs
“By the end of the game, we were praying the cops would shoot us to put us out of our misery.”
(Reviewed January 2007)

Belkin Cable-Free USB Hub
“If Belkin’s Cable-Free USB Hub is any indication of what we can expect from other wireless USB products, the technology’s future is bleak.”
(Reviewed April 2007)

Overway Technology Vacuum Superconductive Heat Cooler
“Yes, it took more than half an hour to get the device in place. And for all that, we were rewarded with a cooler that actually performs worse than [a] cheapo stock cooler…”
(Reviewed June 2007)

Toshiba Portable External Hard Drive
“We sure can’t think of a compelling reason to pick up this device, as the Toshiba is as slow as it is featureless.”
(Reviewed November 2007)

Philips amBX Gaming Peripherals
“Amsterdam is just 66 miles from Philips’s headquarters in Eindhoven. Hmm. Could that explain how this bizarre concept got off the drawing board, into a factory, and onto retailers’ shelves without someone asking, ‘Why?’”
(Reviewed March 2007)

CoolerMaster iTower 930
“You could practically open a Greek restaurant with all the PITA that comes with assembling a computer using this case.”
(Reviewed February 2007)

Genius HS-04U Headset
“The Genius HS-04U is made of plastic, but it sounds like tin.”
(Reviewed July 2007)

Abit iDome D500 Digital 2.1
“Seriously, the audio that emerged from this milquetoast system was so blasé… we had to check the iDome’s subwoofer to make sure it was warm.”
(Reviewed February 2007)

Western Digital My Book World Edition II
“If you love holding down a power button for more than 20 seconds just to shut off a device, you’ll love WD’s My Book World.”
(Reviewed August 2007)

Heal and Inoculate Your PC

Paul Lilly — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 18:19:48 -0600

Remember the excitement you felt when you bought your first car? Before the dealer even handed you the keys, you made a vow to keep your new set of wheels in tip-top shape, to lovingly wash it, change the oil every 3,000 miles, and even maintain the proper tire pressure. You wanted to keep your new car looking and running its very best. You understood that the consequence of not doing this would be costly repair bills at best, and at worst, a car that no longer ran as it should.

Owning and maintaining a PC really isn’t so different than owning a car. Only with a PC, there’s no maintenance schedule outlined in your user’s manual, leaving it up to you to keep your smoking-fast rig from turning into a stuttering compilation of unresponsive parts. And worse yet, now more than ever PCs are highly susceptible to all kinds of nasties, from keylogging viruses to performance-hampering spyware to everything in between. Even simply surfing the web can be enough to turn your dream machine into a nightmare experience if you don’t take proper precautions.

But fear not, because we’re going to show you how to set up safeguards to keep your rig humming along as fast as it was on the day you built it. Not only that, but we’ll also walk you through the steps of fixing a system that’s already suffering from neglect, so the next time you hear cries of frustration emanating from your neighbor’s apartment, you can swoop in and save the day, Maximum PC style!

Looking to clog up your browser and infect your system? Install toolbars and desktop buddies to do both in one fell swoop!

Heal Your PC

Sometimes a PC becomes so badly infected that nuking your Windows install and starting fresh seems like the only viable option. Or maybe your computer hasn’t yet reached a state of virtual undeath but has been running sluggishly, betraying the high-end components inside. No matter which scenario you find yourself in, there is hope. Put away that towel—we won’t be throwing it in quite yet.

Five-Minute Fixes

Whether your PC’s performance problems are severe or just mildly annoying, a simple series of fixes could have it running like new.

1: Blast the Bloatware

Just as the name implies, spyware is a malicious program designed to mine personal data from your machine and spy on your computing habits. The information collected is then used to harass you with ads in the form of pop-ups, redirected web searches, a browser homepage you can’t change, and other annoyances. And here’s the kicker: You could have installed the offending programs yourself! But don’t feel bad if you’ve been bamboozled; spyware often masks itself behind seemingly legitimate software, most often browser toolbars and desktop buddies. Rid your system of these bloated add-ons and watch your PC’s performance improve right away.

Close any open browser windows; then open up your Control Panel and navigate to Add or Remove Programs. Scroll down the list and uninstall any browser toolbar, desktop buddy, or search helper.

We love small critters, just not those of the virtual variety. Rid your system of deskmates and consider buying a real pet instead.

2: Get Widgety with It!

Now that you’ve uninstalled all the honest, easy-to-uninstall bloatware, it’s time to hit the local watering hole and call it a day, right? If only it were that easy! Once installed, some spyware detaches from the host program it shipped with, and other programs simply reinstall themselves, continuing to load every time you boot into Windows. To put the kibosh on these persistent pests, we’re going to tell Windows to skip over them when loading startup programs, and we’re going to do it with the help of Microsoft.

You'll want some programs to load with Windows, so choose only the items you want to rid from your system.

If you’re running Vista, you already own Windows Defender, and XP owners can download the free scanner from Microsoft here. Once installed, click the Tools tab and then select Software Explorer. This handy widget lists all the startup programs that load with Windows, along with a wealth of potentially incriminating information, such as the date a program installed, file location, file type, and whether or not it shipped with your OS. In the left-hand pane, highlight any dubious entries and click the Remove button. After you’ve cleared all of the startup scourge, reboot your system to a clean start!

3: Scan for Scoundrels

Windows Defender isn’t good at just customizing startup programs; it’s also a very capable spyware scanner. On the main screen, you can choose between a full scan, which looks in all files and currently running programs, or a quick search that uncovers vermin in their most common hiding spots. Run the full scan for a thorough scrub, and then let Defender remove any infections it finds.

4: Get a Second and Third) Opinion

New variants of spyware are released into the wild at an alarming rate, and it’s impossible for any single program to keep up with them all. For this reason, we run at least two different scanners on an infected system, or more if the infection is especially bad. Other programs we’ve had success with in the Maximum PC Lab include A-Squared (free, http://tinyurl.com/2gb93), Spybot S&D (free, www.safer-networking.org), Ad-Aware (free, www.lavasoftusa.com), AVG Anti-Spyware (free, http://free.grisoft.com), and Spy Sweeper ($30, www.webroot.com). Regardless of the tool you use, double-check the URL for typos and be sure you’re downloading directly from the source (rogue sites often try to pass off infected software as authentic spyware scanners). Above all else, always update your spyware definitions to detect the
latest threats.

5: Look Closer with HijackThis!

Spyware loves to hide, but HijackThis! makes an even better seeker, uncovering the leftover residue that managed to elude traditional scans.

Even after running several anti-spyware scans, you might still have a lingering infection. HijackThis! (free, http://tinyurl.com/huyrw) takes a fine-tooth comb to your system, targeting methods commonly used by hijackers. Because HijackThis! doesn’t zone in on specific infections, most of the reported entries will be legitimate, and disabling them could do more harm to your system than good. Highlight only entries that you’ve previously tried removing but that keep showing back up. For example, if you’ve uninstalled Bonzi Buddy and removed any related entries from the startup queue, you can safely highlight any references to the program that HijackThis! finds and then click the Fix Selected button. For all other selections, either leave them alone or carefully use the online tutorial (http://tinyurl.com/2et7nb) for detailed steps on discerning between good and bad entries. You can also submit your logs to Help2Go Detective (http://tinyurl.com/etujk) and HijackThis Security (www.hijackthis.de/en) for automated analysis.

6: Vaccinate Your Rig

When you’re sick, you generally make it a point to avoid others, lest you infect them with your ailment. But when your computer contracts a virus, it looks to spread the disease to as many other PCs as it can, turning each one into a remote-controlled zombie. The nefarious do-badder can then wage a DoS (Denial of Service) attack on a website, making thousands of PCs repeatedly request pages, until the site’s server can’t take the load and the site goes down.
But that’s not all viruses are capable of doing. They can record your keystrokes, including passwords and bank account information, and pass the information along to people who are up to no good. Other viruses wreak havoc on your hard drive, erasing data, altering critical system files, and even causing permanent physical damage in the form of bad sectors. Heck, viruses can even be used to install more spyware and viruses.

To rid your system of viruses, you need to perform a sweeping scan. If you don’t have antivirus software installed, we recommend you start with Panda Security’s web-based AV app (free, www.pandasecurity.com/usa) and scan your PC right from within Internet Explorer. It will also detect spyware, rootkits, and dialers, but will only disinfect viruses. Just click the Total Scan button, install the ActiveX control, and let Panda do the rest.

7: Perform a Root(kit) Canal

You’ve rid your system of spyware and nuked any lingering viruses, but your PC isn’t quite yet eligible for a clean bill of health. You need to check for rootkits, a particularly nasty variant of malware that burrows deep within the OS, where it’s difficult to detect with conventional scanners. Signs of infection can be subtle, or even nonexistent, thanks to a rootkit’s ability to integrate with your OS’s kernel. Whether your system displays symptoms or not, if you’ve recently discovered any spyware or viruses, your next step is to initiate a rootkit scan.

Because rootkits are tightly integrated with critical system files, back up any important data right away. Next, head over to F-Secure and download Blacklight (free for now; will be part of a $79 security suite, www.f-secure.com/blacklight). This handy executable needs no installation, just double-click the icon and watch as it probes your system. We also recommend running AVG’s Anti-Rootkit program (free, http://tinyurl.com/2mqb6n) for a second opinion.

Sidebar: Top Five Deadliest Viruses

Viruses have existed for decades and number in the thousands, but these five variants stand out as the nastiest of the bunch.

1. MyDoom One of the fastest-spreading worms of all time, MyDoom, and the variant MyDoom.B, set its sights on SCO and Microsoft, prompting both companies to offer a $250,000 bounty to anyone who identified the people responsible for its creation.

2. Nimda Just days after the September 11 attacks, PCs worldwide were hit by the Nimda virus, prompting speculation among conspiracy theorists that the virus was part of a terrorist attack. No link has ever been made between the two events.

3. CodeRed You’ve heard of the drink, but the CodeRed virus had a thirst for computers running Microsoft’s Internet Information Systems (IIS) web server, attaching the phrase “Hacked By Chinese” to websites. One of the targets included the White House.

4. Slammer Can a worm infect 75,000 PCs within minutes of going live? It can, and it did! Slammer’s small footprint (365 bytes) played a big role in its ability to double its infection rate every 8.5 seconds.

5. ILOVEYOU Love hurts, and in the case of the ILOVEYOU virus, it stung for over $5 billion in damages. Some of those scorned include Ford Motor Co., the Pentagon, and the British Parliament.

Next: Change Your Boots, Restore and Repair, Top 5 Virus Hoaxes and Pranks!

Change Your Boots

Severe infections can render a normal Windows install completely unusable, but we have a couple of tricks up our sleeve for infiltrating a broken OS.

1: Boot into Safe Mode

Sometimes you need to attack malware before it has a chance to load, and by the time Windows boots to the desktop, it’s already too late. It might be that your system no longer responds to your input or does so with a sluggishness that makes even accessing the Start menu a time-consuming chore. Or it may be that the infection’s interfering with your AV and spyware scanners, shutting them down before they can run. It may seem dire, but by booting into safe mode, you can frequently squash the scourge wreaking havoc on your PC.

Reboot your system and hit F8 before the Windows splash screen comes up. This takes you to the Windows Advanced Options Menu, where you can select Safe Mode with Networking using your keyboard. Windows will proceed to load with only basic drivers, allowing you to disinfect your system while the offending programs lay dormant. Perform any scans as you normally would, and make sure to update your virus or spyware definitions beforehand. Because you chose the Networking option, you’ll have Internet access in case you need to download additional programs.

2: Make Your Own Boot CD

When all else fails, enlist the help of Bart. No, not Bart Simpson, BartPE. Bart’s Preinstalled Environment is a bootable live CD that every tech should carry in his toolbox. Sometimes a system gets so mucked up, you can’t even get into safe mode. Booting off a BartPE CD allows you to access the infected hard drive and run diagnostics, scan for viruses and spyware, or in more extreme cases, extract data in preparation for a fresh install.

To get started, grab your original Windows installation CD. Download the self-extracting installer (free, http://nu2.nu/pebuilder/) and install it on a clean system. The app will prompt you for the location of your Windows CD, and you’ll want to check the Burn to CD/DVD radio button. Next, click the Plug-ins button, bringing up a list of optional add-ons to include on your CD. Many of the entries are outdated and some are second-rate programs, so we’re going to add our own. Head over to http://tinyurl.com/3bg68a and download the Spybot S&D plugin. Unpack the RAR file and move the contents to C:\pebuilder3110a\plugin, or wherever you installed BartPE. Next we need to find a working, up-to-date virus scanner that’s easy to install, and the open-source ClamWin fits our criteria. Download the plugin from http://oss.netfarm.it/winpe/ and extract the contents to the same location. Now return to the BartPE window and hit the Refresh button. Both of your new plugins should be displayed, and if they’re not enabled by default, highlight each one and click the Enable/Disable button. Finally, close the window and click Build.

Insert your new BartPE CD into the infected system and in your BIOS configure the PC to boot from the optical drive. You do this by hitting the delete key during POST (if that doesn’t work, try F1, F2, or ESC). Dig around for the boot device priority menu and make sure the optical drive is listed before your Windows hard drive. Hit F10 to save and exit, and the computer will take over from there.

From within BartPE you can even run anti-spyware apps like Ad-Aware

After BartPE loads, you’ll be greeted with a snazzy GUI similar to Windows’s, complete with a Start menu alternative. Click the Go menu and select Programs to access the plugins you installed. Spybot can be run right away, but for ClamWin to work, you first need to select “Unpack Current Virus Definitions to Ramdisk,” then proceed to scan your system. By default, ClamWin only reports the infections it finds. To quarantine viruses, select Preference from the Tools menu and select the Quarantine option under the General tab. If you need to browse or extract data from your hard drive (and now would be a good time to do that), navigate to Programs and select “A43 File Management Utility,” which will look familiar to anyone who’s ever used Windows Explorer.

Restore and Repair

You cleaned your system of malware, but did the infections leave your system broken? Let's fix it!

1: Check for Errors

By and large, the majority of malware writers are amateur programmers who create sloppy code that can do more damage than originally intended. Maybe your hard disk suddenly makes a clicking or grinding noise, or perhaps Windows told you it found corrupt files and suggested running the check disk utility. That’s good advice to follow anytime you’ve finished a malware disinfection, even if there are no visible symptoms of disk corruption.

Under My Computer, right-click the hard drive that contains your OS (presumably the C: drive) and select Properties. Click the Tools tab and then the Check Now button under the Error-checking section. A new window will open with two check boxes asking if you want the utility to automatically fix file-system errors and scan for bad sectors. Check both of these boxes and click the Start button. Because of the deep access needed, you can’t run this scan while logged into Windows; another window will pop up asking if you’d like to schedule the scan to run the next time you reboot. Select Yes, and then restart your system. The larger your hard drive, the longer the scan will take, so now would be a good time to grab a bite to eat or clean out the garage.

2: Fix a Broken Boot

We’ve all had that sinking feeling in the pit of our stomachs when Windows suddenly refuses to load. At first you’re in denial, and then panic sets in as you realize that no amount of hard resetting is going to bring about the desired result. To add insult to injury, Windows may taunt you with the dreaded “NTLDR is missing” error message. It’s likely that a virus corrupted either your boot sector or master boot record, but there’s an easy fix.

Grab your Windows CD and boot from it, just as you would if you were installing Windows from scratch. But instead of performing a fresh install, XP owners will hit R to bring up the recovery console. At the prompt, type fixboot and hit Enter; then try rebooting your system. If Windows still won’t load, go back into the recovery console and type fixmbr. Vista owners needn’t fuss with any commands—simply boot from the install DVD, select Repair, and follow the prompts. Vista will automatically fix boot errors and may restart several times before it finishes.

3: Reinvigorate with Restore

Earlier, we promised we wouldn’t throw in the towel, and we meant it. Instead, we’ll try heroic measures to return Windows to a state that predates any damage caused by malware infestation.

The first method uses Windows’s built-in System Restore utility, which works best when run from within safe mode. If you’re running XP with Service Pack 2 installed, make sure your Windows install CD has SP2 already integrated onto the disk. If it doesn’t, you’ll need to first create a slipstreamed copy; you can do this by following the steps at http://tinyurl.com/4n7y5.

Restore is like having a virtual time machine, without all that expensive flux capacitor upkeep. Best of all, using System Restore won’t cause you to lose any saved documents or emails. How’s that possible? System Restore takes snapshots of key parts of your system at various times—for example, just before installing unsigned drivers or software—allowing you to undo changes that may have caused your PC to malfunction. To roll back your installation, navigate to the Start menu > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools and select System Restore. Follow the prompts, and be sure to go back to the last time your PC operated correctly.

If you disabled System Restore or don’t have a snapshot that represents a healthy system, you still have one more option at your disposal: a repair install. A repair install does just what it says; it fixes Windows by restoring critical system files from the install DVD, but it won’t overwrite your installed programs, saved data, or system settings.

To initiate a repair install, boot from your Windows CD. Do NOT choose the option to repair from within the recovery console; instead hit Enter to install XP. After accepting the user agreement, you’ll be asked to select the installation of Windows you wish to repair (you’ll only see one unless you’re dual-booting). Select the install you need to repair, and then sit back and let the CD work its mojo. When it’s finished, you should have a functioning copy of Windows, albeit an unpatched one. Head over to Windows Update and plug up all those security holes again, just as you would on a fresh installation.

Sidebar: Top 5 Virus Hoaxes and Pranks

Viruses are no laughing matter, but some of the hoaxes and pranks making the rounds are good for a giggle

1. Good Times Users were warned that simply opening an email with Good Times in the subject line would erase their hard drive, destroy their processor, demagnetize any nearby electronics, and kill their dog.

2. 48 Hours This relatively recent hoax claimed that hovering your mouse cursor over the infected email was enough to activate it, wiping out not just your hard drive, but your rig’s BIOS too.

3. Life Is Beautiful Emails circulated warning of a PowerPoint presentation called Life is Beautiful that, if clicked, would erase your hard drive and give the sender your username, email, and password.

4. Honor System This email contained no payload, instead asking recipients to manually delete all files on their hard drive and to forward the message to everyone in their contact lists. Participation, of course, was completely voluntary.

5. Lion’s Den Aptly named, Lion’s Den originated from a porn site looking to draw hits. The email warned of a new deadly virus, providing a link for more information. Instead, recipients got an eyeful.

Next: Protect Against Future Attack - Build a Wall, Change Your Habits, Rage With A Virtual Machine, and the Top Five Security Myths!

Protect Against Future Attack

By practicing tried-and-true preventive measures, you can keep your PC running like new and save yourself a lot of trouble down the line

Unless you live far from civilization, you wouldn’t dream of leaving your house unlocked, your windows wide open, or your car keys dangling from the ignition. By doing so, you’re just asking for trouble, inviting mischievous ne’er-do-wells to violate your property. So why then, would you treat your PC any differently? When you connect to the Internet, you’re throwing your system in the midst of a thriving online metropolis no matter where you live, and instead of occupying dark alleys, the bad guys brazenly roam freely in search of new victims. Don’t become one of them!

We’re going to show you how to set up a strong defense that will have no-goodniks moving on to easier targets. Combined with our tips for safe computing habits, your PC will be primed to travel the web without fear of infection.

Build a Wall

Bad guys won’t attack what they can’t see; use a variety of defensive measures, including a firewall, to make your rig invisible to online probes.

1: Surf Securely with Firefox

You’re only as secure as the vehicle you’re traveling in, and coasting along with Internet Explorer is like putting a sign in your back window that says, “Hey, steal from me!” If you haven’t made the switch to Mozilla’s Firefox (www.mozilla.com/firefox/), then drop what you’re doing and download this superior browser. Now.

Not only does Firefox render pages faster than IE7 and come with a massive array of extensions for customizing your experience, but security threats are also less prevalent. It’s not that digital thieves skip over the browser entirely, but until Firefox can close in on IE’s market share, hackers’ energies are better served by targeting Microsoft’s browser.

After installing Firefox and upping your geek cred, head over to http://tinyurl.com/2z5qmt for a comprehensive guide on how to optimize your new browser and recommended extensions.

2: Shield against Spyware

No matter which browser you use, you’re still susceptible to spyware. Earlier, we pointed out several candidates for rooting out and zapping miscreant programs, but not all anti-spyware software actively monitors and protects in real time. We want to catch spyware before it has a chance to install and run, and for that, we turn to Webroot’s Spy Sweeper ($30, www.webroot.com)

Spy Sweeper maintains a list of sites known for their spyware affiliation and blacklists them from dialing in to your PC.

Spy Sweeper includes a fairly straightforward GUI, making it easy enough for inexperienced users to navigate, but more savvy individuals will appreciate the utility’s many included tools and safeguards. Spy Sweeper calls these safeguards shields, which alert you when a potentially unsafe program attempts to alter system files, execute processes on your PC, or behave in some other suspect manner. The shields won’t check for keylogging activity by default; you’ll need to manually enable that feature for the added layer of protection.

Click the Shields button on the left-hand side, click the Keylogger entry, then put a check mark in the box to enable it. Be warned: The anti-keylogger feature does tend to trigger a number of false positives—it’s even fingered the Maximum PC disc as a keylogger in the past (don’t worry, we don’t record your keystrokes). You’ve now erected a wall of defense to thwart spyware before it has a chance to breach your system.

3: Install a Virus Scanner

With thousands of viruses in the wild, the question isn’t whether to run an antivirus program, but which one to choose. There are dozens of options to choose from, with three standouts worthy of consideration: AVG (free, http://free.grisoft.com), Avast! (free, www.avast.com), and AntiVir (free, www.free-av.com). While you could pay for an AV program with more features, the protection remains virtually the same when combined with our computing safeguards.

AVG is fast, easy to use, effective, and free. How many antivirus programs can claim that?

While it can be beneficial to have more than one anti-spyware program on your PC, you should limit yourself to just one AV package. Because of the deep access needed by these programs, multiple AV apps can interfere with each other and cause major slowdowns and weird problems. But you are free to test different ones before committing to a long-term relationship. In the end, we prefer AVG for its ease of use and email scanning, but if you’re hell-bent on paying for protection, Kaspersky ($60, www.kaspersky.com) combines excellent protection with one of the most feature-rich packages around.

4: Hide Behind a Firewall

Attackers constantly ping the web for unprotected systems, and without a firewall installed, your PC will become compromised within minutes of connecting to the Internet.

If you’re installing a version of XP that predates Service Pack 2, then stay disconnected from the Internet until you can get a firewall up and running, especially if your router lacks a built-in firewall. Download the firewall to a USB thumb drive before you install Windows! For those running SP2 or Vista, Microsoft’s basic firewall will be enabled by default, but it doesn’t monitor outbound traffic. For outbound monitoring, we recommend Zone Alarm (free, http://tinyurl.com/296pwe). The free version monitors both inbound and outbound traffic, so if an infection does happen to slip through, you’ll be notified when it tries to dial home with your personal data and given the option to deny the connection.

Change Your Habits

Implement these safe computing tips into your daily regimen and you’ll never fall prey to hackers again!

1: Avoid Unexpected Attachments!

When it comes to unexpected email attachments, we follow one simple rule; don’t open them. It doesn’t matter how tempting or innocent the file name may be, or who it’s from, the contents inside could contain nasty code. Why would someone you know send you malware? Chances are, it wasn’t intentional, but rather the sender is a victim also and the virus is attempting to spread. Many virus writers rely on uninformed users to spread their diseases, but without your help, they’re stopped dead in their tracks.

2: Don’t Be Baited

It’s not just attachments you have to worry about with email, but hyperlinks too. You may receive a seemingly legitimate-looking email from your banking institution, PayPal, or eBay stating that there’s a problem with your account and prompting you to sign in to resolve the issue. Clicking the link appears to bring you to the appropriate site, but you’re about to be duped. In an attempt to steal your username and password, hackers set up fake websites that look identical to the originals, which they use to harvest your personal info, from login information to your social security number. The practice is called phishing, and the worst part is you may not even know it has happened. The more sophisticated phishing sites will return that familiar “incorrect username/password” error message indicating a typo, then redirect you to the real site so that subsequent login attempts will prove fruitful, keeping you in the dark about what just transpired.

It doesn't matter how legitimate an email appears to be, you should never trust the links inside it; type URLs directly into your browser.

Telltale signs of this scam include typos and poor grammar, but that’s not always the case. Avoid being phished by never clicking hyperlinks in your email. Instead, type a site’s URL directly into your browser (not the URL given to you in an email but, rather, the main address for a site). If there’s a problem with your account, you’ll be notified when you sign in.

3: Download Responsibly

Back when the online music revolution was just beginning, Napster made peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing mainstream. Suddenly, everyone with an Internet connection was swapping files, both legally and illegally, and that trend continues today.
We’re not pooh-poohing legal file-sharing; we ourselves have fired up our BitTorrent clients to download Linux distros and other large files from trusted sources. But we discourage folks from downloading cracked commercial software, otherwise known as warez. Not only is this stealing, but oftentimes these cracked programs include something extra—malware. Hackers know that one of the easiest ways to spread a virus is to slap the word “keygen” on the malicious file and then throw it on a peer-to-peer network.

Rage with a Virtual Machine

Why hose your OS when you can experiment on a virtual machine without risking the health of your main system?
It’s not always easy to tell the difference between legit software and attachments from harmful files. Maybe your brother really did find time on his honeymoon to email you a zip file of pictures from Hawaii, but do you want to take the risk and open it? You’re right to be cautious, but with a virtual machine, you can afford to live dangerously—without putting your system at risk.
To get started, download and install Microsoft’s Virtual PC 2007 (free, http://tinyurl.com/2jr7a7); then follow the prompts to set up a virtual hard disk. Pop your Windows CD into your optical drive, fire up your VM, and install Windows. Once it’s up and running, install the Virtual Machine Additions package (found under the Action menu), which will let you move seamlessly between your VM and main system. You’re ready to go. Use your new sandbox to surf those, uh, adult-friendly websites or to experiment with suspicious programs.

Virtual PC 2007 doesn't cost a cent, but you will need a separate license for each OS you plan to install.

Dream Machine 2007

The Maximum PC Staff — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 12:23:59 -0500

You always hear, “It’s what’s inside that counts,” but does anyone really believe that? We’ve never bought into that load of nonsense, you shouldn’t either. Components matter most, but you’re not going to put top-of-the-line parts in a bargain-bin midtower. Are you?

Every September, when we set out to build the year’s Dream Machine, we have one simple goal in mind: Create the very best machine money can buy—inside and out. We build the fastest, most powerful, most authoritative rig in the world. Demolishing performance records set by lesser machines is just a happy side effect.

Sometimes, we cheat. We get prerelease hardware that’s unavailable to common folk. In the past, we’ve tested dozens of CPUs, looking for the perfect overclocking candidate. This year, we didn’t have any crutches—no prerelease hardware or fancy-pants paint jobs. This year, we relied on good ol’ American muscle.

While past Dream Machines have been hand-built Formula One cars with custom hardware exclusive to the magazine, DM ’07 is a supercharged stock car. It’s equipped with factory parts anyone can buy, but, as always, our Dream Machine is overclocked and ready to burn!

One peek inside and you know that DM '07 means business (click for larger pic).

CPU: Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850

1,333MHz front-side bus finally arrives in the new 3GHz chip.

When it came time to choose our CPU, Intel made us an offer we couldn’t refuse. OK, so Luca Brasi didn’t hold a .38 to our temple, but when you compare the 3GHz quad-core Core 2 Extreme QX6850 ($1,000, www.intel.com) to every other publicly available CPU, the choice is obvious. It mows down the benchmarks and the competition—including AMD’s vaunted quadfather—like it’s the St. Valentine’s Day massacre.

Although our Dream Machine’s CPU is new, it’s similar to what you’ve seen before. It has the same 8MB of L2 cache, the same Core microarchitecture, and the same socket support as the Core 2 QX6800. The main difference is the front-side bus, which runs natively at 1,333MHz instead of a mere 1,066MHz. Remember, the cores communicate via the FSB, so that added bandwidth is welcome.

For DM ’07, we overclocked the stock 3GHz chip to 3.66GHz. Although the QX6850 doesn’t clock up like its lesser siblings (low-end chips tend to overclock farther than top-bin chips), we’re still talking about speeds well in excess of 3GHz. That’s some blazingly fast number crunching.

Memory: Corsair Dominator 10000

A controversial RAM decision: Is 2GB dreamy?

Dream Machine is all about going hog wild, but we do show some restraint when excess has no bearing on performance. Case in point: We could have easily slotted 4GB of RAM into this year’s Dream rig, but why? We’re not convinced that having 4GB of main system RAM with a 32-bit OS is even useful, as you won’t be able to access all of it. The 2GB we do use comes from Corsair’s award-winning Dominator series ($610, www.corsair.com). It gives us the Corsair reputation in addition to a couple of wicked black heat spreaders.

Motherboard: EVGA nForce 680i SLI

Overclockability means more to us than bling.

We were faced with a tough decision when choosing a board for this year’s Dream Machine. We could have gone with the flashy features of the Asus Striker Extreme or the all-out overclocking potential of EVGA’s nForce 680i SLI board (reviewed January 2007, $250, www.evga.com). In the end, we decided to go for broke with EVGA’s offering. A good thing, too, as overclocking a quad core can be a bitch. Luckily, the nForce 680i SLI didn’t let us down. We successfully pushed our quad past its 3GHz stock speed to 3.66GHz fairly easily. We couldn’t get past 3.5GHz with the Striker without blowing chunks. Why not Intel boards? Going nForce gives us SLI support—something you certainly can’t get on Intel’s new P35 boards.

Cooling: Custom Water-Cooling Craziness!

The heck with kits. With Dream Machine, it's BYOC: Bring Your Own Cooling.

You can buy a complete water-cooling kit from your favorite online retailer, but we’ve found that the best way to approach the oh-so-finicky combination of liquids and electronics is to fashion a custom system using the best parts from several manufacturers. Like a child before his birthday, we assembled a dream list of cooling parts from two of our favorite suppliers, Danger Den and Swiftech.

While we were tempted to cool every single hotspot on the mobo, we decided that the disadvantages of running an elaborate multi-radiator cooling rig outweighed the meager benefits. Instead, we settled on a traditional CPU/GPU loop using a Swiftech Apogee GTX water block ($75, www.swiftnets.com) for the former and two of the company’s stealth VGA water blocks ($110 each) for the latter. The blocks get the difficult cooling job done, but more than that, installation is absurdly easy.

Laing’s D5 pump, Danger Den part number DD12V-D5, ($90, www.dangerden.com) is our Dream Machine’s workhorse. It’s a beastly fellow that spits fluid at a maximum rate of approximately 315 gallons per hour, pushing our coolant around with nary a sound. We rounded out the loop with generic 1/2-inch tubing, a Danger Den reservoir filled with custom black coolant, and a Swiftech radiator.

Videocard: XFX GeForce 8800 Ultra XXX Edition

Over the top? Of course! This is the Dream Machine, dude.

As much as we hate being predictable, we had to go with an Nvidia-based videocard for this year’s Dream Machine—for the third year in a row. Yes, we’re talking about GeForce 8800 Ultras in SLI. But we’re sure you saw this one coming, since AMD’s ATI brand managers have decided not to play in the high end of the market this product cycle. (Wimps!)

The Dream Machine is all about being the best, so not just any 8800 Ultra cards would do. We picked a pair of XFX’s XXX Edition boards (reviewed August 2007, $875 each, www.xfxforce.com) because they run at blistering speeds: The core is clocked at 612MHz, the shader units spin at 1.67GHz, and the 768MB frame buffer hums along at an amazing 1.15GHz.

Power Supply: PC Power and Cooling Silencer 750 Quad

Our 750 is like other people's 1,000-watt PSUs.

What, you thought we needed a kilowatt PSU to run this year’s Dream Machine? Maybe if we had selected units from lesser manufacturers, but this SLI/CrossFire-ready PSU delivers more than enough juice. Even better, the unit uses a single-rail design to power all components. While other PSU-makers sport multiple rails, which don’t make efficient use of resources, the Silencer 750 Quad ($190, www.pcpower.com) puts the power where you need it. Since we’ve never had a PC Power and Cooling unit fail in our Lab (aside from the one we dropped), we’re confident that this one won’t cough up a capacitor and drop dead the first time a brownout or power surge strikes. To seal the deal, PC Power and Cooling built this PSU with custom cable lengths, just for DM ’07. Now, if a PSU company would just do that for everybody….

Storage: Four Hitachi 7k1000 Terabyte Drives

If they came any bigger we'd need a corral, not a case.

So why did we go with Hitachi’s mighty 7K1000 drives (reviewed July 2007, $400 each, www.hgst.com) for the Dream Machine? For the answer, we need but a word: terabyte. At the time of our rig’s construction, Hitachi was the only player to have a fully functioning terabyte drive on the market. And once you’ve enjoyed the sweet taste of 1,000 gigs, you just can’t eat elsewhere.

More than that, the 7K1000’s performance is almost as impressive as its size. Its speeds stomp that of every competitor, save Western Digital’s 10,000RPM Raptor drive. Still, the Hitachi 7K1000 holds its own against that tiny roadrunner. We’re rocking two of them in a RAID 0 configuration for maximum performance, with the other two floating as independent drives—perfect for backups, or approximately 3 billion lolcat pictures.

Optical Drives: LG GGW-H10NI Super Multi Blue

Next-gen optical supremacy without any sacrifices

There are two big reasons LG’s GGW-H10NI Super Multi Blue (reviewed on page 75, $1,200, www.lge.com) is an obvious choice for this year’s Dream Machine. The first is versatility. The Super Multi Blue reads Blu-ray and HD DVD discs, so we’re free to watch any damn movie we want. Obviously, we’d love it if the drive could also write to both formats, but since consumer-priced HD DVD burners don’t exist, we’ll gladly settle for the Super Multi Blue’s superior Blu-ray burn speeds—reason number two. Spec’d at 4x, this burner can fill a single-layer BD-R disc in less than half an hour, versus the competition’s typical 45-minute run.

The LG drive’s 8x DVD+R burn speeds aren’t stellar, which is why we’re using our mobo’s sixth SATA port to run Asus’s DRW-1814BLT (reviewed August 2007, $50, www.asus.com). The 18x DVD drive affords us single-layer burns in less than six minutes.

Speakers: Creative Gigaworks S750

Bring some boom into your room.

The GigaWorks S750 speakers ($500, www.creative.com) bear the Creative badge, but their Cambridge SoundWorks heritage is evident the moment you crank up the volume. That’s not to say Creative doesn’t make good audio products, just that its SoundWorks division knows how to design and build awesome speakers that are as easy on your ears as they are on your wallet.

The two additional two-way surrounds in this 7.1-channel system make a huge difference in positioning audio events around your head, and the thundering subwoofer, with its beefy 210-watt BASH amp, serves up scrumptious bass that punches you in the chest. These attributes render this speaker system absolutely perfect for gaming, listening to music, and watching movies on your PC.

Displays: Dual Dell 2707WFPs

Two screens, one heck of a panorama.

It’s true that Dell’s 2707 (reviewed May 2007, $1,400 each, www.dell.com) sports the same 1920x1200 resolution as its 24-inch sibling, but it’s a big step up as far as we’re concerned. Perhaps it’s our advancing age, but we like how everything from text, to icons, to thumbnail views gets a size boost on the 27-inch screen. That greater visibility comes in handy when your dual-display desktop spans nearly four feet from side to side!

Other niceties include the 2707’s stylish aesthetics, its accommodating ergo options, a plethora of inputs, a built-in four-port USB hub, and a 9-in-2 media reader. Shoot, one of these screens is decadent. Two are indeed the stuff of dreams.

Soundcard: Creative Labs Soundblaster X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Pro

Say boo to crappy onboard audio.

As long as we have breath in our nerd lungs, as long as there is sound in our ears, and as long as we have a slot to fill, we won’t accept noisy, host-based onboard sound—which in this case, is about as bad as can be thanks to the EVGA board’s damned EAX-cheating RealTek chipset. For DM ’07, discrete audio is essential. Don’t believe us? Plug a pair of earphones into your mobo’s audio, then try the X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Professional Series (reviewed April 2007, $120, www.soundblaster.com) — you’ll never want to go back. The subtle sound changes of a vehicle’s acoustic signature as it moves through different environments will give you reason enough to ditch onboard.

Input Devices: Keytronic Classic-U2 Keyboard and Logitech G5 Version 2

Without kick-ass input devices, our Dream Machine would be a wrist-crippling nightmare.

We could have picked a newfangled wireless keyboard for the ’07 Dream Machine and some sort of crazy three-dimensional mouse, but instead we went back to basics. With variable sensitivity, four easy-access buttons, and a tilting scroll wheel, Logitech’s second-generation G5 ($70, www.logitech.com) is the ultimate take-no-prisoners gaming mouse.
And our keyboard—the Keytronic Classic-U2, in black ($45, www.keytronic.com)—is just that, a classic. With superb key action and an incredible lifetime warranty, it’s hard to pass up. If we were weak-wristed and in need of ergonomic support, we’d pick up Microsoft’s Natural Keyboard 4000 instead, which remains our favorite orthopedic model.

Operating Systems: Windows XP Professional and Windows Vista Ultimate

Vista's not ready for full-time use, but a dual boot means it's ready when the time calls for it.

We’ve included Windows XP on every Dream Machine since 2001 because it’s fast and reliable, and we’re extremely comfortable with it. This year, we’re including Vista on the second partition of our Dream Machine in the hope that it will grow to fill Windows XP’s mighty shoes during the course of this rig’s life.

Gaming is, of course, our main reason for dual-booting this year. While the meager selection of Vista-only titles out now doesn’t inspire us—Shadowrun and Halo 2, pshaw—the future holds much promise. We can hardly wait for the DirectX 10 goodness coming down the pike in games like Crysis and Hellgate: London.

Case: Cooler Master Cosmos

Simplicity meets sexy in Cooler Master's case.

Cooler Master’s Cosmos ($200, www.coolermaster-usa.com) is one of the nicest chassis we’ve ever tested, and that’s saying a lot, considering the bounty of enclosures we get in the Lab every month. CM certainly covered the bases with this one, as nearly everything is customized or customizable.

The front panel’s smooth, black door gives way to five grilled bay covers, which pop out with ease. You don’t need a screwdriver to install any 5.25-inch peripherals into the slots; the case’s proprietary mechanisms—simple push-button locking devices—make the process exceedingly simple.

Since we like our Dream Machine to look clean, we applaud Cooler Master’s foresight when it comes to cable management. From the pull-out hard drive bays to the design of the motherboard backboard, this case is built to be neat and tidy. Heck, the Cosmos even comes with handles on both the top and bottom that give the case a fresh style, assist in transportation, and improve airflow (by lifting the case’s inlets off your sweet shag carpet).

Next: Benchmarking the Beast!

Benchmarking the Beast!

Since the inception of this magazine, the Dream Machine has always been about building the very best machine possible using the best components available at the time. To get there, we wheedle, cajole, push, and beg vendors for their newest unreleased parts. Sometimes we get ’em, and sometimes we don’t. This year, there was no magic bullet, but we still managed to build a righteous rig—even without a nitrous tank under the passenger seat or a blower poking through the hood.

This year’s Dream Machine represents the very best PC a person can build right now. Bar none. How do we know? We didn’t just grab the parts and go. We actually tested other options as well—including AMD’s Quad FX platform, equipped with a pair of dual-core Athlon 64 FX-70 CPUs, and an Intel V-8 system using a pair of quad-core 3GHz Xeons. In the end, we decided that Dream Machine ’07’s configuration was the best blend of performance for today and tomorrow.

The Numbers Don’t Lie

To judge the performance of our Dream Machine, we reached for our standard benchmark suite, which we use to measure the performance of the many primo PCs that enter our Lab. The suite includes Adobe’s Premiere Pro 2.0 and Photoshop CS2, Nero’s Recode 2.0, Monolith’s FEAR, and Raven’s Quake 4. We also continue to use BAPCo’s applications test, SYSMark2004 SE, but the benchmark has proved finicky over the last year and runs only 20 percent of the time on bone-stock machines.

So how fast is the Dream Machine? One look at our benchmark chart will tell you it’s pretty damned fast. Our aging zero-point system consists of a dual-core Athlon 64 FX-60 with 2GB of DDR400 and a pair of Nvidia GeForce 7900 GTX cards. That’s not a config to scoff at—it’s still within the bounds of a high-end machine. Yet against our zero point, the Dream Machine pulls in scores that are almost 100 percent better in every category. In FEAR, the DM’s lead is 120 percent. Keep in mind that these benchmarks aren’t even fully multithreaded to take advantage of our overclocked quad-core CPU. So pat yourself on the back, Dream Machine, you decimate our performance standard-bearer.

More critical readers are probably saying, “So what? Beating up on a moldy-old Athlon 64 is no big whoop. How about the real challengers—those $7,000 to $10,000 machines you review each month?”

That’s where the fun begins. We compared the Dream Machine’s numbers to every single rig we’re reviewed this year. Many of these PCs feature similar components, but even when stacked up against that fearsome lineup, Dream Machine fared well, setting benchmark records in Nero Recode 2.0 and FEAR. In Premiere Pro, Dream Machine trails the fastest rigs we’ve tested—Falcon Northwest’s $10,000 Mach V (reviewed June 2007) and Overdrive’s $7,250 Core2.SLI (reviewed August 2007)—by a mere 0.7 percent. The Mach V, running at an overclocked 3.73GHz, outmuscled DM ’07 in Quake 4 thanks to its clock-speed advantage. The three-month-old Mach V doesn’t have the advantage of our new Ultra cards running in SLI, however, and it takes a beating in FEAR, where the Dream Machine is 27 percent faster.

It’s also worth mentioning that Overdrive’s Core 2.SLI just barely holds the Photoshop CS2 record. But really, the difference in scores between the top four machines in this test is negligible.

To sum up, Dream Machine sets two records (albeit by slim margins) and holds its own against a stable of the fastest PCs on the planet. Not too shabby, if we do say so ourselves.

Our current desktop test bed is a Windows XP SP2 machine, using a dual-core 2.6GHz Athlon 64 FX-60, 2GB of Corsair DDR400 RAM on an Asus A8N32-SLI motherboard, two GeForce 7900 GTX videocards in SLI mode, a Western Digital 4000KD hard drive, a Sound Blaster X-Fi soundcard, and a PC Power and Cooling Turbo Cool 850 PSU.

All Together Now! (click to see the Dream Machine 07 in all its glory, including price breakdown!)

September 2007 - Dream Machine Unveiled!

The Maximum PC Staff — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 15:19:23 -0500

In the PDF archive of the September 2007 issue, you can find:

Unveiled! The 2007 Dream Machine!
Organize Your Life With A Wiki!
Bitrate Showdown!
Core 2 Mobo Shootout
22 Awesome Product Reviews!
Ask the Doctor
Rig of the Month
The Watchdog
And a whole lot more!

Click the big giant cover image to the right to download the PDF archive today!

Samsung 226BW

Katherine Stevenson — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 16:34:42 -0500

Initially we thought Samsung’s 226BW might rise above the pack in the 22-inch category. This LCD boasts 16.7 million colors, suggesting superior 8-bit technology. But when we did side-by-side testing next to the Hanns.G model, we were mightily surprised by the similarities. Sure enough, further inquiry revealed the 226BW to be a 6-bit panel just like all the others. But Samsung says its special Hi-FRC tech surpasses conventional FRC in color reproduction.

Be that as it may, we observed the same poor vertical off-axis visibility evident in other 6-bit panels (although horizontal off-axis was somewhat better), and the 226BW’s grayscale performance was actually weaker on the light end of the scale than the Hanns.G’s.

The $100 premium Samsung charges over Hanns.G’s model gets you fancier trim and HDCP support. Like the Hanns.G, the picture is serviceable—but nothing special—and the screen is free of any image artifacts in games.

How To: Optimize Firefox

Paul Lilly — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 17:53:02 -0500

In the march toward a better browsing experience, you’ve ditched Internet Explorer and joined the legions of Firefox faithful. We have too, but chances are, our browsers look and function much differently from the one on your desktop. Sure, it’s possible to simply install Firefox and be done with it, but you’d be missing out on the browser’s core appeal, the thing that sets it apart from the competition. We are, of course, talking about Firefox’s outstanding degree of customizability.

Nearly every facet of Mozilla’s Firefox can be tweaked, making this the tabula rasa of browsers. Release your inner Van Gogh and spice things up with themes or become a modern-day Michelangelo and sculpt a browsing masterpiece with the seemingly endless array of extensions at your disposal. If that still feels like paint by numbers, you can get your hands dirty in Firefox’s hidden configuration menu. And when you’re finished tinkering, back up your profile to quickly transfer your settings from PC to PC!

Add a Theme

You don’t need to be proficient at programming to alter Firefox’s appearance; you just need an Internet connection. From the Tools menu, select Add-ons, choose Themes, and then click the Get Themes link. It takes some digging, but we found some themes we really like, including Aluminum Alloy and Doodle Plastik. After you have installed one, restart Firefox, and then go back to Add-ons to activate the new theme. Many themes are works in progress, so periodically check for updates.

Not all themes look as advertised, so experiment with different ones until you find a suitable candidate. We like Aluminum Alloy.

Speed up Firefox

We’re always tweaking our hardware in an attempt to eek out the best performance, and the Fasterfox add-on extends this philosophy to our browser by putting us in control of various networking settings. Via the Custom tabs, for example, you can change the initial paint delay, which tells Firefox how quickly to begin rendering web pages, or enable enhanced prefetching, which forces links to download in the background (albeit at an increased load to the server). To avoid mucking things up, though, stick to the presets. We saw a decrease from 3.77 to 2.77 seconds on our main page’s load time just by switching to the Turbo Charged option!

Customize with Extensions

With version 2.0, Firefox storms out of the gate sporting a healthy assortment of tricks, like improved tabbed browsing and anti-phishing protection, but it’s the multitude of extensions that really make this browser shine. Extensions add all kinds of functionality, from blocking online ads to serving up a daily dose of Dilbert cartoons, and everything in between.

To browse the 2,000-plus extensions available, select Add-ons from the Tools menu and click Get Extensions, or head over to http://tinyurl.com/phdun. Extensions are sorted by category, making it easier to find the functionality you’re looking for, or you can browse the most popular offerings to see what others have found useful. Below, we list several of our favorites, but don’t install the whole kit and caboodle and bloat your browser, just grab the ones you think you’ll use:

Mouse Gestures

Make an easy task even easier! Navigate web pages with the click of a button and a simple mouse movement.

Performancing

Blog your every thought with this hotkey-accessible editor. You can even drag and drop content from the web.

Tab Catalog

Is your browser overrun with tabs? Tab Catalog presents a thumbnail of each one with the tap of a button.

Gmail Manager

Keep track of incoming messages for multiple Gmail accounts without logging in and out of each one.

Fotofox

Don’t neglect your online photo album any longer. Round up your pics, drag and tag ’em, and Fotofox does the rest!

Digg This!

Can you Digg it? We can, and we can do it with a single click.

TinyURL Creator

Make mincemeat out of long URLs with TinyURL Creator and automatically copy the new link right to your clipboard.

Tab Mix Plus

Supercharge your tabbed browsing with a wealth of additional options.

Image Zoom

Zoom in on any image, just like they do in spy movies!

SportsFox

Feed your sports jones with scores from all four major pro sports, as well as college football and basketball, or follow just your favorite team.

FoxyTunes

Forget alt-tabbing and instead control just about any media player right in your browser. Perform lyrics searches too.

Add Bookmark Here 2

An easier way to file bookmarks, just highlight the appropriate folder in your Favorites and click Add Bookmark Here.

DownloadHelper

No download link? No problem! DownloadHelper can snag videos from sites like YouTube and Metacafe, as well as more *ahem* adult hangouts.

Smiley Xtra

Most forums offer just a basic assortment of smilies, but with Smiley Xtra, you’ll be prepared for any posting situation.

FoxLingo

Is the latest tech rumor posted in another language? Translate it and get the inside scoop with the aid of FoxLingo.

CacheViewer

Browse Firefox’s memory and disk cache or search for a specific item. CacheViewer even displays a thumbnail image of every entry.

Mouseless Browsing

With practice, this virtual cure for suriphobia will have you cruising the web without ever leaving the keyboard!

Party with Profiles

Firefox stores all your customized settings in a profile folder small enough to fit on a USB key, so you can transfer your preferences to another PC. To get started, first enable viewing of hidden files and folders. Open My Computer, highlight Tools from the menu bar, and select Folder Options. Click View and check the “Show hidden files and folders” radio button. Next navigate to C:\Documents and Settings\[USER NAME]\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles and copy the contents of the default folder.

Profiles also come in handy if you share a PC with other family members. Profiles allow each of you to have a personalized browsing experience without cramping each other’s style. Or you can create a custom profile for the kids that has extra security features enabled and avoid having your own setup filled with links to Nickelodeon.com and the Ultimate SpongeBob fan site. To create a new profile, first close Firefox. Click the Start menu and select Run, type firefox.exe –ProfileManager and hit Enter. In the Profile Manager, click Create Profile and follow the prompts. Be sure to give your new profile a descriptive name, such as Test Box or Kids and uncheck the box that says “Don’t ask at startup.”

What's All This About about:config?

Installing an assortment of extensions and themes is all well and good, but this is Maximum PC and that means digging down to the nitty-gritty. A wealth of advanced configuration options are hidden beneath the surface of Firefox, and we know just where to find them. Now would be a good time to back up your default profile or create a new one as a test bed before proceeding.

In Firefox’s URL bar, type about:config and hit Enter. This brings up a set of preference keys that should look familiar to anyone who’s ever poked around a system registry. Don’t be overwhelmed by the number of options, we’re just going to zero in on a handful of enhancements. Let’s start by removing the close button on inactive tabs. Locate and double-click browser.tabs.closeButtons and change the value to 0. Next, being power users, we’re going to change the width of our tabs, so we can see more of them before scrolling kicks in. Find browser.tabs.tabMinWidth and change the value to 75 or less. Finally, we want to train our download manager to clean up after itself without us having to nag. Select browser.download.manager.retention and change the value to 0.

We’ve only scratched the surface here, but don’t worry, we won’t leave you hanging. For an explanation of what each entry does, head over to www.tinyurl.com/8swbh and start experimenting!

We love that Firefox 2.0 brings tabbed scrolling to the table, but the default width leaves us scrolling prematurely. By decreasing the size of each tab, we can fit more of them into our browser window.

Kiss Online Ads Goodbye

We don’t mind a well-placed ad here and there, but who wants to have their peripheral vision bombarded with a flashing banner or Cialis advertisement when trying to read a website? AdBlock Plus nukes these annoyances before they have a chance to load.

Head over to Firefox’s add-ons page and install the AdBlock Plus extension. Restart the browser, then click and subscribe to EasyList in the installation window. This configures AdBlock with filters for many common ads, though you can still manually add specific entries by clicking Tools and selecting AdBlock Plus. Next, supplement AdBlock with the Filterset.G Updater extension. As new ad servers are discovered, Filterset.G updates itself and integrates the new entries into AdBlock, and it contains a whitelist of entries to help eliminate false positives.

The one-two punch of AdBlock Plus and the Filterset.G Updater knocks out most online ads all on their own, but should the tag team miss an online nuisance, just add a customized filter.

Modernize Your Bookmarks

We’re living in a blogger’s paradise, where social web browsing has proven to be more than a passing fad. It’s for this reason that del.icio.us delights us with its online bookmark-organization scheme and its link-sharing among a network of users.

First head over to http://del.icio.us/ and register an account. Once you’ve created a username, you’ll be prompted to install the del.icio.us extension. Notice the two buttons added to Firefox right next to the URL bar. When you’re ready to bookmark a website, click the Tag button and enter a description, notes about the site, and relevant search tags. For example, popular tags for MaximumPC.com include “magazine,” “reviews,” “technology,” “computer,” “hardware,” and so on. When you want to view links in only a particular category, click the tag and all other links will be filtered out.

To share your bookmarks with other users or access them from another computer, use your account’s URL. This will appear as http://del.icio.us/[USERNAME]/. And don’t worry about that Mac|Life bookmark, just check the “do not share” box when saving a favorite link you wish to keep private.