The best thing about the Raspberry Pi is that, besides being an excellent educational device, it can double up as a very capable headless server - now even more so with the increased memory.

Contrary to popular belief, not every server task requires lots of processing power. For example, if you wish to download files and share them with users on the network irrespective of their operating system or device, you don't need a machine with a multi-core processor. In fact, using an old Linux computer as such a seedbox is a popular way of rescuing discarded hardware.

The only downside of this approach is that it consumes a lot of electricity. Most modern routers have a USB port, and will share the plugged-in device with all computers connected to this router. But what if you have an older router and want to do more than just share files?

With the RPi, you can do all this and a lot more without the costs associated with a traditional computer, and without the restrictions of dedicated devices such as routers.

Gather the ingredients

We'll use a revision 2 RPi with 512MB of RAM, but it should work fine on older versions. It'll be powered by the latest version of Raspbian (version 2012-10-28-wheezy-raspbian). The best thing about the newer releases is that they can use all of the increased memory without any tweaks. They also ship with SSH enabled, which allows users to access and set up the RPi without ever connecting it to a monitor.

Download the latest version of the Raspbian distro and flash it to an SD card, either with dd on Linux or Win32DiskImager if you are on Windows. While you can use a USB wireless adapter to connect the RPi to the internet, it's best to use the Ethernet port and pull up a cable to the router.

After connecting and powering up the RPi, head to your router's admin page (check the router or its documentation for the address). In all probability, your router is using DHCP to hand out IP addresses to connected devices.

Explore the admin interface, look for a list of all connected devices and note down the IP address the router has assigned to the RPi. Later, you'll have to assign it a static IP address to ensure the RPi is always accessible at the same address.

For now, let's assume the dynamic IP address assigned to the RPi is 192.168.3.100. With this bit of information, we're all set to connect to the RPi and prepare Raspbian via SSH.

Every Linux distro ships with an SSH client. Windows users can use the PuTTY tool. To connect from a remote Linux machine, launch a terminal and enter the command:

$ sudo ssh pi@192.168.3.100

After agreeing to add this address to the list of trusted hosts, you'll be asked for the login credentials. On a fresh, unconfigured Raspbian install, the password for the default 'pi' user is 'raspberry'. From this point on, the commands in this tutorial will be the same irrespective of whether you are connected to the RPi from a Linux or a Windows machine. That's because the commands are run on the Rasbian Linux distro on the RPi.

Since this is a fresh install, you'll be asked to configure it before going any further. Enter the command:

$ sudo raspi-config

This will bring up a screen with lots of options. Scroll down to the bottom of the list and select the Update option, which will grab the latest version of this configuration utility.

Once it's done, the RPi will restart and you'll have to reconnect via the ssh command, or PuTTY like earlier. You'll have to do this every time you tweak any setting and restart the RPi.

When you're back in the utility, select the expand_rootfs option to allow the Raspbian partition to take over all the space on the SD card. Finally, select the memory_split option, which lets you split the RAM on the RPi between the GPU and the CPU. Since we'll be accessing the Pi only via a remote connection, make sure you assign the bare minimum memory to the GPU, which is 16MB.

Next, you should add other users to the RPi. Later on, we'll restrict access to certain directories on an attached USB device to certain users as well as to a group of users, while still having public areas on the device.

$ sudo adduser bodhi

This will add the user and create the appropriate directories. The command will ask for the user's password and other details. Then add this user to the users group with

$ sudo usermod -a -G users bodhi

To the dance floor

When you're done, it's time to make the RPi accessible to users on the internet. For this, we'll use Samba, which allows us to share files via the Common Internet File System (CIFS) protocol. To install Samba on the RPi, type:

$ sudo apt-get install samba samba-common-bin

When it's done, you'll have to add users to Samba. To do this for the default pi user:

$ sudo smbpasswd -a pi

You'll then be prompted for a password. It's usually safe to use the same password as the user's account password. Repeat this step for every user on the system.

Samba is controlled via a configuration file that you need to tweak before you can use it. It's always a good idea to back up existing configuration files before making changes:

$ sudo cp /etc/samba/smb.conf /etc/samba/smb.conf.old

Now use the nano command-line text editor to edit the configuration file:

$ sudo nano /etc/samba/smb.conf

In the file, search for the section marked Authentication. Under this section, remove the hash sign at the start of the line that reads:

#security = user so that it now reads security = user

This will ensure that Samba allows only those users to log in who have home directories on RPi. To let users access their own home directories, look for the [homes] section, and make sure that browseable = yes and read only = no.

To exit nano, press Ctrl + X, then y to save the file, followed by the Enter key when it shows you the name of the file. Every time you make any changes to any service, you need to restart it before the changes are enabled. To restart Samba:

$ sudo service samba restart

It's now time to plug in the USB device to the RPi. Although the RPi has a couple of USB ports, it's a good idea to plug any additional USB devices via a powered USB hub, especially when connecting large USB storage devices that consume a lot of power.

Also, pay close attention to how the drive is formatted. By default, many USB flash drives are formatted as FAT32. It might be the best format in terms of operating system compatibility, but it is by far the worst for sharing files over the network.

Then there's NTFS, which is used by many large external USB drives. This isn't the format for you if you want to stream media off the remote drive, which is best served via EXT4. Use EXT4 only if the drive will be used over the network or on Linux machines.

After plugging in the drive, find out its location with sudo fdisk -l. The will list the devices attached to the RPi and the partitions in them. Scan the output and look for the disk whose size matches the USB drive that you have plugged in. The device will probably be at sda and the partition we want to mount at sda1.

Create the mount point and mount the device:

$ sudo mkdir /mnt/usb
$ sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/usb

The USB drive will remain mounted until you reboot the RPi. To avoid having to remount the device, first find its UUID:

$ sudo blkid
/dev/sda1: LABEL="ntfs" UUID="3B5C053D35CAD865" TYPE="ntfs"

Now add it to list of devices that are mounted at boot:

$ sudo nano /etc/fstab
UUID=3B5C053D35CAD865 /mnt/usb ntfs defaults 0 0

Samba is designed to share files and folders that are defined in its configuration file. To share folders on the USB device, let's assume it has a bunch of folders:

$ ls /mnt/usb documents downloads music videos

To share the downloads folder, open the /etc/samba/smb.conf file with nano, scroll down to the bottom and enter:

[Downloads]
comment = Place all your downloads here
Path = /mnt/usb/downloads
browseable = yes
writable = yes
read only = no
valid users = @users

This block of text will share the /mnt/usb/downloads directory with all users in the users group. Later, we'll mount this directory on both Linux and Windows computers. Users will then be able to configure their download managers to save the files directly to this folder on the USB device attached to the RPi, from any computer on the network.

You can also restrict access to some folders to certain users only:

[Documents]
comment = Important eyes-only PDF files
path = /mnt/usb/documents
browseable = no
writable = yes
read only = no
valid users = pi, bodhi

This will let only the users pi and bodhi mount and modify the contents of folders.

Install the torrent server

Torrents are the preferred mediums for sharing open source content. Most Linux distros are distributed this way either via their own trackers or via linuxtracker.org.

There's no dearth of torrent clients for the Linux desktop. What sets Transmission apart from others is its easy-to-use web interface, that resembles the desktop one. We'll install Transmission on Raspbian and then access it from any browser on any computer to add, monitor and control torrents.

To install Transmission, SSH into the RPi and type:

$ sudo apt-get install transmission-daemon

This will install and start the Transmission daemon. But before you can use it to download torrents, you need to configure it. Before making any changes to Transmission's configuration file, ensure that its daemon isn't running:

$ sudo service transmission-daemon stop

Also, before going any further, add the transmission user (debian-transmission), which is created automatically when the daemon is installed, to our group of users:

$ sudo usermod -a -G users debian-transmission

Now create a public share on the USB device, where we'll download the torrents. First, create the public share on the USB and assign the transmission user as its owner:

$ sudo mkdir /mnt/usb/public
$ sudo chown debian-tranmission /mnt/usb/public

Now add this share to Samba's configuration file:

[Public]
comment= Public share for torrents
browseable = yes
path = /mnt/usb/public
public = yes
writeable = yes
guest ok = yes

Restart Samba to make the share available to everyone. With the public share in place, it's time to configure the Transmission daemon. Its settings are defined in:

/etc/transmission-daemon/settings.json

Open the file in nano and first change the "rpc-whitelist-enabled": true parameter, to "rpc-whitelist-enabled": false to allow users to connect from all computers.

Next, specify the download directory with:

"download-dir": "/mnt/usb/public/downloads/Complete"

You can also separate incomplete files by keeping them in a different folder. First, enable the option by changing the "incomplete-dir-enabled": false parameter to "incomplete-dir-enabled": true and then specify the directory that'll house the incomplete downloads with "incomplete-dir": "/mnt/usb/public/downloads/Incomplete"

User authentication

Since we have given the ownership of the /mnt/usb/public directory to the transmission user, it'll automatically create any new directories. While the downloaded torrents are public, you can ensure that not everyone can queue torrents for downloads.

One way of doing this is by asking users to authenticate themselves before allowing them access to Transmission. For this, first change the "rpc-authentication-required": false parameter to "rpc-authentication-required": true

Then, define a password in the "rpc-password": "<password>" parameter, which Transmission will automatically encrypt. Now, save the file and start the Transmission daemon with sudo service transmission-daemon start.

By default, Transmission runs at port 9091. In our example, the complete URL for Transmission's web user interface would be 192.168.3.100:9091. Launch a browser and head to that address.

If you've enabled the password parameter, you'll be asked for login credentials. The username is transmission and the password is the one you specified in the configuration file.

Before you can download a torrent, you need the location to the .torrent file. Go to Transmission's web interface and click the Open Torrent button. Paste the URL in the window that pops up and click Upload to start the download.

The interface is easy to navigate. By default, it shows all added torrents, but you can use the pull-down menus to view torrents as per their download state or trackers. When you right-click on a listed torrent, it displays a context menu.

Once a torrent has been downloaded, as per our configuration, it'll automatically be moved to the publicly accessible /mnt/usb/public/downloads/Complete directory. The easiest way to access a share in Linux is to enter its address in the default file manager. Most modern Linux file managers, such as Gnome's Nautilus, support Samba. Launch Nautilus and press Ctrl+L to access the address bar.

Now enter smb:// followed by the IP address of the RPi running Samba. In our case, this would be smb://192.168.3.100. To access a particular share, you can also append its name to the end of the address, such as smb://192.168.3.100/documents. Or you can mount the share from the command line:

# mount -t cifs -o username=pi,password=raspberry //192.168.3.100/usb/downloads /mnt/downloads

To mount this share automatically, you can add it to the /etc/fstab file:

//192.168.3.100/usb/downloads /mnt/downloads cifs username=pi,password=raspberry 0 0

You can map the remote USB device on a Windows box. On a Windows 7 machine, go to My Computer and click on the Map Network Drive button. In the window that pops up, select a drive letter, and enter the location of the network folder. Here, this would be something like 192.168.3.100\usb\videos. You'll then be asked for your authentication information, then the drive will show up in My Computer.

Accessing shares on an Android device

1. Search and install

The Android Play store is full of file managers that can work with Samba shares. We use the popular ES File Explorer File Manager.

2. Configure

In the app, change View from Local to LAN, and then head to Menu > New > Server and enter connection and authentication details.

3. Browse and stream

Depending on your permissions, you'll be able to download, upload and stream files and access public and private areas on the share.

The owner of a Dutch web hosting firm is allegedly the mastermind behind one of the biggest slowdowns in internet history last month.

BBC News reported today that a 35-year-old Dutch citizen has been arrested in Barcelona, Spain following one of the largest Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks to date.

The Dutch public prosecutor who requested the arrest identified the suspect as only "SK" - believed to be Sven Olaf Kamphuis, owner and manager of Netherlands-based web hosting firm Cyberbunker.

The arrest follows what prosecutors described as "unprecedented heavy attacks" against anti-spam firm Spamhaus, an assault which also slowed data speeds on neighboring networks.

Revenge by DDoS?

Non-profit anti-spam firm Spamhaus maintains a blacklist which companies use to identify unwanted junk mail and keep it from flooding their customers' email inboxes - including those hosted on Cyberbunker servers.

The blockade reportedly didn't sit well with Kamphuis, who argued in the press that Spamhaus had no right to decide "what goes and does not go on the internet."

Suspect "SK" is accused of launching a massive DDoS attack which flooded Spamhaus web servers with upwards of 300 gigabits per second of data over several days in late March - substantially more than traditional attacks that push only 50Gbps by comparison.

The arrest in Barcelona was a cooperative effort with other EU authorities, and Spanish police are expected to soon transfer the suspect to the Netherlands for prosecution.

This week we've looked at the HTC First, the first phone with Facebook Home pre-installed as well as Nokia's bottom-rung Lumia, the 520.

We've also got hands on with the new Kobo reader as well as TomTom's brand new Sport watch.

So let's get stuck in. Here's our round-up of the hottest tech we've played with this week.

Nokia Lumia 520

The Nokia Lumia 520 is Nokia's fifth Windows Phone 8 handset. It's a phone which slots into the very bottom end of the range, just below the Nokia Lumia 620. And we do mean just below - the specs of the 520 and 620 are remarkably similar, meaning that Nokia's main competition at the bottom end of the market is itself. Otherwise, its biggest rival is likely to be the recently launched Huawei Ascend W1 - a low-end handset that we're rather fond of.

Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 review

With the Galaxy Note 8.0, which bridges the space between the Note 2 and Tab 2 10.1, it's clear that Samsung is continuing its approach of throwing out as many devices as it can in an effort to catch as many consumers as it can. The question is, do the customers care about all this subtle differentiation, or is Samsung just creating confusion in an oversaturated market? A scaled up Samsung Galaxy Note 2 it may be, but there are a lot of positives on offer thanks to that larger screen.

HTC First review

Facebook is so big, so everywhere, so omnipresent that it's already on everyone's phone, but apparently that's not enough for the sharing mogul. Now Facebook has decided to completely take over devices with Facebook Home, and has collaborated with HTC to create the HTC First, a phone meant to show just what that experience can be. The First moniker comes from being the first phone with Facebook Home preloaded. It's a well built, unassuming little handset, nowhere near as big, flashy or as fast as the quad-core HTC One.

Hands on: TomTom Multi-Sport GPS Watch review

TomTom has always been about getting from A to B in the fastest, simplest way. So the announcement that it would be focusing more on the space in between those points was a surprise to many, despite the fact that TomTom's mapping system makes its GPS watch feel like a no-brainer in many ways. But with wearable tech the current hot topic of discussion, the initial surprise around TomTom's sports watch has rapidly turned into intrigue. So TechRadar got wrist-on and personal to see whether TomTom could bring its solid reputation as a mapping service to the realm of sports tech.

Nikon Coolpix P520 review

Competition in the bridge camera market at the moment is pretty fierce. It's one of the only growing segments in the compact camera market, as users look for something much more advanced than their phone, especially in regards to zoom functionality. It's a bit of an oxymoron that bridge cameras are lumped into the compact genre when, in actuality, many of them are roughly the same size as entry-level DSLRs. Where the difference lies, however, is in the size of the sensor. The Nikon P520 houses an 18 million pixel, 1/2.3-inch CMOS sensor. This is the same size as those found in many "normal" compact cameras. However, where this camera, and other cameras of its type, trumps the larger sensored DSLR is the zoom flexibility.

This week's other reviews

Cameras

Nikon Coolpix A review

Panasonic Lumix GF6 review

Nikon Coolpix P330 review

Ricoh GR review

Accessories

Thrustmaster Y-250C review

Klipsch Image ONE (II) review

Chrome Sentinel Laptop Backpack review

SteelSeries World of Warcraft Wireless MMO Mouse review

Mobile phones

Motorola Razr HD review

Samsung Galaxy Mega review

Networking kit

Archos TV Connect review

Devolo dLAN 500 AV Wireless+ review

Speakers

Edifier e10 Exclaim review

Storage

LaCie Blade Runner 4TB review

Transcend Wi-Fi SD Card review

Tablets and ereaders

Archos ChildPad review

Amazon Kindle Fire HD review

Kobo Aura HD review

Last fall, a scathing report from a U.S. intelligence committee painted Chinese telecom manufacturer Huawei as a national security threat, effectively stunting the company's growth potential in the country.

The good news for Huawei is that it's been able to make that up with growth in other parts of the world.

MarketWatch reported today that a marketing exec from Huawei Technologies Co. painted a bleak picture for supplier's core wireless network business in the United States this year.

Huawei (pronounced "Wah-way") Vice President of Wireless Network Marketing Bob Cai confirmed in an interview that the Chinese manufacturer is looking elsewhere for wireless growth in 2013.

Strong European market

While Huawei and fellow Chinese supplier ZTE Corp. denied U.S. allegations claiming their equipment could be used by the Communist Chinese government to spy on American businesses, the October report effectively shuttered any growth potential for both companies.

Despite this setback, Huawei appears poised to make up for the loss in its own backyard by suppling chipsets to three Chinese state-owned carriers, who are ramping up plans to build out two competing 4G LTE networks.

Huawei already generates roughly 70 percent of its total revenue abroad, with Western European countries such as the United Kingdom and Germany among its biggest wireless network customers.

The company anticipates "at least" 10 percent growth in 2013 compared with 11 percent the previous year, bolstered by sales in emerging markets such as Indonesia, even after being cleared of any wrongdoing in the U.S.

Although the company's 2012 earnings won't be revealed until later this month, marketing executive Cai claims 10 percent growth this year is "not an ambitious target," considering the network business alone took in 45.91 billion yuan (US$7.4 billion) in 2011 alone - nearly 23 percent of Huawei's total fortunes for the year.

At a certain point in today's T-Mobile press event in New York City, which officially announced the $99 T-Mobile iPhone 5 and launched their new "Un-leash" campaign, CEO John Legere told the audience, "I hope I'm not coming off angry."

But, truth be told his anger was palpable, but Legere is trying to make a point: He sympathizes with wireless customers across the country who are burdened with binding cell phone contracts that are suffocating and even exploitative, as he put it.

The press event kicked off with a commercial that will spear-headed the upcoming promotional blitz, which shows four outlaws representing all the major mobile carriers in the U.S., going into an old western town filled with fearful citizens.

Then, out of the blue, one of them realizes that he's had enough of such dishonesty and decides to lead a more honest existence (to accentuate the change of heart, he replaces his cowboy hat with a pink one before going off on his own).

Immediately afterwards, Legere asked if we could tell which of the dirty, good-for-nothing scoundrels was print.

Legere said what?!

Legere, who doesn't mince words, addressed his critics and referred to how a major publication noted how he has relatively little experience running a wireless company.

To that, Legere felt it was almost a point of pride: "The worst fear is that someone on the outside of Oz would look at their industry."

Legere went on to explain how "the industry is broken" and we "know the villains… it's an industry that gives no rewards for loyalty," and added that everyone involved needs to "stop the bullshit."

He went on to list very specific examples: First, are rate plans that are made complicated. "They make no sense. Why? It's on purpose." Legere exclaimed. Next are contracts. "That phone that you walked out of the store with, how long is it before it becomes broken?" He asked. "Carriers are only nice to you every 23 months."

The casually dressed CEO - wearing the company's t-shirt in retina-frying magenta under a black blazer - addressed their new LTE network, which he described as "smoking fast," and how it will be just as good, "if not better" than their competitors.

In fact, their LTE networks will move into to seven different markets: Las Vegas, Seattle, Baltimore, Kansas City, Houston, Phoenix, and San Jose. New York City will get T-Mobile's LTE by this summer.

No more 'shell games'

Legere reiterated that the average plan for smart phones are "shell games," and the retooled Un-carrier plans are part of T-mobile's new mantra: unlimited everything, with no caps or overcharges. Just simple choices.

Mike Sievert, T-Mobile's chief marketing officer, took to the stage to elaborate upon Legere's points, and he had AT&T directly in his crosshairs.

Sievert first touted how T-Mobile will provide 50 percent more bandwidth than AT&T, and how the cost of a T-Mobile iPhone 5 will save a customer over a $1,000 after two years when compared with AT&T's contract.

But perhaps the most powerful moment came when Sievert addressed AT&T's (clearly there is no love between the two) abundance of plans.

He stopped by one of their stores the other day and brought with him several brochures, each detailing one of their plans. One was for family share, the other was for mobile share and both are designed to be confusing and force you into a plan, according to Sievert.

Legere on naming names

After the presentation TechRadar caught up to Legere and asked him about the bravado that he and his team demonstrated on stage.

"Well, I get very passionate about the subject matter. I believe I speak on the behalf of the millions of frustrated customers out there aching for a change," Legere said.

As for naming names, and the inherent risk of such a bold move. "Was it it risky, naming names? Why is it a risk in the first place? I want to have dialogue, we know who the other players are, we know what we do, and we're facing off against," he added.

And as for what the head of AT&T might be thinking after watching Legere and all that he had to say: "I bet they're in a board roam right now, wondering, how do we shut this guy up" Legere said through a laugh.

"The thing is, we're just 10 percent market share and we're ready to grow. If they want to go head to head and face off, then bring it on."

DLNA: what it is and what you need to know

Digital home entertainment has come a long way in a fairly short time, and it's now easy to stream music, video and other media around the house without any hassle.

Technologies such as DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) are a big part of that - so what is it, and where can you get it? Let's find out.

DLNA is an organisation

The Digital Living Network Alliance is a non-profit trade organisation, and it was started by Sony way back in 2003. The DLNA defines standards that enable devices to share stuff - photos, video, music - with each other, and it has more than 200 members responsible for more than 9,000 different DLNA devices.

DLNA brings all your tech together

DLNA is designed to act as a bridge between your various bits of kit, so you can watch a film from your PC on your big-screen TV, play an MP3 from your smartphone on your stereo, or send shots from the family photo album to your wireless printer via your tablet. Think of it as a kind of home cloud: it shouldn't matter where your media is or what device you're currently holding; with DLNA, whatever you want should come to wherever you are and whatever you're using.

DLNA needs a network

As you might expect, DLNA hardware is designed to work on a home network. It doesn't matter whether that network is wired or wireless, although with Wi-Fi you'll need to ensure that your network has sufficient bandwidth for what you want to do. We'd recommend 802.11n Wi-Fi for serious home sharing.

You've probably got DLNA kit in your home already

There are a lot of DLNA devices out there, and by "a lot" we mean "440 million": that's the installed base of DLNA as of January 2012. DLNA devices include PS3s and home media servers, Windows PCs, Android phones (like the Sony Xperia U) Blu-Ray disc players, tablets, wireless printers, camcorders, flat-screen TVs and routers, and odds are that at least some of the kit in your home is DLNA Certified. You'll find DLNA in stacks of Android devices, and Nokia's bringing it to Windows phone too.

DLNA is based on Universal Plug and Play

DLNA-compatible devices use UPnP to communicate, and there are three classes of DLNA devices: Home Network Devices, Mobile Handheld Devices and Home Infrastructure Devices. The first category encompasses media servers, AV receivers, TVs, consoles and tablets; the second category includes smartphones and media tablets; and the third category covers routers and hubs.

DLNA Certification means it'll work

DLNA Certified devices have been tested to ensure that they'll play nicely with other DLNA devices. Non-certified devices can be made DLNA compatible with software, so for example PCs can be DLNA servers if they're running version 11 or later of Windows Media Player.

DLNA Premium Video should make streaming simple

In January, the DLNA added a new standard: DLNA Premium Video, or the not very short DLNAPV for short. The idea is to make it easier to share copy-protected content around the house by enabling a single device to act as a hub for all your other ones. For example, your set-top box might be a DLNAPV device, and it could then stream copy-protected content such as movies or TV programmes to your other, non-DLNAPV devices. The technology has been developed by partners including Microsoft, Sony and Broadcom, although as yet no DLNAPV-certified devices have been announced.

DLNA is everyone but Apple

That's how it looks, anyway: the current DLNA membership reads like a Who's Who of the tech world, with big hitters including Intel, HP, Motorola, HTC, Microsoft, Samsung, LG and Panasonic making products that will happily communicate with each other. Apple has decided not to join that particular party.

DLNA and AirPlay won't talk to each other

Choosing a home entertainment platform is a bit like picking sides in a battle: there are two rival standards, DLNA and AirPlay. Where DLNA works across thousands of different devices, AirPlay (and AirPrint) is more selective and only works on Apple or Apple-approved products. That's the official line, anyway, but there are ways around it: apps such as AirSync bring AirPlay streaming to Android phones, while apps such as media:connect offer DLNA on iOS.

Why buy a 64GB iPad when you could have 1TB of storage? That is one of the key selling propositions behind the new Seagate Wireless Plus portable hard drive.

The storage company has revealed a new face for its consumer network-attached storage (NAS) drives, beginning with the 1TB Wireless Plus unit, available now, and stepping up to the lounge-room ready Central, with 2TB, 3TB and 4TB capacity options. The larger Central NAS drives will be released in May.

Seagate has spent the time between releases working on a range of new apps to access content on its drives, now with apps for iOS, Android, PC, Mac and Samsung TVs.

The Wireless Plus lives up to its name with completely wireless interfacing, with support for 802.11 b/g/n compliant hardware, and a built-in battery good for 10-hours of video streaming to mobile devices. It supports both AirPlay and DLNA streaming protocols too, so it should connect to most home cinemas.

Out with the old

This drive replaces last year's GoFlex Satellite, and while there are obvious aesthetic advantages in this recent release, there are a few key enhancements to functionality as well.

Perhaps most importantly, files can now be uploaded to the drive from iPads and other mobile devices -- a major oversight in the previous iteration where only data transfers from the drive were supported. The ability to upload wirelessly to the unit's memory could be particularly handy for photographers with Wi-Fi enabled equipment.

You can also now use the internet while connected to the ad-hoc network created by the hard drive. Now, when connecting to the drive, you can choose to have the internet pass-through the Seagate unit, similar to the way a Wi-Fi range extender works. It connects to your home network, and you connect your tablet, phone or PC to the hard drive.

Similar to the GoFlex, up to eight users can connect to the drive simultanesously, but now the drive's hardware is capable of streaming up to three video streams at one time. Impressively, Seagate's 10-hour battery life estimate was taken with three simultaneous videos streams, so you might expect this figure to increase with use by just a single user.

As more and more users adopt cell phones and smartphones using 4G networks, the bandwith is becoming more and more clogged.

Anticipating the next leap in network coverage, Japan's NTT DoCoMo mobile operator teamed with the Tokyo Institute of Technology (TIT) to conduct the first 10Gbps wireless test.

The study went down in December, and used a mobile station (i.e. - a van loaded with equipment) to attempt transmission in the 400MHz bandwidth of the 11GHz spectrum.

Using some two dozen different antennas, NTT and TIT were able to maintain an uplink rate of 10Gbps while traveling at a consistent speed on the road.

Like a 5G

NTT DoCoMo is hoping to run more tests uploading at 10Gbps on the 5Ghz (5G) "superhigh frequency band," despite that wavelength being troublesome for wireless transmissions.

Superhigh frequency bands don't typically allow signals to travel over long distances, and become even more unreliable when trying to transmit in and around buildings.

Lower frequencies (like 3G, 4G, and 4G LTE) have been the preferred method for mobile carriers to this point precisely for that reason, but NTT has reason to suspect it will be able to find a solution.

It's unlikely 5G will become readily available any time soon, so those of you who just upgraded to 4G or 4G LTE networks won't have to worry about being outpaced just yet.

The future applications remain a mystery pending further testing, but NTT's research could provide insight into a whole new way for data to be transmitted from mobile devices in a few years.

As much as you might love your Android phone, there are still a few things that remain easier with Apples. Media streaming is a prime example, thanks to Apple's AirPlay protocol.

This could change, if a new project partnership between chip-maker Qualcomm and music player doubleTwist bears fruit. Together they have created MagicPlay, a new open-standard streaming protocol which they are hoping manufacturers will incorporate into the next generation of Android smartphones and tablets.

The MagicPlay technology is actually based on an older Qualcomm wireless concept called AllJoyn, which connects compatible (read: Qualcomm) chips creating peer-to-peer networks over short distances.

Wireless connectivity is something doubleTwist knows a thing or two about, having created the successful AirTwist wireless media syncing tool to complement the standard doubleTwist media player for Android phones. AirTwist connects with a client installed on PCs and updates the media library on your phone, so that you always have the most up-to-date music to listen to.

Any takers?

From here, Qualcomm will begin the uphill battle selling MagicPlay to the manufacturers and trying to convince them to use MagicPlay in their media apps rather than the older (and clunkier) DLNA protocol and the new (and considerably more streamlined) Miracast.

Either way, it's a win for consumers. After years of wishing the latest 'droid could dock and stream like the iPhone, we may finially see something resembling a standard that all the manufacturers can embrace, both in phones and in home theatres and TVs, too.

Via CNET

Microsoft promised Windows Azure users affected by last weeks outage compensation for the down time in a blog entry posted today.

Steven Martin (no relation), the General Manager of Windows Azure Business and Operations, issued the statement through the Windows Azure blog to further explain the malady.

"Windows Azure Storage experienced a worldwide outage impacting HTTPS traffic due to an expired SSL certificate," wrote Martin.

"Given the scope of the outage, we will proactively provide credits to impacted customers in accordance with our SLA."

Of doing business

Though Martin didn't outright say how much customers would be compensated (agreements vary by usage), it's likely that Xbox LIVE users who were also affected by the outage won't see any monetary restitution.

Instead, Martin offered the condolence that "[Microsoft's] teams are also working hard on a full root cause analysis (RCA), including steps to help prevent any future reoccurrence."

If the cause of the incident is an expired certificate, as Martin himself describes in the post, then the cause would be a failure to renew the certificate.

Root canals aside, Microsoft is still doing better by it's hosted service customers than Amazon, whose multiple EC2 web service outages last year have been met with no public reconciliation.

An intelligence report claims China is stepping up efforts to hack into U.S.-based commercial interests, raising new fears about trade secret theft.

The Washington Post reported Sunday that the U.S. continues to be a big target for cyber-espionage, with experts fearing theft of trade secrets and a threat to the nation's economic competitiveness.

China has been named as the country leading what's referred to as a "massive, sustained cyber-espionage campaign" against the U.S., despite continued denials from the government in Beijing.

According to sources familiar with classified documents from the National Intelligence Estimate, Chinese hackers have been increasing attacks against key sectors ranging from energy, finance and information to aerospace and automotive.

Few options

No longer a concern only for U.S. military and intelligence officials, the increasingly sophisticated attacks also include enlisting Chinese citizens already in the country with access to corporate networks, where theft is carried out via email and USB thumb drives.

Other targets include newspapers such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post as well as search giant Google, which announced a major intrusion by Chinese hackers nearly two years ago.

Even as the Obama White House attempts to find solutions for preventing trade secret theft online, the report noted that companies are ultimately responsible for how each handles such incidents.

In addition to building evidence of seemingly invisible attacks against them, corporations risk burning bridges - not to mention economic interests - with countries like China and others accused of such activity.

Some readers will remember that a reported Twitter hack last week potentially impacted high profile users, including President Obama. There's been no connection made between China and that hack (at least not publicly), but the situation, said to have impacted some 250,000 users, is still unsettling.

Linksys, Buffalo and Netgear have all announced new Wi-Fi access points using the faster 802.11ac wireless internet standard.

With 802.11ac, your Wi-Fi connection doesn't slow everything down to the speed of your slowest, oldest device; anything that can work at a faster Wi-Fi speed gets a faster connection to the access point.

Not many devices actually have 802.11ac built in, so both Linksys and Netgear are bringing out USB adaptors. They're small enough to leave plugged into your notebook when you carry it around; the Linksys adaptor is barely larger than a paperclip.

Netgear and Linksys are also offering apps you can run on your access point. Linksys Smart Wi-Fi shows you a map of all the devices on your network; add the Netproofer app and you can choose who can visit what sites and when.

If the kids are supposed to be doing homework, you can turn off YouTube and Facebook on their iPads between 5pm and 7pm to encourage them to knuckle down to work, for example.

The new version of Netgear's Genie EZ Mobile Connect app for Android can generate a QR code for logging onto your Wi-Fi network, so that if a friend visits and wants to use your network, they can scan the QR code on their phone or tablet to get online without you having to tell them the password.

The app also has a Wi-Fi scanning mode so you can see the signal strength as you walk around the house, which helps you work out if you need to switch Wi-Fi channel or add a range extender for better coverage.

Plus, Netgear has its own Genie+ app store with apps such as Symform (free cloud backup in exchange for sharing some disk space that Symform can use to back up fragments of other people's files) and a transcoding tool that improves the quality of video you watch using Skifta's media shifting service.

There are 36 apps in the store so far, with several of them giving you remote access to files on your home network. Netgear says that over 300 developers are working on more apps.

Switch off the lights and see in the dark

There are ever more devices you can connect over Wi-Fi, such as Netatmo's urban weather station, which checks the CO2 levels in your room and suggests you open the window when they get too high. (High carbon dioxide levels mean you're likely to have indoor pollution, perhaps from the trapped gases that seep out of plastics.)

Belkin's WeMo Wi-Fi connected remote control enables you to turn any device plugged in through the power adaptor on and off from your iPhone or Android phone, and the new WeMo Switch enables you to do the same with your room lights.

There's a motion sensor that can send you messages when it detects something, and the company promises more automation and remote control products in the next six months.

But our favourite new Wi-Fi devices are the latest versions of Netgear's neat little VueZone Wi-Fi cameras, which run for six months on a camera battery. With no wires at all, you can just stick them on the wall and move them around to cover a new area.

The new models have larger lenses and include motion detection. If you want to put one outside, there's a weatherproof case (and that does screw onto the wall so no-one can walk off with it).

And because it's going to be dark out there some of the time, the latest VueZone camera is the Netgear VueZone Wireless Night Vision IP Camera with a separate infra-red lamp. Having the lamp separate means you can put the lighting where you need it - without burning out the image by having it too close to the camera.

If you want a night vision camera inside the house (to keep an eye on your pets at night or to watch for movement that could be a burglar who hasn't turned on the lights), you can put the infra-red lamp discreetly behind the sofa and point it up to light the room.

Home Wi-Fi performance is still a let-down for many, but Cisco Linksys is hoping that a quartet of new additions to its Smart Wi-Fi range will ease our pain.

Linksys is using the traditional stage of CES 2013 to show off its expanded range, and believes that consumers deserve better than the current generation of bland and inefficient networking kit.

The three new routers and one compact USB adapter, all rocking 802.11ac of course, are called Smart because they allow greater control over who is using what bandwidth and for what, as well as greater speed.

Gadget overload

Linksys is aiming to provide for our increasing desire to have multiple devices linked up simultaneously with the range-topping AC1750 allowing for 10 gadgets all connected and, potentially, streaming HD (dependent on your broadband of course) with speeds of up to 1300 Mbps on the 5GHz band.

The AC1200 and AC1600 can handle 3 to 5 or 5 to 7 devices respectively and, along with the adapter, will all be taking a public bow in spring.

As you may expect, the new Linksys routers are also equipped with Gigabit Ethernet and USB 3.0 ports that will allow for storage devices such as USB flash drives or hard drives, to be connected to the router.

On Friday AT&T unveiled its second touchscreen-equipped mobile hotspot, the AT&T Unite.

The carrier announced via a press release that the Unite will sport a 2.4-inch touchscreen and be capable of sharing 4G LTE with up to 10 devices.

Sierra Wireless, a wireless equipment designer and manufacturer based in British Columbia, will manufacturer AT&T's Unite.

In Friday's release, AT&T Senior Vice President of Devices and Developer Services Jeff Bradley called the new touchscreen hotspot "a compelling and valuable option" for connecting to the carrier's 4G LTE network.

Touching benefits

The AT&T Unite can connect to as many as 10 devices at once, including one "guest hotspot" for users who will only connect to it once.

On the Unite's touchscreen, users can manage devices (including blocking unwanted users), change network settings and more.

The Unite even features an on-screen data meter that will make it easy to monitor usage.

AT&T did not reveal pricing in its end-of-the-week announcement, though it did say the mobile router can be used with an individual or family plan, or added to a shared data plan for $20 per month.

Liberate, then Unite

The AT&T Unite is the carrier's second touchscreen mobile hotspot, following in the footsteps of Novatel Wireless' MiFi Liberate.

The naming scheme makes sense; "liberate" users from standing Wi-Fi networks, then "unite" them by allowing them to connect up to 10 devices (though the Liberate could handle 10 as well - maybe we're reading too much into this?).

The Liberate sported a slightly larger screen, however, at 2.8-inches compared to the Unite's 2.4 - though for the router's purposes a large screen is hardly necessary.

AT&T launched the MiFi Liberate on Nov. 16 for $49.99 with a two-year contract. There's no word on release date for the Unite yet, but no doubt it will be priced to compete.

The Unite is sure to pop up at CES 2013 next week.

There are loads of ways to get a faster wireless network connection at home - some of which are more practical than others.

You can hire some heavy machinery and knock down a few walls in your house so the Wi-Fi signal can travel through more efficiently. You can chuck out your current network hardware and buy a new set with the latest specification.

Or you could go down the easier, less destructive, and perhaps most importantly, free route of making sure your network is operating on the right channel and tweaking its settings for maximum speed. It's much like tuning a radio to a different station.

There's a simple reason why you might need to change your router's network channel. When there are many other wireless networks in your local area (which is likely if you live in a city), wireless signals can clash, causing interference that makes network traffic slow down.

There are several possible channels that your wireless network can operate on. We're going to show you how to look at the traffic in your area and move your network to the least clogged part of the spectrum, ensuring you get the best results.

Step-by-step: Boost your wireless connection

1. Download time

To analyse your local network traffic in greater depth, we're going to use a tool called inSSIDer. It's a full network analyser capable of some incredibly complex things, but we're really only going to skim the surface of its abilities. Download and install the program from here - just click 'Next' repeatedly to get it installed.

2. Scan for networks

Run inSSIDer - you'll find it inside a folder marked 'Metageek' in your Start menu. Click on the tab marked '2.4GHz channels', then look at the top of the screen for a button labelled 'Start'. This sets inSSIDer hunting around your local area for networks. It'll probably find many more than Windows does. Click 'Stop' when you're done.

3. Find a channel

Look at the graph - this is a map of where the networks in your area fall along the 11 main wireless channels. Their height represents their signal strength from your current location. It's down to you to interpret your graph, since it won't be the same as mine. Find an area with some empty space, or a quiet channel, and note its number down.

4. On the router

The channel you picked will be your network's new home. If it's nice and clear, you should get a decent speed boost. To change the channel on your router, you need to log in to its admin interface, which is different for every model. I'll show you the steps we took for our Asus WL700ge - you may need to search the internet for specifics.

5. Log in

I'll start by firing up a web browser and going to the local IP address of my wireless router - in this case 192.168.1.1. This brings up the login screen, where I need to enter my credentials. If you don't know yours, it's likely they haven't been changed from their defaults, so dig out the manual or search online and you should find them.

6. Set the channel

From here I need to access the advanced settings screen, which gives me more options. It's easy to change the channel on this particular router - there's a drop-down box in the middle of the screen that lets me do it. While I'm poking around, I can also look for a number of other settings that will keep my router speedy.

7. More tweaks

I'm given the option of setting a wireless mode - in this case turning off the older 802.11b service. If you still have devices that use it, you'll want to leave it switched on, but since I only have 802.11g devices in my house, I can safely switch it off and claw back a tiny speed boost. Then it's time to head to the advanced wireless page.

8. Radio settings

Here I can fiddle with all sorts of things, but I'll stick to the bits I know will help my wireless speed. Turning the radio power up should mean I get better signal at a distance. The 'afterburner' mode is only useful if you have wireless cards or dongles in your PCs that support it, so I'll leave it off. Frame burst, lower down the page, is a must.

9. Check the changes

After you've made the changes, you'll need to apply them and save your settings. Your router will probably reboot. Once everything is back online, run inSSIDer again to check the results of your changes and ensure that your wireless connection has moved to its new channel. Try a download - you should see the benefits immediately.

10. Speed for free

So you've checked out the wireless channels in your area, found the ideal one for your network and hopefully, depending on your router, switched its channel to an empty space. If it seems to have made things worse, there may be some other interference in the new channel, like a cordless phone, so try a few until you find the best one.

Ultimate networking guide: Where to begin?

Networking has become one of the most essential elements of computing. Forget processors. Forget graphics cards.

We know you can string together your own home network. A wired network is sheer block-building child's play.

A wireless network isn't much more strenuous, largely thanks to WPS reducing the complicated bit to little more than a button press or two. Or if you're like us you might memorise your WPA key, being able to think for ourselves and all.

But we're here to delve into the murky world of Windows networking and file sharing.

We're not talking the Homegroup system here; Microsoft has done a decent job of making that easy enough to use. We're going to delve into the Windows NT networking system that underpins this and indeed all of Windows file sharing.

That's the key here - not only does it arm you with the knowledge to twiddle with network shares on Windows 7, but without too many complications, everything from Windows NT, XP Server right through to Vista and Windows 8.

It's a reassuringly complex system, which once you understand the basic elements, is easy to deploy with total control, allowing you to decide who, how and exactly what is shared and accessible over your network. Let's not also forget the ability to limit, monitor and revoke access too.

Like we said, Homegroup is fine if you're seeking the basic control. For complete control you want to unleash the full Windows network file sharing.

So why when Microsoft goes to all that time and trouble to provide an easy route, should you care to learn the hard way? Frankly because it offers far more flexibility for a little more investment of your time. Besides, once you've nailed the more complex systems, they work with and are the Homegroup system anyway. So you can pick and choose depending on how tiered you want to make your file sharing access.

The truth is that the networking that exists inside all of Microsoft's current products is the same underlying system that was built into Windows NT back in 1993. As you should know, Windows NT became the core of Windows 2000 aka NT v5 and then Windows XP as NT 5.1. The whole Windows range was effectively merged with Windows Vista as NT v6 and onwards.

Technically, Windows 8, RT and Server 2012 will all be based on Windows NT v6.2. This underlying architecture for Windows NT has remained the same then, with security handled through the Security Reference Monitor system, using Access Control Lists and unique Security Identifi ers called SIDs to orchestrate this symphony.

Home nuisance

Over the years Microsoft has attempted to simplify the job of managing networked file shares, which in our opinion only helped to confuse the situation. We'll take advantage of some of these interface changes, since they offer shortcuts to sharing folders, but we're going to avoid Homegroup.

Homegroup is a streamlined way of getting file sharing to work over a home network. Similar to wireless networking WPS, it uses a PIN to prove valid authentication between systems. This is great if you can be bothered with difficult-to-remember 10-digit pins and having to change all those default folders, so you don't share them with every Tom, Dick and Harriet each time you initiate it. It's not a bad system but it's still riding on the coat tails of something that's more flexible.

We also worry that it hands access to remote systems without any additional credential checking, which is to say once a PC is given access it always has access no matter who's using it. So if PC A used by Bob is given access to PC B, when little Timmy gets on PC A, Timmy's going to be able to access everything on PC B.

It also doesn't help that networking issues are painful to diagnose, while the easy-to-use interface elements plug into the traditional networking anyway.

Part of this new system is the somewhat pointless Set Network Location selection. Get to it by selecting 'Start' > 'Control Panel' > 'Network and Internet' > 'Network and sharing' and under 'View your active networks' select the current Home/Work/Public network link. The only reason to select Home network is that it enables Homegroup, while Work network disables Homegroup. The Public network option is handy as it locks down network access to the system when on an untrusted network.

Despite its semi-hidden nature this does present a useful way of turning off the Homegroup, though the additional Homegroup home will stay visible in the Navigation pane till the sun engulfs the earth in its fiery embrace. Thanks Microsoft.

Group hug

With that unpleasantness done away with, we can focus our attention on how the core Windows networked file-sharing works. We're not starting at the beginning, as you were expecting. Instead we're going to look at Windows User Accounts.

What on God's green earth has that got to do with networking? Well, Groups, Users and Login sessions are core to the Windows security system. You're going to be able to enable remote access to systems on three levels.

The first is the Public shared folders that anyone can access. The next is Guest group access. This is for anyone who doesn't have a user account. Finally there's User Account access, which requires that you enter credentials to access shared folders from a remote system.

This complex arrangement ultimately results in a highly flexible one, the small amount of initial user and group set up is easy enough to manage. It enables you to create groups that all have the same access privileges or provide personalised access to files and folders on an individual user basis. This also goes hand in hand with password protection and policy control over the password usage. On a basic level users can be created and managed via the standard User Accounts Control Panel and if you want it, it's easy to enable the Guest Account access level here too.

However, we find the best method is to do this via the Computer Management console. Access this by either typing compmgmt.msc into the Run dialog or else right-click 'Computer' - the desktop icon or Start Menu entry - select 'Manage' and select the 'Local Users and Groups' section. It's also worth mentioning at this point the Shared Folders section that lives, handily, just above Local Users and Groups.

As you create file and folder shares these will become listed under the Shares section. This makes the Computer Management Console a good way to manage most aspects of networked file sharing from one place. Over time, if you're sharing a good number of folders, it can become confusing as to exactly what you've shared and with who.

The Shares section offers a list of everything shared in one place and with all the controls you need. Right-click the share you're interested in and you can immediately stop sharing or choose 'Properties' to adjust the sharing options. This Users Properties dialog enables you to limit the number of users that can have active sessions.

For the most part this won't be of use for home users, but there are times when this could be useful, if bandwidth is an issue or you have a high number of users for some reason.

The Share Permissions tab is also useful for easily changing the access permissions for groups and users. It's unlikely you'll need to delve into the Security tab, but this does offer more detailed control over what users can do within shares.

Network names

It's a minor point but worth covering as it's certainly not obvious. When you're messing around with networking the name of the PC you're working on is set via the Computer Properties.

Right-click either the desktop icon or Start Menu Computer entry, select 'Properties' and under the Computer name… section click the 'Change settings' link. Click the 'Change' button - why you can't just click this back in the Properties is beyond us - and change the 'Computer name' to whatever you want to view within the Network neighbourhood (as it used to be called).

You might also be wondering about the Workgroup name that can also be changed in here. Back in the day of Windows 3 and 95 this could be used to segregate PCs into groups, making it impossible for different Workgroups to share files or services.

Today the Workgroup concept has been eliminated and it's effectively unused. It's all a bit of a blur now, but back in those days NetBIOS took the major lead in network file sharing, with the additional Microsoft SMB protocol on top of this. From Windows 2000 onwards the Microsoft SMB protocol did away with NetBIOS and so the need for Workgroups.

Despite dumping NetBIOS to retain compatibility the naming conventions for the computer and Workgroup remain. That's a case-free name, without any spaces, no longer than 15 characters long with restrictions on special characters, which is to say almost no punctuation apart from a dash.

Not that advanced

The most confusing aspect of Windows network file sharing is how to switch it to the correct mode, so that the PC is actually happy to accept password connections. This blazingly basic concept is buried in the 'Change advanced sharing settings' section found off the side panel of the Network and Sharing Center Control Panel.

The best way to access this is to right-click on the 'Notification Network' icon, select 'Open Network and Sharing Center' and click 'Change advanced sharing settings'. There's a list of very important options in here, many of which have to be set correctly for file sharing to work.

Be aware these options are duplicated over two separate sections in here. One section covers the Home/Work Network Location and the other below this, covers operating in a Public Network Location mode. The first two options - Turn on network discovery, and Turn on file and printer sharing - we hope are self-evident. Both need to be selected for this to work well.

The 'Public folder sharing' option is an interesting one. If you want a simple way to easily share files to everyone then this is a great option. The folder already exists within the {system drive}:\Users\Public folder. Be aware, this enables anyone connected to the same network as yourself to copy, move and delete any old files they wish within those public folders.

This isn't the only way of providing simple password-free guest sharing, but it's a one-shot option you might be interested in. The next two options we're going to skirt around.

Media sharing is something PC Format has covered extensively in the past and media streaming is where you control the basic Windows Media Player and generic DLNA servering features. The File sharing connections option can be left at 128-bit encryption for better security. As far as we know this should function correctly with almost everything.

The 'Turn off password protected sharing' option is a prime one. If you're happy to have anyone access shared folders marked with Guest access, then you can choose to turn this off. It's like public folder sharing but across the board for any folders you mark for Guest access. If you're happy to bare all to everyone on your home network, then this by far makes for the easiest file-sharing method. You still retain complete control over who can delete files on your server or computer by adjusting controls accordingly or limit access completely by marking them only for registered users.

Finally the Homegroup connections option needs to be turned off here so that we can control and create our own user permissions and shares. This part is a little confusing because, even when switched to off, all of the Homegroup interface elements remain visible within Windows. In fact, it's almost like Microsoft adds this stuff without thinking about it.

The final element we'll mention here, as it's not obvious, is if you want mixed-access of people with passwords - for secure items - and people you'd like to have Guest access without prompts or passwords. For example, we use a shared document folder that anyone can access without the need for a password. While back-up folders require a password, so files cannot be deleted or removed. For this type of setup you need to enable the Windows Guest account.

There are two ways to do this: one is via the 'Start Menu '> 'Control Panel' > 'User Accounts' > 'Add or remove user accounts' > 'Enable Guest Account'. Technically, this can also be activated via the Users section of the Management Computer Management Console. The Guest User is already created but you need to double-click it and clear the 'Account is disabled' tick box.

Once enabled, this in conjunction with the 'Turn off passwordprotected' sharing, enables Guest access to folders marked with Guest access privileges.

Share and share alike

With your system all setup you're now ready to create password-protected users and enable open-access guest shares, alongside password-protected folder shares. We'll go through doing just this in the walkthroughs, but the password-protected system requires the creation of a suitable user account with password.

The confusing element here is that the user account that you create has to match the same name as the remote system's user account name. Otherwise you will find that the remote system will either be limited to Guest access or be blocked entirely. This can create the odd situation where if you use the same account name on multiple computers they will all have to connect to the network using this same user account.

To add even more confusion to the situation, once you've created the same user-named account, remote users don't have to log on with the same credentials. Instead, you can create a more memorable username and password and that will still work for logging on to a remote share. This could, for example, be used when more than one person uses a computer with the same account.

The additional credentials enables people that know it to access additional shares. We're sure that there are other usage models that can be applied but that's the one that springs readily to mind.

Actually enabling the sharing of a folder or drive is a case of selecting the folder in question and using the Homegroup share system, which is the 'Share with' > 'Specific people…' menu option. Here you can now add Guest and specific Users then assign read/write permissions.

Ultimate networking guide: Doing it right

It's worth taking a little time to consider what you want to share over your network and how it can be segregated on the storage your server or PC has. Shares can be nested, so you might password-protect an entire documents folder, but then guest-share a single folder within that for public access, for example, to a photographs' folder.

Once in place we think this old-school sharing is more straightforward than the contrived Homegroups with its unnecessary pins and additional interfaces. Having said that, this does work best with a central server to which each networked PC does its sharing. In this case it means just the one server has to be administered, though even this can be simplified by reusing a single account for access.

PC Format has in the past covered versatile ways of building your own handy-dandy home server using the great-value HP Proliant MicroServer or even making your own from an old laptop - solutions that don't cost much more than £200 including hard drives. You could, of course, use a NAS but these don't cost much less than a full server solution, which are never as flexible.

No matter what your approach, sharing files over your network will only make your life easier. Not only does it offer an easy way to share files everyone wants access to, but it opens up easy routes for backing up, streaming media, providing cloud storage and centralised mass storage that's machine independent.

We're the management

1. Advanced settings

Right-click the Notification Network icon, select Open Network and Sharing Center. Click the 'Change advanced sharing settings'. The quick list is: discovery on, sharing on, public off, media, 128-bit encryption, passwords off, Use user accounts.

2. The console

We'll use the Computer Management Console a lot. Right-click the Start Menu, Computer entry and select 'Manage'. Open the Local Users and Groups section and select 'Users'. We'll be taking a look at Groups, as well as the Shared Folders section too.

3. Adding a user

To create a new User account is straightforward. Right-click a blank area of the Users main display and select 'New User…' The User name needs to match the account name of the remote PC. You're able to give it a friendly name and the all-important password.

4. Create a Group

You're able to apply access by the same groups of users by creating groups and adding the users you want to this. Select 'Groups' and right-click and select 'New group…' Choose a name and click the 'Add…' button to begin adding the users you want to the new group.

5. Adding Users

We'll see this stupid dialog again. Click 'Advanced' and then 'Find Now'. This actually displays the list of Users you can add. If you like, select 'Object Types' and deselect 'Built-in security principles' to simplify the list. Select as many as relevant and click 'OK'.

6. Check your Shares

Finally, take a nose at the Shared Folders group. It's worth clicking the 'Shares' entry as this lists all the folders and drives that are set as being shared on the system. By default, a number exist already, and these are system shares for the default user only.

Create a guest share access

1. Guest Accounts

First make sure your shared system has a Guest account create and active. Select 'Control Panel' > 'User accounts' > 'Add or remove user accounts'. The Guest account is shown here and it'll be active or off. You'll need to activate this before going any further.

2. Guest access

Right-click the 'Notification Network' icon to check the basic sharing settings, select 'Open Network and Sharing Center'. Click the 'Change advanced sharing' settings. Public sharing can be left off but make sure 'Turn off password protected sharing' is selected.

3. Add guests

Let's guest-share a folder. Create, for example, a Public folder, right-click this and select 'Share' > 'Specific people…' This is the Homegroup extended interface so you can choose 'Everyone' and click 'Add'. The Guest option would work just as well too.

4. Adjust read/write

When a user is added this way you're able to adjust the level of access via the Permission Level column. Click the arrow next to the 'Read' option and select 'Read/Write' to enable Guest users to copy files into and out of the public folder.

5. And share

With the Read-only or Read/write setting done, click 'Share' and the folder is made available to everyone on the local network. The final window displays the Network path to the folder and offers a couple of basic ways to send this to other people.

6. Limited options

Using the built-in Homegroup controls does make sharing easier but the fl ip side is that it offers less control over how the shared folder is created. So if the folder already resides inside a share, it's not possible to create a separate listed shared folder this way.

Advanced sharing

1. Check your user

Before we create a user account, we need to check the remote user account name so they match. The easiest way is on that system open the Start Menu and see the name in the top-right of the menu, or check the User list in the Management Console.

2. User access

Armed with the correct User name, open the Computer Management Console, go to 'Users', right-click a blank area and select 'New User…' Add this name to the User name and choose a password. Click 'Create' to add this new user to the system.

3. Complex sharing

Create a folder on your drive. Right-click this, select 'Properties' > 'Sharing tab' > 'Advanced Sharing…', and click the 'Share this folder' box. You're able to give this the name that appears within the Network folder and limit the maximum connected users.

4. Users and Groups

Click 'Permission' and remove 'Everyone', as we don't want that. The next bit is stupid: click 'Add' > 'Object Types…', deselect 'Built-in security principles' and click 'OK'. Go to' Advanced' > 'Find Now'. A list of all the available Users and Groups will appear.

5. Adjust Permissions

Select as many users or groups as you want to have access to this share and click 'OK' > 'OK'. You can now adjust the read/write/delete permissions for the folder per user. We never quite understood why Deny exists, but perhaps it's to torment people?

6. Security issues

Click 'OK' followed by 'OK' and the folder is now shared with the displayed path within the Network folder. The last thing to note here is the Security tab. This can seem confusing as it appears to duplicate permissions. It does, however, deal with local access rather than network shares.

7. Computer Management

Right-click 'Computer' in the Start Menu and select 'Manage'. Browse to 'Shared Folders' > 'Shares' and double-click the share you created and click the 'Share Permissions' tab. This will list the Groups and Users you added previously.

8. Closing sessions

Select the 'Sessions' and 'Open Files' sections and you'll see lists of the currently connected and active registered users or guests. Right-click a session and you can choose to close it down. Under Open Files, 'spools' are printer jobs queued for printing.

9. Remote connecting

All that's left to do is remotely log in from your newly registered system. You may need to log them off and back on again if you've changed password or other details but otherwise it's a case of entering the user name and password you selected.

The latest, most expensive routers include so many facilities you'd be forgiven for thinking they're more like PCs than tools for networking. This thought should lead you to wonder if you can use a regular PC to do the same thing. The answer, thanks to Linux, is that you can - and it's very easy.

There are many different Linux distributions designed specifically to turn your machine into a router or a gateway, complete with any number of enhancements.

Our favourite is called ClearOS. It's a fantastic choice of router for your network because it's relatively painless to configure, but it's also extendible, taking it far beyond even the most ambitious devices from manufacturers like Netgear.

You could use it to host your cloud documents, complete with editing, host and access your email, either through a web interface or server, as well as a powerful firewall and intrusion detection.

ClearOS is unlike most Linux distributions because it offers both a free edition and a commercial edition that you have to pay for. Because some people do pay for it, ClearOS has one of the better user interfaces, and most of its facilities can be installed and configured through a web app.

It's also easy to install, and has a great support network. This is important, because all your network's data is going to go through the distribution, and you need to be able to trust both the integrity of the packages and services its running, and the source of those packages and the distribution itself.

Fortunately, ClearOS's heritage couldn't be any better, since it's based on the billion dollar Red Hat enterprise.

Installation

ClearOS uses Red Hat's graphical installer and asks you only a few questions. Boot your machine with the ClearOS DVD in the drive (a USB option is also available), and choose the first option from the boot menu: 'Install or upgrade an existing system'.

The graphical installer will appear after a few moments and you'll have to answer the usual questions about language and keyboard layout. After these are out of the way, choose 'Basic storage device' as your installation medium and step through the regular drive and partition options. The next few questions deal with the network and where you're located, before asking how you'd like to allocate space on your drives.

The default values will choose a drive and create an installation automatically, but be warned, this will remove all data from the drive it chooses.

The following two questions will confirm your choices before the installer goes off and does some installing. When this has finished, you get the chance to reboot into your new installation and removing the DVD would be advisable.

Configuration

When your machine has booted, the first thing you'll notice is the lack of a desktop. In fact, the only thing you should see is a screen telling you the IP address of your machine and where to get further information. This is because, like any modern router, ClearOS is intended to be configured through a web browser.

After you've made a note of its IP address, you can disconnect any screen, keyboard and mouse and hide the machine away under the floorboards if you like. As long as it's connected to the network, you'll be able to change the settings.

Go to a browser on a machine on the same network and type in this IP address, using both the 'https' prefix and the port '81'. For our network, for example, we typed in https://192.168.1.21:81.

The page that appears asks you to log in, and you'll need to enter a username of 'root' followed by the password requested by the installer. You'll then be presented with the first page of the ClearOS startup wizard.

Click 'Next' and you'll be asked which network mode you want to configure. Which you choose will depend on how you want to use your new router.

The best option here is Gateway Mode, but this won't appear unless you have two network adaptors installed - one connected to the internet and the other to your LAN. If you'd rather experiment with ClearOS as a server, choose one of the two other options.

After selecting Gateway Mode, you need to tell the wizard which adaptor is which. The installer makes a pretty good guess at this, marking one adaptor as External and the other as LAN, but you can change the assignment if it's wrong using the 'Edit' button.

The next question asks for a DNS, and we'd recommend entering the IP address of either your ISP, Google (8.8.8.8) or OpenDNS (208.67.222.222). After this, make sure the free community edition is selected and click 'Next' to download and install any critical updates.

Marketplace

One of the best things about ClearOS is a package manager it calls the Marketplace, and the next step of the installation is to create an account to access this. You'll be asked for an email address, and be instructed to register your system with your new credentials.

You'll now be asked a couple of questions about domain names for your connection. If this is a home connection, you might not have one. We'd recommend using a free dynamic DNS service to get yourself one. Otherwise, you can always use a made-up name or the default values as a temporary fix.

We can now start installing applications. To start with, we'd recommend selecting the Windows file server, the bandwidth manager, port forwarding and the FTP server, but you can always come back at a later time and install more applications.

After making your selection, click on the 'Download and install' button. This will automatically grab and install all the packages you've selected. A few minutes later, depending on the speed of your connection, you'll be presented with the ClearOS dashboard and you'll be able to start using your new gateway.

Firewall

A gateway with a firewall acts as a permissive barrier between two networks. In our case, that's between the internet and your local network. It's a necessary precaution because the internet is saturated with systems that constantly bombard every connection with random requests directed at ports with known vulnerabilities. Most of these vulnerabilities are found on non-updated versions of Windows, but they can also be found within almost any network-facing service, such as a web server or file server.

Within ClearOS, the firewall can be configured by clicking on the 'Network' menu on the left or top of the dashboard, followed by 'Incoming Firewall'. By default, there should already be a single defined rule called webconfig. This allows port 81 on the oncoming connection, which is the port you need to access the ClearOS web interface.

This rule means you can configure your gateway from the internet, and if you don't want this facility, click on 'disable' for the rule. To add your own rule, click 'Add'. You don't need to memorise most port numbers because the Add interface includes a list of the most common services. Select 'SSH', for example, and then click on 'Add' again. The rule list will now include SSH running on port 22, which is its default port.

If you need to add custom ports for your own services (or games) this can be done from the same interface.

ClearOS does run an SSH server, which is all you need if you want command-line access, but you may also want command line access to another machine in your network. To do this, you'll need to use port forwarding. This takes an incoming connection on one port - 22 in the case of SSH - and maps this to a different port on either a local machine, or another machine within your LAN.

Click on 'Port forwarding' then 'Add'. You'll be able to select a standard service in the same way you could for the firewall, but you'll also need to add a local IP address. This will be the destination for the port. You can forward custom ports, a range of ports and choose between UDP and TCP protocols by using the other options on the page.

Setting QoS

The other feature you only find in advanced routers is the ability to limit connection bandwidth going through your router depending on what they're doing. This is often known as QoS, or Quality of Service, because it's often used to make sure time-sensitive data isn't affected by a torrent download, for example. Time-sensitive data could be streaming video or VoIP, where getting packets to the client is important. File downloads aren't normally affected by some delay.

When you select 'Bandwidth manager', you have two choices. The first of these deals with bandwidth limiting on an interface, while the second can be used to limit bandwidth by service. The first is useful if you have several subnets, such as a wireless host running on your gateway. You can use it to either restrict data coming into and out of this network, or restrict the other interfaces, so you can ensure there's always a decent amount of bandwidth.

The Basic Rules table is the most useful for the majority of networks, because it allows you to promote those first-class services while still allowing people to download large files. Click on 'Add' and you'll get the option to choose a service (like SIP or FTP), and specify whether you want the bandwidth limited or reserved, in which direction and at what rate.

To ensure SPI always gets 1Mbps, for example, choose 'Reserve', 'SIP', 'Flowing to the network' and set a rate of 1,000 (the rate is set in Kbps). If you have local users saturating your upstream bandwidth, change 'Flowing to the network' to 'Flowing from the network'. ClearOS will transparently limit the packets going through the network to ensure the services you depend upon will have the lion's share of your bandwidth.

And unlike some ISPs we could mention, you're in control of whether that's BitTorrent or HTTP, which is the best thing about running your own gateway.

It's been an interesting year for Google.

Android stormed the smartphone charts but didn't do so well in tablets, so Google stepped in and made arguably the best non-Apple tablets around.

Google's given huge sums to charity while avoiding huge amounts of UK tax, and when Apple booted its Maps off iOS it was Apple, not Google, that ended up getting hurt.

Google's highs in 2012

1. Android smartphone sales

Google's smartphone OS has been a huge success, helped considerably by partners such as Samsung: we reckon the Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 is the best phone in the world today.

Android isn't just a huge success in the consumer market, though. It's big in businesses too.

By November, Android had booted BlackBerry into third place among business smartphone users.

2. Google Glass

Google Glass's appearance at Google IO 2012 was hilarious: Sergey Brin's presentation began with a Glass-wearing Googler throwing himself out of a plane, and ended with a bunch of BMX bike stunts.

Nobody knows if Google Glass is the future or just a daft-looking gimmick, but everybody's heard of it.

3. The Nexus 7

Google's Android world domination plan hit a hurdle with small tablets: they were crap.

Google rather wisely decided to take matters into its own hands, and the resulting device - the Nexus 7 - was, and is, brilliant. It's as cheap as a Kindle Fire but considerably more powerful.

4. The Nexus 10

Buoyed by the success of the Nexus 7, Google gave it a big brother: the Nexus 10.

It's not quite as good as the latest iPad - there isn't a 3G or 4G version, and Apple's screen is nicer - but it's still very good and very keenly priced. If it doesn't massively outsell Microsoft's Surface, people are crazy.

5. Jelly Bean

Google has done great things with its Android OS, and this year's version, 4.1 Jelly Bean, is the greatest version yet.

People started to use the phrase "silky-smooth" without snickering - and we went as far as to call it "a thing of beauty".

6. Apple Maps

When Apple decided to kick Google Maps off iOS, they probably didn't expect to become a laughing stock - but their half-baked offering showed just how good Google Maps is, and probably sold a fair few Android phones at the expense of iPhones too. It certainly hasn't stopped iOS users from going to Google.

7. Google Play

Google didn't just sort out Android hardware: it brought new focus to the Android Market, too, rebranding it as Google Play.

It now matches Apple in terms of available app numbers, and according to analysis by App Annie, Google Play revenues are up 311% since January.

Google's lows in 2012

1. The Nexus Q

Google's Nexus Q promised easy media streaming, but its price tag and lack of features led to howls of derision.

It isn't officially dead, but Google isn't selling it and doesn't have "anything to share at this time" about it.

2. The Nexus 4

Not the hardware - we reckon Google's latest phone, the Nexus 4, offers 'beautiful, elegant design' at an 'unbelievable price' - but the 'unfathomably long' shipping delays that suggest Google isn't on top of the logistical side of things.

You've more chance of riding through town on a unicorn made of cheese than getting a Nexus 4 in time for Christmas.

3. UK Tax

Google's mission is to organise all the world's information, but this year it looked like it also wanted to organise all the world's money and hide it from the tax man: a parliamentary committee called Google's UK tax arrangements "immoral".

The government is apparently considering a crackdown on such schemes.

4. Chromebooks

Maybe this year's enormous advertising campaign, the presence of new 'Google Zones' in PC Worlds and the possible arrival of a Nexus-branded Chromebook will finally persuade the general public to care about Chromebooks in 2013.

And maybe we'll all live in a castle made of pies.

5. The EU and the FTC

Last year, Google was preparing for an EU investigation into whether it abused its power to harm competitors; this year, it's waiting for that investigation to conclude.

The US FTC is running its own investigation along similar lines, and may publish its verdict - and announce any penalties - before Christmas.

6. Fragmentation

Android suffers from one big problem: fragmentation.

More than 50% of Android devices still run Gingerbread, and the latest version is only on 6.7% of devices.

That's a pain for app developers, who have to support lots of versions or massively limit potential sales, and it's a pain for people stuck with old versions of the OS.

7. European newspapers

Google News may get a lot less interesting in France and Germany: in September, French newspaper publishers urged the government to pass a bill that would force search engines to pay each time a user reads an article they find through a search, while German regulators debated similar legislation in November.

Google says it'll stop linking to those countries' media firms if the regulators stick to their guns.

The Linux kernel is what everything else runs on top of, so it's the key to everything that a Linux device can do.

It's in your Android phone. It's in the computers that run the servers at Google, Amazon and all the other web services that we take for granted.

It powers the database that US immigration uses to decide if you are who you say you are, it's deep under the Alps searching for new particles at CERN, and it's even on unmanned drones searching for drugs traffickers in the Caribbean.

Linux is everywhere.

We at Linux Format were lucky enough to speak to Linus Torvalds, the man who wrote the original Linux kernel and still works as its maintainer.

We went to his house, we stroked his dog, we almost killed his wife in an embarrassing car crash, but despite that socially awkward automotive incident, he didn't seem overly annoyed by our presence.

Although he could have been rich beyond the dreams of most (and he could still use his position as kernel maintainer to make potloads of cash), he's more concerned with putting food on the table and a roof over his head.

Instead of buying a Hawaiian island or an enormous yacht, he's happy arguing with people on the internet.

And instead of getting his Google Nexus 7 delivered by helicopter straight from Google HQ (he did write the guts of its operating system, after all) he has to sit at home all day and wait for the postman to turn up, just like everyone else.

Thanks Linus; we love your work...

Announcing Linux

Linus Torvalds began work on Linux around April 1991, but he didn't announce it to the world until 25 August 1991, when he sent this message to the comp.os.minix Usenet newsgroup:

Hello everybody out there using minix - I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones.

This has been brewing since april, and is starting to get ready. I'd like any feedback on things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resembles it somewhat (same physical layout of the file-system (due to practical reasons) among other things).

I've currently ported bash(1.08) and gcc(1.40), and things seem to work. This implies that ''ll get something practical within a few months, and I'd like to know what features most people would want.

Any suggestions are welcome, but I won't promise I'll implement them :-)

Linus (torvalds@kruuna.helsinki.fi) PS. Yes' it's free of any minix code, and it has a multi-threaded fs.

It is NOT portable (uses 386 task switching etc), and it probably never will support anything other than AT-harddisks, as that's all I have :-(.

Linus Torvalds

Minix is another Unix-like operating system. It was created by Andrew S Tanenbaum in 1987, but was made available only for use by universities.

Linus was a Minix user, but found it had limitations. It was designed to work on 16-bit processors, so wasn't adapted well to the 32-bit instructions on the increasingly popular Intel 386 processors.

So, Linus set about creating a Minix-like operating system that would let him take advantage of the extra features it provided.

Another striking feature of this message is how low and humble his expectations were.

Linus never set out to change the world, and he just wanted to make something cool that would be useful to him.

Too much choice

Choice is good - or so the free software mantra goes.

But choice leads us to RPM vs Debs, to a proliferation of desktop options, and to the internet being clogged with hundreds of practically identical Ubuntu respins.

What does Linux's end-of-level boss think?

LXF: Has the Linux desktop failed because there's too much choice? [Laughter]

Linus Torvalds: I don't think the desktop is doing too well, and there's technical reasons.

You've probably seen my rants about how, to some degree, I think the desktop is going in the wrong direction, but the big reason is normal people don't want to install an operating system.

You can't get a desktop unless you have pre-installs, and that hasn't happened.

There are cases where, if you knew where to look, you could get Linux pre-installed if you bought Dell.

But, realistically, nobody has done pre-installs.

LXF: But if the KDE teams and the Gnome teams hadn't spent so much effort creating failed first versions of their desktops?

LT: I think that's maybe more painful for people who... I know people who decided to give up on the Linux desktop even though they're technical people, just because they got so fed up with Gnome and KDE, so that has been a negative.

But at the same time, even if they hadn't done that, I don't think you'd get the normal... the grandmas, people who don't actually like computers, wouldn't have used the Linux desktop.

Even if we wouldn't have had these painful 'change everything' moments.

I'm very unhappy with what Gnome and KDE have done, but in the big picture, I think that's a small, small detail.

LXF: We've always wondered why you don't use the Linux trademark to create a default Linux environment.

LT: I'm not interested. I never wanted to do anything about the technical side.

I'm perfectly happy complaining, because it's cathartic, and I'm perfectly happy arguing with people on the internet because arguing is my favourite pastime - not programming.

But at the same time the trademark, in particular, I want to have as little as humanly possible to do with that because it's just been a huge pain.

It was a pain from the very first, when we had the whole trademark squatter person, but trademarks are ludicrously bad.

And, in fact, the legal situation in trademarks encourages corporations to do stupid things, because their lawyers feel if they don't do the stupid things they will lose control of the trademark, and it's bullshit, but lawyers are paid to be anal about things.

So I wouldn't want to use the trademark anyway. Plus, I actually enjoy the situation where... like some people complain about how Google and Ubuntu don't say 'Linux', but just say 'Android' or 'Ubuntu'.

Technical people will complain 'it's Linux, and now people don't know they're using Linux'. Which is true, a lot of people don't even know they're using Linux.

LXF: And that doesn't bother you?

LT: And that doesn't bother me at all, because I'm interested in the technical side. And I actually think it's the right thing to do, to say: "Hey, we're doing our OS".

And when they say OS, they mean more than just a kernel, and when I say OS I usually mean just the kernel.

But if you're doing your OS, Linux is a central, but it's still just a small part of the overall thing - you shouldn't need to name your stuff just because you use the Linux kernel.

So, I actually wouldn't want to use the trademark thing, plus I think it would be stupid anyway because I think people should just rename their things.

LXF: What we were getting at was we think the LSB has been a bit of a failure in kind of defining, I mean RPM is still the default package manager on the LSB, and whether there was some other way...

LT: Yeah, but there hasn't been anything better. The Debian people will point to the advantages of Debs, but technically, they're different but not better.

People have strong opinions about it. Debian people had serious problems with things like signing because the Deb packages didn't have the capability.

So they had some things they did better and some worse.

So to some degree packaging isn't easy, and at the same time nobody really cares. The bugs people have in the packaging format...

LXF: Users care.

LT: Yes, but I mean, they don't... the bugs they see aren't the bugs of the packaging format.

The bugs they see are things like "Oops, the package is technically correct, but it doesn't actually specify all the dependencies".

LXF: But they want to install the latest Firefox, and they don't want to know what a packaging manager is.

LT: Right, and they shouldn't...

LXF: What we're saying is the LSB would be the ideal way of solving that problem.

LT: Yes, and to some degree the LSB tried to do that, but the LSB tried to aim for a smaller thing than Firefox.

So the problem, when you mention Firefox or Chrome, they are particularly nasty packages. Which is true of games, too.

They need more than just the Linux standard base. They need to be huge. They need sound, and static linking won't help them. Sound is a systems issue.

LXF: But not if it was a standard system.

LT: Right, but nobody can force that. If we had tried it wouldn't have worked anyway.

Some of the things that people hated, like PulseAudio...

LXF: But it is awful. It's really powerful, but have you tried to configure it?

LT: These days it actually works.

LXF: But it's hideously complicated.

LT: So is every alternative. Have you tried Jack? It's better in some respects, but worse in the hideously complicated aspects.

LXF: One of the things Apple gets right is CoreAudio, since the user sees nothing.

LT: Right, and that's the advantage, but it's the disadvantage too. This was Microsoft's big advantage.

They were the one-stop shop.

LXF: Do you think that's still their advantage, with Windows 8?

LT: I think they clearly lost a lot of the advantage. They lost the momentum, their user base hated them for a lot of reasons.

People are so happy to jump ship when they can, and Apple is obviously taking a lot of that jumping ship, but they still... I mean, people love to say how Apple is doing great, Apple is like 10% now.

It's much better than it used to be, but Microsoft are still huge.

LXF: Maybe it's a personal thing, but we feel if Linux provided PulseAudio tools as a volume control, and everyone had to conform to that, things would be better.

LT: Well, yes, some things would be easier if there was no choice, I agree with you.

The benevolent dictator

Apart from feeding the sharks with laser beams on their heads in his hollowed-out volcano, what does Linus do with his time nowadays?

He could have made billions, like Paul Allen and Bill Gates of Microsoft, Larry Ellison of Oracle, or the late Steve Jobs.

Instead, he just wants to fix code. And argue, of course...

LXF: We read that you mostly spend your time committing the merges to the kernel. How do you manage to stay enthusiastic when it's not coding anymore?

LT: Most of my merges, technically they take two seconds to do the actual merge.

It takes me more time to actually read and copy and paste the Git address, and read what's going on. I mean, the merge itself takes no time.

LXF: Right, but we imagine you having some understanding of what it's going to do.

LT: In most cases, I don't even care. When I get a merge from a sub-system maintainer for an area that I'm not that into, I mean especially if the sub-system maintainer is a good one.

I mean I used to care deeply about networking, 15 years ago. I don't anymore because David Miller, I trust him and he does a really good job, and networking, to some degree, is not something I'm fundamentally interested in.

It's not like the VM layer, or the MM layer, where it's really my kind of thing. So I don't get excited about those.

I don't have to think about it, I look at what he's doing because I want to have a high-level view of the changes, so two weeks from now when someone sends me a bug report... it's not that I remember that line, but I remember there's something changed in this area, kind of thing.

So most of the stuff, once I've found a maintainer who works well, I don't have to do that much (other) than have an overview idea of what's going on.

LXF: And that's enough?

LT: That's enough for most of the code. I get more excited about the... I mean when I get really upset about something, it's when someone does something stupid.

Especially from a developer standpoint. It's seldom even from a code standpoint anymore.

It's like sometimes I send out these emails saying "this code really sucks, don't ever send me code again because you're too stupid to live", but the things that tend to worry me most are things like... somebody sends me big changes outside the merge window and clearly didn't think the impact outside the code thing through at all.

I mean the code is important, but realistically what I maintain these days is not the code but the workflow for people.

And that sometimes gets my goat in a big way when somebody does something stupid in a big way, and then I get really excited, and by excited I mean I curse at people.

LXF: What happens when Google drops a big Android [update], as it did early this year after being separate, do you get a heads up on this?

LT: That was surprising, I expected it to be much more contentious.

We discussed this before it happened, and I mean a lot of Google Android issues were not so much Google issues as kernel developer issues.

That was one of the big things we discussed at the last kernel summit, it was 'what should we do about Android?'.

And the consensus, and maybe I pushed it through but there were other people who agreed with me, was that hey, the people who didn't like some of the Android approaches were wrong, and you were proven wrong by acclamation.

Android is doing really well and it's working, and nobody actually had alternative working code that was really something Google would accept, because they had issues that nobody else was solving for them.

here.

Penguinitis

With regards to Tux, the famous mascot of Linux, it was indeed Linus who originally suggested a penguin might be a suitable mascot, but it was left to Larry Ewing to draw the sketches that formed the basis for the Tux we know today.

Reportedly, Linus' infatuation with penguins came about after being bitten by one on a trip to Australia in 1993.

He jokes that after the bite, he was infected with 'penguinitis' that "makes you stay awake at nights just thinking about penguins and feeling great love towards them."

We can confirm that he owns many toy penguins.

Git

When Linux was created, the developers used relatively simple tools to work together.

Using an FTP server for collaboration wasn't a big problem when there were only a few people working on the kernel and it was relatively small. As the project increased in scope, the developers began to use more powerful tools.

Source code management (SCM) systems were one such category of tools that make their lives easier.

These track revisions to the code and enable developers to work on different versions of the software, then merge their changes together.

For a while, the kernel team used a proprietary SCM called BitKeeper, the creator of which had offered them use of the software for free.

Following a dispute, the offer of free use was withdrawn and the kernel team needed a new SCM. None of the other existing systems, such as CVS and SVN, met Linus' high standards for speed, efficiency and a robust, distributed workflow (he has said that he hates both systems).

Frustrated by the lack of options, on 3 April 2005 Linus started writing his own SCM, which was later named Git.

Despite Linus saying how hard a problem to solve this was, the 2.6.12 release of the Linux kernel, released on the 16 June, was managed by Git - just two months later.

It wasn't just released quickly, but it met its performance goals. Linus had noted BitKeeper taking 10-15 seconds per email patch, during development Git was recorded as applying patches at 6.7 per second.

On the name, Linus said "I'm an egotistical bastard, and I name all my projects after myself. First 'Linux', now 'Git'."

Secure Boot

To get hardware certified as being ready for Windows 8, Microsoft is demanding that manufacturers enable something called Secure Boot, which is a function designed to stop malicious code being loaded into the operating system at boot time.

Quite by coincidence, this function could also be used to stop non-Microsoft operating systems from being loaded. But Linus doesn't seem too bothered by this.

LXF: Do you have a solution for how the Secure Boot problem should be solved?

LT: I actually like Secure Boot. Signed kernels are a good idea. We're going to be doing signed kernel modules, and we should have done that 10 years ago, but nobody wanted to do that and take the flak from the crazies.

LXF: It's a good idea that everything is signed. What we don't understand is, is Verisign controlling the signing process? Do you have some kind of say?

LT: We don't have any say. The argument is that it's a slippery slope, which is not necessarily a real argument - you can argue it for anything.

The worry people have is the device manufacturer, right now you have EFI and you're supposed to have a way to insert your own keys or say 'don't bother with the signed stuff', so you can install other things.

LXF: That's the answer?

LT: That's the answer, but right now Microsoft says you need to support signing. Five years from now, what if Microsoft says 'this is the only key you can support'.

My argument is why would the market want that? And if the market doesn't want that, why would anybody do it?

LXF: We don't understand why Secure Boot can't be used just to boot Windows with a signed key, and then anything else you can boot anyway?

LT: The problem is it will refuse to boot if it's not signed.

If you were Microsoft and you wanted to make sure that you were the only thing that's installed on that, then... Microsoft's not all powerful, but they're powerful enough that they may be able to convince a few device manufacturers to say 'if it isn't signed by our key, you're not going to boot'.

It's a real worry, and at the same time to me, I don't think it's going to happen because I don't see the point for anybody but Microsoft.

And if it happens on a small scale, we have that right now in every single area, except for PCs anyway. Cellphones all work that way.

LXF: But it's what has made PCs, and Linux successful...

LT: I agree, and if people start limiting their PCs it's actually a self-defeating move. This is why I'm not nervous, because I think you'd be crazy to do it.

That's not to say there aren't tons of crazy people, so it will be done, but I don't think it's going to be this all-encompassing thing, where every PC sold will come with 'you have to run Microsoft or Apple'.

Apple, I would be much more worried about.

LXF: The thing that also worries us with Apple is the way they're making sandboxes out of developers.

LT: Right, and Microsoft are much more open than Apple. I actually use Apple hardware because I tend to like it...

LXF: It does just work.

LT: It doesn't just work, the hardware design is fine; the hardware itself, they're often doing stupid things.

I like the Macbook Air, but I don't use OS X on it obviously; but they did stupid things, so it's more inconvenient than a PC.

Torvalds the philosopher

This year, Linus was declared joint winner of the Millennium Technology Prize.

This is the largest technology prize in the world, and celebrates innovations that have a positive impact on quality of life, well-being or sustainable development.

It's worth about $1.3 million, and is awarded by the Technology Academy Finland.

The Academy, when awarding the prize, said that Linus' work had "had a great impact on shared software development, networking and the openness of the web".

The President of the Academy went on to add that "Linus Torvalds' work has kept the web open for the pursuit of knowledge and the benefit of humanity - not simply for financial interests".

Invisible hands

There's no denying that the free software movement represents a community coming together, collaborating rather than competing, to make something that everyone can benefit from.

Many hold this up to be an example of people overcoming selfishness and greed, of doing something for others rather than just themselves.

However, following the award of the Millennium Technology Prize, the BBC asked Linus about how the open source model can be successful, and in his answer he challenged this belief:

"In many ways, I actually think that the real idea of open source is for it to allow everybody to be 'selfish', not about trying to get everybody to contribute to some common good."

That answer alone sounds counter-intuitive, but he went on to qualify what he'd said and revealed a rather nuanced position on the issue. "The early 'selfish' reasons to do Linux centred about the pleasure of tinkering...

If you're a person who's interested in operating systems... you don't want to get involved if you feel like your contributions would simply be 'taken advantage o'', but with the GPLv2, that simply was never an issue."

He shared the prize with Shinya Yamanaka, a Japanese stem cell researcher, who was recognised for his work with adult stem cells.

Both men received around $600,000, but Linus seemed more annoyed at having to fly halfway round the world to collect it.

The desktop

Linus has a long history of being dissatisfied with the state of Linux desktops, a problem that seems to have got worse for him with the move to the next generation of desktops.

Originally, he was a big advocate of KDE and couldn't stand Gnome.

In a post to the Gnome usability mailing list, he said:

"I personally just encourage people to switch to KDE. This 'users are idiots, and are confused by functionality' mentality of Gnome is a disease. If you think your users are idiots, only idiots will use it. I don't use Gnome, because in striving to be simple, it has long since reached the point where it simply doesn't do what I need it to do."

Fast forward to KDE 4.0, however, and Linus revised his opinions.

When asked in an interview how, as a KDE user, the move had affected him, he said:

"I used to be a KDE user. I thought KDE 4.0 was such a disaster, I switched to Gnome... I realise the reason for the 4.0 release, but I think they did it badly."

Fast forward once more to the release of Gnome 3.0, and is Linus still a Gnome user? No, he's now using Xfce.

On Google+, he said that the way Gnome 3 handles multiple windows is "an example of the kind of 'head up the arse' behaviour of Gnome 3".

LXF: What distribution do you run?

LT: Fedora, on everything. I tried to run openSUSE, but I get so fed up at some of the things they do.

LXF: Have you tried KDE recently?

LT: I tried KDE, not recently recently, over a year ago I guess.

I don't think it can be made good again.

It's not about technology, and the same is true that I hate about Gnome, is that the people who decide on the interfaces are visual people who like this notion of big... and they think the visual part is important because that's what they work on, but for someone who uses it for real work like me, I don't care about the visual part - I want it to be out of the way, and everything KDE did since version 3 or whatever, made the visuals more interesting and more in your face.

And the Plasmoids now are all these active things, so when you touch them they get borders around them, and I don't want that. I want to get my work done.

LXF: We think the problem is free software attracts developers because there's something good about writing and sharing code, but it doesn't do the same for user interface people and designers, who seem really reluctant to do their work for free.

The ones who do their work for free don't seem to be the ones who make a good job of it.

LT: A lot of them do good jobs too, but to some degree UI people seem to have turned to caring more about the UI than the work you actually get done.

The thing that drives me mad, KDE doesn't have this problem, but do you use Alt+Tab on Gnome?

I don't use it myself, but it's completely broken because it thinks every terminal window is one single terminal window, and that's like, 'you are a fucking moron'.

That's not how it is. And it's not even so with a browser.

Most of the time, I have everything in one browser window with tabs, but if I have two browsers open, I have them open for a frigging reason, and they're not one browser, they're two browsers.

LXF: You can turn them off with an extension, but we've read your rant about them and broken upgrades. You could work around it by having Opera, Chrome and Firefox windows open all at once.

LT: Yeah, you can solve it by using different applications, but otherwise it makes no sense at all.

And why would I want to use Firefox and Chrome separately just to get Alt+tab to work right?

And why did you do that again? They never have a reason - there's no sane reason for that except Mac OS does that, and they never used to do the whole multitasking thing, they only have one task bar.

LXF: Have you heard about the Raspberry Pi? At least in the UK, it's really captured everyone's imagination.

LT: It's slightly too slow for what I'd like to do.

The thing can actually output on to a real monitor, but then apparently it can't play YouTube, etc, and if it can't make things like that smooth, then it's a bit too slow.

LXF: The problem is it requires some firmware which isn't open source.

LT: Plus it's like two to three years old, the SoC on that board, to keep the price down.

I think it's a compelling idea.

I really like the notion of having hardware that's so cheap you can basically give it out to kids, and 99% will never use it for anything, because they'd rather play; but if you give everybody the possibility of maybe noticing that it's cool to hack on things like that, I think it's great.

I suspect that the next generation is going to be sufficiently better that you can do some things with it.

LXF: We do a podcast and have this thing called an open ballot. One of things we asked recently is: "If you were Linus Torvalds, what would you change about Linux?"

LT: I wouldn't change a thing.

The price of computer hardware might be crashing through the floor, but that doesn't make it any less attractive to your neighbourhood criminal.

No matter what the specs, a shiny looking laptop sat in the front room is still going to look attractive to a would-be thief peeking through the curtains when you're out.

You'll need this…

1. ISPY CONNECT Available for free from here, this is an open source project that was originally designed to capture images of ghosts and UFOs. Yes, really!

2. 24/7 PC SYSTEM You'll need a low-end laptop or server running constantly to monitor the webcams, send alerts and run the recognition software.

3. WEBCAM AND CABLES The main use for iSpy Connect is as a security system that monitors security cameras, so you'll need at least one as well as suitable cables.

Crime on the rise

None of this is helped by the fact that hard times breed an increase in criminality - and we're not just talking about looting and summer riots.

Recessions fuel everything from pick-pocketing on the street to home break-ins. But don't have nightmares - we're here to help protect your loved ones and loved things.

It's not even going to cost much.

How does a personal, fully monitored, house-wide CCTV system sound to you? To give you even more peace of mind, we'll throw in remote internet monitoring and alerts too.

The finished security system can be triggered by motion, face 'detection', number plate recognition, and even sound received via microphones.

Video streams can be recorded, multiple systems can be managed remotely, and recordings can be triggered by motion or on a scheduled basis.

We're not going to stop there, either - this project will tie into any home automation systems you may already use or want to add.

Best of all, the essential software is free (though advanced features like text alerts, mobile access and internet control require a subscription).

All you need to do is add a PC and webcams to create your own bespoke home security system.

The iSpy Connect open source project has been running for many years, and has evolved from a UFOhunting tool into a mature package with a local client and streamlined server packages - and that's not to mention the long list of features it supports.

At first our motivation was to try to emulate a traditional home security system, with separate window, door and motion detectors.

However, a webcam-based system can be designed to include all of these types of detection, because it's simply checking for motion within set zones.

We also contemplated using an X10-based alarm system for this project, but doing so incurs the extra expense of a base PC X10 unit.

Although the cost of these and the individual X10 units has dropped a lot recently, it's still £50 for the base, plus extra for controllers and add-ons.

Instead we're going to build our system around the basic abilities of a webcam system, but it's still possible to extend the iSpy capabilities with X10 automation if you decide to do so later.

Watchmen

You may be wondering why we're relying on cameras for our system. This is because a webcam that can detect motion can double as a door and window sensor, on top of general camera features like recording video and audio.

Moving past these basic features, you can add the complex abilities like face and number plate recognition.

The downside of this is that motion detection is fallible. Pets, moving foliage and bright sun can all trigger false alerts - but a little bit of careful placement should eliminate most of these issues.

Seeing in the dark

As we've seen in the past, even the darkest night can't stop a basic webcam, as the low-cost CMOS sensors inside are sensitive to infrared light (also known as IR).

Any dedicated 'security' camera will come with an IR mode and IR illumination in the form of an array of IR LEDs.

In PC Plus 262 we looked at how you can transform any cheap webcam into a night vision camera.

It's a matter of removing the IR filter that usually eliminates this wavelength and replacing it with black negative film, but it would be better to buy dedicated units and use any standard webcams for indoor or illuminated areas.

We're testing a system that uses a standard USB camera and an inexpensive IP-based Wi-Fi night vision camera with pan and tilt. The IP camera is useful because it tests all of iSpy Connect's camera abilities.

It supports all web-based IP cameras, which are a necessity for larger installations that move beyond the practical 10m USB limit, or 5m with passive USB cables.

There's also support for many pan and tilt cameras, though control implementation varies, so not every one of these devices can be supported.

Putting it together

Mounting a webcam can be a pain, as most just come with a clip for attaching them to a monitor's surround.

A few models offer a standard tripod-compatible thread (the Microsoft LifeCam Studio is one such example), and some others have a M6-sized thread that can be attached via a standard adaptor.

If your webcam lacks either of these connections, try using epoxy resin to attach a bracket that can then be screwed directly to a wall or attached to a tripod.

W''re building a modular system, so once you've added and configured one camera it's easy enough to expand the network by doing do the same again.

We've covered adding a remote IP-based camera and microphone and how to assign alerts with actions. The recordings can even be uploaded to YouTube for remote storage, in case the local server machine is stolen.

Setting security: Storage, Camera, action

1. Storage here Grab the iSpy Connect program and install it. Now download the face and plate recognition add-ons from the Plug-ins section.

Extract these files to C:\Program files (x86)\iSpy\iSpy\Plugins. You'll also need VideoLAN for local playback of video files, and we suggest creating an iSpy Connect account, as we'll use this later.

2. Storage there Now fire up iSpy and select 'Options > Settings > Storage'.

If you're going to be saving a lot of recorded video on your system, think about the file sizes and make sure you alter the Media directory to somewhere with plenty of space. It's also worth investigating the storage management option, as it can auto-delete files of a certain age to free up drive space for new footage.

3. Storage everywhere As an easy management option, iSpy can help you monitor your systems via a graphical floorplan.

There are a number of online sites that can help you create these, like Homestyler. Once you've got everything planned, save it as an image file, then right-click a blank area in iSpy and select 'Add floorplan'.

Now it's up and running, drag your cameras onto the plan.

Getting secure: Create a monitored fortress to protect property, possessions and people

1. Add local cameras To get started, right-click on a blank area of iSpy and choose 'Add camera'. In the menu under 'Local Device', select a connected USB camera - we'll look at remote ones later on.

Click on 'OK' and you'll see the main camera settings.

From here you can customise detection zones, alert conditions, recording settings, YouTube uploading options and the details of scheduled recordings.

2. Motion detection Click on the Motion Detection tab. Here you can add and control monitored areas for movement.

Draw rectangles on the preview area to add monitored sections. On the live preview you'll see a blue bar and a green line, which show the detection and trigger levels.

Adjust the sensitivity to control how much movement is required, while Display Style alters tracking modes.

3. Set up alerts You can trigger an alert based on motion, face detection, number of objects or lack of movement.

This can run an EXE file for X10 integration, or send a SMS, email or tweet to you when it detects something.

This last option is done via your iSpy Connect account, though the SMS part requires a paid-for account, which is understandable.

4. Record footage To record video, go to the Recording tab and select either 'Record on Movement' or 'Record on Alert'.

The default settings here are ideal, and the software appends the three-second buffer to the start. The H.264 codec uses around 20MB per minute.

You might want to consider the mobile MP4 settings, but we recommend you avoid the AVI ones like the plague, even for desktop-only use.

5. Motion control We added an IP camera using the 'IP Camera with Wizard' button within the Add Camera dialog.

Just select the model from the drop-down list and enter the username and IP. The PTZ provides motion control if compatible.

Our cheap Tenvis camera worked a treat, although the Track Objects mode was pretty skittish.

6. Microphones You add microphones to your system in the same way as cameras.

Click 'Add microphone', then select the option to add a local mic if your webcam has one built in.

You can then set sensitivity, alerts (you could play a dog barking sound, for example) and also set recordings.

Remote mics can be created by entering the IP of a remote iSpy server.

Serving up cameras: Use iSpy Connect to link up remote cameras

1. Install the server The server system is useful for installing on remote computers like laptops so you can access their built-in webcams or connected cameras.

Install iSpy on the remote machine and once you're in its Start Menu, run the Server Installer.

If you're not prompted, make sure you manually set a Windows Firewall Exception for iSpy Server. Now you can add the local camera as before.

2. Share and share Once the preview of the local camera is running, note down the IP, Port and Cam Id in the bottomleft of the display.

Return to your main iSpy PC and add a camera. For the source choose 'URL MJPEG', and enter the IP address you copied down.

This should be http://192.168.x.x:80/?camid=0, or whatever your local network IP base is.

You can also add a password if you require additional security.

3. Web account The free version of iSpy is limited, but you can still view recent recordings from your networked cameras, wherever you are.

Logging into your iSpy Connect account from any desktop provides you with a basic control panel.

This gives you recently recorded clips, and you should be able to view playback direct from your monitoring computer for 10 seconds. If you can't, then it's been nicked!

4. Mobile access If you subscribe to the paid-for service, there's a dedicated HTML 5-based mobile website that even Apple devices will happily use, and which can be used to control motorised cameras.

The standard website can still be accessed by mobile devices, but the video media player probably won't work. Some owners of Android devices may have more success, but we couldn't get it working on our hardware.

Spotlight on...

1. Server build We love servers here at PC Plus - they make everything run smoothly in the background, letting us turn off our powerhungry desktop PCs and reduce our energy bills.

The iSpy Connect system offers what it calls a server build, but i''s not what you'd expect from the name.

The idea is to enable you to link remote laptops and computers with cameras and mics installed to your main iSpy Connect system, but with a low-profile service.

You'll still need the main iSpy Connect program to set up your security system, and it's required to serve out data to the remote webserver, while any recognition tasks you implement also have to be run on the main program.

That last aspect can make the server program seem all but pointless, but it exists so you can access cameras on remote systems.

We found we needed to create a Windows Firewall exception on a Windows Vista system, so if you're having connection issues check here first.

2. Subscription services While there's a lot to love about iSpy Connect, its more advanced features require a subscription.

$70 a year is substantial, but compared to paid-for monitor security it's very reasonable. It's not the only option though.

If you want Twitter alerts, we found a simple workaround. Download a command line Twitter client, then install and authorise it with Twitter.

Within iSpy Connect you can launch an Executable for individual device alerts. Add the client executable with its path, then under 'Arguments' add the Twitter account, a suitable message and a timestamp, like 'TWITTERNAME "Camera One Alert" timestamp'.

We were also impressed by how cheap dedicated security cameras have become. These are the wireless IP-based dome devices you see in shops, which can now be picked up for around £35.

At this stage you should only consider the $70 annual subscription fee if you want full remote control.

It's a bargain compared to full commercial packages, but making your own system is much more rewarding.