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- Tutorial: A beginner's guide to Windows Live Mesh 2011
- Tutorial: How to calibrate your monitor
- Buying Guide: Best iPhone speaker dock: 5 reviewed
| Tutorial: A beginner's guide to Windows Live Mesh 2011 Posted: 17 Jul 2011 05:00 AM PDT Most of us use more than one PC these days, and if you count up the different machines you use on a weekly basis, they can easily reach double figures. You might have two or three machines in the house, and then a work PC as well. If you add that to the PCs owned by friends, family and colleagues, and machines found in libraries and internet cafes, you can start to see a trend emerging. The upshot of this trend for PC polygamy is a disconnection between the computers we use and the files we need. Anecdotally, many people will find themselves in a situation where a file they were working on is stuck on their home PC while they are at work, or vice versa. Not having your files when you need them can be incredibly frustrating, but online storage and syncing can cut the worry and keep your files at your fingertips. We've covered online storage services before, but Microsoft's Windows Live Mesh2011 has been revamped to offer something different. Unlike most online storage services, Windows Live Mesh 2011 is designed to sync files between your PCs, taking the effort out of storage. Like a lot of other companies, Microsoft has its own online storage service, called Windows Live SkyDrive, but Live Mesh is different. Its job is to fill the gap between your locally-stored PC content and the other PCs you use by creating automatically syncing folders. Getting started
To get started with Windows Live Mesh you need to download the Windows Live Essentials client onto your PC. The installer will ask you which of the family of programs you want to install, but you only need Windows Live Mesh to start syncing your data. You'll also need a Windows Live ID. This is the key to bringing in cloud services such as SkyDrive, which are used behind the scenes. Once Windows Live Mesh is installed and you've signed in with a Windows Live ID, you can start syncing your files. In the main window choose 'Sync a folder' beneath the name of your PC. A dialog box will open and you can choose any existing folder or library from your PC. If you'd rather not have everything from these folders sprayed onto the internet, you can create a Live Mesh folder locally on your PC. Anything added to this folder will be automatically synced to the web. Windows Live SkyDrive, the service Live Mesh uses to store your files, has a 5GB limit, so if you have extensive libraries, you may want to be selective. Upload your files
When you've designated a folder, Windows Live Mesh will sync it and all of your files will be uploaded to the cloud. Once this process has finished, the newly synced folder will have a green tick placed next to it to show that everything is now up to date. Once a folder is synced in Windows Live Mesh, you can start to do more with it. In the main Live Mesh console, click on one of your synced folders to adjust who can see and share it. This lets you give other web users access certain folders, even if they don't use Windows Live Mesh. The ability to set public folders has long been a feature of SkyDrive, and guests are able to access this area of your online storage space provided they also use a Windows Live ID.
After your first PC is synced with Windows Live Mesh, you can start adding other PCs. The best way is to install the client on other PCs you use, and sign in with your Windows Live ID. When you log in on another PC, you will see all of the folders that have been synced with your account at the top of your screen. You can then choose to have the folders synced with your PC so they appear among your other files as normal. To do this, click one of the folders and a box will appear letting you choose a folder from your local PC with which to sync the Windows Live Mesh content. This can be any existing folder, like 'My Documents', but you can create a new one if you want the synced content to stay separate.
If you're using a PC without the client installed, you can then go to SkyDrive from any PC or mobile device to retrieve it. While it might seem cumbersome to use SkyDrive to access files you synced using Windows Live Mesh, it means you don't need to have client software installed at the other end to access your files - perfect for locked-down corporate networks. Unfortunately, there's no provision yet for syncing to other services like Dropbox, so if you want to take advantage of Live Mesh, you need to use SkyDrive. This is something Microsoft would do well to change, because Mesh is a great service that gains nothing by being tied to SkyDrive, which is adequate at best. Syncing settings
Windows Live Mesh doesn't just deal with your files - it can sync your settings as well. This is one of the most innovative yet simple parts of the service, and essential for anyone who's particular about the way their PC works. Live Mesh can save settings from Internet Explorer and Microsoft Office, which can be synced to other PCs. Syncing your Internet Explorer settings may sound duller than a fortnight in Penzance, but it lets you port your favourites and bookmarks from one PC to the other as if by magic. This means that any web page you find while at work will be accessible from your home PC, so there's no need to hunt for information you've already found. In Microsoft Office, the syncing goes further, extending to templates, dictionary entries and email signatures. To enable settings syncing, you need the Windows Live Mesh client installed on every PC on which you want the settings to appear. On your main PC, install the Live Mesh client and a list of supported programs will appear under 'Program settings'. You can choose to enable these individually by clicking on the program name and choosing 'Turn on'. You need to install the client on any PC on which you want to use the settings, log in with your Windows Live ID and turn on syncing. Remote connections
One of the best features of Windows Live Mesh is the ability to remote-connect and share the screens of computers within your Windows Live circle. This has plenty of benefits, like the ability to access your files from anywhere in the world, or help family members overcome PC problems without having to go round and listen to their explanations. To share screens remotely, you need to do a little groundwork. First, you need to have the client software installed on both PCs, and be logged in on both with your Windows Live ID. When a PC is connected for the first time, it's added to the list of devices in the Windows Live Mesh console, although it's greyed out initially. To bring these devices to life, you need to activate remote sharing. In the Windows Live Mesh console, click the 'Remote' button at the top to be taken to a special menu. Click the 'Turn on remote connections' link at the top to allow other PCs to connect to yours. Your Windows account needs to be password-protected.
Once you've enabled remote connections on two PCs, you can share screens. Choose one of the PCs and click 'Connect to this PC'. A new window will appear while the connection is made, which can take around a minute. If the PC is logged into an account, you need permission from the person using it to connect. If the remote PC is logged into Windows Live Mesh and left at the password screen, you can take control instantly. You'll need to use the machine's password to log in, as if you'd just turned the machine on. When the connection is made, the remote machine's desktop will appear in the window and you can browse as if you were sat down in front of it. You can launch any program, although as with any remote connection software, their fresh rate is slow and the screen will be jerky to use. You also can't make your local PC interact with the remote one directly, so if you want to retrieve files, you will need to send them as if you were sat at the remote PC. Windows Live Mesh isn't the most advanced or customisable syncing program available, but it's one of the easiest to use. The remote access features are some of the best we've seen, and if you need to access your PC online, it's well worth checking out. If you're looking to do more with syncing, Dropbox is fantastic and offers support for mobile devices, which Windows Live Mesh lacks. Windows Phone 7 users can take advantage of extra syncing though, and with Microsoft developing its Windows Live suite so rapidly, we'll be keeping a close eye on what's coming next. Filesharing
Once you've got yourself set upwith Windows Live Mesh, andyour circle of PCs has been added and enabled with the client software, you can start to fine-tune your syncing so you're in full control of your information. After you've made a folder available to be synced, you can tell Windows Live Mesh manually which PCs you want to access it. Choose one of the synced folders from the list in Windows Live Mesh, then click on it to expand more options. Now, on theright-hand side of the screen, click 'Select devices'. A new option menu will appear, with a list of every device in your circle. Click the tick box to have that folder synced to the device, or leave it blank if you don't want it to be listed.
It doesn't matter if the PC you want to sync with isn't switched on, because the updated content will be sent as soon as you log inon the second computer. However, the original PC from which the files are being synced will need to be logged into Windows Live Mesh when you doso. The beauty of organising your files this way is that you don't have to use Windows Live SkyDrive to sync them. 
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| Tutorial: How to calibrate your monitor Posted: 17 Jul 2011 03:00 AM PDT Most monitors aren't correctly adjusted. It's a fact. The result is that you don't see all the detail in onscreen images, and the colours aren't accurate. Atone time this might only have been an issue for professional photographers, but today, when just about everyone stores, edits and views their photographs digitally, we all need a properly adjusted monitor. It's not just a matter of onscreen viewing either - a poorly adjusted monitor can also result in disappointing hard copies. Having a correctly adjusted monitor is important in areas other than digital photography, too. Even if you're just browsing the web or playing games, unless your monitor setup is correct, you could be missing out by not seeing images in the best possible light.
Monitor adjustment can be a very complicated and costly process if you use specialised hardware to do it, but it doesn't have to be that way. Here we'll look at some of the simple, free ways of setting up your monitor. Certainly a professional-level photographer or a very serious amateur might need more advanced tools, but even the simple methods we look at here are capable of making a vast difference to onscreen images. Before proceeding, make sure your monitor has been turned on for at least 30 minutes so that it's had time to warm up, and restore its default settings using your graphic card's control program. This will probably force at least 24-bit colour, and in the case of an LCD monitor, will return the panel to its native resolution. If not, make sure to select these settings before continuing. Colour temperature
The easiest, and perhaps most fundamental thing to adjust, is your monitor's colour temperature. Using the official jargon, the colour temperature of light is the temperature of what's known as an 'ideal black body radiator', at which the colour of the light and the black body are identical. Although an ideal black body radiator is a theoretical concept that doesn't actually exist in reality, it isn't too far removed from everyday experience. We're familiar, for example, with the fact that an object commonly glows red when it's heated to a sufficiently high temperature, and that if it's heated further it glows orange, then yellow and then white. What might be less familiar is that at even higher temperatures, objects start to take on a bluish hue. If we restrict ourselves to the middle of this range, where we're talking about shades of white, the lower temperatures represent warm whites and the higher temperatures (paradoxically) correspond to cooler-looking whites. For example, the colour temperature of a tungsten filament light bulb is about 2,500-2,900K (K stands for Kelvin, a unit of temperature that's the same as degrees Celsius, but offset such that 0K is equal to -273°C), while a halogen bulb is somewhat higher and an average sunlit scene is around 6,500K. As shipped from the manufacturer, nearly all monitors are set up for a colour temperature of 9,300K. This is the colour that pure white will appear, and while it might be a perfectly suitable setting applications such as word processing or engineering drawing applications, it's far too blue for photography, games or web browsing. What you need is something closer to the colour of a daylight scene - around 6,500K. This is easily achieved using your monitor's setup menus, which are normally accessed using buttons on the front of the monitor (although details vary between manufacturers and models). Select the menu entry for colour temperature and select 6,500K (sometimes shown as D65) instead of 9,300K (or D93). If you're used to using monitors set to 9,300K, this new setting will look decidedly dull by comparison, but persevere and your eyes will soon get used to the new and more accurate colours. Brightness/contrast
Just as most monitors are set to the wrong colour temperature for a large number of applications, it's common to find that the brightness and contrast aren't correctly adjusted either. If the monitor is too dark, all shades of grey darker than a certain threshold will appear black, and if it's too bright then all shades of grey brighter than a certain threshold will appear white. The former means that you won't be able to see detail in dark areas of photographs such as shadows, while the latter means that detail in brightly lit areas will be lost. Display a greyscale test chart on screen. You can make your own using a graphics package or choose one of the many charts available online. If you're making your own chart, you need to make sure it has around 21 levels of grey from pure black to pure white, in steps of five per cent in brightness.
Ensure you're working in a room with subdued lighting, but not totally dark. The aim is to adjust the brightness and contrast on your monitor so that all the shades of grey can be distinguished from each other, using the lowest brightness setting that will achieve that. This is very much a matter of trial and error, but as a starting point, try setting the contrast to 100 per cent for a CRT monitor or 40 per cent for an LCD monitor, and adjusting the brightness as necessary. How easy this proves to be will depend on the quality of your monitor, and you may just find it's not achievable - in which case you'll have to accept a compromise. Gamma adjustment
If the brightness and contrast have been set up correctly, then acolour defined by the software as0, 0, 0 will appear as pure black, while 255, 255, 255 will appear aspure white. These examples assume 24-bit colour. In each case, the first figure in the brackets represents the amount of red in the range 0 to 255, the second figure is the amount of green, and the third the amount of blue. You might assume, therefore, that a value of (127, 127, 127), for example, would appear as 50 per cent grey, but this isn't necessarily the case. This would only be true if something called the gamma value was equal to one, which means that the relationship between the input bits and the brightness is linear. In reality, because the human eye doesn't have a linear response to light, this setting wouldn't result in the most accurate rendering of photographs. If the gamma setting is too low, mid-level tones will appear too light; if the gamma setting is too high, they will appear too dark. The recommended value for gamma is 2.2, so for optimum results you should adjust the settings of your graphics card until an image appears as expected at this value. Test charts used for gamma adjustment feature two squares, one filled in solid at a known grey level, and the other composed of alternating black and white bands so that it appears the same shade of grey as the solid square at the correct gamma setting. To adjust the gamma value, display a gamma test chart onscreen. Some are created specifically for a given gamma setting, in which case you should choose one for a value of 2.2, whereas others display a sliding scale so by looking for the closest match you can read from the gamma value for which your system is configured. This chart gives potentially better results by allowing you to carry out the adjustment while looking at three different shades of grey. Look at the chart either from a distance or while squinting, so that the alternate black and white lines merge and you just see each square's average brightness. Now adjust the graphics card's gamma setting until the grey square and the square with alternate black and white lines appear the same intensity for a gamma value of 2.2.The gamma is now set correctly. Note that, confusingly, some graphics cards indicate that their default gamma setting is one. In such cases this isn't the actually gamma level, but a correction factor - the real default setting will probably be 2.2. Colour adjustment
While the settings we've seen so far are by far the most important ones when it comes to ensuring colours look accurate on your screen, there's a possibility that your monitor might also exhibit a colour cast, even after the colour temperature has been set to 6,500K. To fully address this problem, you'll need to use a specialised hardware calibration device, but it may be possible to make an improvement using software tools alone. In addition to adjusting the overall gamma value, many graphics cards make it possible to adjust the gamma value individually for each of the three primary colours - red, green and blue. Since incorrectly set gamma values are a possible cause of inaccurate colours, this is something quick and easy to try before going to the expense of the hardware solution. The process for this is much the same as for adjusting the overall gamma value, except for the fact that instead of using the monochrome gamma test chart, you'll need separate gamma test charts for each primary colour. These are few and far between. Bear in mind, though, that because it's such a dark colour, adjusting the gamma value for blue can be very difficult to do by eye, and it's possible that you could make things worse rather than better. If this proves to be the case, you'll have to abandon the idea of adjusting the gamma value for each colour individually and return to adjusting the overall gamma setting instead. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
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| Buying Guide: Best iPhone speaker dock: 5 reviewed Posted: 17 Jul 2011 01:00 AM PDT Shopping for a speaker dock has to be one of the most daunting choices any music lover has to make. There are thousands: big ones, small ones, weird ones, blue ones... It's enough to make you want to stick with headphones. But cordoned off behind a velvet rope at the back of the shop are the special ones. These audiophile iPhone speaker docks are a select bunch, full of high-class brand names, and they come with high price tags to match. What makes them different is that sound quality is their prime consideration, not just an adjunct to an iPod battery charger and some funny flashing lights. The £499 Arcam rCube is our first port of call. It took the audio experts at A&R Cambridge three years to develop this little black box, and it's packed with amazing features: from its clever handle recess to the fact that you can stream music to up to four rCubes located in different rooms around your home. Its arch-rival is the identically priced B&W Zeppelin Air: a heavily revamped version of the original Zeppelin with improved electronics and speaker drive units for an even better sound - it now features Apple's wireless speaker technology, AirPlay. Moving up the price band a tad at £549 are our next two: the Geneva Lab Model 8 and Bose SoundDock 10. Both are rather ordinary looking when compared to the Arcam rCube or B&W Zeppelin Air, but they promise great sound aplenty. Then finally comes the Bang & Olufsen BeoSound 8, a speaker dock that looks like it was beamed down from another planet - and costs the Earth to own at £895. Is it worth the money? Let's find out in our best iPhone speak dock test! Audio quality
There's really only one way to test high-end speaker docks like these, and that's to load up your iPod, iPad or iPhone with some Apple Lossless tracks with a side order of 256kbps iTunes downloads. You then have to subject each dock to some rigorous testing with a wide variety of music from stirring, soaring classical to bass-heavy rock and Disco Stu-style, erm, disco. First off the blocks is the Arcam rCube, which manages to pack in two side-mounted mid/bass drive units and two high-frequency tweeters into its tiny frame. To get the best sound out of it, you'll need to stick it in a corner at a 45° angle, although Arcam has also included a bass boost button which beefs up low frequencies so you can place the rCube in open space, away from the bass-enhancing properties of walls and corners. Sound quality's very good, with crisp, clean mids and highs that really let your music sing, although the bass is a little warm and lacking in low-end grunt. Sadly for fans of wacky stereo effects, the rCube's soundstage isn't huge - although that's something that all the docks on test suffer from to a great or lesser extent: it's hard to get real stereo separation when your speakers are packed so close together. The Arcam rCube's volume levels aren't enormous either. The Arcam rCube's closest rival in terms of sound quality and cash money is the B&W Zeppelin Air - essentially a revamped version of the original Zeppelin that should boast improved sound quality thanks to its jazzed-up speakers and electronics. These changes are immediately impressive, with the Zeppelin Air delivering a meaty, beaty, big and bouncy sound that instantly makes you want to get up and dance around the room. Even to classical.
This is no doubt down to the Zeppelin Air's 2.1 speaker arrangement, which delivers prodigious amounts of deep bass, but the speakers can do subtle, too. In fact, it sounds great with almost anything. What we really like about it is how grown-up it sounds; not so much a speaker dock on steroids as a proper hi-fi wrapped in an exquisitely designed shell. Next up is the most expensive unit in our test: the £895 Bang & Olufsen BeoSound 8: a speaker dock that's centred on a wide bar of aluminium and plastic with two enormous cones at either end. Peel off the removable grilles from each one and you'll find a tweeter and mid/bass driver - but you're better off keeping them on. Ugly isn't a strong enough word. However, we're happy to say that the BeoSound 8 more than makes up for it with a sound that puts it within spitting distance of the Arcam and B&W. Its big, bold presentation practically begs you to keep it playing, and you soon find yourself spinning through your music collection to find out what hidden secrets its sound will reveal. The BeoSound 8's biggest problems really lie elsewhere, but we'll come to those.
After the BeoSound 8 comes Bose and its SoundDock 10 - a surprisingly compact, yet heavy speaker dock that promises high quality. As a performer, however, it's strangely unengaging. You find yourself admiring its technique without feeling the mark of inspiration. That could be because the SoundDock is so well behaved; it'll handle virtually any kind of music that you throw its way, but only rarely makes you sit up and take notice. As a music system, it's more suited to background listening - an ideal accompaniment to a dinner party. Finally we come to the Geneva Lab Model M, another big and brassy speaker dock that also boasts a built-in FM tuner.
Looks-wise, it's nothing much to shout about, but its sound quality is something else; it offers a crisp, clean and coherent presentation, matched with plenty of bass, but it's a little too clinical with dance and rock - something that can make it hard work to listen to for extended periods. The Geneva Lab Model M fares much better with classical music and vocal recordings, its room-filling sound being both thrilling and enjoyable to hear. Design
The Arcam rCube has it made if the best things do come in small packages. It's the dock that feels the most considered in terms of design. The downside is that some features cost extra, such as the rWand (£70) and rWave (£79) dongles, which enable you to stream music from an iPod or Mac. Only the Bang & Olufsen BeoSound 8 is physically capable of accommodating the iPad, although its low-slung docking brace doesn't reassure. Of the rest, the B&W Zeppelin Air offers the most flexibility thanks to Apple's AirPlay, but setup can be tricky, while the Bose SoundDock 10 is let down by an indifferent remote and a lack of on-board controls. The Geneva Lab Model M fares better; its controls include an iPod-like scroll wheel. Build quality When you're paying a princely sum for a speaker dock, you expect its build to be top notch. That's true of the models here, save for the Bang & Olufsen BeoSound 8, which is not only the most expensive, it also feels the least robust. We've already mentioned the fact that its removable grilles reveal a rather unlovely - and vulnerable - set of drive units, but behind its brushed aluminium front lurk poor-quality plastics and a flimsy panel that hides the power socket, audio inputs and mini-USB port. Even the remote feels cheap in the hand, its back pockmarked with screws that reveal a lack of attention to detail. Apple would never get away with something this shoddy, so why B&O thinks it can on a £895 product is a mystery. The best iPhone speaker dock is... B&W Zeppelin Air
Let's get one thing straight right away: compared to your average run-of-the-mill, cheapie speaker dock, every one of our five is a revelation. It's hard to believe how great your music can sound when you team it with a machine that will do it justice. All those naysayers who criticise Apple's devices as audio sources have it wrong; as long as you feed them with good quality AAC or Apple Lossless files, these speaker docks are an inspiration, as you'd expect from the premium pricetags that they command. But since we have to decide between them, here we go. First to fall are the Bose SoundDock 10, Bang & Olufsen BeoSound 8 and the Geneva Lab Model M. None are bad, per se, but all disappoint in slightly different ways. The Bose SoundDock 10 fares worse because it simply fails to set your pulse racing in the way that an audiophile speaker dock should. It's like someone's put in all the ingredients for a fabulous dinner and then forgotten to add the seasoning. The Bang & Olufsen fails because of its indifferent build quality and high price tag, while the Geneva Lab Model M falls short on its limited appeal - its aesthetics (or lack of them) won't please everyone, and it's really only suited to classical or vocal/easy listening. Compared to these three, the Arcam rCube and B&W Zeppelin Air are in a different league entirely. The Arcam's clever packaging, great sound quality and attention to detail are both inspiring and inspired, but it's pipped to the post by the rollicking B&W Zeppelin Air. It does very little wrong, sounds fantastic with any kind of music, looks absolutely awesome and offers a fair degree of future-proofing and flexibility to boot. It's also great value for money at £499. Overall scores Arcam rCube: 4/5 
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