Remembering... Play By Mail

8-bit gaming was firmly established by the mid-80s; the rise of the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 and BBC Micro as home computers and entertainment units hardly needs going over again. However, as the digital world was booming, another form of gaming was beginning a slow decline.

How Copyright Works (And How To Find Genuinely Free Stuff)

Keir Thomas explains the rules of copyright and how to legally find and use free images, audio and movie files for your projects

To paraphrase the Nicole Kidman in the movie To Die For, 'You aren't really anybody if you're not on the internet.'

The days of people wanting their own homepage have perhaps disappeared down the drainpipe of history, but they've been replaced by a desire to create things bigger in scope - a YouTube video, perhaps, or a PDF offered for download. You might wonder where you can find pictures, music and video clips to use to give everything a bit more pizazz. These are plentiful across the internet, of course, but whether you can freely use them is another matter.

You need to consider copyright and the licensing terms of the item. If you ignore these basic hurdles you can very easily find yourself taking a nasty fall.

In other words, unless you know how copyright and licensing works, then you won't know what's legal for you to use in your creations. So excuse us if in this feature we first enroll you in a brief copyright lesson. Don't worry - we keep it simple.

HP OfficeJet 3830 All-in-One Printer

Mark looks at the affordable end of HP's OfficeJet spectrum

I've covered a number of multi-function printers recently that defied my expectations, but the HP OfficeJet 3830 turns out to be a more traditional device.

It's a typical personal printer/scanner/copier/fax, and at just a little over £50 it's within most budgets.

BenQ XL2720Z

When it comes to monitors, gamers are among the more demanding users

The BenQ XL2720Z is a 27" monitor aimed at hardcore gamers looking to enhance their performance.

The monitor is capable of displaying 16.7 million colours at a resolution of 1920 x 1080 with a pixel pitch of 0.311 mm. With backlight capability and 598 x 336mm display area, the monitor delivers a viewing angle of 170 / 160 degrees. Mounted on the rear are connections for mains power, D-sub, DVI, dpi.2 and USB options, while there are also two side-mounted HDMI ports plus a headphone socket. Touch-sensitive buttons running down the lower right of the monitor's frame provide access to such features as blur reduction, picture mode, display mode and OSD menu.

Virtual Machine Software

David Hayward looks at virtualisation

"Virtualisation is the future." That was once the mantra that was driven into me on a regular basis by the head of an IT department some years ago. I used to take his prophetic ramblings with a pinch of salt, nodding and agreeing at the appropriate points in the conversation and trying to avoid eye contact. As it turns out, though, he was right.

What's Next For Digital Radio?

Most people know what DAB radio is, but what is DAB+ and why don't we have it in the UK? David Crookes takes a look

It may feel that Digital Audio Broadcasting is a relatively recent innovation, but the first country to roll it out was Norway, a smidgen over 20 years ago, Britain was not that far behind; the BBC debuted digital radio in September 1995. Yet, the fact that we're still talking about adoption rates of DAB shows just how slow it has been to take off. In 2008, things were so bad that emergency talks took place in Manchester to save digital radio, and it was being heralded as a very British failure in some quarters of the media.

ViewSonic VX2475SMHL-4K

ViewSonic takes aim to make 4K the desktop display a standard

The first wave of 4K monitor designs didn't exactly overwhelm me, because they either didn't do more than 30Hz or they cost a fortune.

ViewSonic's VX2475SMHL-4K is a strong indication that the 4K market and products are maturing, for those that want 3840 x 2160 and resolution and 60Hz displays.

The Best Tablets For Education

As the tablet market has matured, so has the range of things you can do with them

Over the past few years, tablets have gone from being an expensive luxury to a practical necessity for virtually any student trying to set themselves up with a versatile and compact device that can be used for work and leisure. Indeed, when paired with a Bluetooth keyboard most modern tablets might even be able to replace a laptop entirely - as long as you have a computer lab nearby for running the kind of ancient, Windows-only software packages universities like to throw at you.