Editors’ Picks: Digital Discoveries
Jarred Walton, senior editor, and Zak Storey, reviews editor, reveal their latest tech loves
Not everyone has unlimited data on their broadband, and if you have to update multiple PCs, each one normally has to download all the files from Microsoft’s servers. WSUS Offline helps, enabling you to quickly and easily download all the available patches for Windows 7/8.1/10 and Windows Server 2008/2012/2016. It also supports Office 2010/2013/2016, and legacy products, such as Windows Vista and Office 2007.
It uses the Windows catalog file, so works in conjunction with regular Windows Update. It downloads patches from Microsoft’s Update servers, and is free under the GNU GPL license. Select all the updates you want, click a button, and WSUS creates an ISO file, or copies everything to a USB stick. It can save time and bandwidth, but there’s another reason it’s really useful right now.
If you’ve done a clean install of Win 7 lately, Windows Update gets stuck, and never downloads anything. It’s almost like MS is trying to drive a nail into the coffin of Windows 7. If you have a system where Windows 10 doesn’t work, relying solely on Microsoft is a dead end. WSUS gets the PC past the initial stall in Win 7, after which you can return to normal Windows Update use. Free, www.wsusoffline.net I knew when I started working at Maximum PC and living with my other half, that space was going to be limited. She’d be moaning at me for taking up too much space, and I’d need to carve out as much room as possible, within the limited corner I was given. So I decided to build my own desk. That way, I could define my own dimensions without worry, and choose a style that would match the rest of the decor.
I wanted to do this on the cheap, so I took three pallets from a local wood recycling center, bought two pieces of 2x4, stripped the pallets, sanded down the rough edges, roughed them up a bit with nails, saws, and anything else I had to hand, and nailed them down to the two pieces of 2x4. After that, I applied a dark satin stain, before following up with a rough layer of white paint, and a satin gloss to finish. I laid it out on two trestles from Ikea, with notches chiseled out of the bottom of the two 2x4s for them to sit in, screwed them in, and commissioned a reinforced glass top to provide a level surface, and add that extra bit of glam.
I have very little woodwork experience, and I’m stoked with the results, as it’s given me a 70-inch desk to hold all of my PC hardware at home, and for less than $150.