Editors’ Picks: Digital Discoveries
Zak Storey, deputy editor, and Alan Dexter, executive editor, share the tools that keep them on the right track
WAZE
I’m seriously into driving, and cars in particular. In fact, if it ain’t computers, it’s mountain bikes, and if it ain’t bikes, it’s cars. I grew up in a classic car family—on Ma’s side, it was all about the Chevy V8s, and on Pop Storey’s side, Volkswagen was the name of the game.
Now I’m hooked. There’s no better feeling than getting out there on the open road. But being a tech nerd, I appreciate the gadgetry and software wizardry found in modern-day cars as much as the classic styling and engines from yesteryear.
The one thing I can’t live without is Waze. It’s a GPS app, piggybacking off the same technology used by Google Maps. What’s great about Waze is that it’s essentially a social media network. Users can mark on the map if there’s a hazard in the road, what the traffic is like, whether there are police ahead, where the traffic cameras are, whether roads are closed, and even fuel prices. It also lets you know what the speed limit is, and what speed you’re going. Best of all, it’s free, with ads popping up only when you’re stationary. It is a bit power-hungry, and obviously only passengers can input if there’s anything in the road, but it’s saved my bacon a ton. $free, www.waze.com
ASUS AURA RGB LIGHTING CONTROL
With reports of failing RTX graphics cards circulating, we wanted to see if any of the cards we had were affected. The Asus GeForce RTX 2080 Ti from last month’s “Build It” wasn’t seeing much use, so I decided to replace the GeForce GTX 1080 in my main rig. I also shifted to a ViewSonic VP32684K, 32-inch 4K screen, because if you’re going to stress test a $1,350 graphics card, you may as well do it properly.
To see what’s happening under the hood, I installed Asus’s graphics card monitoring tool, GPU Tweak II, which reveals GPU temperature, memory clock, and fan speeds. Frustratingly, it doesn’t report memory temperatures, as it’s on the memory front that these cards appear to be failing. This is due to a lack of sensors, though, so hardly the fault of the software.
One side effect of this is that I found myself downloading the Asus Aura RGB lighting software and, for once, not ignoring it. One lighting profile is to pulse in time with your music; it’s both annoying and awesome. Unfortunately, it also adds obvious lag to YouTube videos, which is a shame, as it would have been fun to annoy the rest of the team with the light show. $free, www.asus.com