PC Plus receives masses of kit each month, much of which we don’t have space for in the magazine to review. However, some products still warrant copy to shout about their merits. Enter stage right, our new regular best deals blog post featuring several noteworthy products that have materialised on our desks.

Ebuyer

Do you have a painful obsessive compulsive disorder that precludes you from touching anything that hasn't been properly sanitized? Whether your problem is psychological or physical, the Belkin Washable Mouse - available for around £16 - is the perfect solution.

Stick it under a tap and you can clean it with ease. With an ipod-style touch-wheel, a sensitive sensor and a nifty brown matte finish, it's a rather good mouse in its own right, too.

Hot Deal Belkin Washable Mouse F5L007

Amazon.co.uk

A book about the ever changing world of computer and Internet crime might seem like a project doomed to failure. However this book, for the moment, escapes the problem by dint of its clear, concise and highly authoritative explanations of how attacks work.

Each chapter is essentially a self contained essay on a given sphere of criminality. You can jump in, absorb the facts you need and move on. Sure in a few years’ the book will be old hat, but it’s currently an essential text for anyone interested in furthering their understanding of computer crime. Indeed such is the clarity and authority of writing, Understanding New Attacks and Defences will be worth keeping on your bookshelf as a historical reference too for a bargain £24.99.

Hot Deal Crimeware: Understanding New Attacks and Defenses

PC Plus

With the credit crunch in full swing, you’re probably finding that the option to upgrade your creaking PC could send your already squeezed wallet over the edge. So why not opt for the cheaper alternative? Iolo’s System Mechanic 8 offers a range features aimed squarely at improving your computer’s performance. For the best value, purchase a copy of the latest issue of PC Plus where you’ll discover an exclusive discount of just £12.99 ($24.95).

Advances in CPU technology show no signs of slowing down in the next year or so, and neither will the number of cores on new CPU dies. Intel has a six core 45nm Dunnington chip coming first, followed by Nehalem, their new architecture. The big new feature of this will be an integrated memory controller, which will provide a big boost to the memory performance of Intel chips. A feature that has been present in AMD chips for a while.

Now AMD has announced a TWELVE core processor. Taking a leaf from Intel's "squeeze 2 CPU dies into the same package" technique they used to come up with the first quad cores, the Shanghai processor will be made up from two native six core chips crammed into a single die. AMD's bet that a native quad core would yield much greater performance than two dual cores in a single package didn't exactly pay off. Four cores is still four cores after all. So AMD has backtracked and is now using the same technique, except this time it's two hex-core chips, to produce a 'dodeca-core' CPU.

For the first time in ages AMD is pushing ahead of Intel, and it could be the first signs they are ready for a serious comeback. Yet success depends on a few things:

1/ Software taking advantage of as many cores as possible - currently not the case
2/ Decent clock frequencies - 3Ghz+ chips please
3/ No TLB bugs or other erratum - better late than broken

Read the news here

Earlier this week, whilst I was busy bashing out words for a review, Jamie, our Production Editor, alerted the PC Plus team to the news that Simon Gunter, Tiscali's strategy head honcho, had made a controversial statement. He claims that the BBC's iPlayer is placing such high bandwidth demands on them that some of the license fee should go towards upgrading their network. Jamie asked my opinion on the matter and the first words that came from my lips is that in fact, since the BBC is responsible, they should pay something.

This opinion was at odds with the rest of the team, most bloggers and comments on forums. My reasoning is that iPlayer is not just another service, but in fact a bandwidth intensive application offering content that is very popular amongst anyone who enjoys TV in the UK. Bandwidth is a finite resource and the more video that gets thrust onto the web, the tougher the demands on ISPs.

Then I spent some time thinking about it, and backtracked slightly. Networks will definitely need an upgrade to meet the demands of the web in the future, but it shouldn't be coming from the license fee. After all, it's a TV license we pay for, not a content tax (although it can seem like that). Moreover, to actually serve the content, the BBC is already paying for server space and connectivity.

Mr Gunter then goes on to say that Tiscali's policy is to offer agressive pricing on their broadband deals, and they do not want to have to increase their prices (to pay for additional network upgrades). But perhaps they will have no choice.

The web is certainly changing and demand for bandwidth is going up. The iPlayer is not the only reason for greater bandwidth demand. First it was YouTube and P2P music sharing, and when YouTubeHD goes live, this will increase further. ISPs will have to upgrade their networks or risk losing customers to competitors who can actually cope with the demand.

The solution isn't clear. The network needs upgrading, but who pays the billions it will cost? I stand by my belief that sooner or later it will be time to bring fiber to the home, which will hopefully provide the network capacity for the next decade or two. The initial expenditure will eventually pay itself off.

To keep Tiscali happy, they could offer a tiered price structure, keep their low prices for basic web access (heavily capped, limited to email and basic web surfing) then charge more for those who wish to use iPlayer and Youtube. Customers wont be happy though, and Tiscali will have to bring their prices in line with their competitors, losing a big advantage in the market.

I have made my decision, I am going to vote for Barack Obama! *

Nothing to do with foreign or fiscal policy, I have based my decision on whom I favour for the democratic nomination based solely on comments about video games.

In 2005, when a storm was brewing in a teacup over Grand Theft Auto and a certain user mod that opened up a section of the game with some horrible and unnatural scene of copulation, Hilary Clinton was one of the loudest critics. She called for new legislation to restrict such FILTH from entering the DVD drive of your child's games consoles. She failed, GTA4 is out soon and hold on to your sense of morality, copulation is back!

Here is an old report from that story.

Now along comes Mr Obama, with the crazy idea that parents should actually pay attention to what games their children are playing and for how long.

If more people took this advice then the sword of censorship would not be discussed whenever a game featuring anything other than Mary Poppins is released. If adults view adult content, why should they be resticted?

* Actually nobody on the PC Plus team can vote in the US election, as we are all Greek **
** May be limited to the author only

Yup, we're getting in on the act too.

It's April Fools day, and that means ANY story you read online is a load of lies. Kind of annoying really. When someone dreamt up the idea of making April 1st a day for jokes, they clearly hadn't imagined the Internet and the ability to post stories quite as rapidly as they are today.

So here is a list:

1/ UK YouTube has all featured videos linking to a certain Rick Astley song.

http://uk.youtube.com

2/ Tech ARP "uncovers" the news that DirectX11 is on the way in Vista SP2, which will support ray traced rendering, all before the end of the year. Sounds like the sort of thing designed just to turn on the average geek, but sadly a load of BS

3/ Betamax to HD-DVD converter. No irony at all.

http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/41/betamaxhd.html

4/ Google and Virgin Media to go to Mars.

http://www.google.com/virgle/faq.html

Yup, although I did argue it could be another Gmail. If you are too young to remember, four years ago today Google announced GMail, a revolutionary new email system that gives you 1GB of storage, making the biggest rival, Hotmail, look extremely poor. Nobody believed it because of the date, but it was actually true. Superb marketing!

Step One: Open up long feature document I've been working on for a couple of days.

Step Two: Wince, as Office has magically managed to lose almost half of it.

Step Three: Close machine, head home to overdose on Lemsip.

In Conclusion: Nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnngh.

Yup, you probably know already.

According to sources at Microsoft, some people are having trouble downloading it from Windows Update, thanks to installation of previous betas and driver incompatibilites.

Download standalone from here