Alien Swarm is a sizeable squad-based shooter from Valve (the company behind Half.Life). The aim of the game is to hunt down and kill waves of aliens. You can find and join games online. or create your own and populate them with friends or other players from the internet. You can have up to four team members at a time, and there are four classes and eight different characters to choose from. If you don’t want to play online, there’s a useful practice mode in which the other team members are controlled by the computer.

You’ll need to have the gaming platform Steam running to download the game, but you can get this from the site for free

Whether you’re running on PC or an office full of them, the new version of Windows could make your computing life more productive – and more fun.

WINDOWS 7 is the operating system everyone hoped Vista would be. It irons out the problems of its predecessor, it’s easier to use, and it works more efficiently. And it’s now available both with new PCs and as an upgrade.

Before you take the plunge, you’ll want to know exactly what Windows 7 has to offer and the best way to get it. We aim to answer those questions in detail in this guide.

HVHWA9R3AXVR

WHAT’S YOUR SIZE?

Windows Vista came in quite a few editions, which made it tricky to identify the one best suited to your needs. With Windows 7 your choice is simpler. There are just three main editions – Home Premium, Professional and Ultimate – plus a stripped–down Starter Edition, which will only be sold pre-installed on netbooks.

We look at exactly what’s in each edition in chapter 5. As you’d expect, more features are added as you go up the ladder, and a crucial point to note is that none of the higher versions loses anything. For example, the Business edition of Vista lacked the Media Center home entertainment function, which was frustrating if you ever wanted to play media on a work machine. Windows 7 Professional does have Media Center, just like Home Premium and Ultimate.

Home Premium will be the best choice for most users. The Professional edition adds features for businnes networks, while Ultimate has everything (including BitLocker drive encryption to keep data confidential) for those who don’t mind paying extra to get the maximum functionality.

 

REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL

We’ve mentioned some of the ways in which Windows 7 improves on previous versions, but let’s get down to the nitty-gritty. Here are our top 10 reasons to go for it.

1. It’ faster than Vista with the same hardware requirements
   Windows Vista offered lots of new features compared to XP, but it tended to slow down over time, and simple jobs such as installing an application could take ages. These problems have mostly been fixed. You’ll find Windows 7 doesn’t get so bogged down, and will generally start up and install programs as quickly as it did the first day.

If you’re not sure where to take your next holiday, you can get personalised recommendations from TripSay.

This lets you drag and drop rating icons – Best, Loved, Hated and ‘Wish to go’ – onto locations on a world ma. While the city options initially appear limited, you can zoom in to find more. When you’re done, TripSay displays your top five recommended travel destinations and suggests three place you should avoid.

MapQuest has lost ground to Google Maps but this relaunch is a big step in the right direction.

The new site has a smarter, more attractive interface, including a redesigned logo – with a large map of the UK on the right. Search for a place and click the pin on the map to get directions.

The really clever part, however, is the ability to view local information provided by other users and to add your own. This service is being offered in conjunction with Open Street Map and will give MapQuest a whole new level of usefulness as content is added 

Although it has a similar name to Microsoft’s product Security Essentials, Security Essentials 2010 is actually a rogue anti-spyware program.

To remove it, Download and run the free tool Rkill. This will temporarily disable the rogue software. Next, download Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware, save it to your Desktop and rename it (just to be on the safe side). Install the software, go to the program directory and rename the file mbam.exe. Call it anything you like – this stage is just to stop the malware tampering with the program. Run Anti – Malware and then perform a full system scan to remove Security Essentials 2010

How come my Nintendo DS Lite connects to the internet at my friend’s house but not at mine?

The fact that you can connect wirelessly elsewhere suggests that the problem lies with your wireless set-up.The Service Set Identifier. or SSID, is used to announce the presence of your Wi-Fi network.

Want to browse photos on Facebook without having to click back and forth?

Then go to the experimental Slideshow app’s page and click the Activate Prototype button. Now visit any Facebook photo album, be it your own or somebody else’s, and you’ll see the app has added a Play/Stop button between the Previous and Next options.