Restaurant Empire
www.restaurant-empire.com
Don’t try to take on Richard Branson at your first attempt. Start small. Restaurant Empire will show you the basics by using real-world business tactics to build up a successful franchise. If you can survive an ulcer-inducing fast-food restaurant, you can pretty much handle anything.
Business insight:
Rollercoaster Tycoon 3
www.atari.com/rollercoastertycoon
Now it’s time to move up a gear. We’re sticking with the leisure industry, because the rewards are better, and in Rollercoaster Tycoon you’ll learn key lessons in keeping your clientele happy, while coordinating resources and – most importantly – managing your staff.
Business insight:
X3: The Reunion
Web Link:www.egosoft.com
Having conquered earth-bound catering, you’re ready for a new challenge: interstellar trading. X3: The Reunion provides a solid grounding in the art of supply and demand, while tips on dealing with people trying to muscle in on your trade routes (shoot them) should come in handy.
Business insight:
Do you have any gaming suggestions that would help them become the next Stelios Haji-Ioannou? Post your idea’s below!
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At 5… Plantronics .audio 350
A basic yet attractive-sounding gaming set, with pillow-soft ear cushions and a noisecancelling microphone for in-game chat.
At 4… Creative HN-700
These headphones feature noise-cancelling, blocking the sounds of the real world in favour of their fantastic aural experience.
At 3… Logitech Precision
These budget cans feature a unique open air design, so your ears stay cool in even the most tense of virtual firefights.
At 2… Razer Barracuda HP-1
Packing three separate speakers into each earphone, these enormous glowing behemoths require their own USB amplifier.
And at 1… Sennheiser RS110 Wireless
Great for those scary video game moments that make you recoil from your monitor in fear – admit it, that does happen sometimes. Anyway, these spectacular-sounding wireless headphones ensure that when you do, your cans won’t suddenly whip off your ears and fling back to your desk.
The bottom line: Excellent, detailed sound – and without wires to get in your way.
Have we missed something? Have more to say? Comment below on what headphones you use.
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At 5… Ulead Photo Impact 12
Pentax has brought the might of its heritage to the 8-megapixel A10, for a camera that’s small but produces stunning image quality.
At 4… IrfanView
Light on features, but that makes it easy to use. This free tool is perfect for quick, if basic, editing and resizing of images.
At 3… Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo XI
Now Windows Vista certified, this longrunning image editor is packed with great ways to organise and edit your photographs.
At 2… Paint.NET
Starting life as a uni design project mentored by Microsoft, Paint.NET is now the most powerful free image editing utility around.
And at 1… Adobe Photoshop Elements 5
The little sister of Adobe’s flagship Photoshop package, loved by creative types the world over. The Elements label means that it lacks the high-end features of the full version, but there’s still room for some very powerful tools. It’s perfect for touching up photos and creating graphics, and it’s a very affordable price.
The bottom line: An affordable way to get started with the world’s most popular graphics program.
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It’s human nature to want to get to your destination five minutes before you even left. Yet, usually when we rush out the door and leap into the car, chaos is usually hot on our trail. We forget to go to the toilet or bring some sort of drink, and then plough straight into the tail end of a five mile traffic jam. Figuratively speaking, hopefully.
Therefore, if your travelling a large distance this holiday, take note of our five top fips to help save both your finances and your health.
1. Get directions
Congestion, roadworks, the price of petrol – all part of the joys of driving in Britain today. You can minimise the pain by carefully planning long journeys in advance, though, and there are plenty of web sites around to help. Streetmap displays a detailed map for any town, postcode, London street or more; 192 can locate people for you and show a map of where they live; while the AA Route Planner plans a complete journey from your start point to your destination. Open each site in a separate Internet Explorer 7 tab, then click Favorites > Add Tab Group to Favorites to save them all for easy recall later.
2. Use GPS
For smoother journeys, why not turn your laptop into the ultimate satellite navigation system? Add a Bluetooth GPS receiver from £29.95 for instance, and it’ll keep you updated with your current position. T-Mobile’s data card can get you online anywhere for £29.95 a month. A program such as GpsGate shows your location on Google Maps or you can go for Microsoft AutoRoute 2007 with GPS Locator and get the receiver and software in one package.
3. Check the news
Detailed directions and satellite photos are all very well until you discover that a key road has been closed. It pays to check the traffic news before you leave. The RAC has a section dedicated to traffic incidents and roadworks and the Highways Agency has an even better idea – install free application on your PC or laptop and it displays the latest traffic news in real time, no browser required. Alternatively, Frixo gives up-to-date information every 3 minutes from sources including the official Highway Agency and is worth looking at.
4. Get online easily
If you need to change your plans en route and have a laptop, access to a Wi-Fi network such as The Cloud can make it easy to get online and research your new trip. Better still, as we write Windows Vista users can register for free access.
5. See the landmarks
To actually see where you’re going, you need a tool such as Microsoft’s Virtual Earth or Google Earth. With both tools you can enter a city or town name, address or landmark, and you’re taken straight to a satellite photo of the place to explore.
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Issue ten of Windows Vista: The Official Magazine featured a guide from the new book Breakthrough Windows Vista, from Microsoft Press. As one of our readers, you can save 37% on the retail price, by simply buying online from the Amazon.co.uk Microsoft Press Store!
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Bad home movies? Shudder! They can be longer than many prison sentences, home to multimedia’s worst excesses and, all too often, guaranteed to leave you trying to slit your wrists with a Pringle.
However, with Windows Vista, you have no excuse for such nonsense. None. We’re going to war on bad home movies. Right now!
The good news is that with Movie Maker you immediately avoid the biggest trap. It’s a simple editor that focuses on the important things.
Not only don’t you need hundreds of transitions, effects, and other flashy tools, you’re usually better off without them. It’s not for nothing that the average director’s favourite transition is the humble cut.
Editing in action
Let’s step through a holiday video. Don’t worry about the mouse clicks yet; that’s the easy part. Raw footage is where every project starts. The cardinal rule is: shoot everything you can, then throw out almost as much. A ruthless editor is a good editor.
Exactly what to keep will depend on your subject matter and intended audience, but you’ll never go wrong by treating it as a professional project, rather than doing things you know are wrong.
One thing I always do when starting a new project is to sit down and list everything that annoys me in similar things I’ve seen, and then avoid doing them even if they seem like a great idea at the time.
Here, let’s look at the classic roller-coaster shot. On my list, the number one ‘gotcha’ is the first-person shakycam as someone, usually my father, desperately tries to keep the camcorder to his face.
It never works. Ignoring the blurring of the world, and the sick-making bouncing of the camera on every twist and turn, you’ll never be able to emulate the experience of being on that ride. So what do you do? You film it anyway. The problem isn’t the footage; it’s the execution. You also film the exterior of the ride, and everything else you’re going to cut. Then get the shears.
First of all, the establishing shot. That should be easy enough – especially if the family is there, waving and looking nervously at the ride’s biggest lunch-launching moment. Next, cut – a simple cut, nothing fancy – to the first-person camera, as the rollercoaster car pulls out of the station.
Our list tells us that we don’t want to stick with this too much, so now, we cut to another external shot of the coaster pulling away towards the big loop. Obviously, it’s not your car. That doesn’t matter. As it plummets, snap cut again to the fi rst-person camera, showing a family member’s screaming reaction. Cut back to the external.
If you’ve got a good bit of first-person camera of a drop, or a turn, or a particular bit of scenery, slip it in. Finally, cut to the family waddling uncertainly out of the gates, and closer up shots of reactions; cries of “Again!” or “Never again!”
It’s a simple editing job. One transition (Cut) and one editing tool (Trim). However, when you play the video, nobody will care about the technology behind it, just the result. And believe it or not, that’s the big secret of editing. Simplicity always wins out over glitz, and less really is more.
Of course, there is scope to play around with the more complicated effects as well. If you’re building a montage of photos, picking a transition to go between them can look good. Even then, though, the keep-it simple mantra applies. A page-curl may look good, but a page-curl followed by a barwipe, followed by a dissolve, followed by a shatter is guaranteed to look tacky.
Always try to stick to one effect, one editing style, one (rough) length for your individual segments, and the whole thing will flow. It may seem like overkill for a family video, but when you’ve got the tools to do better, why settle for less?
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It’s difficult to select a GPS system with so many on the market, especially when you take into account all the extra features and gadgets they include. Here’s our top five then, so you don’t need to do your homework. Like a good swot, we’ve done it for you.
At 5… Sony Nav-U NV-U70
The big brother of the U50 model, this offers improved mapping across Europe, 1GB of memory and free traffic updates
At 4… Navman N60i
A clear 4.3-inch widecsreen display makes sure you never miss a direction while the park and fuel buttons are a real asset.
At 3… Fujitsu-Siemens Pocket Loox N520 satnav PDA
The best of Pocket PC and GPS worlds with a great sat-nav and the benefits of Wi-Fi.
At 2… Garmin Street Pilot C550
Bluetooth enabled with free traffic alerts and 2.2GB of internal memory. It’s easy to use but has a standard size screen.
And at 1… TomTom Go 910
Look at that! A four-inch widescreen touchscreen sat-nav device complete with full European and North American street maps for real global travel. The Go 910 incorporates Bluetooth for hands free calling and will even dictate text messages to you. With MP3 playback and 20GB internal storage, there are features galore.
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Buying a computer is often an arduous task, and with the release of Windows Vista it’s even more difficult to choose just the right system for you. There’s nothing worse than getting caught up in the upgrading cycle and having to upgrade after a year just because you chose the machine with the inferior graphics card. Therefore, take note, as here’s what we would choose if we were buying a new PC with Windows Vista.
At 10… HP Pavilion Media Center TV m7585
A poor graphics card and the lack of a display screen at this price holds back what is otherwise a good Media Center system with 2GB of memory.
At 9… Evesham Evolution VT
A poor graphics card and the lack of a display screen at this price holds back what is otherwise a good Media Center system with 2GB of memory.
At 8… Dell Dimension E521
Built as an entry level Media Center, the Dimension E521 is a touch pricey. Though they might look good, its peripherals are somewhat basic.
At 7… PCNextday Zoomstorm 5-8401 Edge
At this price, the system should be good and this is no exception. Dual graphics card, dual processor make the Zoomstorm 5-8401 Edge an impressive performer.
At 6… Evesham Visto
At this price, the system should be good and this is no exception. Dual graphics card, dual processor make the Zoomstorm 5-8401 Edge an impressive performer.
At 5… Evesham Advisor Solar RD
A well balanced system that performs well at every task with good peripherals. Its only shortcoming is that it’s outdone by the Mesh which is in the same price range.
At 4… Mesh Elite E6600 Express TV
The ultimate Media Center PC boasts twin Digital TV tuners and a mammoth 1,000GB of hard drive space. Perfect for storing hundreds of films and endless hours of TV.
At 3… Cyber Power Gamer Infinity SLI KO
It comes with a high price tag, but this is a system that oozes top technology, including an Intel Quad Core processor with the latest Nvidia 8800GTX graphics card.
At 2… PC Nextday Zoomstorm 5-6510
Equipped with a faster graphics card than the Mesh but just 1GB of memory, this PC Nextday model may well be be more tempting to gamers.
And at 1… MESH Elite E6600 Vistra
Being the lowest priced PC to reach a Windows Index of 5.0 makes for a great start for this Mesh. Possibly even better is the selection of all-black, quality peripherals such as theCreative surround speakers. With an Intel Core 2 Duo processor and powerful NVIDIA GeForce 7900GT graphics card, this system performs at every level.
The bottom line: Excellent performance at all levels, for what we rate as an astonishingly good price.
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1. Importing Clips
You’ll need your footage in digital format – either direct from your camera, or as a file on your hard drive. Movie Maker supports most formats, including .WMV and MPEG, although not QuickTime, which you’ll need third-party tools to convert.
2. Splitting Them
Longer clips need to be cut into pieces so that you can use them across your project. Click the video in the main Edit pane and play it in the viewer on the right until you get to the break point.
Click Split to carve it into two pieces, ready to place.
3. Storyboarding
This is probably the simplest way to make your movie. Just drag and drop clips from the library into the right places at the bottom of the screen. This is to get them into the correct order, ready to be trimmed down to size and have effects applied.
4. Trimming
Select a clip on the Storyboard and it will jump to that point in the Preview window. Drag the scroller to the point that you want it to start on, and select Trim Beginning from the Clip menu. Repeat with Trim End on the other side. If you make a mistake, click Clear Trim Points and start over.
5. Advanced Editing
The Storyboard is a simple, quick and dirty way to lay out your movie, but you can get more control by switching to Timeline view. Click where it says Storyboard to bring up the option. The Timeline view shows all audio, video and overlays, with split-second timing options.
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One of the easiest ways to make your home movies look better is to add some effects, transitions and titles to them, lending them a professional looking finish. Before, these flashy animations have been limited to expensive editing packages.
If you’ve got Windows Vista, however, you can do all these things by using Movie Maker. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to do them.
1. Effect / Transition
These are the two main animations available to you. Effects work on individual clips, making them sepia-toned or blurred, or whatever else you choose. Transitions link two clips – tearing, shattering, wiping and pushing the screen.
2. Stay Controlled
Use as few transitions as possible. One or two can look good, but more than that gets confusing, irritating or, worst of all, tacky.
Think about how often the sappiest of romantic comedies wipe between scenes via a giant heart.
3. Watch the speed
Click on Storyboard then Timeline to switch editing modes, and drag the block representing the transition. The maximum length is the length of the second clip – although that could be a montage if you need it to be longer.
4. Titles
These are handled separately, with presets available for one-line titles, two-line titles, and a longer list of credits. You can choose the font and colour, but not a great deal more. The alternative is to create image-based titles in any art package.
5. Text Control
There are two types of titles – those before or after the movie, and text overlays. The former are like a movie clip, and can have effects added over the top. Overlays can be moved within a clip, and scaled, but you don’t get the effects.
6. Mix and Match
Overlays aren’t locked to a clip, so you can stretch them out to caption an extended sequence, and it all happens underneath them. The animation attached will only play at the start and end, rescaling as you move the clip around.
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