Knowledge

Did you know that PlayStation 2 (PS2) is celebrating its 10th anniversary, just like Tone?
Back when your favourite magazine hit the racks in 1999, consumers were for the first time starting to go through a tech frenzy: the home theatre market was starting to explode, smart homes were starting to become a reality, and computer and console games were becoming a force to be reckoned with.
Sony PlayStation had launched back in 1995, ushering in a new era for game consoles.
But the exact same month that Tone magazine launched its inaugural issue, PlayStation 2 also launched, and this unit was a revolution in a small box.
The PS2 entered a world dominated by Sega’s Dreamcast, Nintendo’s Gamecube and of course the perennial Xbox, but it outstripped its competitors to become the best-selling game console of all time, selling over 145 million units.
Even though the much more capable PS3 has in many ways superseded the PS2, the unit continues to be enormously popular, and as it celebrates its 10th year, it can boast no fewer than 1900 games!

In the latest Tone, we celebrate our own history – and get a glance at the primitive technology in vogue in 1999! – as well as looking at the PlayStation timeline and history. Click here for those pages.

Tips

Smart home sense

• If you don’t have the money for a full installation, get a simple start by installing a computer network and a networkable media player that can access the content.
• When choosing a media player and supporting gear, make sure it has the flexibility to render music or movies watchable, no matter what format they’re stored in.
• Take a good look at the power consumption of any gear you’re buying. Future regulations are bound to demand more efficient power consumption, and it could save you cash.
• Don’t cut corners with your lighting and electrical system: quality is key so you don’t have to waste money retro-fitting later on.

See Tone’s Smart Home Tips story in the latest issue.

Tone tools

Windows and the dreaded slowness

Once you start getting a lot of files and applications on your PC it can slow down quite dramatically. This is often a result of errors in Windows’ registry. The easy way to fix this is to get a registry cleaner, and the one we use is Registry Easy, which you can download for f.ree here

More tools after the jump…

Free Your Music with Sonos

News

• Logitech’s premium game controllers for Guitar Hero
• Pentax shoots under the sea
• Sony packs 800 cars onto Gran Turismo for PSP
• Asus notebook a multimedia demon
• TiVo Telecom deal ensures uncapped allowances

Daily tech news at
www.tone.co.nz/news

Videos

• Beatles Rock Band trailer
• Nikon D300s DSLR
• Gran Turismo PSP
• Nintendo Hong Kong commercial

Tone tools

Restoring deleted files

That ‘oops’ moment as you realise you’ve accidentally deleted a file from the trash that you meant to keep is pretty annoying. This month’s second Tone tool allows you to restore deleted files. The software scans your hard drive and will display any recoverable files. It works on flash drives and removable media as well as your computer hard disk, and works even if files have been emptied from your recycle bin. It will even recover files from a reformatted drive or after a hard disk crash. Click here to find out more

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