First up, thank you all for your help. The response has been far greater than I expected and whether it’s directly here on the blog, across Twitter and Facebook, even the barren social plains of Google+, I’ve read every comment and it’s all fuelling my knowledge on the subject and slowly guiding me towards my first build.

Amongst all the comments there were 2 constants (if you ignore the references to Robert Pattinson!!) that clearly have to be my next steps. If I’m ever going to finish, or even start, this thing I need to decide what the PC is for and how much I want to spend?

As the build’s final resting place will be in one of your bedrooms I don’t really have a planned use for it. What I’m going to aim for is something down the middle, a desktop that a family can use for homework, watching YouTube videos and browsing Facebook, but also a PC that, in the hands of one of you guys, is easily upgradeable to something far more powerful.

As for cost, well that depends on a) What Dunc’s got lying around that I can get my grubby mitts on. b) What bits and bobs I can scrounge from the lovely, lovely manufacturers we deal with and c) What I can talk my boss into letting me take from stock.

One thing this whole experiment has proven to me is the gap between what I need to know to put a build together and understanding the whole inner workings of a PC is pretty big.
Using your help, the colour coding of ports and a few ‘How to…’ guides I’m going to be able to knock together a PC without necessarily having to know what individual parts are doing.

By the end of the week we should have something resembling the start of a build or a small smouldering pile of plastic and metal. Either way, I’ll be few steps closer to building my first PC.

Matt calls on the friendly masses to help his PC build

For 6 long years I’ve sat here helping to shift boxes of things I don’t really understand. Don’t get me wrong, I know DDR5 memory is an improvement on DDR3 and that Intel’s Core i7 processor is a step up from their Core i5, but I don’t really know why. (Apparently, “cos it’s 2 more“ isn’t a sufficient answer!)

So to try and expand my limited knowledge, and to keep me busy for the next few weeks, I’m going to roll up my shirt sleeves, do a bit of research and build a desktop PC from scratch.

I could make this easy for myself – I can throw an antistatic wristband in any direction from my desk and it would hit someone who’s built more PCs than this laptop has had Java updates – but I like a challenge and I thought you guys might want to lend a hand.

So where do I start? Where do YOU start?

Is budget the prime decider for your build? Do you see what spare components you’ve got laying around and use them as a base? Do you go for the best value setup or aim for the ultimate in performance? Or do you think through what the PC is for and then spec to your needs?

So with a little help from you, and if the self-build Gods are looking favourably on us all, maybe, just maybe, I’ll manage to get a working PC out of the other end with only minimal harm to my physical and mental well-being.

Keep checking back as I’ll be updating this regularly with progress reports and a live count of how often I’ve electrocuted myself, and if you all behave yourselves and don’t troll me into making a timebomb, we may even run a competition for one of you lucky people to be the proud owner of the very first Matt Berry PC.

Soooo, who fancies pointing this n00b in the right direction??

Also present was plenty of glitz and glamour with a 1950’s Hollywood themed evening complete with Marilyn Monroe, the Rat Pack and…erm… Bungle out of Rainbow.  As the dinner was served and the free wine quaffed, the lovely Marilyn began to announce the winners whilst the audience were poised on the edge of their seats.

The winners were chosen by you, the customer so thank you very much for voting and giving these brands the recognition they deserve.

Best computing vendor: Samsung

Best print vendor: HP

Best networking vendor: Netgear

Best storage vendor: Western Digital

Best components vendor: Intel

Best memory vendor: Corsair

And the best of all, the lucky winner of the dabs voucher is Francine Costello! We will send you a voucher worth £50 to your email address!

 First we were tweeting and soon we’re going to be chirping too, well according to software business Animal Systems we will.

The University College London based business has developed a new Smartphone app that transmits data via a burst of ‘digital birdsong’ and is meant to revolutionise the way in which we share images and files between phones.

Chirp plays a two-second bird noise that when heard by other devices triggers a download and could be highly beneficial as it can quickly send data to multiple devices at once without the need for a wireless connection or for them to be paired.

It definitely sounds impressive, a system that makes it quick and easy to send data to each other and could potentially be used over public address systems and radio transmissions to send people images and links. It’s also simple and fun, an app that allows you to ‘chirp’ information from your phone to another is something that I can see catching on and become hip and trendy. Soon, thousands of people will be ‘chirping’ to each other, ad campaigns will ‘chirp’ to you directly in an attempt to sell you the latest gadgets and a new technology related word will enter our vocabularies.

It does seem to be phenomena of the 21^st century, technology is moving forward at breakneck speeds and you can be guaranteed that the English language is zapping forward alongside it. The development of the Internet has given way to a whole host of new and exciting words at such a fast pace that even if you went back just five years I bet their would be half the amount of Internet terms we have today. Let’s have a look at a few of them:

‘Tweeting:’      The act of posting something on the social networking site Twitter or how most celebrities bitch and moan about other celebrities in the 21^st century.

‘Trolling:’         The art of deliberately disrupting a forum thread with hateful or annoying comments purely to cause anger and irritation, most trolls will act tough only when they’re using a computer screen as a shield.

‘Liking:’            Clicking the ‘Like’ function on social networking site Facebook whenever you see something you like funnily enough, pretty soon we won’t have to express our emotions over anything, all we’ll do is press an ‘emotion’ button for all of life’s little moments- isn’t Facebook great?

‘Pwn’               To ‘Pwn’ something means to have complete control over it and to be ‘Pwned’ by something means to be dominated by it.

‘Flaming’         ‘Flaming’ a thread means to rant about an uninteresting topic, have a blatently ridiculous opinion on something or be hostile to a particular person or group, similar to ‘trolling.’

So at the speed that the Internet is developing, it’s a pretty fair prediction to say that new words will continue to enter cyberspace for the foreseeable future. Thanks for reading and if you guys can think of more Internet slang leave them in the comments below!

So why am I excited? Well, it’s about time we had genuine competition for the Apple iPad that the tablet world desperately needs and I think this could well be it.

So on the surface of the Surface (ha ha!) it does look a little like it’s all style over substance, and as not a right lot is known about it yet in terms of spec, I do hope that this is not the case.  What we do know is that there will be two versions; a Windows RT version designed to run on ARM processors which are typically found in smartphones and other tablets, and will be the thinner and lighter of the models. The other version will be the Windows 8 Pro version running on Intel processors, more powerful and as a result will have a bigger price tag. Both versions will have a lovely sleek looking detachable keyboard, an integrated kickstand and two cameras called ‘LifeCams.’ So, by the information that we know, it seems that the Surface is more than your traditional tablet.  If it has everything you need from browsing to games to Office software, will it render the laptop obsolete?

My opinion? I’m not sure. The Windows 8 Pro version may be a strong contender as it will feature a full version of the Windows 8 operating system and Intel processors. They’ll be as dear as an average Ultrabook but perhaps the unique selling point of it being more portable and lightweight will prevail. The less powerful Windows RT version I can’t see being competent enough to be a decent alternative for a good value laptop. Similarly to the Chromebook, It may be best used for light browsing and app use and not as a laptop replacement, just on account of it not being powerful enough.

Whatever happens I don’t think this will be a failure, there’s a sense that this time round it feels a little like Microsoft are beginning a new chapter and are genuinely trying to go beyond being just a competitor and are becoming an innovator. It seems to signal a new era in computing where the boundary between laptop and tablet are becoming increasingly more blurred. Pretty soon we’ll start seeing tablets which when docked will become fully fledged laptops, laptops with two screens, laptops with flippable screens as well as laptops with slide-out keyboards.  A greater emphasis will be placed on being lighter and more portable while being more powerful and having the ability to multitask and do the job of several devices.

 What do you guys think? Is this the dawn of a new age of computing or just another tablet? We’d love to hear from you.

Our recent Facebook poll asking you what the greatest Sci-Fi of all time was – indicated that The Matrix was the most popular. I personally agree that The Matrix is a classic, even with the terrible sequels tainting its image slightly. It’s got bullet-time, badass action sequences and computers with cranial spikes…what more could you ask for!?

The future influenced by Sci-Fi:

Science fiction is at the heart of any ambitious computer enthusiast. Some would even say that the imaginative portrayal of technology in the Sci-Fi’s of the past have directly inspired products of today.

Take a look at this clip from Star Trek: TNG for example: Picard has what most people nowadays would recognise as an Apple iPad and the other dude has a pair of what could be Microsoft’s rumoured upcoming Kinect glasses.

iStole?

Other examples would be the Knight Rider’s AI as inspiration for Siri and the UI in Minority Report laying the cool-as-hell-if-it-worked-properly path for the Kinect. (Unfortunately, both those products havent travelled far down the cool-as-hell-if-it-worked-properly path).

Can you think of any other examples? Also, let us know what fictional technology you’d like to see come to life in the future!

If you haven’t already, enter our competition for the chance to win Deus Ex: Human Revolution, DiRT: Showdown and Nexuiz TODAY!!! Perfect weekend of gaming sorted. (Winner will be chosen at 4pm 22/06/2012)

# All you need to do is follow our Twitter page and retweet this post. EASY! #

The lucky winner will be announced on Twitter and sent coupon codes for an immediate free download of all 3 games on Steam.

(If you don’t have Twitter, tell us why on Earth not in the comments section below!)

Minecraft took first place and was followed by League of Legends and Train Simulator 2012. Yes, you read that right… Train Simulator 2012 is your third favourite PC game of all time!

Surprisingly, these flew past popular games such as Half-Life 2, GTA: San Andreas and Crysis.

 This leads us to the conclusion that you like trains and building blocks.

However, not everyone agreed with this. For example, David Finch said “How in Gods Hell did TS2012 even get on the list of best game ever? lol.” (voted for Pong). If you also disagree, you can still vote for your favourite and we will update this post if the results change. Click here for the full results and to vote if you haven’t already!

Also, feel free to rant in the comments section below!

Choosing one of three character types (archer, warrior or wizard), players make their way in the world, interacting with NPCs and completing quests for gold coins and experience points. With enough experience points you get to level up and gain new skills, as well as buy new weapons and armour when you get enough gold. The quests generally consist of exploring dungeons and killing enough of a certain monster, rescuing someone, or defeating a boss.

While this may sound fairly run of the mill, the game is very addictive, and there are a number of things to keep you coming back to it. The developer has split the game world up into continents, which you can only cross when you have enough money and experience. Players can also get their hands on a number of different pets, starting out with a chicken or monkey, which can help out by attacking enemies, and which can also be levelled up. It’s these little touches which make the game something you’ll want to come back to.

To make things even more addictive, the game can literally be played anywhere. As well as a standalone PC download, it is available through a browser and for the iPhone and Android platforms. All your progress is stored on a central server, so you can play at home, and then carry on playing during your daily commute. Just don’t blame us if you wonder where your day has gone!

For anyone too young to remember the original games, the premise is fairly simple. You control one of five characters types (barbarian, demon hunter, monk witch doctor or wizard), and have to make your way through a series of dungeons, fighting hordes of monsters and collecting treasure and weapons. As the monsters get harder your character gains more experience, allowing you to use a range of more powerful attacks and weapons. You can also customise your characters, choosing what they wear and the weapons they use, so you can create someone closely aligned to your playing style.

While the game’s single player mode may not have the most original or involving storyline, for many players this won’t matter. Diablo III features a much talked about multiplayer mode, where you can engage in a co-operative game with up to four other players. It’s here that player customisation really comes into its own, allowing you to create complimentary groups of characters to take on the worst the dungeon can throw at them.  Players can also trade with each other in the game’s auction house, allowing them to get hold of stronger weapons and armour much sooner than they otherwise would.

As a security and anti-piracy measure, and in recognition of the game’s co-op focus, Diablo III requires a permanent internet connection. Of course, you don’t want to have to go back and do a level again due to you connection dropping out, so make sure you’ve got a reliable router or network card. Of course, having the official Diablo III gaming mouse will ensure that you’ve got the hardware in place to keep up with the game’s relentless button bashing!