At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros File, partition, and drive imaging to common VHD format Full-fledged partition manager Disaster recovery Optional retro command-line and character-based recovery interface Cons Needs to properly vet destination space Minor visual bugs and workflow peccadilloes Our Verdict R-Drive Image offers a ton of great backup features, including disaster recovery and newly expanded support for all the most popular online storage services. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Retailer Price R-tools Technology $44.95 View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket Best Prices Today: R-Drive Image Retailer Price R-tools Technology $44.95 View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket I’ve truly enjoyed reviewing the various iterations of R-Drive Image — it’s been my go-to imaging/backup utility for nearly two decades. It’s a great program, and has still never created a bad backup in my hands. However, bugs, while rapidly fixed once reported, have reared their head in my last few looks. Including one that created an endless failure loop in 7.3. Come on now… What are R-Drive Image 7.3’s features? The big news for this dot upgrade is expanded support for cloud storage services — including the Amazon S3 and S3-compatible repositories, something I bemoaned the lack of in my review of version 7.2. Okay, bemoaned is a bit strong. Wished for? R-Drive Image’s main page. Also new in the cloud arena is support for Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, though only in R-Drive’s pricier Technician and Corporate tiers. Most end-users will be more interested in Dropbox, OneDrive, and the cheaper S3 and S3-compatibles, which the consumer program supports flawlessly. The salient R-Drive Image features include: file, folder, partition, and whole drive imaging in both proprietary and non-proprietary VHD/VHDX formats; copying and cloning discs; a full-featured partition editor; and a bootable recovery disk with a choice between the modern and old-school, character-based interfaces. The R-Drive Image boot disk interface. The character-based interface (shown below) on the recovery disk is still my favorite for freaking out my friends and IT customers. Its appearance is as dated as my own, but it too is a hoot. Most users will prefer the modern interface shown in the previous image. You don’t have to use this retro-interface on the recovery disc. I do, but most users will use the one that mimics the Windows version. There are also Tasks, R-TT speak for jobs. These feature very granular scheduling and even media rotation in the pricier versions. Scripts are the same thing as tasks, but for command-line use. Yes, you can use R-Drive the old-fashioned way. Another feature I love in R-Drive Image 7.x is its replications. These are copies of the image saved to other destinations. In other words, you can define one data set to back up, and back it up to multiple locations using the same “script,” aka job. The R-Drive Image task schedular. If you’re looking for the ability to back up non-Windows computers, the recovery disc allows you to image FAT/exFAT, NTFS, ReFS / ReFS2+ (Resilient File System, Windows 2012/2016 Server), HFS/HFS+/APFS, XFS, Little and Big Endian variants of UFS1/UFS2 (FreeBSD/OpenBSD/NetBSD/Solaris), and Ext2/Ext3/Ext4 FS (Linux). Whew. That said, Apple, a tough-to-love company, makes it nearly impossible to boot from unsigned media these days, so backing up your Mac using R-Drive Image no longer works. I mention this because I tried and was disappointed that the FAT32 USB boot stick didn’t even show up. One R-Drive Image complaint is that while the program supports mounted network drives, WebDAV, and FTP, there’s no way to add files from a network location that’s not mounted as a drive letter by Windows. You can type in a network URL in the file name field for the destination though, and R-TT was asking me how to ameliorate this lack as I wrote this article. Expect this addition soon. My only other complaint is that the program will mildly warn you, but not stop you from trying to write an image to a destination that doesn’t have room for it. The latter became particularly apparent as a flaw during testing. More on that in the performance discussion below. You can define one data set to back up, and back it up to multiple locations using the same ‘script,’ aka job. How easy to use is R-Drive Image 7.3? For basic operations, R-Drive Image is quite easy to use. It walks you wizard-style through selecting files/folders, drives, or partitions, then where you want to write the resulting image. Creating recovery discs is simple as well. Where the program could use a bit of work is in the Tasks/Scripts area. The way they’re portrayed in the interface, it’s not immediately apparent that tasks are for the GUI and scripts are for command-line use. Yes, RTFM. You can specify media rotation options for any task. But only in the pricier professional versions of the program. I certainly appreciate that you can save ad-hoc jobs as command-line scripts, but it would be nice if you could save them as a task as well. Tasks, or recurring jobs, can only be created in the Tasks pane. This is also where you’ll find the retention options and scheduling. I’d also like to see an “Execute” button in the task bar. As it stands, you must right-click over the task to run it. R-Drive Image doesn’t make heavy use of right-click context menus, so this wasn’t something I immediately thought of. Double-clicking starts editing. I would’ve reversed those choices. How much is R-Drive image 7.3? The end-user version of R-Drive Image, good for one computer is $45. The transferrable-seat Technician version is $299, the Corporate version I tested is $189, and there are multi-seat and transferrable-seat versions for $500 and $900, respectively. You can see the full list and the feature differences at this link. How does R-Drive Image 7.3 perform? You may notice that this section of the review isn’t titled “How fast is…?” That’s because reliability and bug-free operation are every bit as important as how quickly backups are created. I’ve touted R-Drive Image as the most stable and reliable backup program I have ever used, and until version 7 — it was. It still is, when operations complete, but I discovered a couple of small visual glitches plus a rather large bug in testing 7.3 (7304) that I actually traced back to 7.0. The company fixed the issues within two days, which is fantastically responsive, but they should’ve been caught by the company before release. It’s not this error message that was disturbing, it was that clicking on cancel just brought it up again. Ending the program via Task Manager was required. Basically, before the fix, if R-Drive Image ran out of room on the destination media during a file imaging task it went into a closed loop with the error dialog that you couldn’t cancel out of. I had to end the program using Task Manager. Drive and partition imaging jobs showed the error dialog, but you could cancel out of it. Then there were the overlapping buttons shown below. Anyone using the program could spot them, which tells me that this version was likely rushed out the door. These overlapping buttons indicate that not enough people at the company are kicking the tires of new releases before they go public. Aside from the one fatal operational glitch and mis-drawn buttons, R-Drive Image performed as I’ve come to expect — admirably. Around a dozen operations to and from internal and external storage, NAS boxes, and online storage services (Dropbox, OneDrive, and Google Drive) went off without a hitch. The recovery media also booted just fine and backup/restore operations were glitch-free. This is more what I’m used to with R-Drive Image. In the final analysis, while the program had some issues with not enough space, all backups that succeeded retained their integrity and were mountable and restorable. That’s the most important aspect. Should you buy R-Drive image? Despite the glitches, which didn’t affect the ultimate sanctity of the backups, I still trust R-Drive Image’s backup engine. Additionally, with the new online support and multiple destinations per job, it’s one of the most complete backup solutions available at the price. I will continue to use and recommend it, but stop letting these faith-challenging bugs out the door, R-TT. Read...

If you’re in need of a new hobby, how about bird watching made super easy? The Birdfy smart bird feeder gives you a front row seat to all the birds in your neighborhood as they come in for the food in your own backyard—and right now it’s on sale for $145 at Amazon. That’s a hefty 37% discount off its original $230 MSRP. How do I know it’s great? Because I have one of these in my own backyard! It’s been there since last fall, waiting for the birds to make their return home with the warmer weather. And over the past several weeks, I’ve been getting pings left and right as the Birdfy alerts me when birds arrive and provides me with a direct video feed. That’s right, the Birdfy has a 1080p camera that looks great during the day and almost as good at night. Given how sensitive this bird feeder’s motion detection is, it could even serve double duty as a kind of outdoor home surveillance camera. If you don’t fiddle with the settings, you’ll get notifications any time something catches its attention, not just when birds visit the feeder. And when a bird does visit the feeder? Birdfy will tell you what kind of bird it is, allowing you to learn more about it if you want to. You can also download the videos and snapshots from any bird visit. Get one of these Birdfy smart bird feeders and get an up-close look at your neighborhood’s birdlife. Now that it’s on sale for just $145, there’s never been a better time to snag one. Save 37% on this smart bird feeder with real-time videoBuy now at Amazon Read...

You know how every annoying Windows program wants to launch as soon as you boot up your computer? Well, now Office is going to do that, too. A new “Startup Boost” function will set Office to load when Windows starts up, which will make apps like Word and Excel launch faster—while making the rest of your computer slower. Whoopie. I’m being flippant, but it’s understandable that Microsoft would want to give Office a performance boost, even if it is somewhat illusory. And in the company’s defense, the announcement in the Microsoft 365 Message Center Archive (spotted by The Verge) does say that the new tool will only be enabled on PCs that have at least 8GB of RAM and 5GB of free disk space. I think even trying to run Windows 11 on just 8GB of RAM is kind of optimistic these days, but at least there’s a floor. A cynic might wonder why Microsoft is making Office start when the computer boots instead of, you know, just making Office more efficient so it can run faster. (There’s no second part to that statement. The cynic is me. I want Office to be more efficient.) The update to the Microsoft 365 installer will initially only apply to Microsoft Word when it rolls out in mid-May, then spread to other Office programs later. And yes, you will be able to disable this feature. End users can turn it off in Word’s settings or in the Task Scheduler. Read...

When you need to store or transfer private files, nothing beats the reliability of a physical drive—especially if you have a slow or spotty internet connection. A USB flash drive will always work in a pinch, which is why you should always have one on hand. Right now, this 256GB Samsung Bar Plus thumb drive is $20 on Amazon. That’s a whopping 50% off its original price and the best-ever deal we’ve seen for this model. 256GB is plenty of storage space, especially for a flash drive, and the value is unbeatable at this price. What makes this deal so appealing is the flash drive’s performance. This thing can transfer at up to 400 MB/s, so you’ll be moving movies, games, and other large files in seconds. In fact, it can move an entire 100GB folder in less than 5 minutes. No more sitting on your thumbs. It’s not just fast but protected, too. The rugged metal casing protects against bumps and drops, and the whole thing is waterproof, shockproof, and safe against magnets, X-rays, and extreme temperatures. Frankly, there’s no reason not to get the Samsung Bar Plus for $20—other flash drives at this size and price are going to be slower and feel cheaper. And while you’re here, you might also want to check out the awesome Amazon Big Spring Sale deals we’ve found. A high-speed 256GB flash drive for $20? That`s a bargain! Buy now at Amazon Read...

A mini PC equipped with a Ryzen 7 CPU and 32GB of RAM for just $300? That sounds like a dream come true, but it’s real and happening right now. The Bosgame P4 mini PC is on sale at Amazon for 25% off, bringing its price down from its original $400. (This is Prime-exclusive with an on-page coupon, so snag a 30-day free trial if you aren’t a member.) This thing is so compact, it can fit under your monitors and help you keep your desk space clutter-free. It will also impress with its performance thanks to its more-than-decent configuration: AMD Ryzen 7 5700U CPU, 32GB of DDR4 RAM, and 1TB of SSD storage. That’s a combo that’ll boot Windows in no time, load apps and games in seconds, and handle pretty much anything you need it to. Plus, it’s upgradeable to 64GB of RAM. If you’re a multitasker, you’ll love this P4 mini PC because it comes with triple 4K@60Hz display support. That’s ideal for work, allowing you to spread your windows out across multiple screens for maximum productivity. If there’s a downside, it’s the weak integrated graphics card that can only handle some light gaming. As long as you don’t need high-power gaming, this mini PC is an incredible investment: just $300 right now at Amazon with Prime and the on-page coupon. Remember to grab the free trial if you don’t have Prime. Save 25% on this awesome daily driver mini PCBuy now at Amazon Read...

It’s 1993. I don’t even remember where I first began playing the Jurassic Park pinball machine, but the sounds are burned into my brain: the roar of a T. rex, the driving score, and the famous words uttered once again: “Welcome…to Jurassic Park.” Decades later, I can play it once again, via Visual Pinball. Video games are as close to reality as they’ve ever been. We can model entire civilizations, even galaxies, in pixels. But there’s something visceral about pinball: the flashing lights, the careening balls, trying to hit targets and ramps in a set amount of time. Pinball demands skill, lightning reflexes, and coordination, all for the chance of an extra ball or even a free game. I started playing around with Visual Pinball more than a decade ago, maybe even two. I stopped, well, because life got in the way. But I recently got the urge to start picking it up again, and you should too, even if you don’t consider yourself a gamer. Why? Because there’s a reason Microsoft built a pinball game into early versions of Windows: We all instinctively get pinball. And Visual Pinball makes it better than ever, all for free. Mark Hachman / Foundry A taste of your childhood Visual Pinball is art, and more than you think. Yes, there are faithful recreations of the tables you played as a kid, but there are entirely new designs, too, all engineered by a dedicated one or two or five people placing each bumper and target and ramp by hand. Visual Pinball has been out since 2000; it’s a free, open-source app that has been continually updated. It’s essentially a pinball table construction set. If you want to play a recreation of a real table, you’ll need a second piece of software, called PinMAME, that essentially serves as the “script” for how the table should operate. I first started fooling around with Visual Pinball more than a decade ago. The biggest change I’ve noticed is that a long time ago, ROMs were kept secret, existing in somewhat of a gray area, legally. The tables are recreations, but the ROMs themselves — plus backglass art and voices — appear to be circulated much more openly, perhaps just to keep the genre alive and well. Again, there’s nothing like playing an actual table, and modern tables like Dungeons & Dragons: The Tyrant’s Eye are much more than just whacking a few silver balls around. Some tables need a bit of adjustment. This Jurassic Park pinball table puts the LCD display way up in the corner, and makes it tiny. Everything else looks and plays great, though.Mark Hachman / Foundry But Visual Pinball is also kind of a club, the kind that’s sort of frustrating to navigate until you’re inside. Although you can try to find Visual Pinball and tables by yourself, the easiest route is to sign up at one of the three main sites: VPforums.org, VPUniverse.com, or VPinHub.com. You’ll have to register to download anything, with (not particularly onerous) limits on how much you can download at a time. I started at VPForums, but the other two have their own appeal. You may find different tables at different sites, as well, depending upon the author. The other thing to know is that Visual Pinball isn’t just a single app; Visual Pinball originated with VP8, but a schism of sorts happened with Visual Pinball 10: Visual Pinball 10 is now called Visual Pinball X (VPX) and the tables and software are incompatible with VP8. Most people play VPX tables, though there are other emulators, like Future Pinball. This is actually what the Jurassic Park table, above, looks like inside Visual Pinball’s schematic mode.Mark Hachman / Foundry Visual Pinball has even added an OpenGL fork with support for Steam VR, so that you can play pinball via Vive or other headsets. You can even build your own pinball cabinets, though that’s a substantially larger investment of time and money. I haven’t been able to find any hardware requirements for Visual Pinball, but chatter from a decade ago claimed that a 4th-gen Intel Core i3 could run all of the tables easily. I used a laptop with an AMD Ryzen AI 300 CPU and its integrated graphics, and that’s all. Tips: How to use Visual Pinball It’s all a little overwhelming, and I confess I wrestled with the Visual Pinball setup for an afternoon or two before I figured it all out again. A single installer, linked below, simplifies this immensely. Half of the tutorials seem like they were written decades ago, and probably were. It’s important to realize that many tables have both a table and a ROM file, and you’ll need to download both. Realizing that will help immensely. If you get in trouble, try these tips: You don’t have to use VPForums to get started, but if you do, make sure you find the necessary files.Mark Hachman / Foundry Download the VPX Installer app from Github. (Windows won’t recognize it, so you’ll have to approve it manually.) That will download and set up most of the files in its own directory. Also download the scripts, samples, and fonts. I tried winging it without them and not everything worked. After you’ve installed VPX, you’ll want to download a table. Look closely at the table entry to see if there’s an associated ROM file. If there is, download the zipped file, and then put the unzipped folder into your ROMs folder. Place the unzipped table inside the Visual Pinball “Tables” directory. Some tables do not have ROM files associated with them. If they don’t, just use the table file. If you download a table, always check to see if you need to download a ROM file, too.Mark Hachman / Foundry While you can launch a table by clicking a table in your tables folder, launching the game using either the VisualPinballX executable or one of the OpenGL derivatives will open up Visual Pinball. Navigate through the menus at the top and change (or learn) the key commands for “inserting coins” (5) and “starting the game” (1) as well as the flippers (SHIFT) and the plunger (ENTER). Visual Pinball also supports “special” keys that reproduce functions in the game, such as the Jurassic Park table’s “smart bomb” or the gun trigger in the Terminator tables. Learn those, too. Playing Visual Pinball is magic But man, once you’ve figured it out, even virtual pinball can be transcendent. It’s easy just to lose yourself in the flow, turning off your brain while you flip balls at targets. Maybe there’s a reason why one of the other paid pinball apps is called Zen Pinball, right? Some of the older tables — Tales of the Arabian Nights, Theatre of Magic — were ones that I discovered as I started playing more physical pinball, but the look and feel has been carefully emulated. I don’t know how you reproduce an animatronic dinosaur that gobbles pinballs, but I’m sure glad they found a way. Visual Pinball is also a gateway drug — what’s that? And what’s that? It’s not hard to download three or four tables at a time, just to see how they play. When you consider that these tables have to be essentially placed and scripted, especially if they’re recreations or new works, it’s incredibly impressive. Each table is at most about 150 megabytes, which isn’t much at all for a modern PC. I also doubt that you’ll have to do all that much adjustment, visually. Most of these tables were coded and uploaded over a decade ago, when PCs were weaker than they are today. Still, all this means is that you can tuck away a bunch of killer tables in a corner of your hard drive, without worrying too much about either the amount of space they’ll take up or the stress they’ll put on your PC. For me, Visual Pinball is nostalgia, a quick break from reality to relive my childhood. More than that, though, it’s just so much damn fun. Read...

Microsoft is currently in the process of updating the Microsoft Account (MSA) sign-in experience across the web, mobile apps, and later Windows. The goal is to make the process more modern, unified, and fit for a passwordless future, according to a post on Microsoft’s blog. By the end of April, most users will be greeted by a new login and registration experience that involves a restructured flow, fewer elements per screen, and better scalability for different screen sizes. Microsoft One of the most significant changes is that Microsoft is now optimizing the entire consumer experience for passwordless sign-ins using passkeys. Whenever a user logs in, they’ll be prompted to create a passkey, which will then be used as the default method when logging in. Microsoft Without a passkey, Microsoft assumes that most people already have an email address and chooses that route by default—something that also makes it easier to reset the account if necessary. (Microsoft really wants you to add a recovery email address to your account.) The revamped login flow has a clear Microsoft focus and aesthetic. The classic logo is placed in the center, and all services share the same background image. Buttons and links will be color-themed to match the product, but the idea is to make it more consistent whether you’re signing in to Xbox, Microsoft 365, or Outlook. The new experience rollout is expected to be completed in April. Read...

It’s rare to find a top-notch gaming laptop with great specs at an affordable price. But it does happen from time to time. Here’s a shining example: the Acer Swift X 14 is on sale at B&H—what was once $1,500 is now just $950. That’s a hefty 37% discount! Equipped with an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H processor with 16 cores, a powerful Nvidia RTX 4060 discrete graphics card, a decent 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM, and a spacious 1TB SSD, this is a more-than-solid configuration that’s perfect for productivity, video editing, PC gaming, streaming Netflix, and browsing the web. Specs like these don’t come cheap, and you’re lucky to find ’em under a grand. And that’s not even including the 14.5-inch OLED display with a crisp 2880×1800 resolution and fast 120Hz refresh rate. OLED panels are beautiful on laptops but they’re normally pricey, hence why this is a great deal. You get vivid colors, high contrast, deep blacks, with a high-resolution screen, for hundreds of dollars off. Get your order in quickly because this Acer Swift X 14 gaming laptop won’t be $950 forever. In fact, this deal ends in just a few days when the month wraps up, but I suspect stock will run out before then because high-end gaming laptops with steep discounts usually do. Save $550 on this Acer laptop with OLED screen and RTX power Buy now at B&H Read...

Of all the PC gaming peripherals, none is as overlooked as the humble mouse pad (or mat). That’s a pity because mouse mats come in a variety of materials which have different speed and maneuverability profiles. Read on to find out which ones are the quickest and which ones the slowest, and why you should really select your gaming mouse mat carefully. Hard mouse mat materials: Made for speed Mouse mats made from hard materials like plastic, stainless steel, wood, aluminum, and glass are the fastest of all of the material types for gaming. These materials provide less friction over their surfaces so they’re ideal for making quick sweeping movements like strafing and spinning around. Hard materials also provide a satisfying tactile feeling that many gamers like, but on the downside their slippery surfaces aren’t so easy to stop or change direction on, so they can provide less precision than some softer materials. They can also cause more discomfort to player hands over time. The fastest of these materials is tempered glass. It’s especially favored by elite gamers looking for an edge in competitive games. To that effect, the surfaces of most tempered glass mouse mats are usually embellished for the smoothest glide. The Razer Atlas mouse mat, for example, features a polished surface which has been etched to within 2 micrometers so that it’ll work optimally with optical mouse sensors. Other hard grade mouse mats considered extremely quick include the SkyPad Glass 3.0 and aluminum Corsair MM600. The Razer Atlas mouse pad made from tempered glass.  Razer Hard mouse mats are also quite durable. Surprisingly that goes for glass mouse mats too despite glass’s reputation for breakage. Tempered glass is mostly scratch and impact resistant. Soft mouse pad materials: Champion precision Soft mouse pads are made from materials like neoprene, rubber, and cloth. Many soft gaming mouse pads fall into a hybrid category, in that they’re comprised of a combination of different materials usually plastic or foam underneath, with cloth covering over the top. These kinds of materials tend to have slightly more friction than hard mouse pads which means they are slightly slower when you move your mouse over their surface. The upside to that, however, is more precise control; you can stop your mouse on a dime, so players find it easier to pull off precision maneuvers and hit targets within a smaller range. That’s the consensus. There are exceptions to the rule where manufacturers have used specialist fabric coverings for their soft mouse pads to make them quicker for pro gaming. The Japanese-made Artisan Raiden mouse pad, for example, has a very un-cloth like fast surface since it’s made out of densely knitted silky polyester. You can also largely overcome any speed differences by altering your mouse’s DPI sensitivity, so having a soft mouse pad is not really any kind of speed handicap. Ultimately, it comes down to your personal preference and what feels best for you. Another upside to soft mouse pads, is that a greater number of gaming mouse sensors will work with those materials. By comparison, only a top-tier list of quite expensive gaming mice usually work flawlessly on glass, so keep that in mind. Soft mouse pads also tend to be more comfortable for your hand. Although cheaper, they do tend to be less durable and are prone to curling of their top layers. They’ll also stain more easily from spills.Some very highly commended “fast” soft mouse pads include the QPAD FX-900 and Puretrak Talent, both with cloth surfaces. In summary If you’re still unsure as to which mouse mat (or pad) material to go for, my advice is to try out a few options to see what works best for you. If you’re going to do that, start with the soft mouse pad options first, since they’re a lot cheaper and you’ll be a lot less out of pocket than if you buy a pro-grade hard gaming mouse mat and find that it’s not a great match. Personally, I get very good results on neoprene mouse pads and find them a good mix of speed, precision, and comfort. Plus, I also really like the fact that they can be made to order with whatever designs I like. Read...

Hacking LLMs has always been more art than science. A new attack on Gemini could change that. Read...