As with my previous review, I looked at the functionality of both the hardware and available software for the Pi – but, restricted to just two pages in the print edition, the Linux User version is sadly lacking in extras like the popular overclocking section.

Nevertheless, I’m confident that the review covers the key features potential buyers – when supply issues are finally sorted – will be looking for, and addresses the questions that Linux User’s readership will likely have.

The review was published on the Linux User & Developer website ahead of its publication in the magazine, rapidly becoming the most-read item on the website and gathering plenty of comments from readers and contributors to the Raspberry Pi’s software base.

Unfortunately, due to impending deadlines on a certain secretive project, there’s no group test from me this month – nor will there be one next month. Once the aforementioned project is out of the way, however, things should be back to normal.

Linux User & Developer Magazine is in shops now, and also available from the Zinio website at a substantial discount.

As with many mags, PC Pro has taken a look at the Raspberry Pi sub-$35 microcomputer, running an in-depth review on its capabilities and specifications.

As part of the review PC Pro used details I had gathered for my coverage on Bit-Tech, including the benchmark results from my pretty exhaustive testing. At some point, I may revisit the benchmarking to get a more thorough idea of the true performance of the Pi – but to do so I will likely need to compile the benchmark code manually to optimise it for the Pi’s ARMv6 processor.

My contribution makes up only a small portion of the review – which is well worth reading, by the way – but it’s always nice to see my name in a new magazine.

PC Pro Issue 213 is in shops now, or can be downloaded from the Zinio website.

The latter, naturally, is rather more interesting: a military contractor, Chamtech claims to have developed a simple kit which allows antennas for almost any frequency to be applied from a spray can. The result: walls, buildings and even trees can be turned into tunable antennas. For the military, it offer the potential to quickly set up field communications bases using whatever is available at the time; for the mobile industry, it promises a solution to the ‘not in my back yard’ attitude some people have to 3G masts.

Chamtech, sadly, is being somewhat cagey on whether it plans to offer the technology for commercial, rather than military, exploitation – but it would be missing a serious opportunity if it didn’t.

STMicro’s announcement of the first voltage-level translator for SD 3.0, by contrast, is both more prosaic and more likely to result in visible improvements in the short term:  boosting read speeds to 50MB/s and capacities to 2TB, the third major revision to the Secure Digital standard is a big one – and one which will start to make itself known in devices over the coming year.

Custom PC Issue 105 is available in shops now, or for digital download via the Zinio website.

Designed to cover the most commonly asked questions – computing performance, graphical performance, software compatibility and suitability as a general purpose PC – the review spans nine pages, and is based on the retail Model B which started shipping to customers at the end of last week.

The section which has proven the most popular is ‘Overclocking,’ a look at whether it’s possible to boost the Broadcom BCM2835 at the heart of the Pi to something above its default 700MHz clockspeed. In short: yes, it is, but by ‘eck it’s risky.

The review, the first to appear on a mainstream site rather than engineering publications allied to production partners Element14 and RS Components, has generated a substantial amount of traffic and comment. Following its publication, the review was re-tweeted by the official @Raspberry_Pi account (56,201 followers at the time of writing,) fellow technology journalist and Gruaniad technology editor Charles Arthur (33,614 followers) and digital trouble-stirrers @YourAnonNews  (569,649 followers.) The review was also linked from the Gruaniad, with a fairly hefty extract, and front-paged on Digg and reddit.

Given the popularity of the Pi, this is far from the last piece I’ll be writing about it. A Linux-oriented review for Imagine Publishing’s Linux User & Developer Magazine is due to appear in the next issue, while pieces in Dennis Publishing’s Custom PC, Micro Mart and on the IT Pro website are planned.

There’s also a secret project in the works – but more about that I cannot say…

Hardware reviews are a very different beast to software: you need to strip the system down, investigate its components, build it back up, install it, test it, benchmark it and build up an informed opinion of precisely how the system works. With something like Synology’s NAS boxes, that’s not too difficult: the company builds its systems to be easy to take apart, and its PR team members are great at getting things back to you when they say they will. With other companies, it’s not so easy…

The group test this month looks at mind-mapping software, a subject close to my heart. When I’m planning large-scale projects, like in-depth features or books, I use mind-mapping software to help lay out the subject matter in a logical manner. There are some real stinkers out there, though, so it’s important to pick the right one to start with – data portability wasn’t at the forefront of anyone’s mind when these packages were being developed!

More details are available over on the Linux User & Developer website.

Both sections of this month’s columns have more a feel of how I want the column to work than last month’s, which was a simple round-up of technologies announced at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES.) Concentrating on just two main technologies allows me to look at things in considerably more depth and, hopefully, provide an informative look at the technology which goes in to mobile devices for Custom PC readers.

Sadly, the timing of the piece could have been better: because the article was written so close to CES, getting in touch with representatives from Liquipel and HzO proved difficult. I was eventually able to get hold of some press materials, but the interviews for which I’d hoped never materialised. Qualcomm and Pixtronix also proved difficult to contact, but for a different reason: as the article was written, Qualcomm announced its intentions to purchase Pixtronix which put paid to any PR activities on either part until the ink was dry on the deal.

Nevertheless, I was – hopefully – able to still produce an interesting piece. At least, nobody’s emailed any death threats yet…

Custom PC issue 104 is in shops now, and is also available on digital newsstand Zinio.

The interview with Eben was, as always, great fun. He’s a busy man, but he’s also a great guy to talk to; never afraid to make his true opinions known, he’s a brilliant interview subject and a scarily clever engineer to boot. He’s also good at giving credit where credit is due, including in his shout-outs to people like fellow Broadcom engineer and creator of the Raspberry Pi Gertboard add-on Gert van Loo.

The group test picks four of the most popular Linux-based project management tools and pits them Gantt-to-Gantt in an attempt to find the one most useful for the majority of people. It was a fairly close-run competition this time round, but sure enough one did raise its head above the others and win the coveted group test winner medal for its efforts.

Finally, the WebConverger review looks at an interesting distribution which aims to make it easy to turn old hardware into a single-use internet kiosk, complete with protections from users and a neat customisation feature. It’s also suitable for digital signage, although as I found during testing it’s not without its issues.

More information is available on the Linux User & Developer website.

Interviewed alongside Bletchley Park Trust’s Kelsey Griffin, we discussed the new exhibition, the fund-raising that led to the purchase of the papers, the personal exhibits of Turing’s on display and the man’s impact on the modern world through his ground-breaking work carried out in secret at the Park during the war.

A recording of the interview has been placed on Audioboo by BBC Surrey, and is available to stream here.

In offices and homes around the world, a war is being fought. There are no explosions, and you won’t hear gunfire, but it’s a pitched battle for control of one of the most precious liquids known to man. The fight isn’t over oil or water but something even more valuable. It’s a conflict for control of the printer ink market.

I know, right? The piece takes an in-depth look at the ink and toner industry, both from the perspective of a printer manufacturer and from that of a compatible cartridge maker. To make sure the piece is as detailed and fair as possible, I sought comment from both sides of the fence. Interestingly, while numerous compatible cartridge makers were interested in talking to me – including the European Toner and Ink Remanufacturers’ Association (ETIRA,) the UK Cartridge Recyclers Association (UKCRA,) Amor Office Supplies, Green Cartridges and Cartridge World – the only printer maker that would talk to me on the subject was HP.

Thankfully, HP’s ink man, Mark Hurren, proved more than capable of fighting his corner. “I wish it had never been called ink,” he told me. “That makes it compared to everyday writing implements, which is unfair because it’s a much more technological product than that.”

The piece covers the growth of refills, the flood of dirt-cheap and intellectual property-infringing clone cartridges from Asia, and the patent issues surrounding recycled cartridges. It also contains some fairly inflammatory comment from Vincent van Dijk, general secretary of ETIRA – including the accusation that not all is as it seems with printer makers’ so-called ‘recycling’ programmes.

Micro Mart Issue 1198 will be on sale until the end of Wednesday next week, so if you want to find out more I suggest you take a trip to the newsagents sharpish.

Despite being referred to as a writer for ComputerWorld a couple of times – for the record I’ve never written for ComputerWorld, although the publication has used extracts of my articles from other sites and publications in its stories – it went pretty well.

My section of the show is reproduced here, in MP3 format: Talk Radio Europe – Mark Curry, ‘Curry for Breakfast’ 20120302.