Purchasing new hardware, software or services is a big deal for many schools, so you want to make sure you’re getting the most from your investment. Many software publishers, hardware manufacturers and technology solution providers run their own workshops, demonstrations and seminars at Bett, not just to showcase their products but to help schools get more out of them.The great thing about Bett is that it puts so many products under the same roof – albeit the roof of one gigantic hall. If you’re looking to buy new laptops for your classroom, buy a projector or invest in a new classroom management system, then you can take a good look at all the candidates, talk to the people behind them, and work out which is the best fit for your school.Bett is now a major date for the biggest names in technology, and that means you can always expect announcements at the show. Microsoft, Hewlett Packard and Google are all likely to announce new products or initiatives at Bett 2015, giving visitors the chance to hear about them – and even get a sneak peak – first.

Bett will be full of companies and products that you’ve heard of, but also companies and products that you may know nothing about. One of these might solve a problem your school is struggling with, change the way you use technology, or give you new ways to teach literacy, science, computing or anything else. Take the time to explore Bett properly, and you never know what you’ll find in the next aisle or around the next corner.Open-source software TrueCrypt offers various options for encrypting all or part of a hard disk or USB drive. The software renders sensitive files unreadable without the key, and lets you drop them into an encrypted "locker” within the drive. However, some functions will take up considerable room on your PC, and the encryption process can be time-consuming.If you’re on the Pro or Enterprise editions of Windows 8, Microsoft offers a full-disk encryption feature, BitLocker. As with TrueCrypt, BitLocker protects your files by encrypting whole volumes, using 128-bit or 256-bit encryption. Activate the feature through the control panel’s security settings – but you’ll need to make sure your drive has two NTFS partitions to meet BitLocker’s requirements. BitLocker also comes with the Ultimate and Enterprise editions of Vista and Windows 7.

Facebook seems to change its privacy terms on a near-weekly basis, making it easy to miss amendments and not realise how your data is displayed and shared on social networks. If you have a spare hour, it’s wise to double-check all is as it should be. In Facebook, click the settings icon in the top-right corner and go through each one in the list. To see what other people can see on your page, click the lock icon and select "who can see my stuff”.This year, Twitter added a tracking system that follows you around the web, in order to display targeted advertising. To turn it off, go to Settings, and in the Security And Privacy panel, untick the box next to "Promoted content”.In both services, it’s worth double-checking which apps you have enabled, and switching off any unnecessary ones; you may not be using them anymore, but they can still harvest your data. For other services, rinse and repeat – and hope their privacy settings aren’t updated the following day.

If there’s an old desktop PC or laptop gathering dust in the loft, then why not transform it into a fully functioning NAS appliance with FreeNAS? If you fancy streaming movies, music and photos, or just want to keep data backed up over a home network, this can save you a packet over dedicated devices.Don’t mistake this for the cheap and cheerful option: FreeNAS is a powerful, open-source NAS operating system that uses the same secure ZFS file system employed by high-end business NAS appliances. Installation isn’t too tricky: simply download the installation image from the website (there are both 32-bit and 64-bit versions), write the image to a spare 2GB USB flash drive, and boot the laptop or desktop PC from it.

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Since FreeNAS runs directly from the flash drive, all the disk space in the host PC is used for storage purposes. Make sure the PC is connected to your home network, direct your browser towards the device’s web address, and use FreeNAS’ simple web interface to complete the setup. Fill an old desktop PC with spare hard disks, and you can build up a secure, speedy NAS for peanuts.3D design may seem daunting, but it’s a rich and rewarding hobby, and you don’t need to shell out a penny to get started. Two popular options are the open-source Blender project and SketchUp, a commercial package that’s available in a free beginner edition called SketchUp Make.Asus made a clear statement of intent at CES this year: it wants to own the 2-in-1 category of tablets, which it popularised with its original Transformer series almost four years ago. Now comes the Transformer Book Chi, a showcase for Intel’s all-new Core M processors.

And, as a sign of its desire for world domination, Asus didn’t just announce one Transformer Book Chi: it gave us three. There’s the T90 Chi with a 8.9in screen, the 10.1in T100 Chi and the subject of this hands-on review, the 12.5in T300 Chi. Asus chairman Jonney Shih made no secret of which product it wants the top-end Chi to be compared to either, with numerous mentions of the MacBook Air. The Chi, he emphasised, has almost double the number of pixels per inch, a greater colour gamut and superior performance.That performance comes thanks to Intel’s Core M processor: either the 800MHz Core M 5Y10, which Asus describes as having similar performance to a Core i3, or the 1.2GHz M 5Y71, which pushes it up to Core i5 levels. Naturally, I wasn’t able to put such claims to the test; that will have to wait until we get a T300 Chi into the PC Pro labs. But it’s not really the performance that’s key, it’s the astonishingly slim chassis design that it affords. I’ve never held a 12.5in tablet that feels as well balanced in the hand, and with a weight of 720g and 7.6mm thickness it’s hard to criticise the design. It looks and feels great.

Once you add the dock the weight increases to 1.42kg, which is still impressive for a 12.5in laptop; that’s arguably the biggest achievement Asus has made here.The slimness does mean there isn’t a massive battery inside, but Asus claims a respectable battery life of up to eight hours. It would have been nice to see a little more. Don’t expect any extra via the keyboard, either, because this is a straightforward Bluetooth affair.The other important thing to note about the keyboard: it’s full size, which makes a massive difference when compared to its smaller siblings. Whereas I struggled to type on both the T90 and T100 Chi due to the tiny gaps between the keys, I had no such problems with the T300 Chi.It's helped by a decent feel to the keys themselves. You don't get much travel, but it doesn't suffer from the squishy, cheap resistance we sometimes see on other detachable keyboards (and which both the T90 and T100 suffer from to an extent).

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Asus takes a fuss-free approach to slotting the screen into the keyboard: no fiddly catches, no electronic connections you need to be aware of, it just slides into position. Despite this, it feels secure: I held it upside down from the top of the screen, and it stayed quite happily in place.When the lid is closed it again feels well protected. I wouldn't have any worries about slipping this into my rucksack (Asus had, it turns out, a different view).It's well made in general too. For example, there's very little flex on the lid and no showthrough on the screen when you press down with your fingers on the back.Which brings me to one of the T300 Chi’s biggest highights: its screen. To put it simply, this is eye-poppingly bright. The samples on show all used the WQHD screen with a 2,560 x 1,440 resolution, but note that cheaper versions of the T300 Chi will include a Full HD 1,920 x 1,080 screen.Both panels use IPS technology, though, so you can expect strong colours (Asus claims 40% greater gamut than the MacBook Air, and as the Air's display covers a mediocre 60% of the sRGB gamut we can make a wild guess that Asus is claiming 100% sRGB coverage for the T300) and viewing angles are as wide as we'd expect. This latter trait is a good thing, too, because one of the drawbacks of the Chi’s straightforward docking procedure is a limited hinge that gives a maximum 125 degrees – it’s just enough, but I’d have liked a little more flexibility.http://www.batteries-pc.com

Other specs to note: it includes a 128GB SSD, while the supplied RAM will either be 4GB or 8GB. It's also a little disappointing to note that the Wi-Fi is 802.11n rather than 802.11ac; I asked the product manager why, and he said they were still testing 802.11ac with this particular chassis design. He hopes later iterations, perhaps this year, will incorporate the faster, more reliable standard.So I have niggly criticisms, but this doesn’t compromise my positive feelings for the Transformer Book T300 Chi. It’s a clever design, packs all the power most people need, and doesn’t make any major compromises as either a laptop or a tablet (unless you consider its dependence on Windows 8.1 a compromise).What’s more, the price appears to be right. I say "appears” because right now we only have US pricing, but we know it will start at $699 and that a higher-spec version with the super-high resolution screen and a faster processor will cost $849. Asus promises a February launch, so prices and UK availability should become clear shortly.

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