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This week’s been Elite launch week on Tech & Gadgets - and it’s quite nice to have a theme to write around once in a while - especially bearing in mind that I will be launching a dedicated gaming channel in the next couple of months.

Of course, the downside to doing anything that’s Microsoft is that I work for is essentially Microsoft so I’m inevitably going to come off as biased.

I suppose that’s par for the course and it’s something I’ve come to accept since I started here - but tomorrow sees my take on the Elite (loved it - took a good console and made it better) which means that the whole thing starts again.

I honestly adore the PlayStation 3 - and would even more if it had any games that were generally world class - but the Xbox DOES have those games, quite frankly, and the comparative lineups over the next few must have Sony quaking in their boots.

Everyone knows that Halo 3 has been held up as the likely ‘killer app’ for the Xbox 360 pretty much since its launch back in the late stages of 2005, but with Biochock out this week, PGR4 on its way and GTA 4 multi format the PS3 has its work cut out.

Do I think that an HD DVD drive should have been included? Actually, not really. Considering the detrimental effect the Blu-ray drive in the PS3 had and the continuing rows over the format wars, I think lumbering a console with one or the other of the formats is inviting the chance of putting a millstone round its neck.

I WOULD have liked two controllers with the Elite, and I WOULD have liked a game included - but they weren’t.

The fact is that the console wars are far from over but, in the meantime, the split audience is probably not good for the industry. At Leipzigs’s games convention Silicon Knights founder Denis Dyack said: “Nintendo has come out of the gate much faster than everyone anticipated, but how about longevity? The 360 is doing well in America, but not so well in Japan. The PS3 is off to a really slow start but they have a really good brand name… So the truth is, no one knows.

I was flicking through Edge’s ’get into games’ supplement today, which was a guide to working in the industry and happened upon an interview with Rob Yescombe who is a screenwriter at Free Radical.

As you’d expect with Edge it’s a good article with the right questions asked, but one of the bits at the end really intrigued me.

Yescombe says: ‘…we’ve seen some great ‘Hollywood screenwriters’ have a go at writing a game, but without an understanding of how games and interactivity actually function they’re just trying to crowbar something rigid into something flexible.

“It might get by, but it won’t be the better for it.”

The reason I found this interesting is because, as a writer (of sorts), the whole concept of writing a computer game is something that actively appeals to me. The very interactivity that might well get in the way of a movie scriptwriter coming up with the brilliant gaming storyline is also the most enticing thing about game scripting.

For me, the story within the game can be a massive element of what makes it enjoyable. I’ll pick out immediate contrasting examples. The original Half Life versus Far Cry - both games I played through and enjoyed, but the former is - for me - perhaps the greatest gaming experience of all time (in its era) and the other is a great concept that genuinely disappointed me with its predictable descent into mutants and corridors.

At face value the two games share a lot. Single man helped along by occasional others railing against other humans and powerful non-humans. But whereas Half Life’s use of scripted events and stunning set pieces drew you in, Far Cry’s actually began to push me away. The lack of a storyline stopped me suspending my sense of disbelief.

I’m probably going to write a longer article about this very topic in the next month or so. But for me, plot is as vital as graphics and gameplay in deciding a game’s longevity and status and had been for a long time.

Let’s be honest, the current generation of consoles is barely out of nappies, but already people are beginning to ask the question: what next for consoles?

There have been some naïve suggestions that the current crop (probably excluding Nintendo’s Wii) have provided too much capacity for the poor old game developers to fill, but as anyone with half an interest in these things will tell you, gimmicks are all very well but people want power!

Making assumptions about technology is always a dangerous game, but there are some predictions that you can make about the direction gaming is taking. All three of the big boys – Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and the Wii – are machines built to provide online play, and in the case of the former two – consoles are also doubling as multimedia hubs.

But if you were building a next generation super-gamer, what would you be including? We’ve stuck on our thinking caps and come up with our list, and as ever we’d love to see your suggestions for the kind of machine that would grace your living room.

The iPhone is just a cool toy. There’s no 3G in this version. It costs £269 (and that’s just for starters) and the 2MP camera is hardly high-tech.

The phone is a second generation mobile phone in a third generation market… Many of the iPhone features are wants not needs. It whets consumers’ appetites, rather than satisfies their hunger.”

All good points. But let’s not overstate the 3G issue. Nokia packs 3G plus Wi-Fi into its N95 and, should you use either on a regular basis, you’ll typically not get much more than a day’s usage out of the phone. Many users have found that they need to charge their N95s up every night. This is hardly ideal for a so-called smartphone.

She’s dead right about the camera though.

The very fact that the iPhone is a ‘jack-of-all-trades’ phone means (if we adhere to the old saying) that’s going to be ‘master of none’. As we’ve written before, you can think of the iPhone as a phone with a built-in iPod. Or you can view it as a sexy, connected PDA (or Internet Tablet), that you can also make calls with.

The iPhone could be part of an Apple strategy that embraces the ‘connected home’ or ‘digital home’.

And while Carphone Warehouse expects to sell 10,000 iPhones on Friday, there might not be the mad rush to buy one that we witnessed in the US.

Apple will be reaching out to mainstream, picky mobile users who want full content portability rather than a partial service.

Unfortunately, what’s necessary for startup is different for different PC’s. Here’s what I do for my PC and for friends… Get a list of the startup programs on your PC from msconfig (the Startup tab). Jot down all the names (make sure you spell them properly). Then go to:

www.castlecops.com/StartupList.html. If you scroll down the page a little, you’ll see a Search field. Key in the name of one of the programs on your startup list, and click on the Search button. Scroll down the resulting page, then click on the program link that it found. This will bring up a page that will tell you what the program does, and whether it is necessary. You’ll still have to make some decisions (like is that Adobe speed loader really necessary), but it will at least give you some information to make an informed decision.

Probably the best suggestion was already made. Msconfig, to view and change apps that open at starrtup.  This can really bog your system down at startup.  Also it never hurts to upgrade the RAM, I have Vista and it only takes me about 45 seconds to boot up.  Thanks mostly to the amount of RAM I have.

Mine loads up real slow , it has 512 mb of ram , I don’t want to tinker with it because I can end up with less than desirable results considering that it is the main computer in the house and supports another  with a shared internet connection, and is burdened by all the firewall /antivirus soft ware needed in today’s environment, I am considering getting a wireless router and out fitting all ours with wireless cards but have had a lot of trouble trying to use conventional cable routers, the drawback is the security issues created by the wireless system.

How long does your PC take to start up?” Our desktop, an HP Pavilion m7463w Media Center PC, 3GigRAM, has been on 24/7 since we bought it last year in May 2006. AVG-free, SpywareBlaster, Spybot-Search&Destroy, ZoneAlarm, AdAware SE and Windows Defender are all loaded and run in the background. No problems, so far. We do disable the wireless connection when the PC is not being used for ‘net access.

We agree that Norton & McAfee are total system hogs and should be avoided. Windows Defender is all you need for spyware (it does work very well actually) and it doesn’t seem to slow down my machine at all. For virus and worm protection, there is a program called Avast that is totally free for home use. I discovered it when I once had a virus that no other app would detect. Avast monitors email, web browsing, P2P file sharing, IM and general network access and yet starts quickly and has a minimal impact on system performance. You just have to re-register it every 6 months or so (for free) by confirming your name and e-mail address with them.

Ditch McAfee & Norton and you will free up several minutes each morning, and will also free up minutes during your day because the apps mentioned above won’t bog down your system.

Ok…so HOW do I prevent certain programs from autoloading? We’ve stated exacly how to create a new start up point but then forget to mention how to stop those auto load programs from loading.

Those with slower processor speeds running 98 take longer or about the same time as those running ME or XP with 2 to 10 times faster processor speed and similar quantity of memory.

If you seldom remove cookies and temp files or defrags the hard drive, you’ll have another thing coming.  My making sure those duties got done didn’t help.

Removing a few programs from the start menu which helped a little bit.

I’m hesitant to remove any more lest I mess up the PC so we can’t get it started. I’m not smart enough to know what is essential for starting the PC safely and protecting it from a virus and so on.

I’ve asked a few forums about deleting unnecessary programs from the start menu. They all agreed that should help. But, would not clarify what is absolutely essential for me.

So if one of you out there doesn’t mind telling me what would be considered essential, I sure would appreciate it.

Anyone who can express the experience of waiting for an OS to boot when faced with a monumental work day by drolly saying “I don’t know about you, but I love spending the first 10 minutes of every workday watching Windows start up. It’s like a Zen thing.” will forever be a hero of mine.

Here (in addition to the above stated) is my main gripe: I download hundreds of pages to some obscure, weirdly-named temporary file every day and my PC winds up more clogged than my little nosey during a bad bout of the flu.

But on the other hand, why turn off your computer?  Leave on 24/7 and then you won’t have that problem.  On the few occasions I do reboot due to an installation, etc., it takes no more than 30 sec. or so.  Most of this time is due to McAfees Security Center.  It needs to start so many processes…

Which applications should you leave checked so that they continue to autoload? First and foremost, you don’t want to operate without your antivirus, firewall, and other security programs.

Yes, these programs slow your PC’s boot-up and shutdown, and they can even cause conflicts, but the cost of not having them running is too high to bear.

For any other program in the list, use your judgment. Don’t ask yourself “Is it a good program?” but “Does it need to be on all the time?” For instance, I unchecked Adobe Elements’ Photo Downloader, a program that I use whenever I download photos from my camera, because it serves no purpose when I’m not downloading photos. On the other hand, I allow Copernic Desktop Search to autoload because it needs to index my data files continually.

After unchecking the programs that you don’t need to autoload at startup, click OK and reboot. Windows will load with a very wordy message box that might look like an error message. Just check Don’t show this message or launch the System Configuration Utility when Windows starts (the wording is slightly different in Vista) at the bottom of the dialog box and click OK.

I don’t know about you, but I love spending the first 10 minutes of every workday watching Windows start up. It’s like a Zen thing. If you’d rather get right to work, though, the following tips should help you make Windows start much more quickly.

A typical PC loads a lot of programs every time it starts. Each of the icons in your system tray (the area near your clock) represents an auto-start application. And there are probably other programs on your machine that start automatically but don’t make their presence known so easily. Each autoloading app slows your boot time–a little or a lot. And because most of them continue to run in the background, they rob you of a little performance.

Before you start eliminating autoloaders, though, make sure you can undo your changes. In Windows XP, Select Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, System Restore. Select Create a restore point, click Next, call your restore point something like before removing autoloaders, and choose Create. Click Close once you’ve created the restore point.

In Windows Vista, select Start, Control Panel, System. Under ‘Tasks’ on the right side of the window, click System Protection. In the System Properties box that comes up, click Create at the bottom of the window.

XP users should now select Start, Run, type msconfig, and press <Enter>. (In Vista, select Start, type msconfig into the Search box, and press <Enter>.) Click the Startup tab, and you’ll see a list of all your autoloading programs, each with a check box. Uncheck an item, and it will no longer load at startup.