PC Magazine April 11 2006 - The Home of the Barries

www.pcmag.com April 11, 2006 

SMARTER HDTV 

SHOPPING 

Secrets 

From the 

Pros 

RAZR 

REMIX 

SLVR Phone 

Adds iTunes 

UTILITY SUPERGUIDE 

Windows 

Power Tools 

87 Quick Ways to Make Your PC 

Faster, Smarter, 

& More Fun 

EASY PROJECT 

Convert that Spare PC into a Backup Server…for Free! 

U.S. $5.99 / CAN. $7.99 / U.K. £ 4.00

COVER: PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY MICHAEL KENNEY 

www.pcmag.com 

First Looks 

26 Low-Cost LCD TVs 

• Proview RX-326 

• Vizio L32 

• Westinghouse LTV-32w1 

28 Cell Phones 

• T-Mobile SDA 

• T-Mobile MDA 

• Motorola SLVR L7 K 

• Cingular 2125 

41 Digital Cameras 

• Fuji FinePix E900 

• Pentax *ist DS2 

• Canon PowerShot SD450 

44 MP3 Players 

• Creative Zen MicroPhoto 

46 Speakers 

• Saitek A-250 K 

• i.Sound Max 

48 Storage 

• Iomega XL Desktop 

Hard Drive 

• Maxtor OneTouch III 

Turbo (1 TB) 

50 Desktops 

• Velocity Micro Vision GX K 

52 Printers 

• Kodak EasyShare 

Photo Printer 500 

• Konica Minolta 

PagePro 1400W 

54 Scanners 

• Visioneer Strobe XP300 

• HP Scanjet 4890 Photo Scanner 

56 Laptops 

• Toshiba Satellite A105-S361 

58 Photo-Sharing Tools 

• AOL Pictures 

• BubbleShare (beta) 

• FilmLoop (beta) 

• Phanfare 

• SnapJot (beta) 

Small Business 

60 Displays 

• HP LP2065 K 

• NEC MultiSync 90GX2 

• Lenovo ThinkVision L201p 

61 John Dickinson on Small Business 

62 Software 

• QuickBooks Online Edition 

• Laplink PCdefense 

65 VoIP 

• IP Telephony DVX-1000 K 

69 What to Buy 

• The best products in one place. 

CONTENTS 

APRIL 11, 2006 • VOL. 25 NO. 6 

COVER STORY 

96 

14th Annual 

Utility Superguide 

SPEED! 

POWER! 

LOOKS! 

FUN! 

When Windows falls short, 

photos blur, networks 

leak, audio crackles, and 

generally, nothing seems to 

be working just right, what 

you need is a good 

utility—or, rather, 87 

of them. Here are 

some of the 

favorites of our 

PC Magazine experts. 

ON THE COVER 

Smarter HDTV 

Shopping page 26 

RAZR Remix page 32 

Easy Project 

page 120 

Utility Superguide 

page 96 

www.pcmag.com APRIL 11, 2006 PC MAGAZINE 7 

�

10 

BUILD IT 

120 A DIY BACKUP 

SERVER 

Don’t throw out your old tower PC! 

Use it as the core of a data server to 

back up your new machine or network. 

We let you know what hardware 

and software you’ll need—and how to 

put it all together. 

Cars 

64 Mercedes Benz S550 

Pioneer AVIC-N2 

OnStar Turn-By-Turn Navigation 

65 Bill Howard 

Solutions 

134 The Connected Traveler: 

Silicon Alley; hacker conventions; 

free Wi-Fi in many parks, 

hotels, and coffee shops. 

135 Ask Loyd: Choosing a digital 

projector; graphics card compatibility; 

are more megapixels 

necessarily better? 

136 Ask Neil: Control displayed text 

size with a mouse; clear unread 

messages in Windows XP; colorcode 

Outlook messages. 

137 Security Watch: Is your laptop 

connecting to unsavory Wi-Fi 

networks on the sly? 

138 SMB Boot Camp: Microsoft Exchange 

isn’t the only option for 

workplace collaboration. 

141 Vista Revealed: Will Windows 

regain our trust? 

142 Software Solutions: Multipage 

scanning and markup made easy. 

PC MAGAZINE APRIL 11, 2006 www.pcmag.com 

REAL-WORLD TESTING 

130 $900 LCDs 

Braving everyday consumer hassles, 

we left our sanitized lab world 

and vendor-supplied test models in 

a search for retail fl at-screen LCD 

bargains. Here’s what we thought 

of the TVs—and the stores. 

Pipeline 

21 Download hi-def movies, fast. 

Put online dates to the test. 

Pleo, the infant dinosaur robot. 

The surge in Net searches. 

Future Watch 

22 Making nanoscale movies; Is 

that a projector in your iPod? 

Opinions 

13 Jim Louderback 

17 Michael J. Miller: 

Forward Thinking 

89 John C. Dvorak 

91 John C. Dvorak’s Inside Track 

93 Bill Machrone 

Gaming + Culture 

156 Digital game delivery: It’s 

not just for pirates. 

159 Gearlog: Attention Harley 

fans! Meet the motorcycle PC. 

Also in This Issue 

71 Feedback 

160 Backspace 

Online 

www.pcmag.com 

BOOK EXCERPT 

Extend Your Networks 

Looking to grow your home or 

small-offi ce network? Our latest 

book excerpt shows you exactly 

how to extend your network to new 

machines and more rooms. 

(go.pcmag.com/ 

extendyournetwork) 

REVIEW ROUNDUPS 

Product comparisons to help you 

decide! Coming soon: 

• LCD TVs under $1,000 

• The best multimedia desktops 

• Low-cost photo printers 

• iTunes and Google vie for video 

(go.pcmag.com/roundups) 

TOOLS YOU CAN USE 

Discussions: Log on and participate! 

(discuss.pcmag.com) 

Downloads: Check out our indexed 

list of utilities from A to Z. 

(www.pcmag.com/utilities) 

EXCLUSIVE COLUMNS 

DVORAK ONLINE 

K Each Monday, 

John C. Dvorak gives 

you his take on 

what’s happening in 

high tech today. Visit 

go.pcmag.com/dvorak. 

ULANOFF ONLINE 

K And each Wednesday, 

Lance Ulanoff puts his 

own unique spin on 

technology. Visit 

go.pcmag.com/ulanoff. 

Coming up: 

• The 10,000-rpm scenic drive 

• Putting WASD into top gear 

• SLI vs. CrossFire: Three motherboards 

for the Athlon 64 

(www.extremetech.com)

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Jim Louderback 

EDITOR, REVIEWS Lance Ulanoff 

EDITOR, TECHNOLOGY Ben Z. Gottesman 

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER (ONLINE) Robyn Peterson 

EXECUTIVE EDITORS Stephanie Chang, Carol L. Gonsher, 

Vicki B. Jacobson (Online), Jeremy A. Kaplan 

ART DIRECTOR Richard J. Demler 

MANAGING EDITOR Paul B. Ross 

www.pcmag.com 

REVIEWS 

SENIOR EDITORS Dan Costa (Consumer Electronics), Jennifer DeFeo (Hardware), 

Carol Mangis (Cars), Sebastian Rupley (West Coast, Pipeline), Sharon Terdeman 

(Software/Web/Security) 

LEAD ANALYSTS Cisco Cheng, Robert Heron, Davis D. Janowski, Oliver Kaven, Mike Kobrin, 

Neil J. Rubenking, Joel Santo Domingo, Sascha Segan, M. David Stone, Terry Sullivan 

REVIEWS EDITORS Kyle Monson (Software/Web/Security), Laarni Almendrala Ragaza 

(Consumer Electronics), Eric Rhey (Hardware) 

WEB PRODUCERS Rachel B. Florman, Molly K. McLaughlin, Jen Trolio 

PRODUCT DATABASE MANAGER Gina Suk COMMERCE PRODUCER Arielle Rochette 

PRODUCT REVIEW COORDINATOR Philip-James Jacobowitz 

INVENTORY CONTROL COORDINATOR Nicole Graham 

FEATURES 

FEATURES EDITORS Sean Carroll, Dan Evans, Sarah Pike 

SENIOR WRITER Cade Metz STAFF EDITOR Tony Hoffman 

ART 

SENIOR ASSOCIATE ART DIRECTOR Michael St. George ASSOCIATE ART DIRECTOR Liana Zamora 

ASSISTANT ART DIRECTOR Aaron Able GRAPHICS DIRECTOR David Foster 

STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Scott Schedivy 

PRODUCTION 

ASSOCIATE MANAGING EDITOR Michal Dluginski PRODUCTION MANAGER Jennifer Murray 

COPY CHIEF Elizabeth A. Parry COPY EDITORS Gary Berline, Ann Ovodow, Steven Wishnia 

ONLINE 

SENIOR PRODUCER Yun-San Tsai PRODUCER Mark Lamorgese 

ASSISTANT PRODUCER Whitney A. Reynolds PRODUCTION ARTIST Erin Simon 

NEWS EDITOR Mark Hachman NEWS REPORTER Bary Alyssa Johnson 

ASSISTANT EDITOR Jennifer L. DeLeo 

UTILITY PROGRAM MANAGER Tim Smith COMMUNITY MANAGER Jim Lynch 

EDITORIAL COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER Anita Anthony 

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Helen Bradley, John Clyman, Richard V. Dragan, Craig Ellison, 

John R. Delaney, John C. Dvorak, Galen Fott, Bill Howard, Don Labriola, Bill Machrone, 

Ed Mendelson, Jan Ozer, Larry Seltzer, Don Willmott 

INTERNS Veronica DeLeon, Nathan Edwards 

CORPORATE PRODUCTION 

ASSISTANT PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Ivis Fundichely 

PRODUCTION MANAGER Michelle Chizmadia TRAFFIC MANAGER Amanda Allensworth 

CHIEF CONTENT OFFICER Michael J. Miller 

THE INDEPENDENT GUIDE 

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� 

JIM LOUDERBACK 

The DIY Deathwatch: 

Long Live DIY 

THERE’S NOTHING LIKE THE 

satisfaction of building something yourself. 

That’s why we include a DIY project 

in every issue of PC Magazine. 

So why does it seem like everyone from 

Microsoft to Cable Labs wants to snuff out 

the build-it revolution? A range of new capabilities 

are coming to PCs, but there’s no 

place at the table for you and me. 

Let’s start with Microsoft. Windows XP 

Media Center Edition’s been out for years, but you still can’t 

(offi cially, at least) build it into your own PC. I’ve tried and 

tried to get a boxed copy, but Microsoft refuses to comply, 

saying it’s only for OEMs, because of the variable “quality of 

experience.” That’s a red herring. Any competent PC builder 

will deliver a better experience than the econo-boxes from 

Dell or HP will, especially using new HD tuners from ADS 

and others. Nero’s upcoming Media Center competitor has 

me salivating, but there’s no reason for Microsoft’s reticence. 

Next up: CableCard. The big buzz at this year’s Consumer 

Electronics Show was how Windows Vista will support the 

cable industry’s standard DRM device—the CableCard. This 

PCMCIA-style smart card validates your cable TV subscription 

and authorizes your hardware to decode and display 

digital TV, both SD and HD. It’s a leap forward, because the 

PC can replace those brain-dead digital set-top boxes to provide 

DVR functionality (such as recording HBO and ESPN 

HD)—but it’ll work only on “certifi ed” PCs, authorized by the 

cable industry’s tech cops at CableLabs. You’ll be able to buy a 

CableCard-equipped Dell, but not build your own. And what 

happens if you decide to upgrade that Dell? Will that “decertify” 

your PC? I smell a big mess, and again the DIY guy loses. 

Next problem: HDCP. Even if you could build your own 

CableCard-enabled PC, you’d still need a brand new monitor 

and graphics card. Even if you only want to watch Blu-ray or 

HD-DVD movies, your current hardware is inadequate. Almost 

every monitor and graphics card sold today doesn’t fully 

support the HDCP DRM used to protect those video streams. 

I could go on, but you get the point. The industry (and I 

must admit, PC Magazine) keeps hyping this wonderful 

high-defi nition media world. But the draconian constraints 

on actually recording and viewing all this content—let alone 

streaming it around your house—spell doom. Forget mashups, 

case mods, and custom systems. Go vanilla or go home. 

New technology success starts with you, PC Magazine’s 

readers. You adopt it early, work out the bugs, and lord it over 

your friends—who end up buying it for themselves. But not 

this time—and that spells failure for CableCard on PCs, highdefi 

nition DVDs, and even the PC as a home media hub. CableCard 

is a sham. HDCP will kill HD content. Instead, we’ll 

be forced to watch Gilligan’s Island reruns on our iPods. 

MORE ON THE WEB: You can contact Jim Louderback at 

Jim_Louderback@ziffdavis.com. For more of his columns, go to 

go.pcmag.com/louderback. 

www.pcmag.com APRIL 11, 2006 PC MAGAZINE 13

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� 

14 PC MAGAZINE APRIL 11, 2006 www.pcmag.com 

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�

ILLUSTRATION BY ROBERT NEUBECKER Forward 

Why We Need a Neutral Net 

We take for granted the concept of Internet neutrality, 

the idea that your broadband connection 

will wing you to any Web site at a pace limited 

only by the speed of the network. I can only imagine 

the tangled mess the Web would be if every 

site had to cut a deal with all the different broadband 

providers. Yet the current system in which 

you get whatever information you 

want as fast as your connection 

can deliver it is under attack on 

several fronts. 

In our current system, end-users 

pay for Internet service, and 

Web sites pay for Web hosting 

and incoming connections 

(but not for delivering data). 

This system has worked so 

far, but in recent months, 

executives of several large 

telco ISPs have suggested 

that companies delivering 

information over the 

telco infrastructure—say 

Google—should pay for that privilege. And if the 

information being delivered is bandwidth-consuming 

video clips and phone calls, they should 

pay even more. 

What’s behind this strategy? The phone companies 

are worried that Voice over IP services such 

as Skype and Vonage threaten their businesses. 

And in the long run, video over IP could threaten 

cable TV providers as well. 

In most cases, I agree with the free-market 

argument, which says companies should make 

Paying for Faster E-Mail Delivery 

One area where we agree that all content is not created 

equal is e-mail. Nearly all ISPs use software 

to stop spam or at least attempt to minimize it. But 

this too is changing. The idea of companies paying 

for the privilege of sending e-mail as a way to expedite 

bulk mail and distinguish it from spam has 

gotten attention recently. AOL and Yahoo!, two of 

the world’s biggest e-mail account providers, are 

telling their biggest mailers that for 0.25 cents per 

MICHAEL J. MILLER 

Thinking 

deals that are in their best interest and then let 

consumers choose the services they want. Internet 

access is different, though, because your 

choice of broadband providers is often very limited. 

In most markets, broadband service is either 

a monopoly or a duopoly. Your options are your 

phone or cable company, which use lines and 

rights-of-way granted to them as 

monopolies. These companies 

have argued strongly that they 

shouldn’t be required to make 

their infrastructures available 

to competing providers. 

I argue just as strongly 

that Internet lines should 

remain open to all data, and 

that data should be allowed 

to travel as fast as the connection 

speed permits. The 

alternative that some of the 

telcos are suggesting is untenable. 

In their scenario, I would 

get to some Web sites quickly and 

to others slowly—depending on which ones my ISP 

has brokered a deal with. 

The good news is that so far, the Net has for 

the most part remained open and neutral. But 

concerns about ISPs changing the playing field 

prompted Congress to hold hearings on the topic 

in February. It also spurred some senators to talk 

about introducing legislation to preserve the Net’s 

neutrality. The big ISPs will fi ght any such legislation. 

If you care about an open Internet, let your 

Congresspeople know. 

piece, they’ll deliver the mail faster than usual. 

Both are implementing a system from Goodmail 

that enables fast delivery for a fee. 

AOL and Yahoo! claim they are doing this for 

mostly altruistic reasons, to separate legitimate 

mail from junk and thus cut down on spam. We 

already have solutions designed to identify legitimate 

senders, such as Return Path’s Bonded Sender 

Program, but they haven’t been widely deployed. 

The telcos’ 

alternative is 

untenable. I would 

get to some Web 

sites quickly and 

to others slowly. 

K 


X1 


A paid e-mail system has many benefi ts. It would 

force companies to be more careful with their 

bulk-mail lists, which might decrease the amount 

of mail we get. And it very likely would reduce 

phishing—mail that claims to come from a legit 

company but really comes from someone trying to 

steal your account information or passwords. 

The mail companies like the concept of paid 

mail because they could earn lots of money from email 

senders if this practice were widely adopted. 

E-mail marketing was an $885 million business in 

2005, according to Jupiter Research. 

On the other hand, a paid mail system would 

Recommended Software and Other Odds and Ends 

Starting next issue, my column will be a single 

page, and I’ll be covering tech news and analysis 

on my blog (blog.pcmag.com/miller). So while I 

have the chance, I want to mention some underappreciated 

products. 

Adobe Photoshop is a truly wonderful product, 

but if you’re an artist or just want to touch up your 

digital pictures, you should also check out Corel 

Painter Essentials 3. It’s a lot of fun, and it lets you 

COREL PAINTER ESSENTIALS 3 

Forward Thinking 

MICHAEL J. MILLER 

also affect the regular mail. If paid mailings are really 

faster than unpaid mail, would these services 

slow delivery of unpaid messages? That would 

risk alienating people accustomed to mail arriving 

nearly instantaneously. But will bulk-mail marketers 

pay to send mail if it isn’t delivered any faster? 

For now, all the mail companies say that regular 

mail will go through at its usual speed and that all 

mail is still subject to spam fi lters. 

I’ll accept some spam in order to keep a truly 

open system. And I suspect that most Internet users 

feel the same way. We simply don’t want to lose 

the free e-mail system. 

do some amazing things with your digital photos. 

Pair it with a Wacom Graphire Tablet for best results 

and to get a great deal on the software. 

I’m a fan of subscription music services, and use 

Rhapsody and Yahoo! Music a lot. (I try out new 

music every Tuesday.) And to get the most out of 

an iPod or any music player, you need great earphones. 

I like the in-ear models from Etymotic Research 

and Shure best, since they’re easy to take 

along when I travel. 

I’m not a huge user of photo-sharing services 

(though Flickr and the upcoming version of Yahoo! 

Photos look great), but photo mugs, books, 

and bags make for unique and very popular presents. 

Each service has slightly different offerings, 

so check around. I’ve been happy with Smugmug, 

Shutterfl y, and Snapfi sh. 

If you make a lot of presentations, check out 

Serious Magic’s Ovation, a tool that makes Power- 

Point slides look much more professional. I use it 

with Interlink’s RemotePoint presenters. 

X1 is still my favorite tool for searching through 

all my e-mail messages and fi les. And ActiveWords 

is a great way of using shortcuts, even on a tablet 

computer. If you were a DOS power user, you’ll 

probably love it. 

If you’re really interested in a behind-the-scenes 

look at the making of computer chips, read Robert 

Colwell’s The Pentium Chronicles (IEEE). And 

Robert Scoble and Shel Israel’s Naked Conversations 

(Wiley) does a great job of explaining how 

blogs can make a business more transparent and 

improve relationships with customers. It’s not as 

revolutionary as the indispensable Cluetrain Manifesto, 

but it offers some great tips. I’m just a beginner, 

but I enjoyed it a great deal. 

See you online, and back here next issue. 

MORE ON THE WEB: Join us online and make your 

voice heard. Talk back to Michael J. Miller in our 

opinions section, go.pcmag.com/miller.

PIPELINE 

TECHNOLOGY TRENDS & NEWS ANALYSIS 

Net Film Distribution Coup 

Want to see a hi-def movie get downloaded? Want to see it again? 

THE WEB HAS ALREADY become a major 

medium for delivering TV, video content, and 

movies, but costs and long download times 

have loomed as problems. Now start-up company 

Itiva (www.itiva.com) is out to change 

that with its unique Quantum Streaming 

technology. The system lets users execute 

lickety-split downloads of high-definition 

video content over standard broadband lines. 

In a demonstration for PC Magazine, Itiva 

president Michel Billard downloaded in mere 

seconds a 2-minute high-def 720p movie trailer 

from a major movie studio, at a transfer rate 

of 5.5 Mbps. The trailer even played while the 

download was finishing. To put that in per- 

What’s Your Love GPA? 

IF YOU THINK you hold your 

signifi cant other to high 

standards, take a gander at 

OKCupid.com. In the latest 

spin on online dating, the site lets amorous-but-picky romantics 

create and post tests that potential dates must pass before a match 

is made. “The Slut Test,” “The Politics Test,” and the 50-question 

“Three-Variable Purity Test” were among recent examples. 

Many users take multiple posted tests, and you can review their 

answers to all of them before making an electronic advance. Oh, and 

in a break from the online dating trend, OKCupid.com is entirely free, 

including messaging. Don’t settle for an expensive dunce!—SR 

spective, remember the 

general rule about downloading 

HD video using 

competing technologies: 

Downloading content takes 

longer than watching it. 

Take a look at the peerto-peer 

model, popularized 

by technologies such 

as BitTorrent. Peer-to-peer 

fi le sharing breaks a movie 

up into various pieces to 

transmit it, inherently increasing 

wait times. By 

contrast, Itiva breaks HD video up into httpbased 

Web pages (called quanta), which can 

be cached at an ISP just like standard Web 

pages. With the speeds Itiva is achieving, you 

could download a 90-minute movie in less 

than 15 minutes. 

One major studio has already signed on to 

have Itiva distribute its content, and Itiva is 

seeking deals with more fi lm studios. But the 

company has its eyes on independent filmmakers, 

too. “Scaling small is as important as 

scaling big,” says Itiva director Tom Taylor. 

Public applications for Itiva’s technology are 

only weeks away. It may play a key role as the 

Web goes Hollywood.—Sebastian Rupley 

BEAM ME UP LiftPort Group has stood a space elevator cable one mile 

into the air, held aloft by a weather balloon, and robots have successfully 

climbed up and down. Eventually, the company wants to extend 

one 62,000 miles into space, for transporting people and cargo. 

�� 

�� 

�� 

�� 

�� 

�� 

�� 

go.pcmag.com/pipeline 

Dino Bot 

Giving human responses 

and skills to new breeds of 

robots is all the rage. The 

Pleo, unveiled recently at 

the DEMO conference in 

Arizona, is a convincingly 

humanlike Camarasaurus. 

“Pleo is the fi rst truly autonomous 

life form capable 

of emotions that allow personal 

engagement,” says Caleb 

Chung, who created the 

Furby robotic characters and 

developed the Pleo. Ugobe, a 

robotics technology group, 

will begin selling the Pleo for 

$199 by the holiday season. 

The tiny robot has an operating 

system called LifeOS 

and 40 onboard sensors. The 

Pleo’s most interesting attribute, 

though, is that its base 

set of simulated emotions 

is customizable through 

Internet downloads. If only 

humans could download better 

moods, too. . . .—SR 

�� 

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�� 

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Source: Nielsen/NetRatings Megaview Search 


22 

go.pcmag.com/futurewatch 

FUTURE WATCH 

Making 

Mini Movies 

THE NEXT STEP FOR nanotechnology 

is in the can: movies shot 

at nanoscale. Researchers at 

Georgia Tech have created an 

atomic force microscope capable 

of high-speed imaging 100 

times faster than its competitors. 

The colorful photos seen 

here, stills from a nanofi lm, show 

real-time molecular interactions. 

Such movies can inform scientists 

about the properties of the 

material the molecules came 

from, and they may aid in the 

fabrication of tiny devices. 

The breakthrough could 

become “the ubiquitous tool for 

examining nanostructures,” says 

Dr. Calvin Quate, one of the inventors. 

The microscope has already 

fi lmed the fi rst-ever movies 

showing the elastic and adhesive 

properties of carbon nanotubes. 

For scientists puttering with 

Lilliputian technologies, leaping 

from still images to movies is big 

news.—Sebastian Rupley 


Big Things from a Tiny Projector 

Portable video players are cool, but they’re hampered by their tiny little screens. What if 

the size of the gadget’s display were totally irrelevant? That futuristic scenario may be 

upon us. British company Light Blue Optics has developed a projection system the size 

of a matchbox, which can easily fi t into pocket-size devices. All you need is a nearby fl at 

surface to view, say, a music video from your digital player. 

The PVPro’s projection system uses computational algorithms that allow for tiny 

lasers and a minuscule size. Light Blue Optics is working with several partners that will 

integrate the technology into portable gadgets, according to company CEO Nic Lawrence. 

And DigiSmart is working on similar mini-projector technology. Starting later this 

year, you may not have to curse that stamp-size screen on your digital music player.—SR

F I R S T 

26 

HANDS-ON TESTING OF NEW PRODUCTS • go.pcmag.com/first looks 

28 T-Mobile SDA 

28 T-Mobile MDA 

32 Motorola SLVR L7 

32 Cingular 2125 

41 Fuji FinePix E900 

Low-Cost LCD TVs 

THE MAGAZINE 

WORLD’S LARGEST 

COMPUTER-TESTING 

FACILITY 

BY ROBERT HERON 

Most of us would love to own a big, thin HDTV, but the prices 

are just too high. Or are they? We hit the pavement and found 

three LCD TVs that retail for less than $1,000, a reasonable fi gure 

for those making that fi rst leap to high-defi nition. All three 

TVs have a similar screen size (around 32 inches, diagonally), 

a maximum resolution of 1,360-by-768, and a built-in NTSC TV tuner and 

speakers. One of these three could be your ticket to HDTV viewing heaven. 

Proview RX-326 

The 32-inch 


($949.99 list) is an 

LCD TV that offers 

high-defi nition resolution 

at an affordable 

price. It produced some 

of the most eye-pleasing 

imagery we’ve seen on a 

TV at this price. 

The lack of an overthe-air 

HD tuner technically 

makes the RX-326 

an “HD-ready” TV, but an 

NTSC tuner is provided for 

standard-definition analog 

reception. The LCD panel 

used in the RX-326 offers a 

native 1,366- by 768-pixel resolution. 

Though home theater 

PC users can drive the RX-326 

using either HDMI or VGA 

input, only the VGA input 

eliminated overscan (extension 

of the edge of the picture 

beyond the active portion of 

the display) without requir- 

MORE ON THE WEB 

Check out the full reviews on 

go.pcmag.com/cheaplcdtvs 


ing adjustments in the video 

card’s driver control panel. 

Viewing the RX-326 from 

more than 20 degrees off 

center in any direction made 

colors look noticeably faded. 

Other similarly priced LCD 

TVs typically start to fade at 

around 30 degrees. 

In the lab, the RX-326’s 

warm-color temperature 

preset produced colors that 

42 Pentax *ist DS2 

42 Canon PowerShot SD450 

44 Creative Zen MicroPhoto 

46 Saitek A-250 

46 i.Sound Max 

THE RX-326’S SIMULATED SURROUND SOUND mode is effective 

at making a sound fi eld that seems to come from all directions. 

came closest to the standard 

used in film and video production. 

Unlike the Vizio 

L32 or the Westinghouse 

LTV-32w1, it didn’t suffer 

from degraded color quality 

when using component 

video input. We measured 

the RX-326’s contrast ratio 

at 595:1 (ANSI checkerboard 

test pattern), just above average 

among LCD TVs. 

48 Maxtor OneTouch III Turbo 

48 Iomega XL Desktop Hard Drive 

50 Velocity Micro Vision GX 

52 Kodak EasyShare Photo Printer 500 

52 Konica Minolta PagePro 1400W 

On the HQV benchmark 

DVD, the RX-326 failed to 

engage 3:2 pulldown properly 

for fi lm-based video (24 

frames per second), producing 

visible moiré artifacts 

and losing detail. But the RX- 

326’s adjustable noise-reduction 

function was a rare fi nd 

for an LCD TV at this price, 

and it eliminated most noise 

without signifi cant blurring . 

The RX-326 offers HD 

resolution at an affordable 

price. The Vizio L32 has more 

input options and the Westinghouse 

LTV-32w1 offers 

more comprehensive image 

controls, but our eyes 

preferred the image quality 

and A/V input performance 

of the RX-326. 


$949.99 list. Proview, www 

.proview-usa.com. llllm 

Vizio L32 

Barely sneaking in under 

the $1,000 price point, 

the 32-inch Vizio L32 

($999.99 list) is one of 

the least expensive LCD 

TVs currently offering 

highdefinition resolution. 

The L32’s bright and even 

picture isn’t without some 

minor fl aws, but it represents 

a good value. 

The L32’s 31.5-inch panel 

offers a native resolution of 

1,366 by 768 pixels (16:9 aspect 

ratio). VGA input came closest 

to the native resolution at 

1,360 by 768 pixels and eliminated 

overscan. 

An unfortunate similarity 

that the L32 shares with 

the Westinghouse LTV-32w1 

is poor component video 

when compared with digital

L O O K S 

WHAT THE RATINGS MEAN: LLLLL EXCELLENT l LLLLM VERY GOOD l LLLMM GOOD l LLMMM FAIR l LMMMM POOR 

54 Visioneer Strobe XP300 

54 HP Scanjet 4890 Photo Scanner 

56 Toshiba Satellite A105-S361 

58 AOL Pictures 

58 BubbleShare (beta) 

video input. Our subjective 

examinations using DVD 

videos, Windows Media Video 

HD clips, and over-theair 

HDTV revealed that the 

L32 was sacrificing dark 

detail and adding a slight 

green tinge to skin tones. 

Switching to the L32’s HDMI 

input significantly reduced 

these issues. 

In the lab, the L32’s “Vivid2” 

picture mode registered 

very good primary color 

accuracy but showed more 

variation than we like to see 

in grayscale tracking (color 

measurements of stepped 

levels from black to white.) 

On the HQV benchmark 

DVD the L32 scored lowest 

among the 32-inch LCD TVs 

we have seen. The L32 was 

slow to engage 3:2 pulldown 

for fi lm-based video (24 fps), 

producing visible moiré artifacts 

in the racetrack clip. 

The Vizio L32 offers highdefinition 

resolution at an 

affordable price. Though we 

were disappointed 

by the TV's 

component video 

quality when 

compared with 

digital video input, 

this is an alltoo-common 

trait 

among valuepriced 

HD monitors. 

For digital 

video enjoyment, 

the L32 is a strong 

performer with 

good color accuracy 

and picture 

detail. 

Vizio L32 

$999.99 list. Vizio, www.vinc.com. 

lllmm 

58 FilmLoop (beta) 

59 Phanfare 

59 SnapJot (beta) 

60 HP LP2065 

60 NEC MultiSync 90GX2 

Westinghouse 

LTV-32w1 

The 32-inch Westinghouse 

LTV-32w1 ($900 street) LCD 

TV struck us with a sense of 

déjà vu, as it’s cosmetically 

similar to the company’s 37inch 

LVM-37w1 television. In 

61 Lenovo ThinkVision L201p 

62 QuickBooks Online Edition 

62 Laplink PCdefense 

65 IP Telephony DVX-1000 

RED denotes Editors’ Choice. 

THE VIZIO L32 comes with a good selection of A/V connections 

for an HD monitor at this price. 

THE 32W1’s bottom-mounted 

speakers make it look bigger. 

our lab testing, the LTV-32w1 

delivered impressive highdefi 

nition image quality when 

fed a digital signal but fell 

short when receiving analog. 

The LTV-32w1 offers a native 

resolution of 1,366 by 768 

pixels. We were impressed 

that 720p video 

signals exhibited 

no overscan, 

and 1080i signals 

showed only a 

slight overscan. 

The lack of an 

over-the-air HD 

tuner puts the 

LTV-32w1 in 

the “HD-ready” 

category, but an 

NTSC tuner providesstandarddefi 

nition analog 

reception. 

On our subjective 

viewing examinations, the 

LTV-32w1’s display defaults 

using component video input 

produced a cool image, and 

shadows appeared too dark, 

obscuring detail. Switching 

the LTV-32w1 to its warmest 

color temperature preset 

yielded a more natural-looking 

picture, but it wasn’t until 

we switched to DVI input 

that we felt the dark detail 

was where it should be. 

Compared with the 32-inch 

Proview RX-326, the LTV- 

32w1 gave us about 10 degrees 

more of a viewing angle before 

the colors began to fade. 

In the lab, we continue to 

be impressed by the ability 

of Westinghouse LCD TVs 

to produce very bright imagery 

and very dark black levels. 

The LTV-32w1 managed 

a record-shattering 833:1 

ANSI contrast ratio using its 

maximum backlight setting 

and 834:1 ANSI contrast ratio 

at its minimum backlight 

settings. We have yet to see 

this range of control anywhere 

else. 

The Westinghouse LTV- 

32w1 has the best contrast 

ratio we’ve measured to date, 

but we continue to be disappointed 

by Westinghouse’s 

treatment of analog inputs. 

Driven digitally, the LTV- 

32w1 is one of the best-performing 

HD monitors in 

this category. Its component 

video inputs, however, make 

it more suitable for console 

gaming than for critical 

viewing of quality video. 

Westinghouse LTV-32w1 

$900 street. Westinghouse 

Digital Electronics, www 

.westinghousedigital.com. lllmm 

>Check out our HDTV 

shopping trip on page 130. 


28 

Power in Your Pocket 

BY SASCHA SEGAN 

Whether syncing 

with Microsoft Outlook, 

playing music, 

or surfing the Web 

over Wi-Fi, the T-Mobile 

SDA ($299.99 list) puts an 

irresistible amount of power 

into your pocket. That 

makes this delicious little 

Microsoft Windows Mobile 

Smartphone our new Editors’ 

Choice among keyboardless 

smartphones. 

We appreciate every button 

on the SDA, particularly 

those dedicated to music. 

Stretched above them is a 

beautiful 320-by-240 VGA 

screen fi lled with bold icons 

and calendar information. 

As a quad-band worldphone, 

the SDA can make 

calls anywhere from Toledo 

to Tashkent with very good 

reception. The earpiece 

volume is acceptable, if not 

loud. We got clearer sound 

FIRST LOOKS 

Consumer Electronics: Cell Phones 

through a Plantronics Voyager 

510 Bluetooth headset. 

Battery life was good, with 

more than 9.5 hours of talk 

time and more than 7 hours 

of PDA usage time. 

The SDA syncs easily with 

Microsoft Outlook using 

ActiveSync 4.1 software. The 

built-in e-mail client handles 

POP3/IMAP accounts, 

over-the-air syncing with 

Exchange servers, and text 

messaging. Push e-mail will 

come soon. 

The SDA’s Wi-Fi is part of 

T-Mobile’s move to compete 

with high-speed cellular 

networks run by Cingular, 

Sprint, and Verizon. At present, 

T-Mobile has 7,365 U.S. 

Wi-Fi hot spots. A new unlimited 

data plan gives you 

as much EDGE and Wi-Fi as 

you want for $30 a month. We 

got acceptable Class 10 EDGE 

speeds (from 126 Kbps to 155 

Kbps) on our tests. 

We wish, however, that the 

SDA had more than 20MB 

of memory. We never had 

more than 5MB available. 

The new phone beats our 

previous Editors’ Choice, the 

Nokia 6682 from Cingular. 

The glossier Microsoft OS 

is more fun to use than the 

older phone’s; and the Wi-Fi 

capability is truly amazing. 

We’d also give the SDA the 

nod over the RIM BlackBerry 

7105t, which doesn’t have 

any of the media capabilities. 

T-Mobile says that this is 

more than a business device, 

and we agree. It’s also a great 

way to carry around your 

calendar, play music, and 

fi nd the nearest Mexican restaurant—all 

with the aid of 

the built-in Web browser. We 

expect the T-Mobile SDA to 

appeal to more than just suits. 

T-Mobile SDA 

$299.99 list. T-Mobile, 

www.tmobile.com. llllm 

A Smartphone For Checking E-Mail on the Go 


A 

Sidekick for grownups, 

the T-Mobile 

MDA ($399 list) handles 

e-mail and Web browsing 

over Wi-Fi or EDGE with 

aplomb. Unfortunately, its 

lackluster phone performance 

and the stiff 

competition from other 

keyboard smartphones 

will limit its success. 

The MDA is a rounded 

handheld, much 

like the Sprint PPC- 

6700, but smaller, 

lighter, and with 

better-separated 

keys. Dedicated 

buttons let you 

access e-mail, Internet 

Explorer, 

your contacts, the 

camera, and the networking 

manager with one touch. 


E-mail and text-messaging 

are a breeze with the snappy 

keyboard. Turn the phone 

on with the keyboard closed 

and you’re running Microsoft 

Windows Mobile 5.0 on 

THE MDA has 

a handy slide-out keyboard. 

THE SDA is a small, rounded 

phone with tiny buttons. 

a 320-by-240 touchscreen. 

Slide the keyboard out and 

the screen automatically rotates 

in response. 

After adding a few programs, 

we still had 20MB 

of free storage memory and 

23MB of free program 

memory—plenty 

for everyday use. 

When not in Wi- 

Fi range, the MDA 

works with the 

T-Mobile EDGE 

SDA network. Using 

our MDA as 

an EDGE modem 

for a laptop, we got 

excellent Class 10 

EDGE speeds of 140 

to 189 Kbps. 

Alas, the MDA isn’t 

as good a phone as it is 

an e-mail device. It has 

quad-band support, so it can 

roam across the U.S. and the 

world, but we found reception 

only so-so. In addition, 

the earpiece was so quiet we 

had trouble making out the 

other end of a conversation 

in a noisy environment. The 

speakerphone was better. 

Battery life in PDA mode 

was middling, at almost 5 

hours when playing back videos 

with the backlight turned 

way up. Phone talk time was 

good, at 9 hours 37 minutes. 

Like so many other PDA/ 

phones, the T-Mobile MDA 

doesn’t look good when compared 

with the easy-to-use 

Palm Treo 650 and the powerful 

Sprint PPC-6700. Overall, 

the MDA isn’t a bad PDA/ 

phone, it just isn’t the best. 

T-Mobile MDA 

$399.99 list. T-Mobile, 

www.tmobile.com. lllmm

32 


The Motorola SLVR L7 

($299.99 direct) may 

be the handsomest 

phone in America. But even 

though it runs Apple’s popular 

iTunes music player, its 

feature set doesn’t excite 

us. (One example: Like the 

RAZR V3, the SLVR L7 uses 

the primitive recorded-tag 

form of voice dialing.) This is 

a phone that will best satisfy 

voice callers who want a seeand-be-seen 

device. 

Everything about the 

SLVR’s design is well done. 

The anodized-aluminum 

back, glass-infused plastic 

case, metal keypad, glass 

screen, and well-balanced 

heft of this half-inch-thick 

status symbol make it feel far 

more expensive than it is. 

Along with its RAZR cousins, 

the quad-band SLVR 

L7 gets excellent reception, 

though the sound quality 

FIRST LOOKS 

Consumer Electronics: Cell Phones 

Crazy, Sexy, Cool: Motorola’s SLVR 

isn’t quite as good. We found 

the earpiece volume loud 

enough, if not very loud. We 

easily hooked the phone up 

to Jabra, Logitech, and Plantronics 

Bluetooth headsets. 

The SLVR L7 stores up to 

100 songs per microSD card 

in iTunes. Plug the phone into 

an iTunes-equipped computer 

and it will appear as an 

iPod shuffl e. 

Audio performance is adequate, 

as long as you’re not 

into bass. On our frequency 

response test, it dropped 

off very quickly below 100 

Hz, resulting in pretty weak 

lows. Overall, sound with the 

included earbuds was very 

muffl ed. If you use “real” earphones, 

you have to unplug 

them every time the phone 

rings—totally unacceptable. 

Other than iTunes, the 

SLVR’s feature set is pretty 

2004. There’s a basic POP3 

e-mail client, an instant-mes- 

The 2125 Puts Power in Your Pocket 


The Cingular 2125 

($299.99 with contract) 

is a powerful, 

good-looking smartphone 

that brings Windows Mobile 

flexibility to a truly pocketsized 

handset. It’s a good 

choice for making phone 

calls, syncing with PIM data, 

and surfi ng the Web. 

The petite (4.3 by 1.8 by 0.7 

inches, 3.7 oz) 2125 is easy to 

hold and looks professional 

in its gray-and-silver case. It’s 

flatter and squarer than the 

T-Mobile SDA; the dedicated 

music-player buttons are 

gone from the front; and the 

row of four soft keys below 

the screen is now two. 

Inside, we found the 2125’s 

performance to be very similar 

to that of the SDA. The 

two phones share the same 


195-MHz TI OMAP processor 

and quad-band EDGE 

radio. We found the 2125’s 

signal strength to be excellent, 

and the quality of sound 

through the earpiece and 

Bluetooth headsets to be acceptable. 

The 2125 got much 

more talk time than the SDA, 

a fabulous 14 hours. 

As a Windows Mobile 5.0 

Smartphone, the 2125 syncs 

with Windows PCs running 

ActiveSync 4.1. You can transfer 

music and video with Windows 

Media Player 10. 

You can use the 2125 as a 

laptop modem on Cingular’s 

EDGE network, and we got 

excellent EDGE speeds of 159 

to 185 Kbps in our tests. But 

with Cingular now turning 

on its 3G HSDPA network, 

we’d like to see some HSDPA 

in its smart devices. 

YOU’LL WANT 

to show off the SLVR L7. 

The 2125’s 1.3-megapixel 

camera is pretty poor. Videos 

record at 176-by-144 and 

10 frames per second. You 

can save photos or videos to 

the internal memory or to 

the memory card. We didn’t 

run into problems with the 

phone’s 15MB of storage. 

The Cingular 2125 is smaller, 

brighter, and syncs better 

with PCs than the competing 

Nokia 6682. And the phone 

is better all around than the 

venerable, beloved Audiovox 

SMT 5600. Still, we’re reserving 

our Editors’ Choice 

in keyboardless smartphones 

for the T-Mobile SDA, the 

2125’s overachieving sibling, 

which has Wi-Fi and dedicated 

music buttons. 

Cingular 2125 

$299.99 with contract. Cingular Wireless, 

www.cingular.com. llllm 

saging client, a dim, blurry 

camera that takes VGA stills, 

5-frame-per-second, 176by-144 

video, and a glacially 

slow GPRS data capability. 

You can use the phone as a 

PC modem, though it crawls 

along at 30 to 40 Kbps. 

Bluetooth support is pretty 

good: You can sync your 

contacts and calendar and 

transfer photos to and from 

your PC. But it’s the slower 

Bluetooth 1.2, not the newer, 

faster Bluetooth 2.0+EDR. 

The SLVR L7 is available 

for $199.99 with a two-year 

contract from Cingular. An 

unlocked model, suitable for 

T-Mobile but lacking iTunes, 

is $359.00 from Dynamism. 

com. We’d recommend it to 

non–power users looking for 

a pretty, pretty phone. 

Motorola SLVR L7 

$299.99; with contract, $199.99 and up. 

Motorola, Cingular Wireless, 

www.cingular.com. lllhm 

THE 2125 has a big, bright 

320-by-240 screen. 

JUMP TO NEXT PAGE >>

FIRST LOOKS 

Consumer Electronics: Digital Cameras 

Fuji’s Nine-Megapixel Sharpshooter of the highlights. Overall col- 

BY TERRY SULLIVAN 

Judging a camera’s 

value is no longer 

the megapixel numbers 

game it used to 

be. Consumers are starting 

to understand that there’s a 

lot more to consider: zoom 

range, ISO, lens sharpness, 

shooting mode, menu structure, 

wireless capabilities, 

and so on. A perfect example 

is the Fuji FinePix E900 ($500 

street), which offers a 

9MP image sensor and 

a whole lot more. 

The E900, the 

successor to the Fuji 

FinePix E550, does 

more than just create 

big image files. 

For starters, it conveniently 

runs on 

two double-A batteries 

and features 

a 4X optical zoom 

lens with a 7.2mm to 

28.8mm range (the 

equivalent of a 35mm 

lens with a 32mm to 

128mm zoom) and corresponding 

maximum 

f-stops of f/2.8 to f/5.6. 

We like the 32mm end 

of the zoom, which begins 

at a wider angle than many 

other compacts do. 

Of course, the 9MP Super 

CCD-HR sensor gives you 

large fi le sizes, fi ne for large 

prints or doing lots of cropping. 

But this compact camera 

also lets you save images 

directly as high-quality RAW 

files, a rare feature among 

compact point-and-shoots. 

In our real-world tests the 

E900 captured images with 

a very wide dynamic range, 

even when just shooting 8-bit 

ANALYST'S TIP 

Terry Sullivan , Lead Analyst 

JPEGs instead of 16-bit RAW 

fi les. For example, on a foggy 

morning, we shot a suburban 

landscape—trees, trash cans, 

parked cars, shrubs—and 

a sidewalk leading into the 

mist. We love how the camera 

rendered foreground objects 

with lots of contrast and still 

showed distant objects embedded 

in the fog. The path 

itself provided a test strip of 

sorts: It displayed a plentiful 

range of tones from a dark 

gray to a very light gray. 

The E900’s Natural Light 

mode takes advantage of 

Fuji’s Real Photo technology, 

which we first saw on 

the FinePix F10. In this mode, 

Fuji boosts the ISO, which 

gives you a better chance 

of stopping the action (via 

a quicker shutter speed). It 

also makes it easier to shoot 

without fl ash, which can give 

your portraits a more natural 

appearance. It’s not a panacea 

for every low-light photo 

op, but in our informal, realworld 

tests (at our local Starbucks), 

our shots of people 

had minimal blur, and we 

could even read the lettering 

and prices on various signs 

and on small bags of java. 

Our lab tests showed 

mixed results. In our daylight 

THE FINEPIX E900’s pop-up-style 

strobe makes the fl ash easy to control. 

shot, Fuji’s Real Photo technology 

increased the ISO and 

thus the noise as well. Color 

saturation was right on the 

money, and we were pleased 

to see no color casts. We did 

see some fringing, however, 

but the shot was well exposed 

and displayed a very wide 

dynamic range. 

The fl ash coverage on our 

fl ash test shot was maybe too 

good, since it blew out some 

or saturation was quite good. 

There was a bit less fringing 

in the fl ash image than in the 

daylight shot. In general we 

found a decent exposure with 

the fl ash, although we didn’t 

quite get the deep, rich black 

we got in the daylight shot. 

Because of the high megapixel 

sensor, the E900 image 

had very high line counts on 

our resolution test: It averaged 

a score of 2,000, 

which is the limit that 

the test target allows 

us to read. The E900 

was quick, booting 

up in 2.4 seconds. But 

we were disappointed 

in the 4.7-second recycle 

time, which is 

very slow in today’s 

market. There was 

virtually no shutter 

lag, very little barrel 

distortion, and no 

pincushioning. 

Yet we found some 

things we think Fuji 

could improve upon. 

For instance, the 2-inch 

LCD could be larger and 

could be articulating. For 

video, the E900 doesn’t use 

MPEG-4 compression for 

smaller fi le sizes, and there’s 

no way to zoom during fi lming 

of video clips. 

If you’re looking for a camera 

that can produce excellent 

images that you can blow up to 

large print sizes, the FinePix 

E900 will not disappoint. It’s 

our Editors’ Choice for a topquality 

point-and-shoot compact 

digital camera. 

Fuji FinePix E900 

$500 street. Fuji Photo Film U.S.A. Inc., 

www.fujifi lm.com. llllm 

In the past, the RAW fi le format seemed to be only for professional shooters and those with high-end 

D-SLRs. But today, even point-and-shoot digital cameras are offering this option. So, when looking for a 

digital camera, look for a RAW option in the image settings, especially if you plan to do a lot of photo 

manipulation in Photoshop or other image-editing programs. 


42 

Pentax’s Disappointing D-SLR 


The Pentax *ist DS2 

(body only, $750 

street) falls well short 

of the standard set by its 

D-SLR counterparts. Aside 

from a large LCD screen and 

its ability to run on double-A 

batteries, we didn’t fi nd much 

to get excited about. 

Funneling light to the 6.1megapixel 

sensor is the Pentax 

smc P-DA 18mm to 55mm 

zoom lens (equivalent to a 

35mm lens with a 27mm to 

82.5mm zoom range) with 

corresponding f-stops from 

f/3.5 to f/5.6. The lens ($199.95 

list) is not included with the 

camera, though, which seems 

overpriced. Beyond that, performance 

is so-so. 

We found the burst mode 

to be steady, although not 

ultrafast, and we liked that 

we could take shot after shot 

without pausing. But when 

we compared our test images 

with the stunning results 

from cameras like the Rebel 

XT, the Olympus Evolt 

E-500, and the Nikon D50, 

the DS2’s underexposed 

and lackluster pictures 

just didn’t cut it. 

In our daylight shots, 

the DS2 introduced more 

grain and colored noise 

than the D50. The daylight 

still life was underexposed 

by about 1.5 to 2 f-stops, resulting 

in a dark image. Color 

saturation was good, especially 

in the reds and yellows. 

Our flash test shot was 

also underexposed. Again, 

the camera was most accurate 

at rendering the reds and 

yellows, and there was very 

little fringing. The average of 

horizontal and vertical resolution 

was 1,400 lines—low 

for a 6.1MP camera. 

The DS2 took an average 

of 1.2 seconds to boot, which 

is slow for a D-SLR. The 1.5- 

Better Shots for Small Hands 


As with Canon’s 7.2megapixel 

PowerShot 

SD550 Digital Elph, 

our current Editors’ Choice 

in the high-end ultracompact 

category, there’s a lot 

to like about the 5MP Canon 

PowerShot SD450 Digital Elph 

($399.95 list). Yet there comes 

a point when a camera is a tad 

too tiny, and the SD450 may 

have reached that point. 

Just how small is the camera? 

The numbers tell the 

story: 5 ounces and roughly 

3.5 by 2 by 0.8 inches. The tiny 

buttons in and around the 

multifunction selector are too 

close together and will confound 

fat-fingered photographers. 

A somewhat confusing 

interface adds to the problem. 

The SD450 has a lot of fi ne 

features, including a 2.5-inch 


FIRST LOOKS 

Consumer Electronics: Digital Cameras 

LCD and a glass viewfinder. 

This shooter, like the SD400, 

has a 5-megapixel sensor 

and a 3X optical zoom with 

a 5.8mm to 17.4mm range 

(equivalent to a 35mm lens 

with a 35mm to 105mm zoom) 

THE SD450: one of 

the best ultracompacts on the market. 

second recycle time was also 

slow, though we found virtually 

no shutter lag. 

The image displayed some 

barrel distortion at the wideangle 

end of the zoom and 

some pincushioning at the 

telephoto end. 

In the incredibly competitive 

world of D-SLRs, manufacturers 

must create nearly 

and corresponding maximum 

f-stops of f/2.8 to f/4.9. 

Our daylight shots had 

noticeable noise, but color 

saturation was exceptional. 

Overall, the exposure was 

extremely good: It had excellent 

dynamic range and made 

THE *IST DS2 is no 

model D-SLR. 

flawless devices. Given the 

unimpressive performance 

and image quality of the Pentax 

*ist DS2, we think most 

competitors, including our 

present Editor’s Choice, the 

Nikon D50, are better buys. 

Pentax *ist DS2 

Body only, $750 street. Pentax Imaging 

Co., www.pentaximaging.com. 

llmmm 

colors really pop off the page. 

On our fl ash test shot, coverage 

was very good but just 

slightly underexposed, causing 

the colors to be a bit muddy, 

although color saturation 

was quite good. 

The SD450 averaged 1,400 

lines of resolution, which is 

very good for a 5MP camera. 

Boot time was just 2.5 seconds, 

but the 2.9-second recycle 

time was not as quick as 

the Kodak EasyShare V530’s 

1.1 seconds. We noticed little 

shutter lag and found no significant 

pincushion distortion—just 

a bit of the usual 

barrel distortion. 

Despite its small size, most 

users looking for a superportable 

will be quite happy 

with the SD450’s image quality 

and performance. 

Canon PowerShot SD450 

Digital Elph 

$399.95 list. Canon U.S.A. Inc., 

www.usa.canon.com. llllm

44 

FIRST LOOKS 

Consumer Electronics: MP3 Players 

The Zen MicroPhoto Is Even Better in Color 

BY MIKE KOBRIN 

The new Creative Zen 

MicroPhoto ($249.99 

direct) is still a compact 

2 by 3.3 by 0.7 

inches and 3.8 ounces, like 

the original, but improves on 

it with a slightly larger (1.5inch) 

color OLED screen,a 

beefi er (8GB) hard drive, and 

a few minor enhancements. 

Deep down, though, this 

is the same MP3 player 

we all know and (sort 

of) love. 

The new edition is 

nearly identical to its 

monochrome predecessor, 

but now the front 

face is textured and 

protrudes slightly from 

the white plastic back. 

All this does is make using 

the touch strip a bit 

more of a tactile experience. 

Unfortunately, the 

buttons surrounding the 

strip are also touch sensitive, 

so you can easily 

miscalculate and wind up 

jumping to the wrong spot in 

the menu system. But at least 

you can navigate in the dark, 

thanks to the signature glowing-blue 

outline and backlit 

buttons. 

You can make part of the 

hard drive into a USB mass 

storage class–compatible 

drive for data storage, though 

you can’t load music this 

way. The Zen Micro Photo 

syncs with Windows PCs 


via Windows Media Player 

or you can use Creative’s 

included software. The device 

is PlaysForSure-compatible, 

so you can load it up 

with protected WMAs from 

various online music download 

and subscription services, 

as well as with MP3s, 

unprotected WMAs, and 

THE ZEN MICROPHOTO is 

available in ten colors. 

WAV files. Unfortunately, 

the player still doesn’t support 

lossless compression 

formats or gapless playback. 

Nor, as of this writing, does 

it support content from Audible.com, 

but that should 

be coming soon. 

The interface, which adds 

a color screen and customiz- 

able wallpaper, was responsive 

overall, though we did 

experience a few temporary 

lockups when using the track 

skip buttons, and we often 

saw a “Please wait…” message 

when moving around 

in the menu system. We like 

the confi gurable main menu, 

though we wish you could 

also confi gure the contextual 

menus. 

LEGACY OF SOUND 

Our subjective listening 

tests proved that the 

Zen MicroPhoto continues 

Creative’s legacy 

of producing very good 

sound quality. 

Frequency response 

is very flat. It begins to 

roll off as soon as it hits 

the bass region, but gently 

enough that the player 

is down only about 7 

dB or so at 20 Hz. 

When using its default 

settings, the Zen Micro- 

Photo puts out a remarkably 

clean signal up to 24 

on its 25-step volume scale. 

Smart Volume is still one of 

our favorite features in this 

line of players, because it 

eliminates harmonic distortion 

and keeps the volume 

uniform. It does lower the 

maximum output, but the 

level is still loud enough to 

make your ears ring. 

The Zen MicroPhoto’s rechargeable, 

removable bat- 

tery lasted for just a bit under 

15 hours. Although that isn’t 

extraordinary, it’s certainly 

not terrible. 

The 1.5-inch, 262,144-color 

OLED screen isn’t as bright 

as we hoped it would be, even 

with the contrast set at 100 

percent, though colors are 

more vivid than on the Apple 

iPod nano. Pictures looked 

fi ne overall, and even though 

the detail wasn’t great, they 

looked the same from any 

viewing angle. Unfortunately, 

you can’t watch slide 

shows or view individual 

photos with musical accompaniment. 

You can set as many as 

ten manual bookmarks, en- 

abling you to jump back into 

a fi le from where you left off. 

The FM tuner supports up 

to 32 presets, as well as FM 

recording. 

Given the choice between 

the Zen MicroPhoto and the 

Philips GoGear HDD1630 

(an 8GB version of that player, 

called the HDD1850, is 

now available), the Creative 

player has a slight edge in 

usability and screen quality. 

Although its tested battery 

life isn’t great, we like the 

fact that it has a removable 

battery. And let us not forget 

to mention that it’s available 

in ten colors. 

Creative Zen MicroPhoto 

$249.99 direct. Creative Technology 

Ltd., www.creative.com. llllh 

ANALYST'S TIP 

Mike Kobrin , Lead Analyst 

Flash memory prices are coming down, and capacities are rising. The fi rst 6GB fl ash-based MP3 player is 

here, and we’ll probably see double that within the next couple of years. Flash-based devices have no moving 

parts, and they won’t skip no matter how much you shake them. In addition, they can be signifi cantly smaller. 

Expect to see fl ash players put a lot of pressure on the “small hard drive” market in the coming months.

46 


Saitek, best known 

for its gaming peripherals, 

now has some 

welcome portable audio 

entries. The Saitek A-250 

($129.95 direct), for example, 

is a versatile one-piece dualspeaker 

set with a neat trick 

up its sleeve: It can receive 

music wirelessly from any 

Windows PC via a USB 2.4- 

GHz transmitter. 

An unusual design certainly 

helps separate this product 

from the pack. The A-250 

looks a bit like the head of a 

praying mantis, reminding us 

of Zorak from Space Ghost but 

in a high-gloss black finish. 

The tweeter grilles are outlined 

in metallic red (left) and 

copper (right). What makes 

this thing look really creepy 

are the 1-inch red drivers visible 

beneath the grilles. 

The A-250, billed as a 2.1 

speaker system, has two eye- 

FIRST LOOKS 

Consumer Electronics: Speakers 

Funky Wireless Speakers Deliver Sweet Sound 

like tweeters on either side 

behind black metal grilles. 

A downward-firing 3-inch 

subwoofer underneath is 

ported out the back. An active 

crossover at 400 Hz distributes 

the high and low audio 

signals among the three internal 

amplifiers. Although 

portable, at 3.5 by 13.8 by 4.8 

inches (HWD) and about 1.7 

pounds without batteries, the 

system is more suitable for 

the home than for travel. 

You can control play/ 

pause, track skip, and volume 

with your music software or 

the buttons on the speaker. 

The buttons work with any 

music software that supports 

media keys on a PC keyboard. 

The line-in port and included 

cable let you connect to any 

audio playback device. 

The 3-inch subwoofer is 

held off the surface by little 

rubber feet, so you actually 

do get a nice, tight bass response. 

Upper bass is excellent, 

which is what keeps the 

speaker from sounding tinny. 

The volume is good up to 

about 9 on the 10-step scale: 

The speaker tends to distort 

Snap, Crackle & Hiss: A Noisy iPod Dock 


The i.Sound Max 

($129.99 list) is a very 

nice-looking portable 

iPod speaker/dock that 

pumps out plenty of volume 

and has the most full-featured 

iPod remote control we’ve 

seen yet. Its price is competitive 

with similar offerings 

from major players such as 

Altec Lansing. But the quality 

of sound channeled by the 

dock is marred by distortion, 

hiss, and digital noise. With 

a hard drive–based Apple 

iPod, the noise is loud enough 

during playback 

to make it 

hard to recommend 

this 

product, but 

the results are 

somewhat better 

with the nano. 


The speaker itself is a onepiece, 

two-channel affair, 

shaped rather like a bow tie. 

The dock is directly on top 

of the speaker. On either side 

are bass ports, which give the 

Max an advantage in low-end 

sound over 

nonported 

models . 

We tried 

out the 

Max with 

YOU CAN 

dock your iPod on 

top of the Max speaker. 

THE A-250’S COOL DESIGN is 

matched by its performance. 

several iPods, including fullsize 

iPods, a mini, and a nano, 

and we heard a lot of digital 

noise at the beginnings of 

tracks with all of them. This 

included hard drive whine, 

chirping, swirling (which 

sounds like radio interference), 

hiss, and a continuous 

high-pitched sound. With 

the hard drive-based models, 

some of these noises continued 

throughout playback, 

though they disappeared 

after a few seconds with 

the nano. When we 

pressed the widestereo 

button, 

we got a bit more 

bass and the highs 

sounded livelier, 

but the distortion increased as 

well. We got far better results 

using the auxiliary line-in cable 

instead of the iPod dock. 

at maximum volume. We got 

a clear signal up to about 100 

feet through walls and doors. 

We like the A-250 a lot, but 

we have a couple of ideas for 

making it even better—Mac 

support, for starters. We’d 

also like to see a transmitter 

for portable players, and the 

monochrome LCD could use 

some beefi ng up in the viewing-angle 

department. Despite 

these minor quibbles, we 

give the Saitek A-250 our Editors’ 

Choice and recommend 

it for vacation homes and for 

home/offi ce/dorm desktops. 

Saitek A-250 

$129.95 direct. Saitek, 

www.saitekusa.com. llllh 

The best thing about the 

Max is its remote control, 

which has dedicated buttons 

for a surprising number of 

iPod features including scrolling 

through playlists, albums, 

and shuffl e/repeat modes. 

The digital-noise problem 

in the dock connector is 

the main thing holding the 

i.Sound Max back from superstardom 

in its category. 

But for now, the auxiliary 

line input is an acceptable 

workaround, though that 

means you can’t charge and 

play your iPod simultaneously, 

and you lose access to the 

remote-control features. In 

its current state, the Max is 

listenable, but not quite ready 

for prime time. 

i.Sound Max 

$129.99 list. dreamGEAR, 

www.dreamgear.net. llmmm

48 

FIRST LOOKS 

Hardware: Storage 

Storage Brontosaurus: 1-Terabyte Hard Drives 

BY JOEL SANTO DOMINGO 

So how much is a terabyte, 

really? Well, be sides the 

abstract notion of its 

being 1 million kilobytes, it’s 

also enough storage for several 

million digital photos, a 

few hundred thousand MP3s, 

or thousands of hours of 

digital video. For most, a 1TB 

drive is overkill, but if you’re 

a graphics professional, postproduction 

video editor, or 

anyone else who works frequently 

with massive files 

(and you don’t need networking 

capability), a 1TB directattached 

storage drive is the 

way to go. 

Maxtor OneTouch III Turbo 

The Maxtor OneTouch 

III Turbo ($900 list) has 

RAID 0 and RAID 1 

capability and stores 

up to 1TB of data. Although 

we’d like to see a couple of 

improvements, this is the 

high-capacity direct-connect 

storage device to beat. 

The OneTouch III Turbo’s 

small chassis—3.8 by 8.5 by 

5.5 inches (HWD)—is cleanlooking 

and attractive. (The 

power adapter is external, 

which helps the enclosure 

maintain its svelte fi gure). On 

the inside sit two 500GB hard 

drives in a RAID 0 array out 

of the box. RAID 0 stripes 

data across both drives, giving 

you truly 1TB of storage. 

You can also easily confi gure 

the drives to RAID 1 (mirroring), 

which gives you 500GB 

of storage and 500GB of automatic 

backup. Unfortunately, 

the individual drives are not 

removable, and replacing 

them yourself voids the war- 

ranty (if one fails, you have to 

send the OneTouch to a service 

center). 

You can configure the 

single-button backup facility 

for the default Retrospect 

Express HD backup (which 

is useful but basic), Maxtor’s 

Sync software, or any other 

program. The drive 

is compatible 

with Mac OS X 

and Microsoft 

Windows XP but 

comes formatted 

for OS X out of 

the box. 

On our tests, 

the Retrospect 

Express HD software 

took around 

2 minutes 30 

seconds to back up 

our 1.2GB test file via 

USB 2.0 when the array 

was configured to RAID 0. 

Although the overhead from 

the Retrospect software’s 

verifi cation process leads to 

the longish backup times, it 

also ensures data integrity. 

The Maxtor OneTouch III 

Turbo excels as both an active 

data drive and a backup 

system. Its compactness and 

ANALYST'S TIP 

Joel Santo Domingo , Lead Analyst 

its RAID 1 capability edge out 

the challenger, the Iomega XL 

Desktop. The OneTouch III 

Turbo earns our recommendation 

and should be at the 

top of your list. 

Maxtor OneTouch III Turbo 

$900 list. Maxtor Corp., www.maxtor 

.com. llllm 

DO YOU 

really need 

1TB of hard drive 

space? Maxtor and 

Iomega think so. 

Iomega XL Desktop 

Hard Drive 

The Iomega XL Desktop Hard 

Drive ($800 direct) is userfriendly 

and has good performance. 

But the fact that it 

offers only RAID 0 is restrictive 

and leads us to conclude 

that the XL Desktop is not the 

best choice for mass storage. 

The XL Desktop is relatively 

large—roughly 13 by 

7 by 8 inches. But to be fair, 

it houses four 250GB hard 

drives as opposed to the two 

500GB drives in the One- 

Touch III Turbo and an internal 

power supply. 

The XL Desktop is relatively 

quiet, even with four 

drives spinning. In a design 

similar to that of high-density 

servers, each hard drive 

slides easily in and out of the 

enclosure, making upgrading 

drives or replacing failed ones 

easier. This is a bit ironic, 

though: You can confi gure the 

XL Desktop only in a RAID 0 

(striping) array. Since RAID 

0 links all four drives together 

to achieve the 1TB capacity 

(and speed up performance), 

if you lose one drive you lose 

all your data. 

Whether backing up using 

Windows or with Iomega’s 

Automatic Backup Pro software, 

our 1.2GB fi le took just 

56 seconds. 

The included Automatic 

Backup Pro software is pretty 

good, supporting scheduled 

backups, versioning, compression, 

Microsoft Windows 

readable backups, and catastrophic 

failure recovery using 

the bootable Solutions CD. 

Dantz’s Retrospect Express is 

included for Mac users. 

The Iomega XL Desktop 

Hard Drive provides a directattached 

storage solution 

for those who need copious 

amounts space. But if you value 

your data, you might wait 

until the next generation, 

which will support RAID 1 

and RAID 5. 

Iomega XL Desktop 

Hard Drive 

$800 direct. Iomega Corp., 

www.iomega.com. lllmm 

RAID 1 (or mirroring) uses two identical hard drives to maintain a continuous hardware backup of all the 

fi les you store on that drive. While it may seem like a waste to use hard drive storage in this manner, it can 

pay off if you lose your baby’s pictures to the gremlins that seem to plague hard drives these days. If one 

of the drives fails in a RAID 1 array, your data is safe and usable. 

PC MAGAZINE APRIL 11, 2006 www.pcmag.com

50 

FIRST LOOKS 

Hardware: Desktops 

Velocity Goes Mainstream 

BY JOEL SANTO DOMINGO 

The Velocity Micro 

Vision GX ($1,399 

direct, $1,104 without 

monitor) is a mainstream 

retail system with 

a bit of boutique fl ash. It’s 

designed for those who 

want a powerful, upgradable 

multimedia machine 

but don’t want to spend 

more than about $1,500. 

Since Velocity Micro is expanding 

from direct sales 

into retail chains, you can 

even look one over before 

you buy. 

This computer is for users 

who are not serious graphics 

or video professionals but 

who like to dabble in media 

tasks—perhaps taking redeye 

out of digital photos, ripping 

entire CD collections to 

MP3, or occasionally burning 

DV camera footage to DVD. 

Such jobs need a machine 

that’s faster than the typical 

entry-level desktop and has 

a bit more hard drive space, 

RAM, a graphics card, and 

connectivity options. 

The first thing you notice 

is the Vision GX’s sturdy 

metal case. Though minimalist 

in design, it’s painted 

in a deep bluish-purple tone 

that’s somewhere between 

indigo and midnight blue. 

The keyboard, monitor, and 

speakers are the standard 

black, however. (This PC 

is aimed at the multimedia 

market, so Velocity Micro 

has omitted the ostentatious 

styling of its high-end gaming 

boxes.) The spacious case 

easily fits two or more hard 

drives and a couple of optical 

drives. The motherboard 

has available ports for adding 

extra drives and also has free 

spots for a pair of PCI cards, 

a PCIe x1 adapter, and extra 

memory. The PCIe x16 slot is 

occupied by the included Ge- 

Force 6600 card, but this is 

easily swapped out for next- 


THE VISION GX 

is a single-core 

multi media system 

with good components,upgradability, 

and a dash of 

boutiquelike fl air. 

generation graphics cards 

when they are released. 

The Vision GX won’t require 

any immediate upgrades, 

though, with an AMD 

Athlon 64 3700+ (a good mainstream 

64-bit compatible processor), 

1GB of DDR memory, 

a 256MB nVidia GeForce 6600 

graphics subsystem, eight 

USB and two FireWire ports, 

and two DVD drives (one a 

dual-layer DVD±RW). 

You won’t find the dualcore 

processor that some 

units, such as the Cyberpower 

Gamer Ultra 8500 SE 

($999) include, but for many 

people that’s only a minor 

drawback. You don’t really 

need dual-core’s multi 

tasking capabilities if your 

multimedia dabbling is limited 

to ripping, burning, and 

encoding once in awhile, and 

you mainly surf or play the 

occasional game. (You also 

have the consolation of a metal 

case instead of a plastic one 

protecting your investment.) 

And you certainly can 

play games on the Vision 

GX. Though it’s more of a 

general-purpose multime- 

dia machine than the Gamer 

Ultra, which has a second SLI 

slot for a dual graphics card 

setup, its Doom 3 score (68 

frames per second) shows 

that it can play games well at 

1,024-by-768 resolution. Also 

thanks to the Vision GX's Ge- 

Force 6600 graphics processor, 

you can take advantage 

of nVidia's PureVideo technology, 

which improves video 

quality on DVD videos 

as well as on HD-encoded 

Windows Media fi les. 

Since it’s a singlecore 

system, it’s a bit 

slower than some with 

dual-cores, such as the 

recently reviewed Polywell 

MiniBox2 939NP- 

MCE, on tasks like 

running the Windows 

Media Encoder test 

(the Vision GX took 

12:40; the MiniBox2, 

7:43). Of course, the 

MiniBox2 is a 

more specialized 

(and more expensive, 

at $1,888) 

Media Center PC. 

The Vision GX 

performed well on 

our Adobe Photoshop 

Action set (1:51), 

though again, it was 

slower than the dual-core 

units we tested. 

Still, the Velocity Micro 

Vision GX is a good mainstream 

PC that’s a bit less expensive 

than similar systems 

from the larger manufacturers, 

and it’s more attractive, 

to boot. All in all, it justifi es 

the extra cost of moving up 

from compact and more limited 

entry-level systems. 

Velocity Micro Vision GX 

With 2.2-GHz AMD Athlon 64 3700+ 

processor, 1GB DDR SDRAM, 200GB 

SATA hard drive, 256MB nVidia Ge- 

Force 6600 graphics card, dual-layer 

DVD±RW drive, DVD-ROM drive, 17inch 

LCD monitor, Microsoft Windows 

XP Home, $1,399 direct. Velocity 

Micro Inc., www.velocitymicro.com. 

lllhm

52 

BY M. DAVID STONE 

Certainly the most eyecatching 

feature on 

the thermal-dye Kodak 

EasyShare Photo Printer 500 

($199.95 direct) is its 3.5-inch 

LCD for previewing photos. 

But while the large LCD is 

a nice touch, the EasyShare 

500 stands out from the pack 

of dedicated photo printers 

for a different reason—the 

sheer number of its connection 

choices. 

The 500 has memory card 

slots for CompactFlash, Secure 

Digital, MultiMedia- 

Card, a reduced-size Multi- 

MediaCard, an xD-Picture 

Card, Memory Stick, Memory 

Stick Duo, Memory Stick 

Pro, and Magic Gate connectors 

for printing from a PC, a 

PictBridge camera, or a USB 

key; and Bluetooth support 

for printing from camera 

phones and PDAs. An 802.11b 

card ($99.95 direct) lets you 

connect the printer to a wireless 

network. 

The 2.8-pound EasyShare 

500, at 3.1 by 13.1 by 7.3 inches 

(HWD) including the tray, 

is a touch larger than most 

printers dedicated to producing 

4- by 6-inch photos. 

Output quality was very 

good, meeting our expectations. 

Almost 

every print was true 

photo quality, but we 

did notice a tendency 

to lose detail in light 

areas. In one photo 

that included white 

clouds and a light-blue sky, 

both the clouds and the sky 

came out almost completely 

white. Colors otherwise tend 

to be punched up compared 

with the real thing. Output is 

waterproof, as it is with prints 

from all thermal-dye printers. 

On our standard test suite 

for 4- by 6-inch photos, the 

EasyShare 500 averaged 1 

FIRST LOOKS 

Hardware: Printers 

A Printer with Strong Connections 

minute 19 seconds 

per photo. That’s 

slower than the less expensive 

Canon Selphy CP510, our 

Editors’ Choice, which took 

1:09, but faster than the highend 

Editors’ Choice Epson 

PictureMate Deluxe Viewer 

Edition, which averaged 1:32. 

Quality is a step 

above that of the CP510 

and a step below the 

PictureMate’s, so for 

these three competitors, 

higher quality seems to 

go hand-in-hand with 

slower speed. As 

with most 

printers, the 

EasyShare 

500 slowed 

down a bit 

when printing 

images directly 

from a camera or 

memory card. 

Even if you don’t 

take advantage of 

the EasyShare 500’s 

many connection options, 

its balance of speed, 

quality, and cost per photo 

makes it a good choice. 

Kodak EasyShare Photo 

Printer 500 

$199.95 direct. Eastman Kodak Co., 

www.kodak.com. llllm 

Small, Low-Priced Personal Monochrome Laser 


The Konica Minolta 

PagePro 1400W 

($119.99 direct) is one 

of the least expensive monochrome 

laser printers we’ve 

seen, second only to the $99 

Dell Laser Printer 1100. But 

although it’s fast, its output 

quality is below par. That 

makes it a poor choice 

for business use but a 

reasonable possibility 

as a home or dorm 

room printer, with 

quality that’s adequate 

for things like personal 

correspondence and 

schoolwork. 

At 9.4 by 13.9 by 16.1 

inches (HWD) with paper 

tray and just 15.6 pounds, 

it’s light enough to move 

around easily and small 

enough to fi t on your desk. 


The 1400W is built around 

a 17-page-per-minute engine, 

which pays off in reasonably 

fast performance. On our 

business applications suite, it 

finished in 9 minutes 50 sec- 

THE 1400W 

is fast, but quality is low. 

THE KODAK 

EasyShare 

includes a 

bright LCD. 

onds. That’s roughly a minute 

faster than the Dell 1100 but 

slower than some competing 

models at the same price. 

Unfortunately, the 1400W 

loses points on output quality, 

producing text, graphics, 

and photo quality well below 

par for a monochrome laser. 

On our tests for text quality, 

although more than half of 

our test fonts were easily 

readable at 4 points, 

one highly stylized 

font had some letters 

merging into each 

other, making the text 

hard to read even at 12 

points—a problem we’ve 

never seen before with a 

monochrome laser. 

The most important 

problem we saw with graphics 

output was a distracting 

banding, or streaking, on 

most images. But there were 

other significant problems, 

including uneven coverage in 

solid fi lls and a tendency for 

thin lines to disappear. 

Photos showed streaks, and 

there was a tendency for areas 

with similar shades of gray to 

blend into one another, as well 

as a loss of detail in dark and 

light areas. 

If you care about output 

quality above all, the Dell 

1100 is the better choice. And 

if you care about speed above 

all, go with the Brother HL- 

2040. As is, there is no compelling 

reason, at this price, 

to choose the 1400W over the 

competition. 

Konica Minolta PagePro 

1400W 

$119.99 direct. Konica Minolta 

Printing Solutions U.S.A. Inc., printer 

.konicaminolta.com. llmmm

54 


The Visioneer Strobe 

XP300 ($399 direct) 

is the latest in a long 

line of Visioneer scanners 

that are both small enough 

to fi t between your keyboard 

and monitor—at 2 by 2.5 by 12 

inches (HWD)—and highly 

portable (at 1.25 pounds). The 

XP300 also brings something 

new to the party: duplex 

scanning. That gives it a big 

leg up on earlier models. 

You can supply power via 

the included AC cable or 

USB, which is a nice touch. 

Keep in mind, however, that 

the scanner slows down a bit 

when powered over USB. 

ScanSoft PaperPort, the 

XP300’s primary software, 

is one of the best programs 

we’ve seen for scanning and 

document management. It 

lets you track your scanned 

documents and drag and 

drop fi les from the PaperPort 

desktop into other programs. 

The XP300 we tested came 

with PaperPort 9, but 

Version 10 should be 

available by the time 

you read this. You 

can also download the 

new release from the 

Visioneer Web site. 

The XP300’s claimed 

maximum optical resolution 

of 600 pixels per inch is more 

than enough to handle the 

offi ce-oriented tasks it is designed 

for: faxing, document 

management, creating e-mail 

attachments, and scanning to 

PDF fi le format—but it’s not 

ideal for photos. 

PaperPort’s built-in optical 

character recognition (OCR) 

and the included ScanSoft 

OmniPage 12 OCR program 

both managed to recognize 

our Times New Roman test 

samples at 10 points and our 

Arial samples at 8 points 

without a mistake. 

FIRST LOOKS 

Hardware: Scanners 

Duplex Scans in a Record Small Size 

We ran into two minor 

problems in testing. First, 

when open, the paper guide in 

the back provides a straightthrough 

path for input; when 

closed, it sends paper on a 

curved path. Finding the right 

partly-open position to make 

the guide work as promised 

was a little tricky. 

The second, more troubling 

problem was how easily 

the unskew feature, which 

electronically straightens 

crookedly scanned pages, 

HP’s New Flatbed Photo Scanner 


The HP Scanjet 4890 

Photo Scanner 

($199.99 direct) is 

the best argument we’ve 

seen lately for never buying 

a scanner based on the big 

numbers on the box. The 

claimed 4,800-pixel-perinch 

(ppi) optical resolution 

and 48-bit color depth promise 

excellent results for 

both photographic prints 

and slides. The reality 

doesn’t meet the 

promise. 

Although photo is 

in the 4890’s name, 

the 4890 does well 

on almost everything 

but. It comes 

with both Twain and 

WIA drivers, so it scans from 

most Windows programs. 

And you can modify color 


saturation, tint, and brightness, 

plus adjust brightness 

for highlights, shadows, and 

midtones. 

To use the integrated 

OCR, you select a text format 

for the output 

file. Choices 

THE HP 4890 

doesn’t quite live up to 

its name as a photo scanner. 

include RTF and searchable 

PDF, limiting the documentmanagement 

capabilities. 

Also, there is no automatic 

document feeder. Accuracy 

was reasonable, 

with no errors 

reading Times New 

Roman text at 10 points 

and Arial text at 8. 

For slides, this was 

by far the fastest fl atbed 

scanner we’ve 

seen, taking just 

26 seconds, at 

2,400 by 2,400 

ppi, for one slide. 

Most flatbed 

scanners take 

twice as long. 

Unfortunately, 

quality, not speed, 

is where the 4890 

falls short. On our 

2,400-ppi slide test, it didn’t 

THE SMALL XP300 

offers duplex scanning. 

crashed the program, forcing 

us to reboot. Once you’re 

aware of the bug, you can 

avoid it by waiting a few seconds 

for processing to fi nish. 

Visioneer expects to have a 

fi x available for downloading 

by the time you read this. 

Despite this problem, those 

who need convenient scanning 

will fi nd that the XP300 

does the job and does it well. 

Visioneer Strobe XP300 

$399 direct. Visioneer Inc., 

www.visioneer.com. lllmm 

deliver the level of detail it 

should have for the claimed 

resolution. The output was 

blurry compared with the 

2,400-ppi results from other 

less-expensive models we 

tested. Photo scans showed a 

loss of detail in dark areas of 

complex slides, though the 

quality was acceptable in lesschallenging 

slides. 

The 4890 also had problems 

with photographic prints. 

One scan showed obvious 

streaks along a side—apparently 

the result of light leaking 

in along the edge. 

The 4890 scans of images 

on photo paper are acceptable 

if you just want to print 

snapshots. But there are plenty 

of less expensive and better 

choices out there. 

HP Scanjet 4890 

Photo Scanner 

$199.99 direct. Hewlett-Packard 

Development Co., www.hp.com. 

llmmm

56 

FIRST LOOKS 

Hardware: Laptops 

Big on Extras, Short on Battery Life tion to upgrade to Microsoft 

BY CISCO CHENG 

The Toshiba Satellite 

A105-S361 ($1,450 

direct) is for media 

lovers who are passionate 

about editing video, watching 

movies, and uploading 

photos to Flickr. Toshiba has 

built a mainstream unit that 

remains portable even with 

a 15.4-inch widescreen. And 

although it isn’t a gaming machine, 

its components should 

satisfy your need for speed. 

The shade of dark gray surrounding 

the lid creates a nice 

slimming illusion. But the 

unit is already fairly light— 

6.0 pounds—compared with 

other 15.4-inch-screen notebooks 

such as the HP Pavilion 

dv4000 (6.4 pounds) and the 

Acer TravelMate 8204WSMi 

(6.7 pounds). The Satellite 

has a bright, high-contrast 

screen—perfect for watching 

a DVD or working with photo 

or video files, but the glare 

can be troublesome when 

you’re working in bright 

light on documents 

such as Microsoft Word 

or Excel fi les. 

The components you get 

on the Satellite are very 

similar to those of its close 

competitor, the HP Pavilion 

dv4000, for about the same 

price. The Satellite comes 

loaded with a 2.0-GHz Pentium 

M 760, 1GB of RAM, and 

integrated Intel graphics. 

Unlike with the HP, however, 

you can’t upgrade to a discrete 

graphics solution. 

Toshiba will let you upgrade 

to a 120GB hard drive; 

by contrast, you can’t go 

above 100GB on the dv4000. 

If you plan on doing some 

ANALYST'S TIP 

Cisco Cheng , Lead Analyst 

heavier video editing while 

running other tasks, you may 

want to consider a dual-core 

system, such as the Dell Inspiron 

E1705. 

On our SYSmark 2004 SE 

benchmark tests, the Satellite 

and the dv4000 were very 

close rivals, 

with the Satellite 

narrowly 

edging out 

the dv4000 

on the overall 

score (153 

versus 151). 

Both scores 

are good, signifying 

that 

these systems 

are effective 

at handling 

media appli- 

THE TOSHIBA A105 

has many multimedia extras. 

cations such as Adobe Photoshop, 

Adobe Premiere, and 

those from Macromedia. 

Unfortunately, the systems 

also shared unimpressive 

battery life, though the 

Satellite managed to last 17 

minutes longer (2 hours 28 

minutes) than the dv4000 

(2:11). Toshiba does offer an 

eight-cell battery pack ($145), 

which weighs a little less 

than half a pound and lasts 

about 3 hours, according to 

the company. 

A set of media buttons 

(Play/Pause, Stop, Rwd, and 

FFWD) controls DVD and CD 

playback in Windows and the 

Toshiba Express Media Player. 

Express Media Player is a 

more stripped-down instanton 

interface than HP’s Quick- 

Play 2.0, so you can access 

only content from the optical 

drive. (With QuickPlay, you 

can access any multimedia fi le 

on your hard drive). The builtin 

Harman Kardon speakers 

offer crisp MP3 playback. The 

touchpad is responsive, but 

we found it a bit too small. 

One important note: This 

system does not offer an op- 

Windows XP Media Center 

Edition 2005. Fortunately, 

there are enough third-party 

applications that can help 

you organize your music and 

photos—and since there is no 

TV tuner, the lack of MCE is 

not a deal-breaker. 

We like seeing 

USB ports spread 

out, and the Satellite 

has two on 

the side and two in 

back. Rounding out 

its connectivity options 

are FireWire, 

S-Video, and VGA 

ports, as well as a 

5-in-1 memory card 

reader. As you would 

expect, the Satellite 

comes with a duallayer 

DVD±RW drive 

(and these days, you 

should expect nothing 

less from a multimedia 

notebook). 

For those who enjoy 

watching movies, editing 

home videos, and fi ddling 

around with photos, the 

Toshiba Satellite A105-S361 

is a good choice, especially 

considering the price. But 

the short battery life limits 

you to brief trips away from 

your desk, and the options 

are not as extensive as those 

that you’ll find on the HP 

Pavilion dv4000. 

Toshiba Satellite A105-S361 

With 2.0-GHz Intel Pentium M 760, 

1GB SDRAM, 120GB hard drive, Intel 

Graphics Media Accelerator 900 

GM, 15.4-inch widescreen LCD, Intel 

Pro Wireless 2200BG, dual-layer 

DVD±R, Microsoft Windows XP Home 

Edition, $1,450 direct. Toshiba 

America Information Systems Inc., 

www.toshiba.com. lllhm 

Dual-core processing is the latest craze in notebooks. The performance gain of a system with an Intel Core 

Duo processor compared with a Pentium M system is astounding. If you’re in the market for a new laptop and 

demand high performance for your work (or just for fun), investing into a Core Duo laptop is a smart move. 

The list of vendors offering dual-core portables is growing by the week, and prices are very competitive. 

PC MAGAZINE APRIL 11, 2006 www.pcmag.com

58 

FIRST LOOKS 

Software 

Five New Approaches to Photo Sharing 

BY CADE METZ 

What’s the best way 

to share digital 

photos? That’s a 

matter of opinion. There are 

many tools to choose from, 

and each has its merits—not 

to mention its drawbacks. 

Here, we review five of the 

latest products. If you can’t 

find something you like 

among these six, you’re terribly 

hard to please. 

AOL Pictures 

AOL Pictures, open to 

anyone, gives you unlimited 

online photo 

storage, simple photoediting 

tools, and professional 

printing and gift services. It’s 

also delightfully easy to use. 

After downloading an 

ActiveX control, you can up- 

load photos simply by dragging 

them into your browser 

window and dropping them 

there. The photo-management 

tools aren’t unusual, but 

they’re powerful enough— 

and straightforward enough— 

for the average user. 

What’s unusual is the way 

the service shares photos. 

With most such sites, you 

simply upload images to the 

Web and mail out a URL that 

friends and family can visit 

to view the shots and order 

prints. You can do the same 

for friends or family who 

aren’t AOL Pictures users. 

But for fellow AOL Pictures 

users, you can go one step 

further and have your photos 

posted to their AOL Pictures 

accounts, right beside 

their own photos. If you’re an 

AOL member, you can even 

use AOL Pictures from your 

mobile phone or PDA. 

AOL Pictures 

Free. America Online Inc., 

www.aol.com/pictures. lllhm 

BubbleShare (beta) 

BubbleShare is billed as “the 

first zero-registration, private 

service for sharing photo 

albums with voice captions 

over the Internet.” That’s not 

exactly true—you’ll have to 

enter your name and e-mail 

PICTURES YOU RECEIVE from other AOL Pictures members are 

automatically added to your AOL Pictures folder. 


address—but this is one of 

the Web’s most elegant and 

intuitive photo sites. You can 

share impressively slick online 

photo albums in minutes, 

dragging pics straight from 

Windows Explorer and dropping 

them into the app. And, 

yes, you can even tag your 

pictures with voice captions. 

The built-in editing tools 

are surprisingly dynamic. 

You can change the album’s 

title, for instance, simply by 

double-clicking on it and typ- 

BUBBLESHARE’S EDITING TOOLS are surprisingly dynamic, 

letting you input your edits right on the page and drag and drop 

images to adjust their order. 

ing straight onto the page. 

And you can drag and drop to 

reorder images. 

To share your album with 

others, simply hit the button 

marked Share Album, then 

key in the e-mail addresses 

you’d like to send a link to. 

The company touts BubbleShare’s“zero-registration” 

setup, but in the end, 

this is the service’s one drawback. 

The service doesn’t 

create an umbrella account 

that lets you access all your 

albums. Instead, each time 

you create one, you’re sent 

a new link where you go to 

continue editing and managing. 

But saving and keeping 

up with all those different 

links can be a pain. 

BubbleShare (beta) 

Free. BubbleLabs, 

www.bubbleshare.com. lllhm 

FilmLoop (beta) 

FilmLoop is a free downloadable 

app that scrolls picture 

after picture across your 

desktop. It’s a terrific way 

FILMLOOP USES a ticker format 

to exhibit photos. Your images are 

added to a loop that acts as a sort 

of scrolling slide show. 

to browse photos already 

on your PC, and it’s also a 

means of sending and receiving 

digital images. Much like 

Flickr, it lets you swap pics 

with strangers as well as 

with loved ones, fostering an 

online community of photo 

enthusiasts. 

Whereas other apps organize 

photos into virtual albums, 

FilmLoop sorts them 

into loops—long strips of 

images that scroll endlessly 

across your screen. You can 

view one loop at a time or 

string them together. Naturally, 

the scrolling images are 

thumbnails—not full-size 

photos—but when you see 

one you like, you can blow it 

up to full size, print it out, or 

attach comments. 

Creating your fi rst loop is 

as simple as dragging a few 

pictures onto the FilmLoop 

ticker and dropping them. As 

you do, the client automatically 

uploads your loop to 

the company’s servers, and 

you’re free to share with oth-

PHANFARE TAKES an interesting 

approach, letting you upload 

and edit your online photo 

albums using a local app. 

ers. You can list your new 

loop in the FilmLoop Public 

Directory, giving access to 

anyone, or you can key in a 

few e-mail addresses, sharing 

only with people you know. 

If you like, you can even 

give friends and family the 

freedom to edit your loops 

with their own comments or 

pictures. If ten people attend 

the same party, for instance, 

they can create a single loop 

of party photos, uploading 

from their own cameras, and 

anyone can comment on anyone 

else’s pictures. 

FilmLoop (beta) 

Free. FilmLoop Inc., 

www.fi lmloop.com. llllm 

Phanfare 

Phanfare is not for everyone. 

Some will take issue with the 

way it straddles the line between 

local app and 

Web service; others 

may feel it needs betterphoto-management 

tools. But for 

sharing photos and 

videos, it’s wonderfully 

quick and easy. 

Typically, such a 

sharing tool is either 

a pure browserbased 

Web service 

or a downloadable 

app (like OurPictures) 

that the person 

viewing the 

content must also 

download. Though you 

download and install Phanfare 

locally, it shares your 

photos by posting them to 

the Web. For $54.95 yearly (or 

$6.95 per month), the company 

provides a sharp-looking 

personal site where you can 

post up to a gigabyte of content 

each month. You simply 

drag pictures or videos and 

drop them onto the client 

app, which seamlessly uploads 

them to your Web site. 

When so many other services 

are Web-only applications, 

why go through the 

trouble of installing software 

locally? The client makes organizing 

pictures and videos 

into various albums a snap. 

And, since it uploads to the 

Web in the background, you 

don’t have to thumb-twiddle 

waiting for pictures to post. 

FIRST LOOKS 

Software 

WITH SNAPJOT, your photos become part of a 

narrative made up of “Jots”—groups of pictures 

and captions that tell a story. 

With the local app, you 

can do basic photo editing, 

add captions, change the look 

of online albums, and send 

e-mail notifications 

about new 

postings. If you 

like, you can even 

send notifi cations 

via RSS feed. 

Phanfare automaticallycompresses 

photos 

and promptly 

posts them, so 

several seconds 

after you’ve set 

up an album, your 

pictures show up 

on your site. Once this lowres 

version posts, the client 

also sends a high-res copy 

to the Web servers, creating 

a backup for your photo collection 

and also letting you 

order high-quality prints. 

(The service integrates with 

online printers Kodak, Shutterfl 

y, and SnapFish.) 

Phanfare 

$54.95 per year, $6.95 monthly. 

Phanfare Inc., www.phanfare.com. 

llllm 

SnapJot (beta) 

Storytelling is part of the fun 

of sharing photos with loved 

ones, and SnapJot is an effort 

to bring this to the Web. You 

don’t just post photos and 

videos to the site, you post 

them as part of a running narrative, 

adding descriptions, 

explanations, anecdotes, and 

other memories. As 

people browse, they 

can include their 

own photos, videos, 

and stories. The basic 

service is free 

and provides up to 

100MB of online 

storage each month. 

Once you sign 

up, you can launch 

your first SnapJot 

story with a mouse 

click. You begin each 

with a title, a short 

description, and a 

cover picture, then 

you build a list of “Jots”—a 

series of events that make up 

your narrative. Each Jot is a 

separate Web page you can 

fill with photos, videos, and 

rich text. One disappointment 

is that rather than uploading 

files en masse, you’re forced 

to post them one at a time. 

Once your story is finished, 

you can send private 

links to friends and family or 

open the story up to the entire 

SnapJot community. You 

can give viewers the power 

to post comments, add their 

own media and text, or even 

create new Jots. 

If you’re not willing to put 

a healthy amount of time into 

the service, your finished 

product won’t be that compelling. 

But if you’re a storyteller, 

SnapJot could be just 

what you’re looking for. 

SnapJot (beta) 

100MB storage per month, free; 1GB 

per year, $24.99; 2GB, $39.99. SnapJot 

Inc., www.snapjot.com. llhmm 

Photo Finish 

AOL PICTURES The site for the 

masses, AOL Pictures gives 

users smooth photo sharing, 

whether or not their friends are 

members. 

BUBBLESHARE This service 

gives you a quick-and-dirty 

way to edit and post your images 

for friends to see. It’s as 

close to “zero-registration” 

as you can get. 

FILMLOOP The scrolling ticker 

is addictive, and FilmLoop lets 

you view your own “Loops,” 

Loops from friends, or Loops 

from the community at large. 

PHANFARE Phanfare is easy to 

use, and you’ll get great-looking 

results. Just upload images 

using the local app and send 

your friends online to view and 

download hi-res images. 

SNAPJOT SnapJot is a way to 

share memories, not just pictures. 

It takes more time and 

effort than the other services, 

but if you’re a storyteller, this 

might be the way to go. 


60 

Slim and Versatile LCDs 

BY JOHN R. DELANEY 

Are you still getting 

by with the same 

bulky, dusty, beige 

CRT monitors? It’s time to 

put them out to pasture. The 

new generation of LCD monitors 

is slender, versatile, and 

affordable. And the best part 

is, they work equally well in 

the offi ce as they do at home. 

Here, we review three top 

contenders that conserve 

precious desktop space, 

offer good performance, and 

even ease eyestrain. (Flickering 

CRTs are to blame for 

many—though not all—endof-day 

headaches.) 

Some of today’s ‘business’ 

displays include more video 

input options, integrated USB 

ports, and fast pixel-response 

times. If blasting aliens is 

your idea of kicking back after 

a tough day at the offi ce, these 

monitors are ready to rumble. 

You know what they say about 

all work and no play. 

HP LP2065 

The new flagship business 

display from Hewlett-Packard—the 

HP LP2065 ($649 

direct)—brings style and 


functionality to any setting, 

home or office. And its 

relatively fast pixel-response 

rate 

will even make 

this monitor appealing 

to some 

gamers. 

The 20.1-inch 

screen has a resolution 

of 1,600 by 1,200 pixels 

and includes a built-in 

USB hub. The black rectangular 

stand tilts 35 degrees, 

swivels 90, and lets you adjust 

the height by 5 inches. 

The panel pivots 90 degrees 

counterclockwise and comes 

with Portrait Display’s Pivot 

Pro software. A quickrelease 

latch at the rear 

of the display lets you 

remove the panel from its 

pedestal for wall or swingarm 

mounting. 

If you prefer not to use the 

on-screen display (OSD), 

HP’s Display Assistant software 

lets you play with the 

image via a wizard. The 

monitor also comes with 

four downstream USB ports, 

two DVI-I connectors, an 

upstream USB port, and a 

cable-lock slot. And while we 

FIRST LOOKS 

Small Business: Displays 

THE 90GX2 has 

a sharp image 

that sometimes 

feels too bright. 

THE HP LP2065 offers a variety 

of connectivity options. 

like the display’s dual DVI-I 

connectors (most dual-input 

LCD monitors come with 

only DVI-D and RGB), we 

wish it included S-Video or 

composite video inputs. 

The LP2065’s performance 

is much better with a digital 

signal (instead of analog), 

but it did an excellent job of 

displaying small fonts (down 

to 5.3 points) in both modes. 

Viewing angles were very 

good in both vertical and 

horizontal planes. It also did 

a fi ne job of displaying fastmotion 

sequences on our 

DVD and gaming tests, with 

only occasional artifacts and 

ghosting. 

There are less-expensive 

20-inch LCD monitors out 

there, but the LP2065 is a 

good deal for corporate or 

home users who demand 

high-end performance and 

require fl exibility when connecting 

to their various PCs. 

HP LP2065 

$649 direct. Hewlett-Packard Development 

Co., www.hp.com. llllm 

NEC MultiSync 90GX2 

The 90GX2 ($480 street) 

is NEC’s latest addition 

to its MultiSync line. 

Fast pixel response, 

a USB hub, and 

solid image quality 

will make this 

1,280-by-1,024, 

19-inch monitor 

appeal to gamers 

and multimedia buffs. 

The 90GX2’s off-white 

case and thin silver bezel 

provide a welcome change 

from the standard black. Less 

welcome, in some situations, 

is the panel’s high-gloss, antirefl 

ective coating. It produces 

a crisper image but is too refl 

ective under bright light. 

The monitor tilts and 

swivels but does not allow 

height or pivot adjustment. 

A removable panel on the rear 

hides DVI-D and analog connections, 

an upstream USB 

port, and two downstream 

USB ports. Two additional 

downstream USB ports are 

on the left side of the screen. 

A removable shroud on the 

mounting arm keeps the various 

cables tucked away. 

We were generally pleased 

with the 90GX2’s motion 

display. The 4-ms pixel-response 

rate worked well 

for displaying fast-action 

3D graphics. Colors were 

bright and movement fl owed 

smoothly, although we saw 

sporadic ghosting. Some 

motion artifacts appeared 

during DVD viewing, but image 

quality was quite good. 

The 90GX2 did have some 

trouble, however, displaying 

small font sizes. 

Those who work with detailed 

images or a lot of text 

should look elsewhere, but 

gamers and video buffs will 

appreciate the NEC Multi- 

Sync 90GX2’s performance. 

NEC MultiSync 90GX2 

$480 street. NEC Solutions (America) 

Inc., www.nec.com. lllhm

Lenovo ThinkVision L201p 

The classic business-black 


monitor will blend into any 

offi ce environment, particularly 

those already equipped 

with IBM/Lenovo systems. 

But even die-hard IBM buyers 

may want to think twice 

before making the leap with 

this monitor. Although it has 

good image quality and wide 

viewing angles, you can 

fi nd better and lower-priced 

alternatives. 

The 20.1-inch, 1,600-by- 

1,200 resolution LCD panel 

is framed by an ultraslim 

bezel that widens slightly at 

the bottom. The monitor can 

pivot up to 90 degrees clockwise, 

tilt 30 degrees, swivel 

90, and move as much as 4.3 

inches vertically. The screen 

doesn’t come with image-rotation 

software, however, so 

unless your graphics 

card supports 

rotation, you’ll 

have to shell out 

another $35 or so 

to use the pivot 

capability. 

The L201p provides 

digital and 

analog inputs 

and comes with 

cables for both 

connections, but 

that’s the extent 

of the connectivity 

options—no USB 

ports or multimedia video 

inputs as seen on the HP 

LP2065. 

The L201p’s performance 

on our DisplayMate tests was 

better than average. Results 

in analog and digital modes 

were nearly identical, and 

grayscale performance was 

good across the board. But 

FIRST LOOKS 

Small Business: Displays 

John Dickinson 

Why I Hate Upgrades 

Sometime this year Windows Vista, the next incarnation of Microsoft’s 

operating system, will appear. And during roughly the same 

period, Microsoft Offi ce 12 will show up. Should you upgrade? 

Not if you can help it. Operating-system upgrades are particularly 

diffi cult, because your machines aren’t equipped for them. 

Your PCs were confi gured specifi cally for the version of Windows 

they came with. Pushing a new, more demanding OS onto them 

will almost certainly cause heartaches, because every PC in your 

company is different. Despite your best efforts at standardization, 

every employee has a slightly different software suite and 

often different hardware as well. After an upgrade, some systems 

will work and some won’t. Even when they do, you'll likely be left 

with performance problems, because the upgraded machines 

probably lack suffi cient processor power, memory, or disk capacity 

to cope with the new operating system. 

But believe it or not, applications upgrades can be even trickier, 

because employees may not have the same 

set of applications. Even if they do, they 

often have different versions. So the effects 

may be unpredictable. Here are just a few 

examples of problems from my own experience 

and from the experience of others. 

• When PayCycle customers tried to upgrade 

from Quicken 2004 to Quicken 2005, 

THE LENOVO L201P is 

outfi tted in classic black and is 

business-ready, yet it is also a 

bit pricey. 

>MORE ON THE WEB 

For reviews, tips, and advice, 

all with a focus on small and 

medium businesses, visit 

www.smartcompany.com 

we were disappointed 

with the 

way the panel displayed 

small text; 

fonts below 6.8 

points were very 

diffi cult to read. 

Our DVD movie 

and gaming tests 

revealed that the 

monitor had a moderate 

tendency to 

produce ghost trails 

and artifacts (which 

we expected, since 

the panel has a 16-ms 

pixel-response time). 

The Lenovo Think- 

Vision L201p is a very capable 

20-inch LCD monitor. It performs 

well but is priced significantly 

higher than other 

top performers. 


$799 direct. Lenovo Group Ltd., 

www.lenovo.com. lllmm 

they could no longer download their payroll transactions because 

Intuit abandoned the QFS fi le-transfer format. 

• Quicken 2005 lost track of my own online payments, and Intuit 

tech support could not fi gure out how to get it to remember 

them. Their recommendation was to revert to Quicken 2004. 

• Outlook 2003 disabled my Sony Clié's ability to communicate 

with Outlook. It took a serious effort at reverse kludging (not the 

same as reverse engineering) to fi x the problem. 

• Symantec's Norton Antivirus 2005 disabled my Netgear 

MP101 digital music player's ability to fi nd its disk database on my 

server. It also blocked the ability of installation programs, such 

as Hewlett-Packard's multifunction printer programs, to communicate 

with the computers on a network. Finally, a senior tech at 

Symantec advised me to disable the product's worm protection, 

which he said is safe to do because the product's AutoProtect 

feature provides more than adequate protection. 

I could go on, but I'm sure you could 

as well. If there is a bottom line here, it’s 

that if your users don't absolutely need 

to use the features in a new version of 

a product, don't upgrade. And when it 

comes to operating systems, if you feel 

compelled to upgrade, bite the bullet and 

buy new computers, too. 


62 

BY KATHY YAKAL 

T 

he most significant 

change to QuickBooks 

Online Edition is the 

new payroll preparation system, 

though there are tons 

of other additions, like new 

customization, invoices, 

billable time tracking, and 

multiple user-permission 

levels. The online version is 

a far cry from Intuit’s top-ofthe-line 

small business product, 

QuickBooks Premier 

($399.95), but its anywhere/ 

anytime access makes it a 

capable tool. 

Tracking money in and out 

is fast and easy. You can manage 

your fi nancial accounts; 

keep contact records for 

customers, vendors, and employees; 

and pay bills. The 

site also handles invoices, 

estimates, and sales receipts, 

and generates reports. An interactive 

graphical fl owchart 

divides primary tasks into 

income and expenses. Numerous 

links take you to various 

tasks and transactions, as 

well as to overview pages for 

your company and employees, 

customers and vendors, 

banking and reports, lists 

and help. Each of these centers 

are exceptionally well 

designed and effective. 

FIRST LOOKS 

Small Business: Software 

Keep Your Books on the Web 

Disappointing Defender 

BY NEIL J. RUBENKING 

Laplink’s new PCdefense 

includes real-time protection 

against spyware 

and keyloggers, on-demand 

scanning for malware, disaster 

recovery, and repair of 

system settings, but this fi rst 

release doesn’t succeed. 

We installed PCdefense 

on a clean system 

and tried to install 

our standard collection 

of spyware 

and keyloggers, 

with disappointing 

results. One 

of the 6 commercial 

keyloggers 

wiggled past Keylogger 

Prevention, 

logging keystrokes 

and other activity 

with impunity. 

PCdefense tried 


QUICKBOOKS ONLINE EDITION’s anywhere/anytime access 

makes it a good choice for many small businesses. 

to block the other 5, but all 

installed at least partially. 

PCdefense did detect all 15 

of our spyware samples, but 

even so, it fully prevented installation 

of only 3. 

After a signifi cant malware 

alert, you’ll want to scan the 

system to clear out all traces. 

Unfortunately, though PCde- 

LAPLINK’S PCDEFENSE combines security with 

backup, but the security doesn’t succeed. 

QBOE’s biggest defi cits? No 

inventory, meaning there’s 

no way to keep track of your 

product levels and need for 

reordering. And QBOE lacks 

purchase orders, online banking 

and bill-pay features, and 

any true job-tracking tools. 

Support is handled through 

the Web site, with responses 

fense offers three distinct 

scans—for viruses, spyware, 

and rootkits—the results 

were disappointing here, too. 

PCdefense repeatedly locked 

up Windows Explorer on one 

test system and did a dismal 

job of locating, disabling, and 

removing the malware. 

The Rootkit Scan turned 

up suspicious elements 

in several 

of the infested systems, 

but it didn’t 

offer to remove 

them. A help technician 

suggested 

either searching 

the Internet for a 

specific removal 

tool or using Disaster 

Recovery 

to back up, reformat, 

and restore 

the system. This 

within 30 minutes to help requests 

made between 6 a.m. 

and 6 p.m. Pacifi c time, Monday 

through Friday). 

Businesses with modest 

needs can get by with the basic 

package ($19.95). Online Payroll, 

implemented simply and 

well, is an extra $14.95/month; 

budgeting and class tracking, 

$7.95/month; and salesrelated 

tools, $9.95/month. 

Online Edition Plus wraps 

this all up for $39.95/month. 

We’d be happy to see a lower 

price, especially considering 

what this current iteration 

lacks, but if your financial 

processing needs are fairly 

modest and you need remote 

access, this is your only really 

viable choice. 

QuickBooks Online Edition 

$19.95/month, plus numerous additional 

charges for three users and an 

accountant; $39.95 for Online Edition 

Plus, which includes all extras. Intuit 

Inc., www.qboe.com. lllmm 

is Laplink’s recommended 

technique, but it would be 

a lot faster to use a product 

with rootkit removal built in, 

such as Spy Sweeper 4.5 or 

Spyware Doctor 3.5. 

The Disaster Recovery 

module does offer impressively 

simple backup and 

restore of the entire system. 

It’s similar to a Norton 

Ghost-style image backup, 

but it omits hardware-specific 

elements that could cause 

problems. Backup is an important 

part of data security, 

but PCdefense needs to handle 

malware more effectively. 

And while some problems 

that we encountered, such 

as Explorer locking up, were 

fixed, more improvement is 

needed. We can’t recommend 

this version, but keep an eye 

out for updates. 

Laplink PCdefense 

$44.95 direct. Laplink Software Inc., 

www.laplink.com. llhmm

FIRST LOOKS 

Software: VoIP 

Talk Gets Cheaper for Small Businesses 

BY OLIVER KAVEN 

Recently D-Link introduced 

an IP PBX for 

businesses with 25 

or fewer employees: the IP 

Telephony DVX-1000 ($1,599 

direct). The product is part 

of a complete line called the 

xStack IP Telephony Solution, 

which consists of the DVX- 

1000, an analog trunk gateway 

(the DVG-3004S), and 

DPH-140S VoIP telephones. 

The DVX-1000 is a SIP 

(Session Initiation Protocol) 

telephony switch that 

includes an auto-attendant, 

a call-forwarding and hold 

capability, IVR (Interactive 

Voice Response), voice mail 

with Web-based user access, 

and support for up to 25 extensions. 

The integrated conferencing 

bridge has a Web 

interface that lets you schedule 

conference calls, issue 

invitations to participants, 

and restrict access via PIN 

authentication. 

EASY TO CONFIGURE 

Setup is no harder than for 

any other network-attached 

device that uses a Web interface. 

You can give the DVX- 

1000 a static IP address or 

have it obtain one from your 

DHCP server. Once the unit 

has an IP address, you can 

use the Web interface for 

all configuration, including 

the setup of the gateway, DNS 

parameters, and SMTP-delivered 

system alerts. To ensure 

date and time accuracy—especially 

important since time 

stamps for voice mail and 

Call Detail Reporting 

(CDR) rely on the PBX 

clock—you can point the 

DVX-1000 to two external 

NTP (Network Time Protocol) 

sources. 

Adding a new user or a new 

extension merely requires a 

few mouse clicks in the Call 

Server section. Registration 

involves nothing more than 

MESSAGES TO BE PLAYED for callers can be set up in the Auto-attendant confi guration menu. 

assigning the new username 

and extension to a valid SIP 

ID on the network. 

Once configured with an 

ID and extension, a DPH-140 

($134.99) phone is available 

to the DVX-1000. This is 

the only part of the solution 

that requires advanced knowledge 

of SIP and the workings 

of an IP telephony system. 

The DVX-1000 can use 

multiple gateways. This enables 

administrators to send 

certain traffi c over the PSTN 

(Public Switched Telephone 

Network) and other traffic 

over the Internet using SIP. 

Connecting the DVX-1000 to 

the PSTN requires a bridge 

between the local PSTN and 

your IP network. The $699 

D-Link DVG-3004S can do 

the job. It offers four RJ-11 analog 

FXO (Foreign Exchange 

Offi ce) ports for connecting 

to the local PSTN and one 

10/100 Base-TX connector 

for attaching to your local 

Ethernet network. 

ROUTING CALLS 

Auto-attendant with full 

IVR—a feature usually found 

only in higher-end systems— 

lets administrators configure 

the PBX to greet callers 

and direct them to different 

departments, specific user 

extensions, or a prerecorded 

message. You can also create 

rules that route callers based 

on your company’s working 

hours or observed holidays. 

Upload any voice prompts 

you want as WAV fi les. 

The DVX-1000 supports 

user groups and hunt groups. 

Both allow a set of names or 

extensions to be treated as a 

whole for easier administration. 

A rule applied to the 

sales group, for example, 

could shunt calls to voice 

D-LINK’s solution has features that you’d 

expect only from higher-end systems. 

mail after a certain time. 

Hunt groups let calls be distributed 

to a team simultaneously 

or according to criteria 

such as whose line is free. 

To prevent the system 

from choking, administrators 

can limit mailbox storage 

to anywhere between 

1KB and 5MB. A good overview 

screen shows how much 

space each user is occupying, 

and Web access to messages 

lets users easily manage their 

voice mail accounts. 

We were amazed at the 

breadth of features packed 

into the DVX-1000, like the 

CDR capability that lists 

every call handled by the 

system along with the calling 

parties, date, time, and duration. 

We were also impressed 

by the ease of system setup 

and confi guration. 

The DPH-140 phones 

could use a more automated 

configuration and tighter 

integration into the overall 

system, but the DVX-1000 

lets you outfi t your company 

with a feature-packed IP telephony 

solution for under 

$2,000 (plus $139 per seat). 

If you run a small shop, that 

should put this PBX at the top 

of your shopping list. 

IP Telephony DVX-1000 

DVX-1000, $1,599 direct, plus $139 per 

seat. D-Link Corp., www.dlink.com. 

llllm 


MERCEDES-BENZ S550 

$86,175 TO $110,000 

The Mercedes-Benz S550 bypasses 

the Audi A8L and BMW 750Li as the 

world’s best ultrapremium sedan. It 

features an active infrared Night View 

Assist system, radar-assisted braking, 

and the best cockpit controller. The 

options are so enticing you’ll have a 

hard time staying under $100K. An allwheel 

drive model is due this fall, and 

a gas-saving diesel one in 2007. 

Mercedes-Benz USA LLC, www.mbusa.com. 

lllll 

New OnStar Nav 

Expected this spring, OnStar Turn-By-Turn 

Navigation provides spoken directions 

without requiring the driver to enter a 

destination manually—the system calls 

a live operator who asks where you’re 

going, but you won’t need continued operator 

involvement (unlike current OnStar 

directions). Also, there’s no navigation 

display. It will require a 2007 GM car and 

cost about $10 a month more than current 

basic OnStar service. 

Bill Howard 

If GM Goes Bankrupt, 

Will Anyone Care? 

Former General Motors president 

Charles Wilson is famous for his (slightly 

misquoted) 1953 statement: “What’s 

good for the country is good for General 

Motors, and vice versa.” But how good 

would it be for America if the nation’s 

biggest automaker turned out the lights? 

There are two GMs: One is the “your 

father’s Oldsmobile” GM that fought 

emissions and safety standards, celebrated 

“road-hugging weight” as if 

Madison Avenue had repealed the laws 

of physics, and to this day turns out 

too many cheap-looking dashboards. 

The other is the GM that builds some 

world-class cars and has U.S. production 

facilities that match the Asians for 

assembly-line quality. 

Then there’s GM’s technology. 

The company and its 

partners have OnStar, by far 

the biggest wireless safety, 

information, and routing system 

for cars. GM’s Magne- 

Ride shock absorbers, which 

adjust to road conditions by 

applying magnetic force to 

the iron particles inside, are a brilliant 

invention. GM was the first to take the 

plunge with its PhatNoise entertainment 

system, with a 40GB hard drive you just 

fill with digital media from your PC and 

dock in your car so you can stream multiple 

channels of audio and video. And GM 

was also fi rst with head-up displays. 

Furthermore, the Corvette is a worldclass 

sports car with sophisticated 

engine and suspension technologies, for 

half the price you'd pay for other similar 

cars. (Funny how the Corvette’s tangential 

failings, such as uncomfortable seats, 

are called crude; on a Porsche or Ferrari, 

they’d be part of the car’s inherent 

charm.) GM’s Saturn brand wasn’t the 

fi rst to use plastic body panels that don’t 

rust and can withstand parking-lot dings, 

but it helped to popularize them. Finally, 

GM established a dealer channel where 

the sales reps treated customers decently 

(not technology, but still important). 

Other automakers also offer technologies 

such as automatic braking, 

lane-departure warnings, and blind-spot 

How good 

would it be for 

America if its 

biggest automaker 

turned 

out the lights? 

www.technoride.com 

detection. But GM’s problem is figuring 

out which car to put all this good stuff in. 

Because of costs—$2,000 isn’t uncommon 

for any single leading-edge technology—these 

tech features need to be 

incorporated into a vehicle that's priced 

at $50,000 to $75,000 and already has a 

leading-edge image. 

GM has precious few of these: the Cadillac 

STS, Cadillac Escalade, and Chevrolet 

Corvette. The ideal car to serve as a tech 

platform would be a big brother to the 

STS, competing with the Audi A8L, BMW 

7 Series, Lexus LS430, and Mercedes- 

Benz’s awesome new S-Class. 

If I owned General Motors, I’d tell all 

hands to pay attention to the everyday 

cars, too. First, make Blue- 

tooth and line-in jacks standard; 

a year later, do the 

same for PC Card slots and 

USB jacks (which let you control 

any music player from 

the radio). The rich aren’t the 

only ones who drive with cell 

phones and iPods. The next 

step would be to make the 

interiors more inviting and to add more 

style to the exterior. Design statements 

like that of the Cadillac CTS go a long way. 

GM’s biggest challenge lies outside 

technology. The company has too many 

indistinguishable brands selling undistinguished 

vehicles by dealers that buyers 

would rather not deal with (GM is 

not unique in that). And like Ford and the 

Chrysler part of DaimlerChrysler, GM 

has a ton of retirees with medical benefi 

ts, which adds something like $1,500 

in costs per car. Something that might 

save GM—and would also benefit selfemployed 

entrepreneurs and people in 

the high-tech sector whose jobs come 

and go—is national health insurance. 

What’s good for General Motors. . . . 

>MORE ON THE WEB 

To check out the full reviews for 

these products, navigate over to 

www.technoride.com, 

the car site for tech fans. 


CONSUMER ELECTRONICS 

LOW-COST LCD HDTV 


Proview; $949.99 list 

Widescreen 32-inch display. 

Pleasing picture quality. 

Good image quality with 

analog/digital inputs. 

Inexpensive. 

go.pcmag.com/RX326 

SMART PHONES 

(KEYBOARDLESS) 

T-Mobile SDA 

T-Mobile; $3,299.99 direct 

Wi-Fi. Dedicated music buttons. 

Excellent screen. Syncs with Outlook. 

go.pcmag.com/SDA 

ULTRACOMPACT DIGITAL CAMERA 

Canon PowerShot SD550 Digital Elph 

Canon U.S.A. Inc.; $449.95 list 

Quick performer. Excellent image quality. 

Unique “My Color” feature. Good ergonomics. 

Sleek and attractive. 

go.pcmag.com/SD550 

T-Mobile SDA 

TRAVEL SPEAKERS 

Creative 

TravelDock 900 

Creative Labs Inc.; 

$79.99 direct 

Very compact. Good 

sound quality and power. 

Good battery life with 

alkaline batteries. 

go.pcmag.com/ 

traveldock900 

HEADPHONES 

Etymotic ER6i 

Etymotic Research Inc.; 

$130 street 

Great sound quality and 

sensitivity. Good bass 

performance. Comfortable. 

Effectively blocks 

outside noise. 

go.pcmag.com/er6i 

HARDWARE 

DEDICATED PHOTO PRINTER 

Canon Selphy CP510 

Compact Photo Printer 

Canon U.S.A. Inc.; $99.99 direct 

Very affordable. Fast performance and low 

running cost. Very good photo quality for 

go.pcmag.com/whattobuy • FIRST LOOKS 

WHAT TO BUY 


the price. Prints on a variety of paper sizes 

up to 4 by 8 inches. Battery option. 

go.pcmag.com/canoncp510 

LAPTOP 

Dell Inspiron 6000 (Media Center) 

Dell Inc.; $968.80 direct (E-Value Code 1111-i6004pc) 

Media Center OS. 15.4-inch widescreen 

display. Very good performance. 

go.pcmag.com/DellInspiron6000MCE 

DESKTOPS 

Apple iMac (Intel Core Duo) 

Apple Computer Inc.; $1,699 direct, $1,799 as tested 

Dual-core processor. Front row. Mini-DVI 

port for true dual-monitor usage. 

go.pcmag.com/appleimacintel 

Dell Dimension E310 

Dell Inc.: $746; with 17-inch LCD, $929 

Windows Media Center Edition. DataSafe 

option for added storage protection. Great 

bang for the buck. 

go.pcmag.com/dellE310 

ALL-IN-ONE PRINTER 

Canon Pixma MP500 

Canon U.S.A. Inc.; $199 street 

Prints, scans, and copies. Fast performance. 

Excellent paper handling. 

go.pcmag.com/ 

CanonPixmaMP500 

LCD MONITOR (21-INCH) 

Gateway FPD2185W 

Gateway Inc.; $599.99 direct 

Excellent image quality. Lots 

of video connections. Highly 

adjustable. 

go.pcmag.com/GatewayFPD2185W 

HARD DRIVE 

Maxtor OneTouch II 

Small Business Edition 

(SBE) 

Maxtor Corp.; $599.95 direct 

One-touch data back-up. 

Works with Windows 

2000/2003 Server and 

Small Business Server. 

Unattended backups. Can 

be removed and locked 

down easily. 

go.pcmag.com/ 

MaxtorOneTouchIISBE 

SOFTWARE 

BACKUP SOFTWARE 

NTI Shadow 

NewTech Infosystems Inc.; $29.99 

Fast, simple, continuous backup. 

go.pcmag.com/NTIShadow 

ANTISPYWARE 

Spyware Doctor 3.5 

PC Tools; $29.95 

Best version yet. Removed more spyware 

than other tested products. 

go.pcmag.com/SpyDoc35 

FINANCIAL SOFTWARE 

TurboTax Premier 2005 

Intuit Inc.; $14.95–$69.95 

Excellent coverage of personal tax topics. 

Top-notch interface and help. Free 

deduction-tracking application and a 

rewards program can add value. 

go.pcmag.com/TurboPremier05 

HOME NETWORKING 

Buffalo LinkTheater 

Buffalo Technology (USA) Inc.; $300 

Streams digitized content from PC to 

entertainment center. 

go.pcmag.com/LinkTheater 

Canon 

Selphy CP510 

www.pcmag.com APRIL 11, 2006 PC MAGAZINE 

69

go.pcmag.com/feedback 

‘‘ MS AntiSpyware smacks of the safe computing 

’’ 

initiative: “We’ll decide what’s best for you.” 

ON “STUPID” USERS 

I’ve been a faithful reader for years and have 

owned one PC or another since 1980. Thus, 

I’m the guy everyone comes to when their 

computer gets slow or won’t boot, etc. Your 

article on “Stupid Users” (“The Sorry State 

of Security”, February 21, page 78) is dead on. 

I’ve spent countless hours fi xing stupid user 

mistakes for friends, neighbors, and people 

at work. I agree with the article that everyone—users, 

publishers, hardware manufacturers, 

and the media—is to blame, but you 

can avoid most problems by some simple 

daily and weekly maintenance. 

When I tell folks how to protect their data and hardware, 

they get a glazed look in their eyes and wait patiently for me to 

remove all the junk that has built up in their PCs over months 

of neglect and ignorance. As you can get pretty good protection 

from a variety of sources for free, I don’t see why anyone should 

fall into these traps. I realize you can do everything right and 

still end up with a virus or spyware problem, but keeping your 

protection up to date lessens the likelihood of this. Thank you 

for putting into words the frustrations I’ve felt over the past 

couple of years. 

Bill Barnes 

I wanted to say how much I agree with your assertion that 

the stupid consumer is responsible for many of the problems 

related to PC security. After all, setting up and maintaining 

security on a PC is so simple! Users need to do only the following 

easy tasks: 

Install a security suite and deal with its complex settings. 

Confi gure the fi rewall and grant the correct programs access 

to the Internet. Confi gure the antispam tool to integrate 

with an e-mail client like Outlook. Deal with the time- and 

system-resource-consuming software upgrades and scans. 

Install and confi gure a good antispyware tool (which may 

confl ict with the security suite and—if not set correctly— 

may block some legitimate programs on start-up). And again, 

deal with upgrades and system scans. 

How to Contact Us 

We welcome your comments and suggestions. 

When sending e-mail to Feedback, please state in the subject line of your 

message which article or column prompted your response. 

E-MAIL pcmag@ziffdavis.com. MAIL Feedback, PC Magazine, 28 East 28th 

Street, New York, NY 10016-7940. 

All letters become the property of PC Magazine and are subject to editing. We 

regret that we cannot answer letters individually. 

FEEDBACK 


For broadband, install a router and configure 

the firewall. Configure the wireless 

security settings. (Online gamers and others 

will need to set up individual port access and 

perform advanced router configuration.) 

Users should also set up wireless security 

on all wireless devices in the network: print 

server, home laptop, offi ce laptop, entertainment 

server, etc. (This could entail several 

hours on the phone with tech support for 

each device.) 

And in addition: Confi gure browser security 

settings. Deal with Web privacy issues 

(including managing cookies, temp 

fi les, history fi les, and so on). Be alert for programs that want 

to install themselves on your PC (and then report your actions 

back to some database not easily identifi able as spyware 

because the programs seem to come from a legitimate vendor 

like Google or Logitech or Sony). Also: Keep Windows updated 

with the unending series of MS security patches. And 

stay informed about new threats, like rootkits and fl ash cookies, 

that seem to appear almost weekly. 

I’m sure I’ve forgotten something, but you get the idea. This 

security business is child’s play, and only stupid people don’t 

keep their PCs secure! 

Steve Chapman 

THAT PESKY MS MESSENGER 

The way Jim Louderback replied to Talha bin Hamid (Feedback, 

February 21) was fi ne, but Jim could at least have told him how 

to solve the problem. After all, you are a PC magazine. 

Basically, all you need to do is open MSN Messenger, then 

go to Tools | Options, then select General, uncheck Automatically 

run Messenger when I log on to Windows, and click OK. 

No more MSN Messenger starting up when you’re on Windows 

start-up. 

Even if you remove MSN Messenger from start-up, it will 

just re-add itself if the above option remains checked. 

Elliot Svec 

Jim Louderback’s response to the reader complaining about 

Microsoft’s AntiSpyware beta program allowing the startup 

of MSN Messenger was way out of line for a couple of reasons. 

The purpose of antispyware applications is to put the 

user in control of which applications get installed or run. MS 

AntiSpyware smacks of the safe computing initiative: “We’ll 

decide what’s best for you.” Also, the fact that the software is 

currently free is a red herring. It’s a beta version, and Micro- 


‘‘ Neil and Loyd are a formidable duo that I’ll enjoy 

’’ 

reading for as long as PC Magazine prints them. 

72 


soft has every intention of charging for it once the beta testers 

are done being lab rats. 

What a snotty reply to a reasonable complaint. 

Mark Scardiglia 

MOTOROLA’S NAME COMPRESSION 

The whole Moto phone nomenclature (phonenclature?) 

cracks me up. The name SLVR makes me think of pain under 

a fi ngernail. Does it have a companion phone called the 

TWZR to remove a SLVR? One can surmise that they used 

RAZR because KNFE was taken. Had they used KNFE instead, 

imagine the product tie-in with the Victorinox folks: A 

Swiss Army KNFE. I don’t know about you, but I could use a 

phone with a corkscrew for my next bottle of Kendall-Jackson 

cabernet sauvignon. 

As for the PEBL, you would think they have a tie-in with 

Hanna-Barbera. What’s next, cell phones for couples? They 

could make a FRD and WLMA or a BRNY and BTTY, or even 

a ruggedized phone called the BMBM. And maybe a GPS-enabled 

phone for pets called—you guessed it—the DNO. Now 

that would add a new dimension to calling your dog. 

Frank Goad 

Somebody please buy this company a vowel. (But fi rst check out 

our SLVR review on page 32 of this issue.)—Jim Louderback 

THE DYNAMIC DUO 

I was totally geeked when I saw your new Solutions section. 

It is one of my favorite sections of PC Magazine. First, I came 

across “Ask Loyd,” accompanied by Loyd Case’s photo. I’ve 

been a fan of his since his days at Computer Gaming World. 

I’ve wished many times I was in Loyd’s shoes testing some of 

the hottest new tech on the market. Then I turned the page 

and stared in awe at the photo of the tech guy I most aspire to 

be like: Neil J. Rubenking. No set of initials in PC Magazine 

carries as much credibility as NJR. To fi nally see the face behind 

the writing is an absolute treat and provides some welldeserved 

recognition to a true PC Magazine hero. I’ll miss the 

fact that Neil won’t be initialing his responses now that he 

has his own column, but I’ll deal with it—congrats to Neil on 

getting his own space at last. 

Neil and Loyd are a formidable duo that I’ll enjoy reading 

for as long as PC Magazine prints them. 

David Rosa 

PCS FOR REAL POWER USERS 

“The Name Game” (Feedback, February 7) resonated with me. 

Gamers seem to be the only folks that the trade magazines ad- 


FEEDBACK 

dress for performance. Rick Altman’s letter pointed out one set 

of users who require serious speed: digital video creators. 

I agree with him that the majority of magazines seem to expect 

that all business users just use e-mail and Word and are 

happy with the mainline systems provided by the vendors. 

I sure know I’m not. I write software for a living and manage 

other software engineers. The last thing I want is to be paying 

a high-priced engineer to watch an hourglass spinning during a 

compilation. It is getting worse, as modern systems not only require 

a compiler but also usually start up an application server, 

a JSP container such as Tomcat or Resin, and talk to a back-end 

database. In the words of ToolTime Tim, we need more power. 

I would appreciate some reviews and discussion of how the 

new systems compare. Does it make sense to buy the hottest 

single CPU or a hot dual-core? Or do we still have to go to the 

expense of getting dual Xeon systems (nominally for servers) to 

deliver the desktop performance that professional developers 

require? 

Pat Farrell 

These days, the reason for getting a workstation desktop over a 

high-end multimedia PC or “performance” desktop PC mainly 

boils down to support: driver support for specialized hardware, 

technical support for specialized apps (CAD/CAM/CGI or 

fi nancial/database/development, and such), and hand-holding 

for your IT guys. This support can be life or death in the face of 

a looming deadline. That said, dual-core and multiprocessor 

PCs and workstations help only if your key program is written 

to take advantage of multithreaded processing. This is true for 

graphics programs as well as compilers. Unlike general-purpose 

PCs, individual workstation confi gurations (memory, storage, 

CPUs, graphics) are more closely tied to the task. Since workstation 

confi gurations are specialized for niche tasks, you rarely see 

them in general media magazines. What might be a great workstation 

for software development may be a poor choice for a digital 

photofi nishing fi rm, and vice versa.—Joel Santo Domingo, 

Lead Analyst, Desktops and Workstations 

Corrections and Amplifi cations 

� In our First Looks piece “Dual-Core for Your Mobile Lifestyle” (February 21, page 32), we 

incorrectly reported the percentage of improvement of the two reviewed systems (the 

Acer TravelMate 8204WLMi and the HP Pavilion dv1000t) over the comparison system 

(the Gateway NX850XL). On SYSmark 2004 SE, the Acer system performed 45 percent 

better than the Gateway system on Offi ce Productivity (OP) and 58 percent better on 

Internet Content Creation (ICC). On the same tests, the HP system performed 34 percent 

better than the Gateway system on OP and 46 percent better on ICC. For the multimedia 

tests, the Acer system performed 78 percent better on Windows Media Encode (WME) 

and 111 percent better on the Photoshop CS2 Action set (PS2). The HP system was 72 

percent better on WME and 35 percent better on PS2. 

JUMP TO NEXT PAGE >>

John C. Dvorak 

Hijacking the Internet 

A 

look at the white papers and articles archived 

on the Center for Digital Democracy’s 

Web site reveals paper after paper 

on how the telecom companies want to 

make the Internet into a tiered service, 

so that your 1.5-Mbps service is not the same as my 

1.5-Mbps service. 

These companies are preoccupied with deeppacket 

analysis. Instead of just routing traffi c, the 

new routers will also determine the nature of the 

packet. This isn’t for security or spying, but to fl ag 

Skype and other VoIP calls so you can be charged 

extra for making them. You can assume that IPTV 

traffi c will be charged differently, too. One of the 

more shameful aspects of this is that Cisco seems to 

be promoting some of these ideas so that it can sell 

more specialized (and expensive) gear. 

If they were serving the public interest, the telcos 

and cable companies would simply provide a very 

fast connection, and services would fl ow over those 

connections in ways determined by the user— 

everything IP-driven. But these companies would 

like to use gangland tactics to get into every part of 

your business. You buy the 1.5-Mbps link, it costs a 

fi xed amount. You actually want to use it, it costs 

more. How about putting a server on it? Nope, you 

have to pay extra. Can you make a VoIP Skype call? 

No way, costs more. So you’re not getting a real 1.5- 

Mbps line at all—you’re getting scammed, in fact. 

This reminds me of the early era of Internet 

connectivity, where an ISP would buy a 1.5-Mbps 

T-1 line from the phone company and resell it over 

and over and over to hundreds of customers, with 

the rationalization that the line was magically 

multiplexed and was providing T-1 service to 500 

people. When you read the fi ne print, you discovered 

that you couldn’t really use the whole capacity 

of your T-1 at all. This sort of scam is still with 

us, only now the big boys are doing it. The state 

and local public utilities commissions say nothing. 

The Federal Communications Commission says 

nothing. Nobody says anything. 

It seems to me that if you buy a 1.5-Mbps connection, 

you should be able to redline the connection, 

to use the full capacity without being charged 

more. And you should also be able to use it for 

whatever you want to use it for. Otherwise, it’s like 

selling public-utility water to people and making 

them pay more to use it for washing dishes. 

As this fiasco unfolds, I blame the Telecommunications 

Act of 1996. Its apologists still claim 

that it’s working, when it has clearly resulted in the 

consolidation of the phone companies and the ludicrous 

fact that the original monopoly, AT&T, is 

actually re-emerging as a big clunky ogre, despite 

its 1984 court-ordered breakup. Where is Judge 

Harold Green when you need him? 

This was made clear when SBC grabbed a slew 

of the one-time Regional Bell Operating Companies 

created by the breakup, including Pacifi c Bell. Then 

SBC merged with AT&T and is now called AT&T. 

In just six years, the name of the fabulous baseball 

stadium in San Francisco has gone from Pac Bell 

Park to SBC Park to AT&T Park. Just the expense 

of changing the signage and promotional collateral 

tells you that someone is making plenty of money. 

The entire nation’s telecom infrastructure will 

consolidate, probably into three monopolies: landline, 

cellular, and cable. The Internet will change 

drastically. Just look at a list of the documents 

archived by the Center for Digital Democracy 

(www.democraticmedia.org) to see where all this is 

headed. The guys who run these telecom companies 

have no qualms about openly discussing their 

plans to ream the public. With weak public utilities 

commissions and an FCC that is not serving 

the public, what is the point of being secretive? 

Apparently nobody cares. The folks in Congress 

are technophobic and clueless; they just listen to 

the lobbyists who work for the big telecom companies. 

The FCC is out to ruin the country by giving 

the big companies anything they want. The executive 

branch is all about corporatism at the expense 

of the public. And the public itself seems not to 

care, or these jokers would be voted out of offi ce. 

Meanwhile, Western Europe and Asia will glide 

along the Net at 30 to 100 Mbps with IPTV, VoIP, 

and slick services with a reasonable connection fee, 

while we struggle to get a solid 1 Mbps while paying 

all sorts of usage fees. Soon we’ll be comparing ourselves 

to Bolivia or Paraguay and patting ourselves 

on the back saying, “We’re number one.” 

And sure, in the Western Hemisphere we’ll be 

number one—if you leave Canada out. 

MORE ON THE WEB: Read John C. Dvorak’s column 

every Monday at go.pcmag.com/dvorak. You can 

reach him directly at pcmag@dvorak.org. 

The original telecom 

monopoly, AT&T, is 

now re-emerging 

as the big clunky 

ogre that was once 

broken up. 


JOHN C. DVORAK 

Inside Track 

Intel has made an exclusive deal with Skype so 

that PC users cannot use Skype’s VoIP teleconferencing 

capabilities with more than fi ve people 

unless they’re using Intel microprocessors. This 

had to be a pure cash deal, and it had to be for a lot 

of money, since it will certainly annoy current Skype 

customers and tarnish Skype’s reputation. These 

sorts of exclusionary deals are generally seen as unfair 

and creepy. 

It’s not as if the Intel processor is better at Skype. 

There is no real reason for this partnership except to 

screw AMD. This is nothing new. What’s new is the 

partnership. Essentially, the system will incorporate 

some code that looks for the CPU identifi er. To me, 

this scheme amounts to building a public highway 

that doesn’t allow Chevys to drive on it because Ford 

did a deal with the transportation board. I wonder 

how that would fl y. 

There are a number of image problems with this 

deal. First, Intel is already being investigated for 

antitrust and unfair practices. An AMD-promoted 

legal raid by Korean authorities on Intel’s Seoul offi 

ces took place recently, and Intel would like to get 

revenge. But this Skype move is an amateurish way 

to go about it. 

The way to pull off a deal like this is not by making 

it obvious that you are simply disabling features 

for anyone using your competitors’ processors, as 

Intel is doing. Instead, it should have released Skype 

Special Edition and distributed the software itself 

for its customers. Intel could then claim that there 

was so much demand for the special edition that it 

would go into the wild so that anyone could download 

it. The company could claim that it was developed 

for its own chips, and that it locked out other 

chips because it simply wasn’t tested for them. Intel 

could say, “We can guarantee it only for our own 

chips. Why should we be doing work for AMD?” and 

act puzzled. 

Skype could have then called it Skype 2.0 and left 

it at that. Instead Intel looks nefarious and Skype looks 

sleazy. Not that they wouldn’t have been nefarious 

and sleazy with my approach—they just wouldn’t 

look it. 

That said, I see no reason why someone can’t design 

a spoof to make an AMD system look like an Intel 

system to Skype. I suspect such a patch will be 

rolled out quickly. 

This situation is somewhat reminiscent of the 

hassle caused by Web sites that will work only with 

Internet Explorer. This is a ridiculous annoyance. 

But once a handful of these sites began appearing, 

Opera put a patch in its browser so that when asked 

by a Web site “what browser are you?” Opera would 

The Intel/ 

Skype scheme 

amounts to 

building a 

public highway 

that doesn’t allow 

Chevys on 

it because Ford 

did a deal with 

the transportation 

board. 

say it was Internet Explorer. I’m sure Microsoft considered 

suing Opera, but that would have opened up 

a whole new can of worms. 

The only drawback to Opera’s false claim of being 

IE is that so many people have implemented this fi x 

that it’s diffi cult to get a handle on how many people 

actually use Opera. This fi x infl ates the number of IE 

users on the Web stat programs. 

Crash and Burn Dept.: One of the hot topics of late 

has been the buzz around a Wi-Fi startup called 

FON, the brainchild of the affable Spanish entrepreneur 

Martin Varsavsky. This idea isn’t new, but he’s 

added a new twist to the concept of sharing our Wi- 

Fi connections so that people can park outside your 

home and download their e-mail. This idea has been 

tried in various forms for years and hasn’t gained 

traction. What’s really different about this attempt? 

The marketing. 

Varsavsky has managed to schmooze a slew of 

high-profi le bloggers and even a few columnists into 

becoming paid advisors to the project. But instead 

of just advising, they are promoting the FON concept 

on various blogs and publications, essentially 

becoming PR people. Some people are saying that 

this is a confl ict of interest, but it seems transparent 

enough, and it is obvious what they are up to with 

this boosterism. In fact, this situation provides an 

interesting marketing laboratory. These folks, who 

are mostly bloggers with an infl ated sense of purpose, 

have always believed that if you can put together 

a critical mass of the sharpest people (which 

they have arguably managed to do here), you should 

be able to shape and manipulate public opinion to 

an extreme. Thus they are convinced that they can 

make this FON idea fl y despite the failure of similar 

ideas in the past and the numerous drawbacks of the 

system. 

So far the FON folks have scored about $21 million 

in venture funding. We’ll see where it goes. It will be 

fun to deconstruct the process when it’s over. I personally 

expect to hear a thud. 

Sex Text Messaging Dept.: Now there’s something 

called short-message sex, which is supposedly 

emerging on mobile phones. This is according 

to a Jack Kapica column in the Toronto Globe and 

Mail. Can anything be so silly? Here’s the kicker: According 

to Kapica, “ Virgin Mobile Canada recently 

asked TV sex kitten Pamela Anderson to write a book 

called The Joy of Text, to be sold in bookstores and 

given away with a cell phone kit that Virgin calls its 

Pleasure Pack. In it, Ms. Anderson talks about ‘textual 

intercourse’ and offers Canadians advice on ‘how 

to spice up their text lives.’” Are people that bored in 

Canada? 


Bill Machrone 

Technology Travels 

Having just returned from DEMO 2006, 

held in Phoenix this year, I’m stoked on 

new technology. Some of the new products 

I saw there were entertaining, some 

practical, a few were electrifying, and 

one was delicious. The delicious one was MooBella, 

a box the size of a soda machine that mixed up a fresh 

cup of ice cream, with any of 11 different fl avors and 

a handful of different toppings, in less than a minute. 

It’s in beta test now; the machines could be ubiquitous 

in a year or two. 

Too many of the products, however, left me with 

a sense of déjà vu. Even some of the more impressive 

ones, like Riya, were as much clever mash-ups 

of existing technologies as breakthroughs. Riya is 

face- and word-recognition software that helps you 

tag your photographs by who’s in them and where 

they were shot. It appears that its recognition code 

is fi nely honed, so it reads billboards, placards, and 

street signs to help you fi nd and categorize your 

photos. Riya can go one step beyond your existing 

photo organizer software—and anything that can 

make sense out of the digital shoebox that your 

hard drive has become is welcome. But the good 

guys were spotting the bad guys with face recognition 

software back at Super Bowl XXXV, so chalk 

one up for progress, not revolution. 

New search engines were everywhere—no 

surprise, considering Google’s stock price and 

Yahoo!’s resurgence. As a group, I thought they 

were rather overspecialized. And the big search 

companies generally have the technology to do all 

that any successful upstart might do (and more), 

or they can just acquire the fl edgling. But maybe 

that’s the idea. 

I always guess wrong about community applications, 

and I’m always amazed when they take off. 

I can’t fi gure out why I’d want a site that tells me 

what my buddies are watching on TV, but that’s 

what eVoke TV does. Bet against me. History is 

on your side. 

When it comes to saving money, though, I get it 

right. Eqo (pronounced “echo”) extends your Skype 

phone to your cell phone, bringing big potential savings 

over roaming charges. Again, Eqo has a trendy 

community angle, “Take your buddies with you,” 

but the real message here is “Save a bundle.” You 

may need a different calling plan that can handle 

the background data traffi c, though. Check it out. 

You’ve probably read about Pleo, the cuterthan-cute 

robotic dinosaur from the inventor of 

the Furby. Do I need one? No. Do I want one? Oh, 

yeah. And I both need and want an iGuitar, a fully 

analog and digital guitar with USB output. It plugs 

right into music recording programs, and it’s a really 

nice electric guitar in its own right. I mean no 

disservice to the 60 or so products that I haven’t 

mentioned, but let’s move on. 

Sometimes the journey is the destination, and I 

had some interesting traveling companions in addition 

to my wife. One was the iGo charging system, 

the one you see in Radio Shack and in travel 

and laptop catalogs. The single charging brick runs 

on AC or DC and can simultaneously power your 

notebook and your choice of personal electronics: 

cell phone, MP3 player, Walkman, CD player, and 

more. The TSA screeners gave the charging unit 

the hairy eyeball at the airport, but they ultimately 

decided it wasn’t a threat—unless I were to drop it 

on someone’s toe. 

The iGo will charge just about anything; it has a 

wide selection of adapter tips, and more are becoming 

available all the time. The tips play an active role 

in setting the correct voltage and current settings 

for each device. Unlike some adapters that simply 

burn off voltage with a crude resistor or (better) a 

voltage regulator, the iGo senses a tip’s unique identity 

and programs itself accordingly. 

I also had a loaner Verizon phone, a Motorola 

V325, which has GPS capabilities. It was loaded with 

VZ Navigator, an excellent mapping and directions 

system that uses the Navteq database. After the conference, 

we took in the Heard Museum, Frank Lloyd 

Wright’s Taliesin West, and the Apache Trail. VZ 

Navigator talked us through every twist and turn, 

and displayed the route on a very readable screen. 

Turn-by-turn instructions are a little hard on the 

battery, however, so I ducked into a strip mall Radio 

Shack and picked up an iGo tip that worked with 

my phone. With the 12-volt cord, the iGo kept the 

phone charged, and we stayed on course. Back on 

notebook duty, the iGo didn’t even get warm when 

it charged my depleted IBM T42p and N-Charge 

auxiliary battery simultaneously. Good stuff. 

MORE ON THE WEB: You can contact Bill Machrone 

at Bill_Machrone@ziffdavis.com. For more of his 

columns, go to go.pcmag.com/machrone. 

Eqo extends your 

Skype phone to 

your cell phone, 

bringing big 

potential savings 

over roaming 

charges. 


96 

COVER STORY 

[ 14th Annual Utility Superguide] 

in this story 

98 Incredibly Useful Utilities 

100 For Home Networkers 

101 For Microsoft Offi ce Workers 

104 Make It Pretty 

106 For Photo Enthusiasts 

108 For Video Enthusiasts 

112 For Audio Enthusiasts 

114 For Web 2.0 Addicts 

116 For Your Browser(s) 

118 Top 10 PC Magazine Utilities 

99 Q&A: Mark Thompson 

100 Q&A: Steve Gibson 

114 Q&A: Mark Russinovich 


SPEED! 

POWER! 

Oddly enough, no one has come up with the perfect PC with 

the perfect operating system and the perfect applications 

that make everyone happy all the time. Crazy world. 

That’s why we turn to utilities, from the little ones 

that show you the weather forecast and keep you from making common 

e-mail faux pas to the far bigger ones that search your system at the speed 

of thought and back up your hard drive. And as the pace of major software 

development slows—yes, it really has been five years since Windows XP 

shipped, and three since Microsoft Offi ce 2003 arrived—familiarity begins 

to breed contempt. Imperfections are magnifi ed, and we search out better 

ways to get things done. 

At PC Magazine, we’re lucky to have an expert group of editors, writers, ana- 

lysts, and contributors who are constantly searching for a better way, both at 

work and at home. For this year’s Utility Guide, we asked them to share their 

discoveries, reviewing and presenting their favorite utilities. We also spoke 

with three utility developers: Mark Thompson, founder of the free utility site 

AnalogX; Steve Gibson of Gibson Research, which produces some of the best

LOOKS! 

FUN! 

online network security test utilities; and Mark Russinovich, 

cofounder of Sysinternals, which brought us Filemon and 

Regmon. We also sneak a peek inside the system trays of 

other utility creators and users. Whose is the biggest? Well, 

correcting for screen resolution and blatant 

tray-padding . . . it’s PC Magazine editor 

Lance Ulanoff, who boldly predicted the out- 

come from the get-go.—Sarah Pike 

Our Experts Pick the Best 

Illustration by Daniel Pelavin

98 

INCREDIBLY USEFUL UTILITIES 

S 

ure, we test hundreds of new software programs each year to help you 

choose the best ones. But when we see ones that will make our lives better, 

they get permanent homes on our own PCs. Editors Ben Gottesman, Jim 

Louderback, Michael Miller, and I compared our lists of these drop-dead 

useful utilities. They overlapped a lot; some utilities showed up on three or even all four 

of our lists. We boiled them down to this collection of gems you’ll defi nitely want to try. 

Once X1 DESKTOP EDITION ($74.95 direct) indexes your system, 

you can locate an elusive fi le, e-mail message, attachment, 

or contact as quickly as you can type. The initial indexing takes 

a while, but after that, X1 updates in the background on a userdefi 

ned schedule. It has advanced search options, but we usually 

just start typing—each character narrows the results. On a 

budget? Yahoo! Desktop Search (desktop.yahoo.com) uses X1’s 

engine and offers nearly all of the same features free. 

(X1 Technologies Inc., www.x1.com. llllh) 

ROBOFORM PRO 6.6 ($29.95) fi lls Web forms and manages 

your innumerable passwords. It memorizes each username 

and password the fi rst time you log into a site, then automatically 

supplies them when you return. All you have to remember 

is one master password to decrypt your data; for other 

passwords you’ll use strong (and hard-to-remember) passwords 

from the built-in Password Generator. RoboForm will 

print out all your data for offsite storage, just in case, and it’s 

also available in a portable version for USB keys. 

(Siber Systems Inc., www.siber.com. llllm) 

DIRECTORY OPUS 8 

Windows XP includes basic ZIP file management, but a 

proper ZIP utility does much more. We use WINZIP 10.0 ($29.95). 

It integrates nicely with Windows Explorer and offers numerous 

context-menu items—we especially like “Zip and E-mail.” 

WinZip can encrypt archives with 256-bit AES, save ZIP fi les 

directly to CD/DVD, split large fi les for storage or sharing, and 

store repeated tasks. Best of all, you can launch a fi le inside a 

ZIP archive, edit it, and save the changed fi le back to the archive. 

(WinZip International LLC, www.winzip.com. lllhm) 

Next time you respond to Uncle Clem’s e-mailed plea for 

help, snap a picture of the solution with SNAGIT 8.0 ($39.95) 


GOOGLE EARTH 

BY NEIL J. RUBENKING 

and send it along. SnagIt goes far beyond simple screen capture. 

It can capture the full content of a scrolling window or 

Web page. You can grab all the images on a Web page, capture 

menus using a time delay, snap full-screen graphics-intensive 

games, and even make a video of on-screen actions. Save the 

result in any of a zillion formats, including PDF, and directly 

send it off via e-mail, IM, or FTP. This screen-capture program 

does it all. (TechSmith Corp., www.techsmith.com. lllll) 

DIRECTORY OPUS 8 ($64) makes Windows Explorer obsolete. 

DOpus fanatics typically let it replace Windows Explorer 

completely; if you get past the initial learning curve, you 

won’t go back. Common tasks such as managing ZIP archives, 

setting fi le attributes, and moving fi les from one folder to 

another are all easier in DOpus. Among its many, many 

X1 DESKTOP EDITION

high-end abilities are fi nding duplicate fi les, changing 

date/time stamps, handling FTP transfers, previewing 

almost any type of fi le, and splitting and rejoining 

large fi les—the list is almost endless! 

(GPSoftware, www.gpsoft.com.au. llllm) 

More and more people find instant messaging 

handy at work as well as at home, but not everyone 

uses the same IM system. You don’t have to put up 

with the ads and annoyances of multiple IM clients—just 

load up TRILLIAN BASIC 3.1 (free). It will 

communicate with your buddies on AIM, ICQ , IRC, 

MSN Messenger, and Yahoo! Messenger, keeping 

them all in one handy list. You can audio-chat with 

buddies whose service supports it, log conversations, 

and set your away/back status for all services 

at once. The $25 Pro version supports additional 

IM services and adds a host of advanced features. 

(Cerulean Studios, www.ceruleanstudios.com. llllh) 

Microsoft’s TWEAKUI (free; not supported) pulls together 

an amazing number of Windows XP tweaks in 

one small package. For example, you can bypass the 

Welcome screen’s password prompt to log in automat- 

WINZIP PRO 10.0 

ically, change the location of special folders such as My Pictures, 

add user-defi ned locations to the Places Bar in standard 

fi le dialogs, and set specifi c applications (say, Solitaire) so they 

won’t appear in the Start menu’s most-used programs list. The 

one thing TweakUI won’t do is help you fi nd a specifi c tweak, 

so you’ll want to step through the entire list and get a feel for 

what’s available. (Microsoft Corp., www.microsoft.com. llllm) 

Travelers who can’t live without full access to their homebase 

computers will pay for a high-end remote-access solution. 

For the rest of us, the remote control provided by LOGMEIN 

FREE (free) should be enough. Just set up an account and install 

the software on your base computer. Now you can securely log 

in from any other Internet-connected computer to run programs 

and access data. You’ll have to upgrade to the Pro version 

to get fi le transfer and synchronization, but LogMeIn Free 

still lets you copy/paste between the local and remote systems 

or remotely control your e-mail or IM client to send yourself a 

fi le. (3AM Labs Inc., www.3amlabs.com. lllmm) 

You don’t often need PARTITIONMAGIC 8.0 ($69.95), but 

when you do, it’s irreplaceable. For example, to install the stillchanging 

Windows Vista prerelease without losing your existing 

OS, you’ll have to create a new partition for it. PartitionMagic 

can move, copy, resize, create, and delete drive partitions, and 

even merge multiple partitions into one. Best of all, you can defi 

ne a complex series of partitioning tasks, confi rm the sequence 

visually, and then let it execute all those lengthy actions while 

After years as a contract programmer and a 

stint at Motorola, Mark Thompson now runs 

a small “tech incubator” known as The Aviary 

Group. But he’s better known as a utility 

writer. He’s the brains behind more than a 

few PC Magazine utilities, and since 1998, 

his site, AnalogX, has served up free utilities 

touching on everything from digital music 

editing to DNS caching. 

AnalogX has more than 30 million 

registered users, and not a banner ad 

in sight. Why? 

The computer industry has given me a lot, 

so it’s nice to give something back to the 

general user for free. But it’s also fun. And 

it’s a challenge. It’s fun to write programs 

and solve things without having to worry 

about anything else. I can make a program 

that only ten people want, and that’s fi ne. Or 

I can make a program that tens of thousands 

of people want, and that’s cool too. 

How did the site begin? 

It started out as a band site, a place where I could put my songs. But 

then I started writing small utilities and putting them up there, and 

more and more people started to use them. 

Were these tools you wrote for yourself? Or were you looking 

to reach an audience? 

The very fi rst utility I put up was a “delay calculator” for digital music. 

When you do echoes and things like that, if you want them synchronized 

to the tempo, you need to know how many milliseconds to 

set the delays to. So I wrote this command utility for myself. Then I 

thought, “Someone else might want this too,” and I just put it up. 

Ever tempted to sell ads? 

I want to keep AnalogX completely free. I’ve had offers to do more 

with it. But that’s not really why I started, and it’s not what I want it 

to be. 

How many utilities are running in 

your system tray? 5. 

What’s the fi rst one you reinstall 

after a reformat? MultiEdit (a text 

editor). 

How many have you written? 

120 plus. 

What do you develop in? C. 

2006 UTILITY GUIDE 

Q&A with Mark Thompson 

you take a break. (Symantec Corp., www.symantec.com. llllm) 

Sharing editable documents via e-mail makes sense when 

you’re collaborating on the result, but not when you aim to 

broadcast a fi nished document such as a press release. With 

an inexpensive tool such as PDF995 ($9.95) turning a document 

into stable, noneditable PDF format is as easy as printing it. 

Just send the document to the PDF995 “printer” instead of your 

regular printer. If even $9.95 seems too steep, you can use the 

product free and pay by viewing an advertisement each time 

you use it. (Software995, www.pdf995.com. llllm) 

Is GOOGLE EARTH (free) incredibly useful? Possibly, possibly 

not, but it is drop-dead gorgeous. Who would’ve imagined 

touring the world from your desk chair? It offers satellite- photo 

views of the entire world, often at an amazing level of detail. 

You can impress friends by dropping them into the Grand Canyon 

or zooming in on their roofs. (Google, www.google.com. llllh) 

Neil J. Rubenking has been with PC Magazine since 1986, serving 

as technical editor, User-to-User answerer, and PC Magazine 

Labs lead analyst. He continues to answer questions for 

readers in the ongoing “Ask Neil” column and in PC Magazine’s 

online discussion forums. 


100 

FOR HOME NETWORKERS 

Nearly every PC Magazine reader has a broadband Internet connection, and most 

have a local area network at home. But are you getting the most out of your home 

network? Are you sharing resources between multiple computers? Is your network 

safe from outside intruders? Is your connection as fast as it’s supposed to be? Here 

are some of our favorite utilities that will let you proudly say, “I’m a network admin!” 

If you have more than one computer on your 

network and have tried to share files between 

them, or share a printer, you know how frustrating 

the setup can be. NETWORK MAGIC from Pure 

Networks ($29.95 for up to 5 computers) solves 

those problems for you. Network Magic creates 

a map of your entire network, shows the status 

of each device on your network, and constantly 

monitors your Internet connection. If you have a 

supported router, the integrated Net2Go feature 

allows you to share fi les or photos on the Internet. 

(Pure Networks Inc., www.purenetworks.com. llllm) 

Naturally, you have a router as well as a personal 

firewall, but is it really working? Gibson 

Research (www.grc.com) has several free utilities 

that can help you assess the security of your 

network. Gibson’s most popular utility by far is 

SHIELDSUP!!, which can scan your public IP ad- 

dress for either common ports or all ports. Excellent tutorials 

on the site help you understand the results. LEAKTEST is a 

simple program that attempts to connect to GRC’s Web server. 

It’s intended to test whether your fi rewall will block unknown 

outbound connections that could “leak” data out of your network. 

It’s free to use and worth trying out. (Gibson Research Corp., 

www.grc.com. ShieldsUp!! llllm; LeakTest lllmm) 

Though GFI’s LANGUARD NETWORK SECURITY SCANNER 7.0 

(free for ten days for up to 25 IP addresses) is primarily intended 

for corporate networks, running it on your home network could 

prove eye-opening. Languard N.S.S. 7.0 will scan your entire 

local network for hundreds of known vulnerabilities and produce 

a comprehensive report for each computer or device it discovers. 

It shows missing patches (with references to Bugtraq 

reports), open ports, and any security vulnerabilities it fi nds. 

After the ten-day trial the price is quite a bit steeper, starting at 

$495 for up to 32 IPs. (GFI Software Ltd, www.gfi .com. llllm) 

Ever wondered about what happens in the background 

when you enter an address into your browser? TCPVIEW 

(free), from Sysinternals, gives you a bird’s-eye view of all 

of the network communications on your computer. The site 

also has other free networking utilities worth checking out. 

(Sysinternals, www.sysinternals.com. lllmm) 

Who owns that domain? How is my traffi c routed across the 

Internet? How long does it take to do a DNS lookup? Answers to 

these questions and many more are at DNSSTUFF.COM. DNSstuff 

.com is a site full of free utilities that let you look up domains, 

run traceroutes, and even check out your ISP’s DNS. (llllm) 

You’re paying for a fast broadband connection, but just how 

fast is it? Are you getting the speed you’re paying for? A number 

of sites will test the speed of your Internet connection for 

free. These include: WWW.DSLREPORTS.COM/STEST (lllmm) 


How many utilities are running in 

your system tray? 5. 

What’s the fi rst one you reinstall 

after a reformat? Gravity newsgroup 

reader. 


1,000 plus. 

What do you develop in? Intel 

Assembly Language. 

BY CRAIG ELLISON 

Q&A with Steve Gibson 

To many, Steve Gibson is famous for publicly 

questioning Microsoft’s approach to Windows 

security. Just recently, he claimed that the 

Seattle software giant had intentionally planted 

Windows’s infamous WMF vulnerability. But 

Gibson also writes extremely popular PC utilities, 

including SpinRite, a data-recovery tool that 

debuted in 1989. 

What was the inspiration for SpinRite? 

I fi rst wrote it when a hard drive belonging to 

my girlfriend’s business crashed. It had never 

been backed up, and it had several years of the 

company’s accounting data on it, and she was 

devastated. Well, I liked her, and she was desperate. 

So I quickly wrote something that basically 

recovered the data on her drive. 

Once you write a tool like this, how do you sell it? 

I wrote my fi rst program for Gibson Research, FlickerFree, in the 

evening while I was working as a consultant; printed up the manuals; 

and sold it at software swap meets. Around the same time, 

I made a deal with InfoWorld magazine to write a column called 

TechTalk—which ended up running for eight years—and I did an ad 

trade. I said, “I don’t need to be paid, but I do need to run an ad.” 

Today, SpinRite sells for $89, but the rest of your utilities 

are free. How come? 

Everything else drives traffi c to our Web site. Then people encounter 

SpinRite and say ‘That’s still around? Holy s***!’ They’ll 

upgrade their old copy, or it will just plant the seed in their mind 

that it’s there if they ever have a problem with their hard drive. The 

other stuff is just marketing material for SpinRite. SpinRite has 

paid all of our bills for 17 years. 

and WWW.SPEAKEASY.NET/SPEEDTEST (llllm). 

ISPs generally use dynamic IP addresses, so chances are 

yours will change. Typically, your router gets the public IP address 

and assigns your computer a private one so commandline 

utilities such as ipconfi g won’t tell you your WAN address. 

Should you need to fi nd your IP address, for example, to connect 

to a webcam or nannycam from a remote location, go to 

WWW.MYWANIP.COM (free), which will report the public IP 

address for your network. If you prefer, you can download an 

executable version that runs in your system tray. (lllmm) 

Craig Ellison is a real networking kind of guy. He’s been designing 

networks for years, and has had networks in his home for 

over 20 years. He loves inexpensive (and free) utilities to help 

him manage networks at home and at work.

ILLUSTRATION BY MYLES TALBOT 

FOR MICROSOFT OFFICE 

Most veteran Microsoft Offi ce users will admit that the suite has far 

more features than they know about—but they’ll also complain that it 

doesn’t have the features they need. Enter the add-ins, small programs 

that fi t into the Offi ce interface and get jobs done that are otherwise diffi 

cult or impossible. Here are some of my favorites. 

MICROSOFT WORD 

Don’t let Microsoft Word give away 

your secrets: Use Microsoft’s free RE- 

MOVE HIDDEN DATA to save a copy of an 

open fi le with all revisions, reviewers, 

comments, and other hidden data removed. 

(Microsoft Corp., www.microsoft.com; 

search for rhdtool.exe to download. llllm) 

Word users may hunt through a 

dozen menus for settings that seem 

to have taken over their documents. 

CROSSEYES 3.0.45 ($49.99; less per copy 

for multiple licenses) displays a “reveal 

codes” pane in Word’s window that 

shows exactly where format settings, 

language markers, bookmark codes, YOUPERFORM 1.1.4 

and every other Word feature begins 

and ends. (Levit & James Inc., www.levitjames.com. llllm) 

Instead of Microsoft’s clunky equation editor, try RAPID-PI 

1.2 ($50; $20 for students). It lets you type equations by using 

intuitive abbreviations or by selecting symbols from a toolbar. 

Note that people who receive your fi les will need to install the 

free Rapid-Pi fonts. (Trident Software Pty Ltd., www.rapid-pi.com. lllhm) 

WORDPIPE 4.9 ($99 home edition; $499 unlimited) searches 

and replaces text and metadata in multiple fi les automatically, 

and can even replace graphics with an image that you place in 

the Windows clipboard. Other functions abound; this is the ultimate 

automator for Word. (DataMystic, www.datamystic.com. llllh) 

MICROSOFT EXCEL 

Freeware ASAP UTILITIES 3.11 provides two-click access to 300 

convenient features. Most are simple time-savers, such as combining 

pasting in values and formatting them, removing empty 

sheets, inserting the fi lename in the page header, or putting the 

fi lepath in the title bar. (ASAP Utilities, www.asap-utilities.com. lllll) 

Mike Kronenberg: What’s in your tray? 

In 1993, while still a graduate student, Mike Kronenberg started Mijenix, 

a utility company. By 1999, when he sold it to Ontrack Data Recovery, its 

These are the connectors between my 

PC and my BlackBerry, and synchronization 

software for the BlackBerry. 

BY EDWARD MENDELSON 

Picking up where ASAP leaves off 

(but with some feature overlap), POWER 

UTILITY PAK V6 ($39.95) offers 120 utilities 

and functions from its drop-down 

menu, including batch printing and 

elaborate column- and row-combining 

functions. Spreadsheet-polishing functions 

include resizing all charts to the 

same dimensions. (J-Walk & Associates Inc., 

www.j-walk.com/ss. lllll) 

MICROSOFT OUTLOOK 

Many add-ins display RSS feeds in 

Micro soft Outlook, but ATTENSA FOR 

OUTLOOK (beta; will be $20 per year) 

stands out for its implementation and 

feature set. Add-in toolbars for Firefox 

and Internet Explorer make adding feeds easy, and the program 

can insert tagged pages and feeds to your existing tags at del 

.icio.us. (Attensa Inc., www.attensa.com. llllm) 

The elegant YOUPERFORM 1.1.4 ($29.95) lets you create appointments 

by sending yourself an e-mail or insert boilerplate 

text using hotkeys. It warns you before sending any Reply to All 

message or if you forgot to add the fi les you said were attached, 

and gives much more. (You Software Inc., www.yousoftware.com. llllh) 

Low-priced, high-powered BELLS & WHISTLES FOR OUTLOOK 

2.5 ($19.95) shares many features with YouPerform, including 

warnings for missing attachments and Replies to All. The program 

also includes some unique conveniences, such as message 

templates and an exclusive e-mail tracking features. (DS Development, 

www.emailaddressmanager.com. llllh) 

Edward Mendelson stops using Offi ce only long enough to teach 

English classes at Columbia University. After more than 14 years 

reviewing Offi ce tools, he knows a keeper when he sees one. 

revenue topped $10 million. Today, he runs two new software firms—one 

dedicated to desktop security, the other to online photo-sharing. 

I’ve probably tried every password 

reminder and online form-completion 

software. RoboForm is my favorite. 


This is Cyberhawk, our behavior-based 

security software, currently in beta. 


104 

MAKE IT PRETTY 

D 

oes it really matter whether your Windows desktop is nice to look at? 

Of course it does. Ignoring appearances is incredibly shallow. Thankfully, 

there are more than a few PC utilities designed to spruce up the 

old desktop. You can change colors, fonts, and icons, add new screensavers 

and widgets, even replace your entire GUI. Yes, some of these tools are concerned 

with more than just appearances—but don’t hold that against them. 

With CHANGERXP ($18.95), you 

can apply any digital image to 

your boot screen, Windows XP 

log-on screen, desktop wallpaper, 

Internet Explorer skin, or screensaver—and, 

you can set these images 

to change as often as you like 

automatically, perfect for those 

with big photo collections. You 

can download the full version 

without paying the registration 

fee, but our feeling is that if you 

want to use it, you should open 

up your wallet. (Nihuo Software, www 

.nihuo.com. llllm) 

Brad Wardell: What’s in your tray? 

While still in college, Brad Wardell wrote ObjectDesktop for OS/2, a way 

of revamping IBM’s less than user-friendly interface, and it soon became 

KeepSafe is a new program 

Stardock is going to release 

in March. It does real-time 

data backup/archiving at 

the file-system level. 


BY CADE METZ 

Yahoo!’s picture-frame widget (see next page) is nice. But it’s nothing 

compared with FILMLOOP (free). FilmLoop acts as a kind of photo “ ticker,” 

scrolling picture after picture across your screen. It’s a wonderful way to 

liven up your desktop. But it’s also a way of sharing photos with others. 

Each time you create a new album, the client automatically uploads it to 

the company’s servers, and you can instantly send it to friends, family, 

and colleagues anytime (FilmLoop Inc., www.fi lmloop.com. llllm). 

Want something more from a screensaver? Try the new MSN SCREEN- 

SAVER (beta, free). It too displays your personal photos, but it also serves 

up the date, time, and current 

news and weather, or just 

about anything else available 

through RSS. You can 

also use it to track your MSN 

Hotmail and MSN Messenger 

conversations or even 

search the Web from a builtin 

dialog box (Microsoft Corp., 

screensaver.msn.com. llllm) 

Stardock’s WindowBlinds, 

of course, to make my 

system look whichever 

way I want it to look. 

the platform’s best-selling third-party app. Now a Stardock property, 

ObjectDesktop is an even bigger seller as a Microsoft Windows utility. 

Thank goodness you’re 

doing this story, because if 

it were PC World, the 

Startup Cop thing wouldn’t 

go over so well. 

Google Desktop is a killer 

application for me. It lets 

me find stuff in my e-mail 

much faster than anything 

else I've found—that I like. 

ILLUSTRATION BY MYLES TALBOT

One of our perennial favorites is 

WINDOWBLINDS ($19.95; free, limited 

version available), a tool capable of 

customizing almost every nook and 

cranny of the Microsoft GUI. Naturally, 

you can change the look and 

feel of ordinary application windows, 

but you can also make changes that 

aren’t usually accessible: You can customize 

log-on and log-off dialogues, 

progress animations, and Control 

Panel backgrounds. And you needn’t 

use the same “skin” across all windows. 

You can mix and match, using 

one visual theme here, another there. 

(Stardock Corp., www.stardock.com. llllh). 


Tired of the same old Windows desktop? 

Check out the SPHEREXP beta (free). It replaces 

Windows’ two-dimensional desktop 

with a stunning three-dimensional 

interface. The idea is that you’re in the 

middle of a sphere that carries your application 

windows. To get from one app 

to another, you spin around—virtually, 

of course. You can also move objects forward 

or push them back. It takes some getting 

used to and it’s still a bit buggy, but it 

sure is fun. Microsoft .NET 2.0 required. 

(SphereSite, www.hamar.sk/sphere. lllmm). 

The YAHOO WIDGETS ENGINE (free) lets you 

run all sorts of handsome mini-apps from 

anywhere on your desktop, at any time. You 

can run an animated clock, a calendar, or a 

day planner. Or a stock ticker. Or a notepad. 

Or a virtual picture frame. And that’s just 

the beginning. Thousands of widgets are 

already available from the Yahoo! Web site, 

and if you don’t see what you want, you can 

build your own. These little fl oating tools 

are wonderfully useful, but, more important, 

they’re so much fun to look it (Yahoo! Inc., 

widgets.yahoo.com. lllll). 

Cade Metz joined PC Magazine in the fall of 

1994, and his fi rst byline appeared in the 1995 

Utility Guide. He reviewed a product from 

Xerox called TabWorks, a $49 facelift for the 

Windows GUI. His desktop looks fabulous. 


106 

FOR PHOTO ENTHUSIASTS 

As more cameras—and camera users—begin to take advantage of 

RAW-formatted images, programs and utilities are appearing to help BY GALEN FOTT 

in handling those high-quality fi les. Here are eight of our favorite 

new imaging utilities for managing and editing your photos, and of 

course, some specifi cally designed for use with RAW photos. 

RAWSHOOTER ESSENTIALS 2005 (free) offers strong tools for viewing 

and processing RAW format images at an unbeatable price. The program 

supports more than 50 RAW formats, including DNG. The unobtrusive 

gray interface lets you fl ag and prioritize images and view 

them in a slide show. Image-correction tools include controls for 

temperature and tint, shadows and highlights, and noise suppression. 

The program also offers fast batch-converting of RAW fi les to TIFF 

or JPEG formats. The $99 upgrade to RawShooter premium 2006 

gives you image comparison modes, support for Curves and Levels, 

and additional controls. (Pixmantec ApS, www.pixmantec.com. lllhm) 


MACHINE WASH IMAGE FILTERS I, II, and III 

($32 each) fly in the face of traditional image-enhancement 

software. Machine Wash 

is image-degradation software, dedicated to 

distressing your photos and graphics in amazingly 

realistic ways. Give a photo that “faded 

T-shirt appliqué” look, or blast your logo onto 

a wooden surface or brick wall. Effect names 

include Crackle, Scrape, Mangled, Old Bag, 

Sandblast, Abusive, and Sweat—60 per CD. 

These “fi lters” are actually recorded Photoshop 

Actions that work only in that program. 

(Mr. Retro, www.misterretro.com. llllm) 

FLUID MASK ($249) is the best solution we’ve seen 

yet for one of the most diffi cult and time-consuming 

tasks in image editing: isolating the subject of an image 

from its background. This plug-in for Photoshop 

and compatible programs works along the same lines 

as Photoshop Elements 4’s new “magic” selection 

tools, in that you loosely define areas to keep and 

areas to remove, and the plug-in sorts out the edges. 

But Fluid Mask easily outstrips both Elements’ tools 

and Photoshop’s Extract command. It’s pricey, but 

worth the money if you do a lot of masking. Version 

2.0 should be out by the time you read this. 

(Heligon, www.vertustech.com. llllh)

Just the thing for photographers who’ve 

been dragged grudgingly into the digital 

world, EXPOSURE ($199), a time-saving 

plug-in for Photoshop and compatible 

programs, specializes in mimicking the 

classic looks of specifi c fi lm types. The 

program includes more than 40 filmstock 

presets, from the luscious color of 

Fuji Velvia 100 to the distinctive grain of 

the black-and-white Ilford Delta 3200. 

From the presets, you can customize the 

color, tone, and focus of your images, as 

well as control the plug-in’s realistically 

rendered fi lm grain. (Alien Skin Software LLC, 

www.alienskin.com. llllm) 

ADOBE DNG CONVERTER (free) brings 

welcome consistency to the confusing 

world of RAW-formatted images. DNG 

Converter translates RAW fi les from 113 

different cameras into Adobe’s openstandard 

DNG (Digital Negative) RAW 

format. RAW images contain exactly the 

pixels captured by the sensors of higherend 

digital cameras, without the internal 

processing and compression found 

in JPEGs. But almost every camera uses 

its own proprietary RAW format. DNG 

Converter lets you rename images and 

even allows you to embed the original 

RAW fi le inside the DNG. 

(Adobe Systems Inc., www.adobe.com. llllm) 


PHOTOZOOM PROFESSIONAL ($129) is an excellent standalone program dedicated 

to upsampling, the process of enlarging digital photos by increasing the 

pixel count so that you can make large, attractive prints from low-resolution 

fi les. Though almost any image editor can upsample, PhotoZoom Professional 

gives you greater control than you’d get from Photoshop CS2’s bicubic interpolation 

choices. The program relies on patented S-Spline technology (though 

other interpolation options are available), and also includes sharpening controls 

for crisp, clear output. PhotoZoom Professional can help you get the most from 

those tiny camera-phone photos. (BenVista, www.benvista.com. llllh) 

MICROSOFT RAW IMAGE THUMBNAILER AND VIEWER FOR WIN- 

DOWS XP (free, unsupported) is a “PowerToy” that provides 

thumbnails, previews, printing, and metadata display for RAW 

images from supported Nikon and Canon cameras. You won’t 

fi nd any image-processing tools here, but this utility makes organizing 

and viewing supported RAW images in Windows Explorer 

just about as easy as working with JPEGs. There’s a slide 

show feature to boot. (Microsoft Corp., www.microsoft.com. lllhm) 

SHARPENER PRO 2.0 ($170 Inkjet Edition; $330 Complete 

Edition) is a plug-in for Adobe Photoshop and compatible 

programs. It provides a blissfully easy alternative to the 

tricky Unsharp Mask command usually found in image 

editors. You simply tell Sharpener Pro what size print you 

want and specify a couple of specs about your printer and 

paper, and the plug-in automatically analyzes your image 

and sharpens it. The Inkjet Edition is quite suffi cient for 

most users; only professional printers should need the 

Complete Edition. Version 2.0 features support for 16bit 

images and lets you selectively paint sharpening into 

your image. (Nik Software Inc., www.nikmultimedia.com. llllh) 

Galen Fott (can you fi nd his picture here?) is a contributing 

editor of PC Magazine and the coauthor 

of eight books on computer graphics. He’s also 

an animator whose fi rst fi lm, Roberto the Insect 

Architect, was just released by Scholastic/Weston 

Woods. His Web site is www.grundoon.com. 


108 

FOR VIDEO ENTHUSIASTS 

All home video producers have one or more primary 

programs for editing and/or producing 

DVDs, but a range of inexpensive utilities provides 

features that extend these capabilities, 

often dramatically. Here are our favorites, all of which you 

can download as trial versions. 

BY JAN OZER 

We know we should use a tripod 

when shooting video, but it’s not 

always practical. STEADYHAND 

from Gooder Video ($66.66) 

removes the shakes from your 

hand-held footage, so friends and 

family can watch without getting 

seasick. If you accept the default 

parameters, which worked well 

in our tests, operation is simple; 

just load the video fi le and press 

Start. The program automatically 

detects minor shakes in the video, and minimizes horizontal, vertical, and rotational 

motion. SteadyHand works well on videos from cell phones and digital 

cameras, which are hard to hold steady and generally don’t offer onboard stabilization, 

but you’ll probably need a video-conversion utility to convert videos 

from these devices into one of SteadyHand’s three input formats, AVI, MPEG, 

and ASF. (Gooder Video, www.goodervideo.com. llllm) 

If you work with video long enough, sooner or later you’ll need to split 

your fi les, whether to meet e-mail transfer limits or to store them on 

CDs, DVDs, or other media. For fast, simple, and accurate operation, 

it’s tough to beat ACCUSPLIT ($12). In Standard mode, AccuSplit creates 

multiple fi les of the specifi ed size, each with an .seg extension, which 

the program uses to recreate the original fi le, bit for bit. If you send the 

SEG fi les to third parties, however, they’ll need AccuSplit to recreate 

the original. With AVI or MPEG-1 fi les, however, you can use Video 

File Smart Split mode, which splits the fi le into smaller, independently 

playable video fi les, though you can’t recombine those fi les back into 

one. (Joseph Flynn, members.cox.net/accusplit_support/index.htm. llllm) 


Usually you have to be online to play 

the Internet’s vast store of audio/visual 

content. Applian Technologies’ RM RE- 

CORDER and WM RECORDER (for RealMedia 

and Windows Media, respectively; 

$29.95 each, $49.95 together) avoid this 

limitation by capturing streaming audio 

and video to disk. You navigate to the 

streaming fi le in your browser, click Record 

in the respective Recorder program, 

then play the streaming fi le via VCR-like 

controls. You can even change the name 

of the video fi le before recording to simplify 

retrieval. Both Recorders store the 

entire streaming fi le to disk, even if you 

stop playback, so you can record multiple 

streams simultaneously. 

(Applian Technologies Inc., www.applian.com. 

llllh) 

Most video editors can import and output a limited number of fi le types, so 

if your productions include video from digital cameras, cell phones, or the 

Web, or you need to output video in iPod-compatible or DivX formats, you 

may need a video-conversion utility. We like two programs here. Xilisoft’s 

VIDEO CONVERTER ($35) successfully input seven of eight videos from stillimage 

cameras and DivX, AVI, WMV, MPEG, MOV, and MP4 test fi les, and 

output fi les in iPod-compatible MP4, DivX, and MPEG formats. But the program 

lacks a DV output preset. DV format is the Switzerland of video formats, 

compatible with virtually all video editors and authoring programs. 

For converting your videos to DV fi les for further production, we like River 

Past’s VIDEO CLEANER ($29.95). It can’t produce MPEG, MOV, or MPEG-4 

fi les, but it input all test fi les and output usable DV fi les. 

(Video Converter: Xilisoft Inc., www.xilisoft.com/video-converter.html, llllh. River Past Video 

Cleaner: River Past Corp., www.riverpast.com/en/prod/videocleaner/index.php, llllm) 

Jan Ozer has worked in digital video since 1990. When not chasing his daughter 

with a camcorder, he makes videos and DVDs for local music groups.

112 

FOR AUDIO ENTHUSIASTS 

T 

he brilliant, underlying truth of the PC is that it’s anything you want it to be, and 

that’s especially evident with audio. The audio utilities available are dramatically 

different, but you can use them synergistically, too. And you can harness them at 

any level, from just listening to sophisticated audio engineering. These utilities allow 

your PC to receive, store, organize, analyze, and improve audio. They will never demand 

more from you than you’re ready to give, but they’ll also be ready to take it to the next level. 

AUDACITY 

How much would you pay for a 16-channel audio editor that 

can record at up to 32 bits/96 kHz, remove 

hum and hiss, read and write 

WAV, AIFF, and MP3 fi les, and has envelope 

editing, equalization, mixing, 

resampling, and unlimited undo/redo? 

You don’t have to pay a thing: AUDACITY 

is free, and it’s spectacular. It can also 

alter playback speed without pitch shift, 

shift pitch without changing the speed, 

and includes a host of other effects. Audacity 

can’t edit WMA, AAC, or other 

proprietary formats, but it accepts standard 

VST plug-ins in case its built-in ef- MILLENNIUM 

fects aren’t enough. It runs on Windows, 

OS X, and Linux. (Open source, audacity.sourceforge.net. lllll) 

Your old vinyl records may not be picking up any new 

scratches these days, but they’re not getting played, either. 

MILLENNIUM ($59) is the entry-level product from Diamond 

Cut, which also makes those forensic audio fi ltering programs 

that you see on CSI. With hundreds of presets, Millennium can 

remove ticks, pops, scratches, hiss, rumble, and more from 

your records and tapes so you can transfer them to CD. You 

can even do speed corrections and punch up the dynamics of 

the fi nished track. You’ll feel like a professional sound engineer 

with this one—and you’ll get great results. For $59, it’s the 

best investment you can make in your old records. 

(Diamond Cut Productions Inc., www.diamondcut.com. llllh) 

You can fi nd many freeware ID3 tag editors, but you won’t 

fi nd a better one than ID3-TAGIT (free; PayPal contributions accepted). 

Using a standard Windows Explorer hierarchy, you 


BY BILL MACHRONE 

navigate to your music folders, where ID3-TagIT gives you 

instant access to the tag information. You can edit individual 

fi les, a group, or the entire folder. You can also edit fi lenames, 

update them from FreeDB, and add sequence/track numbers 

for players that require tagged songs to maintain album order. 

The program even corrects capitalization and removes special 

characters from fi lenames. (ID3-TagIT, www.id3-tagit.de. llllm) 

The podcast receiver formerly known as iPodder has a new 

name: JUICE 2.1. It’s still free and still one of the best ways to 

receive and manage your podcast subscriptions. You’ll appreciate 

new features such as auto cleanup, and the utility now 

works with feed managers such as PodNova. The tabbed interface 

moves you easily from downloads to subscriptions to 

the podcast directory, and from the cleanup tab you can remove 

old podcasts from the downloads folder or your player’s 

library. Juice doesn’t get bogged down, even with gigabytes of 

audio. It’s available for Windows and Mac, with a Linux version 

due soon. (The Juice team, juicereceiver.sourceforge.net. llllm) 

What Juice is to podcasts, REPLAY RADIO is to Web radio. 

You can use the built-in Replay Media 

Guide to fi nd specifi c stations or shows. 

Replay Radio will record by downloading 

or as you listen, and will schedule 

downloads for shows when you’re not 

around. The search function lets you 

find shows easily. Replay Radio will 

also download podcasts (in fact, the 

free demo version is just for podcasts) 

and will automatically check for new 

updates. It supports all the popular 

streaming formats, interfaces with an 

XM receiver, and can save shows to 

a CD or your MP3 player. This one’s 

worth the $49. (Applian Technologies Inc., www.replay-radio.com. llllm) 

Satisfy your inner geek with this function-limited version 

of Yoshimasha Electronic’s highly regarded DSSF3 audio 

analysis package ($83), which turns your PC into a precision 

audio-measurement lab. The spectrum analyzer shows you 

frequency response, harmonic distortion, even energy distribution 

by frequency. Better, you can log the data for further 

analysis in math/spreadsheet programs. The oscilloscope has 

autotrigger and automatic ranging and oversampling, and the 

signal generator can crank out just about any kind of waveform 

imaginable. Cut through the confusing Web site: You want 

DSSF3 Light. (Yoshimasha Electronic Inc., www.ymec.com. lllll) 

Bill Machrone lives in a noisy place between analog and digital 

audio, using his computer as a virtual recording studio and modifying 

his beloved Fender Blues Junior amplifi ers to play louder.

FOR WEB 2.0 ADDICTS 

What’s all this talk about Web 2.0? It’s really quite simple. Web 2.0 is what the 

cool kids use. It’s things like blogs, RSS mashups, and tagging sites. If you 

plan on joining the Internet in-crowd, most of what you need can be accessed 

through an ordinary Web browser—sites such as Blogger, Flickr, and del.icio 

.us—but there are several Web 2.0 tools that run on your local PC, interfacing with various 

services across the Net. These will make you even cooler. 


If you really want to surf the cutting edge, replace your 

browser. The new FLOCK browser (free) is designed specifi cally 

for the Web 2.0 aficionado. It dovetails nicely with popular 

blogging services such as Blogger, TypePad, and WordPress, 

letting you quickly and easily post information to online diaries. 

In much the same way, it hooks into del.icio.us, so you can 

tag your browser “favorites” and share them with others. And 

it ties into Flickr, allowing for the quick upload and download 

of tagged digital photos. Based on the same code as the popular 

Firefox browser, Flock also includes a built-in RSS reader, giving 

you instant access to online news feeds. Unfortunately, it is 

still in beta and far from polished (Flock, www.fl ock.com. lllhm). 

FLOCK BROWSER WITH FLICKER BAR 

There’s something to be said for handling RSS news feeds 

straight from a browser such as Flock or Firefox, but you might 

be better off tracking, reading, and organizing your feeds from 

a dedicated application. Our favorite is FEEDDEMON ($29.95). 

When you first run it, a simple tutorial walks you through 

the app’s basic layout. It comes preloaded with several popular 

feeds, and the interface is wonderfully intuitive: Even the 

greenest of computer users can pick up the RSS game in no 

time. (NewsGator Technologies Inc., www.bradsoft.com. llllh) 

Another good option is SHARPREADER. Though not quite as 

intuitive or as handsome as FeedDemon, it’s free and relatively 

easy to use. We particularly like the alerts that pop up over your 

Windows system tray whenever a new feed arrives. And if this 

sort of thing matters to you, it’s more compact than FeedDemon 

and easier to run alongside other apps. Donations from happy 

users accepted. (SharpReader, www.sharpreader.net. lllhm) 

You can also install a dedicated blogging client. These give 


Q&A with 

Mark Russinovich 

In the mid-1990s, during off-hours, 

Mark Russinovich began writing 

Windows utilities with Bryce 

Cogswell, an old graduate-school 

buddy. Ten years on, their freeware 

site, Sysinternals, receives over a 

million unique hits a month, and 

the enterprise software company it 

spawned, Winternals, serves over 

70,000 organizations worldwide. 

In the early years, were you 

writing free tools just for fun? 

It helped us get a business started. 

We were drawing traffi c to Sysinternals, 

attracting people interested 

BY CADE METZ 

How many utilities are running 

in your system tray? 8. 

What’s the fi rst one you 

re install after a reformat? 

VMWare. 


70 plus. 

What do you develop in? C 

or C++. 

in the free tools, and then we put a banner on the home page that 

pointed people to Winternals. Except for this one link, Winternals did 

no advertising for the fi rst two years. But it was kind of an accident. 

It’s not like we said, “Let’s make a free site, put free tools there, then 

do a commercial site and bootstrap ourselves.” 

So, where does the inspiration for a new utility come from? 

When I started out, I expected I’d be driven a lot by people sending in 

suggestions and comments. It turns out I might get a useful suggestion 

every now and again, but the direction of the tools is driven by 

my own experience. 

Such as? 

The fi rst two tools we developed were Filemon and Regmon, which 

are still among the fi ve most popular tools on the site. They’re both 

real-time monitors. Filemon lets you see all fi le-system activity and 

shows you what process is accessing what fi le and other detailed 

information. Regmon is the same, except it shows Registry access. 

you the freedom to compose off-line—or post the same material 

to multiple blogs running on multiple services. We’re 

most impressed with QUMANA (free). The coolest feature is 

the Qumana DropPad, a transparent window that fl oats above 

your desktop. You can drag and drop text, photos, and graphics 

onto the DropPad, and they’ll automatically appear in the main 

Qumana editor, where you compose your blog entries. You can 

instantly upload these to several popular blogging services, 

including Blogger, TypePad, WordPress, BlogWare, Movable 

Type, and more (Qumana Inc., www.qumana.com. llllh). 

Cade Metz recently moved to San Francisco. When he lived in 

New York, RSS was a way of keeping up with current events. 

Now it’s a way of keeping up with the Joneses.


FOR YOUR BROWSER(S) 

I 

nternet Explorer 7.0 might be just around the corner, but for more browser 

power right now, check out some of these indispensable IE extensions, which 

add a variety of features you can’t get with your basic IE6 installation . They’re all 

free (unless otherwise marked). And the many users who have turned to Firefox 

for its stripped-down, streamlined operation (and because it’s less of a target for malware 

than IE) can take advantage of one of the open-source browser’s benefi ts: a huge 

aftermarket for add-ons that extend its feature set. The basic browser works fi ne by 

itself; add some of these and you can truly harness the Internet’s power. 

INTERNET EXPLORER EXTENSIONS 

YAHOO! TOOLBAR WITH ANTI-SPY includes a search box, a popup 

blocker, an antispyware utility, and loads of quick links to 

various Yahoo! properties (My Web, Yahoo! Sports, News, 

Yahoo! Mail, and more). There’s also a nifty highlighting tool 

for Web pages: Light up some text and run a search or IM it to 

someone, all from a pop-up icon that appears next to the text 

you highlighted. (Yahoo! Inc., toolbar.yahoo.com. llllm) 

MSN TOOLBAR WITH WINDOWS DESKTOP SEARCH will now, 

as the name indicates, search either your computer or the Internet 

from inside IE, Outlook, or a separate Deskbar that sits 

neatly in your Windows XP Taskbar. It also adds a form-fi lling 

tool and even tabbed-browsing capability, a sorely needed feature 

for the aging browser. (Microsoft Corp., toolbar.msn.com. llllm) 

SURFSAVER AND THE GOOGLE TOOLBAR 

Lance Ulanoff: What’s in your tray? 

Lance Ulanoff is editor, reviews, for PC Magazine, where he oversees 

all product and review coverage for the magazine and for PCMag.com 


I know how people feel about this 

utility, but I love having the Live 

WeatherBug icon in my tray. I always 

know the temperature outside. 

GOOGLE TOOLBAR adds a 

number of new features 

for its Version 4 beta. 

You now get suggestions 

for your searches as you 

type, along with the ability 

to add and position 

bookmarks and toolbar 

buttons. This is on top of 

its already full-featured 

toolbar, which gives you an on-the-fl y spell-checker for webmail 

and forum posts, as well as Google’s PageRank tool. (Google 

Inc., toolbar.google.com. llllh) 

The fi rst thing that strikes you about DOGPILE is its scrolling 

ABC News ticker: Newshounds will want it for that feature 

alone. Otherwise, Dogpile gives you metasearch capability for 

using multiple search engines simultaneously. It also includes 

its own pop-up blocker, scrolling search terms entered by other 

people, and a hot link to Dogpile’s Yellow Pages. (InfoSpace Inc., 

www.dogpile.com. lllhm) 

Click the Stumble button in the STUMBLEUPON toolbar and 

you’ll be transported to a random site that matches one of your 

(preselected) interests. You can vote to indicate whether it’s 

up your alley and/or add descriptive tags, to help fine-tune 

the site’s relevance for everyone else. A great way to fi nd highquality 

sites that match your interests, and an absolutely terrible 

way to be productive. (StumbleUpon, www.stumbleupon.com. 

lllmm) 

Get defi nitions—and pronunciations—on the fl y with the 

useful MERRIAM-WEBSTER ONLINE TOOLBAR. Quick-launch 

and also writes a weekly online technology column. Lance’s musings 

on his system tray can be found at go.pcmag.com/lancetray. 

Google Desktop is one of the most 

useful tools I have for finding anything 

on my desktop, though X1 does a better 

job of finding older e-mail messages. 

BY JAMIE LENDINO 

GOOGLE TOOLBAR OPTIONS 

Probably the best thing I ever did for 

my overstuffed system tray was to 

install Startup Cop Pro 2. It made the 

whole tray a lot more manageable. 


FASTERFOX 

buttons to a thesaurus and a “word of the day” feature round 

out the package. (Merriam-Webster Inc., www.m-w.com/toolbar. llllm) 

AM-DEADLINK 2.7, a flexible bookmark manager, isn’t really 

a built-in extension for IE, but it should be. DeadLink 

goes through all of your bookmarks (including those for other 

browsers on your system) and gets rid of links that no longer 

work. (Martin Aignesberger, www.aignes.com/deadlink.htm. lllhm) 

Have you ever tried to save a Web page you liked? If you use 

IE, chances are you were disappointed when you tried to read 

it later. SURFSAVER ($19.95) to the rescue! It lets you save individual 

pages in “cabinets” you specify in a toolbar along the 

left-hand side of your browser. You can also save multiple link 

levels, grabbing the page you need and every single page it’s 

linked to. (askSam Systems, www.surfsaver.com. lllmm) 

MAXTHON is a shell that adds tabbed browsing to IE. It also 

gives you an enhanced drag-and-drop feature, an RSS reader, 

privacy protection and better extensions management. It’s like 

having a whole new browser, but it doesn’t affect your original 

IE install; you can still run an untouched version of IE separately. 

(Maxthon International Ltd., www.maxthon.com. lllmm) 

MOZILLA FIREFOX EXTENSIONS 

GOOGLE TOOLBAR, our Editors’ Choice for browser toolbars, 

fi nally works with Firefox. This isn’t huge news, since the 

browser has included a Google search box since Version 1.0. 

But Google Toolbar is still a more-than-worthy download, 

because of its comprehensive spell-checker, form fi ller, and 

map-linking features. (Google Inc., toolbar.google.com. llllm) 

FOXYTUNES works with a number of popular MP3 players, including 

the obvious (WMP 10 and iTunes) and not-so- obvious 

(Yahoo! Music Engine, jetAudio, Musicmatch), letting you control 

them without leaving the browser interface. You can arrange 

icons in several ways, such as by artist or song title, and 

there is a row of convenient player control buttons. It’s oddly 

convenient. (Alex Sirota, www.foxytunes.org/fi refox. llllm) 

FASTERFOX speeds up your Firefox browsing experience. You 

can turn on a special prefetching feature that increases the load 

on Web servers but turns up pages faster on your machine. The 

basic options box includes choices such as “courteous,” “optimized,” 

and “turbo charged.” One neat bonus: a timer display 

in your Firefox status bar tells you how long it took to load the 

current page. (Tony Gentilcore, fasterfox.mozdev.org. llllm) 

With FORECASTFOX, you get icons for the current weather 

in your ZIP code and to forecast the next few days—all this is 

confi gurable—as well as an AccuWeather map. Rolling your 

mouse over the icons gives more information, such as sunrise 

and sunset times, low and high temps, and more. You can add 

information for other places as well and switch between location 

profi les. (ForecastFox, forecastfox.mozdev.org. lllhm) 

With GOOGLEPREVIEW, a graphic thumbnail showing a miniature 

version of the target Web page appears to the left of each 

search result. It’s a boon when you’re running lots of Google 

searches, and it doesn’t seem to detract at all from Google’s 

fast results engine. (GooglePreview, ackroyd.de/googlepreview. lllmm) 

Ever close a tab by accident? Wish you had an undo button? 

To get this much-needed feature, try TAB MIX PLUS. It includes 

a host of tab-management capabilities, including duplicating 

tabs, and a session manager that can restore your tab confi guration 

even after a crash. (Tab Mix Plus, tmp.garyr.net. llllm) 

INFOLISTER lets you manage installed extensions, themes, 

and plug-ins in one place. You get active hyperlinks to each 

extension’s host site (though not to plug-ins’ sites), and you can 

save lists to take to another machine, along with the dates you 

last updated each extension—and most important, you can 

save the fi le locally. It’s a stopgap until the day when we can actually 

save Firefox confi gurations and not have to go through 

the hassle of reinstalling our many extensions and themes. 

(Open source, mozilla.doslash.org/infolister. lllhm) 

INFOLISTER 


ADBLOCK blocks nearly all ads on the Internet, including 

fl ash animations. You may need to train it—right-click on any 

ad you see and choose “Adblock.” Better yet, download the Adblock 

Filterset.G Updater from addons.mozilla.org along with 

Adblock; this will automatically confi gure it to block the most 

common kinds of ads. (Open source, adblock.mozdev.org. lllll) 

FLASHGOT powers up download managers so that they work 

with Firefox, even if they were originally designed for Internet 

Explorer. Consequently, you’ll need to have a download manager 

(such as GetRight or FlashGet) in place; by itself, Flash- 

Got does nothing. Once you get one, use Ctrl-F2 (FlashGot 

Selection) or Ctrl-F3 (FlashGot All) and you’re in business, 

though we would have appreciated a “cancel” function halfway 

through a batch-download command. 

(InformAction, www.fl ashgot.net. lllhm) 

In addition to reviewing Internet tools for PC Magazine, Jamie 

Lendino creates sound effects and music for games. He’d give anything 

for an Adblock extension that works on highway billboards. 

www.pcmag.com APRIL 11, 2006 PC MAGAZINE 117


TOP 10 PC MAG UTILITIES 

S 

ince its inception, PC Magazine Utilities has grown to include more than 140 utili- 

ties, addressing everything from screen cosmetics to network monitoring. In March 

2003, we began charging for utility downloads ($19.97 per year for unlimited access, 

or $5.97 for a single download), letting us devote more resources to development. Here 

are the top ten downloads, in descending order, since you started ponying up for the privilege. 

You’ll fi nd our utilities, with detailed usage instructions, at go.pcmag.com/utilities. 

With DISKPIE PRO’s cus- 

10 tomizable pie charts, you 

can see where your overweight 

folders and fi les are, and even see 

what fi le types are eating up your 

drive space. Disk Pie Pro then 

helps you clean up, and it monitors 

the disk (or network drive) 

in the background. 

In this age of computer virus- 

9 es and short attention spans, 

it pays to know every detail about 

a file before you double-click on 

it. FILESNOOP 2 makes exploring DISKPIE PRO 

Windows not only safer, but also 

much more effi cient, giving you snapshot information about 

every fi le, including executables—and quick previews of common 

fi le types—without having to open them in their sometimes 

slow and bulky parent programs. 

PORTSNOOP monitors applications with network connec- 

8 tions. It gives you detailed information and bandwidth usage 

levels on each running app, alerts you when unauthorized 

apps use connections, and terminates network connections 

and applications. 

INSTABACK’s genesis was the desire for a backup solu- 

7 tion that was easy to use and always on. As you save fi les, 

InstaBack instantly backs them up. You can maintain up to ten 

versions of a backup, and compare versions. 

HD HEARTBEAT communicates with hard drives that are 

6 equipped with S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring Analysis and 

Reporting Technology), and pops up warnings or even sends 

you e-mail alerts about the drive. It also shows you info on 

Tim Smith: What’s in your tray? 

Tim Smith is the manager of PC Magazine's Utility Library. He’s been in 

the software industry for over a decade, both as a writer and a software 


HD HeartBeat monitors the health of 

your hard drives. Among its features, it 

displays the temperature of your drives 

when you hover over the tray icon, 

which I do every few hours. 

your drive’s capacity, partitions, and sizes 

and, if it’s supported by the drive model, 

the temperature. 

REGISTRYMASTER improves on Win- 

5 dows’ Registry Editor with a more 

powerful search tool, simpler Registry key 

navigation, and a History tab for undoing 

changes and reverting to previous states. 

WMATCH is a classic—it started out in 

4 1989 as a DOS utility—and it remains 

at the top of our download charts. With 

WMatch 3 you can compare fi les in different 

folders, including network and local, 

compare contents by date and size, and 

schedule synchronizations. 

DUPELESS 2 scans your drives and shows all the duplicate 

3 fi les it can fi nd in the directories you specify, grouped by 

the criteria you choose: fi les with the same names and sizes, 

fi les of the same sizes (even with different names), and fi les 

with the same names, sizes, and dates. 

TASKPOWER 2 is a powerful replacement for Windows’ 

2 built-in Task Manager. All processes can be easily viewed 

to fi nd critical information about each process, such as which 

modules it uses, its memory and CPU usage, who developed it, 

a description of what it does, and more. 

STARTUP COP PRO 2 puts you in control of the Windows start- 

1 up process. You can easily enable, disable, and delete startup 

entries. You can specify exactly when a program launches: on 

a time delay, at a specifi c time, on a specifi c day, when another 

program is running, or when your live network connection is 

detected. It will also monitor your system, warning you when a 

program is trying to add itself to the system start-up. E 

developer. Tim ran his own software and development company and 

before that worked in Ziff Davis’s Internet division from 1993 to 2001. 

I love having Media Monkey running in 

the tray, because every time a new MP3 

track is played, it pops up and shows 

me the track name and artist. 

BY TIM SMITH 

I don’t have an overwhelming number 

of tray icons. I use Startup Cop Pro to 

eliminate a lot of programs that launch 

on Windows start-up. 


BUILD IT: 

A DIY BACKUP SERVER 

Don’t throw out that old PC! 

Save yourself from hours of work, 

lost business, and thousands of 

dollars in lost revenue by using 

it to back up your network. 

We show you how. 

By Bill Machrone 

Illustration by Brian Stauffer 


TURN THE PAGE 

...and open the gatefold for 

detailed parts and plans.

is not whether you’re 

going to lose data, but when. And the 

more machines you have on your network—home 

or small business—the 

greater your exposure. But that same 

network can also be the key to regular, 

reliable backups: With the current 

low price and phenomenal capacity 

of disk drives, you can put a chunk of 

storage on the LAN, and that will be 

the backup repository for all your machines. 

It’s called network-attached 

storage, or NAS, but it can be much 

more than a disk drive with an IP address 

or a shared drive letter visible 

from all of your computers. 

Backup servers and personal servers 

have become a hot item, offered 

by Mirra, Netgear, and others. They 

go beyond network-attached storage 

by having enough onboard smarts to 

run backup software and other functions. 

These are solid, turnkey solutions, 

but it’s both cheap and easy to 

build your own server from an old 

PC. There are many ways to do this, 

and ours is only one of many valid 

approaches. But you can duplicate it 

easily and have a powerful, reliable 

backup server of your own. 

Tower systems have loads of room 

and a power supply large enough for 

big hard disks, and if the system can 

run Windows XP, it’ll easily run the 

backup software, too. You should 

start with a clean install of XP; 

there’s no sense in burdening your 

backup server with the leftovers from 

dozens or hundreds of applications, a 

clogged Registry, and a dog’s breakfast 

of processes that start at boot-up, 

whether you want them to or not. 

BUILD IT: A DIY BACKUP SERVERThe question 

HARDWARE 

We chose a Dell Dimension 4100 as the foundation for our 

backup server. It’s over fi ve years old, but its 1-GHz Pentium 

III was actually more than we needed. The 384MB of installed 

memory gives XP some elbow room, and for most tasks, we’ll 

take memory over clock speed. Remember, you can’t buy a 

machine this slow, even if you wanted to. It’s obsolete, but 

just right for our project. This one was kicking around in our 

labs, but if you actually have to buy one, you shouldn’t spend 

more than $100 or so. 

The 4100 had a fresh copy of XP SP2 on the 40GB hard disk, 

but we wanted to have it back up four machines, with a total 

of around 30GB of active storage. This problem was solved 

with an 80GB Western Digital WD800. We popped it in, 

formatted it, and gave it a drive letter. We wanted a dedicated 

drive for backups, even though most of the C: drive would 

be unused. We bought a second WD800 for more storage 

or possible mirroring but decided to start with one drive 

while we tested various software solutions. The Dell 4100’s 

motherboard doesn’t support mirrored drives, but we fi gured 

we’d fi nd some too-clever way to do it. The Dell already had 

a network card, so at least for our single-drive version, we 

were all done, other than making some nice mounting rails 

for the drive. 

When you confi gure your own machine, make sure it has at 

least 256MB of memory and several times more disk storage 

than the total amount you want to back up. Remember that 

you probably need to back up only data; in case of disaster, 

applications generally need to be reinstalled from their CDs. 

1,000 top technol 

1 

Don’t use a 

magnetic 

screwdriver. It 

might just lead to 

bigger problems.

WHAT YOU’LL NEED 

2 Disconnect 

the power 

cable and remove 

the old hard drive. 

5 

1 

This old PC This project 

is perfect for an old tower 

PC you were going to get 

rid of. Just keep in mind that 

you may need to upgrade the 

operating system if it’s really old. 

The IDE cable 

is notched and 

will fi t only one way. 

Don’t force it. 

2Storage is cheap Largecapacity 

hard drives are 

coming down in price faster 

than a skydiver in trouble. Such new 

drives are great for a DIY project 

like ours. But before you buy, check 

to see whether your old PC has IDE 

connectors or the newer SATA. 

ogy brands. (In other 

3 

Be very careful 

when removing 

the IDE cable. Hard 

drive pins bend easily. 

6 

Hard drive screws 

are different from 

other screws used in 

the case. Don’t mix 

them up.

4 

Make sure that 

the new drive’s 

jumpers are set to 

Master before you 

install it. 

7 

Before you throw 

out that old 

hard drive, make sure 

it’s been completely 

wiped clean. 

3 

More RAM Your server will 

work fi ne just the way it is, 

but adding $40 worth of RAM 

will improve performance noticeably. 

You can spare that, right? 

Again, be sure to check whether 

you’re using SDRAM or DDR RAM 

before you leave for CompUSA. 

SOFTWARE 

The array of software for network backup is mind-boggling, but we 

settled on Cobian Backup 7 (www.educ.umu.se/~cobian /cobianbackup 

.htm). The current version has some nice features. It’s not your typical 

backup-and-restore software; it makes security copies of the fi les 

and folders you select, as often as you schedule them. It doesn’t use 

proprietary fi le formats and won’t compress fi les unless you tell it to. 

But it can compress them using standard ZIP algorithms and encrypt 

backed-up fi les. You restore fi les or folders from Cobian Backup simply 

by copying them back to the original drive. It will do full, incremental, or 

differential backups. And the price is a DIYer’s dream: free. 

One of the things you have to decide when designing a network 

backup strategy is where you want the backup software to run—on 

BACKING UP THE BACKUP 

Our venerable Dell Dimension 

doesn’t support RAID, 

but what if you want a second, 

identical copy of each backup? 

No problem: Just run Cobian 

Backup against itself. Periodically 

copy the entire contents 

of the backup drive to another 

drive—there’s your mirror. 

If you are worried that theft 

or fi re could wipe you out, never 

fear. Since Cobian Backup also 

supports FTP backup, you can 

send your backups to a remote 

FTP server or, as above, back up 

your backups to an FTP server. 

You can also get fancy, leaving 

your local backup unencrypted 

but your FTP backup encrypted. 

4Software choices Another 

great thing about this project 

is how easily you can personalize 

the server for your needs. 

Some NAS units are designed for 

quick personal backup, while others 

are made to integrate quickly with 

a complex corporate network. 

words, everything you need 

8 

Once you’ve formed the partition, 

you can format the drive. 

The New Partition Wizard under the 

Computer Management utility takes 

care of business.

the individual PCs or on the backup server. We wanted ours to 

be a true backup server, with all of the centralized fi le management 

options that entails, not just a repository drive for data 

dumped on it by the client machines, so we opted to run Cobian 

Backup on the server. 

You then choose how you want Cobian to access the fi les 

on the client machines. The fi rst step, of course, is to turn on 

fi le- and print-sharing. From there, set the sharing permission 

for each folder you want to back up or simply drag the folders 

you want to back up into the Shared Documents folder. Cobian 

can see that folder on every machine that has fi le- and printsharing 

turned on. 

INCREMENTAL VS. 

DIFFERENTIAL 

Different kinds of backups 

serve different purposes. 

You need to decide whether 

or not to overwrite existing 

backups, and how many 

copies to keep. You can store 

many backups that let you 

recreate month-end, yearend, 

or other snapshots. 

• Full backup All specifi ed 

fi les and folders are backed 

up in their entirety. 

• Incremental backup Only 

the fi les that have changed 

since the last backup are 

archived. 

• Differential backup Only 

the fi les that have changed 

since the last full backup are 

archived. 

.) 

9 

Cobian Backup makes it easy to 

create and modify tasks. Our fi rst 

task backs up three major folders on 

a laptop computer. In this case, we’ve 

selected a weekly full backup. 

This works best in a “friendly” environment, where individual 

users don’t need to keep fi les secret from one another. If you 

want to minimize exposure of client PCs to one another, run 

Cobian on each machine and encrypt the backups to the central 

drive. In any case, you probably don’t want to turn on sharing 

for the entire drive on the client PCs: You’d be opening the door 

to inadvertent damage as well as malicious mischief. 

Tasks in Cobian Backup are extraordinarily easy to set up. 

A tabbed menu lets you choose the type of backup; select the 

fi les and folders; schedule the backup; choose compression or 

encryption; include and exclude specifi c fi les, fi le types, or folders; 

and perform scripted events before and after each backup. 

10 Backup scheduling is very fl exible. 

You can set backups to occur on a 

regular schedule, on any given date, or 

even every couple of minutes. 

NAS VS. SAN 

Our backup server, built for network-attached storage 

(NAS), is limited to fi le storage and management tasks. 

A storage-area network (SAN), by comparison, offl oads 

the main network, moving large amounts of data 

among storage devices, usually with many-to-many 

connections between servers and storage. A full copy 

of Windows XP is overkill for NAS tasks, but the user 

interface and familiar tools are convenient. 

We see your brain working. You’re thinking, “If I can 

build my own NAS, can I build my own SAN?” In a word, 

no. While there are some open-source SAN projects 

that are available, there’s nothing easy and reliable out 

there. Yet. 

�� 

�� 

�� 

TIME TO SPLIT 

Another way to archive 

important fi les, such as 

full monthly backups, 

is to move them to optical 

discs that can be 

stored off-site. Cobian 

Backup will split backups 

into CD-, DVD-, or 

other-size chunks, with 

or without compression 

or encryption. 


Make an external hard disk! 

go.pcmag.com/diy

DIY BACKUP ALTERNATIVES 

OTHER DIY BACKUP SOFTWARE 

For our backup server, we went with Cobian Backup 7, but 

you’ll fi nd quite a few other software choices to use for your 

own server. 

BACKUP2006PRO ($65 street) 

Pros: Simple UI. Uploads via HTTP or FTP to 

remote servers. 

Cons: Designed for single user, not network. 

HANDY BACKUP ($30 street) 

Pros: Well-regarded. Provides FTP support and 

encryption. 

Cons: Requires add-ons for Registry, Outlook, 

and other special functions. Can back up over 

network but is intended for single machines. 

VICE VERSA PLUS/PRO ($30/$60 street) 

Pros: Comprehensive backup and scheduling. 

Easy, attractive UI. 

Cons: Restrictive licensing. Additional multiuser 

cost. 

NASBACKUP (free/SourceForge) 

Pros: Uses rsync and Perl scripts to do differential 

network backup. Simple client UI. 

Cons: Usually needs a Linux server to run rsync 

but can be run on Windows servers with additional 

software. Overall setup can be complex. 

The product with the most appealing name: 

AMANDA (Advanced Maryland Automatic Network 

Disk Archiver) 

Pros: Free. Can back up Unix and Windows 

machines. 

Cons: Requires comfort with console commands and modding 

for different confi gurations. 

ISP/Internet 

Cable/ADSL 

Firewall 

Router 

Server 

Internal 

users’ 

PCs 

BUILD IT! 

Remote 

employees 

External services: 

• Web site 

• DNS 

• FTP 

• Mail 

Printer 

Internal services: 

• File sharing 

• Print sharing 

• DHCP 

Backup: 

• NAS 

OFF-THE-SHELF NAS 

Looking to save a little time but still need to back up your 

business? Dozens of commercial NAS devices are available. 

Here are some recent offerings from some of the top names. 

�BUFFALO TERASTATION HOME SERVER (1TB, $900 street) 

The Buffalo TeraStation is currently the unparalleled giant 

of low-cost NAS. Offering a terabyte of storage, this device 

should meet or exceed the storage needs of nearly any small 

business. 

�IOMEGA STORCENTER (250GB, $289.95 direct) 

Primarily a wired solution, the StorCenter can be set free 

with a wireless option for an extra few bucks. It’s also a 

print server for up to two printers, and it comes with a 

full suite of backup software. You can expand the device’s 

capacity easily by adding USB 2.0 hard drives. 

�LINKSYS ETHERFAST NAS EFG250 (250GB, $700 street) 

A fl exible fi le server with print sharing, the EtherFast is easily 

expandable via a spare drive bay. It’s easy to install on an 

existing LAN and performs DHCP; plus, the drives are in 

lockable, removable carriers. The wireless option is handy 

as well. 

�MAXTOR SHARED STORAGE PLUS (500GB, $499.95 

direct) 

This small-footprint NAS device can be added quickly 

and easily to any Ethernet network. Print-sharing is a 

plus, as is expandable USB 2.0 disk storage. 

MIRRA PERSONAL SERVER (400GB, $499.99 direct) 

The Mirra backs up and restores fi les from multiple PCs 

effortlessly. Attach it to your Ethernet network, and software 

on each PC communicates with the Mirra to perform 

continuous backups, with up to eight versions stored for 

each fi le. 

NETWORK NEEDS 

The army runs on its stomach, but businesses run 

on their data. In most SOHO networks, a wealth of 

internal services (such as file and printer sharing 

and any intranet tools) run off a central server. 

Additionally, most businesses have a handful of 

external services—such as the company Web site, 

e-mail, and remote-access or even VPN 

capabilities—that may or may not run from the 

same server. Take a few minutes to map out your 

company network and determine which parts of the 

operation need to be backed up. File servers usually 

contain mission-critical data that should be 

archived as regularly as your employees’ data. Back 

up the site, user accounts, and mail files, too. E

Real-World Testing: 

By Robert Heron 

SHORT STACKS? Ordinary 

TVs won’t do for Mr. Heron. 

He likes ’em big. 

SQUEEZE PLAY Maybe you 

could stop photographing for 

a few seconds and help? 


SHOPPING RETAIL is hell. Big-box 

outlets, awash in ill-informed clerks, 

underpaid salesmen, and poorly labeled 

products are, in a word, useless. No wonder 

people are turning to the Internet in 

droves. Still, for big purchases, many of 

us feel the need to try before we buy. 

So we set out, cash in hand, to fi nd the 

best HDTV deals at brick-and-mortar 

stores. With dozens of brands and hundreds 

of models, it was a challenge. Getting 

the features you want at a good price 

requires preparation—and patience. 

We decided to focus on fl at-panel displays. 

(Tube systems, at over a hundred 

pounds and several feet deep, seem very 

last-century.) We demanded at least one 

digital and one component video input so 

we could plug in a minimum of two highdefinition 

sources. And we capped the 

price at $1,000—spending more than that 

on a television seemed, well, extravagant. 

We started our search online, perusing 

the sites of local stores to see what 

was available. Our thin-and-fl at prerequisite 

directed us toward LCD TVs— 

plasma screens don’t provide native 

HD resolution (a minimum of 720p, aka 

1,280-by-720 pixels) at sizes under 50 

inches. Within our budget, 32-inch LCDs 

were the best option. 

Because these sets lack over-the-air 

HD tuners, we’d have to buy or rent a separate 

box, but we’d probably do that anyway 

to watch cable channels like ESPN 

and HBO, rather than just the dinosaur 

networks. With a list of about half a dozen 

possibilities at four major retailers, we hit 

the streets to see our picks in person. 

WHAT’S IN-STORE 

Costco Membership has its rewards, but 

shopping help isn’t one. Still, in a change 

from the past when the warehouse store 

seemed to be a dumping ground for endof-life 

TVs, it had late-model Pioneer 

plasmas and Sony Bravia LCD TVs (too 

expensive for us). All the screens at our 

local branch were hooked up via their 

component video connectors and played 

the same loop of challenging HD video 

clips that included detailed scenic vistas

$900 LCDs 

and fast-paced sporting action, which 

aided our comparisons. 

Amid the visual feast, our eyes settled 

on a 32-inch Proview RX-326 LCD TV 

for $950. The set had the required A/V 

inputs, and dark detail such as the fi ne 

shadow gradients around a person’s eyes 

showed up clearly. We snatched it up, 

fearful of being convinced otherwise by 

an employee—not that we saw any. 

Wal-Mart Our next stop: America’s favorite 

store. Buried in a corner of the cavernous 

emporium was a sparse selection 

of TVs. None were models we had picked 

on the company’s Web site. Undaunted, 

we found a lone set that met our criteria. 

We were immediately struck by the rotten 

picture quality. But the TV wasn’t to 

blame: The store distributes video to every 

set over composite cables—the lowest 

order of video life—or an RF cable 

connection (possibly the second worst). 

When the perpetually busy cashier eventually 

determined that the chosen set was 

sold out forever, we enthusiastically took 

our business elsewhere. Lesson learned: 

Don’t shop at Wal-Mart for an HDTV. 

CompUSA Here too, we encountered a 

small selection connected to composite 

or RF cabling. The overall image quality 

wasn’t as bad as on the Wal-Mart sets, 

but this location had nothing in our price 

range that fi t our needs. 

Best Buy Our last stop offered a decent 

choice of TVs and had an outlet of 

the high-end audiovisual equipment 

and accessory retailer Magnolia Home 

Theater, where we could admire HDTVs 

most certainly not in our price range. 

Best Buy conveniently uses the same HD 

feed (apart from the commercials) as 

Costco. This proved very useful, as we 

were already familiar with the videos. 

The looped feed included a scene of 

four people sitting behind a news desk, 

one of them wearing a sweater in a shade 

of coral . . . probably. We were uncertain 

of the sweater’s exact color, as every TV 

displayed it slightly differently. It looked 

more reddish on some, more pinkish on 

others, and a few were so far off the mark 

that we never gave them a second glance. 

The TV that caught our attention on 

Best Buy’s Web site was sold out. A sales 


SHOPPING CARTE BLANCHE 

Will you take a postdated, thirdparty, 

out-of-state check? 

JUNK IN THE TRUNK 

Dude, you’ll never fi t that 

monster back there! 

A PERFECT FIT! This backseat fi ts 

three comfortably—or a 32-inch 

square from Japan. 



SPOTTING THE ELUSIVE 

HIGH-QUALITY TV 

Follow these tips and your hunt 

for a fl at-screen TV will be brief. 

• Shop at a store that provides HD 

content and familiarize yourself with 

it. Best Buy and Costco show the 

same looped video feed, so you can 

compare across stores. Cool! 

• Pay attention to black levels. Do they 

appear inky dark or grayish? Convincing 

blacks provide better image quality 

in a home theater environment. 

• Compare shadow and color detail, 

with an eye to natural imagery. In the 

Best Buy/Costco video loop, watch for 

that coral sweater to compare colors. 

OUR PRESCRIP- 

TION Take two 

of these and 

see you Monday 

morning. 

OUTSIDE THE BOX Gotta 

hurry! Only 30 minutes 

until American Idol is on! 

I SEE DEAD PIXELS You’ll never analyze 

effectively from the couch. But 

it’s hard to watch from this close. 


DIGITAL HERNIA Lift 

with the legs, and 

always bring a friend! 

rep (call him Jim) claimed hundreds were 

in a warehouse, but delivery would take a 

few days. We couldn’t wait, so we found 

an alternative: a 32-inch Westinghouse 

LTV-32w1. The set was $100 over our 

budget but had the features we were looking 

for. We asked to have $100 knocked 

off, and the sales rep agreed. Flush with 

triumph, we bought the unit. 

As it turned out, the LTV-32w1 had 

been on sale the previous week for $200 

off, so our savvy bargain was no big deal. 

Furthermore, most stores guarantee that 

they’ll refund the difference if you fi nd 

the same TV elsewhere for a lower price. 

Had we not rushed, we could have easily 

saved another $100. Lesson number two: 

Keep track of competing prices. 

UNBOXING DAY 

With only two TVs in our possession 

after visiting four retailers, we wanted 

another set to see how our purchases 

compared, so we chose the recently released 

32-inch Visio L32 LCD. Its list 

price was within our budget and like the 

Proview and Westinghouse, it provided 

the A/V connections and the resolution 

we wanted. 

Unpacking and setting up these 

LCDs justified our decision to exclude 

CRTs. The Proview RX-326 was about 

55 pounds, and the Westinghouse LTV- 

32w1 was 34 pounds. A 32-inch CRT 

(which has less viewable area) can weigh 

substantially more; one at Best Buy was 

166 pounds. But as LCD screens aren’t as 

tough as CRTs, we still needed a friend 

to help ensure a safe journey from the 

Styrofoam-packed box to the TV’s new 

perch. Setup complete, we were ready to 

put our new LCDs to the test. 

After eyeballing the sets just as a regular 

user would, we put them through 

our extensive lab tests. None left us in 

high-def heaven, but the Proview was 

the best of the bunch. Its picture quality 

was pleasing, movie scores rumbled 

nicely, and the TV was attractive yet understated. 

The Visio’s bright and even 

picture wasn’t without flaws, but it’s a 

relatively inexpensive fl at-panel TV and 

a good value. The Westinghouse LTV- 

32w1 impressed us with its digital image 

quality, and its contrast ratio shattered 

records. Too bad the display quality 

with analog input wasn’t half as good as 

with digital. 

With any digital set, broadcast analog 

TV will appear fuzzy and soft, at best. 

Even with a rooftop antenna that had 

a direct line of sight to the broadcast 

tower, we still got noisy, ghost-fi lled imagery. 

Luckily, an FCC mandate now requires 

manufacturers to include digital 

(ATSC) tuners in all mid-size TVs, so future 

models will be able to receive overthe-air 

HD and provide better images 

with standard-defi nition broadcasts. 

As for purchasing from stores, Best 

Buy and Costco offered the best experiences. 

Keep track of what’s on sale and 

what just came off sale, and don’t be 

afraid to bargain! And if you see Jim at 

Best Buy, tell him we said hi. E 

Robert Heron runs PC Magazine’s 

HDTV lab and hosts DL.TV. For full ratings 

and reviews of these televisions, turn 

to page 26 in our First Looks section.

134 

FAST FACTS 

SOLUTIONS • go.pcmag.com/connectedtraveler 

THE CONNECTED TRAVELER 

New York 

SILICON ALLEY: More NYC 

residents work in the information 

industry than residents 

of three major Silicon 

Valley counties combined. 

PHONES: Verizon has the 

best voice coverage. Both 

Sprint and Verizon provide 

high-speed EV-DO data networks 

all over the city. 

Wi-Fi in the Parks: Downtown 

Alliance (www.down 

townny.com) runs eight free 

hot spots near Wall Street. 

There are also hot spots 

in Bryant Park (Googlesponsored), 

Tompkins 

Square, and Madison Square . 

GETTING AROUND: Don’t take a cab. Fly into JFK Airport and 

take the new AirTrain (for just $5), a brand-new monorail 

which zips to Jamaica Station in Queens over the congested 

Van Wyck Expressway. There you can switch to the subway 

($2) or the slightly plusher LIRR train ($5 to $7) to Manhattan. 

Even the billionaire mayor rides the fast and safe subway 

in New York City; daily passes cost $7. Manhattan subways 

aren’t wired for cell phones yet, but Verizon customers have 

luck in the shallower stations, such as the 23rd Street station 

on the 6 line. Noise-canceling headphones work surprisingly 

well to kill the bone-rattling subway rumble. — Sascha Segan 

HOOKED UP IN NYC 

Alt.Coffee 

139 Avenue A 

An old-school 

early-1990s-style 

coffeeshop with 

comfy couches, a 

student crowd, and 

of course, free Wi-Fi. 

DT/UT 

1626 Second Avenue 

A coffeeshop on 

the posh Upper East 

Side a few blocks 

from museums, 

with big couches 

and lots of free Net. 

EasyInternetCafe 

234 W. 42nd Street 

You’re sure to fi nd 

space at one of the 

648 PCs in what 

may be the largest 

Internet cafe in the 

world. Yowza! 

WHILE YOU’RE IN TOWN Hit the Pennsylvania Hotel from July 21-23, when 

one of the nation’s biggest hacker conventions, HOPE NUMBER SIX, 

takes over. Get more info at www.hopenumbersix.net. Get hands-on 

experience with all the hot new products for the upcoming holidays at 

DIGITAL LIFE. October 12-15 at the Javits Center, www.digitallife.com. 


BEST WIRED 

HOTELS 

APPLE CORE HOTELS 

5 locations in Midtown 

www.applecorehotels.com 

A well-kept secret, these fi ve 

tidy budget hotels have rates 

as low as $99.99 per night 

and free Wi-Fi. We advise going 

with the La Quinta or Red 

Roof Inn, both on a fascinating 

block of Korean shops and 

restaurants. 

TRIBECA GRAND iSTUDIO 

2 Sixth Avenue 

www.tribecagrand.com 

The Grand can outfi t any 

suite with a Mac G5, iPod, and 

editing software.Bring a video 

camera and make that indie 

fi lm you’ve been dreaming of. 

$434 and up per night. 

HOTEL GIRAFFE 

365 Park Avenue South 

www.hotelgiraffe.com 

A cozy boutique hotel in Midtown, 

with a real attention to 

guest service and free wireless 

for all. $339 and up per night. 

MERCER HOTEL 

147 Mercer Street 

www.mercerhotel.com 

Celebrities roam the corridors 

of this super-hip minimalist hotel 

in fancy SoHo; see one and 

blog your fi ndings with free 

Wi-Fi. $440 and up per night. 

OMNI BERKSHIRE PLACE 

21 East 52nd Street 

www.omnihotels.com 

A classic business hotel in the 

heart of Midtown with free 

Internet access. Room rates 

are $319 and up, but specials 

can go as low as $199. 

TOP TECH ATTRACTIONS: Get old-school with the “Digital Play: Reloaded” exhibit at the Museum 

of the Moving Image, a set of classic arcade and console games that you can play for free 

until your fi ngers bleed. 35th Avenue and 36th Street, Astoria; take the R train to Steinway 

Street. $10 admission; www.movingimage.us. The Sony Wonder Technology Lab is loaded with 

interactive exhibits where kids can pretend to produce TV shows or music videos. 56th Street 

and Madison Avenue; www.sonywondertechlab.com. Tech and art fi nd common ground at 

Chelsea’s Bitforms gallery. 529 W. 20th Street; 212-366-6939; www.bitforms.com. 

PHOTOGRAPHS: (TOP) GETTY; (BOTTOM) FRANCIS DZIKOWSKI/COURTESY OF MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE

ASK LOYD 

Graphics Card Compatibility 

If you have a motherboard with an nVidia 

chipset, can you use a graphics card 

from ATI? Can you use two of them in 

CrossFire mode? And if you use a motherboard 

with an ATI chipset, will there be 

a performance loss in either graphics or 

motherboard performance? 

TIM MCGLYNN 

You can certainly use a single PCI Express 

ATI graphics card in an nVidia chipset 

motherboard. You can also 

install two of them, but only 

if you plan on driving two 

separate displays. Motherboards 

with nVidia chipsets 

do not support ATI’s Cross- 

Fire dual–graphics card 

technology. If you’re using 

an AMD Athlon 64 processor, 

then you’ll need a motherboard 

with an ATI chipset, 

such as the Asus A8R-MVP 

or DFI RDX200 CF-DR. 

Our experience has 

shown that the ATI chipsets 

result in slightly lower CPU 

performance than nVidia 

chipset boards, but the 

difference is less than 4 

percent, so it’s statistically 

not signifi cant. However, 

it’s been documented that 

the ULi south bridge chip 

used in most ATI chipset boards does 

register slightly slower USB 2.0 throughput. 

Whether that’s a problem or not is 

something only you can determine. 

Note that if you have an Intel processor, 

motherboards using Intel’s 975X chipset, 

such as the Intel D975XBX or Asus 

P5WD2-E motherboards, fully support 

ATI’s CrossFire technology. 

5 megapixels 

Choosing a Digital Projector 

I’ve been asked by a client to buy and set 

up a projector for showing PowerPoint 

presentations. I’d like to know what to 

look for and how to set one up. 

JEFF GRIM 

Digital projectors come in a variety of form 

factors, price points, and targeted environments. 

So the fi rst thing you should do is 

investigate how the projector will be used. 

For example, will the projector be 

installed into a fi xed location and never 

moved? In that case, portability isn’t a factor, 

but ease of installation and management 

may be. On the other hand, if your 

client is looking for a projector to carry to 

different locations, then weight and ease 

of setup become major considerations. 

Second, what projection surface will 

your client use? While a white wall may be 

suitable in some cases, a dedicated screen 

is often a far better solution. Images will 

1.9 megapixels 

go.pcmag.com/askloyd • SOLUTIONS 

ALTHOUGH A 5-MEGAPIXEL image is usually fi ne for 8-by-10 prints, 

you may be limited to smaller-sized prints if you crop it much. 

look crisper and brighter on a high-quality 

screen. Screens can be portable, permanently 

mounted on a wall, or retractable 

(this type can be rolled up into a ceiling 

fi xture). Also, projectors in permanent installations 

can be mounted onto a ceiling. A 

ceiling-mounted projector can be turned on 

with a remote control or wall switch (which 

will mean an added installation cost). Some 

projectors may be controlled directly by a 

PC over an Ethernet connection. 

Once you understand the environment, 

then you can select the projector based 

on the features needed. Note that prices 

tend to scale dramatically with higher 

resolution, light output, or lower weight. For 

PowerPoint presentations, we recommend 

a resolution of at least 1,024-by-768. If the 

projection area is large, you’ll need brighter 

output (more lumens). Smaller facilities 

may not need very bright projectors. Unless 

your client plans on using the projector to 

show video or movie content, features such 

as component video inputs or sophisticated 

video processors are unnecessary. 

Most projectors today have VGA inputs, 

so connecting a laptop or PC to the projector 

is straightforward. Laptop users will 

need to know how to switch the output 

from their laptop screen to the external 

display—the projector in this case. Most 

mobile PCs have the option of showing 

the image on both the PC and the external 

display at the same time, 

which can be convenient 

if the user is working from 

a podium in front of the 

screen. 

Users may also need to 

know how to switch display 

resolutions if their notebook 

PC’s resolution isn’t 

the same as the projector’s 

native resolution. Of course, 

the users should be familiar 

with creating and running 

PowerPoint presentations. 

Are more megapixels 

better? 

I can’t decide between a 

digital camera with 5 megapixels 

and its exact twin 

with 7MP. What advantages 

does 7MP have over 5? 

KEN ELM 

Our fl ip answer would be “2MP, of course!” 

The issue of megapixels with digital 

cameras really comes down to how large 

you want to print the fi nal images. Five 

megapixels is generally enough to look 

pretty good at page sizes up to 8-by-10. If 

you plan on printing to larger paper sizes, 

then more megapixels may be better. More 

megapixels also gives you the fl exibility to 

crop your photos and still make fairly large 

prints. Note that cameras that seem to be 

identical except for the pixel count often 

perform very differently, so read reviews 

on both models. (You can fi nd our camera 

reviews at go.pcmag.com/cameras.) 

ExtremeTech.com’s editor Loyd Case 

tackles your toughest hardware problems 

each issue. Send him yours at 

askloyd@ziffdavis.com. 

www.pcmag.com APRIL 11, 2006 PC MAGAZINE 

135

136 

SOLUTIONS • go.pcmag.com/solutions 

go.pcmag.com/askneil 

ASK NEIL 

Clear XP Unread Messages 

On my XP system, fi ve different users 

each have their own account. The log-on 

window shows the number of e-mails 

that are unread, but it’s totally inaccurate. 

One time it reads 30, the next 2, the 

next 10, and so on. But actually all e-mails 

have been read and are marked as such. 

How do I turn this useless thing off? 

DAN PHILLIPPY 

Various e-mail clients put information 

on unread messages in the Windows XP 

Registry, but this information isn’t always 

correct. To clean up the situation, you’ll fi rst 

clear the existing information and then confi 

gure the system so it doesn’t add more. 

Launch RegEdit from the Start menu’s 

Run dialog and navigate to the key 

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\ 

Windows\CurrentVersion\UnreadMail. 

You’ll fi nd one or more subkeys below 

this key. Select each subkey in turn and fi nd 

the value MessageCount in the right-hand 

pane. Double-click that value and set its 

data to 0. Now look for a value named Mes 

sageExpiryDays. If you don’t fi nd it (and 

you probably won’t), choose Edit | New | 

DWORD Value from the menu, name the 

new value MessageExpiryDays. Set this 

value’s data to 0. If there are multiple user 

accounts on this computer, you’ll need to 

log on as each user and repeat this process. 

Just to cover all bases, navigate to 

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Micro 

soft\Windows\CurrentVersion 

and look for a subkey named UnreadMail. If 

you don’t see it, go to Edit | New | Key to create 

it. Open the Unread-Mail key and fi nd 

or create the MessageExpiry-Days value as 

before. Set its data to 0. This needs to be 

done only once, not once per user. 

Mouse-Wheel Mess 

The type that appears on my display 

is very small, almost unreadable. This 

happened as I was surfi ng the Net. One 

minute it was fi ne, the next it was very 

small, and it has been like that since. 

What can I do? 

THOMAS CALICCHIO 

You’ve run afoul of what can be a useful 

feature of your mouse’s scroll wheel. 

Many apps change the displayed text size 

when you turn the scroll wheel while holding 

down the Ctrl key. Among these are 

the Micro soft Offi ce programs, Internet 

Explorer, and most e-mail clients. The size 

range controlled by the wheel varies from 

program to program. Internet Explorer 

and Outlook Express have just fi ve size 

levels, matching the fi ve sizes under View 

| Text Size in IE’s menu. Offi ce programs 

can change zoom level almost indefi nitely. 

The direction varies too—rolling the wheel 

toward you makes text smaller in Microsoft 

Word, larger in IE. It’s easy to accidentally 

make a size change by pressing Ctrl while 

using the wheel, but it’s just as easy to restore 

the desired size once you know how. 

TO CLEAR faulty unread message data and disable the feature in Windows XP 

requires a Registry tweak. 


Color-Coding Contacts 

in Outlook 

In Microsoft Outlook 2003, how do I set 

an e-mail in my Inbox from a specifi c 

person to a color—not the entire e-mail 

but only the line that appears in my Inbox? 

For example, if I get an e-mail from 

Joseph Blow, I want that line to be red. 

LOU MICKLER 

This is surprisingly easy to do. Select a 

message from the person in question, then 

choose Tools | Organize from the menu. 

Click the item titled Using Colors. Pick a 

color from the drop-down list and click on 

Apply Color. From now on, the Inbox line 

item for any message from that sender will 

be displayed using that color. This formatting 

is specifi c to the active message folder; 

if you move the message to another folder, 

IT’S VERY EASY to set Outlook 2003 to color-code messages that meet your criteria. 

the formatting will be lost, unless you specifi 

cally defi ne it for the other folder as well. 

For more control, you can click the Automatic 

Formatting link at the top of the Ways 

to Organize panel. The resulting dialog 

lets you defi ne conditions and associate a 

typeface, style, size, and color with it. For 

example, you could specify that all e-mails 

that include attachments and whose subject 

line contains “Bjork” will be displayed in 

blue 16-point underlined Arial. You can also 

reach the Automatic Formatting dialog by 

choosing View | Arrange By | Current View | 

Customize Current View from the menu and 

clicking the Automatic Formatting button. 

Each issue, PC Magazine’s software 

expert Neil J. Rubenking answers your 

toughest software and Internet questions. 

Send yours to askneil@ziffdavis.com.

The Wireless Snare 

Right now your laptop could be wirelessly connecting 

to any available network. That’s unsafe. BY ROBERT LEMOS 

The situation’s all too common: 

You’re at the airport and your 

fl ight is delayed, so you open your 

laptop and start working. Unbeknownst 

to you, your laptop’s wireless could be 

putting your computer in danger. 

Recent real-world experiments suggest 

that the default wireless settings 

on many laptops could leave them vulnerable. 

During recent travel, researcher 

Mark Loveless started poking into the 

reasons why a large number of laptops 

KEEP YOURSELF SAFE! Subscribe to our 

Security Watch newsletter and get 

up-to-date info on the latest threats 

delivered to your inbox automatically: 

go.pcmag.com/securitywatchletter. 

at any given airport were broadcasting 

common network names, or service set 

identifi ers (SSIDs), such as “linksys” or 

“dlink.” He gathered similar data on four 

fl ights. He found a signifi cant portion of 

laptops are confi gured by default to seek 

out and connect to common SSIDs. If no 

such network is around, many computers 

create their own wireless network using 

one of those names. Without any sort of 

malicious intent, wireless laptops were 

connecting to each other, he found. 

The Unfriendly Skies 

A security researcher finds many people 

vulnerable via ad hoc networks at 35,000 feet. 

Aircraft 1: 

MD80 

The issue isn’t a vulnerability per se; 

it’s a cascade failure of a set of default 

confi gurations that Microsoft has set to 

make creating wireless networks easier. 

Many laptops are configured to attempt 

to connect to both infrastructure 

networks and what are called ad hoc networks. 

In an infrastructure network, the 

laptop is a client that connects to a base 

station, similar to the client-server network 

design. In ad hoc networks, many 

individual laptops form a peer-to-peer 

network sharing connectivity. This ad 

hoc networking is done in the background 

on Microsoft Windows 2000 and 

Windows XP (up to Service Pack 1). Windows 

XP Service Pack 2 notifi es the user 

that it’s connecting to an ad hoc network. 

Other factors come into play as well. 

Many people’s home networks connect 

through a base station identifi ed by the 

default name, such as “linksys.” Moreover, 

a laptop that connects to an ad hoc 

network of a different name adds that 

name to its list of possible networks, possibly 

advertising that network name to 

other computers in the future. Furthermore, 

Microsoft has a default addressing 

scheme that results in each computer 

getting a valid address, even without a 

Aircraft 2: 

MD80 

go.pcmag.com/security watch • SOLUTIONS 

SECURITY WATCH 

NUMBER OF LAPTOPS IN USE ON FLIGHT 

NUMBER OF VULNERABLE LAPTOPS 

NUMBER OF AD HOC NETS 

Aircraft 3: 

MD80 

central computer to assign network addresses 

to each member of the network. 

This all makes it possible for attackers 

to join and control ad hoc networks. Because 

a laptop believes it’s part of a network, 

it might check for e-mail, letting 

the attacker get the owner’s username 

and password. The attacking computer 

can also advertise its connection as an 

Internet gateway and scan traffi c sent by 

other laptops for useful information, such 

as passwords to automated accounts. 

More aggressive attackers could use 

the network to try attacks on specific 

vulnerabilities in a potential victim’s 

laptop. In many cases, the laptop will 

connect to the wireless network, believing 

that it is the user’s home network. 

Thus, the confi guration may allow fi le 

sharing and printer sharing. 

How can you protect yourself? First, 

turn off your laptop’s wireless when not 

attempting to connect to a known network. 

Also, make sure your laptop doesn’t 

turn on its wireless when it can’t fi nd an 

Ethernet connection. Most important, 

disable ad hoc networking, by clicking 

the Advanced button of the Wireless Network 

Connection Settings control panel 

to change it from Any available network 

(access point preferred) to Access point 

(infrastructure) networks only. 

As with children, the best advice for 

laptops is to not talk to strangers. 

Robert Lemos is a freelance technology 

journalist and the editor-at large for 

SecurityFocus. 

Aircraft 4: 

757 

www.pcmag.com APRIL 11, 2006 PC MAGAZINE 137 

Source: Mark Loveless, Vernier Networks

138 

SOLUTIONS • go.pcmag.com/smbbootcamp 

Life Without Exchange 

When it comes to working collaboratively, Microsoft 

Exchange isn’t the only game in town. BY MATTHEW D. SARREL 

Listen up, recruits: There’re plenty 

of reasons small businesses 

might want to eliminate (or never 

even start with) Microsoft Exchange for 

e-mail, group calendaring, and more. 

Though there’s no doubt that Exchange’s 

integration with the Microsoft Outlook 

client, groupware features, and shared 

contact lists are handy, companies may 

object to its cost and complexity. The 

cost of running Exchange includes Windows 

Server. Unless you like paying 

Microsoft a small fortune (up to $8,000 

for 25 user licenses for Windows Server 

and Exchange), you might consider a 

Linux solution. 

Some alternatives work both in Outlook 

(via a client plug-in) and through 

webmail interfaces. Many of the opensource 

alternatives require customization 

(a code word for programming). 

Replacing Exchange may be an excellent 

way to save money, but you’ll need to 

plan for the transition to avoid unnecessary 

downtime. You’ll need to replicate 

server settings and deploy and configure 

plug-ins to all Outlook clients on 

your network.There are many Exchange 

alternatives; here are our favorites. 

Gordano Messaging Suite. Wizarddriven 

installation and Web-based management 

make GMS a good Exchange 

alternative. It’s a solid e- 

mail server, and optional 

modules add group calendaring 

and collaboration 

from within Outlook after 

installing the appropriate 

plug-in. A full-featured webmail 

interface can easily replace 

the Outlook client; a 

version for mobile devices is 

also available. Gordano offers 

many optional components, 

such as antispam and 

antivirus, which you can 

customize for your outfit. 

GMS runs on Windows or 

Linux. Cost: $45 per seat. 


SMB BOOT CAMP 

50 

40 

30 

20 

10 

Scalix Email and Calendaring Platform. 

Scalix is a Linux-based Exchange alternative 

with powerful administrative features 

more complicated than Exchange’s 

or Gordano’s. Those with basic Linux administrator 

skills should be able to handle 

it. An easy-to- deploy Outlook plug-in 

provides Exchange functionality, including 

real-time free/busy lookup for scheduling 

and off-line support. The webmail 

client works equally well in Internet Explorer 

or Firefox, and it supports mail, 

Corporate Messaging Software Market Shares 

2000 

2001 

2002 

2003 

2004 

2005 

Others 

IBM Lotus 

Domino/Notes/Workplace 

2006* 

2007* 

MS Exchange 

2008* 

calendars, contacts, and public folders 

via a drag-and-drop interface. Scalix easily 

scales as your company grows. It also 

has hooks for third-party antispam and 

AV solutions. Cost: $60 per seat. 

Novell SUSE Linux Openexchange Server 

4.1. Painless installation and a powerful 

Web-based administration interface 

almost make you forget this is a Linux 

product. But you’ll remember when you 

edit text files to configure the opensource 

AV and antispam modules. More 

groupware features are enabled through 

the Web client than through Outlook, 

so you might ditch Outlook. In addition 

to scheduling and shared contacts, 

Openexchange has discussion forums, 

shared folders, project and task tracking, 

and document versioning. Cost: $1,249 

for server license; free webmail clients; 

groupware client, roughly $50 per seat. 

OpenGroupware.org. This Exchange 

alternative (aka OGo) provides contact 

management, group calendaring, 

resource planning, task management, 

e-mail, document and project management, 

news, and Palm syncing, all available 

via a Web interface. An Outlook 

plug-in is available. You can manage 

accounts, groups, and server confi gurations 

using a Web interface. The Projects 

application lets you share documents and 

link projects with contacts, tasks, notes, 

and appointments. The server runs on 

Linux or Windows. Cost: Free. 

Open-Xchange. This open-source app 

includes portal services, a group calendar, 

contacts, tasks, project management, 

document management, webmail, 

a knowledge base, shared bookmarks, 

and bulletin boards. Like 

OpenGroupware, Open- 

Xchange lets you organize 

your content into projects. 

“OXtenders” support integration 

of Outlook and the 

Palm desktop. Hooks to 

open-source antivirus and 

antispam modules round 

out the product. The server 

runs on Linux only. Cost: 

$35 per seat. 

2009* 

Exchange alternatives count as Others. Numbers are percentages. Yearly totals may not add up to 100 

because of rounding. *All figures from 2006 and beyond are projections. Source: The Radicati Group 

Matthew D. Sarrel is a 

consultant and former PC 

Magazine Labs technical 

director. 

ILLUSTRATION BY ALEX EBEN MEYER

Regaining Trust 

Let’s face it: Microsoft’s security record isn’t impressive. 

BY JOHN CLYMAN 

Corporate IT departments know 

it, individual users know it, and 

Microsoft knows it too: Company 

representatives regularly assert 

that Vista has to get security right—all 

the interface and usability bells and 

whistles that the new OS can offer are 

irrelevant if it can’t keep customers’ machines 

and data safe. 

How does Microsoft plan to achieve 

this goal? To start with, the company is 

building Vista atop the same code base 

used for Windows Server 2003 Service 

LFOR SOME SECURITY changes, Vista 

lets you apply reasonable settings with 

a single click—far better than walking 

through a passive help fi le. 

VISTA REVEALED 

Pack 1, a better-secured successor to 

Windows XP. Core Windows services 

have been hardened—their privilege 

levels and points of access to sensitive 

OS capabilities reduced —so that even if 

they are compromised, the damage that 

an attacker can wreak is more strictly 

limited. And Vista makes it much more 

practical to perform day-to-day tasks using 

a reduced-privilege user account, as 

has long been possible on Unix variants 

and Mac OS, with a provision for administrator 

privileges only when necessary. 

VISTA SIMPLIFIES K 

and clarifi es the UI 

for tasks such as 

sharing fi les and 

printers, which can 

have signifi cant 

(and not readily 

apparent) security 

implications. File 

and printer sharing 

gets its own control 

panel applet, which 

includes links that 

let you see all your 

open shared items 

at a glance. 

go.pcmag.com/vista • SOLUTIONS 

There are a lot of other ways in which 

Vista’s improved security is readily apparent: 

an expanded Security Center, 

integrated Windows Defender antispyware 

(which we’ll cover in more detail 

in a future issue), and simpler ways 

to detect and correct security oversights, 

to name a few. Parents get controls that 

let them limit and track how their kids 

use the PC, a feature we’ll also expand 

on in an upcoming issue. And of course, 

Microsoft is enhancing the security 

of Internet Explorer, a major target for 

spyware, adware, and phishing scams 

(see go.pcmag.com/IE7security). 

Will Microsoft get it right this time? 

We’re still working with beta-quality 

software that isn’t functionally complete 

or fully tested—nor widely available for 

hackers to target. But the initial signs 

are promising. 

J VISTA’S SECURITY 

center, like its 

counter part in Windows 

XP, provides a 

centralized spot for 

monitoring the security 

status of a system. 

Vista integrates 

Microsoft’s Windows 

Defender antispyware 

software and, 

as with antivirus 

software, lets thirdparty 

antispyware 

developers plug their 

utilities into the 

Security Center. 


142 

SOLUTIONS • go.pcmag.com/solutions 

SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS 

Scanning Made Easy 

Two hidden Microsoft Offi ce tools could save you 

hours of work. BY HELEN BRADLEY 

Scanning and managing a multipage 

paper document can be an exercise 

in frustration. If scanning a 

20-page document leaves you juggling 

20 individual fi les, it’s time to get help. 

Microsoft Office Document Scanning, 

shipped with Offi ce 2003, could be your 

next best friend. 

The Document Scanning tool joined a 

document-imaging component that has 

been around in Office for many years. 

You’ll fi nd both of the programs in the 

Microsoft Offi ce | M i c r o s o f t O f fi ce Tools 

folder in your Start menu. The two programs 

are interlinked, and in combination 

they offer a one-stop shop for many 

typical and otherwise complex scanning 

tasks. 

2. Write On Your Scans 

WHEN YOU’RE DONE scanning, all the 

pages in the fi le appear in the Microsoft 

Offi ce Document Imaging tool. Choosing 

View | Thumbnails displays page thumbnails 

down the left side of the screen. To 

reorder pages, drag and drop them in the 

thumbnail area. 

YOU CAN ANNOTATE your scans, which is 

useful for completing forms and working 

collaboratively. Tools for that, available 

from the Annotations toolbar, let you 

draw or write on the document. For larger 

pieces of text, drag the cursor to add a 

text box over the document and type text 

into it. The text box can have a colored 

background (with a variable transparency 

level). To add a picture over the 

top of a page, click the Insert Picture 

tool, or you can paste text or graphic 

objects from the Windows Clipboard 

by choosing Edit | Paste. Annotations 

are saved on a separate layer over the 

page and can be displayed or not by 

choosing Tools | Annotations and then 

Hide Annotations or Show Annotations. 


1. Document Scanning 

MICROSOFT OFFICE Document Scanning 

uses any installed scanner and includes 

a range of scanning presets. If none 

suit your needs, click the Preset button 

and choose Create New Preset to select 

scanner and fi le settings such as scan 

resolution, type of scan (monochrome, 

8-bit gray, 24-bit color), whether to save 

the images as multipage TIF fi les or MDI 

fi les, and the level of compression used. 

You can also confi gure the scan page size, 

the save directory, and which automatic 

fi le-naming system to use. 

Document Scanning 

uses OCR to recognize 

your scanned text, and it 

can automatically rotate 

and straighten a scan if 

the preset is confi gured 

to do so. If you want, you 

can choose to view the 

scanner’s own dialog 

before scanning—or bypass 

it and let Document 

Scanning do the work.

156 

go.pcmag.com/gaming-culture 

GAMING + CULTURE 

Digital Delivery 

Downloading games isn’t just for pirates anymore. 

BY NICH MARAGOS, 1UP.COM 

The digital revolution, instead of 

a violent and bloody overthrow, 

has been a long, creeping process. 

Take media on demand: In case you 

haven’t noticed, it’s already happened. 

iTunes and Napster have brought music 

downloads into the mainstream, and 

though Hollywood still bites its nails in 

anxiety at the thought of video downloads, 

Google Video and iTunes are 

bringing TV down a road that movies 

will inevitably plod down themselves. 

Games are part of this new paradigm—the 

difference being that game 

studios have little of the queasiness that 

has marked the music and movie industries’ 

efforts to get with the 21st century. 

Instead, having pioneered digital delivery, 

games have a tradition to look back 

to and build from. 

SHAREWARE 

Before the MP3 format 

made it feasible to share entire 

songs back and forth on the Internet, 

small shareware programs were 

the only thing it was possible to trade 

across dial-up Internet connections. 

The killer game app was Wolfenstein 

3D, introduced by id Software in 1991. 

The story of how Wolfenstein 3D revolutionized 

fi rst-person shooters is well 

FORCED ENLISTMENT Half-Life 2 isn’t 

playable without an online account. 


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known. What was almost as important 

was its distribution method. Players 

could download Wolfenstein from a 

number of FTP sites and BBS fi le areas 

and play free. The game spread virally, 

and id built a stake on gracious players’ 

payments that would carry it through 

the even more popular shareware title 

Doom and on to big releases, beginning 

with Quake. 

The pitfalls of the shareware method 

are obvious. Even then, collecting 

money was a dicey prospect. Some studios 

would release demos and require 

payment to see the rest of the game. 

When id released Return to Castle 

Wolfenstein in 2001, a decade after the 

original game, anyone suggesting that 

it be distributed online, by the same 

method as the series’ roots, would have 

sounded crazy. Times have changed 

again, however, and new services are 

making downloadable games a reality—but 

for full price. 

STEAM 

The original Half-Life, which grafted 

extensive use of scripted events onto 

id’s Quake engine, was a huge infl uence 

on just about every shooter game. But 

its sequel set off an even bigger change 

by being the fl agship release for developer 

Valve’s new digital delivery service, 

Steam. 

Steam’s birth came with some controversy, 

though, because of Valve’s 

style of digital distribution. The retail 

version of Half-Life that Valve shipped 

to stores was more like a formality to 

appease Vivendi Universal Games, its 

behemoth publisher: For their $50, gamers 

got a box containing fi ve discs inside 

a sleeve. If players wanted a manual, 

they had to refer to the PDF version on 

the disc, and the irritation at this was 

nothing compared to what came next: 

Half-Life 2 wasn’t playable 

until you had created a 

Steam account and registered 

the game. Both the 

retail and digital versions of it 

had to check in with Steam to verify 

the game’s legitimacy at each play session, 

and the burden on the Steam servers 

led to long load times. 

All this was very annoying at the 

time. The key, though, is that Steam 

got better quickly—and bigger. The 

service now hosts several games, most 

by independent third-party developers. 

When software publisher Strategy 

First signed a deal with Steam, Tycho 

of Penny Arcade noted the event, saying, 

“Watching Steam move from The 

Thing You Get Half-Life 2 From to a 

more complete content channel has 

been a real relief.” 

Strategy First agreed, saying, “We 

believe Valve’s delivery system is one 

of the best methods of connecting 

gamers to top software titles.” Other 

studios have also joined in, with indie

PAY TO PLAY Puzzle Pirates is free, but 

extra features require a subscription. 

games from Darwinia to Rag Doll Kung 

Fu popping up on the service. 

XBOX LIVE ARCADE 

What about consoles, where it’s always 

been a hard world for small game developers? 

Until recently, there weren’t 

many options. 

In 2005, though, the unlikeliest friend 

of the small-time operator stepped 

forward: Microsoft. When the company 

debuted its new Xbox 360, one 

of its most intriguing aspects was an 

expanded version of the existing Xbox 

Live Arcade. Arcade became a much 

bigger part of the next-gen system, integrated 

directly into the new Xbox Live 

Marketplace. 

Although only hard-drive equipped 

Xbox 360s have storage space for the 

downloadable items and games in the 

Marketplace, the experiment seems to 

be taking off. The real star of Arcade 

has been Geometry Wars: Retro 

Evolved, which has seen 45,000 paid 

downloads. 

Digital downloads of cheap and legal 

emulated games could fi ll a niche that 

no retail channel has, and could ensure 

that yesterday’s seminal games survive. 

The most important aspect of 

the digital-delivery revolution may be 

not just a change in the way games are 

consumed, but one in the way they are 

made. After years of ballooning budgets 

and massive development teams, we 

might see a revival of the spirit of the 

shareware days, when it was possible to 

make a game by yourself, release it into 

the world, and watch it fl y. 

ON THE 

AUCTION 

BLOCK 

You never know what 

kind of booty you’ll 

fi nd on the block. 

TOP 10 l Highest-Rated PS2 Games 

GRAND THEFT AUTO: VICE CITY 

1 New options, new vehicles for the famous game. 

GRAND THEFT AUTO III 

2 Guns, gear, and cars. Need we say more? 

METAL GEAR SOLID 2: SONS OF LIBERTY 

3 Highly cinematic sequel to the original action game. 

RESIDENT EVIL 4 

4 Get reacquainted with an idealistic cop in a ruined city. 

GRAND THEFT AUTO: SAN ANDREAS 

5 Soon, there’ll surely be 31 fl avors of GTA. 

GOD OF WAR 

6 Deep combat with fi erce enemies. Scale mountain cliffs! 

TONY HAWK’S PRO SKATER 4 

7 Possibly the best skateboarding game ever. 

VIRTUA FIGHTER 4 EVOLUTION 

8 Challenge a steady stream of opponents, easy and tough. 

BURNOUT 3: TAKEDOWN 

9 For racing gamers and adrenaline addicts. 

NCAA FOOTBALL 2004 

Captures the spirit and intensity of college football. 

10 

ITEM: 

Yep, that’s an 

original Atari 

Pong machine 

from the 1970s. 

EBAY PRICE: 

$91 

MOD WORLD 

ITEM: 

We found 

ten Logitech 

Wireless PS2 

controllers. 

EBAY PRICE: 

$0.99 

9.6 

9.6 

9.6 

9.6 

9.5 

9.5 

9.4 

9.4 

9.4 

9.4 

Source: Gametab.com. Ratings, out of a possible 10, are averaged from many reviews. 

GOOD THINGS come 

in small packages. So 

reader Jeffrey Stephenson 

created the pico- 

Cluster. It’s a three-node 

cluster with a 50-watt AT 

power supply and a fi veport 

switch—like three 

computers all within a 

6-inch cube. “It has 21 

LEDs that put on quite a 

light show when it’s calculating 

pi to eight billion 

places,” Jeffrey says. The 

pico-Cluster also has a 

fanless CPU and a CompactFlash 

hard drive. 

ITEM: 

Wanna sport a 

Legend of Zelda 

gray T-shirt? Sure 

you do. 

EBAY PRICE: 

$11.85 


AFTER HOURS• go.pcmag.com/afterhours www.gearlog.com • GEARLOG 

GEARLOG 


For more cool products, like this dancing 

and cartwheeling Robonova, head to 

www.gearlog.com 

GET YOUR PC RUNNING . . . 

HEAD OUT ON THE HIGHWAY 

Heads up, Harley fans! Out of the Box Computers fi rst revved 

its engines a couple of years ago with PC case mods inspired 

by motorcycle tanks (www.thinktankpc.com). Now the company 

is branching out into customized, hand-painted cases 

that house PCs—courtesy of well-known artist Jason Prouty. 

The system seen here contains an MSI MEGA 865 system 

with a Pentium 4. You can provide your own wish list for what 

you want on the outside of your simulated cycle tank. The 

custom creations are part of the company’s American Chopper 

program. Prices start at $1,450, with a P4 system on board. 

Fire up your own design!—Sebastian Rupley 


160 

>> You gotta wonder what this caption, 

which describes a TV, said in the original 

Japanese. (Google translation of Sony 

Japan Web site) 

>> The sushi was only 

so-so. (Google News) 


BACKSPACE 

WHEN IT’S TIME TO CHANGE, YOU’VE GOT TO REARRANGE! 

Edited by Don Willmott 

> Yum! The Internet is smelling 

good in Pushkar, India. 

> Among the many cool features at online magazine PingMag (www 

.pingmag.jp) is a ten-step lesson on Web site development . . . demonstrated 

by tiny toys.

PC Magazine April 11 2006 - The Home of the Barries

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