AMERICA'S FASTEST ISPs - Libertad Zero - Blog
AMERICA'S FASTEST ISPs - Libertad Zero - Blog
AMERICA'S FASTEST ISPs - Libertad Zero - Blog
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aPP LaunChERS<br />
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america’s fastest isps<br />
MaRCh 2009<br />
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PC Labs Tests and<br />
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TOP<br />
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Which employees spend spend the the most most<br />
time time working working and and which which spend spend the the<br />
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Which Which employees employees spend spend the the most most<br />
time time surfing surfing web web sites sites and and see see<br />
EXACTLY EXACTLY what what they they do on them. them.<br />
What What employees employees search search for on<br />
Google, Google, MSN, Yahoo Yahoo and more. more.<br />
Which Which employees employees are are posting posting<br />
resumes resumes on Monster. Monster.<br />
Who Who is leaking company company<br />
confidential confidential information information via chat, chat,<br />
web web mail mail or removable removable media. media.<br />
September, 2008<br />
Spector 360<br />
®<br />
PC Magazine<br />
Editors’ Choice<br />
“Spector “Spector 360 360 is the the most most<br />
mature mature surveillance<br />
surveillance<br />
offering offering for for business business use.” use.”<br />
Company-Wide C Wid EEmployee Employee l Monitoring<br />
M i i Software<br />
®
PC<br />
4 feedback<br />
front side<br />
5 How the stimulus package will<br />
affect tech; dealing with the<br />
“digital cliff”; the best of our blogs;<br />
handy Web sites; finding the right<br />
GPS.<br />
vol. 28 no. 3<br />
c ov e r s to r y<br />
The Best Free Software<br />
28 In<br />
3<br />
oPinions<br />
first Word: Lance Ulanoff<br />
24 John c. dvorak<br />
25 inside track: John c. dvorak<br />
26 sascha segan<br />
27 dan costa<br />
45<br />
soLUtions<br />
new Uses for old digicams<br />
What can you do with your old<br />
camera? Turn here to find out.<br />
48 at Work<br />
50 office<br />
52 security<br />
53 tech tips<br />
55 the best stUff<br />
march 2009<br />
times like these, the word “free” becomes particularly enticing. But you<br />
can’t just go downloading free apps and utilities willy-nilly—that’s a surefire<br />
way to put malware and other nasty stuff on your system. We’ve scoured<br />
the Internet for only the best free utilities and apps for networking, backup,<br />
entertainment, and more. Here you’ll find 173 ways to save a buck.<br />
The Fastest <strong>ISPs</strong><br />
in America<br />
39 We<br />
enlisted thousands of PC<br />
Mag readers nationwide to<br />
test which <strong>ISPs</strong> are the fastest<br />
and friendliest. After months<br />
of crunching data, here’s what<br />
we found.<br />
first Looks<br />
9 software<br />
Windows 7 Beta 1<br />
Tax Software Roundup<br />
Plus Quick Looks at Spore Origins,<br />
eReader 1.3, and more.<br />
13 hardware<br />
Sony VAIO VGC-JS130J/P<br />
Canon Pixma MP980 Wireless<br />
Photo All-In-One Printer<br />
ViewSonic N2201w HDTV/monitor<br />
Gateway FX6800-01e<br />
Plus Quick Looks at the Dell Studio<br />
XPS 16, the Samsung P400, the Sony<br />
Lifestyle PC, and more<br />
17 business<br />
Lenovo ThinkPad W700<br />
ViewSonic PJ513DB<br />
Apple iWork ’09<br />
20 consumer electronics<br />
RIM BlackBerry Curve 8900<br />
(T-Mobile)<br />
HTC Touch Pro (Sprint)<br />
Creative Vado Pocket<br />
Video Cam HD<br />
Sony Reader Digital Book<br />
(PRS-700)<br />
Vizio VP505XVT<br />
Plus Quick Looks at the LG Incite,<br />
the Cowon O2, the Nikon Coolpix<br />
S60, and more<br />
PC Magazine Digital Edition, ISSN 0888-8507, is published monthly at $24.97 for one year. Ziff Davis media Inc., 28 East 28th Street, New York NY 00 6-7940.<br />
march 2009 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION
Editor-in-ChiEf, pC magazinE nEtwork Lance Ulanoff<br />
Editor Stephanie Chang<br />
dirECtor of onLinE ContEnt, EXECUtiVE prodUCEr Vicki B. Jacobson<br />
EXECUtiVE EditorS Dan Costa (reviews), Jeremy A. Kaplan (features)<br />
art dirECtor Richard J. Demler<br />
EditoriaL prodUCtion dirECtor Nicholas Cosmo<br />
pC LabS dirECtor, SEnior Editor (hardwarE) Laarni Almendrala Ragaza<br />
SEnior EditorS Sean Carroll (software, Internet, networking), Wendy Sheehan Donnell (consumer electronics), Carol Mangis (blogs),<br />
Kyle Monson, Sarah Pike (Solutions), Erik Rhey (Digital Edition)<br />
SEnior writEr Eric Griffith<br />
rEViEwS EditorS Gary Berline (software, Internet, networking), Tony Hoffman (hardware), Matthew Murray (consumer electronics)<br />
Copy ChiEf Elizabeth A. Parry Copy EditorS Margaret McVeigh, Ann Ovodow<br />
pC LabS LEad anaLyStS Cisco Cheng (laptops), Tim Gideon (audio and video), Robert Heron (HDTV and home theater),<br />
Mario Morejon (networking and small business), Michael Muchmore (software), Neil J. Rubenking (security), Joel Santo Domingo (desktops),<br />
Sascha Segan (mobile devices), M. David Stone (printers and scanners) anaLySt Dan Evans (DIY, gaming)<br />
jUnior anaLySt PJ Jacobowitz (digital cameras and camcorders)<br />
prodUCt rEViEwS Coordinator Zachary Honig inVEntory ControL Coordinator Nicole Graham<br />
Staff photographEr Scott Schedivy<br />
pCmag.Com managEr, onLinE prodUCtion Yun-San Tsai<br />
prodUCErS Gregg Binder, Mark Lamorgese, Whitney A. Reynolds<br />
nEwS Editor Mark Hachman nEwS rEportEr Chloe Albanesius<br />
aSSoCiatE EditorS Jennifer L. DeLeo, Brian Heater (blogs)<br />
Staff EditorS Corinne Iozzio (reviews), Nicole Price Fasig (reviews) aSSiStant Editor Sean Ludwig<br />
rEViEwS prodUCEr Errol Pierre-Louis CommErCE prodUCErS Iman Edwards, Arielle Rochette<br />
UtiLity program managEr Tim Smith CommUnity managEr Jim Lynch<br />
CrEatiVE dirECtor Chris Phillips prodUCtion artiSt Guyang Chen<br />
VidEo EditoriaL dirECtor, VidEo and digitaL EVEntS Sebastian Rupley<br />
ContribUting EditorS Helen Bradley, John R. Delaney, Richard V. Dragan, John C. Dvorak, Craig Ellison, Galen Fott, Bill Howard, Don Labriola,<br />
Jamie Lendino, Jim Louderback, Bill Machrone, Edward Mendelson, Jan Ozer, Neil Randall, Matthew D. Sarrel, Larry Seltzer<br />
EXtrEmEtECh.Com Editor Loyd Case SEnior tEChnoLogy anaLyStS Jason Cross, Joel Durham<br />
prodUCEr Jeremy Atkinson jUnior prodUCEr Mike Nguyen<br />
ChiEf EXECUtiVE offiCEr Jason Young<br />
bUSinESS dirECtor Christopher Urciuoli<br />
ViCE prESidEnt, digitaL SaLES Kenneth J. Detlet<br />
ViCE prESidEnt, markEting James Selden 212-503-4689<br />
rESEarCh dirECtor Fred Doscher<br />
rEgionaL SaLES managEr Amy Loria 352-873-4288<br />
aCCoUnt EXECUtiVES Susan Narta 949-459-2931; Kathy Pavlak 212-503-4847<br />
SaLES aSSiStantS Angelique Soto (East Coast) 212-503-5255; Meggen Thorp (West Coast) 415-547-8131<br />
aCCoUnt CoordinatorS Christine Blake (East Coast) 212-503-5241; Jamiel Hibbert (East Coast) 212-503-5491;<br />
Alycia Eakin (Central, Northwest, and West Coast) 415-547-8036; Angelica Ferrer (West Coast) 415-547-8045<br />
adVErtiSing offiCE 28 E. 28th St., New York, NY 10016-7940; phone, 800-336-2423, 212-503-3500; fax, 212-503-5000<br />
For advertising information go to www.pcmagmedia.com<br />
ConSUmEr markEting ConSUmEr markEting dirECtor Todd Klyver<br />
ziff daViS mEdia inC.<br />
ChiEf EXECUtiVE offiCEr Jason Young<br />
ChiEf finanCiaL offiCEr and SEnior ViCE prESidEnt Neil Glass<br />
EXECUtiVE ViCE prESidEnt Steve Sutton (General Manager, Interactive)<br />
SEnior ViCE prESidEnt Lance Ulanoff (Content, PC Magazine Network)<br />
ViCE prESidEntS Norris Boothe (Product Marketing, Game Group), Simon Cox (Content, Game Group), Beth Repeta (Human Resources),<br />
James Selden (Marketing and Sales Development, Consumer/Small-Business Group)<br />
EXECUtiVE dirECtorS Larry Chevres (Internet Technology), Olga Gonopolsky (Worldwide Licensing, Rights and Permissions),<br />
Christopher Urciuoli (Finance)<br />
®<br />
www.pcmag.com<br />
thE indEpEndEnt gUidE PC Magazine is the Independent Guide to Technology. Our mission is to test and review computer- and Internet-related products and services and report fairly and<br />
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®
During the many times I’m called upon<br />
to provide tech support, there’s often<br />
a moment when my eyes are squeezed<br />
shut, my hands are pressed hard against<br />
my skull, and I’m muttering under my<br />
breath. It’s at such times that I’m this close<br />
to giving up. I had one of these moments<br />
recently, dealing with a system issue I had<br />
probably helped create.<br />
Let me rewind.<br />
Roughly four years ago, I bought my<br />
mother-in-law a new Dell PC. While this<br />
may seem like an extravagant gift, I must<br />
admit that the whole thing cost less than<br />
$500, including the display. These days,<br />
that’s not much of a bargain, but back then,<br />
netbooks and sub-$300 Eee PCs were<br />
pretty much nonexistent. Even so, I made<br />
some mistakes with that purchase—ones<br />
I would not make again. Take a look at the<br />
system’s specs and you can see where I<br />
went wrong: Dell Dimension 2400, 2.4-<br />
GHz Celeron CPU, 128MB of RAM, Intel<br />
Extreme Graphics Controller Integrated<br />
(82845G/GL/GE/PE/GV/) 32MB VRAM,<br />
Microsoft Windows XP. Got it? Right.<br />
Even running Windows XP, this<br />
machine did not have enough memory<br />
or graphics power. In my defense, my<br />
mother-in-law did little more than use<br />
Microsoft Word and Excel, browse the<br />
Web, and access her America Online<br />
account. Within a month, I got a call from<br />
“Mom.” “The PC seems slow,” she complained.<br />
Sometime later, I was out for a<br />
visit, checked the system, and agreed: This<br />
thing was a dog. I spent some time clearing<br />
her Internet cache and defragging the<br />
hard drive. That seemed to help, somewhat.<br />
However, with those specs, this PC<br />
was never going to be even respectably<br />
fast. A couple of years later, I convinced<br />
my mother-in-law to buy additional RAM.<br />
Since she lives hours away, someone else<br />
installed the RAM.<br />
But it was still a dog. My in-laws<br />
explained that the PC had gotten to the<br />
point where it could take a minute or more<br />
FIRST WORD lance ulanOFF<br />
Diary of a Slow PC<br />
between actions. This was unacceptable.<br />
And so, on a recent visit, I began my 4hour-plus<br />
troubleshooting odyssey.<br />
Windows’ Automatic Updates recommended<br />
an upgrade to IE7 and Service<br />
Pack 3. I ran these updates and retested<br />
the browser. With one tab open, things<br />
were okay. When I opened the second, the<br />
system started to slow down a bit. When<br />
I tried a third, I was back where I started.<br />
Soon I had a system message that virtual<br />
memory was running low and I needed to<br />
close some processes. Man, this thing was<br />
in bad shape. Since resources and processes<br />
seemed to be the issue, I began to look at<br />
things that always ran and were resident at<br />
start-up. I uninstalled a bunch of unused<br />
AOL utilities and with those eradicated, I<br />
did another reboot. The results were the<br />
same. Looking for other possible causes, I<br />
noticed in the Task Manager that McAfee<br />
security software was eating up copious<br />
amounts of resources. So I uninstalled<br />
McAfee and went with Norton Internet<br />
Security 2009 instead. NIS 2009 installed<br />
on my home PCs like a dream, but things<br />
went a little less smoothly with Mom’s.<br />
Initially, the installation killed the Internet<br />
connection. I performed an uninstall and<br />
then a reinstall and the Internet miraculously<br />
returned. I wish I could tell you why.<br />
My first reboot after the successful NIS<br />
2009 install took forever, but eventually, I<br />
was back online. With a few browser tabs<br />
open, however, the system was no better<br />
than it had been before. I even got the<br />
“virtual resources low” message. I think it<br />
was at this point that the head pressing and<br />
muttering began. I decided to check the<br />
system specs. The CPU seemed right, but<br />
the RAM made me question my sometimes<br />
faulty memory. It said 128MB of RAM. I<br />
asked my mother-in-law about the memory<br />
upgrade she purchased. She said it was<br />
in there, but she couldn’t recall how much<br />
was added. At the time, neither could I. It<br />
was time to take radical action.<br />
I powered the system down and<br />
unplugged every single cable from it. After<br />
vacuuming out unbelievable amounts<br />
of dust and dog hair from the back vents<br />
and an intake chamber on the front, I took<br />
a look at the motherboard and the two<br />
memory SIMM chips. It looked as if nei-<br />
My failure to buy the right PC, a bad memory install,<br />
and looking for problems in all the wrong places had<br />
cost all of us countless wasted hours.<br />
ther one of them was fully seated. I used<br />
my thumbs to press one in—snap!—and<br />
then the other—snap! I put the PC back<br />
together, rebooted, and immediately the<br />
system found 384MB of memory. After this<br />
browsing was fast, easy, effortless. This<br />
was a zippy PC.<br />
In the end, my failure to buy the right<br />
PC in the first place, a bad memory install,<br />
and looking for problems in all the wrong<br />
places had cost all of us countless wasted<br />
hours. The lessons here are to buy the<br />
right PC with the right specs; don’t always<br />
assume your PC’s problem is with Windows,<br />
malware, or apps; and always seat<br />
memory properly (then make sure the system<br />
recognizes it).<br />
Now, whenever I call my mother-inlaw,<br />
I ask how the PC’s doing. Her reply:<br />
“It’s wonderful.”<br />
Follow me on TwiTTer! Catch the<br />
chief’s comments on the latest tech developments<br />
at twitter.com/LanceUlanoff.<br />
MARCH 2009 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION
Feed<br />
Kudos to the Digital Edition<br />
I’m really enjoying the digital form of the<br />
magazine. I can pick the story I’m interested<br />
in and enlarge it, making it much<br />
easier to read.—Lorraine Hall<br />
Security Thumbs Up<br />
I just finished reading your security cover<br />
story (“Reclaim Your Online Privacy,” February,<br />
page 28). It is by far the most comprehensive<br />
and informative security suite<br />
review I have read. There are more features<br />
to evaluate and report on than ever, and<br />
you covered them in a well-organized and<br />
easy-to-read way. It takes skill, judgment<br />
and most importantly resolve to make any<br />
technical article readable without reliance<br />
on acronyms and terms unfamiliar to users<br />
that are not fluent in the particular geek<br />
speak dialect.<br />
I have relied on reviews of this type ever<br />
since I decided to no longer send money to<br />
an arrogant company that thought its customer<br />
should pay for tech support when<br />
its product upgrades did not install properly.<br />
I look at security suites almost every<br />
year, since a new retail version is normally<br />
a better deal than a service contract extension.—Don<br />
Malchow<br />
Where Art Thou, USB 3?<br />
I am going to be purchasing a laptop in<br />
the next few months. I have recently been<br />
reading about USB 3.0 technology being<br />
developed. When are laptops going to be<br />
able to support USB 3.0? If I buy a laptop<br />
soon, I don’t think I can upgrade it to USB<br />
3.0 from 2.0 without replacing the motherboard.—Steven<br />
Feldman<br />
At the CES 2009, we saw a few demos of<br />
USB 3.0 in action, meaning manufacturers<br />
are finally testing interoperability. But getting<br />
working ports into laptops takes longer.<br />
Look for manufacturers to finalize the<br />
PHYs—that’s industry slang for the physical<br />
layer device, or the port itself—late this<br />
summer. This means we’ll almost definitely<br />
see discrete add-in cards at some point this<br />
year. But it won’t be until early 2010 that<br />
manufacturers will build the technology<br />
into chipsets, and therefore into laptops.<br />
Besides, by all accounts, Windows 7 won’t<br />
support USB 3.0 at first anyway—we’ll see<br />
what happens once it’s out of beta. So in<br />
light of that, I wouldn’t hold off your purchase<br />
based on this one factor.<br />
—Jeremy Kaplan<br />
CORRECTIONS AND AMPLIFICATIONS<br />
In our Front Side piece “40 Years of the Mouse,” we<br />
mistakenly identified the codeveloper of the Logitech<br />
gyroscopic mouse. The correct company is Hillcrest<br />
Labs.<br />
In our December cover story, “The Best and Worst<br />
of 2008,” we mistakenly cited the price of the HP<br />
Photosmart Pro B8850. The correct price is $549.99<br />
direct.<br />
HOW TO CONTACT US We welcome your comments<br />
and suggestions. When sending e-mail<br />
to Feedback, please state in the subject line<br />
which article or column prompted your response.<br />
E-mail pcmag@pcmag.com. All letters become<br />
the property of PC Magazine and are subject to<br />
editing. We regret that we cannot answer letters<br />
individually.
Front<br />
What’s New from the World of Tech<br />
seNdiNg a message After much debate, President Obama finally signed a stimulus bill that<br />
ensures, among other things, money for technology so he can continue to use his BlackBerry.<br />
Tech Gets a Cash Boot-Up<br />
The economic stimulus act dedicates billions to technology development.<br />
The economic stimulus package has dominated<br />
nightly newscasts and newspaper<br />
headlines for months. Democrats and<br />
Republicans disagree over whether the bill<br />
will actually boost the economy or simply<br />
give handouts to companies that help cause<br />
this mess. Despite the political pugilism,<br />
the American Recovery and Reinvestment<br />
Act of 2009 has passed, and the final version<br />
includes some serious cash for techrelated<br />
projects. The money invested could<br />
have some significant long-term effects on<br />
Photograph: Getty Images/Saul Loeb<br />
the tech landscape—in both the public and<br />
private sectors. So what are your tax dollars<br />
buying tech-wise? Basically everything<br />
from broadband grants and a $650 million<br />
boost to the DTV program to an upgraded<br />
electric grid and millions of dollars worth<br />
of explosive-detection devices at airports.<br />
Here is a more in-depth breakdown of<br />
some of the technology projects and initiatives<br />
that will get funding.<br />
Access to broadband is increasingly<br />
considered essential to competing in our<br />
21st-century economy. The package allocates<br />
$7.2 billion for broadband grants<br />
and loans, split between the Department<br />
of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service<br />
and the National Telecommunications<br />
and Information Administration (NTIA)<br />
within the Commerce Department.<br />
Agriculture must allocate at least 75<br />
percent of its $2.5 billion to rural areas<br />
without sufficient access to broadband,<br />
and these grants must be open-access. The<br />
NTIA will also get $350 million to track<br />
MARCH 2009 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION
oadband availability and develop a Webbased<br />
broadband inventory map.<br />
Although the DTV transition has been<br />
delayed until June (see the story below),<br />
the stimulus act allocates an additional<br />
$650 million for the converter box coupon<br />
program. About $90 million of that total<br />
can be used for education and outreach<br />
efforts.<br />
Also, research funding for technology<br />
and other fields will get a nice boost (in<br />
an effort to keep math and science Ph.D<br />
graduates in the country), including $1 billion<br />
for NASA, $3 billion for the National<br />
Science Foundation, $2 billion for science<br />
research within the Department of Energy,<br />
and $220 million for research and grants<br />
at the National Institute of Standards and<br />
Technology (NIST) within Commerce.<br />
As for security technology, if you enjoy<br />
those machines at the airport that puff<br />
air at you to detect explosives, there are<br />
more on the way. The Homeland Security<br />
Department gets more than a billion<br />
PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION MARCH 2009<br />
frontside<br />
for border and airport security technologies,<br />
as well as for nonintrusive detection<br />
technology at seaports. There is also more<br />
money to repair and construct inspection<br />
facilities at land borders and to purchase<br />
explosive-detection systems.<br />
We at PCMag are always reminding<br />
readers of the importance of backing up<br />
your data. Well, Uncle Sam is also getting<br />
the message. At the State Department,<br />
the bill allocates $290 million for imme-<br />
Falling Off the Digital Cliff<br />
diate information technology security<br />
and upgrades to support mission-critical<br />
operations. Of that, about $38 million will<br />
go toward the creation of backup information-management<br />
facilities to protect the<br />
systems from mission failures, enhance<br />
cybersecurity, and secure immediate hardware<br />
and software upgrades<br />
Don’t forget about $4.5 billion to give<br />
our electrical grid a makeover.<br />
Digitizing health records is also a hotbutton<br />
issue these days. Well, the stimulus<br />
package will help make that a reality with<br />
about $2 billion for health information<br />
technology (HIT), including establishing<br />
a national HIT coordinator.<br />
And in case you think the government<br />
forgot about the children, the stimulus<br />
package also sets aside $650 million for the<br />
Enhancing Education through Technology<br />
program. In addition, $50 million has been<br />
divested to state-level Internet Crimes<br />
Against Children (ICAC) initiatives.<br />
—Chloe Albanesius<br />
Even with a converter box, some will be left out in the cold after the DTV switchover.<br />
As we know, the transition from analog<br />
to digital TV has been delayed from<br />
February 17 to June 12. The delay is<br />
meant to allow extra time for consumers<br />
to get their converter boxes and for<br />
the government to implement its transition<br />
programs, including the coupons<br />
for those boxes and the recycling of the<br />
thousands (and maybe even millions)<br />
of TVs that will be thrown away.<br />
One issue that is still unresolved<br />
is that of the “digital cliff.” In a nutshell,<br />
a digital cliff means no TV signal<br />
(regardless of whether you have a converter<br />
box) for those in rural areas or<br />
who live a great distance from a digital<br />
broadcast station. With analog, a weak<br />
signal means low quality, but a weak<br />
digital signal means a blank screen.<br />
The digital cliff has not been widely reported, and it’s an issue<br />
the FCC has not, according to many, addressed effectively. At DTV<br />
.gov, for example, you can find information about antenna adapters,<br />
but there are no diagrams or maps that explain how a DTV<br />
signal works or how far the signal travels.<br />
“At this point, our estimates are that 5.1 percent of U.S. TV households<br />
are unprepared, which is about 5.8 million households,” says<br />
Anne Elliot, a vice president at The Nielsen Company. Elliot says<br />
that a DTV signal travels in a different kind of contour from analog<br />
In addition to security<br />
and infrastructure, the<br />
stimulus act includes<br />
some serious cash for<br />
tech-related projects.<br />
and either finds a receiver or doesn’t.<br />
Nielsen defines as “unprepared”<br />
a household that does not have any<br />
TVs capable of receiving a digital signal<br />
after the transition. Nielsen uses<br />
a representative sampling of 35,000<br />
households to derive its estimates. The<br />
company issued a readiness alert in January<br />
stating that the elderly with more<br />
disposable income are more ready for<br />
DTV than those under 55<br />
Nielsen also found that the top six<br />
least-prepared cities were Albuquerque,<br />
Houston, Tulsa, Dallas-Ft. Worth,<br />
Austin, and Memphis. The most prepared<br />
market is the Hartford-New<br />
Haven area of Connecticut, because<br />
of the proliferation of cable TV access<br />
in that region. Of course, Nielsen does<br />
not track small communities such as Ames, Iowa, or remote locations<br />
in Montana or Minnesota. Households in rural areas will<br />
likely not get digital reception after the transition even if they own<br />
a converter box, which could cause a problem for retailers trying<br />
to sell DTV antennas.<br />
“Our advice for people in rural areas is to buy an upgraded<br />
antenna and to test digital reception now, before the transition,”<br />
says Mary Diamond, an FCC spokesperson. She declined to<br />
elaborate.—John Brandon<br />
Illustration by Alex Eben Meyer
Best of our <strong>Blog</strong>s<br />
geArlog<br />
Csi stick: a Jealous Lover’s Best Friend<br />
The Paraben CSI Stick ($199) plugs into a cell phone<br />
and lets the user pull off all the phone’s “forensic<br />
data,” including the phone book, text messages,<br />
camera-phone images, call logs—everything.<br />
The Stick can even retrieve text messages<br />
that have been deleted by the phone’s<br />
owner. Terrifying! The CSI Stick comes<br />
with replaceable heads that can be<br />
used with a number of cell-phone<br />
models; it is available at<br />
Paraben’s site.—Brian Heater<br />
seCurity WAtCh<br />
security Vendors Offer Windows 7 Protection<br />
Just because you’re running a beta operating system doesn’t mean you can<br />
go without security protection. In fact, Windows 7 will nag you to install<br />
security and point specifically to security providers AVG, Kaspersky, and<br />
Symantec. Kaspersky has announced a prototype of its antivirus app for<br />
Windows 7, and Symantec also offers a free beta of Norton 3 0 Version 3<br />
to those running Windows 7 beta.—Larry Seltzer<br />
goodCleAnteCh<br />
Recompute makes a Computer Out of Cardboard<br />
While most “green” computers focus on reduced<br />
energy consumption or using bioplastic, this one<br />
goes off the usual course and uses something<br />
else as a material for the desktop’s build. Recompute,<br />
as you can clearly see, utilizes layers of<br />
recyclable and renewable corrugated cardboard.<br />
According to its designer, there are four low-<br />
impact steps in making this computer—die cutting,<br />
gluing parts with nontoxic glue, printing,<br />
and assembling the electronic parts. There’s no<br />
plastic or metal anywhere in the chassis besides<br />
what’s in the electronic components. And yes, it’s<br />
a real working computer.—Mariella Moon<br />
@Work<br />
Polycom Launches High-Res Videoconferencing<br />
Polycom recently introduced the QDX 000 ($3,999) widescreen videoconferencing system<br />
for enterprise-level businesses. The QDX 000 features DVD-quality video that can maintain<br />
high resolutions even when operating over low bandwidths. Its video signal operates at 30<br />
frames per second, uses Polycom’s Lost Packet Recovery (LPR), and can take input from up to<br />
five video sources.—Mario Morejon<br />
www.r-tt.com/pcmag001.<br />
www.r-tt.com/pcmag001.
Best<br />
of the Internet<br />
myFOLiO<br />
MyFolio is an online<br />
community of artists<br />
in which you can easily<br />
upload and share media,<br />
create your own blog,<br />
and create galleries to<br />
showcase your talent.<br />
The free account offers<br />
1GB of storage space<br />
and imposes a limit of<br />
100MB per file uploaded.—Alan<br />
Henry<br />
LasT FReeWaRe<br />
VeRsiON<br />
With Last Freeware Version,<br />
you can find older<br />
versions of some of your<br />
favorite applications<br />
when they were free and<br />
roll back to when the<br />
app didn’t cost money<br />
to use. In addition to<br />
some popular programs,<br />
Last Freeware<br />
Version keeps a number<br />
of smaller, lesser-known<br />
applications.—AH<br />
CLeRkdOgs<br />
Clerkdogs is a Web<br />
service that contains<br />
hundreds of thousands<br />
of movie recommendations<br />
from video-store<br />
clerks. Enter the name<br />
of a movie you like and<br />
the service will return a<br />
list of other movies you<br />
might also enjoy.—AH<br />
For more cool Web sites<br />
and handy utilities and<br />
apps, visit PC Magazine’s<br />
blog AppScout (www<br />
.appscout.com).<br />
PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION MARCH 2009<br />
frontside<br />
ConneCted tr Aveler<br />
Find the Right GPS for Your Travels<br />
Here’s the quickest route to the best GPS device.<br />
geT THeRe iN sTyLe GPS models like the<br />
Navigon 2200T and Garmin nüvi 755T have big<br />
screens and millions of maps.<br />
Now that gas prices have come back down to<br />
earth, it’s a lot easier to get behind the wheel again.<br />
So, whether that means you’re commuting to<br />
work again or you’re finally taking that road trip,<br />
a GPS device can help keep you on track. Today’s<br />
navigators, though, can do a lot more than just get<br />
you from point A to point B. There are units on<br />
the market that will help you sidestep traffic, find<br />
a great new restaurant, or even make hands-free<br />
cell-phone calls.<br />
The nuts and bolts of picking the right GPS<br />
are fairly straightforward. Start by selecting your<br />
screen size and onboard maps, and tack on the<br />
additional features that you need (or want) from<br />
there. As far as screens go, you can find ones with<br />
big displays (like the 5-inch magellan maestro<br />
5310, $599 street, l l l h m ) or small (like the 3.5inch<br />
Navigon 2200T, $229 list, l l l l m ), but most<br />
devices these days feature 4.3-inch displays (like<br />
CHeaP TRiP The<br />
V7 NAV740 is our<br />
Editors’ Choice<br />
for budget GPSs.<br />
the inexpensive, entry-level Nextar Q4 ($249.99<br />
list, l l l h m ), which are perfect for most people.<br />
Every GPS will also have a points-of-interest<br />
(POI) database to help locate landmarks, hotels,<br />
restaurants, and other attractions along your<br />
route, in a particular city, or at your destination.<br />
On average, you can expect a GPS to pack a few<br />
million POIs. The magellan maestro 4350 ($500<br />
street, l l l l m ) has six million, for example. On<br />
top of that, several systems tack on extra goodies:<br />
Navigon’s high-end 7200T includes onboard Zagat<br />
guides and 3D landmark views, and Magellan’s<br />
Maestro devices include AAA Tourbook listings.<br />
A vital part of getting where you’re going is<br />
avoiding obstacles, like traffic jams and tickets,<br />
along the way. Some systems have speed-limit<br />
alerts and traffic-camera detectors in addition to<br />
live traffic updates, which can help you sidestep<br />
congestion. The garmin nüvi 755T($499.99 list,<br />
l l l l h ) for example, includes subscription-free<br />
live traffic updates provided by Navteq. Many<br />
models, like the sony NV-U94T nav-u ($299.99<br />
list, l l h m m ) include built-in traffic receivers and<br />
come with trial subscriptions that let you test the<br />
service for free.<br />
Aside from navigation tools and other extras,<br />
you can find a host of multimedia features in many<br />
GPS units. Our budget Editors’ Choice model, the<br />
V7 NaV740 ($299.99 list, l l l l m ) has a media<br />
player that supports most common music, photo,<br />
and video formats. A few other, typically higherend<br />
devices, including the Magellan 4350 and the<br />
Navigon 8100T ($599.99 list, l l l h m ), can also<br />
connect to your Bluetooth-enabled cell phone so<br />
that you can make hands-free calls through the<br />
GPS.—Corinne Iozzio
First<br />
our ratIngs kEy: l l l l l eXceLLent l l l l l m VerY Good l l l l m m Good l l l m m m fair l l m m m m Poor<br />
Microsoft Windows 7 Beta 1<br />
free<br />
not rated<br />
Pros smaller disk and memory<br />
footprint. faster startup/shutdown.<br />
stable. Less intrusive. taskbar<br />
icons more flexible. Working<br />
with external hardware is easier.<br />
Multitouch support. nice-looking<br />
new eye candy.<br />
Cons Maintains registry and<br />
some other Windows baggage.<br />
start-up times not faster than<br />
Vista’s in this beta.<br />
Click here for more.<br />
Microsoft WindoWs 7 Beta 1<br />
The Beta Debut of Windows 7<br />
Let’s get something straight: The just-released<br />
Microsoft Windows 7 Beta 1 retains much of Vista’s<br />
kernel architecture, as will the final version. But the<br />
new OS is more compact than Vista, has an updated<br />
interface, and builds in better networking capability.<br />
It also includes some cool advances, such as<br />
multitouch support and a redesigned taskbar with<br />
movable buttons. You can put the beta on as many<br />
machines as you like, but you can’t use it for real<br />
business purposes, and it expires in August 2009.<br />
Though the interface has its own new look, Vista<br />
users won’t have much to learn. Even upgrading XP<br />
users will have little trouble, but neither will they be<br />
able to cling to the past. There’s no XP emulation<br />
theme in Windows 7, as there is in Vista. The taskbar<br />
has the most noticeable changes, with taller buttons<br />
and the choice to combine multiple docs/windows<br />
in one app or keep separate. The buttons glow<br />
when you hover the mouse over them and show a<br />
preview thumbnail of open docs. Also, the Libraries<br />
folder-arrangement system let you group related<br />
files—regardless of their location. Windows 7 is also<br />
optimized for touch-screen systems.<br />
Some other noteworthy features in Windows 7<br />
relate to hardware and networking. Device Stage is<br />
a feature that, when you plug in a cell phone or other<br />
device, pops up a screen specific to that device with<br />
options, including syncing. (However, this feature<br />
relies heavily on the device manufacturers providing<br />
Microsoft with the necessary data.) When you join<br />
a wireless network with Windows 7, you can choose<br />
to set it as home, work, or public. When you choose<br />
the first, you can create a HomeGroup. That way, you<br />
can specify libraries and devices to share, as well as<br />
migrate settings to your home environment.<br />
Although the licensing agreement for Windows<br />
7 beta prevents me from publishing benchmark<br />
test results, I can say informally that in a couple of<br />
months of running the pre-beta and a short period<br />
of heavy-duty testing on beta 1, I have yet to see anything<br />
remotely resembling a crash. I have, however,<br />
encountered occasional error dialogs. As far as recommending<br />
Windows 7, we’ll have to wait to see how<br />
the pricing and final code bears out. But for those<br />
who like to tinker, I definitely recommend taking a<br />
look at the future of Windows.—Michael Muchmore<br />
InsIDE<br />
9 Software<br />
13 Hardware<br />
17 Business<br />
20 Consumer<br />
Electronics<br />
MarcH 2009 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 9
10 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION MARCH 2009<br />
first looks softWArE<br />
The Best Tax Tools of 2009<br />
This year, more than any other, you want to save every penny you can on taxes.<br />
One of these top-notch tax packages can help. By Kathy Yakal<br />
TaxACT 2008 Deluxe<br />
Edition<br />
Deluxe Federal, $12.95<br />
direct; State, $13.95;<br />
Ultimate Bundle (Federal<br />
and State), $19.95<br />
l l l h m<br />
PROS Very affordable.<br />
Simple, understandable<br />
interface. Screen toggles<br />
for help options. Free<br />
support. Good up-front<br />
preparation.<br />
CONS Help language<br />
could be simplified and<br />
more context-sensitive.<br />
Could use FAQs and less<br />
white space.<br />
Click here for more.<br />
Although doing your taxes is never an enjoyable<br />
experience, the good news is that the 2008 tax code<br />
includes changes that may save you money. Some<br />
new perks include a new first-time homebuyer<br />
credit, an increase in the standard mileage rate, and<br />
lowered taxes for many investors, to name a few.<br />
The better news is that the new editions of the top<br />
tax-preparation packages include these changes. To<br />
save you even more money, it turns out that choosing<br />
one of these suites may not cost you a dime. A<br />
partnership between the IRS and the Free File Alliance<br />
LLC (an organization of several private-sector<br />
tax software companies) provides free access to<br />
online versions—minus some of the more advanced<br />
capabilities—of the companies’ tax software. If you<br />
meet the criteria outlined at IRS.gov, you’ll be able<br />
to prepare and file your taxes online at no charge<br />
through the IRS Free File program.<br />
If you don’t qualify, or want the extra features, you<br />
have a lot of options. Overall, the three tax packages<br />
we review have not changed drastically. Those new<br />
to tax-prep programs will find what veterans already<br />
know: These programs are easier to navigate than<br />
most software. All the products reviewed here use a<br />
question-and-answer interview approach to collect<br />
the necessary personal and financial information<br />
TAkE yOuR PiCk<br />
As you enter information<br />
in TaxACT’s<br />
main working<br />
screen, you can<br />
select from guidance<br />
options on the<br />
horizontal tab.<br />
from you. They also break the 1040 down into manageable<br />
bits and take you through them in a pretty<br />
natural order. They have you provide personal information,<br />
and then launch into sections where you<br />
enter your income and deductions. And though you<br />
can often file federal taxes for free, you usually have<br />
to pay for a state filing (typically less than $20). In the<br />
long run, the money is well spent to get the highest<br />
refund (or lowest payout) and avoid an audit.<br />
TaxACT 2008 Deluxe Edition<br />
For years, TaxACT has been the tax program of<br />
choice for the budget-conscious. It lacks some of<br />
the bells and whistles of the premium services but<br />
is significantly cheaper than TurboTax and TaxCut.<br />
In the areas it covers, it’s a strong competitor. The<br />
biggest change this year is the addition of a tool to<br />
help you determine the fair market value of noncash<br />
charitable contributions. There’s also a new<br />
customer import report, and overview screens for<br />
income, deductions, and credits. The average filer<br />
will probably want more help, but if you can handle<br />
1040s and other forms without the additional support,<br />
this is the app for you.<br />
On pages that require data entry, TaxACT uses<br />
a split screen. The question-and-answer fields are
iNvESTmENTS iNCluDED TaxCut also asks you<br />
questions about stock market–related transactions<br />
and calculates your tax obligation.<br />
positioned above, with several help options in a<br />
tabbed window that can be toggled below. Neither<br />
TurboTax nor TaxCut employs a split screen; they<br />
position help tools elsewhere.<br />
With TaxACT, the tax interview questions are<br />
thorough and clear, but the program lacks some of<br />
the navigational guides that make TurboTax and<br />
TaxCut superior. Nonetheless, TaxACT’s interface<br />
is simple, fast, attractive—and works in much the<br />
same way as those of its competitors. For the cashstrapped,<br />
TaxACT is certainly an acceptable option.<br />
H&R Block TaxCut Premium<br />
Year after year, H&R Block continues to publish an<br />
exceptional personal tax-preparation program with<br />
excellent help tools and audit support. This year,<br />
the big news is a $20 price drop from last year (with<br />
the package I reviewed, Premium Federal + State +<br />
E-File). With TaxCut you get one help session with<br />
an H&R Block tax professional covering one topic,<br />
audit support, and the additional programs WILL-<br />
Power and Deduction Pro. Not even TurboTax can<br />
match H&R Block in terms of sheer bang for the<br />
buck this year. But is the core TaxCut program the<br />
best personal tax-preparation program for 2008?<br />
Not quite. Given that the old paper and snail-mail<br />
system still works just fine, the most important thing<br />
a software and e-filing approach can offer (besides a<br />
faster refund) is ease of use, and that means a better<br />
UI and better help. TaxCut trails TurboTax a bit on<br />
both counts. For example, TaxCut’s interface has<br />
too much white space, which means extra pages and<br />
tedious extra mouse clicks to go from page to page.<br />
Also, TurboTax puts more help resources within<br />
reach during the process. However, TaxCut oversees<br />
the review of your return just as well as the competition.<br />
Though TaxCut is an excellent bargain and a<br />
solid package, TurboTax is still the best choice if you<br />
want the most thorough, well-guided, elegant taxpreparation<br />
experience available for the desktop.<br />
BEST Of BOTH wORlDS TurboTax lets you see<br />
your answers as a split screen with the Step-by-<br />
Step questions above.<br />
TurboTax Premier 2008<br />
TurboTax and H&R Block’s TaxCut wage a mighty<br />
battle in the premium personal tax-preparation software<br />
market every year, with TaxACT mopping up<br />
the more budget-conscious and knowledgeable<br />
filers. This year, the outcome is the same as in recent<br />
years: TurboTax is our Editors’ Choice. Though<br />
TaxCut wins points for its more reasonable pricing<br />
and remains a formidable foe in terms of functionality,<br />
it hasn’t evolved as skillfully as TurboTax has.<br />
Both premium apps continue to do a commendable<br />
job of exploding the 1040 into palatable chunks<br />
that can be more easily digested and processed, but<br />
TurboTax—the more versatile of the two, especially<br />
in the Premier version—takes apart complex topics<br />
and eases you through them with a greater variety of<br />
at-the-ready guidance.<br />
TurboTax’s designers have put together an application<br />
that’s—arguably—as elegant and deft as any<br />
in the universe of desktop productivity applications,<br />
though it runs a bit more slowly than the competition.<br />
Granted, a program’s interface is just window<br />
dressing if it isn’t backed up with solid innards, but<br />
TurboTax has that in spades, too. TaxCut’s look is<br />
old in comparison, and that detracts from what is a<br />
very capable program. TurboTax does a better job<br />
of using screen space, whereas TaxCut displays too<br />
much empty real estate, which leads to more clicking.<br />
TaxACT’s UI falls somewhere in the middle—<br />
better overall than TaxCut’s, but not in the same<br />
league as TurboTax’s. This package saves time by<br />
letting you import W-2 info directly from employers<br />
who use ADP, Paychex, and ProBusiness, as well<br />
as import tax-related income and expenses directly<br />
from Quicken 2007–2009 and major financial institutions.<br />
In a nutshell, TurboTax Premier 2008 provides<br />
the most cohesive, intuitive, well-designed<br />
tax-preparation experience out there, with more<br />
understandable and accessible help than the competition<br />
offers.<br />
H&R Block TaxCut<br />
Premium<br />
$49.95 direct<br />
l l l l m<br />
PROS Deep search tool.<br />
Excellent walk-through<br />
of 1040. Expanded<br />
explanations within<br />
questions. Good help<br />
and audit support.<br />
CONS Too many screens<br />
displaying too little<br />
information. Help is not<br />
always context-sensitive.<br />
Dull interface.<br />
Click here for more.<br />
TurboTax Premier<br />
2008<br />
Premier, $89.95 direct;<br />
Deluxe, $59.95<br />
l l l l h<br />
PROS Direct<br />
import from<br />
Quicken. Elegant<br />
interface. Good<br />
breakdown of<br />
complex topics. Best<br />
combination of help<br />
tools, some contentsensitive.<br />
Thorough<br />
coverage of tax topics.<br />
CONS Price of state<br />
e-file ($34.95). Slow.<br />
Click here for more.<br />
MARCH 2009 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 11
first looks software<br />
Quick looks<br />
Visit pcmag.com for the full reviews of these and scores of other software products.<br />
RED indicates Editors’ Choice. PROS CONS BOTTOM LINE<br />
MOBILE APPS (iPHONE)<br />
Spore Origins<br />
$6.99 direct<br />
l l l m m<br />
MobileFiles Pro<br />
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l l l m m<br />
eReader 1.3<br />
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l l l h m<br />
Stanza<br />
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Photogene<br />
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CameraBag 1.4<br />
$2.99 direct<br />
L l l l m<br />
SECURITY<br />
DigitalPersona Personal 4.0<br />
With U.are.U fingerprint reader,<br />
$69.95 direct; without, $29.95;<br />
fingerprint-based file encryption,<br />
$14.95 additional<br />
l l l l m<br />
a-squared<br />
Anti-Malware 4.0<br />
$39.95 direct<br />
l l m m m<br />
Lavasoft Anti-Virus Helix<br />
$23.95 direct<br />
L l l h m<br />
CA Internet Security<br />
Suite Plus 2009<br />
$79.99 direct<br />
l l m m m<br />
MUSIC<br />
Slacker for BlackBerry<br />
Basic, free; Slacker Premium<br />
Radio, $7.50 monthly<br />
L l l l h<br />
• Easy for casual gamers to pick up<br />
• Fun creature editor<br />
• Full editing of Excel 2003 docs<br />
• Transfers files to and from desktops via Wi-Fi<br />
• Allows access to MobileMe files<br />
• Free<br />
• Flexible text formatting<br />
• Good interface defaults<br />
• Easy bookmarking<br />
• Free<br />
• Flexible text formatting<br />
• Large free library available<br />
• All major e-book file formats accepted<br />
• Converts text, Web, and PDF documents<br />
• Good range of editing tools<br />
• Pleasant interface<br />
• Responsive controls<br />
• Many features<br />
• Scales to the iPhone’s full resolution<br />
• Converts images to any of nine classic or<br />
creative photo styles<br />
• Easy to preview images and save them in<br />
multiple styles<br />
• Four image resolutions<br />
• Effective touch-style fingerprint reader<br />
• Fingerprint log-in to Windows<br />
• Manages username/password credentials for<br />
Web sites and programs<br />
• Checks for strong passwords<br />
• Blocked every malware sample from launching<br />
• Warns of malware-like behaviors<br />
• Community-based alert reduction limits pop-up<br />
queries<br />
• Antivirus engine is highly praised by independent<br />
labs<br />
• Very effective at preventing installation of<br />
non-virus malware<br />
• Successfully removed many non-virus malware<br />
infestations<br />
• Advanced program control blocks “leak tests”<br />
• Browser-independent parental control<br />
• Firewall stealths all ports<br />
• Prevents accidental transmission of user-<br />
defined private data<br />
• Includes system migration tool<br />
• Streaming Internet Radio<br />
• Station caching<br />
• All the functionality of Slacker.com<br />
• Free<br />
12 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION MARCH 2009<br />
• Game play is repetitive on most levels<br />
• Evolutionary stages are limited to undersea<br />
adaptation<br />
• No Word document editing<br />
• No cut-and-paste<br />
Spore Origins gives you a taste of the PC version of<br />
this evolution game, including the ability to add new<br />
elements to your creatures. Unfortunately, the repetitive<br />
levels of play that this iPhone title offers could<br />
stand a little more diversity.<br />
Business iPhone users will welcome the ability to<br />
edit Excel spreadsheets and easily transfer them<br />
over Wi-Fi to and from desktop systems. But if you’re<br />
a serious spreadsheet jockey, you should stick with<br />
Mobile Excel.<br />
• Getting new books is harder than it should be The eReader does a decent job of presenting books<br />
on your iPhone, and the dictionary option is handy,<br />
but acquiring reading matter needs to be easier, and<br />
the software should support more file formats.<br />
• No undo<br />
• Highlighting text for cutting and copying is a<br />
bit awkward<br />
• Can’t edit Office docs<br />
• Can’t shoot photos from within app<br />
• Tiny, crowded mode buttons<br />
• Effects are strictly photographic<br />
• Can’t tweak images beyond setting the basic<br />
style<br />
• Somewhat crash-prone<br />
• Must save account credentials manually<br />
• No user-defined names for accounts<br />
• No automatic generation of strong passwords<br />
• Lacks sharing and true reporting features<br />
• Identified several perfectly valid programs as<br />
malware<br />
• Did a poor job of cleaning up malware<br />
• Disabled two test systems by quarantining<br />
Windows Explorer<br />
• Rootkit protection is turned off by default<br />
• Needs to work alongside an antispyware<br />
product for comprehensive protection<br />
• Full scan is interrupted by pop-up queries by<br />
default<br />
• Advanced program control damages valid<br />
programs<br />
• Big performance drag<br />
• Antivirus not highly rated by independent labs<br />
• Poor malware removal and blocking<br />
• Backup very rudimentary<br />
• Slow to load streaming stations<br />
• Requires BlackBerry OS 4.3 or later<br />
With support for a broad range of content, Stanza is<br />
the most versatile e-book application for the iPhone.<br />
The scope of Photogene’s editing tools—which<br />
include many that other iPhone photo-editing apps<br />
lack—makes this a very appealing app.<br />
Whether you’re a nostalgia buff, a photography<br />
student, or just someone who wants to spruce up your<br />
iPhone photos, the easy-to-use CameraBag lets you<br />
remake your images in various photographic styles.<br />
DigitalPersona Personal 4.0 stores, applies, and rates<br />
your passwords. Both the password manager and its<br />
associated fingerprint reader are attractive and easy<br />
to use. DigitalPersona offers fingerprint-based Windows<br />
log-in and an extra-cost file encryption module.<br />
a-squared’s near-perfect malware blocking performance<br />
is tainted by its erroneous identification of<br />
valid programs as malware. In testing, it did a poor<br />
job of cleaning up infested systems. You can get<br />
better protection for the same price with Webroot or<br />
Spyware Doctor.<br />
The Avira engine that powers Lavasoft’s stand-alone<br />
antivirus is surprisingly effective against non-virus<br />
malware types, but it still needs to work alongside an<br />
antispyware solution for comprehensive protection.<br />
There’s little to love in this Frankenstein’s monster<br />
of a suite. Patched together from many separate<br />
mediocre tools, it put the biggest drag on system<br />
performance of any suite tested. Save ten bucks and<br />
get Norton’s suite (or Trend Micro’s) instead.<br />
With easy, free, customizable Internet radio, this app<br />
delivers on the multimedia promises that so often are<br />
made in BlackBerry’s television commercials.
Sony VAIO VGC-JS130J/P<br />
$1,099.99 list<br />
l l l l m<br />
PROS Compact all-in-one<br />
PC. Vista Premium. Cheaper<br />
and better equipped<br />
than the base iMac and<br />
other all-in-one PCs. Range<br />
of colors to choose from. 4GB of<br />
memory. 500GB hard drive.<br />
CONS Wired keyboard and mouse<br />
spoil sleek lines. Some crapware.<br />
no back button on the mouse.<br />
Weak integrated graphics.<br />
Short (91-day) trial Internet<br />
security subscription.<br />
Click here for more.<br />
Sony VAIo VGC-JS130J/P<br />
An iMac Killer—At Last<br />
As netbooks are doing to the laptop markets, all-inone<br />
PCs are causing rapid evolution among desktops.<br />
This new VAIO all-in-one is a prime example<br />
of that progression. It’s better equipped for the real<br />
world than the bare-bones iMac—and costs $99 less.<br />
The JS130J/P (like its JS190J/B sibling) has a cutting-edge<br />
design that would look right at home on<br />
the set of a science-fiction film. The screen is bright<br />
and clear, suitable for both browsing photos and<br />
watching online and DVD videos. The keyboard is<br />
comfortable to use, but the mouse feels a bit flimsy<br />
and lacks a back button. Also, a wireless keyboard<br />
and mouse would have been nice here. This VAIO<br />
is $400 cheaper than (the JS190J/B) because it lacks<br />
a Blu-ray drive and has a slightly slower processor.<br />
That said, the JS130J/P’s dual-core Pentium E5200 is<br />
still plenty for day-to-day tasks, and its 4GB of RAM<br />
and 500GB hard drive is the same as the JS190J/B’s.<br />
The JS130J/P’s performance is akin to that of<br />
its more expensive brother: It’s very good at multimedia<br />
tasks like photo editing and video encoding,<br />
but abysmal at 3D. The JS130J/P finished the Windows<br />
Media Encoder test in a decent 1 minute 13<br />
first looks hardware<br />
seconds (slower than the JS190J/B, which took 52<br />
seconds) and a speedy 32 seconds on the Photoshop<br />
CS3 test (only 6 seconds slower than the JS190J/B).<br />
While the JS190J is faster, it’s not a lot faster. Apart<br />
from being loaded down with crapware, the JS130J/<br />
P tops its competition by a slim margin, achieving<br />
our Editors’ Choice award.—Joel Santo Domingo<br />
Spec data: 2.5-GHz Intel Pentium E5200 processor; 4GB,<br />
800-MHz DDR2 SDRAM; 500GB, 7,200-rpm SATA hard<br />
drive; integrated Mobile Intel GMAX4500HD graphics;<br />
dual-layer DVD±RW drive; integrated 20.1-inch widescreen<br />
LCD monitor; five USB 2.0 ports; one FireWire/<br />
i.Link port; integrated stereo speakers; Windows Vista<br />
Home Premium 64-bit.<br />
PERFORMANCE TESTS<br />
L High scores are best.<br />
M Low scores are best.<br />
Bold type denotes first place.<br />
3D TESTS MULTIMEDIA TESTS<br />
3DMArk06 L<br />
1,920 x 1,200*<br />
CInEBEnCH<br />
r10 L<br />
WInDoWS<br />
MEDIA<br />
EnCoDEr M<br />
min:sec<br />
Sony VAIO VGC-JS130J/P n/A 4,974 1:13 0:32<br />
Sony VAIO VGC-JS190J/B n/A 6,221 0:52 0:26<br />
Apple iMac (24-inch Penryn) 1,859 5,842 1:03 0:30<br />
PHoToSHoP<br />
CS3 ACTIon<br />
SET M<br />
min:sec<br />
RED denotes Editors’ Choice. n/A—not applicable: The product could not complete this test. *Anti-aliasing/anisotropic filtering was set to 4X.<br />
MARCH 2009 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 13
Canon Pixma MP980 Wireless Photo<br />
All-In-One Printer<br />
$299.99 direct<br />
l l l l m<br />
Pros High-quality photos. scans and prints<br />
from 35mm film. network and Wi-Fi support.<br />
Built-in duplexer.<br />
Cons no fax support. Clumsy network<br />
installation. Can’t set network support to<br />
accept both wired and wireless connections.<br />
Click here for more.<br />
ViewSonic N2201w<br />
$430 street<br />
l l l h m<br />
Pros Built-in DVD player and tV tuner. solid light<br />
grayscale reproduction. Good audio output.<br />
Cons Very weak dark-gray performance. stiff stand<br />
with limited adjustability. some backlight bleed.<br />
Click here for more.<br />
14 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION MARCH 2009<br />
first looks HArDWArE<br />
CAnon PixMA MP980 WiReless PHoto All-in-one PRinteR<br />
Wireless Home Photo Lab<br />
Supreme<br />
As Canon’s replacement for the Editors’ Choice Pixma MP970, the<br />
Pixma MP980 has a lot to live up to. The MP970 had the distinction<br />
of printing great-looking photos while being far less expensive<br />
than any of its competition. The MP980 carries on in that tradition,<br />
earning an Editors’ Choice of its own.<br />
In some ways, the MP980 is a straightforward update to the<br />
MP970, sharing most of the same features. It can print, scan, copy,<br />
and e-mail. It can both scan and print directly from 35mm slides<br />
and strips of film, and print directly from PictBridge cameras and<br />
memory cards (but not USB keys). The two models even share the<br />
same lack of office-centric features, with no automatic document<br />
feeder (ADF) or fax support.<br />
Despite all these similarities, however, the MP980 also differs<br />
from the MP970 in important ways, most notably in its ink system.<br />
The MP970 used seven inks, and the MP980 uses six. The result<br />
is slightly slower speeds for the MP980 and impressively betterlooking<br />
monochrome photos. For example, the MP980 scored 16<br />
minutes 25 seconds on our business application suite, compared<br />
with the MP970’s 15:58. But photos printed on the MP980 are near<br />
professional photo labs output, with pictures that are suitable for<br />
framing. So, like its predecessor, the MP980 has some room for<br />
improvement, but its flaws are forgivable.— M. David Stone<br />
VieWsoniC n2201W<br />
A Versatile 22-Inch<br />
HDTV/Monitor<br />
Designed for use in tight spaces, the N2201w is ideal for a dorm<br />
room, studio apartment, or home office. This versatile 22-inch<br />
HDTV/monitor hybrid sports a variety of entertainment features,<br />
including a built-in DVD player and a digital TV tuner, but its dark<br />
grayscale performance is lacking.<br />
The 1,680-by-1,050-resolution panel is perched atop a sturdy<br />
oval base. The 3-watt speakers embedded in the lower bezel are<br />
a cut above the usual underpowered speakers found on displays.<br />
A slot-loading DVD player with five control buttons is integrated<br />
into the left-hand side of the cabinet.<br />
While in PC mode, you can adjust contrast, brightness, and<br />
sharpness, as well as toggle among four Picture modes (though I<br />
recommend sticking with the Standard setting). In general, I was<br />
impressed with the N2201w’s performance as a PC monitor. It did a<br />
very good job of reproducing the lightest shades of gray on the DisplayMate<br />
64-Step Grayscale test. Colors were bold and uniform at<br />
the high end of the scale. The panel had a difficult time displaying<br />
the darkest shades of gray, however, making the deepest reds and<br />
blues darker than they should be. For video, the L2201w showed a<br />
sharp picture, with no apparent jaggies or artifacts.<br />
Despite a couple of flaws, this LCD is a good deal for a display<br />
that pulls double duty as a PC monitor and an HDTV/DVD player<br />
combo.—John R. Delaney
Gateway FX6800-01e<br />
$1,249.99 list<br />
L l l l m<br />
PROS Good expandability.<br />
external hard drive bays<br />
work with off-the-shelf SAtA<br />
drives. Plays Crysis yet costs<br />
less than $1,300. CrossFirecapable<br />
motherboard.<br />
CONS expansion limited by the<br />
included 500w power supply.<br />
Crapware. Plastics could be better.<br />
64-bit OS doesn’t make sense with<br />
only 3GB. Only a 60-day trial of<br />
Norton 360.<br />
Click here for more.<br />
GAtewAy FX6800-01e<br />
Power-Packed<br />
Budget Gaming Rig<br />
The Gateway FX6800-01e is clearly going after the<br />
gamer on a budget. It’s a bit more expensive than<br />
sub-$800 gaming boxes like the Cyberpower Gamer<br />
Ultra SLI Basic, but this Gateway system can play<br />
today’s games a whole lot better.<br />
The FX6800-01e is equipped with the quad-core<br />
Intel i7-920, a Hyper-Threading chip that is capable<br />
of processing up to eight streams simultaneously.<br />
This system is also equipped with a single 512MB<br />
ATI Radeon HD 4850 graphics card. The FX6800-<br />
01e’s chassis includes a pair of externally accessible<br />
hard-drive sleds, so you can easily add up to two<br />
SATA hard drives without opening the side door. If<br />
you do open the case, you can also fit another hard<br />
drive, optical drive, a PCIe x4 card, another PCIe<br />
x16 graphics card, and three more RAM sticks. You<br />
can also configure this system for RAID 0, 1, 5, and<br />
1+0 with multiple hard drives. One complaint: Why<br />
install 64-bit Vista when the system comes with only<br />
3GB of memory?<br />
Like other Gateway computers, the FX6800-01e<br />
has some crapware on it. There’s the usual 60-day<br />
trial of Microsoft Office and the 60-day trial of Norton<br />
360. There’s other stuff, too, like ads for eBay,<br />
Napster, and <strong>ISPs</strong>. All this junk can make a system<br />
unstable, so for optimum results, you may want to<br />
reinstall the OS fresh.<br />
first looks HArDWArE<br />
In terms of performance, this system turned in a<br />
respectable 58 frames per second (fps) on Crysis at<br />
1,280-by-1,024, and a very smooth 70 fps on World<br />
in Conflict (WiC) at the same resolution. These<br />
numbers are similar to those of gaming rigs that<br />
cost over $700 more. The FX6800-01e is also very<br />
speedy on multimedia tasks: 37 seconds for Windows<br />
Media Encoder and 26 seconds for Photoshop<br />
are impressive even for a quad-core system. All this<br />
makes FX6800-01e a performance bargain—and an<br />
Editors’ Choice.—Joel Santo Domingo<br />
Spec data: 2.66-GHz Intel Core i7-920 processor, 3GB<br />
1066-MHz DDR3 SDRAM, 750GB 7,200-rpm SATA hard<br />
drive, 512MB ATI Radeon HD 4850 graphics card, duallayer<br />
DVD±RW drive, eight USB 2.0 ports, two FireWire<br />
ports, two eSATA ports, Gateway stereo speakers,<br />
Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit.<br />
PERFORMANCE TESTS<br />
L High scores are best.<br />
M Low scores are best.<br />
Bold type denotes first place.<br />
3DMark06 L<br />
1,280 x 1,024*<br />
MULTIMEDIa TESTS GaMING TESTS<br />
WINDoWS<br />
MEDIa<br />
ENcoDEr M<br />
min:sec<br />
PHoToSHoP<br />
cS3 M<br />
min:sec<br />
crySIS L<br />
1,280 x 1,024*<br />
Gateway FX6800-01e 12,521 0:37 0:26 58 70<br />
Acer Aspire Predator G7700 13,497 0:41 0:25 57 67<br />
Cyberpower Gamer Ultra SLI Basic 4,260 1:07 0:46 9 10<br />
rED denotes Editors’ choice. * anti-aliasing/anisotropic filtering was set to 0X.<br />
WorLD IN<br />
coNfLIcT L<br />
1,280 x 1,024*<br />
MARCH 2009 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 15
first looks hardware<br />
Quick looks<br />
Visit pcmag.com for the full reviews of these and scores of other hardware products.<br />
RED indicates Editors’ Choice. PROS CONS BOTTOM LINE SPECS<br />
DESKTOPS<br />
LAPTOPS<br />
DISPLAYS<br />
STORAGE<br />
PROJECTORS<br />
DATA TRANSFER<br />
Velocity Micro<br />
Edge Z55<br />
$3,834 direct,<br />
$4,133 with<br />
22-inch widescreen<br />
LCD monitor<br />
l l l h m<br />
Acer Aspire<br />
6930G-6723<br />
$1,020 street<br />
l l l l h<br />
ASUS EeePC<br />
1002HA<br />
$499 list<br />
l l l l m<br />
Dell Studio<br />
XPS 16<br />
$1,804 direct<br />
l l l l h<br />
Sony<br />
Lifestyle PC<br />
(VGN-588EQ)<br />
$1,199 direct<br />
l l l h m<br />
ASUS LS221H<br />
$349 list<br />
l l l m m<br />
OWC Mercury<br />
On-The-Go<br />
(320GB)<br />
$179.99 direct<br />
l l l h m<br />
Samsung P400<br />
$550 street<br />
l l l l m<br />
Clickfree<br />
Transformer<br />
Cable<br />
$60 list<br />
l l l l m<br />
16 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION MARCH 2009<br />
• Speedy gaming and multimedia<br />
performance<br />
• Expandability<br />
• Attractive styling and neat<br />
interior<br />
• No crapware<br />
• Blu-ray reader<br />
• Blu-ray reader included<br />
• Unbeatable price<br />
• Good performance scores<br />
• Good graphics card<br />
• Terrific typing experience<br />
• Generous feature set<br />
• Gunmetal casing<br />
• Included overclocking software<br />
• 92 percent keyboard<br />
• Excellent battery life<br />
• Bright 10-inch widescreen<br />
• Under $500<br />
• Strikingly gorgeous design<br />
• Blu-ray reader included<br />
• Vibrant 16-inch widescreen<br />
• Illuminated keyboard<br />
• HDMI and DisplayPort<br />
• High-capacity battery is<br />
available<br />
• Incredibly light<br />
• 8-inch widescreen LED is first<br />
of its kind<br />
3G wireless is standard<br />
• Two memory card slots<br />
• Pre-boot Linux environment is a<br />
nice addition<br />
• Slim cabinet<br />
• Good motion performance<br />
• Good text readability<br />
• Bus-powered<br />
• Speedy FireWire 800 interface<br />
• Comes HFS+ formatted (good<br />
for Macs)<br />
• Comes with all cables and a<br />
carrying case<br />
• Highly portable<br />
• Unexpectedly bright<br />
• Surprisingly high audio volume<br />
• LED light source with 20,000hour<br />
lifetime<br />
• No configuration necessary<br />
• No installation needed<br />
• One of the most user-friendly<br />
backup methods we’ve tested<br />
• Works with any USB hard drive<br />
or USB key<br />
• Can support multiple computers<br />
• At lower resolutions, it performs<br />
not much better than a $1,200<br />
gaming system<br />
• A little loud<br />
• Nearly $4,000 is a lot of money<br />
The Z55 brings Intel’s Core i7<br />
to a high-performance gaming<br />
system. Though not quite as<br />
expensive as the systems in the<br />
$5K club, its performance is<br />
certainly competitive with those<br />
in the upper strata.<br />
• A bit bulky Equipped with a Blu-ray drive<br />
and generous performance parts<br />
for under $1,000, the 6930G has<br />
regained the Editors’ Choice accolade<br />
for best value media center<br />
laptop that its predecessor lost.<br />
• Lacks a six-cell battery<br />
• Could use more features<br />
Its metallic finish makes the<br />
1002HA the most attractive netbook<br />
to date, and its performance<br />
doesn’t disappoint. However,<br />
it could use some help in the<br />
features department.<br />
• Could be lighter The XPS 16 delivers a lavish<br />
media center experience with<br />
a unique design, home-theater<br />
features, and a vibrant RGB LED<br />
widescreen.<br />
• Mouse buttons are adjacent to<br />
the touchpad<br />
• Poor dark grayscale performance<br />
• Lacks multimedia features<br />
• Tilt-only stand<br />
• Comes HFS+ formatted (bad<br />
for PCs)<br />
• Backup software on CD<br />
• Physically a bit larger than the<br />
competition<br />
• Pricey per GB<br />
• Doesn’t handle video well—loses<br />
details in dark areas<br />
• Relatively noticeable rainbow<br />
effect<br />
• No Mac compatibility<br />
• You need to buy storage<br />
separately<br />
• File backups only<br />
• May not work with some USB<br />
hubs<br />
The Sony Lifestyle PC is a magnificently<br />
designed device with a<br />
solid set of features, but performance<br />
can be limiting if you’re<br />
using it as a primary laptop.<br />
The LS221H is an attractive<br />
22-inch display with a slim profile<br />
and a fast pixel response. But<br />
its flaws include the inability to<br />
reproduce dark shades of gray.<br />
The Mercury is a speedy (7,200rpm)<br />
SATA notebook-class hard<br />
drive that works with USB or<br />
FireWire power (for a Mac or a<br />
PC) and doesn’t require a power<br />
adapter.<br />
The P400 isn’t the lightest projector,<br />
or the smallest, but it delivers<br />
a surprisingly bright image and<br />
high-volume audio in a highly<br />
portable package.<br />
With the Clickfree cable, making<br />
Windows-based document backups<br />
is finally as easy as plugging<br />
in a power cord.<br />
2.93-GHz Intel Core i7-940; 6GB<br />
1,333-MHz DDR3 SDRAM; two<br />
150GB, 10,000-rpm SATA hard<br />
drives (RAID 0); two 1GB ATI<br />
Radeon graphics cards; duallayer<br />
DVD±RW drive; Vista Home<br />
Premium.<br />
2.0-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T5800;<br />
4GB DDR2 SDRAM; 320GB, 5,400rpm<br />
hard drive; 256MB nVidia<br />
GeForce 9600M GS graphics;<br />
16-inch display; 7.2 pounds (8.3<br />
pounds travel); 71-Wh battery;<br />
Vista Home Premium.<br />
1.6-GHz Intel Atom N270; 1GB<br />
DDR2 SDRAM; 160GB, 5,400-rpm<br />
hard drive; 128MB Intel Graphics<br />
Media Accelerator 950; 10.2-inch<br />
display; 2.7 pounds (3.2 pounds<br />
travel); 31-Wh battery; XP Home<br />
Edition.<br />
2.4-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo P8600;<br />
4GB DDR3 SDRAM; 320GB,<br />
7,200-rpm hard drive; 512MB ATI<br />
Mobility Radeon HD 3670; 16-inch<br />
widescreen; 6.9 pounds (7.8<br />
pounds travel); 85-Wh battery;<br />
Vista Home Premium.<br />
1.33-GHz Intel Atom Z520; 2GB<br />
DDR2 SDRAM; 64GB SSD; 128MB<br />
Intel graphics; 8-inch, 1,600-by-<br />
768 widescreen LED display; 1.4<br />
pounds (1.7 pounds travel); two<br />
USB ports; 16-Wh lithium ion battery;<br />
Windows Vista Home Basic.<br />
22-inch LCD; 1,680-by-1,050<br />
native resolution; HDMI and<br />
analog VGA inputs; 16:10<br />
aspect ratio.<br />
External hard drive; 350GB<br />
capacity; 7,200 rpm.<br />
DLP engine; 4:3 aspect ratio;<br />
rated brightness, 150 ANSI<br />
lumens; analog VGA and composite<br />
inputs, 2.5 by 5.8 by 5.7<br />
inches (HWD); 2 pounds.<br />
10 inches.
first looks BUsiNEss<br />
Lenovo THinkPAd W700<br />
The Photography<br />
Pro’s Mobile Workstation<br />
The ThinkPad W700 is monstrous, and its looks may<br />
not strike a chord with fashion photographers, but<br />
some unheard-of built-in features will instantly make<br />
style moot. The Pantone color sensor, for instance,<br />
eliminates the need to carry a separate color calibration<br />
device; a Wacom digitizer that’s traditionally<br />
part of the screen is cleverly positioned on the palm<br />
rest; and an option for a 10-inch secondary display<br />
that slides out from the back of the primary one is<br />
an industry first. These features, along with the builtin<br />
Intel quad-core technology, earn the W700 an<br />
Editors’ Choice in the workstation category.<br />
With the W700, you also get a CompactFlash<br />
and SD slot and connections for DisplayPort,<br />
DVI-D, five USB slots, one FireWire port, a webcam,<br />
and a fingerprint reader. Although the dual-layer<br />
DVD burner sounds ordinary at this juncture, you<br />
can upgrade to a Blu-ray burner. The dual 160GB,<br />
7,200-rpm hard drives (320GB total) not only spin<br />
fast but are arranged in RAID 0, which comes in<br />
handy for performance testing.<br />
The W700 runs a 2.53-GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme<br />
QX9300 processor—fitting for a machine of this<br />
caliber. Add to the quad-core the 4GB of DDR3<br />
memory and we have performance scores that are<br />
beyond anything I’ve seen on a laptop. The W700’s<br />
video-encoding and CineBench 10 scores completely<br />
dominated the competition’s. Its 44-second<br />
score on Windows Media Encoder 9 is 15 seconds<br />
less (roughly 35 percent faster) than the Lenovo<br />
Thinkpad T400’s. And its CineBench score was<br />
nearly double that of other machines in its class.<br />
Obviously, at this price, the W700 isn’t for everyone.<br />
But if time is money in your field, the W700 will<br />
save you tons of it.—Cisco Cheng<br />
Spec data: 2.53-GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9300;<br />
4GB DDR3 SDRAM; 320GB (two 160GB, 7,200-rpm<br />
hard drives); 1GB Nvidia Quadro FX 3700M graphics;<br />
17-inch, 1,920-by-1,200 widescreen; 9.4 pounds (12.3<br />
pounds travel); five USB ports; one FireWire port;<br />
96-Wh, 6.45-Ah lithium ion battery; Windows Vista<br />
Home Premium 64-bit.<br />
PERFORMANCE TESTS<br />
L High scores are best.<br />
M Low scores are best.<br />
Bold type denotes first place.<br />
MoBiLe-<br />
Mark<br />
2007 L<br />
hr:min<br />
3D-<br />
Mark06*<br />
L<br />
1,024 x 768<br />
MULTiMeDia<br />
WinDoWs<br />
MeDia<br />
encoDer M<br />
min:sec<br />
cineBencH<br />
r10 L<br />
Lenovo ThinkPad W700 2:31 12,678 0:44 10,809 0:30<br />
Apple MacBook Pro 15-inch<br />
(Dual Graphics) - Boot Camp<br />
n/a 6,453 1:09 5,187 0:32<br />
Lenovo ThinkPad T400 4:12 2,904 0:59 5,838 0:26<br />
reD denotes editors’ choice. n/a—not applicable: The product could not complete the test, or the test was not compatible.<br />
* The test was configured at the default setting.<br />
Lenovo ThinkPad<br />
W700<br />
$4,240 direct<br />
L l l l h<br />
PROS internal<br />
Pantone color<br />
calibrator. Palmrest<br />
digitizer.<br />
option for a<br />
cool secondary display.<br />
Quad-core processor<br />
delivered amazing<br />
results. dual hard drives.<br />
iSv certified graphics.<br />
outstanding graphics for<br />
gamers and professionals.<br />
WUXGA widescreen.<br />
Adobe RGB–compatible<br />
screen.<br />
CONS Butt-ugly and<br />
bulky.<br />
Click here for more.<br />
PHoTosHoP<br />
cs3 M<br />
min:sec<br />
MARCH 2009 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 17
ViewSoniC PJ513DB<br />
A No-Frills, High-Quality<br />
SVGA Projector<br />
The ViewSonic PJ513DB is the kind of projector<br />
that anyone on a tight budget should love—and not<br />
just because of its low price. What makes this unit<br />
appealing is that it gets the basics right, starting with<br />
a suitably high-quality image and surprisingly good<br />
audio.<br />
Designed for typical business presentations, the<br />
PJ513DB is a basic, no-frills projector built around an<br />
SVGA (800-by-600) DLP engine. Although it’s not<br />
the lightest or smallest projector available by any<br />
means, it’s fairly portable, at 5.7 pounds and 4.3 by 10.4<br />
by 8.6 inches (HWD). It doesn’t come with a carrying<br />
case, however, so if you need one, you’ll have to buy it<br />
separately. The same goes for most cables you might<br />
want; you get only a power cord and VGA cable for<br />
plugging into a computer. Moreover, there’s no USB<br />
port or zoom control.<br />
The PJ513DB has a respectable contrast ratio of<br />
330:1 and a brightness of 1,717 lumens, about 78 percent<br />
of its 2,200 lumen rating. It is also bright enough<br />
LexMARk T650n<br />
Workhorse Monochrome<br />
Laser Printer<br />
For small offices and workgroups with heavy-duty<br />
printing needs, workhorse monochrome lasers like<br />
the Lexmark T650n are indispensable. As a rule,<br />
Lexmark printers are among the best in the category,<br />
and the T650n is no exception. Its fast speed<br />
and plentiful paper-handling options are enough to<br />
make it a new Editors’ Choice.<br />
At 13.7 by 16.7 by 19.4 inches (HWD), this printer is<br />
small enough for your desk, but you’ll probably need<br />
help moving this 40.6-pound unit into place. The<br />
T650n’s paper-handling options include a duplexer<br />
($275), a 250-sheet drawer ($199), a 550-sheet drawer<br />
($249), a 2,000-sheet drawer ($499), and an output<br />
expander with additional 550-sheet bin ($149).<br />
This printer’s 45-ppm engine helped it score<br />
5 minutes 7 seconds on our business applications<br />
suite, which is fast, but not as fast as the 4:57<br />
achieved by the T640n, the printer it is replacing.<br />
18 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION MARCH 2009<br />
first looks BUsiNEss<br />
to throw a reasonably large image with typical office<br />
lighting. In testing, the projector showed some minor<br />
DLP rainbow effects but handled images from a computer<br />
and DVDs (played over S-Video) pretty well.<br />
However, it was less effective for TV input. Despite<br />
oversights like the lack of a remote mouse control<br />
and the nearly pointless zoom, the ViewSonic<br />
PJ513DB is a good choice for the cash-strapped, and<br />
certainly one of the best projectors in its category.<br />
—M. David Stone<br />
Output quality was typical for a monochrome laser<br />
on graphics and photos, but text quality was a bit<br />
below par—though still more than good enough for<br />
most business use.<br />
One last issue is running cost, a critical factor for<br />
a printer designed to print lots of pages. Lexmark<br />
claims a reasonably low 1.6 cents per page. That,<br />
along with fast speed, capable paper handling, and<br />
reasonably high-quality output makes the T650n an<br />
impressive package indeed, altogether worthy of the<br />
Editors’ Choice.—MDS<br />
ViewSonic PJ513DB<br />
$450 street<br />
l l l h m<br />
Pros Low cost. Reasonably<br />
light. easy setup,<br />
with well-designed,<br />
easy-to-use menus.<br />
Cons no remote mouse<br />
control. optical zoom is<br />
too meager to be useful.<br />
Click here for more.<br />
Lexmark T650n<br />
$699 direct<br />
L l l l m<br />
Pros Fast.<br />
Full set of<br />
paper-handling<br />
options, with up<br />
to 4,000-sheet<br />
input capacity. Low cost<br />
per page.<br />
Cons Slightly subpar<br />
text for a mono laser.<br />
Click here for more.
PiCK a PaGe in pages, you can pick and choose which<br />
page layouts you want to use from any template.<br />
Apple iWork '09<br />
$79 direct; five-license<br />
family pack, $99<br />
l l l l m<br />
Pros innovative,<br />
graphically dazzling<br />
suite. Highly compatible<br />
with Microsoft office<br />
documents. Canvas-style<br />
page holds multiple<br />
tables. presentation<br />
software outclasses<br />
competitors. Great bang<br />
for the buck.<br />
Cons Not as featurerich<br />
as Microsoft office.<br />
Sample templates too<br />
elaborate for most users.<br />
No view that hides top,<br />
bottom page margins.<br />
Click here for more.<br />
first looks business<br />
Apple iWoRk ’09<br />
Apple Gets to Work<br />
Apple has a lot to boast about in iWork ’09, the latest<br />
version of its productivity application suite and<br />
still the only one written from the ground up for OS<br />
X. The result is a suite that gives home users and<br />
students a huge bang for a small number of bucks—<br />
and it feels far more at home on the Mac platform<br />
than Microsoft’s pricier, professional-oriented<br />
Office for the Mac.<br />
Pages is both a word processor and what used<br />
to be called a desktop publishing app (for creating<br />
graphics-rich leaflets, posters, and greeting cards).<br />
You choose between two editing modes when creating<br />
a document: Word Processing or Page Layout.<br />
The first creates a conventional document, and Page<br />
Layout treats each page as a canvas on which to create<br />
text and graphics boxes. Pages’ documents look<br />
terrific, but the program is clearly designed for the<br />
more casual user. Those working on a college thesis<br />
or lengthy report may end up gnashing their teeth.<br />
Numbers, iWork’s spreadsheet program, on the<br />
other hand, continues to one-up Microsoft Excel in<br />
many ways. It is the only app out there to support<br />
multiple tables on a single page. And a Numbers<br />
worksheet is a canvas that can include multiple<br />
charts, each with its own layout, plus graphics and<br />
text boxes. Also, Numbers finally has a feature akin<br />
to a pivot table.<br />
Presentation Pizzazz in keynote, a neat little<br />
pop-up menu lets you resize images.<br />
iWork’s PowerPoint rival is Keynote, still the<br />
most dazzling presentation program on any platform.<br />
The app now offers spectacular, animated<br />
slide transitions. PowerPoint still has one advantage<br />
over Keynote: PowerPoint has the ability to create<br />
good-looking diagrams based on text-based data<br />
like lists and outlines. But otherwise, Keynote outclasses<br />
it everywhere else. Unless you need the tight<br />
integration with Excel and Word that you get with<br />
Presentations, Keynote is the presentation program<br />
for Mac users.<br />
Apple has also put a toe into the online document<br />
world by launching iWork.com, a sparsely<br />
featured sharing and viewing service that lets iWork<br />
users share documents with users on any platform,<br />
including Windows and Linux. Unfortunately, you<br />
need a $99-per-year MobileMe account before you<br />
can upload anything to the site, although coworkers<br />
can view, download, and comment on files without<br />
an account.<br />
For home, school, and very-small-business<br />
users, iWork is the best office suite on the market.<br />
For advanced users, however, Microsoft Word and<br />
Microsoft Excel remain indispensable; furthermore,<br />
the Windows version of Microsoft’s Office suite<br />
remains far more powerful than the Mac version.<br />
—Edward Mendelson<br />
MARCH 2009 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 19
RIM BlackBerry<br />
Curve 8900<br />
(T-Mobile)<br />
$349 direct; $199 and<br />
up with a two-year<br />
contract<br />
l l l l m<br />
Pros Gorgeous,<br />
ultra-high-res<br />
screen. Sublime<br />
keyboard.<br />
Smooth and<br />
elegant operation. Terrific<br />
messaging, solid<br />
music and video players.<br />
Makes free calls over<br />
Wi-Fi.<br />
Cons no 3G. Subpar<br />
Web browser.<br />
Click here for more.<br />
HTC TouCH PRo (SPRinT)<br />
This Mobile Office Needs<br />
a Battery Boost<br />
Hot on the heels of AT&T’s HTC Fuze, Sprint has busted out its<br />
own version, the Touch Pro, a virtual clone of the Fuze but with<br />
a few new pluses. These include improvements to the software<br />
bundle, form factor, and QWERTY keyboard arrangement, and<br />
the addition of CDMA and EV-DO radios for compatibility with<br />
Sprint’s network. But there are also some minuses, including dismal<br />
battery life. Depending on your viewpoint, the Touch Pro is<br />
either a loaded business smartphone for Windows power users or<br />
an iPhone competitor with an identity crisis.<br />
On Sprint, the Touch Pro is a dual-mode CDMA phone, featuring<br />
both EV-DO and Wi-Fi radios. Reception was a little weak: In a<br />
rural area, the Touch Pro vacillated between 1X and EV-DO modes.<br />
Calls also came through a bit choppy, with static. The handset’s<br />
speakerphone was too quiet and distorted for anything but close,<br />
indoor use. Even worse, battery life was miserable—just 3 hours 8<br />
minutes on our talk-time run-down test.<br />
Overall, the Touch Pro is a bit more pleasant on Sprint than the<br />
Fuze is on AT&T, thanks to its lighter weight, improved software<br />
bundle, and better keyboard. However, its battery life and voice<br />
quality are lacking. Sprint smartphone buyers should also consider<br />
the Touch Diamond, which is less expensive but lacks a QWERTY<br />
keyboard. The BlackBerry Curve 8330 remains our Editors’<br />
Choice–winning Sprint smartphone, for its excellent keyboard,<br />
stellar e-mail management, and long battery life.—Jamie Lendino<br />
20 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION MARCH 2009<br />
first looks CoNsUMEr ElECtroNiCs<br />
RiM BlACkBERRY CuRvE 8900 (T-MoBilE)<br />
T-Mobile’s Best BlackBerry Yet<br />
After its last release, the buggy BlackBerry Storm 9530, RIM’s got<br />
its groove back. The new BlackBerry Curve 8900 juices up the<br />
already-excellent Curve form factor with a sharper screen, faster<br />
processor, and better camera, letting it jump through new multimedia<br />
hoops while still helping you get your work done. If you<br />
need to stay connected, this Curve is the simplest and most stylish<br />
way to do it for T-Mobile customers.<br />
The Curve 8900 is mostly black with an insanely high-res<br />
screen: 360 by 480 pixels on a 2.4-inch panel (even higher res than<br />
the iPhone’s). Like the original Curve, the 8900 features a full<br />
QWERTY keyboard of slightly separated keys that are a breeze to<br />
use. Despite its just-average signal strength, the 8900 is an excellent<br />
voice phone, with calls sounding especially loud and clear on<br />
T-Mobile’s 2G EDGE network.<br />
The beefy 528-MHz processor lets the phone multitask comfortably<br />
and perform well on audio and video. But since the 8900<br />
doesn’t hit T-Mobile’s 3G network, you can’t stream video without<br />
Wi-Fi coverage. Within Wi-Fi range, streaming worked well.<br />
The 3.2-megapixel camera takes sharp photos, even in low light. I<br />
experienced delays of up to 2 seconds while the camera focused,<br />
however, and I couldn’t find any way to disable autofocus. The only<br />
big problem with this phone is the Web browser, which choked on<br />
pages with JavaScript. But this wasn’t enough to outweigh its many<br />
benefits, which earn it an Editors’ Choice.—Sascha Segan<br />
HTC Touch Pro (Sprint)<br />
$299 with two-year Sprint contract<br />
l l l m m<br />
Pros Powerful feature set. Slick interface graphics.<br />
Five-row QWERTY keyboard. Better software<br />
bundle than AT&T’s version (the HTC Fuze).<br />
Cons Expensive. Poor battery life. Confusing<br />
“dual-oS” interface. Slow. no headphone jack.<br />
Click here for more.
Creative Vado<br />
Pocket Video<br />
Cam HD<br />
$229.99 direct<br />
L l l l m<br />
Pros Records<br />
high-quality<br />
Hd video. Big,<br />
bright screen.<br />
Removable, rechargeable<br />
battery. 8GB<br />
of memory. HdMi-out.<br />
HdMi cable bundled.<br />
Cons only 2X digital<br />
zoom. Memory isn’t<br />
expandable.<br />
Click here for more.<br />
Sony Reader Digital Book (PRS-700)<br />
$399.99 direct<br />
l l l l m<br />
Pros touch-sensitive screen. Streamlined<br />
interface. Attractive design.<br />
Cons Pricey. doesn’t provide wireless download<br />
of titles (unlike Amazon’s Kindle). led<br />
sidelights aren’t very strong.<br />
Click here for more.<br />
first looks CoNsUMEr ElECtroNiCs<br />
CReAtive vAdo PoCKet video CAM Hd<br />
Vado HD One-Ups the HD Flip<br />
With the Vado HD, Creative decided against a complete overhaul of<br />
its original mini camcorder—and with good reason. The Vado has<br />
a sleeker body, a larger screen, and a lower price tag than Pure Digital’s<br />
Flip, plus a removable, rechargeable battery. In fact, the Vado<br />
was our favorite mini videocam until we gave an Editors’ Choice to<br />
the Kodak Zi6. But a few key changes in the Vado HD are enough to<br />
make it supplant the Zi6 as our new EC winner.<br />
On the outside, this Vado looks a lot like its predecessor. The<br />
USB arm is still located on the bottom of the camera on a flexible<br />
cord. Directly above the arm is a button that offers quick access to<br />
the camera’s removable lithium ion battery, which gives you about<br />
2 hours and charges when the Vado is connected via USB. On the<br />
left-hand side of the camera is a mini HDMI port, making the Vado<br />
HD the only pocket camcorder with high-quality HD output.<br />
The camcorder’s bright 2-inch LCD remains, but the new<br />
aspect ratio means that HD shooting will bring up black bars<br />
on the top and bottom of the display. Even with a touch less real<br />
estate, the display is a vast improvement over the competition’s.<br />
Images are far clearer and smoother than the original Vado’s. Also,<br />
this device has 8GB of storage—double that of the same-price Flip<br />
Mino HD—letting you store about 2 hours of footage recorded at<br />
the highest quality. Though the Zi6 gets points for its expandable<br />
memory and still-image ability, the Vado HD has pulled ahead.<br />
—Brian Heater<br />
Sony ReAdeR diGitAl BooK (PRS-700)<br />
The Kindle Alternative<br />
The Amazon Kindle may be one of Oprah’s favorite things, but<br />
Sony has been making e-book readers longer, and the sophisticated<br />
design of its latest, the Reader Digital Book (PRS-700), clearly displays<br />
this experience. With a touch-sensitive screen, a faster processor,<br />
and a streamlined interface, the new Sony Reader is a great<br />
way to get your literary fix. Sure it’s expensive, but unlike the hardto-get<br />
Kindle, it’s available without your going on a waiting list.<br />
The 10-ounce device measures approximately 6.9 by 5.1 by 0.5<br />
inches (HWD), about the same size as a trade paperback (albeit<br />
a very short one). The top of the unit houses a power switch, as<br />
well as SD and Memory Stick Pro card slots. The bottom features<br />
volume controls, a headphone jack, and mini USB and AC-in jacks.<br />
Sony has also added side lighting, although these are a bit too dim.<br />
Although the PRS-700 has the same look and feel as the previous<br />
PRS-550 and the PRS-500, Sony has made a number of welcome<br />
enhancements, most notably a 6-inch (diagonal), 800-by-600pixel,<br />
touch-sensitive screen that lets you turn pages by drawing<br />
your finger across the screen.<br />
In testing, I downloaded a novel from the Sony store in 12 seconds,<br />
and I was able to sync it with my Reader in less than a minute.<br />
That’s pretty smooth, but it does require using the included<br />
USB cable. The Amazon Kindle lets you purchase books wirelessly,<br />
thanks to its built-in EV-DO modem—a convenience that the<br />
Sony Reader simply can’t match. Although this device is expensive<br />
and lacks a wireless download feature, it’s a good way to get in the<br />
e-book game—at least until Kindles are back in stock.—Dan Costa<br />
MARCH 2009 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 21
Vizio VP505XVT<br />
$1,499.99 list<br />
l l l l m<br />
Pros Standarddefinition<br />
video<br />
quality is excellent.<br />
Very good<br />
picture contrast.<br />
Good value.<br />
Cons Calibration<br />
required for accurate<br />
HD color.<br />
Click here for more.<br />
22 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION MARCH 2009<br />
first looks CoNsUMEr ElECtroNiCs<br />
VIzIO VP505XVT<br />
Big Plasma, Small Price<br />
As LCDs dominate the HDTV market, plasmas are becoming better values every<br />
day—great news, since no LCD can match a plasma’s wide viewing angles. Case<br />
in point: The affordable 50-inch Vizio VP505XVT plasma features full 1080p<br />
screen resolution and superb standard-definition video processing, all wrapped<br />
in a stylishly modern design. The set’s default color setup isn’t optimized for<br />
accurate HD viewing, but its picture controls can remedy that.<br />
Vizio is best known for affordability; its latest sets, however, don’t sacrifice<br />
style or features for their low sticker prices. For example, you get four HDMI<br />
ports; additional HD-compatible video ports include one component video<br />
input, a VGA, and an RF input. This Vizio plasma also has excellent overscan<br />
controls for every input type and video format, and accurate color reproduction<br />
(though slightly oversaturated primary and secondary colors). It also has a solid<br />
contrast ratio of 1,245:1. And thanks to HQV technology, this plasma upconverts<br />
standard-definition video to the TV’s native 1080p resolution with better clarity<br />
and fewer distracting artifacts than any other plasma we’ve tested.<br />
The VP505XVT’s estimated operating cost is $7.08 per month (356 watts average),<br />
which is in line with other 50-inch plasma screens. If you use the TV’s lessintense<br />
movie picture preset, the cost drops to $5.82 (292W) based on 5 hours of<br />
daily use at 13 cents per kilowatt hour (a San Francisco average).<br />
Despite the set’s being slightly too colorful in output and its not offering<br />
the energy efficiency of an LCD HDTV, its value factor offsets those relatively<br />
minor problems and makes it our newest Editors’ Choice in this category.<br />
—Robert Heron<br />
PORTS INCLUDED<br />
CableCARD 0<br />
Component 1<br />
Composite 1<br />
DVI 0<br />
Ethernet 0<br />
FireWire 0<br />
HDMI 4<br />
RF 1<br />
RS-232C 0<br />
S-Video 1<br />
USB 0<br />
VGA 1
first looks Consumer eleCtroniCs<br />
Quick looks<br />
Visit pcmag.com for the full reviews of these and other consumer electronics products.<br />
RED indicates Editors’ Choice. PROS CONS BOTTOM LINE SPECS<br />
SMARTPHONES<br />
DIGITAL CAMERAS<br />
DIGITAL PHOTO FRAMES<br />
Sony Ericsson<br />
Xperia X1<br />
$799.99 list<br />
l l h m m<br />
LG Incite (AT&T)<br />
$199 (with<br />
two-year service<br />
agreement)<br />
l l l m m<br />
Nikon Coolpix<br />
S60<br />
$349.95 list<br />
l l l m m<br />
Sony VAIO<br />
VGF-CP1<br />
$299 list<br />
l l l l h<br />
PORTABLE MEDIA PLAYERS<br />
HEADPHONES<br />
BLUETOOTH HEADSETS<br />
GPS<br />
MEDIA EXTENDERS<br />
Cowon O2<br />
8GB, $199.99 list;<br />
16GB, $239.99;<br />
32GB, $299.99<br />
l l h m m<br />
Apple In-Ear<br />
Headphones<br />
$79 direct<br />
l l l m m<br />
Altec Lansing<br />
BackBeat<br />
Model 903, $99.99<br />
list; 906, $129.99<br />
L l l h m<br />
Magellan<br />
Maestro 4350<br />
$499.99 list<br />
l l l l m<br />
Western Digital<br />
WD TV HD<br />
Media Player<br />
$129.99 list<br />
l l l m m<br />
• Powerful processor<br />
• New Panel interface is the best<br />
Windows Mobile home-screen<br />
hack so far<br />
• Opera browser<br />
• Sleek design<br />
• Good voice quality<br />
• Solid battery life<br />
• 3G, Wi-Fi, GPS, and Bluetooth<br />
radios<br />
• Sleek and good-looking<br />
• Big, responsive touch screen<br />
• Simple touch gestures make<br />
photo playback a snap<br />
• Elegant design and interface<br />
• Wi-Fi<br />
• Strong Web-connected features<br />
• Opera Web browser<br />
• Excellent file support<br />
• Large display<br />
• Voice recorder<br />
• Comparatively affordable<br />
• Secure fit<br />
• Built-in mic and remote control<br />
• Works with latest-generation<br />
iPod’s Voice Memos feature<br />
• Comfortable fit<br />
• Long battery life<br />
• Music doesn’t sound muddy<br />
• User interface is improved from<br />
the Maestro 4250<br />
• New OneTouch feature<br />
• Six-million-entry POI database<br />
• Can calculate up to three route<br />
profiles simultaneously<br />
• Affordable<br />
• Excellent file support<br />
• Simple, intuitive user interface<br />
• Includes file-conversion<br />
software<br />
• Insanely expensive<br />
• Buggy<br />
• Not a great voice phone<br />
• Sluggish<br />
• Stubborn, dim touch screen<br />
• Poor camera<br />
• Buggy music playback<br />
• No place to stow the stylus—and<br />
you’ll need it<br />
• No hardware zoom control<br />
• Captures fewer resolution lines<br />
than competitors<br />
• No HD video recording<br />
• Flash shots are underexposed<br />
• Poor battery life<br />
• Expensive<br />
• Browser freezes occasionally<br />
• Despite its large size, the player<br />
has no hard drive, only flash<br />
memory<br />
• No Internet access<br />
• Few extra features<br />
• Audio output is decent—but<br />
could be stronger for the price<br />
• Short on bass response<br />
• Music sounds overly bright<br />
• Voice call quality isn’t great,<br />
especially outdoors<br />
• Voice recognition found in previous<br />
models has been removed<br />
• Current speed not displayed in<br />
map view<br />
• No wireless streaming<br />
• Doesn’t include a USB drive<br />
• Unremarkable physical design<br />
The super-luxe Sony Ericsson<br />
Xperia X1 would be a decent<br />
Windows Mobile smartphone<br />
choice if it were half the price.<br />
LG’s first smartphone, the Incite,<br />
is attractive and powerful, but it’s<br />
let down by its obstinate touch<br />
screen, sluggish performance,<br />
and sloppy software design.<br />
Viewing your pictures on this<br />
camera is a blast, thanks to its<br />
iPhone-esque touch screen.<br />
Image quality, however, is lacking,<br />
so the fun of its flashy touch<br />
interface will likely fade quickly.<br />
The VGF-CP1 digital picture<br />
frame is pricey, but its high performance<br />
and extensive feature<br />
set justify the investment.<br />
The O2’s file support is fantastic,<br />
and it is cheaper than its two<br />
main competitors, the iPod touch<br />
and the Archos 5—but it packs far<br />
fewer features into its inexplicably<br />
large frame.<br />
Apple’s In-Ear Headphones<br />
feature extras like a built-in<br />
remote and mic, but they’re a bit<br />
overpriced given the audio quality<br />
you get.<br />
The most comfortable stereo<br />
Bluetooth headset we’ve seen<br />
has a lot going for it, but sound<br />
quality still doesn’t match that of<br />
wired or mono headsets.<br />
The Maestro 4350 includes<br />
features that make it a worthy<br />
upgrade. But bargain hunters<br />
may prefer the older yet still<br />
solid 4250, which you can pick up<br />
online for $200 less.<br />
What the WD TV HD Media Player<br />
does it does well, but that doesn’t<br />
necessarily mean that this is a<br />
useful or desirable device.<br />
Windows Mobile Professional;<br />
GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, HSDPA data<br />
networks; 3.1-inch, 800-by-480<br />
TFT LCD; 3.2MP camera; 4.4<br />
by 2.1 by 0.7 inches (HWD), 5.1<br />
ounces.<br />
Windows Mobile Pocket PC;<br />
GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, HSDPA data<br />
networks; 3-inch, 240-by-400 TFT<br />
LCD; 3MP camera; 4.2 by 2.2 by<br />
0.6 inches (HWD), 4.2 ounces.<br />
10MP resolution; 3.5-inch touchscreen<br />
LCD; accepts SDHC flash<br />
memory; 2.4 by 2.8 by 0.9 inches<br />
(HWD); 5.1 ounces.<br />
7-inch screen; 800-by-400<br />
maximum resolution; accepts<br />
CompactFlash, Memory Stick,<br />
and Secure Digital flash memory;<br />
internal speakers; 6.9 by 5.2 by<br />
1.4 inches (HWD).<br />
16GB flash memory; 4.3-inch<br />
screen; 480-by-272 max resolution;<br />
supports AAC, FLAC, MP3,<br />
OGG, WMA audio formats; photo<br />
and video capability; 2.9 by 4.7 by<br />
0.7 inches (HWD); 7.2 ounces.<br />
In-canal; Bluetooth; passive noise<br />
canceling; 109-dB SPL per 1 mW<br />
sensitivity; 23-ohm impedance;<br />
0.4 ounce.<br />
Play/Pause, Volume, Fast Forward,<br />
Rewind, and Call Answer<br />
buttons.<br />
6-million-entry POI database;<br />
real-time traffic; 3D view; supports<br />
MP3 playback; supports SD<br />
and MMC flash memory; 4.3-inch<br />
touch-screen display; 3.3 by 4.9<br />
by 0.7 inches (HWD); 7.2 ounces.<br />
Remote control; RCA stereo<br />
audio, composite video, HDMI,<br />
and USB inputs; supports AVI,<br />
H.264, MKV, MOV, MPEG-1/2/4,<br />
and WMV 9 formats; 1.6 by 4.9 by<br />
3.9 inches (HWD); 10.72 ounces.<br />
MARCH 2009 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 23
So now we hear that The New York Times<br />
is contemplating the notion of becoming<br />
a subscription-based Web site, where you<br />
only get to read it if you pay real money.<br />
What a quaint idea.<br />
Let me put it bluntly: This won’t work.<br />
It will completely sink the publication<br />
faster than it’s already sinking.<br />
The problem with the subscription<br />
model for today’s big newspapers is the<br />
fact that there is very little exclusive information<br />
of any real value. The New York<br />
Times syndicates much of its content<br />
to other papers, so there are alternative<br />
sources—not subscription-based—with<br />
the same information. Why buy a cow<br />
when milk is free?<br />
Starting back in the early seventies,<br />
most of the big newspapers around the<br />
country were lulled into a sense of security<br />
and easy money by eschewing in-house<br />
reporting in exchange for syndicated news<br />
from the likes of the Associated Press, The<br />
New York Times, The Washington Post, the<br />
Los Angeles Times, and Reuters.<br />
Over time syndicated stories began to<br />
dominate the newspapers in major cities<br />
all over the country. This got so bad that<br />
you’d find a local story, for example, in a<br />
San Francisco paper covered by The New<br />
York Times. It was just cheaper to do that,<br />
so they did.<br />
This began to undermine the local<br />
papers; readers kept seeing all these New<br />
York Times stories and soon traded their<br />
local paper subscription for their regional<br />
edition of the Times. This marked a decline<br />
of interest in the local products. Then<br />
came the Internet.<br />
john c. dvorak<br />
Newspapers Still Befuddled<br />
For too long newspapers have taken on the role of<br />
cultural arbiter and distribution channel for popular<br />
culture ideas. That is all over and can never return.<br />
24 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION MARCH 2009<br />
The Internet added comparison shopping<br />
to the mix. Want a story about the<br />
baby stuck down in the well? How about<br />
3,000 stories about the baby in the well?<br />
Pretty soon the public began to notice<br />
that 2,975 of those 3,000 stories about the<br />
baby in the well were the exact same story,<br />
with the other 25 being rewrites of the<br />
exact same story. Then came the revelation.<br />
“Hey, these newspapers are all doing<br />
the exact same thing! Why do we need so<br />
many of them?”<br />
In hindsight, USA Today had the right<br />
idea. National newspapers do seem like the<br />
best idea, but that trend and the Internet<br />
cannot seem to line up correctly, and the<br />
Internet is becoming the national paper.<br />
Like most writers who have worked at<br />
newspapers, I have mixed feelings regarding<br />
their future as instruments of communication<br />
for something vaguely referred to<br />
as “news.” I’d advise people to take a good<br />
look at newspapers before 1850 and compare<br />
them with what we have today.<br />
Early newspapers consisted of local<br />
stories, summaries of events, and listings<br />
of items such as ship departures and other<br />
notices. There were no recipes, feature<br />
stories about dogs, or full-page advertisements<br />
for movies.<br />
Then somewhere along the way, newspapers<br />
became more entertaining than<br />
informative. The writing was often flowery<br />
and dramatic. Columns written by personalities<br />
joked around about the events of the<br />
day. There were cartoons and horoscopes.<br />
If I wanted to know what ships were coming<br />
in and out of port carrying a shipment<br />
of Honda cars, where would I find it? Some<br />
papers carry notices like this in the financial<br />
pages, but most do not.<br />
And, as an aside, what is dumber than<br />
the stock quote listings in the newspaper?<br />
You can type a ticker symbol into Google<br />
and get a real-time quote with all sorts of<br />
other information. How do you compete<br />
with that? Individual sites and technologies<br />
simply do certain things better than<br />
old-fashioned newspapers can.<br />
So should the newspaper go the way of<br />
the buggy whip? No, it just needs to return<br />
to its roots, and focus on providing densely<br />
edited and directed information of importance<br />
as decided by a trustworthy source.<br />
And it should leave the fluff to the Internet.<br />
For too long newspapers have taken on<br />
the role of cultural arbiter and distribution<br />
channel for popular culture ideas. That is<br />
all over and can never return.<br />
That said, nobody has nailed the new<br />
model for the old newspaper. These publishers<br />
are out-and-out idiots. They see<br />
something online and immediately try to<br />
do the same thing in print. “We want color<br />
ink and more stories about celebrities!”<br />
I was doing research at the University of<br />
California Newspaper Library, which has a<br />
tremendous collection of microfilmed old<br />
newspapers from every era. If you want to<br />
see the heyday of the newspaper business<br />
and quickly see what would work today,<br />
look at a 1954 edition of The San Francisco<br />
Examiner. It’s so dense with news stories<br />
that today’s papers look as if there’s nothing<br />
in them. It is extremely compelling.<br />
The point is that there are good ideas<br />
already out there, and they just need to<br />
be rediscovered. But for now the panicstricken<br />
bosses seem to be heading down<br />
the same abyss in the same direction. It’s<br />
the direction that created the abyss in the<br />
first place.<br />
Dvorak Live on the Web John’s<br />
Internet TV show airs every Wednesday<br />
at 3:30 ET on CrankyGeeks.com. You can<br />
download back episodes whenever you like.
Inside<br />
This should be the last year of the economic downturn,<br />
which has resulted in nothing good for the computer user<br />
except for machines that are cheaper than ever, lots of free<br />
programs, and the blossoming of a new platform: the smartphone<br />
computer.<br />
So I got my G-phone, G1, Android, whatever you want to<br />
call it. And I have to say that it has a few flaws here and there,<br />
but nothing that is a deal killer. And one of the cooler features<br />
is that it can actually read bar codes and call up a central location,<br />
and, bingo, you now can look up prices or details for an<br />
item on the fly. A friend of mine used this feature at a wedding;<br />
he determined the prices of all the gifts. Pretty funny.<br />
These phones are still a little weak for word processing<br />
and full docking capability. By that I mean<br />
the phone should be dockable, but not into<br />
another computer—into a simple dock that<br />
attaches a keyboard and screen. The smartphone<br />
should have enough power to run<br />
the software it has as full-blown application<br />
software. Combined with some nifty cloud<br />
applications and remote storage, these<br />
phones should give people enough to get by.<br />
In fact, the newer processor chips coming<br />
out for the smartphone will deliver a lot of<br />
computing power.<br />
The smartphone computer also needs<br />
a good PowerPoint-type program and the<br />
ability to drive a digital projector. While<br />
there is some chatter about pico projectors being built into<br />
smartphones, this is just a cute gimmick. What you want is an<br />
XGA or better I/O to drive a projector, even if you have to plug<br />
the phone into a wall to keep the batteries from draining.<br />
The Android phone and the iPhone should be the two final<br />
winners in the game. While I’ve never been a strong believer<br />
in the notion that most of the Internet action is going to be<br />
done on mobile devices like this, it is obvious that a lot of<br />
Internet activity will be done on these things.<br />
More and more people pull out these devices in normally<br />
circumspect places like restaurants and surf the Net together<br />
in search of some factoid about something or other.<br />
Genuinely Interesting Hardware Dept.: CES was a bit disappointing<br />
for many showgoers this year, mainly because there<br />
was a downbeat note to the event. And a lot of excellent products<br />
were completely overlooked, as usual. The most impressive<br />
idea I saw at the show (and what should have won Best<br />
of Show) are some children’s earbuds and headphones from a<br />
company called iHearSafe. Details are found at iHearSafe.com.<br />
These are devices that will not allow a child, or an adult for that<br />
matter, to generate more than 85 dB from the headphones.<br />
Anything above that and you risk long-term hearing damage.<br />
Someday the earbud and the iPod are going to be recognized<br />
for creating a generation of deaf people. The class-<br />
action suits will be flying. Do not let this happen to your<br />
children—or you. These headsets cost only $19.95! And they<br />
come in cool colors and iPod white, so there is none of the teen<br />
humiliation you’d get from, heaven forbid, black earbuds.<br />
Whither the OLPC? The fabled $100 laptop that never<br />
was $100 from the OLPC team has got be to be hit hard by the<br />
announcement by Tata of India of a $20 laptop. First of all,<br />
the $100 laptop never got below $150 from what I can tell. And<br />
it had to compete with an Intel design that was adopted all<br />
over the world.<br />
I was in Portugal recently, where I played with a statesponsored<br />
version of the Intel machine sold to students there.<br />
I found it to be quite usable and very rugged.<br />
On top of all this are the netbooks coming<br />
out with a lot of power for prices around<br />
$250. Now this $20 clunker. I’m told the displays<br />
are now costing a buck or two. Memory<br />
is dirt cheap, and small hard drives are being<br />
sold as surplus. So I suppose $20 is possible.<br />
I’m now waiting for the $1.99 laptop.<br />
Everything Is a Fractal Dept.: Do we<br />
have to endure yet another Microsoft Windows<br />
campaign? Personally, I’m tired of it.<br />
It follows the exact same pattern time after<br />
time. Let’s deconstruct the entire process:<br />
Microsoft preannounces a new version<br />
of Windows and gives it some weird name<br />
that initiates discussion as people try to decipher<br />
its deeper meaning or what it references. Chicago, Longhorn,<br />
Blackcomb, 7. The specification is revealed, with the goal<br />
being to “fix the problems with . . . the previous version.”<br />
Beta code always leaks out, and people get a good look.<br />
A buzz ensues. Microsoft decides to ship the beta and let the<br />
public chime in, so the company opens the servers and lets<br />
everyone play with it. The product has no legacy hooks or real<br />
security, so it just rocks on a computer and people comment<br />
on how much better it is. The word is that it’s a winner.<br />
Naysayers and critics are shouted down.<br />
There are then a series of mixed messages regarding the<br />
ship date. The company claims it will be early, but it’s late.<br />
The release comes, and people are shown on the local<br />
news lined up at some store camping out overnight to buy<br />
the thing. The final product, it turns out, gets crammed with<br />
security fixes, stability code and built-in drivers, and soon<br />
becomes as slow as the products that came before. Critical<br />
reviews appear, and the complaining begins. The company<br />
then reports it’s working on the next “better than ever, made<br />
from scratch” OS, which will go through the same process.<br />
WanT mOrE DvOrak? John writes a weekly column for our Web<br />
site, too. Log on to go.pcmag.com/dvorak. You can also e-mail<br />
him at john_dvorak@pcmag.com.<br />
MARCH 2009 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 25
Sometimes you’ve just got to give people<br />
a hard deadline—it’s the only way to get<br />
things done. The Senate-approved delay<br />
in the transition from analog to digital television<br />
(DTV), from February 17 to June 12,<br />
won’t help the few people who still haven’t<br />
gotten the DTV transition memo, and it’ll<br />
hurt the much larger population of people<br />
who could benefit from new wireless technologies.<br />
Obama ran on the change platform.<br />
That change should start now.<br />
Let’s start with some numbers: The<br />
DTV transition has been publicized for<br />
two years now. Only 5.7 percent of Americans<br />
aren’t ready, according to Nielsen, and<br />
almost every one of them could become<br />
DTV-compliant in about 45 minutes with a<br />
trip to Radio Shack or Best Buy. Yes, 5.1 percent<br />
of the country is holding up the other<br />
94.3 percent. The DTV-unready customer<br />
isn’t a frail, helpless elderly person, the<br />
Nielsen survey says. Under-35s are much<br />
more likely than over-55s to lack converter<br />
boxes or new TVs.<br />
The problem and solution are both<br />
pretty simple. The problem: Your TV is<br />
more than two years old, and you don’t<br />
have cable or satellite. The solution: A<br />
$45 converter box available online or at<br />
your local electronics store. There, done.<br />
Nobody needs to buy a new TV, though we<br />
got reviews of some under-$500 choices<br />
for you if you want one. As for the whole<br />
hysteria about needing new antennas,<br />
wait a little while. Some channels now<br />
broadcasting weakly will ramp up their<br />
signals after the transition, and some channels<br />
broadcasting on UHF will switch to<br />
VHF, which covers long distances better.<br />
26 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION MARCH 2009<br />
SASCHA SEGAN<br />
Don’t Delay the DTV Transition<br />
According to an April 2008 government<br />
report, 32 percent of digital channels are<br />
waiting until the transition to deliver full<br />
broadcast strength.<br />
Many grumpy people are outraged that<br />
they may have to buy a converter box. But<br />
this is the first major TV transition we’ve<br />
had in 50 years. That’s a long time for a<br />
technology to remain static. For the common<br />
good, TV stations should clear off<br />
some of the radio spectrum so other people<br />
can do more stuff with it. Five percent of<br />
the population shouldn’t hold that up.<br />
Switching to over-the-air digital TV is<br />
actually pretty awesome. I got rid of my<br />
cable TV and went to over-the-air digital<br />
TV stations should clear off some of the radio spectrum<br />
so other people can do more stuff with it. Five<br />
percent of the population shouldn’t hold that up.<br />
recently, supplemented by an AppleTV<br />
with Boxee for cable-TV content. I get<br />
many more channels than I did before digital,<br />
including five PBS channels instead of<br />
one. Some of them are even in high definition,<br />
for free. I think over-the-air digital<br />
TV is terrific.<br />
Complainers also don’t seem to understand<br />
why we’re doing this in the first place.<br />
For a while now, TV stations have been<br />
allowed to squat on two channels instead<br />
of one. When the transition occurs, they’ll<br />
have to give up one of their two channels,<br />
and most of that spectrum will go to new<br />
wireless networks. Some of it will go to TV<br />
for cell phones. Some of it will go to Internet<br />
connections. Some of it will go to public<br />
safety uses. Even if you’re not going to<br />
use that stuff, you have to agree that it’s a<br />
better use of the space than broadcasting<br />
the same thing twice to the same people.<br />
And it will serve much more than 5.7 percent<br />
of the population.<br />
Of course, some of those 5.7 percent<br />
just don’t understand what’s going on.<br />
The government has botched the education<br />
campaign around DTV and screwed<br />
up the associated converter-box coupon<br />
program. The coupons were confusing to<br />
order, expired too soon, and the program<br />
ran out of money. This is irritating, and the<br />
government should allocate more money<br />
for coupons immediately. I’ve also heard<br />
insanities like “DTV requires a special<br />
antenna” (wrong), “DTV will require you<br />
to get digital cable” (wrong), and “DTV is<br />
HDTV” (wrong). But three months more<br />
will not give us any magical explanations<br />
we didn’t have for the past two years.<br />
Implementing a much better idea, the<br />
FCC is taking a positive step by ordering<br />
stations to turn on “analog nightlights”<br />
throughout the country. This order<br />
requires some analog stations to stay on,<br />
broadcasting a fixed message about how<br />
to get a converter box. The FCC should<br />
extend the order by demanding at least one<br />
nightlight in each TV market. Broadcasters<br />
are complaining about the cost of keeping<br />
those nightlights on, but delaying the transition<br />
will cost even more.<br />
More delays will not help this problem.<br />
More bureaucracy, more confusing<br />
coupons, and more misleading ads from<br />
cable companies will not help this problem.<br />
Only one thing will help this problem:<br />
America must convert. A small percentage<br />
of people can’t get a TV signal. They<br />
go to their local electronics store. They get<br />
boxes. Problem solved.<br />
As long as there are deadlines, there<br />
will be procrastinators. My college roommate<br />
usually wrote his papers in marathon<br />
stretches leading up to the very last minute<br />
they were due. (He also always got A’s.) If<br />
you extend the deadline, procrastinators<br />
will just procrastinate further.<br />
STAY PHONE-SMART Keep up with the<br />
latest on smartphones by reading Sascha’s<br />
column at go.pcmag.com/segan.
For the tech sector, just like the rest of the<br />
economy, 2009 is simply going to suck.<br />
Nonetheless, there are still pioneers to<br />
be found. The interesting thing is that it<br />
seems as though the old-school firms—<br />
often thought to be past their prime, or<br />
even headed toward demise—are the ones<br />
doing the innovating.<br />
• Palm’s CEs slEight of hand<br />
Undoubtedly the hottest product at CES<br />
was Palm’s Pre, an innovative and elegant<br />
smartphone that takes the best features of<br />
the iPhone and then adds a full, hardware<br />
QWERTY keyboard and a radical new<br />
operating system. “Hmmm,” you might<br />
say, “Didn’t you previously write a column<br />
saying that no matter what the company<br />
announced, Palm was just a few screen<br />
taps away from death?” Yeah, well, turns<br />
out I was dead wrong. Sorry about that.<br />
The Palm Pre and the sophistication of<br />
the Nova OS surprised just about everyone.<br />
I played with the Pre at the show, and the<br />
form factor and interface are fantastic. Of<br />
course, we need to put the handset through<br />
its paces at PCMag Labs to see just how<br />
wonderful this brand-new, Linux-based<br />
operating system really is. Palm has a long<br />
history of building relationships with thirdparty<br />
developers. Look for Palm to be a<br />
serious player in the mobile space again.<br />
• dEll’s grand dEsigns Now 25<br />
years old, Dell, in many ways, is the quintessential<br />
PC company. Its initial successes<br />
were founded on its unique, direct, buildto-order<br />
model that earned the company<br />
profits by simply being more efficient than<br />
the competition. Over time, though, those<br />
returns diminished, and cost-cutting even-<br />
DAN COSTA<br />
Five Tech Companies to Watch<br />
tually led to sacrifices in customer service<br />
and build quality. Today, the company has<br />
solid footholds in the consumer, business,<br />
and gaming PC space but also has a reputation<br />
for being a bit dull. That will change<br />
in 2009 as the company shifts its focus<br />
toward design and personalization.<br />
Dell has partnered with hundreds of<br />
artists and is allowing its customers to<br />
customize the look of many of its laptop<br />
and netbook lines. Dell is also letting<br />
users make a statement on the high end<br />
with Adamo, a slick, ultrathin, 4-pound,<br />
brushed-aluminum laptop that any wellheeled<br />
CEO would want to carry into a<br />
board meeting.<br />
Through innovation—and more than a little opportunism—these<br />
old-school companies are doing well<br />
despite the economic crisis.<br />
• miCrosoft’s luCky 7 Whatever the<br />
strengths and weaknesses of Vista may be,<br />
it’s pretty clear that Microsoft has lost this<br />
round of the OS wars. Microsoft has made<br />
the beta of Windows 7 available online, and<br />
the company seems intent on shipping the<br />
final version by the end of the year.<br />
Windows 7 isn’t going to blow anyone<br />
away with stunning innovation, but so far,<br />
it has a few cool new features and that “just<br />
works” appeal. One of the more interesting<br />
additions is Digital Living Network Alliance<br />
(DLNA) compliance, which essentially<br />
allows you to play a media file on any<br />
device in your house (including gaming<br />
consoles, HDTVs, and more) with the click<br />
of a button. While consumer electronics<br />
companies are scrambling to figure out<br />
seamless digital living solutions, Microsoft<br />
has one that’s already working.<br />
• amazon’s hEad is in thE Cloud<br />
Most people know Amazon as the most<br />
successful online retailer around. But it<br />
has a secondary gig as a high-end business<br />
services company, leasing out server time<br />
through its Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)<br />
for more than a year. Now its Web services<br />
business includes everything from<br />
technical support, on-demand workforce<br />
management, and payroll services.<br />
Amazon is striving to provide the<br />
universal back end for just about any<br />
e-commerce business, whether it involves<br />
shipping books via postal mail or streaming<br />
Internet videos. This is the kind of diversification<br />
that will help Amazon weather 2009,<br />
and possibly even thrive in it.<br />
• ComPusa livEs! If you want to see<br />
the future of electronics retailing, take a<br />
drive down to CompUSA’s Dadeland, Florida,<br />
location. Yes, the company declared<br />
bankruptcy at the end of 2007, but in early<br />
2008 it was snapped up by Systemax, the<br />
parent company of TigerDirect. This has<br />
given the venerable retailer not only a new<br />
lease on life but an entirely new way to sell<br />
electronics, dubbed “Retail 2.0,” by Gilbert<br />
J. Fiorentino, chief executive of the technology<br />
products group at Systemax and<br />
CompUSA stores.<br />
“Walk into any retail store and you’ll see<br />
a bunch of displays with the same movie<br />
playing or the Windows start-up screen—<br />
it’s a waste,” Fiorentino says. “Those<br />
screens can be used to sell.” You still have<br />
a retail space with a commission-based<br />
salesperson there to guide you through the<br />
process. But instead of a tiny paper card<br />
on the shelf with little product information,<br />
the system’s display shows the product<br />
page on the CompUSA Web site, with<br />
every spec. Bringing Internet connections<br />
to the retail shelf will also help with support.<br />
CompUSA’s renewal is indicative of<br />
the others discussed here. Through innovation—and<br />
more than a little opportunism—these<br />
old-school companies are<br />
doing well despite the economic crisis.<br />
talk baCk to dan E-mail your thoughts<br />
to dan_costa@ziffdavis.com.<br />
MARCH 2009 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 27
App LAunCHeRs • 28 l Audio/MusiC • 28 l BACkup • 29 l BLogging • 29 l BRowseRs • 30<br />
CALendAR/piMs • 30 l CoMMuniCAtion/e-MAiL • 31 l ConfeRenCing • 31 l fiLe tRAnsfeR/downLoAd • 32<br />
fiLe VieweRs/ConVeRteRs • 32 l finAnCe • 32 l fun/HoMe • 32 l gRApHiCs • 33 l iMs • 34<br />
inteRfACe enHAnCeRs • 34 l LoCAL seARCH • 35 l offiCe • 35 l opeRAting systeMs • 36<br />
netwoRking • 36 l Rss ReAdeRs • 37 l synCHRonizAtion • 37 l Video • 37<br />
The<br />
BestFree<br />
software<br />
The best things in life often are free. Here, a list of 173 of them—free software for<br />
launching apps, networking, backup, entertainment, and more. By Eric Griffith<br />
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Why<br />
pay? You’ve already shelled out money<br />
for a computer, so there’s no reason that<br />
what’s running on that pricey PC should<br />
cost a darn thing. Not in this day and age<br />
of amazing freebie software and Web apps.<br />
That’s why every year PCMag presents a<br />
look at the best programs you can download<br />
or access online at no cost. All are<br />
worthy replacements for your ancient and<br />
sometimes forgotten desktop applications,<br />
and they’ll save you thousands of dollars to<br />
boot.<br />
We’ve organized our list of 173 favorites<br />
by categories for easy searching, and<br />
also note the best of the best as our Hall of<br />
Fame winners—just look for the icon next<br />
to names like Audacity and Thunderbird.<br />
Of course, it’s impossible for us to find<br />
all of the free apps, much less try them all<br />
out. Did we miss one that you can’t live<br />
without? Share your favorites at a special<br />
posting site on our AppScout blog, Your<br />
Favorite Free Software.<br />
28 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION MARCH 2009<br />
App LAunchers<br />
circle Dock circledock.wikidot.com<br />
Windows Who says a dock has to actually<br />
dock? To the side of the screen, that is.<br />
Circle Dock brings up a spiraling launcher<br />
interface with all the icons you want to click.<br />
Rotate it with the wheel on your mouse and<br />
change the skin to suit your desktop.<br />
ObjectDock www.stardock.com<br />
Windows Replace the Windows Taskbar<br />
and Quick Launch toolbar with this Maclike<br />
animated toolbar of icons for all your<br />
programs. It comes with a few “docklets”<br />
for displaying info like the time, weather,<br />
and a Web search form.<br />
Launchy www.launchy.net<br />
Windows | Linux “Keystroke launcher” is a<br />
fancy way of saying “command line,” but<br />
if you like to type rather than click for control—a<br />
practice that goes well beyond app<br />
launching—Launchy is the best choice<br />
available.<br />
Quicksilver www.blacktree.com<br />
Mac Os Quicksilver does more from the keyboard<br />
than just launch programs. It can act<br />
on any item you can find or drag on your<br />
Mac. Plug-ins add even more functions.<br />
AuDiO/Music<br />
★ HALL OF FAME ★<br />
Audacity audacity.sourceforge.net FAME<br />
Windows | Mac Os | Linux On a par with any<br />
commercial audio editor, Audacity is the<br />
free sound editor of choice. The latest beta<br />
(1.3.6) even supports MPEG-4, Dolby Digital,<br />
and Windows Media.<br />
Banshee banshee-project.org<br />
Linux iTunes is riffed upon again, this time<br />
in a Linux-only option that supports audio<br />
and video, Android phones, and older iPods<br />
(but not iPhones or iPod touch . . . for now).
ephpod www.ephpod.com<br />
Windows It does whatever iTunes does in<br />
Windows—syncing, playlists, iPod firmware<br />
updates, and more, including moving<br />
music from an iPod to your new PC.<br />
foobar2000 www.foobar2000.org<br />
Windows Basic playback of just about any<br />
audio you can imagine is foobar2000’s<br />
calling card, complete with an iTunes-like<br />
interface.<br />
imeem (formerly Anywhere.FM)<br />
www.imeem.com<br />
Web If iTunes were entirely in the cloud, it<br />
would be pretty close to imeem (formerly<br />
Anywhere.FM). Upload your music collection<br />
and videos to stream from any device.<br />
Digital photos, too. You can share them<br />
with friends you make on the service.<br />
★ HALL OF FAME ★<br />
iTunes www.apple.com/itunes<br />
Windows | Mac Os Do we have to explain<br />
iTunes as the (so far) ultimate media player<br />
coupled with online store, and the primary<br />
way to get media on an iPod or iPhone? Or<br />
say that it plays most files—from music to<br />
video to games to podcasts—save (unsurprisingly)<br />
Windows Media formats? Probably<br />
not.<br />
Mojo www.deusty.com<br />
Windows | Mac Os When you and some<br />
friends install Mojo, you’re ready for a<br />
unique sharing experience. Browsing<br />
and downloading MP3s from each other’s<br />
iTunes music libraries is suddenly a very<br />
easy proposition. If it’s a DRM file from<br />
the iTunes store, Mojo highlights it in red<br />
so you won’t be bothered trying.<br />
screamer radio www.screamer-radio.com<br />
Windows You can download an app or run<br />
it from the Web, but either way, Screamer<br />
Radio accesses and lets you record Internet<br />
radio in a number of streaming audio<br />
formats (Shoutcast, Icecast, Ogg Vorbis,<br />
WMA, and AAC).<br />
Wavepad sound editor<br />
www.nch.com.au/wavepad<br />
Windows | Mac Os | Linux WavePad puts all the<br />
usual bells and whistles of audio editing<br />
and effects at your fingertips.<br />
★ HALL OF FAME ★<br />
Winamp www.winamp.com<br />
Windows Still a primo MP3 player, Winamp<br />
AuDiO/Music<br />
songbird www.getsongbird.com<br />
Windows | Mac Os | Linux Mozilla’s knockoff of iTunes is free, is open-source, and supports<br />
just about every kind of music file you can imagine. You can even download<br />
MP3s that are embedded on Web sites to your permanent collection. Extensions<br />
add support for iPods and Web services.<br />
is customizable (it heralded the age of<br />
“skins” on software) and also comes in<br />
multiple versions, including one that<br />
works with CDs.<br />
BAckup<br />
Driveimage XML www.runtime.org<br />
Windows Make a replica—an image—of<br />
your entire hard drive for easy backup and<br />
restore later.<br />
MozBackup mozbackup.jasnapaka.com<br />
Windows If you’re a big user of Mozilla<br />
products—including Firefox, Thunderbird,<br />
and SeaMonkey, as well as Flock and<br />
Netscape—use MozBackup to store your<br />
hard-earned settings and data like bookmarks<br />
and e-mail messages.<br />
Mozyhome Free www.mozy.com<br />
Windows | Mac Os Don’t even think about<br />
backing up: MozyHome will do it for you, in<br />
the background, for up to 2GB of data (you<br />
can pay to get unlimited space). Perfect for<br />
office docs, but you’ll want to pay for more<br />
storage to back up pictures, music, or videos.<br />
Soon it will sync between PCs, too.<br />
spiderOak www.spideroak.com<br />
Windows | Mac Os | Linux It’s another 2GB of<br />
free online storage that backs up in the<br />
background, but SpiderOak goes Mozy<br />
one better by supporting Linux.<br />
syncToy v2.0<br />
www.microsoft.com/downloads<br />
Windows This so-called PowerToy from<br />
Microsoft has the power to make sure that<br />
the folders across your multiple drives or<br />
even your home network stay fully synchronized.<br />
syncBack Freeware<br />
www.2brightsparks.com/freeware<br />
Windows Set all the parameters and Sync-<br />
Back will handle synchronization or<br />
backup between folders, FTP sites, or ZIP<br />
archives.<br />
BLOgging<br />
scribeFire www.scribefire.com<br />
Windows | Mac Os | Linux This add-on for<br />
Firefox is a perfect tool for posting entries<br />
to just about any blogging software or service<br />
in existence.<br />
TweetDeck www.tweetdeck.com<br />
Windows | Mac Os | Linux Don’t restrict Twitter<br />
to just a column when this Adobe Air–<br />
based software can spread itself across<br />
your desktop with multiple columns. Each<br />
column can contain replies, direct mes-<br />
MARCH 2009 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 29
sages, or whatever you specify. As with<br />
any tweet tool, the columns auto-update<br />
as new tweets arrive. And TweetDeck<br />
stores all tweets that arrive while the app<br />
is running so you don’t miss anything<br />
overnight.<br />
Twitteriffic<br />
www.iconfactory.com/software/twitterrific<br />
Mac Os| Mobile A small desktop footprint is<br />
the hallmark of this reverse-type Twitter<br />
app, which is great for reading and posting<br />
to the popular microblogging service.<br />
All the features you expect, and more, are<br />
there—even in the free version, which<br />
includes advertisements.<br />
Zoundry raven www.zoundryraven.com<br />
Windows Finally, standalone software that<br />
gives Windows Live Writer some serious<br />
competition for the pro bloggers. It handles<br />
full WYSIWYG editing on multiple<br />
blogs and can run portably from a USB<br />
flash drive to use with any Windows PC.<br />
twhirl www.twhirl.org<br />
Windows | Mac Os A desktop interface for<br />
Twitter, twhirl requires Adobe AIR to run<br />
but makes it infinitely easier to keep up<br />
with tweets and/or twits.<br />
ustream.tv www.ustream.tv<br />
Web Still the best way to broadcast yourself,<br />
live, across the Web. All you need is<br />
the webcam.<br />
Wordpress.com www.wordpress.com<br />
Web You could install WordPress on your<br />
servers, or go right to this commercial,<br />
hosted site and set up a professional-looking<br />
blog in no time.<br />
For our full review, click here.<br />
Windows Live Writer<br />
get.live.com/writer/overview<br />
Windows This desktop software for blog<br />
posting is a favorite with the pros who<br />
want a WYSIWYG editor that also posts<br />
photos, maps, and other content.<br />
BrOWsers<br />
camino caminobrowser.org<br />
Mac Os We know; you love Firefox but just<br />
wish it was a little more . . . Mac-ish. Camino<br />
solves that issue, offering “Mozilla power,<br />
Mac style.” It has full support of Mac OS’s<br />
Keychain, AppleScript, and all the typical<br />
Firefox goodies.<br />
30 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION MARCH 2009<br />
Flock 2 www.flock.com<br />
Windows | Mac Os | Linux Flock 2 stresses the<br />
social along with surfing, integrating features<br />
like RSS reading and Twitter and<br />
media access right into the browser. Since<br />
it’s based on Firefox, it can also use many<br />
of the same extensions.<br />
For our full review, click here.<br />
★ HALL OF FAME ★<br />
Firefox www.mozilla.com<br />
Windows | Mac Os | Linux | Mobile Can’t wait for<br />
the free update to IE 8, which promises<br />
an enhanced address bar and upgraded<br />
privacy protections? In the meantime use<br />
our favorite browser. Firefox is beholden<br />
to no one and extensible to the nth degree.<br />
Upcoming versions will offer far more<br />
security and superfast JavaScript to make<br />
the browsing experience even better.<br />
For our full review, click here.<br />
Foxreplace<br />
code.google.com/p/foxreplace<br />
Windows | Mac Os | Linux If you work in a lot<br />
of Web forms or Web apps like Google<br />
Docs, this Firefox add-on is a must-have. It<br />
can search and replace text in Web pages<br />
quickly and easily.<br />
google chrome<br />
www.google.com/chrome<br />
Windows Everyone pays attention to what<br />
Google does, so when the company made<br />
a Web browser, the world noticed. And<br />
for good reason: This streamlined, fast,<br />
secure software has true potential in the<br />
browser wars.<br />
For our full review, click here.<br />
★ HALL OF FAME ★<br />
internet explorer 8 Beta www.microsoft<br />
.com/windows/internet-explorer<br />
Windows This is a freebie you’re probably<br />
already using in some form, as IE is the<br />
most-used Web browser in the world. The<br />
latest beta adds fantastic (if overdue) features<br />
such as a stealth mode, better performance,<br />
and the ability to subscribe to “Web<br />
slices” that are just parts of a full Web page.<br />
Opera www.opera.com<br />
Windows | Mac Os | Linux | Mobile Opera can<br />
claim many “firsts”—tabs, speed dial, and<br />
more—and some say it’s the best. At the<br />
least, it’s a fast browser with a presence<br />
available on just about any device in your<br />
digital arsenal.<br />
For our full review, click here.<br />
OperaTor<br />
archetwist.com/en/opera/operator<br />
Windows Combine the portable version of<br />
Opera with the anonymizing service Tor<br />
(The Onion Router) and you get OperaTor,<br />
a bundle (including Polipo as a proxy) that<br />
keeps your surfing secret.<br />
safari www.apple.com/safari<br />
Windows | Mac Os Fast page load times are a<br />
hallmark of this browser, the default for<br />
Mac installations and also available for<br />
Windows. Safari offered private browsing<br />
before it was cool.<br />
For our full review, click here.<br />
cALenDAr/piMs<br />
30 Boxes www.30boxes.com<br />
Web An online calendar that actually looks<br />
like a calendar. The buddies feature makes<br />
sharing schedules and to-dos a breeze.<br />
calgoo calendar<br />
www.calgoo.com/calendar<br />
Windows | Mac Os | Linux Think of Calgoo as<br />
one calendar app to rule them all: The software<br />
provides desktop access to Google<br />
Calendar and 30 Boxes, and syncs data<br />
with Outlook and Apple iCal.<br />
Doomi doominow.com<br />
Windows This simple to-do list app requires<br />
Adobe Air to run, and floats on your screen<br />
or rests in the system tray—the very model<br />
of an unobtrusive application. Future plans<br />
include syncing with an online to-do list.<br />
google calendar<br />
www.google.com/calendar<br />
Web | Mobile With multiple views, simple<br />
sharing, and seamless integration with<br />
other Google products, Google’s calendar,<br />
like most of its Web apps, stands a notch<br />
above the rest.<br />
For our full review, click here.<br />
Lightning<br />
www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/lightning<br />
Windows | Mac Os | Linux | solaris | Os2 Mozilla’s<br />
calendar add-on for Thunderbird gives the<br />
e-mail client all it needs to take on all the<br />
features of Microsoft Outlook.<br />
chandler chandlerproject.org<br />
Windows | Mac Os | Linux An open-source, sharable<br />
desktop to-do master, Chandler looks<br />
vaguely Outlook-esque, but it doesn’t<br />
worry about communications—just tasks
for those embracing the “getting things<br />
done” lifestyle.<br />
remember The Milk<br />
www.rememberthemilk.com<br />
Web | Mobile This power to-do list site gives<br />
you many ways to get reminders (e-mail,<br />
SMS, IM) and even more ways to create<br />
them, from Google widgets to phone calls<br />
to IM bots.<br />
remember The Task<br />
www.jashsayani.com/my-softwares<br />
Windows | Mac Os | Linux This Adobe Air–based<br />
app puts a small window on your desktop<br />
with one fantastic purpose: full-time access<br />
to your Remember The Milk task list.<br />
TaskFive www.taskfive.com<br />
Web Just five tasks a day? Take it as a challenge,<br />
not a limitation. TaskFive sports an<br />
elegant calendar interface, and you can<br />
enter tasks via Web, e-mail, or text message.<br />
Team to-dos will cost you, however.<br />
Yahoo calendar calendar.yahoo.com<br />
Web An old-timer compared with many,<br />
Yahoo Calendar doesn’t innovate a lot but<br />
provides solid features, shareable calendars,<br />
and synchronization with Outlook.<br />
cOMMunicATiOn/e-MAiL<br />
Affixa www.affixa.com<br />
Windows Usually, with webmail, you have<br />
to put attachments on a message after the<br />
fact. Affixa does it automatically when you<br />
select a file, or from within other apps like<br />
MS Word. Building on its predecessors,<br />
gAttach and yAttach, Affixa works with<br />
both Gmail and Yahoo Mail.<br />
eM client www.emclient.com<br />
Windows Anyone familiar with Outlook<br />
or Thunderbird can master the basics of<br />
using eM Client freeware in no time. It<br />
already syncs with Google Calendar, and<br />
future developments will integrate social<br />
networks and IMs with your e-mail.<br />
gmail www.gmail.com<br />
Web | Mobile The current bellwether in Webbased<br />
e-mail is still in beta, but Google continues<br />
to innovate with additions via the<br />
Gmail Labs. The searchable and increasing<br />
storage (up to 7GB now, from 5.5GB<br />
last year) doesn’t hurt. New themes make<br />
it pretty. And you can use it to IM or send<br />
SMS text messages to friends’ phones.<br />
cOMMunicATiOn/e-MAiL<br />
Zenbe www.zenbe.com<br />
Web Zenbe is a multi-account, Internet-based interface to check Yahoo Mail,<br />
Gmail, AOL, Windows Live, and POP3 messages. It throws in a shareable calendar,<br />
an address book, and other tools to make it extra-useful.<br />
google contacts<br />
hogi.a.orn.jp/en/gmcont.html<br />
Windows This extension for Thunderbird<br />
does one thing you need: It synchronizes<br />
contacts between Thunderbird and<br />
Google’s Gmail.<br />
icontact www.dataload.com/icontact<br />
Windows Accessing your Gmail contacts is<br />
all the easier with iContact. This app displays<br />
the normally browser-accessibleonly<br />
list on your desktop and integrates<br />
those contacts into other communications<br />
software, like Skype.<br />
simple Mail<br />
www.userlogos.org/extensions/simplemail<br />
Windows | Mac Os | Linux If you already have<br />
Firefox open all the time, why not have one<br />
of those tabs just for mail? The Simple Mail<br />
add-on puts a POP3/IMAP client right<br />
inside the browser.<br />
★ HALL OF FAME ★<br />
Thunderbird<br />
www.mozilla.com/thunderbird<br />
Windows | Mac Os | Linux The Internet’s top<br />
e-mail client from Mozilla is (of course)<br />
extensible, but even without add-ons<br />
Thunderbird is simple-to-master software<br />
for anyone with a POP3 or IMAP e-mail<br />
account.<br />
For our full review, click here.<br />
Windows Live Mail get.live.com<br />
Windows Outlook Express has been transformed<br />
into the modern-day Live Mail,<br />
ready to check POP3, IMAP, and webmail<br />
accounts when you’re not using it to read<br />
RSS feeds or plan your calendar.<br />
For our full review, click here.<br />
Yahoo Mail mail.yahoo.com<br />
Web Our webmail Editors’ Choice embeds<br />
the Yahoo Messenger IM and RSS reader,<br />
works on the Web with any browser or<br />
operating system, and has more features<br />
than anyone could hope to master.<br />
For our full review, click here.<br />
cOnFerencing<br />
Dabbleboard www.dabbleboard.com<br />
Web As simple as any whiteboard in a conference<br />
room, Dabbleboard’s online app<br />
brings drawing and some real-time collaboration<br />
to your group.<br />
sightspeed www.sightspeed.com<br />
Windows | Mac Os Now owned by Logitech,<br />
SightSpeed provides one-on-one video<br />
chat with unparalleled video quality, but<br />
more than two users at a time will cost you.<br />
For our full review, click here.<br />
skype www.skype.com<br />
Windows | Mac Os | Linux Easy to use for phone<br />
calls (free between Skype users, with a<br />
minimal charge to call other phones),<br />
Skype truly shines when paired with a<br />
high-end webcam so that you can see your<br />
friends and family.<br />
For our full review, click here.<br />
Tokbox www.tokbox.com<br />
Web The Tokbox service turns your AIM<br />
buddy list into a videoconferencing buddy<br />
list directly in your browser. Separate apps<br />
MARCH 2009 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 31
make it work through Facebook or on your<br />
desktop. You provide the camera.<br />
For our full review, click here.<br />
FiLe TrAnsFer/DOWnLOAD<br />
crossFTp www.crossftp.com<br />
Windows | Mac Os | Linux Built on Java, Cross-<br />
FTP works and looks the same, no matter<br />
which OS you run. It features tabs for<br />
each connection, support for archives, and<br />
drag-and-drop transfer, and it comes in a<br />
free server version, too.<br />
DownThemAll www.downthemall.net<br />
Windows | Mac Os | Linux Don’t download just<br />
one item at a time from a Web page. As the<br />
name implies, this download manager for<br />
Firefox handles them all.<br />
Filezilla www.filezilla-project.org<br />
Windows | Mac Os | Linux Slick and simple FTP<br />
that does the job, complete with drag-anddrop<br />
from local to remote or vice versa.<br />
FireFTp fireftp.mozdev.org<br />
Windows | Mac Os | Linux Because it’s a plug-in<br />
for Firefox, FireFTP behaves like any other<br />
tab in the browser, so you don’t have to<br />
launch another app to transfer files.<br />
halite www.binarynotions.com/<br />
halite-bittorrent-client<br />
Windows Instead of downloading an entire<br />
file, apps using the super-popular BitTorrent<br />
protocol break files into chunks and<br />
distribute them among several users. Free,<br />
open-source application Halite is a BitTorrent<br />
client focused on using the smallest<br />
memory footprint as possible.<br />
net2ftp www.net2ftp.com<br />
Web If you sit at a computer with no FTP<br />
software but need to upload a file, stat, this<br />
Web app comes to your rescue quickly as<br />
long as you have the server, username, and<br />
password information.<br />
rightload www.rightload.org<br />
Windows Send a file to preconfigured FTP<br />
servers anytime you want with a simple<br />
right click. Rightload adds just a single line<br />
to the context menu, with fly-out menus<br />
for each FTP server you want.<br />
uTorrent www.utorrent.com<br />
Windows Still the best—and smallest—Bit-<br />
Torrent client in existence, uTorrent will<br />
have you downloading big files in no time.<br />
32 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION MARCH 2009<br />
FiLe VieWers/cOnVerTers<br />
★ HALL OF FAME ★<br />
Adobe reader www.adobe.com/reader<br />
Windows | Mac Os | Linux | Mobile Adobe’s PDF<br />
reader is far from basic, with a number of<br />
extra features including online collaboration<br />
tools.<br />
Foxit reader www.foxitsoftware.com<br />
Windows | Linux | Mobile Frequently preferred<br />
over Adobe’s own reader for PDFs, Foxit<br />
has a reputation for speed. What’s more, it<br />
can annotate files.<br />
peaZip peazip.sourceforge.net<br />
Windows | Linux It’ll create ZIPs, 7Zs, TARs,<br />
ARCs, and more; it’ll open those and many<br />
other archives too, including RAR. PeaZip<br />
can do so with AES encryption of your files<br />
and can even split or join extra-large files<br />
to make them easier to transport.<br />
sumatra pDF<br />
blog.kowalczyk.info/software/sumatrapdf<br />
Windows The perfect PDF reader for the<br />
minimalist, with a super-simple interface<br />
and fast start-up time. Sumatra is perfect to<br />
carry on a USB thumb drive.<br />
Quick Media converter (QMc)<br />
www.cocoonsoftware.com<br />
Windows If you frequently find yourself<br />
converting audio or video files to different<br />
formats, keep this tool handy for (as the<br />
name suggests) quick media conversion<br />
to an impressive range of potential formats<br />
and codecs.<br />
WinrAr www.rarlab.com<br />
Windows We all know about compressing<br />
files with ZIP, but RAR is also quite popular;<br />
WinRAR will compress or decompress<br />
files in both.<br />
YemuZip www.yellowmug.com/yemuzip<br />
Mac Os Sometimes unzipping a compressed<br />
file on the Mac makes a mess. YemuZip<br />
makes archiving and decompressing a<br />
simple drag-and-drop procedure.<br />
Zamzar www.zamzar.com<br />
Web Upload just about any file (under<br />
100MB) and you can convert it to just<br />
about any format that makes sense. This<br />
very cool tool even grabs online videos<br />
from YouTube and turns them into files<br />
you can use.<br />
FinAnce<br />
Billeo www.billeo.com<br />
Windows Install the Billeo toolbar on your<br />
Web browser and add your accounts and<br />
you’ll get fast access to assistance with<br />
online shopping, online bill payment, and<br />
reports on your spending.<br />
For our full review, click here.<br />
Buxfer www.buxfer.com<br />
Web | Mobile Sign up (or use an existing<br />
AOL, Facebook, Google, OpenID, or Yahoo<br />
account) to get started with tracking<br />
shared expenses, so divvying up the bills at<br />
the end of the month becomes a breeze.<br />
Mint www.mint.com<br />
Web Mint manages your money by sucking<br />
in data from all your bank, credit card, and<br />
other accounts, providing you with regular<br />
reports on what you’re spending and how<br />
to save.<br />
For our full review, click here.<br />
Wesabe www.wesabe.com<br />
Windows | Mac Os | Web “Part money management<br />
tool, part community,” where<br />
info—your comments about your spending—is<br />
shared (anonymously) with the<br />
group so everyone can find value. Of<br />
course, Wesabe also helps track your<br />
spending and income.<br />
Fun/hOMe<br />
eBay Desktop desktop.ebay.com<br />
Windows | Mac Os This app, which requires<br />
Adobe Air, looks like eBay replicated on<br />
your desktop. But for power buyers it<br />
adds special functions, like not needing to<br />
refresh the page and a clock synchronized<br />
with eBay’s own.<br />
geni.com www.geni.com<br />
Web There’s no easier place to plug in your<br />
family tree, and since it’s a Web app it’s<br />
easy to share such info with the rest of the<br />
family so that they can fill in the gaps.<br />
google earth earth.google.com<br />
Windows | Mac Os | Linux If you like Google<br />
Maps online, welcome to that same kind<br />
of action on steroids. You can traverse the<br />
globe on its interlocking satellite images,<br />
or reverse it and look skyward, even travel<br />
to the past. Third-party add-ons continue<br />
to extend Google Earth’s capabilities
eyond what our puny terrestrial minds<br />
can imagine.<br />
For our full review, click here.<br />
home inventory www.knowyourstuff.org<br />
Windows | Mac Os Insurance companies ask<br />
you to inventory your possessions prior to<br />
signing up for a homeowner’s or renter’s<br />
policy. Create a home inventory of everything<br />
you own on this site, a service of<br />
the Insurance Information Institute, and<br />
throw in digital pictures or even scanned<br />
purchase receipts to make sure what’s<br />
yours is yours.<br />
penzu www.penzu.com<br />
Web Hard to believe that in the age of blogging,<br />
some people still want journals and<br />
diaries they keep to themselves. Penzu is<br />
all about making that happen, online, with<br />
privacy as the first priority.<br />
springpad www.springpadit.com<br />
Web Manage your life tasks with online<br />
notebooks filled with lists, photos, notes,<br />
and maps/directions you can share with<br />
the whole family. Perfect for tracking<br />
receipts, planning meals or trips, and getting<br />
your house organized.<br />
Timetoast www.timetoast.com<br />
Web Ever wanted to create a timeline for<br />
your site or a presentation, but couldn’t<br />
decide what tool would best display the<br />
data? Wonder no more, as Timetoast adds<br />
this useful data with an attractive flair.<br />
grAphics<br />
Artweaver www.artweaver.de<br />
Windows If you want the freedom to paint,<br />
without the mess and without paying $359<br />
for Corel Painter X, Artweaver is a good<br />
starter tool for artists.<br />
DestroyFlickr www.destroytoday.com/<br />
?p=project&id=DestroyFlickr<br />
Windows This Adobe Air app puts Flickr<br />
on your desktop, but with a completely<br />
different interface. Why “destroy”? In the<br />
words of app creator Jonnie Hallman, “To<br />
destroy today is to make the most of the<br />
day—destruction as a form of creation.”<br />
flauntr www.flauntr.com<br />
Web This online photo editor integrates<br />
with just about any picture service you can<br />
imagine, including Facebook and Flickr,<br />
and offers a suite of tools to manipulate<br />
grAphics<br />
paint.neT www.getpaint.net<br />
Windows This student project turned freeware masterpiece puts the power of<br />
higher-end graphics editors in anyone’s hands.<br />
images in ways specific to social networks<br />
and mobile handsets.<br />
Faststone image Viewer<br />
www.faststone.org<br />
Windows Another image browser and converter<br />
that handles almost any file type,<br />
FastStone also has companion programs,<br />
like the handy Photo Resizer, complete<br />
with a fast batch processor.<br />
★ HALL OF FAME ★<br />
giMp www.gimp.org<br />
Windows | Mac Os | Linux<br />
GNU Image Manipulation Program<br />
(GIMP) has provided Photoshop-like tools<br />
at no charge for over a decade.<br />
For our full review, click here.<br />
google sketchup sketchup.google.com<br />
Windows | Mac Os If you’re new to 3D but<br />
want to build worlds anyway, a free tool<br />
like SketchUp is a great place to start; the<br />
latest version includes “self-aware” 3D<br />
models so the app knows, for example, to<br />
resize a virtual staircase by adding more<br />
stairs and extend a virtual fence by adding<br />
more slats.<br />
For our full review, click here.<br />
irfanView www.irfanview.com<br />
Windows Perhaps the ultimate image viewer<br />
(with some editing tools thrown in), the<br />
latest IrfanView (version 4.20) received<br />
a nice cosmetic update. It also supports<br />
instant video and audio playback.<br />
For our full review, click here.<br />
pencil www.les-stooges.org/pascal/pencil<br />
Windows | Mac Os | Linux For the budding<br />
Chuck Jones at home, Pencil is a free way<br />
to get started in the world of traditional 2D<br />
animation—that is, draw each frame anew.<br />
picasa picasa.google.com<br />
Windows | Linux Few free programs come<br />
close to handling photos with the skill<br />
of Picasa. Organize them, do quick edits<br />
(including red-eye reduction), and share<br />
pics online or e-mail them to friends.<br />
For our full review, click here.<br />
Mobaphoto mobaphoto-en.mobatek.net<br />
Windows Portability is the key here. This<br />
lightweight photo editor (only 1.6MB) puts<br />
photographs into great-looking photo galleries.<br />
Naturally, it has all the usual tools<br />
you need to fix red-eye, crop, and resize. It<br />
will even batch-process images.<br />
photoshop express<br />
www.photoshop.com/express<br />
Web It lacks the full power of Photoshop<br />
on the Web, but it does offer rudimentary<br />
editing, basic photo sharing, and 2GB of<br />
storage for your photos. Partnerships with<br />
MARCH 2009 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 33
sites like Picasa and Facebook make Photoshop<br />
Express fun as well as useful.<br />
For our full review, click here.<br />
photosynth www.photosynth.com<br />
Web Photosynth does so many unique<br />
things with photos that we gave it a Technical<br />
Excellence award. It takes multiple<br />
photos, finds where they overlap, and creates<br />
an almost 3D image; it can even make<br />
a 3D replica of an object from shots at multiple<br />
angles.<br />
picnik www.picnik.com<br />
Web Picnik is the gold standard in online<br />
image editing these days: It fixes photos<br />
without confusing users and works with a<br />
number of photo-sharing sites. And best of<br />
all, you don’t have to register to get started<br />
using it—unless you want to save images<br />
online.<br />
For our full review, click here.<br />
pictomio www.pictomio.com<br />
Windows Handling all your photos with<br />
a simple but powerful interface, Pictomio<br />
browses in many styles—including<br />
a carousel mode similar to iTunes’ Cover<br />
Flow, which benefits from a good 3D video<br />
card. Pictomio organizes shots and creates<br />
instant slideshows. It will even handle<br />
audio and video.<br />
splashup www.splashup.com<br />
Web You don’t even need to sign up to get<br />
instant access to this Flash-based image<br />
editor with all the features (and more) that<br />
you’d find in a downloadable app.<br />
suMO paint www.sumo.fi/web<br />
Web Not every Web-based image editor<br />
can claim to be high-end, but SUMO can,<br />
by carefully mimicking the look and feel of<br />
Photoshop—maybe a little too well. Try it<br />
before this free Flash app gets sued out of<br />
existence by Adobe.<br />
★ HALL OF FAME ★<br />
AiM www.aim.com<br />
iMs<br />
Windows | Mac Os | Linux | Web | Mobile AOL’s<br />
Instant Messenger is the most-used network<br />
in the U.S., and the software—only<br />
the Windows version gets regular updates<br />
these days—packs in as much as possible.<br />
You can access the AIM network with just<br />
about any multi-protocol IM software.<br />
For our full review, click here.<br />
34 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION MARCH 2009<br />
Dexrex www.dexrex.com<br />
Windows | Mac Os | Mobile This add-on records<br />
your IM conversation transcripts and<br />
stores them online for later reading and<br />
analysis. It works with AIM, Digsby, Yahoo<br />
Messenger, and many others.<br />
Meebo www.meebo.com<br />
Web | Mobile When you want to avoid installing<br />
software but still want to chat on all<br />
the major IM networks, Meebo is your site<br />
of choice. Sign up for a Meebo account to<br />
access multiple IM networks all at once<br />
and log all conversations.<br />
For our full review, click here.<br />
inTerFAce enhAncers<br />
AccelMan File Manager<br />
www.flexigensoft.com/accelman<br />
Windows As much a file viewer as a file<br />
manager, AccelMan has multiple windows<br />
that offer info galore on each file and<br />
its contents. The app can even play back<br />
media files when you don’t want to launch<br />
another player.<br />
Desktops technet.microsoft.com/en-us/<br />
sysinternals/cc817881.aspx<br />
Windows Desktops is a virtual desktop manager<br />
in a small package; the app is only a<br />
62K download. Personalize hotkeys for<br />
quick switches between desktops.<br />
Dexpose2<br />
devrexster.googlepages.com/dexpose2<br />
Windows This app is a Windows clone of the<br />
Mac interface treat Exposé, which makes<br />
opening and closing apps and getting to<br />
the desktop a fast process. Windows XP<br />
and Vista users can also set up DExposE2<br />
to work on multiple monitors.<br />
emerge Desktop emergedesktop.org<br />
Windows So you think the Windows desktop<br />
looks too busy with that system tray,<br />
taskbar, and Start button? You’re not alone.<br />
EmergeDesktop does away with them all,<br />
replacing the Windows shell (the interface,<br />
that is) with its minuscule emerge-<br />
Tray. Launch apps with a right click, or<br />
couple Emerge Desktop with a launcher<br />
like ObjectDock.<br />
greenprint www.printgreener.com<br />
Windows | Mac Os Stop printing that extra<br />
blank page when you need a hard copy of a<br />
Web page, or for any printout for that matter.<br />
GreenPrint saves the paper, even let-<br />
ting you output a PDF without the blank<br />
sheets. A tree somewhere out there will<br />
thank you.<br />
For our full review, click here.<br />
mucommander<br />
www.mucommander.com<br />
Windows | Mac Os | Linux | Mobile muCommander<br />
is unique: It’s a file manager that<br />
looks the same on all operating systems. A<br />
standard dual-pane, it also has support for<br />
archived files, FTPs, and previews files.<br />
placesBar Tweaker<br />
www.ioisland.com/placesbar<br />
Windows Every time you open or save a file<br />
in Windows XP, the dialog box gives you<br />
a few select options, like Desktop or My<br />
Documents, to choose from in the Places<br />
bar. You can personalize that list with this<br />
tweaker, putting your most used folders in<br />
the lineup.<br />
rBTray moitah.net<br />
Windows RBTray does one thing and does it<br />
well: It enables you to minimize any application<br />
you like to the system tray as an icon<br />
rather than as a taskbar button, without<br />
even doing a full install (RBTray can run<br />
from a thumb drive).<br />
standalonestack<br />
www.chrisnsoft.com/standalonestack<br />
Windows Mac OS X Leopard introduced<br />
cool towers of icons to the interface, with<br />
shortcuts to frequently accessed folders,<br />
called stacks. Now you can put those<br />
stacks in Windows as well. There’s even<br />
an add-on to help you put stacks on the<br />
RocketDock launcher.<br />
start++ www.brandontools.com/content/<br />
startplusplus.aspx<br />
Windows A nice addition in Vista to the<br />
Windows environment was the Start<br />
Menu’s search box. Start++ turbocharges it<br />
with extras like online searches that post<br />
results in the menu, and its own set of widgets<br />
and plug-ins (one option, for example,<br />
is displaying the weather).<br />
Trayeverything www.winapizone.net/<br />
software/trayeverything<br />
Windows You’ve got a lot of applications<br />
open, but only so much space in your Taskbar<br />
. . . so why not minimize them directly<br />
to the system tray on the lower right-hand<br />
side of your screen? TrayEverything will<br />
do it for you.
ultraexplorer<br />
www.mustangpeak.net/ultraexplorer.html<br />
Windows Another replacement for Windows<br />
Explorer, UltraExplorer stands out<br />
by sporting a command-line interface to<br />
go with the dual-pane view of files. And<br />
it offers a preview window, so you can<br />
quickly check the contents of a file before<br />
opening it.<br />
Yahoo Widgets widgets.yahoo.com<br />
Windows | Mac Os The world’s biggest collection<br />
of widgets—more than 5,000 of<br />
the things—is yours through Yahoo. Some<br />
widgets, obviously, are more useful than<br />
others, but with the right combination,<br />
your desktop can be an information powerhouse.<br />
LOcAL seArch<br />
google Desktop desktop.google.com<br />
Windows | Mac Os | Linux Put the power of<br />
Google’s search engine to work on finding<br />
your own files. The software indexes in the<br />
background, while in the foreground you<br />
get to put all the Google Gadgets (widgets)<br />
you like on your desktop.<br />
For our full review, click here.<br />
everything www.voidtools.com<br />
Windows Don’t need the extras? Everything<br />
really does just one thing in its small package:<br />
It indexes your PC in real time for<br />
lightning-fast search.<br />
Locate32 www.locate32.net<br />
Windows The Locate32 project is all about<br />
indexing the contents of your hard drives<br />
and other storage to run fast finds on local<br />
data.<br />
OFFice<br />
Adobe Buzzword www.buzzword.com<br />
Web This online-only word processor has<br />
one of the best-looking minimalist interfaces<br />
going, since it was built entirely with<br />
Adobe Flash, and each page looks as good<br />
as any formatted in Word.<br />
For our full review, click here.<br />
blist www.blist.com<br />
Web Web lists (aka “blists”) are little databases<br />
for all your data needs. The Flash<br />
interface makes this fast for newbies and<br />
powerful enough for everyone else. You<br />
can even put your blists on your blog or<br />
social-network pages.<br />
iMs<br />
Digsby www.digsby.com<br />
Windows Brand new this year, Digsby may be the ultimate way to stay in realtime<br />
touch with friends. It incorporates multiple IM networks, social networks<br />
(including Twitter), and e-mail and webmail notifications. You can even send<br />
mail through Digsby. Mac OS and Linux versions are promised soon.<br />
etherpad etherpad.com<br />
Web You don’t even have to sign up to create<br />
a new pad, a shareable text document<br />
stored online for you by EtherPad. Don’t<br />
expect fancy formatting, but do expect<br />
real-time, color-coded editing between all<br />
collaborators.<br />
evernote www.evernote.com<br />
Windows | Mac Os | Mobile | Web Take a clipping<br />
of anything you see—online or off—for<br />
later reference. Built-in OCR makes text<br />
inside images searchable.<br />
gMDesk<br />
www.robertnyman.com/gmdesk/<br />
Windows Bring Google’s Web apps to the<br />
desktop with this site-specific browser<br />
interface that requires Adobe Air. You’ll<br />
have access to Gmail, Google Reader,<br />
and Google Docs just as you would in a<br />
browser, but GMDesk stays alive when<br />
your browser crashes.<br />
google Docs docs.google.com<br />
Web | Mobile If you’re ready to move your<br />
work life to the cloud, Google’s word processor,<br />
spreadsheet, and presentation suite<br />
is ready for you, and comes complete with<br />
storage for all of your docs. It also comes<br />
with forms you can fill out to gather data<br />
from outside.<br />
For our full review, click here.<br />
incollector<br />
www.incollector.devnull.pl<br />
Windows | Linux Note-taking doesn’t have to<br />
hog the whole desktop, or even the whole<br />
browser window. Incollector runs in the<br />
background, letting you call up a new note<br />
page from the system tray when you want,<br />
tag it, and easily find it later.<br />
Jarte www.jarte.com<br />
Windows No one loves the Notepad<br />
included in Windows, and there are many<br />
replacements out there. Jarte does most of<br />
them one better, because it is completely<br />
self-contained and also portable—the best<br />
part of Jarte is that you can run it from a<br />
thumb drive!<br />
kompoZer www.kompozer.net<br />
Windows | Mac Os | Linux This free WYSIWYG<br />
Web page authoring package builds on the<br />
abandoned Nvu project. It supports CSS,<br />
file management (including FTP), and tabs<br />
for multiple pages.<br />
Lotus symphony symphony.lotus.com<br />
Windows | Mac Os | Linux IBM’s entry into the<br />
world of office suites is based on Open-<br />
Office and is currently in beta for Mac<br />
and Linux. It covers the three big suite<br />
tools: word processing, presentations, and<br />
spreadsheets.<br />
For our full review, click here.<br />
MARCH 2009 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 35
Lucidchart www.lucidchart.com<br />
Web Why make flowcharts complicated?<br />
This Web app goes back to basics with<br />
simple, black-and-white charts that anyone<br />
can make—and better yet, anyone else<br />
can easily understand.<br />
neoOffice www.neooffice.com<br />
Mac Os NeoOffice comes with most of the<br />
same tools as the Mac version of Open-<br />
Office but carries a more Apple-friendly<br />
look and feel.<br />
★ HALL OF FAME ★<br />
notepad++<br />
notepad-plus.sourceforge.net<br />
Windows Notepad++ is the standard by<br />
which all replacements for Notepad—that<br />
weak little app that comes with Windows—are<br />
measured. It sports full text<br />
styles, tabs, drag-and-drop, and superspeed<br />
and is suitable for any coding or<br />
writing you can throw at it.<br />
★ HALL OF FAME ★<br />
OpenOffice www.openoffice.org<br />
Windows | Mac Os | Linux | solaris Version 3 of<br />
the freebie office suite ups the ante against<br />
Microsoft’s hegemony, becoming fast and<br />
polished enough to warrant serious consideration<br />
by all, especially small businesses.<br />
It looks like MS Office 2003 (for<br />
those not in love with the Ribbon interface<br />
in Office 2007) and has all the tools—<br />
except e-mail—you’ll ever need.<br />
For our full review, click here.<br />
sliderocket www.sliderocket.com<br />
Web Promising more than PowerPoint and<br />
Keynote is bold, but this Web-only presentation<br />
tool seems to deliver, with amazing<br />
animations, support for embedded video,<br />
and 3D transitions between slides.<br />
softMaker Office 2006<br />
www.softmakeroffice.com<br />
Windows This free version is meant to<br />
entice you to upgrade to the 2008 version,<br />
but if all you need is basic text editing and a<br />
spreadsheet, you’re set.<br />
springnote www.springnote.com<br />
Web | Mobile Whether you want a personal<br />
notebook or a shareable group notebook,<br />
this wiki-based note-taking site could give<br />
Microsoft’s OneNote a run for its money.<br />
Widgenie www.widgenie.com<br />
Web Sick of making meh-looking graphs<br />
36 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION MARCH 2009<br />
in Excel? Visualize the same data through<br />
Widgenie and create a beautiful graph<br />
widget, even one with animation, that you<br />
can share online. Text clouds, artful presentations<br />
of the most popular words on<br />
a page, are always a favorite with bloggers.<br />
Zoho www.zoho.com<br />
Web | Mobile If there’s a tool in the arsenal<br />
of office suites that Zoho doesn’t include,<br />
we can’t think of it. Not all the Web apps are<br />
free, but those that are—word processor,<br />
spreadsheet tool, presentation app, mail,<br />
wiki, and many more—all bring the goods.<br />
For our full review, click here.<br />
OperATing sYsTeMs<br />
gOs 3.0 gadgets www.thinkgos.com<br />
Linux With its emphasis on easy access<br />
to tools from Google, it’s easy to see why<br />
some think of this lightweight Linux—<br />
renowned for powering cheap PCs from<br />
Wal-Mart—as the Google OS.<br />
pure:dyne<br />
code.goto10.org/projects/puredyne<br />
Linux Consider this the creative Linux distro:<br />
Boot just about any Intel PC (even<br />
MacBooks) from a Live CD with pure:<br />
dyne, and you’ll get instant access to free<br />
tools for editing audio, video, and images<br />
(many already in this story).<br />
★ HALL OF FAME ★<br />
ubuntu www.ubuntu.com<br />
Linux The easiest Linux to install, now in<br />
version 8.10 (aka “Intrepid Ibex”), not only<br />
is suitable for (somewhat knowledgeable)<br />
consumers but also comes with all the software<br />
you need to be productive.<br />
For our full review, click here.<br />
neTWOrking<br />
Airsnare<br />
home.comcast.net/~jay.deboer/airsnare<br />
Windows Turn your Wi-Fi–equipped laptop<br />
into an info sniffer. AirSnare pulls down<br />
info on computers and game consoles and<br />
just about any device on the network, even<br />
delivering devices’ MAC addresses.<br />
Airradar<br />
www.koingosw.com/products/airradar.php<br />
Mac Os AirRadar goes beyond what the Wi-<br />
Fi utility in Mac OS X can do by showing<br />
extras like signal strength and the 802.11<br />
network’s channel.<br />
Axence netTools<br />
www.axencesoftware.com<br />
Windows Want a quick look at everything<br />
that’s happening on your home network?<br />
NetTools scans the network and reports<br />
back on what ports are in use, and the<br />
inbound and outbound connections. You<br />
can use it to test your networking connections<br />
over TCP or UDP protocols.<br />
gBridge www.gbridge.com<br />
Windows GBridge allows you to set up a relatively<br />
painless VPN between computers<br />
for sharing and syncing files and folders,<br />
using your Google account as the connection<br />
point (though Gbridge is not affiliated<br />
with Google).<br />
inssiDer<br />
www.metageek.net/products/inssider<br />
Windows Taking up where the venerable<br />
NetStumbler left off, InSSIDer is a Wi-Fi<br />
network scanner that runs under Vista and<br />
XP—even the 64-bit versions. You can use<br />
it to find out what’s wrong with local 802.11<br />
networks.<br />
LogMein hamachi secure.logmein.com<br />
Windows | Mac Os | Linux Set up a secure tunnel<br />
between two PCs using a virtual private<br />
network (VPN), just like the ones the pros<br />
use to access the server at work. Only this<br />
one is free.<br />
For our full review, click here.<br />
netsetMan www.netsetman.com<br />
Windows Stop using Vista’s convoluted<br />
interface to change network settings. Net-<br />
SetMan takes over and creates profiles for<br />
different networks you might connect with,<br />
changing your need for static or dynamic<br />
IPs, or hostnames or workgroups, on the<br />
fly. If you’ve got multiple network cards,<br />
NetSetMan is a huge help.<br />
network notepad<br />
www.networknotepad.com<br />
Windows It’s more than a notepad: This software<br />
is specific to creating flowcharts of<br />
your network layout. Put in the IP address<br />
for each device and you can use the interface<br />
to quickly ping devices to confirm<br />
they’re online.<br />
printerAnywhere<br />
www.printeranywhere.com<br />
Windows | Mac Os | Linux Why print just<br />
to your printer? PrinterAnywhere lets<br />
you print to any printer on the Internet
(through another PC with PrinterAnywhere<br />
installed), or you can open your<br />
printer to others.<br />
rss reADers<br />
google reader reader.google.com<br />
Web | Mobile After three years, Google’s RSS<br />
feed reader is tops, not only mimicking the<br />
best of what desktop readers can do but<br />
also mashing up nicely with other Google<br />
services, like the iGoogle home page.<br />
For our full review, click here.<br />
netvibes www.netvibes.com<br />
Web A personalized start page with an<br />
emphasis on widgets and feed readers,<br />
Netvibes also aggregates podcasts for you.<br />
For our full review, click here.<br />
FeedDemon www.newsgator.com/<br />
individuals/FeedDemon<br />
Windows The preeminent desktop newsreader<br />
for Windows was recently overhauled<br />
to be faster and easier, while<br />
remaining extremely customizable to suit<br />
how you read feeds.<br />
For our full review, click here.<br />
netnewsWire www.newsgator.com/<br />
individuals/netnewswire<br />
Mac Os | Mobile FeedDemon’s sibling on the<br />
Macintosh platform has updated its interface<br />
and more. It now integrates with several<br />
other Mac apps like iCal and iPhoto to<br />
help you share as well as read.<br />
rss Bandit rssbandit.org<br />
Windows Directly sync this reader with your<br />
online feeds at Google Reader or News-<br />
Gator Online. You’ll get fast browsing on<br />
the desktop but still have access to your<br />
feeds over the Web using other PCs.<br />
snarfer www.snarfware.com<br />
Windows It won’t win awards for visual<br />
innovation, but Snarfer does provide simplicity.<br />
It’s arguably the best way to handle<br />
straight-up RSS info gathering and reading,<br />
and it’s available in over 20 languages.<br />
sYnchrOniZATiOn<br />
Dropbox www.getdropbox.com<br />
Windows | Mac Os | Linux | Web One of the<br />
few sync/backup tools to support Linux<br />
(Fedora and Ubuntu), Dropbox always<br />
gets kudos for its design and simple setup.<br />
Online backup space is free for up to 2GB.<br />
ViDeO<br />
VLc media player www.videolan.org/vlc<br />
Windows | Mac Os | Linux VideoLAN’s open-source software plays back—well, just<br />
about everything. It can also serve up streaming video and music to other PCs on<br />
your network.<br />
Windows Live sync sync.live.com<br />
Windows | Mac Os | Web The replacement for<br />
FolderShare continues to do one thing and<br />
do it well: sync folders (up to 20) across<br />
multiple PCs over the Internet.<br />
Windows Live Mesh www.mesh.com<br />
Windows | Mac Os | Mobile | Web Microsoft’s<br />
latest method for syncing folders on different<br />
PCs goes FolderShare one better<br />
by including 5GB of online storage accessible<br />
from any PC, plus the ability to mesh<br />
special collaborative applications (like a<br />
group crossword puzzle!).<br />
syncplicity www.syncplicity.com<br />
Windows | Mobile | Web Synchronize up to<br />
10,000 files (or 2GB, whichever comes<br />
first) on up to two computers free. Sign up<br />
friends and you can add another 1GB per<br />
new user recruited.<br />
Mozilla Weave services.mozilla.com<br />
Windows | Mac Os | Linux A product of Mozilla<br />
Labs, Weave is meant to synchronize anything<br />
and everything related to Firefox<br />
among all the computers you use, plus<br />
extend some features to others for sharing.<br />
Registration is closed as of this writing but<br />
should be back soon.<br />
ViDeO<br />
camstudio www.camstudio.org<br />
Windows This open-source program for<br />
capturing videos of your screen turns<br />
what you do on your desktop, as well as the<br />
audio to go with it, into a movie, suitable<br />
for future demonstrations.<br />
handBrake www.handbrake.fr<br />
Windows | Mac Os | Linux Want to back up all<br />
those DVDs you own before they get<br />
scratched? This open-source tool does full<br />
DVD-to-MPEG-4 conversion, which you<br />
can play back later on media centers, even<br />
the Apple TV.<br />
Miro www.getmiro.com<br />
Windows | Mac Os | Linux Miro’s a video player<br />
that promises to play back just about any<br />
video media file, organize files in playlists,<br />
and incorporate BitTorrent downloading<br />
to become a de facto PC-based TiVo.<br />
Tipcam www.utipu.com/app<br />
Windows Another cool tool for capturing<br />
videos of your desktop, TipCam lets<br />
you take big, beautiful videos (up to 800<br />
by 600 pixels). You can even zoom in on<br />
specifics and upload the videos directly<br />
to YouTube. Frequent users can get an<br />
account to store and display up to 250MB<br />
of video.<br />
Want More?<br />
The festival of free software doesn’t have<br />
to end! Skim through last year’s compilation<br />
of free software, or take a look at these<br />
other app collections for various other<br />
platforms.<br />
• The Best Free software ’08<br />
• Free iphone apps<br />
• 16th Annual utility guide<br />
MARCH 2009 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 37
To order your space saving iOne– GX31 TM<br />
LCD PC Risk Free, call us at 888.834.4577.<br />
SPECIFICATIONS: 17” or 19” display | Intel ® Core TM 2 Quad CPU | Up to 4GB DDR2/667MHz | Up to 750GB SATA HDD | 2x1Gb<br />
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© 2008 Cybernet Manufacturing, Inc. All rights reserved. The Cybernet logo is a trademark of Cybernet Manufacturing, Inc. Intel and Intel Core 2 Quad are trademarks of Intel Corporation,<br />
or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. Windows Vista is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation. All other registered trademarks are property of their respective owners.
The Fastest <strong>ISPs</strong> in America<br />
We polled tens of thousands of PC Mag readers across the country to find out which <strong>ISPs</strong><br />
and connection types yield the blazingest speeds. By Jeremy A. Kaplan and Erik Rhey<br />
Price is typically one of the biggest considerations<br />
in choosing an Internet service<br />
provider (ISP). And obviously you<br />
can choose only what’s available in your<br />
area. For some, especially those living in<br />
the boonies, there is the painful reality of<br />
having only one option. But in order to be<br />
an informed consumer, shouldn’t you at<br />
least know whether the choices available<br />
Illustration by Maria Rendon<br />
in your area are as fast, affordable, and as<br />
customer-friendly as <strong>ISPs</strong> in other parts<br />
of your state and the rest of the country?<br />
If you have only advertising to go on, then<br />
you should believe that your provider is<br />
super fast, super cheap, super friendly, and<br />
generally much better than the competition.<br />
Of course, we know that in the real<br />
world, that’s not always the case.<br />
How We Tested<br />
In this story, our goal was to compile an<br />
accurate, three-dimensional picture of the<br />
country’s <strong>ISPs</strong>, using two key metrics: customer<br />
feedback and speed numbers from<br />
user testing. To achieve this goal, we relied<br />
on an app we created called SurfSpeed, a<br />
utility that grabs pages (and page elements)<br />
from several popular Web sites to measure<br />
MARCH 2009 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 39
your actual Internet surfing speed—not the<br />
bandwidth allocation your ISP quotes you.<br />
Most of the line tests the <strong>ISPs</strong> use measure<br />
speed by sending you large files and<br />
seeing how long it takes you to download<br />
them. Your ISP then cites numbers based<br />
on abstract mathematics—the number of<br />
users divided by the theoretical line speed.<br />
Our approach is different, and our results<br />
will differ, in some cases dramatically, from<br />
the number quoted by your ISP. Just like a<br />
real browser, SurfSpeed initiates multiple<br />
connections to get all of the elements of a<br />
40 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION MARCH 2009<br />
page. Each connection takes time, and that<br />
becomes a part of the SurfSpeed equation.<br />
This gives a unique measurement that<br />
more accurately reflects how you spend 90<br />
percent of your time on the Web: surfing or<br />
waiting for a page to load. By default, the<br />
utility runs once per hour, “browsing” to<br />
top sites like AOL, eBay, Google, MySpace,<br />
Yahoo, and more. Note that the data came<br />
from PC Mag readers, not the population<br />
as a whole. Over a period of two months,<br />
we pored over data collected from more<br />
than 17,000 profiles (that is, unique IP<br />
addresses)—over 200,000 individual tests.<br />
We also crunched the numbers for each<br />
state, because fast overall service doesn’t<br />
translate into fast local service. In all, we<br />
had over 2 million data points. The results<br />
from each user are compared with those of<br />
others in the same ZIP code, state, country,<br />
and the world. You can also see how your<br />
ISP compares with other <strong>ISPs</strong> around the<br />
country. And to complement our data, we<br />
took population figures from the U.S. government’s<br />
2007 census estimates (the most<br />
recent data available).
No matter how fast your connection,<br />
occasionally sites won’t be available, pages<br />
won’t load properly, or downloads will take<br />
an inordinately long time to arrive. For that<br />
reason, our research department helped us<br />
to identify “outliers” and clean the data so<br />
we could proceed with our analysis. When<br />
analyzing within a state, we considered<br />
only those <strong>ISPs</strong> and connection types for<br />
which we had at least five users.<br />
The other part of the evaluation—customer<br />
satisfaction—is based on userreported<br />
information in the SurfSpeed<br />
application, which includes a five-item<br />
satisfaction index. We aggregated people<br />
who rated themselves as “Extremely<br />
Satisfied” or “Very Satisfied” under the<br />
category of “satisfied” users. Dissatisfied<br />
users include those who rated themselves<br />
as either “Somewhat Satisfied” or “Not<br />
Satisfied.”<br />
To determine the penetration of broadband<br />
connections into households, and<br />
the average cost of those connections, we<br />
turned to Centris, which collects such data<br />
as part of its typical research.<br />
Comparing Connection Speeds<br />
Our conclusion regarding speed is probably<br />
not surprising to many. We found<br />
that fiber-optic service is by far the fastest<br />
type available, with an average speed of<br />
921 Kbps. This was 152 percent faster than<br />
satellite and over 20 percent faster than<br />
cable. Clearly, if you can switch up, you<br />
should. The fiber market will only grow,<br />
too, as companies install more and more<br />
lines. According to the Telecommunications<br />
Industry Association’s 2008 Market<br />
Review and Forecast, “During the next four<br />
MARCH 2009 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 41
years, more fiber will be deployed than<br />
during the so-called overbuilding years<br />
of the late 1990s and early 2000s.” Some of<br />
the major fiber-optic carriers include the<br />
well-publicized Verizon FiOS and lesserknown<br />
regional carriers like Utah’s Mstar<br />
and New Mexico’s CityLink Fiber.<br />
At the other end of the spectrum is satellite.<br />
Although satellite providers such as<br />
the industry leader HughesNet and competitors<br />
like WildBlue have been a godsend<br />
for those in the farthest-flung regions<br />
42 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION MARCH 2009<br />
of the country (making service available<br />
where there previously was none), its<br />
customers nonetheless suffer the slowest<br />
speeds. With an average speed of 145<br />
Kbps, satellite is still faster than dial-up<br />
but doesn’t come close to even the nextslowest,<br />
DSL.<br />
As for the connection types most of us<br />
use—cable and DSL—there is no longer<br />
any debate. Cable is clearly faster, with an<br />
average speed of 735 Kbps, compared with<br />
DSL’s 476. Among cable providers, our tests<br />
found Optimum Online (Cablevision) and<br />
Cox to be the fastest, at 839 and 774 Kbps,<br />
respectively. For DSL, Connecticut-based<br />
FrontierNet (724 Kbps) and Louisiana’s<br />
CenturyTel (520 Kbps) topped the list.<br />
Who Puts Customers First?<br />
Just because a certain ISP is fast, doesn’t<br />
mean all of its customers are happy. Surf-<br />
Speed asked users to rate their feelings<br />
about their <strong>ISPs</strong> on a scale from “Extremely<br />
satisfied” to “Not satisfied.” <strong>ISPs</strong> could be
doing better in the eyes of customers. In<br />
only three states did more than 50 percent<br />
of users say they were satisfied with their<br />
Internet provider. Interestingly, the results<br />
closely coincided with those of our annual<br />
Reader Satisfaction Survey.<br />
Still, surfing speed is a major part of<br />
the user experience, so it makes sense that<br />
users gave some of the fastest <strong>ISPs</strong> the<br />
highest customer satisfaction ratings. For<br />
example, Verizon FiOS had the highest<br />
rating of all, with 71 percent of its custom-<br />
ers rating themselves as satisfied with the<br />
service. The satellite provider HughesNet<br />
was at the bottom, with a lowly 6 percent<br />
of users saying they are satisfied. Among<br />
the cable providers, Optimum Online and<br />
WOW (Wide Open West) Internet topped<br />
the list. Cable customers tended to be<br />
satisfied with their service, more or less;<br />
most approval ratings hovered around 50<br />
percent. It’s a different story with DSL. In<br />
that market, AT&T was the winner, with<br />
only 38 percent satisfied.<br />
The Regional Picture<br />
Analyzing gigantic geographic regions is<br />
a difficult way to identify the fastest <strong>ISPs</strong><br />
with any degree of scientific certainty.<br />
For example, states in the West get online<br />
faster than anywhere else in the country, at<br />
565 Kbps, and the South proved the slowest<br />
part of the country, at 551 Kbps. But the<br />
difference between those numbers, just 14<br />
Kbps, isn’t very meaningful.<br />
Analyzing results at the state level<br />
proves more interesting. As a rule, met-<br />
MARCH 2009 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 43
RANkINg THE <strong>ISPs</strong><br />
To rate an ISP’s performance accurately, we based our results on two criteria: speed and customer satisfaction. As you can see,<br />
Verizon’s fiber service is the big winner on speed and customer satisfaction, with satellite ISP HughesNet the big loser on both.<br />
Internet Internet Service Provider<br />
CABLE<br />
SurfSpeed<br />
(Kbps)<br />
100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000<br />
Percentage of<br />
satisfied users<br />
Optimum Online (Cablevision) 839 62%<br />
Cox 774 48%<br />
Comcast 750 33%<br />
Bright House 736 45%<br />
Road Runner (Time Warner) 733 45%<br />
Insight Broadband 717 51%<br />
RCN 698 41%<br />
Charter 641 29%<br />
WOW Internet (Wide Open West) 638 57%<br />
Mediacom Online 631 38%<br />
Other cable 618 43%<br />
Cable ONE 602 52%<br />
EarthLink 565 46%<br />
Average cable<br />
DSL<br />
688 45%<br />
FrontierNet 724 20%<br />
CenturyTel 520 16%<br />
AT&T (including SBC Yahoo!) 502 38%<br />
Verizon 469 29%<br />
Other DSL 442 31%<br />
Qwest 423 32%<br />
BellSouth 413 36%<br />
EarthLink 369 12%<br />
Alltel 357 24%<br />
Average DSL<br />
FIBER OPTIC<br />
469 27%<br />
Verizon 931 71%<br />
Other fiber optic 582 61%<br />
Average fiber optic<br />
SATELLITE<br />
582 61%<br />
HughesNet 121 6%<br />
Other satellite 145 13%<br />
Average satellite 121 6%<br />
ropolitan areas are better cared for by<br />
Internet service providers. More densely<br />
populated areas across the country<br />
reported better and faster service on our<br />
test. So determining the overall speed of a<br />
state means balancing data on how quickly<br />
city residents get online and how effectively<br />
more rural areas are served.<br />
Speed is only half the picture, however.<br />
If half a state’s residents can’t even get<br />
broadband access, how well served is the<br />
state as a whole? Availability of broadband<br />
services is a gigantic factor in how fast<br />
you get online, and the cost of that service<br />
also determines what percentage of area<br />
residents can afford it. If it’s too expensive<br />
and available in only half a state, the state’s<br />
overall speed rating will drop. To get the<br />
full picture of Internet access across the<br />
country, we turned to Centris, a research<br />
firm that collects information on the use of<br />
voice, video, data, and electronic products<br />
and services.<br />
44 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION MARCH 2009<br />
According to Centris, New Jersey has<br />
the highest percentage of broadband penetration,<br />
with a whopping 80.2 percent,<br />
and speedy Nevada comes in second with<br />
75.3 percent. In fact, broadband penetration<br />
was over 50 percent in more than half<br />
the country. But cost tells a different story:<br />
Folks from New Jersey pay a very low $33<br />
on average for monthly broadband access,<br />
but Nevadans pay nearly $40.<br />
Does a price bump represent more<br />
options, or is it simply a regional thing?<br />
According to David Klein, executive vice<br />
president at Centris, “These findings are<br />
consistent with our view that competition<br />
and market dynamics are driven by<br />
the ability to deploy the fastest technologies<br />
at the local level. We will likely see<br />
even higher penetration rates and more<br />
market-share changes as service providers<br />
locally deploy new faster technologies<br />
such as DOCSIS 3.0 and universal wireless<br />
broadband.”<br />
Overall Results<br />
The top five states for speed are Nevada,<br />
Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and<br />
Connecticut. At the bottom are New<br />
Mexico, Hawaii, Wyoming, Vermont, and<br />
Iowa. The West proved to be the fastest<br />
region, followed by the Midwest, Northeast,<br />
and South. Some 24 states were above<br />
the national average for speed, with the<br />
Northeast having the most states in the<br />
top 10. Although a Western state won, the<br />
West had the most states in the bottom<br />
10. Despite a significant rural population,<br />
Virginia was the fastest state below the<br />
Mason-Dixon. And in the Midwest, the<br />
Cornhusker state of Nebraska topped that<br />
region’s list, thanks to users reporting tremendous<br />
speeds with Cox cable service—<br />
909 Kbps.<br />
If you want to test your Internet connection<br />
using SurfSpeed, you can download<br />
the utility at www.pcmag.com/utilities.<br />
Registration is required.
Solutions<br />
problems solved this issue<br />
48 At Work<br />
• Explore the benefits of accounting<br />
software<br />
50 office<br />
• Create a TOC in Word 2007<br />
52 security<br />
• Make console gaming safe<br />
You’ve probably upgraded your digital camera once or twice over the past few years.<br />
But what have you done with your old ones? By David Cardinal<br />
Older cameras are often not worth selling<br />
on eBay, and if you give one to a friend<br />
you’re likely to be answering questions<br />
about it for the next year. Your kids may<br />
well already have their own camera or a<br />
camera phone. And you can’t bring yourself<br />
to just toss your old cameras in the<br />
trash. So if your household is anything like<br />
my household, you have a couple of them<br />
in a closet, or in a box in the basement, or<br />
53 tips<br />
• Create meetings in Outlook easily<br />
• Clear print jobs without rebooting<br />
• Make earphones last longer<br />
• Get the right antenna for DTV<br />
• Get the right processor to play back<br />
HD programs<br />
• Keep camera lenses clean<br />
• Learn Blackberry, iPhone typing<br />
tricks<br />
• Eliminate inkjet printout smears<br />
• Find devices on your network easily<br />
• Dress up your GPS icons<br />
Make Something New with<br />
Your Old Digital Camera<br />
Photograph: Thom O’Connor<br />
somewhere in the garage. No more! In this<br />
article we’ve put together some fun and<br />
useful ideas for what you can do with your<br />
old digital camera.<br />
inexpensive Fish-eye lens<br />
I’ve always thought fish-eye photos were<br />
neat, but I was never willing to spend the<br />
$200 on a fish-eye adapter for my digital<br />
camera. Then I found a cool way to build<br />
a fish-eye solution for less than $20. All<br />
it requires is a standard “peephole” door<br />
viewer from a home supply store and a<br />
way to attach it to your camera. For best<br />
results, you want to use as wide a peephole<br />
as possible. An ultrawide door viewer<br />
from a home supply store will cost you<br />
about $15, although if you want to scrimp<br />
further you can get narrower ones for<br />
even less.<br />
MARCH 2009 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 45
To attach the peephole you need some<br />
type of permanent mount on the camera.<br />
This is where having an older camera can<br />
be better. If your camera doesn’t have a<br />
screw thread you’ll need to tape a piece of<br />
PVC tubing or a bottle cap of some kind<br />
onto your camera and then tape the peephole<br />
onto it. My Nikon Coolpix 880 has a<br />
screw thread, and for $5 I was able to buy a<br />
threaded adapter that worked nicely with<br />
my $15 ultrawide door viewer.<br />
Once the “fish-eye” is added, the camera<br />
will have a huge field of view—much<br />
wider than you can normally get with the<br />
camera itself—and it gains that unmistakable<br />
fish-eye effect. I found I needed to<br />
crop images a bit after taking them, as the<br />
door viewer didn’t cover the entirety of<br />
the 880’s lens.<br />
The key to getting reasonable fish-eye<br />
images is to buy as wide a door viewer as<br />
you can find. The $15 version I bought covered<br />
most of the field of view of the lens on<br />
my Coolpix 880. You need to keep the door<br />
viewer out of the way of the lens when it<br />
extends, either by using a screw-in tube<br />
like the Nikon extender I purchased for<br />
$5 or a short piece of PVC tubing attached<br />
with tape. (Now you can probably see why<br />
you’d want to use an older camera for this<br />
project.)<br />
You get a very wide field of view with<br />
your home-built fish-eye, but you’ll need<br />
to tinker with your camera’s settings to get<br />
46 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION MARCH 2009<br />
solutions hardWarE<br />
your subjects in focus. Experiment with<br />
zooming in and with the macro mode, if<br />
your camera has one. Remember to turn<br />
off your built-in flash, as it will be blocked<br />
by the door viewer.<br />
do-it-yourself Webcam<br />
Are you jealous of your friends’ new laptops<br />
with built-in webcams but reluctant<br />
to invest the extra money in yours to add<br />
one? The good news is that you can use<br />
Fish-eye vieW Attach a $15 door peephole from a home supply<br />
store to an old camera, and presto, you have a fish-eye lens.<br />
an old point-and-shoot digital camera as<br />
a webcam. All you need is a camera with<br />
video output and a way to get the video<br />
into your computer. Your old point-andshoot<br />
probably has an A/V-out port and a<br />
cable that lets you output to a TV. If your<br />
computer already has a video input—many<br />
do, particularly ones marketed as media<br />
PCs—then you’re all set: You can just plug<br />
the camera into your computer and turn<br />
on the camera.<br />
A WebCAm in minutes An old Canon PowerShot serves as a more than able webcam.
If your computer doesn’t have a video<br />
input, you can buy an inexpensive USB<br />
capture device for $5 to $10 on eBay, or<br />
a brand-new EasyCap Video Capture<br />
Adapter for $15.<br />
The same device can let you watch TV<br />
on your computer, too, since the encoding<br />
hardware is the same—look for a TVtuner-plus-video-capture<br />
USB adapter for<br />
$30 to $50 instead. You’ll need to install<br />
the driver that comes with the device, but<br />
not the video-editing software. Simply<br />
run your favorite IM client; with the capture<br />
device’s driver installed the IM client<br />
should find your camera and let you use it<br />
as your webcam for videoconferences.<br />
I hooked up my old Canon PowerShot<br />
to a desktop PC using a $15 video-capture<br />
dongle and ran Microsoft Live Messenger,<br />
selecting the video device as my input. I<br />
was videoconferencing within minutes.<br />
With some cameras the audio will be<br />
sent along with the video. If that’s not the<br />
case with yours, set your computer’s audio<br />
input to its microphone. For convenience<br />
I also used a GorillaPod screwed into<br />
the base of my old PowerShot to let the<br />
camera perch nicely on my LCD for conferencing<br />
use. You’ll want to disable the<br />
auto-shutoff so that your camera will stay<br />
on during longer calls. The one I tested ran<br />
for several hours on its battery, but if you<br />
use it a lot, consider plugging your camera<br />
in to its power adapter.<br />
daredevil bicycle Camera<br />
Do you wish you could better impress your<br />
friends with death-defying tales of careening<br />
down your favorite hill on your mountain<br />
bike or around those S-curves on your<br />
motorcycle? Sure, we all do. What if you<br />
could illustrate your story with a video?<br />
Creating a bike camera is a perfect use<br />
for that old digital camera you have lying<br />
bonus l TiMe-LAPSe “SPy” CAM<br />
One of the cool things about setting<br />
your digicam to operate as a<br />
webcam is the free software available<br />
online, which can turn it into<br />
a remotely operated or time-lapse<br />
camera to monitor any location<br />
where you can put a computer. i<br />
used yawcam and found it fully<br />
featured and simple to install. The<br />
software even includes a motiondetector<br />
capability that can trigger<br />
recording whenever the camera’s<br />
sensor detects motion.<br />
instAnt thrill CAm you can easily capture video and stills of bike rides by attaching an<br />
old camera (in this case, a Nikon Coolpix 880) to the handlebars.<br />
around. It can probably capture video, and<br />
you won’t be as concerned about smashing<br />
it as you were before it was relegated<br />
to your closet. All you need is a simple<br />
handlebar mount, which you can make<br />
with about $3 worth of parts from any<br />
home supply store.<br />
The mount is built from a simple<br />
T-shaped piece of 3/4-inch PVC pipe, cut in<br />
half and attached to your handlebars with<br />
a pair of hose clamps. I also used some<br />
inexpensive compression fittings to help<br />
cushion the mount and absorb shock. (All<br />
can be found in the garden section of your<br />
home supply store.) The other piece of the<br />
mount is a PVC end cap with a hole drilled<br />
through it and a lengthy quarter-inch bolt<br />
fastened pointing up through the hole.<br />
You’ll want to make sure the bolt has 20<br />
threads per inch to match the standard for<br />
tripod sockets.<br />
Once you have the T piece clamped<br />
to your handlebars, simply screw in the<br />
end cap (with the bolt inserted) and then<br />
screw the camera to the mount using its<br />
tripod socket. I used two nuts so that one<br />
would hold the bolt to the bicycle while I<br />
could use the other to tighten the camera<br />
facing forward. And if you have large tube<br />
handlebars, use 1-inch PVC pipe instead of<br />
3/4-inch.<br />
I mounted an old Nikon Coolpix 880<br />
to my daughter’s bicycle, and it handily<br />
captures video and stills of her rides.<br />
Make sure not to crimp your gear or brake<br />
cables when you mount the camera on<br />
your handlebars. We had to trim our PVC<br />
T piece so that it would fit cleanly on the<br />
exposed area of the handlebar.<br />
The simplest way to use the camera<br />
is to shoot video, so you can simply start<br />
recording and riding. If you want to take<br />
still photos, you’ll need either to chance<br />
a quick press with your finger or to use a<br />
remote release, which you can wire to your<br />
hand grip.<br />
MARCH 2009 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 47
Do you track purchase orders and client<br />
lists using Excel spreadsheets and Word<br />
documents? Produce invoices using a<br />
calculator, label printer, paper checkbook<br />
and envelopes? Use sticky notes on<br />
your monitor to remind you that, say, an<br />
employee needs to change her income tax<br />
withholding?<br />
If so, you’re not alone. Many small businesses<br />
begin this way and, before they<br />
know it, realize that the sticky notes and<br />
spreadsheets just aren’t cutting it anymore.<br />
Setting up and using small-business<br />
accounting software may be just what you<br />
need, and believe it or not, it’s much easier<br />
than it seems.<br />
A Place for Everything<br />
There are three major areas of benefit<br />
in using accounting software if you have<br />
a small business, and lots of little ones.<br />
Taken together, they mean you’re sure<br />
to save time and even money—and gain<br />
time to concentrate on growing your<br />
business.<br />
CustomErs. That list of customers<br />
you’re trying to maintain as a Word document<br />
or in Outlook or a Rolodex or—say it<br />
ain’t so—on paper? That list needs to be in<br />
a database designed for finances. Accounting<br />
software contains record formats that<br />
let you type in—or sometimes import—<br />
relevant details, things like contact information,<br />
credit terms and limits, credit card<br />
numbers, and price levels. You can usually<br />
set up custom fields to track any additional<br />
information you’d like to. And sometimes<br />
customer records can also contain descriptions<br />
of jobs you’re working on for that<br />
company; they may even display a history<br />
of your transactions with them.<br />
Try doing that on an index card. Now<br />
try keeping it updated. And add all your<br />
vendor records to that to-do list. Accounting<br />
software keeps you in the know about<br />
solutions at work<br />
Does Your Business Need<br />
Accounting Software?<br />
If your bookkeeper spends Saturdays in the office trying to keep up with paychecks and taxes<br />
and tax code updates and outstanding invoices, specialized software can come to the rescue.<br />
By Kathy Yakal<br />
48 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION MARCH 2009<br />
whom you’re buying from, and to whom<br />
you owe money.<br />
EmPloyEEs. Does your bookkeeper<br />
spend his or her Saturdays in the office,<br />
trying to keep up with tax tables, paychecks,<br />
and taxes? Take the time to enter<br />
information about your employees and<br />
assorted taxes and deductions (and it will<br />
take some time up front, like any other<br />
setup task). Then payroll processing will<br />
involve little more than entering the hours<br />
everyone worked and printing paychecks<br />
(or authorizing direct deposit). When it’s<br />
time to make good on your government<br />
payroll tax obligations, the software will<br />
make those calculations, too.<br />
InvEntory. What do you do when a<br />
customer orders something? Does someone<br />
have to go into the back room to see<br />
if you have any to sell? By keeping inventory<br />
records, you’ll have detailed descriptions<br />
of everything you sell. When you sell<br />
something, your software will decrease the<br />
level you have on hand. Sell enough and it<br />
will remind you that you’re running low, so<br />
you won’t be caught short.<br />
Working together<br />
Financial transactions are the lifeblood of<br />
a business—they help you pay the people<br />
you owe and get paid yourself. Accounting<br />
software uses all of those nicely organized<br />
records you’ve created and makes transaction<br />
processing a snap. Built-in integration<br />
means that, unless you need to enter a new<br />
vendor or item, or update other information<br />
(and you can do this easily, on the fly,<br />
anytime), all the data you need is right<br />
there in one program.<br />
How are you creating invoices now?<br />
Typing them up in Word, or, worse, using<br />
a typewriter on preprinted stock? That<br />
probably means you have to look up things<br />
like addresses, item numbers, and so on—a<br />
major time waster.<br />
Accounting software contains prebuilt<br />
forms for documents like invoices, purchase<br />
orders, and sales receipts. The forms<br />
can usually be customized—you can add<br />
your logo or other graphics and add or<br />
delete fields. When you need to fill one out,<br />
drop-down lists let you select data for fields<br />
such as Customer and Item, data from the<br />
records you’ve already created. The software<br />
is designed so that everything works<br />
together.<br />
When you’ve completed invoices or<br />
purchase orders, you don’t need to waste<br />
time printing, labeling, stamping, and<br />
mailing; you can simply e-mail the document.<br />
Saves time, and it may help you get<br />
paid faster. Some software will let you<br />
accept credit card payments or electronic<br />
checks, a function that may also improve<br />
your bottom line.<br />
This integration saves not only time<br />
but also embarrassment when a customer<br />
or vendor calls to check on something.<br />
Instead of rifling through paper files or<br />
promising to call back after you check with<br />
someone else, you can use your software’s<br />
search capabilities to pull up the appropriate<br />
documents or transaction.<br />
Instant Information<br />
All of the work you do in your accounting<br />
software culminates in a benefit that you<br />
would have to struggle to replicate in any<br />
other way, if you could manage it at all:<br />
reports.<br />
Yes, an Excel spreadsheet can track<br />
your income and expenses. But Excel<br />
doesn’t provide a view from which you can<br />
select from among dozens of customizable<br />
reports that can tell you, for example:<br />
• Your gross profit from each customer<br />
• How your net worth has changed over<br />
a specific period of time<br />
• Your company’s value, with the total<br />
balance for each type of account
four solId ACCountIng PACkAgEs<br />
Convinced that your small business needs accounting software? Here are four packages to consider.—Gary Berline<br />
Microsoft Office<br />
Accounting<br />
Professional 2008<br />
From $199.95 direct<br />
l l l l m<br />
An Outlook-like interface,<br />
robust integration with<br />
other Microsoft Office<br />
apps, and a good help<br />
system make this one of the<br />
easiest-to-use accounting<br />
products you’ll find. The<br />
package is a good choice<br />
for small businesses that<br />
need integrated online-sales<br />
capabilities, want a familiar,<br />
Microsoft Office look and<br />
feel, and have simple inventory-tracking<br />
needs.<br />
Click here for more.<br />
• Your company’s total expenses, per<br />
transaction, for each vendor<br />
• What wage and withholding information<br />
you need for state taxes<br />
• Which transactions have affected the<br />
value of your inventory<br />
Of course, you can set up Excel spreadsheets<br />
to tell you just about anything, but<br />
that’s the point: You have to set them up—<br />
and update them constantly. Accounting<br />
software simply builds on the work<br />
you’ve already done, the transactions<br />
you’ve already entered, to give you a realtime,<br />
bird’s-eye view of your company’s<br />
finances.<br />
That’s a time-saver, but it can be more:<br />
a business-saver, if you stay on top of your<br />
reports and catch problems early.<br />
Auditing, Banking Benefits<br />
There are still other reasons why most<br />
businesses need accounting software:<br />
• Audit trail. If you have multiple<br />
employees working on a paper system,<br />
you may have a hard time knowing who’s<br />
done what to your records, and when.<br />
Most accounting software offers an audit<br />
trail, a lengthy list chronicling any addi-<br />
MYOB Premier<br />
Accounting 2008<br />
From $299 direct<br />
l l l h m<br />
If you don’t need extensive<br />
online services, MYOB Premier<br />
Accounting 2008 will<br />
suit you well. It has a clean,<br />
exceptionally navigable<br />
interface and a solid set of<br />
accounting tools, including<br />
a very capable inventorytracking<br />
system.<br />
Click here for more.<br />
Peachtree by Sage<br />
Complete Accounting<br />
2009<br />
From $269.99 direct<br />
l l l l m<br />
This software offers exceptionally<br />
thorough modules,<br />
good overview tools, and<br />
three payroll levels. The<br />
application deals with<br />
accounting issues capably,<br />
excelling especially at<br />
inventory. With an interface<br />
overhaul and enhanced<br />
usability, Peachtree by Sage<br />
Complete Accounting 2008<br />
could become a star.<br />
Click here for more.<br />
tions and changes made to the system, and<br />
who made them. This is a critical security<br />
feature.<br />
• Multiuser access. Most accounting<br />
software can be set up on a network, which<br />
means you’re not constantly running back<br />
and forth to other offices to get the information<br />
you should all have.<br />
• Roles and permissions. If you’re on a<br />
network, you probably don’t want everyone<br />
to have access to everything. Accounting<br />
software lets you assign roles to users<br />
and define exactly where they can go and<br />
what they can do on the system.<br />
• Online banking. Most accounting<br />
software gives you easy access to your<br />
bank accounts online (if your financial<br />
institution allows it). This capability can<br />
save a lot of time, provide real-time banking<br />
information, and eliminate some duplicate<br />
data entry.<br />
• Dashboards. With so much going on<br />
in your financial system, how do you get<br />
a handle on what needs to be done each<br />
day? Accounting software can remind you<br />
when, for example, invoices are due or<br />
past due, payroll or other taxes must be<br />
paid, inventory is running low, and more.<br />
QuickBooks Accounting<br />
Pro Edition 2009<br />
From $199.95 direct<br />
l l l l h<br />
Small businesses will<br />
find an excellent stable<br />
of features here.<br />
You get good management<br />
overviews,<br />
expansive payroll options,<br />
marketing tools, and more.<br />
QuickBooks Accounting<br />
Pro Edition 2009 may not<br />
be the strongest package<br />
in every area, but of all the<br />
small-business accounting<br />
programs available today, it<br />
offers the best combination<br />
of usability and accounting<br />
features.<br />
Click here for more.<br />
• Accountant access. If you’re working<br />
with an accountant who blesses your books<br />
periodically, you can give him or her access<br />
to your system—and keep working ahead<br />
while your past work is being checked.<br />
yes, you Can<br />
There are probably as many objections to<br />
accounting software as there are reasons<br />
to use it. It’s expensive (it’s not). I’ll need to<br />
have an accounting professional on my staff<br />
(nope; these programs are built for nonpros).<br />
I can track my finances just as well on<br />
my own (you can’t). I’ll lose all of my data<br />
(this is 2009, and there are many reliable<br />
backup options). My business is too small<br />
(do you spend money? make money?).<br />
If you need to know how much money<br />
you’re spending and taking in, where it’s<br />
going and coming from, what’s in stock<br />
and on time and what’s not, and you want<br />
to treat your employees, customers, and<br />
vendors as professionally as possible, you<br />
need accounting software.<br />
full rEvIEWs At PCmAg.Com For a full<br />
roundup of accounting software programs,<br />
check out go.pcmag.com/accounting<br />
MARCH 2009 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 49
Sometimes the ideas for my Solutions<br />
pieces come from readers; other times<br />
they’re the result of problems I’ve encountered<br />
and managed to solve on my own.<br />
Then there are those occasions when<br />
I decide a solution is needed simply<br />
because people around me keep asking<br />
for help on a certain point. I figure if a<br />
bunch of people I know are uncertain, it’s<br />
a good bet others some readers are as well.<br />
This solution, creating a table of contents<br />
(TOC) in Word, is a request that never<br />
seems to go away.<br />
As with many things in Microsoft Word<br />
2007, such as indexing, the Table of Contents<br />
feature comes almost unchanged out<br />
of earlier versions of the software. One<br />
thing, though, that makes Word 2007’s<br />
50 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION MARCH 2009<br />
solutions office<br />
Create a Word 2007<br />
Table of Contents<br />
When your Word documents approach novel—or even novella—length, it may be time<br />
to give readers a table of contents. By Neil Randall<br />
automated options<br />
The TOC drop-down<br />
menu offers two automated<br />
TOCs along with<br />
other options.<br />
TOC feature more usable than earlier<br />
versions is the inclusion of the Styles gallery—that<br />
big thing that takes up the right<br />
half of the Home ribbon.<br />
The trick with Word TOCs is recognizing<br />
that they rely (for the most part) on<br />
styles. A basic TOC is essentially nothing<br />
more than Word grabbing text that has<br />
been assigned a specific style and placing<br />
it in a hierarchically arranged list. You<br />
tell Word which style you want to make<br />
up each step on the hierarchy, and Word<br />
formats it for you as a TOC. As you might<br />
expect, you can modify this arrangement<br />
(and we’ll get to that), but a quick-anddirty<br />
TOC is pretty easy to create.<br />
First, have a look at the following organization—it’s<br />
the standard one for TOCs.<br />
pick a style The<br />
Styles gallery gives<br />
easy access to the<br />
styles you can use or<br />
modify for your TOC.<br />
TOC Level One<br />
TOC Level Two<br />
TOC Level Three<br />
TOC Level One<br />
TOC Level Two<br />
TOC Level Three<br />
And so on. The hierarchy here is, obviously,<br />
that Level One reflects the main<br />
TOC headings, Level Two reflects secondary<br />
TOC headings, and Level Three<br />
reflects tertiary TOC headings. Many<br />
TOCs stop at only two levels, of course,<br />
but more are possible.<br />
To create a TOC in Word, first determine<br />
which textual elements (we’ll call<br />
them “TOC headings” here) you want to<br />
appear in it. Often these are the same as<br />
the titles and subtitles in your document.<br />
Then assign a unique style to all instances<br />
of each TOC level. For example, assign one<br />
particular style to all the main TOC headings<br />
and another to all the secondary TOC<br />
headings. Make sure these styles aren’t<br />
used for anything else in the document (or<br />
else Word will think it’s part of the TOC).<br />
To assign a style to a text element, simply<br />
highlight the text and, in the Style gallery,<br />
click on the style you want it to have.<br />
By default, Word assumes you want<br />
to use the “Heading” styles for your TOC<br />
entries: Heading 1, Heading 2, Heading 3,<br />
and so forth. (The first two are visible on<br />
the Styles gallery, as long as you haven’t<br />
modified it.)<br />
You may use whatever styles you want,<br />
however, including any you create yourself.<br />
But you might want to stick with the<br />
defaults, at least while you experiment<br />
with TOC creation: Word’s automatic TOC<br />
generator uses these by default.
choose the number of levels Among other things, the<br />
TOC dialog box lets you choose how many levels of headings<br />
you want to show in the table of contents.<br />
Once you’ve assigned styles to the<br />
headings that will be listed on your TOC,<br />
place the cursor where you want the TOC<br />
to appear in your document (typically at<br />
the very top, or right after a title page), and<br />
click References on the menu bar. Next,<br />
click the Table of Contents button at the<br />
far left of the References ribbon. The top<br />
two options in the resulting drop-down<br />
menu give you nearly identical automatic<br />
TOC options (the only difference being<br />
the title). A third option, the manual TOC,<br />
simply generates a set of placeholder text;<br />
you then change the headings and the<br />
page numbers yourself. It’s useful only in<br />
helping a bit with formatting.<br />
The important point to note here is<br />
that the automatic TOC options use standard<br />
Styles as the basis for TOC headings:<br />
Heading 1, Heading 2, Heading 3, and so<br />
on. To assign other styles as TOC headings,<br />
first create those styles, and then<br />
choose Insert Table of Contents from the<br />
Table of Contents drop-down menu. After<br />
adjusting any items on this dialog that you<br />
want to change (Formats gives some basic<br />
layout themes, for example), click the<br />
Options button.<br />
Most of the Table of Contents Options<br />
dialog consists of the Styles section. Here<br />
you choose which styles represent which<br />
elements of the TOC. By default (and<br />
not shown in the graphic here), Heading<br />
1 is given TOC level 1, Heading 2 is given<br />
TOC level 2, and so on. In the graphic,<br />
TOC level 1 has been assigned to the style<br />
called Title, and level 2 to the style called<br />
Subtitle. To delete the level number from<br />
existing styles, highlight the number in<br />
the field and press the Delete key. When<br />
you’ve made your choices, click OK and<br />
Word will generate the TOC at the current<br />
cursor location.<br />
Note that there’s an option in the dialog<br />
box to use hyperlinks instead of page<br />
numbers. It’s selected by default, and it<br />
will, as you might guess, link the text in<br />
the TOC to the places in the document<br />
where the headings indicated appear. So<br />
anyone reading your document in Word<br />
rather than on a printout can simply Ctrl-<br />
style each level The TOC level fields dictate which Word<br />
style occupies which TOC heading level in the generated TOC.<br />
Headings 1, 2, and 3 are the defaults.<br />
click on a hyperlink to be taken to the relevant<br />
page.<br />
While the TOC’s generation depends<br />
on your document’s styles, the formatting<br />
of the TOC itself (that is, how it looks in<br />
your document) does not. Adjusting the<br />
TOC format is easy: Just click the Modify<br />
button from the main TOC dialog. In the<br />
resulting Style dialog, select the TOC<br />
level you want to change (TOC 1 is heading<br />
level 1, and so on) and click Modify.<br />
This reveals Word’s standard Modify Style<br />
dialog, where you can specify precisely<br />
what you want each TOC level heading to<br />
look like.<br />
preview styles The<br />
specifics for the style of<br />
each TOC heading level<br />
are displayed below the<br />
small Preview area.<br />
MARCH 2009 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 51
Now that you’ve unwrapped your kid’s<br />
brand new Wii, Xbox, or PlayStation, there<br />
are several things you should know about<br />
keeping the tyke safe. The best advice is<br />
that you should participate in their gaming<br />
activities. There’s no substitute for<br />
the watchful eye of a parent, someone<br />
who knows the different safety and content<br />
issues of gaming and can explain how<br />
to handle them as they come up. Just like<br />
physical games (you know, sports), video<br />
games can be fun and rewarding—as long<br />
as children play them in a safe arena.<br />
The right content makes for a positive<br />
gaming experience. Many parents allow<br />
solutions security watch<br />
Making Console Gaming Safer for Kids<br />
Many of us are aware of the trouble a child can get into while using a PC. But have you considered<br />
how to make the console gaming experience safer? By Matthew D. Sarrel<br />
Microsoft Xbox 360<br />
To control the type of games—by ESRB rating—your<br />
child will play, go to the System<br />
tab in the Xbox dashboard, then choose<br />
Family Settings, then Console Controls.<br />
Select Game Ratings. Select the maximum<br />
ESRB rating appropriate for your<br />
children.<br />
Go to Set Pass Code and enter a fourbutton<br />
pass code and a question and<br />
answer in case you forget your code or<br />
want to reset it.<br />
Select Done on both the Set Pass Code<br />
and the Console Controls screens to save<br />
your settings.<br />
Select Yes, Save Changes to enable the<br />
settings.<br />
You can also use Console Controls to:<br />
• Activate the Family Timer to limit<br />
the total amount of time the console can<br />
be used<br />
• Restrict use of Microsoft's Xbox Live<br />
online service<br />
• Restrict access to movies by MPAA<br />
rating<br />
• Prevent the display of restricted content<br />
(for example, downloadable games,<br />
trailers, and demos) in the Xbox Live<br />
Marketplace and Inside Xbox.<br />
52 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION MARCH 2009<br />
their children to have only games with a<br />
certain rating, such as “E” or lower, but it’s<br />
also sensible to understand why a game<br />
carries a particular rating. Study these ratings<br />
so you’ll know whether a game is ageappropriate.<br />
In addition to the ratings, 30 content<br />
descriptors—such as alcohol references,<br />
violence, sexual themes, and even simulated<br />
gambling—provide further context<br />
for your decisions. Some content may be<br />
fine with you, even if it causes a game’s rating<br />
to bump up a level.<br />
The ESRB provides a full explanation<br />
of its ratings and descriptors.<br />
Nintendo Wii<br />
The Wii is the safest platform<br />
for children; that’s because Nintendo<br />
designed features that let<br />
parents totally lock down the<br />
console.<br />
1. From the Wii Menu, select<br />
Wii Options followed by Wii<br />
Settings. Click on the blue arrow<br />
to the right until you reach the Wii System<br />
Settings 2 menu options.<br />
2. Select Parental Controls, then select<br />
Yes.<br />
3. Create a four-digit PIN and select OK.<br />
Then select a secret question to be used<br />
Sony PlayStation 3 and<br />
PlayStation Portable (PSP)<br />
You can restrict games using the<br />
Parental Control menu. In the<br />
main menu, navigate to Settings,<br />
then Security Settings. In the<br />
Parental Control menu, a number<br />
indicates the level of restriction: The<br />
lower the number, the tighter the restrictions.<br />
In Security Settings, select Internet<br />
Browser Start Control and choose On to<br />
block access to the Internet.<br />
Like those on the other consoles, the<br />
PlayStation 3’s and PSP’s parental controls<br />
are enforced by a four-digit password. During<br />
installation, you can reset the default<br />
password, which is 0000, by navigating to<br />
• Early Childhood (“EC”): Ages 3 and<br />
older<br />
•Everyone (“E”): Ages 6 and older<br />
• Everyone 10 Plus (“E10+”): Ages 10 and<br />
older<br />
•Teen (“T”): Ages 13 and older<br />
•Mature (“M”): Ages 17 and older<br />
• Adults Only (Adults Only): Ages 18 and<br />
older only<br />
The Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, Sony Play-<br />
Station 3 and PlayStation Portable (PSP)<br />
all offer parental controls you can use to<br />
set restrictions on factors such as game<br />
type or interactions with other players.<br />
Below are some settings to consider.<br />
if you forget the PIN number.<br />
Once done, select OK.<br />
4. Select Game Settings and<br />
PIN, then Highest Game Rating<br />
Allowed. Once selected, press<br />
OK, Confirm, and Settings Complete.<br />
You can also use the Other<br />
Settings menu under Parental<br />
Controls to:<br />
• Prevent the use of Wii Points in the<br />
Wii Shop Channel<br />
• Restrict online communication<br />
• Prevent use of the Internet Channel<br />
and the News Channel.<br />
the Security Settings menu, then<br />
selecting Change Password.<br />
Enter the default password, and<br />
then enter a new one.<br />
From this menu, you can<br />
also block access to movies by<br />
MPAA rating.<br />
Here are also some tips about using the<br />
PlayStation Network.<br />
• The default settings block content<br />
and restrict chat with other players based<br />
on the age of the registered user.<br />
• Create accounts for each child such<br />
that each account can be administered<br />
separately.<br />
are you gaMe? For full reviews of game<br />
boxes visit gopcmag.com/gamingconsoles.
soLUTIons<br />
Tips<br />
Useful tidbits from PCMag editorial staff, Labs analysts, and readers<br />
MICRosoFT oFFICE<br />
Create Meetings in Outlook the<br />
Easy Way<br />
Most times when you need to set up a<br />
meeting in Outlook, the process starts<br />
with an e-mail you receive. I used to switch<br />
to the Calendar and add a new entry, with<br />
the date and time, and then paste the<br />
e-mail into the new appointment. But<br />
there’s an easier way: Simply right-click<br />
on the original e-mail and choose Move to<br />
Folder, select Calendar, and hit OK. This<br />
actually creates a new appointment entry,<br />
complete with the e-mail inserted in the<br />
main window. You still have to enter the<br />
date, time, and participants, but you get to<br />
that point faster.—Michael Muchmore<br />
WInDoWs<br />
Clear a Print Job Without<br />
Rebooting<br />
If you’ve ever had a print job hang, you’re<br />
probably familiar with the Windows<br />
Print Spooler window. You get to this<br />
window simply by selecting the relevant<br />
printer from the Control Panel’s Printers<br />
and Faxes applet (simply Printers in<br />
Vista). In the somewhat unusual event of a<br />
printer queue jam, you can go to the Print<br />
Spooler and simply delete the job. Sometimes,<br />
though, the system won’t let you<br />
cut off print jobs that way: It marks the job<br />
“Deleting…” but never quite gets there,<br />
and you end up rebooting. Here’s a better<br />
way to do it.<br />
Open a command prompt (go to Start |<br />
Run, then type cmd) and enter the following:<br />
net stop spooler<br />
del c:\windows\system32\spool\printers\*.shd<br />
del c:\windows\system32\spool\printers\*.spl<br />
net start spooler<br />
In Vista you’ll need to open an elevated<br />
command prompt by right-clicking on cmd<br />
.exe and selecting Run as Administrator.<br />
For those of you who remember batch<br />
COMPOsE APPOinTMEnTs ViA E-MAiL You can create appointments in Outlook directly<br />
from an e-mail. The appointment will even include the e-mail text in the main window.<br />
files, use Notepad to save the four commands<br />
above as a batch file. I’ve named<br />
mine Killqueue.bat.—Craig Ellison<br />
MULTIMEDIA<br />
Make Your Earphones Last<br />
Are your earphones always breaking? If<br />
you wad them up and throw them in your<br />
bag every morning—or worse, play with<br />
them while you’re listening to music—<br />
stop! The best way to store earphone or<br />
earbuds is to wrap the cable—gently—<br />
around your fingers, then withdraw your<br />
hand, keeping the loop intact. Put the<br />
coiled-up earphones inside a small carrying<br />
case (not around your iPod), where<br />
the lack of tension on the earpieces and the<br />
protective outer layer will keep them in<br />
tip-top shape.—Tim Gideon<br />
The Right Antenna for DTV<br />
Our government implies that plain old<br />
rabbit-ear antennas should work with<br />
your DTV converter box, but usually this<br />
will not be the case. Your rabbit ears are<br />
designed primarily to home in on VHF<br />
channels (2 to 13), while virtually every<br />
digital broadcast now resides on UHF<br />
channels (14 to 69). The solution is buying<br />
an indoor/outdoor HDTV antenna. They<br />
start at around ten bucks, and since they’re<br />
designed to focus on digital UHF broadcasts,<br />
they should improve your digital<br />
reception dramatically. After the transition,<br />
“high VHF” channels (7 to 13) will go<br />
digital, too—and this kind of antenna will<br />
receive them as well.—TG<br />
High-Def Video Capture<br />
I’ve fielded a couple of questions about<br />
what kind of processor power is required<br />
for capturing HD programs. Actually, the<br />
issue isn’t capturing shows as much as it is<br />
playing them back. Most TV tuner cards<br />
have integrated MPEG encoders that<br />
can offload that job from the CPU. But in<br />
playback, the MPEG decryption is usually<br />
performed by software, and that requires a<br />
fairly serious processor—a minimum of a<br />
2.2-GHz P4 or so.—Jeremy A. Kaplan<br />
MARCH 2009 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 53
TYPE URLs in A FLAsH No need to type<br />
“.com” when entering a URL on your<br />
iPhone; Safari will fill that in for you.<br />
CAMERAs<br />
Clean Your Lens!<br />
This may seem obvious, but many people<br />
forget to keep their camera lenses clean.<br />
A fat smudge on your lens will make all of<br />
your pictures come out blurry. Depending<br />
on how dirty the lens is, there are many<br />
different options out there for cleaning it<br />
(brushes, fluid, and tissues being the most<br />
popular). At the very least, get something<br />
that’s quick and easy—say, a pack of lens<br />
tissue that can fit in your camera case—so<br />
you’ll always have something on hand.<br />
—PJ Jacobowitz<br />
MoBILITY<br />
BlackBerry Typing Tricks<br />
Here are a few of my favorite tips for using<br />
a BlackBerry keyboard:<br />
1. To capitalize letters, don’t bother<br />
with the Shift key; instead, hold down the<br />
key for the letter you want to capitalize for<br />
one second.<br />
2. While Web browsing, press K to<br />
bring up your bookmarks list at any time;<br />
press A to add a new one.<br />
3. Scroll down a message or Web page<br />
quickly by pressing the spacebar. Scroll<br />
back up by pressing Shift-Spacebar.<br />
4. Dial a phone number that contains<br />
letters (1-800-PICK-UPS) by pressing Alt<br />
and then typing the correct letter using the<br />
QWERTY keyboard.—Jamie Lendino<br />
54 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION MARCH 2009<br />
soLUTIons<br />
simplify Typing URLs on the iPhone<br />
When you’re keying in Web addresses,<br />
the iPhone gives you a very useful .com<br />
button that lets you add the four characters<br />
in one press. But as with the desktop<br />
version of Safari, you can even leave<br />
that out: Safari will automatically add it<br />
for you. Bonus tip: hold down the .com<br />
button; you’ll be presented with a list of<br />
alternate domain endings, such as .net,<br />
.edu, and .org.<br />
Keep safari’s Address Bar Handy on<br />
the iPhone<br />
Ever scroll pretty far down a Web page,<br />
only to find that the address bar has disappeared?<br />
No need to scroll back up—<br />
instead, tap the top part of the screen. The<br />
address bar will reappear, regardless of<br />
where you are on the actual Web page.<br />
PRInTERs<br />
Eliminate smeared Printouts<br />
If you use an inkjet printer and see smearing<br />
on a page, that’s typically because<br />
something is sticking to the printhead.<br />
If you have a printer that includes the<br />
nozzles in the cartridges—as do most HP<br />
printers—and you see smearing immediately<br />
after changing a cartridge, remove<br />
the cartridge and check to make sure that<br />
the protective tape over the nozzles is<br />
completely removed. If some of the tape is<br />
still attached, remove it, but be careful not<br />
to touch the nozzle plate.—M. David Stone<br />
nETWoRKInG<br />
Find a Device on Your network<br />
There are a few reasons to know your connected<br />
devices’ IP addresses. For one, it’s<br />
invaluable in troubleshooting. After making<br />
sure your unresponsive device is actually<br />
plugged in, the next step will nearly<br />
always be to point your PC’s browser at<br />
its IP address and make sure that something<br />
having to do with the device appears,<br />
such as a configuration page, or at least the<br />
device name. This leads to another reason:<br />
Often, a device’s “home page”—what you<br />
see in your browser when you type in the<br />
device’s IP address—will give you easier<br />
access to device options, and in some<br />
cases, more settings and extras.<br />
How can you find the IP addresses<br />
of your devices? Through your router’s<br />
configuration screens. In your browser,<br />
type in your router’s IP address, then find<br />
the DHCP client table among the config<br />
screens (which vary by router brand). This<br />
GET THE BAR BACK Tap the top of your<br />
iPhone screen to access your address bar.<br />
table shows all devices connected (physically<br />
or wirelessly) through the router. If a<br />
device doesn’t appear, make sure it’s powered<br />
on. Not sure about your router’s IP<br />
address? At the command prompt (Start |<br />
Run | cmd) type ipconfig and hit Enter. Note<br />
the router’s address on the line that reads<br />
Default Gateway.—Mario Morejon<br />
GPs<br />
Dress Up Your Garmin icons<br />
Most GPS automotive devices use some<br />
variation of a triangle to represent the<br />
current position of your vehicle. With the<br />
introduction of the nüvis, Garmin started<br />
providing additional vehicle icons that<br />
you can use instead of the triangle. But did<br />
you know that you can expand your library<br />
of vehicle icons, free? Garmin provides a<br />
library of vehicle bundles on its site . Once<br />
you’ve downloaded and unzipped the files,<br />
simply copy them into the Garmin vehicle<br />
folder on your device (you’ll need to connect<br />
your nüvi to your computer with a<br />
USB cable). You can also customize vehicle<br />
icons on Garmin’s zumo motorcycle GPSs<br />
as well as the StreetPilot c500 series of<br />
devices.—CE<br />
GREAT iDEA! Got a tip to share? Find a cool<br />
new trick in your favorite gadget or app?<br />
Send it to tips@pcmag.com. We’ll run it<br />
through the PCMag Labs wringer and print<br />
our favorites on this page.
Shop wisely. Print this page and bring it with you.<br />
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Desktop<br />
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lCD monitors<br />
lenovo thinkVision l200x<br />
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Dell ultrasharp 2408WFp<br />
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proJeCtors<br />
editors’ Choices<br />
in key Categories<br />
For the complete<br />
reviews of these<br />
products and more<br />
Editors’ Choices check<br />
out go.pcmag.com/<br />
editorschoice<br />
HigH-enD Xga<br />
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Consumer/Business Xga<br />
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portaBle<br />
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Best<br />
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monoCHrome laser<br />
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lexmark C544dn $499 direct<br />
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all-in-one inkJet<br />
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smC smCgs8p $300 street<br />
HDtVs<br />
plasma<br />
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samsung ln52a750<br />
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oleD<br />
sony Xel-1 oleD Digital tV<br />
$2,499.99 list<br />
Digital Cameras<br />
CompaCt<br />
Canon powershot a1000 is<br />
$349.99 list<br />
HigH-enD D-slr<br />
nikon D300 $1,800 street<br />
(body only)<br />
entry-leVel D-slr<br />
Canon eos rebel Xsi $699 list<br />
(body only)<br />
superzoom<br />
panasonic lumix DmC-Fz18<br />
$399.95 list<br />
Digital ViDeo Cameras<br />
CompaCt<br />
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Video Cam HD<br />
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Blasting<br />
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Digital pHoto & ViDeo<br />
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FlasH<br />
apple ipod touch<br />
(2nd generation)<br />
8GB, $229 direct<br />
apple ipod nano<br />
16GB, $199 direct<br />
samsung yp-u3 (2gB) $90 list<br />
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$549 direct<br />
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slingbox pro-HD $299 list<br />
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garmin oregon 400t $599 list<br />
Cell pHones<br />
alltel<br />
rim BlackBerry Curve 8330<br />
From $229.99 with contract<br />
at&t<br />
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From $199.99 with contract<br />
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FinanCial<br />
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pro edition 2009 $199.95 list<br />
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MARCH 2009 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 55