Australian PC World articles from January 2002

Australian PC World archives from January 2002

We breed 'em tough: the PC World Test Centre has strengthened its testing with an updated benchmark to mirror real-world conditions -- so you can make the right product decisions for your needs every month. (Editorial).
January 1, 2002... Anyone who has met the PC World Test Centre team, or even dropped us a line, would probably think that they're a nice enough group. They are enthusiastic about new technology -- to put it mildly -- and are constantly scouting for the hottest...

Tablet PCs in late 2002. (News Analysis).
January 1, 2002... Goodbye notebook, hello tablet. Well, this is the view being put forward by Microsoft, which is pushing the slate-shaped Tablet PCs as a future substitute for notebooks and -- with the addition of a docking station and keyboard -- desktop PCs....

HP shuts Sydney PC plant.
January 1, 2002... Hewlett-Packard has closed its configuration-to-order PC assembly plant in Sydney as part of its consolidation of manufacturing centres throughout Asia-Pacific. In addition to the Sydney plant, two additional plants have been shut across the...

SMS takes flight with flying kangaroo.
January 1, 2002... Ansett frequent flyers must surely be jealous now. In November, Qantas went live with Flight Update, a free SMS service for the airline's frequent flyers. Qantas Flight Update sends details of flight departure time changes to registered...

Xbox arrives in March. (News Analysis).
January 1, 2002... Unlike Sony, which launched its PlayStation2 console ahead of the Christmas rush, Microsoft will debut its Xbox console alongside, well, Easter eggs and chocolate bunnies. After launching the Xbox in the US on 15 November, Microsoft announced...

Intel DDR chipset debuts. (News Analysis).
January 1, 2002... Opening the doors to cheaper and faster PCs based on Intel's Pentium 4 processor, the long-awaited version of Intel's 845 chipset that supports DDR SDRAM (Double Data Rate Synchronous Dynamic RAM), the 845-D, will be available ahead of...

CSIRO trials 3D high-tech training.
January 1, 2002... The CSIRO has developed technology that combines 3D images with an artificial sense of touch to create a realistic simulation of surgical procedures. Surgeons not only see realistic "organs", but can "feel" and manipulate them, said Dr Matthew...

Next Windows CE to support Bluetooth.
January 1, 2002... The next generation of Microsoft's Windows CE embedded operating system will include support for the wireless standard Bluetooth, paving the way for CE-powered computing devices to communicate with a variety of other wireless devices. The...

Sony unveils new gadgets. (News Analysis).
January 1, 2002... While the PC market may be depressed, nothing is stopping the surge in PC peripherals. Certainly not for Sony, which will start the new year with a blizzard of consumer PC peripherals, featuring such products as a new digital music players, an...

Domain name renewal woes. (News Analysis).
January 1, 2002... Domain name licence holders be warned -- you do not have to pay exorbitant prices for your domain licence renewal and you don't have to go through a reseller for the renewal. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) released a...

NEC to end hard disk drive production.
January 1, 2002... NEC has announced that it will end production of hard disk drives and exit the market altogether. The company currently operates one plant in the Philippines, NEC Computer Storage Philippines, through a technology licence agreement with IBM. At...

Industry group wants software holes filled.
January 1, 2002... A collection of security companies has formed a group to create standard policies and guidelines for how information about software security flaws is distributed and published. Created during a series of workshops at Microsoft's recent...

DVD multi-drive debuted. (News Analysis).
January 1, 2002... DVD enthusiasts can start licking their lips. Matsushita Electric Industrial, better known by its Panasonic brand name, has taken the wraps off a prototype internal DVD multi-drive that boasts read and write compatibility with all DVD Forum...

Multimedia message tests. (News Analysis).
January 1, 2002... In the coming year, Nokia and Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB will begin testing the interoperability of MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) services and applications between different manufacturers. MMS is being billed as the successor...

Toshiba provides 2GB hard drive.
January 1, 2002... Toshiba has laid claim to the mobile computer industry's first 2GB Type II PC Card hard disk drive. The device, which is the size of three credit cards combined and weighs just 55g, is the equivalent of 1300 floppy drives or three CDs, meaning...

EFTPOS offered anywhere, anytime.
January 1, 2002... Mobile Commonwealth Bank business customers now should never be short of a payment following the launch of MobileComm, a mobile EFTPOS device, which allows businesses to accept card payments almost anywhere, using the GSM digital mobile phone...

Unwired unwraps service. (broadband).
January 1, 2002... Net surfers unhappy with the current selection of "wired" broadband services to the home will have a new option towards the end of 2002. And if the promise of the new service provider comes true, ADSL services will be severely challenged. ...

Telstra assures users ADSL woes over. (broadband).
January 1, 2002... Telstra has assured users of its ADSL services a smoother ride in 2002, claiming it has ironed out most of the bugs that have plagued its service in 2001. "The network has achieved greater stability [in 2001]," said Telstra's ADSL...

Australia's largest submarine cable built. (broadband briefs).
January 1, 2002... Australia Japan Cable has connected Australia's largest capacity fibre optic cable, with the final section of the 12000km cable being successfully spliced ahead of schedule. The 640Gbps capacity cable is currently in testing and is expected to...

Broadband comes to rural Victoria. (broadband briefs).
January 1, 2002... AAPT has expanded its Local Multipoint Distribution Service (LMDS) broadband wireless network to Shepparton in response to rising demands from local businesses for higher bandwidth voice, data and Internet services. The Shepparton roll-out...

Close to the heart: Atari. (alt.net).
January 1, 2002... This holiday season will see people unwrapping the new Microsoft Xbox, PlayStation 2 and myriad games for the home PC. When playing these high-end units, few people will be thinking of the predecessors that revolutionised home gaming -- and...

Hotmail lets users pay to store more. (online news).
January 1, 2002... In another step towards selling services as well as software, Microsoft has started to allow subscribers to its free e-mail service Hotmail to pay for additional online storage. Hotmail users currently are allowed 2MB of space for storing...

ISPs on notice about churn rates. (online news).
January 1, 2002... One of every five small business customers is unhappy with their Internet service provider and is on the lookout for a better deal, according to research from APT Strategies. The APT report suggests 22 per cent of small and medium...

Antivirus technology integrated into e-mail list software. (online news).
January 1, 2002... L-Soft International, maker of the popular Listserv e-mail list software, and antivirus company F-Secure have struck a deal by which F-Secure's antivirus will check every attachment sent using the Listserv software in an attempt to stop the...

AMD strikes back. (tech.files).
January 1, 2002... Performance and controversy mark AMD's new Athlon XP. The XP chips (XP stands for "extreme performance" and has no relation to Microsoft's Windows XP) debut at speeds that range from 1.33 to 1.53GHz, but they're labelled according to a rating...

May the NForce be with you. (tech.files).
January 1, 2002... Befitting a name that sounds like something out of Star Wars, NVIDIA's NForce motherboard chipset -- the graphics chip powerhouse's first -- promises to supercharge Athlon XP systems. AMD collaborated with NVIDIA to develop the chipset, which...

Intel launches low-voltage chip for blades. (tech.news).
January 1, 2002... Intel has launched an ultra-low voltage 700MHz Pentium III processor and companion chipset for servers, hoping to quickly take the lead in the emerging market for thin, low-power, ultra-dense or "blade" servers. The market for blade...

DRAM prices surge. (tech.news).
January 1, 2002... It had to happen sooner or later. After steadily falling for almost one and a half years, the price of DRAM (dynamic random access memory) chips took a sudden turn northwards and has surged since November. Within a week in November, a stick...

Corel Painter 7.0: graphics software. (First Looks).
January 1, 2002... With a filter or two, any photo-editing program can make a picture look like an oil painting, watercolour or pencil scribble. If you want to create original artwork that looks like artwork, rather than something quite obviously done on a...

Microsoft Xbox: game console. (First Looks).
January 1, 2002... Microsoft is making its first foray into the gaming console market, releasing the high-powered Xbox system to crowds of eager gamers. The company has been talking up Xbox for nearly two years, originally unveiling it at a game developers...

Hyundai HGC-610e: WAP phone. (First Looks).
January 1, 2002... What happened to WAP? The telcos promised the Internet on a mobile phone, leading customers to believe that their mobile online experience would be rich, speedy and colourful. WAP is none of those things. The current circuit-switched GSM...

PowerQuest PartitionMagic 7: utility. (First Looks).
January 1, 2002... For people who want to organise their data on the volume or partition level, or who run multiple operating systems on the same computer, partitioning software is simply a necessity. Happily, PowerQuest's PartitionMagic lets you merge, split,...

Nikon Coolpix 885 and Pentax Optio 330: 3-megapixel digital cameras. (First Looks).
January 1, 2002... Both of these 3-megapixel shipping models slip easily into a shirt pocket and will please both the casual shutterbug and the more advanced photographer. The $1549 Nikon Coolpix 885 has handy features, including a noise-reduction mode to...

Ontrack EasyUninstall: program uninstaller. (First Looks).
January 1, 2002... Do you need more disk space? Are too many seldom-used programs causing problems on your PC? Are you afflicted with a cover disc habit where you just can't resist installing every new demo and playing with it for all of, oh, five minutes? Then...

Microtop SE Computer: personal computer. (First Looks).
January 1, 2002... When sitting flat on a desk next to a monitor, the Microtop SE Computer consumes the same amount of real estate that a portable CD player would, and yet it sacrifices nothing in terms of PC connectivity and upgradeability. It has all the...

Ricoh MP5120A DVD+RW: internal combination drive. (First Looks).
January 1, 2002... Ricoh has established itself as a reliable vendor in the CD-ROM, DVD-ROM and CD-R/RW burner market over the last couple of years, and now has launched its latest combination drive. The MP5120A is an internal ATAPI (IDE) drive weighing less than...

Casio Cassiopeia Pocket Manager BE-300; Handspring Visor Neo and Visor Pro; Toshiba Pocket PC E570: personal digital assistants. (First Looks).
January 1, 2002... Palm or Pocket PC? It's a question that anyone in the market for a new palmtop must face. Today, new models from Handspring and Toshiba make the decision that much tougher, and Casio also weighs in with an economical colour-screen PDA that...

Iomega HotBurn (beta) and SmartDisk MVP: CD-burning software. (First Looks).
January 1, 2002... New CD-burning programs from Iomega and SmartDisk both try hard to be consumer friendly. The difference is that Iomega targets general-purpose users, while SmartDisk aims squarely at people who want to create CDs filled with digital audio,...

SOHOmate HiP-400 router: broadband router. (First Looks).
January 1, 2002... The HIP-400 is a router/sharing device combined with a four-port 10/100 dual-speed switch and printer sharer. It's ideal for broadband users wanting to share an Internet connection across their network and, according to the vendor, the device...

Canon CanoScan N670U: flatbed scanner. (First Looks).
January 1, 2002... Canon has recently expanded its range of colour flatbed scanners with the introduction of the latest CanoScan model, the N670U, which supersedes the N650U. The N650U wasn't the fastest scanner on the market, and Canon has attempted to address...

Can't find that file? Try a little sharing: if you think file sharing is just for MP3s, you may be missing out on a valuable new tool: peer-to-peer networking can now help you find much more. (Opinions Web Wise).
January 1, 2002... How many times have you tried to find something on the Web, only to give up in despair? When download sites and search engines come up empty, you can now look at using Gnutella to ease this problem. I can usually find just about anything I...

Linux road map needed: although important breakthroughs in creating Linux standards are being made, the Linux Standard Base needs to do more to generate confidence in the project for developers and users. (Opinions The Open Source).
January 1, 2002... Standards drive the market. That's a truism if ever there was one, but that doesn't make it a simple truth. There are de facto standards, closed standards, open standards and lots of grey areas in between. Linux adoption is still growing at a...

Winners are grinners: (Readers' forum).
January 1, 2002... I would very much like to say thank you to Australian PC World and OKI for the OKIPAGE 8iM Digital LED Printer prize that I was lucky enough to win by entering your competition [October 2001]. I am very impressed with this great little printer....

One time winner. (Readers' forum).
January 1, 2002... I would like to thank Australian PC World for selecting me as a winner of one of four OKIPAGE 8iM Digital LED Printers in the competition conducted recently in your magazine. It is no overstatement that, as I have never won anything in my...

Recognising a solution. (Readers' forum).
January 1, 2002... (Note: This letter was addressed to the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security (www.igis.gov.au) and cc'ed to Australian PC World.) An article published in Australian PC World, "Borders Books delays face-scanning plan" [November...

Telstra troubles. (Readers' forum).
January 1, 2002... I have just got off the phone after speaking to Telstra in regard to getting broadband Internet access (either cable or ADSL), after waiting the prescribed 18 months since my last application submission (I was told back then that the service...

Find everything faster: along with its billions of pages of information, the Web now serves up video and other media -- resources so diverse that you need a team of sites to find what you want: an omnibus search engine, plus specialised search services for specific tasks. We tested both types to uncover the best tools on the Net. (Feature Web and You).
January 1, 2002... Consolidation is the word you hear most often from search engine experts about trends in the industry. "We're likely to have fewer search engines and search portals," says Danny Sullivan, editor of SearchEngineWatch.com. "If the search engines...

Help! is anybody out there? The tech support survival guide: PC World surveys the customer support landscape to see how good technology vendors are at solving your problems. Then we present our strategies for doing your own support, including simple fixes for common computer glitches. (Feature Support Survival Guide).
January 1, 2002... Craig Winkler is CEO of Australian business software giant MYOB, with a customer base of 300,000 in Australia, and another 500,000 registered users worldwide. I pop the question to him: are MYOB customers satisfied with product support? ...

Share and share alike: Napster may have faded, but the revolution lives on! Try these file sharing alternatives for audio, video and more. (Feature File Sharing)(Cover Story).
January 1, 2002... The MP3 format makes huge, uncompressed audio files small enough to be downloadable over the Internet. Songs and other audio clips are digitised, so you can make as many copies of them as you like without any loss of quality. Take that idea,...

Better burning: a CD-RW drive is only as good as its software. We take five feature-rich mastering packages for a spin. (Feature CD Burning Software).
January 1, 2002... So, you've purchased a CD-ReWritable drive? The things you can do with your drive depend on the software that runs it. Often, the software bundled with the drive provides only basic functions such as burning data to a CD-R or performing packet...

Rip it up and mix it up. (Feature CD Burning Software).
January 1, 2002... One popular application of CD-RW drives is to create custom music-mix CDs by ripping (that is, reading the digital data from individual tracks) from audio CDs and burning the tracks onto a CD-R disc. All the applications we reviewed can handle...

Home, sub-$2000 & business PCs. (best buys).
January 1, 2002... HOME PCs 1 Acer Aspire EL This machine ships with DVD-ROM and CD-RW drives as well as a vast 60GB of hard disk space, and the regular floppy drive has been superseded by an LS-240 drive. These drives consume four of the mini-tower's...

Notebooks. (best buys).
January 1, 2002... In today's market there is a notebook computer to deal with almost every performance and functionality demand. Prices range from as little as a couple of thousand dollars up to and over $10,000. From the bottom of this range to the top, you...

Inkjet printers. (best buys).
January 1, 2002... We looked at 12 printers from Canon, Epson, Lexmark, HP and Fuji-Xerox: three cost under $200 (just), six cost between $200 and $500, and three cost over $500. How We Tested As all of the printers had USB connectivity, they were tested...

The latest in IDEs for Linux. (using Linux).
January 1, 2002... Linux application development has classically been done at the command line, but there is now a selection of graphical Integrated Development Environments, or IDEs, that can speed both server and desktop development. Eclipse The...

Moving to an Intel Pentium 4. (here's how).
January 1, 2002... Recent advancements in processing power are far outpacing the requirements of even the most demanding popular software applications and games. If you build a high-end machine, it's likely to last you two to three years at the very least. In...

Correction and warning: here's how upgrader -- bulk up your PC's RAM.
January 1, 2002... Published in Australian PC World, December 2001, page 132 The December issue of Australian PC World stated in relation to an article on increasing the RAM of your computer ("Ramp up your RAM"), under the subheading Ground Yourself, to...

Right-click for faster Windows navigation. (windows 9x).
January 1, 2002... Why click through three menus, two windows, and a couple of dialogue boxes just to get to a file, folder, or application? Left-brainers can remember shortcut keys; everyone else, think right! Your right mouse button's shortcuts take you where...

Take command of CMD. (windows 2000).
January 1, 2002... Although Windows 2000 is a GUI-driven operating system, there are times when it's quicker and easier to fire up a character-mode CMD command interpreter (click Start-Run and type cmd in the dialogue box). The CMD CLI (command line...

I've got the power. (windows me).
January 1, 2002... Many notebook users often complain about their battery life, and time -- or even work -- lost due to poor endurance. There is a way to slightly extend the life of your battery, mainly by specifying the settings found in Windows Me's Power...

User accounts and user switching. (windows xp).
January 1, 2002... Sharing a computer system with other people can be a messy business unless each user has their own account. Setting up an account for each user under Windows XP will not only provide each user with their own personal environment, but it can...

Adding swap space. (linux).
January 1, 2002... So, you've just bought a new stick of RAM for your computer and want to extract the best performance from your newly upgraded system? Everyone knows that more is better when it comes to RAM, and this is true for swap space, too. Swap space...

Customising OS X 10.1. (mac OS).
January 1, 2002... Here's a run-down on making use of some of 10.1's features, plus some examples that may also apply to OS X 10.0. THE FINDER Overall performance has picked up in 10.1, and is noticeable when resizing windows or opening applications, for...

Using Windows Media Player 8. (audio).
January 1, 2002... The new Windows Media Player (WMP) 8 (available in Windows XP only) can be fired up via Start-Windows Media Player. In addition to being able to play movie files such as AVI, ASF, MPEG or even DivX (if you have a DivX decoder installed), WMP...

Screen captures. (graphics).
January 1, 2002... Taking screen captures can form an important part of everyday computing. A screen capture is simply a snapshot of what is currently being displayed on your computer screen. While this may have obvious applications in writing manuals and books,...

Table talk. (html).
January 1, 2002... Last month I introduced you to tables by investigating structure, the major commands, and various properties of tables. This month's column explains how to insert captions, span rows and columns across other cells, place objects within your...

Searching address book data. (php).
January 1, 2002... Last month I looked at storing address book entries submitted by users. The other requirement of an address book is to be able to locate an address. This month we will look at parsing address book entries and matching a user-supplied string: a...

Print folders to a network printer. (Operating systems: Windows 9X).
January 1, 2002... Q You've talked before about printing a list of the files in a folder {see "Print Folder Directories", February 2001 page 124}, but your solution assumed the user has a local printer hooked up to LPT1. What if the person uses a network printer?...

Change your drive letters. (Operating systems: Windows 9X).
January 1, 2002... If you install a new disk drive or repartition an old one, you may be less than thrilled with the letters your system assigns to your drives. In Windows NT, Windows 2000, or Windows XP, you can fix the letters with the Disk Administrator...

Safer Registry handling. (Operating systems: Windows 9X, 2000 and NT).
January 1, 2002... By default, you add a .reg file's information to the Registry when you double-click the file. Windows 98 and later versions prompt you before doing so, but Windows 95 and NT 4 add the information with no prompting. That can be dangerous --...

Dynalink modem driver. (Operating systems: Linux).
January 1, 2002... Q I have a Dynalink 56Kbps VoiceDesk56Pro external modem, which uses the Rockwell chipset. I am very new to Linux and would appreciate someone telling me where I can find a driver for it and how I can load it onto the Mandrake version that was...

The ins and outs of Word templates. (Office applications: Office XP).
January 1, 2002... There are some default settings in Office XP that you may like to banish forever but, unfortunately, sometimes the changes you make in Word don't "stick". In other words, changes you make to settings often apply to the current document only....

Keep testing your firewall. (Internet).
January 1, 2002... In the May column, I described two online tools that test firewalls, Shields Up and HackerWhacker. Both programs expertly pummel your Internet-connected computer with access requests to see whether any of your connection's ports are vulnerable...

Shockwave stands alone. (Internet).
January 1, 2002... In the November column, I described how to find Shockwave animation files in a PC's browser cache for offline playback. Reader Chad Wright, who originally had inquired about the topic, wrote back to ask whether anyone makes a stand-alone...

Bookmark your e-mail. (Internet).
January 1, 2002... I'll bet there have been many times when you've needed to find an important e-mail message quickly. Reader Tushar Teredesai has discovered that Netscape's Communicator version 4.7x allows you to convert messages in Messenger's inbox into...

Control your PC remotely with TridiaVNC. (Internet).
January 1, 2002... Windows XP comes with several nifty new capabilities, including a feature called Remote Desktop. If your home, office, and portable PCs run Windows XP Professional (regrettably, the feature isn't available in Windows XP Home Edition), you can...

Virtual memory settings. (Hardware).
January 1, 2002... Not so long ago, having 64MB of RAM on your PC was considered a luxurious excess. Today, it's the bare minimum. Running many programs at once, processing graphics and video, or caching heaps of Web pages -- each devours RAM. Insufficient...

Bugs & fixes. (Here's How).
January 1, 2002... Problems with Netscape 6.1 Are you running into error messages while installing Netscape 6.17 At the time of writing, Netscape offers fixes for this common problem and for three others. Visit http://help.netscape.com/...

Security spurs network course growth. (skills).
January 1, 2002... In 1987, Open System Interconnect (OSI) came into being as the standard upon which networks were built. OSI is still the basis of networks, and network infrastructure has increasing strategic importance for organisations, big and small. As...

Network training providers. (skills).
January 1, 2002... Note: Due to space constraints not all new courses can be listed, Contact vendors for further details Compaq Phone: 1300 366 647 URL: www.compaq.com.au/training * Compaq Netware integration & performance * Windows NT...

How to Do Everything with Windows XP. (on the shelf).
January 1, 2002... How to Do Everything with Windows XP BY CURT SIMMONS Although most components of Microsoft's new operating system Windows XP remain essentially the same as Windows 98 and Me, some users may still find it a little too different for their...

50 Fast Digital Photo Techniques. (books).
January 1, 2002... Fast Digital Photo Techniques BY GREGORY GEORGES If you have an interest in digital photography, or even digital imaging in general, this step-by-step guide to techniques for enhancing, manipulating, colouring and more is destined to stay...

The Pocket PC. (books).
January 1, 2002... The Pocket PC BY STEVE SEROSHEK With new Pocket PC-based devices being introduced, the market for these PDAs finally seems to be gaining traction. Microsoft's latest version of the operating system, Pocket PC 2002, should also help it earn...

FuelWatch: www.fuelwatch.com.au. (web).
January 1, 2002... Sick of buying fuel and then driving around the corner to find a service station with a cheaper rate? FuelWatch aims to help you avoid such frustration by listing the best rates for petrol. Registration with the site will get you daily e-mail...