Australian PC World articles from March 2000

Australian PC World archives from March 2000

Can you trust your GST supplier?(Government Activity)
March 1, 2000... Small businesses should qualify software guarantees and the availability of upgrades and fixes from accounting software suppliers as part of their preparation for the introduction of the Federal Government's new Goods and Services Tax, analyst...

news briefs.(News Briefs)
March 1, 2000... Non-commercial users will get the next version of the operating system BeOS free of charge when it is released this quarter. Version 5 of the desktop OS will be made free to users who register with Be at free.be.com, in order to promote the...

Cash certificates an "insult".(Government Activity)
March 1, 2000... The Federal Government has received substantial backlash to its $200 cash handouts for small businesses, some criticising the action as an "insult". In a project known as Direct Assistance, the GST Startup Office is issuing $200 certificates to...

Transmeta's secret project unveiled.(Product Information)
March 1, 2000... The industry's mystery company for the past year, Transmeta, has finally unveiled its secret project: a rethink of the way processors and software interact with each other, with the immediate benefit of large power savings, and possibly more...

SpeedStep keeps mobile users juiced.(Product Information)
March 1, 2000... Good news for mobile users: after some delays, Intel's SpeedStep technology has arrived -- and it works. The technology, once dubbed "Geyserville", is a novel way to conserve and extend the CPU, by varying processor speed according to the...

Next-generation Microsoft.(Company Business and Marketing)
March 1, 2000... Industry pundits are speculating that a deal similar to America Online's proposed acquisition of Time Warner could be in the make for Microsoft, though Steve Ballmer, the company's new CEO, has rejected the notion. "The truth is our...

The secret Net.(News Briefs)
March 1, 2000... Is there really an Internet underground? A place beyond the Web sites and e-mail that constitute most people's Internet experience? The answer is a definite yes. It can take months or years of Internet usage before people discover the diverse...

online news.(News Briefs)
March 1, 2000... @Home arrives in Oz Joint venture partners Excite@Home and Cable & Wireless Optus were preparing at press time to launch the long-awaited broadband cable service Optus@Home. The high-speed offering, based on a hybrid fibre coaxial...

Norton Internet Security 2000.(from Symantec Corp)(Evaluation)
March 1, 2000... SECURITY UTILITY As Internet usage continues to rise, more people are beginning to worry about security and attacks by viruses. While programs are rising to meet the challenges of new and devious viruses, there have been few security...

Creative WebCam Go.(Creative Lab's latest digital Web camera)(Evaluation)
March 1, 2000... WEB CAMERA Creative Lab's latest Web camera is like no other it has released and, for that matter, it's a pretty exceptional specimen in the consumer market. As its name suggests, the WebCam Go goes -- mobile, that is. Unplug the USB...

800MHz: Intel vs AMD.(Evaluation)
March 1, 2000... DELL DIMENSION B800R, GATEWAY PERFORMANCE 800XL, PERIPHERALS PLUS ATHLON 800 Three machines running at the brisk speed of 800MHz ventured across our path this month. Two utilised Intel Coppermine chips, and one employed AMD's new 0.18...

Mitac Avenia LP1633.(Evaluation)
March 1, 2000... PORTABLE COMPUTER Mitac is a well known clone-maker and, like some of its fellows, occasionally pursues the development of some distinguishing feature to set its products apart from those of its competitors. With the Avenia LP1633, Mitac...

Compression tools tackle more than zip.(Product Information)
March 1, 2000... CUTEZIP 1.0, DROPZIP 5.0, POWERZIP 2000 LITE Just when you though there were enough zipping tools on the market and WinZip 7 had won the race, along comes new compression software that may make you think twice. Zip is a fairly...

Intel Pentium III 650MHz SpeedStep Notebooks.(IBM THINKPAD 600X, GATEWAY SOLO 9300XL DELUXE)(Evaluation)
March 1, 2000... GATEWAY SOLO 9300XL DELUXE, IBM THINKPAD 600X Two notebooks -- a Gateway Solo 9300xl Deluxe and the IBM ThinkPad 600X -- graced the PC World Test Centre this month, both featuring new Intel Pentium III processors at 650MHz with SpeedStep...

CuteHTML.(from Globalscape)(Product Announcement)
March 1, 2000... HTML EDITOR It seems like the good old days in the world of Web authoring lately. Way back when, if you wanted to buy a new word processor, there were dozens to choose from. Today, the same applies to Web authoring tools, with many...

Namo WebEditor 3.0.(from Namo Interactive)(Product Announcement)
March 1, 2000... HTML EDITOR Not many mainstream-style applications originate from Korea. However, a WYSIWYG Web editor has just been released here from Korea-based Namo Interactive, which also markets a Web site search engine and some specific ActiveX...

MPJet.(from Moore Music)(Evaluation)
March 1, 2000... MP3 PLAYER Distinguishing itself from the rest of the MP3 players I have seen with its unique trapezoid-like shape, the MPJet has a lot of great features that should satisfy the MP3 enthusiast -- but also a few flaws that unfortunately...

E-Sounds MP3 Player.(Evaluation)
March 1, 2000... MP3 PLAYER Finally, a player that is smaller than my bus ticket has arrived! The E-Sounds portable MP3 player fits snugly into the palm of your hand, its square shape measuring 65 x. 65 x 17.5mm and weighing only 58grams. Unlike the MPJet,...

Siren Jukebox.(Evaluation)
March 1, 2000... DIGITAL JUKEBOX There are a lot of things you might want to do with music on your PC these days, especially if you have a CD burner and can create your own music CDs. Sonic Foundry's Siren Jukebox helps bring together all your PC musical...

WebRazor Pro 2.0.(Evaluation)
March 1, 2000... GRAPHICS SUITE Ulead's WebRazor Pro 2.0 combines four complementary Web graphics applications: GIF Animator 4.0, SmartSaver Pro 2.0, Cool 3D 2.5 and Photo Explorer 5.0. GIF Animator 4.0 is the latest incarnation of Ulead's best-known...

Little Fingers Keyboard.(Datadesk Technologies)(Evaluation)
March 1, 2000... KEYBOARD According to Datadesk Technologies, small fingers deserve a small keyboard. Hence Little Fingers, a pint-sized peripheral for young users. Built to the ideal form factor for kids up to nine years of age, the keyboard measures 32cm...

LapLink 2000.(Evaluation)
March 1, 2000... REMOTE ACCESS When you're away from the office, discovering that you've left a critical spreadsheet, report or other document on your office desktop can drive you half crazy. Some corporate networks let you dial in to pull files from a...

Merger mania: worlds collide.(Company Business and Marketing)
March 1, 2000... An interesting experiment is underway in the wired world. It is an experiment which will test the veracity of two cliches: that content is king, and big is beautiful. In the US the experiment is being conducted by AOL and Time Warner,...

Whatever happened to natural language?(News Briefs)
March 1, 2000... Have you ever wondered why some great ideas haven't taken off as well as you might have expected? I've been thinking about a handful of them for a while. To start with, I wonder what ever happened to the dawn of the natural language...

A tale of one city.(News Briefs)
March 1, 2000... I love art and I love architecture, but rarely do the two combine with such emotional force -- and with such a rejuvenating effect -- as in Bilbao, the principal city of the Basque country in the north of Spain. What's more, it wouldn't have...

Something for nothing and more to come.(Industry Trend or Event)
March 1, 2000... Something for nothing. Who can resist? We've all been guilty of clamouring to grab as many freebies as we possibly can, regardless of need. Anybody want a t-shirt with a vendor logo? I must have a million of 'em. The only thing that makes them...

Readers forum.(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2000... Let's not rewrite history In the January issue of PC World, Beverley Head, whom I regard as a top PC columnist, was talking about Microsoft. She said that Microsoft can thank an accident of history and one great decision for its success....

THE WEB IS A hacker's playground.(News Briefs)
March 1, 2000... I don't scare easily, but I've been terrified twice in the last couple of months. The first time it happened, I watched The Blair Witch Project at a local theatre. The second time was during a demonstration of a new software product. Now, I've...

Windows 2000 It's ready. Are you?(Evaluation)
March 1, 2000... Following many delays and a string of missed deadlines, Windows 2000, Microsoft's successor to its NT operating system, has finally hit the shelves. PC World has gone under the hood of the final cut of Windows 2000 Professional edition to find...

Pest proof your PC.(News Briefs)
March 1, 2000... Do you suspect that Windows is running a little slowly? Does it lock up when you try to shut down? Do you worry that hackers are reading your files while you surd No, you're not losing your mind. But you might be confronting one of the most...

Bulletproof PC protection.(News Briefs)
March 1, 2000... More than 20 utilities to help you ward off viruses and other nasties that bring your system to its knees. Like cyclones, viruses are often named after people. (Who could forget Melissa?) And just as a cyclone can devastate an entire...

HOME & BUSINESS PCS best buys.(News Briefs)
March 1, 2000... 1 Peripherals Plus Athlon 700 The blazing performance and extensive feature set of the Peripherals Plus Athlon 700 have resulted in the system taking the Best Buys Home PC award for the third month running. Turn your home into a...

NOTEBOOKS best buys.(News Briefs)
March 1, 2000... POWER NOTEBOOKS 1 Gateway Solo 9300xl Up in the stratospheric end of the notebook market live machines such as the Gateway Solo 9300xl. It boasts all the high-end specifications you can think of, including a 500MHz Intel Pentium III...

GRAPHICS ADAPTERS best buys.(News Briefs)
March 1, 2000... The Test Centre examined seven graphics adapters aimed at a range of users from the budget buyer to the performance seeker. The adapters featured chip sets from NVIDIA, Matrox and S3. All cards tested included 32MB of memory, and prices ranged...

19in MONITORS best buys.(News Briefs)
March 1, 2000... Like hard drives, the old axiom that bigger is better holds true for monitors. Just as 14in units moved aside for 15in monitors to become the standard size, now 15in monitors are at the point where many buyers are deciding 17in is the minimum....

CONNECT PCs without wires.(News Briefs)
March 1, 2000... If you want to network your Windows 9x PCs or notebooks, but don't want to string network cables through your walls, wireless networks offer a tidy alternative. Though less expandable and slower than cables, they work within a radius of about...

Make quick and easy keyboard shortcuts.(News Briefs)
March 1, 2000... If you frequently open certain applications, documents, folders, Control Panel applets, or Web addresses, you can avoid digging through several levels of menus to find them by assigning a unique keyboard sequence to each. Here's how to get the...

Connecting to a workgroup.(Product Information)
March 1, 2000... As most of you know, Windows 2000 is essentially the next version of Microsoft's Windows NT Operating System, and NT's strong suits lay in the networking and security aspects of computing more than in stand-alone desktop computing. I am now...

Packet firewalling under Linux with IP-Chains.(News Briefs)
March 1, 2000... The implementation and responsible use of a firewall ensures strong security for any machine(s) which it protects. Firewalling is a very large and often complicated topic. The easiest and most useful type of firewalling under Linux is packet...

Customise your desktop.(News Briefs)
March 1, 2000... It's been said that a change is almost as good as a holiday -- something which is often welcomed for those who use computers on a daily basis, be it for home or work. If you've recently bought a Mac or upgraded to OS 9, and are tired of...

WINDOWS 9x.(News Briefs)
March 1, 2000... Unique folder icons It turns out that, if you have Windows 98 or Windows 95 with Internet Explorer 4's Desktop Update installed, you can assign different icons to your boring yellow folders using little more than Notepad. To confirm...

WINDOWS NT.(News Briefs)
March 1, 2000... See more and do more with multiple monitors So you've taken up day-trading. You're also scrounging up MP3 files for the ultimate road-trip collection and updating your rotisserie football site. Meanwhile, you have to get some real work...

INTERNET.(News Briefs)
March 1, 2000... Troubleshoot a slow Internet connection Does your Internet connection ever seem unusually slow? The problem may stem from your PC (buggy software, for example); a bad phone line; an oversubscribed ISDN, DSL or cable system; system trouble...

WORD PROCESSING.(News Briefs)
March 1, 2000... Get the hang of hanging indents Hanging indents -- in which second and subsequent lines of a paragraph are indented -- are a popular form of paragraph formatting, particularly for resumes, lists and other kinds of slick-looking documents....

SPREADSHEETS.(News Briefs)
March 1, 2000... Share your spreadsheets on the Web Excel 2000 makes it easier than ever to save a workbook in HTML format. After creating your workbook, use the File-Save as Web Page command. Specify what you want to save (a single worksheet or the entire...

HARDWARE.(News Briefs)
March 1, 2000... The nuts and bolts of PC power supplies Electricity is the lifeblood of your PC. It courses through its motherboard and CPU in miles of circuits that can be narrower than 1/100th the width of a human hair. To run smoothly, your PC needs a...

Under the Radar.(Review)
March 1, 2000... Under the Radar BY ROBERT YOUNG AND WENDY GOLDMAN ROHM Any Linux aficionado will already be familiar with tales from the open source movement, and the emergence of Linux as an operating system that is changing the direction of the software...

MP3 for Dummies.(Review)
March 1, 2000... MP3 for Dummies BY ANDY RATHBONE Like most of the entries in this series, MP3 for Dummies is clearly aimed at the beginner. In order to benefit from this book, however, you should be an MP3 beginner with a reasonable understanding of...

The Internet for Dummies (Australian Edition).(Review)
March 1, 2000... The Internet for Dummies (Australian Edition) BY GEOFF EBBS, JOHN R. LEVINE, CAROL BAROUDI, MARGARET LEVINE YOUNG Okay. So you've been handing over your hard-earned cash to your ISP for about 12 months now, and you've got as far as watching...

Cinescape.(Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... www.cinescape.com Everybody likes the movies, but some of us really like the movies. Perhaps you want to work in the film industry or you just want heaps of quality "insider information" to keep your friends agog. www.cinescape.com is the...

Shockwave games.(News Briefs)
March 1, 2000... www.nabiscoworld.com It happens to all of us: we get bored. Excel loses its interest and the afternoon stretches out like a wet weekend. All that is required is a short go on a game, but the IT department has banned all games from the...

The Chaser.(Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... www.chaser.com.au You could be mistaken for thinking the national pastime (well, besides watching sport) is for Aussies to take the piss out of each other. And while there are tonnes of US-based satirical sites on the Net (think The...

Help is on the Web.(Company Business and Marketing)
March 1, 2000... www.ehow.com Maybe your car needs a tune-up. Or maybe your tabby cat has kittens on the way. Need advice on what to do? Help on these -- and almost any other topic -- is on the Web from online advice giver eHow. But are you ever going...

gadgets.(News Briefs)
March 1, 2000... Force Feedback joysticks and steering wheels are commonplace now, but a mouse with Force Feedback? The USB WingMan mouse is based on Immersion Corporation's FEELit technology that allows you to feel the sensations of the game in your hand as...

games.(News Briefs)
March 1, 2000... BY NASH WERNER Car combat has come a long way since the days of Steve Jackson's pencil-and-paper masterpiece, Car Wars, its computer-game cousin Auto Duel, the coin-op Spy Hunter... and Activision's Interstate '76. I-76 did it all....

bytesback.(News Briefs)
March 1, 2000... Those wacky Americans If you thought the craziness at the Belgian inventors' expo we reported in January was impressive, you should have been at the Housewares Show in Chicago last month. Among the items on show were tongue-depressor...