Computer Act!ve articles from November 2005

Computer Act!ve archives from November 2005

From the Editor.(Brief Article)(Editorial)
November 10, 2005... Byline: Dylan Armbrust. Saving money. We all like to do it whenever we can. Shopping around for great deals is part of our nature, and the internet has been one of the greatest tools invented to help make finding the best deals easier. Now...

Epson forces out compatibles. Consumers face saying goodbye to low-cost cartridges as Epson takes to the courts.
November 10, 2005... Consumers will have to pay more for Epson-compatible inkjet cartridges and are likely to find fewer suppliers willing to sell them as Epson continues to crack down on illegal consumables. Companies that manufacture Epson-compatible...

High-speed broadband is 'unrealistic'.
November 10, 2005... The majority of UK residents may never be able to get the 24Mbit/s broadband services that are being pushed as possible by some internet service providers (ISPs). The imminent arrival of this super-fast service has been heavily promoted by...

Hackers AIM for chatters.
November 10, 2005... Researchers at internet security company FaceTime have identified a worm spreading through AOL's instant messaging client (AIM) and chat rooms. The Trojan Horse is considered particularly dangerous and is being passed through instant messages...

VSO looking for IT teachers.(Voluntary Service Overseas )(Brief Article)
November 10, 2005... People with teaching and IT knowledge are urgently needed to train teachers in underdeveloped countries in IT skills. The call for volunteers has come from VSO, the international development charity. More usually known for recruiting people...

Website tackles increase in phishing scams.
November 10, 2005... European internet service providers (ISPs) have joined forces to raise awareness of the dangers of phishing. The result is a website offering advice on how to avoid phishing scams, which has been developed by Euroispa, the European umbrella...

By a factor of two.(Association for Payment and Clearing Services )(Brief Article)
November 10, 2005... Customers of most UK banks are likely to be using some form of two-factor authentication online by the end of next year, according to the Association for Payment and Clearing Services (APACS). APACS said last month that it was close to...

Jargon buster - Techno babble demystified.
November 10, 2005... 3G: Mobile telephone networks that support fast data transfer, making sound and video transmission possible. ISP: A company that provides you with an internet connection. Mbit/s: Megabits per second. A measure of data transfer speed....

Computer crime busters.
November 10, 2005... The UK's Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has announced plans to create a network of lawyers dedicated to tackling hi-tech crime involving child pornography, computer hacking and identity fraud. Computer crime can be especially difficult to...

Sky's the limit.(Brief Article)
November 10, 2005... Vodafone UK customers with 3G handsets will be able to watch Sky Mobile TV on their phones in areas of 3G coverage. There will be two Sky Mobile TV packages offering a combined total of 19 mobile channels including Sky One, Discovery and MTV....

Latest opera.(Brief Article)
November 10, 2005... A test edition of the next version of the Opera web browser is now available for download. Opera 9 includes an improved pop-up blocker and some keyboard shortcuts have been changed to more closely resemble other browsers. The Find tool has been...

Speak out about spyware.
November 10, 2005... The Anti-Spyware Coalition (ASC) wants the public to comment on guidelines it has drawn up to help detect, rate and protect against unwelcome spyware programs. Spyware and adware are widely hated for their sneaky distribution methods,...

E-commerce comes of age.(Brief Article)
November 10, 2005... Children could soon find it harder to buy goods and services that they are too young to use. British company Metacharge is offering to verify the information given to e-commerce websites by their customers before any money changes hands....

Ebay fights back.
November 10, 2005... Ebay's UK arm will soon ban direct payments via Western Union in a bid to combat fraudsters using the auction site to con users. The US arm, eBay.com, has already banned people from wiring money to sellers via Western Union. The news comes...

Mobile media player speakers.(Brief Article)
November 10, 2005... Neutac has released the SP1001, a portable docking station with battery-powered speakers for the Apple iPod. The SP1001 has six watts of power and improved bass output without a subwoofer. Rechargeable batteries are supplied. These batteries,...

Christmas creativity.
November 10, 2005... Avanquest has produced a creativity pack to help with party invites and other projects for the Christmas season. The software includes clip art and fonts for use in cards and present tags with background sets. There is also a photo editor. The...

Mac colours.
November 10, 2005... The ColorVision ColorPlus colour management system is now compatible with Apple Mac computers. ColorPlus is a special scanner that is placed on the computer monitor to check that the colours displayed are correct and are the same as those...

Recycling's toxic time bomb.
November 10, 2005... Recycling firms in the western world are creating a ticking time bomb of toxic waste for developing countries by offloading useless PC equipment under the guise of charity. This was the damning conclusion of environmental group the Basel...

Toolbar opens up web for dyslexics.(Textic introduces a toolbar for visually impaired people)(Brief Article)
November 10, 2005... A new toolbar could make reading web content and word documents easier for dyslexics and people with visual impairments. About 10 per cent of UK citizens are dyslexic, and one in five have visual problems, making it hard to read text using...

Pull the udder one.(Brief Article)
November 10, 2005... UK farmers are milking the latest technology with an automated dairy system that lets cows decide their own milking schedules. The techno-milking system, which has been investigated by the Institute for Animal Health, is now in use in over...

Governmental bird watching.
November 10, 2005... The Government has brought forward its plans for a national poultry database. The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has asked poultry farms to put their flocks on its books so that they can then be entered into the full...

On the dot.
November 10, 2005... Users of some colour laser printers can be tracked by means of unique dot patterns automatically printed by the device. The dots are an anti-counterfeiting measure designed to allow governments and police to follow the movements of fake...

British only.(Seekport)(Brief Article)
November 10, 2005... Seekport is an internet search engine for finding websites based in the UK. Results can be filtered to show results from news websites, blogs and reference works. A preview option shows the website of the link and removes any pop-ups and...

Online advice on the web.
November 10, 2005... A Government website that will advise the public on how to protect themselves online is now open for business. With the Government's recent research showing that 83 per cent of the UK's population don't know enough about protecting...

Changing faces.
November 10, 2005... Criminals who steal mobile phones may be confronted with a new test if they want to use the handset, thanks to the development of face-recognition software by Oki Electric Industry. Mobile phone ownership has increased rapidly in recent...

Avatars go on air.(Brief Article)
November 10, 2005... TV weather reports could soon be presented by avatars - computer-generated personalities. Software developed by Televirtual can take information from the Met Office and convert it into a full weather report. The 3D animated character uses...

Museum catches the bug.
November 10, 2005... Visitors to the Science Museum in London are now able to put themselves in the place of a computer being attacked by viruses and online threats. The Digital You exhibition, which opened on 8 November at the South Kensington museum, gives...

Wi-Fi camera.
November 10, 2005... Canon will launch a version of its compact Ixus digital camera with built-in Wi-Fi in January next year. The Ixus Digital Wireless will be the company's first camera that allows pictures to be transferred to a computer via the wireless link....

Trust speakers.(Brief Article)
November 10, 2005... Trust has introduced a new speaker set to match Apple's iPod and other white MP3 players. The Trust 2.0 Speaker Set SP-2700, which cost [pounds sterling]15, has 2x2 watt RMS power output and enhanced speaker technology. They come with a...

Consumer Active! - Get Some Answers! Consumeractive sticks up for your rights. If there's an issue you want investigated, get in touch.
November 10, 2005... PROBLEM - A very long road to recovery I built myself a new PC recently. Most of the parts were ordered from www.microdirect.co.uk. Two months after building it, the line-in connection on the on-board sound card failed. I contacted...

Cover Story - Cheap online calls - It's cheap to talk. Online phone calls are now becoming the cheaper alternative to standard telephone systems. We explain how it works and the services on offer.(Cover story)
November 10, 2005... Byline: Cliff Joseph. PC users have long been able to make free calls through instant messaging services such as MSN Messenger and Yahoo Messenger, but many were dissuaded by the idea of having to buy and wear a headset and the...

Hot New Products - Epson PictureMate 100. Cheap doesn't always mean nasty as Epson's latest photo printer proves.(Product/Service Evaluation)
November 10, 2005... Byline: Luke Peters. This year it seems compact photo printers have reached the market-flooding levels achieved by their digital camera cousins. There are dozens out there, being made by not only recognised printer manufacturers, but also...

Hot New Products - Creative Zen Nano Plus.[SO] COMACT; Light, colourful and multi-functional. But it's not just the Nano's name that evokes Deja vu[QQ].
November 10, 2005... Byline: Mike Anderiesz. [SH] Light, colourful and multi-functional. But it's not just the Nano's name that evokes Deja vu [BB] Mike Anderiesz. [PP] 29 [PL] UK They're a smart bunch at Creative, not just re-branding their existing...

Hot New Products - X-oom Movies on PSP. Turn your PSP into a handheld cinema with this movie conversion software.(Product/Service Evaluation)
November 10, 2005... Byline: Jonathan Parkyn. Sony's PlayStation Portable (PSP) can play movies, music and photos as well as games. The console is already supported by a fine selection of commercially available movie and TV titles available in its own UMD...

Hot New Products - Nikon D50. Budding photographers will be chomping at the bit to get their teeth into Nikon's feature-packed digital SLR.(Product/Service Evaluation)
November 10, 2005... Byline: Gavin Stoker. A few years ago true photography enthusiasts would baulk at the idea of using a compact digital camera and would rather plump for a traditional SLR model instead. But with the continued improvement of digital SLRs,...

Hot New Products - Ulead PhotoImpact 11. A cheap photo-editor that seem to offer more for the advanced user than the novice.(Product/Service Evaluation)
November 10, 2005... Byline: Cliff Joseph. PhotoImpact is one of the underdogs in the photo-editing market. This latest upgrade is clearly an attempt to grab more of the limelight as it includes several major new improvements designed to appeal to both...

Hot New Products - Roxio Easy Media Creator 8. The media management software that does everything.(Product/Service Evaluation)
November 10, 2005... Byline: Anthony Dhanendran. Every time we look at Roxio's Creator software we are surprised by how much is crammed into one product. For this eighth outing there are a few new additions and, thankfully, the overall quality remains the...

Jargon Buster - Techno babble demystified.(computer related terms)
November 10, 2005... Bluetooth: A technology that allows devices to communicate with each other wirelessly. CCD: A light-sensitive component used in digital cameras and camcorders. Desktop: What you first see when you switch on a computer. Displays your...

Hot New Products - Adobe Premiere Elements 2. The second version of Adobe's cut-down video-editing software.(Product/Service Evaluation)
November 10, 2005... Byline: Cliff Joseph. Adobe's Photoshop Elements has been a big success because it manages to take some of the powerful photo-editing tools from the full professional version of Photoshop and wrap them up in a redesigned interface simple...

Hot New Products - Konica Minolta Dimage X1. A small and compact 8-megapixel camera.(Product/Service Evaluation)
November 10, 2005... Byline: Will Stapley. More megapixels doesn't always mean better quality, but Konica Minolta has released its first 8-megapixel compact camera, the Dimage X1. The main advantage of 8-megapixel images is that it's possible to severely...

Hot New Products - Hermstedt Hifidelio. Listen to music throughout the house with this hi-fi with a hard disk.(Product/Service Evaluation)
November 10, 2005... Byline: Luke Peters. As well as being able to stream music from a PC over a home network, the Hifidelio can also record music from CDs and store them on its 80Gb internal hard disk. It's quick to do so, taking around 40 seconds for a...

Hot New Products - Archos AV700.(Brief Article)(Product/Service Evaluation)
November 10, 2005... Byline: Tim Smith. The AV700 offers widescreen video when on the move, with enough features to satisfy any media addict. In addition to video it can play music and display slideshows of photos, which can be copied direct from compatible...

Hot New Products - ABBYY OCR Software.(Product/Service Evaluation)
November 10, 2005... Byline: Tim Smith. The paperless office is great in theory but in practice it can be hard to convert large amounts of paper to electronic format. Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software should be unobtrusive and fast. FineReader 8 is...

Hot New Products - Canon MP 150. Canon's latest all-in-one device prints in photo quality.(Product/Service Evaluation)
November 10, 2005... Byline: Anthony Dhanendran. The MP150, Canon's latest multifunction device, is branded with its Pixma logo, indicating that it should be capable of high-quality photo printing. The MP150 is not much bigger than a standard good-quality...

Hot New Products - Western Digital Netcenter.(Brief Article)(Product/Service Evaluation)
November 10, 2005... Byline: Luke Peters. More and more houses now have their own networks and it is common to share files between the related PCs. Rather than using the file and printer sharing built into Windows, the Western Digital Netcenter, with 320Gb of...

Hot New Products - Fossil Abacus Wrist PDA.(Product/Service Evaluation)
November 10, 2005... Byline: Tim Smith. The Fossil Abacus squeezes a fully functional handheld computer into a large wrist watch. There is 8Mb of memory, enough for extra software, as well as the standard contacts, calendar and to-do list options. It can...

Hot New Products - Undelete 5. Avoid deleting files by accident.(Brief Article)(Product/Service Evaluation)
November 10, 2005... Byline: Anthony Dhanendran. Even though Windows has included a Recycle Bin for the past 10 years it's still annoyingly easy to accidentally delete a file. The Recycle Bin can't handle files or folders over a certain size, and files...

On Test - Freeview boxes - Points of view. Tired of the same old five television channels? Freeview receivers offer much greater choice and there are no monthly fees. We look at what's out there.
November 10, 2005... Byline: Will Stapley. Subscription TV has been around for a while but not everyone wants to get locked into monthly fees for hundreds of stations we may never watch. If only there was a way to get access to a wider range of channels, with...

Feature - Free games - Free play. Although there's no such thing as a free lunch, the world of gaming is a bit more charitable. We tell you how to access countless games for nothing.(Product/Service Evaluation)
November 10, 2005... Byline: Anthony Dhanendran. Most of us have whiled away spare time playing some of the cheap and cheerful games that come with Windows, while others invest a little more time and money in the latest 3D games. This is an expensive luxury...

Feature - Erase your data - Erased from memory. Simply emptying the Recycle Bin doesn't trash data. Here's how to remove unwanted files and web history safely.
November 10, 2005... Byline: Iain Thomson. Given that data is invisible, it's not hard to let your PC become overrun with it. A good clear-out freshens up a PC no end, and if you're disposing of a computer, there's an even better reason to clean it up. Whether...

Feature - Green computing - Waste watchers. Electrical and computer waste damages the environment and new laws aim to impose strict controls on its disposal. We explain how this affects you and how you can help out.
November 10, 2005... Byline: Dinah Greek. Take three tons of old computers, add some electronic toys, tools and gadgets to the mix and then bung in a few fridges, washing machines and other white goods. Mix together well and form into one huge sculpture...

Digital home - Digital television - Digital deadline. By 2012, Britain will have officially said farewell to analogue television. You could say goodbye to it now and enjoy all the benefits that digital TV has to offer. Here's what you need to know.
November 10, 2005... Byline: Scott Colvey. You may be quite content to let the worlds of digital radio, digital photography and digital video recording pass you by, but if you like watching television, there'll soon be no escaping a dalliance with digital...

On Test - CD-Roms - Variety show. Our latest software offering will have you looking at the stars, mastering languages and shooting the baddies.(Product/Service Evaluation)
November 10, 2005... Byline: Martin James. Variety is the spice of life and in this issue we've rounded up a bunch of software titles to suit young and old. We start off with FPS Creator, which allows you to create your own detailed first-person shooter...

On Test - Games - Black & White 2. The follow-up to one of the biggest games of recent times.(Product/Service Evaluation)
November 10, 2005... Byline: Mike Anderiesz. Let's be honest, we were all a bit misled by 'Black & White'. Yes it was unique, impressive and duly waltzed away with 2001's top honours, but was it a great game? With hindsight, not really. At first Black &...

On Test - Games - Rome: Total War - Barbarian Invasion.(Brief Article)(Product/Service Evaluation)
November 10, 2005... Byline: Eddie Henderson. As you might have guessed, this is a new expansion pack for one of the greatest games of last year, Rome: Total War, so we should begin by stating the obvious - you need said title to play this add-on. Although...

On Test - Games - Fable: The Lost Chapters.(Brief Article)(Product/Service Evaluation)
November 10, 2005... Byline: Eddie Henderson. Any game created by the legendary Lionhead Studios will immediately be benchmarked against its previous PC classic, Black & White and now Black & White 2 (see page 76). Thankfully, Fable has enough content and...

On Test - Games - Football Manager 2006.(Brief Article)(Product/Service Evaluation)
November 10, 2005... Byline: Anthony Dhanendran. The yearly update to Football Manager is something of a ritual for fans of the game. It has never been a case of explosive new features being added, but every year sees a nice selection of refinements. In...

On Test - Games - Games Top 10. Here are the top 10 games according to the official UK Leisure Software chart. (C)ELSPA. Compiled by Chart Track.
November 10, 2005... 1. Black & White 2 - [pounds sterling]35 (real-time strategy) EA Games 2. Rome: Total War -Barbarian Invasion - [pounds sterling]20 (real-time strategy) Sega 3. The Sims 2: Nightlife - [pounds sterling]20 (add-on pack for the Sims) EA...

Net Chart - Free Downloads. We've trawled the internet to test what you can get for free.(Brief Article)(Product/Service Evaluation)
November 10, 2005... OPENOFFICE www.computeractive.co.uk/2128963 Improved free office suite A great alternative to Microsoft Office, OpenOffice now includes a full database program in addition to word and a spreadsheet. Type: Freeware File...

Net Chart - Site seeing. Audiobooks are a great alternative to listening to music as a way to pass long journeys.
November 10, 2005... Go to www.computeractive.co.uk to find quick links to all these featured websites www.audible.co.uk: Audible is an online shop for audio books with a collection of 12,000 titles from Sahara by Michael Palin to Lord of the Rings. Books can...

Net Chart - Site of the fortnight - http://my.opera.com.(Brief Article)
November 10, 2005... Registration with Opera offers more than just a chance to receive updates for the internet browser. The Opera Community website lets you write a blog or post an online photo album. With 300Mb of space for each user, there is no need to stint on...

No Problem! Q&A - Answers to ... PC problems. Our resident technical doctor is here to cure your PC ailments.
November 10, 2005... AOL alternatives Q: My wife and I both use our computer, with an AOL account for connecting to the internet. Is it possible for me to use Outlook to read emails and my wife to continue using AOL? Barry Johnstone, Bristol A: It is...

Readers to the rescue. Can you help your fellow readers? Do you need a problem solved? Join our forum dedicated to PC trouble-shooting at www.computeractive.co.uk.
November 10, 2005... THE PROBLEM I use the Living Pictures software but I cannot add sound to images using my microphone, so I need to use the Windows Sound Recorder instead. I am not entirely sure how to do this. David Randall, issue 199 YOUR ANSWER...

Letters Your say! We want your opinions! Write to us on any of the topics covered in Computeractive.(Letter to the Editor)
November 10, 2005... A high price to pay In issue 200 you reviewed auction sniping tool OnBidder, which costs [pounds sterling]20 a year to use. Why do people pay subscription charges for this application? I thought eBay was an auction and you simply...

From the Editor.
November 24, 2005... Byline: Dylan Armbrust. Welcome to our special Christmas buyers' issue where we round up some of the best bargains. This year we've reviewed and rated over 100 products ranging from photo printers to PCs. There's a whole range of items to...

Media moguls told to back off. Consumers treated as crooks by industry bent on copyright protection at any cost.
November 24, 2005... Consumers are not criminals and the movie and music industry must stop portraying them as such, said a coalition of Europe's leading consumer organisations. The watchdogs are concerned that consumers' rights are being eroded by the...

'Weasel Boy' jailed for domain name scams;.
November 24, 2005... The man behind some of the UK's most prolific spamming attacks and domain name scams has been jailed for six years. Peter Francis Macrae, a 22-year-old from St Neots in Cambridgeshire (known as Weasel Boy), was found guilty of two counts of...

Patch problems.
November 24, 2005... A phishing email is masquerading as a Microsoft security patch. Recipients are urged to visit a spoof website which mimics Microsoft's Update Center. Clicking on the link to this site starts the download of a Trojan and once the person is on...

Sony on 'spyware' charge.
November 24, 2005... Sony has agreed to remove the anti-piracy software it put on music CDs following a huge outcry from consumer organisations. The music giant used digital rights management technology on a number of its latest releases. The tool monitors and...

Sony accused of hiking online prices.
November 24, 2005... Sony has been accused of using its muscle to push up the cost of its electronic goods sold online. According to The Times, Sony has offered discounts of up to 15 per cent to high-street retailers, while adding the same margin to the cost...

Latest Active Home out now.(Brief Article)
November 24, 2005... The latest edition of our sister publication, Active Home, goes on sale from 1 December. Its plain English style makes it the ultimate jargon-free guide to the latest digital home entertainment technology. Active Home's 100 pages are packed...

Gift ideas.(Brief Article)
November 24, 2005... If you're looking for great gizmos and gadgets as gift ideas for Christmas, take a look at the guide we have put together on our website. We're offering expert advice and the best prices on lots of products ranging from MP3 players to desktop...

Battery recall.(Brief Article)
November 24, 2005... Nikon has issued a recall on more than 700,000 rechargeable batteries used in its digital SLR D100, D70 and D50 cameras. A flaw was recently discovered with the EN-EL3 battery pack that makes it prone to overheating and even melting in some...

Updates from Microsoft.
November 24, 2005... Microsoft has released an update that plugs three vulnerabilities in Windows XP. The patch fixes two flaws found with the Windows Metafile (WMF). This is a common graphics file format in Windows and the vulnerability could allow hackers to...

Jargon Buster - Techno babble demystified.
November 24, 2005... Domain name: The name used to identify a site on the internet Hacker: People who break into other people's PCs in an attempt to steal information Phishing: Internet fraud that tries to trick users into revealing personal details. ...

Spyware cuts internet use.
November 24, 2005... There is a significant and growing lack of confidence in the internet because of the increasing threat from spyware. In its latest report, the anti-spyware software developer Webroot said consumers are now so worried about how spyware is...

Banks warn shoppers to play safe online.
November 24, 2005... Fraudsters plan to target unwary online shoppers, the UK Association for Payment Clearing Services (APACS) has warned. The association has launched a fraud awareness campaign to help consumers shop safely online using credit and debit...

Top-gear broadband.(UK Online)(Brief Article)
November 24, 2005... UK Online has launched the UK's first national broadband service offering speeds of up to 22Mbit/s for [pounds sterling]30 a month. The internet service provider's ADSL 2+ network will be available in most urban areas. Subscribers will pay...

C64 joystick revives classics.(ToyLobster)(Brief Article)
November 24, 2005... ToyLobster has released a joystick that contains 30 original Commodore 64 titles from the 1980s. The 'direct to TV' (DTV) unit, which means you simply plug it into the TV, contains a genuine C64 chip set and runs the original game codes. This...

Zen MicroPhoto from Creative.(Brief Article)
November 24, 2005... Creative's new Zen Micro slim is a compact media player with the ability to show photos on a 1.5in screen. The device, which costs [pounds sterling]200, has 8Gb of storage space for music and photos and has an FM radio built in. Users can...

Fujifilm card readers.
November 24, 2005... Fujifilm has launched a new range of memory card readers, all with multiple format support and a USB 2 connection. The DCR2-161 costs [pounds sterling]35 and can read 16 different memory card formats. It can also be used as a desktop USB 2 hub...

VAT loophole may close.
November 24, 2005... Pressure is growing to close the legal loophole that lets UK consumers avoid VAT on some products sold through companies based in the Channel Islands. The Forum of Private Businesses (FPB) has joined MPs and other businesses in calling for...

Copyright fight claims another victim.
November 24, 2005... Grokster, one of the most popular file-sharing sites on the internet, has shut up shop and settled its long-running copyright case with the entertainment industry. A notice on the website reads "there are legal services for downloading...

Mobile safeguards.
November 24, 2005... New safeguards have been introduced by premium-rate mobile content-service giant Jamster. The company was criticised by the Advertising Standards Agency earlier this year for not making it clear enough in adverts that customers buying the...