Personal Computer World articles from January 2006

Personal Computer World archives from January 2006

Editorial - Dim the lights, open the popcorn, watch your PC. It's easier than ever to turn a PC into a PVR and get maps on a mobile, says Rob Jones.(Editorial)
January 1, 2006... Byline: Rob Jones, rob_jones@vnu.co.uk The ability to watch TV on your PC has been around for years and, depending on your needs, it has never been easier than now. You could choose to buy a PC running Microsoft's Windows Media Center...

Microsoft faces new EC clash.
January 1, 2006... Europe is heading for a showdown with Microsoft over new file formats to be introduced with Office 12, the next version of the company's office suite which is due to be launched late next year at the same time as Windows Vista. The change...

02 trials 3.6Mbit mobile access.
January 1, 2006... Mobile operator O2 has launched what it claims is Europe's first commercial High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) network offering speeds of up to 3.6Mbits/sec. But the service will be available initially only in the Isle of Man, where the...

Oracle offers free database.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... Byline: Tom Sanders. Oracle is launching a free version of its enterprise database system to head off competition from Microsoft's just-launched SQL Server 2005 and the open-source MySQL. Beta versions of the Oracle Database 10g...

BSkyB joins online gold rush.
January 1, 2006... Satellite operator BSkyB's [pounds sterling]210m purchase of UK broadband provider Easynet has signalled a gold rush reminiscent of the early dot-com bubble. It stems from the introduction of ADSL2+, a DSL upgrade that gives Britain's antique...

Nano shows cracks in Apple success.(forecast of Apple Computer Inc. and product defect)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... Apple's reputation for reliability has taken a beating with complaints that screens on its Ipod Nano player scratched and cracked too easily. A class-action lawsuit against the company contends that it launched the device knowing the design was...

Blackberry pie.
January 1, 2006... Wireless email and GPS modules gave rise to a 20.7 per cent increase in shipments of PDAs in the three months up to October, analysts Gartner reported. Research in Motion, maker of the popular Blackberry devices, further extended its lead to 25...

Net profit.
January 1, 2006... A knowledge of networking could be a big advantage over the next few years, according to a new report from IDC. It says that by 2008 Europe will be short of 500,000 people with advanced networking skills and that this will threaten UK...

5GB CF card.
January 1, 2006... Sony has launched a 5GB Compact Flash Type II media card costing [pounds sterling]145.

3G offer.
January 1, 2006... Laptops Direct is offering a 'free' Vodafone 3G card listing at [pounds sterling]199, with [pounds sterling]20 of credit, with any Intel-based laptop bought from the store in 2005. Details of how to claim it are at www.laptopsdirect.co.uk.

Support ends.
January 1, 2006... Support for Microsoft's Exchange Server 5.5 email management software ends on 31 December 2005, Microsoft has warned.

Conman caught.
January 1, 2006... Mexican police have arrested conman Stephen Cohen, who absconded to Tijuana after being fined $65m for tricking the authorities into granting him the sex.com Internet domain in 1995. The fine has grown to $82m with interest.

ARM hits desktop speeds.
January 1, 2006... UK chip designer ARM has launched its fastest processor yet, with claims that it will give handheld devices the processing power of a desktop computer while drawing a fraction of the electrical power. The Cortex A8 chip is the first ARM...

GDDR4 chip heralds fastest ever bandwidth.(new product from Samsung Group)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... Samsung (www.samsung.com) is sampling GDDR4 graphics memory with a bandwidth of 2.5Gbits/sec per pin, or 56 per cent faster than the 1.6Gbits/sec of 800MHz DDR3. On a 32pin chip, that translates to 10Gbytes/sec, or the equivalent of two or...

Soft speed-up for disks.
January 1, 2006... Disk performance can be boosted by 10 to 80 per cent with the aid of software developed by Sussex-based Diskeeper, the company claims. It exploits the fact that different parts of a disk, or array of disks, have different performance. ...

'Safe' fuel-cell.
January 1, 2006... A Japanese company has developed a 'safe' form of methanol, which it says is a breakthrough in enabling the use of fuel cells for mobile computers. Companies such as Toshiba, IBM and Sanyo are already experimenting with methanol cells, which...

[pounds sterling]120m wastage.(survey on the use of computers)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... People who needlessly leave their computers on are wasting [pounds sterling]120m a year, according to research by the Energy Saving Trust. Some 75 per cent of office works claim to be environmentally aware, but more than one in three do not...

UK search.(new product Seekport)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... A new search engine called Seekport is the latest to offer country-specific results, and includes a reference section that consults online encyclopaedias such as Wikipedia. Other features include searches of UK blogs, pictures and products, and...

2ms monitor.
January 1, 2006... Viewsonic has launched a 19in LCD panel, the VX922, with a response time of 2milliseconds, and the 20in VX2022 with a 3ms response.

Hot product.
January 1, 2006... Zyxel's AG-225H USB Wifi adapter has a built-in hotspot detector and drivers for the Mac OSX, Windows 2000 and XP operating systems.

Photo art.
January 1, 2006... Corel has launched Painter Essentials 3, a home version of its Painter IX art software. The [pounds sterling]69 package includes palettes that automatically render digital photos into 'paintings'.

Intel drops front-side bus.
January 1, 2006... Intel is to ditch the front-side bus (FSB) in a new version of its Xeon processor in a change which is expected to spread to other processors, according to US reports. It is also delaying the new Montecino version of its Itanium processor until...

Low-drain PowerPC too late for Macs.
January 1, 2006... A Silicon Valley start-up has launched a power-efficient version of the PowerPC chip just months after Apple announced it was dropping the architecture. PA Semi, headed by Dan Dobberpuhl, lead designer of Digital's legendary Alpha chip, says...

Dual-core Turion 64 processor expected from AMD.
January 1, 2006... Byline: Kelvyn Taylor. AMD plans to increase the number of cores on its processors and boost their power efficiency while reducing consumption, the company said at a briefing at the opening of its new Fab 36 plant in Dresden, Germany. ...

[pounds sterling]130 Linux PC arrives in India.
January 1, 2006... AMD and the Indian company HCL Infosystems have launched a 1.6GHz PC costing just [pounds sterling]130 into the Indian market. It includes 128MB of Ram, a 40GB hard disk, and a 15in CRT monitor. Costs have been kept low by using obsolescent...

Laptops recall.
January 1, 2006... HP recalled 135,000 batteries from some Presario, Pavilion, HP Compaq and Compaq Evo notebooks made between March and September 2004. The company has received 16 reports of overheating, in four cases there was minor damage when the units...

In the Works.
January 1, 2006... Microsoft's new [pounds sterling]109 Works 8 suite bundles Word 2002 and 2006 versions of Encarta Encyclopedia Standard, Digital Image Standard, Money Standard and Autoroute Essentials.

Homes may sell Wimax access.
January 1, 2006... BT is considering offering Wimax wireless access as a competitor to 3G mobile links - perhaps by getting home access boxes to double as public base stations. The idea, first mooted for Wifi, is that homes could subsidise their own broadband use...

Gateway to safety and efficiency.
January 1, 2006... D-Link's DFL-M510 Information Security Gateway controls internal use of a network as well as protecting against malicious traffic including Trojans, spyware, adware and worms. It improves flow by restricting use of unauthorised applications...

Intel-backed group pushes faster Wifi.
January 1, 2006... A consortium of 27 Wifi vendors has formed to accelerate the specification and adoption of the next-generation 802.11n standard for a 'real throughput' of 100Mbits/sec. The Enhanced Wireless Consortium (EWC) has drawn up a specification to...

4GB SD card.(new product from Transcend, secure digital)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... Transcend has launched a 4GB SD card, allowing you to store a movie on something not much larger than a postage stamp. It costs EUR399 ([pounds sterling]274) and, with a 22.5Mbytes/sec transfer rate, you could fill it up in about three minutes....

Vertical market.
January 1, 2006... Seagate has launched what it says is the first notebook drive to use perpendicular recording, in which magnetic bits are aligned vertically to increase data density. The Momentus 5400.3 squeezes 160GB on two 80GB platters with an areal density...

PDA phone.
January 1, 2006... Smart Devices is selling the [pounds sterling]445 Qtek-9100 Windows Mobile 5 PDA with quad-band telephony, 802.11b Wifi and Bluetooth support, slide-out keyboard and 1.3megapixel camera. - www.smartdevicesdirect.com.

Corel offer.
January 1, 2006... Corel is bundling a Creative Muvo mp3 player, worth [pounds sterling]79.99, with copies of its [pounds sterling]359 Coreldraw Graphics Suite 12 purchased before the end of 2005 from any leading reseller or www.corel.co.uk/mp3offer.

Indian browser.
January 1, 2006... Hindi and Punjabi versions of the Opera browser for Linux and Windows are now available at www.opera.com/download.

'Near photo-quality' on paper.(new product from Epson (U.K.) Ltd., Durabrite Ultra)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... Epson has been showing off its new Durabrite Ultra ink, which it says prints photos on ordinary paper better than any other current product. The secret lies in two resins in the ink. One has an affinity with a substance known as 'size',...

Photo printers cut off from PC.
January 1, 2006... We're got used to devices like PVRs pretending they are not computers for fear of scaring off technophobes. Now it's happening with photo printers as vendors try to attract PC-phobic digicam users. The Lexmark P450, odd-one-out of this...

Office formats open to question. Microsoft insists that its new document formats are completely open, yet it failed to reconcile them with the Opendoc industry standard. Is it a plot to retain world domination? Clive Akass reports.
January 1, 2006... It is hard at first sight to see what the fuss is all about over the rival next-generation office formats (see page 14). The Office 12 and Open Document formats are both based on XML, which uses a simple (in principle) tagging system to...

Standards will loosen Microsoft's hold on desktop.
January 1, 2006... Several key government officials, including at least one representative of the Cabinet Office, attended last month's Oasis adoption forum in London. But there is no chance of a major flight from Microsoft in government departments. IT...

Global messaging moves a bit closer.
January 1, 2006... Yahoo and Microsoft are to allow users of their instant-messaging (IM) services to communicate with each other, in a first step towards resolving one of the great absurdities of electronic communication. IM clients, which now encompass...

Xbox streams video to TV.
January 1, 2006... Owners of Microsoft's Xbox 360 will be able to stream standard and high-definition TV from their PC to a TV with the aid of an upgrade to Windows XP Media Center Edition. Also included in the update, which will be available with new Media...

Excite IT takes a Dab at etailing.(new service)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... Byline: Rob Jones. Excite IT has launched against online retailers such as Dabs and Ebuyer, claiming to have found a gap in the market. It focuses on high-quality customer service, which it believes is missing in the etail sector. It's a...

Hydrogen cell powers digicam.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... Canon holds its Expo every five years, in Paris, New York or Tokyo, as a showcase for its future technologies. The major announcement by chief executive Fujio Mitarai (above) at 2005's three-day Paris event was Canon's involvement in displays...

SED displays enter the ring.
January 1, 2006... Canon is to launch a 55in high-definition TV in 2006 using a surface-conduction electron-emitter display (SED), claimed to combine the best of LCD and plasma technologies with none of the downsides. An SED screen is similar to a cathode-ray...

Digital SLR camera has organic display.
January 1, 2006... Canon showed a prototype digital single-lens-reflex (SLR) camera using an organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display that generates its own light, unlike traditional LCD screens that use coloured filters and a backlight. This gives OLEDs...

Interactive - Reader watchdog - The Adviser. PCW gives advice on your rights.(customer services of Dell Inc.)
January 1, 2006... A missed visit Dell sent the [pounds sterling]3,300 PC I ordered without the additional CD drive and Wifi card specified. The speakers and wireless desktop set did not work but, most annoyingly, the engineer visit I paid for to set up...

Interactive - Inside information - Breathing new life into a fading market. As digital SLRs come down in price, Gordon Laing doubted anyone would spend big bucks on an all-in-one - until he saw Sony's R1.
January 1, 2006... Byline: Gordon Laing, gordonl@pcw.co.uk. If you're into photography and have around [pounds sterling]600 to spend on a new camera, naturally you'd think first about buying a digital SLR, right? The latest breed of budget models (as...

Interactive - kewney@large - Recycling - otherwise known as dumping. When you buy a new product, be careful how you dispose of the old one. Guy Kewney is shocked at what happens to some old PCs.
January 1, 2006... Byline: Guy Kewney, guykewney@gmail.com. It's like athletics, really. You think of yourself as fairly fit, being able to jog for an hour and cover five kilometres, and then you meet an elite distance runner who completed it in half that...

Straight talking - Interactive - Help isn't always at hand. Knowing how to help consumers is key to good service, says Barry Fox, but how many manufacturers actually care?
January 1, 2006... Byline: Barry Fox, barryf@pcw.co.uk. How lucky you are', some people say. 'You get to try new hardware and software without paying for it.' If only they knew. All my workhorse PCs and peripherals have been bought with my own...

Reviews - What's new this month.(new product from Shuttle Inc.)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... If there's one manufacturer you can rely on to produce a stylish PC, it's Shuttle. To coincide with Microsoft's latest update of its Media Center operating system, Shuttle has developed one of the most attractive PCs we've ever seen. However,...

Reviews - Hardware - Shuttle M1000. Style and technical prowess give Media Center a much needed boost.
January 1, 2006... Byline: Will Stapley. If anyone's going to make a PC that's stylish enough to sit in your lounge, it's Shuttle. More famous for its small form factor barebones PCs, Shuttle has launched the M1000 PC. The glossy black case and slimline...

Reviews - Hardware - Apple Imac G5. A powerful and versatile alternative to a PC at a good price.
January 1, 2006... Byline: Cliff Joseph. Microsoft hasn't had much success getting us to buy Media Center PCs for our front rooms, but Apple is clearly hoping for more luck with its latest version of the Imac. In technical terms, this is a relatively...

Reviews - Hardware - Evesham Voyager C720. Desktop-standard 3D graphics on the move.
January 1, 2006... Byline: Rory Reid. Evesham's Voyager C720 is the first notebook we've seen that uses the mobile version of Nvidia's Geforce 7800 GTX graphics card - arguably the fastest graphics adapter on the market. Obviously there are several...

Reviews - Peripherals - Canon Powershot S80. Expensive yet feature-packed 8megapixel compact.(Product/Service Evaluation)
January 1, 2006... Byline: Will Stapley. Canon isn't shy when it comes to releasing new digicams. One year after the Powershot S70 hit the shelves, its successor, the Powershot S80, is now available. Smaller and lighter than the S70, the S80 has a retro...

Reviews - Peripherals - Apple Ipod. Tiny, fifth-generation device with video, but don't expect to watch movies.
January 1, 2006... Byline: Cliff Joseph. When he unveiled the new video-playing Ipod, Apple supremo Steve Jobs said, 'This is the best Ipod for music ever, and customers basically get the video for free'. That's the key to the new Ipod. It's not meant to be...

Reviews - Peripherals - Motorola Homesight. Monitoring your home for intruders is made easy.
January 1, 2006... Byline: Will Stapley. With its Homesight kit, Motorola is bringing home surveillance to the masses. Among other goodies, the package consists of an access point (called the System Controller), camera and door sensor, all of which are...

Reviews - Peripherals - T-Mobile MDA Pro. The most sophisticated handheld around.
January 1, 2006... Byline: Rory Reid. The T-Mobile MDA Pro is the fourth-generation PDA in the MDA product family. Unlike the smaller MDA Compact, its physical design has more in common with a laptop than a traditional PDA. It is shaped like a notebook...

Reviews - Peripherals - Netgear SC101 Storage Central. Put your old hard drives to good use.
January 1, 2006... Byline: Will Stapley. If you have performed a few PC upgrades in the past, there is a good chance you have some old hard drives knocking around. With the SC101 Storage Central, you can resurrect up to two drives to provide storage for your...

Reviews - Peripherals - Cordless VoIP/Dect Dualphone. Make calls over the Internet without being tied to your computer.(Product/Service Evaluation)
January 1, 2006... Byline: Rob Jones. Free PC-to-PC calls via services such as Skype are becoming popular, but their main disadvantage is that your computer must be on, and you must be in front of it to make calls. Bluetooth headsets give you greater...

Reviews - Peripherals - Wacom Graphire4 Studio XL. A pen input tablet for easy and intuitive photo editing.(Product/Service Evaluation)
January 1, 2006... Byline: Kelvyn Taylor. Wacom has been producing pen tablets for designers and graphic artists for many years, but its Studio range of Graphire4 tablets signals a change of focus by aiming squarely at home users who want an easy and...

Reviews - Peripherals - HP Photosmart 2575. An expensive, but sturdy and high-performing printer, copier and scanner.
January 1, 2006... Byline: Anthony Dhanendran. The HP Photosmart 2575 feels like a cut above the average inkjet multifunction device (MFD). While many MFDs suffer from being more than a little flimsy, this one is sturdily built. A multiformat memory card...

Reviews - Peripherals - Lexmark C524. Part of a quality range that can help small businesses reduce their costs.
January 1, 2006... Byline: Paul Monckton. Part of a new range from Lexmark,the C524 is aimed at small businesses wanting high-quality colour printing without spending a fortune. Its compact, upright design gives it a conveniently small footprint while...

Reviews - Peripherals - Gsec1 Prodigy Pro. Affordable and intuitive security system for up to 10 computers.(Product/Service Evaluation)
January 1, 2006... Byline: Alex Arias. The Prodigy Pro is an Internet security management (ISM) system designed for small businesses with up to 10 computers. Similar to other products within this very competitive market, it provides an integrated security...

Reviews - Peripherals - MXL Desktop Recording Kit.
January 1, 2006... Byline: Clive Akass. Studio-class condenser microphones were, for a long time, too costly for non-professional use. Prices have fallen but most models use XLR connectors and require a 48v power supply, so cannot be connected directly to a...

Reviews - Peripherals - Dream'eo Enza.(Brief Article)(Product/Service Evaluation)
January 1, 2006... Byline: Rory Reid. Microsoft Portable Media Center (PMC) devices are few and far between, and the Enza is the latest to hit the shelves. Despite its clever interface, we took exception to the physical shape of the Enza, which never...

Reviews - Peripherals - ECS PF5 Extreme.(Brief Article)(Product/Service Evaluation)
January 1, 2006... At first glance, the PF5 Extreme from ECS looks like a basic, featureless board. But don't be deceived by the amount of free purple PCB space. The board is built around Intel's Socket 775 and 945P Express chipset and supports 1,066, 800...

Reviews - Peripherals - Enermax Liberty Modular PSU.(Brief Article)(Product/Service Evaluation)
January 1, 2006... Most power supplies come with an excess of cables attached to them. If you don't use them all, they will hamper cooling unnecessarily. With both Antec and AC Ryan offering similar PSUs, modular power supplies aren't a new idea. But what...

Reviews - Peripherals - Gecube X850XT PE Uniwise AGP.
January 1, 2006... Although graphics card manufacturers might not like to talk about it, many people still own a PC with AGP graphics. If you're one of them and are feeling left out with all the recent hype over the X1800 and 7800GTX launches, the X850XT Platinum...

Reviews - Peripherals - Zalman ZM-VHS1 and ZM-NB32K.(Brief Article)(Product/Service Evaluation)
January 1, 2006... A couple of small but useful new coolers from Zalman, the Korean masters of all things cooling. First up is the ZM-VHS1 - a small heatsink designed to cool the HSI (High Speed Interconnect) bridge chips in Nvidia's Geforce 6600 series of...

Hands On - Technical Tips and Tricks. Practical advice from the industry's experts.
January 1, 2006... PC noise and power consumption are hot topics these days, with more and more people wanting to put their PCs in the living room without the risk of deafening their family or tripping a circuit breaker. In his Hardware column Gordon Laing has...

Hands On - Question time - Advice from our experts. If you have a problem, let one of our team of experts help.(use of Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition, Microsoft Excel and the anti virus software)
January 1, 2006... KEEPING AN EYE ON SPYWARE Q: I have a Windows 98SE system which seems to have been invaded by some malware that Norton Anti-virus 2004 and Webroot Spy Sweeper cannot detect, and which McAfee firewall did not intercept. All these programs...

Hands On - Hardware - Curb your consumption. Intel's Speedstep enables PCs to reduce power requirements and cut down on heat.
January 1, 2006... Byline: Gordon Laing. After years of increasingly power-hungry processors, itOs reassuring to see that power-saving technologies are becoming widespread on desktop platforms. Last month I put the Athlon 64's Cool'n'Quiet technology through...

Hands On - Performance - Breaking the 4GHz barrier. Boldly go where no processor has gone before and see how far you can push your P4.
January 1, 2006... Byline: Gordon Laing. In this month's Hardware column I've tested Intel's power-saving technology using a 3.6GHz Pentium 4 660 processor, and I couldn't resist seeing how far it could be overclocked. The 660 is close to the top end of...

Hands On - Windows - Smoke and mirrors. Learn a trick with folder shortcuts; get the lowdown on DDE; and move to Thunderbird.(dynamic data exchange)
January 1, 2006... Byline: Tim Nott. When is a folder not a folder? And when is a shortcut not a shortcut? And if you think that's confusing, the answer depends on which version of Windows you are running. Let's start with Windows 95 and 98. This is...

Hands On - Linux/Unix - Fire up Firefox.
January 1, 2006... Byline: The Mozilla web browser is rapidly gaining popularity. Here's what you need to know. Linux users have a good choice when it comes to web browsers. While the names of the programs may differ, under the surface there are quite a few...

Hands On - Digital Imaging & Video - Take your photos with you. Portable hard disk-based devices mean storing images while you're travelling is easy.(Epson P2000, Smartdisk Flashtrax XT, Vosonic XS-Drive Super VP6210)(Product/Service Evaluation)
January 1, 2006... Byline: Ken McMahon. Flash memory cards are getting bigger and 1GB cards are no longer considered unusual, but camera sensors are keeping pace and if you choose to shoot raw or uncompressed and bracketed exposures, or shoot in continuous...

Reviews - Components - Aopen MZ915-M. You can have the power and features of a desktop PC in a smaller package.
January 1, 2006... Byline: Simon Crisp. Aopen is one of only a few companies to realise the advantages of using Intel's Pentium M mobile processor in a desktop environment. Thanks to its low power consumption, the Pentium M produces less heat and therefore...

Reviews - Components - Foxconn Tuckaway. Get more for your money with this mini-ATX case.
January 1, 2006... Byline: Simon Crisp. The aptly named Tuckaway from Foxconn is a small form factor barebones system based on Intel's Socket 775 motherboard with the 915GL Express chipset. One of the reasons the Tuckaway is so compact is that it has an...

Reviews - Software - Pinnacle Studio Plus 10. A new engine and extra features help produce quality projects on a budget.
January 1, 2006... Byline: Jonathan Parkyn. We've seen Pinnacle's popular video-editing program, Studio, return year after year with minor tweaks and additions. This time, however, there's something different going on. Pinnacle was acquired by Avid in...

Reviews - Software - Roxio Easy Media Creator Suite 8. Store, manipulate and get creative with your images, video, music and more.
January 1, 2006... Byline: Tim Smith. Roxio Easy Media Creator Suite 8 is an ambitious piece of software as it attempts to be your resource for all kinds of digital media projects, including photos and videos, as well as more serious tasks such as backups....

Reviews - Software - Nero 7 Premium. This package ventures beyond disc burning, into digital media and home entertainment.(Product/Service Evaluation)
January 1, 2006... Byline: Rory Reid. Similar to Roxio Creator 8 (see page 64), Nero 7 Premium is an all-in-one digital media and home-entertainment solution that helps you create, burn, edit, share and organise your movies, music and photos. The package...

Reviews - Software - Realviz Stitcher 5. Producing 360 deg shots is now quicker than ever.
January 1, 2006... Byline: Ken McMahon. Panorama stitching software can broadly be split into two groups. There are those such as Photomerge that let you stitch together a few images to produce an ultra-wide-angle view, and then you have applications such as...

Reviews - Software - Xara Xtreme. Powerful editing package for a variety of image types.
January 1, 2006... Byline: Nigel Whitfield. Xara is well known for its graphics programs, including tools such as Xara 3D that lets amateur web designers create buttons and logos with ease. Xara Xtreme is a vector and bitmap graphics package. Users familiar...

Reviews - Games - Black & White 2. Gain the trust and respect of your minions; then slap them about.(Product/Service Evaluation)
January 1, 2006... Byline: Rory Reid. The original Black & White gained huge attention as one of the best 'god' games of 2004, so it was with great enthusiasm that we received its successor, Black & White 2. The game follows the same basic formula as the...