Personal Computer World articles from June 2009

Personal Computer World archives from June 2009

Shure X2U XLR-to-USB Signal Adapter.(Brief article)
June 18, 2009... Byline: Simon Crisp Shure X2U XLR-to-USB Signal Adapter Price: [pounds sterling]113.95 Contact: www.dolphinmusic.co.uk Overall: HHHHH A very useful gadget if you record live music onto your PC. The Shure X2U connects any...

Silverlight revisited.
June 18, 2009... Byline: Tim Anderson Silverlight revisited Delve deeper into coding using Microsoft's web framework Last year's two-part feature (December and Christmas 2008 issues) on coding a Silverlight 2.0 application (see screen 1) has...

Whati?1/2s new in Silverlight 3.0.(Product/service evaluation)(Brief article)
June 18, 2009... Byline: Tim Anderson What's new in Silverlight 3.0 Silverlight 3.0 is in beta, and promised before the end of the year. It is a substantial update. On the multimedia side, there's support for the popular H.264 video and AAC audio...

Where in the world?(using Google Maps )
June 18, 2009... Byline: Nigel Whitfield Where in the world? How to add geographic information to your websites Google Maps is one of the most useful websites to appear in recent years. If you want to show someone on a map where your office is, or...

The urge to merge.(using Microsoft Word)
June 18, 2009... Byline: Tim Nott The urge to merge Get to grips with one of Word's most feared features One of the phrases that can strike terror into the hearts of mere mortals is 'mail merge', along with the closely related 'database'. The idea...

Dealing with XS baggage.
June 18, 2009... Byline: Tim Nott Dealing with XS baggage Tips to help you manage the resource-hogging WinSxS folder A colleague was surprised to find that the WinSxS folder on his Vista PC was occupying over 7GB of disk space. Intrigued, I looked...

Music to my tables.
June 18, 2009... Byline: Mark Whitehorn Music to my tables Import data into Access and create a normalised database of your music Last month we started looking at how to create a normalised database of music -- the artists, titles and tracks held...

Losing focus.
June 18, 2009... Byline: Ken McMahon Losing focus How to digitally create your own depth of field with realistic results Looking at camera hardware and image-editing software, you might think we're all obsessed with image sharpness. Camera...

Jaunty Jackalope.(Product/service evaluation)
June 18, 2009... Byline: Barry Shilliday Jaunty Jackalope Take a close look at the latest Ubuntu release Towards the end of April Canonical released the latest update to Ubuntu, version 9.04, which is also known by its codename Jaunty Jackalope...

An easy way to add accents to text.(Brief article)
June 18, 2009... Byline: Barry Shilliday An easy way to add accents to text Reader Mark Brummitt often finds himself wanting to write Italian and French text and wonders how to go about entering accented characters easily. Currently he uses the...

Mini marvel.(how to build a personal computer)
June 18, 2009... Byline: Gordon Laing Mini marvel How to build the perfect compact hi-fi PC In this month's column I'm building a mini PC designed as a source for high-quality audio. It will be small, quiet, consume minimal power, and, crucially,...

Alternative hacking.
June 18, 2009... Byline: Gordon Laing Alternative hacking Discover how consumer electronics devices can be boosted by hacks Hardware enthusiasts are rarely satisfied by the performance of components straight out of the box any more. Most of us have...

Imap and sharing calendars.
June 18, 2009... Byline: Alan Stevens Imap and sharing calendars Smooth out some bumps in your home email server setup This month's column is email related and prompted by some queries sent in by reader James Rimell, who writes: "Thank you for...

How to stay solvent.
June 18, 2009... Byline: Stephen Wells How to stay solvent Find out how Excel can help you keep a track of your finances One thing everyone needs in the current economic climate is a way to manage spending. The Microsoft Office website offers four...

HO_Intro.
June 18, 2009... Byline: Will Stapley Jaunty on trial Thanks to its ease of installation and intuitive interface, Ubuntu is the perfect introduction to Linux. Codenamed Jaunty Jackalope, version 9.04 of Ubuntu has now arrived. A new desktop along with...

Addicted to tweets.
June 18, 2009... Byline: Tom Royal Addicted to tweets Make your tweets heard. Tom Royal explores the latest techniques for using Twitter Since 2006 Twitter (www.twitter.com) has grown from a niche service barely heard of outside San Francisco to a...

Twittiquette.(using Twitter)(Brief article)
June 18, 2009... Byline: Tom Royal Twittiquette Just like email and usenet postings, Twitter has evolved certain cultural norms that it pays to understand. In the early days of the service many considered it rude not to follow anyone who chose to...

API tools.(application programming interface )(Brief article)
June 18, 2009... Byline: Tom Royal API tools Like any self-respecting Web 2 website, Twitter has an API allowing other websites to make use of its information, and many have sprung up. For an insight into the collective mind of the Twitter community,...

Debian Project GNU/Linux 5.
June 18, 2009... Byline: Alan Stevens Debian Project GNU/Linux 5 Debian almost catches up with the rest of the Linux crowd Debian GNU/Linux (Debian for short) is often criticised for the length of its development cycle but is, as a result, a very...

D-Link DNS-343.
June 18, 2009... Byline: Alan Stevens D-Link DNS-343 Get the power of four in the latest D-Link storage appliance D-Link's DNS-343 is a four-bay network storage appliance that is easy to set up, with a good choice of Raid options to enhance both...

Kodak Scan Station 500.
June 18, 2009... Byline: Alan Stevens Kodak Scan Station 500 A fast scanner with a big appetite for work Kodak's Scan Station 500 is a real workhorse. It can scan 30 double-sided pages per minute and is able to cope with 1,500 pages per a day. It...

Question time Databases.
June 18, 2009... Databases QI have a form based on my Access 2007 database, each form is A4 size and I would like to put page numbers onto the forms when I print them. It seems quite easy to do and I think I've done it right, but they don't show up on the...

Syncing problems.(Brief article)
June 18, 2009... Syncing problems Digital imaging QI recently retired my old PC for a new super-duper machine with 4GB of memory, quad-core processor and massive hard drive in order to speed up editing home videos. A video that used to take nine hours...

Delay dilemma.(Brief article)
June 18, 2009... Delay dilemma Windows QWhen I go to open files in Excel or Word, I get a long delay with a message stating that it is 'Initializing the root folders to display'. Eventually the folders show, but there can then be additional delays in...

EncryptX Device Defender 3.1.(Product/service evaluation)
June 18, 2009... Byline: Alan Stevens EncryptX Device Defender 3.1 Prevent others from accessing your portable storage devices Removable storage devices, such as USB sticks and SD cards, are a cheap and easy way of transporting data, but they're...

Acebit Password Depot 4.(Product/service evaluation)
June 18, 2009... Byline: Alan Stevens Acebit Password Depot 4 Store user names and passwords securely on your PC There are lots of ways to keep track of passwords, such as jotting them down on paper or in a spreadsheet or another computer file....

Virtually free.
June 18, 2009... Byline: Alan Stevens Virtually free There are benefits and drawbacks to using the latest free PC virtualisation software. Alan Stevens explains Virtualisation is rapidly becoming a commodity technology, leaving vendors to focus on...

Inside VMware Workstation.
June 18, 2009... Byline: Alan Stevens Inside VMware Workstation With the exception of Microsoft's Virtual PC 2007 and Sun's Virtualbox, free virtualisation products to run on your local desktop PC are pretty rare. Market leader VMware refuses to ditch...

Blue screen blues.(personal computer repair)
June 18, 2009... Byline: Mike Williams Blue screen blues Don't live with an unstable PC and regular blue-screen crashes -- fix them. Mike Williams shows you how It's the worst of PC problems. One moment you're deep in thought, application windows...

Blue screen basics.(Brief article)
June 18, 2009... Byline: Mike Williams Blue screen basics Regular Windows applications run in 'user mode', an environment where they are isolated from your hardware and each other. If a bug causes a user mode program to crash, Windows knows this can't...

Troubleshoot hung programs.(Brief article)
June 18, 2009... Byline: Mike Williams Troubleshoot hung programs The Windows debugging tools aren't just for crashes. They can sometimes uncover why a program has locked up, too. To try this you must first create a file containing a dump of the...

Identifying hardware causes of crashes.(Brief article)
June 18, 2009... Byline: Mike Williams Identifying hardware causes of crashes We've focused on the software causes of blue-screen crashes here, but hardware problems can also play a part. Faulty Ram, for instance, is responsible for a significant...

Further troubleshooting tips to stop crashes.
June 18, 2009... Byline: Mike Williams Further troubleshooting tips to stop crashes Stop codes The Windows Debugging tools will often tell you exactly which file is responsible for your blue-screen crashes. But when it doesn't, you will need to...

Creature comforts.
June 18, 2009... Byline: Daniel Griffin Creature comforts Good ergonomics are just as important at home as they are in the office. Daniel Griffin explains The focus of ergonomics has traditionally been on how we interact with our PCs at work....

Get kids into good habits.
June 18, 2009... Byline: Daniel Griffin Get kids into good habits Children spend an average of 15,000 hours sitting at a desk during their time at school, yet these days chances are the first thing they do when they get home, is boot up the family PC...

Working from home? What the law requires.
June 18, 2009... Byline: Daniel Griffin Working from home? What the law requires Under EU Directive 90/270/EEC employers are legally obliged to assess workstations in order to prevent conditions such as RSI and various musculoskeletal disorders such as...

Ergonomics resources.
June 18, 2009... Byline: Daniel Griffin Ergonomics resources Peripherals: Maltron: Ergonomic Keyboards for RSI sufferers www.maltron.com/index.html Evoluent: Various peripherals -- with a good range of vertical mice www.evoluent.com...

Posture checklist.(Brief article)
June 18, 2009... Byline: Daniel Griffin Posture checklist Ergonomic office equipment specialist, Fellowes (www.fellowes.com), offers the following basic advice to make sure you're sitting in the right position l Ensure that your desk area is made...

Uncovering DirectX 11.
June 18, 2009... Byline: Orestis Bastounis Uncovering DirectX 11 The next version of DirectX was first announced at Gamefest 2008. It's expected to be included with the imminent Windows Vista Service Pack 2 and is already available with the Windows 7...

Intel squares up with Larrabee.
June 18, 2009... Byline: Orestis Bastounis Intel squares up with Larrabee Nvidia and ATI's 3D graphics hardware and approach to rendering have dominated the market for the past few years. Intel's integrated graphics chipsets have been comparatively...

Gigabyte 9400GT GV-N94TOC-1GI.(Product/service evaluation)
June 18, 2009... Byline: Orestis Bastounis Gigabyte 9400GT GV-N94TOC-1GI Price [pounds sterling]47 Contact Gigabyte www.giga-bye.co.uk Nvidia's current entry-level graphics card is the 9400 GT. It's well suited as a cheap and basic upgrade for...

Gigabyte Geforce GTS 250 GV-N250OC-1GI.(Product/service evaluation)
June 18, 2009... Byline: Simon Crisp Gigabyte Geforce GTS 250 GV-N250OC-1GI Price [pounds sterling]142 Contact Gigabyte www.giga-bye.co.uk When ATI released the Radeon HD4850, priced for the mainstream market, Nvidia had no new mid-range card to...

Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 X2 2G.
June 18, 2009... Byline: Orestis Bastounis Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 X2 2G Price [pounds sterling]310 Contact Sapphire www.sapphiretech.com The Radeon HD 4870 X2 2G combines two 55nm 4870 GPUs into a single package. It's still the most powerful ATI...

Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 X2 2G.
June 18, 2009... Byline: Orestis Bastounis Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 X2 2G Price [pounds sterling]227 Contact Sapphire www.sapphiretech.com The Radeon HD4850 X2 is the second of ATI's dual-GPU cards, pairing two 4850s in a single package, with an...

His Radeon HD4890 Turbo.(Product/service evaluation)
June 18, 2009... Byline: Orestis Bastounis His Radeon HD4890 Turbo Price [pounds sterling]217 Contact His www.hisdigital.com The 4890 is currently the fastest single-GPU card that ATI produces, but it isn't radically different from the 4870. The...

GraphicsCards_Edschoice_half.(Product/service evaluation)
June 18, 2009... Byline: Orestis Bastounis Twelve months is a long time in the world of graphics and, since the Geforce GTX 280 and Radeon HD4870 were released last year, Nvidia and ATI have released new faster variants, and dropped their prices. Last...

The graphics game.
June 18, 2009... Byline: Orestis Bastounis The graphics game High resolutions, detailed effects and fast frame rates are vital for today's PC games. Simon Crisp and Orestis Bastounis test 10 graphics cards to see if they deliver in modern 3D games ...

Asus EAH4350 Silent.(Product/service evaluation)
June 18, 2009... Byline: Orestis Bastounis Asus EAH4350 Silent Price [pounds sterling]27 Contact Asus http://uk.asus.com The EAH4350 Silent is one of the cheapest and smallest graphics cards to arrive in our labs. It's one of the few cards to not...

His Radeon HD4770.(Product/service evaluation)
June 18, 2009... Byline: Orestis Bastounis His Radeon HD4770 Price [pounds sterling]79 Contact His www.hisdigital.com Although we received a reference ATI Radeon HD4770 board last month, the His Radeon HD4770 is a retail version. It differs from...

Asus Geforce ENGTX285 Ultimate Edition.(Product/service evaluation)
June 18, 2009... Byline: Simon Crisp Asus Geforce ENGTX285 Ultimate Edition Price [pounds sterling]283 Contact Asus http://uk.asus.com The Asus Geforce ENGTX285 Ultimate Edition is a factory-overclocked version of Nvidia's Geforce GTX 285. It's a...

Zotac Geforce GTX 275 AMP Edition.(Product/service evaluation)
June 18, 2009... Byline: Simon Crisp Zotac Geforce GTX 275 AMP Edition Price [pounds sterling]229 Contact Zotac www.zotac.com Astandard Geforce GTX 275 is a cut-down GTX 285, with less memory and a narrower memory interface. The GTX 275 isn't the...

How we tested.
June 18, 2009... Byline: Simon Crisp How we tested To test the graphics cards we used an Intel Core i7 motherboard and processor. The PC's specs were: Intel Core i7 920 2.66GHz processor, MSI X58 Pro motherboard, 6GB Crucial Ballistix PC3-10600...

Enjoy extra performance from a second card.(Product/service evaluation)
June 18, 2009... Byline: Orestis Bastounis Enjoy extra performance from a second card If you want to boost gaming performance even higher, adding a second graphics card for SLI (Nvidia) or Crossfire (ATI) is an alternative to replacing your existing...

Find your way with a sat nav.
June 18, 2009... Byline: Nigel Whitfield Find your way with a sat nav Are we there yet? Satellite-navigation devices can help you find the answer to that question and provide many other useful things too. Nigel Whitfield tests five top-of-the-range...

Navigon 7310.(Product/service evaluation)
June 18, 2009... Byline: Nigel Whitfield Navigon 7310 Price [pounds sterling]299.99 Contact Navigon www.navigon.com Navigon's 7310 is a sleek-looking unit, with a curving back and a front panel that has a shiny front reaching almost to the edges....

How we tested.(Brief article)
June 18, 2009... Byline: Nigel Whitfield How we tested All the sat navs were tested in the same car, in areas around north-east London, including the North Circular (A406) and M11. For the basic routing test, we asked each to take us from a home...

Has the Portable Navigation Device had its day?
June 18, 2009... Byline: Nigel Whitfield Has the Portable Navigation Device had its day? All the devices we have tested here fall into a category known as Portable Navigation Devices (PNDs). When we last looked at these a few years ago, there were...

SatNav EdsChoice.(Product/service evaluation)
June 18, 2009... Byline: Nigel Whitfield Any of these sat navs will take you from A to B, without becoming lost. But then, so will any of the cheaper models that cram the shelves of electronic and car stores. If you're spending the extra money, you really...

Becker Traffic Assist Pro Z250.(Product/service evaluation)
June 18, 2009... Byline: Nigel Whitfield Becker Traffic Assist Pro Z250 Price [pounds sterling]319 Contact Becker www.mybecker.com Becker is one of the less well known sat-nav manufacturers, in the UK at least. It's a bigger name in the car audio...

Garmin Nuvi 865T.
June 18, 2009... Byline: Nigel Whitfield Garmin Nuvi 865T Price [pounds sterling]399.99 Contact Garmin www.garmin.com/cms/site/uk Garmin's Nuvi 865T is a solid-feeling device that looks a little less modern than the Mio and Navigon models, but...

Put up the barriers.(firewall protection)
June 18, 2009... Byline: Paul Monkton Put up the barriers Our series of articles for novices and forgetful experts continues with the basics of firewall protection. Paul Monckton explains The internet can be a dangerous place to roam...

Is the Windows Firewall enough?
June 18, 2009... Byline: Paul Monkton Is the Windows Firewall enough? If Windows comes with a firewall, why do products such as Zone Alarm's firewall exist? Originally, the Windows Firewall was designed only to keep undesirables out, and it did nothing...

Hanlin e-Reader.
June 18, 2009... Byline: Nigel Whitfield Hanlin e-Reader A lightweight ebook reader for less than [pounds sterling]200 Ebooks have been around for a while, but haven't captured the imagination. That's slowly changing, though -- well-known...

Lenovo L2440X.(Product/service evaluation)
June 18, 2009... Byline: Tom Royal Lenovo L2440X A great display with LED backlighting Unlike conventional LCDs, which are backlit by cold-cathode fluorescent lights, Lenovo's L2440X uses an array of LEDs. This means that it uses less power than...

E-Pens Mobile Notes.(Product/service evaluation)
June 18, 2009... Byline: Paul Lester E-Pens Mobile Notes A quick and easy way to transcribe handwritten notes Anyone who has attempted to convert a series of handwritten notes to text on a computer knows that transcription can often be a...

JVC Everio X GX-X900 EK.
June 18, 2009... Byline: Laurence Gunn JVC Everio X GX-X900 EK A small, feature-rich camcorder that captures 1080p video JVC's Everio X is one of the smallest 1080p camcorders we've ever seen. It eschews a hard disk in favour of an SDHC card slot,...

Mio Navman Spirit S500.
June 18, 2009... Byline: Nigel Whitfield Mio Navman Spirit S500 Price [pounds sterling]179.99 Contact Mio www.mio.com Mio has recently acquired Navman and the new Spirit range is one of the first fruits of that collaboration. The S500 is the...

The hidden costs of sat nav.
June 18, 2009... Byline: Nigel Whitfield The hidden costs of sat nav There's a huge variation in the cost of the sat navs we have tested, even taking account of the different features they all offer. But simply buying based on the headline price isn't...

Tomtom Go 940 Live.
June 18, 2009... Byline: Nigel Whitfield Tomtom Go 940 Live Price [pounds sterling]391 Contact www.tomtom.com Tomtom has been top dog, at least in terms of sat-nav device sales, for quite a long time, and there's no doubting that its products are...

Netgear Digital Entertainer Elite.(Product/service evaluation)
June 18, 2009... Byline: Paul Lester Netgear Digital Entertainer Elite The EVA 9150 is an excellent performer and is easy to set up Considering how integral digital media is to modern-day entertainment, it's almost embarrassing to think that we can...

Asus Rampage II Gene.
June 18, 2009... Byline: Simon Crisp Asus Rampage II Gene A Micro-ATX Core i7 motherboard with loads of features Micro-ATX motherboards aren't as popular with enthusiasts as full-sized ATX boards, as their feature set is often comparatively...

Panoweaver 6.(Product/service evaluation)
June 18, 2009... Byline: Ken McMahon Panoweaver 6 Create 2D and 360A* panoramic images easily S titching together a panoramic image to give web users a virtual tour of a location is usually time-consuming and fiddly. Panoweaver 6 makes the process...

Velvet Assassin.(Product/service evaluation)
June 18, 2009... Byline: Emil Larsen Velvet Assassin Tomb Raider meets Call of Duty Velvet Assassin uses the unlikely combination of a steely female lead character in a World War II setting, with a smattering of stealth combat thrown in....

The Godfather II.(Product/service evaluation)
June 18, 2009... Byline: Emil Larsen The Godfather II A sandbox adventure game with no conscience All the best aspects of the Godfather film trilogy -- its plot, style and fascinating characters -- take a back seat in The Godfather II video game,...

Cyberlink DVD Suite Ultra.
June 18, 2009... Byline: Tom Royal Cyberlink DVD Suite Ultra CD and DVD tools for the ever-increasing HD crowd There was once a time when CD- and DVD-creation suites had a few simple jobs to do -- burn data discs, rip music from audio CDs and...

Serif Photoplus X3.(Product/service evaluation)
June 18, 2009... Byline: Ken McMahon Serif Photoplus X3 Plenty of tools for both novice and advanced photographers Serif has christened version 11 of its image-editing software Photoplus X3. This could be an effort to go one better than Corel's...

Viewsonic VX2433wm.(Product/service evaluation)
June 18, 2009... Byline: Paul Monkton Viewsonic VX2433wm 24in widescreen monitor with HDMI The VX2433wm is a smart-looking display. Its 1,080p resolution and 16:9 aspect ratio matches the shape of a widescreen TV and is ideal for displaying HD...

Genius G-Shot HD520.(Product/service evaluation)
June 18, 2009... Byline: Orestis Bastounis Genius G-Shot HD520 A portable HD camcorder for less than [pounds sterling]100 Like the Flip Mino HD reviewed last month, the G-Shot HD520 is a pocket-sized camcorder that can record 720p resolution video....

Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH.
June 18, 2009... Byline: Will Stapley Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH Fast speeds when channel bonding, but no 5GHz mode Buffalo's latest router is a sleek-looking device, aimed at cable broadband users, since it has no built-in ADSL modem. It is...

Hauppauge WinTV Ministick HD.
June 18, 2009... Byline: Paul Lester Hauppauge WinTV Ministick HD Watch free-to-view TV -- but a rooftop aerial is a must Hauppauge has expanded its range of portable TV tuners to include the WinTV-Ministick HD, a portable USB-based tuner capable...

1985: Commodore Amiga.
June 18, 2009... 1985: Commodore Amiga How PCW greeted the machine that outclassed the Mac and challenged Windows, plus we go back in time and take a look at two issues from 15 and 25 years ago PCW managed to get a Commodore Amiga six months before it...

Zonealarm Extreme Security.(Product/service evaluation)
June 18, 2009... Byline: Paul Lester Zonealarm Extreme Security PC tune-up tools have been added to the security suite Zonealarm Extreme is Checkpoint's answer to Norton 360, adding backup and tune-up tools along with its impressive Forcefield...

Forward with rollback.
June 18, 2009... Forward with rollback The ifs and Bots of restoring your PC to its last working state using Roxio's latest Back on Track software Windows Restore is supposed to save the state of a PC for rollback when something goes wrong. But Restore...

Letters Aug 2009.
June 18, 2009... Byline: Kelvyn Taylor Dear Mr Microsoft Windows 7 is a triumph for me, and all the little Vista quirks, such as losing Wifi connection after hibernation and the User Account Control aggravation, have disappeared. In addition I love the...