Personal Computer World articles from May 2005

Personal Computer World archives from May 2005

Editorial - A budget PC isn't necessarily basic. Rob Jones is impressed at the increasing standards and decreasing prices of budget PCs.(Editorial)
May 1, 2005... About this time last year I bought myself a new PC, for the heady sum of [pounds sterling]612 including VAT and delivery. It didn't have all I needed, but I figured I would add the missing components over time, plus I could use others that I...

How we test. PCW uses the services of VNU Labs to perform all its hardware testing. VNU Labs' highly experienced staff use industry-standard benchmarks and methodologies to generate accurate, repeatable test results. Below you'll find the details of the most frequently used benchmarks that PCW publishes.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... Sysmark 2004 Sysmark 2004 is a system productivity benchmark, designed to reflect system performance when running the most popular application software in real-world scenarios with real-world workloads. Sysmark 2004 uses 15...

Latest on IDF.
May 1, 2005... Intel was expected to release details of a new Itanium processor, codenamed Poulson, at the Spring Intel Developer Forum which opened as we went to press. It is the successor to the Tukwila generation slated for release in 2007. The news...

MacOS on a PC?
May 1, 2005... Several PC vendors have urged that the MacOS should be ported to the PC platform, Apple boss Steve Jobs said last month. It appears that he has no intention of doing so, but there is talk of Apple using the new Cell processor (see contents...

DSL speeds up - with snag.(asynchronous digital subscriber line, British Telcommunications )
May 1, 2005... Byline: Clive Akass. BT is to trial next-generation ADSL2+ services that use clever modulation techniques to push line speeds up to 18Mbits/sec. The trial by the wholesale arm of BT was announced as part of a few changes under which many...

Canon shoots a winner.(enhanced EOS-350D )(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... Photography buffs are ogling the latest offering from Canon, an upgrade of its EOS-300D, which was one of the first affordable digital single-lens reflex cameras to hit the market. The new 8megapixel EOS-350D is smaller, lighter, and can...

HP glee as Carly is sacked.(Hewlett-Packard Co's Carly Fiorina steps down)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... HP was still looking for a chief executive as we went to press - two weeks after Carly Fiorina was ousted to the undisguised glee of many of her staff. It was Fiorina who pushed through the controversial merger with Compaq, opposed by many...

PCs still get 'banned' Media Player.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... PCs sold in Europe may still be sold with XP and Media Player, despite an EC anti-monopoly ruling that the two products should not bundled. Microsoft says PC vendors in Europe will be given the choice of loading a version of XP with or...

Challenge for Ipods.(new products)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... Apple has unveiled two new Ipods designed to hold your entire collection of music and photographs. A 30GB [pounds sterling]249 model is said to hold up to 7,500 songs and there is also a 60GB version for [pounds sterling]309. Also launched...

VAT loophole.(value added tax)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... Byline: Anthony Dhanendran. The Government is seeking ways to plug a loophole that lets shoppers avoid VAT by buying low-priced items like CDs and DVDs from offshore websites. Companies, including Tesco, are setting up shop in places...

Hack and sue.(RSA Conference warns owners of personal computer)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... Owners of unsecured PCs could get sued if their machines are taken over by hackers and used to launch spam or distribute denial-of-service attacks that swamp sites with hits, a security conference was warned. Rogue code dropped by viruses or...

Less porn.(junk mails statistics)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... Junk porn email fell by a 92.5 per cent in February, but spam offering dating services surged by 171 per cent, says email specialist Email Systems. Total spam rose slightly, with more than nine out of 10 emails unsolicited. It peaked on 6...

Touchstream.
May 1, 2005... In our review of the Fingerworks Touchstream keyboard, which accepts a variety of gestures as commands, we omitted to mention that it is available from www.backinaction.co.uk.

Microsoft thrills to 64bits. The industry is poised for the release of 64bit Windows XP as Intel launches the first desktop processors able to take advantage of it. But how many users really need them?
May 1, 2005... Microsoft was gearing up last month to release the long-awaited 64bit version of Windows XP, as Intel launched no fewer than six new 64bit processors (see below). Final code is expected to ship before June, together with a 64bit version of...

New Pentiums show a big speed boost - even using 32bit code.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... Intel's latest 64bit chips include five Pentium 4s, which are the first to be targeted at desktop PCs. First tests in our labs show a performance improvement of up to 23 per cent even though they were done on the 32bit version of Windows XP...

Computing trips the light fantastic. Britain has made a big investment in the marriage of photonics and electronics, which is set to change lives and drive computing into the woodwork. Clive Akass reports.
May 1, 2005... Products on display in a former slaughterhouse on the outskirts of Edinburgh last month indicate how computing is shaping up for the 21st century. Or, to put it another way, how computing is beginning to see the light. Twentieth century IT...

Intel makes laser breakthrough.
May 1, 2005... Intel has made a breakthrough in finding a way to mass-produce photonic devices cheaply with the well-tried techniques used to make silicon processors. The technology is unlikely to appear in products until the end of the decade, but it could...

Britain lags behind in fibre take-up.(economic aspects, fiber optic market)
May 1, 2005... Exhibitors at the Edinburgh Innovations showcase expressed concerns that Britain will fall behind other countries in the deployment of optical fibre. Countries such as Japan and Korea are already well ahead, and advancing countries such as...

Smart GPS tracks goods.(global position system)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... Byline: Steve Ranger. Qinetiq and Global Point Technologies claim to have developed the world's most compact global tracking device. It integrates Qinetiq's Q20 High Sensitivity GPS technology with wireless links and software from Global...

UK in chip breakthrough.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... Processors drawing up to 10 times less power than today's could result from research being undertaken by Intel and Qinetiq, the spin-off company from Britain's Defence Evaluation and Research Agency. Researchers have used indium antimonide...

Just a MO.
May 1, 2005... Fujitsu is still making magneto-optical (MO) drives, a technology that has never hit a mass market. Its new [pounds sterling]124.95 USB2 DynaMO 1300, weighing 230g and just 5mm thick, is little larger than its 3.5in 1.3GB disks, which cost...

Clone yourself for PC gaming.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... Players could clone themselves in 3D to take part in PC games using technology from a company called Dimensional Imaging (DI). Available now is the ability to clone famous people easily to 'star' in games, said chief executive Colin Urquhart....

Unfuzzing Fuzz videos.(Visimetrics's Fastar Commander)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... Fast links will see an end to those fuzzy police videos in which people are recognisable more easily by their movements than from their features. Prestwick-based Visimetrics already sells systems that record DVD-quality sound and audio:...

Chip speaks nine languages.(Epson's S1V30100 )(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... Epson showed a chip designed for mobile devices that will read out text in any of five languages with a choice of nine voices. The S1V30100, developed at the company's design centre at Livingston, Scotland, will also decode mp3 and aac audio...

The test bed.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... The test bed is PCW's new Labs blog, where you'll find the latest test results, product news, gossip, tips and comments from other readers. Among the highlights in the past month was the following excerpt on MSI's new Diamond motherboard, which...

Office accounts war looms.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... Microsoft is set to launch an accountancy product in a move that could spark a new showdown with Europe's competition authorities. A new version of Office will include software for small business accounts, Orlando Ayala, head of Microsoft's...

... as Gates prepares security product.(Bill Gates's Microsoft anti-spyware software)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... Microsoft appears to be getting ready to launch a product to combat both viruses and spyware, after buying three companies working in the field. It has just launched trial beta code of an anti-spyware product, available for download at...

Windows Server 2003 'is more secure than Linux'.(comparative analysis)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... Byline: Iain Thomson. Microsoft code is more secure than Linux, according to a fan of the open-source operating system. Richard Ford, from the Florida Institute of Technology, compared the time it took to patch three reported...

MS attacked.(Microsoft Corp's application programming interfaces )(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... Microsoft is trying to bypass an order from the European Court to open its application programming interfaces (APIs) to rivals, according to the Free Software Foundation of Europe (FSFE). Knowledge of the APIs is needed to allow third-party...

Straight to web.
May 1, 2005... Splashdata has launched Splashblog, which allows Palm-powered camera phones and PDAs to publish pictures straight to the web. Versions are planned for Windows and Symbian-based devices. It costs $29.95 ([pounds sterling]16) from...

Hit the DeCSS.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... Byline: Steve Ranger. A product called Ripguard plugs a 'digital hole' that allows users of DeCSS ripper software to copy and share DVD movies, developer Macrovision claims. It can work with existing DVD drives and players but movie makers...

Star attraction.
May 1, 2005... A beta versions of Sun's Star Office suite is available for download at www.pcw.co.uk/downloads/1161578. It is said to have enhanced interoperability with Microsoft Office.

Typing aid.
May 1, 2005... A utility called Foretype 1.2 brings predictive typing to the PC by guessing the word you are just about to type and filling in the rest. It costs $14.95 ([pounds sterling]8) from www.foretype.org.

Fast bus to cheap graphics.(PCI Express)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... ATI is using the speed of the new PCI Express bus to exploit system memory for a new range of fast, low-cost graphics cards. The standard 16-channel Express graphics bus can pass 4Gbytes/sec in each direction, compared with the...

First look at ATI's new mobile graphics unit.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... Byline: Simon Crisp. The latest mobile PCI-E GPU from ATI, the Mobility Radeon X700 (codenamed M26), is aimed at an ever-growing market segment, the thin performance notebook and, as you may have guessed from the name, the MR X700 is based...

Emphasis on security in new laptops.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... HP, Dell and Toshiba pushed security rather than performance in their new year launches of notebooks, although most were based on Intel's latest Sonoma flavour of its Centrino mobile platform. Toshiba has three new ranges, the Portege M300,...

Light relief.(Philips flat television)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... Byline: Rory Reid. Philips has unveiled a new range of flat TVs with HDMI and DVI-connectors that enable them to double as monitors. They include the 32PF9380, 37PF9380, with 32in, 37in and 42in displays respectively. All three feature...

Turion chipset.
May 1, 2005... Via has unveiled a low-drain chipset, called the K8N800A, optimised for AMD's yet-to-be launched Turion 64 mobile processors. It includes S3 Graphics Unichrome Pro graphics.

Light and loud.
May 1, 2005... Interlink has launched a portable public-address system called Go Speak that can be used for presentations and other events. The twin speakers weigh 2.7kg and can deliver 40w - and if that is not enough, you can daisy-chain them for larger...

Quiet cool.
May 1, 2005... Scythe's FCS-50 cooler can be fitted to most processors, except those using Intel's latest 755 socket. Its clever use of a heatpipe and flow-through technology allows it to be used for overclocking or keeping your PC quiet. It costs [pounds...

New rival arrives for the Pentium. The Cell processor developed by IBM, Toshiba and Sony may not quite justify the tag 'supercomputer on a chip', but it could have Intel watching its back. Clive Akass reports.
May 1, 2005... The latest in a long line of processors attempting to overthrow the dominance of the classic PC x86 Intel chip architecture has been unveiled by its joint developers, IBM, Sony and Toshiba. The Cell processor which will power Sony's...

Nine-in-one chip takes soft option on caching.(power PC processor)
May 1, 2005... The Cell architecture provides an interesting contrast with the emerging generation of dual-core x86 chips from Intel and AMD that are essentially two general-purpose processors in one silicon module. The Cell is in effect nine computers in...

Laptops to run off net.(Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers)(Power-over-Ethernet standard)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... Notebooks could be powered from hotel and company networks within a couple of years, avoiding the need to carry adapters. A Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) standard (802.3af) was ratified two years ago but it provided a power of only 15w. Now a...

Hard look at log-ons.
May 1, 2005... Imprivata has come up with a hardware answer to the problem of keeping track of log-on details for different services. It's an appliance called Onesign that learns authentication behaviour and it can be set up for 2,500 users in just four...

Digital pen.(new product)(Logitech IO2)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... A new digital pen from Logitech is designed for companies that wish to capture information electronically and on paper forms at the same time. The IO2 pen allows staff to fill in forms manually but also digitise the information and send it to a...

Fast card.
May 1, 2005... Twinmos has launched a high-speed 2GB Ultra-x SD card that can be read at 10Mbytes/sec and written at 7.9Mbytes/sec. www.twinmos.com.

Columns - Inside information - Obey the law, with its portable flaw. Portable media players have created more pirates than Penzance, albeit unwittingly. Gordon Lang explains.(Column)
May 1, 2005... In this month's Hands On Hardware, I've explained how to encode videos for use on a personal digital assistant (PDA). The results, especially on models with high-resolution VGA screens, can be nothing short of spectacular. But content is...

Columns - IT matters - A mishap cum happenstance. Kelvyn Taylor discovers that splurging on an annual motherboard upgrade can really boost performance.(Column)
May 1, 2005... 'Fven after many years of building and testing PCs, some things still take me by surprise. A few weeks ago, I managed to destroy my motherboard by not taking care when plugging the 3GHz Pentium 4 Northwood CPU into its socket after a routine...

Columns - Straight talking - As good as it gets, but could be better. Barry Fox wonders why, after 20 years, Windows still lacks the kind of intuitive functionality users need.(Column)
May 1, 2005... Byline: Barry Fox, barryf@pcw.co.uk. Jazz bass player and pianist Red Mitchell used to sing a song he wrote, Simple Isn't Easy. It had a catchy tune and clever lyrics. The gist of the song was that it is hard to play music that sounds easy...

Columns - Kewney @ large - Don't ignore the upload potential. Guy Kewney argues that mobile phone companies are misguided in thinking the future lies in downloading.(Column)
May 1, 2005... Byline: Guy Kewney, guyk@pcw.co.uk. I will never forget in 2000 seeing the ghastly image of a burning Concorde - a ball of fire shooting across the Paris sky, heading towards a small hotel. But, when I saw the footage on TV, I was impressed...

Reviews.
May 1, 2005... Byline: Edited by Chris Cain. We've seen new releases in just about every product area this month; from stylish small form factor PCs to portable media players, digital cameras and a handheld games console. Taking our lead review spot...

Reviews - Shuttle XPC G5 8300M. A ready built space-saving system for those who want a small yet stylish PC.(Product/Service Evaluation)
May 1, 2005... Byline: Simon Crisp. Just as Hoover is now the universal name for vacuum cleaners, so Shuttle has become synonymous with do-it-yourself small form factor (SFF) PCs. Having stayed loyal to the concept since its beginnings, the company has...

Reviews - Evesham Voyager C510. A fast and great-value Sonoma portable.(Product/Service Evaluation)
May 1, 2005... Byline: Will Stapley. Evesham's debut Sonoma notebook comes hot on the heels of Sony's impressive effort last month (go to www.pcw.co.uk/products/hardware/1161527 for review). The Voyager C510 is based on the same next-generation Centrino...

Reviews - MV Ixius 3.4TV. One of the most powerful notebooks around.(Product/Service Evaluation)
May 1, 2005... Byline: Anthony Dhanendran. This latest Ixius isn't a notebook in the traditional sense. According to MV, it's a 'transportable'. In other words, it's designed for people who want to work between a couple of sites rather than for regular...

Reviews - Peripherals - Dell Axim X50v. A compact PDA with a remarkable display.(personal digital assistant)(Product/Service Evaluation)
May 1, 2005... Byline: Scott Colvey. If you never switched it on, there would be little to make Dell's latest pocket pal stand out from the crowd of Windows Mobile-powered PDAs. It's slim and stylish enough, and has all the buttons in the right places....

Reviews - Peripherals - Ipod Shuffle. The latest Ipod product looks like another hit.(Product/Service Evaluation)
May 1, 2005... Byline: Kathryn Twyford. As the Ipod continues on the road to world domination, so Apple has released the next member of the family, the Ipod Shuffle. Available in two sizes - 512MB and 1GB - and no bigger than a packet of chewing gum,...

Reviews - Peripherals - Nintendo DS. Innovative and fun for kids.(Product/Service Evaluation)
May 1, 2005... Byline: James Bennett. On paper, it would be easy to assume that Nintendo's brand new handheld console, the DS, has lost the portable gaming war before it has even begun. The reported specification for Sony's imminent Playstation Portable...

Reviews - Peripherals - HP PSC2710. A wealth of features, but expensive.(Product/Service Evaluation)
May 1, 2005... Byline: Rory Reid. It's easy to think of multifunction devices (MFDs) as jacks of all trades, offering reasonable, but not outstanding performance. With the Photosmart 2710, however, HP attempts to show it doesn't always have to be this...

Reviews - Peripherals - Samsung Z107. A solid debut for Orange's 3G network.(Product/Service Evaluation)
May 1, 2005... Byline: Rory Reid. The Samsung Z107 is one of the first handsets available on Orange's 3G mobile phone network. As with a number of modern designs, the Samsung has two colour displays. The external screen is reserved mainly for the...

Reviews - Peripherals - Dell 540 Photo Printer. Cheap to run with quick performance.(Product/Service Evaluation)
May 1, 2005... Byline: Luke Peters. Continuing its push into the peripherals market, Dell has launched its first 6 x 4in borderless photo printer. However, instead of using familiar inkjet printing, the 540 (designed by Kodak) uses an alternative...

Reviews - Peripherals - Ipod accessories.(Buyers Guide)
May 1, 2005... Byline: Rory Reid. It's almost impossible not to get caught up in the hype surrounding Apple's Ipod. Over 10 million of these iconic devices have been sold to date, with some analysts predicting sales of nearly 23 million units by 2006....

Reviews - Peripherals - Nikon Coolpix 4800. This weighty contender has much to offer.(Product/Service Evaluation)
May 1, 2005... Byline: Emilie Martin. Sitting alongside the Olympus Mju-Mini (see review, right) the 4megapixel Nikon Coolpix 4800 looks like a camera with a weight problem. While most digital models are getting smaller, this one bucks the trend with a...

Reviews - Peripherals - Olympus Mju-Mini. A real looker that keeps things simple.(Product/Service Evaluation)
May 1, 2005... Byline: Emilie Martin. It's pretty hard not to fall for Olympus' 4megapixel Mju-Mini from the moment you take it out of the box. Its quirky but sleek design fits perfectly in your hands and the matt aluminium casing is available in six...

Reviews - Peripherals - Viewsonic PJ755D. Ideal for business and home cinema buffs.(Product/Service Evaluation)
May 1, 2005... Byline: Cliff Joseph. Until quite recently, digital light processing (DLP) projectors were expensive gadgets bought by business users who needed them for sales pitches. Increasingly, though, projectors are now being aimed at home cinema...

Reviews - Peripherals - MSI Megaview 566. Take your music and movies on the move.(Product/Service Evaluation)
May 1, 2005... Byline: Rory Reid. MSI's Megaview 566 is the latest in the emerging line of portable devices aimed at people who want to enjoy multimedia on the move. As with rivals from Creative and Samsung, it can be used to play audio and video, and...

Reviews - Peripherals - Shuttle CR40.(Brief Article)(Product/Service Evaluation)
May 1, 2005... Byline: Rob Jones. Shuttle is known for stylish, good-quality PC products and its first dual-format DVD writer adds to that reputation. The CR40 comes in white, black or silver, to match Shuttle's range of cases, but you could just as...

Reviews - Peripherals - LG Flatron L1980u.(Brief Article)(Product/Service Evaluation)
May 1, 2005... Byline: Chris Cain. A recent addition to LG's popular Flatron range, the ultra-slim L1980u has something of a twist. The 19in TFT screen can pivot around for landscape or portrait operation, allowing users to select the best way to view...

Reviews - Peripherals - Mediagear Combo 9-in-4 Reader Writer.(Brief Article)(Product/Service Evaluation)
May 1, 2005... Byline: Anna Lagerkvist. If your PC didn't come with an inbuilt memory card reader, adding one makes it much easier to download snaps from a digital camera and transfer files from PDAs or mp3 players. Mediagear's latest is compatible with...

Reviews - Peripherals - Fujitsu Dynamo 1300LT.(Brief Article)(Product/Service Evaluation)
May 1, 2005... Byline: Kelvyn Taylor. Fujitsu's latest pocket-sized magneto-optical (MO) drive, the Dynamo 1300LT, uses 3.5in MO discs offering up to 1.3GB capacity. MO discs are physically robust and have a long life expectancy and can be rewritten 10...

Reviews - Overclocking - Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro Toxic.(Product/Service Evaluation)
May 1, 2005... The latest addition to Sapphire's Toxic range of overclockable graphics cards, the 128MB X700 Pro is based on the Hybrid X700 Pro. As usual, it features a custom cooling system that lets you run it at much higher clock speeds than standard...

Reviews - Components - Gigabyte GV-3D1. Great performance with Nvidia technology.(Brief Article)(Product/Service Evaluation)
May 1, 2005... Byline: Simon Crisp. There have been several attempts to produce a dual-core graphics card for the consumer market, but so far most have failed. Hoping to change this, Gigabyte has produced the dual-engine GV-3D1 using Nvidia's SLI...

Reviews - Components - Asus Extreme AX850XT PE. Hot graphics card with a dual-slot cooler.(Product/Service Evaluation)
May 1, 2005... Byline: Simon Crisp. Just as graphics cards using the ATI Radeon X850XT are starting to appear in shops, Asus gives us the 256MB Extreme AX850XT PE, a PCI Express board based around the Platinum Edition of the chip. Internally the...

Reviews - Software - MYOB Accounting Plus 14. Get to grips with your company finances the easy way.(Product/Service Evaluation)
May 1, 2005... Byline: John Rennie. There must be something enormously reassuring about launching your software with the suffix 'version 14' on the end. Either you've been pulling the wool over a lot of eyes for a lot of years or you've got your product...

Reviews - Software - Roxio MyDVD and Slideshow. Create impressive DVDs in a flash without complications.(Product/Service Evaluation)
May 1, 2005... Byline: Will Stapley. Following its recent purchase by Sonic Solutions, Roxio is looking to cement its already strong position in the media creation market with the release of Mydvd and Slideshow. With a very competitive price, the package...

Reviews - Software - Intuit Quickbooks 2005 Pro. Extra features help make short work of small business accounts.(Product/Service Evaluation)
May 1, 2005... Byline: Laura Jones. The Quickbooks range of small business finance software has had a revamp for 2005, with the introduction of three products: Quickbooks Regular, Pro and Accountant 2005. Here we look at the Pro version to see what new...

Reviews - Software - Realviz Stitcher Express. Value-for-money panoramic application.(Brief Article)(Product/Service Evaluation)
May 1, 2005... Byline: Ken McMahon. Panorama software - used to stitch several side-by-side digital photos into one sweeping vista - tends to be professional, complex and expensive, or it's cheap, easy to use and lacking in features. But with the...

Reviews - Software - Allume BoostXP. Tweak and optimise your system.(Brief Article)(Product/Service Evaluation)
May 1, 2005... Byline: Laura Jones While Windows XP already includes plenty of tools to help keep your PC protected and in tip-top condition, some of these can be hard to find or difficult to use - especially such things as the Registry. BoostXP by...

Reviews - Software - Cyberlink Power Encoder Mpeg-4/AVC.(Brief Article)(Product/Service Evaluation)
May 1, 2005... Byline: Kelvyn Taylor. Cyberlink's latest product showcases the H.264 mpeg4/AVC codec, designed to offer mpeg2 quality video at about half the data rate. It's a codec that's part of the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray standards. Power Encoder is a...

Reviews - Software - Panda Titanium Antivirus 2005.(Brief Article)(Product/Service Evaluation)
May 1, 2005... Byline: Rory Reid. Panda's package includes anti-virus software, protection from spyware, plus some firewall features. Truprevent technology spots new viruses before they're added to the definitions database. The program performed a...

Reviews - Software - Roxio Record Now Deluxe 7.(Brief Article)(Product/Service Evaluation)
May 1, 2005... Byline: Chris Cain. Record Now Deluxe 7 is the latest version of the popular CD and DVD burning software. Along with dual-layer writing, the new edition includes support for mpeg4 audio and wm-drm files. The interface is task-based,...

Reviews - Software - Abbyy Scan To Office.(Brief Article)(Product/Service Evaluation)
May 1, 2005... Byline: Anna Lagerkvist. Scan To Office lets you turn your paper documents and image files into editable Microsoft Office files or Outlook email attachments. In theory, the documents have the same look and feel as the originals. A...

Feature - 110 Windows utilities - Every tool you will ever need. Hundreds of utilities and Windows add-ons are buried in web archives and on CDs, so to make your lives easier we've dug out the best of them.
May 1, 2005... Byline: Artur Hoffmann & Heiko Mergard. Most of us don't pay attention to the useful utilities which lie in Microsoft's hidden archives. As many of the tools were developed for Microsoft's internal use, there's no support for them so to a...

Group test - Low cost DTP - Get smart with DTP.(desktop publishing)(Product/Service Evaluation)
May 1, 2005... Byline: Cliff Joseph. Producing professional-looking documents is easy to achieve with the right DTP software and it can cost less than [pounds sterling]100. Here are five packages to help you create simple, yet stylish results Someone...

Network - Chip duo boost power and flexibility. PCI Express and virtulisation technologies built into new ranges.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... Byline: Daniel Robinson. In a busy month on the chip front, both Intel and Via Technologies made announcements to strengthen their product lines. Via introduced motherboard chipsets for Pentium 4 systems, designed to help a smooth...