Reviews

SOFTWARE TOOLBOX

Online Service Offers Two Gigs of Backup for Free

While I must confess I've never been a fan of online backup solutions, there was something about Mozy that tempted me to use it. Mozy is one of those new breed applications mushrooming under the umbrella Web 2.0, or the New Web. What's Web 2.0? Best I can tell, it's, in part, about creating a deskto...

SOFTWARE TOOLBOX

TuneUp Keeps PCs in Tip-Top Shape

As Windows computers get long in the tooth, they require special attention to keep running at an optimal level. Hard disks and registries need to be cleaned and defragmented. Settings need to be tweaked. All those things can be done manually, or individual programs can be obtained to make the tasks ...

One nice thing about this job is that tons of products get sent to me throughout the year. Some of these things are really cool, and some probably aren't worth the postage it took to send them. With college and high school graduation season in full swing and Father's Day on the horizon, I thought I'...

Small may be snazzy when it comes to gadgets, but for displays, bigger is better, especially when it comes to digital cameras. Those two-inch LCDs that used to be considered spacious now seem like postage stamps compared to the three- and 3.5-inch murals adorning the latest gallery of byte shooters ...

SOFTWARE TOOLBOX

The Little Photo Editor That Could

For heavy duty imaging work on a PC, there are some very powerful programs on the market. My application of choice is Corel Paint Shop Pro, primarily because I've been using it for years and have become comfortable with its interface. That's not to say its competitors -- like Ulead PhotoImpact and A...

PRODUCT REVIEW

A Multimedia Locomotive in Notebook’s Clothing

There's a good reason why Hewlett-Packard notebook computers have become so popular with consumers. They give you a lot for your money. Consider HP's latest media center locomotive, the dv8000. For around US$1200, you get a monster notebook with a 17-inch display, a state-of-the-art AMD Turion 64 pr...

SOFTWARE TOOLBOX

Clean Registries Make Happy Computers

If there's one software category that program makers never tire of taking a crack at it's registry cleaners. As many Microsoft Windows users know, the registry is a database of all the settings on a PC. It's one of the most crucial components of the operating system, and it's always a mess. Any time...

SOFTWARE TOOLBOX

Sluggish Performance Mars Video Editor

CyberLink may not be a household name among PC users, but the feisty company makes some robust entertainment software for producing and watching DVDs as well as editing video. Certainly, the Taiwanese enterprise has a tough row to hoe, pitted as it is against the likes of Sonic/Roxio, Pinnacle and U...

SOFTWARE TOOLBOX

Easy Media Publishing at a Hefty Price

So you say you want to share slideshows and videos on the Internet without a lot of rigmarole. Problem is, there's just so much noise in the media sharing space, you just don't know where to turn. Well, two well-known Net players have an end-to-end solution for you -- if you're willing to pay a heft...

PRODUCT REVIEW

Put a Weather Station on Your Desktop

As a legendary poet-songster once insightfully intoned, you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows, but it helps if you have an Oregon Scientific regional weather station. The Tualatin, Oregon-based company pulled the wraps off its latest meteorological information center in Januar...

SOFTWARE TOOLBOX

Space Hound Takes Bite Out of Disk Space Waste

At the risk of revealing my age, I can remember when a 10 gigabyte hard drive seemed enormous. Of course those were the days before PCs became vaults for music collections, family photo albums and home video libraries. Now, it seems, no matter how much hard disk space we have, we always need more, w...

PRODUCT REVIEW

A Tablet PC Worth Touting

Let me set the record straight. I've never been a fan of tablet computers. If the urge to write on an LCD strikes me, I've always found my Palm Tungsten handheld sufficient for that desire. Nevertheless, when Motion Computing of Austin, Texas, introduced the LS800 tablet, it tantalized me. For one t...

SOFTWARE TOOLBOX

Supersize Your Windows Clipboard

Clipboard extenders are among the most useful applications in the Windows world. How many times have you overwritten something in the clipboard that you later wish you had available? Clipboard extenders solve that problem by saving everything you cut or copy from your screen and letting you access i...

With Apple adding video to its iPod line of digital media players, the scramble is on to provide watchers with content to occupy their eyeballs. One way to obtain content is to pay for it. Since the introduction of its "vidpod," Apple has been steadily adding to the video library at its iTunes store...

SOFTWARE TOOLBOX

Second Copy Takes the Hassle Out of Backups

Here's the scenario. Something ugly has happened to your computer. Irreplaceable files have been clobbered. You seek assistance from a PC pundit, but you know your files are fly food as soon as you hear, "You're supposed to back up your files, you know." Let's face it. We all have good excuses for f...

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