Almost five years have past now since the first release of 3ds max, then called the full 3D Studio MAX. One of the first packages of its kind to introduce affordability and performance to an industry dominated by huge price tags. And even after its competitors have been forced to compromise their price to compete, max has kept up its innovative features and held its ground.

Surprisingly there's no visual voicemail on our Optus iPhone, but otherwise the phone performs brilliantly with a massive speed boost over the 1st gen model.

In a world first, we've managed to get our hands on a review unit of Sony's stunningly thin ultraportable. Most surprisingly, it sports the newest Atom chip from Intel - the Z550 2.0GHz and GMA 500 graphics.

The first of the new breed of IBM rack servers, delivering superb design and a wealth of new features.

The lead up to the introduction of the GST was a boon for anybody with a localised accounting package...

The HTC Magic, available through Vodafone and Three in Australia, may be the second Android phone but it's the first worth considering.

The past two years have been littered with attempts at combining a phone with a PDA. The first was O2 with its XDA (January 2003, page 41) - an excellent first try, and one that will be revised this month.

See our side-by-side comparison of the three big guns in the sub-$1,000 mini notebook race, the ASUS N10, S101 and the Eee PC 1000H.

This first of a new generation is only a little faster than the old, but its potential is clearly huge

New image editing tools and a more powerful library mode makes Lightroom 2 compelling. It's also compatible with Vista 64-bit.

A winner on the strength of its excellent protection, coming first or equal-first in our malware and firewall test.

It's a little ironic that every new version of Mac OS comes closer to Windows when you consider that Microsoft was originally accused of hijacking Apple's interface. Apple claims to have put 150 new features into Panther, but the two it highlights first are improvements to Finder and the new Exposé[alt+0233 in courier new]. The improvements to Finder bring it one step closer to the Windows menu system, which since 95 has been superior to Apple's. The new one click-reveals-all Finder was sorely needed and makes Panther much easier to navigate than its predecessors.

Is Apple good at design? Usabilty? Both or neither? Also, where has all the Firewire gone? Alex Kidman has been testing Apple's new Macbook and gives his first impressions.

Canopus first made its name providing top-notch 3Dfx cards. Realising the deadly competitiveness and pace of that market, however, Canopus has moved on and repositioned itself as a company specialising in video editing.

Sony's first CMOS based consumer HD camera brings control and fidelity to images in a package that's hard to beat.

My main reaction to the first 1998 edition of Photoshop for the Web was surprise. After all, Photoshop 5 was a print-based photo editor with no dedicated Web features and little to offer apart from the ability to save to JPEG and GIF...

A completely new digital SLR system has arrived in the shape of the Olympus E-1 and is perhaps the most eagerly awaited professional camera this year.

It isn't an add-on, a mod or a new way of playing the world's most popular online shooter. Counter-Strike: Source is the same game that's known, loved and often responsible for gamers sitting motionless for days on end. But it's now been ported to Valve's new 3D engine, the Source engine, giving us our first glimpse of the technology that will be powering Half-Life 2.

Purely because of its size, even the smallest PDA isn’t something you’re likely to feel comfortable holding to your ear as a phone for long periods of time. And, despite its slim curves and great physique, the Xda II is no exception.

If backing up data is your thing, then it's worth considering the Thecus N5500 for your networking needs. The sturdy 5-bay NAS incorporates dual DOM support and easy-to-use data software.