Director 8 Shockwave Studio is now the platform of choice for those sites determined to provide the richest possible Web experience

QuarkXPress defines and dominates high-end publishing in much the same way as Adobe Photoshop does photo editing.

There’s so much to like about this package that it might just be worth switching operating systems to get hold of it.

An excellent release that reworks Photoshop’s core colour-correction capabilities, making them even more powerful

Gorgeous, expensive and exasperating in equal measure, and yet still desirable despite its myriad faults

Its over a year since IBM released its major update to its ViaVoice family of speech dictation packages. At its core, ViaVoice has always been impressive.

Dell's 12.1in netbook could have been good, but you'd have to buy one in the US to realise its true potential

The future, they say, is based on the Internet and mobile computing.

FreeHand has had a long, distinguished career since its launch 15 years ago, but time has caught up with it. While Macromedia concentrated development on its Web-oriented MX applications, FreeHand was put on the back burner and fell seriously behind its main rivals CorelDRAW (see issue 60, p54) and Adobe Illustrator (see issue 51, p88). So, is this latest release evidence of further decline, or has FreeHand finally risen to the challenge?

Uleads DVD Workshop (DW) is a pared-down digital video editor, designed specifically with DVD fans in mind. Its able to work natively with both MPEG-1 and MPEG-2, as well as AVIs and even QuickTime movies.

Improved handling of templates, tracing, text and layers along with new table support, but ultimately X4 disappoints

In conjunction with several of their other top-of-the-line software application upgrades, discreet have released the long-awaited combustion 3. Unique in some of its features and price point, combustion seems to have been searching for its market-place slot. Sharing the code, tools and quality of its bigger siblings, flame, inferno and smoke, combustion has, in the last two years, pulled its price down from 10 thousand dollars to around two thousand.

Back in February 2002 (PC Authority issue 51 page 42) we ran a comprehensive round up of the latest PDAs in the market, but its amazing what difference a few months make. Toshibas entry to the market, the e570, won the Quality Award, but was pipped at the post by the Palm m125, which won the value award with its extremely competitive price.

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.

If were to believe the hyperbole, this technology will do for digital technology what the invention of the parachute did for skydiving.

You've seen our first impressions, now here's our full review. Good-looking, usable and keenly priced but, for now at least, poor performance and battery life give the Eee the edge

Not the sleekest smartphone, but the screen, keyboard and battery life are all superb.

Form and function meet in the middle in one supremely well-made package

Vector graphics

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.