SpamCatcher 3.05*
SpamCatcher takes a very different approach to filtering email by tracking messages in real time through a set of central servers. For this to work, the clients must send information about your email back to the company, but only the digital hash is transmitted, so no-one will ever get to read your messages. See www.allume.com/win/spamcatcher/help-305/help_2a.html if you need more information. You can choose not to participate in the SpamCatcher network, in which case the program will use regular spam tools like black and white lists instead. Either way, SpamCatcher will integrate neatly with Outlook, Outlook Express and most other email clients, with the minimum of setup hassle, ensuring your Inbox is protected within minutes of being installed.
ROXIO MYDVD SLIDESHOW VCD EDITION*
After taking loads of great photos on holiday, you’ll want to share them with others. That’s not easy, of course: it’s too many to email in a single file, and some family or friends may not have a PC anyway. MyDVD SlideShow lets you collect together all your favourite images on a single disc that can be played back on most stand-alone DVD players, or just about any PC with a software DVD player. You can even add a MP3 or WAV soundtrack to your slideshows. DVDs aren’t supported in this version, but even writing to CD you still get almost 650MB to play with, more than enough for most purposes.
BACKUP4ALL 1.5*
Backing up your most valuable data is a hassle, whatever software you use, but Backup4all makes it quick and easy. A simple wizard will guide you through every step from choosing what to back up, to specifiying a destination. It offers powerful include and export filters to let you control what you want to back up and you can choose to run full, or incremental backups to only back up modified files. There’s also a scheduler, for running unattended backups, and even options to run specific programs before the backup starts.
CONCEPTDRAW V PERSONAL EDITION*
ConceptDraw can help you create everything from charts to floor plans. The creation process starts with the ConceptDraw Template Gallery which presents you with a long list of graphic categories to choose from, like Building Plans, FlowCharts, Maps and Technical drawings. Each graphics category then has a number of additional examples to help get you started. Once you’ve chosen a category, you can drag-and-drop the premade objects to make up your illustration and edit them to suit your needs.
*Online registration required
FREEWARE
- Ad-aware SE Personal 1.06
- Adobe Reader 7.0
- AVG 7.0 Free Edition
- Google Desktop Search
- Horodruin 2.0.179.0
- IrfanView 32 3.97
- Mayk 1.6
- Mozilla Firefox 1.0.6
- Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.6
- Password Corral 4
- Spybot Search & Destroy 1.4
- StartRight 1.2.8
- subpad 1.5
- The Sage 1.05
- Windows Media Player 10 (XP)
- Windows Media Player 9 (98/ME/2000)
- ZoneAlarm
Our poor receptionist didn’t quite know what to do when Altech’s monolithic machine turned up. She had a point.
Can you ditch your compact digital camera yet? We test the latest batch of phone cameras to find out.
Anyone who used the IXUS 40 might
wonder how Canon could possibly
improve on it, but that’s precisely what
it has done.
In marketing terms, bigger is better, leading
HP to use a 6.2-megapixel CCD in the new
R717. That sounds superior to its predecessor,
the R707, but pixel count is largely academic
over 4 megapixels unless you want A3 size.
While many ultraportable laptops, like the Toshiba R200 go all out to get size and weight to an absolute minimum, a great deal of usability is often sacrificed – the X505 is impractically small for constant daily usage while the R200 has limited battery sizes.
The latest Moto clamshell won’t surprise
previous model users: it’s the same old
stuff yet again.
Nokia’s offering feels large but is quite small
for a 3G phone. It also sports a second
self-portrait camera though this is for
video calls. Pictures can be usefully stored on a
side-mounted Mini SD card.
O2’s phone is the smartest of the lot
without being a full-on smart phone.
It runs Windows Mobile making it
feel more like a PDA, but accessing the key
functions soon becomes intuitive. It’s the only
phone without a flash, but even this would not
rescue the poor picture quality.
Impeccable timing from Sony Ericsson saw
the company launch its update on the
galactically popular T610 this month. And
it just so happens to sport Australia’s first two
megapixel camera.
Nathan Taylor explores the world of wireless technology, from WANs, LANs and PANs - what we've got and what's to come.
Toshiba’s R100 redefined what it meant to be an ultra-portable laptop.
