IMSI FloorPlan 3D v7
Design and preview your home renovations in 3D with this powerful CAD application.
eTrust Antivirus v7
Protect your PC from infection with a three month eTrust anti-virus subscription.
Instant Photo Editor
You don't need to be an expert to produce high quality digital photos.
Paragon Disk Wiper 5.5
Securely delete confidential and personal information from your hard drives and partitions.
Paragon Exact Image 6*
Create a complete copy of your hard disk to protect yourself against data loss.
Self-SERVE*
Watch what you eat with this personal nutrition and weight management program.
TCM 4000 AAA Reports and Marketing Module*
Keep records of phone calls and contacts, keep track of clients and stay organised.
*Online registration required.
Freeware
From securing files and recovering passwords to creating works of art, you can do it all with these free applications.
A43 File Management Utility 2.37
ArtRage 1.1
cam2pc - Freeware 4.4.2
Cryptainer LE 5.0.1
Google Desktop Search
MailInfo 2.2.1011
MessenPass 1.02
SlimBrowser 4.01.002
StartRight 1.2.6
Video Pilot v1
OpenOffice.org 1.1.3
The free office suite that topped our labs tests.
Need for Speed Underground 2 demo
Put the pedal to the metal for the ultimate street racing experience.
Devices that attach storage to the network aren't new, but until now they've been either very expensive or limited in ability. But this little marvel from Asus changes all that. The WL-HDD can put a hard disk on the network with no drivers or client software required, and it can do this wirelessly via 802.11g.
Belkin is not normally a name you'd associate with leading edge networking products, but in the case of the Pre-N range they've really grabbed the bull by the horns and delivered some excellent gear. The Pre-N networking range is based on the 802.11g standard so it's backward compatible with 11b, but like some other 'turbo' networking gear the Pre-N stuff also offers well over the 802.11g 54Mbps data throughput with 108Mbps.
Looking to build your dream machine? We explore the latest components on the market, and give you advice on which ones to hunt down, along with the general price you can expect to pay for each major component.
Along with the Sony Cyber-shot P-93, the Canon Powershot A95 is the big lad of this roundup with a pretty decent 5-megapixel CCD. The rest vary from 3-4-megapixel. While this does give the Canon a bit of an edge over the competition in terms of resolution and functionality, it's the camera's other attributes that cemented this unit in the top three.
Finishing a point above average overall, Canon's PIXMA iP5000 was unlucky to miss out on our coveted recommended award, pipped at the finishing line by Epson's PictureMate small format printer. Canon's five individual ink cartridges is a great system that allows you to replace only the inks you need without needing to replace a whole colour cartridge as is the case with the HP PhotoSmart 8150 printer.
As far as many people are concerned there's only one MP3 player. Love it or hate it, the iPod has entered the public consciousness and become an icon. So it's no surprise that everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon.
There are always moments in life when you wish you had your camera to hand. The Labs team rounds up the latest pocket cameras.
As far as performance is concerned, the Emagen Lightspeed XPS is a fairly competitive offering. It sits in the middle of the pack as far as price is concerned, but managed to sit at second to third place in most benchmarks - it even came top of the class in 3DMark05. The 3.6Ghz Pentium 4 certainly helped there. And the fact that it’s $600 cheaper than the Pioneer system also works in its favour.
This isn't the first time we've looked at the tiny Esky-esque PictureMate from Epson and at the time as a standalone product it garnered a Recommended award. It's good to see it do the same in a comparative environment, walking off with a second recommendation from the Labs team.
Protect your LAN and allow internet traffic through to your webserver with a demilitarised zone (DMZ) on your network. Simon Edwards guides you through the process in SmoothWall.
The PhotoSmart 8150 boasts Compact Flash Type I and II, SmartMedia, Secure Digital, MultiMedia Card, Memory Stick, xD, USB flash drive support as well as PictBridge and an optional Bluetooth adaptor. Such a wide range of supported formats should leave you hassle free when it comes to plugging in and printing off those precious moments you've stored on your camera or other device.
The slimline HP Photosmart R607 follows on from the R707 in that it shares many of that camera's fine features and styling, including its plastic/magnesium-alloy casing.
Simon Edwards shows you how to get up and running with SmoothWall.
Find out who's trying to get into your system. Simon Edwards show's you how to make sense of SmoothWall's log files.
This 4-megapixel camera is a good point-and-shooter with a generous 2.2in preview LCD on the back and good one-handed operation. Its auto shooting modes work well, and the menus are extremely user-friendly with large icons and simple choices.
Placing last overall and in each of the tests we conducted during the roundup, Kodak's Printer Dock Plus, while incredibly handy had some real issues reproducing our test image as it was originally taken. The dock itself is fantastic idea, allowing you to charge and hold your camera and using the LCD on your camera to preview your prints rather than printing an index sheet.
Kyocera's Finecam SL400R has the most innovative styling of any of the compact cameras here: it has a swivelled body which cuts the camera in two so you can swing the lens down giving it a cross-like form factor as seen from the side. It's a funky design, and it means that when flush the camera has a slim, pocketable aspect.
The Lexmark P6250 is a not just a photo printer as such, it's also an all in one multifunction device: printer/scanner/copier and media reader. You might be nodding to yourself with the obviousness of an all in one printer winning out over tiny single use photo printers in this roundup, but to be honest the distinction is not just made because of the broad functionality and applicability of the Lexmark P6250.
USB 2.0 hard disks are a convenient way of backing up your data, but if you want to share the files with other computers over a small office or home network they're not ideal. But Linksys has an alternative. The Network Storage Link (NSL) takes a USB 2.0 hard disk or flash drive and puts it on the network.
It’s one of the facts of the gaming hobbyist’s life: cutting edge games require cutting edge hardware. It’s as set in stone as Moore’s Law (which is itself now 40 years old). Every 12 to 18 months you need to upgrade or get left behind. Our contenders this month make a very good case for starting with a clean slate, and none more so than this month’s winner, the Modtech Civic-64FX.
The Nikon Coolpix E3700 is the smallest camera here and by far the most pocketable. It features mag-alloy body, so that even though the camera's small, it's really sturdy. There's no hesitation involved in throwing this camera in a bag amongst your other gear.
Squeeze that extra bit of power out of your existing hardware. Tim Dean looks at the principles of overclocking and examines the potential performance increase.
The cheapest system to be submitted for review in our performance roundup, it just goes to show that even $4000 will get you a hell of a lot of PC for your money. PCQUEST has also opted to go with a CoolerMaster case, both for its attractive looks and functionality, this housing able to hold a massive five optical drives and four hard disk drives, erring on the side of more is better.
In the market for a new gaming rig for playing the latest games? PC Authority has the answer to your gaming performance woes with five of the hottest machines around.
Taking photos is only half the fun. Touching them up on your PC and printing them is the other half.
PC Authority takes a look at some of the best photo-printers on the market.
One of the most striking things about Pioneer’s entry this month is the cosmetics: it’s 24hr karaoke bar meets street-racing BMW. And lots of blue LEDs! And these LED’s can get a little annoying – especially the super bright “headlight” LED’s. They shine directly ahead, and at desk height they beam straight into your eyes. There is also a large, illuminated ‘Xfinity’ etched into the front door of the case. Suffice to say this case won’t be to everyone’s taste. But otherwise, the rest of the externals are OK – the top mount houses two of the six total USB ports beneath a tidy flap, and a large power button with a good action.
Very narrowly pipped for the top placing Labs winner award this month, Plus offers an impressive performing gaming machine with all the bells and whistles you'd expect to find at this price point. Wrapped in the attractive Cooler Master Cavalier wave housing, there's no ultra portability to be found here. The clear advantage of moving away from small form factor housing is not being starved for space internally.
Ricoh's Caplio R1 is unfortunately the underperformer of the lot in this Labs, with final scores below the 100 average. While the scores below may make it seem like it's a very poor camera, the reality is that the scores highlight the deviations and differences in the products compared.
Plenty of modern phones support email, of course, but what always made BlackBerry special was its push technology. With this, you don't need to dial up to collect your email: just sit back and wait for the messages to come to you. Wherever you are, if an urgent email comes through to any of your email addresses -- and the 7100v supports up to 10 -- you can act on it instantly.
Increase your internet security with a hardware firewall. Simon Edwards shows you how to get started in this step by step guide.
Featuring a compact lozenge-shaped body with a fair bit of weight to it, the Cyber-shot P-93 is a solid camera that implies strength and good engineering. Internally, the camera has a 5.1-megapixel CCD and is capable of taking some excellent photos.
