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www.pcmag.com
Products &
Technologies
That Change
The Way
You Work
And Play
15 TOP POWERPOINT TIPS
LATEST
The 3-D
DIGITAL
Notebook:
VIDEO
You Have
CAMERAS
To See This!
BEST BLOGS & WILD WIKIS
FIRST LOOKS: MICROSOFT’S SMARTPHONE
THE INDEPENDENT GUIDE TO TECHNOLOGY
DECEMBER 30, 2003
Our 20th Annual
Awards:
Personal Computers
Mobile Devices
Cameras
Printers
Storage
Collaboration
Communications
System Software
Components
Protocols
Development Tools
The Person of the Year
Lifetime Achievement
MICHAEL J. MILLER
Forward Thinking
SEARCHING FOR TECHNICAL EXCELLENCE
FOR EACH OF the past 20 years
at around this time, we recognize the year’s breakthrough
technologies with our Awards
for Technical Excellence. The
nominees aren’t always our
Editors’ Choice picks nor our
favorite products of the year.
(You’ll find those in our
next issue.) Instead, our
editors identify those products and technologies that
have the potential to change how we use computers.
A few products we’ve honored over the years
stand out: the 386 processor, Windows 95, and the
early notebook computers. But every year, we award
this honor to a number of products that aren’t yet
household names. You’ll find this year’s nominees
and winners starting on page 83.
Every year we also honor the people who have
made an impact on the industry with our Person of
the Year and Lifetime Achievement awards. For a
complete list of the winners and an interview with
Intuit founder Scott Cook, our Lifetime Achievement
award recipient, visit www.pcmag.com/techex.
We’re already seeing products that missed our
deadlines for the 2003 awards but that we will
consider for 2004. Some cool contenders include the
amazing Sharp 3-D display (see First Looks, page 40)
and the more theoretical “thin-air” display
(discussed in Pipeline, November 25, page 26).
H OW S PA M S O LU T I O N S L E A D TO M O R E P R O B L E M S
EV E RYO N E I S TA L K I N G about spam, and some
folks are even doing something about it. But despite
all sorts of legislation and technical progress, the problem is getting worse. Recently, I’ve talked with several
companies that have different answers to the spam
onslaught. All have advantages and disadvantages.
The whitelist/challenge-and-response systems do the
best job of keeping out
unwanted e-mail. With
such systems, you get
e-mail only from people you authorize or
those who respond
to a challenge, such
as counting elements in
a picture or deciphering
garbled text. The technique these systems use is
known as CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public
Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart).
On the downside, with such systems you may not
get all the e-mail you do want. Recently, I tried to
respond to an e-mail from a reader but received a
challenge. The system never accepted my answer, so
the reader never got my response. Most businesses
wouldn’t subject their customers to such a system,
because they don’t want to risk losing an order.
But other problems exist that aren’t immediately
obvious. For example, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recently issued a draft report pointing
out the big problems such systems pose for the
visually impaired. While developers claim to offer
some kind of workaround, that doesn’t work well in
practice. The W3C draft mentions some solutions,
but most of them aren’t ready yet.
Another solution is filtering, in which the
software or service tries to identify real mail and
junk mail intelligently.
Most antispam developers use rules to help
identify spam, but the
problem is that the
filter lists need to
be updated very frequently. Applying all
the updates imposes a
very real cost on businesses. One antispam developer, Cloudmark, says it has a way around this by
turning such filters into rules that identify spammer
techniques. Whether this approach is good at
blocking unwanted e-mail without generating false
positives is an open question.
Each antispam vendor seems to have its own
unique approach to combating spam. For instance,
InBoxer uses techniques borrowed from voice
recognition software to identify spam. And MailFrontier has a new system that’s tuned to identify
fraudulent e-mail.
In the meantime, legislation to stop spam is here,
In the long run,
the only real
solution to
spam may be
to rearchitect
the way the
Internet
handles
e-mail.
www.pcmag.com DECEMBER 30, 2003 P C M A G A Z I N E
7
Forward Thinking
MICHAEL J. MILLER
but the rules I’ve seen are hardly practical. California has
a tough antispam law that lets people sue when they
receive e-mail they didn’t specifically ask for. In other
words, it requires businesses to offer opt-in mailing lists.
Spammers can get hit with penalties of $1,000 per message if they don’t comply. This may sound great, but in
practice it’s likely that companies sending legitimate
e-mail rather than the big spammers will be swamped
with lawsuits. Most spammers aren’t in California anyway.
Then we’ve got federal legislation called CAN SPAM,
which the Senate recently passed. It would supersede the
California rules and require only an opt-out provision.
Antispam advocates prefer an opt-in approach, but that’s
difficult to enforce. Opting out may be the only practical
solution. The good news is that we’d have a uniform
national law instead of lots of state laws. And it would
force people sending e-mail to identify themselves accurately (something legitimate companies don’t mind doing).
The bad news is that it includes a national “do not mail”
registry, which sounds good in theory but in practice
creates a great mailing list for off-shore spammers.
We can’t just sit back and do nothing as the spam problem spirals out of control. But I worry that nearly all the
solutions the industry and our legislators are coming up
with are creating new problems. In the long run, the only
real solution may be to rearchitect the way the Internet
handles e-mail. And that approach has its own problems.
One thing’s for sure: There are no silver bullets here.
I N S TA N T V I D E O P R E S E N TAT I O N S
IF YOU USE PowerPoint and a
Web camera, you’ll want to try
out one of the neatest applications I’ve seen recently—Anystream’s Apreso, formerly called
Agility Presenter. This $149 utility makes turning your PowerPoint presentation into a video
easy. You just set up Apreso and
a Web camera and run PowerPoint. Then you press the Capture button on the new
menu that the software installs on the menu bar and go
through your presentation as you normally would. You
just have to make sure to set up
the camera so it captures you,
and you get an instant presentation. When you’re done, Apreso
creates a video file. You can then
hit a single button to burn the
presentation to a CD, or you can
host it on a Web server—including the Apreso Web site, which
offers free hosting until March.
The video quality is surprisingly good, and the results
look very professional. We are so impressed with Apreso
that it’s a finalist for our Technical Excellence Awards.
GADGETS OF THE MONTH
LOGITECH
QUICKCAM
ORBIT
8
2003 M AY W E L L be recalled as
the year when desktop video went
mainstream. Here are a couple of
recent products that are worth your
attention. My favorite gadget of late
is the Logitech QuickCam Orbit, which
works particularly well with video instant
messaging. I’ve seen plenty of nice little Webcams, including the excellent Logitech QuickCam
series. I’ve also been happy with the Creative WebCam Notebook ($49.95 list), which is small enough
to keep in my luggage when I travel.
But the Orbit is something else. It’s a desktop Web
camera with the advantage of a mechanical pan-and-tilt
feature, which keeps the camera focused on you even
if you move around during a video conversation. The
neat-looking camera sits in a globe atop a stand that also
contains a microphone. It’s not the first camera with
such features, but at a list price of $129.95 it’s a bargain.
Web cameras are getting more useful every month,
with new applications emerging that take better advantage
of them. In our previous issue, we wrote about a number
of new videoconferencing solutions that offer free or
P C M A G A Z I N E DECEMBER 30, 2003 www.pcmag.com
inexpensive video solutions for
individuals and small businesses. It’s really easy to send and
receive video with most instantmessaging clients. I found Yahoo!
Messenger and MSN Messenger
surprisingly good. (I’m waiting
for AOL Instant Messenger to
add a video feature.)
CREATIVE
WEBCAM
If you want more advanced
NOTEBOOK
capabilities, check out SightSpeed Video Messenger, which
offers 100 minutes a month with a 10-minute-per-day
limit free of charge, or unlimited usage for $29.95 a
month. (If you need even higher-quality video, consider
one of the more expensive, full-featured business videoconferencing systems, which often come with high-end
cameras.) Now that prices of services and cameras have
dropped dramatically, they’re great deals.
MORE ON THE WEB: Join us online and make your voice heard.
Talk back to Michael J. Miller in our opinions section,
www.pcmag.com/miller.
䊛
Contents.1
DECEMBER 30, 2003 VOL. 22 NO. 23
www.pcmag.com
Our Technical Excellence winner in design ten years ago was the “path-breaking” Apple Newton Message Pad.
32
First Looks
32 Canon Optura Xi
C OV E R STO RY
83
32 JVC GR-DX300
33 Panasonic PV-DV953
34 Samsung SC-D5000
34 Sony DCR-PC330
36 HP Photosmart 945
38 Fujifilm FinePix
S7000 K
38 Sigma SD-10
40 Sharp Actius
RD3D
43 Motorola MPx200
with Windows
Mobile Software M
43 Samsung SCH-i600
46 LANDesk Management Suite 8
46 PositivePRO
48 Dell W1700 LCD TV
50 Gateway 17-inch
LCD TV
50 Samsung 172MP
52 Sharp LL-M17W1
53 ViewSonic
N1700w
OUR ANNUAL LOOK AT THE MOST
innovative products and technologies spotlights
dazzling PC design, sleek and fast mobile devices,
robust processing power, breakthrough
protocols, and leading-edge software. We also
honor two individuals: one whose lifetime efforts
raised the standards of software, another whose
leadership and vision have driven an industry
giant through massive change and growth.
84 N Personal Computers
Collaboration Software N 92
85 N Mobile Devices
Communication Software N 94
86 N Components
Development Tools N 95
87 N Storage Devices
Protocols N 95
88 N Digital Input Devices
Person of the Year N 96
89 N Digital Output Devices
Lifetime Achievement N 97
92 N System Software
COVER ILLUSTRATION BY JEAN-FRANCOIS PODEVIN
ON THE COVER
15 Top PowerPoint Tips page 70
Latest DV Cameras
page 32
The 3-D Notebook
page 40
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE
57 Feedback
150 Backspace
Breakthroughs:
Our 20th Annual Awards
page 83
Best Blogs & Wild
Wikis page 101
First Looks: Microsoft’s
Smartphone page 43
15
Contents.2
DECEMBER 30, 2003
25 Pipeline
A renaissance for machine translation.
25
Hotmail’s interface overhaul.
25
TV and Web users are doing double duty.
26
The disruption following October’s solar flares.
26
Amazon.com’s fully searchable books.
26
Reinventing micropayments.
28
COMING ATTRACTIONS: Compaq X09, Tapwave Zodiac PDA, PLUS V3-111
slimline projector, Kyocera Finecam SL300R, and more.
NETWORK SECURITY
101 Take Back
The Net
122 Know Your
Weaknesses
The Internet was
supposed to be
the ultimate
grassroots tool,
but it seems
increasingly
controlled by businesses and the
technoscenti. We look at a group of
tools like blogs, wikis, and even Voice
over IP phones, which can help put
the power of the Web back in the
hands of the average user.
You may not know it, but your network
could be in serious jeopardy. Vulnerabilities
such as bugs, viruses, and improper
application configurations are likely lurking
among your hosts.
Our roundup of
security scanners
will help you
identify and in
some cases fix
these potential
problems.
15 Top PowerPoint Tips: Work
smarter and faster while adding zip to
your presentations with these ideas.
72
Internet: E-mail and IM messages
are full of indecipherable shorthand.
We help you translate the slang.
73
Security Watch: Spammers can
bombard your IM sessions, so follow our suggestions to keep the
annoying intrusions away.
74
Enterprise: Crime fighters are
turning to blogging to keep a closer
eye on illegal activity.
76
Internet Professional: Here’s how to
keep bots and automated programs
from filling out forms on your site.
79
User to User: Our experts show you
how to recover the beloved Office
fonts that disappeared with your
Windows XP upgrade, and more.
16
StartUpCop Update: The newest rev of
this popular premium utility lets you take
control of the programs that launch
during Windows start-up.
(www.pcmag.com/downloads)
FIRST LOOKS
C O M M U N I C AT I O N S
70
www.pcmag.com
UTILITY DOWNLOAD
25
70 Solutions
Online
New reviews every week!
Coming soon:
• Epson Stylus
Photo R800
• Logitech QuickCam
Orbit K
• Mirra Personal Server
(www.pcmag.com/firstlooks)
N E W S A N D A N A LY S I S
The latest technology trends:
• Chip Roadmap for 2004
• Spotlight on natural-language software
• Who will win in the pay-for-music war?
(www.pcmag.com/news)
ONLINE EXTRAS
• Discussions: Log on and participate!
(http://discuss.pcmag.com/pcmag)
• Downloads: Check out our indexed list
of utilities from A to Z.
(www.pcmag.com/utilities)
Opinions
7
61
63
65
67
Michael J. Miller: Forward
Thinking
Bill Machrone: ExtremeTech
John C. Dvorak
John C. Dvorak’s Inside Track
Bill Howard: On Technology
Personal Technology
146 After Hours
The Comfort Zone: There are many
new approaches to comfortable and
safe computing. We survey a variety of
devices and peripherals that can help
prevent aches and pains.
148 Gear & Games
The Nokia N-Gage; Ingineo Eyetop
video goggles; Star Wars Jedi Knight:
Jedi Academy; online tournaments
for gamers.
EXCLUSIVE COLUMNS
DVORAK ONLINE
K Each Monday, John C.
Dvorak gives you his
take on what’s
happening in high tech
today. Visit www.pcmag.com/dvorak.
ULANOFF ONLINE
K And each Wednesday,
Lance Ulanoff puts his
own unique spin on
technology. Visit
www.pcmag.com/ulanoff.
Coming up:
• Athlon 64 motherboard roundup
• Geek gift guide
• High-end laptop shootout
(www.extremetech.com)
w w w. p c m a g . c o m /p i p e l i n e
T E C H N O L O G Y T R E N D S & N E W S A N A LY S I S
WAR CHIP
Hotmail
Unspammed
MICROSOFT HAS SERVED UP
Mining for Meaning
A renaissance for machine translation.
he days of translation and
natural-language software insisting on spewing amusingly idiotic interpretations may be headed for the
history books. Until recently,
language-processing software
relied on rule-based algorithms
that were typically insensitive
to context. More powerful new
approaches, however, use
statistical analyses to decipher
context and meaning.
Language Weaver is one of
the companies spearheading
the approach (Meaningful
Machines is another, focusing
on interpreting English). Language Weaver offers machine
translation software that focuses
on statistics rather than grammatical rules to translate text
from one language to another.
Pattern recognition technology
mines a database of millions of
sentences, examining all possible correlations among words,
to determine context by probability. As the database grows, the
software learns and improves.
Because Language Weaver’s
software can simultaneously
investigate many more word
groupings than any human
translator could conceive,
experts say the software trans-
T
lates more efficiently than
rule-based systems. Statistical
analyses are also deemed to
be better for distinguishing
idioms such as, say, “Don’t
have a cow” from statements
like “We don’t have a cow.”
In October, Language
Weaver announced a strategic
investment from In-Q-Tel, a
venture capital firm that funds
tech companies working on
applications of interest to the
CIA. Those involved are guarded on possible specific applications, but Language Weaver
CEO Bryce Benjamin says government applications are being
developed for screening massive volumes of text—often in
obscure languages—while
automatically translating it into
English. Language Weaver’s
newest software focuses on
Arabic-to-English translation
(see the photo).
Benjamin foresees applications for large-scale, automated translation. Within
three to five years, he expects
that users will be able to type
queries in a search engine in
their native languages and
receive translations of all information available worldwide.
—Alexandra Robbins
a substantial overhaul to its
popular MSN Hotmail Web mail
service. While company officials
aren’t saying that many of the
new features are geared toward
fighting spam annoyances, that
looks to be the case. Hotmail’s
large audience of over 130 million
active users has made it a favorite
target of hackers and spammers.
“A big focus for us is to give
people e-mail from known
senders,” says Larry Grothaus,
lead product manager of MSN. A
Today page is now the default
page and includes e-mails only
Israeli startup Lenslet is
demonstrating an optical
processor called EnLight,
which the company claims
can perform a supercomputerlevel 8 trillion operations per
second. The processor is
headed for military applications involving sensor networks and high-speed
communications. “It will
revolutionize the nature of
warfare, with an effect similar
to those of the tank or the
airplane,” says Isaac BenIsrael, a retired major general
and former head of the R & D
Directorate of the Israeli
Ministry of Defense.
PRINTED TRANSISTORS
Xerox’s Palo Alto Research
Center (PARC) has developed
a plastic semiconductor
transistor array made
entirely using jet printing.
The process involves spraying
plastic or organic integrated
circuits on a surface using an
ink jet–like device. The company claims the technology
will lower the cost of activematrix displays by replacing
photolithography.
A PRICE ON YOUR HEAD
from known senders (see the
photo). Clicking on the Mail tab
gives you your complete in-box.
For subscribers, as opposed to
users of the free version of Hotmail, the Today page includes an
appointment list. Users of the
free service get updates to the
Today page and new contacttracking features but not calendar and appointment features.
—Sebastian Rupley
Marking a new bounty-hunting
approach to computer security, Microsoft has offered a
$500,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the
authors of the recent Blaster
and Sobig viruses. “These are
real crimes that hurt a lot of
people,” says Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith in a
recent announcement.
Doing Double Duty
Among home Internet users in the U.S., nearly
half have a TV and a PC with Web access in the
same room, say researchers. Among that 48
percent, almost half say they go online
frequently while watching TV.
How often U.S. computer users go
online while watching TV
Frequently
Occasionally
Rarely
Never
47%
29%
5%
18%
Based on a surveyed subset of the 1.5 million Internet
users comScore tracks. The percentages do not add up
to 100 because of rounding.
Source: comScore Media Metrix, September 2003.
25
PIPELINE
Taking Wi-Fi
To New Heights
FOR MOBILE WORKERS CHECKING
Interrupted by
The Sun
he technology infrastructure is always
subject to surprises
from Mother Nature. Set in
motion by an eruption of gas
on the sun, an enormous space
storm—known as a coronal
mass ejection (CME)—hurtled
toward earth at the end of
October. The storm was expected to cause problems with
satellites, cell phones, pagers,
and other electronic equipment. As it turned out, the
storm interfered primarily with
high-frequency airline communications and power grids.
Forecasters at the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA) Space
Environment Center in Boulder,
Colorado, were the first to notice
two enormous sunspots, including one that became extremely
big. “There was a dynamic
sunspot region that you could
put ten earths inside,” says Larry
Combs, a forecaster for the
Space Environment Center.
Combs adds that “The power
grids were definitely seeing
effects. Planes operating up in
the atmosphere experienced
radio blackouts, especially at
high altitudes.”
Representatives at AT&T
Wireless and Verizon Wireless
say they didn’t see any degradation of cellular service,
because cell-phone towers are
located on the ground. But
there were reports of disruption of satellite orbits as a
result of the sunspots.
According to NOAA, sunspots are not uncommon, but
the ones we experienced in
October were unusually
large.—Cade Metz
ILLUSTRATION BY MILAN TRENC
T
26
e-mail on the run, Wi-Fi is a nice
convenience. But for some
Himalayan villagers in Nepal, a
long-range wireless network is
the only connection to the rest
of the world.
Since late summer, an 802.11b
wireless network has enabled a
group of rural villages to send
and receive e-mail and use a
Webcam to teach highschool classes over
the villages’
intranet. No
roads span the
distances
among the villages, but now
farmers who
want to discuss
trades can hold
meetings on the
Web rather than
spending two days hiking
across mountain terrain.
The originator of this project is
Mahabir Pun, a native Nepali
with an American college education. When his village got electricity in 1998, he used donated
computer parts to build a highschool computer lab. But with no
phone lines, the villages had to
rely on Wi-Fi for Internet access.
Where Did I
Read That?
“One of the goals we have for the
network is to help the villages
generate more income,” says
Robin Shields, one of the four
volunteers who helped build the
network. Shields plans to teach
a C++ course via e-mail so
villagers can eventually outsource their skills.
The network consists of 12
smartBridges airPoint-PRO Outdoor access points—five
of which run on solar
panels and wind
Highgenerators—
powered
which connect
antennas
to a dial-up ISP
connect
22 miles away
villagers
in Pokhara, as
in Nepal to
well as highthe Net.
powered Pacific
Wireless PMANT24 24-dBi-gain
directional antennas
(see the photo). All the equipment was hauled up 1 vertical
mile to the villages.
A troublesome 11,000-foot
peak required the team to use
three relay stations to redirect
the signals. So the next time you
curse a thick wall in your house
for blocking your Wi-Fi signal, be
thankful it’s not a mountain.
—Jennifer Harsany
mazon.com has some
new tricks up its sleeve
for book browsers. The
site has added a feature called
Search Inside the Book, which
allows full-text searching and
viewing of every page in
120,000 books. The new offering, a result of content deals
struck with nearly 200 publishers, is based on proprietary
search technology.
“The Search Inside the Book
features followed our Look
Inside the Book work, where
tables of contents and other
select parts of books were available,” says Udi Manber, an Amazon.com VP. He says the database, with over 33 million book
pages, is several terabytes in size.
Some visitors to PC Magazine’s Web discussion forums
say they get too many false positives when searching—receiving content that had nothing to
do with the sought-after topics.
“This is just the beginning,
though,” says Jani Baker, an
Amazon spokesperson. The
company is refining its search
technology, and Baker adds that
“The number of titles we have
at launch is more than most
book stores carry, and there are
many more to come.”—SR
A
Can You Spare Some Change?
Back in the Web-wild 1990s,
micropayments—in which customers pay a few cents or even
a fraction of a cent to view or
purchase articles, music, and
programs online—were touted
as a way to generate revenue.
The idea never took off, mainly
because people were used to
getting material online for free and because the
transaction costs were high. But micropayments
may be poised for a comeback.
What’s different now? First, the Apple iTunes
Music Store, the 99-cent-per-song download site,
has struck a chord with consumers. Now others
are extending the model. The trouble is that transaction costs can account for over 25 percent of
any price tag. A company called Peppercoin thinks
it has a workaround.
According to Rob Carney, a Peppercoin cofounder, the company can lower
transaction costs to around 7 cents on
the dollar—versus the 30 cents or
more charged by credit card firms.
Customers download Peppercoin’s
software and provide their credit card
numbers. Peppercoin then does its own
verifications for online stores and collects multiple small transactions into a few large
transactions. “It’s a hyperefficient way of processing payments,” says Carney.
Peppercoin believes that music, games, ring
tones, and printed content are all ripe for micropayments. Some 30 million Americans are somewhat likely to purchase content for less than $2 in
the next year, according to a survey conducted by
research firm Ipsos-Insight. That could amount to
some not-so-micro-payments.—John R. Quain
PIPELINE
Compaq’s Gaming Play
Compaq is testing the waters on a new PC family,
the X series, aimed at gaming enthusiasts who might
otherwise shop for Alienware, Falcon Northwest,
or VoodooPC machines.
The Compaq X09
(available exclusively
at CompUSA) will be
powered by a 3.2-GHz
Pentium 4 and 1GB of
RAM, with an nVidia
GeForce FX 5950 graphics card, DVD burner,
and other high-end
goodies.
—Jamie M. Bsales
A PDA for Game Lovers
If you need a better reason to carry
a PDA than just convenient access to
your contacts, calendar, and to-do list,
the Tapwave Zodiac family might be
for you. Sure, the Zodiac is a personal
organizer with all the typical Palm OS
utilities, but it’s also a 6.3-ounce
portable game system with a 3.8-inch
screen powered by the ATI Imageon
2-D graphics accelerator and Fathammer
X-Forge 3-D graphics engine. If that’s
not enough for you, it can also play
MP3s.—JMB
$3,000 street.
Hewlett-Packard Co.,
www.compaq.com.
$299 direct and up. Tapwave, www
.tapwave.com.
Thin Kyocera
Camera
Slimline Projector
Portable projectors keep getting smaller.
The new Vision V3 models from PLUS
are just 1.4 inches high when closed,
and each slips easily in your computer
bag along with your laptop. The PLUS
V3-111 is an SVGA unit rated at 800
ANSI lumens, and the PLUS V3-131
delivers 1,000 lumens and XGA resolution. Each model has a full complement
of I/O ports and weighs just over
2 pounds.—JMB
V3-111, $1,500 street; V3-131, $2,000.
PLUS Vision Corp. of America,
www.plus-america.com.
When it debuts, the Kyocera
Finecam SL300R promises to be
the world’s thinnest digital camera with 3X optical zoom. Less
than 3/4-inch thick, the SL300R
will include a swivel lens for
obtaining images from virtually
any vantage point. The 3.2megapixel SL300R will also have
Kyocera’s proprietary Rapid
Tuning Technology (RTUNE),
which increases image fidelity and lets
you shoot continuously for the entire capacity
of your memory card instead of being limited to
a few consecutive shots.—JMB
$400 street. Kyocera Optics Inc.,
www.kyocera.com.
Talk to Your PDA
The new Microsoft Voice
Command software for Pocket
PC PDAs and PDA/phone combo
devices lets you find contact info,
check calendar appointments,
launch applications, make phone calls,
and even select and play music simply
by talking to the device on which it is
installed.—Bruce Brown
28
DVD Burners
Double in
Speed
$40 direct.
Microsoft Corp.,
www.microsoft.com.
HP, Plextor, Sony, TDK,
and others are releasing
recordable DVD drives that will
burn at a rated 8X speed, which
is double the rate of the current
crop of drives.—JMB
$399 and up.
Various manufacturers.
HANDS-ON TESTING OF NEW PRODUCTS
36 HP Photosmart 945
38 Fujifilm FinePix
S7000
38 Sigma SD-10
40 Sharp Actius RD3D
43 Motorola MPx200 with
Windows Mobile Software
43 Samsung SCH-i600
46 LANDesk Management
Suite 8
DV Cameras Get Better with Stills
BY JAN OZER
The holiday season and camcorders go together like turkey and
stuffing, especially when we’re talking about DV camcorders.
And like any high-end toy, they’re as exciting to buy as they are
to use for recording your favorite holiday memories. • Looking
back, we’ll remember 2003 as the year camcorder vendors got
serious about still-image quality. The Holy Grail for memory
mongers would be a single device that can serve to take digital
pictures as well as videos. The models we tested for this story are among the
first 3- and 4-megapixel camcorders on the market. • This year also brought us
THE MAGAZINE
WORLD’S LARGEST
COMPUTER-TESTING
FACILITY
32
Canon Optura Xi
With good video quality and
many advanced features, the
Canon Optura Xi is ideal for
consumers or professionals
seeking a small, relatively inexpensive DV camcorder ($1,699
list). But with only 2-megapixel
images and an anemic flash, the
Optura shouldn’t be your first
choice for double-duty video
and still-image use.
The Optura is a long and lean
unit with an 11X optical zoom
lens and a bright, 3.5-inch LCD.
You can access most functions
with buttons and dials conve-
The Canon Optura X1
delivers high-end features
in a well-rounded package.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY THOM O’CONNOR
the first affordable units with
prosumer features such as manual audio gain (the ability to monitor and control volume of incoming audio) and zebra striping
(where potentially overexposed
areas of a scene are highlighted
with stripes on the viewfinder, so
that the shooter can take corrective action). This roundup also
includes the first three-ccd video
camera priced under $1,500.
Specs and features aside, however, quality is always a top priority for a camcorder, so we’ve
applied a rigorous blend of labsbased and informal testing, with
juries ranking the five entries on
video image quality. The reviews
below report and explain these
findings, as well as the results of
our hands-on testing. And while
we found several laudable camcorders in this group, none supplants the Canon Optura 20 (see
“Hot Shots, Cool Cuts,” October
1) as our Editors’ Choice among
prosumer models. The Optura
20 delivers very good image
quality and a host of features (including a 16X optical zoom lens)
for just $999 list.
niently positioned on the camera body, rather than the more
cumbersome menu-based controls most other cameras offer.
For instance, you can easily
switch between shooting modes
such as night, sand and snow,
and spotlight by using a dial.
Like the Panasonic PV-DV953
(also reviewed here), the Optura
offers prosumer features such as
zebra striping, optical image
stabilization, and manual audio
gain controls with a handy meter
that gauges incoming volume. A
manual focus ring around the
lens is also noteworthy, as are the
smooth and quiet zoom controls.
The only drawback for serious
use is the bottom-loading tape
mechanism, which prevents you
from changing tapes while the
w w w. p c m a g . c o m /f i r s t l o o k s
46 PositivePRO
48 Dell W1700 LCD TV
50 Gateway 17-inch
LCD TV
WHAT THE RATINGS MEAN
50 Samsung 172MP
52 Sharp LL-M17W1
53 ViewSonic
N1700w
lllll EXCELLENT
llllm VERY GOOD
lllmm GOOD
llmmm FAIR
lmmmm POOR
camera is on a tripod.
Though the Optura has only
one CCD, Canon uses an RGB
Primary Color Filter to simulate
the color accuracy produced by
three-CCD systems. This proved
very effective on our tests, where
the Optura produced very good
color and fine detail, with minimal noise. Facial contrast was
very good, with accurate skin
tones, and video had a warm,
enticing feel.
Most impressive was the lack
of bleed in the color charts,
where results were superior to
the Panasonic unit with three
CCDs. Audio was slightly muted
but clear, with much less background noise on our tests than
the Sony model.
The camera’s 1.75-inch CCD
delivers 2MP still images, aided
by a small flash above the lens.
The still-image features were
strong, including selectablefocus points and automatic exposure bracketing, which shoots
multiple images simultaneously
at different exposure settings.
But overall, the still-image results were disappointing.
Specifically, shots were
slightly blurry, and ad hoc testing revealed that the flash was
less robust than that on either
the Sony or Samsung units,
resulting in slightly darker images with more noise than other
cameras. The included 8MB
SD memory card also seemed
chintzy in a camera with a fourfigure price tag. Still, if video is
your top priority, the Optura Xi
puts some high-end features
within reach.
Canon Optura Xi
List price: $1,699. Canon U.S.A. Inc.,
800-652-2666, www.canondv.com.
OVERALL RATING: llllm
JVC GR-DX300
It may be the smallest and most
affordable camera in this
roundup, but the JVC GR-DX300
($999.95 list) produced the lowest-resolution still images and
below-average video quality.
This makes it suitable only for
users who value price and convenience over top image quality.
The GR-DX300 is an upright
unit like the Sony but lighter and
less bulky. Although its LCD
viewfinder is slightly larger than
clicking through the controls.
Video performance was lackluster. The talking-head video in
our test suite exhibited a slight
yellowish tint with generally
muted and washed-out colors
that lacked the visual appeal of
those produced by the category
leaders. But detail was sharp,
and the GR-DX300 took decent
shots in low light without the
noise exhibited by several other
cameras. Audio quality was
good for a camera this small.
In still-image shooting, colors
The JVC GR-DX300
is compact and
affordable, but video
quality is not first-rate.
the Sony’s, it has fewer pixels,
and the low resolution caused
slight flickering along hard
edges in the scene.
Using the camera is generally
straightforward, though the dial
zoom control on the back panel
takes some getting used to. JVC
also needs to rethink the awkward menu system: The GRDX300 is the only camera here
that you can’t configure without
again were muted, and the GRDX300’s 1.33MP CCD couldn’t
match the fine detail produced
by the other cameras in this
roundup. For better still-image
usability, JVC needs to make features like flash control available
on the camera body rather than
in the menu system.
Though it performed well for
a camera of its size and price, the
GR-DX300 lacks the sophisticat-
ed electronics and image quality
of the more expensive cameras
in this roundup.
JVC GR-DX300
List price: $999.95. JVC Company
of America, 800-252-5722,
www.jvc.com. llmmm
Panasonic PV-DV953
The only three-CCD camcorder
in the roundup, the Panasonic
PV-DV953 ($1,499 direct) offers a
strong range of features and is
ideal for tripod use. It produced
very good video and still-image
quality under optimal lighting
conditions, but quality suffered
in dim light. This makes the PVDV953 an affordable option for
experienced videographers with
a knowledge of lighting techniques and exposure adjustments but a poor choice for
point-and-shoot beginners.
The camera is similar in size,
weight, and shape to the Canon
Optura Xi, with a 3.5-inch LCD
panel on the left and a manual
focus ring around the lens. A
second record button perched
slightly behind the lens gives you
a range of shooting positions.
Like the Optura Xi, the PVDV953 offers a laundry list of
prosumer features, including
optical image stabilization,
zebra striping, and manual
audio gain control with an audio
meter. (Alas, Panasonic buries
access to the meter in the menu
system; we prefer Canon’s approach, which uses a button on
the camera body.)
The PV-DV953 ’s shutter, iris,
and white-balance controls are
easily accessible, more so than
the Canon’s. The unit’s tapeloading mechanism is on top, so
you can change tapes while it is
on a tripod.
The unit’s wireless remote—
33
FIRST LOOKS
with zoom, record, and snapshot
controls—is also a handy feature. The PV-DV953 ’s viewfinder is more adjustable than the
Canon’s, but the accessory shoe
isn’t powered, so add-ons such
as microphones and video lights
need external power.
Panasonic built the PV-DV953
around three 1/6-inch CCDs. The
camera produced sharp, clear
images and good color contrast
under studio lighting, though
saturated colors were muted
compared with those produced
by the Canon and Sony units.
Images under low-light conditions became slightly grainy and
indistinct. But audio was clear,
with minimal background noise.
In still-image trials, the PVDV953 produced sharp images
under studio lighting, which
matched those produced by the
Sony entry and trailed only the
4MP Samsung unit in clarity and
color. In low light, however, the
images became darker, and
graininess and occasional compression artifacts appeared.
lens and controls. This isn’t immediately obvious, but with a
little practice it soon becomes
second nature.
The LCD panel on the back
attaches at the top of the unit
and swings only 180 degrees upwards, so it’s difficult to see
when shooting below eye level.
You can swivel the camera module downward to get the shot,
but it’s awkward. Otherwise,
shooting controls for both functions are logically placed and
accessible.
Still-image performance was
phenomenal for a camcorder.
Aided by a powerful flash, the
The Samsung SC-D5000
has a split personality: Half is
a killer 4.1MP still camera,
the other a mediocre
DV camera.
Samsung SC-D5000
List price: $1,199.99. Samsung
Electronics Co. Ltd., 800-726-7864,
www.samsungusa.com. llmmm
Sony DCR-PC330
Panasonic PV-DV953
Direct price: $1,499. Panasonic,
800-272-7033, www.panasonic.com.
lllmm
Samsung SC-D5000
In an effort to create a camcorder that excelled at both stillimage and video functions, Samsung combined a separate lens
and CCD for each into one hybrid camera, the SC-D5000
($1,199.99 list). Samsung got it
half right, as the 4.1MP still images are the best we’ve seen
from a camcorder. Unfortunately, video quality—what you buy
a camcorder for, after all—does
not measure up, with indoor
shots exhibiting a consistent
blue tint and unacceptable noise
under low-light conditions.
The SC-D5000 is a two-part
camera: The right side contains
the video tape and Memory
Stick; the back holds the viewfinder and LCD screen. The left
module houses the separate still
and video mechanisms and
rotates lengthwise. You switch
between modes by rotating the
module to expose the desired
34
SC-D5000 produced 2,272-by1,704 images with fine detail and
highly accurate color; these pictures were easily the best in this
roundup.
Video results were the polar
opposite. All indoor shots taken
in fully automatic mode exhibited a blue tint so severe that we
requested another camera to ensure that the unit wasn’t defective. Our results with the second
unit were identical. We tried
using the indoor white-balance
preset, which exacerbated the
problem. Outdoor shots in automatic mode were quite good,
but unless you plan to use this
camera exclusively outdoors, it’s
not the best option.
The Panasonic PV-DC953
is better for video hobbyists who have mastered
lighting techniques.
VIDEO QUALITY TESTS
Talking
head
Action
Low light
OVERALL
RATING
Canon Optura Xi
llll
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JVC GR-DX300
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ll
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Panasonic PV-DV953
Samsung SC-D5000
Sony DCR-PC330
llll
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ll
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ll
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ll
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The Sony DCR-PC330 ($1,700
direct) offers a unique blend of
compact size with good stilland video-image quality, making
it a natural for anybody seeking
one camera to take anywhere.
But those looking for an inexpensive prosumer camera
should check carefully, since the
DCR-PC330 lacks some critical
features offered by the Canon
Optura Xi and the Panasonic
PV-DV953.
The DCR-PC330 incorporates
a huge, 1/3-inch 3.3MP CCD. You
hold the camera upright and
look through the top-mounted
viewfinder or 2.5-inch LCD
panel, which proved legible
even in direct sunlight. Also nice
was the manual focus ring on
the lens, which zooms to 2X
magnification during adjustment, simplifying focusing.
Most users will find the new,
customizable, touch screen–
driven 3-D menus very intuitive,
with innovative features like
the ability to focus the camera or
set the exposure by touching the
target area on the screen. But beyond this, the DCR-PC330 lacks
prosumer features such as zebra
striping and manual audio gain
control. And the zoom controls
were small and twitchy.
FIRST LOOKS
Like the Optura Xi, the DCRPC330 uses a primary color filter to simulate a three-CCD system. Indeed, the results rivaled
the three-CCD Panasonic unit
and trailed the Optura Xi only
slightly. The DCR - PC 330 produced crisp colors with minimal bleed in talking-head trials,
with strong reproduction of
black, grays, and even highly
saturated colors like maroons
and reds. Facial contrast was
good, though slightly overexposed, and detail was well preserved.
Quality dropped in highermotion sequences, where the
Canon model’s results were
clearly sharper. But the DCRPC330 produced a brighter
image than either the Panasonic
or Canon on low-light tests.
Speech pickup was very good,
though the camera also picked
The Sony
DCR-PC330 offers
a good combination
of still- and videoimage quality.
up significant ambient noise.
Still-image quality was on a
par with or better than that of
the Panasonic’s on most tests. In
addition to a more powerful
flash (which produced brighter
pictures in low-light conditions
than that of any camera except
the Samsung), the DCR-PC330
also offers NightFraming. This
HP’s 5MP Beauty Hits—and Misses
BY SALLY WIENER GROTTA
AND DANIEL GROTTA
hink of the 5-megapixel
HP Photosmart 945 as a
“prosumer lite” digital
camera. Like the Minolta DiMage DH1 and the Nikon CoolPix 5700, the 945 is a full-sized
model with through-the-lens
viewing and very good to excellent image quality. It also has an
innovative digital flash feature
that can brighten darkened subjects without firing the strobe.
But many functions that photo
hobbyists demand are missing,
and viewing and focusing with
the unit are less than ideal.
Weighing in at just under
1 pound, the all-black 945
has the look and feel of a
quality 35-mm film camera. Its chunky highimpact plastic body is
easy to hold and
shoot, even with one
hand. HP has given
the 945 an 8X optical
zoom lens—impressive for a camera in
this price range—and a
6-mode pop-up flash.
T
36
There are other things to like,
too. Most notable is the camera’s
digital flash feature. It acts like an
electronic fill flash, automatically adjusting the exposure of
backlit subjects so you don’t
wind up with underexposed silhouettes. The 945 is also one of
only a handful of digital cameras
that incorporate built-in help
wizards, and its pan and zoom
capability is the best we’ve seen,
able to continuously magnify an
image to the pixel level.
The 945 is quick and easy to
use. Bootup takes 3.9 seconds,
and recycling time between
shots is a fast 1.3 seconds (with
flash and LCD viewfinder enabled). The camera’s burst
mode lets you fire off five shots
in less than 4 seconds, even with
flash enabled (although writing
those five images to memory
takes over 30 seconds). Like
other Photosmart digital cameras, the 945 facilitates easy,
effortless image file transfer,
direct output with certain HP
printers, and extensive picturesharing capability.
The 945 delivered image quality that ranged from very good to
excellent in our testing. The flash
test shot was sharp, with excellent color and dynamic range.
Our simulated daylight test
shot was correctly exposed
but not as crisp as we’ve
seen from other 5MP cameras, and it exhibited limited
depth of field.
The HP Photosmart 945
looks like a prosumer camera,
but without the complexity.
feature uses the camera’s onboard infrared capabilities to
frame a shot in total darkness,
then switches off the infrared
and triggers the flash to produce
a picture with natural colors.
The only drawback we observed
was a side-mounted still-photo
button that tended to jerk the
camera when pressed too firmly; we used the timed-record
function for most of our tests.
The DCR-PC330 is an admirable attempt to blend a still
camera and video camcorder
into a compact package. It will
appeal to users who value small
size; just know that the Canon
Optura Xi delivers better video
quality and more features at
about the same price.
Sony DCR-PC330
Direct price:$1,700. Sony Electronics
Inc., 800-222-7669,
www.sonystyle.com. lllmm
Other features are lacking as
well. Unlike in the Nikon
CoolPix 5700 and the Olympus
E20n, the 945’s 2-inch LCD
viewfinder is fixed rather than
articulated. It also has an electronic (not optical) eye-level
viewfinder that automatically
toggles on when you look
through the eyepiece. But both
viewfinders are jerky and grainy,
and focus is annoyingly slow
and difficult to judge.
The camera features aperture and shutter priority, plus
the ability to adjust color saturation, sharpness, and contrast
exposure. But it’s missing most
higher-end functions, such as
histogram, bracketing, external
flash synchronization, and antishake lens technology.
The HP Photosmart 945 will
appeal to point-and-shoot users
who want a relatively inexpensive digital camera with heft and
substance, minus the complexity associated with most prosumer models. But more serious
shutterbugs will feel hampered
by its limitations.
HP Photosmart 945
Street price: $550. Hewlett-Packard
Co., 888-999-4747, www.hp.com.
lllmm
FIRST LOOKS
Fuji Delivers
Double
The Pixels
BY LES FREED
he Fujifilm
FinePix S602
was a sleeper
hit last holiday season, selling out its entire production
run in just a few months. This
year’s Fujifilm FinePix S7000 improves on the S602 in nearly
every way—starting with twice
as many pixels (6.3 megapixels)
and a lower price ($700 street).
The S7000 looks and feels like
a slightly miniaturized 35-mm
SLR camera, though it’s not a
true SLR. In place of an optical
viewfinder, the S7000 has a
235,000-pixel electronic viewfinder (EFV), one of the best
we’ve seen. Another winning
feature of the S7000 is its excellent 6X zoom lens, with a 35- to
210-mm effective focal length.
of the credit goes to the 6.3MP
sensor itself, not the interpolation. With the feature enabled, the extra pixels delivered marginally better
image detail—but at the
expense of greatly increased file sizes.
We found the S7000
easy to use. Advanced
photographers will find
T
The Fujifilm FinePix S7000 features a 6.3MP
sensor, with the ability to interpolate to 12.6MP.
The S7000 is the first camera
to use the new Fujifilm Super
CCD HR image sensor chip,
which packs twice as many pixels into the same space as the
previous-generation Super CCD
sensor. The S7000 uses an incamera interpolation algorithm
to take 6.3MP images and produce files with effectively twice
the number of pixels.
Indeed, our test pictures were
very sharp and clear, with little
noise and vivid colors. But most
all the controls they expect, including a full range of exposure
modes; a spot meter; a dedicated
exposure compensation button;
a manual focusing ring; and an
on-screen, real-time exposure
histogram. If you’d rather not
mess with the controls, you can
simply put the camera’s mode
dial on Auto and let the camera
do the rest.
The S7000 has one of the best
built-in flash units we’ve seen.
The pop-up bulb emits a short
preflash before the exposure in
order to judge the reflectance
and distance of the subject.
While the preflash adds a tiny
delay to the picture-taking
process, it delivers perfect exposures nearly every time.
The company did cut a few
corners in the S7000’s bundle,
however. Power comes from four
double-A batteries or a rechargeable nickel hydride battery pack
add-on ($40 street), rather than a
costlier (and longer-lasting) lithium ion battery pack. And though
the S7000 accepts CompactFlash
and xD-Picture Card media, Fujifilm provides only a 16MB
xD-Picture Card in the box.
Still, we think the S7000 is one
of the best values in the prosumer
class. The Nikon Coolpix 5700
has an 8X lens but only 5MP for
the same price. If the S7000
sounds appealing, our advice is to
grab one before they sell out, too.
Fujifilm FinePix S7000
Street price: $700. Fuji Photo Film
USA, 800-755-3854,
www.fujifilm.com. llllm
Better CMOS Camera
BY LES FREED
he Sigma SD10 digital
SLR ($2,000 street) is
the second camera to
use the innovative Foveon X3
CMOS image sensor (the first
was the Sigma SD9). The SD10
employs a second-generation
sensor that offers improved lowlight sensitivity and lower image
noise than the previous model.
On the outside, the SD10 is
virtually identical to the SD9.
But thanks to the new sensor,
the SD10 operates at ISO speeds
up to 1,600 (compared with 400
for the SD9). Also, you can now
adjust exposure in increments
of 1/3 stop (instead of 1/2 stop on
the SD9). And the SD10 extends
the maximum shutter speed to
30 seconds, a must-have feature
for low-light photography.
The new X3 Pro 10M chip uses
microlenses: tiny light-gathering
glass lenses that are bonded to
the surface of the image sensor,
T
38
improving the sensor’s
sensitivity. The tradeoff is that while microlenses improve light
sensitivity, they also
have a tendency to reduce sharpness and
detail slightly—but fortunately not to the
naked eye. We found the
images from our test camera to be very sharp, with
plenty of detail.
Unlike most digital SLR cameras, the SD 10 saves images
only in a RAW data format that
must be post-processed on a
PC. The SD10 comes with a new
version of Sigma’s PhotoPro
post-processing software that
includes several significant improvements and some interesting new features. Most notable
among them is a fill-in flash
that greatly improves shadow
and highlight detail in highcontrast shooting situations.
Instead of a CCD sensor, the
Sigma SD10 uses a CMOS sensor to capture images.
Other enhancements include faster file
conversion, better JPEG image
rendering, and the addition of a
noise-reduction algorithm.
Sigma also announced a new
wireless flash system and several new lenses for the SD10, including an ultrawide 12- to 24mm, a compact 18- to 50-mm,
and a 55- to 200-mm lens. The
new flash and lens options fill in
some key missing pieces in
Sigma’s product line.
Such improvements mean
Sigma now has a real contender
for serious photo hobbyists and studio pro photographers. Of course,
Sigma faces fierce competition from Canon,
Nikon, Olympus, and Pentax, all of which offer more complete product lines for their digital SLRs than does Sigma.
The Canon Digital Rebel
($999), which we previously reviewed in First Looks (October
28) is the product to beat in this
space, and the SD10’s lack of
in-camera JPEG support is a
major drawback for hobbyists
looking for instant gratification.
For those users, the Canon offering is the better choice.
Sigma SD10
Street price: $2,000. Sigma Corp.
of America, 631-585-1144, www
.sigma-photo.com. llllm
FIRST LOOKS
Sharp Notebook Debuts 3-D Screen
BY BILL HOWARD
t’s not every day—or every
year, for that matter—that a
new screen technology appears. So the debut of the Sharp
Actius RD3D notebook ($3,299
direct) is news. It’s the first U.S.
product to use the company’s
proprietary 3-D LCD technology,
which displays realistic-looking
three-dimensional images without the need for special glasses.
Best of all, the technology has no
effect on the quality of 2-D text
and graphic images.
To render 3-D images, the
system uses two 15-inch LCD
panels that sandwich a parallax
barrier (parallax refers to the
difference between what your
left and right eyes see, which the
brain interprets as 3-D). The
front panel is a standard Sharp
15-inch XGA (1,024-by-768) color
display. In 2-D mode, only this
panel is active.
The rear panel is a monochrome-only unit that provides
3-D information. One image is
created from pixels 1, 3, 5, 7 and
so forth up to pixel 1,023 for the
left eye, while the right eye sees
pixels 2, 4, 6, and so on, through
1,024. The two panels, the parallax barrier, and the light path
through them are aligned to
work best when a viewer is
about 21 inches back from the
I
display and perfectly centered.
Some applications go into 3-D
mode automatically; for others,
you push the big “3-D” button on
the keyboard. Sharp says that
uses might include medical
imaging, CAD, architectural
mock-ups, life sciences, possibly
online shopping, and of course
gaming and digital imaging.
Sharp bundles a program that
lets you create a 3-D image from
a standard photo; you outline the
areas you want to be foreground,
then designate the background
areas. For people-plus-mountain
snapshots, it’s quite effective.
Also bundled are Dynamic Digital Depth’s TriDef movie player
for playing 3-D videos, and Personal CAChe, a chemical molecular modeling program.
Our experience viewing still
images was outstanding. You do
notice an apparent loss of resolution going into 3-D mode (each
eye sees 512-by-768 worth of pixels), but the foreground-to-background separation is outstanding. It was even better playing a
Spiderman demo movie.
However, three 3-D–enabled
Electronic Arts games bundled
with our test unit were problematic. On Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2, we observed vertical
bands and ghosting (secondary
images); on James Bond 007:
The Sharp Actius RD3D
features the industry’s first
3-D laptop display.
Nightfire,
the ghosting was severe,
and each eye saw
not one but two aiming
circles, making it hard to
rack up a decent kill rate.
Also, because you’re looking
at the screen’s flat 2-D surface,
there’s an acclimatization period
while your brain figures out how
to process the image. Indeed,
some of our viewers complained
of eyestrain. Adaptation can be
instantaneous in teenagers,
Sharp says, while older users (60
and up) could take a couple
hours to be comfortable.
And as with any new technology, Sharp faces a chicken-andegg challenge: Selling enough
units to make it worthwhile for
software makers to 3-D–enable
their apps, and having enough
compatible apps to make the 3-D
machine worth buying. (Sharp
says there are hundreds of titles
that are 3-D enabled.)
As for the notebook itself, the
RD3D is a desktop replacement
notebook based on Sharp’s RD
A 3-D Screen—Without Goggles
The LCD screen on the Sharp Actius RD3D can display images that look three-dimensional by exploiting the
parallax effect—the slight difference each eye sees, which the brain then converts to 3-D.
3-D Display Mode
2-D Display Mode
With 3-D enabled, a parallax barrier behind the traditional
LCD TFT screen reveals one set of pixels to the viewer’s
right eye and a slightly different set to the left eye. This
creates the perception of depth in the brain.
When working in normal 2-D mode, the switching crystal
that controls the parallax barrier allows the same set of
pixels to be seen by both eyes, resulting in a traditional
two-dimensional screen image.
Parallax
barrier
Switching
crystal
LCD panels
Parallax
barrier
Switching
crystal
LCD panels
series,
which
have three
drive bays
(hard drive, optical, floppy disk
drive) and a 15-inch
display. Our test unit
checked in at 10.2 pounds, or 11.8
pounds travel weight with the
bulky transformer. Luckily, it’s
also heavy on features, with a
2.8-GHz Pentium 4, 512MB of
RAM, a 60GB hard drive, and a
Matsushita DVD-RAM burner.
The RD3D was a good performer, with Business Winstone
2004 and Content Creation
Winstone 2004 scores (17.3 and
21.0, respectively) that fell at the
upper end of the spectrum
among notebooks we’ve tested.
Our tests indicate battery life to
be only about 2 hours; but then,
this system is unlikely to be
used for long periods away from
a wall plug.
Without a doubt, this is incredibly advanced display technology. We were disappointed
with our 3-D game experience,
but the still-image and videoclip demos show that the technology has promise. Currently
the 3-D feature adds “in the low
hundreds of dollars” to the
price. That’s low enough to
make early adopters want to
take a look, knowing they’re getting a powerful, full-featured
2-D notebook to boot.
Sharp Actius RD3D
L
R
L
L
R
L
R
R
L
R
L
R
With 2.8-GHz P4, 512MB DDR SDRAM,
60GB hard drive, DVD-RAM drive,
nVidia GeForce 4 440 Go graphics,
15-inch 3-D XGA display, Microsoft
Windows XP Pro, $3,299 direct. Sharp
Systems of America, 800-237-4277,
www.sharpsystems.com.
OVERALL llllm M llllm
P llllm V llllm
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40
FIRST LOOKS
Microsoft’s Smartphone Exceeds Expectations
BY BRUCE BROWN
ur early peeks at Microsoft’s Smartphone platform—the phone-centric operating system that’s part
of the company’s Windows Mobile family—didn’t push our
buttons. But now that we’ve
had a chance to test the new
Motorola MPx200 and the Samsung SCH-i600, we’re ready to
admit that our first impressions were wrong.
Don’t confuse Smartphonebased devices with PDA/phone
combos (such as the Treo 600),
which are based on either the
Palm or Microsoft Pocket PC
operating systems. Smartphones
are not PDAs but rather very
smart phones that happen to
play multimedia files, work beautifully with Outlook (retrieving
e-mail wirelessly), and more.
The official line on Microsoft
Windows Mobile 2003 Software
for Smartphones
(Smartphone for
short) is that it’s a
platform designed
for one-handed operation targeted at
people who want to
use Outlook data on
a mobile phone for
calling, messaging,
and e-mail. Key applications in the OS
include Pocket Outlook, Pocket Internet Explorer (with
both WAP and HTML
support), and Windows Media Player 8
(for playing music,
image, and video files).
You can also play
games on the phone; a
version of Solitaire is
included, and more
games are coming from thirdparty developers each week.
If your company uses Exchange 2000 Server with Mobile
Information Server and Exchange 2003, you can synchronize your Outlook Contacts,
Calendar, and Inbox wirelessly.
But even small-business users
O
without enterprise server products can configure the phone’s
Inbox application to access
POP3 and IMAP4 e-mail for automatic updates.
The Smartphone OS has a raft
of features that improve digital
phone operation, including several ways to find and dial numbers, a speakerphone, and tight
integration with Outlook. (For
example, you can have your
phone switch automatically to
silent mode during the times
you have meetings scheduled in
your Outlook Calendar.) When
you connect to a host PC with
a Smartphone, the phone uses
ActiveSync 7.1 to synchronize
Outlook’s Contacts, Calendar,
and Tasks areas.
We were able to have the
phones check our POP3 Yahoo!
e-mail account wirelessly every
15 minutes (you can choose
longer intervals or set it to manual mode). Within a
couple of days, we
stopped carrying a
PDA and carried one
of the Smartphones
instead, plugging it
into the USB cable
attached to our desktop P C w h e n e v e r
we came back to the
office to synchronize
the PIM apps and
charge the phone’s
battery.
The SCH-i600 is
larger than Motorola’s entry, but
the CDMA coverage is a draw.
In short, if you
want a large display on
a PDA for working with Word or
Excel documents while you travel, a Pocket PC Phone Edition device would be a better choice.
But if you use a PDA mostly for
contacts, appointments, tasks,
entertainment, and reading and
managing e-mail, a Smartphone
may be a better solution.
MOTOROLA MPX200
The MPx200 has the
potential to be as influential to the industry
as was Motorola’s
StarTAC. Small at 3.4
by 1.8 by 1.0 inches (HWD)
and lightweight (4.2 ounces),
the clamshell-style MPx200
has two LCD screens: a color
display on the flip-up
panel and a monochrome
on the case top to
show the time, date,
signal strength,
battery power,
and caller ID .
An SD / IO
slot supports up
to 1GB SD cards,
and the phone itself has
32MB of ROM and 32MB of
RAM (10MB of RAM is available
for user data). There’s a jog dial
on the left side of the phone, and
the bundle includes an earpiece
(for phone use) and a stereo
headset (for listening to music).
The MPx200 beats other conventional phones hands down in
using Outlook contact data,
because you aren’t limited to
just a few hundred contacts.
Compared with PDA/phone
combinations such as the admirable Treo 600, the MPx200 is
more phone-centric and doesn’t
have the huge installed base of
Palm OS applications. But the integration with Outlook is far superior, and the e-mail client is
simple to set up and use.
SAMSUNG SCH-I600
The Samsung SCH-i600 is a
dual-band phone with support
for 800- MH z and 1,900- MH z
CDMA . It’s a bit larger and
heavier (5 ounces) than the
Motorola MPx200, but if you
need CDMA’s superior coverage,
you won’t mind carrying the
extra bulk.
The Samsung entry has
slightly larger keys and buttons
than the Motorola model, but
the displays are the same (2.2
inches, 176-by-220 resolution).
The phone’s keys are flat and
Sleek and
powerful, the
MPx200 puts
Motorola back
on top in phones.
responsive—an aspect
we appreciated playing the
Smartphone version of Solitaire during our morning
train commute.
Like the Motorola, the SCHi600 has an SD/IO slot. The
phone’s bundle includes both a
standard battery (rated at 2.5
hours talk time and 4 days in
standby mode) and an extended
battery, (4.7 hours talk time, 7
days standby). There’s also a
docking cradle and AC adapter,
but no earset for listening to
music or for hands-free calling.
The SCH-i600’s Smartphone
functions add the convenience
of PIM and e-mail–oriented
PDA features. Although we
prefer the smaller dimensions
of the Motorola model, the
Samsung SCH-i600 is a fine device. And perhaps its greatest
initial appeal is that it adds a
CDMA carrier to the U.S.
Smartphone presence.
Motorola MPx200 with
Windows Mobile Software
Street price: $300, plus monthly
service fees. Requires: Host PC running Microsoft Windows 98, Me, NT,
2000, or XP. AT&T Wireless, 866-7322468, www.attws.com. lllll
Samsung SCH-i600
List price: $499, plus monthly service
charges; rebates available with service contracts. Verizon Wireless, 800256-4646, www.verizonwireless.com.
llllm
43
FIRST LOOKS
Central Control for Your Network
BY ROBERT P. LIPSCHUTZ
AND BRIAN KENNY
ith LANDesk Management Suite 8, IT
managers can control the computers on their networks and implement software
and security policies efficiently.
LANDesk 8 has impressive
depth. It includes asset management, device discovery, software
license management, PC remote
control, software distribution,
and operating system recovery
and migration. This default functionality can also be extended by
other LANDesk add-ons, such as
System Manager ($9 per node)
for real-time problem resolution
and Server Manager ($499 per
server) for monitoring servers.
Macintosh support has also been
improved in this version.
LANDesk 8 does a good job of
packing all these features into a
comprehensible interface. Although the management console seems a bit overwhelming
W
at first, IT managers will not
have a hard time understanding
and appreciating it.
In our testing, we were most
impressed by the policy-based
software distribution feature.
LANDesk 8 lets you distribute
any software app to any group
within a company. It supports
multiple-file MSI packages and
handles distribution efficiently.
To combat any network degradation and to increase performance to remote computers,
LANDesk 8 provides bandwidth
throttling, multicast distribution, and checkpoint restarts.
For example, to distribute a
security update to all Microsoft
Office users or a new virus definition to all your users, you can
simply specify the maximum
LANDesk Management Suite 8
The Management Console’s interface provides easy access to
LANDesk 8’s wealth of features.
B
46
List price: $89 per node (minimum,
10 nodes). LANDesk Software Inc.,
800-982-2130, www.landesk.com.
llllm
Can You Outsource Remote Access?
BY ROBERT P. LIPSCHUTZ
usy network administrators will appreciate getting something for nothing. The something is secure
remote access to your company
network; the nothing is the
equipment and software you’ll
need to set up at the office. Unlike most other companies in
this category, Positive Networks
offers a managed service—
called PositivePRO—that gives
your employees secure remote
access to files, applications,
e-mail, and desktops. All you
need is a router that supports
the IPsec protocol.
You can be up and running in
a few hours. The start-up fee
covers the cost of having a Positive Networks rep work with
your network administrator to
create an IPsec tunnel between
its data center and your network.
Working together, they can use a
bandwidth and eliminate congestion issues. Using its peer
download technology, LANDesk
8 will serve the appropriate
packages to a select number of
users across your network’s various subnets, and those machines will in turn serve them to
their peers. In the event that a
machine shuts down halfway
through a transfer, the byte-level
checkpoint restart feature will
ensure that the update gets efficiently completed upon restart.
LANDesk 8 presents a lot of
management capabilities in
one package, as do competitors
such as Microsoft SMS and
Novell ZenWorks. While the
initial experience can be a little
daunting, the performance enhancements that LAND esk 8
delivers (namely the multicast
and incremental file-transfer
capabilities) are worth the initial start-up pains.
Web-based Policy Manager to
create a suitable configuration
for your company, including user
names, file shares, applications,
and e-mail servers.
End users can access your network in one of three ways. First,
they can enter through their own
WebTop, a customized remoteaccess portal with favorites,
mapped drives, and application
and e-mail links all shown on one
screen. Second, users can access
desktops directly from the WebTop, as long as the desktop has remote-control software installed.
Finally, users can install
a piece of client software, which contains
some typical VPN functions wrapped in helpful little extras, from the
WebTop.
The applet will connect to your network,
change your Windows
wallpaper (to indicate
that you are connected),
and prepare your PC for
work. This includes displaying network shares
PositivePRO’s WebTop interface
gives your users access to files,
to servers at the office,
applications, and e-mail.
adding shortcuts on the
Desktop and favorites to
Internet Explorer, and even
changing your Outlook e-mail to
point to your office e-mail. To
protect your network, the client
starts a firewall with settings configured by the administrator and
checks for a running antivirus
scanner. When you log off, all of
these changes are reversed.
During our testing, we found a
few small annoyances. Windows
XP users cannot browse for network resources; they must use
premapped drives or know how
to use UNC names. Also, application distribution was useful but
required sending image CDs to
Positive Networks.
But these are small nits to
pick. If your business is looking
to implement remote access but
you don’t want to commit to the
hardware and IT maintenance,
this service is worth a test drive.
PositivePRO
Direct price: Start-up charge, $900
and up; $20 per user per month.
Positive Networks Inc., 913-469-0005,
www.positivenetworks.com. llllm
FIRST LOOKS
TV/Monitor Hybrids: Prime Time Meets the Daily Grind
BY ALFRED POOR
re you a news hound
who can’t get through
the day without a frequent dose of CNN? Got a craving
for ticker crawls while you’re
crunching numbers? Well, have
we got the monitors for you!
These sleek and stylish LCD units
feature built-in TV tuners.
They’ve also got support for
component video signals and
HDTV, in case you want a cinematic experience. Priced at about
$700, they cost about twice as
much as a standard 17-inch LCD
A
though only four have widescreen 16:9 aspect ratios.
The wide-screen models are
only as tall as a standard 15-inch
LCD monitor, and they have
Wide-XGA resolution (1,280 by
768 pixels). The Samsung panel
has a 4:3 aspect ratio and SXGA
resolution (1,280-by-1,024), so
it’s taller but not as wide. Note
that it also has one-third more
pixels, so you can display more
information when using it as a
PC monitor.
As hybrid TV/monitors, all of
the displays share some com-
range and volume; with the addition of a subwoofer, they’d
sound pretty impressive. Most
(except for the Gateway) have
component video connections
for high-quality images. On the
computer side, all have analog
VGA connectors.
All these displays are bright
and sharp enough to work well
as both monitors and televisions. All specify a pixel response time of 25 ms. We observed less smearing of moving
images than with inexpensive
LCD monitors but more than is
Excellent
image quality
and a full
complement
of cables
make the Dell
W1700 LCD
TV a great
value.
monitor, but you get a lot more.
According to Jon Peddie Research, about 21 million PCs are
already equipped to show TV
images on their monitors, and
Microsoft’s push for Windows
XP Media Center Edition is certain to expand that use. Peddie
expects that more than 8 million
PC TV add-in boards will ship in
2003 alone, and monitor makers
are responding to this demand
by putting television functions
into the monitors themselves.
We gathered five of the latest
models for comparison: the
Dell W 1700, the Gateway 17inch LCD TV , the Samsung
172 MP , the Sharp LL - M 17 W 1,
and the ViewSonic N1700w. All
have 17-inch-diagonal panels,
48
mon features. On the television
side, each has a coaxial input for
an antenna or cable connection.
All offer a Picture-in-Picture
(PIP) feature that lets you put a
television or other source image
in a window on your computer
screen, but none let you put a
television image on another
television image (because they
each have only a single tuner).
Each monitor comes with a
remote control that lets you
change channels, control the
volume, and adjust the image
settings. All have built-in speakers, which incidentally are a
whole lot better than the tinny
units you usually get in a computer monitor. For the most part,
the speakers have good tonal
seen on a CRT television. All are
also too small for most livingroom applications; they are best
suited to solo viewing at a desktop or in space-restricted installations such as a kitchen
counter. They are ideal for
workers who need or want to
monitor television information
during the workday and for college students who need to get
multiple use out of their work
and entertainment hardware.
We put the five monitors
through their paces, using both
the DisplayMate utility (www
.displaymate.com) to generate
test images under Windows and
a progressive-scan DVD player
with component and composite
video output. We tested the
video-processing capability of
monitors that accept an interlaced component video signal
using clips from MadOnion.
And we used a coaxial antenna
connection to test over-the-air
broadcast signals; Serendipitously, our test locale was in a
fringe reception area, so the
tuner differences stood out.
In the end, we found some
significant differences among
these displays. But although
none are perfect, some are truly
ready for a starring role on a
desktop near you.
DELL W1700 LCD TV
Dell has embraced the
consumer electronics
market with the release of several new
products recently, including the W1700. Although its
price ($699 direct) is in line with
that of units in this group, Dell
did not cut any corners.
For example, the bundle includes both a D-sub analog VGA
port and a digital DVI-D port for
computer signals. It was the
only model in the group with a
stand that offered tilt, swivel,
and height adjustments. And
there was no skimping on the
cables: The W1700 was the most
complete set of all the units, and
the only one to include the DVI-D
cable. Add $10 or $20 for each
cable you have to buy for some
of the other displays in this
group and the Dell starts to look
like a real bargain.
The W1700 is easy to set up,
even though the panel comes
detached from its base. The
cable cover over the video connections is easy to negotiate,
though the cable connections
for the computer and power are
as bit cramped at the bottom of
the panel. The front has
chrome control buttons with
embossed legends that are a little difficult to see in the silver
bezel. One pair of buttons gives
you direct control of the speaker volume, which is a plus. The
full-size remote control is well-
FIRST LOOKS
designed and easy to use.
Computer images were very
good, with excellent image
quality even at extreme viewing
angles. The panel was weak on
dark gray shades and had some
faint banding in color ramps but
was excellent otherwise. Color
tracking was good, and autosync eliminated all pixel jitter.
The display’s controller includes Faroudja’s DCDI technology, which made for excellent
video processing, including
edge detection and deinterlacing. The broadcast television
reception was very good, and
automatic channel identification did a good job of finding
available stations without including those signals that were
too weak to view.
In sum, price, performance,
and features all add up to make
the Dell a very good choice for a
desktop display for both work
and entertainment.
Dell W1700 LCD TV
Direct price: $699. Dell Inc., 800-9993355, www.dell4me.com/delltvs.
llllm
GATEWAY 17-INCH LCD TV
Gateway led the vanguard as
computer companies moved toward consumer electronics,
posting some impressive hits
and forgettable misses along the
way. The new 17-inch LCD TV is
named for what it is: The display makes a reasonable television but falls short of the mark
as a monitor.
The printed documentation
that comes with the display is
clearly TV-centric. The attractive black-and-silver case tilts
and swivels, and the LCD panel
is covered with a protective
hard-plastic layer that also enhances contrast. A handy headphone jack is located on the
front of the panel.
The display has a D-sub VGA
connector for analog computer
signals and a DVI-D connector
for digital signals; but remarkably, no cables for either are included. You’ll find cables for
composite video and stereo
sound, plus both a coax connector and dipole antenna wire
50
The Gateway entry works well as a TV, but its monitor features
fall short when compared with the other units here.
with a coax adapter for video,
but notably missing are component video connectors. For a display of this cost and quality, this
is a surprising shortcoming.
Also missing is any setup CD.
Windows will identify the unit
as a Plug and Play monitor, but
it does not recognize its native
WXGA resolution. As a result,
you have to run it in XGA mode,
wasting 20 percent of the display space.
The on-screen menu has a
translucent background, and
the remote control is easy to
use. You can adjust the size, position, and source of the PIP
image. The front-panel buttons
include volume and mute. The
lack of an auto-sync button
means you have to dig down
through the menus, but the fea-
ture worked flawlessly.
Image quality was excellent,
with smooth color ramps, good
uniformity, and relatively little
effect from large viewing angles.
The only drawback on the television side was that the tuner
was not as good at pulling in
weak stations as the others.
If you want to run your display off a video cable connection and only occasionally use it
as a computer display, then you
may be satisfied with the Gateway offering. It falls short of the
competition at the same price,
however, and needs to provide
better support for the computer
side of the equation.
Gateway 17-inch LCD TV
Direct price: $699.99. Gateway Inc.,
800-221-9616, www.gateway.com.
llmmm
SAMSUNG 172MP
Samsung has been active in the
combination monitor/TV market as long as any company, and
its latest offering is a stylish,
large display: the only 4:3 aspect
ratio panel of the group. It is a
competent performer, though it
falls short of the Dell and ViewSonic entries on features.
The 172MP takes a little more
assembly than the other displays
we tested. The RF adapter
comes as a separate module that
must be installed in the back of
the panel’s case. And the unit
ships without a DVI-D connector
for digital signals; it comes with
just an analog VGA and a stereo
audio cable.
On the other hand, the buttons on the front panel have
easy-to-read legends. Most of
the connectors also are clearly
labeled. The stand only tilts, but
it does fold up so that the base
can be used as a handle for carrying the display.
Image quality was very good,
though a little weak in dark gray
areas, and the viewing angle
affects the black level noticeably.
Color tracking was excellent; no
pixel defects were apparent;
auto-sync created rock-steady
images; and brightness uniformity was good.
The tuner was excellent at
pulling in weak stations, though
we found it difficult to delete
channels that had been automatically selected. The speakers were fair: They were capable of very loud volume, but
distortion was noticeable even
at moderate levels. One big plus
is that Samsung provides a
three-year parts-and-labor warranty that also covers the display’s backlight.
Without the wide format, the
172MP is not as well suited for
DVD and HDTV use, as are the
others here. But if your need is
primarily for a large computer
monitor that can also put up a
television image in a PIP window, this is a good choice.
Samsung 172MP
The Samsung 172MP performs competently, but it lacks a widescreen aspect ratio, and its speakers can create distortion.
Street price: $700. Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., 800-726-7864, www
.samsungusa.com/monitor. lllmm
FIRST LOOKS
SHARP LL-M17W1
In a world of charcoal-and-silver
displays, the Sharp LL-M17W1 is
a refreshing alternative in its
white case with silver trim. The
monitor has a number of attractive features that are offset by
some weaknesses.
The attractive case includes
a handy handle at the top back
for carrying the unit from room
to room. The front panel is
nearly empty, with only a
power indicator, an IR receiver,
and a headphone jack. The control buttons are located along
the right edge of the case,
which might be awkward for a
left-handed user; the remote
control is an easier way to make
configuration changes. A hard
plastic cover over the LCD
panel protects it from damage,
but it appears to have less
antiglare treatment than most
of the other displays we tested.
Sharp is not overly generous
with the bundled cables: You get
An attractive white-and-silver case makes the Sharp LL-M17W1
stand out on your desktop. It’s a decent performer, too.
just an analog VGA cable, a mini
stereo cable, and a length of coax
for antenna or cable signals. Documentation is above average,
with a 64-page printed manual.
There’s no auto-sync button
(you have to dig through the
menus to activate it), but the feature created a jitter-free image
with the computer signal. Note
that there is only an analog connector and no digital DVI-D con-
nector for the computer. On the
television side, the monitor supports the V-Chip for parental
control of programming.
Image quality was generally
good, with excellent gray-scale
response at both ends of the
spectrum, smooth color ramps,
and great color tracking. But extreme viewing angles do have a
large impact on black levels, and
noticeable shadows can be seen
along the bottom of a full-white
screen. The speakers are very
good, but the tuner was not as
effective on weak signals as
some of the others.
Sharp backs the display with a
three-year warranty that includes the backlight. Overall, the
LL-M17W1 is a respectable entry,
though in the end, the Dell and
ViewSonic models offer even
better value.
Sharp LL-M17W1
Direct price: $719. Sharp Systems
of America, 800-237-4277, www
.sharpsystems.com. lllmm
FIRST LOOKS
VIEWSONIC N1700W
ViewSonic’s entry into
the LCD monitor/LCD
arena, the N1700w, is a
very good product for
the price. Given its
outstanding picture quality and
attractive video features, you
can easily forgive its few flaws.
The N1700w was the only unit
with a separate junction box for
video connections, but this
makes hooking up video devices
much easier, especially on an ad
hoc basis. It also means one
more box on your desktop or
counter, and on our evaluation
unit, the box’s high-density
cable did not latch securely to its
connector on the panel. The
cable covers on the back of the
panel also did not fit well, making reassembly after connecting
cables a bit of a chore. ViewSonic could also be more generous
when bundling cables: You get
only an analog VGA cable and a
mini stereo cable.
The ViewSonic N1700w packs a host of extra features, including picture-on-picture channel surfing and V-Chip support.
The slimline remote control
makes configuration easier than
using the front-panel buttons.
And once set up, the display performed beautifully. Gray-scale response was good at both ends of
the spectrum; color tracking was
good; and there were only faint
bands on the color ramps. No
pixel defects were apparent,
though extreme viewing angles
did have a visible impact on black
levels. Video processing was excellent, especially on deinterlacing and edge detection.
Some other extra features
stand out. The N1700w has PIP,
plus a Picture-on-Picture feature
that shows a three-by-three matrix of television stations. Eight
of these are still images; the
ninth shows a live image of the
currently active station. You
then simply scroll around to select the channel you want to
monitor. This makes channel
surfing with the single tuner
much more effective.
The speakers produce good
sound quality, and a surroundsound option expands their performance. There’s even V-Chip
support for parental control. All
told, The N1700w is a compelling
choice with good image quality
and excellent video features. The
Dell model’s extra cables are a
draw, but if you prefer to see before you buy, you may want to
shop for this ViewSonic.
ViewSonic N1700w
Street price: $700. ViewSonic Corp.,
800-888-8583, www.viewsonic.com.
llllm
“Most companies view instant messaging as the digital
equivalent of making personal calls all day long while trying
to look busy by pounding away on the keyboard.”
B AC KU P B A N N E D
IN YOUR ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE review “Under At-
tack” (November 25, page 122), you recommend Symantec’s Norton AntiVirus 2004 and its components. But
you fail to mention that it is impossible to perform a
proper backup while any of the current Norton 2004
products are installed. Symantec’s technical support suggested uninstalling its products before each backup and reinstalling
them after the backup is completed. The inability to perform backups
is a side effect of Norton’s antipiracy features. Symantec really should
come up with a solution to this problem soon.
DAVID SACHS
I M A T I M E-WA ST E R
IM EVERYWHERE? How about IM nowhere? Do you really think instant messaging can be an effective business tool (November 11,
page 128)? Most companies I work with view IMing as the digital
equivalent of making personal calls all day long while trying to look
busy by pounding away on the keyboard. Not to mention the unwanted portals these services offer into an otherwise secure enterprise. How about an exhaustive article on how businesses can
effectively block instant-messaging and file-sharing services? The
programmers of such services seem to delight in devising new
methods of tunneling through firewalls. In small and midsize businesses, this is a real problem, and it should get some attention from
the leading experts in the small-systems field.
BOB THOMPSON
G AG G I N G G O O G L E
I ENJOYED YOUR GOOGLE TIPS story (October 28, page 68), but I re-
cently encountered a problem with the search engine. I was searching on the term Kazaa Lite, and the results page informed me that several hits had been removed in response to a complaint received under
the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Not that it is too hard to find
Kazaa Lite using Google, or any other search engine for that matter,
but this shows that we can no longer trust our search services to give
us comprehensive and objective hit results.
Is this censorship? Or is Google just trying to protect its revenues?
SIGURD KALLHOVDE
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w w w. p c m a g . c o m /fe e d b a c k
B R I N G B AC K T H E S I N G L E
IN RESPONSE TO MICHAEL J. MILLER’s comments on
digital music piracy (November 11, page 7), I think the
reason peer-to-peer (P2P) services are so popular is
simple: Record companies and music stores abandoned the singles market. People are not logging on to
Kazaa to download entire albums; they are looking for
one or two singles they really like. Most CDs have only three good
songs anyway, with the rest being subpar at best. The recording industry needs to wake up and realize this. Apple iTunes Music Store
and other for-pay download services will succeed if they consistently carry the top 100 songs in their catalogs.
AARON STRONG
L I C E N S E TO C O M P U T E
THE LACK OF FREE AND COMPETENT software support is a long-
standing gripe. My 70-year-old father lives in another state, and I
have tried everything to help him with his computer and programs.
I write out explicit instructions, create batch programs, and even use
remote access. But nothing is foolproof. I can see why software companies gave up trying to deal with nontechnical users over the
phone or e-mail. Providing software support is reasonable, but having to teach simple computer concepts is too great a burden.
I propose a two-tier system for support: To receive free and competent support, you must pass a test of basic computer skills and be
registered in a central database (we’ll leave the details to Microsoft).
The test questions—like “Can you find a file in a directory tree?”—
would be trivial to most PC Magazine readers but challenging to the
computer-illiterate. If you pass the test, you qualify for free support; if
not, you must pay. This incentive should have everyone running to the
library, community center, or Internet to learn basic computer skills.
RICHARD DASHEIFF
Corrections and Amplifications
n In our cover story of November 25 (“The Coolest Home PCs”), we printed an error in
the High-End Consumer Desktops table on page 92. The settings for Anti-aliasing/
Anisotropic filtering under the column head 3DMark03: 1,600 x 1,200 read “4X/4X.”
They should have read “4X/8X.”
n In the same roundup, on page 118, the Toshiba Satellite P25-S607 was listed as having
a DVD(RW drive. In fact, it has a DVD Multi Drive (DVD-RW, DVD-RAM).
n In the Desktop Operating Systems table of our feature “If You Don’t Do Windows”
(November 25, page 141), the entry for Journaling file system under Microsoft Windows
XP Professional should be “NTFS,” not “None.”
n In “IM Everywhere” (November 11, page 128), we stated that Bantu IM & Presence
Platform uses proprietary encryption technology. In fact, it uses standard SSL technology.
n In our First Looks review of the Niveus ONEbox Media Center (October 28, page 50),
we mentioned that the system comes with an X10 universal remote. Although our test
system came with that device, Niveus Media normally supplies ONEbox Media Center
Universal/Learning Remote controllers with its Media Center PCs.
57
w w w. ex t re m e te c h . c o m •
BILL MACHRONE
ExtremeTech
Every Photo Tells a Story
lease fasten your safety belt. This column
is a paean of praise to an almost unheardof product—Microsoft Plus! Photo Story.
It’s one of eight applications in the Microsoft Plus! Digital Media Edition pack
($19.95), and it’s worth the entire price of admission—and then some.
In a nutshell, Photo Story turns digital photographs into professional-looking slide shows. Unlike
every other slide show maker I’ve seen, however,
Photo Story pans across photos and zooms in or out,
much like the effects you’d see in a Ken Burns documentary. Your static photos suddenly come to life
and are imbued with new meaning as you pan across
a bunch of smiling faces to the one glowing in the
light of the candles on the birthday cake, or pull back
to reveal scenic grandeur. Transitions are limited to
a simple dissolve, which works well with the panand-zoom presentation and maintains a certain level
of tasteful dignity. Photo Story allows slide-by-slide
narration or an audio soundtrack.
Microsoft’s developers worked hard on this product to make it foolproof for the most amateur digital
photographer. The default pans and zooms can bring
any collection of pictures to life, but the advanced
settings let you control the start and end points and
duration of each animation.
With these features, you can decide whether to
focus in on a person or object progressively or to pull
back and reveal a larger context. Or you can just
cruise across an image—right to left, left to right, up,
down, or diagonally. After you’re satisfied, Photo
Story burns your show to a VCD or creates a compressed WMV file you can play on any machine with
Windows Media Player 9 Series.
Our church recently celebrated Children’s Sabbath, a nondenominational observation of children’s rights and needs, organized by the Children’s
Defense Fund. My friend Barbara, who designed
our service, asked me to put together a slide show
presentation. She suggested the John Denver song
“I Want to Live,” with its stirring chorus “I want to
live, I want to grow, / I want to see, I want to know”
as a musical accompaniment.
I’d been looking for an opportunity to try Photo
Story, so I quickly agreed. She collected and scanned
photos of kids from the congregation, I took some
P
shots with my digital camera, and other members
e-mailed their pictures to me. I added half a dozen
images from Web sites to round out the presentation and wound up with 50 or so to span the song’s
3 minutes 41 seconds playing time.
I imported the images into Photo Story and
created a couple of blank, black JPEGs for the beginning and end. I found that the default 5 seconds
per image worked well with the music, which I had
converted to MP3 and loaded into Photo Story. In
the song’s bridge, the phrases became shorter, and
I reduced the time between images to match. I
moved pictures around to tie in with the lyrics of
the song, so kids frolicking in front of a whale mural
were on-screen during the lyrics “Have you gazed
out on the ocean, / Seen the breaching of a whale?”
And an image of children tending seedlings dovetailed with “No more hunger....”
The melding of words and music in this way was
very effective, even moving. At the plaintive “For
the maker and the user, / For the mother and her
son,” the image dissolved from some industrious
kids to a young mom in the congregation with her
infant boy, and the congregation responded with a
spontaneous “Awww!”
Photo Story bests professional tools, because it
hides all of the complexity involved in image animation, resizing, resolution, compression, and output. If Photo Story had a timeline, the application
would be just about perfect. I had to print out a
copy of the lyrics, jot down the timings where significant phrases occurred, and then count frames to
see roughly where my pictures would fall. This task
wasn’t difficult, but the process could have been
easier. Microsoft suggests editing Photo Story’s
output in Windows Movie Maker, but Movie Maker
doesn’t pick up every image transition as a scene
change, so its utility is limited. If you try Photo
Story, you’ll want to experiment with different
resolutions and sizes of the same picture.
Whether you accept its defaults or push its limits,
Photo Story will help you make presentations that
will have ’em cheering for more.
Photo Story
pans across
photos and
zooms in or
out, much like
the effects
you’d see in a
Ken Burns
documentary.
Bill Machrone is VP of editorial development for Ziff Davis
Media. Visit his digs at www.extremetech.com. You can
also reach him at [email protected].
61
John C. Dvorak
Torment and Coding
he sadomasochistic nature of programming, in my opinion, means that opensource software will always be better
than commercial software. This is a
whopper of a concept, but something has
to account for the excellent code coming from the
open-source movement. It may seem like an exaggeration, but hear me out on this one.
Recently I started to experiment with the mail
client that comes with the latest version of Mozilla,
an open-source Internet suite. I’m looking for an
alternative to Outlook Express for those of us concerned about the viruses that invariably propagate
through the security flaws in that program. My
main e-mail client has been Eudora, but lately the
spam mess with Eudora has become dreadful. My
rules-based filtering mechanism, Spamnix, does not
stop enough of it. To make matters worse, the spam
comes in with bogus dates, so residual spam is
scattered throughout my in-box. I decided to try
the Mozilla client, which has a built-in hybrid
Bayesian-analysis mechanism that is phenomenal—
but hardly perfect.
So far, every 100 e-mail messages I get include 10
real messages and 90 spams—fairly typical. Mozilla
catches 80 of the 90 spams. I end up with 20 messages, half of which are spam. Going through 20
e-mails, 10 of which are spam, is a lot faster than
plowing through 100 e-mails with 90 of them being
spam. Theoretically, the Mozilla mail client will
slowly move closer to eliminating spam from users’
in-boxes. I should note that I have not looked at
every spam elimination system, and there are plenty. But the best ones are expensive server-side solutions that simply don’t interest me.
While expressing my concerns about various
aspects of the Mozilla e-mail client to its coders, I
noticed how different the exchange was from a discussion I had recently with a commercial software
vendor. My Mozilla contact felt that my suggestions
would help the product and that no matter how critical I was, the end result would be money in his
pocket. How does an open-source developer reach
that kind of thinking and not just mumble, “Why is
this guy dogging me? Can’t he just shut up and use
the product already?” Or, worse, he could just come
out and say, “What do you want for free?”
T
Unless open-source developers receive grants,
they do their work for the love of it. I’m sure they
relish praise for their good work, but how much
criticism can they handle? At least, how much can
they handle before they walk off the project and tell
users to get stuffed? You have to wonder. That said,
critics like myself are also horned by this dilemma:
Can I really lambaste them for something dumb?
No way. These guys have to be encouraged, not discouraged. But am I supposed to be disingenuously
nice? Moi? I’m sure I’m not the only person concerned about this.
Underlying such concerns is exploitation. Do
the open-source folks ever think they are being
exploited? When open-source coders say that it
is not about the money, I believe them. Money is
one thing, raw exploitation is another. Is that ever
a consideration?
No offense, but I’ve always sensed that programmers are masochists by nature. The better the
coder the more masochistic. Think about it: Writing good code is a tormenting, thankless chore.
Many CEOs know how to berate coders to get them
to work harder. Somehow the best coders come
under some delusion that they are in control and
free-spirited because they can work whatever
hours they want. And this looks true when seen
from afar. In fact, most smart organizations quickly learn that the “freedom” usually means programmers working 12 to 16 hours a day, sleeping
under their desks, and staying alert with caffeinelaced soft drinks and starches.
I’m starting to think, therefore, that open-source
has to be the ultimate freedom trip for these folks—
voluntary servitude. If programmers by nature are
psychologically into the scene, then the thankless
badge of honor—the open-source creations—must
be the ultimate thrill for them. Masochism and
sadism are two sides of the same coin, and programmers can be downright scary when the coin is
flipped. It turns out that open-source coders have
some of the meanest critics and bosses imaginable:
each other.
Unless opensource developers receive
grants, they do
their work for
the love of it.
MORE ON THE WEB: Read John C. Dvorak’s column every
Monday at www.pcmag.com/dvorak. You can reach him
directly at [email protected].
63
Inside
Track
JOHN C. DVORAK
he Beginning of the End Dept.:
I’m not sure what this means,
but Microsoft is dumping Intel
and switching processors in its
next-generation Xbox. The
company is going with an IBM design
along the lines of the PowerPC or G5 chip.
IBM has been supplying Nintendo and
Sony and is working on a superchip with
Sony. Apparently, Microsoft wanted to get
in on the action, although most think the
company is simply picking the PowerPC
platform. This means the end of people
turning hacked Xboxes into cheap Linux
computers—something Microsoft detests.
Now we can turn them into cheap Macs,
I guess! Personally, I don’t get this late
change in the game plan at all.
More Microsoft Meanderings Dept.:
Sometime in early 2004, Google is expected to roll out an IPO of its stock, and
everyone is clamoring for some. In the
background there are loose rumors about
Microsoft attempting to buy Google while
at the same time trying to create a Googlelike service on MSN. Evidently when
Microsoft sees anyone else beginning to
make some money, it has to rush into the
same business. With rare exceptions, such
as Expedia, Microsoft has shown no consistent ability to succeed in such endeavors. WebTV is a perfect example of the
company buying or perhaps making
something into a dead end.
This all boils down to core competencies. Microsoft chairman Bill Gates used
to give a rather nice speech years ago
about what the company did to make
money: “We sell code.” The mission was
that simple. And to this day the company
makes most of its money selling code—
or licensing it. Instead of staying with
this strategy, the company has moved
into all sorts of things from keyboards to
major publishing houses to plush talking
animals to Web magazines. Its Web
efforts—including a series of Web magazines that all failed—have been the most
dismal. Then there was Microsoft Side-
T
walk, a product the company could not
sustain even when Sidewalk was forecast
to be a success. One of Microsoft’s problems is that it has no clue about how to
run these businesses and meddles with
people who do know how to run them. It
has a terrible track record with anything
involving advertising. So now it wants to
buy Google.
Apparently, the U.S. government has to
step in if this deal is even proposed. No
offense to Microsoft, but the public has
become so reliant on Google that a disaster would result if Microsoft owned it
and began to fiddle with it. We’d have
nothing to use when the smoke cleared.
Microsoft tends to muck up products it
buys or else sit on them and use them as
cash cows until they deteriorate. FrontPage is an example of the first instance,
and PowerPoint exemplifies the second.
The giveaway regarding Microsoft’s
desire to muck things up is the company’s
orientation with search. It is poised to
spend what I’m told is billions of dollars
to develop a “natural-language” search
engine (in other words, Ask Jeeves II).
This is a typical pie-in-the-sky idea that
sounds good on paper but can never be
made to work. The roundabout proof of
this is found on Google itself under the
title Translate this page. You see the title
crop up when you hit a foreign Web site.
It’s apparent when you get the comical
translation that such systems cannot understand the input in the first place.
Even worse, the problem with naturallanguage searches is that the Web pages
become secondary to the queries.
Microsoft doesn’t understand this concept very well, and it was the bane of
Ask Jeeves. People began to use the engine to get mundane questions answered, not to find Web sites. “How far
is it from Paris to Denver?” “How many
acres in a hectare?” “What causes botulism?” The Jeeves folks actually developed a database of commonly asked
questions and threw answers back at
Evidently
when Microsoft sees anyone else beginning to make
some money,
it has to rush
into the same
business.
users. What does this have to do with
searching the Web for relevant Web
sites or doing research? Nothing.
Genuinely Interesting Hardware Dept.:
I haven’t seriously raved about a laptop
for more than a few years and can completely recommend the new 2.4-pound
Toshiba Portégé R100 as the most spectacular ultralight machine ever built.
With the elegance of the most executive
of machines, this lightweight notebook
includes a full-size keyboard, and if you
add a battery extender you get 5 to 7
hours of battery life, maybe more.
Before this machine came along, I was
enamored with the amazing 2.1-pound
Sharp Actius MM10, which also has a slick
design and includes built-in wireless networking. The kicker is the fact that the
R100 has a real VGA port and doesn’t
need an add-on dongle, as the MM10
does. I’ve already lost my add-on for the
MM10, and now I can’t use the notebook
for PowerPoint presentations on the road.
Once Sharp adds a VGA port to the MM10,
it should be more competitive, since it’s a
lot cheaper than the R100—a steal at less
than $1,500. You’d have to pay closer to
$2,300 for the R100. But if someone asks
me to recommend a computer, I say the
R100—if you can afford it. It’s the most
glamorous machine available right now
and a serious conversation starter. Get
one and show off.
65
B I L L H OWA R D
On Technology
Archiving for the Ages
ondering what to do with all the
photos, 8-mm movies, and financial records you’ve got scattered
about your house or office? How
do you back them up? How do
you convert analog images to digital to stop the aging
process? Can you trust digital backups? Here are a
few approaches.
For the near term, you don’t have to worry about
file formats changing or CDs becoming obsolete, so
just back up everything that’s already digital to CDs
or DVDs. Store one copy off-site, say at your office or
in a safe-deposit box. Also, put the most important
data on a home PC, so you have an easy recovery
method. The biggest immediate dangers to data are
user error and viruses.
For the long term—meaning 5 to 50 years—you
must choose your media and formats carefully.
Microsoft Office formats will still be around, or readily translatable, as will JPEG and TIFF for photos and
PDF for documents. Video formats are in greater
flux, but for now you’ll be fine with MPEG-2 or the
emerging and superior MPEG-4.
Now’s the time to switch to recordable DVD from
CD for backups. Buy a multiformat drive that supports
“plus” and “dash” DVD media, and use only branded
media; the same advice holds true for CDs. Cheap
media can be troublesome. High-quality media will
last a lifetime. That said, a cautious person would copy
onto a new format every ten years; this means your
early-1990s CD-Rs are about due for replacement.
For miscellaneous paper documents, the best way
to archive is with a sheet-feeder scanner. Unless
you’re a real type A, start with the most important
documents, meaning your year-end brokerage statements, your tax records, and a couple examples of
your kids’ drawings and homework from each year.
Scan at 300 dpi and use PDF as the output format.
Why scan when you can get some bills online? Electronic bill presentment is still a joke, unfortunately.
You really want your statements e-mailed automatically in PDF format, but what you get now is just a
monthly reminder to go online, log on, view them,
and manually download the statements.
You can help future generations by culling your
digital photos now. If you can’t cut this year’s 2,500
digital images to 500, then create a 2003 Favorites
W
folder and copy over your favorite 100 photos. A CD
with those 100 photos makes a nice holiday gift for
the in-laws. Make sure to annotate each picture,
either in the filename or in the JPEG file information field: year, place, and people in the picture. Before culling, it’s probably best to make one full
backup, in case you mess up and delete the photos
you meant to save. Have I ever messed up like that?
No comment.
If you have traditional film photos, scan your favorites and have a photo service scan the negatives
of your very favorites. I get asked this question a lot:
“Isn’t there someplace cheap I can get all my negatives scanned?” Nope. In massive quantities, you’d be
lucky to get down to a buck a frame for high-quality
scans. If you really must digitize all your prints, buy
or borrow one of HP’s flatbed scanners with a 4-by6 print feeder, or a Visioneer auto-feeding scanner
such as the Visioneer Strobe XP 450 PDF, and set
aside a weekend. Or invest $1,000 in a film scanner
(not an attachment to a flatbed scanner) that has
automatic dust and scratch removal.
What’s the purpose of digitizing 500 rolls of prints
unless you ID each picture? A better way is to pick
the best half-dozen from each roll. (Tip for your next
vacation: Think about capturing the one perfect picture as the memento you’ll treasure ten years from
now, which means getting yourself in the photo.)
The same goes for videos: There is no cheap commercial video-transfer service for archiving Dad’s
8-mm movies. For videos, copy your analog (VHS,
8-mm, Hi8) footage to DVD in MPEG2 or maybe
MPEG4 format. Don’t bother editing the footage at
the same time or you’ll never finish.
If you want the highest quality, also dupe your analog tapes to new DV tapes. DV currently offers the
best quality and is easier to edit. For PC capture,
you’ll need a video capture card to import analog
video. Some DV camcorders have analog capture:
You can dupe analog tapes directly or use your DV
camcorder as a pass-through (via its FireWire cable)
to your PC. Also consider direct-to-DVD recorders
such as the HP DVD Movie Writer dc3000.
Now’s the time
to switch to
recordable
DVD from CD
for backups.
MORE ON THE WEB: You can contact Bill Howard directly
at [email protected]. For more On Technology
columns, go to www.pcmag.com/howard.
67
w w w. p c m a g . c o m /s o l u t i o n s
15 TopPowerPointTips
Work faster and take your presentations to the next level with
these 15 nifty techniques. BY LINDA BIRD
By now, you’ve been working with Microsoft PowerPoint long enough to create presentations, organize them effectively, and even help others who aren’t
as savvy. But you may not know that PowerPoint has features—many of which
aren’t well documented—that can help you work faster and make cooler presentations. Here are 15 insider tips that can help you use PowerPoint like a pro.
6 HANDY KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS
Sure, you can click the View buttons on
the bottom left of each screen to switch
quickly among Normal, Slide Sorter, and
Slide Show views. But did you know that
you can also pair the View buttons with
keystrokes to get a totally different effect?
For example, press Shift while clicking
on the Normal View button to switch to
Slide Master view; click on the Normal View button (without Shift) to
switch back. Press Shift while clicking
on the Slide Sorter View button to display the Handout Master.
You can also see a mini slide show
in the upper-left-hand corner of the
PowerPoint screen, so you can edit the
presentation and preview the results
simultaneously. To do this, display the
presentation in Normal view and select the first slide you want to see in a
slide show. Press Ctrl while clicking on
the Slide Show button. Click on the
miniature slide show to advance
through it, just as you would if you were
viewing the presentation full-screen.
For more options, try pressing Ctrl-Shift
and then clicking on the various View buttons: Ctrl–Shift–Normal View closes the
tabbed area and the notes pane, expanding
the Slide pane to fill the available space.
Ctrl–Shift–Slide Sorter View changes the
presentation to an outline; Ctrl–Shift–Slide
Show opens the Set Up Show dialog box.
GET ANIMATED
Add pizzazz to your presentation, control
the flow of information, and emphasize
the most critical data by animating slide
objects. Animation involves displaying
objects in a particular sequence or using
the appearance of motion. You can animate whole slides, shows, or virtually any
slide object, including placeholders (text
To animate a slide object, select it and
choose Slide Show | Custom Animation. In
the Custom Animation task pane, click on
the Add Effect button, then point to Entrance to display a submenu of effects. For
more choices, click on More Effects in the
submenu, which opens the Add Entrance
Effect dialog box. Check the Preview Effect
box and then click on various effects to see
how they behave. When you find one you
want, click on OK to close the dialog.
Repeat these steps until all the slide objects you want are animated. As you do,
you’ll notice that numbered tags appear
next to the objects, indicating the animation order. In addition, the objects appear
on an animation list in the Custom Animation task pane. You can change the animation order by selecting an animation
and then clicking on the Re-Order arrows;
you can delete an animation by selecting
it on the list and clicking on Remove.
Check out “Bring Your Charts to Life”
(www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,562438,
00.asp) to learn how to animate Excel
charts in PowerPoint.
CHART A PATH
PowerPoint includes a snazzy animation feature that lets you specify a
route on a slide for an object to travel,
called a motion path. Using a motion
path can add an interesting element to
a presentation. For example, you can
specify a motion path to make an object bounce across the slide or lead
readers’ eyes to critical ideas.
FIGURE 1: You can view your
To get you started, PowerPoint
presentation as a miniature slide
includes a number of configured
show while editing in Normal view.
motion paths. To specify a motion
path, select the object and then
choose Slide Show | Custom Animaboxes), charts, clip art, and drawings. tion. In the Custom Animation task pane,
Keep in mind, however, that animations click on the Add Effect button. Point to
are best used subtlely; too much flash and Motion Paths on the list, and then choose
motion can distract and annoy viewers. a preset motion path, such as Diagonal
To animate a slide or slides, click on Down Right or Up. If you don’t like the six
Slide Show | Animation Schemes. You can motion paths listed on the submenu,
see the way each animation will act on choose More Motions Paths to open the
your slide by checking the AutoPreview Add Motion Path dialog box. Make sure
box and then watching the preview as the Preview Effect box is checked, and
you click on each effect.
then click on various effects to preview
SOLUTIONS
Alaska
California
Hawaii
Oregon Washington
uarters
Secure
criminalintelligence
database
TeamPage
72 Internet: Making sense
of IM shorthand msgs.
73 Security Watch: Avoid
instant-message spam.
Law enforcement agencies
The Internet
74 Enterprise: Crimefighting blogs.
Read-only
76 Internet Professional:
Protect online forms.
79 User to User: Tips
and tricks.
M A K I N G T E C H N O L O G Y W O R K F O R YO U
them on your slide. When you find one
you like, select it and click on OK.
PowerPoint also lets you design motion
paths yourself. To do this, select an object
and then choose an option (such as Scribble) from the Add Effect | Motion Paths |
Draw Custom Path submenu. Drag to
draw the exact path on the slide.
After you add a motion path, a num-
slides from a previous presentation into
your current one. First, display the presentation into which you want to insert
the slides in Slide Sorter view. Click to set
the insertion point where you want the
slides to appear. Choose Insert | Slides
from Files to open the Slide Finder dialog
(Figure 3). On the Find Presentation page,
type the filename (or browse to it) and
then press Enter. Click on the slides
you want, then click on the Insert
button. You can also click on Insert
All to place all the slides into the recipient presentation at once.
Shuffle your templates. The days
when presentations were limited to
one design template
FIGURE 2: Use the Custom
are long gone; you
Animation pane to add emphacan apply as many
sis and action to your slides.
templates to a prebered tag appears next to the
sentation as you like.
object to show its animation order on the You may want to apply a second template
slide (Figure 2). A motion-path arrow in- to introduce a new topic or to grab the
dicates the starting and ending points (in audience’s attention. To do this, display
green and red, respectively). You can fur- the presentation in Normal view, with the
ther modify the effect by selecting the ob- tabbed area visible. On the Slides tab, click
ject on the animation list and choosing op- on the icon of the slide or slides on
tions on the Start, Path, or Speed submenu which you want to apply the tem(in the Custom Animation task pane).
plate. Choose Format | Slide Design
(or click on the Design button) to
ASSORTED TIPS
display the Slide Design task pane.
Add more undos. Every Office user knows Click on a template icon’s dropthat the Edit | Undo command (Ctrl-Z) re- down list arrow and then choose
verses the last action. In addition, clicking Apply to Selected Slides.
on the down arrow next to the Undo icon
Import documents. If the text
often enables you to reverse several you want to use for a presentation
actions and go back to an earlier point in already exists in Word, don’t reyour work. PowerPoint lets you undo up to type it. Instead, simply open the
20 actions by default, but you can increase Word document within Powerthe number of reversible actions all the Point. You may have to tweak the
way up to 150. Choose Tools | Options, and formatting of the imported document,
then click on the Edit tab. In the Undo but this beats starting from scratch. One
field, type in or click up to the number of caveat: This method works best if the
actions (from 3 to 150) that you want original Word document uses outline
PowerPoint to track, then click on OK. headings.
Note that increasing the number of actions
Begin by choosing File | Open in
to track may also increase the amount of PowerPoint. In the Open dialog box, click
PC memory the program uses.
on the Files of type drop-down arrow, and
Recycle your best work. Don’t create then choose All Files on the list. Doubleslides from scratch if the ones you need click on the Word document to open it
(or ones that are very similar) are already within PowerPoint. It will open as a new
in another presentation. Instead, insert presentation.
Use the AutoFit button. If too much
text appears on one slide, you can use the
AutoFit feature to split it between two
slides. Click within the placeholder to
display the AutoFit Options button (its
symbol is two horizontal lines with
arrows above and below), then click on
the button and choose Split Text Between
Two Slides from the submenu.
Export data to Word. You may want to
distribute a text-only copy of your presentation to coworkers or develop audience handouts that include slide miniatures. Sending a presentation to Word is
the best way to do this.
In PowerPoint, choose File | Send To |
Microsoft Word. In the Send To Microsoft
Word dialog box, choose the Word document layout you want to use. For example, you can choose Outline only to create
a text-only document; selecting the Blank
lines next to slides option creates a series
of slide miniatures with lines for notes.
After you select the layout, click on OK to
send the presentation to Word.
Take a few minutes to practice these
FIGURE 3: Save some time by inserting
slides from previously created presentations into a new presentation.
tips and you can make PowerPoint perform more powerfully than ever.
Linda Bird has authored 20 technology books
about Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office,
and the Internet. Visit her Web site at
www.lindabird.com.
71
SOLUTIONS | INTERNET
EZ Interaction
laughing guts out and having a heart
attack) to poking fun at acronyms themselves as in TLA (three-letter acronym),
If UR [you are] SITD [still in the dark] about the odd words
SFLA (stupid four-letter acronym), or YAA
(yet another acronym). Since the computand character combinations in today’s electronic communier industry is rife with crazy acronyms,
most of the lists cross over to the related
cations, you need to GWTP [get with the program]. HTH
technospeak of computer sales and mar[hope this helps]. By Jay Munro
keting people.
Emoticons (emotional icons), those
o say computers have accelerated acronyms have crossed over to verbal little smiley faces made from punctuamany aspects of human existence speech, like LMAO (pronounced “la tion, are equally widespread. The origin
is an understatement, but few mayo”), though for most of the IM crowd of the smiley has been credited to Scott E.
areas are as remarkable as the written that practice is not considered cool.
Fahlman, a research professor in computAcronyms make it easy to inject your er science at Carnegie Mellon University
word. A trend that started with bulletin
board systems (BBSs) and e-mail has personal views into a discussion with (www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~sef/sefSmiley.htm).
snowballed with the advent of instant prefaces such as PMFJI (pardon me for On September 19, 1982, Fahlman and his
messaging (IM) and chat rooms—ways to jumping in), IMHO (in my humble opin- colleagues were discussing how to differget your point across in writing quickly, ion), or FWIW (for what it’s worth). And entiate joke posts from serious ones on
succinctly, and with a modicum of cool.
the university BBS, when he suggestThe wordy, handwritten, sometimes
ed the use of the simCURRENTLY ALL IM clients offer emotielegant “Dear so and so” letters of our
ple :-) as a solution.
con menus, such as this one on MSN.
ancestors have morphed to Yo, wassup!,
With that, the smiley
and LOL in an IM window.
face was born, and the
Mixing slang and acronyms, with some
rest is history. Though Fahlman didtext graphics (called emoticons) thrown in
n’t save the message, a digital archaefor good measure, a new kind of commuological expedition in 2002 retrieved
nication is now used by everyone from
the exact quote and date from the
kids to grandmas. This IMspeak is a real
original VAX backup tape (http://
time-saver for slow, hunt-and-peck typists,
research.microsoft.com/~mbj/smiley/
and it promotes the spontaneity of face-tosmiley.html).
face speech. Perhaps most important, IMFrom that simple smiley face, an
speak can stand in for the visual and tonal you can quickly comment on someone almost infinite variety of emoticons have
emotional cues that humans have devel- else’s thoughts using LCW (loud, confi- sprung. You can now find a smiley to suit
oped over thousands of years of verbal dent, and wrong), AYPI? (and your point any mood, from happy :-) to sad :-( to
communication. Since instant messaging is?), and GOWI (get on with it). You can laughing :-D. You can find a huge list at
is just bare text that’s open to ambiguity also convey your disdain while avoiding www.cknow.com/ckinfo/emoticons.htm, as
and interpretation, adding a simple LOL expletives with TS (tough “stuff”) or BFD well as the sites mentioned above.
(laughing out loud) or :-) to a comment (big “furry” deal).
Recognizing the popularity of emotican mean the difference between a cheerGreetings and farewells tend to mix cons, AOL, MSN, and Yahoo! offer graphiful jibe and fighting words.
slang with acronyms. Yo is very popular cal icons that replace the text versions.
Early BBS and CompuServe Forum with the younger crowd or oldsters trying The old yellow “Have a Nice Day” smiley
users punctuated their messages with a to be hip, but according to several sources, face from the 1970s got a makeover with
simple shorthand to convey how they felt: it can be traced back to around 1420, the dozens of icons to choose from—even ani<g> (grin), <s> (smiling), or <y> (yawning). date of the first usage example in the mated ones—especially on MSN. And you
These simple emotional cues expanded to Oxford English Dictionary. Farewells can don’t even have to remember arcane key
slightly more verbose verbiage such as be a simple Later or the international combinations any more, as all IM clients
<GRIN> (big grin), and <ROTFL> (rolling on Ciao, though TTYL (talk to you later), now offer pop-up smiley menus (though
the floor laughing). With instant messag- CUL8R (see you later), and BFN (bye for Yahoo! includes tantalizing “secret”
ing and chat rooms, the brackets were now) are equally common.
unlisted icons available only through key
dropped for more immediacy. SingleThough most people use only a few combinations, such as a cow 3:-o, pumpkin
character shortcuts, such as Y (why?), U acronyms at a time, there are hundreds (~~), or waving U.S. flag **==).
(you), ? (huh?), or C (see, or cool!), speed documented on various Web sites. Online
Whether you type slowly or want to
and simplify communications, and dictionaries such as www.gaarde.org/ make sure you don’t get punched in the
alphanumeric combinations like GR8 acronyms, www.muller-godschalk.com/ face the next time you see your best friend,
(great), GD&R (grinning, ducking, and emoticon.html, and www.pb.org/emoticon a little IMspeak is a gr8 way 2 expand UR
running), ?4U (question for you) add to the .html take you from AAMOF (as a matter vocabulary. ;-)
possibilities. Variations like LMAO (laugh- of fact) to ZA (zero administration).
ing my ass off) continue to evolve, as do Entries range from complex emotions like Jay Munro is a freelance writer and combinations such as ROTFLMAO. Some COTFLGOHAHA (crawling on the floor consultant.
T
72
w w w. p c m a g . c o m /s e c u r i ty wa tc h
SOLUTIONS
T H E LO O KO U T
MICROSOFT
ISSUES UPDATES
IM Spam, Spam I Am
You don’t have to put up with spam coming at you when you’re
IMing. Here’s what you need to know By Brett Glass
H
easy for spammers to create new accounts,
and the services have to verify abuse to
avoid terminating the account of a legitimate user, so it’s a game of whack-a-mole.
As soon as one spam account is terminated, a spammer pops up elsewhere.
How do you avoid IM spam? Fortunately,
all of the popular IM systems provide some
safeguards. AIM lets you reject all instant
messages from anyone who’s not on your
Buddy List or from anyone who’s sending
the message from the Internet client instead of AIM. (To activate the safeguards,
click on the Setup button at the bottom of
your Buddy List, then click on Set Preferences, then select the tab marked Privacy.)
Perhaps the simplest way to keep spammers at bay, however, is to prevent them
from discovering your handle. A cardinal
rule, as our experiment illustrates, is to
stay out of chat rooms or to visit them
using a separate identity that refuses all
instant messages. (This may
also help you to avoid e-mail
spam.) And of course, never
accept files sent via an IM
system, as they may contain
worms or viruses.
You should also set
restrictive secuIN AIM, you can choose which
rity settings on
incoming messages to reject.
your Internet
browser and install all of the latest security
patches for it. Not long ago,
How do IM spammers do it? They a worm was created that used a flaw in
begin with screen scrapers—programs that Microsoft Internet Explorer to take conextract text from computer displays—to trol of AOL users’ machines, turning them
capture the names of users on IM systems. into unwitting IM spammers. The worm
The spammers then use special software caused infected machines to contact
that typically can inject keystrokes and everyone on the users’ Buddy Lists, telling
mouse clicks into the client software to each “buddy” to visit a booby-trapped
send unsolicited messages to the harvest- Web page (which, in turn, caused their
ed names.
machines to be infected).
Most services, especially AOL’s and
Third-party IM security products, such
Yahoo!’s, terminate IM spammer accounts as Zone Labs’ IMsecure (which comes in
quickly after receiving complaints. But it’s free and paid versions), can also block IM
ottiEKelly248 [10:25 PM]: HeY is
that you ImARealSweetheart?
rEmember me? I’m kelly, we
talked a few nights ago and I just wanted
to get to know you more.
Just last night we created a brand-new
AOL screen name, popped into an AOL
chat room, and boldly sent a single message: Hi.
That’s all it took. Within 30 seconds,
we received the instant message quoted
above. In a few minutes, several more
arrived. And in less than half an hour, the
account was receiving a steady flow of IM
spam.
Though we performed our experiment
on AOL, AIM is by no means the only
system where spam occurs. Any instantmessaging system that has a display listing
active users or is part of a service in which
spammers can learn your “handle” via a
chat room or directory is susceptible.
Microsoft issued its first scheduled
monthly security update in midOctober (www.microsoft.com/technet/
treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/
security/bulletin/winoct03.asp) as part
of its new patch management strategy.
The release contains patches for newly
discovered vulnerabilities in Windows;
four are classified as critical.
• A vulnerability in Authenticode
verification could allow remote code
execution.
• A buffer overflow in the Windows
Troubleshooter ActiveX control could
allow code execution.
• A buffer overrun in the Windows
Messenger Service could allow code
execution.
• A buffer overrun in the Windows Help
and Support Center could lead to a
compromised system.
One vulnerability is deemed to be
important, not critical: A buffer overrun
in the ListBox and ComboBox controls
could allow code execution.
The company is touting the monthly
updates as a way to give enterprises
more time to test and install the patches.
—Dennis Fisher
spam. Companies that want to run spamfree internal IM systems use products
such as Jabber Messenger or IBM Lotus
Instant Messaging. AOL and Microsoft
have also jumped into the fray with
Enterprise AIM Services and MSN Messenger Connect for Enterprises.
Some Windows users who have never
used IM systems are encountering another
scourge of the Internet known as Windows Messenger spam or pop-up spam.
Although the name Windows Messenger
in the title bar suggests that these unwelcome pop-ups might originate from the
Windows Messenger system in Win XP,
they don’t. The pop-ups are created via a
LAN messaging function that’s built into
every copy of Windows. Unfortunately,
Microsoft didn’t secure this feature
against abuse. So to avoid annoying popup messages, use a personal firewall or
have your network administrator block
UDP packets bound for ports 135 and 1026.
Brett Glass is a freelance consultant, author,
and programmer.
73
SOLUTIONS
CASE STUDY
Western States Information Network
Blogging for Business
Crime fighters are turning to Web logs to keep a closer eye on
illegal activity—from narcotics to national security. By Alan Cohen
N
ot long ago, blogging (from Web
log) was about as much a corporate tool as Temptation Island.
Indeed, most uses of blogging software
revolved around ramblings about Temptation Island or where to get the best martini in Manhattan. Increasingly, however,
blogging is finding its way into enterprises.
(See “Take Back the Net” in this issue for
reviews of blogging tools.)
Telecom companies, public relations
firms, and financial institutions are embracing blogs. But one of the most novel—
and important—blog users is the Western
States Information Network (WSIN), a
federally funded agency that collects,
analyzes, and shares crime information.
Based in Sacramento, California, WSIN
was founded in 1981 as one of six regional
centers that provide a knowledge-sharing
link between the federal government and
local law enforcement agencies. WSIN
serves approximately 1,100 law enforcement organizations in Alaska, California,
Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington, ensuring that local crime-fighters have easy
access to current data and analysis
WSIN maintains a criminal-intelligence
database and has a pool of analysts who
collect and make sense of incoming information. Much of its work relates to narcotics crime, but it also tracks organized
crime and national security matters.
Just a year ago, communications within
WSIN and between it and member agencies was conducted via e-mail. Information was also shared over a secure
intranet. Both methods had disadvantages.
“People would receive duplicate e-mail
messages,” says Karen Aumond, assistant
director of WSIN. “You’d have to remember to save them or they’d be purged. And
it was not accessible on the road.”
The system also used resources inefficiently, with some messages stored on
seven different systems. Posting directly
to WSIN’s intranet was, in theory, a better
74
way to share knowledge, but anything
posted online had to go through a Webmaster first, which took time.
In December 2002, Aumond attended
a homeland security conference, where
she discovered Traction Software’s TeamPage Enterprise Weblog software. Immediately, she saw how blogging technology
could help WSIN in its mission.
Within a few months, the system was
installed and proving its value. “Instead
of e-mailing separate individuals,” says
Aumond, “we simply publish the information, whether it’s drug arrest news or
new Drug Enforcement Administration
bulletins, in a single, searchable location.”
Traction’s solution was also easy to
secure. Since the data is project based,
WSIN can specify that only certain people
can read or write to any project area. The
software also sends managers executive
summaries of the information that is
added to Traction’s Web-based repository, allowing them to keep a close eye on
updates and any potentially important
data coming online.
The blogging software doesn’t require
an extensive infrastructure. WSIN already had a Compaq server in place, and
the software was set up in one day. Traction’s system consists of a standalone
Java Web server. A secure database back
end is linked to Traction’s Instant Publisher application, which lets users collect and post content from e-mail, the
Web (including text, links, and photos),
and Microsoft Office documents.
“Anyone on staff can just see something on the Net, pull it off, and post it
immediately, so content is much more
current than it was before,” Aumond says.
WSIN’s 40-person staff can also comment
on postings on a project-by-project basis,
depending on each staff member’s security clearance. They can add analysis to
the published information, the relevance
of a news item, or an investigation update,
as well as link related documents.
Representatives from the 1,100 local
law enforcement agencies have read-only
rights. “It’s proving to be a great, timely
way to distribute information,” Aumond
says. So much so that five sister agencies
are now trying out the technology.
Although WSIN is still in an exploration stage with blogging, it is already
looking at future uses, including a searchable repository for the agency’s written
reports. Down the road, it may expand
the system to PDAs. For agents in the
field, mobile blogs won’t just save time
and effort—they may save lives.
Anticrime Ring
Blogs maintained by analysts at the Western States Information Network (WSIN) give local
law enforcement organizations easy access to the most current data and analysis on narcotics,
organized crime, and national-security matters. Rather than sending separate e-mails to
individuals, analysts publish the information on a blog.
Alaska
California
Hawaii
Oregon Washington
WSIN Headquarters
Traction
Instant
Publisher
Secure
criminalintelligence
database
Law enforcement agencies
TeamPage
Enterprise
Weblog
40-person staff
The Internet
Photos, DEA bulletins,
arrest news, and more
Read-only
access
SOLUTIONS
end up looking like this:
Protect Your Online Forms
<p<\>><img src="/make_
image?12345"<\>>
You can thwart automated filling-in of forms on your site. Here’s
<form action="/match_word"
method="post"<\>>
how. By John Clyman
<input type="hidden" name="code"
value="12345"<\>>
M
ass e-mailer Alan Ralsky made
the mistake in November 2002
of trumpeting his tales of
spamming success to a reporter for the Detroit Free Press. Internet users struck back,
flooding Mr. Ralsky’s postal mailbox with
catalogs and other physical junk mail—no
doubt chuckling when the target of their
snail-mail attack carped about the resulting nuisance.
This episode offers a chilling lesson for
Web developers: Your Web forms are vulnerable to abuse. If you have an online
catalog-request form, just imagine how a
script that submits thousands of bogus
requests could ratchet up your printing and
mailing costs. Or if you require registration, consider that a malicious user could
create a bevy of sham accounts for nefarious purposes. So what can you do to keep
hackers from counterfeiting requests?
You need to look only as far as the registration forms on sites like eBay or Hotmail to see one countermeasure, a technique that’s known as a reverse Turing test
or a CAPTCHA (Completely Automated
Public Turing test to tell Computers and
Humans Apart). A reverse Turing test
gates registration upon a task that’s relatively easy for people but daunting for
automated systems; often that task is to
read and input a series of letters that have
been deformed or obscured in ways that
challenge OCR (optical character recognition) systems but remain intelligible to
most human users. (See “CAPTCHA-ing
the Spammer,” www.pcmag.com/article2/
0,4149,1321986,00.asp.)
Here’s how you can implement a simple CAPTCHA system of your own. You’ll
need to write a routine as the centerpiece
of your system, one that accepts a CGI or
session parameter (the key) that’s unique
to each visitor, uses a key to seed a random-number generator, and then picks a
random “target” word for each user to
guess. Then you’ll need two more things:
76
<p<\>>What word is hidden in this
image?
a program to turn the target text into an
image and obscure it somehow and a simple Web form and response script, which
will ask for and then verify a user’s interpretation of the image.
For creating and manipulating the
image at your site, we recommend ImageMagick (www.imagemagick.com), a highly
flexible set of open-source libraries that
provides APIs for C, Perl, Java, PHP, Visual
Basic, and a variety of other languages.
Using your favorite language, write a
<input type="text" name="captcha"
<\>>
<input type="submit" value=
"submit"<\>>
</form<\>>
(where 12345 is the randomly generated key). The <img<\>> tag loads the
dynamically generated CAPTCHA
image for the specific key, and the
hidden input field sends the key back
to the server so it can determine
which CAPTCHA image was included
when the page was displayed. Alternatively, if you’re using a sessionmanagement system, you could store
the key as part of each user’s session
information rather than embedding it
in the form.
Finally, modify your form validation
logic to determine the target text for the
submitted key and
compare it against the
RECOGNIZING THE WORDS in this
image is beyond the capabilities of most text that each user
automated systems.
program that
enters. If the two don’t
• accepts the key
match, reject the subvia a CGI or session parameter;
mission and prompt the user to try again.
• generates the corresponding target
This basic CAPTCHA implementation
suffers from a serious flaw: An attacker
text;
• calls ImageMagick to create an image could simply solve a single CAPTCHA,
containing the target text and any obfus- create a knockoff of your form using the
same key and known target text, and subcation you desire;
mit that form repeatedly. To avoid this,
• returns the resulting image.
Publish this script on your Web server modify your random key selection so that
so you can run it directly from a URL. For the same key is never used twice and so
example, point your browser to two URLs that used keys are recorded and subselike these: www.mysite.com/make_image? quent attempts to register with the same
12345 and www.mysite.com/make_image? key are rejected.
12346 and load two different CAPTCHA
Keep in mind that even the best
images into your browser window.
reverse Turing test is unlikely to be a
Then you’ll need to modify your order panacea. Still, it’s comforting to know
or registration page to generate it that you can sometimes apply technoldynamically, including a randomly ogy to combat the technology that might
selected key. This key serves to request be maliciously applied to consume your
a specific CAPTCHA image and to let the business resources.
form-response logic compare the submitted response with the expected John Clyman is a technology consultant and
response. Your form HTML will likely PC Magazine contributing editor.
SOLUTIONS
w w w. p c m a g . c o m /u s e r to u s e r
PC MAGAZINE’S COMMUNITY OF
EXPERTS AND READERS
Windows Explorer Displays
System32 Folder at Start-Up
I recently installed a Webcam and Yahoo!
Messenger on my Windows XP laptop. I
don’t know whether my problem is related
to the new additions, but when I start up
now, the C:\WINNT\System32 folder opens
automatically. How do I fix this behavior?
BILL DORION
The Ultimate Sum
Formula in Excel
It takes a cell or range reference expressed
as text and converts that reference into an
actual reference that can be used by another
function. Finally, the SUM function sums the
reference returned by INDIRECT.
We suggested a somewhat different
function, using INDIRECT but not ADDRESS:
Many times in Excel, I want to sum all the
cells above a certain point. For example, in
cells A1 to A3 I have three numbers, so I
click on cell A4 and type Alt-=, which automatically inserts =SUM(A1:A3). The prob=SUM(INDIRECT("R1C"&COLUMN()&":R"&
lem occurs when I want to add a new row. If
(ROW()-1)&"C"&COLUMN(),FALSE)). This
I insert a row before row 4, the formula
does not change to include the new
function builds a reference in the R1C1 style
row until I enter a number in that cell.
(for example, R1C3:R9C3) and passes it to
As a workaround, I sometimes leave
INDIRECT. The FALSE argument tells INDIa blank row above the row containing
RECT that the reference is not in A1 style but
the SUM formula and include that
in R1C1 style. The reader pointed out that this
blank row in the formula. For examsolution is language-specific. It did not work
ple, I will leave row 4 blank and type
in his Dutch version of Excel, because there
CHECK THE
=SUM(A1:A4) in row 5. Now when I
the reference is of the form R1K1. The soluREGISTRY for missinsert a new row above the blank
tion using ADDRESS is language-independent.
ing or corrupted
row, the formula immediately
We should note that Excel 2003 has a new
start-up data.
changes to include it.
Lists feature that is designed specifically to
What I really want is a formula to
address the above problem. To use it, put the
sum all values above the cell concursor anywhere in your list, even the Totals
taining the formula. After many attempts,
row, and press Ctrl-L (or go to Data | Lists |
This problem is fairly common in Windows
I came up with this:
Create List). The feature gives you an extra
NT 4.0, 2000, and XP. It’s caused by an
row to add more values to the list, updates
erroneous entry in one of the Registry keys
=SUM(INDIRECT(ADDRESS(1,COLUMN(),4)
the SUM formula dynamically, and removes
that control programs launched at start-up.
& ":" & ADDRESS(ROW()1,COLUMN(),4))).
No matter where this formula is placed,
The two keys in question are HKEY_
the extra row when you click outside
it always calculates the sum of all cells
CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\
the list.—NJR
Windows\CurrentVersion\Run and
above it. There is only one small disadvantage: If you edit a cell containing a simple
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft
Right-Justify Part of a Line
formula like =SUM(A1:A3), Excel will high\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run.
How do I right-justify part of a line in
light the range being summed. With this
Microsoft Word? In a certain section of a
Each named value within these two keys
more complex formula, Excel can’t do that.
document, I want to list items at the left
represents a program launched at start-up;
JOHAN PARLEVLIET margin and issue dates on the same line at
each value’s data holds the command to be
the right margin. In WordPerfect, there is a
executed. If the command is blank or confunction that automatically sets the cursor
tains just a character in double quotation
You can do an awful lot of spreadsheet
to stay at the right margin, thus assuring
marks, this missing data can cause Windows
design without running into the INDIRECT
Explorer to display the System32 folder at
and ADDRESS functions. ADDRESS takes a row
start-up.
number and column number and returns the
To fix the problem launch REGEDIT from
corresponding cell reference as text. Its third
the Start menu’s Run dialog and navigate to
argument determines whether the row and
one of the keys mentioned above. Select
column references are absolute or relative. In
Export from the Registry menu and export
the formula above, the value of 4 for the
the key to a REG file, so you can undo any
third argument selects relative
deletions if necessary. Look carefully at each
references for both rows and
BY PLACING
value in the right-hand pane. If the value’s
columns. ADDRESS(1,COLUMN(),4)
a right-aligned tab
data is blank, contains only single quotation
in column 1 returns A1.
at the right margin,
marks, or otherwise appears to be corrupted,
ADDRESS(ROW()-1,COLUMN(),4)
you can rightdelete the value. Repeat the process for the
returns a text string representing
justify any text
other key, then restart your system to verify
the cell immediately above the cell
after the first tab
that the problem Explorer window does not
containing the formula. The INDIcharacter.
appear at start-up.—Neil J. Rubenking
RECT formula goes the other way:
You can do a lot of spreadsheet design without running
into the INDIRECT and ADDRESS functions.
79
SOLUTIONS
A Google search shows that older, beloved fonts are
available (but not necessarily for free) at various sites.
that the text was aligned at the right margin. Is there an equivalent option in Word?
CAT MARA
If the ruler isn’t visible at the top of the
typing area, select Ruler from the View
menu. Create a tab stop by clicking on
Format | Tabs. In the Tab stop position field,
enter the inch number on the ruler (6,
for example) where the right margin
begins. Check the Alignment option
titled Right, select a Leader character if
you wish, and click on OK. This will
result in the effect you want.
On each line, type the item name,
press the Tab key, then type the issue
date. All the dates will line up at the
right margin. If you’re applying this
formatting to text that’s already
typed, select all the text before you
set the tab.—NJR
Finding the First Thursday
week for that date. Knowing the day of the
week for the first of the month, you can
calculate the date of the first Thursday. The
day-number for Thursday is 5, but you can’t
just subtract the day-number for the first of
the month from 5. (That would yield a
negative number if the first fell on a Friday
or Saturday). Instead, subtract from Thurs-
On that system, launch Windows Explorer
and navigate to the Fonts folder (usually
C:\Windows\Fonts). Nearly all the files in
this folder will have the .ttf (TrueType
Font) extension, but the filenames don’t
necessarily reflect the font name. You can
double-click on a TTF file to see its full font
name and some sample text or use Explorer’s Find feature to search for files containing the font name.
In many cases, a font is stored in multiple
TTF files. For example, Times New Roman is
represented by Times.ttf, Timesbd.ttf,
Timesbi.ttf, and Timesi.ttf. These files
contain the basic font plus the bold, italic,
and bold-italic variations.
Once you’ve identified the files that hold
the desired fonts, copy them to a floppy disk
or use some other means to transfer them
to your Windows XP system. Leave the font
files on the floppy disk or copy them to a
temporary location on the Windows XP
machine’s hard drive. Launch Fonts from the
Control Panel of the Windows XP machine.
Select Install New Font from the File menu.
Select the floppy disk or folder containing
your font files, make sure the Copy fonts to
Fonts folder box is checked, and click on OK.
This should restore your favorite fonts on
the new machine.
If you can’t find a Windows 98 system, a
Google search shows that these fonts are
available (but not necessarily for free) from
sites such as www.fonts.com and www.
Is it possible, knowing the months
and years, to determine the dates of
THE FORMULA above lets you figure out the
certain Thursdays using Excel?
date of the first Thursday of any month.
Specifically, I’d like to know the first
or third Thursdays, based on other
day plus a week (12) and pass the result to
cells.
JARHTMD (PCMAG.COM FORUM MEMBER) the MOD function. The MOD function returns
the remainder resulting from dividing its
We’ll concentrate on finding the date of the
first argument by its second, so the result
first Thursday; you can add 7, 14, or 21 to the
will always be from 0 to 6. Adding this
results to get the second, third, or fourth
number of days to the first day of the
Thursday. Let’s suppose the month (a nummonth yields the date for the
ber from 1 to 12) is stored in cell A2 and the
first Thursday. Of course, you can
year is in B2. This formula will yield the date
easily modify this function to find
of the first Thursday: =DATE(B2,A2,1)+MOD
the first Monday or another day
(12-WEEKDAY(DATE(B2,A2,1)),7). We’ll
of the week.—NJR
break it down to show why it works.
The formula DATE(B2,A2,1), which
Recover Favorite Fonts
appears twice in the formula above, returns
I recently upgraded to Microsoft
the date of the first day of the specified
Office XP. I see that some of my
month. Passing that result to the WEEKDAY
favorite fonts that I had in Winfunction returns a number from 1 (Sunday)
dows 98 have been eliminated,
to 7 (Saturday) representing the day of the
including Edwardian Script, Old
English Text, and Kunstler
Script. Is there any way to get
HOW TO CONTACT US
these fonts back?
E-MAIL K [email protected]
STAN WALLET
FAX K 212-503-5799
USE THE FONTS APPLET in the Control Panel to
MAIL K User to User, PC Magazine, 28 East
install new fonts on your Windows XP machine.
Start by locating a system that
28th St., New York, NY 10016-7940
has the desired fonts. (The page
If we print your tip, you’ll receive a PC
fonts-free.com. Download the files and
at www.microsoft.com/typography
Magazine T-shirt. We regret that we
install them following the instructions
/fonts/default.asp
may
help
you
figure
out
cannot answer letters individually.
above.—NJR
which systems have the fonts you want.)
80
COVER STORY
After 20 years, we are still amazed by the sheer number of
remarkable, innovative products that reach us.
I N T H I S STO RY
System Software N 92
Collaboration Software N 92
84 N Personal Computers
85 N Mobile Devices
Communication Software N 94
86 N Components
Development Tools N 95
87 N Storage Devices
Protocols N 95
88 N Digital Input Devices
Person of the Year N 96
89 N Digital Output Devices
Lifetime Achievement N 97
The
20th Annual
Awards for Technical Excellence
FROM THE EDITORS OF PC MAGAZINE
TWO DECADES HAVE ELAPSED SINCE PC MAGAZINE FIRST
presented its Awards for Technical Excellence. Then as now, we recognized
the products and technologies that moved the state of the art forward, those
that broke new ground. • Progress has continued unabated over the intervening years, and if anything, the rate of innovation is actually increasing. 2003 has been
a year of steady recovery, regained confidence, and renewed optimism, and nowhere is
this better reflected than in our finalists and winners. These are the products and technologies that will earn their way into the hearts of consumers and corporations—the ones that harness the freshest ideas, the boldest designs, and the newest innovations. • To be eligible for the
awards, the products had to ship or be generally available during the period from September 2002 to
September 2003. Our labs staff and editors nominated the products, protocols, and people they thought
had the most impact on the industry, after which we deliberated, winnowed, and voted. When the smoke
cleared, we had 36 products in 11 categories, plus awards for lifetime achievement and for our Person of the Year.
• As we move into our third decade of Technical Excellence, we can hardly wait to see what’s in store.
83
WINNER
M
Apple Power Mac G5
Graphic artists and content creators are
rejoicing over the Apple Power Mac G5. In a dazzling display of disruptive technology and processor independence, Apple’s top-of-the
line G5 is the first dual–64-bit computer and the first desktop application of the IBM PowerPC 970 CPU. The vast majority of Macintosh
apps run flawlessly on this brand-new platform.
The three PCI-X slots ensure fast I/O; the AGP 8X Pro graphics bus,
FireWire 800 bus, and USB 2.0 bus are equally state of the art. Apple
has also done a superb job of heat management, having divided the
case into four thermal zones, each with low-speed fans appropriate to
the load. The result is a commendably quiet machine.
The G5 performed significantly better than any previous Mac—and
equaled or bettered the performance of Intel-platform machines—on
our all-important graphics and content creation tests. As a 64-bit
operating system and applications emerge, users will enjoy the dual
1-GHz front-side buses and rapid access to up to 8 gigabytes of RAM. The
G5 is an important step forward in desktop computer technology and a
vital cornerstone of Apple’s future. (Apple Computer Inc., www.apple.com.)
Personal
Computers
Finalist N Toshiba Portégé 3500
84
Finalist N Hy-Tek Tek Panel 300
Imagine a 30-inch flat-panel monitor that contains a hot Pentium 4 computer, a Bose multimedia sound system, and highperformance ATI graphics. That’s the short list of the Hy-Tek
Tek Panel 300’s attributes. This innovative system packs in the
convergence features, which make it equally at home in offices
and family rooms. As resolution continues to increase and panel
costs come down, we predict that the Tek Panel 300 will have
many imitators in the not-too-distant future. (Hy-Tek Manufacturing Co. Inc., www.tekpanel.com.)
When you’re judging tablet devices, convenience is everything.
Of the many tablets we’ve evaluated, none has proved more
adaptable than the Toshiba Portégé 3500. It’s not the lightest
tablet, but it’s the one we’re most likely to reach for. It’s equally
adaptable as a laptop or tablet, and lefties and righties are equally comfortable with it.
The built-in SD slot, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth complement the
usual laptop I/O ports, and the 3500 combines
speedy performance with very
good battery life. Toshiba also
got the display size target
right with its 12-inch–
diagonal screen. We’re especially impressed with aspects of
the mechanical design. The
screen hinge alone is technically
excellent, providing superb rigidity
and complete flexibility without
extra locking or support mechanisms. Toshiba has maintained
excellent keyboard feel and other
ergonomics while maintaining a
low system profile and light
weight. (Toshiba America
Inc., www.toshiba.com.)
T EC H N I CA L E XC E L L E N C E AWA R DS
Finalist N Nokia 6800
If you text/SMS, this is your phone. Nokia’s way-cool, flip-open design is
the perfect melding of form and function. Closed, it’s a normal phone.
Open, it’s a QWERTY keyboard on both sides of a horizontal screen, just
waiting for your thumbs to start blasting out messages. And of course, the
screen reorients itself automatically from vertical to horizontal operation.
(Nokia, www.nokia.com.)
Finalist N
Sony Ericsson P800
Consumer electronics and communications giants Sony and Ericsson formed a partnership to play to their strengths. One of the first
fruits of this union is the Sony Ericsson P800, which
starts life as a tri-mode phone, then goes for the cool
factor with a built-in PDA and a VGA-resolution camera. The geek factor is satisfied with its Symbian OS
and Opera browser. (Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB, www.sonyericsson.com.)
Finalist N Samsung SPH-i500
Samsung’s latest CDMA, tri-mode, do-it-all device
hinges on—the hinge. Above, you have a generous,
bright, colorful screen; below, the keypad and
Palm OS input area, both backlit. Splitting the
screen from the entry functions buys more real
estate—and ease of use—for both.
This striking phone is a listener as well as a looker, thanks
to its voice recorder. Samsung is
also watching out for your data: A
backup battery preserves the Palm
content. (Samsung Electronics Corp.,
www.samsung.com.)
Mobile Devices
WINNER
M
Handspring Treo 600
“Faster, smaller, lighter”: It’s practically a mantra for technical excellence, and Handspring makes another trip to the winners’ circle with the
latest Treo. Not only is the Handspring Treo 600 sleeker than its predecessors, its
QWERTY keyboard, SD slot, no-flip design, Palm OS, and speakerphone strike the right
balance between familiarity and cutting-edge features. The built-in VGA camera is
the latest gotta-have-it feature in the Treo 600, and the little stunner is available
on both GSM/GPRS and CDMA networks. This model is a tour de force. (Handspring, www.handspring.com.)
85
M
AMD Opteron and Athlon 64
We tested the first 64-bit
AMD Opteron processor in April 2003, and were we impressed!
It screamed on our server application performance tests. Six
months later, the Athlon 64 arrived, and again we were amazed
by the processor’s stellar performance in
off-the-shelf 32-bit gaming, content
creation, and business applications. AMD,
recognizing that 32-bit applications
will be with us for many years to
come, has optimized its 64-bit chips
to run them fast.
Server and workstation applications benefit from the large memory
address space that 64-bit processors
provide, besides the ability to calculate or move data around in 64-bit
chunks. Future gaming, content creation, speech recognition, and other
processor-intensive desktop applications will benefit from 64bit processing. AMD64 CPUs let developers easily port applications to 64 bits, and users can run both 64-bit and 32-bit applications natively on the same systems—a big win. The Opteron
and Athlon 64 chips share similar architectural underpinnings, differentiated by the
number and type of HyperTransport links,
the clock speeds, the memory
speeds and channels, and the chip
pinouts. Both types are based on a
0.13-micron silicon-on-insulator (SOI)
manufacturing process, and both
include on-board memory controllers
to reduce memory access latency.
AMD is making widespread 64-bit
x86 computing available ahead of the
competition. (Advanced Micro
Devices Inc., www.amd.com.)
WINNER
Components
Finalist N Broadcom AirForce OneChip BCM4317
Finalist N IBM PowerPC 970
No, this is not a stealth military wireless device but the first sortie into single-chip 802.11b solutions. The AirForce OneChip lets
cell phones, PDAs, digital cameras, MP3 players, and other
portable electronic devices include WLAN features at a modest increase in size and cost while reducing
power consumption. Measuring only 14.8 by
26.5 mm—about the size of a postage stamp—
this all-CMOS, single-chip wireless LAN transceiver eliminates more than 100 discrete components; thus it can be up to 87 percent smaller than
a mini-PCI Wi-Fi solution.
The AirForce OneChip integrates a radio, an
802.11b baseband processor, a media-access
controller, transmit/receive and diversity
switches, a power amplifier, and other components. With a highly
efficient standby mode, it scores a 70 to 97 percent reduction in
power consumption compared with competing Wi-Fi solutions.
With the AirForce OneChip, pervasive wireless connectivity
moves closer to reality. (Broadcom Corp., www.broadcom.com.)
This advanced single-core 64-bit
processor is derived from the dualcore IBM Power4 chip. The 58million–transistor, five-way
superscalar and superpipelined chip has eight levels
of copper interconnect; it runs at up to 2 GHz, and its
front-side bus has a 1-GHz data rate. It can dispatch up to
5 in-order instructions and 10 out-of-order instructions per
cycle, support up to 215 in-flight instructions, and retire up to 5
instructions per cycle.
Cache coherency logic is built-in for dual-processor systems.
Advanced branch prediction logic and dual load/store, floatingpoint, and fixed-point units, plus an optimized 128-bit AltiVec
Velocity Engine, 64-bit data paths and registers, 42-bit physical
addressing, and 64-bit virtual addressing, provide enormous
power. Apple was impressed enough to switch from the stalled
Motorola PowerPC line to the PowerPC 970, which it dubbed G5.
Overall, the PowerPC 970 is a knockout, a significant player
in the 64-bit future. (IBM Corp., www.ibm.com.)
Finalist N Intel Pentium M
The Intel Centrino mobile-platform architecture is powered by
the Intel Pentium M processor. Compared with other mobile
CPUs, the chip lowers power consumption while improving
performance at a given clock speed. The result is
longer battery life (often more than 5 hours)
or smaller, lighter notebooks.
The Pentium M clocks in at up to 1.7 GHz, is
built with 0.13-micron technology, uses copper interconnects, and includes a 32K L1 instruction cache, a 32K
86
L1 write-back data cache, a 1MB L2 cache, and a 400-MHz system
bus. Combining a modified Pentium III core and a Pentium 4 system bus, the Pentium M has fast I/O and decreased branch misprediction delay. Power management features include deepsleep modes, enhanced SpeedStep technology, a low-power
system bus, and fine-grain clock gating to turn
off inactive portions of the chip.
With all of its enhancements, the Pentium M is
a significant advance in mobile-processor technology.
(Intel Corp., www.intel.com.)
Finalist N IBM Active Protection System drives
A drive using the IBM Active Protection System houses a motion sensor
that continuously monitors your laptop for thumps and bumps that could
damage the hard drive. A jolt temporarily stops the drive, parking the heads and
preventing catastrophic or cumulative damage. The system is smart enough to recognize repetitive motion, as in a car or train, and adjusts its sensitivity to keep your
drive running. The Active Protection System is user-configurable, too, so you can tune
your system for maximum safety or maximum throughput. (IBM Corp., www.ibm.com.)
Storage Devices
Finalist N Sony DRU-500A Dual Format DVD Recorder
Instead of waiting for a negotiated peace, the Sony DRU-500A drive extends
the olive branch to all popular formats, most notably DVD+R and DVD-R,
in addition to DVD+RW and DVD-RW; it also handles CD-R
and CD-RW. We were pleased to see Sony—normally one
of the most iconoclastic companies—create a drive that
sidesteps the partisan standards war that has hurt the
acceptance of recordable DVDs. Not only does the
Sony drive write to all the popular formats, it does so
quickly and at a reasonable cost for the added complexity.
(Sony Electronics Inc., www.storagebysony.com.)
MORE ON THE WEB:
For more on this year’s winners of our Awards for
Technical Excellence, visit us online at www.pcmag.com.
PHOTOGRAPH (TOP RIGHT) BY THOM O’CONNOR
WINNER
M
Cornice Storage Element
Everything needs more storage: music players, digital cameras, and even PDAs. Micro hard
drives are not uncommon, but they’re pointless if they cost as
much as a player or camera—or more. The Cornice Storage Element is a 1-inch drive that holds 1.5GB and fits in a CompactFlash
slot or inside a small music player the size of a sports watch. The
technical innovation here is the relentless paring of both electronic
and mechanical parts, which gets the price down to $50 or less,
a quarter of the cost of a competing drive. The Cornice Storage
Element will create new kinds of products in new price categories.
(Cornice Inc., www.corniceco.com.)
87
WINNER
M
Foveon X3 5M CMOS Direct Image Sensor
When you’re seeking technology innovations, it never hurts to look to nature for a little inspiration. Foveon’s groundbreaking sensor for digital cameras does just that, operating much like the colorsensing cells in our eyes, in which every cone cell senses every color. The X3
Image Sensor does just the same thing, using a multilayer CMOS chip that
responds to the wavelength as well as the intensity of light. The result is a
threefold increase in apparent resolution, with more accurate definition of color
boundaries, since every pixel helps define the edges of every color instead of interpolating, as with conventional CMOS and CCD devices. Although the X3 Image Sensor is targeted at professional photographers, we expect its effects to be felt in many
areas of color image sensing. (Foveon Inc., www.foveon.com.)
Digital Input
Devices
Finalist N Fujifilm fourthgeneration 6-megapixel CCD
This innovative design uses a larger
primary element and a smaller secondary
element at each pixel position to increase
highlight detail. The large and small elements have different effective speeds, or light
sensitivity, and are read on separate clock signals. The difference in saturation between the
large and small cells helps the camera discern
subtleties in areas of extreme darkness or brightness. The improvement in contrast and brightness range is readily apparent. (Fuji Photo Film U.S.A. Inc., www.fujifilm.com.)
Finalist N Sony four-color CCD
All conventional image sensors use red, blue, and green cells to
discern a full-color image, and there are twice as many green
sensors as red or blue, because the human eye
is most sensitive to green; this design yields the
best resolution of edges. In the new Sony four-color
CCD, RGB becomes RGBE, and the E is for emerald, or
light green, where the eye is even more sensitive. By repurposing half of the green pixels to a different part of the
spectrum, Sony gains better resolution and higher color
fidelity. (Sony Electronics Inc., www.sony.com.)
This 14-megapixel single-lens reflex digital camera has the highest resolution of any professional camera, and its CMOS sensor
covers the same area as 35-mm film. That feature is vital for
pros, who want their lenses to work the same way for digital or conventional images. The Kodak
DCS Pro 14n also has variable resolution,
and upgradable firmware, and it works with
standard F-mount lenses. The camera’s large
memory holds up to 20 full-resolution photos in
the field and communicates via FireWire in the
studio. (Eastman Kodak Co., www.kodak.com.)
88
PHOTOGRAPHY (BOTTOM) BY LES FREED
Finalist N Kodak DCS Pro 14n
Finalist N Universal VersaLaser
It looks like an oversize printer, but inside the Universal VersaLaser lurks a 25-watt
CO2 laser, which can cut, engrave, etch, or score wood, plastic, paper, rubber, cardboard, and more. Lasers driven by computers are nothing new, but Universal Laser
Systems has forged ahead, breaking new ground in both low cost and ease of use.
The VersaLaser and its accessories appear to your system as USB devices, which
makes setup a snap. The driver software is inspired; it uses the output from ordinary
vector-drawing programs and translates colors into instructions that tell the beam
how deep to cut. The driver also has a library of standard materials: Pick a material,
tell the driver how thick, and it does the rest. You can also create your own entries for
custom materials. (Universal Laser Systems Inc., www.versalaser.com.)
Finalist N EIZO Nanao ColorEdge CG21
Conventional wisdom holds that LCD monitors are unsuitable for
high-end graphics and color-matching applications. The new EIZO
Nanao ColorEdge CG21 upends convention with a knockout 21.3-inch display that has features previously available only on CRTs.
Each CG21 is individually color-calibrated at the factory and can be recalibrated in the field. It has a 400:1 contrast ratio; digital and analog inputs; adjustable,
calibrated color temperature; and six fine-contrast modes to maximize apparent
resolution. The screen has a 170-degree viewing angle to boot. Despite the
sophistication and adjustability, the included software is compatible with existing color management systems. Images nearly leap off the screen with detail,
rich color, and contrast. (EIZO Nanao Technologies Inc., www.eizo.com.)
Digital Output Devices
PHOTOGRAPHY (TOP RIGHT AND TOP RIGHT) BY THOM O’CONNOR
WINNER
M
Epson Stylus Pro 4000
One of the most feature-rich
professional/graphics printers we’ve ever seen, the Epson Stylus
Pro 4000 produces eye-popping archival prints on paper up to
17 inches wide. This workhorse sports eight ink cartridges,
adding matte black to gloss black so you don’t have to switch
cartridges for top-notch photos and text. Some experts had
opined that Epson Micro Piezo technology was maxed out, saying the droplets couldn’t get any smaller. Epson responded with an
all-new design that has higher resolution and smaller droplets
than the competition. With USB, FireWire, and optional network connectivity, the Stylus Pro 4000 fits into any work
environment. (Epson America Inc., www.epson.com.)
DECEMBER 30, 2003 P C M A G A Z I N E
89
WINNER
M
VMware ESX Server 2 and Virtual SMP
What VMware
Workstation does for the desktop, VMware ESX Server 2 does
for the server—and then some. By virtualizing the server,
VMware enables it to host multiple operating systems and multiple instances of each OS, with up to eight virtual servers per
physical CPU. ESX Server 2 dynamically allocates CPU, disk,
memory, and network I/O resources, so you can get more work
done with fewer physical servers.
VMware Virtual SMP, an add-on to ESX Server 2, goes even farther, allowing a single virtual machine to span multiple
processors, which can share the load of resource-intensive applications. Applications
and virtual machines become portable and
can even be moved among physical machines to guarantee service levels and
ease maintenance tasks.
These two enterprise tools give mainframe-class power to an ordinary server
rack. (VMware Inc., www.vmware.com.)
System Software
Finalist N Microsoft DirectX 9
Microsoft DirectX 9 has made big improvements in the audio
and video codecs, heavily revised the code for faster 3-D performance, added larger pixel depth representations, and made
extensive enhancements to the SDK. The rendering engine
alone has more than a dozen new features, and HLSL, or HighLevel Shader Language, is the most important. Now with extensive programmable 3-D pipeline support, it’s a robust environment in which to create lifelike animations and the
dramatic effects we have come to expect from our PCs. In concert with the latest graphics and audio hardware, DirectX 9 is
the connective tissue that makes our PCs such capable multimedia devices. (Microsoft Corp., www.microsoft.com.)
Finalist N FSLogic Protect
Users and service providers of public-access
PCs and kiosks need assurance that the previous customer hasn’t left behind a Trojan
horse, a virus, or other nastiness. FSLogic
Protect resets a PC to its original state
when each user’s session ends, without
requiring a reboot.
While using it, you can change system settings and preferences; you can even
install software. When you log off, all of this goes
away—but when you log on again, Protect can restore
your session exactly the way you left it. Protect’s configuration files remain hidden, of course, from client users. FSLogic’s robust adaptation to public use is noteworthy. (FSLogic
Inc., www.fslogic.com.)
92
Collaboration
Software
Finalist N Kubi Collaborative Email Client
Kubi Software’s Collaborative Email Client performs a very
neat trick: It creates a shared workspace that uses nothing
more than e-mail addresses. With hooks into both Outlook
and Notes, Kubi Client harnesses SMTP to replicate the
workspace on all machines in the workgroup automatically.
It creates a discussion board and allows shared documents,
contacts, tasks, and project events. It uses the familiar Outlook or Notes interface, so there’s nothing new to learn, yet
it keeps workspaces separate from regular mail. Since Kubi’s
replication and updating take place as encrypted e-mail messages, there are no concerns about security, server access, or
firewalls. (Kubi Software, www.kubisoftware.com.)
Finalist N SightSpeed Video Messenger
SightSpeed Video Messenger looks like a simple IM window,
but it’s really a video collaboration environment. The buddy
list/directory is managed by a central server, but it steps
aside so corporate conversations stay inside the firewall.
This is our favorite video collaboration tool we’ve tested
recently. It sets up easily and works flawlessly, and the video
quality is impressive, with smooth, high-frame-rate images.
The high quality and low latency of SightSpeed’s video are
truly exceptional—no different from talking on the phone—
and represent a significant advance in the state of the art.
(SightSpeed Inc., www.sightspeed.com.)
WINNER
M
Colligo Workgroup Edition
Anywhere you and your
coworkers go with your computers, there’s a secure, private
wireless network. That’s the premise of Colligo, and the Workgroup Edition allows ad hoc networking—no server, no hub, no
access point—with a definable group of Windows-based wireless devices. You can network one on one or with all machines
in radio range. And if one of the machines
has an Internet connection or a
printer, all can share it.
Security is covered by 128bit SSL encryption, and the
Workgroup Edition boasts a
shared whiteboard, chat, and
other collaboration tools. In
the conference room or out in
the field, Colligo is a terrific aid
to productivity. (Colligo Networks Inc., www.colligo.com.)
Finalist N Apreso (Agility Presenter)
You’d like nothing better than to explain your
PowerPoint presentation in person,
but you can’t be in two places at once.
Wouldn’t it be great if you could send that
presentation with your smiling face and a
voiceover, so you can emphasize all the right
points and add that personal touch?
With Agility Presenter, recently renamed Apreso,
you sit down in front of your machine, equipped with
a Webcam, press a button, and give your presentation
slide by slide. Press another button and it becomes a
compressed file you can send anywhere, with video
of your face and your narration accompanying the
slides in a neat three-pane view. The video, audio,
and slide synchronization is
flawless. Making a full-scale
multimedia production is easier than ever, and the result belies the really hard work that
this excellent program is doing
for you. (Anystream Inc., www
.agilitypresenter.com.)
Finalist N The ModeEleven Broadcast Screensaver System
If you remember some of the early attempts at push technology, you probably recall bandwidth hogs with intrusive,
distracting graphics. But they delivered useful or at least
interesting news and information to your desktop whenever
your computer was inactive.
ModeEleven puts a new spin on the concept, combining the
ideas behind blogging, data channels, and low-impact push technology into something fresh and original. You subscribe to one
or more channels, and the screen saver fetches the latest data
from them whenever your computer is inactive. Channels can be
personal blogs, family photos, a bunch of linked pages, video, corporate news, product updates, or anything else you can imagine.
They’re stored on ModeEleven’s server for a low monthly fee.
The communication and relationship-building possibilities are
endless. This is a fun, clever piece of code and an intriguing business proposition. (ModeEleven Inc., www.modeeleven.com.)
Communication Software
WINNERM
Microsoft Office 2003 System
When an office suite
gains extensive XML data representations, document workspaces, shared attachments, and awareness of team members
online, it transcends mere word processing, spreadsheets, and
e-mail and becomes a full communications environment. When it
adds an addictive, fun tool such as OneNote, and when it connects
to back-end business processes through InfoPath, it transcends the
suite moniker and becomes the Microsoft Office System.
Within Office 2003, the surface changes are minimal in most applications, and that’s good for continuity and ease of use. Most of the
changes are deep inside, all but invisible. They greatly extend the product’s power, although it reaches its fullest potential when coupled with a
SharePoint server. FrontPage, however, has undergone dramatic changes in
both interface and capability, progressing from a convenient way to build midsize Web sites to a contender among professional tools for maintaining a corporate online presence. (Microsoft Corp., www.microsoft.com.)
94
WINNER
M
BEA WebLogic Workshop 8.1
BEA WebLogic Workshop
8.1 is a shared, consistent development platform based on a simplified visual environment for J2EE experts and business-oriented developers alike. Programmers who have shied away from
J2EE because of its apparent complexity have missed out on the
power and portability of Java tools and their ability to integrate
with existing IT resources.
The latest version of WebLogic Workshop hides the complexity without limiting the underlying power to develop Web
services, Web applications, portals, and integration projects.
BEA has made great strides in adapting this tool to the leaner
budgets and faster turnaround today’s businesses demand.
BEA’s application of visual development to Web services is
unique and praiseworthy. (BEA Systems Inc., www.bea.com.)
Development Tools
Finalist N DevPartner Studio 7.1
The latest version of DevPartner Studio
adds Microsoft .NET 2002 and 2003 compatibility and .NET memory analysis to its
already impressive resume. DevPartner
Studio plugs into Visual Studio .NET, but
it’s no ordinary plug-in. It does source code
analysis, searches for errors, applies best
practices, optimizes, and checks for security holes. It also handles memory allocation analysis, garbage collection, and execution snapshots; it
gauges real-time performance and highlights memory leaks
and deadlocks. It can even trace execution across application
tiers, from client to Web server to application server.
DevPartner Studio is a long-standing favorite tool among
developers, and these latest enhancements make it all the
more powerful and useful. (Compuware Corp., www
.compuware.com.)
Protocols
Finalist N Serial ATA
Unexpectedly, serial buses have become faster than parallel
buses, and it was just a matter of time before the venerable
ATA disk interface was supplanted by a serial version. The
thin cables are a blessing in hot, crowded PC interiors, and
the faster data rates reduce latency. Still higher speeds
are on tap, and vendors are scrambling to make
chipsets with native support for Serial
ATA on the motherboards. And
now that SATA is available for
the full range of drive
capacities, it will simplify
server implementations
too. (Serial ATA Working
Group, www.serialata.org.)
Finalist N WS-I Basic Profile
The Web Services Interoperability Organization has created
a standard to make Web services interoperable. The WS-I
Basic Profile builds on HTML, XML, and SOAP to define the
ways services and applications can communicate with one
another and exchange data. With over 160 member companies, WS-I is committed to promoting consistent and reliable
interoperability among Web services across platforms,
applications, and programming languages. (Web Services
Interoperability Organization, www.ws-i.org.)
PHOTOGRAPH (TOP RIGHT) BY THOM O’CONNOR
Finalist N SQL Anywhere Studio 9
Though the world may not be ready for “SQL for the masses,”
Sybase has the toolset to bring it to the burgeoning market of
small and medium-size businesses. New features in SQL Anywhere include support for XML, Microsoft .NET protocols, and
Web services, so small businesses can act like big ones when
linking to suppliers or implementing customer-centric systems, using a consistent search-and-retrieval strategy. This latest version allows embedding in mobile devices, too. Complex
queries run faster than ever, and cache management systems ensure concurrent, scalable enterprise implementations. Version 9 has major
enhancements for improved performance and developer productivity. (Sybase Inc., www.sybase.com.)
WINNER
M
802.11g
The IEEE’s 802.11g standard defines the way wireless LAN gear communicates at up to 54 megabits per second
while remaining backward-compatible with 11-Mbps 802.11b.
This important breakthrough enables streaming media, video
downloads, and a greater concentration of users without interference. In addition to technical hurdles, the standards
group had to overcome commercial rivalries and FCC rule
changes to enact the standard. (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc., www.ieee.org.)
95
PERSON
OF
THE
YEAR
M
Carly Fiorina
Hewlett-Packard’s board recruited Carly Fiorina as CEO because it felt the company could use a good
shaking up. After five decades of almost explosive growth, the company had plateaued. Fiorina gave the board all that it
wanted, and much more, in the form of a merger with Compaq. This merger’s fiscal and market aspects were all but lost in
Most notably,
the acrimony and public debate that followed, but she made the merger happen and is making it work.
Fiorina has never assumed that HP’s size would guarantee its position in the marketplace. She has pushed relentlessly for
new and different products, and HP’s divisions have innovated accordingly. She has also protected valuable brand equity
and has given HP an agnostic stance in the hardware and software platform wars. Further, she has positioned HP as the partNothing in her background—neither business
ner of choice for managing and growing multiplatform environments.
school nor her rise through AT&T and Lucent—could have prepared Fiorina for the arduous task of merging two vastly dissimilar industry giants. She has provided material for a generation of business writers and second-guessers. Meanwhile, inHP is back on a growth path,
vestor confidence appears to be returning to both the tech sector and Hewlett-Packard.
although history has not written the final chapter on the merger—nor on Carly Fiorina’s impact on the industry. But there’s
no doubt in our minds that she is 2003’s Person of the Year.
M
M
PHOTOGRAPH BY GREGORY HEISLER
M
96
M
LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT
Scott Cook
In 1983,
Scott Cook made it his goal to
simplify personal finance for
the masses. He succeeded—
and revolutionized the world
of software in the process. His
secret? Listen to consumers.
Let them lead the way.
Cook was a cofounder of Intuit and is now chairman of
the executive committee. His
first product, Quicken, went
through endless revisions and
improvements as he applied
the product-marketing techniques he had learned years
earlier at Procter & Gamble.
He introduced a few key concepts: Make it simple, and
earn your customers’ trust.
He invited consumers into the
development process, asking
them to test his products in
their homes, then closely
monitoring their trials and
errors. As a result, Intuit was
the first company to provide
users with a kinder, gentler
software experience, one that
set the standard for consumer
software products.
Quicken’s launch in 1984 was
just the beginning of Intuit’s
mission to make money management easy. Under Cook’s
guidance, the company expanded into small-business
accounting software and tax preparation for both individuals and businesses. In 1995, Intuit added online
banking and bill payment through its
Quicken Web site, and the company
now works with more than 2,000
financial institutions, having attracted
one-fourth of all online banking users
in the United States. Its annual revenue exceeded $1.6 billion in the fiscal
Intuit’s success rests
year 2003.
largely on Cook’s shoulders, for his
leadership and for his vision of empowering regular Joes and Janes
everywhere to take control of their financial lives. We thank Scott Cook for
making April 15 a lot less taxing for all
of us—and, on a much grander scale,
for leading the way in making software more intuitive and accessible.
M
M
PHOTOGRAPH © 2003 JAMIE TANAKA
M
97
TAKE
BACK
THE
BY CADE METZ
NET
Everyone was supposed to have a voice
on the Internet. Thanks to tools like
blogs and wikis, everyone can.
I L LU S T R AT I O N BY F E D E R I C O J O R D Á N
Think back to the earliest days of the
World Wide Web. Before Amazon.com
and E*Trade. Before CNN.COM and ABC
online. Before CRM, ASPs, and B2B marketplaces. In the early nineties, when the
Web first rose to prominence, few saw it
as a business medium. Few saw it as a
fresh outlet for major newspapers, radio
stations, and television networks. The
Web would be the tool of the masses,
not The Man.
Unlike newspapers, radio, and television—media
that broadcast the ideas of a select group of people and corporations—the Web would give widespread voice to every one of us. It would let anyone quickly and easily exchange information with
anyone else, fostering worldwide collaboration. It
would engender “the decentralized, organic
growth of ideas, technology, and society,” as its
creator, Tim Berners-Lee, wrote in his memoir,
Weaving the Web.
101
<I N T H I S S T O RY >
102 BLOG TOOLS
106 WIKI TOOLS
110 RSS TOOLS
112 WIRELESS
COLLABORATION
114 VIDEO AND VoIP
116 PUSHING SCREENS
104 Summary of Features:
Blog Tools
105 Choice Blogs
108 Summary of Features:
Wiki Hosted Sites
110 Choice Wikis
118 Meme Streets
Such expectations were summarily quashed by the midnineties. The Web didn’t give everyone a voice. It didn’t allow for
the widespread exchange of ideas. With a browser, you could easily read Web pages posted by others. But there wasn’t a comparably simple and effective way for you to create, post, and update
your own pages.
Unless you were a seasoned computer user, building or editing a page with tools like Macromedia’s Dreamweaver or Microsoft FrontPage was far too difficult and time-consuming. Hosting your own site was a technical nightmare, and paying
someone else to host it was expensive.
If you did launch a page, there was no cheap and easy way to
publicize it. Even if you could update it on regular basis, there was
no effective means of telling people you’d done so. Sites are useless unless people know to read them.
You could always post your ideas to online discussion groups,
but these weren’t an ideal platform. Your words, limited to a few
lines of text, were often lost among the multitudes of other
voices. And you were at the mercy of the group administrator,
who could delete your post at any time.
Very quickly, the Web was commandeered by those with the
money and expertise to maintain and publicize Web sites:
corporations, other businesses, the existing mass media. Tim
Berners-Lee’s creation had inadvertently brought much more
power to the establishment than to the people.
Then something beautiful happened. Early this decade,
several new communication tools bubbled up from the far
reaches of the Internet. These were tools that could at long last
fulfill the Web’s initial promise, nurturing a free exchange of
ideas. With blogs, short for Web logs, anyone can now stream
ideas onto a Web page in a matter of seconds. With wikis,
named after the Hawaiian word for quick, entire groups can
easily post and edit pages, freeing the users from the constraints of discussion groups. With RSS, anyone can easily syndicate material across the Web and alert readers to updated
content on his or her site.
Other tools are popping up that let the “everyuser” regain control of the Internet. Applications like AirCQ and Colligo allow for
free-form collaboration over wireless handheld devices. With the
latest Voice over IP and video phone tools, anyone can send highquality audiovisual streams across the Net. With an app from
ModeEleven, you can even push information via screen saver.
Our contributors: Cade Metz is a senior writer at PC Magazine. Richard V.
Dragan is a contributing editor, Ben Z. Gottesman is an executive editor, and
Craig Ellison is the director of operations for PC Magazine Labs. Associate
editor Sean Carroll and PC Magazine Labs project leader Neil J. Rubenking
were in charge of this story.
102
Naturally, these tools will soon find their way into the hands
of big business. Companies like Macromedia and Sony are already using blogs to communicate with customers. RSS is
quickly becoming a staple among news sites, including
PCMag.com. But that’s almost beside the point. These tools will
continue to empower the people. According to the Web survey
firm Perseus Development Corp., more than 4 million people
have built hosted blogs, and that number will grow to more
than 10 million by the end of 2004. With blogging tools and the
other apps in this story, you too can take back the Net.
<blog tools>
Opinion columnists may not have views any better
than your own, but they have one thing you probably
don’t—an audience. Fortunately, you don’t have to
convince J. Jonah Jameson to hire you. A blog can
help you disseminate your views, and a hosted blog
service can help you get started cheaply and easily. You can
write about politics, gardening, your cats—anything you like.
Depending on the service, you can post to your blog by browser, e-mail, or even phone. Enthusiastic bloggers can post breaking news before Peter Parker makes the scene.
Blogs are everywhere. Doonesbury’s Zipper Harris is a blogger. Howard Dean tracks his presidential campaign in a blog
(www.blogforamerica.com). Dan Bricklin, father of the electronic spreadsheet, shares his thoughts in a blog at www
.danbricklin.com.
For every celebrity blog, thousands are maintained by ordinary people. Launching a blog is about the simplest way to create a personal Web site. Once you’ve configured your blog’s appearance and characteristic options, you simply start posting.
The blog software organizes your posts with the newest at the
top and a calendar linking to older posts. You can keep the
whole thing private, like an old-fashioned diary, or let a few
trusted friends view it. But for most bloggers, the challenge is
to attract as many readers as possible, and they let in anyone
who stumbles upon their blogs.
Themes or skins let you configure your blog’s appearance to
reflect your personality; if you know a little HTML, you can do
some fine tuning. Many services include interactive elements
to keep visitors engaged, like the ability to rate or discuss posts.
A search function may help you find bloggers with similar interests. Exchanging links or joining blog rings helps drive traffic to your blog. A few services make it easy to display the books
and music that currently interest you, with automatic creation
of thumbnails and links to Amazon.com. If you sign up as an
Amazon.com Associate, you can even make a little money when
visitors click through to buy books or CDs you recommend.
You may well need that extra cash from your Amazon affiliation. A successful blog can outgrow a free or low-cost basic
service, forcing you to choose a premium service or even set
up your own Web site to host the blog. Some bloggers self-host
because of concerns about retaining ownership of their blog
entries, though hosting services make it clear that you retain
C O M M U N I C AT I O N
all rights to your posts. But like any Web hosting service, a blog
host retains the right to delete content it deems obscene or illegal. And some users may simple enjoy hosting their own.
Scholars today study the famous diary of Samuel Pepys for
insight into everyday life in 17th-century England. Will your
blog be just as famous in a few hundred years? No one will ever
know unless you try. You will have some competition: Pepys’s
diary is back, as a blog, with annotated copies of the original
entries appearing daily (www.pepysdiary.com).
You can choose from an assortment of tools that can host
your blog for you; we tested the best of the bunch. In addition,
we looked at one application for those who prefer to host their
own. Read on to see what we think.—Neil J. Rubenking
BLOGGING SERVICES
Google purchased Blogger and the Blog*Spot hosting service
from Pyra Labs earlier this year. Blogger and Blog*Spot are free
now, with features of the former Blogger Pro premium service
gradually moving into the free, ad-supported service. But until
a feature has been transferred to the free service, there’s no way
for a new blog to use it. As a result, we couldn’t test some premium-service features that haven’t yet been transferred.
Posting to Blogger is a snap: Just enter plain text or HTML
code in the editor, spell-check it if you like, and click a button.
Previous posts are handily listed below, in case you want to edit
them. You can click the BlogThis! button on the Google toolbar
and quickly post a link to the page you’re viewing, with your
comments. By the time you read this, the mail-to-blog feature
should be available. With a separate subscription to audio Blogger ($3 a month), you can even phone in audio-only posts.
Blogger doesn’t emphasize community interaction; it alone
among our contenders doesn’t let visitors discuss or rate posts.
Another serious lack in the service: Your Blogger blog is also
completely public, with no means to limit access. And the ability to host images hasn’t yet trickled down from the premium
service to the current free service. But it’s free, and that may
suffice to convince you to join its 1.5 million registered users.
(Free. Pyra Labs, www.blogspot.com. llmmm )
LiveJournal is strongly community-oriented. In fact, you can
get a free basic account only if a community member invites
you; otherwise you have to pay. You can engage visitors with
polls, and the comment system provides a fully threaded discussion area. Visitors can even get e-mail notification of responses to their comments. Enter a full user profile and search
for other users with similar interests, link to friends’ blogs, even
exchange text messages with other LiveJournal users. If you
want, you can specify who’s allowed to access your entire blog
or even individual posts.
Community and content rule in LiveJournal, not fancy formatting. Users typically post entries to their blogs using one of
several simple clients, though it’s possible to post using a
browser. In either case, there’s no WYSIWYG editing and no
hosting of images, and the spell-checker offers suggestions but
can’t insert them. This combination of community interaction
and simple editing apparently appeals to many. The LiveJournal site’s running statistics show over 600,000 active users and
over 100 posts per minute. (Basic, free; premium, $25 a year.
Danga Interactive Inc., www.livejournal.com. lllmm )
Unlike in the other services we reviewed, a Radio UserLand
blog is created locally using desktop Web server software and
then “upstreamed” to the Web, so you always have a local copy
of all your content. You can optionally configure it to allow
browser-based posting from other locations or posting via email. With the free Picture Tool add-in, uploading a picture is
as simple as copying it to a specified folder. If you frequently
type particular sequences of HTML or text, you can save them
as named shortcuts; a quoted shortcut name in a post will be
replaced by the specified HTML or text.
UserLand controls the RSS 2.0 specification, so naturally this
product emphasizes RSS (to learn more, see the section “RSS
Tools,” page 110). Your own blog is automatically accessible as
an RSS feed, or as multiple feeds if you use the Categories
feature to organize your posts. The built-in News Aggregator
can pull in RSS feeds from any source, including other blogs
Components
of a typical
blog page
Blog posts are displayed in
order, newest at the top.
A picture of the
blog’s author graces
each page.
Visitors click on a linked calendar day to view the day’s posts.
Posts from
earlier months
are automatically
archived.
This thumbnail
links to Amazon.com.
If a visitor clicks
through and buys
the book, the
blog’s author gets
some cash.
This link gets an RSS feed
of the blog’s content.
This permalink will still
link to the post after it’s
moved into archives.
Visitors click on this link
to comment on the post.
This link goes to the author’s
profile.
Recent comments are automatically listed here.
Recent posts are automatically listed here.
103
you subscribe to. Just click to post a news item to your blog and
add comments. A HotList displays the 100 most subscribed-to
news channels.
Visitors can comment on your posts, but there’s little else in
the way of community or interaction, and you can’t limit access
to specific users. Radio UserLand is especially handy if your
aim is to air your views on current events. ($39.95 a year. UserLand Software Inc., http://radio.userland.com. lllmm )
Tripod Blog Builder is available to any of the 32 million Tripod/Angelfire members. If you decide to host your blog here,
you’ll get all the features of a complete Web site. Basic service
is free (with ads); premium service drops the ads and adds
more storage, bandwidth, and some features. Premium members can have multiple blogs or multiple authors and can control access to an entire blog or to individual posts. Even basic
membership includes image hosting, but premium members
get an Image Aide tool to automate insertion of images in posts.
Your blog can include a Buddy Page with links to friends and
their blogs. Visitors can comment on posts in a fully threaded
discussion system, and owners get e-mail notification of new
comments. You can enhance your blog by taking advantage of
the services available through the Site Builder: Set up a photo
album or guest book and link it to your blog page, for example.
If you’re looking to create a complete Web site, not just a blog,
Blog Builder is a good place to start. (Basic, free; premium,
$10 to $15 for setup, plus $4.95 to $19.95 a month. Lycos Inc.,
http://blog.tripod.lycos.com. lllmm )
TypePad, the hosted service corresponding to Six Apart’s
well-regarded Movable Type (reviewed on the following
page), has excellent support for content above and
beyond simple blog postings. Your blog can include
one or more photo albums, which automatically generate thumbnails and attractive display pages. You
can easily add books or music to typelists; TypePad
grabs a thumbnail and link from Amazon.com. Your typelists
automatically appear as sidebars, flanking your blog posts.
TypePad’s editor isn’t WYSIWYG, so a little knowledge of
HTML is helpful—essential if you want to include a photo
S U M M A RY O F F E AT U R E S
Blog Tools
www.pcmag.com.
p Premium service only o NO
OVERALL RATING K
Blog*Spot
LiveJournal
Tripod Blog
Radio UserLand Builder
TypePad
Weblogger
Xanga
llmmm
lllmm
lllmm
lllmm
llllm
lllmm
llllm
Basic service
Free
Free
(by invitation)
$39.95 a year
Free
$4.95 a month
$9.95 a month
Free
Unlimited
Unlimited
50MB
20MB
Unlimited text
Unlimited
N/A
Unlimited
$25 per year
Unlimited
$25 a year
Unlimited
1GB
$8.95–$14.95 a
month
200MB
1GB
$39.95 a month
N/A
40MB free (owner 20MB
can buy more)
Unlimited
1GB
N/A
$4.95–$19.95 a
month
N/A
25MB–150MB
500MB
Unlimited text,
20MB images
Monthly bandwidth
POSTING FEATURES
N/A
Unlimited
N/A
5GB–30GB
5GB
6GB
Unlimited
llllm
llllm
llllm
lllmm
lllll
llllm
llmmm
Posting via browser/e-mail/client software
yyo
y
y
yoy
o
y
yyy
o
o
yoo
o
np n
p
p
yyo
o
y
yp o
o
o
y
y
y
p
p
y
o
llmmm
llmmm
llllm
llllm
llmmm
llllm
lllll
WYSIWYG post editing
o
o
y
o
y
y
y
User can include images without writing HTML
Spell-check available
COMMUNITY/INTERACTION FEATURES
o
y
o
y
y
o
p
p
o
o
y
o
y
llmmm
lllll
lllmm
lllll
llllm
llllm
llllm
Site visitor statistics available
o
o
y (in top 100)
y
y
o
Friends list/Links to friends’ blogs
Owner can enter profile
oo
y
o
y
yy
y
oy
o
p
p n
oo
o
y
o
o
o
y
o
o
yo
y
o
y
o
y
yy
y
o
y
Visitor polls/Visitors can rate posts
Visitors can discuss posts/Threaded discussion
Owner can be notified of new comments
CONTENT FEATURES
oo
o N/A
o
yo
yy
y
oo
yo
y
oo
yy
y
oo
yo
y
yo
yy
y
oy
yo
o
llmmm
llmmm
lllmm
llmmm
llllm
lllmm
llllm
Automatic book or music links with thumbnails
o
o
o
o
y
o
y
Blog can contain/be a source of RRS content
Ad-free blog
SECURITY/ACCOUNT FEATURES
p n
yy
y
oy
p
oy
y
yy
y
oy
o
yy
y
lmmmm
lllmm
llmmm
llmmm
lllll
llllm
llllm
Owner can limit access to specific visitors
o
o
o
y
o
y
o
o
o
p
o
p
y
y
y
y
y
o
y
Owner can ban specific visitors
Per-entry security settings
Local archive of blog content
Solution for switching to self-hosting
o
y
y
o
y
y
o
o
y
y
y
y
y YES
Storage
Monthly bandwidth
Premium service
Storage
Owner can schedule future posts
Multiple authors per blog with distinct
authorship
Multiple blogs per account
EDITING FEATURES
Owners can search for common interests
Visitors can subscribe to alerts to new posts
RED denotes Editors’ Choice.
104
Download this table at
N/A—Not applicable: The service does not offer this feature.
p
p
p
p
y
p
o
<
>
CHOICE
BLOGS
album image in a post. You can post from your Boing Boing
also gives the ability to subscribe without nobrowser, send posts via e-mail, post from your www.boingboing.com
tification, a way to try a blog without risking
This “directory of wonderful
WAP-enabled phone, or even use third-party
offending the blogger by unsubscribing. Visithings” is full of offbeat, fascinatstand-alone products.
tors can comment on your posts or give
ing, and thought-provoking posts.
TypePad blogs are inviting and easy to navi“eProps” to especially good ones. (Basic, free;
gate. The service’s comment system leaves you Dan Bricklin’s Log
premium, $25 a year. Xanga, www.xanga.com.
www.danbricklin.com
in charge; you can enable or disable comments Hosts www.danbricklin.com/log, llllm ).—NJR
on a per-post basis and hold incoming com- a blog by the tech guru who
DO IT YOURSELF
ments pending approval. Your visitors can read coinvented VisiCalc.
Do you want to host your own blog? Six Apart’s
posts or check out your lists of books, music, The Diary of Samuel Pepys
Movable Type 2.64 is an appealing and welllinks, or friends. Link lists to recent comments www.pepysdiary.com
rounded package. This core engine for the
and recent posts appear automatically. And One of the great historical
hosted version of TypePad (reviewed above) is
TypePad produces the best-looking blog we’ve diaries, serialized as a blog.
easy to install and use on your own, provided
seen. (Basic, $4.95 a month; premium, $8.95 to The J-Walk Weblog
you understand the basics of installing Perl
$14.95 a month. Six Apart Ltd., www.typepad www.j-walk.com/blog
Eclectic collection of informamodules and have a little admin expertise.
.com. llllm ).
Weblogger is a powerful system designed for tion, musings, links, and other
We installed Movable Type to Windows and
IIS 5.0 running with default Berkeley DB supgroups, not individuals. The administrator de- “stuff that may or may not
interest you,” by John Walkenport for a database. Powered by Perl, this packfines roles: Contributing Editors write stories
bach, a computer book author.
age is a natural fit for Linux. It also supports
and edit their own posts, Content Editors can
connecting to MySQL and Postgresql as dataedit posts written by others, and Managing Ed- Longhorn Blogs
base options, though these require downloaditors have full site control. New stories e- www.longhornblogs.com
ing and compiling additional Perl modules—
mailed or posted by Contributing Editors can A non-Microsoft site collection
not something newbies will want to try. We
be held for approval by higher-ranking editors. of 46 blogs on the forthcoming
used ActiveState’s Perl 5.8 as our scripting enThese powerful features may cause some ini- version of Windows.
gine for Windows. (Linux users normally get
tial confusion in small, one-author configura- Neil Gaiman’s Journal
Perl support by default.)
tions. A Weblogger blog can host images, and www.neilgaiman.com/journal/
A step-by-step guide helped us get started.
inserting them into posts is simple: Just in- journal.asp
The popular novelist and comic
Necessary steps include installing the DB_File
clude each image’s name in quotes. Links to book author keeps up with his
module from CPAN and configuring your Web
other posts or to uploaded files are handled the audience.
server to invoke Perl scripts. None of this resame way.
patrickWeb
quires a black belt in system administration, but
Visitors can comment on posts in a fully www.patrickweb
it’s tricky, and some previous experience with
threaded discussion system. Using a free add-in, E-tired visionary IBM execuLinux or Perl will definitely help.
you can poll your visitors from within a post. tive’s musings on technology.
After installation, another script quickly genThere’s no support for personal features like PDC Bloggers
erated the necessary database files, and we
buddy pages or searchable interest lists; http://pdcbloggers.net
were up and running. Users of Movable Type
Weblogger creates a businesslike blog, based on Blogs as news coverage, from
get full control over a well-polished blogging
Manila. For a premium, it stores 500MB of con- Microsoft’s recent Professional
tent and allows 6GB a month of bandwidth. Developers Conference.
system, with good support for XML-based tem(Basic, $9.95 a month; premium, $39.95 a month. Scripting News
plates to speed up new content. The user inhttp://scriptingnews
Weblogger, www.weblogger.com. lllmm )
terface is largely the same as in TypePad for
Xanga originated back in 1999 as a site for .userland.com
end users, minus a few admin options.
sharing book and music reviews. Driven by Tech thinker Dave Winer’s blog
Movable Type administrators can set up any
on scripting languages and more.
member preferences, it quickly morphed into a Claims to be the oldest continu- number of blogs. The only trick is that you
full-scale blog site, but it retains a marvelous ally running blog. See also http:
need to access the file system on the server,
ability to share reviews. Just name the song, //davenet.userland.com.
which needs a few new directories—along with
movie, or book that interests you and Xanga
permission settings—to get new blogs started.
grabs a link to Amazon.com, including a thumbOtherwise, everything can be done in the
nail of the cover. Xanga aggregates the links into a Top 50 list.
capable Web interface. The control over notifications and readClick the xTools button in the Links toolbar to comment on the
er comments (including the ability to block troublemakers’ IP
addresses) is appreciated.
site you’re visiting, or post to your blog via e-mail. The attracRecent Movable Type customers include About.com,
tive, fully WYSIWYG editor permits easy insertion of smileys,
symbols, and links, and it automates the process of uploading
Howard Dean’s presidential campaign, and the blog serializaand including images. You can try a free Xanga site, then uption of the Samuel Pepys diary (www.pepysdiary.com) mengrade to get more features and no ads.
tioned above. If you have a little Perl experience, you too can
It’s easy to locate like-minded people among Xanga’s 2.5
customize this slick and powerful personal-publishing system
million users by checking out its blog rings. Members with
and run it on your own servers with minimal effort. ($150; free
similar interests can subscribe to one another’s blogs (when
for individuals and nonprofit organizations. Six Apart Ltd.,
someone subscribes or unsubscribes, you’re notified). Xanga
www.sixapart.com. lllll )—Richard V. Dragan
105
<wiki tools>
In many ways, wikis are the world’s simplest Web
sites. Any member can add or edit pages. Users need
learn only a few simple formatting rules—no HTML
required—and previous versions of pages are saved
for easy recovery from errors. The wiki’s content is
built by all the members working together. If blogs are Webbased diaries, wikis are Web-based public bulletin boards.
Ward Cunningham invented the wiki concept in 1995 to host
a collaborative discussion of patterns in programming. He
called it the WikiWikiWeb, wiki-wiki being Hawaiian for quick.
Ward’s Wiki (http://c2.com/cgi/wiki), still going strong, hosts
discussions on programming and wiki philosophy. Another
robust wiki is WikiPedia (http://en.wikipedia.org), a wiki-based
encyclopedia and a PC Magazine Site of the Week (www
.pcmag.com/siteoftheweek/wikipedia) whose members and
visitors have crafted over 300,000 articles.
Formatting on a standard wiki page is exComponents of a typical
tremely simple, though
the details depend on
the implementation. To
create or link to a page,
you simply name it
using WikiWords—two
or more punctuationfree words mashed together, with the first letter of each capitalized. If
the page doesn’t yet
exist, it gets created the
first time you edit it.
Some wiki implementations allow FreeLinks
(links defined by surrounding the page name
in specific delimiters,
such as square brackets
or asterisks). In theory,
a determined troubleThe four lines starting
maker could wreak havwith an asterisk will
oc on a wiki, deleting
become a bulleted list.
pages right and left or
To include an image,
simply defacing them.
you must copy its URL.
But this rarely happens,
maybe because other
This link brings up a chart
users can roll back the
of structured text rules.
changes. Besides, hacking a wiki is too easy to be
a challenge for malefactors. In addition, wikis can be secured to
make them less vulnerable to attacks.
Want to test this style of collaboration but not prepared to install one of the free open-source wiki implementations on your
Web site? You may be tempted to visit Ward’s Wiki and stake
out a few pages of your own. If your pages link to one another
106
but not to anything else, you’ve created your own sub-wiki, or
WalledGarden. But WikiSquatting, as this practice is known,
isn’t acceptable behavior in the wiki community. Instead, use a
hosted wiki service, also known as a WikiFarm. You may choose
to create a public wiki or one open only to members. We’ve evaluated five services to help you make a choice.
WIKI SERVICES
EditMe wiki costs start at $4.95 per month. For a quick test, try
the service at its demo site, which resets to empty every 4
hours. EditMe runs on Java-based software and offers an impressive WYSIWYG page editor rather than relying on wikistyle structured text. It’s easy to attach images and
files and to insert images and tables into a page.
EditMe retains previous versions of uploaded files as
well as pages, so you can roll back to earlier versions.
To personalize your EditMe wiki, you edit its style
sheet or add your own links to the page menu.
Visitors to an EditMe wiki fall into three categories: administrators, members, and the public. The wiki’s default configuration determines which groups can view pages, edit pages,
create new pages, and attach files; you
can override the default for any page.
wiki page
The combination of granular security
control and easy editing makes EditMe a
versatile choice. (Basic, $4.95 a month;
premium, $9.95 to $24.95 a month. EditMe, www.editme.com. llllm )
Seed Wiki hosts noncommercial wikis
free; if you want to sell things from your
wiki, make it your primary Web site, or
include images, you need to pay. You can
The current page has
been assigned to
these two categories.
The user can create
new categories or
assign a page to
existing categories.
This line will be formatted as a header
because of the initial
pair of carets.
Text within square
brackets will become
a link to another page.
also contract with Seed Wiki’s owner to create a full-scale wikibased site with additional features. This WikiFarm doesn’t just
grow wikis; through customer requests it generates new ideas
for high-end features. The free site serves as a test-bed and
hence is frequently in flux. For example, during our evaluation
the spell-check and automated image insertion features weren’t
working. Online help is sketchy, but the
1GB of storage per member and has no bandMORE ON THE WEB
width limit. Socialtext’s practical editor uses
owner invites e-mail queries.
structured text, with a handy pop-up syntax
Seed Wiki’s most unusual feature is wiki
LOG ON TO PC Magazine’s home
window. New pages are created using brackwidgets—actions invoked by a simple text
page at www.pcmag.com for more
ets rather than classic WikiWords. It’s easy
string in a page. For example, “:;pagevisitorreviews, news, and opinions.
to attach files, though slightly less easy to
counter;:” becomes a live count of visitors.
put an in-line image on a page. The resulting
Other widgets can password-protect pages or
wiki is crisp and professional-looking.
trigger an e-mail notification of changes. Widgets available with
One interesting twist: You can assign one or more categories
the premium account can define user-input forms on a page, but
to each page and view all the pages in a category as a blog. Memthis feature wasn’t functional during our evaluation.
bers can e-mail new pages to the wiki, optionally specDharma Publishing’s bookstore (www.dharmapublishing
ifying categories. By the time you read this, each
.com) is an example of a site that “graduated” from Seed Wiki
Socialtext account should able to launch as many
to a custom site. The store owners can manage the site’s condifferent wikis as needed and invite the appropriate
tent without any ongoing need for a Web designer. Whether
team members. Bear in mind that each member adds
your plans reach that far or not, you can use a free Seed Wiki
to the monthly bill. ($30 a month per person. Socialtext Inc.,
to experiment with the concept. (Basic, free; premium, $5 to
www.socialtext.com. llllm )
$20 a month. Seed Wiki, www.seedwiki.com. lllmm )
Socialtext Workspace wasn’t released until near the end of
According to Advantive Associates, Swiki.net and the related
our evaluation period, but it already had over 100 beta users. As
NetUnify.org together host about 6,000 wikis. As a totally free
the price suggests, this is a serious collaboration service for
service, the Swiki.net implementation is naturally a bit on the
business. It offers a free 30-day trial, as well as a public
low-budget side. We had intermittent access problems during
workspace. The service runs on Socialtext’s own Kwiki imtesting, and the spell-check button brought up a note saying
plementation of the wiki standard. Each Socialtext account gets
that the site’s subscription had expired.
S U M M A RY O F F E AT U R E S
Hosted Wiki Services
www.pcmag.com.
EditMe
Seed Wiki
Socialtext
Workspace
OVERALL RATING K
llllm
lllmm
llllm
Basic service
$4.95 a month
Free
$30 a month per person Free
$20 a quarter per person
25MB
1GB
Unlimited (text-only)
Unlimited (text-only)
1GB per person
Unlimited
25MB
5GB
200MB
2GB
Premium service
$9.95–$24.95 a month
$5–$20 a month
N/A
N/A
Same, plus $60 a month
Storage
Monthly bandwidth
Underlying Wiki software
STANDARD WIKI FEATURES
75–300MB
3GB–12GB
Proprietary Java-based
2MB
Unlimited
Proprietary
N/A
N/A
Kwiki
N/A
N/A
Swiki
500MB
5GB
Zwiki (with modifications)
lllmm
llllm
llllm
lllmm
lllmm
Wiki-style text formatting
o
y
y
y
y
Owner can create new pages using WikiWords/
brackets/other method
Owner can lock page
oyy
yoo
oyo
ooy
yyo
y
o
o
y
y
Owner can revert to previous version/compare versions
yo
yo
yy
yo
Directory/record of recent changes created automatically
“Breadcrumb menu” of recent page visits kept
yy
o
o
yy
y
y
yy
y
y
oy
o
y
r n
yy
y
y
y YES
p Premium service only r Available on request o NO
Storage
Monthly bandwidth
Back links are shown
EXTENDED FEATURES
Swiki.net
TeamFlux
lllmm
llmmm
llllm
llllm
llmmm
lllmm
llllm
HTML permitted
WYSIWYG editing available
Images and files can be uploaded and included
y
y
y
y
y
p
o
o
y
y
o
y
y
o
y
“Add comment” appends to page
o
o
o
y
y
WikiWords can be expanded for easier reading
SITE FEATURES
y
y
o
o
y
lllmm
llllm
llllm
llmmm
llmmm
Multiple wikis for one account
Owner can control appearance by selecting template
o
o
y
y
y
y
o
o
o
Owner can control appearance by editing style sheet
Wiki adds menu of navigational links
y
y
o
y
o
y
r
r
y
y
y
y
o
o
o
y
o
o
o
o
Wiki e-mails notification of changes
Wiki keeps count of visitors to each page
SECURITY FEATURES
r
llllm
llmmm
llllm
lllmm
lllmm
Password protection
y
p
y
y
y
Editing/viewing limited to members
Per-page security settings
Wiki easily blocks robots from indexing
yy
y
y
oo
y
o
yy
o
y
yy
o
o
o
y
Owner can export Wiki to local copy
o
y
o
o
y
108
N/A—Not applicable: The service does not offer this feature.
r n
<
>
CHOICE
WIKIS
Swiki.net’s versatile page editor can accept ei- EmacsWiki
latter two options require an ODBC Control
ther wiki-style structured text or HTML code. www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki Panel connection—and separately installed
Inserting inline images is as simple as uploading EmacsWiki is the place to go
ODBC drivers. Thus, they’re a bit more work,
them and then entering their names within spe- for information related to the
especially if you’re leasing space on a remote
server. By tweaking settings in a single ASP
cial delimiters. You can also add boxes at the highly popular text editor, as
well as some lively discussion
script, you can switch between databases easibottom of a page that allow any visitor to apof GNU licensing in general.
ly enough. You don’t have to be a programmer
pend comments—even people without permisto use Open Wiki, but we appreciate its clean
sion to edit the whole page. Security settings MeatballWiki
can restrict access to members, restrict editing www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl and often elegant VBScript coding.
A “community of communiA guiding principle in Ward Cunningham’s
to members, or open a wiki entirely to the pubties,” this wiki is about how
original wiki effort was simplicity. The user inlic. Individual member permissions include the people form groups alone.
terface of Open Wiki honors this with a funcability to view pages, edit pages, add or remove
tional, almost spartan UI for posting and editmembers, and have full access to site adminis- Quicksilver Metaweb
www.metaweb.com/wiki/wiki
ing content. We like the clearly marked,
tration. A bug causes membership information
.phtml
color-coded edit screen (with strikeouts) for
to vanish occasionally, so keep a separate list of Sci-fi author Neal Stephenson
viewing changes. Standout features include
members. Swiki.net isn’t fancy, but it’s fully started this wiki as a way to
emoticon support and built-in support for RSS
functional, and the price is right. (Free. Advan- annotate his enormous (and
for searching and syndicating content. (This
tive Associates Inc., www.swiki.net. lllmm )
enormously complicated)
Like Socialtext Workspace, TeamFlux is novel Quicksilver.
last feature marks Open Wiki as a natural fit for
designed for business collaboration, with per- Wikipedia
companies testing wikis for collaboration.)
member subscription fees. But TeamFlux is http://en.wikipedia.org/
Newbies should have little trouble with
rougher around the edges, particularly in its An encyclopedia, wiki-style. At
Open Wiki, though it isn’t at all evident how to
help system. The page editor is flexible, accept- 300,000 entries and growing,
create a new page (just saving to a new name
ing both wiki-style structured text and HTML. it’s grassroots on a grand scale.
does the trick). Besides linking content autoLike EditMe and Seed Wiki, it expands
matically and supporting built-in keyword
smashed-together WikiWords for display to WikiWikiWeb
searches, Open Wiki lets users post custom
make them easier to read. An image uploaded http://c2.com/cgi/wiki
links and files along with their wiki entry text.
The granddaddy of wikis, this
while editing a page appears at the bottom; you
Not only does Open Wiki let you get started
site, started by wiki inventor
can edit again to change its placement. The wiki Ward Cunningham, also
quickly and easily within the familiar terrain of
automatically becomes an RSS feed, but e-mail houses the Portland Pattern
Windows, it also stands up as a worthwhile imnotification of changes isn’t available.
plementation of some of the best wiki features.
Repository wiki.
Several functions can be handled only by re(Free download. Open Wiki, www.openwiki
quest to the TeamFlux staff. It’s not unreasonable
.com. llllm )—RVD
to involve the staff in changing a wiki’s style sheet or
exporting an archive copy of the wiki, but you shouldn’t need
intervention to lock pages, revert to previous versions, or
specify view-only access for some members. The service offers
decent editing and security features, but we hesitate to recommend TeamFlux for business collaboration unless your budget
So you’ve just launched your first blog, and you’re sudcan’t cover Socialtext. (Basic, $20 per quarter per team memdenly faced with two serious problems: (1) You’re not
ber; premium, add $60 per month. Fluxent, www.teamflux.com.
sure you have the time or the creativity to keep your
llmmm )—NJR
blog fresh and interesting; you need a quick and easy
way to borrow material from other sources. (2) When
DO IT YOURSELF
<RSS tools>
Open Wiki 0.78 is an easy-to-implement open-source solution for
Windows. It includes support for XML-based style sheets and
other bells and whistles, like RSS for syndicated content. This nohassle, simple and effective wiki has few administrative requirements and should let almost anyone host a wiki.
Open-source and Windows aren’t often mentioned in the
same breath, but Open Wiki is indeed a freely downloadable
(and modifiable) ASP-based solution. Our test installation was
on a machine running IIS on Windows Server 2003. Setup is
simple, thanks to a Windows installer package (.MSI), which
handles most of it for you.
The only other significant prerequisite here is the Microsoft
XML parser and a database (Open Wiki ships with an Access
DB). We tested TeamFlux with SQL Server and took a look at
the experience of connecting it to MySQL and Oracle. These
110
you do update your blog with new information, how will anyone know it’s been updated? Visitors could go to a site like
www.weblogs.com, which lists recent updates, but then they
might as well just check your site. You need a quick and easy
way of alerting people to recent changes.
No need to worry. You can solve both problems with RSS.
RSS is a way of syndicating information across the Internet.
Think of it as a protocol for sending and receiving online news
feeds. You can equip your blog with an RSS feed, distributing recent changes to your readers. Or you can use an “RSS aggregator” to collect fresh material for your blog, grabbing RSS feeds
from all sorts of Web sites, including news pages, portals, and etailers—not to mention other blogs.
RSS is an acronym, but there was a falling-out within the
group working on the standard, and as a result there are now
<wireless
collaboration>
two groups, each with its own definition. According to one, it’s
Really Simple Syndication; the other prefers Rich Site Summary. Still others opt for an acronym within an acronym: RDF Site
Summary. RDF stands for Resource Description Framework.
Part of the problem is that RSS is not a single, industry-wide
specification. There are two competing RSS specs, and there
are multiple versions of each.
By now almost everyone’s comfortable with an
Whatever you call it, whichever version you use, RSS operinstant-messaging client. Why fix something that’s
ates in the same basic way. An RSS feed is essentially XML data
not broken? The answer is the arrival of Wi-Fi. A
that sits on a server, alongside a parent Web site. Typically, this
new generation of tools let you catch the wireless
data provides a rundown of the site’s latest changes, complete
wave for flexible, ad hoc messaging and other
with all the appropriate hyperlinks. If it’s attached to a blog, the
collaboration abilities—even without an access point. As these
feed might include a teaser for the blogger’s latest post. It might
tools get more popular, it should be normal to go to your Wicontain the entire thing. If attached to a news site, it might inFi–enabled park or café and strike up an online conversation.
clude the latest headlines or entire stories.
With fine support for ad hoc wireless chat, Voice over IP, and
Once a feed is posted, anyone with an RSS aggregator can
video, AirCQ is a handy, low-cost utility for informal collaborasubscribe. This simply means that the aggregator will check
tion. Though it lacks extensive support for security administhat XML data at regular intervals, retrieving any new material
tration (or even a whiteboard), this software could be just what
it finds.
you need to get started with wireless collaboration.
Sound complicated? If you’re a blogger, it’s actually quite
Based in Nanjing, China, AirCQ is available as a download in
simple. Most blogging tools (and all the hosted services we reboth English and simplified Chinese editions. Except for a few
view in this story) include built-in software for quickly and easawkwardly translated phrases in its UI, the internationalization
ily setting up an RSS feed from your blog. Many also include
RSS aggregators, which let you seamlessly stream
other feeds onto your blog. Even if you use a standInstant Wi-Fi Network
alone aggregator, such as FeedDemon (www
AirCQ and Colligo let users of Wi-Fi–equipped devices find any other
.feeddemon.com), NewsGator (www.newsgator.com),
users within range and create secure ad hoc networks with them,
or SharpReader (www.sharpreader.com), the prowithout the need for IT intervention or an access point.
cess is exceedingly easy. For more information on
standalone aggregators, see our recent online
roundup “RSS News Readers Browse for You” (www
.pcmag.com/rssreaders).
And you shouldn’t have much trouble finding lots
of worthwhile feeds. Web sites such as Blogdigger
(www.blogdigger.com), Feedster (www.feedster.com),
and Syndic8 (www.syndic8.com) keep extensive lists
of the leading RSS-enabled sites. Syndic8 alone lists
more than 17,000 different feeds. Most of these feeds
are blogs and news sites, but RSS also is branching
Wi-Fi–equipped
out into other parts of the Web. This summer, Amatablet
Wi-Fi–equipped
Wi-Fi–equipped
PDA
laptop
zon.com started to offer RSS feeds. You can use an
aggregator to retrieve a list of the newest books,
CDs, or DVDs.
Worried about the competing RSS specifications?
is fine. The utility deploys to Windows 2000 and XP systems.
Don’t be. Most tools publish and read both specs. And chances
Simplicity is AirCQ’s guiding principle. AirCQ users with
are they’ll soon be replaced by a new and improved spec,
compatible Wi-Fi network adapters who are within range of
code-named Atom, currently in development (www
one another (with or without access points) can “see” one an.intertwingly.net). Some readers may know Atom by one of
other. We had no problem connecting in a simulated small-ofits former names, Echo (for more information, see www
fice setting, a Wi-Fi–enabled café, and a university network.
.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1265721,00.asp).
AirCQ simply discovers other users running the software.
The competing specs have led to an awful lot of bickering,
AirCQ’s friendly consumer focus shows in features such as
but all this infighting hasn’t slowed adoption. RSS is even
Auto-seek options for indicating personal interests (like sports
poised to change the business world. Amazon.com is also
or travel) and emoticons to liven up your chats.
using RSS to exchange information with its partner sites. AcOnce you join a chat, you can send messages to other users.
cording to Greg Reinacker, the founder of NewsGator, proThe feature set is simple but effective, though we would have
grammers at at least one software company are using his aggregator to notify one another whenever they make changes
liked to see whiteboard support, for example, and the ability to
to their communal code base. The same convenience can do
save chat transcripts. Besides chatting, you can send files and
wonders for your blog.—CM
business cards, which the recipient can accept or reject.
112
AirCQ supports VoIP and videoconferencing. For getting started with voice, there’s a handy utility that lets you verify microphone and speaker sound levels. Once it’s calibrated, you can request a voice chat with other users. Voice quality was fine on an
802.11b (11-Mbps) connection, though as we moved out of range,
there was noticeable degradation—par for the course with VoIP.
With a suitable Webcam, you can also videoconference. Again,
don’t sit in the back corner of the Wi-Fi–enabled airport lounge
and expect to get good performance. But with several bars of signal strength, both voice and video were up to the task.
AirCQ doesn’t provide strong encryption over the airwaves,
an issue for corporate road warriors. It does scramble all packets, though, and you can maintain a block list of unwanted
users. Plans for the next release include support for sharing an
Internet connection. Versions of AirCQ for Palm OS and Pocket PC handhelds are also in the works, due out in 2004.
Though AirCQ lacks extensive security options, its low-cost,
no-frills approach is appealing. ($19.99 direct. AirCQ Communications, www.aircq.com. lllmm )
With strong security administration features and Pocket PC
2002 handheld support, Colligo Workgroup Edition 3.2 is a serious, well-rounded package supplying wireless collaboration for
business users. This utility earns high marks for usability and
a truly innovative approach to managing Wi-Fi security for ad
hoc groups of corporate users.
Colligo installs to Windows 98 SE, 2000, and XP, and the
download also bundles Pocket PC 2000 and 2002 versions,
available in the same setup utility.
Colligo takes on security and certificate administration, with
excellent results. Besides supplying strong encryption over the
airwaves, it tackles the problem of authenticating remote ad hoc
users by offering an innovative (and patented)
approach to managing X.509 certificates. The
first time a Colligo wireless user is contacted,
the program automatically generates a certificate that identifies him or her to the other user.
In traditional cryptography, the so-called
man-in-the-middle attack can be used to intercept the initial certificate. Colligo thwarts this by
adding a separate step of identifying users on a
separate channel (via e-mail or phone, or in person) where each party confirms a special threeword code (for example, raven cucumber deer) to
ensure that remote (and invisible) users are who
they say they are. Behind the scenes, these
uniquely generated code words map to the underlying certificate.
Don’t worry: After this initial step, all the certificate management goes on under the hood.
(Fortunately or not, we expect that most informal users will
likely skip the James Bond stuff up front and just click Accept
right away.) The utility also lets you define custom ad hoc networks and groups so that the right users can find each other
over the airwaves.
Colligo promises support for joining ad hoc and wireless networks with access points. In testing, we got both modes to
work but found that Colligo didn’t cooperate when we introduced one older 802.11b wireless card and driver in ad hoc
mode. This is something AirCQ was able to handle: the trade114
off between greater security and more open access.
Once you are connected, the support for collaboration in
Colligo really shines. The excellent chat client has the ability
to archive chat sessions as well as collaborate on whiteboard
diagrams with multiple users. (Especially on Pocket PC PDAs,
where you can draw with a stylus, this capability will be much
appreciated.)
Besides chat, you can send files and business cards and share
both printers and Internet connections through one user; this lets
handheld users print and get to the Web more easily on the road.
A nifty mini-Outlook client, which shows your daily schedule,
current appointments, and available meeting times, can be used
to schedule meetings with multiple participants.
In all, with its business focus and tight security model,
Colligo’s wireless and chat tools deliver an appealing mix of
collaborative abilities that will meet the needs of many mobile
workers. ($69.99 download. Colligo Networks Inc., www
.colligo.com. llllm )—RVD
<video & VoIP>
A broadband Internet connection opens up a number
of possibilities that just aren’t feasible over dial-up.
In addition to speedy downloads of files, streaming
multimedia content, e-mail, and instant messaging,
you can use your broadband connection for videoconferencing
or to replace your telephone.
If you want to use your broadband connection for videoconferencing, the Viseon Visifone might be a device to consider. The Visifone is a
self-contained desktop
phone with a 6-inch TFT
LCD , a variable-focus
CCD camera with adjustable color and
brightness controls, and
a built-in speakerphone.
It also has as audio inputs, as well as NTSC or
PAL video input/output
connections. It’s based
on the same h.323 standard you’ll find in highend videoconferencing
systems costing thouViseon Visifone
sands of dollars.
We tested the Visifone
connected both to another Visifone and to a computer
equipped with NetMeeting. The quality of the video and audio
is a function of the bandwidth available between the two devices. On a local network, video quality was very good. On a
call to a NetMeeting computer connected to an ADSL line, it
was acceptable.
The Visifone is targeted at corporations that want an inexpensive alternative to dedicated videoconferencing and at early
adopters who want to add video to their communications. To
set up the Visifone, you connect it to an Ethernet port on your
network, then configure
it via the on-screen menu
system. Unfortunately,
the instruction manual
appears to have been
written by engineers for
engineers. Unless you’re
very network-savvy, the
block diagrams and flowVonage connects your analog
charts that make up nearphone through a Cisco 186 ATA.
ly the entire instruction
book will be intimidating.
Once you have the unit configured and the appropriate ports
open on your firewall, you can dial any other h.323-compliant
videophone, but here’s the catch: Instead of dialing a phone
number, you dial an IP address. Although the product does have
a phone book that allows you to store frequently used names
and IP addresses, it doesn’t have the ability to keep track of dynamically assigned IP addresses. Without support for SIP (Session Initialization Protocol) or DDNS (Dynamic DNS) for resolving dynamic IP issues, making connections to anything
other than static addresses could be difficult. The Visifone is
upgradable, so these problems may be addressed in the future.
($599 list. Viseon Inc., 866-484-7366, www.viseon.com. lllmm )
For those who don’t need videoconferencing and just want
to use their broadband connections for voice communications,
Vonage offers a compelling alternative. Vonage is a combination of a service and hardware. When you sign up, you receive
a Cisco 186 ATA (analog telephone adapter). Setup is a snap;
anyone can do it. You merely connect the ATA to your Ethernet network and plug in an analog phone. After a few seconds
of initialization, you pick up the phone and hear a dial tone.
On our tests, we connected the adapter to an SMC Barricade
wireless router that was connected to our DSL circuit and made
our first call within 30 seconds. The ATA is smart enough to figure out most firewall settings. We connected it to our corporate network, which uses NAT behind a firewall, and again it
worked. And there’s no learning curve associated with the
phone itself. You use it as you would any other phone.
Vonage offers two basic rate plans: unlimited local/regional
(which includes 500 domestic long-distance minutes) and unlimited calling within the U.S. and Canada. International perminute rates are significantly reduced. Vonage also includes a
number of premium call features for which local phone companies charge extra, such as caller ID, caller ID block, Call-Waiting, call forwarding, and voice mail. You can configure voice
mail to notify you via e-mail, e-mail a WAV file of the voice mail
to you, or play your messages back online at Vonage’s Web site.
Vonage currently covers 161 area codes in 91 markets in 35
states. You can request a phone number from any of the area
codes available. A virtual second number is also included in the
premium plan. If you travel to places where broadband is available, you can tuck your ATA into your suitcase and plug it in
when you arrive at your destination. This could result in significant savings if you travel internationally. (Activation, $29.99; unlimited local/regional, $24.99 a month (including 500 domestic
long-distance minutes); unlimited calls in U.S. and Canada,
$34.99 a month; international rates vary. Vonage Holdings Corp.,
866-243-4357, www.vonage.com. lllmm )—Craig Ellison
116
<pushing
screens>
When it debuted in 1996, PointCast, a service that
pushed the latest news to desktops worldwide, was
considered by some the Internet’s killer app—until its
erratic behavior and gluttony for bandwidth did it in.
The service’s demise may have turned people off to
push technology—or maybe they realized that e-mail was the
ultimate push tool—but there were good reasons for the technology’s initial appeal. One of PointCast’s most enticing features was its information-packed screen saver. Glance over at
your PC and rather than seeing flying toasters you saw the latest headlines. The screen saver was so useful that a great way
to stay informed was not to work on your PC.
A small start-up called ModeEleven is taking the best of the
push screensaver concept. The ModeEleven Broadcast Screensaver System lets anyone create screen saver channels—
whether proud parents pushing pictures of the kids to doting
grandparents or large publishers sending the day’s top article
or product reviews. According to ModeEleven, employers are
looking at using the product to keep employees apprised of
company news and policies.
Each ModeEleven page can contain text, graphics, and even
streaming video (fortunately, there’s a mute button). The pages
can also contain hyperlinks to anywhere on the Web or to a
The ModeEleven Broadcast Screensaver System lets you push multimedia
screen-saver content suitable for business or personal audiences. Screensaver content can be scraped from and linked to Web sites.
ModeEleven-provided discussion board for the channel.
The company offers four subscription levels for channel producers, from basic Bronze ($4.99 a month), which lets one person create up to 30 active screens for 20 subscribers, to Platinum ($199.99 a month), which allows for 20 producers, 150
screens, and 1,500 subscribers. Channels can be listed in the
ModeEleven directory or kept hidden and password-protected
or IP-address–restricted.
To create your screen saver, you can either upload photos
into one of the canned templates or upload your own screens.
High-end producers can use a Web-scraping tool to convert
content from their sites into screen-saver pages. Reports are
available, so producers can see how many people have viewed
specific pages.
Anyone can download the free ModeEleven player, which
plugs into Windows’ screen-saver system. Once you sign up,
you decide which channels to subscribe to, and pages are displayed in semirandom order. There’s not a lot of public content yet, although if you’ve been wondering what former teen
heartthrob Leif Garrett’s been up to since “Runaround Sue,”
make sure to sign up for his new band, f8 on its public channel.
To keep bandwidth use down, channel updates are pushed
down only when the screen saver is in use, and only if the user
has recently used the machine.
The ModeEleven Broadcast Screensaver System is a finalist for our annual Technical Excellence Awards (page 94); it
makes our PC ’s downtime more useful and entertaining.
Maybe this time around, pushing screens will be more lasting. (Player, free; service, $4.99 a month and up. ModeEleven
Inc., www.modeeleven.com. l l l m m )—Ben Z. Gottesman E
Meme Streets
The most important effect of
tools like blogs, wikis, and RSS
feeds is that they bring new
power to the people. Now more
than ever, the average Joe can
make himself heard on the
World Wide Web. But there’s
a wonderfully fascinating side
effect to this take-back-theNet phenomenon. In bringing
new power to the people, such
tools also bring new power to
the meme.
In 1976, Oxford University
zoologist Richard Dawkins
published a book called The
Selfish Gene, a fresh look at
Darwinian evolution. Evolution,
Dawkins argued, is a competition not between biological
organisms but between genes.
Individual organisms are
doomed to die. But genes,
hopping from creature to creature, can survive almost indefinitely. Even humans are no more
than “gigantic lumbering robots” that genes manipulate in
their battle for survival.
Needing an analogy to describe this process clearly,
Dawkins introduced the notion
of the meme. A meme, he
explains, is a “unit of cultural
transmission”—anything that
spreads from person to person
as people imitate one another.
Memes include “tunes, ideas,
catch phrases, clothes fash118
ions, ways of making pots or of
building arches.”
The familiar seven-note jingle
“Shave and a haircut, two bits”
is a meme. It’s been bouncing
from brain to brain for the past
century. The miniskirt was a
meme: Suddenly, in the spring
of 1963, every young woman in
the western world wanted
higher hemlines. Three decades
later, Cameron Crowe sparked a
meme with Jerry Maguire, and
you couldn’t go a day without
hearing “Show me the money.”
Memes, Dawkins argued,
behave just like genes. They
thrive by jumping from host to
host. They’re subject to mutation. Take urban legends, particularly fertile memes that
change a little on each retelling.
Who hasn’t heard some version
of the one about the man who
wakes up in the bathtub minus
a kidney? Sometimes he’s in
Las Vegas, sometimes New
Orleans. Sometimes he’s a she.
Finally, memes survive or perish
according to natural selection.
Only the most effective have
staying power.
Certainly, a meme is effective if it has a particular knack
for latching onto the human
brain—if it’s useful, beautiful,
intriguing, or perplexing. But a
meme is often more successful
if it can catch a ride with the
Evil Bert, a Zelig-like Muppet with a tendency to turn up next to modernday villains (shown here with Osama bin Laden), and the strange “All your
base are belong to us” images (the phrase comes from an old video game)
are prime examples of memes spread by the Internet.
mass media—witness “Show
me the money.”
Film, radio, television, and
print media have all hastened
the spread of memes, but
potentially the most successful
meme machine ever invented
is the Internet. It too can reach
entire populations in an instant.
But whereas other forms of
mass media are controlled by a
select few, the Internet is a
meme machine that anyone
can use.
Memes spread like wildfire
over e-mail. Chances are,
you’ve opened your in-box and
found the video of the dancing
baby, or the $250 Neiman
Marcus cookie recipe, or the
story of Ronald Opus, shot and
killed as he leaped from the top
of a building. But they replicate
in far more bizarre ways over
the Web.
For a while, you couldn’t get
far on the Net without seeing a
photograph doctored with the
phrase “All your base are belong to us,” a dreadful piece of
English from a Japanese video
game. Then the Web was
littered with pictures of the
Sesame Street character Bert
standing next to history’s most
nefarious people.
But this is only the beginning.
The latest Internet communication tools will surely take
memes to a whole new level.
With blogs and wikis, even
more people can contribute to
the Web’s meme pool. With
RSS, Web memes can disseminate even quicker. Blogs have
already proven particularly
adept at spreading a meme
that’s had precious little success over the past 25 years: the
meme meme. Richard Dawkins
coined the term in 1976, but it
didn’t begin to catch on with
the general public until recently,
when it became a buzzword
among bloggers. Consider
yourself infected.—CM
KNOW YOUR
WEAKNESSES
NETWORK SECURITY
A
s the person responsible for your company’s network security, you know you are sorely outnumbered. A seemingly infinite number of potential
intruders are lurking out there, and there’s never
enough time to prepare.
Without a doubt, the costs of cyberattacks are
significant, as shown by the 2003 Computer Crime
and Security Survey, conducted by the Computer Security Institute and the FBI. The 250 organizations that participated in the
eighth annual study reported combined losses of $202 million,
with causes ranging from theft of proprietary information, denialof-service attacks, and viruses to insider abuse of network access.
How do you improve your odds? Your obvious first step is
to identify system weaknesses. Vulnerability assessment scanners not only automatically discover security flaws on a net-
122
BY MATTHEW D. SARREL
ILLUSTRATION BY JOSHUA ELLINGSON
work but in some cases correct them, too. Such tools have
been around for years, but only recently have they matured
into more comprehensive and user-friendly—if still complex—products, with features like customized reporting, distributed threat assessment, and automatic correction of potential problems.
Among the things such scanners can identify are known software bugs, viruses, and weak access control policies. Commonly found workstation vulnerabilities include open NetBIOS
ports for file and printer sharing, as well as users who run rogue
Web servers or peer-to-peer file-sharing clients.
Vulnerability assessment scanners can also find improper
configurations of applications, which can leave a network un-
Vulnerability scanners
identify network
insecurities.
R E V I E W E D I N T H I S S TO RY
124 GFI LANguard Network Security Scanner 3.3 l l l m m
124 MegaPing l l l m m 125 Nessus l l l m m 128 Retina Network
Security Scanner l l l l m 129 SAINT 5 l l l l m 130 Security
Analyzer 5.0 l l l l m 124 Editors’ Choice 126 The Basics:
protected. For example, Microsoft Exchange’s default configuration used to leave the server as an open SMTP relay, which
could be exploited by spammers. This resulted in attackers hijacking servers and sending millions of e-mails that appeared to
originate as legitimate traffic from the victims’ networks.
Some vulnerability assessment scanners also take on patch
management or the deployment of code updates to repair bugs.
Web servers and e-mail servers require frequent patching, as do
the underlying operating systems. This is especially true of
Microsoft products, because they are such frequent targets. But
patch management is a task that is arguably too complex to be
tackled by such programs alone.
Our story focuses on six vulnerability assessment scanners
that are used to identify potential weaknesses among services
such as HTTP, FTP, and SMTP on a network. These tools can
give network administrators a quick handle on their security
issues and are easy to deploy, because they don’t require agents
to be installed on each system being scanned. Agent-based
scanners, however, require the installation of small programs
that collect more detailed information regarding vulnerabilities on each host. Agents report system-level vulnerabilities
(instead of application- or service-level weaknesses), such as
file permissions, user account properties, registry settings, and
application settings, to a centralized database and also create
less network traffic than agentless scanners. One of the scan-
MBSA and Nmap 128 Foundstone FS1000 Appliance
129 Performance Analysis 130 Scorecard 130 Summary of
Features 132 Targeting Known Weak Spots
ners in our review, NetIQ’s Security Analyzer 5.0, offers an optional agent-based component.
In our roundup, we did not include online vulnerability assessment tools, such as those offered by Foundstone and
Qualys. Such services view your network from the outside,
scanning its IP addresses from across the Internet to identify external threats, though a growing number can also assess internal systems and vulnerabilities.
Our roundup evaluates each network-based scanner’s ability
to assess, report, and in some cases correct vulnerabilities that
may create an unsafe computing environment. We also take a
look at a few other related products, such as two free networkscanning tools, a network-auditing tool, and a security appliance.
Our contributors: Matthew D. Sarrel, CISSP, is a PC Magazine Labs technical
director. Craig Ellison is director of operations at PC Magazine Labs.
Konstantinos Karagiannis is a senior editor. Associate editor Davis D.
Janowski and project leader Oliver Kaven were in charge of this story.
123
GFI LANguard Network
Security Scanner 3.3
50 IP address scans, $395 direct. GFI Software Ltd.,
888-243-4329. www.gfi.com. OVERALL RATING:
lllmm
GFI LANguard Network Security Scanner
3.3 covers the basics of vulnerability scanning well, though it lacks some of the advanced capabilities found in more enterprise-focused products such as eEye’s
Retina Network Security Scanner and
NetIQ’s Security Analyzer 5.0. LANguard
cannot take the in-depth look at CGI
scripting that Retina can or scan some
types of network hardware, such as
routers. But it’s also much less expensive
than the products from eEye and NetIQ.
To perform a basic scan of your network, you simply enter an IP address or
range and press Start. LANguard gives
you many types of predefined security
scan profiles. For example, you can scan
using only ICMP for discovery, scan all
available ports, or scan for open shares or
missing patches. You can also define and
save your own security scan profiles.
Without administrative privileges in a
Windows domain, you can determine
computer names, MAC addresses, open
ports, operating system versions, and
SNMP information, all reported in a tree
structure of results sorted by IP address.
With domain administrative privileges,
you can determine significantly more information about each system, such as
shares, user accounts, services, password
policies, registry information, and installed
patches. Your scan can also include testing
for CGI abuses as well as FTP, DNS, mail,
service, and registry vulnerabilities. The
results are grouped by category and include either a recommendation for remediation or a BugTraq,
CVE, or Microsoft Security Bulletin reference.
Within the report
generator you can create
and save custom reports
to meet your individual
security needs. For example, you can generate
a report of all systems
that have either TCP
port 80 (Web) or port 21
(FTP) open. As with
Retina and SAINT 5, an
included utility lets you compare two reports for new, removed, or changed
•••
Retina Network Security Scanner
eEye Digital Security’s Retina Network Security Scanner impresses us
with its flexible tools and the speed and accuracy of its scans. The
tool’s detailed reports list not only vulnerabilities but the reference
numbers identifying them on BugTraq, CVE, and Microsoft’s Security Bulletins. The
reports are exceptionally well organized, never overwhelming users with too much
result data. Administrators have more than just a large number of scans at their
disposal with Retina; they can fix registry problems identified during scans with a
button click. The product’s auditing tools, which let administrators zero in on
known weaknesses on their networks, are unparalleled among the products we
reviewed. We wish more vendors would incorporate auditing into their applications. With such tools, you can easily set up your own customized sets of scans,
keeping them narrow and focused.
Retina is one of the very few applications that combines complex tasks with ease
of use, never leaving you wondering whether you’ve missed a step or made the
wrong choice during the configuration or data analysis process.
We also tip our hats to Nessus, a free open-source application created by
Renaud Deraison, with an Honorable Mention. It is a full-featured and comprehensive vulnerability scanner that offers many configuration options (sometimes
too many), and it is certainly worth considering if you have a limited budget and
don’t mind having a user interface with some rough edges.
items, as well as alert and hot-fix changes.
LANguard is also marketed as a patch
management and deployment solution.
During a scan of a Windows network,
LANguard determines which patches
have been installed on your systems and
which are missing, based on GFI’s coordination with Microsoft. It deploys hot
fixes as well as service packs.
Note that because patch management
is such a multifaceted, complex process,
you may not want to rely on only a vulnerability scanner to determine what
should be updated with the click of a but-
ton. Larger companies, for example, use
their existing application distribution
software, such as Computer Associates’
Unicenter or IBM’s Tivoli, to update their
nodes with patches.
For smaller companies that don’t have
such software, the safest solution is for
each node to run Windows Update. We
also advise that companies of all sizes examine and analyze each patch before deploying it to prevent possible conflicts
with existing applications or services.
LANguard is available as a 30-day free
trial. A number of features, such as scheduled scans, the report generator, results
comparison, security updates via the
Internet, and hot-fix deployment, are disabled after the trial period unless you license the product.
This product is a good choice for administrators in need of a quick, low-cost
basic scanner.—Craig Ellison
MegaPing
50 IP address scans, $325 direct. Magneto Software
Inc., 650-494-3031, www.magnetosoft.com.
lllmm
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Like LAN guard, Magneto Software’s
MegaPing is a good basic networkscanning tool, especially given its low
NETWORK SECURITY SCANNERS
price. But the product lacks depth in the
types of scans it can perform and cannot
scan Linux or Unix hosts beyond portrelated vulnerabilities.
MegaPing has individual tools that scan
for specific information. The IP scanner
lets you scan a range of IP addresses to see
which ones are active, and it resolves the
hosts’ names when that option is selected.
Correspondingly, the NetBIOS scanner
lets you scan a range of IP addresses and
individual hosts—or an entire domain—
and returns the NetBIOS names of hosts,
MAC addresses, and logged-on users.
The Share Scanner tool discovers open
shares within a range of IP addresses or a
domain. Finally, the last of the individual
scanners is a port scanner. This tool lets
you scan a range of ports, including authorized ports (consisting of well-known,
registered, dynamic, or private ports)
and hostile ports (those most likely to be
used by hackers against your system).
The scan results show you the open
ports identified on target systems along
with a list of potential legitimate and
hostile uses for each port. Each individual scanner module has a reporting option that will save to either HTML or TXT
formats. But unlike LANguard, Retina, or
SAINT 5, MegaPing has no utility to compare multiple scans or query the results
for, say, a list of hosts with port 25
(SMTP) open.
Running the individual scans is a bit
time-consuming—especially if you want
an overall security view of your network.
Fortunately, MegaPing includes a security scanner that runs and reports each
scanner as a single test.
Unlike some products reviewed here,
MegaPing shows you the status of all of
the TCP and UDP ports on each system.
While most security scanners analyze remote hosts, it’s not a bad idea to know
which ports are open and listening on
your local system.
With proper permissions, you can
scan and deploy Windows hot fixes and
patches using MegaPing. But as we mentioned in the LANguard review, we don’t
recommend that a network administrator rely solely on a vulnerability scanner
to handle all patch management issues.
A complement of other network utilities that are unrelated to security scanning round out MegaPing. DNS lookup,
Finger, ping, traceroute, Whois, network
time, and a set of process-reporting tools
that are like Windows Task Manager on
steroids belong in every administrator’s
toolkit. A 30-day trial version, limited to
monitoring and security scanning of five
hosts, is available for download.
Like LANguard, MegaPing is a good fit
for administrators in need of a basic, lowcost scanning tool. It will appeal more to
administrators who like having individual
utility “blades” as opposed to LANguard’s
more wide-ranging scans.—CE
Nessus
Free download. Renaud Deraison, www.nessus.com.
lllmm
You certainly can’t beat this remote security scanner’s price: It’s free. The aim of
the open-source Nessus project, in the
words of creator Renaud Deraison, is “to
provide to the Internet community a free,
powerful, up-to-date, and easy-to-use remote security scanner.”
Nessus offers a wealth of configuration and scanning options, though some
users might find them overwhelming.
An administrator may need to devote a
significant amount of time learning the
intricacies of the application to use it
most effectively.
Based on a client/server architecture,
Nessus lets users run the administrative
What Are You Scanning For?
Security scanners can check your network for a host of security threats. They can also recommend critical upgrades
and patches for established applications, assessing everything from open ports to vulnerabilities in CGI scripts.
We’ve provided a handful of examples for each category, but hundreds of other vulnerabilities and exploits are
discovered daily.
OSs
Devices
CGI scripts
Back doors
Applications
Ports
Patches
• Linux
• Solaris
• Unix
• Windows
• Firewalls
• Network
appliances
• Routers
• Servers
• ColdFusion
path disclosure
• Count.cgi
• CWmail.exe
• Guestbook.cgi
• IMail account
hijack
• Newdsn.exe
• Zope DoS
• Back Orifice
• CDK
• Deep Throat
• 4553 Parasite
Mothership
• Girlfriend
• Netbus
• Portal of
Doom
• Exchange
• IIS
• Office
• Oracle
• Postfix
• SQL Server
• Windows Media
Player
• 21
• 25
• 80
• 110
• 125
• Application
version
• Hot fixes
• Linux
updates
• Windows
Service
Pack
125
The Basics:
MBSA and Nmap
b
eyond vulnerability scanners are some free basic assessment
tools, such as Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer and Network Mapper (Nmap). Both are free and can provide valuable information, though Nmap carries a somewhat steep learning curve.
Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer (MBSA), Version 1.1.1
(free download) is a Windows-only scanner that searches for vulnerable configurations that need patching or updating. It is designed for
finding errors in Windows NT 4.0, 2000, or XP, as well as in key
services and a few Microsoft applications (including Internet
Explorer, Office, and Windows Media Player). Considering how
vulnerable an unsecured Windows machine can be, MBSA is valuable to Windows IT administrators who can’t afford the third-party
vulnerability scanners reviewed elsewhere in our roundup.
Although MBSA can scan up to 10,000 machines, its interface,
which resembles the multipaned Windows Update site, is bestsuited for scanning small networks or individual PCs. Results are
broken down into three major groupings, and each includes subsections that list potential threats and links to pop-up windows that
describe what was scanned and how to fix the potential problems.
The information is comprehensive, though it can grow unwieldy if
you’re scanning more than a few systems.
The first and most basic report grouping, Security Update Scan
Results, seems to be the least useful of the three. This lets you
know whether your OS and key services like IIS have the latest
updates. We were surprised by some of the silly, less-than-useful
messages we received, such as one claiming that the updates we
had on our system were “more recent than expected.” Windows
Update still seems the best bet for handling what’s covered by this
first grouping.
The software becomes much more useful in the Windows Scan
Results grouping, particularly in the subsection called Vulnerabilities,
which are really default misconfigurations. Is there an open Guest
account? Is the Restrict Anonymous feature enabled? Security pros
run through checklists like these on their own—typical home users
do not—though the “how to correct this” links in the Vulnerabilities
subsection explain how to harden a machine. The Additional System
Information subsection, however, can be complex and confusing. For
instance, neophytes will have a tough time following the software’s
directions to disable administrative Windows shares.
MBSA provides links to problem descriptions and suggested fixes, but
the information can sometimes be confusing.
SCORECARD
We base the cross-platform capabilities rating on a system’s ability
to retrieve data for different OSs or network devices. Interface
reflects the ease of using and configuring the application. The
extent of security checks a tool performs and the breadth of devices it can
scan and test are represented by the security rating. For reporting we examine the usefulness and range of report formats available. For
support we evaluate the documentation, online help, and commercial support available. Finally, the overall rating is not an average but an aggregate.
–EXCELLENT
–VERY GOOD
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SAINT 5
Security Analyzer 5.0
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OVERALL
GFI LANguard 3.3
126
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console, which executes vulnerability
scans and holds databases on a machine
other than the server. Client front ends are
available for Java, Win32, and X11, making
Nessus a true cross-platform tool that can
scan Linux, Windows, and Unix hosts.
Nessus provides an astonishing quantity of customized tests called plug-ins.
These include interesting scans that look
for vulnerabilities in routers from Cisco
and other companies, CGI scripts, buffer
overruns, remote-access connections,
back doors, RPC, and SNMP.
We installed Nessus on a workstation
running Red Hat Linux 9 and were pleasantly surprised at the ease with which the
installation script completed its job—
something not too common in the opensource world. After installation, we used
the command line tools to add the initial
user and to generate the client certificate.
We were then able to launch the Nessus
The Desktop Application Scan Results
page lists vulnerabilities and easy-to-follow
fixes. The problem for most users, of course,
is that opening all these pop-ups and trying
to keep track of all the data is tedious. It
would be much better if Microsoft came up
with a GUI that works even more like Windows Update, letting you select and apply
fixes, just as you would with updates.
The software uses TCP ports 138 and 445 and UDP ports 137 and
138 to scan remote networks and systems. Until it can scan for other
open ports and automate the problem-fixing phase of the subset of
its security tests, MBSA will remain a must-have only for those who
cannot afford anything better. (Microsoft Corp., www.microsoft.com/
security.)—Konstantinos Karagiannis
Nmap (free download) is a sophisticated port scanner with versions available for Linux, Unix, and Windows platforms. (The Windows version is still under development and is not quite as stable as
the Linux and Unix versions.)
Available under the terms of the open-source GNU General Public
License (GPL), the Nmap scanning engine is at the heart of many commercial Linux- and Unix-based vulnerability assessment tools, including
eEye Digital Security’s Retina Network Security Scanner and Nessus.
While Nmap’s heritage can be traced easily to the command line
interface, NmapFE, also a free download, provides a complex but
intuitive GUI and is now bundled with most Linux distributions.
Despite the wealth of other features available, bare-bones port
scanning remains Nmap’s forte. For example, Nmap lets you perform stealthy half-open TCP SYN (synchronization) scans to emulate what a hacker using that type of scan might see.
Nmap also supports TCP FIN (stealth) scans, an even more clandestine scan that could help you determine whether you are vulnerable
Free —
but not for
the faint
of heart.
executable file and log on to the X11 user
interface without a problem.
To configure scanning, you can either
use the defaults or customize your scans,
though the latter will take the average
administrator quite some time, depending on the diversity of the network. You
can also set port scanning to various levels, taking firewalls and intrusion detection systems into consideration.
To get more accurate and detailed information from Windows-based hosts in
a Windows domain, we recommend that
you create a domain group and account
that have remote registry access privileges. After completing this task, you get
access not only to registry key settings
but also to the Service Pack patch levels,
Internet Explorer vulnerabilities, and services running on the host.
The scan results are formatted based on
domains, hosts, and associated vulnerabil-
to hackers in case your
SYN scans are blocked.
With TCP FIN scans you
attempt to bypass your
firewalls and intrusion
detection systems. You
can enhance both scanning methods by using
fragmentation scanning, a
technique that splits the
TCP header over several
packets, making it harder
for packet filters to detect a hacker’s intentions.
NmapFE is the GUI
Using a services database, Nmap also
front end to the
attempts to determine the version number of
otherwise comservices running on any given port on your
mand line–driven
network. This is helpful in detecting vulneraapplication.
bilities based on outdated or flawed service
releases. For example, OpenSSH versions older than 3.7.1 are
vulnerable because of a flaw in the buffer management function
and can be exploited by hackers. Furthermore, administrators—
and those attempting to run unauthorized applications or services—tend to use nonstandard ports (for example, running a
telnet daemon on port 22, a port usually reserved for SSH) in order
to avoid a hacker’s attention or to circumvent firewall restrictions.
Since Nmap queries the ports for services and versions based on
its database, it can detect such situations.
Not only can Nmap locate hosts on a network, but it includes
TCP/IP fingerprinting features that let you determine operating system types remotely, as well as the types of firewall and protocols in
use. For the most basic port scanning, Nmap is unrivaled. (Opensource, www.insecure.org.)—Oliver Kaven
ities. Reported weaknesses come with
a multitude of suggestions, explaining
the nature of the problem and listing
fixes. Links to the Common Vulnerabilities
and Exposures (CVE) dictionary (www
.cve.mitre.org), which lists
known vulnerabilities, and
Microsoft TechNet (www
.microsoft.com/technet), an
online security resource for
IT administrators, are also
provided, offering administrators further access to information resources and existing patches.
We found, however, that
the summaries provided
were a little inflexible.
Nessus does not group
results based on different criteria—such
as specific vulnerabilities, host types, or
severity—the way NetIQ’s Security An-
alyzer 5.0 and SAINT 5 do.
You can build reports in six different
formats—including pie chart and table
options—providing the sometimesnecessary higher-level view. Still, the in-
Nessus displays subnets, hosts, and vulnerabilities, together with detailed information
on how to address problems.
127
Foundstone FS1000 Appliance
i
f you’re in charge of a large, complex network that is geographically dispersed, have to handle hosts on multiple subnets, and
have $34,200 handy to dedicate to the task, consider the Foundstone
FS1000 Appliance, a turnkey network vulnerability hardware solution.
The FS1000’s scanning engine is impressive, but the most valuable
aspects of the unit are its reporting and threat correlation capabilities. After running a vulnerability assessment, the device generates
data that is presented in multiple ways, ranging from very-high-level
overviews to extremely detailed reports.
Foundstone’s FoundScore rating is another way of making results
data more digestible. FoundScore is especially helpful if you want to
track the security of your network over time. Every scan generates a
score based on an algorithm that starts with 100 points (for a network with no severe vulnerabilities) and then deducts points for
detected weaknesses, based on their severity. Some of the higherlevel views available are Risk by Platform, showing the distribution of
serious vulnerabilities based on operating system, and Risk by Vulnerability, which reports the distribution of host risks.
Using the threat correlation module, we were able to match vulnerabilities to hosts based on several criteria: OS, ports, available
services, and banner information retrieved from the system. You can
ability to group results by type takes away
from the versatility of the report formats.
Nessus will appeal most to administrators who want not only a comprehensive
scanning tool but also an in-depth longterm education in network security vulnerabilities.—OK
Retina Network
Security Scanner
64 IP address scans, $2,550 direct. eEye Digital
Security, 866-339-3732, www.eeye.com. l l l l m
eEye Digital Security’s Retina
Network Security Scanner is a
versatile, well-organized, and
full-featured security scanner,
offering vulnerability tests for
Linux, Unix, and Windows platforms, as
well as automatic fixes of many detected
128
also assign a “criticality” score from 0 (none) to
5 (extensive), to the overall risk score of any
given host, bringing it to the top of your list if a
matched high-risk vulnerability is identified. This
enables you to identify and prioritize your most
crucial hosts. We think similar features should
be found in all vulnerability scanners.
The FS1000 is built on a 1U rack-mount server
with dual Intel Xeon processors, running Microsoft Small Business Server 2001. The device
also runs Foundstone Enterprise, which has
three components. An SQL back-end database is used to store all
data, including scan configurations, results, and reports. The scan
engine is the heart of the device and provides configuration options
in a Win32-based application. And finally, Foundstone’s easy-to-use
Web-based portal provides access to all aspects of the application,
including scan configuration, asset management, reporting, and
threat evaluation; it can also function as a central access interface if
you are using multiple third-party scan engines that report to a centralized database. The Web portal module even includes code sifting,
a technique employed to identify potentially sensitive content, such
as e-mail addresses or names in your HTML source.
Though we almost choked when we saw the FS1000’s price, we
remain extremely impressed. It provides all the important data analysis features as well as a mature and easy-to-use interface. The
FS1000’s tested configuration ($34,200 direct) includes the appliance ($6,700), Foundstone Enterprise
software ($25,000, which covers 500
The FS1000 provides threat
active devices), and the Threat Correcorrelation; it matches
lation and Remediation components
vulnerabilities to several
($2,500). (877-913-6863, www
different criteria and
.foundstone.com.)—OK
assigns a rating to each.
The RollsRoyce of
turnkey
vulnerability
hardware.
problems and the ability to create your
own audits. These features give Retina
the edge, earning it our Editors’ Choice.
The auto-fix function is one of Retina’s
most impressive tools and is unique
among the products in this roundup. It
lets administrators with appropriate access rights fix registry and permissions
problems on remote nodes with one click.
Equally impressive is Retina’s unique
auditing tool, which lets you develop specific queries about vulnerabilities you’re
already aware of on your network. Applications like Stealthbits Technologies’
StealthAudit (see page 132) are designed
specifically to handle this function, but
Retina is the only vulnerability scanner in
our roundup to include this ability.
You can create an audit by choosing cri-
teria from a variety of categories, including many popular services, servers, and
even e-commerce–related vulnerabilities.
Or you can create your own custom audits,
which then can be included in the scan
process and run against your selected targets. You can select the option to check
against specific software versions, CGI
scripts, patches, and registry entries.
The installation process is straightforward, and upon start-up, Retina synchronizes its vulnerability signature databases with eEye’s server. When Retina
opens, the main user interface provides
access to four modules: the browser,
tracer, miner, and scanner. The integrated
Web browser lists all page elements in a
tree view, and the tracer creates a traceroute and displays response times. But the
miner and scanner modules are the brains
of the operation. With its proprietary
artificial-intelligence engine, the miner
tries to mimic a hacker’s behavior by attacking security weaknesses.
The scanner module is one of the best
we have seen, in terms of both speed and
accuracy. After defining a host or range of
IP addresses, the scanner first discovers
all responsive nodes and then launches
predefined scans against the targets. The
result presentation is extremely easy to
navigate, listing hosts in one frame and
potential vulnerabilities in another, but
unfortunately you can’t sort them by type.
Scan results are grouped by severity
level for each host, and as with NetIQ’s
Security Analyzer 5.0 and SAINT 5, the
results include very detailed information
about the problems found and possible
fixes. Retina lists identification numbers
and provides links for all vulnerabilities
found in BugTraq, CVE, and Microsoft’s
security bulletin, which are reference
SAINT 5
50 IP address scans, $1,835
direct. SAINT Corp., 800-5962006, www.saintcorporation
.com. l l l l m
SAINT 5, which is avail-
able only for Linux and
Unix platforms, is one
of the most complex
vulnerability scanners
in our roundup. You can
configure this tool exRetina’s clean interface shows hosts, vulnerabilities, and solutions. tensively, tailoring scans
to your network’s charlists for known vulnerabilities.
acteristics and determining the depth of
The reporting engine builds three pre- the scans you run. You can even create
defined types of charts: complete, execu- specific scans to run against databases,
tive, and technical. You can also cus- services, and applications.
tomize a report to fit your needs—a
What most impresses us about SAINT
feature that is absent from all other prod- 5 is the comprehensive presentation of its
scan results. The detailed information inucts in this roundup except SAINT 5.
Overall, Retina provides the best balance cludes, for example, links to all pertinent
of features, strength, usability, and speed of security sources that might provide addiall the products in this roundup.—OK
tional insights. Also, the results can be
P E R F O R M A N C E A N A LY S I S
Network Security
Scanners
PC Magazine Labs has taken an in-depth look
at the six network vulnerability scanners in our
roundup, as well as the tools included in our sidebars
(the Foundstone FS1000 Appliance, Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer (MBSA), Nmap, and Stealthbits Technologies’
StealthAudit). When we tested how well they could catch basic
network vulnerabilities, all the scanners performed adequately.
But the quality—and more important, the ease of use of the
reports the products generate—varied significantly.
Our test network comprised a Linksys BEFVP41 router and
a mix of Microsoft Windows clients and servers (Windows
98, 2000 Workstation, 2000 Advanced Server, and XP). We
also deployed Linux hosts (Red Hat 8 and 9 Professional, SuSE
Enterprise Server 8, and SuSE 8.1 Professional) to test each
application’s cross-platform capabilities.
We updated all systems with all appropriate patches, but
we did not fix a select number of critical vulnerabilities on
the target hosts. On our Windows hosts we left vulnerabilities
described in Microsoft Security Bulletins MS03-039 (Buffer
Overrun In RPCSS Service, CAN-2003-0715, CAN-2003-0528, and
CAN-2003-0605) and MS03-041 (Vulnerability in Authenticode
Verification, CAN-2003-0660). Under the right circumstances,
both can let hackers execute code on target systems.
We left our Linux machines vulnerable with an exploitable
version of OpenSSH (CAN-2003-0682, CAN-2003-0693, and
CAN-2003-0695), a file share (/usr) exported with no access
restrictions (CAN 1999-0554), and a denial-of-service vulnerability in the Unix Domain Name Service BIND 9.1.3 (CAN-20020400). Such Linux vulnerabilities can create a severe security
risk, compromising your network and data.
All the products correctly identified the Windows vulnerabilities, and their reports included references to the appropriate
Microsoft Security Bulletins. But the Linux vulnerabilities
posed a bigger challenge to some of the Windows scanners.
When we tested automated patch management for Windows-based systems, the two scanners that offer this feature—
GFI LANguard and MegaPing—returned results that differed (as
did the free tool MBSA) from the information we collected with
Microsoft Windows Update. Some of the discrepancies stem
from the way each application reports on security issues—for
example, the rerelease of security bulletins. These can prompt
a scanner to report that an update is missing, instead of reporting that the update has been superseded by a newer version.
Because of such issues, we recommend that you rely on dedicated patch management products for this task.
Finally, we tested the presentation and usability of the
reports these scanners generate. Most systems overwhelm
administrators with a flood of information that can’t be sorted,
grouped, or searched. The reporting and result engines ought
to let users focus on specific criteria, such as host name, IP
address, vulnerability, and severity. Retina, our Editors’ Choice,
does a very good job of results correlation, as does SAINT 5.
Most impressive, however, is the very expensive Foundstone
FS1000 Appliance.—Analysis written by Oliver Kaven
129
customized so that you can sort them by
characteristics such as host name, vulnerabilities, and severity.
Though Linux and Unix applications
generally have the reputation of being difficult to set up, we found the installation
procedure very easy. Once installed and
launched, the SAINT 5 console runs in a
standard browser window, providing a
dense but well-structured interface. The
content of scan configurations are assigned to databases created in your console’s file system. Each database holds
configuration data, results, and the corresponding report, simplifying the process
of merging existing data.
Conveniently, SAINT 5 can be configured to log on to Microsoft Windows domains—simply by using an administrative user name and password—to
perform tests that require domain authentication.
Much like NetIQ’s Security Analyzer,
SAINT 5 offers a select number of configured target scans—a useful, timesaving feature. The SANS Top 20 Most
Critical Internet Security Vulnerabilities
scan is a good example. This predefined
test scans all selected nodes for the top
20 most severe and frequent vulnerabilities on Internet networks as defined by
the SysAdmin, Audit, Network, Security
(SANS) Institute.
SAINT 5’s extraordinary reports are
generated in the included SAINTwriter, a
unique application that produces preconfigured reports tailored to meet the
needs of either executives or technicians.
And SAINTwriter’s trending feature enables you to compare scan results from
two or more reports. Unfortunately,
though, within reports there’s no query
feature or grouping function that would
help the user zero in on certain problems.
While the reporting available is far
more in-depth than any other product in
this roundup, these features can quickly
become overwhelming, especially if you
start scanning larger networks.
Overall, SAINT 5 is feature-rich and
provides extensive analysis capabilities.
It is definitely worth considering if your
network includes a significant number of
Linux and Unix hosts.—OK
Security Analyzer 5.0
50 IP address scans, $3,000 direct. NetIQ Corp., 888323-6768, www.netiq.com. l l l l m
If your organization is a pure Windows
environment, NetIQ’s Security Analyzer
5.0 is an ideal choice. This well-organized
vulnerability scanner performs comprehensive scans for known security vulnerabilities listed in an extensive library, as
well as updated vulnerabilities it receives
regularly from NetIQ via the Internet.
Security Analyzer is the only scanner
in this roundup that offers agent-based
scanning, in which you can install agents
on the hosts being scanned and, in turn,
get more in-depth analyses of those hosts.
Agent-based scanning distributes the
processing of scans among the target
hosts, encrypts data between the host
and the security console, and doesn’t
rely on Microsoft’s Distributed Object
Component Model (DCOM), which is
prone to exploits by hackers. There are
numerous types of attacks that exploit
DCOM to run malicious code on remote
systems, and administrators will therefore often disable this feature if it’s not
• • • • • • • •• • •• • • • • • • •
Network Security Scanners
• • • •••• •••••• •
GFI LANguard
Network Security
Scanner 3.3
MegaPing
Nessus
50 IP address scans,
$395
$325
Win32
Windows 98, NT, 2000,
XP; Unix, Linux
o
Local configuration not required for
Windows/Unix clients
• ••••••• •
Custom-scans for routers/firewalls
Retina Network
Security Scanner
SAINT 5
Security
Analyzer 5.0
Free
$2,550
$1,835
50 IP address
scans, $3,000
Win32
XP
o
Win32, Unix, Linux
Windows 98, NT,
2000, XP; Unix, Linux
o
Win32
XP; Unix, Linux
o
Unix, Linux
XP; Unix, Linux
o
Win32
Windows 98, NT,
2000, XP
y
yy
y N/A
oy
yy
yy
y N/A
oo
o
o
oo
o
o
yy
y
y
yy
o
o
yy
y
y
yy
y
yy
oo
yo
yy
yy
y (with agent)
yy
Windows patch detection via mssecure/
Registry/file date
yyy
yyy
ooy
yyy
oyy
yyy
Patch deployment capabilities
Claimed frequency of vulnerability updates
y
Microsoft update
schedule
y
Daily
o
Daily
o
Daily
o
Daily
o
Every 3 days
Supports templates/custom reports/queries
yyy
ooo
ooo
yyy
yyo
yyy
Supported report formats
HTML
HTML, text
HTML
CSV, HTML, text
HTML, Word
Detailed problem reporting
y
o
HTML, LaTeX, NSR,
text, XML
y
y
y
y
Reports include data for Bugtraq/CVE
yy
y
oo
y
yy
y
yy
y
yy
y
yy
y
oy
o
oo
o
oo
o
oo
o
yy
y
oy
y
y YES o NO
Direct price
••••••• •••
Application OS compatibility
Full-target scanning
Client agent available
Can scan multiple hosts simultaneously
Can establish secure sessions to target
Tests can be saved in profiles/schedules
•••• •••••
Reports include data for Microsoft TechNet
Reports or results can be merged/compared
Reports or results can be used for trending
•••
N/A—Not applicable: The product does not have this feature.
Targeting Known WeakSpots
m
ost of the products in this roundup follow one
principle: You point them at all or part of your
network, then let them loose to scan the terrain for any
vulnerabilities. What you receive back are reams of data on
all types of potential problems, in all areas of your network.
If you’re already aware of specific problems on your
network and want to zero in on them, however, an auditing
tool like Stealthbits Technologies’ StealthAudit could be the
answer. StealthAudit can narrow your network scans based
on queries you feed it. For example, if you know that some
nodes on your network don’t have the critical Microsoft
Security Bulletin MS03-039 installed and want to identify
those nodes, you could query StealthAudit with that specific
request. This eliminates the burden on your network of
performing an extensive, hours-long vulnerability scan that
would produce a heap of unneeded information.
StealthAudit is a comprehensive and extremely configurable
agentless audit application for Windows-based networks. Information gathering with StealthAudit identifies more than just patchlevel issues; it provides a wide range of
information about network nodes. The
application provides an easy-to-use and
extremely intuitive interface.
StealthAudit is organized around the
creation of jobs, which include the query,
results, and accompanying report. You can
create the query manually or via a wizard.
By using resources like remote registry
access, WMI (Windows Management
Instrumentation), perfmon statistics,
StealthAudit’s query
tools help
you zero in
on specific
problems.
specifically required by important systems on their network.
Deployment of Security Analyzer’s
agent is very straightforward. You need to
specify a port, generate an encryption key,
and place that key in a DAT file for hostto-console communication. Also, from a
log-on script, the agent can be installed on
target systems in silent mode. You can either run tests on demand or use the
scheduler to launch the scan profiles at
predetermined times.
Security Analyzer ships with a number
of predefined scan profiles you might
Active Directory, and the event log,
queries can cover an infinite number
of issues. Examples of queries include Windows log-on–related
settings and user privileges, a system shutdown without a valid log-on,
display of disabled accounts, and
password expiration. Queries can
also identify Web servers that were
secured with the IIS lockdown tool,
high-risk services running on hosts,
and NetBIOS-related vulnerabilities.
The queries can be customized down
to the level of manually editing the
XML source, which can be helpful if
you have a complex environment.
You can use all queries to generStealthAudit’s queries can
ate reports, which you can then
be customized to scan for
publish to your Web server, indicatspecific hot fixes based on
ing the name of the user that generMicrosoft’s database.
ated them and providing a hyperlink
to the report. There are also many predefined reports available.
Regardless of the size of your network, StealthAudit is an indispensable tool, especially if you often find yourself trying to collect
targeted information from many nodes. The application also runs
fast without taxing your network bandwidth, according to our anecdotal testing. (50-node license, $300 list per server, $3 per desktop;
for Microsoft Exchange networks, $300 per host, $3 per individual
mailbox or public folder. Stealthbits Technologies, 630-357-2513,
www.stealthbits.com.)—OK
perform regularly, such as Microsoft Security Bulletin, Common Vulnerabilities
and Exposures, and CERT and BugTraq
advisory and analysis. Alternatively, you
can create your own scan profiles from 21
different categories.
Scan results are displayed in an organized, straightforward three-pane window. A tabbed interface lets you view
your data in the left-hand pane based on
host IP address, risk level, vulnerabilities,
services running, users, fixes needed
(ranked by risk), and the testing policies
applied to the scan. The right-hand pane
More on the Web
Log on to www.pcmag.com/securityglossary for comprehensive definitions of security terms in this story.
displays detailed information for the data
element selected in the left-hand pane.
The pane running across the bottom of
the screen shows you a description of the
vulnerability with links to additional information, as well as recommendations
for fixes with links to patches, if available.
Similar to Retina and SAINT 5, Security
Analyzer has a comprehensive report generator. You can choose to generate
reports on the current or previous scan
results or run a comparative report
against previous results to determine your
remediation progress. You can also e-mail
your reports from within the program.
Organizations with pure Windows environments should be satisfied with the
many options and features Security Analyzer provides. And if you’re not sure
whether to buy it, you can use a limited
trial version at NetIQ’s Web site.—CE E
132
w w w. p c m a g . c o m /a f te r h o u r s
T E C H N O L O G Y O N YO U R T I M E
The Comfort Zone
BY DON LABRIOLA
T
Air Tech
Computer
Ergonomic Flex
Foot Rest
Kensington ClipNGlow
Task Light and
Copyholder
The Kensington ClipNGlow
Sitting in front of a
Task Light and Copyholder is
computer all day is a
one of the most affordable
great way to develop
ways we know to reduce the
chronic lower-back
hassle and strain of on-theAir Tech
pain, but if your boss
road computing. Although not
isn’t willing to buy
strictly an
you a chair with lower-lumbar support,
ergonomic device, it
your next-best bet might be a footrest.
does a good enough
Regardless of how often you change your
job of reducing awkseating position, footrests ensure that
ward motions and
your feet and legs are always situated to
postures to earn itself
facilitate proper back curvature, reduce
a spot in our story.
foot fatigue, alleviate pressure points in
The ClipNGlow is a
USB gooseneck lamp
your chair seat, and ensure proper circuthat you can attach to
lation in your feet and legs.
the top of a CRT or
Consider either version of the ruggedKensington
clamp to a notebook’s
ly built Air Tech Computer Ergonomic
LCD. A second clip lets
Flex Foot Rest, which comes in 3-inchyou suspend documents in almost any
high Standard and double-height Tall
position, eliminating the contortions that
models. Both feature a nonskid rubber
are often necessary when working on a
surface and a clever sliding tilt/height
plane, in a waiting room, or in the back
mechanism that can be adjusted with
seat of a cab. When not in use, the entire
gentle foot pressure.
WHAT THE RATINGS MEAN
Standard, $21.95 direct;
assembly collapses into a tiny, featherlllll EXCELLENT
Tall, $25.95. Air Techweight package that fits easily into most
llllm VERY GOOD
nologies Corp.,
notebook carrying cases.
lllmm GOOD
www.airtech.net/
footrests.html. llllm
146
llmmm FAIR
lmmmm POOR
$20 street. Kensington Technology Group,
www.kensington.com. llllm
Logitech
LapWorks
Laptop Desk Ensemble
The LapWorks Laptop Desk Ensemble is a
collection of accessories that create an
ergonomically sound portable desktop for
notebook computers. Its main component
is the folding Laptop Desk platform:
When fully open, this traylike apparatus
perches on your lap or between the armrests of a midsize chair to create a ridged
surface that reduces hot spots by allowing
airflow beneath the computer. In the
office, it folds into an adjustable
notebook stand that elevates the
display and angles the keyboard into
ergonomically correct positions.
The Ensemble also includes
the MouzPad, a 6- by 9-inch
mousing surface that snaps onto
the edge of the Laptop Desk, and
the SwivlPad turntable, an ultrathin
rubberized disc that, when inserted
beneath your notebook, permits a
full 360 degrees of rotation.
Ensemble, $49.95 direct; Laptop Desk,
$29.95; MouzPad, $9.95; SwivlPad, $19.95.
LapWorks Inc., www.laptopdesk.net. lllmm
Logitech Cordless
Optical TrackMan
A well-designed trackball is easier on your
wrist and forearm than a mouse, because
you don’t need to move it around your
desk. Plenty of trackballs are on the market,
but few are in a class with the Logitech
he fledgling science of ergonomics has undergone a small revolution
over the past decade, which has radically changed the way safetyconscious manufacturers design peripherals and accessories. Novel
designs have all but replaced earlier ones that sometimes contributed
to repetitive-stress injuries instead of reducing them. The latest principles of ergonomic design are now applied to everything from monitor stands
to document holders, footrests, and luggage. Even the lowly keyboard continues
to be reinvented in a mind-boggling array of shapes. In this story, we take a look
at some of the most comfort-enhancing peripherals and accessories we’ve found.
AFTER HOURS
Cordless Optical
TrackMan. As its
name implies, the
TrackMan combines a 27-MHz
www.pcmag.com/
wireless interface
afterhours
with high-precision
Go to our Web site
optical tracking. It’s
for more Quick
also one of the few
Clips and Gear &
Games reviews.
models that are best
operated with your
hand in a natural thumbs-up position.
The TrackMan goes even farther, with
motion-saving features such as dual wheel
and push-button scrollers and one-click
page navigation controls. Throw in a
comfortable organic design, programmable buttons, and one
of the smoothest
trackball mechanisms we’ve used.
Even people who
hate trackballs might
love this one.
ONLINE
MORE ON
THE WEB
$69.96 list. Logitech
Inc., www.logitech.com.
llllm
PLUM Keyboard
The QWERTY keyboard was designed to
reduce typing speed and thus prevent
typewriter jams. What its creators didn’t
realize, however, was the detrimental
effect of the unnatural twisting and
stretching it forced on typists.
The PLUM Keyboard (named
after the first four letters in its top
row) uses an easier-to-learn,
more comfortable layout that
places 74 percent of the most
common keys directly under
your fingers in their home
position. Letters are arranged
into easy-to-remember words, and
keys line up in straight columns that
eliminate the need to extend
your fingers at odd
angles. It may take
some time for
experienced typists
to learn this new
Samsung
layout, but many
people will find that
the increased speed
and reduced strain
easily justify the effort.
$139 direct. PLUM LLC,
www.plum.bz. lllmm
Samsung SyncMaster 192T
Positioning your display too high can lead
to unnatural viewing angles and chronic
neck problems. Most tilt-and-swivel
monitors lack even rudimentary height adjustments, but the
1-inch-thick
Samsung SyncMaster
192T—a flat-panel
display—boasts a
uniquely designed
cabinet and stand
that support a full
complement of
positioning options.
Besides allowing true
vertical height adjustment,
the SyncMaster 192T’s rugged stand can
be tilted 90 degrees and even folded back
onto itself to become a thin-profile wallmount bracket.
Everything else about the
SyncMaster 192T is just as
impressive, including its
bright, crisp 19-inch LCD,
DVI and dual analog
RGB inputs, built-in
Plum
stereo speakers, and
clutter-reducing cable management system. Using anything less is
likely to be a pain in the neck.
$740 street. Samsung Electronics, www.samsungusa.com/monitor. llllm
Targus Matrix Notebook
Backpack, NoteworthyExpedition Backpack
Ergonomic concerns
don’t stop when you
shut off your PC.
Even carrying your
notebook the
Targus Matrix
wrong way can
eventually cause
back and neck
problems. That’s
one reason we’re
impressed with Targus’s
many backpack models
designed for carrying computers.
One is the student-friendly Targus
Matrix Notebook Backpack, which holds
systems with 15-inch displays, offers contoured mesh shoulder straps, and even
includes a removable mobile-phone case.
The Targus Noteworthy Expedition
Backpack protects your notebook with air
cushioning. It includes pockets for business cards, file folders, and power cords. It
also provides foam pads that reconcile the
hard, flat surface of a computer with the
smooth curves of your back.
Matrix Notebook Backpack, $69.99 direct;
Noteworthy Expedition Backpack, $79.99.
Targus Inc., www.targus.com/us/cases_
notebook_backpacks.asp. lllmm
3M Precise Mousing Surface
withGel Wrist Rest
Arching your hand
upward when using a
mouse exerts pressure
on the ligaments and
Lapworks
nerves in your wrist.
Do this often enough
and you become a
candidate for repetitive
stress disorders such as
carpal tunnel syndrome.
The 3M Precise Mousing Surface with
Gel Wrist Rest addresses this problem by
raising your wrist to a neutral position. Its
multicolored, microtextured mousing
surface provides precise control for both
optical and mechanical mice, and its highfriction backing material further reduces
muscular stress by keeping
the pad and surface firmly in
place on
your desk.
But its
strongest point
is an amazingly
comfortable gel3M
filled wrist rest,
which forces your hand
into a comfortable, safe position without
applying excessive pressure to the bottom
of your wrist. This is the king of ergonomic mouse pads.
$15 street. 3M, www.3m.com. llllm
TypeMatrix EZ-Reach
The TypeMatrix EZ-Reach and the PLUM
Keyboard are two different solutions to the
same problem. Both reduce finger stretching by aligning keys in straight columns
and increase typing speed by placing important keys such as Enter, Tab, Space, and
Backspace as close as possible to your
strongest fingers.
The difference is that the EZ-Reach
retains the traditional QWERTY layout,
avoiding the need for you to learn the
PLUM’s unusual keymap. And the EZReach’s slim shape lets you lay it directly
on top of your notebook’s existing keyboard, without covering the touch pad.
$99 direct. TypeMatrix,
www.typematrix.com.
lllmm
Typematrix
147
AFTER HOURS
Stylish Slider
The 2.6-ounce GSM/GPRS Siemens SL56 is an
appealing but pricey fashion phone. When you’re
not using the SL56 as a phone, its LCD screen
displays the time. To answer a call, you slide the
top half of the phone with your thumb to reveal
a keypad and then use it as a voice, data, and
MMS messaging phone. We found, sadly, that
most people couldn’t figure out how to open
it without an explanation.—Bruce Brown
$250 direct. A&T Wireless, www
.attwireless.com. lllmm
Not
Engaging
Video Goggles
No, you haven’t been assimilated by
the Borg. You’re wearing a pair of
Ingineo Eyetop sunglasses, which
include a tiny microdisplay so you
can watch videos. The Eyetop
accepts any composite NTSC or PAL
video source and displays it on a
color 320- by 240-pixel
screen. Choose a model
according to which of
your eyes is dominant. The
adapter runs on four
double-A batteries and plugs
into your DVD player, camcorder, or other device. The
sunglasses are stylish but
primitive, and it takes some
adjustment to get the image in a
comfortable position, but the device
really works.—Alfred Poor
The Nokia
N-Gage portable
game deck features online,
mobile, multiplayer game play.
It is a prototype of
a brilliant concept: a
mobile-game platform that can serve as a
tri-band GSM phone, an
MP3 player, an FM tuner, an
e-mail client, and a personal
information manager. Unfortunately, design flaws limit the device.
For example, you have to disassemble the
unit to change MMC modules.
—Matthew D. Sarrel
$299 list. Nokia, www.n-gage.com. llmmm
$449.99 direct. Ingineo SAS,
www.eyetop.net. lllmm
Charge!
Forgot your cell-phone charger? Caught in a blackout? The
Innovative SideWinder can come to the rescue: This 3-ounce
gadget is a tiny hand-cranked generator that breathes life into
a nearly dead battery via an included cable. Two minutes of
cranking gives you 5 to 6 minutes of talk time or half an hour of
standby. The crank also powers an LED for emergency illumination.
The SideWinder is a useful alternative to USB chargers and single-use
battery packs with long shelf lives.—Bill Howard
$24.95 direct. Innovative Solutions & Technologies,
www.sidewindercharger.com. lllmm
148
AFTER HOURS
Play for the Green
By Rich Brown
Why play just for fun when you can play for cold, hard cash? These sites let you compete with others to win money. You won’t retire on your winnings—prizes generally
top out at around $10—but most games cost only a few dollars to play. Regardless of
how much you win, real-world stakes add an exciting dimension to online gaming.
Arkadium
You have the power to
choose your opponent
in 21 head-to-head
skill games, mostly of
the parlor variety. You
can launch games,
find other players, and
manage your account
via Arkadium GameDek, an easy-to-use
mini-app. Arkadium
takes roughly 15 percent of the money wagered, and $250 per
month is the maximum deposit.
Standout features are GameDek’s ease of
use, its colorful icons, and the ability to select your opponents. You can also look up
the detailed winning history of other players, so skill levels are out in the open. The
online help, though, is difficult to navigate.
In an admirably community-minded
move, Arkadium recently announced
Developer Zone, where game developers
can submit their creations for review and
possible inclusion in the Arkadium
GameDek system. If developers’ games
are accepted, Arkadium shares its revenues with them.
Arkadium Inc., www.arkadium.com. llllm
Ultimate Arena
This site is a hard-core gamer’s delight,
featuring the popular first-person shooters America’s Army, Counter-Strike,
Unreal Tournament, and Unreal Tournament 2003. Gamers compete in one-onone or team matches, launching games
directly from the player-matching lobby.
They win money based on kills, team
wins, and other factors, depending on the
game type and entry fee ($1 to $10). Ultimate Arena’s take is 15 percent, and
account deposit minimums are $50 for the
first month and $200 for each following
month (although both can be increased by
contacting customer service).
In-game action is less chaotic than on
the games’ public servers, because teams
can have only up to 6 members each, and
free-for-all games are limited to 13 players.
But a drawback of Ultimate Arena is the
sparse attendance (the most populated
game we saw was a three-on-three
Counter-Strike match). And although
Ultimate Arena uses anticheat software,
the player feedback system is the only
remedy for players who maliciously shoot
their own teammates and otherwise
interfere with regular play. Still, it is easy
to get in touch with other players and to
view scoring and winning histories.
Ultimate Arena, www.ultimatearena.com.
llllm
WorldWinner
Similar to Arkadium, WorldWinner offers
a range of arcade, board, card, and puzzle
games. When you launch a game from
WorldWinner’s Web page, you are automatically paired with an opponent by the
FairMatching system.
In some games, FairMatching is sufficient,
but in head-to-head
games like chess and
checkers, you might
want to know more
about your opponent
than a FairMatching score and what was
said in the game’s chat lobby.
Another gripe we have is with the
practice system. Although you can earn
up to $10 by gambling against your own
previously posted high scores, you can
practice each game only ten times.
WorldWinner offers many tournaments
for cash awards that are generally higher
than with the standard games, but we
would like more one-on-one games where
the chances of winning money are higher.
The lack of player information and the
feeling that you’re being shoved toward the
money games detract from the experience.
WorldWinner Inc., www.worldwinner.com.
llmmm
QUICK CLIPS
Age of Mythology: The Titans
Microsoft expands its
popular Age of
Mythology world
with the Titans,
powerful beings who
came before the
other gods and aren’t
happy about being replaced, as well as
many new hero and myth units. The single-player campaign mode helps players
learn how to control the various units,
and hard-core types can jump right into
multiplayer battles online. Age of
Mythology: The Titans boasts cool animation, crisp graphics, and fun music to
boot.—John Blazevic
$29.99 list. Microsoft Game Studios, www
.microsoft.com/games. lllll
Get Digital
Get Digital provides next-day
digital encoding
for the timeconstrained music lover. After you send
your CDs to the company and specify
your choice of encoding format (AAC,
MP3, WAV, or WMA) and bit rate, your
collection is returned to you on the
medium of your choice—DVD-R, DVD+R,
or CD-R—along with a custom printout
record of your collection. The company
can also transfer the files to any portable MP3 player or hard drive at no
extra charge.—Ted Huang
50 to 200 CDs, $1.99 each; 201 to 400, $1.49
each; 401 or more, $0.99 each. Get Digital Inc.,
www.get-digital.net. llllm
Star Wars Jedi Knight:
Jedi Academy
Twirling into battle with
two light sabers sounds
cool, and it is—at first—
as are new combat
styles and role-playing
elements and a branching, mission-based story
line. A standout feature
is ridable vehicles, which make for one of
the most thrilling scenes in the game
series, despite imprecise controls. Still,
saber fighting remains a button-mashing
mess, and the Quake 3 graphics engine
on which the game is based is showing
its age.—RB
$49.95 direct. LucasArts, www.lucasarts
.com. l l l m m
149
ANOTHER YEAR DONE, ANOTHER 138 T-SHIRTS SENT—AND WE’VE JUST ORDERED MORE
J
Edited by Don Willmott
All right already. We get it.
(Microsoft Outlook 2000)
J
Backspace on the Road: Milford, Michigan.
J
This text item is really
funny because of text.
(Internet Archive site)
J
Are congratulations
really in order?
(Netscape site)
J
Our government is full of checks and balances.
(U.S. Department of Labor site)
The baby is sure
to enjoy it!
J
(Amazon.com)
w w w. p c m a g . c o m / b a c k s p a c e
If your entry is used, we’ll send you a PC Magazine T-shirt. Submit your entries via e-mail to [email protected] (attachments are welcome)
or to Backspace, PC Magazine, 28 E. 28th St., New York, NY 10016-7940. Ziff Davis Media Inc. shall own all property rights in the entries.
Winners this issue: Bryce Benton, Scott Bicknell, Carl Brown, Bob Carswell, Bryan Hoch, and Garrett Kaste.
PC Magazine, ISSN 0888-8507, is published semi-monthly except 3 issues in October (10/14/03 is the Fall 2003 issue) and monthly in January and July at $39.97 for one year. Ziff Davis Media Inc, 28 E. 28th St., New York, NY
10016-7940. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY 10016-7940 and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Address changes to PC Magazine, P.O. Box 54070, Boulder, CO 80328-4070. The Canadian GST registration
number is 865286033. Publications Mail Agreement No. 40009221. Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to PO Box 503, RPO West Beaver Creek, Richmond Hill, ON L4B 4R6. Printed in the U.S.A.
150

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