Computeractive! Latest updates

Apple iPhone 3GS users report overheating problems

Andrea-Marie Vassou — 2009-07-03T16:09:00.000Z

Andrea-Marie Vassou, Computeractive, Friday 3 July 2009 at 16:09:00

Some users complain about overheating and burn marks

Some owners of the Apple iPhone 3GS model have had trouble with the model overheating and becoming discoloured.

Details of the problems, which also plagued the older model, have been posted on forums and technology sites. One user claimed he bought an iPhone and used it normally. However it became hot and he said there is a red burn mark on the back.

Another post on the MacRumour forum said: “These are the same problems Apple has had on a lot of other products. You would think they would have gotten it by now. You would think that after the third iPhone they would have gotten it.”

In a statement on its site Apple advised iPhone users to ensure the phone was not left in a car where temperatures could exceed the -20C to 45C range in which the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS models were designed to function.

“If the interior temperature of the device exceeds normal operating temperatures, you may experience the following as it attempts to regulate its temperature.

"The device stops charging, display dims, weak cellular signal, temperature warning screen appears with the message iPhone needs to cool down before you can use it,” it said.

However, it seems that there are also other problems affecting the phone. In a posting on the macrumors.com forum, one user complained that using the new device's video recording feature had caused it to overheat, while another complained that after carrying his phone in a backpack, it got so hot that the plastic case became distorted with tiny bumps.

Judge overturns MySpace bullying conviction

Shaun Nichols in San Francisco — 2009-07-03T00:00:00.000Z

Shaun Nichols in San Francisco, V3.co.uk, Friday 3 July 2009 at 00:00:00

Lori Drew could be cleared of criminal charges in suicide case

A US judge has moved to overturn the conviction of a Missouri woman accused of bullying a teenager who later committed suicide.

District Judge George Wu has ruled that Lori Drew was not guilty of violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, overturning an earlier jury decision that convicted Drew on three misdemeanour counts of unauthorised access to a computer.

The 50 year-old housewife was accused of bullying 13 year-old Megan Meier, a former friend of Drew's daughter, through social networking site MySpace.

According to prosecutors, Drew created an account for a fictional teenaged boy named 'Josh'. The fake account was then used to flirt with Meier. After conducting a brief online relationship with the girl, 'Josh' then ended the relationship and began to taunt Meier, who later took her own life.

Shortly after Meier's suicide, Drew was brought up on felony and misdemeanour charges of illegally accessing a computer. A jury in Los Angeles acquitted Drew of the felony counts, but returned a guilty verdict on the three misdemeanour charges.

The case raised a heated debate over how cyber bullying cases on the internet should be handled, in terms of the charges that can be filed and the jurisdiction local authorities can hold over online activites.

Judge Wu appeared to echo those concerns in his decision. According to the Los Angeles Times, Wu stated in his ruling that, by bringing criminal charges against Drew, prosecutors were equating any violation of a site's terms and conditions with a crime.

"Is a misdemeanor committed by the conduct which is done every single day by millions and millions of people?" Wu was quoted as saying.

"If these people do read [the terms of service] and still say they're 40 when they are 45, is that a misdemeanor?"

Slow uptake of technology in NHS "harming patient safety"

Bryan Glick — 2009-07-03T11:01:00.000Z

Bryan Glick, Computing, Friday 3 July 2009 at 11:01:00

MPs want to see greater focus on key IT initiatives

MPs have warned that the slow uptake of key technologies across the NHS is hindering important improvements in patient safety.

The report by the House of Commons Health Committee said that while the “potency and complexity” of new technologies can introduce great potential for harm, it can also make a major contribution to patient safety.

But certain key developments are being implemented too slowly.

“The delay in introducing technologies proven to improve patient safety is extremely alarming,” said the committee.

The report identifies a number of IT-related initiatives that should be given greater focus.

A timetable should be set for introducing automated decision-support systems, which can help GPs in diagnosing problems, the committee recommends.

Automatic identification and data capture systems, such as better use of bar codes, can help to reduce errors. Initiatives at Charing Cross Hospital and Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust have proved the potential of this technology.

But despite central funding for Oxford’s blood transfusion barcoding project, intended to produce a national specification, a pilot scheme is only progressing slowly, with IT connectivity highlighted as one of the causes of problems.

And continued delays in electronic patient records, a key part of the £12.7bn NHS National Programme for IT, are also a “huge missed opportunity” to improve safety by improving communication of clinical data, says the report.

“Our report highlights many areas where urgent action is required, in some cases where it is a life or death situation, and we urge the government to ensure that everyone in the NHS realises that avoiding harm to patients must be their top priority," said Health Committee chairman Kevin Barron.

PC makers under fire from Greenpeace

Andrea-Marie Vassou — 2009-07-02T16:35:00.000Z

Andrea-Marie Vassou, Computeractive, Thursday 2 July 2009 at 16:35:00

Slammed for broken promises over hazardous materials in PCs, but Apple and Nokia are praised

PC manufacturers have been criticised by Greenpeace for breaking their promises to reduce hazardous materials in their products.

“There are no excuses for backtracking, and no reason for these companies not to have PCs free of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and brominated flame retardants (BFRs),” Greenpeace said in its report.

The attack came as the environmental organisation launched its quarterly Guide to Greener Electronics, which judges PC manufacturers on their recycling efforts, power consumption and materials used in their products.

HP was singled out for postponing its 2007 commitment to phase out PVC and BFRs from its computer products (excluding its server and printer lines) from 2009 to 2011. It was also rapped for failing to put any PVC and BFC products on the market.

Dell and Lenovo also came under fire for failing to significantly reduce the amounts of toxic chemicals including PVC and BFRs from their products.

Dell was also criticised for completely dropping its plans to eliminate PVC plastic and BFRs from its products by the end of 2009.

Dell said it had dropped plans because there were "no viable alternatives for many of the components used in our products that include these chemicals."

However this has not appeased Greenpeace: “These substances are harmful throughout the entire lifecycle of a product; phase-out reduces pollution during the production and disposal of electronics and makes products capable of being recycled in a responsible manner,” it said.

“It's technically feasible, and consumers want it too, but above all the electronics industry needs to clean up urgently as a matter of principle.”

However, not all companies were in Greenpeace’s bad books. Apple was praised for creating its new computers, virtually free of PVC and completely BFR free.

Nokia remained top of the list for its voluntary take-back programme, which spans 84 countries, and for providing almost 5,000 collection points for end-of-life mobile phones.

Acer and Toshiba were also praised for ensuring their new products were " virtually free" of PVC plastic and BFRs.

Dell ordered to honour £9 monitors

Andrea-Marie Vassou — 2009-07-02T17:14:00.000Z

Andrea-Marie Vassou, Computeractive, Thursday 2 July 2009 at 17:14:00

Taiwan consumer protection body steps in after website pricing error - talks continue

Dell has been ordered to honour an online pricing error that gave Taiwanese consumers 19in LCD monitors for only £9 (NT$500).

The pricing mistake was posted on its Taiwanese website at 11pm.

According to Taiwan's Consumer Protection Commission, news of the error spread around the internet and during the eight-hour period before the company pulled the advertisement 26,000 people placed orders for nearly 140,000 displays.

The Commission claims it received 471 complaints after Dell corrected the price to £90 (NT$4,800). In a statement it has ordered the company to honour the original listed price and sell the monitors for the advertised £9.

"If Dell fails to respond to this directive properly and concretely, then we will consider seeking legal alternatives," the Commission said.

Dell has apologised for the pricing error and claims it will be "offering reasonable discounts to the orders received under the wrong price," though it claims it's still negotiating with Taiwanese authorities on a final settlement.

Microsoft prevents European users doing an 'upgrade install' of Windows 7

Tom Royal — 2009-07-02T14:06:00.000Z

Tom Royal, Computeractive, Thursday 2 July 2009 at 14:06:00

Windows XP or Vista computers will need to be fully backed up so a clean install can be done

Microsoft has confirmed that customers in Europe will not be able to easily upgrade Windows XP or Vista computers to the new Windows 7 operating system.

In the past there have been two ways to install new versions of Windows: a ‘clean’ installation, where the hard disk is wiped clean first, and an ‘upgrade’ installation. Performing an upgrade installation would allow users to keep their documents and programs in place.

However, this option will not be available when installing the European version of Windows 7, known as Windows 7 E.

Microsoft’s John Curran said that “for technical reasons we will only be able to offer Windows 7 E as a full version”.

The company’s Mike Ybarra told the US website Engadget the company was concerned about the problems that might be caused by removing Internet Explorer during an upgrade.

“We don't want to break anyone else's software, we don't want to break our own software,” he said.

To avoid losing files, users will need to copy all their documents to another storage device before installing Windows 7.

After installation, they can be moved back. A notice on the company’s website warns that “Whether your PC is running Windows Vista, Windows XP, or another operating system, E editions of Windows 7 require a custom (clean) installation. A custom installation does not preserve your files, settings, and programs.

"So, before installing E editions of Windows 7, make sure to back up your files and settings to an external hard disk, USB Flash drive, or other media.”

Computeractive will publish a full guide to this process when Windows 7 launches.

Phone tax not enough for full broadband rollout

Daniel Robinson and Dave Bailey — 2009-07-02T18:05:00.000Z

Daniel Robinson and Dave Bailey, V3.co.uk, Thursday 2 July 2009 at 18:05:00

BT says proposed Digital Britain levy will not fund 100 per cent fibre coverage

BT has said that a proposed 50p per month levy on phone landlines will not provide enough funds to cover the entire UK with fibre-optic broadband. However, the company is prepared to guarantee a 15Mbit/s service where fibre-optic is available.

At a briefing to discuss the next phase of BT's fibre-optic rollout today, BT strategy and portfolio group director Liv Garfield said that the levy, proposed in Lord Carter's Digital Britain report last month, would probably not provide enough funds to deliver fibre-optic broadband to the entire country.

"There's £1bn on offer here, but the devil's in the detail about which areas will get funded," she explained.

"If you're going from 55 to 85 per cent, then I can see that that could be delivered. I can see a way to get to 80 to 85 per cent with that kind of money, but we will struggle to get to 100 per cent – in fact it would be impossible to get to 100 per cent."

However, in answer to a query regarding service level agreements (SLAs), Openreach managing director for next-generation access David Campbell said the company will guarantee 15Mbit/s, and take steps to remedy the situation if the service delivered falls below this.

Traditionally, carriers have declined to offer SLAs on broadband connections, leaving smaller companies to choose consumer-grade broadband offerings or opt for more costly services backed by an SLA.

Bing searches to include Twitter results

David Neal — 2009-07-02T17:09:00.000Z

David Neal, V3.co.uk, Thursday 2 July 2009 at 17:09:00

Microsoft begins rollout of new service with small sample of "prominent" Twitterers

Microsoft has announced a new feature for its Bing search service, which will allow users to receive information on Twitter posts.

The new service generates results from thousands of "carefully selected" Twitter users, according to Microsoft, including its own employees, search experts, bloggers and personalities such as Al Gore.

"Today we are unveiling an initial foray into integrating more real-time data into our search results, starting with some of the more prominent and prolific Twitterers from a variety of spheres," wrote Sean Suchter, general manager at Microsoft's Search Technology Center, in a blog post.

"This includes tweets from folks from our own search technology and business sphere, like Danny Sullivan or [technology columnist] Kara Swisher, as well as those from spheres of more general consumer appeal like Al Gore or [American Idol host] Ryan Seacrest."

Suchter added that the service currently offers a small sample of Twitter users, but will soon be extended.

"We are not indexing all of Twitter at this time, just a small set of prominent and prolific Twitterers to start. We picked a few thousand people, based primarily on their follower count and volume of tweets," he said.

Twitter results will not appear automatically, but will require specific search terms, such as 'Kara Swisher Twitter', 'Kara Swisher Tweets' or '@karaswisher'.

However, V3.co.uk tried all of these variants and had no success with Twitter results, reaffirming comments posted in response to Suchter's blog that the addition to Bing has not yet reached the UK.

Microsoft has so far been unable to provide V3.co.uk with a UK launch date for the Twitter service. UK users are also still awaiting a full release of Bing; at present it is only available as a beta version.

Read It Later 0.99.46

Chris Wiles — 2009-07-03T16:11:00.000Z

Chris Wiles, vnunet.com, Friday 3 July 2009 at 16:11:00

Save external browser links for later

Browse a web page and you’ll find various links and external pages that link to other sites. The problem is that, during a working day, we don’t have the time to visit the other sites, external pages or read other information. However, we also don’t want to lose these links and might want to browse them at a later date.

Read It Later is a Firefox add-on that will enable you to browse the web (using Firefox) and simply add links, external pages and more, then build up a database of links that you can refer to, at a later date.

You can add the links by using a button on your Firefox toolbar or by right-clicking and adding using your right mouse button menu. Better still, if you use Foxmarks or Google Browser Sync, these tools will automatically sync these saved links to another Firefox, so you could browse at home.

Note that this extension now works with Firefox 3.

FBackup 4.2.144

Chris Wiles — 2009-07-03T16:06:00.000Z

Chris Wiles, vnunet.com, Friday 3 July 2009 at 16:06:00

Quickly backup or restore your important files

Many of us own more than one computer, but unless they are connected to a network, moving files from one machine to another is laborious. We advocate synchronisation tools such as Sugarsync or Dropbox, which enable you to synchronise your favourite and most important files across multiple machines, irrespective of operating system. Snag is, if you have a slow broadband connection, or need to move across large movie files, synchronisation is going to take way too long to migrate your files.

The other option is to backup your data to a removable drive then connect that drive to another machine and restore the content. Of course, if you have a system problem in the future, you can simply restore the content back to the host computer.

FBackup is a free backup tool from the makers of Backup4All that offers you basic backup for your Windows computer. It ships with some pre-defined templates, so you can backup your email, My Pictures, My Documents and other key folders. The tool will enable you to backup to a connected drive, removable flash drive or even across your network.

You can use ZIP compression to get the most from your storage location. You can even use it to backup your most important files, even if they are open and in use by an application. All in all, it’s a simplistic tool designed to make sure you backup your files, quickly and easily with the minimum of fuss.

Avira AntiVir Rescue System 07/2009

Chris Wiles — 2009-07-03T15:44:00.000Z

Chris Wiles, vnunet.com, Friday 3 July 2009 at 15:44:00

Build yourself a system rescue disc

Despite implementing the latest anti-spyware or anti-virus tool, you’re only as good as your latest definition update. Should a virus go live and you’re one of the first to receive the bad file, this may result in system chaos - unable to boot in to your machine, access files and more.

The solution is to build yourself a rescue disc that you can use to boot in to your computer, if you experience issues in the future. Of course, you don’t need to have this rescue CD on disc just ‘in case’, you could borrow someone else’s computer, download the latest version and burn this to disc.

Avira AntiVir Rescue CD is such as tool. It’s a self-contained Linux-based operating system with components required to scan, salvage and recover your system and/or individual files. If you can’t boot in to your computer, this is ideal.

Note that the Rescue CD is updated frequently by Avira, so it always contains the latest definition updates.

Airfoil for Mac 3.3.1

Lee Collins — 2009-07-03T15:39:00.000Z

Lee Collins, V3.co.uk, Friday 3 July 2009 at 15:39:00

Stream audio to different locations within your home

Your computer speakers are not the best method for listening to your music. You could burn your tracks to CD and then play through your Hi-Fi, but the snag is that you need access to your remote control, have to get up and change CDs and your limited to playing the tracks on the CD in your system.

Another idea would be to stream the tracks from your computer to remote speakers. You can do this through Apple iTunes, provided you have an Airport Express connected to the remote speakers. These speakers could be connected to your Hi-FI, to your TV or simply connected directly to the Airport Express. With this system, you can then choose the tracks you want to play through your speakers, without leaving your computer.

Airfoil is a software system that works in conjunction with Airport Express to enable you to listen to any audio source on your computer. This could be Windows Media Player, RealPlayer or any software that plays audio. Airfoil simply redirects the audio via your remote speakers, rather than through your computer.

FileZilla for Mac 3.2.6.1

Lee Collins — 2009-07-03T15:34:00.000Z

Lee Collins, V3.co.uk, Friday 3 July 2009 at 15:34:00

Transfer files across the Internet

Ask most users what applications they’ll use to access the Internet and they’ll instantly mention a web browser and an email client. They might mention that they use a chat client, but would be pushed hard to think of another client.

Strange, as only a few years ago the primary application used to be an FTP client. Indeed, you never saw a complete Internet pack without a browser, email client, FTP tool and ICQ chat client. An FTP client will enable you to download files from the Internet much more quickly and you can resume files that have stopped downloading.

However, an FTP client is much more useful for uploading files, administering a server, a remote website or your homepage. You can quickly login to just about any website, with the correct username and password, then upload files, add folders, move around files and change around the site structure.

FTP software is very similar to using Windows Explorer, although you’d be working with two windows rather than the single pane.

Note that this is the Mac version.

Gdocbackup

Tim Smith — 2009-07-03T11:19:00.000Z

Tim Smith, Computeractive, Friday 3 July 2009 at 11:19:00

Keep a local copy of your Google Docs files

Google Docs is a great online service but there are good reasons for keeping copies of your work on a computer. It means you can access them if you are not connected to the internet and it keeps them safe if there were to be any problems with the Google Docs service.

Gdocbackup is a utility that does this for you, is easy to use and gives you the choice of what format to save them in.

There's no requirement to save your password if you're worried about security, though this is possible. The backup folder must be set by hand as well.

The utility defaults to saving the documents, spreadsheets and presentations in the Microsoft Office formats. This makes sense from a compatibility point of view and it is possible to change the file format to the Openoffice formats among others.

The interface is a little basic but it does show the progress of the backup and a list of the files that have been saved. Hopefully this will be improved in future versions.

Even so, the interface doesn't stop this from being a very useful utility. If you want to keep a local copy of your Google Docs, and you should, this is the easiest way to do it.

XnView 1.96.2

Tim Smith — 2009-07-03T00:00:00.000Z

Tim Smith, Computeractive, Friday 3 July 2009 at 00:00:00

Convert images to another format

There is a huge number of different image formats and it is very frustrating to receive an image that cannot be opened.

XnView can view around 400 different kinds of image and convert into 50 different formats. It is a good way of browsing images on a computer with a capable explorer window that can show previews of images if required.

It is not just formats that can be changed as XnView can be used to rename batches of images.

XnView is also available for a wide range of operating systems apart from Windows, including MacOS X and Linux. A full list is on the XnView website

Asus Eee Box B204

Simon Williams — 2009-07-03T09:00:00.000Z

Simon Williams, Computeractive, Friday 3 July 2009 at 09:00:00

Can this small PC be a useful home entertainment computer?

Having created the mini-notebook with its Eee PC Asus followed up with the Eee Box, a tiny desktop version.

Surprisingly successful as a general-purpose home PC, the original Eee Box format was also the ideal candidate for a sitting-room media centre computer, except that it wasn’t powerful enough to handle High Definition (HD) video.

Now Asus claims its B204 and B206 computers (the B206 has a built-in battery backup) – have been improved enough to enable them to handle HD video. To achieve this there have been two major component changes: the main processor and the graphics processor. The models still use Windows XP Home.

The central processor is now a 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 and the graphics chip is an ATI Mobility Radeon HD3450, which should in theory work together to provide HD video support.

We were disappointed to find that the B204 still can’t really handle HD video. Even using the lower resolution 720p format, playback was jerky with dropped frames in standard media software.

This is mainly because the ATI chip offers its hardware boost only under Microsoft’s DirectX Video Acceleration (DXVA) and some video player programs don’t support this.

The freeware player MPC-HC does support it, however, and when we loaded this, 720p videos played without problem. With the higher-resolution 1080p material, though, there were more playback problems.

The B204 offers other improvements such as 1GB of memory and a 160GB hard disk. The only video output is an HDMI socket for connection to the flat screen, but there are still four USB sockets and an analogue audio socket, which comes with a converter for digital audio output.

As with the other Eee products there is no CD or DVD drive so any video you play will have to be downloaded or taken from an external hard disk, or you will have to buy and plug in an external disc reader.

The Eee Box itself looks much the same as it did before: a box about the same size as a large broadband router, which can be laid flat on the desk, mounted vertically on its slightly shaky stand or fixed directly to a flat-screen TV using a standard Vesa mounting bracket.

The stand and mount are supplied, as are a wireless network aerial and a remote control, complete with an infra-red adapter.

So, this Eee Box is better on the video side than earlier models, but is still not the ideal vehicle for a small-format media centre.

Power Traveller Solargorilla

Tom Royal — 2009-07-02T15:55:00.000Z

Tom Royal, Computeractive, Thursday 2 July 2009 at 15:55:00

Charge your laptop or phone anywhere with this solar panel

Packing for holidays isn’t as easy as it used to be. As well as a passport, sun cream and clothes, many of us want to take a mobile phone – and that means taking a charger, and probably a foreign plug adapter to make it work. If you have an MP3 player, that’ll need a charger too. Oh, and if you’re travelling for work you’ll need a laptop and its charger. Pretty soon the bottom of your suitcase can end up filled with a spaghetti-like mess of power adapters and wires.

One neat solution is the Solargorilla: a foldable solar panel that can be used to charge all kinds of electronic products. Its two panels are fitted into a plastic case that measures around 27x20x2cm when folded shut, and feels impressively rugged – we would have no concerns about chucking it into a rucksack.

The Solargorilla has two sockets. One is designed to charge laptops, and there’s a USB socket for charging smaller devices. A selection of power adapters is supplied in the box, and others can be ordered from the company for a few pounds each.

The only problem we found with the Solargorilla was finding enough sunlight in the UK. Small devices such as a Nokia mobile phone and Nintendo DS games console charged easily, but even on a brilliantly sunny day we couldn’t quite get enough power to properly charge our Medion laptop. If you’re heading somewhere really sunny, of course, this shouldn’t be a problem.

Alternatively the company sells a rechargeable power pack, the Powergorilla, that can be charged from the solar panels and then used itself to deliver a steady charge to a laptop.

All in all, the Solargorilla won’t be ideal for everyone: it’s fairly expensive, and to charge a laptop directly you’ll need very bright sunlight. If you’re travelling somewhere hot and off the beaten track, though, it could prove invaluable.

Nokia E75

David Phelan — 2009-07-02T10:00:00.000Z

David Phelan, Computeractive, Thursday 2 July 2009 at 10:00:00

This ‘business phone’ is neat enough to appeal to everyone

Nokia’s range of E-series phones are aimed at business users, which means they’re great for things such as email.

This new model is the first E-series one with a proper keyboard - it harks back to the company’s Communicator phones, which were always great for typing on but were very hefty.

However, on the E75 a spacious keyboard slides out sideways from behind the screen. The design of this phone was clearly important, and it’s elegant enough to stop it looking like a business phone at all.

It’s reasonably slim like a regular phone, and the gleaming metallic back looks very stylish. Overall, it feels like a classic Nokia that happens to hide a keyboard.

A motion detector means that when you slide out the keypad the screen spins around automatically and quickly so that its orientation matches the keys below.

The benefit of the keypad is obvious – why send text messages using annoying predictive text input when you have a full keyboard available to type on?

It worked very well, although there’s no room for separate number keys which instead occupy the top row of the keyboard - it is odd to have to press a Function key to select them.

Even though it’s sleek and cute, this is a phone that will attract more business-minded users who don’t want to go down the Blackberry route.

The E75 includes a subscription to Nokia Mail – a mail delivery service, free apart from data costs. Setting up a Googlemail account on the phone took just a couple of minutes and was simple and effective.

Like the earlier E71, this phone is designed to work in different ways according to your needs – it can be up for business and personal use with separate, customisable home screens.You can set it so business emails pop up only in the work scenario, for instance.

Internet access is good, with wireless network access built in so you can find a signal in a hotspot, but although the PC software is good for backing up and more, the absence of Apple Mac compatibility is a shame.

There’s a decent 3.2-megapixel camera with autofocus, mirror and light, and a standard headphone jack. Battery life was decent rather than exceptional but this is a great phone with nice styling and strong features, including the very useful slide-out keyboard.

Konica Minolta Magicolor 1600W

Simon Williams — 2009-07-01T17:17:00.000Z

Simon Williams, Computeractive, Wednesday 1 July 2009 at 17:17:00

A relatively cheap colour-laser printer

Inexpensive colour printing used to be the preserve of inkjet printers, but as prices have continued to drop, it’s now possible to pick up a colour laser for under £150.

Konica Minolta’s Magicolor 1600W is compact for a colour laser, but is still big – microwave oven-sized – compared to an inkjet.

It’s bigger still when in use, as the front cover pulls down to make the paper feed tray and part of the top cover hinges out to make the output tray.

There’s no cover for the paper when loaded, so you’ll probably want to close the machine up when you're not printing so it doesn’t attract dust.

The control panel consists of two buttons and six indicator lights, four of which tell you when the toner in each of the colour cartridges is low.

This printer uses a carousel-style print mechanism, which means each colour in a print is built up separately, before the complete image is transferred to the paper.

This is a slower technique than inline print, which is now more common and produces a colour page in a single pass, but is more expensive.

The Magicolor 1600W only comes with a single USB connection – the USB socket sticks out of the right-hand side of the printer, rather than being less obtrusive at the back.

Konica Minolta only supplies drivers for varieties of Windows – there's no support for Mac or Linux.

Print speeds suffered a bit from the carousel print system, but we still saw a top black print speed of 17 pages per minute (ppm) and a top-colour speed of over 4ppm, both of which were close to the claimed figures.

Print quality was good for both black and colour prints, though black text isn't quite as sharp as from other entry-level laser printers we’ve seen. Colour graphics were bright and attractive, but the range of available colours made photo prints a little over-vivid.

In its intended market of homes and home offices the drum or fuser units, which have lifespans of 45,000 and 50,000 pages respectively, will probably never need replacing.

The only other consumable is the toner itself and this gives a cost per page of 2.6p for black print and 11.7p for colour. The black print cost is good, though the colour is a little on the high side.

Lexmark X4975ve

Simon Williams — 2009-06-29T16:11:00.000Z

Simon Williams, Computeractive, Monday 29 June 2009 at 16:11:00

A wireless printer with a few nifty additions

The X4975ve is part of Lexmark’s Professional range of multifunction printer/scanners, which means it comes with larger ink cartridges and a five-year warranty.

It looks clean and functional, with a silver case edge wrapping round the largely black body. There is a near-horizontal Automatic Document Feeder set on top, which makes scanning documents for Optical Character Recognition (OCR) much easier than using the standard glass flatbed scanner.

Paper feeds from a near vertical tray at the rear through to an extending output tray at the front. The control panel looked a little empty and one-sided, as there are no fax facilities in the X4975ve and hence no numeric keypad.

There is a 61mm colour screen, which can show thumbnails of photos as well as the menus. Controls for menu navigation sit to the right of the screen.

The front has memory card slots and a Pictbridge socket for printing direct from a plugged-in digital camera. The back has connections for USB and a home network. However, we suspect more people will use the wireless connection, also provided as standard.

To set this up it’s necessary to temporarily connect the machine through the USB socket first. Some of the printer's competitors have managed the wireless setup process without this step and it could be awkward if it’s hard to get your computer close to the printer.

Print speeds were below average, even for an inkjet, and much slower than Lexmark's claims: we measured just over 7 pages per minute (ppm) for black text and just under 2ppm for colour pictures. The X4975ve can print double-sided pages and at this it was better, at just under five sides per minute.

Print quality was generally OK, though black text is a bit more fuzzy than from rivals such as Canon and HP. Colour graphics are a little pale, though colour photocopies are surprisingly close to their originals. Colour scans from the flatbed are also good in this respect.

Using the larger ink cartridges supplied, one black and the other containing three colours, gives costs per page of 4.7p for black and 8.5p for colour. While the colour cost is reasonable for this class of machine, the black print cost is too high, as is the asking price for the device.

Lacie Datashare

Tom Royal — 2009-06-26T17:23:00.000Z

Tom Royal, Computeractive, Friday 26 June 2009 at 17:23:00

Two memory card readers in one

Lacie’s Datashare is certainly unusual looking. Its red and white plastic shell looks a bit like a giant pill.

Separate the two-coloured parts, though, and you'll find that each has a USB plug and a memory card slot. The red section takes SD and SDHC cards, or MicroSD cards using an adapter, while the white one accepts only MicroSD.

Apparently, the idea is that you stick a memory card in both and then use one side for files that you want to share and the other for those you want to keep private. There is nothing to stop you keeping both to yourself, though.

The two memory card readers work well, but we’re not sure how useful a MicroSD card reader is – we’d rather have two standard SD ones. Even so, the two-part design does at least keep dust out of the card slots when they’re not in use, and £10 seems a reasonable price to pay for a sturdily made card reader.

Sapphire DPF-T10 digital picture frame

Andrea-Marie Petrou — 2009-06-26T17:07:00.000Z

Andrea-Marie Petrou, Computeractive, Friday 26 June 2009 at 17:07:00

A frame with interesting features

A photo frame used to mean a static display of a single picture, but with digital photo frames it's possible to show much more than that.

The Sapphire DPF-T10 is a frame that looks sleek and stylish, meaning we weren’t embarrassed to display it in the living room. It has a 10in screen and can display JPEG and BMP format images as well as AVI video.

The screen can also be set up to display the pictures in portrait or landscape mode (that is, propped on its bottom or on its side). Most of the time the frame was able to detect that it had been rotated and it automatically rotated the pictures to match.

That clever touch aside, actual picture quality was not so good – photos were grainy and in some cases badly stretched.

The frame also supports MP3 music files, which means that you can listen to music while viewing pictures. Unfortunately the sound from the internal speakers was very tinny and when we played videos they suffered from the same problem.

However, the frame did come with some interesting features, notably the way it can be switched on by the user clapping twice. A great idea, but you have to stand right next to it, making us wonder if it wouldn’t just be easier to push the power button.

The frame itself is controlled using the touch-sensitive display, which has nine on-screen buttons (they disappear when not being used) to access menus and create slideshows of your pictures.

We were also impressed with the size and sensitivity of the buttons, which were big enough to cater for the biggest of big fingers and sensitive enough for just a light touch.

The frame has 256MB of internal memory for storing video and pictures and we liked the way that we could easily transfer it straight from a camera using the USB socket on the frame, or through a computer. There are also memory card slots that accept the common SD and XD formats but not the Compactflash used by some larger cameras.

Apple iPhone 3GS

Paul Allen — 2009-06-24T14:00:00.000Z

Paul Allen, Computeractive, Wednesday 24 June 2009 at 14:00:00

The world’s most talked-about phone – but is it worth it?

VIDEO: See our video review of the new Apple iPhone 3GS

The third addition to the iPhone range, the 3GS, is a small step forward for Apple compared with the first two handsets, in that it introduces several features that similar phones have had for years.

There are actually two new products here: the iPhone OS 3.0 operating system update that users of older iPhones can get through iTunes, and the new hardware. The software introduces the ability to cut and paste text and images from documents or web pages and to send photos by MMS. The long-called-for landscape keyboard for typing emails and text messages has also been included.

More people now use phones to take photos and the 3GS has an improved 3-megapixel camera. It has auto-focus built in so that you can tap a specific part of the screen to bring that area into focus. This feature is demonstrated in our video review of the iPhone 3GS.

The iPhone also adjusts colour and light settings to suit. The quality is fair for sharing photos digitally, but prints larger than 6x4in were average at best.

Users can also take short video clips and trim them. Once complete, photos and videos can be sent using MMS or email, while videos can also be uploaded to a Youtube account.

The 3GS has a built-in compass that works with Google Maps: open a map, tap the compass symbol and a cone symbol shows which way you're facing.

One of the iPhone's most talked-about new features is voice recognition, which enables users to tell it to call someone or play a specific artist, album or playlist, although it can't be used to select specific songs.

It was impressive but the number of commands available is limited and they need to be structured in a specific way: for example, 'play, artist, The Beatles' – not 'play The Beatles'.

There are some downsides to the iPhone – for PC users, synchronising its calendar with anything other than Outlook requires additional software.

And then there's the price. If you already have an iPhone on contract with O2 you can't upgrade until six months before it ends, and even then you have to pay up the rest of the contract's value.

New pre-pay customers will pay upwards of £340 while new monthly contracts start at £30 per month plus £184 for the phone. O2 has a page that gives full details of iPhone prices and tariffs .

For ease of use and all-round usefulness, the iPhone continues to set the benchmark for smartphones. This is neatly demonstrated by the cut-and-paste tool – double-tap a word and drag the bars to select the text you need before choosing to copy or cut. Double-tap a blank spot in a document and you'll get the option to paste. It's neat and intuitive.

It's fair to hail the iPhone's style but there's real substance to it too. Whether most of us can afford to buy or upgrade it is another matter, although cheaper deals for the iPhone 3GS are beginning to emerge online, such as by getting a 16GB iPhone 3GS with 12-month Simplicity tariff.

All the features mentioned in this review are demonstrated in our video guide to of the iPhone 3GS.

Berlitz Mandarin and Japanese Premier

Tom Royal — 2009-06-30T17:22:00.000Z

Tom Royal, Computeractive, Tuesday 30 June 2009 at 17:22:00

Learn a new language - or two

Learning a language can be rewarding, but it also tends to be expensive.

Even if you don’t fork out for a tutor, the textbooks and software on offer are often costly, so we were surprised to see this Berlitz package, which claims to teach two languages, selling for less than £20 online.

There are several language versions available – we opted for the Japanese and Mandarin Chinese version.

The main program in the box, Berlitz Learning System, was disappointing. Its ‘immersion environments’ offered plenty of photos, audio and text, but the interface was confusing and despite knowing some Japanese already we were baffled as to where to start in the Survival Phrases for Japanese environment.

After some confused clicking we found that each includes some handy conversation practice lessons, but the Theater screen that appears first is so lacking in guidance that we can imagine many users giving up before they even work out how to use the software properly.

Fortunately, the rest of the contents was far more useful. Best of all is the Before You Know It flashcard program that allows learners to practice simple words and phrases using on-screen flashcards and spoken examples. It’s simple, effective and easy to use – everything, in fact, that the main program is not.

And there’s more, too. One of the discs includes flashcard software for Palm and Windows Mobile handheld computers so you can take the same flashcards and practice them on the move – smartphone versions would have been handier for some, but this is a nice extra nonetheless.

There’s also a short audio course that can be copied to a portable music player. This concentrates on teaching useful short phrases, and although some of the teaching methods are a little daft – picturing the state of Ohio at sunrise to remember the Japanese for ‘good morning’, ohayo gozaimasu – we did learn a few new phrases.

All in all, this package is a really mixed bag. We don’t like the main program at all, and it seems daft to pay for two languages at once, but at less than £20 it’s worth buying for the flashcard tool alone.

Anno: Create a New World Nintendo DS game

Tom Royal — 2009-06-27T10:00:00.000Z

Tom Royal, Computeractive, Saturday 27 June 2009 at 10:00:00

Create a colonial empire in this pocket strategy game

The Nintendo DS's touch screen is ideal for strategy games and, in particular, 'God games' in which the player uses a bird's-eye view to build a miniature civilisation.

The latest title in the Anno series allows you to rule over a fledgling empire in the 15th century.

The plot sees you, the son of an ageing king presiding over a kingdom in trouble, sent out to find new lands to supply hungry subjects back at home. After landing on a small island you must build houses for your small band of pioneers, and clear fields for them to work. They pay you taxes, allowing you to build new facilities: a chapel, for example, or a dairy farm.

Creating more municipal buildings will attract more wealthy citizens who, in turn, are able to pay more taxes. Over time your cluster of shacks with hardy owners that require only food can grow into a city of stone houses whose patrician inhabitants need food, milk, linen clothses, herbs, spices and much more, but who pay you a fortune in return.

One island alone can't provide all the raw materials for such a city, so you'll have to spread out, colonising other islands that are suitable for growing particular goods. To find enough islands you need to acquire maps, which can be gained by meeting certain requirements such as colonising a number of islands or building a city with so many hundred inhabitants.

Fail to provide any one type of goods and your citizens will stop paying taxes – fatal when you have a few plantations to support and you're trying to save up for a cathedral. Similarly, an island left undefended can be stormed and occupied by pirates. The game's combat system, which involves moving troops around between forts and ships, isn't as polished as the rest of the game, but it works.

The game includes a story mode, which serves to introduce the key concepts of the game at a decent pace, or you can go it alone and start building a colonial empire. It's not an action-packed rollercoaster of a game, and the combat sections are a little clumsy, but the rest is strangely absorbing: with your frontier empire always perched on a knife-edge, it's hard to save the game and step away.

Fuel game

Jonathan Parkyn — 2009-06-21T16:15:00.000Z

Jonathan Parkyn, Computeractive, Sunday 21 June 2009 at 16:15:00

Let’s off-road

The idea of an open-world racer is not a new one. Several recent games, including the excellent Burnout Paradise, have offered similar worlds with no set routes, in which players can drive around to find new places to race.

Fuel promises 5,000 square miles of virtual environment to explore, making it by far the most expansive game of its type so far – something that works both for and against this ambitious racing title.

Set in an alternative near future, you and your initial vehicle are airlifted by chopper to the Wastelands area, where you can carry out a series of career races.

But once these dry up, it’s up to you to track down your next dose of high-octane racing excitement.

You’re free to cruise around the vast map looking for further career-advancing races. Exploration will also allow players to discover various challenges and secrets, such as liveries for their vehicles, fuel canisters (the game’s currency) and collectable backdrops.

Races vary from shorter on-and-off-road circuits to longer checkpoint-based rally-type events, over a remarkable variety of terrain and extreme driving conditions.

The number of available vehicles grows throughout the game, up to a maximum of 75 Mad Max-style motorbikes, dune buggies, trucks and quad bikes.

In total, there are more than 70 career races to discover and a further 190-plus challenges to take on, and that’s before we’ve even started with the multiplayer possibilities or the built-in race editor, which allows you to create your own custom tracks and races to share with your fellow petrol heads online.

The racing physics aren’t particularly realistic, but then Fuel is not intended to be an accurate driving simulation. The game’s emphasis is on arcade thrills rather than naturalism, although the pacing isn’t quite as enjoyably frenetic as with some similar titles, such as Pure.

In truth, the open-world aspect can be a bit frustrating at times, particu larly during the earlier portion of the game, when it’s easy to feel a little daunted by the huge expanse of game universe at your disposal.

But, while other similar games may do a better job of the racing itself, Fuel’s impressive, varied environments certainly make it stand out from the crowd.

Pegi age rating: 7+

Plants vs Zombies

Anthony Dhanendran — 2009-06-20T16:15:00.000Z

Anthony Dhanendran, Computeractive, Saturday 20 June 2009 at 16:15:00

Good games don’t have to be complex

Plants vs Zombies is a ‘casual game’ that bucks the trend towards ever-more-complex games with harder-to-fathom controls, featuring incredibly simple gameplay and lots of fun.

The premise is that you have to defend your house from marauding zombies, but being zombies they maraud very slowly. They can also be stopped by your plants, which fire deadly pellets, blow open or stop the creatures in other ways.

You can place a certain number of plants at any time, but sunlight is required to grow new ones, so you have to wait before putting down another. It’s also possible to plant sunflowers which generate more sunlight. All the while, the zombies approach.

It sounds easy, and it is for the first couple of levels, but there’s a good difficulty curve, with new plants becoming available each level. There are also different scenarios so things don’t get too repetitive. Graphics are good but unspectacular, and the sounds entertaining enough.

In addition to the 50 main levels there are also mini-games and puzzle modes, plus other sections that break up what might otherwise become monotonous. There are lots of different kinds of zombies, too, which helps to maintain interest levels.

This isn’t a game that requires a lot of thinking, and nor will it last those several-hour-stretches like more in-depth titles, but for the price and for regular short fun fixes, Plants vs Zombies is superb.

Avanquest Will Maker Deluxe 2009

Cliff Joseph — 2009-06-19T16:00:00.000Z

Cliff Joseph, Computeractive, Friday 19 June 2009 at 16:00:00

Create a will without resorting to a solicitor

It’s important to have a will but people are often deterred from making one by the cost of hiring a solicitor.

A low-cost piece of software that simplifies the process of drawing up a legally binding will sounds attractive, then.

But while Will Maker Deluxe 2009 from Avanquest does provide useful help in drawing up your will, we encountered a few flaws along the way.

Installing the program from its CD took just a few seconds, and once installed it displays a simple window that lists the three main steps in creating a will – selecting the correct type of will, planning its contents, and then actually filling it in.

The first two steps – Will Selection and Will Planning – simply present the user with documents to read, which explain the different types of will and how to estimate the value of your estate.

This is useful information of course, although it can be found for free on the Age Concern or the Citizen’s Advice Bureau's websites.

The third step is to Create Your Will. At this point the program uses one of its built-in will templates to ask a series of questions and uses that information to draw up the will, couched in all the appropriate legal jargon.

But although the earlier selection process refers to three different types of wills – basic, comprehensive and discretionary – the Will Maker program only includes templates for four variations on the ‘comprehensive’ format.

As a result of our feedback, the software publishers tell us that they will be adding new templates for ‘basic’ wills, and making those available as a free download soon.

Unfortunately, you will still have to pay an extra £65 to order templates for the ‘discretionary’ will online, but most of us will be able to get by with just the ‘basic’ or ‘comprehensive’ wills, so that’s not a major problem.

Will Maker does have the potential to save both time and money when making a will, but the without those additional ‘basic’ templates we can’t truly recommend it as a reliable alternative to using a solicitor.

Myfax online fax service

Paul Lester — 2009-06-19T16:00:00.000Z

Paul Lester, Computeractive, Friday 19 June 2009 at 16:00:00

Send and receive faxes from an email account

Despite being overtaken by faster, more efficient and more environmentally friendly methods, fax machines still exist in some homes and offices.

But people who need to send or receive faxes don’t have to buy a machine any more, with the advent of computer-based services such as Myfax.

Registering for the service was fast and it’s fairly cheap at £5 per month for 100 sent and 200 received pages.

Once we’d registered we received an email confirming our new fax number and account setup details.

Setting it up involved following a simple step-by-step procedure to send a test fax, creating a password and viewing an optional demonstration video, making it extremely easy for even total beginners to get started.

The online account page shows current fax usage and allows users to send and receive faxes, but the service also integrates with email applications such as Microsoft Outlook, if you have a compatible one installed.

To send a fax, the fax number and country code are entered into the To line of the email with ‘@myfax.com’ at the end.

For emailed faxes, the subject line carries the name of the recipient and any body text forms a cover sheet. Up to eight attached documents then form the fax message itself, so sending faxes through Myfax really was as simple as sending an email.

Received faxes, on the other hand, arrive in your email inbox as attached PDF documents, from where they can be saved, printed or sent on.

If you do have trouble during any stage of the process there is documentation available along with a quick-start guide and freephone support number.

We were impressed by the straightforward setup and operation of the service and, though it took a while for faxes to arrive (between 30 seconds and one minute per attached page), it is still going to be more convenient than dealing with reams of paper.

At £5 per month for the basic service, this is a cheap and convenient way for home users and small businesses to remain fax-capable without having to shell out for new machines and more paper.

Vufone online storage service

Laurence Gunn — 2009-06-18T16:02:00.000Z

Laurence Gunn, Computeractive, Thursday 18 June 2009 at 16:02:00

Synchronise your phone and your computer automatically

Mobile phones may not quite be disposable yet, but they do have to be replaced now and again. Vufone, which promises to store and synchronise your phone data online, therefore seems to be a useful service.

Vufone is a subscription service costing £10 a year. It gives users a 250MB of password-protected online storage that synchronises automatically with their mobile phones using a downloadable application.

Most major handsets and all networks are supported, including those from Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, Samsung and LG models (a full list is on Vufone's website), though there is currently no Apple iPhone support.

The service stores phone numbers, text messages, calendar events, pictures, video and music and can be used to remotely delete personal information from your phone, which could be handy if it is stolen.

Vufone can also be used to send text messages – a potential money-saver – and synchronise information with Google’s Calendar and Contacts applications.

There are online players for stored music and videos that support major file formats, as well as a function to upload photos to Facebook, Flickr and Picasa automatically. There is also a cute tool called Mypersona that makes an image of your choice appear on friends’ mobile phones when you call them.

It was easy to install and automatic in use but there were drawbacks. You really need to have unlimited data included in your talk plan, as all the transfers are made over the mobile network.

If you don't have this, you’ll get a nasty shock when the phone bill arrives. (Vufone does make this clear in the terms and conditions).

And the 50MB storage limits for video and music are not really enough in this day and age.

The music player’s controls weren’t very responsive when we used it in the Internet Explorer or Safari browsers, while video uploads of large files took so long, even from a fast broadband connection, that we gave up. A few other glitches while using it made the experience annoying.

Most modern phones can be synchronised with a PC or Mac, while some mobile phone contracts even include online backup of your data. The ability to wipe the phone if it is stolen might justify the subscription charge, though.

A larger amount of storage and fewer glitches would have made Vufone more attractive.