Personal Computer World Latest updates

Lenovo unveils ultra-slim ThinkPad T400s

Ian Williams — 2009-06-23T11:44:00.000Z

Ian Williams, V3.co.uk, Tuesday 23 June 2009 at 11:44:00

Thin and light notebook aimed at corporate users

Lenovo has unveiled the latest addition to its ThinkPad line, promising a full notebook experience in an ultra-slim chassis.

The T400s measures 0.83in at its thinnest point and weighs just under 1.8Kgs, making it significantly lighter than its 2.2Kg predecessor the T400.

"We have created products like our ThinkPad T400s laptop to bring thin and light computing to mainstream corporate users," said Peter Hortensius, senior vice president of ThinkPad at Lenovo.

The T400s is 50 per cent heavier than Lenovo's S10e netbook, but boasts a 14.1in screen, a six-cell battery promising up to six hours of life, and a carbon fibre chassis.

As well as all the usual notebook features, customers will have a choice of Intel Core2 Duo processors and graphics options, as well as a selection of 128GB or 250GB solid state storage and a DVD burner or Blu-ray player.

The T400s has an Express Card slot or 5-in-1 multimedia card reader, and optional support for WiMax, 3G data, Bluetooth or Ultra Wide Band.

Lenovo claimed that the keyboard and touchpad have been improved to make life easier for users, and several features have been added to make VoIP calling easier, including better speakers, a 2-megapixel webcam, dual digital microphones and dedicated speaker and mute buttons with LED indicators.

The T400s is available now starting at around £1,760 excluding VAT.

HP announces web-connected home printer

Daniel Robinson — 2009-06-23T09:00:00.000Z

Daniel Robinson, V3.co.uk, Tuesday 23 June 2009 at 09:00:00

New Photosmart links to photo sharing sites and lets users print custom news direct from the web

HP has unveiled a web-connected printer designed to let consumers access and print content directly from the web without the need to turn on their PC.

The HP Photosmart Premium with TouchSmart Web is claimed as the world's first web-connected home printer. The inkjet device features a 4.3in touch-screen display, through which users can connect to content available on the web.

According to HP, the device will allow consumers to print customised content from news sites, search for movies showing in their local area and book and print tickets in advance, as well as print photos directly from the web.

Inside the device is a new web-based printing platform using custom applications to access content. Buyers will receive some apps ready loaded on the printer, and will be able to download new ones published on an HP Apps Studio site.

"By giving people access to the content they want at the touch of a finger, the ability to customise their printing experience and create their own apps, and enabling easy 'one touch' wireless setup, we are driving a significant shift in how people will be printing in the future," said HP's vice president of imaging and printing, Vyomesh Joshi.

The initial partners providing content are mostly US-based, including Google (Google Maps), USA Today, Coupons Inc, Nickelodeon, Web Sudoku and Weathernews Inc.

HP said that users of its Snapfish photo sharing service will be able to print photos directly from their account, and also from the HP Creative Studio web site for custom greetings cards, calendars and stationary.

The HP Photosmart Premium with TouchSmart Web has print, fax, copy and scan capabilities, and wired and wireless connectivity options. Users can print directly from Wi-Fi-enabled PCs, Bluetooth-enabled devices and Apple's iPhone an d iPod touch, according to HP.

The device is expected to go on sale in the autumn in the US for about $399 (£244). UK availability and pricing was not available at the time of writing.

£99 box gives you online Windows

Clive Akass — 2009-06-17T15:43:00.000Z

Clive Akass, Personal Computer World, Wednesday 17 June 2009 at 15:43:00

Thn client offers direct access to rent-an-app site

Online Windows desktop site Nivio is launching a neat little box a little smaller than a paperback that access its services directly and appears to the user as a standard PC.

The £99 Nivio Companion can be bolted to the back of a VESA-standard monitor, but founder Sachin Duggal says: "Most people thinks it looks too good to hide away."

Nivio is offering a 15in LCD monitor for £50 extra. The company says it offers homes and businesses an alternative to purchasing software such as Microsoft Office and running a expensive PC. Users can instead use a Windows desktop and applications running on a remote server.

The basic service, which includes 10GB of storage, costs £4.66 a month and Microsoft Office (home edition) costs £2.50 a month. You can also rent other applications by the month – if you don't use them in a month you do not get charged.

Duggal says the advantages are that users, including those that buy the Companion, can access the service from any computer running Windows, MacOS, Linux or Unix. And they do not need to bother about extra costs such as virus protection and software upgrades.

The Companion is a thin client, with minimal local capability, though it can play audio files from a USB drive.

T-Mobile debuts myTouch 3G Android handset

Shaun Nichols in San Francisco — 2009-06-23T02:21:00.000Z

Shaun Nichols in San Francisco, V3.co.uk, Tuesday 23 June 2009 at 02:21:00

Operator touts 'boundless possibilities for personalisation'

T-Mobile has formally unveiled its second Android-powered handset. The myTouch 3G sports a 3.5in touch screen along with a 3.5-megapixel camera and a pre-installed 4GB microSD memory card.

Like the G1, the myTouch will use Google's Android mobile platform. The handset will also be equipped with a new preference tool called Sherpa which automatically suggests locations, sites and applications based on user interests.

The company hopes that the new handset will help it push into the consumer market by offering a device which can be more easily personalised.

"T-Mobile myTouch 3G puts you first, so you can create a mobile experience that is truly your own," said T-Mobile US chief marketing officer Denny Marie Post.

"There's no cookie-cutter approach to myTouch. Inside and out, there are boundless possibilities for personalisation so you can put your touch on the phone and make it uniquely yours."

The myTouch 3G is the latest product to be announced in what has been a busy summer for T-Mobile. Along with rolling out a major software update for the G1 handset, the company is said to be working on a number of new Android-based devices.

The news of T-Mobile's new device comes on the same day that Apple is celebrating a milestone for its latest iPhone model.

In announcing that the iPhone 3G S had sold one million units in its first three days, Apple chief executive Steve Jobs declared that "customers are voting and the iPhone is winning".

Mozilla unveils Firefox 3.5 release candidate

Ian Williams — 2009-06-22T10:56:00.000Z

Ian Williams, V3.co.uk, Monday 22 June 2009 at 10:56:00

Browser firm promises fastest internet experience ever

Mozilla has published the latest release candidate of Firefox 3.5, the new version of the popular open-source web browser.

Mike Shaver, vice president of engineering at Mozilla, said that, barring any critical bugs, this version will be the one that gets rolled out to users.

Firefox 3.5 is available in over 70 languages, and includes more than 5,000 enhancements to Firefox 3, ranging from simple text changes in a dialogue box, to major modifications to the JavaScript engine and support for HTML 5.

Shaver highlighted the huge performance improvements, quoting Sunspider benchmarks showing the new release to be more than twice as fast as Firefox 3 and 10 times faster than Firefox 2.

The developers had split the focus into five areas: speed; user experience; security and privacy; customisation; and developer tools.

Firefox 3.5 includes a private browsing mode, which prevents any information from that session being recorded, and Mozilla has introduced several features which can do the same thing retroactively. So, rather than having to delete the entire history, cache and cookies, users have the option of 'forgetting' a single site, or clearing all data from the past hour or several hours.

Other major features include location-aware browsing, better video embedding, improved session restoring, basic image enhancement from within the browser and greater customisation options.

There are more than 6,000 add-ons currently available for Firefox, and the company has improved the categorisation and search tools to help users find the applications they want.

Mozilla also announced the launch of 'Collections', which allows users to group certain add-ons together, and find associated applications with ease.

Full details of the new features and improvements can be found on the Mozilla developer blog.

Those already running the beta version of Firefox 3.5 should receive the update automatically, or can upgrade manually by checking for updates within the browser.

Firefox 3.5 RC is available for download from the Mozilla site but does warn that, although very nearly ready for general use, this is still a release candidate and is intended for developer testing and community feedback.

Kodak kills off iconic Kodachrome film

Paul Allen — 2009-06-22T14:48:00.000Z

Paul Allen, Computeractive, Monday 22 June 2009 at 14:48:00

Camera giant 'retires' iconic stock

Kodak released a statement today confirming that it is discontinuing Kodachrome, the first commercially successful colour film when it was first introduced in 1935.

"Sales of Kodachrome film have declined dramatically in recent years as photographers turned to other, newer Kodak films or to the digital imaging technologies that Kodak pioneered,' says the statement.

"Today, Kodachrome film represents just a fraction of one percent of Kodak’s total sales of still-picture films.

"Kodachrome is an iconic product and a testament to Kodak’s long and continuing leadership in imaging technology,' says Mary Jane Hellyar, president of Kodak’s Film, Photofinishing and Entertainment Group. 'It was certainly a difficult decision to retire it, given its rich history.

"However, the majority of today's photographers have voiced their preference to capture images with newer technology – both film and digital. Kodak remains committed to providing the highest-performing products – both film and digital – to meet those needs."

The statement adds: "For all of its magic, Kodachrome is a complex film to manufacture and an even more complex film to process. There is only one remaining photofinishing lab in the world – Dwayne’s Photo in Parsons, Kansas – that processes Kodachrome film, precisely because of the difficulty of processing.

"This lack of widespread processing availability, as well as the features of newer films introduced by Kodak over the years, has accelerated the decline of demand for Kodachrome film."

Kodak estimates that current supplies of Kodachromewill last until early this autumn. Dwayne’s Photo has indicated it will continue to offer processing for the film through 2010.

"While Kodak now derives about 70 per cent of its revenues from commercial and consumer digital businesses, it is the global leader in the film business,' says the statement. 'Kodak has continued to bring innovative new film products to market, including seven new professional still films and several new Vision2 and Vision3 motion picture films in the last three years. These new still film products are among those that have become the dominant choice for those professional and advanced amateur photographers who use Kodak films."

Kodak says it is planning to celebrate the film's 74-year legacy with an online gallery, and by donating the last few rolls available to George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film in the US. Magnum Photos shooter Steve McCurry will shoot one of those last rolls and the images will be donated to Eastman House.

The online gallery will feature further Steve McCurry images, including his iconic Afghan Girl.

This article on the end of Kodak Kodachrome film first appeared in Computeractive's sister title, The British Journal of Photography.

Ispa internet heroes and villains shortlist announced

Dinah Greek — 2009-06-19T15:58:00.000Z

Dinah Greek, Computeractive, Friday 19 June 2009 at 15:58:00

Brickbats and bouquets

Internet service provider's trade body Ispa has announced the shortlist for its Internet Villain and Internet Hero awards.

The Hero award is given to an organisation or individual who has made a significant contribution to the internet industry in the past year. The title of Villain recognises those that Ispa feels have had a negative impact upon the sector.

Shortlisted for the hero awards is the Featured Artists Coalition: “For recognising publicly that the focus of music companies should be the development of new business models for distributing content online rather than attempting to pass responsibility to ISPs to take action against users."

Also in line for the prize is the Community Broadband Network: "For their relentless pursuit and support for next generation access at grass roots level. "

Even the European Parliament gets a look in: "For adopting by a significant majority amendment 138/46 to the Telecom Package which states that internet users cannot be disconnected or restricted from the internet without a court order."

And while his broadband tax of £6 a year may not be too popular with consumers, Lord Carter has been shortlisted: “For his attempt to bring a holistic view to government policy across the communications spectrum."

And a name probably not that familiar with many in the UK is Thomas Gensemer: “For showcasing the enormous power of the internet in leading Barack Obama's online presidential campaign."

Four candidates who have not pleased Ispa this year have been put forward for the Internet Villain award and this year’s shortlist shows how truly global the internet is.

Step forward President Nicolas Sarkozy who has been nominated: “For his continued commitment to the Ha dopi law, which advocates a system of graduated response, despite repeated arguments suggesting the law is disproportionate from a number of important groups including the European Parliament."

Also included on the shortlist are Stephen Conroy and the Australian Government: “For continuing to promote network-level blocking despite significant national and international opposition."

The European Parliament appears again but this time cast as the villain: “For supporting amendment 84 to the Telecom Package demanding an opt-in for cookies which could yet bring the Internet to a standstill."

And our own home-grown Baroness Vadera makes an appearance: "For excluding a number of ISPs and Rights Holders in agreeing a Memorandum of Understanding that was exclusive and ineffective in progressing relations between the two industries."

Nicholas Lansman, Ispa secretary general, said: "The announcement of the Internet Hero and Internet Villain are always eagerly anticipated and give the awards night a great sense of occasion."

The winners will be selected from the finalists based on votes by members of the Ispa Council and announced, along with the winners of the 12 main awards, at a ceremony hosted at the London Marriott Hotel, London, on Thursday 9 July.

New malware threat targets Twitter users

Shaun Nichols in San Francisco — 2009-06-19T03:38:00.000Z

Shaun Nichols in San Francisco, vnunet.com, Friday 19 June 2009 at 03:38:00

Malicious email attachment masquerades as message notification

A new spammed malware attack is impersonating messages from micro-blogging site Twitter.

Researchers at Symantec said that the attack poses as an invitation to join Twitter with the message: 'Your friend has invited you to Twitter.' The message also contains images of the Twitter logo and front pages.

Rather than send the user to Twitter by way of a URL, however, the message asks the user to open an attachment under the name 'InvitationCard.zip'. On launching the attached file, the user is infected with a malicious worm that attempts to send out mass email messages.

Users are advised not to open the invitation attachments or any other unsolicited or suspicious email attachments.

"As Twitter continues to gain popularity among social networking users, people are regularly receiving invitations and email updates from fellow users, " wrote Symantec researcher Sammy Chu in a blog post.

"We expect that spammers will continue to use Twitter and other popular social networks as bait in their attacks."

The practice of disguising malware as email attachments and greeting cards is not new. Attacks such as the infamous Storm worm were routinely spread under the guise of greeting card attachments.

Attacks targeting Twitter have also become more common in recent months as the site has seen its popularity soar. Attacks have ranged from account-stealing hacking attempts to cross-site scripting attacks and malware distribution attacks.

Fast Duplicate File Finder 1.1

Tim Smith — 2009-07-02T10:44:00.000Z

Tim Smith, Computeractive, Thursday 2 July 2009 at 10:44:00

Save hard-disk space without deleting important files

Duplicate files can be a big problem. They take up space that could be used for something else, and there can be confusion if one copy is edited and the others aren't.

Fast Duplicate File Finder is a utility that will scan a disk, folder or collection of the two to look for duplicate files.

The interface is well designed and the installer automatically opens a web page with instructions for getting started, a nice touch that helps the first-time user.

The time needed to scan depends on the size of the folders but there are progress indicators.

Once the duplicates have been found, they are shown in the main window. They are selected ready for removal, leaving one copy behind.

One sensible default option is to send the duplicates to the Recycle Bin rather than a real delete. This offers an escape route if a mistake is made.

A frustration was that there was no way to mark certain folders as the one that should remain. If the best folder is not selected, it can mean a lot of work to select the right folder for all the duplicates.

Timy for Basecamp

Chris Wiles — 2009-07-02T10:10:00.000Z

Chris Wiles, vnunet.com, Thursday 2 July 2009 at 10:10:00

Create your own Basecamp timesheet

Project management tools are an excellent way of keeping track of your team goals, schedules and timespan. Problem is that this information is generally for the project leader and traditional tools enable you to create a Gantt chart and perhaps print that for others to follow (assuming they even understand how to follow the chart).

More powerful project management tools are available online, and Basecamp is one of them. This is project management and sharing technology will enable you to bring a few people together within a team and share project information, files and a shared ‘to do’ list. If someone manages to finish a part of the project, they can cross off that section in the notes. The only problem with Basecamp is that it’s online-only, so you need access to a web browser to make these changes.

There are specific tools for your smartphone that enable you to access your Basecamp project information. Timy is an Adobe Air tool that will enable you to see an outline of your projects, through any operating system that supports Air. It doesn’t do a great deal apart from enable you to monitor your open projects, add information about how long you’ve spent working on each project. Could be useful if you wanted to bill someone for your time and, as you are working on different projects with different costs, you could use Mimy to show how you’ve allocated this time.

Autoruns 9.51

Chris Wiles — 2009-07-02T00:00:00.000Z

Chris Wiles, vnunet.com, Thursday 2 July 2009 at 00:00:00

Disable those problematic 'start up' apps

When you install software on to your computer, data is submitted to your Registry and you might find that applications automatically start when you boot your computer.

The more software you install, the more likely it is that applications will delay the launch of Windows when you start your machine.

However, finding and removing these start up items is a challenging task. Even if you uninstall the original software, you might find that items remain within your Registry and that you still suffer from a machine that's taking far longer than necessary to boot.

Autoruns is a fantastic tool that will show a comprehensive list of every item that launches when you boot your computer.

It will display the origin of the items, the order in which they launch and which items start every time or occasionally, such as an antivirus application that systematically checks for new updates.

This application goes much further than the standard MSConfig utility in that you can temporarily disable start-up items and locate deep and hidden files that are only associated with installed applications.

Messenger Plus! Live 4.82.368

Chris Wiles — 2009-07-02T00:00:00.000Z

Chris Wiles, vnunet.com, Thursday 2 July 2009 at 00:00:00

Add features to Messenger Live

This is the software publisher’s description.

Messenger Plus! Live is an add-on for Windows Live Messenger from Microsoft. Messenger Plus! adds numerous features to Messenger to make it more enjoyable. Features include the ability to have a multi-chat within one window, by making use of tabs to control your chat – much like the tab function you’ll see in Mozilla Firefox. No need to open a new chat window.

If you a heavy-duty Messenger user, you can setup quick access texts so that you can create message shortcuts and the entire word is automatically extended by Messenger Plus. Messenger Plus is very customisable, so you can include your own sounds, images and colours for your setup.

Thought out end-to-end to improve and enhance your instant messaging without getting in your way, Plus! adds lots of capabilities to Windows Live Messenger. It lets you use them at your will from the simple Plus! menu that gets added to every Messenger window and a couple of new buttons you'll find within the Messenger interface.

BitTorrent 6.2

Chris Wiles — 2009-07-02T00:00:00.000Z

Chris Wiles, vnunet.com, Thursday 2 July 2009 at 00:00:00

Popular P2P network for sharing files

This is the software publisher's description.

BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer protocol designed to transfer files. Users connect directly to send and receive portions of a file, while a central tracker co-ordinates the action of all peers and manages connections without knowledge of the contents of the files being distributed.

With BitTorrent, users upload at the same time they download, so network bandwidth is managed as efficiently as possible.

BitTorrent is designed to work better than other file-transfer protocols as the number of people interested in a certain file increases.

Mac OS X and Linux versions also available from the BitTorrent download page.

Eusing Free Registry Cleaner 2.5.1

Chris Wiles — 2009-07-02T00:00:00.000Z

Chris Wiles, vnunet.com, Thursday 2 July 2009 at 00:00:00

Clean up and optimise your registry

This is the software publisher's description.

Eusing Free Registry Cleaner is registry repair software that enables you to safely clean and repair registry problems with a few simple mouse clicks.

Problems with the Windows Registry are a common cause of Windows crashes and error messages. Registry problems can occur for many reasons, including references left behind after uninstalling software, incorrect removal of software, missing or corrupt hardware drivers or orphaned start-up programs.

This will significantly increase the Registry size and slow down your computer, because Windows will need more time to load, search and read data from the Registry.

Eusing Free Registry Cleaner will scan your Windows registry for invalid or obsolete information and provide a list of the errors found. After fixing the invalid entries, your system will be more stable and run faster.

For maximum safety, Eusing Free Registry Cleaner will make a backup of the repaired entries. You will be able to restore any changes made using the software by choosing Restore registry backup.

SyncBack SE 5.6.0.32

Chris Wiles — 2009-07-02T00:00:00.000Z

Chris Wiles, vnunet.com, Thursday 2 July 2009 at 00:00:00

Backup your files and important data

We are often told that backing up our information is just as important as concerning ourselves with online security.

Until something happens to our computer, such as our hard drive failing or, worse, the computer is stolen, we don't realise how important our personal information or work files are.

There's an easy solution which will allow us to avoid this problem: back up our important personal information and data at regular intervals.

Most of us were given a homepage as part of our broadband connection, but many of us do not use this storage to store our homepage. Why don't you make use of the space and utilise it for backing up your important files?

Better still, by utilising online storage you can retrieve this information from any location in the world, so you can quickly access your backup data from your laptop when you're on the road.

SyncBack SE is a simple backup tool that will enable you to backup your files to either a blank CD-R, a compact Flash drive, across your network or to an FTP site.

Powertraveller Solar Gorilla portable power charger

Orestis Bastounis — 2009-07-02T10:41:00.000Z

Orestis Bastounis, Personal Computer World, Thursday 2 July 2009 at 10:41:00

An eco-friendly way to charge mobile devices

The Solar Gorilla is a portable solar panel that can charge an MP3 player, mobile phone, or even a laptop.

It’s quite a bulky unit that comprises two photovoltaic panels that open like a clamshell to capture energy from direct sunlight.

You plug a device into either the 5V USB or 20V laptop power using one of the supplied adapters. There are plenty of these for all the shapes and sizes of power connector used by different manufacturers, so you can charge most notebooks, including those from Asus, Acer, Compaq, Gateway, Epson, Samsung, Sony, E-machines, Viewsonic, Dell, Panasonic, but an Apple Macbook needs an adapter.

It doesn’t store any energy, so you can’t rely on the Solar Gorilla as an alternative battery. Instead, to charge a device, you have to leave it plugged in while the Solar Gorilla is in direct sunlight, which restricts when it can be used.

Powertraveller sells another product, the Power Gorilla, a portable battery that can be charged by the Solar Gorilla, although this costs another £130.

If you spend time camping or hiking, the Solar Gorilla could be exactly what you need if you have to be certain your laptop or mobile phone will work away from a power source.

The surface of the Solar Gorilla is covered in rubber, so it can survive a few knocks and scratches if you’re on the move. It’s quite thin, so will easily slip into a laptop bag or a rucksack, but be aware it weighs 700g.

It’s a free source of energy, but it might take a while before the savings to your electricity bill match the initial cost of the device.

The Solar Gorilla is an excellent solar-powered charger, but aside from giving you a warm feeling that your laptop is being powered from a source of eco-friendly energy, it’s only useful in limited situations, most of them travel-related.

Genius G-Shot HD520 HD camcorder

Orestis Bastounis — 2009-07-02T10:25:00.000Z

Orestis Bastounis, Personal Computer World, Thursday 2 July 2009 at 10:25:00

A portable HD camcorder for less than £100

Like the Flip Mino HD, the G-Shot HD520 is a pocket-sized camcorder that can record 720p resolution video. However, the G-Shot can also capture still images, function as a webcam, MP3 player and ebook reader, has a 2.5in rotatable flip-out LCD and its internal storage can be expanded with SD cards. And, incredibly, it’s much cheaper than the Flip Mino HD.

When recording video the G-Shot is meant to be held with your arm outstretched, pointed like a gun. It isn’t as light or portable as the Flip, measuring 4cm deep at its widest point.

On the right-hand side is a control for 5x digital zoom, along with a button to manually turn the flash on or off when taking still images.

Four buttons sit under your thumb for going through menus, selecting options and deleting files. A switch on the top lets you switch focus settings between normal and macro recording.

Regardless of which macro setting you use, the G-Shot won’t produce brilliant-quality video, thanks to its low-quality lens.

We spent time recording indoors and outside, and both times the results were mediocre. Video was either grainy or blurry, with artefacts obscuring small details, which negates the benefit of recording in high definition. It isn’t terrible though and is perfectly suitable for recording video for the web.

The G-Shot’s other features range from good to useless. The MP3 player works well as expected, but the small 2.5in screen isn’t suited for reading ebooks. Its still images are reasonable, although most dedicated compact cameras produce far better quality.

Still, you’d be hard pressed to find another HD camcorder less than £100. The G-Shot isn’t nearly in the same league as the Everio, and falls short of the Flip Mino HD. However, it’s perfectly suited for recording while on holiday, or for anyone who likes to share online video.

E-Pens Mobile Notes

Paul Lester — 2009-07-01T16:22:00.000Z

Paul Lester, Personal Computer World, Wednesday 1 July 2009 at 16:22:00

A quick and easy way to transcribe handwritten notes

Anyone who has attempted to convert a series of handwritten notes to text on a computer knows that transcription can often be a painstaking and time-consuming process, so automating this with a device such as E-pens Mobile Notes could save a lot of hassle.

The package consists of a digital stylus that acts as a regular pen, a receiver unit and conversion software. It can either be used on the move or as a mouse for tablet PCs, or for handwritten text entry into various applications.

Setup is straightforward and, once charged, the receiver can be clipped to the top of a pad of paper, picking up pen strokes to store as one of up to 50 virtual pages.

Once connected to a computer, these can be imported using the supplied software and converted to digital text using optical character recognition, with a range of settings available to denote language, writing style and end-format.

In addition to this, switching to mouse mode means that pen movements control the pointer on screen, with a tap on the page or click of the control button on the pen, activating left and right click.

We were very impressed by the responsiveness of the stylus and receiver and, though you have to write quite neatly to achieve 100 per cent accuracy, it does an admirable job of converting scrawl into text.

If you are unable or unwilling to write neatly, there is a recognition trainer provided to help the software interpret your style of writing, although you will need to proofread and alter text after writing to correct inevitable mistakes.

A bigger issue is that the pen doesn’t feel solid or well-built and is prone to slipping in the hand slightly after extended use. For normal writing, a premium fountain or ballpoint pen is much more satisfying.

However, the Mobile Notes package is still an effective product for saving time when transferring handwritten notes onto a PC.

D-Link NetDefend DFL-260

Alan Stevens — 2009-06-26T10:00:00.000Z

Alan Stevens, Personal Computer World, Friday 26 June 2009 at 10:00:00

All in one threat protection for the small business

D-Link’s NetDefend DFL-260 is a UTM (Unified Threat Management) appliance which, at first glance, offers the same firewall/VPN facilities as the cheaper DFL-210 we reviewed back in the September 2007 issue. However, whereas the DFL-210 is very much an entry level product, the new DFL-260 adds anti-virus and more sophisticated intrusion protection options, together with hardware accelerators to cope with much larger networks.

From the outside there’s very little difference, with four 10/100Mbits/sec Ethernet ports for Lan connectivity plus two for the internet. Traffic shaping and failover options are available across the two Wan ports, added to which the second can be used to create a so-called De-Militarized Zone (DMZ), to protect public facing servers.

In terms of the firewall there’s not much difference either, implemented in the NetDefendOS software. To this is then added a VPN server able to support up to 100 tunnels with a maximum throughput overall of 25Mbits/sec. Support for site-to-site and client-based VPN setups is available using a mix of tunnelling IPSec, PPTP and L2TP technologies, but software clients aren’t included.

The “real” UTM options then start with what D-Link calls “stream-based” anti-virus scanning. By this it means the ability to inspect files for viruses as they pass through the gateway, without having to be cached. Kaspersky technology is behind the D-Link anti-virus scanner, added to which there’s an advanced Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) which employs a technology called component-based signature recognition to identify a wide range of potential threats. This, in turn, uses information collected from a number of sites including the US National Vulnerability Database.

The IPS and anti-virus options also benefit from hardware accelerators. D-Link claims the accelerators enable these options to be run simultaneously without degrading firewall/VPN performance and so deliver sufficient throughput to handle networks of 50 users or more.

Web content filtering is yet another option, with 90-days of free updates for this and the other services included. Thereafter, however, annual subscriptions are required which, together, can cost almost as much again as the hardware.

In terms of what it has to offer, then, the DFL-260 looks like it ought to be an effective UTM appliance, well suited to the small business. As with the DFL-210, however, management is something of an Achilles heel

The basics are fine, with a console port for local management via a command line interface plus SNMP support if needed. It’s also possible to connect to the DFL-260 via a browser both for initial deployment and day to day management.

We found the Web interface easy navigate, and there’s a startup wizard to, where for example, you can assign addresses to the various interfaces, set the clock and so on. That done, however, and all you’re left with is a fairly basic firewall. Everything else has to be configured manually, and it’s not easy

Policy-based management is the order of the day, which is good, and once you get to grips with how it all works it’s not hugely difficult. However, you’re presented with a seemingly endless list of options and a high degree of technical knowledge is assumed throughout. Such knowledge is likely to be in short supply in the kind of small businesses at which the product is aimed. The documentation helps, but only a little, leaving the DFL-260 very much the kind of product you’d want a specialist reseller to both install and maintain.

Violet Mir:ror

Kelvyn Taylor — 2009-06-24T11:15:00.000Z

Kelvyn Taylor, Personal Computer World, Wednesday 24 June 2009 at 11:15:00

An RFID kit for home that’s charmingly loopy

The French are experts at creating quirky technology and they don’t come quirkier than Violet’s Mir:ror RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) reader.

The Mir:ror starter kit ships with a Mir:ror USB RFID reader, two nano:ztag miniature RFID rabbits and three RFID ztamp:s adhesive tags to stick on everyday objects. The Mir:ror itself is a small white circular reader with an LED-illuminated rim that glows in several different colours depending on its status. There’s also a small audio beeper in it.

To get started, you create a user account at Violet’s website and download the Mirware application. Once your Mir:ror is connected, you need to assign actions to your RFID-enabled objects by placing one on the reader then registering and naming it either using the Mirware application or directly using your account area on the website.

Each tagged object gets its own unique email address, allowing you to do surreal things such as send emails to your umbrella. It will recognise any ISO-compliant RFID chip, so we could register both an Oyster card and an RFID-enabled Barclaycard as triggers to launch applications.

You can associate any number of applications with each object. There are several general-purpose apps such as ‘launch a program’ or ‘open a URL’ so you don’t need to do any programming to get started.

Available applications include launching a Youtube video, podcasts or RSS news services using text-to-speech conversions. The quality of text-to-speech isn’t brilliant, though. Applications can be chained together. There’s no easy way to create your own applications, but you can use a tag to send metadata to any web-based application.

Mir:ror has some good novelty value and is simple to use, although it’s not yet a must-have product. But as a technology demo, it’s impressive.

Lenovo L2440X

Tom Royal — 2009-06-21T10:00:00.000Z

Tom Royal, Personal Computer World, Sunday 21 June 2009 at 10:00:00

A great display with LED backlighting

Unlike conventional LCDs, which are backlit by cold-cathode fluorescent lights, Lenovo’s L2440X uses an array of LEDs.

This means that it uses less power than similar displays and, being free of both mercury and arsenic, the L2440X is certainly green too. These are peripheral concerns for most users though, who are more concerned with whether or not it displays a good picture.

Thankfully, it does. The backlight proved completely even when displaying our solid-colour tests. We could spot no crosstalk or blurring, leaving each pixel pin sharp. We noticed a side-effect where the brightness of the entire panel adjusted when switching between a dark window and a bright one, which initially proved distracting.

With the default calibration, the image was a too pink for our liking, but it turned out that this was caused by the colour profile being set on a preset called ‘Reddish’ the Neutral setting looks better. Calibrating the screen using an X-Rite Eye-One only required a slight change.

Physically the L2440X is as impressive as the images it produces. It pivots by 90º into portrait orientation, and the height is adjustable. The screen can be tilted and the edge of the bezel moved from 2.5cm to 13.5cm off the desk. There are VGA, DVI and HDMI inputs built in, along with a USB hub, with three of the USB ports located on the left edge of the display. There are no speakers which is no loss, as fitting quality speakers is difficult but there’s a 3.5mm audio output for connecting an external set.

The L2440X is an excellent monitor, but there’s a catch: the L2440X can display a great picture, but other 24in displays can be bought for less. Dell’s G2410, for example, might not have HDMI, but it can be found for just £265.