VNUNET.COM Latest updates

O2 could join T-Mobile UK bidding war

Phil Muncaster — 2009-07-03T16:09:00.000Z

Phil Muncaster, V3.co.uk, Friday 3 July 2009 at 16:09:00

New reports suggest Telefónica bosses are mulling a bid

O2 may join the race to acquire T-Mobile UK, after reports suggested that O2 parent Telefónica is looking at the case for buying the struggling operator.

It is thought that O2 has been spurred into action after fears that it may lose its position as the mobile market leader in the UK, according to reports in the Financial Times.

O2 currently has 27 per cent of the UK market, compared to Vodafone's 25 per cent, and would jump into an unassailable lead with 40 per cent if it was able to snap up T-Mobile.

T-Mobile owner Deutsche Telekom is looking to sell the UK operation, which analysts value at €3bn to €4bn (£2.6bn to £3.4bn), according to the FT report, which cites "people familiar with the situation".

Other reports, meanwhile, suggest that Orange owner France Telecom is considering a joint venture between Orange and T-Mobile UK, paving the way for a potential bidding war.

Harry McDermott, chief executive at telecoms consultancy Hudson & Yorke, warned that, if T-Mobile was acquired and thus severed from its parent company, it would no longer have access to T-Systems, one of the leading global providers of managed and outsourced telecoms services.

"This could potentially limit the provision of competitive managed mobility services to the enterprise market, or at the very least impact the adoption of such services," he said.

McDermott also argued that any purchase of T-Mobile would necessitate a disaggregation of network sharing deals. T-Mobile UK and 3 currently have a joint venture infrastructure agreement, as do Vodafone and O2.

"It will be interesting to see what will happen to the joint ventures. Either way, this is potentially a big distraction for all the parties," he said.

O2 declined to comment on the reports.

Archos steps up portable computing push

Ian Williams — 2009-07-03T15:58:00.000Z

Ian Williams, V3.co.uk, Friday 3 July 2009 at 15:58:00

Range of new devices moves beyond media players

Archos has expanded its reach into the portable computing market with the launch of a range of new products, including an ultra-mobile PC and several netbooks, one of which is aimed at kids.

First on the list is the Archos 9 PC Tablet, which is similar to the company's range of portable media players. Running on an Intel Z515 processor, the device will run Windows 7 through a 9in touch-screen. It measures 16mm thick, weighs 631g and incorporates an 80GB to 160GB hard drive, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1 and dual TV tuners. Input can also be performed via an optical trackball and a virtual keyboard.

The PC Tablet is due to hit shelves this autumn, costing £449.99 for the 80GB version and £499.99 for the 160GB version. A 12in model will be available early 2010.

The Archos 10s netbook, meanwhile, features all the regular netbook specifications, including an Intel Atom processor, 1GB of memory and a 160GB hard drive, and runs Windows XP on a 10.2in screen. Weighing in at 1kg using an aluminium and magnesium chassis, it measures 21.8mm thick and is one of the smallest of its kind.

In an attempt to differentiate itself from other netbook suppliers, Archos is bundling a 12-month free trial of Microsoft Office 2007, and six-month trial versions of Parental Filter and BitDefender Antivirus 2009. The device also comes with an £80 voucher to download films from the Archos Media Club.

The Archos 10s will be available later this month at £329.99 with a three-cell battery and £349.99 for the six-cell version.

For those wanting a bit more power, the Archos 13 laptop boasts a 13.3in screen, an Intel Celeron Ultra Low Voltage processor, a 250GB hard drive, 802.11n Wi-Fi and HDMI output, all in a case weighing just 1.6kg.

The Archos 13 is powered by an impressive 10-cell battery which, although Archos gives no official figures, could provide as much as 10 or 12 hours of battery life.

Last up is the education focused Archos Classmate, which began its development as part of a French government initiative for primary school children. The device is designed to be durable, and sports a shock-proof casing, water-resistant keyboard and integrated carrying handle. Under the hood, the Classmate has all the features found in most of today's netbooks.

Both the Archos 13 and the Classmate will be available next month, and should sell for £549.99 and £319.99 respectively.

According to V3.co.uk's sister site The Inquirer, Archos is also due to release an Android-based tablet device in September boasting a 5in screen.

Twitter charges are bad idea, say V3.co.uk readers

Phil Muncaster — 2009-07-03T15:37:00.000Z

Phil Muncaster, V3.co.uk, Friday 3 July 2009 at 15:37:00

Over a third insist the service should remain free for firms, but many do not use it at all

Over a third of businesses would not pay for Twitter if the popular micro-blogging site began charging companies for use, according to the latest V3.co.uk reader poll.

Some 37 per cent of respondents said that Twitter should remain free to all, while 11 per cent felt that the site should make its money from online adverts.

Only seven per cent of respondents said their firm would pay if it meant that they could monitor their brand across Twitter, while 10 per cent would agree to a charge if it reduced the risk of cyber squatting. Around 36 per cent of respondents indicated that they do not use Twitter as a business tool.

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said in an interview with Bloomberg last week that the firm was planning to charge businesses to verify their accounts, in an attempt to reduce the increasing incidents of cyber squatting on the site.

Initially, Twitter will target a few big name firms, including Dell and Starbucks, whose names are likely to be attractive to cyber squatters, the firm said.

Researchers warn of critical iPhone vulnerability

Phil Muncaster — 2009-07-03T14:18:00.000Z

Phil Muncaster, V3.co.uk, Friday 3 July 2009 at 14:18:00

Flaw could allow hackers to remotely execute code

Security experts are warning of a serious vulnerability in the iPhone that could allow hackers to remotely execute code on the device.

Security researcher Charlie Miller announced the findings at the SyScan conference in Singapore yesterday. He is now reportedly working with Apple to get the problem fixed as soon as possible.

Patrick Runald, chief security advisor at Finnish web security firm F-Secure, argued on the firm's blog that the vulnerability, which exploits a weakness in the way the device deals with text messages, is "as bad as it gets".

"The vulnerability seems to allow unsigned code to run, which circumvents a core part of iPhone's security model," he wrote. "It's usually only able to run signed code, i.e. apps that have been approved by Apple. No user interaction is required, which is unlike current mobile malware."

The vulnerability could enable hackers to remotely turn on the GPS function to monitor the handset's location, or turn the microphone on to listen in on conversations, Miller is reported as saying.

Apple will be hoping it finds a fix for the vulnerability before Miller discusses the flaw in greater detail at a planned Black Hat presentation.

It has been a bad week for the iPhone. Supplies have been running out in parts of the US, and the blogosphere has been awash with claims that the new 3GS model is prone to overheating.

Red Hat beta builds on virtualisation plans

David Neal — 2009-07-03T14:10:00.000Z

David Neal, V3.co.uk, Friday 3 July 2009 at 14:10:00

Kernel-based Virtual Machine virtualisation added to latest Enterprise Linux beta

Red Hat has released the latest beta of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4, adding improved virtualisation features to the open-source operating system.

The release adds a variety of new features and capabilities, as well as enhancements in Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) virtualisation, storage security and developer tools, according to Red Hat.

"As with any beta, our goal is to provide customers and partners with the opportunity to sample and test new features of the release before it's finalised," the company said.

"While KVM virtualisation is a major theme for this beta release, customers will also benefit from advances in performance, security and developer tools to benefit both virtual and physical environments."

For example, the beta release notes claim that the additions would allow both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of guest operating systems to run without any modification. Other new features include improved developer tools and hardware support, and better response times for graphics and screen rendering. The kernel itself features improved clock management when the software is deployed on a VMware platform.

The announcement is a continuation of Red Hat's virtualisation push. The company said last month that enterprise customers had expressed a great deal of interest in its virtualisation services.

"We are very pleased by the welcome we have received from enterprise companies all over the world who are looking to adopt virtualisation pervasively, and value the benefits of our open-source solutions. Our beta program is oversubscribed," said Scott Crenshaw, vice president of the platform business unit at Red Hat.

"We are excited to be in a position to deliver a flexible, comprehensive and cost-effective virtualisation portfolio in which products will share a consistent hardware and software certification portfolio.

"We are in a unique position to deliver a comprehensive portfolio of virtualisation solutions, ranging from a standalone hypervisor to a virtualised operating system to a comprehensive virtualisation management product suite."

Oracle set to cut 1,000 staff in Europe

Rosalie Marshall — 2009-07-03T12:57:00.000Z

Rosalie Marshall, V3.co.uk, Friday 3 July 2009 at 12:57:00

Firm sheds six per cent of European workforce to improve operating margin

Oracle will be cutting up to 1,000 jobs in Europe, according to the French trade union CFDT.

The decision was announced at the European Works Council and the Comité d'Entreprise France on 29 and 30 June, the CFDT said.

Oracle said that the cuts were necessary after growth had been significantly less than expected, and that the company needed to maintain a good enough operating margin to fund research, innovation, policy and external growth through acquisitions, according to the union.

Oracle reported a single-digit drop in both sales and profit for its latest financial quarter (PDF). Revenue of $6.9bn (£4.2bn) was down five per cent from the same period last year, while fourth-quarter net income of $1.9bn represented a seven per cent decline.

The CDFT, which is the largest trade union in France, said that 850 to 1,000 jobs will be cut in Europe, which is roughly six per cent of Oracle's workforce, and 250 of these positions will be axed from France.

Unite, the UK's largest trade union, could not say how many positions will be affected in the UK.

Oracle could not immediately be reached for comment, but the firm tends not to publicise layoffs.

In January, Oracle staff said that the company was reducing its overall headcount by about 10 per cent, but the rumours were never officially confirmed. However, the company's financial statement in June showed that it spent $71m (£43m) on restructuring charges during the quarter.

W3C accelerates HTML 5

Phil Muncaster — 2009-07-03T12:17:00.000Z

Phil Muncaster, V3.co.uk, Friday 3 July 2009 at 12:17:00

Web consortium says it will focus more attention on the new version of the markup language

The World Wide Web Consortium is set to retire its XHTML 2 working group and concentrate its resources on HTML 5, highlighting its growing importance and development potential.

HTML, or hypertext markup language, is the core markup language of the web, and while version 5 has been a long time coming, it is widely believed that it could herald a new dawn in web development.

The new version also has the potential to render Adobe Flash, Microsoft's Silverlight and other similar technologies obsolete, according to some commentators.

The HTML and XHTML 2 Working Groups were announced in March 2007 with the intention that they would be developed in parallel, with both markets closely monitored, said the W3C.

However, the winding down of the XHTML 2 group shows the organisation has recognised that the organic growth of HTML 5 has far surpassed that of XHTML 2. It said that it hopes the renewed focus on the next version of HTML will " accelerate its progress".

"W3C recognises the importance of a clear signal to the community about the future of HTML," read a statement on the W3C's site.

"While we recognise the value of the XHTML 2 Working Group's contributions over the years, after discussion with the participants, W3C management has decided to allow the Working Group's charter to expire at the end of 2009 and not to renew it."

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.

REAPER 3.05

Lee Collins/Tim Smith — 2009-07-03T00:00:00.000Z

Lee Collins/Tim Smith, vnunet.com, Friday 3 July 2009 at 00:00:00

Powerful music editor and mixer

Computers can perform the sort of audio recording and editing that used to require very expensive studio time. That said, many of the high-end audio programs (or DAWs – digital audio workstations) are also very expensive. Not so in the case of Reaper.

This download of Reaper is a 30-day trial but the publishers rely on your honesty to buy a full licence if you wish to keep on using it as the only restriction is a reminder pop-up window after this period has ended. Even so, the cost is very reasonable at $50 for a non-commercial licence or $225 for a commercial licence.

The limitations of Reaper are based on the capabilities of the computer rather than an arbitrary track limit for MIDI or Audio recordings. The interface is in a traditional format with tracks arranged in rows in the top half of the screen with a mixing console at the bottom for setting the volume of individual tracks.

Audio and MIDI can be recorded or imported as simply as dragging and dropping a file into a track. It can then be edited in various ways such as timestretching or pitch correction.

There is a wide selection of effects that can be applied to tracks included with Reaper. It is compatible with all the main standards for plug in effects and virtual instruments including VST, VSTi, DX, DXi and JS. Reaper also supports sidechaining, a method of varying an effect based on another track. This is very common in dance music and offers some exciting creative possibilities.

All in all, this is a very good DAW, especially for beginners as it offers lots of features at a low price.

Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2010 v9.0.0.459

Paul Rowlingson — 2009-07-03T00:00:00.000Z

Paul Rowlingson, vnunet.com, Friday 3 July 2009 at 00:00:00

Get 30% off the popular anti-virus client

Kaspersky Anti-Virus is specifically designed for home users to protect their computers from attack.

You have full control over all the possible sources of virus infection, including the internet, disks, archived and compressed files and, of course, email.

Kaspersky's protection is thorough, tackling viruses, Trojans, internet worms, dangerous Java applets and Active X. Like all antivirus software, should a virus be found, its effects are neutralised immediately.

The beauty of Kaspersky Anti-Virus is that, unlike most antivirus software, this program is automatically updated daily via the internet to ensure that a high level of protection is maintained.

Combine this with an excellent support service and guaranteed preparation of emergency treatment modules, and you have complete protection.

Other features include SafeStream technology for faster scanning, the facility to scan files that have been created or modified since the last scan and an improved user interface.

Hauppauge WinTV Ministick HD

Paul Lester — 2009-07-03T09:00:00.000Z

Paul Lester, Personal Computer World, Friday 3 July 2009 at 09:00:00

Watch free-to-view TV but a rooftop aerial is a must

Hauppauge has expanded its range of portable TV tuners to include the WinTV-Ministick HD, a portable USB-based tuner capable of picking up local free-to-view TV channels, including those in HD.

The device is no bigger than a thumb drive, with an RF port at one end to connect to an aerial. A portable mini-aerial is supplied as is the latest version of WinTV for accessing and recording channels.

Setup is straightforward, provided you have access to a strong signal. During our tests we found the supplied aerial to be all but useless, very occasionally picking up a few channels only to lose them after reconnecting, so we’d strongly advise anyone considering a purchase to use a rooftop aerial.

This restricts its versatility somewhat, but isn’t the only factor that can affect playback.

After successfully scanning for and detecting a range of channels using the setup wizard, we discovered our test notebook was severely under-powered and had to resort to carting a desktop machine to a location close enough to an aerial wall socket.

Reception and picture quality improved dramatically, but the listed system requirements are only a bare minimum, and might not be enough for consistently smooth playback.

WinTV is a basic application that provides all you might need from a TV tuner, such as the ability to pause, time-shift and record programmes. It includes a seven-day electronic programme guide (EPG) and the ability to set up and schedule recordings, show subtitles and Teletext.

Generally we were impressed by the image quality, portability and operation of the Ministick HD, but only in an optimum environment. The potential signal issues are a problem, but this is also true of many other TV tuners. If you have a powerful PC, this is an effective way to access digital television and HD.

Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH wireless router

Will Stapley — 2009-07-03T09:00:00.000Z

Will Stapley, Personal Computer World, Friday 3 July 2009 at 09:00:00

Fast speeds when channel bonding, but no 5GHz mode

Buffalo’s latest router is a sleek-looking device, aimed at cable broadband users, since it has no built-in ADSL modem.

It is surprising that the WZR-HP-G300NH doesn’t feature a 5GHz 802.11n mode, relying on the more congested 2.4GHz spectrum only. But we still experienced some decent speeds during testing.

When using the router with Buffalo’s Wireless-N USB adapter, we transferred a 349MB file in 63 seconds, giving a throughput of 44Mbits/sec.

Switching the channel bonding mode on, the same file transferred in just 33 seconds (an impressive 85Mbits/sec), however your neighbours won’t thank you for hogging two wireless channels. These speeds were achieved at close range, and when we moved to around 30m away speeds dropped to under 15Mbits/sec, which is still respectable.

Buffalo has furnished the WZR-HP-G300NH with a few useful extras, including a Bittorrent client that allows for peer-to-peer downloads requiring a PC to be switched on. To use this feature, you will need to attach some form of storage to the USB port at the rear of the router. Once attached, the router will also function as a basic network-attached server (Nas) device.

A switch on the front of the router lets you turn the Movie Engine mode on. Essentially a quality of service (QoS) feature, this prioritises media traffic to reduce the likelihood of video stuttering. However, we had no trouble streaming HD video through the router, whether the setting was enabled or not.

There’s plenty to like about Buffalo’s latest router, but it’s rather disappointing it can’t manage 802.11n on the less-cluttered 5GHz spectrum.

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.

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.

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.

Review: Mozilla Firefox 3.5

Ian Williams — 2009-07-02T13:49:00.000Z

Ian Williams, V3.co.uk, Thursday 2 July 2009 at 13:49:00

V3.co.uk gets hands on with Mozilla's latest web browser to see if it lives up to the hype

The browser wars continue to rage, and Mozilla's latest iteration of Firefox introduces a slew of new features and improvements to up the ante.

Probably the most noticeable addition in Firefox 3.5 is the inclusion of Private Mode, a feature already available in most of today's popular browsers - it's called Incognito in Google Chrome and InPrivate Browsing in Microsoft's Internet Explorer 8. The feature allows users to surf the internet with a greater degree of anonymity as no local data from the session, including history, cache files, form data, passwords or searches, is kept on the machine.

Private Mode can be activated from the Tools menu. It closes all existing windows and begins the new Private session with a clean slate. Once the Private Mode is stopped the previous session and all its tabs are automatically restored. While this removes any confusion about what is running under Private Mode and what is not, it can be frustrating if you need any information from a previous window when entering Private Mode.

Users also now have a lot more control over data that has already been stored locally, as it is now possible to clear recent history from the past hour, two hours, four hours or day, as well as erasing all history as per normal. Similarly, from the history library users can also opt to 'forget about this site' and remove all reference to a particular site. It should be noted that sub-domains are not affected, so 'forgetting' about maps.google.com, for example, won't affect anything from mail.google.com.

Mozilla has also done a lot of work on tab management with Firefox 3.5, making it easier to sort tabs. This includes a new feature called 'Tab Tearing' whereby users can reorder tabs within a window, and move them between windows as well. 'Tearing off' a tab and dropping it on the desktop will cause it to be opened in its own window, while if the last remaining tab in a window is moved to another, the empty window will automatically close.

Firefox 3.5 includes location awareness, allowing different online services to find your location based on information about your internet connection. The system uses any information to hand to pinpoint your whereabouts, be it your IP address, nearby Wi-Fi signal information and 3G data if it is available. The results will vary depending on the connection. For instance, someone on a 3G data connection will get their location pinpointed quite accurately, while someone on a wired local area network connection connected to a larger company wide area network will get only a very rough estimate. In general, we found it got a location down to within a few blocks, which should be accurate enough for most location-based services.

Although this feature will be of limited use to desktop PC users, it could be very handy to laptop users and will be ported into mobile versions of Firefox such as Fen nec where it could prove a lot more useful.

One of Firefox's most useful features is the ability to easily recover recently closed tabs, helping to fix those moments when you accidentally close a tab you still need. This has now been extended to include recently closed windows and all their associated tabs, which is perfect for those moments when the wrong click of the mouse or a mistype could mean losing something important.

There are a slew of other smaller tweaks that have been included in Firefox 3.5, over 5,000 if you include minute changes such as altering the text in a dialogue box to make it clearer. For instance, the browser's Awesome bar, which provides suggestions as users type into the address bar based on history and bookmarks, can now also be refined with the inclusion of different command keys.

The session restore will also remember any form data that has been entered but not yet committed. If a user is in the middle of an email on their webmail service, for example, and needs to close the browser before they are done, the text they have entered will still be there when the session is restored.

Mozilla developers have also done a lot of work under the hood to boost Firefox's performance. These enhancements are a little harder to test, but include the TraceMonkey JavaScript and full HTML5 support among others. Dynamic content such as webmail, Flash applications or streaming video all feel a lot slicker and smoother, and the changes will go a long way to helping support new online services and technologies as they emerge.

Add-ons are one of the most popular features in Firefox as they allow users to customise the browser and to include a wide array of services and functions, but with over 6,000 available it can be difficult to find the ones you want. To help solve this problem Mozilla has introduced Collections, which allows people to create bundles of add-ons. This can help with the management of a collection, as well as assisting those who need to deploy the same configuration across multiple computers or who are looking for a group of compatible add-ons for personal use.

Mozilla has also implemented open codecs Ogg and Theora to help more deeply integrate video and other media into the browser without the need for proprietary codecs or plug-ins, which should help to generate an even more interactive web experience.

While many of the new additions to Firefox 3.5 are available in most of today's popular browsers, Mozilla is the first to implement an open-source media platform, which should open the floodgates for a much deeper embedding of rich content by web developers.

Whether Firefox 3.5 puts Mozilla ahead of its competitors is highly debatable, but what is certain is that the firm is listening to its users and delivering the types of features and functions they want, not just solving today's problems but trying to create an open platform for tomorrow's online world.

Review: Veritas NetBackup PureDisk v6.5.1

Frank Ohlhorst — 2009-06-30T17:25:00.000Z

Frank Ohlhorst, V3.co.uk, Tuesday 30 June 2009 at 17:25:00

A worthwhile contender for the enterprise backup market

Today's enterprises often have terabytes of data files scattered across multiple storage networks, servers and desktop PCs. Add to that the issues of compliance, security and auditing, and it becomes easy to see why so many backup technologies have started to fall short of enterprise needs.

Symantec is looking to bring order to the chaos of enterprise backups with Veritas NetBackup PureDisk Version 6.5.1, a product that melds several backup technologies under a single umbrella to ease the backup process.

The latest iteration of Symantec's enterprise backup and deduplication suite is aimed at enterprise networks, both large and small. The product's claim to fame comes from the integration of several backup technologies into a single product that eliminates the need for specialised hardware and tape-based storage.

NetBackup PureDisk employs advanced technologies such as deduplication, bandwidth optimisation, granular backup policy controls, compression and encryption to bring efficiency, speed and ease of management to the forefront of the enterprise backup market. Some of the advanced features are the result of Symantec's 2006 purchase of Revivio, a company known for its Continuous Data Protection technology. Symantec has successfully integrated Revivio's technology into NetBackup, and has upped the ante with deduplication, extensive client support and branch office connectivity, all managed with a single, comprehensive console.

Symantec has done its best to keep complexity to a minimum, but NetBackup PureDisk is still a very complex product that takes significant network management savvy to master. The product is far from plug-and-play easy but, considering the extensive feature set, the company has done a decent job in automating many of the tasks and building wizards to perform other complex chores.

Looking at the individual components of the product, it becomes easy to see why complexity enters the equation. NetBackup PureDisk is based on a software appliance, which runs on a modified version of Suse Linux. As a software appliance, administrators can scale the product pretty easily by throwing as much hardware as needed at it.

The software consists of three primary parts, starting with the software appliance which is aptly named a NetBackup Media Server. Part two comes in the form of the backup clients. Each system to be backed up needs to run a small piece of client software provided by Symantec. The company offers clients for various flavours of Windows Server, as well as Red Hat Enterprise Server, Suse Linux Enterprise Server, IBM-AIX, Solaris, HP-UX and Mac OS.

Symantec also provides clients for popular applications such as Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft SQL Server. Currently, there is no direct support for Windows Desktop operating systems, Oracle, IBM DB2 or MySQL. But savvy administrators should be able to create scripts or batch files that will allow these non-supported applications to be backed up.

The final piece is the PureDisk Storage Pool, which is simply the storage target for backups. A storage pool consists of many different types of disk storage, ranging from storage area networks (SANs), to network attached storage devices and direct attached drives.

The three elements can be deployed in several different ways or combinations, depending on the network infrastructure and the number of remote sites, if any.

For example, if deploying the product in a datacentre that supports multiple remote offices, an administrator will install backup clients on each of the systems at the remote sites, and then deploy a NetBackup Media Server at each remote site. The datacentre will also have a NetBackup Media Server, and the PureDisk Storage Pool is likely to be located at the datacentre as well. Of course, there can be various permutations of this setup.

In practice, the solution works by performing backup processing, including deduplication and compression, at the local site, which significantly speeds up the backup process while reducing the overall size of the backup that has to be transmitted back to the datacentre. Other variations of this setup may include configuring additional Netbackup media servers for load balancing and failover, and additional storage pools for data mirroring or failover.

We tested NetBackup PureDisk by setting it up as an 'all-in-one' configuration. That meant a single 'node' solution, where all NetBackup services are installed on a single machine, as opposed to installing the metabase server, metabase engine, storage pool authority and content router on different systems. Our single node was installed on an HP server class system, running a pair of Xeon CPUs and 8GB of RAM. An 'all-in-one' or 'single node' installation is the simplest and most basic way to set up the product, and is appropriate for smaller enterprises or branch offices.

Setup consisted of installing the NetBackup PureDisk operating system, PDOS, which is based on Suse Linux Enterprise Server 10 with Service Pack 1 (SLES10 SP1). Hardware compatibility is determined by the requirements of SLES10 SP1. Simply put, if the hardware can run SLES10 SP1, then it will be fine for PDOS.

After installing PDOS, administrators will need to install NetBackup PureDisk, which comes on Linux standard TAR files. Although the included instructions are straightforward, experience with Linux is a definite plus when it comes to the initial setup and configuration. An installation requires at least two disks, a boot disk and a storage disk. The storage disk can be direct attached storage as in an internal drive, a disk array as in iSCSI and fibre channel, or a SAN.

Administrators will want to properly size their hardware, making sure that enough processing power and storage is available. Symantec offers detailed instructions on capacity planning in the documentation. Luckily, setting up the nodes is the most complex part of the product. The remaining chores are relatively straightforward and consist of deploying agents or backup clients, configuring storage options, running wizards and setting up various system parameters.

Installation of the client software was very simple, just a matter of running an installation program on the target machines. Administrators could also install the clients remotely using any deployment and management technologies that they may already have in-house.

While it is not rocket science, a good understanding of storage, networking and security is needed to successfully deploy the software. Once deployed, NetBackup PureDisk is managed via a concise browser-based tool that offers context-sensitive help. The management console can be a little intimidating, simply because of the number of menus, pull-downs and options.

For the most part, the management console offers a logical procession through the various choices. That said, it could be better organised and vastly improved with a tab-based interface that focuses on common functions. But potential purchasers should not be put off by those minor complaints, as Symantec intends to overhaul the interface in a future version of the product.

After testing a few backup scenarios it became easy to see where NetBackup PureDisk offers the most value. One of the more interesting aspects is how the product handles backing up virtual machines, which we tested with a couple of Microsoft Hyper-V virtual PCs.

Virtual machines are becoming very popular in datacentres and offer their own unique challenges. The technology used by Symantec's solution addresses many of those virtual machine challenges. For example, deduplication can reduce the size of the backup by a factor of 10 or more, by identifying which software elements of a virtual machine are the same as other virtual machines. Most virtual machines are created by duplicating a standard virtual machine, so many files across the virtual machines are the same. Removing those duplicate files from the backup saves significant space and time.

The deduplication process runs on the NetBackup media server, and the process was very fast in our tests and barely taxed the CPUs. We were able to run dedupe on 300GB of backup files data in under 15 minutes, using local Sata drives on the NetBackup media server we had built. Simply put, our test bed could handle significantly more data, and most, if any, performance issues will be dictated by the speed of the network backbone and the throughput of the storage disk.

The major strengths of NetBackup PureDisk come from its flexibility. It can be scaled relatively easily and deployed in a way that best suits the target environment. Scaling up usually means just adding more media servers, and incorporating failover has the same basic requirements.

That flexibility extends to the types of storage that can be used, as well as the hardware selected. Additional advantages of NetBackup PureDisk come from its disk-based nature of backup processing, which eliminates the complexity of tape media while significantly speeding up backups.

Of course, administrators can move backup files to tape for long-term storage or archival purposes if needed. The viability of disk-based backups is further enhanced by the product's deduplication abilities and data compression prowess, which can reduce storage needs by as much as a factor of 10.

While there are several other vendors in the backup and deduplication space, Symantec seems to be unique by offering a solution that incorporates several technologies that ultimately reduce the hardware, software and expenses associated with enterprise data backups.

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.

PC Tools iAntivirus For Macintosh

Cliff Joseph — 2009-06-25T15:45:00.000Z

Cliff Joseph, Personal Computer World, Thursday 25 June 2009 at 15:45:00

A simple and affordable anti-virus program for Mac users

We recently heard reports about the first ever Trojan to attack the Mac. The offending malware, known as iServices.A, was present in pirated versions of Apple’s iWork software suite that had been downloaded using Bittorrent. There’s also a variant called iServices.B that was linked to pirated copies of Photoshop.

The moral of this story, of course, is not to download pirated software. But if you’d rather be safe than sorry, you could take a look at iAntivirus from PC Tools. Unlike its two main rivals Norton Antivirus for Macintosh and Intego’s Virus Barrier iAntivirus is available in both free and paid-for versions.

The two versions are identical, but if you pay the full $29.95 price for the program, you get online technical support with guaranteed 24-hour response times as well.

The program is extremely easy to use. Its main window provides just two options Scan and Protect. You will want to run a scan the first time you install the program, and the ‘Quick Scan’ option took less than 30 seconds to work through our Macbook’s 120GB hard disk, while a more thorough scan took about 24 minutes.

You can then leave the program running in the background in order to provide constant protection, or just run it occasionally in order to perform a quick virus check as required. You can schedule additional scans whenever you like, as well as downloading regular updates for no additional charge.

Admittedly, most Mac users happily get by without any anti-virus software at all, but the ability to download iAntivirus for free and then upgrade at a later date if you want the full technical support package makes it a good choice for Mac users who want to keep their options open.

Panoweaver 6

Ken McMahon — 2009-06-25T10:15:00.000Z

Ken McMahon, Personal Computer World, Thursday 25 June 2009 at 10:15:00

Create 2D and 360º panoramic images easily

Stitching together a panoramic image to give web users a virtual tour of a location is usually time-consuming and fiddly. Panoweaver 6 makes the process a lot easier, and can be used to create both 2D and 360º immersive panoramas, which can be exported to Flash, Quicktime or Java player formats.

We’ve reviewed the standard version, which is the cheapest at £87, but there are also Professional and Batch editions that cost £439 and £791 respectively.

Version 6 adds plenty of tweaks, such as automatic recognition of the lens used, cylindrical panorama production, dual-core CPU support and improved Flash player export options.

The major new feature is support for ‘normal’ and wide-angle lenses. Previous versions of Panoweaver concentrated on producing panoramas from images shot with fisheye lenses. That makes sense because you can cover a 360-degree field of view in only four shots with a fisheye lens (including the overlap).

According to Easypano the Standard edition is restricted to non-fisheye images, but using the trial version, we managed to stitch a 360º spherical image from four images shot with a Sigma 8mm fisheye lens. Another limitation is that it doesn’t include the Smartblend algorithm, which does a superb job of seamlessly blending stitched images together.

The really impressive thing about Panoweaver is ease of use. The interface isn’t pretty, but it’s very effective. Within a few minutes of importing our photos we had a fully stitched panorama ready for export to a Flash, Quicktime or Java player format.

Panoweaver’s autostitching engine did a good job, though it was necessary to add control points between two of the images to indicate matching overlapping detail. After we added these, the result was perfect.

For applications such as estate agency tours and for amateur panographers, Panoweaver 6 could save you a lot of time.

Zonealarm Extreme Security

Paul Lester — 2009-06-23T12:00:00.000Z

Paul Lester, Personal Computer World, Tuesday 23 June 2009 at 12:00:00

PC tune-up tools have been added to the security suite

Zonealarm Extreme is Checkpoint’s answer to Norton 360, adding backup and tune-up tools along with its impressive Forcefield online protection to the Internet Security core engine.

After a rather lengthy installation that requires a combination of scans and updates, it becomes apparent that the ‘headline’ additions, namely backup and tune-up, must be installed separately and behave as standalone tools.

These are both fairly rudimentary, as backup includes encryption and useful options such as multiple file-version support and live monitoring, but it can only be used to save files to the 2GB of online space provided.

The tune-up tool is focused around scanning, backing up and repairing the Registry and is hardly comprehensive, so we were a little disappointed not to see a level of integration comparable to Norton 360.

The Forcefield component works well though, protecting Internet Explorer and Firefox against a range of threats using a virtual browser, which also allows you to prevent any traces of a current session from being recorded.

The security-related aspect of the suite is typically effective and Zonealarm maintains its excellent and well-deserved reputation with a powerful firewall and comprehensive threat detection. Scan times are reasonable, at around six minutes for a quick scan and just under an hour for a normal scan and, as with Norton 360, these decrease as the software gets to know your system.

There’s little to criticise when it comes to core components but we were disappointed by the limited additional tools and poor integration. There’s still a commendable collection of security and protection on offer but we’d question the value in paying extra for the new additions to this particular version.