PC Magazine - July 6 2006 - Changing Education Paradigm

BUILD OR BUY 

BUDGET 

CAMERA 

SHOOTOUT 

STAY 

SAFE 

ONLINE 

SEE PG. 88 

SPECIAL REPORT 

THE CASE FOR 

MYSPACE 

YOUR 

FASTEST PC 

EVER! 

BUILD IT YOURSELF 

A Supercharged and 

Overclocked Speedster 

FIRST LOOKS 

The Megafast PC 

That Blew Us Away!! 

PC LABS TEST 

The Best 

Media Centers

33 

FIRST LOOKS 

34 Hardware 

Samsung Q1 

Apple MacBook 

Pro 17-inch 

Falcon Northwest 

Mach V FX-62 

Quad 

Sony VAIO XL2 

Blueado Mini m5e 

Gateway FX510XL 

HP Digital Entertainment 

Center 

z556 

HP Pavilion 

Slimline Media 

Center s7320n 

Cover: Illustration by Michael Scott Kenney 

PCONTENTS 

JULY 2006 VOL. 25 NO. 12 

40 Consumer 

Electronics 

Toshiba HD-A1 

Pioneer PDP- 

5060HD 

SanDisk Sansa e260 

Palm Treo 700p 

Kodak EasyShare 

V610 

Sony HDR-HC1 

Pure Digital Point 

& Shoot Video 

Camcorder 

Sony DCR-SR100 

30GB Handycam 

Sony DCR-DVD505 

DVD Handycam 

46 Software 

Microsoft Windows 

Vista Beta 2 

Microsoft Offi ce 

2007 Beta 2 

Microsoft 

Windows Media 

Player 11 

Comodo Personal 

Firewall 

ZoneAlarm 

Security Suite 6.0 

BitDefender 

eTrust Internet 

Security Suite 

Norton Internet 

Security 

McAfee Internet 


Budget Cameras 

Page 99 

Media 

Centers 

Page 38 

MySpace 

Page 76 

Megafast PC 

Page 35 

COVER STORY 

107 

BUILD IT: 

THE FASTEST PC EVER 

Our Jason Cross has built the fastest PC on 

the planet, for at least the next 20 minutes. 

Check out how he harnessed the power of 

an overclocked AMD FX-60 processor and 

showcased his results on a drool-worthy 30inch 

monitor. Don’t want to build? See our review 

of the Falcon NW in First Looks. Also, 

check out our best Media Centers. 

56 Small Business 

PayCycle 

Paychex Online 

Payroll 

SurePayroll 

Lenovo ThinkPad 

Z61m 

OKI C5500n 

68 The Best Stuff 

The best products 

all in one place 

38 Buying Guide: 

Media Centers 

for the Home 


Camcorders 


Security Suites 

JULY 2006 PC MAGAZINE 7

PCONTENTS 

SPECIAL REPORT 

MYSPACE NATION 

76 

We drill down into the social-networking phenomenon 

to give you its history, technology, and 

implications. We also profi le several people who have used 

social networking to get ahead and show you how you can 

do the same. 

SECURITY 

DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR KIDS ARE 

CLICKING? 

88 

Your kids may be home, but if they’re hooked on 

MySpace or Facebook, they still may not be safe. 

We examine the dangers they may face and show you how to 

protect them when they go out on the Web. 

REAL-WORLD TESTING 

WICKED CHEAP CAMERAS 

99 

Can you get a good digital camera for under $150? 

Our roving team of editors went shopping and 

tracked down a few decent deals. How about $88? If the one 

we tested is any indication, fuhgeddaboutit. 

PC Magazine, ISSN 0888-8507, is published semi-monthly except monthly in January and July at $44.97 for one 

year. Ziff Davis Media Inc, 28 E. 28th St., New York, NY 10016-7940. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY 10016- 

7940 and at additional mailing offi ces. POSTMASTER: Address changes to PC Magazine, P.O. Box 54070, Boulder, 

CO 80328-4070. The Canadian GST registration number is 865286033. Publications Mail Agreement No. 40009221. 

Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to P.O. Box 503, R.P.O. West Beaver Creek, Richmond Hill, ON L4B 4R6, 

Canada. Printed in the U.S.A. 

OPINIONS 

13 First Word 

Jim Louderback 

71 Michael J. Miller 

73 Bill Machrone 

74 Inside Track 

168 John C. Dvorak 

PIPELINE 

23 Iowa State’s 

ultimate virtual 

reality room: 3D 

images at 100 

million–pixel 

resolution. Also, 

the thinnest smartphone; 

IBM’s storage 

world record. 

25 Future Watch 

Ray Kurzweil on 

superintelligence. 

CONNECTED 

TRAVELER 

38 Dallas 

TECHNORIDE 

28 Acura RDX 

Dual ships Plays- 

ForSure receiver; 

CLEVER concept 

car 

29 Bill Howard 

ALSO INSIDE 

17 Feedback 

17 Abort, Retry, Fail 

PCMAG ONLINE 

SOLUTIONS 

129 Ask Neil 

Outsmart keyloggers; 

avoid being 

trapped in Outlook’s 

“Groundhog 

Day”; delete duplicate 

rows in Excel; 

and more. 

135 Ask Loyd 

The truth about 

unlocked phones; 

better phones for 

MetroPCS; the cost 

of roaming Albania. 

136 SMB Boot Camp 

Taking a layered 

approach to antivirus 

protection. 

140 Software Solutions 

Juggle various calendars 

using a free 

online service. 

143 Security Watch 

Identity theft in 

depth and how to 

protect yourself. 

145 Vista Revealed 

In Vista, search 

is near ubiquitous—and 

much 

improved. 

GAMING & 

CULTURE 

164 The Oblivion of 

RPGs 

Can a cool new 

game revive a genre 

it helped bury? 

GEARLOG 

167 The Novint Falcon 

The ultimate 3D 

game controller 

Point your browser to PCMag.com to join Lead 

Analyst Terry Sullivan as he combs NYC in search 

of inexpensive cameras. He’ll let you know where 

the best deals and most helpful salespeople are, 

whether registering your new camera is worth 

the hassle, and when it’s okay to buy a graymarket 

camera. Get all the info at 

go.pcmag.com/cheapcameras 

10 PC MAGAZINE JULY 2006 Illustration by Magic Torch

T 

HESE DAYS, YOU CAN HARDLY 

turn around without another 

media reference to what we’re 

calling internally MySpace 

Nation. If it’s not a dire warning 

that all the evil in the world 

has gravitated to MySpace, 

it’s a breathless description of 

how social networking “saved my life.” We thought 

it was time for a reasonable middle ground. 

In this issue you’ll fi nd an objective analysis of 

the social-networking phenomenon, from its early 

beginnings to where it is now. You’ll find details 

on how to find a job, explore new social circles, 

and even delist yourself from all the popular sites. 

We’ve also put together a rational guide for parents 

on how to work through social-networking safety 

issues with your kids—and how to protect them 

from themselves. We even explore the back corridors 

of the online meet-up phenomenon, uncovering 

little-known sites including Catster, Dogster, 

and the Appalachian Pagan Society. Who knew? 

Other fun facts in this issue: Cheap digital cameras 

still aren’t worthwhile. A year ago I bought up a 

bunch of sub-$100 digital cameras and found them 

all wanting. We did it again this year, and found the 

same thing. But there’s good news too: Spend a little 

bit more and you’ll get something pretty decent. 

Building the fastest PC on the planet isn’t hard; it 

just takes deep pockets. But there is a cheaper way: 

Mix and match our selected components and end 

up with a barn-burner for less. 

HD DVD looks great, but is it really worth the 

expense? Based on our testing, next-generation 

DVD drives offer real advantages over regular and 

even upsampled DVD players. Should you go with 

Blu-ray or HD DVD? Check our review, but my 

advice is to wait. 

SlingPlayer Mobile: A few months ago I sang 

the praises of the Slingbox, describing how it let 

me watch my TiVo while in a hotel in Germany. 

Although Michael Miller and I disagree on the value 

of the Slingbox—Michael says it’s not nearly as good 

when connected to a Media Center PC—now there’s 

even more reason to hook one up to your DVR: You 

can watch your video on a Windows Mobile Smartphone 

or handheld using the cellular network. 

I’ve been testing the SlingPlayer Mobile software 

on Palm’s new 700w Treo, and the video 

Illustration by Tim Hussey 

looks pretty good over Verizon’s EV-DO network. 

I’ve been able to catch baseball games and keep up 

with The Sopranos from just about anywhere I go in 

the U.S. Why pay $5 or $10 extra a month for those 

specialized video channels that Sprint and Verizon 

offer? Watch your own shows, when you want, on 

your cell phone for free instead—after paying for 

the high-speed data service, of course, and $30 to 

Sling Media for the software. 

Gaming update: Nintendo and Sony both unveiled 

their new consoles at the annual Electronics 

Entertainment Expo in May. I was blown away by 

the graphics on Sony’s new PS3. The games offered 

a true immersive experience, especially on backgrounds 

while driving and fl ying. But add in a second 

controller and you’ll end up spending almost 

$700. You do get a built-in Blu-ray DVD player—a 

real plus—but it’s still wildly expensive. 

Nintendo took a different approach. With a 

funky motion-sensing controller, candy-coated 

graphics, and an incomprehensible name, the Wii 

will appeal to more than just hard-core gamers. And 

with an expected price of less than $250, it’s much 

more affordable than the PS3. The latest Zelda and 

Mario titles look like winners. I myself will probably 

lust after the PS3—but buy a Wii for the family. � 

FIRST WORD 

BY JIM LOUDERBACK, EDITOR 

In this issue, you’ll fi nd details on how to fi nd a job, explore new social circles, 

and even delist yourself from all the popular social-networking sites. 

MORE ON THE WEB 

You can contact 

Jim Louderback at 

Jim_Louderback 

@ziffdavis.com 

For more of his 

columns, go to 

go.pcmag.com/ 

louderback 


SAY NO TO ITUNES 

In Jim Louderback’s piece on smart home systems 

(June 6, page 9), you note the Roku SoundBridge 

Radio and its ability to “stream all of your digital 

music (except for protected iTunes songs).” 

This is one more reason I don’t buy 

music from iTunes . . . oh, sorry, why I 

don’t “license” music from them. If I pay 

good money for music, I want to be able to 

use it how and where I wish and listen to 

it anywhere that I bleeping well prefer, so 

long as I don’t copy it for others. 

Hey Apple, if I turn the speakers on 

my PC way up, I can hear the music in 

other parts of my house, and someone 

passing by can listen in without paying 

you. Will you be suing me soon for this? 

And sometimes I hum tunes I have heard 

in public without sending BMI a check. 

Add that to the suit, won’t you? 

Until greedy buzzards like Apple and 

far too much of the music industry stop 

treating us all like criminals, I won’t pay 

to play in their yard. I won’t buy pirated 

music or software, and I will pay a fair 

price (and I get to determine what is 

fair—it’s called market forces) for good 

stuff—but not with all their restrictions 

and limits.—Jim Penrose 

I agree 100 percent. I don’t buy music from 

any DRM music services.—Jim Louderback 

A BETTER KITCHEN PC 

Your article “The Kitchen PC” (June 6, 

page 105) was very innovative. I created 

a different confi guration that might be of 

interest. I believe it is more inconspicuous, 

durable, and useful, as well as easier to 

build and slightly more affordable. 

Here is what I did: I purchased a 

Cybernet Zero Footprint PC, in which 

the PC is within the keyboard, for $869. 

Because of its small footprint and the 

way I installed it (described below), 

I was able to add a 15-inch LCD with 

built-in speakers (instead of the 8-inch 

LCD featured) for $129. I also added a 

USB Bluetooth adapter for $19. The total 

system cost was $1,017; my savings, $433. 

I installed the system with a fold-up 

cover on top (for the LCD) in oak plywood 

(to match my cabinets) and a fold-down 

cover below for the PC/keyboard (attached 

with Velcro). I then used some 3 /4-inch by 

4-inch oak to frame it in and added some 

nice drawer pulls. Cost: about $40. 

The system is completely hidden when 

not in use, and the larger monitor is much 

easier on the eyes and great for DVDs. 

—Rich Elwood 

ABORT, RETRY, FAIL 

BY DON WILLMOTT 

Fun fun fun with trivia! 

FEEDBACK 

BURNIN’ DOWN THE HOUSE 

Ahem. I know the authors of “The Kitchen 

PC” want to keep things neat and tidy, but 

when you said, “We plugged the cords 

directly into the wall, but you could also 

use a short extension cord,” you’ve just 

advised your readership to forgo a surge 

protector. How about a fried computer 

with that grilled-cheese sandwich? 

—Jesse Mueller 

P.I.Y. (PRINT IT YOURSELF) 

John Dickinson’s “Printing Your Own 

Business Cards,” (June 6, page 112), didn’t 

mention that anyone with a decent printer 

(black-and-white or color) can print 

her own business cards with businesscard 

paper from Avery and other label 

manufacturers. When I need cards, I have 

A putter for 

every possibility. 

He’s old, but not that old! 

. . . but maybe 

next month. 

ARF NEEDS YOU! If your entry is used, we’ll send you a PC Magazine T-shirt. Submit your entries via 

e-mail to arf@ziffdavis.com. Ziff Davis Media Inc. shall own all property rights in the entries. Winners 

this issue: Daniel Fuller, Jim Gimpel, William Schmidt, and Elana Jackson. 


FEEDBACK 

them in two minutes using a Microsoft 

Word or OpenOffice template. When 

separated, the cards’ edges are clean. 

Cards cost 5 cents each in packages of 250, 

or 4 cents in quantity—less than half the 

price of the cheapest ones printed by a 

vendor.—Nathan Sivin 

WHAT’S A YEAR BETWEEN 

FRIENDS? 

John, 1957 was the last model year for the 

Hudson. (Inside Track, June 6, page 65.) A 

’58 Hudson is as hard to fi nd as a working 

perpetual-motion machine.—Mike Wood 

SMARTER ROADS 

The recent letters from readers who are 

concerned about driver distraction and 

inattentiveness caused by the proliferation 

of gadgets in cars (June 6, page 15) made 

me reminisce about a project I worked on 

nearly a decade ago. 

In August 1997, on Interstate Highway 15 

just north of downtown San Diego, the U.S. 

Department of Transportation sponsored 

the first large-scale demonstration of an 

automated highway system. Many drivers 

were apprehensive at the start of their ride, 

but it was remarkable how quickly people 

adjusted to and accepted the notion of 

vehicle automation. 

Despite the success of this demonstration, 

however, the DOT abandoned the 

idea of automated highways, saying that 

the deployment of such a system was too 

long-term to be considered practical. 

Though the objective of this project 

was to reduce traffic congestion by 

investigating whether more vehicles 

could be safely packed onto the existing 

highway by eliminating the least 

reliable part of the system, the driver, it 

occurs to me that this technology, first 

demonstrated a decade ago, could still be 

used today to protect the rest of us from 

distracted and inattentive drivers. 

It is clear that people want to be able to 

do more with the time they spend in their 

cars. Instead of fi ghting this trend, perhaps 

we should consider how to enable it safely 

by reducing the driver’s workload. With 

HOW TO CONTACT US 

We welcome your comments and suggestions. 

When sending e-mail to Feedback, please state 

in the subject line of your message which article 

or column prompted your response. E-mail 

pcmag@ziffdavis.com. All letters become the 

property of PC Magazine and are subject to editing. 

We regret that we cannot answer letters 

individually. 

18 PC MAGAZINE JULY 2006 

today’s technology, many things could be 

done to reduce the number and severity 

of crashes caused by distracted and 

inattentive drivers.—Greg Larson 

VISTA BREAD-CRUMMY 

John Clyman extolled the “virtues” of the 

redesigned Windows Explorer in Microsoft 

Vista (Vista Revealed, June 6, page 115). I 

would like to disagree. I have taught many 

classes for beginning computer users and 

written numerous procedures explaining 

to neophyte users how to use computers. 

More recently, I have been evaluating the 

fi rst beta of Windows Vista. 

My experience has led me to believe 

that most people would be well served 

if Windows Explorer opened by default 

with the folder hierarchy open in the left 

pane. The “breadcrumbs” inserted into 

Vista’s Windows Explorer are not a useful 

substitute for the folder hierarchy. 

As for the appearance of Windows 

Explorer in Vista—in fact, the appearance 

of Vista in general—I’m afraid that 

Microsoft has succeeded in making even 

eye candy a disadvantage. In Windows 

2000, Windows Explorer had a crisp, 

businesslike precision; it was truly easy 

to read and use. Since Windows 2000, 

Microsoft has been going in the wrong 

direction.—Charles Head 

2006 BCD 

Perhaps the person who airbrushed the 

blue LEDs on the Crystal Blue BCD/Binary 

Clock (“Reoutfi tting Your Space,” June 6, 

page 102), should have shown the clock 

in binary-coded decimal—in the mode 

shown, even Spock would be hamstrung. 

—Eric Gochko 

You think we’d go to all that effort? The 

clock is really working; we didn’t fi ll in the 

LEDs. And it’s displaying in BCD, even. But 

our photographer snapped the picture as 

the seconds were blinking and caught the 

exact moment when a few too many lights 

were lit. The clock as pictured does indeed 

say it’s 7:10 and eleventy-fifteen seconds; 

this is because the bottom three LEDs in the 

right-hand column were dimming while the 

top LED was coming on. The column was in 

the process of changing from representing a 

seven (bottom three LEDs lit) to representing 

an eight (only the top LED lit) because 

those are the only two consecutive numbers 

that use all four lights between them. 

The time was making the transition from 

07:10:17 to 07:10:18 when the clock was photographed.—Sarah 

Pike 

TALK TO THE PC, ’CAUSE DVORAK 

AIN’T LIST’NING 

I strongly disagree with John C. Dvorak’s 

statement, “No matter what you’ve 

heard, voice recognition isn’t nearly good 

enough to be useful.” (May 23, page 122.) 

I have been using voice recognition for 

close to ten years. I agree that the early 

versions were not very good—my first 

voice-recognition device was an IBM 

product that left a lot to be desired—but 

I am now on my third Dragon version, 

Dragon Naturally Speaking 8, and I 

couldn’t be more satisfi ed. Training was 

easy and corrections are remembered. 

It has been my experience that with 

this product voice recognition has truly 

arrived.—John Vellenga 

THE NEW BUSINESS IMPERATIVE 

There won’t be any new feature in 

Microsoft Office worth my dollars. 

And retraining my staff to a new Office 

interface? Not if I can help it. So what is 

the new business imperative? Get 80 to 

90 percent of the desktops off Microsoft 

Windows and Offi ce and onto Linux and 

OpenOffice. Microsoft is changing the 

entire desktop because they have to! What 

would they have to sell if they didn’t? 

Everyone wants off the Microsoft merrygo-round, 

and everyone’s “point break” is 

Vista.—Gary A. Lavery 

IE6 COLORED GLASSES 

I downloaded Microsoft Internet Ex plor er 

7 after reading the glowing praise for and 

explanation of it (May 9, page 62). But after 

installing this browser, I see absolutely no 

difference between it and Version 6. Am I 

missing something?—Charles Voelker 

I don’t think we’d call it glowing praise. IE7 

is better than IE6, but the revised browser is 

just playing catch-up with Firefox. Still, look 

very closely at your IE7. You’ll see tabs so 

you can have multiple pages open within one 

window, RSS support so you can easily read 

your favorite feeds, an ever-present search 

box, and Microsoft’s bizarre decision to hide 

the browser’s menus.—Ben Z. Gottesman � 

CORRECTIONS & AMPLIFICATIONS 

On page 72 of “Hollywood Reboots” (May 23), we refer 

to Cliff Plumer as the CTO of Industrial Light & Magic. 

He is actually the CTO of all of Lucasfi lm, ILM’s parent 

company.

Virtual-Reality Renaissance 

Take a gander at the highest-resolution virtual immersion found anywhere. 

QUICK, WHAT IS THE MOST REALISTIC 

virtual-reality room in the world? It’s 

the Iowa State University C6 room, 

currently being upgraded with $4 million 

in equipment so that the six-sided 

immersive environment can display 

3D images at a resolution of 100 million pixels. 

That’s double the number of pixels lighting up any 

other virtual-reality room. 

Backed by funding from the Air Force Offi ce of 

Scientific Research, the 10- by 10-foot C6 room is 

getting a Hewlett-Packard computer with 96 graphics 

processing units, 24 Sony digital projectors, an 

eight-channel audio system, and ultrasonic motiontracking 

technology. James Oliver, director of Iowa 

State’s Virtual Reality Applications Center, calls the 

SVELTE SMARTPHONE 

Verizon and Motorola are 

fi nally shipping their muchhyped 

Q smartphone, billed 

as “the thinnest device with 

a QWERTY keyboard.” The 

11.5mm-thick phone goes for 

$199.99 (after discounts with 

a two-year contract and 

voice plan) and will surely 

draw comparisons to the 

RAZR. Find our complete 

review of the Q online at 

go.pcmag.com/q. 

PIPELINE 

WHAT’S NEW FROM THE WORLD OF TECH 

upgraded resolution “like putting your glasses on in 

the morning.” 

Many other virtual-reality environments are 

aimed at gaming and very futuristic applications, 

but the researchers who use C6 are getting meaningful 

scientifi c results right now. For example, in 

the photo at left, Jared Knutzon, an Iowa State graduate 

student in human/computer interaction, demonstrates 

how the room can control the military’s 

unmanned aerial vehicles, with realistic terrain and 

airspace displayed in 3D. The virtual depiction also 

gives Knutzon information from instruments and 

weapons systems. In the photo on the right, Chiu- 

Shui Chan, an Iowa State professor of architecture, 

has created a virtual model of Beijing’s Xidian business 

district.—Sebastian Rupley 

WHO NEEDS BACKUP? 

Nearly half of adult computer users don't back up 

their data, even though 43 percent of adult users 

report that they have already lost data to viruses 

and other causes. Among those who don't back up, 

more than a third don't know how to do it. 

Why U.S. Computer Users* Don't Back Up Data 

Not sure how to do it 

Not important enough 

Too time-consuming 

Source: Harris Interactive, May 2006 *Among respondents who don't back up 

DATA CRAM 

No, that’s not a 

close up of a microprocessor’s 

surface. 

It’s a magnetic-force 

microscope image 

from IBM researchers 

of standard magnetic 

tape, on which they 

placed a whopping 

6.67 billion bits of 

data per square inch. 

That’s a world record, 

and more than 15 

times the data density 

of today’s industrystandard 

tapes. The 

upshot: IBM plans to 

release single tape 

cartridges that can 

store more than 8 

terabytes. 

Researchers used 

a next-generation 

dual-coat magnetic 

tape codeveloped 

with Fuji Photo Film 

Co. According to IBM 

vice president Cindy 

Grossman, the goal 

is to protect tape 

as “the most costeffective 

form of data 

storage.” Oh, and to 

put 8TB in perspective: 

1TB is enough to 

store every conversation 

you’ll ever have in 

your life. 

LET THERE BE LIGHT An MIT researcher, Elizabeth Goldring, has created a $4,000 lightemitting 

seeing machine that lets people with severe visual impairments read, observe 

nature, and more. It includes a computer, projector, monitor, and a joystick for zooming. 

14% 

29% 

35% 


FUTUREWATCH 

BABY’S FIRST PETABYTE 

MOST PARENTS USE PHOTOS 

and videos to document their 

babies’ progress, but Massachusetts 

Institute of Technology 

professor Deb Roy (shown) is a 

hyper-archivist. As part of the 

MIT Media Lab’s Human Speechome Project, he is 

recording nearly 400,000 hours of audio and video 

documenting his son’s fi rst three years. 

Roy has installed 11 omnidirectional fish-eye 

video cameras and 14 ceiling-mounted microphones 

to record all activity in his home. He uses 

a 5-terabyte disk in his basement to store the data, 

then deposits it on a 1-petabyte disk at MIT. He 

hopes to develop computer models of word learning, 

which could have applications in fi elds such 

as robotics, and to develop audiovisual recording 

and analysis methods for long-term observations 

of human activity in homes. 

What happened after Roy installed all the surveillance 

equipment? “Our home electricity bill 

quadrupled,” he reports.—Sebastian Rupley 

BEYOND THE BRAIN 

“I believe we’ll have the hardware 

to simulate the brain by 2020,” 

said Ray Kurzweil, the often controversial 

futurist, entrepreneur, 

and author, in a recent interview 

with PC Magazine. “I’ve projected 

2029 for having both the hardware 

and the software to have computers 

that operate at human levels. . . . 

The combination will be quite formidable.” 

Kurzweil, depicted in the photo above delivering a teleported 

lecture, is no stranger to predictions about machine 

intelligence competing with human intelligence. The full interview 

will appear in next issue’s Future Watch cover story, 

along with a look at many technologies that will shape our 

future. Stay tuned.—SR 


TECHNORIDE 


Want the full story on 

these reviews, plus news 

and opinions? Go to 

www.technoride.com, 

the car site for tech fans. 


ACURA RDX 

$30,000 to $37,000 

(estimated) 

llllm 

AFFORDABLE TECH 

PROS Variable-fl ow 

turbocharger provides 

more power without 

lag. Sophisticated drivetrain. 

Good navigation 

system. Reasonable fuel 

economy. 

CONS Confusing array 

of console buttons (even 

with cockpit controller). 

Can’t unbundle most 

options to create a sub- 

$30,000 SUV. 

BOTTOM LINE Acura has 

built a smaller, cheaper, 

chock-full-of-technology 

SUV sibling to the MDX. 

The cockpit controller 

works well but doesn’t do 

much to eliminate dashboard 

button clutter. 

THE TURBOCHARGER IS BACK AS A TECHNOLOGY WEAPON IN THE 

fuel-economy wars, and Acura puts it to excellent use in the 

compact RDX SUV. The RDX is similar to the BMW X3 but has a 

turbocharged 4-cylinder engine instead of an inline-6, a simpler 

cockpit controller, a shorter options list, and a lower price. 

The well-finished cockpit has a dash-mounted controller 

that cries out for the car’s lone options package ($2,500): an Alpine navigation 

system with real-time traffi c overlays, Bluetooth, and an Elliot Scheiner/Panasonic 

DVD-Audio sound system. While most cockpit controllers reduce button 

clutter, though, Acura still has a puzzling array in the center console. 

But it’s the turbocharger that really sets the RDX apart. Acura engineered an 

inlet fl ap that varies exhaust gas fl ow into the turbine, which means more fresh 

air in and, milliseconds later, more horsepower. Turbo and all, the RDX qualifi es 

as an Ultra Low Emissions Vehicle (ULEV) because of its smaller engine. 

The rest of the drivetrain includes a drive-by-wire throttle, five-speed 

automatic transmission with paddle shifters behind the steering wheel, stability 

control, and Super Handling All Wheel Drive, which varies the amount of 

torque (wheel-turning power). Deliveries of the RDX begin in August. 

CLEVER CONCEPT CAR 

This his three-wheeled concept prototype is 

a two-passenger urban vehicle that’s fuel- 

effi cient, low-pollution, and relatively safe. 

The CLEVER, or Compact Low Emission 

Vehicle for Urban Transport, is the cre- cre- 

ation of nine European research 

and industrial partners.

Alpine 

navigation 

system with 

traffi c 

overlays 

DUAL SHIPS PLAYSFORSURE RECEIVER 

Microsoft takes another step into your 

car’s dashboard with the fi rst PlaysFor- PlaysFor- 

Sure car radio, the Dual XDMR7710, shipship- ping in July. This unit ($250 street) and 

two siblings will be the fi rst car radios that 

connect to most portable music players 

(except, of course, Apple’s) and stream 

content from the player, including down- 

loads from subscription music services. 

BILL HOWARD 

THE BEST (AND CHEAPEST) 

TECH UPGRADES 

NOT EVERYONE CAN AFFORD 

$50K technology masterpieces 

such as the Infi nity M or Acura 

RL. Here’s some relatively 

inexpensive technology you 

can add to the car you already 

own. The prices assume you 

do it yourself; otherwise, add 

$50 to $100 for installation. 

Under $30. Get a good wired FM modulator 

($25 or $30) for better music playback through the 

car stereo. Disconnect your antenna from the back 

of the radio, plug in the modulator jack, plug the antenna 

back in, plug a line-out jack from your player 

to the modulator, and tune in to an unused station. 

Check out Delphi, Harman Kardon, or Scosche. 

Under $50. Check out the Delphi XM Roady2. 

This tiny satellite radio is simple to install; you’ll be 

listening to music in less time than it will take the 

bleeding to stop from the cuts you got opening the 

blister pack. 

Under $100. Get a CD changer line-in jack from 

BlitzSafe, SoundGate, or P.A.C. Audio for your 

portable music player. It plugs into the car radio 

CD-changer jack you don’t use; who buys external 

changers these days? For this price, you can also 

fi nd iPod line-in adapters that charge, but they don’t 

display the iPod tunes on your radio faceplate. Also 

under $100 are black boxes for replacement radios. 

Under $200. Consider the Harman Kardon 

drive+play iPod adapter. Despite the control knob 

that broke off on my first drive+play review unit 

and a high-pitched hum (the installer’s fault), this 

device is still a treat and works with just about 

every car. Monster Cable makes a similar device, 

the iCruze. 

Under $250. Think about a new car stereo. If 

you want satellite radio or an iPod connection, it’s 

probably cheaper to buy a new radio (any brand) 

for $200 to $250; the iPod adapter will be $100 max 

(Alpine’s is $30), not $200. Also for this price: backup 

sonar or backup video. Video is neater but more 

costly if you don’t already have in-dash video. 

Under $400. Drive safely, but know that the 

best radar alert (legal in all 50 states) is the Valentine 

One, bar none. And for about $400, consider 

the Garmin StreetPilot i3 GPS unit. But if you don’t 

mind coughing up $100 more, the Garmin Street- 

Pilot c330 and the Lowrance iWAY 350C have larger 

screens and give you plenty of value for the money. 

Bill Howard is the editor of TechnoRide.com and 

a contributing editor of PC Magazine. 


CONNECTEDTRAVELER 

WHILE YOU’RE IN TOWN The Big D, as locals lovingly call it, is the third-most- 

popular domestic business-travel destination in America, and everything really is 

bigger there. Visitors can view the open-air JFK memorial and the infamous “grassy 

knoll.” Don’t skip the Sixth Floor Museum, located in the old Texas School Book Depository, 

for a peek at alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald’s sniper nest (www.jfk 

.org). If history’s not your thing, take a quick drive (15 to20 minutes from downtown) 

to nearby Resistol Arena for the 49 th season of the Mesquite Championship 

Rodeo, held on Friday and Saturday nights from April to the end of September. 

FAST FACTS 

The integrated circuit 

computer chip was 

invented in Dallas in 

July 1958 (thanks, Texas 

Instruments!). Boom 

Town Dallas is often 

called the “Silicon Prairie.” 

Texas is currently 

tied for second with 

Massachusetts in the 

number of tech fi rms 

listed on Deloitte’s 

Technology Fast 500; 

20 of the 41 Texasbased 

companies are in 

Dallas. (First is California/Silicon 

Valley.) 


DALLAS 

FREE WI-FI HOT SPOTS 

Urbanmarket Dallas 1500 Jackson St. 

Part grocery story, part urban café, Urbanmarket 

Dallas stocks a variety of conventional groceries in 

addition to its selection of house-made takeout. 

Standard & Pours Coffee & Stocks 

1409 South Lamar St. 

Specializing in “liquid assets,” this Wall Street– 

themed coffee shop, restaurant, and bar boasts 

free copies of The Wall Street Journal, a research 

library, and free Wi-Fi. 

The Amsterdam Bar 831 Exposition Ave. 

Sip a cappuccino, drink a beer, and do some Web 

surfi ng at this laid-back full bar and coffee shop. 

AIRPORT FACTS A fl ight out of DFW International can bring you anywhere in 

the U.S. in 4 hours or less. Unfortunately, its connectivity options aren’t anything 

special. Connect wirelessly via T-Mobile HotSpot ($6 for the fi rst 60 minutes 

plus $0.10 per minute thereafter; $9.99 for 24 hours), or plug into a Neptune 

Networks high-speed laptop kiosk for $7.95 a day (you can also use the kiosk to 

access the Web without your own machine, at a rate of $0.25 per minute, three 

minutes minimum).—Jen Trolio 

TOP TECH 

ATTRACTION 

Fair Park 

1300 Robert E. Cullum 

Located 2 miles east of 

downtown, it’s home to 

nine museums and six 

performance facilities, 

including The Science 

Place (www.scienceplace.org), 

which has an 

IMAX theater, and the 

Cotton Bowl stadium. 

BEST WIRED 

HOTELS 

The Adolphus 

1321 Commerce St. 

www.hoteladolphus 

.com 

Located in the center of 

the fi nancial district, the 

Adolphus looks like a 

museum but offers a 32inch 

fl at-screen TV, DVD 

player, cordless phone 

with private voice mail, 

and dataport in every 

room. Wireless Internet 

is free in lobbies and 

guest rooms. Limited 

free taxi service. 

The Fairmont Dallas 

1717 North Akard St. 

www.fairmont.com/ 

dallas 

Texas’s fi rst luxury hotel, 

the Fairmont is known 

for its lavish meeting 

and special-events facilities. 

In-room business 

amenities include highspeed 

Internet access 

and multiline speakerphones. 

There’s also 

Wi-Fi in the lobby, and 

your room key gains you 

24-hour access to the 

business center. Cheap 

Geek travel tip: Internet 

access at The Fairmont 

is $14.99 per night, but 

members of the hotel’s 

President’s Club enjoy 

free access; just enroll 

online (also free) before 

you go. 

Magnolia Hotel Dallas 

1401 Commerce St. 

www.magnoliahotel 

dallas.com 

Housed in the historic 

Magnolia Oil building, 

the Magnolia is easily 

recognized: Pegasus, 

the Flying Red Horse— 

a huge neon sign—revolves 

on its roof. 

Wireless Internet is 

available anywhere in 

the hotel for $9.95 per 

day. Guests enjoy free 

transportation within a 

3-mile radius of downtown 

Dallas, use of the 

hotel’s library and billiards 

room, and—the 

sweetest deal of all— 

complimentary bedtime 

cookies and milk. 

Photograph (top): Gary Crallel/Getty Images

FIRST LOOKS 

WHAT THE RATINGS MEAN: lllll EXCELLENT | l lllm VERY GOOD | lllmm GOOD | llmmm FAIR | lmmmm POOR 

The sexy new Toshiba 

HD-A1 console pictured 

below is actually the 

opening shot in a heated 

high-def format war. It’s 

the first-ever HD DVD 

set-top player, and it beat Sony’s competing 

Blu-ray player technology to 

market by a hairbreadth. Is it an atom 

bomb or a dud? Full review on page 40. 

Battles also rage in other product 

arenas such as MP3 players, where we 

found our favorite iPod nano alternative 

and “origami” devices, where we review 

the fi rst one. On the other hand, the battle 

for operating system and productivity 

suite dominance may already be 

won. But Microsoft’s most important 

product updates in years are set to arrive 

later this year and early next. We 

take early looks at Microsoft Offi ce Beta 

2 and the eagerly awaited Vista Beta 2. 

34 HARDWARE 

38 Buying Guide: Media Centers for the 

Home 

40 CONSUMER ELECTRONICS 

44 Buying Guide: Camcorders 

46 SOFTWARE 

54 Buying Guide: Security Suites 

56 SMALL BUSINESS 

68 THE BEST STUFF 


FIRST LOOKS 

HARDWARE 

Scroll 

button 

lets you 

navigate 

documents 

Full-size USB 

port, headphone 

jack, and volume 

control 


7-inch touch screen 

Auto Scaler button 

resizes the screen 

Samsung Q1 

Samsung’s stylish 

UMPC is just another 

device vying to replace 

your PC—and it can’t. 

It would make a great 

portable media player, 

perhaps, if it weren’t so 

pricey. 

$1,099 direct 

go.pcmag.com/ 

samsungq1 

llhmm 

Programmable 

quick-launch 

button 

SMALL, STYLISH, IMPRACTICAL 

THE MUCH-HYPED UMPC PLATFORM BY MICROSOFT 

and Intel has arrived with Samsung’s novel Q1 

device. It may look like nothing more than a portable 

gaming system, but the 1.7-pound Q1 is a 

fully functional PC running Windows XP (Tablet 

Edition). This type of portable PC is not new; 

the OQO model 01 and the Motion Computing LS800 were the 

original pioneers, yet those designs never really took off. 

As a supplement to your laptop, the Q1 is intriguing. The 

7-inch widescreen is surprisingly good for watching videos, 

surfi ng the Web, and viewing basic business documents. But the 

screen is touch sensitive, which is annoying: When you try to 

write with the stylus and your hand brushes against the screen, 

the placement of the cursor changes. Unfortunately, the Q1 lacks 

an integrated keyboard, a pointing stick, or a touchpad (there’s 

a virtual keyboard). The Q1 is good for writing short e-mails but 

not for longer documents. In addition, the processor is pretty 

slow compared with that of other ultraportables. 

Samsung plans to avoid retail shelves and sell only at BestBuy 

online and CDW. I appreciate the Q1’s design and the technologies 

crammed into such a tiny unit, but the practicality of this 

device escapes me. For $1,099, you’d be better off with a more 

capable—and keyboard-equipped—convertible tablet. 

—Cisco Cheng

APPLE UPSIZES ITS 

MACBOOK PRO 

APPLE’S 17-INCH MACBOOK PRO, ITS 

second Intel-based notebook, offers 

virtually everything a user needs. It 

includes many of the same pleasing 

features found in the 15-inch system, 

including Front Row, the MagSafe 

adapter, the iSight camera, and the iLife ’06 suite. 

You’ll also fi nd several features that aren’t on the 

15-inch model, such as a FireWire 800 connection 

and three USB ports (instead of two). A zippy, 7,200rpm, 

100GB hard drive provides a lot of storage space 

and gives the 17-inch MacBook Pro an edge over the 

15-inch system on my Adobe Photoshop tests. 

Still missing, on this and all Apple systems, is 

TV-recording capability. Apple does include its 

powerful iLife ’06 software—iPhoto, a very good 

photo editor; iMovie HD, for video editing; Garage- 

Band, for audio editing; and iWeb, for simple Web 

publishing. 

Upgrading (even at $3,099 fully loaded) is a nobrainer 

for Mac-inclined graphic designers or media 

editors. But if you’re simply looking for a cool and 

powerful multimedia laptop, there are plenty of 

Windows options, including our Editors’ Choice for 

the category, the Toshiba Qosmio G35-AV600.—CC 

30-inch Apple display 

shows the power of 

nVidia Quad SLI graphics 

Apple MacBook Pro 

17-inch 

The 17-inch MacBook Pro 

is a terrifi c upgrade for 

committed Mac users who 

work with still images or 

video in high volume. And at 

6.8 pounds, it’s the lightest 

17-inch notebook on the 

market. 

$3,099 direct 

go.pcmag.com/ 

macbookpro17 

llllm 

iSight 

THE FASTEST PC 

CRAMMED WITH ULTRA-ADVANCED COMponents, 

the Falcon Northwest Mach V 

FX-62 Quad is wildly expensive but offers 

pace-setting performance. The system 

showcases two new technologies: 

an AMD AM2 socket Athlon FX-62 processor 

and an nVidia Quad SLI graphics solution. 

The FX-62 (overclocked to 3.1 GHz from 2.8 

GHz) is the next generation of AMD’s Athlon 64 

processors. The nVidia GeForce 7900 GX2 Quad 

sandwiches two dual 512MB GeForce 7900 cards 

together, meaning that the Mach V has the horsepower 

of four GPUs and more than 2GB of graphics 

memory. To get full performance, you really need a 

30-inch widescreen LCD with 2,560-by-1,600 native 

resolution. The Mach V bested most of the competition, 

but a dual-card ATI CrossFire-powered 

Gateway FX510XL was unexpectedly able to match 

it on the Splinter Cell Chaos Theory test at 2,560by-1,600, 

because of a known glitch. I’m sure that 

one of the next driver revs will address this, but if 

you buy the Mach V FX-62 Quad now, be aware of 

this limitation.—Joel Santo Domingo 

Comes with remote 

to control Apple's 

Front Row interface 

Falcon Northwest 

Mach V FX-62 Quad 

From the blazing proces- proces- 

sor to the quad graphics 

card array to the cleverly 

designed liquid cooling 

system, this new gaming 

system pulls out all the 

technological stops. 

$7,595 direct without 

monitor; $9,995 with 

30-inch Apple display 

go.pcmag.com/ 

falconfx62 

lllhm 


FIRST LOOKS 

HARDWARE 

Base unit holds 

CPU and other 

PC parts 

Media changer 

houses up to 

200 CDs/DVDs 

STAY AWAY! 

Blueado Mini m5e 

Compact and silent, the 

m5e has some compel- 

ling features. But its lack 

of DVI and HDMI ports 

and an HDTV tuner is 

a serious drawback for 

anyone using today’s 

technology. Look for up- 

dates in the next version. 

$1,499.99 direct 

go.pcmag.com/ 

blueadom5e 

llhmm 


BUYING GUIDE 

Media Centers 

for the Home 

Wi-Fi antenna 

connects to your 

wireless network 

IF YOU’VE BEEN WRESTLING WITH THE QUEStion 

of whether or not you should get a 

Media Center PC, I can help: The answer is 

a resounding yes. And although you can get 

Microsoft’s Media Center Edition (MCE) 

operating system on a notebook, it had its 

start on a desktop PC, where the OS really shines. 

Media Centers come in two form factors, aimed 

at two different audiences. Tower MCE PCs work 

better in the den or home offi ce, because they usually 

have more space for expansion cards and extra 

hard drives. Horizontally oriented, A/V-style Media 

Centers (aka digital living systems or digital enter- 

SONY VAIO XL2 DIGITAL 

MEDIA CENTER 

The Sony VAIO XL2 is a unique 

Media Center PC that looks nothing 

like a PC. The system comes 

in two parts: the sleek PC unit, 

which houses components such 

as the dual-core Pentium D processor 

(2.8 GHz), 1GB of RAM, and 320GB 

of hard-drive space; and the 200-disc 

DVD/CD changer, which itemizes, scans, 

and stores extra-large music and movie 

collections. Those with large CD collections 

will especially appreciate how fast 

and easy it is to burn their music. Load up 

all 200 CDs before you go to sleep and 

by noon the next day you’ll have all 3,000 

songs ripped to your hard drive. 

The new XL2 easily replaces your TiVo, 

CD changer, and DVD player and is even 

more enticing if you own an HDTV with an 

HDMI port. It’s a perfect addition to your 

home theater. 

$2,699.99 direct 

go.pcmag.com/sonyvaioxl2 

llllm 

tainment centers) work better in the living room, 

because they fi t the home-theater aesthetic better. 

They also have the connections to hook up to HDTV 

monitors such as large-screen plasma displays and 

large widescreen LCD panels. Another group are 

the mini PCs such as the Mac mini and HP Slimline 

series, which work fi ne in the bedroom or kitchen 

and tend to be lower-priced. 

Media Center desktops can also include, albeit 

loosely, the new Macintosh computers with Intel 

Core Duo and Core Solo processors, such as 

the MacBook, MacBook Pro, Mac mini, and iMac. 

These systems don’t come with Windows MCE, but

they do run Mac OS X’s add-on Front Row, which 

includes similar Media Center–like functionality. 

At its best, in a living room, den, or even bedroom, 

a Media Center gives users a nice 10-foot 

inter face to view menus from across the room and 

multimedia content such as digital photos, videos, 

and music. 

Many Media Center PCs have dual-core processors 

such as the Intel Pentium D 920, Core Duo, and 

the AMD Athlon 64 X2. Supreme multitaskers, dualcore 

processors don’t sputter when you’re enjoying 

multimedia while doing other tasks. For example, 

you could record an engaging TV program like the 

season finale of 24 while working on a proposal 

paper in the foreground and listening to an online 

radio station in the background. With a dual-core 

processor (and enough system memory, of course) 

this setup should produce hiccup-free music while 

giving you a chance to catch up with Agent Jack 

Bauer or the Lost folks when you’re done working. 

Today’s dual-core processors are fast enough to handle 

DVR, music, and other tasks simultaneously. 

A gigabyte of system memory should be considered 

a minimum for a Media Center PC. With simultaneous 

recording, ripping, and game playing, you 

need the extra system memory to keep all these tasks 

moving without having to run into virtual memory, 

which can slow things down to a crawl. 2GB is even 

better; 4GB is overkill. Also, make sure to budget 

for a large hard drive; recorded content can add up 

quickly, particularly when using an ATSC/HDTV 

tuner that captures data-rich hi-def programming. 

Last year, Microsoft dropped the TV tuner 

require ment from MCE PCs, so you can buy a MCE 

PC without a TV tuner if you so choose (usually for 

under $800). Will you miss the tuner? Well, if you 

are a TiVo addict like me, you will probably want 

the DVR in your MCE PC. On the other hand, a 

tunerless option is a good choice for a child’s computer, 

which doesn’t need to provide video distractions. 

For now, TV tuner integration is not offered 

on Front Row–equipped Macs.—JSD 

RECENT REVIEWS 

Polywell Poly 

975MCE-Extreme 

$3,695 

direct 

Voodoo Aria $3,917 

direct 

Apple Mac mini $799 

direct 

OTHER 

OPTIONS 

VALUE 

HP Pavilion Slimline 

Media Center s7320n 

It may not have a TV 

tuner, but the s7320 

is a tiny, quiet Media 

Center PC that manages 

to house an impressive 

amount of power and 

media capabilities. 

$549.99 direct 

go.pcmag.com/ 

hps7320n 

llllm 

GAME ON 

Gateway FX510XL 

This high-end tower 

system does it all, thanks 

to its cornucopia of 

high-end parts. The price 

includes display, TV 

tuner, high-end graphics, 

surround-soundspeak- ers, and much, much 

more. 

$4,781 direct 

go.pcmag.com/ 

gatewayfx510xl 

llllm 

LIVING IN STYLE 

HP Digital Entertainment 

Center z556 

This PC is just as com- com- 

fortable in your A/V 

rack as the average DVD 

player and boasts a host 

of slick extras, along with 

three TV tuners (one 

HDTV, two SDTV). 

$1,599.99 direct 

go.pcmag.com/hpz556 

llllm 

llllm A Viiv-certifi ed PC with twin TV tuners 

and horsepower for 3D gaming. 

llllm This A/V-style, Infi neon Red Media 

Center is all about luxury and style. 

llllm It’s got Dual Core parts from Intel, and 

Apple’s Front Row media interface. 

MORE MEDIA CENTER REVIEWS ONLINE 

Check out all our MCE desktop reviews at go.pcmag.com/mediacenters 

EXPERT VIEW 

BY JOEL SANTO DOMINGO 

A MEDIA CENTER FOR ANY ROOM 

FINDING A SYSTEM WITH A COM- 

fortable shape and size is much 

more important to the Media 

Center buyer than to your average 

desktop user. Since Media 

Center is by definition 

multimedia- oriented, chances 

are you’ll be using this type of 

machine to enjoy your digital life—vacation photos, 

videos, and music—in areas of the house other than 

the typical den or home offi ce. 

The first size or form factor to consider is the 

common PC tower. Computers with traditional 

tower cases act nicely as centralized servers for all 

your digital content because they have the most 

expansion space for extra drives, multiple TV tuners, 

and 3D graphics boards. I have a self-built, 

networked, dual-core MCE tower at home with 1.6 

terabytes of space on four drives. That’s more than 

enough space for all my digital pictures, my music 

(at lossless encoding), and my fi rst child’s fi rst-steps 

video. Unfortunately, placing it in the living room is 

problematic: My wife won’t let me. A workaround 

for this situation is to have the tower sit somewhere 

else—den or home offi ce for example—and access 

your media in the living room using a certifi ed Media 

Center Extender device such as the Xbox 360. 

Designed to look like home theater components, 

A/V-form-factor Media Centers are horizontal, like 

a VCR or DVD player. With fewer fans, they’re quieter 

than tower computers and come with output 

ports for large-screen TVs. Better A/V-style MCE 

PCs even have wireless networking and wireless 

keyboards. The most laudable of these machines 

come with built-in IR receivers for their remotes so 

you don’t have to deal with the standard, and cumbersome, 

USB receivers. One drawback is that they 

are less expandable than tower PCs, so make sure 

all the options (drive space, system memory, and so 

on) are to your liking before you buy. 

Mini form factors such as the Mac mini and HP 

Slimline PCs are often even quieter than A/V-style 

PCs. Mini PCs are cute, compact, and ideal for the 

bedroom, especially ones that hook up to TVs or 

smaller LCD panels. Mini PCs have even less expansion 

space than A/V-form-factor PCs, but if you 

plan to use one only to play music and view family 

photos, you may not care. Hmm, maybe I can 

convince my wife to let me install one in the master 

bathroom. . . . Well, here’s to dreams! 

Joel Santo Domingo is PC Magazine’s lead analyst for 

desktops. 


FIRST LOOKS 

CONSUMER ELECTRONICS 

Toshiba HD-A1 

This fi rst-generation 

HD DVD player has 

all the technological 

advances—andlimitations—that early adopt- 

ers by now anticipate. 

$499.99 list 

go.pcmag.com/hda1 

llhmm 


HD DVD HITS THE STREET 

MUCH OF THE FORMAT WAR 

between HD DVD and Blu-ray 

has been mere talk—until now. 

Toshiba is the first to deliver 

a real product, the HD-A1 HD 

DVD player. It's a classic earlyadopter 

product, with its well-hyped bling, clunky 

feel, technical limitations, minimal software support, 

and relatively steep price tag. But it’s here now, 

shipping weeks before the players using the Sonyled 

Blu-ray technology. When they do ship, Blu-ray 

players are expected to sell for around $1,000. That 

makes the $500 HD-A1 and its pricier sibling, the 

BRING IT ON: BLU-RAY VS. HD DVD 

Blu-ray HD DVD 

$800 HD-XA1, seem like bargains. Still, there are 

plenty of reasons to be cautious. 

The HD-A1 is essentially a large Linux-powered 

PC with an HD DVD drive. It measures 4.3 by 17.7 by 

13.3 inches (HWD) and weighs a hefty 16.3 pounds. 

There’s an Ethernet jack on the back, so you can 

connect it to the Internet and download fi rmware 

upgrades or access online content to supplement 

titles (although neither is currently available). 

The HD DVD menu system is outstanding, 

appearing as a translucent overlay on the screen. 

The movie you’re watching will play above the 

menu (or behind it, muddled through the over- 

Capacity 25GB (single-layer disc); 50GB (dual-layer disc) 15GB (single-layer); 30GB (dual-layer) 

Audio/video transfer rates 54 Mbps 36.55 Mbps 

Backward-compatible with DVDs Yes Yes 

Audio codecs Linear PCM, Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, 

Dolby TrueHD, DTS Digital Surround, DTS-HD 

Linear PCM, Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, 

Dolby TrueHD, DTS Digital Surround, DTS-HD 

Video codecs MPEG-2, MPEG-4 AVC, SMPTE VC-1 MPEG-2, MPEG-4 AVC, SMPTE VC-1 

Planned formats BD-ROM, BD-R, BD-RE, Hybrid Disc (single-sided, 

triple-layer disc that can hold 25GB Blu-ray content 

and 8.5GB standard-defi nition content) 

HD DVD-ROM, HD DVD-R, HD DVD, Hybrid Disc 

(two-sided disc with 30GB HD DVD on one side, 

8.5GB standard-defi nition content on other side) 

Players available as of 5/15/06 None Toshiba HD-A1 and HD-XA1 

Sources: HD DVD Promotion Group, Blu-ray Disc Association, Blu-ray.com 

No backlight 

on the remote

lay) while you putter around with the options. 

Unfortunately, the HD-A1 has an awkward-touse 

remote control. 

The HD-A1 upscaled standard-definition 

(SD) DVDs as well as or better than any upscaling 

standard-defi nition DVD player we’ve 

tested under $1,000, though there’s a noticeable 

difference between the HD DVD version of 

a movie and the DVD version. Watching a gorgeously 

photographed scene, such the opening 

of Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas, or a detail-rich 

special-effects shot is a truly enveloping experience. 

That comes from the resolution—as much 

as six times greater than that of a SD DVD—and 

HD-DVD’s 36-Mbps bandwidth (the sheer mass 

of data being delivered). 

There are certain limitations, though. For 

starters, this player can play only up to 1080i 

output, even though HD DVD discs carry 1080p 

video. Second, we noticed some jaggies, signifi - 

cant loss of detail, and artifacting in 720p video 

that simply wasn’t present at 1080i. The HD- 

A1 also has some brutal waiting times. It takes 

about 1 minute to launch from when you hit 

the On button, and button-mashing will lead to 

some serious hang time while the HD-A1 cycles 

through your requests. 

As the first of the next generation of DVD 

players, the HD-A1 is a somewhat mixed bag. 

It really shines on monitors from 42 inches or 

larger, and that’s when we start thinking the 

price is almost reasonable. If you can set aside 

the coming format battle with Blu-ray and make 

do with the 20 or so available titles, it could 

be worth it. Yes, at times the video is just that 

good.—Patrick Norton and Robert Heron 

All of the Toshiba's ports 

are clearly labeled 

Pioneer PDP-5060HD 

Equipped with the fea- fea- 

tures one expects from 

a quality HDTV, this 

plasma display 

offers realistic colors, 

nice imagery, and a new 

low price. 

$4,999.99 list 

go.pcmag.com/5060hd 

llllm 

Media 

receiver 

PIONEER’S MOST 

AFFORDABLE PLASMA 

THE PDP-5060HD PUREVISION 

plasma TV from Pioneer delivers 

the company’s customarily 

accurate, pleasing image quality 

in a relatively affordable 50-inch 

package. With a 1,280-by-768 native 

resolution, the 5060HD improves the image 

quality of its predecessors, has a good selection 

of A/V features, and does a decent job of concealing 

the company’s cost-cutting measures. 

The plasma’s Media Receiver is an external 

set-top box that incorporates the A/V inputs. 

Annoyingly, using the display’s two HDMI inputs 

disables the two component video inputs 

on the rear of the Media Receiver, leaving only 

the front-accessible component video input 

active, and vice versa. 

I like that the panel’s brightness setting— 

important for preserving dark details—was 

practically perfect right out of the box. Color 

(saturation) and tint levels required only minor 

adjustments to bring the secondary colors to 

near-perfect fi delity, while the ANSI contrast 

ratio is the best I’ve seen from a plasma display 

to date. The HDTV does an excellent job of suppressing 

noise and retains image detail well. Its 

image quality appeared slightly soft to me, but 

that helped mask noise artifacts often associated 

with pixel-based displays. 

Although I could have done without the 

tiresome component video/HDMI switching 

“feature,” the PDP-5060HD is a solid choice for 

home-theater enjoyment.—Robert Heron 


FIRST LOOKS 


SanDisk Sansa e260 

With its excellent 

combination of features, 

style, ease of use, 

and price, the e260 is 

defi nitely the non-Apple 

fl ash player to beat. 

$229.99 direct (4GB) 

go.pcmag.com/ 

sansae260 

llllh 

1.8-inch 

220-by-176 LCD 

SANDISK SCORES BIG 

THE 4GB SANSA E260 IS A MAJOR STEP 

forward for SanDisk in its race to 

catch up with Apple’s super-popular 

nano. This full-featured MP3 player 

has tons of extras, including a microSD card 

slot, FM tuner, voice/FM recording, video playback, 

a rechargeable battery, and support for 

online download services (except Audible). 

The player’s overall design is sturdy and attractive. 

Sound quality is very good, and the FM 

radio reception is clear and strong. You can load 

music and photos via Windows Media Player or 

drag and drop, though using the player in USB 

mode can have some fi le-management issues. 

The e260 lacks support for lossless compression, 

has subpar playlisting features, and suffers 

from occasionally glitchy performance, but the 

company is rolling out fi rmware upgrades to fi x 

the glitches. Then the e260 will give the nano a 

serious run for its money.—Mike Kobrin 


THE TREO YOU’VE BEEN 

WAITING FOR 

PALM’S TREO 700P IMPROVES ON A CLASsic 

design by adding high-speed Internet 

connectivity and a better camera 

while keeping the familiar Treo form 

factor and easy-to-use Palm OS. 

This Sprint and Verizon handheld looks, 

works, and acts much like the beloved Treo 650, 

with minor changes to the keyboard. The most 

notable improvement is its Internet access, 

which is fi ve times faster thanks to EV-DO. You 

also get a better MP3 player in Pocket Tunes. 

Phone performance is acceptable if not great, 

and battery life is on a par with previous Treos. 

Yes, Palm OS doesn’t multitask, the Treo 

doesn’t have Wi-Fi, and the Motorola Q is 

cheaper. But the Palm OS Treos still lead the 

way for powerful, flexible, and—most importantly—easy-to-use 

handhelds.—Sascha Segan 

Now with Bluetooth 

Kodak EasyShare V610 

This ultracompact wire- wire- 

less superzoom has a lot 

going for it, but its image 

quality didn’t impress. 

$449.95 list 

go.pcmag.com/v610 

lllmm 

Palm Treo 700p 

This upgrade to a 

classic is the most 

well-rounded PDA/ 

phone available 

today. 

$649.99 direct; $399.99 

with two-year contract 

go.pcmag.com/700p 

llllh 

Both lenses 

can zoom 

KODAK’S TRIPLE PLAY 

IT’S AN ULTRACOMPACT; IT’S A SUPERZOOM; 

it’s even wireless. The 6-megapixel Kodak 

EasyShare V610 offers a unique mix of features, 

including two lenses that provide a total 

of 10X optical zoom. The fi rst zoom lens has a 35mm 

equivalent zoom range of 38mm to 114mm, and the 

second has a range of 130mm to 380mm. 

The V610’s built-in Bluetooth technology made 

it fairly easy for me to send and receive images 

between the camera and my PC. 

Test images were pretty good, but they could 

have been sharper. The V610 averaged only 1,450 

lines of resolution, low for a 6MP camera. 

Overall, the V610 just didn’t blow me away, and 

the price is no bargain.—Terry Sullivan

FIRST LOOKS 


MIC UP 

WIRELESSLY 

Takes 2.8-megapixel stills 

Nothing’s more frustrat- frustrat- 

ing than viewing great 

camcorder footage, 

only to fi nd the audio is 

unintelligible. The Sony 

ECM-HW1 Bluetooth 

Wireless Mic ($199.95 

list) cleverly adds more 

audio oomph to select 

Sony camcorders. The 

ECM-HW1 consists 

of a mono mic and a 

receiver. You attach the 

mic to your subject and 

connect the receiver to 

the camcorder’s intel- 

ligent hot shoe. The mic 

can then transmit your 

subject’s voice from up 

to 80 feet away. 


BUYING GUIDE 

Camcorders 

10x optical zoom 

with manual 

zoom ring 

Records in hi-def! 

WHETHER YOU ARE RECORDING 

your reality-TV audition tape 

or capturing family moments 

for more sentimental purposes, 

there are plenty of reasons 

for wanting a camcorder. 

But fi nding the right one can be as confusing as 

David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive. Never fear, we’ve 

waded through the morass of tech specs and can 

help you fi nd the perfect camcorder for your needs. 

Price is a big factor in buying a consumer-grade 

camcorder. They can cost anywhere from $130 to 

more than $2,000. Camcorders based on newer 

technologies, such as hard drive or fl ash memory, 

are often more expensive than those with older formats, 

such as MiniDV tape, even though the latter 

often offer better video quality. 

Another big consideration is the format. The 

most popular is MiniDV, which uses MiniDV tapes 

that measure 2.5 by 1.5 by 0.5 inches. Its quality is 

SONY HDR-HC1 

Sony’s HDR-HC1 HDV 1080i 

Handycam Camcorder boasts 

breathtaking video quality 

that is dramatically better 

than any other consumer 

camcorder’s we’ve tested. 

The HDR-HC1 comes with fairly 

standard features—10X optical zoom, 

video recording to MiniDV tape, and 

digital still-image capabilities. But 

when I connected the camcorder directly 

to an HDTV and an LCD monitor 

that could display the video footage in 

1080i, the results were impressive. 

In my real-world footage of a swimming 

pool, the camera captured the 

rippling water and colored bathing 

suits with exquisite detail. And in PC 

Magazine Labs I could clearly make 

out the subtlest textures and patterns, 

down to the lint on our model’s shirt. 

The HDR-HC1 is geared toward 

early adopters, but anyone who ponies 

up will be thrilled with the results. 

$1,400 street 

go.pcmag.com/hdrhc1 

llllm 

still better than most of the other formats’. There 

are even two Sony camcorders that use MiniDV 

tapes to store high-defi nition video. (For more on 

hi-def, see the column “Are You Ready for HD Video?”) 

MiniDV is relatively inexpensive. But if you 

plan on editing your MiniDV footage, you’ll have to 

hook the camcorder to your computer via FireWire, 

CAMCORDERS: AT A GLANCE 

Format 

Pure Digital Point & Shoot Flash memory 

Sony DCR-DVD505 DVD 

Handycam 

Sony DCR-SR100 30GB 

Handycam 

Sony HDR-HC1 HDV 1080i 

Handycam 

MiniDVD 

Hard drive 

MiniDV HD 

RED denotes Editors’ Choice. N/A—Not applicable: Product does not have this feature.

not USB, and capture the footage in a video-editing 

program, all of which can be a massive time suck. 

The MiniDVD format (which comes on a Mini- 

DVD disc) lets you take the disc you used for shooting 

your footage and view it on your DVD player. 

Instead of rewinding or fast-forwarding the DVD to 

view the footage, you simply click on thumbnails to 

view the scenes you want. The downside is that the 

MPEG-2 encoding used for MiniDVDs generally 

compresses the footage so much that when you try 

to edit the resulting clips, you risk adding artifacts 

that can degrade your video’s quality. 

Using fl ash media cards (most commonly SD) 

has enabled manufacturers to design ever smaller 

camcorders. And with the capacity approaching 

4GB per card, you can record both more and 

better-quality video clips. Hard drive camcorders, 

meanwhile, can store 6 or more hours of video. 

Like MiniDVD camcorders, they store video using 

MPEG-2 encoding. 

Size Matters 

You’ll also want to take a look at the camcorder’s 

size and shape. If you plan on traveling a lot with the 

camcorder, you’ll want something small and portable. 

But if you’re mostly using it for family events, 

you might not mind something a bit bulkier. 

Consider the physical controls of the camcorder, 

including how powerful the optical zoom is, what 

kind of image stabilization is available (optical is 

better than digital or electronic), and the size of the 

camcorder’s LCD. I’ve seen LCDs from as small as 

1.5 inches to as large as 3.5 inches. Some are touch 

screens, which feel more intuitive and direct than 

a joystick control or multiselector. Also check to 

see if your camcorder includes a viewfi nder. Some 

manufacturers are doing away with them in order 

to produce more compact units. 

All these factors, when taken together, may make 

short work of helping you zoom in on a camcorder 

that fi ts your needs.—TS 

Optical 

zoom 

OTHER 

OPTIONS 

BEST VALUE 

Pure Digital 

Point & 

Shoot Video 

Camcorder 

Built-in fl ash 

memory 

makes this 

compact 

camcorder an affordable, 

easy-to-carry tool for 

capturing basic video. 

$129.99 list 

go.pcmag.com/ 

puredigital 

lllhm 

BEST HARD DRIVE 

CAMCORDER 

Sony DCR-SR100 

30GB Handycam 

With very good video 

quality and an excellent 

night mode, this is the 

best hard drive cam- 

corder we’ve tested. 

$999.99 direct 

go.pcmag.com/sr100 

lllhm 

BEST MINIDVD 

CAMCORDER 

Sony DCR-DVD505 

DVD Handycam 

Excellent video and 

strong performance 

make this miniDVD 

camcorder a winner. 

$1,099.99 direct 

go.pcmag.com/dvd505 

llllm 

MORE CAMCORDER REVIEWS ONLINE 

Check out all our camcorder reviews at go.pcmag.com/camcorders 

Focal length 

(wide angle) 

Focal length 

(telephoto) LCD size 

CCD 

resolution Weight 

N/A N/A N/A 1.5” N/A 4.8 oz. 

10X 5.1mm 51mm 3.5” 2.1MP 1.4 lb 

10X 5.1mm 51mm 2.7” 3.3MP 1.3 lb 

10X 5.1mm 51mm 2.7” 2.8MP 1.7 lb 

EXPERT VIEW 

BY TERRY SULLIVAN 

ARE YOU READY FOR HD VIDEO? 

IF YOU’RE AN EARLY ADOPTER, OR JUST 

want the absolute best-quality home 

movies, you have probably asked yourself: 

Am I ready for a high-definition 

(HD) camcorder? 

The biggest obstacle is the sheer size 

of the fi les you will be working with. HD 

video generally comes in two varieties, 

720p and 1080i, which have 921,600 and 2,073,600 

pixels, respectively. At a frame rate of 25 or 30 frames 

per second, that is a huge amount of picture data. Before 

you start working with HD video, ask yourself 

these questions: 

Do you have a fast PC with a huge hard drive? 

You’ll want your system to have a powerful processor, 

enough RAM, a powerful graphics card, 

and enough storage to handle enormous fi les. I’d 

suggest getting a dual-core processor with 2GB 

of RAM. You’ll also want a graphics card that has 

at least 128MB of memory and a 200GB, or larger, 

hard drive. 

Do you have the right software for editing it? 

You’ll also need to make sure that your software 

allows you to edit HD video. You can work with 

a range of products, from professional-level software, 

such as Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0 and Sony’s 

Vegas 6, to more consumer-oriented titles, such as 

Ulead’s VideoStudio 10 Plus and Pinnacle Studio 

version 10.5. 

Do you have a HDTV/monitor to view it? If you 

don’t own a HDTV or a high-quality monitor, it will 

be diffi cult to enjoy your HD-quality home videos. 

Expect to pay at least $850 to $900 for an entrylevel 

HDTV, such as the Vizio L32. 

Do you have lots of money? Even without the 

cost of the new TV and hardware, HD DVD camcorders 

cost a lot more than regular camcorders. 

For consumer-level HD camcorders, the premium 

ranges from $500 to $1,000. When you step up to 

prosumer models, you could be spending thousands 

more. For example, Sony sells the consumerlevel 

HDR-HC3 HDV 1080i Handycam Camcorder 

for $1,499.99 direct, while the prosumer HDR-FX1 

HDV Handycam Camcorder will set you back 

$3,699.99. 

If you are not prepared, working with HD can 

lead to aggravation. Still, if video quality is your top 

priority, go ahead—throw caution (and money) to 

the wind and take the HD-camcorder plunge. Just 

don’t expect the process to be easy. 

Terry Sullivan is PC Magazine’s lead analyst for 

cameras. 


FIRST LOOKS 

SOFTWARE 


Vista, Beta 2 

With this release, the 

upcoming OS is essen- 

tially feature-complete, 

and overall it looks 

good. The improved 

security, though, can be 

intrusive. 

go.pcmag.com/ 

vistabeta2 

(Not rated) 


Speech recognition 

built into OS 

BETA 2 IS A BUENA VISTA 

HAVING WRITTEN THE ARTICLE “WHY 

You Want Vista Now!” (May 9), I 

held my breath when I installed 

Beta 2, fearing that once the OS had 

gotten hammered by as many as 2 

million users beyond the usual set of 

testers, I’d have to eat my words. To my relief, this 

release largely lives up to my expectations. Sure, 

it’s still beta code and not something to run on a 

production system. There are bugs and nuisances, 

it blue-screens sometimes when resuming from 

sleep, and compatibility isn’t perfect. But there’s a 

lot that’s enticing, and increasingly, there are features 

I miss when I’m using XP. 

The Aero user interface strikes a comfortable 

balance between looking good and being useful. 

The new Windows Explorer, with its live icons, 

reading pane, and directory breadcrumbs, is particularly 

appealing. 

The new Start menu is a winner. Its integrated 

Search box lets me easily fi nd programs, fi les, 

and documents, including e-mails—I haven’t yet 

needed to download the desktop-search tools I 

consider essential for XP. And I can certainly get 

used to pressing the Windows key, typing a destination 

(like C:\users\john or www.pcmag.com), 

and immediately jumping there without explicitly 

launching an app. 

New breadcrumbs 

make Explorer 

navigation easy 

Security, although sometimes intrusive, is 

improved. I can do most of my work in a standard 

account without administrative privileges—nearly 

impossible in XP. Unfortunately, when you perform 

a task that requires admin rights, the secure desktop 

that appears—annoyingly, even if you’re logged 

in as an administrator—is disruptive, particularly 

when it commandeers the shell while you’re doing 

something else. 

New versions of bundled applications— 

including IE7, Windows Media Player 11 (see 

page 52), Windows Mail (formerly Outlook Express), 

Windows Photo Gallery, and Windows 

Movie Maker—generally improve on those in XP. 

They’re among the fl akier parts of the OS, though; 

WMP in particular misbehaves and hangs with 

surprising frequency. Lots of third-party software 

balks under Vista, and some of my PC Magazine 

colleagues report diffi culty with hardware drivers. 

Vista is far less than Microsoft originally promised 

and has taken longer to develop than anyone 

would like. Nonetheless, it’s a substantial improvement 

over Windows XP—I see it as a glass half 

full. If the coders can polish the rough spots in the 

user experience, fix compatibility problems, and 

resolve the more worrisome bugs, Vista’s debut—in 

November for enterprises and January 2007 for 

consumers—could be strong.—John Clyman

FIRST LOOKS 

SOFTWARE 

Microsoft Offi ce 2007 

Beta 2 

Hundreds of small 

improvements should 

make life easier, but 

getting used to the 

extensive interface and 

sharing changes will 

take time. 

go.pcmag.com/ 

offi cebeta2 

(Not rated) 

MS Offi ce 2007 

Beta 2 adds 

blogging 


Gasp! Works with non-MS service (Blogger)! 

MS OFFICE EDGES CLOSER 

BETA 2 OF OFFICE 2007 LOOKS AND ACTS 

much like the “refreshed” Beta 1 that 

I described online (go.pcmag.com/ 

msoffice07b1ref) in March, but with 

interface improvements, bug fixes, 

and new features. Notably, Word adds 

blogging capability, which works with both Blogger 

and Microsoft’s blogging service, and Outlook does 

SMS text messaging. SMS isn’t ready for testing, but 

the interface for specifying a service is in place. 

With this beta, Microsoft has focused on two 

main areas: the user interface and SharePoint collaboration. 

Hundreds of small but impressive 

improvements can make life easier. For example, a 

slider lets you adjust zoom level, and revision tracking 

is smarter (it knows repositioned paragraphs 

aren’t deleted ones). The new ribbon interface in 

Word, Excel, and PowerPoint has better-looking, 

albeit more distracting, graphics. 

I have mixed feelings about the interface. Five 

sizes of icons clutter it, a tangle of curves and gradients 

clogs the top of the screen, you have to look in 

four places for functions that were in one, and you 

can’t reduce icons to text or turn off the background 

behind pages in Word and slides in PowerPoint. 

Mercifully, however, keyboard shortcuts (such 

as Ctrl-F to open the Find menu) are back, which 

power users will appreciate. For those wanting to 

learn the shortcut keys, holding down Alt makes 

boxes listing them pop up next to the icons. A new 

Home tab at the left of each ribbon toolbar lets you 

PowerPoint SmartArt 

adds design power 

New, highly customizable 

Excel charts 

easily get back to the starting point when you get 

lost in other tabs. 

SharePoint now includes working versions of all 

the server-based features that weren’t fully available 

in Beta 1, such as PowerPoint slide libraries 

stored on a server, HTML rendering of stored Excel 

spreadsheets, and OneNote shared notebooks that 

multiple users can work on simultaneously. 

The included Groove 2007—a Microsoft retooling 

of Groove Virtual Offi ce—gives smaller groups 

a workspace for sharing and discussing Offi ce fi les, 

with the option to move fi les from the workspace 

to SharePoint servers after the group has fi nished. 

This is a work in progress. That’s especially true 

of the interface. Still, the number of improvements 

since Beta 1 surprised me, and I’m looking forward to 

seeing how much farther Microsoft goes. One thing 

will not change, however: The new Offi ce modifi es 

interface and sharing features extensively. Individuals 

and organizations will need to think hard before 

taking the plunge.—Edward Mendelson

FIRST LOOKS 

SOFTWARE 

Browse by album 

art. Eeexcellent! 

Windows Media 

Player 11 (beta) 

You might be 

surprised—we 

were. In many 

ways, this is 

now the best of class. 

Free 

go.pcmag.com/wmp11 

llllm 

Comodo 

Personal 

Firewall 2.0 

Security 

doesn’t have 

to cost you an 

arm and a leg. For the 

low price of nothing, 

Comodo gives you a 

fi rewall that rivals the 

best of the paid options. 

Free 

go.pcmag.com 

/comodo2 

llllh 


WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER 

STRIKES BACK 

APPLE’S LEGIONS WILL DOUBTLESS 

call me a Microsoft shill, but I can’t 

help it: I prefer Windows Media 

Player 11 to iTunes. 

WMP 11 is a major departure 

from previous versions and from 

iTunes. The interface is attractive, navigating it is 

intuitive, and it integrates browsing of all media— 

iTunes doesn’t. You can sort by album, showing art 

to the left and artist and track info to the right; I love 

Our port-scan tests 

are blocked and 

identifi ed as attacks 

A FINE FREE FIREWALL 

YOU WANT TO STAY SAFE, OF COURSE, 

but what if you lack the scratch for 

our Editors’ Choice firewall, Zone- 

Alarm Pro ($50)? Never fear: Comodo 

Personal Firewall 2.0 is a first-class 

solution—and costs nothing. It’s our 

top choice for free fi rewalls. 

On installation, Comodo stealthed all my ports— 

as any good firewall should. But beyond stopping 

incoming baddies, it must prevent attempts by malware 

lurking on your system to dial home. Comodo 

licked our leak tests, letting no test apps communicate 

with the outside and giving clear explanations 

for most actions it took. It’s also remarkably tough; 

forcing it to quit required my most arcane tactics— 

ones unlikely to be used. Finally, it’s fl exible enough 

to let expert users defi ne fi rewall rules of dizzying 

complexity. The defaults are fi ne, however; I’d recommend 

that most users stick with them. 

Navigation’s a snap 

with WMP’s new tabbased 

interface 

browsing by cover. The player doggedly hunts for 

ID3 info and art—it even found art for an album by 

Mere (my band) that had sold just 3,000 copies. Locating 

songs is superfast, thanks to Microsoft’s new 

World Wheel search. WMP 11 doesn’t work with the 

iTunes Music Store, true, but you’re also not locked 

in to it—numerous music services such as Napster, 

audible.com, and MTV’s Urge are integrated. 

Ripping and burning is easy. You can compile and 

burn to audio or data CDs and even burn collections 

that span discs—very cool. You can rip to MP3 (at up 

to 320 Kbps), WAV, or WMA (at full quality, variable 

bit rate, or up to 192 Kbps). Syncing portable players 

is improved, too. Just drag fi les and drop them into 

the right-hand pane; a meter shows remaining space. 

iTunes does have one edge: It loads as you drag and 

drop. But WMP 11 lets you see what you’re loading 

without switching views (iTunes doesn’t). 

WMP 11’s biggest weakness? No iPod compatibility. 

Still, this player is more fun than any I’ve 

used, and just as powerful. If you’re willing to try 

something other than an iPod, consider the reborn 

Windows Media Player.—Kyle Monson 

One caveat: As with any firewall, you get an 

annoying number of pop-ups while the program 

sorts out which applications it will allow to access 

the Internet. Even here, though, Comodo beats the 

competition: It recognizes over 7,000 programs as 

safe. When I had it scan my computer to look for 

approved apps, the number of pop-ups plummeted. 

If you don’t have personal fi rewall protection, 

your system is a train wreck just waiting to happen. 

No matter how small your budget may be, you’ve 

got no excuse for not installing Comodo Personal 

Firewall 2.0.—Neil J. Rubenking

FIRST LOOKS 

SOFTWARE 

BitDefender 9 Internet 

Security 

Excellent virus protec- protec- 

tion, but the rest of the 

suite is poor. 

$64.95 direct 

go.pcmag.com/ 

bitdef9is 

llhmm 

Blocks inbound 

and outbound 

trouble 

Offers features beyond 

basic protection 

STAY AWAY! 


BUYING GUIDE 

Security Suites 

Tons of intrusions prevented 

The suite’s 

weak spot 

CHERRY-PICK FIREWALL, ANTIVIRUS, AND 

antispyware utilities from different 

vendors and you risk incompatibility. 

Security suites, by contrast, bundle 

applications that are pretested to coexist 

peacefully. Suites are also convenient: 

You’re dealing with just one installation, one 

update schedule, and so on. 

At the very least, the personal fi rewall component 

should put your computer’s ports into stealth 

mode, making them invisible from the outside. If it 

doesn’t, it’s worthless—especially considering that 

the Windows XP fi rewall, which defends against incoming 

hack attacks just fi ne, does. But the fi rewall 

should also prevent malicious programs already on 

your PC from accessing the Internet, thus blocking 

them from exchanging information with or allowing 

access to outside entities. 

Most firewalls pester you to give permission 

to each program that attempts Internet access. 

Clever fi rewalls preconfi gure access for approved 

programs, curbing these confusing queries. Some 

malware will try to impersonate or manipulate 

ZONEALARM SECURITY 

SUITE 6.0 

Zone Labs practically invented 

the concept of personal fi rewalls, 

and the ZoneAlarm fi rewall consistently 

stays ahead of the competition. 

The suite’s excellent antispam 

(licensed from MailFrontier) 

recognizes junk mail on sight but lets you 

choose challenge/response protection if 

you prefer. As expected, the antivirus does 

a fi ne job—but the suite isn’t perfect. I’m 

unimpressed with its spyware protection—I 

turn it off and use Spy Sweeper or 

Spyware Doctor—and the parental control 

is fairly simplistic. ZASS is still the best 

of the lot, though, and it includes some 

interesting bonuses like instant-messaging 

encryption and blocking of suspicious outbound 

e-mail activity. 

Price $49.95 direct 

go.pcmag.com/zonealarmss60 

llllh 

trusted programs, but the best defenders block such 

chicanery. Your fi rewall should also withstand direct 

attacks that try to disable it. 

The antivirus component of a suite should 

scan every executable fi le before launch and also 

scan the entire system on demand and on a regular 

schedule. Some take on-access scanning to a 

higher level, checking fi les accessed in any way or 

scanning incoming e-mail and Internet data as they 

arrive. The products are mature, and, as testing by 

HOW THEY RATE 

BitDefender 9 Internet Security 

eTrust Internet Security Suite 

McAfee Internet Security Suite 2006 

Norton Internet Security 2006 

ZoneAlarm Security Suite 6.0 

RED denotes Editors’ Choice. 

Antivirus 

llllh 

llll 

llllh 

llllh 

llll

the large independent labs shows, virtually all the 

major utilities do a fine job of protecting against 

known viruses. A signature-based antivirus can’t 

protect against unknown threats, though, so many 

utilities include heuristic or behavior-based elements 

to ward off such zero-day attacks. 

Spyware protection ability differs wildly among 

suites. Some otherwise excellent suites fail here, so 

you may need to run a standalone utility. As with 

antiviruses, antispyware should prevent infestation 

in real time and also scan the system on demand 

and on schedule. I especially like suites that check 

for viruses and spyware in a single scan. 

A full-scale suite should keep phishing messages, 

which attempt to steal critical personal information, 

and spam in general out of your inbox. The best 

suites offer bonus features like parental control or 

protection of private data. Approaches to spam prevention 

include whitelisting, which accepts only 

messages from known senders, challenge/response 

methods (humans can respond to challenges but 

spam bots can’t), and filtering based on content 

analysis. A content fi lter should keep most spam out 

of the inbox and never trash valid messages. Many 

suites fail at both. The best spam blockers let you 

choose among multiple approaches. 

Parental control in suites is usually lightweight— 

if you really need it, a standalone utility may be 

better. Features that protect your private data, on 

the other hand, can be quite useful. They encrypt 

passwords, account numbers, and other essential 

data and keep them from leaving your computer. 

For example, they can prevent you from entering an 

account number at a phishing site made to look like 

your bank’s, and they can strip out the home address 

and phone number from your children’s e-mails and 

IM messages. 

I’ve yet to see a suite that’s excellent across the 

board, so your choice depends on the elements most 

important to you. Whatever you choose should have 

a strong fi rewall and antivirus, though.—NJR 

OTHER 

OPTIONS 

CLOSE SECOND 

eTrust Internet 


It has ZoneAlarm’s 

fi rewall (though not the 

latest), the same anti- 

virus as the ZA suite, and 

primo whitelist-based 

antispam. 

$69.99 direct 

go.pcmag.com/etrustiss 

llllm 

COUNTERSPY 

Norton Internet 

Security 2006 

The hotshot AV is a 

super spyware slayer, 

and the fi rewall is excel- 

lent. But the product 

is huge and can be 

unstable. 

$69.99 direct 

go.pcmag.com/ 

nortonis06 

llllm 

INTEGRATION 

McAfee Internet 

Security Suite 2006 

This suite is especially 

well integrated and easy 

enough for your granny 

to use. Its antivirus 

whacked tons of spy- 

ware, too. 

$69.99 direct 

go.pcmag.com/ 

mcafeeiss06 

lllhm 

MORE SECURITY SOFTWARE REVIEWS ONLINE 

Check out all our reviews at go.pcmag.com/securitysoftware 

Antispam Antispyware Firewall Privacy/Parental Overall 

llh ll llh ll llh 

llllh lll llllh llh llll 

lll llll lll lllh lllh 

llh llll llllh lllh lllh 

llllh lll lllll lll llllh 

EXPERT VIEW 

BY NEIL J. RUBENKING 

SECURITY’S SHAKY STRUCTURE 

WHATEVER HAPPENED 

to trustworthy computing? 

The security 

situation has gone 

from bad to worse. 

Writing malware is 

now a big-money 

business. The angstridden 

basement-dwelling virus-writing loser is 

extinct, replaced by shadowy entities that operate 

like corporations and employ cadres of drones. 

Cash rolls in when they plant bots to take over 

unprotected systems, distribute advertising through 

spam, or steal from your online bank account. 

Lowlifes have invaded our systems for some time 

now, yet operating systems still don’t keep them out. 

And each suite that touts its protection seems to 

have tragic fl aws. I haven’t found a single one that’s 

stellar in all areas. Even the better ones can’t do their 

jobs without my help: They constantly pop up cryptic 

warnings and ask me what to do. Phooey, I say! 

Since most protective software can’t block a 

new threat until it’s been analyzed, a worm can run 

rampant from the time it’s created until that analysis 

is fi nished—a period that may last days. Taking 

advantage of that to support their shady bottom 

lines, malware factories churn out new malicious 

software as fast as they can. 

In an attempt to thwart these “zero-day” attacks, 

some of the suites try to recognize devious programs 

by what they actually do. Behavior-based protection 

is a great idea, but although it has been around for 

decades, it’s neither common nor foolproof. And 

don’t even get me started on the numerous utilities 

that claim to eliminate malicious code by blocking 

every action of every program until you give the 

okay. That’s like airport security strip-searching 

sweet old grannies to fi nd terrorists—it’s aggravating, 

extremely time-consuming, and ineffective. 

Don’t get me wrong; you gotta have a security 

suite. Their firewalls completely block networkbased 

attacks like Sasser, and the antivirus modules 

keep out known threats and some that are unknown. 

You’d be in big trouble without a security suite. 

Even if there were such a thing as perfect protection 

against every attack, though, you’re still 

a vulnerability. As we used to say, the part of a car 

most likely to cause an accident is the nut behind the 

wheel. If you mindlessly obey e-mail messages like, 

“We am you bank. Fax to us you password for safeness,” 

there’s nothing any software can do to help. 

Neil Rubenking is a lead analyst at PC Magazine. 


FIRST LOOKS 

SMALL BUSINESS 

PayCycle 

You may never 

love doing 

payroll, but 

PayCycle’s 

ease of use, 

fl exibility, and reason- 

able price make the task 

less of a grind. 

$42.99 direct (monthly 

for fi ve employees, 

including tax-payment 

service) 

go.pcmag.com/ 

paycycle0515 

lllll 

Entering 

paycheck 

information in 

PayCycle is a 

no-brainer 


MAKE PAYROLL A SNAP 

PAYCYCLE, THE BEST ONLINE PAYROLLprocessing 

solution of three I reviewed, 

provides a clear, in-depth 

payroll path that gives great fl exibility. 

SurePayroll comes close, but isn't as 

strong in setup, reporting, or price. 

When using PayCycle, a wizard that walked me 

through adding in-depth employee and company 

info also helped with other setup tasks, like defi ning 

deductions and establishing electronic services. 

A personal Web site displays current and prior 

pay stubs, and I especially like the interactive e-mail 

reminders of tasks along with the to-do list on the 

opening page. The service’s fast, streamlined interface 

helps minimize payday panic. A tabbed interface 

let me quickly navigate to critical areas—payday 

and reports pages, for example—each of which 

is broken down into individual tasks, like approving 

checks and paying taxes. Reports are more plentiful, 

helpful, and customizable than SurePayroll’s. 

Once you’ve laid the groundwork, the rest is a 

breeze. You enter hours worked for each employee 

and contractor, as well as extra information such as 

bonuses and reimbursements. Approve the completed 

payroll, and you can print checks, perform 

direct deposits, and export QuickBooks fi les. The 

service supplies quarterly and annual forms, such 

as the W-2 and 1099 ($40 fl at fee), as well as documents 

for employee and contractor setup—the 

W-9, for example. Taxes are automatically calculated 

and payments created. 

SurePayroll is formidable, but I like PayCycle’s 

combination of depth, usability, and customizability 

better.—Kathy Yakal, frequent contributor 

JUMP TO NEXT PAGE >>

PREHISTORIC PAYROLL 

HEY, PAYCHEX! 1998 CALLED—IT WANTS 

its interface back! Paychex Online 

Payroll is competent but dated. 

Doing payroll generates enough 

anxiety—who wants to deal with an 

unfriendly site that’s pokey to boot? 

The app runs under Java, which slows it down 

and prevents you from starting at all unless you 

have the right version. Once you get under way, 

Paychex offers you no setup wizard; you’ll have to 

get oriented using help fi les and a brief tutorial. 

You access tasks relating to your company, employees, 

and payroll from the app’s main screen. In 

addition to entering workers’ personal and employment 

details, you also define adjustments such as 

401(k) contributions and set up direct-deposit bank 

accounts. Employee/independent contractor record 

screens are particularly thorough, yet Paychex lacks 

some adjustments offered by competitors. 

Orchestrating payroll runs isn’t difficult. You 

can pay one employee at a time (via check or direct 

A GOOD ONLINE PAYROLL 

ALTERNATIVE 

SUREPAYROLL PROVIDES SUCH A CLEAR 

path through the perils of payroll that I 

rarely found myself fl ummoxed during 

testing. The product trails PayCycle, 

our top choice for Web-based payroll 

processing, in a few areas, most notably 

help and reporting. But its six-month moneyback 

guarantee and its ability to give employees 

limited access are strong points. 

SurePayroll’s tabbed interface lays out the site 

cleanly, dividing it into Company Basics (bank 

deposit), or use the quick-entry worksheet to make 

multiple payments. Reports are plentiful, but you 

have to jump through hoops using a clunky separate 

application to get them, and they’re diffi cult 

to read until they’re printed. Lack of usability is a 

problem throughout. I had to open multiple windows 

to complete some tasks, and screen space is 

poorly used. 

Though Paychex is trustworthy and reasonably 

capable, it’s cumbersome and not cheap. There’s 

more out there for your money.—Kathy Yakal 

Managing employee 

deductions is easy 

with SurePayroll 

information, a generous list of deductions, benefi ts 

options, and more), the Employee List, Reports, and 

Payroll Entry. The Account Center tab provides current 

payroll status. Unlike PayCycle, Sure Payroll 

has no setup wizard—just a brief step-by-step 

guide. Luckily, payroll operations are simple—for 

most you just fill in blanks and select options. To 

prepare a payroll, you simply enter hours worked 

in an employee table, adding extra hours, pay, and 

one-time deductions where appropriate. 

A one-page summary displays payroll-related 

dollars and tells you how much cash you need to 

process the payroll—a feature that I found very 

handy. You can export data to QuickBooks, and 

employees can view their histories on the site. 

Reports, which are rudimentary, range from pay 

stubs to payroll, benefi t, and quarterly and annual 

tax-payment information. 

SurePayroll does a yeoman’s job of helping you 

manage your periodic indebtedness to employees 

and government entities.—KY 

FIRST LOOKS 


Paychex Online Payroll 

It’s not enough to be 

capable; other apps 

offer a better user 

experience. 

$45 to $47 direct 

(biweekly for fi ve 

employees, including 

tax-payment service) 

go.pcmag.com/ 

paychexonline0515 

llhmm 

SurePayroll 

This online payroll pro- pro- 

cessing service offers a 

six-month money-back 

guarantee, making it an 

attractive second choice 

to PayCycle. 

$37.70 direct (biweekly 

for fi ve employees, 

including tax-payment 

service) 

go.pcmag.com/ 

surepayroll0515 

llllh 

Reports are 

plentiful but 

hard to run 


FIRST LOOKS 


REVVED UP FOR BUSINESS 

APOWERFUL DESKTOP REPLACEMENT 

notebook, the new ThinkPad Z61m 

can tackle your toughest tasks. It has 

been revamped with an Intel Core 

Duo processor, which is much faster 

than the Intel Pentium M processor 

found in earlier models. As proof: the Z61m can 

complete the SYSmark 2004 SE test 41 percent faster 

than its predecessor, the Z60m. 

The machine has tons of features, including a 

1.3-megapixel webcam (handy for Skype and other 

video chat software), a built-in fi ngerprint reader, 

and high-quality speakers. An integrated EV-DO 

cellular modem provides Web access in the fi eld, 

but the Z61m’s 7.8-pound travel weight makes journeys 

tough. I like the 15.4-inch screen, which doesn’t 

give off glare and has an above-average resolution. 

The laptop comes with a DVD-ROM/CD-RW 

drive, which you can upgrade to a DVD dual-layer 

burner for $259.99. And although the Z61m’s graphics 

card is better than that of the competing Dell 

Latitude D820, both graphics chips are average at 

best.—Cisco Cheng 

OKI C5500n 

Impressively fast 

printing and high 

paper capacity 

make the C5500n 

a good choice for 

a busy small offi ce. 

$600 street 

go.pcmag.com/ 

okic5500n 

llllm 


Lenovo ThinkPad Z61m 

An Intel Core Duo pro- pro- 

cessor makes Lenovo’s 

newest desktop replace- 

ment notebook even 

more powerful. 

$2,199 direct 

go.pcmag.com/ 

lenovoz61m 

lllhm 

LEDs, not lasers, 

are used for 

maximum speed 

EV-DO wireless provides 

Web access on the go 

LIGHT SPEED PRINTS 

FOR LESS 

IF I HAD TO DESCRIBE THE OKI C5500N IN ONE 

word, I would say fast. The C5500n is the 

fastest color laser printer in its price range, 

even outpacing several more expensive 

machines. It’s also the quickest color laser 

printer I’ve ever tested on my photo suite, 

averaging 16 seconds for each 4-by-6 print. 

Speed isn’t the C5500n’s only selling point. It has 

notably good paper handling, and its two paper trays 

hold a better-than-average 400 sheets (an optional 

additional tray can give you a total of 930 sheets). 

Overall, output quality is more than adequate 

for most business uses, although the shiny toner is 

reflective, making text hard to read under certain 

lighting conditions. With graphics I noticed dithering 

patterns and posterization, and photos were 

a bit oversaturated. The quality is more than good 

enough to print Web pages with photos on them, but 

I’d hesitate to print an important client’s newsletter. 

Emphasizing speed over quality, the C5500n is a 

superb fi t for small offi ces that need to print lots of 

pages.—M. David Stone

THE BEST STUFF 

EDITORS’ CHOICES IN KEY CATEGORIES 


We’ve got 87 Product 

Guides and thousands 

of up-to-date reviews on 

the Web. See them all at 

go.pcmag.com/guides 


LAPTOP 

Dell Inspiron E1505 

15.4-inch widescreen. 

Intel Core Duo processor. 

1GB of RAM. ATI 

discrete graphics. 

Dual-layer DVD±RW. 

$999 direct (E-Value 

code E1505PC) 

Dell Inc. 

go.pcmag.com/ 

delle1505 

DESKTOP 

HP Pavilion Slimline 

Media Center s7320n 

FireWire port. 1GB of 

RAM. Dual-layer DVD 

writer. 9-in-1 digital 

media card reader. 

Easy-to-use integrated 

media backup. 

$550 direct (without 

monitor) 

Hewlett-Packard 

Development Co. 

go.pcmag.com/ 

HPs7320n 

PORTABLE STORAGE 

CMS ABSplus USB 

2.0 100GB Notebook 

Backup System 

100GB. Easy to use. 

BounceBack Pro 7.0 

software. 

$319 list 

CMS Products Inc. 

go.pcmag.com/ 

cmsabsplus 

FIREWALL 

Comodo Personal 

Firewall 

Keeps hackers out. 

Free. Stops even tricky, 

unauthorized apps 

from accessing the 

Internet. 

Free 

Comodo Inc. 

go.pcmag.com/ 

comodo 

ANTISPAM 

Vanquish vqME 4.0 

Challenges unknown 

senders without irritating 

friends. Senders 

can put up a small 

bond to reach you. 

$24.95 yearly 

Vanquish Inc. 

go.pcmag.com/vqme4 

ANTISPYWARE 

Spyware Doctor 3.5 

Best version yet. 

Removed more spyware 

than other tested 

products. 

$29.95 direct 

PC Tools 

go.pcmag.com/ 

SpyDoc35 

AUDIO HUB 

Sonos ZonePlayer 80 

Compact. Excellent 

audio quality. Broad 

fi le format support. 

Very easy setup. 

$999 list 

Sonos Inc. 

go.pcmag.com/ 

sonos80 

CELL PHONE 

(VIRTUAL NETWORK 

OPERATOR) 

Amp’d Hollywood/ 

Motorola E816 

Excellent reception. 

Very good battery life. 

Handsome. Cheaper 

than Verizon. 

$149.99 list 

Amp’d Mobile Inc./ 

Motorola Inc. 

go.pcmag.com/ 

ampdhollywood 

RSS READER 

FeedDemon 2.0 

Great RSS feed- reading 

tools. Strong fi lters. 

Good organizational 

functions for managing 

feeds. Worth its price. 

$29.95 direct 

(30-day free trial) 

NewsGator 

Technologies Inc. 

go.pcmag.com/ 

feeddemon2 

WIDESCREEN 

MONITOR 

Dell UltraSharp 

Widescreen 2007WFP 

Very good image 

quality. Support for 

HDCP over DVI. 

$569 direct 

Dell Inc. 

go.pcmag.com/ 

dell2007wfp 

DIGITAL CAMERA 

(D-SLR) 

Olympus Evolt E-330 

Live View display. 

Articulating screen. 

Good image quality. 

$1,100 list 

Olympus America Inc. 

go.pcmag.com/e330 

42" HDTV (PLASMA) 

NEC 42XR4 

Exceptional picture 

quality. Comprehensive 

display options. Good 

video processor. 

$3,995.99 list 

NEC Solutions 

(America) Inc. 

go.pcmag.com/ 

nec42xr4 

PORTABLE SATELLITE 

RADIO PLAYER 

Pioneer Inno 

Receives live content. 

Records 50 hours of 

XM radio. Plays MP3s 

and WMAs. Good 

sound. Color screen. 

$399.99 list 

Pioneer Electronics Inc. 

go.pcmag.com/inno 

ALL-IN-ONE PRINTER 

(PHOTOCENTRIC) 

Canon Pixma MP800R 

Photo All-In-One 

Prints, scans, copies. 

Can even scan 35mm 

slides and negatives. 

$400 street 

Canon U.S.A. Inc. 

go.pcmag.com/ 

canonMP800R

A 

HARDCORE GAMER I’M NOT. 

I’ll play a game occasionally, 

and once or twice a year I’ll 

get involved with some big 

new game. But since spending 

a couple of days last month at 

E3, the giant gaming show in 

Los Angeles, I’m incredibly 

impressed by the technology behind the top games 

and hardware. In many ways gaming is shaping the 

future of the PC platform. 

Dedicated gaming machines took the spotlight 

at E3, with Microsoft showing its Xbox 360, some 

new games for it, and HD DVD peripherals. But 

Sony got a lot more attention with the new Play- 

Station 3 and its built-in Blu-ray drive. The graphics 

were spectacular, but with the PS3 selling in $499 

and $599 confi gurations, this is one pricey machine. 

(If you’re planning to buy a Blu-ray drive anyway, 

though, the price may not matter as much.) 

Almost everyone I talked with was impressed by 

the Nintendo Wii, especially its motion- sensitive 

controller. I’m not sure what I expected when I 

walked up to a demo of a tennis game and saw the 

tiny Wii and the little controller. You just fl ick the 

controller as if it were a tennis racket, and suddenly 

the game becomes incredibly easy. Motion-sensing 

controllers aren’t new (the new PS3 will have one 

as well), but the Wii’s is easy to use. The games’ 

graphics aren’t as sophisticated as those on other 

new-gen consoles, but the platform will likely be a 

lot cheaper than the competition. 

The PC-based games I saw were also impressive. 

They reinforced how gaming technology is often 

the leading edge of the PC market. Microsoft made 

a big push for Windows games, and I saw plenty of 

them—and peripherals aimed at PC gamers—that 

demonstrate these trends. 

Consider the online components of today’s 

games. Gamers and game developers are simply 

much further along in dealing with massive communities 

of people. Most productivity applications 

MICHAEL J. MILLER 

It’s All About the Games 

The PC-based games I saw were impressive. 

They reinforced how gaming technology is 

often the leading edge of the PC market. 


Read Michael J. 

Miller’s insights daily 

on his blog, at blog 

.pcmag.com/miller 

today are either huge asynchronous communities, 

where not everyone is online simultaneously (think 

MySpace or eBay), or synchronous parts of a smaller 

community (think AIM or Skype). But to the gaming 

world, having thousands of people online at once in 

a massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) is 

now old hat. And it’s not just World of Warcraft and 

EverQuest these days. Lineage, City of Heroes, City 

of Villains, Star Wars Galaxies, PlanetSide, and EVE 

are also popular. 

Advanced graphics are equally impressive. 

Games are always the fi rst to use high-end graphics, 

and the PC versions of games like Electronic 

Arts’ Crysis look as strong as any of the console 

games. Add in the next-gen physics engines from 

companies such as Ageia and Havok and you get 

fantastic realism in the action on screen. All that, in 

turn, is infl uencing other kinds of applications. For 

instance, Windows Vista Aero promises a muchimproved 

graphical interface. 

In the long run, the DirectX 10 model in Vista 

should result in much more realistic PC games— 

ones that overshadow this generation of gaming 

consoles. I didn’t see any DirectX 10 graphics cards 

at the show, but ATI and nVidia have both demonstrated 

how well their low-end cards will run Vista. 

The games are very creative, with enhanced features 

such as artifi cial intelligence agents that make 

characters move independently, with a degree of 

randomness. For instance, LucasArts showed a new 

Indiana Jones for consoles that changes every time 

you play it. Even America’s Army, the free action 

role-playing game, is adding AI and more vehicles 

and updating many of the characters and situations. 

And I’m really looking forward to trying Spore 

(from Will Wright, creator of The Sims), where you 

control the evolution of creatures from single cells 

to space-going adventurers. It’s slated for 2007. 

I also saw a lot of great casual games designed 

for use on the Internet and mobile phones. Most 

impressive was the ability to hook these games 

up across platforms so you can stay connected to 

your friends wherever you are: on the PC, phone, 

or Xbox. 

There’s no question that the technologies designed 

for gaming—from graphics to networking 

to AI to online communities to always-available 

connections—have been a primary driver behind 

all the major developments on the PC. � 


Whatever Happened to...? 

TWELVE YEARS AGO, AS A READER 

recently reminded me, I wrote 

about Augment, the word processor/idea 

processor that 

Doug Engelbart designed. 

The reader wanted to know 

if the development of a Windows 

version had continued 

or whether something better was available. 

Engelbart is the inventor of the mouse and the 

graphical user interface, as well as many other technologies 

that we take for granted today. His driving 

motivation was, and still is, to maximize human 

potential. His Bootstrap Institute (www.bootstrap 

.org) is located, appropriately enough, at Logitech’s 

offi ces in Fremont, California. 

Augment implemented numerous fi rsts, including 

hyperlinking and groupware. If you read Engelbart’s 

seminal 1962 paper, “Augmenting Human 

I had used Liberty BASIC as a teaching tool 

when I was a counselor for the Boy Scouts’ 

computing merit badge—so kill me. 


You can contact 

Bill Machrone at 

Bill_Machrone@ziffdavis 

.com 

For more of his 

columns, go to go.pcmag 

.com/machrone 

Intellect: A Conceptual Framework,” and his 1992 

manifesto, “Toward High-Performance Organizations: 

A Strategic Role for Groupware,” you’ll see 

that the industry still hasn’t accomplished everything 

on his to-do list. 

You’ll also see why Augment has a die-hard core 

of fans intent on moving it into the open-source 

world. Although Augment fully embraces mouse 

technology and the GUI, you drive it primarily with 

single-key commands. This may seem primitive 

compared with the nearly endless capabilities of 

Microsoft Word, but experienced Augment users 

will tell you that there’s no faster or better way to 

create a structured, internally linked document that 

you and others can easily expand, edit, and link to 

other documents. 

Two main efforts to breathe new life into Augment 

are under way; information about them is 

available at the HyperScope Wiki (blueoxen.net/ 

c/hyperscope/wiki.pl?FrontPage) and at the Open- 

Augment Consortium (www.openaugment.org). 

You can download OpenAugment from the latter 

site, but to run it you’ll have to download a copy 

BILL MACHRONE 

of Squeak—a multiplatform, open-source adaptation 

of Smalltalk-80, the language that did more 

than any other to codify object-oriented programming 

and extend object management to the graphical 

interface. 

Squeak is a great educational language and an 

interesting example of an environment that’s written 

in itself. One of the key pioneers of Smalltalk, by 

the way, is Adele Goldberg, who, like Engelbart, is 

the recipient of a PC Magazine Award for Technical 

Excellence for lifetime achievement. 

Structured programming pioneer Edsger Dijk stra 

once opined that teaching students BASIC should be 

a capital crime because it doesn’t promote rigorous, 

structured thinking about code. He also inveighed 

against the dreaded GOTO statement, which could 

result in spaghetti code. But after visiting www 

.squeak.org I felt an atavistic desire to examine the 

state of free or inexpensive versions of BASIC. 

I had used Liberty BASIC (www.libertybasic 

.com) some years ago as a teaching tool when I was 

a counselor for the Boy Scouts’ computing merit 

badge—so kill me. Liberty BASIC works in Windows 

and isn’t as sophisticated as Microsoft Visual 

Basic, but it’s easier to use. It’s still a great way to 

produce custom Windows programs. 

I also took a look at Envelop, the former competitor 

to Visual Basic that’s now freeware. It’s functional, 

although it doesn’t support ActiveX and COM 

objects. A downloadable Linux version, called Phoenix 

Object Basic, is at www.janus-software.com. 

This trip down memory lane got me wondering 

whatever happened to Delphi, Borland’s rapid appdevelopment 

environment. Back around Version 2 

or 3, my son and I did a couple of projects in Delphi. 

It was easy to use and productive. But Delphi is all 

grown up now and competes with Microsoft Visual 

Studio, with a price tag to match: $125 for a student 

version and close to $1,000 for the full suite. 

It’s a weird peregrination from a 40-year-old 

text/idea processor to operating environments and 

development languages, but they’re all interconnected. 

And circling all the way back to Windows 

and idea processors, there’s another product I still 

have the greatest respect for: MindJet Mind Manager 

(www.mindjet.com). It lets you do on-screen everything 

you’d do on a white board when planning 

and brainstorming, but with neatly outlined, easily 

revised, and pretty, publishable charts. � 


INSIDE TRACK 

BY JOHN C. DVORAK 


To stay on the Inside 

Track, check out 

go.pcmag.com/ 

insidetrack 

You can e-mail John at 

pcmag@dvorak.org 


T 

HE END OF THE INTERNET 

As We Know It Dept.: At least 

one research organization says 

that we can no longer keep our 

heads in the sand regarding 

Internet Protocol version 6. 

Frost & Sullivan says we’ll be 

toast in 2012 if we don’t start to 

switch over to IPv6 now. Cisco should be happy for 

sure! This means swapping out most of the existing 

infrastructure—of everything—and will be neither 

cheap nor easy. 

The fi rst time I heard that we were running out 

of addresses was in the mid-1990s. But then the idea 

of rotating IP addresses and local/private Nets and 

We can’t be sure when Vista will fi nally arrive, 

but we do know either it will ship sometime in 

2007 or there will be riots in the streets. 

Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) 

came along to forestall the need for IPv6. Some experts 

say we’ll never need to switch. But according 

to the research, millions upon millions of cell 

phones and other junk uses of IP are chewing up 

addresses. And apparently IPv6 will also make it 

easier for the development of IPTV and other multimedia 

services. 

All I know is that the big iron infrastructure fi rms 

are going to make a lot of money when we begin to 

get serious about this. According to a govern ment 

mandate, all federal offi ces must be able to send and 

receive IPv6 by 2008. Everyone is now told to get 

their transition strategies ready to go. Consultants 

know that this could be bigger than Y2K. On your 

marks, get set. Go! 

The biggest news to come out of the West 

emerged in early May from the JavaOne confab, 

which some cynical show goers renamed the AJAX 

1.0 conference. AJAX is the latest buzz. It means 

“Asynchronous JavaScript and XML.” JavaScript 

isn’t Java. So to keep the buzz around Java itself and 

away from AJAX, Sun said it will make Java purely 

open-source! We’ll see how that goes. Stay tuned. 

I’m So Confused Dept.: Confusion reigns over 

the latest iterations of the 802.11n specifi cation or 

what might be the last wireless spec you’ll ever 

need. Most of the wireless vendors have released 

a slew of interim routers, dubbed “draft-n,” that 

seem to be somewhat incompatible with each oth- 

er. This is different from “pre-n,” the router I use 

and recommend. 

Let me try to explain. We’re beginning to see 

that the 802.11n wireless specifi cation uses a new 

invention that only one company can get to work. 

Called MIMO, it’s a reinvention of the radio itself 

that uses multiple radios to send out multiple signals 

on the exact same frequency and, curiously, 

increases range and data rates without signals interfering 

with each other. (For a fuller defi nition, 

see go.pcmag.com/defi nemimo.)This idea was considered 

impossible a few years ago. The problem 

is that the inventor is the president and CEO of 

Airgo Networks, Greg Raleigh. As far as I can tell, 

his group is the only engineering team that knows 

how to make it work as advertised. Thus, the only 

reliable new-generation lash-up has an Airgo chip 

in it. So far, at least. 

Unfortunately, not all the makers like to promote 

the internal chips, so you’ll have to do your 

own research. In the meantime, I can assure you 

that everyone is freaked by this mess. My advice: 

Check first with PC Magazine Labs to see which 

of the newest routers work well (go.pcmag.com/ 

draftn). 

So why do I think this basic technology is 

hot? This reinvention of radio transmission holds 

potential for all sorts of future uses. It will surely 

supplant ultra wideband (UWB) for device connectivity, 

and I suspect will eventually be used 

in cell phones to minimize the number of towers 

needed to cover a metropolitan area. It may be the 

only way to go in cities because it relies on multipath 

to work effi ciently. A city fi lled with buildings 

has plenty of that. This invention fundamentally 

changes everything. 

Getting Geared Up for Vista Dept.: We can’t 

ever be sure when Vista will fi nally arrive, but we 

do know that either it will ship sometime in 2007 or 

there will be riots in the streets. 

At least Microsoft has given us an indication 

of the system requirements, and they are not as 

harsh as were predicted. The Vista Home Basic 

implementation will require an 800-MHz processor, 

512MB of system memory, and a graphics 

processor that is DirectX 9 capable. No problem 

there. For the more loaded Vista Home Premium, 

you should have a 1-GHz processor, 1GB of main 

memory, a 40GB hard disk, and a fairly advanced 

graphics card. I wonder how many DVDs it will 

take to install this thing. One report indicates that 

your 40GB hard drive will need 15GB of free space! 

I assume that means the OS will fi ll up at least 10GB 

just to work. Ouch.� �

SOCIAL 

NETWORKERS 

UP CLOSE 

Michael Block 

TagWorld maven 

who posts a barrage 

of content, 

from silly photos 

to bookmarks to 

blog entries. 

Kathryn Shantz 

Savvy LinkedIn 

user who developed 

useful business 

connections 

to get ahead. 

Kathryn Smith 

Used PeerTrainer 

to lose nearly 30 

pounds in a few 

weeks. Here she 

is before (above) 

and after (below). 


Social networking is not just for kids. We give you the 

real story on this trend and introduce you to some 

social networkers from all walks of life. We also show 

you how you can use social networking to get ahead, 

make friends, lose weight, and more. 

MySpace 

Nation 

BY CADE METZ 

U 

NLESS YOU’RE COMPLETELY OUT OF TOUCH WITH EVERYDAY AMERICAN 

life, you know about the runaway popularity of MySpace. You’ve read the 

newspaper stories, heard the radio talk, and seen the skits on Saturday 

Night Live, so you know it’s got to be hot. 

The question is, should you care? Those of us old enough to have a 401(k) 

plan can’t help but ask what the big deal is about MySpace and all of the other 

social-networking sites out there. Is this a cultural and technological phenomenon, or just 

a new way to goldbrick? Who uses them besides 19-year-old layabouts posting treatises on 

Laguna Beach or pictures of Joey doing a keg stand at the Sigma Chi party last night? 

Well, there’s Daniel Boud, a 26-year-old Web designer and amateur photographer who 

posted his concert photos on Flickr, and they ended up in Rolling Stone. There’s Joe Ford Jr., a 

32-year-old lawyer from Tennessee, who is running for Congress mainly through a MySpace 

page. And 31-year-old schoolteacher Kathryn Smith, who lost nearly 30 pounds in a couple of 

weeks, thanks to the support she received on PeerTrainer. 

Okay, we’ll also throw in Michael Block, a person of the “Joey doing a keg stand” ilk. A 24year-old 

self-described egomaniac from Manhattan Beach, California, Block posts photos of 

himself riding toy dinosaurs along the L.A. freeways. He reviews and rates every episode of 

The O.C. and proclaims his love for ranch dressing. 

Mysteriously, people are interested. His TagWorld page receives more than 100 hits a day. 

Nearly 700 people have posted comments, and hundreds more show up on his “friends list,” 

with their personal pages linked to his. Click on any one of the faces smiling back from his 

friends list, and you’ll fi nd a second friends list, linking to hundreds of other TagWorld fanatics. 

And on it goes into digital infi nity. 

Illustration by Magic Torch

JUNE 6, 2006 PC MAGAZINE 77

HEROES OF SOCIAL NETWORKING 

DANIEL BOUD 

Web Designer 

Age: 26 

From: Sydney, Australia 

Site: Flickr 

fl ickr.com/photos/dreadfuldan 

When Daniel Boud started 

taking photos of concerts 

and parties, he says it 

was “totally a hobby.” But 

when he posted his photos 

on Flickr, thousands 

of people took notice; he 

now has 200,000 photostream 

views. Boud had no photo graphy 

training, but positive feedback from other 

Flickr members convinced him to keep 

shooting. In March 2005, Spin magazine 

noticed his photos from the South by 

Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas, 

and purchased a few. Since then, Boud’s 

work has been published in the Australian 

edition of Rolling Stone, the U.K.’s New 

Musical Express, and several Australian 

magazines. “I don’t know if I want to . . . 

make photography a day job,” he says, 

“but I do make a reasonable amount of 

pocket money.” 


DEJA NORM’AL 

Musicians, Students 

Ages: 20 to 22 

From: Mt. Pleasant, Michigan 

Site: MySpace 

myspace.com/dejanormal 

Michigan indierock 

outfi t 

Deja Norm’al 

joined the fray 

of more than 

one million 

musicians with 

a MySpace 

page (complete with band info, free 

song plays, and concert video) with little 

fanfare. And when vocalist Mike Mains 

entered the band in the “10-34 Records, 

Sign My Band!” contest on MySpace, he 

was “not expecting anything to happen.” 

But Deja ended up beating out 500 

other bands to win the contract with 

10-34 Records, a small independent 

label based in New York. The contract 

included an album, a music video, and a 

two-leg summer tour (now in progress) 

of venues around the country. 

SWEEPING THE COUNTRY 

With 1.6 million personal pages, TagWorld is but 

a small part of the ever-growing phenomenon of 

social networking, which aims to link masses of 

like-minded people together. MySpace, the socialnetworking 

Goliath, receives nearly 12 million 

unique visitors a day, more than any domestic site 

save Yahoo!, Google, and MSN, according to the 

research fi rm comScore Media Metrix. Chances are 

that you’ve also heard about the big crowds visiting 

Flickr and YouTube, sites that bring the MySpace 

ethos to photo and video sharing. 

The huge success of these media darlings has 

sparked what some are calling a second dot-com 

boom. In an ironic bit of déjà vu, Internet startups 

are again proliferating like rabbits, each offering a 

site that puts a new spin on the notion of social networking. 

Not to be outdone, existing dot-coms are 

jumping on the bandwagon, adding social tools to 

their sites. And big names such as News Corp., the 

parent company of the FOX network, and Yahoo! 

are gobbling up these social startups, doing their 

best to stay ahead of the curve. 

GEOCITIES REVISITED 

Social networking isn’t a new idea. In fact, it’s the 

very idea that sparked the creation of the Web itself. 

When he dreamed up the World Wide Web, Tim 

Berners-Lee envisioned a tool that would give a 

voice to the common man. The Internet would allow 

anyone to exchange information with anyone else 

around the world. As he wrote in his memoir, Weaving 

the Web, it would engender “the decentralized, 

organic growth of ideas, technology, and society.” 

JOE FORD, JR. 

Candidate for U.S. Representative 

Ninth District, Tennessee 

Age: 32 

From: Memphis, Tennessee 

Site: MySpace www.myspace.com/joefordjr 

Joe Ford, Jr., is trying to 

get to Washington via 

MySpace. Along with traditional 

campaign methods, 

the lawyer has set up 

a MySpace page instead 

of creating an offi cial 

campaign Web site. The 

advantages of this approach, Ford says, 

are the cost savings and direct access to 

his target voters, people ages 18 to 35. 

“People that age aren’t as interested in 

the traditional Web site,” he says. Ford’s 

page lists upcoming campaign events, his 

position on political issues, and personal 

information such as his favorite music, TV 

shows, and infl uences. A handful of other 

politicians use MySpace in addition to 

offi cial sites. Blogs and other politicians 

have criticized Ford’s MySpace page as 

unprofessional, but the August Democratic 

primary will be the true judge of its 

effectiveness.—Courtney McCarty 

Unfortunately, as the Web rose to prominence in 

the mid-1990s, the hardware and software couldn’t 

support this original vision. The average Joe didn’t 

have enough bandwidth over dial-up to communicate 

easily with the Web at large. Without some serious 

computer know-how—or some serious cash— 

the best you could do was build a personal page on 

a clunky online service like GeoCities. GeoCities 

pages were woefully static and almost painfully 

unattractive—not to mention hard to find. They 

didn’t really connect one person with another. 

Thanks to broadband, sites like MySpace fi nally 

fulfi ll the Web’s original promise. It’s GeoCities on 

steroids—a better way of creating a personal Web 

page and serving it up to the world, complete with 

photos, video, music, and more. “The big difference 

is that broadband penetration has tripled in 

this country,” says Randy Browning, who oversees 

social-networking research for the consulting arm 

of PricewaterhouseCoopers. “With GeoCities, it 

was nothing but blah content. Now you get the full 

multimedia experience.” Flickr and, particularly, 

YouTube simply wouldn’t be possible over dial-up. 

HOW THEY WORK 

Bringing people together is what all social-networking 

sites have in common, but how and why they do 

this—some are just for fun; others are for achieving 

a goal such as fi nding a job—is where they differ. 

Some sites, including TagWorld, operate along 

the lines of MySpace, predicated on the idea of letting 

you create a personal-profi le page where you 

can share all sorts of random thoughts and multimedia 

content. Other users become your “friends,”

some of whom are complete strangers. From there, 

it’s a popularity contest of sorts to see how many 

friends you can amass. So far, MySpace president 

Tom Anderson is the prom king, with more than 80 

million friends. 

Other sites, like Flickr and YouTube, are merely 

a repository of user-provided content. Buzznet, 

Flickr, and Zoto (among others) broadcast your 

digital photos. And eyespot, Grouper, and YouTube 

serve up your personal videos and hilarious, poignant, 

or bone-crushing moments captured from 

live TV. You can share your browser bookmarks on 

del.icio.us, your MP3s on Mercora, and the names of 

your favorite books on LibraryThing. The idea here 

is that you can get better results searching for specifi 

c content that’s been hand-picked from the vast 

reaches of cyberspace. And most tagging sites will 

let you then follow the trail of breadcrumbs to see 

who posted the link you like and what other content 

he or she has to offer. 

Sites like LinkedIn, which at three years old is 

one of social networking’s pioneers, use existing 

business contacts as the roots for growing new 

ones. They’re built on the notion of six degrees of 

separation—the idea that we’re only six introductions 

away from anyone we’d want to meet. Linked- 

INTRODUCE YOURSELF 

MySpace, Friendster, 

Facebook, Orkut, 

LiveJournal 

SHARE CONTENT 

Flickr, Zoto, Grouper, 

YouTube, Buzznet, Bubble- 

Share, FilmLoop, Phanfare, 

SmugMug, Photobucket 

MEET FACE-TO-FACE 

AirTroductions, Couplets, 

Reunion.com 

SCHMOOZE 

LinkedIn, Ryze, Tribe.net, 

Plaxo 

ACHIEVE A GOAL 

The Mom Network, 

PeerTrainer, DWC Faces 

FIND COOL STUFF 

Spout, LibraryThing, 

Last.fm, Mercora, 

del.icio.us 

What they're about Whom they're for What you can do 

It's all about the profi le and 

amassing a huge friends list 

(with lots of features thrown in). 

You can post as little or as much 

as you want. 

Uploading your digital media 

fi les to the Internet. These 

sites vary when it comes to 

controlling who sees your 

content. 

Meeting people who want to 

get together outside cyberspace. 

Some sites charge to 

contact users, and others are 

subscription-based. 

Getting connected to get ahead. 

The main focus of these sites is 

cultivating business contacts. 

Meeting people who want to 

achieve the same goals you do. 

You get advice and support via 

discussion boards and blogs. 

Discover movies, books, and 

music based on what other 

people like. List what you have 

and tag it. The site ranks and 

sorts your list. 

THE STATE OF MYSPACE 

Currently, the number of MySpace registered users exeeds the combined populations 

of the three most populous states: California, Texas, and New York. Its 83 

million users even exceed the entire U.S. population in 1900 (76 million). 

California 

Pop. 36 million 

Sources: MySpace, U.S. Census Bureau, 2006. 

MySpace 


Anyone looking for a friend or 

an audience. These sites tend 

to draw a younger crowd, but 

there's plenty of variety. 

Photo upload sites vary, with 

some for pros and others for a 

family Web album. Video sites 

for now are weighted toward the 

teens-with-webcams set. 

People looking to expand their 

group of friends, locate an old 

college buddy, or fi nd Mr. or Ms. 

Right. 

Professionals. Although some 

mention connecting with old 

friends, the real purpose is for 

professionals to do business 

together. 

Those in need of a motivating 

voice or a sympathetic ear. They 

usually attract atypical, older 

Web users. 

Film/music/book buffs. Because 

the sites connect you with others 

with similar tastes, it's easy to 

fi nd new content to your liking. 

Texas 


In and similar six-degree sites such as Friendster, 

Ryze, Plaxo, and Tribe were the fi rst to use the term 

social networking. 

Some sites use the wildly popular concept of 

tagging as a tool to link people together. Users are 

encouraged to tag their information with keywords, 

a way of linking similar content. If you’re an anime 

WHERE TO GO: SOCIAL NETWORKS COMPARED 

New York 


These sites are at the forefront of 

social networking, thanks to innovation 

and a few tricks learned 

from burgeoning content sites 

like Flickr. 

Most sites let you create profi les 

and keep track of favorites. Tagging 

and sharing are becoming 

common. 

These sites tend to have the standard 

features: post photos, send 

messages (sometimes for a fee), 

search people databases, and 

maintain an address book. 

Because the point is networking, 

these sites feature more options 

for connecting with others. 

Each site caters to its niche. For 

example, PeerTrainer has pages 

for your exercise and eating log, 

and the Mom Network lets you 

submit "Stories from the Heart." 

The point of these sites is discovery. 

Search through media 

by tags or get recommendations 

based on what you have in your 

collection. 


MYSPACE USER 

The typical user of a 

personal profi le site like 

MySpace or TagWorld 

is a young man from 18 

to 25. MySpace, which 

started as a site for 

musicians, has many 

users who either are in 

bands or love exploring 

new music. 

HOW TO GET STARTED: TIPS FROM THE INSIDERS KONSTANTIN GUERICKE 

HEATHER CHAMP 

Community Manager/Flickr 

Choose a down-to-earth profi le photo 

Pick a photo that you feel represents you. 

People are most drawn to something 

that looks like a real human rather than a 

cartoon character. 

Post only photos you’re comfortable 

showing This probably goes without saying, 

but if you’re uncomfortable showing 

a photo to close friends or relatives, don’t 

post it on Flickr. 

Take the time to explore Flickr lets you 

see the world through others’ eyes, so 

participate, fi nd your muse, and expand 

your horizons! 

Don’t upload other junk Flickr is a photosharing 

community where people share 

their slices of life, interests, passions, and 

so on. It’s not a place to house your collection 

of stuff that you’ve found around 

the Web. 

Find friends through groups If you have 

an interest, it’s more than likely there is a 

group or two celebrating your interest. 

Find a group and start sharing your photos 

with like-minded individuals. 


FLICKR USER The 

users of photo and video 

sharing sites (such as 

Flickr and YouTube) are 

a mixed bag, but tend to 

be a bit older than the 

personal-profi le set—typically 

21 and up. The sites 

vary when it comes to the 

gender of the majority of 

users, but many have more 

women users than men. 

JEFFREY TINSLEY 

Founder/Reunion.com 

Know the basics of the person you’re 

trying to locate Our basic search requires 

only the full name, approximate age, and 

state of residence (if known). Make sure 

you spell the name correctly. 

Don’t be too cagey; your privacy is 

protected Reunion.com’s double-blind 

e-mail system doesn’t show your e-mail to 

the person you’re contacting. You divulge 

what you want to. So use your real name, 

not an Internet handle. 

Be casual and friendly Let the person 

know up front who you are (relative, old 

friend, and so on), and why you’re contacting 

him or her. 

Be sure to add people to your address 

book Once you’ve found someone 

through a search and contacted him or 

her, add the person to your address book 

so you won’t lose touch again. 

Post photos to stay in touch To maximize 

your experience and connect with 

long-lost friends and family, post photos 

of events and vacations to enrich your 

reestablished relationship. 

fan, for example, you can visit TagWorld, click on 

the “Anime” tag, and instantly browse all photos involving 

Japanese animation. 

Once you’ve linked to the posts of other anime 

fans, you might fi nd yourself browsing beyond their 

anime pics, into the rest of their photo collections, 

their music, their blogs. Who knows? You might develop 

a running online relationship—or even meet 

them in person. 

WE ALL NEED TO BE LOVED 

To the uninitiated, many of these sites may seem a 

bit odd. Why, you might ask, would you want the 

rest of the world to see you riding a plastic dinosaur? 

But, if you stop to think about it, it makes perfect 

sense—especially among the younger generation. 

“This can all be summed up, whether we like 

it or not, with one word: attention,” says Michael 

Block. “We’re all starving for it, and all of these sites 

are just another way to get it.” Granted, not everyone 

craves the kind of attention Block does. But he’s 

right; people enjoy attention. And if you grew up on 

reality TV and celebrity tabloids, you might enjoy 

throwing yourself out there, warts and all, for the 

world to see, just as much as you enjoy consuming 

the lives of others who do the same. 

“Our everyday culture definitely celebrates 

self-disclosure,” says Susannah Stern, an assistant 

CoFounder/LinkedIn 

Be clear and concise with your profi le 

Start with your purpose for being on 

LinkedIn. If you want to be found by 

potential clients, be sure to enter the 

keywords clients will use. Also, include 

endorsements from former clients. You 

can post a professional overview, current/past 

positions, educational credentials, 

honors received, and professional 

associations. You can also add a link to 

your blog or employer’s Web site. 

Expand your network to maximize page 

views Make sure you are linked to current 

and past colleagues, business partners, 

classmates, and other people you know. 

You can select which parts of your profi le 

you want to publish, but the more of your 

LinkedIn profi le you decide to publish, 

the more likely you are to be found on 

Google, Yahoo!, and others. 

Don’t forget to use the search feature 

For example, type in the name of a 

vendor, coworker, or job candidate you 

are scheduled to meet (or want to meet). 

Even if you know the person already, you 

are likely to gain some background information 

that’s new to you.—Erik Rhey 

Illustrations by Magic Torch

Diary of a Madman? 

Dave Murphy has been on Facebook since day 1. Here’s why. 

Dave Murphy 

Age: 22 

Occupation: Graduate 

student at the Medill 

School of Journalism, 

Northwestern 

Univer sity; former PC 

Magazine intern 

Location: Evanston, 

Illinois 

Height: Extraordinary 

Voice Part: Bass 

Pets: Four guinea pigs 

(Lucy, Linus, Patty, 

Marcie) 

Favorite obsession: 

Law and Order 

Favorite Internet 

cliché: James Lipton 

reciting PopoZão 

IT’S YOU! 

Users can upload 

anything that represents 

them—photos, 

artwork, even ads 

for upcoming events 

they’re in. 


H 

ERE ARE SOME THINGS I LIKE: KIT - 

tens, long walks on Chicagoland 

beaches, and fi nishing my undergraduate 

and graduate days at Northwestern 

University. I take pride in being in 

the “Facebook Members Since the 

Ground Floor” group. Before that, I was briefl y of the 

Friendster/MySpace generation, right around the time 

AOL Instant Messenger was becoming hot. When 

Facebook hit, it exploded on the college scene—virtually 

replacing Northwestern’s proprietary system for 

looking up people’s information. After that, even the 

least nerdy of people simply had to get logged on. 

Social networking is as much a cybercurse as it is a 

digital blessing. The interaction of going out for coffee 

has, to an extent, been replaced by hitting the refresh 

button on a MySpace page. But it’s hard to deny the 

convenience of MySpace or TagWorld. Friendwise, 

they contain everything you need in a quick-fi x environment: 

messaging services, profi les of your friends’ 

changing lives, photo-hosting services. So am I your 

typical hobnobbing Harry or an isolated weirdo? 

Here’s a typical day in my life. You be the judge. 

8:10 a.m. Like many others, I start my daily routine 

with the news—not the morning paper, but Live- 

Journal. Sitting down at my desk in the small apartment 

I share with three other Northwestern guys, I 

check my LiveJournal Friends page to see how my 

friends’ evenings went, read campus gossip, and catch 

POKED 

Give someone a 

friendly jab, whether 

you’re really a friend 

or just want to get 

the digital ball rolling 

toward romance. 

CYBER PRESENTS 

Little reminders help you 

never forget a birthday, 

provided your friends 

don’t lie about the dates. 

up with my old buddies back in Ohio. I also use the site 

to grab news about my favorite bands and read my 

favorite Web comics (Penny Arcade and Questionable 

Content)—thanks to syndicated RSS feeds. 

In terms of my own content, I’m more of a Live- 

Journal lurker. When I do post, it’s short and sweet; 

depending on the content, it might even be restricted 

to my own LiveJournal friends. 

9:15 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. I bring my laptop to class and 

plug into one of the Ethernet jacks (the wireless reception 

is spotty). Although I try to stay off the truly 

“social” networks during lectures, sites such as digg 

and the mighty Slashdot help me satisfy my craving 

for tech information. And each article’s comments 

are especially valuable sources of information for 

freelance stories. Often I fi nd the latest tech news way 

before it hits mainstream channels. Such insider information 

really impresses the girls. 

12:30 to 1:30 p.m. I eat lunch at a variety of places 

around Evanston (almost got ’em all). I refuse to be 

connected to the Net during lunch, even going so far 

as to leave my cell phone at my desk. It’s nice to enjoy 

the physical world once in a while. 

1:30 to 6 p.m. Since the Internet never rests, I typically 

repeat my morning routine of Web sites when I 

get back to class. In between taking notes of the lecture, 

I check aggregation sites such as Google News 

to see what’s breaking in today’s papers, and sites like 

Technorati (for searching blogs) and FARK.com (for 

the ridiculous news). 

7 p.m. to bedtime With dinner comes the real social 

grind. I typically eat at my desk while perusing sites 

that pertain to what my friends are up to. LiveJournal’s 

fi rst. At various times during the day, my friends 

tend to update what’s going on with their lives, from 

the short “I just got three papers back and got A’s on 

them” to lengthy retrospectives about road trips. 

I’ll then run to Facebook to see what’s up with 

those not on LiveJournal, check an occasional Xanga 

page, or, as much as I try to avoid it, hit MySpace. 

A typical MySpace user’s page is way too inundated 

with blinking things, video things, music things, 

humongous graphic things—it’s a cyber-cacophony. 

While I’m checking sites, I’m usually talking on 

AIM. Depending on the friend, it’s either a “normal” 

conversation or one fi lled with links to humorous or 

interesting things we happened to fi nd on the Net that 

day. From there, I surf sites about hobbies and humor. 

When I fi nd something intriguing or funny, I’ll post it 

to my online journal or add it as an away message. 

I then get into my PJs and brush my teeth. But before 

turning off my monitor and heading to bed, I do 

the most important nighttime activity of all: changing 

my Facebook status to “sleeping.”—Dave Murphy

professor at the University of San Diego whose 

research focuses on adolescents and electronic 

media. “Kids are picking up on that. It gives them 

every indication that this is what we value from 

people.” 

The danger is that this sort of self-disclosure 

can come back to haunt you. Prospective employers 

or university admissions offi cers may not like 

what they see on your MySpace page. And by now 

you’ve heard the stories about people trolling these 

sites with less than honorable intentions. There 

are ways, however, to control the content you post 

online. (For more on this, see our sidebar “How to 

Control Your Content,” page 84.) 

What’s important to remember when using 

social sites—the thing that many I’m-nothing-lessthan-invincible 

teenagers may be slow to pick up 

on—is that certain information is best withheld 

from the public at large. (For more information and 

tips on how to protect yourself and your children 

online, see our feature “Do You Know Where Your 

Kids are Clicking?”, page 88.) 

CLICKS AREN’T JUST FOR KIDS 

Kathryn Shantz will be the first to tell you that 

social networking isn’t just for kids. The 39-yearold 

has tried TagWorld and dabbled on MySpace, 

but LinkedIn keeps her coming back. Since joining 

the site in 2004, Shantz has built up rock-solid connections 

across the business world. Her LinkedIn 

profile—which amounts to an online résumé— 

links to dozens of close friends and colleagues. 

They, in turn, link to their friends and colleagues. 

And if you’re in sales, you can use the site to help 

potential clients fi nd you online. 

At one point, Shantz used the service to fi nd a 

reliable freelance photographer for her Bay Area 

public relations fi rm. In recent months, she’s used 

it to track down investors for a new startup called 

ArtSugar. “I look at other social sites as recreational, 

and I don’t have a lot of time for them,” she says. 

“LinkedIn has real value. I use it constantly.” 

John Bauer, a 37-year-old San Francisco resident, 

also discovered the power of LinkedIn. Bauer 

was working as a product manager at Wells Fargo 

when he noticed an interesting job posting and 

applied on a whim. He got the job and is now the 

worldwide director of Internet marketing at Logitech. 

“The quality of jobs posted on LinkedIn is a 

lot more refined than on other competing sites,” 

Bauer says. 

For those who do have time for recreational 

socializing online, sites like MySpace and Tag- 

World not only serve as a link to friends old and 

new, but they often become the perfect medium 

for ad hoc dating. And because they’re free, they’re 

often more attractive than online and real-world 

dating services. Even niche sites like LibraryThing 

Illustration by Magic Torch 

sometimes play Cupid. LibraryThing’s founder 

Tim Spaulding says his brother uses the bibliophile 

site to meet women. 

The Mom Network (www.clubmom.com) is 

exactly what it advertises: an enormous network 

of mothers, spanning the globe. “My daughters call 

it MySpace for old people,” says Sandra Hummel, 

an avid Mom Networker. But in the end, The Mom 

Network connects individuals who share common 

goals and interests, as well as swap very specific 

pieces of advice. 

Hummel lives in El Paso, Texas, where her husband, 

a sergeant major in the army, is stationed at 

MARKET SHARE OF 

VISITS TO SOCIAL- 

NETWORKING SITES 

With MySpace gobbling more and more 

of the social-networking market, sites 

like Xanga, which held a 30 percent 

market share a year ago, have slipped. 

1. MySpace 76.3% 

2. Facebook 8.3% 

3. Xanga 5.3% 

4. Facebook HS* 1.9% 

5. MSN Spaces 1.4% 

6. Other 6.8% 

*High School 

LINKEDIN USER Most folks 

who use networking sites (like 

LinkedIn) are older (late 20s to 30s 

and up) but still technology-minded. 

They are focused on making good 

business contacts and advancing 

their careers. 

Source: Hitwise, 2006 


PAGE VIEWS PER MONTH (in billions) 

March 2005 

1. Yahoo! sites 

2. MySpace 

3. MSN-Microsoft sites 

4. Time Warner Network 

5. eBay 

6. Google sites 

7. Facebook 

8. craigslist 

9. Viacom Online 

10. Comcast Corporation 

Courtesy of comScore Media Matrix 

March 2006 

0.8 


0.8 

2.4 

1.2 

2.2 

2.7 

2.1 

5.3 

5.8 

7.6 

8.9 

12.8 

11.7 

18.5 

21.5 

20.2 

26.6 

28.8 

32.4 

32.9 

Percent 

change 

Fort Bliss. At press time, her family was weeks away 

from moving to Fort Irwin in California. Looking 

for the lowdown on Irwin, she used The Mom Network 

to fi nd another military wife who was already 

stationed there. “In no time she sent me a list of all 

the local shopping malls,” Hummel says. 

Last year, Kathryn Smith, a 31-year-old middleschool 

teacher from Foster City, California, joined 

PeerTrainer, a social-networking site for weight 

loss. The site connects you with people who share 

your fi tness goals, and as you swap daily eating and 

exercise habits with these peers, they provide the 

much-needed motivation and encouragement. It’s 

like a Weight Watchers meeting you can attend at 

any time. 

So Smith found a group of local women who, like 

her, wanted to lose 20 to 30 pounds. Within a few 

weeks, she’d lost the weight, and as a way of keeping 

it off, she continues to use the site every day. “You 

support each other. You congratulate each other,” 

HOW TO CONTROL YOUR CONTENT 

1 

439 

-6 

-30 

-9 

52 

845 

204 

84 

-21 

says Smith. “As the day goes on, you know you have 

to record everything you eat—and someone will be 

looking at it.” 

Countless other sites provide additional benefi ts. 

Much as LibraryThing provides book recommendations, 

Spout provides movie recommendations. 

AirTroductions, another site that encourages faceto-face 

meetings, provides a forum for people fl ying 

alone to fi nd a simpatico fl ying companion. 

BRINGING THE FAMILY ONLINE 

Of course, many social sites are worth using simply 

because they connect you with friends and family. 

Even among the younger generation, this is the primary 

purpose of a site like MySpace. “Most of what 

they’re doing is communicating with people they 

know, using the Web to maintain existing relationships,” 

says Susannah Stern. “It’s a really easy and 

convenient way for them to connect.” 

Ashley Imsand, a 21-year-old senior at Auburn 

University in Alabama, uses Facebook to trade notes 

and pictures with old high-school friends. “They’re 

spread all across the country,” she says. “It’s a neat 

way to share what’s going on in each other’s lives. 

You manage to stay in touch more than you otherwise 

would.” 

Sandra Hummel’s daughter, Darnelle, uses 

MySpace to communicate with friends back in 

Germany, where the family was stationed before 

moving to Fort Bliss. On several occasions, she’s 

even used MySpace to track down friends and relatives 

that her family lost touch with over the years 

and after several moves. Other social sites, like Reunion.com 

and Classmates, are designed for fi nding 

long-lost friends or relatives. You can perform a 

search and then contact that person through the site, 

The beauty of social networking is that it can connect your life and the lives of your friends across all 

forms of media. But when you open your offl ine world to the online one, you’re getting the whole Internet 

at your door—not just your friends. Here’s how to protect your content and limit who can see it, on four 

popular Net communities. 

MySpace Though you can’t control who looks at your page per se, you can control who’s allowed to edit 

your page and become your friend. When you’re on your home page, click Account Settings and look for 

the options Privacy settings, IM privacy settings, and, for the most extreme case, Blocked Users. 

Facebook If you fi nd that someone’s tagged you in an unfl attering photo, just go to the image and click 

Remove Tag. Then check out My Privacy on the main page to control exactly who can see your profi le 

and to limit the ability of people who are not from your school to fi nd you on a global search. 

Flickr When you upload a photo, you can adjust the privacy settings regarding who’s allowed to see it: all 

Flickr members, just your contacts, just your friends/family, or just you. You can limit your profi le information 

in the same manner by clicking on Your Account in the upper right-hand corner of your Flickr home 

page. 

LiveJournal On the LiveJournal home page, you can edit your general privacy settings under Manage 

and Info. To control who reads your entries, click Manage, then Friends, then Edit Custom Friends Groups. 

Create a few subsets of people, and the next time you post an entry, select which group the entry is for, 

and LiveJournal will friend-lock your post for just those people.—Dave Murphy

Social Networking on the Fringe 

C REATING 

A MYSPACE PROFILE IS THE QUICKEST WAY TO FIND 

out that your unrequited high-school love is now supporting 

her fourth husband with the proceeds from her ferret farm. 

But when the thrill of snooping on her loses its luster, there are 

plenty of fringe social networks to peruse for your online entertainment. 

Some of these sites are diffi cult to join, and many of 

them will still make you feel creepy. Just don’t forget to clear your browser 

history.—Tim Gideon, freelance writer 

DWARFDATE.COM 

www.dwarfdate.com 

Attention little people: 

You now have your own 

place online to fi nd a 

date. This no-frills site attracts 

a mostly American 

crowd but also draws in 

people from as far away 

as Nigeria. You may even 

meet your own Peter 

Dinklage. 

APPALACHIAN PAGAN ALLIANCE 

www.angelfi re.com/nb/appalachianpagan 

It’s high time y’all stuck-up Pagans climb 

off your high horse and visit the Appalachian 

Pagan Alliance’s network, the 

easygoing site with useful info such as 

“You Might Be a Redneck Pagan if . . . ,” 

which includes such gems as “If the bell 

on your altar was once worn by a farm 

animal.” Busted! 


CUDDLE PARTY 

www.cuddleparty.com 

Though not a social network 

per se, Cuddle Party organizes 

platonic get-togethers 

for snuggling all over the 

country. Etiquette, including 

what to do when a male gets, 

um, aroused, is covered in the 

immensely entertaining FAQ 

section. 

MYDEATHSPACE 

www.mydeathspace.com 

For social networkers, there is one question 

that echoes in the dark recesses of 

their minds: “What will happen to my 

MySpace profi le when I die?” Well, if you 

have lots of friends, it will likely become 

an online memorial page where they 

can post loving comments. The site is 

updated on a death-by-death basis to 

satisfy your morbid curiosity. 

TRIBALS TATTOO NETWORK 

www.tribals.com 

This is a destination for tattoo enthusiasts, particularly 

those who are into tribal designs. The 

bad news is that the site wants you to pay $9.95 

a month for access to it and four others, including 

Shetattoos.com and TattooSpider.com. For a few 

bucks more, you could buy drinks at your local 

dive bar and make tattooed friends. (If you just 

want to peep, you don’t have to pay.) 

ASMALLWORLD 

www.asmallworld.net 

This social network 

for the elite (Naomi 

Campbell and Paris 

Hilton are rumored to 

have profi les) keeps 

the riffraff out by 

limiting profi les to 

invitation only.

without the other person seeing your contact info. 

And you can make sure those people stay in your life 

by adding them to your address book. 

WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS 

Today, the biggest sites appeal mainly to the younger 

generation. But, now that they’re hooked, there’s 

every indication that this generation will continue 

to use social networks as they get older—though 

they may use them in slightly different ways. Sites 

like LinkedIn already serve the older crowd, and 

more are on the way. 

“I can’t tell you if people will continue to use 

MySpace and Facebook,” says Alan Winter, who 

tracks social networking for the Gartner research 

fi rm. “But I will tell you that they will continue to 

use many of the same sorts of tools that make these 

social communities so powerful.” 

Yes, there are problems to iron out. Some certainly 

involve privacy. And it remains to be seen how 

many of these sites can make money in the long run. 

SOCIAL NETWORKS: MOBILE EDITION 

Bummed out by the confi nes of your desktop? Wish you could 

interact with your friends over the Web, regardless of your 

physical location? Itching to make the most of your new cell 

phone or PDA? You’re in luck: Social networking is quickly 

expanding from keyboard to keypad, and we’ve rounded up 

some of the best ways to bridge your handheld device with 

your virtual life. 

Flagr www.fl agr.com 

Flagr is a free social community themed around the sharing of 

geographical tidbits among friends. When you’re out and about, 

just send a text message to x@fl agr.com (the x is for “x marks 

the spot”) with the name, location, description, and even photos 

of where you are, and Flagr will place a fl ag with your info on a 

TeleAtlas map. 

Rabble www.rabble.com 

A site for posting location-based info and connecting with 

others around you, Rabble lets you submit photos and info on 

places and events. And you can search to fi nd cool stuff—or 

people—wherever you are. Unfortunately, Rabble is restricted 

to Verizon, Cingular, and MetroPCS phones; if you’re eligible, 

the site’s worth checking out. Rabble’s integration is both timesaving 

and top-notch: LiveJournal, Blogger, and Zoto content 

can all be imported into the site. 

Socialtext Miki www.socialtext.com/node/75 

Miki is what it sounds like: a wiki, but a mobile one, optimized for 

cellular and handheld devices. Though Socialtext’s services are 

mainly styled for corporate entities, its free wiki offering—limited 

to fi ve users—is ideal for small communities such as a core group 

of friends. 

No doubt, many will fade away. But others will make 

the grade on their own, and some, like Flickr and 

MySpace, will merge with much larger entities. 

Winter comments, “It’s analogous to what happened 

with e-commerce ten years ago. Every day, a 

new e-commerce company would pop up, and so 

many were great ideas. But, given the fi nite amount 

of time we humans have, not all of them could survive. 

That’s likely what will happen with social 

sites. Many will fail, others will do really well, and 

some will be bought by a Google or a Microsoft or a 

Yahoo!, becoming part of a larger ecosystem. That’s 

where we’re headed.” 

It really is like a second boom—though startups 

are far more careful about fi nances. Everyone has 

at least some kind of business model. Like the fi rst 

time around, there’s a fair amount of unwarranted 

hype clouding the issue. But underneath it all, there’s 

something that appeals to our most basic instincts. 

If a site’s getting 12 million hits a day, it must be 

on to something. � 


For full reviews of 

social-networking 

sites, visit us online at 

go.pcmag.com/ 

socialnetwork 

Post your cool spots on the go with Flagr 

YouTube www.youtube.com 

This community video site recently opened its uploading system 

to mobile devices. If your phone can take videos and send MMS 

messages, you can create a mobile profi le on the Web site. You- 

Tube will then create a customized e-mail link you can ship your 

videos to. 

Flickr www.fl ickr.com 

Like YouTube’s, Flickr’s mobile service lets you e-mail pictures to 

your Flickr account using your camera phone or another handheld 

device. Or if your device supports it, you can also use ShoZu 

or Nokia’s Lifeblog to put your pictures online.—Dave Murphy 



DO YOU KNOW 

WHERE 

YOUR KIDS 

ARE 

CLICKING? 

Your kids aren’t going to stop 

using MySpace and Facebook, 

but at least you can give them 

safety helmets and kneepads. 

BY ALAN COHEN 

Illustration by Asaf Hanuka

A PREDATOR’S PATH 

An online predator can turn a little info into a lot of trouble. 

Amanda 


EVERY FEW WEEKS, DAVID FREY 

walks into a school cafeteria, 

pops open his laptop, and 

frightens a room full of parents. 

There’s nothing particularly 

scary about Frey himself, 

a friendly 39-year-old with a 

wry sense of humor. It’s all in 

his presentation. 

An assistant district attorney of Staten Island, 

New York, and chief of his offi ce’s computer and 

technology investigations unit, Frey has seen 

practically every bad act that can happen via 

the Internet, from drug deals set up in AOL chat 

rooms to sexual predators targeting—and assaulting—minors. 

Almost without exception, the parents 

he speaks to have noticed nothing to be wary 

of. “Most parents are completely surprised when 

I show them this stuff,” says Frey. “They have no 

idea what goes on online.” 

Although many parents are in the dark about 

their kids’ online activities, there’s nothing secret 

in Frey’s laptop. And that, says Frey, is an even 

bigger problem. With social networking sites such 

as MySpace.com, Facebook, and Xanga exploding 

in popularity, teenage diaries are no longer hidden 

under the bed. They’re posted online, often 

freely accessible to anyone, anywhere. Bits of 

information that seem perfectly innocuous—a 

fi rst name, a school name, interests, and worries—can 

be seen and used by sexual predators, 

for whom the Internet has become, Frey says, “a 

target-rich environment.” 

Before visiting a school Frey will search for, 

and easily fi nd, MySpace pages belonging to stu- 

Amanda’s Interests 

General 

Sports, music, arts 

Music 

Punk, rock, r & b, hip hop 

Amanda’s Schools 

Springfield High School 

Springfield, USA 

Graduated: N/A 

Degree: In Progress 

2004 to 

Present 

Amanda’s MySpace page looks 

innocuous enough: She posted 

her first name, her school and 

interests. She writes a lot about 

how her parents and teachers 

just don’t understand her. 

A predator draws a conclusion: 

Amanda just might be on the 

high school’s softball team. He 

Googles the high school, finds 

a photo of the team—and 

recognizes her. He now has 

Amanda’s last name. 

Bianca Richards, Stella Lenn 

Rogers, Amanda Simpson, N 

Victoria Johnson, Sarah Sm 

dents at that school. These are what he shows the 

parents, and these are what shock them. “Here’s 

one,” says Frey, shaking his head as he pulls up 

a teenage girl’s MySpace page in his conference 

room. “For a pedophile, this page is just perfect.” 

At fi rst glance, there doesn’t seem to be anything 

extraordinary about the page. A young girl 

writes about her struggle with bulimia, her drug 

use, and her lack of self-esteem. It’s troubling 

stuff, to be sure, but no different from hundreds 

of other pages Frey has accessed on the Internet. 

That, too, says Frey, is the problem: “Kids don’t 

think of the Internet as something everyone sees. 

They are completely trusting. They say things 

they’d never tell their parents.” The irony is that 

although their parents may not know about any 

of this, online predators, who tend to target the 

most vulnerable kids, now do. 

“Look at this,” says Frey, pointing to the screen. 

“She posts her photo and gives her name. Then 

she posts the name of her high school, her e-mail 

address, her AOL Instant Messenger name, and 

all of her interests—the singers and movies she 

likes.” 

For a predator this is both a dossier and an 

oppor tunity. “If I’m a pedophile, I now know that 

she has a bad self-image, I know where she goes 

to school, I know the things she likes,” says Frey. 

“I know that she’s in drama class. She even says 

where she works.” All of this, he says, creates 

easy pickings for a predator, who will know how 

to make contact with the teen and how to gain 

her trust. It’s simple to say all the right things 

when you’re practically handed an instruction 

manual. 

Softball Team $cores 

A special fundraiser for the Springfi 

organized by Alfred Simpson, a lo 

rousing success. Over $5,000 was 

Simpson, “We beat last year’s reco 

The predator heads back to 

Google: He enters her full name 

and her school name, and finds 

a local newspaper story about a 

fund-raiser Amanda’s father 

spearheaded for new 

equipment for the softball team.

“Predators are very clever,” says Frey. “They 

use the data you’ve posted to pretend to be a 

friend. They groom you; they get your trust. It’s 

not sexual at fi rst. But gradually they push a little 

bit, then they fall back, then they push— until it’s 

completely sexual.” Often predators will send 

pornography to the kids they are targeting to 

desensitize them to sexual activity, explaining 

that it’s no big deal and that everybody does it. 

Then comes the fi nal push: a suggestion to meet. 

“This girl,” says Frey, looking at the profi le on his 

A new Web search: Google 

provides the predator with 

the addresses of all the Alfred 

Simpsons in the city. Only one 

of the dozen listings is near 

Amanda's school. The 

predator now knows where 

Amanda lives. 

Alfred Simpson 82 Sutton St. Spring 

Alfred Simpson 15 Capitol St. Spring 

Alfred Simpson 38 Carolina St Sprin 

From here, the predator is 

home free: He knows where to 

find her. Striking up a 

conversation—say, on a softball 

field—won’t be a problem. 

Neither will be gaining her 

trust. He can say all the right 

things—like how his parents 

never understood him, either. 

laptop and shaking his head once more, “is the 

perfect victim.” 

Kids at Risk 

The Internet may have broadened our view of the 

world and made our professional lives easier, but 

it has certainly complicated parenting. Of course, 

the problem is not exactly new. Even before 

social-networking sites came on the scene, parents 

had good reason to worry about their kids’ 

safety online. 

In a short time, the predator 

has contacted Amanda: The 

e-mails and IMs are harmless 

enough, and Amanda’s new 

friend is always so friendly and 

reassuring. Finally, Amanda 

thinks, there is an adult who 

understands her. 

No joke. Assistant DA 

David Frey tells kids at 

Intermediate School 51 

on Staten Island how 

easily online predators 

can track them down. 

The messages are getting a bit 

explicit: Amanda says so, and 

the predator tones things 

down. He sends her a new 

softball glove, too. When the 

messages get sexual again, she 

figures he’s right, everyone 

does talk about—and do—this 

stuff. So when he suggests they 

meet up, she thinks: Why not? 

Photograph by Scott Schedivy JULY 2006 PC MAGAZINE 91

10 ESSENTIAL TIPS 

FOR PARENTS 

Here’s some practical advice for keeping your kids safe online: 

Don’t forbid Internet use; in all probability, your kids will defy your ban 

1on the sly. 

Filtering software won’t block all dangers your kids face on the Web, 

2 but it’s a good start. Also visit sites with your child whenever possible. 

Understand the technologies: Take a class, check out the Web resources 

3 listed on page 94, try the sites yourself. The more you know about the 

Internet, the better you can talk to your kids about it. 

Place the computer in a common area of your home; kids won’t expect 

4 privacy there. 

Talk to the parents of your child’s friends; most kids use computers at 

5 friends’ homes. 

Teach your kids the “embarrassment rule”: They should never post 

6 anything they wouldn’t want everyone to read. 

Tell them to be careful about what they post regarding other people. 

7 Predator-friendly information is often left by friends posting comments. 

Let your child know that it’s important to tell you if he or she is ever 

8 approached online or receives inappropriate content. 

Look for red fl ags that your child is in danger, such as minimizing a 

9 browser when you enter the room and getting phone calls from people 

you don’t know. 

If you think there may be a problem, report it to authorities and also to 

10 your Internet service provider. 


Frey started giving his talks—to parents, kids, 

guidance counselors, and other prosecutors—in 

2000, the same year that a study by the National 

Center for Missing & Exploited Children found 

that one in fi ve children who use the Internet had 

been sexually solicited online. 

Back in 2000 the main targets of concern were 

chat rooms and instant messaging. Now there are 

blogs and social-networking sites to worry about. 

For both parents and kids, these new technologies 

can be even more problematic. “In a chat room, a 

predator goes in cold,” says Frey. “On these new 

sites, predators know about you, they know about 

your friends, they have all of this data about you.” 

And they know how to use it. 

The burgeoning popularity of social networking 

sites—MySpace has over 75 million users—means 

that even preteens are clamoring to use them. Although 

MySpace warns users that they must be 14 

or older to register, the site has no way of verifying 

age. The same is true for almost all other social- 

networking sites. “We know that younger children 

are lying to get on the sites,” says Nancy McBride, 

the national safety director at the National Center 

for Missing & Exploited Children. 

Making matters worse: Online predators aren’t 

the only danger parents have to fear. The ubiquity 

of broadband now makes it easier for kids to be 

exposed to pornography and other objectionable 

video and images. Cyberbullying, where kids are 

threatened via anonymous e-mail, instant messages, 

and even full-blown Web sites, is an increasingly 

common and worrisome problem. 

Then there’s all the personal information kids 

post online. Not only does it expose them to 

predators, it puts them at risk for identity theft. 

And even if there are no criminals reading your 

MySpace page, well, maybe there is a college 

admissions offi cer taking a look. “Kids think 

they’re talking to other kids, but they have no idea 

who they are speaking to,” says McBride. “They’ll 

post pictures of illegal or inappropriate behavior 

and it will come back to haunt them when they 

apply to schools or for a job.” 

Advice to Parents: Learn This Stuff 

Keeping all of these perils in check can be a fulltime 

job for a parent, and it’s a job they’re not doing 

so well. One particular challenge is that most 

kids know a lot more about the Internet than do 

their parents, and they use the knowledge gap to 

win more time and less supervision online. “You 

fi nd that a lot of parents are bullied,” says Frey. 

“They don’t want to look stupid in front of their 

kids, who tell them that everyone is doing it.” 

Bridging that knowledge gap is essential to 

under standing the risks your children face online 

and how you can help them. “If you’re a parent, 

you better learn about this stuff,” says McBride. 

“If that means taking a class, or getting a book, so 

be it. It’s hard to protect your kids online if you 

don’t know what they’re doing.” Once parents 

under stand the technologies and the dangers, 

they can more easily talk to their kids about those 

dangers and how to avoid them. 

Sadly, this common-sense solution—educating 

both yourself and your children about staying safe 

If you’re a parent, you’d better learn about this 

stuff. If that means taking a class or getting a 

book, so be it. It’s hard to protect your kids 

online if you don’t know what they’re doing.

online—is in reality often neglected. Even though 

it’s hard to read the daily newspaper nowadays 

without coming upon a story about an online 

predator or some cyberstalking or cyber bullying 

incident, 30 percent of parents allow their teenage 

children to use a computer in a private area 

of their home, according to a 2005 survey by Cox 

Communications and the National Center for 

Missing & Exploited Children. 

That’s exactly the wrong thing to do, say onlinesafety 

experts, who urge parents to take the computer 

out of the bedroom and put it in a common 

area, like a family room or den, where children 

have no expectation of privacy and parents 

can check in on what they’re doing. Just 

a little bit of education, the experts say, 

and parents would quickly understand 

how necessary this rule of thumb is. 

Filters: A False Sense of Security 

If that little bit of education isn’t getting 

through, the fault doesn’t lie completely with 

parents. Criminal penalties, technological solutions 

such as fi ltering software that blocks inappropriate 

sites, and pressure on content providers 

to police their own sites are getting the bulk 

of media—and political—coverage. Not surprisingly, 

many parents have been lulled into believing 

that these approaches will take care of the 

problem—wishful, and dangerous, thinking. 

“What parents have to realize is that there is no 

silver bullet,” says Herbert Lin, senior scientist 

at the National Research Council of the National 

Academies, where he directed a 2002 study on 

protecting children from sexual exploitation and 

online pornography. “Filtering software has certainly 

gotten better, but do parents rely on it too 

much? In my opinion, they do. A fi lter is brittle. 

Even if it stops 90 percent of the bad stuff, what 

do you do about the other 10 percent? You still 

have to have a thorough educational process.” 

(See page 96 for minireviews of fi ltering software, 

and visit go.pcmag.com/parentalcontrols for our 

comprehensive reviews.) 

Four years ago, Lin emphasized the need for 

edu cation in online safety in his report, and he’s 

still waiting for legislators to pick up on the idea. 

“We said education was fundamental, but no one 

is taking that seriously,” says Lin. “It’s not sexy; 

it’s not easy to do. You don’t see any bills on education.” 

The focus, instead, has been on criminal 

penalties and fi ltering software. These, say Lin, 

should be part of the answer, but not the answer 

itself: “Any solution that says you don’t have to 

do the hard work of being a parent is not going 

to work.” 

Illustration by Asaf Hanuka 

Nor should parents rely on content providers to 

fi nd predators and porn. To be sure, the sites are 

ramping up their own enforcement efforts. Both 

MySpace and Facebook recently hired chief privacy 

offi cers. MySpace runs public service ads to 

promote online safety and reviews all images on 

its site. Facebook warns users who may be abusing 

the system. “We’ll look for things like the number 

of rejected friend requests they have,” says Chris 

Kelly, Facebook’s chief privacy offi cer. 

But with social networking sites growing so 

rapidly, inappropriate content and behavior is 

bound to slip through the nets. MySpace may be 

reviewing images, but it receives two million of 

them each day, and keeping an eye on all of them 

is a tall order. 

Parents need to understand what can and does 

happen online, but just as important is their need 

to develop a line of communication with their 

children. This is crucial not only to prevent harm, 

but also to take action should inappropriate activity 

take place. 

The good news is that even as the technologies 

get more sophisticated, so too have police and 

prosecutors. “Law enforcement is much better 

trained about this now,” says McBride of the National 

Center for Missing & Exploited Children. 

Inter net investigation units are also better staffed 

and funded. The Department of Justice fi nances 

45 Internet Crimes Against Children task forces, 

and many local police departments now have 

units dedicated to investigating Internet crimes. 

Even cyberbullies hiding behind anonymous email 

accounts, proxy servers, or a neighbor’s Wi- 

Fi network can usually be tracked down quickly. 

THE BEST 

WEB SITES 

These Web sites 

offer an abundance 

of tips for keeping 

your kids safe. 

The CyberTipline: 

www.cybertipline.com 

NetSmartz: 

www.netsmartz.org 

Microsoft Safety Tips: 

www.microsoft.com/ 

athome/security/ 

children 

SafeTeens.com: 

www.safeteens.com 

Net Family News: 

netfamilynews.org/ 

index.shtml 

WiredSafety: 

www.wiredsafety.org 

NetSafeKids: 

www.nap.edu/ 

netsafekids 


KIDS ON THE WEB: RISKY BUSINESS KIDS ON THE WEB: RISKY BUSINESS 

64% 71% 

64% 

say they do 

things online 14% 

of teens received 

of parents with 

they don’t want of teens have 

messages online 

met face-to- 

online teens say 

their parents 

from someone 

face with a 

that there are 

they don’t know. 

to know about. person they 

rules in their 

Source: National Center for 

Source: Pew Internet had known 

home regarding Missing & Exploited Children 

& American Life 

and Cox Communications, 2006 

Project, 2004 only through 

the timing and 

the Internet. 

duration of 

Source: National 

Internet use. MySpace has pulled more than quarter of a million profi les Center for Missing 

& Exploited 

Source: Pew Internet & 

Children and Cox 

American Life Project, 2004 believed to be for children under fourteen years old. 

Communications, 2006 

Source: MySpace, 2006 

One out of fi ve teens 

reported that it is safe to 

share personal information 

on a public blog or socialnetworking 

Web site. 

of teens have been 

asked for personal 

information by 

someone they 

don’t know. 

Source: National Center 

for Missing & Exploited 

79% 

of online teens say 

teens aren’t careful 

enough when sharing 

personal info online. 

Source: National Center for Missing & Exploited 

Children and Cox 

Source: Pew Internet & 

Children and Cox Communications, 2006 

Communications, 2006 American Life Project, 2004 

45% 

87% 

KIDS ON THE WEB: RISKY BUSINESS KIDS ON THE WEB: RISKY BUSINESS 


of teens age 

12 to 17 use 

the Internet in 

some aspect 

of their lives. 

Source: Pew Internet 

& American Life 

Project, 2004 

“They may be clever, but we’re more clever,” says 

Frey. “A lot of times they’ll leak a tell. They’ll target 

people they know; they’ll use their pet’s name, 

or their ZIP code, or their school in their screen 

name. You look for a guy with a pit bull named 

Randy. It isn’t hard. We’ll get 90 to 95 percent of 

the people we’re looking for if it’s reported.” 

And there’s the rub. The best detective work in 

the world is of little use if kids and parents don’t 

report inappropriate activity in a timely fashion. 

ISPs usually can’t trace activity back to a specifi c 

user after a certain time period. “If we send a letter 

asking them to preserve data, they’ll preserve it,” 

says Frey. “The problem is when someone doesn’t 

make a report in time, and we lose the path.” 

House Rules 

Though Frey’s presentation is intended to scare 

parents, he doesn’t want to scare them too badly. 

Then they might pull the plug on the Internet 

altogether, and that, he and other experts say, 

Defn.: “Cyberbullying” is when a child, 

preteen or teen is tormented, threatened, 

harassed, humiliated, embarrassed or 

otherwise targeted by another child, 

preteen or teen using the Internet. 

Source: Stopcyberbullying.org 

20% 

of 8- to 18-yearolds 

have a 

computer with 

Internet access 

in their own room. 

Source: Kaiser Foundation, 

March 2005 

probably does more harm than good: It deprives 

children of a remarkable resource and can breed 

defi ance. “Kids are always going to fi nd a way to 

use it,” says McBride. 

The better strategy is to give kids access—but 

set some rules. Keep the PC in a place where there 

is little privacy, and visit sites with your child 

when possible. Let your kids know that it’s important 

to tell you if they are ever approached online 

or receive inappropriate content. Don’t delete any 

messages or images, either; they can help law enforcement 

trace the activity back to its source. 

Teach your kids the “embarrassment rule”: They 

should never post anything they wouldn’t want 

the whole world to read, because once they post 

it, the whole world can read it. Tell them to be 

careful about what they post about friends, too. 

Some of the most predator-friendly information 

(names, telephone numbers, employers) isn’t left 

by the author of a MySpace page, but by friends 

posting comments.

The Best Parental Control Software 

With these applications you can restrict the Web sites your kids visit and limit their time online. For a 

walk-through of the parental-control features in Windows Vista, visit go.pcmag.com/vistaparentalcontrols. 

OTHER OPTIONS 

iShield 

By analyzing skin tones, 

textures, faces, limb 

shapes, and a variety of 

other cues, iShield does 

a good job of blocking 

pornographic images. 

It’s very easy to install 

and use. Each time your 

browser (Internet Explorer, 

Netscape, Firefox, 

or Mozilla) loads a Web 

page, iShield analyzes 

the images found on that 

page. It can block images 

or entire pages, and it 

offers an option either to 

warn users or to record 

porn-surfi ng silently. If 

necessary, the parent/ 

administrator can 

whitelist specifi c sites 

that get blocked in error 

or blacklist sites that are 

defi nitely unwanted. 

$24.95 

go.pcmag.com/ishield 

lllh 

ACCESS CONTROL 

PC Moderator 

PC Moderator is a 

hardware device that 

disables the monitor 

when children have 

used up their allotted 

time on the computer. 

It’s extremely effective, 

but a one-trick pony. 

$79.95 analog, $89.95 

digital 

go.pcmag.com/ 

pcmoderator 

llll 


ContentProtect 

Strong on content 

fi ltering, this full-featured 

parental-control app 

analyzes Web page text 

in real time, offers timebased 

access control, 

sends e-mail notifi cation 

of blocking events, and 

includes an abundance of 

surveillance reports. You 

can apply settings to all 

users or to individual user 

profi les, which you can 

tie to Windows user 

accounts so that no 

separate ContentProtect 

log-on is needed. You 

can let kids send an 

override request to the 

administrator. On the 

downside, the software 

requires too many 

passwords, and the 

remote management 

feature can’t quickly 

push changes back to 

the protected computer. 

$39.99 per year 

go.pcmag.com/ 

contentprotect 

lllmm 

SAFE EYES 2006 

Keep your kids away from bad sites and control 

how much time they spend online. If they go 

wild on the Web, Safe Eyes rats them out so 

you can take control from wherever you are. 

It’s tough; we tried circumventing it but failed 

to access blocked sites or get access outside 

scheduled hours. One license allows installation on 

three PCs or Macs that share the same online user 

profi les. That’s great for the multicomputer family. 

And fi ltering happens at the server level, so it works 

with any browser. Add logging of Web and IM activity 

for even stricter parental control. 

$49.95 per year for up to three computers 

go.pcmag.com/safeeyes2006 

llllm 

Recognize the Red Flags 

Keep in mind, too, that while preventive steps 

like these can reduce the risks, they can’t eliminate 

them completely. So watch for red fl ags. Is 

your child minimizing or changing a browser 

window whenever you walk into the room? Is 

he using instant message lingo like “POS” (parent 

over shoulder)? Is he getting phone calls from 

people you don’t know or wearing new clothes? 

They could be gifts from a predator. Is your child 

reluctant to log on or go to school? Those could 

be signs he’s being cyberbullied. And if you think 

there is a problem, report it. 

The National Center for Missing & Exploited 

Children runs a hotline, both on the Web at 

www.cybertipline.com and via telephone at 800- 

843-5678. Someone will review your report and 

forward it to the proper authorities. Let your 

Internet service provider know, too. ISPs face 

fi nes for failing to report child pornography on 

their systems—fi nes that the Bush Administration 

is seeking to raise under the proposed Child 

Pornography and Obscenity Prevention Amendments 

of 2006. 

Most important of all, you want to educate yourself 

and your child on the risks that exist online. 

That way you can reap the benefi ts of the Internet 

while skirting the dangers. 

“The Internet is a great thing but it’s also dangerous—like 

a swimming pool,” says Lin. “Do you 

want to have fences? Sure. Do you want to have 

locks? You do. Do you want to have laws that 

make people liable? Yes. But the safest kid is the 

kid who knows how to swim.” 

Alan Cohen is a freelance writer and frequent 

contributor to PC Magazine.

Wicked Cheap Cameras 

Can you get a good camera for $150? How about $88? 


Read Terry Sullivan’s 

blow-by-blow 

account of his and 

Molly McLaughlin’s 

adventures in shopping 

on a budget. Get the 

words and pictures at 

go.pcmag.com/ 

cheapcameras 


BY BEN Z. GOTTESMAN 

D 

IGITAL CAMERA PRICES ARE PLUMmeting. 

High-end digital-SLRs that 

used to cost around $1,000 can be 

found for about half that. Seven- and 

eight-megapixel point-and-shoots 

go for less than $300. But can you 

get a decent camera for under $150? We’ve been 

seeing cameras advertised in this price range in 

the Sunday newspaper fl yers, so we set out to buy 

and test a few. 

PC Magazine Web producer Molly McLaughlin 

and PC Magazine Labs lead analyst Terry Sullivan 

went around New York City buying cameras. You 

can read about their adventures online. They got 

a 5MP HP Photosmart M425 for $149.95 and a 4MP 

Olympus FE100 for $129. (We decided not to test 

the Olympus because it uses more expensive xD 

memory; your money is better spent on the camera 

itself.) We bought two more 4MP cameras, the 

Canon PowerShot A430, on sale for $131.99, and the 

Nikon Coolpix L4, for $134.98. And we had to try the 

5MP Polaroid PDC-5080 I found at Target for $88. 

Terry put the cameras through his rigorous lab 

testing, but we added another twist. We didn’t expect 

to be blown away by any of them, but would 

they be okay for a fi rst foray into digital photography 

or as a knock-around picture-taker? We asked 

four digital camera newbies on the PC Magazine 

staff to live with the cameras for a week. We found 

that although you can’t get a good one for $88—if 

the Polaroid is any indication—you can do pretty 

well for under $150. 



Canon PowerShot A430 

C 

ANON’S POWERSHOT A430 SEEMS 

to be advertised in the Sunday flyers 

more often than any other bargain camera. 

Keep your eye out for a good price 

because, although it’s not the most intuitive, 

it’s a very solid choice and the 

best camera of this lot. 

The A430 has a fairly sleek body and a 4X 

zoom lens. The camera’s glass viewfinder is a 

welcome touch because the small, 1.8-inch LCD 

looks washed out in bright sunlight or when 

viewed from an angle. Like all of the inexpensive 

cameras we review here, the A430 conveniently 

takes double-A batteries. 

IN THE LABS: Our test shots were underexposed 

by about one f-stop, but the images showed very little 

noise. In the daylight shots, colors were accurate 

but could have been more saturated, and there was 

also some fringing. The fl ash wasn’t strong enough 

in our still-life test shot, resulting in a subtle silhouetting 

of the image. Resolution averaged 1,250 lines, 

at the top of the range for a 4MP camera. The A430 

starts up quickly, but its 4.4-second recycle time 

isn’t stunning. 

IN A NEWBIE’S HANDS: We gave the A430 to 

Elizabeth Parry, our copy chief, for the weekend. 

Although she was able to fi gure out the camera well 

enough to have some fun with it, she never came 

to feel that she had a good handle on its operation. 

Canon makes terrifi c cameras, but needs to improve 

its user interface. 

The fl ash often went off when Elizabeth didn’t 

want it to. It can be disabled, but the A430 forgets 

this setting when it powers down. She liked the 

video mode, although she noted that it was jerky. 

It shoots at only 10 frames per second at its 640-by- 

480 default. 

Overall, Elizabeth recommends the camera—as 

does Terry—though she feels that its complexity 

might not make it a great choice for people who are 

not tech-savvy. 


Should have 

used fl ash? 

CANON POWER- 

SHOT A430 

4 megapixels 

4X zoom lens (39mm to 

156mm equivalent) 

BOTTOM LINE: The inexpensive 

Canon Power- 

Shot A430 is a nice, 

compact digital camera 

that takes very good 

pictures. 

PROS: Pleasing images. 

Solid performance. No 

shutter lag. 

CONS: Jerky video. 

Mediocre recycle time. 

Complex menus. 

lllhm 

go.pcmag.com/ 

powershotA430 

HP PHOTOSMART M425 

5 megapixels 



BOTTOM LINE: The easy 

and fun HP Photosmart 

M425 is well suited to 

novices who want a 

camera that holds their 

hand. 

PROS: Easy-to-use features. 

Fun Design Gallery 

in menus. Decent image 

quality. 

CONS: Slow boot-up 

time. No viewfi nder. 

Small LCD screen. 

lllmm 

go.pcmag.com/hpM425 

HP Photosmart M425 

T 

OO BASIC! THAT’S WHAT LIANA 

Zamora, an associate art director, 

said of the HP Photosmart M425 she 

tried out. While new to digital cameras, 

Liana is used to film cameras 

that give the shooter lots of control. 

But the very things that made the compact M425 

feel too simple and cutesy for Liana could make this 

a very good camera for a novice photographer. 

The bland-looking M425 doesn’t have an optical 

viewfi nder, so you have to use its small 1.7-inch 

LCD to compose shots. But the camera’s controls 

are laid out intelligently. On top are just two buttons, 

one for taking stills and one for videos, so you 

needn’t fumble through menus or dials to switch. 

In the back, the zoom rocker falls right under the 

thumb. Scene modes show a sample picture with 

clear, descriptive text. A Design Gallery lets you 

remove red-eye and do other minor in-camera editing. 

A Share button accesses an address book, so 

you can choose who will receive photos when you 

next sync the camera with HP’s Photosmart Premier 

software. 

IN THE LABS: For the money, the 5MP M425 did 

okay on our resolution tests, but its average of 1,150 

lines was what we’d expect from a 4MP camera, 

not a 5MP. Images were well exposed and clear, 

although with a slight color tint in both daylight 

and fl ash shots, and some purple fringing. Boot-up 

was too slow, but the time between shots was decent. 

The M425 shoots videos at 640-by-480 but at 

only 20 frames per second, causing some jerkiness. 

Sound, however, wasn’t bad. 

IN A NEWBIE’S HANDS: Having hoped for a camera 

with more manual controls, Liana tells us she 

was driven to drink by the M425. (See below.) But 

she was satisfi ed with the images and admits that 

the camera is a good value and a good choice for 

someone starting out. 

Cool in-camera editing


Nikon Coolpix L4 

T 

HE 4MP NIKON COOLPIX L4 IS A DEceptively 

tiny camera—the same 

size as a typical ultracompact but 

about twice as thick. Its 2-inch LCD, 

though small for a digicam today, 

is the largest that we’ve seen in a 

budget camera. This is important because, like the 

HP Photosmart M425, the L4 has no viewfinder. 

It’s inexcusable that the camera can’t record audio 

along with videos—even the awful Polaroid PDC 

5080 can do that. 

The L4 is built for ease of use, though the controls 

are a bit cramped for big hands. A slider lets 

you choose between full auto, clearly explained 

scene modes, or soundless video. There’s oncamera 

help for any menu item. For pictures that 

are too dark because of backlighting, you can apply 

Nikon’s D-Lighting option to enhance brightness 

and contrast. 

IN THE LABS: Like the Canon PowerShot A430, 

the Nikon L4 averaged a respectable 1,250 lines of 

resolution in Terry’s tests. Overall, daylight exposures 

produced good detail and color, although the 

contrast was a bit strong. The fl ash’s illumination 

of our test shot was weak. We were able to rescue 

it using the camera’s D-Lighting, but that’s something 

we would rather have avoided. The L4 boots 

up fairly quickly after showing a Coolpix commercial, 

and shot-to-shot was decent, albeit with too 

much shutter lag. 

IN A NEWBIE’S HANDS: We let Yun-San Tsai, PC- 

Mag.com’s senior producer, try out the L4 for a few 

days. Her description of the Nikon as “a standardlooking 

camera that can be jammed into a pocket to 

go” is spot-on. Yun was fairly satisfi ed with her pictures, 

although some of them weren’t very sharp, 

and their colors were often muted. The speed issues 

that we mention above proved a hindrance 

to her. Also, videos weren’t too much fun without 

sound, though she did like the fact that with the 

L4 you can zoom while shooting. Yun felt that the 

camera is a good little point-and-shoot that’s worth 

the money, but she’s still holding out for something 

a bit fancier. 


Good color and detail 

NIKON COOLPIX L4 

4 megapixels 



BOTTOM LINE: An affordable, 

basic beginner 

camera with an easy-touse 

interface. But ever 

since The Jazz Singer, 

we really prefer sound 

with our videos. 

PROS: D-Lighting can 

rescue underexposed 

shots. Easy-to-use interface 

with Help button. 

Large LCD for a budget 

camera. 

CONS: Shutter lag. Can’t 

record video with sound. 

lllmm 

go.pcmag.com/NikonL4 

POLAROID PDC 5080 

5 megapixels 

Fixed lens (approx. 


BOTTOM LINE: Image 

quality barely beats a 

camera phone and is 

worse with digital zoom. 

It’s slow, giving you time 

to second-guess your 

purchase. Stay away. 

PROS: Um. 

CONS: Dreadful performance 

and picture quality. 

Misleading specs. 

lmmmm 

go.pcmag.com/ 

polaroid5080 

Polaroid PDC 5080 

S 

OMETIMES YOU CAN’T SET YOUR 

expectations low enough. When I 

bought the Polaroid PDC 5080 for $88, I 

doubted it would blow me away. But as 

Polaroid had cut costs by omitting features 

like autofocus, a zoom lens, and 

a lens cover, I’d hoped the company had focused on 

making a camera that took decent images. Wrong! 

Our resolution test scores were so low, we’re skeptical 

that the camera even has a true 5MP sensor. 

The PDC 5080 has a zoom rocker, though there’s 

no optical zoom. It uses digital zoom—up to 4X— 

making fully zoomed images four times as lousy. 

IN THE LABS: The 5MP Polaroid averaged just 725 

lines of resolution, a far cry from the 1,200 to 1,500 

lines we expect from a 5MP camera. There were 

gaps of more than 11 seconds between fl ash shots. 

Images were too contrasty. The fl ash could barely 

reach our still life, underexposing the shot. We could 

go on. But instead, we put it . . . 

IN A NEWBIE’S HANDS: If anyone could make lemonade 

with this camera, I fi gured it would be our art 

director, Richard Demler. And some of his outdoor 

shots don’t look bad. But the camera was frustratingly 

slow, and Richard got suckered in by the zoom 

lever only to regret it when he saw the shots. The 

fl ash was unpredictable, underexposing images or 

blowing out closer subjects. The camera takes choppy, 

low-res videos, but you need a lot of light. 

The PDC 5080 wouldn’t even make a decent fi rst 

camera for a kid. Find a more expensive camera on 

sale, or spend a bit more. Ignore us at your own risk. 

Passable at 

times outdoors

Exposed! 

Polaroid didn’t even include a lens 

cover on the PDC 5080. The lens is 

just begging for fi ngerprints. And 

don’t be fooled by the zoom lever 

on the back: It’s digital zoom, which 

is a very bad thing on such a lowresolution 

camera. 

2” display 

THREE MORE UNDER $200 

Spill the beans: 

I like that all of the cameras 

use double-A batteries, so 

you can fi nd replacements 

anywhere. All but Nikon, 

however, put the memory 

card in the same compartment, 

which means 

your batteries are more 

likely to fall out every time you 

attempt to remove your card. 

We're always keeping an eye out for great deals on cameras. Here are a few that we came across during the course of 

putting this story together. The deals are often fl eeting and dependent on rebates, so keep your eyes peeled. 

Fuji Finepix A500 

llll 

go.pcmag.com/ 

fi nepixA500 

Kodak EasyShare V530 

llllh 

go.pcmag.com/ 

easysharev530 

Kodak EasyShare-One 

lllh 

go.pcmag.com/ 

easyshareone 


No lens cover! 

Little LCDs: 

In this day of 2.5-, 3-, and even 3.5-inch 

LCDs, the Nikon Coolpix L4’s 2-inch display 

(top left) may not seem that impressive. But 

next to the other bargain cameras, it sure 

looks big. And the L4 needs a good screen 

since, like the HP Photosmart M425 (top 

right), it doesn’t have an optical viewfi nder. 

Bottom row, from left: the Canon PowerShot 

A430 and the Polaroid PDC 5080. 

Specs (megapixels, 

optical zoom, included 

memory, memory card 

type, LCD size) 

5.1MP, 3X, 12MB, 

xD, 1.8 inches 

5MP, 3X, 12MB, 

SD, 2 inches 

4MP, 3X, 256MB, 

SD, 3 inches 

Bootup 

/ 

Recycle 

(seconds) 

3.5 / 

5.5 

2.8 / 

1.1 

10.3 / 

1.3 

Big difference: 

Buy the cheap Polaroid and you won’t 

even get what you paid for. The image 

is underexposed, too contrasty, and 

oversharpened. The Canon’s image was 

slightly underexposed but sharp, and 

the colors are accurate. 

Canon Power- 

Shot A430 

Oops! 

Polaroid PDC 

5080 

Resolution 

(lines) Comments Price 

1,275 Very good picture quality 

and negligible shutter lag, 

but awful video quality and 

uses expensive xD cards. 

1,350 Futuristic, speedy ultracompact. 

Kodak's excellent 

menus make it very easy 

to use. 

1,100 Huge touchscreen LCD. Add 

Kodak’s Wi-Fi card ($75 

street) to upload, e-mail, 

and download images. 

BUDGET 

BUYING 

TIPS 

Megapixels: You 

1 want at least 

4MP. But look to 

PCMag.com for 

test results because 

specs can 

be misleading. 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

LCD: Make sure 

it displays a nice 

image, even in 

bright sunlight, 

and keeps up as 

you pan or as 

subjects move. 

Memory: You’ll 

pay a premium for 

xD and Memory 

Stick over 

SD—money better 

invested in the 

camera itself. 

Digital zoom: 

Ignore it. It just 

crops your images. 

You’re better 

off doing that on 

your PC. Optical 

zoom is good. 

Video: You want 

it, unless you really 

schlep your 

camcorder everywhere. 

Make sure 

the camera can 

record sound. 

eBay: We found 

lots of great deals 

from reputable 

sellers. If you buy 

used, get a fairly 

recent model. 

Typically around $165, but 

we saw it on Amazon for 

$149.95. 

We usually see this for 

about $230, but during 

testing Offi ce Depot had it 

on special for $139. 

Originally $599; Kodak 

recently lowered the list to 

$199 to make room for a 

$299 6MP version.

The Fastest 

PC Ever! 

Powered by an overclocked Athlon 64 FX- 

60 and dual ATI CrossFire graphics—and 

housed in a case you can carry—this is the 

fastest rig we’ve ever built! (We hope it 

keeps that distinction for at least a week.) 

BUILD IT 

BY JASON CROSS 

LOYD CASE WENT OVERBOARD 

when he built our last gaming 

rig. To be fair, we generally 

don’t bother with a 

budget for a no-holds-barred 

gaming machine. But the last machine 

was more than just a collection of the 

best, most expensive parts of its day. It 

was a dramatically overclocked, watercooled 

monster. The case was huge, 

there was plumbing and tubes, and you 

needed a nice insurance policy on it 

if you dared move it to the local LAN 

party. It also cost nearly $7,000. 

Let’s be clear: I’m not going to back 

away from that price. In fact, I built 

something even more expensive. But 

that giant water-cooled box had to go. 

You won’t want to lug the Dell 30-inch 

LCD monitor I picked out to a LAN 

party (or maybe you will, just to show 

off), but my killer gaming rig fi ts inside 

a simple, luggable mid-tower ATX case. 

And it outpaces Loyd’s nicely. 

Of course, the primary expense here 

is the monitor. Loyd chose a wickedexpensive 

$1,200 monitor—a 24-inch 

Dell widescreen. But why limit yourself 

to that when you have access to the 

new Dell, a ridiculously cool 30-inch 

widescreen LCD? For $2,200 bucks? 

What else are you going to do with over 

$1,000 of graphics power besides lighting 

up a freakin’ 4- megapixel display? 

Without the monitor and other peripheral 

stuff—the keyboard, mouse, and 

speakers—my new gaming monster is 

$4,392. Still not cheap, but the best stuff 

never is, is it? 


BUILD IT 

Flashy RAM 

This high performance 

RAM comes with 

LED lights. 

Cool runnings 

The Freezer 64 is 

the best $30 you’ll 

ever spend. 


The Guts of a Killer 

TO BEGIN THE BUILD, I PICKED UP AMD’s 

best-performing CPU, the Athlon 64 

FX-60. It’s a great processor, though 

the price is incredibly high, and actually 

it’s a benchmark test winner only 

on games. On media stuff it’s matched by Intel’s 

P4 Extreme Edition. This is a price-is-no-object 

gaming system, however, so it’s a perfect fi t. 

The FX-60 is AMD’s fi rst dual-core CPU in the 

high-end FX line, which makes sense. Games are 

slowly being optimized for dual-core processors, 

and video drivers now have dual-core optimizations, 

too. So the FX-60 may be expensive, but it’s 

clearly the best CPU 

for the job. That’s especially 

true because 

it’s incredibly overclockable: 

I pushed the 

2.6-GHz FX-60 processor 

up to 2.94 GHz by increasing 

the bus speed to 210 MHz and the 

multi plier from 13X to 14X. I probably 

could have pushed things a bit further, but 

stability is paramount. You could say I played it 

safe—if you call a dual-core Athlon 64 running at 

almost 3 GHz “safe.” 

I matched the AMD CPU with the ASUS 

A8R32-MVP Deluxe motherboard, the fi rst board 

out of the gate with the ATI CrossFire 3200 chipset. 

I’m impressed with the performance: It’s a 

match for nVidia’s latest desktop chipset. Do 

download the new BIOS, which smooths out several 

rough edges. Most important, I wanted to go 

with a dual ATI CrossFire graphics confi gura- 

Dual-core chips 

The FX series is 

AMD’s fastest 

line of CPUs. 

tion, and this is the fastest and most feature-rich 

board you can get to do so. 

As for the memory, 1GB of RAM just isn’t 

enough anymore. But what sort to buy? The new 

super-high-speed memory is cool: It’s made to 

withstand major voltage increases, but I wasn’t 

planning on overclocking my system to quite 

that limit. So I stuck with a 2GB RAM kit from 

Corsair that I’ve used before. Its LED activity 

lights add a bit of fl ash, but that’s secondary to 

the low latency and stability. Plus, I’ll still have 

two memory sockets free for future expansion. 

When it comes to the very fastest in graphics 

cards, you have two options: two nVidia GeForce 

7900 GTX cards or an ATI Radeon X1900 XTX 

card with an X1900 CrossFire Edition card. To be 

honest, I could go either way: The nVidia solution 

is sometimes faster than the ATI, and vice versa. 

I went with the ATI chips in the end (Sapphire 

makes affordable editions of both these cards), 

because in the X1900 cards ATI increased the hierarchical 

Z-buffer cache by 50 percent, specifi - 

cally to improve performance at resolutions above 

1,600-by-1,200. Since I’m using an amazingly highres 

2,560-by-1,600 monitor, that seemed useful. 

POWER AND DRESS YOUR MONSTER The Arctic Cooling 

Freezer 64 Pro is a bargain at only $30, and what an awesome 

heat sink it is! It easily mounts on the standard Socket 939 

bracket and draws warmth up through an array of heat pipes to 

a bunch of big fi ns, where a fan draws air horizontally across and 

straight out the back of the system. Long story short: It works 

great. It’s pretty quiet, and it kept my overclocked FX-60 down 

to a cool 38 degrees at idle and 46 degrees under heavy load. 

The Ammo 533 from Cooler Master is a pretty slick case 

for only $75. The most noticeable feature—besides the rugged 

utilitarian aesthetics—is the handle up top. This comes in handy 

more often than you’d think: It’s perfect for people who bring 

their PCs to LAN parties, of course, but I used it quite a bit just 

when working on the machine. The power and reset buttons are 

mounted at the top, while USB and FireWire jacks are kept out 

of the way on the front-right-hand side. 

You just can’t fool around when it comes to powering your 

really high-end rig. I could have gone with a 650-watt power 

supply and tried to balance the load across the rails, but why 

use a pistol when you’ve got a shotgun at hand? The PC Power 

& Cooling TurboCool 850 SSI supplies enough juice to run our 

fast optical drive, two high-speed hard drives, a pair of overclocked 

graphics cards, and an overclocked CPU. And it’s got 

plenty of power for future graphics card upgrades, too.

Inserting and Cooling a CPU 

Seat the RAM. Before 

1 moving on to the hard stuff, 

add your memory. Each stick 

fi ts in only one way, so don’t 

force it if you feel resistance. 

For maximum speed, use 

dual-channel mode. Consult 

your manual to fi gure out 

which slots you should use. 

4 

Lock it down. Gently drop 

the chip into place in the 

socket. You shouldn’t have 

to use any force. Then lower 

the bar on the socket, which 

locks the pins into place. 

Now fi nd your thermal paste; 

most CPU coolers come 

with a small tube of the 

goopy stuff. 

Secure the fan. Once 

7 you have seated the 

cooling unit, lower the 

lever on the side of 

the fan to lock everything 

in place. Be careful not 

to knock jumpers or 

capacitors loose. 

Raise the bar. A lever fi rmly 

2 locks the CPU’s pins into 

place on the motherboard, 

in what’s called a ZIF 

(zero insertion force) 

socket. Lift the silver lever 

to open up the socket, 

and remove your processor 

from its packaging. 

5 

8 

Add thermal paste. 

A specially formulated 

substance aids in the 

transfer of heat from the 

CPU to the cooler. Only 

a small amount of this 

thermal paste is needed 

for the top of your CPU. 

Never boot up your PC 

without this thin but 

important layer! 

Power the fan. Fans 

receive power and 

convey status information 

via standard three-wire 

connectors. Find the 

CPU fan’s header on 

the circuit board and 

plug it in. 

Align your CPU. Take 

3 note of the silver triangle at 

one corner of the socket 

(at top left in the picture 

above). It matches a gold 

triangle on top of the CPU. 

Line up the triangles and 

you’ll line up the hundreds 

of pins on the CPU. 

Mount the cooler. 

6 A tabbed bracket surrounds 

the CPU socket; metal clips 

on the cooling fan lock 

into it and hold the heavy 

apparatus in place. First 

hook the cooler’s clips 

(from the nonlevered side) 

to the socket’s tabs and 

seat the unit on the CPU. 

Survey your handiwork. 

9 Take a second to check 

all of your connections 

prior to sealing the case. 

Is the CPU power cable 

attached? Are all of the 

case fans connected? 

If building a 

new PC is not 

your thing, check 

out the First 

Looks review of 

the blisteringly 

fast Falcon NW 

Mach V FX-62 

Quad on page 35 


BUILD IT 

PARTS LIST 

BRAND/MODEL 

AMD Athlon 64 

FX-60.....................$1,019 

ASUS A8R32- 

MVP Deluxe …..........$199 

Dual Corsair 

TwinX3500LL 

Pro (1GB).................$325 

Sapphire Radeon 

X1900 XTX…...........$499 

Sapphire X1900 

CrossFire 

Edition .....................$579 

Creative Sound 

Blaster X-Fi 

Fatal1ty ….................$249 

Logitech G15…..........$65 

Logitech G5 

Laser Mouse…...........$50 

Western Digital 

Raptor X 

150GB ......................$660 

Plextor PX-760A…..$133 

Cooler Master 

Ammo 533 …..............$75 

Dell UltraSharp 

3007WFP…...........$2,199 

Creative Giga- 

Works S750…..........$352 

Mitsumi 

FA404A….............…...$25 

Arctic Cooling 

Freezer 64 Pro….......$29 

PC Power & 

Cooling Turbo- 

Cool 850 SSI ….......$448 


XP Pro …....................$135 

TOTAL…............…..$7,041 


Accessories Make the Machine 

Logitech G15 

This specialized gaming 

keyboard has 18 fully 

programmable hot keys. 

AT 30 INCHES, IT’S ALMOST TOO BIG. 

You have to turn your head to even 

take in the entire Dell UltraSharp 

3007WFP at normal viewing distances. 

And let me tell you, the “take 

up your whole peripheral vision” size is just awesome 

in a fi rst-person shooter. Of course, running 

3D applications at the insane resolution of 2,560by-1,600 

requires tons of graphics horsepower, 

but that’s exactly where I’m taking you with those 

ATI graphics cards. Sights go hand in hand with 

sounds; I used the Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi 

Fatal1ty. It’s overpriced, sure, but 64MB of X-RAM 

will be a feature you’ll want going forward. And 

it pairs smoothly with the Logitech GigaWorks 

S750 speaker system, which sounds just fi ne. 

One of my favorite gaming keyboards is the 

Logitech G15, with its on-the-fl y programmable 

macro keys, neat LCD readout, and USB ports. 

Game on! Logitech’s G5 Laser Mouse is hot, too. 

Dell UltraSharp 3007 WFP 

If you’ve already spent over 

$4,000 on the PC, why 

skimp on the monitor? 

Logitech G15 

Gaming Mouse 

Gamers can 

adjust the weight 

of this mouse 

until it’s just right. 

Sapphire X1900 

CrossFire Edition 

Great performance, 

even at resolutions 

above 1,600-by-1,200. 

It’s got adjustable weights, a great feel, excellent 

tracking, and adjustable sensitivity—up to a stunning 

2,000 dpi. 

If you want a fast hard drive, it doesn’t get 

much better than the Western Digital Raptor X 

150GB, which runs at a searing 10,000 rpm and 

also has a cool see-through window. I used two 

such drives in my system, arranged in a RAID 0 

confi guration. The results were impressive: The 

system scored over 10,000 on the PCMark05 hard 

drive benchmark test. 

I’ve always been fond of Plextor drives for their 

fantastic reliability and their ability to burn in all 

kinds of different modes. I fi nd their prices to be 

pretty reasonable, and it just so happens that Plextor 

makes one of the fastest DVD burners on the 

market. The PX-760A offers 18X DVD burning and 

10X dual-layer DVD burning. Yow! In fact, you’ll 

be lucky to fi nd blank discs rated for that speed. 

Still, fast drives speed up those big game installs.

BUILD IT 

Doom 3 

This intense game really 

taxed our new rig: It 

pushed out 121 fps on 

our benchmark tests. 


Killer Gaming Performance 

GIVEN THE HORSEPOWER OF THIS SYSTEM, 

you won’t fi nd a single game that won’t 

run—fast. But that’s the whole point, 

isn’t it? Take a look at some of our new 

rig’s gaming test scores compared with 

those of an ordinary gaming system. Did I mention 

that I overclocked the graphics cards? Using 

the overclocking sliders built into ATI’s Catalyst 

Control Panel, I turned the ATI Sapphire X1900 

cards up to 670 MHz core and 770 MHz memory. 

Picking up 858 points on 3DMark06 isn’t too 

shabby, especially considering that this test was 

run at 1,600-by-1,200 with 4X AA (anti-aliasing) 

and 8X AF (anisotropic fi ltering) enabled. 

On actual games, I saw a real boost in performance 

over our comparison system, which used 

a slightly slower Athlon 64 X2 4800+ CPU and 

wasn’t overclocked. On some games, the performance 

benefi t was around 25 percent. Again, 

these benchmark test scores were achieved at 

a 1,600-by-1,200 with 4X AA and 8X AF. Even 

F.E.A.R. managed to pull down almost 70 fps. 

“But wait,” you say. “Don’t you have a crazy 

high-res Dell monitor?” Yes, we do. Unfortunately, 

not every game can run at a resolution of 2,560by-1,600. 

The option just isn’t there in F.E.A.R., for 

example. So we ran F.E.A.R. at its maximum resolution 

of 2,048-by-1,536 with 8X AF but no antialiasing 

(at that high resolution, it’s not really useful), 

and it scored 68 fps. Call of Duty 2 with 8X 

AF and no AA at 2,560-by-1,600 hit 48 fps. Doom 3 

at the same settings gave us 81 fps. Our 3DMark06 

score at 2,560-by-1,600 with no AA or AF was an 

impressive 6,457. Gaming at 2,560-by-1,600 is actually 

viable with the power of these graphics cards, 

though upcoming games will surely change all 

that by pushing graphics cards even harder. 

F.E.A.R. 

Our new gaming rig 

had no prob hitting this 

game’s max resolution 

of 2,048-by-1,536. 

Most of the cost of this extreme rig comes 

from the monitor (at over $2,000 alone), the 

speakers and sound card, and the graphics cards. 

You could easily substitute a lesser X-Fi card, less 

expensive speakers, and a 24-inch widescreen 

LCD. This would shave thousands of dollars off 

the price, but let’s face it: This system is never 

going to be cheap. 

For $7,000, you can grab the handle on the 

case, slip the 30-inch LCD under your arm, and 

make everyone at the next LAN party insanely 

jealous. And you can’t put a price on the green 

faces of your gaming buddies. � 

FASTEST GAMING PC EVER 

L High scores are best. 

M Low scores are best. 

Comparison 

system 

Call of Duty 2 

At a resolution of 2,560by-1,600, 

you can almost 

feel the cold of the 

Russian winter! 

Killer 

Gaming Rig 

PCMARK05 L 

Overall — 7,202 

CPU 5,254 5,964 

Memory 4,429 4,518 

3D L 

3DMark06 6,277 7,135 

VIDEO ENCODING M 

DivX 6.1 60 sec 58 sec 

Windows Media Encoder 9 149 sec 136 sec 

GAMING L 

Doom 3 110 fps 121 fps 

F.E.A.R. 66 fps 69 fps 

Half-Life 2: Lost Coast 99 fps 131 fps 

Call of Duty 2 60 fps 76 fps 

These tests were run at 1,600-by-1,200 resolution with 4X anti-aliasing and 8X 

anisotropic fi ltering enabled. A dash indicates that no score is available for that test. 

We compared our new PC to several high-end gaming systems on the market. 

JUMP TO NEXT PAGE >>

OUTSMARTING KEYLOGGERS 

QAs the financial officer for my organization 

in Tanzania, I sometimes 

travel without my laptop and need 

to access password-protected Web 

sites from Internet cafés or hotel 

business centers. I worry about whether these 

public computers have keyloggers installed. 

NEED ANSWERS? 

Each issue, PC Magazine’s 

software expert, 

Neil J. Rubenking, 

tackles your toughest 

software and Internet 

problems. Send your 

questions to 

askneil@ziffdavis.com 

By using the Windows On-Screen Keyboard accessibility 

utility, can I safely prevent keyloggers’ 

recording my passwords? 

If the On-Screen Keyboard simply creates 

key-press events that can still be intercepted 

by keyloggers, then can Copy/Paste be used to 

avoid the keylogger threat? Or do keyloggers 

also record the contents of the Windows clipboard? 

Do you have another suggestion for 

safely entering passwords at public computers?—David 

A. Smith 

AThe On-Screen Keyboard utility is designed 

to let mobility-impaired users enter small 

amounts of text, typically by using a specialized 

pointing device. For maximum compatibility, it 

works by sending simulated keystrokes to the active 

application. I tried it with a number of the commercial 

keyloggers that I use in antispyware testing, and 

it was no help at all: The simulated keystrokes were 

captured just as actual keystrokes would be. 

You could conceivably launch the Character Map 

utility and build your password by double-clicking 

characters. Once you had built the whole password, 

you’d click the Copy button and paste it into the 

password-entry box. Unfortunately, keyloggers can 

You might think that using the On-Screen Keyboard would prevent a keylogger 

from recording your password. Alas, it’s no help at all. 

ASK NEIL SOFTWARE 

do a lot more than merely log keystrokes. Most also 

record everything that gets copied to the clipboard, 

and many also snap screenshots of program activity. 

Character Map, then, is not a solution. 

The one possibility that seems hopeful is this: 

Type your password with extra characters in it and 

then use the mouse to highlight and delete the extra 

characters. For example, you might type passFROGword 

and then highlight and delete the middle four 

dots. Or type p1a2s3s4w5o6r7d8 and delete every 

other dot. A keylogger would still record all of the 

keystrokes that make up your password, but they’ll 

be mixed with other unrelated keystrokes. 

If you need to use a public PC, your best option 

for entering passwords is to use a mobile password 

management/form fi lling application such as Siber 

Systems’ Pass2Go ($39.95, www.roboform.com). 

Pass2Go runs off a USB memory key and protects 

your passwords behind a master password. Even if 

the master password is compromised, it’s useless 

to the thief unless he has your USB key, too. It’s not 

a foolproof solution, but it will evade hacking tools 

that rely on capturing keyboard events. 

But really, you should do your best to avoid using 

nonsecure computers. Even if you keep a key logger 

from snagging your password, it might still take 

screenshots of key fi nancial info. Your best bet is to 

implement a high degree of security on your laptop 

and resign yourself to lugging the darn thing along. 

OPEN WITH INTERNET EXPLORER 

QThat “Open with Firefox” Registry hack (go 

.pcmag.com/openwithfi refox) is great,but 

I use Firefox as my main browser with plenty 

of extensions installed. Once in a while, a page 

will not open correctly with Firefox, so I open it 

in Internet Explorer. How can I make it so that I can 

right-click a link and open in IE?—Mike Naclerio 

AHordes of Firefox faithful requested this 

tweak, and it’s another easy one. Carefully 

type (or Copy/Paste if you’re reading this 

online) the fi ve lines below into Notepad. 

REGEDIT4 

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\InternetShortcut\shell\ 

IEOpen] 

@=”Open with Internet Explorer” 

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\InternetShortcut\shell\ 

IEOpen\command] 

@=”\”C:\\Program Files\\Internet Explorer\\ 

iexplore.exe\” \”%l\”” 


ASK NEIL 

To eliminate duplicate 

rows in Excel you can 

fi rst use Advanced Filter 

to hide the duplicates, 

then copy the fi ltered 

data to a new location. 


Save the fi le as “IEOpen.reg”, including the quotation 

marks. Double-click the file you created to 

merge its contents into the Registry. Now when you 

right-click a URL shortcut, you’ll have the option to 

open it in Internet Explorer rather than your default 

of Firefox. If your default browser is neither of these 

or if you want a clear choice in the right-click menu, 

you can install both tweaks. 

DELETING DUPLICATE ROWS IN EXCEL 

Q 

In Excel, how do I delete rows that are 

duplicates—that is, rows that match in multiple 

columns like Last Name, First Name, 

House Number, and Street Name?—hurl236 

(through PCMag Forum) 

AIt’s surprisingly simple. What you do is 

make a copy of your data that leaves out the 

duplicate rows. 

• Click somewhere in the data area. 

• Select Data | Filter | Advanced Filter from 

the menu. 

• Check the Unique records only box. 

• Click OK. This hides all the duplicate rows. 

• Highlight the slimmed-down data area. 

• Copy/Paste the data to a new location. 

The copy will omit the hidden rows, so you now 

have a version of your data with no duplicates. 

ELIMINATE THIS DESKTOP INVADER 

Q 

I set up a friend’s computer. When I added 

a Guest Account, a blue bar appeared on 

the left side of the desktop with headings 

like “Folder tasks,” “Make a new folder,” etc. 

How do I get rid of this bar?—Gary Woods 

AI tried to reproduce this problem, but never 

could quite get the effect described here. 

Nonetheless, an Internet search revealed 

many folks who have had the same thing happen ac- 

cidentally. What you’re seeing is the Common Tasks 

Pane. It’s a normal part of Window Explorer, optionally 

appearing on the left in place of the folder tree, 

but it doesn’t belong on the desktop. To add insult to 

injury, some of those suffering this unwanted desktop 

invader report that its links don’t even work! 

Fixing it requires some careful tweaking in the 

Registry. Launch RegEdit from the Start menu’s Run 

dialog and navigate to the key 

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{00021400-0000- 

0000-C000-000000000046}\shellex\ 

ExtShellFolderViews\{5984FFE0-28D4-11CF- 

AE66-08002B2E1262}. 

Look in the right-hand pane for a value named 

PersistMoniker. (If it’s not there, right-click in the 

right-hand pane and select New | Expandable String 

Value from the pop-up menu, then name the new 

value PersistMoniker.) Double-click the Persist 

Moniker value and set its data to: file://%user 

appdata%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\ 

Desktop.htt. Click OK and restart Windows. That 

should get rid of the unwanted desktop invader. 

A FREE WIRELESS CONNECTION–NOT! 

QIs there a wireless revolution going on 

here that will drive dial-up ISPs out of 

business? I ask this because a friend 

loaned me her notebook with a wireless card, 

and it was able to get a high-speed connection 

to the Internet while sitting right next to my slow 

dial-up desktop computer system. In studying 

the Netgear program that came with this 802.11equipped 

notebook, I found that as I roam from 

room to room in my house the strength and the 

number of available signals changes. If I can get 

a high-speed Internet connection in my home 

just by having a $30 wireless card, then why pay 

NetZero $14.95 month after month for using 

their archaic system?—Frank Nesbitt 

ALike they say, there ain’t no such thing as a 

free lunch. The wireless signal that you’re 

picking out of the air gets its connection 

to the Internet from a wired connection in your 

neighbor’s house. When you connect through your 

neighbor’s wireless network, you’re basically freeloading 

on his or her connection. Depending on 

how you use the computer, you might be putting 

the brakes on your neighbor’s downloads, lowering 

his streaming video quality, or (horrors!) effectively 

slowing his refl exes in an online shoot-’em-up. 

Smart neighbors who take PC Magazine’s advice 

will confi gure their wireless access point to 

use WEP or WPA encryption, thereby locking you 

out. And if you want to have your own personal 

wireless connection, you will still need a wired 

connection from your ISP right up to your house.

If you do go for that option, don’t forget to enable 

encryption on your own wireless access point. 

DOUBLE THE HOLIDAY FUN IN OUTLOOK? 

QI’m using Outlook 2003 in a Windows 

XP environment. It has an option to add 

holidays to the calendar. Inadvertently, I 

added holidays two times. Now the calendar 

page is displaying double holidays. Is there a way 

to get rid of the double display?—Lou Dreher 

AWhen you add holidays a second time, Outlook 

gives you a warning like this: “Holidays 

for United States are already installed. Do 

you want to install them again?” But it’s easy enough 

to click Yes by accident, and then you have a mess. 

The easiest fix is to delete all the holidays and 

then add them back just once. With the calendar 

displayed, select View | Arrange By | Current View | 

Events from the menu. Now you have a list of all holidays, 

appointments, and other events in your calendar. 

Right-click the Categories column header and 

choose Group By This Field. Right-click the heading 

“Categories: Holiday (### items)” and choose 

Delete from the menu. Now your holidays are gone! 

DAVID HEITBRINK and ROBERT RATTNER, 

on behalf of themselves and all similarly situated individuals, 

Plaintiffs, 

v. 

EMACHINES, INC. 

Defendant. 

To return to the normal calendar view, select 

View | Arrange By | Current View | Day/Week/Month 

from the menu. Now select Options from the Tools 

menu, click the Calendar Options button on the 

General tab, and click the Add Holidays button. Even 

though you deleted both sets of holidays, you’ll still 

get the “already installed” warning. Click Yes to proceed. 

Now you’re back to just one copy of each holiday 

in your Outlook calendar. � 

COURT OF COMMON PLEAS 

LUCAS COUNTY, OHIO 

Though it worked 

out fi ne in the movie, 

you don’t want to live 

through a dozen straight 

Groundhog Days. They’re 

easy enough to delete. 

TO: ALL OWNERS OF EMACHINES M5305, M5309, M5310, M5312 & M5313 SERIES NOTEBOOK COMPUTERS 

("M53XX SERIES"). 

YOU ARE HEREBY NOTIFIED that the parties in the above-captioned Class Action lawsuit have entered an agreement to settle this Class 

Action lawsuit. 

PLEASE BE FURTHER ADVISED that pursuant to an Order of the Lucas County, Ohio Court of Common Pleas, a hearing will be held before 

Judge Thomas Osowik, at the Lucas County Court of Common Pleas, located at 700 Adams St., Toledo, Ohio, on August 24, 2006 at 

9:00 a.m., for the purpose of determining (1) whether the proposed settlement of the Class Action under the terms set out in the 

Settlement Agreement on file with the Court, should be approved by the Court as fair, reasonable and adequate; (2) whether the Class 

Action should be dismissed on the merits and with prejudice as against Defendant eMachines, Inc., pursuant to the terms of the 

Settlement Agreement; (3) whether the Class as defined in the Settlement Agreement should be permanently certified; and (4) the 

reasonableness of the application of the Class Counsel for an award of attorneys' fees and/or reimbursement of costs and expenses incurred 

in connection with the Class Action and for an award to the Class Representatives for the services they have rendered in this Class Action. 

If you are an owner of an eMachines M53xx Series, your rights, including claims for damages relating to an overheating defect alleged to 

occur with the M53xx Series, may be affected by the settlement of the Class Action. If you have not received a detailed Notice of Proposed 

Class Action Settlement and Hearing on Proposed Settlement, you may view or download copies of said Notice from the following website: 

www.M53XXSeriesSettlement.com. You may also receive a copy of the Notice by sending a written request to: 

PLEASE DO NOT CONTACT THE COURT OR THE CLERK'S OFFICE 

Dated: May 12, 2006 

eMachines 

Class Action Claims Administrator 

PO Box 91146 

Seattle, WA 98111-9246 

Toll Free: 1-866-817-6513 

Case No. G-4801-CI-200501229 

Judge Thomas J. Osowik 

SUMMARY NOTICE OF PROPOSED CLASS ACTION 

SETTLEMENT AND HEARING ON PROPOSED SETTLEMENT 

Questions? Call 1-866-817-6513 www.M53XXSeriesSettlement.com

While Loyd Case is off in Redmond at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference 

getting the scoop on Vista and what’s coming next in PC hardware technology, 

our mobile devices lead analyst, Sascha Segan, has agreed to tackle a few 

cell-phone questions you recently tossed his way. 

THE TRUTH ABOUT UNLOCKED PHONES 

QA while back my girlfriend and I 

took a short trip to the U.K. We didn’t 

know how we’d call home at the time, 

so I asked my Cingular store rep about 

how I’d unlock my phone (a Motorola 

V551) to use across the pond. He said that unlocking 

any phone would disable it from doing 

NEED ANSWERS? 

ExtremeTech.com’s 

editor, Loyd Case, 

tackles your toughest 

hardware problems 

each issue. Send 

him yours at 

askloyd@ziffdavis.com 

The Sony Ericsson 

W800i is available 

only unlocked. 

anything on Cingular’s network besides making 

calls (no text, no Web, nada). It seems as if 

there’s a growing market for unlocked phones, 

which wouldn’t be the case if they were functiondefi 

cient. Was he full of it?—Mike Rickwald 

AWhat your clearly poorly informed Cingular 

rep told you is fl at-out false. Unlocking an existing 

Cingular phone won’t disable any of its 

Cingular features. It will continue to work just fi ne. 

The following paragraphs don’t affect your Cingular-branded 

V551, but, in case you get seduced 

by something you see in the U.K., you should know 

that if you buy an unlocked phone and bring it to 

the Cingular network, you’ll have to punch in some 

pretty arcane and complicated settings. The codes 

are freely available on the Web. Search on the phone 

name and the words “unlocked” and “setup.” For instance, 

go to Google and type in “RAZR unlocked 

setup.” The unlocked phones work fi ne, and Cingular 

as a company has no problem with your doing 

this. You’ll have Web and texting, no problem. 

Pretty much the only feature I can think of that 

wouldn’t work on a foreign phone you choose to 

bring to Cingular is the new Cingular Video service, 

because it requires an embedded software client 

that’s on only two phones right now. 

There is one big caveat about bringing unlocked 

phones over to Cingular. Cingular makes heavy use 

of both the 850-MHz and 1,900-MHz frequency 

bands, and many foreign phones lack 850, so they 

end up with lousy reception on Cingular. That’s 

one reason unlocked-phone aficionados prefer 

ASK LOYD HARDWARE 

T-Mobile: Its whole network is on 1,900, which is 

more popular in foreign phones than 850. 

One of my favorite phones is available only in an 

unlocked model, in fact: the Sony Ericsson W800i. 

You can read my gushy review of that phone at 

go.pcmag.com/w800i. 

To top it all off: Though you can buy unlocked 

phones for Cingular or T-Mobile pretty much anywhere 

(as long as they have the right bands), Sprint 

and Verizon will accept preapproved Sprint and 

Verizon phones only. So you could sell your Sprint 

phone on eBay to another Sprint customer but not 

to a Verizon customer. (You might be surprised 

how much you can get for your recent- model used 

phone. There are a lot of people out there who 

aren’t eligible for a new phone but want to upgrade.) 

You also can’t buy a foreign phone and activate 

it on Sprint or Verizon, except in very unusual 

circumstances. 

BETTER PHONES FOR METROPCS 

QI am going to buy cell-phone service from 

MetroPCS, but it doesn’t have a good 

selection of phones. Is it possible to buy 

an unlocked RAZR (or SLVR) and use it with my 

Metro PCS service?—Daniel Tate 

AMetroPCS is a CDMA carrier, so you cannot 

use GSM phones (such as the RAZR 

V3) on its service. Though in theory you 

could buy a CDMA V3c from Verizon or Alltel, 

MetroPCS would not permit you to activate it, or 

any other non-MetroPCS phone, on its network. 

(The company checks against a list of approved 

handset serial numbers.) 

The good news is that rumors abound that Metro- 

PCS itself has just started selling the RAZR V3c. 

ALBANIA! YOU BORDER ON THE 

ADRIATIC 

QI have an old BlackBerry with Rogers Wireless 

(in Canada), and I’m taking my mom to 

Albania in June. I am deaf, so I’m not looking 

for a voice phone, just e-mail. Will that work 

while I’m in Albania without much trouble? 

—Roy Hysen 

AUnfortunately, none of the Canadian carriers 

have data-roaming agreements in Albania. 

So you wouldn’t be able to get e-mail there 

on any Canadian phone. For voice calls, only Rogers 

and Fido (not Telus or Bell) phones would work, but 

the roaming rates in Albania are very, very high: $6 

to $7 per minute. Your best bet for e-mail in Albania 

is probably just to use cybercafés. � 


SMB BOOT CAMP 

Safety in Layers 

A successful antivirus strategy is one that stacks security. 


For more about smallbusiness 

issues, go to: 

go.pcmag.com/smb 


BY MATTHEW D. SARREL 

THE ANTIVIRUS FORCE FIELD 

THE WORLD WAS AT WAR IN 1918 WHEN 

the great Spanish influenza epidemic 

struck. As battles were fought in Europe, 

the flu conquered country after 

country, killing 50 to 100 million people 

in a year. It is estimated that more American servicemen 

died from the fl u in 1918 than in combat. Surely, 

this virus was one of humanity’s greatest enemies. 

Obviously, computer viruses aren’t nearly 

as tragic. But they’re called “viruses” for a reason. 

These small programs operate on the digital 

“molecular” level, and they can spread at an exponential 

rate. People render their systems contagious 

simply by opening an e-mail message, downloading 

an attachment, clicking on a pop-up ad, or even 

surfing to the wrong Web site (called a drive-by). 

The effects on your business can be serious: Viruses, 

Trojan horses, and worms can slow systems to 

a crawl, destroy data, and punch holes in your network. 

Successful vaccination starts with securing 

your network and educating your employees. 

A winning security strategy is to employ a concept 

called “defense in depth.” The basic idea is that 

the safest way to protect something is by wrapping 

it in multiple secure layers. It’s not enough to implement 

antivirus measures only at your gateway or at 

individual workstations. You must deploy multiple 

layers of security throughout your company, working 

from the outside in. 

�� 

�� 

�� 

�� 

�� 

�� 

�� 

�� 

�� 

�� 

�� 

�� 

�� 

�� 

�� 

�� 

�� 

The fi rst step is securing your gateway. A gateway 

antivirus product (often a security appliance) 

sits at the entrance to your network and inspects 

all traffi c entering or leaving it, quarantining suspicious 

fi les and stopping them before they reach 

your servers and workstations. 

Server antivirus products protect fi le, application, 

and e-mail servers. There are plenty of products 

in this class from vendors such as F-Secure, 

McAfee, Symantec, and Trend Micro. For the most 

part, protecting a fi le server is just like protecting a 

desktop; software inspects every fi le written to or 

read from the hard drive. 

E-mail antivirus is more sophisticated, scanning 

incoming and outgoing messages, detaching and 

scanning attachments, and then recombining everything 

and sending it on if it’s clean. If you’re running 

your own e-mail server, you’ll defi nitely want protection, 

since e-mail is the most widely used vector 

for spreading viruses. If you outsource your e-mail, 

then make sure your provider offers antivirus. 

The next step is securing individual workstations. 

Desktop antivirus programs inspect executable 

files and scan files when they are read 

from or written to the hard drive. Panda, McAfee, 

Symantec, and Trend Micro are some of the major 

players here. If you’re in a very small offi ce, you can 

install the software on each machine individually. 

But if you have more than ten desktops, consider a 

centrally managed solution. And make sure you (or 

your employees) run antivirus updates and Windows 

Update regularly. 

An important component that is often overlooked 

is installing antivirus software on any device 

that leaves the safety of your LAN, such as 

laptops, PDAs, and cell phones. McAfee, Symantec, 

F- Secure, Finjan, and Trend Micro now offer AV 

products for mobile devices. 

The final layer is preventing your employees 

from compromising all other layers with foolish 

habits. Teach your coworkers to think before they 

click. Forbid them to download programs and attachments 

from unknown sources. Make sure that 

Macro Virus Protection is enabled in all Microsoft 

apps, and never run a macro in a document unless 

you know what it does. Such measures will protect 

your business from attack. 

Matthew D. Sarrel is a consultant and former technical 

director of PC Magazine Labs.

SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS 

Manage the Family Calendar 

E 

VERY BUSY COUPLE AND FAMILY I KNOW HAS TROUBLE COORDINATING 

calendars. Over the years, I’ve seen plenty of attempts at solutions, 

but most want me to use them exclusively, which doesn’t make 

sense for my family. I have everything in my corporate Micro soft 

Exchange account, and my wife keeps her calendar on her Palm. 

I’ve looked at other calendars, such as Google Calendar, Microsoft Hotmail’s 

calendar, 30Boxes, and Yahoo! Calendar, and the best shared calendar 

I’ve found—that acknowledges the need to manage my business and personal 

life together—is a free Web-based service from a start-up called AirSet. Air- 

Set’s desktop sync tool works with both Outlook and Palm’s HotSync. 

Once data is uploaded, you can view it in a browser and easily add and 

modify events. You can then create groups—family, work, or any other organization—and 

invite others to join. Group calendars can be public or private, 

and there’s a public directory of hundreds of calendars that you can overlay 

on top of your calendar. 

Making shared calendaring work was the toughest nut to crack, but Air- 

Set has loads of other useful features. You can sync your contacts, create 

group lists (such as a grocery list), maintain a personal or group blog, and 

store favorite Web links. 

I’ve been using AirSet for several months. It’s the best solution yet to fi guring 

out what everyone in the family is up to.—Ben Z. Gottesman 

MANAGE 

MULTIPLE 

CALENDARS 

You can overlay 

and color-code 

calendars and 

easily see what 

everyone is doing. 

Not just 

for 

calendars! 

CREATE EVENTS 

You can decide 

which calendar 

an event will 

appear on, and 

who will attend. 

You also can set 

up recurring appointments, 

link 

to Google Maps, 

and set a variety 

of other options. 


SUBSCRIBE 

Anyone can create a public calendar that you 

can integrate or overlay with your calendars. 

PHONE IT IN 

AirSet hopes to make 

money through subscriptions 

to its premium 

mobile service. You 

can access and edit all 

of your AirSet data on 

many Verizon Wireless 

phones for $6.49 a 

month. The mobile app 

is very snappy. AirSet 

says it’s developing a 

J2ME client that will 

run on some other carriers’ 

phones.

Defending Your Identity 

Hardly a week goes by without companies and universities losing 

digital identities. What can be done? 

BY ROBERT LEMOS 

IDENTITY THEFT IS A BOOMING 

business, and not just for the criminals. 

We frequently hear news of 

companies and universities losing 

digital information for large numbers 

of consumers. In April, for example, the 

University of Texas at Austin warned that 

a hacker had breached a system at the UT 

business school, downloading personal data—in 

many cases including Social Security 

numbers—on 197,000 students, alumni, and 

employees. And the state of Ohio recalled 

CDs containing information on 7.7 million 

voters from more than 20 political campaign 

offi ces after it discovered that the discs included 

the voters’ Social Security numbers, 

the key to consumers’ fi nancial accounts. 

When such institutions are so careless 

with personal information, it’s no wonder that identity 

theft is a relatively common occurrence. By far 

the greatest share—about 37 percent—of the fraud 

complaints that the Federal Trade Commission 

received in 2005 was due to identity theft. A 2005 

study from Javelin Research pegged the total loss to 

U.S. businesses and consumers at $52.6 billion. Not 

all indicators are bad, however. Between 2004 and 

2005, the estimated number of victims of identity 

theft in the U.S. decreased from 10.1 million to 9.3 

million. The average time to resolve identity theft 

also dropped 15 percent, to 28 hours. 

Despite threats of phishing, stolen databases, 

and other online fraud, most people become victims 

via off-line methods. According to the Javelin study, 

only 11.6 percent of identity theft occurred online. 

Users who monitored their accounts online suffered 

an average of $451 in losses, far less than the average 

of $4,543 for cases detected by paper statements. 

Unfortunately, the law does not give consumers 

much control. Correcting mistakes in a credit report 

can take days, if not weeks or months. And though in 

2003 Congress passed the Fair and Accurate Credit 

Transactions Act (FACTA), which allows consumers 

annual access to their credit reports, the law bars 

states from adopting stronger consumer protections 

and requires a police report before a long-term fraud 

alert may be placed on a credit account. 

Credit-card companies and credit bureaus have 

created a variety of Internet solutions to help con- 

SCORING YOUR CREDIT Identity-protection sites generally 

show a credit score, its factors, and data on open accounts. 

sumers. But some of these companies are responsible 

for the poor security of people’s fi nancial records 

in the fi rst place. 

Other services have popped up to add security 

to the credit-approval process. LifeLock puts fraud 

alerts on accounts to block credit offers and unsolicited 

access to credit information. And a startup, 

Debix, is testing a service that attempts to lock 

access to a person’s account, requiring a one-time 

key for any company or person to open a new credit 

account in the owner’s name. 

For you, one of these services may be overkill. So 

a good place to start is to get a free credit report and 

check it over carefully. From there you can decide 

whether you need one of the monitoring or creditsecurity 

services in the sidebar on this page. 

Since the majority of identity theft still takes 

place outside cyberspace, don’t just toss old bills, 

bank statements, and fi nancial records. Invest in a 

paper shredder and use it. Don’t carry your Social 

Security card in your wallet, and when registering 

for Web sites don’t enter personal information that 

can be traced to fi nancial records. And you should 

never give any information to telemarketers or respond 

to phishing e-mails that spoof sites such as 

PayPal asking you to update your account information. 

Consumers and businesses must work in tandem 

to prevent identity theft. 

Robert Lemos is a freelance technology journalist and 

the editor-at-large for SecurityFocus. 

SECURITY WATCH 

SECURITY 

BLANKETS 

AnnualCreditReport.com 

www.annualcredit 

report.com 

Industry-created site 

that helps consumers 

get annual credit reports 

from the three major 

credit bureaus. Free. 

IdentityGuard 

identityguard.com 

Quarterly access to 

reports; daily notifi cation 

of changes by e-mail; 

monitoring credit card 

accounts; $20,000 in 

insurance. $12.99 per 

month. 

LifeLock 

www.lifelock.com 

Annual access to four 

different credit reports; 

removes consumers 

from junk-mail lists and 

preapproved credit-card 

lists; monitors checking 

accounts; $1 million in 

insurance. $10 per month, 

$110 per year. 

MyFICO Identity Theft 

Security (FairIsaac) 

www.myfi co.com/ 

Products/IDF/ 

Description.aspx 

Quarterly credit reports 

from TransUnion; weekly 

notifi cations of changes; 

$25,000 in insurance. 

$4.95 per month, $49.95 

per year. 

KEEP YOURSELF 

SAFE! 

Subscribe to our 

Security Watch 

newsletter and get 

up-to-date info on 

the latest threats 

delivered to your 

inbox automatically: 

go.pcmag.com/ 

securitywatchletter 


Search and You Shall Find 

FOR MORE THAN A DECADE, MICROSOFT HAS TRIED TO GIVE US A 

better way to store and access data. As far back as 1991 there was 

“Cairo,” with its object fi le system, and back when Vista was still 

known by the code name “Longhorn,” there was WinFS (Windows 

Future Storage). Cairo never shipped, and WinFS was cut 

from the OS (though it’s now in beta and will presumably ship, separately, at 

some point). Now Vista is on its way, without WinFS but with search capabilities 

meant to make fi nding data much easier nonetheless. 

In the meantime, many of us have turned to tools such as Google Desktop 

Search, X1, or Microsoft’s own Desktop Search. Vista offers two advantages 

over downloadable tools like these. It moves further toward making search 

a pervasive part of the computing experience, and will make desktop search 

mainstream for users who wouldn’t bother to download an additional app. 

The Start-menu search box also lets you kick off a Web search, though 

I don’t fi nd this feature compelling—it’s not incremental, of course; and 

when I want to search the Web, I refl exively launch or switch to a browser. 

Although Vista’s advanced search features are incomplete and buggy in 

the releases I’ve tested so far, as a search addict I’m extremely eager to see 

how they turn out.—John Clyman 

YOU CAN’T MISS IT 

Even the Start menu incorporates a text search 

box: Click the Start button or press the Windows 

key and that box gets keyboard focus; as soon 

as you begin typing, the menu lists items that 

match the characters you’ve typed so far. These 

can include programs, but more important, they 

include documents, other fi les, and e-mails. Vista 

searches not just fi lenames but also text within 

documents, metadata (such as keywords) on 

fi les, and e-mail attachments. 

SEARCH EVERYWHERE 

When you’re browsing in Windows 

Explorer, you can begin typing in 

the “quick search” box to fi nd fi les 

within the current directory or 

its subdirectories. Windows Mail, 

Vista’s e-mail client—essentially 

an updated and renamed version 

of Outlook Express—also includes 

incremental search, as does Windows 

Media Player 11. So far, I really 

like all this search availability. 

Incremental search box 

VISTA REVEALED 

Build complex 

queries one 

clause at 

a time 

ADVANCED SEARCH 

Vista’s advanced search feature lets you build complex 

parametric queries one step at a time, and you 

can then save these searches to create virtual folders 

whose contents are determined dynamically. 

Search right from the Start menu . . .Vista fi nds matches . . . narrowing results as you type 

CAN’T GET 

ENOUGH VISTA? 

go.pcmag.com/vista 


GAMING + CULTURE 

The Oblivion of RPGs 


Get the inside scoop on 

the gaming world, as 

well as all the news and 

reviews you can sink your 

teeth into, at 

www.1up.com 


Can one very cool new game save a genre it 

helped bury? The jury is still out. 

BY PATRICK JOYNT, 1UP.COM 

THE SINGLE-PLAYER PC ROLE- PLAYING 

game (RPG) is a dying genre. Its 

last great chapter was late 2003’s 

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic— 

itself ported from a Microsoft 

Xbox game. And before that? 

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, released in 

mid-2002. Just a few years ago, the format seemed 

healthy and vital. Planescape: Torment, Baldur’s 

Gate and Diablo (and their sequels), and 1996’s innovative 

The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall were all 

fi rst-rate games that didn’t need multiplayer status 

to make them fun and addictive. 

Clearly, the rise of the Internet has savaged the 

single-player RPG. This makes The Elder Scrolls 

IV: Oblivion (from Bethesda Softworks), the newest 

chapter in the Elder Scrolls series, a curious throwback 

to when the franchise was young. Morrowind 

led a lot of players to MMOGs, where they could experience 

the richness of a huge, open game world 

without having to play alone or wander lost. Is there 

a place for solo role-playing on the PC anymore? 

Arena, the first Elder Scrolls game, was developed 

to “re-create the pen-and-paper RPG experience” 

in Tamriel, a world created for a Dungeons 

& Dragons campaign by the design team. D&D is

the seminal tabletop RPG, a game that involves 

a few people sitting at a table, rolling dice. Everyone 

plays the role of his or her character aside from the 

“game master,” who plans and narrates everything 

else in the world. The game master (GM) is responsible 

for everything the players encounter, the 

dialog of every nonplayer 

character, and 

the combat tactics 

of each minion cut 

down or boss triumphantly 

defeated, all 

without any limits besides 

planning, imagination, 

and effort. 

The PC singleplayer 

RPG grew 

from efforts to recreate 

that wideopen 

feel, evolving 

from early classics 

such as Hero’s Quest (Quest for Glory) and Ultima. 

The fi eld has been largely defi ned by Western programmers; 

the most distinctive characteristic of 

Western RPGs is “open-ended game design,” or as 

the Elder Scrolls: Arena Web site puts it, the ability 

to “be who you want and do what you want.” Which, 

perhaps ironically, is one of the biggest reasons for 

the genre’s slow decline. 

The Japanese RPG market has always been 

console-focused, and it has aimed primarily to keep 

players on a single path. By the time Final Fantasy 

VII for the Sony PlayStation came around, Japanese 

console RPGs were approaching the sheer complexity 

of their PC contemporaries like Daggerfall. But 

much of that complexity was based on exploring a 

world where events moved around the characters. 

Japanese RPGs rarely try to give players the feeling 

of being one of the gang at a D&D game; they try to 

create the feeling of being the game master, guiding 

powerful characters and exploring foreign worlds. 

Does Oblivion matter? It nods to the changes 

in the market since the release of Morrowind, but 

it’s still a gloriously 

open-ended singleplayer 

RPG that may 

well offer the most 

robust experience 

available on the PC 

(especially with all 

its construction tools 

and mods). Why 

has Bethesda put in 

years of effort, tons 

of money, and all of 

its skill to re-enter a 

market dominated 

by MMOGs? Is there 

still a point—financial or creative—to making a 

huge single-player RPG? 

It’s feasible to spend weeks exploring Oblivion’s 

nooks and crannies—without waiting for a GM to fi x 

an issue or going through the same dungeon twice. 

There is an audience for smart, huge, and very freeform 

single-player RPGs, but Oblivion might be the 

genre’s last gasp. 

Western RPGs focus on the characters; the world 

around them is a tool to let the player-as-character 

do and see more. Eastern RPGs focus on the events 

unfolding around the characters, and how the characters 

affect the world around them. Are enough 

people tired of running Molten Core or of getting a 

boot squad together to get their advanced job? Will 

they give a single-player game a chance? � 

AUCTION BLOCK MOD WORLD 

Corner Pocket PC Desk 

Where else would you 

put this but the corner? 

eBay price: $155.50 

Aluminum Laptop Bag 

Crumple it like a Coke 

can when you tire of it. 

eBay price: $19.95 

D&D Redux? The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion is designed to 

re create the pen-and-paper role-playing experience, letting 

you be whomever you want and do what you want. 

Apple Newton 120 

After all these years, it 

still looks like a bad idea. 

eBay price: $145 

LEGO artist Nathan 

Sawaya has built 

globes, monkeys, and 

even clothing out of 

the brightly colored 

plastic bricks. For this 

case, Sawaya used a 

custom glue solution 

to fi rm up the case, 

drilled holes for the 

motherboard standoffs 

directly into the LEGO 

bricks, and fashioned 

special cages for the 

optical and hard drives. 

Congratulations to 

contest winner Carl 

Coppin, who plans 

a LEGO PC party to 

show off this prize to 

his friends. 

—Jeremy A. Kaplan 

TOP10 

MOST POPULAR 

PS2 GAMES 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

Final Fantasy X 

The demo version is 

causing a buzz. 

Okami A wolf 

travels through 

Japanese myths. 

God of War II 

Sequel to Sony’s 

acclaimed action 

game. 

Tomb Raider: 

Legend Lara Croft 

in a series reinvention. 

Kingdom Hearts 

ll Sora, Donald, and 

Goofy—another 

quest. 

Guitar Hero 2 

The sequel’s coming. 

Rock on! 

Rogue Galaxy 

New RPG from the 

makers of Dark 

Cloud. 

Samurai Champ 

Samurai culture 

meets hip-hop. 

Steambot Chronicles 

The Trotmobile 

cruises the future. 

MGS3: Subsistence 

The third 

Metal Gear—playable 

online. 

Source: 1Up.com. Ranked 

by online buzz. 


3D TOUCH CONTROLLER 

GEARLOG 

FORCE-FEEDBACK GAME CONTROLLERS ARE NOTHING NEW, BUT 

we’re smitten with the Novint Falcon (www.novint.com), which 

gives you a fully three-dimensional touch experience. It was one 

of the hits at the recent E3 show in Los Angeles and will go on sale 

in a matter of months for under $100. 

You use the Falcon by moving its handle left, right, forward, 

backward, or up and down. Its grip is interchangeable and comes in several 

shapes and forms (we’re fond of the knob, pictured), with a quick disconnect 

feature that lets you choose the best handle for any particular game. 

As the Falcon’s handle is moved, the computer keeps track of a 3D cursor. 

When the cursor touches a virtual object, the Falcon registers the contact and 

updates currents to motors in the device, creating an appropriate force to the 

handle, which you then feel. 

It rocks! Novint is working with several game developers who will support 

the Falcon, and it will ship with a collection of games.—Sebastian Rupley 

Swap the 

knob grip 

for handles 

with other 

shapes 


$29.99 buys you 

Adesso’s Fold 2000 

fl exible keyboard—water 

resistant and washable. 

Want to know more? Visit 

www.gearlog.com 


JOHN C. DVORAK 

We are living in the Golden Age of the Internet. Enjoy it while you can. 


Can’t get enough 

Dvorak? A new rant 

goes up every Monday at 

go.pcmag.com/dvorak 

You can e-mail him 

directly at pcmag@ 

dvorak.org 


OW MANY PEOPLE REALIZE 

that we’re living in a golden 

age, the Golden Age of the 

Internet? It won’t last; golden 

ages never do. Some of it will 

remain, but there’s evidence 

that much of it is headed for 

the trash heap of history. 

Radio days. The golden age of radio lasted from 

about 1930 to 1950. It was nothing like radio today. 

Money was thrown at it. Thousands of great dramas 

and variety shows were made. Huge news organizations 

were built. Today, radio consists of rightwingers 

ranting about liberals, psychologists analyzing 

moaners-and-groaners, and mediocre music 

from CDs. We do get all-news stations with erroneous 

traffi c reports, and public broadcasting stations 

with thoughtful shows on fascinating topics like the 

art of Gebel Barkel from the fi rst millennium BC. 

Every new technology that widely affects society 

has a golden age, and we give things a lot of slack. 

Porn on the Net symbolizes this leeway. But so do 

podcasting, blogging, free video servers, chat rooms, 

P2P, free e-mail, and other fl ourishing services. 

A proprietary, closed Net is coming. A golden 

age ends either when something new comes along 

(as with radio’s golden age, killed by the advent of 

TV), the government gets involved, or entropy sets 

in—usually a mix of these elements. In the case of 

the Internet, we are already seeing a combination 

of government, carrier, and business interactions 

that will eventually turn the Net into a restricted 

and somewhat proprietary network, with much of 

its content restricted or blocked. Only a diligent few 

will actually have access to the restricted data, and 

in some parts of the world even trying to view the 

restricted information on the Net will be a crime. 

It’s already a crime to post intellectual discussions 

about copy-protection schemes that are protected 

by the DMCA. If the American public tolerates 

that sort of onerous restriction, then it will 

tolerate anything. 

Filtering and blacklists now common. Most 

U.S. government agencies now use fi ltering 

mechanisms to keep their own computers 

from accessing blacklisted Web sites. Third 

parties maintain these blacklists, and they put whatever 

they want on the lists. For example, my blog was 

blacklisted for a while, with no explanation. 

Most companies go much further and carefully 

monitor all network traffi c. They can then pinpoint 

the use of streaming media and other verboten uses 

of corporate computers and simply block such usages 

and blacklist the sites involved. 

Even e-mail is lost in the shuffl e. The New York 

Times has a system in place that prevents certain 

press releases from getting to the reporters. 

Blame spam and porn. Spam, porn, and other 

forms of questionable content are the reasons for fi ltering 

and blacklisting. But increasingly, content that 

mentions birth control or evolution is blocked. Nazi 

memorabilia sales and hate sites are also banned. It 

is folly to think that any government, no matter how 

progressive, won’t be tempted to choke off certain 

content of which it does not approve. 

This sort of intervention becomes ever easier 

with the consolidation of the Internet. It’s all headed 

to AT&T and Comcast. AT&T has already sold 

the public down the river by turning over phone 

records to the government without blinking an eye. 

Ask it to fi lter Google results? No problemo! 

Is there anything the public can do about this? 

Yes—enjoy the Golden Age, while you can. � 

Illustration by Zohar Lazar

PC Magazine - July 6 2006 - Changing Education Paradigm

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?