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Tech Products: Revolting but Not Rebelling IT’S A STAPLE of science fiction: Technology keeps getting smarter, adding capabilities, and making our lives easier. Then one day—blam!—our creations turn on us, and we’re looking at a computer rebellion. Think Blade Runner, 2001 (remember HAL, the supercomputer with issues?), Battlestar Galactica, and more. There was even a book in 2005 with the intriguing title How to Survive a Robot Uprising: Tips on Defending Yourself Against the Coming Rebellion. My advice: Relax. Humanity is safe, at least for the foreseeable future. You see, science fiction got it wrong. Despite decades of research and development, our state-of-the-art technology too often fails to work as it should. That’s why I have to reboot my Wi-Firouter at least once a week; why my fingerprintrecognition pad periodically…

NOW THAT camera makers have announced their early-2010 point-and-shoots, it’s time to examine common themes. (For a deeper look at these trends and others, see find.pcworld.com/69377.) Sharing and More As in years past, a few new models will let you share photos wirelessly; Samsung’s CL80, for example, supports Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. New sharing features aren’t limited to Wi-Fi connectivity, however. The $350 Kodak Slice packs a 2GB internal flash drive and a huge, vivid 3.5-inch touchscreen that lets you tag images for upload to Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, or Kodak Gallery. Sony’s TransferJet technology lets you transmit photos between compatible devices simply by holding them next to one another. Two Sony Cyber-shot cameras will have it; you’ll also need a special TransferJet Memory Stick. Pocket megazooms will do more. Casio’s Exilim…

3D Blu-ray: Do You Need to Upgrade Your Gear? IN DECEMBER THE Blu-ray Disc Association announced that the codec for creating full 1080p 3D Blu-ray content was set. (For a complete analysis of the 3D trend, see “3D Comes Home” on page 12.) Does this news mean that you’ll need to upgrade your gear immediately to experience the benefits? Not necessarily. The 3D specification for Blu-ray will use Multiview Video Coding, a variant of the H.264 HD codec, for the enhanced visuals. MVC will present separate 1080p pictures to each eye, yet it will take up only 50 percent more space on a disc. Though you will still need to use polarized 3D glasses to see the effect, the experience should be close to that of a theatrical 3D movie…

IF YOU HAVE a Facebook account, you’re probably familiar with Zynga games like Farmville and Mafi a Wars. Your live feed may be clogged with updates from friends participating in the games, or you may try to make the workday go faster by playing them yourself. They seem harmless enough—but Tech-Crunch.com has unearthed a video of Zynga CEO Mark Pincus saying the company “did every horrible thing in the book” to make money off of players. What “horrible” things are players susceptible to? In the video, Pincus says the company offered players extra chips in an online poker game if they installed a toolbar that was impossible to remove—a revenuegenerating tactic that is not uncommon in this gaming world. Zynga is hardly the only offender. Progress in these games depends…

WSUS 3.0 SP2: Easy Patch Management MICROSOFT HAS released Windows Server Update Service 3.0 SP2 as a means to centrally download updates and control how they deploy to the computers on your network. WSUS also offers reporting features to give you a snapshot of computers’ status. If your network is big enough to have a server and use Active Directory, it can benefit from using WSUS. The prerequisites are a server running Windows Server 2003 SP1 or greater, IIS 6.0 or greater. Net 2.0 framework, and Report Viewer 2008 Redistributable 2008. If you run SQL server 2005 SP2 or greater, you can use that; otherwise the Windows Internal Database will install automatically. Consult the WSUS 3.0 SP2 release notes (find.pcworld.com/64282) for detailed requirements. Installation and Configuration Download the appropriate version…

Adobe Reader, Acrobat Come Under Fire ADOBE PRODUCT security took another hit recently when reports surfaced of a zero-day attack against a critical vulnerability in the ubiquitous Adobe Reader. The flaw affects both Reader and Acrobat on all platforms, and lets an attacker install malware on your PC if you open a malicious PDF file using version 9.2 or earlier of either app. Small-scale, targeted attacks have already occurred in the wild. By the time you read this, Adobe should have a patch out. Select Help¨Check for Updates to get it; and see Adobe’s security bulletin at find.pcworld.com/64349. Adobe’s Illustrator has another critical flaw that remains to be fixed. Opening a tainted EPS file could trigger an attack if you have Illustrator CS4 version 14.0.0, or Illustrator CS3 version 13.0.3…

PICK OF THE PICOS: 3M’s sharp MPro120 (top), Optoma’s PK102 (middle), and Aaxa’s P2 finished 1-2-3 in our projector rankings. THOUGH DESIGNED chiefly to display video or photos, so-called pico projectors have also attracted users who want to do impromptu presentations for small audiences. Until recently, these gadgets lacked adequate brightness and image quality for formal business use. But the latest models have more illuminating power, better image quality, and more features—so they’re getting respect as business tools. To see how well pico projectors work, we compared the performance, features, and usability of seven of the latest models we could find. We judged each model on its display of text, still images, animated presentations, videos, and DVD movies. The devices we tested use light-emitting diode (LED) illumination and one of…

MODEL: 1. Canon Pixma MX7600 $400 find.pcworld.com/60874 Rating: 4.0/5.0 VERY GOOD Performance: • Text quality: Superior • Graphics quality: Superior • Tested speed: 7.2 ppm text/3.7 ppm graphics Features and specifications: • 28 ppm text • 23 ppm graphics • 4800-by-1200-dpi maximum true color resolution Good speed, great print quality, and features galore make this printer worth its fairly high price; its feature set lacks only Wi-Fi. MODEL: 2. BEST BUY HP Photosmart Plus All-in-One $149 find.pcworld.com/63563 Rating: 4.0/5.0 VERY GOOD Performance: • Text quality: Very Good • Graphics quality: Very Good • Tested speed: 8.9 ppm text/4.0 ppm graphics Features and specifications: • 30 ppm text • 28 ppm graphics • 4800-by-1200-dpi maximum true color resolution A true bargain, the Photosmart Plus offers impressive speed and print quality for…

MODEL: 1. Motorola Droid $200 NEW find.pcworld.com/64263 Rating: 4.5/5.0 SUPERIOR Features and specifications: • Carrier: Verizon • Form factor: Slide • Weight: 6.0 ounces • Camera resolution: 5.0 megapixels Performance: • Solid construction • Keyboard is a bit shallow • Superb suite of video and audio features The first Android 2.0 phone has a strong suite of Web features and a stunning 3.7-inch display; the shallow keyboard may irk some users. MODEL: 2. Apple iPhone 3GS $300 find.pcworld.com/63910 Rating: 4.5/5.0 SUPERIOR Features and specifications: • Carrier: AT&T • Form factor: Candy bar • Weight: 4.8 ounces • Camera resolution: 3.0 megapixels Performance: • Sophisticated design • Extremely responsive touchscreen • Excellent video and music playback and features Performance enhancements distinguish the iPhone 3GS—an otherwise evolutionary step up—from its previous iterations.…

IF YOU’RE SHOPPING for a megazoom camera, the $400 Canon PowerShot SX20 IS should be near the top of your list. It has a massive 20X-optical-zoom lens, a 12.1-megapixel sensor, 720p HD video shooting, ISO equivalency settings up to 3200, and a flip-out LCD. The 20X zoom ranges from a slightly wide-angle 28mm to a deep 560mm telephoto. You also get a complete set of exposure options, including full auto, program mode, aperture priority, shutter priority, manual, and more than a dozen scene modes. For video, it has a dedicated record button. You can trim the video’s start and end points in-camera, and the included HDMI port lets you play the video on a TV. In PCWorld Labs tests, it earned a score of Superior, showing excellence in overall image…

MUVEE’S REVEAL 8 ($80) is the easiest movie production tool I’ve ever used. It doesn’t provide the granular control that pros (and aspiring pros) desire, but it has more functions than a first glance suggests. For anyone who wants to make something goodlooking in a hurry, it’s more than powerful enough. By default, the clean main screen limits you to choosing and setting the order of photos and video, picking a style, adding music, and previewing the results. You can reach simple editing functions by right-clicking on individual media. The styles are the key: Using one of ten stylistic templates, Reveal 8 assembles your components into a cohesive production. In the settings you can record narration, type in credits, and provide a logo that will appear as a watermark. Most…

THE HAIER SPORT Video HHS1A-2G MP3 Player is a smooth, water-resistant device with a 2GB capacity and nifty features for workoutaholics. It’s lightweight, with cool features such as a pedometer, a stopwatch, and video playback (though watching video on its tiny screen seems a bit pointless). The HHS1A-2G could be slippery when the going gets sweaty, so the accompany ing armband is a plus. The player is about 2 inches high by 1 inch wide; the 128-by-64-pixel OLED screen is about 1 inch (measured diagonally). Controls are fairly intuitive. USB and headphone jacks are at the bottom. The smooth buttons were sometimes a bit hard to press, especially during a workout. Audio sounded good over the included in-ear headphones. You can add songs by dragging and dropping them in Windows…

11 Hidden Security Threats DO YOU KNOW HOW TO GUARD AGAINST SCAREWARE? How about Trojan horse text messages? Or social network data harvesting? Malicious hackers are a resourceful bunch, and their methods continually evolve to target the ways we use our computers now. New attack techniques allow bad guys to stay one step ahead of security software and to get the better of even cautious and well-informed PC users. Don’t let that happen to you. Read on for descriptions of 11 of the most recent and most malignant security threats, as well as our complete advice on how to halt them in their tracks. Shortened URLs Most tweets, and lots of other electronic messages, include links that have been shortened by services such as Bit.ly, Tr.im, and Goo.gl. The URL…

WINDOWS 7’S NEW Homegroups feature simplifies sharing files and printers on a network, by letting you connect to files and printers with a group password—but only if all of the PCs have Windows 7. I’ll explain how to get a Windows 7 PC to play nicely on a network with Macs and XP/Vista PCs. Set Up Windows 7 to Share a Printer Windows can share a printer with other systems on your network, so everyone in the house or office can connect if your printer and PC are on. Here’s how to set it up in Windows 7. Open Devices and Printers from the Start menu, and double-click your printer. Choose Customize your printer, and click the Sharing tab in the next window. Select the Share this printer checkbox. Unless…

Social Separation According to British divorce lawyers, Facebook is cited in 20 percent of divorces. Maybe having the “poke” option right on the home page was a bad idea. 3D Fashion Manufacturers say 2010 will be the year of 3D TV. If that’s so, how come the 3D glasses look like they were made in 1958? Android Invasion AT&T announces five new Android phones coming to its network—or as iPhone users might say, five more ways to get lousy data service. Twits in Motion Ford’s Internet-connected dashboard will let you tweet while driving. Conveniently, “I got distracted and crashed the car” is well within Twitter’s character limit. PC Prices to Rise Gartner Research predicts that, after six years of declines, system prices will head north in 2010. That means a…

I presume David Coursey is not a Droid user [“Six Reasons to Not Like Google’s Nexus One,” find.pcworld.com/64326], or he would understand. Google’s Nexus One is the phone I really wanted—thin, with an AMOLED screen and Google’s Android OS. I have gotten so used to the keyboard that I am buying another Droid for my wife. TomMariner, PCWorld.com forums Windows 7 Too Expensive? I downloaded Windows 7 RC1 and am impressed by its general operation, but I see no advantage to many of the interface changes [“The State of Windows 7 Satisfaction,” Forward, February]. My primary objection to Windows 7 is cost. I estimate that a permanent upgrade to Windows 7 would be approximately $700. That figure includes the cost not only of the operating system but also of upgrading…

MailBrowser: Xobni for Gmail Many Outlook junkies swear by Xobni, a service that keeps track of information about their contacts. If you use Gmail and want the same kind of data, MailBrowser is a great, free option. MailBrowser’s add-on works with Firefox and Internet Explorer on Windows PCs or Mac machines. Install it, and it indexes your Gmail messages. Afterward, when you open a Gmail message from a customer, for instance, the MailBrowser sidebar will show a list of your last few conversations with that person, how many messages you’ve traded, and all the attachments you’ve exchanged. MailBrowser will be even more useful when it pulls in information from Facebook and Twitter, something the company says it’s working on. mailbrowser.com Competitious: Keep an Eye on Your Rivals To succeed in…

HTC Nexus One Though the Nexus One ($179 with contract) is no more a “Google phone” than the HTC G1 is, it’s the best Android phone available today. And Google has done such a good job associating itself with the Nexus One in the minds of consumers and the media that the handset is bound to sell like hotcakes. (See our review on page 52.) Apple iPhone 4G? Rumors abound that the next iPhone—the “iPhone 4G,” as it’s being called—could appear as early as this spring. Speculative designs like this one by Isamu Sanada are showing up on the Internet as the pressure mounts for Apple to upgrade its hugely popular phone to better compete with new Android smartphones. Lenovo IdeaPad U1 The 3.8-pound IdeaPad U1 runs Windows 7 and…

OYS responds: Fischer filed a claim with PayPal, but the online payment service denied it, stating that “PayPal’s Buyer Complaint Policy applies to the shipment of goods but not to disputes about merchandise quality.” After we contacted File Den about Fischer’s problem, the company’s CEO told us that when customers cancel their subscriptions, File-Den doesn’t offer a refund for the remaining time unless the customer complains of a valid service problem (excessive downtime, for example) or requests a refund within 30 days of signing up. But as a goodwill gesture, he refunded Fischer’s subscription fee. It’s easy to forget about subscriptions that renew automatically. We recommend keeping track of renewal dates. A month before each date, consider whether to continue the subscription or to cancel it. If you decide to…

NORTH AMERICAN MATERIAL Trading Company, a metal trading and processing firm headquartered in Cleveland, recently acquired two manufacturing plants and opened an office in Tampa, Florida. Each location used a disconnected jumble of outdated equipment. The company suddenly had three stand-alone phone systems that barely worked and racked up unusually high bills. No central server existed, and the plants were using an unreliable hosted e-mail service. And none of the four locations had adequate network security. Strategic Approach NAMTC called on Voyant Technology to address these issues. After we performed a comprehensive technology audit in each location, we suggested a seamless, threefold solution: Establish systems to share data securely and enable better voice, e-mail, and data communications between all locations; provide equipment and processes to lower NAMTC’s overall telecom costs;…

MORE THAN 25 million new strains of malware were created last year, according to researchers at PandaLabs. As outlined in the security vendor’s Annual Malware Report, the number of new versions of malware identified far outstripped the 15 million that the company has previously identified over the course of its 20-year history. The PandaLabs report says that 66 percent of the new malware specimens the researchers identified consisted of banking Trojan horses. The next-mostpopular type was scareware (also known as fake antivirus software), which encourages Web users to voluntarily purchase and download hoax security software that serves no useful purpose. The security vendor predicts that the amount of malware in circulation will continue to grow during 2010. “Windows 7 will surely attract the interest of hackers when it comes to…

MODEL: 1. 3M MPro120 $350 find.pcworld.com/64365 Rating: 4.5/5.0 SUPERIOR Features and specifications1: • 5.6 ounces; 640 by 480 resolution • 12 lumens/20,000-hour LED light • Battery life: 120 to 240 minutes • Flexible tripod stand The sleek MPro 120 displays bright and sharp images, and its rechargeable battery lasts an exceptionally long time. MODEL: 2. BEST BUY Optoma PK102 $250 find.pcworld.com/64366 Rating: 4.0/5.0 VERY GOOD Features and specifications1: • 4.4 ounces; 480 by 320 resolution • 11 lumens/20,000-hour LED light • Battery life: 60 to 90 minutes • Built-in 4GB media player The tiny PK102 delivers vivid color images and handles stand-alone presentations through its built-in media player. MODEL: 3. Aaxa P2 $349 find.pcworld.com/64367 Rating: 4.0/5.0 VERY GOOD Features and specifications1: • 9.2 ounces; 800 by 600 resolution • 33…

THE BARNES & Noble Nook evokes images of curling up in a corner with a good book near a cozy fire. But not everything about this $259 e-book reader makes for a comfy reading experience. The Nook most directly competes with the Amazon Kindle 2. The two have similar size and pricing, and they offer direct-from-device wireless access to each bookseller’s e-book store. Despite its progressive design choices and clever navigation tools, the Nook feels like a first-generation product in need of further refinement down the road. An Innovative Touch The Nook’s most innovative feature is a touchscreen strip below the 6-inch E-Ink electronic paper display. It obviates the need for a keyboard, multipurpose buttons, or other navigational aids. The touchscreen also provides an on-screen keyboard for data input (such…

MEDIA PLAYERS that relay Internet video to TVs are increasingly common—but models that do it well and reliably over Wi-Fi to HDTVs are less so. That’s why the $130 Roku HD-XR is a gem: It delivers high-def content from several Net services. The 5-by-5-by-2-inch box supports 802.11n wireless on either the 2.4GHz band or the less interference-prone 5GHz band. It has HDMI, component, composite, S-Video, and stereo and optical audio outputs. I had no trouble putting it on my 5GHz 802.11n network and later on a 2.4GHz network. It also worked well over a wired HomePlug AV powerline switch. Once the network is running, you can set up accounts on supported services, via an Internet-connected PC. With new units, you first set up a Roku Channel Store account. Older units,…

SYMANTEC’S $60 Norton Ghost 15 substantially improves one of the most capable disk-imaging programs on the market. It’s a powerful tool for anyone serious about backup and recovery. For the average user, Windows 7 support, Blu-ray disc burning, and a feature called “cold imaging” are the most intriguing new features. Though most imaging apps have offered cold imaging—the ability to create a backup image using the recovery CD—for years, it’s certainly a welcome addition here. Ghost 15’s version, which copies only entire partitions, performed quickly and perfectly in my tests. One notable annoyance: You must enter the program’s serial number each time you use the feature. Recovery doesn’t require the serial number. The only drawbacks of Ghost relate to using the Windows Preinstallation Environment (PE)–based recovery CD, which has some…

TAKE A SILENT, low-power desktop and stuff it with netbook parts, and what do you get? A nettop. These tiny PCs provide a fraction of a standard desktop system’s power at a fraction of its size and cost. We tested new nettops from Acer and Lenovo. We also tried an Asus all-in-one desktop that has netbook innards, including an Atom CPU and nVidia Ion integrated graphics. AspireRevo R3610 The $320 Acer AspireRevo R3610 is serviceable for Web browsing and e-mail. Blessed with a compact size, HDMI, 1080p video playback, and nVidia Ion graphics, it also has media-center potential. On HD video, Ion trumps typical integrated graphics from Intel. Streaming HD Web video was shaky until we installed the Flash Player 10.1 Beta, which beefs up playback by enlisting the help…

THE $150 ENERGIZER Energi To Go XP18000, developed in partnership with XPal, is an extremely handy battery pack. Some packs I’ve tried are too heavy or bulky; others are slim but limited in application. Measuring 7.1 by 2.9 by 0.9 inches, this 1.1-pound battery didn’t load me down. Its three output options can charge three devices (including a laptop) simultaneously, and you can charge the battery up to 500 times. It’s rated to provide 6 hours of capacity for a laptop, and 112 hours for a cell phone. Various charging tips and cables come with the battery. One frustration, however, is the absence of a tip guide; the XPal-branded manual provides no information on the tips. Th is battery pack is a good value—if a tip is available for your…

Every year, consumers purchase millions of computers and peripherals. And every year, millions of those devices break down. For anyone who plans to buy a piece of hardware, the overall reliability of a vendor’s products and the quality of its service are important considerations. Unfortunately, much of the information that people use in deciding which product to buy is fragmentary and anecdotal—not the kind of data you’d want to base a three-or four-figure decision on. To obtain some hard data about which vendors have done the best job over the past year, we recently polled approximately 45,000 visitors to PCWorld.com, asking them about the mechanical soundness of their tech products—laptop PCs, desktop PCs, HDTVs, digital cameras, and printers—and about the quality of the tech support they received when those products…

UNLIKE APPLE’S iPhone, Android is open source, fully customizable, and free from unexplained app rejections. Here are 36 ways to make the most of your Android phone. Some are specific to Android 2.0 or later, but most apply to any Androidbased device—no jailbreaking required. For more tips see find.pcworld.com/64291. Optimize Your Home Screen 1. Use screen space effectively with widgets—dynamic programs that operate on your home screen. Hold your finger on any open space, and then select Widgets from the pop-up menu. Widgets have many sizes and functions, so search the Android Market (www.android.com/market) to find what works for you. 2. Don’t want to hear an alert every time e-mail arrives? Open Gmail’s Settings menu and set its ringtone to Silent. You’ll still see new-message alerts in the notification panel…

One factor that might hold back 3D’s potential is the ‘dorky’ image of 3D glasses. Special glasses are a requirement for all variations of the active-shutter technology that television makers are using. The eyepiece design may vary, though. 3D IS BACK. And this time, it’s making a big statement. The concept isn’t new, of course—the first 3D motion picture dates back to the turn of the twentieth century. But a growing string of recent Hollywood releases, cemented by the runaway success of Avatar, has returned 3D to our cultural consciousness. For the first time, though, 3D is being positioned not just for theatrical and professional venues but also for homes. Few observers expect this sea change to happen overnight—but it is coming. The consumer electronics industry has been putting the…

SOME GADGETS LET you view Website content on a TV (see page 60 for a review of one such box). What has been missing is a convenient way to enjoy any media from your PC on your big screen. Intel’s new Wireless Display laptop CPUs can compress the PC display and stream it to a Netgear set-top box, the Push2TV (PVT 1000), that you connect to your TV via HDMI or component cables. If it works as advertised, you should be able to watch on your TV anything that you can view on your monitor or laptop. (IDG News has reported, however, that you’re not really supposed to use the Push2TV to view protected material.) Although the box employs 802.11n Wi-Fi, its streaming is designed to be less prone to…

AS THE POPULARITY of e-readers such as the Amazon Kindle continues to rise, so does the publishing industry’s worst nightmare: e-book piracy. Formerly limited to the efforts of a determined few willing to ferret out mostly nerdy textbook titles from the Internet’s dark alleys and read them on a PC, the problem is ballooning as e-readers gain popularity and the appetite for mainstream e-books grows, publishers say. “We are now seeing large volumes of e-books being pirated on everything from file-sharing networks to Websites,” says Ed McCoyd of the Association of American Publishers, a trade organization representing major U.S. book publishers. The year-to-year increase in illicitly available e-book titles is unknown, McCoyd says. Other publishers, such as Hachette Book Group, say that e-book piracy has grown “exponentially” over the past…

ACCORDING TO AN oft-quoted 2006 study by Web-usability expert Jakob Nielsen, 93 percent of Web users don’t look beyond the first page of search results. “Even though the specific percentages are a few years old,” Nielsen wrote recently in an e-mail, “the general conclusion definitely still holds.” With odds like that, it’s no wonder every business wants its site in the top ten results for relevant queries. Using legitimate, “white-hat” search engine optimization (SEO) techniques, a small business can greatly improve its chances. 1. Determine Priorities First, develop measurable goals and priorities, and plan to revise them periodically. Which products or services are most important to promote? What do you want your site visitors to do, buy, or learn? Next, decide how to measure success. Google Analytics (find.pcworld.com/64273), for example,…

EXPERTS AGREE THAT Windows 7 has enhanced security to ward off attacks on vulnerabilities in old software. But what if a money-minded online scammer can persuade you to download malware onto your PC? “Windows 7 is more secure, and upgrading to it is a big improvement,” says Chester Wisniewski, a senior security advisor with software-maker Sophos. “But it’s not going to stop malware in its tracks.” Exploits Take a Hit Digital crooks generally use two tactics to install malware on a PC. Exploits often take the form of a snippet of attack code hidden on a Web page—often a hacked-but-otherwisebenign site. When you browse the page, the exploit hunts for software flaws in Windows or in third-party programs such as Adobe Flash or QuickTime. If it finds one, the exploit…

Will Cloud Computing Kill Privacy? AS CLOUD COMPUTING speeds ahead, privacy protections are too often being left in the dust. Loosely defined, cloud computing involves programs or services that run on Internet servers. Despite the buzz surrounding it, the idea isn’t new—think Webmail. But huge benefits, such as being able to gain access to your data from anywhere and not having to worry about backups, have led more people to leap to the Internet to do everything from writing documents and watching movies to managing their businesses. Unfortunately, privacy is often still stuck at home. Behind the Times Archaic laws that focus on where your information is, rather than what it is, are part of the problem. But a disturbing lack of respect for essential privacy among industry heavyweights who…

THE EAGERLY awaited “Google phone” is finally here, but the HTC Nexus One ($180 with a two-year T-Mobile contract, or $530 unlocked) isn’t quite the superphone that Google intimated it would be. It lacks some valuable features—like multitouch and Outlook calendar syncing—that we’ve seen on competing models, and the Android keyboard can be hard to use. Even so, the speedy 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor does set the Nexus One apart from the Android pack. Despite issues with T-Mobile’s network, it is a very good handset and marks real progress for the Android platform. Design Is Solid Though the Nexus One’s hardware isn’t especially innovative, the phone is attractive (despite a drab two-tone gray color scheme) and is well built. Its rounded corners, solid-glass display, and rubberized back make it a…

ALL THREE OF the major e-readers—the Amazon Kindle, the Sony Reader Touch Edition, and the Barnes & Noble Nook—have 6-inch E-Ink displays, but their cases are substantially different. The Nook is a bit taller and wider than the Sony Touch Edition, and a tad smaller than the Kindle—and at 0.5 inch thick, it’s relatively chunky for this group. It’s also the least poshfeeling e-reader, being unapologetically en cased in plastic while both the Kindle and the Sony are partly clad in metal. For a more-detailed comparison of these e-readers’ specs, see the chart on the second page of find.pcworld.com/69379. —Harry McCracken…

WITH IMPRESSIVE specs, an attractive design, and a gorgeous 3.7-inch WVGA AMOLED touch display, the Samsung Omnia II ($200 with a two-year Verizon contract) is a head-turner. But its performance disappoints. Measuring 4.7 by 2.4 by 0.5 inches and weighing 4.8 ounces, the Omnia II sports rounded corners, brushedmetal details, and a smooth red-and-black back cover. It offers 8GB of internal memory and 16GB of expandable memory through a microSD card (sold separately). Call quality was consistently good—with little noise or distortion—over Verizon’s 3G network. I heard a faint hiss on just one call. The delay between my typing on the touchscreen keyboard and the appearance of text on screen was distracting. On the bright side, the Omnia II also has Swype technology, which lets you type faster with one…

TODAY’S DIGITAL cameras and scanners can capture an amazing array of colors, highlights, and shadows. Editing, however, reduces the amount of data to 8-bit or 16-bit, thereby losing much of the visual dynamics in the original pictures. That’s why HDR (high dynamic range) images have become more popular. And Unified Color Technologies’ HDR Photo-Studio, a $150 32-bit image editor, lets you tap the full potential of HDR images. Typically, you combine several captures of a scene, each taken at a different exposure, to obtain as much data as possible for the final merged result. HDR PhotoStudio can import RAW file formats, as well as TIFF and JPEG. Our merges did not automatically produce a beautiful image, but the program has nice tools for tweaking the color, exposure, and focus while…

PRICED AT $130, the View-Sonic VPD400 MovieBook HD media player is far more affordable than the $230, 16GB iPod Touch or the $200, 16GB Zune HD; but unlike them it lacks a touchscreen and Wi-Fi, and its design isn’t the slickest. Available in black, white, or pink, the plastic VPD400 sports a 4.3-inch display. All the playback and navigation controls sit at the top of the unit. The bottom spine houses the on/off switch. The left spine has the power-adapter port, a speaker, and a micro-SD card slot. The right edge has a 3.5mm headphone jack, an HDTV port, another speaker, a microphone, and the volume rocker. Navigation via the buttons is a bit tricky (there’s no fourway directional pad or touchwheel). Getting the hang of moving through the menu…

IF YOU WORK online, you expect it to be a private office—but bad guys can use sneaky Flash cookies to track your movements. Block them from almost any browser with a privacy utility. Another freebie lets you use the many tools of Google Docs from within Microsoft Office. And for protecting crucial and fast-changing files, try a continuous-backup tool. Cookienator This small, simple program hunts for cookies from wellknown Websites such as AOL, Google, and Yahoo. On startup, Cookienator reports how many tracking cookies it found in various browsers, including Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and Chrome (note that you may need to close all of your browsers before it will find cookies for each program). Cookienator also clears so-called Flash cookies. Though technically not cookies, these small files can be…

NETBOOKS VS. ULTRAPORTABLES TALE OF THE TAPE NETBOOKS BATTERY LIFE: superior (6 to 10 hours) WEIGHT: very small and light (under 4 pounds) COST: low ($300 to $500) PERFORMANCE: poor ULTRAPORTABLES BATTERY LIFE: good (4 to 6 hours) WEIGHT: lightweight (3 to 5 pounds) COST: varies ($500 to $1000) PERFORMANCE: mediocre Portability is crucial to a netbook. Small and light with super battery life, netbooks (like HP’s Mini 210 above, find.pcworld.com/69399) are meant to get you online when you’re on the go. Most have one of Intel’s Atom CPUs, which are more energy-efficient but far less powerful than the processors that larger laptops use. This is fine for checking e-mail, visiting Facebook, and tweaking business documents. Digital video and 3D gaming are not their forte. With diagonal screen sizes of…

Correct Common Windows Problems With One Click of a Button HAVE YOU EVER wished for a magic wand that could fix annoying Windows problems? Like, say, a missing Recycle Bin icon, or an excess of pesky Runtime Error messages in Internet Explorer? FixWin (find.pcworld.com/64320) is that magic wand. This ingenious free utility requires just over 500KB of space, runs without installation, and quickly fixes 50 different Windows glitches—many of which would normally require a scary trip to the Registry. The fixes fall into five categories: Windows Explorer, Internet & Connectivity, Windows Media, System Tools, and Additional Fixes. Each problem is presented with a brief but thorough description. For example: “CD drive or DVD drive is missing or is not recognized by Windows or other programs.” (Been there!) To correct a…