M A Y 2 0 0 7

V O L U M E 1 2 ◆ N U M B E R 1 1
W W W . P C W O R L D . I N

F E AT U R E S

M P 3 P L AY E R S

44 Music in a Flash
These feature packed entertainers give you a
reason to own an MP3 player. We compare
10 of the latest 2GB models from top brands
to help you choose the best.

OFFICE SUITE

70 Word 2007 Cheat Sheet

Microsoft Word 2007’s new interface is likely
to confound veteran Word users. Here’s
everything you need to know to make the
switch.

THEMES

77 Dress Up Your Desktop

Theme packages let you create a snazzy
workspace with matching wallpaper, screen
savers, cursors, icons, and sounds.

BUYERS GUIDE

81 Talented Performers
Advice for evaluating options before you
52
shop and select the best MFD that suits
your needs.

C OV E R S T O RY

O N TH E COVE R 52 BEST INDIAN

WEBSITES
14 Spoilt for choice, on what website
to choose? Our panel of 15 judges
evaluate more than 125 websites in
77
20 categories, to help you find your
44
way easier on the web. We evaluate
these websites on design,
52 navigation, functionality, usability
and their customization for India,
to declare the winners.
xxx 44

6 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N M AY 2 0 0 7 CONTENT PAGE
 R E V I E WS & R A N K I N G S D E PA R T M E N T S

28 Spacious Storage 10 Letters

Top storage brands wrestle it Readers share views on the latest technology
out to claim the best buy in 11 Up Front
the 320GB category. Human interaction has discovered Web 2.0
31 Music Phone 23 The Other Side
Sony Ericsson W880i Does our imagination stop us from exploiting
32 Video Card technology?
Asus EN8800GTS 320MB 24 Tech Tonic
33 Antispyware Utility 28 Vista has a rival out there. It’s XP
PC Tools Spyware Doctor 26 Bugs and Fixes
5.0 Beta An IE graphics flaw exposes your PC to danger.
34 Earphones 30 Hassle Free PC
Creative EP 630 A Microsoft security component proves flawed.
35 MFD 112 Full Disclosure
Canon Pixma MP510 Drowning in updates from chatterbox software.
36 LifeStyle PC
Sony Vaio VGC LA-38G
38 Budget Slider Phone
Samsung e250 N E WS & T R E N D S
42
14 Connect in Style
See page 28 for a complete list of Sandisk plays the Wi-Fi card, threatens to edge
products reviewed. out the iPod and Zune.
17 Windows Mobile 6: New E-mail Options
Microsoft’s forthcoming update of its operating
W H AT ’ S O N D V D system for handhelds has Office functions.
18 Tech innovations Fuel Low- Cost Laptops
Full Products Non-profit organization creates a tough,
Mandriva Linux Free 2007 simple and cheap notebook for kids in
East-Tec Backup Lite developing countries.
16 Google personal homepage gets sinkable.
Essentials-PC World Dynamic themes for Google personalized
Super Suite homepage.
Our Super Suite includes 20 Cool Gadgets
software for almost all 14 Latest products and gadgets in the global market.
tasks. Right from brows- 22 Plugged In
ers, office tools, codecs to Kodak’s cheaper ink; graphics cards outside the
system tools and patches, box; a Windows roadmap; Web 2.0 campagning.
you will find them all
here. This time we have
included Autopatcher for H E R E ’ S H OW
Windows Vista as well.
84 Online Storage Tips
Use online services to create automatic backups
Video Tutorials for Windows XP
of your files while you work on them as usual.
Learn how to enable hiber-
87 Windows Tips
nation, hide taskbar icons,
Encryption lets you keep your files truly private.
disable autorun for CD /
89 Hardware Tips
DVD drives and use mag-
84 Pump up PC graphics; see all your network data.
nifier tool and event viewer
90 Answer Line
in Windows XP
Manage your PC’s problem reports
to Redmond.

CONTENT PAGE M AY 2 0 0 7 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N 7
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8 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N M AY 2 0 0 7 CONTENT PAGE
 LETTERS
FEEDBACK DVD PROBLEMS
WORDS OF APPRECIATION
i am a reader of PC World and I respect
what you say in the column “New Tech
Products? They’re Evolutionary. I
congratulate you on having completely
analyzed Apple products to their
true value. It is true that the iPhone
has created much hype, but it really
isn’t a superior advancement; rather
a cocktail of an iPod and a mobile
phone (with, I assume, PDA features).
As you so rightly say, many mobile
phones already have these aforesaid
features, (and more) probably for the
same price. Personally, Apple products
do not appeal to me due to their high
prices and impracticality.
Nitin Malapally, By e-mail
i am a big fan of PC WORLD. In the
April month edition, you guys rock by
providing such a cool software bundle
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ACTION LINE
ON THE RIGHT TRACK
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i have been reading PC WORLD for a few months now and am impressed with
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good and bad parts. Keep it up.
10 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N M AY 2 0 0 7
LETTERS@PCWORLD.IN
TECH QUERIES
problem, I bought transcend 2 GB pen
drive. When I connected it to any of the
ports on my computer it is showing as
unknown device. Although I went to
device manager and uninstalled that
driver and chose for hardware changes
in action menu the problem persists.
However, it worked on my friends
system who is also running XP. What
do I do?
Vamsi Krishna , By e-mail
Editors Reply: Firstly, you should patch
your Windows XP with the latest serv-
ice pack to ensure maximum compat-
ibility with all USB devices. In case you
have a slightly older motherboard, the
USB 2.0 drivers might be required for
the USB 2.0 controller to work smooth-
ly. Download and install latest USB 2.0
drivers from the motherboard manu-
facturer’s website and then the drive
should be recognized as UMS (universal
mass storage) device.
TECH WOES
i have a problem in my PC , I played
IGI 2 last month without installing
antivirus program. But now I took
out IGI 2 from my PC and newly
installed Windows XP Prof. and also
installed Norton Antivirus 2005. After
newly installing Windows and Norton
Antivirus 2005 my problems are not
Akshya BS - By e-mail
CONTENT PAGE
solved. Problems are - it automatically
restart the PC while running any media
player like Window Media Player and
sometimes CPU fan is howling when
keys and mouse button are kept in
hold and sometimes it is silent. What
is the exact cause of these problems ?
Shur Chandra, By e-mail
Editors Reply: Going by the sequence
of event, in all probabilities your proc-
essor might be overheating or compo-
nents like the power supply or video
card might be faulty due to which the
PC restarts intermittently. We sug-
gest you first check the power supply
and the video card separately on other
computers. If these components are
fine, you processor could be over-heat-
ing. Reinstall the processor and fit the
cooler properly with a fresh applica-
tion of thermal paste and you should
be good to go.
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bundled on the dvd.
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Editors Reply: A ‘could not read from
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mydvd@pcworld.in

The Human Web
People are dictating the way the Net’s evolving, analysts be damned.
In the beginning was the browser. And, that browser was Mosaic.
Released 14 years back, this graphical browser was the original online
killer app. It fuelled both the consumer Internet revolution and the
browser wars that followed — both Internet Explorer and Netscape
Navigator drew inspiration
and code from it. Today, many
mouse clicks later, Microsoft,
Mozilla and other vendors
seem to have gotten out of the
one-upmanship game and
moved on to looking at the
browser as a platform for a
whole new generation of rich
Net applications.
It’s the debate about Web 2.0
technologies, that’s responsible
for this transformation. It’s
talk that’s filled with words
and phrases like mash-ups and
wikis and social networking
and user generated content.
And, yes, even blogs.
Web 2.0 is about collaboration. It’s
about creating a global online village one
hut at a time and getting you to bring
along the bricks.
While whether it’s going to work (i.e.
make a site some money) or not is one
of the commonest reasons for the debate,
there’s no disputing its disruptive nature.
It’s already got the entertainment gurus
in the US running scared. Research by
Accenture reveals that over half of them
believe that user generated content in
the form of amateur videos, podcasts,
and blogs are three of the biggest threats
ILLUSTRATION: MM SHANITH
they face. The study feels that the
entertainment industry’s key to keeping
the revenues flowing has to be getting
onto new forms of content in addition to
the more traditional streams.
HA
VRI JRY
AY MRcA
CMRAC
CKHEANN D R A N
And, surprise, surprise, the denizens
of the Net are making it easy for the
moguls of Hollywood. Take strong
community sites like YouTube or Flickr
or Wikipedia. While such sites have seen
traffic growing close to 700 percent over
the past two years, interactivity seems
to have taken a downward plunge. The
latest stats from the Internet traffic
researcher Hitwise states that only a
tiny fraction of users actually contribute
content to the sites.
How tiny you ask? Well, only 0.16
percent of YouTube’s users actually
uploads videos to the site. Similarly,
a mere 0.2 percent of Flickr visitors
u p l o a d p h o t o s . Wi k i p e d i a h a s i t
positively good with a tad over 4.5
percent of its visitors actually editing
or adding information.
CONTENT PAGE
Most visitors who click on to these sites
thus seem to be passive recipients of the
trivial details of other peoples’ lives.
So where’s the collaboration? That
fundamental aspect of Web 2.0?
I wonder, is that really that important?
Do all or large portion of users have
to generate content?
I believe the interaction of people
with these sites reveals more about
human nature than analysts and
gurus of the Net give them credit
for. After all, what’s so out of the
ordinary about a storyteller keeping
a campfire audience entranced 4,000
years ago or even the way we react to
reality TV. Don’t tell me you’ve never
eavesdropped on your neighbors.
The fact remains that millions
of people the world over find
reading other’s blogs and looking
at other’s pictures and videos
quite compelling. They’re only being
human in that.
The way they access information and
exchange notes is the only thing that’s
changed — podcasts are today’s radio,
streaming video, tomorrow’s TV and blogs,
the newspapers of this digital village.
It’s this changing landscape of the Net
that’s so fascinating. Sites that’ll keep you
informed, entertained, help get a job and
even married. We really are spoiled for choice
and levels of interaction. So we thought we’d
assist you by cutting through the clutter and
giving you the low down on the Indian sites
most useful to you. That’s what the cover
feature in this issue is all about (Page 52). Let
me know what you think about it.
Vijay Ramachandran is the Editor-in-Chief
of PC World. Send him your comments at
vijay_ramachandran@idgindia.com
M AY 2 0 0 7 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N 11
 NEWS & T REN DS
W H AT ’ S N E W A N D W H AT ’ S N E X T I N T E C H N O L O G Y
Connect In Style
SANDISK’S SANSA CONNECT WI-FI-ENABLED MEDIA PLAYER IS THE FIRST SIGNIFICANT RETHINKING OF
PORTABLE MEDIA PLAYERS AND THE PROCESS OF ACQUIRING DIGITAL MEDIA. BY DAVID HASKIN
in many ways, the 4GB Sansa
Connect surpasses the iPod.
For one thing, its bright and
simple interface is arguably,
more engaging than the
iPod’s. But its most notable
capability is the built-in Wi-
Fi, which is missing, so far, in
Apple’s offerings. Like the
iPod and the iTunes store,
Sansa Connect is tied to an
online media services and in
this case it’s the digital music
and image services offered by
Yahoo!. Those services allow
you to easily download music
from the Internet, listen to
Internet radio and view digi-
tal images stored online.
In other words, the Sansa
Connect dramatically increases
what you can do with your
media player and, for the first
time, highlights the potential of
subscription music services.
14 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N M AY 2 0 0 7
SUPERIOR
CONNECTIVITY OVER
ZUNE
to date, the highest visibil-
ity Wi-Fi-enabled media play-
er is Microsoft Corp.’s Zune,
CONTENT PAGE
INSIDE
16 PERSONALIZE GOOGLE
THEMES
17 NEW MAIL OPTIONS FROM
WINDOWS MOBILE 6.0
18 LOW COST LAPTOPS BENEFIT
FROM INNOVATIONS
ties only to temporarily share
music.
By contrast, the Sansa Con-
nect connects directly to
Yahoo!’s Internet-based music
and image services. If you
subscribe to Yahoo! Music
Unlimited, once you are con-
nected, you can find and
download individual tracks
and albums. You also can view
photos stored on Yahoo!’s
Flickr service. And it’s a rush
listening to streaming Inter-
net radio offered by Yahoo!’s
LAUNCHcast radio, which
offers about 150 streaming
stations, making SanDisk’s
ILLUSTRATION: BINESH SREEDHARAN
omission of an FM radio seem
but it’s wireless capabilities like a logical choice.
are stunted compared to the Sansa Connect also does
Sansa Connect. For one thing, music sharing far better than
Zunes can only connect with Zune. With Zune, you con-
other nearby Zunes, and users nect only to other Zune users
can use the wireless capabili- who are near enough to con-

nect directly via Wi-Fi. By con-
trast, Sansa Connect uses
Yahoo! Messenger to look for
friends who are connected
anywhere using a laptop or
desktop computer or another
Sansa Connect. You then can
see what music they are lis-
tening to and download —
from Yahoo! — songs they
recommend. Once download-
ed, you can listen to the music
all you want. Zune only allows
three plays before you must
purchase the song. Getting
connected is simple. Once
you are within range of a wire-
less network, you select an
online task from the menu,
such as looking at your imag-
es. After that, connecting
works, more or less, the same
as connecting to a
wireless network
with a laptop or
Zunes wireless capabilities
desktop computer.
If you need to enter a are stunted compared
password to log on to
the network, an on- to the Sansa Connect.
screen list of letters
and numbers appears and you
select digits and letters using
the device’s thumbwheel and
buttons. You use the same
method to log on to Yahoo!
While powerful and simple,
there are a few additions to the
wireless capabilities we’d like to
see. The most glaring omission
is that the Connect doesn’t yet
support the type of authentica-
tion needed to log on to public
Wi-Fi networks. That means
this device, which otherwise is
nearly the perfect toy for loung-
ing in Baristas and Coffee Days,
won’t work there.
THE INTERFACE
t h e m os t im m edi at e l y
noticeable things about the
interface are the bright, ani-
mated 3D icons with descrip-
tions below each one. These
icons are brighter and more
engaging than those used on
the iPod interface. SanDisk
clearly copped the Connect’s
navigation from the iPod. The
primary navigation tool is a
round, rubberized thumb-
wheel with a large button in
the middle. Pressing on the
left and right portions of the
thumbwheel moves you for-
ward and back; the bottom
portion is for playing and
pausing music and pressing
the top portion displays the
home screen.
On the home screen, you
scroll among the icons by
rotating the thumbwheel. The
icons rotate on-screen with
brief descriptions beneath
them. You select the function
you want by pressing the but-
ton in the middle of the
thumbwheel. As long as Sansa
was copying iPod’s time-prov-
en navigation tools, it would
have done well to enable
adjusting volume by rotating
the thumbwheel. Instead, it
has two buttons on the left
side of the device for volume.
This isn’t a huge problem, but
it’s easier to adjust volume
with the thumbwheel, and
that technique also simplifies
one-handed operation.
On the right side of the
device is a microSD slot for
adding more storage. That slot
could be useful because, curi-
ously, the device so far only
comes with a capacity of 4GB,
although Sansa is indicating it
will offer other capacities
before long. In the midst of an
CONTENT PAGE
N EWS & T R E NDS
activity, you select specific IN BRIEF
actions by pressing two but-
tons just below the display. On HTC ultramobile PC
the left is the Options button, to have Intel inside
which enables you to do things
like rate or delete a song or
album. On the right is the so-
called Zing button (Zing is the
company that masterminded
the user interface), which
enables you, for instance, to
download the entire album if
you’re listening to a specific XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
H i g h Te c h C o m p u t e r
track or automatically create a XXXXXXXXXXX
(HTC) plans to use Intel
mix of songs similar to the
microprocessors in its
one you’re listening to.
forthcoming Shift
ultramobile PC.
BIG AND BEAUTIFUL The news puts to rest
the device itself is made
speculation that the
of black plastic, which feels a
gadget would use a
bit flimsy and certainly isn’t
microprocessor from Via
as exciting as Apple’s iPod.
Technologies, and could be
And at about 2 inch-
a sign of renewed vigor for
es wide and 3.5
inches high, plus a
Intel in ultramobiles. Via
had been gaining traction
small stub antenna
on top, the Connect
in the area, with design
wins in several devices,
is significantly larg-
er than similarly-
including one from top-tier
vendor Samsung
spec’d 4GB devices.
Electronics in its Q1b.
In particular, it’s about twice
The Shift runs on Windows
as thick, about 10 percent per-
Vista and has a slide and
cent wider and slightly taller
flip 7-inch touch-screen
than the iPod nano. But, then,
that reveals a QWERTY-
you may like the reasons for
keyboard for easy typing. It
its size. For one thing, there’s
is also a 3G (third generation
the built-in Wi-Fi capabilities.
t e l e c o m m u n i c a t i o n s)
Second, it has a satisfyingly
mobile phone, and it can
bright 2.2-inch TFT color dis-
access the Internet
play that is significantly larger
wirelessly using HSDPA
than any other display we’ve
(High Speed Downlink
seen on a 4GB flash device.
Packet Access) as well as
Sansa Connect is a signifi-
WiFi. The Shift, which is due
cant step forward in terms of
before the end of the year,
usability and access to digital
will also come with a host of
music and images, for now
other features, including a
surpassing even the vaunted
30G byte hard drive for
iPod to become the most fun
holding songs, movies and
and flexible media player
other data.
we’ve seen. It also provides a
It will use the Intel Ultra
strong glimpse into the future
Mobile platform 2007
of digital media and how we’ll
aimed at extending battery
be able to access it from virtu-
life in small devices.
ally anywhere.
M AY 2 0 0 7 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N 15
 NEWS & T REN DS
SEARCH ENGINES
Google Themes Get Skinnable
USERS CAN PICK FROM SCENES SUCH AS A BEACH, BUS STOP OR A CITY.
when I think of Google, I
think of a site with a relent-
lessly consistent—and ulti-
mately mundane—look and
feel. Which is why a fairly
minor new Google feature—
dynamic themes for the Goog-
le Personalized Homepage—
is worthy of comment here.
The Google Personalized
Home Page, which is almost
two years old now, is among
Google’s most practical fea-
tures, especially now that you
can customize your home
page with thousands of use-
ful gadgets from Google and
third parties. But Google Per-
sonalized Homepages have
been pretty prosaic, visually
speaking—they’ve looked
very much like every other
Google service out there.
Dynamic themes change
that, but they’re as striking
for what they don’t do as what
they do. They have a remark-
ably modest effect on the
color scheme of your gadgets,
but that’s about it. Mostly,
what they do is add a custom-
izable graphical bar around
the Google log—a sort of off-
shoot and expansion of the
holiday logos that have been
part of Google ever since
there’s been a Google. In
other words, a themed
homepage has a dash more
personality than an unthemed
one, but both retain an essen-
tially Googley look and feel.
This is a modest launch in
other ways, too: There are a
grand total of six themes for
now, involving subject matter
like a Japanese garden, a city-
scape, and a bus stop.
16 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N M AY 2 0 0 7
The “dynamic” in these
dynamic themes means that
you should notice changes in
them from login to login. The
image you see might reflect
the time of day. Or maybe the
weather in your area. Or pos-
sibly other factors which might
lead to entertaining surprises.
The launch of dynamic
themes for Google’s Personal-
ized Homepage is as striking
for what it isn’t as for what it
THE NEW PERSONALIZED Google homapage adds a customizable
graphical bar around the Google logo.
is. For now, there are a grand
total of six themes. All the
ones I’ve seen look pretty slick
and tasteful; Google wants
them to be all about personali-
zation rather than, say, tying
into movie promotions. All in
all, they’re modest and mini-
malist in the way that new
Google features often are.
Can Web developers or
regular folks create these
dynamic themes? Well, maybe
eventually—technically, there’s
nothing standing in the way of
it being an open platform. But
for now, Google said , it wants to
keep things simple and limited.
CONTENT PAGE
IN BRIEF
HP aims to speed
business printing
So you’ll get the themes that
Google makes available. And
they’ll only appear if you have a
Google Account and customize
your Homepage—not in other
Google features such as Gmail.
Hewlett-Packard
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
has built
Little by little, Google seems
its Edgeline XXXXXXXXXXX
print head into
to be allowing customizable,
two new departmental
fancy-schmancy visuals to be
printers designed for print
part of its once relentlessly Spar-
volumes up to 50,000
tan world—I’m thinking also of
pages a month. The printers
the Google Desktop’s Sidebar,
offer the speed of laser
which has evolved from a plain-
printing with the color qual-
ity and reliability of ink.
The CM8050 and
CM8060 color multifunc-
tion printer-copier-scan-
ners, print in black at
speeds up to 50 or 60
pages per minute (ppm),
respectively, and in color at
40 or 50 ppm. The new
print heads deliver pig-
ment-based ink and a bond-
ing agent across the full
width of an A4 page in one
go, allowing the printers to
run faster than inkjet print-
ers that must scan back and
forth across the paper. The
jane add-on to a Windows utility
heads have a life of around
that’s as rich and good-looking
2 million pages, allowing
as Windows Vista’s identically-
them to run for three years
named feature.
under a typical service con-
These dynamic themes are
tract, the company said.
slick, too. And while they don’t
The CM8050 and
seem to advance Google’s mis-
CM8060 contain six such
sion—”to organize the world’s
heads arranged in pairs.
information and make it uni-
The first pair delivers the
versally accessible and use-
bonding agent, the second
ful”—in any way whatsoever,
the yellow and black ink, and
they do look like they’ll be fun,
the last cyan and magenta.
especially if the graphical sur-
The printers also sport HP’s
prises keep a coming. And like
EasySelect Control Panel, a
many a new Google feature
common user interface it
before this one, it could be the
introduced six months ago.
start of something bigger....
By Peter Sayer
—By Harry McCracken

MOBILE COMPUTING
Windows Mobile 6: New E-Mail Options
HANDHELD OPERATING SYSTEM ALSO ADDS NEW EDITING POWERS IN CORE OFFICE APPS.
windows mobile 6—
Microsoft’s generally
modest update of its
operating system for
handheld devices and
smart phones—will
debut by midyear with
enhancements for e-
mail and editing of
Office documents.
Previously known by
the code name Cross- NEW SHORTCUTS TO common tasks speed up
bow, Windows Mobile e-mail management in Windows Mobile 6.
6 simplifies e-mail ac-
count setup and also provides
new shortcuts to a multitude
of common e-mail manage-
ment tasks such as replying to
all or deleting a message.
You can flag messages more
easily, as well as view a history
of activity (calls and text mes-
sages) with contacts in your
U LTR A M O B I LE P Cs
NEW FACE
FOR TINY PCs
HIGH HARDWARE PRICES
put a bit of a damper on the
first generation of Ultra Mo-
bile PCs. Despite this, Micro-
soft says it remains com-
mitted to the platform, and
as hardware manufacturers
work on new products, the
software giant continues to
improve applications for the
devices. Here’s a look at its
most recent effort: a pro-
gram launcher called “Ori-
gami Experience” included
in the version of Windows
Vista that runs on UMPCs.
—Eric Dahl
N EWS & T R E NDS
formatting in the new Microsoft says that people will
OS. And now you can be able to upgrade certain
edit data in an Excel Windows Mobile 5 devices—
spreadsheet (you still like the T-Mobile Dash—to the
can’t create formulas new version. HP’s first line of
or new spreadsheets, iPaq smart phones, the 500 se-
though). Borrowing ries Voice Messengers, will be
from Office 2007, the based on Windows Mobile 6.
calendar has a vaguely Previous versions of Win-
ribbonlike interface dows Mobile provided more
that shows your free functionality for Pocket PCs
time. It also checks than for phones with keypads,
for schedule conflicts but those distinctions are now
whenever you receive largely gone. However, Micro-
address book. In addition, you a meeting invitation. soft will still offer two editions
can read messages formatted Windows Mobile 6 supports of Windows Mobile 6, based
in HTML, where applicable. some Windows Live services, on a handheld’s screen type: a
including Windows Live Mes- standard version intended for
MOBILE OFFICE senger. If your business works devices that don’t have touch
the three core applications with Exchange Server 2007, screens, and Windows Mobile
in Office—Word, Excel and you’ll find some useful im - 6 Pro for devices equipped with
PowerPoint—more faithfully provements, such as the abil- touch screens and styluses.
re-create and preserve desktop ity to search your mail folder. —Yardena Arar
AN EVER-
PRESENT Home
button enables
you to return to
the main screen
of Origami
Experience,
CRITICAL STATUS
where you can
indicators are located on
choose to
the title bar, making it
browse through
easy for you to hop onto a
your media or
wireless network without
launch programs
leaving the app.
and favorites.
WHEN YOU’RE VIEWING CONTROLS FOR media playback are
media, the edges of the screen accessible from nearly every screen in
become tabs that let you Origami Experience, and the app remembers
switch between your library which media you were playing last, so you
and the Now Playing view. can easily pick up where you left off.
CONTENT PAGE M AY 2 0 0 7 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N 17
 NEWS & T REN DS
P O R TA B L E P C
Tech Innovations Fuel Low-Cost Laptop
STURDINESS AND SIMPLICITY ARE KEYS TO $150 NOTEBOOK FOR THE WORLD’S POOREST KIDS.
how do you make a laptop
that can tolerate sandstorms
and monsoons, run on a car
battery, and cost just Rs.
6,750? That was the challenge
facing One Laptop per Child
DESIGN: THE XO’S case is
made of 0.08-inch-thick
plastic (standard laptops
use a less sturdy 0.05-
inch-thick plastic). Mesh
network antenna “ears”
double as covers for USB
and audio ports.
DISPLAY: A SWIVELING
lid with a 7.5-inch LCD
screen has a latch that
can lock it against the
keyboard to turn the XO
into an electronic book
reader. The display has
a high-resolution black-
and-white mode for easy
reading in direct sunlight,
and a back-lit, lower-
resolution color mode.
Directional pad
Back-light control
OPERATING SYSTEM:
THE XO’s Linux-based
operating system can run
only software that isn’t
hobbled by the notebook’s
storage and memory
limitations (see “Under the
Hood,” above center). Open-
Office, for example, can’t
run on the XO—but the XO
does come with a version of
the Opera Web browser.
18 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N M AY 2 0 0 7
(www.laptop.org), a nonprofit a combination of innovative OLPC plans to start distrib-
group founded by MIT Media technology (such as its dual- uting 5 million XOs in July. As
Lab veterans to get youngsters mode LCD) and old-fashioned production ramps up, the price
in developing nations online. streamlining (it doesn’t have a should approach the original
OLPC’s XO notebook PC at- hard drive, and it uses a Linux- Rs.4,500 target, OLPC says.
tains its ultralow price through based operating system). —Tom Spring
UNDER THE HOOD: The XO has no moving parts; it relies on WIRELESS: THE BUILT-IN
512MB of flash and 128MB of RAM. Heat from its 366-MHz 802.11b/g Wi-Fi allows XO
AMD Geode CPU dissipates via the keyboard and display. units to function as mesh
network nodes that can
Antennas connect and communicate
with other laptops even
Audio ports and one USB port Two USB ports under antenna
when no link to the Internet
is available.
Microphone
Video camera
Stereo speakers
Game pad
Power on/off button
Battery indicator
Keyboard LEDs
BATTERY: THE XO
consumes just one-tenth
Touchpad mouse
the energy of a standard
laptop. Powered by a
nickel-metal hydride
PHOTOGRAPH: MIKE MCGREGOR
battery, the XO can run
for 3 to 22 hours on a
INPUTS: THE RUBBER keyboard is sealed to keep out dirt and charge from a car
water. In addition to the keyboard, the XO’s inputs consist of a battery, a foot pedal,
touchpad mouse (below the keyboard), a game pad (at lower a pull string, or a
right of screen), and a directional pad (at lower left of screen). conventional wall outlet.
CONTENT PAGE
 NEWS & T REN DS

TEC H N O LO GY TR E N DS

COOL GADGETS
LATEST PRODUCTS IN THE GLOBAL MARKET.
If you’re like me then no matter how many new gadgets you see
everyday some still make you say “wow” when you first lay your
eyes on them. This month it’s an impressively small digital TV
tuner that’s doing the trick.
—By Martyn Williams

PANASONIC AVCHD CAMCORDERS

They’ve only been on the market a few months but Panasonic’s
high-definition camcorders are already getting an upgrade. The
SD card-based HDC-SD3 and DVD-based HDC-DX3 will capture
video at 1920 pixels by 1080 pixels in their highest quality mode
compared to just 1440 pixels by 1080 pixels resolution on the
two previous cameras, the SD1 and DX1. That’s an interesting
jump, especially since the older cameras were advertised as
“Full HD.” Apparently the HD wasn’t quite as full as it could have
been. At the two lower quality recording modes the resolution
remains unchanged. They record in AVCHD, the new HD format
jointly developed by Sony and Panasonic

LG NEW BEETLE MP3 PLAYER

LG Electronics is teaming up with car-maker Volkswagen on a
digital media player styled along the lines of the New Beetle car.
The player sports an aluminum body and will be available in
three of the same colors as the car: Salsa Red, Shadow Blue and
Sunflower Yellow. The design of the player’s user interface was
inspired by the car, and the device also has a small VW badge on
DIGITAL TV ON AN SD CARD
the front panel and a New Beetle logo on it’s rear. However the ELSA Japan’s Telebit card is compatible with Japan’s “OneSeg”
inspiration doesn’t extend to the shape of the player, which digital TV system and even includes a built-in antenna, although
looks like other MP3 players on the market. The specifications an external antenna can be connected if needed. It comes
are fairly standard for a media player of its class. It has a 2.4- packaged with a Windows viewing application that also allows
inch color LCD screen and can play MPEG-4, Windows Media for time-shift viewing of TV shows and access to the electronic
Video 9, MP3, Windows Media Audio and Ogg-format files. It will program guide. Because the OneSeg system is unique to Japan,
come in two versions: 2G-byte and 4G-byte. don’t expect to see it on sale elsewhere.

20 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N M AY 2 0 0 7 CONTENT PAGE
 N EWS & T R E NDS

SONY 120HZ BRAVIA LCD TVS

Sony’s latest Bravia TVs are about to hit the market and they
pack the latest in LCD TV industry buzz-speak: 120Hz scanning.
This involves refreshing the picture at double the rate of a
conventional TV set, a benefit when watching programs where
there is a lot of horizontal motion, for example in a football game.
The double refresh rate (it would be 100Hz in Europe) means the
motion appears smoother and the overall picture better. The new
Bravia J5000-series has this, with the bonus that the TVs are
DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) compliant, so you can
network them with other home electronics devices.

TOSHIBA GIGABEAT U
Toshiba pleasantly surprises with a colorful choice of models
each time it launches new Gigabeat music players, and the U-
series are no exception. Available in white, orange and blue, the
players have a 1.1-inch color EL display, can play Windows Media
(unprotected or DRMed), MP3 or WAV audio files and have a
built-in FM transmitter so you can listen to your songs through
a radio and don’t have to worry about audio cables. Battery life
is about 20 hours and a 10-minute quick charge will get you 3
hours of playback.

IO DATA 1TB HIGH-DEF RECORDER

High-definition TV is great when you watch live but recording it often presents problems. For a
start most recorders just can’t handle HD signals and those that do often come with a hefty price
tag. So it’s nice to see a lower price high-def recorder from IO Data. The snappily-named HVR-
HD1000LE packs 1T-byte of storage space and does not have a tuner from the recorder. Instead it
hooks up to a TV or satellite tuner over an IEEE-1394 connection. There’s room to record 103
hours of terrestrial digital TV in full high-definition.

CONTENT PAGE M AY 2 0 0 7 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N 21
 ERIC DAHL

ERIC DAHL

HERE\NOW

Cheap Ink? Say It’s So! 1 COOLIT ELIMINATOR:

Self-contained proc-
PLUS: OUTSIDE-THE-BOX UPGRADES, ELECTIONS IN THE WEB 2.0 ERA. essor water cooling sys-
PRINTS FOR PENNIES EXTERNAL PCI tem installs in 10 minutes.
EXPRESS www.coolitsystems.com/
The Buzz: Line up all
index.php?option=content
the pages you could The Buzz: Thanks to a
&task=view&id=132
print using a gallon of ink, new PCI Express spec,
and you’d get almost as far as your next graphics card might 2 CLIPMARKS: Grab
the best bits of a Web
you would on a gallon of reside in a box outside your PC.
page to blog about or save
gasoline. Unfortunately, that The PCI Ex press group
for later. clipmarks.com
gallon of ink would cost approved its first external
upwards of Rs.1,57,500. And cabling specification, which 3 CUTS: This beta on-
line video editor al -
you thought gas prices were means system builders can
lows you to remix clips
out of control. Well, Kodak bring the full speed of PCI
from YouTube, Google, and
aims to change that with its Rs. 11.25. A black ink car- Express x16 to external periph-
MySpace. cuts.com
new line of EasyShare all-in- tridge good for 300 pages will erals up to 10 feet away.
one inkjet printers that make retail for Rs. 450, com- With high-end graphics boards 4 D UA L- F L I P : Sam-
sung’s SCH-u740 dual-
use of cheaper pigment-based pared with competing offer- approaching 200 watts per card,
hinge cell phone is one of
ink and special paper. Kodak ings priced at about Rs. 765. the power and cooling demands
the cooler handsets to hit
says a color cartridge for one Bottom Line: We’ll have to they put on a system have be-
Verizon in years. http://
of the new models will go for wait and see how the output come enormous. Gamers
samsung.com/Products/
Rs. 675, or a little over half looks before we can render a should quickly embrace this
MobilePhones/Verizon/
the cost of most competing final verdict; still, any news of technology to move high-end
SCH_U740CDAVZW.asp
inks. That should drive the cheaper printer ink—from a graphics setups outside the PC
cost of printing a4 by 6 photo company as solid as Kodak, case—even though such solu- 5 NING: Ever wanted to
have your own social
down from Rs. 4.50 to around no less—is always welcome. tions could cost as much as Rs.
network? Ning will let you
54,000. External graphics boxes,
build one. ning.com
FUTURE TECH with cooling and a power sup-
ply built in, should start arriv-
ing this year, yielding some Internet will play an even larger
WHAT’S NEXT FOR WINDOWS interesting new designs. role in the 2008 campaign. Staff
bloggers now are nearly a
Bottom Line: Imagine hav-
HAVING FINALLY SHIPPED Windows Vista after years of devel-
ing a one-box PVR upgrade requirement for presidential
opment, Microsoft may feel its programmers are due a nice, long
with a tuner and a hard drive, campaigns. And with socially
vacation. Hence, perhaps, the code names for the next major
thanks to external graphics. filtered news sites and a
releases on the Windows road map: Fiji and Vienna. Microsoft
External PCI Express should burgeoning political blogosphere
won’t say much about them, but observers point to Fiji as an
make both of them possible. ready to seize on any misstep, the
interim release—either a service pack for Vista slated for the end
stakes at any public appearance
of the year, or a larger Vista revision set for 2008. Vista’s true CAMPAIGNING 2.0 have never been higher.
ILLUSTRATION: GORDON STUDER

successor won’t arrive until 2009 at the very earliest, when

The Buzz: Bloggers, Bottom Line: If you thought
Microsoft tentatively plans to roll out Vienna. According to Win-
Internet polling, and political debate couldn’t get
dows watcher Paul Thurrot, Vienna will be 64-bit only and should
MoveOn.org each had their any more high-minded, just
have a new Internet Explorer (designed by the team that created
moment in the sun during wait till the first text message
Office 2007’s ribbon), an increased focus on virtualization, and
2004’s presidential election. from a campaign leaks: OMG
(finally) the long-delayed file system update known as WinFS.
Three years later, it’s clear the LOL, you call that policy?!

22 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N M AY 2 0 0 7 CONTENT PAGE
 THE OTHER SIDE
SACHIN KALBAG
The Age of Multimedia Entertainment
Just before its scheduled late March premiere, Planet Earth could have
been just another lavish documentary on the Discovery Channel, a 21
century jazzed up version of the groundbreaking David Attenborough
series in the 1980s, The Living Planet. Attenborough, however fascinating
his series was, would not have imagined
what the creators of Planet Earth did
when it aired a month ago.
It was not just about the technology that
they used (after all, many documentary
filmmakers have access to the same tech-
nology), it is also about how they used it.
If you have not seen it yet, I would recom-
mend an instant replay – the photography
from space, the rare images of some of the
most endangered species and even the
scope of production, take your breath away.
Yet, what I am truly happy about the series
is not just my hunger for nature program-
ming being satiated, but also the fact that,
as a viewer, I am able to interact with the
creators in real-time, participate in a pro-
gramme rather than just be a couch potato
and even express my opinion instantly.
Discovery ensured that Planet Earth –
now regarded as one of the best documen-
tary series ever made – would get real-time
multimedia play on both television and
the Web. The series premiere had millions
watching the programme nationwide
on television, and thousands on its
official website simultaneously inter-
acting with conservators, answering
real-time quizzes and getting the
inside dope on every single aspect of
the programme as it was being aired.
For instance, if there was a segment
on the Polar Bear on TV, the website
ILLUSTRATION: MM SHANITH
would give you all the inside dope on
a Polar Bear’s habitat, why the species
is endangered, an instant trivia section
and a live chat with M Sanjayan, the
lead scientist of the world renowned
Nature Conservancy Group. The
st
synchronicity was such that the informa-
tion spiel on the website would pause the
moment there was a commercial break on
TV and later, throw up exactly the same
information you were looking for when
the programme talked about, say, the fas-
cinating species of the Galapagos Islands
in Ecuador – the place where Charles Dar-
win became convinced of evolution.
In short, we were watching one of the most
successful experiments in multimedia enter-
tainment (OK, infotainment, if you like!).
A few months ago, on this very col-
umn, we had discussed how entertain-
ment would define and drive innovation
in personal technology during this decade
The media and
entertainment are
on its way to
become a full-time
two-way street.
CONTENT PAGE
and beyond. Consumers such as you and
me no longer talk about single-medium
dispersion of news and entertainment –
along with newspapers, we want television
programming on our cell phones; we want
breaking news on television as well as on
the Web and on cell phones; we don’t just
want photos or live coverage of the Aish-
warya-Abhishek wedding, we want to put
up our phone videos (if we’re invited, that
is!) on YouTube. If we have an opinion to
share, we don’t just express our opinion in
a letter to a newspaper’s editor, we blog it;
sometimes even videoblog it.
With Planet Earth, however, the bar is now
set even higher for both entertainment pro-
gramming and for multimedia technology
– we will no longer accept production quali-
ties anything lower than what have seen, or
would not expect leading broadcasters to
adopt a multimedia simulcast policy with
enriched content and instant interactivity.
The media, in general, and entertainment,
in particular, are on its way to become a full-
time two-way street, and the only handicap
I can see would be our imagination. Discov-
ery Channel’s Planet Earth is one of those
rare victories in multimedia entertainment
that need to set the pace for Indian enter-
tainment conglomerates to work out a
multimedia attack. What, for instance,
stops Ektaa Kapoor – now surely India’s
leading television producer – to have
her actors or directors or script writers
to speak with their viewers in real time
as an episode airs, or even solicit ideas
from them for alternate endings that
can be played exclusively on the Web?
The point is that, the technology is
already there – it’s only our imagination
that stops us from exploiting it.
Sachin Kalbag is the Washington,
DC, correspondent of Daily News and
Analysis, a Mumbai-based newspaper.
M AY 2 0 0 7 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N 23
 TECH TONIC
Bye-Bye Windows XP ?
Is Microsoft desperately attempting to force its new OS upon you?
being already in the middle of
a lawsuit over the “Vista Capable”
certification being misleading,
Microsoft now finds itself in
the middle of another brewing
controversy. The announcement
of closing doors on Windows XP
by Microsoft is not going well with
users and manufacturers alike. On
its Microsoft Life-Cycle Policy Web
page, Microsoft has announced
plans to discontinue shipments
of Windows XP to OEMs from
January 31, 2008. With countless
applications standardized on
Windows XP, the transition to
Windows Vista won’t be simple and in
many cases almost impossible.
With the current hardware require-
ments for Windows Vista, users will have
to invest in more powerful machines to
be able to run the applications with same
speed and performance as their current
Windows XP based machine. Microsoft’s
Windows XP has been a popular choice
amongst SMB and home users alike and
it is by no stretch of imagination nearing
the end of its product life cycle. So the
decision to shun Windows XP within a
year of Vista’s release is being met with
a lot of flak.
Microsoft obviously wants to ensure
that the OEMs and PC manufacturers
gear themselves up for Windows Vista
but taking the Windows XP option out of
the system won’t go down well with ven-
dors either. Dell has announced its deci-
sion to continue selling XP-based PCs to
cater to the SMB market which accord-
ing to Dell needs more time to migrate
to Vista. The costs involved in training
staff in adapting to a new OS is a clear
deterrent for small and medium busi-
24 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N M AY 2 0 0 7
SOHAM RANINGA
ness houses who seem to be content with
Windows XP and hence do not see a need
to upgrade in near future.
VISTA FAILS TO MEET THE HYPE
IT’S CREATED
while Windows Vista might look a lot
cooler and offer some fancy features, it’s
not as polished with regard to core func-
tionality and compatibility side yet. Win-
dows XP has extensive software and driver
support which makes it a lot more hassle
free to adopt and maintain. With experts
not yet convinced on the security aspects
of Windows Vista, users are also cautious
about making the switch. Microsoft’s trick
to keep DirectX 10 exclusive to Vista might
help them get the hardcore PC Gamers on
their side but this will take its own sweet
time. DirectX 10 hardware is in a nascent
stage and very few DX 10 games have been
announced. Gamers clearly prefer to hang
on to Windows XP for its superior compat-
ibility and better performance yield with
current games.
It’s quite possible that Microsoft has
realized that Windows Vista isn’t quite
CONTENT PAGE
the magic wand they expected it
to be and it will take a while to
get its grip on the market. Sight-
ing a preference for Windows XP
over Vista, Microsoft’s wants to
keep its equation on the sales
revenues and penetration figures
for Vista intact.
AN OPPORTUNITY TO LOOK
ELSEWHERE
“a reason to go open source!”
a colleague responded to Micro-
soft’s announcement. While the
open source community will
give numerous reasons why we
should upgrade to Linux, Microsoft
itself has given OEMs and home-users
a reason to consider other alternatives.
Vendors might just offer a wider range
of products without bundled operat-
ing systems, giving users a free hand
in choosing the OS that best suits
their needs.
It may not be surprising to see SMBs
and home-users considering a shift to
the popular Linux distributions that
offer required functionalities. Hovering
around the numerous local tech forums
and community websites, I clearly gath-
ered that common opinion of users not
convinced with Vista revolved around
deciding to stick to Windows XP while
trying out various Linux distros. Micro-
soft may do well to heed its community
of dedicated users and continue to sup-
port Windows XP a while longer.
W R I T E B AC K
ILLUSTRATION: ANIL T
Share your views and experiences on
technology hits and misses. Write to
me at techtonic@pcworld.in.
BUGS & FIXES STUART J. JOHNSTON

Microsoft Security Programs Create Risk

Plus: Fixes for Internet Explorer and Office, and changes to Windows support.
a new fl aw in Microsoft Microsoft also patched a fist- via Automatic Updates; the IN BRIEF
security software turns the ful of critical holes affecting fixes appear to have come out
software that’s supposed to be Internet Explorer 6. Some of before any known attacks. Firefox Update
protecting you into a threat. the flaws actually reside in The first two fixes close
NEW VERSIONS OF Firefox
This critical hole appears in holes in two different ActiveX
(2.0.02 and 1.5.0.10) and
Microsoft’s Malware Protec- controls used by Windows
Thunderbird (1.5.0.10) close
tion Engine, a part of Win- (and loadable by IE) for HTML
a number of holes, two of
dows Defender and Windows Help and Microsoft Data Ac-
which are critical. Upgrade
Live OneCare, as well as of cess Components. The sec-
via either program’s auto-
the Microsoft Antigen and ond two repair flaws involving
matic update feature, and
Microsoft Forefront Security IE’s handling of COM objects.
obtain more information at
business programs. Through Get more on the Help flaw at
www.mozilla.com/en-US/fire-
it, attackers could take over www.microsoft.com/tech-
fox/2.0.0.2/releasenotes/.
a vulnerable PC running the net/security/Bulletin/ms07-
A virus scan
security software on any sup- 008.mspx and on the MDAC Google Desktop Fix
ported version of Windows, could trigger problem at www.microsoft.
RESEARCHERS discovered
including Vista, if one of the com/technet/security/bulle-
affected programs scans a
the attack. tin/ms07-009.mspx.
that an infected Web site or
e-mail could trick Desktop
doctored PDF file sent as an Windows, but all create the Details on the COM flaws are
into divulging your data
e-mail attachment or down- risk of drive-by downloads if at www.microsoft.com/technet/
(www.networkworld.com/
loaded from the Web. you browse a poisoned site security/bulletin/ms07-016.
news/2007/022207-google-
No active attacks against this with IE 6 on Windows 2000 mspx, along with info on the
desktop-flaw.html). If Goog-
hole are known to exist, but if SP4 through XP SP2. Vista is final hole, which can be target-
le’s auto-update fix (to
you haven’t already received not affected, and IE 7 offers ed if you click a poisoned FTP
5.0.701.30540) didn’t reach
the fix through Automatic additional protection by re- (file transfer protocol) link in an
you, grab the new version at
Updates, get it now from www. quiring multiple confirma- e-mail or on a hacked site.
desktop.google.com.
microsoft.com/technet/secu- tions to run ActiveX. All the
rity/Bulletin/ms07-010.mspx. patches have been distributed OFFICE ATTACKS
just as microsoft thought it rated the same, and involves
had fixed the last of a string the usual tainted e-mail
VISTA PHOTO GOTCHAS, SOFTWARE FIX of exploited holes in its attachments or download-
IF YOU CREATE digital photo tags using Microsoft’s Photo Info Office applications, another ed file (details at www.micro-
program in Vista, existing tags can become unreadable. Worse one popped up. The fixed soft.com/technet/security/
yet, photos in Nikon’s raw format can become unviewable. portions (distributed via advisory/933052.mspx).
Until camera companies provide driver updates, the workaround Automatic Updates) close Stuart J. Johnston is a
is, first, to avoid using the Photo Acquisition Wizard. Instead, use vulnerabilities considered contributing editor to PC World.
the camera maker’s software to upload pics, or drag and drop them critical in Word 2000 and
rated important in Works BUGGED?
ILLUSTRATION: P.C. ANOOP

directly from the camera. Second, don’t use Windows Photo Gallery
or Windows Explorer to edit photo tags or properties. Read more and in other Word versions
FOUND A HARDWARE or
at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927527/en-us. In other Vista (more at www.microsoft.
software bug? Tell us about
news, a compatibility patch allows a slew of older programs and com/technet/security/Bul-
it by sending an e-mail
games to run under the OS. For the fix and the list of affected letin/MS07-014.mspx ). The
to feedback@pcworld.in.
software, see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929427. new, as-yet-unpatched bug is

26 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N M AY 2 0 0 7 CONTENT PAGE
 R EVI EWS & RAN KIN GS REVIEWS

31 W880I - 3G WALKMAN PHONE

32 ASUS EN8800GTS VIDEO CARD

REVI
VIEWS
WS &
32 STYLISH AND PORTABLE NU
DVD WRITER
33 SPYWARE DOCTOR 5.0 BETA
34 MICROSOFT’S EXPRESSION WEB
34 EP-630 - NOISE ISOLATION

RANKINGS
ANKINGS
EAR PHONE FROM CREATIVE
35 CANON MP510 INKJET MFD
36 SONY VAIO SLEEK PC
37 ZONEALARM INTERNET
SECURITY SUITE 7.0
38 SEAGATE 750 GB BACKUP

L A B -T E S T E D A NDDU H
MAONUDRS -EODNI TEEVA
D LU
B YATKI A
ONLP
S AONF AT H
EET T
LEAT
NESSOTNP &
R ORDAUM
COT SN

Spacious Storage Gets Cheaper Still

HIGHER SPEEDS AND LOWER PRICES MAKE 320GB THE WAY TO GO FOR DESKTOP STORAGE
S T O R AG E cost. Do bear in mind that mine which of these offers top of the performance chart
just as you upgrade 320GB drives offer the lowest the best buy over all. is the ST3320620AS from
your system and cost per GB in hard drives as Seagate’s much acclaimed
think you’ll not run out of of now and will also future- PERFORMANCE Barracuda 7200.10 family
space for a while, the movies proof you for some time to we used Everest 2006 that features perpendicular
just get bigger, your music come. We tested 320GB hard Ultimate’s low level disk recording. It posted a random
collection grows, games read speed of 68.5MBps, much
demand close to 10GB and faster than the 55-58 MBps
operating systems are get- that the other drives
ting space hun- managed. The low
gry as well. The level random
storage industry read and random
is one of the most write tests
dynamic in the IT give a reliable
field as even enter- indication of
prises constantly drive behavior in
need more stor- real world usage.
age owing to wear Though the
out of older drives transfer rates
and demand for will be lesser in
more space. real world sce-
Hard drives are nario owing to
available today in all operating system overheads
capacities upto the 1TB and inconsistencies, you can
mark, but for most home expect all drives to be affect-
PHOTOGRAPHS: SRIVATSA SHANDILYA

users, the best buy (cost per
GB) rests at the 160GB and
the 320GB marks. With stor-
age, no matter how much you
have, you’ll always want more
and hence we recommend a
320GB if you can afford its
relatively higher purchase
disks with 16MB buffer and
SATA interface from the
four leading manufacturers
– Hitachi, Samsung, Seagate
and Western Digital, to deter-
benchmarking tool
to test the read and write
speeds (in linear and random
modes) of the drives. A
low level testing ensures
that operating system’s
inconsistencies do not affect
the result of the test. At the
ed by the same proportion.
The Hitachi and the Western
Digital are third and fourth
respectively in the perform-
ance tables, both managing
about 58MBps in random
read. You can see the graphs
on page 42 for better under-

28 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N M AY 2 0 0 7 CONTENT PAGE

38 SAMSUNG SGH-E520 SLIDER PHONE
39 AMD 690V BASED MOTHERBOARD
FROM JETWAY
40 SIGHTSPEED’S VIDEO CALLING SOFTWARE
36
standing of the differences in
the benchmark scores.
Most internal hard drives
offer high transfer speed in
the beginning sectors and
gradually decrease to just
about 50% of that figure
towards the end of the drive.
This decrease is not linear
and hence the average speed
that you see on the graph
next page does not always
tell the full story. Hence, we
included two other factors in
our calculation – percentage
of the drive where write
speed is above 60 MBps
and 50 MBps. The Seagate
a n d t h e Sa m s u n g w e r e
the most consistent, with
about 70% of the drive area
showing transfer speeds up
to 60 MBps and 88% above
50 MBps. The WD was the
weakest with not even half
the drive area (47%) above
the 60MBps mark.
The implication is that with
the WD, data transfer beyond
the half capacity mark will be
slower, but with the Seagate or
the Samsung, you have 70%
of the drives’s capacity to go
before you see speeds drop.
FEATURES
Perpendicular Recording is
a hot topic amongst drive
REVIEWS & RA N K I NGS
41 NOD32 ANTIVIRUS SYSTEM
41 7MP A700 CAMERA FROM FUJI
42 22 INCH MONITOR FROM SAMSUNG
42 LEADTEK’S TV2000 XP GLOBAL TUNER
43 FINGERPRINT LOCK PEN DRIVE FROM WEP
32
INTERNAL HARD DRIVE PCW Rating Performance Features
Seagate Barracuda
1
72100.10 ST3320620AS
Best Rs.4,450
BUY
84
Very Good
• Overall performance: Very Good
• Random write speed: 64.3 MB/s
• Random read speed: 68.5 MB/s
• NCQ : Yes
• Number of platters : 2
• Perpendicular Recording : Yes
3 Bottom line: Offers best performance and priced less as well. Coupled with its 5 year warranty, you can’t go wrong with this drive.
2
Hitachi Deskstar
HDT725032VLA360
Rs. 4,600
81
Very Good
• Overall performance: Good
• Random write speed: 59.7 MB/s
• Random read speed: 57.5 MB/s
• NCQ : Yes
• Number of platters : 2
• Perpendicular Recording : No
3 Bottom line: Good performance and competitive pricing sees this drive in second place. Has lowest power consumption as well.
3
Samsung HD321KJ
Rs. 5,200
78Good
• Overall performance: Very Good
• Random write speed: 66.8 MB/s
• Random read speed:54.5 MB/s
• NCQ : Yes
• Number of platters : 2
• Perpendicular Recording : No
3 Bottom line: Performance almost on par with the Barracuda, but the higher price tag bogs the Samsung to third place.
4
Western Digital WD3200KS
Rs. 4,600
75Good
• Overall performance: Good
• Random write speed: 58.4 MB/s
• Random read speed: 58.1 MB/s
• NCQ : No
• Number of platters : 3
• Perpendicular Recording : No
3 Bottom line: Last in the performance table costing about the same as other drives, this is not an attractive option.
CHART NOTE: The test rig consisted of an Intel D975XBX motherbaord with 2x 1GB DDR2 800MHz RAM and a WD 150GB Raptor hard disk.
The prices mentioned above are indicative street prices as of the time of this review, and are subject to change according to various factors.
manufactures and enthusi- performance in servers. support this function, else
asts alike. Seagate has been Except WD, all other NCQ will get disabled on the
the first manufacturer to drives in this test are NCQ drive. The notable advantage
use this technology in desk- enabled. Put simply. NCQ in a single user scenario is
top drives with the 7200.10 allows a drive to reorder the not consistent, however.
series, including the 320GB read / write instructions it Number of platters (or physical
that is featured in this test. receives from the operating disks) that a hard drive has
This new concept promises system such that the various will have a bearing on its
upto 10 fold increase in drive operations can be performed reliability and performance
capacities when compared more efficiently. This works as well (for a given capacity).
the conventional longitudi- to advantage in cases where Though we simply say ‘hard
anal recording. data has to be read from or disk’, most of today’s high
NCQ or Native Command written to multiple scattered capacity drives are actually
Q u e u i n g i s a S ATA I I areas of the disk – typical composed of two or more
feature that is primarily of a server. Note that your physical disks. All drives
aimed to increase hard drive motherboard must also e x c e p t f o r t h e We s t e r n
CONTENT PAGE M AY 2 0 0 7 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N 29
 R EVI EWS & RAN KIN GS

T E S T R E S U LT S T E S T R E S U LT S

Everest Ultimate 2006 Everest Ultimate 2006

Random / Lenar Write Speeds Random and Linear Read
80 80
M B p s

M B p s
70 70

60 60

50 50

40 40

30 30

20 20

10 10

0 0
Seagate Samsung Hitachi WD Seagate Samsung Hitachi WD

Random Write Linear Write Linear Read Random Read

Digital (that has 3) have two which is useful if you have with equally impressive aver- for the Samsung which is
platters, each with 166MB an older power supply. age read and write speeds. The costlier by 10% with an average
unformatted space. The Samsung is in a close second selling price of Rs 5,200.
lesser the number of disks VERDICT place while the Hitachi and Seagate’s performance,
- the lesser the chances of this time around, for a WD lag behind somewhat. coupled with its competi-
failure and generally, better change, spotting the best Hard disks do not have vast tive pricing makes it the best
performance as well. buy was not too difficult. The variations in pricing amongst buy in the 320GB hard disk
We s t e r n D i g i t a l a n d Seagate is clearly ahead in the similar capacities. The average category. The five year war-
Hitachi have molex power performance arena with con- street price for 320GB hard ranty from Seagate must take
connectors (apart from the sistent transfer speeds over disks with 16MB buffer is care of any ‘just in case’ hard
standard SATA connector) 70% of the drive area and between Rs.4500 – 4,700, except disk crash scenarios. West-
ern Digital offers on-site
TIPS
replacement through its ‘WD
Express’ scheme.
Optimise your hard disk’s performance The Samsung’s higher Rs
500 does not seem
NO MATTER WHAT hard drive you have, here are minutes or you fre-
justifiable. It is this
some tips for you to get better speeds and quently take such
pricing differen-
increase the life of your disk. breaks, as frequent
tial that puts the
Defragment your drive: This is one of the oft start-stops can actu-
third fastest drive,
repeated tips, yet we say this again - and for a ally reduce the drive’s
the Hitachi in sec-
good reason. Defragmentation put together in life. Use it if you are
ond place, ahead of
contiguous locations various chunks of individual going away for a cou-
the Samsung.
files scattered across the disk, so that it can be ple of hours and you
When you go hard
accessed faster and with lesser mechanical strain dont want to switch
drive shopping, be
to the hard disk. Use the Windows defragmenta- off and on your PC.
sure to specifically
tion tool or a free tool like AusLogics Defrag- Avoid tilting or oth-
ask for one with
menter (www.auslogics.com/disk-defra). erwise moving your
a 16MB buffer (preferably
Use power saving options: The lesser you make PC when the PC is on. Hard drives do not take
quote the model numbers
your hard drive work, the longer it lasts. If you are too kindly to being moved around while they are
that you see here). Do not
used to leaving your PC idle while you step out, working! And, if you hear a screeching noise
buy the 8MB versions, given
enable hard disk power off under Power Manage- from your PC that coincides with the hard drive
that the latter are cheaper by
ment or just Hibernate your PC which will switch activity indicator (usually the red or amber
just a few hundred Rupees
power your hard disk off. However, do Not use this LED), it’s time for you to backup immediately
which is no great saving.
option if you are going to be away for just a few and be prepared for a new hard disk.
—Kailas Shastry

30 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N M AY 2 0 0 7 CONTENT PAGE

Slim Walkman with 3G
M U S I C P H O N E
simply a stunning piece
of industrial design, Sony
Ericsson’s latest entry into the
Walkman range is one of the
thinnest 3G mobile phones
ever released. The W880i
features a sleek, brushed steel
face, a 2 megapixel camera,
push e-mail support, and a 1GB
Memory Stick Micro (M2) - all
of this squeezed into a device
measuring just 9.4mm thin.
WALKMAN
the W880i includes the
latest version of Sony Erics-
son’s proprietary music soft-
ware, Walkman version 2.0.
The new edition offers some
welcome features, as well as
a stylish new look. An icon
representing each menu has
been added for a sleeker and
more structured feel. It still
uses the previous tiered sys-
tem with artists, albums, art-
ists, tracks and playlist menus.
The W880i also features A2DP
which enables you wirelessly
stream your music to a pair of
Bluetooth headphones.
In terms of sound quality,
the W880i is on par with
previous Walkman handsets.
For a mobile phone its audio
quality is quite notable and
the included earphones
produced a crisp and warm
sound with good bass.
The headphones include
an adapter which allows a
standard 3.5mm headphone
jack to be used.
FEATURES
the W880i handled voice
calls fairly well, although we
did notice that in-call volume
could have been much louder.
It’s fine for using the phone to
your ear, but using the hands-
free speakerphone with some
background noise isn’t ideal.
The W880i is a 3G phone, so
it includes dual cameras - a 2
megapixel camera on the rear
for taking photographs and
a VGA camera on the front
for video calling (which can’t
be used for taking photos).
Unfortunately, the camera
doesn’t include auto focus or a
flash, but it does have 2.5x digital
zoom. The W880i’s camera
should be enough to keep users
happy for the odd photo thanks
to panorama, frames and burst
shooting modes, night mode, a
10 second self-timer, black and
white, sepia and negative effects
as well as the ability to adjust
white balance. Video recording
is below average at best.
The W880i also offers plenty
of entertainment options.
CONTENT PAGE
THE NEW SLIM Walkman is not
only a head turner but filled with
features too
In addition to the Walkman
feature, there is a video player
and games, as well as some
of Sony Ericsson’s proprietary
applications such as VideoDJ,
PhotoDJ and Music DJ. There’s
also remote control and sound
recording functions as well
as Bluetooth 2.0 and USB 2.0
connectivity. Unfortunately
there is no FM radio included.
One cool feature of the
W880i is the ability to blog.
In a couple of easy steps you
can take a photo, write a small
snippet of text and publish it
on the Internet as a blog - all
through the phone itself.
M AY 2 0 0 7
REVIEWS & RA N K I NGS
DESIGN
the W880i has to be seen to be
believed. It measures 103mm x
46.5mm x 9.4 mm and weighs
71g. It is a delight to hold in
your hand and easily slides into
a pocket or bag. The brushed
steel finish gives a feel of excel-
lent build quality, sophistication
and class.
The keypad, Although
small, are very responsive, and
the generous spacing between
keys means that users should
be able to achieve reasonable,
if not lightning fast messaging
speeds. Both the keypad and
controls have a bright, white
backlight, so using the phone
in the dark isn’t a problem.
Despite being so thin, Sony
Ericsson hasn’t failed to include
any controls. The W880i
includes a volume slider and
dedicated camera button on its
left, and a dedicated Walkman
button on the right.
Battery life is about average.
On average, we charged the
handset every two or three days,
depending on usage patterns.
—Ross Catanzariti
W880i
Sony Ericsson
PCW Rating 84 Very Good
Slim Walkman with 3G, dual
camera but without FM.
Price: Rs. 23,999
W W W. P C W O R L D . I N 31
 R EVI EWS & RAN KIN GS
A Premium Graphics Package
V I D EO CA R D
last month we reviewed the
Geforce 8800GTS 320MB from
Leadtek and it proved to be an
excellent choice for a DirectX
10 video card that offers a suf-
ficiently future-proof solution
without breaking the bank. The
Asus EN8800GTS 320MB is
also based on the same Geforce
8800GTS chipset backed by
320MB of memory. Priced at
Rs 23,000 this Asus card is a
thousand rupees dearer than
the Leadtek. On the perfor-
EN8800GTS 320MB
Asus
PCW Rating 85 Very Good
Asus delivers with great
performance and a generous
bundle to match.
Price: : 23,000
Sleek and Stylish DVD Writer from NU
S T O R A G E
can you associate style with
a DVD writer? Well, if it’s an
NU, then you can! Known
for making rather impressive
looking computer peripher-
als, NU has made an external
DVD writer that can double
up as a mirror. Yes, we mean
that literally – the top of the
casing has an extremely reflec-
tive finish that surprises any-
THIS STYLISH DVD writer is less than 2 cm thick and can be carried
with ease.
32 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N M AY 2 0 0 7
mance front we compared it to
the Leadtek’s Geforce 8800GTS
and the results were right on
the mark as expected. The card
logged 96 FPS (Frames Per Sec-
ond) while running F.E.A.R.
with all the image quality set-
tings maxed out and resolution
set to 1280 x 960, scoring one
frame higher than the Leadtek
8800GTS that logged 95 FPS.
Scoring 8519 points in 3DMark
2006, the Asus EN8800GTS is
about 15 percent slower than
the Geforce 8800GTX based
cards which are priced 30-40
percent higher.
With excellent video play-
back functionalities, and abil-
ity to render high definition
content without taxing the
CPU, these 8800GTS 320MB
based cards offer superb value
one seeing it for the first time.
The drive, called SuperMulti
Drive ESW846 is extremely
sleek, measuring less than 2
centimeter in thickness.
The drive can handle all cur-
rent DVD formats including
DVD RAMs. When we used
a 16x rated HP DVD+R, the
NU burnt it at 2.4x taking a
leisurely 23 minutes to burn
4.1GB of data, even though it
CONTENT PAGE
THE ASUS EN8800GTS 320MB sticks to the reference design. The
heavy duty cooler keeps the temperatures in control
in the high-end segment.
Asus betters the deal with an
excellent package that con-
sists of full versions of two
popular games. Ghost Recon
Advanced War Fighter and
GTI Racing. Given the list of
freebies, the Asus branding
and three year warranty, the
is marked as being 8x capable.
A regular internal drive would
do it in about 5 minutes (at
16x). Burning a DVD+RW
at 4x (both media and the
drive were rated at 4x) saw a
slighter difference in speeds.
The NU did the job in 14 min-
utes while internal drives take
about 12 minutes.
The combination of the
bundled Nero 6.6 and the NU
present issues in detecting
optimal burn speeds for dif-
ferent makes of DVDs, so be
prepared to see some tortoise
timings with certain DVDs.
CD read / write times are
rated at 24x, and thankfully,
the drive sticks to this speed.
The loading mechanism is
slot-in type (like car CD play-
ers) and has no drive door. Just
additional thousand rupees
you spent on the card is abso-
lutely justified. If you are look-
ing for a meaty video card
upgrade, the Asus
EN8800GTS 320MB should
top your list for its perform-
ance, features and package.
—Soham Raninga
slide the CD / DVD in and
watch the NU accept it grace-
fully. An acrylic stand enables
the drive to be placed vertically
as well. Noise and vibration
levels are minimal and the
drive scores high on design.
There are no visible screws as
well – all adding up to make
this a life style product rather
than a sheer utility one.
This NU can handle all
DVD formats, has appeal, but
is pricey as well.
—Kailas Shastry
SuperMulti Drive ESW846
NU
PCW Rating 75 Good
Ably complements a stylish
notebook, has great appeal, but
is pricey.
Price: Rs. 5,750

PC Tools Spyware Doctor 5.0 beta
S O F T W A R E
it seems like only yesterday
that Spyware Doctor 4.0 was
launched, but version 5.0 is
already with us. At first glance,
the two versions look remark-
ably similar. Probe a little deep-
er, though, and the feature set
has been noticeably extended.
Spyware Doctor is now
able to integrate with other
PC Tools products. With this
release there’s a free optional
upgrade to the PC Tools anti-
virus engine, so that incoming
emails are checked for spyware
and viruses, while the scanner
looks for both sorts of mal-
ware. Plus, there are plans for
integration with Firewall Plus
to provide an integrate d suite.
HEALTHY UPDATES
one criticism concerning
updates has been addressed.
Previously, updates had to be
manually initiated, but now
it’s possible to set up automat-
ic ‘silent’ updates that require
no user intervention. This
means updates are incremen-
tal and download faster.
Spyware Doctor 5.0 has a
commendably light system
footprint – even on an antique
450MHz P3 laptop it made lit-
tle difference to performance.
Plus, home PCs will benefit
from revamped multi-user
support, since version 5.0
supports the removal and
detection of threats from all
logged-in user accounts.
Incoming and outbound
emails are scanned through
the Email Guard, although
we weren’t able to test this
feature in the beta. File Guard
scans files in real time, while
the Process Guard has better
rootkit detection – although
it’s switched off by default.
As before, Spyware Doctor’s
protection breaks down into
two components: an on-
demand scanner and a number
of real-time monitors. File
scanning has been accelerated
thanks to its patent-pending
spider-scanning technology. A
complete Intelli-scan of 3.5GB
of data took just three minutes
on our ageing laptop.
At the heart of version 5.0 is
OnGuard Protection, which
comprises a range of tasked
guards: Browser, File, Keylog-
ger, Network, Popup Blocker,
Process, Site and Startup.
Another is on its way: the
Behaviour Guard will detect
zero-day attacks.
Each one can be disabled
and you can configure exclu-
sions for websites or files
only. This will prevent new
CONTENT PAGE
SPYWARE DOCTOR 5.0: one of the
best antispyware utility available
programs initiating auto-
matically with your PC, block
programs that collect your
keyboard input, stop known
malicious programs running
and prevent access to mali-
cious sites. The Process Guard
can even kill kernel-level spy-
ware processes.
One of Spyware Doctor’s
enduring strengths is its ease
of use. Its clear interface makes
it easy to drill down to tweak a
configuration setting, although
the range of options seems
smaller than in version 4.0.
You could accuse it of being
overly paternalistic, but most
users will welcome the jargon-
free description of each threat.
However, one minor criticism
remains. It still over-eggs
M AY 2 0 0 7
REVIEWS & RA N K I NGS
the malware pudding a bit,
describing tracking cookies as
infections – a trifle fanciful.
VERDICT
spyware Doctor 5.0 contin-
ues the good work laid down
by its forebears and manages
to combine ease of use with
effectiveness. Indeed, we’d go
so far as to suggest that Spy-
ware Doctor might be the best
antispyware utility available.
—Roger Gann
Spyware Doctror 5.0 Beta
PC Tools
PCW Rating 80 Very Good
High detection rate and strong
features make this a good
security software
Price: Rs. 1,400
W W W. P C W O R L D . I N 33
 R EVI EWS & RAN KIN GS
Microsoft’s Web-Design Software Grows Up
W E B D E S I G N
microsoft has finally em-
braced Web standards. The
proof is its new Expression Web
program, which puts Cascad-
ing Style Sheets (CSS), XML,
and other standards at the core
of the application’s site design
and management strategy.
EXPRESSION WEB ALLOWS you to edit your site’s CSS style sheets
easily by selecting from a drop-down menu of available styles.
Quality at Affordable Price
E A R P H O N E S
creative’s EP-630 are in-ear
noise isolation ear phones.
The “in-ear” ear phones offer
a certain amount of noise can-
cellation by cutting down the
ambient noise, ensuring mini-
mal disturbance and immer-
sive listening experience.
Locally there isn’t too much of
a choice for in-ear earphones,
simply because not everyone
is comfortable with the con-
cept of partially plugging ear
phones in their ear. Sony and
Shure are the other brands
offering in-ear earphones but
finding them can be a task.
Creative’s EP-630 is a wel-
come change, with its popular-
ity in the market and sensible
pricing, getting an in-ear ear-
phone does not necessarily
34 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N M AY 2 0 0 7
While the program still
shields Web designers from
much of the code that
underlies their pages, the
resulting sites should meet
a l l We b d e s i g n a n d
accessibility standards. The
trade-off for all of the added
functionality is the hours of
THE EP 630S from creative are
perfect companions for MP3
players and music phones.
involve spending copious
amounts of money. With a
9mm neodymium driver, the
EP-630 carries impressive spec-
ifications with a 106dB SNR
ratio backed by a 6Hz - 23kHz
frequency response. The higher
SNR (signal to noise ratio) and
a wider frequency response
indicates ample loudness and
ensures that you hear the small-
est of details.
CONTENT PAGE
training the program requires
for noncoders.
Expression Web goes to con-
siderable pains to make CSS
as approachable as possible.
For example, when you choose
a style, a drop-down menu
lists the attributes you can use
for that style. The IntelliSense
function enables you to type
just a letter or two to select op-
tions, and you can drag small
pieces of code from one of the
program’s palettes directly
onto your page to add naviga-
tion elements, form fields, or
other components.
But even with all that help,
making the switch to CSS re-
quires quite a bit of training.
Another feature that many
designers will welcome is Ex-
pression Web’s support for
In our tests, the EP-630 pro-
duced clean and loud sound
with most applications, be it
music, gaming or movies.
Given the tiny 9mm drivers,
the EP-630 does a surprisingly
good job with punchy bass
response and crisp vocals.
There are instances when the
high frequencies sound a tad
too sharp and tinny, unlike the
warm sound delivered by
XML and Extensible Style-
sheet Language Transforma-
tions (XSLT), which permits
you to drag and drop links to
dynamic XML data into your
pages and format them easily
for presentation on the Web.
Despite a few lingering trac-
es of old FrontPage features
(such as the spinning-globe
icon you see as files transfer),
Expression Web is a giant step
up from that program.
—Dennis O’Reilly
Expression Web
Microsoft
PCW Rating 80 Very Good
With its focus on CSS and XML,
this app lets you create modern,
data-driven sites—but it presents
a difficult learning curve.
Price: Rs. 13,455
some of the high-end head-
phones. But with a price tag of
Rs. 1,050, you cannot expect
them to match full sized high-
end headphones that cost
almost 10 times as much.
While the 1.2m cable is long
enough for in-ear headphones,
the cable is too thin for our lik-
ing and the plastic feel to the
earphones are typical of a value
product. All-in-all, the EP-630
provide good clean immersive
sound without burning a hole
in your wallet.
—Soham Raninga
EP-630
Creative
PCW Rating 85 Very Good
Well priced in-ear earphones give
you a reason to dump those
default ear phones that came with
you MP3 player.
Price: Rs. 1,050

Quality Prints at a Price
A L L - I N - O N E
canon’s Pixma MP510 is an
affordable combination of
printer, scanner, and media
card reader. The Rs. 13,995
MRP model lacks the frills that
come with many multifunction
printers, such as film scanning
and faxing, but you can get the
basics done quickly and with a
minimum of fuss.
A flap to the right of the
printer folds up to reveal the
control panel. The 1.9-inch
color LCD is smaller than that
of many competing models.
The MP510’s in-printer editing
functions are limited to auto-
matic photo optimization and
face-brightening options, which
don’t require the larger screens
and fancier controls of its prici-
er siblings. If you expect to
work mostly from your PC,
then the LCD size and controls
are largely irrelevant.
The two media slots, which
sit behind a door on the front
panel, accept most types of
digital camera memory cards,
but you’ll need a third-party
adapter to read xD-Picture,
Memory Stick Duo, and Mini
SD Card formats. The Pict-
Bridge port, for printing direct-
ly from compatible cameras, is
hidden beneath the media-slot
door in the recessed base of
THE MP510’S PRODUCES good prints on Canon photo paper but image
printing is not as great on plain paper.
the unit, making it a little dif-
ficult to access. Unlike several
rival MFDs and many photo
printers, the MP510 doesn’t let
you read images from a USB
flash drive attached to its Pict-
Bridge port. However, you can
attach an optional Bluetooth
adapter (costing about Rs
3,600) to print from suitably
equipped camera phones and
PDAs. The MP510 also sports
an infrared port that lets you
beam images from many
mobile phones.
The MP510 lacks an auto-
matic document feeder, so you
must scan each sheet (up to let-
ter-size paper) one at a time
from the platen glass. Two sep-
arate 150-sheet trays hold paper
for printing: a cassette in the
CONTENT PAGE
base and an upright feeder at
the rear, which is convenient
for swapping among different
sizes of photo paper. Each of
the printer’s four ink cartridges
incorporates a red LED that
flashes when the ink runs low.
The device uses a pigment-
based black ink to produce
darker text on plain paper.
In our lab tests, text looked
dark and solid, though the char-
acters’ edges could have been
crisper. Line art was sharp, but
we saw wide banding across
the page and diagonal interfer-
ence patterns in blocks of close-
ly spaced lines. On plain paper,
graphics appeared grainy with
overly bright colors and poster-
ized blacks. However, the
MP510 printed superb-looking
M AY 2 0 0 7
REVIEWS & RA N K I NGS
photos on Canon’s Photo Paper
Pro; they looked very sharp,
with bright colors and plenty of
shadow detail, though skin
tones seemed a little too orange.
Scans and copies scored well
across the board for an MFP in
this price range, with no nota-
bly strong or weak points.
Against the clock, the MP510
showed solid performance. On
plain paper, it printed slightly
above average at 8.2 pages per
minute for text and 3.3 ppm for
graphics. It printed our test
photo on letter-size photo paper
in a commendable 40 seconds.
The MP510 scans quickly, com-
pleting our test scan of a 4-by-5-
inch photo at 100 dots per inch
in only 7.1 seconds. Its 5.0 ppm
average copy speed is among
the fastest showings we’ve seen
for an inkjet MFP.
The Canon Pixma MP510
makes an excellent choice if
you’re looking for a straightfor-
ward printer/scanner combo
capable of printing good-look-
ing photos, though its color
LCD could be bigger.
—Paul Jasper
Pixma MP510
Canon
PCW Rating 81 Very Good
This general-purpose all-in-one
prints high-quality photos at an
affordable price.
Price: Rs. 13,995.00
W W W. P C W O R L D . I N 35
 R EVI EWS & RAN KIN GS
Slick, Petite and Pricey
PC
the Sony VAIO VGO-LA38G,
part of the VAIO L series, uses
a unique form factor that Sony
calls the “Panel PC”. We were
impressed by every facet of the
design, especially the transpar-
ent frame, flip-up keyboard and
half-screen display (with Sony
soundFLOW music player). A
handle mounted at the top rear
of the unit means it can be eas-
ily carried with one hand.
The L series sits somewhere
between a desktop replace-
ment notebook and desktop
PC. Built using notebook com-
ponents, such as a Core 2 Duo
T5600 1.83GHz CPU, a 120GB
(5400rpm) notebook hard
drive, a GeForce Go 7400
graphics card and a notebook
battery (for mobile use), the L
series offers a light, portable
alternative to a desktop without
conforming to the standard
notebook chassis design.
One of the best features of
this Panel PC is the half
screen display, which instant-
ly turns on when the keyboard
flips up. When the play but-
ton (this VAIO has a set of
basic media controls) is hit,
any music that’s loaded into
the Sony soundFLOW soft-
ware will start to play. When
A B
A- THE KEYBOARD of the VAIO folds up neatly while the soundFLOW
software gets displayed on the top portion of the screen.
B- THE VAIO’S slim factor makes it extremely portable.
36 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N M AY 2 0 0 7
THE LA38G - a stylish looking ‘PC’ morphs a notebook into a desktop
music is playing, the track
details join the clock and cal-
endar on-screen as well as an
animated equaliser (depend-
ing on which soundFLOW
background you’ve selected).
The soundFLOW software is
fairly simplistic in itself, offer-
ing nothing more than skip,
play, stop and volume controls
as well as a basic filter by artist
and album (albums also include
playlists). However, sound-
FLOW can’t create playlists or
add albums from sources other
than CD without the help of the
Sony SonicStage application,
which comes installed. If you
wish, you can use any audio
player software as your default
CONTENT PAGE
application, but we found that
they don’t transition as smoothly
when the keyboard was closed.
The speakers produce a
good, clear sound and are loud
enough for music and movies
within a reasonable distance,
although they would benefit
from the addition of a sub-
woofer. The 15.4in widescreen
LCD has a native resolution of
1280x800 pixels and has good
brightness and contrast, but a
very shallow viewing angle.
From vertical positions it’s dif-
ficult to see and has terrible
colour inversion from side
angles, making the image look
like a photo negative.
With the 1.83GHz Core 2
Duo CPU and 1GB of DDR2
RAM the LA38G will have no
problems running the most
commonly used software in
the market and doing every-
day computing tasks. The
GeForce Go 7400 graphics
card allows this system to run
Windows Vista’s Aero inter-
face and also gives the system
enough graphics power to
play some newer games, albe-
it at lower settings. Older
games will run with ease as
indicated by the 3DMark 2001
SE score of 9421.
As a worst-case scenario
battery test, we played a DVD
on a looping repeat, and the
LA38G ran for 91 minutes,
which is just short of an aver-
age hollywood film.
The flip-down keyboard is
slightly smaller than the aver-
age notebook keyboard, so
using it feels a little cramped
and it may not be ideal for
writing long documents.
While the keyboard has a
built-in touchpad, the four
USB 2.0 ports allow for an
external mouse to be used or
a larger keyboard if you wish.
There’s also FireWire to con-
nect a camcorder, a media
card reader for MediaGate,
SD and MS media cards, plus
a PC Card slot (type I/II) and
Express card slot for any addi-
tional devices. For network-
ing, the unit has a 10/100
LAN Ethernet connection and
a 56k modem, but the WiFi
802.11 b/g will be the most
useful connection option for
this type of PC. Finally, a 1.3
Megapixel camera sits in the
clear bezel above the screen
for basic webcam needs.
The bulk of the PC is
mounted flat against the back
of the screen and is barely
noticeable. An adjustable
stand on the rear allows you
to tilt the screen to the desired
angle and the keyboard folds
out at the same angle regard-
less of the position of the PC.
—PC World Team
VAIO VGO-LA38G
Sony
PCW Rating 78 GOOD
A desktop and a laptop are
morphed in a sleek and attractive
package but pricey package
Price: Rs.89,990/-

ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite 7.0 Performs
S E C U R I T Y S O F T WA R E
check point’s new
ZoneAlarm Internet Security
Su i t e 7 . 0 s i g n i f i c a n t l y
improves on version 6.0. The
mediocre antivirus engine
licensed from CA has been
replaced with a superior one
from Kaspersky Labs, re -
sulting in a high-performance
suite whose only weakness is
its antiphishing protection.
The suite’s core compo-
nents include antivirus,
antispyware, and anti-adware
protection, courtesy of the
Kaspersky engine, along with
the house-developed network
firewall and the OSFirewall, a
supplemental protective layer
to block malicious changes to
your PC.
In a battery of tests con-
ducted by AV-Test.org, the
suite’s Kaspersky engine per-
formed creditably, halting
98.3 percent of backdoor pro-
grams, 97 percent of bots,
and 99 percent of Trojan
horses. It also caught 74 per-
cent of adware samples. The
OSFirewall detected a simi-
larly solid 80 percent of net-
work and e-mail worms,
based on their behavior alone.
The suite spotted all pieces of
malware hidden inside com-
mon compressed file formats,
and the firewall prevented all
attacks from both inside and
outside the PC.
T h e s u i t e’ s o n - a c c e s s
scanner, however, failed to
detect the PP97M/Tristate.C
macro virus, which targets
Microsoft Office 97 files. AV-
Te s t . o r g r e p o r t s t h a t
Kaspersky’s own version of
its virus engine successfully
identified this threat, which
suggests that the problem
relates to Check Point’s
implementation of it. While
most security companies rate
this virus as a low-risk threat,
ZoneAlarm’s overlooking of
it came as a surprise.
ZoneAlarm offers most of
the usual suite extras. Its Pri-
vacy section selectively
blocks Web site cookies,
advertisements, and embed-
ded objects and scripts. Its
instant messaging security
protects users of AOL, ICQ,
MSN, and Ya hoo services
from bad links and attach-
ments, though it added so
many warnings to my outgo-
ing IM messages that I
turned it off.
Spam protection, provided
through MailFrontier, adds a
configurable toolbar to Out-
look and Outlook Express.
Parental controls block all
CONTENT PAGE
ITS EXCELLENT VIRUS protection comes from a Kaspersky engine.
sites included on Check
Point blacklists, along with
unknown sites identified via
effective dynamic analysis.
The Vista version of this
product is expected to arrive
in the second quarter of 2007,
and ZoneAlarm customers
within the one-year subscrip-
tion window will be able to
upgrade to it for free.
Noticeably missing from
the suite is an antiphishing
toolbar. In fact, the suite lacks
anything capable of blocking
known phishing sites instant-
ly (though you can download
a free tool such as the Netcraft
Toolbar, available at toolbar.
netcraft.com). But ZoneAlarm
does provide other, less effec-
tive Web protection. The My-
Vault tool will block data such
M AY 2 0 0 7
REVIEWS & RA N K I NGS
as Social Security, credit card,
and password digits from exit-
ing your PC—but first you’ll
have to enter the information
(encrypted if you want).
The ZoneAlarm security
suite is priced on a par with
competing suites. It
performs well, though it
could benefit from better
phishing protection.
—Narasu Rebbapragada
ZoneAlarm Internet
Security Suite 7.0
Check Point
PCW Rating 88 Very Good
A new antivirus engine from
Kaspersky significantly
improves performance, but the
suite still lacks antiphishing
features.
Price: Rs 2,250.
W W W. P C W O R L D . I N 37
 R EVI EWS & RAN KIN GS
Endless Backup with Seagate
S T O R A G E
we are now seeing several
large capacity external stor-
age devices based on existing
internal hard disks to cater to
increasing backup. Seagate’s
750GB Pushbutton Backup is
currently the second largest
single unit external backup
solution available (a 1TB model
is also available from Seagate).
The drive is available with
a USB 2.0 hi-speed and two
Firewire 400 ports for connec-
tivity. One of the Firewire ports
can be used to connect to a
750GB Pushbutton Backup
Seagate
PCW Rating 78 Very Good
Convenient backup and large
storage solution, but pricey.
Price: Rs. 23,000
Poor- Man’s Slider and a Thief Catcher
M O B I L E P H O N E
no doubt a slider is a phe-
nomenal style statement com-
pared to the drab candy-bars
and clamshells. Samsung has
an exhaustive range of good
looking sliders in the market.
The SGH-250 joins the same
league with some innovative
features and great price point.
To start with, the phone does
everything that you would
want a mid range phone to
do. A VGA camera, FM radio,
a ravishing design, easy to use
buttons, a 128 x 160 and 262k
color screen.
SGH- E250
Samsung
PCW Rating 75 Good
Stylish low budget slider
Price: Rs. 7,250
38 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N M AY 2 0 0 7
second unit to increase storage
capacity. There is only one but-
ton on this 750GB Pushbutton
Backup to power the unit on
and initiate backup as well.
Once the drive is powered on
(with an external power sup-
ply), you only need to press
the button once to activate
the backup process using the
bundled BounceBack software
that offers enough options for
a power user.
Drives like this are prima-
rily meant for backup and
not outright performance.
So, we’d have to look closely
at price per GB, the ability to
scale easily (stack two or more
drives together) and backup
functions. On these fronts,
this Seagate does not disap-
point. When it comes to sheer
The phone also boasts of
some unique features that it
shares only with the Samsung
X520 and C140. All these three
phones have security features
that can be used in distress or
in the case of phone loss. The
mobile tracker sends a SMS to
two pre-designated numbers
of your phonebook when the
mobile thief changes the SIM
card. The Emergency SMS
feature on the other hand can
be utilized to send SMS mes-
sages to up-to ten numbers in
the time of distress. The calls
from these numbers would be
automatically accepted to help
in rectifying the situation.
While these features of the
phone are nice, there are some
basic problems with the device
that defer it from being an abso-
CONTENT PAGE
performance however, in
Everest 2006 Ultimate’s disk
benchmark, the drive man-
aged a modest and consistent
26MBps in linear as well as
random write tests and a lit-
tle over 32MBps in read tests
(less than half of what internal
drives manage today).
In real world tests, we saw
the drive do 25MBps (for a
1.3GB file) in writing data,
and read speed at was a higher
33MBps, both in agreement
the benchmark scores (with
USB connection). The per-
formance is close to that of the
competitors – Western Digital
My Book Premium and the
Buffalo DriveStation Duo.
Although it is possible to
make a back solution by buy-
ing a 3.5” hard disk and a
MOBILE TRACKER HELPS
locate this phone when lost
lutely killer device. To start with
the slider mechanism of the
phone is made of plastic and
not metal, as with most slid-
THE USB 2.0 hi-speed and the
Firewire interface produce near
idential transfers.
casing separately for a much
lower price, devices like
this Seagate offer one touch
backup, the ability to stack
more drive together, and a
neat looking case and reli-
ability – important factors in
an office environment.
—Kailas Shastry
ers. Excessive usage may thus
cause a malfunction in this
area. Also, the voice clarity in
the phone was not much to talk
about. We did experience call
drops and disturbance in low
signal areas. The battery life of
the phone is also about average,
with about 1.5-2 days of backup
time with normal usage. The
screen, though quite big, is low
resolution and thus you may
be able to see the pixel squares
quite easily in usage.
In a nutshell the phone looks
drool-worthy, has enough and
more features to drive away
a lot of others in competition
but falters a bit in some basic
areas. Ideal for first time users
looking for a slim looking
device that refuses to get lost
and can help them in time of
distress.
—Geetaj Channana

AMD’s New Chipset Offers Great Value
M O T H E R B O A R D
good news for AMD enthusi-
asts - you can now get an AMD
chipset for the AM2 CPUs.
AMD’s 690G / 690V chipset
caters to home users on a bud-
get. The 690G uses the X1250
video chip that is HDMI capa-
ble while the 690V is supported
by the non HDMI X1200.
We received the competi-
tively priced (about Rs 3,800
street price) M2A692-VP
motherboard from Jetway,
that is based on the non
HDMI 690V chipset. On the
performance front, the moth-
erboard is equal to the best
that we have seen so far, with
a score of 133 in our real
world benchmarking soft-
ware, WorldBench 5.0. This is
in the league of much more
expensive boards such as the
Asus M2N32 SLI or the MSI
K9A Platinum. Be assured
that this affordable mother-
board will not give you a per-
formance hit even in demand-
ing applications.
We initially tested graphics
performance of the M2A692-
VP with our reference Asus
7900GT video card and found
that games fared equally good
or even marginally better on
this motherboard when com-
pared with other high perform-
WITH A MODEST price tag, the M2A692-VP offers great value with its
high performance and acceptable onboard video.
ing motherboards. Half Life 2
– Lost Coast, for example ran at
80fps on the M2A692-GDG,
while the MSI K9A Platinum
(reviewed earlier) did 76f ps at
640 x 480 using the same video
card and other hardware.
The X1200 video chip offers
decent performance but is
certainly not the best onboard
video around. DOOM 3 was
barely playable at 26 fps aver-
age with the lowest detail and
resolution. Nvidia’s 6150 on
the other hand handled the
same game at 30 fps. This dif-
ference of about 15 percent
will reflect across most games.
Having said that, this X1200
is still better than many other
onboard video chips like those
CONTENT PAGE
from SiS or Intel’s current
onboard offerings. For all the
smiles that this Jetway offers,
it is disappointing to note that
the board has its share of
glitches. During our testing, it
failed to boot after we removed
our Asus 7900GT and tried
using the onboard video. We
had to do a BIOS reset to get
the board working. Also, with
DRAM Command Rate of 1T
the board was not stable and
hung frequently and we had
to settle for 2T. Though a
motherboard in this category
is not meant for overclocking
the BIOS offers options to
change the CPU / HT refer-
ence speed and RAM and
CPU voltages. Don’t think of
M AY 2 0 0 7
REVIEWS & RA N K I NGS
using any of these – even a
nominal increase of CPU ref-
erence speed from 200MHz
to 210MHz rendered the
board unstable.
The shortcomings of a
micro-ATX form factor are
tell-tale. The CPU heatsink
comes extremely close to the
RAM slots.
VERDICT
At Rs 3,800, the M2A692-
GDG’s price is in line with
nForce 400 series chipset based
boards featuring the Geforce
6100 onboard graphics. This
Jetway has demonstrated per-
formance equal to the high-end
nForce 590 based mother-
boards and makes for a more
tempting buy. If you are look-
ing at a budget motherboard,
this makes for a nice alterna-
tive to the tried and tested
nForce platform – a warning
though – you might need to do
a BIOS reset in case the moth-
erboard throws tantrums.
—Kailas Shastry
M2A692-GDG
Jetway
PCW Rating 75 Good
Offers performance equal to the
best of the AM2 motherboards,
but has some stability issues.
Price: Rs. 3,800
W W W. P C W O R L D . I N 39
 R EVI EWS & RAN KIN GS

SightSpeed 6.0 Lets You Make Video Calls Easily

VIDEOCONFERENCING name, you’ll see icons for con-
v ide o c on fer e nc ing necting via video call, PC-to-
software has come a long PC voice call, or text chat. In
way since the late 1990s, when addition, you can send video
un sophisticated programs e-mail to your contacts.
and limited bandwidth made According to SightSpeed, the
participants sound and look like video quality in version 6.0 is
astronauts aboard the Space 25 percent better than that of
Shuttle. In those days I half- past versions. I can’t verify that
expected to see a coffee mug claim, but overall the video
float across the screen, but no seemed quite good, although
longer. I tested the new video- some colors looked dim.
calling app SightSpeed 6.0, and When I tested SightSpeed at
though its video quality wasn’t home over a cable modem, the
perfect, I was impressed by its WHEN YOU’RE CONNECTED on a video call, SightSpeed lets other video looked very clear, with
performance—in particular at users know that you’re busy so your call won’t be interrupted. audio and video in sync. When I
syncing audio and video. used a speaker-and-microphone
SightSpeed is available in Both versions require a Web- crophones, and headsets with setup, my caller noticed an echo.
two versions, a free edition and cam plus devices for audio embedded microphones. This probably occurred because
a Pro package; the latter costs input (microphone) and out- Downloading and installing my microphone picked up her
$5 per month and adds fea- put (speakers or a headset). To the software is a snap. It auto- voice as it came out of my
tures designed for business try it out, I used various com- matically locates your audio speakers, so she heard her own
users, such as multiparty video binations of speakers, Web- and video source, and helps words shortly after speaking
calls and priority tech support. cams with integrated mi - you adjust their settings for them. The problem vanished
peak performance. Following when I switched to a headset.
GOTCHA! the initial setup you can tweak The quality of SightSpeed’s
the settings, but unfortunately PC-to-PC voice calls is on a par
you can’t do so when you’re with that of services such as
Can Cameras Do SDHC? on a call. That means that if Skype. In version 6.0, the text-
you’re in the middle of a con- chat feature occupies its own
JUST BECAUSE YOUR digital camera uses SD Cards to store
versation and you notice, for window, and as a result it feels
photos doesn’t mean that it will work properly with just any
example, that the tint of your more like a stand-alone IM app
SD Card. Older cameras can’t recognize new Secure Digital
camera is slightly off, you will (though you can chat only with
High Capacity (SDHC) media, which can hold 4GB to 32GB
have to hang up before attempt- other SightSpeed users).
of data and cost as little as $50.
ing to correct the problem. Though you wouldn’t mis-
Older SD Cards have typically
Version 6.0 sports a new take a SightSpeed video call
maxed out at a storage capacity
tabbed interface for access to for a movie, the image quality
of 2GB. Some 4GB SD Cards ap-
all of SightSpeed’s features. is good. Unlike PC-calling apps
peared prior to the new high-
To add a contact, you simply such as Skype that have added
capacity format’s release, but
enter an e-mail address on the video features, SightSpeed’s
using these cards isn’t recom-
Contacts tab; if the person is focus has been on video from
mended, due to compatibility
already a SightSpeed user, the start—and it shows.
issues. Unfortunately, most dig-
you’ll see their name appear —Liane Cassavoy
ital cameras sold before summer
on your list. If the person isn’t
2006 are unlikely to be SDHC-
a user, SightSpeed will issue SightSpeed 6.0
compliant (though a couple of
an e-mail invitation to down- SightSpeed
models can be made compatible with a firmware upgrade).
load the software. All of your PCW Rating 88 Very Good
If a camera (or other device) does not state support for
contacts are listed on the main This easy-to-use, no-cost
the SDHC format (look for the SDHC logo on the box), you
screen, with a green icon indi- program supports good-quality
won’t be able to use the higher-capacity cards with it.
cating when they are available. videoconferencing and calling.
—Eric Butterfield
When you mouse over a Free

40 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N M AY 2 0 0 7 CONTENT PAGE

Eset NOD32 Antivirus System 2.7
S O F T W A R E
NOD32’s claim to fame is its
sophisticated heuristics-based
detection of malware; it doesn’t
try to match virus signatures,
but rather looks for suspicious
activity. This means NOD32
is much better placed to deal
with zero-day attacks. And it
makes for a lean, mean anti-
virus tool – it won’t impose a
noticeable burden on even old
or inexpensive PCs.
Version 2.7 incorporates sup-
port for Vista, alongside much
NOD32 2.7 Antivirus
System 2.7
Eset
PCW Rating 71 Good
Its fast, flexible and effective
antivirus product.
Price: Rs. 2,295
A Fine Budget Choice
D I G ITAL CAMERA
even in the lower price range,
many cameras look rather
sophisticated, but the Fujifilm’s
styling is a little frumpy. It has
an unflattering podgy profile
and a lifeless silver finish.
While its curves may not
win any beauty pageants, the
A700 is a comfortable handful.
The thumb nestles against the
zoom rocker on its rear.
At the A700’s heart is a
7.3MP CCD (charge-coupled
device), which is impressive
for a camera that can be picked
A700
FUJIFILM
PCW Rating 81 Very Good
Good option for shutterbugs on a
tight budget.
Price: Rs. 9,995
REVIEWS & RA N K I NGS
improved protection against
rootkit infections. And its effi-
cacy against viruses remains
top notch. It is certified by ICSA
Labs and has won the Virus Bul-
letin VB100 award more times
than any other antivirus vendor.
But NOD32 isn’t aimed at
‘fit-and-forget’ novices, and a
couple of tricky techie questions
will doubtless wrong-foot some
users. Exploring the options and
settings can be rather intimidat-
ing, while version 2.7 sports the
centrally managed enterprise ver- NOD32 HAS WON the Virus Bulletin VB100 award more times than
sion’s array of relatively complicat- any other antivirus vendor
ed settings. That said, the interface
is clear and easy to navigate, with ferent areas of protection. Four However, the options tell-
alert pop-ups to warn the user of monitors provide real-time ing the program to look
any problems encountered. protection for file-, Office docu- for potentially unsafe and
Features are accessed via the ment-, email- and internet- unwanted applications are
NOD32 Control Centre – a cen- access. These are backed up by disabled by default.
tral system divided into the dif- an on-demand file scanner. —Roger Gann
up for little over Rs 9,995. It’s
blessed with a healthy assort-
ment of features, including a
3x optical zoom that’s married
to a handy f2.8-f5.2 aperture
spread and a 2.4 inch LCD.
Unlike some of the other
compact cameras we’ve tested
recently the A700’s ISO range
sticks to safe territory, with
a high point of 400. Fujifilm WITH 7.3 MP, standard 3x optical zoom and a modest price tag, the
includes a smattering of scene- A700 makes for a great buy.
shooting modes, although if
you wish to take manual con- eras, this model exhibits VERDICT
trol you may be disappointed slightly boosted color satu- it’s not pretty to look at
by the camera’s settings. These ration and reasonable finer or blessed with many set-
don’t even stretch to aperture detail – providing the ISO tings, but at this price you
and shutter control. level is kept at conservative can’t argue with a 7.3MP
Thankfully, the A700 is levels. There’s evidence of sensor and 3x optical zoom.
pretty capable of gauging slight fringing, but overall Picture quality is good and
shooting conditions and the Fujifilm consistently there’s a healthy assortment
producing good results. As performs beyond its budget of features.
is typical of Fujifilm cam- price tag. —PC World Team
CONTENT PAGE M AY 2 0 0 7 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N 41
 R EVI EWS & RAN KIN GS

Expensive Wide Screen from Samsung

LCD MONITOR
the Samsung SyncMaster
226BW is a 22in widescreen
LCD monitor with a native
resolution of 1680x1050. With
a slick design, exceptional
image quality, and a reported
response time of 2ms, it is
sure to become a favourite
amongst gamers.
We connected the 226BW to
our test PC via DVI and ran the
desktop at the native 1680x1050.
The clarity and detail was quite
stunning. There were no prob-
lems at all with the desktop
SyncMaster 226BW
Samsung
PCW Rating 81 Very Good
Excellent display provides bare
minimum connectivity
Price: Rs. 35,000
icons, and the colours where
rich and accurately reproduced.
Using DisplayMate Video
Edition we ran a series of exten-
sive test patterns designed to
reveal any image quality abnor-
malities. Throughout the entire
test, the Samsung performed
brilliantly with no problems
whatsoever. The greyscale test
was delivered with no discol-
ouration and an excellent blend
along the scale without step-
ping. The uniformity test back
light bleed test showed no
blacklight leakage.
We ran World of Warcraft
and Doom 3. Warcraft is an
excellent test for colour due to
the rich environments and
motion in the battle action. We
had no problems at all during
this test. Spinning the camera
around our character did
not cause any ghosting or
speed trails and particles/
visual effects were dis-
played with high detail.
The enveloping dark-
ness of Doom 3 is an
excellent test for contrast
and black levels and dur-
ing our session we found
no problems with either. There
were no contrast issues to speak THE 226BW LOOKS impressive
of and the blacks were accurate. with a classy all black finish and
The connection options are a lit- a thin frame.
tle limited with only one DVI
and one 15pin D-Sub. We piano black design will suit the
would have liked to see two DVI need for all things fancy. It will
ports on the 226BW, and even also work brilliantly for office
some component ports like the tasks, but the response time
similarly priced Asus PW201. and the 8 bit colour processing
For gamers though, this is an means the 226BW is targeted
excellent monitor. It’s fast, it squarely at the gaming crowd.
has awesome colour and the —Dave Jansen

Leadtek Renders Quality Video window will have you do a lot

T V T U N E R Global that we received for
a TV tuner can bring a PC to review is based on the compe-
within touching distance of a tent Conexant CX23883
complete entertainment cent- chipset that offers very good
er. We are seeing an increasing video quality.
number of tuners based on First, the good part – the per-
high quality chipsets which is formance is amongst the best
a pleasant change from the that we have seen from TV
budget ones the market had tuners so far. There are no
just a couple of years back. The signs of vertical or diagonal
Leadtek Winfast TV2000 XP lines that some tuners tend to
produce. Similarly, the picture
was devoid of any noise and
made for clear viewing. Colour
contrast was high, making the
picture look rich on
our Lacie 319
reference mon-
i t o r. So u n d
had minimal
S-VIDEO AND COMPOSITE inputs add
versitality to the TV2000 XP Global.
hiss and ably complimented
the video. A TV tuner’s usabil-
ity is dictated by the software
it comes with (unless you are
adept at using a generic cap-
ture software like DScaler).
This is where the tuner is a
let down. The buttons in the
bundled WinFast PVR soft-
ware are too small and unin-
tuitive while the various
options under configuration
are also difficult to figure out.
A simpler and well laid out
interface would have been
appreciated by many users.
Other small issues like lack of
a slider to fine-tune a channel
only add to the irritation. This
tuner requires a fine-tune
(the auto-fine-tune is not
effective) and the lack of a
slider with a large preview
of trial and error before hit-
ting the right frequency.
On the functionality front,
the TV2000 XP Global has sev-
eral media center goodies –
time-shifting (pausing live
TV), recording to hard disk in
various formats, scheduling a
recording, picture-in-picture,
direct burn to DVD, remote
control, etc. justifies its higher
cost over lower end models,
but you may need to live with
a PVR software that isn’t quite
the friendliest around.
—Kailas Shastry
Winfast TV2000 XP Global
Leadtek
PCW Rating 78 Good
Good performance, features,
includes FM as well. But software
is a let down.
Price: Rs. 2,450

42 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N M AY 2 0 0 7 CONTENT PAGE

Secure Storage from WeP
S TO R AG E
it needs no telling just how
convenient a pen drive can be,
but a major concern associat-
ed with them is that of data
contained in them falling into
wrong hands in event of the
drive being stolen or mis-
placed. Most pen drives today
come with a password securi-
ty feature that allows access
only upon a entering a pass-
word. This drive from WeP
takes security a step forward
with a fingerprint sensor. You
have the option of either key-
ing in the password or by sim-
ply moving your finger across
the sensor.
The advantage of this sys-
tem are many – you don’t
need to type a password every
time you use it to ferry data
across, for instance. In the
event of lending the drive to
someone, you can just share
the password that will ‘open
up’ the drive. This luxury
comes at a price though – the
512MB version that we
reviewed costs about thrice
as much as other 512MB
drives that have a password-
only security.
Fingerprint Lock
WeP
PCW Rating 74 Good
Useful fingerprint security
feature comes at a high price.
Price: Rs. 1,500
M AY 2 0 0 7
REVIEWS & RA N K IN GS
When it comes to reading and
writing data, this WeP ‘s per-
formance is slightly above
average – you should not face
any unreasonable delays in
copying data to and from this
drive. In Everest 2006 Ulti-
mate’s drive benchmark test,
linear read and write speeds
were 9.8 MBps and 5.8 MBps
respectively. In comparison,
the fastest drive we tested thus
far, the Kingston Data Traveler
Secure managed 15 MBps and
7.8 MBps – about 50% faster.
The linear and random read
speeds are 16.9 and 18.6
MBps, slower by a similar
50% when compared to the
fast Kingston. Manually copy-
ing data to the WeP saw
speeds of about 7 MBps –
thus, filling the drive to its
usable 480MB takes about a
minute and 10 seconds.
The fit and finish of the drive
is excellent and its classy white
exterior lends it a corporate
worthy feel. For the fingerprint
scanner and the excellent fit
and finish along with accepta-
ble speeds, you do need to pay
a premium for this drive –
Rs.1,500. If the features appeal
to you and you wish to get this
drive, we strongly suggest the
1GB (Rs 2,200) version which
offers much higher value per
GB. The 2 GB version is priced
at about Rs 3,250.
—Kailas Shastry
CONTENT
43
W W W. P C W O R L D . I N PAGE
BY SOHAM RANINGA
P H O T O G R A P H Y : S R I VA S T A S H A N D I LYA
I M A G I N G B Y U N N I K R I S H N A N AV

CONTENT PAGE
 MUSIC IN
A FLASH
Flash based MP3 players have come a long way from being
plain music players. With boosted storage capacities
these devices are filled to the brim with features and
style that will make you want them bad!
An MP3 player has almost become a must-have gadget. With rising commuting times and fre-
quent travelling, MP3 player is the perfect device to liven up your mood when stuck in a traffic
jam by tuning into those favorite tracks or listening to the Radio. If you are in need of a compact,
sturdy and zippy music player, a flash memory based MP3 player is the perfect choice.

CONTENT PAGE M AY 2 0 0 7 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N 45
 MP3 PLAY ERS

They are rugged, compact and very
responsive unlike the hard drive based
MP3 players that are more suited for
higher storage needs and video play-
back. We put ten 2GB flash-based MP3
players from brands like Apple, Creative,
iAudio, Sony, Samsung, Philips and
Sandisk to the test, separating the win-
ners from the losers.
2GB of storage lets you store about 500
songs in MP3 format. Most of the MP3
players we received came with color
screens and offered video playback and
photo viewing possibilities. While video
playback is a handy feature to have, it does
not go well with flash based MP3 players
because of their limited storage capacities
and smaller screens. Besides, none of the
players in the comparison can play those
video files out of the box, you need to con-
vert them to specific compressed format in
order to play them. Thus, when opting for
a flash based MP3 player, the core areas of
consideration should be sound quality,
design and usability and the audio features
it offers.
FEATURES GALORE!
with Fl ash based MP3 players,
manufacturers are on a rampage,
squeezing in as many features as they
THE COWON IAUDIO D2’s unique mix of features include touch
screen controls, SD card slot to upgrade storage and the ability to
play 30FPS video on the brilliant 2.5-inch screen.
possibly can in these tiny
devices. The i-Audio D2 is
the very latest from the
Cowon stable and is on the
bleeding edge of MP3
players with an excellent
high resolution 16 million
2.5-inch touch sensitive
color screen that can play
video clips at 30 FPS
(Frames Per Second). The
D2 also comes with an
image viewer; photos look
great on the vibrant screen.
CREATIVE ZEN V PLUS COMES ON top as the Best
While it claims to support
Buy, thanks to the excellent sound quality and useful
line-in and video-out
features like the line-in recording option that records
functionality, one needs to
audio from any source to the player.
purchase the cables
separately to use these
features. At its price point,
the cables and add-ons should be
bundled with the player to make the
package complete. With a built-in SD
card slot, D2 allows users to add
additional storage, just pop-in a 4GB
SD card and you will have 6GB of
storage at your disposal.
Our best buy winner, the Creative Zen
V Plus is equally puffed up with a long
list of features. The vibrant scratch
resistant 1.5-inch OLED display is very
easy on the eyes. The Line-in
recording feature along with
the ability to listen and record
FM simultaneously will please
all radio fans. Creative sweet-
ens the deal with a bundled
universal charging adapter,
ensuring you are not restricted
to USB as the only
mode of charging.
The Cowon i-Audio
U3 is almost ditto
to the Creative Zen
V Plus in the fea-
tures department
except for the fact
that the U3 comes
with a much small-
er screen and isn’t as
bright as the Zen V
Plus. The iPod Nano
Best
BUY
falls short in the features department
with no FM radio, line-in or video play-
back support. The bright 1.5-inch LCD
display along with a photo viewer and
some bundled games try to make-up for
the otherwise scanty features list.
The Sony NW S205 is one of the most
unique MP3 players in the compari-
son. Its built-in “Calorie Counter”
allows you to see how many calories
you’ve burned based on your weight
and length of workout. Going a step
further the “Music Pacer” feature cre-
ates running and walking playlists
which the player will automatically play
based on whether you are running or
walking. With just a single line OLED
display, the NW S205 from Sony won’t
display photos or play videos like the
rest of the players in the comparison.
From a music player perspective, the
NW-S205F provides only an FM radio
as an extra apart from the MP3 play-
back support.
The Sansa E250 from Sandisk also
deserves a mention for its FM playback
and recording feature along with SD-
Card slot for memory expandability. The
1.8-inch color screen on the E250 sup-
ports video and photo playback but the
screen quality is not conducive to video
or photo playback. All the three Samsung

46 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N M AY 2 0 0 7 CONTENT PAGE
 M P 3 P LAY E R S

players are unique by themselves; the
YP-K3 and the YP-K5 offer touch sensi-
tive controls backed by bright OLED dis-
plays. In the extras department the YP-
K3 has a FM radio and a photo viewer
while the YP-K5 comes with built-in
speakers. The speakers are loud and
clear and serve their purpose well.
DO THEY SOUND AS GOOD?
All these features and extras in a music
player stand for nothing if the player does
not sound good. Ultimately the sound
quality is the single most important factor
for MP3 players and that’s where we were
able to separate the chalk from cheese.
The Creative Zen V Plus, the i-Audio U3
and D2 along with the Sony NW-S205 top
our charts for sound quality. The i-Audio
players offer a clean sound and their
strength lies in their ability to deliver accu-
rate and distortion free sound at maxi-
mum volume levels, thanks to their 95db
SNR (signal to noise) ratio. The Creative

F E AT U R E S C O M PA R I S O N

Feature Rich MP3 Players Offer Great Sound Quality

THE ZEN V Plus from Creative bags the first spot with the D2 and U3 from iAudio not too far behind.
MP3 PLAYER PCW Score Features and Specifications Performance Bottom line

• Sound Quality: Excellent

1
Creative Zen V Plus
Best Rs. 8,600
BUY
82
Very Good
• Built-in Capacity: 2 GB
• Screen Size (inches): 1.5
• Line-in Recording: Yes
• FM Tuner: Yes
• Video Support: Yes
• Photo Support: Yes
• Usability and Design: Very Good
• Screen Quality: Good
With excellent sound quality and friendly
interface, creative manages to offer tons
of features in this tiny device.
• Ear Phones Quality: Excellent

• Sound Quality: Excellent The D2 impresses with innovative touch

2 Cowon iAudio D2
Rs. 12,500
81
Very Good
• Built-in Capacity: 2 GB • FM Tuner: Yes
• Screen Size (inches): 2.5 • Video Support: Yes
• Line-in Recording: Yes • Photo Support: Yes
• Usability and Design: Good
• Screen Quality: Excellent
screen controls and prestine sound
quality along with superb video playback
and stellar battery life.
• Ear Phones Quality: Excellent

• Sound Quality: Excellent A no-mess player with features and

3 Cowon iAudio U3
Rs. 12,501
80
Very Good
• Built-in Capacity: 2 GB
• Screen Size (inches): 1
• Line-in Recording: Yes
• FM Tuner: Yes
• Video Support: Yes
• Photo Support: Yes
• Usability and Design: Good
• Screen Quality: Good
sound quality on its side, U3 is the
most compact of all MP3 players in the
comparison.
• Ear Phones Quality: Excellent

• Sound Quality: Very Good While the classic scroll wheel controls

4 Apple iPod Nano

Rs. 7,800
76
Good
• Built-in Capacity: 2 GB
• Screen Size (inches): 1.5
• Line-in Recording: No
• FM Tuner: No
• Video Support: No
• Photo Support: Yes
• Usability and Design: Excellent
• Screen Quality: Excellent
ensures seamless operation, the Nano
skimps on features and offers average
quality ear phones.
• Ear Phones Quality: Average

• Sound Quality: Excellent

5 Sony NW S205F
Rs. 10,990 74
Good
• Built-in Capacity: 2 GB
• Screen Size (inches): 1
• Line-in Recording: No
• FM Tuner: Yes
• Video Support: No
• Photo Support: No
• Usability and Design: Average
• Screen Quality: Average
The NW 205 sounds great but will only
appeal to fitness enthusiasts and the high
price is a deterent as well.
• Ear Phones Quality: Excellent

• Sound Quality: Average Priced almost half of the rest of the

6 PHILIPS SA3125
Rs. 4,999
73
Good
• Built-in Capacity: 2 GB
• Screen Size (inches): 1.5
• Line-in Recording: No
• FM Tuner: Yes
• Video Support: Yes
• Photo Support: Yes
• Usability and Design: Good
• Screen Quality: Average
players in the comparison, the Philips is
a budget offering. We wish it could offer
better sound quality.
• Ear Phones Quality: Poor

• Sound Quality: Good The touch panel in K3 can be tricky to

7 Samsung YP-K3
Rs. 9,000 72
Good
• Built-in Capacity: 2 GB
• Screen Size (inches): 1.8
• Line-in Recording: No
• FM Tuner: Yes
• Video Support: No
• Photo Support: Yes
• Usability and Design: Good
• Screen Quality: Good
operate. The smooth surface is scratch
prone and the supplied ear buds don’t do
justice to the player.
• Ear Phones Quality: Average

• Sound Quality: Good In an attempt to cramp maximum

8 Sandisk Sansa E250

Rs. 8,200 71
Good
• Built-in Capacity: 2 GB
• Screen Size (inches): 1.8
• Line-in Recording: No
• FM Tuner: Yes
• Video Support: Yes
• Photo Support: Yes
• Usability and Design: Good
• Screen Quality: Average
features, the E250 ends up with an
average screen and an awkward
navigation system.
• Ear Phones Quality: Average

• Sound Quality: Good

9 Samsung YP-T9
Rs. 12,500 70
Good
• Built-in Capacity: 2 GB • FM Tuner: Yes
• Screen Size (inches): 1.8 • Video Support: Yes
• Line-in Recording: No • Photo Support: Yes
• Usability and Design: Average
• Screen Quality: Good
Cramed with features, the YP-T9 is
sluggish in operation and is rather
expensive for a 2GB MP3 payer.
• Ear Phones Quality: Average

• Sound Quality: Very Good

10 Samsung YP-K5
Rs. 14,500 69 Fair
• Built-in Capacity: 2 GB
• Screen Size (inches): 1.7
• Line-in Recording: No
• FM Tuner: Yes
• Video Support: No
• Photo Support: Yes
• Usability and Design: Good
• Screen Quality: Good
It’s nice to have built-in speakers but the
K5 is a bulky MP3 player with an equally
heavy price tag.
• Ear Phones Quality: Good

CHART NOTE: All price mentioned are indicative as on 17/04/2007

CONTENT PAGE M AY 2 0 0 7 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N 47
 MP3 PLAY ERS

player with its equally impressive 92db response when compared

SNR ratio sounds fuller with excellent bass
response. Even with the volume cranked to
max, the Zen V Plus maintained the sound
quality with no crackling or distortion. The
Sony NW-S205 is very much suitable to
Rock and Pop music, with warm neutral
sound, the NW –S205 is conducive for
extended listening sessions. The Apple i-
Pod Nano and Samsungs YP-K3, YP-K5
and YP-T9 can be clubbed together in the
second spot for sound quality.
The Nano is accurate in sound repro-
duction but at maximum volume level it
fails to hold
against the iAudio
and Creative play-
ers. The Samsung
players also offer
above average
sound quality but
they are limited in
their ability to pro-
THE SANSA E250 from duce extremely
Sandisk has a built-in high or low fre-
SD card slot for boosting quencies accurate-
storage capacity. ly. The Sansa E250
from Sandisk is
almost in the same league as the Samsung
players but for the fact that the Sansa E250
shows signs of distortion beyond 90 per-
cent volume level. The Philips SA3125
leaves us asking for more, with strictly aver-
age sound quality and very flat frequency
to the rest of the lot.
The sound enhance-
ment and tweaking fea-
tures such as preset
equalizers and bass
boost features can go a
long way in customizing
the output to suit your
tastes and particular gen-
res of music. The iAudio
leads the pack with its list
of presets along with the
option of user customiza-
WHILE THE CIRCULAR control pad on the i-Pod Nano is
ble equalizer mode and
very responsive and effective; the i-Audio U3 employs
some handy sound
the classic joy-stick based navigation that works very
enhancement modes like
well in changing tracks and adjusting volume levels.
bass boost, 3d surround
and MP3 enhance.
DESIGN AND USABILITY sensitive scroll dial, there is a clear lag when
after sound quality the next most you moving multiple steps forward or
important aspect to a music player is the backward. The Creative Zen V Plus also
usability factor. A music player which is sports a simple navigation system with a
simple, smart and responsive to use will four-way joystick that does its job well. The
serve the purpose better over players that ability to change the screen orientation from
give tons of options but are difficult to portrait to landscape allows the user the
operate and use. The Apple iPod Nano is freedom if using the device in more than
the undisputed king in the navigation one ways, giving the Zen V Plus and edge
department, thanks to the smooth one hand over the rest. The iAudio D2 with its touch
operation courtesy the popular two way screen approach does take some getting
circular scroll dial that is easy to master. used to and the idea of tapping the screen
Having said that, the player at times everytime you need to skip a song is slightly
struggles to keep pace with the ultra cumbersome, an inline remote would make

C O M PA R I S O N

STACKING THEM UP
WE LINED ALL 10 players starting from the chunky Samsung YP-K5 to the tiny iAudio U3

-K5
YP
NG
MSU 3
SA P-K NO E-2
50
205
F
GY NA SA WS
UN D N
SAM
S
E IPO
K SA -T2 NYN
PL P O
AP DIS Y 25 S
SAN SU
NG A31 LUS
SS VP
SAM ILIP U3
PH ZEN DIO
TIVE
N IAU
A O
IO D
2 CRE COW
UD
ON IA
COW

48 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N M AY 2 0 0 7 CONTENT PAGE
 MP3 PLAY ERS
the job so much simpler, not having to pull
out the player from your pocket/bag just to
skip a track or change the radio channel.
The Philips SA3125 impressed with its
no-nonsense approach, the buttons are
tacky and responsive and the menus are
straightforward, despite the small size of
the player the navigation is smooth and
accurate. Connectivity is also a major fac-
tor with MP3 players, the proprietary con-
nectors on the Apple and Samsung play-
ers implies that one has to be extra careful
not to misplace the cables.
The rest of the players use mini-USB
connectors which are standardized and the
cables are easily available off the shelf.
Transferring music/videos to the players
can be daunting task, especially if the player
does not provide UMS (Universal Mass
Storage) support. While all the players
allow you to drag and drop data on them,
transferring media is not that straight for-
ward. Apart from iAudio that allows you to
drag and drop MP3 files to its music folder,
the Creative, Samsung and Apple MP3
players require you to install their media
applications that have to be used to transfer
songs from your computer to the device.
The Sony NW-S205 scores low on the usa-
bility aspect mainly due to the tiny buttons
and the confusing controls. The twist
mechanism in the player makes it easy to
jump to the next song or skip songs but the
rest of the features aren’t easily accessible
while you “wear” the player.
LOOKS, BUILD
AND BATTERY-LIFE
flash based MP3 players are lot more
power efficient compared to the hard
drive based MP3 players. The Cowon,
Apple, Samsung and Sony players
deserve a special mention for their
battery performance. The i-Audio D2
player claims a stupendous 52 hour
battery life for MP3 playback and a 10
hour back-up for video playback. In reality,
on a single full charge the D2 lasted for
five days with 5-6 hours of music/FM and
about 3 hours of total video playback. The
Sony NW-S205 with its 18-hour claimed
battery life does not break any records but
50 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N M AY 2 0 0 7
AC C E S S O R I E S
EAR PHONES MAKE A DIFFERENCE
THE CREATIVE ZEN V
Plus and the i-Audio D2
and U3 provide excellent
ear phones with the package,
doing full justice to the fine output that the
players are capable of. The Sony NW-S205F
offers behind-the-ear earphones, they sound
good but they might not be comfortable for
everyone. The default earphones bundled
with Apple i-Pod Nano, Philips SA3125 and
Sandisk Sanse e250 produced rather
mediocre sound quality, marring the overall
listening experience.
with its ultra fast recharge times; it gives front scroll wheel is not quite reassuring.
one hour of playback time with a three The Creative Zen V Plus comes with a
minute charge and takes less than 3o scratch resistant body and that makes up
minutes for full charge. The Apple i-Pod for the all plastic frame which seems a
Nano and Samsung YP-T9 and YP-K3 little weak against the other players. In the
will hold enough juice on a single charge looks department, the iPod Nano is slim
to last you for 10 days with about 2-hours and looks sophisticated; both the iAudio
of music every day. On the build quality players look geeky while the Creative Zen
front, the Sony, Apple and iAudio players V Plus is looks cool and funky.
are of the top draw while the Samsung
players are scratch prone due to the shiny TAKE YOUR PICK
reflective surface. The Sandisk Sansa while we have the Creative Zen V Plus
E250 has a metal back but the feel of the as the overall Best Buy winner, we would
also like to pick particular players from
the list of ten that will appeal to distinct
type of users. The iAudio D2 is the obvi-
ous choice for the gadget freak and the
Sony NW-S205 is made for the fitness
freak who end up spending two hours in
the gym every day. The Apple iPod Nano
will find fans among the brand, image
and style conscious, it makes a style state-
ment wherever you go. The Budget buyer
should be happy with a simple and to-
the-point Philips SA3125, priced at Rs
4,999, it’s a steal deal. The Creative Zen V
THE SONY NW-S205F is a Plus and iAudio U3 are meant for purists
wearable MP3 player that who demand nothing but the best music
comes with an arm-band, listening experience. The larger and
allowing users to strap the brighter OLED screen and superior
player on themselves during design of the Zen v Plus gives it an edge
those gym sessions. over the i-Audio U3.
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 best indian websites

A Trillion Thanks!
PC World thanks our distinguished and eminent jury members who
wholeheartedly gave us their time, experience and trenchant views, Krishna Kumar –
thereby making these awards possible. AVP Delivery, GCI Solutions
With over two decades in the software space
Rahul Nanda – VP, Web Chutney Studios. post an MBA from IIMA, Krishna Kumar is
An economics graduate fortified with an MBA, Rahul is a techie at responsible for delivery of key projects for
heart. He has over a decade of path-breaking experience in the e- GCI, formerly known as Planetasia.
commerce and new media domains.

GV Sreekumar – Associate Profes-
sor, Industrial Design Centre, IIT Mumbai.
Prof. Sreekumar is an acknowledged teacher
and practioner in the fields of visual design,
typography and information graphics as well
55 w as publication & magazinemdesign.
w w. P C W O R L D . i n ay 2 0 0 7
Srinivas katta - GM & CTO, Vinayak Sinha – MD & CEO, Advent InfoSoft
Changepond Technologies Vinayak founded Advent, which runs eIndiabusiness.
An IIT engineer, IIM Lucknow, Srinivas excels in new com, a leading B2B marketplace for export-import,
technology adoption and architecting innovative cus- manufacturers and distributors. Advent boasts a base
tomer solutions, for client mega-sites, including the of over 3000 clients in a short period of seven years.
FIFA World Cup and the A1 Grand Prix.
CONTENT PAGE
 best indian websites
Anirudha Joshi – Associate Professor.
Industrial Design Centre, IIT Bombay.
Prof. Joshi teaches and conducts research in human-computer
Roshen chandren– CTO Plynt. interaction design. He brings a unique perspective to the jury given
Co-founder of Paladion/Plynt, Roshen is an he is both an engineer and a PG in visual communication and design.
author, software security practice evangelist,
teacher, speaker; in short a security guru. Need Shamit Khemka – Founder & CEO,
we say more? Synapse Communications
The pioneer of the first BBS with e-mail services in India, Shamit
has over 12 years’ experience in internet technology, manage-
ment, software and professional development.

oSoft Sujata Keshavan Guha Sudarshan Dheer – Founder, Graphic Commu-

s. – Co-Founder & MD, Ray + Keshavan Design. nication Concepts Design Studio.
Sujata is the first Indian woman to obtain a post graduate degree in With more than three decades of experience, Sudarshan has
,
graphic design. Sujata has won several international awards for her won dozens of international design awards, and has published
ase two books on design . He is an advisor, juror, speaker and lec-
rs. work, and is a two-time Designer of the Year honoree by A&M. turer in the global milieu.
56 w w w. P C W O R L D . i n m ay 2 0 0 7 CONTENT PAGE

technology will dominate the future and the web is
clearly one of its greatest manifestations. Forget the
dotcom bust that many sceptics will remind you of
The Web is going to become our way of life in India.
There are enough statistics to point to
the rapid growth of the Internet in India –
number of connections, e-mail accounts,
transaction revenue – all very convincing.
But who needs statistics? Just a quick look
around will reveal how web is fast replacing
traditional brick-n-mortar operations.
Be it picking new stocks or new
friends, finding a job or a bride, there’s
a web way to things that is proving far
more effective, and rewarding. Websites
today are built with robust understand-
ing of users and available technology.
They purposefully pursue fulfilling the
needs of their audience but are ground-
ed in strong business reality. And hence,
unlike the fairy-tail era gone by, this
time round the web is geared to deliver
all your needs.
Yes, the web has answers for almost all
your needs and the problem is one of
being spoilt for choice. There are scores of
websites wooing you with the same con-
tent or service. There are those who prom-
ise to be a one-stop-shop while others
claim they are better because they are
focused and specialised. As a user one is
left wondering where to begin and typi-
cally end up with familiar sites or rec-
ommendations. Perhaps not
the best way to reach the site.
The best site should use
technology to deliver solu-
tions. Information should be
presented intuitively and con-
cisely. Design should aid the overall
experience. And that is what our
Best Indian Websites represent. In
its first year, the award focuses on
20 prominent categories – products
and services that are most useful
today and are not based on fancy
future roadmaps. The 126 nom-
inees that we evaluate repre-
sent the best known names as
well as some not-so-famous-yet sites that
our panel of experts believe do justice to
their mission.
The awards aim to capture the frame-
work and user understanding that the
site has – embodied in its design and
r at i n G
HOW WE EVALUATED
Judging websites on design and
technology usage required us to call in
the experts. Our expert jury represent
the very elite from the design and tech-
nology domain and have a collective
experience of over 150 years.
Besides design and the use of technol-
ogy, PC World and other group publica-
tion editors (CIO and Channel World)
rated the site as users to arrive at the
overall winner. Our emphasis was more
on technical aspects of the site develop-
ment which meant that design and tech-
nology carried 40 points each, while user
experience was 20 points adding up to a
total of 100. The overall winner of a cate-
gory was the site with the highest com-
bined score on the three groups – design,
technology and user experience.
Design Score (40 points):
Our design experts rated
sites on two broad sub-lev-
els - design and usability.
Color, graphics, typography,
visual appeal and consistency
in design contributed to 25
points. Usability which took into
account interactivity and custom-
ization to India added another 15
points to complete the total score
of 40 points on design. In recogni-
tion of outstanding work done
in this area, we have ranked
the Best Designed website in
each category.
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b est i n d i a n w e b s i t es
deployment of technology - rather than
to rate its specific content, something
that changes very dynamically and per-
haps impossible to judge objectively.
We’ve also stayed away from making
popularity a criteria or viewing traffic
reports to declare winners. The win-
ners here are based on what our
experts believe are the most promising
and deserving sites and we hope you
agree with the verdicts when you try
them yourself.
Technology Score (40 points): Similarly,
our technology experts rated sites on the
basis of two broad sub-categories with 20
points each. One component, navigation,
covered structure or framework of the site,
interface and scope. The other, functional-
ity, focussed on use of technology to
enhance user experience, diversity, error
handling and security. The site which
scored the maximum on 40 points possi-
ble was adjudged the Best Technology
website in each category.
User Evaluation (20 points): Our editors,
who represent actual users of these web-
sites today scored the sites on content and
overall experience. In content, they looked
for scope, relevance, ability to find it easily
(search) and layout. On the overall experi-
ence they considered navigation, interac-
tivity and design as end-users would.
Overall Winner: The user evaluation of
20 points was then added to the Design
Score and the Technology Score to arrive
at our overall winner. The highest score
was crowned the Best Indian Website. In
case of a tie the site with a higher tech-
nology score has been declared the win-
ner. In case of a tie on design or technol-
ogy scores, the vertical specific sites were
given preference over the portals reward-
ing extra credit to their specialization in
a particular field to arrive at our Design
or Technology winner. Thankfully, we
were not left with any tied scores to han-
dle beyond that!
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 best indian websites

Gaming
yahoo! games are small arcade-style games
that can either be played multi-
There is nothing like taking some time player in online mode or single
off from work to look for gaming action player offline.
online. No, we are not talking about Mas- In India, Yahoo! games has
sively Multiplayer Online became quite a hit with young-
Role Playing games or sters, with games such as pool,
(MMORPGs) as they Literati (a scrabble clone), Chess,
are called. What and Reversi etc. Based on the
games.yahoo.com provides a good combination
we are talking success and hit rates experi-
of design and content to emerge as the winner.
about here enced by Yahoo, Reliance
jumped onto the foray with Zapak. mention for providing a networking area,
com. However, to say the least, where gamers can discuss games. A great
Zapak failed to satisfy the jury. implementation. Funtoosh.com, on the
Though the site has many games, other hand, sports a nice compilation of
it scores low on the usability, nav- flash games that are really interesting.
igation and functionality scale. But, Yahoo! games rules the roost with
And besides functionality, why a great mix of free-to-use, shareware and
on earth should a gaming site subscription games with a games news
have trailers, recipes and fash- section. They could make the site even
ion videos is totally baffling. more interesting by adding game reviews,
Indiagames.com deserves a special said the jury.

Flowers and Gifts

fernsnpetals The other floritst player,
Rajindra Florist, sports a
does not provide any Indi-
an customization (in the
Cards and gifts are a great way to com- site a bit too busy for com- form of special arrange-
municate with loved ones across the fort. The site design is far ment for festivals for
country, or for that matter anywhere in from great without much instance). They could do
the world. It is even possible to send visual appeal. The site has with a better registration
“Fernsnpetals.
flowers, cakes, sweets and gifts to friends a couple of good concepts and payment page. All
and family at the click of a button. Dedi- like tailor-made orders,
com has a clean portals have tie-ups with
cated websites and special sections on which however, are not and decent look, local vendors to fulfill
shopping portals allow you to communi- implemented correctly. you feel like buy- orders. Though this proc-
cate your feelings easily. There is much scope for ing flowers.” ess may work for them,
Unlike many other sections where por- improvement. the quality fo flowers
Anirudha Joshi
tals have emerged as winners in vertical Of the shopping portals, deliverd cannot be guaran-
niches, fernsnpetals.com bags the honors indiaplaza.in emerged as teed. Even if you choose
here. This click-and-mortar operator has the main challenge to fernsnpetals. The not to use the winner, use a specialist
a clean look that seduces the user into site provides consistent information, but who delivers in the desired location.
buying flowers. But the images on the
winners
site leave a lot to be desired. Being a flo-
rist website they could have made them Best indian websites
more natural, rather than using Pho- category Best Design Best Technology Usage Overall Winner
toshop touchups. The site does offer a lot
Gaming games.yahoo.com games.yahoo.com games.yahoo.com
of user interactivity, employing chat
options on MSN and Yahoo. Flowers and gifts fernsnpetals.com fernsnpetals.com fernsnpetals.com

58 w w w. P C W O R L D . i n m ay 2 0 0 7 CONTENT PAGE
 best indian websites

Cricket of the others come close to pro-

cricinfo viding such comprehensive con-
India's unofficial national sport tent, and in such a good pack-
rouses passions like few other issues. age. Though the site could do
Almost everyone has an opinion on the with a bit of less clutter. It is
game. And that has result- phenomenally well
ed in websites being oper- updated, so much
ated by everybody and his so that at the time
neighbor in this category. of testing it was
On one hand you have already ready to Cricinfo features a section where a live 3-
television channels such show the next Dimentional rendering of the current game is available
as ESPN STAR; on the match. It also fea-
other you have the special- tures a unique way of filter- Indian as well as foreign audiences. Kudos
ists — Cricinfo and Crick- ing commentary by play- to them for a great job done.
et next. Newspapers and “Cricinfo.com is ers, and does the same None of the other cricket websites man-
portals are also not far very good in thing for player stats. aged to impress the judges. They were
behind with Rediff, India- terms of content, To take this to the next level either out of date, as in the case of Cric
times, Hindustan Times Crickinfo also features a new
and Express India putting
navigation, data, live 3-D rendering of the cur- Buzz, or have poor navigation and plan-
ning as was the case with cricket next.
together verticals on their site structure and rent game. Here, 3-Dimen- As for the others such as Indiatimes
respective websites. planning.” sional characters depict the and Express India, they seemed to be
In terms of design, ESPN happenings on the cricket treating cricket as a necessary evil rather
STAR bagged the honors. Vinayak Sinha field graphically. Though it than adopting a focused approach
The site provides excellent would be akin to watching a towards the vertical. They do have news
infographics within the live scorecard, cricket computer game, it adds the excite- and analysis of games, but no in-depth
though take a bit of time to load. It also ment, without stretching your bandwidth information is available to enhance
has an excellent flash-based cricket cen- requirements. It is also well customized for the experience.
tre. The site design itself has good color
balance and visual appeal.
Having said that, the one site that
stands out of the crowd is Cricinfo. None Shopping
futurebazaar we saw very keen competition with differ-

Classifieds During the dot com boom and bust,

ent winners for design, technology and
overall performance. Future Bazaar took
Though classifieds did not fea-
shopping was touted as one of the major
ture in our awards as a category,
drivers of e-commerce growth. As it
predominantly because it has not
turned out, the concept was a bit ahead
peaked yet. But, it is one of the most
for its time. With the Internet coming of
important sectors that may make a
age in the recent time, and increased
transition to the online world a lot
trust in online transactions, this catego-
faster. There is already a no non-
ry has found many more takers. The
sense site called craigslist for
jury evaluated Rediff, Indiatimes, Sify,
classifieds around the world with a
ebay, Indiaplaza, Chennai Bazaar, Future
secion on India. But, we also have
Bazaar and India Mall. Though Ebay is
some homegrown classified websites
predominantly perceived as an auction
that are trying to make a mark. Some
site, it was included in the comparison
of these sites includes rediff classi-
because most of the trades that are post-
fieds, oneindia.com, indialisted.com
ed on the site are for new products. Futurebazaar won on the design front and
and sulekha.com.
This was one of the few categories where provides good shopping experience.

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 b est i n d i a n w e b s i t es

E-mail Ag g r e g at o r s

The Have-it-Alls
gmail
There are portals, there are verti-
There were days when Hotmail was the only free specialty e-mail service on the
cals and then there are search
block. Yahoo and AOL moved in later to provide it some stiff competition. Our home
engines. But, out of all of these, there
grown services like Rediff and Sify also have a loyal fan following, but are still not too
is a new category of sites that are
high on the popularity charts. We evaluated Indiatimes, Yahoo India, Sify, Rediff,
emerging in the horizon. These are
Epatra, MSN India and Gmail in this category.
called the aggregators. They are help-
In the past few months, the interfaces of some old websites have gone in for a huge
ful in finding
makeover. Instead of using the age-old HTML most now use Web 2.0 technologies
information on a
enabling interfaces similar to desktop e-mail clients. Some of these features like e-
particular verti-
mails, conversations or web page shortcuts. were first introduced by google. The
cal. Generally
others have followed up with more dynamic features such as multiple selections,
this vertical has
drag and drop functionality and right clicks.
a lot of competi-
The Jury found MSN LIVE, with its new interface, to be visually appealing. Its design
tion and these
is quite sophisticated and refreshing. The usage of refined gradients & fine thin lines
aggregators
give a good feel to the user interface. It scored the highest in our design rankings,
enable you to
countering popular belief. Yahoo Mail, on the other hand, boasts of a good overall
choose from this
interface with new features to hook the user.
competition easily. In India they are
Google was ranked much lower in design because of its aging interface, compared to the
not too common yet, but they are get-
other contenders in the category. But it certainly wins overall because of the sheer number
ting there.
of features it has.
There are a couple that you may
“Gmail.com has a great Epatra.com offers want to try out, bixee.com and zoom-
number of features, but good features like tra.com. Bixee.com searches through
the interface is not very vernacular e-mails various job sites for openings match-
but the one-off fea-
user friendly.” tures did not get
ing your criteria. On the other hand,
zoomtra.com makes your search for
them even close to
the lowest airfare easier. It would
Rahul Nanda the winners.
search through all the major web-
sites for you. Yes, it could be a bit
slower than a standalone site but its
quite helpful.
the top spot on the design front. Though and Sify were more than OK in their per- The perils of using these services
this site sells a limited range of products it formance, and trailed very close behind are that sometimes the information
has a decent, no-nonsense approach, while future bazaar. Once again, we see a case being fed to these sites may not be
providing a good shopping experience. of a new website(futurebazaar.com) win- current and you may get stale results.
Ebay, wins on the tech side of things. It ning because of better technology adop- Or, in some cases you may not even
provides diversity in functionality, good tion. The incumbents need to take notice come to know of any special deals or
user tools and an intelligent error han- of this and re-invent themselves inorder promotions on the sites that the
dling system. to come upto steam with the winners. aggregator searches through.
Overall, we found futurebazaar.com to
the be the winner. It does not feature at the
top on technology, but performed consis- winners
tently across parameters to come up
numero uno. In terms of design and func-
best indian websites
category Design Technology usage Overall Performance
tionality the site is well planned. The look
is clean and un-cluttered, while support- cricket espnstar.com cricinfo.com cricinfo.com

ing good user interaction. The product

shopping futurebazaar.com ebay.co.in futurebazaar.com
comparator is however, difficult to use.
Long time veterans Rediff, Indiatimes e-mail hotmail.com yahoo.com gmail.com

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 best indian websites
Real Estate
India Property
The click-and-mortar approach to
a brick-and-mortar business is becoming
increasingly the way online
realty is heading. With
real estate prices shoot-
ing up like never
before, online real
estate businesses are
spreading slowly,
overlapping with the
services offered by
your friendly neigh-
borhood broker.
India Prop-
erties, Magic
Bricks, 99
Acres, India
P r o p e r t y,
came up for our
scrutiny.
It's love at first site with India Property,
and India Properties (yes, these are two dif-
ferent portals). While India Property has a
large number of interactive options, India
Properties has very attractive colors, good
layout and informative graphics. The pleas-
ant blue-ish feel of India Property lends
Technology
tech2
Of all the technology websites, tech2.
com emerged as the clear winner. It sports
a clean and easy-to-use design with a
smart color palette to attract the target
audience. The dark background of the site
enables it to maintain focus on the right
areas while infusing a fresh feel to the
site. Besides this, the addition of video in
collaboration with CNBC-TV18 adds a
new dimension to the website and moves
it to a different paradigm altogether. How-
ever, the site also does not come without
its own set of problems; the Google ads
on all pages creates a lot of confusion and
62 w w w. P C W O R L D . i n m ay 2 0 0 7
itself to a nice surfing experience while the
good background picture makes it visually
very appealing. At India Properties, the
large number of categories make it easy to
locate precise information. Besides this, the
testimonials and other interactive tools
also make it a good site. When it
comes to navigation, users found
India Property to have an advan-
tage over its closest competi-
tor. Its structure/ frame-
work, interface and
functionality are
better geared to
user comfort.
Also, the use
of technolo-
g y t o
enhance
user expe-
rience, and
security are
better in India Property.com.
It was therefore really not surprising,
given its appealing, fresh colors, high-
quality graphics that make the layout so
appealing, and the in-depth and informa-
tive content that India Property stayed
ahead in our ranking.
is distracting whilst reading content. Also,
the videos page does not allow users to
comment and discuss videos.
Tech2.com emerges as the winner because of
current content, videos and a refreshing feel.
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On lin e Gaming
Second Life
If you are a pessimist you may
even call it escapism, or you may
also perceive it as good clean way to
have something you never had in
the real world. And, if you don’t
already know about Second Life,
you can already consider yourself a
part of the stone age.
It is a virtual community built and
managed entirely by more than 5
million inhabit-
ants. If you have
seen The Matrix,
its very similar
to that, just with-
out as much real-
ism. You are an
avatar inside this
world and trade
in real money, as
you would trade in the real world.
The currency, Linden Dollars, can be
converted to and from US dollars.
The seriousness of the 'game' can
be judged from the fact that the
management institute INSEAD is
already in the process of opening its
institute inside, and Reuters already
employs a full time reporter there.
Techtree.com was one of the fore-run-
ners in this category , but has not lever-
aged technology adequately to enhance
the user experience. It sports a very aver-
age interface, which proves quite difficult
to find a specific product, even though
they have used tag clouds in places. CIOL.
com on the other hand, is quite compre-
hensive when it comes to certain catego-
ries but does not span across horizontally.
ZDNet India has a clean interface and is
easy to navigate. The light colors on the
website are soothing to the eye and makes
the website very readable. On the content
side however, this website falls short, as it
is nowhere as comprehensive as tech2.

Portals
yahoo
Everything that used to be on terra
firma a few decades ago is now done
better online. There are a huge number
of portals that make up the world that
we inhabit in cyberspace. Among them,
Yahoo!, MSN, Sify, Indya, Indiatimes
and Rediff are unarguably the most- vis-
ited Indian portals.
In terms of design and usability Yahoo!
tops the charts. The color palette, graph-
ics and layout of the portal is the best.
The subtle blue gradient and the good
pixel iconography results in great aesthet-
ic appeal. In addition, its interactivity and
the degree of customization for the Indi-
an audience are also better than most
websites. The interface and layout utilize
the available space just right.
On the technology side too, Yahoo!
takes the top spot, using the latest tech-
nologies such as AJAX to ensure that
user has a desktop- like interface. This
provides the kind of personalization that
instantly puts the user at ease. Yahoo!’s
navigation is also good, and despite the
great diversity of its content there is
extremely effective utilization of space.
However, when it comes to quality, rele-
vance and scope of content, Rediff beats
Yahoo! to the finish line. The coverage, con-
tent quality as well as layout get full marks.
It has, very good coverage for a portal. Its
layout is also consistent, and there is no
overlap or structural confusion.
On the other hand, the one portal that
disappoints, especially in terms of design,
is MSN India. First-off, the single color
winners
best indian websites
category Design
Real Estate indiaproperty.com
Technology tech2.com
Portals yahoo.co.in
Jobs clickjobs.com
b est i n d i a n w e b s i t es
palette is extremely boring,
and the video advertisement
most other sites on almost
all counts. Providing a wide
on the homepag edoes not range of distinct features
serve much purpose, except such as Yahoo Go!, the
to irritate the user. desktop feel and the mes-
On content organization senger toolbar, while incor-
side, every section in MSN “Clean, efficient, porating the latest technol-
has a box on the homep- user-friendly ogies around, enhaces the
age, which makes it look design. Yahoo. user experience, and makes
quite cluttered. Indiatimes co.in does a very it a winner.
is also not too far away good job in pre- Localization and person-
from MSN where clutter is alization add toYahoo!’s dis-
concerned. It could do with
senting so much tinctiveness. Close on its
a better structure leading content in a lim- heels, however are Rediff
to a more intuitive user ited space.” and Indiya.com. The latter
e x p e r i e n c e . C l a s s i e r, is somewhat unique on
Sujata Keshavan
brighter colors could also account of its animated
give this portal a new life. graphics that stand out
Not surprisingly, Yahoo heads the line- onsite as do the headlines of the day, giv-
up, with the jury finding it superior to ing a very unique touch to the portal.
Job Sites
monsterindia
Its hard to imagine how people got jobs before these sites showed up. With the
economy booming and HR managers trying hard to curb attrition rates these sites have
become a one-stop resource for employers, job seekers and job consultants alike.
The job-site wars sparked-off by Naukri.com and Jobsahead, and were fanned to a
blaze by the entry of Monster India. And now we have a couple of new promising con-
tenders in Job Street, Click Jobs, and Times Jobs.
From the design point of view, clickjobs stood out of the crowd because of its clutter-
free interface. The site design is quite subtle in keeping with the demands of the catego-
ry, and does not come off as loud and noisy. The use of shading on the site is also quite
inspiring and pleasing to the eye.
All these websites extensively use Web 2.0 functionality. Clickjobs gives you chat -enhanced
search. Naukri.com, has tag clouds which make it very informative. Monster.com has one of
the best search tools using a single search box. It also has a well integrated and organized
registration and application process. It also
has an absolutely clutter-free homepage that
is pleasing to the eye and easy to use. All
Technology usage Overall winner these features make Monster India the cho-
indiaproperty.com indiaproperty.com
sen one based on our test results.
In conrtast, the timesjobs.com interface
tech2.com tech2.com is quite cluttered . Value-adds like ‘Career
Services’ are hidden and not comprehen-
yahoo.co.in yahoo.co.in
sive. It does have its good parts with Ascent
monsterindia.com monsterindia.com Job Postings standing out as an example.
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 best indian websites

Social Networking
orkut
In today’s 36-plus hour workdays,
meeting up with friends is usually possi-
ble only due to the benign powers of your
computer and the magnanimity of the
world wide web. Moreover, social net-
working today is not only about reaching
out with the proverbial human touch but
also about getting and staying connected,
for a variety of purposes, be they family,
friends or work. We evaluated Mingle
Box, Yaari, Sulekha, Rediff, MSN Spaces,
Yahoo India and Orkut in this category.
At first look, Yaari.com has the best
visual appeal. The colors, graphics, con-
sistency and typography make it the best-
designed site in the domain. It also takes
the cake for user interactivity and it is
More than Orkut
M i n g l e b ox i s
one of the new
sites that has
come up to suit
the Indian cus-
tomers need in
praiseworthy for its cus-
tomization to suit the
Indian audience.
Orkut however, has
been voted as the best of
the lot. Though it is a glob-
al site, there are hordes of
Indians using it, making it one
of the most popular social networking
sites. In terms of user experience it is the
easiest to navigate, with its straight for-
ward, uncomplicated and clean interface.
However, it may not be the best bet for
those looking for business networking. It
could also do with brighter colors. Orkut
also faces some charges of unsuitability
for an increasingly younger audience.
There are special sites now that cater to
younger audience; one such is Mingle-
box.com that focuses mainly on teenag-
ers. On the other hand, sites like kincafe.
com are positioned for family network-
ing, incorporating features such as photo
albums and family trees. And then you
have techTribe, which is a professional
networking site, one that promotes entre-
preneurship in addition to networking.
Members are encouraged to propose and
discuss business start-up ideas, which
could be funded by techTribe . Though
we have not evaluated these sites, they do
deserve a special mention here.
MSN Spaces is predominantly focused
on blogs. It uses webparts while creating
spaces, using rich text editors which
impart an extremely user-friendly and
intuitive touch. However, the site provides
the option of creating your own page with-
in the space, something that actually cre-
ates a lot of clutter. Also, as is the case with
Yahoo, MSN Spaces is not really an appro-
priate platform for social networking.
Among the sites we studied, Yahoo
India scored best on relevance of con-
tent, layout and search options available.

more ways than
one. The site specifically caters to
the youth in India, and suitably shows
that on the home page also. Has sec-
tions on blogs, groups, pictures and
video; while still being in alpha. Hope-
fully the site would come around to
being as engrossing if not better than
its international counterparts.
Kinkafe.com, on the other hand,
brings about another concept alto-
gether. It is a family networking site.
A phenomenally good idea to keep
families together in this age of
increasingly nuclear culture. It offers
features like family albums that sup-
ports pictures of different sizes and
even a family tree, that you can eas-
ily grow horizontally and vertically.
This is as interesting as it can get.
News
ibnlive offered almost identical features and scored
much the same. Though NDTV stands out
Is this an exciting space or what? Be it for its superior user interactivity, the clean
newspapers, TV companies, Internet design and good technology usage of IBN
giants or portals, everybody wants a slice Live won the top spot amongst all news web-
of the online news pie. While for some sites. Being one of the pioneers of videos on
it’s their bread and butter, for others it’s a
necessary evil. And this can be seen from
the various kinds of news site implemen-
tations on the Internet.
Starting with the Indian portals, both
Sify and Rediff provide enough and more
content than a user can handle. Though
Sify could do with a little less clutter,
Rediff scores better on account of its
increased user interactivity.
Amongst the TV channel-owned sites we IBNlive took the top spot in news websites
evaluated IBN Live and NDTV.com. Both with a clean design and good technology

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Web 2.0
YouTube, Flickr,
Wikipedia Killers
Hitwise has tapped the six Web
2.0 companies most likely to reach
the soaring success of YouTube,
Wikipedia or Flickr. The list includes:
Yelp offers an online guide that
allows users to rate various goods
and services.
StumbleUpon allows users to recom-
mend Web sites to others with com-
mon interests.
Veoh provides software to allow
users to collect, publish and watch
high definition videos.
WeeWorld allows users to create a
graphic alter ego
to be used for
online or mobile
communications.
Imeem is an online
community to
allow users to pro-
mote their con-
tent, blogs, music,
photos and videos.
Piczo is a site that allows users -- it
targets teenagers -- to create their
own customizable Web sites.
a website, it enjoys a large fan following.
Even so, it could do with better implementa-
tion of its user comment handling.
Though both the Hindustan Times and
The Times of India sites provide great
content, neither provides adequate sup-
port for user opinion or contribution. In
this mad race for grabbing the reader, the
old ladies of news appear to be laggards.
Having said that, and despite its short-
comings, on account of strong site struc-
ture, effective interface and its ability to
target a diverse variety of users, HT got
the top honors in application of tech seg-
ment. The other newspaper site evaluated
was Indian Express. It was one of the first
newspaper sites to be launched, but has
not kept up with the times. The content is
b est i n d i a n w e b s i t es
Astrology
sify
Hurtling top speed into the twenty-fifth century has
not deterred mankind from charting the stars in order to
foretell the future. The ubiquitous astrologer now comes
packaged as a website that does all the necessary jobs, some-
times for a fee. Whilst almost every portal has an astrology “Sify.com has
channel, there are a few pure-play astrology sites. Amongst good navigation...
the sites our panel evaluated was Vedic Astrology Prediction,
Astro Yogi, Sify, Cyber Astro and Astrology India.
however the
Vedic Astrology prediction eclipsed others by its simple, content is too
clean design, relevant colors (a soothing blue), best visual focussed on
appeal and consistency of presentation with a robust type "forecasting". ”
style. However, the site comes across as being too non-
moving with too many static pages. In addition, the lack Krishna Kumar TK
of interactivity makes it dull for the user.
Astrology India ranked alongside this site for interac-
tivity and local customization. In things as traditional as astrology, the Indian
colors on the site impart a good feel to the whole visual experience.
When it came to the navigation and interface structure, Sify’s astrology portal
was judged as the best. This portal also boasts of the best use of technology to
enhance the user experience, error handling and security options. This site also
has the highest level of security when it comes to payment by credit card, and
with the SSL option provided.
Sify’s astrology portal and Cyber Astro both have very comprehensive as well
as relevant content which is elegantly laid out Sify comes across as a very inter-
active site that allows interface with experts but it focuses too much on content. In the
long run, this may create credibility problems for the site.
With all these parameters in play, Sify beats Cyber Astro by a hair’s breadth to emerge
as the winner in this category.
still fragmented and the site leaves a lot segment, being an aggregator it deserves
to be desired. a special mention. The site provides a lot
Finally, moving to the pure-Internet of room for customization of news and
giants, MSN and Yahoo come out as just alerts. You can individualize alerts and
about average in performance. It almost webpage based on the product, service or
feels that they are in the news space more keyword that you may want to track. If
as a necessary evil rather than out a desire you are not particularly attached or
to provide news. hooked to any of the other news sites,
Although Google is not in the news then Google News is the best way to go.
winners
best indian websites
category Design Technology usage Overall Performance
Social yaari.com orkut.com orkut.com
Networking
News ibnlive.com hindustantimes.com ibnlive.com
Astrology vedicastrologyprediction.com sify.com sify.com
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 best indian websites

Travel Web 2.0 - A Definition

cleartrip
With the rise of modern India, young
people want to step out and travel around
to see the world. What this means is a
humungous business case for travel-
related websites, evidenced by the num-
ber of them that have mushroomed
across the web. These are no longer mere
ticket booking sites that offer you the best
fares; they now provide comprehensive
information about the best holiday desti-
nations, hotel ratings and bookings, trav-
eler blogs, pod casts, and almost anything
else that helps make your travel simpler.
CLeartrip.com emerged as the winner because
of its clear security policy and simple structure
We tested six of
these sites. Yatra.
Web 2.0 could be a meaningless marketing buzzword or it
may represent a whole new paradigm for the Internet. But,
com emerged as it’s never really been adequately defined.
the numero uno According to Tim O'Reilly, "Web 2.0 is the business revolu-
from design point tion in the computer industry caused by the move to the
of view. The site is a Internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules
great combination for success on that new platform."
of features, design But tech expert Berners-Lee says, “Web 2.0 is of course a
and technology, piece of jargon, nobody even knows what it means. If Web 2.0
providing a great for you is blogs and wikis, then that is people to people. But
user experience, that was what the Web was supposed to be all along.”
while efficiently
accomplishing the job at hand. The colors, be a winner when it does what it is sup-
graphics and visual appeal of the site are posed to and does that really well.
clearly miles ahead of the others. The only We observed web 2.0 implementations in
grouse that we had was the lack of most of these sites, as also a focus on user
a SSL login, though the payment generated content. NDTV travels in partic-
gateway of the site is secure. ular has a lot of user generated content in
Cleartrip was the overall winner the form of reviews and travelogue. Make
with its simple My Trip offers pod cast travelogues. At first
and clear struc- glance these appear to provide a lot of info
ture, good error on various topics, but the content could be
handling and a quite biased. It appears that travelers chose
clear security to write only about extreme experiences,
policy. It is all either when overly impressed or totally dis-
the other sites sans the frills, and appointed. Our advice is to tread carefully
therefore great functionality. It is when you look at such reviews, and try and
a good example of how a site can filter out the bias, if any.

Matrimony
bharatmatrimony
Matrimonial sites on the web today
make us wonder how anyone got married
before these sites bought potential soul
mates together! Their deep and expansive
reach outdoes ways of finding a match.
Amongst the clutter, there are a few that
stand out. We evaluated Shaadi.com, Mat-
rimonial India, Jeevansathi, Bharat Matri-
mony, SimplyMarry (Times), and Rediff.
In terms of design, Shaadi.com was the
most popular. Great design and layout,
good blogs, Q&A, video and photo gallery
along with interesting links provide great
value addition to this site. Fresh, appealing
colors, interesting graphics and convenient
layout reinforce
visual appeal. How-
ever, at times, Shaa-
di’s pages appear to
be somewhat clut-
tered. Equally posi-
tioned, Bharat Matrimony also uses pic-
tures extensively making the site visually
attractive, adding appeal to the layout.
Every aspect of Indian marriages is spe-
cial in more ways than one, and that
includes the search for the bride or groom.
Few websites understand these individual
demands, and among ones that do, Times’
SimplyMarry was voted right alongside
Shaadi. Shaadi is also very user friendly
and has very useful links and options for
“Bharatmatrimony.com
is visually attractive as
the emphasis is more on
the photographs and
then the layouts which is
appealing too.”
Sudarshan Dheer
more effective search functionality. Bharat
Matrimony boasts of the best navigability,
in terms of structure/ framework inter-
face, scope and functionality. It comes
across as simple and helpful, with useful
data that aids navigation. Rediff was also
rated as a very functional site, so these are
obviously the most user friendly websites
for choosing a life partner today.
At the end of the day, Bharat Matrimony
got the most votes for overall best website.

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 b est i n d i a n w e b s i t es

Bill Payment
well as a large number of services some-
visabillpay times make it took a bit cluttered. But
Life has never been cushier, now that in select categories it has the potential to
utilities, banks and other bills can be paid be a winner.
online. There are a number of websites Bangalore One, though not a winner
that make the dream of queue-less bill deserves special mention. The way the site
payment come true. We picked up Visa has been conceived is great. You can pay all
Bill Pay, Bangalore One, Bill Junction, and kinds of bills and other dues on the website.
Itzpay, and had a long hard look at which Being backed up by service centers across
of them make our Bangalore, makes it
lives the easiest. a robust click-and-
Visa Bill Pay offers mortar story too.
the best in terms of Though the site A somewhat different bill payment option
colors, graphics, visu- holds out great prom- deserves a mention here. Though not totally
al appeal, consistency ise, it is nevertheless online, Easybill has centres across India that
and typography. It is a bit too cluttered for allow you to pay a wide variety of bills with-
useful only to a limit- our liking and could out logging on to the Internet. It would be
ed number of cus- do with a facelift. At great to see them extend this service online.
tomers, but its layout the risk of being over- Visa Bill Pay appeared to be the best
though visa billpay accepts only Visa
is clean and easy, and optimistic, if Banga- performer across all criteria, with a great
cards, it is the most comprehensive site
offers a range of pay- lore One could scale interactive design, in-depth content and
ment options. It also tops for usability, to provide similar service on a pan-India smooth functionality, not to forget its
interactivity and customization for Indian basis, it would be really great. extremely interactive interface.
users. While finance or bill payment sites
could be slightly confusing if the naviga-

tion and site maps are not clearly laid out,
Visa Bill Pay takes good care of this aspect.
Its structure and interface are very well
designed, resulting in easy usage. It is also
the widest in terms of scope, relevance
and depth. Most definitely the site to go to
if you are looking to pay your bills online.
However, in terms of sheer functionality
and content, Bill Junction takes the cake. It
is user-friendly, has loads of information
and even provides the option for payment
via SMS. The fact that it supports payment
operations across a long list of cities as
winners
best indian websites
category Best Design
travel yatra.com
Matrimony shaadi.com
Bill Payment visabillpay.com
Entertainment indiafm.com
Entertainment
rediff
News of any kind is extremely important, right? Everybody wants to know about
their favorite film or TV stars’ lives, marriages, love affairs, work, or light hearted gos-
sip. This content category usually forms a very important part of most portals , and
thus in our shootout was considered a separate category. The last four contenders in
the race were India FM, Indiatimes, Rediff and MSN.
Amongst the websites evaluated in this category Rediff.com came out on top.
While India FM scored higher in the design department, surprisingly Rediff topped
in the content department, ahead of all the others. This was suprising, as we expect-
ed that the specialist, niche players,
India FM for one,would sail through this
aspect of the shootout .Adding insult to
injury, Rediff was also the winner in the
Best Technology usage Overall Performance usability tests, the site providing superi-
cleartrip.com cleartrip.com
or interactivity.
Indiatimes, on the other hand, flattered
bharatmatrimony.com bharatmatrimony.com to deceive and did not live up to the expec-
tation. Yahoo got the most points for
visabillpay.com visabillpay.com
being the best technology implementa-
yahoo.com rediff.com tion amongst the entertainment sites.

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 best indian websites

Photo Printing
itasveer structured interface. It edges ahead
of Picsquare on account of its very
The advent of digital cameras has interesting doodlepad application
posed an uprecedented problem, how which lets you create interesting
does one get the photos taken printed?. If graphics that can be used on mugs
you date back to the time of Flintstones, and t-shirts, that can be ordered off
you may still want to wade through city the website. It lets you add borders,
traffic and give your photos to the neigh- graphics, multiple pictures and such
borhood photo-lab; alternatively, you likes to your photographs.
The sites that really disappointed
us were Kodak and Snap Galaxy.
Kodak is the oldest photo printing
service in India, but the site fails to
live up to that reputation. It is an
extremely basic website that depends
on a downloadable software to print able job, but are barely average when it
photos. The interface is extremely comes to design and interactivity. All said
simplistic, and best avoided. Snap ,done and evaluated, iTasveer barely nudges
Galaxy, on the other hand, is not a ahead of Picsquare to finish first, and main-
very user-friendly website. Fobaz and ly on account its superior navigational
itasveer features interesting elements like Merasnap, two other sites, do a reason- design and the doodle pad.
doodlepad to make online photo printing fun

Mobile Content
could use one of the many photo-printing
services available on the Internet.
Today, online photo printing is mush-
rooming everywhere in Indian cyberspace, yahoo mobile
and that too with hard to resist price and
service offerings. Amongst the websites Rediff emerges at the top of the pile for design in the mobile content area with its
reviewed by us the two that clearly stood decent coverage of the latest mobile offerings with a focus on the entertainment space.
out were picsqaure.com and itasveer.com. The site appears to be clean, uncluttered, structured with well-designed icons. The type
Picsquare has a very style used, and font color add to its visual appeal. This site has outstanding
clean and contemporary functionality, while providing quick and relevant search results.
design. The colors used Content appears to be the best on the Yahoo! Mobile content portal,
for the interface and picto- which provides very good , feature-rich coverage communication, logis-
rial representation of ele- tics, entertainment, even such diverse topics as finance and sports. This
ments are really cool and makes.Yahoo! Mobile a really interesting site to visit. However, some of
fresh and completely suit- the experts on our panel felt that the positioning of the key features and
ed to the milieu. They specific entries could have been done better. The site also provides
have used Web 2.0 tech- unique value-added features; SMS backup, picture previews, creating of
nologies such as Ajax, the (optional) personalized logos, to name just a few.
“Mobile.yahoo.
photo resolution is high, On the usability front,mobile.yahoo.com rates alongside Rediff, and
and password module
com has Very it’s a neck to neck race. These two sites also provide great customization
refreshing. Overall the good coverage… for Indian surfers, catering to our region-specific needs. According to
site comes out as extreme- ample scope for expert opinion, even though it is easy to find info and links on the site,
ly clean and user friendly. a sustainable navigation could be made simpler on mobile.yahoo.com.
iTasveer also espouses a revenue Indiatimes also boasts of easy navigation and a clean user interface.
very clean and focused Its clear content categorization makes for easy readability too.
generation model”
approach, while providing All things considered Yahoo! Mobile stands above the rest, the strongest
a highly user-friendly and Srinivas Katta point of this site being its content quality and extremely simple interface.

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 b est i n d i a n w e b s i t es

Auction Vernacular Mania

ebay from latest gizmos to crafted jewellery.
With more secure payment gateways in
The sound of the proverbial hammer place, buying online is hardly an issue
with the solid “sold’ may be missing here, and more and more users are jumping
but online auction sites are no less excit- on the bandwagon to buy from websites
ing or useful as a great means of ordering such as eBay, Rediff and Indiatimes.
and buying from the comfort and con- A study of popular auction sites threw up
fines of your keyboard. Today, auction these names and it was a dead-to-head fight.
sites, are a great place to buy everything, The judges rated each site on visual appeal,
interactivity and their convenience-
oriented options, - links, add-ons
and, in this case payment security.
Looking at design and usability,
eBay India came up on top for its
great graphic interfaces, colors,
visual appeal, consistency and
typography, as well as enhances
interactivity and customization for
Indian needs. This site has infor-
mation flow, tabs, links and a very
the world leader in auction sites emerges as a clearly charted-out information
winner in India too flow that a the user needs.
There has been a bit of a thrust
towards making websites go ver-
nacular. Hindi, as one of the major
languages in India does get a prece-
dence in this regard too. W ebdunia.
com offers its services in Hindi,
Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam. It is a
portal similar to rediff, indiatimes
and sify, but totally vernacular in
nature. MSN India and BBC also
have a hindi channel to cater to ver-
nacular audiences across India.
While all three sites boasted of similar
technology, eBay India added more value
in terms of using technology to enhance
user experience, handling both errors
and security risks. In fact, eBay India also
has an e-mail authenticity check, which is
an interesting security option.
Indiatimes excelled in scope of site con-

Stock Broking
tent, the relevance of that content, inter-
face layout as well as information search
options. It has a wide variety of well-cat-
egorized offers, (though some products
moneycontrol are in the wrong categories). Its simple
A large crowded room with suited guys and gals shouting and gestivculating , scenes interface made the site easy to compre-
of utter confusion, and millions of rupees at stake. All these remind us of the usual hend and use.
stock market scenario not so long ago. Not any more. As with other online categories, Rediff did not cover enough products,
stock broking has witnessed disruptive change with the coming of the Internet. and suffers from content shortfalls, spe-
Although one might still see the bulk of the population riding on so-called tips as a basis cially while searching for information.
for investment; serious investors are always on the lookout for authentic and up-to-date Though certain jurors found it well-
information about the companies that they have invested in. A secure platform to transact designed and easy to interface with, it did
stocks, IPOs and Mutual Funds is also on top of their wish lists. Nowadays, some of these not clear the bar set by eBay India or Indi-
websites also allow you to trade in commodities, which are one of the hottest items in the atimes on these counts.
business. We evaluated way2wealth.com, jvfinancials.com, HDFC Securities, Money Con- Predictably, eBay India came up as the
trol, ICICI Direct, IDBI Paisa Builder, 5 Paisa and India Bulls in this category. best of the auction sites.
Moneycontrol.com emerged as an outright
winner, providing an absolutely clean and easy w i n n e r s
to use interface, with all the features that you
might desire at your fingertips. The site also
best indian websites
deals in commodity trading unlike many other category Best Design Best Technology usage Overall Performance

sites. A live market map, watch list, current Photo Printing picsquare.com itasveer.com itasveer.com
news and market advice are some of the other
Mobile content rediff.com/mobile mobile.yahoo.com mobile.yahoo.com
features on offer here. In contrast, ICICI direct
was the winner on the technology side of Auction ebay.in ebay.in ebay.in
things. The use of technology to enhance user
experience was the best here too. Stock Broking moneycontrol.com icicidirect.com moneycontrol.com

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 BY PRESTON GRALLA IMAGING: VIKAS KAPOOR

Microsoft Word 2007’s new interface is likely to confound

veteran Word users. Whether you have already made the
move or are only considering moving to the latest version,
there’s everything that you require in this article to make
the switch and master the new Word 2007.

70 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N M AY 2 0 0 7 CONTENT PAGE

Baffled by Microsoft Word 2007's
new interface? Join the club. Mak-
ing the switch to Word 2007 from
Word 2003 can be exceedingly diso-
rienting — like coming back home
from work and finding out that not
only has all your furniture been
rearranged, but the house itself has
been moved to the next county. Despair
not. We're here to help. We'll guide you
through all the major changes in the
interface, offer tips and tricks for get-
ting the most out of Word 2007, and
clue you in on how to use the best of
the new features.
When you're done, not only will you
know where the new virtual furniture is,
but you'll also know the way around
your new neighborhood — and you
might very well find it a better place than
your old one.
Get a quick
lay of the land
when making the move to Word 2007,
throw away everything you know about the
interface. Just about everything has
changed. Whether you're opening files,
changing the document view
or using the menu, you're
about to enter a brave new
world. Here's a quick guid-
ed tour to the Word 2007
interface:
1. The Microsoft Office
Button. The big button on
the upper left-hand corner
of the screen replaces the old File
menu from previous versions of Word.
You'll find familiar features for opening
files, saving files, printing files and so
on, but there's a lot more here as well,
as you'll discover later in this guide.
A Whole New Look
l
Office Quick Access The Ribbon
Button Toolbar
Status Bar
Switching to Word 2007 can leave you exceedingly disoriented. The Office
button, the Ribbon and Quick Access bar are some of the first changes that
you may notice.
2. The Quick Access Toolbar. Just to the
right of the Office Button is the Quick
Access toolbar, with buttons for using
Word's most common features, including
Save, Undo, Redo, Print Preview and
more — but you can add and remove
buttons for any functions you please.
More on that later.
3. The Ribbon. Love it or hate it, the
Ribbon is the main way you'll work
with Word. Instead of old-style menus,
in which menus have
submenus, submenus have
sub-submenus and so
on, the Ribbon groups
buttons for common
tasks together in tabs on
a graphical interface. So,
for example, when you
click the Insert tab, a Ribbon
appears with buttons for
items that you can insert into a
document, such as clip art, a hyperlink,
a picture or a table. Even if you hate the
Ribbon, it can be your friend; check out
the section "Learn to Love the Ribbon"
for details.
CONTENT PAGE
O FFIC E S U I TE
Scrollbar
View Toolbar
4. The Scrollbar. This is largely
unchanged from previous versions
of Word; use it to scroll up and down.
There are a couple of minor changes
— at the top, there's a small button that
looks like a minus sign that lets you
split your screen in two, and just below
that, there's a small icon that displays or
hides a ruler when you click it.
5. The View Toolbar. The View toolbar,
which used to be on the lower left-hand
side of the screen in earlier versions of
Word, moves over to the right in Word
2007. It lets you choose between print
layout, full screen, Web layout, outline
and draft views, just as it did in earlier
Word versions. There's also a nice
addition — a slider that lets you zoom in
or out on your document.
6. The Status Bar. This is in the same
place as in earlier Word versions and
has the same function — to display
information such as the number of pages
in your document. It has one nice little
extra: It displays the word count of your
document as well. If you highlight
M AY 2 0 0 7 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N 71
 O FFI CE SUI TE
an area of text, it will display
the number of words in the
highlighted area.
LEARN TO LOVE THE
RIBBON
at first, the Ribbon may be
offputting, but the truth is,
once you learn to use it, you'll
find that it's far easier to use
than the old Word interface. It
The Ribbon is one of the basic changes in Word 2007 interface. The tabular interface may
does take some getting used
look overwhelming to start with but it grows on to you quite fast.
to, though.
The Ribbon, by default, is
divided into seven tabs, with
an optional eighth one (Developer) that
you can display by clicking the Office
Button and choosing Word Options >
Popular > Show Developer tab in the
Ribbon.
Here's a rundown of the tabs and what
each one does:
Home: This contains the most-
used Word features, such as changing
fonts and font attributes, customizing
paragraphs, using styles, and finding and
replacing text.
Insert: As you might guess, this one
handles anything you might want to
insert into a document, such as tables,
pictures, charts, hyperlinks, bookmarks,
headers and footers, WordArt ... well, you
get the idea.
Quick Access Toolbar
72 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N M AY 2 0 0 7
The Word 2007 Ribbon
Pa g e L a y o u t : He r e ' s w h e r e mailings, from something as simple as
you'll change margins, page size and
orientation, set up columns, align objects, task of mail merges.
add effects and so on. There are some
gray areas between this tab and the Home
tab. For example, on the Page Layout tab
you set paragraph spacing and indents,
while on the Home tab you set paragraph
alignment and can also set spacing
between lines.
References: This tab handles tables
of contents, footnotes, bibliographies,
indexes and similar material. It also
lets you insert a "Table of Authorities,"
which sounds like something straight
out of a Soviet bureaucracy but in fact is
a list of references in a legal document.
Mailings: As the name says, this is
where you'll go for anything to do with
Another addition is the
Quick Access toolbar next to
the Office button. This bar is
similar to the Windows Quick
Access ba r a n d ca n b e
cutomized to perform
repetitive tasks faster.
CONTENT PAGE
creating labels to the more daunting
Review: Need to check spelling
and grammar, look up a word in a
thesaurus, work in markup mode, review
other people's markups or compare
documents? This is the tab for you.
View: Here's where to go when you
want to change the view in any way,
including displaying a ruler and gridlines,
zooming in and out, splitting a window
and so on.
Developer: If you write code or create
forms and applications for Word, this is
your tab. It also includes macro handling,
so power users might also want to visit
here every once in a while.
Each tab along the Ribbon is organ-
ized to make it easy to get your work
done. Each tab is organized into a
series of groups that contain related
commands for getting something done
— for example, handling fonts. Inside
each group is a set of what Microsoft
calls command buttons, which carry
out commands, display menus and so
on, the featured command button
changes the font size. There's also a
small diagonal arrow in the bottom
right corner of some groups that
Microsoft calls a dialog box launcher.
Click it to display more options related
to the group.
All that seems simple enough ... So it's
time to throw a curveball at you. The Rib-
bon is context-sensitive, changing accord-
ing to what you're doing. Depending on

the task you're engaged in, it sometimes
adds more tabs and subtabs.
For example, when you insert and high-
light a picture, an entirely new tab
appears — the Format tab, with a "Pic-
ture Tools" supertitle on top.
Other "now you see them, now you
don't" tabs include Blog Post, Chart
Tools, Table Tools and SmartArt Tools —
all of which appear in response to various
actions you take in Word.
Office Button and
Quick AccessToolbar
YOUR NEW BEST FRIENDS
there are two more new Word tools
that you'll want to get to know — the
Office Button and the Quick Access tool-
bar. Think of the Office Button as a
Customize Quick Access
The down arrow button next to the Quick Access tool-
bar helps you customize it. Once you add the most used
commands to it you would rarely use the Ribbon.
Customize the Quick Access toolbar to
your liking, and you will hardly ever have
to use the Ribbon.
greatly expanded File menu from the
Word 2003 days — the File menu on ste-
roids. As you can see in the nearby fig-
ure, it's where to go for the various
Open, Save, New, Add and related
options and also includes a list of all
your recently opened files.
But there are three particularly notewor-
thy new features here as well — Prepare,
Publish and Convert. Use Prepare when
you've finished writing or editing your
document and you're ready to send it to
someone else. There are plenty of great
new options here, such as marking a docu-
ment as final or marking it read-only;
encrypting the document;
inspecting it for hidden
metadata and information
you'd prefer remain private;
and editing the document's
properties, such as title, key-
words and author.
Publish does exactly what it
says — it gives options for
publishing a document.
You'll be able to publish
your document as a blog
to a variety of blogging
services, including Blog-
ger, Windows Live Spaces,
TypePad and WordPress.
If your company uses a
document management
server or SharePoint, you
can publish it there
as well.
Convert lets you convert
documents saved in older
formats to the new Micro-
soft Office Open XML for-
mat (.docx), which is the
new Office standard.
For those who like to fid-
dle with the Word interface
CONTENT PAGE
O FFIC E S U I TE
and how it works, the Word Options but-
ton, located at the bottom of the Office
Button's box, lets you customize Word in
many ways, including its display and
editing options. It has many of the fea-
tures that you accessed via Tools >
Options in previous versions of Word.
One thing you won't find, however, is the
plethora of customizable toolbars that
were in previous versions. There's just
one customizable toolbar in Word 2007,
but you'll love it.
Even those who can't stand the Word
makeover and the Ribbon will find at least
one thing to cheer about — the Quick
Access toolbar. This nifty little tool, sitting
just to the right of the Office Button,
seems innocuous enough, but spend
some time with it and you'll see it's one of
the best additions to the new interface.
The three buttons on the left aren't
particularly noteworthy — Save, Undo
and Redo — but the nearly invisible
Down arrow to the right of them is the
key to the toolbar. Click it, and you'll be
able to add and remove toolbar buttons
for a preset list of commands. Custom-
ize the Quick Access toolbar to your lik-
ing, and you will hardly ever have to
use the Ribbon. And as you'll see in the
next section, there are plenty of other
ways to customize the Quick Access
toolbar as well.
Five tips to work
with Word 2007
if you're a longtime Word user, you no
doubt have accumulated a set of shortcuts
and customizations. Many of those have
gone away under Word 2007. But fear not,
because there are plenty of ways for
M AY 2 0 0 7 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N 73
 O FFI CE SUI TE
you to bend Word 2007 to your will. Here
are some tips to get you started.
1. Add Commands to the Quick
Access Toolbar
Probably the most helpful customization
for Word 2007 is to add buttons to the
Quick Access toolbar. The simplest way
to do this is by clicking the small Down
arrow to the right of the Quick Access
toolbar and selecting a new button to add.
But this is quite limited, because there
are only a small number of commands
you can add in this way.
A better method is to click the Office But-
ton, choose Word Options and then Custom-
ize. The screen below appears. Choose a
command from the left-hand side of the
screen that you want to add to the Quick
Access toolbar and click Add. You can change
the order of the buttons by highlighting a
button on the right side of the screen and
using the Up and Down arrows to move it.
The list of commands you see on the
bottom may seem somewhat limited at
first. That's because Word is showing you
only the most popular commands. There
are plenty of others you can add. Click
the drop-down menu under "Choose
commands from" at the top of the screen,
and you'll see other lists of commands
— All Commands, Home Tab and so on.
Select any option, and there will be plenty
of commands you can add.
Finally, there's an even easier way to
add a command. Right-click any object
SHORTCUTS
WORD 2007 ALT KEY COMBINATIONS
Key combination Function
ALT-F Office Button
ALT-H Home tab
ALT-N Insert tab
ALT-P Page Layout tab
ALT-S References tab
ALT-M Mailings tab
ALT-R Review tab
ALT-V View tab
Developer tab
ALT-L
74 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N M AY 2 0 0 7
Turn offPICTURE
RESIZE the Ribbon
There are several ways to turn off the Ribbon such as click the down arrow to the
right of the Quick Access toolbar button and select Minimize the Ribbon; press Ctrl-
F1 and double-click the current tab above the Ribbon.
on the Ribbon and choose "Add to Quick
Access Toolbar." You can add not only
individual commands in this way, but
also entire groups — for example, the
Font group.
2. Use Keyboard Shortcuts
If you're a fan of Word 2003's keyboard
shortcuts, take heart — the same ones
work in 2007. So keep using them. You
can also use a clever set of keyboard
shortcuts for working with the Ribbon.
Press the Alt key and a tiny letter or
number icon appears on the menu for
each tab — for example, the letter H
for the Home tab. (See the table below.)
Now press that letter on your keyboard,
and you'll display that tab or menu
item. When the tab appears, there will
be letters and numbers for most
options on the tab as well.
Once you've started to learn these
shortcuts, you'll naturally begin using
key combinations. So instead of press-
ing Alt then H to display the home tab,
you can press Alt-H together. The table
(on the left side) shows the most use-
ful Alt key combinations in
Word 2007.
3. Turn off the Ribbon
Here's what may be the best tip you'll
ever come across for Word 2007 — how
to turn off the Ribbon. Doing this will get
CONTENT PAGE
you back plenty of screen real estate, as
you can see in the screenshot above.
The Ribbon will still be available when
you want it — all you need to do is click
on the appropriate menu (Home, Insert,
Page Layout, etc.) and it appears. It then
discreetly goes away when you are no
longer using it.
There are several ways to turn off the
Ribbon:
Click the Down arrow to the right of
the Quick Access toolbar button and
select Minimize the Ribbon.
Press Ctrl-F1 (Press Ctrl-F1 to make it
appear again).
Double-click the current tab above
the Ribbon.
4. Use Macros
At first glance, macros — ingenious short-
cuts you can create for performing repeti-
tive tasks — seem to have been banished
from Word 2007. But they're still there; dis-
play the Developer tab, and you'll find them
in all their glory. In fact, the Developer tool-
bar puts the macro tools at easier reach than
they were in previous versions of Word.
You'll find everything you want in the
Code group on the Developer tab. Record
a macro by clicking the Record Macro
button, manage your macros by clicking
the Macros button, and configure secu-
rity for a macro by clicking the Macro
Security button. (See Microsoft's Online

Office site http://office.microsoft.com/
en-us/word/HA100997691033.aspx for
more information.
5. Find Your Old Friends
In Word 2007, no features or functions are
where they used to be. But it's easy to find
them. You can also download a complete
spreadsheet at http://office.microsoft.
com/en-us/templates/TC102128591033.a
spx?pid=CT102130321033&AxInstalled=1
New features
in Word 2007
there's plenty new in Word 2007, and
a complete description of all that's new
is beyond the scope of this article. The
Ribbon and the Quick Access toolbar are
key innovations, as you've already seen,
but also useful are the new mini toolbar,
Live Preview and other features. The fol-
lowing are the most important ones.
THE MINI TOOLBAR
having to move back and forth between
Picture Editing
Word 2007 also enhances photo editing. Now you will be able
to perform basic functions like brightness, contrast etc. in
the interface itself.
The Ribbon and Quick Access toolbars are
key innovations, but also useful are the
new mini toolbars, themes, blogging etc.
the Ribbon and the body of your docu-
ment is a big time-waster, and annoying
to boot. So Word 2007 includes the clev-
er mini toolbar. Highlight text and point
the cursor at it, and a nearly transparent
mini toolbar appears above the text, with
a set of commands relevant to the text
you've chosen. Move your cursor to the
mini toolbar and it becomes solid; click
a command to use it.
For example, if you select text, a mini
toolbar will appear with various text-relat-
ed commands, including font face, size
and color, indentation, and list options. If
the mini toolbar disappears for some rea-
son, right-click the selection or reselect
the text, and it springs back into action.
NEW FILE FORMAT
under the hood, the biggest change to
Word is the new Office
XML format — all Micro-
soft Office applications
now use it. By default,
Word saves in this new
format, which has the
.docx extension, or the .
docm extension if the
document contains mac-
ros. For businesses, this
can be a big plus, because
it allows for easier inte-
gration with enterprise-
level applications and for
exchanging data.
In some instances, it
also creates files of a
smaller size, because
files are automatically
compressed when
they're saved to disk
and then automatically
uncompressed when
you open them.
CONTENT PAGE
O FFIC E S U I TE
In addition, the new format makes it
easier to recover damaged files because it
saves different data components — such
as tables and charts — separately from
one another. This means files can be
opened even if an individual component,
such as a chart, is damaged.
That's the good news. Here's the bad
news: Most of the world doesn't use the
new format and won't for sometime. So
if you want to exchange files with others,
you'll need to use the old .doc format. To
save a file in the .doc format, click the
Office Button and choose Save As > Word
97-2003 Document. To have Word save all
of your files in the old .doc format auto-
matically, click the Office Button, choose
Word Options > Save > Save files in this
format > Word 97-2003 Document.
THEMES
have you ever tried making sure that
your Word, Excel and PowerPoint docu-
ments all include a common look and feel
— for example, incorporating a corporate
logo, certain colors and so on? If so, you've
most likely struggled mightily and come
out on the short end of the stick.
Themes, new to Word 2007 and Office
2007, are designed to make doing that
easier. You can create a single, overarch-
ing theme, with colors, logos, paragraph
styles and so on, and then use that theme
for all of your Office documents.
Themes may sound suspiciously like
templates, but they're somewhat differ-
ent. You can have multiple templates
that use the same theme. So, for exam-
ple, you could create a theme that
includes your company logo, colors and
font choice. You could then have one
template in that style for letters, another
for budget proposals and many others
for different purposes.
M AY 2 0 0 7 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N 75
 O FFI CE SUI TE
To use Themes, select the Page Layout
tab and click the Themes button to
choose a new theme. You can also cus-
tomize any theme and create new ones.
One important caveat: Be aware that
themes only work if you're using Word's
new Office XML format; they won't work
on old-style .doc files.
QUICK PARTS
if you need to create sophisticated docu-
ments that include complex headers and
footers, objects such as decorative text
callouts, and fields for dates, file names,
bar codes and the like, you'll appreciate
the new Quick Parts feature. To insert
just about any object, field or style, click
the Insert tab, then click Quick Parts and
choose what you want to insert.
Choose "Document Property" for
objects that relate to the entire docu-
ment, such as Author, Company and
Keywords. Choose Field to insert a field
such as the number of words or the
page number, and choose Building
Blocks Organizer to see every single
Quick Part available.
LIVE PREVIEW
if you often change formatting in your
documents and text, you'll welcome the
new Live Preview feature. Highlight the
text or area of a docu-
ment you want to change.
Then, on the Ribbon,
move your cursor over
the format you want to
apply. The text you high-
lighted will change so
that you can see how it
will look with the new
formatting. Move the
cursor away to revert to
the original formatting, or move it over
a different format to preview different
formatting. When you find formatting
you want to apply, click it.
For example, if you are considering
changing the font size of 10-point text,
highlight the text. On the Home tab of
the Ribbon, click the font size drop-down
menu and hover your mouse over the text
76 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N M AY 2 0 0 7
SHORTCUTS
DIFFERENCE IN WORD 2003 AND 2007 FILE MENU
Word 2003 Word 2007 Location Keyboard
Location Shortcut
File > New Office Button > New Ctrl-N
File > Open Office Button > Open Ctrl-O
File > Close Office Button > Close Ctrl-W
File > Save Office Button > Save Ctrl-S
or
Quick Access toolbar > Save Icon
File > Save As Office Button > Save As F 12
File > Page Setup Page Layout > Page Setup ( click dialog box launcher for more options) In Word 2003:
or Alt-F, U
Office Button > Print > Print Preview> Page Setup (click dialog box launcher In Word 2007:
for more options) Alt-P, SP
File > Print Preview Office Button > Print> Preview Alt-Ctrl-I
File > Print Office Button > Print Ctrl-P
File > Recently Office Button > Recent Documents Alt-F
Used Documents
size you're considering changing the text blog accounts and performing similar
to. You'll see the text in the new size. You blogging-related tasks.
can choose that text size by clicking it,
preview other sizes or leave the text as is. MORE HELP
if you follow the advice in this article,
BLOGGING SUPPORT you'll go a long way toward getting famil-
does your grandmother have her own iar with Word 2007. For more tips and
blog? If she doesn't, she will soon. Word help on Word 2007, head to Microsoft's
2007 recognizes that everyone and their Word 2007 site.
pets blog these days, so it includes a set of
tools for creating blog entries and then QUICK REFERENCE CHARTS
posting them to your blog. Open a wondering where your favorite
document, click the Office Word 2003 commands went in Word
Button and choose 2007? Worry no more. Just use these
Publish > Blog. A screen quick reference charts (http://
appears, asking you to pcworld.in/features/index.jsp/
register information about artId=5537818), which list the most
your blog account. commonly used Windows 2003 com-
Choose "Register Now" mands and tell you where they are in
to enter information, Word 2007. They're listed according
including where your to the menu on which they're found
blog is posted, along with in Word 2003. We've also included
your username and pass- keyboard shortcuts for all the com-
word, so that you'll be able to post entries mands. Most of them are the same in
from directly within Word. If you don't Word 2003 and Word 2007; we've
want to register and you want to first cre- noted where they differ.
ate a post, choose Register Later. For a full listing of every menu and
At the top of your screen, you'll see an submenu item, download the Word
[Enter Post Title] field for filling in the Ribbon mapping workbook from Micro-
title of your post. The Ribbon will also soft. Microsoft also lists more Word
display a Blog Post group, with buttons 2007 keyboard shortcuts at its Office
for publishing your post, managing your Online Web site.
CONTENT PAGE
 BY KIM SACCIO-KENT I L L U S T R AT I O N : P C A N O O P

Nearly all of us have played around with wallpapers or screensavers at some

point of time. Changing these can not only give the PC a fresh look, but also con-
nect the user to his favorite movies, locales or even abstract ideas. And, there is
no limit to the variations you have with themes!

CONTENT PAGE M AY 2 0 0 7 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N 77
 T HEMES

A theme is like a matching outfit

for your computer’s desktop. In
addition to wallpaper, you get icons
and cursors, and your windows
and menus receive a makeover as
well. Many desktop themes also
come with screen savers.

Themes can lighten up a humdrum

workday and add a dash of personality to
your workspace. Initially, this article seemed
easy: Find themes that work with Windows
XP, make sure they’re not loaded with
malware, and review them for our
Downloads library. For most folks, dressing
up a desktop isn’t mission critical, so these
themes had to be simple to install and either
free or very inexpensive. You can find these
themes in the current PC World DVD.
SOFTWARE
Talisman
IF YOU WISH for the ultimate make-
over for your desktop, this is perhaps
what you should get. After applying
this pack, you
m ay n o t b e
a b l e to te l l
that the OS
running on
your PC is the
all too com-
mon Windows!
Talisman can
create a look
and feel that
is totally customizible with rich graph-
ics to back it up. This is a shell-
replacement program – and that
means nearly every aspect of the GUI
can be changed. Alas, some things in
life are not free and Talisman costs
about Rs 1,100, but a 30 day trial is
available.
http://www.lighttek.com/talisman.htm
WALLPAPERS ACCOMPANIED BY other elements can set a mood as you work on your PC.
This wallpaper from the Cars theme is colorful, vibrant and can put a smile on your face!
MOVIES AND CARTOONS
are you a movie fan? You’ll probably enjoy
desktop themes based on The Lord of the
Rings, The Matrix, Pirates of the Caribbean,
The Producers, or Superman Returns. Fond
of animated features? How about a desktop
theme based on Cars or Wallace & Gromit:
Curse of the Were-Rabbit? What about a
blast from the past?
I found a fun Scooby-
Doo theme package
that includes nine
different scenes from
the original series
and the cartoon’s
theme song. All of the
themes here are free.
CARS
fans of Disney/ Pixar’s animated
movie Cars will like this theme. You
can select from two wallpapers: a red
background with a big Cars logo, or the
movie poster. The icons are tiny pics
of the cars, and the cursors are equally
eye-catching—a forklift, a small red
and white arrow, and an odometer. The
sounds are snippets of dialogue or a
revving motor. The screen saver plays
a snappy rendition of “Route 66” while
showing pictures of the characters.
WALLACE & GROMIT: CURSE OF
THE WERE-RABBIT
Wallace and Gromit fans, take notice:
This desktop theme could make com-
puting so much fun it might cause you
to miss a few deadlines. The wallpaper
is a terrific photo of the dynamic duo
at home. The icons are pictures of the
main characters, and for cursors you get
a carrot and a garden gnome. The screen
saver provides a slide-show overview
of Wallace and Gromit’s life together,
presented with the Wallace and Gromit
theme music.
THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE
RETURN OF THE KING
Th is pac k a ge i nc lu de s s e v e n
wallpapers, each featuring a different
character from the movie. Your pointer
is a sword that turns into the One Ring
when the computer is busy. Icons are
small pictures of the main characters.
There are very few sounds, mainly
clashing swords—but in a nice touch,
error alerts are a chilling Nazgul cry.

78 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N M AY 2 0 0 7 CONTENT PAGE

The screen saver displays movie-poster
images on a black background.
MATRIX THEME BUNDLE
Growing tired of Matrix knock-offs
that merely fill your screen with green
code? Give this package a try. These nine
original wallpapers are based on characters
and scenes from the Matrix movies. Your
windows and menus get different color
schemes to complement each wallpaper.
The sounds—odd electronic effects—are
used sparingly. For cursors and icons, the
program includes various futuristic-looking
gadgets. The screen saver features squidlike
robots flying through Matrix space.
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN:
DEAD MAN’S CHEST
Get in touch with your inner pirate. This
package includes three wallpapers based on
Pirates of the Caribbean, plus coordinating
sounds, cursors, icons, and a screen saver.
The screen saver is the most entertaining
part of the bundle: Against a backdrop of
ships being attacked by a giant octopus,
a pirate chest floats around the screen,
opening to show movie stills while the
theme music plays in the background.
COLOR SCHEMES ADD that dash of character or personalization. Many themes change the
color schemes while some others go the extra distance and replace fonts as well.
THEMES REPLACE THE boring pointers with other symbols that tie in with the theme, completing
the look and feel of the theme. Some of the cursors from the Lord of the Rings theme are shown above.
THE PRODUCERS
Mel Brooks lovers will enjoy this
theme based on his 2005 musical. The
wallpaper shows Matthew Broderick,
Uma Thurman, and Nathan Lane posed
against a backdrop of old Broadway.
The cursors—a hand holding a drink, a
marquee arrow, and an old-time camera
with a flashing bulb—are clever. Unfor-
tunately, the screen saver is uninspir-
ing: Against a brick-wall image, four
small screens flash movie stills.
SCOOBY-DOO
This theme pack is based on the original
Scooby-Doo series of the sixties. The
CONTENT PAGE
T H E M ES
bundle contains nine wallpapers depicting
Scoob and the gang encountering various
ghouls. The icons feature all your old
pals. The sounds include catchphrases
like Velma’s “Jinkies!” and Scooby’s
“Rooby-doobie-doo!”
SUPERMAN RETURNS—MAN OF
STEEL
This theme pack offers lots of eye candy
based on the latest Superman movie. You
get three wallpapers: Superman in flight,
Superman looking down on Earth, and the
Superman logo. I found the sounds—a
swelling chorus, plus random swooshing
noises—a little annoying. Also included
is a screen saver called “Flying Through
Space” that shows what you’d see if you
were, well, flying through space.
THE GREAT OUTDOORS
Perhaps you want to bring a bit of the
outdoors into your office. Autumn Brook
and Sea Dance are beautifully designed
themes that add serenity to your working
environment; Golden Gate is a quirky little
theme that features San Francisco’s famous
landmark and soothing ocean sounds.
What about something way outdoors, like
outer space? Worlds Upon Worlds presents
an artist’s view of our solar system.
AUTUMN BROOK
Enjoy the colors of fall with this pleas-
ant and free theme. The wallpaper is a pho-
tograph of a mountain stream banked by
many-hued trees. The icons and cursors
are fall leaves, and the sounds are birdsong.
The screen saver is also pretty: The desktop
image remains on screen, but the water
flows softly, accompanied by piano music
and the twittering of birds. Very Zen.
M AY 2 0 0 7 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N 79
 T HEMES
GOLDEN GATE
This unusual desktop theme is worth
the fee to register it. The wallpaper
is a digitally enhanced photo of San
Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, with
an odd little sailboat-like vessel floating
on the water. This image appears in the
screen saver, as well, although there the
water is animated. The icons are clever,
too: The Recycle Bin is a foghorn, while
the pointer is a lighthouse that turns
into a rain cloud when the computer
is working.
SEA DANCE
This soothing desktop theme should
help you keep your equilibrium—and it’s
free. The wallpaper depicts a tranquil beach
with mountains in the distance; it appears
to be evening, and fog sits on the water.
A screen saver is included, but it’s rather
odd: Against a black background, shapes
filled with bits of the wallpaper move
around the screen, accompanied by a jazzy
piano piece.
WORLDS UPON WORLDS
download this free theme and be
transported to deep space, where in the
EXPLORE THE VARIOUS themes and choose one for your liking and mood – from movies
to solar system to nature.
80 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N M AY 2 0 0 7
inky blackness a ringed planet whirls
against a cloud of glowing gas. Your
pointer, a little rocket ship, turns into
a spinning Earth when the computer
is busy. Although this theme runs fine
under Windows XP, the sounds didn’t
work during my testing; the readme
file that accompanies this download
has a complicated troubleshooting
section, but I didn’t take the time
to follow its recommendations.
Silence seems appropriate for deep
space, anyway.
THE HOLIDAYS
time to decorate for the holidays. I
unearthed two terrific Christmas packag-
es: It’s Cold Outside is based on a jazzy
version of the classic holiday tune, while
Holiday Wrapping Papers presents nine
themes based on different gift wraps.
(Sorry, all of the Thanksgiving themes
I came across were, well, turkeys.)
And even though Halloween 2006 has
passed, it’s not too early to think about
this year: In the package called This Is
Halloween, you get two beautifully ren-
dered spooky scenes. All of these theme
packages are free.
CONTENT PAGE
TIPS
Customize your themes
THEMES ARE ALL about personal taste.
You may feel like changing something to
your liking in an existing theme – the
wallpaper, the color schemes or screen-
saver. Windows XP allows you change
these elements without too much
effort.
Right-click on your desktop and choose
‘Properties’ to open the display proper-
ties settings. Click on the ‘Themes’ tab
and select the theme you want to modify
and Apply it. Next, change to any wallpa-
per and screensaver if you so wish. You
can change color schemes as follows:
Click on the Appearance tab, then on the
Advanced button. Under Item choose the
element which you want to change and
then colors and fonts. Come back to the
Themes tab and click on Save As and
choose a name for your theme. Now, this
theme that has been created will appear
in the drop-down menu.
IT’S COLD OUTSIDE
here’s a holiday hit inspired by the
song “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” The wall-
paper shows two pairs of shoes by a cabin
door that opens onto a winter scene. The
included screen saver is particularly clev-
er: The wallpaper remains on screen, but
falling snow, bows, and snowflakes slow-
ly appear while you’re treated to Vanessa
Williams’s jazzy rendition of the Christ-
mas classic.
THIS IS HALLOWEEN
this stellar package lets you choose
between two wallpapers: a Jack-o-Lan-
tern or two Jack-o-Lanterns in a spooky
forest. The unobtrusive cursors include
a small orange arrow and a flying witch.
Among the icons are a pumpkin for
the Recycle Bin and scary eyes for My
Documents. The spooky sounds, taken
from Danny Elfman’s The Nightmare
Before Christmas soundtrack, are
used sparingly.
 SMART BUYER P R AC T I CA L A DV I C E B E FO R E YO U S H O P

THE BIG PICTURE SPECS EXPLAINED BUYING TIPS

Talented
Performers
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO BUYING THE
PERFECT MFD YOU ALWAYS WANTED.
copy, scan, fax, and print:
Four separate machines
could handle those needs.
But why tax your budget and
your desk space when one
machine can do it all? Most
multifunction devices (some-
times called a multi-function
printers) handle these tasks
with great flair and perform-
ance—rivalling that of stand-
alone units.
And a number of them let
you to carry out more than one
of these tasks simultaneously.
Either laser or inkjet printers,
MFDs will print photos and a
variety of other document
types. Some print in color
while others only print in black
and white. They have various
features and networking
options, and range in price
from Rs. 4,000 to Rs. 50,000.
High-end devices tend to be
faster, have color printing, and
also more networking and
office functionality.
THE BIG PICTURE
for years multifunction
printers have saved scarce office
space, but the latest all-in-ones
print as well as general-purpose
printers do, at comparable pric-
es. While MFDs can’t match the
output and functionality of a
photo printer or stand-alone
scanner, but for standard office
tasks they fit the bill. For busi-
ness and enterprise applications
MFDs can be a way to increase
productivity, streamline tasks
and potentially decrease costs .
Once you’ve settled on pur-
chasing an MFD rather than a
stand-alone product, you need
to decide whether an inkjet or a
laser model better suits your
needs. The choice is easy if you
use your printer for business.
Inkjets can produce colorful
documents and outstanding
photos, but they simply can’t
match the speed and profes-
sional document quality of a
laser printer. Most of today’s
laser MFDs compare favorably
to dedicated laser printers in
speed and print quality. They
also offer a good range of office-
oriented features and match
the performance of single-func-
tion printers. With color mod-
els also available in laser MFDs,
you no longer have to sacrifice
color to get sharp text quality in
business documents.
For home and SOHO applica-
tions, MFDs are an attractive
option to save upfront cost and
space. They can handle faxing,
scanning, printing (both photos
and documents) and copying on
a regular basis. And with more
households acquiring broad-
band connections, the combina-
tion of scanning and printing
enables easy sharing of photos
and documents with friends
and family. Many MFDs have
built-in memory that lets them
store documents and send them
straight to e-mail—becoming
intercommunication portals.
When looking for an MFD
for the home or the office, ask
yourself what sort of functional-
ity you need. Maybe you don’t
need a fax machine? Or, per-
haps a network adapter? Asking
yourself these questions will
narrow down your search for a
machine, and will also allow
you to save money by not pur-
chasing an extravagant device.
It is also a good idea, before
you start looking, to estimate
the maximum number of
pages per month that you need
to print, and buy a printer that
can handle that workload. As a
rough guide, for small offices
5,000 pages per month is
more than sufficient, and a
bigger office could budget for
up to 15,000 pages per month.
Printers that are networked
and shared will need to have
the capability to produce up to
50,000 pages or more per
month, depending on the size
of the network.

CONTENT PAGE M AY 2 0 0 7 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N 81
 SM ART B UYER
Also, evaluate whether you
want an inkjet or a laser device.
Inkjets will be cheaper to buy,
and do a better job on photos.
But lasers are generally faster
and have better overall print
quality, making them the logi-
cal choice for business. Many
MFDs are now designed to be
easy to use as standalone devic-
es without the need to be
plugged into the PC. This is
useful if you want flexibility,
portability, ease of use and
quick set up.
SPECS EXPLAINED
Speed: The main weapon in the
marketing war among vendors,
speed is often one of the first
specs you will see in any adver-
tisement. Vendors frequently
cite ratings based on printing
only the simplest text docu-
ments, or printing in draft
mode, and many don’t even
include the time it takes for the
PC to send a job to the printer.
To further confuse the issue,
laser and inkjet speeds are
measured and quoted differ-
ently. In any case, claimed
speeds are frequently two, three,
or more times the speeds you’ll
see in real-world printing. Quite
often, the print engines in laser
all-in-ones tend to lag about a
generation behind engines in
stand-alone alternatives.
It’s also a good idea to look for
a device with a number of print
speed modes, e.g., extra fast,
fast, normal, fine, extra fine. A
final note about speed is that
you can normally expect it to be
compromised when you are
networking the device, when it
is carrying out more than one
task simultaneously or there is a
de-screening feature on the
scanner. Find out how much the
claimed speed is reduced when
two tasks are happening at the
same time. That is, for example,
82 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N M AY 2 0 0 7
in bits per pixel. Since a scanner If you need a scanner to digitize
can usually capture more data documents for storing, copy-
than its driver can save, you’ll ing, or faxing, an MFD will
frequently see a qualifier deliver good-enough results.
appended to the bit-depth But if you want to capture pho-
spec, such as 48- tos or other art for reproduc-
bit internal or tion, we recommend that you
hardware color, get a stand-alone flatbed scan-
which describes ner. In general, the more quick-
how much data the ly an MFD scanns, the lower
scanner can recog- will be the quality of its output.
nize. External or true Scanner: MFDs usually sport a
color describes how much flatbed-style scanner (which
A DEVICE WITH clearly labelled data the scanner’s driver can requires you to lift a lid to place
screen is easy to use. save. For almost all types of gen- your document on a glass), and
eral-purpose use, 24-bit external some have automatic docu-
when the device is printing and color depth is sufficient. ment feeders as well. A flat
faxing simultaneously. Sensor technology: Scanners scanning glass works well for
Optical resolution: For display- have one of two types of sen- most tasks, and provides the
ing photos on the Web or print- sor technology: a charge-cou- only way to scan pages in books
ing 3-by-5 or 4-by-6 snapshots, pled device (CCD) or a contact or magazines.An ADF comes
100 dots per inch is plenty of image sensor (CIS). CIS sen- in handy when you’re scanning
resolution; for capturing text sors are a more recent innova- lots of documents at once, or
using optical character recog- tion. Although they produce when you want to scan a sheet
nition, 300 dpi is standard. slightly lower-quality scanned that’s longer than the scanning
Color depth: The amount of images, CIS-based scanners glass. Check that the scanning
color (and grayscale) data a scan- can be much smaller and use area is large enough for your
ner can recognize and save, far less power than CCD- needs—some of them can han-
termed color depth, is measured based scanners. dle legal size paper, while oth-
TIPS
Extra features that you might need
OCR: Optical character recognition (OCR) software is sometimes supplied with the machine. This
allows you to scan in documents to extract the text for editing. One of the biggest challenges for OCR
software is whether it can accurately pick up the characters “r” and “rr” and not confuse them as “t”
or “n”. A good feature that is sometimes available with OCR software is an interface which allows you
to directly compare the scanned text to the original document side-by-side to find any errors.
ADF: An Automatic Document Feeder (ADF) is convenient if you need to frequently fax, copy or
scan multi-page documents and don’t want to individually feed each sheet. Most ADFs should be
able to handle at least 30 pages.
Printing onto CD/DVD surfaces: Some devices on the market will enable this, usually using a spe-
cial disc-holding tray, which is handy if you want to make CDs and DVDs.
Printing on other surface/media: Other media may include overhead transparencies, labels, stick-
ers, envelopes etc.
Support for different paper sizes and types: 4x6in photo paper, A4, A3 etc and glossy/semi-gloss,
matt etc.
Scan 3D images (physical objects) with relatively good accuracy.
Scanning directly to a number of different formats eg, PDF/JPEF/TIFF/WORD.
Digitally sending documents or to scan direct to e-mail or particular folders on your PC/network.
Scanning film or slides: This can be handy for photographic enthusiasts though you will invariably
lose image quality, and often pick up dust, which will result in a grainy appearance.
CONTENT PAGE

ers are limited to A4. Although
many MFDs come bundled
with an automatic document
feeder for the scanner, you usu-
ally won’t get a transparency
adapter—a common accessory
for ordinary scanners.
Fax: In general, most MFDs
compare well with standalone
laser or inkjet fax machines in
terms of output quality, and
speed. Check that the device
supports high speed faxing
(14.4kbps and more), the
amount of memory provided
for storing outgoing and incom-
ing fax messages. For improved
usability, see if can store fre-
quently called numbers.
Cartridges: If you are planning
to buy an inkjet MFD, you may
also want to look for a model
that has separate ink cartridges
for each color. Inkjet running
costs can get quite high, espe-
cially if regular photo printing
is required. Separate ink car-
tridges will allow you to replace
ink on a per color basis.
Paper Handling: A machine with
a large paper tray or even dual
paper trays will allow you to
print a larger amount of docu-
ments without worrying about
constantly re-filling the trays.
An automatic document feeder
is usually found on machines
that have a fax-modem built in,
and allows for multi-page docu-
ments to be photocopied or
scanned without having to
A DEVICE WITH
shortcut buttons
and a LCD screen is
convinient to use.
place each sheet in the scanner
flatbed individually.
Connectivity: You will find that
multi-function devices will often
offer some degree of multi-con-
nectivity. Obviously, the more
connection options available,
the more flexibility you have in
how you use the device. Check
the number and type of ports
the device will support.
If you want to print wirelessly
you will have to make sure
there is a built-in wireless net-
work adapter in addition to a
10/100 Ethernet port and that it
will work on existing 802.11b or
802.11g networks. A final point
on connectivity is that you may
want to check the location of
the ports, and the subsequent
likelihood of cables being dis-
connected by accident.
SHOPPING TIPS
while you can buy MFDs
from Rs. 4,500 to Rs. 20,000,
the machine running costs are
equally important.
The biggest ongoing cost for
inkjets is the cost of the ink car-
tridges. Vendors generally
charge Rs. 2,500 to Rs. 5,000
for multi-color cartridges and
Rs. 1,200 to Rs. 3,000 for a
separate black cartridge. Yields
range from about 300 to 800
pages per cartridge. Many ven-
dors also offer higher-capacity
cartridges which although are
more expensive contain twice
CONTENT PAGE
the amount of ink, so they cost
less per page. Laser printers
will be more expensive than
inkjet printers, but cost per
page will generally be cheaper.
Laser toner cartridges often
cost between Rs. 5,000 and Rs.
15,000 each, but yield over
5000 to 6000 pages.
There are several commonly
perceived downsides to multi-
function devices. At the top of
this list is quality. Many feel that
although an MFD can perform
multi tasks, the quality of those
tasks is compromised. PC
World testing has indicated that
most MFDs (especially laser
ones) match or nearly match
stand-alone devices in terms of
print speed, but print and scan
quality can vary. While some
MFDs can match standalones
in quality and speed, others
don’t. But overall, the perform-
ance gap has narrowed.
Another major downside to a
MFD is the vulnerability of hav-
ing all your eggs in one basket.
If one part stops working, you
can lose the other functions too.
While it’s true that if the printer
breaks, you will generally not be
able to photocopy, most MFDs
are designed so that you will
still be able to scan.
A cost for businesses using
MFDs is downtime. Check
the kind of support available
for the device, and how quick-
ly it can be fixed. For example,
high-end models may have a
“call home” function that is
activated when there is a prob-
lem. Also check whether it’s
possible for one part of the
machine to continue working
if another goes down. Noise
can also be a factor when
using one of these machines.
Smooth roller, paper feed and
paper eject mechanisms con-
tribute to a device with lower
M AY 2 0 0 7
S M A RT B U Y E R
IN BRIEF
3 CHECK POINTS
SPEED
Find out how much the
claimed speed is reduced
when two task happen
simultaneously.
COLOR
For general-purpose use, 24
bit external color depth is
enough.
CONNECTIVITY
You may want to check he
location of the ports and
the subsequent likelihood of
cables being disconnected
by accident.
noise emission. Ease of use
will probably be an important
consideration too, especially if
the device is to be used by a
number of people with vary-
ing technical skills. Shortcut
buttons can help in using the
machine quickly, though too
many of them could become a
handicap. Machines that have
programmable buttons are
also useful.
The accompanying software
interface on the PC will vary in
terms of user friendliness and
efficiency. Look for a point and
click interface which allows as
many tasks as possible, enable
efficient management of the
machine. At the very least, it
should enable you to easily
scan, print, copy and fax.
Space saving is probably one
of the major reasons to buy an
MFD. One aspect that saves
space is having input and out-
put paper trays located in the
bottom of the unit, which does
away with the need for long-
reaching paper-support flaps.
— PC World Team
W W W. P C W O R L D . I N 83
 HERE’S HOW
Back Up Your Files Online
Without Even Trying
ONLINE STORAGE
i’m sure that by now all of you back
up critical files weekly or even daily,
and religiously refresh your full-disk-
image backup once every few months,
right? No? Well, you’re not alone. And
while there’s no substitute for a genuine
backup strategy, the move toward
desktop-caliber online applications has
made it easier than ever to get some
degree of backup protection without
even trying.
New, mostly free online services with
snazzy features allow you to effectively
get backups for many of your irreplace-
able files just by doing what you nor-
mally do—but with a twist. Through
such services, you can ensure that your
text documents, spreadsheets, browser
bookmarks, digital pictures, and music
84 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N M AY 2 0 0 7
E X P E R T A DV I C E O N H A R D WA R E , S O F T WA R E , A N D T H E W E B
files not only survive a catastrophic
crash but also become more accessible
to you and anyone you choose to share
them with.
Of course, using a company’s online
storage means you’ll have to be comfort-
able with the site’s stability, Web security,
and privacy policy—or those of any com-
pany that may buy that site. Real backups
(see http://pcworld.in/hereshow/index.
jsp/artId=3538958) and perhaps a RAID
mirror on a second hard disk are still the
best solution, and, like car insurance,
they can make the difference between a
bad day and a disaster. By using some or
all of these Web services, however, you
can easily gain some measure of backup
in case of catastrophe, or add another
level of redundancy to the backups you
already have.
CONTENT PAGE
DOCS AND SPREADSHEETS
a host of new sites are eager to chal-
lenge Microsoft for a slice of Office’s
huge pie. My two favorites are Zoho’s
suite for documents (www.writer.zoho.
com) and Google’s Docs & Spreadsheets
(www.docs.google.com) for spreadsheets.
Both free services include storage space
for your files (Zoho offers 1GB; Google
limits the number and size of documents
and spreadsheets you can store—for
details see http://docs.google.com/sup-
port/bin/answer.py?answer=37603&quer
y=storage+limit&topic=&type= ). Any-
thing you create is autosaved to an online
server, providing a de facto backup. You’ll
also be able to access all of your docu-
ments from any browser, without having
to install software first.
Like many other advanced Web sites,
Zoho and Google use Asynchronous
Java Script and XML—or Ajax—to
present a desktop-app-like feel. Both
offer hot-keys for common features,
background auto-saves, and other must-
haves. Neither comes close to replacing
Office if you need its full spread of fea-
tures, and you may encounter an annoy-
ing though not game-stopping bug here
and there in relatively new services. But
for files you use at home, you probably
won’t miss a thing.
I love Zoho’s sleek interface for docu-
ments, but I prefer Google’s service (see
FIGURE 1) for spreadsheets. You can easily
use both services side-by-side.
ILLUSTRATION: MM SHANITH
If you do have Office, Zoho recently re-
leased a great plug-in (see FIGURE 2) that
ties its service into Word and Excel.
Install it, and a toolbar added to either
app lets you open Zoho files straight into
Office. When you make changes and
 87 WINDOWS TIPS
Need ironclad file security? Lock
down your files and folders using
Windows File Encryption.
89 HARDWARE TIPS
Upgrade or overclock your PC’s
graphics to prepare for Vista or to
boost speed; simplify network setup.
FIGURE 1: CREATE YOUR SPREADSHEETS online with Google
Docs & Spreadsheets, and let the service handle the backups.
click the Zoho Save button, the online
document gets updated. You can also add
Office-created documents and spread-
sheets to your repository on Zoho.
Neither service is perfect, however.
Both require a stable Internet connec-
tion for accessing your files (though the
Zoho plug-in does mitigate that need).
Also, while you can import Office files
into either service (through a site option
or the Add button in the Zoho plug-in),
doing so typically messes up the for-
FIGURE 2: ZOHO’S WORD AND Excel plug-ins allow you to access
Zoho’s service from within those applications.
90 ANSWER LINE
Report problems to Microsoft, or
not; customize Menus in Office;
personalize Explorer shortcuts.
88
matting. And you can
forget about using
Excel formulas, Word
macros, and page
numbers, as well as
several other advanced
features; if you import
a file that contains any
of these, it will break.
ONLINE
BOOKMARKS
browser bookmarks
are another painful loss
in the case of hard-drive FIGURE 3: KEEP YOUR BOOKMARKS synced
failure. If you’re like me, you’ve sunk and safe with Foxmarks, a free Firefox add-on.
hours and hours of effort into discovering
the best online information sources, both at work and have it ready at home (with-
personal and professional. Losing them all out having to e-mail yourself the URL),
would not make for a good day. but if your computer goes south, you
Here again, though, free online merely need to reinstall Firefox and
offerings can come to the rescue. Several Foxmarks and then log in to restore all
Firefox extensions not only automatically of your bookmarks.
back up your bookmarks to an online Google offers a Browser Sync plug-in
server but also synchronize them between for Firefox (www.google.com/tools/fire-
browsers on multiple PCs. Foxmarks fox/browsersync/) that syncs your book-
( FIGURE 3 ; www.foxmarks.com ), my marks, as well as your cookies, pass-
favorite, has some great words, history, and even open tabs. The
setup options: If your truly security conscious will want to avoid
ma chines get out of syncing passwords to someone else’s
sync, you can replace all server. I use Browser Sync strictly for
of your bookmarks with passwords and browsing history—I got
those that you’ve stored frustrated with the plug-in’s frequent
online, or replace what screw-ups in syncing bookmarks (possi-
you’ve stored with your bly because I tend to keep my browsers
local favorites. running on my work and home comput-
After installation, ers simultaneously).
the add-on invisibly If you give either Foxmarks or Google
syncs your bookmarks Browser Sync a try, here’s a tip for keep-
with no additional ing your work and personal favorites dis-
effort on your part. tinct: Preface your bookmark folders with
You’re not only able to a designation such as Home- or Work-, and
bookmark something then group those folders together.
CONTENT PAGE M AY 2 0 0 7 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N 85
 HERE’S HOW ON LI N E STORAGE
PHOTO BACKUPS
half the fun of digital pictures is show-
ing them off, so odds are you’ve already
uploaded your digital snapshots to a
photo-sharing site such as Flickr (www.
flickr.com) or SmugMug (www.smugmug.
com). Some of these sites have features
that provide a decent de facto backup
solution for your photos, as well.
You can upload an unlimited
number of photos (JPEG only) to
the new version 3 of Yahoo Photos
(photos.yahoo.com). If you have a
bunch, the upload will take a
while. But afterward you (or any-
one you share pictures with) can
download the full-size image for
free: Double-click the picture you
want, and a Download option (see
FIGURE 4 ) appears in the site’s
menu; choose the full-resolution
image on the next screen.
One thing to keep in mind is
that while you can upload as
many photos as you like (in what- and lets you download full-size images from your collection.
ever resolution you choose), you
must use your Yahoo ID (on the photo
site, Yahoo Web mail, or any other Yahoo
site or service) once every six months.
Otherwise, the site will send a warning
e-mail; and if you still don’t log in, it will
delete your pictures.
If disaster strikes and you lose all of the
photos on your hard drive, downloading
pictures one by one to your (new) hard
drive could be a long and tedious chore.
Another backup option is to upload your
photos to Shutterfly (www. shutterfly.
com), which doesn’t currently allow you
to download a full-size image, but will
send you an archive CD of your full-size
ONLINE STORAGE FOR ALL TYPES OF FILES
IF YOU WANT a catch-all option for stor-
ing any type of file, try one of the pleth-
ora of online storage services. Typically
you can share files you upload, and of
course you can retrieve them if your
hard drive tanks. My favorite is the Go-
Daddy Online File Folder (www.godaddy.
co m /g d s h o p/e m a i l /vsd b _ l a n d i n g . uncluttered Web interface, but doesn’t
asp?se=%2B&ci=270), which costs $20
per year for 2GB of storage. You can
86 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N M AY 2 0 0 7
pictures for a fee. And as with Yahoo Pho-
tos, you can upload an unlimited number
of images to Shutterfly.
To order a CD, select Shutterfly Store,
and from the drop-down menu under
Products choose Gift Certs and CDs.
You’ll need to pay up to Rs. 1,800 for the
first 1000 images and Rs. 675 for every
additional set of 1000 (plus shipping). It’s
FIGURE 4: YAHOO’S NEW PHOTO service offers unlimited storage
pricey, but this alternative could be a
much faster way to restore your entire
photo collection.
DIGITAL MUSIC
the most painless backup option for
music is somewhat old-school, since it
doesn’t involve a snazzy new online serv-
ice: Just use the original CDs. But if you’d
rather avoid the painstaking task of re-
ripping each and every CD when your PC
kicks the bucket, your portable music
player can come to the rescue.
Make sure that any player you buy is
large enough to store your entire music
access the service as a network place
from your PC and then drag and drop
files to it in Explorer, or you can save
directly to it via most, though not all,
programs. Another good service, Box.
net, offers 1GB of storage for free or
5GB for $5 per month. It sports a nice,
let you map that storage as a drive or
network place.
CONTENT PAGE
collection, with some room for growth.
Storage space is getting cheaper for PCs
and portable devices alike, so a number
of choices for players can fit the bill.
Aside from the ubiquitous iPod (availa-
ble in 30GB and 80GB versions), Crea-
tive’s 60GB Zen Vision:M and Micro-
soft’s 30GB Zune are also good buys.
With an iPod and iTunes, your bail-out
procedure is simply to reinstall
iTunes and reconnect your iPod,
and then follow the prompt to
restore your music from your
iPod. To reactivate music you’ve
bought from the iTunes store,
you may need to connect to the
service and clear out your
authorizations (click
Store•Deauthorize Computer ) so
that your new PC can acquire
the rights to play the songs.
With most other players, you
can connect the unit to your com-
puter as a USB mass storage or
Media Transfer Protocol device
and then drag and drop your
music back onto your hard drive via Win-
dows Explorer. You can use a similar
method with an iPod: Either set your PC
to show hidden files and folders, and
then navigate to the hidden folder iPod\
Control and copy the Music folder to your
hard drive; or grab an app like the dona-
tionware EphPod ( www.ephpod.com ),
which can do it for you.
If the directory or file names aren’t
properly preserved when you restore your
music this way, you can have either
iTunes or Windows Media Player reor-
ganize and rename your music according
to what it finds in the ID3 tags.
In Windows Media Player, click
Tools• Options , select the Librar y tab,
and then check the boxes for Rename
music files using rip music settings and
Rearrange music in rip music folder.
Select the Rip Music tab and choose a
folder and file-naming scheme by click-
ing the Change and File Name buttons.
In iTunes, select Edit•Preferences in the
menu and choose the Advanced tab.
Check the box labeled Keep iTunes
Music folder organized .
— Erik Larkin

The Simple Way to Keep
Your Private Files Private
W I N D O W S T I P S
there’s only one way to keep your
files truly confidential: Encrypt them. The
Encrypting File System in most versions
of Windows Vista, XP, and 2000 scram-
bles the contents of files and folders,
making it very difficult for snoops to read
them. It’s easy to make encryption a part
of your security arsenal.
Get ready to encrypt: Encrypting File
System is in Windows Vista Business,
Enterprise, and Ultimate; XP Pro; and
Windows 2000. XP Home lacks EFS, and
Vista Starter, Home Basic, and Home
Premium allow only decryption—so you
can read encrypted files but not encrypt
them. To use Encrypting File System on
a partition, that partition must be
formatted using the NTFS file system.
Not using NTFS? The switch is easy. See
“Go With the NTFS Flow” at http://
pcworld.in/hereshow/index.jsp/
artId=5537798 (the same steps work in
Vista). Also, encryption requires that you
use a password-protected account.
Stow your files: To encrypt a file or fold-
er, right-click it in Explorer or any folder
window and choose Properties (you can
also right-click a group selection to en-
crypt several files or folders at once). In
the General tab, click Advanced, check
Encrypt contents to secure data, and click
OK twice (see FIGURE 1). If you’re encrypt-
ing a folder, you’ll be asked if you want to
encrypt its files and subfolders, as well.
Once encrypted, the files or folders will
FIGURE 1: ENCRYPTION IS JUST a few clicks away
via any file or folder’s Properties dialog box.
H E RE’S HOW
en crypted (or which use NTFS com-
pression, for that matter), open Explor-
er and choose Tools•Folder Options .
Click the View tab, and in the Advanced
Settings box, make sure that Show en -
work like any others on your system; you crypted or compressed NTFS fi les in color
don’t have to use any special passwords is checked. Encrypted items are green,
to open or save them. Other user accounts compressed ones blue. On the other
on the PC, and other PCs on the network, hand, if you don’t want others to see
can’t view the file contents. Only some- which files are encrypted or com-
one who is logged in to your account with pressed, uncheck this option. Click OK .
your password can access these files. XP Pro and Vista users need this tip
Streamline the steps: You can shorten only if they want to disable the display
the process by adding an
Encrypt command to your
right-click context menu (the
command switches to Decrypt
when you right-click encrypted
files). You can do this in XP
with a quick Registry edit, but
you might find it easier and
safer to use Tweak UI, a free
PowerToy from Microsoft
( w w w. p c w o r l d . c o m /
downloads/file/fid,18220-
order,1-page,1/description.
html ). If you al ready have
Tweak UI on your system, you FIGURE 2: MAKE ENCRYPTION EASIER by adding a
may need to upgrade to a more context menu command using the Tweak UI freebie.
recent version. Once Tweak UI
is downloaded, installed, and running, of encrypted and compressed files in
select Explorer in the left pane, scroll color, which the OSes do by default. To
through the options on the right, and open the Folder Options dialog in Vis-
check Show “Encrypt” on context menu ta’s Explorer window, click Organize•
(see FIGURE 2). Click OK . Now when you Folder and Search Options .
right-click an unencrypted file, you’ll see Give others permission: To give people
a new command: Encrypt (or Decrypt if who are using your system access to
you’ve selected an encrypted item). encrypted files, you can specify the
Choose that option, and respond to any individuals by their user name. First,
prompts. As of this writing, Tweak UI right-click a single encrypted file (not a
was incompatible with Windows folder or multiple files, unfortunately),
Vista. However, Totalidea and choose Properties . In the General
Software’s free TweakVI tab, click A d v an c e d , and next to
Basic utility (www.totalidea. ‘Encrypt contents to secure data’,
com/content/ choose Details . In the middle of that
tweakvi/tweakvi- dialog box, click Add to open the Select
down.php ) allows User dialog, which lists others who
you to tweak many Vista have a certificate (a digital document
settings, letting you add the that helps confirm authenticity) on
Encrypt/Decrypt commands your system (see FIGURE 3).
to the context menu. Users can acquire certificates in vari-
Make encrypted files stand out: ous ways, but one of the simplest is by
To see at a glance which files encrypting one of their own documents.
or folders on your system are (For more about certificates, choose
CONTENT PAGE M AY 2 0 0 7 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N 87
 HERE’S HOW WI N DOWS TI PS
FIGURE 3: LET OTHERS IN on your secrets by giving
trusted users permission to your encrypted files.
Start•Help and Support , type certifi-
cates overview, then press <Enter>.)
Select a trusted user and click OK . Note
that the Find User button in the Select
User dialog box won’t work unless your
network uses Active Directory, a Win-
dows service in which administrators
can store and make available informa-
tion on network objects.
Disable, don’t delete: Because
encrypted files are associated with user
profiles, deleting profiles prevents those
people from accessing their encrypted
files. For example, if an employee
FIGURE 4: USE VISTA’S EXTRA-STRENGTH
BitLocker encryption utility without a TPM
security chip by editing Vista’s group policies. options. Next, select Enabled, check Allow
88 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N M AY 2 0 0 7
named Scott goes on leave but
WI N D OWS TO O LB OX
may return, disable rather
than delete Scott’s profile: In
XP, choose Star t•Run , type Get a Cloak of Invisibility
lusrmgr.msc, and press <Enter>.
In Vista, click Start and enter
With Free Hide Folders
the same command in the SOMETIMES THE BEST way to keep
Start Search field. Click the people from prying into your personal
Users folder icon in the left folders is to keep the folders’ exist-
pane and double-click Scott’s ence secret from the get-go. That’s
profile in the right pane. In easy to do with Cleanersoft.com’s Free
the General tab, check Account Hide Folders (http://pcworld.in/down-
is disabled and click OK ; when loads/index.jsp/dsecId=1494/dsubSe-
Scott resumes working, cId=1502).
uncheck this box. The program lets you make any folder
A free Encrypting File System (and its subfolders and other contents)
alternative: You might need a completely invisible with a just a little
stronger level of protection pointing and clicking. (Note that in Win-
than Encrypting File System dows Vista, the program may not com-
offers. Browse to http:// pletely hide some known folders, such as
pcworld.in/downloads/index.jsp/ Music in the Documents folder.)
d s e c I d = 1 4 4 3 / d s u b Se c I d = 1 4 4 5 t o Free Hide Folders is password protected,
d o w n l o a d t h e f r e e Tr u e C r y p t so you’re safe even if the bad guys know
encryption utility; also see the you’re using the product. It also lets you
Windows Toolbox at right for another back up your folders’ hidden states in
encryption alternative. case you have a system problem. And as
Lock it all up in Vista’s BitLocker: the name says, it’s free.
Encrypting your entire hard disk
makes it harder for malware to
infect Vista’s system files, while
also making it tougher for snoops
to decrypt your files. The BitLocker
feature in the Ultimate and Enter-
prise versions of Vista encrypts the
entire partition that the OS is
installed on, and stores the encryp-
tion key in your PC’s Trusted Plat-
form Module chip, or on a USB
flash drive. Since USB drives have
become ubiquitous, and since most of
BitLocker without a compatible TPM, and
us lack systems with a TPM chip, the
click OK (see FIGURE 4). Exit the editor.
flash drive option is the most attractive.
Now whenever you launch the BitLock-
Unfortunately it’s disa-
er Drive Encryption applet in Control
bled by default.
Panel, it won’t complain about the miss-
To enable this option,
ing TPM module, and it will offer a new
click Start, enter gpedit.msc in the Start
‘Turn On BitLocker’ link. BitLocker
Search field, and press <Enter> to launch
requires that you be able to boot from
Vista’s Group Policy Object Editor. In the
your USB drive, and it also must have an
left pane, navigate to and select Compu-
additional nonencrypted partition. For
ter Conf igur ation•Administrative Tem-
further information, click the applet’s
plates•Windows Components•BitLocker
What should I know about BitLocker Drive
Drive Encryption, and double-click Con-
Encryption before I turn it on? link.
trol Panel Setup: Enable advanced startup
— Scott Dunn and
Scott Spanbauer
CONTENT PAGE

Help Your PC’s Graphics
Make Vista and XP Sparkle
H A R D W A R E T I P S
windows vista clearly ups the ante on
PC graphics power. No matter how basic or
advanced your machine, chances are you
can upgrade its graphics hardware to run
Vista’s Aero interface—or improve XP—
for viewing online videos, playing games,
and using other graphics-heavy apps.
Find the connection: If the video con-
nector on the back of your PC is next to
the USB, PS/2, and other ports that are
attached directly to the motherboard,
your system has integrated
graphics. Make sure your com-
puter has an open AGP or PCI
Express x16 slot.
If your PC does not automati-
cally disable the old graphics
processor when a new card is in-
stalled, enter your system’s BIOS
(watch for the key to press when
your system starts but before
Windows loads) and disable the
setting for integrated graphics.
Get the right card for your PC:
High-end graphics cards typically
need their own power connector.
They also generate lots of heat,
and often are so big they require FIGURE 1: FIND ALL KINDS of useful data about your
the space of two expansion slots. graphics hardware in Windows XP’s DirectX Diagnostic Tool.
Make sure your case has plenty
of room inside.
Upgrade DirectX: Fast-action games and
other graphics-intensive programs re-
quire a recent version of DirectX. Win-
dows XP supports versions up to DirectX
9c, but to use the improvements in the
DOWNLOAD A FREE NETWORK KNOW-IT-ALL
FOR THOSE OF us who’d prefer to think
of “IT” as a third-person singular pro-
noun, the thought of setting up and
maintaining a network’s various hard-
ware devices is about as appealing as
oral surgery without the anesthesia.
Finding an IP address, a gateway ad-
dress, or other setting often requires a
hunt through many Windows screens.
latest, DirectX 10, you’ll need Windows
Vista—and compatible graphics hard-
ware that won’t be mainstream until late
this year. To check your DirectX version
in XP, click Start•Run and type dxdiag; in
Vista, click Start and type dxdiag in the
Start Search box. Y our DirectX version is
listed under the System tab. The Display
tab shows graphics RAM and other data
on your video subsystem (see FIGURE 1).
Go to http://support.microsoft.com/
?kbid=179113 to see instructions on
downloading and installing the latest ver-
sion of DirectX.
Do driver diligence: Download the latest
version of your card’s driver from the
vendor’s Web site. Before you swap out
the cards, however, remove the old card’s
Pure Networks’ free Network Magic
vastly simplifies network maintenance
by consolidating data for all of a net-
work’s devices on one screen. Go to
www.networkmagic.com/nmlp/home-
networking.php?src=google&kw=pure%
20networks for the download (a Premi-
um version adds features like file shar-
ing and remote access).
CONTENT PAGE
H ERE ’S HOW
FIGURE 2: MAKE SURE YOU remove your
old drive before replacing it with a new one.
driver to avoid problems. In XP, choose
Start•Control Panel•Add or Remove Pro-
grams, select the current graphics driver,
and click Remove (see FIGURE 2) . In Vista,
click Start•Control Panel•Uninstall
a program (Programs and Features
in the Classic View). What if you
don’t see your driver listed? Right-
click My Computer (Computer in
Vista) and select Manage•Device
Manager. Under ‘Display adapters’,
right-click the graphics driver and
select Uninstall.
Upgrade on the inside: If you’re
not quite ready for a new graph-
ics board, you can squeeze more
performance out of your system’s
current graphics hardware by
overclocking it. Both of the lead-
ing graphics card makers—ATI
and nVidia—include an over-
clocking utility with many of
their cards. Using ATI’s Over-
drive utility doesn’t invalidate the card’s
warranty, but using nVidia’s Coolbits
overclocking program does. Overheat-
ing is probably this trick’s biggest risk.
While ATI’s Overdrive utility monitors
a graphics card’s temperature and pre-
vents overheating, most other over-
clocking utilities don’t. Rigging an
inexpensive thermal sensor like High-
Speed PC’s Rs. 675 Digital Thermal
Probe (www.highspeedpc.com/Mer-
c h a n t 2 / m e r c h a n t .
mv?Screen=PROD&Product_
C o d e = Te m p 1 & Ca t e g o r y _
Code=Overclocking) to monitor your
graphics card temperature could save
you the cost of a replacement.
— Kirk Steers
M AY 2 0 0 7 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N 89
 HERE’S HOW

Should I Report Program

Problems to Microsoft?
A N S W E R L I N E
SOMETIMES AN ERROR message
tells me that one of my programs
has “encountered a problem,”
and asks to send Microsoft a report.
What’s the best procedure to follow?
this error message, added to the XP
version of Windows, tells you the operat-
ing system halted a program that, had it
been allowed to continue, might have
crashed Windows. Microsoft insists it
doesn’t use the information to track you,
and the report could well help prevent
such program failures in the future.
Still, there is some security risk: Tests
by the U.S. Department of Energy Com-
puter Incident Advisory Capability found
that the “memory dump” sent to Microsoft
sometimes contained information from
the user’s document (browse to www.
ciac.org/ciac/bulletins/m-005.shtml for
more). In any event, the message probably
FIGURE 2: REMOVING UNWANTED MENU items from
Microsoft Word makes the menus easier to navigate.
PERSONALIZE YOUR WINDOWS EXPLORER SHORTCUTS
THE SIMPLEST WAY to open Explorer to
a specific file or folder is to right-click
and drag its icon out of Explorer and
onto the desktop (or the Start menu,
quick-launch toolbar, or other location),
release the button, and select Create
Shortcuts Here. To open Explorer with
the folder tree visible in the left pane,
right-click the shortcut and choose
doesn’t leave you in a chari-
table mood, and clicking the
Don’t Send button will get
you back to work a few sec-
onds sooner. But you don’t
have to make that decision
with each crash. You can
tell Windows ahead of time
when it should, and should
not, report such problems
to Microsoft.
In XP, select Start•Run, FIGURE 1: DECIDE FOR YOURSELF which Vista program crashes
type sysdm.cpl, and press you encounter should be reported back to Microsoft.
<Enter>. Click the Advanced
tab in the System Properties dialog box,
and then choose the Error Reporting but-
ton that appears down on the lower right.
You can disable all error reporting, or have whose errors should not be reported (see
errors reported for the operating system
only, for programs only, or for both. If you
enable reporting, click the Choose Programs
button to select the apps whose failures you
wish to have reported. When
you’re done, click OK twice.
Vi s t a’ s e r r o r m e s s a g e
doesn’t ask about sending
information. Instead, the OS
just sends it—unless you
instruct it not to do so before-
hand. Select Start, and in the
Start Search box, type problem
reports and solutions. Press
<Enter>, and click Change
settings•Advanced settings. In
the ‘Advanced settings for
problem reporting’ dialog
box, you can turn reporting
Properties. Position the cursor in the
Shortcut tab’s Target field, press <Home>,
and type explorer.exe /e, (don’t forget
the space before the slash or the comma
at the end). For example, to open Explor-
er to your D drive, type explorer.exe /e,
D:\ . When you’re done, press <Enter>.
(Note that Vista displays folders by de-
fault, so no change for it is needed.)
off, give other users permission to set this
option for themselves, read Microsoft’s
privacy statement, and list programs
FIGURE 1). Click OK twice and close the
Problem Reports and Solutions applet
once you’ve made your changes.
TRIM OFFICE MENUS
HOW DO I remove an item from a
Microsoft Word menu?
removing items you don’t use
makes the menus easier to navigate. The
following trick will work in Word, Excel,
and other programs in Microsoft Office
versions 2000, 2002, and 2003:
In the program with the unwanted menu
item, select Tools•Customize. With the Cus-
tomize dialog box open, click the menu at
the top of the program window that holds
the item you want to remove, right-click the
item, and select Delete (see FIGURE 2); then
click the dialog box’s Close button.
Office 2007 doesn’t have menus, so there’s
nothing to customize. Removing items from
the ribbon isn’t an option. However, you can
customize the Quick Access Toolbar and
keyboard shortcuts in Office 2007 applica-
tions: Click the Office icon in the top-left
corner, choose the options button for the
program at the bottom of the drop-down list,
and select Customize in the left pane.
Answer Line is anchored by contributing
editor Lincoln Spector. Send in your queries
to feedback@pcworld.in.

90 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N M AY 2 0 0 7 CONTENT PAGE

SOFTWARE
REVIEWS
D U M M Y E D IHT A
PC World Super Suite
A LOOK AT SOME OF THE GOODIES THAT MAKE UP OUR SUPER SUITE.
tired of popping in various
CDs and DVDs to install all the
various software? Ever wished
for a single DVD that has most,
if not all of the common, soft-
ware you’d require? How con-
venient it’d be to choose and
install all Microsoft updates in
a few easy steps?
Our PC World Super Suite
has been designed keeping
these in mind, and is updated
to the latest versions of these
software. It will take many
more pages than what we have
here to explain every software
contained in our 1.7GB bundle,
but here is a preview of some of
the softwares.
GAIM
long before MSN and
Ya h o o ! o f f e r e d u n i fi e d
messenger service (add MSN
contacts to Yahoo! messenger
and vice versa) several clients
existed that could connect
simultaneously to different
96 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N M AY 2 0 0 7
END DBPYI CKKAELDP A
GNOA
O DEITETSEFNRSOOM
messenger services and show
all contacts in a single list
– much easier and efficient
than having three or four
different software running
for instant messaging alone!
Gaim has been a favorite
amongst the multi-protocol
CONTENT PAGE
INSIDE
97
99
N T&HREADMVODN
IM clients for long and for
a good reason. It is light
on system resources, has
hardly any stability issues,
nice interface that is easy
t o u s e , c u s t o m i z ab i l i t y,
and importantly, supports
Yahoo!, MSN, ICQ and few
PREVIEW
■ East-Tec Backup Lite
■ Mandriva Linux Free 2007
WHAT’S ON DVD
8GB of fun, freebies and
power tools
others that you may not have
heard of. This is a must have
software for an IM buff. You
will find this open source
and free software in the
Messengers section in the
Super Suite.
IRFANVIEW
there are image viewers and
then there is IrfanView. Merely
browsing through images can
be done in XP’s very own Picture
and Fax Viewer, but if you want a
software that is more powerful,
easy on system resources and
just as easy, if not easier to use,
then IrfanView is perhaps your
best bet. What more, you can
even view videos in IrfanView
with the help of plugins!
If you have a bunch of
large high res images from
your camera that you wish
ILLUSTRATION: ANIL T
to convert, there is the
handy batch conversion
feature (press ‘B’ or File >
Batch Convert). IrfanView
 SOFTWARE FRE E STU F F

can acquire images from ABIWORD

scanners that are TWAIN if all you want for creating
compliant (most scanner documents is a word proc-
are) and does this in essor that is easy to use, has
batch mode as well! If you all basic formatting options
wish to add simple effects and looks similar to Micro-
to an image without soft’s Word, AbiWord is
straining your PC and what you are looking for.
yourself with the likes On first glance it looks like
of Photoshop, just use an old version of Word,
Effects (Image > Effects). thus not making you feel
There are several more lost. AbiWord is an open-
features that you will source program and free to
find useful in this free ABIWORD IS AN extremely easy to use word processor and it is free. use. AbiWord for Windows
software. Again, a must takes just about 20MB on
have if you don’t want to buy formats such as TAR, Z, ZIP, a ZIP such that it can be opened your hard disk and is com-
image management software BZ2, etc. You can set a password in systems that do not have patible with all Windows ver-
like ACDSee which can be for your archive (compressed) file, WinRAR installed (Windows sions from 95 to XP.
sluggish on older PCs. split a large file into parts, assign XP and above. For older MS OS, Ab i Wo r d h a s a s p e l l
priority levels to WinRAR (so that you need the WinZip program). checker, can track document
WINRAR other programs are not affected) Many files on the Internet are history, supports tables and
winRAR, a worthy competitor and test archive for integrity compressed in the RAR format, headers / footers. By using
to the all too common WinZip amongst other things. WinRAR making this program a handy plugins you can enhance the
supports various compression allows you to save an archive as one to have around. functionality of AbiWord.

East-Tec Backup Lite network drive or a different hard

FULL PRODUCT
east-Tec Backup Lite is a
software to back up and pro-
tect the files and data on your
hard disk. East-Tec Backup
Lite is very easy to use and
features intuitive wizards,
data compression (using the
widely popular ZIP open
format, a non-proprietary
format, giving you full con-
trol over your backup), the
ability to backup to any local
locations, and more. Other
features include backing up
without the need to close
running programs, file fil-
tering (include or exclude
certain fi le types from your
backup), the ability to run
programs/commands before
or after the backup, and
detailed backup logs.
THIS SOFTWARE MAKES the
important task of backing up
data easy.
When you open East-Tec
Backup, click on the Task menu
and then New Task. In the set-
tings that show up, you can
choose the source (the files and
folders that you want to back up)
and the destination (the place
you want to back up to – like a
disk). Just click the ‘Scheduler’
tab to set the time and date when
this back up task should run.
You can choose to archive
your files in ZIP format which
not only saves space but also
enables you to add a password
to your backups. Similar to
WinZip, you can also split the
archive at selected file sizes
that will make it easier for you
to span your backups over CDs
or DVDs. A warning can also
be issued when an error occurs
during backup, so you’ll be able
to attend to the problem.
East-Tec Backup Lite can be
used for free. A registration win-
dow is displayed the first time
the user runs the program, but
it is optional. For more features,
users can upgrade to East-Tec
Backup 2007 from www.east-
tec.com/offers/pcworldin/
You can upgrade to East-
Tec Backup 2007 and be able
to backup registry keys, mails
and user settings, backup to
local area network, remov-
able disk, CD/DVD, FTP,
Encrypt your backup using
AES, create incremental and
differential backup tasks,
automate your backup tasks
using a powerful scheduler
send email notifications when
backups are made.
Installation Details
System Requirements:
■ 300 MHz or higher CPU
■ 128 MB RAM
■ 10MB free space
■ 500 MHz or higher CPU
■ 250 MB RAM or higher for
Windows XP

CONTENT PAGE M AY 2 0 0 7 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N 97
 FREE ST UFF SOFTWARE
Mandriva Linux Free 2007
L I N U X
m a nd r i va L inu x F r e e
2007 is the free version
o f M a n d r i v a (f o r m e r l y
Mandrake) Linux 2007. The
PC World May 2007 DVD
is bootable with Mandriva
Linux Free 2007 for both 32
bit as well as 64 bit CPUs
– and hence you do not need
to transfer ISOs on DVDs
or CDs. The installation is
graphical and offers efficient
hardware detection. Once
you boot from the DVD, just
click on ‘Installation’ to start
the installation.
Co m m e r c i a l p r o d u c t s
f r o m Ma n d r i v a s u c h a s
Mandriva Linux Powerpack
Edition include more fea-
tures than the Download
Edition such as commercial
add-ons and third-party soft-
ware. Commercial products
also provide documentation
and access to Mandriva serv-
ices such as support. The
download editions such as
this free distribution may
be freely downloaded from
www.mandrivalinux.com/
en/ftp.php3.
THE K-MENU SEEMS Windows-like and won’t leave a new user lost.
98 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N M AY 2 0 0 7
THIS MANDRIVA INSTALLER
includes both 32 and 64
bit versions.
Both KDE and GNOME
desktop environments are
included in Mandriva Free
2007 along with an exciting
3D Desktop. The drak3D
configuration tool chooses
the best 3D solution for
your hardware on either
KDE or GNOME. System
administration can be done
completely via GUI without
the need to get into the
command console (knowing
the commands of course
helps). The Mandriva Linux
Control Center allows a user
to resort to a single panel
CONTENT PAGE
to administer the entire
system. This must help first
time users who might be
wary of making changes to
the system. Mandriva Linux
also offers several pre-
configured levels of security
that a user can choose for
his computer.
The K-menu on the
default KDE desktop is at the
traditional bottom left of the
screen and looks deceptively
like a Windows OS. It feels
better organised on closer
observation – applications
are sorted depending on
their type – office, Internet,
multimedia and system. Like
other newer Linux distros,
the various storage devices
get mounted automatically,
so you only need to click on
‘Devices’ on the desktop to
access other partitions.
The equivalent of a Control
Panel is in the form of the
Control Center that you
can find under K-menu>
Configuration, which
allows you to make system
administer level changes as
well as changes to appearance
a n d t h e m e s . To
access some of these
settings you need
to be logged in as a
root user.
Some of the appli-
cations included in
Mandriva Linux Free
2007 are OpenOf-
fice.org, KOffice,
Abiword, Gnumeric,
C/C++ / Java , etc.
Package manage-
ment done by the
all new RPMDrake
gives you a quick
view of what you
have, what you can
install, what Man-
driva recommends, which
updates are available and
much more. The commercial
versions of Mandriva include
additional features and func-
tions that improve operability
with certain network adapt-
ers and graphic cards.
Furthermore, Mandriva’s
commercial products often
include support options
(such as Mandriva Expert),
documentation, and
premium online services
such as Mandriva Club and
Mandrivaonline.
IN BRIEF
Installation Notes
L I K E A L L L I N UX d i s-
tributions, Mandriva can
be installed on a PC that
already has a Windows
installed. During the instal-
lation, Mandriva detects
the presence of Windows
and gives you a dual boot
option. You need to choose
the partition from which
Mandriva can take space
for its own installation and
you are all set. The proc-
ess is user friendly, but if
you are not familiar with
this operation, we suggest
backing up of important
data on a CD / DVD. Instal-
lation is very fast – it took
us about 15 minutes to
install Mandriva Free 2007
with all packages chosen.
Installation Details
System Requirements:
■ 128 MB RAM; 256 MB
preffered
■ For 3D environment, a P3
or higher CPU with a 3D
graphic card
 M A Y 2 0 0 7

FULL PRODUCTS

Mandriva Linux Free 2007

Mandriva Linux Free 2007 is the free version of
Mandriva (formerly Mandrake) Linux 2007. This
DVD is bootable with Mandriva Linux Free 2007
for both 32 bit as well as 64 bit CPUs.

East-Tec Backup Lite

An easy to use backup software that can schedule
backups to a network drive or a secondary hard
disk. You can also use the ZIP format to archive
DESKTOP ENHANCEMENTS your files which not only uses less space but also
gives you the option of password protecting it.
Themes, Screensavers, Wallpapers
The themes mentioned in our Dress Up Your
Desktop feature (see page xx) are included on
our DVD. We also have wallpapers contributed
by our readers who are photography E SS E N TI A L S
enthusiasts and illustrations created by our
design team. PC World Super Suite
Our Super Suite includes software for almost
all tasks. Right from browsers, office tools,
codecs to system tools and patches, you will
V I D EO S find them all here. This time we have included
Autopatcher for Windows Vista as well.
5 Tech Videos
Glimpse the technology of today and tomorrow
with our exclusive tech videos.

GA M E S
Creative Suite 3 from Adobe
PC World’s review of Apple TV
Red Ocean
RFID in use in Germany’s supermarket
Get into an underwater station in the first
Fuel Cell laptop prototype from Toshiba
person shooter
Acer at CEBIT 2007

TUTORIAL E N T E R TA I N M E N T

5 video tutorials for XP The first space ship to Venus

Enable hibernation A sci-fi movie from the 60s to – The First Space
Hide taskbar icons Ship to Venus. Join a team of astronauts as they
Disable autorun for CD / DVD drives set out to the planet Venus in search of life.
Use magnifier tool Trailers from the Fantastic 4 and Ratatouille are
Open event viewer also included.

100 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N M AY 2 0 0 7 CONTENT PAGE

CONTENT PAGE MARCH 2007 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N 101
 4Ways to
Windows
Find the best software for running Windows on your Mac
W
hen Apple introduced
its first Intel powered
Macs in early 2006,
the company did
more than just launch OS X on a new
platform. It also gave Mac users a
brand-new way to run Windows apps.
Eighteen months ago, Mac users who
had to run Windows software used
Virtual PC—and nobody really liked it.
Today, we have a bunch of alternatives,
with four that really rise to the top:
Parallels Desktop for Mac and VMWare
Fusion, which both let you install and run
By Rob Griffiths | Illustrations by Jack Gallagher
102 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N M AY 2 0 0 7 CONTENT PAGE
a copy of Windows from within OS X;
CodeWeavers’ CrossOver Mac, which tricks
Windows apps into thinking you’ve got
Windows installed when you really don’t;
and Apple’s own Boot Camp, which lets
you choose to boot into Windows or OS X
when you start your Mac.
But those four choices lead to one big
question: which one is right for you? What
follows is a comparison of the four, as well
as a critical look at how easy each one
is to install and configure, how well each
runs Windows software, and how well each
supports hardware peripherals.
 SAMPLE ARTICLE

Also on
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On-the-Fly

CONTENT PAGE M AY 2 0 0 7 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N 103

 FEATURE 4 Ways to Windows
As you read, bear in mind that this market
is constantly evolving. During our evalua-
tion, both Apple’s Boot Camp and MWare’s
Fusion were still in public beta, Parallels’
latest release had just emerged from beta,
and CrossOver had only recently been
released. I used the most up-to-date version
of each program available at the time I was
testing, but some of the details may be out
of date by the time you read this.
Also keep in mind that it’d be impossi-
ble for us to do full compatibility testing
for every version of Windows, every appli-
cation, and every hardware peripheral
on the Mac market. I chose to focus our
software compatibility assessments on
Microsoft Windows XP Pro Service Pack 2
(with all the latest updates) and Office XP
Pro (2002). Unless specified otherwise, I
tested each product on a 15-inch 2.33GHz
MacBook Pro with 2GB of RAM.
Hardware Requirements
To use any of the following software,
you’ll obviously need an Intel-powered
Mac; none of these programs run on a
PowerPC Mac.
CPU The faster your CPU, the better
your performance will be. None of these
programs are disappointing in terms of
speed. I ran them through some timed
How They Compare: Virtualization Software
Windows versions supported
Other operating systems supported
64-bit support
Drag and drop files between Windows
and OS X
Performance: scroll Word document
(seconds)A
USB support
Bluetooth support
FireWire support
3-D acceleration
Utilizes both cores in Core Duo chips
Memory usageB
1= yes. m = no. AScrolling through a 3.9MB document with many images in Page Layout mode, using 125 percent zoom; by comparison, running the same test in Mac-native Microsoft Word 2004
on a MacBook Pro took 12.4 seconds. BWith a large Word document and an Excel file open. CExperimental. DApps that run on those operating systems, not the operating systems themselves.
104 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N M AY 2 0 0 7
tests (see “How They Compare: Virtualiza-
tion Software”) and some less formal eval-
uations (using them for everyday comput-
ing chores and comparing the feel to
native OS X apps). My conclusion: Macs
run Windows quite nicely in virtualization
mode, and very well when booted natively
into Windows. (To be more specific, they
run Windows XP quite nicely; Vista is
another story. For more on that, see
“Which Windows?”)
But even on a Core Duo mini, these pro-
grams all offer performance that’s worlds
better than Virtual PC ever was on a Pow-
erPC Mac. For typical Office applications,
even a Mac mini will provide performance
that’s more than acceptable. The main
exception: if you want to use Boot Camp to
run Windows games that require 3-D
acceleration, you’ll want a more powerful
machine; the mini and the MacBook lack
the graphics hardware required for 3-D–
accelerated video games.
RAM You’ll also want a lot of RAM. In
my testing, with Windows loaded and
Word and Excel files open, CrossOver and
Fusion used between 45MB and 60MB of
real memory; Parallels used more than
100MB. By comparison, running Win-
dows natively in Boot Camp with the same
Excel and Word files open required almost
Parallels Desktop VMWare Fusion
3.11, 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, 3.1, 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000,
XP, Vista XP, Vista, Windows Server
FreeBSD, Linux, MS-DOS, FreeBSD, Linux, MS-DOS,
OS/2 , Solaris Novell Netware, Solaris
m 1
1 1
9.9 12.6
Good Fair
Poor Good
Poor Poor
m 1C
m 1
105MB–115MB 50MB–60MB
CONTENT PAGE
200MB. As you open more programs, and
especially if you’re using OS X apps at the
same time, your RAM requirements will
go up. For Windows 2000 and XP, 2GB is
a good starting point; you’ll need more if
you’re considering running Vista.
Extras You’ll also need to be careful
about the kinds of peripherals you have
connected to your Mac. These programs
can vary widely in their support for
FireWire, USB, and Bluetooth. If any of
your Windows apps require such
peripherals, see “How They Compare:
Virtualization Software” to find out
about compatibility.
Who They’re Good For So which of
these four alternatives is right for you? Not
surprisingly, the answer really depends on
what you need. For most Mac users, Paral-
lels will let you do what you need to do in
Windows with the least amount of trouble.
Tinkerers and hobbyists will love Fusion’s
downloadable appliances. Those who
don’t need anything but the occasional
Windows Office application can probably
get by with CrossOver. For others—gam-
ers, people with esoteric hardware needs,
and people who pound their CPUs at 100
percent utilization—Boot Camp is the pre-
ferred route. The bottom line: we’ve come
a long way from Virtual PC.
CrossOver Mac Boot Camp
98, 2000, XPD XP, Vista
none none
m m
m m
17.5 14.5
Poor Good
Poor Good
Fair Good
1 1
m 1
45MB–55MB 194MB

Parallels
Multi-OS Powerhouse
P
arallels ( ; macworld.com/
2598) came out in beta form in
April of last year, not long after
Apple released the first Intel Macs. Since
then, the software has been greatly
improved through a seemingly constant
stream of betas, release candidates, and
officially released updates.
(This article is based on build
3170, Release Candidate
3; Parallels says that there
are no substantial differ-
ences between that build
and the official release,
beyond some bug fixes.)
Today, this $80 program is
the most-refined option
for running a full Win-
dows installation next to OS X on
an Intel Mac. (Parallels also supports nearly
any non-Apple operating system you can
think of, from Windows 3.11 through Vista,
Linux, Free- BSD, OS/2, Solaris, and even
good old MS-DOS).
Installation
Parallels has accomplished something
amazing: it’s made it simpler to install
Windows inside a virtual machine on a
Mac than it is to install Windows on a
“real” PC. Using the Windows Express
setup assistant, you can install Windows
XP or Vista in a couple of mouse clicks.
You type your product key, name, and
organization on one screen, and then Par-
allels takes over. Anywhere you’d typically
have to interact with the Windows install-
er, Parallels does the job for you.
After installing Windows, you launch your
new virtual machine and run the Parallels
Tools installer (in the Action menu). Parallels
Tools adds a number of features that ease the
integration of Windows with OS X, such as
the ability to move your mouse seamlessly
from Parallels to Mac OS X and back again.
The process is just a bit more complicated if
you want to install other operating systems.
You use File: New to open the OS Installa-
tion Assistant, and tell it to create a Custom
virtual machine. On the next screen, you
select the type of OS (Linux, OS/2, and so
on), as well as the specific version (Red Hat
Linux, OS/2 Warp 4, and so on) you want to
install. You’ll then have to specify
a memory allocation and
drivespace setup for your virtu-
al machine, and then start the
installation— you can install
from CDs or from a disk image.
Software Support
Assuming that you’re using Par-
allels to run Windows, you’ll
want to check out Parallels’
Coherence mode as soon as you can (see
“Coherence Mode”). It’s a way of configur-
ing Parallels so the Windows OS itself is
hidden: all you see is an application win-
dow—which happens to belong to a Win-
dows application—on your OS X desktop.
Those apps have their own resizable win-
dows, their icons appear in OS X’s Dock,
Coherence Mode With Parallels’ new Coherence mode, Internet Explorer 7 and Microsoft
Word (running in Windows) integrate seamlessly with the Finder and Font Book.
CONTENT PAGE
SAMPLE ARTICLE
Also
Also on
on
and the Windows
taskbar is present Resize Partitions
along the bottom On-the-Fly
of the screen
(though you can drag it to any edge, just
as you can when running Windows
natively). When running Parallels in
Coherence mode, it’s easy to forget you’re
even running the Windows OS; it’s more
like you’re running programs that don’t
look like the rest of your OS X apps.
Further easing integration, Parallels sup-
ports full drag and drop between the Win-
dows and OS X environments. You can
copy a folder of files from one environment
to the other, add items to the taskbar in
Coherence mode, and even drop docu-
ments onto Windows’ application windows.
At the other extreme, you can make your
Mac look like it’s solely a Windows machine
simply by switching to full screen mode. In
full-screen mode, the Mac OS is completely
hidden. When you want to get back to your
native OS, just press option-return and
you’re back in windowed mode.
In addition to creating this OS transpar-
ency, Parallels runs Windows apps amaz-
ingly well. It will run nearly any Win-
dows program you throw at it, with
performance that’s nearly as good as
you’d get on a similarly configured native
Windows box. (You can also run Win-
dows XP from a Boot Camp partition—
meaning that you need only one copy of
M AY 2 0 0 7 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N 105
 FEATURE 4 Ways to Windows
Playing DVDs You can watch (and burn) DVDs in Parallels—if
you use VLC and don’t mind a little stuttering. The Windows
Media Player complained about a missing codec.
Windows XP.) I say nearly because Paral-
lels can’t yet utilize both cores in the Core
Duo chips. So if you’re running an appli-
cation that’s particularly CPU-intensive,
it’ll take a bit of a performance hit. Also,
Parallels doesn’t yet offer accelerated
graphics, so many games are out of the
question. And Parallels won’t run 64- bit
Windows, but that’ll be a problem for
only a small subset of users.
For everything else, such as Micro-
soft Office, Quicken QuickBooks,
Adobe Photoshop, and pretty much
any other application I tested, Paral-
lels works, and works well. Perform-
ance is nice and snappy—in fact, it’s
the snappiest of the four programs I
tested (see “How They Compare: Vir-
tualization Software”). Even playing
back DVDs works reasonably well. I
wasn’t able to get Windows Media
The Security Question
Is Windows really unsafe?
At one point during my research for this
article, I ran Parallels on my Mac Pro for the
first time in a while. I wanted to tweak the
virtual machine’s settings, which requires
shutting it down. Before I could do so,
Windows XP informed me it was installing a
few updates. (I have the automatic update
enabled.) Eventually, the updates were
applied and the virtual machine shut down. I
tweaked my Parallels settings and restarted
the virtual machine. When XP finished
106 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N M AY 2 0 0 7
Player to work (it kept
telling me I needed an
MPEG-2 codec), but I
was able to use the free
VLC video player (www.
videolan.org/vlc) to
play Pirates of the Car-
ibbean 2 (see “Playing
DVDs”). There was
some stuttering of the
sound and the occa-
sional mild picture hic-
cup, but overall, the
experience was much
better than I was expecting.
Hardware Support
When Parallels first came out, its support
for USB devices wasn’t great. Things have
improved since then. It now supports
USB 2.0, and more devices work. I had no
trouble getting Windows XP Pro to recog-
nize a 1GB memory stick; USB hard
drives work, too. I was even able to use
my Wacom Intuos 2 graphics tablet. You
may still run into problems with things
such as USB dongles, which some pro-
grams use for copy protection, but most
other USB devices should work just fine.
Networking support is good; I had no
issues printing to a networked laser printer,
and I was able to see the other Macs on the
household network.
What hardware won’t work with Paral-
lels? Pretty much anything that connects
booting up, I was surprised to see Windows’
built-in malware detector pop up on screen.
Somehow, my virtual Windows XP
installation had been infected by a member
of the rbot family of malicious software.
Thankfully, Windows found and removed this
hack all by itself.
I hadn’t done much more than surf the Net
and run some Office applications on that
particular machine. It’s certainly possible
that I visited a malicious Web page. Or
CONTENT PAGE
via FireWire, Bluetooth, or ExpressCard.
(The main exception is FireWire drives that
have been mounted in OS X.) If you have
peripherals that rely on these technologies
and that need access to them in Windows,
you should consider using Boot Camp.
Also, Parallels can’t take advantage of both
cores on Core Duo chips. In my experi-
ence, that didn’t interfere with perform-
ance much, but if you have processor-
intensive Windows apps, it might.
Who It’s Good For
With its excellent application support,
well-integrated Coherence mode, drag-
and- drop capabilities, and overall level
of performance, Parallels is a great
match for people who need to run the
full Windows OS on their Macs— or
people who’d like to experiment with
other operating systems, such as Linux.
But if you need accelerated 3-D graphics
support or have FireWire and Bluetooth
devices you need to use in Windows,
look to Boot Camp.
PARALLELS DESKTOP FOR MAC
PROS: Coherence mode; drag and drop
files from one OS to another; excellent
performance; very good hardware support.
CONS: Virtually no FireWire or Bluetooth
support; no accelerated graphics; doesn’t
utilize both cores in Core Duo chips; no 64-
bit Windows support.
PRICE: $80
COMPANY: Parallels, www.parallels.com
maybe someone had sniffed out my machine
from the Net and attacked it remotely.
But I still have no clue how my Windows XP
installation got infected. I’d turned Windows
sharing off on my virtual machine, and my
home network sits behind a router that uses
network address translation to hide my
machines’ IP addresses from the Net.
From now on, I’m going to need a good
security program for my virtual Windows
machines. (Friends have suggested AVG Free
[free.grisoft.com], for starters.) I’m not too
worried about Windows infections getting to
my OS X installation, at least not yet. But I’m
glad I’m not a fulltime user.

VMWare
New Kid on the Block
V
M Ware (www.vmware.com) has
been providing virtualization soft-
ware for Windows users for years.
VMWare Fusion, which has been available
as a free public beta since late December
2006 (I tested build number 36932), is the
company’s first Mac product.
Fusion is still in beta. No ship date for
a final version has been announced.
Given that, many features are missing
or incomplete.
Installation
Like Parallels, Fusion installs with a stand-
ard OS X installer. But when it comes to
installing Windows, you have to run Win-
dows’ installation program yourself.
Fusion supports 19 different versions of
Windows, from 3.1 through the 64-bit ver-
sions of Windows XP and Vista. You can
also install Linux systems (including Red
Hat and SUSE), Novell’s Netware, Sun’s
Solaris, Free- BSD, and MS-DOS.
Fusion’s other key differentiator is its
support for what VMWare calls “virtual
Virtual Appliance VMWare’s virtual appliances are fully configured and ready-to-run
software programs—such as MindTouch Deki, shown here—that you can download.
appliances”—preconfigured bundles of
operating systems and applications that
you can download and install with a few
mouse clicks. For example, I downloaded
MindTouch Deki, which lets you collabo-
rate on documents wiki-style. I expanded
the archive and then doubleclicked on the
resulting file. The appliance booted its
operating system, configured itself, and
was ready to use in
about a minute (see
“Virtual Appliance.”)
If you’ve ever want-
ed to test-drive Linux,
a Fusion virtual appli-
ance is far and away
the easiest way to do so.
Software Support
Running Windows apps
in Fusion is much like running them in
Parallels: for the most part, they just
work. I found the speed in both Word
and Excel to be more than acceptable; I
was able to scroll through a long Word
CONTENT PAGE
SAMPLE ARTICLE
Also on
document from
top to bottom in
roughly the same
Resize Partitions
On-the-Fly
amount of time it took me to do so while
running Office 2004 in Rosetta on my
MacBook Pro. Pirates of the Caribbean 2
played as well as it did in Parallels.
Fusion has a full-screen mode, too, but
nothing like Parallels’ Coherence mode.
You can move files and folders between
OS X and Windows via drag and drop,
but setting up a shared documents fold-
er is much tougher than it is in Parallels.
Hardware Support
Fusion’s hardware support is mixed. It
supports Bluetooth if you install Apple’s
Boot Camp drivers. Like Paral-
lels, Fusion will let you use your
Bluetooth mouse within each
program; unlike Parallels,
Fusion lets you bind new Blue-
tooth devices to the virtual
machine. And Fusion supports
both cores in Intel Core Duo
chips. In its latest release, VMWare
has added “experimental” support
for accelerated 3-D graphics, which
worked just fine in my testing. On the
downside, Fusion has no Fire- Wire sup-
port, except as a source of shared folders
on a hard drive. I couldn’t get my Wacom
graphics tablet to work.
Who It’s Good For
Overall, given that this is still a beta
release, I was impressed with Fusion. It’s
got a ways to go before it’s a polished Par-
allels competitor, and it isn’t ready for peo-
ple who need a stable, fullfeatured Win-
dows environment. But it’s a good start.
VMWARE FUSION BETA
(BUILD 36932)
PROS: Prebundled “appliances” let you
quickly install useful preconfigured systems
and applications; uses both cores in Core
Duo chips; can run 64-bit Windows.
CONS: Tricky to set up shared folders;
plenty of beta issues; sketchy USB support; no
FireWire support; no accelerated graphics.
PRICE: free (for beta)
COMPANY: VMWare, www.vmware.com
M AY 2 0 0 7 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N 107
 FEATURE 4 Ways to Windows
CrossOver
Windows Applications
without Windows
C
odeWeavers’ CrossOver Mac
(www.codeweavers.com) is
unique among virtualization
programs in that it doesn’t actually
require a copy of Windows. That’s right:
once you’ve paid CodeWeavers your $60
($70 for a CD), you’re ready to start
installing Windows programs, without
paying Microsoft a dime.
How is that possible? CrossOver is a
Mac implementation of Wine (www .
winehq.com), which provides versions
of Windows-native libraries, so it
appears to Windows apps
that they’re in a real Win-
dows operating system.
Installation
Installing CrossOver couldn’t
be much simpler: you just
drag its application icon into
your Applications folder. You
don’t need to run an OS X installer, install
Windows, or even reboot before you start
using the program. To install a Windows
application in CrossOver, you can either
insert the program’s installation CD or
run CrossOver’s Install Software assistant.
CrossOver uses bottles to organize your
installed applications. A bottle is a virtual
Windows environment, each with its own
C: drive, fonts, and registry. You can
install multiple applications in one bottle,
or you can create a new bottle for each
program you install.
If you’re installing a program that
CrossOver knows how to handle, it’ll cre-
ate a bottle automatically. If you’re install-
ing an unsupported program, you’ll need
to specify which Windows it requires.
(Your choices are Windows 98, Windows
2000, or Windows XP.)
For most applications, that’s all the con-
figuring you’ll need to do. If you do need
108 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N M AY 2 0 0 7
ports accelerated 3-D graphics. That
means you can run some Windows
games directly within OS X.
Hardware Support
CrossOver can see any external hard
drives (USB and FireWire) and memory
sticks that OS X can see, and you’ll have
to make some tweaks, you use CrossO-
access to them from the Open and Save
ver’s Bottle Manager, which lets you
dialog boxes in Windows. Other hard-
adjust all sorts of settings (see “Configur-
ware is trickier. If your device requires a
ing Bottles”). From then on, you can
Windows-specific driver, odds are it
launch the program from within CrossO-
probably won’t work in CrossOver.
ver or by just double-clicking on the appli-
cation in the Finder, as you would do for
Who It’s Good For
any other OS X application.
If your Windows needs are limited—for
example, if you just want to open and
Software Support
edit old Office documents and don’t
Once it’s installed, how well does CrossO-
want to pay for a Windows license,
ver actually work? The answer ranges from
CrossOver is a fine alternative. It’s also a
“incredibly well” to “not at all.” The compa-
viable choice for PC gamers looking to
ny has classified more
play the occasional Windows game with-
than 2,500 Windows
out logging out of OS X. But if you need
applications for compat-
a fuller Windows experience, one of the
ibility. Ratings run from
other programs will be a better fit.
gold (perfect compatibili-
ty) and silver (runs with
CROSSOVER MAC 6.0
some bugs) down through
PROS: No need to purchase Windows; supports
the self-explanatory accelerated 3-D graphics; easy to install.
“Known Not to Work.” Of CONS: Limited application compatibility;
those 2,500-plus programs, only 55 get a no access to the full Windows OS if you need
it; USB devices may not work with games.
gold or silver rating; the vast majority are
PRICE: $60
labeled Untested. COMPANY: CodeWeavers,
In my testing, those ratings proved accu- www.codeweavers.com
rate. Older versions of
Microsoft Office (97 and
2000, both of which
have a gold rating)
worked quite well.
Office XP (with a silver
rating) worked OK, with
an occasional graphical
glitch and a crash or
two. Newer programs
can be problematic: you
can run Internet Explor-
er 5, but you can’t use
versions 6 or 7.
Gaming is where
CrossOver offers a
pleasant surprise. Configuring Bottles CrossOver runs Windows apps inside
selfcontained mini-Windows environments called bottles.
Unlike Parallels, it sup-
CONTENT PAGE

Which Windows?
A field guide to the other OS
Knowing how to run Windows on your
Mac is one thing. Knowing which Windows
version to run is something else altogether.
There are not only four different versions
of Windows Vista on store shelves, but also
two different versions of Windows XP still
available if you know where to look.
Vista and Virtualization
If you plan to run Windows through Parallels
Desktop for Mac or VMWare Fusion, Micro-
soft has made your choice of Windows easy.
The end user license agreements (EULAs)
that come with Vista Home Basic and Vista
Home Premium versions specifically forbid
you to operate them under virtualization.
I’ve found no technical reason why you can’t
run these versions of Windows under virtu-
alization, but it’s technically illegal to do so.
The official reason for this restriction is
security. Microsoft is happy to let you run
Vista Business and Vista Ultimate editions
under virtualization, because they include
more-robust safety features. Because a Mac
running Apple’s Boot Camp is for all
intents and purposes a living and breathing
Windows PC, Microsoft has no objection to
your running any version of Vista on it.
Regardless of which version of Vista you
install, Microsoft demands that each
installation have its own license. So if you
wish to install it in both Boot Camp and a
virtualization application, you’ll need two
Windows licenses.
What’s the Difference?
Roughly speaking, the various Vista edi-
tions shake out this way.
Vista Home Basic is just that, a very
basic version of Windows that doesn’t
include Microsoft’s Aero visual effects and
also lacks Windows Media Center, Win-
dows Flip 3D Navigation, Scheduled and
Network Backup, Windows Meeting
Space, and Tablet Technology. It sells for
$199 for a full installation.
Vista Home Premium adds the Aero
effect as well as the features and pro-
grams missing from Home Basic. Win-
dows Media Center, the major selling
point for this edition, enables your
computer to act as a television and
video recorder. The Mac’s hardware
doesn’t support many of these fea-
tures. Media Center also includes
DVD-burning and movie-creation
applications, as well as some games.
The full installation of Home Premium
costs $239.
Vista Business replaces Home’s multime-
dia capabilities with security, networking,
and sharing features not found in the
Home versions. Those features include
Domain Join, Group Policy support,
Encrypting File System (EFS), Corporate
Roaming, and Remote Desktop. Microsoft
asks $299 for Vista Business.
Finally, Vista Ultimate includes every-
thing found in the three less-expensive ver-
sions of Vista plus a few extras—a card
game, additional language packs, and more
security. Vista Ultimate comes at an ulti-
mate price—$399 for a full installation.
Windows Vista: What You Get
Home
Features Basic
Backup: Scheduled Backup
Backup: Windows Complete PC
Backup and Restore
Collaboration: Windows Meeting Space
Data Protection: Windows BitLocker
Drive Encryption
Eye Candy and Navigation: Aero
Effect, Windows Flip 3D, and Live
Thumbnails
Media and Entertainment: Windows
Media Center, Windows DVD Maker,
Windows Movie Maker, Chess Titans,
Mahjong Titans, Inkball
Mobile: Windows Mobility Center,
Tablet PC Support
Networking: Networking Center,
Remote Desktop
Search and Internet: Instant Search, 1 1
Windows Internet Explorer 7
Security: Windows Defender, 1 1
Windows Firewall
CONTENT PAGE
SAMPLE ARTICLE
Also on
Do You
Need Vista?
Vista is unquestion-
Resize Partitions
On-the-Fly
ably the future of Microsoft’s operating sys-
tem. But even PC users who like Windows
have been complaining about Vista’s per-
formance. Vista running under Parallels
Desktop for Mac is no speed demon and is
occasionally unpredictable. It’s better under
Boot Camp but still far from perfect.
Windows XP, on the other hand, isn’t half
bad, no matter how you run it on your Mac.
It’s a more mature version of Windows and
therefore less buggy. It’s also less laden with
eye candy, so it’s faster than Vista.
XP is also much better than Vista when
it comes to virtualization. Because virtuali-
zation wasn’t a threat when XP was
released many years ago, there’s no provi-
sion in the EULA that forbids you to run it
under Parallels, Fusion, or whatever else
you want to use. And even under virtuali-
zation, XP Home, XP Professional, and
most Windows applications (save 3-D
games and other 3-D–intensive applica-
tions, which perform poorly) run at near-
native speeds on a modern Intel Mac. Peo-
ple running Boot Camp will find that XP
is blazingly fast.—CHRISTOPHER BREEN
Home
Premium
Business Ultimate
1 1 1
1 1
1 1
1
1 1 1
1 1
1 1 1
1 1
1 1
1 1
M AY 2 0 0 7 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N 109
 FEATURE 4 Ways to Windows
Boot Camp
Ultimate Compatibility
W
hile Parallels, Fusion, and
CrossOver are good for running
Windows apps from within OS
X, if you want the complete Windows
experience, you need Apple’s Boot Camp
(www.apple.com/bootcamp).
In free public beta at the time of this
writing, and slated for inclusion in Mac
OS X 10.5, Boot Camp is unlike the
other three programs: it doesn’t let you
run Windows apps alongside your OS X
apps. Instead, it converts your Mac into
a full-blown Windows computer.
Installation
When installing Boot Camp, the first
thing you do is let the Boot Camp Assist-
ant partition your hard drive into two piec-
es—one for OS X and another for Win-
dows (see “Partitioning for Windows”).
The partition size you specify will depend
largely on what you plan to do with Win-
dows; if you’re installing big apps or you’ll
be using big data files, you size the parti-
tion accordingly. None of your existing
data is lost in this process and, if you
change your mind later, the Boot Camp
Assistant will also merge your split disk
back into one, deleting the Windows data
while keeping your OS X files intact.
The next step is to burn a CD with
Mac drivers. This CD is the key to Boot
Camp’s great Windows support: it adds
specific drivers for your Mac’s hardware
to Windows.
Boot Camp Assistant then asks you to
insert your Windows CD (XP Service
Pack 2, Home or Pro only), and the
installer starts. I expect that Boot Camp
will also support Vista by the time Apple
releases OS X 10.5.
Once Windows is installed and you
reboot, you choose which OS you want to
use by holding down the option key. You
110 W W W. P C W O R L D . I N M AY 2 0 0 7
Hardware Support
Thanks to the Windows driver CD, all
your Mac-specific hardware—Bluetooth,
AirPort, and even the built-in iSight cam-
era—will work perfectly in Windows.
Boot Camp is especially great for gam-
ers, because it fully supports accelerated
pick your new Windows partition and 3-D graphics. So stop hoping that all
then use the Mac drivers CD you burned those Windows- only games will get
earlier to install the Windows drivers for ported to the Mac and start playing;
all your Mac-specific hardware. Once they’ll work well on any Mac that sup-
you’ve done that, you’ve got a real, hon- ports advanced 3-D acceleration (which
est-to goodness Windows XP computer. means pretty much any Mac except for
the Mac mini and the MacBook).
Software Support
Pretty much anything that runs on Win- Who It’s Good For
dows will now run on your Mac. Noth- If you want to play 3-D games on your
ing is being emulated, nothing is being Mac, or if you use hardware that’s not
simulated. yet supported in Parallels or Fusion,
The main downside is that you have to then Boot Camp is for you. It’s also your
reboot your machine to run your Windows best bet if you need full access to all your
software. So if you’re involved in a project in Mac’s hardware.
OS X and want to quickly run a Windows
application that Parallels or Fusion can’t Senior Editor Rob Griffiths runs the MacOSX- COM-
handle, you’ll have to save your work, shut PANY: Hints.com Web site (www.macosxhints.com).
down your Mac, reboot,
do whatever it is you
wanted to do in Win-
dows, and then repeat
the whole process to get
back to OS X. Unfortu-
nately, until Fusion,
Parallels, or CrossOver
supports your program,
Boot Camp is your
only option.
The other bummer
is that it’s trickier to
share files between
Windows and OS X in
Boot Camp than in the Partitioning for Windows When you run the Boot Camp Assistant,
the first thing you have to do is split your hard drive into two
virtualization apps. pieces—one for OS X and one for Windows.
You’ll need a FAT32-
formatted drive, or
access to a file server that both Windows BOOT CAMP 1.1.2 BETA
and OS X can connect to. The other PROS: Runs Windows natively with full
alternative is to purchase MacDrive for hardware support; 3-D graphics acceleration.
CONS: Requires rebooting; hard to share
Windows (macworld.com/2620), which files between OS X and Windows; supports
will let Windows read from and write to only two versions of Windows.
your Mac partition. MacDrive works PRICE: free
COMPANY: Apple, www.apple.com
quite well but will set you back $50.
CONTENT PAGE
 STEPHEN MANES

Software That Just Won’t Shut Up

the mental state that the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls
“flow” can be genuinely magical. There is nothing quite like the “deep
enjoyment” of losing yourself in an experience, of becoming one with
your work or hobby or sport or…excuse me, here’s a message from my
antispyware program, proud to grant my
machine yet another clean bill of health.
What was I was saying? Oh, yeah, the
state of flow is…wait a minute, some e-
mail here. Only spam. And…hang on,
the antivirus program is announcing that
it has just updated itself. Glad to hear it.
Flow? All of a sudden every program-
mer alive seems to think it’s fine and
dandy to interrupt you with news of some
trivial incident or meaningless nonevent.
Pop-up ads are bad enough; now their
equivalents have found their way into
stuff that you’ve paid for to work behind
the scenes, not dance on the table and
proclaim its glory.
In the old days your antivirus pro-
gram might have been stupid
enough to ask you whether you
wanted to eliminate a virus or
merely quarantine it—as though
you wanted to maintain your own
personal collection. Now it brags
that it has successfully main-
tained itself, repelled an attack,
inspected and approved an e-
mail attachment, or discovered
that your antivirus subscription
will expire in six months—or
maybe that it’s standing at the ready in the
background. Excuse me, but all of that is
business as usual. How about interrupt-
ing me only when there’s a real problem?
instant messaging, which I have ban-
ished from my PC—but feckless inter-
ruption is now a way of life. Windows
Vista’s User Account Control safeguard
nags you every time you do anything that
might conceivably in some alternative
universe harm your machine but in the
real world is almost always benign. Memo
Trying to focus? With
today’s interrupting
apps, good luck!
to Windows and every other program on
the planet: Shut up!
If a spyware scan reveals no problems,
don’t bother informing me, please. If
cisely that without bothering me after the
first time I click OK. Instead of waiting
for my permission to perform some
grand act that might slow my computer
to a crawl, figure out a way to do it when
the machine is idle, and don’t force me to
reboot—unless doing otherwise would
be the first step toward nuclear winter.
Simple rule: Don’t pipe up unless it’s
really, really important.
If you’re a firewall developer, use a
silently updated internal database to figure
out which programs should be permitted
to phone home from my machines and
which should not. And at this point, I’d
rather not even hear that telltale ping that
lets me know a new e-mail message has
arrived. I’ll check the inbox on my own
schedule, thanks.
The marketing idea behind many such
interruptions is no doubt the notion that
reminding you of the importance of these
ought-to-be-mostly-unseen helpers will
keep you shelling out for new versions or
subscriptions. But after the tenth or
hundredth annoyance, what it really
does is make you wonder whether
there’s a more low-key alternative
that can do the same thing.
Alas, now that program-
mers and marketers have
become as bent on unde-
served attention as ill-bred
five-year-olds, the very con-
cept of software quietude
seems to be growing antiquated.
Flow? No mo’....
Stephen Manes is cohost of a popular US televi-
ILLUSTRATION: JOHN CUNEO

Maybe it’s just the influence of the something like Adobe Acrobat Reader sion series and a columnist for Forbes. E-mail
most flow-busting software ever made— can get updates on its own, have it do pre- him at feedback@pcworld.in.

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