The most recent Software Reviews from Incisive Media

Review: Mozilla Firefox 3.5

Ian Williams — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:53:30 GMT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Review: Veritas NetBackup PureDisk v6.5.1

Frank Ohlhorst — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:39:54 GMT

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

A worthwhile contender for the enterprise backup market

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Berlitz Mandarin and Japanese Premier

Tom Royal — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:24:22 GMT

Tom Royal, Computeractive, Tuesday 30 June 2009 at 17:22:00

Learn a new language - or two

Learning a language can be rewarding, but it also tends to be expensive.

Even if you don’t fork out for a tutor, the textbooks and software on offer are often costly, so we were surprised to see this Berlitz package, which claims to teach two languages, selling for less than £20 online.

There are several language versions available – we opted for the Japanese and Mandarin Chinese version.

The main program in the box, Berlitz Learning System, was disappointing. Its ‘immersion environments’ offered plenty of photos, audio and text, but the interface was confusing and despite knowing some Japanese already we were baffled as to where to start in the Survival Phrases for Japanese environment.

After some confused clicking we found that each includes some handy conversation practice lessons, but the Theater screen that appears first is so lacking in guidance that we can imagine many users giving up before they even work out how to use the software properly.

Fortunately, the rest of the contents was far more useful. Best of all is the Before You Know It flashcard program that allows learners to practice simple words and phrases using on-screen flashcards and spoken examples. It’s simple, effective and easy to use – everything, in fact, that the main program is not.

And there’s more, too. One of the discs includes flashcard software for Palm and Windows Mobile handheld computers so you can take the same flashcards and practice them on the move – smartphone versions would have been handier for some, but this is a nice extra nonetheless.

There’s also a short audio course that can be copied to a portable music player. This concentrates on teaching useful short phrases, and although some of the teaching methods are a little daft – picturing the state of Ohio at sunrise to remember the Japanese for ‘good morning’, ohayo gozaimasu – we did learn a few new phrases.

All in all, this package is a really mixed bag. We don’t like the main program at all, and it seems daft to pay for two languages at once, but at less than £20 it’s worth buying for the flashcard tool alone.

Anno: Create a New World Nintendo DS game

Tom Royal — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 09:38:41 GMT

Tom Royal, Computeractive, Saturday 27 June 2009 at 10:00:00

Create a colonial empire in this pocket strategy game

The Nintendo DS's touch screen is ideal for strategy games and, in particular, 'God games' in which the player uses a bird's-eye view to build a miniature civilisation.

The latest title in the Anno series allows you to rule over a fledgling empire in the 15th century.

The plot sees you, the son of an ageing king presiding over a kingdom in trouble, sent out to find new lands to supply hungry subjects back at home. After landing on a small island you must build houses for your small band of pioneers, and clear fields for them to work. They pay you taxes, allowing you to build new facilities: a chapel, for example, or a dairy farm.

Creating more municipal buildings will attract more wealthy citizens who, in turn, are able to pay more taxes. Over time your cluster of shacks with hardy owners that require only food can grow into a city of stone houses whose patrician inhabitants need food, milk, linen clothses, herbs, spices and much more, but who pay you a fortune in return.

One island alone can't provide all the raw materials for such a city, so you'll have to spread out, colonising other islands that are suitable for growing particular goods. To find enough islands you need to acquire maps, which can be gained by meeting certain requirements such as colonising a number of islands or building a city with so many hundred inhabitants.

Fail to provide any one type of goods and your citizens will stop paying taxes – fatal when you have a few plantations to support and you're trying to save up for a cathedral. Similarly, an island left undefended can be stormed and occupied by pirates. The game's combat system, which involves moving troops around between forts and ships, isn't as polished as the rest of the game, but it works.

The game includes a story mode, which serves to introduce the key concepts of the game at a decent pace, or you can go it alone and start building a colonial empire. It's not an action-packed rollercoaster of a game, and the combat sections are a little clumsy, but the rest is strangely absorbing: with your frontier empire always perched on a knife-edge, it's hard to save the game and step away.

PC Tools iAntivirus For Macintosh

Cliff Joseph — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:40:47 GMT

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

A simple and affordable anti-virus program for Mac users

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

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

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

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

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

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

Panoweaver 6

Ken McMahon — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 09:27:14 GMT

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

Create 2D and 360º panoramic images easily

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sunbelt Software VIPRE Enterprise

Alan Stevens — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 09:14:10 GMT

Alan Stevens, Personal Computer World, Thursday 11 June 2009 at 16:04:00

Malware protection that won’t drag you down

A relative newcomer on the security scene, Sunbelt Software’s VIPRE provides a mix of anti-virus, anti-spyware and other malware protection with, according to the developer, minimal impact on processor and memory resources.

Also available standalone, we tested VIPRE Enterprise which includes centralised deployment, management and reporting tools. By preference the core Enterprise software will normally be installed on a server, but a desktop PC can be used if preferred as long as it can be left on all the time. Installation takes just a few minutes with a supporting Access format database created during the process, although SQL Server can be used on a large network if preferred.

A Windows console is also installed, which we found easy to navigate, although it was a little sluggish at times.

One of the first tasks was to deploy a VIPRE agent to each PC to be protected with a choice of methods available including push deployment using WMI or administrative shares and, on an Active Directory network, Group Policy rollout. The agent can be installed onto any desktop PC running Windows 2000 or later and servers running either Windows 2003 or 2008.

We used the built-in push tool to deploy the agent to a mix of XP and Vista machines. A wizard made it a quick and fairly painless process, the only blip being the need to turn off simple file sharing configured on some of our XP PCs before the install would work.

Once deployed, VIPRE agents are managed using centrally defined policies to tell the software when to perform scans, where and when to get updates, what to do when a threat is identified, who to inform and so on. Policies also dictate the level of protection to provide with, as well as scheduled scans, real time scanning (Active Protection) whenever a file is opened or closed plus the ability to check emails received using Outlook, Outlook Express and other Pop3/Imap clients.

On the downside there’s no integration with Exchange or other mail servers. We were also surprised to find Active Protection, email scanning and other advanced options turned off by default.

VIPRE uses a mix of pattern matching, heuristic and behaviour analysis technologies which seem to work well, identifying and blocking Eicar and other potential threats we threw at our test PCs. We were also keen to check out the performance claims especially the impact a deep scan had on the client PCs.

To this end we ran the Windows performance monitoring tool during scheduled scans. We did see the occasional burst of high CPU activity but, for the most part, usage was around the 20-30% with an average of around 100MB of extra memory required. Update activity was almost undetectable although it did take an appreciable time to deploy the threat definitions when the agent was first installed.

Anti-malware tools can be real resource hogs so this was a good result, VIPRE delivering real benefit in this regard. The Enterprise version also delivers benefits when it comes to managing protection, especially on a small business network. Agent deployment is easy, policy changes are applied straight away and you’re kept up to date on what’s happening through dashboard displays. A number of reports can also be run, either on demand or scheduled and distributed via email. Added to which you get central management of quarantined threats and a lot more besides in this very affordable anti-malware solution.

Zonealarm Extreme Security

Paul Lester — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 11:12:00 GMT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Serif Photoplus X3

Ken McMahon — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 10:13:51 GMT

Ken McMahon, Personal Computer World, Saturday 20 June 2009 at 11:00:00

Plenty of tools for both novice and advanced photographers

Serif has christened version 11 of its image-editing software Photoplus X3.

This could be an effort to go one better than Corel’s Paint Shop Pro Photo X2, or perhaps Serif simply felt it sounded less prosaic.

The name is not the only change, of course. This release adds support for Camera Raw images, High Dynamic Range (HDR) merging, support for 16-bit-per-channel images and some new effects.

These additions expand on an already comprehensive suite of existing tools and features that places Photoplus X3 squarely in the realm of the serious photographer.

The Layers palette often provides a good indication of a photo editor’s capabilities and this one allows you to add new layers and organise them into groups, independently lock their transparency, pixels and position, adjust their opacity and blend modes plus add adjustment layers, layer masks, layer effects and depth maps (otherwise known as displacement maps).

In a tabbed group within the Layers palette you’ll also find a Channels palette, vector paths and a macros palette X3 supports recording and playback of macros as well as batch processing.

X3 does a good job of making these advanced features and other editing tools accessible to beginners or anyone unfamiliar with the program. There’s a Quickfix Studio window that provides a range of image adjustments and effects including white balance, brightness and contrast, cropping, red-eye and blemish removal, noise reduction and sharpen tools, in a single location. The only complaint here was that it didn’t seem to work with 16-bit images.

There’s also a How To panel, which provides guided help for a range of editing activities broadly categorised into Getting Started, Image Adjustments, Retouching, Makeover Studio, Black and White Studio, Creative Effects and Photo Finishing. This has been well thought out and implemented.

Any editing application that aims to attract serious hobbyists has to offer support for Camera Raw formats. The Photoplus X3 documentation doesn’t say which Raw formats are supported, though the open dialogue box now specifies CRW, CR2, ORF and NEF, that includes Canon, Olympus and Nikon and we were also able to open Adobe DNG files.

The Raw Studio importer provides a good set of conversion controls including white balance, exposure, highlight recovery, noise reduction and chromatic aberration. You can export files with either eight or 16 bits per channel, tagged with a colour space profile. It doesn’t offer the sophistication of more expensive Raw converters but nonetheless does a great job.

High Dynamic Range (HDR) tools, which produce a composite image from a set of bracketed exposures, are becoming common in photo applications, but both ease of use and quality of results have been lacking; X3 manages to score well in both these areas.

Using HDR Merge we imported six 16-bit TIFFs and produced an excellent tone-mapped composite image in a matter of seconds. The HDR merge controls include a local contrast radius slider, which helps to overcome the flatness problem typical in HDR images, and colour temperature and saturation controls to save you having to make these adjustments subsequently. You can then save images as eight- or 16-bit tone-mapped files or in EXR or HDP formats.

Photoplus X3 is up there with Photoshop Elements and Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 in its ability to cater for digital photographers of all levels.

Fuel game

Jonathan Parkyn — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 15:29:11 GMT

Jonathan Parkyn, Computeractive, Sunday 21 June 2009 at 16:15:00

Let’s off-road

The idea of an open-world racer is not a new one. Several recent games, including the excellent Burnout Paradise, have offered similar worlds with no set routes, in which players can drive around to find new places to race.

Fuel promises 5,000 square miles of virtual environment to explore, making it by far the most expansive game of its type so far – something that works both for and against this ambitious racing title.

Set in an alternative near future, you and your initial vehicle are airlifted by chopper to the Wastelands area, where you can carry out a series of career races.

But once these dry up, it’s up to you to track down your next dose of high-octane racing excitement.

You’re free to cruise around the vast map looking for further career-advancing races. Exploration will also allow players to discover various challenges and secrets, such as liveries for their vehicles, fuel canisters (the game’s currency) and collectable backdrops.

Races vary from shorter on-and-off-road circuits to longer checkpoint-based rally-type events, over a remarkable variety of terrain and extreme driving conditions.

The number of available vehicles grows throughout the game, up to a maximum of 75 Mad Max-style motorbikes, dune buggies, trucks and quad bikes.

In total, there are more than 70 career races to discover and a further 190-plus challenges to take on, and that’s before we’ve even started with the multiplayer possibilities or the built-in race editor, which allows you to create your own custom tracks and races to share with your fellow petrol heads online.

The racing physics aren’t particularly realistic, but then Fuel is not intended to be an accurate driving simulation. The game’s emphasis is on arcade thrills rather than naturalism, although the pacing isn’t quite as enjoyably frenetic as with some similar titles, such as Pure.

In truth, the open-world aspect can be a bit frustrating at times, particu larly during the earlier portion of the game, when it’s easy to feel a little daunted by the huge expanse of game universe at your disposal.

But, while other similar games may do a better job of the racing itself, Fuel’s impressive, varied environments certainly make it stand out from the crowd.

Pegi age rating: 7+

Plants vs Zombies

Anthony Dhanendran — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 15:29:06 GMT

Anthony Dhanendran, Computeractive, Saturday 20 June 2009 at 16:15:00

Good games don’t have to be complex

Plants vs Zombies is a ‘casual game’ that bucks the trend towards ever-more-complex games with harder-to-fathom controls, featuring incredibly simple gameplay and lots of fun.

The premise is that you have to defend your house from marauding zombies, but being zombies they maraud very slowly. They can also be stopped by your plants, which fire deadly pellets, blow open or stop the creatures in other ways.

You can place a certain number of plants at any time, but sunlight is required to grow new ones, so you have to wait before putting down another. It’s also possible to plant sunflowers which generate more sunlight. All the while, the zombies approach.

It sounds easy, and it is for the first couple of levels, but there’s a good difficulty curve, with new plants becoming available each level. There are also different scenarios so things don’t get too repetitive. Graphics are good but unspectacular, and the sounds entertaining enough.

In addition to the 50 main levels there are also mini-games and puzzle modes, plus other sections that break up what might otherwise become monotonous. There are lots of different kinds of zombies, too, which helps to maintain interest levels.

This isn’t a game that requires a lot of thinking, and nor will it last those several-hour-stretches like more in-depth titles, but for the price and for regular short fun fixes, Plants vs Zombies is superb.

Myfax online fax service

Paul Lester — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:13:47 GMT

Paul Lester, Computeractive, Friday 19 June 2009 at 16:00:00

Send and receive faxes from an email account

Despite being overtaken by faster, more efficient and more environmentally friendly methods, fax machines still exist in some homes and offices.

But people who need to send or receive faxes don’t have to buy a machine any more, with the advent of computer-based services such as Myfax.

Registering for the service was fast and it’s fairly cheap at £5 per month for 100 sent and 200 received pages.

Once we’d registered we received an email confirming our new fax number and account setup details.

Setting it up involved following a simple step-by-step procedure to send a test fax, creating a password and viewing an optional demonstration video, making it extremely easy for even total beginners to get started.

The online account page shows current fax usage and allows users to send and receive faxes, but the service also integrates with email applications such as Microsoft Outlook, if you have a compatible one installed.

To send a fax, the fax number and country code are entered into the To line of the email with ‘@myfax.com’ at the end.

For emailed faxes, the subject line carries the name of the recipient and any body text forms a cover sheet. Up to eight attached documents then form the fax message itself, so sending faxes through Myfax really was as simple as sending an email.

Received faxes, on the other hand, arrive in your email inbox as attached PDF documents, from where they can be saved, printed or sent on.

If you do have trouble during any stage of the process there is documentation available along with a quick-start guide and freephone support number.

We were impressed by the straightforward setup and operation of the service and, though it took a while for faxes to arrive (between 30 seconds and one minute per attached page), it is still going to be more convenient than dealing with reams of paper.

At £5 per month for the basic service, this is a cheap and convenient way for home users and small businesses to remain fax-capable without having to shell out for new machines and more paper.

Avanquest Will Maker Deluxe 2009

Cliff Joseph — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:13:47 GMT

Cliff Joseph, Computeractive, Friday 19 June 2009 at 16:00:00

Create a will without resorting to a solicitor

It’s important to have a will but people are often deterred from making one by the cost of hiring a solicitor.

A low-cost piece of software that simplifies the process of drawing up a legally binding will sounds attractive, then.

But while Will Maker Deluxe 2009 from Avanquest does provide useful help in drawing up your will, we encountered a few flaws along the way.

Installing the program from its CD took just a few seconds, and once installed it displays a simple window that lists the three main steps in creating a will – selecting the correct type of will, planning its contents, and then actually filling it in.

The first two steps – Will Selection and Will Planning – simply present the user with documents to read, which explain the different types of will and how to estimate the value of your estate.

This is useful information of course, although it can be found for free on the Age Concern or the Citizen’s Advice Bureau's websites.

The third step is to Create Your Will. At this point the program uses one of its built-in will templates to ask a series of questions and uses that information to draw up the will, couched in all the appropriate legal jargon.

But although the earlier selection process refers to three different types of wills – basic, comprehensive and discretionary – the Will Maker program only includes templates for four variations on the ‘comprehensive’ format.

As a result of our feedback, the software publishers tell us that they will be adding new templates for ‘basic’ wills, and making those available as a free download soon.

Unfortunately, you will still have to pay an extra £65 to order templates for the ‘discretionary’ will online, but most of us will be able to get by with just the ‘basic’ or ‘comprehensive’ wills, so that’s not a major problem.

Will Maker does have the potential to save both time and money when making a will, but the without those additional ‘basic’ templates we can’t truly recommend it as a reliable alternative to using a solicitor.

Plants vs. Zombies

Daniel Griffin — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:30:55 GMT

Daniel Griffin, Personal Computer World, Thursday 18 June 2009 at 16:15:00

Defending your home from the undead horde

Zombies: the cannon fodder of choice for gamers and publishers alike. If a zombie isn’t already cast as the main enemy in a game these days they can usually be found festering in a bonus level such as WW2 shooter Call of Duty.

With Plants vs. Zombies, the scenario is a little different. Essentially a tower-defence game, your goal is to halt the encroaching zombies and prevent them from reaching your base by using strategically placed towers or in this case, plants. Although Plants vs. Zombies may sound utterly silly (and it is), we think you will be completely hooked after playing it for five minutes.

You decide from a varied selection what offensive and defensive plants you will use to stop the undead in their tracks (such as pea-shooting pods or exploding cherry bombs). But you also need to regenerate your resources in the form of sunlight to keep your plant defences growing and save your brains from the hungry horde.

Different seeds have different growing times so you have to continually estimate what to plant and when, while contending with the Zombies themselves, which also come in a wide variety of guises and abilities. It is a case of forward planning as well as experimenting with your arsenal to find the best way of coping with the onslaught.

Despite the simple concept of Plants vs. Zombies, the strategic demands and learning curve are pitched just right and the effect is a very polished and crucially, fun experience. With an excellent sense of humour, well-balanced controls and catchy tunes, we felt smitten with what PopCap (producers of Peggle and Bejeweled) have created.

Mini games add to the longevity, as does the opportunity to buy a stack of new equipment once you have built up enough in-game credit. So while the waves of zombies never seem to end, there is also enough variety in the game play between levels to keep you interested as well as challenged.

Plants vs. Zombies gave us a welcome reminder that first and foremost a great game must be fun and this one does it in spades.

Vufone online storage service

Laurence Gunn — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:15:44 GMT

Laurence Gunn, Computeractive, Thursday 18 June 2009 at 16:02:00

Synchronise your phone and your computer automatically

Mobile phones may not quite be disposable yet, but they do have to be replaced now and again. Vufone, which promises to store and synchronise your phone data online, therefore seems to be a useful service.

Vufone is a subscription service costing £10 a year. It gives users a 250MB of password-protected online storage that synchronises automatically with their mobile phones using a downloadable application.

Most major handsets and all networks are supported, including those from Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, Samsung and LG models (a full list is on Vufone's website), though there is currently no Apple iPhone support.

The service stores phone numbers, text messages, calendar events, pictures, video and music and can be used to remotely delete personal information from your phone, which could be handy if it is stolen.

Vufone can also be used to send text messages – a potential money-saver – and synchronise information with Google’s Calendar and Contacts applications.

There are online players for stored music and videos that support major file formats, as well as a function to upload photos to Facebook, Flickr and Picasa automatically. There is also a cute tool called Mypersona that makes an image of your choice appear on friends’ mobile phones when you call them.

It was easy to install and automatic in use but there were drawbacks. You really need to have unlimited data included in your talk plan, as all the transfers are made over the mobile network.

If you don't have this, you’ll get a nasty shock when the phone bill arrives. (Vufone does make this clear in the terms and conditions).

And the 50MB storage limits for video and music are not really enough in this day and age.

The music player’s controls weren’t very responsive when we used it in the Internet Explorer or Safari browsers, while video uploads of large files took so long, even from a fast broadband connection, that we gave up. A few other glitches while using it made the experience annoying.

Most modern phones can be synchronised with a PC or Mac, while some mobile phone contracts even include online backup of your data. The ability to wipe the phone if it is stolen might justify the subscription charge, though.

A larger amount of storage and fewer glitches would have made Vufone more attractive.

Acebit Password Depot 4

Alan Stevens — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 09:09:45 GMT

Alan Stevens, Personal Computer World, Thursday 18 June 2009 at 10:00:00

Store user names and passwords securely on your PC

There are lots of ways to keep track of passwords, such as jotting them down on paper or in a spreadsheet or another computer file.

However, none of these can be considered properly secure, and finding and using the information when needed can be an issue.

If that is the case you might want to consider a custom password organiser, such as Password Depot from Acebit.

Password Depot is designed solely to manage passwords. Now in its fourth release, it lets you store and organise all your account names, passwords and other login information in a set of lists.

The software automatically applies 256-bit AES encryption to protect the data both on disk and in computer memory. It also provides active protection against keyloggers and ensures sensitive user and password information is cleared from both the Windows clipboard and system memory when not needed.

Other benefits of the Acebit software include its ability to rate the strength of your passwords as you type them or it will create them for you using a random password generator.

The latest version also lets you attach files, such as product keys, to passwords and synchronise the contents of multiple password lists. Plus it lets you track password histories, encrypt/decrypt other files on the host PC and store the application and password lists on USB memory keys, enabling you to carry your credentials around and use them on any PC.

Written for use with any version of Windows from 98 onwards, we tested Password Depot in conjunction with the optional Password Deport Server. Available free for up to three users (for six users licences start at £129 ex Vat), this add-on package enables passwords to be centrally stored and shared rather than kept on user PCs.

The Password Depot Server installs as a Windows service on either a server or desktop PC, with a separate control panel for management which can be run on the same host or remotely.

The server does little beyond sharing centrally stored password lists and users interact with the application via the same interface, whether using it standalone or in conjunction with the server program. We found this reasonably easy to follow and there is an option to minimise the GUI to a small toolbar to reduce the amount of on-screen space it needs. However, you are presented with lots of tools beyond simple password management, many of which you may never need and it takes a while to get to grips with what’s on offer.

There are wizards to help with some of the more common tasks, such as capturing login information and passwords when you sign on so you don’t have to type everything into the program from scratch. Likewise, you can get Password Depot to auto-fill login screens on the fly rather than you having to look up the information and enter it manually.

It all works and a few tutorials are included but we did have a few concerns over the level of training likely to be needed simply to secure user passwords. We would also like to see more supporting documentation beyond the rather basic user guide supplied. Otherwise Password Depot does what it’s supposed to and is a huge improvement over jotting down passwords on bits of paper.

EncryptX Device Defender 3.1

Alan Stevens — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 13:26:27 GMT

Alan Stevens, Personal Computer World, Wednesday 17 June 2009 at 14:14:00

Prevent others from accessing your portable storage devices

Removable storage devices, such as USB sticks and SD cards, are a cheap and easy way of transporting data, but they’re also easily mislaid or stolen.

EncryptX has addressed this issue with its Device Defender solution, which can be used to automatically encrypt information copied to almost any kind of removable storage medium.

For this type of tool to work it has to be all-encompassing and very easy for users to understand. To this end Device Defender installs into the File System on Windows PC to automatically encrypt/decrypt files saved to a range of storage devices, requiring little more than a simple password the first time a device is used. Virtually any kind of removable storage can be protected, including most NTFS format disks.

We trialled the software using Windows XP and Vista, although it can be used with any version from Windows 2000 onwards. There’s also a server implementation which, similarly, can be used with Windows Server 2000 or later, however there’s no 64-bit support for either desktop or server platforms.

Another prerequisite is Java 6 which has to be in place before the Device Defender setup program will run. This is not a problem for individual users, but a real bind if rolling out to lots of PCs, an issue further compounded by a lack of any tools to help with large-scale deployment.

Once installed Device Defender is fairly unobtrusive, only making itself known when a removable storage device is plugged into the PC. If that device has not been used before, you’re prompted for a password for use by the 256-bit AES encryption technology, plus a hint question and accompanying answer in case you forget the password later on. You’re then asked to choose one of three options to always encrypt any unprotected files found on the device, only encrypt once or encrypt new files as and when written.

The device can then be used normally, with Device Defender automatically encrypting files when they’re saved and, assuming you have provided the correct password, unscrambling them again when they’re opened. A small utility (OpenSecureFiles.exe) is also copied to the device to open encrypted files on PCs without Device Defender. This can be run without being installed and lets you save and encrypt files under manual control.

For larger companies another option is centralised management via the Device Defender Administrator Server (£800 ex Vat plus installation). A Java application running on Apache Tomcat with a MySQL database, the server can be used to track protected storage devices and enforce company password policies, with the option to recover lost user passwords remotely if needed. The Administrator Server can also revoke user rights if no longer trusted and prevent devices being used if lost or stolen with McAfee anti-virus/anti-malware scanning soon to be added as an option.

We found it all very easy to set up and manage with the end result a near foolproof way of protecting data held on removable devices. We say ‘near foolproof’ as CDs/DVDs burnt using third-party applications, such as Nero, can’t be encrypted. Nor is there support for the Windows Live File System available in Vista. Otherwise it’s pretty comprehensive and worth investigating if you’re worried about storage security.

The Sims 3

Jonathan Parkyn — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 15:21:38 GMT

Jonathan Parkyn, Computeractive, Friday 12 June 2009 at 16:07:00

Simple, silly and seriously addictive – it’s Sims time again

With more than 100 million copies sold worldwide, The Sims is by some way the best-selling computer game series of all time.

Sensibly, the third full game in the popular simulation series doesn’t attempt to reinvent anything. Basic gameplay remains largely the same. You effectively play God to your computer-generated characters, helping them develop relationships, achieve career goals, go to the toilet and generally get through each day.

The first big difference in The Sims 3 is its hugely improved visuals, specifically the levels of refinement and detail. With the Sims themselves, for example, every facial feature, physical attribute and item of clothing can all be finely customised using a character creation tool similar to those found in other EA games, including Tiger Woods PGA Tour.

Not only that, but each Sim now has their own unique blend of character traits, all of which affect their personalities in different ways.

The new game also features a living, breathing ‘open world’ around which you and your Sims can move freely. Although Sunset Valley is the only town that comes in the box, it’s a very big in-game environment with no loading times between indoor and outside locations.

If some of the homes and furniture look a bit identikit, there is an online Sims store where virtual clothes, decor and entire new towns can be purchased (with real money, naturally). There is also a burgeoning online community producing customised Sims stuff to download for nothing and, of course, there’s always the promise of further expansion packs down the line.

So, no radical changes, then. But if you’re already a Sims fan, The Sims 3 is a no brainer. It’s really more of the same but refined and expanded in just the right way. If you’re new to The Sims, then the latest game is definitely a good place to start.

It is much deeper than previous titles but it’s just as easy to play. And if you hated The Sims the first time around then you’ll probably loathe this one too.

Prototype

Harry Burrows — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 10:48:48 GMT

Harry Burrows, Computeractive, Friday 12 June 2009 at 11:42:00

Your chance to save New York from disaster

Prototype is set in New York during the outbreak of a mysterious virus.

As a ‘sandbox’ game without a fixed structure to follow, players are given freedom to throw themselves, or rather the game’s protagonist Alex Mercer, around the city Parkour-style, piecing together the events that led to him developing some extraordinary powers and the civilian population gradually turning into mutants.

Alex is a former employee of Gentek, a bio-engineering company behind the viral outbreak. Beginning the game with amnesia, you must start piecing together what has happened by dismantling much of the city and its population, absorbing people to disguise yourself, or read their memories to fill in the so-called Web of Intrigue.

There’s not much in the way of detective work or chitchat with strangers, however. The player is encouraged to use his range of deadly moves to carry out various missions which often end up in a melee of residents, military and mutants. Each task, be it infiltrating a military base or crushing a hive of mutants, offers rewards that can be spent on upgrading Alex’s abilities.

Some interesting mini games include point-to-point foot races, gliding from the top of a building to hit a target, or hunting down and consuming various people, and these also offer experience point rewards.

The city can feel a bit soulless, and the detail in the buildings isn’t as good as many similar open-world games, but Prototype’s character animation is superb and the story is good enough to make the game work.

Apple iWork '09

Cliff Joseph — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 09:47:55 GMT

Cliff Joseph, Computeractive, Friday 12 June 2009 at 10:41:00

Apple manages to make spreadsheets interesting

Apple is well-known for the stylish design of its Mac computers, but it also brings a strong visual flair to its software.

The iWork suite includes word processing, spreadsheet and presentation programs, but despite being essentially mundane office software it has some striking visual effects.

Perhaps the best example is the Numbers spreadsheet program. Rival spreadsheets such as Microsoft Excel tend to focus on the number-crunching side of things, but Numbers includes templates for tasks such as creating school reports or a holiday itinerary, and adorns these templates with eye-catching graphics, tables and charts that illustrate the numerical data attractively.

This new version of iWork adds several new types of tables and graphs to Numbers, but also includes more than 90 new maths functions that allow students and business users to crunch numbers more seriously.

The Keynote presentations program also has new visual-effects features. There are new options for creating animated text effects, such as Swing, which makes text look as though it’s being flipped over as you advance from one slide to the next. There are also new transitions that make pictures or text fly off a slide and then bring new items zooming onto the next slide.

However, the most powerful new feature is the Magic Move animation tool. This allows you to add text and graphics to a slide and then create ‘before’ and ‘after’ versions of that slide. Keynote will then automatically animate the text and graphics so they smoothly change shape or position as you move from slide to slide. This makes it easy to create very sophisticated animation effects in just a few seconds.

The Pages word processor has been given a more modest upgrade (some new templates, a mail-merge option and an outline tool), but it’s still good for quickly creating attractive page layouts.

Experienced business users may prefer the Mac version of Microsoft Office, but iWork is a good option for home users and students who need an affordable and easy-to-use office software suite.

01 Communique I’m InTouch 7.1

Alan Stevens — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:54:10 GMT

Alan Stevens, Personal Computer World, Thursday 11 June 2009 at 15:53:00

A hosted service that delivers more than just remote control

The market for hosted remote access services is pretty crowded, but I’m InTouch from Canadian developer 01 Communique has a number of features designed to make it stand out. Such features include the ability to connect to a remote Outlook mailbox rather than display the whole desktop and, in the latest 7.1 release, work with 64-bit Windows and power up a switched off remote PC when access is needed. Support for mobile devices is another key feature along with support for two-factor authentication using SecurePC and SecureKEY tokens.

As with other remote access services you need to start by installing an I’m InTouch client onto each PC you want to connect to. This advertises their presence to a special location server, then to connect, you simply logon to the I’m InTouch portal and select the PC required.

Security, of course, is a big concern, but the location server only brokers the connection before getting out of the way, leaving the remote user to communicate directly with the host PC with all communications protected using 128-bit SSL encryption. Moreover, user names and passwords are stored on the host PCs, not the server.

Because the client tells the location server where it is, firewalls and proxy servers shouldn’t cause any problems. However, it can take a while to get I’m InTouch working. The client software can be installed on any PC running Windows 98 or later, and it’s not difficult, but it is a fairly big download that takes a while to complete. Moreover there’s a lot to install, including an Apache Web server, so it’s not the kind of product you’d want to use for ad-hoc remote troubleshooting.

In order to get full remote desktop access a Java applet also needs to be installed on the operator’s PC. However, if Java isn’t available or downloads are blocked you can opt instead to connect to Outlook on the remote PC instead – a useful option, too, if connecting via a mobile device where full remote control isn’t practical.

Because it’s Outlook at the other end you get fast access to your emails and you’re not just limited to messages, with access also to contacts and calendars. Additionally it can be used with Outlook Express and Vista’s Windows Mail. You can even configure the I’m InTouch host to email your mobile device when messages from specific senders or via specific accounts are received.

Once configured, we found I’m InTouch reasonably easy to use and were impressed with how well it performed both over fixed broadband links and using a 3G mobile. The remote desktop viewer was responsive and we were able to access both displays on a dual monitor PC, transfer files and re-direct print jobs to a local device without having to install any extra drivers. You can also access a remote webcam and covertly monitor activity on the client PC.

The remote wake-up option also worked as expected, enabling us to remotely power up an otherwise switched off PC for access and then turn it off again. Note, though, that an always-on wake-up proxy PC is needed to support this option.

You have to pay for I’m InTouch in Canadian dollars, individual accounts starting at $9.95 per month. However, to get the more advanced features, such as remote wake-up, you’ll need a Premium account and there are cheaper alternatives, some even free.

Tested: Opera 10 web browser beta

Daniel Robinson — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:09:45 GMT

Daniel Robinson, vnunet.com, Wednesday 10 June 2009 at 13:00:00

Some interesting new features, but little to tempt users away from Firefox or Internet Explorer

The beta release of Opera 10 shows that the company is generating its own browser innovations instead of trying to copy Firefox or Internet Explorer. With a slick new user interface and some interesting features, Opera 10 looks like it will be worth considering as an alternative to the two main contenders.

The Opera 10 beta was made available to download on 3 June for Windows, Mac and Linux users. We tried out the Windows version and were impressed with the polish of the application, which proved stable in our tests and feels more like a finished product than a beta.

We also found it very responsive, and it's the only browser we've tested that achieves a perfect score on the Acid3 test page from the Web Standards Project designed to test compliance.

On the downside, however, Opera 10 is hit by the same problems as other less widely used browsers, such as Apple's Safari and Google's Chrome, in that some web sites are still optimised for Internet Explorer or Firefox, and either do not display properly or reject it completely as an unsupported browser.

This seems to be mainly an issue with web-based business applications rather than the more commonly accessed sites on the web, few of which presented any difficulties.

The first thing you notice about Opera 10 beta is its striking but simple styling that sets it apart from Firefox and IE. It supports tabbed browsing, which Opera had long before Firefox and IE, and sports a set of VCR-like buttons for controlling navigation.

As well as Bookmarks, Opera 10 beta includes Speed Dial, a set of thumbnail links to web pages that appears when you open a new blank tab. This feature was introduced in Opera 9.2 but is now more customisable, allowing users to set a background image and how many Speed Dial thumbnails appear, or completely disable the feature.

Thumbnails of all open tabs can also be viewed by enlarging the tab bar near the top of the browser window.

The chief new feature in this beta is Opera Turbo, which is designed to speed up browsing over low-bandwidth connections. It does this by routing web requests through a proxy server, which compresses the data before sending it back to the browser. Turbo can be enabled or disabled manually - it is off by default - or set to kick in automatically if the browser detects a low-speed connection.

We tested Opera Turbo by using a mobile phone as a modem, linked to a laptop by a Bluetooth wireless connection. Without Turbo, browsing was agonisingly slow, while enabling it improved page load times significantly, although you also get some loss of graphic detail in images. While it was an improvement, we would hesitate to agree with Opera's claim that Turbo offers broadband-like speed over a dial-up connection.

Users new to Opera will find the Wand feature handy, which saves credentials for web sites that need a user name and password. Most browsers have similar functions, but the Wand seems to make it especially simple; if you open a page for which you have previously stored credentials, you can simply hit the 'forward' navigation button and Opera logs in for you.

However, while you can delete stored passwords from the Wand Manager, Opera still does not seem to have any way to let you edit them.

Opera supports plug-in applications called widgets, and there are a host of these available from the Opera Widgets site. Most of these are fairly whimsical, however, whereas Firefox has many genuinely useful add-ons that block adverts or let you control whether to view Flash content on pages.

Opera also includes a built-in email client and news feed readers, and now supports an automatic update feature in line with most of the major browsers on the market.

Overall, we were impressed with the beta of Opera 10 but, while the new browser is definitely worth checking out, it has few compelling features to tempt users who have already downloaded the current releases of Firefox or IE.

Cyberlink DVD Suite Ultra

Tom Royal — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 09:11:48 GMT

Tom Royal, Personal Computer World, Tuesday 9 June 2009 at 10:00:00

CD and DVD tools for the ever-increasing HD crowd

There was once a time when CD- and DVD-creation suites had a few simple jobs to do – burn data discs, rip music from audio CDs and handle disc images. Now it’s more complicated.

Suites have become bloated with features, from backup tools to photo editors, and now Blu-ray recorders are more affordable, more people want to create and watch high-definition discs.

Cyberlink’s DVD Suite Ultra is an interesting package as it combines these simple old-fashioned disc tools with cutting-edge HD features.

The suite installed without problems on our test system, and includes a launch tool called Power Starter that acts as a front end to the included programs.

This breaks the various tasks down into seven categories, with an eighth group that allows you to store your favourites for quick access.

Power Starter has a clear design and an elegant animated backdrop that looks far better than that of Nero’s Smartstart, for example.

The Music category allows you to rip audio CDs to MP3, burn audio CDs or burn MP3 files to a data disc. The data category is similarly straightforward, giving you a choice of burning files to a CD, DVD or Blu-ray disc. After an option is selected, the Power 2 Go burning tool opens for you to easily drag and drop files onto the disc and burn it.

The Movie Player category launches Power DVD 8, allowing you to watch DVDs or Blu-ray video discs. Most Blu-ray drives come with similar software, but if you’re upgrading this could allow you to pick up a cheaper OEM model instead. It’s a shame Cyberlink doesn’t include the newer Power DVD 9 instead, which integrates well with Windows Media Center.

The Video and Photo category contains most of the interesting tools. Manage Videos and Manage Photos both launch Cyberlink Mediashow, which allows you to organise photos and videos by date, view them, choose a collection of photos to be used as a screensaver, print photos and so on. The ability to upload photos directly to Flickr is especially handy. Photos can be edited using the Photos Now tool, but this is rather basic compared with dedicated applications.

The video-editing tools are better. Power Director 7 allows both timeline and storyboard-based editing, with a decent range of effects, titles and transitions. More impressively, you can work with HD video files and create Blu-ray or AVCHD DVD discs. Pulling 720p video from an AVCHD hard disk camcorder then burning it to disc, complete with a graphical menu, was fairly straightforward using the Power Producer tool.

The rest of the suite comprises useful but mundane tools to copy or erase discs and create or burn disc images. The Power Backup tool can work to a schedule and back up files to either a hard disk or optical discs.

DVD Suite Ultra competes against Roxio Creator 2009 and Nero 9, but neither of these includes the ability to create Blu-ray discs without paying for an extra plug-in, which brings the price of the packages more in line. Nero in particular offers some advanced tools that aren’t present in DVD Suite, such as a recovery tool for deleted files, but then DVD Suite’s interface is far more elegant and easier for less technical users to get to grips with. Our only complaint is that the constant adverts asking you to upgrade are a little annoying in such an expensive suite.

If you have no interest in Blu-ray or HD video DVD Suite Ultra is a little too expensive to recommend. If you do use those formats, or plan to upgrade in the near future, it’s the burning suite to buy.

Velvet Assassin

Emil Larsen — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 14:58:08 GMT

Emil Larsen, Personal Computer World, Thursday 4 June 2009 at 15:52:00

Tomb Raider meets Call of Duty

Velvet Assassin uses the unlikely combination of a steely female lead character in a World War II setting, with a smattering of stealth combat thrown in.

Apparently inspired by the historical British secret agent Violette Szabo, you play as the fictional character Violette Summer, a captured agent who lies dying in hospital at the beginning of the game.

You guide her through her World War II career via a series of flashbacks, which mainly involve sneaking through the shadows and knifing Nazi soldiers in the back.

Guns occasionally enter the equation, but you can also whistle to draw an enemy’s attention, or use morphine (administered in your hospital bed), which lets you move at a lightning-fast pace during the flashback. You can also improve your combat skills by finding items scattered across every level.

The hospital cut-scenes and flashbacks have quality textures and realistic animations throughout, while the voice acting mostly sounds authentic.

Large sections of the game are frustrating, since it seems trial and error is sometimes essential to progress and because Violette dies after a single shot. Even worse, there is a lot of unnecessary repetition, since every time you die, you’ll have to restart from an earlier auto-save point which could be at the start of a level.

The levels are very linear; you can’t pick up dead enemies’ weapons – they disappear, probably to stop the game from being too easy – and you have to push waist-high objects aside rather than jump over them.

We expected an epic masterpiece of storytelling, given the history the game is based on, but the plot is rather thin. We think it would have been more touching if Violette Szabo’s actual war experiences had been retold, but these are ignored, leaving behind an unremarkable stealth-action game.

Debian Project GNU/Linux 5

Alan Stevens — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 11:26:52 GMT

Alan Stevens, Personal Computer World, Thursday 4 June 2009 at 12:18:00

Debian almost catches up with the rest of the Linux crowd

Debian GNU/Linux (Debian for short) is often criticised for the length of its development cycle but is, as a result, a very stable Linux distro, popular with business users.

This trend looks set to continue with the launch of the long-awaited Debian 5 release (‘Lenny’ to its friends), designed to bring the platform into line with all but the most go-ahead members of the Linux pack.

The Debian 5 distro is based on the 2.6.26 Linux kernel. It’s not cutting edge, but that’s not hugely important if you’re interested in Linux for business use where stability and security are the main issues.

Gnome is the default desktop, based mostly on Gnome 2.22 code which is also pretty recent, if not the latest there is. You can choose the K Desktop Environment, but the latest 4x release didn’t make it in. You also get Iceweasel 3 (Mozilla Firefox with a different name) and Icedove 2, the Debian incarnation of the Thunderbird email client.

Openoffice.org comes as standard, but it’s the 2.4 release – 3 wasn’t launched until after Lenny was finalised. Still, upgrading to the newer version isn’t difficult and there are a lot of new features in Debian 5, including Java support. And there’s plenty for netbook users including ACPI scripts specifically written for the Eee PC.

The Xen hypervisor is included for server users, together with Samba (3.2.5), the Apache Web server (2.2.9), plus MySQL and PostgreSQL databases. Indeed you can download over 23,000 ready-to-run packages – enough to keep even the keenest of Linux enthusiasts busy until the next release.

Debian has extensive platform support, from Intel/AMD-powered desktops and servers (32-bit and 64-bit) to Mips, PowerPC and Sparc-based systems. There is even an S/390 implementation, plus versions for handheld computers and some Linux-based storage appliances. Getting hold of the software and installing it is also easy and free.

One way is to download a complete set of CD/DVD images, although the files are large and you probably won’t use most of what they contain. Plus there’s a new bootable Live Version that can be run without installing to hard disk. However, we chose the preferred ‘netinst’ route, based on a relatively small bootable image (153MB for x86 platforms) that lets you choose the packages you want to include, then download and install the required code via the internet.

Our desktop installation took around 45 minutes over a broadband connection, but a variety of server and custom setups can also be installed this way. The latest security updates are automatically applied before the first boot, and SELinux is installed, if not enabled.

Once it was up and running we found it quick and responsive and there were no surprises in the way the software was managed or any interoperability issues such as those often encountered with the Debian-based Ubuntu. For example, the X.Org 7.3 server automatically configured the display for the hardware we had, the network connection was configured correctly and we were able to browse Windows network shares instantly with no extra setup required.

Sure, it’s not flashy like Ubuntu and you will have to download proprietary add-ons such as codecs to match what you get with the Ubuntu distro. But Debian is one of the most reliable and usable of the free distros, with Debian 5 looking like it should easily hold on to that title.