The most recent Software Reviews from Incisive Media

Review: C2C ArchiveOne Express

Alan Stevens — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:09:33 GMT

Alan Stevens, V3.co.uk, Friday 6 November 2009 at 09:00:00

An affordable and easy-to-use message archiving tool

Developers often add 'Express' to product names to signal that that they're cut-down or simpler versions of an enterprise application, repackaged for the small business. This is exactly what C2C has done with its popular Exchange archiving add-on, now available in a fat-free Express edition aimed at companies looking for basic message archiving for up to 200 users.

Based on the same core technology as enterprise versions of ArchiveOne, the new ArchiveOne Express includes the ability to archive public folders, plus local message stores (PST) discovery and management. However, according to C2C, it's a lot quicker to install and much easier to manage.

Like other versions it can also be used with any release of Exchange from 2000 upwards. It took no more than 15 to 20 minutes to install using one of our test servers, in our case, running Exchange Server 2003.

Installation

The speedy install was largely down to wizards that stepped us through the installation and subsequent configuration required to get started. However, another factor is that, instead of having to set up complex archiving rules, you start out with a simple choice between archiving based on message age and mailbox size, an approach that really does reduce the amount of work involved. We tried both in turn; from the MMC plug-in used to manage ArchiveOne Express, we simply selected the mailboxes we wanted to manage and scheduled the pre-set archiving jobs created during the setup process.

For the most part we took the offered defaults, which further speeded up our deployment. Plus, unlike a lot of other archiving programs, there's no need for a supporting database, as any accessible network storage can be used to hold the archived files, including network-attached storage shares.

On the downside it did take a while to get to grips with some of the terminology, and the accompanying documentation didn't explain everything as clearly as we would have liked, particularly how to go about including users' PSTs in the archiving process. A separate agent needs to be run on each client to facilitate this, but it took a lot of time, and trial runs, to work out exactly how to get it working.

Zero training?

Another claim is that ArchiveOne Express users need "zero training". This is because you carry on accessing mail in the normal manner using either Outlook, Outlook Web Access or a mobile client such as a BlackBerry or Apple's iPhone. More than that, archived messages are still listed but, instead of the normal content, you get a link to the archived message in the associated repository. Click on this and the content is displayed via a browser and, if wanted, can be taken out of the archive and moved back to the normal Exchange mailbox store.

New folders are also added to the Exchange mailbox to enable users to browse and search the archives for information and, on the whole, we found it all pretty self-explanatory. Whether or not that justifies the "zero training" claim is debateable and, in our opinion, users are likely to need some hand-holding, at least to begin with.

Exchange administrators, on the other hand, should have little difficulty working out how to use the software and, having got the basic archiving to work, we found a lot more that we could do with ArchiveOne Express. For example, it's possible to specify more detailed criteria when deciding what to archive, including who messages are from or addressed to, and whether or not there are any attachments, their size and so on.

Public folders

Archiving messages in public folders is another option, together with the ability to use ArchiveOne Express for regulatory compliance with legal hold and so-called Bates stamping (where each message gets a unique date/time stamp) built-in. However, you need to be using the Exchange journaling option to automatically keep copies of all incoming and outgoing messages, and fully exploit these capabilities.

Another benefit with ArchiveOne Express is that, as with other archiving tools, the C2C software can significantly enhance Exchange server performance. It can also help to reduce storage costs as older messages get moved out to cheaper disks. Backup is still required and isn't included in the product, although C2C does offer a hosted disaster recovery service called ArchiveOne CloudDR that can be used to protect archive repositories against local outages, data corruption and the like.

We were very impressed with ArchiveOne Express, which is priced to appeal to small business buyers, but still employs proven enterprise technology to archive messages in a straightforward and seamless manner. It's quick to install, lives up to most of the claims made for its ease of use, and represents good value for anyone looking for basic yet robust Exchange archiving.

Review: Bento 3 personal database

Stewart Meagher — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:51:14 GMT

Stewart Meagher, V3.co.uk, Tuesday 3 November 2009 at 12:09:00

An easy-to-use database tool aimed at home users and small businesses

Bento is named after the Japanese lunch box which keeps various bits of food neatly contained in separate compartments, and is a perfect choice for Mac users who need to keep every aspect of their lives organised.

The personal database is now in its third revision, and takes the familiar feel of Apple's OS X and applies it to keeping neatly organised just about anything you could make a list of. If you're the kind of individual who can't sleep unless your CDs are in alphabetical order, or needs to know exactly when and where every snap in your iPhoto library was taken, or craves a neater wine cellar, then Bento is for you.

Databases can be dizzyingly complex beasts, and those of you who like to footle about under the bonnet of your organisational tools are well served with the likes of Filemaker Pro, Bento's complex and infinitely adaptable elder sibling. But if you just want to get on with keeping every aspect of your life in shape without having to worry about creating your own relational database, then this £29.95 option could be the solution you've been looking for.

It's true that there are a panoply of cataloguing programmes for the Mac out there, many of which are cheaper than Bento, and some even free. A quick search on Mac Update will return hundreds of database applications, which will keep track of your DVDs, CDs or Star Wars action figures, but none of them offers the kind of seamless integration with a host of core Apple applications as Bento.

Start Bento up for the first time and, at the tip of your mouse pointer, you have full access to your iCal calendars, Address Book entries, and entire iPhoto library. The only application conspicuous by its absence is iTunes, which seems to be a bit of an oversight, considering that one of the most popular uses for Bento is cataloguing music collections.

Out-of-the-box templates

That aside, Bento presents even those users who would normally run a mile at the mention of the word 'database' with a user-friendly, familiar and intuitive interface, which will soon have your Beanie Baby collection in regimental order. Bento supplies a broad spectrum of genuinely useful templates straight out of the box, grouped into Educational, Work and Personal categories. These range from set-ups for keeping your digital media, user names and passwords, and customers in order, to party planning, time billing and expenses.

All of these templates can be tweaked and customised should you wish to add an extra field, or a new drop-down menu. Or if you want to go it alone you can start a new custom database from scratch, adding as many data and picture fields as your heart desires.

In addition, Bento has set up Template Exchange, a web-based depository for new templates created by the application authors and those uploaded by Bento users. These range from the somewhat mundane 'Books I have Read', to the rather more esoteric 'Lab Antibody Database' which, according to its author, is "an easy way to catalogue primary and secondary antibodies in a laboratory environment. Includes URL and image fields for quick access to the antibody web site and all the essential information to make searching easy." Phew. Our search is finally over.

Drag-and-drop data import

Importing data is a doddle, and you can drag and drop entries from Mail or iCal straight into data fields. Your entire photo library is accessible from the handy sidebar, and is organised in exactly the same way it is in iPhoto. Again, pics can be dragged and dropped into database entries without fuss, as can short video clips.

One feature which does seem to be missing, however, is the ability to import images directly from a scanner, although it is possible to grab frames from a webcam. Not a lot of use if you have a shoebox full of receipts you need to catalogue, especially as you only get three seconds to get the item in frame and in focus before the snap is taken, and the default setting provides a flipped mirror image.

Creating templates from scratch is a simple procedure with basic pallets of useful drag-and-drop items provided, all of which can be customised and repositioned at will. If you have data you don't want to share, individual entries or entire libraries can be password protected by adding an encrypted field.

Libraries can be easily shared across your local network, but any form of web sharing has been omitted as Apple would obviously like you to buy its Filemaker Pro software for £260 if you need that kind of functionality.

If you need to carry your data around with you, however, there is a solution in the form of the Bento for iPhone app which, at £2.99, is a cheap alternative to full web functionality.

M-Audio Pro Tools Keystudio

Cliff Joseph — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:14:30 GMT

Cliff Joseph, Computeractive, Thursday 5 November 2009 at 11:55:00

An affordable music keyboard-and-software package

M-Audio is well known in the music business for its music keyboards and other recording devices used in studios around the world.

Its new Pro Tools Keystudio is an attempt to make a more affordable music product for home users and less-experienced musicians.

The Keystudio package is good value. For just £79 it includes a music keyboard that plugs into a USB port on your computer (PC or Mac) and a powerful piece of recording software called Pro Tools Essential.

The keyboard is excellent. It has 49 keys covering four octaves (groups of eight notes), and it has an Octave button that raises or lowers notes by an octave at a time to cover a much wider range.

It’s also pressure-sensitive, which means that, like a piano, the keyboard produces notes more loudly or quietly depending on how hard the keys are hit (cheaper keyboards play at the same volume regardless).

If you don’t want a keyboard there is a Vocal Studio version for the same price that includes a high-quality microphone instead, or the Recording Studio package that provides a gadget for recording guitars and other instruments.

Unfortunately the software is not as attractive. The Pro Tools Essential program is very powerful but it’s also complicated.

When the program opens you are presented with two overlapping windows that contain an intimidating selection of controls and menu commands.

Matters are not helped by the half-a-dozen different manuals included on the disk in PDF format and people who have not used recording software before may struggle.

You also need to attach a special adaptor into a USB port to use the Pro Tools Essential Software. If you lose or damage this you will not be able to use the software.

We like the idea of combining music hardware and software into an affordable package, but the complexity of the Pro Tools Essential software and the need to plug in the adaptor before running it means that Keystudio is not user-friendly enough for newcomers to digital music.

Norton Internet Security 2010

Cliff Joseph — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:30:08 GMT

Cliff Joseph, Computeractive, Thursday 5 November 2009 at 10:15:00

A new approach to eliminating internet threats

Anti-virus companies such as Symantec employ large teams to monitor new viruses and other types of malware as they appear on the Internet.

However, Symantec says the virus threat has now reached the point at which it’s almost impossible to keep up with the thousands of new viruses that appear every day.

So, for its Norton Internet Security 2010 suite, the company has developed a new system called Quorum.

In effect, this is a huge database compiled using information drawn from the PCs of millions of people who already use Norton software

This information is provided on a voluntary opt-in basis, so users don’t have to provide any information if they don’t want to.

Whenever you download a file from the Internet, or open an email attachment or load a file from anywhere else, Norton 2010 checks the Quorum database to see if the same file has been found on any other users’ PCs, and whether or not the file has caused any known problems.

If the file has a bad ‘reputation’ on the Quorum database then the security software will automatically attempt to remove the file before it can do any harm.

If there is no record of a particular file on Quorum then it can use another new feature called Insight to analyse the effect the file has on the computer.

The software can remove files that appear to be slowing the computer down or taking up large amounts of memory.

And to avoid affecting the computer’s performance, Norton 2010 uses less memory for itself – just 10Mb – and can scan the computer’s hard disk more quickly to ensure it doesn’t slow you down while you are trying to work.

The Quorum system may take a little while to prove its worth, but Norton 2010 ran very efficiently on our test PC. Its quick scan took just a few seconds to run and managed to pick up a few worrying cookies that were attempting to store information about our web browsing habits.

As with most modern security software the £50 price includes a licence for protecting three separate computers, making it good for families or small businesses that need to protect all their computers.

Apple OS X Snow Leopard

Cliff Joseph — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:56:36 GMT

Cliff Joseph, Computeractive, Tuesday 3 November 2009 at 14:35:00

The latest Mac update adds little gloss but plenty under the bonnet

Sometimes, as the saying goes, less is more.

Like the new Windows 7, the latest version of Apple’s OS X operating system for Macintosh computers focuses on better performance rather than the eye-catching features we normally expect from Apple.

After you install Snow Leopard on your Mac the display on the screen will look the same as it did before – in fact, you might be wondering why you bothered to pay £25 for the ‘upgrade’ at all.

But while it looks the same on the surface, Apple has completely rewritten the Finder, the part of the operating system that displays the contents of the hard disk on the computer screen, in order to make it run much more smoothly.

The main area in which we noticed an improvement was when using the Quicklook option that allows users to quickly peek inside files and preview their contents without actually opening them.

When a user hits the space bar to activate Quicklook the preview window pops up more quickly, even with complicated files such as video clips.

It can also browse through long documents containing multiple pages, which is handy when you are looking for specific information. Other options, such as Exposé, which neatly organises all the open windows on the screen, also respond more quickly and smoothly.

There is one big new feature but it’s mainly suitable for business users. Snow Leopard now allows Macs to work with the PC-based Microsoft Exchange Server e-mail system that is used by many businesses.

Its new ‘autodiscovery’ option allows the Mac’s Address Book, Mail, and Calendar programs to automatically connect to Exchange Server running on an office network.

That means people can take their Macs to work – as long as their IT departments allow it – and easily exchange emails, contacts and calendar details with PC-using colleagues.

Snow Leopard requires at least 1GB of memory before it can be installed and it will only run on Macs that use Intel processors rather than the old PowerPC processors that Apple used until about three years ago.

But if you have a Mac that fits the bill then Snow Leopard is a worthwhile upgrade that will make your Mac run more smoothly and efficiently.

F-Secure Internet Security 2010

Anthony Dhanendran — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:08:03 GMT

Anthony Dhanendran, Computeractive, Thursday 29 October 2009 at 13:04:00

Comprehensive security and parental controls

Keeping a computer secure online is an ever-more-complex job.

The days of merely needing a firewall and anti-virus program are now over – with its various components F-Secure Internet Security is a good example of these changes.

The main screen is fairly simple with a large icon showing whether the computer is safe or not, accompanied by shortcuts to three main sections – status, tasks and statistics – and smaller icons for updates and settings. The large green tick denoting a safe computer still appears if scheduled virus scanning is disabled, although we would recommend running regular scans.

The Status screen gives an overview of the different kinds of protection offered. Virus and spyware protection are bundled together, while the firewall keeps an eye on what programs are trying to talk to the internet as well as keeping hackers out, and dial-up protection prevents modem users being scammed into dialling premium-rate numbers. A toolbar in Internet Explorer gives a warning of anything untoward in websites and checks search engine results and webmail, there is email spam filtering and, finally, parental controls.

The Deepguard protection is an interesting solution to the problem of malicious software being released much more often. Deepguard decides whether or not software should be allowed to run based both on lists created by F-Secure and on what the program is trying to do. Behaviour such as trying to change the Windows Registry would trigger an alert unless it is on a list of approved software, in which case there is no interruption to the user. Likewise, if the software is on a list of known miscreants it is blocked without question.

The parental controls have two levels of protection, for small children and teenagers. Each has separate limits for time spent online, though the restrictions don’t apply to chat or online games. Children are only allowed to browse sites in an approved list, whereas teenagers are restricted the other way round with full access except to some blocked sites.

There are free security tools available, but the full-on F-Secure package keeps everything simple and working properly. F-Secure Internet Security 2010 includes some useful tools and is easy to use.

Puzzle Kingdoms

Jonathan Parkyn — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 09:36:35 GMT

Jonathan Parkyn, Computeractive, Sunday 25 October 2009 at 09:30:00

This genre blender proves that looks aren’t everything

Take a spot of Bejeweled-style puzzling, then tack on an element of role playing and, by rights, you should end up with some kind of hideous hybrid aberration.

In fact, the relatively recent trend for mashing up these genres has produced several enjoyably addictive games such as the supremely popular Puzzle Quest.

Though not a direct sequel, Puzzle Kingdoms proudly professes to come from the same development team as Puzzle Quest and shares several characteristics with its forebear.

There’s a familiar fantasy setting, for example, and a similarly massive map to explore. More importantly, Puzzle Kingdoms has a similar focus on puzzle-based ‘battles’ against the computer’s AI, with the objective here being to match three coloured tiles on the board by moving rows to line up the colours.

Kingdoms goes one further than its predecessor, though, by adding elements of another genre: real-time strategy. It does this by providing simple army-building and troop-management features. The cash earned in battle pays for extra troops, while uncovering new areas unlocks different troop types and hero characters, both of which can use their unique skills to help you win in battle.

The battles themselves take on a strategic element too, since you need to try and prevent your opponent from amassing resources. Different colours represent power-ups for troop attacks – as well as powering up your own army.

Relatively crude graphics and low presentation values are the only things that let the game down. But what it lacks in visual finesse, Puzzle Kingdoms more than makes up for in originality and playability.

PEGI age rating: 3+

Wolfenstein

Jonathan Parkyn — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 08:51:31 GMT

Jonathan Parkyn, Computeractive, Saturday 24 October 2009 at 08:15:00

An old classic gets an added dimension

Remakes, along with 'reboots' and ‘reimaginings’, are all the rage these days and the latest in line for the modern makeover treatment is Wolfenstein, the forefather of all first-person shooters.

Given that fact that the original Wolfenstein 3D game was released way back in 1992 and effectively invented an entire genre single-handed, a revisit to Wolfenstein is probably easier to justify than most – although it could be argued that 2001’s Return to Castle Wolfenstein already achieved this with some success.

For those unfamiliar with Wolfenstein’s premise, the game takes place in a fictionalised version of World War II Germany, where US special agent BJ Blazkowicz finds himself up against a group of Nazi soldiers who have been busy meddling in the dark arts.

The new game takes a slightly different angle on the story but, after a couple of initial levels that are relatively realistic in terms of the types of enemies and weaponry you encounter, things quickly take a more fantastical turn.

In 2009, Wolfenstein's main new hook is The Veil. It’s basically an alternative dimension that can be accessed through a magical artefact – a medallion that is gradually upgraded with various powers as the game progresses. While within The Veil, your hero gains unique advantages, such as the ability to move faster than his enemies, see in the dark or discover secrets that are invisible in ‘normal’ mode. BJ can slip in and out of The Veil at will, but requires energy to do so. This starts to run out as long as BJ remains in the spirit plane but can be topped up by sucking in Veil juice from various deposits found throughout the levels.

It’s a handy trick, but it’s not exactly original – similar mechanics can be witnessed in other recent games, such as The Darkness and Prey.

Indeed, Wolfenstein brings remarkably little to an already fairly crowded table and, in terms of gameplay, it doesn’t particularly improve on either Wolfenstein’s 2001 sequel or even the 15-year-old original.

As well as slightly dated visuals, single players will have to put up with frequent frustrating sections and recurring cheap deaths. The game’s cheerfully tongue-in-cheek tone and lively multiplayer help to make up for it, though.

PEGI age rating: 18+

Section 8

Orestis Bastounis — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 08:51:31 GMT

Orestis Bastounis, Computeractive, Saturday 24 October 2009 at 09:30:00

Squad-based multiplayer shooting

Section 8 resembles old squad-based multiplayer shooters such as Starsiege: Tribes and Planetside.

The single-player campaign is no more than a tutorial that introduces the game’s concepts, and is quite boring when compared with playing against up to 32 human players.

Section 8 tries to emphasise good team play rather than accuracy and reflexes. When players zoom in, they automatically lock onto a target, removing the need for precise aiming. Some might consider this a dumbing down of shooting games, catering for console players who can’t aim as precisely with gamepads as PC gamers can with a mouse.

The game doesn't use pre-set character classes, but instead lets players customise their own combinations of weapons and equipment. Players are split into squads, and are dropped onto the battlefield in pods. Every player has a jetpack to leap over high walls and into enemy fortresses.

Money and victory points are earned for each round, from scoring kills and hacking into control objectives. This is then spent on vehicles and upgrades, such as a two-legged walker, a tank, or to deploy a sentry turret. Additional points can be earned by completing challenges within a set time limit, such as escorting a convoy or planting a bomb.

Section 8 won't be to everyone's taste: the visuals are fair, with some levels looking breathtaking and others merely bland. With good players, the multiplayer mode is great fun, requiring plenty of coordination and different tactics.

However, if you don’t have a good internet connection, avoid Section 8 as the single-player campaign is dull.

Corel Digital Studio 2010

Will Stapley — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 16:42:31 GMT

Will Stapley, Computeractive, Thursday 22 October 2009 at 17:07:00

Edit and share music, video and pictures

Until now, when it came to affordable programs for editing, organising and sharing your files, Roxio Creator and Nero have been the two main choices. Now Corel has thrown its hat into the ring with Digital Media Studio 2010.

The suite comprises four separate applications: Paintshop Photo, Videostudio, DVD Factory and WinDVD. From the outset, it's clear that Corel hasn't just cobbled together a group of existing applications: each one has the same simple and intuitive design. Throughout the editing applications, Corel makes it easy to share your music, video and pictures, either over email or by directly uploading them to Facebook, Flickr or Youtube.

Paintshop Photo is the image editor, and as with the other programs in the collection, when it is loaded for the first time it scours the computer’s hard disk for suitable media and adds it to the library. Tags can be applied to help organise photos, and the thumbnail view can be smoothly resized using a slider bar. Double-click a photo and you're taken to the Express Edit screen in which a variety of effects can be applied, including a Makeover tool that lets the user airbrush those faces that aren’t quite perfect. Collages and impressive-looking photo books can also be put together.

As for moving images, the Videostudio application is the thing to use. Videos can be quickly split or trimmed, while a selection of effects can also be applied. Alternatively, provide it with a set of clips and it's able to automatically cobble them together to create a video complete with menus and a soundtrack.

DVD Factory looks after video conversion and the burning of files to CD or DVD. Advanced options include the ability to burn discs in high definition using the AVCHD format, as well as converting video for iPods and mobile phones. However, it can't burn files to Blu-ray discs.

WinDVD is the final part, providing video playback. It offers several enhancements, including the rather interesting Time Stretch to speed up video without the audio getting high-pitched – the idea being that you can watch to the end of a film even if you're running out of time.

The suite also features support for Windows 7's new touch capabilities, allowing users to browse and manipulate media using finger gestures. However, you will need a touch-screen computer to take advantage of this.

Corel Digital Studio 2010 doesn't offer anything particularly advanced, nor does it bring many new features. And given the similarity of each part it's a surprise that Corel didn’t bundle everything into a single application. Where it excels is in providing basic image, video and disc burning tools that are very easy to use.

Rival products might be cheaper and have more features, but Corel Digital Suite is intuitive and better suited to beginners.

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Review: Windows 7 - part 3

Daniel Robinson — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:10:15 GMT

Daniel Robinson, V3.co.uk, Thursday 22 October 2009 at 15:49:00

In the final part of our review, we look at system requirements and installing Windows 7

In the third and final segment of our Windows 7 review, we look at installing and upgrading the operating system. For part 1 of the review see here, and for part 2 see here.

Installing Windows 7 is relatively painless and we found it takes about half an hour once you've supplied the installer with your language and country settings. After a reboot or two, you should find yourself looking at the clean, mostly empty, desktop of Windows 7 (see screenshot below).

In our tests, the first thing Windows 7 did after installation was ask whether we wanted to set up a HomeGroup network, and supplied a password for other Windows 7 PCs to use when joining the group. It then downloaded and applied any available updates.

System requirements

Windows 7 requires a PC with a minimum 1GHz processor and 1GB of memory (2GB for a 64-bit version), plus at least 16GB available disk space. These are similar to the requirements for Windows Vista, but PC hardware has moved on in the three years since Vista was released, and it is now virtually impossible to buy a new PC that does not comfortably exceed these requirements.

In addition, while Vista is sluggish on PCs with less than 2GB, Windows 7 appears to work fine with the 1GB minimum. In tests, we installed it onto a Toshiba netbook (see Installing Windows 7 on a netbook), which had no difficulty running the new operating system on its low-power Atom processor.

Those upgrading an existing PC to Windows 7 will have little to worry about if they are currently running Windows Vista. The same is not true if you are one of the many users still running Windows XP, however, as Microsoft does not offer a direct upgrade path from XP to Windows 7.

Users wishing to upgrade from XP will have to do a full, clean install of Windows 7, which will overwrite everything already on the hard disk. Windows Easy Transfer, a tool built into Windows 7 and available as a free download for XP from Microsoft's web site, enables users to export files and settings to external storage, then import them back again after the installation.

Alternatively, third-party tools such as Laplink's PCmover Windows 7 Upgrade Assistant go further, and claim to allow XP users to perform an in-place upgrade to Windows 7, keeping all applications and data intact.

Given the retail price of Windows 7, anyone running XP on a PC more than a couple of years old is probably best advised to wait and get the new platform when they trade up to a new system, rather than upgrading their existing one.

Application compatibility

Microsoft's position on application compatibility is that the majority of software developed for Vista should run fine, with the possible exception of low-level tools such as anti-virus software. But applications that were designed specifically for XP are generally so old now that compatibility cannot be guaranteed.

However, we found that many applications we regularly use on XP (such as Office 2003) work on Windows 7 without a hitch, but it is inevitable that there will be issues with some XP applications, especially turnkey business applications.

Microsoft offers a free tool called Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor, which can check a PC for compatibility issues and generate a report.

Windows XP Mode

For applications that require XP, Microsoft has an answer in the form of Windows XP Mode. This runs problem software inside an XP virtual machine specially configured so that all the user sees is the application window as usual (see the screenshot of an application running in XP Mode on a Windows 7 system below).

However, Windows XP Mode is supported only in the Professional, Enterprise and Ultimate editions of Windows 7, and even here it is a separate download and not supplied as part of the operating system.

XP Mode may also not prove an ideal solution, as it effectively means that two operating systems need to be managed for each client. It also requires higher system specifications.

Upgrade niggles aside, our overall opinion is that Windows 7 is the best release of Windows in a long time, and that users will have few regrets moving to the new platform, whether business or consumer customers.

Businesses are likely to have to plan for a migration to Windows 7, but such a process will be made easier if they have already deployed Windows Vista to a greater or lesser extent.

For consumers, Windows 7 is the successor to Windows XP that everyone has been waiting for, and we would recommend it when investing in a new PC.

The only fly in the ointment is the high cost of many of the editions of Windows 7, which look pricey compared with, for example, the £25 it costs Apple Mac users to upgrade to Snow Leopard, the new version of Mac OS X. Again, for this reason, we would advise users of XP or Vista to consider carefully whether to upgrade now or wait until they are ready to purchase a new PC.

Review: Windows 7 - part 1

Daniel Robinson — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 14:08:17 GMT

Daniel Robinson, V3.co.uk, Tuesday 20 October 2009 at 16:57:00

We cast our eyes over the latest version of Microsoft's Windows client platform

Windows 7 is the most eagerly awaited version of Microsoft's desktop operating system for years, thanks to the disappointment that Windows Vista has largely proven since its launch three years ago. This led many users to stay on Windows XP, an operating system now the best part of a decade old. Can Windows 7 restore Microsoft's reputation?

We believe the answer is yes, with one or two caveats. Windows 7 fixes many of the issues that customers had with Vista, but it is still largely based on the core code underlying the older platform, meaning that, while applications written for Vista will mostly run under Windows 7, the same is not necessarily true for applications designed for Windows XP.

Another important issue for enterprise customers is that some of the most useful new corporate features of Windows 7 are only available when it is used within an infrastructure based on Windows Server 2008 R2, which has only recently been released to manufacturing.

These features are not likely to show their full potential before IT departments have been through the process of testing and upgrading their server infrastructure to Windows Server 2008 R2, which could be a protracted process given the current economic climate.

However, on the whole, we believe that Windows 7 is a worthy successor to Windows XP for both businesses and consumers, but how speedily the new platform is adopted by either audience is likely to depend on numerous factors such as upgrade costs and, for businesses especially, application compatibility.

Improvements

In this first part of our Windows 7 review, we're going to focus mostly on the user interface. Windows 7 is designed to be easier to use than earlier versions of Windows, with enhancements to make tasks easier, and improvements in the way devices and peripherals are handled. It is also designed to be leaner than its predecessor, Windows Vista, and to run faster on the same hardware.

Compared with earlier versions, Windows 7 also makes better use of multi-core chips and can support up to 256 logical processors. However, users will see the full benefit of a multi-core system only if the applications they run are also designed to be multi-threaded, so the workload can be distributed across multiple cores.

While some reports have stated the contrary, we found that Windows 7 boots faster than earlier versions of Windows; on some test systems we have been able to use the computer in little more than 30 seconds from pushing the power button.

We were also impressed with how stable Windows 7 has been; from the earliest pre-beta code right through until the final release, we have found it much more reliable than Vista was even after release, and have experienced few problems with the new operating system at all.

Windows 7 is also 'quieter', with fewer annoying pop-up notifications than were seen with Vista. Beyond an initial notification, messages are now moved to a special notification area on the taskbar so that users can review them at their leisure.

Another bugbear of Vista was the User Account Control (UAC) prompts, designed to improve security, but which tended to pop up far too often during normal work. Changes to UAC now mean that users need to authorise an action far less often.

Because Windows 7 is based on Vista's technology, the desktop appears quite similar at first glance, and Vista users will have little difficulty adapting to the new platform. Those moving from XP will find the menus and file structure a little different than what they are used to.

Libraries

User files are handled differently in Windows 7, for example, with the introduction of the concept of Libraries. By default, Libraries includes folders for documents (replacing My Documents), pictures, videos and music. However, each of these can pull together content from multiple sources, so that the documents library might pool documents stored on the local hard drive with those held in a network folder, for example.

Jump Lists

Other user interface improvements include Jump Lists, pop-up menus that provide shortcuts to functions from applications minimised to the task bar. The Windows Sidebar has now gone, enabling users to place gadgets such as a clock or calendar anywhere on the desktop, and minor tweaks include the ability to 'dock' application windows to one side of the screen or another, making it easier to see two windows side by side.

Windows 7 also has support for gesture-based input, allowing users with supported touch-screen PC hardware to operate applications using fingertip control. This works in all applications, allowing users to scroll through windows and tap menu options with a finger, even in existing applications such as Office 2003 that were not written with touch in mind.

Device Stage

Windows 7 changes the way devices, such as printers, phones and other peripherals, are handled. Called Device Stage, this brings together all of the features and information about a device into one place. Device vendors are able to customise the screen for their particular device to allow users to access all its features from one place, including letting you browse the content of Flash memory cards plugged into a smartphone, for example.

In the next part of this article, we will compare Windows 7's new features for businesses and consumers. See Review: Windows 7 - part 2.

Roxio Creator 2010

Tim Smith — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:25:23 GMT

Tim Smith, Computeractive, Wednesday 21 October 2009 at 17:13:00

All your editing needs in one piece of software

Roxio Creator promises to be the one program for all of your creative jobs, from editing photos and videos to capturing music and making greetings cards.

Like similar programs it uses a single starting point – the Home page shows frequently used tasks and other categories are listed on one side. The Learning Center has video tutorials that also come with printable companions.

The first step of any project is to get the files onto the computer. The import tool will scan the computer for existing music, video and pictures. It didn’t suggest any folder names for imported media and so just saved everything in the Documents folder.

This hasn’t changed from previous versions and can lead to problems when there are hundreds of files in the same folder. Users can’t simply enter their own folder names either, instead there’s a two-step process to create a new one. A redeeming feature is that it is easy to name photos.

The media browser is rather limited because although it can filter things by date, it’s limited to the last week, month or year. Should you want to look for a photo from August 2005, say, the only option is to show all the photos sorted by their age.

Creator 2010 has a lot to offer for anyone with a high-definition video camcorder, particularly as considerable effort has gone into reducing the amount of time needed to render edited videos. One innovation is that it avoids re-rendering video that has not been changed and it can also take advantage of the features of some graphics cards to speed up rendering times.

Creator can download videos from some online sites such as Youtube, to burn to disc or copy to a portable player. It was confusing to find this in the Copy and Convert Video section rather than Import video section, though. Although it works with a long list of devices it couldn’t convert existing Flash video files we had.

Music can be ripped from CDs – the Advanced Rip is one of the best tools we’ve used for working through a large pile of discs. Naming of tracks was simple enough but the tool for automatically checking the track names online didn’t work as well.

The photo-editing tools were easy to use, and a batch utility makes it very quick to apply filters to lots of photos. There are templates for more ambitious projects from CD labels to greetings cards and photo collages.

Finally, though it may not be as exciting, Creator includes a good backup utility.

Roxio Creator 2010 is a comprehensive a collection of media software, and it’s unlikely that users will be left wanting. Sadly the interfaces of some of the tools, notably the media browser, are in need of some work.

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Review: Windows 7 - part 2

Daniel Robinson — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:25:22 GMT

Daniel Robinson, V3.co.uk, Wednesday 21 October 2009 at 17:20:00

We continue our look at Windows 7, examining the business and consumer features available

In this second part of our Windows 7 review, we examine the various added features for consumer and business customers. See part 1 here.

For consumers, Windows 7 adds new features that make it easier to set up a home network and share content among a number of PCs within the same home.

HomeGroup enables a new Windows 7 PC to automatically find others on the same network and link up with them to share resources. Access is protected by a password that is generated when the HomeGroup is created from the first Windows 7 PC, and this must be supplied to join a new computer to the group. See Hands on: Using HomeGroup in Windows 7.

Any printers connected to PCs are automatically shared with the group, but each user can choose which music, pictures, video and document libraries they wish to share. Sharing is only enabled when a Windows 7 PC recognises that it is connected to its 'home' network, and not if a laptop is taken outside the home and connected to a different network, for example.

Windows Media Player and Windows Media Center support a much broader range of audio and video formats in Windows 7, including H.264, Mpeg-4, DivX and AAC, and also allow users to access multimedia content on other computers via HomeGroup. Users can also stream media from one PC in a HomeGroup to another.

Business features

As is the case with earlier releases of Windows, the Professional edition has features not in the consumer editions, such as the ability to join a corporate domain and full system backup support in the Backup and Restore Center.

For large organisations, Windows 7 Enterprise Edition adds several potentially significant new technologies, including AppLocker, DirectAccess, BranchCache, federated search and Bitlocker To Go. However, pretty much all of these features require a server infrastructure based on Windows Server 2008 R2 before they can be enabled.

AppLocker gives administrators the ability to apply a white list of applications that are allowed to run on client systems using Group Policy settings, while DirectAccess provides laptop users with the means to connect securely to the corporate network without needing a virtual private network, using an IPv6-over-IPsec encrypted connection.

BranchCache is a new feature designed to offer better access to information for workers in a remote branch office. As the name suggests, it caches data transferred over the network, with cached data either held on a server or distributed among the client PCs at the site.

Federated search (see sample screen above) extends the search capabilities seen in Vista to allow users to search not only their own computer, but to send out the search request to data repositories such as SharePoint and have the results merged with those from their own computer.

Bitlocker To Go extends the Bitlocker encryption technology introduced in Windows Vista to support removable media such as USB Flash drives. Administrators can also set a policy that requires users to encrypt such media before they can be used.

For businesses with the Professional or Enterprise editions, Windows 7 supports XP Mode, which enables any applications with compatibility issues to run inside an XP-based virtual machine. See Hands on: Using Windows XP Mode in Windows 7.

However, XP Mode is not actually supplied as part of Windows 7, but must be downloaded and deployed separately. It also requires a PC with hardware support for virtualisation in the processor, and pushes up the hardware requirements as it needs at least 2GB of memory.

Editions

Windows 7 is available in fewer editions than Window Vista. The retail versions in the UK are Home Premium, Professional and Ultimate, costing £149.99, £219.99 and £299.99 respectively.

These versions will also be available pre-installed on PCs, with the likely segmentation being Home Premium targeting consumers, Professional appearing on business systems, and Ultimate on high-end systems aimed at enthusiasts and gamers.

A Windows 7 Family Pack will also be available, allowing Home Premium to be installed on up to three PCs for £149.99.

Another edition, Enterprise, is available only to volume licensing customers, while the Starter edition is limited to original equipment manufacturers and is likely to appear in the UK only on systems such as netbooks.

Starter edition will also be available only as a 32-bit version, while all other editions sold in the UK are available in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

The differences between these editions are commensurate with earlier versions of Windows. Home Premium lacks features in Professional such as the ability to join a corporate domain and Remote Desktop capability, and does not support the Windows XP Mode for legacy applications.

Enterprise edition has further corporate-friendly features outlined earlier, such as AppLocker, Bitlocker Drive encryption, DirectAccess and BranchCache, which are also present in the Ultimate edition.

A feature called Anytime Upgrades allows users with Windows 7 Starter, Home Premium or Professional to upgrade to a higher edition by entering a special code, which will be supplied by Microsoft for an extra fee, that unlocks the extra functions.

Further complicating matters, users can buy upgrade versions of Home Premium, Professional and Ultimate if they already have a PC with an earlier version of Windows. Home Premium will cost £79.99 until 31 December 2009, and £99.99 thereafter, while Professional costs £189.99 and Ultimate £199.99.

In the concluding part of this review to follow, we will look at hardware requirements and upgrading.

Trend Micro Worry-Free Business Security Advanced 6.0

Alan Stevens — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:10:17 GMT

Alan Stevens, CRN, Wednesday 21 October 2009 at 17:03:00

Latest version delivers a high level of security with less impact on users and PC resources

Trend Micro Worry-Free Business Security Advanced 6.0 is a non-intrusive application that addresses recent threats alongside easy updating, using Smart Scan technology that offloads much of the work to remote servers.

Rather than maintaining a collection of signatures on each client, Smart Scan signatures are divided into those for known threats and the 20 per cent that mutate rapidly. Only the latter is handled via local heuristic scanning, with the rest handled either by a security server on the LAN or, if out of the office, a

cloud service.

The Worry-Free client can also be configured to pause during high CPU consumption, and protects against USB-based threats.

It took us half a day to deploy on a small company LAN. First we configured the central security server, using an existing Windows Server 2003 file server. There is support for 32-bit and 64-bit, and for small deployments a desktop PC can be used. A web server hosts the management console.

We opted to push the software out centrally via the web console, which worked well, except for a couple of PCs where we emailed the users a link for them to install.

We could have added the link to an internal web site, used log-in scripts or created a custom package for distribution using Windows group policy or a third-party distribution tool.

The agent took minutes to install. Default settings should suit most customers. Security profiles are available for users in and out of the office.

A security agent for Exchange is included, although we had an SMTP server on our network and many small businesses will use hosted services. Users do get a bundled licence for Trend’s hosted security scanner.

To use this we provided Trend with our domain name, and had our DNS records updated to point incoming mail at the servers. That done, messages were filtered for viruses and spam before being forwarded to our local SMTP mail server.

Unfortunately, Worry-Free is a Windows-only product. Also, like other security suites, it might prove a little too comprehensive. But version 6.0 does seem to have balanced security with ease of use.

It requires an x86/x64 host with minimum 512MB RAM (1GB on x64 systems) and up to 10GB disk space. It also supports Windows 2000 SP4 or later with a dual-core server recommended.

Xara Xtreme 5

Tim Smith — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:54:49 GMT

Tim Smith, Computeractive, Tuesday 20 October 2009 at 16:52:00

Image editing, desktop publishing and web design in one program

Picture editors generally come in one of two flavours: so-called bitmap editors are used for working with photos while vector editors are used to make ‘drawn’ illustrations.

The split is something that has persisted over the years with separate programs for each task, even though that can sometimes be quite frustrating. Xara Xtreme 5 is one of the few programs that can be used for either role or for a combination of the two.

The interface of Xara Xtreme is unassuming and unthreatening, without too many options on screen the moment the user starts. The main editing tools are listed down the left-hand side of the window, with a toolbar at the top showing the settings for each of them.

There are plenty of templates with which to start projects – they cover a diverse range of photo albums, CD covers, postcards and more, along with some more business-orientated templates such as newspapers and business cards. It is possible to use Xara for desktop publishing projects as well as for creating illustrations.

Although it may take a little while to get to grips with the different tools, the help on offer here is better than average. The help files are pretty much what you might expect from any similar program, but there is a comprehensive selection of videos on the Xara website that demonstrate different tasks.

There are plenty of ways to produce finished projects. Printing is the obvious one, and Xara can save files in the Adobe PDF format if you want to share projects while making sure they appear correctly on other computers. Xtreme is also a capable web design program and is very good at producing websites that follow the latest standards without compromising on the look of the pages. Its ability to wrap text around complex images was particularly impressive.

Finally, Xara Xtreme includes a powerful image editor which is ideal if you want to combine photos with the vector shapes produced above in projects such as photo montages.

It does require some time to learn if you are used to other editors, but in this case it’s time well spent.

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Championship Manager 2010

Anthony Dhanendran — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 09:15:12 GMT

Anthony Dhanendran, Computeractive, Sunday 18 October 2009 at 10:00:00

The best Championship Manager game for years

After the original programmers of Championship Manager left publisher Eidos to produce Football Manager for Sega, new versions of Championship Manager were markedly inferior, while Football Manager leapt ahead in sales.

This time, Championship Manager has got it mostly right. As with all such games, you start by selecting a club to manage.

There are lots of leagues to choose from, and in England they go as far down as the “non-league” Isthmian, Southern and Northern leagues. This adds local appeal – we had fun lifting local side Kingstonian from the depths of the Ryman Premier.

It’s true that football management games appeal to a certain type of gamer. Despite the bells and whistles, playing Championship Manager 2010 is still a lot like playing with a football spreadsheet. Select your squad and team, pick tactics and then the computer simulates each game.

Still, we got excited over the merest of results – a 1-0 away victory over Billericay Town, for instance – and there’s plenty of drama to keep players interested.

It’s still slow going though. The computer has to plough through a database of results after each set of matches, but all the other functions are available while it processes in the background.

There have been some nice additions such as on-demand training to test players against each other, and a set-piece creator. The match screen has been improved, with fairly realistic animations of goals, highlights or the whole match.

The main screen has been tweaked to add real-time tables and statistics, and the “Prozone” offers analysis of each match.

Eidos is also offering CM Season Live, a £5 series of six updates throughout the season, containing updated league tables and squads. We have not tested this as none have been released yet.

Flaws include overly vague team talks and not enough parts of the interface are clickable links (it’s not always possible to click a player or team name and be taken directly to their page).

Still, it’s easy to get started with Championship Manager 2010, more so than with any management game we have tried recently, and the enjoyable gameplay made us want to keep coming back.

Batman Arkham Asylum

Jonathan Parkyn — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 08:44:24 GMT

Jonathan Parkyn, Computeractive, Sunday 18 October 2009 at 09:30:00

Finally, a truly great superhero game

These days, no summer is complete without half a dozen Hollywood comic book adaptations, each with its own obligatory rush-job tie-in game.

Batman Arkham Asylum is a little different though. For a start, there’s no movie release on which to cash in. Instead, the game provides a completely original, standalone storyline, which sees the Dark Knight deliver a freshly captured Joker to Gotham City’s favourite correctional facility, only to have his old adversary turn the tables on him as the lunatics literally take over the asylum.

As Batman, you’re tasked with infiltrating various areas of Arkham Island in order to restore order and put a stop to the Joker’s latest insane plot. Gameplay is largely divided between exploration, stealth and combat. Batman doesn’t do guns, so he is forced to rely on his fists for most of the fighting. Combat isn’t difficult, however, and there aren’t any complicated button combinations or keystrokes to learn. It’s satisfying too, with cinematic scenes emphasising bone-crunching takedowns in slow motion.

Along the way, you’ll come up against rooms full of armed thugs, where a silent but deadly approach is required. Again, the stealth tactics aren’t hard to learn and picking off your enemies from the shadows can be great fun. Certain more recognisable Arkham inmates make an appearance too, including Poison Ivy and the Scarecrow. A few of these ‘boss’ battles are a little weak, but others form some of the game’s most memorable moments.

Arkham Asylum pulls off a neat trick; regardless of its titular hero, this is an action game that’s instantly accessible to even the least comic book-literate players. At the same time, it simultaneously offers devout fans everything they could want, with tons of gadgets to play with and hundreds of secrets to uncover.

The visuals are excellent, though you’ll need a fairly recent graphics card to do it justice, and an Nvidia card (rather than an ATI model) to take advantage of the most advanced effects. Audio-wise, atmospheric music and an unusually high standard of voice acting all add to the authenticity.

There’s no multiplayer but, apart from that, Arkham Asylum is something of a happy anomaly; a varied, enjoyable superhero game with high production values and a cracking story to boot.

Mini Ninjas

Jonathan Parkyn — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 08:35:06 GMT

Jonathan Parkyn, Computeractive, Saturday 17 October 2009 at 09:30:00

A martial arts game that scales down the violence

Ninja-based games have traditionally been bloodthirsty affairs, but Mini Ninjas bucks this trend with a more child-friendly approach to the subject matter.

The story revolves around an evil Samurai warrior who is capturing innocent woodland animals and magically transforming them into an army of mindless drones in order to take over the world.

As newly graduated ninja Hiro, it’s your job to stop him. Along the way, you meet various fellow ninjas who join your party. Each has his or her own special abilities – such as heightened strength or the ability to use a bow and arrow – and you can switch between the different characters at will. Hiro also has magical powers that grow with him as the game progresses. New powers can be unlocked by uncovering special scrolls hidden in sacred shrines.

Mini Ninjas is a fairly straightforward third-person action game dressed up with an added layer of cuteness. There’s plenty of combat, for example, but there’s no blood or flying body parts. Quite the opposite in fact, since defeating an enemy results in them magically returning to their original fluffy animal form. As well as fighting, there’s a lot of exploring to do and plenty of items to find.

The controls were simple to get the hang of and the charming cartoon art style works well.

The nearest equivalent would probably be a Zelda game, though the comparison is slightly unfair: it isn’t anywhere near as deep or imaginative as any entry in Nintendo’s classic series.

But while it lasts, Mini Ninjas is a pleasant, if somewhat lightweight diversion for younger players.

Iolo System Mechanic 9

Tim Smith — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:50:18 GMT

Tim Smith, Computeractive, Wednesday 14 October 2009 at 15:21:00

Prevent Windows from slowing down in daily use

Although they are not mechanical devices, computers need maintenance as much as cars do.

A program may not uninstall itself properly, or you may find some program icons left over in the Start menu. Iolo System Mechanic 9 offers the promise of reversing the slowing-down of your computer.

System Mechanic now works on a subscription basis: the copy that you buy will receive updates for a year. It will still work after that time, but without updates.

The interface was simple to get to grips with and uses a dial that looks like a car’s rev counter to show whether or not the computer is performing well. Users can either opt to fix everything automatically or take a closer look at what System Mechanic is going to do. Being inquisitive types we decided to do the latter and in many respects we're glad we did.

System Mechanic managed to identify most of the problems we already knew about on the laptop computer we used for the test. The most important of these was that automatic updates for Windows were turned off. Unfortunately it didn't manage to fix the problem, but we've never seen the same problem on any other computer and have been trying for several years to fix it ourselves. Rather more worrying was that fact that it claimed to have fixed it immediately despite information to the contrary in the Windows system properties and the Windows security centre. Automatic Updates were permanently re-enabled on other test computers.

It also marked all of the sites in the Trusted Zone as a security hazard, although admittedly it marked them as low-danger problems. It was disappointing that these warnings included the Windows Update sites – if any sites deserve to be automatically left in the Trusted Zone it's these. Fortunately System Mechanic gave us the option to never question these particular settings again, and the problem sites didn't appear in subsequent scans. This does show that it is important to watch what the cleaning settings are doing rather than just letting the program do what it wants.

We were puzzled by some of the recommendations for blocking programs when the computer starts. The Java Update Checker seemed important enough to keep as did Activesync which is used by our Windows Mobile phone – System Mechanic suggested blocking both.

The big draw for these programs are Registry tools. System Mechanic includes the all-important backup and restore utilities as well as a tool to check for errors. In all it found 2,600 problems with our six-year-old test computer.

After completing all the maintenance and restarting, the computer did feel faster in use, although it's hard to quantify this because our lab tests are not affected by the changes made by System Mechanic.

The trouble with this kind of maintenance is that it doesn't necessarily mean a startling improvement in performance. On the other hand, there's a lot to be said for keeping things tidy even there's no immediate improvement.

System Mechanic’s registry tools are good, but while the other tools work, they should be carefully monitored.

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Zemanta

Anthony Dhanendran — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:08:31 GMT

Anthony Dhanendran, Computeractive, Wednesday 14 October 2009 at 15:49:00

Spice up your blog posts

Blogging can be fun but it can be difficult to put a good blog post together, particularly when it comes to adding images and links to make the page look more interesting.

Zemanta can help with that. It’s an add-on for Firefox or Microsoft’s Live Writer blogging tool that, when you open a blog post, offers links and images that can be added.

The most useful part is the pictures – Zemanta opens as a sidebar in the window, with a collection of pictures shown. At first these are random, but type into the search box and you’ll see a collection of relevant shots, all available for free use. Double-clicking or dragging one adds it to the post.

The same applies to the links and tags that appear at the bottom of the post – each can be added to the post with a click. It also works with email services such as Google Mail and Yahoo Mail, but it’s less useful there.

The quality of the pictures varies – they come from public sources such as Flickr so it’s a case of picking wisely – but Zemanta is a good way of quickly and legally adding pictures and links to blog posts.

The Beatles: Rock Band

Jonathan Parkyn — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 08:30:31 GMT

Jonathan Parkyn, Computeractive, Saturday 10 October 2009 at 09:30:00

Play along with John, Paul, George and Ringo, in your own living room

If you haven’t heard of a rather popular four-piece outfit from Liverpool, known as The Beatles, it’s possible you haven’t spent long living on this planet. For the rest of is, The Beatles: Rock Band represents the chance to fulfil a unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience a taste of what it would have been like to play with the biggest group on Earth.

If you haven’t played a game like Rock Band or Guitar Hero before, the idea is that you substitute a regular game controller for one that’s shaped like a musical instrument, and use it to play along to various songs. You don’t need to know how to play a real musical instrument though. Instead, you’re tasked with hitting one of five coloured buttons in time with on-screen prompts.

As with other games of this type, in The Beatles: Rock Band it’s possible to play on your own, or in a group with various friends and family members on bass, guitar, drums, vocals and so on. As you play, animated avatars perform on screen. Points are gained by hitting as many correct ‘notes’ as possible and your performance can be boosted by earning multipliers and by working the crowd into a state of frenzy. Perform badly, however, and you could find yourself being booed off stage by the audience.

Apart from featuring 45 classic Beatles tunes to play along to, this special Beatle-centric edition of Rock Band doesn’t do much to mess with the series’ successful formula. Three-part vocal harmonies have been added to the mix (assuming you have enough microphones to go round) and there are some neat unlockable Beatle-related goodies, but other than that, it’s pretty much business as usual.

It’s possible to dip in and play any song at any difficulty level whenever you like, but there are also online and offline ‘versus’ and ‘story’ modes. The story follows the Fab Four’s career chronologically, from the early days on a cramped Cavern Club stage right up to the impromptu gig on the roof of the Apple building. The latter part of the Beatles tenure involved a self-imposed retirement from playing live concerts, and the game reflects this by switching its visual accompaniments from concert-type footage to a mixture of Abby Road studio settings and psychedelic ‘dreamscapes’ – pop promo-type animations that are in much the same vein as the band’s latter day films, such as Magical Mystery Tour and Yellow Submarine. On the whole, the game’s visuals are cartoony, fun and surprisingly tasteful, with plenty of references to please Beatles fans.

Sadly, The Beatles: Rock Band: is only currently available for consoles: Microsoft Xbox 360, Sony Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii, with no current plans to release it for the PC. Depending on which version you choose, it can also work out quite expensive. For all three consoles it’s possible to buy the game in sets that come with various drum, microphone, guitar or bass controllers. The ‘premium’ edition, for example, costs £180 and comes with a replica of Paul’s Hofner bass and a Ludwig-branded Ringo drumkit, as well as a microphone and mic stand. A cheaper ‘value’ edition costs £110 and comes with a more generic drum kit and a Fender Stratocaster guitar controller, along with a microphone. It’s also possible to purchase the game on its own without any extra hardware and we found that our Xbox 360 copy was 100 per cent compatible with existing guitar and microphone controllers.

Cynics might have you believe that this is just another way to wring yet more cash from Beatles fans, but the truth is that The Beatles: Rock Band is a genuinely new way to enjoy their music. If you don’t particularly like The Beatles and have no interest in cluttering your home with expensive plastic toys, then obviously this is not the game for you. But if you’ve been looking for something different and fancy a nostalgic musical trip down Penny Lane, then The Beatles: Rock Band is definitely one for the Christmas wishlist. It isn’t a particularly hard or challenging game, but that’s not really the point. It’s a beautifully crafted, high-quality piece of entertainment that should have an enormously wide appeal to non-gamers and music fans alike, and is especially fun when played with others.

Zone Alarm Extreme Security 2010

Paul Lester — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 15:32:23 GMT

Paul Lester, Computeractive, Friday 9 October 2009 at 16:27:00

Zone Alarm’s most comprehensive security suite so far

Zone Alarm Extreme Security 2010 is the security firm’s most comprehensive collection to date, combining virus protection, a powerful firewall and all of the tools necessary to protect users during day-to-day PC use and when browsing the internet.

All of these components are well organised in an interface that will be familiar to users of previous versions, and Zone Alarm is still up there with the best in terms of efficiency and effectiveness.

Costing £10 more than Zone Alarm Internet Security the Extreme edition adds backup, tune-up and encryption tools, among others.

Perhaps the most interesting of those is the hard disk encryption software for laptops, designed to protect your files in the event that your portable computer is lost or stolen. This must be installed separately from the rest of the program, as must the online backup and tune-up tools. It would have been nice to see all three of these tools integrated into the main suite to keep things tidy.

Regardless, the add-on was quick and easy to install, though it does require that users register their details with Zone Alarm, and sets up a secure username and password through which to access the computer. Disk encryption can take quite a long time to process but when it’s done the files on the disk are protected against prying eyes.

Further improvements centre around improving existing security, with a number of enhancements made to browser security to counter new online threats, and faster and more efficient scans. The latter was particularly noticeable: in our tests Zone Alarm Extreme 2010 was around 50 per cent quicker to complete scans than the previous version, with little impact on performance during the process.

These improvements are commendable, but it was a little disappointing not to see a refresh of the interface and it’s a shame that the additional tools are not better integrated.

As such it’s not as pleasant to use as rivals such as Bitdefender and Norton 360. While we have no criticism of the amount of protection Zone Alarm provides to its users, those who want a more approachable program should opt for a rival instead.

Bitdefender Total Security 2010

Paul Lester — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 15:17:16 GMT

Paul Lester, Computeractive, Friday 9 October 2009 at 15:56:00

A polished collection of security tools

Over the past few years Bitdefender Total Security has proven to be a worthy, cost-effective alternative to well-known rivals such as Norton 360 and last year’s edition was the best yet.

Total Security 2010 builds on this success but the company hasn’t introduced any major new features into what is already a comprehensive collection of security tools.

A new approach to scanning omits files that are known to be safe – we noticed significantly faster scan times as a result. Parental controls have been improved to offer more flexibility and the interface has been redesigned.

It remains one of the most approachable suites on the market for beginners and the new Simple View complements the intermediate and expert modes, which vary the range of options and information presented. New usage profiles, with categories such as Parent, Gamer and Typical, allow users to switch between preset security configurations depending on the situation.

Otherwise Total Security remains essentially the same, still offering a comprehensive level of security to protect against the latest viruses, spam and online threats, along with a powerful firewall. The extra features are useful, such as encryption, secure deletion and the ability to back up files to a disk connected to your computer or to a secure internet service (2GB of internet storage is provided).

A range of tune-up tools including clean-up, Registry repair and disc defragmenting means that just about everything is provided to protect, clean and manage the day-to-day running of a computer.

Admittedly, finding your way around this extensive collection can take a bit of time but the only problems we had involved on properly configuring the behaviour and various notification alerts to a required level, though this isn’t something that undermines usability in the long-term.

Bitdefender Total Security is still cheap compared with competing programs that offer similar features – the 2010 edition costs just £45 for up to three PCs for one year. The cheaper Internet Security, which skips backup and tune-up tools, is a bargain £30. Whichever you prefer, this feature-packed, total solution to home security is still one of the most appealing on the market.

Microsoft Windows 7

Tom Royal — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:11:24 GMT

Tom Royal, Computeractive, Thursday 8 October 2009 at 14:51:00

Can the new version of Windows make up for Vista’s shortcomings?

Almost three years have passed since the arrival of Microsoft Windows Vista, and it's fair to say that the sixth version of the Windows operating system wasn’t popular with every PC user.

After problems with hardware that didn't work and complaints about the User Account Control security tool (see below), many home computer users chose to stick with the older Windows XP instead.

So with its replacement Windows 7 has Microsoft finally got it right?

Windows 7 system requirements

When it launched, Windows Vista was criticised for having unreasonable system requirements that meant some of its features were not available on all PCs. On paper, the basic requirements for Vista and Windows 7 are nearly identical – both require a 1GHz processor and 1GB of memory.

In practice, however, Windows 7 did seem leaner. We recommend at least 2GB of memory for Windows Vista computers to avoid sluggish performance, and when small simple 'netbook' laptops suddenly became popular Microsoft convinced manufacturers to install Windows XP on them, not the more power-hungry Vista.

Wth Windows 7, however, we found that even the Ultimate edition installed and ran happily on a netbook computer with 1GB of memory and one of Intel's low-power Atom processors. Windows 7 was also significantly quicker to start up than Vista, and returned from Sleep mode in seconds.

But what about all the extra products and programs that just didn't work with Vista? When it comes to hardware the news isn't so bright. The inner workings of Windows 7 have more in common with Windows Vista than with XP, so any old products whose manufacturers still haven't released updated drivers since Windows XP are not likely to fare better with Windows 7. Software is less of a problem: we found that everything we ran in XP and Vista worked first time in Windows 7.

What's new?

Windows 7 should work on any PC that can handle Vista, and many more besides, including even the cheapest laptops. But what exactly do those who choose to upgrade get, and are the new features worth it? At first the Windows 7 desktop isn't much different from the one in Windows Vista. Start using it, though, and you notice a few clever changes. The most important of these affect the Taskbar at the bottom of the screen.

With both XP and Vista the Taskbar could quite quickly become cluttered. The Quick Launch bar took up space at the left side, and the notification area on the right would soon become full of icons as more and more programs insisted on installing themselves there. With Windows 7, things have been cleaned up.

The Quick Launch bar is gone – instead, favourite programs can be 'pinned' to the left of the Taskbar, allowing them to be started with one click. Run one and Windows doesn't create a new button on the Taskbar: instead, the pinned icon becomes a button. Even if a program has several windows open, it appears only once. The Notification Area is tamed, too: unless you choose otherwise, most programs’ icons are hidden. A little flag appears should anything need attention.

The new Taskbar also makes it easier to find and move between open programs and windows. Hover the mouse over an item there and a preview of its window, or windows, pops up above – click this and it will appear for use. After a few days using this system we began to wonder how we would managed without it.

There are a few other changes to the way windows are used, too. In particular, it's now far easier to quickly rearrange windows: drag one to the top of the screen and it expands to full size, for example, or drag it to the side and it'll fill one half of the screen. This is particularly good for widescreen computers. And if you happen to own a touchscreen computer, Windows 7 will support it without any extra software required.

File it away

There are also changes to how Windows 7 manages documents and files. In Windows XP or Vista most users would store documents in the My Documents folder, so that would be the first place to look for any file. In Windows 7, though, you'll find that it offers to look in the Documents Library instead. This, and the other libraries for Music, Pictures and Videos, don't relate to a single folder on the hard disk. Instead they allow you to view several folders, all holding the same kind of file, at once.

This makes a lot of sense if you have several storage devices, all full of music and documents – rather than having to check each one you can simply view their contents in one place. Even if you don't, using the libraries isn't any more complicated than a My Documents folder – and that folder is still on the disk should you prefer the old-fashioned method.

Changes have been made to the way Windows works with home networks, too. The new Homegroup tool makes it easier to share files between several computers, and it's easy to set up: you enter a short password-like code on each PC. This is a great idea but it's a shame there isn't a tool that allows Windows XP or Vista PCs to connect to a homegroup.

Microsoft has also responded to the complaints about Vista's User Account Control (UAC). Windows 7 is set so that it won't ask for confirmation when you make changes to settings, and you can choose from three other levels of security.

Seventh heaven?

Windows 7 is faster than Vista, runs more comfortably on slower computers, has an improved desktop, easier networking and a less annoying version of UAC. If you're buying a new computer you'll get Windows 7 as standard, but is it worth paying to upgrade an XP or Vista computer?

If you're using Vista, Windows 7 will make your computer faster, smarter and easier to use. The Home Premium version is supposed to sell for £150, but look online and you may be able to pay less than £70 – an annoying cost if you previously paid for a Vista upgrade, but otherwise reasonable.

If you skipped Vista and stuck with XP, this price is even better – but first be sure to check whether any old peripherals such as scanners and printers will work.