Computer Secure

Software News and Articles

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News and Articles about Software

From VNU Business Publications

There is usually a good selection of articles from VNU Net here, often reviewing the latest releases of security-related software.

03/12/2010

Web Easy Professional 8

Tim Smith, Computeractive, Thursday 11 March 2010 at 16:26:00

Web design without hassle - but with less control than other programs

Websites can be designed in Microsoft Word but a dedicated program such as Web Easy Professional 8 will do a better job.

The website offers hundreds of page templates including ones for mobile phones, although some of them look quite out of date.

We were pleased to be able to import an XHTML and CSS template with only minor problems (the top menus, which were set with CSS, appeared as an unformatted list and the corner image was not in the correct layout order).

There is no need to learn either HTML or CSS as you can use Web Easy just like a desktop publishing program. In fact there is no way to edit the HTML code of the pages directly.

It is possible to add small sections (‘snippets’) of code if you want to, but in most cases you should be able to use ‘Webwidgets’ to perform the same actions. These can be used to include photo albums, Google calendars and maps and bookmarking icons. The latter even includes 'Add This', a clever service that only requires one icon to let your viewers access lots of different services.

There are some clever effects that can be added for page transitions using Dynamic HTML which can give an impressive look to a website, making it more like a Powerpoint presentation than a static page.

The preview function found all the browsers installed on our test computer. There is also a fully working demo available from Avanquest that includes the templates, so you can check if the program is suitable before buying.

more info

03/11/2010

Personal Accountz

Laurence Gunn, Computeractive, Wednesday 10 March 2010 at 15:26:00

Control your personal finances easily

Having a program to review your personal finances is a good idea, especially in a recession.

Despite the rather silly spelling of its name, Personal Accountz can be used to track bank accounts, loans, credit cards and more. It allows users to review their financial situations, based on existing transactions and balances, and plan ahead by creating forecasts.

One of the best features of Personal Accountz is its ability to import data from downloaded bank account and credit card statements. It does this by using the open-standard OFX and QIF file formats.

A list of the financial institutions whose statements can be handled by Personal Accountz is available on the company's website, so it is a good idea to check that your accounts are compatible with the program before you buy it.

Personal Accountz makes it simple to set up your home accounting system. Its basic on-screen interface is split into two areas, Accounts (to enter details of banks accounts, utility bills, direct debits and so on) and Entries (to enter individual transactions). Initially, it’s time-consuming work to enter your accounts, but the program has some help in the form of predictive text – it will attempt to automatically fill fields based on what you start typing.

Users can enter transactions in the entries screen in any order, allowing the program to do the tedious date-order filing automatically. Personal Accountz can also automate recurring payments, a handy time-saver.

A few clicks later and results data can be produced either as a tailored spreadsheet or as more user-friendly graphs. There is a decent online forum to deal with frequently asked questions and more in-depth technical issues, while the company website also contains a lot of useful information. Furthermore, there are some tutorial videos on Youtube, though the quality of these is not great.

The lack of tax and interest calculations mean that Personal Accountz is best suited for day-to-day financial planning and monthly record keeping, something that must be remembered when using it to create forecasts.

Personal Accountz is cheap, well thought out and could potentially save the user money. The program's demands on the computer are also tiny, meaning that it can be used on older computers without trouble.

more info

03/09/2010

Review: Google Apps Premier Edition

Alan Stevens, V3.co.uk, Monday 8 March 2010 at 16:57:00

An affordable and functional alternative to in-house document management

The business implementation of Google's hosted Apps service, Google Apps Premier Edition, differs from the free implementation in a number of ways. These include using your own domain name for email rather than @googlemail.com, and an enormous 25GB inbox per user compared to an already generous 7GB for standard users.

Adverts can be turned off in Premier Edition, and there's a 99.9 per cent uptime guarantee, backed by a proper service level agreement (SLA), and phone and email support.

Google Mail is the core application and, at just $50 (£33) per year per user, is worth having by itself. Moreover, as well as a customisable browser-based client, Premier Edition users get an Outlook plug-in and tools to migrate existing messages and contacts to the Google platform, with support for mobile access from a variety of devices.

The product set includes Google Calendar and Google Docs, complete with extra tools to enable domain users to collaborate and securely share information. The recently added Google Groups also helps here, as does Google Sites which can be used to build team intranets and other in-house web pages. There's even a kind of cut-down YouTube service (Google Video) for private video sharing.

Other neat features in Premier Edition include Active Directory integration, single sign-on support and the ability to enforce the use of Secure Sockets Layer encrypted connections.

It's also possible to configure extra security filters using Google's Postini service, add custom footers to all outgoing messages, and archive messages sent or received for up to 10 years. Moreover, unlike Microsoft Online and other cloud-based services, you can start with just one user. Everything, except for the archiving, is included for the single per-user per-year fee.

Getting started

Premier Edition is incredibly quick and easy to get started, requiring very little in the way of technical expertise.

We tested the software using a 'real' company looking to migrate to Google Apps from an existing in-house server. To do this we signed up online, supplying Google with the domain name to use, along with contact and credit card details for payment following an initial 30-day free trial. We were then sent a confirmation email, and all we had to do was change the company's DNS MX records to point to Google's email servers, then prove ownership of the domain by making a further DNS change and configure our users via the web-based administrator dashboard.

It took just over an hour, after which we had a fully operational setup with users able to send and receive email, and share calendars, documents and so on.

Of course, we also needed to migrate existing messages and contacts to Google Mail, and there are a couple of ways of going about this. One was a bulk upload from the host mail server, but the tool provided only works with Exchange 2003 and a couple of specific IMAP servers and ours wasn't on the list. So we downloaded a uploader tool designed to work with individual Outlook and other email clients.

The uploader worked very well indeed, even down to converting our Outlook folders to Google Mail labels in the process. Our only gripe was the time it took; each upload of around 3,000 messages per user took several hours, principally because of the relatively slow uplink speed of our ADSL connection. Still, we got round that by leaving the uploader to run overnight. You only have to do this once, so it shouldn't be seen as a deal breaker.

We also downloaded and installed the Outlook plug-in which worked well, delivering a responsive, Exchange-like experience to some of our Google Mail users. On the downside, those users lost the conversation view available via the web interface, although it's still there when you switch. The mail is all held on the server, so it's possible to mix together web, Outlook and mobile clients in any combination you like.

Another small glitch arose when we tried to use the plug-in with an Exchange Server connection, preventing any mail getting out. Few customers will need both, however, and we got round it by using IMAP to access Google Mail rather than the Outlook plug-in. POP3 downloading is also supported.

It was interesting to find that, despite exclusive use of Outlook prior to switching to Google Apps, many of our users ended up using a browser shortly afterwards. This was partly to get the conversation support, but also because of the built-in search tool (Google, naturally) and labels to organise messages rather than file them in folders. These can take a little getting used to, but once mastered proved far easier and more flexible than the more familiar folder approach.

Another advantage was the 25GB inbox which meant that users rarely had to delete anything. Instead they got into the habit of 'archiving' messages, effectively removing them from the inbox while leaving them accessible by clicking All Mail or searching.

Google Calendar proved similarly easy to use, with facilities to share calendars within the hosted domain and outside, as well as check free/busy time, schedule meetings and so on. As with Google Mail, the Outlook plug-in can also be used for calendar access, and switching to the new platform threw up very few problems.

Take-up of the Google Docs online document editing and sharing application was patchy, partly because of the limited functionality of the tools, but equally due to a general distrust when it came to storing documents in the 'cloud'.

That said, the ability to upload any type of document rather than convert to Google Docs format (released during our trial) made it much more attractive, enabling our users to continue with Office for document editing. A third-party add-on (Office2Go) is also available to better integrate Google Docs and Office.

There was also much less reticence when it came to storing email online, although some users did choose to enable the option to keep local copies for offline access.

Security and data protection

Despite highly publicised outages in the past we had no problems with the reliability of the Google Apps service. However, the SLA has plenty of get-out clauses and getting redress should things go wrong could be problematic.

Bear in mind also that you have no control over where your data is held, and that there are implications for security and data protection. All Google has to say on the latter subject is that it adheres to the US Department of Commerce Safe Harbor programme, leaving it up to buyers to decide whether that makes it compliant with EU regulations or not.

As with any hosted service, Google Apps performance is largely dictated by the speed of connection to the web. Large attachments can take a while to upload, but that wasn't a big issue for our users. The ability to access messages, contact and calendars wherever they are more than makes up for any performance lags. Moreover, you get a lot more than just email, and there's a long and growing list of add-ons that can be used to further extend functionality.

We were mightily impressed with Google Apps Premier Edition, as was our guinea pig company which continued with the service at the end of the trial and is very happy with what it's now got.

more info

03/05/2010

Corel Paintshop Photo Pro X3

Cliff Joseph, Computeractive, Thursday 4 March 2010 at 16:43:00

A powerful update to Corel’s veteran photo-editor

Paintshop is Corel’s main, long-standing photo-editing software for home users.

The company also has a new, cheaper Digital Studio (at £59) which provides basic tools for editing both photos and video, but the editing tools in Paintshop Photo Pro are much more powerful.

The program works in three main modes. When it’s first launched Paintshop opens its Organiser window, which allows users to quickly preview photos and organise them by adding ratings, or keywords such as ‘sport’ or ‘holiday’ so that they can be quickly located later.

Once you have selected a photo there are two different editing modes that are activated using the buttons in the top-right corner of the Organiser window. The Express Lab button opens a new window with simple tools for adjusting settings such as brightness, contrast, and colour balance, along with a set of ‘makeover’ tools for removing skin blemishes, whitening discoloured teeth and even adding a bit of fake suntan to pale skin.

One interesting feature here is the ability to ‘capture’ the changes made to one photo so they can be applied to other photos as well. If you have a batch of dark photos that were all shot at night-time you might adjust the brightness on one, capture those settings and apply them to all the other photos in the batch – instantly editing the entire collection of photos all at once.

For more advanced editing control users can click the Full Editor button that opens up Paintshop’s full range of editing tools. This new version of Paintshop includes some powerful new features such as the Object Extractor. This makes it easier to select areas of fine detail, such as the hair on someone’s head, so that you can copy that part of the image and combine it with another image.

Another variation on this theme is the Smart Carver tool which is used to completely remove part of an image while still leaving the background of the image intact. Corel has also thrown in a copy of Painter Photo Essentials – an arty program that specialises in making your photos look like hand-painted artwork.

These new features all work well. Our only complaint is that the poor documentation provided sometimes left us a bit confused. There is a Learning Centre palette within the Full Editor window that provides tips for a number of tools, but many of the more advanced tools, such as the Smart Carver, are poorly explained even by the more complete help files found on Corel’s website.

So while Paintshop Photo Pro X3 does contain an impressive range of photo-editing tools, newcomers will need to be have a lot of patience in order to get to grips with the program.

more info

03/03/2010

Review: System Mechanic 9.5

Paul Lester, V3.co.uk, Monday 1 March 2010 at 11:47:00

A neat way to streamline and optimise an ageing PC

We've all experienced the scenario before: a computer is getting a bit long in the tooth and becomes sluggish, less responsive and seemingly cluttered full of processes and applications that are far from essential to the smooth running of your operating system.

Opting for a complete hardware upgrade in this situation is fairly common, and certainly in a business environment could involve considerable expense. So can a suite of tools such as System Mechanic breathe new life into a flagging machine and at least delay the inevitable?

We tested the new System Mechanic 9.5, which includes a number of upgrades and additions. Windows 7 users can benefit from an integrated Jump List to provide information on system status and performance, and a Health Status gadget offers real-time reports on heath, security and other issues.

An EnergyBooster tool, meanwhile, frees up system memory and CPU resources by turning off unused background processes, and there's now an incinerator for the Recycle Bin to permanently delete files to 5220-22M Department of Defence compliance.

In addition, a Registry Revitaliser combines all registry maintenance tools into one handy package, and the new Tune-Up Definitions retrieves updates to enhance performance gathered from data anaylsis of trends from millions of computers globally. Many of the existing tools have also been enhanced to improve performance and ensure full compatibility with Windows 7.

These additions should sit quite nicely with the already extensive collection, which is presented in a very clear interface that shows current system status and allows users to 'Repair All' or view the current reported issues and opt to handle them individually.

The range of tools available are too numerous to list here, but suffice to say that just about every area of a computer that could be optimised or enhanced is covered. To make things a bit more manageable, these are organised into collections that include a PC Accelerator, PC Repair, PC Cleanup, PC Security and the Registry Revitalizer.

There's also a degree of automation here, as the ActiveCare section allows you to set clean up and repair tasks to run in the background to avoid having to repeatedly check and correct issues.

While it's fair to say that System Mechanic is extremely comprehensive and very easy to use, we were really interested in how effective it is at cleaning a system and improving performance. We used the software on a test machine running Windows XP that's around five years old and has been relatively 'neglected' in terms of keeping it uncluttered and in good condition.

This may well reflect a typical situation for many computers in an office so, while the results are somewhat subjective as every condition and configuration will be different, they can be appreciated as a rough approximation.

Our initial system state was reported as 'Poor'. A quick analysis took just over a minute and yielded seven problems and one warning. A deep analysis took just under seven minutes and yielded nine problems and one warning. These included fragmented drives, registry problems, system clutter, an apparently un-optimised internet connection and some security vulnerabilities.

You are generally given quite a lot of information on the types of issues you'll encounter and how they affect your computer, but it's not possible to review the individual problems within each category, which does mean that you're reliant on the software in correctly identifying flaws.

One-click repair

We opted for the one-click repair to clean this all up, which took only two minutes, although we omitted a hard drive defrag during this process the first time round. A system restart is required, which we presume is an inevitable drawback of all this fixing and optimising, although it's worth noting here that this also crops up on occasion with the ActiveCare scans enabled, which can be inconvenient.

Prior to running System Mechanic 9.5 our test system took one minute to cold-boot to the Windows Desktop and an additional 50 seconds to load Firefox and display a web page. It was also using about 75 per cent of the available physical memory and 25 per cent of paged memory in an idle state.

After a full repair (omitting a defrag) the boot time was reduced to 50 seconds, and Firefox started up after an additional 18 seconds, so the operating system was significantly faster to boot and respond in loading software following the repair.

In addition, memory use dropped to 48 per cent (physical) and 16 per cent (paged), so System Mechanic certainly seems capable of making an impact. We ran the repair again, this time defragmenting the hard drive along the way. This took an additional 36 minutes, incidentally, although we saw no more than a cou ple of seconds saving on both boot time and application start time, and memory use remained the same.

Unfortunately there's not a lot of information on exactly what's been done to a system following a repair, but it is possible to view a general history and roll back changes using the SafetyNet tool. Actions can be undone based on category to avoid having to revert back to a previous system state, which is a nice touch.

It's possible to review changes made to the Startup Settings here. A quick scan of the results revealed that the three processes that had been disabled were indeed unnecessary for general use, no doubt contributing to the increase in performance.

System Mechanic certainly seems to produce the sort of figures that justify its claims, and we did notice what felt like more streamlined operation and faster application loading during general Windows use after running it.

While it's true that savvy users may be able to perform many of these optimisations manually or by using free tools, this is certainly a fast and effective way to simplify the process and, for ageing computers that are becoming frustrating to use, it's difficult not to recommend it.

Pricing

System Mechanic 9.5 is available as a three-PC consumer version for £30 and as a business edition for any number of computers under a site licence. The price varies here, but expect to pay between £9 and £11 per machine. Iolo is also working on an update to allow administrators to install the software remotely across a network, which will be a boon for larger workgroups, but no release date for this is confirmed.

more info

02/27/2010

Bullguard 9

Paul Lester, Computeractive, Saturday 27 February 2010 at 09:30:00

A new version of the security software – but few new features

Bullguard is a relatively new computer security program but it has put in a good showing in its last couple of versions.

See our reviews of Bullguard 8 and Bullguard 8.5 for a summary of what the software can do – all the previous features are still in the new edition. It covers protection against viruses, spyware, phishing, spam and all the other usual threats.

Despite Bullguard’s rivals investigating new approaches to security and scanning, though, there aren’t a lot of changes in Bullguard 9.

What has changed in the new version is the interface, and with an emphasis on ease of use it is clear that the program is being aimed squarely at beginners and less-experienced users. To begin with, the many tools on offer are presented in a display that’s organised by tasks to allow users to perform scans, back up their files or check for updates. From here you can also view an ‘online drive’, which provides 5GB of secure storage space on the internet, which can be used for storing backups or anything else.

More comprehensive access to the main components is through a list of icons at the bottom of the screen, which allows users to check settings and take greater control over the software. For the most part this is set up well, presenting the most basic and most commonly used settings first, while offering advanced views for those who require a deeper level of control.

Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to have been an improvement in the program’s performance: Bullguard 9’s quick scan took around three times longer than it did in the previous version, and it used around three times more resources when it was active.

In addition, there’s no single-click button to fix the computer’s problems. While this may suit some users, beginners would have been better served by such a feature, as well as a simple set of warning symbols to tell them if their computers need attention.

The software gets by on the comprehensive degree of protection found in previous versions rather than any of the improvements, and for this reason we think may struggle to compete in the current market.

The payment covers three computers for one year.

more info

02/26/2010

Bioshock 2

Jonathan Parkyn, Computeractive, Thursday 25 February 2010 at 14:34:00

Plunge yourself into the depths for a second dose of Rapture

The first Bioshock game was always going to be a tough act to follow. A critical and commercial hit, the BAFTA award-winning 2007 original blended an unusually literate science-fiction plot (which referenced, among other things, the work of Russian philosopher Ayn Rand) with a refreshingly intelligent take on first-person shooter and survival horror gameplay styles. Not only that, but the whole thing was topped off by some highly distinctive Art Deco visuals and a mournfully atmospheric sound design.

Thankfully, Bioshock 2 manages to avoid the fate of many other sequels, exceeding expectation to match or improve upon its predecessor in almost every way.

Once again, the action takes place in Rapture, a vast city built beneath the sea by Andrew Ryan, an idealistic philanthropist with a vision for an underwater Utopia, free from the tyrannies of religion, politics and censorship. At some point before the events of either game, however, a combination of cabin fever and genetic drug abuse appears to have sent Rapture's population into meltdown. By the time you begin playing, most inhabitants have devolved into narcotic-crazed mutant loons known as Splicers and Rapture itself lies in ruins. Only a few unaffected survivors are left skulking around the city's leaky, barnacle-encrusted corridors. Some of Rapture’s citizens will attempt to help you but the majority are out to stop you at all costs.

Bioshock 2 is set 10 years after the first instalment and this time around you play a prototype Big Daddy, which were one of the most fearsome foes in the previous game. While you don't necessarily need to have played the first game to enjoy Bioshock 2, it helps to appreciate some aspects of the story if you’ve already had experience of being on the other side.

Bioshock 2 is as a shooter that allows you to wield two weapons at a time, a series of traditional projectile weapons (rifles, shotguns and so on) in your right hand, and a range of ingenious genetically-enhanced powers (called plasmids) in the left. You can freeze an enemy into a block of ice with a zap from your left hand before shattering them into a hundred pieces with a grenade from a launcher in your right. As a Big Daddy you also get to fend off aggressors with your deadly drill attack, should they get too close.

Levels take place in various areas of Rapture, which you unlock as you progress. Each one is different and, while the game's main objectives lie along a relatively linear path, you are essentially free to explore each level as you wish. Doing so reveals some useful secrets and upgrades.

Every area also contains a number of Little Sisters, which you can hunt down and adopt, though you'll need to defeat their existing guardians before you can do so. With a Little Sister at your side it's possible to search for something called Adam, a substance that acts as a currency for the genetic upgrades available in the game. Added to the mix is a new type of baddie: the Big Sister. Much more agile than the lumbering Daddies, encounters with Big Sis are rare but deadly.

Just occasionally, Bioshock 2 manages to go one better than its forebear. The game does a much better job of encouraging you to improvise and develop your own combat strategies, for example, while the various mini games (such as when hacking a security device or a vending machine) are more streamlined than before. In addition, there's now a selection of highly enjoyable multiplayer modes, including some imaginative Bioshock-themed variations on old favourites, such as capture the flag.

However, Bioshock 2 offers no true equivalent to the feeling of awe that the first game inspired. This time around, the setting isn't quite as mysterious, the moral choices presented throughout aren't quite as unsettling and the backstory isn't quite as absorbing. In all other respects, however, Bioshock 2 is an extremely worthy successor to one of the best games of the decade. It's also worth mentioning that Bioshock 2 is frequently every bit as gory and terrifying as its 18 certificate would suggest – as such it won't be to everyone's tastes.

more info

02/24/2010

East-tec Eraser 2010

Anthony Dhanendran, Computeractive, Friday 19 February 2010 at 15:43:00

Keep your computer clean

East-Tec Eraser is designed to clean computers of the tracks we all leave when we use them.

In this case it can deal with both the cookies and history left in internet browsers and the physical traces of files on your computer’s hard disk.

The program can clear browsing traces from both Firefox and Internet Explorer, as well as from Opera, AOL’s browser, Chrome and Safari. Most of the big browsers have their own tools for clearing traces, and while East-Tec Eraser is considerably more thorough, we're not sure that such extra security is particularly valuable.

The program also cleans disks so that you can give them away or sell them – deleting or formatting won’t usually get rid of all the data. It worked well in our tests, and has a couple of nice touches such as the ability to erase single files or folders, not just whole disks.

East-Tec Eraser was easy to set up and use, although it was not the friendliest tool we’ve seen. The fact is, though, that the free products Ccleaner and Eraser 6 will do a similar job without any cost.

It's true that East-Tec Eraser is more thorough than either, and it combines both functions into one product, so if you'd prefer the peace of mind of having a single program that will thoroughly clean your computer, this would be a good choice.

more info

02/21/2010

Mass Effect 2

Jonathan Parkyn, Computeractive, Sunday 21 February 2010 at 09:30:00

Save the galaxy from destruction (again)

The original Mass Effect was a flawed masterpiece. It successfully blended space-age action with role-playing and an involving plot, although some aspects of the game worked better than others.

Occasional technical glitches sometimes spoiled the game’s otherwise-excellent visuals, certain sequences were too dialogue-heavy, the vehicular sections were dull, and loading screens disguised as long rides in lifts stick out as less welcome aspects of an otherwise excellent title.

Instead of repeating these problems in the sequel, the Mass Effect team has managed to address all these issues and produce a magnificent science-fiction role-playing game (RPG).

The story picks up directly from the end of first game. If you played Mass Effect and still have your save game file, it’s possible to import your original character and continue his or her story. The decisions and story paths you took in the first game can also have an effect on some of the events in the sequel. It’s an intriguing and original idea that developer Bioware plans to continue on through to Mass Effect 3, potentially giving your character a vast, trilogy-spanning story arc.

Don’t be put off if you’re a first-timer, though. It’s entirely possible to enjoy Mass Effect 2 without having been anywhere near its predecessor, and those who are new to the series can choose the default male or female Commander Shepard or create their own hero or heroine using Bioware’s superb character-creation tool.

Anyone discouraged by the complexity of RPGs needn’t worry, either. Mass Effect 2 dispenses with many of the more convoluted aspects of RPG micro-management and lets players get on with the fun stuff instead.

After an explosive opening sequence, a curious twist of fate sees Shepard shacking up with a morally dubious ally, in order to save humanity from the new bad boys on the interstellar block, The Collectors. You must assemble a team of expert scientists, soldiers and technicians in order to take the fight to your foe. This is actually an oversimplification of what is, in fact, a deep and engrossing plot, compared with those of other games. And for much of the time you are able to explore the galaxy at will, uncovering new characters, side missions, items and other bits and pieces as you go.

There’s still plenty of dialogue to wade through, but most exchanges are kept reasonably short and sweet this time around. Despite being an RPG, Mass Effect 2 will mostly feel like a third-person action game. The way you control your squad, dive for cover and shoot enemies feels more natural than in some dedicated shooting games.

Mass Effect 2 tries to keep progress interesting by mixing up game styles. As well as shooting, you’ll be exploring, seeking diplomatic solutions, forming relationships, making moral or political decisions and more. In all, the breadth of experience is pretty vast and when the story ends it’s more than likely you’ll want to return to explore the Mass Effect universe further.

That’s not to say that Mass Effect 2 is perfect. There are still one or two graphical glitches, but these are fairly minor. In some scenes, Shepard became stuck to a wall, requiring us to reload a previous save. Possibly more irritating are the planet-scanning sections of the game. These effectively replace the Mako landing craft sequences in the first game, which saw you driving around for ages looking for something that isn’t interesting in the first place.

This has now been replaced with a system where investigating an unknown planet entails selecting it from your Galaxy Map then scanning over its surface for signs of valuable deposits and anomalies. This is still a lengthy and mostly uninteresting diversion from the main game. The good news is that you aren’t obliged to scan every heavenly body in the Milky Way unless you want to fill your ship with resources for upgrading weapons and equipment.

So, it’s a slightly flawed masterpiece once again, but ultimately Mass Effect 2 succeeds far more frequently than it disappoints. And with high production values throughout, including a stellar voice cast, an excellent soundtrack and a highly polished visual design, Mass Effect 2 is a true epic that easily eclipses the first instalment.

Given how good the original was, that’s no mean achievement.

more info

02/20/2010

Dark Void

Jonathan Parkyn, Computeractive, Saturday 20 February 2010 at 10:00:00

Jet-pack your way through a parallel universe

With a 1930s setting and the promise of jetpack-based action, Dark Void seems to be the natural evolution of old, Saturday-cinema adventure serials such as Flash Gordon.

The ‘Void’ in the title refers to a parallel dimension on which your character stumbles. It’s also home to other unfortunates including an evil alien race called the Watchers.

The initial on-foot jungle exploration and combat starts off encouragingly. The game’s cover system, which allows you to hide behind boulders, pillars and so on, is familiar from other games, but Dark Void adds a vertical element as well.

This means that in certain sections of the game you will be required to duck and shoot up or down instead of straight ahead. However, since the viewpoint switches in these situations, it feels no different to shooting forwards normally.

The game soon becomes repetitive and it is not until several hours into proceedings that you finally get to try the game's main attraction, the jet pack. Aerial combat is a lot more fun than fighting on the ground, but it’s not worth slugging through the tedious early sections for.

Meanwhile, the storyline never gets going and is best described as a cross between Halo and King of the Rocket Men. What little plot and characterisation there is feels stretched and flimsy.

Overall, there is little incentive to plod through the single-player campaign. And since there is no multiplayer mode either, our advice is to avoid Dark Void.

more info

02/19/2010

Trusteer Rapport

Anthony Dhanendran, Computeractive, Thursday 18 February 2010 at 16:11:00

Bank online more safely

If you bank online, you may have seen a message on your bank’s website prompting you to install software called Rapport.

It’s an extra layer of security that sits between your computer and your bank, preventing attacks.

It has two main functions – firstly, it makes sure that when you go to your bank’s site, that’s where you’re really going, which stops you being directed by a virus or other attack to a fraudulent site. This worked well in our testing.

The second function is less clear – the program stops anything from taking a screenshot of your computer while you’re banking.

However, some readers have been in touch to say they take such screenshots of their accounts for their own reference. It also prevents screen-reading software from working, which causes problems for the visually impaired.

Despite this, for most users Rapport will be a good addition to their security arsenals, but beware the pitfalls. If it does cause problems, it’s easy to uninstall.

Not all banks offer it, though – check with yours to see if it's available. In the UK the major banks offering it are those from the RBS group (including Natwest), HSBC (and First Direct) and Alliance and Leicester.

more info

02/19/2010

Avast! Internet Security 5

Anthony Dhanendran, Computeractive, Thursday 18 February 2010 at 15:11:00

The free security program goes professional

Avast is primarily known for its free anti-virus product. Previously, it’s been a decent but unpolished product, with good coverage but slightly unfriendly to use.

For the new version 5, the program’s design has been given a complete overhaul, along with some changes in how it works. It also marks the first time the company has tried to give its paid-for program a push as well.

The program protects against the usual suspects – viruses, spyware and other threats that come through the internet – and the built-in firewall replaces the one built into Windows. Unlike the built-in version, Avast’s firewall blocks connections that your computer tries to make to the internet (the Windows one only blocks incoming connections) so that even if there is a program on your computer trying to steal your bank details, the firewall makes it harder for it to get the details out.

If you don’t need the firewall – if you’re happy with the Windows one or you already have another one – the program is available in a Pro version for £20 less, although this omits the anti-spam part of the program too.

One clever addition is the ‘sandbox’, which can be used to run any program on your computer in a mode that prevents it from making changes. If you receive a program by email or over the internet you can run it in the sandbox – even if it’s a virus it can’t infect the computer. This also means you can’t save any changes from programs run in the sandbox – if you run Microsoft Word in the sandbox and save a document, it’ll disappear when you quit the program. That means it’s not suitable for all things, but it works well for testing new programs.

The program is easier to use thanks to its redesign, which arranges all the components into a more logical order. The messages that pop up are more friendly, too, and there are some nice touches such as a message that appears when you connect to a new network, suggesting security settings to use.

It was quick to scan our test computer, and if you’re playing games or watching videos there’s a silent mode that will prevent the program from updating itself and slowing down your connection or popping up unwanted messages (this is automatically started when you switch to a full-screen mode).

The free version of the program does include most of the protection (not the firewall or sandbox), although paying users get faster updates.

Like most security programs, the cost covers a one-year subscription which can be used on up to three computers in your home.

It’s an impressive security program that largely keeps itself to itself, can be set up easily and doesn’t bamboozle users with technical jargon – though the more experienced can access more advanced settings.

more info

02/17/2010

The Saboteur

Jonathan Parkyn, Computeractive, Tuesday 16 February 2010 at 16:14:00

Freeing Paris from the Nazis turns out to be a less-than-liberating experience

The idea behind The Saboteur is of an open-world game, similar to Saint’s Row or Grand Theft Auto, but based in wartorn Paris.

However, the gratuitous opening cutscene, set in a strip club, is almost a metaphor of what is to follow. The game does nothing to dress up its World War II setting as anything other than a backdrop for what are some unapologetically cheap thrills.

From this point on, The Saboteur could be described as a blend of Grand Theft Auto and the TV show ‘Allo ‘Allo, with elements of Assassin’s Creed thrown in for good measure, since the player frequently has to run and jump across roofs.

It offers a large open-world environment and a mission-based gameplay structure that sees the main character, an Irish racing driver-turned-Resistance recruit, liberating various districts of Nazi-occupied Paris as he seeks revenge for the brutal murder of his best friend.

As with other open-world games, The Saboteur has different types of missions which involve racing, shooting or sneaking around. It’s nothing original but, aside from a slight overreliance on lengthy driving sequences to get you from one mission to the next, the game does a good job of balancing its different play styles, helping to keep things as varied and interesting as possible.

You are often left to decide which way to approach an objective. You could disguise yourself as a Nazi officer and sneak past your enemies or, if you prefer, jump into the fray with all guns blazing.

Very few aspects of The Saboteur break new ground technically. In its favour, though, the game features some striking sections that take place entirely in black and white. The idea is that whenever the player rids a particular area of the French capital of its Nazi occupiers, the dark, brooding monochrome visuals give way to glorious Technicolor.

Sadly, the game looks a whole lot less impressive when this happens. The switch to full colour actually emphasises many of the game’s underlying graphical weaknesses, such as its crude-looking character models and samey environments.

On top of that, some PC users with ATI graphics cards have reported problems running The Saboteur on their computers. EA has released a patch to help address this issue and hopefully a full update will be released soon. Visit the game’s website for more information if you are affected.

It’s something of a shame that The Saboteur never lives up to its initial premise. However, if you can get past the technical letdowns, the lack of sophistication and the slightly insensitive handling of its subject material, you will find a surprisingly diverse and enjoyable game.

Pegi age rating: 15+

more info

02/16/2010

Review: Zscaler cloud-based security

Alan Stevens, V3.co.uk, Monday 15 February 2010 at 15:05:00

A simple and affordable way to secure web communications

Security in the cloud may be the 'next big thing' but, apart from hosting existing products on servers of their own, few security vendors have done much to embrace the concept. One exception is Zscaler, which offers a unique web filtering service designed from the ground up as an answer to cloud computing security.

Zscaler offers, in effect, a secure internet connection for a simple monthly subscription. There's no need for any extra hardware, making it very easy to test. All we needed to do was configure the browsers on our test network to connect to the web via a Zscaler proxy. We did this manually and it took just a few minutes, but the process can be automated for large companies and locked down to prevent users bypassing the controls later on.

As well as being quick and easy to set up, another advantage with Zscaler is the ability to protect mobile as well as office-bound users equipped with either notebooks or smartphones. To support this Zscaler has servers in over 40 datacentres across the world, insuring fast, low latency connectivity regardless of location. Users are connected to a local proxy by default, but even when we manually attached via proxies in the US or as far away as Hong Kong we saw no real drop in performance and remarkably little impact on latency.

Security profiles likewise are maintained and applied regardless of the proxy server being used. A simple yet comprehensive web-based console is provided for management and, when a change is made, it's immediately implemented across the Zscaler network.

How it works

The Zscaler proxies inspect all web traffic passing in or out of customer networks, applying a variety of user configured filters or profiles as it goes. A default set of profiles were configured as soon as we were signed up, providing a base level of security, and a useful online getting-started guide took us through tweaking the settings to suit our needs.

We began by making sure that the built-in anti-virus and anti-spyware services were active. They were, so we immediately began trial downloads of suspect files from Eicar and other security test sites. Zscaler correctly intercepted everything we threw at it, and displayed a customisable warning to let us know what was going on.

Next, we moved on to add rules to stop users browsing sites of our choosing. This we did by selecting from a categorised list to which we could easily add exceptions and, usefully, find out how particular sites would be classified in advance.

Again this worked well, and it was good to find that we could specify different rules for different users and quickly differentiate between office-bound and mobile connections. Another nice feature was the ability to specify when rules should be applied, and even set daily quotas to allow users a couple of hours of online shopping, but no more, for example.

Other controls let us selectively block access to public webmail services, such as Google Mail and Hotmail, with the option of allowing access while still blocking attachments. Similarly we could control the use of popular instant messaging, social networking and blogging services, plus sites such as YouTube that stream video and other data over the internet. Bandwidth controls were another option, along with customisable compliance policies to prevent data leakage.

Performance

Despite scanning every packet passing in and out of our network there was no noticeable impact on performance with Zscaler, which uses its own patented technology to assess the threat level posed by different sites and services. This is all the more impressive given that it's a multi-tenanted solution which meant that we were sharing the host servers with other customers.

Moreover, unlike a lot of security products, there was no assumption of technical expertise and very little in the way of complex jargon to master. Indeed, it only took a couple of hours to become familiar with how it all worked and a couple more to be confident that we had a robust and effective security policy.

The analysis and reporting tools were impressive too. Logs generated by proxy servers can be huge, but Zscaler uses its own NanoLog compression technology to reduce the storage required, enabling it to keep huge amounts of data. That, in turn, allowed us to not just monitor trends from a summary dashboard view, but drill down to individual users and transactions to see just who was doing what.

In the end the only real issue we had with Zscaler was that it can only secure web traffic. On the plus side that's how the majority of threats are transmitted nowadays, but it means having to deploy other products to protect against infections spread by other means, such as removable media and SMTP email.

Such concerns aside, Zscaler really does make light work of securing web communications, and at a remarkably affordable price. There's no hardware to install and no software to update. It's all hosted and done for you up in the cloud. It's easy to manage and it just works.

more info

02/13/2010

Review: Laplink PCsync 6

Mike Williams, V3.co.uk, Friday 12 February 2010 at 15:47:00

The latest version of Laplink's data transfer and synchronisation tool adds Mac compatibility

Keeping your laptop, desktop and other network computers synchronised is a time consuming and difficult business, especially if you opt to manually compare and transfer files.

Life could be much easier with a little automated assistance, and Laplink PCsync 6 delivers just about everything you might need in order to synchronise, backup, mirror or replicate your most important documents.

The program provides a straightforward wizard to simplify the process of creating a new sync job, for instance. In just a few clicks you're able to define a folder pair (one local folder, one on the remote computer), the sync direction (unidirectional or bidirectional), the type of files to transfer, and what to do if there's a conflict (such as both files having been updated since the last sync). It couldn't be much easier to use.

And, while your sync job will run manually by default, a capable scheduler also allows you to set up unattended transfers at the date and time of your choice.

PCsync 6 will work across many different connection types, and a wired or wireless network, one of Laplink's special USB network cables, or Windows Easy Transfer cables from third-party manufacturers like Belkin are all supported. We found an ancient USB network cable in a drawer, and that worked too.

The PCsync 6 licence allows you to install the program on up to three systems, which can be running almost anything. Windows XP, 2003, Vista and Windows 7 (32-bit and 64-bit) are all officially supported. Windows Server 2008 isn't, but appeared to work in our tests. And new to PCsync 6 is a version that will run on Mac OS X (10.5 and 10.6), so you can now synchronise and transfer files between a PC and Mac.

Getting these systems communicating can occasionally be tricky, though. PCsync is supposed to detect and display other computers on your network that are also running the program so that you can make a connection with a click. But in practice we found this rarely happened. Instead we had to manually enter a PC's IP address before it was recognised.

Was there some PCsync option that needed tuning? We checked Help to find out, but that proved another disappointment. The documentation is thin, poorly presented and doesn't include a Search function, so tracking down the information you need may take some time.

Fortunately, you're unlikely to need Help too much, as the rest of PCsync 6 is generally well designed and works without problems.

Transfer speeds are good thanks to Laplink's SpeedSync technology, which transfers only the modified sections of a file. We never reached the 800 per cent maximum improvement that SpeedSync is said to deliver, but our transfers were regularly twice as fast as achieved by Windows alone.

This extra performance means that PCsync 6 can work well as a backup program, mirroring important files to an external hard drive, USB or network drive.

And there's a welcome new bonus feature in the Mac Migration Wizard. If you've decided to replace an ageing Windows PC with a shiny new Mac, this will automate the process of collecting your most important documents, videos, pictures and more, and transferring them to their new home.

more info

01/25/2010

Blu-ray: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

Tom Royal, Computeractive, Sunday 24 January 2010 at 20:42:00

It's not up there with the Pixar classics, but the anarchic sense of humour of this computer-animated film from Sony Pictures puts it a cut above most

Computer animated films have tended, over the last decade, to fall into one of two groups: truly excellent works, usually produced by Pixar, and mediocre fare packed with notable actors providing voice work. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs doesn’t quite edge its way in alongside Toy Story, The Incredibles and Wall-E, but it’s far better than most star-studded nonsense.

The plot is fairly straightforward: a young man named Flint, faced with a life of boredom in the run-down town of Swallow Falls, invents a machine that makes it rain food, with unforeseen consequences. There’s also a romantic sub-plot concerning the arrival of a would-be weather reporter, Sam Sparks.

What lifts the film above mere multiplex-fodder, though, is not the quality of the animation or voice acting, although the former is superb and the latter fine with a notable turn from Bruce Campbell, but the sheer anarchic barrage of humour that surrounds the plot.

Like a good episode of the Simpsons, the story is assaulted with jokes from all sides, with one-liners and background sight gags everywhere. Even the most minor characters, such as the taciturn weather channel cameraman, get some good gags, and nothing is cast aside, as even incidental comments and objects from the first half of the film come back later to get laughs – witness, for example, the return of the television on legs during a looting scene.

Overall even this torrent of good-natured humour can’t quite lift Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs up to the standard of the very best animated films, but it is nonetheless a wonderfully creative film worth a watch.

This Blu-ray edition is notably good value. As well as several short documentaries, all presented in HD, there are animatics (rough, sketch-like animations used early in the animation process), extended scenes and interactive games – although those with PC-based Blu-ray players might find, like us, that these interactive sections do not work on their equipment. The Blu-ray disc is also sold with a DVD in the packet, allowing those with DVD players to “upgrade” to the high-definition version later.

more info

01/23/2010

Nuance Paperport 12

Simon Williams, Computeractive, Friday 22 January 2010 at 15:04:00

Turn paper documents into fully editable, searchable files

Converting paper documents into electronic ones needs two things: a scanner or camera, and optical character recognition (OCR) software.

Once you have a document as a computer file, though, it needs to be effectively editable for easy retrieval. Paperport is designed to do both these things and is just about the only document manager available at a reasonable price for the home or small business customer.

Paperport 12 offers a simple process in which each document you scan or load is shown as a thumbnail of its first page. It works with whatever scanner is connected to the computer, either a standalone flatbed model or the scanner section of a combined printer/scanner. Choose the type of scan that's needed – black-and-white or colour – and the software will automatically handle problems such as adjusting the contrast and straightening the final image.

That's only the start, though. At the bottom of the Paperport screen are a series of icons taken from the applications that it finds on the computer. If you want to convert the scanned documents into Word or PDF format, drag the document icon over the appropriate program icon and the OCR application converts it automatically.

Nuance makes the leading Omnipage OCR engine and the version included here did a very good job with the test documents we tried coming through looking very much like the originals, but with editable, searchable text. Having a searchable PDF file, where each page has text rather than being scanned pictures of pages, is a lot more useful and, as a bonus, takes up less room on the hard disk. A full version of Nuance’s PDF Reader software is included.

Paperport 12 works not only with scanned images but can also handle pictures of documents taken using a digital camera. The software can correct an image skewed left or right, forward or back in three dimensions. Using a camera can be a lot easier than carrying round a scanner so if you have to scan documents when away from a computer this is a bonus.

The program can be used for categorisation and filing of documents, offering 29 different colour tags to help organise the work. It can also create PDF files from mixed content, so you can put together a PDF containing, for example, a Word document, an Excel spreadsheet and photos.

more info

01/21/2010

Tomtom UK and Ireland for iPhone

Tom Royal, Computeractive, Wednesday 20 January 2010 at 15:38:00

Use your iPhone as a driving aid

Like many modern smartphones, Apple’s iPhone 3G and 3GS have built-in GPS satellite navigation systems and can show on a map where they are located.

This Tomtom program, downloadable for £60 from Apple’s App Store, turns it into a full-blown satellite navigation system for driving.

The program includes everything you would expect to find in a mid-range satellite navigation system. You can find locations by address or postcode – it has a full seven-digit postcode search – or look for points of interest such as a nearby petrol station.

Also, conveniently, you can navigate to any addresses stored in the phone’s contact list. Once the destination is found the software shows a 3D map of your location and provides spoken turn-by-turn warnings. As usual these can be given in a selection of voices and languages, and there’s a night mode for the display.

We tried several journeys with and without the car kit, and found that the Tomtom software worked well, guiding us to our destinations without trouble and recalculating reasonably quickly when we were forced off-route.

There are, however, a few extras required. For one you’ll need some kind of cradle to prop the phone up in a suitable position near the windscreen. Equally importantly you’ll need a car charger for the iPhone, as using the GPS sensor drains its battery enormously.

You can buy both together in the form of Tomtom’s own Car Kit. This includes a windscreen mount, a louder speaker and a charger. It also has an extra GPS sensor, which makes the application available to iPod Touch users, since the device doesn’t have a GPS sensor built in. The kit costs £100, though, making the complete app-plus-car-kit system fairly expensive at £160.

If you already have a suitable cradle and power supply for long journeys, the £60 price makes this software a bargain, against the price of buying a standalone satellite-navigation device. Add in the cost of the car kit if needed, though, and it begins to look a bit steep.

more info

01/17/2010

Ghostbusters: The Video Game

Jonathan Parkyn, Computeractive, Sunday 17 January 2010 at 10:00:00

A spiritual sequel to the action-comedy films

Few video games are based on a movie that’s over 25 years old, but that’s no bad thing when the movie in question is Ghostbusters, one of the most iconic films of the 1980s, and the game reunites all the key cast members from the movie.

Ghostbusters: The Video Game is a completely new episode of supernatural tomfoolery, set a couple of years after the events of Ghostbusters II.

The voiceovers are all provided by the film’s original actors: Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson, and as with the films, the humorous script is penned by Akroyd and Ramis.

Unfortunately you can’t play as Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz or Egon Spengler. Instead, the game sees you assuming the role of a new rookie Ghostbuster, just as another paranormal threat hits New York City. The plot involves the re-awakening of Gozer, the malevolent entity from the first movie, which is how the game manages to bring some familiar situations, environments and bad guys from the films, such as the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, during the early levels.

Ghostbusters is essentially a third-person shooter with a slight twist; all the shooting involves using the famous proton pack, with a variety of different modes and as expected, the streams mustn’t be crossed. The game’s control system is easy to pick up, but those used to the pinpoint accuracy of most modern shooters will find wielding weapons like the Blast Stream and Slime Blower fairly clunky in comparison. This is the point of the game, though, and as with the movies, the best situations in Ghostbusters are the most chaotic and silly.

As a game, Ghostbusters is far from perfect. In addition to zapping ghosts as part of the plot, you also have to deal with the game’s irritating gremlins that pop up now and again to spoil the fun. For example, characters occasionally seem to get ‘stuck’ for no apparent reason. The game’s visuals are also inconsistent, with some noticeably bland textures.

However, Ghostbusters is witty, fun and captures the spirit of the films well, and that in itself is worth the admission price.

PEGI age rating: 12+

more info

01/16/2010

James Cameron’s Avatar: The Game

Jonathan Parkyn, Computeractive, Friday 15 January 2010 at 17:17:00

An uninspiring game that's not quite as good as the film

No box office smash is complete without a low-quality video game tie-in. True to form, the story behind Avatar: The Game is wafer-thin and has little to do with the plot of the film itself.

You play a signals expert named Ryder who has just landed on the planet Pandora. For reasons that are not adequately explained in the game, Pandora’s human colonists are able to transfer their consciousness to ‘avatars’ of Pandora’s indigenous population, the Na’vi.

After a series of humdrum, run-and-fetch missions as both a human and a 10-foot-tall blue alien, you suddenly have to make a choice between siding with your own people or staying in the avatar and joining the Na’vi, effectively offering you two completely different games in one.

In either case, however, the game continues to drip-feed uninspiring, forgettable missions (most of which involve fetching something) until you either reach the equally forgettable conclusion or give up playing altogether – whichever comes first.

The only genuinely interesting thing about Avatar: The Game is that, like its cinematic sibling, it features support for stereoscopic 3D to further enhance its already vibrant visuals. However, to benefit from this, you will need to invest in a lot of specialised equipment, including a compatible Nvidia graphics card, special glasses and a 120Hz-capable display.

Its 3D capabilities aside, Avatar: The Game’s crowning achievement is the way in which it takes the astonishing spectacle of the movie and reduces it to an ultimately mundane gaming experience.

more info

01/15/2010

Cyberlink Media Suite 8

Orestis Bastounis, Computeractive, Thursday 14 January 2010 at 15:24:00

A Swiss Army knife for music and video files

Media Suite 8 is a collection of programs for viewing and editing media files and creating CD, DVD or Blu-ray discs.

It includes PowerDVD 9 and Powerdirector 8 for watching and editing videos, Mediashow 5 for organising photos, Wave Editor for editing audio and Power Producer 5 for capturing video from a camcorder. There are also tools for backing up data, copying discs, printing disc labels, converting audio to the MP3 format, ripping audio CDs and sharing media online.

The application launcher saves users from having to memorise what each application does and minimises time spent digging through menus. It provides a long list of tasks that users might want to perform, such as 'play a movie disc'. Select a task and Media Suite automatically loads the relevant application, most of the time with the correct window open and ready to go.

While you may not own a camcorder or a Blu-ray recorder, there are plenty of tools in Media Suite 8 for more general use, often with extras that aren’t usually found in free alternatives. For example the True Theatre HD feature of PowerDVD 9 can enhance the visual quality of DVDs by upscaling the video so it looks better on high-definition screens. Mediashow can automatically locate images on your hard disk by selecting one person’s face – the program will mark all the other photos it finds with the same face.

You can directly upload photos to Facebook or Flickr from Media Suite 8, with options to resize Flickr images or set the privacy options for your Facebook photos directly. Uploading video to Youtube was just as straightforward.

There are three versions of Media Suite 8 available, all containing the same applications. The basic Centra package omits such features as Blu-ray support (the Pro version in the middle can create such discs but can’t play them back while the highest Ultra one can do both). It also can't be used to view high-definition video files.

While these are nice to have, most of the rest of the package is intact, and despite the low price point, the Centra version is still full of tools to keep on top of your digital media, and is therefore outstanding value for money, especially for those who don’t use Blu-ray discs.

For a full comparison of all the versions, click here to see the comparison table on Cyberlink's website.

Some of the applications, for example Mediashow, may not have as many image editing options as more expensive dedicated programs such as Adobe Photoshop Elements, but the basic tasks used by most people such as cropping and red-eye reduction are all there.

It's hard to see what else could realistically be added at this price, and most importantly, all of the applications are easy to use.

more info

01/14/2010

Avanquest Partition Commander 11

Simon Williams, Computeractive, Wednesday 13 January 2010 at 15:49:00

Take the sweat out of restructuring your hard disk

If your computer appears to have more than one hard disk, it may in fact just have a single physical disk that’s divided into two or more partitions.

Any disk can be divided into several partitions – they’re not physical divisions, but the computer sees them as completely separate disks.

Avanquest’s Partition Commander 11, as the name implies, lets users work with partitions, change their sizes, creating new ones, removing old ones and it can even help with installing different operating systems on each.

The program has been designed for use by both beginners and more advanced users, and includes a number of wizards to carry out the most common tasks. So, for example, if you want to change the size of a partition, select the disk in question and drag a slider on screen to choose the new size. It would be good to have been able to type in an exact figure, but this isn’t an option.

If you’re confident with this type of software, the full version of the interface is easy to use and well organised. Once you’ve set up what you want to do, the program restarts Windows to complete the process. You can also run it from the CD itself which is less pretty but makes for quicker operation.

Partition Commander 11 is compatible with Windows 7, as well as with Vista and XP, and can handle a variety of filing systems, including the Apple HFS system that’s found on current Mac computers. Although the program only runs under Windows, it can work on a Mac through the appropriate software. It can also help make a Windows computer into what’s called a dual-boot PC, so that it can load either Linux or Windows, for example, with the user choosing each time the computer starts.

The program can also handle backup of single partitions or full hard disks and Avanquest has included a basic version of its Autosave 2 backup utility, which automatically duplicates every file you save in a second backup location, such as on another partition.

The real snag with Partition Commander 11 is that you’re rarely likely to use it. While it’s very useful when you need to change the partitions on a disk, most people don’t need to do this regularly, if ever. The program is only good for one installation, too, unlike many utility and programs which come with licences to use them on three or five computers.

more info

01/13/2010

Greenstreet Publisher 4.6

Cliff Joseph, Computeractive, Tuesday 12 January 2010 at 15:34:00

An affordable and easy-to-use desktop-publishing program

Greenstreet’s Publisher isn’t the most sophisticated desktop-publishing program available for home users or small businesses, but it’s affordable and easy to use, and well worth considering for simpler publishing projects.

The program provides a wide range of tools for designing and printing several different kinds of document. When Publisher is started its Startup screen provides three main options.

More experienced users can just create a blank page and work on the page layout from scratch, but there’s a selection of built-in tutorials that will guide beginners through the basics of document design, along with a collection of templates to help get started.

The templates cover a variety of documents from business cards to newsletters, posters, and folding leaflets. Users can alter the appearance of any template very easily by choosing one of the many pre-defined colour schemes or font settings.

However, it’s a little disappointing that most of the templates for documents such as newsletters will only create just one or two pages. You can use the Add Page function to create longer, multi-page documents, but the user is still left to do much of the layout work themselves. This means that Publisher is really best suited to shorter documents.

But within that limitation Publisher provides plenty of design tools for users to work with. As well as basic tools for creating a page layout containing multi-column text and graphics, it includes a wide range of useful extras.

There’s a simple spreadsheet that allows users to insert tables of numerical data and graphs and charts, a ‘powertext’ tool for creating eye-catching 3D text and logos, and a mail-merge option that can be used for printing out mailshots and group letters. There’s even an option for printing barcode labels containing product information.

Our only other complaint is that there’s no printed manual included with the program, and wading through the on-screen help files to find information about specific features was a bit frustrating at times.

However, at just over £30, Greenstreet Publisher is still good value if you need a little help designing simple documents for a small business or a club.

more info

01/12/2010

PC Tools Spyware Doctor with Antivirus 2010

Anthony Dhanendran, Computeractive, Monday 11 January 2010 at 17:12:00

Protection from a wide range of online threats

Founded in 2003, PC Tools is best known for its Spyware Doctor utility.

In recent years, the company has attempted to build on its success with the spyware-killing product by combining it with anti-virus capabilities, and Spyware Doctor with Antivirus 2010 is the latest version.

All types of malicious programs are scanned for, including spyware, adware, viruses and worms, while the software also protects against threats that come up when browsing the web, such as phishing websites and rogue pop-ups. One of the few security features it doesn’t include is a firewall – for this, you’ll need to buy PC Tools Internet Security, which costs an extra £10.

In general, PC Tools has done a good job in terms of usability. The home screen is easy to understand and gives a quick overview of what security services are running and when the last update took place. Things get more complicated if you click on the Intelliguard button, which displays the various individual security components, and the software uses a lot of technical jargon without fully explaining what it means.

Although most users will simply want to leave everything switched on, a comprehensive glossary of technical terms would have been good. We were also disappointed to find the full manual is online-only, which isn’t much use if a virus has disrupted your internet connection.

When we tested the software (Windows 7, Vista and XP are all supported) we were a little surprised to find the initial full scan took just under one hour. Subsequent scans using the Intelliscan engine were much faster and took an average of four minutes.

However, Intelliscan only checks running processes and commonly-infected locations, so full scans will still need to be run from time to time. On completion, the software details any threats along with an indication of their severity. After a full scan it found four threats and 221 infections on our test PC, though it was honest enough to admit that all were relatively tame in terms of the risks they posed. It’s then just a case of clicking a button to clean and remove them.

As with other modern security software, emphasis here is on real-time scanning using the program’s updated Threatfire scanning engine. Unlike scans that rely on detecting threats by comparing them against a known list, real-time scans monitor for suspicious behaviour, in theory protecting against new and unknown viruses.

With a wide range of security features, Spyware Doctor with Antivirus is good value at £40, which includes one year’s updates and a license that allows it to be installed on up to three computers.

However, it’s worth checking out Norton Internet Security 2010, which at the time of writing is available for £35 (three-user license) and includes a firewall.

more info

01/11/2010

Colin McRae: Dirt 2

Jonathan Parkyn, Computeractive, Sunday 10 January 2010 at 14:00:00

The rally series heads off the beaten track

The great man himself may have passed into legend, but a small part of Colin McRae lives on in the long-running series of racing games that bears his name.

The latest entry in the 11-year-old franchise is, however, a very different proposition from previous realistic rally simulations.

Dirt 2 drops most of the authenticity in favour of a more accessible ‘extreme sport’ approach.

True point-to-point rally racing forms only a small part of the game’s career mode, which mixes up a variety of different off-road racing disciplines to the tune of a high-energy rock soundtrack. For the most part this is a success.

Arcade-like head-to-head rallycross, dune buggy and stadium races are exhilarating additions and help to make the multiplayer element of the game more enjoyable.

As ever, the handling feels very natural, but the effects of vehicle damage are relatively forgiving and can be turned off altogether. And if you make a mistake, it’s even possible to rewind time and carry on like it never happened.

The PC release of Dirt 2 is notable for being one of the first titles to support Microsoft’s new DirectX 11 graphics standard. Since there are currently only a handful of DirectX 11 graphics cards available, this is something few will currently be able to take advantage of.

Even without the DirectX 11 effects switched on though, the game’s visuals are stunning.

Purists may bemoan Dirt 2’s lack of realism but the game’s environments, tracks and licensed car models themselves are all incredibly true to life.

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