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.

09/03/2010

Microsoft Office 2010

Anthony Dhanendran, Computeractive, Thursday 2 September 2010 at 17:18:00

The big name in work software returns

A few years ago Microsoft Office was the best way to get hold of good-quality software for word processing, spreadsheets and presentations, but there are now lots of alternatives.

The free Open Office lacks the good looks of its paid-for rival but is good at the nuts and bolts. Online alternatives such as Google Docs and Zoho which make it simple to collaborate and share documents (see our full round-up of alternatives).

The new Office 2010 doesn’t have much in the way of big, obvious new features – the big move came with its immediate predecessor, Office 2007, which introduced the new ‘ribbon’ interface.

The ribbon remains here – instead of having menus along the top of the screen the main features of the program are arranged into panels and boxes with simple icons that make them easy to pick out.

It is confusing if you are used to menus, but we prefer it, having got used to it, and for newcomers it’s far more intuitive than having to learn where everything is in each menu.

The ribbon has been extended to every part of the program and it’s now customisable.

Several improvements have been made to how the various programs work, noticeably in Excel where some functions load noticeably faster. In each application, the ‘file’ functions have been moved into a new tab called Backstage.

This makes it easy to preview documents before printing. It also gives access to one of Word’s most important new additions, which is handling for versions – it will automatically save versions of your document as you type, to which you can then go back.

Office 2007 improved the programs’ handling of graphics and colours so it was much easier to make good-looking charts and diagrams. Office 2010 adds a few more nice touches and better picture handling in Word.

There are several versions: for most home users the one to go for is Home and Student 2010 which includes Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Onenote and access to the new Office Web Apps for online document sharing and editing.

The Starter edition, pre-loaded on some new computers, is cut-down and cannot be bought separately, but if you need no more than Word and Excel it may not be worth changing from that. It’s a shame that if you want the advanced email and calendar handling of Outlook you will have to pay an extra £130 for the Home and Business edition.

It’s worth noting that the Starter and Home and Student versions cannot be used commercially. If you are running a business and using Office there is realistically nothing to stop you but you will be in breach of the terms and conditions. The cheapest business version is Home and Business (the only difference between that and the cheaper editions is the addition Outlook).

It’s also worth noting that if you are buying a new PC you may be offered an Office Key Card that gives you one of the full Office versions at a slight discount.

However, this only offers one licence and can’t be transferred to another PC even if you sell the first one. The ‘full’ Home and Student edition can be installed on three PCs, while the Home and Business edition can only be installed on two.

The RRP of £110 for Office 2010 Home and Student is high, but it’s available for around £70 online and at that price we would have no hesitation in buying it.

more info

09/02/2010

The Times and Sunday Times

Anthony Dhanendran, Computeractive, Wednesday 1 September 2010 at 17:10:00

Get your daily and Sunday papers online – for a price

The Times and Sunday Times recently made history by becoming the first national newspapers to charge their online readers to read the newspapers online.

Most British newspapers have been happy to allow online readers to read everything online without paying, relying on adverts and buyers of the printed edition to keep the finances rolling (like Computeractive). But if you want to read The Times or Sunday Times online you will have to pay.

That applies even if you have bought a copy of today’s paper, although if you have a Times subscription you may get free access to the websites (it has to be through The Times itself, though; subscriptions through local newsagents don’t count).

The websites of both papers have been redesigned and they now look much more like their print equivalents than we would expect from a newspaper website. You still see advertising, despite having to pay for access, but it’s less intrusive than on other sites. It’s easy to read the pages, and if you prefer there’s an ‘e-paper’ that shows the pages as they were printed rather than laid out for the web.

Content is good, with everything that appears in the daily and Sunday papers and more, though much of it – most of the news, sport and business sections – is available elsewhere on the web for nothing.

The Opinion, Life and Arts sections are clearly what The Times expects people are going to pay for, and there are some highlights including the Op-Ed Live pages that include video by columnists including Matthew Parris and Freakonomics auther Stephen Dubner.

There are also occasional ‘live chat’ events with columnists or just with other readers, and a Need to Know daily business video that comes with its own ‘heat map’ to show how popular business stories are.

It’s a pain having to log in each day, although once you are logged in you don’t need to again until the following day. Comments can be left on some stories, and if you do so you are listed under your real name which makes discourse more civilised (it’s harder for people to leave abusive comments when anonymity is limited, though you can change the name you use).

Disappointingly, the subscription does not give access to the newspapers’ crosswords – those require a separate payment – but it does give access to daily and weekly newsletters on several topics and a page of ‘exclusive offers’.

The most irritating thing about the whole process was cancelling it. There is no way to close your account online. Instead you have to phone the number shown on the My Account page (which took us to the main switchboard, not the digital accounts department), press the number for the operator, ask for the digital department and then ask to leave.

more info

09/01/2010

Microsoft Publisher 2010

Simon Williams, Computeractive, Tuesday 31 August 2010 at 16:17:00

A good page designer for home-office use

When Microsoft introduced its redesigned Office 2007, the desktop-publishing program Publisher was not included in the package, but the balance has now been restored with Publisher 2010.

The ribbon toolbar introduced in Office 2007 is included here and incorporates not only the menu options of the earlier program, but all the tools in the vertical toolbox that used to sit down the left-hand side of the editing screen. The new positioning takes a bit of getting used to, but once we spent a little time with the 2010 version it became easy enough to use.

As in newer editions of Word, some ribbon tabs only appear in context, so the Drawing, Picture and Word Art ribbons only appear when a relevant object is selected. This is supposed to keep the screen uncluttered, as is the new method of showing frame borders and guidelines only when you move the mouse pointer close to them. More seasoned page designers, who like to see all objects on their pages, may find this annoying.

There are other changes to the way Publisher works. It has improved photo handling and can now crop images to shapes other than rectangles, insert them into a page through drag-and-drop and swap any two photos in one operation.

Multi-page documents used to show a little row of page icons at the bottom of the editing screen so you could switch quickly to any page and move pages and spreads around by dragging. Publisher 2010 has replaced these icons with a column of thumbnails down the left-hand side of the page. These show the contents of the pages, so are easier to recognise, but there is now more scrolling involved when moving around a document.

The ‘file’ functions such as saving and printing have been gathered together into a separate screen called Backstage View, which automatically shows users a print preview. This is useful, though again is a bit odd at first glance.

As well as supporting desktop printers, Publisher 2010 can prepare documents to print at a bureau or a commercial printer.

Print-on-demand services are becoming more common and more people are now interested in producing their own pamphlets and books. So, this support for professional colour formats and the program's 'pre-flight' checks, which flag up any problems with your design, can save a lot of angst.

Publisher 2010's main competitor in the home is Serif’s Pageplus X4, which has better features and is slightly cheaper, but the Microsoft program feels the more able of the two.

If you are used to the way Office programs work, it also fits in better with the rest of the suite.

more info

08/29/2010

Lock On: Flaming Cliffs 2

Tim Smith, Computeractive, Sunday 29 August 2010 at 09:15:00

Take to the skies with this realistic flight simulator

Lock On: Flaming Cliffs 2 is an add-on pack for the flight simulator game Lock On:Modern Air Combat (LOMAC).

The original game is getting on for eight years old, but Flaming Cliffs 2 gives it a significant new lease of life. You'll need a copy of LOMAC installed, but you can buy this for just £12 at the same time you don't have it already.

There are eight aircraft included: two American and six Russian. The A-10A Warthog ground attack and F-15 fighter make up the American side. The Russian ground attack aircraft are the Su-25 Frogfoot and the Su-25T Improved Frogfoot. The fighters are the MiG-29A, MiG-29C, Su-27 and Su-33.

The MiG-29C and Su-25T are completely new aircraft with some important differences. The avionics in the latter have been greatly improved so the Head-up Display (HUD) now has lots of useful information compared to the rather basic crosshairs in the Su-25. It also has some new weapons and a TV-based targeting system.

A new Western Caucasus region for missions is also included - anyone who has played the same maker's DCS: Black Shark will find this region familiar. An exciting prospect is that multiplayer games are compatible between the two flight simulators.

The starting screens have been completely redesigned and share a common design with Black Shark while Flaming Cliffs 2's graphics are very good and much improved over LOMAC.

One very useful feature to come over from Black Shark is 'mouse look'. It cannot be used to click on switches in the cockpit but it is a very effective way of looking around the aircraft, especially on approach to landing.

The flight models (the way the aircraft behave in flight) have been greatly improved for the Su-25 and Su-25T. If you have uneven stores on the flight, for instance after firing a missile, the aircraft responds by rolling towards the heavier wing. It's one of those extra challanges that makes the game more fun.

Landings also have a high degree of realism and vary between aircraft. Fighters such as the F15 are straightforward to land with their good manouveability and plenty of power to correct a low approach. The overloaded Su-25T is a lot more challenging, not least for the fact that the speed is in kilometres-per-hour and height in metres.

Our first attempt at landing was too fast with too high a sink rate and broke the undercarriage. Rather than the instant crash that can make some flight simulators very frustrating the damage was accurately modelled.

A slightly better - though still too fast - landing burst a tyre on the main undercarriage. There's even a sound effect for that and the controls are affected with the aircraft sliding off to one side regardless of rudder correction.

Other challenges include carrier take offs and landings with the Su-33 and in-flight refueling.

There is a selection of training missions that cover the different aspects of each of the different aircraft. Once you are comfortable with the missions, there is a campaign for each aircraft. A logbook keeps a record of successful attacks and landings along with any medals that are awarded.

More casual gamers shouldn't be put off by all of this realism as it can be turned down to make the game more fun and accessible. As well as the usual infinite ammunition and invulnerable modes, there is an easy avionics option that gives a full 360 degree view of targets.

There is a very detailed manual of around 320 pages supplied as a PDF. Sadly the days of long printed manuals that come in the box seem to be over but you can order a printed copy for £20. Given the depth to the game, this is probably worth the cost, the aircraft can be made easier to fly and more information about other aircraft and targets can be displayed.

There is a very large map available for the region, which costs £16, or you can download it as an image file by clicking here (it is a 138MB file so will take some time to download).

Some training videos are supplied but only for the A10 and Su-25 aircraft, though more can be downloaded from the Flaming Cliffs website.

It's a shame they are not supplied as standard but as the F15 videos alone weigh in at 410MB, it's clear how this would have been pushing the limits even of a DVD for installation.

The good thing about the training videos supplied on the DVD is that you can take control at any point. It's quite effective to watch them a couple of times and then do it yourself once you know what's going to happen.

Ultimately Lock On: Flaming Cliffs 2 is a very engaging game that offers many of hours of gameplay, largely depending on how much realsim you want to fly with, and thanks to that customisability there is enough to keep the interest even of players who don't want to get involved in all the realism the game has to offer.

more info

08/28/2010

Sniper: Ghost Warrior review

Jonathan Parkyn, Computeractive, Saturday 28 August 2010 at 09:15:00

Possibly the last word in point-and-shoot gaming

Anyone who has ever played a first-person shooter game, such as Call of Duty, will doubtless have had the pleasure of playing through the sniping level, the inevitable part of the game where you’re suddenly handed a scoped rifle and tasked with picking off your enemies from afar.

It’s a classic way of breaking up the action but would you want a whole game made up of this sort of gameplay? That is, broadly speaking, what you get with Sniper: Ghost Warrior.

In the game, you get to play a number of different characters, each of whom has a part to play in reclaiming a small island nation from a hostile military regime, usually by, you guessed it, sniping your way from point A to point B.

To be fair, some effort has been made to try and prevent the game from sliding into one-note telescopic tedium. Mission objectives are relatively varied and each of the characters you play has a slightly different take on the action. Sometimes stealth is very much the way forward, while other instances require a more traditional ‘guns blazing’ approach.

Unfortunately a number of annoying quirks mar what could have been a surprisingly fun game. Take the graphics: at first they seem pretty good, with jungle environments that look rich and detailed, for example. The trouble is that, while Ghost Warrior often encourages you to crouch down and conceal yourself amongst the foliage, your enemies’ reactions aren’t always as realistic. Often they’ll spot you regardless of how well hidden you are, while a single, dark, textureless leaf shape entirely obscures your aim and prevents you from returning fire.

Get past Ghost Warrior’s frequent frustrations and the game will, at the very least, provide you with more than the occasional opportunity to pull off some satisfying sniper shots. Multiplayer modes have a similarly enjoyable quality, though they fail to stand out from the crowd.

If you’re looking for an authentic simulation of real-life sniper-based military operations, then Sniper: Ghost Warrior isn’t it. Instead it’s a moderately entertaining shooter that wears its flaws on its camouflaged sleeve.

PEGI age rating: 16+

more info

08/26/2010

Nuance Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 Premium review

Khidr Suleman, V3.co.uk, Wednesday 25 August 2010 at 15:50:00

Speech recognition takes a giant step towards retiring the keyboard

Voice-recognition software has come a long way in recent years, and in order to put Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 to the ultimate test we decided to use the software to dictate this review.

The initial setup process takes 30 minutes, but it’s time well spent. Users are required to go through a set of steps including creating a user profile, which asks you to input your name, age range and whether you have an accent or not. Microphone sound quality is then checked and the final stage of the setup involves training NaturallySpeaking 11 to understand your voice.

Nuance’s claim that it can be trained in under four minutes has merit, but users are advised to spend as much time as possible training the software as this will save frustration further down the line.

However, for those who simply can’t wait to get cracking, it is possible to continue training after the initial installation; accuracy can then be improved at a later date.

Training is carried out by the user reading passages of text out loud. There are many passages to chose from, including John F. Kennedy's inaugural speech and lines from Alice in Wonderland.

A headset is included in the box and comes with an adjustable microphone. It has a snug fit, which is important considering it will be heavily used.

When dictating this review, the accuracy of the Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 programme was quite astounding. Nuance claims a 99 per cent accuracy rate, and while we wouldn't go quite this far, it’s very impressive.

The success of the software was always going to be judged by how mistakes are corrected. Thankfully corrections are easy to make and the more the software is used, the less likely it is to make the same mistakes.

It is possible to correct a word by saying 'correct' followed by the erroneous word. The correct word can then be repeated or the user can choose from the alternatives displayed by the software. Additionally users can choose dictate the word letter-by-letter with the ‘spell that’ command; this also helps the software learn new words and is particularly useful when users want to add names of people and places.

When a word needs to be corrected but appears multiple times in the text, NaturallySpeaking neatly numbers all the words and asks the user to choose appropriate one.

Some mistakes can frustrate, but if a whole sentence is flawed it can simply be erased by saying 'scratch that'. A second attempt is usually sufficient. In our tests, the majority of mistakes actually provided light relief, injecting some humour into the most mundane subjects – albeit unintentionally, of course.

As well as speeding up the creation of documents, it is also possible to issue commands, such as ‘save the file’, ‘print the file’ and ‘open/close document’, as well as carry out common tasks in Microsoft Word such as copying and pasting.

A handy quick reference card resource is supplied with the software and lists a number of sample commands. It is a good idea to keep this close at hand while getting used to the software.

Another great feature is that the application is capable of reading back dictated work, in your own voice. This aids proof-reading since if there are any errors you have your original dictation recording to remind you what the correct word should be.

As well as dictating documents in full, the user can initiate commands including sending e-mails and dictating status updates. Browser windows can also be opened by saying a command such as "start Firefox".

Surfing the internet is particularly impressive using the software. It is possible to enter the web address and navigate to a site without having to touch the mouse or keyboard by using commands such as ‘click’ and then the link, or saying a URL followed by ‘go there’. If the software was to be used in conjunction with a laptop possessing a touchscreen, it could make using the internet a much more intuitive experience.

Nuance claims that the software is three times faster than typing. We are hard-pressed to disagree with this as the dictation we experienced was fast, accurate and saved a lot of time writing this review. We envisage it helping in countless other situations, including writing reports, speeches or essays.

As the software can be synced with Microsoft Outlook, Gmail, Mozilla Thunderbird and Lotus Notes programs, it will be an asset to administration tasks. Subject fields, recipients and the body of the text can all be inputted by voice alone.

The ability to compose emails quickly and send them without touching a keyboard will no doubt help business users save time by helping overcome a backlog of emails quickly, for example.

A new addition to the software over previous versions is the onscreen sidebar, which provides reminders of shortcuts along with tips; this automatically adjusts when you are using different programs and can be turned off when you become more proficient.

All the more impressive is the fact that the software is compatible with the majority of applications on the market today. These include Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint, as well as the previously-mentioned email clients.

Other new features include the multiple suggestions offered by the correction tool and an enhanced ability to improve recognition and learn new words over time. Nuance also claims it’s 15 per cent more accurate than version 10. However, since version 10 was already 99 per cent accurate, this increase is minimal.

We do have a few gripes, though. New users will always have to set up a unique profile, so the Nuance application can’t be described as pick-up-and-dictate software. Somewhat unsurprisingly, the software is also guilty of hogging system resources as well.

We ran it on a Windows 7 laptop with a dual-core processor, and when the setup detected that we did not have 4GB of RAM it informed us that the software ‘may not perform as well as expected’.

However the speed of the dictation was still impressive, despite the test laptop only having 1GB of RAM.

There was occasional lag and, when dictating this review, the program was the most resource-heavy application, using up significantly more memory than a Firefox window with six active tabs.

This could be an obstacle for enterprise users who are looking to run the software on a relatively low-powered computer, simply because the system might not be able to handle its heavy demands.

While the upcoming Professional version will be tailored to use in a business setting, it is still hard to imagine it being used in an open-plan office environment. This is mainly because of the distraction it would cause to other staff members and the fact that it requires complete attention to use. Instead, it’s more suited to professionals who have their own office.

Nuance is clearly trying to bring speech recognition into the mainstream; it has been promoting the software in adverts on television and has also released two applications for the iPhone.

If you’re new to voice recognition, it will feel strange at first. However, it doesn’t take long to get used to and it helped us to dictate this review (well over 1,000 words) in no time at all.

more info

08/25/2010

Acronis Backup and Security 2010

Will Stapley, Computeractive, Tuesday 24 August 2010 at 17:05:00

Internet security and online backup at a good price

Backup and Security 2010 is designed to protect your computer (and up to two more in one household) from online threats, as well as safeguarding the data on them.

The main program handles the online security side of things. Although labelled up as an Acronis product, it’s actually a rebranded version of Bitdefender Internet Security.

Protection from a variety of online threats is provided, including viruses, spyware and rootkits. A comprehensive firewall is also included, as are other tools such as those to encrypt specific files.

An almost bewildering array of options is provided when run in Expert mode, but switch to the Novice mode and the software automatically chooses the best settings for you.

We were surprised to find the main program had no links to the backup options. Instead these are provided by Acronis True Image Home 2010, a totally separate program that’s installed alongside Backup and Security. Using the One-Click Backup tool it’s possible to quickly make a backup of your computer's entire hard disk.

Should you prefer, backups of only specified files and folders can be created instead. For extra protection, backups can also be stored online, meaning your data will be protected no matter what happens. The cheaper version comes with 5GB of online storage space or an extra £10 gets you 250GB.

One thing to bear in mind is that this is subscription-based software. If you don’t extend the subscription when it expires in a year, the program is effectively disabled. You won’t be able to make new backups, nor will the security work. However, you will still be able to recover any backups that are not stored online.

Choose the 250GB online storage version (£60) and you’re certainly getting a lot for your money. Rival online backup services charge around £50 per year for the same amount of storage, and with Backup and Security you also get True Image Home (£30 on its own) and Bitdefender Internet Security (also £30).

However, the security and backup components lack integration, which dents the overall ease of use. We’re also not keen on the fact it will stop working once the subscription period has ended.

more info

08/21/2010

Monkey Island 2 Special Edition: Lechuck's Revenge

Jonathan Parkyn, Computeractive, Friday 20 August 2010 at 16:00:00

Revisit the pirates and puzzles of this classic adventure game

In a world where many computer games can look enormously dated after as little as 18 months, it’s a testament to the classic Lucasarts adventure titles that re-releases, such as this special edition of Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge, stand up so well after almost 20 years.

As with 2009’s The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition, this reissue comes with a few added bonuses. You can either play the game as you remember it, complete with old-fashioned graphics and point-and-click controls or you can opt for the Special Edition mode, which adds re-recorded dialogue from the original cast, brand new hand-drawn, high-definition graphics and a completely refreshed musical score. You can even seamlessly switch between the old and new versions at any point during play.

In addition, the Special Edition mode has improved controls that support right-clicking and gamepads, as well as a useful hint system if you find yourself flummoxed by one of the game’s frequently devilish puzzles.

The game obviously works best if you know the plot of the first Monkey Island, but you don’t have to be a fan of the original titles to enjoy Monkey Island 2 Special Edition: LeChuck's Revenge.

This is a game that’s as fresh and funny today as it was back in 1991. It’s available in multiple formats, including PC download from Steam and Direct2Drive at a very affordable price that makes it an essential purchase.

PEGI age rating 12+

more info

08/18/2010

Magix Music Maker 16 Premium

Tim Smith, Computeractive, Tuesday 17 August 2010 at 17:23:00

Start making music on your PC with this easy-to-use software

Music Maker 16 Premium allows people to make music in two ways: by arranging small snippets of music, called samples, or by using virtual instruments called synthesisers (or a combination of the two).

The interface has been greatly improved since the last time we looked at Music Maker – for example, the right-click menu for samples is much less confusing.

The program also has a basic mode for beginners, though this limits compositions to samples, not the synthesisers. The small box on the bottom right of the window can be used to show help and tips as well as the Peakmeter or video preview.

There are ten different styles of samples available, from film scores to electronica via 1960s soul, and there is a demo song for each style.

Seven synthesizers are included, most of which were included in previous versions such as the ‘Vita’ for orchestral instruments and guitars, and the Livid drum machine. If you have a Midi keyboard you can record using one, but instruments can now be played and recorded using the computer keyboard as well.

If you play a real-life instrument the program can record that (or you can add vocals) and effects can be added. The new amp simulator is a great improvement over previous versions though it was disappointing that we couldn’t preview the sound – you can only apply it after the recording is made.

Photos and videos can be added to productions and there are plenty of effects. Finished productions can be exported as audio or video files or uploaded directly to Youtube.

The problem for Music Maker is that there is some fairly stiff competition at this price from Ableton Live Intro (£100) and Steinberg Sequel 2 (£70). Music Maker is easier to learn but is more limited than Ableton Live, certainly when it comes to working with recorded audio.

There is a cheaper version available for £50 with fewer samples and synthesisers and no support for VST instruments, but it’s a cheap way to get started and the upgrade to the Premium version is also good value.

A trial version of Music Maker 16 Premium can also be downloaded.

more info

08/17/2010

Lavasoft Ad-Aware Total Security

Will Stapley, Computeractive, Monday 16 August 2010 at 15:57:00

Comprehensive security package with a wide range of features

Perhaps best known for its Ad-Aware Free software for spyware detection and removal, Lavasoft also makes some all-round home security software.

Ad-Aware Free continues, though, and the latest version also includes protection from viruses.

Total Security is more complete, with extra security features such as a firewall and protection from phishing attacks. The anti-virus component is more advanced compared with the free version – it includes removal of rootkits and behaviour-based scanning. The latter, also known as heuristic scanning, helps protect users from new viruses by constantly monitoring the computer for suspicious behaviour.

The main screen provides a breakdown of the different parts, with alerts for anything that needs attention. It’s not quite as welcoming as other security programs we have seen and you will need to spend time exploring the advanced options.

The backup utility was fiddly to use, especially when it came to accessing the 1GB of online storage space that is included with the software. There is also a Tuner section that attempts to speed up the computer and protect your web browsing.

It also defragments the computer’s hard disks and looks for items such as invalid shortcuts. Setting it up was not particularly user-friendly (you are simply presented with a long list of options and checkboxes), but it did let us undo any actions we made.

Ad-aware Total Security requires 1.5GB of free hard disk space, which is pretty big for a security suite. Kaspersky Pure needs 375MB, and Norton 360 just 300MB. Despite its size, there wasn’t a noticeable impact on performance after installing the software on our test computer.

Two graphs at the bottom-left of the main screen let you keep an eye on exactly how much demand Ad-Aware Total Security is placing on your computer. One shows total system activity and the other indicates how much of this is down to Ad-Aware.

Other features include parental control settings, data recovery and a tool to securely delete sensitive files. Ad-aware Total Security certainly covers all bases, but although the main security settings were easy to setup, some of the other features weren’t.

more info

08/14/2010

Resolver One spreadsheet

Kelvyn Taylor, Computeractive, Friday 13 August 2010 at 16:44:00

A fully programmable spreadsheet for number-heads

Spreadsheets created in Microsoft Excel or compatible programs are very useful for analysing data using the built-in functions to create formulas.

But as experienced users working with large complicated spreadsheets can discover, if a function doesn’t do what you want it to do, it can’t be modified.

Resolver One solves this problem. It is an Excel-compatible spreadsheet program aimed at those familiar with programming. Its unique feature is that it instantaneously translates everything typed into a cell into program code using the Python programming language.

This allows users to create their own custom functions and perform advanced data manipulation, or even create entire applications. It can also import existing Excel files.

No knowledge of Python is needed in order to use the program, as it can be used just like a regular spreadsheet that looks and feels very similar to older versions of Excel.

As you enter data and formulas, these are displayed in a separate code pane below the spreadsheet. This makes it a good tool for those wanting to learn Python programming, too.

There is a free 30-day evaluation available, and it comes with sample spreadsheets that showcase its capabilities.

more info

08/13/2010

Kaspersky Pure

Will Stapley, Computeractive, Thursday 12 August 2010 at 16:00:00

Complete online security package with added extras

Security suites such as this are perfect for PC users looking for complete protection from online threats.

With a firewall and real-time scanning for viruses, Kaspersky Pure is an all-in-one package aimed at novice and advanced users alike.

In an attempt to stand out from the crowd, Pure includes a variety of features beyond simple online protection. Tools to safeguard your identity, tune up your PC and back up your important data are all here, as are a range of parental controls.

During the installation process it asks whether you want to take full control over the security suite or leave the software to make the majority of decisions. Those with little experience of security software will no doubt appreciate the latter.

The main interface is home to three sections providing shortcuts to Pure’s security, backup and parental control features. A coloured bar above each of these sections indicates their status (red means there is a severe issue that needs addressing). In general the application is easy to navigate, although as you dig further into the settings it does get a bit more complicated.

Scheduled backups can be created either by choosing specific files and folders, or by selecting which file types (music, videos, documents and so on) should be included. The only disappointment here is that it’s not possible to store backups online.

Those expecting a complete PC health check from the Tune Up feature will be disappointed since it concentrates on tweaking browser settings as opposed to speeding up Windows itself.

Should you come across a suspicious program, Pure helps out with its Safe Run feature. This allows you to check the program by installing it in a protected environment, meaning it cannot affect your computer or the files stored on it.

Kaspersky Pure is a comprehensive security suite that offers a good level of protection from online threats. Some of the features such as the parental control tools don’t offer a huge amount over what Windows 7 provides, but it’s useful to have everything in one place. It can only be installed on one computer, though, and at this price, we expected a three-computer licence.

more info

08/10/2010

Humyo Online Backup

Tim Smith, Computeractive, Monday 9 August 2010 at 17:19:00

A simple but reliable and powerful online backup service

The ideal backup software should be as unobtrusive as possible but should spring into life when it’s needed. Humyo is an online-backup service that seems to fit that bill.

The basic Humyo service costs nothing and offers 2GB of online storage space. Useful as this is, it doesn’t give access to Humyo’s best feature, the Smartdrive program that keeps files backed-up automatically. This service costs just under £50 a year and ups the storage to a decent 100GB.

During the installation process it sets up the folders to be backed up, such as documents, photos and music, but these can be changed if your files are kept elsewhere.

The Smartdrive software can be installed on several computers and then gives access through Windows Explorer to files stored online. This is ideal if you have a laptop and want to access files on the move without having to synchronise all your documents.

The only hiccup we had was that the software was automatically set to download all files below a certain size in the background so that they could be accessed offline. This might be a problem on computers with small hard disks. Turning it off was simple, though, and after that only requested folders were copied between Humyo and the computer.

Coincidentally, while reviewing Humyo our test computer had a serious problem and had to be replaced, which was an ideal opportunity to test Humyo for real. As broadband download speeds are faster than uploads, restoring took significantly less time than it did to back up in the first place and everything appeared to have been restored properly.

The only drawback of the process is that the files all appear as though they were created on the day they were restored, not when they were created, making it impossible to sort anything in date order. It did make the computer-replacement process considerably less stressful, however, to know that our files were backed up online.

Peace of mind is what backup is all about, and Humyo certainly delivers when called on in an emergency as well as for day-to-day access.

more info

08/06/2010

Home Accountz

Laurence Gunn, Computeractive, Thursday 5 August 2010 at 16:02:00

Simple, powerful bookkeeping for the home

Home Accountz is the updated version of Personal Accountz, which we reviewed a few months ago.

Like its predecessor, Home Accountz is an easy-to-use personal financial planner with which users can forecast future finances as well as managing bank accounts, investments, credit cards and general expenditure.

We’re pleased to see that despite the name change, all of the best features of Personal Accountz have been retained and there have also been some substantial improvements.

An improved look means Home Accountz is easier to get into than before, which makes taking on your finances less painful. The entire user interface has been upgraded to make accounting records simpler to navigate and manage, which is the most impressive thing about what was already a good program.

Whereas in Personal Accountz there were two distinct windows to navigate between – Accounts for listing accounts in folders, and Entries for entering transactions – Home Accountz cuts this down to just the Accounts window, next to which is a series of easily switchable tabs for entering transactions, checking balances, budgeting and reviewing financial periods. This new approach is more intuitive, making following the numbers a great deal easier for the novice bookkeeper than it was in Personal Accountz.

Other improvements include the addition of multi-currency support and the ability to import CSV files. We particularly liked the inclusion of the single-click-entry calendar function from Business Accountz Basic.

After setting up the program using the wizard and then registering it, a simple set of bookkeeping accounts is presented that will be adequate for most users. If not, the clever design means that nearly every feature of the program can be personalised, the most useful aspect of which is the ability to create presets for viewing specific sets of data, for instance all payments made over the previous week or all income due in the next month.

Our main quibbles were that the program froze several times during testing, so regular saves are required, and like its predecessor it still can’t calculate interest payments.

Data entry is unglamorous but once your accounts are set up and initial transactions entered, Home Accountz offers superb features with which to manage your personal finances.

Most important for those new to bookkeeping, Home Accountz is simple enough for everyone.

more info

08/03/2010

Trend Micro Titanium Security for netbooks

Will Stapley, Computeractive, Monday 2 August 2010 at 15:17:00

Security software designed specifically for smaller, less-powerful computers

Netbooks might be small, portable and cheap, but they are also relatively low on computing power.

And when it comes to installing and running security software, performance can take quite a hit.

Trend Micro Titanium Security for Netbooks is, as the name suggests, a security package designed specifically for netbooks that aims to have as little impact on performance as possible.

The interface is simple with just three buttons on the main screen: Reports, Settings and Scan Now. Trend Micro makes much of the fact that there’s no Update button. Instead, Titanium continually checks Trend Micro’s servers over the internet for information on the latest viruses as opposed to having to download regular updates to your computer.

The Reports section provides a graphical guide showing how your PC is being protected. Along with a Threat History timeline, there’s also a pie chart detailing the mix of viruses, spyware and other threats that have been detected.

As with most anti-virus programs, you can opt for a full scan or a quick scan. The former will check all files, while the latter speeds things up by concentrating on the locations that are most likely to be infected.

Disappointingly, there’s no facility to scan individual files on request, nor is there an option to run scheduled scans.

Titanium certainly didn’t take up much memory when running in the background. On our test computer it used less than 14MB, which means it is indeed well-suited to netbooks with a relatively small amount of memory and not much processing power.

It’s worth bearing in mind that although Titanium won’t hog your computer’s resources, it is missing some features that are commonly seen in modern security software. For example, there’s no email scanner or firewall included. Despite this, Titanium costs as much as more comprehensive packages such as AVG Anti-virus and Panda Antivirus for Netbooks.

If you want security software that has a minimal effect on performance, Titanium is up to scratch. However, in order to keep its footprint small the makers have ditched some features found in rival products, and with this in mind we would have expected it to be a bit cheaper.

more info

07/31/2010

Xara Web Designer 6

Tim Smith, Computeractive, Friday 30 July 2010 at 14:59:00

Focus on the ‘design’ part of designing a website

Even if you’ve got to grips with the art of creating attractive designs for paper projects, trying to recreate them for a website can be a frustrating experience.

Xara Web Designer is a web design program that manages to give users the freedom to create the designs they want without ending up with websites that nobody can view.

This latest version has a new, rather black, look that stands out against the grey tones of most Windows software. The interface is uncluttered but it hides some powerful editing tools. Rather than having lots of icons that are always on view, some icons open sub-menus when clicked. It took us no longer to get used to than other software and helped us concentrate on the design rather than the software.

We liked the automatic backup tool that keeps up to ten previous versions of the website you’re designing. The Page and Layer Gallery helps keep the pages of the website organised, though it’s a shame you can’t create pages within sections as this would help when managing larger websites.

This omission is partly balanced by the excellent navigation bar designer. Both vertical and horizontal menus can be created with sub-menus to keep things simple for your visitors. They can be generated automatically from the pages on the site or set up by hand.

It is also possible to include raw HTML code in pages. This is useful if you want to include small sections of information from other online accounts such as photos stored with Flickr.

The website preview doesn’t let you choose the browser to use and instead opens in Xara’s own window. Our best guess is that it’s Internet Explorer but it would be best to manually check your site in as many browsers as possible.

One excellent reason to buy Web Designer is that it can be used to create Flash animations including animated banners without having to buy the full Flash program. It has a limited set of effects but they are still more than enough for some impressive effects.

If you want to focus on the design of your website and not the technology behind it, Xara Web Designer 6 is an excellent program.

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07/30/2010

SoftMaker Office 2010 for Windows Mobile review

Daniel Robinson, V3.co.uk, Thursday 29 July 2010 at 17:03:00

A word processor, spreadsheet and presentations suite for Microsoft's smartphone platform

SoftMaker Office 2010 for Windows Mobile is a full-featured application suite for Microsoft's smartphone platform that offers capabilities equivalent to those of a desktop suite. However, while technically impressive, usability is greatly constrained by the very devices for which it is designed.

Available since the beginning of July, SoftMaker Office 2010 for Windows Mobile (SoftMaker Mobile) consists of three applications that can be installed individually. TextMaker is the word processor, PlanMaker the spreadsheet and the prosaically named SoftMaker Presentations completes the suite.

Each application has features more in line with those you would expect on a desktop suite than the cut-down mobile versions that ship with Windows Mobile itself.

For example, TextMaker lets you insert tables, while PlanMaker supports charts and can import from dBase files, while SoftMaker Presentations not only lets you show PowerPoint presentations complete with transitions and other effects, but lets you edit the slides.

We found that the user experience with SoftMaker Mobile will vary greatly depending on the device being used. Ironically, it seems to work better on older devices with a resistive touch screen driven by a stylus, rather than newer handsets with multi-touch screens, largely because a stylus allows greater precision when selecting menus, buttons or document content than a finger-driven capacitive screen.

We tested the suite with HTC's HD mini, a new handset running Windows Mobile 6.5, and Palm's Treo Pro, a device from 2008 running Windows Mobile 6.1. However, it will run on any touch-screen handset right back to those based on Windows Mobile 2003 SE.

While both handsets ran the applications at an adequate speed, the suite was much more usable on the Treo Pro than the HD mini. It was not simply due to the Treo's having a stylus; on the HD mini, the menus and controls seemed to be squashed together, making it extremely difficult to select the correct one, even with this reviewer's relatively slender fingers.

The on-screen soft keyboard of the HD mini also largely obscured the entire screen, whereas the Treo Pro has Qwerty keys for easy editing.

Some menus and dialogue boxes also extended beyond the edges of the screen on the HD mini, making it impossible to select some of the options. These issues could possibly relate to the handset's unusual (for Windows Mobile) screen resolution of 320 x 480.

While we were able to use the applications on both handsets, users may find that the suite is realistically only suitable for viewing documents on some Windows Mobile devices such as the HD mini, while on others (like the Treo Pro), editing or document creation is feasible.

Common on both our test handsets, however, was that the cramped screen made it difficult to read documents. All three SoftMaker applications have a zoom tool, handily located on the toolbar at the bottom of the screen, but once text has been made large enough for comfortable reading, you can only see a tiny proportion of the document, requiring endless scrolling around.

However, we found we were able to open Microsoft Office documents with no fuss in the SoftMaker applications. This included files stored in the older Office 97-2003 formats and those created using the XML formats of Office 2007 or 2010.

The suite also supports the OpenDocument ODF formats, and can exchange files with the full-blown Softmaker Office suite that runs on Windows and Linux PCs. In addition, each application can also export any document as a PDF file.

TextMaker quite happily opened .docx files produced in Office 2010, and also appeared to keep all formatting. We were able to edit the file, and open it again in Word on a PC with no difficulty.

PlanMaker likewise opened Excel spreadsheets in our tests, but we found it difficult to find the data we were looking for with only a handful of rows visible on a smartphone screen.

The same can be said for SoftMaker Presentations. We were able to run through a slideshow created on a PC, but the text on each slide was largely illegible without using a magnifying glass.

The problems with the small screen may have been alleviated if we were able to rotate the application window from portrait to landscape orientation, but this does not seem to be supported.

However, SoftMaker has made the menu system as easy to use as possible. A small toolbar is arranged across the bottom of the screen, and touching the leftmost icon in each application pops up the standard menu strip you would expect on a desktop application, but arranged vertically.

Other buttons on the toolbar access features such as the drawing tools, fonts and other controls typically found on the button bar of a desktop Windows application.

Installing the SoftMaker applications also proved straightforward. Each application can be installed separately via a .CAB file, which can be copied to the handset by syncing with a PC, on a Flash storage card, or by downloading directly from SoftMaker's web site.

The whole suite costs €69.95 (£60), and SoftMaker's licensing terms allow the applications to be installed and used simultaneously on up to three devices by the same customer. A free 30-day trial version is also available for download.

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07/22/2010

Kerio Control 7 firewall review

Alan Stevens, V3.co.uk, Thursday 22 July 2010 at 08:00:00

Unified threat management package aimed at small firms

Software developer Kerio is clearly having a bit of a spring clean. First it revamped and renamed its Kerio Connect email/collaboration server, and now it's the turn of another core product, the venerable WinRoute firewall.

Henceforth to be known as Kerio Control, WinRoute has been marketed for some time as a UTM (unified threat management) offering to provide small to medium sized networks with gateway protection against a variety of common threats.

To this end, previous releases have added a clutch of extra services beyond basic firewall security, including anti-virus scanning which, in the new version, is switched from McAfee to a Sophos engine.

In recent years web content filtering and secure remote access have also been added, with intrusion detection and prevention tools, based on open source Snort technology, rounding off the armoury in this latest version.

Scaling for users and traffic

One of the big advantages of a software-based security product like Kerio Control 7 is the ability to scale the host hardware to suit the number of users and amount of traffic. Alternatives based on custom hardware appliances are much harder to scale, and customers often have to buy something bigger or better to cope with changing demands.

Windows is the preferred operating system here, with support for any 32-bit or 64-bit implementation (desktop or server) from Windows 2000 onwards. The only real stipulations are a dedicated host for performance and security reasons, plus at least two network interfaces, to enable Kerio Control to act as an internet gateway. However, you're not just limited to two as there are built-in tools to manage and guarantee bandwidth when multiple NICs are installed.

A custom appliance implementation complete with a Linux host operating system is another option. Plus there's a virtual machine version, again Linux-based, available in either VMware VMX or Open Virtualization Format. We started with the VMware appliance, one advantage being that it took just a few minutes to get up and running under VMware Workstation. However, for completeness, we also tried a full Windows deployment, which similarly proved very easy and almost as quick to install.

Management is the same whether using the Windows or Linux implementation with two interfaces on offer - a dedicated Windows console and a web-based implementation - both of which can be run remotely. The two look much the same, but it's important not to do what we did and assume that the web console can do everything, as is the case with Kerio Connect.

The web interface can do a lot more in this release of Kerio Control, but you still have to use the Windows console for some tasks, such as licensing the product and gaining access to the very useful Traffic Rules Wizard for initial configuration. Likewise there are some things the web console can do which can't be managed from Windows. Hopefully Kerio will get this sorted soon, as it can be confusing.

Once we'd found it, the Traffic Rules Wizard made light work of getting the core product up and working. And that was a big help as, although the management interface proved easy to navigate, it did take a while to work out what we needed to configure and how.

Moreover, if you make a mistake it's possible to end up disconnecting users from the web and, like us, blocking remote access to the management interface. Fortunately Kerio had thought about this and provided a way to re-establish management connectivity regardless.

Unfortunately the wizard can help only with basic setup but, once we were confident that we had a basic level of security in place, we were able to explore the software and try out some of its more advanced options at our own pace.

Anti-virus options

This took some time as there's a lot packed into the Kerio product, and far more than we have space to cover here. However, one of the features which really stood out was the ability to employ a second anti-virus scanner alongside the Sophos engine or, if preferred, to buy Kerio Control without Sophos at all and use an existing anti-virus solution.

Likewise, categorised URL filtering is optional, with basic URL filtering possible without it. That said, it's not expensive; the Kerio Web Filter licence starts at £69 for five users with a £21 a year renewal fee.

The ability to integrate Kerio Control with Active Directory for user authentication is another nice feature, making it much easier to deploy the product into an existing setup and manage security at a user and/or group level.

Overall we found the product pretty easy to get to grips with. A fair amount of technical knowledge is assumed, but it's not that challenging and simpler than a lot of the competition.

Enabling an option, such as the new intrusion detection and prevention service for example, was simply a matter of ticking a box and accepting the defaults, despite which there's still plenty of scope for customisation. Customising user alerts proved easy too, with good logging, monitoring and reporting tools built in.

Of course there were a few things we didn't like, such as the dual management consoles, plus we'd like to see a wizard to advise on the impact of any new rules or changes before they're applied. We also found the SSL VPN remote access option a little disappointing and a lot less usable than some of the alternatives we've tried, and it's supported only on Windows hosts.

Other than that, we couldn't find much to complain about when it came to deploying or managing Kerio Control. It blocked and warned of the various bits of malware we threw at it, and didn't get noticeably in the way in terms of performance. And if it does, you can always upgrade the hardware to cope.

Kerio Control 7 isn't perfect, but it does tick most of the small business unified threat management boxes and, with a free trial available, shouldn't be dismissed without trying.

Pricing information

Kerio Control 7 costs from £175+VAT for five users (£210 if Sophos anti-virus licence included). Additional user licences are sold in five-user packs. Annual renewal is from £52.50 for five users (£63 with Sophos anti-virus).

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07/18/2010

Singularity

Jonathan Parkyn, Computeractive, Sunday 18 July 2010 at 10:00:00

An unoriginal but otherwise enjoyable shooter

Originality is something that is sadly absent from many computer games.

Singularity at least has the decency to borrow from the best. It’s essentially a straightforward first-person shooter with a vague twist (you move between different time zones) and an interesting weapon to play with: the Time Manipulation Device.

The story sees your black-ops commando, Nate Renko, sent in to investigate an abandoned ex-Soviet research facility on a deserted Pacific island. After a helicopter crash leaves you stranded, the plot thickens as the island turns out to be less deserted than you had initially imagined and you suddenly find yourself flashing backwards and forwards between present day and the 1950s.

At first, Singularity focuses on basic shooting but, once you have obtained the Time Manipulation Device, the game becomes a lot more interesting. The device essentially lets you play with time, allowing you to prematurely age objects or revert ruined items to a time before they were broken and old. You can instantly turn enemies to dust, for example, plus there are a few puzzles to solve that entail either aging or rejuvenating your surroundings.

Unfortunately, the game is less clever than it sounds, but fun to play nevertheless. Stylistically, Singularity wears its influences very much on its sleeve. There is a distinct look and feel of Bioshock about it, for example, and some of the puzzle sections play out like simplified versions of similar moments in Half-Life 2.

It’s rounded off by some amusing multiplayer modes, but despite the entertaining aspects, Singularity is a mediocre game.

PEGI age rating: 18+

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07/17/2010

Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4

Jonathan Parkyn, Computeractive, Saturday 17 July 2010 at 10:00:00

The boy-wonder wizard recreated with toy bricks

For anyone unfamiliar with the Lego game formula, the idea is to take a hugely successful big-screen franchise (Star Wars and Indiana Jones have both been used previously) and recreate it using colourful toy bricks.

All your favourite characters are replaced by Lego versions of themselves, and familiar scenes from the films are included as playable levels, all replete with recognisable locations, set pieces and plot points (albeit taken with a healthy pinch of poetic licence).

Here, it’s the first four years of Harry Potter’s educational career at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry that provides the backdrop for all the brick-based fun.

The gameplay is largely the same as previous Lego outings. You can play with a friend or alone, switching between a number of the book’s characters as you progress through each level, exploring and collecting.

The levels are all fairly large and there is plenty to do in each one. Lego studs litter the scenery and yet more spurt forth when you interact with various parts of the environment.

Characters have different abilities, such as the gift of being able to wield magic, for example, or the power to unlock certain types of door. Progressing and gathering all the items in any given area will require you to make creative use of these abilities.

As you advance, you will encounter situations where you will need to build objects out of piles of Lego bricks. You don’t need to employ any well-honed construction abilities here, though. Simply hold down a single button and every item will magically build itself.

And that’s pretty much the pinnacle of Lego Harry Potter’s difficulty level, making it ideal for younger players and casual gamers. Ironically, the game doesn’t do a great deal to build upon previous Lego outings, but Potter fans will undoubtedly enjoy the experience.

In particular, there are some amusing, irreverent cutscenes that will appeal to anyone who is well acquainted with the stories and characters. Seasoned gamers and older kids will soon tire of the repetitive gameplay, while the basic-looking Lego visuals are now beginning to feel a little dated, as is the formula itself.

PEGI age rating: 7+

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07/16/2010

Microsoft Security Essentials

Anthony Dhanendran, Computeractive, Thursday 15 July 2010 at 16:49:00

Combat viruses, spyware and malware with a free, low-key security suite

Compared with other security software, Microsoft Security Essentials is stripped back and low-key. The company has clearly learnt from its last security program, the irritating and bloated One Care.

The security suite guards against viruses, spyware and other malicious software. Unlike One Care, it is free to all Windows users. After it’s installed, you may not even notice it’s there, except for a coloured icon in the Notification Area (the colour indicates how well-protected the PC is).

Double-clicking that brings up the main program window, which has several tabs, for manually updating the software (though it will do so automatically), checking the scan history, scheduling scans and running manual scans. None of those need be touched normally – the program will continue to scan files in the background without any intervention from the user.

Scans were reasonably fast: a quick scan took two minutes, while a full scan took around an hour. It may lack the advanced features of other programs (and it relies on the adequate built-in Windows Firewall and Windows Defender for protection against some threats, rather than more advanced tools) but for many users that will be enough.

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07/10/2010

Family Tree Maker 2010 Platinum

Anthony Dhanendran, Computeractive, Friday 9 July 2010 at 17:13:00

Get back to your roots

Family Tree Maker has a long history, but some recent editions have not been well received, though the last, 2009, was popular.

Meanwhile, other programs have been able to steal a march on Family Tree Maker, including the superb British-made Family Historian 4.

The software is made by the huge American genealogy company Ancestry.com, and the program includes access to the UK version of its websites.

The 2010 edition comes in three versions, all of which share the same basic functions. The cheapest, known as Deluxe, comes in at £40 and includes three months’ access to ancestry.co.uk while the one we’re looking at, Platinum, costs £60 and includes six months' access.

It also includes a small Answers book that expands on the Getting Started guide. The £100 World edition includes six months’ access to Ancestry’s worldwide collections of data, which might be helpful if your family has roots overseas.

That data is accessible from the main program but it wasn’t enormously easy to see how to import it into our tree. Annoyingly, you need to enter credit card details to access the trial, and cancel before the time is up or you’ll be charged for another year.

Previous editions haven’t made much of the Ancestry connection but the 2010 version includes a ‘web dashboard’ that shows your online trees and some other information. It’s also easier to upload your tree to the Ancestry site, but do beware that doing so means you will lose your privacy and you’ll be giving Ancestry permission to distribute your data.

You can‘t use the program to export a tree for the web yourself, but it can export files in the widely used Gedcom format, and you can create a tree from there. You can also import Gedcom files, or those from previous versions of Family Tree Maker.

It was quite fast to start up and process files, and the company makes regular updates available online to fix any problems and speed things up – annoyingly, you need to be logged in as an administrator for it to check for updates.

The design has been updated and the program looks good. It’s also easy to use with clear menus and a simple navigation – double-clicking a name brings up that person’s details. Tabs give access to all the media files (pictures, audio and video as well as other documents) and a new feature placing the locations you specify on an online map.

Annoyingly, though, the map search wasn’t particularly good, with the program unable to find some of our locations even when they were clearly marked on the map. You can specify locations yourself, however.

Some good charts are available – they need a bit of work tweaking the fonts and backgrounds to make them look better but those settings are fairly accessible.

Family Tree Maker 2010 is a good-looking program that makes creating or editing a family tree a pleasure.

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07/07/2010

Print Artist Platinum 23

Andrew Zarkesh, Computeractive, Tuesday 6 July 2010 at 14:00:00

Create professional-looking printed projects

Unless you are the creative type, artistic tasks such as producing an eye-catching newsletter can be a chore.

Print Artist Platinum allows users to borrow some ideas from the professionals in the form of 25,000 pre-prepared templates divided into 35 categories and supplied with the software on three DVDs.

Now into its 23rd version, this is a well-known program so we had high expectations. The garish green toolbars and cartoon-like icons did seem rudimentary at first glance, but a closer look revealed a polished and user-friendly interface.

Print Artist presents users with plenty of templates to choose from on starting the program. However, despite the number available, it isn’t overwhelming, because they are divided into logical categories so the user can choose the appropriate one: anything from useful greetings cards to more esoteric dog training stickers. The detailed template previews were quick to load and to scroll through, which made it a pleasure to search for the one you want.

We were also impressed by useful touches such as a wizard that configures printing settings for double-sided projects by asking a series of questions. Print Artist also comes with a comprehensive printed manual, aimed at novice users.

The program places a lot of emphasis on including personal photos in projects. There are some easy-to-use but effective photo-editing tools with options such as the ability to crop photos into a selection of shapes, which worked well. The quality of the templates varied: for instance some of the photo album templates were quite cluttered for our liking while the greetings cards were mostly excellent. Some were genuinely funny and at a quality level akin to shop-bought cards.

There’s enough here to satisfy most home users’ needs although experienced users may want to look at the more expensive and powerful desktop publishing programs available.

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07/06/2010

Movie Outline 3.1

Jonathan Parkyn, Computeractive, Monday 5 July 2010 at 14:09:00

Pen your very own Oscar-winner

Have you ever sat through a big, dumb Hollywood blockbuster or a dreary TV drama and thought to yourself: “I could do better than that”?

Well, simple as it sounds, translating even the best ideas into a script can be a frustrating experience, especially if you don’t have prior experience. There are some surprisingly strict formatting rules to contend with, for a start. Even if you’re familiar with basic storytelling techniques, it can be all too easy to start losing the plot.

Movie Outline bills itself as ‘professional’ screenwriting software but, in truth, it’s as useful for novices as it is for seasoned professionals. On one hand it’s effectively a specialised word processor with all the industry-standard formatting tools required to write scripts. On the other, it’s an extremely useful program for planning and structuring individual components of a programme or film, such as the story, characters and so on.

Movie Outline works by splitting the project into a series of ‘steps’, each containing one or more scenes. A tabbed toolbar across the top of the page provides access to the different ways of viewing and building each step.

You can write an outline for a specific chunk of the story, analyse your script as a set of on-screen flash cards, develop the characters that appear in a specific step or work on the dialogue itself.

For first-timers, templates can provide tried-and-tested story structures to build upon and it’s even possible to run direct ongoing comparisons with similar proven scripts from various genres, including Die Hard and When Harry Met Sally.

Movie Outline isn’t going to magically produce a million-dollar screenplay in the same way that Microsoft Word can’t conjure up an entire novel in a few clicks. It’s not cheap, either, so you need to be certain that you want to make the investment before you buy.

But if you’re serious about learning to write scripts, then Movie Outline is a lot cheaper than booking yourself onto a screenwriting course at film school. And, while there are similar, alternative packages available, we haven’t seen one that’s as straightforward, helpful and complete as this.

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07/02/2010

Parallels Desktop Upgrade to Windows 7

Kelvyn Taylor, Computeractive, Thursday 1 July 2010 at 15:47:00

An easy way to upgrade to Windows 7

Parallels is known for software that makes it easy to switch from Windows and OS X on an Apple Mac computer.

Its new software allows users to easily upgrade a PC from Windows XP or Vista to Windows 7, or alternatively move everything, including programs, from the old PC to a new Windows 7 PC. Cleverly, it can even move programs that don’t work with Windows 7 and run them using virtualisation technology.

There are three possible ways to move to a new PC. You can use the special Parallels USB transfer cable (which costs £5 extra), connect the PCs over a network, or use an external hard disk. To upgrade an existing PC, it also needs to satisfy the Windows 7 hardware requirements. The program does not come with a copy of Windows 7 – you will need to supply that yourself.

We tried upgrading and moving an existing PC and found both straightforward.

A ‘talking head’ video guides the user clearly through each step, finishing with an excellent video tutorial about Windows 7. It took us over three hours on a fairly empty laptop, with several restarts, but this will vary significantly, depending on the amount of data on the old PC (and the network speed, if you use that method).

At the end the PC will be running Windows 7 and will have a copy of the Parallels Desktop virtualisation software for running any programs that are incompatible with Windows 7. These are automatically discovered during the upgrade, and they run seamlessly in Windows 7.

The only visible difference is that these programs have a Windows XP-style border around the program window. Programs can be manually forced to run in XP mode if needed, using the supplied Parallels Program Switcher.

All your data and documents are moved to the appropriate Windows 7 folder and if you are moving from an old PC, any partitions will be recreated in the virtual PC. The full ‘virtual’ version of Windows XP can be run in a window, but this virtual PC needs to be kept updated with security update and anti-virus software just like an ordinary computer.

Whichever upgrade method you choose, Windows XP (and possibly some of your programs) will more than likely need to be re-activated, but due to the Microsoft licensing terms this may be refused for so-called 'original equipment manufacturer' (OEM) versions of Windows - if Windows came pre-installed on your computer it is likely to be an OEM version.

It’s worth checking thoroughly whether the licence for the operating system and programs allow transfer to a new PC.

Despite that problem, this is a simple, if time-consuming, upgrade process that worked well and has excellent video tutorials for Windows 7.

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