Hack Paypal and Get Any Software From Any site Which Offers Paypal As Payment Option

I already Posted a First method To Hack paypal and this is last and the best method ever...You can try this trick on any website which offers paypal as payment option.so buddies lets enjoy the hack..

1. Go to any site that can accept cash through paypal

2. Select the item you wish to purchase

3. Make sure the quantity of the item is one

4. Go to the paypal icon so you can go to the paypal page

5. Before you login save the webpage

6. Got to where you saved the page,right click and open with notepad

7. Change all the money values from what the item cost to 00.01

8. Make sure you change all of them

9. Save and exit

10. Open the page with your default browser

11. You will see the item price will have changed

12. Now login and you will only pay 00.01 for the purchase

13. And all is done

Just to be safe I would recommend you use a different paypal account from your usual one as you can be caught...But I don't....

Want To Hack Paypal in Another type Click Here to Know
Want a Free Hosting which supports any Type of databases
How To be completely anonymous Using Proxies

Get The maximum Speed or Optimize Your Broadband or DSL Connection

Speed Up Your Dial Up Modem Internet Connection Get Maximum Speed As You can

I already posted about how to Speed up a Broadband connection and now its time to Speed up Dial up Modem and get the maximum speed as we can.So lets start.
NOTE: Since every PC configuration is different, these adjustments might not work for everyone.

With Windows 95, 98 & ME you'll need to open your Control Panel ( Start / Control Panel ). Click "System" then choose "Device Manager". Open up "Ports", highlight your modem port (should be COM2), and choose "Properties" near the bottom. When you click "Port Settings", you will see the modem speed listed under "Bits per second".

With Win XP , just hold down the Alt key and double-click "My Computer" to bring up System Properties. Click the "Hardware" tab, then choose the "Device Manager" button. Scroll down to "Modems" and click the little (—) to show your modem, then double click it.

Selecting the "Modem" tab will allow you to adjust the port speed.


Usually, the Maximum Port Speed is on the highest setting (115,000 bps), but sometimes you will find it on a slower default of 9600 bps. If you have a 56k modem, you can crank it up to the maximum setting without any trouble (in most cases). If you live in a cave and have a 28k modem, then the fastest you can do is 57,600 bps.

Win 9x users should also adjust the "Flow Control" near the bottom. The default for this is usually Xon/Xoff which is the software control—change this to "Hardware" if you want to get the most from your modem. Next, click the "Advanced" button to adjust the Receiver Buffer to its highest setting (all the way to the right). If you run into any problems, just turn this one back to the 2/3 setting.

To check/adjust the Receive-Transmit buffers in XP, click the "Advanced" tab of your modem properties then choose the "Advanced Port Settings" button. Make sure that both are set to their highest settings.

There are many more tweaks that can be done in the registry, but the potential for disaster is too high for the average user. Some folks install dial-up accelerators, which basically tweak these registry settings for you and perform other routines to optimize performance.

Just by changing these few settings, though, you should see better performance.

Want to know how to Boost the Firefox Speed and Browsing Click Here
Want to know how to be Completely Anonymous on The Internet Find Here
Want to Know how to Hack a Paypal account and download any software for free

Access Any Website for free Without Registration or any Account

Yes, It is simply cool thing to hear and its un believable but it is True, Accesseing any website without registration or any account for free. Follow these two methods, and choose which you mostly like.

Method 1 :

Go to this site and type the site url which you want to login without any registration

http://bugmenot.com/

and type the URL of the website you want to log into.

Examples:
http://www.nytimes.com/ , http://www.winnetmag.com/etcetera

Method 2 :

Another (and better) way is changing the user agent of your browser to:Googlebot/2.1+
http://www.googlebot.com/bot.html
This is very easy in Mozilla's Firefox. Download and install the User Agent Switcher from
http://www.chrispederick.com/work/firefox/useragentswitcher/ and add the Googlebot user agent.
Now this was just browsing entire forum without even needing to login to view restricted areas, and it works on other sites And no, you cant access the hidden forums either, already tried that.

Learn Also How to hack Paypal Account Here

A Large Collection Free Web Hosting Sites which supports PHP,My SQL and lot more

Take a Look at Free Web Hosting sites which offers you premium features for free.so take the advantage and enjoy for free....And Choose which Web Hosting Plan is correct for you..........
Features
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Domain Hosting
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http://www.portalworlds.net/ thank "agresssor" for this one
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Space 100 MB
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Hosting category: REG
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Space 50 MB
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Hosting category: REG,BUSINESS,GAME
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Space 3000 MB
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Editor Basic
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Features Form

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webspace4free.biz
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http://nexuswebs.net/
*new website just launched seems quite successful*
Space 200 MB
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Editor
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NO Banner Advertisements
35mb Disk Space
Free Webmail Account
Free Subdomain - (yourname.nexuswebs.net)
Online Website Builder
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Website Template Library
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Online File Manager
Email Virus Protection
Spam Filters
Message Board
Guest Book
Site Counter

http://www.tripod.lycos.nl/myaccount/freehosting/
50 MB webspace
NO Filesize limit
NO monthly transfer limit
PHP4.1 / MySQL (phpmyadmin) / counter / guesbook / personalised cgi feedback froms / customisable 404 error pages / FTP access

http://www.freeweb-hosting.com/
Q.Which files are accepted?
A.Currently we support standard html and images files, which means .htm, .html, .pdf, .gif, .jpg ,.png , .js, .css, .swf, .mid, .jar and .class. The size of your individual files should be < > http://www.dk3.com/
Max file size: 400KB (I agree this sucks)
Comments: The following things are supported, FTP, MySQL, PHP, Perl, SSI, WAP. Plus pre-made portal and forum are available free.
*Update*
Provider:Free Web Hosting
Service: 100 Megs of webspace
URL: http://www.freewebsitehosting.com/
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http://www.3hosting.info/
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Summary: 50 Mb space, Unlimited bandwidth, POP E-Mail, True FTP Accounts ,
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definetly a site to check out!

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Summary:100 Megabytes Web Space, GuestBook+Counters, Full Technical Support,
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URL: http://www.dk3.com/
Max file size: 400KB (I agree this sucks)
Comments: The following things are supported, FTP, MySQL, PHP, Perl, SSI, WAP. Plus pre-made portal and forum are available free.

http://www.freeweb-hosting.com/
-You have UNLIMITED disk space and bandwidth with your site!.
-You can only upload files with .html, .htm, .jpg, .gif, .css, .js, .png, .pdf
file name extensions.
-Size of every file could not large than 85K bytes.

http://www.zoomfast.com/
->How much space do I get?
-Unlimited
->How can I upload my files?
-We offer full FTP access. The best FTP client can be found here.
->Can I use PHP or CGI?
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->Can I host movies?
-No.
->Can I have my pages in non-english language?
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->What is the maximum number of files?
-Unlimited.
->What is the maximum file size?
-80KB
-> http://www.yoogo.com/
site for sale

-> http://www.worldzone.net/
Worldzone Free - 50mb space, allowed file types (au, mid, midi, wav, gif, ico, jpg, jpeg, png, htm, html, shtml, wml, xml, css, class, jar, java, dat, txt, tmpl, htaccess, htpasswd, js, map, swf, ttf). Sorry but no cgi, ftp, MySQL on our Free accounts. 1 468x60 banner will be located on the bottom of your page but can be removed in our $12 yearly Plus Package.

-> http://www.web1000.com/
50 mb space

-> http://www.tripod.com/
20 MB of disk space – Have room for your image files, MP3s, video clips.
1 GB of Monthly Bandwidth – More people can visit your site more often

-> http://www.qwikpages.com/
now it's http://freecoolpages.com/
10MB OF DISK SPACE
UNLIMITED BANDWIDTH
FTP ACCESS FOR UPLOADING
FREE EMAIL

-> http://www.netomia.com/
60 mb of space!
Your website may not contain or refer to sites with the following content: Porn, warez, hack or anything encouraging any kind of illegal activities or racism.

-> http://www.netcolony.com/
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Easy homepage creator
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Templates
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Advanced editor
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Fast servers

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URL: http://www.worldzone.net/
Summary: Offering a fantasic 100 MB why not give them a go! They do not accept Warze & Porn sites so dont try to host your page here if you plan to run such a page. However, because of the amount of space they are offering then would make for a great place to dump your files!

Provider: WebJump
Service: 25 MB Webspace
URL: http://www.webjump.com/
Summary: WebJump is another Small Business Provider offer a huge 25 MB for your website and unlimited bandwidth! Unlike B-City.com WebJump support the use of FTP Updates along with the use of Flash, JavaScript, WAV Files and other things as well. If you like using Email please note WebJump at this time do not offer either POP or Web Based Email Services

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URL: http://www.web1000.com/
Summary: N/A

Provider: Tripod
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URL: http://www.tripod.com/
Summary: N/A

Provider: Spree.com
Service: Unlimited Webspace
URL: http://www.spree.com/
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Provider: SimplyCities
Service: 30 MB Webspace
URL: http://www.simplycities.com/
Summary: Simplycities.com have just had a change in servers hence speed should be and better be at an all time high. On the website they claim to offer Unlimited Bandwidth yet at the end of that they have a little * displaying the fact conditions apply yet we could not find on the page details of this!?! Anyway they could be worth a look if just starting out!

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URL: http://www.server2000.at/
Summary: Only problem with this is it's not english.

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URL: http://www.qwikpages.com/
Summary: N/A

Provider: Netomia
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URL: http://www.netomia.com/
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Service: 40 MB Webspace
URL: http://www.justfree.com/
Summary: Offering 40 MB and no bandwidth limit this should be a good choice in web hosting. They also offer free forums, live support, free guestbook & soon Free Email! We have been unable to test this provider 100% hence comments are welcome!

Provider: InfoCache
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URL: http://www.infocache.com/
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URL: http://www.freehomepages.com/
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URL: http://www.dreamwater.com/
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URL: http://www.dencity.com/
Summary: Dencity is a well known provider offering a great 25 MB which is fantastic for any small user. They also offer a range of tools for its members plus a listing of HTML Code to help you along!

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URL: http://www.atmosphere.be/
Summary: No Information

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Service: 50 MB Webspace
URL: http://www.afreehome.com/
Summary: AFreeHome.com make out (in a round-about way) they hate Geocities.com! With the huge space they offer and no bandwidth limit they could be one of the best providers to date! They also claim to pay you US$10 for people you get to Sign Up yet this seems a little funny we think. Anyway - try them and inform us of how good/bad they are.

Provider: Above World
Service: 25 MB Webspace [Possible 60 MB of space]
URL: http://www.aboveworld.com/
Summary: Above World claim to offer a 100% Free Virtual Domain along with 25 MB of webspace plus chat board and guestbook! When checking the above details on the Above World Website they listed via text they offer 25 MB yet a visible banner said 60 MB. We can provide no further information.

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URL: http://www.50megs.com/
Summary: 50megs.com is only one of a few providers offering such huge amounts of webspace for free. It comes with other services like Web Polls, counters and much more.

Provider: 00server
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URL: http://www.00server.com/
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5,000 MB/month traffic ($.99 per GB for additional traffic)
site statistics, log files, ready-to-run CGI-library, own CGI programming (Perl, Python), FrontPage 2002 extensions
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5 FTP accounts
PHP3 & PHP4 MySQL
Proxy SSL Secure Server
Cron Jobs
SSH Secure Shell Access
URL: http://order.1and1.com/
Periodical time limited offers

PunoSoft Mail:
http://www.punosoft.com:32000/mail
-You can check email via website, OR I can give you the details on how to configure Outlook or Outlook Express for mail retrieval/send.
PunoSoft Gallery:
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Want To Know How to Hack a Paypal Account and Get The Software For Free Click Here

How To Stop Spam Messages How to make your system as filter

HOW TO STOP SPAM VIA WINDOWS MESSENGER SERVICE

Below you'll find many ways (sorted in the most successful ratio first) to stop the Windows Messenger service, depending on your system environment, some may require more than one process. This service is available only on NT, 2K, XP & Server 2003. Administrator Login is REQUIRED
1. Click Start, Run and enter the following command:RunDll32 advpack.dll,LaunchINFSection %windir%\inf\msmsgs.inf,BLC.RemoveNOTE: This will prevent a long delay when opening Outlook Express if you have the Contacts pane enabled2. To prevent this, click Start, Run and enter {REGEDIT} Go to:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Mcft\Outlook Express3. Right click in the right pane and select New, Dword value4. Give it the name Hide Messenger Double click this new entry and set the value to 25. End result should look EXACTLY like this:System Key: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Mcft\Outlook Express]Value Name: Hide MessengerData Type: REG_DWORD (DWORD Value)Value Data: (2 = remove messenger)
2. Example 2
1. Copy and paste the following to Run Command Bar in the Start Menu:RunDll32.exe advpack.dll,LaunchINFSection%windir%\inf\msmsgs.inf,BLC.Remove
3. Example 3
1. If Example 5 didn't work, then try this - Many users miss or don't know of it2. Click on Start then go to RUN and type:C:\WINDOWS\inf\sysoc.inf3. Change:msmsgs=msgrocm.dll,OcEntry,msmsgs.inf,hide,74. To:msmsgs=msgrocm.dll,OcEntry,msmsgs.inf,75. Then use Add/Remove Windows Components to remove MessengerNOTE: You can also prevent access to Windows Messenger using Group Policy or the Set Program Access and Defaults utility added by default in Windows XP SP1 and Windows 2000 SP3
4. Example 4
1. Open Windows Messenger2. From the menu, select "Tools" then "Options" then "Preferences" tab3. Uncheck "Run this program when Windows starts"4. Open Outlook Express5. From the menu, select "Tools" then "Options" then "General" tab6. Uncheck the option to "Automatically log on", if it's there7. Also in Outlook Express, select "View" then "Layout"8. Uncheck the option to "display Contacts" - The program will open a connection and display a list of all Contacts on line if you do not9. In "Startup Folder" make sure there is no entry there for Messenger10. Open Norton Anti-Virus if you have it installed11. Click "Options" then "Instant Messenger"12. Unckeck "Windows Messenger (recommended"NOTE: This list ought to work in disassociate MSN from Outlook Express, so that it'll only start up if you really want it to
5. Example 5
1. 2000
* Click Start-> Settings-> Control Panel-> Administrative Tools->Services* Scroll down and highlight "Messenger"* Right-click the highlighted line and choose Properties* Click the STOP button* Select Disable in the Startup Type scroll bar* Click OK
2. XP Home
* Click Start->Settings ->Control Panel* Click Performance and Maintenance* Click Administrative Tools* Double click Services* Scroll down and highlight "Messenger"* Right-click the highlighted line and choose Properties* Click the STOP button* Select Disable in the Startup Type scroll bar* Click OK
3. XP Professional
* Click Start->Settings ->Control Panel* Click Administrative Tools* Click Services* Double click Services* Scroll down and highlight "Messenger"* Right-click the highlighted line and choose Properties.* Click the STOP button.* Select Disable in the Startup Type scroll bar* Click OK
4. Windows NT
* Click Start ->Control Panel* Double Click Administrative Tools* Select Services-> Double-click on Messenger* In the Messenger Properties window, select Stop* Then choose Disable as the Startup Type* Click OKNOTE: If you stop the service and don’t adjust the startup type, the Messenger service will start automatically the next time you reboot. Keep in mind that when you disable the Messenger service, you'll no longer receive messages about an attached UPS, and you won’t be notified of print job completion, performance alerts, or antivirus activity (from Windows) not the program you're using for those purposes.
6. Example 6
1. To disable receipt of messenger pop-ups, verify that your firewall disables inbound traffic on UDP ports 135, 137, and 138, and TCP ports 135 and 139. On a system connected directly to the Internet, you should also disable inbound traffic on TCP port 445. If the system you want to protect is part of a Win2K-based network with Active Directory (AD), don't block incoming traffic on port 445 - Mcft Knowledge Base Article - 330904Code:http://support.Mcft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;330904
NOTE: You can use the firewall approach only if your system doesn't communicate with legacy systems that rely on NetBIOS name resolution to locate machines and shared resources. If, for example, you let users running Windows 9x share your printer or scanner, when you disable inbound NetBIOS traffic, users won't be able to connect to these shared resources. Regardless of the method you choose, you can stop messenger spam
2. Program
1. Example 1
NOTE: On Oct 15, 2003, Mcft releases Critical Security Bulletin MS03-043 warning users that the Windows Messenger Service running and exposed by default in all versions of Windows NT, 2000 and XP, contains a "Remote Code Execution" vulnerability that allows any not otherwise secured and protected Windows machine to be taken over and remotely compromised over the Internet1. Shoot the MessengerCode:http://grc.com/files/shootthemessenger.exe
2. Example 2
1. Messenger DisableCode:http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/MessengerDisable.zip
NOTE: If you choose to uninstall Windows Messenger on a system with SP1 installed, you will receive an error message about "un-registering" an OCX file. This is normal, and doest not affect the removal process. Windows Messenger will still be removed
3. TEST
1. Example 1
1. Right-click "My Computer"2. Select "Manage"3. Under "System Tools" right-click on "Shared Folders"4. Choose "All Tasks" and select "Send Console Message..."5. If you recieve the following error message then the service has been disabled, otherwise confirm that you have disabled it or try another example"The following error occured while reading the list of sessions from Windows clients:Error 2114: The Server service is not started."
2. Example 2
1. Click Start then "Run"2. Type in {cmd.exe}3. Type in net send 127.0.0.1 hi4. If you get a popup "hi" message, then confirm that you have disabled it or try another example
4. IF YOU INSIST
1. If you insist on keeping Windows Messenger, then I'd recommend Messenger Manager - "Allows you to keep your messenger service running, as is intended and needed by Windows. This ensures that vital system errors and notifications may be sent informing you of Important System Events"Code:http://www.sellertools.com/default.asp?i=MessageManager3.htm
2. However, as a replacement to Windows Messenger remote control feature, I'd recommend this free tool Virtual Network Computing - "It is a remote control software which allows you to view and interact with one computer (the "server") using a simple program (the "viewer") on another computer anywhere on the Internet. The two computers don't even have to be the same type, so for example you can use VNC to view an office Linux machine on your Windows PC at home"Code:http://www.realvnc.com/download.html
How To Turn OUTLOOK EXPRESS into a SPAM filter Here

How to Be Completely Anonymous Using Proxies when you are Online

Every time you visit a web site, detailed information about your system is automatically provided to the webmaster. This information can be used by hackers to exploit your computer or can be forwarded to the market research departments of consumer corporations who by tracking your activities on the internet are better equipped to direct more relevant spam at you. Your best defence against this is to use what is known as a proxy server, which will hide revealing information from the web sites you visit, allowing you to surf the web anonymously. These work by altering the way in which your browser retrieves web pages or connects to remote servers. With a proxy server set up, whenever you 'ask' IE or Netscape to look at a web page, the request is first sent through an external server which is completely independent of your ISP's servers. This third party server then does the requesting on your behalf so that it appears that the request came from them rather than you and your real IP address is never disclosed to the sites you visit. There is nothing to download and the whole process takes less than a minute.

There are two different ways to use proxy servers and both have their advantages and disadvantages. The first method is to use a web based service. What this involves is visiting the proxy's home page each time you want to browse a web site anonymously. The core component of such a system is the dialog box where you enter the address of the web site you want to visit. Each time you enter the URL of the site you want to browse via the proxy into this box, your personal information, IP address and so on is first encrypted before being sent to the site allowing you to maintain your anonymity. Two of the best examples of this type of web based proxy service are Code:
http://www.rewebber.com
and http://www.anonymizer.com/.

Obviously one disadvantage of using a web based service like Rewebber or Anonymizer, however, is that you have to visit the proxies home page each time you want to surf anonymously. You could choose to select this page as your default home page, but it's still quite awkward if you're forever site hopping at the speed of light. The second main 'con' is that you often have to put up with extra adverts on the pages you visit. These are automatically inserted into the pages by the proxy - they have to pay for service somehow. More sophisticated and convenient solutions are also on offer yet they come with a price tag.

The second method you can use to protect your privacy via a proxy server involves adjusting the settings of your web browser so that you can surf anonymously without having to visit the home page of your proxy each time. To do this you will first need to know the name of your proxy server and the port number it uses. This information can be gleaned from either a public proxy server list or the FAQ referring to a private subscription based service. Once you have the name of the proxy server you wish to use, select 'Internet Options' from the 'Tools' menu of your browser. Now select 'Connections' followed by 'Settings' and tick the 'use a proxy server' check box. To finish the job all you have to do now is enter the name of the server in the 'address' box, the port which it uses in the 'port' box and go forth and surf anonymously.

Free, manual proxy servers as advertised on anonymity sites, if you can find one at all, are likely to be highly oversubscribed, and as a result the speed at which they retrieve web pages can deteriorate. In which case you can go in pursuit of a public proxy server list and select an alternative from it, which can then be set up manually. To locate such a list you can investigate sites such as Code:
http://www.proxys4all.com/

however, this method isn't problem free either, so before you get too carried away and go jumping on the anonymity bandwagon there are a few things you should be aware of. It's very easy to use proxies to protect your privacy, but often the disadvantages of using them far out weigh the benefits. You see, the problem is that, like the proxy servers provided Rewebber et al, free, public proxies are nearly all over subscribed and so they can slow down web browsing considerably. Digging out fast reliable proxy servers is an art form in itself and is a skill which takes considerable practice. You could find a list of public proxy servers and then experiment with each one until you find one that runs at a reasonable speed, but this can be very time consuming and frustrating. Instead, your search would be much more efficient if you got a dedicated program to carry out this task for you. There are literally dozens of proxy seeking programs around which can do just that, and many of them are available as freeware. What these do is scan the internet for public proxy servers. These servers are then tested for speed and anonymity (not all of them are truly anonymous, even if they claim to be!) and once you find one which suits your requirements you can select it as your default proxy with the click of a button.

One of the most significant advantages of using an automated tool to locate proxy servers is that you do not have to keep editing your proxy settings manually each time you wish to try out a new one. Instead, what you do is enter 'localhost' or '127.0.0.1' into the 'address' box and '8088' into the 'port' box of your browser's proxy settings menu and then forget about it. All future proxy switching is then orchestrated from within your proxy seeking software, which subsequently relays the information to your browser or whatever type of application you are attempting to make anonymous. For those of you who are curious 'localhost' and the IP address '127.0.0.1' are the names by which every computer on the internet refers to itself.
Here's a good selection of links, which should help you to get started - Code:
http://www.a4proxy.com/ Anonymity 4 Proxy
http://www.helgasoft.com/hiproxy/ Hi Proxy
http://www.proxy-verifier.com/ Proxy Verifier
http://www.photono-software.de/ Stealther.

You may find that even when using these programs you have difficulty finding good proxy servers. It is for this reason that many people choose only to use proxy servers temporarily whilst doing something which may land them in trouble with their ISP, or in a worst case scenario with the law. The most obvious example of a situation in which you would want to cover your tracks is when scanning for public FTP servers and subsequently uploading to them. Most other net activities are unlikely to incur serious consequences so under these circumstances you can safely surf the web without a proxy. If you're really serious about protecting your privacy, however, your best bet is probably to invest in a dedicated, stable proxy such as the ones offered by Code:
http://www.ultimate-anonymity.com/UltimateAnonymity

These aren't free, but may be worth the expense if you aren't keen on continuously switching proxy servers.
Before splashing out though it may be worth checking if your current ISP has a proxy server of its own which you can use. These aren't there to help you to commit cyber crimes and get away with it, they actually have a legitimate purpose as well - otherwise they wouldn't exist. You see, proxy servers were originally designed to help speed up web page loading times. Proxy servers contain a cache of all the web pages which have been requested via the browsers of the people using the proxy. When someone surfs the web using a proxy, the proxy first checks to see if it already has a copy of the web page stored in its cache. If this version of the page is bang up to date, it is sent to your computer and appears in your browser. If the page found in the cache of the proxy server is older than the one stored on the server hosting the page, a new request to the web server is made and the page is updated in the cache of the proxy before being sent to you. Because these servers use very fast internet connections they can retrieve web pages at much greater speeds than you can via your modest home setup. If these servers are located physically nearer to your home than the web host servers you wish to retrieve web pages from, the speed at which you browse the web will be accelerated.

Anonymity - Cookies
One last important point you need to be aware of before jumping in with both feet is that different programs have to be setup in different ways before being able to make external connections via a proxy server. For example, you can surf the web anonymously by modifying the settings in Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator as explained earlier in this tutorial, but this will only affect your browser. If you then used Flash FXP to copy a batch of 0-day releases from one FTP server to another, this isn't going to protect you in the slightest. What you have to do is enter the name of the proxy server into each application you wish to make anonymous before making any external connections. This can usually be done by browsing through the preferences of your program to see if there is a 'use proxy server' option available. If there is, make sure you use it!

Cookies:
You have little to fear from the edible variety, but the digital ones can be a major threat to your security and privacy. A cookie is a tiny text file (usually less than 1kb in size), which is created and stored on your hard drive whenever you visit a dynamic (or an interactive if you like) web site. These are used to log your personal details so that you can access members only areas of web sites without having to type in a password every time, or to retain your customised settings so that they are available the next time you visit. If you're using a shared computer, anyone who visits the same site that you have previously logged in to can access your accounts. This is particularly worrying if you have entered your credit card details into a form on an e-commerce site. If your browser is set to automatically fill in these details whenever you
return to a previously visited site, this information could be clearly visible - you don't need me to explain the problems this could entail.

The solution to this problem is to delete any cookies which contain sensitive data once you have completed your transactions. Your cookies will be stored in a different place depending on which operating system you are using so you will have to use your detective skills to find them. As an example, in Windows XP they are located in your 'c:\Documents and Settings\Kylie Minogue\Cookies' directory (that is if your name is Kylie Minogue. Mine isn't in case you're wondering!). If you look in this directory, in some cases it is easy to identify which cookie is associated with which web site, but in other cases it's not so obvious. The cookie which was created when you visited Yahoo.com to check your email may be called kylie minogue@yahoo.txt for example. Unfortunately some cookies refer to the IP address of the site you visited and so look more like kylie minogue@145.147.25.21. These cookies can be selectively deleted one at a time if it's obvious which ones are causing a threat to your security, or you can just wipe out the whole lot in one fell swoop and have them recreated as and when they are required. However, if
you're really struggling to find your cookie jar, you could delete your cookies via your browser's tool bar instead. In Internet Explorer this can be done through the 'Tools' > 'Internet Options' menu items.

If all this sounds like too much hassle, you can always find a labour saving program which will be happy to take the job off your hands. These 'cookie crunching' programs allow you to be more selective when editing, viewing and deleting cookies from your system, and some of them will even prevent cookies from being created in the first place. Yes, I know you're hungry for links so I won't deprive you. Have a look here - Code:
http://www.rbaworld.com/Programs/CookieCruncher/
http://www.thelimitsoft.com/ Cookie Crusher
http://www.angove.com/ Cookie Killer
http://www.kburra.com/Cookie Pal
http://www.cookiecentral.com/CookieWebKit.

Find Mobile Hacking Tricks From Here

Get The maximum Speed or Optimize Your Broadband or DSL Connection

This is true,you have a broadband connection and still not satisfied with speed then here is a tip or you say hack,and you will get the maximum bandwidth from your ISP,This hack works 100%. Try and Enjoy..
These settings allow you to boost the speed of your broadband Internet connection when using a Cable Modem or DSL Router with Windows 2000 and Windows XP.
Open your registry and find the key below.To open your Registry go to Start>Run and type regedit and press Enter.

Create the following DWORD values, as most of these values will not already exist you will need to create them by clicking on 'Edit -> New -> DWORD Value' and then set the value as shown below.

DefaultTTL = "80" hex (or 128 decimal)
Specifies the default time to live (TTL) for TCP/IP packets. The default is 32.

EnablePMTUBHDetect = "0"
Specifies whether the stack will attempt to detect Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) routers that do not send back ICMP fragmentation-needed messages. The default is 0.

EnablePMTUDiscovery = "1"
Specifies whether the TCP/IP stack will attempt to perform path MTU discovery as specified in RFC 1191. The default is 1.

GlobalMaxTcpWindowSize = "7FFF" hex (or 32767 decimal)
Specifies the system maximum receive window size advertised by the TCP/IP stack.

TcpMaxDupAcks = "2"
Determines the number of duplicate ACKs that must be received for the same sequence number of sent data before "fast retransmit" is triggered.

SackOpts = "1"
Enables support for selective acknowledgements as documented by Request for Comment (RFC) 2018. Default is 0.

Tcp1323Opts = "1"
Controls RFC 1323 time stamps and window scaling options. Possible values are: "0" = disable RFC 1323 options, "1" = window scale enabled only, "2" = time stamps enabled only and "3" = both options enabled.

TcpWindowSize = "7FFF" hex (or 32767 decimal)
Specifies the receive window size advertised by the TCP/IP stack. If you have a latent network you can try increasing the value to 93440, 186880, or 372300.

Exit your registry and restart Windows for the changes to take effect.

Try more tricks to Speed up your XP From here

Boost Your Firefox Browser speed with your Broadband

Yes,I know firefox is already the faster one but still we can make it more faster and reliable,use this below hack and enjoy

In the URL bar, type “about:config” and press enter. This will bring up the configuration “menu” where you can change the parameters of Firefox.

Note that these are what I’ve found to REALLY speed up my Firefox significantly - and these settings seem to be common among everybody else as well. But these settings are optimized for broadband connections - I mean with as much concurrent requests we’re going to open up with pipelining… you’d better have a big connection.

Double Click on the following settins and put in the numbers below - for the true / false booleans - they’ll change when you double click.
Code:
browser.tabs.showSingleWindowModePrefs – true
network.http.max-connections – 48
network.http.max-connections-per-server – 16
network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-proxy – 8
network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server – 4
network.http.pipelining – true
network.http.pipelining.maxrequests – 100
network.http.proxy.pipelining – true
network.http.request.timeout – 300


One more thing… Right-click somewhere on that screen and add a NEW -> Integer. Name it “nglayout.initialpaint.delay” and set its value to “0”. This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it receives. Since you’re broadband - it shouldn’t have to wait.
Now you should notice you’re loading pages MUCH faster now

leave a comment Please.......
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Hack Paypal and Download Any Software without Any Account

Yes, You probably see the sites which offer Paypal as the payment option to Download the software. Here is a Hack but remember this only work for the sites which offers to download any software from billing Paypal.
Use a proxy when you try this to hide your ip as some sites will record your ip when you connect for security.

1) Rightclick your mouse (ctrl+click) viewsource and open the source of the site in an a texteditor
2) Search for the word "return"
3) Next to it you can find the url for the thank you page
4) Copy the url and paste it in your browser and you will see the download link

This works only if you can download instantly after payment, it will not work if the link needs to be emailed to you.

For Exaple :
www.example.com/halfpipe.html
About half way down the page you will find:

Copy the link into your browser and download

Please Leave a comment if u like it.Thankyou.....
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ViewSonic G90f Reviews

The G90f is the latest 19-inch flat screen CRT from ViewSonic, and is aimed at professionals and gamers. In fact, it is a “PerfectFlat,” and is supposed to provide terrific precision for video, graphics and engineered imaging. However, we found the image quality not really up to the mark: though the text and graphics looked good enough and the colours vivid, the images lacked the sharpness we expected from ViewSonic—and a PerfectFlat ViewSonic at that. The viewing area is 18 inches, which is standard for a 19- inch CRT. The G90f has a high bandwidth, and a very high maximum resolution of 1920 x 1440. Also, it can handle 1600 x 1200 at 77 Hz. The OSD appears pretty dated, but has all the necessary functions. Though the G90f has a sleek form factor, at 19.2 kg, it’s heavy. The price tag— Rs 14,999—is a bit on the higher side, but then, it’s a ViewSonic.
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JVC Everio GZ-MG20e Reviews

The JVC Everio GZ-MG20e DV cam comes with a 20 GB hard drive that promises to make tape media obsolete. This camera is amazingly light—just 380 grams. The camera has no viewfinder: you have to rely on the 2.5 inch, 180-degree-swivel colour LCD. The downside to this is that shooting with high ambient light is a problem. There are four recording modes: you can record up to seven hours of video in Fine mode and up to 24 hours in Eco mode, thus ensuring you won’t miss a moment of your vacation. Since you record to a hard drive, you can easily delete unwanted scenes and rearrange the footage on the go! The 25x optical zoom is more than enough for any occasion. But despite the superb image stabilising mechanism, you will require a tripod to shoot video at that magnification. The Tele Macro feature allows you to shoot from as close as 5 cm. Using the AV input, the Everio turns into a VCR, allowing you to connect to older analogue sources and convert your old memories to digital format. Computer connectivity is via USB 2.0. The camera is also a VGA digital still camera. Photos can be stored either on the hard drive or on an SD card using the SD card slot. The PictBridge and DPOF standards are also supported. An S-Video out is provided to view captured video on a TV in normal or 16:10 aspect ratio, and this is made easy by the accompanying remote. We found the capture quality as good as that of any other DV cam. The GZ-MG20e comes with CyberLink’s video editing suite, which complements the camera perfectly. But you’ve got to remember that the package costs Rs 46,900. Even then, this being possibly the first hard drive-based camera for home use, you can stop worrying about running out of tape!
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Canon IXUS 750 Reviews

Alarge feature set and an even larger price tag” best describes the Canon IXUS 750. Catering to the semi- professional and the indulgent enthusiast classes of photographers, this 7.1-megapixel camera sports a superb 2.5-inch screen. Zoom is the standard optical 3x and digital 4x. Shoot
modes include: nine scene, auto focus, three white balancing, portrait and night. Other features include USB 2.0, customisable power saving options and themes, warning of camera shake probability, and many more goodies that can really put a smile on your face! The images we shot were rich and clear, and the video is VGA at 30 fps with mono sound or at 60 fps and 320 x 240. Excellent camera, no doubt, but the smile ends as soon as you hear the price— Rs 29,995!
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Lexmark P4350 All-in-One Reviews

The P4350 All-in-One is an inkjet photo MFD. It uses a dual-cartridge system for photo-quality printing, and the colour scanner is an A4 flatbed. This is a good thing, because a sheet-fed scanner could very well crumple your photos while you’re scanning them! MFDs do not have to look boring, and the P4350 proves it. It sports sleek, elegant looks and blue LEDs all over the place that would make any printer, let alone an MFD, turn green with envy. The P4350 supports almost all memory card standards, and also PictBridge. So you can just click away with your digital camera, insert the memory card into the MFD, preview your photos on the 1.7-inch colour LCD screen, and just press a button to print your photos! The Lexmark Imaging Studio—a photo editor, and the ABBYY FineReader 6 Sprint OCR software, make this a complete package. Overall performance, however, was a bit slow, and print quality was just about average. At Rs 15,999, the Lexmark P4350 All-in-One is still out of reach for most home users.
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Video iPod Reviews

Apple’s latest, its a bit wider than the original iPod, because of the larger screen and smaller scroll wheel. The new model has been beaten down to look slimmer and smarter. The most desirable feature of this iPod is that it plays video. What formats? Apple specifies H.264 video in 320 x 240 at 30 fps and MPEG-4 video in 480 x 480 at 30 fps. Audio can be encoded in AAC-LC up to 160 Kbps at 48 kHz. One good thing is that the new QuickTime has an “Export to iPod” option, which automatically takes care of these specifications. During our test, the video playback was crisp, clear and enjoyable. Since the standard bundle doesn’t include the AV cable, we were unable to connect it to a TV set. The device provides about 11 hours of battery life! Some nifty new apps have trickled into the iPod Video—a world clock, a great stopwatch and a superb-looking screen lock. But Apple has cut some corners—there’s no A/C wall charger, AV cable or dock. Our verdict? The Video iPod makes for a great personal video player—if you can cough up the money
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Asus PW191 19-inch LCD Reviews

The ASUS PW191 is an anti-glare TFT-LCD screen with a black piano-finish casing that will bowl you over. It incorporates a 90-degree pivot aluminium head-stand, and it supports both landscape and portrait views. The PW191’s WXGA screen supports a resolution of 1400 x 900 (16:10) at contrast ratio of 600:1. A response time of 8 ms supported by a good viewing angle of approximately 150 degrees makes this LCD monitor a good choice for gamers and movie buffs. The elegant front panel encloses touch sensor buttons and twin speakers of 2 watts rms each. Headphone, audio and video input jacks are located at the back, just below the pivot. But there are two things we didn’t like about the sensor buttons: first, they are unpredictable, and second, it's hard to locate the buttons in the dark if the monitor is off. Kudos to the designers for putting a lot ot thought into the design of the PW191—a good lifestyle product.
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JVC GR-DF570AC mini DV Camcorder Reviews

The JVC GR-DF570AC mini DV Camcorder is JVC’s newest offering for the Indian market. It uses Mini DV tape and conforms to the PAL video standard, which is what is used in India. The aspherical lens creates an image that is evenly focused from the centre to the edge. The stabilisation mechanism is so amazing, it produces remarkable results even when using the 15x zoom. The 2.5 inch, 180-degree swivel, active matrix system LCD produces a vivid display, but is not of much use outdoors. But the colour viewfinder with a dioptre corrector does excellent work under outdooor conditions. The S-video connector lets you dub to a VCR or DVD
recorder, and the Mini DV port allows loss-free video transfer to a PC. Still photos can be transferred to the PC from the memory card via USB 2.0. This camcorder is compatible with the DPOF standard, ensuring support for future systems, including features such as automatic printing. The one-touch recording is easy enough for novices to master. The rotary switch provides an intuitive interface, and the five-second record feature is great for capturing snippets of special moments. Inbuilt Wiper/Fader effects let you make professional-looking scene transitions. The Backlight Compensation function brightens a subject that would otherwise appear dark due to a backlight. The stereo microphone records and plays back sound in real 3D acoustic fields using the camera’s Biphonic recording and playback feature. The GR-DF570AC is not just a good camcorder, but also a 1.3-megapixel digital camera that allows you shoot photos at 1024 x 768. This camcorder also works as a Webcam. The camera ’s battery lasts 55 minutes with the LCD on, and about 65 minutes when the viewfinder is used, which may not be enough. The bundled Cyberlink PowerProducer video editing suite, however, makes this a complete home studio package.
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MSI Mega Player 540 Reviews

The Mega Player 540, introduced by MSI, is sure to catch people’s fancy. Housed in an elegant white case, this player has the feel of an iPod, but has distinct looks. The 1.8-inch colour OLED with its vibrant colours is a treat for your eyes. A five-way navigation button allows for easy control with just one hand. Ergonomics has also been paid attention to. The 540 is capable of playing MP3 and WMA files in addition to M-JPEG video files and JPEG photos. The 4 GB hard drive can store enough songs to keep you going for hours. The device also has an FM receiver and recorder. We found the bass and volume levels too low, though. The Mega Player 540 provides around 7 hours of playback. It connects to the PC via the USB 2.0 interface, and USB 2.0 OTG lets you connect it directly to compliant devices.
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Genius GHT-S200 5.1 Surround Speakers Reviews

The Genius GHT-S200 is a stylish 5.1 surround-sound speaker system targeted at the home entertainment segment. It features a centre speaker for voice, one wooden subwoofer for bass, two rear and two slim front tower speakers. The speakers consist of four neodymium micro drivers and produce amazingly crisp treble, and the 8-inch subwoofer produces rich, deep bass. However, the speaker system as a whole lacks in the mid-range department. Also, at high volumes—but only at high volumes—the bass begins to distort. The provided connectors are
colour-coded. The speakers can be connected to a DVD player or a 2.1- channel auxiliary source. But for 5.1-channel PC connectivity, you will need to purchase the connecting cables separately. The Genius GHT-S200 comes with a tiny remote control with just the necessary controls. The subwoofer features an LED display that indicates information such as mode, audio source and volume, which can be controlled separately for each channel. The total power output is 200 W RMS. Connect it to your wide-screen TV, and the Genius GHT-S200 will turn your living room into a personal home theatre
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Seagate CompactFlash Photo Hard Drive Reviews

The Seagate CompactFlash Photo hard drive is a high-capacity storage solution for professional photographers and prosumers. This 3600 rpm drive features a 2 MB cache, and is available in
capacities of 4 GB and 8 GB, allowing photographers to shoot and store thousands of high-res photographs without the need to change storage cards. Rated to withstand 1.5K G
non-operating shock and 200 G operating shock, the drive promises reliability and data protection under demanding conditions. The CompactFlash Photo hard drive is compatible with
all CF Type II, FAT32-formatted digital cameras such as the Nikon D70, Canon EOS 350D, Olympus E300, and more. A firmware upgrade may be required for some cameras for the Photo hard drive to work properly. An updated list of compatible devices is available at
www.seagate.com/support/photo/. Ensure compatibility with your device before deciding on this drive.
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ExBoot EXB-0121 Reviews

The EXB-0121 consists of a 40 GB hard drive housed inside a sleek enclosure. It is a portable, instant backup and recovery solution capable of quickly and easily backing up the operating system, programs, e-mails, pictures, and other data. The device connects to the PC via two USB 2.0 ports, and is also powered via the USB port. The hardware part is just half the real thing; the accompanying AXIOMTEK ExBoot Professional is a backup recovery software that completes the product. The ExBoot software uses a Wizard to facilitate incremental or full backup as the need be. Once you’ve performed a full backup, you can easily perform an incremental backup in one simple step anytime by simply pressing the button on the drive. If your hard disk fails, you can boot from the ExBoot and perform system recovery procedures after replacing the failed hard drive. There are other useful features too, such as Point-In-Time recovery, where you can recover the system to a point in time at which you made an incremental backup. Such recovery can be very useful if your system was infected by a virus before the incremental backup. The ExBoot can function as an external storage device, of course. This is an excellent device for power users as well as home users for whom data and PC uptime is precious. And the price is just right!
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BenQ Joybook 7000 Reviews

The Joybook 7000 is a classy Centrino notebook. The most notable feature is the TV-Tuner and remote which, along with the QMedia Media Center software, turn the notebook into a full-featured media centre. The notebook is powered by an Intel Pentium M 725 processor. It features a multi-format DVD burner. The 14-inch wide display is capable of 1280 x 768 resolution. Gaming firepower is provided by the ATi Radeon 9700 64 MB. There are four USB 2.0 ports, a FireWire port, and a slot for Type- II PC cards. Wi-Fi b+g and 10/100 LAN are provided. There’s a D-Sub connector and S-Video-Out. Battery life is over three hours. The 7000 weighs less than 2 kg. The price tag seems just right!
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Nokia N70 Reviews

The classy N70 is the latest phone from Nokia. Weighing 126 grams, the N70 is no eatherweight; however, clever use of lines and curves helps in masking the phone’s size. The 176 x 208, 262 K colour screen is gorgeous and remains legible even in bright outdoor settings. The large screen on the N70, however, has limited the size of the keypad, which was our biggest gripe with this phone. The N70 has an extensive list of features that includes a 2-megapixel camera for stills and video, a 0.3- meagapixel camera for videoconferencing, a music player capable of playing most audio formats, and FM radio. Audio playback was great, and the FM reception splendid. The camera does a good job in most lighting conditions; however, you’ll need to be extra careful about camera shake with this phone. The battery lasts around two and a half days with normal use. Bundled with the phone are a 64 MB RS-MMC card and a hands-free earpiece. The phone retails at Rs 27,919
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Logitech G15 Keyboard Reviews

Logitech’s G15 keyboard is targeted at gamers. It’s wider than most other keyboards, and the wrist rest offers good support. There are two USB ports on the front, and it has a controllable blue backlight. The G15 has 18 programmable keys, each of which have three modes. The accompanying macro profiling application lets you assign a particular combination of keys to a single such key. These keys can really help RTS and MMORPG players. Recording macros is simple, and Logitech has provided profiles for most new games. Of particular interest is the new LCD display, which isn’t just a display—it’s a platform Logitech is trying to push. If game developers take to it, game statistics such as ammo and life will be displayed on the screen. For now, Logitech has included an LCD clock, a performance monitor and a media display (for WinAmp, iTunes and WMP info) for the LCD. At Rs 5,000, this keyboard is worth the money if you’re an avid MMORPG or RTS gamer.
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Yes MMP8 Portable DVD Player Reviews

The Yes MMP8 is a portable DVD player with a difference—it features a slate form factor and is disc-based. There is no internal memory to store media. Measuring 22 x 15.3 x 2.6 cm and weighing close to 700 grams without the battery, the device is a bit bulky— but makes up on features and performance. The MMP8 supports a variety of media formats, from standard DVD, VCD and MP3 to picture CD and even MPEG4 and DivX. Yes, that’s right—you can also view DivX movies burnt onto CD or DVD. CD-RW and DVD-RW discs are also supported. Where performance is concerned, we found no issues—the MMP8 played all the media formats we tried out. The glossy black front facia sports a decent-sized 7-inch screen. The controls are located on both sides as well as on the top edge, and the optical drive can be accessed from the rear. The included rechargeable lithium battery pack affixes to the rear right. Audio output is through an integrated speaker and through the bundled earphones. A unique feature is the availability of a USB port and a Flash card slot. The MMP8 can play supported media formats—including audio, video and images—straight off any USB device such as USB drives, digital cameras, MP3 players and digital camcorders, and also off MMC, SD and Memory sticks. You can also connect the player to your TV and use the bundled wireless slim remote. SPDIF digital output is also provided, so you can enjoy 5.1 surround sound on an existing external Dolby Digital or DTS amplifier. Apart from a standard power adaptor that powers the player and charges the battery, you get a car charger for when you take the device with you on a road trip. The player displays an Explorer-like interface to list the music and video tracks on a disc. Menu navigation is easy enough, and the remote allows you to specify settings such as the TV system (PAL/NTSC), TV type (4:3/16:9), password, and more. The bundled 4200 mAh battery lasted about 3.5 hours with DivX playback—enough for even a long movie. Apart from being somewhat bulky and carrying a slightly high price tag, this is a decent product to consider if you don’t want to miss out on your entertainment on a vacation.
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Sony VRD-VC20 DVDirect Reviews

Sony has recently introduced the world’s first hybrid DVD recorder, capable of burning DVDs with or without a PC—the Sony VRD-VC20 DVDirect. It works as an external 16x DVD burner when connected to the PC, and supports all the common formats. The real advantage of the DVDirect is that it connects to various video sourcessuch as VCRs, analogue and digital video cameras. DVDirect synchronises with a connected DV Camcorder. Recording and pausing can be controlled with the camera buttons. Also, if your video camera’s batteries die out, the recording is paused and you can resume recording after charging! There is no video output on the device, and the video camera needs to have a video display if you want to monitor what you’re recording.
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MSI K9N SLI Platinum Reviews

Built around NVIDIA’s spanking-new nForce 570 SLI chipset for AMD’s latest AM2 processors, the K9N SLI sports the “Platinum” badge, meaning that MSI positions this product in the premium segment. As far as chipsets go, the nForce 570 SLI is a mainstream offering, behind the enthusiast-level nForce 590 SLI chipset. This chipset supports two x8 only slots in SLI mode, while the top-end 590 chipset supports two x16 slots. One major advantage for the 570 SLI chipset is, it’s a single chip solution (the 590 SLI is a 2-chip solution). Layout-wise, the board is decent, except that the IDE connector is cramped by the 24-pin power connector. A definite plus is the inclusion of three PCI slots; most SLI boards do away with at least one of these. The board is sufficiently feature-rich. Six SATA connectors should keep
almost everyone happy, while the onboard HD-quality eight-channel sound is more than decent, even by today’s relatively higher standards. One grouse we have is the quality of the chipset cooling used—a simple aluminum heat sink that gets much hotter than expected. Though we didn’t face any stability issues, overclocking enthusiasts will rightfully expect at least
a heat-pipe solution. The BIOS is simple by enthusiast-board standards. Setting up and installation was easy enough. Our DDR2 800 MHz memory didn’t boot into JEDEC-prescribed
timings, but thankfully, the BIOS allowed us to easily remedy this. We ran the gamut of SiSoft Sandra’s tests first and got some interesting results. The Memory Bandwidth test gave
decent results, just on the shy side of 8500 megabytes per second—a good score. We
set up a 7900 GTX on this setup, and got a very respectable score of 7115. We decided to set up a RAID array to check the onboard SATA RAID controller. With 112 MBps as a drive index in SiSoft Sandra 2007, the storage subsystem is juicy indeed! Overall, the MSI K9N SLI
Platinum is a good performer, and a very well- built board. Ideal for the gamer or enthusiast who won’t skimp on the other “performance” components that will complement this
motherboard.
Specifications:
nForce 570 SLI chipset, Socket AM2, two x8 PCI express SLI-ready slots (single slot
functions in x16 mode), six Serial ATA 300 MBps ports, HD 8-channel audio (Azalia) onboard.

Everglide Titan Reviews

The Everglide Titan measures 444 x 355 mm and 4.3 mm in thickness. The Everglide logo in silvery relief on the jet black pad is eye-catching. The material, which is silky smooth to the touch, is called “Fibertek.” This is a trademark of Everglide that represents the cloth-weave found on the surface of each Everglide Titan. The micro cloth fibres are closely woven to increase tracking precision, without affecting acceleration or deceleration of mouse movements. The Titan is thus able to deliver near-perfect tracking, especially for gamers—perfect for accurate rail- gunning in Quake III, for example. Everyone will benefit from such build quality and precision, but at Rs 2,150, you can be sure that everyone but hardcore gamers will steer clear of this pad! The back of the Titan is soft, and is made of a foam material that’s touted to be “anti-skid”—so the mouse pad isn’t going to be sliding across your table during that frantic frag session! This is one excellent product for the hardcore gamer...

Diskeeper 10 Professional Reviews

Diskeeper 10 is the latest offering from Diskeeper Corp., which makes disk defragmentation easier, and works for standalone desktops and networks as well. When a drive is fragmented beyond a certain threshold, a warning is issued for you to take prompt action. You can even set this warning to be e-mailed to your system administrator, using the Diskeeper’s Administrator edition. Defragmentation tasks can be automated using two customisable profiles. This apart, there is also an option of customisable boot time defragmentation and defrag while system is idle. Diskeeper 10 can save a log of the task performed, display the status of the file system as defragmentation happens, show current access time, how much it can improve after defragmentation, etc. You can also view a “history” that tells you how many fragments have been eliminated in earlier scans. Diskeeper 10 is available in five versions: Professional, Professional Premier, Administrator, Server Standard and Server Enterprise. The Administrator edition can even be remotely deployed across a network and tasks scheduled on remote PCs.
Specifications:
Defragment scheduling, defrag during idle, save job reports, issues warning when
fragmentation exceeds a limit, occupies 12 MB on disk...

JBL ON TIME Reviews

JBL’s ON TIME is an iPod dock that integrates sound with a digital clock, making for a good bedside portable audio player. Available in iPod white and black finishes, the design is elegant. Subtle use of chrome, a blue backlight, and an inversed LCD display blends well with the white body. Apart from good looks, the ON TIME dock is peppered with interesting features. To begin with, the universal dock ensures compatibility across a wide generation of iPods and also nano players. When docked, these players are automatically charged. The
dock offers rudimentary controls such as sound, source selection, etc., but for skipping tracks, one has to use the iPod controls. The dock has an auxiliary input which allows for connecting other MP3 players, laptops, etc. It integrates FM and AM radio as the third audio source, and setting up preset stations is a snap. The dock integrates a nice digital clock with two alarms and the snooze function. Setting up the alarms is quite simple, and the snooze timer can be set from as low as one minute to a maximum of 30 minutes. As for the alarm tone, you can choose to wake up to your favourite song from the iPod. The large reversed LCD display has good contrast and is quite sharp, so the digits are legible from a distance. Coming to the audio quality, it leaves a lot to be desired. The ON TIME, despite being from JBL, doesn’t inspire much: it lacks clarity and depth when the volume is set below 30 per cent. The speakers start sounding better when the volume is raised past the 50 to 60 per cent mark. Now that’s not ideal for a bedside player, which will mostly be set at low volumes. An interesting feature includes a light sensor that regulates backlighting on the fly, and this works pretty well. The dock has an audio-out that can be connected to an active sub-woofer for additional boom. Priced at Rs 17,990, JBL’s ON TIME is expensive for sure, but then lifestyle products are more about exclusivity than price. Based on the average audio quality, however, we cannot recommend the ON TIME as a good buy.
Specifications:
6 W neodymium speakers and tweeters, universal iPod dock, 3.5 mm mini stereo auxiliary jack, sub-woofer out, and frequency response of 70 Hz - 20 KHz...

GParted Reviews

Finally, a partition manager just the way it should be. GParted (GNOME Partition Editor) is a freeware partition manager based on Linux, but it’s not limited to that OS. Get it Free from our this month’s DVD. GParted is available in three forms: a binary that can be compiled on any
Linux distro, a LiveCD which can be burnt onto CD, and a LiveUSB distribution that can be run by booting off a USB drive. We booted off the LiveCD version to review this software. The interface is simple, clean and very easy to understand. The top part of the window shows the hard drive as a rectangular diagram, and the partitions are drawn with proportional sizes. The file system, capacity, and free space of each partition are shown at the bottom. You can right-click on a partition and resize, move, copy, format, or create a partition. After you perform a certain list of actions, a new pane pops at the bottom of the program, listing the actions and their sequence. This is just a preview of the actions, and you can review the actions and undo any or all actions. Once you feel that all is OK, you can click the Apply button to execute the actions. From this point on, you cannot undo anything. GParted supports a host of file systems such as ext, ext2, FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, HFS, HFS+, and the list is seemingly endless. This software will give a run for their money to commercial indows-based partition managers. We have only good things to say about it—full marks to GParted.
Specifications:
Resize, move, copy, format, and create partitions, supports ext, ext2, FAT16, FAT32,NTFS, HFS, HFS+, JFS, Reiser4, ReiserFS, UFS, XFS, Linux Swap...

Beyond TV 4.4 Reviews

Beyond TV from Snapstream has been known as one of the best PVR software available, so we decided to see if this claim holds any water. We have just one word for the interface—beautiful! It’s even better than the Windows Media Center PVR interface, which was our favourite until now. Beyond TV makes full use of the 3D hardware acceleration of your video card to apply transparency effects to the video overlay window. The interface lets you configure various settings to fine-tune channels. It supports video capture in DivX, MPEG-2 as well WMV, and you can use the timeshift feature to pause Live TV and skip certain parts. To make videos portable, Beyond TV has a ShowSqueeze feature that recompresses movies for easy playback on
portable devices. Beyond TV also has a media player that can play movies in the mentioned formats. It is capable of tuning FM radio—if your TV-Tuner supports FM—and capturing audio
from it as well. Beyond TV supports all TV- Tuners (analogue and digital) that support Windows
XP MCE, and a few more. It even supports multiple TV-Tuners, allowing you to view multiple channels at the same time, or view one and record another simultaneously. The only thing missing is the ability to directly burn captured content to DVD. Still, this is the best PVR software we have tested!
Specifications:
Supports analogue and digital telecasts, supports HDTV, records in DivX, MPEG-2 and WMV,
supports timeshift, play and pause FM Radio, Firefly PC Remote...

MSI P610 Reviews

Here’s an option for those who want something like the iPod nano, but don’t want to spend as much. The MSI 1 GB P610 media player even looks sim- ilar to the nano. The stylish P610 sports a sturdy steel metallic body, and weighs just 45 gms. The 1.8- inch TFT LCD is bright enough to view even in broad daylight, though the interface is not that great; it was sluggish during playback. In addition to MP3 (with lyrics), WMA (also with DRM), and WAV playback, it also plays back MOV and AVI video—MPEG. A JPEG photo viewer, FM radio, voice / line-in recorder, and a text viewer com- pletes the package. There is support for SRS sound, WOW, and TruBass. The provided ear- phones do an excellent job in pumping bass into your ears, even though the player itself does not produce note- worthy bass levels. Overall, the sound is good. There are two file transfer modes: Media Transfer Mode supported by Windows Media Player 10, and Media Class Storage, in which the player is recognised as a removable drive. This player went on and on for around 15 hours. Priced at Rs.6,400, it looks good and performs well, but doesn’t appeal as much: Apple offers double the space for just Rs 1,000 more!
Specifications:
2 GB, 45 gms, 1.8-inch TFT LCD, USB MTP and MSC transfer mode, music formats: MP3, WMA, WAV; video formats: M-JPEG, photo format: JPEG, lyrics: TXT ...

Sharp 37” Aquos LC-37AF3M Reviews

LCD TVs just seem to be getting bigger: last month it was a Samsung 26-inch beauty, and this time, we received the 37-inch Sharp LC-37AF3M from their latest Aquos range. Setting up this one took no time at all— motivation being the key—and all 26 kgs (stand included) were unpacked and hooked up in a jiffy! The finish on the panel isn’t as good as that on the Samsung Bordeaux series we tested earlier; build quality is a little above average, though not outstanding.
With two Component connectors, an S-Video In, an AV-Out and even an HDMI (High Definition Media Interface), you have all the possible connectivity avenues. Thoughtfully, a headphone jack has also been provided, while the speakers are rated at 20W RMS. The high-res screen on the Aquos is suitable for high-definition content viewing. Vertically, the screen consists of 540 dots, exactly half the 1080i (1920 x 1080 interlaced HD) resolution specification, and three
quarters of the 720p (1280 x 720 progressively scanned). We set up this panel on our Xbox 360 first, for a round of Project Gotham Racing and Dead or Alive 4, and were in for a real joy-ride. The Aquos delivers smooth viewing with great colour reproduction and good wide-angle viewing. Next, we hooked up our DVD player and popped in one of our test DVDs. What followed was a sight for sore eyes! The screen delivers great colour and light contrast, making it ideal for
home TV viewing. Although HD television is absent in India, you will notice the difference even with regular TV broadcasts. Just make sure you have a living room that’s large enough to view this beauty from a distance of at least 15 feet, or you will notice pixelation, which is common to
all LCDs when viewed from close. At Rs 1,39,900, the Sharp Aquos is costly for a 37-inch
display. The good news is that with prices expected to fall over the next few months, great LCD TVs like this one are about to get a whole lot cheaper.
Specifications:
37” black TFT LCD, 960x540x3 dots, colour system: PAL / SECAM / NTSC 3.58 / NTSC 4.43 / PAL 60, TV: VHF/UHF/CATV (including hyperband), 99 auto-preset channels, input terminals: co-axial, 2x Component, S-Video, HDMI; output terminals: S-Video, 3.5 mm audio jack; operating voltage: 110 - 240 V 50 Hz, power consumption: 111 W, weight: 26 kg (with stand).

Samsung SH-S182D 18X Super-WriteMaster Reviews

The Samsung SH-S182D is the newest DVD- Writer from Samsung and also the fastest, sporting a write speed of 18x to DVD-R and DVD+R media. It also supports high-speed burning of dual-layer DVDs at 8x, and 12x DVD-RAM burning—the highest available today. The drive successfully read scratched CDs and DVDs. We tried overburning, but found that only CDs could be overburned, not DVDs. Due to the lack of 18x media, we could not test this drive’s 18x burning speed. The drive comes with an extra black bezel for those with black cabinets.
Included with it is the Samsung Firmware LiveUpdate program, which enables automatic firmware update online. The feature missing here is LightScribe, but then again, it’s hard to find LightScribe media. All in all, a good drive
Specifications:
2 MB buffer, write speeds: DVD+-R: 18x, DVD+-R DL: 8x, DVD+RW: 8x, DVD-RW: 6x,
DVD-RAM: 12x, CD-R: 48x, CD-RW: 32x, read speeds: DVD+-R: 12x, DVD+-R DL: 8x, DVD+-
RW: 8x, DVD-RAM: 12x, DVD-ROM: 16x, CD-R: 40x, CD-RW: 40x, CD-ROM: 48x...

Acronis True Image Home 10.0 Reviews

This is a disk imaging backup software that lets you create an image of your hard drive, including the OS, applications, user settings, and all other data. If your PC fails to boot after a crash, you can use this image to revive it to a working state without reinstalling Windows. You can easily restore data even if you accidentally delete it. True Image is not just any other imaging backup solution. In addition to a complete system restore, it can restore individual files and folders in a matter of minutes. True Image can create backups on almost any storage device—local hard drives, network drives and removable media drives, as well as CD-R/RW, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, magneto-optical, and Iomega Zip and Jaz drives. The Acronis Secure Zone is a special partition on the hard drive where images can be saved. This is completely invisible to the operating system and all applications. You also have the option to choose a backup mode from full, incremental and differential. Backup to FTP is another convenient feature for travellers, since they can access their backup archives from any location where an Internet connection is available. The Windows application backup lets you roll back after an unsuccessful application setup, and you can also search for files in the image archive just like in Windows Explorer. Buy it for a steal at $49.99 (Rs 2400) and kiss your data worries good-bye!

SanDisk Sansa e260 4 GB Reviews

This 4 GB flash memory-based player has many features crammed into its beautiful black exterior. The e260 is built rugged, with a scratch-resistant alloy back. The screen, however, is quite susceptible to scratches. It is sleek, but not as much as the iPod nano. The 1.8-inch, bright TFT LCD displays 65K colours, but has an extremely narrow viewing angle. Along with music, you can also view JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP, and TIFF images. Video transcoded using the bundled application can also be viewed. The animated GUI is very well made and easy to use. The control wheel glows blue while in use, is quite ergonomic, and makes navigating the interface very easy. The buttons are a bit stiff, and you will more often than not suffer from sore fingertips. There are two modes of USB connectivity: MTP to sync with WMP, and MSP to show up as a USB drive. A microSD slot augments storage capacity. Battery life is long—something every traveller will like; it lasted a total of 19.5 hours with continuous MP3 playback! Another good thing is that the Li-Ion rechargeable battery is user-replaceable. The decent earphones complement the e260 well. There are the usual frills such as FM radio, Line / voice recording, and media functions such as playlists, shuffle, and seven presets. At its price, the SanDisk Sansa e260 is a good bargain!
Specifications:
4 GB capacity; 1.8-inch TFT LCD; microSD slot; USB 2.0; MSP/MTP functionality; audio formats: MP3, WMA, and WMA-DRM; photo formats: JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP, and TIFF; video format: proprietary...

Nokia E70 Reviews

Here’s a full-fledged corporate companion with Communicator-like features, sporting an extremely crisp screen, excellent for browing! For a business cell phone, the E70 has a very good MP3 player, though Nokia bundles only a single earbud with this one. A 2-megapixel camera is included. In keeping with its business audience requirements, the E70’s got a 1150 mAh Li-ion battery— plenty of talktime! The E70 can be funky and suave—the best of both worlds
Specifications:
S60 version 9.1; weight: 127 gm; 24-bit colour screen (352 x 416); QWERTY + regular keypad; 75
MB internal memory + miniSD expansion...

Acer AL1916W Reviews

Acer’s AL1916W is a 19-inch widescreen monitor with a resolution of 1440 x 900. Aesthetics
have been kept in mind—the AL1916W is quite slim with an attractive bezel. The only sore point is the extra space used by the control buttons on a small panel of their own, which juts out at the bottom of the screen. Acer also excludes DVI connectivity here—all you get is a single D-Sub connect, an absolute crime considering 90 per cent of today’s graphics cards support dual DVI connects! The AL1916W didn’t do very well in our gamut of display tests—we noticed ghosting effects while gaming and some colour overlapping. It performed decently with regular applications, however. To be honest though, most users won’t be aware of the ghosting—it’s quite subtle— but it’s there! All said and done, at Rs 14,999, the AL1916W is a decent monitor, but there are others out there who deserve a more approving nod. And then there is the sorely missed DVI input.
Specifications:
6-bit TN (twisted nematic) panel; 19-inch widescreen; 16:10 aspect ratio; maximum resolution 1440 x 900; contrast ratio 700:1; brightness 270 cd/m2; 5 ms response time; D-Sub connectivity...

Razer Pro Click V1.6 and Pro Pad Reviews

The Razer Pro Click is a 7-button, 1600 dpi mouse targeted at designers and engineers who need to work with graphical software with pinpoint precision. It’s shaped to perfectly fit your palm. The Pro Click lets you set sensitivity on the fly, using one of the seven buttons and smooth scroll wheel. All the buttons can be assigned custom functions using the bundled software. The Pro Pad that comes with it has two surfaces— one for better gliding speed, and the other for
better control over the pointer. This is a precise mouse, and reduces fatigue caused by prolonged use. Recommended for professionals, and at Rs 4,050, it’s certainly worth the money
Specifications:
USB 2.0; 1600 dpi resolution; seven buttons; on-the-fly sensitivity adjustment...

ACDSee 2 Pro Reviews

ACDSee is an image viewer that’s been well known since the days of IrfanView. ACDSee had quite a few followers for its superior features back then, but IrfanView was generally known more for being freeware. ACDSee 2 Pro has moved from being just an image viewer. This new version boasts of great photo handling features for the professional photographer. The first thing ACDSee 2 Pro does is catalogue all your images when you first run it. The interface is surrounded by sidebars, leaving only a small area to actually view images and the thumbnails. Photos are sorted by time and can be viewed through the Calendar view. The other useful filtering feature is the Organise sidebar, which allows you to display photos from only a particular camera. A quick preview appears when you hover the pointer over an image. You can enter image editing mode by double-clicking on any of the photos. ACDSee 2 Pro even loads videos; you can not only view them, but also convert them using the codecs on your machine. Images and videos can even be burnt onto CD andDVD. Wizards are available to create video CDs as well. Other than that, you can even export your photos as HTML albums, PDF, or PowerPoint presentations. Memory consumption was well under 30 MB while browsing images, and only spiked by a few (5 to 10) MB while opening images. Other than its clumsy interface, ACDSee 2 Pro seems a nice software, until you get to know about the price tag—$129.99. It’s still much cheaper than Adobe Lightroom, which is more than twice its price. It has quite a few features that can be compared to those of Lightroom, but it doesn’t match its simplicity. People looking for image viewers can stick to free ones like IrfanView, as ACDSee 2 Pro has gone far beyond that. Users who can’t afford Lightroom might want to consider ACDSee 2 Pro...

CopyToDVD 4 Reviews

Nero has always been the favourite choice in CD/DVD burning software, and is used by almost everyone today. VSO Software’s CopyToDVD 4 just might be able to change that. CopyToDVD 4 is elegant and straightforward in its approach. The Welcome window doesn’t look all that great, but it does its job of guiding you through. The most popular application is the CopyToDVD Manager, which is the Nero Burning ROM equivalent. The interface is simple, with two panes
providing some help, and there’s the main project window and the file browser window. The Wizard panes can be disabled. To make things more fun, a large collection of themes is provided, each of them tasteful and unique. Burning audio CDs is no problem—the software handles almost all audio formats. Burning video DVDs or CDs is a different story, however. Conversion to DVD means you might need to get VSO’s other software— ConvertXtoDVD. This isn’t free. Non-advanced users will have to go through the trouble of converting videos to suitable formats using third-party applications before burning them to CDs or DVDs. You can choose to schedule burning tasks, which can be useful in backing up data, say every day or every week. The software is light and bloat-free—20 MB memory consumption most of the time. There is no help file, only a link to the manual when you look for Help. The price tag of Rs 1,200 is definitely attractive. This 10 MB software actually makes good sense when the latest Nero 8 is now nearing a gigabyte in size. CopyToDVD 4 does what most of us need, and not much more. It is great for people who keep backing up data very often—along with an occasional audio and video CD...

ViewSonic PJ258D Reviews

ViewSonic is just one of the many brands trying to push projectors into the home theatre market as good replacements for large TVs. The design of the PJ258D is great—it’s com- pact and has a jet black lossy piano finish which makes it stand out—and which also makes it a fin- gerprint magnet. Screen quality is pretty decent—quite sharp, and zooming only affects it a little. The display turns out very bright, and is very prominent even in a well lit room. Text is readable, but the best results are achieved during image and movie viewing—Thus making it good for multi- media purposes. The remote control is small and moulded to fit the average hand well. The buttons are soft and easy to use. IR ports have been positioned on the front as well as at the back, so you don’t have to plan where you’ll stand. You can connect an iPod to the projector to watch your favourite movies on the big screen. The stan- dard inputs are VGA, S-Video, Composite, and a standard analogue audio in. The USB port can be used to upgrade the firmware. Heating, as with all pro-jectors, still remains an issue. The fan spews out hot air continuously from its side, but the ViewSonic PJ258D still gets awfully hot even after just 15 min- utes of use. The stand for raising the projectors front is a little flimsy. The manual is very
basic and has information on the parts of the project and how it’s supposed to be set up. A large pouch is supplied as well. At a price of Rs 70,000, the ViewSonic PJ258D is reasonably priced and offers good performance. Also, it’s cheaper than buying an LCD or Plasma TV with a comparable viewing area. The iPod docking facility might atract a few users, but the heat it gener- ates is definitely a concern if you plan on using it for many hours at a stretch
Specifications:
Size: 40-inch to 300-inch (diagonal), Pixel format: 1024 x 768, Dimensions: 11.3x7.5x3.5 inches, Lamp: 2000 hours (normal), Contrast ratio: 2000:1....

Buffalo DriveStation TurboUSB 250GB (HD-HS250U2) Reviews

The TurboUSB feature incorporated on the Buffalo HD-HS250U2 external hard drive promises a 37 per cent improvement in transfer speeds over regular PATA- based external USB drives. The drive is well built with matte-black plastic edges. The bottom half of the silver coloured side panel and the top panel have pores to aid air circulation. Additionally, you can improve the drive’s cooling by clipping the optional HD-HSU2 fan to the top of the drive.
The drive automatically powers itself down when it detects a disconnection from the host PC, or when the PC shuts down. It enters a state of hibernation when inactive for a preset amount
of time. The bundled Secure Lock Ware allows AES 256/128 encryption of important data, preventing unauthorised access. Then, Memeo AutoBackup is a feature-rich and simple-to-use software—it allows you to back up to a shared network device, network folder, iPod, Memeo Internet drive, or Flash drive. The tests were performed in both normal and TurboUSB mode. In the latter, the drive outper- formed the Digit Best Buy June 2007 Western Digital MyBook Essential (500 GB). Switching between Turbo and normal mode is easy using the TurboUSB utility. The drive is definitely not the cheapest amongst the 250 GB drives available, though the performance in TurboUSB mode justifies the cost to an extent. Power management, along with the option for additional cooling, makes it a good purchase if you’re looking for a dedicated external drive.
Specifications:
7200 rpm SATA; USB 2.0; TurboUSB; Dimensions: 4.6 (W) x 16.3 (D) x 20(H) cm;
Weight: 6.2 kg ...

LG Black Label Series KE970 “Shine” Reviews

Not all manufacturers are innovators of style. Ever since it launched the Chocolate a year ago, LG has been on to something, and that something is its new classy mobile line-up, of which the Black Label Series KE970 (a.k.a. Shine) is what we got to lay our hands on. Encased in a full-metallic body with a rich brush finish, the KE970 is as rugged as a tank. It is wider than most mobiles. The highlight here is its 2.2-inch LCD, which not only looks good while it is on, but doubles up as a mirror when not lit up! The keys offer good tactile feedback. LG has introduced the rolling scroll button for the first time, but we found it rather inconvenient: it is very frustrating to keep scrolling through long lists and Web pages. Probably because of the scroller, the UI is vertical menu-based rather than icon-based—rather unintuitive. The Shine has an excellent 2.0 MP camera with autofocus. It is certified by Schneider Kreuznach, the German company that certifies photo-optics. The camera does live up to its hype, and is one of the best we have seen thus far. You can choose from a host of different resolutions and there are five white balance settings, along with a few artistic effects. The camera is a bit sluggish, though. The media player is decent. Bluetooth 1.2 with A2DP support—wirefree stereo music on a supported headset. There is support to view most common office formats, but the internal memory is just 50 MB, and you’ll need to use the microSD slot to add more—irritatingly, it’s not hot-swappable. Lost Mobile Track (LMT) function is inbuilt to allow you to trace the phone in case you lose it. We found the call quality decent, the KE970 is weaker at signal reception than most phones we have seen. You can’t make a call or even send a message when the phone is connected to the PC. To sum it up, the LG Black Label KE970 is über-high on style, but there are certain issues that need to be addressed. The price tag of Rs 19,000 is a little too much—there are better deals out there.
Specifications:
GSM 900/GSM 1800/GSM 1900; Display: 2.2-inch with mirror finish; 240 x 320; 256K colours;Camera: 2.0 MP, autofocus, flash; Memory: 50 MB internal, microSD; Connectivity: GPRS, EDGE, Bluetooth 1.2 with A2DP, USB; Weight: 118 g; Dimensions: 99.8 (H) x 50.6 (W) x 13.8 (D) mm; Accessories: Charger, USB cable, stereo handsfree, lanyard ...

Sandisk Sansa Shaker Reviews

The Shaker is a rather novel concept from Sansa, (and after their audiophile-grade Sansa E2xx series), both a disappointment and adelight. One look at it will delight, but after hearing it
perform we were a little disappointed despite the fact that it’s supposed to be a fun music player and not a real music player! The Shaker is dressed in funky wear—bright blue and white and looks like a salt dispenser, complete with the holes on top (loudspeaker). It features two 3.5 mm jacks. There are two white bands running around the top and bottom of the player. Both twist left and right—the top one controls the volume, the lower skips tracks. There’s a large, receded play/pause button built into the body. Build quality is top class, and a classy aluminium clasp allows it to be belted on. Sound quality via the 3.5 mm jacks isn’t its forte. Music sounds muted across the spectrum. Highs and lows weren’t defined at all, while the vocals and mid-range were barely tolerable for someone really into music. If you aren’t the discerning type, you could give it a try. The loudspeaker sounds much better though, and actually made tunes bearable. When we think Shaker all we envision is the average urban kid whose mom and dad don’t want to buy something with a breakable LCD screen. At Rs 1,899, the Shaker is good
enough to introduce your fresh-in-their-teens kids to the world of PMPs; others might want to give it a pass.
Specifications:
Capacity: 512 MB Flash memory, SD expandable slot; Music formats: AAC, MP3, WAV; Dual 3.5 mm audio jacks; Lanyard with aluminium ring...

Spice D-88 Reviews

GSM and CDMA have their advantages and disadvantages—it’s difficult to choose which way to go. The advantage of GSM is the wide range of mobiles available, and a lot of oper- ators to choose from. CDMA’s advantage is the incredibly lower tariff. But now, Spice has launched the D-88—the first mobile phone in India to support both standards. The sleek candy-bar D-88 has a black plastic body with a gloss finish. It is ruggedly-built, but an exception to this rugged-ness is the flap covering the batteries: it is flimsy. The flat membrane keypad sports a metallic finish. The ordinary-looking hands-free features a volume control dial. Though sluggish, the phone interface is not bad, really. The D-88 supports CDMA along with dual- band GSM. Accepting two SIMs, one from each net- work type, the phone can operate simultaneously on both networks. Screen resolution is 128 x 160, lower than any stan- dard phone in its price range, but we must say the image quality is rather good. Snaps taken with the 1.3MP camera are nothing to brag about, and video capture quality is no better. There is no flash. A hot-swappable 256 MB micro SD card is provided, and the phone supports up to 1 GB micro SD card capacity. MP3 playback is, at best, pass-able. There’s no FM tuner. The D-88 is not good at catching weaker GSM sig- nals. The volume level of the speaker is rather low, even at maximum volume. We tried the hands-free, but the results were similar—not recommended in crowded places. The D-88 does not feature a speakerphone. The Spice D-88 supports GPRS, and the accompanying USB cable gives you the con-venience of connecting to the wireless Internet from your PC or laptop. Surprisingly, the phone does not feature any standard options such as Bluetooth or IR. Java applications are not supported either. Rs 9,849 seems a bit too much for the Spice D-88, but then it lets you live two lives at the same time… We do think it’s too early to go for this phone; wait and watch for developments in the area of dual-network phones.
Specifications:
GSM 900/1800 and CDMA 800; Weight: 93 gm; Dimensions: 106.85 x 47.15 x 14.82 mm; 262K TFT, 128 x 160; Camera: 1.3 MP with 10x digital zoom; Connectivity: USB, WAP 2.0, Class 10 GPRS; Video format: 3GP; Memory: 256 MB micro SD; Bundle: USB cable for charging and data
transfer, electric charger, stereo hands-free; Stated talk time: up to 3 hours in GSM mode, up to 2.5 Hrs in CDMA mode; Stated standby time: dual-mode—up to 120 hrs, CDMA—up to180 hrs, GSM—up to 200 hrs...

Kingston DataTraveler Secure Privacy Edition 8 GB Reviews

USB capacity wars are raging hot. Now memory giant Kingston has upped the ante, introducing the 8 GB DataTraveler Secure Privacy Edition. The drive is dark grey with black rubber piping
for grip; it will weather dusty Indian conditions with ease. The cap fits snugly—no surprise, since the drive is supposed to be waterproof up to a depth of 4 metres. It comes with a detachable mini lanyard (the threaded string) to be fastened to a key-ring, but Kingston does not provide a key ring or anchor. This is essentially a high- speed Flash drive for the extremely security-
conscious; this is evident when you plug it in for the first time. You are greeted with a screen where you set a username, password, and password reminder hint. Kingston seems to be a little
too paranoid here: only after setting a very “strong” (as in complex) password can you access the drive. The DataTraveler supports 256-bit AES encryption on the fly, that is, data is encrypted as it is being transferred to the drive. Considering this, the drive is quite speedy in its class of
drives. When we tested it, it took just 57 seconds to write a 700 MB sequential file to the drive, and a much lower 30 seconds to read the same file from the drive. Assorted files of the same capacity take much longer, though: over 2:30 minutes to write to the drive while reading them takes 1:15 minutes. You’ll find Windows’ Vista ReadyBoost feature supported; this lets the OS
use the drive as cache or virtual memory to enhance system performance. In case you’re toally
taken in by the 8 GB figure, bear in mind that the drive only supports FAT32, thereby limiting the maximum individual file size to 4 GB. This means you can’t carry around files such as DVD images, which are generally larger. Price? A premium Rs 12,000. We’d suggest waiting for a few months; it is probably too early to buy this one.
Specifications:
Capacity: 8 GB; Interface: USB 2.0; Password protection; Lanyard...

Mitashi DHD 911 Reviews

DVD players’ prices have rock-bottomed, and most brands offer similar feature sets. The Mitashi DHD 911, however, offers HDMI output. Hooking it up to the latest displays is uncomplicated. Looks-wise, it’s plain. The DVD tray is slim with blue LEDs. The front panel sports an MMC card reader along with a USB port. A gripe here—the navigation and playback keys are hard, with erratic responses. Build quality is below par—Mitashi uses cheap plastic and a thin case. The player’s file browser allows browsing the media disc (DVD / CD) along with USB drive and also the MMC card. Audio, video, and image files on the input media are listed separately by the file browser, making for fairly simple navigation. On the audio output front, the player supports Dolby Digital AC-3 5.1, along with coaxial digital signal output. For video output, the player has a variety of options: component, composite S- Video, and HDMI. Hooking it up to AV equipment is trouble-free thanks to the variety of output ports on the back panel. We weren’t able to play MPEG4 video files, and the input media source made no difference. It played our test DVDs and VCDs without any problems, though. The audio playback quality failed to impress, and the video playback quality was just about decent. The infrared remote control is riddled with small buttons, and the layout is, overall, quite messy. It’s menu layout is, however, clean, with control over basic and advanced features. Advanced settings like HDMI output resolution (480p / 720p / 108i / 1080p upmixed) are available in the video section of the main menu. This product gives you average value for money— DVD players with better playback quality are available at around the same price range. The only saving graces for the itashi DHD 911 are features like Flash media as input source and support for HDMI.
Specifications:
DVD, SVCD, VCD, JEPG, MP3, WMA, MPEG4 playback support; USB slot; MMC card slot; 5.1-
channel audio...

BlackBerry Curve 8300 Reviews

The BlackBerry (BB) Curve 8300 is the littler sibling of the BB 8800, which we tested in August 2007. Most phones from RIM are business-centric, but the Curve incorporates multimedia features. Silver tones make for a cool, refined look. The slim profile means the Curve 8300 is very comfortable to hold and carry around. It’s full-QWERTY keys are small yet well-spaced out. Tactile response is brilliant. The 2.5-inch 320 x 240 screen is adequately large and the image is crisp—good enough for the intended use: primarily as a PDA-phone. The 2MP
camera gave us good results in daylight, but in low-lit conditions, the images were washed-out. The flash tends to over- saturate the subject to some extent in close-ups. The mini USB port doubles up as a charging point. You can use the device for mass storage and access the 64 MB of internal memory; memory expansion is possible via the micro SD slot. The micro SD slot, being under the battery compartment, isn’t hot- swappable. Media Manager, based on Roxio software, comes with the BlackBerry Desktop Manager suite. This allows RIM to integrate multimedia technology and capabilities like ripping audio CDs to the phone, managing playlists on it, and more. BB 8300 Curve comes with the personal manager and organiser apps that most smartphones come with. Synchronise the calendar, memo, task-list, etc. with your PC via Bluetooth or USB, or even with your corporate network if your company runs a BlackBerry Enterprise Server. The speaker-independent voice dialling application called VoiceSignal works really well. The 8300 performed well in our network reception test, with very few call drops. There is no Wi-Fi or 3G support.Priced at Rs 24,990, the BB Curve 8300 is a good buy for those who demand executive features (PDA functionality) and a bit of multimedia; however, lack of Wi-Fi should be noted.
Specifications:
Dimensions: 107 x 60 x 15 mm; Weight: 111 gm; Quad-band, Display: 2.5-inch, 320 x 240, 16-
bit; Expansion slot: Micro SD; Camera: 2MP; GPRS; EDGE...

Toon Boom Storyboard Pro Reviews

Toon Boom Storyboard Pro should help you do away with all the paper and pens that people normally associate with storyboarding without a computer. The interface is somewhat dull, and the layout disappoints: tools like the colour palettes are not easily accessible enough. The drawing tools are very basic; Storyboard Pro is meant for rough sketching and basic drawing, and we’d have liked better brushes. Some changes to the brush can be done to improve on the default set, though. Sounds can be added to the shots; voice-overs can be recorded in the software and added. You can also add notes—useful for dialogues. The Onion skin feature is especially useful: it allows artists to use earlier panels as a reference and make accurate additions to the next shots. A few templates are provided as well. You can select from ready-made characters and items and add them to a scene by a simple drag-and-drop move. The colour selector in Storyboard Pro is pretty advanced; it displays a wide range of colours using three separate parameters—Hue, Saturation, and Value, for the three standard colours—red, green, and blue. However, this three-wheel selection mode window is too large to fit into a resolution of 1152 x 864. A minimum resolution of 1280 x 1024 is required. Storyboard Pro has incorporated cameras similar to those in 3D modelling applications. The camera can be panned and moved about. Transition effects can be set between shots—this makes Storyboard Pro a viable option as an animation tool (to some extent). Prepared animations can be exported as rendered frames in TGA and JPEG or as QuickTime or Flash animations. Toon Boom Storyboard Pro demonstrates that by moving the process of storyboarding to a computer, it’s possible to exponentially improve flexibility—make changes effortlessly; easily put detail put into pre- production plans. Rs 50,000 for the commercial version may seem high, but remember that professional studios’ 3D software and compositing software run into lakhs. Still, you can find similar storyboarding software at around half the price. The educational package for students—which adds a watermark—is expensive, at Rs 20,000...

Norton 360 All-In-One Security Reviews

Norton’s latest product—the 360 All-In-One—is a complete security solution. The interface has changed a bit from the earlier software by Symantec; it now has a fancy, sleek, Vista-like
theme. The colourful controls should suit beginning computer users. It looks like Symantec has covered pretty much everything on the security front. You get an anti-virus and a spyware scanner to hunt down viruses, worms, and spyware. There’s a firewall, and a Transaction Security feature which is meant to safeguard the online transactions you do— shopping and banking, for example. It verifies whether the sites are online scams or authentic. The Tune-Up feature is very basic; its task is to clear out your Windows and Temporary Internet Files and defragment your disk(s). You can set the software to automatically back up important files like the stuff in your My Documents folder and others. Schedules can be set for this. You get 2 GB of online space that can be used to back up important data: once you’ve activated Norton 360, you register for the online space. If Norton 360 finds anything that could hamper security, it highlights this by displaying it in the main window. For example, if the firewall is disabled, or if the software isn’t up to date, it gives out alerts. The software even reminded us that our Windows password wasn’t strong enough! 360 All-In-One performed quite a lot better in terms of resources consumed than what we expected having seen previous Symantec products—like Norton AntiVirus. When idle, RAM consumption was a mere 8 MB. With the interface on, it went up to 17 MB, and it was 75 MB while running the barrage of scans. All in all, Norton 360 All-In-One Security as a complete security solution does make some sense. The software’s focus is ease of use, so it cannot be compared to full-fledged anti-virus software or spyware detectors. Everything is automated, so it’s great for those who don’t want to be bothered with checking for viruses and backing up data frequently...

HAVA Wireless HD Reviews

Wi-Fi streaming devices are a dime a dozen, but HAVA has several aces up its sleeve to differen-tiate from me-too products. To begin with, it’s a video streaming device with a TV-Tuner inbuilt. Yes—TV pro-grammes can be streamed within your home or on the Internet. Setting up the HAVA unit requires a basic under-standing of networking. Configuring the appliance does take considerable time, but it wasn’t overly diffi-cult. DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) is well-implemented, and the settings are comprehensive. Local wireless clients connect automatically once DHCP is activated in the embedded WebServer. If you so want, the device can be hooked up via a regular Ethernet connection—simple and effective. The setup Wizard is designed with two options, Basic and Advanced—thoughtful. Basic mode doesn’t concen itself with Security or advanced networking protocols; one can use Advanced mode to configure thes. The unit comes bundled with and IR-Blaster (the IR emitter module), which can be used to control streaming devices such as a DVD player, satellite receiver, etc. attached to the HAVA unit. The remote con- trol is software-based; it drives the IR Blaster. The software on the client side— your PC or laptop connected to the HAVA over Wi-Fi or Ethernet—allows simple control over the TV-Tuner. It also allows recording of live streams onto the client PC. On the performance front, the HAVA Wireless HD can stream 720 x 480 MPEG2 video at a constant 5 to 6 Mbps. We didn’t encounter jerky video or lag in the audio stream. The device can directly stream to the Internet at 320 x 240 in the MPEG4 format, and it requires 300 Kbps+ bandwidth. Using the HAVA Mobile Player (available at the Web site), the live video stream can be received on a cell phone; the Mobile Player only supports Pocket PC 5 / 6. Rs 16,500 is steep for a device like this one, but it is unique, and is appealing.
Specifications:
Video source (in/out): Composite, S-Video, Antenna, and Component Video; net-working: Ethernet, Wi-Fi (802.11g); software: HAVA Setup Wizard, HAVA PC Player...

Sony Ericsson P1i Reviews

The P1i is the latest in Sony Ericsson’s business line, succeeding both the P990i and the M600i—bringing the functionality of the former to the form factor of the latter. Its dimensions are nearly the same as those of the M600i, and its style statement is in Chinese—the shiny plastic sides and the chrome details look downright tacky. It’s based on the same Symbian UIQ 3 plat- form as the P990i and M600i, with a few minor changes. The OS is defi- nitely quicker, which is
probably due to the oodles of program memory that the phone comes with—128 MB. Other than that, there’s nothing remarkably new here. Just like the M600i, this one doesn’t feature any
soft-keys, and you operate it using either the stylus or your fingers on the touch- screen. There’s also the three-way jog dial, which, thankfully, does away with the annoying protrusion featured on the previous phones. The screen itself is wonderfully vibrant and quite responsive to the
touch, but is, naturally, a fingerprint magnet. We recommend slapping on a screen guard the second you open the box—the screen’s responsiveness will suffer a tad, but it’ll be worth it.
The stylus is longer and easier to write with, and its locking mechanism seems much firmer than the M600i’s flimsy setup. The QWERTY keypad is the same as that on the M600i—two
letters to the key. Not too dif-ferent from the M600i, but the keys do feel more tactile.
The 3.2MP camera is respectable, though not exceptional—indoor photos are a bit grainy, but overall, the clarity and colour bal- ance of the photos satisfies. There’s a second camera on
the front for video calls, but you can’t take self-por-traits with it. Like the P990i, this model comes with a business card scanner. The feature works just as nicely (or as badly, depending on the card) as the one on the P990i. The P1i supports 3G (but no EDGE) and Wi-Fi 802.11b. Wi-Fi speeds are decent, and battery life, thankfully, doesn’t suffer for it. The P1i isn’t really light years ahead of the P990i, but it definitely nudges it off top spot. There’s no annoying
flip top, the QWERTY keypad can actually be worked with, the audio levels are louder, and the
huge program memory has you multitasking like you’ve never multitasked before
Specifications:
Quad-band GSM; UMTS; Wi-Fi (802.11b); Symbian v9.1 UIQ 3.0; TFT touchscreen (256 K
colours); 160 MB shared internal memory; Memory Stick Micro (M2) support (1 GB included); 3.2 megapixel camera; VGA video-call camera; FM radio...

Cooler Master AquaGate S1 Reviews

Today’s powerful processors’ cooling solutions are just too noisy, mainly because faster fans are needed to dissipate all that heat. We’re looking at the perfect foil for all that racket… the 20 dB Cooler Master AquaGate S1. Suitable for nearly all sockets, this complete liquid cooler from Cooler Master is aimed at cooling your processor. Liquid coolers have always been nasty things that most of us don’t like to tamper with for the fear of damaging internal components. Cooler Master takes away this from the equation with a completely assembled kit. This one is extremely easy to set up—it’s usually a hassle with liquid coolers, but we were able to do it in 11 minutes flat! We used this cooler and compared it to the stock Intel cooler. The processor of choice was the Core 2 Duo X6800, which heats up with CPU-intensive applications. We overclocked too, just to see what would happen. Note that these aren’t idle temperatures. The results are in the graph. As you can see, the AquaGate is effective at cooling an overclocked X6800. At 3.5 GHz, a temperature of just 52 degrees is good, though it’s only 9 degrees less than what the stock cooler does; we expected more. At Rs 4,500 the S1 makes a good choice for someone looking at an affordable and hassle-free liquid cooling solution with moderate to heavy overclocking. If you’re running an Intel or AMD processor at stock speeds, you won’t really need the S1
Specifications:
Current 0.3 A; Ceramics Bearing pump (life 50,000 hours); 120mm blue LED fan (life 40,000
hours); base material copper, other material aluminium...

Sennheiser RS130 Reviwes

Wireless is generally a strict no-no for audiophiles. Enter the RS130, aimed at making believers out of the aurally- discerning that wireless headphones can indeed deliver the goods. Turns out they’re not audiophile-grade, but they’re good—much better than you’d expect
wireless headphones to be. The major problem with all wireless headphones is interference, and the fact that air isn’t as good (gross understatement!) a medium to transfer disturbance-free
sound waves as compared to, say, 99.9% oxygen-free copper cables! The RS130 comprises a transmitter unit with an AC power adapter, and the circumaural-type headphones that feel very light (280 gm) despite the rechargeable AAA NiMH batteries inbuilt. Surround sound is a switch away; the RS130 employs additional circuitry for this. Sennheiser has also touted “Self
Learning Volume Controller,” a newfangled name for automatic volume levelling. We must say it
works reasonably well here. The headphones themselves are extremely comfortable on the outer ear—no stress or pressure even after five hours of continuous use for this reviewer. This is partially due to the ear-cup design and the extremely soft padding. These are open cans (others
will hear the sound too). The RS130 has an impressive soundstage for a wireless set. Audiophile cans these are not, like we said, yet they impressed us with clarity and depth in almost every genre of music. You’ll find low bass a little lacking in grunt, and mid- range seems a little
muted, especially vocals. Still, this set downs every other wireless set we’ve tested in the past couple of years, and manages to give some of the good wired ones out there a run for their money. Coming to the personal aspect, these cans are huge, and while they offer a superb
range of around 16 metres— with obstacles including walls—we don’t really see anyone walking around with them. Still, if wired is a no- no for you, give the RS130 a look—if you can handle the
steep price: Rs 10,900. Remember we’re talking about the best wireless set we’ve tested in years—and the brand image itself will do a little to massage your ego after the liquidity
plunge! But do remember that if you’re OK with a cord, you’ll find something acoustically
similar at half the price
Specifications:
Circumaural; frequency range 18 Hz ~ 21 kHz; wireless RF receiver; surround sound mode;
3 RF channel...

Nokia E65 Reviews

As much as common sense tells us to avoid slider phones for obvious reasons—as in moving parts, wear and tear—they’re hot! The E65 is red-hot (literally), and it’s available in mocha, too. The entirely matte-finished body offers good grip, and it manages to also look classy. Red—russet brown really— might not appeal to all, but the soft contours are nice. With Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, 3G, EDGE, and more, the E65 is a business-oriented device with some artistic flair. The number keypad is well-laid-out with raised demarcations on each key, similar to the N95—but remember there’s no QWERTY. Keypad backlighting is good. The 2MP camera and the music player are pretty ordinary. Pop the hood and it’s a Symbian S60 9.1 device. Quick Office has been provided, but it’s Word and Excel editing at its barest (no document creation). GPS software is bundled: it’ll work with any Bluetooth GPS device. There’s also a pretty nifty text-to-speech module that will read out data whose menus are placed in the Voice Aid folder. Contacts can be read out, as can phone numbers, recent calls, and the time. You also get a voice assist while dialling, which will help (only if you remember the number) in the event of mis-dialling while in a hurry. Still, we think the software needs a lot of work to be functional. The phone is slow, though, especially while using the voice functions—which bespeaks low memory. Call quality is good, but not on par with some of the other Nokia phones we’ve tested. Calls disconnect easily when reception strength is at one tower . At Rs 22,469, the E65 isn’t the definitive business phone that the E series label indicates it to be. A phone with very similar specifications and functions with a cheaper price tag comes to mind—the N80. But then all new phones are costly, and a couple of price cuts may see this hottie become popular.
Specifications:
Weight: 115 gm; dimensions: 105 x 49 x 15.5 mm (L x W x H); screen: 240 x 320 (16M colours); 50 MB shared memory; 2MP camera; GPRS, EDGE, 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, IR, and USB connectivity...

ZoneAlarm Security Suite Reviews

The ZoneAlarm Security Suite is a lot more than just a personal firewall. But at first look, we weren’t too impressed. ZoneAlarm has lost the friendly look most people are used to. Instead, a
fairly bland colour scheme with equally tasteless icons and indicators make up the interface. The firewall and anti-virus form a comparatively smaller portion of the features. There’s a spyware scanner to accompany the anti-virus engine. Other than that, the e-mail protection can be set to scan all incoming and outgoing mails. The junk mail feature is pretty advanced, we think: it features a large number of parameters. Then there’s the parental control feature: parents can now choose from a long list of categories to be blocked. A very useful feature is ame Mode, which ensures you aren’t interrupted in between gaming sessions by alert pop-ups. The Privacy component takes care of all ads and cookie blocking. IM Security is another feature that ensures security isn’t compromised through instant messengers—AOL, ICQ, MSN, and Yahoo!. Conversations can be encrypted, but both users need to install the suite. There are slider bars in each of the suite’s components; these help in easily switching strictness levels. Similarly, most of the features have an Advanced view, which lets you make precise changes to the rules. In addition, you can use the Backup and Restore Security Settings feature to save and load settings. The suite ran well in our test, without creating any problems on our Athlon 64 3800+ with 1 GB of RAM. Memory consumption was around 45 MB most of the time, but the CPU utilisation shot all the way up to 90% while scanning for viruses. It’s pretty rare to find a suite such as this with as many features and functionality. At $49.95 (Rs 2,000), ZoneAlarm Security Suite is a wee bit overpriced. It’s interesting to note that ZoneAlarm’s image as the friendly, casual-user’s firewall has now been replaced by one of the no- nonsense system protector...

Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo XI Reviews

Adobe has been well-known mostly for Photoshop. CorelDraw and later Jasc Software’s Paint Shop Pro were competition back then. Jasc was taken over by Corel, and Paint Shop Pro has been developed by Corel ever since. We put Corel’s latest release of Paint Shop Pro Photo—version XI—to the test to see if the “Photo” tag at the end of the name has any substance to it. The interface is pretty cluttered with toolbars, organisers, and help panels, leaving little space to actually work on. It’s a good thing you can turn them off. There are tons of features, but we didn’t really find a lot specifically made for photograph manipulation. Skin smoothing, red-eye removal, and digital camera noise removal were some that would be useful for photographers. A button called “Enhance Photo” brings in additional features that find the best parameters for a photo. We found traces of features from other Corel products—Painter, for example. Paint Shop Pro Photo has a mixer that lets you add certain amounts of colours and mix them about till you get the right shade. Another feature is the option to choose the texture of the canvas when you create a new image. The software isn’t much of a memory hog, unlike some image editing tools where memory consumption goes well over three digits in megabytes. The software peaked out at a moderate 77 MB of RAM with four images open and some effects in place. The Windows help documentation explains all of Paint Shop Pro Photo’s features with screenshots as well as the icons you find in the interface. The learning bar explains features and also gets tasks done in quick steps without you having to go through multiple menus and windows. If you need a software specifically for photo manipulation, Adobe’s Lightroom is the better choice. Paint Shop Pro Photo seems more like a contemporary of Photoshop. The price is $89.99—less than half that of Lightroom—and could be well worth it if you want something that can tweak photos and also edit images...

Canon PowerShot A460 Reviews

The 5 MegaPixel Canon PowerShot A460 is out to make a point that you don’t need to have an expensive digital camera to take good shots. While a bit bulky, the A460 still looks OK. You can choose from five modes for different types of photo and video shooting and previewing. The custom timer lets you choose the timing and the number of the shots to be taken. The Slow Synchro synchronises the flash with slower shutter speeds to effectively prevent background
blackouts while using the flash. The quality of the photos is pretty good—not too vibrant or enhanced, but some purple fringing can be seen along bright edges. Movie recording performance is pretty appalling with just 10 fps at 640 x 480. One irritant is that the camera must be switched to Playback mode to transfer images. ZoomBrowser EX, a plain-looking bundled software, enables the camera to send images to a PC at a press of a button. You get a set of batteries but no charger. The camera is well priced at Rs 9,795. It’s an easy camera and good for beginners, and will allow you to take some impressive shots as well.
Specifications:
5 megapixel; 4x optical zoom; aperture: f/2.8—f/5.8; ISO levels: 80—400; shutter speed: 15—1/2000 second...

Samsung SyncMaster 932B Reviews

With a design similar to that of the ultra-sexy Bordeaux series we reviewed earlier, the 19-inch 932B is all curves. Monitors just can’t go wrong with piano black! Build quality is excellent, and the curvy body is definitely a relief from all the monitors we’ve seen in recent days. The stand tries to keep up with aesthetics but could use a little more creativity in that direction. The menu buttons are underneath the bottom bezel—good looks, but they come at the cost of usability. The 932B uses a TN panel, with decent on-paper specifications—a 700:1 contrast ratio and a brightness of 300 cd/m2. A response time of 5 ms is good enough for most applications. Our DisplayMate tests showed good screen pixel resolution. Colour separation was good, and the 932S did well with the primary colours. All this means the 932S is good for working with applications that use a lot of colour. In our game tests, F.E.A.R. looked crisp: good contrast, and good colour and detailing. Ditto Oblivion. Movie playback was also good—great colours. Our only grouse is that it’s not widescreen
Specifications:
Contrast ratio: TN panel, 3000:1 (700:1 actual); lumens: 300 cd/m2; 19-inch TFT; native resolution 1280 x 1024; response time: 5 ms...

O&O Defrag 10 Professional Reviews

Defragmenting your drive is an important part of maintaining your machine, and it’s synonymous with Windows’ Disk Defragmenter. We take a look at a solution from O&O—Defrag 10 Professional. The interface is very clean, colourful, and Office 2007 themed. The icons in
the toolbar give an explanation of the features when you move the mouse pointer over them. Defrag 10 Professional starts by asking you whether you want it to manage your defragging settings—it asks questions like the type of machine and what it’s used for: work, gaming, home, etc. It then creates suitable schedules and defrag modes for it. You can always choose to manually defrag your disks. An interesting feature called offline defragmentation defrags
your disk before the OS boots up. You can set offline defragmentation to run at every bootup.
Like most system maintenance utilities, this one too lets you set schedules for defragging.
You can set what type of defrag you want for each drive, and even choose to defrag multiple drives at once to save time. Defragging can be stopped when the system is running in battery mode. Detailed reports for the tasks are generated in HTML. You can choose from one of the five types of defragging. The COMPLETE / Access Method puts often-accessed programs and
files at the end of the partition and the least- accessed at the beginning, so future defragging will
be far more optimised and will require the least amount of movement. Other modes allow you to
defrag by file names, recently modified, or just plain space optimisation. Defrag 10 Professional is
really light on the system, taking only around 15 MB of memory while running. The CPU utilisation depends on the type of defragging you select. The full-fledged defrag mode made the CPU utilisation spike between 5 and 40%. Defrag 10 Pro even lets you set a limit on the
amount of resources. Documentation is in the Windows Help format, with steps and explanations of the features with screenshots. This is one very good defragging utility. The Windows defragger doesn’t come close to O&O Defrag 10 Professional in features or looks. $44.95 (Rs 2,000) is quite worth it...

TurboLinux Wizpy Reviews

The Wizpy—the first venture into hardware territory by Japanese company TurboLinux Inc.—looks like an MP3 player, but is much more: you can boot right off it! Encased in a beautiful white polymer casing with fine silver speckles, the player is sturdy and scratch-resistant. A black version is also available, and looks equally impressive. The device is sleek enough to be and easily slips into any pocket. The interface, however, is not very intuitive, but you can get along after a few minutes. This is the first MP3 player that can boot into an OS; you can take your office with you wherever you’d like. Any computer that supports USB booting can boot through the Wizpy into TurboLinux Fuji, residing on its 1 GB partition. This is a full-fledged operating
system that comes with its office suite, and which even lets you surf the Internet and check mail.
This partition is inaccessible through other OSes, thus providing security for your data. If you do not have USB 2.0—or the ability to boot this way—you can use the accompanying mini disc to
boot into the OS. The problem is that you can only read NTFS partitions; you can’t write to them. Instead, you save your work on the Flash memory of the Wizpy. This will be a handicap
when large files are involved. The Wizpy plays several music formats—such as MP3 with ID3 and lyrics, and OGG—and video formats such as AVI. Audio quality is excellent at medium volume levels, and the accompanying headphones are good enough. (At higher volumes, the bass tends to distort the mid and high notes.) The 1.71-inch OLED 262K colour display is vivid.
You can read text files using the inbuilt e-book reader. FM Radio is there, but it has a weak tuner when compared to other MP3 players. The Li-ion battery lasts for up to 14 hours of music playback—fairly good. The Wizpy comes in 2 and 4 GB versions; we tested the 4 GB. Of this, 1 GB is used by the OS. The price tag reads Rs 11,900, which might seem high, but for the
functionality it provides, we think it’s just right.
Specifications:
Capacity: 4 GB (3 GB storage); display: 1.71-inch OLED with 262K colours; OS: TurboLinux
Fuji; 7-band audio equaliser; file formats: audio: OGG, MP3, WMA, AAC; video: AVI, DivX;
image: JPEG; FM radio; text e-book reader; interface: USB 2.0; bundled: TurboLinux Fuji
Mini CD, earphones, USB and line-in cables...

Cooler Master X Craft 250 Reviews

External casings are widely used with laptop hard drives as portable data transfer solutions. The X Craft 250 is an eSATA/USB casing from Cooler Master; it promises to keep high-capacity laptop hard drives cool. Crafted in aluminium, the core design objective, like we said, is good thermal dissipation. The meshed screen running along two sides takes care of ventilation. The white paint provides a quality finish, as also decent fingerprint resistance. Power-hungry laptop drives are addressed by the use of split USB cables. The eSATA connectivity makes for a high 3Gb/s transfer rate. The USB cable or the 5V DC jack is used to power the case in the eSATA mode. Cooler Master provides rubber grommets for attaching the hard drive to the PCB—a nifty touch; it also provides shock resistance. Mounting the hard drive is quite easy; also, Cooler Master has been generous enough to provide a little screw driver, screws, and the grommets. For our test, we used the WD SATA 250 GB 2500BEVS as the internal drive. The results were quite competitive. A 0.7 ms access time in SiSoft Sandra, along with a 17.8 ms random access time in HD Tach, highlights the fact that the internal controller will not be a bottleneck in the drive’s throughput. In the real-world 1 GB assorted test, the drive took 63 /47 / 89 seconds (to / from / within). In the case of sequential 1 GB single-file transfer, the drive took 45 / 36 / 84 seconds (to / from / within). Transferring 1 GB of assorted files simultaneously to and fro took 83 seconds. The package bundle consists of the drive, a nice pouch, and the necessary backup software. We think it’s a good buy.
Specifications:
Dimensions: 81 x 19 x 136 mm (W x H x D); weight: 140 gm; interface: USB 2.0/1.1; eSATA...

D-Link DSL-2640T Wireless G ADSL2+ Router Reviews

The D-Link DSL-2640T is a three-in-one device—an ADSL modem, a 4-port router, and a wireless access point all packaged in stylish silver-grey plastic. The D-Link DSL-2640T is just what you need if you have more than one computer and need to share your ADSL broadband connection. It is ADSL2/2+ compliant, and is therefore capable of theoretical download speeds up to 24 Mbps. 802.11 b/g wireless capability allows it to transmit data at up to 54 Mbps. The 4-port fast Ethernet switch lets you connect four computers t o it, and you can also add a few laptops to your home network using the integrated Wi-Fi access point. You can set up the DSL- 2640T in a jiffy. The easy-to-understand browser interface has a Wizard that puts you in the driver’s seat and lets you configure the router the way you want. Security has not been neglected either, with support for enhanced wireless security using WPA and WPA2. The integrated firewall with NAT, SPI, andDoS capabilities further strengthen the safety of your PC from hackers. You can even block out offensive URLs or complete domains. Though we could not test the ADSL performance, we tested the Wi-Fi capabilities of the device. Scores were average compared to the other two ADSL routers we tested earlier this year. It could transfer sequential files at a rate of 1.22 MBps in the closest zone, while it managed 0.55 in the farthest zone, putting it a shade ahead of the ASUS WL-600G but a step behind the Netgear DG834G as far as overall performance is concerned. D-Link has provided an ADSL splitter so you can connect the telephone line to the router and still not miss a call. The accompanying CD contains a manual and a Wizard that are good enough to ease any of your worries about installing the device. In sum, this is a decent ADSL router for setting up a small office or home network.
Specifications:
ADSL/ADSL2 compliant; Ports: 1 x ADSL RJ-11 for 24/26 AWG twisted pair telephone wire, 4 x
10/100 LAN RJ-45; Wi-Fi standard: 802.11b/g...

Logitech diNovo Edge Reviews

The diNovo Edge is Logitech’s costliest offering from its keyboard line-up. It is thin and sleek—just around 1 cm tall. The frame is sturdy; it has a layer of Plexiglas on top, which gives it a nice,
glossy finish. The downside, however, is that you’re bound to get scratches and fingerprints on it. It won’t go down too well with users with sweaty hands either. But there’s no denying it looks great. There’s a brushed metal panel to complement the glossy Plexiglas. With the short key travel, this feels like a laptop keyboard. A circular touchpad acts as a mouse. Moving your finger around the edges lets you scroll vertically and horizontally. The touchpad is pretty small, though, and is a little cumbersome to use. It can be turned off if you’d like. There is no numeric keypad, and many of the keys have been made smaller to accommodate them in the small, sleek form factor. The touch slider for volume control is a good addition. Indicators light up when you press some of the keys. Pressing the Function key [FN], for example, lights up the multimedia buttons, which are coupled with the function keys ([F1] through [F12]). There are buttons for putting the PC into standby, for opening the default media player, and for muting system sound. The wireless Bluetooth connection worked perfectly fine with no glitches from 20 ft or so. Also, we should mention that you get a chic charging dock to go with the looks of the keyboard itself. Sleek and elegant it may be, but the feel of the keys really lets the diNovo Edge down. The high price tag of Rs 15,995 is another major downside. Other keyboards from Logitech with more features—such as the G11 and the G15—are priced at half that much or less. Those are a lot bulkier, and are meant for gaming. The only saving grace for the diNovo Edge is its looks.
Specifications:
Dimensions: 11 x 410 x 210 mm; weight: 940 gm; Bluetooth 2.0; inbuilt 950 mA Li-ion battery...