Innholdsfortegnelse for Jan-13 i PCWorld

Windows 8 is now running on my main PC at home, and I’m generally happy with the new system. It’s speedier than previous Windows versions, and I actually enjoy some of the new live tile apps that Microsoft has littered on my Start screen. Just one problem, though: Like many other longtime Windows users who’ve switched to Windows 8, I feel bullied every time I boot up my PC and receive the bum’s rush straight to the Land of Colorful Tiles. Sure, I understand Microsoft’s motivations. The company wants us to feel warm, cozy, and comfortable in the new live tile universe that spans PCs, tablets, phones, and Xbox. Microsoft wants us to love live tiles. And in order for us to love live tiles, we have to use live…

THE SAME-DAY DELIVERY wars are getting a lot more interesting, as Walmart enters the fray. The retailer is testing same-day delivery in Philadelphia, Northern Virginia, and Minneapolis, and will expand the program to San Francisco and San Jose, California, by the time you read this. The program, Walmart To Go, covers roughly 5000 items, including TVs, toys, and tablets, and costs $10 regardless of order size. Walmart has not imposed a minimum purchase amount in the initial test cities, but a $45 minimum will apply in San Francisco and San Jose. When placing an order, shoppers pick a convenient time for their delivery. Competing Services Walmart isn’t the first retailer to experiment with same-day delivery. Amazon offers same-day delivery in ten major U.S. cities, though cut-off times for orders vary…

IN RECENT MONTHS we’ve seen an explosion of promising new tools and microcontroller boards for do-it-yourself projects. Here are two of the newest entrants in this growing field—one that needs your help to come to the market, and one that you can buy right now. Cubieboard Is Like a Raspberry Pi on Steroids We’re big fans of tiny Linux computer boards such as the Raspberry Pi, which just got a major RAM upgrade (go.pcworld.com/raspberryram). If you’re seeking something similar but with even more power, take a look at the amped-up specs on the Cubieboard. The Cubieboard is a monster, carrying a 1GHz ARM Cortex-A8 processor and a separate Mali400 graphics chip. It also has 1GB of RAM and 4GB of on-board storage to help it run Android, Ubuntu, or other…

Unhappy with a gift or other seasonal tech purchase? Here’s our advice for hassle-free returns and exchanges, online and in person. DECEMBER MAY BE the season of giving, but January is the season of returning. Unfortunately, sending back electronics and tech gear can be particularly complicated, with restocking fees and other annoying restrictions. Here are a few tips to ease the hassle of returning tech products. If you don’t want to keep it, don’t open it: This is especially important for electronics—the return process will be much smoother if the item is snug in its original, sealed package. If it’s open, repack it: Keep all of the original packaging and repack carefully, with accompanying accessories, documentation, and other components, in their original condition. Time is of the essence: Most retailers…

BUSINESSES HAVE been adopting the Evernote utility (go.pcworld.com/evernote) in increasing numbers—and later this year the company will launch Evernote for Business. Meanwhile, here’s how to put this little app that could to its best use. Get Started With Evernote Evernote is a hybrid system of offline and cloud-based features. You’ll need to create an account when you first download it; you can then install it almost anywhere. In Evernote, every page you create is its own Note. Notes are most useful when organized into Notebooks. Setting up Notebooks is easier on a computer than in a mobile app, so configure them ahead of time on a PC. Add content: To create a Note on the go, navigate to the Notebook you want to work in, and click the oversize plus-sign…

YOU MAY THINK of Sony’s $880 Tap 20 (also known as the SVJ20215CXW) as either a smallish all-in-one PC or a humongous tablet. In reality, it’s a little of both. This Windows 8 machine has a 1.7GHz Ivy Bridge ultra-low-voltage Core i5-3317U CPU (with Turbo Boost up to 2.6GHz), 4GB of memory, and Intel’s HD 4000 integrated graphics. The 750GB mobile hard drive lacks an SSD cache, so storage speeds can be poky. No optical drive is built in. The 1600-by-900-pixel resolution seems a little low for a 20-inch all-in-one, but the IPS panel’s color fidelity and video saturation look good, and viewing angles are decent. Since Windows no longer plays MPEG-2 content, Sony should consider bundling an MPEG-2 playback tool going forward. WMV high-definition video looks attractive, as do…

INTEL HAS revved up its mainstream solid-state drive line from Series 330 to Series 335, and 240GB is apparently the only capacity it is launching this series with. The new drives feature 20nm NAND flash memory, compared with the 25nm chips in the older series, but Intel continues to use an LSI/SandForce SF-2281 controller with custom Intel firmware. The company uses the same controller in its Series 330 and Series 520 drives. But what may be of most interest to consumers is that Series 335 is significantly cheaper per gigabyte: Intel expects this 240GB drive to cost about the same as a 180GB Series 330. Series 335 is also outfitted with a SATA revision 3.0 (6-gbps) interface, and the drive comes housed inside a 2.5-inch enclosure that is 9.5mm thick.…

THE RAZER BLACKWIDOW Tournament Edition packs many high-end gaming keyboard features, such as a full mechanical keyboard and programmable macro keys, into a smaller, cheaper package. At a totable 2 pounds, it’s ideal for gamers who attend tournaments or LAN parties. Razer hasn’t sacrificed too much quality for portability. The Tournament Edition sports the same Cherry MX Blue mechanical keys as its older sibling, and is sturdy and responsive. However, it drops the numeric keypad and dedicated macro keys. Razer’s Synapse software is powerful but frustrating to set up and use. Downloading Synapse, tying your peripherals to your Razer account, and setting preferences is time-consuming. Getting the keyboard set up and configured to my liking took an hour. All of this effort pays off for tournament players, though: Since Razer…

1 Windows 8 With its biggest OS rollout since Windows 95, Microsoft seeks to embrace all things computing with a one-size-fits-all operating system. Love or hate the new Start screen and app storefront, look beyond those polarizing elements, and you’ll find substantial performance improvements, numerous updates to critical features, and a largely successful effort to retain compatibility with desktop applications while also fulfilling the needs of mobile apps. Windows 8 has already spawned new designs and all sorts of hardware experiments. This bold step forward won’t appeal to old-schoolers, but its sleek, modern look just might win over a new generation of users that Microsoft must attract to remain relevant. 2 APPLE IPAD (Third Generation) We’ve listed the third-gen iPad here because it had the biggest impact on the tablet…

WINDOWS 7 WIDGETS and other desktop gadgets seem to have no place in Windows 8. So if you want to track CPU usage and local weather at a glance, how can you do it? Install Rainmeter (go.pcworld.com/rainmeter), a free desktop-widget utility that’s superior to the native Windows desktop gadgets in almost every meaningful way. Rainmeter isn’t especially user-friendly, but you’ll find that it’s straightforward once you get used to it. The first thing to consider is vocabulary. Rainmeter lingo differs a bit from standard terminology. For example, what most people would call a widget or a gadget, Rainmeter calls a skin. In Rainmeter parlance, a group of skins with a similar visual theme is a skin suite. And finally, Rainmeter calls a particular group of skins and their layout a…

What’s the best way to send encrypted private information over the Internet? —KenWid10 HERE ARE TWO ways to send private information safely over the Internet. Email an encrypted .zip file: You can put the info into a file (in any format the recipient can handle); compress it into a password-protected, encrypted .zip archive file; and email it to the recipient. You and your recipient will need a .zip program with AES support, such as WinZip (go.pcworld.com/winzip) or the free 7-Zip (go.pcworld.com/7zip). Also, you and the recipient must share a password, and—unfortunately—emailing the password isn’t safe. So if possible, use information that both you and the recipient already know (like a Social Security number). Skip email altogether and use the cloud:Sendinc.com, a cloud-based service, uploads and downloads encrypted content via SSL…

ALTHOUGH THE WORLD of technology is perpetually changing, one thing remains the same: A lot of people use terrible passwords. Splashdata, a security software developer, recently released its annual top 25 list of the most common account passwords on the Internet. Here’s the full list and how it compares to last year’s: 1. password (unchanged) 2. 123456 (unchanged) 3. 12345678 (unchanged) 4. abc123 (up one) 5. qwerty (down one) 6. monkey (unchanged) 7. letmein (up one) 8. dragon (up two) 9. 111111 (up three) 10. baseball (up one) 11. iloveyou (up two) 12. trustno1 (down three) 13. 1234567 (down six) 14. sunshine (up one) 15. master (down one) 16. 123123 (up four) 17. welcome (new) 18. shadow (up one) 19. ashley (down three) 20. football (up five) 21. jesus (new)…

GOOGLE IS TRYING to figure out what’s keeping consumers from paying for premium Web content. Is it because micropayments are currently not very convenient or secure, or is it because people just don’t want to pay for online material? The search engine giant is experimenting with a business initiative called Google Wallet for Web content (go.pcworld.com/walletcontent). Through this initiative, consumers can pay for premium content—that is, pay for access to Web articles—using the Google Wallet mobile payment system. Google Wallet is primarily a smartphone app that uses NFC (near-field communication) technology. Users can tap their NFC-enabled phones on NFC-enabled card readers to pay for an in-person purchase. Google Wallet lets users store credit cards, debit cards, loyalty cards, and gift cards on their phone or in their Google account. But…

THE ABILITY TO print anything from anywhere is no longer fantasy. It’s a necessity, as we work more and more off of mobile devices. You can’t squint at a big spreadsheet on a phone; and if you receive a revised presentation via email as your plane lands, you need to print it out before you get to the meeting. Using email or a cloud-based print server as the sending method, most major printer vendors now provide apps for printing from smartphones and tablets, as well as from laptops and even remote desktops. Third parties such as Apple and Google also offer printing apps and services. All these mobile-printing technologies share some common traits and limitations. To begin with, the printer has to be networked or connected directly to the Internet.…

WHEN WAS THE last time you used cash to pay for something? If you’re like many Americans today, you pay with cash a lot less frequently than you used to. And you may use it even less often in the future, thanks to the influx of mobile payment systems: Square, Google Wallet, and Apple Passbook to name just a few. But an important question remains: Does a cashless future mean the end of your transaction-related privacy and security? The Trade-Offs of Going Cashless In a cashless society, privacy in connection with payments is practically nonexistent. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that your information will be sold to the highest bidder. “Protecting the consumer’s identity is important to protecting their financial information and preventing spam,” says Con Mallon, senior director of…

PRICED AT $999, Toshiba’s LX835-D3230 all-in-one PC comes with a 2.3GHz Intel Core i7-3610QM CPU plus 6GB of RAM. It managed a score of 103 on our WorldBench 7 suite, so it’s about 3 percent faster than our baseline PC. Since it has only Intel’s integrated HD 4000 graphics technology, you won’t want to play graphically intensive games on it. Nevertheless, the 23-inch, 1920-by-1080-pixel screen of this Windows 7 PC is great for watching movies and TV in a small room. You get a remote control, too. Regrettably, the system lacks a touchscreen. The LX835-D3230 boasts a DVD drive and media ports, including a TV tuner and HDMI-in. You’ll also find four USB 2.0 ports, a gigabit ethernet port, two USB 3.0 ports, a memory card reader, and headphone and…

THE EPSON Expression Home XP-400 Small-in-One color inkjet multifunction printer delivers a lot of bang for the buck. Controls are top-notch, the unit takes up little space, and the output is nice. The MFP is relatively quick, too, but the inks are expensive. The flip-up control panel is easy to use. The 2.5-inch LCD has large icons and well-thought-out menus, and the surrounding touch panel with contextually lit controls is also easy to use. The company’s capable Epson Scan program comes with this model, but you get no optical character recognition software. The paper-handling features are fine for low-volume PC users. The rear vertical input feed will hold 100 sheets of paper. The scanner is single-shot, with no automatic document feeder, but the lid telescopes approximately half an inch to…

ASUS’S HIGH-END XONAR Essence One audio processing device is a sample-rate converter, a USB DAC (digital-to-analog converter), a stand-alone DAC (with both coaxial and optical digital inputs), a sample-rate converter, a pre-amp (with both XLR and RCA stereo outputs), and a sweet headphone amplifier. Since this is a USB device, the PC’s stereo audio output stays in the digital domain until it reaches the Xonar. The box accepts signals at either 16- or 24-bit resolution, with sampling rates of between 44.1kHz and 192kHz. When the bit stream reaches the Xonar, an onboard digital signal processor upsamples the signal to 32-bit resolution, and it symmetrically upconverts the sampling rate by a factor of up to eight. Asus offers optional ASIO (Audio Stream Input/Output) drivers for the Xonar so that ASIO-compatible playback…

ADOBE’S NEW ACROBAT XI Pro PDF software aims to make it easy to get work done without using paper. But its paperless workflow may be too onerous for businesses. Version XI expands the program’s abilities via a new website for document signing and an application for forms creation (both cost extra). To get a document signed, you now request, receive, and manage the digital signatures via Adobe’s recently acquired EchoSign website (you don’t need Acrobat XI Pro to use EchoSign, though). You log in to EchoSign, enter your recipient’s address, select a couple of options, and click Send. The website sends the file to your recipient and a confirming email to you saying it’s been sent; Echosign sends you an email again when the recipient either signs it or doesn’t.…

THESE ADD-ONS AND extensions for Chrome and Firefox can improve your browsing significantly. FlashControl Many sites still use Adobe Flash for videos, banners, and games. Flash consumes resources, though, and may cause your browser to become unresponsive. When you install FlashControl (go.pcworld.com/flashcontrol), Flash elements on a webpage have a simple static placeholder by default. Click the placeholder, and the Flash content loads and plays. FlashControl also lets you whitelist websites, so you can enable Flash on YouTube and other sites on which it is essential. Readability Focusing on a lengthy article can be challenging. It may have distracting banners, say, or the font size may be too small. The elegant Readability can solve those problems and many others. Readability’s Chrome extension (go.pcworld.com/readability) appears as a simple button. Click the button,…

SEVERAL TOOLS CAN help keep your data private when you store it on a remote server. One of our favorites is BoxCryptor (www.boxcryptor.com), an encryption program that works with multiple cloud services and is easy to use. It’s also free, though you can pay for upgrades. BoxCryptor is basically a virtual hard disk that encrypts files on the fly, using 256-bit AES encryption. Unlike TrueCrypt, another popular on-the-fly encryption tool, BoxCryptor encrypts individual files—not an entire volume or container—so BoxCryptor-encrypted files sync with your cloud storage service immediately after you save them, whereas TrueCrypt syncing occurs only after you encrypt an entire volume. Since BoxCryptor encrypts and decrypts files locally, and doesn’t send your password to third parties, your files remain unreadable to outsiders even if hackers steal your password…

HERE ARE a couple of our favorite ways to optimize workflow in SkyDrive. Sync any folder to your SkyDrive: Programmer Jan Hannemann has released a custom shell extension that you can install (at your own risk) to add a sync option to the context menu that pops up when you right-click in Windows. To get it, visit his public SkyDrive folder and download the 32-bit (go.pcworld.com/sse32) or 64-bit (go.pcworld.com/sse64) version of SkyShellEx. Run the script, and thereafter you’ll see a ‘Sync to Skydrive’ option whenever you right-click a folder in Windows Explorer. Edit Word documents from a browser: SkyDrive lets you edit Word-compatible documents from your browser, a practical trick that you can use to open and edit documents on any PC that doesn’t have Word installed. Upload the document…

WINDOWS 8 AND Windows Phone 8 have more than just a numeral in common. Take one look at the two operating systems, and you can tell that Microsoft wants to unify Windows Phone devices, Windows 8 tablets and PCs, and its Xbox game console. Consider, too, the words of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer at the Build conference in late October: “If you want the best experience with your Windows computer, you’ll own a Windows Phone.” The two OSs tie together in multiple ways. For starters, they sport the same look, with live tiles on their home screens. In both OSs, you can pin and resize app tiles, and decide which ones should update with live information. Ross Rubin, principal analyst for Reticle Research, says that the common elements are an…

A COMPREHENSIVE STUDY into media sharing and consumption habits has found that music pirates who pilfer songs from file-sharing websites actually buy 30 percent more tracks than people who download music only legally. The American Assembly, a nonpartisan public-affairs forum affiliated with Columbia University, carried out the Copy Culture Survey through thousands of phone interviews in the United States and Germany. The research found that, in the United States, people who download pirated music have music libraries that are about 37 percent larger than the libraries of those who download only legal songs. “But some of it also comes from significantly higher legal purchases of digital music than their non-P2P using peers—around 30 percent higher among US P2P users,” American Assembly’s Joe Karaganis explained in a blog post. In Germany…

THE BIG-BOX RETAILER Lowes sells do-it-yourself kits that let you monitor, control, and (to a lesser extent) secure your home via the cloud. All the kits have the Iris Hub, which connects to your router. I tried the $299 Smart Kit, which also has two door/window sensors, a motion sensor, a wireless keypad, a plug-in lighting-control module, a programmable thermostat, and a range extender. You can control Iris from a computer, a smartphone, or a tablet, and add sensors, controls, IP cameras, and more. A Lowes spokesperson says the company plans to add entry-lock support soon. The Hub runs on AC power, but it also has a battery backup. You must enroll each Iris module in the Hub via the cloud-based user interface. Lowes says that this process should take…

THE BEST FEATURES of HP’s Photosmart 7520 e-All-in-One multifunction inkjet printer may be its output quality and the 4.33-inch LCD control panel that makes this machine marvelously easy to use. It’s also a well-rounded MFP with good speed and all the features that most home and small offices need. It’s simple to set up, and the software is first-rate. The LCD panel has a clear, icon-based menu structure; though it’s a touchscreen, you don’t tap so much as press to invoke options. The unit has the now-ubiquitous cloud-printing capabilities, including HP’s own Web-based apps. Although this MFP is photo-centric, its paper-handling features extend well beyond that. The main paper tray holds 125 sheets, and integrated into its top is a secondary photo tray that holds 20 sheets of photo paper.…

IT’S TEMPTING TO think of the new iPod touch as an iPhone 5 minus the phone, given its similar height (4.86 inches), light weight, thinness (0.24 inch thick), and welcome new Lightning connector. The extra height of the screen allows for an extra row of icons on the Home screen, which means that you’ll swipe through fewer screens to find your apps. Similarly, apps written for the larger screen now enjoy more elbow room. In the Videos app, movies look better; and, thanks to the iPod’s larger size but lighter weight, snapping photos is more comfortable. (A wrist strap is now included.) The fifth-generation iPod touch’s processor is faster, so apps open quicker and gaming performance is snappier. The 5G iPod touch’s two cameras are much improved: A 5-megapixel rear-facing…

TWEETDECK, NOW OWNED by Twitter, has gained a new look, a more flexible layout, and an optional new design. TweetDeck 2.0 is still available as a desktop app downloadable to Windows PCs and Macs, and as a Web app for Apple Safari, Google Chrome, and Mozilla Firefox. All versions sport TweetDeck’s new look. When you launch the application in any of these versions, you’ll see TweetDeck’s usual design. But click a new button, and you toggle on the new white-and-blue Twitter-like look. You can change the text size, as well (you’ll need to dig through the settings menu). The new Column Navigator lets you quickly customize the layout. You can add columns (TweetDeck now shows eight by default) with a click, or skip between columns without scrolling. One noticeable bug:…

MODERN, HIGH-END graphics processing units are marvels of semiconductor technology. They offer massive transistor counts, tremendous parallel-processing performance, and incredible graphics rendering. For this roundup, we looked at four single-GPU cards. Two are based on Nvidia’s latest GTX 680 GPU and the other two are built upon AMD’s latest Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition. While the GTX 680 focuses on providing outstanding gaming performance, the Radeon HD 7970 is good at games but also delivers excellent performance for applications that can use a GPU for computational tasks. Typically, GPU makers build reference boards with fairly conservative GPU and memory clock speeds. Card makers then take those reference designs, relabel them, and offer them for sale. Lately, though, graphics card makers have tried to differentiate themselves by creating their own board…

ARE YOU TAKING the plunge on a new Windows 8 system? Although Microsoft has positioned its latest operating system to be all about apps, the vast majority of users will want to run some “legacy” programs (like, say, iTunes). But rather than downloading all of your favorites manually or fishing out a storage box of a bunch of installer CDs and fumbling through them for the right discs, check out Ninite (go.pcworld.com/ninite). This insanely handy tool automatically downloads and installs software, saving you lots of time in setting up a new machine. Even better, Ninite has added Classic Start, an open-source Classic Shell program that provides a Start button/menu for Windows 8’s Desktop mode, which, irritatingly, doesn’t provide one of its own. Simply scroll through Ninite’s categorized list of programs,…

IN ERASER, YOU can choose from a large assortment of wiping methods. If you need to delete only specific files and folders—rather than entire drives—from your system, the open-source Eraser utility (go.pcworld.com/eraser) may be the perfect tool for you. To get started with it, simply boot up the program, click the arrow next to the Erase Schedule option at the top of the screen, and select New task. From there, a window containing the tool’s task and time-scheduling options pops up. Click Add Data to select the files that you want to wipe, and choose an erasure method. (I usually go with the DoD three-pass setting.) An Eraser option also appears when you right-click a file in Windows Explorer, so you can delete files quickly and permanently. Eraser provides a…

IF YOUR ROUTER is more than four years old, you should think about replacing it. Here are three reasons why this piece of advice is generally sound. 1. Over time, heat can damage its internal components: This factor may explain disturbing symptoms such as intermittent outages or slow performance. To test for damage, you might try pointing a small fan at your router, or moving the router to a location that has good airflow, and seeing whether that makes any difference. 2. It may not support 802.11n, the most widespread Wi-Fi technology: If your router tops out at 802.11g, you’re definitely not getting the speed and range you could be. But some 802.11n models are out of date as well, especially if they were made prior to 2009. 3. It…