Acer Aspire One 522 Netbook

The Acer Aspire One 522 (model BZ897) delivers a good, classic netbook for a very reasonable price ($330 as of March 18, 2011). Petite and slim with a handsome 10.1-inch widescreen LED-backlit display, a 250GB hard drive, an integrated 1.3-megapixel webcam, and a multitouch touchpad, this portable does a solid job with multimedia and boasts pretty good battery life: nearly 7 hours in our tests using the provided 6-cell battery.

By Yardena Arar | 23 March, 2011 08:17

Tags: Acer, amd, hardware systems, laptops, netbook, netbooks

2nd Story Software TaxAct Deluxe

TaxActDeluxe has been the budget tax-software option for some time now, but can it handle business taxes? The answer is yes -- but only if you don't need a heap of guidance and you can make do with limited data-import features.

By Yardena Arar | 17 February, 2011 01:53

Tags: applications, Financial / tax, financial & tax software, H&R Block, Intuit, Office, software, tax software

Networking gets faster, more media-savvy

Home is where the network is: That's the mantra of networking vendors at the Consumer Electronics Show 2011 in Las Vegas this week.

By Yardena Arar | 08 January, 2011 13:19

Tags: bluetooth, CES, Intel, LAN, logitech, management, netgear, networking, Networking & Wireless, Network management, wireless, wireless technology

9 Ways to Spice Up Office 2010 Documents

Even if your work is humdrum, your documents shouldn't be. The latest version of Microsoft Office makes it easier than ever to create handsome documents, thanks to some cool new tools for dressing up text, displaying images, and embedding video.

By Yardena Arar | 15 June, 2010 00:34

Tags: Microsoft Office 2010

Netgear Announces Fast Powerline Network Products

Home networking giant Netgear plans to introduce a 500 megabit-per-second line of HomePlug AV powerline products this fall. Netgear announced a slew of products, including next-generation powerline and advanced multimedia-optimized Wi-Fi products this week at CeBIT, the giant tech trade show in Hannover, Germany.

By Yardena Arar | 05 March, 2010 06:32

Tags: netgear, wi-fi

Nero SecurDisc: Improved security for optical storage media

Nero, makers of optical media-burning software, has announced a new version of its SecurDisc data- protection technology, which should increase your chances of recovering content from damaged CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray Discs.

By Yardena Arar | 05 March, 2010 08:14

Tags: nero, optical disc

Stream anything from your PC to your HDTV, wire free

A slew of network-connected gadgets now let you watch Netflix and Amazon on-demand videos to your TV, and a growing number of sets, set-top boxes, and Blu-ray disc players come with built-in software for accessing content on these and other Web sites such as YouTube and Pandora. What's been missing, however, is an easy and convenient way to enjoy any content you can view with your PC on your big digital TV screen. That may soon change. Intel's next-generation notebook CPUs, announced at the consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, are so powerful they can compress the contents of a PC display on the fly and stream it wirelessly to a soon-to-be-introduced Netgear set-top box, the Push2TV (PVT 1000), that you'll connect to your set via HDMI or component cables.

By Yardena Arar | 12 January, 2010 03:28

Tags: Intel, media streaming

LG TVs make new connections

LG Electronics' connected TVs are getting more connections - including support (with the addition of a Webcam accessory) for Skype video calls on many of its new sets. This expands on LG's introduction, last year, of sets with built-in support for video-on-demand services such as Netflix and Vudu. Other new Internet services include Picasa and AccuWeather.

By Yardena Arar | 07 January, 2010 04:42

Tags: ces 2010, HDTV, lg

Panasonic promises 3D plasma HDTVs

As expected, Panasonic's CES press conference dwelt heavily on the company's plans to bring 3D HDTVs mainstream, including model info on five plasma sets slated to ship by midyear, and a Blu-Ray Disc player. Panasonic also became the second CE vendor of the day to announce the addition of the popular Internet phone call service, Skype, to its VieraCast connected TV service lineup (LG beat them to it by several hours).

By Yardena Arar | 08 January, 2010 02:34

Tags: 3d TV, ces 2010, Panasonic

Microsoft Office 2010: An intriguing beta

With the release of the Office 2010 beta, the general public finally gets to check out how Microsoft plans to deliver on its promises for the next edition of its flagship productivity suite--namely, close integration with lightweight Web versions of core apps (Excel and PowerPoint Web are the first to debut for consumers via Windows Live, with Word and OneNote available only in the business-oriented SharePoint 2010 server beta), better multimedia support, a subtle interface refresh, and a slew of features designed to make document creation and sharing easier. But there's some news too, most notably support within Outlook for tracking feeds from social networks.

By Yardena Arar | 19 November, 2009 06:17

Tags: Microsoft, microsoft office

Interead Cool-ER E-Book Reader

From its aspirational brand name (the ER in Cool-ER stands for e-book reader) to its hip tinted metallic case, the $US249 Cool-ER clearly strives to distinguish itself from the black-and-gray competition - and to a large extent it succeeds. Skinny (0.43 inch thick), lightweight (6.3 ounces), and available in eight cheery colors, this e-book reader resembles an overgrown iPod - not a bad role model for industrial design.

By Yardena Arar | 03 November, 2009 03:51

Tags: cool-er, ebook

Astak EZ Reader PocketPro E-Book Reader

The Astak EZ Reader PocketPro is about the same size as the Sony Reader Pocket Edition. Both have 5-inch, 8-grayscale E Ink screens and cost $US199, putting at the small (and inexpensive) end of the e-book reader continuum. But some significant differences - pro and con - distinguish the two; and for all its extra features, the Astak's limited and rather strange font size options are a serious drawback.

By Yardena Arar | 03 November, 2009 03:47

Tags: Astak EZ Reader PocketPro, ebook

Sony Reader Pocket Edition E-Book Reader

The Sony Reader Pocket Edition (PRS-300) is about as inexpensive as e-book readers corrently get: $US199 for a slim gadget with a 5-inch, 8-grayscale E Ink screen.

By Yardena Arar | 03 November, 2009 03:43

Tags: ebook, sony, Sony Reader Pocket Edition (PRS-300)

From Palm Pilot to Palm Pre: A brief history of Palm's handhelds

Regardless of how things go for the financially beleaguered company, Palm pioneered the modern PDA and smartphone markets, and its handhelds will live on forever in tech history.

Small-business network security 101

Today more than ever, good network security is vital to businesses of all sizes. Cybercriminals, equipped with sophisticated software that automates the task of seeking out vulnerabilities, aren't focusing on large enterprises alone; any easy target will do. Fortunately, however, good security isn't as expensive or as complicated to implement as it used to be.

By Yardena Arar | 02 July, 2009 05:17

Tags: network security, smallbusiness