012007

TTHIS CHRISTMAS WAS the first time I did all my shop-ping online. Giving the finishing touches to this issueand many trips out of town meant little or no time forthe luxury of doing the mall rounds. Add to it thesheer convenience of online… I was through with mypurchases in all of 30 minutes. And this includedGoogling for the best shopping sites, the best deals onoffer, choosing the gifts, and the credit card bit.

I happened to have been signed into Google—whatthey call the “Personalized Home.” It hadn’t occurredto me, though, in those 30 minutes I’d left digital foot-prints all across the Web—right from my gift prefer-ences to my choice of Web sites to even the amountof time it took me to nail down the gifts. Now e-pay-ments are more or less secure these days and robustsystems have lent a great deal of credibility to pay-ments online, but what I’m concerned about is thatsomewhere on Google’s servers are locked away littletitbits about me. Very personal things. Well, they docall it “Personalized.”

The sheer dominance of a handful of searchengines is my concern here. Especially Google. It isnot me who determines whether I get to search allexisting sites; it depends on whether Google hasdecided to index the site. In a very real way, Googlecontrols my Web experience and my online exposure.

Now what if Google were to make it mandatory tosign in before you could use its search services?They’re well within their rights to do it!

Every day we send millions of search queries toGoogle and give away a daily log of our online pref-erences. Imagine if Personalized were mandatory.What might they do with all that data? Will they useit to enhance our search experience, or will they limitour search to the sites that pay them?

And then, one day, say Google decides to linksearch with its other services such as Gmail, Orkut,and Google Earth… they’ll end up knowing ourfriends, our social interactions, our location. Andthere’s more—wait till we get habituated to usingGoogle Docs and Spreadsheets! You, just a few giga-bytes of data on Google’s servers, locked for posterity!

The scary thing here is that, like I said, there’snothing to stop them from making Personalizedmandatory. We’re so dependant on search, even if

they did, we’d all take it in our stride—and sign inevery time. Google is also offering an online paymentservice (in the US right now), so, happily, they’ll alsohave your credit card details. And possibly yourmother’s maiden name. And God knows what else.

In a way, it might seem justified: you’re getting somuch information without clicking a single ad, soyou’ve got to give something in return—right? No,there’s something wrong here.

I do not want Them to know I spent six and a halfminutes choosing a yellow soft toy for my daughter onthe 22nd of December 2006. It might seem insignifi-cant, but I’m just not comfortable.

[email protected]

Editorial

“In a very real way, Googlecontrols my Web experience”

Deepak Ajwani Executive Editor

Please Sign In. Or Else.

January 2007 • Volume 7 • Issue 1

ChairmanJasu ShahPrinter, Publisher, Editor & Managing DirectorMaulik JasubhaiCEO and Editorial DirectorL Subramanyan

EditorialExecutive Editor Deepak AjwaniHead of Writers Robert Sovereign-SmithWriters Nimish Chandiramani, Samir MakwanaSr. Copy Editor Ram Mohan Rao

Test CentreAssistant Manager Sanket NaikReviewer Jayesh Limaye, Michael Browne Trainee Vishal Kansagra Co-ordinator Gautami V Chalke

DesignCreative Head Kabir MalkaniHead - Editorial Design Solomon LewisDy. Head - Editorial Design Rohit A ChandwaskarChief Designer Shivasankaran C PillaiSenior Designers Vijay Padaya, Sivalal SDesigners Pradip Ingale, Chaitanya Surpur,Shrikrishna Patkar, Pravin Warhokar Photographers Jiten Gandhi, Sandeep PatilCo-ordinator Rohini Dalvi

MultimediaContent Head Robert Sovereign-SmithContent Co-ordinator B G Prakash

OperationsExecutive Vice-President Vijay Adhikari

SalesVice President Bibhor SrivastavGeneral Manager Sobers George

MarketingGeneral Manager Arvind ThakoreBrand Manager Jitendra SoniSr. Brand Executive Rohini KrishnaMarketing Communication Thomas Varghese, Raj Vora, Subodh Dalvi, Ashwini BaviskarSenior Executive-Sales Support Ramesh KumarAd-sales Co-ordination Yogendra Bagle

Production and LogisticsGM - Operations Shivshankar HiremathManager (Production) Shiv HiremathDeputy Manager Mangesh Salvi Logistics Anant Shirke, M P Singh, Vilas Mhatre,Mohd. Ansari, Shashi Shekhar Singh, Ravindra Dighe

Circulation — SalesNational Sales Manager Sunder ThiyagarajanCo-ordinator Rahul Mankar

Audience DevelopmentSr. Executive James D’SouzaAssistant Manager Puja Punj, Krishnadas Kurup

Consumer Marketing

Sr. Executive Suchitra Shetty

Customer Service Christopher Lobo

Head Office: Editorial, Marketing and Customer Service Plot No D-222/2, TTC Industrial Area, MIDCShirvane, Nerul, Navi Mumbai 400 706 Phone: +91 022-27629191/9200 Fax: +91 022-27629164

Cover Design Rohit A Chandwaskar Photographer Jiten Gandhi, Model Ajman ShaheenMake up Sunil Patil, Hair Stylist Aparna TV courtesy Sumaria, Andheri(W), Mumbai

Tell Us What You Feel About DigitEach month, Digit walks through the technologymaze to bring you the most relevant, mostresearched stories. If you have an opinion aboutanything published in Digit, or about technologyin general, please write in [email protected]

Product TestingWant your product reviewed by Digit? Contact our Test Centre at [email protected]

Software On DVD/CDTo submit and suggest software for inclusion in the Digit DVD or CD, contactus at [email protected]

Help!For subscription or copy-related issues,send an e-mail to [email protected] may also contact the followingexecutives for local queries: Bangalore: Devaraju N (09341809286)Chennai: L R Laxmanan (09380229283)Delhi: Puja Punj (09312019051)Hyderabad: Norbert Joseph (09396229281)Kolkata: Jayanta Bhattacharyya (033-22317344)Mumbai: James D’Souza (022-27629322)Pune: Sachin Kamble (09372429280)

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Advertisers’ Index

6 DIGIT JANUARY 2007

Y O U R T E C H N O L O G Y N A V I G A T O R Client Page

APC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Back cover

Canon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Reverse Gatefold

Cricket Today . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

Dell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12-13

D-Link . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Enjay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Epson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

HP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 - 25

Kingston . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Kunhar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

LG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2, 3, 4

LIC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Marbonite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 - 41

Moser Baer . . . . . . . . . . . . . Inside Back Cover

MSI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

NEC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Panasonic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Ricoh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

The Week . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

Topgun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Toshiba . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Viewsonic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Wiley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

Disclaimer: For every Digit contest, there will beonly one winner, unless specified otherwise. In theevent of a dispute, the Editor’s decision shall befinal

Printed and published by Maulik Jasubhai on behalf ofJasubhai Digital Media Pvt Ltd, 26 Maker Chambers VI, 2nd Floor, Nariman Point,Mumbai 400 021, India and Published from MumbaiEditor: Maulik Jasubhai, 26 Maker Chambers VI, 2ndFloor, Nariman Point, Mumbai 400 021

Printed at Magna Graphics (I) Ltd, 101 C & D Government Industrial Estate Kandivli,Mumbai 400 067

HARDWAREFlash Drives . . . . . . . . . 176A-DATA Oriental 512 MBCorsair Flash Readout 1 GBCorsair Flash Voyager 2 GBCorsair Flash Voyager 1 GBGigabyte Flash Disk 1 GBiball 1 GBiball 2 GBiball 512 MBIntex 512 MBKingston Data Traveler 4 GBKingston DataTraveler mini

Fun 512 MBLexar JumpDrive FireFly 1 GBLexar JumpDrive FireFly 2 GBOdyssey 1 GBOdyssey 512 MBPQI Cool drive U339 1 GBPQI Cool drive U339S 1 GBPQI Intelligent Stick 1 GB

PQI Travelling Disk U230PQI Travelling Disk U260 1 GBSanDisk Cruzer CrossFire 1 GBSanDisk Cruzer CrossFire 2 GBSanDisk Cruzer Micro 1 GBSanDisk Cruzer Micro 2 GBSanDisk Cruzer Micro 4 GBSanDisk Cruzer Micro 512 MBSanDisk Cruzer Mini 4 GBSanDisk Cruzer Profile 512 MBSanDisk Cruzer Titanium 1 GBSanDisk Cruzer Titanium 2 GBTECH-COM 1 GBTECH-COM 512 MBTECH-COM 2 GBTECH-COM 4 GBTranscend JetFlash 130 1 GBTranscend JetFlash 150 1 GBTranscend JetFlash V30 512 MBTranscend JetFlash V30 1 GBTranscend JetFlash V30 2 GB

Transcend JetFlash V30 4 GBTranscend JetFlash V30 8 GBUMAX APUS 210 1 GBUMAX APUS ELITE 1 GBUMAX APUS PRO 1 GBZion 1 GBZion 2 GBZion 512 MB

Wi-Fi Routers . . . . . . . . 80ASUS WL-320GASUS WL-530GASUS WL-600GBuffalo WHR-HP-AG108Compex NetPassage 27GCompex NetPassage 28GCompex WP54G 1aD-Link DWL-2100 APLevel One WAP-0010Linksys WAP54GLinksys WRT300N

Linksys WRT54GNetgear DG834GSenao ECB 3220

Bazaar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80HardwareCanon LBP-3500ECS PX1 ExtremeFujitsu LifeBook P7120iPod White 80 GBNokia E50NVIDIA Nforce 680iSamsung NV10Seagate Pushbutton

Backup 750 GBZebronics ZEB-9000 HMVSoftware . . . . . . . . . . . . 84McAfee Internet

Security Suite 2007Altiris SVSXara 3D

Products Reviewed This Month

BangaloreAamer KhanE-mail: [email protected]: +91 9341118818, (080)25546370-73Fax: 41518330

MumbaiManoj SawalaniE-mail: [email protected]: +91 9820176965 (022)40373636/40373626

ChennaiAamer KhanE-mail: [email protected]: +91 9341118818, (044)28235186/88 Fax: 28230731

KolkataJayanta BhattacharyyaE-mail: jayanta_bhattacharyya@ jasubhai.comPhone: +91 9331829284(033) 22317344/46

New DelhiArvind PrabhakarE-mail: [email protected]: +91 9313319279, (011)41608655/56/57/58

PuneManoj SawalaniE-mail: [email protected]: +91 9820176965(022) 24494572/24467130/1Fax: 24482059/24481123

SecunderabadAamer KhanE-mail: [email protected]: +91 9341118818 (040)27894167/55221051Fax: 27720205International RepresentativeTaiwanMr.Marc Sonam, Image Media2F-2, No. 35, Sec. 2,Fushing South Road, Taipei 106,Taiwan, R.O.C. Tel: (886) -2-8773 4199Fax: (886) -2-8773 [email protected]

To Advertise


Enter

16Former MissIndia TanushreeDutta and hertravails withtech

16Europe wantsLinux, but theymiss MS Office

18e-Donkey—andothers of itsilk—are dead,thanks to theprize Ass’es

22An open-sourcegaming device?

Digital Passion

Contents Magazine

Tomorrow42 Battle For TomorrowA look at the changing face of warfare.The future of information exchangepromises more precise and deadly battles

Take a Crack50 Add “Restart In Safe Mode” ToYour Start MenuYou know you want to say goodbye to allthose “Whoops I forgot to hit F8” days!

Main Story51 The More The MerrierThere are other reasons for you to have twoGPUs—like hooking up a bunch of extramonitors to clear all that desktop clutter

Test Centre94 POPping The CorkWith so many free e-mail providers giving youPOP3 access, isn’t it wise to use a mail client tostore and browse them on your PC? Here are theones you should try out

Digital ToolsTest Centre72 Dinky Data VaultsCD? DVD? Bah! The best wayto carry data is the USB Flashdrive, and now you can useour opinions on 46 of them—ranging from a slim 512 MB

to a ridiculous 8 GB!

35 The High-Definition ItchThe marketing seems to have worked—HDthis, HD that, go HD or die alone—butwhat is HD and how do you not getcheated by all this nonsense?

Agent 00190 Agent 001 Wants It On PaperWhich is the best inkjetprinter of them all? The Agentwants a copy of his memories,and getting some work donewouldn’t hurt either

Lead Feature27 Going With The FlowTell the air in your cabinetwhere to go, andyou’ll seeremarkable results!Here’s how to planyour rig’s innardson a budget

Cover Story

9JANUARY 2007 DIGIT

January 2007

Smart Soho117 To Simpler TimesFear not Excel’s PivotTable, for it is your friend.Really. Say goodbye to complex code; makingsimple, professional reports will never be thesame again!

Tech Careers103 Enterprise in ERPIf terms like “efficientresource management”get your bonnet buzzing,read on!

Digital Business

Three Incredibly Useful Sites ..........18The Digital World ............................18Beat That ........................................19Gender Benders ..............................20Buzzword Of The Month ..................20

30 Days With ..................................46Droolmaal ......................................48Tips & Tricks ....................................63Know More About ............................85Q&A ................................................86

Old Way, Tech Way ..........................92Digit Diary ......................................135Blogwatch ......................................135Inbox..............................................144Tech Quiz ......................................146R

EGU

LAR

S

Main Story123 Art ForThe AskingWhat are thesemesmeric thingscalled fractals?Presenting a lookat mathematicsgone trippy

Escape

133Where would webe without JamesT Russell and hisCD-ROM?

134We Indians sufferfrom a raredisease: it’s calledMouse RageSyndrome. A littlefat in our pipeswouldn’t hurt

128 Game OnEpic AdventuresNeverwinter Nights 2 has finallyreleased, and it was worth the wait!Also featuring IL-2 Sturmovik 1946—easily the best flight simulator you canbuy today

148 Tabloid TechWe promised not to mention her again, butShe Who Must Not Be Named has toppedanother of Yahoo!’s lists. Somehow peoplecan’t get enough!

Digital Leisure

Test Centre106 Clutterless Connectivity! Nobody likes being tied down by a bunch ofnetwork cables, especially laptop-totingbusinessmen. We’ve tested a bunch of Wi-Fidevices to keep you from tripping over all thatwired nonsense


DV

D

Heroes of AnnihilatedEmpires

This time it's not about units, it's aboutarmies with thousands of soldiers thatentrust their fate in your hands. It'sabout responsibility taken by greatleaders and future of entire races.Survival or extinction? It's all up to youto decide

Microsoft Expression WebBeta 1

It gives you all the tools you'll need toproduce high-quality, standards-basedWeb sites the way you want them

VMware Workstation 5.5This powerful desktop virtualizationsoftware for softwaredevelopers /testers andenterprise ITprofessionals that runsmultiple operatingsystems simultaneouslyon a single PC

LINUX■ Adobe Reader 7.0.8■ Scribus■ Gnumeric

■ Mp3Tools 1.5■ Open Movie Editor 0.0.20061130■ Quick Image Viewer 2.0■ Squid version 2.6■ Zimbra Collaboration Suite Open

Source Edition

DEV TOOLS■ FileMaker Server 8■ HomeSite 5.5■ JDK 5.0 Update 10 with

NetBeans 5.5■ Matrix Server Setup■ Mobile Application

Development Toolkit■ Automated Build Studio v. 2.25■ TestComplete v.4.28■ UltraEdit v12.20a

GAMES■ NTE: Strike and Retrieve■ Medieval II Total War

DIGITAL PASSION DIGITAL TOOLS DIGITAL BUSINESS DIGITAL LEISURE

Corel Painter IX.5 This software features anew set of advanced toolsand features to help youcreate your digitalmasterpieces

Trend Micro Internet Security2007

This internet security toolcomprehensively safeguards yourcomputers, your home networks andyour personal identity

Canvas XThe single most cost-effective, integratedsolution for the creation,enhancement,presentation, andsharing of technicalillustrations and graphics

MULTIMEDIA■ Photoshop Album Starter Edition 3.0■ SnagIt■ ACDSee 9■ FotoSlate 4

■ AV Voice Changer Software DiamondEdition 4.0

■ AVS Video Tools ver. 5.4■ DVD MovieFactory 5 Plus

INTERNET

■ SurfControl E-mail Filter■ DC++■ FileZilla 2.2.2.9■ Hylapex 2.0.9.1 ■ Messenger Archive Viewer 3.9■ Pando■ Peer2Mail 1.61 build 6

■ ISA Server 2006 Enterprise Edition

SYSTEM■ CDBurnerXP Pro 3.0.116■ Partition Magic 8.0

■ IObit SmartDefrag■ Update Rollup 2 for Windows XP

Media Center Edition 2005 RU2■ Driver Genius Professional Edition ■ DriveWasher■ PC BackUp 7.3.1.3■ Registry Repair■ Spyware X-terminator 5.0.3.3

Contribute 4

Contribute 4 enables anyone toquickly, easily, and safely updateexisting websites and blogs

Fishbowl Inventory 4.5.1

Businesses need advanced inventorycontrol capabilities beyond ordinaryinventory software currently providesand Fishbowl Inventory caters to thoseneeds

AnyTime Organizer Deluxe10.0

This adds organization and enjoyment toyour daily life. Day Planner &Calendar:Schedule all yourappointments, events, calls, andmeetings and organize your busyschedule

TurboCASH Accountingv3751

TurboCASH .7 is an open sourceaccounting package for small business

XAMPP Windows 1.5.5XAMPP is an integrated server packageof Apache, mySQL, PHP and Perl that allrun from a removable drive

PRODUCTIVITY TOOLS ■ Achievo■ Aethera■ GanttPV v0.6.1■ Grisbi 0.5.8■ Nomad PIM

MOBILE APPS■ iPod AudioBook■ FMA 2.1 Beta 3 ■ Mobile GMaps v1.27.00■ JabpLite v1.17

■ TaskSpy v0.96■ BlueEyes 1.21■ JADMaker 1.15

Battles of Britain

This is a flight similutation game thatrecreates the historical Battle of Britianin World War II. Fly as the Germans orBritish in historically accurate planes

Travelogue 360: Paris

Locate items hidden in 3-Dimensionalviews of the Eiffel Tower, down theChamps Elysees, under the Arcd'Triomphe, and others of Paris’ mostbeloved landmarks

Crazy Nut Free Full Game

Ridiculous and funny game aboutfascinating travel of a nut! Jump higherand higher

Laxius Power II

A great sequel to one of the bestfreeware console-style RPGs, LaxiusPower II is even larger and morepolished than Laxius Power

SMALL GAMES■ Babo Violent 2 v2.02■ Mystery Case Files: Prime Suspects■ Dominions 3

MOVIES■ Toonerville Trolley - Trolley Ahoy■ Popeye - A Haul in One

■ The Pied Piper of Hamelin

ForLINUX

MOVIEof the

MONTH

11

Flash Lite 2.1Flash Lite is the Flashtechnology specificallydeveloped for mobilephones and consumerelectronics devices. Itdramatically accelerates the delivery ofrich content and browsing, andcustomized user interfaces

XML Notepad 2007

It provides a simple intuitive userinterface for browsing and editing XMLdocuments

Xtreme ToolkitProfessional Edition10.3.1 Xtreme ToolkitPro forVisual C++ MFC providesWindows developers witha sophisticated set ofcomponents to giveapplications aprofessional, modern appearance

AXIGEN Mail ServerBusiness Edition

It is a fast, reliable and secure mailserver on Linux, with an openarchitecture. Providing ESMTP, IMAP,POP3, WEBMail services and anintegrated List server

DEVELOPER TOOLS■ Devel Package 1.5.5 - XAMPP■ Microsoft Threat Analysis & Modeling ■ NeoPhoto■ Syn Text Editor 2.1.0.46■ BlueTools■ EditPro 1.57■ TextPad 4.7.3

LINUX■ Bluefish 1.0.6.

■ Zope■ PageStream 5.0.3.4 beta ■ Bochs 2.3■ GNU Parted 1.8.1■ GPhoto2 2.3.0■ GQview 2.1.5■ UPX 2.03■ Webmin 1.310■ BRU Desktop 17.0

DIGITAL PASSION DIGITAL TOOLS DIGITAL BUSINESS DIGITAL LEISURE

Contents Interactive

McAfee Internet SecuritySuite 2007New Internet SecuritySuite automatically cleansviruses, repels hackerswith a secure firewall,blocks spyware when ittries to load, detects spamand credit-card phishing scams, warnsof dangerous Web sites

Rohos WelcomeThis program adds theconvenience and additionalsecurity level to thestandard Windows logonprocedure

MULTIMEDIA■ Alcohol 120% 1.9.5.3823■ The Blaze Media Pro■ ThumbsPlus version 7 SP1■ 1Click DVD to Divx xVid Avi■ AVI TO MPEG Scout■ AVS TV Box 1.3.5.52 beta■ Fractal Forge v.2.8.2 ■ FractalVision■ Fractint version 20.0■ Movies Extractor Scout Lite 2.31■ TieraZon2 ■ WinFract 18.21■ Fractal eXtreme■ PhotoAcute Studio■ Ulead GIF Animator ■ Ultra Fractal 4.03■ HyperSnap-DX

INTERNET

■ Gigaget 1.0.0.21■ hMailServer 4.2 Build 195■ Traces Viewer 1.20■ Voice E-Mail Pilot

■ BlackWidow 5.21■ WS-FTP Pro 2007

■ Ez4file Personal Edition■ SecurWall 0.98

SYSTEM

■ Registry Mechanic 6.0■ Advanced WindowsCare Personal

■ FileBox eXtender■ Mz Ultimate Tweaker 3.2

■ Smart Data Recovery■ Advanced Archive Password Recovery

■ Aurora Password Manager 1.6.10■ Super Utilities 6.6

■ AutoPlay Express 4.2■ Virtual CD v8

ESSENTIALS ■ Avast Home Edition 4.7

■ Foxit Reader 2.0 Build 0930■ Irfan View 3.99

■ K-Lite Mega Codec Pack 1.61■ Spybot Search and

Destroy 1.4■ Opera 9.02

■ VLC Media Player 0.8.5■ Winamp 5.32■ WinRAR 3.62

ConceptDraw MINDMAPProfessional

This is a mind-mapping and teambrainstorming tool with extendeddrawing capabilities

PiggyBobPremium 3This powerful,Windows-based application willhelp you keep track ofdaily, weekly and monthly events - withan alarm clock and alert system included

copy2calendar

With a single keystroke you createcalendar entries in Microsoft Outlook,Lotus Notes or Palm Desktop

Mind Pad

Mind or concept mapping is anexcellent method to represent youropinion, ideas and projects

PRODUCTIVITY TOOLS ■ WinGate Proxy Server 6.2.0■ HindiWriter 1.4a■ ABC Amber iCalendar Converter 1.03■ Cover Commander■ FindGraph 1.72■ Home Bookkeeping■ VIP Task Manager

(Client/Server) 1.01

■ MOBILE APPS■ ClamWin Portable

■ PhotoAcute Mobile

■ Yahoo Go Mobile v1.0■ 7-Zip Portable■ Guardian 2.1■ MMS Home Studio Version 1.1.283■ Mobile Phone Monitor■ SymTorrent v1.12■ Theme Creator Pro Version 3.1■ VLC Media Player Portable■ Pstart Version 2.09

Believe In Santa

Just before Christmas, Sandy visits hergranny and learns that granny's bankloan on her gift shop is due in 10 days!How is she going to make $10,000 insuch a short time?

Mystery Case Files:Huntsville

Crime spree baffles Huntsville police!Do you have a keen eye for details? Seeif you can locate enough hidden cluesto solve the crimes and become aMaster Detective!

Sudoku Portable

Sudoku Portable is the entertaining andaddictive Sudoku puzzle gamepackaged as a portable app, so you canplay on the go

SMALL GAMES■ Halloween 2006 Free Full Game

■ Tobi On The Run 1.4■ Railroad Tycoon Deluxe ■ Sheepish■ Park a Lot 2

VIDEOS

CD

DIGIT JANUARY 2007For any queries regarding the CD or DVD, e-mail [email protected] with “CD/DVD” as the subject.If the subject is not mentioned, your mail might not reach the right person.

By DemandYou get to choose what goes onDigit Interactive. This month,you chose:

Update Rollup 2 forWindows XP Media CenterEdition 2005 RU2 FreeSize: 29 MB

ACDSee 9 Trial Size: 23 MB

taste technology at www.thinkdigit.com

Total: 4317Last Month’s Question

This Month’s Question

To vote Log on to www.thinkdigit.com

What Optical Drive Do You Own?

Digit Reader Poll

MADNESS ON THE FORUM ((wwwwww..tthhiinnkkddiiggiitt..ccoomm//ffoorruumm))We’ve dealt with some crazy stuff on the forum, but just watch how this thread starts out and goescompletely nuts.

What does DIGITdo after testing

the products in their lab?

CD Writer or below DVD-ROM Drive

DVD Combo Drive DVD Writer

Are you satisfied with support for yourtechnology-related purchases—services,software or hardware?

It couldbe better

Yes,I am

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it

SubscribeNo more snail-mail! Noneed to visit post offices!All you have to do is logon to www.thinkdigit.com/subscribe and useyour Credit Card to makesure you never missanother issue of yourfavourite magazine!

Digit PatronsIt really does

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And for 60 points getRaaabo free....

blackpearlIn The Zone

As the title says it all. Manycompanies send their

products for reviewing (bothhardware and software) ..what do Digit guys do after

reviewing themDo they return them to

companies or use them atcenter or sold in sale..

I have an idea, give them inpatron points or post them in

bazaar section.I want to purchase games

that Digit reviews at half therates. Is that possible??

Akhil JainBroken In

Buy the Digit company for 120 points

Tech GeekAlpha Geek

In the new digit patronprogramme Xbox 360 will beavailable for 80 points and

PS3 for 100 points

vimal_mehrotraBroken In

for 140 get Manmohan Singh(shipped in four weeks)

vimal_mehrotraBroken In

For the rest, go to http://www.thinkdigit.com/forum/showthread.php?t=44144

No, not at all


Tanushree Dutta Model and Actress

The now-well-knownactress got her first

glimpse of fame with thePonds Femina Miss India

Universe 2004 award.She is best known

for herperformances inAashiq BanayaAapne and

Chocolate.

Technology… Helps one in day-to-day life.People’s entire life revolvesaround technology, and hasnow become an integral partof our lives.

What gadgets do you use?I use a laptop, and of course,a mobile—a Nokia N72 to beprecise. I also have ahandycam and an iPod.

What would be your dreamgadget be?Something that would readpeople’s minds…

What do you mostly doonline?I chat with my friends, e-mail, and I go online if Ineed to watch movietrailers. I also listen to musiconline and download MP3s. Idon’t watch movies online,and would prefer to go to atheatre—or watch them onmy DVD player.

An instance wheretechnology has reallyhelped you?Technology has alwayshelped me. One instance Ican recall is when I was incollege: my vehicle brokedown at night on a lonelyroad, and it was quite adistance to walk. Thanks tomy mobile, I was able to callmy friends for help.

Into Cyberspace And BackIBM will work with Circuit City to explore retail businessmodels in 3D virtual worlds. The companies hope todiscover how such environments can be utilised toimprove customer experiences with brands, and havebuilt a digital store on an IBM’s island in Second Life.

The Last Windows?Research firm Gartner has predicted that Vista will be thelast major Windows release. “The era of monolithicdeployments of software releases is nearing an end,”Gartner has said. The prediction went on, “Microsoft willparticipate in the trend toward more flexible updates.”

Like many Asiancountries, Europeangovernments want toshift to Linux—in

some cases entirely—in abid to save money andbreak free of the M$hegemony. But not just forthese reasons.

There are severalinteresting perspectives onwhy it is that Europe wantsto take the lead inmoving to the OSSbusiness model,much more sothan the UnitedStates does, forexample.

Xavier Cazin,a Chief Editor atO’Reilly EditionsFrance, has aninteresting take: ascomputers become adaily necessity, theFrenchphilosophicalperspective hasled people torevolt. “The morethe role ofsomething isessential, theless it shouldcost. People hatepaying forsomething that isunavoidable. That’s whyFrench people didn’t feelguilty in pirating Microsoftsoftware for years.”

But unfortunately, mostof the current talk isrhetoric in nature, and it’sa case of I-can’t-get-myself-to-do-it. Or something like“the spirit is willing butthe flesh is weak,” indramatic terms.

One official put it thus:“If the technicians say ‘no’,it’s not going to happen.”And why, indeed, are thetechnicians saying “no”? Forall the basic reasons:compatibility issues,conflicts with MS ExchangeServers, and the problem ofeducating governmental ITdepartments about Linux,OpenOffice and more.

The suspects and thefigures: elected officialshave, for some time now,been making a fuss aboutmigrating to open source onmajor scales. Migrations ofgovernmental computers inFrance, Germany, Norway,and Spain have beenplanned at some point orthe other, but fewdepartments have actually

done the migrating.According to marketresearch firm IDC, morethan 95 per cent of all PCsused by governmentworkers in Europe still runon Windows.

The most ambitiousopen source initiative inEurope thus far was aproject by the localgovernment in Spain’s

Extremadura region,which has managed tomigrate some 75,000PCs to Linux. Tellingly,some of the computersin the project’sadministrative office stillrun Windows, anemployee told Wired

News. Under condition ofanonymity, of course.

The drive continues.France, in particular, istrying to hasten thecrossover, as we indicatedabove. Over the next fewmonths, lawmakers inFrance’s NationalAssembly will start usingLinux, OpenOffice, andFirefox on PCs. Theofficial reason stated goes

thus: the Frenchgovernment’s push awayfrom Microsoft platforms isdriven in large partconcerns about security andindustrial espionage in theeconomic war betweenEurope and the US.

In the case of the FrenchGendarmes—the policedepartment—the PCs usedby the 1,00,000-memberpolice force run almostentirely on Windows. Theunit plans to make 5,000 ofits PCs run under Linux this

EnterLINUX EVERYWHERE

Europe Wants It, Won’t Do It

Illustration Harsho Mohan Chattoraj

year under a pilot project,and the plan is to migratefully by 2010. Where Linuxgoes, OpenOffice can’t befar behind: the police unithas also shifted its users toOpenOffice and Firefox.

The bottomline? AGendarme, speaking oncondition of anonymity,said that while he wasoptimistic about Linux, hewas not too happy withOpenOffice. He said he“missed” MS Office.“OpenOffice is complicated.It is atrocious,” he said.(Something must have beenlost in translation, we’resure. Unless he wasspeaking less-than-perfectEnglish.) “We save moneybut the advantages of its useare not terribly clear.” Amixed statement if everthere was one, but we getthe general idea.

LANDMARK ACHIEVEMENT

Fujitsu JoinsThe Race

Seagate won the race withperpendicular recording

of hard disks, of whichyou’ve doubtless heard.They produced the first 750GB disk using thattechnology. Now, wementioned in our December2006 issue that they’realready talking about HAMRto increase areal densities.Fujitsu recently achieved alandmark in this field of research.

HAMR (Heat-AssistedMagnetic Recording), as it iscalled by Seagate, or TAR

(Thermally AssistedRecording), as it is called byHitachi GST and others,uses a two-fold principle torecord at higher densities.The first idea is that bitscannot be packed closertogether because when thisis done, they tend to losetheir proper magneticorientation. If the materialused were of highercoercivity—meaning that itis harder to demagnetise—then the bits can becramped together moreclosely without fear of themchanging magnetisation.

The second idea is that ifa material has highercoercivity, it’s also harder towrite on to, and that’s wherethe heat comes in—when thespot of data to be recordedon is heated by a laser, itbecomes easier to record on.

Now for recording ontoheated spots, areal densities(how closely-cramped thebits can be) would be highenough only if the spot weresmall enough. As you cansee, making a smaller spot isplainly key to the process.

Now Fujitsu hasdemonstrated what itclaims is the world’s firstoptical element capable ofproducing a beam less than100 nm across. The companysays TAR will be key to thenext generation of harddisks in terms of capacity.

The company says theoptical element will be ableto achieve a spot size of 88nm by 60 nm, eventuallyenabling recording at adensity of 1 terabit persquare inch or higher. Thisis more than double thecurrent record—421 gigabits

per square inch—set bySeagate earlier this year.

Other companies suchas Hitachi GST (GlobalStorage Technologies) arealso working on TAR (orHAMR). They say they canget the grain, or spot, sizedown to 2 nm, whereconventional recordingcould only manage 8.

The bottomline: Fujitsuhas said that in conjunctionwith perpendicularrecording, HAMR (or TAR)will enable drives withcapacities ten times higherthan what is possible now.

As for “when,” thetimeline for TAR is about2010. Another race, onewe’re keenly lookingforward to—and one that’sspoken about much lessthan the gigahertz races orthe core wars. For some

HAMRHeat-AssistedMagneticRecording, or TAR(Thermally AssistedRecording). The

hottest thing happening instorage research labs. IBM hasa working prototype. Expect alldisk storage news in 2007 to beabout HAMR!

PerpendicularRecordingSorry, but wemeasure time inweeks and days,not years. We don’texpect anythinggroundbreaking to happenon this front—just producemore disks and get it donewith, don’t talk about thetechnology any more!

DIGIT JANUARY 2007

Security Watch

IM With CautionThe ProblemA vulnerability has beenreported in Yahoo! Messenger.This can potentially beexploited to compromise auser’s system. Thevulnerability is reported inversions obtained prior to 2Nov 2006. It is caused due toan error in an ActiveX control,and can be exploited to causea buffer overflow.

The SolutionUpgrade to the latest version,available at http://messenger.yahoo.com.

Firefox VulnerableThe ProblemSecurity firm Secunia has givenits “highly critical” rating tomultiple vulnerabilities thathave been reported in MozillaFirefox. These can be exploitedto gain knowledge of certaininformation and potentiallycompromise a user's system.The vulnerabilities are reportedin all Firefox 1.x versions, aswell as in Firefox 2.

The SolutionMozilla released Firefoxversion 2.0.0.1 pretty soonafter the vulnerabilities werereported. Just “check forupdates” from the Help menuin Firefox—it’s a smalldownload. If that doesn’twork—if it says “updatefailed”—then head towww.getfirefox.com anddownload the latest version.

If for some arcane reasonyou don’t like Firefox 2, youshould upgrade your otherversion to 1.5.0.9.

17

Pradnya GuravMayur Gangar“It’s like the sky.”“Bigger than the ocean.”

Amit Babar“It stret

ches from the north to the

south pole!”

Sudipta Satpathy

“As endless as the universe!” “As big as my brain…”Prashant Sonpal

“How Big Is The Internet?”One Silly Question


Enter

A source for facts, a conversion tool, and a how-to

www.refdesk.com“The Single Best Source For Facts,” this isone site where much of the informationclutter on the Internet is organised in aneasily-accessible manner. Browse throughdictionaries and encyclopaedias. ConductBusiness Searches, People Searches andFact Searches. Check weather forecasts.Keep in touch with the latest news. Readabout the significance of this day inhistory. Just head to the site!

www.zamzar.comZamzar lets you convert image, document,music, and video files up to 100 MB in sizeto different formats. Image files can beconverted between BMP, GIF, etc.,document files to CSV, DOC, HTML, etc.music files between AAC, AC3, OGG, etc.,video files to and from 3GP, AVI, MPEG,OGG… there’s a caveat, though: read theterms of service, but beware of spam.

www.ehow.comHow do you tie a tie? How do youinstall a GPS receiver or strip the paintfrom your car? How do you open astuck jar lid? eHow has answers to allthe above: 20,000 articles! From theeveryday to the exotic, from thesimple to the complex—find out how todo it all right here.

Zamzar Beta

eHow

refdesk.com

reason, silicon valley hashogged the limelight forgood, and “iron oxidevalley”—possibly the moreimportant one—will alwaysremain in the shadow.

THEY’VE MADE A DENT

Of Asses AndDonkeys

The M. P. Ass. of A. andthe R. I. Ass. of A.aren’t doing the silly

thing anymore—goingbehind 12-year-oldschoolboys and 89-year-oldgrannies demanding moneyfor filched songs. They’rehitting P2P where it hurts.

eDonkey is dead: a NewYork court ruled that theP2P site did enable users toillegally share copyrightedmaterial. The owners haveanother P2P network—Overnet—which, too, thecourt has declared illegal.

The ruling is a majorvictory for the record labels.Their RIAA has, by now,managed to dent all themajor file-sharing networkswith the exceptions of

LimeWire and The PirateBay. The developers behindLimeWire will soon behauled to court, too: inNovember, the RIAA filedsuit against LimeWire, andRIAA CEO Mitch Bainwolhas gone on to pronounce:“Our settlement witheDonkey will makeoperations such asLimeWire that continue tobreak the law... all themore conspicuous.” Asprecedents go, it’s a bleakoutlook for LimeWire.

In very related news,the MPAA has declared itwill launch a legal attackon BitTorrent serveroperators. This couldultimately prove to be thesock in the b***s for theBitTorrent community, atleast the 99 per cent or soof it that comprises illegal-file sharers.

eDonkey.com andOvernet.com now bring upominous-lookingmessages: “TheeDonkey2000 Network isno longer available. If yousteal music or movies, youare breaking the law. YourIP address is xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx and is being

A Round-up Of Technology News From Across The GlobeThe Digital World

Three Incredibly Useful Sites

CHINAA full-fledged campaign against piracy willbe launched after the success of a 100-dayinitial campaign for video, software, andpublication piracy. Targeted groups ofpirated video, software, and printedpublication vendors, if found guilty, will beseverely punished.

SOUTH KOREALegislators will ban online trading ofvirtual currencies used by gamers.Reportedly, this step is being taken tocontrol “virtual social ills” such asidentity theft, bribery, gamblingaddiction, and more.

GERMANYThe government will bring in new lawsby which anyone found guilty ofshooting, chain-sawing, or hitting withhammers a human-looking, computer-generated character could face a fineor a year in prison. Apparently, cyber-characters have rights too!

GREECEThe education ministry has bannedthe use of mobile phones by childrenat schools, the reason being that therape of a teen was video-ed by a fewother students.

SOUTH AFRICAIntel has donated a supercomputer tothe country. It will be dedicated toresearch on fatal diseases such as AIDS,malaria, and tuberculosis. Thesupercomputer, costing $1 million, willbe free of charge for local scientists. Ithas a speed of 1 TeraFLOPS

19DIGIT JANUARY 2007

Enter

Photograph Gaurav Gogia

E-mail your caption with thesubject “Beat That”, and yourpostal address, [email protected] win

CCNA INTROby tODD lAMMLE

Published byEach month Digit will carry a caption for a photo. Come up with something funnier,

and beat the Digit team at their own game! Entries accepted by the 20th of this month.

Digit Caption

“Umm... it does haveNotepad, though”

logged.” ThePirateBay.org,however, looks fresh as ever.

People will doubtlesscontinue to share music andmovies, regardless of whathappens to the P2Poperators. There are simplytoo many people who willlend their servers to the“Darknet” for the wholething to be wiped out.

But what’s happeninghere is that it’s not going tobe for Joe Average anymore—it’s going to becomemore of a geek thing. Like itonce was a geek thing toconnect to anothercomputer using a modem.This, if the Ass.es have theirway—and they just might.

BEYOND ILLEGAL P2P

BitTorrent ToDeliverMovies?

BitTorrent CEO BramCohen now seems allset to pitch P2P as the

most efficient way ofdelivering HD content. It’s

timed just right: cablecompanies are just aboutbeginning to strain underincreased costs of HDdelivery, as more and morepeople get the idea that HDis the way video was meantto be. And with demandnaturally poised to increaseover the next couple ofyears, will P2P come to therescue?

BitTorrent’s pitch couldhave something to it, thoughthere are detractors aplenty.The technology could needsome work, but it does seemto hold promise. It’s allabout bandwidthefficiency—and one onlyneeds to put out themindset that one is“sharing” something whilewatching a moviedownloaded via P2P, or thatone is somehow doingsomething shady. Suchmisconceptions were onceprevalent: Cohen, in aninterview, said there wereinstances of “companieshaving a policy of not usingany P2P technology at all,but some sysadmin wouldsurreptitiously useBitTorrent for internal

distribution when it waswarranted.”

After BitTorrent’sacquisition of µTorrent,Cohen and µTorrent creatorLudvig Strigeus said in ajoint statement, “Bringingtogether µTorrent’s efficientimplementation withBitTorrent’s expertise innetworking protocols willsignificantly benefit thecommunity.” And: “We willcontinue to developµTorrent, and will be usingthe code base in otherapplications, such asembedded systems on TVs,cell phones...” Meaning,effectively, that P2P is theway to go.

It’s been a while sinceCohen’s company signeddeals with major Hollywoodstudios including 20thCentury Fox and MTVNetworks. BitTorrent isforming distributionpartnerships with film andTV studios including 20thCentury Fox, MTV Networks,and Paramount Pictures.One of the goals, of course,is to be able to deliver—viaP2P—content directly tousers’ set-top boxes. And,

“We’re working on makingBitTorrent come preinstalledon many embedded devices,as one of the basic servicesthey support—in the sameclass as Web browsers,”Cohen said in a recentinterview.

Asked by Wired Newsabout where he sees file-sharing going, Cohen hadjust this to say: “We’re goingto see everything... becomemore Web-based, and thespecial status of high-qualityvideo files... as somehowdifferent will go away. Thecurrent limitations ondistributing them will ceaseto exist.”

On the other side of thestory, HDNet (an HDTV cablenetwork in the US) chairmanMark Cuban, billionaireinvestor and dot-comveteran, has dismissed thenotion of P2P as a contentdelivery platform as, well,nonsense: “I think P2P isgreat for corporate andcontrolled apps, but not foropen distribution. P2P hascontent-distributioncapabilities, but massdistribution of content isn’tone of them.”

Last Month’s Winner!D Sunil KumarDabolim, Goa“Mobile Shop = Mobile Phone!”


Enter

Cuban had said inSeptember, “Only a moronwould buy YouTube.” Sowhat does that tell us? Wearen’t clear either.

COP-OUT

Time GoesGa-Ga AboutWeb 2.0

They probably expectedsuch sneers, and theyprobably didn’t care.

Time Magazine has gone on toname participants in theinexplicable experiment

called Web 2.0—including“you”—as the People of theYear. This is a cop-out of amajor order.

Lev Grossman of Timewaxes eloquent: “It’s a storyabout community andcollaboration on a scalenever seen before. It’s aboutthe cosmic compendium ofknowledge Wikipedia andthe million-channel people’snetwork YouTube and theonline metropolis MySpace.”Wikipedia is an event of theyear? Seriously, we’re all avidusers of Wikipedia, butwhen it comes to namingsomething of globalimportance we must pointout, we’ve had

Encyclopaedia Britannica forcenturies. As for YouTube,you can comment on itbeing a groundbreakingevent as easily as we can.

MySpace users,incidentally, are 55 per centAmerican. “You can learnmore about how Americanslive just by looking at thebackgrounds of YouTubevideos than you could from1,000 hours of networktelevision.” Mr Grossman, webeg to remind you that theworld is not American.

Are blogs revolutionisingthe world? Some peopleseem to think they’re doingsomething revolutionarywhen they’re creatingsomething the world cansee, but the problem is, it’s acacophony of voices (inwhich each possibly hasmerit). Whichever way, whatdoes Web 2.0 have to do withit?

The whole thing smacksof wasted eloquence: “Wealso worked like crazy. Wereviewed books at Amazonand recorded podcasts. Weblogged about ourcandidates losing and wrotesongs about getting dumped.We camcordered bombingruns and built open-sourcesoftware.” In much of theabove, what’s to do withWeb 2.0? And in any case,would you read a blog aboutsomeone getting dumped—something that, inGrossman’s opinion, isrevolutionising things? Is it“changing the way the worldchanges”? Are the bookreviews at Amazon.commore credible than thoseyou can read in The New YorkTimes? Seriously, again, doesWeb 2.0 have the will tochange the world, is ourquestion.

Grossman excuseshimself with “Web 2.0harnesses the stupidity ofcrowds as well as itswisdom,” going on to say,“That’s what makes all thisinteresting.” We aretherefore to gather thatsomething interesting—rather than something orsomebody edifying—is tohold our collective attention.

But yes, Web 2.0 isinteresting. However, that’swhere it should end. At leastwhen you’re talking on aglobal scale.

SOCIALISM, ANYONE?

First Splogs,Now PhonyStories

Marketers are in lineto boost theircompanies’ profiles

at the expense of Digg. Thisrather interesting news storydoesn’t, at first look, seem tohold much: it starts off,“Digg continues to crackdown on users who plantphony stories on behalf ofmarketers.” The story goeslike this: Digg recentlydeleted a user who posted astory about a company thatoffered to pay him. KarimYergaliyev is one of Digg’stop-rated users. Yergaliyevwas booted for violating thecompany’s terms of service,but was reinstated after heacknowledged theinfraction, apologised nicely,and promised never to doit again.

“I receive two or threeoffers from marketers aweek to promote someproduct or service,”

The hottest tech talk on the Internet now is, ofcourse, about cores. AMD has officially announced itsQuad FX Platform, in which a pair of AMD Athlon 64FX series dual-core processors can be used togetheron a supporting motherboard. This dual-socketplatform enables use of four cores for megatasking—use of multiple displays or running multithreadedapplications such as games, while running otherprocesses like disc burning and so on.

Power consumption is much higher than anequivalent Intel system, though. Some forums aretalking about an upgrade possibility—using eightcores on the platform after the release of AMD’squad-core chips. Some experts believe there isn’tany potential in hooking up more than two cores,and that there will not be any performance boostswith new titles. In any case, the battle of themultiple cores continues…

AMD Quad FX

Ali Vs. Asmita

Use Photoshop filters togive an image a funny look

She took a cursory look at the filters, but Asmita seemedto like the colours better. She spent quite a bit of timepainting the image red and sometimes brown, togglingbetween the two. Her favourite colours perhaps. She

wasn’t, however, doing whatshe was supposed to—try tochange the image. Once she’dbeen reminded, she had agood look at the filters againand decided to use the“Liquefy > Bloat” tool to give the image abulged-eye look. The hair underwent somechanges. Asmita just wouldn’t give up on thecolours—there had to be the red on the lipsbefore she stopped!

“Ali started off well—heseemed to know hisPhotoshop. He was directly onto the filters and rapidly wentthrough them, choosing,applying, and then undoingeffects. In a few minutes hehad changed some colours,blurred the image, andcrystallised it quite a numberof times. He obviously didn’tknow which filter would do what. We gave him apointer: that the “Liquefy” filter might be useful. Aliwas quickly on to it, and using the “forward warp,” he

managed to pull the cheeks and the ears out. After looking at his work for acouple of minutes, he decided he had done enough.

GENDER

BENDERS


Yergaliyev, 19, said in aninterview with CNETNews.com. “I never do it, but(this time)...”

So what’s of interesthere? Note that Yergaliyev isone of Digg’s top-rated users,and you’ll get a hint. We’rereferring to Time’s LevGrossman talking about thisyear going down in historyas the time when “themany wresting power fromthe few.”

Sounds rosily socialistic—socialistic in a positive sense,as in actually working—but it seems to us far fromthe truth.

Technorati.com has adrop-down menu that letsyou search for blogs “byauthority.” So where’s themany who are wrestingpower from the few whohave the “authority” onTechnorati? Would you readsomething by Robert Scobleof Scobleizer fame, orsomething by someone witha name like geeky_butterfly?And why do we need theWeb to teach us this—ever heard of a “journalistof repute”?

Similarly, Amazon.comhas a rating system for itsreviewers. Naturally, andcorrectly, you’ll read thereviews of a high-ratedreviewer with morecredulousness. The manyare down there; the feware right up there inthe rankings.

This isn’t a space for apolitical discussion; ourpoint is that there willalways be the few and themany, and the latter willnever “wrest power.” Web 2.0creates its structures andhierarchies very wellindeed—it’s as good awatchdog as any of theold-world status quo.

A FRESH ATTEMPT

Will EVDMake It?

Yet another format, butone we’ve spokenabout earlier. EVD—

Enhanced Versatile Disc, orEnhanced Video Disc,

depending on whom youask—is like a Phoenix risingfrom the ashes! It willrevolutionise HD delivery!That’s what China wouldhave you believe!

Exclamation marksaside, Chinesemanufacturers are sick ofpaying intellectual propertyroyalties for most of theDVD players theymanufacture, which is alot—80 per cent of theworld’s total. Now EVD—China’s home-grownformat—was being pushedbefore as an alternative toHD-DVD and Blu-ray, andinterest somehow fizzledout; it’s back now, not witha bang but with whatsounds to us like a whine.(“Please buy our dirt-cheapdiscs and players!”)

Technically, EVD is not ablue-laser technology likeHD-DVD or Blu-ray; it’s red-laser, like DVD, and is toutedto be its successor. Chinaplans to

phase out DVD altogether by2008. EVD is essentially DVDthat uses a more efficientcompression system. ButEVD’s developers have saidin the past they would tryand merge the format withLondon-based New MediumEnterprises’ VMD (VersatileMulti-Layer Disc), a red-lasersystem offering 50 GB on ten5 GB data layers. Analysts,

though, say more than twolayers will be difficult.

This whole thing holdssome import for us for threereasons. First, it’s alreadyout: 6 December, several ofthe players were on displayat a Beijing art gallery.(Several titles have beenreleased too, most of themChinese.) Second, the playersare cheap—lower than the$100 price point. And third,they will in all probabilitybe targeted at Indianaudiences—and whichIndian doesn’t like the ringof the word “cheap”?

Now China hasattempted peddling its stuffto the world before. Cases inpoint are S-VCD, itstelecommunicationsstandard TD-SCDMA, andWAPI (WLANAuthentication and PrivacyInfrastructure), a Chinesenational standard forWireless LAN. None of thesemade it big worldwide, and

didn’t make too much of adent even in Chinesemarkets.

Of course, we shouldn’tbe extrapolating, and thistime round, EVD mightjust cut it. But most ana-lysts are saying “no,” andstate media have reportedthat the EVD players havefared poorly in tests. Hedgeyour bets now!

Enter

GP2XWhat is it?The GP2X is a video gameconsole and media player. Itis hand-held and Linux-based. Using the GP2X, youcan view photos, read e-books, watch videos, listento music, play games, importgames from other systems,and use games developed onyour own. It runs on two 200MHz CPUs, 64 MB of RAM,and 64 MB of Flash memory.It has a 320 x 240 backlit LCDwith custom graphicshardware and a TV-out.

When was it released?The initial release was theGP32, in 2001. Later—in 2005to be precise—it wasreincarnated as the GP2X.

Who will use it?Game lovers—both gamers aswell as developers—are thetarget users.

Why is it special?The GP2X can connect to a TV,enabling games to be playedon a big screen. The scalingchip allows movies to beresized and played without re-encoding. Being Linux-driven,there are a lot of software(games, emulators, PDAapplications, multimediaplayers) and tools freelyavailable, which enable thedevelopment of new gamesand applications. Theemulators allow one to run ahost of software from othersystems. And, it just needs twoAA-sized batteries.

How easy is it to developgames for GP2X?The SDK is included with thesystem. The GP2X source isavailable for Windows andLinux developers at the GP2Xsite. More libraries with theirsource are provided at theGP2X developer’s forum andelsewhere on the Net.

Where is it being sold?30,000 units have been soldworldwide. Right now itseems to be very popular inthe UK and Europe. The UKprice is £124.99 (Rs 11,000)!

Robert Sovereign-Smith andNimish Chandiramani

It all started when a colleague wanted toshow off his latest geek-venture. Working forDigit, it’s tradition to show off the latest

gizmos and gadgets. This particular colleaguehadn’t bought anything new—he’d just added alot of fans to his cabinet, and was now claimingto have the coolest cabinet in town. We counted

12 fans in all—overkill for sure! However, whathe didn’t know was that his 12 fans were nothelping much…

All About AirflowKeeping a cabinet cool isn’t as simple as justadding an obscene number of fans on the top,back, front and side. What you need to focuson, when improving cooling is how the airflows, and how you can make sure that cool airhits the components that get hot. Now somecase-modders have done crazy things, like inte-grating table fans into their cabinets, so pow-erful that you see IDE cables flapping in thebreeze, or there are those that use liquidcooling… however, most of us are tech-crazy,not stark raving mad! Our colleague had someintake fans right next to exhausts, which wasdefeating his purpose.

Since we were planning on starting a seriesof DIY articles, we figured we might as wellstart with cabinet cooling and airflow.

Thinking about this article, the very firstproblem that cropped up was, how do we showairflow? Now we could go out and get expen-sive smoke machines to fill the cabinet with

PC cabinets are just boxes that hold our components, and keeping itcool is only a matter of adding fans, right? Wrong!

Imaging Pradip Ingale

Digital Tools l Jumpstart

42PassionDigital

35Technology For Personal And SoHo Productivity

48The High-Definition Itch

Battle forTomorrow Drool Maal

Keeping It CoolLead Feature


Digital Tools l Lead Feature

smoke and see where the air went, but howwould that help you? A DIY needs to be simple,and needs to lend itself to easily replication atthe average home.

Also, we often get carried away and tend touse the best hardware for everything, but inorder to stay in touch with real-world sce-narios, we were forced to curb our enthusi-asms, and work with an everyday,run-of-the-mill PC setup.

Another restriction we set upon ourselveswas the money we were allowed to spend onthis little project. A budget of Rs 1,000 was allo-cated, because we figured there’s no way theaverage Digit reader would be willing to spendmore than that on just cooling his or her reg-ular cabinet.

With these things in mind, we set off to ourneck of the computer component woods calledLamington Road. We bought three cabinetfans, Rs 50 each; a hard disk cooler, Rs 350; oneround IDE cable for a slightly steep Rs 400(thankfully, they come bundled with most new

motherboards), and then overshot our budgeteven more, splurging on a little tube of ArcticSilver thermal paste, Rs 400! The Arctic Silver iscompletely unnecessary for most of you, espe-cially if you’re not overclocking your CPUs orGPUs, so forgive us our little indulgence. Wealso bought a little hand blower for Rs 15 to getrid of accumulated dust.

Smoke ScreensThe 12-fan-colleague, mentioned earlier, wasshown the folly of his ways using cigarettesmoke; however, it’s not like Digit wants toencourage its readers to take up a bad habit likesmoking just to solve airflow problems—we getenough mails from angry parents as it is! So wedecided to use incense, the type that most ofIndia uses in prayers and rituals. It’s calleddhoop here, but anything that gives off a lot ofsmoke will do. Just make sure it doesn’t give offtoo much heat, or you’ll end up scorching youreyebrows, or worse still, your cabinet orSATA/IDE cables!

Stock without cleaning

Stock

Stock + Acrylic sheet

Reversing the rear fan

Adding the front fan

With front fan without GPU

Hard disk cooler + front fan

33.8

32.1

31.8

33.1

29.1

28.3

28

34.2

32.5

32.1

33.4

29.3

28

27.8

37.9

36.2

35.7

36

33.3

32.2

32

Configuration Temperatures (degrees C) - Maximum

Idling atBios

Idling AtWindows

Running 3DMark 05

Temperature Readings

We think this paints a pretty descriptive picture about thecooling components we added, and will help you decide on how

to go about optimising your airflow

Here’s what we noticed in terms of cabinet ambienttemperatures while doing this workshop

29JANUARY 2007 DIGIT


Note: You should know that we did leave blackcharred marks in our white cabinet, and at least oneperson burnt his fingers, so be careful.

The PCWe used a regular-looking cabinet, and tried torecreate an average PC configuration to gen-erate the type of heat that most of you shouldhave within your cabinet.

The configuration was:■ AMD Athlon 64 3200+■ 2 x 512 MB Transcend DDR 400 RAM (without

heatsinks)■ 80 GB Seagate hard drive (SATA)■ 120 GB Maxtor hard drive (SATA)■ MSI RS 480 motherboard■ ATI Radeon X1300 graphics card■ 380 W PowerSafe SMPS■ 1 stock rear cabinet fan■ Plextor DVD-Writer (for the IDE cable)

This configuration generated 34 degrees cel-sius of ambient cabinet temperature, which wemeasured using a temperature sensor that wegot from a Zebronics cabinet we had. This tem-perature was measured at the Windowsdesktop, after leaving the PC on, idling, forabout half an hour.

In order to be able to show you the smoke /airflow, we also went out and bought a clearacrylic sheet for Rs 80. You can do this yourselfas well, to keep the innards of your cabinet vis-ible at all times.

Getting ReadyFirst things first—we decided to get rid of allthe dust in the cabinet. Using our little orangehand blower, we realized that keeping theinsides of the cabinet clean was quite a task.We took apart the whole system, and coughedand sneezed our way through blowing away allthe dust. Even in our temperature-controlledoffice with sealed windows, we found quite alot of it, so if you haven’t opened your cabinetfor over a year, wear a surgeon’s mask!

The only thing wedidn’t open in searchfor dust was the SMPS,which was still withinthe warranty period.You should also avoidbreaking any sealsthat can void yourwarranty. If all war-ranties have expired,don’t be afraid to openout the SMPS cover aswell (after discon-necting it from themains, obviously) toget at that cake of dustthat forms within allpower supplies.

Now that we had anice, gleaming PC, wewent a little off trackand Arctic Silver-edthe CPU, after

It isn’t as descriptive as it seeing it live, but the smoke from the incense sticks is fairly indicative as to how air flows in the top section of the cabinet.What you can’t see here is the smoke being blown out the sides of the processor heatsink and then sucked and expunged by the power supply

TipRound IDE CableA round IDE cable will help you push it to one side, and notobstruct airflow the way the flat cables do. If you have mainlyIDE drives, make sure you get yourself a few round IDE cablesto help air flow inside your cabinet. Unless they came bundledwith your motherboard, the costs can be a little daunting, ataround Rs 400. You could, however, gingerly pry out individualwires, or even pairs, from your flat IDE cable and bunch the lottogether to make your own round IDE cable, as we have donehere. Note that we take no responsibility if you botch up.



cleaning the old thermal paste away, andcleaning the heatsink using a cloth and somebrushes between the fins. We then proceededto connect everything back, and used theround IDE cable instead of the flat one we hadearlier. We also connected the RAM strips inthe slots furthest away from the CPU—you maynot be allowed to do this on all motherboards—and made sure there was enough space aboveand below each hard drive.

We now measured the temperature again,and found that it hovered between 31 and 32degrees celsius. That’s 2 or 3 degrees coolerjust because of a sound cleaning! We alsofound that the CPU idling temperature fromthe BIOS screen had dipped from 42 degrees to38 degrees Celsius—vive le Arctic Silver!

Now our cabinet also came with a sidepanel with a conical appendage on the insidethat’s meant to help bring cool air directly tothe CPU heatsink. We wanted to check whetherthis helped the CPU cool any better than whenwe attached the simple acrylic sheet. It did, butvery marginally; with the stock cabinet sidepanel, with the conical appendage, we foundthat CPU temperatures stayed at 37 or 38degrees; however, we suspect that airflow wasobstructed by this cone, because cabinet tem-peratures were raised a degree.

For those of you wondering why a degreematters, you should remember that these arejust idling temperatures, and also during thewinter, in an air-conditioned office. At home,with cramped spaces within your computertable, or under a desk, while running a gameor video-rendering software or somethingequally taxing, the temperatures of your CPU and cabinet will soar—even more so in our Indian summers, for those without air conditioning!

We decided to discard the stock side paneland stick to the acrylic sheet. Not only did itseem cooler inside the cabinet, we also neededto conduct our airflow experiments now, andneeded the transparency of the acrylic.

Coughing FitsNow it was time for the smoke. We made themistake of trying to conduct the experiment ina closed room—bad idea. Five minutes into thewhole thing, we all ran out coughing up some-thing terrible, and found that everything,including water, seemed to taste of incense. Westrongly advise that if you do this, do it in a verywell-ventilated area.

Red-eyed and with weakened lungs, webravely ventured back into the room andopened the windows, and brought along acouple of fans.

We then proceeded to fill our cabinet withsmoke, and try and see how the smoke flowed.We put a few burning incense sticks (safelycontained inside a ceramic plate, after one ofus burnt his fingers!) into the cabinet, put theacrylic sheet on, and then waited awhile forthe cabinet to fill up with smoke. We thenturned the PC on and watched where thesmoke went. The hardest part was trying to get

still photographs to tell the story, but to thenaked eye, the way the air flowed was obvious.

Now the fan-happy colleague we mentionedearlier had inadvertently reversed his cabinet’srear fan, causing it to draw air in instead ofthrowing it out! We did the same to our test cab-inet, and noticed that this was bad for airflow,because everything was being forced out fromthe power supply exhaust. This left smoke in thelower regions of the cabinet for a few secondslonger. It was also opposing the way the CPU fanwas trying to blow air out, causing our smoke tobe dispersed wildly, instead of forming a niceneat channel of airflow. All of you should makesure that your cabinet’s rear fan does indeedblow air out, because if it’s acting as an inputinstead of an output, it could cause your cab-inet to be hotter than it should be. The smokealso cleared a few other things up:

The hard disk cooler sucks in air from below and is supposed to blow it out bothopen sides, but for some reason, it would do so out of only one side. Go figure.

This X1300 graphics card blew air into the most inconvenient place possible—whenbuying, please make sure that your card’s heatsink blows out of your cabinet!



We found that the ATI Radeon X1300XLgraphics card we used had active cooling, butdue to its design, sent its exhaust (hot air)towards the centre of the cabinet. When wecompared it to the newer design of theX1900XT, which occupies two slots but sendsits exhaust directly out the back of the cabinet,we found that older graphics cards really leavea lot to be desired in terms of airflow!

We also noticed that there was hardly anyair flowing over or under the hard drives or theDVD-Writer. Now a DVD-Writer may not needcooling, but hard drives certainly do!

Fanning The FrontWe found that most cabinets have a space toattach a front cabinet fan. However, the frontis blocked by the Power and Restart buttons,along with the hard drive and powerLEDs. Front USB ports also block the front ofmost cabinets.

There are big gaps in the front and alongthe sides of cabinets, which were made obviousby the smoke billowing out of these gaps whenthe PC was switched off. We decided thatadding a front fan was the next step, and thesegaps should allow the fan to draw enough airin. The first hurdle was the fact that the loca-tion of the front fan was obstructing the harddrive placement. We couldn’t push the harddrives all the way in, and settled for themsticking out a little towards the motherboardin favour of the additional fan.

It worked! Soon after the cabinet was filledwith smoke, we found that switching it onmade the smoke accumulated around the harddrive disappear almost instantly and flowtowards the rear cabinet fan. If anything, theflow of air from the X1300XL was the onlyobstruction to smooth airflow. When weremoved the X1300XL and used the onboardgraphics, we found that air flowed muchbetter! We also saw that smoke from outsidethe front of the cabinet was being drawn inthrough the gaps in the front, so despite beingcovered, the front fan was working well.

Cooler DisksThe next step was to cool the hard drives. Weattached the hard drive coolers we’d bought,and immediately found that they refused to sitcomfortably in their bays. The problem wasthat even if we managed to muscle them in,because of the extra height the hard drives

TipBuying A CabinetWhen buying a cabinet, try not to choose a small form factorcabinet, especially if you want powerful hardware. Thespace savings are not worth running your components hot.Also, a lot of cabinets come with top fans already attached.Some even come with front fans. If you don’t want to haveto fiddle about inside the cabinet, make sure you get your-self a cabinet with at least one top and one front fan, inaddition to a large rear fan.

The entire setup. Don’t get awed by the low temperature, though—this shot was taken without the acrylic sheet



gained due to the cooler, we couldn’t screw thedrives in because the holes on the disks refusedto line up with the holes on the cabinets. Oursolution, although requiring considerablefinger-acrobatics, was to screw the hard drivesinto their bays, sans coolers, and then attachthe cooler from below. Basically, we attachedthe coolers from under the notches that thehard drives rest on! The pain was worth it,because we’d rather not risk our data on a harddrive that’s clattering about inside a cabinet.

Placing the hard drive above or in front ofthe cabinet’s front intake fan seemed to help.When we filled our cabinet with smoke again,we saw that the smoke around the disks dis-appeared even faster than before, and was allthrown out from the rear intake fan. We alsonoticed that after running a few games, thehard drives seemed a lot cooler than before,especially the Maxtor, which used to get so hotthat you couldn’t touch it without discomfort.After the hard drive cooler was added, though,it always seemed to stay cool!

Cabinet temperatures were not affected atall, though, by adding the hard drive fan. How-ever, if you use your computer in a way that hasa lot of hard drive usage, such as rendering, oreven leaving it on all night downloading fromP2P networks, a hard disk cooler is probably agood investment, and should help prolong thedrive’s life.

For The AdventurousIf you’re not satisfied with just adding onanother fan and a hard disk cooler, you can goout and get yourself some cutting equipment,and cut a hole into the top of your cabinet aswell. We suggest that you do it above the RAMstrips, or basically towards the end of yourmotherboard.

Make sure the fan is placed as an exhaust,and make sure that there is at least 6 inches ofspace between the top of the cabinet and yourdesk. This will help hot air that accumulatesaround the power supply—and the top of thecabinet in general—flow out easily. Besides, hotair rises, so the exhaust on top will make sureit rises out of the cabinet!

If you’re one of the crazy people who want toattach a rather huge fan to the side of your cab-inet, make sure all other fans are set as exhausts,including the front fan. This is because thesmaller front fan will be no match for a hugefan, so it might as well help it send air outinstead of opposing it by trying to send air in.

Do It YourselfAll this said, it’s not enough for you to just readthis article and nod in agreement with whatwe’re saying (or in disagreement either). We’d

rather you discover the joys of tinkering withyour PC. Remember, when playing with fire (orsmoke), play it safe. And let us know if youcome up with some ingenious ideas forimproving the airflow / cooling of your PC.

Remember, we’ve shown you how toimprove airflow using standard components.However, if you have powerful heat-generatingcomponents, like an overclocked CPU, a pow-erful graphics card, and a 500+ W powersupply, the heat generated increases dramati-cally, and you will see greater differences afteroptimising airflow.

Also, watch this space for more such arti-cles, and we promise you, they’re about toget geekier!

[email protected] [email protected]

If you disconnect all the other fans and stick the incense close to the processor, youcan watch the airflow around the area better—including how that air is sucked up bythe power supply as well

It’s advisable not to forget your smouldering incense in the cabinet while you go stuffyour face

TipCable OrganisingInside your cabinet, or outside, organising your cables prop-erly is essential. You can use plastic wire binders, or evenrubber-bands, but make sure your cables are all arrangedalong the sides and the bottom. This prevents them fromgetting in the way of the airflow, and thus helps keep yourcabinet cooler.

Digital Passion l Insight

Ahmed Shaikh

There is no clear path to HD land. The ideaof high-definition television is a beehiveof activity with new tech replacing the

old, faster than a speeding bullet. With noclear winner, choices are numerous, withmany pros and cons to weigh. Things are notvery clear on the content either: HD contentproducers are ambiguous on their DRM (DigitalRights Management) policies—will they, won’tthey, and when (because they will)? What reso-lution will be widely adopted, to what extentwill DRM shackle our media? To make mattersworse, the content sources are anaemic inIndia (neither over-the-air nor broadcast HDchannels available); the only HD contentcurrently on offer being games. Nor is thereany clarity on the next-generation of HDmedia—will Blu-Ray best HD-DVD or vice-versa?

But walk into an electronics shop and yourjaw drops—pretty HDTVs all ina row and none of theabove matters, lustovertakes logic; andwhile some practi-cal corner of yourbrain pleads to

look before you leap into the HD stream, youcan’t help but scratch that big-screen itch.

So, hearts filled with joyful consumerism,let’s take a walk through the HD swamp—learna bit about what makes an HDTV, and take a lookat some of the numerous technologies available,with a strong emphasis on the pros and cons ofeach. Which technology to pick? There is no clearanswer. Consider this an interesting journeywithout a destination.

What Makes An HDTV?All televisions display images as a grid ofcoloured dots or pixels. The more the dots a TVcan display, the higher its resolution. The TV setsthat most of us currently use is called SDTV; ithas the lowest resolution possible. An enhancedversion of this type of TV—called EDTV—is alsoavailable, but even that type does not differ muchover the SD variety. The drawback of a low reso-lution is that as the screen size of a television setincreases, the TV has to fit the same number ofpixels to a larger screen area. This results in poorimage quality; it’s similar to watching a videorecorded by a cell phone on a PC in full-screenmode. Larger displays offer a more cinematicexperience. This is where HDTV steps in.

TVs generally come in two screen ratios—a4:3 screen and a 16:9 screen; some sets also sport

You might not beable to affordone. There isnothing to watchon one. But youstill want one. Wehelp you scratchthat HDTV itch

The High-Definition Itch

Illustration Chaitanya SurpurDIGIT JANUARY 2007 35



a 16:10 screen. The number denotes the ratio ofthe horizontal size of a TV screen to its verticalsize. Thus a 4:3 PAL SDTV (the most common vari-ety) uses a fixed pixel grid of 768 × 576 or 720 x540. Most movies, however, are shot in 16:9format, also known as widescreen (as seen inmovie theatres); some SDTV sets and almost allHDTV sets come in a 16:9 widescreen format. Asmall thing to note: if you are in the market fora new PC monitor, you’d do well to pick up awidescreen variety, as most forms of entertain-ment now come in 16:9.

Now what happens if your TV is not 16:9? The16:9 format movie on a 4:3 TV set will be scaleddown to fit the lesser width. This leads to emptyareas at the top and the bottom of the TV screen,which are filled with black bars. This is known asletterboxing. Some sets might attempt to stretchand scale the image and make it fit the 4:3 area,leading to a distorted video. Others might zoominto the video instead; this hides a portion of thevideo content. A 4:3 format video on a 16:9display will fill the screen from top to bottombut not from the sides, and so you will seeborders on either side of the screen.

As a general rule of thumb, all HDTV sets arelikely to be widescreen, but all widescreen TV setsneed not be HDTV. Thus what essentially distin-guishes an HDTV from an SDTV is its screen reso-lution. An SDTV is 480i, an EDTV is 480p, andHDTV can be either of three resolutions: 720p,1080i, 1080p. What do these specifications mean?The number denotes the number of horizontallines of dots that are present in the TV. Thus a480i has 480 lines forming its screen. An HDTVresolution is 720 and above—720p, 1080i, and1080p—since an HDTV is widescreen and 16:9,these numbers correspond to 1280 x 720 and1920 x 1080 pixels. The “i” stands for “Interlaced,”the “p” for “Progressive.” This is a way to denotehow a picture is painted on a TV screen.

Interlaced TV sets, which most of our TV setsare, divide a video image into odd and even linesof dots. Each divided image forms a field, andwhen the odd field and the even field arecombined, they form a complete frame. An inter-laced TV draws each field every 1/60 of a secondto form an illusion of running 30 frames everysecond. The illusion, however, isn’t perfect, and

almost everyone can perceive flicker on our stan-dard TV sets. A progressive scan TV set takes boththe fields and combines them before displayingon screen. It thus displays a complete frameevery 1/60 of a second—painting a completepicture at once, to eliminate the flicker. Progres-sive is almost always superior to interlaced.

Beware: some TV sets offer SDTV/EDTV reso-lutions along with 1080i—these are not HD sets;make sure your HDTV offers at least a 720p reso-lution.

Almost all HD sets available in the markettoday are 720p/1080i; 1080p sets are a newerbreed and are much costlier than a 720p set.Generally, a 720p set can also do (or is advertised)as 1080i as well.

So which one should you buy? For all practi-cal purposes, a 720p set is good enough. All HDcontent—movies, over-the-air TV content, orgames—is enjoyable on a 720p set. More is, ofcourse, better, but a 1080p set is not only signif-icantly costlier, there is little HD content avail-able in 1080p to best utilise the set. Subjectively,for lower screen sizes or larger sitting distancesfrom the TV screen, it becomes very difficult toqualitatively differentiate content on a 720p setfrom that on a 1080p. Unless you are buying aset larger than 50 inches, you need not concernyourself with the lack of 1080p resolution.

Our usual cables need not apply to the new HD era: S-video,SCART and composite cables are not suited for HDTV view-

ing. They simply do not have the required bandwidth, nor dothey offer the required digital fidelity. When you move on toHDTV, you will have to deal with component, DVI and HDMIcables. The latter two are digital in nature and are the idealcourse to take. A component cable will carry unprotected HDcontent. Most of the high-definition content will be protected,and to view this as intended, you will need HDMI ports on boththe source of content (unless it’s over-the-air) and on the TVset. HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface) is a pure digi-tal cable that carries audio and video and is backward-compati-ble with DVI-D—a DVI-D source can drive an HDMI unit througha converter, but the audio will not be available. As for thecontent protection: HDCP (High-Bandwidth Digital ContentProtection) is a form of DRM (digital rights management) that

controls content travelling along DVI-D and HDMI. High-defini-tion video content is downgraded to DVD quality on non-HDCPcompliant TV sets, when requested by the source. DVD-Audiocontent is restricted to DAT quality on non-HDCP digital audiooutputs (analogue audio outputs have no quality limits). Thusyou will need an HDTV with an HDMI port, a video source withHDMI output, and an HDMI cable to experience real HD content.

HD-DVD and Blu-ray Disc players allow movie studios to setan Image Constraint Token (ICT) flag that will only output full-resolution HD content through HDCP. If such a player isconnected to a non-HDCP-enabled HDTV, and the content isflagged, the player will output a 480p signal. The good news isthat most of the movies studios seem to have informally agreedto not use this flag for the near future; additionally, none of theHD games currently have any restrictions—they can be enjoyedover both component and HDMI without niggles.

HDMI Demystified

HDTV: Looks good, feels great



Now that we’re clear on the basics of TV andHDTV, let’s move on to the specifics of whatmakes a High-Definition television.

One Big FamilyThe majority of HDTV sets, be they LCD,plasma, rear-projection microdisplays, DLP, orLCoS technology, are so-called fixed-pixeldisplays. Such a display uses pixels to form

images. Non-fixed-pixel displays are direct-view and rear-projection CRTs, and

they don’t use discrete pixels todisplay images. Fixed-pixel HD

displays operate at a“native” resolution, say720p. They are also allinherently progressive-scan—even a 1080i “inter-laced” HDTV set runs at a720p “progressive” resolu-tion. Since an HDTV only

talks in native resolution,there is some scaling

involved with content: nomatter what the source of the

content, a fixed-pixel HDTVwill always scale it to fit to its

native resolution.If the incoming signal has more pixels than

the TV can handle, you will lose some detailand sharpness. If in turn the signal has fewerpixels, the TV will scale it to fit its screen butyou won’t get any extra detail and sharpness(this is called upscaling or upconverting). Howwell the TV does at scaling is a critical point toconsider while purchasing an HDTV.

Before making a purchase, we recommendthat you play various content on your desiredset—TV, DVD, HD video games, and if available,HD movies.

What Flavour HDTV?Wouldn’t it be great if you could just walk intoa store and pick up an HDTV, any HDTV, withoutworrying about black levels, contrast ratio,refresh rates, viewing angles, colour saturation,colour accuracy and so on… of course it would,but if you’re in the market for an HDTV, youneed to understand the pros and cons of eachHDTV technology.

Broadly speaking, there are two major cate-gories of HDTV—you have your Flat Panel TV sets,which are your thin plasmas and LCD panels.Then you have your rear-projection sets whichcan be LCD, DLP (Digital light Processing), CRT, orLCoS (Liquid crystal on silicon). Apart from these,you can also purchase an HD-resolution projec-tor, or an old-fashioned CRT TV set. Let us runthrough the major technologies first, and thentake a look at the table Which HDTV Should I Buy?

Flat Panel DisplaysThere is little to differentiate between a plasmaand an LCD display today—each one’s pro isgenerally replicated well by the other. A plasmascreen is no longer as liable to suffer from burn-in as it used to, while an LCD TV’s viewing angleis much improved today than it was a year ago.And so on. Generally speaking, a plasma televi-sion is still a better choice if you are looking toset up a home-theatre: these are large screenswith great image quality, high brightness, andgood contrast ratio. The only negative is screenbrightness: a plasma TV will gradually dim overits life. Present plasmas are typically 60,000 hrsof half-life—long enough to last five to six years,but something to keep in mind while pickingone up. For gaming, both technologies have theircons: an LCD screen is liable to “ghost” or blurwhen the action gets fast (due to slower responsetime); a game’s HUD (Head-up Display) is liable to

Which HDTV Should I Buy?

HDTV technology What’s great about it What sucks

Tube televisions (non-fixed-pixeldisplays)

Inexpensive, wide viewing angle, great picturequality (especially black levels)

Huge, extremely heavy, limited screen size,lower resolution

Plasma television

LCD television

CRT

DLP (Digital LightProcessing)LCD

LCoS

DLP

LCD

Flat

Pan

el T

VRe

ar P

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n TV

Proj

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rs(F

ront

Proj

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icro

disp

lays

Thin, wide viewing angle, image quality ideal for ahome theatre setup, faster response time than LCD,brighter than LCDWidest range of sizes available, no danger of burn-in,higher resolution than comparably-sized plasmas,generally cheaper than plasma

Inexpensive, good black levels, good colour satura-tion, sharp picture

Good pixel fill and uniformity; deep blacks in bettermodelsNo rainbow effect, good colour reproduction, light-weight, perfect sharpness at native resolution, excel-lent longevity

No rainbow effect, true 1080p resolution (not wobu-lated), excellent black levels, great interpixel fillBetter black level than LCD, good uniformity, goodbrightnessUsually cheaper and more feature-packed than DLPof same resolution

Slight potential for burn-in, more expensivethan LCD, display gradually dims over time(loses brightness)Image quality generally not as good as plasma(poor blacks); relatively narrow viewing angle,might show ghosting while displaying fast-moving images like in gamesNeed professional calibration for ideal setup,deep cabinets, not suited for bright rooms

Rainbow effect might be visible in some sets, low-level noise, wobulated resolution on some TVs1080p currently unavailable, black level lacking,uniformity issues, not as bright as DLP, currentlyno 1080p chips, poor contrast ratios, weak andstuck pixels are commonSome uniformity issues

Rainbow effect, more expensive than LCD

Not as bright as DLP, might show screen-dooreffect

HDMI to DVI-D adapter



be burned-in to a plasma screen. Both thesedisplay types are widely available in the market,and unless you are a videophile, picking upeither of these technologies is a safe choice.

Rear-Projection TVMicrodisplays make up most rear-projectionunits. A microdisplay is driven by one or moremicrochips, which contain millions of pixels.Based on the nature of the chip, a microdisplaycan be further classified as DLP, LCD, and LCoS.Each such unit displays by either bouncing lighton to and off these chips (DLP and LCoS) orstreaming light through them (LCD). The lightsource, being a lamp, must be replaced every5,000 to 10,000 hours depending upon the tech-nology and model (ask your local dealer fordetails); the lamps might also require a fewseconds to warm up and cool down. Due to thenature of the technology, all such TVs are excel-lent for viewing in bright rooms. Let’s quicklyrun through two of the most promisingmicrodisplay technologies:

DLP: The microchip is actually an array ofmirrors sitting on silicon, the number ofmirrors correspond to the resolution of the set.These mirrors are rapidly repositioned to givevarious shades of grey by varying the intensityof light through a lens; black and white levelsare achieved by switching the mirror off andon respectively. Colours are added by use ofeither a colour wheel, or by employing Red,Green, and Blue LEDs. A common complaintabout DLP sets is that of the “rainbow effect”—this artefact is generally visible as a multi-colour shimmer when changing focus fromone part of the projector screen to another,generally at a viewer’s periphery when shiftingfocus from a high contrast area or brightobject. The rainbow effect is mostly seen insingle-chip DLP projectors. Make sure youcheck for this before buying a DLP set—peopleare not equally sensitive to the effect.

Some DLP sets use a technique called “wobu-lation” to double the actual resolution of a TV—a 1080p chip might have 960x1080 physicalpixels. A mirror or lens is then made to moverapidly to form a complete picture, from the twohalves of 960 pixels to give the 1920 x 1080(1080p) finished picture. A wobulated imagemight appear soft; results vary from set to set.

LCoS: This is a technology similar to DLP, butuses liquid crystals instead of mirrors to reflectlight. LCoS is the technology to watch—it has thepotential to realise big-screen HDTVs with veryhigh picture quality and at a low cost compared

to the others. Pixels on LCOS panels can be madesmaller than is possible with other microdisplaytechnologies, without compromising on picturequality or manufacturability. LCoS displays canbe scaled to 1080p resolution and beyond, with-out increasing the size and cost of the panel andother optical components in the light engine.Commercially, Sony’s SXRD is the most visibleand viable implementation of this technology inthe market.

Summing It UpFor most of us, the fog of uncertainty surround-ing HDTV lifts when we consider price as afactor. These big screens, sexy as they may be, arepriced beyond EMIs for the rest of us. And whenyou look at HDTV through this lens of practical-ity, the choice becomes clear—whatever is themost affordable amongst this array of tech, andthe most ubiquitous. Right now, that choice is atoss between Plasma and LCD sets. Too manycompanies have invested too much money for LCDto not have a slightly upper hand. LCD tech hasovercome most of its inherent disabilities, and TVsets based on them are the cheapest money canbuy today. Plasmas do not fall far outside an LCD’sprice bracket, and generally do make for a betterhome-theatre experience. But as far as the marketis concerned, LCD is ascendant—you are bound tofind a wide variety of prices and offers when shop-ping for an LCD-based HDTV.

Moreover, while some of the newer tech mightor might not last tomorrow’s dawn, LCD displaysare here to stay. We’d recommend you wait awhile before picking up an HD set—prices arebound to fall further, and 1080p displays shouldsoon become more practical. By some major mira-cle, we might even see some HD content in India.But if you intend to walk that HD path this year,let LCD be your guiding light.

[email protected]

Some HDTVs might not have an inbuilt tuner toview over-the-air or broadcast HD content; theseare generally labelled as “HDTV-ready TV” andmust be connected to a separate HDTV set-topbox to view them. Note that they will have theusual PAL/NTSC SDTV tuners.

What Is An “HDTV-Ready” TV?

Ideal Viewing Distance From An HDTV setScreen size (inches)30344250566270

Viewing distance (feet)3.75 to 6.254.25 to 75.25 to 8.756.25 to 10.57 to 11.757.75 to 138.75 to 14.75

HDMI Cables

Digital Passion l Tomorrow

Vishal Kansagra

War is a sad reality: has been teh samein the past and will continue toremain so in future. It is anybody’s

conjecture what war will be like, say, fivedecades from now. It will not involve the loss oflives in direct combat: we would have passedwell beyond that stage. But what can it beabout? Will it be about the destruction of phys-ical targets via what the Internet will be at thattime? Or will it be entirely cyber-warfare…attacks solely on information systems?

Whatever the case, the fact is that technol-ogy has decisively entered the battlefield, justas it has entered the sports arena. It makes itless fun and more serious business, but war isfun only when you’re watching a movie!

Here, then, are some things that havehappened in recent years, which point to theinexorable rush of technology into combat ofall sorts. We focus on the communications andnetworking aspect, because that’s where it’shappening most. We have good reason tobelieve that what’s happening today is indica-tive of what will be tomorrow.

The Networked SoldierIn the US Army’s vision called the FutureCombat System, networks will acquire thecapability of being set up on the fly to adapt tothe progress of a battle.

Peter Marcotullio, director of development

at SRI International, the research centre work-ing with the DoD (the US Department ofDefense) on ad hoc network development, says,“Each person is a network with routing capa-bility to everyone else. Think of cascadingnetworks, all IP-based, that are dynamic andself-configured as the troops advance.”

Sensors, commanders and soldiers will allbe linked to a dynamic network that will adaptto the situation and satisfy the informationdemands of the battlefield. This vision is notfar from being realised. By the end of thisdecade, major armed forces across the globewill have sensors and communication gear thatwill make such connectivity possible.

In addition to conventional weapons, thesoldier of the future will have the necessaryequipment to make him a network-enabled“smart warrior.” Using his helmet-mounteddrop-down eyepiece, he will see a virtual, GPS-linked display showing his current location andthat of friendly and hostile units in the area.He will be able to switch the display to watchlive video feeds from UAVs (Unmanned AerialVehicles) coming via a secure data link. Hisrifle-mounted TWS (Thermal Weapon Sight)will not only help him identify enemy positionsin the dark, but also pass on the same infor-mation to allied units on the network.

A soldier is just a part of a platoon orcompany of similarly-equipped soldiers. Thesoldier utilises data fed in by sensors like UAVs,aircraft, satellites, and other sensors to iden-tify important targets and detect potential

Technology isenabling themovement ofwarfare from ablood-drenchedkilling affair tosomething moreprecisely-targeted and yetmore powerful

Battle For Tomorrow




traps or hostile units. He won’t fire unlessabsolutely necessary, rather relying on combatrobots or UCAVs (Unmanned Combat AerialVehicles) to do the job. Once the target hasbeen identified, the soldier will deploy robotsor UCAVs to destroy it.

The individual soldier thus becomes apowerful component of a huge grid, muchmore powerful than the soldier of today, butalso with his safety ensured.

Network-Centric WarfareAugust 17, 2016: A pilot flying a fighter jet ona routine patrol spots a group of intruderstrying to sneak in through the border. Heimmediately updates their coordinates on adigital map on his aircraft computer. Thatdone, the information is updated in real-timeto army units in the vicinity.

Moving in to intercept the intruders, theyget a constant video feed from the aircraft,so they have all they need to know—howmany of them there are, what are theycurrently doing, which way they’re going.Using this information, the unit chooses thebest spot to ambush the trouble-makers.Ambush and capture them they do, without asingle casualty.

The scenario above is a classic one, wherethe ability to conduct Network-Centric Warfare(NCW) not only increases the efficiency of aunit, it also minimises the loss of men andmateriel (equipment).

The term “Network-Centric Warfare” is thelatest buzzword in military circles; it is thetransition of military forces from the industrialage—where better equipment was the key tosuccess—to the information age, where havingthe latest information is the key. The idea is toprovide real-time, accurate information avail-able to all friendly forces so as to make fast,effective, better-informed decisions.

The All-Important NetworkWe live in a networked world, be it the cellphone network or the Internet. It was onlya matter of time before the network enteredthe battlefield.

Visualise a huge network of computers withthree key components:

Sensors: These include objects that gener-ate useful information (such as pictures orradar images). The objects can include satellitesthat provide images of a particular area,Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) that generatereal-time images of an area, and so forth.

Commanders: Military commanders get abroad view of what’s going on by collating theinformation sent by the sensors. They makedecisions depending on the situation.

Shooters: Troops on the battlefront that dothe actual shooting. It could be a squad ofsoldiers, robots, tanks, aircraft, or even a singleship. These are guided by the commanders toperform set actions.

These components are analogous to hubs onthe network, and the computers are like thenodes. All the computers can access the infor-mation flowing around the network. Thisnetwork relies on a high-bandwidth link usingoptical fibre or satellite links.

Such networks have to be much more securethan your regular SSL-encrypted connections,due to the highly sensitive nature of the infor-mation being transmitted. As a standard proce-dure, the networks have multiple redundantlinks, so in the eventuality of war, even if onelink is damaged, the network can rely on theothers without affecting operations.

In Conventional WarfareIn a more conventional setup, communicationhappens via radio. Radio communication cannot only be intercepted by the enemy, it is also

Network-CentricWarfare not onlyincreases theefficiency of aunit, it alsominimises theloss of men andequipment



dependant on ambient geography. Moreover, acommander receiving information from vari-ous sources has to collate that information andmake a mental picture of the situation. Theremay sometimes be conflicting information.Many a time, it so happens that a commanderdoesn’t have the precise location of friendly orenemy troops. Ambiguous states such as thesecan hamper decision-making. In such situa-tions, a commander has to rely on experienceand gut-feeling. It’s sometimes a bit likegambling. With lives.

Taking an example of air combat, radars area must for any fighter aircraft. But there aredrawbacks associated with the use of radar.First, fighter aircrafts have a very small radarrange compared to ground-based radars.Second, switching on your radar gives awayyour position to the enemy. So during most aircombat scenarios, fighters keep their radarsoff, being guided by ground-based radars orAWACS (Airborne Warning and ControlSystems): these are aircraft with huge radars ofextremely long ranges mounted on them. Inaddition to pilots, AWACS have controllers whohave the details about allaircraft within their radarcover. These controllerscan inform friendly pilotsabout enemy movementand help them plan theirtactics.

Now, in this conven-tional scenario, a radaroperator or an AWACScontroller uses radio tocommunicate with thepilots. The pilots have tocreate a mental picture oftheir position relative tothe enemy aircraft andplan their approach. Aircombat is highly dynamicdue to the high speedsinvolved, and it takes timefor a pilot to create amental picture. If, duringthis time, the enemyaircraft make a suddenchange in their path, theradar operator will need toupdate the pilots about it.The pilot will need to scraphis earlier idea and start from scratch.

In NCW, secure data links on the aircraftand ground station would be installed, andthey would be linked via satellite. In this case,the radar operator can share visuals in real-time. Instead of creating a mental picture,pilots will have an exact idea of enemy loca-tions, and can plan their approach quicker togain the upper hand.

IridiumRemember Iridium? The satellite phone serv-ice? It boasted of global coverage provided by a“constellation” of 77 satellites, with only 66having been commissioned. During the recentIraq conflict, US and UK forces made good use

of Iridium not only to increase combat effi-ciency but also to boost morale. The US forcestransmitted voice and data for tacticalpurposes using the service, while the Britishmilitary let soldiers talk to their families. Bothmilitaries also used commercial GSM networksduring the conflict—and are still using it. Theyuse the Sectéra Secure Wireless Phone, whichincludes a clip-in security module that usescryptographic algorithms to ensure securecommunication.

These are just two instances of commercialsetups being used in warfare—and we’re likelyto see more of this. Like the use of RFID tags totrack men and materials. Like the use of smartcards, using which a soldier would have accessto his assigned weapons, and by which aninjured soldier’s medical records would beinstantly accessible.

Talking To Each OtherOperation Red Dawn to capture SaddamHussein saw an integration of lots of new tech-nologies. Thanks to the integrated system, intel-ligence reports were analysed and forces

prepared within a fewhours. Looking at howtense and time-bound thisdecision was, anextremely short timefrom tip-off to capturewas no small matter.

Each componentinvolved in this integratedsystem was not exemplaryon its own, and hadexisted for quite sometime. US forces have beenusing UAVs and satellitesto gather information forquite some time now. Butthis time, all the data wascommunicated in realtime. It was sent to theUS, front line units, andto the commanders whomade the decisions.

Says John Hillen,senior Vice President andDirector of the defenseand intelligence group atAmerican ManagementSystems (AMS), an IT

consultancy in Virginia, “There were a lot ofnew technologies out there, but none of themwas particularly dramatic. It was the stitchingtogether of all of these things in real-time andtheir integration into the operation.”

As recently as in the first Gulf War, aircommanders had to print hundreds of pages of“air tasking orders” to be sent out to various airunits. These printouts would then be sent toairbases or aircraft carriers, where they werefurther sorted out to be given to pilots toinform them about their tasks. In the secondGulf war, IT had already “invaded” the battle-field. A single Humvee became a mobile datacentre. Intelligence updates provided by vari-ous sensors were fed into a Unix-based work-

In the FutureCombat System,each person is anetwork with rout-ing capability toeveryone else”Peter MarcotullioDirector of DevelopmentSRI International

Communication Grids


station at the back of the Humvee. As many as20 different interfaces were made available toenter data generated by various sensors andsystems, like radar from JSTARS (Joint Surveil-lance Target Attack Radar System) reconnais-sance aircraft and video from UAVs.

The system automatically collated all thedata on a single electronic map to givecommanders a bigger, more accurate and near-real-time picture of the entire battlefield. In itslatest avatar, this system uses a Web servicearchitecture to provide near-real informationon demand to decision makers in the US,Europe, and the Middle East. This service usesthe US military’s restricted network called SIPR-NET (Secret Internet Protocol Router Network).

A communications system that speaks forthe power of “simple” commercial technologyis a wearable computer/radio called the TM-7.

It uses an 800 MHz Transmeta Crusoeprocessor and 256 MB of RAM. Weighing just 5kg, the device provides mapping, GPS, andcommunications. With the help of a USBjoystick and a helmet-mounted VGA display,soldiers can use TM-7s to control robots—send-ing them into buildings and caves, avoidingrisk to human lives.

Bots And NanobotsTalking about robots in combat, such a bot—the PackBot—was actually deployed in Iraq andAfghanistan. It entered caves, scouting aroundand reporting to human operators using wear-able computers. In the future, its role couldaccommodate combat duties: such robotscould be loaded with explosives to blow uplocations not accessible to soldiers.

Thanks to its 802.11b connection, the Pack-Bot can also be operated over the Internet,allowing for remote operations.

Another DARPA (Defense Advanced ResearchProjects Agency) funded project, dubbed theHigh Mobility Tactical Microrobot (HMTM), is inthe works. Weighing just 5 pounds, it is beingdesigned for surveillance and reconnaissance.The HMTM has a camera on top of a periscopeto look around corners, in addition to aninbuilt homing device that will work even if its802.11b connection breaks.

We’ve spoken of Smart Dust earlier in thisspace; how can it help reduce casualties, whichwas a primary goal during the Iraq war? Thecentral idea, of course, was to replace peoplewith machines that could gather intelligence.In Iraq, the US military used smart robots andsmall UAVs to reduce danger to personnel.Another DARPA-supported technology, calledSmart Dust, could possibly reduce casualtiesand gather information even more effectively.

Smart Dust is an “autonomous sensing andcommunications device in a cubic millimetre”package. A millimetre has not yet beenachieved, but the goal is to package a lightsensor, power supply and circuitry, a commu-nication device, and a programmable processorinto a small space.

Assuming we have it, imagine a plane“spraying” Smart Dust over a conflict area. Thespecks would be light enough to stay afloat and

monitor the movement of enemy troops, orperhaps the presence of biological or chemicalweapons. It’s not all that futuristic: in a recenttest, a Smart Dust researcher controlled a droneabout 8 inches long. It flew at 100 kmph for 18minutes, carrying a camera that sent live feedsback to headquarters!

In ConclusionAdvanced though the above scenarios and tech-nologies may sound, we think they’re babysteps into the future of something that will notbe called warfare any more. “Warfare” assumesthat one is not omniscient; that, like in a gameof chess, one needs to outwit the opponent.What happens when sensors and tracking capa-bilities and number crunching becomes soadvanced that everything is known? Surrenderand victory would both be immediate—removed only a short span of time from thedeclaration of the conflict. All the activityhappens in preparation.

It’s analogous to a grandmaster resigningtwenty moves into the game once he knows he’smade a wrong move—while amateur chess play-ers, like the forces of today, knowing littleabout the broad picture, take the game into thehundredth move and more. It’s about gettingsmarter—and technology is enabling that. As itis everything else.

[email protected]

DIGIT JANUARY 2007 45

Digital Passion l 30 days with...

Day 1The MPL 1003 is compact, with a surprising amount offunctionality accessible through just the six buttonsadorning it. One observation—except for the menu button,the others are super-hard to press.

Day 2I notice what seems to be a dead pixel on the left corner ofthe screen. Funny—a few hours later it wasn’t there. Thoughthe LCD is small, it’s surprisingly crisp. It did take sometime to copy a few MP3s and photos to the player—20 to 30per cent slower than a Flash drive the same size. The factthat the player stores all files, movies, still, or music in thesame root folder is convenient, though browsing through thefolder can be a pain.

Day 3Mitashi states in the manual that the player can onlybrowse JPEG files. This statement had me stumped—because the player not only displays BMP images as well,the treatment of both (JPEG and non-JPEG) images is thesame. I took the time to read through the entire usermanual at last. Lots of ambiguity, and certain parts werereally hard to follow.

Day 8Copied some more MP3s to the MPL 1003 and actuallyplayed them this time! Sound quality is decent, butthe player seems to have some inherentbackground noise that’s noticeable ifyou listen carefully,

particularly at thehigher

volumes. Incidentally, dB levels are more than satisfactorywith the bundled headphones. I viewed a couple of dozenphotos—respectable, but this is no photo iPod! Day 15Finally got down to using the inbuilt voice recorder. It workswell, and the 1 GB of inbuilt memory provides amplerecording space. Playback quality of the recorded content isgood, but once again, it’s not to be compared with adedicated recorder.

Day 21Upgraded the firmware. It’s easily accomplished, really. Theinterface is very easy to work with, unlike so many othermultimedia players around. This is an important and oft-missed feature. Battery life isn’t too good… around fivehours under regular use. The bundled 2-pin power adapterto USB accessory is useful if you need to charge the playerwithout a USB port handy.

Day 25A few friends come over. The ladies went “oh…how cute, it’sso small,” the guys went “YOU went in for a portableplayer? What’s up with that?” They played around with thedevice. Reactions ranged from “video quality isn’t good”and “MP3s are decent,” to “look, it’s got FM and a voicerecorder too” and “slim… looks hot actually!”

Day 30Well that was that. I dutifully returned the player to myeditor. He threw an enquiring look at me. I shook myhead. A decent product simply for the great value itbrings via the features integrated, but ultimately, it’s ajack-of-all-trades thing. I’ll look elsewhere for my acoustickicks, thank you very much!

[email protected]

Michael BrowneNow I’m a bloke who loves his music. Admittedly, I haven’t been a big fan of portable music, simply because I don’t think any player can

substitute for the aural experience a set of Sennheisers will provide. Well, my editor decided to cure me of my scepticism, getting me into

what he calls the “portable entertainment” experience. Needless to say, it was up to the MPL 1003 to mend my ways…

Mitashi MPL 1003

Imaging Sivalal S

Digital Passion l 30 Days With...

Flybook VMhe innovative design of the Flybook VM is a farcry from the monotony of “regular” ones. It hasa tilting screen you can pull towards you while

working, and push away to enjoy a movie. Because thescreen can lift up, you won’t need to strain your neckwhen working with the laptop at a table—you can adopta more natural posture.

The screen is a wide 12.1-inch, and the device sportsa reasonably good configuration for its size: poweredby Intel’s energy-efficient Core Duo processor, it allowsup to 2 GB of RAM. Price? A little more than Rs 2 lakh.It’s all about design and ergonomics!

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Digital Passion l Drool Maal

DIGIT JANUARY 2007

his GPS receiver is not from the Ferrari stables,but Ferrari does endorse it. To give you thatFerrari feel, the pop-up that’s displayed at

startup is an exact reproduction of a Ferrari F430’stachometer. The device, which doubles up as anMP3/WMA player, has a 4-inch touch-screen with antiglare coating. Powered by a fast 400 MHz processor, itsupports 2 GB of memory on an SD card. There’s a USBport for PC connectivity. The menu features spokeninstructions, and it can even be operated by voice!

Becker Traffic Assist Pro Ferrari

Drool Maal

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Digital Passion l Drool Maal

eitz has outdone everything in its class with its mind-numbing 160-megapixel 6x17 digital camera. (Sorry, wegot that wrong: there’s nothing else in its class!) You got

that right—one hundred and sixtyMP. Couple that with 48-bit colourdepth, and you get images of defi-nitions we can’t speak about. At the maximum resolution, animage is 900 MB, and you can’tuse Flash to store several such—so the 6x17 uses a Mac Mini as its storage device. You can controlthe camera remotely using a PDA.Go ahead, prove you’re a realphotography enthusiast: sell your house and buy the 6x17 forRs 27 lakh!

Seitz 6x17

Hela Glider Mousehe Hela Glider Mouse looks and works like anair hockey board. As you can see from thepicture alongside, the Glider Mouse sits between

you and the keyboard, and the actual mouse is at thecentre, giving you good control. And how much comfortcan you not expect from an extended gel-filled wrist-pad? With shiny things you see are customisablebuttons. Pair those with the scroll wheel, and you havethe ultimate in navigation comfort—without having totake your hands off the keyboard and reach out everytime you need to use the mouse.

Alienware Aurora mALXhis beast packs in everything a gamer can hope for—for now. It bequeaths upon you immense brag-ging rights over lesser mortals. Just going through

the specs is enough to make most hardware freaks bow inreverence.

Powered by nothing less than an AMD Turion 64 @ 2.4GHz, this monster is loaded with 2 GB of RAM and 400 GBof storage space. For a totally immersive experience, youget HD, surround audio. The coolest thing here is twoGeForce Go 7900 GTX with 512 MB RAM each in SLI for thattop-of-the-world gaming experience on a 19-inch screen.Rs 5 lakh - too much? You decide…

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50

Take a Crack and win

Google Analyticsby Mary E. Tyler andJerri L. Ledford

Published by

Rules and RegulationsReaders are requested to

send in their answers by the 15th

of the month of publication.

Employees of JasubhaiDigital Media and their relativesare not permitted to participatein this contest.

Readers are encouraged tosend their replies by e-mail.Jasubhai Digital Media will notentertain any unsolicitedcommunication.

Jasubhai Digital Media isnot responsible for any damageto your system that may becaused while you are trying tosolve the problem.

Last month’s solutionOur challenge last month was to create aWindows XP installation CD that requiresno driver installation.

1. Download and install WindowsUnattended CD Creator fromwww.windows-unattended.de, orinstall it from the Digit December2006 Utilities CD.

2. Launch the program and insert yourWindows XP CD into the drive.

3. Copy all the contents of the CD. Ejectthe CD after copying the files.

4. In the program’s first tab—”Source CD”—click Select, and select the folder towhich you copied the CD’s contents.

5. Select “Work in source directory”under the “Target directory for newCD” column.

6. Bypass all other options and head tothe Driver tab.

7. Insert the driver CD that came withyour motherboard.

8. Give a name to the driver group inthe General Drivers text box, forexample, “Gigabyte”. Click Add.

9. Wait until all the drivers get copied. Itshould look something like thescreenshot below. (The name you gavewill appear along with its attributes).

10. Head straight to the Done tab,making no changes.

11. Click Save and then on “Create ISO-image”. Enter the path of where theimage should be written to.

12. After completion, burn the ISOimage to a CD using a disc burningtool such as Nero. You’re done!

THIS MONTH’S CHALLENGE

LAST MONTH’S CHALLENGE

Win!

Santhosh S Nagasandra Post

Bangalore

LAST MONTH’S WINNER

How would you rebootyour computer into SafeMode from the StartMenu?

Send in your solution withthe subject “Take a Crack”,and your postal address, [email protected]

Create an XP CD that requires no driver installation!

DIGIT JANUARY 2007

Add “Reboot IntoSafe Mode” To YourStart Menu

The source CD tab in Windows Unattended CD Creator

Finalise the CD compilation

Select the drivers you want

Robert Sovereign Smith

Remember the days when using a computermeant just having one browser window,one mail client and maybe an office appli-

cation? I know a lot of us found just those threewindows intimidating at times. Today, however,whether it’s at work or at home, we’ve got somany things happening at once that it’s hard tokeep track of everything that’s open on yourDesktop. No, don’t worry, we’re not going to bepreaching about silly taskbar applications ortelling you how to [Alt] + [Tab] better… instead,we wonder why the majority of the computerusers in the world stick to just one screen!

Why?In the heyday of the good old CRT, where theaverage monitor was a 15-inch monstrosity that

weighed as much as you and occupied most ofyour desk space, this question would seem stupid.However, the LCDs rule the roost today, and withthe amount of multi-tasking expected from all ofus, the whole “lack of desk space” argument fallsflat—pardon the pun! Televisions aren’t coolunless they’re LCD/Plasma gizmos, and a com-puter monitor also just has to be an LCD today. Sowhy buy one when you can get two? Sure… thatis, if your daddy has a multi-crore business andloves splurging on your whims! For the rest of usunfortunate souls, when we think two monitors,it’s usually our spanking new LCD and theantique CRT that’s now collecting dust. Regard-less, if you have more than one monitor, youshould be using them all!

There are quite a few ways in which you canput multiple (two or more) monitors to gooduse, but before we get to where this can beuseful, let’s look at…

Why waste your time minimizing windows and searching through all those apps on your taskbar?

Lead Feature

Imaging Chaitanya Surpur

Digital Tools l Jumpstart

85ToolsDigital

72Technology For Personal And SoHo Productivity

94Dinky DataVaults RAID POPping The

Cork

The More The Merrier

How?Laptops! Everyone seems to be buying one, orbeing given one by the company. Well, most newermodels have support for an external monitor aswell as its own LCD screen. Just look for a VGA-outon your laptop. If it’s got one, you can just hook upanother monitor (CRT or otherwise) and startusing multiple desktops. This is usually providedfor people who need to give presentations, so thatthey can hook up to a projector, and is a standardfeature on any business laptop.

What if you are a desktop user? Well, a fewof us have dual graphics cards, for gaming. Mostof them will either be NVIDIA or ATI solutions,and these will allow you to hook up at least amonitor to each card. Those with just onegraphics card will need to look for two DVI orVGA outputs on the card to know whether thecard supports two monitors.

If your card has only one monitor output, butyour motherboard has onboard graphics, youmay still be able to use two monitors. The rule isgenerally that the onboard and GPU chipsetmanufacturer should be the same. So anonboard ATI solution will work with an ATIgraphics card; ditto for NVIDIA.

For those whose hardware does not meet theabove hardware criteria, the only option is to useone of the many hardware or software solutionswe have listed a little later.

Apart from this, you obviously need two ormore monitors. Though the ideal setup is tohave two identical monitors—so that you neverhave to deal with colour or brightness changeswhen looking from one to the other—any twomonitors can be used.

A good way to find out whether your displayadapter supports more than one monitor is to goto the Display Properties (right-click on theDesktop and select Properties). Here, under theSettings tab, if you see icons for two monitors, orcan see more than one monitor in the Displaydropdown, you already have a dual-monitorcapable display adapter. Just plug both monitorsin and the display adapter should recognize themboth. You can also connect your TV up to yourcomputer if the adapter has an RF output. Thoughstandard TVs are terrible for displaying thingssuch as office applications, Web pages, or basi-cally anything involving text, they’re perfectlycapable of displaying video.

Whatever the case, just make sure youselect the “Extend my Windows desktop ontothis monitor” checkbox so that you can useboth monitors together.

What Good Is This?Whether you’re using two monitors or one TV andone monitor, chances are you can relate to one ofthe usage scenarios below:

For those who need to work with MS Excel, andhave to keep referring back and forth betweentwo or more spreadsheets.When using Explorer to search throughdrives and find and move files from onedrive to another.Using any two related applications, such as anHTML editor and a browser, to make changesand check the changes you’ve made.



Viewing video while working on an applica-tion—when a single computer has to cater tomultiple users, one can watch a movie whilethe other works.The last one is especially useful when the kids

want to watch that cartoon Digit provided in theDVD, while you need to work on that project thatthe boss wants first thing in the morning!

Other OptionsFor those of you who wouldn’t mind spendinga little money to get the most out of yourmulti-monitor setup, there are quite a fewhardware and software options that can enrichyour multi-monitor experience. Let’s take alook at a few examples:

Ultramon (www.realtimesoft.com/ultramon)This is a utility that will help you use your multi-monitor setup better. It features support formore than 10 monitors, adds a “move todesktop” icon to all windows, extends theTaskbar to all monitors, so that only the appli-cations displayed on a particular monitor showup in the Taskbar of that monitor… etc. It willeven break your windows wallpaper over the dis-plays, allows you to mirror the display instead ofextending the desktop (ideal for presentations),and even run different screensavers on eachmonitor. At $39.95 (Rs 1,800), it’s not very expen-sive for professionals or serious home users.

MaxiVista (www.maxivista.com)This is a software solution that is best suited forthose with a desktop and a laptop. It adds a vir-tual display adapter that sends display informa-tion over the LAN to another computer to displaythe first’s desktop. Basically, you can display yourdesktop’s display on the laptop over the LAN, oreven extend the desktop so that only certain win-dows get displayed on the laptop. Whether it’swireless or wired LAN, you won’t notice the dif-ference because MaxiVista monitors the LANspeeds and adjusts the optimal colour depth ofthe second desktop.

MouseJail (www.dr-hoiby.com/MouseJail) When you have a multi-monitor setup, the mostcommon problem happens when gaming. Somegames just don’t lock the mouse to the screenthat the game is displayed on. So what happensis that you move your mouse during the gameand it ends up on your extended desktop,pausing or exiting the game. You can start gamesthat have this problem using MouseJail—yourmouse will be locked to the screen that containsthe game. It’s freeware, so enjoy!

MonitorsFor those of us with a bank balance, settlingfor old monitors might not be the perfectanswer to our troubles. There are quite a fewdisplay solutions available out there, and we’lllist out a few to help you get started findingthe perfect one.

9X Media (www.9xmedia.com): Take a look attheir X-Top series with anywhere from two to 30LCDs placed together.



WORKSHOP

Digital Tigers (www.digitaltigers.com): Theseguys boast of clients such as NASA, Microsoft,and Dell, and offer “affordable prices” for theirscreens. A triple display 21-inch will set you backby a mere $2499 (Rs 1,13,000)!

Custom Trading Computers (www.custom-tradingcomputers.com): Their ClearViewseries are designed for stock traders, so that theycan view multiple feeds at once.

As you’ve seen in the workshop above, settingit all up is really easy. Now you can sit back andenjoy the extra desktop space, but a word of cau-

tion: we learnt the hard way that it’s very hardto get back to using just a single monitor… thiswriter found himself looking to the right (wherethe extended desktop was) into a blank space,and moving the mouse pointlessly to the rightevery time he sat on another computer! It’saddictive, and once you get the hang of usingmultiple monitors (which is about an hour atmost), you will find your productivity soar.

So if you’re used to working on several appli-cations simultaneously, you just have to give this atry! Let us know how it goes!

[email protected]

First, connect the monitors to the VGA/DVI outputs. In our case wehad an ATI onboard working with a ATI Radeon 1900XT

For ATI graphics, you need to enable their SurroundView option fromthe BIOS. The procedure is similar for NVIDIA solutions

The BIOS and Startup screens are displayed on the two monitorsconnected to the GPU. The onboard is enabled after Windows starts

Here’s how you will be able to work on Adobe Photoshop on one screen,have the toolbars on another and leave the third for other activities

Flash designers will find this setup a gift from god! You can move thetimeline to one monitor, design in one and code in another

For better control, you can use Ultramon. This will give you theirSmart Taskbar, which gives you better control over your monitors

54 DIGIT JAUNARY 2007

NVIDIA’s holiday-seasongift to Intel’s latest

breed of processors, the 680isports small (meaning better)chipset-cooling heatsinkswhich share a singleheatpipe. The inclusion of ahex POST debugger isappreciated, as is the hugegap between the two x16 PCI-Express slots (no more issueswith dual-slot coolers).

The 680i sports a newBIOS aimed at the hardcoreenthusiast. Voltages fromCPU to memory to even theNorthbridge andSouthbridge can betweaked, ensuring minimal

bottlenecks whileoverclocking.

LinkBoost—an NVIDIAtrademark—automaticallyoverclocks the individualPCI-Express lanes when youSLI with any of the 8 seriescards or 7900GTX cards.

There’s a couple ofGigabit LAN ports sportingsomething called DualNettechnology. These ports canactually be clubbed togetherfor twice the theoreticalthroughput, while theTCP/IP acceleration engineaboard each LAN controllerreduces CPU utilisation.

nTune has also beenreworked, and now allowschanging most BIOS optionsfrom Windows itself. Thiscan be a huge advantage foroverclockers who are in anall-fired hurry, though thehardcore will still want to

fine-tune the neatly laid-outBIOS.

We managed to get ourQX 6700 (Core 2 Quad, 2.66GHz default) to 3.45 GHz at amultiplier of 13 (default 10),without any tweaking…simply awesome! Super Pi1M calculations took 14seconds at this speed, and 18seconds at stock.

For the enthusiast whowants performance at stockand stability underoverclocking, the 680i makesfor a very a potent package.It’s future-proof, and a rock-solid overclocker as well. Ifyou want the best platformfor your new Core 2 Duo or

Core 2 Quad processor, youcan’t go wrong here.

SpecificationsIntel Socket 775; 1333 MHz FSB;2x16 SLi; third PCIe GraphicsExpansion Slot; supports DDR2800 MHz (SLI-Ready memorywith EPP: 1200 MHz); 46 PCIelanes and 9 links; 6xSATA II;2xPATA; RAID: 0,1,0+1,5; DualGigabit Ethernet; 10xUSB 2.0;5xPCI; HAD (Azalia) audio

We test the latest hardware and software products available in the market

Performance FeaturesBuild QualityOverall

RATINGS

Contact: NVIDIA CorporationWeb site: www.nvidia.com

BazaarBazaar

Weighing just 1.3kg and with its

small dimensions,this notebook puts the“ultra” in “portable”!The performance maynot be jaw-dropping,but good enough formost users. Connectivityoptions include Wi-Fi andBluetooth apart from theusual LAN (10/100 Mbps) andmodem ports. There’s also afingerprint identificationsensor. The battery will last acool seven hours undernormal use.

At the price, however,we’d suggest you wait for a

version thatsports theIntel Core 2processor.

SpecificationsIntel Pentium M 753

(1.2 GHz); 915 GMS with 128 MBshared onboard; 10.6-inchwidescreen; 512 MB; 60 GB(4200 rpm); DVD ±R/RW; Wi-Fi;Bluetooth v1.2; 3 USB ports;FireWire; SPDIF, VGA, TV-out;RJ-45 and RJ-11

The Canon LBP-3500 laserprinter is meant for

medium- to large-sizedworkgroups. It supports arange of paper sizes—A3,Legal, A4, and more. Itconnects via USB, andthere’s also an Ethernetport to connect to anetwork. The maximumresolution is 1200 x 600dpi, it can hold 350 sheetsof paper, and build qualityis rugged.

The warm-up times oflaser printers areprogressively decreasing,but the LBP-3500’s warm-uptime of just 10 seconds is

quite commendable. A textdocument at the Draftsetting was printed in 2.8seconds. The print quality isgood even at the Draftsetting. Overall a very goodprinter suited for reallyheavy printing, but theprice tag of Rs 64,000 seemsa bit too steep.

SpecificationsPaper support up to A3 size,network support, 1200 x 600dpi maximum resolution

Canon LBP-3500 A Reliable Workhorse

PerformanceFeaturesBuild qualityValue for moneyOverall

RATINGS

Contact: Fujitsu India LtdPhone: 011-65475887E-mail: [email protected] site: www.fujitsu.comPrice: Rs 1,16,000 + taxes

PerformanceFeaturesBuild qualityValue for moneyOverall

RATINGS

Contact: Canon India LtdPhone: 0124-4160000E-mail: [email protected] site: www.canon.co.inPrice: Rs 64,995

NVIDIA nForce 680i The Hyper-Performance Platform!

Fujitsu LifeBook P7120 A True Ultra-Portable

The 900 HMV are fullear-cup USB-based

headphones that usethe C-Media CMI108chipset. Yes, that’sright—you don’t needa sound card or evenonboard sound to usethese headphones!And best of all, they’replug-n-play, though you’llneed drivers to configure theinbuilt 5.1 surround soundcapabilities.

Though these cans lookheavy, they’re pretty lightwithout sacrificing onbuild quality.

It was a pleasant surpriseto note that sound quality isreally good: well-produced,deep bass, and the vocalscrisp and distinguished—justthe way we like our music!The extreme highs areslightly weak, but you willrarely feel the loss undermost usage scenarios.

Sadly, the headphonesare rather uncomfortablefor long music sessions,and after around three

hours of use, we found ourears complaining. Thoughthe vibration feature islittle more than agimmick—enabling it givesan impression of bass boostvia vibrations—it isn’tuncomfortable to have aear massage whilelistening to music, but thisdoes get irritating after a

while. The only scenariowhere the vibration couldadd to the immersiveexperience is whilegaming. The Xear3Dsurround engine has been

incorporated for thisvery purpose.

Volume levels arereally high, and

you’ll rarelyneed to go

anywherebeyond 50 per

cent of what thesecans are capableof belting out.Just as well, sinceyou’ll encounter

distortion beyond85 per cent of the maxvolume level—this is rathernormal for mostheadphones.

SpecificationsUSB Interface, integrated C-Media CMI108 chipset, 5.1Xear3D surround sound,vibration mode.


The newest SeagatePushbutton Backup class

of drives boasts a gigantic750 GB capacity.Construction is rugged, andit comes with a stand tokeep it in the uprightposition. When stackedhorizontally one above theother, each drive locks withthe one above and below it.In addition to the USB 2.0port, the drive has twoFireWire ports, so you canconnect multiple drives in adaisy-chain.

The drive disappointssomewhat on theperformance front: readspeed is as expected, butthe write speed was a bitslow. The bundled software

includes data backupsoftware, in conjunctionwith which the drive’spush-button conve-nientlybacks up data. The bundledDiscWizard adequatelyperforms drivemaintenance functions.

The drive is priced toosteep right now—if you needan external backup solution,you’d be well-advised to waita couple of months.

Specifications750 GB; 7200 rpm; 16 MBbuffer; dimen-sions: 180 x 165x 58 mm; weight: 1.27 kg; USB2.0, FireWire400

Contact: Seagate TechnologiesPhone: 044-42243353

E-mail: ramprasad.md@ redington.co.inWeb site: www.seagate.comPrice: Rs 25,500

Seagate Pushbutton Backup 750 GB The Backup Behemoth

Contact: Top Notch Infotronix (I)Pvt LtdPhone: 044-26616202E-mail: [email protected] site: www.zebronics.comPrice: Rs 1,800

RATINGS

RATINGS

PerformanceFeaturesEase of useValue for moneyOverall

Zebronics ZEB-9000 HMV Vibrating cans!

PerformanceFeaturesBuild QualityValue for moneyOverall

“Sleek, elegant, andexecutive” is what comes

to mind when one first looksat the new Nokia E50. Thephone has a nice, sturdy feel toit. The display is stunninglyclear. The keypad has slightlybevelled keys, but feelcramped. The joystick providesgood feedback.

Oriented towards businessusers, the E50 comes with

support for most mailprotocols, and setting up anaccount is simple. PIMfunctions are also available,and synchronise with MSOutlook. There’s a 1.3 MPcamera, a decent MP3 player,and 70 MB of onboard memory,with support for a microSDmemory card (not included).

At a street price of Rs13,000, the E50 is a great buy ifyou are looking for an elegant,executive-class phone.

SpecificationsWeight: 104 gm; screen: 262Kcolour, 320 x 240 TFT

Nokia E50

Contact: NokiaPhone: 0124-5199000Web site: www.nokia.comPrice: Rs 15,539

PerformanceFeaturesBuild QualityValue for moneyOverall

RATINGS

56

Digital Tools l Bazaar

The new iPod throws inan ultra-roomy 80 GB

hard disk. Apple hasn’tchanged the look of thenew model, but the displayis slightly brighter, makingit more legible outdoors.The bundle includes a USBconnector-and-charger, aslick suede protective case,and tiny, comfortable ear-bud type phones.

Sound quality is good,but the bundled ear-budslack punch—otherheadphones gave betterresults. The new iPod alsomakes for a great photoviewer, but the lack ofzoom, pan, and rotateabilities is sorely missed.Video playback is quitesmooth, and movies lookgreat as always.

Battery life is excellent—we got 18 hours of MP3playback on a full charge.Video playback drains thejuice quicker, and you’ll becut down in a little lessthan six hours.

SpecificationsFifth-generation; 80 GB; 2.5 inchdisplay (320 x 240); multipleaudio and picture format

Contact: Apple ComputerInternationalPhone: 09886039424E-mail: [email protected] site: www.asia.apple.comPrice: Rs 23,900

Performance FeaturesBuild QualityValue for moneyOverall

RATINGS

The ECS PX1 Extreme isone of the earlier Intel

P965 chipset based mother-boards that support ATI’sCrossFire by means of twoPCI-E x16 slots. The boardhas a spacious layout: thearea around the CPUsocket allows for easyinstallation of alarger heatsink

andalltheslots andconnectorsare neatlylaid-out.

Up to 8 GB of DDR2RAM @ 800 MHz is sup-ported. Its ICH8DHSouthbridge is compatiblewith Intel Viiv, and there’s8-channel HD audio.

This board’sperformance is

good, if notgreat. It

returneddecent scores

in all our bench-marks: 149.7 fps in

DOOM 3 with a 7800 GTX,and it encoded a 100 MB

VOB file in 76 seconds witha Core 2 Duo X6800. Themotherboard is certainlygood for those who want tobuild an entertainment PC,

but not for hard-coregamers or enthusiasts.

SpecificationsIntel P965 chipset; support for aCore 2 Duo CPU; dual-GigabitLAN; E-SATA port; 8-channelaudio; upto 10 USB 2.0 and 2IEEE 1394a; 7 SATA; ICH8DHSouthbridge; 2 PCI-E x16 slots

DIGIT JANUARY 2007


RATINGS Contact: Mediatech IndiaDistribution Pvt LtdPhone: 022-2636111E-mail: [email protected] site: www.ecs.com.twPrice: Rs 7,935

Samsung NV10 Brilliant!

iPod 80 GB We’re Seeing BiggerApples!

The NV10 definesSamsung’s grand re-

entry into the digitalcamera business withclass. Gone are the oldplastic body, dash ofchrome, and the cheap-camera feel; the NV10exudes reverberating style.

Ergonomics are near-perfect—the placement ofthe buttons, mode dial, andlens is spot on. The shallowgrip means a perfect andsecure fit in one’s palm.The large 2.5-inch LCDadorns the back, with ahost of touch-sensitivebutton lined on the sides.The screen is large enoughto be used in directsunlight. With the NV10comes a completelydifferent menu interfacethat’s superb and intuitiveonce you get the hang of it.The interface is driven bythe touch sensitive buttons.

The NV10 cramps a 10-megapixel sensor into thatsleek black body. The lensis a standard 3X opticalassortment fromSchneider-Kreuznach. Theflash is neatly tucked away,and pops up automaticallywhen required. In ourtests, the NV10 deliveredgood photographs; outdoorperformance using theAuto setting is brilliant.However, the colourrendition isoverwhelming—there’s toomuch saturation, thoughthis can be fixed inPhotoshop. Apart fromAuto, there are a lot of

modes to choose from; onesuch is ASR for imagestabilisation. There’s also amanual mode, of course.

At Rs 24,990, the NV10is priced on the higherside. But price aside, wereally appreciate the newuser interface, and theonly problem we have isthe over-saturation.Considering that the NV10is the third camera in theseries, we expect to seeeven better models.

Specifications10 megapixel; 3X opticalzoom; 19 MB internalmemory; SD/MMC card;Image stabilisation mode; 2.5-inch screen; six White Balancepresets; 11 Scene Modes;three Metering Modes;rechargeable battery

Contact: Samsung ElectronicsIndia LtdPhone: 011-4151 1234E-mail: [email protected]: Rs 24,990

Performance FeaturesEase of useValue for moneyOverall

RATINGSECS PX1 Extreme Not Really Extreme…


Digital Tools l Bazaar

With Xara3D 6.0, youcan add that extra

zing to your Web pageswith animated 3Dheadings, logos, andbuttons. It lets you createstunningly beautiful 3Dgraphics from TrueTypefonts as well as imported2D shapes.

This new version has abetter interface than theprevious one. Similarly,there are newer styles suchas new Bevel types, boards,boards with holes, andborders. You can change

thelighting,texture,colour,depth, fontsize, etc.,but thecontrolsare notvery easyto use,especially for a novice. Butonce you get used to theinterface, things get goingpretty well.

Creating a variety ofanimations such as multi-

page sequences and evenanimated 3D screensaversis very easy. The anti-aliased graphics provideyou the best possiblevisual quality, and it can

also be optimised for usein Web pages. Xara3D canimport from WMF/EMF,CorelXARA, and Webster,and can export to a varietyof formats such as GIF,Flash, JPEG, PNG, AVI, andBMP. You can get yourself a15-day trial atwww.xara.com.

Xara3D 6.0 A Dash Of Style

McAfee InternetSecurity Suite 2007

bundles SpamKiller,VirusScan, PrivacyService, and PersonalFirewall Plus. Youinitially set up apassword to access theSecurity Center.

The main screen showsbar charts of various datain the form of indices—such as Security, AntiVirus,AntiHacker, AntiAbuse,and AntiSpam. The statusof various services such asPersonal Firewall Plus,SpamKiller, and others, arealso visible here.

WormStopper andScriptStopper blocksuspicious behaviour in e-mail and scriptsrespectively. TheSpamKiller module filtersany POP3 account. The newgaming-suspend modesuspends confirmationpop-ups during full-screengaming sessions. There is aFile Shredder utility, aswell as a rescue diskoption—which allows youto create an emergencydisk that can be used whenyour computer can’t bootas a result of an infection.

McAfee InternetSecurity Suite 2007 is quite

taxing on systemresources, and the averagescan time is slow.Nevertheless, you get acomplete security solution,and if you have a goodconfiguration, you shouldgive it a try—a trial versionis included on thismonth’s CD.

McAfee Internet Security Suite 2007A complete security solution

Altiris Software VirtualizationSolution 2 SP1In A Shell Of Your Own


RATINGS

PerformanceFeaturesEase of UseValue for moneyOverall

RATINGS

Contact: McAfee IncPh: 9820154506E-mail:[email protected] Web site: www.mcafee.com Price:$79 (Rs 3,500)

Contact: XaraWeb site: www.xara.comPrice: $44.99 (Rs 2,250)

Altiris SoftwareVirtualization Solution

(SVS) lets you placeapplications and data intomanaged units known asVirtual Software Packages.Small modules known asVirtual Software Packages(VSPs) are created for eachsoftware, which can containthe installations, and whichremain essentiallydisconnected from the OS.This only means that noRegistry modifications aremade to Windows and yoursystem stays clean, whiletransparency means youwon’t be able to tell this is alayered module. In case anapplication malfunctions,the problem is limited andisolated to its particularmodule, and your OSremains unaffected.

SVS monitors softwareinstallations, and grabsRegistry changes—inaddition to the additionand deletion of files—andtransfers these to a layer.Any file and Registry call isthereafter forwarded to thislayer rather than toWindows.

The application is greatif you wish to try out certainapplications without the

risk of problems for your OS.It also supports transferringinstallations to othercomputers with SVSinstalled. Best of all, it iscompletely free for personaluse on up to 10 computers—worth a try!


RATINGS

Contact: AltirisE-mail: [email protected] site: www.altiris.comPrice: Free

60

Digital Tools l A-List

Internal SATA Hard DriveSeagate ST3750840AS

Huge 750 GB storage capacityExpensive

Contact eSys Distribution Pvt LtdPhone 011-41811694E-mail [email protected] Rs 23,500

2.1 SpeakersAltec Lansing MX-5021

Great sound and build qualitySlightly expensive

Contact Rashi PeripheralsPhone 022- 55090909E-mail [email protected] Price Rs 7,900

ProcessorsIntel QX6700 Core 2 Extreme

Extreme performanceExpensiveContact Intel CorporationPhone 080-25075000E-mail [email protected] Rs 52,000

ProjectorsSharp XR-10S

Brilliant quality and performanceBulky

Contact Sharp BusinessSystems LtdPhone 011-26431313E-mail anilsodhani@

sharp-oa.comPrice Rs 71,000

Digital Cameras(High- End)Sony Cybershot W50

Excellent image quality,vibrant coloursTrouble focusing in low lightContact Macro PhotoPhone 022-22618639E-mail [email protected] Rs 15,000

Digital Cameras(Mid-range )Sony Cybershot DSC L1

Great image qualityOnly 4 MP CCDContact Macro PhotoPhone 022-22618639E-mail [email protected] Rs 9,000

Wi-Fi Access PointsLinksys WAP54G

Great performanceNone in particular

Contact Ingram Micro India Pvt LtdPhone 9323112279E-mail [email protected] Rs 3,816

Wi-Fi RoutersASUS WL-530G

Very fast; well-pricedNone

Contact ASUSTeK Computer IncPhone 022-40058923E-mail [email protected] Rs 4,400

Hard drive-based MP3PlayersApple iPod 80 GB

Large capacity; greatfidelityExpensive

Contact Apple ComputerInternational Pvt Ltd

Phone 09886039424E-mail avinash_ramchandra@

asia.apple.comPrice Rs 23,900

LCD Monitors (17-inch)Samsung SyncMaster 740N

Crisp images and vibrantcoloursNone in particular

Contact Samsung IndiaElectronics Ltd

Phone 011-41511234E-mail subrotah.b

@samsung.comPrice Rs 11,500

LinuxSSuuSSEE LLiinnuuxx EEnntteerrpprriisseeDDeesskkttoopp 1100..11

Good software bundleA little resource-heavy

Contact Novell IndiaPhone 022-28342244E-mail [email protected] Price Rs 2,650

Internal DVD-WritersSony DRU-830A

Good performanceNone in particular

ContactRashi PeripheralsPvt Ltd

Phone 022-67090909E-mail navinderc@

rptechindia.comPrice Rs 2,300

Graphics Cards (High-End) NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX

Blistering-fastRuns slightly hotCCoonnttaacctt Rashi Peripherals Pvt LtdPPhhoonnee 022-67090810EE--mmaaiill navinderc

@rptechindia.comPPrriiccee Rs 41,000 + taxes

Graphics Cards (Mid-Range) XFX PV-T73G-UDL7(NVIDIA 7600GT)

Great bundle and performanceNone in particularCCoonnttaacctt Rashi Peripherals Pvt LtdPPhhoonnee 022-67090810EE--mmaaiill navinderc

@rptechindia.comPPrriiccee Rs 10,500

External Portable HardDrivesLacie Design by F.A. Porsche40 GB

Inexpensive, good performanceLooks bland

Contact Neoteric Infomatique

Pvt Ltd Phone 022-39828600E-mail [email protected] Rs 5,250

Internal PATA Hard DriveHitachi DeskstarHDS725050KLAT80

Speedy performanceExpensive

Contact Cyberstar Infocom Ltd Phone 9341057327 E-mail lalit.sudrik@

cyberstarindia.comPrice Rs 4,950

The best products tested so far in different hardware and software categoriesThe A-List

DIGIT JANUARY 2007

61

JANUARY 2007 DIGIT

Digital Tools l A-List

Feature-rich Cell PhonesNokia N80

Brilliant screen; extremelyfeature-richSlightly bulkyContact NokiaPhone 0124-5199000Website www.nokia.comPrice Rs 21,000

Budget Cell PhonesNokia 6070

Great value for moneyPoor-quality camera

Contact NokiaPhone 0124-5199000Website www.nokia.comPrice Rs 5,500

Intel High-end MotherboardsFoxconn 975X7AB-8EKRS2H

Inexpensive, good performerNone in particular

Contact Mediatech India Distribution Pvt Ltd

Phone 022-26361111E-mail [email protected] Rs 10,750

Intel Mid-range MotherboardsGigabyte GA-965P-DQ6

Good build quality and performanceExpensive

Contact GIGABYTE Technology India Ltd

Phone 022-26526696E-mail [email protected] Price Rs 16,000

MotherboardsAMD AM2 MotherboardsASUS Crosshair AM2

Great bundle and performance,accessories for the enthusiastNone

Contact ASUSTeK Computer IncPhone 022-40058888 E-mail [email protected] Rs 15,400

AMD 939 MotherboardsASUS A8R MVP

Good performanceSkimpy bundle

Contact ASUSTeK Computer IncPhone 022-40058888 E-mail [email protected] Rs 8,700

Home Inkjet MFDsHP Officejet 4355 All-in-One

Fax with handset, compactOnly sheetfed scanner

Contact HP India Sales Pvt LtdPhone 0124-2566111E-mail [email protected] Rs 6,499

Office Inkjet MFDsHP Officejet 5610 All-in-One

Good performanceExpensive, No memory cardsupport

Contact HP India Sales Pvt LtdPhone 0124-2566111E-mail [email protected] Rs 9,999

Keyboard-Mouse CombosLogitech MX-3200 Laser

Extremely feature-richSlightly expensive

Contact Logitech ElectronicsIndia Pvt Ltd


Mono Laser PrintersBrother HL-5170DN

Good build quality, networksupportExpensive

Contact Lipi Data Systems Ltd Phone 022-22882960E-mail [email protected] Price Rs 21,900

Thin And Light LaptopsDell Inspiron 6400

Amazing performanceLooks gaudy

Contact Dell India Pvt. Ltd.Phone 080-25068026E-mail [email protected] Rs 64,000

Performance LaptopsSony VAIO AR18GP

Mind boggling performance Very expensive

Contact Sony IndiaPhone 022-28231558E-mail sonyindia.care

@ap.sony.comPrice Rs 1,99,900

61

Flash DrivesTranscend JetFlash 150 1 GB

FastPoor package bundle

Contact Mediaman Infotech PvtLtd.

Phone 022-23828100 E-mail santosh@

mediamangroup.com Price Rs 1,500

MiceLogitech MX Revolution

Has a flywheelExpensive

Contact Logitech Electronic India Pvt Ltd


Mono Laser MFDsSamsung SCX-4521F

Good performance andqualityLow input tray capacity

Contact Samsung IndiaElectronics Pvt Ltd

Phone 011-26431313E-mail vikram.negi@

samsung.comPrice Rs 21,990

PC WebcamsTech-Com SSD-641-MP

Good image quality, inexpensiveNo software bundle, bad build quality

Contact Shree Sagarmatha Dist India Pvt Ltd

Phone 011-26428541E-mail contact@

techcomin-india.comPrice Rs 549


Prakash Ballakoor

devX.com

This Web site is heaven for pro-fessional programmers anddevelopment teams. It’s bound

to go over the heads of beginners,though—and that’s a word of warning!The site deals for the most part withapplication development—program-ming languages such as .NET, Java,and C++, as well as domains such asWeb development, architecture, data-bases, security, and many more arediscussed and dissected.

The site provides “just in time”e-learning to help developmentteams move ahead with project bot-tlenecks. The site aims to broadenthe knowledge and hone the skills ofdevelopers through Webcasts, tuto-rials, and tools under partnershipwith IBM, Microsoft, and more. TheWebcasts are dedicated to streamingonline IT education and businessevents, though the content sitesmight need free or paid registration.

Sub-sections under “Zones” arebased on language and domain, andthe topics covered in these sectionsare based on real-world experiences.

For example, if you’re a team leaderand need to choose an AJAX librarytype—server-based or pureJavaScript—you’ll find something atthis site to help you out.

The home page features generalprogramming articles as well assome on implementations of newtechnologies. Programming andenterprise trends are also talkedabout in these articles. Then there’sthe incredibly useful “Tip Bank,”which contains more than 10,000

tips: workarounds and pieces of codethat are oh-so-just-what-you-were-looking-for. For example, how do youcreate a favicon? How do you call aJava method from XQuery or animateform icons? Then, “Sourcebank”gives links to source code and scriptsposted from around the world.

“10-Minute solutions” is a libraryof questions and answers and how-to articles that can be accomplishedunder 10 minutes: how do youencrypt sensitive configuration datawith Java? How do you programmat-ically apply XSLT in a dynamic Javaapplication? (See—we told you thesite isn’t for beginners.)

“APIFinder” redirects you to asister site. Here, again, are articles,news, and so on, and most impor-tantly, “the majority of APIs (here)are Web Services—a.k.a. Web 2.0—APIs, but the site is designed toinclude APIs of absolutely any type.”

We suppose you’ve gotten theidea by now. Newbies, stay out; inter-mediates and experts, explore, con-tribute, learn, use, code!

EchoEcho.com

If you’re a beginner to intermediate-level Web programmer, you’ll prob-

ably find EchoEcho.comindispensable. The site is categorisedinto eight broad categories.

At the first category, UserForums, you’ll find opinions aboutvarious Web sites and how theycould have been done better. Aforum on Page Development has

www.devX.com And www.EchoEcho.com

discussions on scripting languagesand Web site user interfaces; dis-cussions on server-side coding andoperating systems can also befound here.

D-Zine, another category, talksabout design aspects beyond HTMLand JavaScript. You’ll see importanttopics like site colours, graphic stan-dards, and design perception thatdetermines the pulling power of aWeb site. Search engine types as wellas off-beat ways of pushing yourpage up the search rankings are alsoexplained. Then there are the tech-niques for fast loading of pages usingCCS and JavaScript. Tables andXHTML are explained in detail.

The Tutorials section is sub-divided into Page Building, Compo-nent Building, and ServerProgramming. Though only HTML,JavaScript, Flash and Java appletsare explained in detail, there are linksto various external sites.

“Online tools” has some cool pre-coding to enhance Web site presen-tation. One just needs to enter thetype of look and the links required,and the online tools return code thatcan be pasted to your site!

In the Free Resources section,you can find links to host your site forfree, and also graphics like back-grounds, buttons, and bullets. Pro-grams such as image editors, GIFanimators, and HTML editors can bedownloaded from here—as well asapplets like a weather updater,fading text, image peeling, and pop-up menus.

There’s one anomaly, though:we’re wondering why EchoEchohasn’t implemented some of the“best practices” it preaches!

[email protected]

Developers in the making can’t afford to miss these two happy helpers!

The DevX main page

Digital Tools l Net Gain

The 10-minute solutions section getsyou your answers in, well, 10 minutes!

EchoEcho’s Online Tools sectionshouldn’t be missed


recreate it by creating a file called“Show Desktop.scf”. Open Notepad, andtype in the following:[Shell]Command=2IconFile=explorer.exe,3[Taskbar]Command=ToggleDesktop

Save this file as “Show Desktop.scf”by selecting the “Save as” type as AllFiles—to prevent the file being saved as“Show Desktop.scf.txt”.

Now all you have to do is drag thisfile to the Quick Launch toolbar andyour Show Desktop icon is restored.

Another way is to use the Regsvr32command. Go to Start > Run and type in“regsvr32 /n /i:U shell32.dll”. This shouldrestore the Show Desktop icon.

Save Disk SpaceWindows XP, after Service Pack 1,

keeps uninstall information for allupdates in the C:\Windows folder. Theseappear as $NTUninstall…

Depending on how many updatesyou’ve installed, you might haveanywhere from a couple to a couple ofdozen of these folders. In order to savesome disk space, you can delete thesefolders. Doing this does not uninstall theupdates, but will make sure that youcannot uninstall them later—thoughwhy someone would want to uninstallsecurity fixes is something we can’tunderstand at all anyway.

In case you do want to know exactlywhat uninstaller you’re deleting, youcan go to http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=<###>, where <###> is thenumber listed in the name of the folderyou are deleting—remember, don’t addthe text “$NTUninstallKB”, just thenumber after the prefix.

Once you’re satisfied, just select thefolder(s) and press [Shift] + [Delete].

Now, there are two ways in which toremove their references from theAdd/Remove Programs list.

Open the Registry Editor and

WINDOWS

TIPSWIndows XP 63WIndows Games 65Internet Explorer 69Firefox 2 70

30 MINUTES EXPERTPlay Anything 66

SECRETS THAT KEEP YOU AHEAD IN THE RACE

Wherever the Registry Editor ismentioned in the following,you will need to go to Start >

Run, type in “regedit” and press [Enter].You also need to remember that editingthe Windows Registry can be dangerous,and if not done right, might require youto format and re-install Windows to getyour system working again. Ideally, youshould back up your Registry beforemaking any changes to it.

Open Without?When you right-click on a file, one

of the options you see is “Open With”.These usually contain what Windowsthinks are valid programs to openparticular file types. Now, sometimes,when you have bad installers or

uninstallers, some programs leave theirmark on this context menu. Basically, ifyou want to clean out this long list ofjunk that accumulates here, you have toedit the Registry.

Open the Registry Editor andnavigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts

Now, for example, if you have toremove programs from the Open Withmenu for AVI files, find the extension onthe left that corresponds to AVI files andclick on the “+” sign to expand it andfind the “OpenWithList” key. In the rightpane you should see a list of programs,such as “wmplayer.exe”, “notepad.exe”,“mspaint.exe”, etc. Select the ones youdon’t want and delete them.

Next, navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT and find the same extension.Again, navigate to “OpenWithList” anddelete the unwanted programs. Thiskey is where Windows reads from whenusing the All Users profile. Now youwill only see the programs that youwant in the Open With list... well, mostof the time; the problem is thatWindows also reads the Open With listfrom another registry key:HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\

Here’s where it reads the defaultOpen With list from, but we stronglyadvise you against changing it becauseit might affect multiple file types.

Show Desktop Not ShowingSometimes, we accidently delete

the Show Desktop icon in the QuickLaunch menu. You can manually

Illustrations Harsho Mohan Chattoraj

Here’s the perfect example of wasted space:272 MB of update uninstallers!


Digital Tools l Tips & Tricks

navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\ Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall

Now, select the key that correspondsto the Update uninstall information thatyou want to delete, and delete it.

Another way to do this would be toselect the update in the Add/RemovePrograms list and clicking Remove.

Since you have already deleted theUninstall information, it’s obvious thatyou will get an error message that tellsyou that the update cannot beuninstalled, and you’ll get the option toremove the entry from the Add/RemovePrograms list. Just click OK and theentry will be removed.

Remember to check the Show updatesbox so you can see the installed updatesin Add/Remove Programs.

New “File > New”In Explorer, when using the File >

New option, or when right-clicking andselecting New, you get a list of files thatyou can create, including textdocuments, folders, images, sounds,Excel spreadsheets, etc. If you want to beable to make new items, such as HTMLfiles or RTF documents, you will have toedit the Registry.

Open the Registry Editor andnavigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT. Here,find the extension of the file type youwant to be able to create, such as .htmor .rtf, and then find the key calledShellNew. If the file type does not have aShellNew key, create one.

Now, in the right-pane of theRegistry Editor, create a new String valuecalled NullFile. Now you need to closethe Registry Editor and restart Windows.

The next time you right-click, youwill be able to create a new file (.htm inour example) by selecting File > New. Azero byte file will be created, which youcan then edit.

Get Rid Of The ArrowShortcuts have an arrow, and it’s

irritating to a few people. If you want toremove the arrows, open the RegistryEditor, navigate toHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Icons. If this key does notexist, create it.

Now, create a new String valueinside this key and name it “29”. Setthe value of this String value to“C:\Windows\System32\shell32.dll,52”, which is basically anempty icon. Now close the RegistryEditor and restart your computer to seethe arrows disappear.

If you’re doing something important,and don’t want to restart just yet, youcan force Windows to redraw all theicons by doing the following:

Right-click on the Desktop, selectProperties. Now click on theAppearance tab and click Advanced.

From the drop-down list, choose icon,and change the value (the default is32). Click OK and then Apply. Now goback and restore the value to 32 andclick OK, Apply, and then OK. Thiswill bring you back to your desktop,and you will find all those peskyarrows gone.

You can also replace the arrows withsomething else. Just change the pathprovided in the Registry hack mentionedearlier (“C:\Windows\System32\shell32.dll,50”) to the path of the iconyou want to use.

PrioritiseHave you ever been busy burning a

dual-layer DVD master and hadsomething stupid like a scheduled anti-virus scan create a very expensivecoaster? No? Well, it’s happened tous quite often, and it’s probablyhappened to others who burn a lot ofCDs or DVDs.

Of course, this isn’t the onlyproblem that occurs when Windowsgets its priorities all wrong, but it is themost common.

Basically, every process (task) hasits priority, according to whichWindows chooses which processrequires maximum love from the CPU.In order to make sure that some taskthat you feel is critical, whichWindows may consider a low leveltask, gets the ideal CPU usage time,you will have to manually give it someimportance.

Press [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [Esc] to openthe Windows Task Manager. Now clickon Processes to see the list of runningprocesses. In order to change thepriority of a running process, justright-click on the process, go to SetPriority, and select a level. The choicesyou have areRealtime, High,AboveNormal, Normal, BelowNormaland Low. These are pretty self-explanatory.

If you have a CD/DVD burningsoftware that you want to give thehighest importance to, set the burningsoftware’s process to have a High orRealtime priority. Now, hopefully,you should see your burner stopproducing coasters.

Recycle The Recycle BinSome people are paranoid about

how clean their desktops look, andwould rather not have icons like MyComputer, My Documents, etc. on it.Now removing these is easy—just right-click on the Desktop, select Properties> Desktop > Customize Desktop, andthen uncheck all the boxescorresponding to the icons you don’twant. But what about the Recycle Bin?This one’s a tougher nut to crack.

Go to the Registry Editor, navigateto HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\. Look forthe key {645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E} and delete it.

Of course, you may want to justrename the Recycle Bin instead of

deleting italtogether. In thiscase, you shouldnavigate toHKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ShellNoRoam\MUICache andchange the valueof @C:\WINDOWS\system32\SHELL32.dll,-8964to whatever youwant.

Look ma, No RecycleBin!

Desktop icons: before, on the left, and afterremoving the arrows, on the right

You can add various file types to the contextmenu in Explorer



BasicsWhen you click on a square and see

a number, the number signifies howmany of the eight squares that touch theopen square are mines—so a “3” meansthat three of the eight surroundingsquares are mines. Using logic andarithmetic, you have to try and identifywhich squares are mines, and which aresafe to be opened.

OpeningsLeft-click randomly, and fast, in a

circular motion trying to get a nice, bigopening so that you can start sweepingwith some options. This will beat getting asmall opening and then trying to figureyour way out of a corner. Also, thetechniques of the best sweepers in theworld suggest that starting at the corners,and making a circular sweeping motiontowards the centre for an opening worksbest. There’s no hard and fast rule, but itis a lot easier if you start off with a nicebig opening.

Use Both ClicksIf you spend all your time left-

clicking to open and right-clicking to markmines, you will never get anywhere interms of breaking time records. And yes,Minesweeper is all about timing. Let’s sayyou have a “1” on the grid, and you’vealready marked the one bomb that touchesthat square. Now, that same “1” has fourmore squares touching it that are yet to beopened. If you left-click to open each of thefour squares, you waste time. Instead, hoverthe mouse over the square with the “1” init and press the left and right mousebuttons together. All the touching squareswill be opened. Remember, this is notmagic, so if you marked the wrong square,you will explode a mine by opening alltouching squares using the left-right click.Also, when stuck in a corner, and not allmines touching a square have beenmarked, you can use the left-right click tosee which squares are unmarked andtouching the number you’re hovering over.This is great to visually finding outcommon squares between adjacentnumbers—like a visual aid for yourthinking. Just get an opening, don’t markany mines, and left-right click on numbersto better understand what this tip is tryingto teach you.

Pattern RecognitionIf you waste time solving the

position of every mine, you’re never goingto get past your own record. Instead, usepattern recognition to quickly calculatewhich squares are mines and whicharen’t. The most common examples areshown below. These mostly involve whatare called wall patterns. (A wall pattern isshown in the screenshot, to help illustrate

Alot of us are addicted to games,especially the simple ones thatWindows bundles. Here’s a look at

some tips, tricks, and cheats for SpiderSolitaire and Minesweeper—two of the mostdifficult Windows games to master.

MINESWEEPERMost people just play Minesweeper byguessing and randomly clicking, hopingto open out the empty squares. Mostpeople also end up never finishing eventhe Beginner level of Minesweeper! The tipsprovided here guarantee to shave at least30 per cent off your best time in alllevels—unless you’re already an expert!

Before we start, you should:Turn off Marks (?). Go to Game >

Marks(?). This will get rid of the “?” markthat appears when you mark and then tryto unmark a mine. Often we mark minesincorrectly by mistake, and then wasteprecious seconds right-clicking twice toget rid of that pesky “?”.

Position yourself in such a way thatyour left index finger is resting on the[F2] button. This will help you quicklystart a new game when you click on amine and die.

If you’re using a ball mouse, cleanthe ball. Position your mouse in such away that you can be comfortable using itfor hours.

Go to Start > Run and type in“control mouse”. Click on the PointerOptions tab and reduce the pointerspeed. How slow depends on thequality of the mouse and the precisionyou require. Only playing Minesweeperregularly and experimenting withthese settings can help you find thatperfect pointer speed where you haveprecision control.

what we mean.) Once you learn thesepatterns, you will no longer need to thinkabout solving them, and will be able toblindly mark them, solve them and moveon to more complex problems.

Don’t Mark Them AllYou don’t have to mark every mine

in the field. The objective of the game isto uncover every empty square, andonce you’ve done that, the gameautomatically stops the clock and marksall the mines you didn’t bothermarking. So when you get an opening,and off to one side are squares that areobviously all mines, ignore them—get onto solving and opening all squares thataren’t mines instead. This can shave asmuch as 10 seconds off your time in theIntermediate and Expert levels.

Don’t Hesitate To GuessNo, we don’t mean to tell you to

guess you way through this game,because you will never succeed.Sometimes, you’re just left stuck with aposition where either of two squares isa mine, and it has to be a completefluke to mark the right one. In suchcases, delaying the inevitable ispointless—just make a guess and get itover with. There’s nothing morefrustrating than finding yourself waybelow your best time and only one mineto sweep, only to make the wrong guess.

WINDOWS GAMES

Look for patterns in the clues. Red highlightsare the patterns and yellow highllights arewhere the mines will always be


Play Anything!


Lessons to familiarise yourselves with the most versatile media player

Jayesh Limaye

The VideoLAN or VLC media playeris one of the most versatile players

in the world, able to play virtuallyevery major (and minor) format ofaudio and video. You don’t need toinstall any codecs to be able to play acertain file format—VLC emulatesthem to play the files. The name isn’ta misnomer either—you can even useit stream multimedia content over aLAN! VLC is highly portable and canbe carried anywhere even on yourthumb drive. You can find this opensource media player on every Digit CD,and you’ll find some handy VLC tipsin Digit, December 2006.

Note: To execute any of the command-line commands here, go to Start >Run > “cmd” and navigate to yourVLC installation directory at the com-mand prompt.

Basic Stuff: Managing PlaylistsAny media player needs a playlist tomanage the order of media items toplay. The VLC playlist can be accessedfrom View > Playlist or by pressing[Ctrl]+[P]. You can also bring up the

playlist by simply clicking on thePlaylist icon (the icon to the left of theVolume Control). Click on Manage toadd files, directories or even URLs tothe Playlist. You can also sort thePlaylist by Title, Artist, or Album.Items can also be dragged-and-dropped to the Playlist, and you candrag an item in the Playlist to decideits order of playback. Common func-tions such as Shuffle, Repeat, andSearch are also supported.

More Basic Stuff: SkinsVLC comes with a default simple lookor “skin”, but like most other media

players, VLC, too, supports skinning.Go to Settings > Switch interface >

Skins 2 to view the alternativeskinned VLC. You can also downloadand use one of the many skins fromwww.videolan.org/vlc/skins.php. Justplace the skin in the Skins subfolderof the VLC installation (C:\ProgramFiles\VideoLAN\VLC\Skins in mostcases) and VLC will automaticallydetect the skin. Launch VLC and usethe above method to load the skin. Alittle-known fact is that VLC alsorecognises and can use all the skinsmeant for Winamp2 and XMMS(.wsz files)!

The Streaming And TranscodingWizardWhile you can stream media over aLAN using the command-line inter-face, the easiest way to go about is byusing the included Streaming andTranscoding Wizard. This Wizard is astep-by-step guide to streaming yourmedia on a network or saving a

stream to your hard drive. To launchthis wizard, go to File > Wizard orsimply press [Ctrl] + [W]. Choose“Stream to network” if you wish tostream media on a network, or choose“Transcode/Save to file” if you wish tochange a file’s audio codec and/orvideo codec, its bitrate, and/or encap-sulation method.

Now choose an input by selecting“Select a stream” (a stream can be afile, a network stream, a capturedevice or a hard drive), and clickingon Choose, or select an existing itemin the playlist by choosing “Existingplaylist item”.

If you chose “Stream to network”,you can specify a streaming method.The available methods include UDPUnicast, where you can stream to asingle computer whose IP you need tospecify. UDP Multicast allows you tostream to multiple computers by spec-ifying multiple IP addresses, andHTTP lets you use the HTTP protocolto stream media. Check the box nextto “SAP Announce” and enter thename for your stream if you wish toadvertise it on the network usingthe UDP method. This option isunavailable if you chose the HTTPstreaming method.

Setting Up A Video Streaming ServerA video file or a video capture deviceis all you need to start broadcastingvideos over a network.

Start the Streaming and Transcod-ing wizard, and with the “Stream toNetwork” radio button checked,click Next.You will now be prompted to choosean existing stream or choose a newone. Click on “Choose” to create anew stream.Select a video file of your choice inthe Open dialog box and click OK,then click Next.Select the HTTP radio button, leavethe Destination dialog box blank,and click Next.Leave the Encapsulation format atthe default (ASF) and click Next.Enter “1” in the TTL dialog box andclick Finish.The Windows XP firewall will warnyou about VLC—just choose Unblockin the dialog box.

Your video server is now up andstreaming across the network. Now toThe Streaming/Transcoding Wizard

Using VLC’s Playlist feature

Skinning VLC!



check whether your video is reallystreaming, open another instance ofVLC. Click on the File menu, select“Open Network Stream”, select the“HTTP/HTTPS/..” radio button on theNetwork tab, and enter “local-host:8080” in the URL dialog box.Click OK.

If all is well, you should now beable to see the video you’re broad-casting, in this new instance of VLC. Ifyou pause the video in the server, thevideo will pause playing in the secondVLC instance. To access the video onanother computer in the network, justreplace “localhost” with the IP addressof the server PC.

You can even adapt this to streamlive video such as from a TV-Tuner or awebcam across the network. To do this,open the Wizard, and with the “Streamto Network” radio button checked, clickNext. Then click Choose. Click on theDirectShow tab and choose the device touse for video and audio capture usingthe “Video device name” and “Audiodevice name” selectors. Click on theConfigure button to access the settingsof your selected device.

Playing A DVDVLC is fully capable of playing DVDs aswell; it even lets you easily navigate aDVD using its menu structure. Go toFile > Open Disc or press [Ctrl]+[D]. Inthe window that opens, select the

DVD (menus) radio button and enterthe DVD drive letter followed by acolon, such as “I:” as the Device Name.Alternatively, you can enter the MRL(Media Resource Locator) as “dvd://E:”in the Customize dialog box(assuming E is your DVD drive letter).Click OK. You can choose the Audioformat, Subtitle, Language, etc. byclicking on the appropriate menus.

Working With Capture DevicesYou can even play and stream the con-tent from a capture device, be it awebcam, video capture card, or a TV-Tuner, using VLC. The only prerequisiteis that you need to install the WDMdrivers for the capture device. Click onFile > Open Capture Device or simplypress [Ctrl] + [A]. Choose the device to

use for video and audio capture usingthe “Video device name” and “Audiodevice name” selectors. You can accessthe settings of your selected devicethrough the Configure button.

The Extended GUIGo to Settings > Extended GUI for theExtended GUI, which gives you accessto a load of settings that let you tweakyour video. Under the Video tab, checkthe box next to Enable, and you willbe able to adjust the Hue, Contrast,Brightness, Saturation, and Gamma tosuit your viewing needs. VLC also fea-tures additional video effects such as

Image Clone, Distortion, Image inver-sion and Blurring, Transformation,and Magnify.

Like any other media player, VLC,too, has a 10-band graphic equaliser.Click on the Equalizer tab to access it.Check the box next to “2 Pass” toapply the equaliser twice for sharper

effects. Moving the Smooth slider tothe right will control the blending ofthe equalizer bands. The moretowards the right it is, the more corre-lated the movements of adjoiningequalisers will be. The equaliser haspreset modes as well, but to accessthem, you need to enter thePreferences section in VLC.

VLC features two audio filters—avolume normaliser and Headphone

virtualisation. The Volume Normaliseris nothing but a limiter that caps themaximum volume of the player.Headphone virtualisation is a filterthat provides sound spatialisationwhen using headphones.Spatialisation of sound is an enhancedreproduction of sound that mimicsmultiple speakers even when only twospeakers (in this case, headphones) arebeing used, thereby adding theimmersive touch.

Additional PreferencesYou can further tweak the various set-tings of VLC by entering thePreferences. Go to Settings >Preferences; here, you can adjust var-

ious audio settings such as Filters,Output modules, and evenVisualisations.

There’s a whole lot more toexplore, and you should now be in aposition to experiment with theplayer on your own. VLC media playeris certainly the jack of all codecs andthe master of most!

[email protected]

Adjusting image quality

More audio tuning

You can play DVDs using VLC

Adjusting the Preferences

Displaying video from capture devices

The 10-band graphic equaliser



Cut your losses and get on to thenext game.

CheatsIn older versions of Minesweeper

(before Windows XP), you could stop theclock by keeping the left and right mousebuttons pressed and pressing [Esc]. Thisdoesn’t work with Windows XP’s versionof Minesweeper, but you can alwaysdownload the Windows 98 version andoverwrite winmine.exe in theC:\Windows\System32\ folder.

Another interesting cheat is to startMinesweeper, then type [X] + [Y] + [Z] + [Z] +[Y] + [Shift] + [Enter] + [Enter] (that’s xyzzy+ Shift + Enter twice) on your keyboard.This will display a single pixel on the topleft of your desktop that glows whitewhen you hover an empty space and blackwhen you hover over a mine—thisobviously only works to your advantagewhen you have a black desktopbackground, so that you can see the pixelglow white when you are over a squarethat doesn’t contain a mine. It also willnot help your time much, especially if youdepend on this pixel to solve your game.However, this can help a lot when you’restuck with an unsolvable pattern (whereguesswork is needed).

AlternativesThere are many clones for

Minesweeper, including those that usehexagons instead of squares, making thesweeping more complicated. There is alsothe official Minesweeper Clone, which hasan inbuilt recording facility and is cheat-proof. If you find yourself getting goodenough to challenge the masters ofMinesweeper, you will need MinesweeperClone. Records are only acknowledged ifyou send in a recording of it, andMinesweeper Clone will let you play back therecords of the masters, in case you want tosee how they play. Just visit www.planet-minesweeper.com to delve into thewonderful world of minesweeping.

We should mention that, currently,the world records for the three levels are:Beginner : 1 secondIntermediate : 10 secondsExpert : 38 Seconds

You can only get into the hall of fameif your combined time (Beginner +Intermediate + Expert) is 99 seconds orless! Happy sweeping!

SPIDER SOLITAIREThe aim of this game is to empty out 10stacks of cards by building each suit fromKing to Ace. It involves two decks of cards,and you can choose between just a singlesuit (easy) to all four suits (highestdifficulty).

It’s All In The SuitIf you want to have any kind of

success in Spider Solitaire, always try tobuild according to suit. This is the mostbasic point of the game, because onlywhen you have King through Ace of thesame suit (all 13 cards) does it get takenoff the playing board. Also, if you have,say, Jack of Clubs through Six of Clubs,you can move that whole build of cardsto another slot, together. So building in-suit allows you to reveal more of thecovered cards.

ExposéThis holds true for any form of

Solitaire: try your best to expose thecovered cards. The only way you can winat this game is if you focus more onopening all the covered cards rather thanbuilding a single sequence and losingfocus on the rest. Besides, covered cardsare of no use to anyone, so the faster youuncover them the better your chances ofbuilding multiple sequences.

Kings HighKings are your friends, unless there

are no Queens to be found, that is. Focuson building on top of higher-ranked cards.An Ace on a covered pile is just uselessunless there’s a two around; a Jack, on theother hand, is a nice option for a Ten ofany suit. So make sure to try and keep allplayable cards as high as possible.

Don’t MixAlthough in Spider Solitaire you are

allowed to place, say, a Six of any suit on aSeven of any other suit. This is just goingto get you stuck. Obviously, sometimesyou might want to mix and match to tryand open out more covered cards in thehope that you get the cards that you’relooking for; but as far as possible, don’truin a built sequence by adding a card ofanother suit. Whenever possible, alwaysmix suits in sequences that already havemixed cards. Later you can always un-mixthem when you have a few free spaces onthe board.

Dealing Is DeathDon’t just deal the next hand in the

hope that you will get some good cards.It’s better to try and keep playing withoutdealing. The longer you play and the moreoptions you try, the better your chances ofopening out covered cards. Dealing thenext hand is like the “Get out of jail free”card in Monopoly—only to be used inemergencies, or when there’s noother choice.

Mixed SuitsOften, you find yourself with, say,

King through Nine of Hearts, then Eightof Spades, and then Seven through Ace

of Hearts again. In such a case, keep aneye out for the first opportunity wherean Eight of Hearts is available, and anyother Nine is free. Let’s say you have theEight of hearts open, quickly move theSeven through Ace of Hearts on to theEight of Hearts, then the Eight of spadeson to any available Nine, and then movethe Eight through Ace of hearts back onto the original pile to complete thesequence. This holds true when anysequence is broken up by one card froma different suit.

Don’t Touch The KingA very common mistake all novice

Spider Solitaire players make is to move aKing to the first available empty space.Unless you can get that whole sequence(King to Ace) in three moves or less, you’reasking for trouble. Empty spaces on theboard (created after all the covered cardsin that pile have been opened and moved)are what will help you win the game. Anycard from Queen through Ace, when putin an empty space, can be moved outagain, but a King in an empty space canonly be moved off the board—when theentire sequence of King to Ace of that suitis completed. So next time a King is on topof a pile and a space opens out, don’t justpop it into the empty slot hoping to beable to build from there.

Think AheadSpider Solitaire, like any thinking

game, requires some planning. You shouldalways be thinking at least three movesahead for even a single suit (easy) game.Good players think as much as 10 movesahead when playing with all four suits(highest difficulty). You will have to learnto visualise your moves before you makethem. So when you’re thinking of movinga card, look at the board in your mindand see what that move will mean for therest of the game—will you be able tocontinue? Will moving this card reallyhelp? Also, it’s most important to see allyour available moves before making anymove, even the very first one. Sometimesgames are lost just because the first movewas wrong. Also never be shy to use the[Ctrl] + [Z] (undo) option that’s available,but remember that it is only available tillthe last hand was dealt.

1: If you have to mix suits, add to an alreadymixed pile. 2: This helps you build better



IE7, at first look, is decent. You’dexpect it to be perfect, what with itshaving been released so late (two

years late, in our opinion). And it’s not.The zoom feature has some problems—certain zoom and/or text size levelsmake some text disappear altogether;favicons (the icons associated with Webpages, which appear next to the sitename) sometimes don’t load, and so on.But on the whole, it’s decent: there’stabbed browsing (finally), an easy wayto add feeds and organise Favorites, aQuick Tab feature that shows youthumbnails of open tabs in the fullwindow so you can switch to one orclose some, and more.

Why’s The File Menu There?You might want to bring the File

and other menus back where they“belong,” that is, at the top. (That’s onefunny decision on the developers’ part).It’s a Registry edit. First back up theRegistry, then navigate toHKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar\WebBrowserRight-click in an empty area of the rightpane, then select New > DWORD. Give itthe name “ITBar7Position” (without thequotes). Double-click the newly-createdvalue to give it a value of 1. Re-openingIE7 should make the change visible.

Setting A WallpaperOne issue with IE7 is that in some

cases, you might be trying to set animage as a wallpaper, and the option“Set as Background” might be greyedout. If that’s the case, you’ll need to doa Registry edit. First back up theRegistry, then navigate toHKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies

\ActiveDesktopLocate the entry calledNoChangingWallpaper, and changethat DWORD value to 0.

Multiple HomepagesInstead of just one homepage, you

can have multiple homepages in IE7.When you’re at a page that you want toadd to your homepage list, click thedown arrow next to the homepageicon. You’ll be asked whether you wantto set the page as your only homepageor add it to your “list of homepages”(still sounds funny to us). It so happensthat you can also manage this fromInternet Options.

Adding Feeds And EnginesAdding a feed or search engine

couldn’t be easier. When IE7 detects thata page has a feed on it, the feed buttonwill light up (get coloured). Just click thedown arrow next to it and it’s clear fromthere on what to do. Now, press theFavorites button at any time to see a listof Favorites and Feeds as well as History.Right-click a feed and select Properties:you’ll be able to select how often toupdate it, and other things.

INTERNET EXPLORER 7 To add a search engine, click thedown arrow next to the search field.You’ll get a Microsoft page that givesyou directions on what to do to addan engine!

A list of common tasks andhow to get them done quickly

To disable all add-ons, Run“iexplore.exe -extoff”.To turn on AutoComplete so that siteaddresses will be automatically filledin when you begin to type them, go toTools > Internet Options > Advanced >Use inline AutoComplete.To change how tabs work, go to Tools >Internet Options > General tab. UnderTabs, click Settings.To display the Menu Bar permanentlyat the top of the screen, go to Tools >Menu Bar.To delete cookies, passwords, formdata, history, and temporary Internetfiles, go to Tools > Delete BrowsingHistory.To find and install add-ons, go to Tools >Manage Add-ons > Find More Add-ons.To print only part of a page, select thepart, press [Ctrl] + [P], click Selection,then click Print.

Internet Explorer 7 Keyboard ShortcutsOpen a link in a new tab in the background [Ctrl] + Click (or just middle-click)Open a link in a new tab in the foreground [Ctrl] + [Shift] + ClickOpen a new tab in the foreground [Ctrl] + [T]Switch between tabs [Ctrl] + [Tab] (forward) OR [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [Tab] (backward)Close current tab (closes current window when [Ctrl] + [W] OR [Ctrl] + [F4]there are no open tabs)Open a new tab in the foreground from the address bar [Alt] + [Enter]Switch to the nth tab (n can be 1 to 8) [Ctrl] + [n] Switch to the last tab [Ctrl] + [9]Close all other tabs [Ctrl] + [Alt] + [F4]Open quick tab view [Ctrl] + [Q]View list of open tabs [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [Q]Increase zoom (+10%) [Ctrl] + [+]Decrease zoom (-10%) [Ctrl] + [-]Original zoom [Ctrl] + [0] OR [Ctrl] + [*]Go to the Toolbar search box [Ctrl] + [E]Bring down the search provider menu [Ctrl] + [Down Arrow]Go to home page [Alt] + [Home]Go backward a page [Alt] + [Left Arrow]Go forward a page [Alt] + [Right Arrow]Refresh the page and the cache [Ctrl] + [F5]Stop loading page [Esc]Open Favorites [Ctrl] + [I]Open Favorites in pinned mode [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [I]Organise Favorites [Ctrl] + [B]Add current page to Favorites [Ctrl] + [D]Open Feeds [Ctrl] + [J]Open Feeds in pinned mode [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [J]Open History [Ctrl] + [H]Open History in pinned mode [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [H]Select the Address Bar [Alt] + [D]View list of previously-typed addresses [F4]View list of search providers [Ctrl] + [Down Arrow]



Firefox 2 has been eagerly awaitedby many, and it was released inDecember. It’s got some nice

improvements over earlier versions,and there’s no reason you won’t wantto install the latest version.

Attention has been paid to thesmallest of details: where in the oldversions you had “Open in Tabs” undera bookmark with multiple tabs, younow have “Open All in Tabs”! You’ll bepleased to know that people arecoming up with updated extensionsrapidly, so you won’t be deprivedof yours very long—and manyalready work.

Tab Close ButtonsProbably the first thing you’ll

notice when you open a new tab inFirefox 2 is that each tab has a tab-close button! This is nice, really, butyou might just be used to the oldversion’s behaviour.It turns out there are more than twooptions. Open the about:config page,go to browser.tabs.closeButtons. Set itto one of the following.0 shows a close button only on theactive tab.1 makes close buttons visible on alltabs—Firefox 2’s default behaviour.2 makes it no close buttons at all!You’ll have to use the right-click toclose a tab.3 is the old default—a close button atthe end of the strip of tabs.

The Go Button AnnoyanceThe “Go” button is now

(irritatingly) merged with the locationbar. What does it do, anyway? All youneed to do to make it go away is to setbrowser.urlbar.hideGoButton to True.

Tab SizesOne irritant can be the vanishing

size of tabs when there are too manyopen. Isn’t there a way to make them a

set size, and then have a tab scrollbutton, you ask? There is, in Firefox 2.(We’re not sure about earlier versions).To specify the minimum size for a tabmodify browser.tabs.tabMinWidth. Forsome reason, if you want to, you canalso specify the maximum size of a tab:modify browser.tabs.tabClipWidth.

A Helpful Warning?Firefox 2 warns you when

opening more than 15 tabs at a time.This typically happens when you click

on “Open All in Tabs” in a bookmarksfolder. It says something about Firefoxslowing down. You can modify this atbrowser.tabs.maxOpenBeforeWarn.Just set it to the number of tabs atwhich you’d “like” the warning, orjust type in “999” or something tosave yourselves a few picosecondsof thought.

Closing A TabOK. This is a tiny niggle, but when

you have a fresh new browser, youwant everything just perfect, don’tyou? Consider this: when you close atab, Firefox 2 takes you back to the tab“that opened it” (meaning the tab youwere in when you opened the new tab)if you haven’t changed to another tabin the meantime. (Open and close afew tabs to get what we’re saying.) InFirefox 1.5, you were always taken tothe immediately previous tab. Torestore that behaviour, setbrowser.tabs.selectOwnerOnCloseto False.

SSL SupportSupport for SSL version 2 is

deactivated by default in Firefox 2.Only SSL 3 is supported. If you happento encounter an old Web site thatrequires SSL 2, you’ll need to enable it.This is pretty rare, but here’s theabout:config key anyway—setsecurity.enable_ssl2 to True.

Search ResultsTo make Firefox display search

results in a new tab, setbrowser.search.openintab to True. Thekey might not be present, in whichcase you’ll have to add it yourself.

The Spell CheckerSpell checking is disabled by

default in single line text boxes. Tomake it do the spell check (if you’rethat conscious about your spelling!),set layout.spellcheckDefault to 2.

The Search ButtonIf you want to remove the Search

button, you’ll need to edit theuserChrome.css file. Add thefollowing lines:.search-go-button-stack {display: none!important; }#searchbar { margin-right: 1em!important; }To find the userChrome.css file,navigate to{Drive}:\Documents andSettings\your_user_name\ApplicationData\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\random_name.default\chromeHere you’ll find “userChrome-example.css”. Rename it touserChrome.css when you’re done withyour changes.

Adding Feed ReadersFirefox 2 by default supports only

three Web feed readers: Bloglines,Yahoo! and Google Reader. You can,however, add as many providers as youlike, and use any of them as yoursubscription manager. For this, you’llneed to do a couple of about:configtweaks, and add some preferences.

Under about:config, create a newpreference by right-clicking on anypreference and selecting New >String.Enter “browser.contentHandlers.types .6.title” for the preferencename. Then enter the URL ofwhichever service you want to use—Newsgator, for example (www.news-gator.com) for the value.As you add more Web feed readers,you will need to change the “6” to thenext number. 6 happens to be thefirst available.Create a new preference and enter“browser.contentHandlers.types.6.type” for the preference name. Enter“application/vnd.mozilla.maybe.feed” for the value.Create yet another preference nameand enter “browser.con-tentHandlers.types.6. uri” for thepreference name, and “http://www.newsgator.com/subscribe.php?url=%s” for the preference value.You’re done—just restart Firefox.

FIREFOX 2

With one setting, make all tabs the same width

Firefox 2 gives you a warning when you try toopen many tabs at once. You don’t need it!

Digital Tools l Flash Drive Test

Flash drives, uncommon just a yearago, now find a place in any worker’spocket. If you’re in the market forone, here’s what you should be buying

Vishal Kansagra

They’re called “pen drives,” “thumbdrives,” “data vaults,” and “Flash drives”—of which the last is the technically correctname. Small and more rugged than any

other popular media, they’re particularly usefulfor people who keep transferring data betweendifferent machines. You can even carry youroffice with you thanks to the newer U3 drives,which allow you to use any application withoutinstalling it on a computer. What’s more, you caninstall a Linux distro onto your Flash drive anduse it off the drive itself.

Most Flash drives offer password protection,and for the paranoid, some even have biometricscanners. You can also use one as a key to lock orunlock your computer.

We classified the Flash drives based on theircapacity—512 MB, 1 GB, 2 GB, and 4 GB. Whilethere are drives ranging from 256 MB to 16 GBavailable in the market, the price differencebetween 256 MB and 512 MB is negligible, so lookfor nothing less than 512 MB.

512 MB DrivesWe received ten 512 MB drives—two from SanDiskand one each from A-DATA, iball, intex, Kingston,Odyssey, TECH-COM, Transcend and Zion. Theydon’t have particularly fancy features, but areuseful for those who want to carry documentsand pictures around with them.

Dinky Data

Photographs Jiten Gandhi

FeaturesThough at the bottom of the drive pyramid,some of these drives came with decentfeatures—the SanDisk Cruzer Micro 512 MB,for example, was the only drive in this cate-gory to support U3. Itscousin, the CruzerProfile 512 MB, comeswith a biometric scan-ner so your criticaldata is protected.While most drives comewith a software CD thatallows you to set a passwordor set partition sizes using arudimentary interface, the Tran-scend drive comes with a good soft-ware package and decent interface thatincludes features like secure zip, PC lock, databackup, auto login, and e-mail sync. TheSanDisk Cruzer Mini comes with the U3versions of Avast!, Skype (with one month offree voice mail), SignupShield Passwords, andits own PC synchronisation software—standardfeatures on all their drives. The Intex 512 MBalso doubles up as an SD card.

Build Quality And BundleWith its chewing-gum-like looks, Kingston’sDataTraveler Mini MB was the cutest of the lot.A-DATA’s Oriental Elite has a beautiful designand allows you to change faceplates (two areprovided with the drive). It also includes a USBextension cable. The SanDisk Cruzer Profile 512MB has rugged build quality and small rubberstrips at the bottom to protect it from scratches.The Cruzer Micro’s retracting USB connector isgood for people who tend to lose their drive’scap, but is also a veritable dust-trap.

PerformanceSince these drives will mostly be used to carrydocuments and presentations, data transferspeed is critical. The A-DATA Oriental Elite 512MB was the fastest of the lot and took littlemore than 11 seconds totransfer 50 MB of files,which included docu-ments, spreadsheets,pictures, MP3s, and

executables. The TECH-COM 512 MB took adecent 27.6 seconds. Thoguh it took just 30seconds for the A-DATA Oriental Elite to trans-fer a sequential file to its full capacity. TheZion followed closely with a time of 50.3seconds. The SanDisk Cruzer Micro took asomewhat sluggish 76 seconds.

In SumThe A-DATA Oriental Elite takes Gold not onlyfor its speed, but also thanks to a decent pack-age bundle. Both the Cruzer Micro and theProfile from SanDisk put up a decent perform-ance and have a good bundle. The Silver-winning Cruzer Profile, with its biometricscanner, is highly recommended for thosewho deal with sensitive data. Special mentiongoes to the Zion drive—though it lost out onfeatures, it’s quite fast and costs around 30per cent less than most other Flash drives inthis category.

1 GB DRIVESThis category witnessed a total of 22 drivesfighting for top spot—five from PQI, three eachfrom SanDisk, Transcend and UMAX, two fromCorsair, and one each from Gigabyte, iball,Lexar, Odyssey, Transcend and Zion. Thesedrives let you do more than just carry yourdocuments around—you can even pack a DivXmovie along with your other data. They tend tobe slower than their 512 MB counterparts,however, as there is a trade-off between speedand capacity.



Our test bed used an Intel Core 2 Duo Extreme E6800 on an ECS PX1Extreme Motherboard with 1 GB of Kingston HyperX DDR2 RAM. The hard

drive was clean-formatted before loading Windows XP, and all the latestdrivers for the motherboard and USB ports were loaded. To maintain astandard environment, we installed only the required benchmarking utilitiesand the files we used in our tests.

Test MethodologyAll the storage devices we tested were evaluated on the basis of their scoresin three primary areas, namely Features, Performance, and Price. To help inour calculations, we assigned a relevant weightage (refer table for thebreakup) to these parameters.

The parameters included are:FeaturesWe looked at the various inbuilt characteristics such as U3 or passwordprotection. We also observed the build quality, with primary importancegiven to the sturdiness of the product. We gave extra points for any securityfeatures such as biometric protection, and also for any useful software inthe package.

Performance To gauge performance, we conducted two types of tests—synthetic and real-world. For the synthetic tests, we used the HD Tach 3 benchmarking suite toassess theoretical read and write speeds, as well as the average access time.Due to the varying storage capacities of the models, we also carried out anadditional test, where the thumb drive was filled to capacity with bothsequential (a single large file) as well as assorted data. We observed thetime taken for each transfer, and then calculated the actual data transferrate in terms of megabytes transferred per second.

How We Tested

JA N U A RY 2 0 0 7

SanDisk Cruzer Profile 512 MBAs secure as it gets

JA N U A RY 2 0 0 7

A-DATA Oriental EliteBlazing fast and looks good too!

DIGIT JANUARY 2007


74

the lot—it bounced back safely every time wetossed it around. The PQI CoolDrives—true totheir names—look cool and have decent build quality. The SanDisk Cruzer Titaniumhas very good build quality, and retains the retracting USB connector found on the SanDisk Cruzer Mini. Most drives camewith a lanyard cord and some with a USBextension cable—real handy when your PC isplaced under the table—but the TranscendJetFlash 130 was different, with two differentcoloured caps.

PerformanceSince these drives have larger capacities, theycan easily accommodate a single DivX movie(roughly 700 MB). The Transcend JetFlash 150took just a minute to transfer a 700 MB videofile. The Zion was at its heels, and took 64.8seconds for the same task. These drives tookless than a third of the category average of 192seconds. The full-capacity assorted file testtook 82.9 seconds to complete on the Tran-scend JetFlash 150m and a close 91.7 on theZion. The Corsair Flash Voyager took a littlemore than two minutes to complete the task.Considering the average time of 274 seconds,these scores are really impressive. If you are looking for sheer performance, the Tran-scend JetFlash 150 and the Zion are the drivesfor you.

In SumThe Transcend JetFlash 150 gets Gold for itsblazing speed and feature-rich bundle. TheCorsair Flash Voyager claims the Silver fordecent performance, rugged build quality,and a good software bundle. Once again, Zionjust misses the Silver for lack of accessoriesand software.

2 GB DRIVESNine drives turned up in this category: SanDisksent in three, and Corsair, iball, Lexar, TECH-COM, Transcend, and Zion sent in one each. Thiscategory is for those who use pen drives to trans-fer large amounts of data such as MP3s, movieclips, and games. Speeds fall again because ofincreased storage space.

FeaturesThere’s nothing different about the drives’bundled software—it was similar to whatcame with the 1 GB drives. Since these drivesare a bit expensive, some more value-addedsoftware wouldn’t have disappointed.

Build Quality And BundleThe Corsair Flash Voyager comes up tops againwith its superior build quality. The SanDiskCruzer Titan is built well, is quite sturdy, but itsmetallic lustre may fall prey to dust and roughuse. Its retracting USB connector can act as adust trap in dusty environments.

PerformanceThe Zion led the way, taking 89.7 seconds totransfer a 700 MB video file. This is a little morethan the fastest 1 GB drive. The SanDisk Cruzer

FeaturesThe Corsair Readout 1 GB has an externaldisplay that shows you the drive label and thefree space available—no more plugging it into check! The display does not require anyexternal power, and stays on for a good oneyear.

The PQI CoolDrive U339S, SanDisk CruzerMicro and Cruzer Titanium are U3 drives (seebox U3). While all of them have PC synchronisa-tion features, PQI’s software lets you select thesync direction—from PC to drive or from driveto PC. The Lexar JumpDrive FireFly comes loadedwith Google software for Windows—includingGoogle Toolbar for Internet Explorer, GoogleDesktop, and Picasa.

Build Quality And BundleThe Corsair Flash Voyager, with its rubber andwater-resistant exterior, was the toughest of

U3 is a new standard formed by leading Flash drive manufacturers toprovide customers with the ability to carry their favourite software and

applications along on their drives. If you need to use a particular softwareon a PC where you don’t have Administrator rights, this feature can come inquite handy. The U3 interface lets you manage your data, install anduninstall software, and search for new U3 software over the internet.

Though U3 has its uses, it can be irritating for some: the U3 menu popsup every time you plug in the drive. As of now, the feature only works withWindows XP, so people using other operating systems won’t be able to takeadvantage of it.

U3

Corsair Flash Voyager 1 GBBuilt like a mini-truck!

JA N U A RY 2 0 0 7

JA N U A RY 2 0 0 7

Transcend JetFlash 150 1 GBFast and fully-loaded

75


follows at 91.5 seconds. The Transcend JetFlashV30 took a never-ending 529 seconds to transferthe same amount of data!

The Zion handled the full-capacity assortedfile transfer in just four minutes. The closestcompetitor was the Corsair Flash Voyager at266.7 seconds. Lexar posted the lowest score of764.7 seconds—almost 13 minutes—to transfer2 GB of data.

In SumOur Gold winner, the Corsair Flash Voyager, isfast, has sturdy build quality, and offers agood software bundle. To top it off, Corsairoffers a 10-year warranty and over-the-counterreplacement, no questions asked. Our Silverwinner is the Cruzer Titanium; the Zion lost

If a computer is too sluggish, you can increase the amount of RAM on it toimprove the performance. Increased system memory means that

applications need not access the hard drive too often. But RAM is expensive,and your computer won’t support RAM beyond a point.

To take care of such a situation, Windows Vista will introduce a newfeature called ReadyBoost that will allow you to use a Flash drive as swapdrive. Vista uses the Flash drive as a cache while transferring the data from ahard drive to the CPU in case the RAM is found insufficient. It uses anoptimised algorithm that reduces the number of read/write cycles, so yourdrive won’t wear out easily. Windows Vista RC2 does show a markedperformance increase, and we expect this to get better by the time the finalversion is released.

ReadyBoost

Corsair Flash Voyager 2 GBTough, and comes with a goodsoftware bundle

SanDisk Cruzer Titanium 2 GBExcellent build

JA N U A RY 2 0 0 7

JA N U A RY 2 0 0 7



Small

Expensive

Cheap

Poor build quality

Fast; refreshingdesignToo small

Reasonable price

Slow

U3 software

Poor package bundle

Very fast

None in particular

Kingston

DataTraveler mini Fun

512 MB

476 MB

Password protection

✖

✔

✖

6

9

9.6

13.1

4.1

13.5

7

13

1.3

28.5

2

122

16

277

19.3

13.65

16.73

11.72

42.10

640

5

Odyssey

512 MB

512 MB

505 MB

Password protection

✖

✔

Lanyard

6

7

8.1

7.5

6.1

11.2

3

10

1.3

51.7

1.8

90

8.9

472

25

15.05

16.04

11.11

42.20

675

2

iball

512 MB

512 MB

480 MB

Password protection

Partition software

✔

Lanyard, protective

case

6

5

40.7

18.5

5

25

7

11.2

1.3

44.9

2

102.7

22.7

425.5

38.6

14.70

17.36

12.71

44.77

590

2

Intex

512 MB

512 MB

476 MB

✖

✖

✖

Protective case

4

4

1.1

20

3.2

20.6

10

22.3

2

209

2.3

146

9.8

279.3

38

2.10

16.51

5.00

23.61

1500

1

SanDisk

Cruzer Micro 512 MB

512 MB

483 MB

Password protection

U3

✔

Lanyard

7

8

1

12.8

6.6

13.1

1

9.2

1.5

31.5

1.7

76

9

301

23.7

21.00

20.00

6.85

47.85

1095

2

A-DATA

Oriental 512 MB

512 MB

499 MB

Password protection

✖

✔

Face plate, Lanyard,

USB cable

6

7

38.6

23.8

16.8

25

1

3.4

1.2

11.6

1.7

30

8.3

112

19.3

16.45

34.46

7.58

58.49

990

3

BRAND

MODEL

Features

Storage Capacity (Stated)

Storage Capacity (Actual)

Security

Software features

Visual indicators such as an LED etc.

Other accessories provided

Build quality (Scale of 10)

Sturdiness of the overall package

Cap locking mechanism

Performance

HD-Tach 3

Random Access Time

Average read speed

Average write speed

Read burst Speed

CPU utilisation

File Transfer Test (seconds)

Write (Sequential)*

Read (Sequential)*

Write (Assorted)*

Read (Assorted)*

Write—max capacity (Sequential)

Read—max capacity (Sequential)

Write—max capacity (Assorted)

Read—max capacity (Assorted)

Final Scores

Features 1

Performance (out of 50)

Price 2

Grand Total (out of 100)

Price (Rs)

Warranty (years)

Scoreboard Flash Drives (512 MB)JANUARY 2007

* For 512 MB drives - 50 MB1 GB drives - 700 MB

1 512 MB drives - out of 15 1 GB drives - out of 102 512 MB drives - out of 35 1 GB drives - out of 40



Biometric scanner

Heavy

Cheap

Slow

Good software bun-dleSlow

Fast

Poor package bundle

Looks different

Slow

Inexpensive

Poor build quality

External display

Looks gaudy

SanDisk

Cruzer Profile 512 MB

512 MB

483 MB

Biometric scanner

Syncing software

✔

Lanyard

8

9

0.6

18.2

5.8

21.9

1

9.6

1.4

61

1.7

83

7.9

613

18.2

23.45

22.66

5.58

51.69

1345

2

Corsair

Flash Voyager 1 GB

1 GB

977 MB

Password protection

Corsair sync utility

✔

Lanyard, USB cable

8

7

30.3

18.6

9.3

20.2

1

96

21.3

100

28

130.9

40.4

134

18.6

26.80

18.57

4.67

50.03

1500

10

TECH-COM

512 MB

512 MB

460 MB

Password protection

✖

✔

Lanyard, USB cable

6

7

1.6

10.7

3.2

10.8

2

17

1.4

27.6

1.8

147

10.9

240

26.6

15.75

16.08

13.64

45.47

550

3

Zion

512 MB

512 MB

495 MB

✖

✖

✔

Lanyard, USB cable,

retention cap

8

6

38.6

23.8

16.8

25

8

5.8

1.1

28.9

1.5

50.3

8.7

256.2

10.2

9.80

30.33

10.00

50.13

750

3

Gigabyte

Flash Disk 1 GB

1 GB

961 MB

Password protection

✔

Lanyard

6

6

1.7

11.4

5.4

12.1

1

131.2

62.6

131.3

63.5

166.1

79.6

168.7

80.7

24.80

11.44

4.38

40.62

1600

1

Transcend

JetFlash V30 512 MB

512 MB

491 MB

Password protection

PC lock, secure zip

✔

Lanyard

6

5

5.7

15.5

4.2

16.4

8

16.8

1.5

206

1.9

134

8.7

720

31

19.60

15.48

8.33

43.41

900

Lifetime

Corsair

Flash Readout 1 GB

1 GB

997 MB

Password protection

PC Lock, secure zip

✔

Lanyard, USB cable

6

6

53.9

22.8

10.4

25

11

84.6

11.5

135.7

20.2

107.1

34.7

149.6

32

25.60

17.77

3.89

47.26

1800

10

iball

1 GB

1 GB

983 MB

Password protection

Partition software

✔

Lanyard, protective

case

6

5

8.6

14.9

4.6

17.5

5

186.1

29

220

43.9

241

60.9

274.2

56.8

23.20

10.69

9.33

43.22

750

2

Rubber body

None in particu-lar

Flash Drives (1 GB)JANUARY 2007JANUARY 2007



Package bundle

None in particular

Reasonable price

Slow

U3 Software

Slow

Reasonable price

Slow

Reasonable price

Slow

Good softwarebundleSlow

PQI

Cool drive U339S 1 GB

1 GB

953 MB

Password protection

U3

✔

Lanyard, USB cable

6

7

0.5

11.5

6.2

11.7

4

124

33.3

131

40.3

162

84

165

60

26.00

11.71

5.19

42.90

1350

Lifetime

PQI

Travelling Disk U260 1

GB

1 GB

983 MB

Password protection

PC Lock, secure zip

✔

Lanyard

6

7

4.7

12.8

2.3

13.1

1

335

21.3

351

20.8

440

74.4

468

23.3

25.20

10.93

7.57

43.69

925

Lifetime

Odyssey

1 GB

1 GB

1000 MB

Password protection

✔

Lanyard

7

7

111.3

7.4

5.3

10.9

1

151.9

68.3

246.4

52.4

267.9

53.4

302.2

68.7

25.60

9.23

7.18

42.01

975

2

PQI

Cool drive U339 1 GB

1 GB

999 MB

Password protection

PC Lock, secure zip

✔

Lanyard, USB cable

6

6

68

10.8

7.5

11

6

106

67

109

42.5

136

54

142

62

25.60

11.10

5.60

42.30

1250

Lifetime

PQI

Travelling Disk U230

1 GB

995 MB

Password protection

PC Lock, secure zip

✔

Lanyard

6

6

0.8

11.1

2.1

11.2

4

424.3

61.8

441.8

38.9

565

64

576.7

63

24.80

7.85

7.57

40.22

925

Lifetime

Lexar

JumpDrive FireFly 1 GB

1 GB

965 MB

Password protection

Google software

✔

✖

6

6

1.7

9.8

2.6

9.9

2

363.5

13.1

376.6

64.9

466.5

96.5

482.9

97.1

22.40

7.34

3.68

33.43

1900

5

BRAND

MODEL

Features



Security

Software features






Performance

HD-Tach 3

Random Access Time

Average read speed

Average write speed

Read burst speed

CPU utilisation


Write—700 MB (Sequential)

Read—700 MB (Sequential)

Write—700 MB (Assorted)

Read—700 MB (Assorted)





Final Scores

Features (out of 40)


Price (out of 10)


Price (Rs)

Warranty (years)

Scoreboard Flash Drives (1 GB)



Small form factor

Fragile

U3 software

Slow

Looks Different

Poor package bundle

Rugged build

Poor package bundle

Good packagebundleSlow

Good packagebundleNone in particular

Fast

Poor package bundle

PQI

Intelligent Stick 1 GB

1 GB

983 MB

Password protection

✔

Casing, stick slot

6

5

102.8

0.8

5.1

12.1

1

284.4

12.71

312.5

53.5

368.1

83.4

400.6

20.2

15.60

9.83

5.60

31.03

1250

Lifetime

TECH-COM

1 GB

1 GB

939 MB

Password protection

✖

✔

Lanyard, USB cable

6

6

6.3

9.9

2.9

10.4

1

249.1

31.9

251.4

72.1

321.6

94

322.8

92.9

25.60

8.43

9.33

43.37

750

3

SanDisk

Cruzer Micro 1 GB

1 GB

971 MB

Password protection

U3

✔

Lanyard

6

8

0.9

13.7

5.3

18.8

5

152.1

12.6

167

22.6

203.2

41.3

215.5

36.9

25.60

12.80

5.20

43.60

1345

2

SanDisk

Cruzer Titanium 1 GB

1 GB

976 MB

Password protection

U3

✔

Lanyard

8

6

0.9

13.3

8.7

18.8

1

96.7

12.28

105.6

34.3

153.2

69

167.4

67.3

25.60

14.75

4.13

44.47

1695

5

Transcend

JetFlash V30 1 GB

1 GB

967 MB

Password protection

PC lock, secure zip

✔

Lanyard

6

6

0.6

11.9

3.5

12.7

6

371.4

12.8

397

27.4

430.2

54.1

507

48.2

24.80

9.44

5.83

40.07

1200

Lifetime

SanDisk

Cruzer CrossFire 1 GB

1 GB

976 MB

Password protection

CSI3 demo

✔

Lanyard

6

7

0.7

16.2

5.4

20.2

5

145.5

21.3

155.1

38.3

193.2

50.7

201.7

49.65

25.20

13.25

5.20

43.65

1345

2

Transcend

JetFlash 150 1 GB

1 GB

979 MB

Password protection

PC lock, secure zip

✔

Lanyard

6

6

0.6

14.5

13.6

15.7

1

60

13.1

62

22.9

79.5

64

82.9

22.5

24.80

20.85

4.67

50.32

1500

Lifetime

Transcend

JetFlash 130 1 GB

1 GB

997 MB

Password protection

PC lock, secure zip

✔

Lanyard, two extra

caps

6

6

59.6

0.8

9.9

11

1

87.2

29.85

100.8

71

129.6

90.2

136.4

95.6

25.60

10.95

4.67

41.21

1500

Lifetime

Cheap

Slow

Flash Drives (1 GB)JANUARY 2007



Transparent casingSlow

None

Slow

Fast

Poor Package bundle

Rubber body

Expensive

Cheap and fast

Poor build quality

Package bundle

Slow

Zion

1 GB

1 GB

991 MB

✖

✖

✔

Lanyard, USB cable,

retention cap

8

6

0.7

9.5

13.1

14.6

2

64.8

11.9

69.5

38.7

84

68.6

91.7

75.6

11.20

16.29

6.51

34.00

1075

3

Corsair

Flash Voyager 2 GB

2 GB

1.9 GB

Password protection

PC lock, bootable

✔

Lanyard, USB cable

6

8

29.8

17.9

10.5

20.2

1

91.6

11.7

97.5

34.7

231.1

105.4

266.7

100.7

27.45

34.30

1.67

63.41

3300

10

UMAX

APUS ELITE 1 GB

1 GB

983 MB

✖

✖

✔

✖

6

6

7.1

10.1

2.6

10.1

1

340.1

44.7

345.9

80.3

438.7

92.2

439.8

96.3

6.40

7.90

5.60

19.90

1250

2

UMAX

APUS 210 1 GB

1 GB

960 MB

✖

✖

✔

✖

6

5

53.2

21.3

4.4

27.6

5

134.5

38.53

160.4

59.8

287.6

84.3

292.3

86

6.00

12.91

5.38

24.30

1300

Lifetime

iball

2 GB

2 GB

1.91 GB

Password protection

Partition

✔

Lanyard, protective

case

6

5

8.6

23.3

5.7

30.9

3

95.1

25.7

142.5

24.2

298.4

63.9

353.8

83

26.10

29.97

4.04

60.11

1360

2

UMAX

APUS PRO 1 GB

1 GB

979 MB

Password

Secure zip, bootable

✔

Lanyard, USB cable

6

6

5.6

10.8

3.1

10.9

4

235.4

42

236.8

69

299

90.7

309.4

89.5

25.60

7.72

4.83

38.15

1450

Lifetime

BRAND

MODEL

Features



Security

Software features






Performance

HD-Tach 3

Random access time

Average read speed

Average write speed

Read burst Speed

CPU utilisation


Write - 700 MB (Sequential)








Final Scores

Features 1


Price 2


Price (Rs)

Warranty (Years)

Scoreboard Flash Drives (1 GB)JANUARY 2007

1 1 GB drives 402 GB drives 45

2 1 GB drives 102 GB drives 5




Fast

Poor Package bundle

Fast

Poor package bundle

Looks Different

Poor package bundle

Fast

Poor package bundle

Good package bundleSlow

Lexar

JumpDrive FireFly 2 GB

2 GB

1.88 GB

Password protection

Google software

✔

✖

6

6

1.7

9.8

2.7

9.9

2

358.9

14.3

377.9

62.3

738.3

103.9

764.7

108.2

22.95

18.75

1.58

43.29

3475

5

TECH-COM

2 GB

2 GB

1.9 GB

Password protection

✖

✔

Lanyard, USB cable

6

6

8.7

9.4

3

10.4

1

192.6

21

260

54

653.1

184.3

708.5

196.7

26.55

17.02

4.23

47.80

1300

3

SanDisk

Cruzer Titanium 2 GB

2 GB

1.86 GB

Password protection

U3

✔

Lanyard

8

6

0.9

13.3

8.7

18.8

1

96.7

12.28

105.6

34.3

262

87.5

274.3

89.6

26.55

33.17

1.38

61.10

3995

5

SanDisk

Cruzer CrossFire 2 GB

2 GB

1.9 GB

Password protection

CSI3 demo

✔

Lanyard

6

7

0.6

14.7

8.8

19.4

1

100.3

13.3

98.3

36.4

244.4

115.9

264.1

109.6

26.10

32.55

2.04

60.69

2695

2

Zion

2 GB

2 GB

1.92 GB

✖

✖

✔

Lanyard, USB cable,

retention cap

8

6

8

11.3

8.5

11.7

4

89.7

14.1

94.3

64.8

238.6

171.3

240.8

171.7

12.60

26.10

3.14

41.84

1750

3

SanDisk

Cruzer Micro 2 GB

2 GB

1.86 GB

Password protection

U3

✔

Lanyard

6

6

0.9

13.2

8.5

18.8

1

91.5

12.4

98.6

36.9

264.5

80.6

292.3

109

25.65

32.60

2.04

60.29

2695

2

Transcend

JetFlash V30 2 GB

2 GB

1.88 GB

Password protection

PC look, bootable

✔

Lanyard

6

6

0.6

12.2

3.1

12.5

3

529

18.1

460

61

653.1

184.3

708.5

196.7

25.65

17.15

2.75

45.55

2000

Lifetime

Cheap

Slow

Flash Drives (2 GB)JANUARY 2007



Fast

Expensive

U3 software

Poor Package bundle

Inexpensive

Lack of software features


Rugged build qual-ityNone in particular

TECH-COM

4 GB

4 GB

3.75 GB

Password protection

✖

✔

Lanyard, USB cable

6

6

9

9.6

2.7

10.4

1

180.3

12.7

192.5

43.5

869.5

272

912.8

259.3

26.55

17.27

4.90

48.72

2550

3

Transcend

JetFlash V30 4 GB

4 GB

3.77 GB

Password protection

PC lock, bootable

✔

Lanyard

6

6

0.6

15

5.8

15

1

180.3

12.7

192.5

43.5

918.7

272

1013.6

259.3

25.65

20.99

3.13

49.77

4000

Lifetime

SanDisk

Cruzer Micro 4 GB

4 GB

3.8 GB

Password protection

U3

✔

Lanyard

6

6

0.9

13

8.5

18.8

4

91.6

12.5

102.2

36.1

232.7

109.3

272.4

110.8

25.65

30.98

2.93

59.56

4265

2

SanDisk

Cruzer Mini 4 GB

4 GB

3.8 GB

✖

✖

✔

Lanyard, two extra

caps

6

6

0.6

14

8.7

18.7

1

84.3

11.8

98.2

34.5

451.4

211

631.2

225.3

10.80

26.96

2.94

40.70

4256

2

Kingston

Data Traveler 4 GB

4 GB

3.75 GB

Password protection

PC lock, bootable

✔

✖

8

6

0.5

14.1

13.7

26.3

4

58.9

12.1

56.8

21.3

279.2

161.7

282

164.1

23.85

36.15

2.98

62.98

4200

5

BRAND

MODEL

Features



Security

Software features






Performance

HD-Tach 3

Random Access Time

Average read speed

Average write speed

Read burst speed

CPU utilisation


Write—700 MB (Sequential)








Final Scores

Features (out of 45)


Price (out of 5)


Price (Rs)

Warranty (years)

Scoreboard Flash Drives (4 GB)JANUARY 2007 JANUARY 2007



out because of its lacklustre bundle, but westill recommend it to those who want adecent, fast drive with a good storage capacity.

4 GB DRIVESWe received five drives under this category—twofrom SanDisk and one each from Kingston,TECH-COM, and Transcend. This category is forthose who want to carry a Flash drive instead ofa DVD. With its storage capacity coming quiteclose to that of a DVD, these drives can very wellcarry your HD movies. This category is not forthose on a budget though—if you don’t mind theslower speeds and larger size, you’re muchbetter off with a portable hard drive; you’ll getmuch more storage at alower price.

Phone Web SiteCompanyBrand

Contact Sheet

A-DATACorsairGigabyteiballIntexKingstonLexarOdysseyPQISanDiskTECH-COMTranscendUMAXZion

KMI Business India LtdTirupati EnterprisesGigabyte Technology India LtdBest IT World (India) P LtdIntex Technologies (I) LtdKingston Technology Company, Inc.Neoteric infomatique P ltdCompuage Infocom Ltd Mediatech India Distribution P Ltd Rashi Peripherals P LtdTECHCOM INDIAMediaman Infotech P LtdNeoteric infomatique P LtdAbacus Peripherals P Ltd

022-30224715033-22251192/93022-30616666022-308150321800-1167891800-4254515 022-39828600 022-2384220 022-26361111022- 67090909011-26428541/42022-23828100022-39828600 022-40914609

www.adata.com.twwww.tirupati.netwww.gigabyte.inwww.iball.co.inwww.intextechnologies.comwww.kingston.com/india www.neoteric.co.inwww.compuageindia.comwww.mediatechindia.comwww.rptechindia.comwww.techcomindia.comwww.mediamangroup.comwww.neoteric.co.inwww.abacusperipherals.com

Flash Drives

A Decision MakerYou need it for...Occasional data transfer Transferring photos andmovie clipsData backup and as abootable drive

We recommendA-DATA Oriental 512 MB, Zion 512 MBCorsair Flash Voyager, Transcend JetFlash150 1 GBSanDisk Cruzer Micro 2 GB, Kingston DataTraveler 4 GB

FeaturesDue to their lower market share and a very nicheuser segment, the feature set of this category ismediocre. The SanDisk Cruzer Micro was theonly U3 drive, and came with the earlier-mentioned software bundle.

Build Quality And BundleThe Kingston is the best-looking drive in thiscategory, with a nice matte finish that will makescratches less visible. Most of us tend to misplaceFlash drive caps, and SanDisk has provided twoextra caps with the drive.

PerformanceTypically, higher capacity drives don’t offermuch speed, but the Kingston took less thana minute to transfer the 700 MB video—fasterthan even the fastest 1 GB drive. The SanDiskCruzer Mini lagged a bit, taking 84.3 seconds.The slowest of the lot were the TECH-COM andTranscend JetFlash V30, taking almost threeminutes. The full-capacity assorted file sawthe SanDisk Cruzer Micro

taking just 272.4 seconds, with Kingstonfollowing at 282 seconds. Transcend sat therace out at a leisurely 17 minutes!

In SumKingston takes Gold for its vastly superiorperformance and build quality. The SanDiskCruzer Micro wins the Silver for the balance itstrikes between speed and software bundle. Wemust note that there is not much difference inthe prices of these drives, but when it comes toperformance, things are different.

[email protected]

With a whopping 8 GB of storage space, theTranscend JetFlash 8 GB sounds really

good. The drive is quite fast: it took just 56.4seconds to transfer a 700 MB video file. Thedrive is a good bit bigger than the other drives (itwas the biggest we tested), but the build quality isstrictly average. When you look at the price tag, though, youmight start looking elsewhere—it costs an atrocious Rs 9,500. Forthat kind of money, you could invest in an 80 GB external drive, or if youdon’t mind carrying some extra weight and cables, use a regular 400 GBSATA drive with an external casing to build your own backup behemoth!

Transcend JetFlash 8 GB

JA N U A RY 2 0 0 7

JA N U A RY 2 0 0 7

SanDisk Cruzer Micro 4 GBFast, with a good software bundle

Kingston DataTraveler Secure 4 GBSuperior performance


Arvind Subramanian

RAID is the abbreviation for“Redundant Array OfIndependent Disks.” It

refers to the technology of stor-ing data with a higher degree ofprotection and/or performancethan regular storage.

There are many different“levels” of RAID, and typicalexamples are RAID 0, RAID 1,RAID 1+0, RAID 0+1, RAID 3+0,and many more. At each level,RAID takes a different approachto the storage of data.

RAID works on the concepts ofData Mirroring, Data Striping, andParity Checks. That’s where thelevels come in: RAID 0 uses onlystriping, RAID 1 uses only mirror-ing, and further levels includeparity checks and/or a combina-tion of these. You get many per-mutations as a result, but RAIDalways uses at least two hard disksthat work as a single unit.

The Basic ConceptsData MirroringSimply put, mirroring meansmaking simultaneous writes ofthe same block of data on multi-ple disks. That’s where the“Redundant” in “RAID” comesfrom. It is expensive but far fromredundant in transaction- anddata-intensive applications suchas accounts, finance, and bank-ing. In the case of a hard diskcrash, data can be restored froma “mirrored” disk.

Data StripingHere, a stream of data is dividedinto blocks, and each block iswritten to a different disk in thearray. The writing of the blockstakes place concurrently afterthe division, thus increasing thespeed of the write operation.Concurrent reads, too, are faster:if you need 10 KB of data, 5 KBcan come from each disk at thesame time, so theoretically, you getdouble the data rate. This, how-ever, is a broad generalisation.

Parity ChecksA “parity check code” is generatedduring the write of every block of

data. This code helps the RAIDsystem recognise the data. Duringa read of the same block, theparity check code is again gener-ated, and this is matched with theparity check code generatedduring the write. Now, the paritycode generated during the writeis stored on one of the disks in thearray, and this increases the relia-bility of the data—and thus that ofthe entire database in use.

What RAID Can DoRAID levels 1, 0+1, 1+0, 5, 6, 5+0,and 5+1 allow a single hard diskto fail while keeping the data onthe system accessible to users.Users in general would not realisethat a disk has failed, and wouldcontinue to work normally. Theuse of RAID allows the disk inquestion to be changed, and thedata restored and updated, with-out hampering work. Data fromthe working disk can then be mir-rored back on to a new disk.Backups taken on tape or on aseparate hard drive are not“online” or in real-time; therewill necessarily be a delay beforethe system can be restored.

In RAID levels that use strip-ing, at the byte (RAID 3) level,each byte of the stream is storedon a different disk; at the bit(RAID 2) level, data is brokendown into bits and then stored ondifferent disks. This is very usefulin applications that deal withlarge image files, as well as videoediting applications, whichdemand a good amount of speed.

What RAID Cannot DoRAID can help in the recoveryand restoration of data, but itcannot protect it. It cannot, forexample, stop viruses or mali-cious code from attacking data.Any such attack will cause simul-taneous and equal harm to allthe disks in the system.

RAID does not simplify disas-ter recovery. Restoration from tapebackups is still much simplerthan recovery from a diskattached to the array in question.

RAID also cannot provide aperformance boost to all runningapplications. Increasing the datatransfer rate does little to help

desktop users,since most filesthat are accessedare typically verysmall. Disk stripingusing RAID 0increases the per-formance of asequential read/write operation—such as one for asingle, large videofile—but does hardlyanything for arandom seek. For userswith high performance as agoal, it is better to buy a faster andbigger single disk with a higherrpm and buffer than to run twosmaller drives under RAID 0.

Problem AreasRAID systems are not easily inter-changeable, unlike the case withsingle disks. The RAID BIOS, whichcontrols the reads and writes ofthe data to the disks in the array,must be made available to theoperating system. Moreover, RAIDcontrollers make use of differentformats depending on the levelused. Even moving the controllersto a new system might see a degra-dation in performance.

Proprietary RAIDDifferent vendors have their ownadoptions of RAID:

DVRAID by ATTO technology:This was developed for digitalaudio and video applications,which typically require a lot ofspeed. RAID 0 provides speed butnot fault tolerance. ATTO usedthe striped parity concept, wherea parity check code is generated,and the code itself is striped andstored across disks.

RAID S or Parity RAID by EMCCorporation: A single disk is usedto store the parity check code, thedifference being that it is distrib-uted across different volumes.

MATRIX RAID—Intel ICH6RRAID BIOS: Nothing new,except for the fact that each diskin the array acts as RAID 0 aswell as RAID 1.

[email protected]

More than one hard disk need not just mean more partitions


RAIDDigital Tools l Know More About


Networking 101I have two PCs—one a 2.4 GHz Intel and theother a 2.8 GHz. I need to connect them to be

able to transfer data between them. How do I do this?Ashish Singh

If you wish to connect two PCs to each other,they both need to have network cards

installed. You’ll also need what is called acrossover cable. Now, first make sure File andPrinter Sharing is enabled: open NetworkConnections in the Control Panel, right-click onLocal Area Connection, and select Properties. Inthe General tab, look for “File and Printer Sharingfor Microsoft Networks” and make sure thecheckbox next to it is selected. (If it isn’t in thelist, go to Install > Services > Add and choose thisservice to add it.) Now return to the General tab,select “Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)” and click onProperties. Enter an IP address such as“192.168.1.10” and a Subnet Mask of 255.255.255.0for one computer, and the IP address“192.168.1.11” and the same Subnet Mask for theother. Now, for a particular folder that is to beshared, right-click on it and click on “Sharing andSecurity”. Enter the share name of the folder andclick OK. Connect the two computers using thecrossover cable. You should now be able to accessthe contents of the shared folders on onecomputer from the other.

First Things FirstUbuntu Linux dual-boots with XP on mycomputer. By default, the computer boots into

Ubuntu. What do I need to do so that it boots into XPby default?

Mohnish Negi

Ubuntu uses the Grub bootloader to managethe boot sequence. This can be configured

from within Ubuntu. Boot into Ubuntu; you’ll

need to install a tool known as Startup Manager.First install imagemagick:

sudo apt-get install imagemagick

Download the Startup Manager (SUM.tar.gz) fromwww.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=295524. Extract the file using

sudo tar xzvf SUM.tar.gz

You’ll now have a directory called SUM. Use

cd SUM. /install.sh

Once the installation is done, go to System >Administration > Start-Up Manager. This willopen the window that can be used to select vari-ous boot options such as default boot entry, time-out, resolution, and more. Select “Windows”from here and click Close.

Here To Stay?I installed Microsoft Office 2007 ProfessionalPre-release Beta 2, which was distributed on

your DVD. I’ve had enough of it and wish to revert toOffice 2003, which was installed earlier. But I canneither uninstall nor reinstall Office 2007. If I select“Change”, I get the message:“This product installation has been corrupted. Runsetup again from CD, DVD, or other original source.”

On choosing Remove, the setup screen showsup for a second and then disappears without amessage. Please help.

Zahid Irani

This is a known issue with the installation ofMS Office 2007 Pro Pre-release Beta 2—a bug

with the installer which cannot correctly readthe Microsoft Windows Installer informationfrom an earlier Office installation in the Registry.To fix the issue, download and install WindowsInstaller Cleanup utility, msicuu2.exe, fromhttp://tinyurl.com/42ul9 (http://download.microsoft.com/download/e/9/d/e9d80355-7ab4-

Your Questions, Our Answers

Select Windows in the Boot Options

Remove registry entries using Windows Installer Clean Up


45b8-80e8-983a48d5e1bd/msicuu2.exe). This is a350 KB file. Now go to Start > Programs >Windows Install Clean Up. Select MicrosoftOffice 2007 Professional Beta 2 from the list andclick the Remove button. Click OK and then Exit.The program deletes only the Office-relatedRegistry entries. The Office 2007 files will remainon the hard disk, so you will have to manuallydelete them. You will now be able to install anyversion of Office.

Scan, Select, SaveI inadvertently deleted an extended partition onmy Seagate 40 GB PATA drive. Can I recover the

lost data?Arvind Kumar Sharma

As long as your hard drive is recognised bythe BIOS, and as long as it has not suffered

mechanical damage, you can attempt torecover data from it using software such as thefree PC Inspector File Recovery. Download this6 MB file from www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/UK/welcome.htm. Install and launchthe program. Click on Lost Drive on the leftand wait for PC Inspector to scan your harddrives and determine the available partitions.Select your drive in the Logical Drives tab andclick on Preview to verify the drive’s contents.Click on the tick-mark to start the scan. Afterthe scan is complete, you will be able to viewthe recoverable contents of the drive. You canselect all or any of the files to recover. Right-click on them and select “Save to”. Choose adrive or folder to save the recovered files to.

Mode MadnessMy computer has become very slow, andcopying files from one drive to another has

become a frustrating affair. I checked the DMAsettings in the device manager and found that myhard drive is operating in PIO mode, even thoughthe “DMA if available” option is selected.

Nav S

Every time Windows boots, it checks eachstorage device to determine the highest

performance that it will offer. If it encounters anyproblems, such as a faulty cable, it falls back tothe next lower speed available, which is fromDMA to PIO mode in your case. Replace your hard

drive’s data cable. Open the Device Manager andunder “IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers”, delete yourhard drive controller. Restart Windows; your harddrive should start functioning in DMA mode.

One K = One Thousand?My 80 GB hard disk shows up as 76 GB inWindows Explorer. Where is the remaining 4

GB of space? Have I been cheated? I’d also like toask you: while capturing from my Sony handycam(mini DV) to the PC using the bundled Picture pack-age software, it captures in parts; these segmentsare of 10 minutes length. So when I capture a 60-minute video, I get six segments.

Shashishil Kshatriya

Drive manufacturers specify drive capaci-ties in “Giga Bytes.” (A Giga Byte is equal

to 1024 “Kilo Bytes” and a Kilo Byte is equal to1024 Bytes.) But they measure the capacityusing 1000 as the multiplier. Specifying thecapacity in this way is a marketing gimmick—it shows a larger number. So an “80 GB” harddisk has a capacity if 80 x 1000 x 1000 ÷ 1024 ÷1024, which is equal to 76.29 GB. This is thecapacity you see in Windows Explorer.

Most software capture the digital videocontent from a DV camera by default in multi-ple segments. This is known as Scene Detection,where the software tries to recognise majorchanges in scene. When it encounters such achange, it stops capturing to the current fileand continues into the next file. This is to facil-itate creating chapters on DVD. It increases filemanageability. You will need to explore theoptions in your capture software to be able todisable this option and capture the video as asingle file.

AmnesiaIs it possible to recover Excel passwords?

Prabhu Karthikeyan

There are many tools available to recoverpasswords for Excel files. Some of these are

AOPR 3.11 from www.elcomsoft.com/aopr.html(�49—Rs 3,000—for the Home Edition), Excel Keyfrom www.lostpassword.com/excel.htm ($45; Rs2,000), and Excel Password from http://lastbit.com/excel/ ($39; Rs 1,750).

Fantelligence!I have an Intel Pentium 4 2.6 GHz on an Intel915GAV motherboard. Whenever I run two or

three applications or when I run a game, the CPUfan runs very fast and makes a lot of noise.

Sagar Ranjankar

This is normal. Your BIOS supports variablefan-speed control. The fan spins slow when

the CPU is idle or under little load. It spins thefastest when the CPU is stressed, such as whenrunning a game, editing video, or anything elsethat is CPU-intensive. Automatic fan controlensures better balance between cooling and thenoise generated by the fan.

PC Inspector File Recovery


Host A Web Server On Your Home PCShare your treasures with the world, its easy!

Jayesh Limaye

Many of us have at some point toyedwith the idea of hosting a Web site.

But be it the prohibitive Web hostingcosts of days long gone by, or howcomplex we’ve imagined it to be, or justplain laziness, few of us have actuallygotten down to doing it! The fact is, itcan be done for free, and it’s just aboutas difficult as maintaining a blog. Here’sa workshop on how to go about it.

Download And Run TheSoftwareHead to www.rejetto.com/hfs/

?f=dl and download Http File Server(HFS). It is free and open source, and is astandalone executable that requires noinstallation.

On XP with SP2, when you run HFS,

you will be asked about whether or notto allow hfs.exe to connect to theInternet. Unblock HFS. Likewise, if youhave a third-party firewall installed,configure it appropriately.

Configure The PortBy default, HFS uses port 80. Ifyour firewall is blocking port

80, set HFS to use some other port (suchas 8080 or 8245 and so on). To changethe port number, turn HFS off by click-ing on the green “On” button at theupper left corner. Change the port andturn HFS back on.

Also, if you are behind a router orfirewall, you may, in some rare cases,need to set up port forwarding. Thebest way to go about this is to go towww.portforward.com. There, chooseyour router type, then choose theprogram you want to set up portforwarding for, which in our case isHFS. In such a scenario, you cannotproceed unless you know which routeryou are using.

Test HFSTo test whether your settingswork, click the Menu in HFS and

choose “Self Test”. If the test completessuccessfully, your settings are correct.You should now be able to point yourWeb browser to your IP address and seeHFS’ default Web page.

Register A DomainFor setting up a Web site, youneed to first assign it a domain

name. For this, you need a DNS servicerunning on your computer. You need toget one from a site that offers such aservice. There are quite a few sites thatoffer such services, and we’ve chosen No-IP. This site offers a variety of free sub-domain names that you can register foryour Web site.

Go to www.no-ip.com/newUser.phpto create a No-IP account. Log on to thesite with the account you created, andclick on the Services button. Click on“Hosts / Redirects” on the left and thenon Add. In the page that opens, enter ahostname of your choice and select fromamongst the free domains available.Then choose the host type; “DNS Host”(Option A) is usually the best option.

Your ISP might be blocking inboundport 80; to get around this, choose “Port80 Redirect”. When you use this and runyour Web server on an alternative port,users will not need to type a portnumber in the URL.

Click on “Create Host”. Your domainwill be available within five minutes ofregistration. You can use and give outthis domain name instead of your IPaddress.

If you would like to use a domainname of your own, No-IP offers a customDNS service for a yearly fee.

Install the Dynamic DNSUpdate ClientSkip this step if you have a

static IP. If you don’t, you will need aclient software to take care of yourchanging IP address. Go to www.no-ip.com/downloads.php?page=win to

download the No-IP.com DynamicDNS Updateclient software.Install it andprovide yourlogin details. Thisprogram will sitin the system

tray and automatically update your No-IP account when your external IPaddress changes.

Launch Your Web SiteYou can now decide what pagewill appear when someone

types in the name of your Web site. Tochange the default page, open HFS andclick on “You are in Easy mode” to turnon Expert mode. Right-click on thelittle “house” icon in the Virtual File

System (VFS) and click on “Bind root toreal-folder”. When prompted, point tothe folder that contains the file youwish to display by default on your site.Click on “Default file mask…” and typein the name of the file you’ve chosenfor this file, such as “index.html”. Press[Ctrl] + [S] to save the VFS to any loca-tion on your hard disk.

If it is only files you wish to sharewith friends, you can just host the fileson the site—an index.html is not neces-sary. Just drag and drop files into theVFS window and save the VFS. Thesefiles will be available for downloadfrom the opening page.

To make HFS start with Windows,choose Start/Exit > Run HFS whenWindows starts. Also make sure tocheckmark “Reload on startup VFS filepreviously open”. You’re done!

The method of Web hosting we’vedescribed is good enough if you wish toshare files with friends or to createcontent for a few people to view. It isnot recommended for high-traffic situa-tions, though.

[email protected]

Http File Server

Log in to No-IP

No-IP Dynamic DNS Update Client


Dusty, Dirty, DefunctMy LG USB drive was working fine for thepast one year. Now, when I connect it to my

computer, it does show up as a removable disk inWindows Explorer, but the computer hangs whenI click on the icon. Another problem is, when I usethe “Safely Remove Hardware” from the SystemTray, the notification message “Your USB storagedevice can now be safely removed” message popsup, but after a few seconds, the “Safely RemoveHardware” icon disappears.

This only happens on my home PC—the driveworks fine on my office computer.

Kaushik Dey

This problem usually occurs if your USBport has become dirty due to accumula-

tion of dust, or if it has become loose becauseof wear and tear caused by plugging andunplugging of the drive. Clean it using a paint-brush and try to see if the problem goes away.Try using a different free USB port, or addinga port if you don’t have one. As far as yoursecond query is concerned, it is normal for the “Your USB storage device can now be safely removed” message to go away after a few seconds.

DirectZip?I have an Intel Pentium 4, 2.66 GHz, 256 MBRAM, and a 64 MB graphics card. Dungeon

Siege 2 Demo didn’t run on my PC—I got themessage “D3D initialization Failed.” I thought itwas because I didn’t have DirectX 9.0c, but when Itry installing it, setup runs and completes in justone second. Why?

Sahil Sharma

You haven’t mentioned your graphics cardchipset, and your issue is linked to dated

graphics card drivers. Please update to the latestdrivers from your graphics chipset’s manufac-turer’s Web site—www.nvidia.com orwww.ati.com, as the case may be. Also, run

DXDIAG and see if DirectDraw and Direct3Dacceleration is enabled. If it isn’t, enable it.

DirectX 9.0c setup completes very quicklybecause you already have that version installed.

Forget It!Any information entered in a Microsoft Word2003 Wizard (such as the Resume Wizard)

gets stored in the Registry, so when you call up theWizard again, you can view the old information. Wehave many users working at the same computer,and the nature of our work is such that we do notwant such information to persist after a session isdone. What can I do?

Rohit Bhatt

The data is stored inH K E Y _ C U R R E N T _ U S E R \ S o f t w a r e \

Microsoft\Office\11.0\Word\Wizards You canclear all the Wizard information each time thecomputer starts. Open Notepad and type inthese two lines:

REGEDIT4[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Word\Wizards]

Save this file with the name “wizfix.reg”.Include the quotes to ensure that Notepaddoesn’t save the file as a TXT file rather thanas a REG file.

Now click on Start > All Programs, and findthe Startup menu in the list. Right-click on itand choose Open All Users. Windows Explorerwill open, displaying the shortcuts that definethe menu items under the Startup folder.Right-click in an empty area and choose New >Shortcut. Enter “REGEDIT -SC:\Path\wizfix.reg” in the “Type the locationof the item” dialog box, and click Next (assum-ing you saved the file to C:\Path). Give the itema name of your choice, such as “Delete Wizarddata” and click Finish. The registry entries willbe removed every time you start up.

E-mail us your computingproblems along with yourcontact details andcomplete system configuration tossooss@@jjaassuubbhhaaii..ccoomm, and we might answerthem here! Since we getmany more mails per daythan we can handle, itmay take some time foryour query to beanswered. Rest assured,we are listening!

Get Help Now!

The Need For SpeedI use Windows Server 2003. My printer prints very slowly—ata speed much lower than advertised. What could be the

problem?Ritesh Patil

Printers always print at speeds lower than what themanufacturers advertise. However, there are many

factors that affect the speed of a printer. Go to Start >Settings > Printers and right-click the default printer.Choose Properties > Advanced tab, and select the option“Print directly to the printer” rather than “Spool printdocuments so program finishes printing faster”. You canalso check the printer spool settings to see if that is thecause of your problem: go to Start > Settings > Printers,right-click on your printer, then choose Properties >Details > Spool Settings. Change the spool data formatfrom RAW to EMF, or vice-versa. (The location of thisoption, too, depends on the type of printer.) The other

most obvious determinant of print speed isthe printer settings. Choosing a lower printresolution, for instance, or printing in blackand white rather than in colour, can increasethe speeds.

You could also try opting for the printer’s “high-speed” or“fast” printing mode. Almost all printer drivers have such amode, optimised for day-to-day printing needs. If you needmore speed, consider setting the printer to print multiplesmaller pages per single sheet of paper. Consult the printeruser’s manual for detailed instructions about how to activatethe fast printing mode and adjust the pages-per-sheet setting.

Another important factor in determining print speedsis the health of the system. A system with lots of systemmemory, a neatly-organised hard drive with at least 100 MBof free space, and a powerful processor will be much moreefficient in feeding data to the printer than a system thatis lacking in these key areas. Install enough memory onyour computer to take care of your needs. Run DiskDefragmenter periodically.

Question

of the

Month

90

Digital Tools l Agent 001

Agent 001 Wants It On PaperThere’s nothing more challenging than choosing a printer today. With a variety of models, brandsand technologies, you’re going to need the help of our resident super sleuth to figure this one out!

Moving up the ladder, HP has the DeskJetD4168 that retails at Rs 3,750, and Canon has itsPixma iP3300 retailing at Rs 5,500. Epson has itsStylus C58, C79, and C87 in this range, retailingat Rs 3,250, Rs 4,150 and Rs 5,000 respectively.Printers in this range are for people who printaround a hundred pages a week—typical officedesktop usage.

Moving on, the price of the “average” laserprinter has fallen to an affordable Rs 6,000.Almost every vendor has a laser printer for massconsumption. HP, Canon, Samsung, and Xeroxare the major players in the mass-market cate-gory. HP’s LaserJet 1020 and LaserJet 1022 aremono lasers available at attractive prices ofRs 6,900 and Rs 9,700 respectively. Samsung, hastheir ML-1610 at a low Rs 5,000. Samsung alsohas the ML-2010 and ML-2570 , which are higher-spec laser printers, featuring faster printingspeeds. Similar to entry-level inkjet printers,these entry-level laser printers require cartridges(laser cartridges) that often cost around Rs 3,000,and can print around 2,500 pages. These lasersare good for typical office desktop usage, but notfor a large team.

When colour laser printers were intro-duced, they cost too much; however, in

recent months, they have seen a drasticprice drop. The HP Colour LaserJet1600 can be had for Rs 15,000, and thesouped-up LaserJet 2600n that used tocost Rs 40,000 can be bought for Rs19,000. Samsung recently introducedthe CLP-300, an entry-level colourlaser. It retails at Rs 14,500.

While talking to a HP dealer, Icame across the new HP OfficejetK550 Pro. This is a business-classinkjet, and is supposed to deliverbetter performance than a laser, or atleast on par. The demo the dealer gaveme proved its capability—good speeds,

high-capacity cartridges, andsuperb print quality. The attrac-tive pricing of just Rs 8,999sold me, and I coughed it upimmediately—but why not alaser? Well, with an inkjet Ican print good quality colourprints not possible even on acolour laser. Bet you didn’t

know that!

This is the first time I’m mentioning this,but reading happens to be my favouritehobby. I’ve collected more than 600 books

thus far! Nowadays, however, I’m most oftenreading PDFs and e-books, and this was one ofthe reasons I bought a Nokia N80.

However, I find reading on such devices is apain, especially for extended periods. How aboutprinting them out? My older HP DeskJet 640Chas been in operation for the last seven years,and has now lost its ability to deliver crisp print-outs. I just had to buy a new printer, and sincewe haven’t done a good printer comparison foralmost a year now, the setting seemed perfectfor me to go about my business.

In the good old days, selecting a printer wasa no-brainer: there were only a few models tochoose from, and each had a distinct advantageover the other. But now? Too many models,extremely focused categorisation, and the sig-nificant onslaught of MFDs. Further, “should Iopt for an inkjet or a laser printer” is the ques-tion one has to answer before buying.

Instead of narrating how I went aboutbuying a printer for myself, I’ve decided to touchupon these issues.

Nearly everyone who buys a PC ends upbuying a printer, and this very demandhas ensured easy availability ofprinters, which earlier were quiteexpensive; in addition, very fewdealers were selling them. When itcomes to printers, India has beena very pro-HP country, prettymuch like it is pro-NVIDIA in thegraphics card category. But youalso get good printers fromCanon, Lexmark, Epson, Xerox,Samsung, and Brother.

A home user can buy an inkjetfor as little as Rs 2,250; the EpsonC45, to be precise. In the sameleague, you get HP’s 2360,which costs about Rs 2,400, aswell as the Canon IP 1000, forthe same price. The LexmarkZ645 also falls into this cat-egory. Before you investin one of these entry-level printers, makesure to ask about car-tridge prices; mostoften, it would workout to be the same or alittle less than what youpaid for the printer. Theseprinters are for those who printlike ten pages a week.

Want more of Agent 001? Turnover to read his answers toyour buying questions

Agent 001

DIGIT JANUARY 2007

Illustration Pravin Warhokar


Digital Tools l Agent 001

The Heart Of The MatterI want to build a machine for casual gaming.Please recommend a good AMD processor

(Socket AM2), a motherboard with decent onboardgraphics, and memory up to 512 MB DDR2. I have abudget of around Rs 12,000.

Bipin Thite

For onboard graphics at a reasonableprice, an AMD platform based on NVIDIA’s

6150 chipset works out great. You can go with anAMD Athlon64 X2 3600+ or 3800+ AM2 processor.You will find these retailing at around the Rs7,000 mark. For the motherboard, opt for an ASUSM2NPV-MX or MSI K9NGM2; they both retail ataround Rs 4,500. For RAM, I’d suggest 512 MB ofTranscend, Corsair value, or Kingston.

If you can stretch your budget to aroundRs 15,000, opt for an Intel Core 2 Duo E6300processor (Rs 9,000), an ASRock 945G DVI, andthe memory I mentioned earlier. The latter con-figuration will offer much better performance.For any sort of serious gaming, upgrade to adecent graphics card at a later stage.

Supply And DemandI own an Intel Pentium 4 2.66 GHz processor, ASUSP5N32-SLI Leadtek 6800 GS cards, a Creative

SoundBlaster Audigy 4 sound card, and a Zebronics500 Watts platinum SMPS. If I upgrade to an Intel Core2 Duo E6600 processor and 8800 GTX card, which Iwill do soon, will the SMPS be able to handle the load?

Jassim

In the most probable case, yes, a 500-wattSMPS is more than sufficient. We haven’t

tested the Zebronics Platinum, so I can’t com-ment on its efficiency level. For the moment,forget about the wattage—what’s important isthe efficiency level rated at some temperature.

If your SMPS fails to cope with the load, youcan opt for Antec or Corsair power supplies. Con-tact Tirupati enterprises at 033-22251192/93 for Cor-sair and CyberSpace Abacus at 044-24362681forAntec.

First StepsI have taken to computer gaming and like gamessuch as Half Life 2, F.E.A.R., and NFS Carbon. I

want to buy a graphics card. My upper limit for thispurchase is Rs 7,000.

Soumitra Panda

You haven’t mentioned your configura-tion, so I’ll assume you have a PCI-Express

compatible motherboard. For Rs 7,000, you canexpect a decent enough graphics card. Get a cardbased on the NVIDIA 7600 chipset—you will beable to get a 7600 GS at your budget. Try for a7600 GT, though; if you’re lucky, you might beable to get yourself a deal.

How Good Is A Cam-Phone?I am a hobby photographer and am looking tobuy a new digital camera. Should I buy a good

3MP camera phone or a better standalone camera?My budget is Rs 22,000.

Aditya Narayan Ray

It depends on what you mean by“hobby photographer.” How often do

you click snaps, what’s your typical shootingenvironment, and what do you expect from aphotograph? Today’s camera phones haveevolved to a level where they can provide goodphotographs, but quality takes a significanthit under poor lighting conditions. Moreover,additional but useful features such as imagestabilisation, faster response times, and betterflash performance haven’t yet made their wayto camera phones.

A standalone camera is a much better toolif you plan to adopt photography as a serioushobby or career. If you want to be a casualshutterbug, a convergent device such as acamera phone will do. For a 3MP cameraphone, you can opt for the Nokia N73 or theSony Ericsson K790i. As for standalone cam-eras, for Rs 22,000, you will get an excellentone. Look for the Canon PowerShotA700, SonyCybershot W70, or in the pseudo-SLR range,the Panasonic FZ30.

Defying DustI am planning to buy a laptop, possibly based onthe Celeron M platform. I have allocated a

budget of about Rs 32,000. I have a problemthough—I travel a lot, and the local environment isdusty. Please recommend a laptop that can take apunishing environment.

Ranen Biswas

Don’t bother too much about the dust—unlike PCs, laptops don’t have open

crevices from where dust can enter and accu-mulate. The best way to keep dust at bay is toget the notebook serviced at regular intervals—get the ventilation ports cleaned. You canchoose from HP, IBM, Gigabyte, or Zenith note-books. I’d recommend the R40 series from IBM;if they are still available, they should fit intoyour budget.

Tuning InI have a Toshiba A105 series laptop and wantto purchase a compatible TV-Tuner card for it.

Which one should I buy?Suresh Desai

You have two options—USB TV-Tunersand the Card Bus type. The former plug

into a USB 2.0 port and can be connected to regular PCs as well as laptops. The Card Bus type of TV-Tuners go into the PCMCIA slotand are specifically designed for laptops. Cardbus tuners are available from Pinnacle,Compro, and AVER. There are different vari-ants available—some have an FM tuner and/orPVR functionalities, and the price will dependon these features. USB TV-Tuners are relativelybulky, and carrying them around might be inconvenient.

Want a tech product, butdon’t know how to goabout buying it? [email protected] your complete contact details, and hemight answer them here!Please note thatAgent001 only answerspurchase-relatedquestions in this space.

Ask Away!

Ask Agent 001


You usually askfriends who’ve beenthere for directionsto someplaceinteresting—right?And differentfriends give youslightly differentversions...For our companytrip, we decided toDIY: look in themaps and figurehow to get there.We had a map ofMaharashtra, andwe also decided togiveMapMyIndia.com ashot. We just lookedat the regularsection, not the“business services.”

We were highly sceptical about the site. India actuallyhaving been mapped? We expected it to be one ofthose crappy sites with tons of pop-ups and nowhereto look. But... a pleasant surprise!

“Malshej Ghat” actually showed up, even though it’snot a town. A simple “directions” search from Panvelto there brought up a detailed directions list—alongwith the nearest town to the place, called Walhivale.We’d never have known this from the paper map.

The directions were a little confusing though: “AtKalyan-Dombivli, turn right—go 1.34 km.” Thenext one, perplexingly: “At Kalyan-Dombivli,continue...”. “Turn right” and “continue” to do so?

We’d gotten the general drift, though—and we hadthe exact distance, too. Zoom into the map asmuch as you want to, and find tiny towns andvillages... a great help when you’re driving.

We’ll have to ask for directions anyway, but weknew each place along the way, so no getting lostbeyond a few kilometres!

Tracking down a vacation spot on the map Hooray for MapMyIndia!

2345

MapMyIndia.com is terrific. It shows up specificaddresses too, in many parts of the country. The

detail in the maps is incredible.However, we won’t say the tech way is the “winner,”

because you just can’t be sure. The difference between thisand using a paper map is essentially that you get more townnames along the way, as well as an idea about distance.

India simply cannot be mapped the way developedcountries are, and MapMyIndia.com will unfortunately

never be what Yahoo! Maps is to the US.A search for “Belapur”—right next-door to our

office— took us to the interiors of Maharashtra. Ourroads aren’t known for being neatly organised intostreets and avenues… your mileage, therefore, willvary. Can’t blame the site in the least. And then there’sall the thing about no-one knowing what a road iscalled… is Brigade Road in Bengaluru still BrigadeRoad, by the way?

OLDWAY

TECHWAY

Fun: 4.5/10 (What did you expect?) Fun: 7/10 (A novel experience!)

And The

WinnerIs...

Ram Mohan Rao ([email protected])

Figuring out the exact distance is impossible—we justused a ruler for the distance as the crow flies, thencompensated for the turns.

Looking at the map is all well and good, but whereexactly do we turn? It was all we could do to notedown the towns along the way, and we’ll have to askfor directions at each.

Finding Maps

Naturally, the problem is, it’s not a town—it’s a ghat;an area. But there it was—in tiny print—the entiregreen stretch. We still had no clue where the nearesttown was, though.

Malshej Ghat is a hill station close to Mumbai, oneof the lesser-known ones. (More and more peopleare finding out, and it’s getting overpopulated byjunk tourists, though.) At first, we didn’t notice iton the map at all.

The map showed us the roadway as well as therailways—so we could choose. Not much of a value-add—the railways—because we’d decided to go byroad anyway.

1

E-mail clients aren’t all Outlook! There’s a whole bunch of them out there—and it’s time we did a round-up of the lot

Jayesh Limaye

Despite Instant Messaging, SMS, and othernew forms of communication, the defacto way of keeping in touch is still e-mail. It was the killer app of the Inter-

net, and its importance has not diminished onebit. In fact, it’s the lifeline of many businesses.

The simplest way of checking and sendingmail from anywhere is by using Web-basede-mail. In this case, you need to be online andlog on to the Web site of your e-mail provider—such as Gmail, Rediffmail, and so on. However,there are times when you can connect to theInternet only once in a while; in such situations,Web-based e-mail solutions cannot be reliedupon. Another scenario: you have a company e-mail account, and you’re connected to the Inter-net all the time. Why should you log on to a Website each time you want to check your mail? It’spreferable to just let the mail come into yourInbox as and when it is received. Here is wheree-mail clients come in.

When you send an e-mail, it goes to the e-mailserver and is stored there. An e-mail clientretrieves the mail from the server to the

computer. Not only does an e-mail client let youview your e-mails when you’re offline, it also letsyou compose mails without having to beconnected. Mails composed offline can be sentacross once you connect to the internet. This way,if you’re on dial-up, or on any other accessscheme that makes you pay by the minute, you’rebetter off using an e-mail client than Web mail.

Still, Web mail services offer the convenienceof letting you check your mail from anywhere.Many e-mail service providers have revampedtheir interfaces to mimic that of e-mail clients.

Some of us use both—an e-mail client at workfor our office e-mails, if, for example, we aren’tallowed to check personal e-mail during workhours—and Web-based mail at home. Ultimately,each method has its pros and cons, and this testis for those who do use an e-mail client—whichwill be Outlook or Outlook Express in most cases!We wish to remind you that there are alternatives.

We will take a look at twelve of the most popu-lar e-mail clients. These are RimArts Inc.’s Becky!Internet Mail, Qualcomm’s Eudora, IncrediMailXe, MemeCode’s i.Scribe, Mulberry, Opera MailClient, Microsoft Outlook 2003, Microsoft OutlookExpress 6.0, Pegasus, Sylpheed, RITLABS S.R.L.’s TheBat! Home Edition, and Mozilla Thunderbird. Im

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POPping The CorkDigital Tools l E-Mail Client Test

The Postmen

Protocol supportPOP3: Post Office Protocol version 3 is an application-layer Internetstandard protocol that lets you retrieve e-mail from a remote mailserver over the Internet. Many e-mail service providers provide afree POP3 service, while some such as Yahoo! provide it for a fee.IMAP: This was earlier known variously as Internet Mail AccessProtocol, Interactive Mail Access Protocol, and Interim MailAccess Protocol. This is an application-layer Internet protocolthat allows a local client to access e-mail on a remote server. It isalso known as IMAP4. Almost all modern e-mail clients andservers support it.NNTP: Network News Transfer Protocol is an Internet applicationprotocol primarily used for reading and posting Usenet articles, aswell as to transfer news among news servers.News Feeds: This is a family of Web feed formats used to publishfrequently-updated digital content such as blogs, news feeds, andpodcasts. It is again divided into formats such as ATOM and RSS(Rich Site Summary); the latter again has versions 0.91, 1.0, and 2.0.

Security featuresSSL encryption: Secure Sockets Layer is a cryptographic protocolthat provides secure communications on the Internet for thingssuch as e-mail, Web browsing, Internet faxing, and other datacommunications and transfers.Preview before download: Some e-mail clients support readingmail off the POP3 server directly without downloading it to thePC. This provides you with security against mallicious e-mail. Theimage-blocking feature also has the same advantages.Junk filtering: Spam can be irritating and also means a waste oftime. Inbuilt Junk/Spam filters are therefore a big plus.

AppearanceFormatted mails: HTML-formatted messages have much bettervisual appeal than plain-text messages.

Customisable Interface And Keybindings: The interface andkeybindings (combinations of keystrokes) should be customisableto suit individual needs.Mail Notification: Mail notifiers alert you when you receive a newmail so you don’t need to keep checking for new mails.Ease Of Use: We looked at the ease with which a new mailaccount could be created, whether the interface is user-friendly,and so on, and collectively rated this on a scale of five.

PIM featuresPersonal Information Manager features such as Calendar, Notes,Tasks, Scheduler, Memo, etc. were noted. Though these aren’t thatimportant for the home user, they don’t hurt!

Other featuresSplit large attachments: Most e-mail service providers specify acertain size limit for the attachments you can send. Anythingabove this size is rejected. The option we’re talking about lets yousplit attachments to a size below the specified threshold.Import/Export Of Mail And Address Book: This is an importantfeature—very useful when you’re migrating from one e-mail clientto another. An e-mail client should support importing from asmany popular clients as possible.Multiple Profile Support: For more than one user to access a mailclient installation, the client should be able to handle a profileunique to each user.Changeable Mail Store Location: It is a good idea to change thelocation of the e-mails stored locally on the hard drive to a safer-than-default location (such as a drive other than the one wherethe OS resides).Plug-in Support: Plug-ins have the power to completely revampan e-mail client, so this is a very welcome feature.Additional features: We looked for any additional features to theabove that the e-mail client offered.

What We Looked For

Becky! Internet Mail

Becky! Internet Mail 2.29 is a mere 2.3 MB down-load, and starts up very quickly, probably due

to its no-frills interface.Becky! Internet Mail does not have a

polished interface; attention seems to have beenpaid only to functionality. There are no Wizardsor guides, and a newbie will feel lost. However,the simple menus do everything one wouldexpect of an e-mail client.

While it supports HTML e-mail composing tosome extent, it can hook up to an external editorsuch as Word to enhance your composition. Thisis a configurable option. If you attempt to enterActiveX content into the mail, Becky! will warnyou about its potential dangers. You can evendirectly edit mail in the viewer window, and thiscan even be the HTML message you createdearlier using the external application.

The search as well as the mail rules are a painto understand, and not very customisable. Becky!has a unique Reminder capability, using which

you can send yourselfan e-mail and specifythe date when youwish to receive it. TheMailing Lists Managerhelps you maintainmultiple mailing listsubscriptions. Becky!also comes with a PGP(Pretty Good Privacy)plug-in preinstalled,which lets youencrypt messagesbefore sending them.

Becky! has afeature called theRemote Mailbox, which lets you decide whetherto delete or download a certain mail or mailswhile they’re still on the server. All basic mailfunctions such as copy, paste, delete, forward,reply and drag-and-drop are supported whenusing the Remote Mailbox feature. Becky! is,however, priced at $40 (Rs 1,800), which seemstoo much for just an e-mail client.

Digital Tools l E-Mail Client Test


Becky’s Remote Mailbox lets you preview your mails

Eudora 7.1

Along with support for POP3 and IMAP,Eudora has a special feature called ESP

(Eudora Sharing Protocol) that allows you tocreate a group of users who can synchronise andshare a set of files via e-mail.

The e-mail composer supports plain-text aswell as richly-formatted text, and you can evensend emoticons if you use the paid version. Thenthere is MoodWatch—an offensive-vocabularyalert that warns you about profanity if you acci-dentally type in some. Eudora has extensivesearch options, and it also supports indexedsearch for faster performance.

It’s SpamWatch Bayesian spam filter isquite effective. Also featured is ScamWatch,which warns you about deceptive URLs inphishing e-mails, but you need to be a paiduser to use these.

Eudora’s PureVoiceplug-in lets you send avoice message as anattachment, and thiscan be opened by thereceiver using thePureVoice plug-in. it alsogives you the option toredirect your e-mail to adifferent address.

This program is avail-able in three versions:Paid, Sponsored, andLite. The paid and thesponsored versions havethe same features,except that the sponsored version is adware. TheLite version has fewer features. At the end of theday, Eudora is a good e-mail client, but will besomewhat tough to get used to. Eudora is set togo open source in the first half of 2007.

IncrediMail Xe

This is one of the best looking e-mail clientswe have seen, and it seems to be aimed at

the young. The download is just 450 KB, but thisis a deceiver—it is a Web installer, and over 10MB is downloaded.

IncrediMail has support for POP3 as well asIMAP, but support for news feeds has been left out.

The interface is similar to that of OutlookExpress (OE), only more colourful thanks toFlash, which is what most likely contributes toits slow load times.

When you open the e-mail composer, alongwith it opens a Style Box that lets you choosefrom loads of colourful backgrounds—includingsome animated ones. You can even choose to add3D effects and also emoticons. You can sendaudio mail, where you record a message andmail it with the text.

IncrediMail sits quietly in the System Tray,and when new mail arrives, the Notifiers let you

know. These Notifiersare animated charac-ters—something simi-lar to the searchassistants in XP.

IncrediMail’s spamblocker automaticallydetermines ad-basedmessages. The safetyconcerns are the sameas those in OE—maybeeven more, consideringthe presence of Flashcontent. IncrediMail,too, has the ability toread POP mail withoutdownloading it. Thisway, you can deleteunwanted mail directly from the POP3 server.

With so much colour and animations, werevise our earlier view: this isn’t really forteens, but rather for kids being introduced tothe world of e-mail!

DIGIT JANUARY 2007


96

“Finally, Microsoft is taking steps to doaway with the buggy-yet-popular

version of their e-mail client—OutlookExpress. Windows Vista will feature a newe-mail client—Windows Mail.” This rumourhas been around on the Internet for thepast few months. But the excitement is notwarranted: Microsoft has not built this e-mail client from scratch—rather, this isOutlook Express’s new avatar.

Let us first look at what new featuresare offered in Windows Mail. An integratedspell-checker is provided, so you don’t needto install MS Office for this feature. It alsoincludes a new storage engine that is morereliable and performs better than OE.

Windows Mail makes use of InternetExplorer 7’s Phishing Filter, and also has aJunk Mail filter—similar to Outlook. Otherthan this, Windows Mail offers only a fewcosmetic enhancements over OE.

While it gains some features, it losesquite a few. You can no longer access Webmail accounts like Hotmail (and the soon-to-be Windows Live Mail)—only POP3 andIMAP mail accounts are supported. It alsodoes away with the Identities feature of OE,but this is a feature that was often leftunused and hence won’t be missed much.

Vista comes with Windows Calendarand Windows Contacts, and integratingWindows Mail with these two would have

given it good PIM functionality, but it isspeculated that Microsoft didn’t do so toprotect Outlook from being threatened.

Windows Mail

Old wine, new bottle

MoodWatch gaurds against profanity

Convey your emotions using the Emoticons

i.Scribe 1.88

An open source cross-platform e-mail client,more popular with OSes other than

Windows, i.Scribe is just 790 KB! It requires noinstallation, and can be carried around on athumb drive. You can even take it to a Linuxcomputer and continue checking your mail. Itsupports the POP3, IMAP, and LDAP protocols.

i.Scribe has a simple three-pane interface,with the mail folders at the left, mails at the topright, and message content at the bottom right.You are guided by a wizard to create youraccount on your first run. This version beingfree, you are limited to creating only oneaccount, and once we did create one, we had ahard time trying to delete it.

You can only compose messages in plain-text,but you can view HTML messages. i.Scribe uses itssecure internal engine to render HTML, but can

also use Internet Explorer’s HTMLrendering engine.

i.Scribe does not provide asufficient number of options inits mail search—you can onlyprovide one search term, andsearch in only one field, such asTo, From, Subject, etc. Messagerules are also inflexible, and ittakes a while to understand howto set up a certain rule.

The powerful Bayesian spamfilter can effectively discard spamand allow only good e-mail to endup in your Inbox and the duplicate message filterlooks for and deletes duplicate messages.

Small doesn’t mean less, because i.Scribeeven has PIM features such as a Calendar, whichlets you share your appointments with others.You can also expand i.Scribe’s functionality usingthe large number of community-created plugins.

Mulberry 4.0.6

Here’s a powerful mail client that supportsalmost every platform. It supports all the

protocols expected of an e-mail client, butMulberry fails miserably when it comes tosimplicity of interface and ease of use. It took usa considerable amount of time to figure how toeven configure a new mail account.

The e-mail composer supports messageswith plain-text, rich text, and HTML format-ting. The text macros let you specifycommonly-used text, so that you can quicklyinsert such text into your messages usinghotkeys. The Speak mail feature uses the

installed text-to-speechengine in the OS toread your e-mail to you.

The search engine issimple yet powerful,and you can also savesearch criteria forfuture use.

Mulberry has takencare of security andprivacy. It supportsOpenPGP and S/MIMEmessage encryption inaddition to TSL/SSL.

From this version on, Mulberry also comeswith calendaring support. It’s free software—soyou can always give it a try!

Opera Mail Client

Opera Mail Client was the only e-mail clientwe tested that was integrated with a browser

rather than being a separate piece of software.While all the received e-mails are stored in theReceived folder, mails with attachments are alsocategorised according to the attachment type—such as Documents, Images, Music, Videos, andArchives, for faster retrieval.

Integration within Opera does have itsadvantages. It can accept all kinds of RSS as wellas Atom feeds, and these are well-sorted intofolders—one per feed. This is the only e-mailclient that supports all the required protocols—POP3, IMAP, NNTP, and even Chat (IRC).

The Opera mail composer is still primitive,and does not support HTML. The lack of HTMLand JavaScript support however means thatthis mail client is well-protected from viruses.Integration with the Opera browser also allowsyou to create a new mail from just aboutanywhere within a window in the browser—

just select text, right-click, and click on“Send by mail.”

The search option lets you specifyvery basic search criteria. Ditto for themessage rules. Opera creates folderswhen you create a filter, and filteredmessages are copied to this folder. Youcan create filters within filters to refinethe categorisation of your mail. Thespam filter is Bayesian, meaning itkeeps learning.

The wizards let you import mail easily.E-mails can be imported from Eudora,Opera, OE, Netscape, and Thunderbird. Unlikeprevious versions, versions post-9.02 don’t crashwhile importing Thunderbird mail.

You can take notes and send them as e-mailsif required. This is the only PIM feature to be seenhere. The e-mail storage location cannot be easilychanged, and you need to go into the advancedconfiguration options to do that.

Opera Mail Client is a good client overall, butyou may probably use it only if you use theOpera browser.



i.Scribe’s Bayesian Filter keeps spam at bay

Mulberry even comes with PIM features

Mails are sorted according to filtersand attachment types

Microsoft Outlook 2003

Microsoft Outlook 2003 comes bundled withMicrosoft Office 2003, but is also available

as a standalone product. The interface consists ofa shortcuts panel where the different featurescan be quickly accessed; the Folder List and athird pane is where you can view the featuresactivated from the shortcuts panel. It can be abit confusing in the beginning, but a closer lookreveals that everything is in a proper, logicalorder. Keep in mind that this is primarily a PIMclient, and the e-mail client is only a part of it.

Outlook supports the POP3 and IMAP proto-cols, and you can also connect to HTTP e-mailservers such as Hotmail. The real power ofOutlook is realised only after it connects to theMS Exchange Server, but you won’t see this as ahome user.

You can compose great-looking HTML mailsthanks to its integration with Word as an e-mail

editor. The spell-checker is thesame that comes with MS Office,so you can expect it to work verywell. You can add ActiveXcontent to the mail using Word.This opens the door of vulnera-bility to viruses and worms, butthankfully, Microsoft periodi-cally issues security updates topatch holes in Outlook—justremember to update!

Outlook 2003 comes with agood spam filter that efficientlyweeds out most spam. You caneven set the level of filtering. By default,messages are sorted by date, and are arrangedinto groups. You can also set messages todisplay as threaded chains. Since this is a prod-uct aimed primarily at the corporate user, itcomes with PIM features such as Calendar,Notes, and Tasks. It costs $109 (Rs 4,900)—toosteep a price for a home user!

Outlook Express 6.0

Outlook Express 6.0 (OE) is part of Windows XPand has a very simple and easy-to-use inter-

face. It is well integrated with the OS and also withInternet Explorer. An e-mail setup wizard launcheson your first run, and guides you to set up youraccount with no hassles. Due to its integrationwith Windows, it performs with ease and speed.

Along with the usual POP3 and IMAP, you canalso set up newsgroup accounts, or even LDAPfor that matter.

Though you can create HTML messages in OE,there are certain limitations. While replyingwith HTML formatting, you cannot insert linesbelow the quoted message or within it because ofthe irritating vertical line that appears to the left

of the quoted text. Plus, youcan only add simple back-grounds to your e-mails.

It is easy to arrange mail indifferent virtual folders, andyou can easily create rules thatautomatically transport e-mails to the required folders.

Integration with MSNMessenger lets you synchro-nise contacts between thetwo. You get all this at aprice: Outlook Express is oneof the least secure e-mailclients, and is rather vulnerable to attacks byworms and viruses. But then, do you findcomputers around that are not protected by ananti-virus these days?

Pegasus 4.4

Pegasus is one of the oldest e-mail clientsaround, having first been launched in 1990.

The interface is far from polished—the function-ality is there, but is in scattered form, and takestime to get comfortable with. Thankfully, itcomes with an exhaustive help system.

All messages you send are stored in a foldernamed “Copies to self”—realise that that’s thecorrect way of addressing sent mail! The MainFolder contains all the mails it receives, butthere is a New mail folder that contains unreadmails, so you don’t have to search for an old mailyou forgot to read.

You can sort messages by thread, sender,date, and more criteria. Public folders allowmultiple users to share access to the samemessages in Pegasus Mail.

Pegasus supports POP3 and SMTP, and canalso manage multiple accounts of each type.

Unfortunetly, it does notsupport Atom or RSSfeeds.

HTML-formatted mailscan be composed in Pega-sus. The Glossary lets youstore a list of abbreviationsand their long forms, sothat you can use andexpand them in mails atthe click of a button.

While Pegasus has anextensive e-mail filtering system and is highlyconfigurable, it is likely that the general userwould be left confused because of the lack ofWizards for this purpose. The Bayesian filter takescare of spam, while the integrated phishingprotection alerts you about malicious Web sites.

You can review your mail on the POP3 serverand choose to directly delete it if you so wish.Along with TSL / SSL, Pegasus can also work withthird-party e-mail encryption solutions.



The three-pane interface of Outlook 2003

Outlook Express—it’s right there

The Sent Items folder is called Copies to self!

Sylpheed 2.2.10

Sylpheed is an open source, cross-platform e-mail client that works with Windows as well

as Linux. It not only supports all major protocolsincluding RSS feeds, but also supports IPv6—thenext-generation Internet Protocol.

The user interface is somewhat similar tothat of Outlook Express, and is quite comfort-able to work with. The usual Inbox, Sent, Draft,etc. folder structure is strikingly similar.

The mail composer lets you create newtemplates according to your needs. Messages canbe composed only as text, but you can view HTMLmessages. You can either use the inbuilt editor or

bind and use an external editorfor this purpose. Sylpheed’smessage editor cannot reflowtext: it can only wrap it. Sylpheedtakes care of your privacy issuesby means of GnuPG keys forencrypted communication, inaddition to TSL/SSL support.

The search feature is quitepowerful, and allows you tosave the results as a searchfolder. Spam is taken care of bymeans of bogofilter and bsfil-ter, which feature a learningfunction that improves theirperformance with use.

The Bat! Home Edition

The Bat! Home Edition 3.85.03 was the one e-mail client that had a markedly different

menu system. Unlike the usual File, Edit, etc.menus, here we have Messages, Specials,Accounts, etc.—much more relevant for an e-mailclient. This may confuse the user at first, but itactually makes navigation much easier and faster.

Like most mail clients, The Bat! has support forPOP3 and IMAP protocols. It can even connect to anMS Exchange Server using the MAPI protocol. TheMessage Dispatcher tool shows you the mostimportant message headers, and lets you deletemessages directly from the server. In some cases,the sender and subject might not be enough foryou to decide whether you want to keep themessage, so The Bat! can automatically downloada few body lines together with the headers.

This version, unlike the previous versions, iscapable of sending as well as receiving messagesin the HTML format. The e-mail composer is alsofeature-rich; in fact, it is the only e-mail clientwe have seen that supports aligning even inplain-text mode. The spell-checker can evencorrect words based on phonetics!

You can set rules and searchwith seemingly endless optionsthat yield highly refined results.A point to note is that thoughwe have a large number ofoptions, they are neatly namedand thus not confusing. Thismultithreaded e-mail client cansend as well as receive at thesame time!

Mail Chat lets you chat withother The Bat! users by means ofe-mail, so you remain protectedfrom the potential threats posedby IMs. A flashing icon informsyou about Mail Chat replies.

The Bat! is very secureagainst viruses and worms. It supports variousPGP standards such as OpenPGP to encrypt yourmessages. You can also password-protect indi-vidual mailboxes if you wish.

With features such as Scheduler and Memo,The Bat! competes head-to-head with Outlook,and is good even for corporates and can alsowork as a server on your home network. Synchro-nisation and backups are also easily achievable.It costs $24.50 (Rs 1,100), which is just right.

Mozilla Thunderbird 1.5

Thunderbird is an open source, free e-mailclient from the Mozilla Foundation. The

interface is pretty simple and straightforward,and allows you to arrange mails into differentvirtual folders. E-mails can be sorted according toimportance, time of reception, and even accord-ing to attachment. It has a themes-based inter-face, which means that the looks can be changedby applying themes.

POP3 and IMAP are the supported mail proto-cols. In addition, it also supports NNTP, which letsyou subscribe to Newsgroups. Like Firefox, itsupports feeds from RSS 0.91 and Atom to keep youupdated, and can be viewed as regular e-mails.

The search feature does not have too manyparameters, but they seem to be adequate for a

home user. Message filters (rules)also do not have too many options,but a home user may be better offwith the limited set of options.

This is a basic e-mail client likeOE, while being less vulnerable toviruses because of the lack ofActiveX support. Pair this with theincluded Bayesian spam filter, andyou have a very safe e-mail client.

We must also mention thatThunderbird supports a variety ofplug-ins or extensions developed by the opensource community. These extensions bring innew functionality and can enhance the client.Some extensions like the Adblock Plus filterblock ads and increase system security, whileothers such as United States English Dictionary,add to the vocabulary of the e-mail composer.



Sylpheed comes with a simple interface

Extensive search options let you pinpoint your mail

Extensions are the meat of Thunderbird

Scoreboard Email Client

Small and portable, Windows-Linux operabilitySingle account can be created

Good Bayesian spamfiltersDifficult interface

Lively, easy interfaceVulnerable

Good search and message filtersHard-to-learn interface

POP3 mail previewExpensive

Incredimail Xe

✔

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✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

3.5

3.5

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

Outlook, OE, Eudora,

Exchange

✔

✖

✔

✖

✖

✔

✔

✔

✔

✖

✔

4

✖

Emoticons, Colourful

backgrounds

Free

www.incredimail.com

Mulberry

✔

✔

✔

✔

✖

✔

✖

✔

✖

✔

✔

4

4

✔

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Eudora, Netscape, OE,

Pine, Quickmail

✔

✖

✖

✖

✔

✔

✔

✔

✖

✖

✖

2.5

Calendar

Speak Message

Free

www.mulberrymail.com

Eudora

✔

✔

✖

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✖

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4

4

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Outlook, OE, Netscape

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✔

✔

✔

✖

✖

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3

✖

Emoticons, Voice

Messaging

$19.95 (Rs 900)

www.eudora.com

i.Scribe

✔

✔

✖

✔

✖

✔

✔

✔

✔

✖

✖

2.5

3.5

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Plug-in

✔

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Eudora, Outlook, OE,

Netscape, Thunderbird

✖

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✔

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2.5

Calender

Has option to remove

duplicate mails

Free

www.memecode.com

Becky! Internet Mail

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3

2.5

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NA (mbox files)

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3

Reminder

PGP

$40 (Rs 1800)

www.rimarts.co.jp

Email Client

Mail Protocol Support

POP3 Support (✔ /✖ )

IMAP Support (✔ /✖ )

NNTP (Newsgroup Support) (✔ /✖ )

LDAP (✔ /✖ )

Feeds (RSS 0.91/1.0/2.0/ ATOM)

Security features

SSL Encryption (✔ /✖ )

Preview Before Download (✔ /✖ )

Image Blocking (✔ /✖ )

Junk Filtering (✔ /✖ )

Other Features

Message Grouping in Virtual

Folders (✔ /✖ )

Create Virtual Folders (✔ /✖ )

Search Options (Scale of 5)

Message Rules (Scale of 5)

Read Confirmation (✔ /✖ )

Can Split Large Attachments? (✔ /✖ )

Spellcheck (✔ /✖ /External)

Import and Export Address Books

(✔ /✖ )

Import and Export of Mails (✔ /✖ )

Importable Email Clients

Multiple Profile Support (✔ /✖ )

Supports Synchronization (✔ /✖ )

Mail Store Location Can be

Modified? (✔ /✖ )

Backup (✔ /✖ )

Plug-in Support (✔ /✖ )

Appearance

Send Formatted Messages (✔ /✖ )

View Formatted Messages (✔ /✖ )

Customizable Interface

Customizable Keybindings

Mail Notification (✔ /✖ )

Skinnable Interface (✔ /✖ )

Ease of Use of Interface (Scale of 5)

PIM Features (Calender, Notes, etc)

Additional Features

Price

Website

Supports all protocolsPrimitive mail composer

Ultimate in seamless integration and featuresVery Expensive

Simple to use, bundles with XPVulnerable to threats

Unlimited plug-insSearch could have been better

Almost every featureyou’ll ever needNone in particular

Simple interface, cross-platform operabilityBad mail composer

Opera Mail Client

✔

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3.5

3

✖

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Plug-in

✔

✔

Eudora, Opera, OE,

Netscape, Thunderbird

✔

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✔

✖

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3.5

✖

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Free

www.opera.com

MS Outlook Express 6.0

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4

4

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Eudora, Outlook,

Exchange, MS Internet

Mail, Netscape

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4

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Free

www.microsoft.com

Thunderbird

✔

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RSS 0.91, ATOM

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3.5

4

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Eudora, Outlook, OE,

Netscape

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4

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Free

www.mozilla.com

Pegasus

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3.5

3

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3

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Public folders

Free

www.pmail.com

Sylpheed

✔

✔

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✔

Via Plug-in

✔

✖

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4

4

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NA (mbox files)

✔

✖

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4

✖

GnuPG

Free

sylpheed.sraoss.jp/en

The Bat! Home Edition

✔

✔

✔

✔

Via Plug-in

✔

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✔

✔

✔

4.5

4.5

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Eudora, Pegasus,

Netscape, Outlook, OE

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✔

✖

4

Scheduler, Memo

Mail Chat, OpenPGP.

Connects to MS

Exchange Server

$24.5 (Rs 1,100)

www.ritlabs.com

MS Outlook 2003

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✔

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✔

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4.5

4.5

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Eudora, Netscape, MS

Internet Mail, Outlook

Express

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4

Calender, Tasks, Notes

Connects to MS

Exchange Server

$109 (Rs 4,900)

www.microsoft.com

POP3 mail previewConfusing interface

Who Delivers?Of the twelve e-mail clients we tested, we foundthat many of them are good when catering to aparticular segment of users. We thereforebreak away from the tradition of crowning aGold and Silver winner. Instead, we will men-tion the noteworthy ones here—the ones wethink are worth a try.

Windows comes with Outlook Express 6.0as the default e-mail client, and though it isbuggy and prone to worms and viruses, apply-ing frequent bug-fixes and patches from theMicrosoft Web site and using a good anti-viruswill minimise the risks. Outlook Express isvery simple to use—no wonder there was a hueand cry following rumours in August 2003that Microsoft had decided to stop furtherdevelopment of Outlook Express: within aweek, Microsoft pledged allegiance to its freee-mail client.

If you are always on the move, need to checkyour e-mails and also carry them around, i.Scribeis the e-mail client for you. Not only does it allowyou to password-protect your e-mail folders on aportable drive, it also has advanced features thatlet you preview your e-mails on the POP3 serverwithout downloading them. This is useful in ascenario where you’ve run out of free space onyour drive, but still want to check new mails

without downloading them. In addition to this,it runs on both Windows and Linux.

If you are a novice or if you are, well, young,IncrediMail Xe with its colourful interface andanimated emoticons will surely appeal.

If you are willing to pay for better features,The Bat! should be your choice because it has allthe features one might ask of an e-mail client.Corporate users, too, will not be disappointed,because it can connect seamlessly to MicrosoftExchange Server. It even packs in PIM featuressuch as Scheduler and Memo, and at $25.50 (Rs1100), the price is not too high.

We have to mention that when it comes topure performance and compatibility, nothingcomes even close to Outlook 2003. This PIM-plus-e-mail client rips the competition apart becauseof its excellent integration with Windows. It hasexcellent drag-and-drop support, and integra-tion with components of MS Office. Whencoupled with MS Exchange Server, Outlook 2003takes on a whole new avatar as a collaborationtool, complete with the ability to assign tasks tosubordinates and delegating correspondencewhile you take vacations. Corporate users whohave the money should definitely opt for it—nothing works better with MS Exchange Serverthan Outlook 2003.

[email protected]

POP3 vs. IMAPPOP3 and IMAP are the predominant protocols of e-mail services. They are popular and hence are supported by mostclients. But there are certain advantages and disadvantages with both of them, and here we try to make a general differ-entiation between the two.

POP3You may encounter the following problems with POP3 access since e-mail needs to be downloaded onto the PC before being displayed: Youare required to download all e-mail again when using another PC tocheck your email. If you need to check e-mail at office as well as homein this way, it can lead to confusion. Depending on the settings of youre-mail client, the downloaded e-mail may be deleted from the server.

During the “Check new mail” process, all messages as well as theirattachments will be downloaded to your computer.While multiple mailboxes can be created on the PC to download themail, there is only one mailbox on the server that stores all the mail.Incoming and outgoing messages are filtered and transferred only tolocal mailboxes.

Outgoing mail is temporarily stored locally.

While you can delete the messages on the home PC very easily, clean-ing up messages from the server requires you to download all mes-sages with the mail client configured to delete mail after downloading.If your hard drive crashes, you lose all your e-mails.

The client connects to the e-mail server for a short period of time, onlyas long as it takes to download any new messages.



IMAPSince the email is kept on the server, it has the following benefits:There is no need to download all e-mail when using other PC tocheck your mail. Unread mail can be easily identified.

A complete message will be downloaded if and only if it is openedfor display to access its contents.IMAP has the provision of letting you create multiple mailboxes onthe home PC as well as on the mail server.Incoming and outgoing messages are filtered and transferred toother mailboxes no matter where the mailboxes are located (onthe server or on the PC).Outgoing mail is stored on a mailbox on the mail server and canbe accessed from another computer.You can delete messages directly on the server, thus making itmore convenient to clean up your mailbox on the server.

Since the mail is stored on the server, you won’t lose your mail ifyour hard drive crashes.When using IMAP4, the client stays connected to the server aslong as the user interface is active and downloads message con-tent on demand. In case of many or large messages, this can resultin much faster response times.


Digital Business l Tech Careers

Samir Makwana

An ERP software package helps organisa-tions in effective and efficient manage-ment of available resources such as

machines, material, manpower, inventory, etc. Aunified database serves the needs and require-ments of various departments, leading to opti-mised functioning. The aim of a business inusing an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) sys-tem is to bring all its departments to a commonplatform, such that the departments can easilyshare information and communicate with each other.

To elaborate, in ERP, a single software pack-age has modules customised to the needs of dif-ferent departments—financial accounting, pro-duction, distribution, marketing, inventory con-trol, data warehousing, etc. ERP is, in sum, anapplication for effective and efficient manage-ment of the resources of an organisation.

Let’s say the human resources departmentkeeps a record of theattendance, per-formance on thejob, contribution,

and such for every employee. A software modulewill keep these records and save it in a unifieddatabase. When the employees are to be remu-nerated, the finance department uses the samedatabase for calculating the employee’s salaryafter the necessary costs, rates, and taxes havebeen applied.

ERP systems have been used for ages, andsoftware packages provided by the vendors haveundergone several changes. Today, ERP is used bylarge corporations as well as small-and-mediumbusinesses; almost every sector has some form ofERP implemented.

The OpportunitiesEarlier, ERP was confined to the manufacturingsectors. Its success led to a further demand for itin industries such as automobiles, media, phar-maceuticals, textiles, telecom, heavy machines,and many more.

“The growth of ERP as a business solution hasfuelled the adoption of upcoming technologiesand implementation of ERP packages in several

Enterprise in ERPERP systems areexpanding in justabout anyindustry. Are youready to positionyourself as one ofthe leaders in themulti-facetedexpansion ofbusiness models?

Tech Careers

How Technology Can Help Your OrganisationBusinessDigital

Illustration Pradip Ingale

106ClutterlessConnectivity! 117 To Simpler

Times 122 Thin ClientsExperiences



companies across various industries. This hasalso spawned the growth of IT consultant firmsthat specialise in helping organisations both inIndia and abroad in implementing ERP solutions.It also requires organisations where ERP has beenadopted to develop teams for ongoing mainte-nance of the applications and providing supportto clients,” says Jason Gonsalves, Vice President,IT and Corporate Planning, Kansai NerolacPaints, a leading paint manufacturing company.

The implementation of ERP passes througha number of stages—analysis of the businessprocess, the drawing up of plans for the ERP,installing and configuring the ERP package,and, finally, support and management.

Thus, the demand for ERP professionals is,naturally, in companies who have adopted or areplanning to adopt ERP applications. There areseveral options for those who have specialisedknowledge in this field—through either educa-tion or work experience. The increase in adoptionof ERP by various industry verticals has led to anincrease in demand for trained, skilled, and expe-rienced ERP professionals.

The Basic RequirementsAnyone aspiring to pursue a career in ERP sys-tems should have at least a Bachelor’s degreefrom either functional or technical academics.The qualifications required vary according to therole to be played. The roles in this field are broad-ly divided into Functional and Technical, so thebasic requirements are as follows.

Functional: The qualification required is aBachelors or Masters degree, which is to be pur-sued depending upon the function to specialisein. Someone willing to specialise in finance musthave an academic background in finance: MBA(Finance), Chartered Accountant, CostAccounting, Financial Analyst, etc.

Freshers are not likely to be selected directlyfrom campuses. It is advisable to pursue furtherformal education in the respective functionalarea (finance, materials management, produc-tion management, etc.) and acquiring experienceof working in the domain of their interest. Aftergaining sound knowledge of that particular func-tion, they can pursue training by the ERP soft-ware vendors, who have specific course modulesfor professionals in a specific domain.

Technical: This deals purely with the devel-opment of software. For that, a minimum of aBachelors or Masters degree from an engineering

background, specialising in computer science orsoftware engineering, is preferred. Students pur-suing degrees in computer applications and ITare also eligible. Candidates should possessstrong programming skills with a constant urgefor learning, as they may have to work on multi-ple applications.

Courses in specific domains are offered byERP vendors such as Oracle and SAP. Educationand training can be acquired from ERP vendors’authorised centres and authorised training part-ners: the certifications they provide are acceptedby various industry verticals. These courses areusually short-term, and a bit expensive.

The industry prefers to recruit professionalswho carry a vendor-specific degree. A number ofprivate training institutes have cropped up, andimpart training on ERP products. However,“Unless authorised by the ERP product vendors, itis not a wise to opt for an unauthorised institute.There are many institutes that are not authorisedand use pirated software for training,” saysNilanjan Chaudhuri, Vice President, Marketing,PSI Data Systems, a software development, solu-tions, and consulting service provider.

Skill SetsHands-on skills are looked upon as the basicbenchmark for the assessment of a suitable can-didate. An ERP consultant should be dynamicand able to adapt to constant change. One mustpossess good soft skills, too.

Functional: In a company such as one thatprovides consulting and solution services in ERP,consultants have to interact with clients fromvarious industries. Understanding the client’sneeds, drawing up plans, and communicatingthese to the implementation team are typicalduties. Soft skills such as being a patient andattentive listener, good communication skills,presentation skills, team-leading ability, and theability to persuade clients are important. Goodlogical thinking is a must.

Technical: Those on the technical side areinto programming and application development,so hard skills are valued: problem solving skills,good logical thinking and analysis, communica-tion skills, and being a good team player.

The Importance Of TrainingEvery organisation has training programmes oftheir own for fresh recruits, irrespective of workexperience and educational qualifications.

“Training programmes are important, as ashortage of trained and experienced profession-als is always faced. Training helps professionalsgain hands-on experience and more understand-ing, which will help them in the execution oftheir job. Though training freshly recruited staffis cost intensive, it is looked upon as a long-terminvestment in them,” says Chetan Pathak, VicePresident, Enterprise Solutions, Ramco Systems(India) Ltd, a company that provides enterprise ITsolutions and services.

“At Wipro, we have an internal TalentTransformation Cell, where we train peoplerecruited to work with ERP systems on platformsof vendors such as Oracle, SAP, MS Dynamics, etc.After the training, they get certified on their

ERP consultingand solutions arepeople’s business,whereinterpersonal andintrapersonalskills are equallyimportant—besides basicqualifications andcertifications”

Satish JoshiChief TechnologyOfficerPatni ComputerSystems Ltd

FUNCTIONALTrainee ConsultantAssistant ConsultantAssociate ConsultantConsultantSenior Consultant Lead Consultant Managing Consultant/Project ManagerPrincipal ConsultantVP, Consulting and Business SolutionsSenior VP, Consulting and BusinessSolutions

TECHNICAL Trainee Software EngineerSoftware EngineerSenior Software EngineerAssociate Software ConsultantSoftware Consultant Senior Software Consultant Lead Software Consultant / ProductManager Technical Advisor Senior Technical AdvisorChief Technical Advisor / Officer

The Growth Path

Note: The designations above are indicative



respective modules and are exposed to hands-onprojects—to learn the functional aspects of busi-ness design and adopt best practices in the ERPpackage,” says Krishna Kumar Tirumalai S, Head,SAP Delivery, Wipro Infotech Ltd.

For in-depth and hands on expertise, compa-nies also conduct training programs addressingspecific roles in ERP. “We have a career develop-ment framework, through which specific train-ing is delivered to the candidate depending onthe job experience the candidate has acquiredover the years and on his or her aspiration andcapability,” says Suman K Mazumder, Director,Application Services Global Delivery, IBM India.

This training period varies depending uponthe role of the individual and the organisation.On-the-job training is also common in manyorganisations, and some are flexible enough toallow and encourage employees to pursue educa-tion related to their job function.

“ERP consultants need to keep themselvesupdated with new applications and evolvingtechnologies. Quitting their official obligationsand pursuing full-time study is not a wise choice.The concept of part-time module courses hastherefore evolved—to help them keep pace withchanging trends,” says Anand Ekambaram,Director, Education Services, SAP India Ltd.

The OptionsCareers for ERP professionals lie in product devel-opment, implementation, maintenance, and con-sulting. Within these, there are multiple optionsavailable. Industry verticals often refer an ERPprofessional as a consultant based on his or herrole and area of expertise in that organisation.The ERP employment scenario offers careeroptions that can be classified primarily intoFunctional, Technical, and Training.

The Functional Area: Career options hereneed in-depth understanding along with experi-ence of physical implementation in various func-tions of the business process. “By relevant experi-ence and sound knowledge of functions likefinance, human resources, materials manage-ment, quality control, production planning,manufacturing processes, etc., a person can excelin an ERP career. Also, the full life-cycle experi-ence of the implementation of the ERP packagein one or more functional modules is necessary,”says B Chandrashekhar, Vice President andDelivery Head (SAP, Oracle and Siebel),Datamatics Limited, a company that provides off-shore outsourcing software services.

The ERP functional consultant interacts withthe client organisation—he understands theirbusiness processes, requirements, and problems.He then analyses and builds the process flow ofthe functions, and recommends a cost-effectiveimplementation of an ERP solution package.

The Technical Area: In ERP software compa-nies, the individual can be involved in develop-ment of various applications on different plat-forms—an ERP package or specific modules with-in a package. They work on ERP applications likemySAP, Oracle 11i, PeopleSoft, and J D Edwards,to name a few. These professionals—oftenreferred to as consultants—code the require-ments of the business and integrate them to form

a plan for implementation of ERP in the clients’business process models. In organisations thatprovide consulting services, the technical profes-sionals are also required for the implementationteam and maintenance.

The Training Area: After relevant industryexperience and pursuing training through ven-dor-specific courses, training can be a goodcareer option. Organisations looking to traintheir freshly-recruited ERP staff always needtraining professionals. Experience of working ondifferent platforms and knowledge of manydomains are important for a trainer.

Freelancing: Many ERP professionals providefreelance consulting to client organisations. It ismostly small or medium businesses who hirefreelance consultants for implementation ormaintenance for their ERP requirements. As afreelancer, one can perform any role from thebottom to the top level, depending, of course,upon the years of experience and specialisation.

The Growth PathSince ERP systems are implemented across differ-ent industry verticals, different designations areawarded to individuals in the ERP stream. Seebox The Growth Path.

One cannot become, say, a principal consult-ant in a short time-span. It takes years of experi-ence in domains such as telecom, automotives,textiles, chemicals, etc. We can roughly say thatthe average time taken to climb each step of thedesignation ladder from the bottom is at leasttwo years. To climb up to the position of PrincipalConsultant takes at least eight to 12 years withindustry experience in particular domain.

It is difficult to determine the approximatesalary range. The remuneration structure differswidely amongst companies, based on their sizeand policies. However, one can expect Rs 30,000per month to Rs 45,000 and higher at the lowerlevels, that is, when advancing from TraineeConsultant / Trainee Software Engineer toAssistant Consultant / Software Engineer.

From Associate Consultant/Senior SoftwareEngineer to Senior Consultant / Senior SoftwareConsultant, one expect between Rs 45,000 and65,000. From Lead Consultant / Lead SoftwareConsultant to Principal Consultant / SeniorTechnical Advisor, between Rs 65,000 and 80,000can be expected. As for the top-most designationsin both the functional and technical areas, Rs 85,000 per month and above is a norm.However, these figures are indicative.

Concluding RemarksA lot of Indian companies have come out withhighly customisable ERP package suites specifi-cally for small and medium enterprises in vari-ous domains. These have a product life-cycle, andneed to be constantly upgraded to keep pace withthe technology and business requirements.Opportunities in such organisations are veryhealthy, both in India and abroad.

A self-assessment of one’s strengths and areasof interest must be clearly conducted before opt-ing for this field as a career. Once that’s done, theworld awaits you!

[email protected]

Since ERP solves abusiness problemwith technology,it is important tohave a goodunderstanding ofeither technologyor domain, alongwith anappreciation ofthe other”

Murali SubramanianVice President –ApplicationsDevelopment, Oracle India Pvt. Ltd

Digital Business l Wireless Devices

Michael Browne

Households and officesin the US and Europecrested the wirelesswave a couple of years

ago. The wave has struck ourshores more recently. While wecannot deny the fact thatcables are still very much thepreferred means for datacommunications today, Wi-Fi,both as a technology and as ameans to communicate hasmade strong inroads in ourcomparatively emerging market.

To the home user, Wi-Fi a.k.a.

Wireless Fidelity representsconvenience in its simplestsense. Freedom from sitting infront of your PC and surfing,when you could be in bed, chat-ting with your significant otherand your friends online simul-taneously! The biggest advan-tage of Wi-Fi is, of course,freedom from ugly, restrictingwires. Your kids could be surfingthe Net for school projects whileyou browse on your laptop,lounging in your lawn chair.

The first challenge you’llface before going cable-free willbe to decide what sort of wire-less device to buy. Wi-Fi ADSLRouters offer all the functional-

ity of a regular wireless router inaddition to having ADSLmodems inbuilt. Regular Wi-FiRouters offer multiple connec-tors, and some even offer USB

connectivity. An Access Point isquite simply meant to provide awireless network without rout-ing functions. What type of Wi-Fi device you require depends onyour need as always. Do you justwant to enable Net browsing onyour laptop or Wi-Fi enabledPDA? Do you need to transferdata from laptop to desktopwithout cable hassles? You mayneed an Access Point (AP) in suchcases. Do you plan to setup asmall SoHo network, combiningtwo or three PCs with a couple of laptops wirelessly? In such a case, you should invest in a Wi-Fi router.

Whatever your need, there’s

always a solution to it. This iswhere we come in! Just so thatyou can make an informed deci-sion, we’ve torture-tested 14 Wi-Fi devices.

Imaging Pradip IngalePhotograph Amrut Patki

CONNECTIVITY!LUTTERLESS

Going cable-free is the in thing. We’vetested 14 devices designed to de-wireyour life!


Amongst the wireless routers we received, just two were ADSL-ready: the Netgear DG834G and theASUS WL-600G were the only two routers with ADSL modems inbuilt. Such routers are your firstchoice if your Internet Service Provider (ISP) provides you with a telephone line based broadband

connection. Most telecom-based companies such as MTNL and Airtel will provide you with ADSL connec-tivity (RJ11-based). When getting such a connection, you are generally given the option of either purchas-ing your own modem or buying one from the ISP.

Now if you have a laptop or any wireless devices that you might want to share this Internet connec-tion with, it’s probably your best bet to invest in a Wi-Fi ADSL router. As you’ll see from our tests, Wi-FiADSL routers offer extra features without compromising on performance. To top it off, they’re not asexpensive as you’d perceived them to be!

The stunning WL-600G would grace any work-space it occupies, meriting at least a second

glance! Build quality’s excellent, and this was theonly router with a convenient power on/off switch.

The WL-600G is a feature-rich offering, with twoUSB ports, and the ability to set up a print server. Itsfirmware interface has a few more settings avail-able for tweaking, as compared to the other ASUSdevices we tested.

The scores this one brought up weren’t the

highest we got, but what blew us away were thesignal strength figures, espe-

cially in Zones 2 and 3.At 54 per cent inZone 2, it’s a whop-ping 8 per centstronger than its

closest rival, theSenao ECB3220.

Even in Zone 3, the WL-600G hammers everything around

with a signal strength of 49 per cent!This one has a lot of features, but the high price

tag of Rs 8,500 will not please everyone.



WI-FI ADSL ROUTERS

We received seven such devices. The difference between these and their ADSL counterparts is theydon’t have ADSL modems inbuilt. They cannot therefore utilise an RJ11 WAN connection. Most

routers will have an RJ45 interface for WAN connections.

WI-FI ROUTERS

ASUS WL-600GFeatures, performance, and looks collide…

The pearl-white coloured Netgear DG834G is asleek beauty. The activity indicators are also

well-done, and clearly legible even under well-litconditions.

We set this one up in a jiffy, thanks to thegreat firmware interface. Netgear also helpfullyprovides very detailed help for each option, andeach item is very well explained. In fact, the helpis so detailed, you could use it as a ready referencefor what each option means.

The DG834G breezed through most of our

tests, clocking the fastest time inour Zone 2 multiple file transfer,averaging a blazing 1.09 MBps.This router will be very suitablefor a SoHo user who wants totransfer a lot of data wirelessly.It’s equally at ease browsing band-width-hogging Web pages.

At Rs 4,230, the DG834G keepsyour wallet happy… very happy,considering the features and thefact that it’s blazingly fast.

Netgear DG834GSleek and fast

The “small wonder” in thistest, it’s small enough to be

stuffed inside your cargotrouser pockets, yet powerfulenough to ensure a near-seam-less unwired experience.

The activity LEDs are, surpris-ingly, mounted behind the deviceand on top. We’d have preferred them in front, orat least where they can be viewed easily even if thedevice is kept above the user’s line of sight.

ASUS’ software definitely isn’t the best laid-out

that we tested, and neither is the main menu veryintuitive.

Due to its tiny footprint, we’d recommend it tothe hotspot browser on the move. Its speed of 1.29

MBps was unmatched in the Zone 1 test. Thismakes it suitable for setting up a home orSoHo wireless office where its potent datathroughput capabilities will be put to good

use. It excelled in the video streaming test aswell, meaning you needn’t sit in front of your PC’smonitor if you own one of these.

At Rs 4,400, the WL-530G offers excellent valuefor money. If you’re looking for the fastest Wi-Firouter out there, grab the WL-530G—it’s our BestBuy Gold winner!

ASUS WL-530GTiny but mighty!

JA N U A RY 2 0 0 7



The AG108 exemplifies build quality. It’s a greatlooker, and that grey-and-silver body will look

smart on your desk, and equally so atop your bed-room armoire! It sported the biggest (physically)antenna we’ve seen on a Wi-Fi router. It was alsothe only router we received with 802.11a compli-ance. This means the AG108 can simultaneouslycreate a 5 GHz (802.11a) and a 2.4 GHz network(802.11b/g). It even utilises a technique Buffalo calls“Channel Bonding” to increase throughput by club-bing the available bandwidth (of both the 5 and 2.4GHz networks) together.

The device sports an AOSS button (Air station

One-touch Secure System). Very simply, this buttonautomatically assigns WPA keys to all clients onthe wireless network, once you’ve installed thesoftware on each of them. You’ll also have to clickthe Profiles tab. Incidentally, the AG108 has a

good firmware interface, and is easyto navigate even for first time

users.The AG108 performed

decently in all the tests, saveone—our video streaming

test—where, for some reason, wegot some framing.

The Air Station AG108 is a good product with a lotof add-on features, but there other products availablethat outperform it on all fronts.

Buffalo WHR-HP-AG108 “Air Station”Great show with the go!

With four RJ45 (LAN) ports in addition to twoUSB ports, connectivity is never going to be a

bottleneck with the NP-27G. It has an inbuilt printserver, making it ideal for the SoHo segment.

The NP27G incorporates the Atheros XR(eXtended Range) technology, which improves cov-erage area of a Wi-Fi network, eliminating deadspots. Atheros XR also supports a stronger signalthan what 802.11 specifications imply, and sup-ports additional data transfer rates.

The software interface on the NP27G firmwarewas the best we’ve seen this time round. It’s very

intuitive, and each option is proper-ly placed under a relevant sub-

category.Configuring the

NP27G was very easyvia the interface, andeven a newbie should-

n’t have too many problemsduring the setup.

Though the NP27G’s transfer rates weren’t theslowest in our tests, it was very close to the bottom.Surprisingly, it fared decently in the movie stream-ing test: although the video was jerky at times, itwasn’t as bad as we’d expected. The NP27G losesout on performance but scores on features. It is rea-sonably priced at Rs 5,500.

Compex NetPassage 27GUltraconnectivity!

With three LAN ports and four USB ports, theNP 28G is primarily aimed at the SoHo seg-

ment. Home users will also benefit, especially if youwant to hook up a printer or even a Web camera(courtesy the extra USB ports). Atheros’ XR makesanother appearance here. The firmware is identicalto that of the excellent NP-27G.

The NP 28G is slightly slower than the NP27G,but only by a hairsbreadth! They perform similar-ly when the AP is in the client’s vicinity. Once the

distance increases—and sig-nal attenuation occurs—wesee the NP 27G creepingahead.

This shows that the NP28G is less suitable for heavybandwidth inter-room usage.The streaming test also did notcomplet to our satisfaction, andthere was noticeableframing.

Overall, a good feature set at an outrageousprice—Rs 8,500—especially considering its less-than-ideal performance.

Compex NetPassage 28GFeature-laden—but light on performance!

The WAP 0010 is a funky looker with a sober greybody, getting a slash of silver in the form of its

logo embossed topside. With three antennas andMIMO support, we had high hopes for this productin our test.

Coming to the firmware, there’s no usernamefield; you need to type in a password in the fieldtitled “login”. We found all the settings underappropriate heads, and most of the deeper settingswere transparent, allowing us to tweak them to our

heart’s content.Unfortunately, no

amount of tweakinghelped it perform well! Tocompare it to the prover-bial tortoise would beunfair, as there were slow-er competitors in the test.Needless to say, if you’relooking at bandwidth-hun-gry data transfers andmovie streaming, give theWAP-0010 a wide berth.

Level One WAP-0010A decent performer



The WRT300N is a stylish, futuristic-lookingrouter that supports the yet-to-be-announced

802.11n standard (Pre-n as of now). Its dark grey,black and smoky blue body will turn eyes, as willthe radar-looking antenna booster.

The WRT300N brims over with features thatcan be accessed from its intuitive firmware menu.The WRT300N also supports MIMO, which helpsmaximise signal coverage while reducing occur-rences of dead spots within its effective range.

We expected a lot from thismodel, it being the only Pre-n devicethat made it to this test. As you’ll seein our table, it brought up some solidscores, but nothing worth cheeringabout. It was well and truly beaten bysome of the other routers—in particu-lar the ASUS WL-530G and theNetgear DG834G.

The WRT300N remains a goodchoice for the home segment becauseof its plethora of features and the factthat it’s future-proof.

Linksys WRT300NFeature-rich, future-proof

The WRT54G is a simple, no-nonsense lookingrouter that sports twin antennas. The firmware is

as intuitive as that on the WRT300N. The minus pointis immediately evident—there’s no logout button;you simply have to close your browser window aftersaving settings (in case you’ve changed any). Weweren’t able to check from the interface whether ourtwo laptops were connected. For that, we had to filterthe MAC address list to show the clients connected. Acouple of things missing in the interface; not of great

use to home users, but a SoHowould miss them. Incidentally,the WRT54G loses out onWireless Bridging as a feature.

While it outpaces theWRT300N in the Zone 1 tests, itlags behind in Zone 2. This showsits signal quality is slightly inferi-or, because signal strength of themodels in Zone 2 was identical. Wherethis one scores is in pricing; it costs justRs 3,634, and you’ll get why the Digit Best Buy Silveraward goes to the WRT54G.

Linksys WRT54GPerformance you don’t pay a wad for!

Testing Wireless devices involves gauging performance on mainlytwo fronts—transfer rates (speed) and effective range. Our Wi-Fi test was done simulating all possible real-world

conditions, for which we created the test “zones” we’ve describedbelow. Please note that distances aren’t important forbenchmarking any sort of Wi-Fi network; it’s the obstructionsbetween the Access Point (AP) and the signal recipient thatultimately matters. Metallic objects, wooden cabinets, concretewalls, and general furniture all cause what is called attenuation ofwireless signals. The signal strength is reduced, which causes loss ofdata integrity and therefore slows down data throughput. With thisin mind, we designed each of these zones to actually take each ofthese wireless devices to their performance limits.

Zone 1: The laptop was placed within 15 feet of the AP.There was a wooden partition between the AP and theclient, though they were essentially in the same room.SIgnal attenuation was at a minimum.

Zone 2: We placed the laptop within 25 feet of therouter. This time we ensured there were a good deal ofsignal-obstructing objects. There was a concrete wall(with inbuilt cupboards) in between the Wi-Fi devices tofurther scramble reception. This was in addition to acouple of wooden partitions.

Zone 3: Our test laptop was placed approximately 30feet away from the router. Here we actually movedthe laptop to a higher floor. We also ensured the laptop wasn’texactly above the router placed a level below (this would be tooeasy). This was the most strenuous test for the routers, asmultiple obstructions create ample cause for attenuation andhence signal loss.

We created test files to be copied from the PC to the laptopwirelessly. In each Zone we used two different files. One was a

single RAR archive, while the other was a set of small files ofvarious types to simulate every possible data transfer scenario. Thefile sizes were kept the same in the same Zone, but sizes acrossZones varied—100 MB for Zone 1, 50 MB for Zone 2, and 25 MB forZone 3. The speeds were recorded in Megabytes per second (MBps).Please note that most manufacturers quote figures in Megabits persecond (Mbps). Keep in mind that 1 byte equals 8 bits.

Next we streamed an HD video file encoded at 1280 x 720(720p). This clip was on our test PC’s hard disk, and was streamedto first one, and then two, laptops. We awarded points based on theentire viewing experience. In case any jerking of frames was reallynoticeable, points were deducted accordingly. A score in excess of

7.5/10 means the device is capable of providing a good movie-watching experience.

Finally, we used Wireless Mon version 2.0 as a benchmarkingtool to measure signal strength in each of the Zones.

In our signal strength at 20 metres test, we ensured there weretwo concrete walls between the AP and the test laptop. WirelessMon was our benchmark of choice here as well.

How We Tested

ProcessorMotherboardMemory

Graphics card

HDD

Wi-Fi Solution

PCAMD x2 4800+AMD x2 4800+512 MB x 2 CorsairXMS DDR 400XFX Geforce7900GTXHitachi T7K 250SATA 2.0NA

Laptop 1Pentium M 1.73 GHzIntel 915GMS512 MB DDR2 533

Intel Integrated915GMToshiba 80 GB4200 rpmIntel Integrated

Laptop 2Pentium M 1.2 GHzIntel 915GMS512 MB DDR2 533

Intel Integrated915GMFujitsu 60 GB 4200rpmIntel Integrated

Test Rig Specifications

JA N U A RY 2 0 0 7



Very fast, well- pricedNone in particu-lar

Excellent value for moneyNone in particu-lar

Lots of featuresLacking in per-formance

Good signal strengthLow on perform-ance

Good bundle and featuresLow on perform-ance, high on price

Fast and feature-richExpensive

ASUSWL-600G

ADSL Routerb/g✔

✖ /✔ /✔

1✔

42

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✖

✖

NAT & SPI✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔ /✔

✔ /✔

✔

✔

8.06.07.5

63.000.830.66

54.000.880.63

49.000.450.3935.008.50

25.9737.926.1870.068,5002

NetgearDG834G

ADSL Routerb/g✔

✖ /✔ /✖

1✔

40

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✖

✖

NAT & SPI✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔ /✖

✖ /✔

✔

✔

7.08.07.5

64.000.580.53

44.001.211.09

31.000.650.5425.008.50

23.6639.8512.4175.924,2302

ASUSWL-530G

Routerb/g✖

✔ /✖ /✖

1✔

40

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✖

✖

NAT & SPI✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔ /✔

✔ /✔

✔

✔

7.56.07.5

66.001.291.07

42.001.220.87

30.000.600.5030.008.00

23.9943.5811.9379.504,4002

BuffaloWHR-HP-AG108

Routera/b/g✖

✔ /✖ /✖

1✔

40

✔

✖

✔

✔

✔

✖

✖

NAT & SPI✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔ /✔

✖ /✔

✔

✔

6.58.08.0

54.000.490.40

42.000.470.39

31.000.370.3424.006.50

22.4727.257.0056.727,5002

CompexNetPassage 27G

Routerb/g/Super g✖

✔ /✖ /✔

1✔

42

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔ (Kit provided)✖

NAT & SPI✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✖ /✔

✖ /✔

✔

✔

6.58.57.5

63.000.360.31

41.000.130.11

33.000.190.1626.007.50

23.8422.709.5556.085,5003

CompexNetPassage 28G

Routerb/g/Super g✖

✔ /✖ /✔

2✔

44

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✖

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NAT & SPI✔

✔

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✖ /✔

✖ /✔

✔

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6.58.57.5

61.000.370.31

42.000.110.10

31.000.170.1524.007.00

23.7821.516.1851.468,5003

BRANDMODELFeaturesType Of Device (AP/Router/ADSL Router)Protocols Supported (802.11 a/b/g/Pre n)ADSL Modem Inbuilt (Y/N)Type Of WAN Port (Ethernet/ADSL/USB) Number Of Antenna(s)Wireless Bridging (Y/N)Number Of RJ45 (LAN) PortsNumber Of USB PortsDevice FeaturesPower Indicator (Y/N)Internet Connectivity LED (Y/N)Individual LAN Port LED (Y/N)Activity Indication (Blinking) (Y/N)Factory-Defaults Reset ButtonWall-Mountable (Y/N)Power Over Ethernet (Y/N)SecurityFirewall (Types Supported)LAN I/P Based Site Blocking (Y/N)Encryption (Y/N)Wireless Isolation (Y/N)Port Mapping (Forwarding)Deep Packet InspectionFirmware Interface FeaturesBasic Setup Wizard (CD/Browser)Online/Offline Firmware Upgrade (Y/N)Settings Backup To HDDLoad From HDDEase of Installation / UseBundle (So10)Software Interface (So10)Device Settings (So10)PerformanceZone 1 (100 MB File)Signal Strength in Zone 1*Single File (MBps)Multiple Files (MBps)Zone 2 (50 MB File)Signal Strength in Zone 2*Single File (MBps)Multiple Files (MBps)Zone 3 (25 MB File)Signal Strength in Zone 3*Single File (MBps)Multiple Files (MBps)Signal Strength at 20 metres (%)*Video Streaming HD 720p WMV (Out of 10)Final ScoresFeatures (Out of 30)Performance (Out of 55)Price Index (Out of 15)Grand Total (Out of 100)Price (Rs)Warranty (years)

Scoreboard ADSL Routers RoutersJANUARY 2007

*From Wireless Mon 2.0


Decent performance,good warrantyLow on features

Very feature-rich, Pre n supportExpensive

Fast transfer speedsNone in particular

Decent featuresVery poor performance

Great performanceNone in particular

Great signal coverage and performanceQuite expensive

Good bundleLow on perform-ance

Level OneWAP-0010

Routerb/g✖

✖ /✖ /✖

3✔

40

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✖

✖

NAT & SPI✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✖ /✔

✖ /✔

✔

✔

7.57.07.0

61.000.510.45

54.000.520.43

25.000.250.18217.50

22.0826.089.1857.344,9005

LinksysWRT300N

Routerb/g/Pre n✖

✔ /✖ /✖

2✔

40

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✖

✖

NAT & SPI✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔ /✔

✖ /✔

✔

✔

7.58.58.0

54.000.470.42

42.000.610.44

32.000.280.2234.008.00

24.0028.855.2558.109,9953

LinksysWRT54G

Routerb/g✖

✔ /✖ /✖

2✖

40

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✖

NAT & SPI✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔ /✔

✖ /✔

✔

✔

7.58.58.0

53.000.550.47

42.000.450.36

31.000.280.2431.007.50

24.3027.6214.4566.363,6343

ASUSWL-320G

APb/g✖

✔ /✖ /✖

1✔

10

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✖

NAT & SPI✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔ /✔

✔ /✔

✔

✔

6.06.06.0

58.000.410.25

38.000.120.10

31.000.120.1131.006.50

23.0621.225.0649.338,9002

CompexWP54G 1a

APb/g✖

✔ /✖ /✖

1✔

20

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✖

✔

NAT & SPI✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✖ /✔

✖ /✔

✔

✔

6.58.07.0

62.000.340.28

44.000.150.10

29.000.100.0826.006.00

22.7419.877.5650.185,9503

D-LinkDWL-2100 AP

APb/g✖

✔ /✖ /✖

1✔

20

✔

✖

✔

✔

✔


NAT & SPI✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔ /✔

✖ /✔

✔

✔

7.57.06.5

59.000.390.27

42.000.160.12

30.000.120.1126.006.50

21.9820.7911.2854.053,9901

LinksysWAT54G

APb/g✖

✖ /✖ /✖

2✔

10

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔


NAT & SPI✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔ /✔

✖ /✔

✔

✔

7.08.07.0

54.000.660.53

40.000.670.56

38.000.310.2623.008.00

22.8829.6811.7964.353,8163

SenaoECB 3220

APb/g✖

✔ /✖ /✖

1✔

10

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✖

✔

NAT & SPI✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔ /✖

✖ /✔

✔

✔

7.56.07.0

64.000.740.63

46.000.720.53

34.000.350.3030.007.50

21.7432.775.4359.948,2802

PoE supportVery poor per-formance

Access PointsJANUARY 2007 JANUARY 2007JANUARY 2007



Five Access Points (APs) competed in our test. An AP is the simplest way to set up a Wi-Fi network athome. It’s convenient to connect a single laptop to a PC. SoHos should look elsewhere, because APs typ-

ically have just a single RJ45 connect.

ACCESS POINTS

The ASUS WL-320G is wall-mountable; since itdoesn’t have rubber foot pegs it will move eas-

ily if kept on a surface. It’s well built, though, andthe activity LEDs are well-placed and clearly legi-ble.

ASUS has incorporated a high-speed mode on thismodel—Afterburner. The client device also needs tosupport it, in which case performance is boosted.Fancy titles aside, the WL-320G was a very mediocre

performer, and that’s putting it mildly. It was theslowest in our Zone 1 multiple file transfer test,clocking in the vicinity of 400 seconds.

Not surprisingly, the lower data throughputon the WL-320G led to some

jerks during our moviestreaming test.Although it wasn’tdownright unwatch-

able, we wouldn’t sug-gest the WL-320G for this specific

purpose, especially at the steep price of Rs 8,900.

ASUS WL-320GCool looker, light performer

The third in the Compex trio to be received wasa simple AP—no routing capabilities here. The WP54G supports PoE (Power over

Ethernet). Although PoE implementations differgreatly between manufacturers, the basic principleremains the same (see box Wi-Fi Demystified).

The WP54G lagged behind in quite a few tests,especially in Zone 3, where it was thrashed by thecompetition. In fact, data transfer was interrupted

once, due to a loss in signalintegrity.

Video stream-ing, as we’d expect-ed, was abysmal—jerking, and lots ofinterruptions. We

don’t recommend theWP54G as an AP, despite the

inclusion of PoE—simply becauseof its inadequate performance. Its price tag of Rs5,950 won’t garner any accolades either.

Compex WP54GAn AP not worth accessing!

Wi-Fi DemystifiedWi-Fi: An acronym for Wireless Fidelity,Wi-Fi quite simply denotes “WirelessNetworks” that conform to IEEE(International Electrical and ElectronicsEngineers) standards. The Wirelessstandard accepted by the IEEE is 802.11.The most common Wi-FI standardswithin 802.11 are 802.11a, 802.11b,802.11g, 802.11 Super g, and 802.11Pre n.Gateway: A gateway is responsible forproper data flow and distribution withina network and externally to othernetworks. The gateway machine is alsocalled the host computer or networkrouter.SSID: Service Set Identifier or simply“Network Name” is the name (typicallyalphanumeric) by which a WirelessLocal Area Network (WLAN) identifiesitself. To communicate with any deviceson a wireless network, all wirelessdevices must use the same SSID. TheSSID can be kept private, in which casea user who doesn’t know the SSIDcannot gain access to that network. WEP: Acronym for Wired EquivalentPrivacy. This was the earliest security

method adopted by the 802.11standard, providing 64- and 128-bitkeys (hexadecimal coded) to protectwireless devices from unwantedintrusion.WPA/WPA2: An acronym for WirelessProtected Access, which is a moresecure method of protecting datatransmission than WEP. WPA 2 is anewer protocol. It’s also known as802.11i.DHCP: Acronym for Dynamic HostConfiguration Protocol. It’s acommunications protocol thatautomatically assigns IP addresses toclients logging on to a TCP/IP network.MAC Address: An acronym for MediaAccess Control Address. It’s a uniqueidentifier for an individual node on aWi-Fi network. It is represented as astring of six pairs of hex characters, forexample, FF.EE.FF.FF.00.FFNAT: An acronym for Network AddressTranslation, it’s basically a firewallfeature. NAT is available on mostrouters today, both wired andotherwise. NAT enables individual IPs ofclients on a network LAN to remain

invisible beyond the LAN, and anyexternal communication occurs throughthe gateway machine. Packets of datarecieved by the gateway machine arethen routed to the clients thatrequested them. In case the packetreceived doesn’t correspond with arequest sent by a machine on anetwork, it is rejected.Port Mapping: Port Mapping or PortAddress Translation is the process oftranslating and routing packets arrivingat a particular IP address or port toanother IP address. Port Mappingbypasses NAT.Deep Packet Inspection: Deep PacketInspection (DPI) is a form of packetfiltering that inspects the data portionof data packets as opposed to justchecking the header portion. DPI isbasically an evolved form of SPI(Stateful Packet Inspection).PoE (Power over Ethernet): Thisdescribes the ability to transmit poweras well as data to devices over anEthernet cable. PoE is extremely usefulin cases where the AP is placed in anarea with no power point.



The DWL-2100AP is well-built, sturdy, but light.It’s also wall-mountable; a complete kit is pro-

vided. D-Link’s firmware interface is good, butnot as well laid-out as on the Compex prod-ucts. The manual that accompaniesthis device is more informativethan that that came with theother brands.

We were disappointed to see thescores on the DWL-2100AP. At 0.12MBps it’s a whopping 500 per cent slow-er than the ASUS WL-530G when it comesto transferring files across relatively largerdistances!

Although it was faster than the Compextrio while transferring single large files, itlagged behind while transferring a bunchof smaller files. The movie streaming testalso saw this AP trail behind what is accept-

able for watching seamless video. It’s not suitable for file

transfers or movie streamingif you intend to set up your

server and client on dif-ferent floors, or if the dis-tance between AP andclient is anything over

15 feet. At a price of Rs 3,990,you’d be better off buying the blazing-

ly fast WL-530G, which throws in routingcapabilities as well.

D-Link DWL-2100APSlowcoach to Wi-Fi town…

The WAT54G is the AP equivalent of theWRT54G. Instead of just dropping out a few

features (which it does), the WAT54G adds one:bridging capabilities. Besides the lack of the fourRJ45 connects at the rear, the two devices lookidentical!

The firmware interface is identical to that ofthe WRT54G, aside from the lack of routing func-tions.

The WAT54G smoked the competition in ourdata transfer tests—its 0.66 and 0.53 MBps in Zone 1(single and multiple file respectively) are fasterthan those of either of its brethren. Curiously, theWAT54G was actually faster in Zone 2—0.67 and

0.56 MBps, as compared toZone 1. We ran our testsagain just to be sure; whilethe results weren’t identi-cal (wireless transfers

rarely are), they wereconsistent.

T h eWAT54G is agreat accesspoint, verydeserving of

a c c o l a d e s .We recognize this

and reward Linksys on agreat product with our Digit

Best Buy Gold award.

Linksys WAT54GThe best access point out there!

A Decision MakerYou WantWireless connectivity to your laptop from your desktop PCTo set up a small home network, between two PCs and your laptop or Wi-Fi enabled PDATo stream movies from your PC’s hard drive to your laptop(s) wirelesslyTo set up a small office network wirelessly, complete with a network printerAn ADSL modem and a wireless router for a broadband connection, perferably wire-less-enabled

You NeedAn Access Point (AP)A Wireless RouterA Wireless Router/ APA Wireless RouterA Wireless ADSLRouter

We RecommendLinksys WAT54GASUS WL-530G, Linksys WRT54GASUS WL-530G, Senao ECB-3220ASUS WL-600G, Compex NP27GNetgear DG834G, ASUS WL-600G

Our Test Zones 1, 2 and 3 Demystified

JA N U A RY 2 0 0 7

Zone 1Zone 2

Zone 3

3D M

odel

ling

Shri

kris

hna

Patk

ar



Tips For A Better Signal

1. Interference2.4 GHz is the frequency used by mostWi-Fi devices. Unfortunately, thisfrequency is rather common: it’s usedby a few household devices, namelycordless phones and microwaves. AnyBluetooth device will also interfere withWi-Fi signals, as will a cordless mouse.

2. AttenuationHere are some common signal-scramblers. Every household will havemost of these.Plasterboard wall: 3dBGlass wall with metal frame: 6dBWooden partition: 4dBOffice window: 3dBMetal door: 6dBMetal door in brick wall: 12.4dBNow you know what happened to thatsignal! We’re assuming averagethickness here. The thicker you go, thelower your signal strength becomes.You cannot avoid attenuation frommost of these materials, but knowingwhat material absorbs what may helpyou better position the router/AP.

3. Up, up and awayHeights are good, especially forwireless devices. Your router couldeven be mounted on top of a cupboard(just ensure it’s away from walls ifpossible). Creating a little cradle mountdangling from your ceiling would bebetter. For a PCI wireless card, themetal cabinet and components willcause attenuation. No way to avoid this,but keeping your cabinet on a table (asopposed to on the floor) will helpreception. PCMCIA cards in laptops willhave the most problems with signals,and it’s better to use the integrated Wi-Fi solution, as the antenna willprobably extend into the screen area.

4. Higher gain does not necessarilymean a better signalHigher gain means the signal isconcentrated more in a particulardirection. Note that the power suppliedremains unchanged, just that the sameamount of energy (beam) is focused ina much tighter area. Higher gainantennas therefore provide more

focused signal beams. They’re betterfor large open areas, and may beless effective in case the site has a lotof attenuation-creating walls,furniture, etc.

5. Other attenuating culpritsTinted windows will absorb a lot of yourwireless signal. Note that regular glasswindows will not. Even wire meshes andmetal grilles will absorb signals likecrazy. The degree of attenuation maybe as much as what a solid metal objectcauses.

6. PolarityBy polarisation here, we mean therelation between the physicalorientation of each antenna and theelectric field that is parallel to theantenna. Omni-directional antennashave vertical polarisations due to thefact that they’re meant to standvertically. This is why most PCMCIAcards don’t perform well in tandemwith them (remember they slot intoyour laptop horizontally).

PhoneCompany E-mailBrand

Contact Sheet Wireless Devices

ASUSBuffaloCompexD-LinkLevel OneLinksysNetgearSenao

ASUSTek Comp Inc.Advent Infotech Pvt. LtdRashi Peripherals India Pvt LtdD-Link India LtdMinds India Pvt LtdIngram Micro India pvt. LtdRashi Peripherals India Pvt LtdRashi Peripherals India Pvt Ltd

022-40058923011-41436751022-67090909022-26526696011-263120959323112279022-67090909022-67090909

[email protected]@[email protected]@[email protected]@[email protected]@rptechindia.com

Senao’s ECB 3220 is positionedas a wireless bridge while also

functioning as an AP. In fact, inkeeping with its primary func-tion (bridge), the ECB 3220 hadthe best signal in Zone 2, andjust missed top spot in Zone 3.It’s wall mountable.

Although Senao’s firmwareis reasonably laid out, it lacksdetailed help on some settings.The basics are covered well

though, but we had afew problems set-

ting it up.

The ECB 3220s a steady per-former. It didn’t lose receptionat all throughout the tests, evenwhile moving between Zones—except while moving up thestaircase to Zone 3.

You should know that all thedevices in this test, with theexception of the ASUS Wl-600G,lost reception while the laptopwas being moved betweenzones. This tells us that the ECB3220 has a very strong signal.

Carrying a price tag of Rs8,280, the ECB 3220 is as expen-sive as an AP. However, becauseof its powerful signal, officeusers will find it useful as abridge between two wireless net-works. We’re awarding it ourBest Buy Silver award.

Senao ECB 3220A Bridge for all occasions

New HorizonsThroughout these tests, we hopeone thing’s become crystal clear…wireless devices, though offeringfreedom from wires, cannot sus-tain anywhere near the high datatransmission rates that good oldEthernet can. However, Wi-Fi as atechnology has matured suffi-ciently to allow us to surf the Netand stream audio and video sansthe discomfort. And we’re talkingdiscomfort from iffy connections,sporadic transmission problems,loss of signal, etc. 54 Mbps mayseem light years away from theactual transfer rates these devicesoffer when really stressed.

The silver lining on the wire-less cloud promises to be the802.11n standard. As of now,details about the exact specifica-tions are sketchy (there’s no for-mal draft as of today). What we doknow is the intensity of signalwill be much stronger than thecurrent “g” standard. Also prom-ised is nearly ten times the band-width—both the maximum theo-retical and the typical (see tableWi-Fi Standards). If 802.11n realisesthis, we fully expect to see Wi-Fipenetration soar in our countryas more and more people take thewireless plunge.

[email protected]

JA N U A RY 2 0 0 7


Nimish Chandiramani

If you’ve ever heard of PivotTables, you eitherswear by them or they’ve successfully baffledyou into not going near them. For a feature

that does what it does, the PivotTable is probablyExcel’s best-kept secret—this despite the fact thatit’s the easiest way to generate reports of yourdata without knowing even a line of VB code. Youdon’t even need to know what VB stands for tocreate one! (Visual Basic, incidentally)

We’ll be using Office 2007 for this article—most of the features carry over from Office 2003,but the new ribbon on Office 2007 exposes a lotmore features that you can use with PivotTables,so you might find something new even if you’vebeen using them for a while.

Life Before The Pivot Imagine this rather innocuous table that looksat the sales of five products in three cities, bythree salesmen. We’ll be using this as a refer-ence, but the principles will apply to any datathat fits the “pivot-able” bill (we’ll come to thatin a bit).

Gauging a salesperson’s performance inMumbai, for example, is quite simple. You firstneed to apply a data filter and select Mumbaiunder City, then select each salesperson one byone from the respective column. Select the UnitsSold column, and Excel gives you a total at thebottom right of your screen. Repeat for eachsalesperson, then repeat for each city. Ten rowsof data, no code, fifty-odd mouse-clicks. In thereal world, people need to deal with hundreds,even thousands of rows of data, perhaps fiftycities, a hundred salespeople and a whole lotmore than just five columns. They also need toprint out summary reports—something you can’tachieve by the method above. Will they reallyresort to such ridiculousness?

Of course not. They will use code to generatetheir summaries—through judicious use of theSUMIF() and COUNTIF() functions and throughmacros meticulously crafted in long hours ofovertime, impressing all and sundry and gener-ally feeling good about their expertise. And thenthere are those who will use PivotTables—nocode, no million mouse-clicks, same result.

Gearing UpBefore we get down to creating and using Pivot-Tables, you need to know whether you’re goingto benefit from it in the first place. There are justtwo basic requirements that your table needs tomeet—at least one of your columns should havelots of repeated values (like City or Salespeople

in our sample case)and numerical data.The latter is the moreimportant of the two,which is why PivotTa-bles find themselvesused more for suchthings as sales andfinancial reports.

Next, you need toensure that the tableis formatted properly:

1. Each columnshould have a heading

2. There shouldn’t beany blank rows between

the headings and the data3. There shouldn’t be any blank rows or

columns within the data; if possible, try to avoidblank cells as well

Once you’ve made sure of all this, your tableis now pivot-worthy, or pivot-able.

Cut through all the madness to generate reports quick and easy with Excel’s PivotTables

To Simpler Times

Illustration Pradip Ingale

Digital Business l Smart SoHo

Your basic sales chart



WORKSHOP

Your First PivotTableThe PivotTable button is the first underthe Insert tab; click on it and selectPivotTable (we’ll come to PivotCharts

later). Select your data table and click OK. Youcan create the PivotTable in a differentworksheet to avoid clutter. You’ll notice theoption for External Data Sources—you can bringyour data from another Excel sheet, an AccessDatabase, or even an Oracle or MS SQL ServerDatabase, if you prefer.

You can drag and drop fields either withinthe blue boundaries you see in thePivotTables, or to the different areas in

the Field List. This is an example of one in each—Salesperson under Row Label, Product underColumn, Units Sold under Values and City underReport Filter. This gives us the number of unitssold by each salesperson broken up product-wise,the total number of units sold for each product,and the total sales for each salesperson in theGrand Total row and column respectively. You cannow select a city from top row to get the samereport for each city.

Adding more fields to the Row Labels willgroup data in the order that it appears—in theabove case, putting in Salesperson and City in thatorder gives us a city-wise break-up of their salesfor each product. Change the order, and you havea salesperson-wise break-up of units sold in eachcity. You can even take City to Columns (this iscalled pivoting, and hence the name PivotTable)for a different view.

This is what a blank PivotTable looks like.All your columns are now called fields andare displayed on the right in the Field List.

Row and Column fields (Row and Column Labels inthe Field List) are the ones you’re going toestablish relationships between (Salespeople andProducts, for example) and Data fields (Values inthe Field List) are the numbers that you’re goingto compare—in this case, Units Sold. Page fields(Report Filters in the Field List) are used to filterreports for a particular value in that column—City, for example.



When you drag a numerical field to theValues area, you’ll notice that it gives youthe sum of the values in that field by

default. Suppose you wanted to see the number oforders for each salesperson. If you drag Order IDto Values, you get the sum of the IDs, which youclearly don’t want. This is where “Summarize DataBy” comes to the rescue. Right-click anywhere inthe Data area and select Summarize By > Count.

You’ll notice that you can also summarise databy average, maximum, minimum and so on.Incidentally, if you’re using non-numeric data,Excel automatically summarises it by count.

Use the Styles under the Design tab toselect a style for your PivotTable. Manyhave separate shades for subtotal rows—

an added help when visualising your report. Youcan also use this tab to tweak display settings likewhether or not to show subtotals and grand totals.

The result is that no matter how much yourearrange fields (we switched Salesperson and Cityhere), the conditional formatting rule still applies,so you can go about tweaking your table without acare in the world.

For even more visual aid, you can useConditional Formatting in your table evenbetter in Excel 2007. For example, we

used the Data Bar formatting for one of the cells;click on the icon that appears next to the cell, andyou can apply that formatting to all data that linksSalespeople and Products.



Even More VisualFor a graphical representation of yourPivotTable, you can use PivotCharts—you caneither create both the PivotTable and Piv-otChart from the Insert tab > PivotTable button,or you can generate a PivotChart from anexisting PivotTable in the Options tab underthe PivotTable Tools.

More often than not, you’ll find the 3Dcharts more useful to represent data. Columnfields are now Legend fields (they’ll be repre-sented in different colours), Row fields are nowAxis fields (they’ll be represented as the X and Yaxis), and Value fields remain the same (they’llbe represented along the Z axis). Moving thesefields around will also cause your PivotTable torearrange itself. Getting PivotCharts to workright can be tricky business, especially if youhave too many axis fields.

Little ThingsWhen you start dragging fields to create the Piv-otTable, Excel updates your view in real time. Ifyou’re working with copious amounts of data,this can become a real burden on your system,especially if you’re experimenting with differentlayouts. The best way to avoid this is to use thelittle “Defer Layout Update” checkbox at thebottom of the Field List, and click the Updatebutton only when you’re ready to see how yournew layout looks.

When you update any data in the sourcetable, you need to manually refresh the Pivot-Table for the change to get reflected, so it’s

better if you generate the PivotTable afteryou’re done making changes to the sourcetable—forgetting to refresh the PivotTable canlead to erroneous reports. The best way to avoidthis is to write a macro that refreshes the Piv-otTable every time the source table is updated.

EndnoteThe only trouble with PivotTables is that younever really know whether it applies to your data,which is probably why most people avoid it.

As you’ve seen, though, they’re very simple tounderstand, and the best way to find out if itapplies to you is to try it—you might have youranswer in as little as half an hour!

[email protected]

The PivotChart is a graphical version of your PivotTable

Thin Clients For Small And Medium Businesses

Narang Medical Limited is a leading manufacturer andexporter of medical supplies, surgical instruments, hospitalequipment, laboratory products, and diagnostics. Located inNew Delhi, the firm’s office has about 25 thin clients.

“We have been using thin clients for the pastone year and I must say I am happy withthe way things have turned out. My

employees, too, seem quite satisfied because as far asthey are concerned, nothing has really changed exceptfor the better. They still use all the applications theyused to, and it’s faster, too. For the kind of applicationswe use—Tally, MS Office, IE, and IIS, I think thin clients

are most appropriate. There have been no complaints ofdifferent performance on different systems—all theclients run at the same high speed. We have a serverwith two dual-core processors, 4 GB of RAM, and RAID0+1 protection.

“Look at what we have gained. The data iscentralised, so management has become easier.Software updates take place only on the server. Theadministrative staff no longer run about fixing a systemor an application every now and then. Virus protectionhas also gotten a lot better. Moreover, we now have onlythe server to back up. Due to better organisation,maintenance costs have been brought down, and isunder better control.

“The workstations themselves are scaled down, andso are far cheaper. No hard disk, no CD, no DVD on theclients. Expensive peripherals like printers and scannershave also been centralised, cutting down on costs. Wenow have a UPS connected only to the server. I do notneed to buy expensive workstations for each additionalstaff—I can use old, outdated systems as thin clients. Theold 10 Mbps hub is usable again. There has been a greatinvestment utilisation.

“Things have been pretty stable, except during theinstallation and testing. It’s been smooth since. A setupwithout thin clients is simply unthinkable for us. Forsimilar setups, I believe thin clients are the way to go.”

Hallmark Honda is a Honda dealer located in Navi Mumbai.They have a setup of about 50 computers.

“We use Windows NT on the server and XPProfessional on the clients. We have an in-house development team. Our primary

application is the Dealer Management System. We useAccess, VB, and SQL Server. Response time is very impor-tant, as we are directly dealing with customers all thetime. I am not convinced that thin clients would give methe same response time as my current setup. That’s thewhole idea of client/server technology—distribute com-puting to enhance speed.

“Our DMS system incorporates a lot of features likegeneration of ad-hoc reports by the users themselves.This can be practically possible only with a fat clientwith enough computing power of its own, else youwould simply end up taxing the server, resulting in abreakdown. I would like the server to remain what itsname suggests—a file server, and leave the actual com-puting to the clients.

“A lot of our code has been specially written to workon the client. Some of the code is even stored and can beexecuted by only specific clients. Some of our worksta-tions are dedicated to users of huge Excel sheets through-out the day. We have quite a few users who have theirown Excel sheets at their workstations, which are updat-ed to the server only at the end of the day. I shudder tothink of the state of the server with such user demands. Iguess we would be constantly reconfiguring and upgrad-ing our server—probably every three months—with thinclient technology. It’s not for applications that deal witha huge database.

“We would definitely not be using thin clients—onthe contrary, we are constantly looking to free our serverof as much work as possible.”

As told to Arvind Subramanian([email protected])

A B Bhupesh Manager—ITHallmark Honda

“There has been a greatinvestment utilisation.Expensive peripheralslike printers andscanners have also beencentralised, cuttingdown on costs”

“I would like the server toremain what its name

suggests—a file server,and leave the actual

computing to the clients”

Parveen NarangDirectorNarang Medical Ltd

Is it a feasible option—and for whom does it work best?

The data is centralised, somanagement has become easier

It’s not for applications thatdeal with a huge database

DIGIT JANUARY 2007122

Digital Leisure l Lead Feature

Ram Mohan Rao

Seek and ye shall find… but there are fortu-itous exceptions. Benoît Mandelbrot soughtnothing, but he found. We aren’t being

historically accurate here, but essen-tially, Mandelbrot wrote some codeand there appeared on his screensomething very interesting. (Thiswas way back in 1976.) Hethought there was some-thing wrong with the code,so he double-checked. Butthere it was, staring him inthe face—something likethe images on the nexttwo pages! (In black andwhite, though.) He haddiscovered fractals—mathematical patterns ofunmatched beauty,

Technology Beyond WorkLeisureDigital

complex, delirious delights to the eye, stuff thatmakes you wonder what you’ve been smoking.

We hate history, so all we’ll say is that we’retalking about structures arising from extremelysimple mathematical formulas. And what good

are they? Mostly, they’re trippy, fun, andaddictive. That’s why we’re writing

this—to encourage you to create yourown, then preferably print them

out on your T-Shirts. But in addi-tion, they’re mathematically

significant and philosophi-cally profound: fractals areself-repeating. They carrythemselves within them.Some say fractals describethe structure of theuniverse: where one thingpervades all, where thesmallest reflects the large.As Blake put it:

Art For The AskingFractals, demonstrating infinite complexity from infinite simplicity, showcase nature itself

148133 James TRussell

Here We GoAgain…128 Epic

Adventures

Lead Feature

Imaging Solom

on Lewis

DIGIT JANUARY 2007


…Infinity in a grain of sand,And eternity in a f lower.

Now you’re probably wondering what thiswriter’s been smoking, so without much ado,look on this month’s CD to find fractalprograms such as Fractal Forge (FF) andFractint. Neither of these require installation.FF, as well as the DOS version of Fractint,feature colour cycling—very, very trippy—whilethe Windows version of Fractint doesn’tsupport it in most cases. Fractint is the older,most well-known fractal-generating program;FF is newer, and the UI is more user-friendlywith more obvious options.

Creativity 101Fractals are, generally speaking, so intricatelybeautiful that it’s easy to think you’re beingcreative when you generate a sufficientlycomplex one!

The fact is, it’s nature doing it for you—it’snumbers working their magic. Now what’shard is coming across something unique—likea fractal island or river in uncharted territory—which comes only with patience, hard work,and all the other virtues.

Right. So when you fire up, say, FractalForge, you get an interesting-looking structure.This is called the Mandelbrot Set. It’s a fractal.Zoom in, and the plot thickens. The pattern getsincreasingly complex. Zoom in even more, andyou’ll notice that “deep inside” is the sameshape you saw in the beginning—in fact, lotsand lots of them! Tiny little buggers, represen-tative of the whole. Swirling round them arerings, rivers, beaches, islands—all swathed inpassionate, psychedelic colour.

Taking ControlWe’re not going into the mathematics here,but there are a few things you need to know.First read box How It Happens, then come back.Good. Now, the basic Mandelbrot set is gener-ated without any special functions; it’s just

squaring and adding. Twists happen when youadd functions such as the sine and the cosineto the equation.

However, if you follow the rule of continu-ally squaring and adding, you’re still in theMandelbrot “family” of fractals. There are manymore—explore the other sets in, for example,Fractint, which are generated using differentformulas. Remember that the key attribute of afractal is that it is self-repeating.

Happening PlacesNow that you’re hooked, you need to go out andlook for where the interesting patterns are.Let’s use the standard Mandelbrot set.

Generally, you need to look at two kinds ofthings, which are usually at the intersection oftwo major dark areas:

124

Figure 1: An incredibly elaborate spiral (top left), when zoomed into (thewhite circle), gives more of the same... there’s no getting to the centre!

Figure 3: The typical Mandelbrot Shooting Star (upperleft), which can be seen in many forms in the Mandelbrotset, shoots into baby Mandelbrots like this one. Notethat this is typical of an “explosive” landscape

Figure 2: Hills, islands, rivers, and oceans—the Phoenix set



Places where the energy seems to shootforth, and

At where the force field seems to dissipate.If you’ve been observing your fractal

patterns carefully, then (and only then!) will theabove make sense!

When we talk about energy shooting forth,it’s in areas like the top left in Figure 3, andwhen we talk of the field dissipating, it’s thecircled part in Figure 4. Figure out for yourselfwhere more such areas lie.

The thing is infinitely zoomable, only limitedby computing horsepower! So when we say“find out such areas,” don’t limit yourself to themain fractal—zoom in to totally random areas,zoom in even more, find more and more ballsand spirals and such, and try to find the“energy” and the “dissipation”!

Note, though, that you’ll have to set highvalues for the number of iterations as you zoomin further, or you won’t get the real picture.

An aside: talking about computing horse-power, back in 1995, on our 386 machines, thescreens that now get generated for you in a fewseconds would take hours, if not days!

Natural FractalsWe did say that fractals showcase nature. How…?The fact is, nature abounds in fractal formations.Take the Java applet at http://snipurl.com/fract1(http://math.rice.edu/~lanius/frac/koch/koch.html). There, the second iteration onwards, you’ll seewhat looks like a snowflake. As you keep iterating,you’ll find it getting more and more complex…and it becomes self-similar. That is, everywherealong the edges, it looks like the main shape itself.There are only so many iterations you can do with

that particular applet, but you’ll get the idea.Coastlines, too, are something like this. If

you were to measure a coastline with a mile-long ruler, you’d get a certain length.

Make it a foot-long ruler, and you’ll see thatit’s longer than you thought. And so on. Ulti-mately, you’ll find you just can’t measure acoastline—it’s infinitely long!

That’s where the fractal part comes in—coastlines are infinitely detailed.

Mountains, snowflakes, leaves… are all frac-tals. Look at a leaf: it’s got a main line with“branches.” These branches have similarbranches, and so on—and ultimately, if youexamined it under a microscope, you’d proba-bly find the same pattern repeated infinitely.

The above is just a rough introduction, andfractals in nature is an immensely interestingsubject.

Visit http://snipurl.com/fract2 (http://kluge.in-chemnitz.de/documents/fractal/node2.html), and http://snipurl.com/fract3(www.miqel.com/fractals_math_patterns/visual-math-natural-fractals.html).

Getting Down To ItNow, it’s rather pointless telling you whatparameters to change and why and how. FFfeatures a comprehensive tutorial. We’ll tellyou this, though—that seemingly unrelatedparameters, when changed at the same time,can lead to a drastically different picture.

Also, just try changing the real and imagi-nary parts of the “perturbations” in FF a weebit and be amazed! In other words, just keepplaying around...

It’s a matter of discovery, and we can’t teachyou fractal art. Just explore as many regions ofthe initial fractal as you can.

If you come across something trulyunique—such as interesting symmetries—doremember to save them and send them in to us.

Welcome to psychedelia—the natural way! [email protected]

Figure 4: If you zoom into the areas of what looks like an unmentionable body part,you'll find the landscape is vastly different. Softer, gentler curves. No shooting stars

Someone once said the sales of a book would drop by a factor of two foreach equation inserted. In that vein, we’ll explain how fractals work

without using a single equation! However, you’ll need to know aboutimaginary numbers, otherwise you might as well skip this. OK, to ease upa bit, think of the square root of -1. It cannot have a real square root, ofcourse, because no real number, when squared, will give a negativenumber! The square root of -1 is therefore called “i”, standing for“imaginary”; it’s a number that’s not on the line of real numbers.

Now, think of a number plane. “2 + 3i” represents the point which is 2units from the origin on the X axis, and 3 units from the origin on the Yaxis. See how the concept of an imaginary number leads to a numberplane instead of just a number line?

And now, take that number and square it. You get (-5 + 12i), because i2is -1. Square it again. You get (-119 - 120i)... and so on. If the number runsaway to infinity, it’s not “part of the fractal set,” and is painted white. Ifthe number does not go to infinity, and stays within limits, it’s part of theset, and is painted black. Take (0,0): it’s obviously part of the set, becauseno matter how much squaring you do, it’ll remain 0.

So how do you get colours? A point is marked with a certain colourdepending on how long it takes to move to infinity. Light colours are forthose that become huge fairly quickly; dark colours are for the ones thattake longer to become large. But how many times does one keepsquaring? Obviously, one sets a stop point: “we’ll iterate 200 times,” forexample. After the 200 iterations are done, a colour is assigned, based onhow far it has moved to infinity (or how close it has stayed to zero).

You’ll often see the word “Julia” in fractals. This is the “complement”of the main set: there is a Julia set for each point in the plane. A pointwithin the main set will generate a Julia set with only one shape; oneoutside the set will result in two shapes close to each other.

How It Happens


Digital Leisure l Game On

The follow-up to NWN—the much-revered“RPG Game of the Year 2002”—Neverwinter Nights 2 (NWN 2) is finally

here. NWN went down in the annals of gaminghistory as the first RPG ever to combine thehardcore D&D rule set into such an involvinggame. NWN 2 follows suit, with a brand-newgraphics engine, an even more epic storyline,and subtle elements interwoven into the game-play that add to the overall experience.

Like the new playable classes. Besidesadding a race to the mix of elves, dwarves, andbarbarians, you now have a bunch of new pres-tige classes, and a new base class The Warlock.Character customisation is much more involvingthan in NWN, and fans will spend a lot of timebuilding characters and customising them.

Without any spoilers, the story plays you asa nondescript resident of a tiny village, WestHarbor. You’re tasked by your rather stern step-father with retrieving a magical shard fromnearby. Upon successful return you discover thetown’s been attacked—naturally, the attackerswanted the shard you just acquired. You are

then packed off by “dad” to the city ofNeverwinter. Needless to say, adventuresabound en route and later.

What’s really wonderful is the way the storyinvolves you, with storyline missions, sidelinemissions, and some mini-game-like elements,like playing Lord of your very own keep! That’sall the tantalising storyline titbits you’ll getfrom me…

NWN 2 earns a must-play tag even beforeyou consider its excellent visuals. Although notthe most splendid-looking RPG title, thegraphics are very much up there. Spell andweapon effects are excellent, and so are charac-ter model animations. The Aurora 2 engine real-ly delivers!

NWN 2 isn’t really taxing graphically, exceptat maximum detail and high resolutions, at whicheven the 512 MB on my x1900xt didn’t help much.There were just a couple of instances of framing,though, during the countless late-night sessionsspent smiting evil and great cleaving! A must-tryfor any gamer worth his sand.

[email protected]

Epic Adventures

Rating:9/10

Developer:Atari

Publisher:Obsidian

System Requirements:Pentium IV 1.8 GHz or equivalent,

512 MB RAM, Direct X 9 compliant 128MB graphics card,

Direct X 9 compliant sound card


The best way to elicit tortured groans from any gamereviewer is to throw a World War II game at him. Thetheme has spawned some of the most ridiculous

games we’ve played, but thankfully, IL-2 Sturmovik 1946isn’t a product of that heartless factory.

The IL-2 flight simulator series has been around for fiveyears now, and this edition is effectively a round-up of thegame and its expansion packs through the years, plus threenew ones—PE-2, Sturmoviks over Manchuria and 46. The mis-sions and campaigns give some long-overdue attention to theAxis side of WWII as well, even letting you bomb Pearl Harbour!All this adds up to a total of more than 300 different aircraft(and you can fly around 200 of these), so expect to be kept busyfor a long time.

Like all worthy flight sims, you can’t just jump into the gamewithout familiarising yourself with the long list of flight controlsand training missions. Gameplay is as beginner-friendly as thesegames can get—you can tweak the level of realism you get, thoughit’s fairly tough even at the easiest level. At its most realistic, IL-2 ispure torture, and will only appeal to hardcore fans of the genre. Onenifty feature you’ll need when you’re starting out is the time-stretch-ing feature, which lets you slow down the game to a quarter of its nor-mal speed—excellent when you’re learning combat. Low-altitude dog-fights are extremely challenging, and can be a thrill as you battle it outwhile trying to keep your wings from hitting treetops. The variety of air-craft at your disposal is mind-boggling, and each has its own perfectly-crafted eccentricities.

The game’s graphics look dated—they haven’t been updated much since2001—but the developers’ attention to detail is marvellous. Textures degen-erate according to the punishment they take (including getting blackened byengine exhaust!), and each plane’s cockpit is a near-perfect replica of the realthing, as explained in the 450-page aircraft guide that comes with the game.

IL-2 Sturmovik 1946 is an important milestone in the series, and because itcomes loaded with the entire set, you don’t need to buy any of the previous lot.Invest in this game if you want something that lets you start out with flight sim-ulators at a comparitively easy level, and adds realism to the gameplay as you getbetter. If you’re a hardcore flight-sim fan, it’s a crime to miss this one.

[email protected]

Rating: 8/10Developer: Maddox Games, Publisher: Ubisoft

Distributor: E-Xpress InteractiveContact: [email protected]

Price: To Be AnnouncedMinimum System Requirements: Pentium III 1 GHz, 512 MB RAM, 64MB Graphics Card




Sid Meier’s Railroads! is a revivalof the old Railroad Tycoonseries that we’ve all known andloved for so long. The objectiveremains the same—build your

own railroad empire, connect a nation,buy out your competition, and becomethe king of the railways. You can makeyour money by connecting cities so theycan exchange goods and passengers,buying businesses in those cities, anddabbling a bit in the stock market.

We’ve reached a point where anygame with the Sid Meier name comeswith high expectations attached, andRailroads! is no doubt one of the mostenjoyable games this reviewer has comeacross in ages. Most importantly, thegame’s structure has been vastly over-hauled. There is just enough microman-agement—both in your finances and in

the actual building of the railroads—tomake you feel like you’re totally in con-trol, but this never feels tedious.

For a strategy/simulation game, Ifound this surprisingly fast-paced. Youropponents—the AI equivalents of greatslike J.P. Morgan and the BaronRothschild—work fast, and you’re goingto have to make some really quick deci-sions—some of which might bite youlater—as you compete against them. Atno point did I feel deprived of entertain-ment through my hours of play. Online orLAN play is even more entertaining, andthe game comes with some very interest-ing and challenging maps to compete on.

Visually, graphics are meticulouslydetailed—train models are like the realthings, stations have little people walk-ing about, and you can even tell the dif-ference in architecture when you’re

building your railroad in Eastern Europeor America. All these treats come at aprice, though—it’s not as gentle on yourgraphics card as you’d expect. There arealso a few aberrations here and there—trains wantonly going through housesand the like—but they’re all forgivenwhen you look at the big picture.

That big picture is that Railroads!has tremendous appeal for people of allages, shapes and sizes, and that appealisn’t going to go away soon. It’s one ofthose few games that force you to useyour brains, so grab yourselves a copybefore your grey cells rot.

[email protected]

Rating: 9/10Developer: Firaxis Games

Publisher: THQDistributor: E-Xpress Interactive

Contact: [email protected]: Rs 1,299

Minimum System Requirements: Pentium 4 1.4 GHz or AMDAthlon equivalent, 512 MB RAM, DirectX 9.0c 64 MB video card


FirstEscape

Daniel Sadville, a CNETreporter who isfamous for hyping

Second Life, the online virtualworld that’s the rage now,was recently trying tointerview one of the virtualmillionaires when they wereattacked by giant flyingpenises! All this happened inthe virtual world of SecondLife, of course, whichexplains how it was possiblefor them to be attacked bythe animated appendages.

The interview was beingconducted in CNET’s officewithin the popular virtualworld, and Sadville wastrying to get virtualmillionaire Ailin Graef toshare her secrets of settingup and successfully runningbusinesses in Second Life.Then the attack happened—animated flying penises flewat the virtual CNET buildingfor about 15 minutes.Obviously, the interview washalted immediately, and

Graef refused to continue.She then agreed to do so,providing the location wasshifted to her own privatespace. Didn’t help though,because as soon as theinterview was restarted, theobscene appendagesreturned. In fact the hackerseemed to have beenfollowing Graef, because hethen managed to crash theserver on which Graef’sspace was hosted.

Perseverance paid offthough, and after restartingthe server, the interviewcontinued normally withoutfurther incident. Looks likeit’s not just real-life anchorsand news reporters whosuffer from bloopers orintrusions! If peoplecontinue to take Second Lifeas seriously as they are rightnow, we’re going to need alot more security online—asmuch as we have offline,it seems.

However, what we must

wonder about is, how somepeople can take a world likeSecond Life more seriouslythan their real lives? Whenwas the last time you sawmembers of a terroristorganisation attack with…well… their… err… members?Whatever the case, watchthis space for moreunbelievable nonsense fromthe world of Second Life.We shudder to think,“What next?”

CHRISTMAS CHAOS

SellerBeware?

December seemed to bethe month of e-commerce boo-boos

for UK-based retailers. First itwas retail outletWoolworths’ online storethat was offering all sizes ofLCD TVs for just £150 (about

Last month’s winner isVaibhav Sharma, Gorakhpur (UP)We’re invariably content with still desktops, butVaibhav Sharma’s Flash escapades have made usthink different. Sadly, we can’t show you how itanimates. He used:1. Macromedia Flash 8 to design the backgroundand publish to HTML. There are navigation buttonsto view the next or previous wallpaper2. ObjectDock, 3. CrystalXPCongratulations!

They Prefer Their Apples Green...Five months ago, Greenpeace said Apple was the least“green” of the major tech companies, grading their useof toxic chemicals in products. They’re now again givingApple the bad report card! Talk about reminders—andabout cutting some slack!

MAN-HACKS?

Virtual Newsroom Attacked By Flying Penises

My Desktop

Whatever Happened To…

Surely you remember thetime when the average PC

consisted of a monitorperched atop the cabinet. Thedesign had been around forages, and nobody messed withit—not until the coming of theTower, anyway. Since then, thepicture of the PC itselfchanged, and the monitor-tower-everything else setuphas become staple, but whatof our horizontal friends?

A horizontal cabinetoccupies a little more spacethan your monitor, so it’s not aspace hog if you use it withthe monitor on top. Anyairflow considerations you’dhave to make would apply nomatter which way yourcabinet is oriented, so thatcouldn’t have been a factor inits fadeout. We aren’t sayingthey’re totally history—you’llfind them being peddled ascabinets for Home TheatrePCs, small form-factor PCs,and other applications wherecompactness and prettinessmatter more than corefunctionality. But towers havetheir advantages—they occupythe same area irrespective ofheight, so you can stack themwith more hardware.

The horizontal cabinet’sfall from top spot could havesomething to do with the factthat monitors became biggerbefore cabinets could getstronger. Or that they raisethe monitor to a height thatqualifies as an ergonomic no-no. Maybe they just weren’tcool enough. Got anytheories? Write to us and putin your own two cents (91paise)!

Eternal VacationSomeone out there recently got an automated responseafter reporting a phishing attempt to HSBC. It containedthe line “I will be out of the office starting 05/10/2006and will not return until 17/07/2050.” A 44-yearvacation? No wonder bank jobs are so much in demand!

Send in your Desktop with a description of how youmade it to mmyyddeesskkttoopp@@tthhiinnkkddiiggiitt..ccoomm with the subject““MMyy DDeesskkttoopp””,, and tell us your postal address, too.

Participate in this contest and win next month

Street Smartby Joseph L JordenPublished by

Horizontal PCCabinets?


Rs 13,250). So you couldactually go out and get42-inch LCDs for a fractionof their price if you werebuying it online.Woolworths soon realizedthe mistake, and the correctprices returned all tooquickly. However, in thattime quite a few Christmasshoppers had already placedtheir orders. The retailer wasforced to issue formalapologies to the frustratedbuyers, informing them ofthe error and reversing theirpayments—thereby nothonouring the sale.

In similar fashion, UK toyretailer Hamleys sold outalmost their entire onlinestock recently. The surge inpurchasing was due to aglitch in their system.Basically, Hamleys offerdiscount vouchers, whichcontain a code which youcan apply to avail of adiscount. Now some Webprogrammer overlooked thefact that buyers might

“accidentally” enter thesame discount code morethan once, thus multiplyingthe discount offered. Itdidn’t take long for theglitch to be found though,and people flocked to thesite to avail of as much as 60per cent overall discounts.There were stories goingaround of buyers boasting ofsaving thousands of poundswhile Christmas e-shopping!Some of the onlinespectators described theevents on the day as Vikingsvisiting Hamleys, claimingthat the site had beenpillaged. Apparently, almosteverything popular was soldout, or out of stock.

However, Hamleys’troubles were justbeginning—they don’tdistinguish between onlineand offline stocks, and haveone common warehouse forboth. This meant thateverything they had in stockhad been sold to onlinebuyers, and neither online

nor offline buyers would beable to purchase or orderanything until theyreplenished theirwarehouse. Although thesite was fixed up prettyquickly, Hamleys’ initialknee-jerk reaction was tostate that they wouldhonour all sales. Saner headsseemed to have prevailed inthe boardroom, however,because they soon retractedthat statement, probablyafter a few accountantsworked overtime to estimatethe losses!

The store later mailedevery buyer, telling themthat their money had beenreturned, and offered thema generous (yet sane)discount of 25 per cent onthe next purchase.

We, however, are leftwondering whether Webprogrammers at thecompanies are getting fired,or whether some businessexecutive is being patted onthe back!

To elucidate, how can webe sure that this was aprogramming glitch, andnot a weird and aggressivemarketing tactic? It did getthem into the news, and hadthousands of buyers (readactual people with money)register and provide theircontact information! Doesthis mean that we’re goingto see many more “glitches”on e-commerce sites? Maybethis will start a new trend,where programmers whomake mistakes will besought after! What’s sad isthat none of the buyersseem to have got their“highly discounted”products, and the retailstores are laughing all theway to the bank, with peoplejust giving in and acceptingthe consolation discounts!

The CDs and DVDs we sowantonly use and throwtoday wouldn’t have evenbeen possible had it not

been forthe mindof James TRussell. Hestarted offwith hisinventionsat the ageof six,when he

crafted himself a remote-controlled battleship,complete with a chamberfor his lunch. After his B.A.in Physics, he worked as aphysicist with GeneralElectric, and was one of thefirst people in the world touse a colour TV and akeyboard with a computer.

Frustrated with theway his vinyl records weredegenerating, he wanted towork on a system whereaudio could be readwithout any physicalcontact between themoving parts. The bestway, he figured, would beif he represented thebinary 0 and 1 asintensities of light—darkand bright respectively.Furthermore, by squeezingmore dark and light areasinto the same space, hesaw that he could storehuge amounts of music ona piece of film.

His work on opticaldata storage began in theBettelle MemorialInstitute, where he workedas a Senior Scientist, andhe constructed his firstprototype of a digitaloptical recording system.Data was recorded on aphoto-sensitive platter,which became the firstCD-ROM. The idea evolvedthrough the 70s, but withfew takers at first.Eventually, though, audiocompanies realised theobvious benefits, and therest is history.

People WhoChanged

Computing

James T Russell

The Discman!

“Spam Is OldNews”

WIN!Send in your entry and you could win an exciting gift just by sharingan amusing picture with a tech angle to it. The picture should havebeen shot by you, and should not have been published anywhereearlier. E-mail your picture with the subject “DigiPick” and yourpostal address oonn oorr bbeeffoorree tthhee 2200tthh ooff tthhiiss mmoonntthh [email protected]. One prize-winning picture will bepublished each month.

Participate and win nextmonth Pro C# 2005 and the .NET2.0 Platformby Andrew TroelsenDistributed byDreamtech Press

Last month’s winner isKetan GandhiAlibagMaharashtra

Santa “IllegalImmigrant”

Hazleton in Pennsylvania is atown with a sense of

humour. They’ve banned Santafrom their town this Xmasbecause he is an illegal immi-grant. Naturally—has anyoneever seen Santa presenting hispapers after his soot-ridden falldown the chute?

As a matter of fact, he’s anillegal immigrant everywhere,because he is from The NorthPole—not a country, last wechecked.

Now, there’s a site calledwww.nosantaforhazleton.com.Here, the good denizens ofHazleton have penned theirreasons for not allowing Santain: illegal immigrationincreases crime and burdenslocal service setups.

A joke? Naturally, andyou’re pretty daft if you haven’tgathered. The Web is Wild, butpeople aren’t stupid. The site isup because the city councilmade a move to prevent land-lords from renting rooms toillegal immigrants.

Cuff-Links

The Web is Wild, hence thisspace. An Australian judge

has now ruled that just linkingto copyrighted material is ille-gal. But that’s what Googledoes all the time, everypicosecond of every day, right?But someone saw somethingwrong with Stephen Cooper’srunning a site calledpp3s4free.net: he provided asearch engine for MP3s. He’dmade a catalogue of the mate-rial. Ah, now we get it! Google…no Google Catalogue, at leastnot in Oz!

Women Hackers Exist

Awoman recently soughtrevenge on her cheating

boyfriend by hacking hisMySpace page. She changedthe welcome note on his pageto: “I’m a pathological liar. Icheat regularly.” Then aMasterCard-ad-style ending:“Finding out your boyfriend is alying scumbag and changinghis MySpace page so everyonecan see… PRICELESS.” See?Women can do such things!

Missing Mama?

AWeb site called “askmummy” in German is tai-

lor-made for men who cannotlook after themselves oncethey leave home. Like here,many German men live withtheir parents until their latetwenties. If only you knew

German, you’d be able to get,at www.frag-mutti.de, direc-tions on how to use a washingmachine, fry an egg, etc. By theway, this isn’t about fraggingyour mom! (“Frag” means“ask” in German.) Now trans-late the site using Google’stranslator and get some reallycool tips on what to do withyour microwave…

QUAD CORES TO FLOP?

Intel ThinksQuad-CoreNot For 2007

In December, a Chinesesite reportedly got hold ofsome slides of a

confidential Intelpresentation, which wassupposedly meant for intra-company circulation only.The presentation is

reportedly about Intel’spredictions about processorsales for 2007. According tothe slide, displayed below,Intel doesn’t expect theirquad-core processors to sellmuch at all.

As the slide represents,Core 2 Duos will rule theroost for Intel in 2007—likewe didn’t expect that!What’s surprising is thatdespite the newer quadsshifting to the 45-nanometerfabrication process, whichwe hope will make them alittle more affordable, their

projected sales are stillpitifully low, right up to endof 2007.

We’ve heard ofconservative estimates, butreally, now! With both Inteland AMD planning ontaking the multi-corearchitecture beyond fourcores, it’s a little hard toimagine they will not beaggressively pushing theirown quads a lot more.

KILLER SPEEDS INDEED

Lack OfBroadbandIn IndiaKillingPeople?

Yes, you read thatcorrect. It’s an outsidepossibility, if a study by

the UK-based Social Issues

134

Escape

DIGIT JANUARY 2007

GamingMore and more computerusers have started gaming.However, for those of you leftbehind, especially in terms ofall this first person shooter(FPS) business, where youneed hardware that costs asmuch as some cars, here aresome terms to help you makepeople believe that you’vegot game!

BFG: The full form is BigF***ing Gun, and was madepopular by the game QuakeIII Arena. This is the gun thatcan help even a gamingnewbie frag an expert!

Frag: In FPS-land, the term“frag” is used to describethe killing of an opponent.Usually best used in multi-player games with lots ofblood and gore.

Camping: Usually a gamingtechnique used in multi-player shooters, where youhide (camp) in a place whereyou think no one can findyou, and snipe at opponents.Good gamers will generallyhate it when they find a“camper,” and the offender isusually fragged a lot.

[Weapon]-whore: Such asRocket-whore, Rail-whore,etc. This is a derogatory termused to describe a personwho always tries to get anduse just one type of weapon.Usually a weapon that the“whore” has practised and isgood with.

Spawn: The act of entering amulti-player game where youappear out of nowhere. Alsoused as spawn-point, theplace you spawn; spawn-kill—fragging a player as soon ashe spawns (usually considereda mean thing to do), etc.

Usage: The other day I wasQuake-ing on a local serverand this rail-whore just keptlooking for places to campand snipe. All I did was findthe BFG and then frag his@$$. Got a couple of spawn-kills in too! He quit soon after!

Wild Wild Web

Can’t figure out what’s on thepage? We couldn’t either—it’s all inGerman!

The alleged Intel slide that was leaked on to the Net, and first reportedby Chinese site www.hkepc.com

DIGIT JANUARY 2007

Escape

Research Centre (www.sirc.org) is anything to go by.

Apparently, in a study of2,500 Web surfers, a newtype of disease—nowdubbed Mouse RageSyndrome—was discovered.The researchers tested tosee what type of onlineexperience could result inheightened stress levels,indicated by a faster heart-beat, increasedperspiration, furious mouseclicking, and in some cases,the losing of control andthe screaming at monitors.

For Western users, suchexperiences can be blamedon badly-designed sites, orthose hosted on really slowservers. The test startedwith making usersexperience what theresearchers thought was“the perfect Web site”—good layout, fast loading,easy navigation, etc. Next,they moved the users on toslow loading sites with uglygraphics and basically badlydesigned sites. This waswhen they noted changesin body language, heartrates and overall gaugedthe users stress levels.While some stayed calm,most showed negative

effects to the heart aswell as the nervous andimmune systems.

Now, while we’rewaiting for the first “youkilled me / my relative / myfriend with bad site design”lawsuit to be reported fromthe West, we can all sitback and curse our luck.

Most of us probably

have been suffering fromMouse Rage Syndrome forsome time now, but it hasnothing to do with the sitesthemselves—but rather thepathetically slow speedsthat we have to make dowith here in India. Weknow for a fact thatnormally, lightning-fastsites can take ages to open

on even our 128 / 256 Kbpsconnections here in India,but perhaps the saddestpart is that we can’t suejust anyone, like Westernerscan! All we can do is tellyou about this latestdisease, ask you to calmdown and take a breath ortwo. Don’t let your ISP killyou… literally!

Mark Cubanhttp://snipurl.com/jan001(http://www.blogmaverick.com/2006/12/12/googlenomics-itunes-and-zune/)

Googlenomics , iTunes and Zune… Would it be worth it to Google to pay $575 m andup per year to completely turn Apple upside down ?To completely pre-empt their ability to sell iPods ? Topotentially introduce a new hardware device, orpartner with someone who has one ? To selladvertising around the music rather than the musicitself ? Is their a traditional Google arb here of 70cper song vs 70c of advertising around the song ?Could it sell that much advertising online to justifygiving the music away ?...

Alex Iskoldhttp://snipurl.com/jan002(http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/2006_web_technology_trends.php)

2006 Web Technology Trends…Undoubtedly 2006 has been the year of the socialnetwork. MySpace, YouTube, Facebook have been thethree outstanding success stories—but alsoimpressive was Bebo (in the UK particularly) andthere was strong growth in existing web 2.0 networks

like Flickr and del.icio.us. The zenith of this socialnetworking craze was probably Google buyingYouTube for $1.65 B.

… RSS continues to inch towards themainstream—Yahoo integrated it into Y! Mail Beta,Microsoft is utilizing it more (e.g. integrated into IE7),Google came out with Google Base and the GDataformat (which is based on the RSS variant, ATOM).While 2006 can’t be seen as the breakthrough yearfor RSS in the mainstream, we will probably see RSSbloom in 2007 as a result of the groundwork done in‘06 by the big Internet companies. Note that therehave been recent murmurs that Yahoo is scaling backRSS, but I think this is a short-term trend only…

Dan Frakeshttp://snipurl.com/jan005(http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/editors/2006/12/flop/index.php?lsrc=editorsblog)

The iPhone a flop? Let’s wait and seeLet’s assume, just for a moment, that Apple really isplanning on releasing an “iPhone,” a combination of amobile phone, portable media player, and, possibly, aPDA. Will it be a big hit? Hugely successful? Whoknows. I personally think it’s unlikely such a productwould approach the popularity of the iPod. But I don’tthink it would do nearly as poorly as Kanellos predicts.

Google, Web 2.0, andiPhone. Boringbecause the sametopics keep poppingup again and again—but some people’stakes can beinteresting

No Smoking Please!

135

This month, we all decided to take upsmoking! Now now, before you chide

us for making tobacco companies richer,take a look at the Digital Passion > LeadFeature story... Yes, we were all inhalinglots of sweet smelling incense smoke,courtesy Fatbeing (Nimish), Raaabo, TheBrowne and Vijay “PJ” Padaya.

At least the smokers in the team cannow stop cribbing about not beingallowed to smoke inside the office!

As of writing this, which is a weekafter the “smoking,” most of us still getthe taste of incense in everything wedrink or eat.

Apart from that, we had a lot offeigned-sicknesses—no doubt theaftermath of a rather hecticDecember issue. Deepakwas convinced thatmost of us hadtaken some part-

time acting classes.There was more multi-player Quake III

Arena, much to Deepak’s dismay, withSanket and Agent001 joining in to putRaaabo back in his place. The rest of usstill got fragged like hell, but it was soworth it to see Raaabo lose miserably asthe two best Quakers in the office taughthim some humility.

Deepak had to take a trip into townduring rush hour—he had applied for a USvisa for business—and swallowed moresmoke in the traffic jams than we didduring our smoking experiment. Heclaims it was worth it, though, because hegot a 10-year visa!

Rumour now has it that we will soonbe looking for a replacement

editor, unless he actuallycomes back in Januaryafter his business trip!We’ll wait and see...

It’s All GoodYesterday, I got my gift that wasdue for over two months; I alsogot the December issue of Digit.Wow! It’s simply superb! You guys rock.What an amazing mag! I could neverexpect more!

How can you guys manage to giveaway so many goodies at such anominal price? I have heard peoplewriting about the cost being too much,but just calculate—and you can’timagine! How can you all put up such amind-blowing issue in just one month??A 210-page magazine—I think it’s worth500 bucks, if not more!

I liked Agent001 this time the best.But one thing—I have my pre-boardexams going on. And your magazinehas kept me so busy these days—I thinkI may just keep myself from giving theexam or fail miserably! I just can’t takemy eyes off the magazine for amoment—and the only remedy that Isee is to burn it (you know I can’t)!Thanks for such a wonderful issue, andlast but not least—the new interface istoo cool! Fantastic visual appeal anduser-friendliness.

Keep up the good work, guys.Arkadyuti Mukherjee

Dear Arkadyuti,We worked hard on the December issue, andwe’re glad to see—from letters like yours—that our efforts have paid off. We also workedvery hard on the disc interface—thanks forthe compliments! Passionate appreciation ismost welcome!

— Executive Editor

Mr DisgruntledAlthough I am not a subscriber of Digit,I have gone through almost all yourissues, and for the last four months, I’vebeen a regular reader. I would like toremind you that your magazine is veryhigh-priced. Rs 125 or 200 for a

common man like me is not a joke.However, that wouldn’t have been aproblem if your magazine wereinformative enough. But looking into it,it’s obvious that you are not keen oneducating your readers through thenewer trends; you are only eager toearn more revenue through advertising.

Look into the December issue. Outof 210 pages, well above 40 per cent—exactly 84 pages—are full ofadvertisements. I think your readersare fools (including me, I accept) to paythat much for only advertisements.And what about the other pages?Except three to four articles, like Agent001, Q & A, Tips & Tricks, etc., theothers are about gadgets... throughwhich you earn heavily.

Again, regarding your CDs… where’sthe useful stuff? What will we do withshareware? I find nothing of value. IfI’m paying you, I should only getfreeware…

I thought I’d write an essay, but I’mfed up. I know you will never publishthis letter.

Saji PaulDear Saji,We appreciate constructive criticism, but wecannot agree with all your points. For onething, ads are the lifeline of many a magazine.You’ve mentioned that 84 out of 210 pagesare ads; and if you don’t look at the ads at all,why not just think of it as a 126-page issue?What about everything we’ve packed intothose 126 pages? As for many articles beingabout gadgets, we write about stuff thatinterests our readers—you obviously aren’t atypical reader! And how do we “earn heavily”by featuring gadgets?

Regarding the disc contents, first off, wedo provide lots of freeware. Secondly, you arenot paying for software when you buy anissue—the shareware is there for you to tryout. We’re saving you download time andpossibly money (if you pay by the hour foryour connection). If you like the shareware,buy it—what we’re doing is, we’re making itavailable for your perusal. In any case, we’resorry to have disappointed you.


At Your Service—AlwaysI am a student of class VIII, and though Ido not have a Digit subscription, Ihaven’t missed a single issue since lastyear. You people are sure a doing anawesome job. The December issue wasfantastic, and so was the Fast Track. TheTips & Tricks, Beat That, Gender

Benders, and Digipick make themagazine even better. I really wish youcould turn Digit into a weekly magazine.

Software like Corel Office, GoogleDesktop, Autopatcher, and the DigitArchive CD was reeaally great. One morething: I was really eager to try out Needfor Speed: Carbon. I found it in yourDecember issue, but the DVD wascorrupted. Could you help me?

Shameek SarkarKolkata

Dear Shameek,Our customer service helpdesk is always atyour service. Unless you’ve already done so,just call or write in, and you’ll get areplacement immediately!


The Many Faces Of TechYour lead article You’re Being Watched istimely. The article throws light on thepsyche of voyeuristic minds, and theinterview aptly sums up the working ofvoyeurs at large. The advent of round-the-clock news channels added a whole newugly dimension to this episode. Not onlyindividuals but also the media has a sharein spreading this perverted attitude.

Going by the recent trends onnews channels—sting operations,MMS scandals—it seems they haveburied the ethos. The private life ofcitizens is being snuffed out by thisobtrusive attitude of the media. Privatelife is publicised and sensationalised.“Bug and make bucks,” that’s thecurrent mantra.

Hi-tech gadgets, faster processors,larger bandwidths, gigabytes ofmemory to digitize every bit of ourlives, uploading, downloading andsharing content is now possible with asingle touch of a button.

Proud, yes, but I am worried at thesame time. Who knows—one day youmay end up on a big show (read realityshow at its worst) à la Jim Carrey in TheTruman Show.

My intention is not to paint agrim picture—all I want to say is weneed technology to make this world abetter place to live in, but on theother hand, it’s the collectiveresponsibility of individuals to see to itthat this happens. It’s not thetechnology that is bad—it’s the mindthat perverts it.

A Happy New Year to Team Digit!Dr I Sai Krishna

Hyderabad


December 2006


There Is A Way!In the December issue, Biswadeep Misrahad asked you about the code forchecking the total time on a Nokiaphone. There is indeed a code to checkthe total talk-time. Type in*#92702689# and scroll down, and inthe life timer selection, you will get thetotal talk-time.

Sivi Nair

Yes, We’re Human!First of all let me tell you—not that youdon’t know—Digit Rocks! I have beenreading it for quite some time now.

The reason I had to write this mail is, Iwould like to draw your attention to thequestion in Check Your TQ, page 208,December 2006, which asked whatcompany had come up with its ownversion of Firefox. The correct answer wasgiven up as Microsoft.

It was a prank… I can’t believe evenyou guys fell for that! Check outwww.msfirefox.com andwww.msfirefox.net!

Anyway, keep up the good work…Prashant

Dear Prashant,Thanks for writing in. We realised our error awhile ago—unfortunately, we created the TQpage when we first spotted the “news.” Wesoon came to know it was a joke, but wecouldn’t do anything about it. Of course, we’regoing to offer the standard excuse—we’re allhuman! Hope you can pardon this boo-boo onour part!


Digit Under The ScannerI absolutely must thank you for yourmarvellous gift in the form of theDecember issue. The softcopy of 23issues of Digit and the Fast Trackeditions—it’s great. In fact, I hadstarted scanning all the Tips & Trickspages and other useful, informativepages and keep it as a softcopy on myhard disk! I went ahead, and thankGod… now everything is on disk!

Vinod Kumar V K

Coasters GaloreI have been a subscriber to Digit for thelast three years. I have the followingquestion to ask: What is the life of arewritable CD in terms of rewriting? I useMoser Baer Protection+ rewritable 10x CDsfor writing data CDs. After rewriting forabout 15 times (at 10 x speed), these CDs

Inbox

Write to the EditorE-mail: [email protected]

Snail Mail: The Editor, Digit, D-222/2, Om Sagar Building,MIDC, TTC Industrial Estate, NerulNavi Mumbai 400 706

Digit will publish the best letters on these pages. Letters may be edited for clarity.PPlleeaassee iinncclluuddee yyoouurr ccoommpplleettee aaddddrreessss iinn aallll ccoommmmuunniiccaattiioonn..

For subscription queries, call the help desk at 022-27629191/9200, fax 022-27629224, or send an e-mail to [email protected]

stop working! I use Nero Burning ROM.What can be done to increase CD life?

P B KakathkarDear Mr Kakathkar,The life of rewriteable CDs is usually statedas 1,000 cycles, though in reality, it usuallyworks out to about a hundred. We haven’ttested the media you’ve mentioned, so wecan’t speak about it with authority. Still, 15really is too low. Perhaps you’re gettingcounterfeited media. Another thing is,remember to keep rewriteable CDs asscratch-free as possible—use a soft cloth toclean them, cleaning in a straight line awayfrom the centre. Store them safely too!

—Executive Editor

Export Quality!I live in Sri Lanka, and to my bestbelief Digit is not available here rightnow. Whenever one of our familymembers goes to India, my firstrequest would be to purchase a copy ofyour magazine.

I found your tips section especiallyinteresting in solving several problems.The hardware comparisons are ablazing hit! I’ve got a question. As a 17-year-old, advanced-level college studentuse my desktop PC for animation,audio, and graphic design. A friendrecently advised me to upgrade my PC,and I decided on a 3.0 GHz Pentium Dprocessor—and was advised an Intelmainboard. Are Intel 945 boards agood buy? I need support for 1 GB ofDDR2 + DDR dual-channel, onboardVGA, and FireWire. How aboutGigabyte or MSI? I can spare 4 to 5K.

Why not include a collection of e-books on topics like literature,technology, fiction, and othereducational guides? Thanks inadvance… the magazine rocks! Keepthe good work!

Varanga de SilvaColombo, Sri Lanka

Dear Varanga,Thanks very much for your kind remarks.Regarding e-books, well, you never know howthe magazine will evolve—keep looking!

As for the motherboard, our residentexpert Agent 001 is the right person to ask,but while we’re at it, I might as well goahead! Looking at your requirements, IntelG965 boards will fit the bill, but they’ll be abit expensive. Opt for any 945G chipset-based board, in particular the GA-945GM-S2:it was the Silver winner in the motherboardshootout we carried in November ‘06 issue.

—Executive Editor

Ecstatic!I am writing this letterwith overwhelmingecstasy. I am a poor teaestate worker, working inone of the tea estates inMunnar under themanagement of Tata TeaLimited.

My meagre wage scale has notpermitted me to purchase a computerduring the past 26 years of tenure ofemployment, and I haven’t evenviewed any of the CDs obtained alongwith Digit! I just merrily read themagazine, and dreaming of thecontents of the CD since July 1998was my passion!

By God’s grace, I am the owner ofa junkyard machine, and haveexperienced the treasure trove inevery CD/DVD. It is amazing, and Itake this opportunity to garland theteam behind every issue of Digit withmy tears of ecstasy! You all are reallydeserving, dear boys!

Jagdish K

Girlfriend Material?Digit… you are my best friend!

I am a regular reader andsubscriber to your magazine. Firstly,congratulations to all of you forcompleting five years successfully asthe best tech magazine.

If someone were to ask me tochoose between a beautiful girlfriendor Digit, I’d reply—Digit! I just can’tlive without it. I am doing ComputerScience and Engineering, and youpeople gives me lots of useful articles,software, and tech informationthrough your magazine.

I would like to pray to God for youpeople who make us successful. Wishyou all the best, and keep going thesame way!

Durgesh Kshirsagar

Dear Jagdish and Durgesh,I’m touched. Touched to see that ourmagazine reaches out not only to the mindsof our readers, but in some cases, theirhearts as well.

Jagdish, we’re all happy for you forhaving finally procured a computer—andwe’re so glad we have been part of yourhappy experience. But Durgesh, we mustadvise you never to dump a girl in our favour!

Jokes apart, my thanks to both of youfor the heartfelt compliments—they keepus going.

—Executive Editor

Letters of theMonth


The Wii has been in the newssince its launch. Which of the

following is false?a) Nintendo will offer sturdy straps

in replacement of broken onesb) The console is also available

with an inbuilt hard drivec) The Wii got a “sledgehammer”

treatment like the PS3 didd) GameCube discs can be used on

the console

Time Magazine’s Person ofthe Year for 2006 is…

a) Chad Hurley, co-creator of YouTubeb) “The iPod”c) Tom Anderson, co-founder of

MySpaced) “You”

What does MIME of e-mailfame stand for?

a) Multiple Intranet Mail Exchange b) Multi Internal Mail Extensionsc) Multipurpose Internet Mail

Extensionsd) Multimedia Interactive Mail

Exchange

Alan Shugart, a pioneer ofthe hard disk industry, died

recently. He founded:a) Seagateb) Western Digital c) Samsungd) Hitachi GST

According to e-mail securityfirm Postini, what percentage

of all e-mail was spam, in October 2006?a) 15 per cent c) 55 per centb) 35 per cent d) 90 per cent

Which of the three below isnot involved in the

development of the Cellprocessor? a) Sonyb) Toshibac) IBMd) Intel

Recall from college… whichof the following is not a

physical network topology?a) Tree c) Meshb) Bus d) Matrix

One Apple product wasnamed after Steve Jobs’

child. It was named…a) Macb) Lisac) Pippind) Newton

Which of the following is not alossless graphic compression

format?a) GIF c) JBIG2b) PNG d) DjVU

“BOFH” stands for B***ardOperator From Hell. Whom

does it refer to?a) The CEO (of an IT company)b) The incompetent phone operator

downstairsc) The contemptuous system

administratord) A clueless user

11

10

9

8

7

6

5

4

3

2

ACROSS7. Small Java programme that runs on a web browser(6)8. Collection of data items arranged for processing by aprogramme (6)9. Advanced Mobile Phone Service(abbr) (4)10. ‘Myst’ sequel’—best selling puzzle and explorationcomputer game from Broderbund (5)11. A two-player black and white game with perfectinformation (5)13. Language ‘in dots’ for the blind (7)16. Software package for mechanical engineering(7)17. ‘Spider and worm’ type of programme roaming onthe net (5)20. Indian global IT service provider ‘-------ComputerSystems’ in Mumbai SEEPZ (5)21. Robert ------—invented the TCP/IP protocol (4)22. A cellular operator named after a fruit (6)23. To load a computer’s operating system (4,2)

DOWN1. Trojan horse that can be used to send unsolicited e-mailthrough the compromised computer (4,4)2. Common Lisp Object System(abbr) (4)3. To copy data from a CPU to memory (5)4. A computer programme that interacts with a particulardevice or software (6)5. ‘S’ in STM- a device that obtains images of atoms on thesurface of materials (8)6. ----Site-not paid for (4)12. Online------ selecting and buying merchandise via theInternet (8)

14. ---- ---- optics- transmission of visible light signals overoptical fiber cable for great distances (4,4)15. Codename for version 10.3 of the Apple MacintoshOS X (7)18. Block structured, procedual language intended forapplication and embedded system development (5)19. Serial-----—where a modem or printer is connectedon a PC (4)21. Thousands of Lines Of Code(abbr) (4)

Crossword

Got aninterestingquestion? Send it in withthe answer [email protected] “TQ” in thesubject area.

Wii And YouIntel recently announced its

45-nanometer chips,referred to as…

a) Penrynb) Barcelonac) Woodcrestd) Jim

1

Nero Burning ROMwas named after

Roman Emperor Nero,who is supposed to have beenplaying his lyre while Romeburned—though that’sapocryphal. And the process iscalled “burning”—so you getthe idea. Sheer genius or cheesycopywriting?

Did YouKnow?

Answers5. a)Seagate6. d)90 per cent7. d)Intel8. d)Matrix9. b)Lisa10.d)DjVU11.c)The contemp-tuous systemadministrator

1. a)Penryn2. b)The console is

also availablewith an inbuilthard drive

3. d) “You”4. c)Multipurpose

Internet MailExtensions

Crossword by Nitta Jaggi

Last Month’s Solution

December’s Winner:Kumar VijayErnakulam, Kerala.Send in your entries [email protected] on or before January 20. One lucky participant will win Mastering By Mark Minasi, Rhonda Layfield and Lisa Justice

Published by

Win!

People And Events That Grabbed The Headlines—For Better Or For Worse

Every time Yahoo! releasesits list of year’s most-searched-for items, we talk

about it here. What’s worse,every time the list is released,it’s the same person on top. Eventhe headline is the same: “Oopsshe did it again.” So there yougo—you know who we’rereferring to without our havingto spell it out.

Here are the eight celebswho made it to the top-ten list,with the millions of pages thatmention them (in brackets).

#10: Lindsay Lohan (2.9):The most influential person of2006 based on US newspapercolumn inches! Debate ragedover her substance abuse, andher being a role model foryoung women.

#9: Pamela Anderson (7.1):We’ll bet it’s something to dowith the science of pneumatics.

#8: Chris Brown (1.3): For hismusic. We haven’t listened to

any of it—and we’re hoping it’snot horrible.

#7: Beyonce Knowles (1.2):We aren’t too much into theR&B scene, so we’re not surewhy she figures here.

#5: Paris Hilton (11.6): Forher on-camera antics, wepresume. Once a star...

#4: Jessica Simpson (6.5):Seems to have released a fewinteresting videos. Some peoplecall her ugly.

#3: Shakira (2.2): You know acivilisation is on the declinewhen the butt-shaking abilitiesof a woman drive the world toseek her out.

#1: You-know-who (9): Youknow a civilisation is on thedecline when it’s nothing thatdrives the world to seekinformation about someone.

Footnote: type in “britneygoogle” into Google and go to thefirst non-sponsored result. Thehorror of it all will come forth.

Here We GoAgain…

Reporters from Britishonline tech tabloid TheRegister caught Intel

executives in an unusual,perhaps inebriated, moodwhere they, in a manner notbefitting them, verballypooh-poohed thecompetition. Intel “vowed tooverwhelm AMD” with aregular “cadence” of productreleases that run on a “tick-tock” fashion: Intel will slapa new architecture upon themarket (the tock), thenfollow up with a lessdramatic manufacturingprocess, core, voltage, andcache shifts(the tick).

“From our perspective,65nm is kind of old news,”

said Intel manufacturingchief Tom Franz. Loftyperspective, we’d say. Butyou’ll have to hand it to Intel:AMD happens to be trulybehind, looking to move to45nm in 18 months. But theIntel execs talked about the18-month plan “as a figmentof AMD’s imagination.”

“They are so dreadfullybehind,” said Intel senior vicepresident Pat Gelsinger. (Pure,unadulterated scorn. Notgood.) And here’s where ithotted up: Gelsinger went on,“You’d have to be nuts” (tothink AMD will come close tobeating Intel to anymanufacturing milestones).

Salvo #3: “I was verypleased to read that a number

of analysts havedowngraded AMD.”

To our surprise,there hasn’t been apeep from the otherside yet. PerhapsAMD execs are moregraceful. (Or maybethey just don’t wantto highlight thebeating.)

Speaking to an invitedparty of bloggers andWeb developers at

Seattle headquarters, MrGates of Bill fame happilysaid, “DRM is not where itshould be,” as blogger SteveRubel reported it. “In (sic) theend of the day incentivesystems (for artists) make adifference.” And then camethe pronouncement: “But wedon’t have the right thinghere in terms of simplicity orinteroperability.”

Blogger MichaelArrington said Gates’ short-

term advice for peoplewanting to transfer songsfrom one system to anotherwas to “buy a CD and rip it.”

Now Suw Charman, of theOpen Rights Group, said it wasa “bit rich of Bill Gates to makehis comments, given howmuch DRM is stuffed intoVista.” And we know how muchMS swears by DRM anyway...

But we told you so. We toldyou last month Mr Gates hadbecome more amiable, morematter-of-fact, and, in general,more prone to telling thingsthe way they are. See?

We Told You So!

“You’d Have To Be Nuts”

DIGIT JANUARY 2007148