PCWorld Feb-10

Windows Tips: Something Old, Something New AH, THE VENERABLE Windows tips story! If you’ve been reading PCWorld for any length of time, you know that when a new version of Microsoft ’s operating system comes out (in this case, the well-received Windows 7), a fresh batch of shortcuts and timesavers for the OS can’t be far behind. These megatip extravaganzas, though, always present a problem—namely, which items should we include? Because each new version of Windows builds on previous incarnations of the OS, loads of the most useful Windows 7 tips are also the most useful tricks for Windows Vista, not to mention the still-popular Windows XP. If we were to include a sampling of classic time-savers in a brand-new tips collection, we would risk alienating readers who want just the latest…

Regarding Google’s free Public DNS service and possible privacy threats [find.pcworld.com/64159]: Google’s servers collect so much information, [its] caring about what I do on the Internet would be like caring about what one ant does in the Australian outback. boden, PCWorld.com forums Top 100: Dissenting Opinions I was surprised to see the Asus Eee PC 1101 netbook among the “Best Products of the Year” and not the Acer Aspire One, which runs circles around the Asus. I did buy an Asus, but its lack of convenient features (no pilot lamp for Caps Lock, impossible to disable the touchpad, and so on) made me give it away and get an Acer instead. Patrick Georges, Carlsbad, California You have got to be kidding—the Zune is how many spots ahead of the iPhone? I stopped reading from…

WINDOWS 7 IS only a few months old. Most people who will eventually use the new OS haven’t tried it yet; those who have are still settling in. And things will change rapidly as bugs are squashed, missing drivers arrive, and compatibility wrinkles are ironed out. Even so, it isn’t too early to start gauging what people think of Vista’s replacement. To do a reality check on the mostly favorable initial reviews for the new operating system (find.pcworld.com/64223), we at Technologizer (technologizer.com) decided to ask for opinions from our community, a group of tech enthusiasts with a high propensity to acquire new OSs quickly and to push them to their limits. Starting on November 16, 2009, we surveyed the site’s readers (and Twitter followers) about their Windows 7 experiences. Positive Response About 615…

IN LATE 2009, Google unveiled what it hopes will be the new standard in netbook operating systems: Chrome OS. Based on Linux, the lightweight Chrome OS boots directly into a Web browser. Here’s a peek at what you can expect to see when preinstalled systems debut sometime in 2010. Because Chrome OS runs on solid-state drives, it boots extremely quickly. Our early test build took merely 7 seconds to reach a login screen, and then it almost instantly launched the browser. Chrome OS offers few controls that you can’t already find in the Chrome Web browser. The biggest difference is the Chrome icon in the upper-leftcorner, which reveals bookmarks for Web apps. It’s as close as Chrome OS gets to installing software. Though the inability to install apps can be a…

Faviki: Consistent Bookmark Tagging Tagging your bookmarks is a great way to track and share them. But making sense of other people’s tags (and sometimes your own) can be a challenge. Does the tag “Bulls” refer to bovines, Michael Jordan’s former team, or optimistic investors? The free Faviki service solves the problem by restricting tags to those corresponding to Wikipedia entries. The strategy forces people who bookmark something about the basketball team to use “Chicago Bulls” as a tag—and it helps people seeking information on the Windy City hoopsters get exactly what they’re looking for. faviki.com Infodome: A Database in Your Browser Setting up a database and allowing coworkers or clients to easily enter information can be a great boon to any business. Many small-business owners, though, would rather have an IRS audit…

IN SPITE OF rumors that the first USB 3.0 products wouldn’t surface until the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show, Buffalo Technology announced in late November that it was shipping its new DriveStation HD-HXU3 SuperSpeed USB 3.0 drive. We’ve been hearing about USB 3.0 all year long. Delays on the chipsets that use the new controller led to delays on the first motherboards. This is a wise move on Buffalo’s part, if only because USB 3.0 will remain a rarity for a while. However, at the time of the announcement, the drive was on Buffalo’s Website, but Buy Now links were absent. Perhaps Buffalo meant that the drive had shipped from the factory, but not yet to stores. USB 3.0 promises performance improvements worth waiting for—namely, a top data rate of 4.8 gigabits per second,…