• Review

    Droid 4: A smartphone for keyboard purists

    Posted February 14, 2012 - 6:12 am

    Motorola's latest version of its classic Android device boasts a slideout keyboard for those who just can't touch-type
  • Review

    Election fever: 6 mobile apps that can keep you informed

    Posted February 11, 2012 - 7:28 am

    The big game is on -- and by that, we don't mean football, basketball, baseball or Angry Birds. We're talking about the biggest pastime in the U.S.: Watching (and taking part in) the current Republican primaries and the upcoming presidential elections.
  • Review

    Hands on: HP's Enterprise Database Consolidation Appliance

    Posted February 10, 2012 - 12:47 pm

    If you're like most enterprises, you have data everywhere. It's in line-of-business applications. It's in directories. It's in various departmental servers. It's in your e-commerce platform. To manage all this, most shops use databases of all sizes running on a variety of operating systems and database applications, often from different vendors and editions. Chances are, they're not consistent.
  • Review

    Hands on with Amazon Storage Gateway

    Posted February 8, 2012 - 2:57 pm

    Amazon's new Storage Gateway offers a twist on cloud-based backups, but beware of the rough edges
  • Review

    Flexing NoSQL: MongoDB in review

    Posted February 8, 2012 - 6:15 am

    MongoDB shines with broad programming language support, SQL-like queries, and out-of-the-box scaling
  • Review

    Toshiba's 1TB USB 3.0 drive; winter gloves for touch-screening

    Posted February 7, 2012 - 9:24 pm

    The latest external hard drive from Toshiba features 1TB of storage capacity, a USB 3.0 connection (with USB 2.0 support), a free 30-day trial of cloud backup software, file/folder data encryption (256-bit, via password protection), an internal shock sensor to protect it from drops, and a drive space alert system that tells you if the drive is full.
  • Review

    Free, cloud-based word processor Zoho writer shows promise

    Posted February 7, 2012 - 7:39 am

    Zoho Writer is an online (with offline and syncing functionality) word processing application that offers a nice amount of functionality, especially given the limitations of the Web as a platform for productivity tools. After creating a free account with Zoho, you can access Zoho Writer. It looks a lot like most word processors, so if you've used any major program in this category, it will take no more than a few minutes of poking around to learn how to do things. This is good, because the "Help" is in the form of a FAQ, not a tutorial or index of functions.
  • Review

    OnLive's train wreck: Office on the iPad

    Posted February 7, 2012 - 6:11 am

    The OnLive Desktop service shows just how wrong desktop virtualization can be
  • Review

    Komodo Edit: Feature-packed free programmers' editor

    Posted February 6, 2012 - 2:59 pm

    A programmer's editor has to strike a fine balance between being powerful enough for daily use and staying out of the way so you can just look at your code and think. The search for the perfect editor can take years. If you're not perfectly content with the editor you're currently using, you might want to consider Komodo Edit (free). Komodo offers some compelling features at a price that can't be beat.
  • Review

    Online backup services keep your data safe

    Posted February 6, 2012 - 2:26 pm

    It's a fact of modern life that archiving data is essential to prevent a data disaster. Still, something like one-third of computers are never backed up, according to 2,257 respondents in a recent Backblaze poll carried out by Harris Interactive. The survey came to the dismal conclusion that a scant 7% of users practice safe computing by archiving their systems on a daily (or nightly) basis.
  • Review

    Review: Intel's new 'Cherryville' SSD 520 drive

    Posted February 6, 2012 - 2:22 pm

    Intel today started shipping its fastest solid-state drive to date, the 520 Series SSD, sporting its smallest 25nm NAND flash memory and SandForce's SATA 3.0 controller with 500MB/sec-plus performance.
  • Review

    Droid Razr Maxx: An Android smartphone for big talkers

    Posted January 30, 2012 - 6:07 am

    Motorola's latest smartphone bulks up on battery life and business features
  • Review

    Review: SlimDrivers an excellent free choice for updating drivers

    Posted January 28, 2012 - 8:13 am

    Let's face it: Keeping your PC's drivers up-to-date can be a pain. Several apps, such as PerfectUpdater and DriverScanner, will make this task easier, but they cost $30 each. What if you don't want to shell out any money, and you still want to make driver updating an easy process? The free SlimDrivers can help. This utility isn't quite as seamless as its higher-priced rivals, but it's the best free solution I've tested for identifying and updating outdated drivers.
  • Review

    Sansa Clip Zip: A value iPod alternative

    Posted January 28, 2012 - 8:00 am

    When it comes to small MP3 players, the iPod Shuffle and iPod Nano are tough acts to follow. The SanDisk Sansa Clip Zip is neither as petite nor as stylish, but it has features in spades: an FM radio, a voice recorder, a workout timer, and a microSD card slot for adding more storage--and all for a very modest price, making it well worth considering if you're on a tight budget.
  • Review

    Review: DriverUpdate handles more than just drivers

    Posted January 28, 2012 - 7:50 am

    Don't be fooled by its name: DriverUpdate isn't simply a utility for keeping drivers up-to-date. It handles that task, certainly, but it also does more. This $30-per-year program streamlines the process of updating your Windows OS, as well as those apps, like Java and Adobe products, that frequently seem to be in need of updates, too.
  • Review

    Review: iBooks 2 for iOS

    Posted January 28, 2012 - 7:50 am

    If iBooks were two apps, I'd give the one for reading regular books a higher rating, and the optimized experience a still favorable-though-slightly qualified recommendation.
  • Review

    TiVo Premiere Elite: Double the recording capacity, but at a premium price

    Posted January 28, 2012 - 7:02 am

    In an era when most cable and satellite TV companies will rent you a fully-functional HD digital video recorder for a few bucks a month, why spend $500 for a TiVo Premiere Elite (which also records high-def video)--plus $20 a month for the TiVo service? (Prices as of January 4, 2012.) TiVo provides four quick no-brainer reasons: tuners. It's the only DVR with four tuners, meaning it can simultaneously record up to four high-def programs--and with 2 terabytes of storage, it also provides plenty of room for all that content (up to 300 hours' worth of HD video, according to TiVo).
  • Review

    HP Envy 15 review: A great laptop marred by serious flaws

    Posted January 26, 2012 - 9:57 am

    Last year's Envy laptops were a bit of a disappointment. The design that wowed me in 2010 had grown stale by 2011; at that point, the rest of the world had caught up to and surpassed the Envy's design, while HP was content to update only the system's internal components. The new Envy 15 and 17, which HP released right at the end of 2011, finally feature a whole new design. For the most part, it's great, but a few nagging issues keep the system from being an easy recommendation.
  • Review

    Review: Encrypted solid state drives protect laptop data

    Posted January 23, 2012 - 10:18 am

    Vendors are touting solid state replacement drives as a way to protect corporate data in the event of a laptop being lost or stolen, and to boost performance at the same time.
  • Review

    First look: Windows 8 breaks new ground

    Posted January 23, 2012 - 12:32 am

    The first public beta for Windows 8 is expected to be released in February, but we've been testing pre-beta code in our lab. Our overall impression is that Windows 8 represents an aggressive effort by Microsoft to deliver a single OS that runs just about everywhere and takes on all of Microsoft's key rivals.
  • Review

    Review: Galaxy Nexus smartphone a worthy upgrade

    Posted January 21, 2012 - 7:05 am

    If you have been considering making the switch from the iPhone to Android, the Galaxy Nexus is a great phone to consider.
  • Review

    10 open source shopping carts to run your ecommerce business

    Posted January 18, 2012 - 3:04 pm

    For businesses that rely on online transactions, open source shopping carts are a good alternative to proprietary ecommerce software: They are a fraction of the cost and are supported by large communities of users and developers.
  • Review

    Enterprise Hadoop: Big data processing made easier

    Posted January 18, 2012 - 6:21 am

    Amazon, Cloudera, Hortonworks, IBM, and MapR mix simpler setup of Hadoop clusters with proprietary twists and trade-offs
  • Review

    The best way to run Windows on your Mac

    Posted January 16, 2012 - 8:58 pm

    There may be times when you need to run Windows on your Mac: perhaps there’s an application your company uses that’s only available for Windows, or you’re a web developer and you need to test your sites in a true native Windows web browser. Or maybe you want to play computer games that aren’t available for OS X. Whatever your reason for running Windows, there are a number of ways your Mac can do it for you.
  • Review

    Hands on: The Wikipad tablet does 3D, runs Ice Cream Sandwich

    Posted January 15, 2012 - 8:41 am

    Aimed at gamers, the Wikipad is an Android tablet that is capable of glasses-free 3D. The Wikipad has an 8-inch 1280-by-720 resolution parallax autostereoscopic display, and it'll ship running Android Ice Cream Sandwich.
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