Product review

AMD Launches Phenom II CPU, Its Fastest Yet

ITworld staff — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 16:34:09 -0500

Two days shy of a year since Intel launched Penryn, its first 45nm chip, AMD is finally ready to counter with a few 45nm CPUs of its own--Phenom II has finally arrived. But based on our hands-on testing of two Phenom II machines--the Dell XPS 625 and the Maingear Dash--the chip isn't quite as dominating as AMD would have you believe.

Dell Studio XPS 16 All-Purpose Laptop

ITworld staff — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 16:31:55 -0500

The Dell Studio XPS line emphasizes style without sacrificing functionality. These multimedia laptops have a bit of leather trim here, a backlit keyboard there--and a whole lot of plugs, ports, and features packed in.

Windows 7 beta shows off task bar, UI goodies

ITworld staff — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 10:00:07 -0500

The just-released Beta 1 version of Windows 7 is a solid, fast-performing, stable operating system that appears to be just about fully baked and ready for prime time. It is much further along than Windows Vista was during its initial beta phase, and it appears to be feature-complete.

SharePoint Backup and Recovery Solution Comparison

innagordin — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 22:00:06 -0500

Curt Spanburgh of Windows IT Pro has recently evaluated four SharePoint Backup and Recovery solutions. His team tested the latest products from Quest Software, AvePoint, Syntergy, and Symantec, and found a wide array of capabilities and features for users of SharePoint 2007.

Powerline networking - a buyer's guide

ITworld staff — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 11:08:11 -0500

While not as well known or widely used as Wi-Fi or Ethernet, powerline networking—using your existing home electrical wiring to transmit data, turning every outlet in your house into a potential network connection—can be a lifesaver when Wi-Fi won’t reach or when you can’t (or won’t) run Ethernet cabling.

Recover data from optical media with CDRoller

ITworld staff — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 10:25:17 -0500

CDRoller purports to recover data from any type of UDF/ISO9660/FAT32 disc that can be written: CD, DVD, HD DVD, Blu-ray. It's always tricky testing recovery programs, especially those that work with optical discs. All I can report is that it worked with several test CDs/DVDs that I keep around for these reviews. The test discs won't load, but they can be read at a low level.

SLRs with point-and-shoot personalities

ITworld staff — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 15:10:44 -0500

We tested eight of the latest SLRs, and found that you can get more camera for your money than ever before.

New versions of Ubuntu, Fedora and openSUSE

ITworld staff — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 11:43:19 -0500

When you're talking Linux, three big names always pop up: Canonical's Ubuntu, Novell's openSUSE and Red Hat's Fedora. Each of these "big three" has recently released a new version of its distribution, which means it's time to check them out and decide which is No 1. Or, more properly, which is No. 1 for what user.

Delve into database files with CDBF

ITworld staff — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 11:14:50 -0500

If you regularly work with DBF files, CDBF is worth checking out.

Run Windows on a Mac with VMWare Fusion

ITworld staff — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 09:18:00 -0500

If you need or want to run Windows (or other operating systems) on your Intel-powered Mac, the leading products in the segment are Parallels Desktop for Mac and VMware Fusion (plus, there's also Sun Microsystems'