Home networking

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Set your preferred network To make sure you always connect to the same wireless network, open the Network icon in your system tray, click the Advanced button, and under "Preferred networks," move the network to the top of the list.

59	Go stealth Tighten your home network's security by disabling its Service Set Identifier (SSID) broadcast. By default, all access points broadcast their SSID or network name to anyone within range. Disabling this feature will deter hackers.

60	Change frequencies To avoid potential interference from your cordless phone, buy one that operates on a frequency different from your network's. Companies such as Uniden now offer phones that operate on a 5.8GHz frequency; most Wi-Fi networks operate on 2.4GHz.

61	Channel surfing Too many wireless networks nearby? If you're experiencing trouble, try changing the Wi-Fi channel to avoid interference. Check your manual for instructions.

62	Repeat performance Adding a repeater is the quickest and easiest way to broaden the range of your wireless network. Just place the repeater halfway between your router and your computer.

63

Build a wall Create a virtual wall of protection between your network and the Internet by installing a firewall on every computer logged on to your network. This will keep Internet pests at bay. To enable Windows' built-in firewall, go to Control Panel > Security Center > Windows Firewall. Make sure the On radio button is selected and hit OK. For even better protection, another alternative is Zone Labs' free ZoneAlarm firewall application.

64	Opt for change Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) has been cracked before, but changing your WEP key often will add another level of protection to your network.

65	Restricted area If your access point supports it, use access lists to specify which machines can log on to

Maintenance

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Use System Restore... Always create a restore point using System Restore when installing or deleting software. You'll find the applet in Accessories > System Tools > System Restore.

73	...unless you're infected If your computer has been infected by viruses or spyware, System Restore may actually preserve these Net nasties. Temporarily disable System Restore and perform a full system scan. After you've cleaned your PC, delete old restore points and start fresh.

74	Don't download from strangers Before you install anything, ask yourself if the software is trustworthy. If you don't have a good reason to trust it, pass.

75	Blast spyware Prevent browser hijacks and other Internet-related annoyances by keeping updated copies of Lavasoft's Ad-Aware and Spybot-Search & Destroy on your hard drive. Both are freeware and help immunise your computer against potential threats.

Google and GMail

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Instant 411 You can perform basic Google searches from a mobilel phone in the US by sending text-message queries to 46645 (GOOGL). To search for general services in your vicinity, type a word of description followed by a period and your city/state or post code (sushi.10018). To get the weather, use the same format preceded by the word "weather," or for addresses and phone numbers, by the name of the business. You can even get driving directions by typing from followed by the post code of your starting point and to followed by your destination's post code -- for instance, from 10016 to 10018. You'll receive text-message responses free of charge (depending on your carrier's text-messaging plan) within seconds.

54	Create a virtual drive Turn your GMail account into an Internet hard drive with Softpedia's free GMail Drive shell extension 1.0.5. This app adds to your PC a virtual drive that uses your 2GB of GMail storage space.

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GMail calling Can't live without e-mail? Have your GMail sent directly to your mobile phone as a text message. Log on to your US account and click the Settings page. Select the Forwarding and POP tab, then the radio button labelled "Forward a copy of Incoming Mail to." Enter your mobile phone's e-mail address, and click Save Changes. Verizon customers, for instance, would enter their 10-digit phone numbers, followed by @vtext.com. T-Mobile users would enter @tmomail.net, and Sprint customers enter @messaging.sprintpcs.com.

56	Lost in translation? Need to translate text? Head over to Google Translate, paste the text into the field and make a selection from the drop-down menu. You can also insert URLs to translate Web pages.

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Personalise your news You can customise Google's news page at news.google.com by clicking "Customize this page." Delete sections, increase the number of stories shown, and even add news categories of your own. To view your customised page from any computer, click the link "Share your customized news with a friend" at the bottom of the page, and e-mail the URL to your Internet-based mail account.

Mozilla Firefox

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Open tabs with one click Instead of right-clicking a link and choosing Open Link in New Tab, click a link with your mouse's scroll-wheel button to open it in a new tab. You can also click that tab with your scroll wheel to close it. (You may have to disable any function assigned to your click wheel for this to work, however.)

45	One-click combos Don't have a scroll wheel? Hold down Ctrl while left-clicking a link to open a URL in a new tab, or hold Shift and left-click to open a URL in a new window.

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More on Autocomplete To eliminate your AutoComplete history in Firefox, go to Tools > Options > Privacy. In the Saved Form Information area, click the Clear button. To disable this feature entirely, click on the plus symbol next to the Saved Form Information area and uncheck "Save information I enter in web page forms."

47	Keep tabs on your tabs You can control how new tabs open in Firefox in one of three ways: Open the page in a new window, open the page in a new tab in the front window, or replace the current page in the front window. Click the Advanced section of the Options window to customise it to your liking.

48	Smooth sailing Put an end to jerky document scrolling by enabling Firefox's "Use smooth scrolling" feature in the Advanced section of the Options window.

49	Search in shorthand Type a word in the address bar, then hit Ctrl+Enter to automatically add http://www and .com to the beginning and end, respectively, of the word. (Ctrl+Shift+Enter adds .org, and Shift+Enter adds .net.)

50	Zoom in and out Hit Ctrl and the plus sign to increase text size on your current Web page or Ctrl and the minus to decrease it. To restore the original size, hit Ctrl+0.

51	Open a tab To open a particular tab in Firefox, hit Ctrl+1 through Ctrl+9. Tabs aren't numbered, though, so you'll have to physically count them.

52	Use live bookmarks Get the latest headlines from your favourite RSS news sites and blogs. Just click the square, bright-orange icon in the bottom right corner of your browser and click "OK to save as bookmark." The Live Bookmark will now function as your RSS aggregator.

HP Pavilion HDX

Gamers have a new best friend in the HP Pavilion HDX Entertainment Series Notebook PC. Superfast, with great sound and a huge 20.1-inch screen, it's a good, fairly portable entertainment system. Digital editors, artists, and multimedia enthusiasts will like this all-in-one, too. Just be ready to dig deep for it: Our test unit cost $3000.

The machine we looked at came maxed out with the 64-bit version of Windows Vista Ultimate; Intel's best mobile chip, the 2.4-GHz Core 2 Duo T7700; and 4GB of RAM. All of that horsepower helped the HDX earn a WorldBench 6 Beta 2 score of 86 and generate a frame rate of 109 in our Far Cry gaming tests. The HDX's 2-hour, 22-minute battery life is quite poor for an ordinary notebook but remarkably good for a massive (15.5-pound) desktop-replacement model.

The HDX is impressively crafted. For one thing, the machine looks stylish; the exterior is a subtle variation on HP's designer imprint finish called "The Dragon." The 1680-by-1050 glossy screen is easy to move back and forth on its adjustable arm for a comfortable viewing angle, and it's bright without being too reflective. The keyboard, which includes a dedicated number pad, offers desktop-like typing comfort along with one-touch QuickPlay media controls.

The system's four integrated Altec Lansing speakers, aided by an HP triple-bass-reflex subwoofer, produce very loud, rich sound, but a rear audio-out port makes it a snap to add a nicer, external set of speakers for gaming surround sound. Its many multimedia connections include a coaxial port for a TV signal. Our test system included two 100GB hard drives, and if even that isn't enough space for you, the HDX has an eSATA port for adding a fast new external hard drive.

If you've been searching for a powerful, luggable gaming machine or an ultrahigh-end desktop replacement, give the HDX a look. It's one of the nicest 20.1-inch models we've seen yet.

-- Carla Thornton

Apple MacBook Pro

For people who appreciate finer laptop accoutrements such as a backlit keyboard and a slot-fed DVD drive, Apple has crafted another tasty offering in the form of the 17-inch MacBook Pro. Sleek, powerful, and able to run Windows as well as the Mac operating system, the MacBook Pro makes a strong case for becoming anyone's ultimate notebook.

Equipped with a 2.4-GHz Core 2 Duo T7700 processor, the maximum 4GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive, and nVidia's new top-of-the-line notebook graphics card, the nVidia GeForce 8600M GT, our $2949 test unit set new speed records. The MacBook Pro outperformed the rest of the notebooks we tested, all of which claim Windows as their primary--nay, their only--operating system. We loaded Windows Vista Home Premium on the Apple notebook, and it snagged a WorldBench 6 Beta 2 score of 88. In games it achieved a blazing frame rate of 141 frames per second in Far Cry (with antialiasing turned off).

At 6.6 pounds and just 1 inch thick, the MacBook Pro is the lightest 17-inch notebook available. But it has no memory card slots and only three USB ports, and it comes configured with an ExpressCard/34 slot instead of the more versatile ExpressCard/54 slot. Though it has Bluetooth and 802.11n Wi-Fi, built-in broadband is not an option. On the other hand, video editors will be happy to have not one but two FireWire ports. Battery life was disappointing: Apple pegs it at 5.7 hours on one charge, but in our tests we got less than 2 hours, 45 minutes.

Nevertheless, the MacBook Pro is elegantly designed and remarkably mobile for a 17-inch notebook.

-- Carla Thornton

Fujitsu LifeBook P1610

Pick up the svelte Fujitsu LifeBook P1610, and you'll barely feel as if you're carrying a notebook PC. And no wonder: At 2.2 pounds, the $2419 (as of 12/18/06) P1610 puts the "ultra" in ultraportable.

The P1610 is similar in weight and size to its predecessor, the LifeBook P1510. (It's slightly slimmer at 1.4 inches deep, and it measures 9.1 by 6.6 inches.) Included, however, are several notable improvements, among them a reasonably roomy 80GB hard drive, and a PC Card slot in lieu of the P1510's integrated CompactFlash slot.

Furthermore, the 8.9-inch, WXGA swiveling touch-screen display now has a higher resolution--1280 by 768 pixels--and a proprietary coating that helps optimize how the image looks in bright sunlight. On the touch-screen display, you can use either your fingertips or the included (and exceptionally thin) stylus to navigate. In my tests I found this flexibility a real boon, as tablet PCs typically allow you to use only a specially configured stylus to input data via the screen. (I tested a shipping version of the notebook running Windows XP; you can choose to purchase it with Windows XP Tablet PC Edition instead. The P1610 is also billed as Vista Capable.)

In addition to the PC Card slot (useful for such peripherals as an EvDO card or a CardBus CompactFlash card adapter) on the left side of the unit, the P1610 has an SD Card slot, two USB 2.0 ports, the stylus, and headphone and line-in jacks along the right side; at back is a VGA port, plus RJ-11 and ethernet ports. The unit has 802.11 a/b/g and Bluetooth wireless connectivity.

Although my small hands had few issues with the cramped keyboard, touch typists and users with large hands may find it difficult to work with. My two design complaints are minor ones: First, the flat, sliding power switch was awkward to switch on and off. Second, the spacebar depresses beneath the unit's chassis, so I often found myself bumping into the chassis as I typed.

Equipped with a 1.2-GHz Intel Core Solo ULV U1400 CPU, integrated graphics, and 1GB of RAM, the unit mustered only a Fair rating on our WorldBench 5 tests, earning a score of 62. It also did poorly on our gaming graphics tests, producing unplayably low frame rates. The P1610's 3-hour battery life is respectable given the unit's small size, but the result falls nearly an hour and a half short of the current average battery life among ultraportables we've seen.

Clearly, this notebook is aimed at people who put a premium on portability. If you crave both compactness and functionality, the petite LifeBook P1610 will charm you.

-- Melissa J. Perenson