The most recent articles from PC Magazine

Who controls the internet?

Alex Arias — 2004-06-04T13:51:07.000Z

Alex Arias, PC Magazine, Friday 4 June 2004 at 13:51:07

In the cyber-world of the future, search engines may have the last word on which sites we access on the web.

I have recently returned from a splendid holiday in Cuba, and I'm pleased to say that my only interaction with a computer was to check my emails (briefly) at the hotel bar, where internet access was available.

As expected, internet cafes were not common on the streets of Havana, which isn't surprising considering the economy of the country.

However, at the same time - through the lens of CNN - I was kept up to date with the excitement generated as Google approached IPO status.

You couldn't find more contrasting scenarios, but the fundamental issue is about access to electronic information. We take such access for granted, but we may be on the cusp of experiencing problems in the way we search the internet.

Effectively the window we use to look into the internet is shaped by just a few. A snapshot over a single month this year showed that Google was handling almost 45 per cent of all internet searches worldwide, with its closest competitor Yahoo at 30 per cent.

These companies possess tremendous power and can make or break businesses, influencing what we visit on the web.

While Google has become a cornerstone of the internet, and has been a much loved and trusted form of searching through the endless information, could its potentially impatient and money-hungry shareholders prove to have a corrosive influence on how the engine searches for information?

Hopefully not, as the technology is what Google is all about, but the rise of keyword advertising may be about to change the dynamics of all search engines.

If my behaviour is anything to go by, I only use the first or second page results from a search, before I change the search criteria. So it's not surprising that companies are willing to spend a fortune on maximising their exposure via sponsored links.

Naturally, this has helped Google to become one of the few profitable companies from the dotcom era. Of course keyword advertising is separate from the main search results, but for how long can this continue, and will search engines slowly fold to commercial pressures?

The stakes are high, and both Yahoo and now Microsoft (somewhat ironically) are looking to break the monopoly and diversify the market. However, smaller companies will only be able to take advantage of this form of advertising as competition forces pricing to fall.

How long keyword advertising will continue is anyone's guess, but there are few commercial sites that don't use it. Will it one day prove necessary to pay for searches that are in no way influenced by external companies?

Meanwhile Google is trialling a somewhat controversial form of email to include advertising based on keywords found within sent emails.

This throws up all sorts of ugly privacy issues, but could this be a way of maintaining revenue and satisfying investors, while keeping search results clear of commercial interests?

Whatever the future holds, search engines are an important part of the internet infrastructure and it may mean putting up with advertising within emails to maintain well defined search results.

Whether the search engine era makes you a millionaire or proves to be just another blip in technology history, it is clear is that whoever controls search engines - either paid for or free - has incredible influence over what we view on the internet.

Clouds in the crystal ball

Guy Kewney — 2004-06-04T13:42:03.000Z

Guy Kewney, PC Magazine, Friday 4 June 2004 at 13:42:03

Everyone wants to know what the future holds for PCs, but the only certainty is that it will be impossible to predict.

I was once asked: "What do you think the personal computer of 2020 will be like?" I was standing in front of an audience of experts, who had paid to listen to me, and who seriously expected (it seemed) that I would have something to say that would never have occurred to them.

To summarise my response, I said that something that is described as five years in the future means that two or three people are trying to get a prototype built; 10 years' time means that it's a theoretical possibility, and 15 years from now is basically saying: 'I've had an idea, and I know it can't be done, yet, but wouldn't it be nice/awful if ...?'

So when I talk about what will happen in 2020, the one thing I can be sure of is that I'll be wrong. If it's feasible, I won't know about it; if I know about it, it will turn out to be unfeasible.

But what I do suspect is that the battle will be about where the data is. Most of the data in the world is not on my personal computer. If I want some of it, I ask Lord Google for permission to access it.

Down comes a choice, on a platter: I help myself to what I need, knowing that I can have more if I want it.

Let's assume that, in a decade, anybody with a network connection to the internet that runs slower than 10Mbps will be regarded as a lightweight, or a pauper. Most homes will have 100Mbps (two high definition TVs and some extra connectivity) and the leading edge will have Gigabit links to the world.

So, how on earth do you distinguish between the data on your personal computer, and the data Google holds in trust for you?

My own data will be instantly accessible, whether I've left it on my hard disk at home, put it on my portable machine, or just retrieved it from Lesotho. The actual data doesn't mean a thing: the trick is to integrate it.

For example, suppose I have data that describes the streets near where I am, data relating to my own tastes and data relating to local businesses and bus timetables. Is that data? No.

The data is that I like Indian food, and that there's a restaurant just around the corner that meets my known preferences and is reachable in five minutes. The data that is my own says: 'If you get on this bus, you can be eating an affordable but excellent curry in five minutes.'

All the rest is 'out there' somewhere. Exactly where it is stored is academic. Or is it? Suppose government and commercial snooping has reached the level where it's worth spending serious effort keeping it out of the hands of higher powers? Suppose I want to access this data on my own storage device, where nobody else can see it?

In that case, the question of where that storage device is becomes vital. I might want instant access to it, which is OK, because my own storage device can be reached from anywhere, but I don't want this integrated, analysed data to be available to anybody else.

It arrives on my personal communicator in highly encrypted form, direct from a machine in my home safe/vault.

Either scenario is possible, even likely. And the difference is this: in the first scenario, I'm a consumer of data, and the amount I send back to the internet is small.

But in the second, my home vault is a massive provider of information, and needs substantial upload capacity to the internet cloud, from where it reaches me. See what I mean by 'impossible to predict'?

The fax of life

Alex Arias — 2004-03-30T10:37:29.000Z

Alex Arias, PC Magazine, Tuesday 30 March 2004 at 10:37:29

Emails may be everywhere, but there are still many situations where nothing but a fax will do the job

Having reviewed a fax server recently and spoken to the manufacturer, I discovered that the humble fax is still very much alive and kicking.

I must admit this came as a bit of a shock, but the reasons became obvious when they were pointed out to me. They included the many failings of the ubiquitous email, including a lack of signature or identity, the inability to verify that it has been received and virus threats.

Yes, certified emails and automatic proofs of delivery can be achieved, and virus scanning offers some security. But not everyone implements these features, or is even able to do so.

However, attention is quickly becoming focused on these issues, but for different reasons, notably the explosion in junk mail.

It appears that those pharmaceuticals so widely advertised in unsolicited emails have stimulated Bill Gates into action with his recent declaration of war on the spammers.

This is something in which we should all rejoice. In addition, looking under the skin we find numerous technical, social and financial implications that mean we should take an interest.

Numerous ISPs have already waded in with ways of solving the problem, each in turn creating new problems.

Yahoo is looking at certifying emails using a scheme called Domainkeys, AOL is considering Sender Policy Framework and Microsoft is planning to implement a form of electronic Caller ID.

These solutions are all trying to achieve the same basic result: determining the authenticity of the email with minimal disruption to the end user.

There are lots of unknowns in all the proposals, and it's far too early to say which system will prevail. But the concept seems to have struck a chord with the Internet Engineering Task Force, which had a session on the authentication subject at its last meeting in Korea.

What is clear, however, is that it will require strict worldwide enforcement for whichever proposal is implemented to work.

Of course the main reason people use email for mass mailings is the minimal cost involved. So why do Microsoft and Yahoo offer free web email? Will the introduction of authentication measures signal the end of such services?

That is unlikely, but ultimately this may prove to be the biggest shake-up of email since its invention. Even so, it's still only tinkering at the edges.

The number of spam emails may fall, and the spread of viruses slow temporarily, but this still won't solve some of the fundamental problems that aren't shared by faxes.

Maybe we should be looking at authenticating at an individual level. This would keep companies such as VeriSign happy, although there are alternative open source initiatives such as Oath.

However, taken to its logical conclusion, every email sent would have to be digitally verifiable and unique to an individual.

But how far do we go? Using biometrics to send out emails? This is perhaps not such a far fetched idea, with the US practically insisting that every foreigner uses a biometric passport.

The UK is planning face recognition biometrics for passports in 2005, but this is a government IT project so expect some time lag.

With such a system in place, the ideological leap from immigration security to electronic email identification seems to be insignificant.

But of course, with human nature being as it is, someone will always find a way to circumnavigate any system. It looks like I'll be reviewing fax servers for some time yet.

Castelle FaxPress Premier

The world in your pocket

Guy Kewney — 2004-01-29T12:41:38.000Z

Guy Kewney, PC Magazine, Thursday 29 January 2004 at 12:41:38

Instant messaging lets you stay in touch with friends and colleagues around the globe, but how can this social revolution be translated to the mobile world?

Something strange has happened to my office colleagues. This year, they're in my pocket, not just around me when I'm at my desk.

Two years ago, I lost my job. With it, I lost my friends - or so I expected. Nor was this the first time I'd been 'let go' from a job.

Each time it's been hard, and one of the hardest parts was losing my colleagues, who were also my closest friends. This time, however, the wrench was much easier to take.

And this had nothing to do with my greater maturity, wisdom or strength of character; but technology. The day after I left my job, I got up as normal. Instead of going into the office, I stayed at home.

But nevertheless I was able to watch the gang come in to work, exactly as normal. Around 8.30, Matt turned his PC on. "Hi!" I said. "You're early!" We chatted.

An hour later, Graeme joined the group. "Hello, Guy," he remarked when he spotted me. "How are you feeling after yesterday?" The difference, as you will realise if you're an addict yourself, was the Instant Messenger (IM) service.

I first got hooked on chatting to people in faraway places when The Source and BIX started up, and I've been an inhabitant of Compulink (CIX) since 7 February 1987. Most of my close friends are also members.

But networks like The Well and AOL aren't the same as the instant messengers. When I sit down at the keyboard, AOL IM, Yahoo Messenger and MSN Messenger tell all my friends I've connected to the internet. Similarly, I can see them signing on, one by one, from all over the world.

Now we come to the interesting bit: the difference between IM and SMS texting. In a real sense, the social change that I experienced when the whole office joined Yahoo is one anybody with a mobile phone can sample.

But the difference is equally real: texting can be costly whereas instant messaging is mostly free while you're online. And there's something more immediate about the way IM tells you who is there, when they switch on and log in.

I believe that the popularity of IM poses a real problem for the mobile and wireless networks. Sit down in a coffee shop these days, and you can go online. Pretty cool, except of course you wouldn't really be happy about paying unless you had some urgent work to do.

The point about IM is that you're aware of it, but it's in the background. You'll have an idea of who else is in the room, but you can ignore the chit-chat. And you might feel that £6 an hour on a mobile phone is rather too much to pay for that.

The solution? Buy a smartphone, and log onto the GPRS network. GPRS is, for most serious purposes, useless. It is flaky and unreliable, with huge data latency problems, but it's virtually free because so little data goes across it.

It's starting to leak out from the desktop to the mobile user, and it's a real problem for providers which charge by the hour, or by the minute. It is, I will predict, going to be one of the big stories of 2004, as people start learning how to use smartphones as tiny computers.

But a smartphone's power, friendliness, and 'always with you' link to your community only work if you can be connected for one minute for roughly the same cost as if you're connected all day.

Watch the phone operators try to get their heads around this one over the next 12 months. You can be assured that they'll be pretty puzzled. And as for the Wi-Fi hotspot providers, well, they're going to be completely baffled.

Simplicity is the key to RSS

Kelvyn Taylor — 2003-09-04T11:13:14.000Z

Kelvyn Taylor, PC Magazine, Thursday 4 September 2003 at 11:13:14

Really Simple Syndication is an XML-based technology for creating a personalised news portal. But we must not let it become too complex, argues Kelvyn Taylor.

In the world of technology, it's always refreshing to come across something that's simple.

I've recently discovered the delights of Really Simple Syndication, more commonly known as RSS. Although there's no consensus as to what RSS actually stands for, it's now generally accepted as a name, rather than an acronym.

It's one of those technologies that's been known to a relatively hard core of technically-aware web users for quite a long time, but is only just starting to make inroads into the mainstream.

As with many web technologies, a lack of documentation means that the roots of RSS are steeped in controversy, but I don't want to get into that here.

(Incidentally, the lack of reliable archived source material means that web history will become a nightmare area of research in a few decades.)

Suffice it to say, RSS is an amalgamation of various attempts to produce a simple way of dynamically syndicating content from a website.

Microsoft and Apple both featured in the technology's very early days, with formats called CDF (Channel Definition Format) and MCF (Meta Content Format) respectively.

Netscape acquired Apple's MCF format and in 1999 unveiled an XML-based syndication format called RSS.

The intention was to provide a simple standard that allowed users of My Netscape (a now-defunct customisable personal portal) to add content from websites with a single click. Netscape dropped RSS support in 2001 and everyone thought that was the end of it.

However, having got used to the power and simplicity of RSS, users realised that they could do things that weren't dependent on the existence of Netscape.

Hence the development of 'aggregator' applications that take RSS feeds from any number of websites and display them in a single location. Add in filtering capabilities and you've got your own personalised news site.

An RSS feed is simply an XML document that can be viewed in a text editor. It can be created easily by website owners using Perl scripts, for example to periodically extract content and create a new RSS file.

The process can be fully automated, so any change in a site's content - a breaking news headline, for example - will automatically be updated in any aggregator application that subscribes to this feed.

I've been trying the open source SharpReader (www.sharpreader.net) and have been impressed at how easy it is to set up my own collection of news sources.

It's amazing how much time you save by not having to go to each site individually to check headlines. Any story you're interested in is immediately accessible with a single click, which opens in a SharpReader view pane.

However, it's not just news that can be syndicated. Thousands of weblog users ('bloggers') are providing RSS feeds so that their dedicated fans can keep up to date with the latest pearls of wisdom.

As the technology is so simple and robust, new users are appearing all the time. Of course, the tricky bit is that as RSS becomes more popular, people will want to add extra functionality - and this way lies doom.

Once it becomes too complex, the barriers to entry will rise and people will abandon it. Although RSS version 2.0 exists, the most popular version is still the old 0.91 standard, because it's simple, it works and doesn't need an SDK to implement.

Those fighting for flashy enhancements would do well to remember KISS - Keep It Simple, Stupid.

Time for a tech recovery

Guy Kewney — 2002-09-20T16:36:30.000Z

Guy Kewney, PC Magazine, Friday 20 September 2002 at 16:36:30

Investors in the stock market have yet to recover their nerve and will still hesitate before investing in hi-tech stock. But it's time for a change, argues Guy Kewney.

If you want to know why I think the PC business will be one of the first to recover as this recession starts to end, check out the place where the big airlines park their unused aircraft. Then get someone to show you an inventory of which of those aircraft is ready to fly.

You'll find that they are, increasingly, broken down shells missing important parts. This reminds me of several IT installations I've seen recently.

It's been a good decade since the PC business changed its nature and became the network business. Sometimes I think there's a temptation to overlook the immense changes that happened to the PC when it became a corporate component and to concentrate on the far more visible evolution of the internet.

However, the internet is just a big local area network (Lan) using simpler and more flexible protocols than Novell let loose on the world with Netware. And, increasingly, Lan technology revolves around the internet and its protocols.

There are enough reasons for the slowdown in the IT market, but behind it all is a common factor: nobody will lend money to an internet-based or hi-tech company any more. And here's the first parallel with the airline industry: in the case of big airlines, the recession has allowed them to cut back on repair work - right back to zero.

They're not flying unsafe aircraft, I just think they're flying their spare aircraft. At the recent Farnborough Air Show, it became apparent that people selling repair equipment were starving, waiting for the day when the airlines run out of spares. At some stage, they will.

When the dotcom bubble collapsed and the Y2K panic ended, many big corporations had networks of PCs, servers and IT staff they didn't need. Like the airlines since then, many have been able to get away with pulling equipment out of mothballs to do routine upgrades and assigning staff to do minor development work.

However, this is postponing the day of tackling projects they really need for mission-critical IT functions. So, there really is a limit to how much you can downsize before you cease to function.

The bad news is that this is going to put a big brake on the recovery of the economy. Large corporations are living off their fat but, as with the human metabolism, if you stop feeding the beast it doesn't just absorb fat, it burns necessary muscle.

Today's complex network-based enterprises can't neglect their IT structure with impunity. When they come to start doing necessary investments for their core business, they'll find it involves the IT infrastructure.

This might be good news for the IT industry. However, it's also going to cause hold-ups, because there's no simple way to put a new IT infrastructure in place overnight. Projects take time and require trained staff who understand the problem.

Sadly, the accountants and salespeople who run large corporations seem to find it hard to understand that things take time.

They expect to be able to nip in to PC World and buy a network, priced on the basis of how many feet of cable and how many boxes. In my judgement, that sort of decision is also being taken in many boardrooms now.

As a result, there will be orders for all sorts of hardware and contracts for large systems for companies to do this on behalf of 'bricks and mortar' firms that downsized their IT function beyond the point of anorexia. That's good news for us in the PC business, but bad news for the economy.

What should happen is that confidence will recover. But we're not just going to face one or two Enrons and WorldComs; there will be lots of ordinary everyday businesses that will have to admit that they, too, have been falsifying their profit figures.

Yes, it's widespread and technically, yes, it's fraud. The reason they were doing it is that in the insanity of the dotcom years, no large corporation could manage without finance.

At the time, if they'd published honest figures, nobody would have bought a single share. Fantasy said that electronics companies were all 'growth' stocks, justifying share prices of 50 and 80 times earnings. Against that, ordinary corporations simply had to inflate their own performance figures or do without finance.

As the economy prepares for recovery, the PC business might well feel the effects first. But I don't think that the beginnings of a resurgence can be taken as the sign that the worst is over for others.

The name game

Ed Henning — 2002-07-22T14:31:02.000Z

Ed Henning, PC Magazine, Monday 22 July 2002 at 14:31:02

At present the registration of domain names is in a complete mess. ICANN, the body in charge of this, is both unreliable and inefficient and should be scrapped before things get any worse, says Ed Henning.

If you follow the principle that there's no smoke without fire, then the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is secretive, irresponsible and inefficient, and should be scrapped. Following the various reports about it makes fascinating reading, with allegations of directors being prevented from viewing financial records, secret organisations pulling its strings, excessive concern with trademark protection, the organisation being unaccountable and ignoring the views and needs of the general public.

I would not mind if much of this were true, if only ICANN did a decent job. But in my opinion it has done an almost unimaginably bad job. The registration of domain names (ICANN's core function) is an amateurish, undisciplined, free-for-all mess. The directors should be prosecuted as the costs of putting the mess right would be enormous.

In all of this, I've seen one tiny glimmer of hope, and that is with the new --not yet operating -- domain .pro. The point of this domain is that it's exclusively for doctors, lawyers and accountants (more professions will follow later) and can be trusted. The intention is that if you come across, for example, EHenning.med.pro, then you can be certain that checks have been carried out and that the person running the site is a proper doctor. Let's hope western views are not allowed to dominate.

The point here is that checks are to be made at the time of registering a domain name. With all other domains, it's left to a dispute before a domain name can be challenged. In my view, with the exception of a couple of domains that could be left to be used by anybody for any purpose, all domain name registrations should have the validity of the name usage checked.For example, if I want to register a .co.uk domain, then I should need to provide proof that I am conducting business in the UK, and if I want a .org, that I am a genuine charitable or non-profit organisation.

If this were implemented, finding your way around the Web would be much easier and reliable. Many people use inappropriate domain names simply because they are available or out of ignorance of their intended restrictions. One UK registrar, 1&1 Internet, told me recently that people register .co.uk domain names even though they are not running a business, simply because this is the cheapest domain to use.

But what if ICANN is scrapped tomorrow? One likely outcome is that control will pass to the US government, an organisation not exactly known for its understanding and subtle appreciation of international needs and opinions. So things could get worse. In these circumstances I hope that other governments would step in. The Internet is an important part of the international infrastructure and absolutely should not be under the control of one country.The best hope would lie in the United Nations setting up a body to manage the Internet, and not allow any one country to have a veto.

There are countries that are trying to control Internet usage, and they could easily block important decisions. Certainly, let each of them manage the usage of their own country domains and Internet structure, but don't allow their restrictions to affect the Internet in other countries. If the rest of the world does in fact do the right thing and wrest control of the Internet away from ICANN and the Americans, the next step entails a difficult decision.

There are two ways to go. One is to increase dramatically the number of top level domains (TLD). These started with the likes of .biz, .info and .pro, and we could simply allow hundreds or thousands of these. This would enrage trademark holders who want to control all variants on their names, but would also allow much greater flexibility. More people and organisations, who do not compete or interfere with each others? activities, could have identical names, differentiated by their TLDs.

This would be confusing, and would make my goal of classifying the Internet and providing vastly simplified searches just about impossible. This problem would have been so much easier to fix when ICANN took over the responsibility. This is annoying, because it was such an excellent missed opportunity.

Few registrars restrict the usage of domain names because that would limit the number that they can sell, and the profits they can make.

Serif Web Page Maker e-Design Studio

Cliff Joseph — 2002-07-19T10:09:00.000Z

Cliff Joseph, PC Magazine, Friday 19 July 2002 at 10:09:00

A good choice for those who want a simple way to start designing web pages.

The clumsily titled Web Page Maker e-Design Studio is actually WebPlus 7, an upgraded version of Serif's low-cost web design program, along with an extra CDRom with a large library of fonts, clipart and wizards to assist beginners.

The wizards consist of templates for business and personal use. However, they don't give a clear idea of the structure of a site or the links between pages, so you'll need to dip into the program's main tools to put finishing touches to your site.

A number of new design tools are included. The text and graphics engines have been enhanced so that they automatically provide smooth, anti-aliased text and graphics.

There's also a new text editing mode, WritePlus, that looks and works just like a word processor. It allows you to use powerful word processing tools, such as the new Auto-Correct and Auto-Spell options, and changes are instantly reflected on the web page in the main workspace, so you can see how your changes affect the layout.

You also have the ability to rotate text on the page while going back and editing it if necessary. There are also improved options for altering settings like line spacing and character formatting.

New graphics tools include options for drawing freehand lines and curves, as well as a range of pre-defined Quickshapes, such as spirals, stars and arrowheads.

A series of editing nodes let you modify these shapes quickly and easily, and the new transparency and fill tools can be used to add a variety of graphical effects. The gradient fill tool is particularly clever, providing dozens of pre-defined linear, radial and conical fill effects.

Rival web design programs such as Microsoft's FrontPage are better than e-Design Studio at creating large websites, but this package is a versatile and affordable option for beginners.

Price: £34.99 (ex. VAT).

Minimum requirements: Windows 9x/ME/2000/NT 4.0/XP; Pentium II 233MHz; 32Mb Ram; 65Mb hard disk space.

Contact: Serif 0115 914 2000

www.serif.com

Go-faster stripes for the web

PC Magazine staff — 2002-07-09T13:23:34.000Z

PC Magazine staff, PC Magazine, Tuesday 9 July 2002 at 13:23:34

Speed is critical for enjoying the internet. Here's how to tweak your connection.

Slow websites are frustrating and nobody likes waiting around for files to download. Thankfully, there's a number of tweaks and options available to help make your internet connection as fast as possible.

After using the web for a while, your browser's page cache will start to fill up. This is where frequently accessed images and data from the internet are locally stored.

As this fills up, you might experience a degradation in the speed at which sites load and, if you're short of disk space, the overall speed of your PC.

It's good practice to routinely clear out the cache systems. This can be done from within the browser itself. Under Internet Explorer, go to the Tools - Internet Options menu, and use the Delete Temporary Internet Files option to achieve this.

With Netscape, the same can be achieved under the Edit - Preferences - Advanced - Cache menu selection. Other options include limiting the amount of data that's downloaded to your browser by stopping it.

Clearing the History folder will also ensure that you're downloading the latest version of a web page. If you're more interested in reading text than admiring images, you can turn off image loading. This will, of course, change the way web sites look, but will increase the speed of page downloads.

Download accelerator

Installing a download accelerator is another way to speed up your internet experience. Some of these utilities work by downloading files in multiple parts.

When a file is selected for download, the utility will split it into several divisions and will do a quick search for alternative download sites. If the site you're downloading from has some type of bandwidth throttling enabled, you can bypass this by using multiple connections.

Popular utilities that do this include FlashGet and GoZilla. Many products can also resume broken downloads so, if the download fails, you don't have to start from scratch. And, if you don't have the time to stay connected, you can pause them and resume at a later date.

Pop-up advertising windows might help sites generate income but, to the average surfer, they're annoying. Utilities are available to stop pop-up windows from loading and to limit the amount of windows allowed to be open by the browser.

Many popular firewall programs, such as Norton Personal Firewall, offer this functionality, although utilities such as PopUp Eraser can be downloaded for free from www.download.com.

To ensure that your hardware is running as fast as it can, periodically check your modem manufacturer's website for updated drivers. Also make sure that the modem properties in Windows Control Panel are set correctly.

Confirm that the fastest available port speed is selected, data compression is turned on and the send/receive FIFO buffers are set to their maximum slider value in Device Manager.

Windows XP

Windows XP Professional users might notice a slow down with their internet connection, as the operating system reserves 20 per cent of your bandwidth for the Quality of Service packet scheduler. This is so that some bandwidth is free to maintain network performance.

This can be turned off by launching gpedit.msc and opening Computer Policy - Administrative Templates - Network - QoS Packet Scheduler, then editing the percentage allocated.

The complete guide to wires-only ADSL

PC Magazine staff — 2002-07-08T15:53:41.000Z

PC Magazine staff, PC Magazine, Monday 8 July 2002 at 15:53:41

Broadband Britain has yet to happen but, with the introduction of wires-only ADSL packages, the price has dropped dramatically. Here's everything you'll need to know before taking the plunge.

With recent price cuts by BT, and more exchanges being converted, we could be seeing the emergence of the first mass market in ADSL.

Although the benefits of high-speed, always-on access are clear, and progress towards widespread availability is promised, in reality the spread has been slight so far.

The government wants the best broadband access of the G7 economies by 2005, but even the most optimistic now recognise this as a pipe dream.

So, why is it taking so long and is it worth the investment in time and money? BT has dominated the market for ADSL services in the UK; it owns the exchanges and has dictated the flow of progress. Not even the government, it seems, can force the behemoth to open up to competition.

Once you've made the decision to go broadband, you'll need to adapt your internet use to suit. A firewall is an absolute must. We'll examine just what you'll need and look at what's possible and what's not with existing ADSL services.

The actual mechanics of ADSL are relatively simple. Understanding the basics of the technology makes it much easier to choose services more efficiently.

Currently, many more people want broadband connection speeds than have them. Barring a major advance in communications technology, this situation won't improve in the short term. However, this guide will tell you all you need to know.

ADSL checklist

The first requirement for ADSL installation is an ADSL-enabled exchange within reach of your location, where 'reach' is defined as the distance over which the service will work reliably.

When BT first launched its BTopenworld ADSL service, only a tiny subset of local exchanges were enabled, mostly in urban areas, and you had to be within 3.5km of the exchange to pass the installation test.

However, all this has changed as BT's attitude to broadband has wavered from the dismissive to the enthusiastic via changes in management.

The first stage would bring ADSL within the reach of two-thirds of the population. Moreover, all new ADSL installations use Rate Adaptive DSL technology to extend the distance from the exchange to 5.5km, rather than 3.5km.

You can check out the availability of ADSL services in your location at www.btopenworld.co.uk by entering your phone number and postcode, but you'll also have to check your distance from the exchange. BT will do this for you once you express an interest.

It's also vital to check that your home phone line isn't using the Digital Access Carrier System (Dacs). This is the modern form of the party line, where a single pair of copper wires is used to carry two voice circuits.

Used by BT where there aren't enough wire pairs to connect everyone who wants a phone line to the exchange, it's particularly common in rural areas. If you have Dacs, then you can't have ADSL, although BT will normally replace Dacs with a proper line when you order the ADSL service (assuming it's available in your area).

What do you need?

Once you know that the service is available, you must decide how you want to use it. The essential first step is to choose an ADSL internet service provider (ISP), which will arrange for your BT line to be converted to ADSL at the local exchange and create an account for you.

However, ISPs need to compete with each other even though they all use services based on BT exchanges, so there's a wide range of options available.

Is your connection going to be used by a single PC for home use? Will you need to connect a network of machines to one ADSL connection? What facilities, such as video conferencing, will you want?

The ISPs have a variety of services to match your needs. They also allow you to change contracts, with possible time restrictions, if your needs change after installation.

With wires-only ADSL, though, most of this is invisible at connection. The modifications to your line are done at the exchange, account set-up is done at the ISP and, once you agree a contract, all you have is the same BT socket you always had with new services attached to it in the outside world. To make use of them, you'll need additional technology, though.

Hard facts

One of the advantages of wires-only ADSL is that you don't have to commit to a particular range of equipment or local network topology when you sign up. However, you do need a minimum set of components to get anything out of the newly enabled socket.

Most essential is a pair of microfilter sockets: a low-pass filter for basic telephone calls and faxes, and a high-pass filter for ADSL.

You can buy these from the ISP for about £10 (ex. VAT) and you should fit them to all extension sockets connected to the ADSL service to prevent any possible interference, even if you'll only be using them for voice calls.

Next, you'll need an ADSL modem or router to plug into the high frequency socket on the microfilter. This choice depends on the type of connection you need, which is often referred to as the ADSL 'presentation'. The cheapest option is an ADSL modem connected to a single PC through a USB socket.

A wide range of these is available from companies such as Alcatel, Eicon and DLink. This is USB 'presentation'. A more expensive option is an ADSL router from companies such as Draytek, DLink and Netgear, which provides a standard RJ45 Ethernet socket for connection to an existing or planned local area network. This is Ethernet 'presentation'.

One other possibility for the experienced user is to set up a spare PC running the appropriate software, often free under Linux, to act as a router. However, this isn't recommended for anyone without a deep knowledge of networking, Linux and probably both.

There are also a few possible quirks in this area. When ADSL first arrived, the Alcatel USB modem or Fujitsu Ethernet router installed by the BT engineer was BT property, so you weren't supposed to tamper with it.

This led to products like Draytek's Vigor 2200USB, which had a USB socket that plugged straight into the USB modem and an Ethernet socket for connection to the wider network.

With wires-only ADSL, that's no longer an issue. Also, choosing USB presentation doesn't prevent sharing the ADSL connection across several networked PCs, but Ethernet presentation is more conventional.

Closing the stable door

Finally, there's one thing you need that the ISP might not emphasise enough: a security system for your ADSL connection. With an always-on connection like ADSL, there's a much bigger opportunity for hackers to reach your machine. It's always worth remembering that, when you're connected to the internet, it's also connected to you.

There are two main approaches to security, depending on the type of local system. For single PCs connected to ADSL, firewall software running on the PC should be adequate.

Packages like BlackIce Defender, ZoneAlarm and Norton Personal Firewall monitor traffic into and out of the PC over the web, as well as prevent access based on a set of built-in and user-modifiable rules.

These prevent simple 'port scans', where malicious users test your IP address for vulnerable TCP/IP ports and services, and protect against Trojans like SubSeven. For networked PCs connected to ADSL, the Ethernet router itself will usually include a firewall, which you can configure through a web browser, that secures your machines from malicious attack.

Security might not seem serious, but every ADSL user looking at the event logs of ZoneAlarm or BlackIce Defender will be startled by the number of possible attacks recorded and blocked, which can run into dozens a day. With a permanent connection to the internet, you become an easy target.

Every ISP offers a range of hardware, but there's no need to restrict yourself to this. The ISP's connection software won't care what connection you make to the ADSL socket, so more experienced users might want to look around for better deals on USB ADSL modems and Ethernet routers.

Either way, with the microfilters, modem/router box and appropriate driver installed, an ISP contract and connection software running, along with security in place, your wires-only ADSL installation is complete.

What can you expect?

All ADSL connections are asymmetric, so the downlink rate to your PC is higher than the uplink rate to the internet, although the numbers depend on the services the ISP is offering.

The theoretical maximum downlink rate is 8Mbit/s, although the maximum currently available in the UK is 2Mbit/s and all uplink rates are currently restricted to 256Kbit/s.

For home users, the most popular choice is 512Kbit/s down, 256Kbit/s up. What this means depends on what you use the internet for.

Users who spend most of their time browsing websites or downloading files will find everything happening faster but there will still be glitches thanks to latency, the time taken for the page request message to be accepted and responded to by the remote site.

Perhaps more importantly, the always-on flat rate nature of ADSL means you don't have to worry about file sizes or long download times any more, as you'll be doing it at much higher speeds.

The wider bandwidth also makes it easier to use services like internet radio, but the promises of specialised broadband content have never materialised.

For business users, depending on the services you've paid for, extra benefits appear. If you have a static IP address and appropriate security, for example, you can connect to your ADSL-connected PC or network from anywhere in the world for file access or other services.

You might even be able to set up a virtual private network (VPN) linking your distributed offices securely and at speed, or run video conferencing to cut down on business travel.

However, none of these things are certain. The possibilities are there, but there could be practical limits.

What you can and can't do

For ISPs, offering ADSL connections to the general public produces potential headaches. For example, all connections from the user to the local exchange are at fixed data rates between 512Kbit/s and 2Mbit/s downlink, and 256Kbit/s uplink, but the connections from the exchange to the ISP backbone are limited.

This brings in the 'contention ratio' quoted in ISP literature, where the bandwidth available behind the exchange for a group of ADSL users is calculated on a realistic, not maximal, basis.

For instance, 2,000 users on the full downlink rate of 512Kbit/s would need 1,000Mbit/s of backbone bandwidth, which is uneconomic.

Instead, ISPs typically provide 20Mbit/s for 2,000 users at a contention ratio of 50:1. This works on the assumption that not all the users will want the maximum bandwidth all the time, that internet connections are 'bursty' by nature, and that most people won't notice any slowdown at this ratio.

For heavy business users, contention ratios of 20:1 are available at extra cost to guarantee higher speed throughput.

The same ratios apply to uplinks, but the reduced speed of this part of the asymmetric DSL connection adds further problems. For instance, you can't run a high-volume commercial web server over your ADSL connection, as this uses the asymmetry the wrong way round. If enough users did this, the contention ratios would clog up the system.

Non-commercial web servers with low traffic volumes are fine, as are low-volume FTP servers for file download and peer-to-peer servers for music files.

This might be frowned on for copyright reasons, but bandwidth and contention ratio concerns don't necessarily arise for the ISP, although some providers are experimenting with limiting bandwidth to these services.

Another limitation could be IP addressing. The basic home service offered by ISPs uses dynamic IP address allocation, so you're issued one from its pool of numbers when you connect and there's no guarantee you'll get the same one if you disconnect and reconnect.

This might not seem important, but disconnection does happen; the BT ADSL backbone has gone down at least once. For business users, remote connections to the local ADSL network depend on knowing what the IP address is.

If you have a private web server or VPN, the IP address is the method you use to connect to it. If that can change, then these services won't work reliably. This is why ISPs charge extra for fixed IP addresses.

There are similar limitations with a fixed IP address for your ADSL-connected PC or router. The shortage of IP addresses has brought about a technique called Network Address Translation (Nat), which means that not every device on a local network needs a unique IP address.

One ADSL IP address is issued by the ISP, then the router issues local IP addresses to all connected devices on the local area network (Lan). When a message goes out from a Lan PC to the internet over ADSL, its local IP address is replaced by the single address supplied by the ISP so, as far as the web is concerned, every PC on the Lan shares one IP address.

Microsoft is attempting to address this in Windows XP with its NAT Traversal feature, which applications can use to bypass these problems. However, NAT Traversal requires routers that support Universal Plug and Play, which are few in number to date.

There are other limitations. Some ISPs might restrict the TCP/IP ports you use to prevent running bandwidth-hungry services. You might also be discouraged from running an SMTP server to restrict spam email. And, of course, there are restrictions on distributing illegal material.

However, as long as the service isn't abused, ADSL users are pretty much free to do whatever is legally allowed.

Panda Antivirus Titanium

Ashley McKinnon — 2002-06-18T14:27:49.000Z

Ashley McKinnon, PC Magazine, Tuesday 18 June 2002 at 14:27:49

Panda Antivirus Titanium is a polished product offering good protection.

Panda Software's new Anti-virus Titanium combines an easy-to-use interface, fast scanning engine and online automatic updates. There are, however, a few little bugs that could cause frustration to some users.

It has a redesigned interface. The left-hand pane lists the navigation options, while the right-hand pane displays further information.

From these panes you have instant access to configuration options, full scans, updates, services and help.

Scanning options can be configured to suit the individual. A full scan will include all hard and floppy disk drives, memory, operating system, CDRom drives and email.

If you need more specific scanning, it can look at individual files, folders, drives or parts of the operating system. You can also set what files are to be scanned, or add new file types to the list.

The start-up scanning option is enabled by default, and can cause frustration. On several occasions, running Windows XP, our test system was greeted with the usual Welcome screen, but then seemed to freeze.

This was not, however, the case, and we later found that this package runs a start-up scan before fully loading Windows. Although a Panda Software icon is displayed, there's no further indication that the software is performing a scan.

In the event of a virus being found, the usual clean, delete and rename options are available. However, there's no separate quarantine area as in several other antivirus packages. Suspect files can be sent to Panda Software for further scrutiny and resolution using a built-in service called SOS Virus Service.

For those who frequently use the internet, the software can be configured to scan all traffic coming into and out of your system, including all web and email data.

This way, a virus can be stopped as it enters your system. Updates can be either manually downloaded or set up for automatic retrieval. If an internet connection is detected, the software will check to see if the latest virus signatures are being used.

Price: £14.99 (ex. VAT)

Minimum requirements: Windows 98, 2000, ME, NT 4.0, XP; Pentium 90MHz or faster; 32Mb Ram; 20Mb hard drive space.

Contact: Panda Software 0870 444 5640

www.pandasoftware.co.uk