[Preview + Feedback] - Digit March 2007

[FatBeing]

Stupid month with two less days......


Magazine Contents

Digital Passion

Cover Story
Are We There Yet?
Just why are our “fast” connections poor excuses for broadband? Why is broadband always “next year”? Will it be this year? Or when? We ask those in the know about all the roadblocks

Insight
Enter The Matrix!
You probably didn’t know there happen to be several types of LCD panels! And no, they’re not just variants on a theme

Tomorrow
Tube Tech
The latest buzzword in hardware research circles is “the almighty carbon nanotube.” Here’s giving you an indication of the sheer range of applicat-
ions of this little marvel

Test Centre
Sonic Boom
A speaker set is a goodish investment—both in terms of money and pleasure. We took as much of a good, hard look as we could at what’s on offer


Digital Tools

Enhance
Gather Your Thoughts
Microsoft Office OneNote is an enhanced note-taking and organisation software. Did you even know it existed? Here’s about how to use it to organise yourself, whether you’re a scuba diver in the North Sea or a brain surgeon in Brazil

Bazaar
The attention-grabbers this month are a terabyte hard disk, a spanking new motherboard from Asus, and a device that lets you leech power off your laptop to charge your mobile devices

Know More About
A look at streaming technologies. What’s going on behind the scenes when you’re streaming, for example, a video on YouTube?

The Core Of The Matter
Buying a new computer? You’re deciding on the motherboard-processor combination, of course. Instead of looking at the components individually, Agent 001 is being more helpful by looking at combos

Test Centre
Laser Printers
We continue our laser printer test from last month’s issue. Presenting an assortment of mid-range mono printers for your office

Digital Business

Test Centre
Screening Success
This month: our annual projector test. We looked at solutions both for the boardroom as well as for the living room. As you’ll see, one size does not fit all—but this comparison should help clear matters

Case Study
Ditch That Wallet!
Paying using your mobile sounds a good idea. Services are limited as of now, but they’re indicative of the coming of age of m-commerce in India

Tech Careers
Driving The Numbers
Data drives business, as they say. Careers in databases are not for the faint of heart or head. Here’s a little introduction to what you can expect

Smart Business
Through The Ages
Version control software has been used by software developers since 205 B.C., and it’s time for you to consider whether it can help you in the office to track your documents

Digital Leisure

Touched By Tech
Lern frm whr u r!
People—especially illiterates and semi-literates—can now learn languages using their handsets. The applications are innovative, and the potential, vast

Gaming Special
No Boundaries
If you’re a gamer, chances are you know your hardware pretty well. But chances also are you need a refresher from time to time. Here’s one!

Game On
The last Star Trek movies weren’t the only lemons in the franchise—the latest game is terrible too! Also featuring RACE: The Official WTCC Game—simulation geeks rejoice!


Fast Track To Freeware
(You'll find nearly all the mentioned freeware on this time's CD/DVD, unless it was carried in the last two months)
_______________________

EDIT: This month's Take A Crack:
Create A Bootable XP CD That Pre-installs All Your Additional Programs

______________________


CD Contents

Digital Passion

CyberInstaller Suite 2006 1.01
CyberInstaller Suite is a suite of programs for the creation of installation packages to distribute applications written using any development environment

Install Creator 2
This software is very easy to use and is a professional tool to create software installations

AVG anti-virus 7.1
This antivirus has improved virus detection based on better heuristics and NTFS data streams scanning. It features smaller installation and update files

JCreator LE
JCreator is the development tool for every programmer that likes to do what he does best: programming

Developer Tools
Ruby185
ASP.NET AJAX v1.0
NetBeans IDE 5.5
NoteTab Light 4.95
PHP Designer 2007
SharpDevelop

Linux
audiokonverter 5.5
DVDAuthor Wizard 1.4.3
Distributed Checksum Clearinghouse 1.3.37
Firestarter 1.0.3
Google Earth 4.0.2723.0
KWrite 4.5.5
Linux Duracell CPU load monitor 0.0.2
phpBB 3.0 Beta 5
Siag Office 3.6.1

Digital Tools

Ant Movie Catalog 3.5.0.2
This program helps you manage your collection of movies DVD, VCD, DivX, etc.)

IcoFX 1.5.01
This is an all-in-one solution for icon creation, extraction and editing. It is designed to work with Windows XP and Windows Vista icons supporting transparency

PC INSPECTOR File Recovery 4
This software recovers files, even when a header entry is no longer available

Multimedia
BigFix 1.7.6.0
Flash Movie Player 1.5
Free iPod Video Converter 1.32
HoverMatch
HoverSnap v0.8
KMPlayer 2.9.3.1214
MovieTrack 3.3
Riva FLV Encoder 2
Streamripper for Winamp 2 and 5
Video DVD Maker Free 2.4.0.16
Vista Transformation Pack 6 Final

Internet
Cabos 0.7.1
CyberDefenderFREE 2.0
FireFox Plug-ins
Google Desktop Gadgets
Google Earth 4
HoverIP v1.0 beta
HoverNews
Internet Explorer Plug-in
iOpus iMacros V5.22
Maxthon 2.0.1.5462
Skype 3.0.0.209
Thunderbird 1.5.0.9

System
LocalCooling 1.0.4
AcceleRun Free 1.7
Active Virus Shield
Arrange Startup ver. 2.3
Avira AntiVir PersonalEdition Classic 7
DeleteOnClick 1.0
dvdisaster 0.70
Eusing Free Registry Cleaner 1.25
HashOnClick 1.1
Infra Recorder 0.40

Plus the regular essentials...

Digital Business

AbiWord 2.4.6
This is a free word processing program similar to Microsoft Word. It is suitable for a wide variety of word processing tasks

PDFCreator 0.9.3
This is an application for converting documents into Portable Document Format (PDF) format on the Microsoft Windows operating system

Pocket DivX Player 0.8
Pocket DivX Player is a multifunction video and audio player for the PocketPC platform. You can use it to play DivX, OpenDivX, MPEG-4, MPEG-1 videos and MP3 audio files

MIDP for Palm OS 1.0
Install this software to run WILDEC products and other J2ME applications

Productivity tools
ATnotes
Converber v1.5.0
Doc Convertor
KeyNote 1.6.5
PhraseExpress 3.1.6
PrimoPDF 3
SpamBayes 1.0.4
tinySpell 1.5
WordWeb 4.5a

Mobile Apps
Contacts Transfer (S60 3rd Edition) 3.01
MeetBuddies 1.0
Mobile Office for Java 1.0.0
Mobile Organizer S60 2nd Ed FP2 1.0
NameSwap 1.03
PASSMAN 1.2
Secure Notes for Pocket PC 1.1
SIManager 1.1 beta
Unity Player 1.0

Digital Leisure

Stan Skates
A fun skateboarding arcade game. Guide Stan through the city by jumping obstacles using his trusty skateboard

Battleships
Can you be the saviour and destroy the enemy fleet?

Small Games
Action Cube v0.92
Battle Pong
Battleships
Cube Buster
Flashman
Frozen Bubble version 1.0.0
Magic Balls
Stan Skates
Sudoku

Videos
The Last Mimzy
The Lookout
The Number 23
Zodiac

Fun Software
Exertrack - Exercise Performance
Management 1.2
Guitar Chords Crash Course 3.4
Orbitron 3.60
Recipe Manager 1.2.0
StumbleUpon
DrWindows 1.04.01


DVD Contents

Digital Passion

XNA Game Studio Express 1.0
This development package enables hobbyists, academics, and small, independent game developers to easily create video games for Windows and the Xbox 360

Carbide.ui S60 Theme Edition 3.1 for Symbian OS
This is a tool that enables the creation of packages to customize the appearance of the user interface on S60 devices

Code::Blocks 1.0rc2
Code::Blocks is a free C++ IDE built to meet the most demanding needs of its users. It is designed to be very extensible and fully configurable

Games
Nexuiz 2.2.3
Savage 2.00
WarRock 1

Linux
Avast Home Edition 4.7
dvdisaster
Flash for Linux 0.2.1
GCC 3.4.6
gPhoto2 2.3.1
Linux Kernel 2.6.20 RC7
Mozilla Firefox
Quicktime 4 Linux 2.0.0
Rawstudio 0.5
XnView 4.51

Developer Tools
Dev-C++ 5.0 beta 9.2
PassportODBC odbcv10
RadRails 0.7.2
TOAD for Oracle Freeware 8.5
Visual C# Express Edition
Sony Ericsson Themes Creator 3.06

Digital Tools

TrueCrypt 4.2a
Creates a virtual encrypted disk within a file and mounts it as a real disk. Encrypts an entire hard disk partition or a storage device such as USB flash drive

Multimedia
Audacity 1.2.6
Audiograbber 1.83 build 1
BearFlix 1.1.6.1
CDex 1.70 beta 2
DivX Player 6.4
FLV Player 1.3.3
GSpot v2.60 RC01
JetAudio 6.2.8 Basic
MediaMonkey 2.5.5
QuickTime 7.1.3
Realtek high definition audio driver
TVUPlayer 2.2
VCD Cutter 4.03
Windows Media Player 11

Internet
Bandwidth Speed Test
Comodo Firewall 2.4
EasyMTU 3
ePrompter 2.0
Firefly
Foxmail 6.0 beta 4
Gigaget V1.0.0.23
Miranda IM v0.6.6
NetMeter 0.9.9.9 Beta 2
Pegasus Mail v4.41
Proxomitron 4.5
Snort 2 7 0 Beta1
SpamAware 4.4.1
TCP Optimizer 2.0.3
Trillian 3.1
Instan-t
WebReaper 10
Webripper 1.31
WinHTTrack
Yahelite 306 Full 1.0
K-Meleon 1.02

System
BySoft FreeRAM 4.0.4.759
CCleaner 1.36.430
ClipMagic 3.2.3
Copernic Desktop Search 2.0
ditto 3.9
EasyCleaner 2.0.6.369
E-Counter
HD Tune 2.53
HijackThis 1.99.1
Launchy 1.0
Microsoft Windows XP PowerToys
Ranish Partition Manager 2.44 Beta
RegSeeker 1.52
SpeedFan 4.31
TaskSwitchXP 2.0.11
AVG Anti-Virus 7.5.432
TestDisk
Windows XP Service Pack 2
xplorer² 1.6.0.1

Digital Business

Virtual Iron 3.1
Virtualization and Management for a Single Server. Get all the capabilities, benefits and ROI of Virtual Iron Enterprise Edition available in a single Server environment.Consolidate up to 80 Linux and Windows virtual servers on a single server

BillQuick 2006 7.0.84
With this software you can generate intermediate invoices, track money outflow, and assess total payments with ease

PortableApps Suite
This is a comprehensive application suite that fits onto and runs from almost any device with at least 512 MB of space

Productivity tools
bcTester 4.0
CheckbookEase
OpenOffice.org 2.1
PowerPoint Viewer 2007
PPPCD 1.51

Mobile Apps
BackUp Lite 1.7.0
floAt’s Mobile Agent
Flurry
Games For All Java Mobiles
Nokia PC Suite 6.82
Opera Mini 3.0
Plato Video to 3GP Converter
PSP Video Express 1.03
RAR 3.60 for Pocket PC
Reporo
Sony Ericsson Image
Editor 2.11.6b
Sony Ericsson PC Suite 1.30.55
Sony Ericsson PC Suite 3.1.1
Sony Ericsson Update Service 2.6.11.7
Torpark 1.5.0.7

Digital Leisure

Little Fighter 2 v1.9c
Little Fighter 2 is a popular freeware fighting game for Windows. It’s simple yet addictive gameplay, its great replay ability. The game can have up to 4 human players on one computer and 8 characters in network play at one time

Neo Sonic Universe
It’s Sonic all over again in this fan remake of the classical Sega arcade.This game doesn’t disappoint, boasting graphics so true to the original you won’t know what’s going on anymore!

Small games
Bikez II
Blast Doors 2.0 Beta
Counter Strike 2D Beta 0.1.0.3
Dink Smallwood V1.08
Entrance Gate v1.3
G-Sector 1.0
Icy Tower 1.3.1
Kingdoms of War 1.2
LaserAge Gold
Max Payne Kung Fu Edition v3.0 Mod
Mini Golf Pro
Narbacular Drop v1.4
Nitto 1320 1.52S
OpenArena v0.6.0
Worminator 3

Movies
Star Wars Revelations
The Second Renaissance - Part 1
The 39 Steps (1935)

Plus some new additions to the DigitOS!

[sam_1710]

Carbide.ui S60 Theme Edition 3.1 for Symbian OS
This is a tool that enables the creation of packages to customize the appearance of the user interface on S60 devices

thanks...

wow! Seems attractive issue. Let me wait for this.
__________
Are all games freeware? If it is so then great!

[soham]

Magazine contents seem to be good. FAST TRACK could have have been better. You guys could have really done with a Fast Track on Vista. I have not seen a single full fleged review of Vista in Digit till date. Are you guys even aware that its out?

[azaad_shri75]

is bhar thoda sahi lagta hai

[~Phenom~]

looks good , wating for the issue.

[Ankur Gupta]

Yeah pretty decent contents this time both in magazine and on the media!
this might just make me renew my subscription as it is ending next month itself

[damnthenet]

this time...
It's GREAT

[crystal_pup]

Chalo dis time digit ppl got some brains to put proper contents...

Lol,
Kunal

[kumarmohit]

Thanks for
~ Star Wars Revelations
~ Microsoft Windows XP PowerToys
~ CyberDefenderFREE 2.0

and everything else

BTW Fatbeing, I will not call Feb a stupid month after all people get a month's pay by working 2 days less

[Tech Geek]

i wanted the XNA game studio
thanks

[kaustav_geek]

Looks good... looking forward to the Gaming special.. No boundaries...and the cover story on Broad-band...

[rajivnedungadi]

Looks Good

Need fast tracks on Vista and Office 2007

[FatBeing]

Originally Posted by rajivnedungadi

Looks Good

Need fast tracks on Vista and Office 2007

Vista will come soon.. Office 2007 not so much. Except for the ribbon, not enough has changed to warrant a whole book.

[rajivnedungadi]

Originally Posted by FatBeing

Vista will come soon.. Office 2007 not so much. Except for the ribbon, not enough has changed to warrant a whole book.

I am in MS Office Tech Support. I can send you some good links for a book

[emailaatif786]

Is this 'Windows XP Service Pack 2' and 'xplorer² 1.6.0.1' or
something Windows XP Service Pack 2 xplorer² 1.6.0.1
If that, Giving Windows XP Service Pack 2 now !!!

[FatBeing]

Originally Posted by emailaatif786

Is this 'Windows XP Service Pack 2' and 'xplorer² 1.6.0.1' or
something Windows XP Service Pack 2 xplorer² 1.6.0.1
If that, Giving Windows XP Service Pack 2 now !!!

Yes, it seems silly, but there are a lot of people who may not have SP2, or had SP2 but had to format and install regular Windows XP, etc. It's sort of an essential.

@rajivnedungadi: Send the links please....we'll review the lot.

[aditya.shevade]

Huh..... only got to say that... it's great.... hope to see digit improving every month. Keep going......

[contactpraven2001]

ya gys good one this time ..................

[emailaatif786]

Originally Posted by FatBeing

Yes, it seems silly, but there are a lot of people who may not have SP2, or had SP2 but had to format and install regular Windows XP, etc. It's sort of an essential.

@rajivnedungadi: Send the links please....we'll review the lot.

AN IDEA!
Why not next month's DVD contain many Service packs!

[Rishabh_sharma1990]

Hey Guys, It's really awesome.
Keep going ahead.....................

[emanym]

Wow !! Keep it up Digit Team. Great Mag content there. I can't wait to get my hand on to it.

[bit]

Originally Posted by ms123

+1

I am eager to get a copy of it

DIGIT ROCKZZZZZZ

[emanym]

Originally Posted by bit

DIGIT ROCKZZZZZZ

well said. They are almost way ahead of competition

[bit]

Originally Posted by ms123

100 % that was what I trying to say. anyway you said

+2

[Kaushik]

Thanks for the Star wars Stuff. Can you provide more such fan films (not just star wars) in future?

Dear Fatbeing,

As sometimes we received our subscribed copy very late, it becomes even hard to take part in 'TAKE A CRACK'.

So, what you can do is always include 'TAKE A CRACK' in preview of magazine content in this forum. (You have missed the same in this month preview.) So we can take a look at current month's challenge in time.This way we will be at par with Mumbai based readers.

Thanks.

[FatBeing]

Originally Posted by dfordigit

Dear Fatbeing,

As sometimes we received our subscribed copy very late, it becomes even hard to take part in 'TAKE A CRACK'.

So, what you can do is always include 'TAKE A CRACK' in preview of magazine content in this forum. (You have missed the same in this month preview.) So we can take a look at current month's challenge in time.This way we will be at par with Mumbai based readers.

Thanks.

That's simple enough, I guess. Original post edited. I'll (try and) remember to include it in every preview now.

[led_shankar]

Ooooh.... great.. but the FastTrack... :'(

[lalam]

The contents are good but hmmm where is ashampoo office 2006?