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From Laptopmagazine. Product reviews and advice for best reference

Review: Dell’s UltraSharp U3014 delivers the big picture

A 30-inch desktop giant, the Dell UltraSharp U3014 offers resolution of 2460 by 1600 pixels on a matte IPS screen with environmentally friendly LED backlighting. The U3014 boasts several nice-to-have features and a long list of on-board controls for tuning your image on screen.

You might need to enlist some help in attaching the heavy monitor to its stand. But once you’ve done that, you can connect it to your computer using your choice of DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort, or Mini DisplayPort.

The U3014's matte IPS panel has a very wide viewing angle, which is important for a display of this size.

The U3014 supports DisplayPort 1.2, including multistreaming, so you can daisy-chain two or more monitors and display independent images on each one (provided your video card also supports DisplayPort 1.2).

The U3014 also supports picture-in-picture mode, but only with certain combinations of connections. DVI and HDMI can't be used together, nor can the two types of DisplayPort connections (DisplayPort In is used only in daisy-chain scenarios). I was also surprised to discover that the monitor doesn’t scan all of its inputs on power-up, so I had to manually select the input I was using the first time. There is an input-scan button, but you must engage it by pushing a button.

Dell typically includes a four-port USB hub on its professional displays. This model sports two downstream USB 3.0 ports on its left side, along with a handy memory card reader, and two more downstream USB 3.0 ports (plus an upstream port) in the back. The display does not have built-in speakers, but you can attach Dell’s optional speaker bar to the bottom of the unit.

The display is calibrated at the factory for both color and brightness uniformity, but the U3014 offers a comprehensive set of onscreen menus if you’d like to make your own tweaks. The panel on which the U3014 is based is a “wide gamut” model, which means it’s capable of delivering more colors than you might be accustomed to seeing. To me, the U3014 rendered some colors so oversaturated that they looked fluorescent. An orange hat from DisplayMate’s test photos, for instance, look bright red on Dell’s monitor, while objects that looked lime green on other displays looked as though they’d been doused with a fluorescent-green highlighter pen. Photographs looked better, although skin tones looked too red, and a piece of orange furniture from my living room shifted toward red on the U3014.

Dell's UltraSharp U3014 is a bright and beautiful display with a host of video inputs, a USB hub, and a media card reader.

After consulting with Dell, I configured the U3014 to use the Adobe RGB color space, which provides a narrower gamut, and then Adobe sRGB, which uses an even narrower color space. These values helped rein in the colors. You can also manually adjust color-temperature values from the standard 6500K down to 5000K or up to 10000k, and you can independently adjust the hue, saturation, and sharpness. Finally, you can perform in-house calibrations using Dell’s UltraSharp Color Calibration Solution software with an X-Rite i1Display Pro colorimeter (the hardware is sold separately).

All LCDs, including IPS panels, are somewhat susceptible to image retention. When a static image remains on the screen for a long period of time, a ghost image can remain behind. This usually isn’t a permanent problem—since LCD technology, unlike old-school CRTs, doesn’t rely on phosphors—but it can be distracting. If you detect ghosting on the U3014, you can push a button to launch an LCD Conditioning routine to get rid of the problem. I didn’t encounter any image retention during my evaluation, so didn’t have an opportunity to test this feature’s effectiveness, but you can typically avoid the problem by using a   screensaver or by allowing the display to go to sleep during longer periods of inactivity.

The U3014's matte IPS panel has a very wide viewing angle, which is important for a display of this size as you'll be looking off-axis at the top, bottom, and sides when you’re sitting directly in front of it. Glossy screens can render photographic images with richer blacks and shadows, but they’re also more susceptible to reflections and glare from lights and windows. In my work area, I experienced much less glare using the U3014 than with the Apple 27-inch Thunderbolt Display that I generally use.

With a 16:10 aspect ratio, the screen is just a little more square than the Apple Display, which has an aspect ratio of 16:9. The Dell is about an inch wider and 3 inches taller, and those extra few inches of real estate are very noticeable. I have four windows open as I write this, and I've found myself spending less time moving them around the screen as I switch between them.

Making the jump from a 27-inch display to a 30-inch display is a substantial investment: Dell's U3014 costs $500 more than either Dell's 27-inch U2713H or Apple's 27-inch Thunderbolt displays. And it's $200 more expensive than Dell's other 30-inch monitor, the UltraSharp U3011 (which has a less-sophisticated panel and supports only the older DisplayPort standard). But if you need a professional feature set in a very large monitor, The UltraSharp U3014 delivers.

From PC World. Electronics product reviews and advice for best reference

Review: Picture Collage Maker helps you design and print calendars, cards, and more

Picture Collage Maker 3.3.7 is similar to an online photobook service like Mixbook, Shutterfly, or Snapfish, except it offers you more control when customizing your project. Even though Picture Collage Maker is a relatively small download (53.4 MB), it includes a number of backgrounds, templates, resizable clipart, and other embellishments. The 15-day free trial is really a feature-limited demo, as it adds watermarks to your art. Purchasing either the standard $30 Picture Collage Maker (which can only produce single page artwork) or the $40 Pro version will eliminate these watermarks from saved projects. A $70 commercial use license will do the job as well.

You can begin with a Picture Collage Maker template and customize the background (which is essentially the main theme of the template), add and remove photo frames and clipart, and add your own photos. The templates included with the trial version of Picture Collage Maker are themed for most common (and some unusual) Holidays and events, including April Fool's Day, Easter, Father's Day, Halloween, sports, and pets.

You can also download additional Picture Collage Maker templates from the program's website. The templates are free and range from 14 MB to about 20 MB. The template packs are grouped by theme, and include a wide variety of very nice styles, clipart, and layouts.

All three editions of Photo Collage Maker help you put images together, but you'll have to buy one to get anything usable: The free trial watermarks all images.

Picture Collage Maker is very easy to use, and has a few well-thought out features—such as buttons that make selected images the exact same size, or align them on your page. But even with these features, it seems pretty basic for the price. Picture Collage Maker doesn't warn you if your image is not sufficient resolution for your project. Plus, you need to manually change the orientation of the template: If you switch from a vertical template to a horizontal, for example, the new horizontal template will be distorted and display vertically. The photo editing tools are limited to Photo Size, Position, and Rotation.

Picture Collage Maker is best used for creating standard size photo collages, scrapbook pages, greeting cards, posters, or calendars. You can print them out using your home printer, and save them as a Picture Collage Maker's own .PMP file or as JPG, BMP, GIF, PNG, or TIF. Additionally, you can email your project using Picture Collage Maker's Wizard, which allows you to resize your project before you send it (although unfortunately doesn't give you a file size for each option). If you purchase the full license, you can also get your project printed on Custom Collage Products (t-shirts, bags, etc.), however, you may not use Picture Collage Maker for commercial use without first purchasing the commercial version of the license for $70.

Note: The Download button on the Product Information page takes you to the vendor's site, where you can download the latest version of the software.

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Goalscape Desktop Project Manager Keeps Big Picture in Sight

To-do lists are great for keeping track of the myriad little tasks we must accomplish every day. "Submit expense reports," "Take cat to vet," "Buy coffee," and so on. But what about the really big things--the dreams we want someday to come true? A to-do item like "get company onto Fortune 500 list" or "write prize-winning novel" may look a bit silly. But such lofty goals are made up of numerous subgoals, each of which can probably be broken down further. Goalscape Desktop (89 euro, $117 on March 12, 2012) is a tool for realizing your goals that does away with the list metaphor and uses an innovative circular interface instead.

Goalscape Desktop offers a striking way to balance your priorities, activities and progress on your way to success.Goalscape's interface is very eye-catching, but its beautiful form has everything to do with function. This cross-platform, Adobe AIR-based application puts your "master goal" in the center of a circle, with subgoals surrounding it. So if you are trying to get to the Olympics as a competitive sailor and must perfect your boat handling, "boat handling" would take center stage, surrounded by specific areas of handling, such as "upwind," "downwind," and "start."

This particular example is interesting because that's what Marcus Baur, Goalscape's managing director, used to get to the Sydney Olympics in the 49er class. This was done on paper, before Goalscape existed as an application, but makes for a great use case for the methodology.

There are only so many hours in a day, and we all have just so many resources to work with. Having subgoals arranged as pieces of a pie reflects that, making for a clearer use of resources. You can also adjust each subgoal's size to reflect its relative importance, and track your progress by moving a slider from 0 percent to 100 percent. As you move the slider, the subgoal gradually fills with color, as does its "master" goal, proportionately to the subgoal's importance.

Goalscape Desktop avoids breaking things down to a to-do list, preferring to focus on the greater view. Even so, every goal can have a start and end date, tags, and a responsible person assigned to it. You can filter goals by these attributes, and there's also a search-as-you-type feature for quickly finding goals, no matter where they are located on the Goalscape.

The main drawback is that Goalscape doesn't tightly integrate with a to-do based workflow, so using the tool must be an intentional act: You must decide when to open Goalscape and start reviewing your progress. It's a habit that isn't always easy to build, and the biggest barrier for adoption (at least for me). Goalscape's iPhone companion app does offer a list view, and the company is considering integrating such functionality in future desktop and Web versions as well.

Since each subgoal can be further broken down, goalscapes can become very detailed. In my own use, I easily got to five levels of nested subgoals. Goalscape offers two ways to manage this visual overload: You can limit the depth of the current display, or you can double-click a subgoal to drill down into it, making it the center of the circle. You can also print out your entire Goalscape or a specific view of it, to make an interesting motivational poster.

Since Goalscape is so open-ended, it can be used for more than project management. I used it to get a bird's-eye view of my entire day-to-day existence, subdividing my life by areas such as family, work, health, learning, and so on. Having to resize each such area made me consider my priorities, and setting specific subgoals for each area made me consider what would make that area "successful" (reading enough books, planning to avoid overload, and so on). I wish Goalscape Desktop offered an easy way to transform those insights into complete to-do lists for implementation, but the application is more focused on the big picture view of things.

Goalscape also offers an online subscription-based service called Goalscape Connect that teams can use to set their priorities and monitor their progress. If you are looking to get a clearer picture of your activity and make tangible progress, Goalscape Desktop offers a unique and compelling way to get there.

Note: Clicking the Download link takes you to the vendor's site, where you can download Adobe AIR (if necessary) and install the desktop software.

--Erez Zukerman

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