Showing posts with label Professional. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Professional. Show all posts

Sunday, March 2, 2014

Reveal 11 Business review: automated videography for your professional needs

Though video production software isn’t generally thought of as a business tool, in today’s video-centric advertising, training, and general communications environment, it should be. Apparently, as evidenced by the release of their simple-to-use, but effective Reveal 11 Business automated video production software, Muvee Technologies feels that way as well.

With Reveal, basically all you do is provide the pictures, video, and text; arrange their sequence; pick a style template; and let the program process it into a complete production. Beyond that—butter. The number of style templates, which contain the background music, FX and transitions melded into a “look and feel” are what differentiate the regular $80 version of Reveal 11 and the $500 Business SKU. The regular version has only a few styles, while the business version has over 40, plus 2000 musical renditions that you may use royalty-free. Functionally, both versions are identical.

muvee reveal 11 business3

Additional control over the creation process is hidden in well-constructed dialogs with precise and effective terminology.

The only complaint here is that Muvee could do a better job looking more, well, business-like. When I say better job, I mean actually try. The plethora of styles added by the business pack are nice, but they’re named in artistic terms, not business ones. If you’re looking for something like “Target: 27-year to 32-year old food-centrics,” forget it, you’re getting Reflections, Soar, and Turn Back Time. Put another way, you’re going to walk in the shoes of an artist. Hey, it’s not all bad...

Reveal 11 business is supremely easy to use. There’s a content row on the top, with style-selection and preview panes beneath that. That’s it visually, but there’s more control over the video production than is apparent at first glance. Click on Personalize in the bottom left corner and you can insert your logo, adjust the scene timing, define the titling and credits, and record a voice-over. There’s also a small audio mix console. Click on any picture or video in the media bay, and you’re presented with slick and simple editing controls such as a zoom effect control for photos and a highly accurate scene detector/slicer for videos. There are also controls attached to each style for color profiles, more scene change speed, camera wonkiness, and more.

muvee reveal 11 business4

Reveal 11 provides complete, yet simple voice-over and audio mixing capabilities. Just bring your microphone.

Even better; labels and messages are concise, yet not overly terse as with that vast majority of programs. They actually tell you what to do. Additionally, there’s not one cluttered area, overcrowded toolbar, or cryptic icon in sight. Interfaces simply don’t get any better. I never once cracked the help file.

I’m not trying to step on the toes of professional videographers -- a good one is worth their weight in gold. But many of us don’t have the gold, and Reveal 11 Business largely meets the need. If not for a professional advertising campaign, just about everything else. If you’re really strapped for cash, you can always buy the regular version and shop for a $10/$15 style that suits you in the Muvee store. There’s also a music store with affordable licensing fees based on your intended usage.


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

Saturday, September 7, 2013

Celtx review: Professional screenwriting software at starving-artist prices

To dabble in scriptwriting without the full $250 investment for Final Draft, Celtx provides a pared-down set of features at a much more palatable price. The full-featured Celtx Plus package weighs in at a reasonable $15 (often $10 on sale via the Celtx company website, and with a 15-day free trial). A personal-use free edition centers on screenplays, but Celtx Plus allows for storyboards, catalogs, specialized viewing modes and includes clip art and other extras.

celtx screenwriting softwareCeltx includes many of the features you'll find in screenwriting software Final Draft, but it costs far, far less.

Both free and Plus editions are available for Linux, Mac, and PC.

Celtx also offers mobile versions for Android and iOS and hosts the web-based Celtx Edge, which uses the Google Docs model to provide script and other collaborative media writing tools via browser window.

Note: The download button takes you to the vendor's site, where you must register to download any edition of the software.


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

Monday, August 12, 2013

Review: Create a professional online portfolio in minutes with Enthuse.me

Enthuse.me If you're looking for a free and super-simple way to show the world what you're good at, Enthuse.me is it.

Download Now

Creating a résumé or CV can be a tedious task, manually listing your experience, training, and other salient facts of your life. And then it may get ignored by prospective employers or clients who just want to know what you can do. Increasingly, your skill and results are what counts, so having a good way to showcase them is important. Enthuse.me is a free service that lets you do just that.  You can quickly put up an Enthuse.me page that pulls in the best of your work from around the Web.

Enthuse.me's introductory page is simple and cuts right to the point, just like the service itself.

While competitors About.me and Flavors.me emphasize customization, Enthuse.me is all about keeping things simple. To get started, you need to provide only a single profile image, and describe yourself in a couple of words. This forms the basis of your page, but isn't very interesting on its own: Your next step is adding links to your work.

To get started, Enthuse.me asks you to describe yourself in just a few words.

Not all links are equal, and Enthuse.me reflects this by offering different modules for populating the page. There's a module for links showing your current work, and there's one for historical links. There's a module for your Twitter profile that renders your vital Twitter stats on the page, and there are purpose-built modules for Blogger,  LinkedIn, Soundcloud, SlideShare, Tumblr, Vimeo, YouTube, and even Klout, if that's your thing. Finally, if you just want to add a bit of text, the Insight module lets you write a 255-character message that appears right on the page, sort of like a static tweet.

You build up your page by adding content modules.

The Current Projects module includes a thumbnail, and lets you specify a headline and an excerpt for describing the link. There's also a Press & Mentions module, for including links to places which noted your work in the past.

The end result feels like a neat, comprehensive summary of your online professional presence. Since you can't pick a color or a theme, it may not look very different from all other Ethuse.me profiles, but the clean, sparse layout puts your information front and center. The company will introduce customization options later this year, as a premium feature.

The final page is clean and spacious, and can house lots of information without becoming visually overwhelming.

Enthuse.me is a fast and simple way to show the world what you're about. I wouldn't say it's better than using Flavors.me or coding your own site from scratch, but it's definitely faster. If you're looking for a clean online CV, this can be it.

Note: The Download button takes you to the vendor's site, where you can use the latest version of this Web-based software.


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

Review: Abbyy FineReader 11 Professional Edition does clean OCR and is easy to use

Anyone who's purchased a multifunction printer or scanner recently will probably recognize the name FineReader, as the Sprint version ships with many such products. Obviously, there are deals being made, but there's no questioning that the program also does a very nice job of OCR. Text extraction is great, though it's not quite as good at recreating complex documents in Word and RTF files as Acrobat or OmniPage.

Abbyy FineReader 11 Professional ($170, 15-day free trial) is straightforward and easy to use. The main window shows a list of images in a column to the far left, the image being processed in a pane next to it, and the OCR'd text and elements in a pane on the right side. This side-by-side arrangement, shared with OmniPage Standard 18, makes it super-easy to spot mistakes and compare page elements.

Abbyy FineReader 11 Professional's easy-to-understand interface makes it easy to use even if you're new to OCR.

Abbyy FineReader 11 is fast, recognizes text in 189 languages, and outputs in a number of different formats including editable PDFs, Microsoft Word, ePub and even open-source PDF competitor DjVu.

FineReader created a searchable PDF of my yearbook scans just fine, but like OmniPage, it was over-zealous at rotating images trying to find text until I turned off this feature. With most OCR programs, you're better off using Windows' own Photo Viewer to rotate scans to their correct orientation before OCR'ing.

Jon L. Jacobi has worked with computers since you flipped switches and punched cards to program them. He studied music at Juilliard, and now he power-mods his car for kicks.
More by Jon L. Jacobi


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

Sunday, May 19, 2013

Review: Das Keyboard's Professional Model S Quiet is a mechancial keyboard that won't annoy your coworkers

Das Keyboard promotes the sound of their peripheral more than anything—their tagline is "The Mechanical Keyboard That Clicks." Now they're going after the market that craves the sweet benefits of a mechanical keyboard but can't stand the constant commotion that comes with it. Meet the Professional Model S Quiet: The quietest mechanical keyboard around.

In the beginning keyboards were loud, mechanical and everlasting (IBM Model M anyone?). Soon a cheaper solution came and took the click-clack away with plastic and a domed-shaped membrane.

The infamously "clicky" IBM Model M.

Yet, like all good fads the mechanical keyboard came back into style for typing enthusiasts and gamers alike. It's now a must have—and with the Das Professional Model S Quiet you don't have to choose between an awesome keyboard and not annoying your coworkers (though some consider that a benefit).

The video below compares the IBM Model M to the Das Keyboard rival, competing for the most "clicky" keyboard. It gives you an idea of the click that they strive for—but can quickly get on your cubicle neighbors nerves. The Professional Model S Quiet's sound is nearly undetectable in comparison.

The keyboard uses Cherry MX Red key switches to keep the keyboard mechanical but silent, literally no louder than its squishier nemesis. The keys themselves are smooth and concaved, perfectly spaced for some comfy and accurate typing. After using the keyboard for just a few days I could feel the difference in my accuracy and speed.

The keyboard is going to be using up two USB ports so you'd best free up some USB real estate. Fear not, they have a good excuse—one powers the keyboard while the other powers two USB 2.0 ports located on the right side of the keyboard, perfect for easily plugging in those flash drives and phones.

The keybaord takes up 2 USB slots—then gives them right back to you.

Other basic features include media controls such as using the "function" key to adjust the volume, pause/play, stop and switch tracks. There's also an instant "sleep" button for putting your PC to rest quickly.

Finally, the keyboard supports full n-key rollover (with the included PS/2 adapter attached, 6-key when using USB) for the high-end chasers. This means every key is scanned independently which makes every key press detectable despite how many keys are being pressed at one time. This is great for gamers who will find themselves holding down buttons to sprint (shift-key) forward (w-key) while reloading (r-key) while checking their map (m-key). You need to mutate a few more arms to fully take advantage of this feature.

The keyboard feels great, doesn't forgo any of the benefits a mechanical keyboard but manages to keep its decibels significantly lower. If you're the kind of typist who is nostalgic for the clicky days of yore, you'd best check out their non-quiet models for the loudest keyboards around, but if you like your peace and quiet you'll love the investment.

The Professional Model S Quiet keyboard is available through the Das Keyboard website for $149.

Alex Cocilova

Alex covers desktops, everything from fancy to practical. He's also an avid (addicted) gamer and loves following the industry.
More by Alex Cocilova


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

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Review: Portrait Professional Studio dramatically transforms your images

There's no such thing as the perfect photo. When we see the finished picture, there's always something about it that we wish we could change. This is more true with portraits than anything else. Pimples, dimples, baggy eyes, wrinkles…but these are all things that can now be removed, with the magic of Portrait Professional Studio.

Photoshop can more than amply handle those tasks. But Photoshop suffers from two great disabilities, its huge learning curve and its huge price. Portrait Professional Studio, on the other hand, is a lot cheaper (although still very expensive by normal software standards) and it has a minimal learning curve. 30 minutes experimenting with a photo will find yourself pretty much on top of all the features, and you'll be stunned by the results.

If necessary, move the lines to the correct facial features, so the software can accurately render the face and move the correct areas when altered.

When you first load your image into Portrait Professional Studio, you will be asked to specify the gender of the person in the image. The best results are when it is a single person and a close-up full-on shot. After specifying the gender, blue marker lines are placed on the face by the software and you have to review these markers to make sure that they are in the right place. You must mark the the corners of each facial feature accurately. It's essential that this is done correctly. Otherwise, when you go to make a change to the image, the marker will change the wrong area.

With the markers correctly in place, you will now see two copies of the image side-by-side. The one on the left will be the "before" picture with the blue marker lines, and the one on the right will be the "after" picture which will change as you use each altering feature. And now the fun begins.

On the right hand side of the screen are your magical powers: a set of sliders which you move from left to right, depending on the effect you want to achieve. The sliders are split up into different categories, so you have ones for the eyes, nose, mouth, cheeks, hair, teeth, and complexion. You can do things such as make the eyes bigger, remove the bags under the eyes, smooth out the complexion, change the eye color, tighten up the face, and make the face thinner or fatter.

If necessary, move the lines to the correct facial features, so the software can accurately render the face and move the correct areas when altered.

There are also a number of presets, where you can achieve certain effects instantly at the click of a button.  So remove the double chin, shorten the nose, whiten the teeth…in short, do the digital equivalent of what a plastic surgeon would do in real life. The main difference being that everything you do in Portrait Professional Studio is instantly and easily reversible. Just click the "undo" button or use the Windows undo command CTRL + Z.

Finally, there's the most powerful tool of all one that all Photoshop users will know right away: the touchup brush.  Using this, you can move over areas of skin that you want to change—a spot, a blemish, a mole, rough skin—and the touchup tool will make those unsightly items disappear, leaving a smooth baby's skin in its place. But when using this tool, make the brush size small and the strength medium, and go slowly. Otherwise you may end up making the subject look like something from Night of the Living Dead.

Finally, step back and admire your work, and see how you have managed to shave at least 10 years off the person's face. If the person is you, your great mood could last the rest of the day.

All in all, Portrait Professional Studio is a powerful software tool for touching up photos, as well as for anyone who works in the media who needs to have picture-perfect models with shiny white teeth and perfect skin.  The only downside to the software is the price, but you get what you pay for.  And with Portrait Professional Studio, you get a lot. If you can't afford Photoshop, take a look at this and give it a go.

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.

Mark O'Neill

Expatriate Scotsman now living in Wurzburg, Germany, freelance writer, frustrated future bestselling author, obsessed bibliophile. Other interests include trying to understand The Architect in the Matrix movies, decrypting codes and ciphers, and trying to persuade my landlord and my wife to let me have a Highland Cow for a pet.
More by Mark O'Neill


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

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Review: PCmover Professional eases migration

Jon L. Jacobi

Jon L. Jacobi has worked with computers since you flipped switches and punched cards to program them, studied music at Julliard, and power mods his car for kicks.
More by Jon L. Jacobi

Windows 8 is waiting in the wings, and while it represents a radical interface redesign, it's not all that different internally from Windows 7. According to Microsoft, upgrading won't require reinstalling your apps and data. However, if you move from Vista or XP to Windows 8, the transfer wizards move only settings and/or data. If you want to move your installed programs from XP or Vista to Windows 8, you might want to try PCmover Professional ($60, buy-only).

PCmover will transfer your OS data, programs, and settings by several means: Via network, USB, Windows EasyTransfer cable, or even external media. I opted for the network method.  I transferred settings from an existing XP installation to a pristine Windows 8 installation via a network connection. PCmover must be installed on both PCs for this operation. You can install later on the destination PC and use a "mover" file created with the settings from your old installation if this is not possible.

PCmover is easy to use and steps you through the transfer process using a series of dialogs such as this one.

Most of the work is done from the source PC. PCmover connects to the destination PC, makes a snapshot of the new PC, then allows you to map users, map the destination drive, filter files, and select applications. The process is easy, if not short. Check the list of programs to be transferred carefully—there may be some that you no longer need, or never used at all.

PCmover worked fine for me. Firefox, Opera, and several other programs transferred without a hitch. All my documents, pertinent settings, and users also showed up in Windows 8. I didn't encounter any programs that wouldn't run, but you should have your serial numbers handy for any programs that might require them. You can find a list of what is retained/transferred from each legacy operating system by the Windows 8 upgrade at Microsoft's site on the Windows 8 FAQ page.

If you don't want to hassle with reinstalling your applications (or you can't find the discs), PCmover is a handy, if expensive, utility that will move them over for you. However, there is something to be said for a fresh OS with a clean installation of your programs and settings … kind of like that new car smell.

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


From PC World. Shop computer and accessories from Amazon here

Sunday, September 9, 2012

Dell Latitude E6330: Perfectly Professional

The Dell Latitude E6330 may not look like much: It's a business-oriented laptop focused on, well, productivity. It's not as pretty as an Ultrabook, nor as powerful as a gaming laptop, but it gets the job done. The E6330 particularly shines when it comes to business-oriented tasks, such as when you're working in Office programs and saving documents. That’s not terribly exciting, to be sure, but Dell has definitely found the Latitude’s niche.

Our review model, which costs $1832 as configured, has a third-generation Intel Core i7-3520 processor, 6GB of RAM, and a 128GB solid-state drive. The Latitude E6330 also sports a dual-pointing backlit keyboard, an Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 wireless mini card, and a DVD-RW drive. Like many business-oriented laptops, the Latitude E6330 can be optionally fitted with 3G or 4G networking service, though our review unit did not come with either of these. The E6330 runs the 64-bit version of Windows 7 Professional.

Performance

Dell Latitude E6330: Perfectly ProfessionalIn PCWorld's WorldBench 7 benchmark tests, the Latitude E6330 scores an impressive 163, which means it's 63 percent faster than our testing model (which sports an Intel i5-2500K processor, 8GB of RAM, and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 Ti discrete graphics card). The E6330 scores higher than the Alienware M14x portable gaming laptop (143), but lower than the Acer Aspire S5 Ultrabook (195).

However, just because the Latitude E6330 has a higher WB7 score than does the Alienware M14x, that doesn't mean the E6330 is necessarily a better performer. The E6330 has a 128GB SSD, which is speedier than the M14x's 750GB traditional hard drive, but the E6330 is no match for the M14x when it comes to graphics and gaming performance. In our Dirt 3 graphics tests, the Latitude E6330 managed acceptable, but nowhere near excellent, frame rates of between 22.7 (high-quality settings, 1366-by-768-pixel resolution) and 59.8 frames per second (low-quality settings, 800-by-600-pixel resolution). By comparison, the Alienware M14x boasted frame rates of more than three times that (between 82.8 and 186.5 fps).

Design: Chassis, Keyboard, and Trackpad

The Latitude E6330 is a fairly small computer: It has a 13.3-inch screen and weighs just 4.6 pounds without accessories. Officially, we've categorized it as an all-purpose laptop, but it's more comparable to an ultraportable.

The E6330 is housed in a sturdy, if not terribly fashionable, plastic chassis. The cover features a dark gray brushed-aluminum plate, which adds a little style to the otherwise mediocre design. Unfortunately, this aluminum plate is a fingerprint magnet. There's a mirrored Dell logo in the center of the cover, and a matte-silver plastic border around the plate.

The laptop's interior isn't very stylish, but it is businesslike. A thick, matte-black plastic bevel frames the matte screen. The wrist-rest area is made of a soft rubbery material, and the keyboard is slightly indented and surrounded by a brushed-aluminum border. On the left side of the keyboard are small lights that indicate Wi-Fi connectivity and whether the computer is charging, and on the right side are volume-up, volume-down, and mute buttons. The power button is located above the keyboard, on the right side.

The keyboard features pseudo-island-style keys, or keys that are not completely separated but have flat tops. The keys are slightly curved and offer excellent tactile feedback, which makes them excellent for typing on. The orange-accented keyboard is backlit and has a spill-proof design (holes on the bottom of the machine allow any spilled liquid to run right through it).

There are two pointing systems on the Latitude E6330: a traditional trackpad with discrete mouse buttons, and the even more traditional pointing stick with three discrete mouse buttons of its own. The medium-size multitouch trackpad is average, with large, soft mouse buttons that are easy to press. The pointing stick is sensitive and accurate, but the buttons are a little too close to the stick to use comfortably.

The Latitude E6330 has a good port selection. On the left side of the machine, there's a VGA-out port and a combination microphone-headphone jack. On the right side, there's one USB 3.0 port, an ExpressCard reader, an eSATA/USB 2.0 combo port, and a Wi-Fi switch. The SD card reader is located on the front, and the rest of the ports are on the back: a Kensington lock slot, a mini-HDMI-out port, an ethernet port, and another USB 3.0 port. The E6330 also has a docking connector located on the bottom.

Screen and Speakers

Dell Latitude E6330: Perfectly ProfessionalThe Latitude E6330 sports a 13.3-inch matte LED-backlit display with a native resolution of 1366 by 768 pixels. Business-oriented laptops aren't expected to have breathtaking displays, but the E6330's screen is a little disappointing, even so. It's not very bright, even at its brightest setting, though the antiglare coating does help a tiny bit in brighter settings. The antiglare coating seems to do more harm than good, though, since fluctuations in display quality are noticeable when you move even slightly to the side. Color looks accurate but a little washed out, and HD video plays with lots of artifacting and stilted movement.

While video playback leaves much to be desired, audio on the E6330 sounds better than average. The speakers are located on the front of the laptop and produce loud, full sound. Voices sound a little hollow at the highest volume level, but audio quality in general is much better than that produced by the tinny-sounding speakers we're used to.

The Bottom Line

The Dell Latitude E6330 may not be a gaming powerhouse or a sleek Ultrabook, but it's still a good choice for business users. The E6330 is a good performer, and it performs especially well in the areas business users will be interested in—in our tests it posted excellent scores in Web performance, Office productivity, and storage performance, for example. In fact, its storage performance score (404.6) is the best of the ultraportable category.

So while the Latitude E6330 is not an ideal choice for watching videos, it's great for performing business-focused tasks such as using Office programs and browsing the Web.


From PC World. Shop computer and accessories from Amazon here

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Dell Latitude E6330: Perfectly Professional

The Dell Latitude E6330 may not look like much: It's a business-oriented laptop focused on, well, productivity. It's not as pretty as an Ultrabook, nor as powerful as a gaming laptop, but it gets the job done. The E6330 particularly shines when it comes to business-oriented tasks, such as when you're working in Office programs and saving documents. That’s not terribly exciting, to be sure, but Dell has definitely found the Latitude’s niche.

Our review model, which costs $1832 as configured, has a third-generation Intel Core i7-3520 processor, 6GB of RAM, and a 128GB solid-state drive. The Latitude E6330 also sports a dual-pointing backlit keyboard, an Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 wireless mini card, and a DVD-RW drive. Like many business-oriented laptops, the Latitude E6330 can be optionally fitted with 3G or 4G networking service, though our review unit did not come with either of these. The E6330 runs the 64-bit version of Windows 7 Professional.

Performance

Dell Latitude E6330: Perfectly ProfessionalIn PCWorld's WorldBench 7 benchmark tests, the Latitude E6330 scores an impressive 163, which means it's 63 percent faster than our testing model (which sports an Intel i5-2500K processor, 8GB of RAM, and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 Ti discrete graphics card). The E6330 scores higher than the Alienware M14x portable gaming laptop (143), but lower than the Acer Aspire S5 Ultrabook (195).

However, just because the Latitude E6330 has a higher WB7 score than does the Alienware M14x, that doesn't mean the E6330 is necessarily a better performer. The E6330 has a 128GB SSD, which is speedier than the M14x's 750GB traditional hard drive, but the E6330 is no match for the M14x when it comes to graphics and gaming performance. In our Dirt 3 graphics tests, the Latitude E6330 managed acceptable, but nowhere near excellent, frame rates of between 22.7 (high-quality settings, 1366-by-768-pixel resolution) and 59.8 frames per second (low-quality settings, 800-by-600-pixel resolution). By comparison, the Alienware M14x boasted frame rates of more than three times that (between 82.8 and 186.5 fps).

Design: Chassis, Keyboard, and Trackpad

The Latitude E6330 is a fairly small computer: It has a 13.3-inch screen and weighs just 4.6 pounds without accessories. Officially, we've categorized it as an all-purpose laptop, but it's more comparable to an ultraportable.

The E6330 is housed in a sturdy, if not terribly fashionable, plastic chassis. The cover features a dark gray brushed-aluminum plate, which adds a little style to the otherwise mediocre design. Unfortunately, this aluminum plate is a fingerprint magnet. There's a mirrored Dell logo in the center of the cover, and a matte-silver plastic border around the plate.

The laptop's interior isn't very stylish, but it is businesslike. A thick, matte-black plastic bevel frames the matte screen. The wrist-rest area is made of a soft rubbery material, and the keyboard is slightly indented and surrounded by a brushed-aluminum border. On the left side of the keyboard are small lights that indicate Wi-Fi connectivity and whether the computer is charging, and on the right side are volume-up, volume-down, and mute buttons. The power button is located above the keyboard, on the right side.

The keyboard features pseudo-island-style keys, or keys that are not completely separated but have flat tops. The keys are slightly curved and offer excellent tactile feedback, which makes them excellent for typing on. The orange-accented keyboard is backlit and has a spill-proof design (holes on the bottom of the machine allow any spilled liquid to run right through it).

There are two pointing systems on the Latitude E6330: a traditional trackpad with discrete mouse buttons, and the even more traditional pointing stick with three discrete mouse buttons of its own. The medium-size multitouch trackpad is average, with large, soft mouse buttons that are easy to press. The pointing stick is sensitive and accurate, but the buttons are a little too close to the stick to use comfortably.

The Latitude E6330 has a good port selection. On the left side of the machine, there's a VGA-out port and a combination microphone-headphone jack. On the right side, there's one USB 3.0 port, an ExpressCard reader, an eSATA/USB 2.0 combo port, and a Wi-Fi switch. The SD card reader is located on the front, and the rest of the ports are on the back: a Kensington lock slot, a mini-HDMI-out port, an ethernet port, and another USB 3.0 port. The E6330 also has a docking connector located on the bottom.

Screen and Speakers

Dell Latitude E6330: Perfectly ProfessionalThe Latitude E6330 sports a 13.3-inch matte LED-backlit display with a native resolution of 1366 by 768 pixels. Business-oriented laptops aren't expected to have breathtaking displays, but the E6330's screen is a little disappointing, even so. It's not very bright, even at its brightest setting, though the antiglare coating does help a tiny bit in brighter settings. The antiglare coating seems to do more harm than good, though, since fluctuations in display quality are noticeable when you move even slightly to the side. Color looks accurate but a little washed out, and HD video plays with lots of artifacting and stilted movement.

While video playback leaves much to be desired, audio on the E6330 sounds better than average. The speakers are located on the front of the laptop and produce loud, full sound. Voices sound a little hollow at the highest volume level, but audio quality in general is much better than that produced by the tinny-sounding speakers we're used to.

The Bottom Line

The Dell Latitude E6330 may not be a gaming powerhouse or a sleek Ultrabook, but it's still a good choice for business users. The E6330 is a good performer, and it performs especially well in the areas business users will be interested in—in our tests it posted excellent scores in Web performance, Office productivity, and storage performance, for example. In fact, its storage performance score (404.6) is the best of the ultraportable category.

So while the Latitude E6330 is not an ideal choice for watching videos, it's great for performing business-focused tasks such as using Office programs and browsing the Web.


From PC World. Shop computer and accessories from Amazon here

Monday, June 18, 2012

Paragon Software Hard Disk Manager 12 Professional Review: Storage Tools Wrapped in a Middling Interface

Paragon Hard Disk Manager 12 Professional ($100 as of June 1, 2012) is as comprehensive a toolset for hard drives as you'll find. It has full backup, imaging, and partitioning capabilities, and it also supports virtualization software such as VirtualBox and VMware by allowing you to create virtual machines for those programs.

Paragon Hard Disk Manager 12 screenshotThe Paragon Hard Disk Manager 12 Professional interface is relatively straightforward, but the dialogs could stand some improvement.HDM hasn't changed a whole lot since the last version; it was already so comprehensive, however, that Paragon simply didn't have that much to add. The short list of partition functions includes creating, moving, formatting, deleting, backing up, burning to CD, converting the file system, and wiping. You can do the same things with entire disks, as well as convert them from MBR to GPT. You can also back up and restore individual files and folders.

Included in HDM 12 Pro are all the features offered in the company's Virtualization Manager: You can convert a partition to a virtual machine and back, convert a Windows 7 backup image to a VM, and restore from a VM to diverse hardware. The program also handles dynamic disks, merges images, manages multiple backups in archives, and performs a host of other tasks I don't have the room to discuss here. A features list comparison between the professional edition and the less expensive suite version is available at the company's website.

I love the everything-under-one-roof concept of HDM 12's interface. It's far more convenient than jumping around between modules, as with other programs such as Acronis True Image and Disk Director. I also like the fact that you define a series of actions, and then set them in motion using the Apply button. However, I don't see why the program needs to instill even a slight hint of paranoia by asking if you really want to apply the changes when all you're doing is backing up. (On the other hand, you can set several backup jobs to go off consecutively using the define/apply methodology.) On top of that, while the interface is fairly straightforward, I'd rather see standard Windows file dialog boxes, which are to my mind easier to use than Paragon's custom boxes.

For version 12, Paragon is touting a new imaging engine with better performance. Normally I dismiss claims like this as overblown before I've even tested them, and usually I'm correct in my assumptions. In this case, though, I found HDM 12 to be not only fast but also noninterfering. In fact, I wrote the majority of this review with the program humming away in the background, and I forgot that it was running.

One feature that is missing from HDM 12 is the ability to mount an image as a virtual hard drive that you can peruse in Windows Explorer. R-Drive Image and True Image do this, and I've found it to be a handy way to quickly pull a file or two out of a backup. HDM 12 lets you connect to an image to perform partition and other operations on it, but doesn't mount it.

Backup, virtual machines, partitioning, conversion--Hard Drive Manager 12 Professional is a powerful toolkit. At $100, it is a bit pricey for the average user, so be sure to check out the aforementioned $50 suite version to see if that will cover your needs.

Note: The Download button takes you to the vendor's site, where you must register to download the latest version of the software.

--Jon L. Jacobi

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Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Geek Alert: Text Editor EmEditor Professional Worth a Look

EmEditor Professional ($40, 30-day free trial) is a powerful text editing program with many features that can make it useful to programmers, Web designers, system administrators, and anyone else who regularly works with unformatted text.

EmEditor Professional screenshotEmEditor Professional handles large files, and delimited files, with ease.The interface for EmEditor is very standard--a variety of panels which can be shown or hidden, with a central tabbed editing area. Slightly confusingly, some of the side panels are controlled by 'View' and others by 'Plug-Ins'. While this makes development sense, it's not instantly intuitive where to look to turn on or off a feature. This is a common thread throughout EmEditor: It's often a bit more of a task than it should be to figure out how to use a particular aspect of the program, but there are enough cool bits in the program that it can be worth it, especially if you're not already committed to another text editor and thoroughly indoctrinated in its quirks.

EmEditor documentation isn't the best it could be, being both sparse and peppered with questionable English, but it does get the job done. Simply put, while there were things I felt I should be able to figure out just from looking at menus, that I instead needed to go to the documentation for, said documentation did answer my questions with minimal searching. It also responded to the most obvious and intuitive keywords.

Some of the things I like a lot about EmEditor Professional include: parsing of delimited files, which includes the ability to specify delimiters; support for reading large files without overflowing memory; a lot of ability to customize the options for various file types; and powerful outlining, both in-document and in a side panel. Other useful features include a macro record feature, along with the ability to write complex macros using either VBScript or JavaScript.

Beyond that, EmEditor has many of the features expected of a professional text editor: multiple copy/paste, vertical or "block" selection, file comparisons (diff), and so on. It does not, however, have a very sophisticated hook into common development tools like Visual Studio; you can set it up as an "external tool", and samples are given to help with this, but there is no automated integration.

Speed-wise, I found EmEditor quite responsive and easy to use. The wealth of configuration options and the ability to quickly change them on a file-by-file basis makes it very useful if you regularly edit a lot of different file types, which I do, jumping from Java to PERL to HTML to CSV regularly in the course of a working day.

EmEditor is under constant development; a look at the change log shows that EmuraSoft is quick to fix bugs and add features.

EmEditor is inexpensive, powerful, and has many useful features, but it's hard to say it dramatically raises the bar over similar tools, such as UltraEdit, especially if a user is already committed to such a tool and has configured it to their personal tastes. Freeware programs such as NotePad++ also offer a lot of functionality for no price, though EmEdit has code navigation features NotePad++ lacks.

This is a problem in general with programs in mature categories; so much of the core functionality is standard that it's hard to justify changing for a small number of improvements or new features. However, if you're in the market for a text editor and not closely tied to a particular one, EmEditor Professional is very much worth looking at, as it offers an exceptional mix of features and tools at a low price.

--Ian Harac

With EmEditor Professional, a text editor for Windows, you can create functionally-rich macros using JavaScript or VBScript, allowing you to define most operations. Not only can you define a macro which records keystrokes that you use and reference repeatedly, but you can also write your own macros which can manipulate other applications, Windows files, or network functionalities. The macros are based on the Windows Scripting Host (WSH) engine, so you can use all of the powerful, robust objects available under the WSH. Other EmEditor Professional features include Unicode, Plug-ins, Find in Files, Replace in Files, Combine Windows (ability to toggle between tabbed-interface and single document interface), Keyword Highlighting (including embedded scripts in HTML, ASP and PHP files), OLE Drag and Drop, and Menu/Keyboard Customizations. The Windows 98/Me version is also availeble from EmEditor Home Page.


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