I've had the same Internet service provider for half a decade now. Each month, I pay its fee as reflexively as I write checks for electricity and heat. And I'm flushing money down the drain--at least according to a small army of PC World readers who have written lately to extol the virtues of their free ISPs.
Whoever coined the term search engine got it exactly right. AltaVista Co., Excite Inc., and their rivals do indeed resemble engines: awesomely powerful but decidedly inhuman. Rather than speaking plain English, they comprehend only keywords, ANDs, ORs, NOTs, and punctuation marks. Misphrase your query, and you may get an avalanche of irrelevant links or no results at all. And even though a few sites let you ask questions in simple English, it's clear that you're talking to a none-too-bright automaton.
Throughout a lifelong music addiction, I've poured money into an unending parade of audio formats--vinyl (33 and 45 rpm), eight-track, cassette, and CD. And it now looks like recorded music as we knew it may be supplanted by music that has no physical form at all: digital downloads. Portable MP3 players such as Diamond's Rio are already a hit. Tomorrow, who knows? Everything from living-room stereos to clock radios could be wired to play digital songs that we buy on the Web.
It's only logical: When you print digital photos, you want results that look, feel, and last as if they came from a photo lab. Two new photo printers--Epson America Inc.'s $299 Stylus Photo 870 and Sony Corp.'s $389 UP-DP10-come as close as any that I've seen to achieving this goal. I tested shipping units equipped with preproduction drivers.
Instant gratification is the way of the Web. Not only can you get just about anything online--an e-mail account, a home loan, the answer to a pressing question about the Taft administration--but you can get it in minutes. There is, however, one vast exception to the Web's no-wait policy: Online shopping can often be painfully slow.
free (fre), adjective. Provided without, or not subject to, a charge or payment: free parking; free sample; free ride.
As a reporter for PC World, I've covered scads of trade shows at New York's Javits Center: PC Expo, LinuxWorld Expo, and Seybold Seminars, among others. And now Toy Fair 2000?
The world is full of folks who are addicted to 3Com's pen-based Palm organizers. But some of us are just keyboard people at heart -- and that's what makes Psion's new Revo palmtop an intriguing alternative. A sleeker cousin of Psion's fine Series 5mx handheld, the US$399 Revo is remarkably compact given its usable QWERTY keyboard and desktoplike software. I tested a shipping unit.
A new generation of wireless products may finally deliver what vendors have long promised -- a pocket-size device that lets you easily retrieve e-mail and view Web data from anywhere.