Draytek Vigor2710Vn Review

This SME business router has a lot more to offer than the competition. It has an easy to use VoIP handling over SIP this allows you to route up to four simultaneous calls to VoIP phones on your network. It also comes with a VPN configuration option, DDNS, and QoS.

You can block just about anything using this router, based on URL or keyword, P2P and internet messaging for specific clients and protocols. Your MSN messenger can be allowed to work while blocking others like, video messaging or games.

Configuration has to be done your self and the setup is not so quick. Menus are laid out clearly but the little documentation provided for explaining the setup might be unclear to less capable users. Wireless networking is available but unsecured by default.

The Wireless LAN offers some interesting features like, allowing you to configure up to four SSIDs (visible wireless connections), each one with a different security and web filtering configuration. Setting up guest networks is a snap with this option.

Changing the router’s channel-bonding settings from the default two channels to a more stable single-channel system becomes a bit tricky because Daytek has removed the advance settings menu from the routers web interface.

When you disable the channel bonding you can get better results over distance, about 10m. You can also connect a USB disk or printer to the router’s USB port. The router reads a 1GB portable flash drive but it is a little slow if you attach 120GB portable hard disk.

Wacom’s Cintiq 21UX Touchscreen Tablet

This 21-inch LCD touch screen has 2,048 levels of pressure and sense the slightest touch of a pen, something that is starting to be called “near zero”. The overall look of the screen has been refined to all black giving it quite an attractive new look.

The screen is very color accurate, and located in the rear is a set of Touchstrips that are user assigned for every application they can zoom, scroll, and adjust the brush size and rotate the canvas. The actual screen can be adjusted anywhere from 10 to 65 degrees and rotated 180 degrees in wither direction. The 21UX can be removed from its stand and users can use the screen directly on a table, or attach it to a VESA certified swing mount.

This is a fundamental tool for all creative professionals it has an ergonomic design and new productivity features. The eight application-specific ExpressKeys help improve your workflow and boost productivity by placing your commonly used commands right at your fingertips.

Many creative accessories come with this device that are designed for individual and specific needs. The Art Pen is specifically designed for things like Adobe Photoshop, Corel Painter, and Illustrator it is made to support the barrel rotation feature on these programs. The Airbrush Pen provides vivid and fun effects while having a similar form and wheel-based control as a traditional airbrush.

Included software with this device: Corel Painter sketch pad, Nik Color Efex Pro 3.0 WE6, and the Wacom Brushes 3.0.

Cooler Master Gladiator 600

This sturdy and practical design is quite admired. It includes two built-in fans with one located in the front, 120mm, and one located at the top, 180mm. These fans provide excellent airflow through the motherboard. There are also plenty of ventilation holes throughout, which help in the cooling process the down side is that there are no dust filters or sound dampers. Making noise easy to get out and dust that much easier to enter.

The Gladiator 600 is pretty simple to put together, you will have no troubles routing all the cables to any point. You have to watch out for the seven expansion slot blanking plates located in the back of device. They are held together with plastic chips and a wrong move when removing them could do damage.

Space is no issue there is plenty of space for hard disks, disk drivers, and memory card readers it has five 3 ½ inch and 5 ¼ inch bays both of these use drive rails so mounting is not a problem. The 5 ¼ inch bay can only be used for external drives, but an extra plastic cage is provided incase you want to add another accessible 3 ½ inch drive. The front of the device can accommodate 3.5mm headphones and mic connections, two USB ports, and an eSATA port.

The Gladiator does not do anything in specific and it does lack a bit in the features department, but it is a good buy at right under £50.

Teufel Concept E 200

This PC surround set comes with miniature satellites but an enormous subwoofer that can be measured in size with the actual PC tower. Beginners will appreciate the understandable easy set up instruction guide. Every one of the satellites can be interchanged and there is no dedicated center speaker.

This atypical PC surround set lets the satellites connect to the subwoofer incorporating speaker wire, which is more commonly used in home theater surround sound kits, instead of phono or 3.5mm stereo cables. Connection is made easy by simply connecting the spring clips on the satellite to the subwoofer. Aggravating enough no cable comes with this set, so it must be purchased.

This system has phono audio inputs, so it requires a phono-to-3.5mm adapter to connect to your PC. Conveniently located on the front of the subwoofer are the controls for volume, bass, and treble which are illuminated making adjusting and fine- tuning easier in dark rooms.

The Teufel is great for watching movies, especially the action packed ones with explosions that can make the whole room rumble, the effects are deep and vibrant. It is also excellent for more quite sound settings like conversation, which are well balanced so that fine less subtle details are well heard.

Music is heard exceptionally all genres are played great and the sound is detailed, clear, warm and rich. Vocals and instruments are balanced lovely with no distortion or harshness.

These speakers sound a great deal better than ordinary and cheaper 5.1 speakers, but they are almost as expensive as a whole home theater set

Nikon Coolpix P90

This is a new super zoom camera, it has the ability to capture many shots at once and comes with a big zoom. This camera includes a 24x optical zoom lens, a 3-inch display screen, optical image stabilization, and a 12 megapixel image sensor. This high-end camera features 15 frames per second shooting and an ISO of up to 6400, which takes sharper more natural looking photos even in low-lighted conditions. The motion detection software automatically detects moving objects and will adjust the shutter speed for you. The optical VR imaging stabilizer compensates for the effects of camera shaking and your pictures will be perfect even in unstable conditions.

This camera is perfect for photographers seeking, it has a long zoom fit into a compact body and it really is an ideal camera. The average consumer will also feel comfortable using this camera, it feels right in the hands of any photographer.

The significant resourcefulness of this camera is its 24x Optical Wide Angle Zoom-NIKKOR ED Glass Lens, you have unbeatable freedom with the 26mm lens. With the broad range shooting consumers can capture a variety of scenes; sweeping landscapes, up close shots, and even the action on the sports field.
The P90 also includes automatic In-Camera Red-Eye fix, Smile Mode, which automatically detects your smiling subject and releases the shutter, Blink Proof, which takes two shots and saves the one when your subject’s eyes are open, and Enhanced Face-Priority AF, which can detect up to 12 faces at a variety of angles.

APC Back-UPS ES 700

This cunning little device is designed to protect your computer and other devices from power failures and saves you energy, hence the name Uninterruptible Power Supply. The basic outline is a large battery with eight individual plug-in sockets, and four of them can be running during a power outage which will give you enough time to safely shut down your computer.

This device works with power saving technology it has three surge-protected sockets or slaves. When your computer or other device is plugged into the master socket it draws more power than the threshold and the slave sockets are activated. After this is done the master socket drops beneath the threshold, and when your PC is turned off the slave sockets automatically disable.

The main job of the ES 700 is to guard your PC and data, where its performance is excellent. The PowerChute that is provided with this device monitors your computer, it connects via the USB output and when power levels are decreased the PowerChute hibernates your computer, which protects all of your files and data from being lost. This device is very efficient you have the option of shutting down one to five minutes after battery power is first activated. If your PC uses the maximum 450W, you will only be able to get three minutes of power.

This device is not designed to let you work after a power outage, its focus is to save all of your data and work after the power failure has occurred. It has easy-to-use software and saves energy while protecting your computer.

Toshiba Satellite A500

This extremely appealing apparatus designed with glossy pinstripe patterns and silver strips around the edge, is a decent enough laptop. In this design Toshiba uses the whole width of the keyboard, including a number pad on the right-hand side. The flat-topped keys are spaced far enough from one another so that you don’t hit the adjoining keys.

Touch-typing becomes frustrating because even though the keys feel crisp the bounce kills the feedback. The feeling of the case is more insubstantial than expected and the whole device sounds hollow when you tap it.

It is equipped with a 2.2GHz Core 2 Duo T660 processor and 4GB RAM, which makes it adequate for most office and internet applications, but it can’t handle any intense photo or video editing. The latest action games also cannot be handled with this laptop, but it does come with a 210M graphic chipset for more sedate games. HD movies do not present a problem the A500 handles them perfectly.

Colors are bright and vibrant on the 16in screen, although it is not recommend for bright overhead lighting because of the glossy finish and tight vertical viewing angles. The 1,366x768 resolution has sufficient desktop space and is perfectly suited for 720p HD movies.

The Harmon/Kardon speakers make the sound quite enjoyable, they are clear and loud enough for solo movie watching. Home movie watching and playing music is not a problem, all you have to do is connect to a large screen or AV amplifier via the HDMI output. It is also equipped with an eSATA port for external hard and ExpressCard slot perfect things such a TV tuner. 500GB is plenty of space to store all of your documents. This laptop is nothing above average and much better ones can be found at the same price.

Panasonic's TX-P42V10B

This plasma screen TV which has great contrast and excellent image quality, offers access to 140 channels with HD broadcasts, included in the built-in Freesat HD receiver. Its Ethernet port makes it easy to connect to Panasonic’s Viera Cast service a web gateway which offer weather and news services, You Tube and Picasa.
Monthly fees are not required for the Freesat service, you can alternate between standard and now-and-next modes, set timers for upcoming programs, filter your channels by type and genre.


The special feature 24p Smooth Film is a frame smoothing technology look for it in the Other Settings menu under Systems. The imagery is fantastic for watching DVD’s, digital noise is reduced and there is no ghosting. PC connecting is not a problem either.


With its pleasant sound quality that comes from the integrated speakers the extra surround sound presets give an extra boost to the sound stage. With the bass on the sound becomes a little distorted and you cannot turn it up past 50 per cent because the sound hazy.


The high power consumption is a down side of plasma screens, with the settings set to maximum the TV used up a voracious 390W. There is no USB port, although pictures and videos can be viewed through the network or SD card slot, music files cannot be opened this way.
Even though Freesat HD is included along with Viera Cast and network access the TX-P4V10B is not a particularly good bargain compared to all the other cheaper LED and LCD screen TVs.

Apple To Announce The Long Anticipated Tablet?

At Least there is one thing for sure. Apple have confirmed today that the January 27th event in San Francisco will bring something new, or as they call it "Our Latest Creation". Many have been speculating that this new creation might be the long awaited Apple 10 inch tablet with touch screen, but no one is certain to confirm this for sure. As Apple usually does, they keep the info as secret as possible before unveiling the new product, a procedure they have been enforcing for quite some time, and it is quite successful.

There are quite a few other possibilities as to what this new creation by Apple might be. The most notable ones are the iPhone OS 4.0 and Core i5 Mac Book Pro. However, other portable hardware devices are not excluded either. What will it be!? Well, we will have to wait until January 27th.

MAcBook Pro i5 Promo a Communication Problem

Intel tried to squash the rumors that they themselves started. Rumors have surfaced thanks to their promo sent out to Retail Edge partners which showed a new Mac Book Pro revamped with the new i5 processor. The promo has been sent out to their partners and it was translated in several languages. However they have said that the whole thing was actually a misunderstanding with Intel's marketing agency. A new promo has been sent out to replace the MacBook Pro with a HP Envy 15.

Despite the denial, many observers think that Apple will promote the new MacBook Pro with the new processor as early as the January 27th event that has been scheduled to take place in San Francisco. Currently the MacBook employs Core 2 Duo, and it has little choice but to turn to the i5 or possibly the i7 architecture

Google Rolls out 2 New Features

News from Google, they have just rolled out 2 more features in their everlasting quest to perfect their primary product - The Search. The main thing behind the new improvements is simple, they want to provide answers instead of just results to your query. The first feature is simple bolding of the words that they think might be the answer to your query. Up until now, the only thing that got bolded in the search results were the search keywords.

Although, Google does admit that this feature won't work with all queries, but as they have put it "it's very effective with searches around an information that could fit in a table.

The second feature is, the rich snippets for events. Mainly a web master feature, but the benefit for everybody is that, now Google can answer you even related queries with more precision. If web masters annotate their pages to provide the new format, the event related searches will return better data. Basically, should your query provide you with results with events, they will appear in snippets under the main search, showing the time and date of that event too.

Both of these features will probably go unnoticed by the common searcher, but eventually you'll stumble upon and find them very useful.

CNN takes you to Haiti in 360

The project used to bring us closer to the tragedy that occurred in Haiti, is due to a collaboration between CNN and Immersive Media. The latter provide the technology needed for the 360 in Haiti, while CNN promotes it on their website - so the effect is achieved. Many people have actually logged on to this, so they can get a feel of how it is to be in the aftermath in Haiti.

This undoubtedly puts a dent in the theory that all technology does, is isolate us from each other. This time is evident technology gets us closer together.

The 360 itself takes you through a busy street on a fine afternoon through the capital city of Haiti, Port-Au-Prince, where the devastation of the earthquake is quite visible. You can drag in any direction and even pause the video to take a glimpse of Haiti. The special camera used for this project was developed by Immersive Media, produces an seamless picture and gets you closer to Haiti then ever. Even though this is not something that will actually help all those people in need, it is a good way to awaken some of you and maybe get you to actually do something.

Google Nexus One, Censors Your Foul Words

Google Nexus one hit the stores some time ago as a much anticipated competitor on the smart phone market - the realm currently ruled by Apple and the iPhone. Trying to take a slice of that realm, the Nexus dudes promised a lot of improvements and new technologies implemented in it. And as they have promised so they have delivered.

One of those improvements is the swear word censorship, both in written from and when using the speech recognition feature. If swear words are uttered the speech recognition feature filters it, instead providing symbols like #. You ask why the censorship? It's simple. You see, with previous voice recognition features in various phones, sometimes, although rarely, the feature could misrecognize the query and simply place a swear words instead of whatever innocent thing it was you said. That's why the guys at Google decided on this feature, mostly out of precaution.

Even though it sounds like a "fair enough" deal, this still means that there is room for improvement, and maybe sometime in the future, when the technology allows it, Nexus One users could see their right to curse over the phone again. Until then.