Acronis customer support update

Thursday, February 18th, 2010

Since we put Acronis True Image Home 2010 on the A List last year, we’ve had a steadily increasing flow of comments and emails disagreeing with our decision. This is generally to be expected with such popular products – True Image has been on the A List for several versions now – but the volume of messages on this product far exceeds the norm.

The majority of the complaints stem from problems being met with a lack of support from Acronis. It was brought to our attention that many users deemed the single month of phone support to be inadequate, and many also told of frustrating experiences with the Acronis Live Chat service and forums.

We don’t take such complaints lightly, and we have been in lengthy discussions with Acronis with the aim of improving things for customers. Last week I spoke to Ed Benack, Chief Customer Officer at Acronis, and explained in detail the issues many of you have been having. (more…)

Can Google cope when things go wrong?

Thursday, February 18th, 2010

In the past week, Google’s had to deal with something it’s never really experienced before: failure.

Sure, it’s had minor blips in the past: products that failed to take off, minor skirmishes with the privacy lobby, the odd disappointing set of financial results. Yet in its 12-year history, the company’s not once faced the level of criticism it’s provoked with the troubled launch of Buzz.

I’m not going to rake over the full gamut of problems with Buzz here, as the internet hasn’t got enough spare capacity, but let’s just summise that the litany of privacy issues, the awkward design and (perhaps most importantly of all) the fact that it’s marred the much loved Gmail hasn’t gone down well.

(more…)

The dangers of Google Buzz mobile

Monday, February 15th, 2010

Google’s already come in for a skip-load of criticism over the privacy implications of its new social-networking service, Buzz. And to be fair to Google, it’s reacted pretty swiftly to some of the worst excesses.

Yet, the problems with Buzz auto-following your Gmail contacts and then announcing who they are to the rest of the internet pale into “so what?” compared to what it (and other social-networking sites) are doing on the mobile front.

The Buzz app on the iPhone, for instance, uses the phone’s GPS radio to plot your every utterance onto Google Maps. Click the Nearby button in the Buzz iPhone app, and you’ll see lots of little speech bubbles appearing all over the map, pinpointing where people are issuing their updates from.  And this isn’t only your friends or people you’re following, it’s anyone who’s using the service.

(more…)

Happy Birthday Dear Photoshop!

Monday, February 15th, 2010

Break out the champagne and prepare the bunting because on Friday 19^th February 2010 Adobe Photoshop officially reaches the grand old age of 20.

To dominate such a competitive field as photo editing for so long is an extraordinary achievement. All the more so because Photoshop hasn’t been able to rely on a proprietary edge in terms of file formats and integration to secure its success. Basically all bitmap editors are dealing with the same pixel grid/histogram and working with the same core bitmap formats, most obviously TIFF and JPEG.

Essentially it’s an open and level playing field – so what are the secrets behind Photoshop’s extraordinary success?

(more…)

How to switch off Google Buzz

Thursday, February 11th, 2010

Google Buzz has hardly taken the world by storm. Twitter, blogs and tech sites are swelling with complaints over its privacy and, in particular, its irritating habit of clogging up previously spam-free  Gmail inboxes with its constant alerts.

I’m going to battle on for a few more days before I deliver my verdict on Buzz. But several people have already emailed/Tweeted us to ask how to turn Buzz off.

The answer is simple but relatively well hidden.  Drop down to the foot of the Gmail page and you’ll find a tiny link marked “turn off Buzz”.

If you need any further instruction, you really shouldn’t be using the computer without adult supervision.

Toshiba Satellite Pro S500: first look review

Thursday, February 11th, 2010

The first thing to strike you on picking up the Toshiba Satellite Pro S500 is just how very big it is; its 2.5kg weight comes as something of a surprise. It looks more like a laptop with a 17in screen than the 15.6in screen that’s actually inside, and this feeling is emphasised by the fact a numeric keypad is squeezed to the right of the traditional keyboard.

While this does have its benefits, particularly for power users of Excel, it takes a little while to get used to the arrangement; for example, finding the Backspace key when typing quickly. Toshiba compensates for this by making this key, and the right Shift key, nice and large – possibly the biggest hindrance will be the half-width Enter key.

(more…)

Toshiba Satellite U500 Multitouch: first look review

Wednesday, February 10th, 2010

Toshiba today unveiled the latest addition to its range, the multitouch-enabled Satellite U500.

The consumer-focussed U500 is a compact, stylish 13.3in laptop, finished with gleaming chrome highlights and an attractive textured finish, but the real star of the show is the 13.3in multitouch display.

The touch panel comes courtesy of N-Trig and its DuoSense display, and while a tell-tale graininess gives away the panel’s touch capabilities, we found the touch functions surprsingly tactile and responsive.

Microsoft’s Touch Pack shows off the new multitouch display to its fullest, with Virtual Earth allowing us to spin, zoom and rotate our way around the world with a natural-feeling range of two-fingered gestures, and although image quality suffers a little, we could easily get used to showing off our photos to friends and family with a mere flick of the wrist.

There’s no definite release date as yet, possibly as Toshiba is still deciding whether to replace the now-elderly Core 2 Duo processor with one of the latest Intel Core i3 models, but Toshiba claims that the multitouch screen will only account for an £80 premium over and above the standard model.

Toshiba Tecra A11 and Tecra M11: first-look reviews

Wednesday, February 10th, 2010

Toshiba splits its laptop branding into two main streams: Satellite and Satellite Pro for home and small business; Tecra for larger businesses. And we got our hands on the two new Tecra models at its 2010 press event: the 14in Tecra M11 and 15.4in Tecra A11.

As can be seen from the photo above, there’s a certain amount of similarity between them (the A11 is on the left, the M11 on the right). They’re black, they’re a little boxy, and they eschew such consumer fripperies as isolated keyboards and, in the M11’s case, a webcam.

(more…)

10 ways to boost traffic to a WordPress blog

Monday, February 8th, 2010

WordPress has become the de facto blogging platform: particularly for blogs that are to be self-hosted. On first installation, however, it’s like a blob of plasticine – formless and blank, waiting to be morphed into, er, Morph. Design is part of this, of course, and Wordpress benefits from tens of thousands of themes, most available for free which can then be customised by those to whom CSS manipulation is not a dark art.

However, if you are creating a blog as a traffic generator for your business or as a business itself, your time should be spent on attracting and engaging with your target audience rather than heavily editing the look and feel. You’ll find below ten tips for getting your blog noticed. It goes without saying (surely) that your blog posts must  be interesting, relevant, written by you (not harvested from an articles site) and targeted at your intended audience – no plugin or technique can rescue the terminally uninteresting from obscurity.

(more…)

Reaction to the Apple iPad: ten days later

Friday, February 5th, 2010

It’s been ten glorious days since Steve Jobs announced the Apple iPad, enough time for us all to digest the idea behind what Apple promises to be a new type of computer. And I must admit that my own feelings about the device have changed in that time too.

I didn’t like the look of the iPad when I first saw it, and it didn’t help that Jobs made some easy-to-ridicule claims. How can you suggest that a slate PC, with only a software keyboard as standard, is the best type of product for email? Or that a platform that doesn’t support Flash is the best way to browse the internet?

(more…)