• Tag Archives 2001

  • PC World (October 2001)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    PC World was one of the most popular PC specific magazines for decades. The magazine began life in March 1983 and the last issue was published a little over 30 years later in 2013. It was still going strong in 2001 and the October 2001 issue includes:

    Cover Story

    • PC Deals: You Better Shop Around – A guide to the best and worst places to buy a PC both in store and online. Ranked highest in this list is Gateway Country.

    Features

    • CD-RW ASAP – A test of 30 of the latest CD burners. The latest generations burn at speeds of up to 24x whereas the previous generation were limited to 8x. Coming in at the top of the list is the Yamaha LightSpeed CRW2200EZ.
    • Better Burning – A look at five of the most popular CD burning software packages including Ahead Nero Burning ROM 5.5, NTI CD-Maker Professional Edition, Oak Technology SimpliCD 1.0, Roxio Easy CD Creator 5 Platinum, and Stomp Click’N Burn Pro 2.0.
    • Easy Steps to a Great Site – Tips, tricks, and tools to help you create a home page.
    • New Life for Old PCs – A guide to donating your old PC to charity. At this time, you might have been upgrading to a new 1 GHz+ Pentium III or Pentium 4 and would have likely been upgrading from something like a five year old Pentium or slightly newer Pentium II.

    Top 100

    • Top 10 Power PCs – At the top of this list is the Dell OptiPlex GX400 featuring a P4-1400 CPU and 256MB of RDRAM for $2245. In addition to Pentium 4 systems, there were also several Athlon 1400 systems in this list.
    • Top 10 Value PCs – The top system in this list is a Dell OptiPlex GX150 featuring a 933 MHz Pentium III for $1400. There is at least one Duron based system in this list. The first PC I ever built myself had a Duron processor.
    • Top 15 Notebook PCs – At the top of the power notebook list is the Dell Inspiron 8000 for $2295 which features a Pentium III 900/700 CPU, 128MB of RAM, and a 20GB hard drive. The ThinkPad T22 comes in second and the Gateway Solo 9500 third. At the top of the Value Notebook list is the Dell Inspiron 4000 featuring a Pentium III 900/700 CPU, 128MB RAM, and 10GB hard drive for $1637.
    • Top 15 Home PCs – The top power system is the MicronPC Millennia Max XP2 featuring an Athlon 1400 CPU, 256MB DDR SDRAM, a 60 GB hard drive and VisionTek GeForce 3 graphics card for $2397. My favorites in this list are the Alienware Aurora DDR in third and the Gateway Select 1400 in 4th. The top value system is the HP Pavilion 9820 featuring a Pentium III-1000, 128MB SDRAM, a 60GB hard drive, and an Asus AGP-V7700 GeForce2 GTS Pro graphics card for $1299.
    • Top 10 21-inch Monitors – At the top of this list of 21-inch CRT monitors is the Optiquest Q115 with a 19.6 viewable display area for $578.
    • Top 10 Graphic Boards – The top graphics card this month is the CardExert GeForce2 MX TwinView/Vivo Golden Sample for $159.
    • Top 10 Digital Cameras – The best digital camera according to PC World was the Nikon Coolpix 995, a 3.34 megapixel camera for $899.

    Departments

    • Up Front – A look at the magazine’s new star rating system.
    • Letters – Letters from readers about product activation, license agreements, copy protection, flat panel displays, and more.
    • Consumer Watch – Choosing an e-payment service, problems with a refurbished PC, and more.
    • Web Savvy – A look at Upromise, a free online service to help you save for college.
    • Home Office – A guide to fighting spyware.
    • Full Discolsure – A look at bus, memory, hard drive, and internet bottlenecks.

    News & Trends

    • XP’s Extras – Microsoft continues its trend of adding features to the OS that once were only available via third party utilities.
    • Pentium 4 Races to 2 GHz – The Pentium 4 catches up to the Athlon but at a price premium.
    • Focus on the Big Pixels – A look at new 4 and 5 megapixel cameras.
    • USB: The Sequel – USB 2.0 promises speeds up to 40 times faster than USB 1.
    • New Products – New notebooks including the Gateway Solo 1200, Sony Vaio PCG-Sr33, and HP Omnibook 6100; personal finance software including Quicken 2002 and Microsoft Money 2002; PDA wi-fi add-ons; InFocus LP290 and Lightware Legend LS-8 projectors; and much more.

    Here’s How

    • Internet Tips – Tips to stop browser pop-ups, capture shockwave animations for offline viewing, and improving AOL’s graphics.
    • Step-By-Step – A guide to creating your first website including using web page editors like Microsoft FrontPage and Netscape Composer, getting a host for your web site, and obtaining and using a basic FTP client.
    • Hardware Tips – A look at upgrading CPUs in Socket 5, Socket 7, Socket 8, Slot 1, Socket 370, Slot A, and Socket A based systems.
    • Answer Line – Questions answered about preventing others from using your PC, uninstalling software, putting a slide show on a CD, and more.

    …and more!


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  • Computer Shopper (March 2001)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    Source: Computer Shopper – March 2001 –

    Computer Shopper, for much of its life, was a huge telephone book sized magazine with tons of ads of course but also tons of content. It had shrunk considerably by the turn of the century. The March 2001 issue, though much smaller than earlier years, was still a fairly hefty 250 pages. It includes:

    Features

    • Tower of Power – Reviews of “Power Systems” including the Compaq Presario 7000T, Gateway Performance 1500XL, HP Pavilion 9720A, IBM NetVista A60i, and Micron Millennia Max XP. These are all either 1.2 GHz Athlon systems or 1.5GHz Pentium 4 Systems with 128MB RAM and video cards such as the nVidia GeForce2 GTS Ultra and ATI All-in-Wonder Radeon. Prices range from $2513 to $3649 with the HP being the cheapest and the Compaq being the most expensive.
    • Handheld PCs – Reviews of five handheld PCs including the Casio Cassiopeia EM-500 (Microsoft Pocket PC), Compaq iPaq H3650 Pocket PC (Microsoft Pocket PC), Handspring Visor Platinum (Palm OS), Handspring Visor Prism (Palm), and Palm VIIx (Palm). Computer Shopper liked the iPaq ($500), Handspring Visor Platinum ($299), and Palm VIIx ($449) the best.
    • Take-Along Tunes – A guide to portable music players with a look at the various audio formats plus a look at various software players including FreeAmp, MusicMatch Jukebox 6.0, RealPlayer 8, SoundJam MP 2.5.1, Winamp 2.7, Windows Media Player 7, and X Multimedia System.
    • Many Happy Returns – Reviews of tax software including Kiplinger Taxcut Deluxe, Quicken Turbotax Deluxe, and TaxAct 2000 Deluxe.
    • Something for Nothing – Free stuff including free music at MP3.com, free clipart, e-mail, hosting, web access, phone, fax, and more.
    • Not of the Presses – A feature on eBooks with a look at the latest eBook readers such as the Franklin eBookMan, Palm OS Handhelds, Pocket PC Handhelds, RCA eBook REB1100, and RCA eBook REB1200 plus places to get free eBooks and more.

    News

    • Net Now – Arizona first to have public election using voting over the Internet, Zairmail offers letter service, an upgrade kit for furbies, and more.
    • Hot Gear – A look at some of the latest gadgets including the Cyber-shot DSC-P1 3.3 megapixel digital camera from Sony, the Pocket Concert Audio Player from Intel, the Kyocera QCP 6035 Smartphone, Kimar wireless audio streaming devices, and more.

    Opinions

    • Jack Blackford – The slow march towards seamlessly using all of your devices together (in this case, Cell phones, PDAs, LANs, and the Web).
    • John Dvorak – Thinner and flatter CRTs coming soon.
    • Jim O’Brien – A look at luxury shopping sites such as BlueNile, Ice, Millionaire, and Mondera.
    • Michael Slater – A look at multifunction devices and whether combining all those functions makes sense.

    Web Buyer

    • Site Reviews – A look at travel sites, online shopping sites, and more.

    Business Buyer

    • Off Site, on LAN – Keeping offsite workers connected.
    • e-Services and Tools – A look at the free online financial advice available on the Web from Intuit and Microsoft.
    • Building Your Business – Using cookies to add advanced features to your website.

    Help & How To

    • You Can Take It With You – A guide to moving your data, apps, and settings to a new PC.
    • The Hard Edge – The Pentium 4’s bus speed, DDR SDRAM, dealing with spam, and more.
    • Alfred Poor’s Computer Cures – Help printing to a file, upgrading RAM, checking your hardware configuration, and more.
    • Buying Advisor – Using the Panasonic Toughbook 47 for all your rugged computer needs.

    Reviews

    • Desktops – Reviews of the HP Pavilion 2755C (800 MHz Pentium III, 128MB RAM for $1049), Sony Vaio PCV RX280DS (1 GHZ Pentium III, 128 MB for $2199), and Tangent Medalllion Pro (1 GHz Pentium 3, 256 MB for $1995).
    • Hardware – Reviews of the Intel Pocket PC Camera and Kodak EZ200 webcams, Hercules Game Theater XP sound card, Matrox Marvel G450 ETV, Ricoh Mediamaster MP9120A Combo Drive, and Samsung ML-4600 printer.
    • Mobile – A review of the Acer Travelmate 351TEV, a laptop featuring a 700MHz Pentium III, 128MB RAM, for $2299, the Innogear Minijam, Motrola Timeport P8767, the NEC Versa SXI latptop, Sceptre Soundx 69502 laptop, and Tiny performance Notebook 800.
    • Software – Reviews of the newly released Netscape 6, Macromedia Dreamweaver 4, Documents to Go Professional Edition, and Psync.
    • Web Services – Reviews of homeadvisor.com and Phonefree.
    • Games – Reviews of You Don’t Know Jack 5th Dementia, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2, and No One Lives Forever.

    …and more!


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