John Clyman

With todays release of the Windows Vista February CTP (Community Technology Preview), Microsoft has publicly passed a key milestone on the road to launching its new operating system. This release of Vista is “feature-complete”, the company says, meaning that all of the fundamental capabilities that Vista will eventually offer are now baked in. Development efforts […]

Microsoft Corp.s latest Community Technology Preview release of Windows Vista, Build 5270, announced Dec. 19, includes a variety of improvements to security, performance and the user interface. It also includes updated versions of some of the applications that will ship with the operating system. We took this latest pre-release version of Vista for a test […]

On Monday, Microsoft releases its second Community Technology Preview of Windows Vista to beta testers and subscribers to MSDN (Microsoft Developer Network) and TechNet. While testing the new build over the past few days, weve noted a number of incremental changes that have appeared since the September PDC (Professional Developers Conference) CTP, as well as […]

When you need a place to live, youve got plenty of options to choose from. You could build a home from scratch to your exact specifications—and wait a year or more until its ready. Or, you could rent an apartment, reducing your up-front capital expenses, lead time, and maintenance responsibilities in exchange for reduced flexibility […]

Antispyware tools seem to be proliferating nearly as fast as spyware itself. Choice is usually a good thing—as long as you make the right one. So for this story we tested two antispyware utilities we hadnt encountered before, as well as a significantly revised version of Lavasofts perennially popular Ad-Aware, which looks better than ever. […]

Even as adware and spyware evolve into more aggressive forms, antispyware utilities are becoming more effective at combating these pernicious pests. Webroots Spy Sweeper 3.0 improves on the capabilities of Spy Sweeper 2.2, our previous Editors Choice, with solid (if still imperfect) spyware-removal capabilities, an improved interface, and the most effective real-time blocking weve seen […]

As if the recent proliferation of viruses and worms werent enough, now spyware and adware—including programs that can hijack your browser and track your behavior—pose a fast-increasing threat. And while traditional antivirus and Internet security suites make some effort to combat spyware, the most effective tools weve found to date have been standalone, single-purpose products […]

Think you can protect your in-box by carefully guarding your e-mail address—not posting it in online forums or Usenet messages, using disposable e-mail addresses to register for Web sites, or even leaving it off your business cards? Nows the time for a reality check. If youve ever wondered how a brand-new e-mail account has started […]

FileMaker has long been a leader when it comes to making small-scale relational databases easy to develop, use, and deploy. FileMaker Pro 7 builds further on this already strong foundation with improved capabilities for managing relationships, more sophisticated user-access controls, and other subtle improvements. Compared with Microsoft Access, FileMaker retains a distinctive edge in usability. […]

Spyware blocking, detection, and removal turn out to be weak components of the otherwise excellent Norton Internet Security 2004, which earned an Editors Choice award in our recent roundup of Internet security suites (November 25). Like the other suites in this roundup, Norton includes a firewall, antivirus and antispam scanners, parental controls, and privacy-monitoring capabilities […]