No-Sweat Home Network Management
Home and small-office networks have spread like wildfire. But users attempting to configure, secure, and maintain those networks may too often feel as if they're battling a blaze in the Santa Ana wind. That's where Network Magic comes in. Though it doesn't yet succeed in its toughest challenge, making security effortless, it's still a valuable tool for the home or business user who isn't a tech expert but needs to manage a network of up to eight computers—along with attached devices like printers and NAS appliances.
If you are already a Network Magic user, the first thing you'll notice in this version is the improved control dashboard. The graphical interface displays a map of your network with pictorial representations of all the connected devices. Which the utility finds automatically. You can point and click to connect devices, control Internet access, and track online activity Sharing connections, files, and devices such as printers is is just as easy.
Every time you make a change—or more important, someone else does—a pop-up notifies you of the change, so you know what's happening at all times. Network Magic even finds and reports wireless devices that aren't broadcasting an SSID, so you'll know if someone is trying to connect clandestinely. Then you can isolate any unknown machines and mark them as intruders. Having this level of visibility is as usefttl as installing security software.
Unfortunately the product's most serious failing is in its most important new capability: the Change Wireless Protection (CWP) feature. through which Network Magic can enable WEP or WPA encryption on supported routers. In testing. CWP failed to work properly with my supposedly supported business muter, the Linksys WRVS4400N. As a result of the bug my testing uncovered, Cisco has, for the moment, taken business routers off the list of devices supported by CWP. Cisco's consumer routers, however, will still be supported. Although this is bad news for businesses, home users (especially networking novices) can still benefit greatly from Net work Magic.—Mario Morejon
PC Magazine January 2009
NETWORK MAGIC PRO 5.0
OPENOFFICE.ORG 3.0
A Serious Rival to Microsoft Office
OpenOffice.org 3.0, is a free, open-source replacement for Microsoft Office. It is also the first and only
application suite that can be seriously considered a substitute for the massive power and flexibility of Microsoft's suite. OpenOffice.org used to look clunky and work slowly, but V3.0 is sleek and fast, retaining the essential look and feel of Office 2003 instead of imitating the new ribbon interface of Office 2007. That's a plus for many users who want as much continuity as possible when switching to a new application. OpenOffice.org doesn't include all of Office's features, but it does add some conveniences that Office can't provide, such as built-in PDF export and a single interface for opening and editing word-processing documents. HTML files, worksheets, presentations, and drawings. For government offices and corporations that don't want to depend on Microsoft (and don't want to continue paying Microsoft's prices ). OpenOffice.org 3.0 deserves an attentive look.
The suite has six basic components: Writer, a word processor and HTML editor; Cale, a spreadsheet; Draw, a graphics editor; Impress, a presentations program; Math, an equation editor; and Base, a database application. I was impressed with the way the interface hews closely to the familiar Microsoft Office 2003 standard and even improves on the placement of some menu items. However, I was less fond of the word processor's limited view options. In OpenOffice.org's spreadsheet, I missed the graphic flexibility of Excel's conditional formatting, but I managed well enough with the low-frills, 20th-century conditional formatting features.
Overall. I found performance impressively fast, on a par with that of Microsoft Office but with some limitations. File loading and saving, in all parts of the application, was almost instantaneous. OpenOfilce is also the only major application suite that runs on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux with almost exactly the same feature set on all platforms. Furthermore, it works astonishingly well with your existing Office does. Although it stillhas rough edges, OpenOffice's impressive feature set. a generally lucid interface, and pure open-source credentials are reason enough to give it a try—especially considering that it's absolutely free.—Edward Mendelson
PC Magazine January 2009
