Home Office: Shopping? Check Out Our World Class Winners
Best products of the year, plus some should-have-beens.Steve Bass
I get a kick out of PC World's 20th World Class Awards for two reasons: If I'm using one of the winning products, it's validating--like, hey, I made the right decision. If not, I have an excuse to buy something new. And what's nifty about working from a home office is that if I want to upgrade, I don't have to take it to committee.
Give me about ten minutes and I'll poke through the awards with you, point out a few surprises, and give you a couple of alternatives. You can hang out with me as I give you the tour below, or browse through the article yourself.
Software, Please Step into the Spotlight
The Product of the Year was a bolt from the blue: Google. Who would've thought a search engine, for goodness sake, would take the most coveted award? Then again, Google's Toolbar is a permanent resident on my browser and I probably use it a dozen times a day.
If you don't use the Google Toolbar, pick it up at the Google site. (My editor's concerned that you won't take time to read the fine print in the Terms of Use before you download the toolbar. Make the guy happy and look it over, okay?)
And if you already have the Google Toolbar, click Options on the Google pull-down menu and try the experimental feature called "Suppress the onUnload JavaScript event." It stops pop-ups from popping up when you leave a site.
I've got one caveat, though: The "Page Rank" and "Category" features on the options page might intrude on your sense of privacy and well-being. So make sure you click the link and read about the two features before installing them, something that will help to smooth my editor's furrowed brow.
I couldn't have guessed the winner for the Software Product of the Year. It's Lavasoft's AD-Aware, a tool that forces spyware to take a flying leap out of your PC. You can download yourself a copy (it's free to try, $15 to keep) from PCWorld.com's Downloads section.
A little competition is a good thing. After you've tried AD-Aware, then fire up SpyBot Search and Destroy and see if it comes up with anything AD-Aware's missed.
Quick aside: Joe Bohannon, a buddy of mine in the users group, found an extraordinarily useful site that lists, identifies, and explains what all those programs floating around in your Windows Startup really do. Treat yourself to the Greatis Startup Application Database. Then learn how to clean out Startup by reading my treatise, "Remove Unwanted Icons From Your System Tray."
And Some Applause for Hardware
On the hardware side of things, the Linksys BEFW11S4, a wireless access point router and switch, took the prize. It's similar to the company's EtherFast Wireless AP, which I tested when I did a column on home networking; see "Home Office: Going Wireless? Consider Cost, Security."
The Linksys is a good product to try if you want to connect your home office (or small business) computers because at 11 megabits per second, it's reasonably fast; its setup and installation is mostly painless; and it's not outrageously expensive.
The Plextor PlexWriter 40/12/40A took Best CD-RW Drive accolades. I'm using the SCSI version (yep, I'm still a SCSI fanatic, despite USB and FireWire) and it's a fast, solid performer. It's not cheap, but you should be able to find one for about $150 by checking out our Product Finder.
If you're not clear on how CD-ROMs and Read/Write CD drives work, take a tutorial from PCWorld.com's Andrew Brandt. Although it's a little old, "How It Works: CD-R, CD-RW" still gives you a solid footing on the topic.
Dig this: Do you play golf? Nope, I don't either. And I've finally convinced my golfing brother-in-law that it really isn't exercise. Yeah, I know, I'm going to get lots of e-mail, but I've got proof: the Motorcaddie (no, it's not a gag). When you click the link, make sure you check out the Flash demo. BTW, my goal's to rig up one of these for the vacuum cleaner and another to walk the dogs.
Awards Retrospectives
If you like old stuff, you'll love what Michael Lasky's done. Our notoriously historical editor dug around and found some World Class classics. His "Looking Back at 20 Years of Winners," with listings starting in 1983, is a hoot.
Michael also looked at "The All-Time World Class Awards" in a short piece that will bring back memories (think 1200 bps).
Dig this: Want some Microsoft history? Here's a few old screen captures you'll enjoy:
You'll also want to check out the Graphical User Interface Timeline for almost 30 years of GUI snapshots. And for a comprehensive history of old GUIs, go to the GUI Gallery.
Sign up to have Steve Bass's Home Office Newsletter e-mailed to you each week.