Home Office: The Coolest of the Cool, the World Class Awards

A tour of the products rated best of 2003--and some that should have been.

Steve Bass

Back in April, I cast my ballot (actually, filled in a spreadsheet) and then waited for the results of our World Class Awards. The winners were announced last month in New York, and it drove me nuts that I had to miss the gala awards ceremony--I'm a sucker for pomp and circumstance (and free food).

But we've got the next best thing: the Internet. So lace up your walking shoes; this week and next I'm taking you on a tour of the World Class Awards. I'll spend some time disagreeing with a few of the winners, and I'll offer some alternative products.

Feel free to head to "World Class: Best of 2003" and strike out on your own. You could browse through each page yourself--or just sit back, relax, and let me tell you about my favorites.

World-Class E-Mail Tools

Winner: Best Spam Filter. Sunbelt Software's IHateSpam for Microsoft Outlook is probably your best bet for nailing spam at the door. You can read more about it in "Natural-Born Spam Killers."

Winner: Best E-Mail Software. Couldn't care less about Outlook? It may be time to look at Qualcomm's Eudora. Ugly and somewhat nerdy (with toolbar items such as "blah blah blah"), Eudora is the program I use because of its flexible interface and resistance to viruses. BTW, watch out for Eudora's next beta--version 6.0--and its built-in junk filter.

Right on Eudora's heels is a new beta of Spamnix, a spam fighter that plugs into Eudora. You can download the current version, then go to Spamnix Software to try the beta (I did, and it's terrific).

Dig This: Ever wonder what Flight Simulator looks like spread out on 13 monitors? In a word, stunning.

World-Class Software

Winner: Best Stand-Alone Utility. Sandra Professional is a terrific product with lots of testing and diagnostic tools. But if I had to choose just one utility, it'd be Xteq X-Setup. It offers more than 750 ways to tweak your PC--and even better, it's free.

Winner: Best Firewall Software. A good product got better in ZoneLabs ZoneAlarm Pro 4. Its OutBound Mail Protection prevents viruses from grabbing Outlook's address book and spewing out messages. If too many e-mails are sent at once, or if a message has too many recipients, ZoneAlarm alerts you and you can stop the action immediately. This latest update is available for about $40 from ZoneLabs, but you can get a free version from PCWorld.com.

Winner: Best Privacy Software. Spybot Search & Destroy is a great choice; I use it myself to ensure there's no spyware on my PC.

World-Class Camera

Winner: Best Digital Camera ($500 and Over). The Olympus C-5050 Zoom is good--but if I had the money, I'd opt for the Nikon D100, IMHO the sharpest, smartest, all-around best camera. See what I said about it in "My Excellent Digital Photo Adventure."

The great news for any of you salivating over the Nikon is that according to our Product Finder, at press time the price dropped to $1350 from $1730. Me? I'm still waiting for it to hit a grand.

Dig This: Want to read in bed at night without disturbing your partner? I tried the LightWedge, a gizmo with a thin acrylic lens that uses LEDs to illuminate a book's pages. (I feel like a teenager again, reading under the covers with a flashlight.) It's lightweight and there's no glare. At $35, it's not cheap, but nothing seems to be anymore. There's also a $25 model for paperbacks, which I didn't try.

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