COVER STORY

The Best Free Stuff You’ve Never Heard Of
By Preston Gralla & Adam Pash

By now, you’re familiar with the biggest free online apps and services. So we went looking for the hidden gems that people will be talking about next year. No matter your interest, you’re sure to find plenty of great tools here.

FEATURES

Made-for-TV Media Drives
By Jon L. Jacobi & Melissa J. Perenson

These specialized devices offer a ton of storage and let you play music and view pictures and videos on your TV. Though such products have some limitations, we found a few models that qualify for star status.

NEXT

Headliners
MSI X-SlimX340
Acer Timeline
Asus Eee PC Seashell 1008HA
HTC Touch Diamond 2
HTC Touch Pro 2
CTIA Wireless 09

Launch Pad
Latest Accessories from Genius
Fresh from the Asus Plant
Nokia’s Low-Cost Mobile E-mail-Geared Phones

New Service
Nokia Revamps Mobile E-mail Support

Next-Gen Storage
OCZ offers fast 1TB SSD drive for your PCI-E slot

MashUp
The Ultimate Desktop Replacement Laptop

SPOTLIGHT

Netbooks
Asus Eee PC S101H
Asus Eee PC 1000HE
MSI Wind U100X

Speakers
Altec Lansing Expressionist Bass

Motherboard
Asus M4A79 Deluxe

Graphics Card
MSI R4890 T2D1G OC

Smartphone
Samsung Memoir

Digital Cameras
Top 5 Advanced Cameras

Media Streaming Devices
Seagate FreeAgent Theater
Western Digital WDTV

REGULAR

GeekTech
By Mike Keller

Give your laptop access to the Internet without using Wi-Fi, by tapping your iPhone’s signal.

BetaWatch
By Edward N. Alpro

Cc:Betty lets you transform any e-mail message into an online discussion thread, Home-Account aims to demystify the mortgage process and lets you refinance your home without a mortgage broker, and SmartyCard rewards the kids for bringing their A-game.

Net Work
By Richard Morochove

Not all online backup service offer the same level of business-data protection. Here’s how to choose one wisely.

Download This
By Erik Larkin, Preston Gralla & Ian Harac

The best software doesn’t just handle a task — it broadens your horizons. And these three programs do just that.

Privacy Watch

Will new tracker tools for you cell phone give you aways? Location-tracking apps for cell phones can be a privacy nightmare unless you take precautions.

Bugs & Fixes
By Erik Larkin

Adobe Reader, IE 7 holes under attack. Plus read about new flaws in Firefox, RealPlayer and Visio, and their fixes.

Hassle-Free PC
By Rick Broida

Three simple solutions to everyday Windows annouyances — tricks for making your mouse’s scroll wheel work properly in Windows, for popping out memory cards and for shutting down your PC without a single press of the power button.

MACWORLD

Add an OS 9-like App Menu to OS X
Safari 4 Beta Speeds Up Web Browsing

THE GAMING FRONT

Preview
Bioshock 2

Review
Plants vs Zombies
Five Things  We Love / Hate About Nintendo’s DSI

HOW TO

Reinstall and Restore Your Windows CD
Change the Date in Your  Digital Photo
Make Vista Look, Feel and Act More Like Windows 7
Encrypt USB Flash Drives With a Free Download
Insert Special Text Characters or Symbols Into Any Document
Share Photos easily With Anyone, Anywhere

Asnwer Line
Backup Your Windows Registry
Increase Your On-board Graphics Memory