Microsoft Word has endured many changes over the years. Depending upon whom you ask, some of the changes have been for the better; others, not so much. Throughout all the variations, however, one factor has remained constant: Microsoft has not always made the best choices in choosing some of the default settings.

For example, you might not agree with Microsoft's decision to put your files in My Documents automatically. As a result, just about everyone can benefit from making some easy tweaks to their copies of Word 2007 (the version that is the focus of this article). By changing the program to work the way you want it to, you'll get more work done with less aggravation.

PCWorld

Using teleconferencing technology has lately become an obvious and financially practical choice to offset rising business travel expenses. Yet sometimes simple chatting doesn't cut it. There has been growing interest in the notion of online conferencing with a "virtual presence" emphasis, which enables people to share information and their very selves with one another with a stronger sense of near-tangible "face time."

"Telepresence makes possible experiences that would generally require travel," says Claire Schooley, an analyst at Forrester Research Inc. who tracks the evolving teleconferencing market with an emphasis on virtual presence technologies. "To share drawings, pieces of art, even swatches of fabric, would require travel, which people might not be willing to do -- either they are too busy or sometimes too important. Interviews, law depositions and medical exams are other situations that require excellent quality [high-definition] at least."

ComputerWorld

It might be a bit hard (read: very hard) to wait for Half-Life 2: Episode Three to surface, but Valve hasn't been slack in delivering updates to their current games to give us something to do. To help make us forget HL2 for a while longer, they just released a brand-new title called Left 4 Dead that furthers their stance on just how important multi-player gaming is.

With L4D, they took things to the next level. While some games offer co-op gameplay as an option, Valve encourages it to such a great degree, that the single-player campaign is highly discouraged by all of the reviews I've seen so far. Ars Technica is one such site to take a look at the game, and overall, "Left 4 Dead was a game that was made with love" just about says it all.

Their review puts the game in a great light, noting that the Source engine still has what it takes to deliver a great-looking experience, the audio looks (or sounds) to be top-rate, and despite the fact that the game is short, the replayability is high, which is something I've read in every review I've taken a look at. Overall, Valve has a winner on their hands, and I only wish I had time to play it now.

TechGage

Over the course of the past year, NVIDIA has been actively pushing their GPUs as excellent performers outside of gaming, and for most of us, this was a rather new concept. We quickly found out, though, that GPUs were indeed superb performers when executed in a certain manner.

It goes without saying that where GPGPU programming is concerned, we're still in its infancy, but over the course of the past year, I've slowly become more of a believer in what the technology can accomplish. If you care at all about the progress of research in the medical field, then just taking a look at how much more a GPU can accomplish with Folding@home when compared to a normal CPU will help make you a believer.

"Personal Supercomputer" is a term that's been thrown around quite a bit in the past, but when dealing with scenarios that can execute off of a GPU architecture, then it's far easier to accomplish. To help make this point even clearer, NVIDIA has published a release that unveiled their "Personal Supercomputer" platform, which numerous vendors are currently supporting. Each configuration will vary, but the fastest ones will include the Tesla C1060. The largest configurations in a single-chassis/rack unit will deliver upwards of 3.732 TFLOPS of computing power.

TechGage

Intel's Core i7 processors are here, and if you are planning on making a purchase, your decision is going to made easier thanks to a few factors. First and foremost, having three processor models doesn't offer much leeway in the decision-making process. The most cost-effective model is the Core i7 920, which at 2.66GHz and ~$319, becomes the most obvious choice for most people.

While three CPUs are easy to choose from, the selection for motherboards gets a little more complicated, but not by much. Currently, the only vendors I can find selling product on these shores are ASUS, Gigabyte, Intel and MSI. All except Intel offer two different models, each with a varying price-range. Today, we're taking a look at ASUS' "mainstream" model, the P6T Deluxe.

For the most part, this board shouldn't be considered a "mainstream" product given it's $300 price tag, but it's not unlike any of the competition out there right now. ASUS also offers an "OC Palm" edition of the board, which features a small gadget used for Yahoo! widgets and overclocking. It tacks close to $40 to the price of the board though, so some may prefer to omit it.

TechGage

The shutdown last week of a U.S.-based Web hosting company crippled more than 500,000 bots, or compromised computers, which are no longer able to receive commands from criminals, a security researcher said today.

Although the infected PCs are still operational, the previously-planted malware that tells them what to do can't receive instructions because of the shutdown last week of McColo Corp.

"Half a million bots are either offline or not communicating" with their command-and-control servers, estimated Joe Stewart, director of malware research at SecureWorks Inc.

ComputerWorld

A new Firefox extension aptly named "Flash Game Maximizer" is a must-have for any Flash game enthusiast. It does one thing, and does it well: Letting you toggle between standard- and full-screen modes on any game--regardless of whether it has been coded with such an option.

Considering that Flash games are hosted all over the place, and rarely with a ubiquitous user interface, you're likely to run into a good number of them that must be played in whatever space they've been given on a Web page. With Flash Game Maximizer, however, you don't have to worry about this at all.

Once the extension has been installed, you'll get a new button on the bottom-right corner of your browser that turns yellow when it detects Flash. Clicking it resizes the game to fit your browser window. A slight caveat here is that it completely restarts whatever Flash module is on the page, which on most games means losing any progress.

Crave

Without doubt, LIFE magazine (under Time Inc.) has got to be one of the most photo-centric publications to date. During World War II and the Vietnam War, it published many images that some claimed had helped to stop the conflicts. For photojournalists, it was an affirmation of their skills if their images were showcased in LIFE.

Although it is no longer a physical publication, the company has scanned almost all its negatives and stored them in an online archive. Now, this gallery is being indexed by Google, and LIFE has opened them up to the public for personal use. This means that students and teachers can easily browse, view and retrieve low-res images for education purposes. The firm also isn't too worried about what bloggers may do to the pictures.

This collaboration will help direct online traffic to LIFE's Web site, and small advertisements on the search engine allow viewers to purchase framed prints.

Crave

Microsoft has launched the latest update to Xbox Live dubbed the New Xbox Experience.

The update went live around 10AM GMT when Xbox owners were prompted to download the new user interface, including the Mii-like Avatars from Rare. NXE now offers three titles that make use of the custom built Avatars, including A Kingdom for Keflings, Uno and Hardwood Hearts - all available through Xbox Live Arcade.

Some users had to a wait a number of hours to receive the prompt to download the update, according to Xbox Live's Major Nelson, who listed the top ten things to do once NXE has been installed, such as creating a customised Avatar and downloading disc games onto the console's hard drive for increased performance.

"The New Xbox Experience is in the process of being deployed to all Xbox LIVE members," he explained. "But it will take a few hours for everyone to get the prompt to update to NXE... be patient!"

GamesIndustry

Windows only: Web browser plug-in Tidy Favorites creates a customizable bookmarks start page for Firefox and Internet Explorer complete with thumbnail previews. We've seen several Firefox extensions covering similar ground before—most notably previously mentioned Fast Dial and Speed Dial—but Tidy favorites adds a few more ideas to the thumbnail start page. For example, Tidy Favorites lets you customize each thumbnail individually, so you can independently resize different thumbnails or zoom in and out on a page.

LifeHacker

Looking for recipes from legends like James Beard and Julia Child, or current celebri-chefs like Mario Batali and Daniel Boulud? Try Cookstr, which has created a database of recipes from well-regarded authors and chefs. The search feature works quite well, and particularly nice are the Refine Search tools like Skill level, Kid Friendly, or One Pot if your not particularly confident, have fussy little ones or don't want to do a sink full of dishes. The Dietary Consideration options include twenty settings, in case you need to whip up something low fat, peanut-free and halal. Suggested menus and cooking tips are promised for the future. Looking for more culinary inspiration?

LifeHacker

The Tech-Recipes blog points out a Windows Vista feature that's great for anyone who wants to monitor how they're computer's running at a glance without installing a dedicated background app. Launch the Task Manager (Ctrl + Shift + Esc), choose a panel like Performance or Networking, and double-click anywhere inside the window's blank space. You get a not-easily-closed, always-on-top widget you can keep anywhere on the desktop for a quick read on how your desktop is holding up, and it's a good deal more informative than Task Manager's system tray icon. Double-click inside the gadget to restore that standard task manager.

LifeHacker

Windows only: Zapr is a new file-sharing application that promises to make remote file sharing extremely simple. Users download the Zapr application, set up a free account, and can immediately begin sharing files with friends. Only the person doing the sharing needs to have the application installed, all others simply need the URL the file sharer gives them. The files are hosted locally, with the Zapr server only providing directions between the file sharer and the people seeking the file. Files can be shared unprotected or with passwords. There is no restriction on file type or file size. For another simply way to share files without FTP, check out GBridge. Zapr is freeware, Windows only.

LifeHacker

Think DAB radios and UK-based PURE Digital usually comes to mind, and with due reason, too.

The digital-radio specialist from Hertfordshire is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of DAB digital radios and has a wide variety of models currently on offer.

However, despite its prowess in the DAB market, there's one area in which PURE hasn't yet come up trumps - Internet radio, a streaming technology that promises the entire world's web-based radio services at home.

Fortunately for PURE's fans, the company has fixed that omission with the PURE EVOKE Flow - a traditional DAB and FM radio that's armed with built-in 802.11b/g Wi-Fi.

With a suggested retail price of £149, the EVOKE Flow doesn't come cheap, but let's see what it can do.

Hexus

ATI's latest additions to its 4-series range have been the budget Radeon HD 4550 and HD 4350 GPUs.

We took a look at a reference card over a month ago and it's only now that stock is beginning to trickle through into the channel.

Low on power-draw but providing a decent-enough multimedia feature-set, we put Sapphire's HD 4550 512MB through the mill.

Hexus

A NASA astronaut accidentally lost her toolbag while conducting a spacewalk

Astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper suffered an astronaut blunder after she mistakenly let go of her tool bag in space after a grease gun inside of her backpack-sized bag exploded.

"Uh, we have a lost tool," Stefanyshyn-Piper said as she watched the bag float away.

It seems that the grease gun began to leak inside of the bag, which inadvertently lubricated everything inside the bag. The bag floated away as she tried to manage the mess, but the lack of gravity proved too much.

NASA astronauts will now track the bag for the next few days, watching to make sure it doesn't impact the ISS.

DailyTech

Washington and Oregon to become even more Comcastic

Comcast announced Monday that its DOCSIS 3.0 “wideband” cable internet service will soon be available in the states of Oregon and Washington, giving residents a chance to purchase internet access at speeds up to 50 Mbps sometime in December.

The region will see Comcast’s second major wideband rollout. The ISP previously announced DOCSIS 3.0 availability for residents of New England, New Jersey, and its home state of Philadelphia late last October. Pricing remains consistent, with 25 Mbps service available for $62.95 a month. Full-speed service, the so-called “Extreme 50” option, will run residential subscribers a cool $139.95 a month.

Comcast subscribers who choose not to upgrade can also expect a boost: their line speeds will double, at no charge.

DailyTech

USB 3.0 is one step closer to being included in our computers

It seems like everything uses USB today from cell phone chargers to keyboards, mice, printers, and cameras. What many really want are faster USB connections. USB 3.0 has been on the horizon for a while now and for a time the future of the specification and cross compatibility was unknown.

The USB 3.0 Promoters Group announced yesterday that the USB 3.0 specification was finally complete. The specification is a sort of roadmap that allows manufacturers to build controllers and products utilizing the USB 3.0 standard. The specification has now been turned over to the USB Implementers Forum, the managing body for USB specifications.

Members of the USB 3.0 promoters group including -- HP, Intel, Microsoft, NEC, ST-NXP, and Texas instruments -- have had a long road with accusations from non-forum members that it was keeping the completed specification from other manufacturers in order to give member companies a competitive edge in the market.

DailyTech

HDMI 1.3 audio / video has been a hot topic lately especially in the AV forums. Many are excited at the prospect that their PC or HTPC will have full HDMI audio/video capabilities and there have been a few products which have come to market that can supply these specifications in varying degrees. The X-fi HTHD can supply all the HDMI audio goodness you could want with full support for LPCM and bitstreaming output of Dolby® Digital Plus, Dolby True HD, DTS-HD Master Audio.

The HWC Audio Lab has received exclusive updated information and some nice high resolution pictures of this highly anticipated offering from Auzentech. The HWC Audio Lab is pleased to present the Auzentech X-fi Home Theater HD 7.1 audio card.

Hardware Canuncks.

The PC audio industry has been kicked into high gear even though there have been some minor speed bumps along the way. This is great for the audio fans since it provides a plethora of new products offering features never before seen on any sound card. Throughout the last few months, the Hardware Canucks Audio Lab has been testing many exciting soundcards and audio products and today we get to present you with a sneak peak of another.

Within the last few days, we have received an exclusive engineering sample of the highly anticipated Xonar Essence STX. While in this sneak peak we will be taking a bit closer look at this card, please keep in mind the final production version may vary from the sample we have received. This is exactly why we will forgo the usual benchmarks....for the time being of course. This preview may be a bit short since we are currently waiting for fully functional beta drivers before auditioning it, but this should be enough to show you some of what the Essence has to offer.

Hardware Canucks.

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