Ironically, Google's search page and listings don't validate because of their use of invalid tags – font element for instance – and a number of other errors. But that doesn't matter, because they can take advantage of the HTML5 parsing rules with that doctype (for example: no type attribute on the script element).
Although that's all you need for HTML5 to be triggered, there's a lot more to HTML5 for you to play with. If you want something a little fuller, here's a typical boilerplate for HTML5, which includes the IE shiv (which I'll discuss later) and default HTML5 block styles:
In Depth: Which blogging platform should you choose?
Hosted blogging services have much to recommend them. Sure, there's a tendency among IT pros to see the sector as a virtual ghetto.
It's where teenagers go to rant about their parents and social media marketers republish other people's content. It's the choice of platform for quick and quirky types rather than serious site builders.
There's a hard caramel centre of truth in those observations, but the sweet chocolate coating is that if you dismiss these services out of hand, you may be missing out on a resource with plenty of potential, especially if your interest is in getting a site up and running rather than becoming an all-out system administrator.
Easy to use
First in the queue of useful benefits are ease of use and maintenance. Wordpress.com is among the more complex offerings in the world of hosted blogging.
If you can handle that, you can certainly cope with the tabbed configuration tools of Blogger or the set-up screen in LiveJournal.
Read TechRadar's Blogger review
Wordpress.com is almost identical to its software based sibling Wordpress.org, albeit without the access to all its plug-ins. Both share the same superb interface and let you customise everything. Many off-the-shelf blogging scripts require that you tweak parameters manually.
Read TechRadar's Wordpress review
A common feature with all hosted blogging platforms is that there's no hacking required; no need to edit CSS by hand (although you usually can if you want) or make your own templates from scratch. Blogger, for example, evolved from a platform that needed a degree of scripting knowledge to use into one that can now be configured entirely in your browser.
Web hosting at a professional level always incurs costs, but a hosted blogging platform can help to keep them down. The majority are free to sign up for and use, with premium features costing a little extra. Even then, fees are relatively light.
TypePad, effectively the hosted version of Movable Type, starts at a wallet-friendly $4.85 a month (about آ£35 a year), while the ad-free version of LiveJournal will set you back just $2 a month.
The right result
Every blogger wants to be read, and to be read you have to be found. Most hosted platforms offer community features, enabling your new posts to be publicised to friends who share the same interests as you.
LiveJournal, Blogger, Vox and Tumblr are among the sites that combine social media features with public blogging tools.
Read TechRadar's Tumblr review
Unlike Facebook or MySpace, your site isn't hidden behind a privacy wall, but you can block or ban disruptive users in most cases.
Don't underestimate the power of networking on these sites; you can gain followers in a number of ways – from site searches to category browsing or commenting on other people's blogs. Another advantage of taking the hosted route for your blog is search ranking.
Results from sites like LiveJournal, TypePad and Blogger are highly ranked on Google. That's because the patented Page Rank system favours sites with lots of links and lots of hits.
We should also note that Google and other engines are already primed to index these platforms. It can take some time for a newly hosted site on your own server space to even appear in results.
Of course, there are downsides. Where you gain ease of use you often lose control.
The hosted version of Wordpress lacks extensibility, one of the big selling points of the software version. The theme editor, though easier to use in its hosted incarnation, offers a limited number of templates for your site and fewer customisation options.
In addition, you have to pay a yearly fee for some services that would otherwise be free, such as mapping a domain to your blog instead of using http://yourname.wordpress.com.
Then there's the bane of many free services: putting up with other people's advertising. 'Free' services must be paid for somehow – and context-sensitive ads are usually how it's done. Some services even ban you from displaying your own adverts. You can always get rid of this, of course, but it comes at a price.
Wordpress.com, LiveJournal and TypePad all offer better customisation – notably the removal of adverts and more control over templates – as premium features. The fees are reasonable, but once you're paying anything, you do begin to wonder if it might not be easier to just host your own site.
Without premium features, you're also left with a credibility dilemma. It looks unprofessional if people can see that your site's hosted on a blogging service. That might not be important for hobbyists, but it could lose you custom if you're running a business.
However, whether you choose a hosted blog or opt to install you own software, it will only ever be as good as the content you put in it. If you're not too worried about high levels of professionalism, a free blogging solution might be just what you need to get your idea off the ground.
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Review: Hi-Grade Notino D8000W
Hi-Grade is a UK-based manufacturer that uses generic components to offer good value for money. The Notino D8000W an upgraded version of the Notino D8000 we reviewed a while back, featuring a high-end Intel Core 2 Duo processor and dedicated graphics.
The 2.53GHz processor provides impressive office performance, with the Windows 7 operating system running quickly and smoothly.
The 2048MB of memory included as standard lets this machine down slightly, however. It's less than you'll find on the other machines at this price, holding the D8000W back when it comes to multi-tasking.
Vibrant LCD screen
The 15.6-inch screen features good colour reproduction with vibrant images on offer from the glossy Super-TFT coating. It's not the brightest screen ever, which can hinder usability in direct sunlight.
The 1366 x 768-pixel resolution is standard for a machine of this size, resulting in reasonably crisp images.
Graphics are handled by an entry-level dedicated Nvidia G105M GPU, with enough power to run multimedia tasks with ease. You won't be able to play the latest games, but older titles will run without issue. High-definition videos also run smoothly.
Along with the Sony VAIO VPC-CW1S1E/R, this laptop features an isolated-style keyboard, with the keys sticking out of individual holes cut out in the chassis.
A benefit of this is that the keys are spaced further apart, making it easier to type at speed. It's a comfortable and responsive keyboard with a numeric keypad placed alongside, but it's also one of the noisiest keyboards we've used for a long time.
Although the design could be a little more interesting, it's still a neat and tidy laptop with the matt finish to the lid proving tactile and looking good. The overall quality of the chassis is very good, especially around the lid, offering plenty of protection for the display.
The 320GB hard drive offers plenty of storage space and it's easy to access and back up data to most popular memory card formats, thanks to the 3-in-1 flash memory card reader.
Networking features are good, with Gigabit Ethernet offering the fastest fixed connection speeds currently possible and 802.11a/g Wi-Fi providing wireless access. Unlike some of its rivals, Bluetooth isn't included as standard.
Three USB ports make it easy to connect peripherals and both VGA and HDMI ports are also in place.
Overall, Hi-Grade's Notino D8000W is a competent machine, only let down by its noisy keyboard and poor battery life. That said, it's unfortunately difficult to recommend this laptop over some of its excellent rivals.
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In Depth: Everything you need to know about HTML5
Is XHTML dead? In July, the XHTML2 working group announced it would be dropping the spec and closing the book on XHTML2. That's XHTML with a 2. Not XHTML.
XHTML is alive and well – it's just not getting the overhaul that was intended with XHTML2. If you're a developer or designer who writes markup, then you're possibly already using XHTML 1.0 or 1.1, strict, transitional or otherwise.
I'd also be willing to bet that if you're using it, you're using it to make use of stricter validation rules: lowercase tags, double quoted attributes, self-closing tags (like
) and so on – right?
Equally, if you're that type of designer or developer, you're probably also not serving it as true XHTML. Quite simply because Internet Explorer doesn't accept the application/ xhtml+xml mime type at all, which is a requirement for XHTML. This is old news, though.
The new news is that XHTML2 is dead. The idealist recommendation for the web didn't make it. Possibly because of the lack of backward compatibility, possibly for lots of reasons – the web was hot with discussion on the loss of the spec; the why, who and "whoh!".
However, there is hope. If you're the type of person who likes the strict rules of markup design that runs everything carefully through a validator then you'll be over the moon to know two things:
Firstly, HTML5 supports all the lowercase, self-closing tags, double quoted attributes – the works. And if you don't like these things, it supports that too!
Secondly, if you absolutely have to have XHTML in your bag of tricks, XHTML5 will satisfy your thirst. XHTML5 is quite simply HTML5 + XML, ie all the normal rules of XHTML, like no document. write allowed.
For it to be XHTML5, though, you must serve it as application/xml or application/ xhtml+xml (which isn't currently supported in IE). So HTML5 with lovely XHTML-style markup is the way I'll be going.
Before we dive into what's in HTML5 and what we have to do to get it going, though, I want to address the future: 2022. Aside from it being the year Queen Elizabeth II will celebrate her Platinum Jubilee (assuming she's still around), it's the date that's been inappropriately linked with HTML5 in the minds of many in our community. It's wrong.
In fact, HTML5 is ready to use today. So why the confusion? In an interview by Tech Republic, Ian Hickson, the editor of the HTML5 working draft, was asked to give a timeline of the HTML5 recommendation.
One date should have come out of that interview, but another, much further away did instead: 2022 – the date of the final proposed recommendation, which actually translates to: require at least two browsers to completely pass HTML5 test suites.
Let's put this in context of another spec that's taken a very long time: CSS2.1. CSS2.1 is CSS that I'm certain you're familiar with. I'm certain you use it day to day, without any thought as to whether it's a completed spec. Well, it's been in development for over 10 years, and it has only just become a candidate recommendation (23 April 2009).
Even then, it still doesn't have two browsers completely supporting it. Only Internet Explorer 8 supports the full CSS2.1 spec. Did that stop you from using CSS2.1? I suspect not. Will that stop us from using HTML5? It certainly shouldn't.
HTML5 is available and ready to use today. In fact, the really important HTML5 date is October 2009. This is the last call for the HTML5 working draft. That means that issues with the spec, enhancements, bugs, anything – it all needs to be in and submitted and written into the spec for October (although it can go through reiterations, this is the main deadline).
The Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG) is completely open for anyone to contribute their ideas and suggestions.
At the site, you can sign up to the mailing lists. You can communicate directly using IRC. And there's even a complete log of all the IRC history. It's all available from whatwg.org.
HTML5 in five seconds
So how do you get your markup to validate as HTML5? It's super easy: you change your DOCTYPE from whatever it is now to this:
That's it. It doesn't require anything more than that.
Google is doing it already. Check out its homepage, written all in one line:
Hello World
A note about the style and script elements in HTML5: these both no longer need the type attribute as they default to text/css and text/ javascript respectively, which just helps to remove a little more cruft from our markup.
More markup
Way back when we were laying pages out using the table element, we probably weren't aware of semantics and standards. Nowadays, we're using divs left right and centre.
The situation isn't terrible, because most of us are using semantic classes and ID naming conventions to describe what the function of the div is. Wouldn't it just be better if we had a header and footer element instead? HTML5 gives us exactly that.
One of the biggest assets to us authors of HTML5 is the new semantic markup. There's an arsenal of new elements that has been added to HTML5, and because of the 'pave the cowpaths' approach, these can be used by the browsers today (although some might need a little bit of prodding from JavaScript).
Here's a non-exclusive list of the new HTML5 elements that are available:
1) Block structure
article represents a component of a page that consists of a self-contained composition in a document, page, application, or site and that is intended to be independently distributable or reusable.
This could be a forum post, blog post, newspaper article, a user comment, or any other independent item of content.
aside is used to represent a section of content that is related to the content around the aside element, eg a pull quote or a sidebar.
footer is the footer to a section. This is not restricted to one use at the bottom of the page. You can also use the footer to mark up the footer of a blog post in addition to the footer of the entire document.
header represents a group of navigational aids, and is used to construct the document outline. You are also not restricted to using header only once; you could use this to mark up the author's name and the time of a comment placed on a blog post, for example.
nav is used to wrap major navigation blocks, such as table of contents, pagination links and breadcrumbs. Note that the nav element should be used for links that navigate around site, ie inappropriate for a list of sponsor links.
section is a generic document or application section. However, this isn't a replacement for the div element. A section is only appropriate if the element's contents would be listed explicitly in the document's outline.
2) Inline semantics
details is used to include additional info that the user can obtain on demand. An open attribute on the element determines whether its contents can be seen, and it can be toggled by the user or by JavaScript.
figure is used to annotate illustrations, photos, listings etc that, if moved away from the primary content, would not affect the flow of the document.
mark highlights a run of text, eg to mark the terms the user was searching for.
time is intended to encode modern dates and times in a machine-readable way. The datetime attribute on this element gives the machine readable time, whereas the contents is human readable.
3) Interactive elements
The following elements include DOM interface methods that allow them to function correctly. So if the browser hasn't implemented these elements specifically, they won't work. However, they all support fallbacks using nested elements within the tag to degrade down to a working solution.
audio and video are both types of media elements. They enable you to embed audio and video directly into the browser without any need for plug-ins. However, where support is lacking in the browser, best practice suggests that you should fall back to Flash plug-ins. You can either let the browser render the chrome for the element, or take control via JavaScript to create a bespoke interface.
source is a child element to audio and video. It enables you to specify multiple alternative sources for the media element. For example, Firefox doesn't support the WAV audio format, so you can specify an alternative source in Ogg Theora format.
canvas is a 2D drawing element that can be accessed using JavaScript to render graphics on the fly – for example, for games, graphs or animations.
4) Compatibility
Where the new elements aren't relying on a new DOM interface to be available to the browser, the element is available to you right now. The media elements audio and video have a new DOM interface, so only those browsers that have specifically implemented these media elements will be able to offer native audio or video.
However, this shouldn't hold you back from using these elements. If you use the video element and it's not supported in the browser, its contents will be rendered. For example, for my video element, I'll first provide an Ogg Theroa-encoded video, then QuickTime, then finally degrade down to Flash if the video element isn't supported:
However, there are a couple of browsers that do have trouble seeing the new elements natively. In particular, all versions of Internet Explorer can't see the elements by default, and as such they can't be styled without the help of a bit of JavaScript.
Firefox 2 and Camino 1 have a bug in the Gecko rendering engine that causes the DOM to render incorrectly. However, Firefox 2 had its A-grade support dropped earlier this year, and Firefox has a very solid upgrade path (hence why they've been dropped from A-grade support in the first place).
Camino has version 2 in beta, but it hasn't been released just yet (and arguably, it's not an A-grade browser). However, there are a few ways to fix Firefox 2 and Camino 1 and you can read about them here.
Fixing Internet Explorer
So, Internet Explorer is problematic. What's new, right? The fix is actually incredibly simple, and if you're using any of the new DOM APIs or HTML5 JavaScript APIs, the requirement for JavaScript is justified.
Sjoerd Visscher first posted about this solution whereby Internet Explorer is able to style any element so long as you run the following code:
document.createElement('myelement');
Now myelement can be styled using CSS in Internet Explorer. We also have an HTML5 shiv to enable all the HTML5 elements for Internet Explorer. So long as this script is included in the head element, then you'll be able to style the document correctly:
If JavaScript isn't enabled, the document will be displayed as if CSS hadn't been applied to the document, which (given that we're used to writing semantic standards-based markup) means all the content is accessible and readable regardless.
Default HTML5 styles
As with any browser, all the default styles for all elements are part of the browser. Since the browsers don't really know about these new elements by default, we need to give the block elements their initial default styles. This is fixed by including the following CSS in your style sheet:
header, nav, section, article, figure, aside, footer { display: block; }
But wait: it's more than just markup. HTML5 is much, much more than just markup changes. There's also the Web Forms 2.0 spec in HTML5 which means we don't have to use JavaScript to do the basic form validation that we've all repeated time and time again.
You've also seen how the audio and video elements can be interactive. They expose a DOM interface that JavaScript can interact with. Included in the HTML5 spec is a host of JavaScript APIs, along with a bunch of JavaScript APIs that used to be in the spec and have since been moved out to their own specs. New HTML5 JavaScript APIs include:
Drag and Drop – native JavaScript dragging, which also works across browser windows. Currently available in IE8, Firefox 3.5 and Safari 4.
Inline editing – enabling the user to edit content visibly on the page without an editor; the changes can then be used as the input to a CMS.
History API – to support Ajax-based applications and saving states in the history to move back and forth between.
Cross-domain messaging – allowing messages to be communicated across different domains. This is available in IE8, Firefox 3.5, Safari 4 and Opera 10.
Offline applications – enabling users to continue to use your web application even without a web connection. Available in Safari 4 (and iPhone Safari) and Firefox 3.5.
The specs are changing all the time, leading up to the last call (in October 2009).
Some of the other interesting JavaScript APIs include:
Local storage – two types of storage, key/value pair and SQL based to store data associated with your application.
Web workers – basically threading for JavaScript.
Geolocation – an API to retrieve the latitude and longitude.
New selector API – document. querySelectorAll uses CSS syntax to find elements in the DOM.
Web sockets – for TCP/IP type socket communication.
HTML5 is here to stay. The semantic elements are ready to be used today, and a decent amount of the JavaScript APIs are available in the latest browsers to be played with and integrated into your cutting edge applications. So go play!
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Review: Acer Aspire 5810TG-354932Mn
We've seen a number of Acer Aspire Timeline products over the past year, and have been impressed by excellent battery lives and mobility. The Aspire 5810TG looks set to continue this, thanks to its CULV components, slim design and a weight of just 2.4kg.
The 15.6-inch screen is one of the better options, using LED backlighting to offer vibrant and bright images. It's sharp and the widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio offers more than enough space to view two windows side by side.
The keyboard offers an excellent typing action, with large flat keys that are firmly attached. The fact there's no definition to the keys won't suit all users and means you'll have to type precisely, but it's easy to adjust to. The keys also offer a decent travel and are comfortable to type on.
The quality of the chassis is excellent and, despite measuring just 31mm at its thickest, it's tough and remains free from flex. It also remains cool to the touch and is comfortable for long periods of use.
Materials such as aluminium have been used for the lid, adding a premium feel and helping to keep the weight down, making this a highly portable choice.
The ultra-low voltage Intel Core 2 Solo processor is a single-core solution and lags behind the other machines here when it comes to multi-tasking. We found the Acer slow to start up, but this can be helped immensely by uninstalling any of the standard applications that you don't need.
Things are a lot more impressive once up and running – aided by 4096MB of high-speed DDR3 memory – and single applications run smoothly and without issues.
With every component designed around power efficiency, it came as a surprise to find that the battery life, under test, only lasted for a disappointing 195 minutes. This falls behind all the other Acer Timeline machines we've seen.
Multimedia abilities
Unlike previous Timeline products, the 5810TG is also a capable choice when it comes to light multimedia tasks, with an ATi graphics card making light work of high-definition video playback and simple movie editing.
That said, look elsewhere if gaming power is high on your agenda. Four USB ports provide connectivity for your peripherals, along with VGA and HDMI interfaces for external displays.
802.11n Wi-Fi and Gigabit Ethernet are also in place, offering the fastest wireless and fixed network speeds currently available.
The Aspire 5810TG is a good laptop, that will suit commuters wanting a larger machine. It lacks the power and battery life of the other laptops here, however, although its impressive quality and comfort round off the specification and compensate somewhat.
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In Depth: 4 of the best Mac hard disk recovery tools
The hard disk at the heart of your Mac is a fragile tool. Not only can the data on it go awry, but the disk itself can also fail, leaving you with nothing.
There's not much you can do about a physical failure other than keep a regular backup, but the software side of things is a bit more manageable.
Disk tools for Macs have been around for a long time. Some (such as Norton) have gone, but others are still with us, protecting our data from corruption and optimising our drives for speed of access. But how do you choose which one to use?
We've gathered four disk utility tools and compared them with each other to see which offers the best performance, specification and value for money. We'll look at how easy they are to use and how well they perform.
Of course, hard-disk tools have to be able to recover, repair and make hard disks faster, but the extra features are important too, so we'll be awarding points for added functionality.
Bringing back a dead system might be priceless, but we'll be taking a stern look at what you get for your cash too. You need to know that when the data on your hard disk does stop working, the hard disk tool you've invested in can solve your problem – a one-stop recovery shop, as it were.
In essence, it should be the type of software you only have to use once in a blue moon, precisely because it does its job properly, and that's exactly what we'll be looking for here.
The test software
DiskTools Pro 3.0.2 - آ£49
DiskWarrior 4.1.1 - آ£99
Drive Genius 2 - آ£69
TechTool Pro 5 - آ£100
Test one: How much does it cost to rescue your precious data?
You might think that rescuing your data is priceless, but there comes a point where it's simpler to just format your disk and restore from a backup.
Obviously, if you don't have a backup then you'd probably be willing to spend a little more to get your precious data back, but, even so, there are limits.
PRICE: TechTool Pro offers a lot more for your money in terms of features and functionality
We're not simply giving the cheapest utility here the most marks, though DiskTools Pro is certainly a compelling buy at just آ£49. We're also assessing these utilities on what they do… over and above the call of duty. What else do you get from your cash?
Bottom of the pile in this respect is DiskWarrior, which offers few extra features other than the directory rebuilding and hard disk graphing. At nearly آ£100, we expect more from our applications.
TechTool Pro and Drive Genius certainly offer much more functionality for your money. Price may not be everything when it comes to rescuing the data on your hard disk, but it's certainly a consideration and here we have a clear loser.
Test two: Critical software needs to be simple to use
Making disk utilities easy to use isn't such a simple job; you've got to make them friendly enough so that anyone can use them, but also powerful enough so that they are capable of fixing any errors. Here we found that all the applications manage to walk that fine line with aplomb.
DiskWarrior does the least of all the utilities on test, but still manages to make what it does do easy enough to follow. But we were torn between the other three utilities.
Drive Genius looks impressive with its swooping and rotating interface, but at times it feels a bit overdone. TechTool Pro looks impressive, although sometimes it throws up error messages and warnings that mean little at face value.
EASE OF USE: DiscTools Pro takes a simple, intuitive approach to its interface for ease of use
We like the simplistic interface of DiskTools Pro – simply select the disk you wish to repair or optimise, click the relevant icon and that's the test you're running.
We rated TechTool Pro slightly higher than the others, on account of its user interface, but it's representative of how easy to use these applications are that they all scored so highly.
Test three: Which utility has the most tests and options?
DiskWarrior loses quite badly here. It may well be one of the longest serving Mac disk utilities, but it really is a one-trick pony when it comes to fixing your Mac.
That's not necessarily a bad thing, as it's actually an incredibly useful directory management tool, however that's all you get for your money. Yes, you can run it from the supplied DVD, enabling you to repair your system disk, but even then there are no additional features.
FEATURES: Along with Drive Genius, TechTool Pro sports a number of well thought-out features
DiskTools Pro has some useful tools, but the top performers in this test are Drive Genius and TechTool Pro. You may not need all the various functions and features these two offer, but it's nice to have them all the same.
We couldn't really prise these two apps apart – although they have differing options, the two are equally compelling. We liked the live partition tool of Drive Genius in particular, as well as TechTool Pro's eDrive function – a helpful emergency partition to run when things go wrong.
Test four: Letting you know when things are about to go wrong
They say it's better to prevent a problem than to have to fix one, so we tested each application for its ability to spot potential problems and let us know when things might be about to fail.
DiskWarrior enables you to test the S.M.A.R.T status of disks and provide an alert, via the program itself, an email or AppleScript.
DiskTools Pro goes a step further, breaking down the individual tests to see what the status of each is, and you can edit how often the test is run. The application can also perform a data transfer integrity test to let you know how well a disk is performing.
Drive Genius lacks S.M.A.R.T status checking or alerts, but does have an integrity check; but by far and away the best tool for prewarning of potential failure is TechTool Pro.
It comes with a system preferences pane that monitors your Mac for S.M.A.R.T status and volume usage, enabling you to chose when and if warnings are given. If your hard disk is running too close to capacity, TechTool Pro lets you know.
Test five: Keeping your hard disk in the best of health
TechTool Pro and Drive Genius are again ahead of the curve here, with tools to make sure that the data on your hard disk is in the optimal place for speed of access. TechTool Pro has file and volume optimisation utilities.
Drive Genius has a defragment tool and also the DriveSlim option, which runs five separate functions aimed at making your hard disk more slimline. Large files not used in the last 30 days, duplicate files, unused localisation resources and temporary cache items can all be identified and removed.
OPTIMISATION: DiskTools Pro enables you to test a hard disk before and after defragmentation
DiskTools Pro has a handy benchmarking tool so that you can test your hard disk performance before and after defragmentation, as well as other optimisation routines. You might only see minor speed increases, but at least you'll know the effort was worth the while.
DiskWarrior is once again at the back of the queue, with nothing to offer in this round. You could argue that keeping the directory structure healthy enhances speed, but nothing in the interface alludes to this.
Test results
How fast are these disk utilities in an emergency?
The speed of a disk utility in operation can be a difficult thing to judge, since it depends upon the complexity of the problem and the amount of data on your hard disk. However, a decent interface that lets you know how far along things are and just how long you might be waiting can be useful.
In this regard, TechTool Pro is excellent. Clearly the interface has been thought through and no matter what tool you're using, you're kept up to date with what's going on every step of the way.
The other applications here all use the trusty progress bar, which is fine, if a little uninspired.
STATUS UPDATES: TechTool Pro takes delight in informing you of your Mac's status
Having said that, all the applications here are slow. This isn't a criticism per se, as there's no substitute for thorough and determined action when it comes to disk recovery. Just don't expect a speedy and simple fix to any problem.
DiskTools Pro managed to defrag a drive in about 17 minutes, but that wasn't much faster than Drive Genius, at 22 minutes. If speed is something you're after, you'll not find it here.
The Winner: TechTool Pro 5
There's always a chance that none of these tools will fix your problem and, in that case, you'll feel they're a bit useless. However, we can only rate them on how they performed for us.
Drive Genius 2 was a close contender and DiskTools Pro a decent application; even DiskWarrior does what little it does very well, but there was one standout performer. From the outset, TechTool Pro 5 made most of the running in this four-horse race.
For starters there's the excellent interface, which makes things simple even for the most tech-phobic Mac user. Under the hood, however, the range and depth of tools available is excellent. None of the utilities were particularly fast, but TechTool Pro certainly had the best working interface.
TechTool Pro is the most expensive option, but it's worth every penny. The other apps are all perfectly adequate, and some features, such as Drive Genius's partition and duplicate file search functions, are useful enough. But TechTool Pro has to be the overall winner.
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Google expands tracking to logged out users
Anyone who's a regular Google search user will know that the only way to avoid the company tracking your online activities is to log out of Gmail or whatever Google account you use. Not any more.
As of last Friday, even searchers who aren't logged into Google in any way have their data tracked in the name of providing a 'better service'.
Anonymous cookie
The company explained: "What we're doing today is expanding Personalized Search so that we can provide it to signed-out users as well. This addition enables us to customise search results for you based upon 180 days of search activity linked to an anonymous cookie in your browser."
However, if you've previously been a fan of the log-out method to avoid being tracked, there's still the option to disable the cookie by clicking a link at the top right of a search results page.
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Marking 40 years of the internet with balloons
Forty years after the internet first took shape in the form of the ARPANet in the US, an unusual challenge seeking to test the power of online communication has been won by a university team.
A group from MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, managed to solve a geographical puzzle set by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA.
Secret locations
To take home the DARPA Network Challenge's $40,000 (آ£24,000) first prize, the team had to use online social networking to find ten red weather balloons that DARPA had moored in secret locations across the US.
By successfully doing so and completing the task in under nine hours, the MIT winners beat off the challenges of more than 4,000 rivals across the US.
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LEDs to beat barcodes for sharing data?
We've seen light used as a way to transfer information in public settings before, but very little of such technology has made it off the drawing board recently. Nevertheless, there are high hopes for a new method using LEDs to speak to mobile phones.
The technique comes from NEC and Toshiba, whose researchers are suggesting that flashing LEDs embedded in advertising hoardings could easily transmit binary data containing relevant information to phone cameras.
No limits
While there are already any number of ways of transferring information to phones, the LED method would have an advantage in that it could stream a limitless amount of data.
Conversely, barcodes – whether one- or two-dimensional – are restricted in how much they can hold by their size. Light strobing on and off up to four million times a second could clearly convey considerably more.
The companies say they hope to commercialise some version of the LED system by 2013, almost certainly in Japan at first.
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Wedding stops for Twitter, Facebook posts
In an attention-seeking move that's already brought a hail of scorn down on Twitter users, a US man has microblogged about his wedding not just at the reception or church, but actually from the altar.
Dana Hanna from Maryland stopped what he was doing as he and his wife were about to be pronounced and posted to both Twitter and Facebook: "Standing at the altar with @TracyPage where just a second ago, she became my wife! Gotta go, time to kiss my bride."
Pinhead backlash
The minister, who was in on the stunt, then concluded with the words: "As I was saying, I now pronounce you husband and wife. It's now official on Facebook. It's official in my book. Dana you may kiss your bride."
As might be expected, the SNS-centric wedding and an accompanying video soon became an object of ridicule for talkshow hosts across the US, with Jay Leno, Regis and Kelly and even Bill O'Reilly denouncing Hanna as a "pinhead" among other epithets.
Answering back
Hanna's response? Naturally, he posted it on Twitter: "To all the criticizers of my video out there questioning my sanity: You don't get it. I was having fun at MY wedding! Loosen up, have fun!"
Lastly, in case you're curious, Hanna's wife @TraceyPage is no more – naturally, even her Twitter handle has changed, making her @TracyMarieHanna instead.
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