Sights and Sounds of Multimedia

By George Harding

IOLO System Mechanic 7 …

Want to make your computer system run better and perhaps faster? Try this product!

Here’s what it does –

Fixes problems

Boosts performance

Eliminates crashes

Protects against spyware

Repairs security vulnerabilities

Backup, repair and restore system registry

Gets rid of unneeded files

Installation is pretty straightforward. One irritant was entering the license number. I made a mistake in the entry and was so informed when I clicked OK. But when I was redirected to the entry screen, my entry had been deleted, so I could not edit my entry and had to enter the whole set of characters again!

Once installed, SM7 analyzes your system and comes up with a list of problems to be fixed. There is a time associated with each item, which makes it easy to decide which to fix and which to delay. There is one big button that fixes all the problems, or you can pick and choose individual items.

There is an automated version of “scan and fix” which SM7 calls ActiveCare. You can select any or all operations available. ActiveCare then analyzes the system behind the scenes while the PC is idle and automatically repairs the selected items.

Each function of SM7 includes a list of subfunctions performed to accomplish a result. For example, the function Increase Performance means:

Defrag hard drive

Optimize Windows startup

Optimize Internet speed

Defrag memory

Compact registry

Configure boot-time defrag

Configure right-click defrag

The function Repair Problems means:

Remove spyware

Repair registry problems

Repair broken shortcuts

Repair and unbootable PC

Troubleshoot system problems

Each of these is explained clearly in the SM7 interface, so you can understand what is being done to your system. You don’t have to be a PC or Windows expert to use this product!

Another feature of SM7 is the ability to reverse any of its actions, which SM7 calls SafetyNet. If you don’t like the results of one of the functions, you can undo it, so as to revert to the unrepaired status. I’ve not had to do this, but it might come in handy if something goes wrong.

One other feature that is useful is the tally of repairs that have been made. For example, you can see at a glance how much space has been recovered since install by the Free Drive Space function.

The only problem I’ve had with SM7 is with the Defrag function. Windows has a tool to do this, of course, but it is only available for the Windows drive at startup. SM7 gives you the option to defrag while Windows is running. For me, however, the function stalls about a third of the way through and freezes my computer!

For those that are technologically impaired, SM7 provides an odometer display at the top of the main window that shows its analysis results of system health and system security. It’s easy to see if corrections are needed.

One other tool is available that may be useful to you, an email sent to you by SM7 showing in text form the results of its analysis of your PC. You must use the SM7 product to correct these problems.

There is the usual product update feature included, which will bring your installation current for the spyware database and other needed info.

The product works in Windows 98 and later, including Vista, requires 20 MB hard disk space, 256 MB RAM and a processor that is 400 MHz or faster. The SM7 license is good for up to three computers.

System Mechanic 7 by Iolo Technologies

Price about $50, including one year service, discount for upgrade.

Excel 2007, The Missing Manual …

This O’Reilly book of some 830 pages is one of a series of books to fill the omission of today’s products of a comprehensive manual of operation. In this case, it is not only a complete text of how to effectively use Excel 2007, but also a compilation of what’s new in Excel 2007. Excel has been around for many years and is one of the best Microsoft products available. Each new version, however, includes important changes that can be very valuable to current users.

New users can use this manual as a guide to understanding how Excel can be used to manipulate data to produce a desired result. This includes formulas, charts, databases and printouts.

Existing users will be interested in the new features of this release and the ease of accessing them. It has been said that Bill Gates, when reviewing Excel 2007, said he liked several of the new features. The developers said those weren’t new features and they had been there all along. This points out one of the important developments of the Office 2006 products, the easy accessibility of features. They are made more visible and easier to use.

I was more interested in the new features, being a long-time user of Excel and pretty familiar with all the previously embedded features. The 2007 version sets out seven major categories of actions, each with its own set of subfeatures. The standard display is called the Ribbon, on which the seven major categories form the first line. The next three lines show the features associated with that major category.

When you click on a major category, a different set of features is shown in the second three lines. There are the usual captions that appear when you hover over an item, so you should be in no doubt about what a feature does.

The Home category, for example, includes these features: font, alignment, number, styles, cells and editing. The Font feature gives you quick access to the most frequently used tools, such as style, size, text color and fill color. One new feature of this version of Excel (and the other Office applications) is the ability to show the effect of using a different format on a highlighted set of cells without actually selecting it.

One feature that has been substantially expanded is the styles option for cells. Here, you can choose one of some fifty different style combinations of color, text size, cell borders and arrangement to dress up your results. Here, too, if cells are highlighted, hovering over one of the style combinations applies that to the highlighted area so you can see how it would look if applied.

Previous versions of Excel had conditional formatting available, but were quite limited in scope. Excel 2007 has dramatically expanded the ways in which conditional formatting may be applied and how the result appears. Conditions can be expressed in many different ways for a range of cells and the resulting appearance can be varied substantially not only with colors, but with color bars of different lengths or with icons of various types.

One of the most useful tools in any version of Excel is the function. A function does something to produce a result. You may or may not know how Excel performs the function, but you know what the result is to be. For example, you may know how a square root is calculated, but you know what the result is.

Each version of Excel has added some new functions, and Excel 2007 is no exception. A couple of new ones are MROUND, LARGE and SMALL. MROUND rounds a number to the nearest multiple of a given number. LARGE and SMALL deal with the rank of numbers in a list. ROMAN is not new, but is so unusual that you might want to try it out. It translates an Arabic number into Roman numerals! Try it!

One helpful change in this version is the Save as PDF choice. PDF allows you to save to a file that others can read without having Excel, but which doesn’t lose any of the formatting. The viewer cannot, of course, make any changes to the underlying worksheet.

The file format in Excel 2007 has changed, but you can save files using a prior version of Excel if you need to. There is a tool available from Microsoft that allows a user without Excel 2007 to view these new files.

Excel 2007, The Missing Manual is a valuable desk reference, both for new users and experienced Excel users. It is readable, easy to use, has a useful index and has an appealing visual style.

O’Reilly Publications (Pogue Press) www.oreilly.com

Price about $40 print, $20 PDF.