sneak peeks

Home Office Computing, May, 1999 by Cristina Gair

AN UP-TO-THE-MINUTE REPORT ON NEW HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE

Hanging on Your Every Word

Sure, your PC does all your home office chores, but is it a good listener? If you think you're being ignored, switch to Plantronics' new headset, designed exclusively for speech recognition software. The Monaural Speech Recognition Headset, priced at $25, consists of a lightweight flexible headband with a single earpiece, noise-canceling microphone, and QuickAdjust microphone boom. Looking for more sound? Check out the Lightweight Stereo Headset, a $40 version suitable for both dictation software and audio CD or other multimedia listening; it also includes a volume control and microphone on-off switch. How if only our pets listened to us this well. Plantronics, 800-544-4660, www.plantronics.com

Mobile Motor Mouths

Call us restless, but when we're on the phone, we like to roam around. With Hello Direct's Cordless XLT headset, we can stroll from our home office to the kitchen, living room, or anywhere within 100 feet of the base unit. There's no complicated setup, either--according to Hello Direct, the headset configures itself and works with any analog or digital phone. The six-ounce device works for up to four hours with a standard NiCad battery, or up to nine hours with a $70 optional NiMH battery; it operates on the 900MHz cordless frequency with 40 selectable channels. An optional ReadiLine product ($80) lifts your desk phone's handset off its cradle so you can answer calls with the headset while away from your desk. Hello Direct, 800-444-3556, www.hellodirect.com; $400

USB MANIA

Plug-and-play is the trend of the day--and with Universal Serial Bus, your PC or Mac can connect to a cornucopia of peripherals. The SOHO-USB04 from Umax Technologies (800-562-0311, www.umax.com; $45)is a four-port USB hub that lets you add USB devices or additional hubs (for a total of 127). Do you want to use non-USB devices with your Apple iMac? Get iDock, a new six-port hub that adds two serial ports, one parallel port, and three additional USB ports. Computable, 800-344-6921, www.compucable.com, $20

Where Did I Put That URL?

We all know the Internet is the world's most disorganized research library. To bring order to this awesome clutter, Webforia's Organizer captures either partial or whole Web pages to create your very own library. Ideal for online researchers who need to check out the competition or finish some home office work, Organizer's ClipBar saves the pages you need for more precise research. And the previous data will remain in your library even when the page is refreshed by its content developers. Unfortunately for Netscape Navigator fans, Organizer works only with Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Webforia, 425-401-6500, www.webforia.com; $80

UPDATES

Web zealots cry that "information wants to be free," and now the Internet is free--for new Gateway customers. The South Dakota PC manufacturer provides one year's free access (up to 150 hours per month) through Gateway. net, its Internet service provider (ISP), with the purchase of any desktop or notebook worth more than $1,000. Additional time is $1.50 per hour. If you want to buy a Gateway but stick with your current ISP, you get a $75 credit.

PC notebook prices continue to fall, and now prices of Apple's PowerBook G3 line of Macs are following suit, dropping by as much as $800. Base prices for the 14.1-inch, active-matrix-screen laptop now range from $2,299 (for a 233MHz starter model) to $3,699 (for a 300MHz screamer). Check it out at store, apple, com.

Give your Web site a trim with GloPro's newest WebOverdrive compression utility. The program can squeeze your Web site by 20 to 35 percent, depending on its content, speeding up downloads and saving server space. Get a freeware version to try it out, then upgrade to the $29 Standard version, at www. weboverdrive.glopro.com.

Thanks to Seattle FilmWorks and Excite joining up, Excite users can get free postings of scanned photos on the Web when processing photos at FilmWorks. Visit www.excite. com or www.filmworks.com for information.