In an effort to make laptop computing as painless as possible, many companies have designed trays and pads on which you can easily rest your laptop while you work. This week, I’ve been testing a few laptop trays that are designed specifically to cool hot laptops and, in turn, cool laps.

I tried out trays from Logitech (LOGI), Microsoft (MSFT) and Belkin that cost $30 each and use fans to cool the underside of the laptop, as well as a larger $50 Belkin tray that has a fan and some extra features. I tried a $20 tray from Kensington that doesn’t include a fan, but elevates the laptop to allow air to circulate under it and keep the hot computer off your lap. None of the trays had cushions for comfort.

Logitech Cooling Pad N100

Of the trays with fans, Logitech’s Cooling Pad N100 ran the quietest — so quiet that it was hard to tell if it was on, aside from the fact that my lap was cooler. The trays with fans kept my lap cool, but the Kensington tray didn’t work quite as well and left my lap feeling a bit warmer than the others. All the trays raise the laptop higher and closer to eye level, a feature that keeps you from hunching over while reading the screen. I liked the $50 Belkin Laptop Cooling Lounge for its generous size, sturdy feel and three adjustable heights.

Even though these trays help to keep your laptop cooler, they don’t do anything about your keyboard, which, on some laptops, also can get hot — especially where your wrists rest. I noticed that my Lenovo ThinkPad X60’s wrist rest area was still warm when I used this laptop with each tray.

Of the $30 trays, the Logitech Cooling Pad N100 (Logitech.com) was the widest, measuring 14.4 inches across. Its gray and green colors are a welcome switch from the bland white used on most trays. The fan on this and the other trays is powered by a short USB cable that plugs into a USB port on your laptop. An indent in the Logitech tray holds the cable flush against the bottom of the tray when not in use.

Logitech says its tray’s single fan has a minimal drain on your laptop’s battery — draining five minutes of total battery time while using a Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) laptop playing a DVD in one company test. I don’t think many people will use these cooling trays on-the-go and will, instead, use them at home where their laptop can easily plug into a wall socket and power isn’t a problem.

Microsoft’s $30 Notebook Cooling Base (Microsoft.com/hardware) will come in white and black when it’s available early this summer (Amazon is accepting orders now). Compared with the Logitech, its fan was a little noisy. But the Microsoft tray was considerably smaller and thinner, making it more portable.

The tray has a fold-away stand that raises it up about two inches on one end. Its USB cable has a clip on its end so that it can loop around and attach to itself, rather than tuck neatly into the tray. Microsoft says that based on an 18 Ampere per hour battery, the Notebook Cooling Base will lessen battery life by only about 4%.

Belkin’s $30 Laptop Cooling Pad (Belkin.com) reminded me of Microsoft’s offering in shape and size. Both are square, unlike the rectangular Logitech tray, and both have flip-out stands and a wave-like shape that leaves open space under the laptop. Belkin says that its Laptop Cooling Pad uses no more than 5% of a laptop’s battery. But the Belkin fan was slightly louder than Microsoft’s and considerably louder than Logitech’s. It also seemed to be a bit stronger, blowing more air than the others.

Belkin’s Laptop Cooling Lounge (available at OfficeMax.com) was the largest tray I tested, wider and deeper than the Logitech tray by a few inches in width and depth. A piece under the tray can be adjusted to raise it to one of three heights, allowing it to rest comfortably on a lap because it raises up or down using a roll of plastic rather than a stand that might dig into your thighs. This tray’s fan was louder than the Microsoft and Logitech fans, but I ignored the noise because it was so comfortable.

When closed, the $20 Kensington LiftOff Portable Notebook Cooling Stand (Kensington.com) resembles a one-inch thick plastic briefcase with handles. Once the stand is opened, one piece lies flat while the other piece is raised to one of two heights, elevating the laptop. The top raised piece supports the laptop and has a hole in the center, designed to allow air to pass under the laptop, thus cooling it off without a fan. However, this no-fan method left my lap feeling a bit warm. When you’re done with the Kensington LiftOff, you can close it shut and carry it using its built-in handles. But its plastic parts felt flimsy and unstable, especially compared with the Belkin Laptop Cooling Lounge.

Of course, you could always just use a regular laptop tray without a built-in fan. It won’t cool your laptop, but if it’s thick enough, it at least could prevent your lap from feeling the computer’s direct heat. Just be aware that hot wrist rests won’t be cooled by these trays.

Edited By Walter S. Mossberg

• Email us at mossbergsolution@wsj.com. Find this and other columns and videos online free at the All Things Digital Web site: http://solution.allthingsd.com

A query on hotels in Italy might lead you to select a link about Florence, then two links about Michelangelo and four links to Italian Renaissance art. Suddenly, the home page for a carefully researched hotel is forgotten. It’s especially tough to backtrack through research using new sites with rich Web 2.0 features that display extra data directly within a Web page.

Some people try to organize Web research by opening Microsoft Word documents alongside their browsers. They copy and paste data from sites into the documents, but this is usually a messy process that traps users into wasting time fixing formats and deleting ads. Others press Print whenever a helpful site appears, resulting in wasted paper and ink. Savvier users create folders within their Web browsers that hold multiple URLs about a research topic, but these data can’t easily be shared or printed for use away from the PC.

The HP Smart Web Printing Software gathers Web content into one document that can be printed.

There’s a better way, and this week I took it for a spin. I tested the HP Smart Web Printing Software, a free program from Hewlett-Packard Co. that aims to help users compile a virtual clip book of content from Web sites while they’re browsing, within the same window. Using a tool in the browser, users highlight and copy images and text from a Web page and add them to the clip book. These clips can be edited, enhanced, saved as a PDF or printed out, without excess banner ads or sidebars.

I tried a version of this program that will be available for download at the end of next month from www.hp.com/go/smartwebprinting. It improves on the first version of the program (available now using the same URL) in various ways, including allowing you to add your own text to the clip book and crop clip-book items.

HP Smart Web Printing Software isn’t without its quirks: It only works on Windows computers, not Macs, and only with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 6.0 and 7.0. Not everything copies over to the clip book perfectly. Also, typed-in text has its limits: changing the font type, size or color of one word changes all words in the text box.

But all in all, I found this smart program to be a real boon. It’s unobtrusive enough to stay hidden until used, and you’ll remember how it works even if you only use the program once in a while. It functions as a printing assistant, helping to send certain sections of a Web site to the printer, and it will also save whatever you’re working on as a PDF — the universal format for sharing with others.

H-P likes to tout its HP Smart Web Printing Software’s environmentally friendly qualities, namely its ability to print just what you want, without wasting ink or paper on extra pages that would otherwise print. But make no mistake about it: This product, while helping users not to print extra items from Web sites, still encourages users to print, thus helping H-P sell more of its high-margin ink and paper.

I used the program to trim content from Web sites, printing more of what I wanted to read in fewer pages. I focused on this program’s clip-book functionality, which works as a bare-bones virtual scrapbook to organize research.

I downloaded and used the newest version of this free program on computers running Windows Vista and XP operating systems. I came across a few items that, when highlighted and moved over to the clip book, didn’t actually move, but most of the text and image clips moved without a problem. H-P explained that some images are rendered on Web sites in such a way so as to not be copied for copyright and protection purposes.

A small HP Smart Select icon appears in the Internet Explorer command bar after this program is downloaded; selecting it toggles its highlighting capability on or off. By default, the clip book is hidden from view, but a quick change in settings opens this on the right edge of the Internet Explorer window.

The HP Smart Web Printing program proved useful for online-shopping research. I’ve been gathering a lot of information from various Web sites to find a special new handbag for work, including which bag is sold where, how much it costs and what it looks like.

When I saw a bag that interested me, I selected it by holding the left mouse button down and moving my cursor over the text or image. Releasing the left mouse button automatically opens a tiny drop-down menu with two simple options: clip (place in the clip book) or print (send directly to the printer). Items that I clipped were moved into the right panel clip book in order of most recently added items at the top.

A helpful checkbox appeared beside each item in the clip book; items without checkmarked boxes weren’t visible when I edited clips. Within the editing screen, I dragged and dropped images around the page, organizing bags in ascending price order. I resized photos to make them smaller or larger and cropped a couple shots such as an image of a black leather bag with an unrelated text description below it.

I filled the equivalent of two clip-book pages with images of bags and brief descriptions of each, copied directly from store sites. I added my own text boxes in to write my impressions. As I worked, opening the edit screen and closing it to return to the browser, I clicked on a simple Save button so my work wouldn’t be lost each time I closed this screen. When finished, I selected one button to save the document as a PDF, which I could email to friends for their feedback on which bag they liked best.

In another test, I assembled a clip book filled with various news blurbs about presidential campaigns from online sites including WSJ.com and CNN.com before printing a single page that included bits and pieces from each in a neat format without ads on the page.

I also tried organizing a few maps in the clip book; these copied from Google Maps and Yahoo Maps without a problem, and in one instance I cropped a map to include just the section of Manhattan where The Wall Street Journal is located.

The more I used this program, the more I wished it offered the ability to work with two clip books at once. For instance, if I was planning a trip and was researching hotels and tourist attractions at the same time, I could clip the hotel data into one book and store the touristy information in the other.

H-P says it will release a version of this program for Mozilla’s Firefox browser sometime in the next six months, and it also hopes to introduce a version that is compatible with Apple’s Safari browser within a year.

The HP Smart Web Printing program is a useful free solution that organizes online research right in your browser. Its ability to modify and preview documents before printing is also a help.

Email mossbergsolution@wsj.com

This week, I tested a product that marries prints with the digital frame: Hewlett-Packard’s $249 HP Photosmart A826 Home Photo Center.

The A826 is the latest in H-P’s series of compact countertop home snapshot printers, meant to turn out small photos quickly. But it has an unusual form, with a large seven-inch screen that also allows for images to be displayed in slide shows, like a digital picture frame. This touch-screen also lets users edit shots using a finger or stylus. Pressing one button prints the image in about a minute and a half.

HP Photosmart A826 Home Photo Center

This new model, due in stores this weekend, is meant to work as a home photo kiosk, so it’s a bit bigger than H-P’s compact photo printers, which have built-in handles for portability and take up less space. The A826 is also pricier than these smaller printers — $70 more than the newest model.

I liked the idea behind this photo printer, editing station and digital frame. Its large screen, 5.6 inches of which are used for the photos, was a welcome change to most photo printers with preview screens that can’t be seen without squinting. But I was disappointed by some of the A826’s features. The newly added ability to draw on images, for example, yielded results that looked fine on-screen but printed out looking like scribble. Removing red eye didn’t seem to improve images on the screen; only when printed did these shots appear red-eye free. And the touch-screen wasn’t as sensitive as I would’ve liked, requiring a few tries to get some buttons to respond.

I couldn’t help but compare the A826 with standalone digital frames. Unlike almost all such frames, the A826 lacks internal storage meaning that in order to keep a slide show going, a memory card, USB drive or camera would need to be plugged into the device. Some digital frames also come with built-in wireless networking to pull images from the Web; the A826 doesn’t have this capability.

This device is hard to miss. Its rounded edges are covered in a stylish white plastic, and the screen is surrounded by black and a pretty shade of pale blue, making it look like a prop from the Jetsons cartoon. It measures roughly the same width as H-P’s compact photo printers, but stands more than twice as tall with the screen at the top so users don’t have to bend as far down to see images. Photo paper measuring 4 by 6 or 5 by 7 inches feeds into the back of the printer in a neat, enclosed compartment that holds up to 100 sheets.

A tiny speaker on the front side of the A826 emits cutesy chimes whenever the device powers on or finishes printing a photo, which I liked. It also uses its large screen for illustrating how to perform tasks like loading paper or inserting a print cartridge.

I got started using the HP Photosmart A826 for its digital frame capabilities, inserting my digital camera’s SecureDigital memory card into a slot below the viewing screen and queuing up about 400 images from my memory card. Images appear on the screen six at a time and in the bottom left corner of each there is a white circle, which can be touched to give it a red checkmark, putting it in the slide-show queue. Tapping the center of any shot magnifies it for editing.

I marked about 30 photos and played them in succession by touching a Slideshow button on the far right edge of the screen. This touchscreen button and others — representing Menu, Back, Print, Scroll Left and Scroll Right — line the left and right black borders of the screen. Only the buttons that make sense to choose at any given time will glow, so users know which ones can be selected and, therefore, can navigate a little easier. For instance, in the Get Creative editing menu, only the Scroll Left, Scroll Right and Back buttons glow.

I folded up a flap that covers the memory-card slots and left my slide show playing for a while on my kitchen counter. It worked like a digital picture frame, for the most part. If the A826 isn’t used for about 10 minutes, it will automatically switch into slide-show mode — a feature I found useful for moments when I didn’t remember that I left it on. This automatic slide show switches over to a black screen after about an hour, though programmed slide shows stay on until turned off.

Touching the screen when an image appears, mid-slide show, will pause the slide show for editing or printing. I used my finger to do simple editing, and most options are offered in large touch-screen buttons, though in more than one instance I had to press buttons with my finger a few times to get them to work. A small white stylus helped, especially for drawing on photos.

I drew cartoon bubbles coming out of people’s mouths and wrote little messages like, “Hey y’all!” bubbling from a Texan friend in a shot from her trip to Europe. These touches can be done in different colors and line thicknesses, and mistakes can easily be erased. They looked good on-screen, but when printed, turned pixilated and detracted from the photo.

I tried some more normal photo editing, such as cropping photos, enhancing a photo’s brightness and removing red eye. The last of these options didn’t work so well in my photos, seeming to leave eyes glowing on the screen. When I printed these shots for the sake of testing, I realized that red eye was actually removed in almost all instances. But this is confusing for users who don’t want to waste ink and paper finding out whether or not the image was corrected.

I found the A826’s most useful photo-enhancing option to be the ability to add captions to shots. These can be entered by using an on-screen keyboard, choosing from five fonts and six colors. The caption can be dragged around the screen to test where it will look best. These typed fonts looked professional and neat, especially compared with my own drawn-on editing.

Printing on the HP Photosmart A826 worked without a problem. It comes with five 5-by-7-inch sheets of paper enough ink for 20 4-by-6-inch prints. Value packs of paper and ink for 120 4-by-6-inch prints cost $35. The printer automatically detects whether it’s loaded with photo paper measuring 5-by-7 or 4-by-6 inches, and prints accordingly. A 5-by-7-inch shot takes a bit longer to print, but looked rather good.

The HP Photosmart A826 seems like it was designed with good intentions, and its large touchscreen is an improvement all on its own. But too many features of this device didn’t work the way they should, from red eyes that didn’t appear fixed on-screen to the touchscreen that didn’t always respond right away. H-P will find an eager audience with this home photo kiosk, but it needs improvement.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Email: mossbergsolution@wsj.com

• Kodak Gallery
  (www.kodakgallery.com)

This is a solid site for sharing albums with friends in a few straightforward steps. Though its options for editing photos tend to feel a bit clumsy, they’re probably the best out of the five sites. Most sites expect users to edit images before sharing them. Earlier this year, Kodak introduced a new version of its EasyShare desktop software program with richer editing features, such as images that expand to almost the entire screen.

In addition to its $25 a year Gallery Premier account, you can opt to pay twice as much for the account and a discount on Kodak prints — 10 cents each rather than 15 cents. Paid accounts let you download high-resolution versions of each photo and give you a unique Web address for sharing photos that can be password protected. But the other four sites offer personal Web sites as free features, rather than just with paid accounts.

• Shutterfly
  (www.shutterfly.com)

Shutterfly seemed to be the simplest site, though it isn’t the most attractive or user friendly. All of its features are free. Shutterfly does away with two conditions that Kodak Gallery and Snapfish have: It doesn’t require any purchases in order to keep your account from being deleted nor does it ever require your friends to sign in before viewing a shared album.

But Shutterfly’s simplicity can also be a hindrance. It doesn’t let you upload videos to share, nor can you download high-resolution versions of each photo or send photos to the site via email or mobile device; the other sites do these things either for free or with a paid account.

• Snapfish
  (www.snapfish.com)

Snapfish is Hewlett-Packard Co.’s photo-sharing site, and it stands out because it has the most restrictions. Along with its requirement that you purchase something at least once a year to keep your account, guests who view your albums must always sign in; you can’t change this setting like on the other sites. To skirt this issue, Snapfish emphasizes its Group Rooms, or personalized sharing Web sites that users view with a specific URL and a password (if you choose to have one).

Snapfish and Shutterfly both have Web sites on which photos appear too small for my taste, though Snapfish does offer generously sized images in photo slideshows — a plus. I’d prefer the site itself showed larger images in other instances. High-resolution version of photos can be downloaded for a fee of 25 cents for one and five cents for more than one.

• Flickr
  (www.flickr.com)
• Photobucket.com
  (www.photobucket.com)

Of the two community sharing sites, I preferred Flickr over Photobucket. The site felt cleaner, with fewer distractions and one less advertisement than Photobucket. For people who aren’t used to these more progressive sites, Photobucket and Flickr may seem extreme. They offer things like tagging and use terms that can be confusing. Flickr uses “sets” in place of “albums,” and photos are organized within “batches.” Photobucket organizes albums, but then lets you create sub albums within an album.

Neither site requires annual purchases, and both allow free high-resolution downloads of photos. Instead of one-time sharing, the sites use photostreams, or constantly updated photo blogs that friends can check.

Flickr and Photobucket make it easy to post photos to blogs in one step, including Blogger and Typepad. Photobucket also lets you post to MySpace and Facebook in one step.

In Flickr, you can meet people who have interests similar to yours by searching through Groups. I joined a group that shared photos of tennis courts around the world. Digital photos suddenly offered ways to socialize online without chatting or leaving overused messages for strangers.

Among other things, Photobucket lets you create a Remix — a presentation made of your photos and/or videos after they’re dragged into a storyline and mixed in with music, transitions and graphics. The result was entertaining and professional, though it took just seconds to make.

Ideally, I’d like to combine a favorite feature from each of these sites to make one great photo-sharing Web site. I found something wrong with each one, but Kodak Gallery and its EasyShare software program offer a good combination of editing and sharing. Flickr was my preferred community photo site, though it and Photobucket both offer fresh ways to share digital photos.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

• Email: MossbergSolution@wsj.com

One of the most visually defining features of the digicam is its LCD viewing screen, and camera makers have steadily increased the sizes of these screens; those that once measured about an inch diagonally now measure over three inches. The results are breathtaking: Crisp, bright displays offer a beautiful way to view photos.

Some of these screens are so large that they take over the entire back side of the camera, edging out useful features like optical viewfinders. Buttons, too, are seen as hogging precious real estate on these pocket-size devices. The solution? Replacing regular LCD screens with touch screens that work as viewing screens, viewfinders and buttons rolled into one.

Removing glare from pets’ eyes is possible on the HP Photosmart R937.

This week, I tested two $300 digital cameras from Hewlett-Packard Co. and Pentax Imaging Co. that use large touch screens: the HP Photosmart R937 and the Optio T30. Both took gorgeous photographs, but I focused on how touch screens changed the way I used each camera, and found it took me far less time to become acquainted with functions thanks to the more direct nature of on-screen buttons. For example, left and right arrows that appeared on-screen beside an image could be touched to move from one photo to the next, while a tiny on-screen trash bin icon deleted pics once pressed. In-camera editing was also made simpler with these screens.

But because these camera screens are multifunctional, they must be clearly visible at all times — even in bright light or sunshine — and I found myself squinting to see both screens in the sunlight. In situations like this, an optical viewfinder would at least let you clearly see the subject of photos. On both cameras, the review or playback buttons remained as physical buttons, rather than touch-screen buttons.

The touch technology in these camera screens isn’t as advanced as “multi-touch,” which is used in Apple Inc.’s iPhone and Microsoft Corp.’s Surface Computing. But it is incredibly useful and will change the way you use your digital camera.

While the HP Photosmart R937 turns heads with its giant 3.6-inch screen, this device is too big and heavy to be categorized as a pocket camera. The Pentax Optio T30’s generous three-inch screen is smaller than that of the HP, helping this camera retain the fashionably thin look sought after in the pocket camera category.

The technical specifications of the H-P and Pentax cameras are quite comparable. They offer 8 and 7.1 megapixels, respectively, with 3x optical zoom lenses and digital image stabilization technology to aid shaky hands. Pentax says its Optio T30 will last for 200 shots on a full battery, while H-P claims 190 shots.

A touch-screen menu on the Pentax Optio T30

The $300 (after a $50 rebate) Pentax Optio T30 shipped in April as a follow-up to its two touch-screen predecessors: the Optio T10 (brought out a little over a year ago) and the Optio T20 (last fall).

A series of menus appear when you tap the center of the Optio T30 screen. In capturing mode, for example, a screen tap pulls up four menus: Capture Palette, Flash Mode, Drive Mode and Focus Mode.

The Capture Palette menu displays 16 different icons, one for each mode in which the camera can be set prior to taking a photo. It was a relief to see these large, colorful icons rather than trying to decipher confusing text descriptions or unrelated icons representing each mode. Tapping on an icon brought up a one-line, large-print explanation of it and tapping the on-screen “OK” button set the camera in that mode. Portrait mode, for example, brightens skin tones, while Sport keeps the camera in focus until the shutter is released — ideal for fast-moving subjects.

Most people will likely opt to keep their Optio T30 in default automatic mode, and this requires no touch button adjustments whatsoever. But I was more inclined than usual to switch into different modes using this camera. Knowing that I could tap the screen a couple times to adjust for various situations was a lot more appealing than digging through a list of options in a hidden menu, then finding the right button to select that option.

The Pentax Optio T30’s touch screen also allows for on-screen editing, such as drawing on a photo with an included stylus (my fingernail worked, too). You can also use what Pentax calls “stamps” — little cartoon icons that can be added to a photo. I made my own stamp by drawing an on-screen circle around flowers in one of my photos, copying the flowers and using them as a stamp in other images. This could come in handy if you need to superimpose someone’s head into a photo for which he or she wasn’t present.

The HP Photosmart R937 will ship the first week in August, marking H-P’s foray into the touch-screen digital camera scene. It measures over twice the cubic volume of the Pentax, but strangely, its zoom lens doesn’t protrude when in use — a feature often found in slim fashion cameras that doesn’t make much sense on this bulky model.

The R937’s stunningly large screen makes room for instructional icons that appear around the perimeter of the screen, and each can be tapped for direct access to a menu. For example, a box in the top right of the screen tells you how many megapixels the next photo will capture, and tapping on this box drops you into an image quality screen where you can adjust megapixels. Another on-screen icon for the flash works similarly — one tap and you’re in the correct adjustment menu.

Like the Pentax, the R937 works in default automatic mode without any adjusting. But again, different shooting modes (12 to be exact) were easy to change using touch menus. I found the H-P’s in-camera editing to be the most interesting aspect of this gadget. While reviewing photos, I opened an on-screen Design Gallery menu and found options for removing red eyes, enhancing photos like making the people in my photos look slimmer, and applying any of 13 artistic effects, like turning an image into a cartoon or a kaleidoscope-like view. I tweaked many of my photos using only touch-screen buttons, then saved the edited versions in addition to my old versions.

Time and time again while using both of these cameras, I realized that when commands were right on the screen where I could touch them to select what I wanted to do, the camera’s overall usability was improved and once-buried menus were demystified.

Touch screens and digital cameras make a good pair. I only wish that the screen quality on these cameras was high enough to stand up to bright sunlight. The HP Photosmart R937 is a bit too bulky, though it feels sturdy in your hand and its 3.6-inch screen is a boon. The Pentax Optio T30’s size and simplified touch user interface make it a good buy.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

• Email: MossbergSolution@wsj.com

It’s a good time to be in the market for such a camera. According to research from Olympus, unit sales for these gizmos has grown about 30% in the past two years, while dollar sales grew at about half that rate, indicating declining prices and improved technology. In fact, digital-camera prices have dropped an average of $30 over the past 12 months.

This guide offers an overview of the basics that you’ll need to know when buying a digital camera. It also explains many of the fancy features that are popping up on these devices, such as facial recognition — a camera’s ability to detect when faces are being captured in photos, thus appropriately adjusting exposure, focus and flash. This guide isn’t geared toward hobbyists, but rather toward average users who want good quality photos but don’t want to struggle with confusing product specs and promotions.

Point and Shoot, or Flaunt and Pocket

As you begin looking for a camera, selecting a preferred size and shape will help narrow your choices. Like iPods and cellphones, stylish pocket cameras are fashionable accessories; some come in shades like Precious Rose or Noble Blue. These pocket models, designed with emphasis on small size, are as easy to carry as they are to use for taking good photos: most offer seven or eight megapixels each, a 3x or better optical zoom lens and a stunning viewing screen. Good examples include Sony Corp.’s $400 Cyber-shot DSC-T100 or Nikon Inc.’s $300 Coolpix S50.

If you don’t mind sacrificing style for a camera that’s sturdier in your hand but bulkier in your purse, point-and-shoot models will be more your speed. On average, these cost less than their showy cousins. They’re more likely to have protruding zoom lenses that don’t collapse entirely into the camera body and often feature larger buttons. More point-and-shoots offer optical viewfinders, which have become practically extinct on pocket digicams where real estate is scarce. Examples of point-and-shoots with optical viewfinders include Eastman Kodak Co.’s EasyShare C653 and Canon Inc.’s PowerShot A460-both cost $130.

A third category of digital cameras, the single-lens reflex or SLR, continues to be marketed to regular consumers rather than to the photography enthusiasts for whom they were originally intended. SLR prices have dropped a couple of hundred dollars in the past year, but many models still start around $800 and come with detachable lenses and flashes. Average users can steer clear of SLR cameras.

Megapixels

Most cameras today offer anywhere between six and 10 megapixels; cameras with four megapixels or fewer are rather rare. But while higher megapixel counts are easy to find for less money, such as Hewlett-Packard Co.’s $300 PhotoSmart R967 with 10 megapixels, such intense resolution is really only necessary if you plan to heavily edit or blow up your photographs for jumbo prints, which most people won’t be doing.

Zoom Confusion

While most camera makers offer clearer marketing strategies now than a year or so ago, some still try to dupe consumers by listing only a camera’s total zoom — the optical and digital zoom multiplied together to create a larger, more impressive number. The truth lies in optical zoom, an enhancement made by a physically moving lens, not digital zoom, which instead magnifies a photo using the camera’s digital circuitry.

This year, companies also created a new category for cameras with 10x or 12x optical-zoom lenses — these are often referred to as high zoom digital cameras. In reality, a camera with about a 4x optical zoom is sufficient for most people.

Facial Recognition

This category is likely to become more popular. Facial recognition makes the camera smart enough to recognize that the subject contains a face and must be captured with the correct balance of color and lighting. Sony’s Cyber-shot G1 can detect up to eight faces in one image; Canon’s technology can detect up to nine per shot.

Image Stabilization

Image stabilization, or IS, was once only available in high-end SLR cameras. Now, almost all of the top-name consumer digicams offer this because without optical viewfinders, users must shakily hold cameras out to look through viewing screens. Referred to as antishake or vibration reduction by some manufacturers, there are three kinds of IS: optical and mechanical image stabilization, which physically steady a camera even when your hand is shaking, or digital image stabilization, which can improve a shot when the photographed subject is moving.

Some cameras, like the $250 Olympus Stylus 760, offer dual IS. This means the camera is equipped with both digital and mechanical or optical image stabilization, the best of both worlds. If you’ll be using a camera specifically for shots of moving objects, digital IS will work.

Storage — on Your Camera or on a Web Site

The cost of memory cards has dropped by half compared with last year: one-gigabyte memory cards now only cost about $30, and $50 two-gigabyte cards are even more popular thanks to people who want to record videos for uploading and sharing on Web sites. Data can be transferred from these cards by plugging them into a computer using an adapter or a card slot, or cameras can be connected to PCs with USB cords.

Now, Kodak, Nikon and Sony offer cameras with wireless Internet connection capabilities, or Wi-Fi. This allows you to take pictures and, when connected to a Wi-Fi hotspot, upload them directly to a Web site for sharing or storing, saving you the step of transferring the images to a computer first. These cameras are the $200 EasyShare One from Kodak, Nikon’s $350 Coolpix S50c and Sony’s $600 Cyber-shot DSC-G1.

Although using Wi-Fi in a digital camera is a smart idea, it could be a real drain on your camera’s battery. Wi-Fi is by no means a necessary feature, but some people will find it a useful add-on.

Battery Tips

Camera battery life can be affected by new features like extra-large screens — especially those that can play slide shows of your photographs — built-in Wi-Fi and even in-camera editing, which requires your camera and LCD screen to be on for longer periods. If you rarely take shots indoors, your flash will likely be used less, which might help your camera’s battery life. A spare battery is useful, and some cameras will work with drugstore batteries for the sake of convenience.

In-Camera Editing

The large, bright LCD viewing screens on cameras — some of which measure up to three inches or even three and a half inches diagonally — encourage everyday photogs to share their shots. To make even these images look better, camera manufacturers are incorporating in-camera editing for fixing mistakes on the spot, without a computer.

Cameras from all of the major manufacturers now enable red-eye fixes either as the photo is captured or after the fact. Companies such as Kodak offer zooming, cropping and panoramic shot stitching, while H-P cameras offer touch-ups like blemish-removing and ways to make a subject look slimmer.

* * *

The digital camera category is exciting right now, as these portable devices become more like computers thanks to in-camera editing, greater memory and built-in Wi-Fi. But remember that your photos come first, no matter how many bells and whistles are added to a camera.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

• Email: MossbergSolution@wsj.com

That’s especially true now as more users decide to buy computers running Microsoft’s recently released Windows Vista operating system. Apple Inc.’s campaign encouraging users to switch to its platform from Windows has also contributed to PCs piling up in basement corners.

But where should all this old equipment go? And what happens once it is taken away? How can you be sure that your private data aren’t being exposed? And will being a tree hugger turn out to be too costly?

If you’re looking to recycle your old system — monitor, computer tower and printer — you might think the only option is to search for a local drop-off spot. But surprisingly, most big-name computer manufacturers offer their own recycling programs, some of which come right to your door.

Hewlett-Packard says it will have collected and recycled one billion pounds of used products by the end of this year.

Each company has its own methods, which makes the process more confusing for consumers. Some take old computers away, but charge you around $30 for the shipping and handling. Others will reward you for buying one of their systems by offering to remove your old system free. Below, you’ll find some general guidelines for getting your computer out of your house.

Which company does what?

Dell Inc. offers home pickup of any old Dell equipment anytime, free. It will also pick up any brand of computer or printer free with the purchase of a new Dell PC or printer. Details can be found at www.dell.com/recycling.

Hewlett-Packard Co.’s recycling procedures are a bit more complicated. At anytime, the company offers to pick up and recycle your old equipment, regardless of brand, but charges $13 to $34 per product for shipping and handling. You will be compensated for each product with a $30 to $50 coupon to be used at www.hpshopping.com, where you can buy products from H-P. Recycling details for H-P can be found at www.hp.com/recycle.

Lenovo’s ThinkPlus Recycling Service offers prepaid shipping labels for $30 each to be used for sending any manufacturer’s old system, monitor, printer and peripherals to Lenovo for recycling or refurbishment. Lenovo doesn’t offer a home pick-up service. Once received, Lenovo uses a designated center to recycle your materials and sends reusable equipment to Gifts In Kind International, a charity specializing in product philanthropy.

Apple is different still. Like Lenovo, it doesn’t offer home pick-up but will receive all brands so long as you buy a $30 shipping label from the company’s Web site. With the purchase of any new Mac through Apple’s Web site or at one of its retail stores, you’ll receive an email with instructions and shipping codes for up to two prepaid boxes. These can be used for shipping any old equipment, regardless of manufacturer, to Apple for recycling. Details can be found at: http://www.apple.com/environment/recycling/program.

Apple’s retail stores will accept all manufacturers’ rechargeable batteries as part of a program run by the Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corp., a nonprofit organization. These stores also accept unwanted iPods for recycling and take 10% off the purchase of a new iPod in exchange for your old one.

What about my data?

When recycling, almost all companies vow to mechanically shred your hard drive. But they also suggest that you take responsibility for your data and delete them to be safe.

Various software programs let you clear out your hard disk on your own. Symantec’s Wipe Info in Norton Utilities and System Works (http://symantec.com) will help on Windows PCs and Macs. Webroot Software Inc.’s Window Washer (http://www.webroot.com) is another option for Windows, and Jiiva Inc.’s SuperScrubber (http://www.jiiva.com) is an alternative for Macs. I haven’t tested these programs, and there are many others that do the same thing.

What happens to my computer?

Generally speaking, after your computer is sent to a recycling plant, it is disassembled and its materials are separated, melted down and reused. H-P, which has been recycling computers since 1987, says it will have collected and recycled one billion pounds of used products by the end of this year. The company uses some materials over again in its own products, such as plastics that are melted down, combined with plastics from recycled water bottles and used to make one of H-P’s scanners.

Recycling alternatives

Plenty of other groups, such as the National Cristina Foundation (http://www.cristina.org) and Share the Technology (http://sharetechnology.org) specialize in distributing reusable computers to people or organizations in need of computers.

For the most part, the best systems for reuse are those that are less than five years old. A good rule of thumb is to donate your computer as soon as possible, so you don’t forget about it before it becomes outdated.

Microsoft specializes in PC refurbishment by partnering with TechSoup, a tech nonprofit, and by labeling groups as Microsoft Authorized Refurbishers. These groups, which are located around the world, receive low-cost software licenses so they can install Windows and Office programs on refurbished computers for distribution to low-income families, nonprofit and educational institutions. In the U.S. alone, over 100,000 licenses have been supplied to 400 such groups. A list of them can be found here: http://www.microsoft.com/mar.

With Earth Day coming on April 22nd and “going green” becoming a fashionable proclamation, you’re sure to find more and more options for recycling your computer or sending it away to someone who can refurbish it. One way or another, your old computer can be used for much more than gathering dust in a basement corner.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

• Email MossbergSolution@wsj.com

Numerous companies have tried to design computers made specifically for the kitchen, with hopes of becoming the best digital hub. The latest of these, the H-P TouchSmart PC from Hewlett-Packard Co., boasts a beautiful touch screen for quick access, but is expensive and enormous. Even worse, the TouchSmart’s calendar software program is limited and unintuitive.

This week I tested Cozi Central (www.cozi.com), a free, downloadable calendaring program from Cozi Group Inc. that works on most Windows PCs, not just expensive new computers that hog kitchen-counter space. Cozi offers a built-in family messaging system, and shopping or to-do lists that the whole family can edit. Starting today, Cozi also automatically synchronizes with Microsoft Outlook calendars, allowing work events to be considered in the family calendar and vice versa. Plus, it can be used well beyond just the family Windows PC. It has a Web-based version, so family members can use it from a browser on any computer, anywhere — even a Macintosh. And it will send schedules and shopping lists to your cellphone via text messages or through an audible text-to-speech program.

Cozi Central organizes family activities.

Cozi sounds complicated because it does so much, but it’s actually pretty simple. It was designed specifically with its audience in mind: busy moms and dads who will quickly revert to the paper calendar if a program is too complicated or time-consuming.

Cozi Central impressed me with its functionality and attractive overall look. It incorporates various ways to connect families with their calendars at home and on the go, and every screen is clean and uncluttered. It could stand to improve in three areas: adding notifications of changes made by other family members; allowing response messaging from family members to Cozi (now, messages can only be sent out from within Cozi); and improving the way an entire month’s schedule looks on-screen. But Cozi’s attributes are overwhelming enough for you to want to use it with your family.

I used Cozi in both of its formats: as a downloaded program on my Windows PC and as a Web-based program. Both coordinate and sync with one another, Web access provided. The PC-based version of Cozi Central has a few extra features, including the ability to show a month view and to automatically generate photo collages.

After downloading and registering the names of two main users and up to six additional users for the calendar, I named my calendar and created a password. This password can be shared with family members (or whomever will also use the calendar). Nothing in Cozi is private. I also installed Cozi’s new Outlook toolbar, which syncs your Outlook calendar with your Cozi calendar. The first sync took about 10 minutes, but thereafter, synching was quick, under a minute each time something changed on either calendar.

Cozi Central’s main page is appropriately called Home, and it reminded me of a bulletin board with four things tacked on a solid-color background. In the top left, a photo of your choosing is displayed. The top right shows a brief view of your family’s calendar over the next few days. The bottom right shows one of your lists (such as groceries or to-do) and another space on the Home page lets you type and send emails or text messages to family members.

In the calendar section, the names of those registered are designated with color-coded tabs across the top of the screen. To see one person’s calendar, select his or her tab. The All view shows everyone’s events on one calendar; each person is represented by a different colored dot.

All calendar entries can be typed into a designated space at the bottom of the screen in just about any format. I typed “Bridal shower tomorrow from noon-three,” and “Bridal shower” was added to the next day on my calendar from 12-3 p.m.; specifics such as reoccurrences and locations can be added by selecting the event. This lean toward the casual allows for fast, easy entries by all family members — not just the person who uses Cozi most often.

The Cozi program that was installed on my Windows PC showed a variety of calendar views. I prefer to see an overall month view of my calendar at all times, but couldn’t see all weeks of the month simultaneously in Cozi. The more events you have per day, the less you’ll see of your month. The Web-based version of Cozi only offers a vertical view of the next few days.

For users who integrate Microsoft Outlook Calendars with Cozi, special settings can be adjusted so that hundreds of business appointments don’t start cluttering up the family calendar.

The Shopping List section on the Home bulletin board opens current lists. By default, lists called Groceries, Wholesale and Other are already set up, but new lists can easily be added. Items are simply typed in, and the PC version of Cozi uses a list of popular items to automatically finish words as you type. Items can be crossed off by selecting a check mark.

The Cozi calendar coordinates schedules.

The message section of Cozi’s Home page sent text messages and emails to others almost instantly after I entered text and selected Send. I never had to open a separate email program or type an email address or phone number. But the recipient of these messages can’t respond; Cozi only sends outgoing messages and can’t receive replies. The company hopes to add this feature in the future.

The phone and email options that work with Cozi could be useful in a bind. If you’re away from home and need to know a schedule or grocery list, you can dial in from a Cozi-registered phone number to hear these things read aloud or sent to you via text message. You can also send text messages to Cozi to request information. Or whoever is at the computer can send this data out directly from within the Cozi program itself.

If a family member changes or adds something to Cozi, there’s no way of knowing. Cozi needs to implement some kind of notification system that gives you the option to be told of any changes.

Photo collages are started from the Cozi Home page. These immediately fill your screen with about five to seven related photos at a time, without any work on your part. Each collage lasts for about 10 seconds, by default, and typing “S” will let you send the currently displayed collage to anyone.

As of now, Cozi is free of advertisements. This summer, a series of interactive advertisements will appear alongside your calendars or lists. These ads incorporate content into your Cozi, but only if you ask for it. For example, if you create a shopping list for a certain store and an item in that store is advertised on your screen, you can click the ad to put that item in your shopping list.

Cozi just works. It looks clean, organized and uncluttered, regardless of hectic schedules. It’s also easy enough for anyone to use, and Cozi Group Inc. is constantly working to improve the program, which is a good sign. But even its smaller faults can be overlooked for usability. Cozi makes kitchen computers, or family computers anywhere in the house, more useful.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

• Email: MossbergSolution@wsj.com

The race to connect your TV to your computer and the Internet is about to kick into high gear this week when Apple Inc., the company many believe is best positioned to pull off this feat, introduces a slender, wireless set-top box called Apple TV.

This silvery little $299 gadget is designed to play and display on a widescreen family-room TV set all the music, video and photos stored on up to six computers around the house — even if they are far from the TV, and even if they are all Windows PCs rather than Apple’s own Macintosh models. It can also pull a very limited amount of music and video directly off the Internet onto the TV.

The $299 Apple TV device connects wirelessly to home computers and then with a cable to your widescreen TV.

Apple TV is tiny, just about eight inches square and an inch high, far smaller than a typical DVD player or cable or satellite box, even though it packs in a 40-gigabyte hard disk, an Intel processor and a modified version of the Mac operating system. And it has a carefully limited set of functions.

Yet, in our tests, it worked great, and we can easily recommend it for people who are yearning for a simple way to show on their big TVs all that stuff trapped on their computers. We tried it with various combinations of Windows and Mac computers, with movies, photos, TV shows, video clips and music. And we didn’t even use the fastest wireless network it can handle. It performed flawlessly. However, it won’t work with older TVs unless they can display widescreen-formatted content and accept some newer types of cables.

Like the iPod before it, Apple TV isn’t the first gadget in its category. Several other companies have made set-top boxes or even TV sets and game consoles that could link the TV to the digital content that people have on their computers. But none has found a mass audience for this functionality, mainly because they tend to be hard to set up and confusing to use. Apple is hoping that, just as the iPod trumped earlier, but geekier, rivals, Apple TV can do the same by making a complex task really simple.

Part of the secret of Apple TV is that, like most of Apple’s products, it doesn’t try to do everything and thus become a mess of complexity. It can’t receive or record cable or satellite TV, so it isn’t meant as a replacement for your cable or satellite box, or for a digital video recorder like a TiVo. It can’t play DVDs, so it doesn’t replace your DVD player. Its sole function is to bring to the TV digital content stored on your computer or drawn from the Internet. Like a DVD player, it uses its own separate input on your TV set, and you have to change inputs using your TV remote to use it.

Apple TV isn’t for that small slice of techies who buy a full-blown computer and plug it directly into a TV, or for gamers who prefer to do it all through a game console. And it’s not for people who are content to watch downloaded TV shows and movies directly on a computer screen. Instead, it’s for the much larger group of people who want to keep their home computers where they are and yet enjoy their downloaded media on their widescreen TVs.

Apple TV’s most formidable competitor is the Xbox 360 game console from Microsoft, which, in addition to playing games, can also play back content from Windows computers on a TV. And Xbox 360 can do something Apple TV can’t do, at least not yet, which is to directly purchase and download movies and TV shows from the Internet. But the comparable Xbox costs 50% more than Apple TV, is much larger and stores only half as much material.

We’ve been testing Apple TV for the past 10 days or so, and our verdict is that it’s a beautifully designed, easy-to-use product that should be very attractive to people with widescreen TV sets and lots of music, videos, and photos stored on computers. It has some notable limitations, but we really liked it. It is classic Apple: simple and elegant.

In our tests, Apple TV performed perfectly in Walt’s house over a standard Wi-Fi wireless network with a Pioneer plasma TV and six different computers — three Windows machines from Hewlett-Packard and Dell, and three Apple Macs. Setup was a breeze, the user interface was clean and handsome, and video and audio quality were quite good for anyone but picky audiophiles and videophiles. We never suffered any stuttering, buffering or hesitation while playing audio and video from distant computers.

The Apple TV menu points to content stored on your home computers.

Unlike any of its rivals, Apple TV can play the copy-protected music, TV shows and movies purchased from Apple’s iTunes online store, the most popular legal downloading service by far. (However, it cannot play copy-protected music in Microsoft’s formats, even from Windows computers.) It worked great with laptops and desktops alike, with Windows XP and the new Windows Vista operating system, and with newer Macs powered by Intel processors and an older Mac powered by an IBM-built G5 processor.

Apple TV’s most important limitation is that it can’t stream much video or audio directly from the Internet — yet. The capability to go directly to the Internet, bypassing the computers in your home, is built in, but is initially being used only to fetch feature film trailers and short preview clips of popular songs, TV shows and movies sold on the iTunes store. Apple TV also won’t allow you to buy media directly from the iTunes store. You must first download content from the Internet or iTunes on a computer, and then Apple TV will grab it from the computer and play it on the TV.

In its usual secretive fashion, Apple refuses to say if or when this direct-to-the-Internet capability will be expanded. But we fully expect Apple to add the capability to stream or download a variety of content directly from the Internet, and that this new capability will be available on current Apple TV boxes through software updates.

In our tests, Apple TV is a pleasure to use. Setup was stunningly simple. We just plugged the unit in and hooked it up to the TV with a single cable (not included). The unit found and connected with Walt’s Wi-Fi network almost instantly. To link to each computer, we just typed into iTunes on that computer a five-digit code number the Apple TV put up on the TV screen. This needs to be done only once.

You can select one computer to automatically synchronize with the Apple TV. Any song, TV episode, movie or photo you download or otherwise add to that one computer is automatically replicated on the Apple TV’s internal hard disk for playback on your TV. We tested this synchronization function with both a Mac laptop and a Windows Vista desktop, and it worked perfectly on both.

For instance, we imported 376 photos Katie had taken on a recent trip to France to a Mac laptop that was synchronized with the Apple TV. In short order, all of the photos were on the Apple TV and we watched them on the big plasma screen.

We also bought some TV shows, movies and songs from iTunes on our synchronized laptop, and they were automatically transferred to Apple TV, where we could watch them. It can, however, take hours to synchronize large files like movies over a slow wireless network.

In addition to your single synchronized computer, you can designate up to five other computers as sources for your Apple TV. From these machines, you “stream” the content over your wireless or wired network, instead of actually transferring them, but the music and video shows up on the TV just as if it had been synchronized to the Apple TV’s own hard disk.

All of these functions are controlled through iTunes on your Windows and Mac computers, just as you would control an iPod through iTunes. (The latest version of iTunes is required.)

In our tests, streaming worked just as well as playing content from the Apple TV’s own hard disk. Even though Walt’s Wi-Fi network is of the older “G” variety, and the Apple TV can handle newer, faster “N” variety networks, every single movie, TV show and song streamed without interruption from both Windows and Mac computers. That even included older or slower computers. This was an impressive feat.

The only downside of streaming as compared to syncing is that you can’t stream photos. These can appear only through synchronization. Apple plans to enable photo streaming later.

On the TV screen, Apple TV presents a simple, handsome list of content for each computer you choose to view. Media is divided into Movies, TV Shows, Music, Podcasts and Photos. You can change among your various computers using a menu called Sources.

There are some drawbacks to Apple TV. It won’t work with most older TV sets, the square kind that aren’t capable of handling widescreen programming. And it works only with TVs that have the newer types of connectors, such as “component” jacks, and the new HDMI cables being used on most high-definition TVs. It works best with high-definition TVs, and it puts out video in high-definition resolutions. But it will also work with “enhanced definition” widescreen sets.

Also, the tiny, simple Apple remote control can’t control the volume on either Apple TV or your TV set or audio receiver, so you have to keep reaching for the TV or audio receiver remote. And you can’t plug in an extra hard disk to add storage capacity, even though there’s a USB port on the back and the built-in 40-gigabyte drive is too small to hold many TV shows or movies.

But, all in all, Apple TV is a very well-designed product that easily brings the computer and the TV together.

• Email: MossbergSolution@wsj.com