Digital Cameras

Megapixels: This term describes the highest resolution photo a camera can take. Often mistaken as the most important factor in a digital camera, a high megapixel count — such as 10MP or more — isn’t necessary for the average user unless he or she plans on heavily editing or enlarging photos. Most new digicams offer between five and eight megapixels, which is usually more than enough.

Optical or Digital Zoom: Optical zoom, determined by the physical movement of a lens, matters much more than digital zoom, which digitally alters an image using the camera’s internal computer. Camera companies still try to confuse potential buyers by listing a camera’s total zoom, or the optical and digital zooms multiplied together. Ignore total zoom numbers and instead focus on optical, which now averages around 5x for many new cameras.

Image Stabilization: When generously sized LCD viewing screens started replacing optical viewfinders, they also forced users to hold their cameras at arm’s length, making for plenty of blurry photographs. To remedy this, camera manufacturers have added image stabilization, tools once found only in high-end SLR models. Optical (also called “mechanical”) and digital image stabilization correct for unsteady hands and moving subjects, respectively. Cameras with both types advertise dual image stabilization, which corrects for both situations and costs more.

Mobile Devices

HSDPA and EVDO: HSDPA, or High Speed Downlink Packet Access, is the name for AT&T’s 3G, or third generation, mobile network that operates at roughly the speed of a slower DSL in a home. HSDPA is available in most major metropolitan areas and is seen as the competitor to Verizon and Sprint’s EVDO (Evolution Data Only) networks, though the popular iPhone runs on AT&T’s network using Wi-Fi and EDGE technology rather than HSDPA.

Multi-Touch Technology: Most popularly found on Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch, multi-touch is starting to show up in other products, such as in Microsoft’s Surface, a coffee-table-like computer. Rather than just responding to on-screen touches, this technology enables moving, resizing and zooming pictures and Web pages using one or more fingers simultaneously. Look for many more devices — mobile and otherwise — to incorporate multi-touch in the future.

GPS: Global Positioning Systems are most often found in cars — either built-in or on portable devices from companies like Garmin and TomTom. These gadgets use satellite technology to determine geographic location, and high-end models even display Web content like news and weather along with directions. GPS integration in mobile devices can be used to plot routes in cars, can help users find nearby businesses while on the go and can link friends by showing one where the other is located and what they’re doing.

Digital Music

DRM: Digital rights management is a set of standards that protect the intellectual property rights of online content like music and videos, preventing it from being illegally distributed across the Web. In the past year, Vivendi’s Universal Music Group, Apple and (most recently) Sony BMG said they will start selling DRM-free versions of songs, often for a higher price. In Apple’s iTunes store, these files are called “iTunes Plus” and aren’t restricted like other iTunes content.

MP3: MP3 files are open, without any DRM restrictions. Files that you rip (copy) from your own CDs are usually converted into MP3s, though iTunes users can automatically rip tracks into that program’s special format, called AAC. MP3 files can be uploaded to social-networking sites for sharing with friends and online communities.

These file types are protected by rights that tie them to specific players. Generally, AAC files make up the majority of tracks sold on Apple’s iTunes store and play only on Apple’s iPods; WMA files are Microsoft’s version of proprietary files.

Wi-Fi

The popularity of Wireless Fidelity, or Wi-Fi, brings this technology to more and more portable devices like the iPod Touch and Microsoft Zune and gives companies good reason to incorporate Wi-Fi receivers in new computers — laptops and desktops alike. While available in many flavors, different letters like b, g, a and n stand behind Wi-Fi’s more technical name, 802.11, to help discern one version from another according to characteristics like speed and compatibility. The latest version, “n,” offers the greatest range and speed, and “n” devices are usually compatible with earlier versions.

Televisions

HDTV: High-definition television has now become the standard, capable of displaying vastly better pictures, provided the source is also HD. Today’s more popular flat panel HD televisions are LCDs, or liquid crystal displays, though plasmas still hold their own. Recording HD content can’t be done with a regular digital video recorder; instead, a special HD recorder is required to capture this higher quality content.

480p vs. 1080i vs. 720p vs. 1080p: These numbers refer to the resolution, or sharpness, of a digital display, while “p” stands for progressive and “i” stands for interlaced. A resolution of 480p, known as EDTV or Enhanced Definition TV, is found most often in low-end plasmas or LCD screens. A TV with a resolution of 1080p is currently considered the Holy Grail, and costs the most. But 1080p pictures usually can’t be distinguished from less expensive 1080i or 720p pictures by average viewers at the typical distances from which most folks watch TV.

Blu-ray vs. HD DVD: Blu-ray and HD DVD are incompatible high-definition disc formats that continue to fight a seemingly endless battle to replace the DVD. The Blu-ray camp is led by Sony and the HD DVD camp is led by Toshiba. The two formats aren’t so different, technically speaking, but their very existence is confusing to consumers. The recent decision made by Time Warner’s Warner Bros. to use Blu-ray gives Sony’s side a boost, and now Viacom’s Paramount is rumored to be switching to Blu-ray from HD DVD. Dual-format players from Samsung and LG offer some solace.

Email: mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Once the stuff of James Bond films, fingerprint-reading sensors have now gone mainstream as a way to log on to your computer, or on to Web sites you visit. In the consumer market, fingerprint recognition is sometimes sold as a better form of security, since prints are presumed to be harder to spoof or copy than passwords; and sometimes as a convenience, since it’s much easier to swipe your finger than to remember a bunch of passwords.

Even if they are used mainly as a convenience, fingerprint readers can contribute to security, because people using them are less inclined to adopt insecure methods for remembering passwords, like writing them on visible Post-it Notes, or using the same simple password again and again.

Still, fingerprint readers are relatively rare in consumer PCs, so we thought we’d try some out to see how easy and effective they are. We were curious about how simple it is to train a computer to recognize a fingerprint, how accurate the readers are, and how easy it is to use them instead of passwords.

We tested two laptops with built-in fingerprint readers — a high-end $2,149 ThinkPad Z60t from Lenovo Group Ltd., and Toshiba America Information Systems Inc.’s $1,899 Protege R200. We also tried Microsoft Corp.’s $40 Fingerprint Reader, which attaches to the USB port of any computer, desktop or laptop, running Windows XP.

All three of these can use your fingerprint for logging on to a computer, rather than typing your password each time, and each also functions likewise with Web sites that require user name and password identification.

Our conclusion is that these fingerprint readers were simple to set up and worked pretty well, but that some of the software that controls the process is confusing and could be a lot better. Fingerprint authentication isn’t perfectly secure. Nothing is. Some fingerprint readers have been fooled by plastic molds of fingerprints. But they sure are convenient.

Also, other types of biometric authentication are competing with fingerprints. While we were doing our tests, we got a look at one challenger, a gadget from Fujitsu that reads entire palms and the veins running through them. As your hand hovers palm-down over this device for a couple of seconds, special technology captures an X-ray-like image of your palm and its veins.

This technology is more advanced than fingerprint-recognition devices, as it won’t work unless it detects blood coursing through the veins in your hand. Also, Fujitsu says, it’s much more difficult to imitate another person’s internal structure, since it can’t be viewed by the naked eye, nor can it be lifted from a surface, like fingerprints. But it won’t be in consumer computers for years.

Microsoft’s Fingerprint Reader was straightforward. After loading its included software, we plugged it into our PC’s USB port. Its oval surface area was a perfect fit for a finger, making it the most comfortable to use, and its center glowed red once attached.

We followed a setup wizard to get started, selecting two fingers from a diagram of right and left hands. After selecting each — we used our right and left index fingers — we touched each correct finger onto the Reader four times to get an accurate scan. To use this recorded print as our password, we simply touched our finger to the Reader whenever opening a new browser screen that required password data. We had to type in our user names and passwords the first time, but after that the reader software allowed us to substitute a fingerprint swipe.

We tried various Web sites, including Trumba (the online calendar we use); the New York Times Web site; Evite.com, an invitation service; a cooking Web site called Epicurious.com; Yahoo.com; and Gmail.com. We couldn’t open Evite using Microsoft’s Fingerprint Reader, as it uses a Java technology that Microsoft explained wouldn’t work with the device.

When setting the Reader up with Gmail, we entered the wrong password for our account, and accidentally saved it with the fingerprint, so whenever we tried to use our fingerprint with the log-in page the wrong password was automatically entered. This was easily fixed by retyping the password within the device’s Log-On Manager.

This device works only on Internet Explorer 6.0 or above and the MSN 8.0 or 9.0 browser. If you ever should decide you no longer want to use the Fingerprint Reader, you can simply unplug it and go back to entering your passwords on required screens.

The Lenovo ThinkPad and Toshiba Protege both use barely noticeable fingerprint recognition devices that are built into the lower right edges of their keyboards. Each worked the same way — by dragging a finger over it, top to bottom, like petting an animal with one finger.

But we found the Lenovo software, Client Security Solutions, to be much too geeky. For one thing, it confused us with two options for controlling the start-up of the machine. One was the familiar Windows log-in process, and the other was a “power-up” log-in, which occurs before the Windows screen appears and doesn’t exist on most computers. But, it was possible to set up the Lenovo system in such a way that you were never given the opportunity for a different user to log in to Windows.

Also, an annoying screen offering fingerprint access to technical settings of the PC, something mainstream users would never use, would appear each time our ThinkPad was restarted, before it disappeared too quickly to read it.

Lenovo told us that we could use its software to replace other passwords on the computer with our fingerprint, including those on Web sites — like the Microsoft device. We walked through about seven steps in the ThinkPad’s detailed Client Security Setup Wizard to enable this feature, and then started training the laptop to remember our user names and passwords for Web sites. But this process took much longer than the others, and in the end we still weren’t successful in swiping our fingerprint in place of Web site user names and passwords.

The Toshiba Protege’s OmniPass Finger Print Software was much more user-friendly. A few explanatory menus walked us through how to replace our Windows log-in names and passwords with fingerprints, and replacing Web site passwords was just as intuitive. We simply typed in a Web site address — such as www.yahoo.com — and after entering our user name and password, selected a “Remember this password” option. A key icon appeared on the screen, which we dropped near the log-in data that we wanted to be remembered. The next time that site was opened, we simply swiped a finger instead of entering a password.

All three devices advise users not to rely on their fingerprint readers for absolute security, and instead, encourage them to create and use “secure” passwords — those that contain tricky combinations of numbers and letters — for very important password-protected data.

We were favorably surprised by how much time we saved by using our fingerprint, rather than typing passwords into various Web sites.

Fingerprint recognition is a smart solution for saving time and avoiding the memorization of long lists of passwords. Just make sure the system you choose is meant for average users, not engineers.

• Email: MossbergSolution@wsj.com.