The Mossberg Solution » USB

Fitbit Sees How You Run, Walk and Sleep

Katherine Boehret — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:28:38 +0000

Everyone knows they ought to be eating well, exercising and getting enough sleep. But when they take the elevator up one flight of stairs, drive six blocks instead of walking and skimp on sleep to watch the end of the big game, it’s their little secret.

Not for long.

[ See post to watch video ]

I’ve been testing Fitbit, a tiny $99 device with a motion-detecting sensor that, when worn, digitally records one’s distance (walking or running), calories burned and steps taken—as well as sleep patterns. The Fitbit wirelessly sends the data to its Web site, fitbit.com, for storing these minute-by-minute details. And the site has space where users add details like food and water consumption so it provides a more accurate picture of calories burned versus calories consumed.

I’ve been using Fitbit almost nonstop for the past week. I occasionally forgot to wear this lightweight tracking device because I was dog-sitting for a friend’s puppy and barely remembered to wear my shoes, much less Fitbit, as we dashed out the door for walks at 5:30 a.m. But after just a couple days of using Fitbit, I got hooked on the idea of keeping digital tabs on myself, and I liked looking back at my activity log over a period of time. I started taking the long way walking to and from my Washington, D.C., Metro stop. Rather than rolling my chair over to the printer to grab a printout, I stood up and walked the four feet over to it so I could log a few extra steps.

The idea of tracking one’s own fitness is nothing new, as anyone with an old pedometer will tell you. But Fitbit’s technology makes it easier to record and store data, and its corresponding Web site analyzes the data in relation to personal information like gender, age, weight and height. Unlike some other products, it attempts to track your body’s activity while you’re asleep and awake, rather than one or the other. For instance, the $29 Nike + iPod Sport Kit specifically monitors running or walking; the $399 Zeo Personal Sleep Coach records people’s brain waves to analyze sleep behavior.

The $99 Fitbit has a motiondetecting sensor and measures distance, calories, steps and sleep patterns.

But the Nike + iPod and Zeo offer Web components that Fitbit currently lacks. The Nike + iPod lets you upload your workout details to see how you stack up against others or to compete against friends. The Zeo, too, lets you upload your data to its Web site, where sleep patterns can be analyzed and daily coaching tips are offered.

Fitbit data is automatically transferred to Fitbit.com, but for now, this site isn’t particularly social and doesn’t offer as much in-depth personal analysis and coaching. The site doesn’t allow you to use your data to interact with a community of other users. The company says it plans to launch its online community by December, giving people a forum for anonymously comparing their data or working with a group toward a goal, like losing a certain amount of weight. And while the Fitbit.com site is free, the company is considering plans to charge a monthly fee for additional personal data analysis and coaching—a feature that may launch early next year.

At two inches high and a half-inch wide, Fitbit reminded me of the rectangular iPod Shuffle that clips onto clothing. It weighs just four-tenths of an ounce. The device also has a tiny holster for a firmer hold. I used this holster just to be on the safe side and the combination was still so small and weightless that I often forgot I was wearing Fitbit. While sleeping, I wore a Velcro wristband that held the device in place. Fitbit Inc. says the wrist is the best place to measure activity during sleep; let’s just hope you don’t dream about conducting the Vienna Philharmonic.

A button on the Fitbit shuffles through four blue screens that show calories, distance (in miles), steps, and a Tamagotchi-like flower that grows when your activity increases and shrinks when it decreases. This flower learns your behavior over time, so if you start working out heavily, it raises its standards and won’t grow as quickly.

Along with its holster and sleeping wristband, Fitbit comes with a base station—a small USB-connected stand for charging. The battery takes an hour to fully charge and lasts five to 10 days. Battery status can be checked through Fitbit.com.

First-time Fitbit setup isn’t as easy as it should be, though. Unlike some USB devices, this one doesn’t come with preloaded software, so you have to go to Fitbit.com/start to download software for the Mac or PC. This allows the plugged-in base station to act as a receiver: Whenever a Fitbit is within 15 feet of a base station plugged into a computer that’s turned on and has Fitbit software installed, its data is automatically sent to Fitbit.com in 15-minute intervals.

The device will hold seven days of minute-by-minute data and 30 days’ worth of daily data, so you don’t have to worry about losing everything if you aren’t near your base station for a while. Using the device is as simple as moving; it’s always on—there’s no on/off button. Setting the Fitbit to record sleep sessions is almost as easy: You press and hold its button for two seconds until “Start” appears; do the same until “Stop” appears when you wake in the morning.

The data that show up on Fitbit.com reflect the device’s 3-D motion-detecting sensor. Rather than simply counting your steps, Fitbit can accurately read your motion intensity and therefore sorts motion into sedentary, lightly active, fairly active and very active. Running with the dog registered as very active movement, as did my power-walking trips to the Metro. Predictably, my time spent writing this column registered as sedentary. I got up and did five minutes of jumping jacks, which were recognized on the Web site minutes later as very active movements. If you change data on Fitbit.com, like your weight, this transfers to the device so it’s calibrating as accurately as possible.

According to my sleep records, I wake up often while I sleep—11 different times in one night—but don’t remember doing so. I wanted to know more about these different sleep states, but Fitbit doesn’t analyze that sort of thing.

Fitbit.com bases its Web-site information on biomechanical studies performed by government agencies and universities over several years. It sets goals for each person according to his or her base metabolic rate, which is determined by gender, age, weight and height—all details that users can opt to enter, or not, during setup. On a typical workday, I met 80% of my calorie-burning goal and 71% of my miles-traveled goal. All of these goals can be adjusted from what Fitbit.com sets. An easy-to-read pie chart displayed my four levels of motion in color-coded percentages.

Extra activities and food consumption can be manually added, and though bookmarking tools make it easier to do this, I opted not to do this.

Fitbits began shipping at the end of September and will continue shipping to customers who pre-ordered the devices. In January, Fitbit Inc. will start delivering new orders and Fitbits will appear in retail stores.

–Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Email mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Lost in Immersion: Speaking French on the Web

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 23:00:52 +0000

The home page of Totale shows your learning progress and options for playing language games by yourself or with other students.

If you’ve ever learned a foreign language, you know the vast difference between completing workbook activities and speaking with others. The latter experience can involve sounding out unfamiliar accents or guttural pronunciations and, though intimidating, is ultimately more rewarding. By immersing yourself in a language and navigating through situations, you learn how to speak and eventually think in that language.

Rosetta Stone (RST) has long used visual learning without translations by pairing words with images—one of the ways a baby learns to speak. For the past week, I’ve been testing its newest offering: Rosetta Stone Totale (pronounced toe-tall-A), which is the company’s first fully Web-based language-learning program. It aims to immerse you in a language using three parts: online coursework that can take up to 150 hours; live sessions in which you can converse over the Web with a native-speaking coach and other students; and access to Rosetta World, a Web-based community where you can play language games by yourself or with other students to improve your skills.

[ See post to watch video ]

Totale costs a whopping $999, so if you aren’t serious about learning a language it’s a tough sell. Rosetta Stone says this program is comparable to an in-country language-immersion school. The company’s most expensive offering before Totale was a set of CDs (lessons one, two and three) that cost $549, included about 120 hours of course work and had no online components.

The Totale Package

Since Totale is Web-based it doesn’t come loaded onto several disks in a yellow box like the company’s previous products. But despite this digital transition, buyers of Totale will still receive Rosetta’s familiar yellow box, now filled with a USB headset and supplemental audio discs for practicing away from the PC—mostly while in the car.

I’ve spent over eight hours learning French in Totale throughout the past week, and I have to say that I’m surprised by how much I feel I’ve already learned. I realized this when I spent a 30-minute car ride listening to one of the supplemental audio CDs. I mentally identified and translated practically every vocabulary word and phrase, and I repeated the words aloud with what I thought sounded like a pretty decent French accent. This was after just four hours of work online.

Totale users can speak with a coach and three others in studio sessions.

Intensive Coursework

The core of Totale is the time-intensive online coursework. But even though this takes a lot of effort, its layout is attractive and each screen has only a few things on it so it doesn’t feel overwhelming. Lessons include identifying photos of objects or situations as they are described aloud, writing phrases (my least favorite part), and using deductive reasoning to construct and dictate your own sentences about a photo. Totale’s headset comes in handy during exercises that require you to repeat words or sounds out loud into the microphone.

Activities in Rosetta World—including solo, two-person and group games—were addictively fun. One game plays like Bingo: I listened to someone speaking French and marked words on the board as I heard them, racing to get five words horizontally, vertically or diagonally before my opponent beat me to it. I waded into these games cautiously at first, playing alone before I got familiar enough to challenge another Totale user.

Helpful indicators show how many people are available at any given time for each type of game in Rosetta World—meaning that person is logged into Totale and studying the same language as you. I never saw more than five people in the community, and it gets a little old playing (or worse, losing) to the same person after a while. Since Totale was only recently released, this community should grow over time.

A chat window at the bottom left of the browser window reminded me of Facebook’s built-in instant-messaging program, listing users against whom I competed in online games. But unlike when I’m on Facebook, I didn’t feel comfortable instant messaging with these people.

No Flashcards

Rosetta Stone’s methods, while natural and easy to pick up, aren’t what my brain expects when learning a different language. I minored in Spanish in college, learning in traditional classroom style by studying verb conjugations on flashcards and vocabulary definitions in English. So at certain times throughout Totale’s French-only lessons, a part of me wanted to know the exact definition of a phrase or the reasoning behind why something was the way it was.

The moment of truth came when I attended a real-time, 50-minute studio session online with one of the live coaches—all of whom are native speakers—and two other students (four students is the maximum allowed per class).

Rosetta Stone recommends that students complete an entire unit before joining one of these studio sessions, and the only language you are permitted to speak during the studio is the one being studied. I proudly remembered all of my new vocabulary words as our coach pointed the cursor to animals, colors and clothing, asking us questions and prompting us to ask one another questions. The coach kindly corrected us when we made mistakes, made jokes about words and used an on-screen tool to type out a few of the harder phrases.

But I fumbled around trying to remember the correct phrases and grammar to go along with my vocabulary.

I frustratingly realized that I didn’t even know how to ask my coach in French, “Why is that blanc and not blanche?” Our coach eventually answered that question and some others without anyone’s prompting because it was obvious that none of us knew what forms of some words were right or why; Totale’s coursework doesn’t include explanations. A few of the phrases our coach explained still puzzled me and I was starting to miss my flashcards from Spanish class.

Team Effort

Rosetta Stone is determined to make sure you don’t feel like you’re alone as you work through the Totale program. A “Customer Success Team” representative calls you within a day of your product purchase to answer any questions or concerns about how everything works. And this team keeps calling or emailing (you tell them which contact method you prefer) whenever you have passed a milestone in the program—or to encourage you to pick it up again if you haven’t logged on in a while.

Even for $999, you can go back in and re-use every feature in Totale, but only for one year. You can reset your scores and completely start over, attending online studios again and playing games in Rosetta World as many times as you like. But once a year is up, you’re finished with the program.

Rosetta Stone Totale works on all major Mac and Windows PC browsers, though participating in a studio session while using some browsers requires you turn off their pop-up blockers.

I still have work to do in Totale, but I’m looking forward to it—even though I find some aspects to be a bit vague. This program does a terrific job of immersing you in a language and may be the next best thing to living in a country, surrounded by native speakers. Best of all, unlike my semester abroad in Spain where college friends gave me my daily fix of the English language, Totale never lets you slip out of using the language you’re studying.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg. Email Katherine Boehret at
mossbergsolution@wsj.com.

The Swiss Army Knife of Portable Videos

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 22:50:04 +0000

Every once in a while I watch an online video that’s good enough to send to a friend, share on Twitter and Facebook or save its URL so I can watch it again later. The final piece of the puzzle would be moving the video onto a mobile device to have it with me wherever I went.

Enter RealPlayer SP beta (realplayer.com), the latest in RealNetworks Inc.’s (RNWK) long line of media players that the company has churned out since 1995. RealPlayer SP—the SP stands for social and portable—is a free download that, once installed, grabs videos from the Web, converts them to the right format and transfers them to over a dozen portable devices. While other software programs perform two or just one of these tasks, the RealPlayer SP’s trio of talent makes it like a digital Swiss army knife.

[ See post to watch video ]

After using the RealPlayer for moving several videos of all kinds to an iPhone, BlackBerry Curve 8900 and Palm Pre, I felt like I had more control over my portable devices and the media they held. And the freedom of knowing that this player is compatible with almost anything—including Apple (AAPL) and Palm (PALM) devices, Research in Motion’s (RIMM) BlackBerrys, T-Mobile’s G1 and Sidekick, Nokia’s (NOK) N97 and certain basic cellphones—is a major plus.

Behavior Problem

My biggest problem with using the RealPlayer SP has to do with my own behavior. Most of the videos I watch online and share with friends are less than five minutes long. This means that grabbing, converting and transferring videos to a portable device using the RealPlayer SP—albeit a relatively quick process—could easily take more time than the length of the video, itself. And many of the longer videos that I would want to move to a BlackBerry or iPhone are copyright-protected and thus can’t be downloaded by the RealPlayer SP.

Another factor is that more devices now have their own built-in app stores for downloading content to the device, without plugging into a computer for transfers like with the RealPlayer SP. The iPod touch, for example, can now download movies, music videos and TV shows over Wi-Fi thanks to a recent $10 software upgrade.

Mac Version Coming Soon

The RealPlayer SP works only on Windows PCs right now; a Mac version is due out by the end of this year. Likewise, it doesn’t work on Apple’s Safari browser but does work on Firefox, Internet Explorer and Google’s (GOOG) Chrome browser; I used all three with success.

If you’re not interested in using the RealPlayer SP for transferring videos to portable devices, you can still use it for downloading videos, saving them onto your computer and sharing them with friends via Twitter, Facebook or email. Tiny icons representing each of these sharing options appear in-line beside freshly downloaded videos. I shared videos of last week’s Congressional Luau at the White House via Facebook and Twitter, but the icon to share videos via Twitter doesn’t automatically shrink URLs to fit into a tweet. I shrunk the URLs myself, but this took an extra step¹.

And though I’ve mostly focused on the RealPlayer SP’s ability to grab, convert and transfer (RealNetworks calls these tools the Downloader feature in the player), it also works as its own media player or helps you discover new content.

RealPlayer SP Beta downloads, converts and transfers videos from the Web to a variety of portable devices.

A premium version called RealPlayer Plus SP is available for $40. Premium features include DVD burning, DVD playback (if your computer can’t play DVDs) and video conversion to a special format called h.264—though the free version performs these conversions for videos being moved to Apple devices.

I jumped around the Web visiting sites and playing videos, which prompted the RealPlayer SP to display a small “Download This Video” message above videos that aren’t copyright-protected. Downloading videos worked on most sites, including AllThingsD.com, Slate, YouTube, Salon and CNET. As expected, I wasn’t so lucky with videos from the New York Times, BBC and Hulu, which hosts loads of TV shows and music videos. That’s because videos from these sites were copyright-protected and didn’t allow for downloading.

A Glitch

In one instance with a WSJ.com video, only the short ad that played before the video was downloaded, even though the download prompt indicated that the WSJ video was obtainable using RealPlayer SP. RealNetworks says this is a glitch it knows about and plans to correct.

The RealPlayer SP’s ability to download videos and transfer them to devices, rather than just copying them onto computers, forced me to be choosier about the videos that I downloaded due to the limited memory of the devices. Because of this, I wished the RealPlayer SP Downloader had a better built-in way to discover downloadable content. Currently, a link to something called the RealGuide pulls up suggestions, but I had a hard time finding clips there that I wanted to download. RealNetworks says it plans to improve the video-discovery process in the future, including adding things like YouTube keyword searches built right into the Downloader.

The Downloader Window

When I did find videos I liked, I clicked on the prompt to download the clip, found the clip in a tiny Downloader window, and chose to move the clip to a device (there’s a list of all available devices) or share it via Twitter, Facebook or email. Transfer times depend on the length of the video.

RealNetworks provides simple instructions on making sure your device is set to transfer when plugged in. For example, BlackBerrys must be set to mass-storage mode, Palm Pres should be set to USB mode and Apple devices synchronize with the iTunes library, where RealPlayer’s converted videos are sent for transferring to iPhones and iPods.

RealPlayer SP can be a real help when it comes to putting the content that you want on your portable device. Its ability to assist from start to finish—finding videos, converting and transferring them—saves time and avoids confusion. To succeed, RealPlayer SP needs to do a better job of helping people find worthwhile videos to transfer, or they’ll stop using it after just a few tries.

Corrections and Amplifications

¹ Real Networks says its RealPlayer SP Beta’s Twitter video sharing capability has an automatic URL-shortening tool built in. This week’s Mossberg Solution product said the product lacked such a feature, because it never activated itself in our tests.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Easy Way to Log In Face Time

Katherine Boehret — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 00:20:02 +0000

Nowadays, new laptops usually come with built-in Webcams, including the ultra-small, inexpensive models known as netbooks. But many people don’t know what to do with these Webcams or how to use them for videoconferencing with other people. Some don’t even realize their computers have these tiny videocameras.

[ See post to watch video ]

This week, I tested a new videoconferencing-software program designed to help these people. It’s made especially for non-techies who simply want to use their Webcams to see someone while they’re talking to them. These people don’t want to conference several people into a call. And they especially don’t want to have to sign up for a confusing, intimidating videoconferencing service.

I used Logitech Vid by downloading it from www.logitech.com/vid. This program comes from Logitech Inc. and makes use of technology from SightSpeed, the videoconferencing-software company that Logitech acquired last fall. Vid works with Macs and Windows PCs that have built-in Webcams or those that use Webcams that plug into a computer’s USB port; it can even work if only one person has a Webcam so the person without one still sees video and hears audio from the other person.

Expiration Date for Some

If this was a free download for all, Logitech Vid would be a slam dunk for the consumer. But as of now, it is free only for people who use Logitech Webcams or the people they invite, and for people who are registered on SightSpeed or Dell Video Chat, Dell’s version of the SightSpeed service, regardless of their Webcam brand.

For everyone else, the software expires after 30 days, with no option to pay for continued use. This means Logitech misses out on the growing number of people whose laptops and desktops have built-in Webcams, but who don’t want to buy a Logitech camera just to use Vid (and shouldn’t have to). Logitech says it intends to add a payment plan for Vid.

I tested Vid with my parents, who recently bought a netbook for the kitchen but — before this column — didn’t quite know how to use its Webcam. I also tried it with tech-savvy friends who have video-chatted with me on programs like Skype, Apple’s iChat and Google Chat. Everyone had the same reaction: They liked Logitech Vid’s refreshingly clean interface and simple setup. My Mom appreciated Vid’s easy instructions, which are written in plain terms that anyone can understand.

Vid worked while I was video-chatting from one Mac to another; from a Mac to a Windows PC and vice versa; and from one Windows PC to another.

Invitations to Chat

I ran into trouble one night when Vid invitations that I sent to friends and family didn’t go through until after several attempts. Logitech says Vid was undergoing some behind-the-scenes server maintenance, which caused the glitches. (People who have trouble sending invitations like I did can alternatively direct friends to Logitech’s Web site to download the software.) And Vid didn’t work properly when I tried using it on my company-issued PC, which runs on a corporate network protected by firewalls. Logitech says Vid is targeted for consumer use, and not for sophisticated corporate environments.

Logitech Vid arranges photos of friends, along with their availability, in a visually pleasing carousel display.

People who are used to more advanced videoconferencing programs may find Vid unsatisfying. It doesn’t let friends instant message or share photos with one another, nor does it pull in buddy lists from outside videoconferencing programs. Vid isn’t designed to record conversations, host multiparty calls or take still photos during chats. Like other videoconferencing programs, slow Internet connections can occasionally cause video and audio to stutter.

But for simple video chats, Vid was a pleasure to use. If not for its 30-day expiration, I would definitely see myself chatting with my parents through this program on a regular basis. I used it to hold up three colors of dresses for my Mom so she could help me decide whether tea rose, azalea or peppermint was the best shade for my sister’s wedding (we’re leaning toward tea rose). My Dad and I had a face-to-face talk about my latest job news, and I saw a New Orleans friend and her dog, Boudreaux, appear on my computer screen almost as if they were in my house.

Smile for the Camera

Vid users invite others to chat by entering the other person’s email address. For invitees to accept an invitation, they must download the Vid software, which could be a deterrent for some. Those who do download the software and start their own Vid accounts (by just entering an email and password) appear to the original inviter in a carousel-like display of their contacts’ photographed faces.

These images are taken by the Webcam when someone sets up a Vid account, rather than allowing one to select his or her own photo from elsewhere on the computer. This is one example of Vid’s nod to simplicity and fewer choices. Likewise, the carousel of friends is organized in left-to-right alphabetical order showing those who are online followed by those offline. A simple status line below each person’s face identifies them as Unavailable, Available or Busy (already in a videoconference).

Clicking on a Pic

I called someone by clicking on their photo. The video-chat screen has four buttons that change its size, hide a small-image view of yourself, pause your video feed or end the conversation.

In a few instances, I heard a steady, high-pitched chirp and so did the person on the call with me. And we occasionally heard the echo of our own voices. Logitech said this sometimes happens when both users have open-air microphones and speakers turned up at the same time. Turning the speakers down usually solves the problem.

By August, all of Logitech’s standalone Webcams will come loaded with Vid software that starts up when the Webcam is plugged in. Now, the software is only downloadable from the Web.

Logitech Vid isn’t fancy, but it works well and presents its users with a satisfying experience so they can concentrate on enjoying their conversations. But it is a shame that Logitech doesn’t offer a payment plan for people who don’t use Logitech Webcams. If it did, Vid could help many people appreciate the Webcams they might never have otherwise used.

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 Desktop That Begs to Be Organized

Katherine Boehret — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 04:02:02 +0000

Like many people today, I keep a lot of my important documents and communications in digital form. But I still print out the files and put them on my desk so I can have them in front of me instead of buried in computer subfolders within folders.

This week, I tested BumpTop, a program that displays items in a way that makes programs and files easy to see and open. It does this by turning your digital desktop into a three-dimensional environment that looks like your physical desktop. A few quick gestures neatly stack piles of items or tack important items onto one of four virtual walls. You can even flick your mouse to “toss” files to programs or group files into a pile, like stacking all your PDF files together. Special photo frames on the walls show slideshows of photos from PC folders or feeds from photo Web sites like Flickr or Picasa.

[ See post to watch video ]

BumpTop comes from Toronto-based Bump Technologies Inc. and it has been in a private testing stage for a little over a year. Starting Wednesday, it’s available for anyone to download at BumpTop.com. It comes in a free or $29 Pro version. In Pro, files you use most often will grow bigger over time and you can flip through a pile’s contents by rolling the mouse’s scroll wheel, among other things.

I used BumpTop Pro for over two weeks and tried it on four computers running three different Windows operating systems: XP, Vista, and the prerelease version of Windows 7. BumpTop says it hopes to develop a Mac version in the future. (It should work on Parallels, a program that runs Windows virtually on a Mac, according to Bump Technologies, but not on Fusion, a similar program.)

Good-Looking Display

This program is a real looker. When I showed it to friends, they immediately wanted to play with it, dragging pictures to pin on virtual walls and drawing circles around several icons at once to stack them into piles like magic. And when you toss files to certain programs, they perform functions. A Microsoft Word document tossed to the email icon generates an email with the document attached. Photos I tossed to the Facebook icon were posted on the social-networking site. Files can be tossed to a printer, the recycle bin, other piles and, in the Pro version, attached USB drives.

Program Switch

But as much as I liked BumpTop, I kept coming back to the same conclusion: It was fun while I was using it, but I wasn’t naturally inclined to leave the program I was using — like my email program, my browser or TweetDeck — just to do something on the desktop in a more visually pleasing way. And since the computer’s desktop has never been as functional as popular programs, it’s hard to expect people to spend a lot of time there.

BumpTop creates a three-dimensional desktop where files can be cleverly organized or displayed.

Also, while BumpTop introduces a new, attractive user interface to the desktop, its 3-D functionality doesn’t extend throughout the whole computer, so you find yourself jumping back and forth between different ways of doing things.

BumpTop requires a computer with 3-D graphics and drivers, which older machines won’t have. Just for kicks I installed BumpTop on my older XP machine, which didn’t have the necessary requirements, and sure enough, it ran slowly and didn’t represent programs like Microsoft Outlook (MSFT) and Mozilla’s Firefox with the correct icons. Specific system requirements for BumpTop, along with a list of what the Pro version has that the free version lacks, can be found at BumpTop.com/download.

BumpTop’s point of view is like looking down from the ceiling in a room with four walls. It installs with three picture frames on its walls, and these display content from three sources: your computer’s My Pictures folder, Flickr.com’s main photo feed and a Flickr feed of photos Bump Technologies chose. You can change the images in settings, or delete the frames altogether.

The picture frames show ever-changing slideshows, and to do this, they only load low-resolution thumbnails of the images they display. This looks good when you’re quickly glancing at BumpTop, but if you double-click on a frame to zoom in, you’ll see a blurry photo. Bump Technologies says it plans to improve this where possible. Any photos on BumpTop other than those displayed in frames are visible in high resolution when you zoom in.

BumpTop loads with icons representing Twitter, Facebook and Email pinned to its right wall. And you can add your printer to the wall and toss things to it, printing them immediately.

Wall Clingers

The small visual details built into BumpTop make it a pleasure to use. Every time you open something, its representative icon hurls toward you in 3-D as if it were thrown. Items that are pinned to a wall flip end over end and playfully cling to the wall surface like a starfish with sticky, suction feet.

Special mouse movements generate on-screen options for organizing your BumpTop. Lassoing multiple images by drawing a line around them with your mouse pulls up a pie menu with options like “Grow,” “Shrink” and “Grid.” A “Pile by Type” option can organize all or just some of your desktop icons into piles arranged by similar characteristics, which by itself could be a big help.

Searching for something on your desktop isn’t a hassle anymore. Any time BumpTop is open, you can start typing and the program will search names of all items in BumpTop for results with the text you’re typing; those that match your request will glow.

I tried BumpTop on a touch-screen PC running Windows 7 — the HP TouchSmart PC — and the feeling of reaching out and tossing things around with my finger was even more enjoyable than using the mouse. As touch-screen PCs become more popular, BumpTop and programs like it will fit in more naturally.

If you miss seeing the photo that was on your regular desktop, an adjustment in Settings lets you use your Windows background on the BumpTop floor. Images can be assigned to each of the four walls; I assigned a photo of the National Mall at night to my back wall and a photo of my favorite lighthouse to my floor.

BumpTop is a pleasure to use and for no cost, the free version is certainly worth a try. If you like what you see and you’re willing to change the way you use your desktop, the Pro version might be worthwhile. Just be sure your computer has the correct specifications and be ready for blurry close-ups of the picture frames.

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

Cool Trays Take the Heat Off Your Lap

Katherine Boehret — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 00:56:03 +0000

Laptops save space, can be ported anywhere, and aren’t nearly as expensive as they used to be. But many tend to run hot, making them uncomfortable and sometimes painful to use on your lap, even after a short time.

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

Yahoo Widgets Lend Brains to Boob Tube

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 23:30:03 +0000

Your television set may be the most expensive, eye-catching piece of electronic equipment in your home, but compared to a computer with Internet access, it’s just a dumb box. With their low-tech IQs, TVs encourage a lot of family-room multitasking: While watching the big screen TV, lots of people are looking away to surf the Web with the computer on their lap or the mobile device in their hand.

But television manufacturers are sick and tired of sharing your attention with another device. So this week, Samsung Electronics introduced a television with truly integrated Internet smarts: the $3,000 Samsung LED TV 7000 with the Yahoo Widget Engine. It lets people watch TV and access the Web on the same big screen at the same time, with special on-screen applications that appear on a strip at the bottom of the screen and fetch online content. By this summer, Sony (SNE) and LG Electronics also will offer TVs with the Yahoo Widget Engine, and Vizio will offer models soon thereafter.

[ See post to watch video ]

I’ve been testing the Yahoo Widget Engine on a 46-inch Samsung TV, and I found it to be a lot of fun to use. It’s easy to navigate, thanks to special color-coded shortcuts on the TV’s remote control, and I didn’t have to abandon the show I was watching to look up a few things online. Widgets, which are small, easily downloadable computer applications, typically expand to a semitranslucent, overlaying panel on the left, or your program can be resized so you don’t lose any of the picture. The one major downside was that it uses a virtual keyboard rather than a physical keyboard for text entry. (You use the remote control to select text from an on-screen keyboard.) A good keyboard is essential for social networking widgets like Twitter, allowing quickly typed reactions to shows as you’re watching them. Samsung is planning to introduce a remote-control-based input method for next-generation TVs.

Samsung’s LED TV 7000 uses the Yahoo Widget Engine to access Web content, like Flickr.

If you’re reading this and thinking that Internet on the TV has been tried before with limited success, you’re right. For years, companies have designed external boxes that bring some form of the Web to your TV. These include Microsoft Corp.’s (MSFT) Xbox, Apple Inc.’s (AAPL) Apple TV and some features of TiVo (TIVO). But the Yahoo Widget Engine differs from these boxes in two ways. First, Yahoo’s widget system works simultaneously with your TV programming, so you don’t have to turn off the college basketball game to pull up a news story about a star player. Second, it will include widgets with video content that directly competes with live programming.

This second point is noteworthy because television manufacturers in the past have quashed applications with Web video content for fear of these programs competing with live shows. Yahoo (YHOO) says it won’t block widgets from its Widget Engine, so you could, say, run a Showtime widget that plays an episode of “The Tudors” instead of watching a live show.

The Yahoo Widget Engine comes preloaded on TVs with four basic widgets to start: Flickr (Yahoo’s photo service), Yahoo News, Weather and Finance. When prompted, these widgets appear in a horizontal dock along the bottom edge of the TV screen, along with Widget Gallery and Profile. (If you just want to watch TV, you can hide the widget dock easily.) Yahoo expects to offer 20 to 30 widgets within two months, and estimates that it will offer around 100 by the end of the year.

Samsung lent me an LED TV 7000 loaded with the four basic widgets and some extras that will be available in the Widget Gallery by early April: Twitter, Yahoo Video, USA Today Sports and three games (Sudoku, Texas Hold’em and QuizzMaster).

The Yahoo Widget Engine follows a model that encourages developers — even Yahoo’s competitors — to make widgets for its store-like Widget Gallery, where they will be available to download free directly on the TV. The system is similar to Apple’s highly successful App Store for the iPhone, and, like iPhone apps, these widgets will take seconds to download and are fun to try. The Yahoo widgets will work across all enabled televisions, regardless of manufacturer.

Yahoo Widget Engine displays tidbits of information on a TV, like news and weather, without interrupting programming.

Samsung and Yahoo each have their own sub-stores of widgets within Widget Gallery. But users most likely won’t know or care which widgets are coming from what source because they’re all grouped into categories like Latest Widgets, Community and Messaging. Other TV manufacturers will be able to follow this model with their own stores, as well.

The Samsung LED TV 7000 connects to the Web via a wired connection or by using a wireless USB device, which Samsung sells for $80. Currently, Samsung offers four models with built-in Web access, which it calls Internet@TV. By June, the company plans to offer a total of 17 models with Internet@TV. All TVs with the Widget Engine will have remote-control shortcut buttons to pull up widgets.

With a local news station on in the background, I used the Yahoo Widget Engine to pull up Flickr in a left-side panel. After using the painfully slow virtual keyboard to sign into my Flickr account, I quickly skimmed through categories like Your Photos, Your Groups and Explore. I browsed photos from one of my Flickr groups, both in the side panel only and in full-screen slideshow mode, and tagging favorites with a yellow button on my remote control.

With a few steps, snippets of information, or shortcuts, can be created for certain widgets, like Yahoo Weather and Finance, to save you from opening the widget to see more details in a left-side panel. I created a Yahoo Finance snippet for McDonald’s (MCD) stock so I could see this stock’s status at the bottom of my screen without opening the Finance widget. People who have Yahoo accounts can synchronize their account settings with the TV, such as stocks saved in Yahoo Finance.

The Twitter widget automatically refreshes its content roughly once a minute, so you can see new tweets (updates) from the people you follow right in the horizontal dock. You also can see a list of the most popular phrases on Twitter, search Twitter and save searches.

Individual Widget Engine profiles can be created for up to eight people so that a 16-year-old doesn’t have to see his dad’s stock-market news in his profile. Widgets can be moved around in the horizontal dock so you can line them up according to your personal preferences.

The Yahoo Widget Engine is still in its early stages, and there are plenty of changes and widgets to come, not to mention televisions from manufacturers other than Samsung. But it’s easy to navigate and its remote-controls buttons — especially those with color coding — bring the Internet to your TV screen with just one click. If you want a smarter TV, the Yahoo Widget Engine will do the trick.

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 BlackBerry That's Easy on Your Thumbs

Katherine Boehret — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 01:04:04 +0000

People who use smart phones with physical keyboards are well aware that they don’t look as cool as someone who touches glass to type and flicks a finger to scroll through emails, Web pages and photos. But for many, physical keyboards are easier to use than touch screens, and this fact, alone, cures even the worst case of touch-screen envy.

In two weeks, Research in Motion Inc. (RIMM) and T-Mobile will make available the latest version of the BlackBerry: the Curve 8900. This device works as a basic BlackBerry and doesn’t have a sleek touch screen or completely overhauled operating system, nor is it meant to compete with the likes of Apple’s iPhone. But it has a physical keyboard and still manages to look stylish — and that’s no small feat.

[ See post to watch video ]

The Curve 8900 costs $200 after a $100 mail-in rebate and with a two-year T-Mobile contract. In the BlackBerry family, this model falls into the Goldilocks category of not too big, not too small — just right. RIM’s $300 BlackBerry Bold came out in November, but its large size and high price were turn-offs for some. The BlackBerry Pearl and Pearl Flip are tiny and portable, but use condensed keyboards with multiple letters on each key, which can hinder fast typing.

After using the new Curve for a week, I found it offers a satisfying combination of high-end features, ideal size and good looks. Best of all, its physical keyboard is a dream for thumbs. Unfortunately, its $200 price comes with very little memory — only 256 megabytes built in and a memory card that adds another 256 megabytes. To expand this memory, users must buy microSD cards.

The new Curve is lighter, thinner and not as wide compared with its predecessor. Its surface, including the keyboard, is glossy black with a striking silver frame. The device’s top edge slopes off in a smooth diagonal that cleverly disguises the Lock and Mute/Standby buttons beneath that top-edge piece of black plastic. Number keys are labeled in red so they stand out on the black keyboard and are easy to see when making phone calls. Right and left convenience keys on each side of the BlackBerry can be assigned to open your favorite functions.

The $200 Curve 8900

Unlike older BlackBerrys that all use the same USB cables and chargers, the Curve 8900 has a micro USB port, which is slightly smaller than those on older cables and won’t work with them.

Photo Opportunity

The Curve 8900 shares two features with the touch screen BlackBerry Storm: Both use the same 3.2-megapixel camera with auto focus, image stabilization, 2x digital zoom and flash; and both have the same 480×360 pixel bright screen resolution. I used the camera on my Curve 8900 to capture some photos of Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., a few days after the inaugural parade, and friends couldn’t believe I took them using a BlackBerry. This camera can also capture video clips.

I really enjoyed using the Curve 8900’s newly designed keyboard. Its keys are flatter than those of the old Curve, which felt like typing on plastic bubbles when I switched back. The flatter design of the new Curve’s keys made them feel less resistant, and allowed my fingers to more quickly move from one key to the next. The larger Send, Menu, Escape and End keys that surround the trackball also are flatter and are on the same plane as the screen, giving the surface a smoother look.

This BlackBerry uses T-Mobile’s Quad-band EDGE, not a 3G connection like the BlackBerry Bold or Apple iPhone. For an extra $10 a month in addition to a monthly plan, users may opt for T-Mobile’s Unlimited HotSpot Calling.

Wi-Fi Detector

This feature works so that the Curve automatically detects when it’s near a pre-set Wi-Fi network and uses that network for voice calling or data instead of T-Mobile’s connection. Phone calls that are started in Wi-Fi networks will seamlessly be handed over to the T-Mobile network and the minutes won’t be docked from your data plan; calls started in the cellular network will switch over to Wi-Fi but will continue to dock minutes from your voice plan.

I made a handful of phone calls on the Curve, and the connection sounded clear on both ends. According to RIM, the battery life of the Curve 8900 beats that of the old Curve 8300 in talk time — 5.5 hours compared with four hours — but is a little weaker than the old Curve’s standby battery life, lasting just 15 days between charges, compared with 17 days. I didn’t run an exact battery test, but I noticed that I didn’t have to change my charging schedule from what I regularly do with the old Curve 8300.

I downloaded a few apps, including Facebook, Google Maps and TwitterBerry, and these worked as they do on my older Curve, though a bit faster. Compared with the iPhone’s selection, BlackBerry apps look rather primitive. RIM plans to open an app store in March that will sell apps that will work with this new Curve and other BlackBerrys. Apple (AAPL) and Google (GOOG) have already established app stores that users can access from their devices.

Too Little Memory

This is where the 8900’s relatively minuscule memory becomes a problem. It’s easy to use up the 512 megabytes of total memory by downloading apps like these and taking large-sized photos or video clips with the built-in camera. Comparatively, the $199 iPhone comes with 8 gigabytes of built-in memory. But memory cards are fairly inexpensive today; a quick search on BestBuy.com (BBY) found 2-gigabyte microSD cards for $15.

A 512-megahertz processor gives this new Curve some zip, and I had no trouble quickly surfing the Web, opening Web links embedded in emails or attached photos and Word documents. Videos, including a John Mayer music video and various YouTube clips, played without any jerky skips. Sound was emitted from a small but mighty speaker on the back of the Curve.

Some people simply won’t abandon their physical keyboards for touch screen, no matter what. For them, the BlackBerry Curve 8900 blends the comfortable size, attractive keyboard and stylish design necessary to make a winning device.

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://walt.allthingsd.com

Skipping Your Computer's Warm-Up Time

Katherine Boehret — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 02:10:03 +0000

The time it takes to boot up a computer can be a source of frustration — especially if you’re in a rush and just want to log on, get information and move on with your day. If televisions took as long as PCs take to start working, we’d miss game-winning touchdowns. Slow boot-up times are especially common with the Windows Vista operating system.

One way to evade slow boot-up syndrome is to use a special operating environment that performs a handful of basic tasks and works as an alternative to Windows. If installed on your computer, a system like this can start up instantly when you press your PC’s power button — like turning on a TV.

[ See post to watch video ]

Phoenix Technologies Ltd. (PTEC) and DeviceVM Inc. both offer popular quick-start environments. Phoenix offers two solutions, called HyperSpace Dual and HyperSpace Hybrid, for five PC manufacturers, including Lenovo, Toshiba and Acer. DeviceVM’s product, called Splashtop, comes preloaded on PCs from Asus, VooDooPC and Lenovo, and each brand calls this feature something different, like “Quick Start” on a Lenovo laptop. I used HyperSpace Hybrid on a Lenovo ThinkPad X301, but didn’t get a chance to try Splashtop.

Closed Windows

It’s misleading to say that the Phoenix HyperSpace products offer a faster way to start up your computer, because they don’t actually open Windows, which is your computer’s heart and soul. Instead, they offer a primitive, bare-bones user interface that relies on Web-based applications. For example, you can send and receive email, but only by using a Web-based email program like Gmail or Hotmail. Documents must be created using a program like Google Docs, and when you watch videos, you must use a player like YouTube rather than something like Windows Media Player or QuickTime. Photos can be viewed either via a photo Web site like Flickr or in the HyperSpace browser. Nothing like Word or PowerPoint is available in this slimmed-down environment.

HyperSpace Dual, which costs $40 a year or $100 for three years, operates only one environment or the other (Windows or HyperSpace) at a time and must shut one system down to start the other. HyperSpace Hybrid costs $60 annually or $150 for three years and can run both Windows and HyperSpace side by side. Hybrid users can easily toggle back and forth between systems by pressing the F4 key. If your PC meets the required specifications, you can download a 21-day free trial of HyperSpace Dual or Hybrid from HyperSpace.com.

(DeviceVM’s Splashtop doesn’t run side-by-side with Windows, so is more comparable to HyperSpace Dual. But it does have features that are currently missing in both versions of HyperSpace, including a music player, photo manager, Skype and an instant-messaging program that works with popular IM services.)

Though Windows exists on the same machine, its contents aren’t capable of synchronizing with the Phoenix quick-start system. So if I wrote and saved a draft of this column in Windows, and opened HyperSpace on my laptop a few days later, I wouldn’t be able to see my column or any other files on the Windows side. And browser bookmarks don’t synchronize with the HyperSpace browser.

In HyperSpace Hybrid, you can download files from the Web, like photos from Flickr, and save them to a My Documents folder. Confusingly, this has nothing to do with the My Documents folder on the Windows side, and Windows can’t view those files. But anything I download to HyperSpace Hybrid (not HyperSpace Dual) can be transferred to and opened in Windows by clicking an option that says “Open in Windows.” This is essentially using Windows as a viewer.

Using Less Power

In addition to zippy start times, Phoenix claims that its quick-start environment doesn’t use as much power as a full operating system like Windows. According to the company, both versions of HyperSpace are capable of improving a machine’s battery life by up to 30% because while HyperSpace is working, Windows is automatically set into sleep mode, fewer things are happening in HyperSpace compared with Windows, and the processor is operating at a lower speed.

Before I could download HyperSpace, I had to make some adjustments to the laptop’s internal startup system, or BIOS, which I did without much trouble by following some clear directions from HyperSpace’s Web page. I also had to change my hard-disk partition to allow for more room so that HyperSpace would fit. When I finally installed HyperSpace Hybrid, its wireless Internet didn’t work at all, and it also shut down the wireless capability on the Windows Vista side of my machine. Phoenix Technologies said these were special circumstances related to my laptop, and that not everyone would have the same experience I did.

Links to Web Apps

The HyperSpace environment has a left-side panel filled with icons that link to Web-based applications like Facebook, Flickr, Amazon (AMZN) and Gmail. It seems odd that a subscription program comes loaded with what could be seen as advertisements. What’s more, none of these widgets can be removed or repositioned in the panel. And users can’t add their own icons linking to Web sites that they like.

In March, the company says an updated version of HyperSpace will be able to synchronize some information between Windows and HyperSpace, like Internet Explorer favorites, and it will include built-in players for DVDs and music, as well as games like Sudoku. The new version also will let people plug a digital camera into their HyperSpace Hybrid PC to view and save photos; now, USB ports are turned off in Hybrid to save battery life, disallowing digital-photo uploads.

If you dread the time-sucking process of booting up your PC just to do a quick Internet search, you might want to try downloading HyperSpace. But the confusing installation process might persuade average computer users to get a laptop with a pre-installed quick-start program or suffer with slow boot times.

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://walt.allthingsd.com

Helping Your Data Decamp to a Mac

Katherine Boehret — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 01:52:02 +0000

With the holidays fast approaching, plenty of shoppers are heading toward their local Apple stores with plans to buy a new home computer. Amid all this excitement, it’s worth taking time to consider how to transfer content from the old Windows PC to a shiny new Mac.

Apple (AAPL) has promoted this PC-to-Mac switching concept heavily over recent years — particularly with its “I’m a Mac” commercials, which bluntly compare the Windows and Mac operating systems. Windows Vista has been a source of consternation all its own, and some people have opted for the Mac rather than risking problems with a Vista PC. Apple recently reported that about 50% of the people buying Macs in the Apple stores are new to the Mac.

[ See post to watch video ]

If you buy a new Mac from the Apple store, staffers there (”Geniuses,” as they call themselves) will transfer your files over to the new machine free. This process takes place in the store, though Apple says it generally isn’t a “while you wait” task. If you buy a Mac elsewhere, such as online or at Best Buy (BBY), Apple stores charge $50 for this transfer.

But some people aren’t comfortable with the idea of handing a computer filled with their personal files over to a stranger. If this is the case for you, some other viable options include copying your old PC’s data onto a portable hard drive or onto discs that are compatible with the new computer. If several home computers are networked, files can be transferred onto a drive accessible by all the machines.

This week, I tried yet another method, copying data from a Windows machine over to a new MacBook using a special transfer cable from Belkin International Inc. The aptly named Switch-to-Mac Cable plugs into USB ports on two computers. It came out a month ago and is available for $50 at places like Best Buy and Apple stores. Like other transferring methods, it moves only files and not programs or applications, such as Microsoft Word (MSFT). (Windows applications can run on a Mac using programs like Boot Camp, Fusion or Parallels.)

The Switch-to-Mac Cable makes it easier to transfer data from a Windows PC to a Mac.

I tested the Belkin Switch-to-Mac Cable by transferring data to a new Apple MacBook from my two-year-old Lenovo ThinkPad X60, which runs Vista. (Most people will transfer from an older PC that doesn’t run Vista.)

After installing the software included and connecting the transfer cable to both the Mac and Windows PC, short, on-screen prompts walked me through the steps for copying data from one computer to the other. On one instructional screen, I checked boxes to indicate what I wanted to transfer, including documents, pictures, music, videos, Internet Explorer bookmarks, desktop wallpaper and desktop files. Here, I could also opt to transfer a custom folder as well as personal information from Outlook like email, contacts and calendar.

I liked Belkin’s simple approach, including unintimidating software and a straightforward cable with a glowing, white indicator. But the files didn’t all properly transfer from my Windows laptop to my Mac. Most notably, the software prompted me to move files on my desktop, but the cable moved only five of the 23 selected files stored there.

Also, I use Mozilla’s Firefox as my default browser, but Belkin doesn’t move Firefox bookmarks to the Mac. Still, my Internet Explorer bookmarks moved over into Safari, Apple’s browser. Belkin explained that it left out Firefox transfers, instead focusing on programs like Safari that come installed on Macs. Even without a cable, Firefox itself will export bookmarks to be moved to the Mac in just a few simple steps.

I had no problems transferring everything else, and things like photos and music moved to the Mac appeared there in logical places. For example, photos stored in the “My Pictures” folder on my Windows PC automatically moved over to iPhoto on the Mac and retained their original folder labels in iPhoto.

In most cases, newly transferred files were clearly labeled on the Mac in folders marked “Windows PC.” After my initial transfer, I used the cable for additional transfers, and the data moved in those follow-ups were labeled “Windows PC-2″ and so on. When my email, contacts and calendar transferred from my Windows Live Mail desktop client, I wasn’t sure where this data had moved within Apple Mail because I didn’t see a “Windows PC” folder. A Belkin representative explained that files transferred to Apple Mail are stored in an “Import” folder.

If your transfer doesn’t work perfectly the first time, try moving stray files into a folder that transferred successfully in a previous attempt. I did this with some of my desktop files when they didn’t move over and it worked, albeit with an extra step.

Over the phone, I walked through numerous troubleshooting scenarios with Belkin to figure out why my desktop files didn’t transfer over to the new Mac, but nothing helped. Belkin said it hadn’t seen my desktop transfer problem in its tests.

I was frustrated to find that Belkin doesn’t offer much in the way of detailed instructions for users, such as a FAQs Web site or troubleshooting steps for common hiccups. Its simplicity is an asset, but when performing an important task like transferring data, I’d rather have the option of knowing more than less. Belkin says it plans to add more help for users in the future.

As its name indicates, the Belkin Switch-to-Mac Cable isn’t designed to transfer data from one Mac to another, nor from one Windows PC to another. Nor will it transfer data from a Mac to a Windows PC. Additionally, all hidden directories and system directories are ignored, as are all files with the following extensions: .exe, .com, .dll, .scr, .ini, .db, .lnk.

Not tested was a competing product from Detto Technologies, the $50 Move2Mac, which comes in two versions: One enables transfers from older PCs without USB ports, the other enables transfers from PCs with USB ports that are running Windows 98, Millennium, 2000 or XP — but not Vista, which the Belkin enables.

If you’re moving away from a Windows PC, Belkin’s Switch-to-Mac Cable is one tool that can make this transition easier.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com