5.1

Media players are a dime a dozen, which makes it hard for them to stand out from the crowd. Media Player Classic Home Cinema is another contender in the category, but its glitchy performance failed to impress us enough to make the switch from our current player.

The program's user interface is as basic as it gets, which isn't a bad thing. A menu runs across the top of the window, offering navigational options: File, View, Play, Navigate, Favorites, and Help. A bar with buttons for playing, pausing, stopping, and skipping forward and backward resides at the bottom … Read more

TimeTrex is an interesting Web-based, modular, multiplatform payroll and employee time management system. Employees can keep track of their time at the office, at home, and on the road, even from their cell phones. TimeTrex Standard Edition is free and includes the open-source Payroll Module, the Employee Scheduling Module, and the Time and Attendance Module.

TimeTrex's On-Site client is a substantial download, nearly 56 MB, including the Apache database software. The setup process involves installing the client and then setting up the software via a Web-based process, chiefly initializing our database. We entered our company's information as well … Read more

Cheap, small, sounds great: pick two. That's how home audio almost always works. We say almost, because the Energy Take Classic 5.1 is one of those rare products that's seemingly without compromise.

The speakers are compact (although not tiny like the Boston Acoustics SoundWare SX 5.1 system), but their sound quality is outstanding, so you won't regret opting for small speakers.

The speakers also look fantastic, finished in an elegant piano black that belies the system's budget price. The official list price for the Take Classic 5.1 may be $600, but it's … Read more

If you like to flaunt your home audio system, you're probably not going to buy the Boston SoundWare XS 5.1 speaker system. That's OK; it's not made for you. But lots of people who don't make home theater their hobby still appreciate a true surround-sound experience, and Boston's system delivers that at an incredible size and price. The SoundWare XS 5.1 sounds surprisingly good, and we say surprising because its five satellite speakers feel only a little larger than a baseball in your hand. Combined with its compact 100-watt subwoofer, it's one … Read more

Quadraphonic was the first music surround format, and the first to bite the dust. That was in the 1970s. The SACD and DVD-A formats debuted at the dawn of the century, promising vastly improved sound quality over the CD, and both formats flopped. Their futures looked bright, so why did they fail?

Of course the record labels knew selling a new format on the basis of sound quality was a risky business, so they tacked on 5.1 surround sound. There were millions of households in the early 2000s with multichannel home theaters, so selling new music surround formats looked … Read more

The Energy Take Classic 5 pack is exactly the same as the Energy Take Classic 5.1 speaker system, except that it's sold without the subwoofer. Since the 5.1 (with subwoofer) version is available for just $399, we strongly recommend prospective buyers purchase that one instead.

These days, small businesses can use a break wherever they can find one. Free business software that performs as well as pricey packages seems a good place to start looking. We've found one: DRoster Freeware Standard from Kappix. It's a full-featured employee scheduling suite that happens to be free. It's highly flexible and almost completely customizable. It has the ability to create, schedule, and track assignments; create, print, and export reports; plan shifts and schedules; and back up data to an included Firebird database. It sounds like a lot, and it is, but DRoster is far from … Read more

Wikitup is a free desktop reference tool with extensions for Google Chrome and Microsoft Internet Explorer. Wikitup uses open-source data from sites like Wikipedia, Wikitionary, and Wikiquote to deliver search results quickly to your desktop via a system tray icon. It can translate selections in more than 700 languages as well as find photos and videos and present them in a Cooliris 3D Wall display.

To access Wikitup, we clicked the W icon in our Windows notification area, also known as the system tray. We right-clicked the icon and selected Settings, which let us select languages, data sources, hot keys, … Read more

Moving is always a time-consuming, life-upending experience, but it can also be an opportunity to rework, rewire, or completely redesign your multimedia setup. Having just moved 60-odd boxes, plus furniture, from one end of SoHo to the other (well, the movers moved, but I packed), that's the situation I currently find myself in.

As a native Manhattanite, I know going into any new apartment situation requires savvy use of minimal space. And in fact, while my new place is a larger than my old one (with an extra bedroom for the summertime arrival of Ackerman Jr. and a private … Read more