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Desktop Ticker is a free scrolling RSS feed display that you can place anywhere on the desktop for an unobtrusive yet instantly accessible and highly customizable news crawl. It's easy to use yet offers lots of options. It can follow news, stocks, and pretty much any other feed you can subscribe to.

Desktop Ticker's small dock-style interface resembles a ticker tape, only with small directional arrows at either end for quickly scrolling forward and back and, on the right, an icon to minimize the display and close the program. A left-side menu has three entries: File, for managing … Read more

What to do when you want to take a photo of a skyline or landscape that won't entirely fit in your viewfinder? Create a panorama, of course! There are plenty of programs available that can help you stitch multiple photos into one panoramic image. Pos Panorama Pro is an easy-to-use option that will have even beginners creating great-looking panoramas in no time.

It just so happens that our spouse likes to create panoramic images from photos taken when we travel, so we had no shortage of fodder for Pos Panorama Pro. We tried the program with four photos of … Read more

Adore Puzzle is an interesting combination of virtual picture puzzles and visual travelogue. It depicts historic scenes and attractive views of the countries of the Western European seaboard, beginning in England and progressing through France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, and Portugal. Each puzzle has two modes: Puzzle, in which the pieces can be moved to any position, and Slide, which works like a slider puzzle where players must slide squares around to form the picture. The puzzles get progressively harder as you travel, and the game keeps track of your moves and time.

Adore Puzzle is a substantial download, and … Read more

We've often commented on Toshiba Satellites becoming a confusing galaxy of letter-based lines that share similar looks. Today's announcement of the back-to-school Satellite P700 series should help in this regard, since it's effectively replacing the Satellite A660 and M640 lines, both of which we've reviewed in a variety of versions at CNET.

The P700 isn't anything truly new chassis-wise: it's available in 14-, 15-, and 17-inch variations, and share a Fusion X2 finish we've seen on many models. These laptops do, however, offer the newly announced AMD A6-3400M processor with discrete Radeon graphics, … Read more

We've all stood and waited while an inexperienced cashier calls in a supervisor to void a charge or enter a discount in a point-of-sale system that would be more at home in Mission Control than Corner Drugs. The Corner Store application has Mom and Pop in mind. It's a POS system specifically for small retailers, so it's designed to be as easy to use as possible. It supports bar code scanning, cash register hot keys, and customer tracking. Most importantly, it supports secure credit card transactions via major national services.

Corner Store POS uses Microsoft .NET Framework … Read more

Dell this morning announced its latest addition to the high-end XPS laptop line, the 15-inch XPS 15z. Probably the worst-kept secret in technology since Dell's last laptop announcement, the 15z has been the subject of many rumors and leaks, not to mention a teaser video from Dell itself, and a recent Tweet from CEO Michael Dell that revealed the new system's name.

In the run-up to this official unveiling, predictions from some corners of the Internet have pegged this new 15-inch as Dell's latest version of a MacBook Air competitor or a successor to Dell's now-cancelled … Read more

Just more than two years ago, Dell introduced one of its most unlikely products ever. The Adamo laptop was stylish, it was expensive, and it wasn't around that long. The product was killed less than two years after its very splashy debut.

On Tuesday, Dell is set to announce the XPS 15Z, a $999 laptop that is in many ways a descendant of the Adamo. While the XPS 15Z lacks the same daring design and sleek profile, it's much more in line with what people have come to expect from Dell nowadays: some thoughtful style, decent quality, but … Read more

Dell tomorrow plans to announce what the company is positioning as the successor to its ultrathin Adamo line.

The 0.97-inch thick XPS 15z can be configured with Intel "Sandy Bridge" Core i5 (2.9GHz) and Core i7 (3.4GHz) processors, a 15.6-inch 1920-by-1080 resolution display (300-nit), and a 750GB 7200RPM hard disk drive.

Constructed from anodized aluminum, it will also be offered with Nvidia GT 525M graphics, two USB 3.0 ports, HDMI and Mini DisplayPort ports, a slot-load optical drive, a "spill resistant" back-lit keyboard, Ethernet port, media card reader, and a 1.3MP Webcam with dual array microphones.

As a bonus, the 15z qualifies for the free Xbox 360 4GB console promotional offer. Orders can arrive the next day with Dell's "fast ship" option, the company said.

As CNET reported earlier, the 15z is expected to start at $999 with Windows 7 Home Premium.

The Dell Adamo was discontinued in February. Launched in March 2009, it competed with Apple's MacBook Air. … Read more

Color matters in consumer electronics, or so we keep hearing. White iPod, black iPod. Black iPhone, white iPhone. Some people buy pink or purple laptops that have been discontinued, just because they're not available hues in this year's lineup. For some, color might even be more important than brand.

If you subscribe to this theory, then Dell's new swappable-lid Inspiron R laptops are a work of genius. All 2011 Dell Inspiron 14R and 15R laptops--which come with updated second-gen Core i-series CPUs--come with a staid back lid, but much like Nokia phones of the late '90s, a … Read more