CyberLink MediaShow 5 Not just a pretty face Reviewed by WebUser, UK

1. PRODUCT REVIEWS
CYBERLINK MEDIASHOW 5 ❘ £29.99 ❘ ★★★★★
FEATURES ★★★★ PERFORMANCE ★★★★★ EASE OF USE ★★★★★ VALUE FOR MONEY ★★★★
Not just a pretty face
Andy Shaw streamlines his photo
collection with automated face tagging
W
FOR hen you first got your engine appears to have taken an
+ Store and organise your digital camera, you extra leap forward though, and
photos and videos probably never does a good job of detecting faces
+ Face tagging takes over a dreamed you’d end up with so even when they’re at difficult
big chore many photos that you need a angles, such as partial profiles.
dedicated software application to Enter the names of a few people
AGAINST keep them organised. Most of us in your photos and MediaShow will video cameras like the Flip range
- Free alternatives available now have such huge libraries of start to pick up on who they are becoming increasingly popular, it’s
- Limited photo editing snaps that we welcome every tool and offer a best guess, so you can only a matter of time before your
available to keep them in order. tag faces with a single click. If home movie files start taking over
REQUIRES We’ve reviewed MediaShow you’ve ever tried tagging your your hard disk too.
■ Win XP SP2/Vista/7 before (http://bit.ly/review1224) photos manually, you’ll realise Ultimately, it’s the interface and
■ 3GHz processor but this latest version has one what a huge time-saver this is. The the face-tagging element that
■ 1GB of memory major improvement – semi- tags are compatible with really make this software worth
■ 1GB of hard disk space automatic face tagging. This is Facebook, so names transfer with the asking price. Free software,
something we’re now seeing in the image when you upload them. such as Picasa (www.google.co.uk/
CONTACTS every commercial image organiser, As before, you can use the picasa) is a viable organising
CyberLink, since Apple introduced it into software to convert and catalogue alternative but it doesn’t have the
www.cyberlink.com iPhoto. MediaShow’s recognition video as well. Indeed, with pocket bells and whistles offered here.
IDENTITY FINDER ❘ $19.95 (AROUND £12.20) ❘ ★★★★
FEATURES ★★★★ PERFORMANCE ★★★★ EASE OF USE ★★★★ VALUE FOR MONEY ★★★★
Private Identity
How safe is your personal information?
Andy Shaw finds out
D
FOR o you know how much your files and emails (POP mail
+ Secure the sensitive personal information only in Outlook, Outlook Express,
information on your PC you’ve got stored on your Windows Mail and Thunderbird)
+ Keen pricing computer? If your PC were to get looking for sensitive information,
lost, stolen or hacked, what could from unsecured usernames and
AGAINST someone find out by going passwords in your browser, to
- Another scan you’ll through your files? For most credit card numbers and bank
need to run regularly people, the depths of their hard account details.
disks are unknown territory, Once the scan is complete, each identity thief. If you use the
REQUIRES whether it’s because they share instance of a potential security same password for a number of
■ Windows XP SP1/ their computer with other family breach is listed for your perusal, or web services, this could be an
Vista members and don’t know what you can launch a wizard to deal even bigger issue.
■ 50MB of hard disk they’re up to, or have had their with each one case by case. Three This software takes a different
space PCs for so long that there are options are open to you – shred it, approach to security. It won’t
forgotten snippets of information encrypt it or ignore it. stop people from getting hold of
CONTACTS all over the place. Our searches found a number of your data but, if the worst
Identity Finder, Identity Finder aims to search instances of unsecured web- comes to the worst and your
www.identityfinder for this lost and insecure service passwords on our files fall into criminal hands, it’ll
.com information and provide you with computer which, although they help prevent them from finding
the option of sorting it out. Like a wouldn’t cause a major security anything that could be used
virus scanner, it will search through threat, could prove useful to an against you.
52 8 October 2009 Compare this to other products at www.webuser.co.uk/products
p50-52 Prod_reviews_224.indd 52 29/9/09 17:40:22