Symantec's exceedingly powerful disk-imaging and backup program has a few usability annoyances.

SiteSpinner Standard's biggest advantage is its price. For the money, you get the ability to create a basic customised website, without being a web design expert. But you will need to have a sense of design and of basic web structure, to make it work well for you.

As a standalone office suite for most users, Ashampoo Office 2010 has all the general functionality you'd expect for a very low price. If you regularly interchange files with users of Office 2007, though, the not-quite-perfect compatibility could cause problems of varying severity. The 30-day trial should be enough to determine how well Ashampoo Office 2010 fits your needs.

I'm very impressed by Firefox 3.6. While I still really like Chrome's speed and recently introduced support for extensions, this new version of Firefox is so much better than the last iteration that I've decided I'm going to keep using Firefox as my main browser on Linux and start using it again on Windows. Internet Explorer? Chrome? Look out. Firefox is back in the game again.

The Yamicsoft Windows 7 Manager is a useful tool and there is a free trial, but you'll most likely only want to pay for Windows 7 Manager if you want to do a great deal of customisation.

Cinema4D is widely used in television VFX, so there’s new support for Apple Motion’s 3D space – the ability to export solids to After Effects – and support for multiple 3D camera export in both. Also welcome is support for FBX 2010, which facilitates the transfer of joint-based character rigs and multiple UV sets between applications.

Right now, Google Goggles doesn't work well with food, cars, plants, or animals. But that's going to change. Developers say the app will soon be able to recognise plants by their leaves, even suggest chess moves by "seeing" an image of your current board. "We are only scratching the surface of the visual search technology," Google's engineers promise.

Users of Stuffit 2009 will probably find the upgrade to Stuffit Deluxe 2010 worthwhile, and the SmartSend feature is likely to be useful in many circumstances. It's just not as useful as it could be or perhaps will be, with a little more development time.

Paragon Backup and Recovery 10 Suite offers a robust feature set and an impressive array of advanced features. Where it really shines is in features such as the ability to work with virtual hard drives, as well as create WinPE bootable rescue media.

Gamers, web developers and businesses alike will welcome new features in Parallels Desktop for Mac 5.0, whether set to make Windows apps more invisibly blend within OS X, or to run as usual in a separate frame. New performance boosts are always appreciated, and in our tests we found 3D gaming much improved. Virtualalised gameplay may still behind native Windows booting, but it’s now considerably faster, enabling the smooth playing of many games without rebooting through Boot Camp. And for developing or day-to-day use of Linux, OpenGL 2.1 graphics support is invaluable.

At present, XPS is unlikely to be necessary to most users. If you need a simple to use application that integrates well with Microsoft Office, however, as well as offering good editing and management options without the need for latest Acrobat features, gDoc Fusion is highly recommended.

Ubuntu Netbook Remix has a tightly integrated and speedy feel to it, and an easy on the eyes design. We found UNR's quick launch UI not only attractive but so convenient and quick to navigate that we preferred it to the usual desktop interface. Even if your netbook runs Windows XP or 7, you should give Ubuntu Netbook Remix a try.

This highly capable imaging backup program has some unique and extremely handy features, but hefty system requirements.

BounceBack Essentials combines the strengths of imaging, file-based backup, and RAID mirroring, and sidesteps most of the disadvantages of these other methods.

Mojo provides a speedy way to make your footage punchier.