Tips, tricks, tools, and techniques for Microsoft Office

This week we offer a collection of short reviews. If you have a home or small office network, we have an amazing switch to tell you about. The other products this week help you build Web graphics.

THAT'S A SWITCH

GigaFast's EZ500-S switch proves that good things come in very small packages. Let's face it, Ethernet switches and hubs -- those little boxes with flashing lights that let you connect computers on a network -- are pretty much commodity items these days. What makes the EZ500-S 5-port Ethernet switch so remarkable is its ability to auto-detect uplink connections.

With most switches and hubs, you get just one uplink port. With the EZ500-S, every port is potentially an uplink port. Just plug in a RJ-45 cable and the EZ500-S senses the connection and, if needed, automatically makes the client port an uplink port. For network novices, an uplink port is used to connect one hub or switch to another, allowing your network to grow. The trouble with conventional hubs and switches is that as your network expands, you have to plug hub/switch 1 into hub/switch 2, which in turn connects to hub/switch 3, and so on, via the uplink port.

That may not sound like much of a hassle, but it means you have to make sure you connect hubs together using the proper port and ensure that the hubs/switches are "chained" properly. The EZ500-S removes this annoying detail -- you just plug any cable (be it from a computer or another hub/switch) into any port on the device.

OK, it's a one-trick switch, I know, but it's a pretty slick trick, and five uplink ports per unit beats one uplink port any day. As you'd expect, each port accommodates 10BASE-T and 100BASE-TX connections. In my tests, it worked perfectly, no matter how I connected equipment.

The EZ-500S also configures itself to your system using its "auto address learning" feature, plus it uses store and forward architecture to eliminate data errors and improve the transfer rate. The unit is incredibly small: just 4 3/8" wide by 3/4" high by 2 3/4" deep. You'll find all the details about this $39.95 wonder at http://www.gigafast.com.

BACKGROUNDS AND BULLETS AND BUTTONS, OH MY!

While I like FrontPage's editing capabilities, I'm less impressed by its graphics collections. If you need Web graphics, but aren't artistically inclined (or are short on time), you can buy collections of graphics. The only trouble: modifying them means you have to learn a graphics package -- which could be daunting.

Xara Webstyle 2.0, from Xara.com, is a clever, easy-to-use program that provides a full set of editable vector-graphic templates and tools for creating navigation bars, buttons, bullets, dividers, animated banners, 2D and 3D headings, logos, and backgrounds. You can even create a themed set of matching graphics.

I picked a theme and created a banner and navigation buttons (including HTML to invoke a rollover effect) literally within a matter of minutes, thanks to the well-designed interface. If I can figure things out without even looking at the online help, you can too.

The package contains a set of TrueType fonts and a tutorial. Priced at $69 ($59 for owners of other Xara products), it's an excellent value. You’ll find more info at http://www.xara.com, where there’s a downloadable trial copy. The site also has a great walkthrough with plenty of screen shots so you’ll get an idea of what the program can do (and how easy it is to use).

Another product choice for buttons, banners, and logos is ButtonFly, a brand new graphics development tool from GOTO Software. Like Xara Webstyle, it's designed for users who needing Web buttons and banners but lacking the time or inclination to learn a graphics program.

ButtonFly has a wide variety of graphics controls, from adding bevels and skewing text to controlling colors and size. The feature list -- at http://www.goto-software.com/us/BF/BFstart.htm -- is impressive, as are the results you can get, but getting those results tried my patience. It's easy to design the graphics and set options, but when it was time to generate the graphics, I struggled for 15 minutes trying to understand how to convert my design into GIF files. The program's non-intuitive interface is hampered by gray-on-gray buttons that are nearly impossible to read, and by its mediocre help.

In the end, the struggle just wasn't worth the effort. There's a time-limited "Discovery" edition that lets you play with the software for free, but the full version is $49.95. When I compare it with what Xara Webstyle can do, there's no question that ButtonFly comes in a far second.

-- James E. Powell

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