London/Cambridge  - Many office workers in Germany struggle to understand complicated PC software designed for office usage, according to a survey by Global Solutions in Cambridge.

The survey, carried out among 1,015 office workers this February, showed that four out of 10 found the software at their workplace difficult to use.

Many of those quizzed believe that such user-unfriendliness has a negative effect on work performance, with 22 per cent claiming to lose up to five hours of work time a week as a result.

Hamburg  - When Jens Kuerpick looks at photos from old, school outings, he can't help but grin. Not because he and his old buddies were just kids back then, "but because they all have red eyes in the photos," the Dusseldorf university student says.

Those flaws can now be fixed using a computer. Yet digital photo editing is also increasingly being used for artistic aspects. Practical solutions can come through special programs on the internet.

Bonn  - For years now retailers have been selling more notebooks than PCs and thanks to the success of ultra-portable net books, more people than ever before are carrying their computers - and their valuable data - around with them the whole time.

Needless to say, this increases the risk of data being skimmed, stolen or of it simply falling into the wrong hands. Fortunately, confidential information on portable computers can be reliably secured using state-of-the-art encryption techniques or biometric authentication.

Bonn  - The computer virus, Conficker, continues to pose a threat, according to the German Federal Agency for Security in Information Technology (BSI) in Bonn.

The experts say the C and D variants of the computer virus continuing to exploit a vulnerability in Windows, including an upgrade of its activities to now include the downloading of updates. Conficker used peer-to-peer functionality to exchange data directly with other internet-accessible PCs.

Kaufbeuren, Germany - The basic version of the free office software suite, OpenOffice, packs in a lot of functionality. Yet for some users it's just not enough. Fortunately it doesn't need to be. A variety of extensions, most available for free, can be used to add even more pep to the standard version. This type of modular software construction is familiar to users of web browsers like Firefox and Opera as an effective way to integrate expanded capabilities. As with OpenOffice itself, these are free software add-ons developed by enthusiastic developers from the OpenOffice community.