Munich - Anyone looking for fluid 3D gaming action or smooth video editing will need a powerful graphics card for their computer. When researching cards, potential buyers are typically faced with a range of manufacturer claims.

While these can be helpful, they are often only tangential to real quality and almost always require further explanation. One specification that does actually make a difference is the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU).

"That's the heart of a graphics card," explains Christian Wefers from hardware maker Asus. Far and away the most common chips found on graphics cards come from competitors Nvidia and ATI.

Bonn, Germany  - Home PC hard drives tend to be huge. That does not help much when you need spontaneous access to documents or photos while out and about. One option is an external hard drive or memory stick, but that means more devices to be carried along.

The alternative, these days, is web hard drives - personal storage space on the internet that can be accessed from almost any computer. The services are easy to use, although the uploading of data often requires a heft chunk of time. Security should be taken into consideration as well.

Hanover, Germany - Most current generation anti-virus programs are greatly improved over their earlier counterparts, experts say.

This applies in particular to their ability to use heuristic methods of recognizing and disarming previously unknown viruses, the Hanover-based computer magazine c't concluded after a test of 10 programs.

Most programs now offer good protection against spyware. Yet, the programs are also increasingly prone to issuing false alarms, such as when they classify newly installed software as malicious.

Munich - Adobe is releasing the latest versi

Hamburg  - Flat screen displays for gaming PCs might not be ready for prime time yet, but they're not far off, either, according to a recent test by Computer Bild Spiele magazine.

The Hamburg-based periodical put six 22- to 24-inch monitors through their paces. One of the 24-inchers earned a score of "good"; the rest achieved only "satisfactory."

The test winner was the Samsung Sync Master 2493HM, which the testers saw as having a high image contrast, good anti-reflection characteristics and very good colour fidelity.

Washington - Need a faster internet connection? Who doesn't? Although the free Download Accelerator (http://www.speedbit.com) has been around since the days when dial-up was the primary means of getting online, the tool is useful for today's broadband connections as well. It can speed up your downloads by as much as 300 per cent, depending upon your connection. The program works by finding the fastest path for your downloads and general surfing. --------