The Pavilion range of laptops are HP’s latest edition to their already huge catalogue. If your after a budget yet good performance laptop then the Pavilion dv6t is for you. Don’t be fooled by the low price tag (You can find it on the HP website for just $650!) this is a powerful laptop that will suit the needs of home users, office users and casual gamers.

Spec and Performance - The base model for the Pavilion dv6t has the following:

• CPU - Intel Core 2 Duo T6400 (2GHZ)
• Memory – 4GB (DDR3)
• Graphics – Intel 4500mhd
• Screen – 15.6 Inch
• Hard Drive – 320GB
• Other Stuff – Wireless-N, HDMI port, 4 x USB, E-Sata, Dolby speakers, RJ45

With a Core 2 Duo processor and 4GB of DDR3 memory the Pavilion dv6t can handle some memory and cpu intensive programs without any problems. When it comes to multi tasking you can effortesly run several browser windows, a media player and other applications all at once without any downgrade in performance.

The 320GB should give most people plenty of room to store their media and applications on but if you want to use a removable drive there are plenty of USB ports (and an e-sata port) to plug them into to. The basic graphics processor is just that – basic. It will render graphics at an average speed and can handle some older games without too much trouble, but if you’re thinking of running the latest Call of Duty on here, forget it, unless of course you plan on buying the dv6t with a better graphics option (which you can do on the HP website). The rest of the spec is good enough to run some of the latest games providing you upgrade the graphics card.

Look and feel - The dv6t is a very sleek and shiny laptop with a smooth front panel. The keyboard is actually one of the best laptop keyboards I’ve ever used, the keys have the perfect sensitivity and the keyboard also has a number pad, a feature you won’t find on many laptops nowadays! HP has managed to fit this in without it being too intrusive which is impressive for a 15.6inch laptop.

The screen is nice and bright and even under a low brightness setting it is easy to use (making it great to save battery life). As for the ports – they are all well positioned and easily accessible.

Other features - In terms of networking the dv6t comes with a Wireless N network card offering you the maximum possible wireless speed currently available. There is also a built in RJ45 port that offers 1GB speeds on a wired network. The HDMI port is a nice little feature especially since this could be considered a budget laptop.

The dv6t weighs in at 6lb which is light considering its size; this makes its mobility good for a 15.6inch screen laptop. The battery has a life of up to 4 and a quarter hours. Chances are you will get less then that especially if you have wireless enabled and are putting the processor under load. However by lowering the screen brightness you can greatly improve the battery life.

One thing worth noting – the dv6t comes shipped with a whole bunch of software which will negatively impact the performance. Most people will find the software useless and so I recommend removing it when you first get it to get the most out of the laptops spec.

Summary - The dv6t is a great addition to the HP Pavilion range and starting off at $650 it is an absolute bargain for the spec you get. For those who want a general use laptop that won’t struggle with multi tasking then the dv6t is perfect. If you’re a hard core gamer on a budget then the dv6t is viable providing you get a graphics upgrade as an additional option.

Avast is quite a household brand name when it comes to Anti Virus. Although not as well known as some of the bigger manufactures such as Kaspersky, Norton and Mcafee, they are growing in popularity and are becoming a well trusted name when it comes to computer security.

Avast offer a free and paid for anti virus solution and both have an impressive set of features to keep your computer safe from viruses and malware. Let’s take a look.

Features – As with most anti virus programs Avast uses real time shields to protect your system. However, unlike many other programs Avast uses a separate shield for each type of protection it offers, they are as follows:

• File System Shield – Protects your system by monitoring file activity and scans all files being read and write for virus signatures.
• Mail Shield – Scans your emails for any potential viruses in the attachments and message bodies.
• Web Shield – Monitors your online activity and scans any web pages you visit to detect any possible exploits.
• P2P Shield – For those who use any p2p clients such as bit torrent, Avast will scan the programs you are downloading and check for viruses.
• IM Shield - Monitors your instant messaging programs and checks for any suspicious activity.
• Network Shield – Acts as a basic firewall to check for any security breaches.
• Behaviour Shield – This works as a heuristics engine to monitor your entire system for any suspicious behaviour.

The list is certainly impressive and Avast pretty much have all angles covered. All the shields are customisable and can be fine tuned to exclude certain file types or change the detection and notification settings.

Avast also uses an auto update to engine to ensure that your definitions are kept up to date at all times. Full system scans can be ran at any time and you can also schedule boot time scans which will scan your system upon start-up, this is a handy feature since a lot of viruses and malware will auto start-up when Windows first loads and a boot scan should intercept them before they can do this.

Effectiveness – The most important feature of any anti virus program is how effective it is against catching and removing viruses. Lot’s of wonderful features are useless unless the Anti Virus vendor can address the main critical issue, which is its detection rate.

Avast scores very high in this department and in the tests that I conducted it was able to detect some very stubborn and well hidden viruses that other anti virus vendors missed out on. The heuristics engine is also very effective especially if you turn the sensitivity up to full, by doing so you are using the maximum level of protection but there might be occasions where it detects false positives (programs that aren’t actually viruses but are detected as them). This is a small price to pay for the extra protection you get.

The other real time shields were also effective and the web shield was able to detect some JavaScript Web exploits that could have potentially infected my system if it had not have been running. Once a threat is found Avast will popup a notification in the bottom right of the screen, by default there will also be an audio notification which is quite distinct, so there is no chance you won’t notice it!

Free Version Vs Paid Version – The free version of Avast is very effective and for those on a budget it is usually quite adequate for general use. The paid version comes in at $39.95 and offers some nice extra features:

• Faster updates.
• Scripting Shield to protect against Windows based scripting viruses.
• Sandbox feature (Allows you to run a potentially infected file or website without causing any damage to your system).
• Better Web shield to protect against web exploits.

Are the extra features worth the price tag? Probably yes, if you do a lot of web surfing and download quite a lot then the improved web shield and scripting shield can make a big difference to prevent infection. The faster updates are also a very good feature to stay ahead of ’0-day’ viruses which have only recently been discovered.

To get maximum Anti Virus protection click here to download and buy the Pro Version of Avast

To download the Avast Free version click here.

The Cisco CCNA certification is a great way of starting a career path in networking. With the CCNA under your belt you will have some great practical knowledge of how networks operate and the different types of hardware and technologies that drive them.

If you are studying for the CCNA you want to ideally be able to practice configurations that you come across in your course material, to do this you have one of two options. You can either buy some old Cisco routers and switches from eBay and setup your own home lab environment or you can use some virtual lab software like the network visualizer 6.0. The first option can get expensive, especially if you want to practice some of the more advanced configurations where you need to multiple routers and switches. The second option on the other hand is a lot cheaper, a lot easier and takes up a lot less room!

With the CCNA Network Visualiser you can put a complex network together in a matter of minutes; it uses a simple drag interface with single buttons to add each device. The list of devices you can add are:

• Host PC
• 2621 Router
• 2811 Router
• 1900 Switch
• 2950 Switch
• 2960 Switch
• 3550 Switch
• 3560 Switch

The interfaces on the devices vary but generally you will be using the Fast Ethernet and Serial interfaces to link your network together.

There is no real limit to how many devices you can add so you can technically create some very large networks! When you click on a device you will presented with a larger view of the device and you can then click an interface to connect it up to another device. The level of detail is more than sufficient for the CCNA objectives. For example clicking a serial device will prompt you for whether you want to have it as a DTE or DCE device, depending which you choose you might have to provide clocking in your configuration.

If you are adding hosts you can assign them a static ip address and bring up a command prompt to test connectivity between hosts. The only working commands for the command prompt that I could find to use were ping and telnet. In all fairness these are the only two that you will really to test connectivity in your network.

Configuring the devices is a simple as double clicking them to bring up the console window. The console window will look and act just like a real Cisco router. You are able to use the function shortcuts (like CTRL+A to go to the start of the line) and typing a ? will bring up a list of available commands.

Like I said, configuring the devices is exactly the same as it would be with a real Cisco device. You can setup telnet access and configure it from another router or from a device; you can change hostnames and perform basic router changes.

But the stuff you’re really going to want to do is configuring routing protocols like RIP, OSPF and EIGRP. Providing you configure all your devices correctly these routing protocols will work and propagate routing tables throughout the network. The same thing goes for setting up vlans and vlan routing between devices, if they are configured properly they will operate just as they would in a normal network.

Sadly there are a few commands that you might come across that you want to try out but can’t even though they are covered in the CCNA objectives. The ones I found were changing the encapsulation type on a VLAN trunk link, it will not allow you and will come up with ‘Unknown Command’ (Even though if you use the ? it will show you the command is there!). You will also not be able to use the crypto command to setup SSH access. For the most part though you should be able to complete all the test labs you need for the CCNA exam – basic router commands, routing protocols, vlans, spanning-tree, access-lists, nat, WAN (Frame relay) and ipv6. Even though every single command is listed using the ?, you will not be able to use a lot of them; only the ones covered in the ccna objectives.

Summary – Overall this is a great little piece of software, it allows you to quickly design and configure networks of all sizes, you can add some pretty scalable configurations in here with as many devices as you want. 95% of what you need for the CCNA objectives are covered with the commands you can use here. However if wanted to play around with other commands or for those that are covered in the CCNP you will struggle with this. But for the CCNA this is perfect and could save you a lot of time, space and money.

Check out the CCNA Network Visualizer 6.0 at the official routersim homepage.