Alan Stafford, Narasu Rebbapragada, PC World

One-trick-pony software applications often play useful roles, especially if they have secondary advantages such as a lower price, smaller memory requirements, or the ability to run well on older systems. Wondershare's PDF Converter Pro ($80 as of April 27, 2012) certainly has a narrow focus, offering fewer features than competing PDF utilities; unfortunately, it costs nearly as much as those competing programs.

Conversion Diversions

PDF creation and conversion applications are more common than rainbows in Hawaii. A new version of one of these utilities, Lulu Software's Soda PDF Pro + OCR ($100 as of April 27, 2012), promises big features for its modest price; unfortunately, though it performs basic functions adequately, it doesn't quite deliver on the pot of gold.

PDF Competitors

High-dynamic-range photography can be a tricky process, and although some digital cameras have an HDR capture mode, ultimately you'll want to capture the images and combine them yourself for the ultimate in creative control. Unified Color's new HDR Expose 2 image-editing application ($149 as of April 30, 2012) claims to overcome camera limitations by combining multiple images of different exposures to create one properly exposed composition. If you can snap the right images--and if you're willing to tweak--this application can deliver on its promise.

Expose Exposed

With its latest version of VideoStudio Pro, Corel is aiming to crack the Web video production nut. VideoStudio Pro X5 ($80 as of April 30, 2012) is a video-editing application capable of handling everything from start to finish, supplying all that you need to produce videos that you can host, and that play in any HTML 5-compliant browser. But you'll need a computer with one of the latest CPUs to produce cutting-edge video.

HTML 5--What's Hot for Video

LG introduced today today the Optimus Vu, a combo tablet-smartphone LTE device with a 5-inch display to support easier multimedia viewing and ebook reading.  

The Optimus Vu will be on display at the Mobile World Congress next week and will be introduced in Korea in March, LG representatives say; no global availability or pricing was disclosed.

If there's one thing that stifles creative energy with deadly effectiveness, it's having to wait. That's why the new GPU-accelerated features in Sony's Vegas Pro 11 video-editing application ($600 as of January 3, 2012) are more welcome than pretty much anything else Sony could have done for this application.

Speed Me Up, Scotty

Often, you can get by perfectly well with a budget-minded software application that lacks fancy features you may never need. FoxIt's PhantomPDF 5.0 Business ($149 as of November 21, 2011) is the epitome of such middlebrow software: It costs a third of what the blueblood Adobe Acrobat X does, and it can handle most everyday PDF editing tasks.

But that's not to say that you'll be getting a Porsche for the price of a Pinto with PhantomPDF 5.0 Business. The program lacks the most innovative PDF features of Acrobat X, and it comes nowhere near matching Acrobat's polish. It's even rougher around the edges than Nuance's similarly priced PDF Converter Enterprise 7. But PhantomPDF 5.0 Business is a lean, fast application that will work efficiently on older, slower computers in your office; and like Nuance, FoxItcan lets you opt for other versions of PhantomPDF that omit a few more features but cost even less.

Few tools of modern technology have become as prevalent as the cell phone, which allows you to be in touch (almost) all the time, (almost) anywhere. And you can do more than just talk--today's phones let you send and receive email and text messages, surf the Web, and play music and videos. Sifting through the sea of service plans and handsets can be difficult, but we'll walk you through what you need to know to get the phone and service plan that are right for you.

If you don't have to own the latest and greatest smartphone, there’s no time like the present to buy a new one. From the newest iPhone to an Android superphone to a business-friendly Windows Phone, you can find the right phone for you. Before you hit the stores, however, do a bit of research and read our guide so that you'll know exactly what to look for.

Depending on the neighborhood, the fire-engine red “People Love Us on Yelp” sticker outnumbers sedate-looking “Zagat Rated” emblems or fading newspaper reviews on restaurant doors. There’s no mistaking the power--and, let’s face it, the sheer entertainment value--of candid reviews written by regular diners rather than food-industry elite.

And recently, a report written by Harvard Business School assistant professor Michael Luca showed just how powerful a Yelp rating can be: Luca found that a one-star increase in the rating of an independent restaurant leads to a 5 to 9 percent increase in revenue.

Adobe has been producing its Photoshop Elements image-editing and -organizing software for a full decade now. Each successive version acquires more tools, additional features, and greater refinement; and Elements 10 ($100, or $80 as an upgrade as of September 20, 2011) remains the best consumer-level image editor you can buy. But the organizer in Photoshop Elements 10--an increasingly important component of Elements--suffers from performance shortcomings that drag the entire product down.

Waiting on the Final Analysis

We all want bargains--a BMW priced like a Kia, a mansion for the price of a condo, champagne at beer prices. A newly updated PDF-editing application, Nitro Pro 7 ($100 as of November 7, 2011) claims to have the power of Adobe Acrobat at a fraction of the price. Although it delivers on the price part of that claim, it lacks some useful features, and it had problems exporting from PDF to other formats. This file is available for download in 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

The Import/Export Business

Is your workshop like mine? 37 screwdrivers, 16 of which are nearly identical; a saw over here, a saw over there--wait, where did I leave that saw? Corel's PaintShop Pro X4 ($100, as of October 17, 2011) is like my workshop, too--enough tools to serve the needs of almost anyone, assuming that they can find the right one for the job at hand. Though PaintShop Pro X4 is a powerful, extremely capable image-editing application, it would benefit greatly from having a ruthless cleanup crew step in and throw some stuff away.

The Commercial Kitchen Sink