A month ago I bought Wacom's Graphire2 tablet, in a bid to end the frustration of editing my digital photographs using a mouse.

It works great. I recommend such tablets - and there are a few companies that provide alternatives to Wacom's version - for anyone who does a lot of graphic work. For a few dollars more it is also a good alternative for those who are considering whether to buy an optical or a cordless mouse.

The Graphire2 is a tablet that comes with a cordless mouse and a pen. The flat tablet is thicker than a regular mouse pad, and is attached to the computer by a cord. For normal work using the cordless mouse is much easier to use than a regular mouse, as you do not have to drag around a cord as well. The mouse does not have a ball and does not need a battery, and is read by dragging it over the tablet.

For graphics work, or for signing your name I switch to the pen, or stylus, which according to the specifications, is sensitive to 512 levels of pressure. This means I control directly how thick a line I want to draw, or how much I want to "dodge" a photo to clear up dark areas.

The Graphire2 tablet has transparent overlay, under which you can place a photo or other graphic and trace an outline using the pen. The 'pen' has a built in 'eraser', giving users much more control over the eraser function available on graphic software. A clicker on the side of the pen mirrors the mouse's clickable buttons.

For those who do not own the pricey Photoshop software, the bonus is Graphire2 comes bundled with Adobe Photoshop Elements, Painter Classic and penPalette LE. The bundle is adequate for most needs.

The onscreen tools on the software emulate pencils, brushes, pens, chalk and other media. It takes some time to fully get used to wielding a stylus rather than a mouse, and to learn all the ways it can be an advantage, but once you get past the initial frustration, fiddling around with graphics becomes a breeze...well almost.

For US$100 the buy was well worth the price.

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For Windows XP users who need a quick reference guide surf over to Kelly's XP Korner at http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com. This is truly a great creation on the Internet.

The site provides anything from easy reference tips to more technical matters about editing the daunting Windows registry. The site deals with setup issues, software conflicts, drivers and other matters.

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MusicMatch Radio (http://www.musicmatch.com/) took the top spot for attracting the largest audience of any Internet radio network in September, according to the latest survey by MeasureCast.

The Internet network had 1,139,290 listeners in September. Internet Radio, Inc. (http://www.internetradioinc.com/) came next in the network sweepstakes with 738,920 listeners, followed by Clear Channel Worldwide (http://www.clearchannel.com) with 696,171 listeners, and Radio Free Virgin had an audience of 525,185.

Among individual channels Virgin Radio finished September as the number one webcaster in the top 50 Internet radio stations ranking. The UK-based station streamed 1,546,290 hours of entertainment to 264,788 people.

Another UK-based station, JazzFM (www.jazzfm.com) came in second with 243,123 listeners.

MeasureCast monitors 1,946 online stations, which in September streamed a combined total of 59,352,922 hours to 12,481,768 listeners worldwide.

The survey and links to some great radio stations is available at http://www.measurecast.com.

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Microsoft has issued another patch for Word and Excel users. The patch fixes a flaw in the software that makes it possible to steal information from a user. The hacker would have to create a Word or Excel document that exploits the vulnerability, deliver it to the user, via email or some other method, get the user to open the document, and then return the document to the attacker. The patch is available at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms02-059.asp.

Another patch issued for Windows XP fixes a flaw in the help file. The patch is available at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms02-060.asp.

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lTech Tattle deals with issues in technology. Contact Ahmed at editoroffshoreon.com.