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Netbooks in the spotlight
As rapid innovation produces faster and smaller computers, a new sub-category of the notebook class–the netbook–has entered the spotlight. Netbooks are optimized for portability, accessing the internet, and running basic applications. They typically have a screen size of 13 inches or less, weigh two or three pounds, and cost less than $500.
Most netbooks use Intel’s dime-sized Atom processor– the Atom N270 processor’s performance is roughly equivalent to a Pentium 4 2.4Ghz.
Some of the leading netbooks of today would include Dell’s Mini Netbook, Acer’s Aspire One, and Asus’ Eee Pc. Out of these, Asus’ Eee Pc was first to the field, and I think they still have an edge over the competition. I’ve been using an Eee Pc for about a year, and I love it.
My favorite netbook at the moment is the Eee Pc 1005HA with 10.5 hours of battery life! I doubt that the battery would actually perform quite that well outside of the lab, but that’s still quite impressive! When I got my earlier generation Eee Pc a year ago, they were advertising a 7 hour battery life, and I got about 5 hours of juice.
The various Eee PC models have a lot of variety– with different screen sizes, processor speeds, storage types, and battery life. Amazon.com carries a lot of the varieties and older models, so it’s a great website for comparisons of features and prices.
One thing that disappoints me is that netbooks typically only come with 1GB of memory, which is definitely a performance bottleneck. The good news is that it’s easy to upgrade to 2GB, and it only costs about $25. Changing the memory is as simple, and here are directions.
Another thing to keep in mind is that netbooks can be hard on your eyes if you use them a lot. If you’re going to want to use a netbook as your primary computer, you may want to consider getting a LCD monitor that you can plug into when you’re home.
Quick photo resizing
Download and install this open source Image Resizer to resize photos “on the fly” in Windows (XP, Vista, and 7). Once installed, simply right-click on a photo, and click resize from the dropdown menu. A new window will open where you can chose the dimensions you want and click ok. The new file’s name includes the original file name and the resized dimensions at the end. Enjoy!
How to buy online with confidence
E-retailing has comprehensively changed the landscape for the consumer. Shipping time and costs can still be disadvantages, but if you’re a price conscious consumer, online deals can be extraordinarily good–especially when you’re not under time pressure.
Some of you have probably had bad experiences buying online from disreputable companies. Others of you might be wary going for that “great deal” unless you’ve bought from the seller before. As the internet develops, more resources are being built to equip the consumer with accurate information so that they can buy with confidence. I’ve found the website, Reseller Ratings, to be incredibly helpful for scoping out E-retailers.
Once I know what I’m wanting to buy, I check Price Grabber, Froogle, and Google to find deals. If I find a low price from a website I’ve never heard of before, that’s where Reseller Ratings comes in. On the Reseller Ratings website, I can enter the store’s website address, and it returns helpful info about the company. The store is given a rating on a scale of 1 to 10, and usually there are also reviews from previous customers.
Another option for “hard to find” items is Ebay. However, I usually try to stick with Power Sellers, unless I’m willing to take some additional risk.
What’s the scoop on Firefox, Chrome, and Safari?
The internet has grown dramatically in the last ten years. More likely than not, you weren’t even online in 1999, in the days of Netscape Navigator 4, and Internet Exploder Explorer 5.
As the Internet has grown in significance to our daily lives, the battle for the dominant browser has intensified greatly, and rightly so.
The three most notable browsers that I believe will continue to be on the front lines are: Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, and Apple’s Safari.
Firefox provides the most add-on functionality at the expense of being slightly slower. The benefit of the add-ons makes this my browser choice for my desktop. Some of my favorite add-ons for Firefox include: Adblock Plus, IE Tab, TwitterFox, WOT (Web Of Trust), and NoScript.
Chrome 2 was just released yesterday, increasing the speed and stability of an already lightweight and fast browser. I use Chrome on my Netbook because of it’s performance, and its minimalistic approach to layout allows me to see more web content on my small 10″ screen.
Safari is extremely fast, has superior out-of-the-box functionality, follows web standards well, and is arguably the best looking, especially if you ask an Apple fan. =D
Having a good browser and knowing how to use it increases your security and efficiency online, and is becoming an increasingly important skill set for everyone.
What’s Twitter, and why should I be using it?
Many of you have probably heard of RSS, a technology that helps people keep up with new blog entries and news articles. RSS works by updating a feed when new content is published. It’s a lot easier to keep up with a single feed than constantly browsing all of your favorites sites to see what’s new.
Even more groundbreaking than RSS, in my opinion, is a rapidly growing service called Twitter. There’s a lot more to Twitter than first meets the eye. Meaningful updates from friends and family are nice, but its ability to quickly feel the pulse of the internet is incredible.
Today when Google went down, I logged into Twitter and noticed by looking at the right sidebar that #googlefail was the most active topic this morning. When I clicked on #googlefail, I was able to see other Twitter users’ updates talking about the failure– updates that were only a few seconds old. Amazing!
So, go ahead and sign up, and when you do, be sure to follow KentComputers!
Two quick tips for protecting your critical data
Benjamin Franklin once said that “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” In a world where hard drives crash, files corrupt, and viruses wreck havoc, we need safeguards for protecting critical data. Here are two quick and easy tips.
1) Work on the web as much as you can so that backups are handled without even needing to think about it. An example would be using webmail, such as GMail, so that your emails are stored somewhere other than just your local hard drive. Using the web has the additional benefit of being able to access your data wherever you are, and on whatever computer happens to be convenient.
2) If you have a lot of documents, pictures, and music, you’re probably going to need to come up with a backup plan for those things. You’ll need a second hard drive where you’ll be copying your data. FBackup is a free application for handling backups and is easy to use. Once you set up a schedule for it, it’ll run your backups in the background automatically.
Can I recover my file?!
If you’ve used a computer very long at all, you’ve probably lost data. Maybe you lost a paper you were working on, deleted an email too fast, or worst of all, your hard drive crashed!
Losing data is always a painful thing, but here are some tips that will help you know whether or not your file might be recoverable. My next article will explain some steps you can take to avoid data loss in the future.
Let me compare your hard drive to a book. Just like a book has a table of contents, a hard drive has a Master File Table (MFT). The MFT stores information like the names and locations of files on the disk.
When you delete a file, it’s usually still there, and has simply been removed from the MFT. It’s like having a book with a chapter that’s not listed in the table of contents. Files like that are easy to recover as long as they haven’t been overwritten by another file, so you’ll want to recover sooner rather than later if possible.
If you deleted your file a while back, it might be difficult to recover, because once a file is removed from the MFT a new file can be written on top of where the old one was. Similarly, if you save an old or bad version of a file that has the same name as a file you’ve been working on, you overwrite the file with bad data. In many programs, you can undo changes by clicking Undo (File->Undo), but once you close the file this option will probably be unavailable.
If your drive isn’t showing up in My Computer, you’ll want to make sure that everything is plugged in properly, and then check Disk Management (Go to the Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management -> Disk Management) to see if it’s showing up there. You should also check and see if it shows up in your system BIOS (Usually you get there by pressing f2 or del on your keyboard during start up, but it varies). If it’s not showing up, your drive is probably dead.
If you have a drive that has suddenly stopped showing files that used to be there, they may have been deleted or possibly the MFT has simply become corrupt. Data recovery software can usually help in these sorts of situations.
Even without spending any money you can run free file recovery software, such as the free version of Handy Recovery I linked to above, which can recover data in most basic scenarios. If the free version won’t cut it, you can download a trial for the full fledged version to see if you’ll be able to recover the data you’ve lost. If the files are there, you can recover them by buying a license for $49. If you have a Mac, one option for data recovery software I’ve used with good success is Data Rescue.
Quick guide for buying a computer
Computer technology changes rapidly. Because there aren’t clear cut ways to gauge performance, it can be difficult to know exactly what you’re buying, and whether or not it’s a good deal. Even when buying a computer at your local computer superstore or at Dell.com there are things you’ll want to know to be sure you’re getting the best value you can.
Let me start by describing the main components of a computer by comparing them to your kitchen. The CPU or processor is essentially the brain of the computer and does the “thinking” involved with everything you do on your computer. You could compare the speed of the processor to the speed of a cook in preparing a meal. One way to err, is to think that you can make accurate comparisons based on the Gigahertz (GHz) of a processor. Regrettably, the GHz of a processor is not a reliable ‘real world’ indicator of performance. We’ll talk about this more later on.
Your hard drive is like your kitchen cupboards. If you run out of space to put things, you have to stop getting more dishes and tools for your kitchen, unless you can add more cabinets. However, even though a kitchen’s pots and pans don’t grow, the number of files on your computer will continually grow as you use your computer. If you enjoy music or photos, it’s better to err on the side of getting a drive that allows you some room for growth.
Your memory is like the counter top space in your kitchen. Have you ever tried making a meal without enough counter space? If you don’t have enough memory, the computer ends up moving data around a lot, and slows things down significantly. If you’re planning on using your computer for more than simple web browsing and document editing, you’ll probably want to upgrade from the standard amount memory if you can. Upgrading the memory is usually one of the least expensive and most effective ways to increase performance on an older computer.
When you evaluate a computer, one of the primary things to look at is the processor. You can compare a processors performance to others at websites like cpubenchmark.net, but there are a number of other things to consider as well, such as: the amount of hard drive space and memory. If you’re a computer gamer or if you work with a lot of media, the sound card, speakers, video card and screen will also be major considerations, but if you’re mainly just browsing the web and editing documents cutting back costs in these areas will save you money.
Next time you’re looking for parts for your computer, like a wireless router, LCD monitor, USB flash drive, or some extra memory, I’d recommend NewEgg.com. They’re well known for low prices, great service, and speedy delivery. They allow you to sort products by popularity and rating, and reading a few reviews can be a really helpful in making your decision if you’re not exactly sure what you want and need.
Computer slowing down?
Your operating system and the software you’ve installed on your computer will slow your computer down over time. It’s unavoidable at a certain level, but there are things you can do to limit the impact. Every time you install a program, you’re demanding more from your computer, and the effect accumulates over time, so use discernment in what you install.
Your computer will certainly slow down if you get a virus or spyware on your computer. If you don’t have an up-to-date antivirus and antispyware program, consider installing the free version of Avast Home.
If your computer is protected from viruses and spyware, and it’s still running slow, here are a couple of things you can do to speed things up. First, go to the Control Panel (Click Start -> Control Panel), and click “Add or Remove Programs” or in Windows Vista click “Programs and Features”. Uninstall all of the applications that you don’t need and restart your computer.
If your computer is running slow, you probably have a lot of programs automatically starting themselves when you turn on your computer. You can speed up your computer by turning off automatic startup for most of them. The only programs that really need to startup with your computer are applications for core functionality and protection, such as drivers and antivirus software. To see what applications are currently starting up when you turn on your computer, and to turn some of them off, you can use the Microsoft Configuration Utility. Here’s a tutorial with screenshots.
What software do you use every day?
Some of the best things in life are free. Let me tell you about seven of the finest free gems in the software world.
1) Mozilla Firefox is a superior browser. It’s open source, and its add-ons deliver incredible flexibility. My favorite addon is Adblock Plus. It blocks almost all advertisements you’d normally see on the web.
2) WordWeb has become one of my regular friends over the last several years. With a simple Ctrl + Alt + W (the hotkeys can be customized if desired) a box pops up instantly that allows me to look up the definition or spelling of a word. If I really want to be fancy, I can double click on a word, which highlights it, and then press the hotkeys and it instantly looks up that word. This has been a really helpful tool for me in expanding my vocabulary and improving spelling. Some people have told me that they think Google is just as good for doing this, but once you get used to WordWeb, you’ll never go back.
3) Google Picasa is a superb free program for photo management and basic editing. It’s comparable to Adobe LightRoom, which retails for $299.
4) Foxit PDF Reader is an extremely lightweight and fast PDF reader. If you work with a lot of PDFs or work on an older computer, you’ll notice significantly faster performance.
5) iTunes: It took me a while to finally come to the conclusion that I like iTunes– even though there are still things that really tweak me about it. It runs a few too many unnecessary processes in the background, and I don’t like the Apple Software Updater very much, but I’ve found iTunes to be very stable and easy-to-use for managing music.
6) AVG Free Antivirus protection is a must for most computers. Instead of going out and buying Norton Antivirus every year, home users can save some money by using AVG Free. The free version offers a very decent level of all-around protection, and it’s always done a good job for me. AVG also offers more comprehensive packages as well if you want to guard against rootkits and broader protection on the web.
7) Open Office is an excellent alternative to Microsoft Office for those who are hesitant to plunk down a couple hundred dollars to edit documents. There are a few things to keep in mind. While I’ve almost never had a problem opening a file with Open Office, there have been a couple of times when I’ve forgotten to save the file in a format that other Microsoft Office users can open– which is a frustrating experience for everyone involved. It is possible to save files in the Microsoft format, so if you’re planning on sharing a document with others, simply save the file in a Microsoft format right from the start.