Computer Spot

Remember how freeing it felt getting a 128 MB flash thumb drive about 10 years ago? Even up until a couple of years ago, getting a portable external hard drive that could hold 160 GB seemed like a great little personal luxury – you could carry your movies and your music and your data anywhere.

These days, even as these devices become extremely affordable, people do think twice before buying. They know that there’s cloud storage to be had for next to nothing at all.

If they buy their own personal hard drive, they figure, they could drop it or lose it or something. Cloud storage is forever. Why bother with a portable external hard drive, they feel.

The thing is, cloud storage isn’t as great as you might think. If you get a virus on your computer or if you any need to wipe your hard drive, it’s a lot easier to restore everything from a hard drive you have in your drawer than it is to download hundreds of gigabytes.

And anyway, who has the time or the patience to repeatedly stream a movie every time they want watch? In short, a portable external hard drive still makes sense.

Buying a drive, the choice today is between the USB 2.0 and USB 3.0. It would make a lot of sense to buy 3.0, because it doesn’t cost any more.

Of course, most computers don’t have a USB 3.0 port. But no matter, new computers that come out these days mostly have them.

Practically every computer should have 3.0 support withing a year or two. Until then, your superfast hard drive still can work with an old 2.0 port.

Stay away from FireWire though – that’s a standard that is nearly gone now. If you want something that’s even faster than USB 3.0, you should consider Intel’s Thunderbolt – something that’s only shown up on Apple computers so far.

Thunderbolt is pretty expensive. A mere cable for Thunderbolt costs $50. If you can find it. The upside though is that it can transfer data at twice the speed of USB 3.0.

Since Thunderbolt really hasn’t shown up anywhere yet, might not make much sense looking for a Thunderbolt hard drive. You might be able to use it with your newest Apple computers. You probably wouldn’t be able to use it on anyone else’s computer.

eSATA is a great option too, though that’s exclusively designed for hardware connections. Most new laptops feature eSATA these days. They’ll usually double up as a USB port too. If you get one of these hard drives, you’re in luck. They are as fast as USB 3.0.

Do consider springing for a network attached storage drive or a Wi-Fi drive. This is something that you don’t have to actually physically connect to your computer.

Basically, portable drives are dirt cheap. And they are super compact too. There’s quite nothing like owning a capacious 1TB hard drive that’s the size of the palm of your hand.

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My Passport Essential Portable hard drive is a wonderful storage media for people on the go. It is light and easy to carry and hence is a popular choice with users.

It is compatible with both Windows and Mac. The most important and useful feature is that you do not need a power adaptor to charge them. You can charge it from the USB cable itself. This makes it even more convenient for the users.

These hard drives come in different colors and are very sleek and beautiful hence you can easily hold them in your hand or pocket.

These drives are ideal for people who do not wish to carry around their laptops. It helps them synchronize their work and home computers.

This hard drive can also be used for storing images, videos, and digital music. On these drives you can encrypt everything for added security.

In fact, you can also transfer files from a Windows PC to a Mac PC with the help of these portable hard drives. It is available in different capacities such as 500 GB, 400 GB, 350 GB, and 250 GB.

Netbook is a new type of laptop that is defined by weight, size, power and operating system.  It is lightweight, small, consumes less power and run on old or unfamiliar operating systems.

Netbooks typically weigh from 2 to 3 pounds, have 9- or 10- inch screens, and have keyboard size of at least 95% of the normal, standard keyboards.

Despite its weigh, size and structure, netbooks still have the standard components of a laptop:

• 1024×600 screen resolution
• WI-FI capability
• Ethernet at 100 Mbps
• Built-in camera
• 2 or 3 USB ports

Netbooks have no optical drives.  Optical drives are not included to reduce size and cost.  Some netbooks do not include Bluetooth and latest version of Ethernet (Gigabit Ethernet).

But netbooks are still hot in the market because of its benefits stated below:

• If you are the type of user who takes your computer either on a coffee shop or subway and don’t need a heavy, 17” notebook, then you can consider using netbook.  It offers portability to users on the go.
• Netbooks run on low-powered processors. Newer ones make use of larger batteries and capable of 5 hours battery life.
• Netbooks that run on Linux operating systems are very user friendly to new computer users because the interface is simplified.

Use netbooks if you want a small, lightweight and portable laptop.

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When someone refers to a laptop or a notebook, they are talking about a portable computer. The term laptop came about because the computer itself is small enough to fit on ‘top’ of your ‘lap’.

Pretty simple really. It is amazing how technology has evolved from needing a whole entire room to house a computer machine — to being able to have high speed internet and 200 GIGABYTES of information right in your lap!

Laptop computers really became popular around 1983 with the first ever portable computer, the Compaq Portable. They were not called laptop computers quite yet at that time, they were called “luggables.” Read the rest of this entry →

The Current computer market has undergone some impressive changes. The usual floppy disks as well as desktop PCs have been replaced by the USB pen drives and laptops.

These changes are evidently due to the high-end improvements in the technology. Whatever the reasons might be, the beneficiaries of these positive changes are the Customers. Read the rest of this entry →