Memory Cards – Understanding the different types and formats

January 4th, 2010 by paramoz

Memory cards form the basis of all digital devices that need some sort of resident storage memory on board. For instance, new age digital cameras and mobile phones replace the photo film with cards to store images. You can delete the unwanted images and save the desired ones on to a computer and then write them on a CD. A memory card, in theory can be reused for an infinite number of times. These cards are based on flash memory technology and the best part about using flash memory sticks is that they not only reduce the size of the circuitry enormously, but they are also relatively stronger than contemporary storage devices.

Flash memory devices such as memory cards use no moving mechanical parts, thus, the wear and tear of the storage equipment is almost negligible and you can be rest assured that your flash stick would be up and running, even after years. Apart from phones and cameras, these cards are finding usage within pen drives, laptops and other electronic devices as well. Competition among manufacturers and reduction of cost of raw materials (semiconductor circuitry and chips) have resulted in a constant increase in the storage capacity of these  cards at an exorbitantly low cost.

New age cards, which come in liquid and semi-solid forms are also available these days. Although, such cards employ technically more advanced equipment as compared to flash memory, yet they are easy to use and have a decent storage capacity. Such cards are referred to as mem-cads by geeks and the tech-savvy people, who generally use them. Power free storage capacity, compact size and ease of operation, apart from dependability, have made these cards a must-have storage device for almost everyone today. With SD/MMC and XD variants already in the market, the future promises to be bright for memory cards and people using them.

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Maximize the results of a USB pen drive

January 3rd, 2010 by paramoz

Let us have a brief look at the numerous advantages of a USB pen drive to find enough reasons for its growing popularity in the last few years. A USB pen drive offers a higher degree of portability, flexibility, affordability and consistency than its traditional counterparts. These cheap pen drives can be used in different ways to enhance productivity, add-on sales and profit line.

Most of the present day USB pen drives are cross-platform functional and their users can easily use them on machines running on the Windows, Macintosh or Linux operating systems. Some of the latest pen drives come with plug-and-play functionality, which allows the users to make use of them without the installation of any drivers.

If you want to maximise the results from these cheap pen drives then it does not matter what types or how many devices you have, the only thing that matters is how best that can be used for. A pen drive can be effectively used to organise, store and share Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, Excel spreadsheets, critical business or personal mails, image/sound/video files and other applications or programs. The sharing of these applications can be done on Local area network (LAN) or a Wireless LAN.

Some of the leading names in the world of USB pen drives are Kingston, Transcend and iBall. The Kingston DTI 1 GB, iBall 1 GB USB Pen Drive, Transcend TS1GJFV30 Jet Flash, Kingston DTI 2 GB Pen Drive and Kingston Data Traveller DTI 4GB are some of the most acclaimed and affordable USB pen drives in the present day market. The Kingston DTI 2 GB Pen Drive is one of the most critically acclaimed USB mass storage devices that can easily meet all of your storage needs. It offers superior results by facilitating fast transfer of data files and is considered to be an exceptional companion for every home and workplace as it offers a huge capacity.

So, if you need to modify files on multiple platforms and want to experience the benefits of transmission remains a high-end solution, this high quality but cheap pen drives, running on the hard drive turns advanced technology, all that need.

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Does your memory?

January 2nd, 2010 by paramoz

It’s a well worn joke that our memory gets poorer as we get older, but in photography terms things are actually getting better every day.

One of the initial downsides to digital photography – certainly a negative point for professional photographers – was the limit to memory. Storage isn’t the only issue; many photographers use fast mode to take rapid shots in succession, requiring high speed transfer of image to file.

Thankfully industry has kept pace with demand and now it’s possible to buy not only a camera memory card with incredible memory capacity, but also able to keep up with the demands of fast action photography.

For professional and amateur photographers alike, the problems of storing images – particular high resolution pictures – is a constant problem. For those on a location shoot, running out of memory is as disastrous as running out of film was in the old days. Images need to be stored somewhere until they can be download on to a computer for analysis and optimisation.

Many photographers keep their images stored on memory cards, buying more cards when they run out of space. Others store their pictures on their computer. However, images use a lot of computer memory, so it has become a popular solution to store images on flash key drives in order to free up computer memory capacity.

One particular memory card manufacturer with an excellent reputation is Kingston. Their memory cards and USB flash memory drives are available in a wide range of formats and capacities. Whether you need instant storage whilst out on a shoot, or somewhere to download images for storage, Kingston offer reliable, convenient storage for all types of purposes.

Kingston’s Elite Pro range of CompactFlash memory cards are highly recommended for taking fast action shots, such as fast action sporting events. Whilst not all photographers shoot this genre, those that do using Kingston’s Elite Pro cards find their limitations are purely physical: how long can you hold down the shutter button!

The problem of being ‘locked out’ of functionality by your camera as it struggles to transfer images from buffer to memory is never an issue with these excellent memory cards. With memory capacity currently extending to 16GB, there’s no reason to hold back on shooting fast high resolution pictures to your heart’s content.

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Exciting new casino games online

January 2nd, 2010 by paramoz

Internet casino games may not always be the same as those being played in casinos based in land. Some of the most favorite casino games are made in versions which are more upfront challenging and exciting than those played in mortar and brick established casinos. Aside from the fact that you can play in the comfort of your home, interaction in an online game is more entertaining because of the latest upgrades in online gaming.

The casino war, for example, is an online game version of a card game from children’s war games. Moreover, your all-time favorite poker in the internet is still played with a dealer which uses a standard deck of cards dealing with each player. You can give your bets to the cards you have after they are dealt to you. You lose if it is a lower value than the dealer’s. It is similar to poker and interest in the game has surged in recent years.

The more innovative the game is, the more players love it

On a regular basis, players love to have the most entertaining innovative online casino games. Considering that most of them are not really seasoned gamblers, these gaming enthusiasts are basically seeking for games that are entertainingly rational and more technologically advanced products. An online casino keeps offering them novel stuff to keep their interest triggered and players love the stuff as their expectations get exceeded every time.

If you have cards that are of higher value compared to the dealer, you win. There is certainly great possibilities of fun in casino war games in the internet and the promise of luck that lets people’s attention drive them poker playing! The real kicker is when the dealer and you have the same value of cards. You can either go for an all out war or raise the white flag. You can either surrender or fight until you win based on the play you want to have. You can double your bets if you plan to go to war.

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Guide to Choosing a laptop

January 1st, 2010 by paramoz

Simple things you need to keep in mind when choosing a laptop:

What is it for?

Just like with a writer or a graphic designer, consider the purpose of your buying a laptop. If you are a writer and you only need something to type on and perhaps connect to the Internet, you only need the basic features and specifications. That is unless you’re a gamer because games are very power hungry and you will definitely need a higher end laptop.

On the same note, you must also consider the softwares or applications that you need. For writers, you must think about the word processor that you would like to use. If you’re a graphic designer, you definitely want Photoshop, Illustrator and other similar programs.

Consider your budget.

Don’t pay too much for a laptop with features you will never actually use. And of course, unless you’re a millionaire, your budget probably would be limited.

Shop around.

Visit as many computer shops as you can. You must learn to compare prices or you would later feel that you have been ripped off with your purchase. Some offer a discount on the same laptop model or they give away freebies. It can be something as small as a key chain flash drive or as important as an extra battery or laptop bag.

You’ll be surprised at the savings you can get when you shop around first.

Learn to read and trust reviews.

But don’t read just one review. You’ll never know because it might be a sponsored review or that the reviewer was actually biased. Read at least three reviews for a specific laptop model that you want. And consider only the reviews from reputable and trusted websites and publications.

When you’re still clueless, go ask a friend.

If you’re still undecided on what model to buy, why not ask a friend who is more technologically knowledgeable than yourself. Value his opinion. If you know that he has been using a specific brand or laptop model and has only praise for him is a good start, considering the selection of the same laptop.

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Computer Memory – Does RAM Latency Matter?

December 31st, 2009 by paramoz

In this article, which is going to get quite technical for you non techies, we’re going to debate the issue of whether or not RAM latency matters when choosing memory for your computer. My apologies in advance if some of this stuff seems like it’s out in the stars.

When people consider system memory, it is unfortunately an afterthought, next to the rest of the stuff you find in your computer. Many people who build PCs (and you know who you are) just put in whatever they can find as long as it works in “their” systems. Some builders however, take the opposite route and get these mega bucks ultra high frequency or low latency chips in the hopes that it will give their systems a big boost in performance. Don’t worry, you pay for this bit of overkill.

It has gotten to the point that many major manufacturers offer special low latency memory. Kingston, one of the biggest manufacturers of computer memory chips, has their own low latency line called the HyperX DDR400 RAM. Pretty fancy name, wouldn’t you say? Then you’ve got Crucial peddling their own low latency line they call Ballistix. Then there is OCZ Technologies which has actually sold low latency RAM chips for a very long time. And for the company Corsair, their XMS memory line boasts an “LL” designation for their low latency chips.

As I said, you pay for these little gems, to the tune of 30 to 100% more than for ordinary memory chips. But the big question is, are they worth the big bucks that you’re shelling out for them? Well, fortunately there are testing companies out there that help us answer these kind of questions and tests were made on these low latency chips versus your ordinary run of the mill RAM chip.

To explain low latency first, in a brief and simple way, every chip you buy comes with what is called a clock rate, or how fast the chip will perform operations in your computer. Low latency means that the chip will actually run faster than this clock rate without having to overclock it because of the ultra high frequency the chips run on. So your computer runs faster. The question is, how much faster and does it make a noticeable enough difference in performance to justify the cost?

Without getting super technical here, when tests were conducted on various high end systems, which is where you need your highest performance boost, the improvements with low latency RAM chips came out to a meager 1% improvement in speed over regular RAM chips for the cheapest of the low latency chips and only a 3% improvement in speed over regular RAM chips for the most expensive. These tests were conducted on numerous high end systems with similar results for all.

Numbers don’t lie, but you can draw your own conclusions from these tests. However, it is quite obvious from these results you’re probably not getting what you paid for when buying these high end chips. You might want to save your money and invest in a better the motherboard.

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Leks Media CompactFlash memory card

December 30th, 2009 by paramoz

The experience of finding out that the digital camera you just bought can only take a very limited number of pictures, and that transferring these images to the computer takes just about forever, can wipe out the excitement that normally accompanies such a purchase. Most digital cameras and older USB storage products come with very low capacity, low speed, and memory cards or product parts that are pretty much inadequate for anything. However, for those prone to fret and fume over such matters, there’s help at hand in the form of high-speed, high capacity, digital camera memory cards and USB storage devices. Repair USB flash drive and memory card recovery services are available when data gets lost or media becomes badly damaged.

Feel the need for speed? Check out this gizmo;

The SanDisk Extreme IV CompactFlash memory cards, with a minimum read-and-write speed of 40 MB/sec, are the fastest in the world, the Ferrari’s or Lamborghini’s among digital camera memory cards. They come in sizes of 2, 4 and 8GB and are meant for the serious photographer who uses a top-of-the-line digital camera to shoot RAW and JPEG images that are usually very large and quickly fill up a card. Also see the new Sandisk USB storage devices. The card is capable of withstanding extremes of temperatures ranging from -13F to 185F and comes bundled with software that allows photographers to manage and manipulate images and data. USB flash drive repair issues are lessened with better working products. Now that’s adding additional cool stuff!

Have bad eyesight? Don’t even think about buying this memory card!

If you are one of those types who think size does matter, you will surely want to check out Kingston’s latest offering – the MicroSD card. The storage capacity for this card is 1GB, all on a surface area that easily fits onto a fingertip. Though the card can be used for a variety of applications, it is sure to be popular on small digital cameras, the kind normally used by people who love outdoor photography. The card comes with an SD adapter than allows it to be fit into any SD card slot.

High-performance, attractively packaged card;

Lexar Media’s Platinum 2 CompactFlash memory card is aimed at photographers who want a performance card that supports rapid-fire shooting and full motion video. With a speed rating of 80x that delivers a minimum sustained write speed of 12MB per second, this card allows you to take advantage of the various features in your digital camera. It also allows you to write captured information onto the card quickly and without interruption. Moreover, the card’s revolutionary packaging style makes the card stand out in stores and clearly communicates the card format, speed, and capacity to the buyer.

All these devices need to be used with caution, loosing important data on these devices can have its toll on consumers. If you ever loose data and need to repair thumb drive or USB flash drive repair questions eProvided.com contact via a USB flash drive. repairs and other problems such as a USB device not recognized in the Windows operating system errors can be solved with the company advanced data recovery, such as eProvided. com.

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MSI Review NF750 – G55 Motherboard

December 29th, 2009 by paramoz

INTRODUCTION

MSI is one of the giants within the PC hardware industry. They have been around for as long as I can remember. Motherboards is one of the ground stones in their business but the company have diversified into many different areas the last couple of years and as you may know, MSI is now one of the top suppliers of laptops.

Today I am going to review a very interesting motherboard from MSI, the NF750-G55. Here are the specifications:

MSI NF750-G55

Processor Support AMD® Phenom™ II/Athlon™II/Phenom™ with AM3 package.

Chipset NVIDIA® nForce 750a SLI single chipset

Hyper Transport Bus HyperTransport 3,0 supporting speed up to 5200MT/s

Memory • Dual Supports DDR3 800/1066/1333/1600 (OC)

- 4 DDR3 DIMMs (240pin/1.5V)

- Supports up to 16GB.

Slots • 2 PCI Express x16 slots with x16 operation (PCI Express Bus SPEC V2.0 compliant)

• When 2 PCI Express x16 slots plows all installed, 16 the PCIE x lanes will car arrange form x16/x0 to x8/x8.

• 2 PCI Express x1 slots

• 1 PCI slots, support 3.3V/5V PCI bus interface.

On-Board IDE • One IDE port by NVIDIA® nForce 750a SLI

- 66/100/133 Extreme Supports DMA mode

- Supports PIO, Bus Masters operation mode

- Can connect up to two IDE devices

On-Board SATA • 5 SATA II ports by NVIDIA® nForce 750a SLI

• 1 eSATA II port by NVIDIA® nForce 750a SLI

- Supports storage and data transfers at up to 3Gb/s

Function RAID 1-5 SATA II support RAID 0 1 0+1 /5 or JBOD mode by NVIDIA® nForce 750a SLI

Audio • Chipset integrated by Realtek® ALC889

- Flexible 8-channel audio with jack sensing

- Compliant with Azalia 1.0 Spec

LAN Supports 10/100/1000 Fast Ethernet by Realtek 45CL

Internal I/O Connectors - ATX 24-pin to power connector

- ATX 4-pin 12V CPU to power connector

- CPU x 1/System x 3 FAN connectors

- CD-in connector

- Clear CMOS to jumper

- Power button

- Chassis intrusion switch connector

- Front audio panel connector

- Front panel connector

- Serial port connector

- 3 x USB 2.0 additional connector support 6 ports

- 1 x Floppy disk disk drive connector

- 5 x Serial ATA II connectors

- 1 x ATA133 IDE connectors

- 1 x SPDIF-out to header

- 1 x TPM modulates to header

- 1 x OC Switch

Back Panel I/O Ports - 1 x PS/2 keyboard

- 1 x PS/2 mouse

- 1 x 6 in 1 audio jack

- 6 x USB 2.0 ports

- 1 x RJ45 LAN jack

- 1 x eSATA port

- 1 x DVI-D port

- 1 x Graphic Card port

- 1 x HDMI port

Other Characteristics MSI Active Phase Switching

MSI Easy OC Switch

MSI Live Update online

MSI Live Update 4

NVIDIA Hybrid™SLI

True Audio Blu-ray

By the specifications of the NF750-G55 it’s easy to conclude that MSI has worked hard to produce something a little extra with this board. The board offers support for SLI, Hybrid SLI and has some interesting proprietary technologies of MSI, like the “Easy OC Switch”. In this review I will not test the SLI functionality since it’s been done before, instead I will focus on the integrated GeForce 8200 chip and see what it can produce in terms of performance.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

The NF750-G55 comes in a rather sober looking cardboard box of standard size. On it, MSI emphasizes the support of the latest AMD processors, the support for SLI and Hybrid SLI and some of the extra features like the True Blu-ray Audio, APS and Easy OC Switch.

The included accessories are: a manual; a quick start installation guide; a drivers and utilities CD; the I/O back panel plate; SATA and IDE cables and a SATA power converter cable.

MSI NF750-G55 IN DETAIL

Although the MSI NF750-G55 is of the ATX standard, it’s a little narrower than most other ATX boards.

There are 4 memory slots which supports up to 16GB of DDR3 (up to 1600MHz). To clarify a little here, the chipset officially only supports up to 1333MHz, but it’s possible to run the memories at 1600MHz by doing a small change to the multiplier in the BIOS.

The only heatsink on the motherboard is the heatsink located on the nForce 750a SLI circuit.

The CPU cooler is fastened with screws which I think is great since it allows you to really get a grip of how tight the cooler is fastened, much better than with plastic anchorage systems. The 4 pin connector for the CPU is located in the middle of the board.

The MSI Active Phase Switching (APS) is located to the right of the 12V ATX connector. This system is in charge of real time automatic regulation of the power feeded to the CPU. The power level is actually illustrated by 4 LEDs which is a nice extra feature.

The board has two PCI-E x16 ports and 1 PCI port. As you can see; the PCI-E ports are separated by quite a big distance. If you use a double slot card in the second PCI-E port you will not be able to use the PCI port at all. It would have been better to place the PCI port before the first PCI-E x16 port.

The internal connectivity also incorporates 5 SATA 2 ports with RAID functionality, 3 USB 2.0 ports, a COM port connector, connectors for external audio; digital S/PDIF and a CD contact.

The integrated chips for the sound and the Ethernet connectivity are the Realtek ALC889 and RTL45CL. Both chips are of high quality and supported with excellent drivers. The Fintek chip located next to the battery is in charge of the general I/O functions of the motherboard and also makes it possible to control fans with the popular SpeedFan program.

Perhaps the most interesting feature of this motherboard is the “Easy OC Switch”. It consists of a pink switch as you can see from the image below. This switch allows us to increase the FSB of up to 35% without having to do any other changes. In principle this addition is excellent, but it will only work well if the processor you are using supports overclocking without needing an increase of the voltage.

The back panel connectivity is excellent; check the specifications above for a complete list.

INSTALLING THE TEST EQUIPMENT

For the tests of the MSI NF750-G55 I used the following hardware and software:

Test equipment

Processor AMD Phenom II x2 550 SEES

Fan Zalman CNPS9900A LED

Motherboard MSI NF750-G55

Graphics card GeForce 8200 (integrated)

Soundcard Integrated

Memory Kingston HyperX DDR3 1333Mhz 2×2GB (7-7-7-18)

Hard disk Seagate ST3320620AS (SATA 2, 16MB, 7200rpm)

Power supply Zalman ZM660-XT

Case Cooler Master 690 cm PURE

Operating system and software

Operating system Windows XP SP3

System drivers V1.0 BIOS

nForce 15.49

Benchmarks 3D Mark 06

PC Mark 05

Everest 4.5

SiSoftware Sandra Lite XII

CINEBENCH R10

SuperPI 1,5 XS MOD

HD Tune 2.55

Crystal DiskMark 2.2

Lightsmark 2008 (1280×1024)

FurMark 1,4 (1280×1024, NoMSAA)

Real tests WinRAR 3.80

X264HD Benchmark 2.0

X3: Demo meeting

X3: Terran Conflict Rolling Demo

Officers’ Club of Revolutionary Armed Forces Cry 2

DH Photoshop Benchmark

Other software CPU-Z 1.51

GPU-Z 0.3.5

VLC 1.0

Here are a couple of screenshots of the hardware I used:

In the graphics test I used a resolution of 1024×800 with the highest graphics settings.

BIOS

The BIOS on this board comes from AMI (American Megatrends Inc) and is very intuitive and easy to handle when overclocking.

The menu that interested me the most was of course the Cell Menu where all the real important settings are, at least of you want to overclock your system. Even though the NF750-G55 can be considered a medium range motherboard it offers many possibilities for overclocking both the CPU and the memory modules.

The M-Flash program which is incorporated in this BIOS is actually unique to MSI motherboards. It’s a smart little program which lets us update the BIOS and even to backup and recover old BIOS versions.

There is also a menu called “User Settings”. It makes it possible to setup different “profiles” of the BIOS setting. This can come in handy if you want to quickly load a preset of overclocking settings for a gaming session or similar.

BENCHMARKING TESTING PART 1

The CPU performance of the nForce 750a chip is within the margins that I had hoped for. However the memory testing came out a little short which surprised me as this is normally a strong area with the NVIDIA chips.

BENCHMARKING TESTING PART 2

The read and write speeds of the HD were very good which means that NVIDIA have solved the driver issues which have caused the hard disk to work slower than it should on older chipsets.

REAL WORLD TESTING

What draw my attention of the above results were the poor results from the WinRAR test. My conclusion is that it must be due to the memory problem noted above.

In the test of the IGP GeForce 8200 chip I didn’t receive any remarkable results in the 3D testing so it’s easy to conclude that you shouldn’t use it for gaming. It did work just fine for playback of HD videos though.

The power usage of this system is really low, especially when it’s operating in idle mode which makes it a good choice if you are building a 24/7 system.

OVERCLOCKING CAPACITY

NVIDIA has made classic AMD overclocking chipsets in the past including the now almost mythical nForce 2 and nForce 4 platforms. So what about the nForce 750a SLI overclocking capabilities? The following screenshots says it all:

I was able to overclock the FSB to 264MHz (!) which was actually a bit surprising to me, I hadn’t expected it to be so “overclock friendly” being a medium range card.

I also tried to overclock the integrated graphics card (GeForce 8200). I managed to get it to run stable at 601/1442MHz for the core and shaders respectively.

CONCLUSIONS

My first experience with the NF750 chipset has been a pleasure. The MSI NF750-G55 is a very diverse motherboard. It can be used in a hardcore SLI high end system or it can be used as a base plate for a HTPC project thanks to the integrated VGA HDMI output.

Overall, MSI was able to build some great albums with the nForce 750a SLI chipset. Its performance and overclocking capabilities, as well as great works of the same connection. Integrated graphics solution is good but not as powerful as some integrated chips that AMD / ATI offerings.

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How to maximize results with integral pen drive

December 28th, 2009 by paramoz

When it comes to portability and Storage capacity, there are very few gadgets which can beat an integral pen drive. The very reason for the immense popularity of this device could be the several advantages which the pen drive has to offer to its users. It is also a fact that the integral pen drives are one step ahead in affordability and consistency, when compared with its traditional counterparts. An Pen drive can be used quite effectively to increase the production, sales and profit in different ways.

Almost all the modern Integral Pen Drives are cross-platform functional and can be used on all computers which run on Windows, Macintosh or Linux operating systems. An integral pen drive gives the user the ease of plug and play which implies that it can be actually used without installing any drivers. 

 

The results which one intends to achieve form this modern gadget can be easily maximised by the best and most effective use of this device. The varied uses of an Integral pen drive includes organising, storing and sharing of various Word documents, Power point presentations, Excel spreadsheets and many other applications and programs.

 

The most reputed brands in the pen drives industry are Transcend, Kingston and iBall. These brands are not only popular because of the quality and proficiency, but also are popular because of the value for money which they provide to their customer base, as the pen drives of these companies are quite affordable and cheap. The pen drives of these known brands not only allow fast transfer of files between one computer to another, but also are quite effective in meeting all your storage needs. Pen drives are especially useful to professionals like teachers and professors who need to use different computers for their work. Because of the features like huge storage capacity, Integral pen drives are considered to be a must for all offices and homes.

 

The integral pen drives come with an integrated flash memory and hence can store and transfer even audio and video files from the hardware of one computer to another. Different pen drives come with different memory specifications, and hence everyone can select a device with a memory which best suits their needs.

 

The popularity of pen drives among professionals has proved that it is the best device to swap files across multiple computers and machines as they provide the user with the benefits of convenient and high-end solutions.

 

Integral pen drive is a product which continuously changes for better with the advancement in technology. The latest pen drives are constantly evolving in terms of technology as well as shape, size and storage space and hence are popular among users. Most of the computer users have at least one integral pen drive with some capacity or the other.

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Truly portable computing

December 28th, 2009 by paramoz

ONE of the attractions of using a notebook computer is that you can take your work—or entertainment—with you anywhere you go. But even the lightest laptop can weigh you down after awhile and leave angry red bruises where the straps of a loaded computer bag cut into your shoulder while you were walking through a sprawling airport terminal.

There are a variety of handlheld alternatives. Some years ago, the Palm was the de rigeur handheld device for travellers who wanted to carry their data—and a few applications with them. Today, smart phones have largely taken over that role.

Still, there’s only so much work you can do on a small device, no matter what Steve Jobs or Apple will tell you about their iPhone. If you’re typing out a document, filling up a spreadsheet, retouching a photograph or browsing a full-size Web page, nothing beats using a big screen and a full-size keyboard.

The widespread availability of the Internet gives travelers another option: do all the work online.

Google Documents, Zoho and ThinkFree are excellent examples of free online productivity suites that work through any Web browser. They will even save your documents online so you can retrieve them anywhere in the world that you have an Internet connection.

The disadvantage of this approach is that it assumes you will have always have access to the Internet and that the Web site you need will always be online when you need it. Another drawback is that the online applications–good as they are–may not have all the features that you require. Wouldn’t it be better to bring the programs and data you need with you?

Ironically, this was much easier to do when most computers ran DOS instead of Windows. Back then, you could carry a copy of MS Word for DOS or WordStar on a floppy disk and you’d be able to run it on any DOS computer with a floppy drive. The thought of doing so today is laughable, of course, given how big programs have grown, and how they usually need to be installed on the hard disk to work.

If you’re a Windows user, you have quite a bit of flexibility these days, thanks to software that enables you to run programs off ubiquitous USB flash drives and to save your work on the same media. This approach is advantageous because it allows you to use exactly the programs you need on any Windows PC with a USB port, save your work back to the flash drive, and exit without leaving a trace on the computer you used.

One way to do this is to buy USB drives that already have the required software installed. U3, a company that makes smart drive software, works with 18 flash drive makers including Sandisk, Kingston, Verbatim, Memorex, PQI and TwinMOS to bundle its programs on some of their devices. Windows will automatically recognize a U3 device and put an icon for its Launchpad menu in the system tray. U3 will also enable you to set your password and desktop preferences and save them to the drive, so that your work environment will be the same everytime you work with the U3 drive plugged in.

You can download popular applications written specifically to run on U3 drives from the company’s Web site (http://www.u3.com). Some of it, like OpenOffice, is free; others are for sale.

The automatic features that make U3 so easy to use, however, can also make it rather intrusive.

While the U3 software works only on Windows PCs, it can have unpredictable results on other operating systems. For example, when I plug in a U3 SanDisk drive into my Apple iBook, it invariably fires up a CD burning program.

And even on a Windows PC, there will be times you don’t want U3 to take over. For example, if you simply need a large file from a colleague, it would be good to be able to pass him the flash drive without U3 popping up on his machine.

A less intrusive and more flexible approach is to install free Portable Apps (http://portableapps.com/) on any USB drive. Like U3 Launchpad, Portable Apps runs only on Windows PCs and works on the same principle of turning your USB drive into a self-contained repository for programs and data. The full Portable Apps Suite (an 89MB download) runs comfortably on a 512MB drive, and includes portable editions of software for browsing (Firefox), instant messaging (Gaim), office productivity (OpenOffice), calendar and task management (Sunbird), e-mail (Thunderbird), and protection against viruses (ClamWin)

A Lite edition (30.4MB), which runs well on a 256MB drive, is the same as the full suite but substitutes the AbiWord for OpenOffice. There are also quite a number of other programs you can download for free, including portable versions of an image editor (Gimp), an audio editor (Audacity), movie players (Mplayer and VLC), a document viewer (Sumatra PDF) and Internet utilities.

I was unable to find equivalent USB software launchers for OS X or Linux, while a website (http:// uuu.freesmug.org / PortableApps /) a list of portable applications that Mac users can run directly from a flash drive.

It's a bit complicated for Linux users, however. They can run all the applications they need and the right operating system for USB, but this column for another time.

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