Mice - Wired or Wireless

What mouse you want to use depends on your preferences and weighing the pros and cons of each.

Wired - The pros are that wired mice are reliable. Unless the cord gets pinched up or partially unplugged, it works very well. Another pro is that you will never have to be concerned about batteries. The cons are the cord. They are subject to damaged and sometimes length limitations. The sometimes snag on other cables as well.

Wireless - The pros are that there is no cord. Well, not for the mouse anyway. Unless the system comes with the wireless controller built in, you will have a base that plugs into your PC. From there to your mouse it becomes wireless. You should have a better range for the wireless since you will not have limitations of a cord. The cons are batteries. They usually last a while, but eventually need to be changed. Synchronizing the signal can sometimes be an issue (depending on manufacturer). I have also seen where one mouse controlled two nearby PCs at once because they happened to use the same frequency. Doesn't happen too often though.

Personally, I prefer wired mouse that has an optical sensor instead of the old fashioned ball in the middle. The ones with the ball pick up too much lint and cause the mouse to not be as smooth.

Laptop Buyers Guide

Purchasing a laptop can be a fun experience. However, it can also be a frustrating one if you are not sure what to look for. The main thing to take into consideration is what do you need a latop for anyway. Below is a list of things to take into consideration when making your purchase:

1. Wireless - I strongly recommend that you make sure that is has a wireless card. Most new units these days have one. Also, it is ideal if it is built into the system. It has been my experience that they have a better signal than the add-on PCMCIA cards. I also recommend 802.11g for speed purposes.

2. USB - Make sure that it has enough ports (USB and firewire) available. Depending on your purpose, you may not need a whole lot. Keep in mind that devices like external mice and most modern printers have a USB connection.

3. Hard Drive - These days I would not recommend a system that is less than 60GB in size. You will most likely find a minimum of 80GB on new systems. You probably will not need it all, but it is always nice to have a little more space.

4. Memory - Running at 512MB is good, but it would be nice to have 1GB. Sounds crazy, but it will probably not be too long before 1GB will barely be enough.

5. DVD/CD - Most new systems come with a unit that will read and write to both of these media types. Mainly be aware of its capabilities. It's nice to have a drive that can both read and write to DVDs and CDs.

6. Reviews - Check to see what others are saying about the product. Maybe it looks good on paper, but perhaps there are a lot of people that have had problems with that specific model. Do some research.

7. Price - Cost isn't everything although it does help. Don't spend more that you should. You should be able to find something decent for around $700. Again, it goes back to what you need.

8. Card Readers - These are great to have built in. Keep in mind though that you can get an external USB device for around $20 to $40.

Most people use laptops for internet usage and a few programs like spreadsheets and word processing. For these purposes, a basic unit should be sufficient. For more heavy usage, you may want to spend a little more money upgrading things like memory and hard drive space.

Surge Protection

Now that you have spent hundreds of dollars on computer equipment, it is a good idea to protect it. One good way is to purchase a surge protector. Make sure that you do not settle for just a power strip. The difference between the two is that a power strip just provides power. A surge protector goes beyond that and provides a level of protection to the equipment that is hooked up to it. In the event of a surge of electrical power through an outlet, which sometimes happens in electrical storms, the surge protector will prevent that extra voltage from reaching the equipment.

Keep in mind that not all surge protectors are created equally. Take a look at the rating of the surge protector. Some also provide a guarantee up to a certain dollar amount that your equipment will be safe. Look for the joule rating and the warranty that it comes with before purchasing.

Toner Options

Toner for your laser printer goes a long ways these days. However, it is still nice to save money when replacing your old cartridge. I needed a toner for one of my printers a while back, but didn't want to spend over $80 for it. So, I purchased a new one at an online auction for less than $25 out the door including shipping costs.

You can also look into refurbished or refilled toners. Find out what the merchant's satisfaction guarantee is before purchasing. If you buy online, see if they pay to ship it back.

Removeable Storage

The ability to store your data and transfer it to another PC quickly and easily has become a must have these days. There are many types of removeable storage.

Removable Hard Drives - These are great for larger amounts of data. The only down side to this is that they are not always compact.

CDs - These are still a good form of data storage. The drawback is once again the size. They don't fit in your pocket. They also are subject to scratches.

Flash Drives - This is my personal favorite. They offer a decent amount of storage for the money, they are very compact and are far more durable than CDs.

Printer Jams

It is easy to take printers for granted until they start jamming. Some things to look at when your printer jams are the following:

Labels - This is not just for the old dot matrix printers. Any printer you feed labels through can have problems. It just takes one label to peel off while being fed inside the printer to get caught up inside and jam things up. You may have to look a little hard for these.

Pickup Rollers - These are the rollers that grab the paper from the tray. Over time, friction causes these rollers to wear down and get smooth. As a result, they lose their ability to grip the paper.

Exit Rollers - These are the rollers that feed the paper on the way out. These rollers also wear down over time and can slip when gripping the paper. This will also cause a jam.

Tape Or Disk Backup

Is there a better choice when it comes to the two?

Tape (Pros) - Tape backups provide you mobility with your data storage needs. What I mean is that you can store your tapes at one location for easy restore purposes for let's say the first month. Then you can move the tapes to another site or third party storage facility for disaster recovery purposes for a longer period of time. You can also store a larger amount of data for relatively cheap compared to a disk solution.

Tape (Cons) - Tape is slower. Not only does it take longer to backup, it takes longer to restore. Tape is also not as reliable as disk. Tape is more prone to media errors and failed restores than disk.

Disk (Pros) - Disk is FAST. Disk backs up a lot faster and restores a lot faster. Disk is also a lot more reliable than tape.

Disk (Cons) - Not mobile. You cannot just pick up your SAN and relocate it to another site. Well you could, but it is not practical. Disk is expensive. A good SAN solution is not cheap. A lot of them are fiber channel.

SOULTION

An ideal solution, if your budget alllows it, would be to use both. I recommend backing up to disk first and then to tape. That will allow for quick backup and restore for recent data and provide you long retention for systems such as email.