Backup Your Stuff

I've been working on & repairing computers for the past 16 years. All throughout as technology has evolved I've continually heard one statement over and over: "Backup your data." From the old 486 machines, through the Pentium era, onto to today's quad core systems...I've heard the same "Backup your data" statement. I've heard it so often that it's almost become a mantra. Back up stuff up so if, for some reason or other you loose your data, you can retrieve it from the backup.

And so I was always backing up my data through my high school daze, college semesters, & office job life.

I never had any problems...until two years ago.

Two years ago a horrible thing happened. My hard drive crashed and I lost about five months of pictures & movies. I was reloading my operating system at the time and I made the mistake of filling my hard drive to about 90% capacity. About halfway through this process my hard drive said "ugh!" and sputtered and crashed. As soon as I realized what was happening I panicked. I did everything I could to save the data but, alas, all was lost. I had most of my pictures backed up on other drives but 5 whole months of pictures & movies were gone forever.

According to this article hard drives have a short life span of 3-5 years. Other types of drives (USB thumb drives & Tape drives) can last a little longer. To me, the words "hard drive" convey a sense of permanence and reliability. I've spoke with a lot of people who do everyday computing. Most everybody believe that, as long as they buy the newest & latest hardware, they don't have to worry about backing up your data. Don't believe it.

If you were to look inside a hard drive (see picture above) you'd see a pretty simple design: 5-8 metal platters that sit onto of each other. These platters are engineered with great precision...however...they are man made. Nothing is man made is perfect. Technology is improving all the time, creating better & better designs, but nothing is perfect.

I've since learned my lesson - always backup your stuff! Pictures, videos, movies, documents, spreadsheets...precious data...it all must be backed up or you could loose it.

The easiest low tech way of backing up your stuff: buy yourself an external hard drive, dump your data on it, and unplug it. Keep the drive unplugged (both the USB cable & power cable) to ensure lightning strikes can't reach your precious data.

Local retails sell various external hard drives from $60-$100. Sam's Club sells a Seagate 320GB Portable Hard Drive for $89. Walmart sells a Western Digital 250GB drive for $60.

If you can wait 2-3 days for shipping you can can a much bigger bang for your buck with the major etailers. This Acomdata 1TB Drive is $94 at Newegg.com - it has some stellar reviews. The Cavalry500GB USB at Geeks.com is $69. in some cases you'll need to add $3-8 shipping costs but everything is still much cheaper than your local retailer.

What do you think? Email me your thoughts.
-Jeremy Ashburn
http://www.revitalpc.com/ Computer Repair at 50% less

A New Kind of Laptop

A revolution in laptop technology is coming, even though you might not know anything about it. There's a whole new group of laptops coming over the horizon - laptops have 8+ hour of battery life, have the power to fairly multitask, can smoothly play high-def movies, and weigh less than 3.5 pounds? Unbelievable? I know. Most laptops today can pack some serious punch yet only last 2.5 to 3hrs at max.

These so called CULV laptops are just now emerging from manufacturing and landing in all the major retailers & etailers. One of the most notable is the Acer Timeline. Acer has produced three laptops in this series - 13.3", 14" & 15.5". One of the most notable of these is the 13.3"3810T. This $899 latop has an amazing eight hours of battery life, thin 1" profile, and performance that adequately handles everyday computing. These Acer Laptops are the first to use a new type of Intel CULV processor (in this case, the 1.4GHz U9400). This new CPU uses alot less power than laptops currently on the market. This is on the elements that enables the system to get an 8 hour battery life.

There are currently two other notebooks on the market that are similar to the Acer Timeline - the MSI X340 and the HP Pavilion dv2. The MSI X340 was released this past September & the Pavilion DV2 was just released. Reviews indicates that the MSI X340 is also great for everyday tasks and the DV2 is excellent at playing high def movies.

HP, ASUS, and a whole slew of other manufacturers are preparing to release their own CULV laptops. ASUS is releasing a CULV laptop called the UX50V that comes with a graphics chip, the Nvidia GeForce G105M, for gaming. The Nvidia chip outperforms the graphics unit in the Intel chipset, but it can also be toggled off to save power, a company representative said.The laptop has a 15.6-inch screen and a backlit keyboard, and is just over 1" thick. It weighs 5.7 pounds (2.6 kilograms) and comes with a hard drive size up to 500G bytes.

Asus is also releasing the UX30. It has a 13.3-inch screen, battery life of over four hours and a weight of 3.5 pounds. Both the UX30 & the UX50 will be released in the third quarter.

It'll be pretty interesting to see how these newly emerging CULV laptops change the computing environment. I can't imaging having a laptop that would last 8-10 hours to more before having to plug in a to recharge.

Who knows? Time will tell.
What do you think? Email me your thoughts.

-Jeremy Ashburn
Revital PC
http://www.revitalpc.com/