Unlike hard disk drives (HDD) which carry moving parts, solid state drives (SSD) do not carry any moving parts. SSD’s closest companions are flash memory units such as CF cards, SD cards, Memory Sticks and the likes. With the removal of moving parts from the drive comes the ability to move the computer around while reading or writing to the drive without the possibility of scratching the disk in the HDD unit. Also, the speeds of SSD’s are significantly faster than their HDD counterparts. Last but not least, SSD’s offer protection against accidental erasing by a large magnet coming within distance of the drive, a technique that has been used for years to effortlessly erase information from an HDD.

The downside with SSD’s is the failure rate. Unless the HDD is damaged beyond recognition, most often than not, some if not most of the information can be recovered from the defective or damaged hard drive. Unfortunately, when SSD’s fail, it is almost impossible to get any information off the drive. A quick search on Bing or Google will show the horror stories of peoples SSD’s that have failed with no ability to reclaim information lost.

If you can have it, getting the best of both worlds is your best choice. Most high end computers can be configured with two drives, an SSD and HDD or any combination of both. Storing the operating system on the SSD results in faster boot times while documents and such can be stored to the HDD. For added protection, creating RAID support, online backup or network backup can ensure your data is safe.

In the end, it all depends on preference, money and job description. For most individuals, an SSD is not only useless but highly expensive. For gamers, graphic designers and other media intensive individuals, an SSD is a more practical choice.

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Many have asked the question, whether they should get an eReader such as the Kindle or Nook, or go with a tablet such as the Galaxy Tab, Transformer or iPad. To be honest, there is no straight answer, but if you can answer a couple of the following questions, you might have yourself an answer by the end of this article.

Are you a heavy reader? If the answer to this is yes, you might want to take a second look at the eReader. Thanks to eLink technology, reading from the screen of an eReader is a lot easier on the eyes. Not just that, but eLink is perfectly readable under direct sunlight and even night thanks to back light. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of most tablets.

Do you have a smartphone? If the answer is yes, getting a tablet could be overkill especially if your smartphone is Android or iOS. Companies might not want to say it, but all tablets are  actually smartphones with more screen real estate, for the most part, unless of course, your tablet happens to run Windows, Mac OSX or Linux. Of course, this is up for debate, but the tablet is no where near as versatile as the laptop, and does not seem to be the case for the near future.

Are you a college student? College students will generally benefit from a tablet more than almost any other group. They are great for note taking, reading, writing and entertainment. That said, with the Kindle and Nook app being available for both Android and iOS tablets, it is not hard to find all the popular textbooks right on a 9 or 10 inch screen.

Conclusion: Both devices are excellent. However, they are geared towards different audiences. If you are a heavy reader, an eReader will suit you better. However, if you find yourself surfing the web more often than catching up on the latest Tom Clancy novel, a tablet might be in your line of sight.

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Probably the single most common cause of hard drive failures is abuse. Abuse can range from neglect, such as leaving the drive in extreme weather conditions (heat, cold, humidity etc), or physically damaging the drive. Whether a drive is in use or not, dropping a hard disk drive can damage it because the disks inside the drive can get scratched by rubbing against each other or the reader since the space between said disks are mere millimeters. Under no circumstances should you abuse your hard drive, unless of course you want it to fail. Do not drop the drive, leave it in hot, humid or cold weather.

Speaking of abuse, another issue that causes many drives to fail is moving the drive around while the disks are spinning. If you have the drive connected to a computer, more likely than not those disks will be spinning. It is quite easy to tell if information is being written to or read from the drive as the drive will generally make a humming noise or will vibrate when the hand is placed on it. Moving a drive around while the disks are spinning causes the same problems as mentioned earlier, the disks become scratch and eventually can become unreadable.

The third most common cause of hard drive failure involves improperly disconnecting the hard drive. Most naturally, the drive will either be USB, eSATA or in rare cases FireWire. Before you unplug a hard drive, be sure to safely remove the hardware through your Windows or Mac OS before disconnecting the drive. Not doing so can eventually cause the connectors to wear out. This means that the hardware interface of the external drive can go bad and the only way to retrieve information stored on the drive is to pull the hard drive out of the housing and hook it up to a computer.

If you notice that your hard drive begins to make clicking noises, it is a sign that the hardware interface is going bad or the reader is scratching the disks. In such a case, unplug the drive immediately to prevent further damage and seek out repair options.

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• Defragmenting a hard drive is one way to keep your battery juice. When your hard drive is fragmented, needless to say, your CPU has to spend more time finding what it needs which means hard disks will be spinning more and ultimately drain your battery quicker.

• If you have Windows Vista or 7, there are Power Management options which can customized. For instance, you can set your computer to go on “Power saver” mode when unplugged. Such a setting normally dims the screen and puts the computer on sleep or hibernation quicker.

• Completely draining the battery’s charge is another good way to increase the battery life. The more you do this is the less capacity the battery will loose. Keeping a laptop plugged in all the time is one of the easiest ways to retard battery life.

• Turning off WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, WLAN, 4G and other wireless settings greatly increases the battery life since most of these wireless settings are always looking for a connection, and the constant pinging and or searching of networks drains the battery.

• If you are not using a program, exit it. Also, use the Task Manager to cut down on the amount of programs currently running in the background. Background programs not only eat up memory and processing performance, but it also drain battery life. On a side note, multitasking is a great way to drain battery juice. If you need to save those precious minutes of usage, monotask.

• Turning off graphical effects such as Windows Aero features will greatly increase your battery life. Aero puts a load on the computers GPU which in turn causes the battery to be used more.

• Sidebar and Widgets on Windows and Mac are another huge battery hog. Sidebar and Widgets decrease battery life as well as tie down the system and an overall huge CPU and RAM hog.

• Last but not least, choose hibernation instead of sleep. When a computer goes in sleep mode, it still uses battery juice because it’s more like suspending system performance. On the other hand, hibernation essentially shuts off the computer while saving the current state (information in the RAM) to the hard drive.

There are many other ways to increase battery performance, but these are the most common and effective. Eventually, your battery will need to be replaced (most batteries last between 2-3 years), however, these suggestions can extend the overall life of your battery.

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• Clogged fan

The main device responsible for maintaining a constant temperature of your video card is the fan present in the processor. If this isn’t functioning efficiently it’s quite obvious that it would result in your video card overheating. If you don’t regularly clean your computer, it could be highly likely that your fan is clogged with dust.

This is one of the simplest causes of your video card overheating which can be fixed by simply cleaning your fan, preferably using a blower.

• Broken fan

A follow up of the previous point, in some cases your fan maybe malfunctioning or stopped working altogether. This could simply be diagnosed by switching on your computer with its cover open and checking if the fan is functioning. If it doesn’t happen to be working, you have your answer.

• Overclocking

Pushing your CPU to its limits by overclocking can cause your video card to overheat. This can seem fairly obvious too as if you find your video card overheating and if you’ve recently overclocked your CPU, it would explain it.

• Faulty Drivers

This is a rare cause, but depending on your video card’s brand a badly developed driver could also cause your video card to overheat. If you use an unusual video card with questionable reputation this could be the issue.

• Inefficient Airflow

While your fan maybe perfectly in tact and working, the location of your fan also matters. If there isn’t sufficient air flow to your video card it can also cause it to overheat.

Those are typically the 5 main reasons to your video card overheating. If you have any other points in your mind, feel free to share them below.

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• Drivers

If your audio fails to function after you just formatted your computer, the most likely case is your audio driver is not installed, your audio driver will usually be provided with the bundle of CD’s you get when you purchase your computer.

Sometimes, however certain applications can clash with the audio drivers requiring you to reinstall the driver again, moreover malware can deliberately cripple your computer by uninstalling your drivers.

You can verify your installation status of your drivers by visiting your device manager (Right click My Computer > Properties > Hardware > Device Manager for XP or Vista or Seven). This lists your hardware installed and visual cues would be appended for hardware that need your attention and in your case, the audio drivers will probably have an indication that drivers haven’t been installed.

This page can also give you details regarding the audio hardware so that the driver can be downloaded online (for free) if you cannot find the installation CD.

• Codec Packs

Certain codec packs can conflict with your audio as well, since Microsoft has put no thought in to the different media codec used for media files today, the default decoders installed to play media files is barely sufficient and almost always results in additional third party codec packs to be installed for playback of downloaded media files.

This can result in clashes with your audio, to fix this issue, you need to perform the following steps:

- Uninstall the audio drivers.

- Uninstall the codec pack.

- Install the audio drivers.

-Install the codec pack.

In that order.

If there still seems to be an issue try a different codec pack, personally I’d recommend the K-lite Codec pack to be the perfect solution.

• System Restore

If none of the above solutions solve the problem and the audio issue is apparently after you made a change to your computer system (or not), your best bet would be to perform system restore to the point where your audio was functioning normally. If this is caused by a software issue, system restore is almost certain to get your audio working again.

Go to Start > Accessories > System Tools > System Restore (for XP or Vista and 7) and restore your computer to an appropriate point.

• Sound card

If none of the above solutions work, your issue is probably hardware related. The best way to confirm this would be to remove the sound card and try it on a friend’s computer, if it doesn’t work you have your answer.

If it works on your friend’s computer, it could be due to incompatible hardware or software (doesn’t apply if your sound stopped working abruptly) or stubborn malware continually hijacking your audio drivers, which could be fixed by running a virus scan using a reputed antivirus like Kaspersky.

If you have any queries, feel free to leave a comment.

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Today, if you take virtually any portable drive and perform a full scan with an updated antivirus, it would probably reveal a boatload of viruses in the device. This can be limited by using antivirus solutions tailor made for portable devices.

• Clamwin Portable

Clamwin portable is available from popular portable apps and provides sufficient protection to prevent infection of your portable device. It does require you to manually scan your drives at frequent intervals as it has no automatic mechanism to prevent viruses from infecting your drive. While this is far from convenient and its PC version sucks compared to the market leaders, it is a reasonable solution to keep your portable drives clean.

• Avast! Portable

Avast is a better known antivirus and is used extensively as a primary antivirus program in several systems, detection rate is comparatively low and it is known to hog CPU resources, the portable version of Avast! is also available and while not official, it is a sufficient solution to reduce the vulnerability of your portable drives.

There are quite a few other portable solutions like Trustport Antivirus among other unpopular brands, the above two applications do a reasonable job and IMO sufficient to keep your portable drives safe.

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Data can be transferred in 3 different modes, these 3 modes are equally popular and used in common everyday situations.

• Simplex

If data can only be transferred in a single direction (one way) it is known as simplex. Television transmission is an example of Simplex transmission, here data can be transferred only to a television but no data can be transferred in the opposite direction.

• Duplex

When data maybe transferred in two directions simultaneously it is known as Duplex, a simple telephone conversation would be an example, while we usually don’t talk simultaneously a telephone provides that ‘duplex’ functionality.

• Half-Duplex

In this mode of transmission as well, data maybe transmitted in both directions, however it cannot be done simultaneously. A Walkie Talkie would be an example of this mode of transmission.

The different modes are implemented based on their requirements, for example in Simplex transmission, two way transmission is not required in television transmission thus Simplex is used.

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Summary

The Dell E6400 laptop has a new design compared to the older D series. It has a sleek black finish and the standard configuration is more than enough for the average user. I feel the E6400 is highly configurable, has an excellent battery, and the screen is excellent quality. The biggest reason I rank this laptop high is the battery life. I get almost 4 hours of nonstop battery out of the E6400. My old D630 got 2 hours if I was lucky. I believe the only downfall I could find is it’s a bit heavier than the D series, but still manageable.

Detailed Review

Dell D series laptops have long dominated the corporate world. While they have been good laptops, battery life has always been an issue for our employees. Even the larger extended battery wasn’t that great. That’s where the E series really stepped it up. The E6400 also boasts the new Centrino 2 platform, which probably has a lot to do with the battery life. Our units come standard with a 2.26 GHz Core 2 Duo processor, a 160 GB hard drive, and 2 GB of RAM. We also opted to get the upgraded Nvidia video card. The final price per laptop comes to about $1900 which is decent for a corporate laptop. Another upgrade that was needed for a long time was the backlit keyboard ($49 option).

The base model is around $1100 to start. Even this bare bones model is still a great buy.

A Few Other Optional Features

AT&T/Sprint/Verizon broadband antenna: $150
12 cell “Battery Slice” w/ 19 hrs of battery life: price varies
5 year extended support: $249

Most corporate laptops are not intended for gaming. We did choose the upgraded Nvidia card in preparation for Windows 7 later this year. We also choose the upgraded 7200 RPM hard drive as well. This setup is perfect for our mobile users and so far they have been very happy with the performance. In short, this laptop is well worth the money and would be a great addition to your companies’ laptop line

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To say this monitor is ultra-thin is an understatement. The panel from front to back where the DVI plugs in is about 1.5 inches at most. The monitor delivers a full 1080p HD experience. The bezel frame is almost transparent and seems to reduce glare by reducing the amount of light reflected.

The Samsung P2370L comes in Samsung’s signature “Touch of Color” design and technology similar to their line of LCD and LED TV’s. These monitors are very eco-friendly as well. They are said to consume 30% less power than their older counterparts. Also, there is no mercury or lead traces in the monitors which older ones were notorious for. This should make everyone happy – saving some money on electricity and no pollution after the monitor serves its purpose.

This monitor was noticeably sharper and brighter than the Dell G2410 LED monitor I reviewed. I hate to say it, but the transparent bezel really added some style to the monitor in contrast to the dull black stand by Dell. The monitor is equipped with white LED’s, and a huge contrast ratio of 2 million: 1.

The Samsung P2370L starting selling in retail stores in early 2009. The price is quite high at the moment – it starts around $350 while the comparable Dell sells for $100 less. Put these monitors side by side, I think you’ll opt to spend the extra money.

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