ineo I-NA301Ue Hard Drive

to meet the need of people who love to go around with their data ineo has developed a diverse line of 3.5” and 2.5” hard disk drive enclosures that are designed to be both stylish and functional.

The I-NA301Ue enclosure is specifically designed for use with 3.5” SATA hard drives, while other offerings from ineo target the 2.5” drive enclosures market. It is true that 3.5” hard drives are bulkier than their 2.5” counterparts, but the price per GB ratio of 3.5” drives still trumps that of 2.5” drives. So, let’s take a look at the I-NA301Ue to see if it stands out from the competition.

Design

The NA301Ue is designed to be a portable, hot-swappable solution for data storage that also is rugged enough to stand up to the wear-and-tear of daily usage. The outer casing is not especially eye catching, nor it is hard on the eyes. Rather, it has a solid black color matte finish that blends seamlessly with other black colored PC components or laptops.

The main feature that makes the NA301Ue stand out from other HD enclosures is the hot-swappable design. No screws or other mounting hardware are needed to install a drive into the enclosure. The front panel opens with the turn of the included key, and any 3.5” SATA drive slides right in.

The enclosure supports both USB 2.0 and eSATA connections, and all of the necessary cables and adapters are included in the package.

Features and Specifications

• Aluminum Alloy with honeycomb Casing provides excellent silent cooling
• USB2.0 Transfer rate up to 480Mb/s
• Fully compatible with 3.5" SATA I/II Had Disk Drives
• Horizontal or Vertical with Stand
• Truly Plug and Play and Hot Swappable
• Extra Adapter for power supply to ensure hard disk drive works without brown out
• Attractive Blue and Red LED illuminated light indicates power and data access activities
• Universal Power Adapter: 5V/1.5A, 12V/1.5A, 100-240V
• Dimension (W x D x H): 87 x 195 x 131 (mm)
• OS Supported: Windows ME/98/NT/2000/2003/XP/Vista, MAC, Linux

In the Box

• I-NA301Ue HDD enclosure
• Stand
• USB Cable
• eSATA cable
• Power Adapter
• Key
• User manual and driver CD

Setup and Initial Use

With all of the necessary cables, adapters and drivers included in the box, the process of installing a 3.5” SATA hard drive was literally done in 30 seconds. The hardest part – if you can call it ‘hard’ – was tracking down the key and using it to pop open the front panel. I really like the fact that you don’t need to line up any screw holes or screw in any screws with the I-NA301Ue. This ease of swapping drives in and out of the enclosure would make it a perfect choice for a tech. support person who uses it to diagnose hard drive issues for customers.

The driver CD is needed to get the eSATA connection set up and running, and this process only took a few minutes as well. I already had an eSATA adapter card installed in my desktop PC, and this is about the only accessory that was not included in the packaging. The eSATA connection is certainly a lot faster solution for transferring data and I would definitely recommend it for anyone who is going to be using the drive to run applications or games. If you are only using the drive to transfer or backup files on an ad-hoc basis, you can probably live with the slower speed of the USB 2.0 connection. Using the USB connection requires no driver installation and is a much simpler solution for anyone who uses the enclosure with a laptop computer.

Portability

The aluminum alloy material makes the enclosure light weight and easy to carry around, although the 3.5” Western Digital hard drive does add to the overall weight of the unit. Even when using the USB connection, you still need the supplied AC power adapter to use the enclosure, which adds to the bulkiness of the overall package. While the enclosure is not the smallest or the easiest to carry around with you, there is only so much that can be done to minimize the size of 3.5” hard disk drive enclosures. If you want the capacity and low cost of 3.5” drives, you are stuck with the size and weight of the drives themselves.

The History And Origins Of Our Pc Computer Keyboards - By Maxwell Rubin

The keyboard is among the most underappreciated and taken for granted component of the Personal Computer (PC) that we use everyday.

We are all creatures of habit. We generally use certain keys and not others in certain way.

What are the origins and history of the now current accepted PC computer keyboard?

Interestingly enough the standard keyboard layout did not originate in one fell swoop. It developed through three separate IBM keyboard projects and often involved mistakes and pitfalls along its evolutionary path.

Most keyboard setups have their direct origin in the original IBM keyboard – “The IBM Enhanced 101 Key Keyboard “which IBM set as the standard in the year of 1987. The Enhanced Keyboard was not the first but rather IBM’s third keyboard standard for PCs.

What were these previous frameworks of IBM keyboard models?

First the original IBM PC and XT keyboards had 83 keys. There were 10 function keys on the left side of the keyboard, a combined number pad and a cursor pad placed on the right hand side. The now called Control (Ctrl), Left Shift, and Alt keys were arranged in a line next to the function keys.

The Escape (Esc) as we know it was to the left of the numbers in the top row. To the right of the Right Shift Key, an unshifted asterisk key allowed the user to type the now common *.* without acrobatics. Between the tiny Left Shift key and the Zee key was a Backslash / Vertical key. The Enter key was narrow and vertically aligned and very easy to miss by most early PC users.

The design of this original IBM keyboard standard was a mixture of sensible and absurd keyboard layout decisions so much so that the admired components overshadowed the less thought out shortcomings and thus here we are today.

IBM’s next design was the original AT keyboard. This was somehow made incompatible with the earlier PC/XT design but a calculating user could reprogram in essence the newer keyboard to work.

The AT keyboard again had the then accepted ten function keys on the left, but exiled the Esc and the unshifted asterisk to the number pad. The Enter key was L-shaped and the Backsplash key, which now occupied the spot which used to be the left half of the Backspace key. Was reduced in size to the width of a single “alpha” key.

At some point when market forces pushed IBM to upgrade the venerable AT computer, it introduced the Enhanced model keyboard which was compatible with the original AT
model, but had a drastically different layout. The ESC key and the 12 function keys were now along the top, the number pad was moved to the right. And a new cursor pad was placed between the alpha keys a number pad. The cursor pad ( which was actually split into two sets of keys ) consisted of four arrow keys in an inverted T at the bottom and a separate bank of 6 keys at the top: Ins ( Insert) , Del (Delete) , Home and End, and PgUp (Page up_ and PgDn ( Page down) .

What happened is that the computer users of the time disastrously started to press the Delete key when they meant end. There was virtually little memory, by today’s standards’ hence no advanced features of rescue that we take for granted today. A computer user who may have spent hours typing a major endeavor such as master’s thesis may have seen his hard work disappear into never never land.

It did not take too long for the complaints to arrive at IBM head office to rectify the situation. “Leave well enough alone “was the refrain. And the Backspace key returned to its original double width. The backslash key now occupied a single row. Caps lock migrated to the old side of the Ctrl key, and twin Ctrl and Alt keys flanked the spacebar.
The Del key though remained in its now current place although in some keyboards it is now double sized.

Like it or not this layout has become the standard by which we live with our computer enhanced lives.

The keyboard is among the most underappreciated and taken for granted component in our every day computer lives. We seldom stop to think why certain keys are laid out in the given way. Like it or not we owe a debt to thoughtfulness and thoroughness of the original IBM PC project engineers.

Article Source: http://www.ArticleJoe.com

Access Your Pc From The Road

 By Nisha Yadav

Have you ever sat in front of your computer and wished you could show someone else what appeared on your screen?

Maybe you were experiencing a problem, or couldn‘t figure out how to make something work, but you knew if someone else could see what was happening on your screen, they could help you fix the problem immediately.

Ever had a phone conversation with someone about a particular business topic, but you just couldn‘t “connect“ with your ideas because it was too hard to explain over the phone?

Now, visualize jumping on the phone with that same person and literally sharing your computer‘s desktop to collaborate, discuss, and create virtually anything together, even if you are separated by thousands of miles.

Though this may sound like an episode of Star Trek, remote computer sharing is actually a daily business reality.

Imagine you need to take a trip and you either don‘t want to or can‘t take your computer.

The thought of emails piling up for days makes you crazy and you also need to monitor some things on your pc.

Instead of trying to lug your laptop (or fit your desktop into your suitcase), you can use “remote desktop“ software that allows you to access your computer through the Internet from any other computer in the world.

One of the most common remote desktop services is GoToMyPC.com, which provides a safe and secure way for you to go down to the local internet café, log on, and access your office or home computer just like sitting at your own desk.

Now, before you panic and think anyone can access your computer, let me explain security.

First, you log in to the GoToMyPC.com website with a username and password.

Once logged in, you then click a link to log onto your PC, which will then ask you for another password.

GoToMyPC.com has even thought of a solution for those of you worried about people looking over your shoulder as you enter your passwords on a public
computer or if the computer you use might carry a keystroke logger.

Before leaving home, you can program in a series of up to 99 passwords that only work one time.

This means even if someone watches you log into your computer or records your keystrokes, the password you used won‘t work again.

If a would-be thief tries to access your computer too many times, GoToMyPC.com will shut down all access attempts to your PC.

The benefits of remotely accessing your PC from the road are numerous, but the bottom line is that it enables you to use your computer from the road like you never left home.

For example: while traveling to a conference this weekend, my wife (and business partner) accessed our office computer from my laptop and, instead of the usual pile of 4,000 emails that would normally await after 5 days away, we just picked up this morning like we‘d never been gone.

The same company that offers GoToMyPC.com also offers a service called GoToMeeting.com which allows you to remotely host a meeting where multiple users can share and collaborate on a single computer desktop.

This service makes it super simple to provide online training, do software demos, and even make complete sales presentations.

I personally use both of these services and find them easy, reliable and well worth the price.

Article Source: http://www.ArticleJoe.com

Casio Pathfinder PAG-240-1 Watch

I think that the watch designers at Casio enjoy their jobs.

From seeing a succession of Casios over the years, and the relentless way that they keep improving, every single time, I have to think that they like what they do you can see that in the new PAG-240-1 Pathfinder. Casio has done a lot of Pathfinders over the years, and every single time the come up with new features, killer prices and manage to improve the user interface in small ways to boot.

This Pathfinder is mid-line for Casio, lacking only the radio-set functionality of the more expensive versions. It still has solar power (which I consider an essential feature for an outdoor watch), alarms, countdown timer, world time, altimeter, barometer, compass, altimeter, thermometer, trend graphs and an EL backlight. The case is 50.7mm across at the widest point, 15.5mm thick and 65g on the plastic strap.

There's also a leather strap, model PAG-240B-2, and bracelet, model PAG-240T-7. As with most Pathfinders, it's water resistant to 100m (vs 200m for G-Shocks) and quite comfortable to wear. I tried this one out for an hour of ultimate frisbee, and it was great: easy to read at a glance, and seemingly weightless even when tired.

The other new feature of the PAG-240 is the dual-layer LCD, what Casio is calling 'duplex.' Above the normal dial is one of radial segments, which Casio uses for several features. Obviously, it's used to show the compass major axes:

Here is where I admire the ingenuity of the Casio engineers: They reused the second layer to show mode, and for several of the modes it adds features at a glance. Here's world time mode, not the 24h scale on the edge of the glass:

Sunrise/set is a new feature too, I think, and quite useful for outdoors types.
Other things to note: Bidirectional compass bezel, the usual excellent Casio buttons that work even when gloved, and the remarkable fact that the second LCD layer doesn't reduce display contrast noticeably, a feat all by itself. You can set the green area to show year (picture above), day of the week or a small trend graph of barometer readings.

Overall, with a list price of $250, this is another killer value. I don't find the lack of radio synchronization to be a big deal, but if you do there's lots of Pathfinders to choose from. It's a big, geeky, feature-laden watch and can go straight from cubicle to hiking trail at the end of the week. I think owners of previous models will like the addition of the duplex LCD and it's added usability.

The Dell Streak Android 2.1

It seems the main reason people are sitting on the fence about the Dell Streak — that is if they’re into the large form factor — is the stock Android 1.6 release. Well, the Streak’s 2.1 release suddenly appeared over at Modaco’s Forums this morning and users seem to have nothing but good things to say about the release.

Chief among them is the noticeable performance bump and the reworked camera interface along with 720p video capture. The only small issue is that the update wipes the device clean during the update process. Now, there’s really no way of knowing when the official 2.1 release is coming later this month, but at least this is other there and seems to solve many of the early adopter’s gripes.

Hardware-wise, the Dell Streak features the following:

• A sharp 5-inch capacitive multi-touch WVGA (800x480) display for a great full-screen experience watching video or browsing the web
• Fast 1GHz Snapdragon ARM-based mobile processor from Qualcomm
• 5 MP autofocus camera with dual LED flash that offers easy point & shoot capability and quick uploads to YouTube, Flickr, Facebook and more
• VGA front-facing camera enables video chat functionality down the road
• A user-removable (and replaceable) battery
• A 3.5mm headphone jack means many of you can use the Dell Streak as the music source (and more) in your car
• Integrated 3G + Wi-Fi (802.11b/g) + Bluetooth 2.1 (think headsets, external keyboards, stereo headsets, etc.)
• UMTS / GPRS / EDGE class 12 GSM radio with link speeds of HSDPA 7.2 Mbps / HSUPA
• A user-accessible Micro SD slot expandable up to 32GB. That means you can store  lots of movies, music, photos or other kinds of files. 

On the software side, you get:

• A customized multi-touch version of the Google Android operating system that features Dell user interface enhancements.
• Access to over 38,000  apps (and growing) via the Android Marketplace.
• Microsoft Exchange connectivity and integration through TouchDown.
• Google Voice suppor.
• Integrated Google Maps with voice-activated search, turn-by-turn navigation, street and satellite views
• Quick access to activity streams via integrated social network app widgets like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube etc

 

You can also personalize Dell Streak Android 2.1

Dell streak price and launch date:
The main attraction of Dell streak web tablet is the option for customized design. Like Dell studio laptops, we expect some variation  in the price based on the color combination. In any case the Dell stark will cost around 500$ on its launch.

Realistic Robot Hand

The Robot Hand from Squse features movable polycarbonate “bones” that are covered with a very realistic looking fleshtone silicon rubber. Kyoto-based Squse has developed the so-called Robot Hand H-Type [JP], a creepily realistic (but very cool) robotic hand.

This robotic limb is powered by 22 actuators with 16 joints, giving it a certain degree of realism in its movements.It weighs 340g and can lift up and move objects weighing up to 1.5kg.  One can easily mistaken it for a real one.

The Robot Hand H-Type will be used mainly for industrial applications. Squse says  " Two auto makers & another two companies from the food industry already showed interest in our product " . It includes three item set (hand, arm and image-processing system) which costs a whopping $94,000.

USB Air Purifier

Someday there will be no gadgets left that cannot be powered by a USB port.  They’ll all be shrunk down and in many cases suddenly be made much more cheaply.  There are times when that’s not necessarily good, but on occasion it makes certain devices very handy.  Like this little air purifier that plugs into your USB port.  It’ll make sure that you get clean air while you’re glued to your computer. Best for all programmers and gamers who stick to their pc for longer time.

This air purifier works by emitting healthy negative ions into the air.  Then by attaching themselves to air molecules and any impure particles in the air it negatively charges them.  This will get rid of toxic substances in the air like odors, dust, mold and hopefully will help to rid you of that sweaty smell coming from the guy with serious pit stains.  Hopefully. 

If you like to buy it you will get

• www.szprice.com

Google Android the 3rd most popular smartphone platform globally

It has overtaken Apple iOS to take the third spot.

In the US market, Android is now the most popular smartphone OS. It has overtaken Blackberry OS to take the top spot.

The report further said that at current growth rate, Android is expected to become the second most popular smartphone platform globally.

Symbian is of course the number one player globally.

10 Fast and Free Security Enhancements

1. Check Windows Update and Office Update regularly (_http://office.microsoft.com/productupdates); have your Office CD ready. Windows Me, 2000, and XP users can configure automatic updates. Click on the Automatic Updates tab in the System control panel and choose the appropriate options.

2. Install a personal firewall. Both SyGate (_www.sygate.com) and ZoneAlarm (_www.zonelabs.com) offer free versions. Apart from this COMODO also provides a great firewall protection.

3. Install a free spyware blocker. Our Editors' Choice ("Spyware," April 22) was SpyBot Search & Destroy (_http://security.kolla.de). SpyBot is also paranoid and ruthless in hunting out tracking cookies.

4. Block pop-up spam messages in Windows NT, 2000, or XP by disabling the Windows Messenger service (this is unrelated to the instant messaging program). Open Control Panel | Administrative Tools | Services and you'll see Messenger. Right-click and go to Properties. Set Start-up Type to Disabled and press the Stop button. Bye-bye, spam pop-ups! Any good firewall will also stop them.

5. Use strong passwords and change them periodically. Passwords should have at least seven characters; use letters and numbers and have at least one symbol. A decent example would be f8izKro@l. This will make it much harder for anyone to gain access to your accounts.

6. If you're using Outlook or Outlook Express, use the current version or one with the Outlook Security Update installed. The update and current versions patch numerous vulnerabilities.

7. Buy antivirus software and keep it up to date. If you're not willing to pay, try Grisoft AVG Free Edition (Grisoft Inc., w*w.grisoft.com). And doublecheck your AV with the free, online-only scanners available at w*w.pandasoftware.com/activescan and _http://housecall.trendmicro.com.

8. If you have a wireless network, turn on the security features: Use MAC filtering, turn off SSID broadcast, and even use WEP with the biggest key you can get. For more, check out our wireless section or see the expanded coverage in Your Unwired World in our next issue.

9. Join a respectable e-mail security list, such as the one found at our own Security Supersite at _http://security.ziffdavis.com, so that you learn about emerging threats quickly and can take proper precautions.

10. Be skeptical of things on the Internet. Don't assume that e-mail "From:" a particular person is actually from that person until you have further reason to believe it's that person. Don't assume that an attachment is what it says it is. Don't give out your password to anyone, even if that person claims to be from "support."