Computer Articles - Internet and Computer News » Horror Stories

Hard Drive Enclosures

admin — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 10:43:02 +0000

I was speaking to a young chap last week who had been saving up for an external hard drive. He’d filled up his Dads laptop with an entire library of music and desperately didn’t want to delete it but at the same time the machine was unusable due to a lack of space. Rather than pushing him down the route of a £70 external hard drive we suggested opting for a hard drive enclosure for £6.50 then reusing the drive from his old computer which was about to be consigned to the scrap heap.

External hard drives are a big market but in many situations they are redundant; most users will have purchased more than one computer and chances are that when it has come to the end of its useful life it would be considered close to worthless. Most charity shops won’t even take old machines anymore as health and safety regulations mean it’s often impossible to sell them on without the appropriate paperwork. Although it is possible to thoroughly and securely wipe the data off an old hard drive, the number of horror stories that you hear means that such a large number of drives reach the end of their life by having a 10mm drill bit put through them.

Rather than destroying your old drive, why not put it to good use by popping it in to an enclosure. Not only will you have instantly given yourself a new external hard drive but it will already be filled with your old files which you can sort and keep if they’re still needed. If not simply wipe them off and start again using the drive instead as either auxiliary storage (especially useful in the case of a laptop computer), a data transfer device or a backup drive.

There are a few points that you need to consider when purchasing an enclosure:

Size – Old laptop hard drives tend to measure 2.5” whereas their desktop equivalents tend to be 3.5” in size and it is of course important that you get the correct enclosure for your particular drive. Not only will you not physically fit a 3.5” drive in a 2.5” enclosure, but a 3.5” drive requires a separate power supply whereas the smaller 2.5” models can usually draw sufficient power from the USB port.

Hard Drive Interface – Your hard drive would have previously connected to the computer via an IDE or a SATA interface – this is primarily determined by the age of the device. Newer drives tend to be of a SATA design but if you are recuing a drive from an older machine it is more likely to have an IDE connection. The two are quite distinctly different and as such identification shouldn’t be a problem; IDE connectors are fairly long with 39 pins (one pin in the middle of the connector is absent to ensure the cable is connected correctly) whereas SATA connections constitute a small 7 pin port with a right angle at one end.

Interface with the Computer – Most enclosures tend to utilise a USB 2.0 interface and in the majority of circumstances this would be the most appropriate method of connecting it to your PC. Try to avoid older USB 1.1 devices which look identical but will perform significantly slower. Also, check to see if your computer supports either Firewire or eSATA as, if appropriate, these may offer faster data transfer speeds between your machine and external drive.

64 Bit Computing

admin — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 16:33:45 +0000

There is a lot being said about Windows Vista at the moment along with the normal paranoia keeping users away that usually occurs when Microsoft release a new Operating System. I’m surprised by the number of people I know who have bought a new computer in the last couple of months and paid more to have Windows XP installed on it because of the horror stories they have heard, usually through a chain of half a dozen people.

If I can just clarify to my readership that Windows Vista is a good Operating System and in terms of bugs and security vulnerabilities it’s light years ahead of how Windows XP was this far into its distribution cycle. I’m not saying that you should rush out and buy it tomorrow if you’re happy with XP, but all I am saying is that if buying a new machine and you’re given the choice then definitely go the Vista route.

Other than which edition you’re going to get (Home Basic, Home Premium, Business or Ultimate) there is an equally important consideration in whether you’re going to go for the 64 bit or 32 bit version of Windows and unfortunately this is a consideration that’s often overlooked.

Ultimately your choice may have already been made for you by the system manufacturer; if your system only has a 32-bit processor then you can only use the 32-bit version of Windows. Those lucky enough to be buying a 64-bit processor will have the choice of going for either the 64 or 32-bit version of Windows and as such this article will be focusing on these users. If you’re not sure what on earth I’m talking about here I should probably explain a little more about what a processor is and how it works.

The processor could be considered the most central part of your computer and is responsible for performing the billions of calculations that are performed every time you use your machine. There are a number of measures that can be applied to a processor to determine how powerful it is but one of the primary considerations is how many bits of information it can handle at any one time. My old Commodore 64 could handle 8 bits of data at once, most current PC processors can handle 32 bits and the newer, more powerful models can often handle 64 bits.

I feel that this oversimplification could be misleading as there are of course a million other factors that play a part in the performance of the processor; another important consideration for example is how many thousands of times a second the processor can move these bits of information around. Suffice to say, a 64 bit processor should perform better than a 32-bit processor of similar specification as long as it’s using software written to take advantage of the additional data handling capability.

As these processors are backwards compatible, you can install a 32-bit version of Windows on your 64-bit processor but as a result your machine will not be able to take advantage of this additional data bandwidth and you will be essentially handicapping your new processor; this is where the 64-bit version of Vista comes in to play. Whilst it is true that Microsoft did release a 64-bit version of Windows XP it unfortunately never gained any real support and as such was never developed in to a viable platform.

With 64-bit processors becoming commonplace and with a large wave of support for these new, more powerful versions of Vista it looks like 64-bit computing has finally arrived so now there are important decisions to be made. I think I have explained the primary speed advantage however there are also a number of other benefits from making the switch and rather predictably a large number of disadvantages. As this decision is an important one I plan next week to go over both sides of the argument so that you can decide which version is right for you.

eBay.co.uk

admin — Sat, 11 Sep 2004 18:11:40 +0000

One of my favourite sites on the Internet has to be the online auction page eBay. Over the past year I have seen not only myself but also my friends and family save hundreds of pounds by buying discounted new or used products online and then in turn selling bits and pieces that are no longer need for a reasonable price.

After my article last week on DAB radio I went out and bought a brand new Blaupunkt car stereo off of eBay and saved about £90 or so when compared with the best high street price that I found in Torbay. To my delight the guy had actually accidentally oversold the model that I ordered and as he had ran out of stock he upgraded me to a superior free of charge. This resulted in me obtaining a boxed stereo that would have cost clear of £300 on the high street for £169.99; brilliant!

It was this that got me thinking that it is such a shame there are so many people in Torbay who are terrified to buy off of eBay because of some horror stories that they have read. I do believe that almost everybody could benefit from giving the site a try, whether is it to buy or to sell and fortunately this article just happens to coincide with the fact that eBay are currently offering free sale listings for new users this weekend. Your job for today is to have a think about any items that you want to clear out and once I’ve convinced you to give it a go you should go online and get rid of them!

As far as I am concerned the most important feature of eBay to understand is the feedback system as although anyone should find it easy enough to locate what they are looking for there are unfortunately there are people who will try to rip you off and you need to learn to avoid them.

To take a look at the feedback of a potential supplier simply do a search for a product you are interested in buying and then click on one of the matches to see more information about the item in question. Once you are happy that this is what you were looking for take a look towards the right hand side of this page and you will see the name of the seller and then their feedback rating which is in the form of a numerical value. This value always begins at zero for new users but when two members complete a transaction they have the chance to affect this value; if the other party is happy then they will increase your feedback by one but if they are dissatisfied with the transaction it can be decreased by one and you also return the favour towards them.

As a new user, if you were to go online and agree to buy several products but then didn’t pay for them you are likely to receive several negative feedback reviews which will then deter others from doing business with you or even you being kicked from the system. When you agree to buy something off eBay in an online auction you really should pay! As a seller you can see the feedback of people bidding on your items and you can specify in the item description that you don’t want anybody below a certain feedback rating bidding at all therefore decreasing the chances that they won’t pay.

As stated at the beginning of this article new users are entitled to sell anything on eBay for this weekend and their listings fees will be reimbursed. You may find that as a new user that people may be wary of you so it would be best off starting by advertising several low priced items so that you can build your feedback up a little before you try any bigger sales.

Additional tools such as PayPal will allow auction winners to be able to pay you by Credit or Debit card and of course it will also allow you to pay for goods using your card if you decide to start buying online although you shouldn’t worry as users don’t get to see your card number and they can only take the amount of money that you instruct PayPal to give them.

Plenty of companies have tried to steal their crown but have all ultimately failed since eBay has established itself as the definitive auction site. To be honest there is far too much to cover in this single article but they have a good help section that should teach you everything you need to know to get started – simply visit www.ebay.co.uk and then clicking on the ‘help’ link.

Blueyonder Internet Access

admin — Sat, 25 Jan 2003 16:20:39 +0000

My article last week on Blueyonder struck a chord with a number of readers who thought they would write to confirm that they’ve had good experiences with the Telewest Blueyonder service and one such reader is Mr. Hare whose letter I shall print below.

Having read your Herald Express column today I am pleased to see that you have stumbled across Blueyonder at last – I have followed your rantings over BT broadband over the last few months and often wondered who you hadn’t mentioned Telewest Blueyonder.

Personally, I am fortunate to live in a cabled area of Torquay and have been with Eurobell/Telewest for a couple of years and with Blueyonder Broadband since it first became available in September.

You ask about horror stories? I haven’t got any – Blueyonder broadband is fast and reliable; my own website is hosted on Freenetname but forwards to my personal web space on Blueyonder so I can update it using broadband which is very fast and transforms the website maintenance process into an enjoyable experience. Please feel free to check out my website which I designed myself, initially with Microsoft FrontPage but now moving to Dreamweaver MX at www.hometreasures.co.uk.

Incidentally, I have just looked at your website and checked you out for printer cartridges. I note you quote very low prices for the Epson 740 – Are you sure about them, if so I’ll be buying from you. Do you stock cartridges for Epson C62 yet? Best wishes with your column.

Tony Hare, via E-mail

Although this is going to seem like a fabricated letter in order for me to comment on my cartridge distribution side of my business, I guarantee that this letter from Mr. Hare is genuine! Anyway, I will start by talking about Blueyonder who are still set to install at my house on Friday 24^th of this month (It’s Tuesday 21^st as I write). It seems like the service provided by Telewest is reliable, fairly cheap and best of all, it comes with all the equipment you need to set it up and a qualified engineer will come around to your come to set it all up for you. For those of you in a Telewest cabled area, I recommend you have a look by going to www.blueyonder.co.uk and let me know how you get along, the good points and the bad. I’ll let you know how my installation has gone in next weeks Click and we’ll eventually establish the best broadband deals to be had in Torbay.

As for the cartridges that you speak of on my website, these are what are known as ‘compatible’ cartridges which are available on the market for a substantially lower price than their brand name counterparts. This is primarily because when you purchase a printer from your local stockist, the manufacturer doesn’t really make a profit on the actual sale of the machine as they plan to make their money by then selling you printer cartridges which cost pennies to make for around £20 every time you need more ink.

Imagine the situation where you get another manufacturer to come along who can make these printer cartridges to the same specification but doesn’t have to worry about recouping the small amount of profit initially made on the printer and think how the cost of the cartridges could be bought down; this essentially explains the idea of compatible cartridges to you. All the cartridges we stock are made to, or exceed the manufacturers’ specifications and are widely considered to be amongst the best compatible cartridges available on the market. Check out the prices online at www.refreshcartridges.co.uk, where you’ll find Epson cartridges starting at £2.89, Canon cartridges from £1.99 and also the full range of recycled HP cartridges. Payment can be taken online by credit card or paid by cheque, all our prices include next day delivery and if you are not completely satisfied, the cartridges can be returned for a full refund. I should state that these cartridges are available from other sources but Refresh Systems is probably one of the cheapest sources of these cartridges, not only locally but also nationally and we will attempt to match any price.