It seems like just yesterday CD burners were the latest craze and they had just hit the market. Now with prices dropping and DVD burners out on the market priced reasonably, you might be thinking of getting one. I’m going to show you how to install a DVD burner into your computer.

The first step is to install the screws in the side of the player. Dependent on your machine, you may have different screws or different slots. Some machines have rails that go along the side, others have a round type of screw that slide in the machine.

In our case, we are using these little slide screws that came with our computer. We are not going to be utilizing the ones that came out of the package. You can look at how all your other drives are installed as a guideline.

First, we’ll install the screws. One thing to keep in mind is that the metal is very thin. You don’t need to torque them very hard. A little twist is all it takes. Once you have all the screws installed, take the drive and insert it into the tower.

It is going to lock into place and the hardware aspect is complete. Next, we are going to install the IDE cable, being very cautious not to bend any of the pins. These IDE cables tend to only go in one way which is the reason you have a key up top.

Go ahead and install that now, pushing it snuggly in. Now take the power cable and install it. It only installs one way. One final thing to keep in mind is that you do have jumper settings. If it’s plugged in the top drive it’s going to be master, if it’s plugged into the second it will be slave and cable select tells the drive to try and figure it out for itself. Make sure it is properly configured for however you have it installed.

Prior to January’s MacWorld convention, Apple released several news bulletins.  One of which is that Steve Jobs will not be attending as the keynote speaker.  The other one is that the succeeding releases of Apple MacBooks and iBooks will no longer support Firewire connectors.

Both news are significant, but for ordinary users, the latter one has more weight.  Apple along with Sony co-invented the Firewire.  This was a high speed serial connection which pre-dated the USB, and was meant to address the limitations of SCSI.

The impact on users is significant because for a long time now, the firewire connector has been the de facto standard for transferring data from the mini-DV camcorder to the PC.  And because of its data throughput speeds, early iPods also had firewire ports built-in.  Additionally, home brewers who want to cluster their Linux computers on the cheap used firewire connections to enable file- and hardware-clustering at home.

The promise of firewire hard drives also fizzled out with the introduction of SATA.  Although firewire is still the connection of choice for external hard drives.

For server use, firewire has largely replaced high-speed SCSI variants in clustered servers and server farms. But the use of SATA is slowly gaining ground for NAS/SAN use.  With not much difference in performance, it all boils down to the hard disk price/performance ratio and the cost of the other equipment.  SATA comes out cheaper in that comparison.

For camcorder users, the firewire port enables full-frame transfer of videos from DV tapes to the computer without any lags or dropped frames.  On the other hand, transfer via the USB 2.0 for DV tapes still has a lot of dropped frames.  This issue is no longer a problem, however, with DVD and HDD camcorders.  DVD and HDD camcorders transfer video as data files, and even if the connection was slow, there won’t be any dropped frames because of the built-in error checking of the hardware.

The Firewire development roadmap has the Firewire 1600 as the next step.  But that might not come anytime soon, if at all. On the other hand the next generation of USB ports is slated to come out in 2009.  And with double the throughput and a higher power output, this will enable more devices to be connected on a single USB port.  One limitation of the USB is that it is a shared port.  But with PCs having more USB “hubs” there is no need for bandwidth sharing.

For a long while the RS232 was considered as the “universal” port, as it is used by most computer equipment, including hubs, switches and routers.  The firewire was aimed at becoming more ubiquitous, targeted to be found in digital appliances allowing file transfer and communication between various devices.  This did not happen.  Instead we have DVD players with USB ports to read from USB thumb drives. And MP3 players and car stereos, sporting USB ports for uploading and downloading video and audio files to and from computers.  We also have handy USB storage devices for cameras to download pictures to.

This does look like the end of the firewire.  But with Apple, not everything is as it seems.  Firewire 1600 might still appear sometime.  Or maybe not.

A while back, I helped a friend buy a computer.  It had a small form-factor, but quite competitive with the price point and features.  But mainly, I suggested the brand because of the warranty.  The company had a standard two year warranty on parts and one year warranty on labor.

I didn’t put much bearing into warranties before.  I had worked for a computer company before and some of our corporate and government clients had three year warranties included in the requests for proposals.  It’s more of a requirement for corporations and the government because of the concept of continuity of business.  Most times, this is also because these big enterprises still use the accounting model for depreciation of office equipment.  Me?  I personally prefer a capital expenditure model for a one-time cost of the computer rather than depreciate it for five years.  I mean, if I had a five year old computer, it would not have been upgraded several times in the first two years alone.  In which case, the concept of depreciation would not work.  But I digress.

I didn’t really think that the computer warranty would be that great an idea.  Until a several weeks ago, when the newly bought computer started having problems.  First it was the BIOS, it kept forgetting the settings.  And then the audio started to fail.  Soon, Windows XP was hanging if there was no activity.  And finally, the computer just failed.

Off to the dealer it went.  After an initial diagnosis, the motherboard had to be replaced.  Unfortunately, the model was out of stock.  It was replaced with a different model board with the same capability.  Next the hard disk was replaced, because some bad sectors were detected.  And then the DVD-ROM drive was also replaced because it didn’t recognize some disks.  Bottom line, three major pieces of equipment, zero cash out, and no charges whatsoever.

The concept of a warranty is that if anything goes wrong, you won’t have to pay for the parts or labor.  It’s good to see that the tech-guys really do go the extra mile for this.  There was no prompting needed in order for the parts to be replaced.  They only needed permission from the owner before replacing the part.  The good thing about all this is that the owner didn’t know much about these things and was all too happy at getting the computer back.  With all the new parts, fully functional.

Sony has always prided itself in innovation and with sticking with a technology even if they’re the only one in the niche.  This persistency is clearly seen in the AIT-5 SDX-1100 tape drive.  The server market has always been dependent on large capacity tape drives and the AIT-5 is no exception.  Built upon the AIT-4 technology, it has a tape capacity of 400GB, double that of an AIT-4, which is really needed in today’s corporate data-warehousing requirements.

The tape-drive fits in the same standard half-height bay as older AIT-4 tape drives.  And the AME III (Advanced Metal Evaporated) tape cartridges cost £40 each, which comes to around 10p per gigabyte.  This is a relatively cheap media.

This comes bundled with an end-user bundle HP StorStation complete with the mountaing rails compatible with the ProLiant series servers as well as a copy and licence of Symantec’s Backup Exec for Windows.  The customer can, of course, use their own (existing) backup and restore solutions, which do cost a bundle.

This would be a good upgrade for those with existing AIT-4 tape drives, as they already have the infrastructure and hardware to support it.  Added to this, for backward compatibility, the new drive can read and write to older cartridge models including AIT-3, AIT-3EX and AIT-4 for long term archiving.

The Sony AIT-5 SDX-1100 is a ten year-old product built on a fifty year-old technology, and it is showing its wear.  Though it can store up to 400GB per tape, the throughput of 24MB/sec native transfer rate is still the same as its predecessor, the AIT-4.  This is mainly because of the Ultra160 SCSI LVD/SE interface.  Current SATA-interfaces have faster data throughput.

Increasingly, however, the problem with backup is no longer keeping the data, but in recovering the data from the backup source.  This is where tapes are now lagging behind, specially in a multi-server environment.  not for small-office/home-office backups, nor for SAN/NAS for medium-sized organizations.  The hardware costs as well as the setup and install would only be defrayed in a sufficiently large enterprise with tape archive needs.

For the new user, this is an alternative in a whole slew of tape formats and solutions, as well as a growing market of hard-disk based, online storage, backup and recovery solutions.  Sadly, arrayed with hard-disk based solutions which are easy to setup and accessible over a LAN, this is bit more complex.

Tape drives have always been a niche product for archiving and as a backup solution.  The use of automated jukebox solutions is being slowly overrun by disk-based solutions using a form of virtual tape library solutions.

In summary, this would appeal to existing customers with an investment in older AIT-4 tape-based hardware, including the Ultra160 SCSI LVD/SE interface.  Otherwise, there are existing 500GB to 4TB and 8TB, online real-time disk backup hardware at the same or cheaper price points.

But overall this is not for small-office/home-office backups, nor for SAN/NAS for medium-sized organizations or large enterprises.  And definitely not something a new installation would seriously consider.

There’s a groundswell for WiFi access.  And this is mostly from commercial establishments which offer customers access to the internet while within store premises.  The WiFi access is usually free, depending on the establishment.  But more and more, it’s not just the commercial establishment which offers the WiFi connectivity but the mall management adding this as a feature.

WiFi access is not just in the malls, of course.  Nowadays, colleges and universities have laid down the foundation for WiFi connectivity.  But that decision may be more due to financial considerations than for student/professor considerations.  It is a whole lot cheaper to install WiFi access points and routers than to pay for civil works to lay cable all around the campus.  Besides, with a structured cabling strategy, sooner or later, LAN cable theft would be a big blip on the crime radar.

As it is, even without going into WiFi enabled establishments, it is possible to leach the service by staying close enough to the building or shop.  With a good WiFi implementation, the signal should get across the street without any problems.  And just in case there’s concern that someone outside the building is accessing the network, security could be implemented by limiting the internet access to specific MAC addresses.

And with regards printing, I would opt for the network printer to be connected via it’s own cable.  The alternative is to have the printer connected to a computer on the network as a shared resource.  This would mean that the computer has to be turned on whenever the printer has to print.  Which runs counter to the logic behind a network printer.

Closer to home, the cost of a wireless LAN router has been dropping steadily and it has become a viable alternative for a small office/home office environment.  And with a WiFi in the home, cabling would not be a concern.

Setting up a home WiFi network is almost as easy as a cabled LAN.  With a WiFi router connected to the DSL modem, WiFi enabled notebooks should have an internet connection in no time.  In the case of desktops, a WiFi dongle or a WiFi LAN card could be installed in order to capture an internet connection.

Among several considerations, signal strength can be assured by having a clear line of sight from the laptop to the WiFi router or access point.  Strictly speaking, this is not really necessary.  Although from a psychological viewpoint, this gives the user peace of mind with regards LAN connection to the router.

There are however, some issues with WiFi routers.  For some reason, WiFi routers time out on their own, leaving the user without any internet connection at odd or random times.  What’s worse is that, even if you reset the WiFi router, the connection might still be missing.  There’s not much to tweak in the router maintenance as the router settings are usually bare with “no user serviceable parts.”

For the most part, any intermittent service from the WiFi router is a small price to pay for the cable-free internet access.

No, I don’t use the floppy disk anymore.  At least not in the way I used floppy disks before.  I’ve gone through different incarnations of floppy disks before and I could not imagine how “flimsy” the data was during those days.

First time I used a floppy disk, it was 8-inches and was for a TRS machine.  The funny thing about the TRS we had at school was that when there was a power interruption, you had to remove the diskette immediately.  This was not a problem, as you only had to press the cover and out popped the diskette.  If you were a little slow, the data would have been damaged.

The next time I used a floppy was when I had my own PC.  It was an XT-clone, with a Phoenix BIOS, no hard disk, but all of 1MB RAM, running on a top-speed of 10MHz (turbo mode).  It had a CGA monitor from Thomson.  And it had cooling problems.  And yes it used 5.25-inch floppies.  It actually had two floppy drives:  one of 360KB and the other of 1.2MB capacity.  I also found out that I had an allergy of sorts as I got rashes on my neck when I was in front of the computer for too long.  A note on the 1.2MB floppy disk, though this was more expensive than the regular 360KB, we used it for archival purposes.  We used diskcopy to force copy a 360KB disk to the 1.2MB.  We figured that there was more data integrity that way.

The next PC I had used 3.5-inch floppy disks.  It still had a 5.25-inch floppy disk drive along with the 3.5-inch drive.  It was an AT-class 286 with a Hercules monochrome graphics card, and a paper-white monitor.  It also had a 40MB hard disk.

I had a floppy drive on all the computers I bought, till around the 2001, when I gave up on the floppy drive.  Since that time, I had asked that the floppy drive not be included as part of the specifications.  Though the use of USB flash drives have not picked up yet, I just thought to re-use or recycle old diskette drives from the computers I had replaced.

The diskette was fun for a while.  It it worked, it worked fine.  If it didn’t, I just broke open the case had the plastic metal recording material coated plastic inside ripped out.  It’s something physical for me to do so that I wouldn’t have useless diskettes lying around the desk.

With the use of flash drives, internet storage, large hard disks, CD/DVD burners, the floppy disk has receded in use and utility.  Mainly it’s not large enough anymore.  When storing a typical picture file on floppy disk, I doubt if there’d be more than 10 files saved on a single floppy.  And storing an MP3 is out of the question.

But the floppy has not yet disappeared.  It’s still very much a part of the desktop computer.  Beside the recovery boot disk, there is still that one use which is ubiquitous but barely noticeable.  When you use a word processor or a spreadsheet, the save button on the screen is most probably an icon of a diskette.

Lacie, one of the pioneers in portable personal external storage devices has partnered with Carbonite to offer offsite backup services free for one year for every external hard drive device sold.  This is an added bonus to LaCie buyers, giving them a greater sense of security and peace of mind knowing that they’ve got a secure data redundancy in the form of an offsite backup.

LaCie is a prominent name in the Mac market, as they have been manufacturing external storage devices for the Mac since the 1980’s. Their backup solutions are scaleable and easy to install, setup, schedule and maintain.  The company’s current offerings is up to 7.5TB capacity in a 5-disk set of RAID 5 or RAID 6.  Though it has concentrated on Mac solutions, LaCie has other products compatible with Windows, as well as home entertainment solutions.

With last year’s introduction of Time Machine, the Mac OS X backup software, Mac users can easily backup their hard disk contents to an external drive with no problem at all.  Now with the partnership between LaCie and Carbonite, Mac users concerned that their data (and the backup) would disappear in case of fire or theft have a Plan B in the form of an offsite backup at a secure data center.

Carbonite ensures that the backup is secure by encrypting the data twice before uploading to a secure data center.  User privacy and further security is assured as the data remains encrypted while at the data center.  Strictly speaking, the backup cycles are not on a fixed schedule as the process is only active during the Mac’s idle cycles.

There are as many keyboard designs as there are manufacturers.  The only similarity is the QWERTY layout.  There are, of course, high end keyboards which are configurable, allowing the user to shif to a Dvorak layout, or any other layout which the user fancies.  So far other keyboard layouts have not have as much acceptance as the QWERTY.

Keyboard manufacturers still continue researching with materials and with other ergonomic setups to prevent carpal tunnel syndrome or repetitive strain injury.  Some keyboard designs have adjustable pieces, or angled keys.  Typically, these keyboards are more expensive than the regular keyboards.

One keyboard design which has caught on and is sold at almost the same price as regular keyboards make use of a rubber casing.  This makes the keyboard flexible, and the user can type on practically any surface, even if it’s not flat.  Lightweight and durable, rubber keyboards are also water proof.  (Regular keyboards are spill-proof, which means that spilled coffee will not get inside the casing.  Rubber keyboards on the other hand are practically water-proof because the internals are sealed inside the rubber casing.

The design house which developed flexible keyboards also developed mouse pads for use on thighs which work well with wireless mouse.  The good thing about the design house is that they really use their own designs.  The designers test their products first-hand.

For laptop users, flexible keyboards can be rolled up and stowed into the laptop bag after use.  It’s also very comfortable to use, the keys are relatively softer than the regular plastic keyboards.

Sony recently recalled more than a 100,000 PC batteries.  These are not just for the Sony Vaio but also for HP, Dell and Toshiba laptops.  And of the 100,000 batteries, about 35,000 of them were installed in laptops sold in the United States.

This is not the first time there was a battery recall.  Sony’s reason for the recall was that this was part of the batch of batteries which were recalled between 2004 and 2006.  There were 4.1 million Dell batteries recalled during that period.

The breakdown of the 35,000 batteries for recall in the United States has HP with about 32,000; Toshiba with about 3,000 and Dell with about 150.  The number of batteries on Dell for recall is significantly lower than HP or Toshiba because there was already a large number of batteries recalled several years ago.

The cause of the recall was the incidence of overheating which in some instances has already caused damage to property as well as injuries. The reports have been from around the world, including from the United States.

Sony manufactures batteries as an OEM for HP, Dell, Toshiba as well as for Apple and Lenovo.  According to Sony, the batteries had some impurities which led to the overheating.

On any computer heat has always been a problem.  In most instances this is caused by the processor, other microchips including the graphics card, and the hard disk.  To combat heat, there are several design strategies which manufacturers use.  First off are heat sinks to dissipate the heat.  There are fans to circulate the air, and to cool down the hot elements.  And there are vents for the hot air to pass through.

For a notebook, another source of heat is the battery.  Though this problem is less common in a cell phone, it’s important to note that rechargeable batteries generate heat while being charged.

As a safety precaution, even though your notebook battery is not part of the recall, it’s a good idea to make it a habit to keep the notebook cool.  Some tips to do that include:

• checking the vents are clear.  Most notebooks have vents at the bottom, while others have the vents at the sides.  If the notebook doesn’t have any vents, it was designed that way, and most probably has other ways of dissipating heat.  Going by the design, most notebooks which have vents, also were designed with some sort of raised bottom to allow the air to circulate from the vent, and out the bottom.  Another good idea is to clean the vents to make sure their dust free.
• use a notebook cooler.  This is like a docking station or tray where the notebook sits.  The cooler has a fan or two blowing air up the bottom of the notebook.  These are usually powered via the USB, which makes them portable as well.  A notebook stand might not give the same level of cooling but it does keep the bottom vents free.
• Check the battery pack on a regular basis.  If it’s warped, cracked, swelling or bulging, have it replaced.

Asus is not content with being the market leader in netbooks, the latest news from Asustek is that they’ll release $200 netbooks next year.  Considering their current pricing, this is not impossible.  Some Asus Eee models are now in the $300 to $400 price range and with current technology getting cheaper, and newer technology slowly replacing what’s out in the market, Asus (and other netbook manufacturers) should be able to make computers with the same functionality and features at a lower price.

Other developments from the Taiwanese computer maker include the phase out of 7- and 8.9-inch  Eee PCs to be replaced by 10-inch models.  This may or may not be a consolidation of product line for a cheaper manufacturing process or inventory controls.  It can just be that they’re selling more 10-inch models than the 7- and 8.9-inch netbooks.

Asus plans to have a 30% market share in the ultra mini-PC market.  This translates to sales targets of between 6 million to 7.5 million units next year.  Asus shipped 1.7 million units this past quarter and hopes to ship a total of 5 million units for the year.

The ultra-mini PC is a thriving market with the highest growth rate among PC market segments.  And Asus has shown that this could be a viable market, and not just a niche or boutique market.

There are other players in the netbook market, which include Dell and HP.  About seven years ago, Fujitsu was selling a mini-notebook for $1,500.  For one reason or another, Fujitsu did not deem it the proper time to continue that series.  At $1,500, there wouldn’t be too many buyers for the sub-notebook.  But a $200 Asus Eee would be very viable.