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How to access your files from anywhere

March 13th, 2010, 8:34 am by

Stump the PC Club is a free tech-advice column written by members of the North Orange County Computer Club, which has been in existence since 1976. Visit the club’s site at noccc.org. And don’t forget to stop by the Gadgetress’ home for the PC Club, at ocregister.com/link/pcclub, to find out how to ask a question and read past answers.

QUESTION: Occasionally when I’m traveling I’d like to have access to a file on my home PC. The file could be a picture, a Word document or a PowerPoint presentation. What do you suggest?

PC CLUB: Fortunately, there are several options for making files on your PC available to you when you’re away from your desktop provided that you have Internet access. Also, some of the solutions require special hardware including a router.

Here are several options: Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Stump the PC Club • Wi-Fi & networking • • • • • • • • • • • • • | 6 Comments »

Why Michael Jackson ‘This Is It’ USB is for true fans

January 26th, 2010, 2:30 am by

'Michael Jackson's This is It' movie on a USB drive.If you’re planning to buy the new “Michael Jackson’s This Is It” movie, out today on DVD and Blu-ray, true fans may want to consider the movie on a USB drive.

It’s  not  high-definition, and it can only be played on a Windows PC. And the movie is all that is included on the 2 GB drive.

But each of the “This is It” USB drives from Fountain Valley’s Kingston Technology is numbered, up to 75,000.

Kingston, which has released three other movies on USB drives, said this one is the first that will let owners share the movie on up to 3 computers. Kingston’s previous movie USB releases, which included “Star Trek” and “Transformers,” required the USB drive to remain plugged into the computer.

“It really is new territory for us.  It’s a way for a memory company like us to work with a big movie company,” said David Leong, Kingston’s spokesman.

Leong said that the $19.99 drive targets devices like netbooks, which don’t have an optical drive. But beyond the PC, many users may not be able to watch the movie on their big screen TV or other USB-friendly player because the movie only works with Windows Media Player.

“It’s for Michael Jackson fans,” he said.

But another feature of the USB version of the movie is that it can be shared with 3 computers. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Computers • Gadgets • Security • • • • • • • • • | 4 Comments »

Western Digital adds 140-600 hours to TiVo, DVRs

April 22nd, 2009, 8:00 pm by

Western Digital's My DVR ExpanderJust a quick note: Western Digital in Lake Forest added a 1-terabyte drive to its line of “My DVR Expander” products.  It’s an external hard drive that plugs in to a TiVo or other compatible digital video recorder and immediately adds room for up to 140 more hours of high-definition TV shows and movies. That also translates to about 600 more hours of standard definition. Nice! 

The latest model works with TiVo Series 3 and TiVo HD DVRs, using an eSATA connection. Price: $199.99 and available at shopwd.com.

Unfortunately, My Expander doesn’t work with every brand of DVR, especially if the DVR is from the cable company. But according to Western Digital, it’s “been tested for compatibility with Scientific Atlanta 8300 Series, and has been TiVo verified compatible with TiVo Series3 and TiVo HD DVRs.” 

An older 500-gigabyte model with USB connections is also available. That one appears to work with DISH Network’s ViP Series HD DVRs, according to the company.

More TV: Check out the Gadgetress Guide to local TV services. Latest DVR headlines:

Posted in: Storage • Video & TV • • • • • • • | 3 Comments »

Western Digital launches first 2 TB drive

January 27th, 2009, 8:02 am by

Way back when, Western Digital followed the competition and took forever to get to a 1 Terabyte drive in 2007. Today, the Lake Forest company introduced the industry’s first 2 TB hard drive.

The new desktop computer hard drive crammed 500/GB per platter in the 4-platter drive. (Other details: It has 32 MB cache, 400 Gigabits/square inch in aerial density and it’s one of the company’s Eco drives, which uses less power than traditional drives.)  

Who really needs this much space (besides myself)? The company points to Trend Focus, a market research firm that covers the storage space. Its president, Mark Geenan, says that while some wondered if consumers would buy a 1 TB drive, 10 percent of the 3.5-inch hard drives sales are 1 TB or higher. 

And, according to WD’s handy “What it holds” chart, I think we could easily run out of space if it only holds 240 hours of high-definition video: 

Up to 571,000 digital photos
Up to 500,000 songs (MP3)
Up to 50,000 songs (uncompressed CD quality)
Up to 150 hours of Digital Video (DV)
Up to 880 hours of DVD quality video
Up to 240 hours of HD video

The new WD Caviar Green 2 TB drive (model WD20EADS) is now available at a suggested price of $299, which makes it a budget-worthy 15-cents per gigabyte!

Read a preliminary review of the new drive at HotHardware.com: “WD 2TB Caviar Green Monster Drive Preview.”

Past Western Digital stories: 

Posted in: Storage • • • • • • • | Comments Off

USB gets faster, SD gets bigger

January 12th, 2009, 8:23 am by

The show ended Sunday. Here is beginning of the rest of what I saw at CES… For the list of Gadgetress reports from CES, visit the headline page at Gadgetress@CES 2009

The pervasive USB technology suits many just fine. But it’s still not that fast, especially if you’re trying to transfer large files from an external hard drive to PC, or vice versa.

A speed boost is pending, thanks the the next-generation USB standard getting approval in November. USB 3.0, also dubbed SuperSpeed USB, will reach speeds of 5 gigabits-per second — a steep increase from today’s USB 2.0 standard, which is around 480 mbps.

Translation: a file that takes 27 minutes to transfer from an external hard drive to PC using today’s USB High-Speed technology will take 60 to 70 seconds on USB 3.0′s Super-Speed technology. 

According to the USB association, which was present at CES, consumers could start seeing USB 3.0 products by early 2010.

SD-memory cards get bigger

Separately, the tiny flash-memory cards we call MicroSD just got a capacity boost, also thanks to the passing of a new engineering standard. Being  called “SDXC,” the new cards will reach 32 GB to 2 terabyte capacities by 2010. The read and write speeds also get a boost — up to 104 Megabytres per second this year and 300 MBps in years to come.

The good news is that the new standard won’t require consumers to get new card readers, as we all did in order to read SD cards over 2 GBs. And the industry is, of course, bringing the larger capacity cards to the teeny-tiny microSD format as well. Just think… 2 TB of storage on your cell phone. That’s equivelant to a total 136,000 photos in fine mode, or 480 hours of HD video or an assortment of files, as pictured below!

For the list of Gadgetress reports from CES, visit the headline page at gadgetress.freedomblogging.com/ces2009.

Posted in: Storage • Wi-Fi & networking • • • • • • • | Comments Off

Toshiba unveils largest flash-memory drive

January 10th, 2009, 11:15 am by

For what’s next in computer storage, look no further than Toshiba Corp., which showed prototypes of 512 GB solid state drives during the Consumer Electronics Show (click image to view larger):

The solid-state technology is the same stuff inside tiny SD and other flash cards used in cell phones, digital cameras and MP3 players.

Toshiba’s new storage sizes are available in 2.5-inch drives, which are sizes found in laptops like the Apple’s svelte MacBook Air, currently at a mere 120 GB. The drives are thinner, lighter and more reliable because they have no moving parts, unlike traditional computer hard drives which rely on spinning platters to store and read data.

Other capacities include 64 GB, 128 GB and 256 GB, which are available in 1.8-inch or 2.5-inch sizes. Speeds are up to a maximum sequential read speed of 240 MB per second, and a write speed of 200 MBps. The new drives will be available during the first quarter of 2009, with mass production beginning around April.

Toshiba’s U.S. storage division is based in Irvine.

To see headlines from earlier stories from CES, please visit gadgetress.freedomblogging.com/ces2009.

Posted in: Storage • • • • • • • • • | Comments Off

Western Digital offers way to watch PC’s HD movies on TV

November 3rd, 2008, 8:25 am by

Problem: Lots of high-def videos and movies stored on your home computer or external hard drive but no simple way to play them on the big TV in the living room. 

Answer: The Western Digital WD TV Media Player. The Lake Forest hard drive maker just announced its new gadget that stays connected to the TV. When you want to play video files from a hard drive, just plug in the hard drive to the Media player, select the file and hit play — up to two USB drives at a time. 

This sounds much neater than wiring up a laptop to the TV for that cluttered home electronics look. But then again, it’s not perfect. It’s not a networked gadget so you’ll need to transfer all those PC video files to a hard drive instead of trying to access the files on your home network. And too bad it’s not wireless. It appears to be much like many other media players that have been on the market for years, but this one allows you to plug in a hard drive or two. Plus, it’s HD — up to 1080p resolution. 

The system comes with a remote control and will let users watch photo slideshows and listen to music too. It also comes with ArcSoft MediaConverter 2.5 to convert photos, video and music into formats optimized for the WD TV HD Media player. It’s available now at shopwd.com for $129.99.

Posted in: Storage • Video & TV • • • • • | Comments Off

Bamboo hard drives NOT made in OC

July 30th, 2008, 9:59 am by

Photo isn’t of the bamboo grown for the Fabrik drives, but an archive Register photoBad information from the PR person for Fabrik led us all to believe that the bamboo in the company’s new green hard drives is grown at its office in Orange County. My mind even conjured up an image of giant bamboo stalks in the middle of the manufacturing floor at the Santa Ana plant and  someone coming in weekly to chop down the fast-growing plant then pounding it into shape.

But no. Not at all. The bamboo is grown in China, where Fabrik contracts a manufacturer to build the new [re]drives. And the bamboo comes from a nearby bamboo grower in China. It’s not even grown in the same building!  (So, ignore the sentence in Fabrik’s press release that says, “The bamboo is naturally grown local to Fabrik’s manufacturing facility so the material is not transported over long distances.”)

Fabrik’s [re]drive is made from bambooSince I had Matt McRae, Fabrik’s vice president of marketing, on the line, I let him tell me a bit more about how green the [re]drive really is.

To put all my bamboo questions to rest, McRae explained that the bamboo Fabrik chose grows about 60 feet a year. A bamboo grower near to the manufacturing factory in China steam presses the bamboo into shape. No glue, varnish or other harsh chemicals are used on the bamboo.

Bamboo was chosen for marketing purposes. The company asked its retail customers about what they wanted in a hard drive. Green themes were definitely in (security was also mentioned). In fact, stores told McRae that green was going to be huge this fall so consumers should start seeing stuff like a bunch of green gadgets on the end of aisles.

“We don’t actually own our manufacturing facilities. We use ODMs (original design manufacturer). We signed a confidentiality agreement and then told them the product we wanted them to build. They looked at us like we were crazy because they’d never built a bamboo hard drive before. Together, we found two or three different suppliers who could do bamboo for us,” McRae said. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: news • • • • • • • • • • | 3 Comments »

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