Home & Small Office Computer Guide

Have you ever wanted to play your MP3 downloads on your car stereo? Of course if you have one that will play MP3s you won’t have a problem but not many cars are rolling out of the showroom with a stereo system that has the ability play MP3s.

But now, for some, this little gadget will solve the problem.

It’s an adapter that will allow you to connect your portable MP3 player to your car stereo … as long as your car is one of a variety of VWs, an Audi built no earlier than 1996, a SEAT built no earlier than 1998, a variety of BMW models built no earlier than 1997, a Mini built no earlier that 2000 and some post 2000 Rover models.

You can find all the technical specs and an order form here

Looks interesting doesn’t it? It’s a USB thumb drive … but it’s different. This one has a brain … and can perform limited functions away from the USB port on your computer. It can connect to anything that has a USB port - including another Flashpoint thumb drive.

And when it’s connected it can exchange data with whatever it’s connected to. Got some great MP3 recordings you want to swap with your friend? If he has one of these units it’s a simple matter of connecting them together and the job’s done!

It’s small and lighweight and comes complete with it’s own rechargeable and removable battery.

It comes in five different sizes:

128 meg

256 meg

512 meg

1 gig and

2 gig

And all of them connect to a normal USB thumb drive as well.

You can order your very own right here

Never let it be said that the Home and Small Office Computer Guide is so lost in it’s own geeky world that it doesn’t know when Christmas is coming. We know that it’s coming soon and so here is a gift suggestion for the lady in your life.

If you haven’t quite worked out what it is let me tell you that it is a 128 meg USB thumb drive done up in a package that resembles a lady’s lipstick.

It’s available from Digital Era in the UK and if you
follow the link it will take you right to the information page.

I still can’t believe that something as simple as adding a dual-head graphic card to one of the computers in my office, plugging in a second monitor to that machine and moving everything from one side of the office to the other could take so much time!

These are the days of plug and play - surely the days of plug and pray have gone forever?

Alas it’s not the case. Oh the dual-head plugged in ok but when I switched the computer on it only saw one screen - a little bit of fiddling and I’ve got wallpaper on both monitors but no matter how hard I try I can’t move anything over to the second monitor … but wait … the light bulb is beginning to show some light.

Of course, I wanted the primary monitor in front of me and the only space for the secondary monitor was to the left of the primary one. So naturally, when I wanted to move something to the secondary screen I moved it to the left and nothing happened.

And just now a ray of light burst through the dark clouds of frustration and general grumpiness and I moved something to the right - away from the secondary screen … and of course it appeared.

Oh silly man that I am …

Of course, even the simple job of moving my desk from one side of the room to the other was not that simple. Cords, leads, surge protectors, phone line and all the other assorted junk takes time. But it’s done and now perhaps it’s time to sit back and blow my ears off with some Bond - played with a lot of bass.

Thank goodness Toni (my partner) doesn’t have it on her computer yet - with her six speakers and sub-woofer it’s likely to endanger the back wall of her office

ATP Electronics Inc. has announced the release of its USB ToughDrive. The ToughDrive is a high speed USB 2.0 flash drive sporting a stylish, yet functional rubber housing. Water resistant and extremely shock resistant, the ToughDrive also features a 30MB/s data transfer speed for faster file transfers and seamless multimedia streaming.

The ToughDrive was designed with the main goal of performance along with functionality for users in a variety of environments. Its robust, rubber housing offers protection from water and moisture, as well as shock absorption from accidental drops and other rough treatment. Grip lines along with this texture are intended to make the ToughDrive extremely easy to grip while maintaining a slim, compact size storable in any pocket or purse.

The ToughDrive has been designed with DuraSkin construction. DuraSkin is a protective compound layer which completely encompasses all internal components, offering a second layer of protection against extreme temperatures, and additional protection against the elements.

The ToughDrive data transfer speed of 200X or 30MB/sec is designed for high quality multimedia streaming and less lag time for file transfers. Using the same high quality flash components as ATP flash cards, the ToughDrive also offers a read and write lifetime ten times longer than other standard USB flash drives.

The ATP USB ToughDrive will be available everywhere in the capacities of 256MB, 512MB, 1GB, and 2GB in the middle of September. Look for a 4GB ToughDrive to be available soon.

If you’ve been wandering around places where computers are sold you may have noticed that in the last 12 months or so there has been a quiet revolution going on. The good old CRT monitor that have known and loved since last century has gone and in it’s place there are all those bright, shiny and big flat screen monitors.

That doesn’t mean that the bulky old monitors have gone from homes across the world, it just means that no one is selling them as part of a computer system any more. I’m sure that most of the people who are reading this are able to do so thanks to a CRT monitor.

However, let me suggest that if you are you really should be thinking of pensioning that old monitor off. You might think that it’s still working fine but I can tell you that image quality degrades as the monitor ages. You won’t notice it because you live with it every day but it is happening.

You also need to think about getting rid of that old monitor because they are a definite health hazard. They emit harmful radiation that, over time, can have a terrible effect on your health.

And you also need to think about ditching that old monitor simply because of its size. It takes up a huge amount of room on any desk and you won’t believe how much space suddenly becomes available when you pension off that old monitor.

Just in case you don’t believe me on the space issue here is a picture of my workspace. Don’t be put off by the three monitors - that’s a productivity thing that I’ll talk about some other time - but as you can see I have three flatscreen monitors and each of them is a 17″ model.

If I still had to rely on my old chunky CRT’s I would only be able to fit two monitors on there and I would lose a lot of the desk space that I currently have.

Finally the cost of flat screen monitors has come down in the last few months to the point where they really are affordable. Here in Australia you can pick up a new 17″ flat screen monitor for around $300 and when you do buy one you will wonder how you ever managed to live without it.

Just recently Toni bought a PDA for the business. We had both found that there were times when we were just sitting around, away from the office just waiting. At times like that a something small to use to start articles, jot notes and even write emails would be invaluable and so she bought a PDA.

It has proven itself to be everything we had hoped it to be and we haven’t regretted the purchase for a moment.

At the time we didn’t buy any accessories for our PDA simply because we didn’t know that there were any but I just found PDA Den on the web and the range of accessories is amazing. If you want specialised accessories for most brands of PDA this looks like the place to go - and they ship world wide too

Wireless Cables, Inc. has announced the release of its AIRcable HiFi Headset, which lets users listen to streaming music from their PCs via a wireless Bluetooth® USB “blade” that requires no setup or installation.

The lightweight, cable-free and hands-free design looks to be ideal for office workers, travelers, or home users who want to tune into their personal music or videos. In addition, the AIRcable HiFi Headset serves double-duty as a convenient cell phone headset.

The headset is truly a “plug-and-play” wireless accessory that is compatible with computers running Microsoft® Windows® 2000 XP, Apple® Macintosh® Mac OS®, and Linux. Bluetooth software is embedded in the hardware, the USB blade.

Users simply plug the blade into the USB port, and the device appears as a new speaker set on their desktops. The AIRcable HiFi Headset gives users immediate access to music and videos, and even acts as a mobile phone headset with its built-in microphone. The device can also be set to receive incoming calls automatically or manually while the user is listening to music.

The headset works as an audio headset with two new Samsung cell phones—Samsung SGH-i300 and Samsung SGH-D600 models—which support the MP3 audio player and Bluetooth A2DP. These innovative and versatile new mobile phones can be used as music players, complete with stereo.

The AIRcable HiFi Headset, which normally retails for $199.00 is available for a limited time for $149.00. It can be purchased at online at www.aircables.net.

Features include

* Streams music from your PC instantly
* Works with any A2DP (Advanced Audio Distribution Profile) music source that distributes high quality music content such as MP3 files
* No software to install
* Simple-to-use 5-way control button
* Mobile phone headset/stereo audio functionality (stereo audio compatible with Samsung SGH-i300and the Samsung SGH-D600 cell phones)
* Switches to mobile phone mode automatically or manually when calls come in
* Rechargeable long-lasting Lithium-Polymer battery
* Comfortable, light-weight headband
* Compatible with Microsoft Windows 2000, XP; Mac OS; and Linux

If you’re in the market for a graphics card where you’re emphasis is on gaming then you probably know that you can seriously destroy your bank balance when it comes time to part with your hard-earned cash.

But a recent release from Nvidia might help to slightly improve things on the financial front and improve the gaming graphics on your computer.

The GeForce 7800 GTX is capable of making most of those system intensive games that are so popular today run smoothly and it can also handle high definition video without a problem. To achieve that sort of performance the card carries 246mb of onboard GDDR3 RAM.

The card comes with dual heads so you can run two monitors from the card but it is PCI Express only so check with a computer expert to make sure that it will run with your other hardware before parting with your cash.

And it does cost real money in the US the card retails for $599 - but the performance is wonderful.