Most of my clients have Board Rooms and in those rooms are large displays connected to PC’s.

So there is always a need to be able to control a PC but also be cable free.

Three wireless technologies exist in this market :-

RF (Radio Frequency), Bluetooth and now 2.4Ghz Wireless.

RF is the oldest and least exciting, distance and line of sight plays a part.

I recently tried out the Wireless KeySonic Compact Keyboard with integrated Touch Pad (Model 540)

As the picture above shows it’s basically a laptop keyboard style and is ultra thin and light.

You use the supplied USB Dongle in an available USB socket on the PC and with zero configuration it just works.

The rage of 10m is equal to Bluetooth but much better than RF.

The build quality was pretty much what I expected from a Sub £30 product but saying that it looks and feels adequate for the task at hand.

This an entry level dual format HD reader it can read Blu-Ray and HD-DVD disks.

It ships with an OEM version of PowerDVD 7.3 capable of playing back both formats (if your PC meets the other spec requirements).

It requires a SATA connection and comes supplied with a SATA cable.

The drive is about 1″ longer at the back than other drives I have seen.

The drive was relatively quiet on playback.

This drive is a DVD burner but it can’t burn Blu Ray or HD-DVD so this is a reader only for those formats.

The cost is circa £70.

Summary

Having access to 3 digital formats DVD/HD-DVD and Blu Ray from a single drive makes this a great addition to an existing HTPC or Entertainment PC.

The cost of PowerDVD alone is about £25 so the bundle makes this really good value for money.

On a side note Cyberlink have removed HD-DVD support in PowerDVD 8.0 so this is your last chance to get  HD-DVD playback software.

Specs

Blu-ray Disc and HD Dvd-rom drive

Note this is Dell’s Offer Price and is likely to change.

This is my recommended buy with a couple of caveats.

1) Some users have reported banding where the colours on the left and right aren’t as strong as those in the middle.

2) There may be an Input Lag issue (bad for fast moving objects like video games).

Both these things would perhaps rule out the 2709W for graphic designers or gamers.

However less demanding users may not even notice and outside of these issues the monitor gets a good write up (see cnet review below).

The price is what makes this a recommended buy.

If you purchase this through Dell’s Home and Home Office (i.e. not the business channel). Distance Selling regulations should protect you in the event you are unhappy with your purchase.

You will need to return the goods immediately and I would recommend you purchase with a credit card for additional protection.

Check with Dell prior to ordering your consumer rights in relation to returning goods.

No modern appliance is perfect so do some homework.

Product Link:

http://accessories.euro.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=uk&l=en&s=dhs&cs=ukdhs1&sku=170559

Review Link:

http://www.cnet.com.au/desktops/monitors/0,239029427,339289509,00.htm

If you don’t know what input lag is:-

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=dell+input+lag&search_type=&aq=f

In this relatively tiny form factor Iomega has a generous 320gb 5400 RPM hard disk.

The great thing about these is they are USB powered so you don’t have any additional power cables to carry just the supplied USB cable. When you are connected to your PC the USB Port/Cable powers the drive.

I have issued these drives to many remote users over the years and not once had a problem which is saying something as they are portable and more likely to get bashed about.

This 320gb model has about 298gb of available storage. It comes formatted Fat32. Some of my files are large so I always format new storage as with the NTFS file system that can deal with them better.

Tip: As great as these drives are they are also a security risk. With server like storage capacities you could end up leaving the equivalent of your companies’ data in the back of a taxi.  Check out something like TrueCrypt for additional security. Link: http://www.truecrypt.org/downloads.php

The cost at £94 inc VAT for the 320GB version is reasonable but cheaper lower capacity models are available. (see Amazon, Dabs etc).

Grab one of these and go do some backing up! Just keep the drive in a safe place.

I heard some good things about Samsung Hard Disks on the Internet, so I thought I would give them a go.

I needed an internal SATA 3.0 500gb. My main criteria was Cost per GB, reliability, operating noise and performance.

You take such a gamble when you get a new hard disk, some are quiet, some are noisy, some make chunking noise, some don’t.

So between the good reputation from peers/users I chose the Samsung HD501LJ

So how does it meet my criteria?

Cost Per GB: 13p Per GB

Reliability: So far so good, build quality looks good too. Installation was simple.

Operating Noise: Excellent virtually silent.

Performance: I haven’t done any technical speed tests but anecdotally in use this seems very fast. I back up my data to ISO format and I can create a 20gb ISO in about 5 minuets. 

Summary

I have had nothing but a good experience so far. The key issue is reliability and that will only be known after time.

Co-incidentally My Dell XPS 420 shipped from Dell with the same model the HD501LJ

So a recommended buy from me, but if you have a different story share it with the world in the comments.

Ok so you are knee deep in nappies but the world expects you to be a master of digital manipulation and distribution.

I am a new parent and I probably take for granted the amount of tech skills required, so here are some tech tips.

Pictures

Tip: Take lots of pictures, this is digital. If you are trying to capture a moment take as many snaps as you need to to get it. You don’t have to keep all of them. But I find quantity leads to quality.

Tip: Megapixels: Most modern Digital Camera’s are 4+ megapixel’s. The larger the megapixel the larger the image files will be. They will also contain more detail the higher the settings. If in doubt put it on the highest setting.

Tip: Camera Memory (SD, MMC, XD) Basically this type of memory has never been cheaper. Get a card with minimum of 1GB of storage.

Tip: Photography tips are really outside the scope of this post however my one tip is Lighting is everything. Before taking pictures consider the best use of available light.

How having captured your wonderful digital memories lets move on.

Tip: Transferring the images to your computer. There are two ways. One is to connect the Camera to a PC, the second is to take the memory card out of the camera and put it in a memory card reader.  Some modern PC’s have these on the front panel.

The software that comes with most Digital camera’s is usually rubbish.

Tip: For Managing and Manipulating Images stored on your PC Google’s free Picasa is fantastic and free. On your PC you will want to Catalogue, carry out simple fixes like red eye and experiment with the tuning and effects.

Above is a screen shot of Picasa

Take 10 minuets out of your life to see what Picasa can do, it will save you so much time in the long run

Tip: Etiquette, you may think everyone you know wants 20 x 6mb images of your new baby. You should consider the recipients and filling up their mailboxes. My advice is resize a few of the good ones into a much more file size friendly way (you can do this in picasa).

Example: My mother has a 15″ TFT Monitor so I never e-mail her pictures larger than 1024×768 pixels as she simply would not be able to view them.

Link: Picasa

Video

Now video is all the rage on the Internet these days. You will also find video has become convergent and your Digital Camera has Video recording capabilities. But lets assume its a  DV camcorder.

Most camcorders have either a USB or FireWire connection to the PC. In this example I am going to talk about FireWire.

Tip: The simplest way to to get DV on your PC is to use Windows Movie Maker (this came with Windows XP). Movie Maker will talk directly to the DV tape and copy the DV video file locally. The file will be stored in .avi Format.

Above is a screen shot of Windows Movie Maker.

Tip: In Windows Movie Maker you can cut and past the best bits of the video into a new clip.

Tip: The original DV video file (the .avi) on your PC is likely to be massive in file size. Example  6gb for 30 mins. So unless you have lots of storage and a way to backup that storage you now have a file management problem on your hands. My advice would be keep your original DV tape but edit from the .avi like a best of video clip and store that on your PC. This way you can revisit this in the future when storage is less of an issue.

Distribution

OK so now we have some digital content to share with family around the globe.

The simplest way to distribute is by e-mail. You need to keep an eye on the file sizes but this is the quickest way to get to people.

Tip: Google’s Gmail (their free e-mail service) has a really neat way of previewing images as thumbnails with a view all option that is super easy for non tech people like elderly parents.

You could consider an online image hosting service, but choose one where you can setup a secure login for people so you retain some privacy control.

One easy option is to use Picasa (again) it has a feature called web albums which you can choose to store pictures and video online in either a public or private album.

It doesn’t use a user name and password but Picasa web albums create a private link that you can e-mail to people for access.

Video is a bit more tricky and you may consider going down route of burning of CD/DVD’s of video content. This way you can keep the quality high and can reach people without a computer. Most consumer DVD players can playback this type of content.

Finally: Backup, Backup, Backup. You only get one shot with digital storage. You should just assume your going to lose it all.

Time to get paranoid. Keep your digital content on your local PC, keep backup on an external hard disk like an Iomega USB host powered one in the picture above. This is my recommended buy.

Next get your content backed up online. There are services like http://www.carbonite.com/ for example.

So I hope some of this helps. If you have any other tips you want to share or make a plea for help. Use the comments.

The above picture is a Joke, When I mean old, I don’t mean that old.

So to answer the question: Yes and No

Here is my experience

Dell Dimension 8300: Pentium4 3.0 GHZ / 1 GB RAM / Windows XP Pro

Now that spec does not meet the minimum CPU requirements. Not that it stopped me from trying.

The machine was an aging Dell Dimension 8300. The 8300 had an AGP video bus.

Luckily ATI do an AGP based video card the 2600HD (this comes in both PCI-e and AGP). I needed the older AGP version Circa £50.

Tip: For HD playback your video card needs a minimum of 256mb of video. If the card can also do on-board video decoding all the better.

So I figure if I am slightly under the spec on CPU the video card can take some of the slack as it has onboard video processing via the ATI AVIVO technology.

Note: You need to consider how to manage any HDCP issues you may encounter unless your are going HDMI all the way.

I hook up an Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive (to the PC over USB)

Upgrade my PowerDVD 7.0 Ultra (it can play back HD-DVD and Blu Ray)

I pass the audio out over SPDIF on my sound card to an amp.

I connect the PC to a 32″ 720p display over VGA.

So I then sit down curious if all of this is going to work and to my surprise it did.

720p video playback was fantastic, smooth no problems.

So why the yes and no?

Well Hi-Def content can do things like picture in picture video and this seems to be double trouble for a slow PC. The video goes out of sync. More or less it is dealing with 2x HD video streams.

I was pretty sure it was CPU performance related so quickly tested this setup on a Dual Core 1.86Ghz and the sync issue goes away instantly.

Advice

Would I recommend an old PC as a candidate? on reflection No. Start with a Dual Core and Decent video card.

Recommended Buy: The ATI 2600 Series. I have tried 3 of these cards in various PC’s and they do a really great job on Video playback.

The dual monitor support also seems pretty solid. However this isn’t a gamers card. But this is reflected in the price.

If you have any questions please use the comments.

I call it a Tech Refresh. I look at all the technology I use to see if its still up to the job.

Being productive is crucial to my profitability so I am happy to invest in Technology.

If you start at the bottom

Keyboard: You can get big ones, compact ones, PS2 ones, USB ones. You get some with multimedia controls like Play > Pause and Volume Control. The Dell Multimedia Keyboard is a favourite of mine. However recently swapped to  a Saitek Eclipse II.

It has nice action, isn’t too big and is backlit circa £25.

Mouse: Your baseline for this should be a Microsoft Optical Mouse. I recommend the Microsoft Optical 1.1. This is an inexpensive wired optical mouse and works great. You can buy a box of 5 for circa £50. Great for giving everyone in the office a new mouse.

Computer (Desktop/Laptop): First of all decide if you are using the right type of computer. A Desktop computer or a Laptop. Then pick the one that’s right for you.

At the moment I favour the Dell XPS 420 for Desktop computer and either Dell XPS 1330 or Latitude Dx Series like a D430, D630 or D830 in laptops.

Monitor: The baseline for this in 2008 must be a 17″ TFT as an absolute minimum. If your using a chunky old CRT monitor its time to change. Sweet spots in monitors are 17″, 20″ and 24″.

They also come in 19″ and 22″ but it starts to get confusing.

You have a choice of aspect ratio 4:3 or Widescreen. Now I keep changing my mind about this I use both (4:3 and Widescreen) and I swear they both more have equal merits.

So take a quick look at your own tech, then open your wallet.

I get to spend *lots* of other people’s money on I.T Equipment.

I have decided to create a new category on this site called “Recommended Buys“. I will post and file equipment/software in this category that I would personally recommend.

The criteria for inclusion simply is: Would I recommend or buy it myself.

You may want to Book Mark this link: View all posts filed under Recommended Buys

This would be particularly useful for the Small Business purchaser as buying the right technology for this market is my business.