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I've talked many times about SSD drives. They are incredibly fast (many times faster than a mechanical drive), but cost more than a traditional mechanical hard drive . So the ideal setup is to have your operating system installed on the SSD drive and your software/data on a mechanical drive. This...
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Last week I suggested a motherboard and processor that would give you a screaming fast computer. As part of the motherboard description, I mentioned that it could hold as much as 48 GB of RAM. My current machine is a bit over 3 years old and it has 12 GB of RAM. Even when working with a bunch of large...
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It has been a while since I've taken a look at the motherboards available on the market. Sure, I could look at a budget board as a starting point, but let's go all out and look for the best motherboard we can find. It isn't the least expensive, but it is a great starting point on a computer...
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We all need a good hard drive in our computer. As time goes by, you will increasingly need more and more space on that hard drive. How much space do you need? There is no single answer that fits every user. Those dealing with high-resolution photos and videos on a regular basis will certainly need more...
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Sometimes when I go looking for a hardware product to discuss, I end up finding something else that is even more interesting. After a discussion in the office that didn't lead to anything particular interesting, I decided to talk about USB keyboard lights. If you didn't read Keep Your Devices...
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I was having dinner with a friend recently and he recounted a problem he had with his phone running low on power. The simple answer was to buy a charging cable for his car, but he would soon be getting a new phone and didn't want to buy something that could soon change. Most phones and tables these...
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I had a project recently where I shot some images of jewelry for a company selling their products online. As most of your are doing design work, this might be a project you'll undertake some day. Even if you don't shoot the pictures, I wanted to talk about some of the pieces involved in the shoot...
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There is one very important component in your computer and most users don't pay it much attention unless it completely fails. What is it? The power supply! This one "black box" provides power to your motherboard and all the components in your computer. Is your computer unstable? Are you...
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Today I want to step back from specific hardware and talk in general about monitors. There seems to be user confusion about various aspects of monitors. One of the most important specs you hear about a monitor is the diagonal size of the screen. For those of us in the US, it is given in inches. In general...
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A common question I am asked is what computer to buy. I don't know your needs, your budget and definitely not the thousands of pre-built computers available. So this is a question that I simply can't answer for you. One thing I can tell you is that you'll often find the best computer is the...
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Loyal readers will know that I am a huge fan of Wacom's pen tablets . This is an input device that every digital artist should have on their desk! How in the world can you draw/paint with soap on a rope or an inverted pool ball?! While I've told you about these tablets over the years, let's...
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From time to time I hear from users who find transferring data from a DVD to their computer is painfully slow. While there can be a variety of reasons for the slow speed, the most common reason is the use of a painfully slow drive! The good news is that you can get a really fast drive for a very small...
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I was sitting with some friends watching the college football championship game in 3D the other night when we started talking about the televisions we had as kids. I distinctly remember black and white TVs and that a 19" television was huge. Some of you pre-date me and remember even older technology...
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I've written many times about the importance of jump drives and memory cards. Today Kurt von Behrmann is going to look at two products from Lexar. First is their latest series of jump drives that provide support for USB 3 and really high speeds. Then he looks at SDHC cards that gives you plenty of...
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In March 2011 I told you about the Logitech Harmony 1100 Universal Remote . I still use mine on a regular basis and it does a great job of controlling devices. As I said in the original review, it was very easy to set it up for my devices. If I had any complaints about it, it would be the difficulty...