HP Mini 5101 (Intel Atom N280 1.66GHz, 1GB RAM, 160GB HDD, XP Home Basic)
Hewlett-Packard announced today the newly designed HP Mini 5101 10.1-inch netbook, featuring the Intel Atom N280 CPU at 1.66GHz, up to 320GB HDD at 7,200rpm... Read More>>

Samsung Go N310 (sunset orange)
The Samsung Go N310 -13GBK Netbook is a compact, lightweight netbook. This netbook weighs only 2.9 pounds and runs on the Genuine Windows XP Home operating... Read More>>

Netbook or notebook?
Here's the choice: Will consumers buy a thin, light, relatively fast $1,800 MacBook Air or a thin, light, ultrasmall, not-as-fast $450 Hewlett-Packard Mini 1000 Netboo... Read More>>

Tips for Laptops and Desktops

Laptops Tips

Schedule mini-breaks every 20 to 30 minutes to avoid repetition and static postures. Maintain a comfortable viewing distance from your notebook computer's screen - approximately 18" to 30".Keep you head and neck in a relaxed, neutral posture; avoid excessive neck flexion or rotation.Position the keyboard at a relaxed elbow height and keep you wrists straight while keying.Experiment with table and chair height as well as keyboard angle to maintain neutral wrist postures.If you have to raise your chair so that your legs are pulled downward, use a footrest to support your feet. When seated your hips should be slightly higher than your knees. When your legs are weighted downwards, there is excessive strain on hip, leg, and low back muscles. Add an external keyboard and place it on an adjustable keyboard/mouse platform. Attach an external mouse instead of using the small constricted touchpad or trackball on your laptop.Tilt the computer's screen so that it is perpendicular to your line of sight, if lighting permits.Keep glare off the computer screen by moving the screen, changing the lighting and/or covering the windows.If you are sitting in a side chair or couch, use a pillow to support your arms while keying.Regular laptops have been designed to work within a safe temperature range - normally 50 to 95 degrees F (10 - 35 degrees C). This range refers both to optimal usage temperature of the outside environment and the temperature the laptop should be warmed to before using. Protecting your laptop from cold weather is important and you should know how to protect your laptop from cold weather. Protect yourself and your laptop from the damage cold weather can cause.

Desktop

When we start hunting for a computer, decide if you want to go with branded computer or assembled one. My suggestion will be assemble one as it will cheaper and you can select best components and assemble them together. Only negative point will be for servicing you have to contact different people for different components.

Configuration for computer:-

(This will help you select your branded or assembled computer) Processors (CPUs): The CPU (Central Processing Unit) is the brain of your computer. In general, the faster the better. Processor speeds are measured in gigahertz (GHz), the fastest models available now is in the range of 4GHz, but this is for mean hardcore machines. If you are in hardcore animation, gaming industry you can go with it but it will be really expensive. For the basic everyday office or home use processors starting from 1.5 GHz, is good enough. Then you have to make choice between Intel core duo or AMD core duo. General assumption if you want to play games on your machines then AMD processors serves the purpose better. Or Intel is common in use and will be cheaper option than the AMD processor.

Memory (RAM):

Most computers now use a type of memory called DDR2. Some high performance one might use DDR3, but this is quite expensive. Avoid systems using DDR1 or SDRAMS as for the amount of memory go for at least 1GB of memory. Memory speed will have immediate impact on performance as well. More the memory faster the PC. When buying computer try to buy as few DIMMs as possible to allow for future memory upgrades if needed.

Hard Drives:-

Hard drives are where all your data is going to be saved so it is also a very important part of your computers. Now a days Hard drives going down on sizes and going up on storage space. You must have at least 250GB of hard disk. Almost all of them are running at 7200rpm now.

Optical Drives (CD/DVD):

Most of the systems now comes with DVD writer, CD writers are things of past now. And there is no need to make any adjustment in the budget. As for floppy drives, they are part of ancient history of PC’s, nobody use it anyway.

Motherboard:

Choice of motherboard will depend on the processor you have selected, it has to be compatible with processor. You have to take care that, the motherboard you have selected has onboard video graphic card, sound card as well as there is provision for external video card and sound card in case of high end use. The motherboard should allow you to add LAN card, Wireless LAN, Bluetooth, USB 2.0 connectors. And try to have as many USB connectors as possible as most of the Upgrades and Peripherals of computers use USB nowadays.

Cabinet:

This will have to be compatible with hardware you have selected. Ithas to have SMPS into it to power up the hardware. Then it has to as less bulky as possible and with arrangement for air ventilation so that your PC will be safe from overheating.

Monitors:

Monitor is also a as important part of PC as CPU is. Previously when LCD’s were really expensive people used to go with CRT, but now LCD is the option everyone goes for. If anybody think of CRT he goes for Flat Panel CRT. But LCD is still far better because it gives sharper picture, it is not bulky, it occupies lesser space, and it is easy on your eyes too. As for the size 17 inch is standard size now a days. Just take care to buy a monitor which should be capable of 1024 x 768 resolution, you might use most commonly 800 x 600 resolution. But it is always better to have provision.

Input/Output Interference Peripherals:

Keyboard and mouse has to be the first thing to buy as they will help you to communicate with you PC. There are wired and wireless Keyboard and Mouse available in the market so it will depend on anyone’s personal taste. Then you can add “All in one printer” in your set up which will help you to print, scan, copy as well as fax your documents. You will also need LAN card installed in your system to connect Internet. As modem is provided by Internet Provider nowadays so you don’t have to worry about it. Then there will speakers to listen to music and movies, if you prefer to watch DVD’s on your PC then you can add 5.1 home theatre speaker set in your system. If you want to use your PC for chatting then you need to have a Headphone with Microphone and Webcam of 2 – 3 megapixel. You can also add TV tuner card to your PC to watch TV on your desktop computer.

Softwares:

After all the hardware in place you have to think about the softwares as they are essentially decides how you want to use your computer. There are two popular and user-friendly operating systems available in the market, WINDOWS and MAC. Windows has captured most of the PC market than the MAC. As it is more compatible to most of the softaware and it has been used by almost everyone it is better bet as it is lot cheaper than MAC, and it is only because of ‘Supply and Demand’ Rule. Don’t judge quality by there price difference. Although buying MAC is in thing now a days, it is somewhat style statement. As MAC’s other product Apple ipod and iphone becoming really popular. So it’s again personal choice. Then there are various softwares available to enhance the use of your computer, there is MS OFFICE which contains MS Word, MS Excell, Powerpoint, Outlook etc. to help in your office and school, college work. Then there is Adobe, Corel, Macromedia’s softwares like photoshop, coreldraw, Flash, dreamweaver, etc. to help you with your artistic work. After installing all the softwares don’t forget to install Antivirus software to protect your PC from Virus specially if you are using Internet.