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4 gadgets for home hi-tech efficiency
By Seth Porges |
March 22, 2009, Sunday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
THERE are some gadgets that just about everybody has: a cell phone, a computer, probably a few TVs. But some of the most useful tech products out there have yet to become staples of the average person's home.
Here are four simple, generally inexpensive, gadgets that can make your tech life faster, more secure, less expensive, and maybe even less painful.
Smarter Power Strip
All those chargers, TVs and appliances that are plugged into your wall suck up a steady stream of power, even when they're turned off. It's called standby power, but most techies just call it "vampire power." Various estimates peg it at anywhere between 5 percent and 15 percent of our total power bill.
One solution is to plug power-heavy appliances (such as the devices that go into your home theater) into a single power strip that you can flip off when they're not in use. Unfortunately, this isn't practical: some things always need power, such as wireless routers and DVRs.
Using a so-called "smart" power strip, such as Belkin International's Conserve Power Strip (US$50), can help you defang your energy vampires, while keeping proper products plugged in. The key: when you flip the power strip off (using an included wireless remote control), two of the strip's eight plugs stay on, allowing you to keep your DVR and wireless router working.
Protective Barrier
Today's laptops are marvels of engineering that manage to stuff an enormous amount of computing power into ever-smaller cases. But if you've ever used a laptop from a couch or easy chair, you've probably noticed that all those megahertz can easily turn into mega-heat.
Laptop lap desks act as heat shields and make it easier to maintain proper posture. Considering how many people use laptops away from real desks, I'm surprised at how few people actually use these low-tech solutions. I like Logitech's Comfort Lapdesk (US$40). It's comfortably padded, and kept my lap cool through hours of couch-based typing.
Busy Traffic
The air that fills your home may well be the site of an invisible traffic jam. The problem: wireless routers usually broadcast signals that travel on the 2.4 GHz frequency band, which happens to be the same one used by microwaves, Bluetooth headsets, and all sorts of other gadgets and home appliances. All this wireless traffic can result in interference, and potentially slow your computer's wireless connection.
The solution: a dual-band router, such as D-Link's Xtreme N Dual Band Gigabit Router (US$170). These routers simultaneously broadcast WiFi signals on both the 2.4 GHz band, and the newer and less-crowded 5 GHz band. While switching to the 5 GHz band isn't likely to result in a huge difference for casual surfing and e-mail, if you're streaming lots of high-bandwidth video, it could make things run a lot smoother. Just make sure your computer can handle 5 GHz signals - some older computers can't, and will have to rely on the 2.4 GHz signal.
Safe Storage
Hard drives are notoriously fragile devices. To retrieve your data, their internal needles and spinning platters engage in a perilous dance, and it takes little more than a single hard fall to wipe out years of precious personal files. Even if you coddle your computer, all hard drives eventually break. Despite this certainty, far too few people back up their data.
The easiest solution is a network-attached storage, or NAS device. These are basically gigantic hard drives, often a terabyte or more, that hook up to wireless router, allowing any computer on your network to access them. They typically come with software enabling easy automatic and wireless back up of your data.
Their usefulness goes beyond backing things up. NAS devices can act as in-home media servers, holding all of your multi-megabyte movies and music in a central location, and streaming them directly to computers and TVs on your network. This allows you to build massive media libraries without filling up precious PC disc space. Many NAS drives can be set up for remote access from any Internet-enabled computer, anywhere in the world. This allows to access files while you're traveling or at the office.
One of my favorite new NAS devices is Iomega Corp's Storcenter ix2 (US$299 for the 1 terabyte version, US$479 for 2 terabytes). It's easy to set up and storage to satisfy any media addict. Mac users might also like Apple's Time Capsule (US$299 for 500GB version, US$499 for 1 terabyte), which is designed to work seamlessly with the Mac's Time Machine automatic back-up feature.
Here are four simple, generally inexpensive, gadgets that can make your tech life faster, more secure, less expensive, and maybe even less painful.
Smarter Power Strip
All those chargers, TVs and appliances that are plugged into your wall suck up a steady stream of power, even when they're turned off. It's called standby power, but most techies just call it "vampire power." Various estimates peg it at anywhere between 5 percent and 15 percent of our total power bill.
One solution is to plug power-heavy appliances (such as the devices that go into your home theater) into a single power strip that you can flip off when they're not in use. Unfortunately, this isn't practical: some things always need power, such as wireless routers and DVRs.
Using a so-called "smart" power strip, such as Belkin International's Conserve Power Strip (US$50), can help you defang your energy vampires, while keeping proper products plugged in. The key: when you flip the power strip off (using an included wireless remote control), two of the strip's eight plugs stay on, allowing you to keep your DVR and wireless router working.
Protective Barrier
Today's laptops are marvels of engineering that manage to stuff an enormous amount of computing power into ever-smaller cases. But if you've ever used a laptop from a couch or easy chair, you've probably noticed that all those megahertz can easily turn into mega-heat.
Laptop lap desks act as heat shields and make it easier to maintain proper posture. Considering how many people use laptops away from real desks, I'm surprised at how few people actually use these low-tech solutions. I like Logitech's Comfort Lapdesk (US$40). It's comfortably padded, and kept my lap cool through hours of couch-based typing.
Busy Traffic
The air that fills your home may well be the site of an invisible traffic jam. The problem: wireless routers usually broadcast signals that travel on the 2.4 GHz frequency band, which happens to be the same one used by microwaves, Bluetooth headsets, and all sorts of other gadgets and home appliances. All this wireless traffic can result in interference, and potentially slow your computer's wireless connection.
The solution: a dual-band router, such as D-Link's Xtreme N Dual Band Gigabit Router (US$170). These routers simultaneously broadcast WiFi signals on both the 2.4 GHz band, and the newer and less-crowded 5 GHz band. While switching to the 5 GHz band isn't likely to result in a huge difference for casual surfing and e-mail, if you're streaming lots of high-bandwidth video, it could make things run a lot smoother. Just make sure your computer can handle 5 GHz signals - some older computers can't, and will have to rely on the 2.4 GHz signal.
Safe Storage
Hard drives are notoriously fragile devices. To retrieve your data, their internal needles and spinning platters engage in a perilous dance, and it takes little more than a single hard fall to wipe out years of precious personal files. Even if you coddle your computer, all hard drives eventually break. Despite this certainty, far too few people back up their data.
The easiest solution is a network-attached storage, or NAS device. These are basically gigantic hard drives, often a terabyte or more, that hook up to wireless router, allowing any computer on your network to access them. They typically come with software enabling easy automatic and wireless back up of your data.
Their usefulness goes beyond backing things up. NAS devices can act as in-home media servers, holding all of your multi-megabyte movies and music in a central location, and streaming them directly to computers and TVs on your network. This allows you to build massive media libraries without filling up precious PC disc space. Many NAS drives can be set up for remote access from any Internet-enabled computer, anywhere in the world. This allows to access files while you're traveling or at the office.
One of my favorite new NAS devices is Iomega Corp's Storcenter ix2 (US$299 for the 1 terabyte version, US$479 for 2 terabytes). It's easy to set up and storage to satisfy any media addict. Mac users might also like Apple's Time Capsule (US$299 for 500GB version, US$499 for 1 terabyte), which is designed to work seamlessly with the Mac's Time Machine automatic back-up feature.
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