Fall Cleaning: Back Up Your Computer

USB flash drives are small tools that can help back-up the data on your computer.
[PHOTO: Consumer Reports]

Any computer clean-up plan should also include a backup strategy. In fact, backing up your computer is probably one of the most important things you can do, and it won’t cost you much at all.

We recommend three ways to back up your data. You can either buy an external hard drive, use a high-capacity flash drive, or set up a subscription with a low-cost online storage site. Here’s a quick look at each option. For more details, take a look at our Computer Backup System Buying Guide (available to subscribers).

External hard drive. Easy to install, an external hard drive usually requires a simple USB connection to your computer. With some, you may not even need software to get the backups running. They also don’t cost much, so you should be able to get a drive that meets your needs for $150 or less. Get a drive that’s at least the size of your current hard drive. If you get one smaller than that, make sure you weigh your future needs as well. Homes with more than one computer will need a networkable hard drive, which costs a bit more and is harder to set up, but a convenient way to share files across all your systems. The downside of an external drive: Most are not very portable.

USB flash drives. Tiny and convenient, USB flash drives have gotten large enough to serve as backup devices. Like external drives, they’re easy to set up, and may run backups without requiring extra software. A 32GB backup drive should cost between $150 and $200. Best of all, you can carry the drive around with you. But that portability can also be a danger, since flash drives are easy to lose or steal.

Online services. One worry with storing backups at home is the potential for theft, fire, or other catastrophic loss. Online storage provides an option outside your house, adding an extra layer of protection by storing your data in multiple locations. We looked at a few sites, and found that they’re easy to use but slow, especially during the initial backup. But you don’t have to worry about setting up any hardware, and you can access your data from any Internet connection. Costs vary, but two of those we reviewed were about $50 a year for unlimited backup.

Subscribers can check out our Guide to computer backup products for reviews on various data storage solutions. —Donna Tapellini

Fall cleaning: Four tips to speed up your PC

Fall is a good time to clean out your computer's virtual cobwebs.
[PHOTO: Courtesy of orvalrochefort]

This is a good time of year to get your computer into tip-top condition. Without regular maintenance, its speed will plummet and performance will suffer.

Here’s how to boost your PC’s performance:

Tidy up. Does your computer take a little longer than it used to to start up? It’s possible that too many programs are trying to start when you turn the machine on. To pare them down in Windows, go to the Start menu, click All Programs, and then Startup. Once in the menu, delete the programs you don’t need to see in the taskbar right from the get go, or just don’t use that often. If you don’t recognize a program, don’t delete it until you’ve determined what it’s used for. You should also clean up your hard drive: Delete temporary files by running Windows' Disk Cleanup tool under Programs-Accessories-System tools. It's usually safe to choose all the listed items except "Compress old files."

Uninstall unnecessary programs. If your hard drive is more than 50 percent full, the computer will run more slowly. One way to free up space is to uninstall programs installed that you never use anymore. To do this in Windows, first go to the Control Panel. In XP, click on “Add/Remove programs.” In Vista, click on “Programs and Features.” Then scan the list of installed programs for those you don’t need and follow the instructions for uninstalling them. Temporary Internet files, cookies, and other downloaded items can also clog up your hard drive. Delete those in your browser by selecting the option under the Tools menu.

Add memory. This is an inexpensive way to speed up your computer, especially if you have less than 2GB installed. You should notice the difference instantly.

Defragment the hard drive. With frequent use, a computer’s hard drive can become less efficient at storing and retrieving files, a process known as fragmentation. To spiff up its performance, defragment it, either by using the operating system or a third-party software application. The process can take hours, or even a day or two, depending on the size of the hard drive. —Will Dilella

The things no one ever told me about college

If you (or your son or daughter) are heading off to college in a few weeks, it’s worth heeding the usual advice you’ll get—like, buy strange colored towels, so no one accidentally “borrows” yours, and, talk to roommates about who is bringing the rug and microwave. But there are other things no one ever tells you. Here’s what I wish I’d known:

You don’t absolutely need a printer. It is possible to get by using public printers; I did. I found it cheaper and easier to use the printers in our computer labs, which were open 24 hours, rather than buying a printer and keeping it supplied with paper and ink—which will go faster than you think. However, if you don’t want to walk to the lab, especially late at night, you might be willing to pay for the convenience of printing in your own room.

Back up your computer. Do you know what it’s like losing the paper you’ve been working on all semester the night before it’s due, then trying to retype it based on notes and/or memory? And replacing all your software apps, music downloads, photos, contacts? It can be a nightmare to lose everything when your computer crashes. Buy an external hard drive—either portable or desktop—and use it regularly to back up your whole computer, especially if you’ve just completed a big project. Also, you can use flash drives for specific files; just don’t lose them.

Buy a wireless router. You have a laptop so you can take it anywhere. Why be bound to a cord in your own room? Get a wireless router and secure the network with a WEP-key at least WPA and a long encryption key so only you and your roomies are privy to the setup. You’ll be free to roam from desk to bed when you want to, without dragging the Ethernet cord all over the room, or tripping over it, bringing your expensive laptop crashing to the floor (d’oh).

[Aug. 14, 2009 UPDATE: As several readers have pointed out, there are several different data encryption standards and options currently available to protect your WiFi router and wireless network connections. Here’s the bottom line: Even though it's better than nothing at all, WEP can be broken by a determined hacker, and it's especially vulnerable in a college environment. That's why we recommend the stronger WPA. —Ed.]

Consider a landline. Even though you might use your cellphone for 99.9% of your calls, it can’t hurt to have a regular phone in your dorm room—especially if your school provides an in-room phone at no extra cost. And there are still some schools that use the landline as your official contact number, so check the voice mail occasionally, just in case the financial aid office is trying to get in touch about a windfall coming your way.

Don’t forget the cables. You brought the TV, but did you remember the coaxial cable to hook it up to the cable connection in the room? I recommend at least 25 feet so you will have flexibility in where you place the TV. You can also use an HDMI or DVI cable to connect your laptop to the TV, and play movies on the computer DVD drive or stream video from sites such as Hulu. Noise-canceling headphones are another good idea; throw in an extra-long cord to use with your TV, so your roomie can rest up for a test while you watch late-night TV.

For more college tips, check Consumer Reports Back to school hub.—Will Dilella

Photo courtesy of Flickr

GE storage boost: 100 DVDs on one disc

General Electric today announced a storage technology breakthrough that they say will allow a standard DVD-sized disc to hold 500 gigabytes of data—the equivalent capacity, with current storage technologies, of 20 single-layer Blu-ray discs, 100 DVDs, or the hard drive for a large desktop computer.

The breakthrough, GE says, is based on holographic storage technology that uses the entire volume of the disc material, rather than only its surface, as today's optical storage formats like DVDs and Blu-ray discs do. However, the company says the new storage formats are similar enough to current optical storage technology that drives that can read the new discs will also play CDs, DVDs and other discs encoded with current technology.

The takeaway: A significant development, this promises eventually to replace memories of three-dimensional photos as the main association when people hear the word "hologram." It also promises to add to the already-dropping price of digital storage media—something anyone who's recently bought a memory card for a digital camera, or a new computer, already knows.

However, don't dump your Blu-ray player yet. As analysts quoted by The New York Times, which first reported the story, note, it's as yet unclear when new drives and, say, movie discs that use the technology will reach the consumer market, and at what cost. The first adopters are expected to be commercial, including the entertainment industry and the health-care sector.

Photo-sharing sites: No place to back-up your photos

Do you have your photos securely backed up somewhere at home? Or, after you upload them to Snapfish, Flickr, Facebook, My Space or wherever, do you just erase them from your memory card? If you do the latter, you run the risk of losing them, or at least having to pay to get them back.

You might lose them because the site, like Kodak Gallery recently did, decides it will delete them after a period unless you buy at least a certain number of prints from that site every so often. (Sites with such policies may issue you a warning before they lower the ax, but if you miss that warning, it's curtains for your shots.)

You might also lose your photos because the site goes belly up. Think that's far-fetched? Not any more so than Fortunoff's, Linens 'n Things or Circuit City going bankrupt.

Even if your file doesn't disappear entirely, you may have trouble retrieving a full-resolution version of it from a photo-sharing site without having to pay. On some sites, the only versions you can download for free are low-resolution ones.

PMA09: New Eye-Fi cards let cameras upload videos to YouTube

Sony recently announced its Cyber-shot DSC-G3, a digital camera that can upload video clips wirelessly to YouTube.

Now, the maker of the Eye-Fi wireless memory cards have introduced two new cards that extend that capability to scores of other cameras that accept an SD or SDHC memory card.

The 4GB, Eye-Fi Share Video card, $79, will let you upload video clips directly to 20 photo sharing and social networking sites, including YouTube and Flickr.

A $99 version, called the Eye-Fi Explore Video, will do the same thing but also automatically "geotag" each image with information about where it was captured.

Both cards should be available at major retailers later this month.

For more details on the Wi-Fi cards, see the Eye-fi web site: http://www.eye.fi.

—Jeff Fox

CES 2009: New solid-state drives vanquish "boot lag"

Does it seem like your PC isn't booting up and loading programs as quickly as it used to? It may not be your imagination or have anything to do with the processor or graphics chips, the components usually associated with speed.

What's probably happening is that your hard drive is filling and fragmenting. (For more details on how and why that happens, see "For geeks only" below).

How to fix it? Get rid of the moving parts. That's what Solid-State Drives (SSDs) do, using the same technology as the flash-memory cards in digital cameras and USB drives. SSDs solve the speed-erosion problem and use less power, and their price is dropping.

SSDs are being shown at CES by hard-drive manufacturers like Samsung and Toshiba, memory makers like SanDisk, processor manufacturers like Intel, and companies you probably haven't heard of, like Mtron and Super Talent. Smaller in capacity, and priced considerably higher per gigabyte than hard drives, they're appearing either standard or as options in quite a few laptops: For example, the new MacBook Pro 17-inch Apple announced Tuesday at Macworld will have a gigantic 320GB SSD as a costly option. The 1.4 pound portable computer Sony announced here at CES, the Vaio P Series Lifestyle PC, also has SSDs up to 128 GB in capacity as options. And $400 netbooks from Dell and HP offer tiny 8 and 16GB SSDs.

MacBook Air: Some closer looks

A Consumer Reports colleague (Joyce Ward) and I met privately with Apple reps Tuesday afternoon for a personalized demonstration of the MacBook Air and other products. It was fun to take a closer look at these new offerings, even if just for a short time.

They say the MacBook weighs three pounds, but it honestly didn't feel even that heavy when I held it in my hand—it seemed lighter somehow. The screen was bright, the keyboard a joy to touch, and the trackpad "touch" software had specific settings for one-, two-, and three-finger operation. One finger can click, drag, or double-click. Two fingers flip, rotate, magnify, or minimize images or web pages by using a "pinching" motion. Three fingers let you "slide" from page to page, image to image. This software utility is currently fully compatible only with the Leopard Finder, Safari Web browser (seen on a Windows XP machine at left), and most of Apple's "iApps." Expect third-party support in the future.

Of course, one of the first things that came to mind when seeing the MacBook Air was, "How's this battery deal gonna work?" In case you hadn't heard, the battery in the MacBook Air is not user-replaceable. As a long-time traveling laptop user, that worries me. I always found having the occasional spare battery to be a good thing, especially on those extra-long excursions.

Apple insists its batteries are absolute state of the art, hold a charge very well, and have a very long life. (The 17-inch MacBook Pro's battery lasted 5.25 hours in our latest tests.) Nevertheless, Apple will try to ease your worries with a Battery Replacement Program: Bring your MacBook Air to the nearest Apple store, and the techs will replace the battery (while disposing of the old one in an environmentally responsible manner). Total cost: $129, the same as a new battery you would replace yourself in other models. In addition, more and more airlines today offer laptop power ports on their planes, and both Apple and third parties sell adapters. So as time goes on, the need for having all that extra battery power handy is becoming less necessary. (It was unclear whether this Apple store program was a "while you wait" service, or a "drop it off and pick it back up tomorrow" sort of thing. Time will tell.)

Apple's goal with the MacBook Air was to design a sleek laptop without most of the tradeoffs associated with ultra-portables. The full 13.3-inch backlit LED screen with 1280 x 800 widescreen resolution bears this out, as does the standard MacBook keyboard and an oversize trackpad that supports the one-, two-, and three-finger multi-touch technology used on the iPod Touch and iPhone. Nevertheless, for power users, there are some tradeoffs: There's only one USB port, no Firewire, no DVD, and the custom battery.

Which led to my next question for the Apple folks:  What if you're on the road, your Time Capsule (seen at right) is at home, and your system has a meltdown? Low odds, mind you, but there it is, coming from a geek who can't be too paranoid. They recommended two solutions. The first, of course, is to carry that $99 external DVD drive and your install disk with you. Another possibility is to install, from that disk, a copy of the Remote Disk application on someone else's Mac (or PC!) with a wireless card. Then you can piggy-back on their CD drive and run the installer to restore your hard disk. Clever, but all you're doing is imposing on a friend's good will—sooner or later you'll have to connect to some physical media to restore your system.

Next up in our interview session was the "Time Capsule" wireless backup solution. Security was my main worry with this product, so I asked our Apple reps: Should I be concerned with potential man-in-the-middle attacks when wirelessly backing up your hard drive? Not necessarily. Time Capsule is essentially a full Airport Extreme base station (a fancy term for "wireless router") combined with a server-class hard drive. It supports all the wireless security protocols found in any other wireless router, including WPA and WPA2. That was the answer I was looking for, but it was still unclear how simple that would be to set up for the uninitiated. It's not normally much fun for those who do it for a living. All that wireless security is well and good, but sometimes to an old school guy like myself, there's nothing more secure than a good honest wire, and fortunately for me, Time Capsule has three gigabit-Ethernet ports included. (See image at left.) But of course, that does me no good with the MacBook Air, which has not a single Ethernet port built-in.

—Thomas A. Olson

MacBook Air, super-thin notebook, introduced

What may be the most talked about of Apple's four major product releases Steve Jobs introduced today is a new addition to the MacBook line called the MacBook Air. With a teardrop profile only 0.76 inches at its thickest point, it's the thinnest notebook computer ever. (You can get closer looks at the new MacBook Air by clicking on each of the embedded images.)

Apple didn't compromise much on features. There's a full-size, backlit keyboard, 13.3-inch screen, iSight webcam, large trackpad with multi-touch gesture support (similar to the iPhone's, which lets you use your fingers in more ways than the traditional tapping and sliding), plus a new magnetic latch.

There are only three ports on the right side: USB2, MicroDVI, and a headphone jack. (There's no Ethernet port for wired networking, but that's not really an issue with a notebook designed for extreme portability.) Apple says that the 1.6-GHz Core 2 Duo processor is 60 percent smaller than chips made for other models. The standard MacBook Air comes with an 80GB hard drive—or a 64GB solid-state drive for an additional $999. The standard memory configuration is 2-GB and Apple claims 5 hours of battery life. The built-in wireless capability supports 802.11n and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR.

There's no internal CD/DVD burner; to use discs you need the $99 external MacBook Air SuperDrive which connects to the USB port. Also, a new custom application in Leopard called "Remote Disk" lets you wirelessly "borrow" other users' CD/DVD drives.

In keeping with Apple's environmental initiatives, MacBook Air notebooks have a fully recyclable aluminum case, displays that are mercury and arsenic free, and logic boards that are BFR and PVC free. In addition, the packaging has 56 percent less volume, to save trees.

The base model, which starts at $1,799, pairs a 1.6-GHz processor with an 80-GB Parallel ATA hard drive. A second model that features a 1.8-GHz processor and 64-GB solid-state drive starts at $3,098. Both ship in two to three weeks, but can be pre-ordered starting today.

Compared with Windows-based 13-inch slim-and-light notebooks we've rated (Consumer Reports' Ratings are available to ConsumerReports.org subscribers only), the MacBook Air is pricier and its hard drive is a bit slower and has a smaller capacity, but weighs more than a pound less. When compared with notebooks in the 3-pound range, such as the Sony TZ series 11-inch or Toshiba Portege R500 12-inch, its pricing is very competitive.

CES 2008: Wireless innovations for portable devices

Most of the buzz about wirelessness at the Consumer Electronics Show has been generated by products and technologies that seek to liberate HDTVs and other components that are usually connected by cables. But there have also been interesting announcements in traditionally unwired product categories. Here are three examples, from cameras, music players, and cellphones respectively:

Eye-Fi SD memory card. Some newer cameras have built-in Wi-Fi connections that enable them to wirelessly upload their photos to PCs, Macs and online photo and social networking sites over a home network. Now, any camera that accepts an SD memory card can have that convenience with the $100 Eye-Fi, a 2gigabyte SD memory card with a built-in Wi-Fi radio. (Click on image at right for a closer look.)

To receive photos in this mode, your computer must be turned on and running the Eye-Fi Manager software, a simple download from www.eye-fi.com. The card and software also allow any Eye-Fi-enabled camera to upload photos directly to 17 online sites, including KODAK Gallery, Shutterfly, Wal-Mart, Snapfish, Photobucket, Facebook, Webshots, Picasa Web Albums, SmugMug, Flickr, Fotki, TypePad, VOX, dotPhoto, Phanfare and Sharpcast. Eye-Fi is available now at Amazon.com, Buy.com, Walmart.com and other retailers.

Sennheiser MX W1 wireless stereo headphones. Even wireless stereo Bluetooth headphones have wires—the ones that connect the left and right speakers. Not the MX W1. (Click on image at left for a closer look.) The two-piece MX W1 uses a new wireless technology called Kleer, which, unlike Bluetooth, permits left and right speakers to link wirelessly. The headphones' twist-to-fit design keeps them securely and comfortably in the ear. Another advantage Kleer has over Bluetooth is that it transmits lossless 16-bit, 44KHz-sampled digital audio, the same quality that is recorded on a CD. Bluetooth, on the other hand, compresses audio prior to transmission, which degrades sound quality.

The MX W1 includes a small Kleer transmitter, about the size of a matchbox, which plugs into the headphone jack of your music source. The transmitter also allows you to link a second set of MXW1 headphones to share your tunes with a friend. The MX W1 also comes with a carrying case that doubles as a charger for the earphones and transmitter, allowing you to recharge the headphones up to three times without plugging it into a wall outlet. Sennheiser says playback time on a single charge is about three to four hours. The MX W1 will be available in May 2008 for a whopping $599.

Iqua Sun bluetooth headset. In what may be a first in mobile electronics, there's now a portable device that draws on the sun for power. The Iqua Sun BHS-603 (Click on image at right for a closer look) is a solar-powered Bluetooth wireless headset that will be available later in January for $100. About two inches in length and weighing under an ounce, the headset incorporates a photovoltaic cell that Iqua claims will use any available light, indoors or out, to charge its battery. The company claims the Sun delivers up to 12 hours of talk time, depending on available light; standby time, it says, can be infinite. In case your life isn't sunny enough, the device does come with a wall charger and the option to recharge via your computer's USB port.

—Mike Gikas and Paul Reynolds