BusinessPro

By Jeff Zbar 
www.chiefhomeofficer.com

Sitting in a hotel room in Wildwood, N.J., I can’t help but consider my favorite tech tools (a common mental connecting of the dots, I’m sure). They’re mostly small, easily stocked (if not always easily remembered), and can make or break a road warrior’s or vacation-business traveler’s experience. I’m not talking about the laptop, wireless broadband card or 8-gig flash drive; those are required. I’m talking about the little things that can make a difference in the computing / work experience.

Whether generically or brand specifically, they are: Read more

By Jeff Zbar 
www.chiefhomeofficer.com

I’m sitting in the lobby of a Hampton Inn in Daytona Beach, Florida. It’s about 6am on a Saturday, the usual crowd hasn’t shuffled in. It’s just me, Earl Gray, The Weather Channel, my laptop and complementary wi-fi. I couldn’t be happier.

Actually, I am more complete and settled than normal. I plugged in this cool gadget - the Kingston DataTraveler II Migo Edition  - and it’s just like I’m at my desktop back home. Before leaving, I synchronized (or as Migo calls it, “Calculated”) my desktop look, feel and content. I selected my files and emails from Outlook dating back 30 days (I can select 14 days ago, or all - the eight gig USB flash drive has a fair amount of space). I even installed my wallpaper. I plugged it in, and once it had booted up - it was like I was on my own PC (I guess, I was/am; it is my laptop, after all). That wallpaper snapshot of my kids in front of the Empire State Building elicited the same warm and fuzzies it did back home 250 miles ago. Read more

By Jeff Zbar 
www.chiefhomeofficer.com

I’m sitting in this idyllic beach house in Lavallette on the New Jersey Shore. My HP Pavillion laptop is open before me, with my Verizon USB720 broadband wireless modem plugged into the side and giving me broadband access on the company’s new Rev-A network. I’m blazing away.

After a decade of playing the occasional road warrior, I’m finally getting the hang of traveling and working.

It helps the technology and creature comforts have caught up. A few elements have helped improve working from the road (at least as an occasional Road Warrior; the seasoned veterans I’ve written about in the past seem to have it down). One is that the technology is getting smaller and more powerful. Laptops are smaller, and have connectivity in mind (what with internal wireless cards, even internal broadband wireless cards available). My Kingston Data Traveler II Migo-enabled USB flash drive is plugged into one of the three USB ports on the laptop. Migo is providing me a snapshot of my desktop back home, complete with 30-days of my email and recent docs. Heck, with its eight gigs of space, it carries everything I need; it even has the picture from my desktop of my kids at the Empire State Building. Just like my home (office). Read more

By Jeff Zbar 
www.chiefhomeofficer.com

In the age of the Internet, the ability to manage data and personal stuff - from your own PC or from a public terminal somewhere - is vital. It’s not just about business; it’s about having a rewarding online experience - whether that means being able to access your data from a client’s office or just open a browser and pop in on a home page that’s memorable, familiar and comfortable. For just as the HP commercials say about the computer, the Internet should be personal again.

I’ve long had a gmail account (the free email service from Google). But I’ve used it mostly as a safe-deposit box for email. I would Copy/Forward all inbound email to gmail, and rest easy knowing some 2.8 gigs of my email and attachments are duplicated and backed up out there should I need to fetch one in a pinch (like if I accidentally delete an email from my Inbox, or if I want to show someone an attachment when I’m not in my home office). Yet with the woes my ISP has been having, I’ve sworn off their service. So gmail will become my primary email service. Read more

By Jeff Zbar 
www.chiefhomeofficer.com

The family minivan was rolling down Interstate 26 in South Carolina. The hour was late, the weather was mean and we were in need of a hotel room.

Stopping in this downpour was just not going to happen. Instead, in the passenger seat, my wife, Robbie, had commandeered the laptop from the kids, paused their movie on the laptop's DVD player, and began surfing the Internet to search for hotel rooms along the highway.

The laptop was plugged into the 110 converter and powered by the car's cigarette lighter. A Verizon wireless "aircard" was plugged into the computer. Combined, we had nonstop broadband access to the information superhighway. Read more

Jeff Horvath remembers the service call well. Denise and Guy Broadhurst's wireless computer network was suffering slow Internet transmission speeds, lumbering downloads and uploads, and recurring outages.

The wireless network was several years old, a fact made worse by the two-story home's concrete block construction. Thick walls and distance taxed the unit's transmissions. Moreover, the use of several cordless phones in the 2.4 GHz frequency interfered with the wireless network's signal.

When it was installed several years ago, the technology was leading edge with peripheral hardware and services like digital cameras, online gaming and music downloads. Several years later, their network was stretched way beyond its means. Read more

Victor Lue-Yat has seen the gamut of data-conscious computer users. Most back up their data and remove back-up tapes or other media - when they remember to do so. One was concerned what another Hurricane Wilma would do to his data. But it was a 30,000-gallon flood in the office that trashed the back-up tapes that were forgotten in his PC one weekend.

"Hurricanes seemed to wake everyone up, but it's the mistakes and accidents that cause more damage and losses to computer data," said Lue-Yat, founder and CEO of DocuBlue Corporation, a Sunrise, Fla.,-based creator of the DocuBackup.com document back-up solution.

IT professionals only half-jokingly divide computer users into two camps: Those who have lost data, and those who will. Of 185 business people surveyed last year, 69 percent of respondents said they had experienced data loss due to accidental deletion, disk or system failure, viruses, fire, lightning strike or some other disaster, according to Carbonite Inc., an online back-up and storage service. Read more

Michael Lapidus has a spreadsheet full of user identification and password combinations he uses to access different Websites. Any time he wants to access his online banking service, ecommerce site or visit a password-protected newspaper or Website, he would have to open the spreadsheet, and type the information into the Website’s fields.

Then he bought a Microsoft mouse with built-in biometric fingerprint reader. The device stores all the codes and associates them with his fingerprint. Now, to access a site, he types in the Web address, and with the scan of his finger, he is authenticated for secure access to the site.

Bruce Eno's laptop computer is a workhorse that's seen the world on photographic expeditions and fashion shoots. But while the laptop is a trusty workmate, it has only one USB port, and cannot accommodate all of Eno's digital devices.

So if Eno wants to print a picture, for example, he first must unplug his media card reader or external hard drive to plug in the printer. That often leads the laptop to have errors recognizing the different devices, Eno said. Even the power needs of his devices are poorly served, with multiple plugs competing for a few power outlets.

So in December, Eno purchased a four-port USB hub. The device turns one USB port into four, allowing him to plug in all his devices. The hub, along with a power strip, delivers Eno all the ports and plugs needed to connect and power up. Read more

Imagine you're on the phone with tech support getting help with a computer problem and you happen to overhear them report that the issue is an ID-10-T Error, or they blurt out "PEBKAC."

The problem is you.

ID-10-T is a typographical play on "idiot." "PEBKAC" is an acronym for "Problem exists between keyboard and chair."

Computer users often complain that they don't understand much about their computers. IT gurus often complain that users think they know about a computer's inner workings or don't even know enough to explain an error when the computer's acting up. Read more