Archive for category Computers
So what’s so good about ebook readers?
Posted by in Computers on March 31st, 2009
Ebook readers are such an obvious use of technology that they should have been invented years ago.
The main benefit of ebook readers is that they have a screen that’s readable in daylight, and which doesn’t make your eyes feel as though they’ve been sandpapered when you read for more than five minutes.
The key to the whole thing is the e-ink display screen. E-ink is the nearest you can come to paper on a computer. There’s no backlighting, so away goes the eyestrain, and if you’ve ever tried reading a book on a flickering computer screen you’ll be able to see the benefits of ebook readers immediately. In fact an e-ink screen is easier on the eye than reading a real book.
What’s more, e-ink uses absolutely no power unless you’re changing the display. That means that the only drain on your battery is when you turn the page, so battery life can run into weeks rather than hours
Many thousands of out of copyright ebooks are available free off the internet via Project Gutenberg, and current publications can be bought and downloaded online in seconds. They need minimal storage as a digital book takes only a few hundred kilobytes. In fact you can store every book you’ll ever read in your life on a single optional SD card.
The most popular ebook reader in the UK today is the Sony PRS 505. It weighs just a few ounces, is smaller than a paperback book, and you should get one – they’re brilliant.
Why everyone needs a cheap netbook
Posted by in Computers on March 31st, 2009
Netbooks started out as cheap, barebones laptops to access the net. Screens were poor and very small, keyboards cheap and tiny, storage almost non-existent.
And then some bright spark realised that for a few pounds more you could actually make a device that would work - and work well.
This is the key to the success of today’s cheap netbooks and now everybody wants one. You keep the screen small, but make it a quality TFT display. You expand the keyboard to as big as you can make it so the netbook is good for typing on. And then you stick a 160G hard disk into your netbook.
Add Windows XP - or even better, add Linux and save even more money - and for under £300 you’ve got an ultra-portable laptop computer that will do everything you ask of it.
No need for a desktop PC, no need for a laptop, you can connect to the internet with your netbook and watch live tv online or use it as a standalone computer running all the usual applications.
Netbooks today are so cheap but compare favourably against laptop computers from just a few years ago. Look at the Samsung NC10 netbook in gleaming white, and look no further. As cheap netbooks go it’s a nice model and it’s all the computer you need. Its battery lasts for 7 hours so no searching for powerpoints, it’s light enough to carry anywhere, small enough to fit in your pocket, and well-designed enough to work with all day.