Hi everybody, today we are going to talk about the benefits of owning an external hard drive. There are many options you can use for backups but my favorite is by far the external drive. External hard drives come in all sizes and colors. You can get almost any color you want to match your desk or any other décor you might want to match up. In addition to colors, you can get drives that attach locally through a USB port or you can get a drive that connects directly through your router and can act as an entire network drive for all your computers. Either way, it is the ultimate way to save all your important files. The first type we are going to talk about is the USB local drive. This is by far the most commonly used and the most practical for most people. This is a great option if you have one computer and you want a place to store all your favorite movies and music. It is a must if you have I Tunes as you can backup all your favorite music to be sure it is not lost if you should encounter a computer crash. Before you make your purchase, you need to decide how much space you need. The drives come anywhere from 250 MB all the way to several Terabytes. Let me put this into prospective. 100 megabytes equals I Gigabyte. 1000 Gigabytes equals 1 Terabyte. A large picture from a good camera can be up to 5 Megs or more and a music file can be 25 Megs or even higher depending on the length and the quality it was recorded at. This might give you a guide as to how much space you will need to store your files. The second type of drive I would like to talk about is the external network drive. The mechanics of this drive are about the same with the exception that the drive connects through your router instead of a local computer. The drive will be able to be accessed by all computers on the network instead of just on one computer. This is great if you have several computers and they...
Read MoreHi everybody. If you have a desktop computer that you want to connect to your router but is just too far away to connect with an Ethernet cable, what is the best way to get the computer on the Internet? In this column we will talk about your options and the best way to go about it. If your desktop computer is located either on a second floor or is in a remote location in your home, you will most likely need to connect using a wireless adapter. Be default, most laptops do not have a wireless card built in. In most cases you will have to purchase either an internal wireless card or a USB wireless card to add to your system. Either one is readily available at most consumer electronic stores and mass retail outlets. If you are not comfortable with removing the side of the computer to add hardware I would recommend the USB option. Before purchasing a card, be sure your router supports wireless connections. The majority of today’s routers will support this function. There are several brands out there and they all will do the job but it is always a good idea to get the same brand as your router for the best compatibility. Once you purchase your equipment, you will have to use the enclosed disk to install the drivers. Once the drivers are installed you can plug the adapter into a free USB port and the new hardware wizard should install the adapter. In order to connect to the router you will have the use the password you set up for your wireless network in the router. If you do not know the password you will have to access the router (usually http://192.168.1.1) using a different computer that is hard wired to the router. Some routers are set up as http://192.168.2.1. Once you are at the routers homepage you will be asked your user name and password. Now you can view your wireless security settings to see what network password you have set up. Once you know your password, you will be able to enter it in the connection wizard so you can access your network. Once your connection is established,...
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