The Savvy Boomer

Netbooks for boomers?

After a lot of research, I recently purchased an Acer Aspire One netbook with a 8.9" screen, 1GB of memory and 160GB disk, webcam, built in microphone and speakers (great for Skype when traveling,) wireless, 3 USB ports and an external card reader-all for $400 Cdn.  Since we already have a couple of decent laptops, the purchase was for a specific function rather than to replace one of them.  We use it to make PowerPoint presentations for external classes so it seemed a natural to try and find something small and lightweight because most laptops with 15" screens weigh in around 7-8 pounds if you include the charging cord.  The netbook weighs about 3 pounds including the charger, just over 2 pounds without it.  The footprint of the netbook is approximately 1/2 the size of a regular laptop.

Considering the size and weight difference plus a much lower price point, this is perfect for our requirements.  Should you consider purchasing one for your main PC?  Possibly, as long as you understand its limitations.

First, the things I like.  Obviously the size and weight are great.  Considering how small the screen is, I'm amazed at the clarity and brightness of it.  Sure, it's small but if its your main system, you can connect it to an external monitor, which I do even with my main laptop.  Also, you probably want to consider an external mouse and keyboard if it's your main system.  I'm also surprised at its speed, given that it only has 1 GB of memory although that can be expanded to 2 easily with a memory stick.  The standard processor in a netbook is an Intel Atom and because of this and the 1 GB of memory, the Operating System is Windows XP.  

There are some drawbacks and the main one is that netbooks don't usually come with an optical drive (CD or DVD) which means if you want to load programs you can't get from the internet, you're going to have to buy an external device for approximately $50.  There are ways to load programs from memory cards but the procedure is somewhat technical.  I'd like to see software vendors make their systems available in these formats but they are more costly that a DVD or CD.

A decision you'll have to make is disk size.  You can reduce the unit price if you purchase a basic model with a Solid State Drive (SSD) and between 8-16GB of disk space.  Of course, that's not a lot so you may have to end up getting an external drive, so why not just get a decent size drive to start?  I also read that SSDs can run slower but a benefit is that the unit will weigh even less and apparently an SSD drive is much less prone to getting damaged if the unit is bumped around when being carried.  A unit with an SSD will run cooler but heat doesn't seem to be a problem with the 160 GB drive.  Again, consider your expected usage requirements when considering this option.

Since the unit is small, you have to expect some challenges both with the keyboard and mouse.  Both take some getting used to so external units should be considered.  Also, if you aren't using an external monitor, you'll probably have to get your reading glasses on, although as I said, the display is bright and crisp, so it is mainly a matter of getting used to the smaller display.  There are also 10" screens available but that increases the size and weight of the unit by about 20%.  Again, consider how you are going to use it.  I opted for the smaller unit because it is like traveling with a medium sized hard cover book.

In summary, if you are in the market for a new laptop, give this some consideration, especially if your needs centre mainly around email and internet usage.  If you are looking for a travel companion and don't need heavy computing requirements, a netbook is a good solution.  Also be sure to shop around.  The main producers of netbooks are Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Toshiba and Sony (very chic and very pricy.)  They all come with a 1 year warranty and given the low cost, they are really just a commodity that will be replaced if when it breaks down after the warranty expires.

External hard drives

A boomer friend of mine recently asked for my advice about buying a new PC.  Since I knew his was only a couple of years old, I asked why he was replacing it.  When he said that he wanted a larger hard drive, I was a bit shocked that he hadn't considered just adding a USB hard drive.  The problem was, he didn't know about them and since he has a laptop, thought that it would be expensive or impossible to install a larger hard drive.

The price of external hard drives that you can connect to any computer through a USB port has dropped drastically over the past few months.  I have seen them as low as $100 for 1 terabyte  (1,000 gigabytes) of data.  That's 1/2 of what I paid for a 250gb drive 2 years ago.

You should consider whether or not you want the external drive to be portable.  If you do, you can buy a drive that only needs a USB port for its power.  (If your computer is more than 3 years old, you may have 1.1 USB ports.  These drives really need 2.0 to function properly.)  These are more expensive than the physically larger ones that also require a standard AC adapter and the hassle of needing to plug it in.  Of course, if you don't need portability, then you can buy the latter.  I have both on my laptop and find the size of the portable one to be very handy when traveling with my laptop.

So if you need extra storage, look for one of these 2 types of units.

External drive with AC power-about 6"x 10"

Portable external Drive (no power required) about 3"x 6"

Is your printer lying to you?

We've all experienced the surprise of a message popping up on our monitor warning us that our printer is about to run out of toner or ink.  Some printers even stop working until you replace the cartridge or toner.  I'm fortunate enough that neither of my printers stop working and I usually extend the life of the cartridges/toner by shaking them and ignoring the messages until I really do see a marked reduction in print quality.

There is a great article on Slate on this subject which provides a lot of background, tips, time and money savers, ink replacement clones etc on this whole subject.

View your tech purchases as subscriptions

As discussed in my last post, technology products will always be replaced by newer technology and consequently their value will drop quickly.  So tech products have no chance of ever increasing in value over the long term.  That makes the buying process difficult because there are so many unknowns when dealing with technology.  Consequently, whenever I buy a tech product, I go through the following exercise:

What weighs a ton, costs over $1mil and can hold 1 song?

DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS IS?

Sell your old gadgets.

If you're like me, when you buy a new digital camera, cell phone etc., you usually put the old one in the drawer because it's too much hassle to try and sell it and besides who knows what its' worth?

Now there is a service that will buy it from you.  It's called Second Rotation and it seems to be a fairly easy service to use, both on the website and getting your gadget shipped to them.

Thanks to Webware.

Inkjet printers are filthy, lying thieves

 

We posted a while ago about how printer manufacturers were charging us too much for ink.  Now it's been discovered they have even more ways to eat your money.  According to a recent study, Inkjet printers are woefully wrong when they report they're out of ink, sometimes by as much as 60 percent in some designs. Even highly-efficient designs aren't close to perfect.

read more | digg story

Tech for the young (at heart)

Robin Raskin, the Boomer blogger at Yahoo makes a good point about whether or not you can be too old to use certain technology.  I agree with her that certain gadgets and web sites just aren't either appropriate or useful for the boomer and senior crowd.  When I poke around looking for material for this blog, I often come across something that the younger generation would think is cool, but as Robin says, there comes a time when some technology hits the age ceiling.