LITTLE ROCK — You may already know that keeping your computer free of spyware and viruses, having at least three gigabytes of RAM, and avoiding programs that hog your computer’s memory are a good way to keep your computer from slowing down. A new trick is to have a solid state drive instead of the traditional hard drive. Solid state drives (no moving parts - no spinning disk) respond almost instantly in sending and receiving data.
We just watched a video on CNET TV on how to install one. First, you copy the contents of your existing drive over to the new solid state drive (SSD). It’s surprisingly easy. (Google “replace hard drive with SSD on CNET TV.”) But the “Crucial Adrenaline” drive from Crucial.com, seems even easier, because you can use it and keep the old drive in place.
The $118 Adrenaline is a 50 gigabyte SSD that works in tandem with the hard drive. Its software places the most frequently used files on the solid state drive and leaves the others on the hard drive. That way, you keep the space on the hard drive, but get the speed of solid state. (Gamers should go nuts over this.) More info at Crucial.com/ssc.
TO BUY OR NOT TO BUY
Ever since the first computer came out of the first retail store, we’ve encountered people who said, “Why buy today. If I wait, there will be a better model.” You can wait forever that way.
The website Decide.com is aimed at those people. It gives you an idea of whether a product is probably going to drop in price or continue to climb. For example, Hewlett Packard laptops were considered a good buy right now, but Macbook Pros are expected to come down in price.
APP HAPPY
Khan Academy’s 3,000 educational videos are now viewable in an iPad app. Khan Academy is a favorite of Bill Gates and was recently the subject of a feature on 60 Minutes. It’s all free and has millions of viewers at You-Tube.com.
OpenStates is an iPhone application that gives you the inside scoop on what your state government is up to. Who’s supporting what bill and how far along it is in the legislative process.
HireVue is a free app that lets job candidates do interviews from their iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch.
PAYING ON THE FLY
If you’ve ever paid for something at an Apple store, you’ve noticed that you don’t have to go up to a cash register. You can hand a credit card to an employee and he’ll complete the transaction with his iPhone. The same thing is available to small business owners through an add-on called “Square” which has become popular with New York cab drivers. Now PayPal is coming out with something similar.
The new “PayPal Here” is a free card reader and app that fits onto your smart phone. With it, you’ll be able to take credit cards, checks and even cash. (And if you left the reader at home, you can take a picture of the credit card and use the app to accept it.)
PayPal Here charges users 2.7 percent per transaction, a little less than Square’s 2.75 percent. Sign up to get notified when it’s available at Pay-Pal.com/here.
INTERNUTS
MrTop10.com has some interesting lists. We don’t know how accurate they are, but they’re fun. We looked at “Top 10 Most Developed Countries,” the 10 strangest cosmetic surgeries, and the top 10 weirdest first names. “Batman Bin Suparman” of Singapore tops that one.
Ojolie.com: We did a search on “artistic greetings” and found some neat animated greeting cards. It’s $12 a year to join but the selection is fantastic. Very tasteful, not the in-your-face kind of virtual card. We also like the free cards you can send from MOMA.com, the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
ChooseMyPlate.gov is a nutrition site. Click “Super Tracker” to track your calories, nutrition, and exercise.
MapLight.com has a “topics” tab to track federal legislation by issue area, such as “health” or “education.”
THE FED TWEETS
The Federal Reserve System, that august body known for vague pronouncements on its control of the U.S. money supply, now has a Twitter account. When we last checked, it had almost 15,000 followers.
Go to Twitter.com/FederalReserve to see what the Fed is up to. We clicked on a tweet and got a video called “What is the Fed?” The Twitter account is a pet project of the chairman, Ben Bernanke. He’s aiming for more openness, a nice change from the previous chairman, Alan Greenspan, who once told 60 Minutes that when he talked to Congress, “it sounded like I was answering the question but I was not.”
KINDLE COVERS
Joy loves having a reading light on her Kindle 4. Sure it’s great that you can read the Kindle’s e-ink screen in bright sunlight, but sometimes you want to read it under the covers. We bought the “Amazon Kindle Lighted Leather Cover” for $60. It weighs only 4.8 ounces, comes in four colors and works well.
Then we saw the new “Solar Lighted Leather Cover for Kindle,” which costs $80. It has advantages and one disadvantage. The good news is it doesn’t obscure the right side Kindle buttons the way the cheaper Kindle cover does. And it has its own battery instead of drawing power from the Kindle. It also has a nice button to make the light pop up into place. The bad news is it’s heavier: 7.5 ounces instead of 4.8.
NOTE: Readers can search several years’ worth of On Computers columns at oncomp.com. Bob and Joy can be contacted by email at bobschwab@gmail.com and joydee@oncomp.com.
Business, Pages 20 on 03/26/2012