New Invention Needed- Smartphone dock

I'm not very entrepreneurial and I don't have the time or money or resources to do this. If you do and develop one, I just might buy one from you.

Following-up on the last post about smartphones- If I buy a smartphone that is as powerful as my netbook I'd sell my netbook and buy one of these. What is it?

Someone needs to develop a plastic "case" or "dock" with a full keyboard and screen that you simply dock or put your smartphone inside of it. A touch screen might be too expensive, but if I could just have a netbook (10") case to dock my smartphone inside I'd probably buy a Windows 8 smartphone and sell my netbook. I think the "sweet spot" price-wise on something like this would be under $100, preferably $75, if possible? You might also want to consider a 12", 15" and maybe even an ultra thin ultrabook-like version, depending on the phone's thickness?

Smartphones

I am thinking of getting a smartphone in the next six months. I know, I am not with it, I still have my "dumb phone" that does texting. I just have not wanted to pay the extra $ for the data plan nor the $150 to $200 per phone (with a 2-year contract) that it takes to get a smartphone.

However, as I glanced at what is out there in the market today, I found some very powerful processors behind today's Android and iPhone devices. These things have mobile chips in them that are just as powerful as my little netbook that I use for school (web browsing/ Onenote and I even put SQL Server on it!) The smartphones of today have dual-core 1.5 GHz chips in them, crazy!

Windows 8 will be out soon, although I don't know that I would want Windows on a smartphone. The point is that I heard a company has come out with a remote desktop or virtual desktop type of program for smartphones that basically lets you run anything you would on your netbook or scaled-down PC computer on your smartphone. Interesting, very interesting.

Stay tuned in the coming months for my review of smartphones, wireless carriers, and data plans. I never make any of these purchases without extensive market and personal customer research and comparisons--so I might as well share my findings here. Until next time.

Internet, wireless, network, and hard drive speeds

I recently upgraded my old wireless G router to a new wireless N. My new laptop will support the higher speeds. I also realized that my Windows Home Server (WHS) box has gigabit Ethernet on it, as does the new laptop. What does all of this mean? Well, it means with a slight upgrade in equipment and cables I can get a much faster speed when transferring files between machines. But just how does all this speed stack up and what are the different speeds? Should I upgrade? Is the speed increase worth it?

First, let's start with your incoming broadband Internet connection. Most connections through DSL or Cable range anywhere from 1 Mb/s (Megabit per second, more on that in a second :-) up to about 20 Mb/s. What does that mean in simple terms? Well, I'll put a chart at the end of this post, but a Megabit should not be confused with what you normally think of in terms of computer storage the Megabyte. Just remember that there are 8 bits that make up a byte, so anytime you see transfer speeds of bits per second, you need to divide by 8 to get the equivalent bytes per second.

So, a somewhat typical 5 Mb/s broadband internet connection can transfer 5,000 bytes (1 megabyte = 1,000 bytes) per second. So what you say? Well, doing a little math that is equivalent to 625 bytes per second.

In more realistic terms, let's say you have a single layer DVD that is FULL (4.37 Gigabytes or GB) of about an hour's worth of home videos. Let's say you want to download the equivalent DVD over your 5 Mb/s broadband connection. How long will that take? Hint, pay attention, we'll use this DVD example for wireless, wired network, and hard drive speeds later. Well, multiplying out 4.37 * 1024 gives us 4474 mega bytes to transfer. Multiply 4474 * 1024 again to get the total bytes to transfer at 4,582,277 . Multiply again by 8 to get the bits to transfer and it is about 36,658,217. Now, your internet speed can handle 5,000 of those bits per second, so it would theoretically take about 122 minutes or about 2 hours-- quite a long time.

Reality check though: No internet connection advertised at 5 Mb/s will really download that fast and any network connection will never work at it's peak rate, those are the rate of the 'pipeline' so to speak, but the pipeline is never stuffed completely full, so realize this rate is somewhat of a hypothetical one, in reality it would take a bit longer.

Next, let's examine the different wireless network speeds for your laptop, TV, or gaming console. First, realize that wired networks speeds are generally spoken of as 10/100/1000 or 10 Mb/s, 100 Mb/s, and 1000 Mb/s or 1 Gb/s (Gigabit networking). Just as a comparison, I'll get to those with our DVD example shortly.

So, you've got a wireless network setup and your laptop or Wii can handle wireless "G" networking. What does that mean? Well the G standard means speeds up to (again that hypothetical pipeline) of 54 Mb/s. Using our DVD example it would take about 11.3 minutes to download the home movie that fills up a single-layer DVD. That is much better and much faster than downloading it off of the internet! Now, this assumes that you already have the DVD on another machine (such as a server) and you are copying the contents to your wireless device, laptop, etc., using the G standard.

The wireless N standard is up to 150 Mb/s so it is faster than most common 100 Mb/s wired networks. However, you've got to have a newer laptop that supports the wireless N. In addition, you've got to have a wireless N router or box that emits the signal and processes in the N class. Currently, these boxes are about $80 or so. You can buy a G box new for about $40. What is the download or speed difference for upgrading? Well, that DVD that took 11.3 minutes on the G network would download in 4 hypothetical minutes. So, taking 150 (Mb/s) and dividing by 54 you see about a 3x increase in speed between wireless G and wireless N. This is great for downloading files, and may be worth the $80 upgrade to you. However, a caution: Remember if your internet connection is at 5 Mb/s, that's all you'll get is 5 Mb, it does not matter if you have a 54 or a 150 Mb/s pipeline, the internet will only go at 5Mb, so you won't see any increase there.

Almost lastly, how about gigabit Ethernet and your home network speeds? Most home networks are 100 based, meaning they use Cat5 cables (a specification and what most home networks have used in the past) and that utilize up to 100 Mb/s speeds. Most routers and switches you see have been 10/100 or can handle up to 100 Mb/s in each direction.

However, Gigabit Ethernet is a 1,000 Mb/s or 1 Gb/s speed. In order to achieve this, though, you have to have everything on your home network at this speed. It will only go as fast as the slowest part. To start with you'll need a gigabit swtich or router. I purchased a gigabit switch for $25 recently with a mail-in-rebate, making it quite affordable. Then you would need to have Cat6 (not Cat5) cables. I ordered 4 of them for about $10.50, shipping included. Finally, you need to make sure your computer can handle the gigabit standard or is marked 1,000 or commonly says 10/100/1,000 or just 100/1000 meaning it can handle slower as well as the faster gigabit speeds.

So, back to the DVD example, just how fast is this? My first experience over the weekend with gigabit Ethernet was quite fast. Again, remember this will only be realized in transferring files back and forth between machines or a server, but it was fast! When going from 100 to 1000 you may not see a full 10x increase, but I had a file that copied over in 15 minutes, then I shut down, installed the gigabit switch and cables and transferred it again in less than 2 minutes!

As for the hypothetical 4.37 GB DVD instead of taking 4 minutes on the wireless N speed, it would now take just 0.61 minutes or about 37 seconds on the gigabit network, not bad!

After all that blazing speed, it made me wonder if the network will soon outpace the speed of your computer, i.e. the speed to transfer read/ write files on your hard drive? Lastly, let's examine disk speeds.

A common SATA hard drive today has the capacity to transfer up to 3 Gbytes/s, but they typically transfer at about 70 Megabytes or 560 Mbits/s. This is due to the nature of hard drives, spin-up time, seek time, and so forth. A discussion for another day. But, suffice it to say when you're dealing with a gigabit network, your slowest part now could very well be your hard drive, NOT your network! Of course, as mentioned, your network will never quite run to full capacity either with your file transfer, so perhaps it is best to consider it a "toss up" as to whether the gigabit network or the 7200 RPM modern hard drive is the weakest link in the data transfer.

Of course you could put a Solid State Drive (or SSD) in your computer. These are still relatively expensive but get rid of the "wait for the hard drive light always on" bottleneck by increasing the data rate to about 250 Gbytes or 2 Gbits/s. Now we're talking the speed of a fully functional gigabit network as it can handle (in full duplex) a 1 Gb/s download AND a 1Gb/s upload. So, theoretically, your Solid State Drive could be uploading a file to the server and simultaneously downloading a file from the server and it would be about as fast as the gigabit Ethernet it travels over.

Of course servers seldom handle just one machine connected to it. At my house I've got one newer machine and two older ones coming into it. At that point you're not concerned with drive speed but with the network. There is a 10 Gigabit standard out there, but it has not yet found its way into mainstream home use.

Below is a chart showing the DVD file transfer scenario and how long it would take to transfer over a 5 Gb/s Internet connection as well as on various wireless and wired networks and the rate at which it can transfer on a hard drive. It is a good reference to show just how fast each of the options can be, relatively speaking. Enjoy!

DVD	4.37	4,475	4,582,277	36,658,217
Example	GB	MB	K	bytes
	Internet	5 Mb/s	5,000	122
		Connection	bits/ sec	Minutes
	Wireless	54 Mb/s	54,000	11.3
	G	Connection	bits/ sec	Minutes
	Wireless	150 Mb/s	150,000	4.1
	N	Connection	bits/ sec	Minutes
	100	100 Mb/s	100,000	6.1
	Network	Speed	bits/ sec	Minutes
	1,000	1 Gb/s	1,000,000	0.61	37
	Gigabit	Speed	bits/ sec	Minutes	Seconds
	Typical	70 Mbytes/s	573,440	1.07	64
	Hard Drive	Speed	bits/ sec	Minutes	Seconds
	Solid-State	250 Mbytes/s	2,048,000	0.30	18
	Drive	Speed	bits/ sec	Minutes	Seconds

YNAB 3

Here's a great budgeting program that I have used for the past 2 years now (2008 and 2009). They are just getting ready to release a new version with some great features in it. The thing I really like about this is that it shows you a BUDGET, not just what you have spent. The YNAB program has a whole set of rules and such that "just make sense" and are similar to my money beliefs anyway of not spending more than you make or more than you have budgeted for.

If you sign up for their public beta you get a break on the software. If you help spread the word you could win a free copy too. At any rate, worth the price, this beats Quicken hands-down because of the budgeting and sure beats a spreadsheet--which is the way Jessie started with YNAB years ago.

You can view it all here.

Quick General Post on some technology

Hmm, it has been a long time since I posted anything here. Of course no one is reading, so it does not matter :-) Let's see what's new in my technology world in the last several months, here's a quick recap:

• Had unreliable home phone service with ViaTalk, so I switched back to Vonage. Much happier now, have actual and real customer service when needed! I talked them down quite a bit on the connection fees and such.

• Purchased a 4GB USB memory stick a while back, but jeepers, there are much larger ones that are affordable out there now.

• Spent quite a bit of cash on some upgrades for home. Got a larger monitor for the desktop and some new software. Purchased an HP Windows Home Server that I quite enjoy. I really like it for the backup capabilities of all of my home videos and photos.

• Looked into the new Intel i7 quad-core chips and thought of building/ buying a new desktop with one of these new powerful chips in it. Decided to wait a year until they come down in price.

• Looking into a laptop upgrade. I noticed a few people now have the "mini's" or the very small 7 to 10 inch screen laptops. They all say they enjoy the portability of these and the 'go anywhere' aspect. One guy at work got out his large, paper Franklin planner and it was larger than the mini that had exponentially more information on it.

• Looked into solid-state drives and where that is going with laptops. Decided I want to buy a 17-inch laptop sometime. The laptops seem to come with two drive bays now so I could get one with a 7200 RPM hard drive now and add a solid-state drive to it later. My laptop "wish list" got long and extravagant, so I'll wait on that for a while as well.

That's about the latest. If you are actually reading this, cool! Leave a comment about your technology questions or products, maybe it will inspire me with a new post, finding the time to write it is the challenge right now.

How Much Can That Hard Drive Hold?

How much is that dogie in the Window? The one with the waggly tail? Before I break into singing in a very out-of-tune voice, let's change the subject to “How much is that hard drive in the electronic store window?” and more importantly, “Will it be big enough to put all of my video and photos on?

If you have some video or a lot of photos, or even an old computer you've probably run short on storage space at some point. So, if you're looking at a new computer, or to upgrade your old one, what's the deal on hard drives?

Well, economically speaking I'd recommend an online store such as www.newegg.com or www.tigerdirect.com or many others. However, with Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving) coming up you could Google “Black Friday” and probably go to a store with a mob of people and get a really good sale on a hard drive or three. Remember you'll always pay more for the convenience of getting one right now at a brick-and-mortar store than you would by ordering online or waiting for it to be on sale.

Now, as far as storage: Have you ever purchased a brand new, say 200 GB hard drive and installed it just to have Windows report it as 186 GB? What? Why is this? Well, it is perfectly normal, and goes back to the concept of dividing by 1024 instead of 1000 as I tried to explain in THIS article. There have been lawsuits and spirited scientific and “nerdy engineer” debates over this, but it all comes down to manufactures calling a unit of measure 1,000 or one million and Windows or other operating systems working off of base 2 and dividing by 1024. That is where you get the difference.

The bottom line here is that you should automatically deduct about 7% from the “advertised” storage amount to reconcile this difference. So, my large 750 GB external drive I have really reads at 698 GB. Ah, but there's more!

You do NOT want to completely fill up a hard drive. I've done it before and it's painful! As the drive gets nearly full the computer slows way down because it is trying to “eek out” those last available sectors (writable areas) to write to and your files are fragmented or scattered between open spaces on the disk. Hmm, that's a topic for another day, disk sectors and how it writes physically to the disk, but I digress.

In short, the more full the drive is (or if you have never defragmented your drive), the more it has to “split up” files between small empty spaces. It is kind of like going to the store and coming home with a bunch of groceries. If your refrigerator is empty you can put all of the groceries in one convenient corner of the fridge. However, if your fridge is full you spend extra time searching for every little nook and cranny to cram small items into. This would slow you down in putting the groceries away, just as it greatly slows down a hard drive in writing a big order (grocery order) or file to the drive.

Therefore, I would recommend leaving about 10 to 15% of your drive empty at all times. Actually Windows likes you to have 15% I think it is free to defragment (rearrange the refrigerator putting like things together). You've got to have some “elbow room” to rearrange or defragment.

So, given that 7% is “eaten up” (ha a great grocery pun!) by the 1000 versus 1024 deal and that you need about 13% average free at all times, I tell people to plan on 20% of any hard drive purchase to be “untouchable”. What does this all translate to? I'll include a nifty chart. In essence, if you look at your old hard drive and see that you have 150 GB of data filled on a 200 GB drive and you buy a 500 GB drive, that new drive will effectively be about 40% (not 30%) full when you get it in and transfer the 150 GB of data over. Something to think about.

Advertised Drive Capacity	Windows Reads As (7% less)	Leave this much free (14% of remaining)	Effective Storage Space (80% of Advertised)	Advertised Drive Capacity
60 GB	56 GB	8 GB	48 GB	60 GB
120 GB	112 GB	16 GB	96 GB	120 GB
200 GB	186 GB	26 GB	160 GB	200 GB
320 GB	298 GB	42 GB	256 GB	320 GB
500 GB	465 GB	65 GB	400 GB	500 GB
750 GB	698 GB	98 GB	600 GB	750 GB
1000 (1 TB)	930 GB	130 GB	800 GB	1000 (1 TB)
1.50 TB	1.395 TB	195 GB	1.2 TB	1.50 TB

In summary, don't be fooled by the advertising and such, yes you really do get that many millions of bytes or whatever, but in essence you need to remember the chart above for how much you can reliably store on the drive. Until next time, have fun and store stuff!
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p.s. I talked a lot about defragmenting hard drives. Windows Vista does this automatically for you (when you're probably least expecting it, I hate automatic!) In Windows XP here's some directions from my Windows help file:

"To open Disk Defragmenter, click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, point to System Tools, and then click Disk Defragmenter." Here you will see the status of your drives and can defragment them. Remember to keep about 15% free for it to work well.

Article, binary on a single electron

This is an interesting article. It just goes to show, that theoretically computer storage can happen on anything that is binary-- anything that can change between a one (on) and a zero (off). This article talks about looking at the magnetic orientation of a single electron and using that as the binary differentiation to make the 1's & 0's.

"You have memory, one bit that is represented by one electron, and that's it," said University of Utah assistant physics professor Christoph Boehme. He says his team has controlled an electrical current through an electron's spin, or magnetic presence. He says all you have to do is read whether the electron has a north or south magnetic signature.

Read the full article from KSL.com