Archive for January, 2009

Soundstick Speakers Rock!

soundstickWhat looks to be alien is really sweet sound in disguise. The Harmon Kardon Soundsticks II are truly a plug and play multimedia system that will rock your world.

I know this speaker system has been around for several years, but I just came in the market for an upgrade. In the process of building a PC-based home theater, this seemed to the best reviewed for the price…and they are.

Simply plug into your computer’s speaker jack, connect the tweeters to the subwoofer, plug the woofer in and you are ready to go!

The sound is amazingly clear and LOUD! You can really crank the volume up on these tiny little speakers without quality degradation. And the bass is adjustable, from vibrating the windows to a subtle background boom.

And hey, they just look cool. The sub woofer has a small blue light to add to the coolness factor. If you are in the market for some great PC sound quality – music or movies, these are a great buy!

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Set it and Forget it Backups!

carboniteIf you’re looking for a simple, low-cost, reliable backup solution, Carbonite is your service. I’ve used hard drives, backup software and even other online backup solutions. After two years, Carbonite has been the easiest, low cost method I have experienced.

For about $50 bucks a year, you get peace of mind. Setup is pretty simple – you download, install and select the folders you want to back up. The app is really small, so installation is quick. The program runs when you are not using your computer, so you really don’t notice that its doing its job – you almost wonder actually. But it does. And after the initial backup, it scans and updates and changes automatically. Resorting is cake – you open the app, find the version you want, and resurrect it where you want. I’ve done this multiple times and it is cake.

Perhaps most important, there are no storage size limits. I recall online backup services several years ago charging based on how much data you want to back up – the more data, the more expensive. But hard drive storage is so cheap now, the flat fee is all you need.

The biggest advantage Carbonite has over software based, local hard drive backups, is that in case your house or office goes up in flames, your backup data is still safe with Carbonite. Carbonite is remote, so your data is somewhere safe. With a local backup, its right there with your computer, in the line of fire.

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