Computer Support Blog

The computer hardware landscape is a surprisingly dynamic one, with innovations frequently changing the marketplace abruptly.  There was recently a parody of this principle in the advertising for a major electronics retailer in which consumers are dismayed when the product they just bought is made obsolete almost instantly.  Given that most chip manufacturers already have product lines planned for the next decade, the volatility of the market is surprising and there are measures that can be taken to minimize the chances that what you buy today will be unusable within three years.  To preserve your sanity (and your wallet!), sometimes, it helps to buy the best, most cutting edge equipment.  In the case of laptop computers, your best bet might well be the EON17-X.

The EON17-X laptop computer is a powerful laptop computer with a number of versatile options.  Built by Origin, the EON17-X utilizes some of the most advanced hardware on Earth to provide a superior computer, especially when compared to most big box stores.  For example, one of the processor options for the EON17-X laptop computer is the Intel Core i7-3930K processor, built upon the advanced Sandy Bridge technology.  Sandy Bridge is one of Intel’s most advanced chip designs available to the consumer market.  The fact that the EON17-X employs today’s cutting edge technology virtually guarantees that this laptop will remain usable and relevant for all programs for the foreseeable future.  Right now, it delivers incredibly fast results for complicated programs and graphics rendering.

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Have you ever watched a television show and thought an actor or actress looked familiar, but could not quite place them?  Have you ever watched an amazing movie and instantly wanted to watch everything else that director had ever filmed?  Have you ever needed to settle a bet involving the identity of an obscure character actor?  On the Internet, there is a single source for answers to all questions involving television and movies and that is the Internet Movie Database.

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) is the world’s most comprehensive site for all things pertaining to film, television and (increasingly) video games, at least as it pertains to work done by legitimate actors, directors, producers and writers.  The IMDb is a powerful tool that contains both the latest legitimate news about all things in the filmed arts as well as massive archives of the body of work of everyone who has ever worked in film in the United States, Canada, and United Kingdom.  The IMDb has extensive reservoirs of information for Japanese, Chinese and Indian works as well.

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With all of the emphasis on USB flash drives for portable storage, it is easy to forget that portable hard drives are even a viable option for consumers any more.  Portable hard drives, however, offer you more stable digital storage and, usually, greater capacity than can be found on the less-stable flash drives.  LaCia makes it impossible to deny the power and coolness of portable hard drives, though, with the Rugged Triple USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive!

The Rugged Triple Portable Hard Drive is a state-of-the-art portable hard drive from LaCia, one of the leading computer hardware manufacturers concerned with computer security.  LaCia is synonymous with data protection the world round and the Rugged Triple may well be their masterpiece product.

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Have you been considering upgrading the storage capacity of your laptop? Are you thinking about data backup? Since different laptops store data in various manners, there are actually quite a few options to consider when upgrading your laptop’s storage capacity.

The oldest type of storage, and the bulkiest, is the traditional hard disk drive. Hard disk drives have been around since the 1950s, though they are drastically smaller now than they were then. Hard disk drives use a rigid spinning disk to store information and they have been growing in storage capacity at a pace that has kept them relevant for the advances in technology.

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There are plenty of different options for data storage available on the market and many of them work great. So why do we need a new device for data backup? The Samsung Optical Smart Hub is not quite the same as any of the other options, although it is not yet for sale. At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Samsung unveiled the Optical Smart Hub SE-208BW along with their many other great new products.

Until now, the options for data backup were CD/DVDs, tape drives, external hard drive, or a Cloud (a method of online storage for data). These are all great methods of backing up your data and programs, but they usually require you to connect to some other device in order to work such as a CD/DVD burner.

If you are looking for a more secure, off site method of data backup, however, look no further than Rescuecom. Rescuecom provides online backup on our secure servers so that you will never lose your valuable information.

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There are very few computer-related items as stylish, distinctive, or varied as the USB Flash Drive.  You can find flash drives for virtually any occasion or sense of style.  For the uber-geek, there are Star Wars flash drives and for Twi-hard girls, there is even a Twilight USB flash drive.  What about manly men who want a distinctive USB flash drive?  For the masculine man with a sense of whimsy, there are Flash Rods.

Flash Rods are handmade USB flash drives in the shape of popular or memorable automobiles.  Since 2004, Flash Rods have been integrating die-cast toy cars and flash drives to create a fun 4 GB flash drive that appeals to car enthusiasts.  Each Flash Rod is manufactured with the male USB jack projecting out the back of the car.  Each Flash Rod slides perfectly into any female USB port, so the tires and any back fins or ornamentation of the car end before the male USB jack begins.

The distinctive cars are what make the Flash Rods cool.  Currently, there are over twenty different Flash Rods available.  Many of the basic Flash Rods come in different colors.  If you have a favorite car type, you can pick up multiple Flash Rods to keep different files on different color Flash Rods of the same model car!  The basic Flash Rods include the Volvo 1800, GT 40 #11, a Delorean and Rudolf’s New Car.  There is an entire section featuring modern cars, like the Audi R8 and a Camero, and another section featuring muscle cars like a 1967 Mustang GT500 and a Studebaker Pick Up!  As well, there are some neat variants, like a clear race car.

Women need not feel excluded from the Flash Rods phenomenon!  Women make up a sizable portion of the NASCAR audience and Flash Rods seems eager to appeal to that market.  Flash Rods produces a series of five limited edition pink Flash Rods.  The pinks are custom colors and they look amazing on vehicles like the Tesla, ’67 GTX and SLR.  The pink line is one of the most distinctive and coolest collections Flash Rods manufactures and because Flash Rods produces them in very limited quantities, you should get them while you can!

But geeks need not shun the Flash Rods; this is not just a product for the guys who used to beat you up and take your lunch money!  Flash Rods caters to the hardcore geek audience with Flash Rods of some very cool, genre-oriented vehicles.  Doc Brown’s time machine Delorean is part of the current fun inventory of Flash Rods.  As well, Flash Rods recreated the black van driven by the A-Team as a Flash Rod flash drive.

With an average price of $25 (plus shipping) the Flash Rods are a very cool way to store your valuable computer files.

About RESCUECOM:

RESCUECOM provides computer repair and computer support, 24/7: Meeting every tech support need including data recovery, virus removal, networking, wireless services, and computer support for all brands of hardware and software. For computer support or information on products, services, or computer repair, visit https://www.rescuecom.com or call 1-800-RESCUE-PC.

For More Information, Contact:

David Milman, CEO

315-882-1100

david@rescuecom.com

Social development seldom keeps pace with the creation and spread of new technologies.  As we become smarter and more technologically adept, there have been no significant social movements that incorporate developing the human mind in a similar fashion.  Nowhere is the disparity between emerging technologies and stagnant sociological development more clear than on the Internet.  The proliferation of high-speed transfer devices in combination with immense online data storage depots in the hands of people who are often immature has led to the rise of viral Internet videos.

Never before have so many people shared so many ridiculous, pointless or disturbing images as they have within the past five years.  But for every traumatic Internet video phenomenon, there has been a gem that is worth recalling (or experiencing if you haven’t yet).  Some of the most noteworthy (and safe for work!) viral video phenomena include:

Diet Coke And Mentos Eruption.  This viral video was a remarkably simple one wherein Mentos candies were dropped into a two-liter bottle of Diet Coke.  The result was a foaming geyser caught on video that fascinated Internet video watchers in 2006.  Debate over the video’s authenticity persisted until Mythbusters illustrated the reaction.  Now, the video remains a pretty cool bit of footage.

“Debbie’s” eHarmony Video.  Rather hilariously, this seemingly-normal eHarmony dating video takes a turn for the funny when the woman describing herself breaks into tears while discussing her love of cats.  If you haven’t seen this, it is surreal and the type of uncomfortable humor that it is almost impossible to sit through with a straight face.  Even cat lovers will laugh at “Debbie” as she cries over how great she thinks cats are.

The Star Wars Kid.  It is hard not to appreciate the teenager from Quebec whose video of himself pretending to be a Jedi leaked onto the Internet.  The boy uses a golf ball retriever as if it was a lightsaber and hurls himself around as if he was in Star Wars.  This viral video became so popular that parodies of it appeared on Arrested Development and American Dad!  With millions of hits, the Star Wars kid video reassures us that it is cool to play and, when taken out of context, people look ridiculous playing.

Sam And Ren Have A Conversation.  There is a somewhat timeless quality to the video of the two seventeen-month old twins conversing with one another in their own fictional language.  The viral video had thousands of views after it appeared on YouTube and remains popular there today.

Amid thousands of ridiculous, pointless or disturbing video clips that users upload to the Internet, few become a real phenomenon that attracts real attention.  Fortunately, time weeds out the disgusting or less funny ones and leaves viewers with some enduringly interesting online videos.

About RESCUECOM:

RESCUECOM provides computer repair and computer support, 24/7: Meeting every tech support need including data recovery, virus removal, networking, wireless services, and computer support for all brands of hardware and software. For computer support or information on products, services, or computer repair, visit https://www.rescuecom.com or call 1-800-RESCUE-PC.

For More Information, Contact:

David Milman, CEO

315-882-1100

david@rescuecom.com

Sometimes, the coolest products are gadgets that are exceptionally specialized.  Advances in obscure fields like water reclamation, climatology and the study of aquatic environments often come because the technology associated with the field advances.  A very cool product that is advancing the study and measurement of dissolved oxygen in water is the YSI ProODO Handheld Optical Dissolved Oxygen Instrument.

The YSI ProODO is a handheld sensor array that comes with all of the sensing probes and hardware needed to do in-the-field dissolved water tests.  The YSI ProODO is a handheld device with a LCD display that can be backlit if you are doing dissolved oxygen tests at night.  The YSI ProODO looks somewhat like a tricorder from Star Trek: The Next Generation with its sleek design.  One of the smartest benefits of the ProODO is that the handheld device is both waterproof and buoyant.  To those outside the industry, it seems like common sense that you would want your equipment for testing water in the field to be waterproof, but that is not the case for all dissolved oxygen instruments!  YSI seems to understand that accidents can happen in the water and making the ProODO buoyant helps researchers protect their investment.

The YSI ProODO is available in several kits, most of which are determined by the length of the cable you want for the probe.  The ProODO has sensor cables ranging from one meter – ideal for laboratory work where you are close to your samples – to one hundred meters, ideal for testing deeper environments where it is impractical to visit or where disrupting the environment would prejudice the readings.

The ProODO is all about not disrupting the environment and ensuring accurate readings.  The accuracy of dissolved oxygen sensing equipment is often called into question because each testing area in an environment is considered unique.  Scientists in the dissolved oxygen field do not want unique; they want representative samples.  To that end, the ProODO’s sensor features a self-stirring mechanism that mixes water only at the point you want to read in order to provide a uniform representative sample.  Equally important is the fact that the sensor on the YSI ProODO maintains its calibration from deployment to reading.  The stable calibration is especially important when you are experimenting at depths that would require the 100 meter cable!

With a test memory of 5000 sets, the YSI ProODO eliminates the need for additional data storage.  Even so, the YSI ProODO comes with YSI’s Data Manager Software which allows users to upload their data from the ProODO to a computer.  In addition to providing powerful analytical tools, the use of the Data Manager frees up memory on the ProODO.  The ability to reformat the memory makes the YSI ProODO an essential long-term tool.

Field-tested for durability, innovative to provide representative samples and easy-to-use for clear data retrieval, the YSI ProODO delivers the cutting edge for the dissolved oxygen industry.

About RESCUECOM:

RESCUECOM provides computer repair and computer support, 24/7: Meeting every tech support need including data recovery, virus removal, networking, wireless services, and computer support for all brands of hardware and software. For computer support or information on products, services, or computer repair, visit https://www.rescuecom.com or call 1-800-RESCUE-PC.

For More Information, Contact:

David Milman, CEO

315-882-1100

david@rescuecom.com

Have you ever had an argument with someone you do not trust?  You know the kind, the person with whom you want to settle an issue through the flip of a coin, but you know they’ll find a way to cheat.  Just as the Internet provided us with increased data storage options, Cloud-based entertainment and more sophisticated mapping services, now it provides unbiased coin flips through Random.org’s True Random Number Service.  Settle bets, stymie psychics, or simply confound your friends by showing interest in a random number generator with Random.org’s True Random Number Service!

Random.org is a cool, entertaining, website and the coin flipper is only one interface that the site offers.  Random.org’s True Random Number Service is an esoteric bit of random number generators that may be used for fun or science.  Distinguished from other random number generation sites, the True Random Number Service from Random.org does not come from a complex equation that may be predicted with enough sampling (and a mathematical mindset).

Instead, creator Mads Haahr generates the random numbers through a complex radio receptor array that uses atmospheric noise.  In fact, the software for the True Random Number Service is not available because it requires the non-computer input it receives from the radio wave observations!  This is true randomness and Random.org makes it very cool.

The True Random Number Service has a variety of interfaces, the best of which are entirely free.  The coin flipper presents simple “heads” or “tails” for one to sixteen coins at a time from an inventory of eighty-eight different coins.  Virtually every country connected to the Internet has a representation of its coins.  There are also a few ancient civilizations and novelty coins available.  There is a playing card shuffler which allows those who need to settle an issue through a game of high card (or anything else for which you would select a single card from a 52 or 54 card deck) to randomly pick a card.  There are also random dice rolls, which could make your games of RISK or Yahtzee go much more unpredictably than playing with actual dice.

There is also a very simple, very direct true random number generator at Random.org that may generate columns of random numbers from -1,000,000,000 to 1,000,000,000!  It does not take much playing around with the system to discover just how well it works!

Random.org is an easy site to use and it does not require any additional computer support to operate any of the gadgets and widgets it provides.  With over a billion random bits generated, Random.org is the most stable random element on the Internet!

About RESCUECOM:

RESCUECOM provides computer repair and computer support, 24/7: Meeting every tech support need including data recovery, virus removal, networking, wireless services, and computer support for all brands of hardware and software. For computer support or information on products, services, or computer repair, visit https://www.rescuecom.com or call 1-800-RESCUE-PC.

For More Information, Contact:

David Milman, CEO

315-882-1100

david@rescuecom.com

Flash drives have been transformed from useful data storage devices into fashion statements.  More than simply useful tools for keeping computer files safe or transferring files easily between different computers, USB flash drives have become another way for computer users to express themselves.  Some of the coolest USB flash drives help fans show their appreciation for their favorite films like Twilight or Harry Potter.  Now, Mimoco makes flash drives for one of the undeniably coolest franchises of all time, Star Wars!

Mimoco has a line of Star Wars MIMOBOTs (the Mimoco term for their designer USB flash drives).  Currently, there are twenty-one different Star Wars styles in their MIMOBOT line and they are very cool.  Mimoco molded each MIMOBOT flash drive with a somewhat rounded appearance, reminiscent of Weebles.  Most Star Wars MIMOBOT flash drives come in your choice of 2GB, 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, 32GB or 64GB capacity.  A few, like their San Diego Comic Con exclusive Bossk MIMOBOT, come with fewer options for capacity.

Each Star Wars MIMOBOT features a different Star Wars franchise character or alien.  The stylized design of the MIMOBOT includes an elongated head on each character.  Mimoco designed the Star Wars MIMOBOTs to stand as desk ornaments when they are not in use.  The MIMOBOTS make for good decorations as each one has bright colors and distinctive markings.  The Darth Vader MIMOBOT even features an additional layer; when you remove the helmet, Anakin’s human face is underneath!

More than simply cool to look at for geeks, the Star Wars MIMOBOT flash drives are entirely functional.  Each elongated MIMOBOT head is the cap for the flash drive!  By simply pulling on the character’s head or helmet, you expose the male USB lead of the MIMOBOT!  Like any other USB flash drive, the Star Wars MIMOBOT flash drive slides easily into any female USB port.  Because of the rounded nature of the casing of the MIMOBOTs, the Star Wars MIMOBOT flash drives may not fit into a crowded USB hub.  These flash drives do not like to share space, so they must be plugged into a USB port where there are no other USB devices that might inhibit the physical connection of the MIMOBOT.

With designs like Luke Skywalker, Lando Calrissian, Darth Maul and the ever-popular Boba Fett, Mimoco has tapped into the Star Wars fans’s idea of cool with their Star Wars MIMOBOT flash drives!

About RESCUECOM:

RESCUECOM provides computer repair and computer support, 24/7: Meeting every tech support need including data recovery, virus removal, networking, wireless services, and computer support for all brands of hardware and software. For computer support or information on products, services, or computer repair, visit https://www.rescuecom.com or call 1-800-RESCUE-PC.

For More Information, Contact:

David Milman, CEO

315-882-1100

david@rescuecom.com