Let’s face it, not everyone has thousands of readily available dollars to spend on a brand new laptop, but then again, you do not have to have that much money to get yourself what you want, because there are some excellent really good cheap laptops out there waiting for you.

The important part is knowing exactly where to look for these good cheap laptops to be able to grab yourself a bargain. For starters though, one place you do not want to look is at the major electronic chain stores who are constantly offering cheap name brand laptops with tons of mail in and on the spot rebates. The reason for this is because while the ticket price may seem inexpensive, you need to look at the amount you will be paying every month for these rebates while you are locked into a 12 month contract; then you will see how much more expensive that laptop really is.

However, it is important to keep in mind that a good cheap laptop is only worth it if the features and specs that you need are available on it. A lot of times you will come across these bare-bones systems that have barely enough memory, processing power or even storage space to run the latest operating systems. You need to find good cheap laptops that do not sacrifice features along with specs for the price. While it is always possible for you to located a used laptop, but let’s face it what you want is a new one, so this idea won’t work.

The internet will be a big help for finding that laptop at an affordable price because what you need to be looking for are the less well known brand names. I know, you don’t trust those brands, because you think they don’t have enough quality, but this is often far from the truth. You must remember that the big name brands spend billions of dollars every year to attract you, and when you buy a laptop from them, a big chunk of the price you pay goes towards more advertising.

There are many good cheap laptops made by various names that you may have heard of in the past, but not directly associated with actual computer manufacturing. These can include names like ASUS which has made motherboards for the AMD processors for years, and they now make laptops as well. While not technically a name brand, they do have the experience to deliver a good cheap laptop; and they do, their laptops are excellently priced.

Just remember to keep your eyes open and when you come across what looks like a great deal, but it’s from a name you never heard of, use the internet and you will find all sorts of reviews and information on these laptops; you may be amazed at what you find out.

The new web browser from Google, Chrome, has generated a fair amount of media attention for a variety of reasons, but there has been little talk about its effect upon contextual advertising.

Applications on our computers are ad-free zones. For example, word processors are free of advertising. Web applications are different, the owners of web applications like Gmail or Facebook can place contextual advertising within the software.

The use of web applications is sky-rocketing. There’s even good quality image editors online now. And Google’s Chrome will accelerate this. Pointed at web applications like Google Reader, Chrome excels at handling complicated tasks.

Having said that, Chrome will not snatch large amounts of the market from Internet Explorer or Firefox overnight. Many users stick with browsers they know, and Firefox’s extensive plug-ins are bound to compete with Chrome.

But providing a better experience with web applications, Chrome will encourage more people to use them. Competition from Chrome is likely to encourage Apple and Microsoft to improve their browsers. The Mozilla team is working on some changes to Firefox, including a new incognito or “porn mode”. As the quality of the browsers increase so will the quality and use of web applications.

That, in turn, will provide more opportunities for companies like Microsoft and Google to sell contextual advertising.

Contextual advertising can be very powerful since it appears when users are either searching a related topic or researching it. From the paid search entries on the search engine to content networking advertising, advertisers can reach the right users.

If contextual adverts break into web applications, ads will display when the user is not searching for information. Type an article about insurance and an insurance advertiser might show you their ad. If users watch a particular video, then relevant advertisers could grab those readers attention.

If a user uses a web application to plan a journey then the Road Traffic Authority could place an advert about driving dangers. Contextual advertising could even “talk back” to web applications, and interact with the software depending on how the adverts are to be displayed.

Soon interactive marketers will be able to offer the user what they need before they ever realised they needed it. By correctly analysing users behaviour, advertisers will be able to tap into the precise type of user they are after. Chrome may lead to Google’s domination of the web as a whole, rather than just search.

We are in the midst of worst financial crisis and there is no better way to come out of it than fighting it out. In this age of fast technological changes, it is always better to stay abreast with all the happenings. There is absolutely no dearth of tools or software programs in the market to come to our rescue. It all depends on how we use them, if we want to. We must always ensure that our IT systems and programs run to their full capacity in providing us with best possible results.

If you use well designed and efficient software, it will save you from the routine administrative works and will allow concentrating on other important jobs in hand like winning future contracts or developing new products or improving services to customers. Using IT services can ensure timely assistance to customers and a healthy computer system in place will help you prevent mistakes.

When the things are not going your way, taking the help of software is not abnormal. It ensures that your businesses are on track and mistakes are corrected to a considerable level. It is generally observed that most of us use very little of software’s capabilities. A classic example of this is the Microsoft Office.

If you are running a company which is not functioning properly due to high cost rates, using software for streamlining the processes, could be the way to go. Occasionally, companies go on a hiring spree misinterpreting the business model. This can often lead to trouble in a big way. To wade through these phases, you can use IT systems in HR, Finance and other related departments. By this way, you can not only keep a check on the finance and people, but also can save a lot of time.

Given below are few case scenarios. If your answer to any of these is ‘No’, you can rest be assured that the IT systems or the software programs you have deployed is working just fine.

1) Finances: - Identify if your key financial indicators are made available to you at your finger tips as and when you need them.

2) Communication: - Is your software agile and smart enough to send the same mails to different people at a given point in time? Is it intelligent enough to know when they have to be sent and when not to?

3) Contacts: - Does your software program remind you of ringing up your colleague? Or follow up with a meeting that had taken place few days back?

4) Processing: - Is your software program capable enough to do processing work automatically? Can they process all the invoices at regular intervals? Does it contain necessary information required to deliver receipts or job cards?

5) Projects: - Is your program intelligent enough to know the processes involved in the projects? Does it remind you when the jobs are to be done? And when the milestones are due?

If your answers are ‘No’ to these questions, urgent improvements are required. Larger companies tend to have varied expertise to tackle complex issues. Same thing is not true for smaller companies, who might have to take an external help. Even if you are sure that your staff is performing to its ability, ensure the computers are playing their part as well.

We are all somewhat star struck and bedazzled by new technology and novelty versions of computer peripherals that already exist. When it comes to actually purchasing the hardware in question though, it can be a tough choice between something that will be a funny desktop item in the computer for about five minutes and a classic design that will have co-workers green with envy.

Being able to make this distinction when purchasing hardware as a gift for friends and colleagues is even more important, as quite often these products do not come cheap, even if they look like they have been bought at the Sunday market for a pound! Here we review three items of hardware that could be adorning office desks around the world, and in our opinion, only one is worthy of gracing the desks of us happy tech-heads!

The first item up for review is something that has been so politically correctly named “keyboard for blondes”. This name surely gives you an immediate impression of what this item of computer candy looks like. Yes, it is pink; yes it is two shades of pink; yes, it is the most Barbie pinks of pink you can imagine. It also a unique set of keys that have all been re-labelled to aid the office blondes in their instant messaging activities, or in communicating with IT geeks.

The ALT key is re-names ‘the useless one’, the space bar has become ‘the big one’ and some of the keys have corresponding emoticons on. The cherry atop the cake is the addition of downloadable software for sound effects to match the appropriate keys. Some in our office were quite rightly insulted by such a vile gimmick, and yet others though it was cute. We think they will change their mind if it arrived in their secret Santa gift bag!

Next is the Jupiter Spherical Wooden Mouse. This has been voted a must-have, need, want, will-steal-from-my-own-grandmother too get it item in the office today. By incorporating an accelerometer into a wooden ball, which has been wonderfully shaped into a sphere from Chinese Flowering Ash, we are able to have office hardware with a difference. You can keep your laser flashing trackballs with 10 billion dpi sensitivity; this mouse tracks movement in mid air and is a welcome break from ten tonnes of pc plastic. Unfortunately it costs almost as much as a used car, and is not wireless, which given its spherical form, is a damn shame.

Finally we bring for your consideration the Keyboard and Mouse made from real wood. Do not be deceived by the lack of plastic equating to a tasteful bit of hardware. In fact, we are astonished that someone out there has managed to use the beauty of an organic material to create a keyboard and mouse that is as tacky as a Barbie pink set for blondes! The difference is, while the Keyboard for Blondes is meant as a tongue in cheek girlie gadget, the wooden set is so definitely trying to be a classy addition to the boss’s office. Just because it’s wood, it don’t make it good - keep vigilant dear office monkeys and don’t let the gadgets sweep you away with their novelty value!

About 200 million employees work remotely, i.e. they are not at their desk while accessing emails, sending work updates or editing financial sheets and about 70% of this working force never plans a backup before starting or during the travel.

With over 600,000 notebooks lost on US airports, this post discusses the key concerns in remote-backup, shortcomings in existing solutions and how they can be addressed.

Remote Backup Requirements
Some of the key requirements for remote or on-the-move laptop backup are -

1. Availability of sufficient bandwidth - Statistics show that on an average a business PC has about 8GB of important corporate data with over 80% of this data is usually in form of archived emails. The differential change in this data is about 2% (blame the email archival formats and post processing used by most of the email clients like Microsoft Outlook). Transferring this differential data (160 MB) over a WAN connection can be a problem especially when the user wants to spend that limited time accessing and answering the new emails.
2. Network access to backup server -While traveling, the users often cannot access enterprise LAN or VPN, which restricts their access to organization’s secure resources. While working over the WAN the user’s PC does not even have a static (publically visible) IP address. This makes it impossible for the backup server to contact the user’s PC and fire a backup.
3. Security -Working on the WAN, un-encrypted data backup/restore can expose the corporate information making it vulnerable to eavesdropping or stealing.

Limitations of Existing Solutions
There are two major design limitations in most of the existing solutions inherited from the tape-backup legacy -

1. Server triggered backup - Earlier when mobility was not an option, network backups used to be driven by a central backup server. The legacy still continues, and the server-triggered backup architecture imposes three limitations on network access and security especially when the user is traveling. The server initiates and sends network requests out-side the corporate network and unlike the web or email server, this is a special case and needs more attention.
Also, the PC must be visible to the server on a published IP address all the time.
2. Dependence of low latency, high bandwidth network - Thanks to the tape-backup legacy, most network backup systems today use same old R-Sync style checksum algorithms for incremental backups. And because of large no. of network interactions required in these algorithms, the backup systems works better on low-latency networks for less network turn-around time and faster execution.

Solution
Two features are a must for all the remote bacukup solutions -
1. Client Triggered Architecture - Backup agents/clients equipped with intelligence to initiate backup and restore can make backups over WAN possible. It would also add to the security and scalability of the system.
2. Data de-duplication - Al most 80% of the corporate data on PCs is duplicate between users. Data De-duplication and compression intelligence in the backup agent can effectively reduce the backup size by 90% and boosting the backup speed by 10 times and reducing bandwidth and storage usage by 90%.