It is amazing how many inexpensive, tiny hard drives with huge capacities are becoming available. They provide a relatively easy way to increase the storage capacity of your old laptop. Combined with a $30 cardbus USB 2.0 converter they provide a quick inexpensive way to back up your laptop or store tons of MP3s or digital photos.

November 2004, Enchance Technology announced a 2.2 GB ($168) and 4 GB ($225) and will have a 6 GB early in 2005. The smaller drive supports up to 635 MP3. Iomega introduced a 20 GB ($179) and 40 GB ($279) USB Mini Hard Drive that will fit in a shirt pocket. Western Digital Passport USB hard drives with a protective case are $199 for 40 GB and $249 for $80 GB.

Most older laptops have the a USB 1.0 or 1.1 PCMCIA port (cardbus). The CardBus specification was released in 1996 and most laptops manufactured mid-1997 or later will have a CardBus capable slot.

If you don't know you can figure it out by going to 'My Computer', selecting the 'Hardware' tab, and clicking the 'Device Manager' button. Scroll to locate an entry entitled 'PCMCIA socket' or 'PCMCIA adapter.' Expand the entry and read the device string that is displayed (most laptops have two slots, so two entries). If the string contains the term 'CardBus Controller', then you can utilize CardBus PC Cards.

USB 2.0 is 40 times faster (up to 480Mbps) than USB 1.1. It allows you to take advantage of some neat new hard drives and CDRWs. USB 2.0 is fully backward compatible with existing USB 1.1 devices, the card allows you to connect USB based printers, modems, speakers, scanners, and hundreds of other devices. Easy USB installation makes adding new hardware a breeze with no complex installation. Plug and Play and hot swappable running under Windows 98 S/E, Windows ME, Windows 2000, and Windows XP laptops. The units often come External Power Supply, for applications requiring robust bus power.

I just bought one for around $40 to use with the USB 2.0 40 GB Pocket Hammer Hard Drive I just purchased for backup and extra storage for the Pentium II Toshiba on my kitchen counter.

Manufacturers include: Adaptec, IOGear, SIIG, Inc, ADS Technology, Belkin, D-Link, CompuCable, etc.

A good place to find them at a reasonable price is http://www.usb-2-0.com/usb-2-0-cardbus-card.html.

A modem is an electronic device for converting between serial data from a computer and an audio signal (modulate/demodulate) to be transmitted over a telephone line connected to another modem.

The types of modems include internal modems, external modems (not usually used with laptops), soft modems, PC Card (PCMCIA) modems and wireless modems. Newer laptops and some of the older laptops have the modem integrated on the system board and have an RJ-11 connector (female telephpone jack connector) built-in. PCMCIA modems are about the size of a credit card and slide into a slot on the side of laptops. Theycan be X-Jack where RJ-11 connector ejects by a gentle push of a finger or include a cable (dongle) that connects to the modem and the end of the cable has an RJ-11 connector. There are also some like the Xircom that have a built-in RJ-11 connector.

The first modems were very slow 300 baud and then later were 9600 baud, 14,400 baud. People currently use 28.8 Kbs and 33.6 Kbs. The most current modems are 56K V.92 that run at either 42 Kbs or 50 Kbs.

The actual speed of modem connection depends upon the quality of the telephone line and the distance from the central office (local phone company building). If you are more than 3 1/2 miles from the central office you can expect a lower quality signal and slower speeds than the modem is rated.

There needs to be two modems to have a connection. The modem in your computer and the modem at your Internet Service Provider (ISP) that answer the modem's call. So, a factor in modem speed are the type of modems and the modem to user ration (8.1 is good, while 30:1 poor) that your ISP has to reply when your modem calls.

The time to transfer a 100 KB image file via a 28.8 modem is 27 seconds, a 33.6 modme is 23 seconds and 56K modem is 15 seconds. A 28.8 or a 33.6 can send one MegaByte of data in 4 to 5 minutes versus the latest 56K V.92 that can typically send one MegaByte of data in 2 to 3 minutes. So, if you are retrieving your e-mail and are sending 50 text messages then you can expect it to take only a few minutes to get these messages with any type modem.

Another question people often wonder about is why it long it takes to load web pages when using a modem. This question cannot be readily answered as it depends upon the server load, server performance, and exactly what type of connection you are using (modem, DSL, or T-1). Your ISP is also a factor, as popular ISPs like Earthlink and AOL use caching, which helps pages load faster. The web site itself and the page is a critical factor. Professionally designed web sites, such as CNN or Slashdot, are designed to load fast even on 56k modems. Good webmasters accomplish this by limiting the use of large images, choosing the right image formats for the right jobs and avoiding the use of video and audio unless the user explicitly asks for it. The most common reason is that some web sites are slow to load is that they have more graphic images than others. Graphics always take far longer to load than the text. The second most common reason is the computer that hosts the web site may be hosting too many other web sites, and it is bogged down trying to respond to the demand from other users.

A good website to learn more about modems and modem technology is: http://www.v90.com/speed.htm. You might also check out the modem speed chart http://www.v90.com/speed.htm.

The Modem Site has lots more information on modems … http://www.modemsite.com/56k/index.asp.

Intel made the first microprocessor with the first PC CPU (Central Processing Unit) over twenty years ago. The Intel Inside campaign took the CPU from being an unknown computer chip buried on the system board, to being a way we judge the speed and power of personal computers. The Pentium family started in 1993 and with the advent of word processors and spread sheets was the beginning of personal computing. The CPU has continued to progress from these early Pentium 90 MHz (Megahertz) to today's 3 GHz (GigaHertz) CPUs. Megahertz is Millions of Computer Instructions processed per second.

A technical but informative website about CPUs: http://www.pcmech.com/cpuindex.htm

It's easy to look at the clock speed of a CPU — measured in megahertz–as the prime indicator of the computer's speed. But your hard drive, your RAM, your video card, and many other parts of your laptop also affect its speed.

Should you care if the CPU is 90MH or 1 GHz? Whether you need a brand new laptop that'll give you more speed/power or could consider an older Pentium II or Pentium III laptop depends upon your intended use of the laptop and your budget.

So, let's look at what are your uses for a laptop. Most people do word processing (you can't type faster than a Pentium 90), spreadsheets, retrieve and send e-mail (on a 28.8 modem it only takes 3-4 minutes to send and receive text messages) and browse the web (your connection speed is much more important than the CPU's speed). The latest version Micrsoft Word 2003, Microsoft Excel 2003 and Microsoft's popular e-mail application Outlook will run fine on a Pentium 233 MHz CPU, although Micrsoft recommends a Pentium 3. Even Microsoft's PowerPoint 2003 only requires a Pentium 233 MHz CPU.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/word/prodinfo/sysreq.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/office/excel/prodinfo/sysreq.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/office/outlook/prodinfo/sysreq.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/office/powerpoint/prodinfo/sysreq.mspx

So, unless you are doing complex games (many 3-8 year old kid's games run fine), like Halo, or have complex spreadsheets, a complicated CPU intensive database application, spend many hours a day on your laptop, are a road warrior that need the lightest laptop with a very long lasting battery, many people could live with an older Pentium 2 or Pentium 3 laptop and be perfectly happy.

Microsoft Windows 98, 98SE, ME, Windows 2000, XP and 2003 all have built-in support to recognize multi-monitor configurations.

Most laptops already have two video adapters—one for the built-in LCD and one for an external Monitor. Laptops usually have a VGA port for an external monitor, and by default the external monitor will show the same image as the built-in monitor. If the laptop has a video chipset with multi-monitor support (and the necessary drivers), you can choose to use the external monitor as a second monitor instead of a mirror of the built-in monitor. Usually you can only hook up only one monitor to a laptop.

It is easy to set up. Plug in the external monitor, right-click anywhere on your Desktop, and choose Properties to open the Display Properties dialog box. Then choose the Settings tab.

If your laptop can handle two monitors, you'll see both represented in the dialog box. If you right-click on each one, you'll see a menu that includes the choice Enabled. One of them will not be checked. Click on Enabled to enable the monitor. (You may see a dialog box with a warning that some programs do not support more than one monitor. Read the details, so you'll recognize the problem if you see it, then choose OK to close the dialog box.) With that monitor still selected, make sure there's a check in the box labeled Extend my Windows desktop onto this monitor. Choose Apply, and your desktop will take advantage of the additional screen real estate. It's that simple.

You can activate the monitor or the LCD or both by a specific combination of keystrokes, which is varies depending upon the lapotop manufacturer. My Toshiba allows me to switch by using the Function + F5 keys. A chart that shows some of the keystroke combinations can be found at: http://www.sfsu.edu/~avitv/lapact.html.

A more detailed discussion can be found at: http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00476.htm.