debcook

GPS devices are great to keep you on track and to get you from point A to point B. They guide us safely around bad parts of town and help us to get to our meetings on time.

What if someone uses GPS technology to track you? Then it is not so great – right? Parents can track the driving habits of their teenagers. Employers and track their employees while in company vehicles. Spouses can spy on you to see where you go.

Although I agree with at least a few of the reasons someone may want to track others there are ways to prevent it from happening to you. Probably the most efficient way is to purchase a GPS Blocker or GPS Jammer.

The Super Mini Cigarette Lighter GPS Blocker (pictured above and sold on Amazon) is very small and simply plugs into the cigarette lighter of your car. The removable jammer antenna blocks GPS signals emitted by any GPS device near you – including your own GPS device.

If anyone has installed a GPS tracking device on your vehicle they will no longer get a report from it if you block them with a GPS Blocker.

In case you are trying to decide which Netbook to buy and am frustrated with the tiny SSD capacities you might want to check out the Acer Aspire One. They have a little secret. Overall the size is typical – 8.9 inch monitor and a slightly smaller QWERTY keyboard than on a full size laptop. You have the choice of the more familiar hard drive or a SSD. The pink and white version has been showing up everywhere. Both are really tempting.

I am sure that you are wondering about the secret I spoke about. Where many laptops and netbooks offer a memory card slot – the Acer Aspire One offers two. The second memory card slot is dedicated to expanding the internal memory.

At first I was not sure what that meant either. Apparently when you insert an SD or memory card into the dedicated slot the Acer Aspire One reads it as internal memory. What that means to you is that an 8GB SSD would act like a 12GB once a 4GB SD or Memory card was inserted into that dedicated slot.

I have not read anywhere that there is a limitation on the Memory Card capacity. IMHO this is a great idea that should be added to all Netbooks – especially the SSD versions. Everyone is ready to immediately upgrade them anyway. Finally even a non-geek can alter their computer to make it their own.

Hooray, today the Dell Tech fixed the computer that has resided on the floor for the past five days. This was only accomplished after several highly intense phone calls but now all is well.

As suspected the problem was with the Nvidia 9800 GeForce GX2 graphics card. It had completely lost its ability to put its best face forward and instead showed strange albeit colorful flashing boxes and lines all over its 22 inch monitor.

This Nvidia graphics card is a monster. It is actually two graphics cards in one so the graphics as well as the speed is extremely good. Graphics will be seen that has seldom been seen before by many Internet gamers. The level of detail is amazing. First hand experience has proved this to be true.

Thank goodness there is an extended warranty on this computer. Even though all of the bickering back and forth was unfortunate the cost of this graphics card alone would have been between $400 and $500. This is not the first time an extended warranty has saved me money instead of costing me money.

I am not trying to sell the idea of extended warranties but if you do not want to afford a repair bill buy one. I buy Dell computers because of the onsite warranties they offer. In the end they have served me well.

Netbooks are catching on. The problem is that there are so many new ones being announced almost hourly that it seems foolish to jump in and buy one.

What is a Netbook? Well, they are basically a small laptop. The screen size is typically 7” to 10”. Several operating systems (OS) are available such as Windows XP, Windows Vista and Linux. Most Netbooks have Solid State Drives (SSD) usually starting at 4GB but 16GB, 32GB and 64GB are beginning to surface.

How could anyone work with 4GB of hard drive space? To be honest – Netbooks are designed to be small, lightweight and super mobile. The name Netbook is precisely what it sounds like. A device to get you connected to the internet. WiFi and Bluetooth are built in so – “have hotspot and Netbook can travel”. Netbooks are great for bloggers and travelers because posting to the internet is the Netbook’s best trick.

I see Netbooks as the “second or third” computer for most people. Many people I know – as well as myself use multiple computers for different purposes. The size, the mobility and the low cost of most Netbooks make them a reasonable addition to any household or mobile office. An average price would probably be somewhere between $400 and $500.

The larger the SSD drives become the more interested I get in the Netbooks. I want the ability to load software such as QuickBooks and Microsoft Office on it so the 32GB or larger is my preference. Data can be saved on a USB flash drive.

There are so many Netbooks that I will not even attempt to name them all. Just enter Netbook into Google and you can take your pick. The first Netbook I remember is the Asus Eee 700 (2GB SSD) and the latest one I’ve seen is the Dell Mini9 (16GB SSD).