I am presently spending a lot of my time commuting, and the way I help pass the time, whether I am driving or as a passenger is to listen to either music or the podcasts to which I subscribe . I find that what really makes a big difference to the whole listening experience is having a good set of earphones. At one time I didn’t consider that this was a real necessity until at one point when I was using my standard issue earphones, I found that they where getting really uncomfortable after a few hours. So I looked around for a more comfortable pair and ended up being blown away by the improved sound performance.

Another thing that I have discovered is that when you travel as much as me, you end up spending a lot of time trying to get to sleep on airplanes. I have never been good at this, but the biggest challenge I find for this is blocking out the background white noise. I have discovered that a good comfortable pair of noise cancellation earphones is ideal for this, either with the volume turned right down or a low level of background music.

Of course everyones ears are a different shape and the sound quality will vary, with the best quality usually costing a lot more. So my advice is to look around for the best sound performance in your price bracket and the try some out for comfort. A pair that I can recommend are the Shure SE210 Black Sound Isolating Earphones, shown left, which have good performance and are reasonably priced. If you have a no limit budget then for sound quality I think you will find it very hard to beat the Shure SE530 Sound Isolating Earphones, shown above.

How do you manage to get to sleep on planes? I would be interested to hear.

Yesterday we had a look at small footed computers or perhaps that is computers with small feet! Answers on a postcard…. Anyway we talked about the need for a LCD screen to ensure the smallest footprint possible, especially if you are presently stuck with an old monster of a CRT monitor as swapping to an LCD monitor in this case would free up half of your desk.

Some of the things to look out for when buying LCD monitors are the response time which measures how fast the image is redrawn on the screen measured in milliseconds. The faster the better, as this stops the ghosting of fast moving images, which is important especially for gamers. The contrast ratio which is defined as the difference between the black and white colours, in this case the larger the ratio, the better. Resolution is also import. You need to make sure the monitor has a native resolution that matches your video card, as the monitor will display a better image at its native resolution.

So armed with this information you can start looking for something capable in your price range. A nice example that you might want to consider if you are looking is the LG Electronics L226WTQ 22″ Widescreen LCD Monitor which has a great response time and is well rated.

At present I am working in the Middle East and out here the houses usually have large rooms, and so I am lucky enough to have a home office that is really quite spacious. However back in the UK my home is significantly smaller, with associated smaller room sizes. My house is quite old, but in newer houses the rooms are often even smaller and often don’t have storage built in. This means that the space that you might have in which to set up a desk or home office is often not exactly palatial. When I was based in the UK my home office was actually in the “box room” and once you had the desk in there, with a chair, a few shelves and a filing cabinet there really wasn’t much room for much else.

At this point you really don’t want to have to add in a large desktop computer and monitor. A few years ago I had a large desktop computer under the desk, which was awkward and got in the way of my feet, and a huge (it seems today) 19” CRT monitor that really took up all the desk real estate.

What I really needed was a computing system with a much smaller footprint. This basically has two aspects the computer itself and the monitor. For the computer, one way of achieving a lower footprint is to buy a laptop, which is probably becoming the more common method these days and one which allows you to take your computer with you. This is the approach I use. I have a docking station at the office and at home. Another is to get a small footprint computer such as the Acer Aspire L100 Small Form Factor Desktop or even something like the Apple Mini. The first of which will also provide you with a relatively easy upgrade capability. These will have minimal impact on the desktop and real estate and may even be able to sit on the shelf. If you still have a CRT monitor then the move to an LCD screen such as the really is a no brainer, giving you back your desk, as even quite large screens will have a very low footprint.

An alternative to the above choices is to go for some of the really attractive looking “all in one” computers such as the Apple iMac or the Sony Vaio VGC-LM1M. One thing for sure is that a lack of space these days should not mean you have to compromise on your computer.

Do you still have a PDA? I do, but mine now sits unused and unwanted in a drawer in my office. In fact I have had a number of PDA’s over the years, and for most of that time I found them very useful. So why is my old PDA now languishing in its drawer? Well nowadays I find a combination of my laptop, my mobile phone and an old fashion pen and paper notebook is the best solution for me! I think that once I stopped using a desktop computer, my PDA stopped being as useful.

I think the PDA has probably seen its heyday, and now there are a number of factors combining or converging to bring a final end to an era. There are a lot of new competitors in the portable gadgets field right now, all of which are trying to entice the very same buyers. Perhaps the most formidable competition to the PDA is the “smartphone”, such as the Palm Treo 750, but there is also significant pressure from small laptops such as the ever popular Asus Eee, and other up and coming ultra portables, and then there are even other devices, like portable media players, especially those ones that feature networking capabilities like the iPod Touch.

There is still a reasonably healthy market for PDA’s though and if you are one of those that still sees the value and are in the market, then the Palm TX would be a great choice.

What do you think? Will the PDA follow the path of the Dodo?

I have mentioned before that I can be a bit of a closet gamer on the side, and I have even in the distant pass tried to code some basic games. Nowadays I would never have the time to sit and play games, much less sit and spend the time trying to code something.

But I have to admit that I have always had an secret ambition to create my own “empire“ type of game in Python or some other “simple” coding language. If you don’t know what game I am talking about try searching for “classic empire” on Wikipedia or Google. Empire a game I used to play for hours while working night shifts a very long time ago! Actually programming games is really quite hard and you need to be reasonable fluent in a computer language to really get going. This is something that has proved a barrier for myself and my kids.

Things are changing slightly with initiatives like Metaplace which will eventually allow for the easier building of online worlds and games. I the present the ability to create and share homemade games is being easier for Xbox 360 and Windows users with Microsoft announcing the release of a community oriented service based on a set of tools called XNA, which gives amateur game coders a framework through which it is easier to build games. The new community based service will allow people to proudly share their efforts online.

Of course if you really want to take advantage of this new initiative you will really need to get hold of a Xbox 360 if you haven’t already got one. Perhaps it is time to create an XNA version of empire!

Some of the big news this week has been that the battle for the next generation DVD format has been won by Sony’s Blu-Ray format, with Toshiba announcing that they would stop future product of their rival HD DVD format.

This is of course is an echo of the old VHS versus Betamax video cassette format war that Sony as makers of the Betamax lost. This time Sony have come out as winners on the back of decisions by a number of film studios to focus solely on the Blu-Ray format, and of course through the viral effect of all those Playstation 3’s already sitting in the front room of many houses. I think Toshiba could see through their sales figures the writing was on the wall and have decided to cut their loses and focus on other things.

This is a good result for us the consumer, as it ends the confusion of have two competing technologies, which is going to boost the uptake of the new technology, as many people were holding of buying. This allows those of us who have been waiting for things to be clarified, can now buy something like the highly rated Sony BDP-S300B Blu-Ray/DVD Player, without worrying we are buying a dead format. Expect more laptops to start featuring the new format also.

Whenever you have to travel with your laptop, whether it is the regular morning commute to work or a long haul trip to the other side of the world, what you need is a good bag. Bags of course come in all shapes, styles and sizes and which one you choose is very much a personal thing.

I was recently in the market for a new bag of my own, and decided to have a good look around at what was available before deciding what to buy. Previously my choices have always been constrained by time and location, usually by having to buy quickly for an upcoming trip and only having a limited choice. What I found that there is now a huge variety of bags available to suite all tastes and pockets, and in practical terms they are now very well designed and thought out.

I thought we would take a look at a couple of different bags available, starting with the highly rated Targus Xl Metro Messenger Notebook Case which has a nice relaxed looking style, is a nice size with plenty of compartments. For longer trips something like the Kensington Contour Roller Carrying Case may be useful for those long walks through airport terminals.

I actually went for a backpack myself! What would you choose?

It is seems that we are always hearing about someone important, usually in government, losing their laptop. Often that laptop had potentially been holding sensitive data about the government’s citizens or data important to the defence and security of the nation in question. We have discussed this briefly in a number of posts recently. However if people are losing the odd laptop, just think about the numbers of mobile phones, USB drives and media players like that shiny new iPod, that must also be going missing.

These gadgets are far easier to lose, and I bet it is happening in fairly significant numbers. The problem is that with the general convergence of functionality of all these devices, they all are likely to contain data, some of which may be sensitive.

So what is to be done? Well one reasonably obvious approach is to use encryption, so if you do happen lose your device, the data is still protected. If done right, some level of encryption automation can be built into your process for working with data and your gadgets. Essentially there are two approaches to this, the first through software and the second through the hardware itself. The first approach is by far the more flexible approach though generally will mean extra steps to ensure the data you are storing on your portable devices is actually protected. The second is where storage device itself has encryption built in. An example of something like this would be the Amacom Encryp2disk pictured above. This second approach limits your choice but does avoid creating extra hoops to jump through to encrypt your data.

How do you secure your data on your portable devices? If you don’t perhaps it time start thinking about it!

These days I will quite often work from home. This is not a set thing, one week I will work from home a couple of days, and then may not do so for a number of weeks. I often choose to work from home when I have something very specific that I want or need to achieve. I find working from home allows me to avoid email and constant interruptions.

But the point is I can do so simply and easily because of the availability of cheap effective functional modern computers and laptops, such as the Asus V1S Notebook or any its cousins, “always on” broadband Internet access, and the continuing leap forwards in supporting communication and collaboration hardware and software. This has meant that there is no longer an absolute need to be physically in the office every day of the week. Lots of companies now have formal home work policies and many people are starting to take advantage of them. Also for a lot of “knowledge workers” and entrepreneurs it is the only way they work.

But while computing and other related technologies enable working from home, there are a number of challenges that do need to be managed, and I would briefly characterize those as

• Providing a good office environment
• Brainstorming is a challenge
• You never get away from your work
• Lack of communication and stimulating integration

The first of these, in my experience is the critical thing to resolve, you need to find a suitable room or space which minimizes the normal distractions of the home. The others can normally be resolved either by trips to the office or meeting up with peers in some other way.

Do you have any experience of working from home? Do have any advice on technology or approaches?

I came across a number of interesting items of news regarding laptops today while procrastinating on writing an article for work and I thought I would share some of the news with you!

Olympic Laptops

Lenovo the company that I have discussed recently has opened an auction on eBay for a series of special laptops bearing the “Cloud of Promise” theme to commemorate this year’s Bejing Olympics. In the UK the auction has started with a limited-edition Lenovo 3000 V2000, which is one of the new ultra portable editions of Lenovo’s popular consumer notebook. This one is autographed by UK Olympic medalist and badminton star Gail Emms. The proceeds of the auction go to the Lenovo Hope Fund charity, so if you’re interested get bidding.

One Laptop per Child

Other news was regarding the very interesting and in my view very important “One laptop per Child” project. Firstly the announcement that despite the negative position to the project taken by the governments of India and Nigeria, extremely successful pilot projects are now under way in both of these countries. These projects will hopefully show these countries the benefits of getting involved. Interestingly a lot of the testing of the wireless mesh capabilities of the laptop was done on an Australian farm in the outback by a volunteer farmer. His farm was considered ideal as it provided similar conditions to third world countries.

Lost Laptops

The Irish government has recently admitted that around 80 unencrypted laptops, USB drives and blackberries have either been lost or stolen in the last five years. So the UK government is not alone in this ability to lose potentially personal data on behalf of its citizens. This suggests to all of us that we need to think about encryption for our own laptops, and perhaps especially for USB drives which are so easily lost.

Featured Laptop

In the meantime after all that news why don’t you have a look at PriceGrabber’s featured laptop the Acer Aspire 5920 Notebook, just don’t lose it!