Category: hard drive

Reviewing the Seagate 500 Gb FreeAgent Go Ultra-Portable HD (ST905003FGA2E1-RK): Special Star Trek Edition

Paul


I recently got to test out a new Seagate FreeAgent Go Ultra-Portable Hard Drive with movies pre-loaded onto it.    I wanted to talk about it and let everyone who might be interested to find out more about it.

Product Features

  • 5,400 RPM Spin Speed, 8 MB Cache Buffer

  • USB 2.0: up to 480 Mb/s

  • Sync and back up quickly at your desktop without having to search for cables.

  • Guard the privacy of important files and folders.

  • Get your storage solution up and running quickly.

System Requirements:

To create and activate a Paramount account for your FreeAgent Theater+ media player you will need a
system with:

  • Microsoft Internet Explorer

  • Microsoft Windows XP operating system (any version, including MCE) with Service Pack 2

  • installed, Windows Vista or Windows 7

  • 1.5 GHz CPU or faster (minimum of 600 MHz)

  • 512MB or more memory (minimum of 10GB)

  • At least 20GB or more, free hard disk space on your computer and drive

  • Windows Media Player 10+

For the best viewing experience of the films on your computer we recommend you have a screen
resolution of 1024 x 768 (minimum of 800 x 600) and speakers or other audio output. Internet access is
also required.

A choice of up to 20 popular Paramount titles can be unlocked for a fee including:

  • Star Trek (2009) (Free when you buy the Special Edition Hard Drive)

  • The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

  • GI Joe

  • Shooter

  • The Hunt for Red October

  • The Italian Job (2003)

  • Ghost

  • Patriot Games

  • Beowulf

  • Enemy at the Gates

  • The Spiderwick Chronicles

  • The Love Guru

  • Coach Carter

  • The Manchurian Candidate (2004)

  • Nacho Libre

  • Jackass 2.5

  • A Plumm Summer

  • Carriers

  • Dance Flick

  • Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius

  • Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

I had a chance to test out this hard drive and I wanted to tell you about my experiences with the software and with the Star Trek (2009) movie.   I must say after playing the movie, I was impressed with the High Definition.   My computer can support High Definition and I was quite shocked that it wasn’t Standard Definition.   While playing the movie, you will notice the Hard Drive will get warm but it isn’t a problem.

In order to view these movies on your laptop or computer your will need to acquire the license from the Paramount store to make the movie you choice available to be watched from your computer or if you have the Seagate FreeAgent Theater+1080P HD Media Player STCEA201-RK. This is good for those who might want to view this on your High Definition Television sets. It is just as cheap as the Roku. After your get the rights to watch the movie on that computer, you no longer need to have Internet Access to watch it. Great for when you are traveling and can’t get internet access. You only can give three systems the rights to view that particular movie that you bought through the Paramount store, but the prices are comparable to those you get fromAmazon Video on demand. The only drawback is that you will need to use Internet Explorer 8 or Higher to buy or acquire a license from the store. You have to make Internet Explorer your default bro
wser when you want to buy a new license for a movie off the hard drive.

I never heard a sound out of the hard drive while it was running. I could tell they made sure to keep it quite when they made the hard drive. The other nice thing about the FreeAgent Hard drive is that you only need to have one USB port to use this, and no power cords are required either. I must say that is also nice to have when you are on the go, no need to find an extra power outlet.

Seagate FreeAgent Ultra Portable
Amazon: $99.99 (Silver / Black)
Mwave: Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex 500GB 2.5 Ultra-Portable Hard Drive STAA500100 USB Black
Mwave: STAA500102 USB Blue
Freeagent Go Special Edition(movie)
Seagate: FreeAgent Go Pre-loaded with Star Trek on it(No longer Available).
Amazon: No links available
NewEgg: No links available
Seagate Docking Station
Amazon: $16.99

If your backing up a lot of GB’s of data, the drive does get warm but that is also normal. It was never hot enough to burn me or hurt anything. I find the small size to be quite nice to have when traveling and going places with it. Not bulky or overweight, only about 1/2 pound of weight when you pick it up. The only drawback that I can see is the way they use the lights to show you when the hard drive is being used, a few small holes will dim and light up and unless you are really watching those lights you won’t know!

The Programs that come with this are quite powerful. Great Backup tools and Syncing tools for keeping your important data backed up. There is even a Carbonite trial on the Hard drive to encourage your to keep your data backed up off site. I do recommend people trying Carbonite because you never know what will happen to your home or your computer.

Would I recommend this to My Science Fiction Friends?

I most certainly would recommend this to any one who might need to have a way to backup their files and also have a way to have portable movies on the go. I can say that this idea of having media on a portable device like this is a great way to watch movies offline.

I’ve also asked them some questions that I am waiting for a response but when I do find out, I will update this post for those who might have the same questions. I will also update the links so you can buy these hard drives online!

Offline Update 5.0, Clone of Autopatcher to Some!!

Paul

Offline updater 5.0 has been released a couple months ago and I just realized it now.  This is an excellent tool for IT professionals who want to keep all your Systems up-to-date with the last patches from Microsoft.  The systems it supports are Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 x64, And Windows Vista / Server 2008.(32 bit and 64 Bit updates).

ct-offline-update50

[ad#ad2-right]I find this a very useful program for people who have a multitude of problems, from not being able to get on the net to computer virus infections.  This is really good for big businesses that want to update a lot of systems in easy way without having to wait for downloads of updates to install.   You can take a DVD and update on the fly within Mins.   DVD being Cheap or buying them in bulk helps saves time and money for the company.   Less time spent downloading the updates and more time actually getting work done.  As with the Conflicker, Downadup, and to some the Conflickr Trojan, if you got infected with that little worm.  This would help install the updates that it prevented you from doing in the first place.  I also found that once you download do the update the files are kept on the hard drive so you no longer have to redownload them again.  You just update the updates every second Tuesday of the month and it downloads the newest patches and creates a whole new ISO for you to burn.

Q: How can I create the offline update CD images automate, for example via a “scheduled job”?
A: Create a new batch file in the “cmd”, eg “DownloadUpdatesAndCreateISOImage.cmd”. Add the desired calls of

“DownloadUpdates.cmd” and “CreateISOImage.cmd” with the necessary parameters in this new file. The file might for

example have the following contents:

@ echo off
call WXP download updates eng
call CreateISOImage WXP eng

Then set a “time-controlled contract” for the new script “DownloadUpdatesAndCreateISOImage.cmd” to your desired

time. For example, after each Microsoft Patchday create new images, select every second Wednesday of the month.

[Via The FAQ’s Documentation (Translated Via Google)]

As you can see you can have it do a script and be ready for you in the morning.  You then just take it out of the drive and install where you need to install the day after the updates are issued. On another Note if you have clients who use Windows office Xp, 2000, 2003, 2007 then this will also help:

ct-offline-update50-1

This is nice if you have clients who use the Microsoft Office Suites also.  Some Malware will often try to infect people’s systems through a office script or some other vector.   So this will also prevent infections or hackers from getting onto the system by updating this also.  You can have this added to each and every DVD ISO you make to include these as you update the patches also.

Download:

Pctv HD Mini Stick and My thoughts!

Paul

Pctv HD Mini Stick

  • Includes mini-remote control and high-gain telescopic antenna

  • Compact size HDTV tuner for easy travel and storage

  • Instantly turn your PC into a personal digital video recorder

  • Record your favorite shows to your hard drive or direct-to-DVD

  • TV Standards – ATSC (HDTV up to 1080i, SDTV) and ClearQAM (HDTV up to 1080i, SDTV) Inputs

Price: Click Link to See the Price

Just saw this and couldn’t resist talking about it.  This would be great on the road.  If you use this on a laptop, then you would have some really good channels as you travel on the road.  No more having to watch movies on your laptop.   You can now see the current events as you travel around the US.  With the Digital change over Coming Feburary 17, 2009.  You’ll want to have a way to watch TV, this would be one way.  Right now Amazon is offering it for 112.22 but that could change so check the link out to find out how much it is.

Disaster preparation 101 — Data backup

Paul

In this one I will talk about Disaster, it happens to all of us from time to time. A fire, a earthquake, a stolen laptop or any number of ways. So what happens to your data, is it stored on the laptop? Is it important very sensitive data? Could you get fired if you lost that data?

[ad#ad2-right]These are all questions you must ask yourself when you have laptop. How do you backup your data or even do you have a backup? Having seen this with my own clients, I must wonder if there are people out there who just don’t care. I had a client the other day who gotten a virus and this was a really mean virus. Deleted some very important files when you tried to clean the virus out. She called me in a panic because she couldn’t load up windows? I asked if she had any backups, she said “what’s a backup” . So I sat there discussing this with the client for over 20 minutes. Finally she started to understand, she said she had the OEM Backup DVD but nothing else. She also said she needed help with getting data off the computer. I told her that I would be able to come the next day and I was lucky the virus didn’t do anything else to her data. We were able to retrieve the data from her system. That is where I start my rant , Why would anyone not have backup of there most important data?

So How do you backup your data? This is controversial and somewhat depends on how much people want to spend to keep there data safe and not loose pictures or music. There are several ways to do it, each way has it’s pitfalls or short comings and requires a little more effort:

Kinds of Backup

Hard Medium – DVD, CD, External Hard drive

Although,  The hard medium is usually used that doesn’t mean you can have a backup other than hard.   Here are some ways to back up on the internet.

Internet Medium:

  • Jungle Disk — Provides online storage through the Amazon s3 service.   Only pay for what you use.   It works well with most Operating system.  I’ve used it on Vista so it is really nice.

  • Carbonite Online backup –Another good Online storage.

  • Some Other Online backup — Here a list from Amazon to better help you find the type of software that you might need.

These are just a few options, if you want to look for other you can.  The important thing to do is BACKUP because if you need some data that gets wiped or destroyed.  You will be kicking yourself for not backing up.

Signs of a Computer Infection!

Paul

So I was thinking this morning what I missed and I totally missed on how you might be able to tell if you have a computer virus. It does me no good to talk about a virus if you don’t know you’re infected. I was thinking of the times I had a client who had trouble but wasn’t what I thought.

So How do you know?

Some people would say it depends on factors but here are what I call clues that make me suspect a virus:[ad#ad2-right]

  1. Slow or Sluggish computers —  Here is what I know if the computer is really slowing down and have a dual core or quad core.  If you are running a system and sees a lot of hard drive activity even when the computer is idle then it might be a virus or it could be a program doing what it is supposed to be doing.  So this is somewhat of an indication but not always.

  2. Slow internet connection on the computer or on the network — Due to the fact that most people have a router that is connected to all the computers and if you internet connection on all your systems are slower than normal then you could have a virus.  I use Speed Test website to help determine this.

  3. Corrupt files or Missing files —  Sometimes you have a text documents or files that are missing and you have to pay to get them back.   It’s an old scheme and usually once your files have been encrypted you can’t get them unencrypted.  So this is why I added this one also because it varies from virus to virus.

  4. Programs don’t work like they used to —  This is also a very common association with a virus because virus makers don’t have time to test it out on a variety.   Most of the time if you get a call that a program is no longer working tat would be the first thing I’d look at, if not check to see what other programs have been installed lately.

  5. In some cases more files are the Hard drive —  This can be a indication of a virus because the virus might be using the system to host files or other such illegal activity.   Although this is happening less and less it can still be a possibility and should be checked out.   I like to use a graphical tree size program to determine if that is the truth.

  6. Pop ups or Browser redirects — this is a common thing along the way.  It’s always the same and saying something like “you have a virus” or “You unprotected and you might have a virus”.  The theme here is to scare the user into buying there product that does not do anything.   It sometimes even looks like a real anti-virus program or spyware program but in truth it is just a scam.  In some cases it will send you to a site because it keeps wanting you to buy the product.

  7. DNS Changes on you — Some hackers like to have you go through there server so they can watch everything you do online.  They are wanting to get the sensitive information of bank account, and other important accounts.  This is really the ones that need to get off your system asap.

[ad#ad2-left]These are the signs I’ve seen in the past that would indicate a virus but as with any problem.  You will need to check for all the possibilities.   It is always going to be an issue with people because most people don’t know about the signs, now you do and you can now be a better computer user.  It is you who can only fight viruses by knowing all the possible system and only you can defeat a virus.  In the next article I will talk about the tools to help you find and defeat a virus.   This will be a big blog post because I have so much to teach and explain.   If you like these post by all means leave a comment and help spread the word.