It’s an ever-increasing mobile world, and with it comes all the tech stuff we need to get things done. Being mobile means your tech will run off a battery or two. However there are certain items when you should care and other times when you don’t have to.

Point-And-Shoot Digital Cameras

Should you care? Yes.

I won’t buy a point-and-shoot digital camera unless it runs off AA batteries. It is the best and cheapest way to keep taking pictures. Yes, it does add bulk to the camera for the battery compartment, but that small inconvenience is more than worth it.

Camcorders

Should you care? Yes.

It’s always smart to purchase a secondary battery for your camcorder. If possible, buy the secondary with the camcorder at the same time.

Automotive GPS

Should you care? No.

Battery life for automotive GPS devices such as from Garmin, TomTom, Magellan or any other have always been terrible, and it doesn’t look like that will change any time soon. With the screen at full brightness (required for daytime driving use) and the speaker volume at 70% or higher, you’ll get at most 2 hours out of the battery no matter who made the GPS. Furthermore it’s always used in the car, so when the battery dies you just plug in the charger and keep on going.

Battery life on GPS matters for units other than for automotive use, such as for trail or maritime. The Garmin Oregon 550t for example runs off 2 AA batteries, and that matters a lot for a GPS of that type given its particular purpose (it does both trail and maritime).

Cell Phone

Should you care? No.

I know no one that carries around a spare cell phone battery with them. All wireless phones today have a relatively decent talk time concerning battery life. And yes, if you talk for three hours straight, of course the battery will die on you. But for shorter calls and texting, the battery should last for days so it’s not a huge consideration.

What’s more important with a wireless phone purchase is the rated talk talk time and standby time. This doesn’t necessarily depend on battery type, because two phones by two different manufacturers that use the same type of battery will have different talk/standby times.

General rule of thumb: The less features a wireless phone has, the longer the battery will last due to the fact the phone doesn’t have to "think" as much. This is why 10-dollar TracFones have unbelievably good standby times, since the phone has only the most basic of features. It’s also the reason older less-featured cell phones with a new battery in them seem to "last forever".

Laptop Computers

Should you care? Depends on type.

With laptops there are basically three flavors: The netbook, standard and the gamer.

With the netbook (9 to 12-inch screen), yes, battery options definitely count because it’s meant to be ultra-mobile. You should stuff a netbook with longest-lasting battery possible.

With the standard (13 to 15-inch screens), yes it counts. You should stuff that one with a 9-cell. Yes it will cost a pretty penny but it’s more than worth it.

With the gamer laptop (17-inch or higher with a powerful graphics card), no. Gamer laptops are well known to have inferior battery life because of the horsepower required to run them. And even if you stuff in the best battery available, you’d be lucky to get more than 2.5 hours of life before it needs a charge.

Something interesting to think about is how long data will last, because as everyone knows, nothing is forever.

Here’s a rundown on how long you can expect the media you use to last.

"Media" defined: Data storage on something physical that you own, be it hard disk, optical, flash or tape. I don’t list floppy diskettes because nobody uses those anymore.

Assumptions:

• You are using the media a minimum once per week and when not in use is disconnected and/or unpowered from the electronic mechanism it uses to write data to and stored (ex: you take the DVD out of the drive, put it in a case and store it).
• You are physically storing your media in a dry place at room temperature (72° F / 22° C).

Hard Disk

A production-use hard disk usually has a life span of 3 to 5 years. Some last longer, but trust me there is a reason why most hard drive manufacturers usually do not have hardware warranties that go beyond 5 years.

A hard disk used for backup purposes lasts longer because it isn’t used as often. You can assume the HDD will last at least 7 years. But bear in mind that is an assumption.

As a short-term backup solution, hard disks are a good choice. As a long-term solution, not so much given their relatively short life span.

For more information, this really old (but still relevant) post from our own PCMech forums will give you tons of useful info concerning the life span of a hard disk drive.

Optical

Optical media that you use is CD, DVD, the now-defunct HD DVD and Blu-ray.

Assuming you have a decent CD/DVD burner drive, the life span of optical media almost exclusively depends on how well the disc was made.

Premium-grade media can easily last 10 years. And no, you won’t find it at Wal-Mart. The best possible writable CD/DVD media you can buy is manufactured by Taiyo Yuden. A Google search will reveal where to get some if so inclined. It is lauded as the best of the best. That’s because it is. And yes, you’ll pay good money for it too.

For the rest of us, there’s name brand and generic optical media. You can expect name brand (Memorex, Verbatim, etc.) to last about 5 years. Some of you out there will get 7 to 10 but I personally wouldn’t put that much faith into this type of media.

Concerning generic, the plastic may separate from the aluminum in less than a year. Not a good choice.

With optical media, yes, you get what you pay for concerning life span. No question.

Tip: It is better to store optical discs in jewel cases instead of books. Natural problems (like pages of discs sticking to each other from sitting there too long) can happen with those fold-out books.

Flash

It has been speculated that flash based media, such as a USB stick, will last 8 to 10 years easily. This is because there are no moving parts, the heat it generates is minimal and the way it connects and disconnects to a computer is nearly impossible to get wrong (and therefore almost impossible to break).

What most people will encounter with a USB stick in the future is expiring the amount of times data can be written to it or erased before age-related failure. Most USB sticks will allow one million write and/or erase cycles before it cannot be used any longer.

If a USB stick is used as backup media where it is only used once a week, it is highly unlikely you will ever tap that limit.

But the limit age-wise for data retention is stated to be 10 years and no longer at present.

Tip: You might want to use a label-maker and mark the stick with a date 9 years from now (this gives you enough buffer of time from date of manufacture). Who knows? You might still have it then. And you’ll know the stick will soon fail when the date marked is reached.

If you’re thinking, "How can I be sure USB will even be around in nine years?" It will be. Even if it is replaced by another technology, you will still be able to access the data on it somehow.

Think of it this way: Right now nobody uses floppy diskettes any longer, yet you can still buy a floppy diskette drive and disks easily. At worst, USB flash drives will end up like that. Woefully obsolete, but still accessible.

Tape

This is probably going to surprise a few of you, but premium grade tape backup can last 50 years. Sound ridiculous? It’s not. This method of backup is usually only used by large enterprise and government IT centers.

Tape is one of those things that is about as old-school as you can get when it comes to data storage. True, the technology has advanced, the cartridges are built better and the media can store much more and is more reliable, but the method of the way it works is still essentially unchanged.

Tape media is still readily available, but for those looking for the "big guns", what you would want is certified 30-year tape media. The one notch after that is the premium 50-year. Yes, it’s overkill for most people (and wickedly expensive), but if you want something that lasts longer than anything else, tape is basically your only option.

For those who think tape backup is dead as a doorknob, I beg to differ. Maybe it’s dead as a consumer option, but in enterprise it’s still widely used. Maybe you’re not enterprise, but you can use it. In fact, tape is still the best bang for the buck long-term storage media there is.

If you think tape may be right for you, here are a few things you should be aware of:

First, tape decks do require cleaning. The way to clean is with a tape head cleaner cartridge. The heads will need to be cleaned periodically to ensure proper data writes.

Second, transfer speeds are defined differently but you can assume they’re going to be on the slower side. No, they are not molasses-slow as tape drives were years ago because we’ve got USB connectivity now, but it is true they’re not lightning quick, nor have they ever been.

Third, tape is very particular to format. There’s DLT, SDLT, 1/2-inch, LTO, 4mm, 8mm and so on. When shopping around for a deck, pay strict attention to format and how easy (or not easy) it is to acquire media for it.

Will there ever be a long-term backup solution better than tape?

The only media I know of that could potentially outlast tape is the internet itself. But obviously the internet is not physical media. In fact it’s not even physical. The storage of the internet is termed as putting data "in the cloud". However there are more than a few out there that would rather have media stored safely in a closet or attic rather than on some distant server run by someone else.

Chances are you’re more comfortable with the "un-clouded" way.

What’s the most convenient solution right now?

Tape may be the longest lasting, but USB sticks are the most convenient.

You can most likely fit every digital photo you’ve ever taken on a 4GB stick. And that’s under $15 to acquire.

You can most likely fit every email you have on a 2GB stick. And those are under $10.

As long as you remember to swap the sticks out once every 8 to 10 years, you’re in good shape.

That is unless you leave one in your pants pocket and run it thru a wash cycle while doing the laundry.

What do you use for backup media?

Do you use CD/DVDs? USB sticks? Tape? The internet itself? A combination?

Let us know by writing a comment.

In larger corporations, PCs (otherwise known as "end user desktops") all have this stickers and/or metal badges with an numerical or alphanumerical sequence on it. This is called the asset tag.

When a corporation decides to get rid of computers as per the end-of-life cycle (anywhere between 3 to 5 years usually when the warranties finally run out), what’s supposed to happen to those tagged computers boxes is one of the following:

They are either sent "whole" or with wiped drives or gutted/stripped to…

1. The computer recycling center.
2. Destruction (literally).

But even in the largest companies this doesn’t always happen. Sometimes a computer box or two will "fall thru the cracks" so to speak. You may know a friend that works in a large company that can get his hands on a computer for you.

Most people would say "Cool! Free computer! Yes, I’ll take it!"

Trust me, you don’t want it for several good reasons:

First, the license of Windows you get on it will be 100% illegal to use and operate because you don’t own the license.

Second, the box is almost guaranteed to be slow and obsolete.

Third, it’s most likely true that any upgrades you add to it (hard drive, more RAM, etc.) won’t do a darn thing to improve the performance at all.

Fourth, it’s most likely true that box has been banged around quite a bit. It’s probably been moved from cubicle to cubicle, office to office, building to building.

Fifth, it’s probably riddled with dust on the inside. In many office environments the box is kept on the floor – right next to a space heater that throws a bunch of dirt, debris and crap right into the power supply and inside the case.

Sixth – and the most important reason – the box you get was most likely on the chopping block to get sent to recycling or destruction. That means the company who had it already deemed it useless to them.

Is this the kind of computer you want?

Absolutely not. You’re just asking for problems if you take one.

Granted, there are some instances where getting a box like this turns out to be a good deal (it was free after all) and may provide a few years of use. But the end result is that you still get an old crappy PC box – and it will always be an old crappy PC box.

Stay away from these.

Yes, I was a cubicle dweller and lived it up (read: down) in the corporate lifestyle for several years. It is the land where the most exciting thing that happens all day is when the server goes down (again).

1. The decorations on someone’s cubicle offends you for no reason at all.

You walk by someone’s cubicle and see all sorts of decor they’ve bought for it. Plants, Garfield figurines and so on. It makes you mad because.. why? You don’t know. But it does.

2. When someone so much as moves your lunch in the “community” refrigerator in the break room, this enrages you.

What? Someone dared move your lunch bag to the lower shelf?! Heresy! You must find this person and destroy them quickly. Maybe it Bob in accounting. Or Marsha in Accounts Receivable. Yeah, it was her… the one who wears perfume that’s too strong and stinks up the whole office. Had to be her. I will move her lunch bag to the bottom shelf even though I can’t prove it was her that moved my lunch bag.

3. You think everyone in the marketing department lives in a place called Happy Fun Land.

In rare instances your cube might be near the marketing department. And every time you go past that place, the people there are laughing and smiling all day long and you can’t figure out why. Don’t worry, nobody else can either.

To note: The IT department always hates the Marketing people because they use Macs when the entire rest of the company uses Windows. Never is there an easy problem to fix whenever Marketing calls. Example: “Hey tech guy, Carla in Sales needs QuickTime on her PC. Well.. yeah I know.. but.. listen, I don’t care if it’s not ‘allowed’ software, my Mac uses QuickTime and she needs it to view my presentation on her Windows sojustgodoitokaythanksbye [click].”

4. You purposely take walking routes that (in)conveniently go around the cubicles of certain people.

The route you take to your cubicle after coming back from the break room looks like you’re playing a game of Radar Rat Race for the Commodore 64 in real life. People give you funny looks whenever you walk thru, but you don’t care because Marsha from Accounts Receivable ticks you off. AVOID AVOID AVOID.. must avoid..

5. The fact your superiors can “get away with anything” bothers you.

A standard conversation statement that happens in every corporation in the world: “How [manager's name] get his/her job I’ll never know. S/he does nothing all day!” The answer is simple as to why they can. The guy or girl who got the job applied for the job, got it, and you didn’t.

6. You lock the file cabinet in your cubicle as if anything matters in there.

To you, pen theft is a class felony, punishable by a kick in the face to whomever does it.

7. When you are forced to park on the far end of the parking lot, this bothers you even though you are completely able to traverse the distance.

You have become so lazy that it bothers you to walk an extra 100 feet to get to the office even though you are completely capable of doing so.

8. When someone is walking slowly in front of you, this bothers you.

You’re making your standard trip to the laser printer to grab a document (probably your résumé you’re going to mail out later) and are forced to wait an extra 30 seconds because another employee is in front of you walking slowly. The only thought that crosses your mind is a wish to able to take down this person rugby style and toss them upside down in a trash can, because.. well.. they’re in your way. And you got other companies to apply to, damn it.

9. You have purposely studied every single way to get around corporate firewalls at home before going into work.

You know ‘em all. Google Translator, proxies, tunnels, “cloaker” sites, etc. Heck, you might have even set up a private tunnel on your PC at home just so you can surf freely without the almighty “WebSense” blocking you at every turn. When you are finally able to bust thru you are overjoyed because you finally can get some entertainment at work.

Is it any wonder why there are so many iPhone users in the office?

Is it also any wonder why all cell phones are “banned” in the office?

10. You hate the I.T. department.

People who work in I.T. are very aware that most people hate them because they can seemingly (and sometimes literally) “do anything” on the corporate internet connection. Yes, they know this. And they also know that if you cop them an attitude you will be placed at the bottom of the stack in their to-do list when you call in with a problem. What’s that? You don’t know your asset tag? And you didn’t call the help desk first to assign a ticket number? Well.. guess you’ll just have to follow the rules then…

For the people that don’t work in I.T., you only call these guys when you absolutely have to, otherwise you want nothing to do with them. If your database app crashes 9 times a day you just deal with it. Better to deal with the app than the “computer guy”, right? It doesn’t matter if the “computer guy” is the nicest person in the world because then you’re going to be forced to go to another cubicle and work on a computer you “don’t know”, right?

I know what you’re thinking. “If the ‘computer guy’ had to do MY job, he’d see how important it is!” Well, he doesn’t. Hate not the computer guy. Hate the company that doesn’t pay you enough for all the work you put in… except for the times you’re busting the firewall to apply for other jobs.