In a few short months it’s going to be 2009, and a ton of stuff has changed in the world of computing over the past almost-ten years. Some of the modern advancements have proven to be a notable improvement while others still produce the same crapola they did nearly ten years ago.

In this installment we’ll be taking a look at portable media.

Portable media

Everyone knows what a hard disk drive is, abbreviated HDD. However this is what’s termed as a “fixed disk”, i.e. one that stays within the computer that is not designed to be moved from place to place.

In the portable media arena there are four types that most people remember:

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There are a few keyboard and mouse shortcuts in Windows Media Player 11 that are handy to know just in case you ever need to use them.

Switching between skinned and non-skinned mode

Non-skinned: CTRL+1

Skinned: CTRL+2

If you have a kid that sometimes "messes with" the media player and it has this weird skin on it (such as the way it looks at the top of this article), CTRL+1 will fix that in short order so it goes back to "full mode", like this:

Getting the menus to show up on the top bar

The keystroke for this is CTRL+M. To hide them, press CTRL+M again.

Going to compact mode

To make Media Player look like this…

…hit the bottom right arrow (the one at the extreme bottom right). Hit it again to bring Media Player back to full mode.

The list pane disappears, how do you bring it back?

If your Media Player looks like this:

You can bring back the list pane on the right by clicking the small down arrow under Now Playing (top left) and clicking Show List Pane.

Like this:

…and then your Media Player will get the list pane back.

Showing the enhancements

If you want your media player to have extra options like this:

…click the down arrow under Now Playing, then Enhancements, then Show Enhancements, like this:

Alternatively you can directly pick what enhancement you want to view from here also (like Color Chooser or Graphic Equalizer).

Removing this panel can be done by clicking the small X at the top right of that pane, or by clicking Now Playing then Enhancements then Show Enhancements again to hide it.

Situation: You’ve carefully backed up some sensitive data to CD or DVD. Afterwards you took the extra step of placing the disc in a standard jewel case instead of a fold-out case. You even took the extra precaution of putting the disc in that case in a room where the ambient temperature is never too cold or too hot.

Less than one year later you open that jewel case to retrieve some data off the disc and see spots and blotches on the data side. The disc is unreadable. You took all the precautions in the world so what happened?

What happened is that the disc became oxidized. The aluminum separated from the plastic which is why you see those spots and blotches.

All the precautions you take will be for naught if you use cheap media because yes, that 50-pack of discs you bought on sale was discounted for a reason: poor manufacturing. And yes, they can oxidize in less than a year.

Well-manufactured discs - assuming they’re stored properly - usually have a shelf life of about 5 years. Premium discs can last as long as 10.

Want quality and reliability? Go for the blue and gold.

How do you know a good disc from a bad one? Its data-side color. The ones with a blue or gold data-side are far superior to those that are silver-colored.

Brand name does count

Best: Taiyo Yuden premium media. Very expensive. Totally worth it.

Good: Verbatim and TDK make above-average discs.

Middle-of-the-road: Memorex, Maxell, Fujifilm

Bad: Sony and any store-branded disc.

The one most people will pay attention to is Sony. Yes, Sony makes crap optical media and always has. This is why it’s always available and always on sale.

Have you ever received a disc from a friend and it won’t read in your CD/DVD drive? It was probably on Sony media.

PCMech readers and PCMech Live viewers have heard me wax on about how SSD is going to be the next big thing with computers. Why? One reason: Speed. And lots of it. Solid State Drives are where computers are going. If you wanted any indicator as to when to upgrade, SSD is it - no question.

And Samsung appears to be the company that’s going to bring it to us - this year.

How fast is fast? How about 160MB per second write-speed fast? It leaves rotating hard disks in the dust to say the least.

Personally speaking I’m pleased as punch this is happening now (as in this year) because it’s bringing us closer to the way computers used to be.

If you examine very old-school computers like the Commodore 64, TRS-80 and the like, their boot-up time is instantaneous. SSD brings us much closer to the simplicity that is: You turn it on and go. No waiting. And that’s just plain frickin’ cool all around.

One can only hope that the same will occur for optical drives as well (as in solid state media replacing rotating media.) We’ve thankfully been able to more or less get rid of the floppy drive, but the ancient optical tech is still around. The only reason we still use them is because flash-based media doesn’t have a low enough price point just yet compared to optical discs.

It is not uncommon to find a 50-pack of blank CD-ROMs for 10 US dollars. That’s 20¢ per each disc that can hold 700MB. Flash-based media isn’t that cheap just yet but it’s getting there.

It would be interesting if the computer industry made floppy-shaped flash-based media. The media would look just like a floppy diskette but would be a flash-based card that could hold a few GB’s of data at bare minimum. Media of this type would keep a familiar feel while providing modern portable storage.

Think it’s a crazy idea? Remember, the CD-ROM optical disc is a rounded version of the 5.25″ floppy diskette concerning it’s size. That’s why it fits perfectly in a 5.25″ sleeve.

[Source: Electronista]

The only thing you need to pay attention to as far as memory cards for digital cameras are concerned is whether it will physically fit in your camera or not.

There is absolutely no significant advantage from one card format to the next. All that matters is that it can physically be connected to the camera you have.

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