Can One Really Carry A PC In A Pocket?

[hausdok]

Here's a question for you; what's 0.7"tall x 4.8"wide x 3.9" deep, weighs 6.4 oz, can be carried in your inside coat pocket, and can enable you to carry your desktop PC anywhere you want to go anywhere in the world without the need to lug around a laptop?

Give up? The answer is Seagate's new FreeAgentâ„¢ Go. Being able to have your own PC with you on-site, at school, at a business center, an Internet cafe, a library, or in a hotel, can be very advantageous. Seagate's new FreeAgentâ„¢ Go software lets you have your desktop environment and latest files with you without having to haul around your computer. Anywhere there is a PC, you'll be able to turn that PC into a clone of your own with up to 160 Gb of storage capacity.

What's that you say? The device is too big and heavy? Well, then get the FreeAgentâ„¢ Go Small. This little gem is 2.3â€

[chicago]

Mike I do not see a price on the site,though I did not try looking to hard.

My question is with all the free online storage sites available,why consider paying for this?

I ask because my laptop is a couple of years old now.

P.S I will hate being forced to give up my XP

[stubrooks]

This product appears to be an USB storage device not a computer. $150 for 160 GB and builtin software to copy and synchronize your regular computer desktop and folders/files you want to update. Plug into a "borrowed" computer and it looks like yours.

[ozofprev]

Don't worry about giving up XP, Chicago - that's about all it supports at this time (They're working on Vista). If all the PC's you visit are operating XP, then you're set.

Have you read much Dilbert? It's a comic strip (Gilbert Funnies) that has lasted many years because it nails the reality of the corporate cubicle life. Part of that life includes a long history of distrust between engineering and marketing. I guarantee the engineers at Seagate are laughing at marketing's "Glorious gigabytes" line.

In this case, "PC" means Windows XP/2000.

Brian G touched on the limiting use of the term, "PC" on another thread. It's not supposed to be a limiting term, but "good" marketing frowns on exposing limitations.

[chicago]

Gary I went back installing internet and telephone for the cable company a couple of days a week since the last post.(Dead August but getting busy now) and I am suprised by the number of Apple PC's I am seeing.

Vista may be the great undoing of Microsoft.

[n/a30]

The answer to the original question is yes. I have been using a Compaq IPAQ pocket PC for at least six years. There has never been a problem with it.

I also have no major problem with MS Vista on a laptop. There is a small learning curve involved.

[ozofprev]

IMO:

Upgrading an XP computer to Vista --> Bad Idea!

Running a clean install of Vista on a new machine --> Excellent!

I was afraid of driver issues (esp. with 64-bit) and slow performance and bugs and blah, blah, blah. Vista Ultimate (on the machine I built) is stable, pretty and fast.

[hausdok]

Well, Gary,

This compugeek stuff can be pretty overwhelming for those of us whose brains refuse to absorb it easily. I thought that by posting these articles I could de-mystify computers a little bit.

When I initially read about the gizmo in the initial post, I thought it was pretty incredible. Turns out, it's not that hi tech. I have several computers here because when one breaks down I don't have time to wait for it to get fixed, so I go out and buy another. I mean, hell, the danged things are cheap nowadays. For what it'll cost me to get one repaired, I can replace it with one that's faster and has more storage capacity. So, the old ones end up taking up closet space.

However, that leaves me with a problem - how to get all of that data if the old computer won't boot up? I had a 30 GB tape backup drive, but that was a royal pain in the rump to use and required me to know hot to disconnect it, reconnect it, install the program for it, set up a schedule, etc. - all more than I'm capable of doing without giving myself a major migraine and seriously stressing myself out. So, for months and months and months those boxes just sat there with data in them.

One day, I got brave and pulled one of the hard drives, plugged it into my new computer, and booted it up. I figured, it's plug-and-play, it should see the drive right away and everything will be fine. Well, it locked up my new computer and it wouldn't boot after that. Cost me a trip down to Fry's and $125 to get it 'un-frozen' which took the guy about 10 seconds to accomplish. The kid handed me back my computer and the old drive and had a look on his face that said, "Jeez, Man, you're a friggin dinosaur!" I just skulked away feeling pretty inadequate. I put the drive back in the old box and they sat there for many months. That's why the gizmo that I started this thread about seemed so cool to me.

Well, turns out that it's really nothing to turn heads. Last week I told one of my clients, an ex-Microsoft guy about those boxes and he just chuckled. "Pull both of your drives, bring 'em to me, and I'll fix you up for future work credit," he said. So, I hauled those two drives down to his place and dropped them off. The next day, I got a call, "Come and get them." I went down there, he hands me back my two drives, one a 35Gb and the other a 30 Gb - more combined capacity than I'd ever be able to use in 10 years - and then hands me a black plastic box barely larger than a hard drive with a power cord and USB cord attached and a little stand. "There you go," he said, "Just plug that USB cord into your computer and it will read this drive. There are two files on it - Mike XP and MikeWin98, so you'll know which computer they came from." I looked at the device, "Why, it's just a little plastic box with a hard drive plugged into it," I said. "Well, yeah sort of," he said, "It's basically an adapter that turns your regular hard drive into a USB device. You plug it into a receptacle, turn this little toggle on, plug in the USB cable, and you read it like you'd read anything else."

"You mean this little box accepts any hard drive and I could have gotten one of these at any compugeek place?" I asked. "Yeah, that's about it; I've tossed one of my old hard drives in there and have copied the data off of these two drives onto it for you. I don't need it, it's 80Gb and way too small for my needs. Have a good one," he said. I got home, plugged it in, turned it on, and it popped up immediately. Now I've essentially got three computers, the current one, and the two previous ones all sitting there, except those previous ones are contained in a little black plastic box about 5" x 8" by 1-1/4" sitting on top of my computer.

The solution was so darned simple, but, being as afraid of computers as I am of rats and math, I'd convinced myself that it was really, really complicated.

Well, anyway, when this computer eventually goes to computer heaven, I have a device handy to just pull the hard drive, plug it into another computer and I'll have my old computer there right alongside my new one. Now waddueyedowiththeoldhardrives?

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

[ozofprev]

Mike,

Yours is not an unusual experience. Did you notice what a difference people id="maroon">made? The entire experience is dark and dull with someone like the guy at Fry's. But when you bump into someone with skills and a friendly attitude, everything is bright and sharp again. Yeah, they're computers but people make the experience.

I'm glad you found some good guys. (A lot like home inspection in that sense, isn't it?)