Matt’s Desk: Editor’s Blog

I’ve written about SSDs several times since I first adopted the technology three years ago, and there’s no doubt that replacing a spinning hard drive with an SSD is the best way to boost overall performance of an existing PC (or Mac).  I’ve owned three SSDs in total, and am about to replace my current model – a 128GB Crucial C300 – with something newer, faster and bigger (in storage capacity). 

As is my custom when upgrading computer components, I’ve spent hours researching various reviews, benchmarks, real-world user observations, and recommendations from trusted online sources to find the best SSD available.  And in this particular hardware treasure hunt, I’ve had the welcome (and rare) experience of finding almost every source of information pointing to a single choice:

The Samsung 840 PRO SSD

Check Prices: Amazon.com | NewEgg | eBay

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I had never given much thought to my home’s thermostat; it was there on the wall, turning on my heat when the house was too cold, or the air conditioner when steamy southern summers made it too hot. I’d adjust it now and then (mostly in the summer), but for the most part it was ignored.  And for good reason: the conventional thermostat is dumb-tech, doing what it’s told and nothing else, and offering nothing in the way of intelligent assistance or control.

But modern technologies – namely online weather information, Wi-Fi, smartphones, and intelligent software – have made it possible for the boring ol’ thermostat to become something else entirely.  Something smarter and better.  And something that can even save you money.

Meet the Nest Learning Thermostat.

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A few weeks ago, SugarSync released new versions of its Windows and Mac apps.  I was happy with the new software, the SugarSync 2.0 Beta; the update streamlined the utility and made it much easier to add and manage synced folders.  It also has a generally improved UI.  But on the Apple side there was one annoyance:

SugarSync, which is preferably always running (so that your files are continuously synced), had an always-present Dock icon in the Mac 2.0 Beta version.  This was annoying because you rarely need to change the settings of the program – what you really need is to have it quietly running in the background to keep things synced with the Cloud and other computers. 

The Dock icon wasn’t present in the 1.x versions of the application unless you were changing settings.

But in the latest version of the SugarSync 2.0 Beta – Build 1.99.9 – while the Dock icon is still turned on by default, there is a way to hide it if it annoys you.

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In a world awash in external USB hard drives, the NAS – or Network Attached Storage – toils in relative obscurity.  And that’s too bad, because for the networked home they can be an invaluable addition, taking a surprising amount of hassle out of everyday computing tasks.

A NAS is basically a hard drive bundled with a low-power computer that sits on your home network (router or switch), allowing you to access files from every computer on the network, along with tablets, smartphones and media players (PS3, Apple TV, Media Center PCs, etc.).  You can use a NAS to centralize music libraries, documents, installation files, backups, video collections, photos, etc., all without a direct connection to your devices.

Several companies offer inexpensive NAS solutions and most are pretty good.  But I’ve long been a fan of Buffalo Technology’s networking products, and their NAS offerings are no exception. The company’s newest home NAS is the LinkStation Live LS-X, available in 1TB, 2TB and 3TB capacities.   The 2GB version, the LS-X2.0TL, retails for $219, but is available from Amazon.com for just $129 with free shipping – that’s cheaper than many external and internal hard drives with the same storage capacity.

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