Hewie's Views and Reviews
By Hewie Poplock

Welcome to this issue of Hewie's Views & Reviews. Be sure to visit Hewie's Favorites at http://www.hewie.net/ .

++++ Maybe Not So Useless
++++ Hello Terabytes
++++ New additions to Hewie's Favorites

++++ Maybe Not So Useless

While I was in one of the office supply stores c heck out lines, I noticed a package of CD & DVD foam hub inserts with adhesive backing. I thought that this is certainly a useless item. Within a week I saw an article in one of the computer magazines about this very item.

I began to realize that it's not such a ridiculous item after all. In fact, I am going to buy a package next time I am in the store. As I remember, there were 10 or 15 in a package for about 5 bucks.

I have hundreds of CD and DVD disks that I have created or used for backup over the years. Sometimes they go with a book or some documentation. Often the disk and the docs get separated, especially if I had to print out the docs. I can stick one of these foam hubs on a page and place the CD on it.

Sometimes I have a program disk in a plastic case and need to add a data or backup disk. With a foam hub, this can easily be done.

++++ Hello Terabytes

I just bought a couple of external back-up drives. Have you noticed the prices of these lately? The first one I bought was $139 after rebates and is 500 Gigabytes. It is an external 7200 RPM SATA drive with USB connections, and came with an interface card which can be installed in a PC. The second one was the same size and $20 cheaper. Last week that the same size externals were under $100 delivered after rebate.

Notice that I just bought two 500 Gigabyte drives. That's 1,000 Gigabytes or 1 Terabyte. One and two Terabyte drives are now available. Soon we will head to the next level. Do you know what we will call 1,000 Terabytes? Get familiar with Petabytes. It won't be long before that is part of our everyday discussions.

By the way, next in order are Exabytes, Zettabytes, and Yottabytes. The Library of Congress has over 70 Terabytes of data. File sharing service Rapidshare already has over 1,000 Terabytes (1 Petabyte) of storage space. Ancestry.com claims to have over 600 Terabytes of genealogical data.

With more of us getting into video recording and video cameras, we will easily chew up these large drives. High Definition recording takes up a lot more space than our current video recording. New DVD drives are coming that hold a lot more data.

The current 700 MB CD disks are getting as useless as the floppy disks of just a couple of years ago. Even the present 4.5 Gigabyte DVD disks are too small. Just a year ago, I was backing up my hard drives to DVD's. Now it takes close to 40 DVD blanks just to back up my main computer. That's why I bought the two 500 GB drives. Now I can have at least 2 backups of my drives.

That is enough data for this month. Take a look at the new additions in your spare time.


++++ New additions to Hewie's Favorites

ContentSeed
http://contentseed.com/
Easy to use Content Management System (CMS)

InstantFX
http://www.instantfx.net/
Edit SWF, Flash Buttons, Edit Flash Cache, Javascript Tools for Expression FrontPage Web Development and FrontPage

Google Guide
http://www.googleguide.com/
Interactive online Google tutorial and references

SeatGuru
http://seatguru.com/
Information on airline seats and in-flight amenities featuring the best seat, legroom, and recline information

Free Legal Advice
http://www.freeadvice.com/
Law site for consumers, with easy to understand answers to legal questions from expert lawyers, legal forms, links to prepaid plans, trial courts, state and federal laws

BeenFunkd
http://beenfunkd.com/sectors/start/
Enter complaints about companies and individuals who are ripping people off. Report everything from Auto Dealers, Retail Stores, to Corrupt City, Police, any type of Retail store, service or product

Become a Photoshop Expert
http://www.dwblog.net/?p=312
Goldmine for Photoshop users

Cooks.com
http://www.cooks.com/
Recipe Search and more

VoIP Providers
http://www.voipreview.org/
Find - Compare - Review VoIP (Voice over Internet) Phone Providers

Guild of Accessible Web Designers
http://www.gawds.org/show.php?contentid=253
Course to introduce you to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Priority 1 and Priority 2 checkpoints

Free Conference Calling
http://freeconferencing.liveoffice.com/
Free Conference Calling - Use free conference calls from LiveOffice Free Conferencing. Reliable conference call services for everyday meetings

Who called us
http://whocalled.us/
Phone is ringing, and I don't recognize the number, All Caller ID says is, "NAME UNAVAILABLE". Please help me figure out who is calling and what they want

Weird American Laws
http://www.azzit.de/humor/30.html
Weird American Laws and other good humor if you look around the site

Media College
http://www.mediacollege.com/
Free resource site, suitable for anyone with an interest in audio-visual media. Tutorials and articles include everything from video production to website design

Zamzar
http://www.zamzar.com/
Free online file conversion

AboutUs
http://www.aboutus.org/
Wiki worldwide effort to create a new web resource that builds on the knowledge of every visitor

Histats
http://www.histats.com/
Free web stats and stat counter, hit counter, free web tracker and tracking tools

FlightAware
http://flightaware.com/live/
Free Live Flight Tracker. Tracking, Status, Maps, and Graphs for Private (General Aviation) IFR flights, Commercial (Airline) flights, and airports

Food Timeline
http://www.foodtimeline.org/
Free food history research service

Phone Scoop
http://www.phonescoop.com/
Information about cell phones for the U.S. Detailed info on new phones, news, reviews, and forums

Incompetech
http://incompetech.com/
Good site for Royalty-free music