Unlike other non-bluetooth devices that require an additional receiver to be plugged into the computer in order to connect, these new keypads pair up with your laptop to limit cross talk with other wireless devices in addition to reducing cable clutter.

Here are a few to consider:

Interlink Electronics Bluetooth Calculator Keypad
This device masquerades as a 10 keypad by day and calculator by night.  Toss this keypad in your bag and you can crunch numbers on and off the computer. At the flip of a switch this keypad will allow you to use the built-in display to perform calculations when not connected to a computer.

Microsoft Bluetooth Number Pad
A no frills version of the above keypad has been introduced to market by Microsoft for users that do not need the calculator functionality.  A carrying case is included in the packaging.

At just 1.5 lbs, 0.5 inches thick and about 10 inches long, the iPad  connects to the fastest Wi-Fi networks to give you access to everything from email, videos and photos, to music, web pages and more at just the touch of a finger.   The iPad runs almost 140,000 apps from the App Store (and any you’ve downloaded to your iPhone) and also features iBooks and iTunes stores as well.

The iPad utilizes multi-touch technology similar to that of the iPhone, but on a much larger scale, with over 1000 sensors in the design.  The iPad rotates the screen to whatever orientation you are holding it in so basically there’s no up or down and its IPS technology allows for a wide viewing angle so you can hold it any way you want and still enjoy a brilliant display.

The iPad comes with up to 10 hours of battery life and its wireless technology allows you to connect devices such as wireless headphones or the Apple Wireless Keyboard, although the iPad also comes equipped with a touch-screen keyboard and built-in speakers and microphone.

The Wi-Fi iPad is scheduled to hit the market in March, starting at $499, and a 3G model with data speeds up to 7.2 Mbps should hit in April.

Click here to learn more.

Take a look at Socialcast – “a simple, secure collaboration tool that helps employees communicate in real-time”.  Some of the features this tool brings to the table are microblogging, real-time conversation tracking, custom tags, private and public groups, link sharing, file sharing, and search-ability.

Reduce email and provide search-ability:

Think about all those group emails that get sent out and take up space in your inbox. Socialcast can allow your group or company to reduce those mass emails by putting group conversations and collaboration in one place. Another great feature of social networking are tags. You could start a conversation about an upcoming conference and tag it with “#conference”, which will make your conversation easier to find in the future by looking at the “tag cloud” (which is kind of like an index).

Basically, if you are familiar with Twitter and Facebook, that is what Socialcast is, but exclusively for your business.

Microblogging:

Talk about something you are working on, share a tip that might help others, or ask a question to get some feedback. You can also “@mention” other coworkers, in a Twitter-like fashion, so that your message will show up on their page to alert them that something has been posted relating to them.

Platforms:

Socialcast can be used via the web site, a desktop application for PC or Mac, as well as a newly released native iPhone application.

desktop application

iPhone application

Conversations:

You can subscribe to specific people in your company and watch what they have to say. Or you can watch the whole company stream at any point in time. You can also “flag” conversations, even if you don’t have anything to say, so that you can keep track of what is being said about that particular topic.

Groups:

Private or public groups can be created to collaborate in more of a streamlined manner for conversations that don’t need to include the entire company.

These are just a few of the features and benefits that Socialcast brings to the table. They offer a free version of their platform, as well as a paid version which offers a few more features. The adoption of a tool like this could seem hard to incorporate to a company that has relied on email for so long. However, there is a Socialcast Cookbook which contains best practices and simple tips for growing a community, which may help put your firm on its way to being savvy in the area of social networking. They also offer a NASA case study which tells of NASA’s use of the tool.

For a first-hand look at the service, visit the Socialcast Demo here.

Notebooks have traditionally been a desktop computer in laptop form. Possessing tons of horsepower needed to run the operating system along with all your applications. However, as connectivity is on the rise along with the trend towards Server-based computing ( or SaaS, ASP, Cloud Computing, etc) – so goes the release of leaner laptops called Netbooks.

See this WSJ article for more info – Click here

You may say, “I already have an external USB drive,” but don’t dismiss the Drobo all at once. The Drobo is much more than just a USB drive. It is a RAID storage array, but at the same time it isn’t. Unlike a RAID storage array, adding capacity to the Drobo is mindlessly easy. If a hard drive fails, or you need to add more space, you can swap out the drives on the fly, and the Drobo does the rest.

No need to reformat anything. No need to back up all of your data first. No need to dismount the volume.

The Drobo comes with 4 empty hard drive bays at a price tag of $499. It will feed on any brand of 3.5” SATA I or SATA II hard drive. Keep in mind that it will accept mixed capacities and manufacturers. The Drobo automatically configures the drives for redundancy, so a minimum of 2 drives allows you to rest easy knowing that your data will be available.

A more recent addition to the Drobo product line is the DroboShare. DroboShare takes the Drobo and allows data to be accessed over a network. Most firms already have a File Server, but consider Drobo for as an extra data redundancy solution, possibly paired with Xcentric Online Backup™. Let’s say you are using Online Backup but you also want to have locally stored redundant data, the Drobo could be exactly what you are looking for.

Some cons about the Drobo are the somewhat steep price, considering it doesn’t come with drives and making it network accessible costs an extra $200. But all in all, the Drobo could be a nice addition to your gadget collection. We here at Xcentric are looking forward to taking one for a test drive in the near future.

Here is an excerpt from a Cnet.com review, found here: “We installed the Drobo (with two drives, an 80GB Seagate Barracuda and a 160GB Seagate Barracuda) on our Windows-based system, and it was as easy as the start-up literature promised. After the initial formatting was done, we copied over several gigabytes of data, including photos, music, video, and data files. To test the ability to access data during a drive failure, we started a video from Drobo and proceeded to extract one of the hard drives and replace it with another (a 400GB Hitachi Deskstar). We didn’t see any hiccups in the video (or any of the other files we accessed), and the formatting of the new disk and the rewriting of the data progressed in the background.”

Say “hello” to Drobo— the world’s first storage robot, providing “fully automated data storage that ensures your data is always protected…with no special knowledge or expertise.”

You may say, “I already have an external USB drive,” but don’t dismiss the Drobo all at once. The Drobo is much more than just a USB drive. It is a RAID storage array, but at the same time it isn’t. Unlike a RAID storage array, adding capacity to the Drobo is mindlessly easy. If a hard drive fails, or you need to add more space, you can swap out the drives on the fly, and the Drobo does the rest.

No need to reformat anything. No need to back up all of your data first. No need to dismount the volume.

The Drobo comes with 4 empty hard drive bays at a price tag of $499. It will feed on any brand of 3.5” SATA I or SATA II hard drive. Keep in mind that it will accept mixed capacities and manufacturers. The Drobo automatically configures the drives for redundancy, so a minimum of 2 drives allows you to rest easy knowing that your data will be available.

A more recent addition to the Drobo product line is the DroboShare. DroboShare takes the Drobo and allows data to be accessed over a network. Most firms already have a File Server, but consider Drobo for as an extra data redundancy solution, possibly paired with Xcentric Online Backup™. Let’s say you are using Online Backup but you also want to have locally stored redundant data, the Drobo could be exactly what you are looking for.

Some cons about the Drobo are the somewhat steep price, considering it doesn’t come with drives and making it network accessible costs an extra $200. But all in all, the Drobo could be a nice addition to your gadget collection. We here at Xcentric are looking forward to taking one for a test drive in the near future.

Here is an excerpt from a Cnet.com review, found here: “We installed the Drobo (with two drives, an 80GB Seagate Barracuda and a 160GB Seagate Barracuda) on our Windows-based system, and it was as easy as the start-up literature promised. After the initial formatting was done, we copied over several gigabytes of data, including photos, music, video, and data files. To test the ability to access data during a drive failure, we started a video from Drobo and proceeded to extract one of the hard drives and replace it with another (a 400GB Hitachi Deskstar). We didn’t see any hiccups in the video (or any of the other files we accessed), and the formatting of the new disk and the rewriting of the data progressed in the background.”