Wednesday, March 5, 2014

The 10 Best Business Laptops

Finding a great laptop for work is serious business. After all, you need something that's durable, secure, powerful, light, and can last through an intercontinental flight. With the countless options available, it can be a daunting task to find the perfect one. Fortunately for you, we have already found the 10 best business laptops on the market today.
What constitutes a business laptop these days? The lines get blurrier every time a laptop so classified launches with multiple color options, a metallic finish, different screen option, and all sort of wireless and port acronyms. And with prices for laptops reaching all-time lows, businesses would rather save money buying a whole fleet of cheap consumer laptops than spend three or four times as much on an enterprise model .
Lines are even blurring between tablets and laptops. Once they were separated by operating systems, but tablets running "real" versions of Windows are the hot new products aimed at businesses. Some of these tablets have removable keyboards, some don't. But make no mistake, business laptops have their place in the commercial world, and choosing the right one can determine whether you run a company that's successful or one that suffers from too much downtime.
Look for at least 4GB of RAM. Anything less is not worth the few bucks you save. Graphics-based users will welcome 8GB of memory to help speed project work, but 4GB is plenty for the rank-and file worker. The right amount of memory allows you to do multiple things: Open up more programs and windows at once and perform multimedia processes (like editing photos) faster. If your business laptop is running integrated graphics (this type of graphics eat up system memory) or if you're the type who keeps 25 tabs open in your browser, you'll absolutely need to have more than 2GB of memory.
Battery life is another consideration. A big battery can be your best friend on a lengthy flight or a long commute. Business laptops usually come with multiple battery options. Some enterprise-class laptops have two to three different kinds of batteries (4-, 6-, and a 9-cell). The more "cells" you buy, the longer the battery life. A big battery adds some heft, but being able to run the system unplugged from dawn 'til dusk is worth the weight gain.
We test hundreds of systems in our Labs to help winnow down the choices. Check out our 10 favorite business laptops on the market today.

FEATURED IN THIS ROUNDUP

Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (Mid 2013)

$1,099 list
$1,048.99 at Amazon Equipped with a fourth-generation Intel Core i5 processor, the latest MacBook Air 13-inch shows decent performance gains. But it's the ultraportable's over 15 hours of battery life that blows away the competition. Read the full review ››

Apple MacBook Pro 15-inch (Retina Display)

$2,199 list
$1,998.00 at Amazon With a higher-resolution display, thin chassis, and up-to-date components, the Apple MacBook Pro 15-inch with Retina Display is the new king of high-end desktop replacement laptops. Read the full review ››

Dell Latitude E6430 ATG

$3,402 list
$1,852.75 at Dell Small Business The Dell Latitude E6430 ATG is the latest in a long line of rugged and semi-rugged laptops from Dell. Sturdy construction is joined by a long-lasting battery, speedy solid-state drive, and Intel Core i7 processor, delivering solid performance in a wide range of circumstances. For professional computing out in the field, it's the laptop to beat. Read the full review ››

Dell Latitude 6430u

$1,328 list
$1,299.88 at Amazon With its slick design, excellent keyboard, and great battery life, the Dell Latitude 6430u is an easy choice for those who want productivity for work without having to settle for a drab, utilitarian business ultrabook. Read the full review ››

Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E431

$584.10 list
$599.00 at Lenovo We recommend small business owners buy a true business PC like the Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E431 rather than trying to repurpose a consumer budget laptop. It will pay off in comfort, performance, and peace of mind. Read the full review ››

Lenovo ThinkPad X230t

$1,349 list
$1,227.31 at Lenovo The Lenovo ThinkPad X230t plucks the best features from business ultraportables and adds multitouch and quality convertible tablet design. Read the full review ››

Fujitsu Lifebook U772

$1,679 list
£800.00 at Amazon The Fujitsu Lifebook U772 boasts all the features you would expect from a premium business ultrabook, along with a sharp-looking design and all-day battery life. Read the full review ››

HP Elitebook Revolve 810

$1,449 list
$1,381.80 at Amazon The HP Elitebook Revolve 810 combines industrial-strength construction with portability and convenience, making it a solid convertible laptop for the business user on the go. Read the full review ››

Lenovo ThinkPad Helix

$1,679 list
$1,343.20 at Lenovo One of the better detachable hybrid tablets on the market, the Lenovo ThinkPad Helix gives the corporate IT buyer a prime option for their highly mobile workforce. This could be the best choice if you need both laptop and tablet functionality. Read the full review ››

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Touch

$1,684 list
$1,468.00 at Lenovo The Lenovo ThinkPad X Carbon Touch is the ultrabook your executive users will want. Read the full review ›

The 10 Best Laptops

Shopping for a laptop is a pretty daunting task. The sheer number of laptop systems available online or in a store's electronics section is enough to make your mind spin. Most people have a general idea of what their laptop should look like and what they want in terms of features, but are often intimidated by the choices available. That's where we come in, with the 10 best laptops on the market today.

The first thing you need to consider is what you need in the laptop. Are you looking for something to compete on the gaming grid? Then a discrete graphics card and big screen are necessary components in the laptop you choose. Are you on a limited budget? Then be on the lookout for anything under $500 that offers at least a Core i3 CPU and 4GB of memory. If a business system is what you need, then security measures like a fingerprint reader and a TPM module are must-haves. For those who spend a lot of time on the road, an ultrabook or an ultraportable will keep back and shoulder strain to a minimum. For those who need a system meant for watching movies, a Blu-ray player is a must-have feature. And last but not least, ask yourself if a touch screen is important to you. With the advent of Windows 8 and 8.1, touch-screen functionality has become a significant factor to consider when buying a laptop.

The editors of PCMag.com test hundreds of systems each year to help you find the best laptop. There are a lot of laptops out there, from the large-screen desktop replacements to the lightweight ultraportables, and even laptop/tablet convertibles, but all share common features. In this story, we help you narrow your choices by collecting the 10 best laptops on the market today. If you need more shopping advice, check out How to Buy a Laptop.

FEATURED IN THIS STORY

Apple MacBook Pro 15-inch (2013)

$1,999 list
$1,894.00 at Amazon With an updated Intel processor and speedier Flash Storage, the MacBook Pro 15-inch (2013) leapfrogs over the competition with workstation-class performance and a nine-hour battery life. Read the full review ››

Acer Aspire S7-392-6411

$1,449.99 list
$1,229.95 at Amazon If you're looking for a svelte laptop to show off, yet still be able to do real work in Windows 8, the Acer Aspire S7-392-6411 is the ultrabook you want at the top of the list. It's the current pinnacle of the ultrabook trend and shows the brilliance that the PC makers can return under Intel's increasingly stringent standards for ultrabooks. Read the full review ››

Apple MacBook Pro 13-inch (2013)

$1,299 list
$1,269.99 at Amazon The Apple MacBook Pro 13-inch (2013) uses Intel's Haswell-based Core i5 processor to give power users a system that can last over 11 hours under continuous use and still process graphics and scientific tasks quickly. It's $500 less expensive than last year's model, yet more than earns its title as our latest Editors' Choice for high-end ultraportable laptops. Read the full review ››

Asus Transformer Book T100TA (64GB)

$399 list
$464.99 at Amazon For a sub-$400 price, the Asus Transformer Book T100TA is a fully functional Windows 8.1 hybrid tablet, and the natural successor to the netbook ideal from a few years ago. It gives you a bright, usable PC an affordable price. Plus it avoids all of the compatibility issues that plague tablets running mobile operating systems like iOS, Android, or Windows RT. Read the full review ››

HP ZBook 14

$2,399 list
$2,155.38 at Amazon Power, battery life, a gobsmackingly nice screen, and a good price all combine to earn the HP ZBook 14 ultrabook our latest Editors' Choice for mobile workstations. Read the full review ››

Acer C7 Chromebook (C710-2055)

$279.99 list
$301.00 at Amazon The new version of the Acer C7 Chromebook is faster, longer lasting, and better all around. All this and its very low price tag makes it the best inexpensive Chromebook on the market. Read the full review ››

Dell Inspiron 14R-5437

$649 list
$649.99 at Dell Ten hours of battery life in a well-equipped, affordable 14-inch desktop replacement laptop. That's the Dell Inspiron 14R-5437 in a nutshell. Read the full review ››

Lenovo G580

$479 list
$479.00 at Lenovo With its class-leading performance and admirable feature set, the Lenovo G580 is an excellent value with an affordable price tag that gives users plenty of bang for their buck. Read the full review ››

Lenovo IdeaPad U430 Touch

$699 list
$559.00 at Lenovo With very few compromises and all-day battery life, the Lenovo IdeaPad U430 Touch is the entry-level ultrabook to get. Read the full review ››

Lenovo ThinkPad X240

$1,495 list
$1,227.31 at Lenovo The Lenovo ThinkPad X240 is a powerful business laptop sporting a Core i5 Haswell CPU, a speedy solid-state drive, and a 12.5-inch IPS touch-screen display. You'll pay top dollar for this well-built ultrabook, but it'll give you over 15 hours of battery life in return. Read the full review ››

how to create a good website/blog

How did I create this blog…?

I put the success down to focusing on great content over anything else.
Shortly, I will begin teaching you how to create a website. You could use it for virtually anything; a personal blog, online portfolio, online store, sales page, you could even make it almost identically to this site.
But before I do this, I wanted to tell you a few reasons why I’m qualified to teach you:

Before and since creating techy-tips, I have created websites and blogs that reached over 100,000 visitors a month. I haven’t got ‘lucky’, I have a system that works.
My blogs get featured by the biggest websites, including: Reddit Homepage, BusinessInsider, Yahoo Finance, The New York Times and it has even been a trending topic on Twitter. (how many bloggers can boast that?!?!)
Thousands of people have paid for my courses on Internet Marketing.
In 2010 I created a popup email box on IncomeDiary, I then developed it into a WordPress plugin and sold over 20,000 copies of it. (the majority of which were at $37 – $77)

Ready to begin?
Welcome to the Masters guide to creating a succesful blog, just like this one.
Time to complete this step-by-step guide: 60 minutes
Total cost: Under $100.
The benefits of creating a blog:

You are able to add/edit/delete content through a control panel.
The website will look & functions in the way that you would want it.
Readers and customers will be able to contact you via a contact form.
You will be able to add/edit/delete adverts with a mouse click.
Schedule and publish new content on your homepage.

Here’s an example of what your website could look like immediately after following this guide:

To see this website LIVE, visit TrustedWeddingPlanner.com
This is a typically look I go for when I create every new blog, including Incomediary. I keep it simple, I make it useable. Then once the site proves itself, I invest more money and time into it. This way, I risk little up front but using a few great resources, still manage to build a professional looking site.

How To Quickly Create Your Own Website

1. Getting Your Website Online

I need three things to run this website:

A Domain, this is what you call your website, for me it’s IncomeDiary.com, for you it could be MyBlogName.com
Web Hosting, this is required to host your website on the internet so that people can visit it.
WordPress, this is what will help you run your website, this free software will allow you to add, edit and delete pages on your website. You also have a choice from over 100,000 different blog designs and 1000′s of free plugins that will allow your website to do different things.

1. Registering a Domain

Before you do anything, you must decide on a name for your website and purchase your .Com (or .co.uk. .org .net etc). I have a lot of domains, how I come up with the domains is simple. They are descriptive of what the site is about, so for example, ExpertPhotography.com is about how to become an expert at photography.
When my friend approached me to help him come up with a domain for an outsourcing site, I asked him, whats the goals of your blog? He told me it was to save entrepreneurs time by outsourcing. I recommended he named his site SaveTimeOutsource.com and that is what he went with. Personally, I would only go for a .Com (it’s the most popular & easiest to remember) and I would also keep the name as short as possible.
To register your domain, go to a website called GoDaddy, if you live in the US you will probably have seen their Superbowl adverts and already know who they are. A domain will set you back less then $10 a year and is one of the most important things to get right.

2. Here’s How to Host Your Website on the Internet

Your on my website right now, to do this, I have to host it on a server so that people can come and visit it. It’s quite simple, you rent some space on a server for around $5 a month and can put all your files on it and thousands of people can come and visit it without any hassle.
I personally use HostGator and I highly recommend them because they have 24/7 live support with agents who will always be happy to help you with any issue you may have.
One of the main reasons why I recommend hosting with HostGator, is because they have a program in their user control panel called QuickInstall which allows you to install WordPress (blogging software) with one click.
They don’t charge any additional price for this but if you went with any other company, you would be likely to pay an extra $10 or so a month which is more then the hosting in the first place. When ordering your hosting, use coupon code: incomediary25 to get 25% off your order.

3. Connecting your Domain & Hosting Together

Now that you have a domain and web hosting, you have to let them know you want to use the two together. You do this with nameservers.
When you purchase your hosting from HostGator, they will email you two nameservers. You then login to GoDaddy, edit your domain settings and type in your nameserver address. Then they will be connected.

4. Installing WordPress onto your Hosting

Back in the day when I started, this would be a nightmare, you would have to upload thousands of files and learn lot’s of technical stuff which no one wants to do.
However, now all you need to do is login to your hosting controle panel and click QuickInstall >> Install WordPress, less then 60 seconds later your blog is installed, you have a website on the internet and you can start publishing content.
Here is a video I recorded taking you through the whole thing in under 10 minutes.

Click Here To Visit GoDaddy.com
Click Here To Visit HostGator.com (use coupon code: incomediary25 to get 25% off your order)

2. Customizing Your Website / Blog Design

At this point, your website should look something similar to this. (The designs can very depending on which free design WordPress are offering pre-installed at the time.)

1. Finding a Design for your Website

By using WordPress, you are now able to use over 100,000 already created blog design themes. Some free and some much better that come at a small cost.
All the blogs that I have started since creating IncomeDiary, have used blog themes from Woothemes, which says a lot about the quality of their designs.
Go to Woothemes.com and and look through all the themes. They have themes that can be used as a portfolio, business website, magazine, and of course a blog.
Once you chose and purchased your blog theme, you need to log into your WordPress admin area. Then click Appearance on the left side, then click Themes. Click upload, find your theme and once installed, active it.
For my Wedding blog, I used Currents theme. This is what it now looks like:

2. How To Customize Your Blog Design

With every Wootheme, you get a custom dashboard to edit the look and feel of the theme. On the left hand side of your WordPress admin area, click the blue button with the name of your theme on it. In here you can edit almost everything, it’s all very self explanatory, go through it and make the changes you want.
Next, click on Appearance >> Widgets on the sidebar.
Here you can play around, adding, editing and removing widgets on your blog.
A widget is like a gadget or an attachment. Something not required for the site to function but can be used to improve it in some way.
Here’s how my blog looks now:

Monday, March 3, 2014

How to Maintain Your Computer

A properly maintained computer will provide you with substantially higher speeds, both via RAM and on the internet, regardless of your hardware setup and configurations. The second law of thermodynamics states that all systems atrophy (degrade) over time - well, here are a few tips on how delay the inevitable.

Method 1 of 2: Software/Hard drive

1
Clean out all the junk left behind by browsers. To do this, you can use the Disk Cleanup utility included on the Windows systems, or download a freeware program such as CCleaner to do it for you. In Linux you can use Kleansweep or Bleachbit. Cookies and cache left behind by browsers can amount up to gigabytes of wasted space, so it is imperative they're deleted.
Ad
2
Search and destroy spyware and/or viruses on your PC. There is a myriad of tools available to do this. AVG Anti Virus is a good one to use. Download.com is a great place to legally obtain these tools.
3
Defragment your hard drive monthly to keep your computer running smoothly. Windows XP includes a utility to do this, but a tool called Magical Defrag also exists, which automatically defrags your system during periods of inactivity.
4
Uninstall programs you no longer use, and delete music you no longer listen to. The more free space your computer has, the faster it will go. You'll be surprised how much space you'll free up and how much your computer's performance will increase.
5
Use the msconfig command in the RUN command prompt to open up a window that will allow you to uncheck start up programs you don't use. This can up your start up and boot down times a lot. CCleaner also has a feature that allows you to do the same thing (Tools--->Startup)
6
Use your computers disk management systems.
- For Windows, select Performance and Maintenance and then choose "Rearrange items on your hard disk..." and "Free up space on your hard disk."
- For Mac, go to the Applications Folder, select Utilities Folder then launch Disk Utility.

Method 2 of 2: Hardware/CPU

1
Always run your computer on a UPS as this will help protect it from electric surges. Phone lines for modems and cat 5 or cat 6 network lines also need surge suppression as they can and will take out your network card or modem in an electric storm.
2
Your computer can grow dusty in less than a year, depending on where it is stored. Open it up depending on how dusty your house is. If it's not too dusty, then check every few months, but if it's super dusty(your house), then be much more proactive about it. Remove the dust on the bottom with a vacuum (or cloth), then spray with compressed canned air. Pay special attention to the CPU heat sink and CPU fan. Hold the fan still while spraying it as you can cause it to spin out and on reboot it may have more noise. Spray the intakes to the Power supply fan also. Since you have the cover off reboot and listen for noisy fans make sure all fans are working. Replace the fan if it stops spinning or starts making unnatural sound or you can try to lubricate the bearing,this might help.
3
Be careful when plugging in USB, Ethernet, speakers, printer etc. into your computer. Ports such as USB and Ethernet can easily be damaged from careless placement. These repairs can be costly and these ports are a necessity.

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