It is inevitable, faster processors and bigger hard drive capacities will always lead to more useless crap choking up the works. PC Pro has released some astonishing figures regarding the memory and hard disk footprint of bloatware with various manufacturers and the affect that the software has on boot time. The results grate more than they surprise:

• Acer: 2:01 longer boot time, 952MB larger memory footprint, 2.4GB less HDD space
• HP: 1:35 longer boot time, 1.06GB larger memory footprint, 2.18GB less HDD space
• Dell: 0:52 longer boot time, 1.18GB larger memory footprint, 3GB less HDD space
• Sony: 1:54 longer boot time, 1.11GB larger memory footprint, 1.3GB less HDD space

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When it comes to upgrading operating systems, my policy has always been to wait to see what goes wrong for other people before I take the plunge.

Snow Leopard’s issue is a bug that can cause user data to be wiped. It seems to occur when operating from guest accounts and then switching back. As I don’t use a guest account, I like my odds.

Yesterday, it arrived and short of time I decided to go ahead with the installation. While the smart move would have been to back everything up, I didn’t. I stuck the disk in the drive and hoped for the best. I was not disappointed.

All up, it took about an hour to get Snow Leopard running on my rapidly aging, pre-multitouch Mac Book Pro and I barely had to lift a finger.

What I got for my trouble was a massive performance improvement. Things have gone from a semi-acceptable level of sluggishness to lightning fast. While I might find myself crying later, if this data loss issue doesn’t get resolved, I am definitely impressed with the performance boost. It is like having a new computer.

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The Hitachi SimpleNET USB-to-Ethernet adapter looks to be a ridiculously easy way to turn hook a couple of USB HDDs up to a network.

The dongle is Mac, Windows and Linux friendly and accepts two USB drives. Once it is plugged in and the software installed, your new NAS device should appear on your network. It also functions as an iTunes server.

On the minus side, it isn’t Gigabit, which means you are stuck with the old 10/100 standard – which makes things a little slower if you have a fast network, but on the plus side, it attaches any USB drive to your network, and that means that you can chop and change what you have connected, which is of enormous benefit if you have a few old HDDs lying around.

Price: $80

[via DVICE]

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If you are looking for a quick way to temporarily share some files or Internet with another computer and don’t want to invest in a whole lot of expensive network infrastructure, then Brando’s USB 2.0 Data Copy and Internet Connection Sharing Dongle looks a very nice option. Sure, it ain’t the fastest way to get things done, but it is just about the easiest. The dongle comes with a 2m USB cable and supports Win2K, XP and Vista.

Price: $29.99 [Brando via CrunchGear, Oh Gizmo]

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If you are itching to build or buy a new system for the upcoming Windows 7, or if you already have one and want to give it a performance boost, then you should definitely be considering 64-bit. It surprises me a little that people still install 32-bit operating systems, but even an admitted 64-bit fanboy like myself will confess that there are hardware compatibility issues with the platform. However, things have changed quite a bit since the 64-bit dark ages and now just about every piece of new hardware is compatible. Just make sure that you check the boxes to ensure that whatever you buy is supported. (more…)

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