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Whether you’re formatting an internal drive, external drive, USB flash drive, or SD card, Windows will give you the choice of NTFS, FAT32, and exFAT. The Format dialog in Windows doesn’t explain the difference, so we will. FAT32 is an older file system that’s largely relegated to USB flash drives and other external drives. Windows uses NTFS for its system drive, and it’s also ideal for other internal drives. exFAT is a modern replacement for FAT32, and more devices support it than do NTFS — although it’s not as widespread as FAT32. FAT32 FAT32 is the oldest file system here. It was introduced all the way back in Windows 95 to replace the older FAT16 file system. This file system’s age has advantages and disadvantages. Because it’s so old, it’s the de-facto standard. Flash drives you purchase will often come formatted with FAT32 for maximum compatibility across not just modern computers, but other devices like game consoles and anything with ...

For anyone with even a mild addiction to the online world, a netbook is an attractive bit of kit. The ability to surf the net anywhere with a wireless or 3G connection, using a real keyboard and operating system whilst retaining lightweight portability is… well, awesome. However, there are a couple of things worth remembering if you’re considering dropping your hard earned cash on one of these go-anywhere mobile internet devices. Here’s a thought-provoking list of questions to ask yourself before reaching for your wallet and buying a Netbook. What Operating System Do I Want? Many netbooks these days come with either Windows XP (which is usually pretty speedy on the hardware supplied) or Windows 7 (which much of the time isn’t). If you’re anything like me, you’ll be just as interested in using your netbook with one of a variety of OS choices that are freely available online. Hardware compatibility and driver issues can cause a lot of problems if you’ve not properly th...

You’re ready. You’ve read, researched, poked, prodded, and are now armed to the teeth with technical information. It is time to set foot onto the field of battle and claim a great laptop deal for your own. You will buy, you will save, and you will be victorious. Ah, but not so fast! You may have read a great deal about what to look for when buying a laptop computer, but you may not know what to avoid. This is at least as important, as there are a surprisingly large number of landmines throw in the path of consumers. Just Say No To Single Core Processors You opened up the Wal-Mart advertisement and – my God! They have a laptop for just $200. You rush out the door, buy it, and bring it home. All is well until you open Windows Task Manager and see just one graph bobbing along, spiking violently whenever you open a web browser. Multi-core processors are so common that Intel dropped the “Duo” and “Quad” names from the company’s new processors entirely. Some single-core proc...

USB thumb drives are one of the most commonly used ways to transfer data if you happen to work across multiple computers. Lets just make the USB drives prettier, useful and secure. 1. Add icons and labels to your drive. Download an icon you would want to see appear when you plug in your thumb(pen) drive. Place the icon at the root of the drive. Next open notepad and type the following: [autorun] label = "<your name here>" icon = "yourIcon.ico" Save the file onto the root of your thumb drive and name it "autorun.inf", be sure to put the quotes or else it will be saved as a text file. Now Safely remove your USB drive and plug back in, the icon and name should appear in Windows Explorer if your did everything right. You can also automatically launch an application. If this is not the way you prefer to work use  this  neat application to generate the autorun.inf file automatically 2. Add a Start Menu to your USB...