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Sunday, Aug. 17, 2008

Don't go back to school without the right technology

Consider purchasing security program

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SAN JOSE -- Summer still may be in the air but school is starting soon, which means it's time to go shopping -- for technology.

Clothes, books and school supplies are the old standbys, of course, but tech products -- computers, electronics and gadgets -- are just as important. Whether your child is returning to grade school or heading out to college, here are some tech items to consider.

Computers

Computers probably are the most important tech tools around. And these days, you have a wide range of prices and features.

Laptops are a good choice, especially for college students because they can be taken to class, the library or the local cafe.

Apple's Macbook, the company's entry-level notebook, has been especially popular among the student crowd, and for good reason: It's easy to use, stable and much more resistant to viruses than Windows machines. It starts around $1,000 with an educational discount.

If that's too costly, there are numerous Windows-based notebooks for less than $1,000. Fry's, for instance, recently had a Compaq with an AMD Turion chip on sale for about $500.

Software

You're probably going to want to buy at least two software packages to go with any computer -- an office suite and a security program.

Microsoft Office is still the standard for writing papers and putting together spreadsheets. But it's expensive, starting at $400 if you buy it off the shelf. College students can get a slightly slimmed-down version for about $150 for Windows or Mac computers.

With all the viruses, spyware and spam on the Internet, a security program is more important than ever these days. Macs are less vulnerable, but could get more so as they become more popular, giving hackers more reason to write Mac-only viruses.

Symantec's Norton (about $45) and McAfee (about $35) have been the traditional standard-bearers in security suites for PCs, though Kaspersky's Anti-Virus package (about $60) is starting to gain recognition. For Macs, Norton offers an anti-virus program for about $20 and Intego has an entire line of security programs starting at about $50.

Computer Backpack or Sleeve

Because your student most likely will be lugging her laptop around quite a bit, she'll need something to carry it in. Accessory makers have come out with backpacks specifically designed for laptops. They have extra padding and come in many sizes and styles. Best Buy offers more than a dozen types starting around $32.

For those who believe sporting an extra-thick pack looks "dorky," vendors offer a variety of padded sleeves that can be carried inside a regular backpack. San Francisco-based WaterField makes 40 sizes of customizable sleeves starting about $40 that it offers through its Web site at www.sfbags.com.

External Hard Drive

Laptop hard drives tend to fill up quickly with music, movies -- and term papers, of course. With an external hard drive, a student can offload some of that data to save space on the main drive.

Another, more important, reason to have an external drive is for backup. The last thing you want as a student is to lose the paper you've been working on because of a hard-drive failure.

In recent years, drive makers have come out with slimmer, lighter models designed specifically for laptops. Western Digital, for instance, offers the My Passport line of drives, which range in size from 160 to 320 gigabytes and cost $70 to $120 online.

USB Flash Drive

E-mail servers often block large files, and even when they don't, such files can take a long time to download over the Internet. That's when flash drives come in, helping students who need to share a file with a project partner or who want to print a document from a computer center without lugging along a laptop.