New laptop - what accessories should I get?

[ASammy1]

a wireless card from your cell phone carrier so you can use it away from home if there's no free wi-fi... and make sure you set WPA encryption on your wireless router at home AND on the laptop so you have secure access.

spazz

I second the wireless card! And I love my wireless mouse. I don't have enough USB ports for one with a cord, but I also dont mind the touchpad on my mac. Once you go mac, you never go back. LOL!

[ny biker]

I got this HP laptop:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....=1218094855118

Apparently someone from Geek Squad "optimized" it before I bought it, which I think means they removed some of the free trial software.

So far all I've had time to do is turn it on and make recovery disks. Next I'll get the internet access working. I have Comcast (cable) internet, which comes with McAfee for security, so I'll install that right away.

I already have a Netgear router which I bought a few years ago but never used (couldn't get wireless to work with my desktop so I gave up trying). Hopefully I won't have trouble getting it to work with the new laptop.

I've been looking into external hard drives so I can buy one. They seem to have some problems when you look at the customer reviews. I've looked at reviews for specific drives on Amazon and cnet.com, and there seems to be a sizeable minority of customers whose drive fails within a short period of time. But all of the different brands I've looked at have these bad reviews, so I guess they're all pretty much the same when it comes to reliability. Someone at work recommended that I get a Seagate FreeAgent. I've also heard good things about Clickfree, in terms of their automatic backup software.

Thanks for all your advice!!!

[OakLeaf]

there seems to be a sizeable minority of customers whose drive fails within a short period of time.

That's one reason to have two backup drives, if you're backing up anything super important like your financial records or work stuff. Storage is cheap nowadays. And you can get at least one portable backup drive to take with you when you travel, and leave the other one home.

Happy shopping!

[MartianDestiny]

there seems to be a sizeable minority of customers whose drive fails within a short period of time.

All external drives fail. It's a matter of when. I too have heard people complain about every brand failing before what they want to consider it's time, and I'm sure a percentage of those were genuinely bad drives, but only a percentage.

Backup drives are about added piece of mind and redundancy. Basically the chances of your backup drive AND your computer failing at the same time are MUCH MUCH slimmer than just your computer failing.

As for drives I have a huge Seagate that plugs into a separate power source which I use to back up the whole computer and also a Western Digital portable drive I use to back up some stuff and carry around as well. The WD is nearing the end of it's life and has been warning me for months now that "it's just a matter of time", but I've had it for 5 years and carted it around too... I've been happy with both.

My advice? Find one from a major brand that's the size you want and ON SALE. Buy it, use it, but know it won't last forever (ie: don't store stuff solely on the drive!)