Square Credit-Card Reader

Whether you're a small, mobile business, or you're just tired of spotting your cashless friends, mobile payment solutions, which let you accept credit cards using your cell phone, are a welcome innovation. Square is one such solution, and for some circumstances it's a perfect one: It plugs into a variety of mobile devices and uses a simple, attractive interface to allow you to accept credit card payments. Card Case, the buyer's interface to Square, is a similarly easy and intuitive way to pay for things, making it easier than ever to buy at your most-frequented haunts. It's free to use, but Square charges a small fee for every transaction. The fees aren't exorbitant, though, and Square's excellent aesthetics and ease of use on many devices make it our Editors' Choice for mobile credit card readers.

Square with Iphone

Setup and Getting Started
The easiest way to start using Square is to go to the Square Web site, or to download the Square app that's available for iOS—iPhone, iPod touch and iPad—and Android, which supports many but not all Android devices. Signing up for an account is as simple as entering tax information—for me, an individual, it was my social security number and some other personal information. Square is very clear about protecting your data, but it's always good to be wary of anything asking for this information. The Square app is the best thing Square has going for it—it's a gorgeous app with an intuitive interface that is easy for both sellers and buyers to figure out.

Once you register for an account, Square sends you a free card reader. The reader is a tiny, 0.75-by-0.75-by-0.5-inch white, plastic square that plugs into the headphone jack of your device, and when connected can immediately start accepting payments. The system works over Wi-Fi or a cell phone data connection.

Selling and Getting Paid
Making money is as simple as choosing an amount and swiping a card. If you have items you sell regularly, you can also set up a virtual shelf with all the items for sale, and choose them to automatically register a total. You can swipe a credit card through the reader, or key in the card number manually. You can also accept cash and use Square for tracking and receipts, but the real value is with a credit card. The reader itself worked well, though it occasionally took two or three tries to read the card.

Once the buyer swipes their card, a receipt is prepared, which can include itemized charges, location, or your company's logo. The customer signs the receipt using their finger on the touch screen (which works great on the iPad, and fine on smaller phone screens), adds a tip if they want to, and chooses to either have the receipt e-mailed to them or sent as a text message. Every receipt also has a unique URL.

Square takes a small fee for every transaction. If you swipe a credit card, the fee is 2.75 percent of the total transaction. If you key in the number manually, the fee is 3.5 percent. (The fee hike is because keyed-in cards are inherently less secure, since you're not swiping an actual card.) Square recently eliminated its per-transaction fixed fee (which was 15 cents), which makes calculating charges even easier—you'll see 97.25 cents of every dollar. The fee is comparable to services like PayPal, which charges 1.9-2.9 percent plus 30 cents, as well as Square's main competitors, Pay Anywhere (Free, 3 stars) and the Mophie Marketplace Complete Credit Card Solution ($79.99, 3 stars). For small purchases of only a few dollars, it's a far better deal since there's no fixed fee.

In the app or on Square's Web site, merchants can track their sales history, easily issue refunds, or download the transaction information as .CSV files that can be imported into Excel, Quickbooks and other software. You can easily link your bank account to your Square account, and Square will automatically deposit your earnings every 24 hours.

Card Case
Square's payment system got a new angle with an update in May, 2011. Called Card Case, the new feature allows Square users to start tabs at restaurants and shops they frequent, to make paying even easier and faster.

Here's how the Card Case system works (it's iPhone-only for now, with Android coming soon): You go into a Square-supporting shop (there aren't many yet, but that should change), and the first time you pay as normal. You swipe your card through the shop's Square reader, sign the receipt with your finger, and enter your phone number to get a text message receipt. In the receipt is a link to download the Square app and start your Card Case. Log in or create an account, and a billfold-looking screen shows up with a small card from the shop.

Next time you visit that same store, open up Square, tap on the store's name, and select "Start Tab." That lets Square know that you're in the store, getting ready to buy something, and your name will show up on the merchant's Square-running tablet. Within the card, you can also see the menu, what's on sale, and more. When you get to the counter, you just tell cashier your order and your name. The cashier taps your name in the store's app, and it automatically charges your credit card.

Security is an issue here, since paying with your name isn't exactly secure. Square takes a few steps to alleviate that. If your phone's location shows you're too far away to be in the store, you can't open a tab. When you're starting out, you'll create a 4-digit pin for large purchases, without which any major buys can't be completed. You're also prompted to upload a picture of yourself, so the cashier can make sure it's really you. Your tab expires after an hour, or you can close it manually. You'll also get an email or text message after every purchase, so any rogue purchases can be rectified quickly.

Conclusions
Square probably isn't the best way to get your buddy to pay you back for coffee. It is, however, an attractive, simple and useful way for anyone from street vendors to mobile businesses to accept credit cards. It's also, thanks to Card Case, one of the easiest and most fluid ways I've ever paid for something. Thanks to its support for a plethora of devices, ease of use and beautiful interface, it's our Editors' Choice in the mobile payment category. Regardless, always do the math before choosing a device—in this space, the best deal is the best product, and the right deal for you will vary based on what you sell, and how much.

Thumb Drive

Thumb drives can be a very useful tool for any computer user. They come in different storage sizes, allowing you to choose the drive that suits your needs best. They can be used for everything from file transportation to permanent storage, and can keep your information safe while doing so.

File Storage

1. • Thumb drives can be used to store files for special projects, or if you have no room to store them otherwise. They are good for storing information for specific purposes, because you can have a different drive for each purpose.

   Backing Up Data

   • Thumb drives can be useful for backing up documents and other files. Files can be added and deleted like in normal computer memory, and you do not have to use several CDs.

   Transporting Data

   • Data transport is simple with thumb drives, as long as both the source computer and the destination computer have USB ports. Files are simply copied to the drive from the source computer, then copied to the destination computer from the drive.

   Saving on Public Computers

   • Information found or created on a public computer can be saved to a thumb drive, which means you do not have to email yourself or lose your data, and you do not have to worry about anyone else finding it.

   Durability and Size

   • Drives are more durable than CDs, so you will not lose all your data because of a scratch. They also have more room to store data than CDs, so what might take four or five CDs only takes one drive.

External Hard Drives

External drives are arguably the biggest growth area in data storage of recent times. They offer the possibility of a readily transportable repository for all a user’s valuable data, documents, photographs, music and movies. Alternatively they can provide a destination for a user to backup their valued files to, in case the data held on their internal storage is lost, or the internal storage fails. But are they lulling users into a false sense of security?

They are being offered with ever increasing capacity and at ever decreasing prices. Many are advertised using ‘pence per Gigabyte’ prices as a lure. However a few notes of caution arise from the recent spate of external hard drives being sent for Data Recovery:

• Unlike the internal hard drive in your PC, which is held securely in a rarely moved case, external drives are being carried about from place to place and as a result they get dropped, knocked, crushed and subject to all manner of abuse and trauma.
• They have trailing power and/or data cables that only too easily serve to pull them over, drag them off desks or otherwise expose them to further risk.
• Unlike the hard drive in your PC or Laptop, which is cooled by a fan, external drives seldom have cooling fans and, in an effort to make them as small as possible, the hard drive(s) inside rarely have much free air space around them. This can result in overheating with the attendant problems that causes.
• External drives are an excellent destination for backing up files, but this only truly safeguards your data if the files are initially saved to an internal drive and then backed up to the external. If the external becomes the default place for files to be saved to, the data is not being backed up, it is simply being saved to a destination where it is more likely to be lost.

The hard drives found inside externals are no less likely to fail than an internal drive. Indeed where the drives inside an external are invisible to the user and perhaps chosen to keep costs low, might they be more likely to fail even without the extra risks highlighted above? Where external drives carry extended warranties, this might seem reassuring, but remember, the warranty will only cover repair or replacement of the drive, not the cost of recovering any valuable data stored on it.

Laptop

A laptop, also called a notebook, is a personal computer for mobile use. A laptop integrates most of the typical componentsof a desktop computer, including a display, a keyboard, a pointing device (a touchpad, also known as a trackpad, and/or a pointing stick) and speakers into a single unit. A laptop is powered by mains electricity via an AC adapter, and can be used away from an outlet using a rechargeable battery.

Portable computers, originally monochrome CRT-based and developed into the modern laptops, and were originally considered to be a small niche market, mostly for specialized field applications such as the military, accountants and sales representatives. As portable computers became smaller, lighter, cheaper, more powerful and as screens became larger and of better quality, laptops became very widely used for all sorts of purposes.

Advantages

Productivity: Using a laptop in places where a desktop PC can not be used, and at times that would otherwise be wasted. For example, an office worker managing their e-mails during an hour-long commute by train, or a student doing his/her homework at the university coffee shop during a break between lectures.Portability is usually the first feature mentioned in any comparison of laptops versus desktop PCs. Portability means that a laptop can be used in many places—not only at home and at the office, but also during commuting and flights, in coffee shops, in lecture halls and libraries, at clients' location or at a meeting room, etc. The portability feature offers several distinct advantages:

• Immediacy: Carrying a laptop means having instant access to various information, personal and work files. Immediacy allows better collaboration between coworkers or students, as a laptop can be flipped open to present a problem or a solution anytime, anywhere.
• Up-to-date information: If a person has more than one desktop PC, a problem of synchronization arises: changes made on one computer are not automatically propagated to the others. There are ways to resolve this problem, including physical transfer of updated files (using a USB flash memory stick or CDRs) or using synchronization software over the Internet. However, using a single laptop at both locations avoids the problem entirely, as the files exist in a single location and are always up-to-date.
• Connectivity: A proliferation of Wi-Fi wireless networks and cellular broadband data services (HSDPA, EVDO and others) combined with a near-ubiquitous support by laptops means that a laptop can have easy Internet and local network connectivity while remaining mobile. Wi-Fi networks and laptop programs are especially widespread at university campuses.

Other advantages of laptops:

• Size: Laptops are smaller than desktop PCs. This is beneficial when space is at a premium, for example in small apartments and student dorms. When not in use, a laptop can be closed and put away.
• Low power consumption: Laptops are several times more power-efficient than desktops. A typical laptop uses 20–90 W, compared to 100–800 W for desktops. This could be particularly beneficial for businesses (which run hundreds of personal computers, multiplying the potential savings) and homes where there is a computer running 24/7 (such as a home media server, print server, etc.)
• Quiet: Laptops are often quieter than desktops, due both to the components (quieter, slower 2.5-inch hard drives) and to less heat production leading to use of fewer and slower cooling fans.
• Battery: a charged laptop can continue to be used in case of a power outage and is not affected by short power interruptions and blackouts. A desktop PC needs a UPS to handle short interruptions, blackouts and spikes; achieving on-battery time of more than 20–30 minutes for a desktop PC requires a large and expensive UPS.
• All-in-One: designed to be portable, laptops have everything integrated in to the chassis. For desktops (excluding all-in-ones) this is divided into the desktop, keyboard, mouse, display, and optional peripherals such as speakers.

Tablet PC

A tablet computer, or a tablet, is a mobile computer, larger than a mobile phone or personal digital assistant, integrated into a flat touch screen and primarily operated by touching the screen rather than using a physical keyboard. It often uses an onscreen virtual keyboard, a passive stylus pen, or a digital pen.

Apple Ipad 2 

The term may also apply to a variety of form factors that differ in position of the screen with respect to a keyboard. The standard form is calledslate, which does not have an integrated keyboard but may be connected to one with a wireless link or a USB port. Convertible notebook computers have an integrated keyboard that can be hidden by a swivel joint or slide joint, exposing only the screen for touch operation. Hybridshave a detachable keyboard so that the touch screen can be used as a stand-alone tablet. Booklets include two touch screens, and can be used as a notebook by displaying a virtual keyboard in one of them.

Early examples of the information tablet concept originated in the 19th and 20th centuries mainly as prototypes and concept ideas, the more prominent the Alan Kay's Dynabook. First commercial portable electronic devices based on the concept appeared at the end of the 20th century. During the 2000s Microsoft attempted a relatively unsuccessful product line with Microsoft Tablet PC, which carved a niche market at hospitals and outdoor businesses. In 2010 Apple released the iPad based on the technology developed in parallel with their previous iPhone, and reached worldwide commercial success.

Samsung Galaxy Tab

Advantages

• Usage in environments not conducive to a keyboard and mouse such as lying in bed, standing, or handling with a single hand.
• Lighter weight, lower power models can function similarly to dedicated reading devices like the Amazon Kindle.
• Touch environment makes navigation easier than conventional use of keyboard and mouse or touch pad in certain contexts such as image manipulation, musical, or mouse oriented games.
• Digital painting and image editing are more precise and intuitive than painting or sketching with a mouse.
• The ability for easier or faster entry of diagrams, mathematical notations, and symbols.
• Allows, with the proper software, universal input, independent from different keyboard localizations.
• Some users find it more direct and pleasant to use a stylus, pen or finger to point and tap on objects, rather than use a mouse or touchpad, which are not directly connected to the pointer on screen.

Android Tab

Disadvantages

• Higher price – convertible tablet computers can cost significantly more than non-tablet portable PCs although this premium has been predicted to fall.
• Input speed – handwriting or typing on a virtual keyboard can be significantly slower than typing speed on a conventional keyboard, the latter of which can be as high as 50–150 WPM; however, Slideit, Swype and other technologies are offered in an effort to narrow the gap. Some devices also support external keyboards (eg: iPad can accept Bluetooth keyboards and USB keyboards through iPad Camera Connection Kit Dock Connector-to-USB adapter. Apple has also released a keyboard dock)
• Ergonomics – a tablet computer, or a folded slate PC, does not provide room for a wrist rest. In addition, the user will need to move his or her arm constantly while writing.
• Weaker video capabilities – Most tablet computers are equipped with embedded graphics processors instead of discrete graphics cards. In July 2010, the only tablet PC with a discrete graphics card was the HP TouchSmart tm2t, which has the ATI Mobility Radeon HD5450 as an optional extra.
• Business-oriented tablet personal computers have been slow sellers from 2001 to date.
• Screen risk – Tablet computers are handled more than conventional laptops, yet many are built on similar frames; in addition, since their screens also serve as input devices, they run a higher risk of screen damage from impacts and misuse.
• Hinge risk – A convertible tablet computer's screen hinge is often required to rotate around two axes, unlike a normal laptop screen, subsequently increasing the number of possible mechanical and electrical (digitizer and video cables, embedded WiFi antennas, etc.) failure points.
• Smaller display and lack of keyboard.

Smart Phone

A smartphone is a high-end mobile phone built on a mobile computing platform, with more advanced computing ability and connectivity than a contemporary feature phone.The first smartphones were devices that mainly combined the functions of a personal digital assistant (PDA) and a mobile phone or camera phone. Today's models also serve to combine the functions of portable media players, low-end compact digital cameras, pocket video cameras, and GPS navigation units. Modern smartphones typically also include high-resolution touchscreens, web browsers that can access and properly display standard web pages rather than just mobile-optimized sites, and high-speed data access via Wi-Fi and mobile broadband.

Blackberry Tour 9630

The most common mobile operating systems (OS) used by modern smartphones include Google's Android, Apple's iOS, Microsoft'sWindows Phone, Nokia's Symbian, RIM's BlackBerry OS, and embedded Linux distributions such as Maemo and MeeGo. Such operating systems can be installed on many different phone models, and typically each device can receive multiple OS software updates over its lifetime.

Apple Iphone 4

The distinction between smartphones and feature phones can be vague and there is no official definition for what constitutes the difference between them. One of the most significant differences is that the advanced application programming interfaces (APIs) on smartphones for running third-party applications can allow those applications to have better integration with the phone's OS and hardware than is typical with feature phones. In comparison, feature phones more commonly run on proprietary firmware, with third-party software support through platforms such as Java ME or BREW. An additional complication in distinguishing between smartphones and feature phones is that over time the capabilities of new models of feature phones can increase to exceed those of phones that had been promoted as smartphones in the past.

Samsung Galaxy S2