I'm going to buy a laptop with no cd/dvd drive in it, what USB cd/dvd drive should I get?

Weather Gi

I want to buy a Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 13 laptop for my birthday and this will also be the laptop I will take to college next year and it doesn't have the drive where you put in disks. What is a good USB cd/dvd drive that I should buy and is compatible with the laptop so I can download stuff from CD's, watch movies, and also play the Sims 3 games (lol), etc...

Thanks!

Answer
I looked up the laptop that you are planning to buy and it has both a USB 3.0 and a USB 2.0 port, so basically any external cd/dvd drive that works via USB will work.
If you are not going to burn disks but only want to do the things you mentioned then all you need is a ROM drive and that is great because those are the least expensive. Here is one that reads Blue Ray disks and is under $25: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA2C50YW4972

Where you buy is perhaps more important than brand name because even top name brands will sometimes have a defect and it's just convenient to buy from a place with a good return/exchange policy, so Best Buy is great if one is near you, but if you will be buying online and using mail, then Newegg.com and Tigerdirect.com are at the least trusted and highly reputable businesses.

Here is a convenient link to an external Blueray DVD/CD burner: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/8x-external-usb-2-0-3d-blu-ray-disc-double-layer-dvd-177rw-cd-rw-drive/3794001.p?id=1218432163829&skuId=3794001&st=External%20blue%20ray&cp=1&lp=1

It is surprisingly easy for your stuff to get "lost" or stolen while on the go, so even though the external drive is easily portable, it's just better to have a policy of leaving it at home or in the dorm where you use it and secure it with a cable lock or disguise it with play-doh and don't carry it in the same case as your laptop. That's just my experience.

Something else you might consider buying as an accessory is a docking station. This lets you use multiple monitors, wired ethernet, external speakers, multiple external drives, keyboard, mouse, printer, scanner, etc. all set up on your desktop and you just plug in one USB 3.0 port and it's all set up and just unplug that one port to go in a flash.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834978245

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NEED HELP on a Computer for Web Developer/Designer.?

Dr.True

I want a good computer that I can edit videos, music, images and other media. It does not have tobe the latest, or fastest as price is concern. I do have my eye on the IMAC 20inch, is this a good buy for what I want to do?

Answer
That is a good choice. If you already have a good monitor, you can get a Mac Mini. I have one, as well as an old blue&white G3 (which I keep around because I can hook up my scanner and THREE monitors at once!)

The new multi-core Intel machines are very, very fast. My Mini, a 1.66GHz Core Duo, works nine times faster than the old machine while performing raytraced 3D.

Mac OS X is also a system which is brilliant for coding back-end server code. If you interested in Ruby on Rails, I recommend Locomotive: a portable development environment for Rails. It makes things very easy indeed.

how much RAM is a good amount?

Antares

And what exactly is RAM? I'm looking to buy a laptop, and need one that is heavy duty, with a lot of memory and toughness. Portability isn't that big an issue (but it does need to be portable so it can't be a desktop). I was wondering about the RAM, and how much I would need.

Answer
RAM is random access memory, every time you open up a program it is using up RAM, if you have Windows Vista or Windows XP you can press Control, Alt, and Delete at the same time to see how much RAM your computer is taking up. RAM is important if you want to be able to open lots of programs without slowing down and be able to do multiple things at once like playing a game while you have a a virus scanner and a word document open would take up a lot of RAM. I recommend atleast 2 GB for Windows Vista as it takes p a bunch of RAM, if you're gonna play modern games and new games then you'll definitely need 2 GB RAM plus. The more RAM the more programs can be opened without lag and you can go from 1 program to another quickly, I used to have a computer with only 256 mb of RAM, whenever I exited a game it took forever to go back to the desktop or open another program. RAM is especially important for programs like Photo Editing Programs, Professional Business kind of programs and movie editing etc. because they need a lot of RAM to work with.

I also recommend a good graphics card if you want to play 3D games and/or movie edit, if your just a typical computer user and don't play games or have those big programs then 2 GB of RAM will be really nice already and you won't really need a good graphics card.

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I'm going to buy a laptop with no cd/dvd drive in it, what USB cd/dvd drive should I get?

3d scanner portable image

Weather Gi

I want to buy a Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 13 laptop for my birthday and this will also be the laptop I will take to college next year and it doesn't have the drive where you put in disks. What is a good USB cd/dvd drive that I should buy and is compatible with the laptop so I can download stuff from CD's, watch movies, and also play the Sims 3 games (lol), etc...

Thanks!

Answer
I looked up the laptop that you are planning to buy and it has both a USB 3.0 and a USB 2.0 port, so basically any external cd/dvd drive that works via USB will work.
If you are not going to burn disks but only want to do the things you mentioned then all you need is a ROM drive and that is great because those are the least expensive. Here is one that reads Blue Ray disks and is under $25: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA2C50YW4972

Where you buy is perhaps more important than brand name because even top name brands will sometimes have a defect and it's just convenient to buy from a place with a good return/exchange policy, so Best Buy is great if one is near you, but if you will be buying online and using mail, then Newegg.com and Tigerdirect.com are at the least trusted and highly reputable businesses.

Here is a convenient link to an external Blueray DVD/CD burner: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/8x-external-usb-2-0-3d-blu-ray-disc-double-layer-dvd-177rw-cd-rw-drive/3794001.p?id=1218432163829&skuId=3794001&st=External%20blue%20ray&cp=1&lp=1

It is surprisingly easy for your stuff to get "lost" or stolen while on the go, so even though the external drive is easily portable, it's just better to have a policy of leaving it at home or in the dorm where you use it and secure it with a cable lock or disguise it with play-doh and don't carry it in the same case as your laptop. That's just my experience.

Something else you might consider buying as an accessory is a docking station. This lets you use multiple monitors, wired ethernet, external speakers, multiple external drives, keyboard, mouse, printer, scanner, etc. all set up on your desktop and you just plug in one USB 3.0 port and it's all set up and just unplug that one port to go in a flash.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834978245

What sensor is better? CIS or CMOS in scanners?

gbeuchel

When it comes to scanners, what is the difference between:

CIS
CMOS

Note: I want to scan family photos

Answer
I'll list some pros and cons and leave it to you to decide.

CIS
pros: cheaper than CMOS, uses less current so some of them can operate entirely off the USB port and won't require an external adaptor meaning they could in theory be hooked up to a laptop and made portable.

cons: my personal impression is that the contrast ratio for CIS is inferior to cmos. Probably because the light used in CIS is different (weaker?) than cmos. But this is easily rectified if you purchase a good quality CIS scanner. CIS can't scan 3D objects.

CMOS:
pros: can scan a surface that isn't entirely flat (CIS only scans surfaces that are in contact with the scanner glass, anything further aware than several fractions of an inch just shows up as a blur). That makes CMOS good for scanning thick books as it will scan words that are printed near the spine and that can't be made to lay entirely flat unto the glass.

Cons: generally heavier than CIS. requires external power supply so not portable. Might be slightly more costly.

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