Maplin electronics have got another hard drive related item in the sale (For how long, I do not know). If you are like me, you will have masses of files stored on your pc or maybe a external hard drive. This is ok if only you need access to the files and you don’t want to share them with the rest of your household.

This external hard drive enclosure from Landisk is the answer if you wish to centralise your file storage and allow shared access to your files. If you have children they could share music and films using this item. You have to fit your own hard drive into this enclosure which is a relatively simple task to perform, usually involving no more than a few small screws and a couple of cables. The beauty of fitting your own hard drive into the enclosure is the choice of hard drive capacity is yours and it will probably workout cheaper than buying a ready assembled external hard drive unit.

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Connect the enclosure to your router/hub and anyone in your household or office who is connected to the network will be able to access the drive. You will be able to configure the drive for shared access or restrict folders if you wish.

All in all this enclosure looks like a very useful addition to the digital home.

You can see the hard drive enclosure on Maplins website

As you will know from earlier posts, I have a dispute situation with my old broadband provider Pipex. Basically, I cancelled and migrated away to another isp. Pipex obviously find it very difficult to let customers go due to the fact they have continued to charge me for internet they no longer provide.

I have emailed Pipex several times and have received maybe two replies to 10 emails after a period of weeks. The replies were completely unhelpful and pointless. I have tried on several occasions to speak to a person via the telephone numbers given by Pipex. The usual result has been disconnection due to extremely high call volumes. I even sent a letter via recorded delivery stating all the relevant dates and facts etc, but still I have had no resolution to this problem or any contact from Pipex.

The company has withdrawn monthly payments from my bank account for a service it no longer provides. I have not been able to stop the withdrawals from my bank because the payment is not taken via direct debit. It is called continuous authorisation I think. The company has your debit card details and can help themselves to money from your bank account whenever they please.

After a couple of months of being ignored I took the decision to close my bank account and open a new one thus denying Pipex any money. A very helpful assistant at the bank explained to me that I could contact something called the disputes resolution team regarding the money taken from my bank account. All I had to do was write a letter explaining the situation and the amounts involved. The letter was written at the bank and I left it with the assistant.

I was very surprised to see the unauthorised withdrawals refunded into my bank account only days later. The bank has actually refunded the money and stopped any future withdrawals by Pipex. I know the latter is in place because Pipex did indeed take £33.99 from my account on 20th September and the bank gave it back to me on the 21st September.

A refund amount is still outstanding and has not been returned as yet. The bank has returned my money not Pipex. Pipex seem to think they have me as a customer even after the dreadful ignorance they have shown towards me. I have reported the company to Ofcom and have also written to TV show BBC Watchdog and several newspapers and magazines with this story. As yet I have heard nothing from any of them.

How many more people are in a similar or identical situation with Pipex and receiving the same arrogant and ignorant treatment. To be treated in this manner by a large national company is not only outrageous but extremely incompetent and unprofessional.

If you read this and you are in the same situation please contact me and maybe we can pursue the matter together as a group.

I use a 2Gb USB flash drive a great deal. I would not want to be without it really. All my important files are always with me wherever I go and when you work as an IT technician it is handy to know the tools you need are in your pocket and ready to go.

My personal flash drive is full of software for removing spyware and viruses. Programs such as spywareblaster, adaware and spybot search and destroy are always needed somewhere. The flash drive I have, cost about £90 when new but looking at this offer from Microdirect prices are obviously coming down fast. This is the cheapest price I have seen for a capacity of 2 Gb so get buying now!

The offer is here but I don’t know how long for.

It’s hard to believe that the hard drive is actually 50 years old. If you were to ask a teenager how old the hard drive is they would not guess 50 years. I was a little surprised myself!

Elvis Presley was just starting his singing career in 1956, and the humble hard drive was also beginning its incredible journey. The first hard drive was introduced by IBM in the RAMAC 305 system. It had a capacity of 5Mb costing $10,000 a megabyte. The system itself was a little on the large side compared to what we see today. It was the size of 2 refrigerators and used 50 24 inch platters.

The ridiculously miniscule storage capacities of the first hard drives were nothing less than amazing at the time. Just shows how the human race is carried away when it invents something new, making it bigger, better, faster. When you look at storage available to the home user today, it seems ludicrous.

The average home pc user can buy 500 Gb hard drives for quite reasonable pricing and store masses of information, most of it completely unnecessary and useless. That is a matter of opinion I suppose.

It wasn’t until 1963 that the first removable hard drive was introduced by IBM. It had six 14 inch platters and a capacity of 2.6 Mb. Seagate was founded in 1979 and IBM raised the bar on storage capacity with the 3370 hard drive boasting an impressive 571 Mb.

The amount of cash used for research and development of hard drive technology must have been, and probably still remains, immense. Hard drive capacity continued to increase steadily with the introduction of the first gigabyte hard drive introduced by IBM in 1980. It was the size of a fridge, weighed 550 pounds and cost about $40,000. Bargain!

The 3.5 inch size format we all know and recognise today, was not introduced until 1983 when Rodime released the RO352 with a capacity of 10 Mb. What could you achieve with only 10 Mb of storage today? I’m sure this question may bring some interesting comments.

1985 brings the 40-pin IDE interface. IDE stands for Intelligent Drive Electronics, more commonly known as Integrated Drive Electronics. Control Data, Compaq Computer, and Western Digital collaborated to develop the new standard. 80 pin has largely superseded this standard now. Some older desktops still have the 40 pin in use for cd drives and the like but are fading.

A jump forward to 1997 and capacities have climbed to 16.8 Gb with the IBM Titan drives. IBM announced the worlds smallest hard drive in 1998 with a capacity of 340 Mb on a one inch single platter. From here technology has progressed, bringing us larger and faster hard drives with 10, 000 rpm spin speeds. The introduction of Serial ATA transfer technology has increased transfer speeds again.

2006 brings us 750 Gb hard drives and also expected are 1 inch 12 Gb capacity hard drives. With larger capacity drives available software has increased in size and many are now referred to as “bloatware”. Software standards are pretty good as far as user friendliness and the user experience are concerned but could we still have the same features with greatly reduced sizes. I would think the answer is yes but it would take longer to write the software. I am only guessing here as I am not a programmer.

I love the advancing technology and wish for unlimited funds to keep upgrading my pc and gadgets, but where will this ever advancing technology take us?

We all possess the best storage facility ever created but how long will it take for the capacity of the human brain to seem very small

Happy 50th Birthday to the hard drive!