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How To Make Desktop Icons Easier To Read? Change Your Wallpaper

Posted: 24 Jan 2011 03:30 AM PST

Here’s a situation that everyone has encountered at some point or another:

You have a really nice image for your wallpaper which has a lot of detail to it; it’s most likely an image of a waterfall or a forest.

On your desktop are obviously icons. Probably several of them. One day you go to click on an icon you’ve clicked a million times before but darn it, you just can’t read what the icon text says. This confuses and possibly even frightens you somewhat because you’ve always been able to read the icon text before, and now you can’t, so what gives?

What gives is that your brain is trying to process the ‘complicated’ background image and the icons and the text at the same time, and the background won.

It absolutely does not matter how good or bad your eyesight is. Complicated wallpaper images simply aren’t good for your eyes when trying to distinguish the icons and text from the background.

There are several solutions to this:

1. Used a tiled image as your wallpaper.

Tiled images are by nature uncomplicated and consistent, causing less eye strain.

2. Landscape.

Landscape images have something other wallpapers don’t, a ‘plain’ sky. This is a perfect place to put all your icons by placing them in the uncomplicated part of the image, making them easier to see, read and click.

3. Grayscale (black-and-white) image.

All your icons have color. If you use a grayscale image, the icons and text will stick out more. You can find grayscale images easily by going to Google Images, search for a term and then click Black and white on the left sidebar.

Here is a generic search for wallpaper using the black-and-white option.

4. No wallpaper, muted color.

The best color (albeit very boring) to use for a no-wallpaper desktop is a muted gray. Some would assume flat black or flat white, but both of those are bad because it makes icon text difficult to read. Muted gray works best because it causes the least eye strain. If you’d rather pick another color (and I wouldn’t blame you), other muted colors like sky blue, canary yellow and pea green also work very well.

Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.

How To Make Desktop Icons Easier To Read? Change Your Wallpaper

How Slow Is USB 2.0?

Posted: 24 Jan 2011 03:00 AM PST

The original spec for USB 2.0 is 60MB/s (or 480Mbit/s) raw data rate; that’s the fastest it was designed to transfer data across the wire.

Prior to 2005, USB 2.0 was pretty speedy for most purposes. The spec had already been in existence for well over a few years by this point, and vendors loved it as did consumers. Everyone was happy.

Today in 2011, USB 2.0 isn’t what it used to be. Sure, it’s still as universal as ever and works with everything, but the problem is that the data rate is still mostly the same while data storage is much cheaper and more affordable. In other words, it takes way too long to move our stuff over USB 2.0 because we have so much more stuff.

How cheap is storage today? A 2TB drive is $80 at the time of this writing. That’s $0.04 per GB.

How long does it take to transfer data over USB 2.0?

In practical application, USB 2.0 achieves a maximum bulk data rate of about 40MB/s. You may achieve a better rate depending on your southbridge and if you use an external enclosure with its own controller to assist, but we’ll assume the worst and that you’re only able to achieve the 40MB/s.

Here’s a quick rundown of how long it would potentially take to transfer certain amounts of data. The ones highlighted in red are the times when it would actually bother people to wait that long to get something transferred.

(These figures are rounded and somewhat rough, but they get the point across.)

1.44MB (Floppy disk size)..... Less than a second  700MB (CD disc size)......... Under 20 seconds    1GB (1,024MB).............. Under 30 seconds    2GB (2,048MB).............. Under a minute  4.7GB (DVD-5, 4,813MB)....... 2 minutes    6GB (6,144MB) ............. 2.5 minutes    8GB (8,192MB).............. 3.5 minutes   16GB (16,384MB)............. 7 minutes   32GB (32,768MB)............. 14 minutes   64GB (65,536MB)............. 28 minutes  128GB (131,072MB)............ 55 minutes  256GB (262,144MB)............ 1.8 hours  512GB (524,288MB)............ 3.6 hours    1TB (1,048,576MB).......... 7.3 hours  1.5TB (1,572,864MB).......... 11 hours    2TB (2,097,152MB).......... 14.6 hours

If you’re wondering if there is an external hard drive enclosure with a USB 2.0 interface can in fact support 2TB sizes, the answer is yes – not that I’d recommend going that way, but it is available.

If you’re thinking "My USB 2.0 speeds are WAY slower than that!", it’s because you have other USB devices using the bus. To achieve the best possible rate, use as little USB devices as possible or use a bus that isn’t shared by any other USB devices.

Going with a big external drive? Consider eSATA and/or USB 3.0

External SATA, better known as eSATA, is a good choice to go with if you’re OK with the fact the maximum cable length available is just under 7 feet (6.6′ or 2 meters to be exact), and that you will most likely need an eSATA card for your desktop or laptop, both of which are cheap and widely available.

Standardized in ’04, eSATA is a proven reliable technology with its only real drawback being you probably need the extra hardware noted above to use it for every computer you have.

USB 3.0 is still very new but there are already plenty of new motherboards coming bundled with them, cards are readily available, and as far as enclosures are concerned, oh yes, can do – and they don’t hit the wallet too hard either.

Riding the fence on whether to go with USB 3.0 or eSATA?

This one’s easy to answer – go with USB 3.0.

Why? This is best cited by example.

Chances are the next laptop you buy will have USB 3.0 built right into it, but not eSATA. For whatever new computer you buy, be it laptop, desktop or even new motherboard for a self-built, it will have USB 3.0 ready-to-go, but not eSATA ports unless you very specifically look for them first.

In other words, going with USB 3.0 means less hardware you have to buy in the future. You know USB 3.0 is going to be there, but not eSATA. In addition, USB 3 is backward compatible to 2, so if you run into a computer that doesn’t have 3, you know it will have 2 so you can still connect your external drive.

I’m not saying eSATA is bad because it certainly isn’t – but it does fall short when it comes to how many computers actually have eSATA ports. You want ports that will be available on any computer you use, and for that, USB is the better choice.

Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.

How Slow Is USB 2.0?