In Search of the Perfect Investment

I've been writing and updating this dictionary for 30+ years. If you're curious about telecom, networking, the Internet, mobile communications, computing, etc. this book will help. When you land a job at one of the big companies in this huge field, you'll find this book on your desk as a "welcome present." It explains all the terms, the jargon and the nuances. It's received lots of awards and is usually number one in its category on Amazon. Click on the image to buy it.

Corsair Solid State Drive (SSD)
The fastest, cheapest and simplest way to speed up your PC -- laptop or desktop, PC or Apple -- is to replace your present, spinning, hard drive with a solid state one, like this Corsair. Kensington also makes a Notebook Upgrade Kit which includes an SSD and cloning software which works, even for Windows 7. I have a Kensington. It works, like the Corsair, flawlessly.

Canon G10 Camera

Best point and shoot for professional pictures. Lots of manual controls. Lighter and less expensive than an SLR. There's now a G11 which has some pluses over the G10.

Verizon MiFi broadband card
Ultra-tiny. Ultra-light. Best device for go-anywhere WiFi Internet access. Use in cars, buses, other peoples' offices, coffee shops, restaurants, hotels, or in your home if you can't get FiOS, DSL or a cable modem.

Subaru Outback WagonBest family vehicle ever. All-wheel drive goes anywhere. Ultra-reliable. Our family has had Outbacks for 15 years. We presently have three. The 4 cylinder does 27 MPG, or so. Not shabby. You don't need the 6 cylinder. Buy the automatic. Easier to drive.

Linksys WiFi range extender and signal boosterWhen your WiFi router is at one end of the house/office and you're at the other, plug this thing in near where you are. Bingo. Your wireless signal will be stronger and faster. You can carry it wherever you go and simply plug it in. Once programmed (which is easy), you never need to reprogram it. It remembers even when unplugged (and hence unpowered). Some places sell it for as little as $25.

Garmin nuvi 350 GPSMy most useful travel gadget -- ever since I discovered (1) I don't need to suction it to the windshield or plug it in. It will run happily for four hours on battery sitting in my lap. (2) I can walk or bicycle with it and it still gets me to where I want to go. (3) It takes a $150 SD card which means I can use it all over Europe, though some parts of the east (like Poland) are a little sketchy. The Garmin nuvi 350 is now obsolete. From what read of the specs, the new Garmin nuvi 205 for $120 is a perfect replacement. It actually has some features that mine doesn't have, including being smaller. When choosing a GPS gadget, software is key. Ease and logic of use, etc. I like Garmin GPS software. It's much easier to use than other GPSes I've used (e.g. the horrible ones in Hertz rent-a-cars).

The Semware Editor For 25 years-plus, I've used this remarkable text editor to write thousands of magazine articles and my 1200-page dictionary. If you need to get words "on paper" fast, this is for you. The Semware Editor (TSE) has about four million features Microsoft's Word doesn't have -- but should. Best, you can program TSE to be anything you want -- from a dictionary producer, to a list of things to do, to an HTML editor, to a super-fast search engine. To test it (free) and /or buy it (cost $99), Click here. If you do buy it, ask me to send you the "Harry UI" (Harry's user interface). That UI has had 25 years of testing and is bulletproof. TSE works with all versions of Windows, but not the Mac.

Firefox browser

Firefox is the best Internet browser because it's open source and hence has zillions of plug-ins and add-ons to make it do what you want it to do -- not what Microsoft, Apple or Google want.My favorite Firefox plug-ins are Showcase, MeasureIt and ScreenGrab.