Most environmentally-sound practices, including recycling, remain optional endeavors for consumers, but one Green practice that will be imposed on consumers in the near future, is the need to change the lighting in their homes. With new legislative regulations coming into effect in 2012 and subsequent years, it is important that people begin to familiarize themselves with new lighting technologies as they are required to move away from current incandescent light bulbs and adopt newer technologies, including LED lighting.

Traditional incandescent light bulbs will essentially be outlawed in the US by the year 2014, a revelation that has caused some consumers to begin stockpiling these soon-to-be obsolete products. But, rather than working to avoid the inevitable, it would be much easier to understand why LED lighting offers an energy and cost-saving alternative to both incandescent and the current energy-saving light bulb du jour, the compact fluorescent or CFL.

While LEDs (light emitting diodes) are not a new technology by any means, they have been found in decorative lighting, backlighting for flat panel displays, status indicators on a host of electronic products and even as car brake lamps and indicators, their use as a general-purpose light source is, in itself, new. An LED is an electronic semiconductor device of a particular material composition which, when current passes through it, gives off light. The first practical LED to produce light with a spectrum visible to the human eye, a red LED, was discovered in 1962. In later developments, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet LED chips were created. The main technology challenge has been to maximize the amount of light produced with respect to the energy supplied to the LED.

 Now, that challenge is being met with lighting that very-closely matches that emitted by traditional incandescent bulbs. The first iterations of these products have come in the form of what manufacturers refer to as retro-fit bulbs, whose sole purpose is to replace their incandescent and CFL predecessors. Offering more efficient operation, longer bulb life and, most importantly, energy savings over the life of the bulb.

The benefits of LED lighting over other energy-saving solutions take time to be realized and that is perhaps one of the biggest roadblocks for consumers to understand. The efficiency of an LED lamp is approximately five times that of a standard incandescent bulb, allowing for its initial price point to be more than recovered through lower energy usage and a much longer life span. Also, LED bulbs lessen the need for power generation and do not contain hazardous materials such as mercury.

With lighting in homes and businesses typically accounting for about 20% of all electrical energy use, the conversion of incandescent lighting to LED lighting can have a significant impact on national energy usage and individual carbon footprints. With LED bulbs holding a 40,000-hour lifespan (over 20 years), once installed, the savings benefits will be realized for years to come with standard use.

As new legislation around the world makes switching to more efficient lighting alternatives a necessity, consumers need to begin educating themselves on the benefits of these new products and how they will affect their lives. Offering the longest lifespan and the most energy savings over their operating life, LED bulbs are an alternative that will benefit consumers now and into the future. So, the only question that needs to be asked is when will you become a part of the future of lighting?

There may not be a subject that gets more false lip-service from both businesses and individuals than data backup. The common joke of “I need to backup my backup,” is good for a laugh or two, until, almost inevitably, something happens and you realize that all the times you said you would be sure to backup your data and didn’t have come back to haunt you when everything on your computer is compromised.

Certainly, there is no need to backup every file on your computer or business servers, but sensitive information, files and documents, along with passwords and access information need to be protected from loss on a regular, scheduled basis. Every business and individual user needs to create a plan to protect themselves from the loss of key data and afford them the opportunity to restore their files in the event of a catastrophic or accidental loss of data.

The causes of data loss range from the extreme, physical computer destruction from natural disaster, fire or stolen computer, to the benign, accidental deletion, computer failure, and hard disk error or virus infection. Regardless of the cause, the resulting loss of information can be expensive and often, impossible to recover and restore to its pre-incident status.

Many users question if data loss will ever happen to them, so why worry about creating a backup plan? The answer, studies show that six percent of computer users will lose some part of their data in a given year, or one out of every 17 computers. So, while this is not a high percentage, it is much more staggering to learn that nearly half of all computer users never make a backup of their data, never.

The first step in creating a data backup plan is to determine what files on your computer are critically important to your work, life and business. As was said earlier, not every file on your hard drive needs to be backed up on a regular basis, but identifying the critical files and their locations is crucial first step in the process. While this is definitely a personal or organizational choice, key files that should be considered include: banking and financial files, digital photos, purchased music and/or software, important work or school projects, and email contact lists. The options are endless, but these are a good place to start.

Next, it is important to find top-line data backup software to make the scheduling and execution of the backup as easy as possible. One of the easiest-to-use and reliable software solutions is Nero BackItUp & Burn. Included in all Verbatim hard drives, this software is designed to be convenient as it automatically backs up data to a hard drive, DVD or online, based on user preferences.

Now that you’ve decided what files need to be backed up and what software will execute the scheduled process, how much space is needed to store all of the files? It is recommended that the backup destination contain 25% more space than the size of the files being sent to it. Some hard drives allow for partitioning so that part of the capacity is used for initial storage, while another part is held for backup purposes.

Storage media choices for backup can include CD/DVD media copies, which are limited in terms of total space and require many discs over time. If burning data to a disc is desired, blu-ray technology allows for about 25GB of storage and can hold nearly six times the data of a traditional DVD. Also, USB flash drives allow for quick backup and portability, but rarely have enough capacity for a full backup. Probably the most convenient backup solution in terms of “set it and forget it” usability are online backup services. These let your computer back itself up and put your files offsite, saving you from needing to backup your backup files, but incur annual or monthly fees and can slow down your computer during the data backup process. Finally, the easiest way to backup your data is to connect an external hard drive – like a Verbatim Store ‘n’ Go portable hard drive or Store ‘n’ Save desktop hard drive – to your computer and simply drag and drop files to back them up to the drive.  As mentioned earlier, these drives include software to allow for efficient scheduled data backup.

With so many threats to personal data in this digital age, establishing a data backup plan for your personal or business files is more essential than ever. The idea that “it won’t happen to me,” is dangerous at best. Rather than just talking about backing up your key files, put a plan in action, make the investment in the necessary tools and keep your most-important documents secure at all times. The costs of regular data backup are far less than the loss of key documents and files.

We’re entering the home stretch for this year’s CES in Las Vegas, three days are in the books with the final day slated for Sunday. Saturday brought more visitors and great interest in the newest products from Verbatim.

Once again, people are intrigued by the range of product lines offered by Verbatim, perhaps the biggest quote heard on the show floor has been, “I had no idea that Verbatim made mice and keyboards,” or “I didn’t know Verbatim made hard drives and USB drives.” Certainly makes for an interesting discussion starting point when a person doesn’t know about your company’s offerings, but can make for a more interesting discussion as well.

USB 3.0 has dominated discussions that last day and a half, and will likely continue to do so as we move into Sunday’s activities. It’s certainly a technology that is so new most people know little or nothing about it. Products including Store-’n'-Go SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive and the latest USB 3.0 product offering in the Titan XS line of portable hard drives.

With so many new ideas and products being displayed at CES, standing out gets tougher each year, but so far, Verbatim appears to be doing a nice job of getting the attention of booth visitors. We’re ready to see what Sunday brings as the show comes to a close.

As CES 2011 rolls on, the Verbatim crew has been quite busy telling visitors to the booth all about the new product offerings on display. The sheer size of this event and the number of people roaming the aisles is amazing, to think that everyone is staying somewhere here in Las Vegas, you can see why the city was wise to build such a massive convention center just down the street from all the casinos.

The walk back to our booth in the South Hall of the convention center was, in itself, an unbelievable experience, especially for someone like me who has never seen CES and all of the vendors displaying their latest wares. Everything from smart cars, to bluetooth headsets, headphones, televisions and beyond is on display, as the big brands are joined by quite a cast of characters and emerging players in the market. Everyone seems to have an idea or a way to make an exisiting idea better.

Of course, Friday’s walk was highlighted by an appearance from the one and only, Lady Gaga, who was surrounded by quite a crowd of onlookers as she made an appearance at one of the booths in the South Hall. It was too hard to get a photo, of course, I thought she was one of the many Vegas impersonators, but I was wrong. She wasn’t the only celebrity sighted, as Dancing with the Stars participant and All My Children star Aiden Turner paid a visit to our booth. He needed a charger for his iPhone and fortunately we were able to lend him one.

Steady traffic to the booth certainly was a good thing for Verbatim and great exposure for our  new products. While the Wireless Bluetooth Mobile Keyboard continued to draw a great deal of attention, the topic of the day in the booth seemed to be all things USB 3.0. The biggest draws easily were the new USB 3.0 SuperSpeed Portable Hard Drives, while the newly-announced line of SSD products also caught the eye of many passers by.

Check out the photos of our booth below and hopefully Saturday will bring more interesting sights and sounds…

Thursday was the “official” kickoff of activities for Verbatim at the 2011 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. While the show itself opened for business, we have also been taking part in a number of exciting events that are being held in conjunction with the “big show,” here on the Vegas strip.

While long cab lines and transportation waits ruled parts of the day, our crew was able to make its way around town quite nicely and take part in all of the goings on that make up this enormous event. Most of us are veterans of many years attending CES, while I, your faithful blogger am taking part in the show for the first time.

Easily the star of the show for Verbatim at Thursday night's ShowStoppers event was the Wireless Bluetooth Mobile Keyboard!

Last night, I got my first taste of the action, by joining two of my colleagues at the annual ShowStoppers event at the Wynn Hotel and Casino (feels like every place here is a “hotel and casino,” not that anyone seems to be complaining), where we were part of the “Hot Products and Cool Companies,” exhibiting for an eager media contingent.

While our media friends were certainly interested in many of the mice, hard drives and USB drives that we had on display for the show, few products drew more attention than Verbatim’s newest addition to it’s line of keyboards, the Wireless Bluetooth Mobile Keyboard. Just announced on Thursday morning, everyone wanted to give this gadget a try with their own iPad and/or iPhone. Of course, we were more than happy to oblige and everyone was impressed with all that this keyboard had to offer and wanted to know when and where they could get one of their own. They won’t have to wait much longer, as these beauties are in production and will be available in about three weeks.

Well, one day is in the books and Friday promises more fun times, we’ll be sure to share a look at our booth and everything going on with it in our next post. Stay tuned…
 

Once again, Verbatim will be providing blog updates from the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, January 7-9, 2011.

Verbatim will be exhibiting at the show, but we look forward to sharing some of the sights and sounds from CES, along with the exciting new products that we will have on display in our own booth. Easily the largest electronics show in the world, we are excited to be a part of the action again in 2011 and will be posting on location beginning on Thursday evening and continuing throught the conclusion of CES on Sunday night.

Follow along both here on the blog and via Twitter and Facebook as well.