Maximizing Laptop Capabilities

Maximizing laptop capabilities Laptop computers allow public relations executive mobility and convenient computer support. But you can only take advantage of a laptop with good communications support. While laptops pack all the capabilities of your desktop computer, their small size and portability require a few new tricks. When you buy a laptop, you get everything you need to write, edit, calculate and retrieve data while on the road. But inevitably, part of your overall computer system gets left behind when you travel. The most notable loss is your printer. Another might be a network that allows you to transfer or share files with others in your office. Finally, only the rarest of today's laptops offer color displays. To get full use from your laptop computer, you will want to take work you have done on it back to your familiar desktop environment. Complete compatability of programs and files between laptops and personal computers makes this a simple task when the right resources are available. Many desktop machines don't have printers attached to them. As a result, you probably already move files from one computer to another, or to a printer, with a disk. This same system works for laptop computers, if you have compatible disk drives. Personal computers were originally developed to work with 5 1/4-inch square disks. But these disks were too big to create a truly portable laptop computer. In the mid-1980s, 3 1/2-inch square floppy disks emerged. These disks hold more data in a smaller package. In addition, their hard outer shell is more compatible with the rough-and-tumble work of portable computing. Options for moving files If you have purchased desktop PCs in the last few years, you might already have drives for these smaller disks. If not, you need some new resources to move your files from the laptop to your regular PCs. You can use several methods to transfer files between your laptop and a PC that is not equipped with a 3 1/2-inch disk drive. As with your selection of a laptop, the option you choose depends on how you use your machine. There are two basic options for routine laptop-to-PC file transfer. The most straightforward approach is to buy an additional 3 1/2-inch disk drive. The other alternative, software and a cable, provides you with the greatest flexibility. Over the last three years, I have done both. Installing a 3 1/2-inch-drive on one of your computers won't require a major investment. These drives retail for $119.00 to $374.95. If you are comfortable poking around inside the cover of your PC, you can even install it yourself. The cable connection Having additional disk drives at your office to transfer data between the laptop and desktop PCs works well in that setting. But if you travel to other offices or to clients, those extra disk drives back at headquarters won't help much. To tackle this problem, laptop manufacturers have created file transfer systems that use a simple cable and a small software program. By connecting your laptop to any desktop machine with the cable and running the software on each computer, you can transfer files between the two. One beauty of this system is that you can access any drive, including hard disks, to transfer files. Since my desktop PC has a hard drive, I often want to move files from it to the laptop. With the cable transfer system I just point to the files I want with the cursor and press one key to move them over. If I relied on my usual disk drives to do all this, I would have to copy the files twice: once from the hard drive to a 5 1/4-inch disk, then from the 5 1/4-disk to a 3 1/2-disk. If you use a transfer program, you save a step, and don't have to type each file name and other directions in DOS. The April 25, 1989 issue of PC magazine (Vol. 8, No. 8) reviewed seven programs used for file transfers. …