Recently, I got a few electronic gadgets that are really great. The first thing I got (which was a birthday gift) was a Belkin 802.11g router with print server.

We were previously using a Netgear 802.11b router, which seemed fine, just slow. But after installing the Belkin, a couple problems went away which I previously thought were the fault of the dsl modem, but were in fact caused by the Netgear router. First, we had trouble configuring our email clients to send using our own smtp servers. This is no longer a problem… we can now send mail using Outlook, Thunderbird, or any other program, using the normal ports. Also, sending data out through our dsl modem used to be super slow… like molasses. It was about 10k per second. Sending photos to Flickr took forever! I blamed this on our dsl modem, but it was something with our Netgear router. With the new Belkin, data flies!

Since our router now uses the faster 802.11g protocol, I figured I would upgrade my laptop card to a new Belkin card. The transfers from my laptop to our other computers are *much* faster now. I normally download pictures from my camera to my laptop, then copy them from the laptop to Mariko’s laptop and my desktop computer. With the new card, it is very quick. I love it. I have become a big fan of Belkin. Their router and card setup was so easy and trouble-free.

Lastly, I got a 1GB Memorex Traveldrive. This little USB2 device is so convenient, I don’t know how I lived without it! It fits on my keychain, so I always have it with me. I use it to transfer files to and from work, and keep pictures of my family on it. Sort of like carrying pictures in your wallet I suppose. Anyways, it requires no extra drivers to install on computers. Just plug it into a USB port, and it shows up as another drive on your computer. It’s so simple and easy. Plus the one I got has a cool flashing blue LED. 🙂