So, this is really exciting news…eventually. USB 3.0 is sure to become the standard way to connect stuff to your computer in 2010, and some devices may leak out in time for Christmas 2009. Windows 7 will not initially support USB 3.0 because the standard got finalized too late, but you can be sure that both Mac and PC computers will jump on this bandwagon along with the rest of the tech world.

What’s New?

What are the advantages of the new plug? First of all, it’s fast. USB 2.0 was 20 times faster than the original USB 1.1 specification at 0.48 Gbps and the new specification will be 5.0 Gbps, another 10 times faster. The fastest way to get information in and out of your computer right now is eSATA at 3.0 Gbps. But, eSATA is still rather rare, and probably will be ignored once USB 3.0 becomes commonplace.

Second, USB 3.0 is more powerful and more power efficient. USB can both power a device and allow it to communicate with a computer, as long as the device doesn’t require too much power. The new specification allows for more power to more devices and at the same time is able to tell which devices require power and only supply power to those devices, saving electricity.

Third, USB 3.0 is backward compatible. Just like USB 2.0 connections still worked with USB 1.1 connections, you will still be able to plug all your old devices into your new USB 3.0 slot on your computer.

The Long Wait Begins

Computers and devices with USB 3.0 could start appearing at any time, now that the specification is finished. You can bet that computer makers have been preparing and will do everything they can to ensure that they are first to market. It will, however, be a while before you can reliably assume that any decent computer will have USB 3.0 like you can with USB 2.0.

Look For Deals

Six months from now, everything that doesn’t have USB 3.0 stamped on it is going to look old and tired. From now until then, manufacturers are going to be eager to clear out old inventory to make room for the new and snazzy. Computer makers who have prepared well for the shift will be able to transition smoothly to the new standards, but those who weren’t paying enough attention may be stuck with old inventory that suddenly isn’t moving at the old prices.

There are likely to be some good deals in the near future for those who are paying attention. Keep your eyes open, and you may score big if you can deal with not having the latest and greatest.

I’m writing from recent, personal experience in this post. I’m hoping that my advice will be preventive for you. I was getting myself a drink of water and I set it down next to my laptop, then managed to jiggle the cup and lost about half a cup of water directly onto my laptop keyboard. Most of the water stayed on the keyboard, but a little seeped through to the hardware underneath, causing to laptop to spontaneously shut down. Not a good sign.

How much is too much?

Spilling a mouthful of water onto your laptop generally isn’t too much of a big deal. The keyboard on a typical laptop is generally a tray that is water-tight and can take minor spills. The problem is when the quantity of water that is spilled onto the keyboard is so great that it runs over the side of the keyboard tray and gets underneath. Dribbling a little water on your laptop isn’t a big deal, it’s when you get a slosh that’s more than about a quarter of a cup that things start to get hairy. That’s when you join the Brotherhood of the Bedraggled Laptop (sisters welcome too).

First Steps

The first thing to be done is to unplug the laptop as quickly as possible and turn it over as smoothly and quickly as possible and remove the battery. You’re fighting gravity here, and seconds count. Unfortunately, my laptop shut itself down within three seconds, which was too fast for me to do anything about it. The goal is to get the laptop turned over fast enough that the water stops seeping downward and reverses course, at which point gravity becomes your friend, not your tormenter. It is important not to shake the laptop back and forth. One might assume that this dislodges water, but really all you are doing is spreading the water over more internal components.

Once the laptop is opened up flat, with the keyboard and screen face down and the power plug and battery pulled, move it somewhere it can dry out like a towel or a bed. Something that will help soak up the water.

Give It Time

Once you’ve performed the laptop first aid described above, it’s time to get some tools together. You’ll want to pull the hard drive out and inspect it for water, and this usually involves a Philips #1 screwdriver. Fortunately for me, my HD came out unscathed and none of my data was lost. You’re going to want to undo all of the screws that hold panels onto the bottom of your laptop, open it up and look for signs of water. Also, this will help air it out. Leave the laptop as dissassembled as you can manage to let it breathe. The harsh reality is that you should leave your computer like this for a week. Yes, I said a week. A major spill is a serious situation and you want to allow the computer to fully dry out before attempting to start it up again.

Recover Your Data

If you aren’t tech saavy, you may need help for this next step. You’ll want to find a way to check your hard drive. This may mean installing it in another computer. Another option is to buy a device which will allow you to hook up your hard drive to another computer via USB. This can either be an enclosure, which turns an internal device into an external device. Or, it could be just a cable that attaches to your hard drive. The cables are usually about half the price of the full enclosure, but your laptop may be out of commission permanently, and if you need your data to be portable to survive a while without your trusty computer by begging computer time from friends, an enclosure may be a good investment.

Pick up the Pieces

Once you’ve allowed a week for your laptop to fully dry out, put the pieces back together and see if it starts up. If nothing has been seriously damaged by shorting out, it may start up OK. Laptops do sometimes survive a dousing, but damage can happen to a laptop in two ways in this situation. If water hits a critical component while electricity is flowing through it, that can cause the component to short out, which is very bad.

The second way that an internal component can be damaged is if the internal components get corroded. Essentially, the components rust. Even a small amount of water can start this process, and once it starts it just gets worse. The tough part about this is that it doesn’t cause obvious damage, it just causes the computer to start to behave unusually as electricity starts to have a hard time getting to where it’s supposed to go. So, once your computer successfully restarts, keep an eye on it. If you’re very, very lucky you might suffer no ill effects from your misadventure.

Replacing Parts

The most likely part of your laptop to suffer damage in this situation is the motherboard. The motherboard is the large part that everything else plugs into. It’s like the frame of a car. It is a flat piece of silicon that sits internally just a little smaller than the width and depth of the laptop. The reason why it most easily gets damaged is that it’s everywhere inside the computer. If your computer starts up alright, but then starts acting funny, take it to a repair shop and have them open it up. With luck, they’ll be able to see where the water got in, assess the damage, and find you a replacement motherboard. If you’re unlucky, it won’t be obvious where the water was or else the cost of a motherboard replacement will be too large a portion of what the laptop cost in the first place.

The Bottom Line

Spilling water on your laptop is a bad idea. Desktops are less of an issue, because they usually are better protected from spills by their cases and the fact that they don’t lay like a sun-basking cat directly beside where you like to place your drink.

Be careful. If you do spill water, act quickly and use common sense to pull the plug and use gravity to reverse the water that’s seeping toward your motherboard, then dry the computer out.

Ruggedized Laptops

Some computer makers provide a line of Rugged laptops. a Ruggedized laptop usually is sealed against spills, has a stronger outer shell, and a shock-mounted hard drive that’s less likely to get damaged in a fall. For those of us who have been through the horrors of a water spill, that sort of thing starts to make a lot of sense.

USB

USB stands for Universal Serial Bus. It’s a simple, easy way to connect things to your computer: Your printer, your digital camera, a thumb drive, a hot plate to keep your cup of coffee piping hot, a fan, a reading light, or one of thousands of useful or useless devices that are available for use with your computer. One of the great advantages of USB is that it not only communicates information, but is also capable of transmitting power. It carries information and powers the device. Larger devices that have significant power requirements tend to have separate power cords, but small devices often rely on USB for their power.

You can’t buy a computer these days that doesn’t include at least a few USB ports. If you need more connections than what the computer came with, you can buy a hub, which plugs into one USB port and provides 4 or more ports. This way, you can expand a single USB port to up to 127 devices: More than enough for a typical user.

Firewire

Firewire was standardized on Mac computers long before it became popular on PCs. When it was competing with USB 1.1, it had a significant speed advantage. It quickly became the standard for connecting MiniDV Camcorders to computers because it could transmit at 400 MBps (MB per second), which was 20 times the rate for USB 1.1 and necessary for transferring video files. Like USB, Firewire can both supply power and transmit data.

USB 2.0

USB 2.0 uses the same size of connector as USB 1.1, but it increases the speed of transmission from 20 to 480 MBps, 24 times faster. This made USB competitive with Firewire, but with the added convenience of being backward compatible with all earlier USB devices.

Firewire 800

Firewire came out in a new, faster version called Firewire 800, twice as fast as the original Firewire. For a while it was the fastest available, but it didn’t maintain its lead for long.

eSATA

SATA is a way to connect your computer to its internal components. When you install a Hard Drive or a DVD drive into your computer, SATA is the name of the cable you’ll likely use to plug it in.

A new type of SATA for external devices is called eSATA, the ‘e’ standing for ‘external’. eSATA runs at 3.0 GBps. That means it is three and a half times as fast as Firewire 800. Until USB 3.0 is widely available, eSATA is the fastest way to attach an external hard drive, and it operates at the same speed as your internal devices.

Before, with other types of connections, there was an advantage to connecting a device internally, because there was a bottleneck if you used an external device. With eSATA, you can attach devices which will theoretically perform at the same speed as a device you install inside the computer. eSATA is really only an advantage for devices which need to pass a lot of information very quickly, like an external Hard Drive.

USB 3.0

USB 3.0 is a recently finalized standard which will soon be included on new devices and computers. It moves the top speed of transmission for USB from 480 MBps to 5.0 GBps, more than 10 times faster. That makes it more than 50% faster than eSATA. And, because it uses the same size of connector as older USB plugs, it will be backward compatible with all earlier 2.0 and 1.1 USB devices.

Bluetooth

Bluetooth is a way to connect devices to your computer and devices to devices…wirelessly. It’s like USB, without the wires. It’s what connects your wireless headset to your phone, and that’s how most people know the technology. Originally, it was meant to replace USB, allowing you to connect your printer or camera to your computer without the hassle of plugging in wires. But, the only place it’s really taken off and become standard is with mobile phone headsets.

Laptop or Desktop

It’s very easy to add the newest connector type to a desktop computer. You can buy a card and pop it in your computer fairly easily. It’s a little trickier with a laptop. It isn’t as easy to add in what you want later on, so it’s important to pay attention to what a laptop comes with.

What are the Essential Ports on a Laptop?

USB

The absolute necessity is multiple USB ports – USB 3.0 if you can find it. USB is aptly named ‘Universal’ Serial Bus, because at this point, almost everything uses it.

Firewire

Get a Firewire port if you’re into video editing or audio recording. Older video cameras almost exclusively use Firewire, and most of the better professional audio interfaces do as well. It is worthwhile to be compatible with older cameras if you’re doing a lot of video editing. But, a Firewire port can be added through a PC card so even if you find a great deal on a laptop but it doesn’t have firewire, you can add it in later.

PC Card

PC Card is short for PCMCIA card, which is jokingly referred to as “People Can’t Memorize Computer Industry Acronymns”. It was a way to plug in modems and other devices back in the day which has now largely become irrelevant, but laptop makers still build them in. They’re only good for about two things: Adding in ports like Firewire that didn’t come with your machine and adding in wireless adapters.

They do a good job of those two things, though, because the cards can plug entirely inside your computer, making them very easy to just leave inside and not bother with. When you have a USB device, you need to unplug it and put it away before you pop your computer into your laptop bag or risk damaging the plug as it gets jostled around inside the bag. PC Cards just stay put, no muss, no fuss. They are often useful to have, but they’re a standard option on virtually every laptop, so advising you to make sure you have one is like advising you to make sure your laptop comes with a keyboard.

eSATA

Get eSATA if you want to use an external Hard Drive or other high-speed device, although if your computer comes with USB 3.0, then eSATA becomes redundant, and you should only get one if you want your computer to be able to interface with absolutely anything that it might have to. There’s nothing worse than being on a deadline or in a presentation and a file you absolutely need is on a device you can’t access. But, very few devices are eSATA-only. Most that have eSATA also offer USB as an option.

HDMI

An HDMI port is becoming somewhat standard on laptops these days. This type of port is solely for connecting your laptop to a Big Screen TV, but it’s a handy thing to have. Especially if your laptop comes with a Blu-ray drive, because then it can double as a component in your home entertainment system.

Bluetooth

Bluetooth is nice to have in case you want to connect a keyboard or a mouse to your computer wirelessly, but this technology hasn’t replaced USB as it was originally hoped it would. I wouldn’t go out of my way to include Bluetooth, especially when you can just buy an adapter to plug into a USB port for $10-20.

Laptop

The primary advantage of a laptop is mobility. You can take it with you from home to the office or school. For a student, nothing beats being able to bring along your laptop to the library or class. Taking notes, writing papers and doing research and being able to enter all your work immediately is definite plus.

Because everything is tightly built together, replacing damaged components or upgrading can be difficult. With the advent of USB, upgrading is less of an issue, because almost anything you might want to add can be added through USB. There are certain things which are essential to the functioning of a laptop that can’t be easily upgraded, though. The video card, monitor and the motherboard are all difficult to upgrade on a laptop, so be sure that you can live with what you buy at first.

The typical lifespan of a laptop is two years. If the monitor or the video card becomes damaged, it’s usually cheaper to replace than repair. Laptops are bumped around in bags and live in the wild world. They suffer more wear and tear than desktops. If you need or want a laptop, buy what you can afford to replace every few years. Being careful will keep your laptop in working shape longer, but on average, you’ll need to get something new more often.

Desktop

The advantage of a desktop is power and upgradeability. A desktop provides more power for less money than a laptop and it’s much easier to repair or upgrade a desktop. Adding a second hard drive or a new video card is relatively inexpensive and easy on a desktop. Video editing, photo editing or other tasks which require serious horsepower and storage are best performed on a desktop. If those are frequent tasks for you, then a desktop is a probably your best option unless money is no object and you can afford the latest and greatest in a laptop.

A desktop will usually last a typical user about 4-5 years. Because it’s easier to add a new video card, hard drive, optical drive (CD, DVD, Blu-ray), or memory, a desktop can keep up with your need for more power as your computing needs develop. If you weren’t into video editing when you bought a desktop, but later develop an interest in becoming the next Spielberg, just add a second hard drive and a better video card.

Netbook

A netbook is a new category of computer. It doesn’t come with a DVD or CD drive, the screen is very small compared to a laptop, and it comes with much less memory and storage than a typical laptop. It isn’t meant to be a full replacement for a laptop. It’s meant to be a small, portable machine that will do 90-95% of what a laptop could do. You wouldn’t want to try to do extensive video editing on a netbook, but for email, word processing and web surfing it could be just the thing. If you absolutely need a DVD burner, you can add an external drive via USB, which will allow your netbook to do everything your laptop would, but without quite so much horsepower.

If you need the power of a desktop, but you still want portability, then buying a netbook as a complement for a desktop might make sense. A netbook could also be a good option for a household where there aren’t enough computers to go around for everyone who wants to be surfing the net. This new category of machine is growing quickly in popularity, and the price is certainly right.