Barbara Krasnoff

You wouldn't think it of somebody who has spent much of her professional life reviewing new tech devices, but when it comes to my own purchases, I tend to be very conservative. This especially goes for phones; once I've made a purchase -- and once I've decided I like it -- I'll hold on to that phone until it becomes nearly useless.

For example, I was well behind the curve when it came to smartphones. I used an old-fashioned, completely out-of-date cell phone -- the kind with a tiny screen and practically no online ability -- until the Motorola Droid went on sale in 2009. As a result, when I had to review a product that used Bluetooth in 2008, I suddenly found myself in a quandary. I needed a phone that was capable of Bluetooth; my old phone was not. But I didn't particularly want to get an iPhone (especially since it was still only available on AT&T). What to do?

Small personal scanners are a great way to track and tame both personal and business paperwork. For many professionals, just the number of business cards that are collected over the course of a year -- especially if they attend any conferences or trade shows -- can be daunting. Especially now that the optical character recognition (OCR) process has become more efficient, anyone who deals with a lot of hard copy on a day-to-day basis should be strongly considering a scanner.

I recently had a chance to try out two current scanners: A desktop scanner/software package for personal and small business use called the NeatDesk and the Xerox Mobile Scanner, a lightweight device for travelers. Although these are two different products, they perform essentially the same function: Providing a way to turn hard copy -- from business cards to letter-sized (8.5-x-11-in.) documents -- into digital formats that can be stored and search.

Several years ago, I did a six-month stint at a company that tested enterprise-level printers and scanners and issued reports based on that testing for companies planning to make purchases. We would run various documents through the systems and time the speed of the monochrome and color printing, how long it took to print a long document or several short ones, and the difference in performance when you printed heavily graphic documents as opposed to text documents.

A major purpose of our tests was to verify how accurate the manufacturers' cost-per-page estimates were. (We did others, of course, for quality, color accuracy, etc.) Individuals purchasing small desktop printers have the same problem, but theirs is almost greater than those of enterprises -- if you look at it in proportion.

Google Docs has had a rather long and sometime unpromising voyage as a word processor. When it first appeared on desktop browsers, it lacked a great many of the formatting and other editorial features that many people -- especially those who were used to feature-heavy word processors like Microsoft Word -- were used to. Eventually, however, Google began adding enough functionality so that, today, Docs is a useful (if still occasionally lacking) desktop word processor.

It has gone the same route with the Android version. When Google Docs first hit Android phones, you couldn't even edit your documents; and when you finally could, the process was awkward and time-consuming.

The big game is on -- and by that, we don't mean football, basketball, baseball or Angry Birds. We're talking about the biggest pastime in the U.S.: Watching (and taking part in) the current Republican primaries and the upcoming presidential elections.

After all, what could be more exciting? There's a president under fire from both sides of the aisle, a group of opposition contenders who are hurling more mud at each other than you'll find in a swamp and a media that's eager to publicize every misstatement and accusation.

I discovered the convenience of borrowing ebooks from the library several months ago, when I was going to take a long drive and realized at the last minute that an audio book would be perfect -- but that I didn't have any available. I remembered some advice from a friend to check out my local public library, so I went to the Brooklyn Public Library site, and found that, yes, indeed, I could borrow audio books and ebooks with the right software.

It made me feel -- well, good. Not only because I didn't have to pay for the ebooks (which was nice, I must admit), but because I spent a lot of time in the library when I was young. Libraries are good places to be -- and don't stop being good places when they become virtual.

Acer Aspire S3I've been following all the speculation about the upcoming CES trade show -- naturally enough, since I and several of my Computerworld colleagues will be there next week -- and the word everyone is tossing around as this year's product to watch is the Ultrabook.

Ultrabooks, in case you haven't caught all the somewhat breathless prose, are thin and lightweight notebooks that are currently being pushed by Intel as platforms for their upcoming Ivy Bridge chips. Intel has actually published a set of criteria (PDF) for these notebooks -- among which are that they should be powered by low-voltage Intel Core processors -- but according to some of the articles I've read, up to 50 of these new notebooks are expected to be announced at CES, and one suspects that many will not be strictly following the Intel rules.

Everybody is excited about the new spate of tablet/ereaders -- Amazon's Kindle Fire, Barnes & Noble's Nook Tablet and the Kobo Vox -- that are shipping or about to ship. And quite rightly -- these Amazon-based devices allow consumers to have some of the functionality of more expensive tablets such as the Apple iPad and Samsung Galaxy Tab.

However, in all the excitement, perhaps not enough attention is being given to the "stocking stuffers" -- the smaller and less expensive E-Ink e-readers that may not give you a lot of browsing capability, but that may, because of their approximately $100 price tags, be even more of an impulse buy than their sexier siblings.

If you're still using a traditional computer (as opposed to a tablet), you're probably also still using a traditional mouse. While laptops all come with touchpads to help us move our cursors around the screen, there's no denying that many users are more comfortable pushing a mouse around a desktop. However, sometimes there isn't a desktop -- and sometimes you need a mouse that is more portable or more powerful than the $20 piece of plastic that you picked up on sale.

To help deal with such issues, we've found six mice that break the design mold that most of today's mice are built from. They do have some things in common -- they are all laser mice and they all use wireless Bluetooth to connect with the computer. Otherwise, these cursor-control devices don't have a whole lot in common -- except possibly the ability to make computing more efficient.

When you have a new social network populated by a large number of outspoken and opinionated tech enthusiasts, they're going to be watching very, very carefully for any kind of misstep.

It's happened again. I'm losing a device that I depend on, because it is considered too old-fashioned to live.