Customised technology like personalised laptop bags, engraved iPhones and custom iPod cases are so popular because today we are so reliant on our gadgets and seldom seen without them; we tend to see them as extensions of ourselves. The custom laptop bag is a way of expressing ourselves through one of our most commonly used technological accessories. Below are a few examples of the coolest ways to keep your laptop protected:

Furry Monster Laptop Bag
These cuddly, fuzzy laptop bags come complete with fangs and googly eyes. Retrieving your laptop from the jaws of a monster every morning is sure to add an element of fun to your work day! Of course, this is the only fuzzy critter you should be allowing in contact with your laptop. Pet-owners should keep cats and dogs away from unprotected laptops, as cat-naps on the keyboard can result in data disasters.

“My Documents” Folder Laptop Bag
For the tech-geeks among you, this cool laptop bag resembles the instantly recognisable “My Documents” folder you are bound to have on your desktop. When it comes to the real folder however, you should be backing up all your documents or making copies to ensure your important data isn’t all stored in one place.

J’tote Laptop Bag
These designer laptop bags are designed for style and comfort; the modern businesswoman can carry her laptop easily wherever she goes, and look fabulous! The J’tote bag accommodates the laptop and cables as well as everyday handbag items. Carrying a stylish handbag down the street looking ready for an evening of fun is decidedly more glamorous than the “just-got-off-work” look of a normal laptop bag. It’s also a safe way to transport a laptop, protecting it from damage and petty thieves on the lookout for unguarded laptop bags. What better way to protect your precious files and folders?

DIY Laptop Bag
The best way to stamp your personality on your technology is to do it yourself! This plain Skooba laptop bag is the blank canvas on which you can create your own design, using paint, pen or markers.

Protecting your laptop from damage and data loss is essential, but it needn’t be boring. Whether you’re a serious high-flying executive or a fun-loving creative genius, there is a custom laptop bag out there for you!

1. Cardinal rule: like any electrical instrument, keep away from water at all times. The thought of Tweeting from your Jacuzzi or blogging from a bubble bath is very sexy, but can result in death by electric shock, or exorbitant laptop repair bills.

2. Despite solid rectangular exterior, laptops should not be mistaken for sturdy props. Avoid using laptop as a weapon, flyswatter, tea tray or sports equipment.

3. Resist the temptation to get creative with radiant laptop warmth. Hot laptop air is not a suitable means of cooking breakfast or drying hands.

4. Don’t forget to pick your laptop up when finished checking email on the tarmac.

5. Keep out of reach of children. Don’t listen to advertisers: the point of buying kiddie laptops is actually to redirect innocent kiddie curiosity away from your baby (baby being laptop).

6. You cannot afford to have both your computer and coffee in the form of rogue portable objects. Since you have chosen a mobile laptop, you must invest in a coffee stabilization mechanism, or secure cup holder, so that the two remain separate at all times.

7. Remember it is not your laptop’s fault if you call up infuriating, rage-inducing content onto the screen. If you see incriminating evidence against yourself or your partner on Facebook do not shoot/punch/throw/smash the messenger. Also, if your laptop is acting up you don’t need to resort to physical violence.

8. When surfing the internet try your best to stay away from content of an adult nature, as it often comes with laptop destroying viruses.

9. Secure laptop in a locked cupboard or safe if planning to get drunk, as altered state of consciousness can encourage behaviour along the lines of some of the points above.

10. Above all, know that laptops and cats are sworn enemies.

These 10 tips will ensure a long and happy future for you and your laptop – follow them for success. Unless you want to break your laptop like this guy. If this advice fails to assist and your laptop ceases to function, a reliable RAID data recovery service can help you out.

There are many differences around the world in the data recovery field, they vary from manufacturer, distribution, problems and solutions.

As hard drives are manufactured the manufacturers need licenses to distribute and ship them overseas. Some countries may be ignored if there is no requirement for those models, if problems occur in those countries or maybe the cost of export is too high to make a good profit. As we travel around the world we will find that some countries do not have certain brands of hard drives (this is usually the case for many products not technology related too). In the UK the trade of hard drives is quite an open market we receive hard drives from all over the world, however in India they do not see many Hitachi drives. The exact reason for this is unknown, maybe they are out there but not many fail and arrive in the lab for recovery.

Across the world there are many hot continents and out there is the companies and individuals using desktop pc, laptops and servers. Heat is known to cause expansion so it is not unusual to see drives from hotter climates with temperatures exceeding 50° C tend to overheat and suffer problems. One such solution (sometimes referred to as a myth) is to cool the drive with dry ice, dry ice is at a temperature of negative 109.3° F (-78.5° C). It isn’t too hard to find a supplier and distributor but you will need somewhere to store it and must handle it with great care. Because of its properties (Dry Ice is frozen carbon dioxide) which evaporates into the air. At room temperature it evaporates as a gas and has no wet stage during its conversion, therefore Dry Ice produces no moisture.

An overheating drive from a warmer climate can cause many problems, the head-stack or platters could expand and the heads could stick to the surface. The platters could expand and give us many headaches when recovering the data. The platters expand and when the heads are requested to get the data or write data they cannot recalibrate and locate where they should be working. How do we deal with the drives like this, do we do what people post on the internet and freeze the drive? The answer is an absolute *NO* if you place a hard drive in a freezer then as the drive cools the drive will begin to produce moisture as it builds up to room temperature. The solution is to build something in your lab that will regulate the temperature of dry ice, with dry ice you can cool the drive and have it operate at a regulated temperature. You then stand a chance of recovering the data. A hard drive will not operate in temperatures between -5° C and -8° C. The same is true if we reverse the scenario, in a cooler climate the hard drives will suffer from problems and moisture can damage electronics on the PCB. We must dry out the hard drive and repair any circuitry before bringing the drive to room temperature where it should operate.

The solutions are true in reverse I mentioned that hard drives are distributed differently across the world. Due to this some vendors price their data recovery tools based on geographical location. If a data recovery company is only receiving two to three different drive manufacturers then the software/hardware solutions are priced based on this. They also base their price structure on how long it would take for the company based in that location to recover the costs of the tool.

What is RAID?

RAID stands for “redundant array of independent disks” and is a computing system that uses multiple hard drives to share data or replicate it across the drive network. The benefits of using a RAID system include increased integrity of data, capacity, and fault-tolerance in comparison to other computer systems. The key component in the early days of RAID was to use older technology to combine into a system that would prove to be very valuable in terms of information technology.

The array would offer greater speed, reliability, capacity, and any combination of those and would end up being significantly less expensive than any of the newer hardware on the market because it coupled multiple devices that would have a greater advantage over the single newer devices. RAID, simply, combines multiple hard drives into one single unit.

Reliability of RAID

RAID is one of the most reliable systems of information technology that you can create because of the backup of having multiple machines storing the information. Having information replicated on multiple hard drives is advantageous because that information is copied and stored in more places than an average user would find. RAID data recovery, therefore, is something that most users knowledgeable of the RAID system can do but there are cases in which that is not possible.

RAID configurations are reliable but they also have a general language of data loss in case this should happen. A “failure rate” is the rate at which a hard drive is faster or slower than its adjacent hard drives. “Mean time to data loss or MTTDL” is the time in which there is data loss in a given array. “Mean time to recovery or MTTR”, of course, means the time in which recovery of lost data is possible. RAID systems are “failure tolerant” which means that they can automatically recover their lost data, most of the time. Needing a serious RAID data recovery, therefore, is almost always avoidable because of the very nature of the hardware.

It could also mean that you’re trying to recover files from a damaged RAID. Since the RAID system uses multiple hard disks, you can suffer either partial or whole failure.

You’d think that your database would be safe after you’ve protected it with a RAID backup. But statistics show that of total data loss in any system, approximately 44% comes from hardware failure.

RAID Data Recovery – How Safe is Safe?

How safe is your data using RAID? If your RAID is a combination of several hard disks into one unit, then the simplest answer is your data is only as safe as your weakest disk. This is not to say that you won’t be able to recover your data.

Some RAID’s though are software-hard disk combos. In these hybrids, how safe your data is depends on how you distribute it.

Ask your vendor for a RAID data recovery failure rate. The failure rate of your disk array may be higher or lower than its component hard disks and will hinge on what kind of array you purchase.

RAID Data Recovery – Who Needs It?

RAID is generally found in server computers. The disks that make up the array are usually the same size, although some aren’t.

The rationale behind RAID is the need for bigger data storage. So you’d expect only corporate IT departments or storage intensive firms to use RAID, such as audio and video editing or animation companies.

But two factors are making RAID more popular:
- Many businesses, even small, home-based ones rise and fall on the strength of vital data.
- Technology has driven hard disk prices down, making RAID more widely available so that it’s built into more motherboard chipsets, ergo, into more advance PCs.

RAID Data Recovery – How Much?

If you’re data is crucial to your business it is probably best if you call in professionals to help you when disaster strikes. If you’re thinking of recycling your hard disk and trying to salvage data yourself by running cheap software (around £50 or less), be prepared to lose everything.

There’s one thing you shouldn’t do: Don’t attempt to use software that writes stuff to the damaged hardware. There’s a good chance you can make matters worse by overwriting data that you would have been able to recover otherwise.

Only use data recovery software if you really know what you’re doing. If not, call a pro. But check that you aren’t going to pay for any evaluation charges if all you have is a regular IDE hard disk. Most firms only charge evaluation for complicated RAID’s or network servers.

Here’s what you should expect to pay:

* RAID, SCSI = as much as £15,000 depending on how your storage is configured.