Whether you’re a wireless mouse user or you’ve stuck with the wired version, you likely know that there are advantages to both. The debate between the two options has been happening for years. While it almost certainly won’t be resolved anytime soon, these facts may well help you better determine which one is right for you.

Wired

The benefits of wired mice are plentiful. Some of the major ones include:

• Extended life expectancy
• Quicker response time
• More cost efficient
• Better accuracy – a big pro for gamers
• No chance of inadvertently gaining control of someone else’s computer

Although wired mice have been around much longer, they do lack in comparison to wireless mice in certain areas. The biggest disadvantages include less freedom to roam and less overall convenience – both of which are of the utmost importance to some people.

Wireless

Despite the occasional dead batteries, wireless mice have quite a few strong points. They offer a level of convenience that can’t be reached with a wired mouse, no matter how long the cord is. Some of the major benefits include:

• More freedom – another favorite feature among gamers, who often control their TVs from the couch
• Improvements in response time and accuracy
• Fewer cords
• Smoother movement due to the lack of a cord

Although there are plenty of advantages to wireless mice, there are several disadvantages as well. The two biggest concerns tend to be the occasional bad signal and dead batteries – both of which can be extremely frustrating if they come at the wrong time.

In general, the decision between wireless and wired mice is dependant on preference. If you require accuracy and fast response times, a wired mouse would probably suit you best. If you’re someone who likes to work from the couch or other untraditional spots, you may enjoy the convenience and freedom of a wireless mouse. There are plenty of great wired as well as wireless options, so you can’t go wrong either way.

If you’d like more information on both wired and wireless mice, or if you’d like to join the debate, check out this website.

Many of us are familiar with Google Docs as a tool for quick and easy document creation. What many people don’t know is how great of a collaboration tool it can be, especially due to its recent updates.

Google Docs’ commenting feature just received a substantial overhaul and the results seem promising. Some of the most significant changes include:

• Timestamps and profile pictures on comments
• The ability to edit and resolve comments
• Implementation of email notifications via @mentions

Email notifications are one of the coolest features that have been added as they allow you to bring people into the discussion that weren’t already.

Since the notification will include the text of the comment, the team member does not need to have immediate access to Google Docs. He or she can simply reply to the email notification, and it will show up in the dialogue.

These new features also make it easier to see what has been done and what still needs to be done. Instead of simply deleting a comment once edits have been made on the document, you can now mark it as resolved. This allows you to go back and view which changes were made and if they were, in fact, done correctly.

If distributed teams are working on a project, it can sometimes be difficult to make sure everyone is on the same page. Collaboration tools like Google Docs make it much easier. The email alerts will let your team members know as soon as you need their help on a project and keep everyone in sync.

Passing a document back and forth via email is often rather messy. If multiple people are editing at once, keeping track of all of those edits and ensuring that they show up on the final version gets difficult. With these tools, since everybody’s version of the document is identical there is far less confusion around changes. For distributed teams, and remote workers, tools like this are quite valuable.

If you’d like to learn more about the recent changes to Google Docs, take a look at this article.

South by Southwest (SXSW) is a yearly compilation of conferences and festivals that has been around for 25 years. SXSW draws together some of the most innovative thinkers in the fields of film, music, and interactive media. It is known for its wealth of creative content, which is quite prevalent this year.

SXSW Interactive is one of the largest conferences at SXSW that encompasses all of the new media, and it has already unearthed some great ideas. Although the SXSW Technology Summit, which is full of great ideas and presentations on technology and business, has just begun, some standout startups have already emerged.

Every year, in addition to all of the conferences, there is a “Startup Bus” competition. The Startup Bus departs from Chicago, Cleveland, Miami, New York and San Francisco, and drives to Austin in two days. In those 48 hours, teams are assembled and they are given the task of coming up with an original idea, creating a demo and website, and then presenting their idea to a panel of judges once they arrive in Austin.

48 hours hardly seems long enough to come up with a business idea and actually create a demo for it but, for these people, it’s plenty of time. Great ideas are virtually always born on the buses, and this year was no different. These are the two winners of this year’s competition.

TripMedi

TripMedi is based around the rapidly growing medical tourism industry. Medical tourism is essentially when a person needs to have a medical procedure performed on them and travels to a developing country in order to save money.

According to the TripMedi team, there is no clear way to navigate this market, making it an even more unnerving experience for medical tourists. So the team decided to create a Yelp-like service for the industry.

Now, people curious about medical tourism can find a comprehensive list of services, prices and physicians all in one place. The site has already seen 1,300 unique visitors and 44 sign-ups, and it’s only been live for four days.

WalkIN

WalkIN looked to solve an issue that everyone can relate to – waiting for a table at a restaurant. We all know how aggravating it is to cram into a restaurant lobby waiting for your name to be called.

WalkIN eliminates the cramming, but not the waiting. With WalkIN, you can come into the restaurant and scan a QR code, which will automatically put your name on the waitlist. You are then free to wander until you are alerted via your phone that your table is ready.

People no longer have to carry around big, clunky restaurant pagers that vibrate incessantly until you make it back to the host stand.

This year’s SXSW conferences, like all other years’, has already brought us some truly innovative ideas, and is sure to bring us even more.

For more information on SXSW, check out the website.

Flash storage is something that is commonplace in many of our daily lives, whether we realize it or not. Plenty of the devices we use on a daily basis, such as smartphones, and laptops, have flash storage built in.

What is flash storage?

Flash storage is great for storing data and transporting it from one computer to another. Flash memory is a solid state storage device, meaning it is electronic, not mechanical like a data CD.

Other features that are common for flash storage are:

• A non-volatile storage chip, meaning it doesn’t need a constant flow of power to maintain the information stored in the chip
• There are no moving parts
• Allows for easy electronic storage
• Data can be easily erased and the device can be reprogrammed
• Allows for quick access to data
• Extreme durability, particularly when coming in the form of a memory card

All of these features add to the convenience of flash storage and help make it a very popular option. It is especially great for mobile gadgets because of its durability. Most MP3 players and smartphones equipped with flash storage can be used as external hard drives if they can be plugged into a computer.

For more information on flash storage and how it works, check out this HowStuffWorks article.

For most of us, online search engines are the first place we turn when we’re seeking information. We trust them to give us the most relevant results, but those results are not always consistent.

Search algorithms are always changing, and each search engine uses different criteria to determine what is relevant. How do Google and Bing, the two biggest search engines, stack up?

Google

Google’s search algorithm has seen some substantial changes recently. One of the most drastic of those changes is the suppression of results that are coming from content farms.

Content farms are companies that employ a vast number of writers to create text-based content that scams the search algorithms. The goal of most of these companies is strictly to attract ad revenue by generating more page views, not to create valuable content.

Google is hoping that by tweaking its algorithm it will produce more relevant results of higher quality. The algorithm uses more human-like understanding to search the Web. Google is also searching the most recent Twitter activity to come up with real-time results.

Bing

Bing declares itself to be the first ever “decision engine.” Bing claims to know what you’re searching for and then finds it for you, without providing you with loads of irrelevant results.

Bing is more of a social search engine than most. It takes into account what sites were shared or “liked” by your friends on social networks and shows you those results, which are often most relevant.

Searching the same topic on two different engines, or even from two different locations can yield quite different results, although all of them may still be relevant.

To learn more about the recent changes to Google, check out this New York Times article.

The TED Conference is an event that unites some of the top thinkers in the technology, entertainment and design fields. Each speaker is given just 18 minutes to present and demonstrate how his or her idea can change the world.

The conference, happening this week, is full of great presenters and ideas. These are just a few of them.

Ford Motor Company

Population growth is an issue that Ford is starting to prepare for. Based on projections, the number of cars on the road will go from 800 million to 2-3 billion in the next 40 years. Ford believes it has a plan to deal with the issue.

Ford sees a future filled with cars that can communicate with each other in real-time.  SYNC, from Ford, is the first version of this technology. It performs many functions, such as 911 Assist and Vehicle Health Reports and is onboard about 3 million vehicles.

Ford sees the future iterations being even more robust, with cars being able to re-route you based on real-time traffic information being sent from other cars.

Bluefin Labs

Bluefin Labs co-founder Deb Roy’s presentation was centered on the round-the-clock surveillance of his house during his son’s first 90,000 hours. The company created machine-learning systems that traced and analyzed his son’s learning process.

Roy hopes that this technology can be expanded to analyze even more things. Currently, the technology is being used to analyze the intersection between TV audiences and their online reactions to programming and advertisements.

If properly utilized, this technology could help all types of businesses build better relationships with their customers by helping them better understand their reactions.

These are just two of they many outstanding ideas and products that have been presented thus far at this year’s TED Conference. If you’d like to take a look at some other cool ideas, check out this Inc. article.

The DEMO Spring 2011 conference, the “launchpad for emerging technology”, is going on this week and, already, many great ideas have emerged from it. One of the primary focuses of the conference is social technology. These are some of the best products so far, social or otherwise:

Websense’s Defensio for Facebook

Defensio for Facebook is an app that lets companies better monitor their Facebook Pages. The application keeps pages spam and clutter-free, making them much more appealing to prospects as well as current customers.

This application lets you set preferences so that you can moderate posts on your Page. You can also prevent your Page from showing links to certain sites.

Nimble

Nimble integrates with your email, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts and allows you to see all your connections in one place. It lets you connect your contacts, calendars and communications in a single location. It allows you to monitor all of your interactions with people across multiple platforms. 

Nimble’s goal is to make it much easier for companies to interact and converse with their audience. One of the big features that people are waiting for is integration with more social networks, which would make it even more beneficial.

mSignia’s Dynamic Device Identity

mSignia works on Android devices to make accessing cloud services much easier. It brings an extra level of security to mobile devices while simultaneously eliminating the need to enter passwords every time you log in to a cloud service.

mSignia tracks your phone as well as the cloud services you access. Once you change phones, it will eliminate credentials on the old device so that phone can no longer access your information. Seeing as our mobile phones are often our primary means of accessing cloud-based services, this service could be a huge time-saver.

All of these products, along with many others being presented at DEMO are sure to make business processes faster and simpler.

The significant decline of email spam is a topic that is confounding to many. The number of messages per day dropped from 200 billion to 50 billion in just a matter of months. Although nobody is completely certain why, there are several theories.

Inactive botnets

Botnets are networks of infected computers that are responsible for most of the world’s spam. Three of the major botnets that were accountable for much of the global spam saw a huge decline in activity at the end of 2010.

Typically, when botnets stop producing spam it is due to a temporary disturbance in the network, but at least one of the three major botnets still seems to be intact. It could be that the people running the networks are just deciding to stop spamming, for whatever reason.

Anti-spam campaigns

Spammers like to see profit as the primary result of their efforts. When their profits start to decline, their incentive tends to disappear.

Recent anti-spam campaigns have been successful in disrupting spammers’ efforts therefore decreasing their profitability. This could be a reason for their halted efforts.

Other outlets

It may be that spam seems to be declining but is really just becoming more prevalent in outlets aside from email. Twitter and Facebook are becoming increasingly common media for spam distribution.

Although there is no way to know for sure what is causing the decline in email spam, these are some likely explanations. If you’d like to read more on the topic, take a look at this article from BBC News.

We’ve all seen the alarming warning icon that pops up on an iPod when you plug it into your computer. It warns that if you disconnect it, something awful will happen. So, just how risky is it to unplug a USB device without unplugging it first?

Most people will advise you to never unplug your device before ejecting it, even though most of us have done that without any consequences. There are risks, however.

One of two things may happen if you remove the device before ejecting it:

1. Nothing. Your data will remain intact and you will cause no harm to the USB device or to the computer
2. The device can become corrupted, along with all its contents. This is sometimes reparable, but can be very frustrating nonetheless

Although many people can just unplug their devices without causing any damage, it is still best to eject it first to avoid the inconvenience of lost data that is always a possible consequence.

If you’d like some help ejecting your gadgets quickly and easily take a look at this article.

If you’re in the market for a new desk, there is one critical factor you should consider before buying: desk height. Many people overlook this but keeping it in mind may be the key to your everyday comfort.

Ergonomically correct furniture can prevent plenty of strain on your body over time. Some people even find that it makes them more productive because they are more comfortable overall.

In order to make sure a desk is the ideal height for you, you should:

• Sit down in the position you’d be in while using the desk
• Rest your arms at your sides
• Bend your elbow at a 90 degree angle keeping your upper arms in line with your torso

If the desk is a good height for you, your hands should rest comfortable on its surface. For minor adjustments, consider using an adjustable chair or a desk with a pullout keyboard drawer. 

Using a desk that is the ideal height can save you a lot of unnecessary discomfort, including potential chronic back problems. So, putting in a little time and effort to find the perfect desk is generally worth it.

For more information on finding the proper desk height, check out this Lifehacker article.