Maxtor ( www.maxtor.com) and Linksys ( www.linksys.com) have partnered to produce “a device that connects an external hard drive to a wireless router, allowing PCs to tap into the storage and share files without any physical link to the drive.” The Linksys Network Storage Link connects to an external hard drive by means of a USB port and has a file system. It can work with a wireless or wired network. It can also work with other external drives that are not Maxtor products. The Network Storage Link sells for $99 and sounds like a good idea.

The Virtual Laser Keyboard by iBiz Technology ( www.ibizcorp.com) is a full QWERTY laser-light keyboard projected onto smooth surfaces. No more standard physical keys. The keyboard connects to your Palm, Windows mobile electronic organizers and PCs by means of a serial or USB cable. The Virtual Laser Keyboard sells for $99.99 and also sounds like a great idea if you use your PDA or notebook a lot.

The September issue of Computer Shopper has the Editor’s choices for the top 5 Centrino Notebooks. The Editors evaluated: HP Compaq Business Notebook NC6000 ( www.hp.com) selling for $2,249, with a 1.8 Gigahertz Intel Pentium M745 processor, 512MB of DDR RAM, a 60 Gigabyte hard drive, a DVD/CD-RW drive, a 14.1 inch TFT screen and a weight of 5.9 pounds; the Dell Latitude D800 ( www.dell.com) selling for $3,170, with a 2 Gigahertz Intel Pentium M755 processor, 512MB of DDR RAM, an 80 Gigabyte hard drive, a DVD/CD-RW drive, a 15.4 inch TFT screen and a weight of 7.4 pounds; the IBM ThinkPad T42 ( www.ibm.com) with a selling price of $2,433, a 1.7 Gigahertz Intel Pentium M735 processor, 512MB of DDR RAM, a 40 Gigabyte hard drive, a DVD/CD-RW drive, a 15 inch TFT screen and a weight of 5.7 pounds; the Fujitsu LifeBook S7010 ( www.fujitsupc.com) selling for $2,129, with a 1.7 Gigahertz Intel Pentium M735 processor, 512MB of DDR RAM, an 80 Gigabyte hard drive, a DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive, a 14.1 inch TFT screen and a weight of 4.3 pounds; the Acer TravelMate 8000 ( www.acer.com) with a price of $2,699, a 1.8 Gigahertz Intel Pentium M745 processor, 512MB of DDR RAM, a 60 Gigabyte hard drive, a DVD±RW/DVD-ROM, a 15 inch TFT screen and a weight of 6.8 pounds. The Editors have rated the HP Compaq Business Notebook NC6000 as the best.

Here’s a good experiment for you all. PC Laptops ( www.pclaptops.com) has their ANNIHILATOR 897, with a 3.2 Gigahertz Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition CPU, 1 Gigabyte of 400MB DDR RAM, a pair of 60 Gigabyte (7200 rpm) hard drives configured in a RAID Level 0 array, a 17 inch 1,440 x 900 resolution wide-screen driven by a 256MB ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 3D-graphics subsystem, a DVD±RW drive, a 5.1 channel digital speaker output, an internal TV tuner, a remote control, a FireWire port, three USB 2.0 ports, a PC Card slot, S-Video and DVI video connectors, a Gigabyte Ethernet connection and a 802.11g wireless network connection. The ANNIHILATOR 897 weighs 10.5 pounds. I guess this baby will replace just about any desktop. Don’t get your hopes up though, the price for this gem is $4,647. My kind of notebook, not my kind of price.

Iomega ( www.iomega.com) has the handy REV. This external drive, designed for drive imaging and extra storage, is a USB 2.0 device and its cartridges hold 35 Gigabytes of data (90 gigabytes with maximum compression). The REV is compact and bootable and has an average seek time of 13 milliseconds and a data transfer rate of 25MB per second. The selling price of the REV is $399.99. Cartridges sell for $59.99 each, or $199 for four. A little bit too expensive for me. There do seem to be uses for a drive like this that would make it cost effective, though.

Chuck Horowitz, a HAL-PC member, can be reached at chuckh@hal-pc.org for questions or comments.