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Why it's a good idea to own a USB-to-SATA adapter The USB-to-IDE/SATA adapter the most indispensable tool in my PC repair kit. Just this weekend, it once again proved itself worthy of that title. In a nutshell, the adapter allows you to connect an internal hard drive to your PC-externally. What would an internal drive be doing outside your desktop or laptop? Funny you should ask. About a week ago, my media-center PC starting displaying this message during boot-up: "Hard drive failure imminent." And you know what? It was. In short order, the machine wouldn't boot at all. Long story short, I had to replace the drive, reinstall Windows, etc. But I wondered if I could salvage any/all of my recorded TV shows. To find out, I connected the old, non-booting drive (now "naked" outside the system) to a USB port via my adapter. Huzzah! The machine was able to read the drive and copy over the recordings. Except for the hassles (and expense) of actually replacing the drive, no harm done. There's another reason to keep one of these adapters on hand, and that's if you're planning to upgrade to a solid-state drive (SSD). Unless you buy a kit that comes with an adapter, you'll need one so you can image (i.e. clone) your existing drive to the new SSD. Then you'll remove the old drive, install the new one, and presto, you're back in business. (Much faster business: SSDs rock.) Unless you have a pretty old desktop or laptop, you can skip buying a USB-to-IDE/SATA adapter and just go for USB-to-SATA. At the same time, I recommend one that supports USB 3.0. You may not need it now, but it's a good bet your next PC will have USB 3.0 ports -- and that'll make for much faster copying between drives. Trust me: When the time comes that you need to upgrade or replace a hard drive, you'll be glad to have a USB-to-SATA adapter on hand. By-The Xpert Crew @ http://techvedic.com

"That's why I'm so impressed with a new release from No Starch Press titled Super Scratch Programming Adventure (SSPA, for short). SSPA offers up 10 Stages (chapters) that use a comic book format to teach programming with the Scratch programming tool. Millions of kids have used it, and the simplicity of the tool is that it sneaks in real programming concepts and techniques in a fun, colorful manner."

This won't be a short post, but it'll give you a summary of close to a year's worth of trying to teach people how to program. We know what works and what doesn't, and so far there's a lot of stuff out there that just doesn't work, based on our own experience and what our paying customers are telling us (they're mostly people who tried and gave up on Codecademy, Codeschool, Udacity, and Coursera).

"An exciting initiative for students and teachers to develop digital literacy skills on YouTube and across the wider web in a few short lessons. To take part, go to http://www.google.com/edu/ytcurric or http://www.youtube.com/teachers"

"This is a short Arduino build I did and decided to share with other arduino beginners. This is a complete tutorial to show you how to use a potentiometer to control an LED's brightness with your Arduino microcontroller."

Are you in a habit of using short or same passwords? Then change it now. Online world is becoming risky day by day. Hackers are always ready to hack your account and thus, it is your responsibility to protect yourself against cyber-crimes. We are providing you important tips to create strong as well as secure password.

"That's a screen shot of my first App. A little thing I'm calling KidsGiggle. Pushing the picture plays a short recording of them laughing.  What's cool is that it took me - a noob with zero programming experience - about fifteen minutes to make."

Guido van Robot, or GvR for short, is a programming language and free software application designed to introduce beginners to the fundamentals of programming. GvR runs on Windows, Macintosh, and GNU/Linux, in a variety of languages! It's great in both the classroom and the home as a way of introducing people to the basic concepts of programming.

Short article about why writing readable code is good!

Are you a music lover? Love listening to music for hours and hours?? But, your iPod battery is not supporting you. Well, this tutorial will provide you tips and tricks to get the most out of your iPod battery.

A short infographic on the history of hacking