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Missing important dates? It’s time to get organised - with a little help from technology. If you’re thinking of upgrading your paper-plump filofax to a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), look out for these features:

Handheld or palm?: Decide on whether you want a keyboard or a stylus. Palms are stylus or pen operated, whilst a handheld is larger and has a mini keyboard to it.

Screen: For image quality, check the screen resolution, which is measured by pixels per inch. The more pixels there are, the higher the resolution, the sharper the images. Generally, a palm with a 4-inch screen supports a resolution of 320 x 320. For handhelds, a typical screen size of 6.5 inches supports 640 x 240 pixels.

Memory: This depends on your needs. If you need more than what’s usually offered, opt for expandable PDAs that feature built-in expansion slots that allow additional plug-ins for an external memory card and USB ports.

Handling: With handhelds, the keypads are tiny and may be annoying if you have large hands. Lefties should also note that PDAs are designed for the right-handed.

Operating system (OS): There are three major operating systems available depending on the brand you get: Palm OS, Windows Mobile by Microsoft and Symbian OS. Windows Mobile is pretty popular mainly because it’s just like using Microsoft Windows.

Connectivity. To get online, you need a PDA with built-in WiFi or Bluetooth. Some PDAs come with a PC Card or Compact Flash slot, where you can connect to the Internet using external cards.

Spoil yourself with the new Apple MacBook with 13-inch glossy widescreen display! With its 2GHz Intel Core Duo processor, this powerful notebook is said to be faster than the existing iBook and PowerBook. It also comes with a built-in iSight camera for video conferencing, video recording or making an iMovie with the preloaded iLife ‘06 to enhance your digital lifestyle. This wonder machine also allows for high-speed networking, has built-in Bluetooth 2.0, two USB 2.0 ports and a mini-DVI video output to connect to a 23-inch Apple Cinema HD Display. In bright white and sleek black.

Frustating with internet speed connection, here some tips:

Compress Files. If you want to send multiple files, reduce their combined size by using a compression utility. Compressing files can dramatically reduce the time needed to send files online, and won’t take up as much space in the recipient’s email Inbox. WinZip is one of the most common compression tools.

Turn Off Graphics. Graphics are important to Web pages, but also take time to download. Turn them off to speed up browsing. To disable graphics in Explorer, go to the Tools menu, click on Internet Options. In the Options dialog box, click on the Advanced tab to view the Settings box. Next, scroll to the Multimedia section and untick the following boxes - play animations in Web pages, play sounds, play videos, show pictures. To activate, click Apply.

Use Distribution Lists. If sending an email to a few people, create a distribution list instead of listing each recipient separately. Messages are sent faster and more efficiently if you use a distribution list. Your company may have procedures for creating mailing lists.

Create Simple Email. Signatures. Elaborate ones that include images can cause each email to take up a lot of unnecessary storage space, and slow down the time needed to send messages. Instead, create distinctive text signatures combining fonts and colours to make your email signature quicker to transmit and receive.

We know worms and viruses have the potential to cause a lot of damage, but are they one and the same? Recording to Symantec antivirus Research Center, the answer is no. The difference lies in how much human intervention each requires to spread. While viruses are designed to infect one Tile after another in one computer, it requires someone to help it move to another computer, such as using an infected diskette on a clean machine or sending out emails with infected attachments, fl worm, on the other hand, is more insidious as it is designed to copy itself onto other computers over c network, possibly via email or on instant messaging service. It requires little or no help from people at all.

Fast-track your search on the Web with these smart tips:

Be Specific. Type in precisely what you’re looking for on a search engine. For eg, try “salmon” instead of “fish”. You can also use precision searches available on most engines. Try the “I’m feeling lucky” option at Google.com. It’ll take you directly to the one site the search engine thinks is the best match.

Go meta. A meta search is a tool that queries several search engines simultaneously, combining the various results into a single list, throwing out duplicates. So, no more sifting through duplicate webpages when you search using a different engine. Check out MetaCrawler, one of the first to provide metasearches.

Don’t you just hate having to keep hitting the “Back” button to return to your list of search results? Here’s how to avoid it: Open each site from the list in a new window. Right-click on the link you want to visit and choose “Open in new window.” Your original list of search results will remain open in a separate window.

Plus-Minus. Learn a little search engine math by using “+” and “-” signs to tell the search engine which search words to use and/or exclude.

With the stylish Motorola Bluetooth Headset H500, you can kiss those messy wires goodbye! Its omni directional mike picks up your voice clearly and the set connects with devices up to 30ft away. From a single charge, you’ll get up to eight hours or talk time. The H500 is compatible with Bluetooth 1.2-and 1.1-enabled phones.

Get the most out of your iPod and make music last longer for you. Here’s how to max your battery life:

Don’t let the battery die completely. However little you use your iPod, charge it fully at least once every three weeks to prevent the battery from going flat.

Keep cool. Very cold or hot temperatures cause faster wear and tear on the battery. So do not leave your iPod in the car underthe sun and use covers that allow heat to dissipate.

Hold & Pause. Set the iPod’s hold switch when not in use. Alternatively, pause or turn it off by pressing the play button for two seconds.

Turn off the EQ. The equaliser (EQ) forces your iPod’s processor to “think” while it changes frequencies of the music which can sap the battery.

Set the timer. While extremely useful when searching for songs, the backlight is a big battery drainer. Using a short timer or turning the backlight off will use less power.

Use small files. The iPod has caching techniques to play songs while using the least amount of power. Battery life is best with compressed files (usually MP3 orAAC) rather than full-quality AIFF or WAV files.