How to Use this Site
How Things are Organized on this Site
Hey, I’ve gone to great lengths to label stuff in the blog in such a way that you will always know at a glance what you’re reading, be it a review, one of my rants against bad technology (I mean… a NEWS commentary), or just a quick and easy tip or a full blown how-to tutorial.
To make navigation of the site as easy as possible, I’ve provided the following list of the various categories you’ll find here at FCPG. News, Reviews, FAQs, Tips and How-To articles.
News:
Almost every day I pour over a long list of Internet sites looking for hard drive related news to provide to you. My “News” posts can come directly from Google alerts, blogs, PR agencies in the form of Press Releases, from information provided directly to me by manufacturers, or from manufacturer websites, retailer websites, or any number of other digital storage-related websites, forums, etc.
These aren’t reviews, and I don’t hype the products or services or try to “sell” them to you – I just provide basic information about the any new products or services, its release date, expected street price, etc.
While I try to remain mostly objective in my news coverage, this website is first and foremost a blog, and as such you can be sure that a bit (okay a lot) of my own personal pet peeves preferences, will filter into things that I write.
If a new product or service leaves me gob-smacked you can bet I’m going to mention that fact — that doesn’t mean I’m explicitly endorsing that product or service – but I might include a link back to where you might find more information on the original story.
Reviews:
I’m dedicated to bringing you common-sense, unbiased and in-depth research and reviews of the latest hard drives and other computer storage devices – no holds barred.
I’m not working as a computer tech any longer so I’m not in the pockets of any of the hard drive or PC makers, so I can bring you honest reviews and information from a real technical background but in a format you can actually use and understand.
Now for full disclosure, I have signed up with several hard drive and data recovery industry newsletters and programs – mainly to keep up with what’s going.
But heck, you won’t be reading just any old review or article. I’m constantly digging and finding new and innovative ways to get access to the most accurate information gleamed from both my research and professional experiences.
Information you need in order spend your computer budget wisely and reduce the time it takes to make an intelligent hardware or software purchase.
For me – the information gathering process starts when I scour the web looking for product reviews, user experiences, tech forums and other blogs – searching for EVERYTHING I can find, concerning the product or topic I want to report on.
Then I analyze all the reviews and other sources of info and sort them out according to how credible they might be, who wrote it, how in-depth the testing was, etc. I basically use my “geek-girl” senses to suss out any b.s.
My goal with these articles is to help you get the most out of your hard-earned cash, while managing to keep your PCs running just a little bit longer and make a few bucks for myself in the process…
I do this by publishing a relevant advertisement beneath each blog post or sometimes I include a “buy it now” link that goes directly to the product or tool in question. If you click on an advertisement or direct link and purchase something then I make some money.
That said, you can rest assured that I do not receive kickbacks or free hard drives or software (other than standard trials) or networking gear in exchange for positive reviews — so far, no hardware manufacturer or software developer has been dumb enough to send me anything free to keep!
But I will be sure to let you know if it ever happens!
Hard Drive FAQs, Digital Storage 101 & Buyers Guides:
I have gathered all the latest training materials, FAQs and how-to information available about hard drives and data storage then compiled them into easy-to-understand formats:
The FAQs section is designed to to give common sense answers to the most frequently asked questions most non-technical people have about hard drives, business data storage and other digital storage devices.
The Hard Drive FAQ can you help find quick solutions to your hard drive problems and reduce the amount of time it takes for you to make an intelligent decision on how to fix it.
Over the time, I will create a series of Buyers Guides that will be basically downloadable special reports, checklists and worksheets that you can use to narrow down your storage solution search – quick and easy.
Digital Storage 101 is a hard drive learning center with simple to understand resource articles that I hope will help non-technical people quickly learn the data storage essentials they will need to know in order to make an informed decision about their hard drives, USB or NAS (network attached storage) needs.
Tips and How-To Articles
A Tip article is just quick, easy to digest tech shortcuts that explain or give notice to you about a specific topic. Although there will be overlap, How-to articles tend to be longer, more in-depth tutorials that I use to actually show and tell you have to perform some type of technical support task – kind of like DIY with written coaching.
Well that’s it. Hope this little cheatsheet has made things a little clearer for you.
Thanks, Chance