Page 6 - Boca Club News - August '20

Page 6, Boca Club News
Boca Happenings
Boca Raton Public Library Introduces New StoryWalk
At Pondhawk Natural Area Near Spanish River Branch
In celebration of National Park and
Recreation Month, the first StoryWalk in
Boca Raton has opened at the Pondhawk
Natural Area next to the Spanish River
branch of the Boca Raton Public Library.
StoryWalk is a fun, educational activity that
places a children’s storybook along a popular
walking route in the community.
The Pondhawk StoryWalk’s first book
is called “The Swamp Where Gator Hides”,
by Marianne Berkes. Through beautiful
art and poetic verse, young readers will
learn about the swamp ecosystem and see
that wild Florida can be found as close as
our nearest park! Different books will be
displayed throughout the year to keep the
StoryWalk experience fresh and promote
future learning. A child on her mother’s back pointing to a picture on a StoryWalk post
Computers
From Sheila’s Desktop:
Best External Hard Drives
By Sheila Garber of Broken Sound
Club. Sheila was a teacher for
41 years, the last 22 years as
a Computer Teacher. She is the
recipient of an AOL Interactive
Educational Initiative Grant and the
author of an award-winning website
featuring virtual reality panoramas
of the historical and cultural sites
®
StoryWalk was brought to Boca Raton through a four-
way partnership between the Boca Raton Public Library, the
Palm Beach County Department of Environmental Resources
Management, the Friends of Boca Raton Public Library, and
the City of Boca Raton Department of Recreation Services
as a way to combine physical activity with books to help
build children’s interest in reading while encouraging healthy
activity for all.
National Park and Recreation Month has been celebrated
in the United States in July since 1985. During this month,
Parks and Recreation departments, organizations and
individuals promote the benefits of local parks and recreation
centers. StoryWalk is the perfect place for the whole family
to get outside, explore a local landmark, and enjoy outdoor
activities. It is easily accessible for people of all ages from
the Spanish River Library parking lot at 1501 NW Spanish
River Blvd., Boca Raton.
of Philadelphia. Mrs. Garber currently resides in Broken gives it a 4 out of 5 rating. It comes with a useful LaCie
Sound Country Club and devotes her time to teaching Toolkit software that handles backup and restore, as
others computer skills. well as mirroring. One drawback is that the toolkit
I recently purchased a new MacBook Pro laptop. It has utility requires a download. PC says it has “on the mark
been my computer choice for my last three computers. I performance.” It has 2 TB of storage and costs $95 at
used a Seagate external hard drive on my last MacBook apple.com. It is geared to Mac users, but can be used by
Pro and was very satisfied. My last external hard drive both platforms.
had 1.5 TB of storage. The second choice is Samsung Portable SSD T7 Touch.
Before I go any further, for those of you who have It, too, has a 4 out of 5 rating. It has excellent performance
never used an external hard drive, let me explain what it and easy-to-use security, Samsung’s credit-card-sized,
is and why I feel it is necessary. fingerprint-reading Portable SSD T7 Touch, a versatile
An external hard drive continuously backs up your external solid-state drive. It has fast performance but is
computer onto an attached device and dates the backup. fairly expensive. The introductory size is 500 GB (1/2
Once you set it up, it will “do its thing.” Should anything TB) and costs $130. The 2TB costs $600.
happen to your computer, you have everything stored The third one is the Seagate Backup Plus Ultra Touch.
in the external hard drive. Not only that, should your It, too, has a 4 out of 5 rating. The 2TB model costs $80.
computer get “infected,” you can go back to any date This is the one I bought since Seagate served me well
in the backup and restore your computer to the previous on my old computer for eight years. I purchased the
date. The same is true if you inadvertently deleted certain new Seagate at Costco. They back up purchases easily
files. It is your safety net. Each day is dated. Once it runs should I change my mind. I almost returned it as my
out of storage space, it will erase the oldest backup. The new computer had the data migration of the old, which
drawback is that if you are “hit by lightning” or other included the settings for my former Seagate backup. I
tragedy to the computer, more than likely it will also affect called Seagate’s tech support. They were fabulous! They
your backup. When a hurricane threatens, I unplug both walked me through the settings to delete my old backup
the computer and the backup to prevent such events. and install the new one. It is working fine. It is about the
Now that you have a general idea of the purpose of size of a playing card. A drawback is that it, too, requires
an external drive, let me give you PC Magazine’s Best a toolkit download. It is for both Mac users and PC users.
External Hard Drives and my choice for my new one. A side issue for Mac users: My new MacBook Pro
Before I go any further, these drives come in sizes by laptop computer uses the new USB-C ports. There are
storage and the cost reflects the size. Since I never had an only two of these ports in the 13-inch model that I
issue with my old hard drive, which was 1.5 TB, I chose a purchased. You must get an adapter to plug in the Seagate
new one that has 2 TB. Even though I do the bookkeeping external hard drive--or the others, for that matter. It can
for my charitable group, and write articles for both this be purchased in the Apple store. I purchased a new hub,
column and lectures for my charitable group, I never had which has several regular USB ports. I will cover that in
a problem with either storage on my computer or backup. my next topic.
The first choice is LaCie Mobile Drive. PC Magazine Good luck, Sheila. garberse@aol.com