In an effort to sell more computers Dell has started offering more customization offerings for its computers. We are not talking simply letting a person choose what CPU or how much RAM their notebook comes with — Dell has done that for years. What Dell is doing is going after the user who wants the computer to look as good as it performs by choosing from multiple different colors.

Many of Dell’s new notebooks come with some bright colors and for some users finding accessories to go with the bright colors can be hard. Dell has teamed up with several aftermarket accessory and peripheral makers for a line of “Designed for Dell” accessories. The latest addition to the line is from Creative with custom colors for its T10 speakers and EP-610 headphones.

For a portable hard drive to be truly portable, it needs to be able to be powered totally by the USB port on your computer. That means that users don’t need an AC adapter for the drive to operate. When portable hard drives first started to hit the market most of them needed an AC adapter and some larger capacity portable drives still do.

Today Memorex launched a new line of portable hard drives available in 160GB, 250GB, and 320GB that are all powered by the USB port of a user’s computer. The line is called the Essential TravelDrive series and uses 2.5-inch drives inside a case designed to fit inside a purse or laptop bag.

External hard drives are great for backing up data or adding more storage when your internal hard drive gets full. External drives are especially helpful for notebook users who typically don’t have very much storage to start with inside their computers.

Imation has announced a new model of its slim Apollo Portable Hard Drive that has a fat 500GB drive stuffed inside the case. Despite the fact that the hard drive inside the Apollo has tons of storage, it is still completely powered by the USB port. That means that no batteries or external power is needed making the drive much more portable.

I am a DVR nut and record everything — even if I plan to watch it right then. I like to let the show get about 15 minutes ahead of live TV so I can skip all of the commercials. I also have kids so we tend to collect gobs of Dora episodes as well. When we start running out of space on the DVR, everyone gets nervous that their programs will be deleted.

Hitachi has announced some new hard drives that are aimed at the DVR user in its CinemaStar line. The more interesting of the two new drives is the CinemaStar 7K1000.B. This drive has a massive 1TB storage capacity and can hold 247 hours of MPEG-4 encoded HD video and support ten simultaneous data streams. My pathetic DVR drive can only hold 30 hours of HD programs.

Yesterday we talked a bit about the line art for the Dell Studio Hybrid PC that had popped up online. Today the Hybrid PC from Dell gets official. The computer is very cool looking and has decent specs too. PC users looking for a new and cheap machine should pay attention.

The Hybrid PC is very small measuring in at 7-inches x 8.25-inches x 2.75 inches. Inside the small case is up to 4GB of RAM, a 320GB HDD, and an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU. HDMI out is included, which is nice considering Blu-ray and a TV tuner are both optional.

Many laptop users don’t like using the track pad on their notebook for extended periods. There are a number of notebook mice on the market, but they all need batteries or a separate charger for the most part.

The MoGo Presenter Mouse has been around for a while now. It uses Bluetooth to connect to the PC and stores and gets it power from the ExpressCard slot on notebooks. The catch was that many laptops still don’t use the ExpressCard slot leaving many notebook users without the ability to use the MoGo Presenter Mouse.

Notebook sales are growing rapidly while sales for desktop PCs have be sagging. One of the ways that computer makers are trying to get consumers and businesses to consider the desktop computer again is by making the desktop PCs very small.

A bit of artwork has surfaced that sheds more light on the design of the Dell Studio Hybrid mini PC that has yet to be launched. According to SlashGear, the drawings were part of an internal customer service session that showed how the wireless keyboard and mouse would pair to the main PC.

Going green is the latest big thing for companies and product manufacturers. Many different items we use with our computers are getting more energy efficient. The gear is also being built with materials that have less of an impact on the environment– certainly a good thing.

Fabrik has announced what it calls the world’s most eco-friendly external hard drive today called the Fabrik SimpleTech [re]drive. The drive enclosure is made from recycled aluminum and bamboo. Fabrik packages an Energy Star power adapter with the drive and the actual package material the [re]drive ships in is made from 100% recycled materials.

One of the most loathed things about flying today, besides having to take off your shoes to go through a checkpoint, is having to remember to remove your laptop from your laptop bag. If you forget to do it, it’s an even bigger hassle as you are forced to the side where a security person sweeps your computer for bombs and everyone else in line looks at you like you are a dumb ass.

One day we won’t have to take off our shoes anymore and laptop bags and sleeves to make checkpoints easier are coming really soon. In fact, Briggs & Riley says that it will be the first company to release a Travel Sentry Approved checkpoint friendly laptop sleeve onto the market. The new sleeves are due on August 15 and when using them you no longer have to take your notebook out and put it on a bin at the checkpoint.

Laptop sales are surging and are growing at a much faster rate than sales of desktop computers. Despite this fact there is still a big market for desktop computers, especially in the enterprise and business environments. To reach out to this group Acer announced a new desktop PC for business users today.

The computer is called the Acer Veriton S461 and it starts at only $549 for a base configuration. Base level systems include an Intel Pentium Dual-core E2200 processor, Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3100, 2GB of DDR2, 80GB SATA HDD, DVD burner, Gigabit LAN and Windows Vista Business or XP.