When shopping for a keyboard and mouse combo, the array of bells and whistles can be dizzying. Do you really need one with a customizable keypad? Or do you just need something that's going to get you through your Google searches?

If it's the latter, the Genius SlimStar i815 desktop set is worth taking a look at it. Read the full hands-on review here.

(Image courtesy of Genius.)

What is flash and why is it different than Flash? You've undoubtedly asked yourself this question as some point, and lucky for you -- we have the answer.

Sam Grobart's "10 Ways to Get the Most Out of Technology" article in the New York Times has some great tech suggestions for the new year. Perhaps most importantly (at least on this site) are his ideas for data backup.

Grobart provides several non-hardware options for data backup, including uploading photos to the cloud and using online file-sharing services like Dropbox. He also advises using a data backup service like Sosbackup.com.

I haven't tried this particular one, but the advice and the idea behind multi-location backup are excellent. It's always a better idea to have a non-hardware backup option should your hardware fail. Likewise, I don't recommend fully relying on online services because glitches do occur (or your cable goes out), and you might not be able to retrieve your data when you need it.

Did you have a big data backup fail in 2010? Share you wisdom with your fellow readers.