In celebration of CES, let’s look at some myths you may believe unnecessarily.  

1) Expensive HDMI Cords: buy a TV and the salesman will shove a gold plated HDMI cord in your hands that’s $70 or more.  

The Truth: they’re no different than the $5 HDMI cords online.  

Maybe A/V systems at hotels need gold plated cords for their 200 inch screens and projectors.  But not for home TVs.

2) Shutting Off PCs Without Shutting Down Windows or Macs Damages Them: Nope.  Microsoft and Apple has our backs.  

What’s more: People think shutting their computers off and on also damages it.  Nope again.  In fact, batteries and processors need to shut down like we do when we go to sleep at night.  Think if you had to stay up for weeks and then work…

3) You Need To Run Down Your Batteries Periodically:  Not a good idea.  Cell phone and laptop batteries have a shelf life.  Only so many recharges.  So by probability: keep your batteries around 50%-80% for the longest battery life.  

4) Magnets and X-rays Will Zap Your Drives: Not True.  Go through airport security with ease.  Flash drives and SSD drives have no magnetic properties.  Fear not.  Only very powerful magnets can affect computer drives.  Same for X-rays which are electro-magnetic.  

5) Cookies Track Your Every Move: Not really.  Websites install cookies on your device so they can sell you things you like.  It would take a lot of manpower to track your every move on the net.