Q:What do you think is the best consumer technology to emerge in the past decade?

A: There's a lot to choose from, that's for sure. LCD TVs (along with high-def broadcasting), Wi-Fi, digital video cameras, social networking (Facebook, YouTube, etc.), e-book readers like the Kindle, sensor video gaming, 3-D for movies that really works - the lists goes on and on. But my vote goes to the iPhone.

Like the Internet, the iPhone changed everything. People had been talking about smart phones since the late 1990s, gushing over all the things you might be able to do with them. But it took Apple to come up with the device that made good on the promise. The iPhone set the bar for smart phones with its slim profile, big touch-screen and easy-to-use features. Of all the cool products Apple had introduced in its 30 years, the iPhone was the coolest, and people stood in line for hours to get their hands on one.

Not only did the iPhone jump-start the market for smart phones - fundamentally changing the way people communicate - it created a market for small applications that run on smart phones. Today, there are about as many downloads of apps for the iPhone as there are people in the United States - more than 300 million.

Finally, the iPhone set the stage for the iPad, another top breakthrough. I suspect that the personal computer of the future will be a hybrid of smart phones and iPad-like tablets.

Q:For years, I have backed up my accounting files on a Zip drive. I expect that my trusty Compaq Windows XP computer will give up the ghost any day now, and when that happens, I'll want to transfer the data on my Zip disks to a new computer. But what happens if the new computer isn't compatible with the Zip drive?

A: Don't wait to find out. Copy everything on your Zip disks back to your computer, then transfer all of it to an external hard drive or a USB flash drive.

Zip drives were one of those interesting gizmos that enjoy a brief heyday, only to be run over by the future. During the 1990s, they offered (relatively) high-capacity storage, with disks capable of holding 100 or 250 megabytes. That was pretty good compared with the 1.44-megabyte floppy drives that came with computers back then. But starting in the early 2000s, CDs, DVDs, external hard drives and USB flash drives drove Zip to its grave.

Q:Can you recommend a wireless router for streaming video via my Internet-ready Samsung Blu-ray player?

A: Any Wireless-N router should do the job. More expensive models come with dual-band technology, 600-megabit transfer rates and other accoutrements, but for the most part, that's overkill. Dual-band routers can transmit at both 2.4 and 5 gigahertz (GHz), which is great except that most current Blu-ray players - probably including yours - support only 2.4 GHz. And 600 megabits per second is roughly 50 times the download speed of the average cable Internet connection, so you would never see the advantage. Higher transfer speeds are great for sending music and video files between computers on your network, but not for the Internet.

A couple of caveats: If router is located far from your home theater - in the bedroom upstairs at the end of the hall, for instance - an "extended range" router would be advisable. And if you're a total klutz who has trouble replacing the batteries on a flashlight, you might want to consider the Valet router, which Cisco advertises as the easiest router to install. It goes for $80 at Best Buy.

Q:I have two Windows XP computers. Instead of trying to upgrade to Windows 7 (cost, aggravation), I have been thinking about Linux. I use my computers mostly for the Internet, e-mail and basic word processing. Which version of Linux do you think would suit me best?

A: None of them. Several years ago, I had high hopes for Linux as an alternative to Windows, but the evolution of Linux for consumers has been disappointing. It's almost unbelievable, but Ubuntu, Fedora, SUSE and other free versions of Linux still have trouble connecting to wireless networks. That's because they're incompatible with technology from Broadcom, which is used in a majority of network adapters. There are workarounds, but they are painful even for the computer savvy.

Broadcom recently released its driver codes so that open-source developers can use them in future versions of Linux. When those appear, Linux could be a contender. Until then, I'd stick with XP.