Notebook computers. At this point in the 21st century, they have become an indispenable part of many people's everyday lives. From the commuting business executive and the busy college student, we all want to be mobile with our computers. The big drawback of that is the fact that there is not always a plug around when you need one. A notebook computer's battery is its life-blood. Without proper care, your notebook battery could fail much earlier than anticipated. By following a few simple steps, you can expect to get the greatest amount of usage possible out of your notebook battery before a replacement is needed.
1.) Upon purchase, charge the battery to full capacity. Whether you have purchased a new computer have purchased a new battery for your laptop, charging it fully as soon as you open the box is the best recommendation. This allows the battery to reach a full capacity before you begin to use it "unplugged". Most batteries come with a partial charge, enough to get you going if you absolutely had to. Giving that battery a full charge when it is brand new will help set the charge capacity for the battery at its highest possible level.
2.) Once you reach a full charge, leave the computer plugged in for at least 2 hours. This action lets the battery "rest" at a full charge for a fairly lengthy period of time. At this point, the battery is not drawing power from your wall socket to charge, and it is also not supplying any power to your system. Letting your battery rest for a time after a full charge helps to "lock-in" that full charge capacity.
3.) Unplug the computer and drain the battery. It might sound silly, but now that you have gotten that battery to a full charge, you need to drain the power almost completely. Again, this will help determine the charge capacity of the battery. Leave your computer unplugged and use it until you get a warning telling you that the battery is almost completely discharge. Then save whatever you are working on and power the computer down. Plug back into the wall socket for a fresh charge. Then use the computer at your leisure.
If you follow these steps about once a month, your notebook battery should last a nice long while. Not to say that you will never have to replace it, but at least it will be a long time before you need to.
Kamis, 19 Februari 2009
Notebook Battery Life - 3 Easy steps to extend the life of your notebook battery
Minggu, 15 Februari 2009
Choosing Anti-Spam Software That Is Right For You
It is believed that on an average, an email user receives more than 2000 Spam emails every year! By certain accounts, an email user receives more than 77 percent of the mail as spam – which is around 10 out of every 13 emails you receive! More than two-thirds of the email passing through the air waves are pure junk – unwanted and unsolicited. It, therefore, becomes imperative that you chose the right anti-spam software that meets with your requirements.
Spam happens to be one of the biggest disadvantages of using communication channels through the Internet. There is every need to find ways to separate the wanted emails from the unwanted and unsolicited ones. Choosing the correct anti-spam software or Spam filter is the right way to cut down on the spam you receive.
Handling Spam
The amount of spam you can detect and delete depends on the type of screening your emails go through. Many anti-spam software have a multi-level of email screening, which is worth the money you spend. You can even select a trail version or free anti Spam software to sample what it does and then you can opt for a full version with enhanced features and full functionality.
One of the best places to trap and eliminate spam is at the servers that receive, forward, and send the emails. You, of course, have no control over the type of anti-spam handling done by your Internet Service Provider (ISP). To handle spam, there are particular services available to filter them. For a nominal amount each month, a particular service inspects and cleans your inbox. Another service involves forwarding your complete inbox to their servers, where the clean up occurs as emails arrive.
As personal spam blockers, a number of anti-spam software are available from reputed anti-spam suppliers, such as Symantec, McAfee, eScan, PC Mantra etc to name a few. Such software capture and inspect all emails coming in before allowing the clean ones into your inbox.
The type of anti-spam software you select will depend on the volume of emails you handle. It will also depend on the budget you allot to the anti-spam program. The best anti-spam software for you should have the following features, among many others:
It should allow you to see who the sender of the email is, the subject, and the attachment. You can then decide whether to delete the email or accept it.
A chance to preview the message before downloading it. This will enable you to delete if you do not like the message.
The feature that allows you to bounce back the spam email is a great way to let the sender think that your email address is no longer valid. This would probably make them remove you from their mailing list!
There are a number of anti-spam software available with a number of online suppliers that you need to explore, to select the best that is suitable for your needs.
PC Wars-The Saga Continues
At one time Dell Computer was one of the extraordinary growth stories in America. Michael Dell could do no wrong. There then comes a time in every entrepreneur’s career when he or she has to recognize, it’s time to step aside and let new, historically proven managers come in and run with the ball.
Michael Dell stepped down two years ago, and turned the ball over to Kevin Rollins who runs the company on a day to day basis. Dell either has to be kicking himself in the butt for turning the reigns over to Rollins, or be happy that he himself is not on the firing line at the moment.
Dell was innovative in selling directly to the consumer as a business model. It worked brilliantly for years. The firm had no equal in the direct to consumer market. Dell also was encouraged to sell big time to the corporate market. All great technology oriented growth companies hit walls. My work shows that it tends to happen about 7 years or so into the growth process. The exceptional growth company can take longer before it hits the wall, and has to reinvent itself. The word reinvent is the correct one to use.
Microsoft has now entered such a period, having become a cash cow as opposed to being a growth company. In my history of technology investing which goes back 35 years, I have never found a growth company that has not hit a wall somewhere in the growth process.
What happens is that companies at some point tend to rest on their laurels, their past successes and glories. They become so committed to what they are doing, that they become incapable of seeing the next revolution sneak up behind their backs and challenge them for supremacy. It always happens and it’s always the same way with the same result. Never have I seen a single growth company that could reinvent the revolution. It’s always some new kid on the block that spearheads the next new thing.
The consumer has probably now reached a stage where he wants to walk into a store and see what he’s getting for his money as opposed to just reading specs on his computer and talking to an outsourced person in India who is absolutely clueless about American culture.
In the last five quarters, Dell has missed on the estimates that it has given Wall Street. In the last quarter there has been a 51% decline in quarterly profit, and now a recall on 4 million laptop batteries to boot (no pun intended). This is not the way to run a major Fortune 100 company.
Things always get worse before they get better.
When a growth company hits the wall and starts to decline, the decline usually has to go for quite a while before a new management team takes the reins and starts to engineer a midcourse correction. This is like turning an aircraft carrier around. First you have to make the decision to go another way. You then have to get everybody else on board quickly. It takes several miles to get a carrier turned around at sea; it’s not easy for corporate management to do it either.
Dell will have to re-examine its direct to customer sales model, because right now Hewlett Packard is eating them for lunch. The stock is down 60% from its high for good reason. The stock market is telling you something. Is anybody listening down there in Texas.
Dell bet big on the corporate market, and completely failed to take into account the changing sentiments of the consumer market. Dell needs to grow bigger outside the United States. Everyone agrees that the US market is not really a growth market at the moment. The firm must increase international sales to a point where it’s growing 15 to 20% internationally. I don’t see it happening.
Somebody and not Rollins has to address the lackluster customer service in this country. Why not Rollins? It’s because he was in charge of the company when the problem became a problem. You never want the guy who was involved with the problem to be the guy who fixes the problem. He’s too busy protecting himself than to fix the problem. That’s management 101.
Dell use to be almost perfectly run. They had the low cost model, and the competition, namely Hewlett Packard, Acer, Apple, and China’s Lenovo were always playing catch-up, and stumbling trying to catch up. Why did they stumble, it’s the same in football, you go for the long bomb when you are behind in the fourth quarter. Now the competition finds its model working, and Dell is stumbling.
I realize that Dell has spent money fixing customer support, and trying to convince people that their product is no longer a commodity. I have seen zero results from this expenditure at this time. In my own work as a money manager, I have lowered my estimates for this company six times in the last twelve months. I currently do not carry it in a single portfolio. Fortunately, I missed the whole move downward, and I am not willing to bet on this company yet.
Yes, Dell is now considered a value stock by many. The problem is that the growth players haven’t been completely washed out of the stock yet. This will take more time. The institutions that have had a tough time performing this year will be under pressure to rid their portfolios of Dell by year end if the stock doesn’t perform. Dell has agreed to market processors by AMD as well as Intel. They will probably take a hit to their margins because Intel was probably rebating them back a portion of the sales to be an exclusive with Dell.
The company is still sitting with almost $11 billion in cash on the balance sheet, which works out to about $4.50 per share. Wall Street is in the process of lowering estimates for 07. Here’s the bottom line, with Dell you still have a valuation risk. Hewlett Packard is growing faster and selling cheaper. The only reason to own Dell here is its previous extraordinary history, but in stocks the past is not always prologue to the future. A stock has no ideas where it traded yesterday, and Dell has to execute on a believable strategy. Go figure.
Goodbye and good luck
Richard Stoyeck
Getting Your First Computer
Have you ever wanted to buy your dream computer? You have save your monthly income to buy it but you did not know what specification you should choose since there are lot of choices in the market today.
Beside budget, below are the important factors that you should look into when buying a computer. They are the operating system, processor speed, graphic card capability, power supply, hard disk, and the monitor. Take a look at this simple guide and I hope that you will have a nice computer buying experience later.
Build it yourself or ask somebody else?
Firstly before stepping into choosing the suitable hardware, a question that you should ask to yourself is whether do you want to build your own computer or ask somebody to build it for you?
>From my experience, it is better to ask somebody else to build it for you if this is the first time you want to buy your own computer. You can always learn to know about your computer hardware and software later. But, do not forget to assist the salesperson and ask him or her anything that you did not know about your computer. He might give you some tips of what should do and shouldn’t do with your computer during the building process.
Choosing the hardware
Now, we will look into buying hardware for your computer. Your computer hardware determines your computer speed. There are lots of factors that affect how well your computer will perform as well.
The Processor
Nowadays, two big companies are in the race of getting the fastest processor for mainstream are the Intel Corporation and Advanced Micro Device (AMD). What I’m going to tell you is not which one of them are the best, but some aspect of processor that you should know.
The greater the processor clock your processor have, the better performance it will be. As example, a 3.0 gigahertz Intel Pentium Processor will beat the 2.0 gigahertz version of the same processor. But there are bottlenecks that limit performance in other places such as the cache’s size and latency, power consumption, and temperature.
So, for conclusion it always better to choose a processor that have least power consumption, large cache size with low latency, and capable of running fast in well-accepted temperature such as 34 Celsius, and have the latest feature such as support for dual-core and 64-bit computing.
Remember, don’t compare different type of processor performance with clock speed since it’s proven by AMD that clock speed did not influences the performance of the processor very much unlike the 1998 era.
The Monitor
Prefer choosing a LCD monitor over CRT Monitor. No heavy lifting required with a LCD monitor since they weigh less than half the average CRT monitor. LCD monitors require half the power of CRTs and emit much less electromagnetic radiation which can interfere with other electronic devices.
Talking about the LCD size, 17-inch is enough already since it give the best support to resolution that operating system widely use nowadays (1024 by 786 pixels). But, if you want to keep your computer for a long time or want to use to make it as part of your Digital Media Centre, LCD Monitor with larger than 19 inch size is recommended.
The Graphic Card
A graphic card is a must have for modern computer today. Never intend to use integrated graphic since it will greatly slow down your computer. PC graphic such as photos and videos will require a lot of processing power. Without the help from graphic card, the CPU needs to handle all the system and graphic processing.
Choosing a graphic card is easy depends with how you use your computer. If you did not run any games, graphic card without latest features is acceptable. Just make sure that the graphic card supports the incoming operating system from Microsoft, Windows Vista. Since a high-end graphic card will require high power for SLI or crossfire function, if you want to save your electric bills, consider mid-range graphic card which usually sold at 150-250 dollar.
Power supply
The higher the wattage that a power supply support, the better it is. If you want to purchase additional hardware for your computer later such as USB optical mouse there won’t be a problem for you since a decent power supply will supports your need. A good power supply is the power supply that can give out as much 500 watt of power or higher than that.
Hard Disk
An internal hard disk with latest Sata 2.0 (serial ATA) support will serve you perfectly. Other than that, the size of the hard disk should be big since you might want to store a lot of pictures, music, and movies later. 200GB hard disk is the regular specification nowadays. If you want to keep your hard disk for a long time, 500 GB would be enough.
How many hard disks should you buy? The minimum is one but I recommend you to get two hard disks for your computer. One will be for main operating system and the other one for storing your personal data. This is essential to avoid those data from clutter together. Moreover, your computer performance might increase if you use two hard disks. This is because the computer can access the operating system files directly from its own drive.
The Operating System
For the best user experience, operating system from Microsoft such as Windows XP still dominates the market nowadays. Since lots of people using it, getting support would not be hard. Just go to a tech support forum and your software-related computer problem will be solved there. Although you can use Linux operating system for free, it is not recommended because not all hardware supports Linux.
Well, that’s all for now. Your journey to build your dream computer should not end here. Ask your friends for some advices such as a good computer hardware shop in the town or their past experiences in buying their computer. Thus, you will not feel regretted with what you’re going to buy.
How You Can Increase Your Computer's Speed Without Upgrading ?
How you can increase your computer's speed without upgrading ?
Every time I see the speed of my computer like the tortoise's speed I wonder if there are any ways to increase my computer speed without upgrading, and how can I speed up my computer although I'm a normal user and I don't have any programming skills?
The answer is very easy, just follow this ways:
1- Use Disk Cleanup to increase speed of Windows and the internet, how:
Start--->>All Programs or Program Files--->>Accessories--->>System Tools--->>Disk Cleanup then select the drive you want to cleanup and you should start with drive "C".
2- Use Scandisk to fix system errors and that make Windows run faster, how:
My Computer--->>click Right Click on drive C--->>Properties--->>Tools--->>Check Now then click on the first square to fix errors automatically then start.
3- Use Disk Defragmenter to increase the speed of your hard disk and applications, how: Start--->>All Programs or Program Files--->>Accessories--->>System Tools--->>Disk Defragmenter, then select the derive you want to begin with but you should start with derive "C" then click defragment.
4- Speed up your internet connection immediately: clean up your internet cache and your temporary internet files and cookies. Be careful because when deleting your cookies will also delete useful information from your computer. How can I speed up the internet connection:
Start--->>Control Panel--->>Internet Options--->>Delete Cookies and Delete Files.
5- Don't let a lot of applications running when Windows starts, because you will make Windows run slowly. How to delete applications from Startup menu:
Start--->>All Programs or Program Files--->>Startup then "click Right click and delete" on any application you want to delete.
Time for a Web Wash?
Those of you in the business of e-commerce, internet marketing or website building will understand the importance of first impressions of a landing or home page of a website.
Unfortunately, I found out the hard way and yes, I was stupid as I certainly should have known better, given my years of experience in marketing. The message really hit home on Saturday morning when a voice on the other end of the phone said “…and what exactly does your company do, I have been to your website but I couldn’t quite understand it.”
Oh dear, my little heart sunk about as low as it can go (well, over a website tragedy that is) and I vowed to remedy the situation first thing Monday morning. As it happened, I couldn’t live with myself by leaving the web-makeover till Monday, so Sunday morning I fired up the laptop and tried to put myself in the seat of a first time visitor to http://www.smartdames.com. After two minutes I understood exactly what this well intentioned soul destroyer was alluding to and after five I had decided to throw away half of the content on the site.
But first things first, priorities reminded me that I had an urgent task to research some email marketing companies for a promo I was considering, so I spent the next three hours going through a list of companies that my researcher had prepared. The simple goal was to find the companies that could benefit from my product. And guess what; most of the websites were just as confusing as mine! So I set a benchmark, if I couldn’t understand exactly what the company did after two pages of research I deleted it from my list.
Let’s get real here, we are all busy people. How would you feel if you put your mower into the back of your car, drove it to the other side of town to a mower repair shop and found out that they didn’t really repair mowers.
So back to my website, while still having that annoying little inner voice reminding me of the Number One search engine tip ‘content is king’ (does anyone really know what the search engines feed on any more?) and trying to balance this with the KISS principle, I set about to come right back to basics. And do you know what? It was fun, it was easy, it was cleansing. And more importantly, my focus became clearer and clearer the more detritus I eliminated. It was like carrying around old baggage, not quite necessary anymore but I’ll hold on to it just in case I ever need it again!
How many of you can honestly say that your website is clean, is focused and your services clearly defined. Just take another little check, it won’t hurt.
When you clean out all your unwanted and unused hoardings at home it is referred to as a ‘Life Laundry’, let’s call this a Web Wash.
Why Do You Need A Window Cleaner
Window cleaner has become an absolute necessity these days because every time you use your computer, every webpage you visit, every image and file – whether multimedia or a movie file - you see, are stored in it. This takes up a lot of disk space, which is quite valuable in terms of storage space. You probably use a number of software, as most do, and every software saves some information or the other. Through this information, all your activities can be tracked and traced, invading your privacy. Windows washer is a tool that helps remove all these traces, and much more to help run your computer better and faster.
What most computer users do not realize is that every single online activity of theirs can be easily tracked. Internet history files, cookies of the sites you visit, and your browser cache are a storehouse of all your online activities. Through these logs, your privacy can be trespassed. These files are not required, and must be deleted after you have finished using your computer. These unwanted files take up precious disk space and slow down your complete system. This is why you need a Window cleaner – to help clean up all these unwanted information.
What Will A Windows Cleaner Do
Window cleaner will free your computer of all stored information, which are not required, and which are a danger to your privacy. Different cleaners have different features, depending on what you require. Windows cleaner that merely deletes the files may have a limited benefit, as a variety of data recovery tools available can help recover the data. Certain Window cleaners have a feature that further shreds the deleted files and folders.
Though a Windows cleaner is an all-in-one cleaning tool, it comes with various features. All such cleaners are flexible tools that clean up the history of your activities, both online and offline, and restore hard disk space. Some cleaners come with features, such as secret bookmarks, stealth cleaning, and hide browsers, among many others. Certain other features include optimizers that clean all obsolete files and files that are pure junk. Certain features also find duplicate files and remove them.
A Window cleaner is a powerful tool and is quite reliable for removing all useless files, and de-fragmenting your computer, making it run faster than before, and completely error free. It is a user-friendly application, though some may not be able to restore deleted files. Depending upon the Window registry cleaner you have opted for, you can either clean all the traces of your activities manually, or fix up a regular schedule for cleaning.
Having a Window cleaner is no longer an option, but a must. To select the best cleaner to suit you, all you need is to go online. A plethora of online stores has a variety of cleaners to choose from.