Tuesday, November 27, 2012

INCREASE YOUR LAPTOPS BATTERY LIFETIME !!!

Laptops tend to lose their charm quickly when you’re constantly looking for the nearest power outlet to charge up. How do you keep your battery going for as long as possible? Here are 15 easy ways to do so.

 1. Defrag regularly - The faster your hard drive does its w

ork – less demand you are going to put on the hard drive and your battery. Make your hard drive as efficient as possible bydefragging it regularly. (but not while it’s on battery of course!) Mac OSX is better built to handle fragmentation so it may not be very applicable for Apple systems.

2. Dim your screen – Most laptops come with the ability to dim your laptop screen. Some even come with ways to modify CPU and cooling performance. Cut them down to the lowest level you can tolerate to squeeze out some extra battery juice.

3. Cut down on programs running in the background. Itunes, Desktop Search, etc. All these add to the CPU load and cut down battery life. Shut down everything that isn’t crucial when you’re on battery.
Your Laptop Is Your Love

4. Cut down external devices – USB devices (including your mouse) & WiFi drain down your laptop battery. Remove or shut them down when not in use. It goes without saying that charging other devices (like your iPod) with your laptop when on battery is a surefire way of quickly wiping out the charge on your laptop battery.

5. Add more RAM - This will allow you to process more with the memory your laptop has, rather than relying on virtual memory. Virtual memory results in hard drive use, and is much less power efficient. Note that adding more RAM will consume more energy, so this is most applicable if you do need to run memory intensive programs which actually require heavy usage of virtual memory.

6. Run off a hard drive rather than CD/DVD - As power consuming as hard drives are, CD and DVD drives are worse. Even having one in the drive can be power consuming. They spin, taking power, even when they?re not actively being used. Wherever possible, try to run on virtual drives using programs like Alcohol 120% rather than optical ones.

7. Keep the battery contacts clean: Clean your battery’s metal contacts every couple of months with a cloth moistened with rubbing alcohol. This keeps the transfer of power from your battery more efficient.

8. Take care of your battery – Exercise the Battery. Do not leave a charged battery dormant for long periods of time. Once charged, you should at least use the battery at least once every two to three weeks. Also, do not let a Li-On battery completely discharge. (Discharing is only for older batteries with memory effects)

9. Hibernate not standby – Although placing a laptop in standby mode saves some power and you can instantly resume where you left off, it doesn’t save anywhere as much power as the hibernate function does. Hibernating a PC will actually save your PC’s state as it is, and completely shut itself down.

10. Keep operating temperature down - Your laptop operates more efficiently when it’s cooler. Clean out your air vents with a cloth or keyboard cleaner

11. Set up and optimize your power options – Go to ‘Power Options’ in your windows control panel and set it up so that power usage is optimized (Select the ‘max battery’ for maximum effect).

12. Don’t multitask – Do one thing at a time when you’re on battery. Rather than working on a spreadsheet, letting your email client run in the background and listening to your latest set of MP3′s, set your mind to one thing only. If you don’t you’ll only drain out your batteries before anything gets completed!

13. Go easy on the PC demands – The more you demand from your PC. Passive activities like email and word processing consume much less power than gaming or playing a DVD. If you’ve got a single battery charge – pick your priorities wisely.

14. Get yourself a more efficient laptop - Laptops are getting more and more efficient in nature to the point where some manufacturers are talking about all day long batteries. Picking up a newer more efficient laptop to replace an aging one is usually a quick fix.

15. Prevent the Memory Effect - If you’re using a very old laptop, you’ll want to prevent the ‘memory effect’ – Keep the battery healthy by fully charging and then fully discharging it at least once every two to three weeks. Exceptions to the rule are Li-Ion batteries (which most laptops have) which do not suffer from the memory effect.

Thanks.

Turns Your PC Into An Android Like Tablet - Android Jelly Bean Skin Pack For Windows 7


I’ll be brutally honest about it: I am not a fan of transformation / skin packs on both desktops and mobile devices. I have two reasons for this. Firstly, using these packs usually has a dramatic effect on system performance. Secondly, if your reason to transform one operating system into another is for looks and looks alone: it’s going to be a big disappointment because no matter how much work is done on a transformation pack, it is not going to look as good as the source. What happens is that you get a operating system that looks like an ugly mix of the worst of both worlds.

But, of course, that is my own opinion. You may have an altogether different one and I will completely respect that.

 


With that in mind, let’s discuss a new Windows to Android transformation pack we came across earlier today. Simply named the Android Jelly Bean Skin Pack for Windows 7, the transformation pack includes a bunch of different programs that, when used together, give Windows 7 an Android 4.1 Jelly Bean-like look.
The programs in question are: RocketDock (skinnable Windows equivalent to OS X’s Dock), Xwidget for Jelly Bean-like widgets, extra icons, Win7BootUpdater for changing the boot screen, ResourceHacker for modifying .res files in Windows, Moveex for replacing / moving .dll files, and a Universal Theme Patcher.

 

You just have to download the installer and follow the on-screen instructions. It will guide you through different settings with ease. After that, you have to restart your PC to enjoy the Jelly Bean-like experience. Everything from the boot screen, login page to the desktop and Window UI gets a different look. You also get a really nice set of widgets for Time, Weather, Google Search and Music.

 

Android Jelly Bean Skin is available in the form of a free download. It works on Windows 7 Home Premium (and above) 32 / 64 bit; for Starter and Home Basic, you need to install a separate patch to enable Aero.


Download Link: http://www.skinpacks.com/modules.php?name=Products&op=details&iid=67

Thanks