Laptop batteries are ridiculously expensive and so any tips on how to save them should be shared.
Tips:
1. If you're not going to be using your laptop for a while. Take the battery off and put it in a bag and then put it into a freezer. This should help lower the risk of losing time on how long your battery charge lasts.
2. Don't leave your battery out in the sun or near anything that would expose the battery to high heat as the hotter the battery is, the quicker it will discharge.
3. Leaving the battery in the laptop while also having it plugged into the wall (an electrical outlet) will keep the battery in a constant state of charging which will decrease the life of your battery.
4. If you have a nickel metal hydride battery, then you should completely drain and recharge your battery once a month so that you maximize it's capacity to hold a charge.
If you have any questions for us here at Avantgate that you would like us to help you with - just fire through an email or leave a comment and we'll be more than happy to help. Have a great week.
Ok, nobody panic - things are going to be okay. I can see the computer technicians cash register going round in your eyes. But don't fret!
Before you decide to take it into the technician, first do some clearing out of your own computer because it could simply be that your computer is full of rubbish you don't actually need.
Firstly check how much of your hard drive space you have left. To keep getting good performance from your hard drive you should always keep 20% free. If you have much less than that - then you should look to removing some unneeded or unused programs. If you still need to free up space then would be good to back up any media (ie, photo's / videos / music etc) or anything onto a removable drive or another hard drive. It is good practice to always have two copies of anything though!
Next, you can delete cookies and temp files from your computer to free up more space as these can fill up rather quickly. Cookies (cache) and/or temp files are created either by the internet or other programs. They're basically a snap shot of a website or project you're working on, so that the next time you access that information it doesn't take as much time to load, because it already has an idea of how it looked before. So you don't have to worry so much when you delete these as next time you go into a website or project your system will automatically create another "cookie" or "temp" file with a new image.
Details on how to do it (These are the instructions for Internet Explorer):
Deleting Cookies and Temp files:
The easiest way to delete these is to open your internet browser
Click on 'tools'
Then Select 'Internet options'
Then click delete browser history'
Then click the 'delete cookies button' and then the 'delete files button'.
This may take a little time (a minute or two) especially if you haven't done it for a long time or at all so just be patient.
To delete the temp files and cookies in Mozilla Firefox follow these instructions:-
Click on 'tools'
Then click 'options'
Then click on the 'privacy' tab
Then click 'show cookies'
Then click 'remove all cookies'
You can also select the option to have your private data deleted each time you close your browser. By clicking the box so that the tick appears when you're in the 'privacy' tab. If you're running Windows there is also a disk cleanup tool that will do the above and more. Go to:
Start // Programs // Accessories // System Tools // Disk Cleanup
After you delete a bit of stuff (especially if you delete programs or remove things from your drive) it'd be a good idea to do a disk defrag so your drive is re-organized and back in order. To do this in MS Windows go to:
Start // Programs // Accessories // System Tools // Disk Defragmenter
Then select the drive you want defragmented (if you have more than one) and then click defragment and it will defrag the drive.
I hope this helps - if you use a browser other than the two I've used as examples then fire through an email or leave a comment here and we'll do our best to get instructions on how to do this same procedure for your browser. Have a great week!
We recently built a computer and it works great. We then decided about 20 hours later that it was time for a ram upgrade as the already 2GB just wasn't quite enough. So we purchased the ram and put it in. We turned on the computer expecting it to fly and that is 100% what it did not do....
So we opened up the case again thinking we'd just not put the ram in properly. We checked it all and it seemed to be in fine. So turned it on again, still nothing.... so out come two sticks of ram and we try turning it on again......still nothing. So by now in the back of our minds we're thinking have we been careless somewhere and fried something? It was one of those tense moments where everyone's thinking it but if you say it, you know you're going to get the smack down laid on you.
So finally we fold and take it to the local computer guy. He plugs it in and turns it on, still nothing. So he starts pulling out sticks of ram and each time, nothing. We got to the end and just pulled out all the ram and turned it on (knowing it wouldn't work), and then put it in stick by stick thinking that one might be faulty. So we put the first one in and it works, put the second and it works - we got all the sticks of ram in and it worked with all four. So we're both looking confused, yet happy that it's working.
We got it back to the office and then clicked... the computer hadn't actually been shut down properly before and had just gone into a standby mode. It had turned off all the lights and hard drives etc. and the ram had held the memory of the last state of the computer, so when we put in the ram and turned it on, it found this new stuff and freaked out because it didn't match the previous image. It didn't work again until we had taken all the ram out which acted as a "reset" to the computer and so when we put the ram back in, it worked fine because it got a fresh image of what was in there.
Moral of the story, make sure the computer is actually shut down before adding new stuff and not just in standby, I hope this helps someone!
It's funny you know. I've heard a lot of people going to motivational talks or reading things that are all based on being motivated.
And for that hour talk or that 30mins of reading time you seem to escape your current situation and enter this magical land where everything is perfect. The cat didn't drag that dead bird in from outside, the kids didn't spill cereal over themselves and that damn Porsche driver didn't barge his way in front of you on the way to work causing you to slam the brakes on and spill the half a cup of coffee in your travel mug which doesn't even fit in the stupid cup holder properly - I mean really who designs this crap?!?!.........*ahem*....I digress.....
Why is it that people search for these motivational moments only to let their perception of their current reality dismiss the inspired feeling they had five minutes ago? But hey, ya know - it's all well and good because they (the motivational talkers) just don't understand. They had it easy, it's not like that in your office. I mean hey, all they had was a couple of seagull managers (you know, the ones that fly in, make a lot of noise - crap everywhere and then fly off). They don't have the IT department you have that will help you little more than the good morning when they see you. Nor do they have the toilet monitoring manager you have, that is more interested in the fact you took 2.7mins in the bathroom than to sit down with you and talk about how we can make things more efficient and productive.
I think the first step to take is to realize that once you leave the motivational talk or finish reading, that the things that got you so inspired must be converted from being a moment of escape to a goal. Now for those of us that have set goals in the past, we all know that when you set something as a goal - you generally don't expect to achieve it straight away. The same can be said for this: you can't expect a result straight away. If you want to change something, the best place to start is with you...YES YOU...not the mail boy asleep in the cubicle next to you, YOU.....
You can be the one to instigate the change needed to bring about part of that magical moment you experienced. Once change is in motion it generally gets easier, getting started is the hardest part. Whether the change is how you order things in your day, or maybe your attitude (Attitude is a whole separate blog for another week).
People notice change, something like smiling when you're given a task that 9.5/10 people hate. Maybe turning up earlier, or moving your in-trays to the other side of the desk and actually finding a clear space under that mountain of paper. There's heaps of things you can do. People will notice, and once you have peoples attention - you can get them on board and that will start the momentum needed to see the positive change in your environment.
