High Wired: Keep that laptop running with tips from eRin pheiL

Tips of the Week: Make Your Laptop Battery Last Longer

During my travels across the Internet I’ve collected bits of wisdom on extending the life-cycle of my laptop’s battery. Here are four of my favorites I’d like to share with you:

• Keep your battery clean. Apparently, cleaning the metal contacts of your battery with a alcohol-moistened cloth every few months helps improve the transfer efficiency of power from your battery to your laptop.

• Clean out your air vents with a cloth (or keyboard cleaner). This allows your laptop to run cooler, meaning it’ll run more efficiently and require less battery power.

• Use Hibernate, not Standby. Standby mode doesn’t save nearly as much power as Hibernate mode. Not even close. (A PC going into hibernation will actually save the state it’s is in — which programs are open, etc. — before shutting itself down.)

• Defrag! That’s right A regularly-defragged laptop means a more efficient laptop that makes less demands on both your hard drive and battery.

<b>Online Tool of the Week: Symptom Checker</b>

I’ll admit it. I’ve self-diagnosed myself with a mild-to-moderate case of hypochondria.

Being able to browse the Internet and look at X-rays, MRIs, and the like hasn’t really freed me from my concerns, either. So when I was introduced to the Mayo Clinic’s Symptom Checker at http://tinyurl.com/j9sqz a few weeks ago, I bookmarked it before I even tried it.

After the Symptom Checker runs you through a series of questions about the symptoms you’re experiencing, it provides you with a list of possible causes for your symptoms and lets you know whether or not you need to seek medical advice.

Unfortunately, the final list of possible causes can sometimes be a bit overwhelming. And when I find myself scanning down such a list, reading that my knee pain could be caused by gout, osteoarthritis, a broken leg, stress fractures, or metatarsalgia ... well, in the end, it really doesn’t really do much to help my hypochondria.

<b>Five Links of the Week</b>

• http://tinyurl.com/2re2g4 — Learn how to block your cell phone number from showing up on other people’s caller IDs — both temporarily and permanently.

• https://www.paypal.com/securitykey — Add an extra level of security when doing business via PayPal with the PayPal security key.

• http://marcogomes.com/wallpapr — Bet you didn’t know there was a search engine out there containing wallpapers and ONLY wallpapers.

• http://facesinplaces.blogspot.com — Even after the toughest of workdays, the photo of the day showcased on this blog usually has the ability to make me grin.

• http://tinyurl.com/28rp6t — A seller’s guide to Craigslist, courtesy of LifeHacker.com.

Have a great week, everyone, and see ya next Monday.

<i>Based in Frisco, eRin pheiL is the primary creative force behind timeforcake (www.timeforcake.com). She can be reached via phone at (970) 668-0709 or e-mail at info@timeforcake.com.

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