Archive for the 'Hardware' Category
One of the biggest complaints I have with laptops is the cost of replacement batteries. For most of us with older laptops who want to use them when they are not plugged into the wall, we usually don’t get much time. It is a fact of life that as laptop batteries age, their maximum life decreases as well.
If you have looked for replacement batteries, you know that they aren’t cheap. This can especially be a problem if you laptop is really old – the harder the batteries are to find, the more expensive they are.
But there are alternatives. If you watch the following video, you can watch to see how you can replace your old cells inside of your notebook battery with new ones.
If you are looking for the replacement cells mentioned in the video, you can find them at any local battery specialist store, or online on places like eBay.
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lot 50pcs Genuine laptop 5200mAh Battery VGP BPS9 for SONY VAIO VGN NR120E 6cell |  |
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US $3,500.00 | 16d 17h 39m |
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NEW Laptop Battery for Toshiba Tecra m2 m3 m5 m6 m9 s3 | |
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US $3,200.00 | 19d 15h 26m |
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NEW 6 cells 7800mAh Battery for Dell Latitude D620 D630 Laptop TC030 NT367 GD775 | |
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US $2,832.00 | 27d 15h 16m |
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Pneumatic Spot Welder For Laptop Battery Ni MH and NI CD Battery Pack | |
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US $2,725.00 | 29d 22h 44m |
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Spot Welder For Laptop Battery Ni MH Pack Mobile Battery | |
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US $2,525.00 | 10d 13h 4m |
It seems everyday I get a lot of questions regarding what you can hook up to your laptop. What people don't understand that a notebook or laptop is just a smaller version of a desktop computer. You can hook up a keyboard, mouse, monitor, and printer to it just like a regular computer. Today I will talk about the ways you can hook up a printer to your laptop.
Direct Connection
You can hook your printer up directly with a USB or a parallel printer cable (if you have an older laptop and printer). This can be handy if your notebook doesn't really ever leave the desk and is used as a desktop replacement. It also is the most secure method as no one should be able to intercept your documents on their way to the printer.
Wired Network
If you have a network at your home or office and have a printer that is network capable you can use a network printer. Basically, the printer hooks up to your network with a network cable just like other computers on your network. You can also just share a printer that is attached to a computer in the network allowing other computers to print to it. The catch is you have to have the computer that is attached to the printer turned on. Wired networking is definitely a cheaper option if you have more than one computer at your location.
Wireless Connection
If you have an existing wireless network in your home and have a wireless printer, you can setup your printer to print from anywhere in your home or business. Sit on the deck, or in the board room and you can print without the messiness of wires in your way. Be aware that a wireless connection is never 100% secure, so you may want to wait till you can hook up with a wire to your printer to print documents that require some discretion.
It seems not too long ago, I wrote about laptop batteries and their lives. Based on the previous article, my laptop battery should be nearing less than 50% of it's capacity.
Well, I am sad to say I think it is closer to zero.
Just the other day, while out on a consulting job, I decided to show a client some examples of some websites in an effort to give them some ideas. Turning on my laptop, I booted up windows and was ready to show them the samples... and then...
"Battery low, change battery or plug in immediately"
Needless to say, I got about five minutes of power out of it.
That sucks.
So, off to find a replacement battery. I will let you all know what kind of prices and places I was able to find a replacement.
Till then,
Take care.
I had the opportunity today to try out a laptop hooked up to a LCD TV with an HDMI cable. I used the same laptop as the last time (an HP notebook). This time I connected it to a Sharp Aquos 40" LCD TV valued at $1899 CDN.
Let me just say Wow. Even without installing the drivers for the display, it looked wonderful and it is amazing to see all the space available on the desktop.
I only ran into two problems. First, be sure to set the aspect ratio so that it is not stretching the display in any way. In the case of the Sharp, I set the aspect ratio to "Pixel for Pixel". Secondly, none of the desktop backgrounds from Windows Vista looked exceptionally great on the screen. This could be due to the fact that the wallpapers were not the correct resolution for the screen. Also, standing right in front of a screen this big, I would not expect it to look so good anyway's.
In conclusion: HDMI on a laptop works great provided the TV or monitor supports the resolution and you have the aspect ratio set properly.
When you are out buying your computer, you will have the option of either a dedicated video card, or an integrated video card.
If you are into playing computer games, chances are you would opt for a dedicated card. If you just work, type, surf the Internet and check some emails on your notebook, an integrated card will do fine.
What does a video card have to do with battery life?
Simple. If you want better battery life, an integrated card will give you the most battery life, whereas a dedicated video card will give you the least battery life.
When you are out shopping for a notebook hard drive, you probably have noticed that they come in different speeds. The way the notebook drives are rated is by RPM (revolutions per minute). Typically, you can find either 4,200 RPM, 5,400 RPM, and 7,200 RPM drives. When making your decision, consider the pros and cons of each drive speed:
4,200 RPM
This drive has the lowest speed out of the bunch. On the good side, it's slower rotational speed gives you better battery life. On the bad side, you get less performance. The performance on this drive should not affect you if you are doing normal computer tasks such as Internet, email, or typing. For gaming and video editing, you would see the worst performance out of the bunch.
5,400 RPM
The 5,400 RPM drive is almost 30% faster than the 4,200 RPM drive. You get better performance with this drive but less battery life. Out of the three drive options, this drive gives you the best all round performance and battery life. It is good for the everyday stuff, as well as game playing and video editing.
7,200 RPM
The 7,200 RPM drive is the fastest drive of the bunch. Expect quicker boot times into your operating system, better game performance and quicker video editing times. The catch: this drive has the worst battery life of the bunch.
When you are out shopping, you need to decide if performance is most important to you, or if battery life is the major concern. If you want the best compromise go with the 5,400 RPM drive - you get good battery life and good performance.
If you have been out shopping for a laptop, you may have notice that some of them come with HDMI interfaces. A HDMI (high definition multimedia interface) port allows you to hook up your laptop to most of the new LCD, plasma, and projection televisions. The HDMI port replaces the DVI (digital video input) port found on some older gaming laptops.
I had the opportunity to try out a laptop today with a number of different televisions. The laptop in question was a gaming laptop, worth about $1599 CDN. It has a GeForce Go 7600 dedicated card (with 256 Mb), 2 GB of ram, and a 17" screen.
The televisions that I hooked this notebook up to were a Samsung 40" LCD TV, a Sanyo 27" LCD TV, and a Philips 63" Plasma TV.
The laptop was hooked up to the television with a six foot HDMI cable and I attempted to get a resolution higher than 1024x768.
Not to give specific reviews of the laptop and televisions used in the test (we are not a review site), I was unable to successfully get the screens to display 1920x1080 (the resolution used for HD TV). I did have some success, but the limitations of the TVs and control panel for the video card, did not allow me to show the whole screen properly. Specifically the edges of the screen were all cut off. There were also some issues with respect to the screen refresh rate. Bear in mind that I didn't install any drivers for the TVs before testing them out.
Immature drivers for Vista, and rush testing, may have impacted the results. I will take a look at the HDMI output on laptops at a later date to see if there have been any improvements.
A handy computer like a laptop is easy to use and transport. There are many computer companies which are making their own laptops and asus laptop is very popular and easily available in major markets of the world. More sophisticated hp laptops are a little bit heavy and sensitive to dust. A laptop buying guide can be viewed online so that you have all the information you need before you purchase of one. For student laptop guide websites offer special sections. Like pc computers laptop computers are a favorite now among people around the world for their portability and easy handling.
If you are like me, you are using a "slightly" older notebook, in my case it is three years old. I just recently purchased a Samsung 20" LCD monitor that I wanted to hook up my laptop to for when I am working at home. I hooked the notebook up to the display, installed the drivers and to my dismay, the notebook would not show the optimum resolution for my monitor.
So, I went online looking for new drivers for my video card (in my case it is an ATI 345M IGP). To my dismay, I was unable to find any official drivers for the card, so I was forced to look for non-traditional options. I found two places where I could get custom drivers and I had the opportunity to try them out.
The first drivers I tried were the Omega drivers from Omegadrivers.net. The install went fine and I tried them out for a few days. I was impressed by the number of resolution options I was given - more than you may need, but basically you could hook up any monitor, projector, or tv to the laptop and the resolution that you would need was available. Also, fo ryou gamers, you can install an overclocking utility to get the most out of your video card. My only complaint is that sometimes you could see that the notebook was visually having problems displaying the correct resolution (at 1400 x 1050). It was at this point I decided that I would try the other site I came accross.
I came across another website DriverHaeven.net. What they offered is a mod tool that would modify the regular desktop drivers so that they would work with my notebook. Installation was a breeze: I just had to download the most recent Catalyst drivers and then run the mod tool. The advantage of this method was that you can use the regular catalyst control panel provided by ATI. Aslo, I find that the drivers do a better job showing the resolution on my external monitor.
An upgrade to your video card driver will allow you to work better with bigger resolutions (for example with an external monitor) and may let you play some newer games. On the other hand, even with a driver update, if your machine is a little older, you will still be limited by the hardware that is in your notebook. So what I would suggest is try it out - if it doesn't work to your likeing, you can always reinstall your original video card driver that came with your notebook.
Computers are changing rapidly into new pc equipments of different sizes and kinds especially laptop pc. Electronics companies like Sony even opted to share business with computer manufacturing with sophisticated technology and made state of the art Sony laptops. Third world countries are being provided with refurbished laptops for their computer users. Handy laptops become an easy prey of thieves. Now laptop companies provide their clients with stolen laptop guide. Customers must understand the laptop guideline uses for their easy and convenient handling of their laptops.
