Tech Community

Efficient use of laptop battery: (Tips for users)

2009-06-25T03:39:00.000-07:00

Steps to extend the life of laptop battery:
Normally laptop batteries have lifetime of 2-3 years and after that they start showing signs of aging and you may have to change them. A 9 cell battery which gives backup of 4-5 hours don’t come cheap so instead of looking to have new set of batteries every few years, you may look to follow these simple steps to extend the life of laptop battery.

Always keep the battery full charged and avoid using battery support if you can use direct power line
At least once or twice a month, discharge the battery completely (as much as possible before the System goes off) and then charge it full.
Recharge the battery after a long period of inactivity.
Don’t leave the fully charged battery dormant for a long. Once charged, you should use the battery at least once every two to three weeks.
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.
Keep operating temperature down. Your laptop operates more efficiently when it’s cooler. Clean out your air vents with a cloth or keyboard cleaner.

How to Increase Battery Backup Time of Laptop:
There are few tips on how to increase the battery backup time of Laptop in hours. Say if you have a 6 cell battery, which normally gives backup of 2.5 hours, you can stretch it by 30 minutes following these tips which can be really handy.

Dim your screen - Almost all laptops come with the ability to dim your laptop screen. Always dim the screen while working in battery mode as the brighter screen consumes more battery.
Use Hibernate – Sometime, we need to leave for short sessions and in such situations, most of us use the Stand by or Shut down option. But it is suggested to hibernate your system if you are going outside for 20-30 minutes as it consumes lesser power and saves and image of your all open applications.
Close all Unwanted Applications – Often we open 4/5 programs and left them inactive. But these are consuming physical RAM as well as page file and CPU in background which requires continuous power. So, never left any program open if you are not using them.
Avoid Multitasking - 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 avoid multi-tasking, it will give you more backup as CPU requires more power on multi-tasking.
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.
Cut down external devices/disks – While working on battery try to avoid using the following devices or activities: CD/ DVD: Actually CD/ DVD consume huge power especially while continuous uses like watching movies, listing songs or burning CDs. If possible, try to perform these tasks while connected to direct power. USB devices: USB devices including your mouse, Wi-Fi, infrared, IPod etc. drain down your laptop battery. Close all unused hardware when not in use.
Avoid CPU intensive Tasks – Never perform any CPU intensive tasks if your laptop is running on battery. These applications are like Games, Virus Scanning, Defragmenting, CD/ DVD copy, Installation Applications etc.
Defrag regularly - The faster your hard drive does its work - less demand you are going to put on the hard drive and your battery. Run defragment of your system regularly as it reduces the pressure on hard disk and save power. (Note: But not while it’s on battery of course!)
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).

Changing date format from mm/dd/yy to dd/mm/yy in Ms office.

2009-06-05T04:38:00.000-07:00

There are some features in our Operating Systems and in Applications are less important, but it may make our work easy. As I know, most of us would already be utilizing these features, even though I would like to take an opportunity to keep reminding you some very common ‘Tech-Tips’, as and when I get time.

Changing date format from mm/dd/yy to dd/mm/yy in Ms office.

If you are using Ms excel, and need typing date frequently, use shortcut keys: Ctrl +: (colon), it would display the current date i.e. ‘6/5/09’ as mm/dd/yy.
[mm: month; dd: date; yy: year.]
If you are using Ms-outlook, you must have observed how the dates are mentioned in mails, it is just like:
· Fri 6/5/2009 12:18 PM (in main window)
· Friday, June 05, 2009 12:18 (inside mails)

And if you prefer using ‘dd/mm/yy’ this date format instead of ‘mm/dd/yy’, Follow the below mentioned points to make it enable in your Windows Based Operating System for excel and Ms-outlook both:

Go to: Start → settings →control panel
Double click ’Regional and Language Options’
Click ‘Customize’ button in ‘Regional Option’ tab.
Click on ‘Date’ tab.
Select date format as ‘dd-MMM-yy’ in ‘short date format’ field.
Click Apply, then OK

After changing, the date format would look like the following:

In Ms Outlook: ‘Fri 05-Jun-09 12:18 PM’, and
In Excel: ‘05-06-09’, by using shortcut key.

2009-06-02T23:42:00.000-07:00

Server2003 Standard Edition:
1. It include almost all services)
2. 4 GB RAM
3. 4 Way SMP (Symmetric Multiprocessing)
4. NLB (Network load balancing) in is only in advance server edition 2003

Server 2003 Enterprise edition supports:
1. All services of server 2003 product.
2. 32 GB Ram
3. 8 Way SMP (Symmetric Multiprocessing)
4. Clustering
5. Hot Add Memory
6. WSRM

Difference between standard and enterprise edition:

WSRM: It is an administrative tool that can control how CPU and memory resources are allocated. By managing the resource allocation on a system in a more granular fashion, you may be able to optimize your system and improve your availability. Being able to mitigate the risk that processes may interfere with one another to reduce server performance may be high on your IT Department’s wish list.

Question: How Symmetric Multiprocessing and WSRM are responsible for better performance in windows 2003 server? Leave your answer/comment please.