Laptops give you unbelievable portability for all of your computing needs, but as the need for communication grows more each day you need a computer that will keep you in touch. There are many options for portable computing. Laptops now come in many different sizes to match your specific needs.
Large or small screens are the biggest factor affecting the size of a laptop. Extra options like media drives and larger batteries will add overall weight to laptops. The current trend for any traveler is to get the smallest computer that will get the job done. Airports have wireless internet access available, so a wireless network or wi-fi card is a good option. Large screens used to be popular but strict travel regulations have caused many people to get smaller screens. This will make the computer easier to deal with at security check points.
Major reasons for the trend in “less is more” with laptop computers, is that they have become simply more of a tool and less of a novelty. Most basic computers are very capable in running any business application and have the necessary options for general use. Basic laptops have also dropped in price dramatically. The options have become the expensive part as competition grows fierce to have the lowest priced computer available. People are now buying computers more frequently with less options because it is more cost effective that buying the newest technology. Fast processors and large hard drives start out very expensive and quickly become standard features on basic laptops. You can keep more up to date by getting a new laptop every two years instead of getting the newest technology and trying to make it last for 4 years. Anyways, most laptops show a performance loss after about two years if the hard drive is not defragmented and formatted. It may not sound cheaper to buy a computer more often, but it also what you buy. Doing a little shopping around and assessing what you really need in a computer can save you the money that you need to buy one more often.
By: David Stone
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Go Mobile With Laptops
Here are some tips that you can follow to increase the battery life of your laptop.
Did you know that you can conserve your laptop’s battery life by lowering the screen display’s brightness? Lowering it by just one level will save about ten minutes of battery life.
WiFi connections are actually a power guzzler. When you’re not using it, switch it off using the laptop’s external switch. Disable devices like Bluetooth and the infrared transceiver when they’re not in use.
Reducing the frequency where your hard drive spins is another way for you to save on power. Defragment your hard drive regularly.
Condition your laptop’s battery. When you first get your laptop, charge the battery up to 100% then discharge it totally. Charge it up again to 100%. This exercise will help the battery remember how much electricity it can hold.
Wireless internet on the laptop is an essential feature for those whose work is based online and who are always on the go. Because laptops are mobile devices, users prefer that their laptop’s internet connection is just as mobile and convenient. As long as your laptop has WiFi capabilities, there are many places in the city where you can get easy access to the Internet and other online services. Currently, there are many business establishments that serve as free WiFi hotspots. This means that their customers and people in surrounding areas can go on the Internet using their wireless internet connection.
When you’re looking at different laptops, make sure you examine these components before you decide which to get.
Processor. The laptop’s processor determines the efficiency and speed of the laptop.
Memory. The more memory there is, the better. This is because upgrading laptop memory is more complicated than updating desktop memory. Get at least 80 GB on your hard drive and 1GB of RAM.
Battery. Get a laptop with lithium ion battery because they last longer than nickel batteries.
Display. Get a display screen with the active matrix option, a technology faster than the passive matrix.
Price. Shop around and compare deals and prices before buying a particular laptop model.
Did you know that getting a laptop is a smart, environmental-friendly decision compared to getting a regular desktop PC? This is because a laptop is smaller than a desktop, which means it has far less environmental impact when you have to dispose of it. Its slim size also means that there are less hazardous parts that needs to be disposed of, like USB ports, hard drives, CD drives, flash card readers, etc. Manufacturing smaller laptops also has an indirect environmental effect because the factories produce less harmful emissions.
Besides that, laptops today compy with Europe’s regulations on lead-free devices. Lead was formerly used to solder computer parts together, but new regulations require manufacturers to use other methods for making computers.
Here are a few tips you can follow to protect your laptop and prevent data loss due to damage.
Most people treat laptops as though they are indestructible. Remember though that laptops have very fragile hard drives, which can be easily knocked out of their alignment when dropped or even jostled lightly. Keep your laptop motionless and flat during use because vibrations can damage your hard drive.
Store your laptop in a clean environment. Spilling beverages or placing your laptop in a dusty area can cause a lot of problems.
Make sure your data is secure by password protecting your hard drive.
Make back-ups of all important documents, especially if your laptop is your primary computer.
Consult a technician if your laptop doesn’t boot up properly or makes a lot of strange noises.
By: Jon Caldwell
Did you know that you can conserve your laptop’s battery life by lowering the screen display’s brightness? Lowering it by just one level will save about ten minutes of battery life.
WiFi connections are actually a power guzzler. When you’re not using it, switch it off using the laptop’s external switch. Disable devices like Bluetooth and the infrared transceiver when they’re not in use.
Reducing the frequency where your hard drive spins is another way for you to save on power. Defragment your hard drive regularly.
Condition your laptop’s battery. When you first get your laptop, charge the battery up to 100% then discharge it totally. Charge it up again to 100%. This exercise will help the battery remember how much electricity it can hold.
Wireless internet on the laptop is an essential feature for those whose work is based online and who are always on the go. Because laptops are mobile devices, users prefer that their laptop’s internet connection is just as mobile and convenient. As long as your laptop has WiFi capabilities, there are many places in the city where you can get easy access to the Internet and other online services. Currently, there are many business establishments that serve as free WiFi hotspots. This means that their customers and people in surrounding areas can go on the Internet using their wireless internet connection.
When you’re looking at different laptops, make sure you examine these components before you decide which to get.
Processor. The laptop’s processor determines the efficiency and speed of the laptop.
Memory. The more memory there is, the better. This is because upgrading laptop memory is more complicated than updating desktop memory. Get at least 80 GB on your hard drive and 1GB of RAM.
Battery. Get a laptop with lithium ion battery because they last longer than nickel batteries.
Display. Get a display screen with the active matrix option, a technology faster than the passive matrix.
Price. Shop around and compare deals and prices before buying a particular laptop model.
Did you know that getting a laptop is a smart, environmental-friendly decision compared to getting a regular desktop PC? This is because a laptop is smaller than a desktop, which means it has far less environmental impact when you have to dispose of it. Its slim size also means that there are less hazardous parts that needs to be disposed of, like USB ports, hard drives, CD drives, flash card readers, etc. Manufacturing smaller laptops also has an indirect environmental effect because the factories produce less harmful emissions.
Besides that, laptops today compy with Europe’s regulations on lead-free devices. Lead was formerly used to solder computer parts together, but new regulations require manufacturers to use other methods for making computers.
Here are a few tips you can follow to protect your laptop and prevent data loss due to damage.
Most people treat laptops as though they are indestructible. Remember though that laptops have very fragile hard drives, which can be easily knocked out of their alignment when dropped or even jostled lightly. Keep your laptop motionless and flat during use because vibrations can damage your hard drive.
Store your laptop in a clean environment. Spilling beverages or placing your laptop in a dusty area can cause a lot of problems.
Make sure your data is secure by password protecting your hard drive.
Make back-ups of all important documents, especially if your laptop is your primary computer.
Consult a technician if your laptop doesn’t boot up properly or makes a lot of strange noises.
By: Jon Caldwell
Useful Accessories For Laptops
You might already have a laptop, or plan to buy one. Either way, you might be interested in buying accessories for your laptop. Laptop accessories can come in handy when needed, and can increase the enjoyment of your laptop experience. These accessories often can be used with most laptops for any kind and brand of laptops. Some laptop accessories may be gender orientated, but most accessories for laptops are not. This article will describe present popular accessories for laptops.
Targus Ultra Lite Notebook Case
This notebook case is a great way to provide protection for your laptop while traveling without having to pay too much money. The Targus Ultra Lite Deluxe Notebook case have plenty of pockets, features, padding, and weighs only about 2 pounds. The notebook case have extra pockets to fit other electronic devices such as PDAs, organizers, cellphones, etc. The case can carry up to the size of a 15 inched laptop.
Sony SRS-T77 Portable Speakers
The Sony SRS-T77 provides great quality sound despite its small size. The system weigh only 12-13 ounces and is about the size of two CD cases. The Sony SRS-T77 do not have a volume control button, you will have to use your laptop's volume control. The system performs best at moderate to low volume levels, but will distort at high levels. The Sony SRS77 takes 4 AA batteries or you can use the AC power adapter instead.
Sennheiser PX100 headphones
The Sennheisor PX100 provide rich sounds but is a little soft on more aggressive music and sounds. The Sennheiser PX100 makes up for this though by being able to play very loud without breaking, which is something most similarly sized headphones can not achieve. The unique flip-fold feature gives the headphone the capability of turning 90 degrees. (again something most headphones can not accomplish)
Kensington WiFi Finder
If you have wireless Internet access on your laptop, then the Kensington WiFi Finder will be extremely helpful to you. The WiFi finder can be used to search for 802.11b wireless networks. Now even though your laptop can do just fine searching for wireless Internet locations, it will create a scene walking down the street holding a laptop to search for one. The Kensington WiFi Finder is about the size of a credit card. The downside of the Wifi finder is that it will not tell you if the wireless signals is WEP encrypted.
By: Micheal Jones
Targus Ultra Lite Notebook Case
This notebook case is a great way to provide protection for your laptop while traveling without having to pay too much money. The Targus Ultra Lite Deluxe Notebook case have plenty of pockets, features, padding, and weighs only about 2 pounds. The notebook case have extra pockets to fit other electronic devices such as PDAs, organizers, cellphones, etc. The case can carry up to the size of a 15 inched laptop.
Sony SRS-T77 Portable Speakers
The Sony SRS-T77 provides great quality sound despite its small size. The system weigh only 12-13 ounces and is about the size of two CD cases. The Sony SRS-T77 do not have a volume control button, you will have to use your laptop's volume control. The system performs best at moderate to low volume levels, but will distort at high levels. The Sony SRS77 takes 4 AA batteries or you can use the AC power adapter instead.
Sennheiser PX100 headphones
The Sennheisor PX100 provide rich sounds but is a little soft on more aggressive music and sounds. The Sennheiser PX100 makes up for this though by being able to play very loud without breaking, which is something most similarly sized headphones can not achieve. The unique flip-fold feature gives the headphone the capability of turning 90 degrees. (again something most headphones can not accomplish)
Kensington WiFi Finder
If you have wireless Internet access on your laptop, then the Kensington WiFi Finder will be extremely helpful to you. The WiFi finder can be used to search for 802.11b wireless networks. Now even though your laptop can do just fine searching for wireless Internet locations, it will create a scene walking down the street holding a laptop to search for one. The Kensington WiFi Finder is about the size of a credit card. The downside of the Wifi finder is that it will not tell you if the wireless signals is WEP encrypted.
By: Micheal Jones
The Next Generation Of Computers Is Quantum Computers.
Taking the Quantum Leap
While it may seem that the evolution of computers is about at its end, that is not the case. The next generation of computers is quantum computers.
The reason behind continuing computer evolution is the continuing thirst we have for speed and capacity of our computers. Way back in 1947 an engineer and computing expert, Howard Aiken, predicted that all the United States need to satisfy its need for computers were six digital electronic computers. Other scientists and engineers that followed Aiken added to the volume they predicted as being adequately massive, but were also far too conservative.
What none were able to predict that scientific research would produce voluminous quantities of knowledge that needed to be computed and stored, nor did they predict the popularity of personal computers, and the existence of the Internet. In fact, it’s hard to predict if humankind will ever be satisfied with its computer power and volume.
A basic computer premise, called Moore’s Law, says that the number of a microprocessor’s transistors doubles every 18 months and will continue to do so. What this means is that by no later than 2030 the number of microprocessor circuits found in computers will be astronomically high. This will lead to the creation of quantum computers, whose design will use the power of molecules and atoms for processing and memory tasks. Quantum computers should be able to perform specific calculations billions of times more quickly than can the current computers that are based on silicon.
Quantum computers do exist today, though few and they’re all in the hands of scientists and scientific organizations. They are not for practical and common use – that is still many years away. The theory of quantum computers was developed in 1981 by Paul Benioff, a physicist with the Argonne National Laboratory. Benioff theorized going beyond the Turing Theory to a Turing machine with quantum capabilities.
Alan Turing created the Turing machine around 1935. This machine was made up of a tape whose length was unlimited and which he divided into small squares. Each square either held the symbol one or the symbol zero, or no symbol at all. He then created a reading-writing device that could read these zero and one symbols, which in turn gave these machines – the early computers – the instructions that initiated specific programs.
Benioff took this to the quantum level, saying that the reading-writing head and the tape would both exist in a quantum state. What this would mean is that those tape symbols one or zero could exist in a superposition that could be one and zero at the same time, or somewhere in between. Because of this the quantum Turing machine, in contrast to the standard Turing machine, could perform several calculations at once.
The standard Turing machine concept is what runs today’s silicon-based computers. In contrast, quantum computers encode computer information as quantum bits, called qubits. These qubits actually represent atoms that work together to act as a processor and as the computer’s memory. This ability to run multiple computations at one, and to contain several states at the same time, is what gives quantum computers the potential to be millions of times as powerful as today’s best supercomputers.
Quantum computers that have 30 qubits would, for example, have processing power equal to today’s computers that run at a speed of 10 teraflops (trillions of operations per second.) To put this in perspective, the typical computer of today runs at gigaflop speeds (billions of operations per second.
As our cry for more speed and more power from our computers continues, quantum computers are predicted to be a readily available product sometime in the not so distant future.
By: Robert Michae
While it may seem that the evolution of computers is about at its end, that is not the case. The next generation of computers is quantum computers.
The reason behind continuing computer evolution is the continuing thirst we have for speed and capacity of our computers. Way back in 1947 an engineer and computing expert, Howard Aiken, predicted that all the United States need to satisfy its need for computers were six digital electronic computers. Other scientists and engineers that followed Aiken added to the volume they predicted as being adequately massive, but were also far too conservative.
What none were able to predict that scientific research would produce voluminous quantities of knowledge that needed to be computed and stored, nor did they predict the popularity of personal computers, and the existence of the Internet. In fact, it’s hard to predict if humankind will ever be satisfied with its computer power and volume.
A basic computer premise, called Moore’s Law, says that the number of a microprocessor’s transistors doubles every 18 months and will continue to do so. What this means is that by no later than 2030 the number of microprocessor circuits found in computers will be astronomically high. This will lead to the creation of quantum computers, whose design will use the power of molecules and atoms for processing and memory tasks. Quantum computers should be able to perform specific calculations billions of times more quickly than can the current computers that are based on silicon.
Quantum computers do exist today, though few and they’re all in the hands of scientists and scientific organizations. They are not for practical and common use – that is still many years away. The theory of quantum computers was developed in 1981 by Paul Benioff, a physicist with the Argonne National Laboratory. Benioff theorized going beyond the Turing Theory to a Turing machine with quantum capabilities.
Alan Turing created the Turing machine around 1935. This machine was made up of a tape whose length was unlimited and which he divided into small squares. Each square either held the symbol one or the symbol zero, or no symbol at all. He then created a reading-writing device that could read these zero and one symbols, which in turn gave these machines – the early computers – the instructions that initiated specific programs.
Benioff took this to the quantum level, saying that the reading-writing head and the tape would both exist in a quantum state. What this would mean is that those tape symbols one or zero could exist in a superposition that could be one and zero at the same time, or somewhere in between. Because of this the quantum Turing machine, in contrast to the standard Turing machine, could perform several calculations at once.
The standard Turing machine concept is what runs today’s silicon-based computers. In contrast, quantum computers encode computer information as quantum bits, called qubits. These qubits actually represent atoms that work together to act as a processor and as the computer’s memory. This ability to run multiple computations at one, and to contain several states at the same time, is what gives quantum computers the potential to be millions of times as powerful as today’s best supercomputers.
Quantum computers that have 30 qubits would, for example, have processing power equal to today’s computers that run at a speed of 10 teraflops (trillions of operations per second.) To put this in perspective, the typical computer of today runs at gigaflop speeds (billions of operations per second.
As our cry for more speed and more power from our computers continues, quantum computers are predicted to be a readily available product sometime in the not so distant future.
By: Robert Michae
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