5 Tips to prolong your notebook battery life

Notebooks these days have battery's that claim to last for hours and hours. The Macbooks are generally really good with their long life and the latest Windows pc's are also getting better. A colleague recently replaced is default factory fitted battery with a long life battery in his HP notebook. The battery is giving him a couple of hours now. This brought on a Google search for tips to prolong battery life without buying a new battery.

I came across this article from the guys at DailyFive. DailyFive is in their own words "...the simplest way to read and share breaking tech news, reviews and features on your mobile device. Whether it has buttons or batteries, it's in our backyard." You can get their app from here DailyFive.

They suggest five different ways to prolong your battery life.

1. Dim your screen - most of the notebooks these days have power-efficient LED displays but if you are using a slightly older model, dim your display. This simple step could save you a couple of extra minutes.
2. Change your drive - conventional hard drives uses more power spinning those platters than a solid state disk, SSD, does. By changing your disk you could see a saving of up to 30 minutes.
3. Wi-Fi switch - if you not using your wi-fi then switch it off, either with the physical switch or by using the software. It doesn't make sense to have it on if you are not using it. The same goes for Bluetooth. You can switch your Bluetooth off independently of your wi-fi.
4. Upgrade your software - the newer operating systems are far more power efficient and are getting better with each release so consider upgrading to the latest software.
5. Modern day circuitry and chargers mean in it is fine to leave the computer connected to the charger. It is recommended to try and prevent the battery from discharging unnecessarily but once every 4 weeks let the battery discharge fully and leave it for a couple of hours and then follow it up with a full recharge.

There are many other ways to prolong the life of your battery and most of them are inexpensive and easy to do. Windows has a power options function that you can customise what the computer does when on battery and this will also go a long way in increasing the life of your battery.

Thanks again to the guys at DailyFive for the short and concise articles. Go get the app for yourself.

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• Extending your laptop's battery life

Majority Rules, should it?

"Majority rules" is oftened heard in group discussions on plans of action whether in the business environment or social interactions with friends and family. Unfortunately for the person in the minority they will normally hear something like "sorry for you.." and life goes on.

Now in most cases "majority rules" works simply due to the majority of the group generally wanting the same thing. What if however you are the sole person that knows what you are saying or trying to convince others to do is 100% undeniably correct yet the majority do not see it.

Should the majority really rule in all situations? If you had two experts that had a solution to a unique problem yet the majority want to do something else that may work out in the short term but not for the long term why would people go with the majority and not the sure fix. Surely in some instances it makes more sense to give those in the minority more leverage to change a situation.

Obviously this makes sense if those in the minority are providing sensible solutions and are not in fact part of the problem. If things are also being done properly those in minority should also have had their say in swaying the groups opinion to becoming the majority. But there-in the cycle starts again.

Just something to think about.

Cracks appear in the era of the A380

Having flown in this beautiful mammoth double-decker aeroplane of the sky before it was quite a shock to read about the Airbus A380 developing cracks in its wings. Airbus have blamed a combination of both design and manufacturing flaws.

Image via Wikipedia

The European aircraft manufacturer have managed to establish a way to repair the cracks found on a small number of parts within the wings. This led to European safety authorities ordering safety inspections. The safety inspections are set to be carried out on almost a third of the A380 fleet.

The one-off inspections have not resulted in the grounding of aircraft pending checks but does involve the aircraft being out of service for 24 hours. The more heavily used aircraft which have already been through at least 1800 flight cycles are to be checked first. A flight cycle is one take-off and landing.

"The A380 is safe to fly," Tom Williams, executive vice president of programmes at Toulouse-based Airbus, said. He said engineers had ruled out metal fatigue on the youthful aircraft which first entered service in 2007.

Image via Wikipedia

Airbus has blamed the cracks on three errors - designers' choice of aluminium alloy for some of the 4 000 brackets inside the wings, the use of a type of bolt that strained the metal and a way of closing tiny gaps that put more stress on a handful of parts.
The A380 has had a troubled entry to the market. There were a number of production delays which requires the A380 to be manufactured in various countries across Europe. In fact EADS only managed to achieve its delviery target for the first time in 2011. In November 2010 a Qantas A380 suffered an engine blow-out.

Just about all the operators of the A380 including the likes of Air France, Singapore airlines have declined to comment and have not mentioned grounding the planes. There are 68 A380's in service.

Related articles

• Airbus Finds Fix For Cracks In Super Jumbo Wings (wired.com)
• European Agency Orders Inspections of 20 Airbus Jets (nytimes.com)
• A380 superjumbos to undergo checks after regulator finds cracks in wings (guardian.co.uk)
• Airbus A380 jets should be grounded, say engineers (mirror.co.uk)
• A380 wings to be checked for cracks, EASA says (direcmood.wordpress.com)