Helping You Get the Most Out of Technology

Doing Battery Disposal Right

So you’ve just bought a great new battery for your laptop, cell phone, PDA, or other equipment from Laptops for Less. Your device is back in business. But what do you do with the old rechargeable battery that you’re replacing? Most of us have heard that proper battery disposal is important but don’t know quite how to do it.

Why Proper Disposal is Important
Most batteries contain a number of toxic chemicals. These often include heavy metals like nickel, lead, cadmium, and mercury. Not exactly great for the environment – or human health, for that matter. When batteries are incinerated, they can be released into the air. The materials from a battery placed in a landfill can seep out into soil and water, polluting lakes and streams and entering our water supply. Plus, if it’s a matter of choosing between recycling a battery and leaving it to take up space in a landfill forever, the environmentally-friendly choice is pretty clear.

Proper disposal generally involves recycling, which is especially important for any rechargeable battery, since it almost certainly contains metals that are precious natural resources. Reclaiming these metals through recycling means that we are stripping the earth of fewer important materials.

How to Dispose of a Battery
First of all, be careful; batteries can be dangerous. Don’t put multiple batteries in one storage container. You can place each battery in a separate plastic bag or carefully place heavy-duty tape over each battery’s terminals.

Next, locate a disposal site in your area. Check out their website to learn about the Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation and find one of their drop-off locations near you. RBRC will recycle any rechargeable batteries, including nickel cadmium, nickel metal hydride, lithium ion, nickel zinc, and small sealed lead types. That means that batteries from most any portable device are fair game. And disposing of your batteries with the RBRC is completely free.

The obvious next step: drop off your battery. And then, feel like a bit of a hero. After all, you just saved natural resources, avoided pollution, and kept something out of a landfill. Good work!

Saving Money with Cell Phone Discounts

No more browsing through the paper or using price comparison websites to save money on your purchases? There is a crop of new applications for cell phone discounts that is hoping to replace our current money-saving tactics.

Coupons
Maybe many of us have memories of our mothers combing through the Sunday paper for useful coupons to clip, but have any of us really used coupons in our own adulthoods? The availability of printable coupons online should have made it easier, but searching online for coupons still requires a fair amount of effort (and foresight). Judging from the lack of success that online coupons have generally had, a lot of people agree on this point.

Some new cell phone applications are betting that we’ll find it easier to use coupons if we can get them on a cell phone. These applications allow you to scan for deals that are near your current location or search for merchants you’d like to receive coupons from on your cell phone. There is even a service that will text you a coupon when you bring your cell phone into the vicinity of the applicable store. According to reviews, however, the offerings on all these cell phone applications are presently a bit measly. Getting coupons on a cell phone still requires some effort, but at least it takes the foresight requirement out of the equation.

Price Comparisons
Getting even more press are cell phone applications that allow you to scan product codes in a store and immediately see prices available for that same product on the web. It’s probably pretty common for people to check something out in person in a brick-and-mortar store and then retreat home to research other prices on the internet before purchasing; these new applications take out that middle step and allow you to do it right in the store.

Amazon is also offering a new service called Amazon Remembers in its Amazon Mobile app that allows you to take a photo of an item and send the picture to Amazon’s freelancers, who will attempt to identify the item and match it up to a product Amazon offers.

The New Savings Weapon?
All interesting possibilities, and getting your cell phone to pay you back a little bit of what you spend on it every month in savings is a pretty attractive concept.

Adding Zest to Colored Laptops

It used to be that when you bought a laptop computer you were concerned with things like RAM, operating systems, and general performance capabilities. Now the decision involves all those factors plus…scent? There seems to be an ever-increasing number of options in terms of laptop appearance. You can get colored laptops, scented laptops, and laptops covered in unique materials.

Scents
Have you always dreamed of combining aromatherapy with your computer but you’re tired of hanging those pine-shaped air fresheners from your laptop screen? You’re in luck! The ASUS F6V laptop comes in a variety of scents with covers colored accordingly. Your scent selection includes: floral blossom, morning dew, aqua ocean, and musky black.

Colors
The Sony VAIO CS series colored laptops come in an impressive range of hues: red, black, white, pink, brown, and black. With these models, it’s not just the back of the screen that’s colorful; it’s also the interior of the notebook and its keyboard. Plus, there are lights in the palm rest that can flash in time to your music. Laptop disco, anyone?

Fujitsu offers the LifeBook A1120 with colored cases that can be switched out as your mood (or outfit) dictates. Dell Inspiron models give you a variety of color and pattern options from which to choose, too.

Luxe Meets Laptop
In a model somewhat reminiscent of Joey’s “Porsche” on Friends, ASUS also offers the Lamborghini VX3. Its cover is yellow and sleek, and it even includes a leather palm rest to remind you of the car’s leather seats.

For those more inclined to the mall than the road, there’s the HP Mini 1000 Vivienne Tam edition. It’s ultra-small and bright red with an eye-catching peony design from the famed fashion designer on the case.

An Eco-Friendly Fashion Statement
Even desktops are getting into the appearance game. Dell’s new Studio Hybrid super-compact PC is available with a bamboo cover. It is quite attractive and also environmentally-friendly, since bamboo is renewable. ASUS is down with the bamboo, too, offering the Bamboo Series U6B laptops with a bamboo cover and palm rest.

Retrofitting Your Laptop for Color
Bummed that you have a plain old black laptop but not quite ready to shell out the money for a new, colored machine? Plenty of laptop covers and skins are available to customize your computer. Though it’s true that most of these don’t include fragrances; you’ll have to figure that one out on your own.

A Lesson in How to Find Laptop Temperature

If you’ve ever tried to work for a while with your notebook computer in your lap you know that laptops get hot. It does make sense; there’s a lot going on in your machine! Processors and hard drives generate a great deal of heat, especially when they are working on particularly challenging tasks such as running your graphics-heavy game or playing a DVD. This isn’t any secret from manufacturers, but making a smaller computer means providing less room for fans and cooling functionality. What that means in the end is that laptop users need to pay extra attention and know how to find laptop temperature to maintain it properly. Before even learning how to find laptop temperature, though, you can take a few common-sense steps to avoid heat-caused issues.

The Power of Placement
We love our laptops because they’re totally flexible and can work absolutely anywhere. Which is mostly true. It’s also true, however, that whether you’re at home or on an airplane, you need to make sure that you’ve got your laptop in a position that keeps it at a good temperature. It’s all too easy to sit your laptop on a towel or pillow or even your lap, blocking its vents and causing it to overheat. If you like to sit with your notebook in your lap, using a lap desk allows you to keep your machine (and lap) safe and cool.

It’s critical that you never block your laptop’s vents. Keep your laptop on surfaces that allow your laptop to stand on its own tiny plastic feet; these feet keep the machine raised off the surface enough that it can ventilate itself through the bottom. Avoid putting your machine in a drawer or any other closed area that lacks good ventilation. Also, keep other objects out of the area directly around your computer.

How to Find Laptop Temperature
Are images of taking your laptop’s temperature “the hard way” playing through your mind? Fortunately, there needn’t be any thermometers to stick anywhere. Most laptops come with a heat sensor inside, which means that you just need a way to see the measurements it’s making. There are programs out there that will give you access to this information, including the free MobileMeter.

So you’ve installed the program, are seeing the number…now what does it mean? It gets a little trickier here because there is no hard and fast rule saying at what temperature a laptop should operate. It depends upon each individual machine and what functions it is performing when you take the measurement. If your machine is acting as it should, not processing anything too strenuous, and everything seems to be in order, you can use the measurement at that moment as a baseline. If you’re not sure whether things are as they should be, here are a couple numbers to keep in mind. At 80º, things are getting hot, especially if the computer is at a low activity level. Seeing 90º is cause for concern. At this level of heat, laptops generally shut down automatically or start working at a snail’s pace.

It’s Hot – Now What?
If you find that your laptop is overheated, make sure that it’s in a good position, the room is cool, and there’s nothing near your computer that could be transferring extra heat to it. If these actions don’t help, it may be time to take your machine in for repair. The fan or another part may need to be replaced, which is no easy feat.

One external and simple way you can lower your computer’s temperature is to add some extra cooling power to your setup with a laptop cooling fan. The fan is easy to install, connects to your USB port, and can help maintain a cooler temperature to protect your computer.

Allowing your laptop to continue to operate while overheated will mean slow performance, unexpected shut-downs, and shorter life for your battery. Keeping your computer in good shape and helping your laptop battery to last longer depends upon your machine operating at the right temperature.

The New Silver Zinc Battery

Has there been another new breakthrough in battery technology in time for 2009? ZPower is claiming so. While the laptop battery coming out in 2009 from Boston Power is intended to be an improvement on widely available lithium ion batteries, the ZPower product is a new type altogether: silver zinc.

Longer Run Time
The new battery promises 40% more power than a similar lithium ion model. Its energy density is higher than that of lithium ion batteries, and it claims to add another two hours to the runtime your laptop has when it’s running on lithium ion. Most of the new batteries will last through about eighteen months of use.

Safety
The silver zinc battery is water-based, which is less chemically volatile than its lithium ion competitors. ZPower says that its new batteries have passed tests of heat, penetration, impact, and crushing with flying colors. If fewer space-consuming safeguards are required inside the batteries to keep the new technology safe, it could also be possible to make batteries smaller than ever before using the silver zinc technology.

Environmental Impact
The materials used in the new batteries are more recyclable than lithium ion materials. ZPower claims that over 95% of the silver and zinc needed to manufacture the batteries can be reused in new batteries, reducing the amount of new material that must be mined. Even so, these batteries can cause significant environmental damage if not disposed of properly, so recycling them is imperative.

Price?
Silver zinc batteries (also known as silver oxide batteries) are not entirely new. In fact, they’ve helped out with the U.S. space program. However, in the past they haven’t generally been rechargeable and certainly have not been widely available because of the expense of silver. ZPower intends to offset the high price of materials by strongly promoting returning spent batteries to them for recycling. Still, it seems likely that the new battery will come at a premium.

When Can I Get One?
ZPower promises to launch the new silver zinc battery in a “major notebook computer” in the middle of 2009. Well, hm, rather mysterious so far. If all goes well with this very limited launch, though, perhaps the new technology will show up in your cell phone next.

Making Your Cell Phone Batteries Last Longer

Here at Laptops for Less, we want to help you get the most out of your electronics. Powering them with quality batteries is the first step, but there are also some tricks to maximize the lifespan and performance of your cell phone batteries.

1. For New Cell Phone Batteries
   This first tip will be helpful if you’re working with a brand new phone battery. Batteries, like puppies, should be trained. Of course you’re excited to get started using your battery, but a little patience will pay off; don’t use the battery until you’ve given it a full charge. Taking this extra step will allow your battery to achieve its maximum power storage capacity.
2. Using Less Power
   All the features that new cell phones include are fantastic, but they also suck up battery power like crazy. The more you web-surf, text, and use Bluetooth devices with your phone, the faster its battery will conk out. The first lesson here is that if your phone is on the brink of dying and you just need it to hang on for a couple more hours to get through the day, use its advanced features as little as possible. Of course, there’s no point in having those features if you don’t use them, so this should only be followed in an extremity. The second lesson that when it’s at all possible to turn off features you’re not using, do it and conserve battery life. Case in point: when you’re not actually talking into your Bluetooth headset, turn it off. Keeping a Bluetooth connection open can drain battery power quickly. Features you may not even notice like lights, sounds, and vibrate functions may be draining power, too. Your cell phone likely has options to turn these features off or use them for shorter intervals of time, so take advantage of them.
3. When to Charge Up
   If you’ve got a newer cell phone, it probably uses lithium-based cell phone batteries. If this is the case, it’s best to avoid running your cell phone battery all the way until it dies. Repeatedly discharging lithium batteries fully can damage them. On the other hand, if you’ve got an older phone that uses nickel cadmium or nickel metal hydride batteries, the opposite is true. Discharging nickel-based batteries all the way means they can be recharged all the way. So, in short, charge a lithium-based battery when it’s low on power and charge a nickel-based battery when it’s dead.
4. Optimal Conditions
   Okay, so this is mostly common sense, but only mostly, so keep reading. Store and treat your battery carefully. You don’t want it to get too hot, so don’t leave it in your car during the summer. That’s the common sense part. Less obvious: don’t keep your cell phone in your pocket if you can help it. Being in contact with your body temperature for extended periods of time heats up the battery to temperatures that can damage it.

Nothing too hard there, right? Taking care of your cell phone batteries requires only a little extra effort and it will repay you with more power and a longer battery lifespan.

Improving Laptop Ergonomics

Let’s be honest; it’s not all that comfortable to use laptops. Sure, it’s great that you can sit anywhere and stick the machine in your lap while you recline in a comfy chair, but do it for too long and you’re going to feel it. If you just use your laptop occasionally there isn’t as much risk that poor ergonomics will cause lasting problems or discomfort as if you are an everyday laptop user. Of course, using your laptop only occasionally also likely means that typing on its smaller keyboard will seem especially uncomfortable to you.

The Problem with Laptop Ergonomics
Having the screen and the keyboard connected means that one or the other will be in a bad position for the user in terms of ergonomics. In essence, you have an unenviable choice between poor posture for your head and neck or putting your hands and wrists in an unnatural position.

Neck or Wrists?
If you have to make the choice between your neck and your wrists, choose to protect your wrists. It seems a bit counterintuitive, but your neck is controlled by larger muscles that are less prone to injury than the muscles governing the posture of your wrists. To protect your wrists, keep your laptop at an angle that allows you to keep your wrists in a “neutral” position. Generally, this means angling your computer down at a level lower than your elbows. Angle the screen in a way that you can see it without craning your neck.

Transforming Your Laptop
Using your laptop as your primary computer, especially if you work at it all day long, means a lot of strain on your body. If this is the case for you, you can fairly easy transform your machine into a more ergonomically-friendly machine by adding an external keyboard and mouse. You can also add an external monitor to transform your computer fully.

Add a negative-tilt keyboard tray to position your keyboard in a way that allows your wrists to remain in a neutral position and use an adjustable mouse platform for the same purpose. Choose a comfortable chair that promotes good posture to complete your ergonomically-improved laptop arrangement.

The Greening of Laptop Battery Life

We all want better laptop battery life, and greener is better, too. It may be that longer and greener come together in the same new technology, and it just might be here now. Boston Power recently launched a new battery that promises to be not only greener and longer-lasting but also safer and faster.

Longer Battery Life
Current laptop batteries generally only last for a certain number of charge cycles, roughly 250 in most cases. Boston Power claims its new battery is capable of over 1,000 charge cycles. In short, the new technology should quadruple laptop battery life. It also promises to charge in roughly a fourth of the time it takes to charge older laptop batteries to full capacity.

How’s it Greener?
A longer-lasting battery is automatically greener. When you don’t need to replace your laptop battery as often, you don’t need to toss out old batteries as often either. Ideally, fewer batteries should need to be manufactured, replaced, used, and ending up in landfills with the new technology.

Additional Safety Features
We’ve all heard about the recalls that have happened with laptop batteries in recent years. Most dangerous incidents with batteries are caused by overheating, and the new batteries claim to reduce this risk by having an improved way to monitor temperature. They are designed to detect a wrong voltage and compensate accordingly within four to six minutes. Current batteries can take roughly twenty minutes to identify an incorrect voltage, potentially becoming dangerously hot in the meantime.

What Does It Mean for Me?
The new battery technology isn’t available to the average consumer quite yet, but assuming all is successful with its limited launch in 2009, everyone should see the benefits of this step forward in laptop battery technology soon. It’s even possible that use of the technology will expand to other areas – maybe even cars and trucks. Longer life and a bit of greening would be great for every one of the batteries we use, after all.

Welcome to the New Laptops for Less Blog, Bringing You News on Technology!

We’re excited to start bringing you tips, tricks, and news on technology. From advice on how to make your batteries last longer to news about the latest technological advances, we’ll be here to help you get the most out of technology and all your electronic devices. Visit us at the Laptops for Less blog frequently to check out new posts as we bring them to you. Thanks for joining us on our technological adventures!