Ways To Make Your Laptop Live Longer

A common mistake is unplugging a laptop when using it, connecting it back to the AC only when the charge in the battery is running out. The thinking behind this move is to prevent overcharging. However, built-in protection against overcharging means that this move only serves to dramatically shorten the serviceable life of the batteries, as there is a finite number of charge-discharge cycles that a rechargeable battery can handle.

If you hear a loud, buzzing or whining sound emanating from your laptop, do send it for servicing at your earliest convenience. In a nutshell, waiting for the newly developed sounds to go away is just asking for trouble, as the sounds are likely emanating from either the built-in ventilation fans or failing hard disk drive.


The keyboard sees the heaviest physical wear and tear on the laptop. While designed for heavy use, it’s usually not replaceable if damaged and is a usability nightmare if not properly maintained. One way to protect against the introduction of foreign objects is to get a keyboard protector for your laptop. To reduce the wear on the keys and touchpad, Paul Mah advocates the use of a separate keyboard and mouse when at your desk.

Due to how a computer file system works, performance of hard disk drives will unavoidably decrease over months or years of usage. As such, it is a good idea to perform a defragmentation of your data from time to time. The same is not true of solid-state disks (SSD), however, which work differently. Doing so will shorten their usable lifespan.

The hard disk head hovers at microscopic distances from the furiously spinning disk surface. As such, it’s generally a good habit not to subject laptops with hard disk drives to excessive shock or swinging around when powered on.

One way to quickly shorten the life or even kill your laptop would be to stuff it into your bag when it is still switched on. Damage to hardware is known to happen when applications or the Windows operating system itself hang during the shutdown process, leaving the laptop running in the confines of a bag. Check to make sure your laptop’s really powered off first.

It’s always a good idea to let your service help desk, or someone who is tech-savvy, take a look at your laptop in order to make a preliminary diagnosis. This will allow new problems that are introduced as a result of the service call to be more easily isolated and identified should they surface after the repair.

Desktop browser benchmark comparison

Choosing a browser was much simpler in the past. There were fewer choices available and usually there would be a clear winner. These days you have a lot more options available and all of them are more or less similar. So which one should you choose for the best browsing experience?

Some things such as the UI and features are subjective. You might like the look of a particular browser that someone else won’t or there might be a particular feature in a browser that you must have that others might not care for much. But there is one things that isn’t subjective and that is performance. It has to be the very best regardless of the browser you choose. So today we decided to leave everything else aside and compare this aspect of the web browsers available for Windows to see which one came out on top.

This means we will only be running benchmarks on them and comparing the scores. We have chosen the five major browsers available on the Windows platform: Internet Explorer 9, Firefox 6, Chrome 13, Safari 5 and Opera 11. Each browser was on the very latest stable version currently available from its developer.

As for the benchmarks, we chose four of the most popular browser benchmarks available today: Sunspider, Peacekeeper, V8 Benchmark Suite and the HTML5 test. We refrained from performing page load tests as they would vary depending on the Internet connection speed at the time of testing, making comparisons difficult.

The machine we ran the browsers on had a pretty standard configuration and wasn’t particularly high-end. It was running Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit on a 3.10GHz AMD Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition CPU, 4GB DDR2 RAM and NVIDIA GeForce 9800GT GPU connected to a 1920×1080 resolution display.

You can see how the browsers performed below:

(Note: There were errors in the IE9 scores for Peacekeeper and V8 Benchmark Suite before where the numbers were higher than the actual. They have now been fixed and the other scores have been double checked for accuracy.)

As you can see, Chrome consistently outperforms all the other browsers in almost every test. It even outstrips Safari in every benchmark by a healthy margin, despite running on the same basic WebKit engine. Other browsers weren’t too far back though, except for IE9, which apart from the impressive Sunspider score, lagged behind in every other benchmark.

In real life usage the difference is even less, with all the browsers managing to give extremely fast page loading times. Only issues I ever faced were in Opera and occasionally IE9, where the page was clearly not looking the way it was supposed to. The other three had no such issues and rendered every site correctly.

Personally, I found Chrome best of the lot in terms of features, UI and performance. Being an Internet company Google certainly knows its business and it shows in their web browser, which has some nice features lacking in others. It also has the second largest library of extensions for any of these browsers, bested only by the Firefox although realistically, Chrome’s numbers are higher because Firefox’s extensions often don’t work when the browser is updated. The implementation of the store for downloading these extensions on Chrome is also the best of the lot.

It’s because of the little things that the Chrome edges ahead. Although to be honest, you can’t really go wrong with any of these browsers. They are good all enough to be paid money for, which makes the fact that they are free even better.

an Android phone in Japan Called Yahoo

Yahoo is launching an Android based smartphone in Japan on the country’s third biggest mobile operator, SoftBank.

Yes, as strange as it sounds, Yahoo is launching a phone running Android, an OS made by Yahoo’s biggest competitor in the search engine space. Having said that, Yahoo is a lot more popular in Japan and in fact it is the biggest site in the country.

As for the phone, it will be manufactured by Sharp and will have a 4-inch LCD with qHD resolution, Android 2.3, 8 megapixel camera with a CMOS sensor, Bluetooth 3.0, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, microSDHC card slot, a built-in digital TV tuner, an e-wallet function and infrared communications.

The phone will come with some of Yahoo’s apps pre-installed, such as Yahoo Japan Home, Yahoo Japan Auctions, Yahoo Luco, etc. The Yahoo phone will start selling late next month in Japan.

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For the whole Symbian^3 Members, Symbian Anna update rolls out

Yesterday Nokia began uploading the Symbian Anna firmware for the N8 and E7 on its servers. Luckily, it didn’t stop with those two and the Anna updates for C7 and C6-01 also hit the servers later.

Symbian Anna is available now for download via the official channels - either as an OTA update or through the Ovi Suite. All Nokia N8, E7, C7 and C6-01 qualify for the update no matter the region, carrier or color.

Currently, the Anna updates are rolling out in most of Europe and Asia but it’s a matter of days before they go worldwide.

In case you've missed all the important stuff about Symbian Anna, it brings along a completely new web browser, a split-screen text input view, a new homescreen, menu icons and visuals plus improved overall performance and a few updates for Maps, Mail, Photos and Calendar. Nokia N8 gets continuous auto-focus in video recording plus a higher video framerate (30fps), while the C7's NFC capabilities are also finally enabled.

Let's hope the Symbian Belle update won't take Nokia as long as the Anna one.

Source | Via

Camera Update for Nokia N8, with better User Interface and video recording

It must feel quite good to be a Nokia N8 owner these days. First, there was the Symbian Anna update, which deals with quite a few of its usability issues and now Nokia brought the news that there's a camera update in the works for their former flagship.

The Nokia N8 camera update beta has already been released so if you don't mind a few bugs you don't need to wait anymore to get it. Just head to the Nokia Beta Labs website and take it for a spin. A registration is required though and you will need to have an N8 that's already running the Anna update.

The camera update itself is pretty major bringing a new UI that, according to Nokia, gives you faster access to essential camera controls. The UI was certainly one of the worst parts of the N8 camera and we appreciate Nokia's efforts to finally do something about it.

The other thing that got boosted by the update is video recording. The N8 finally got its video framerate cranked up to 30 fps and the continuous auto-focus features. So far, those were only available through an unofficial mod.

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Automatic Missed Call Reminders with Follow up SMS, Voice Call

It might happen to you that when you are in meeting you get a call, you end it at that moment but latter your forget to follow back the person who has called you. I have gone through it many times. Your mobile phone will show notification when you have a miss call but as you operate your mobile you hope that you will call the person back. If you are one such user like me who would like to set a reminder for miss call alerts then you should try out call reminder applications on your Android mobile phone. Out of all the reminder apps that we have for Android Pakoomba is the one I would suggest you to use. With easy to use interface and various options, it’s the app that you must have a try.

Pakoomba is a call reminder Android application available for free download on Android mobile. It serves the purpose of setting reminders on your phone automatically or manually.

While adding a reminder you are provided with the option who, when, where and notes. The reminder settings are so easy configurable and the overall interface of the application is very nice. In the preferences you can customize the call reminders, reminder time and the default handling of the miss calls. As a reminder type you can select which ringtone you wish to use, you want vibration with reminder and the maximum number of reminders. The reminder can be edit if at all you want to edit it.

Pakoomba call reminder has the following advantages –

• Automatic reminder creates automatic reminders for missed called which can be disabled.
• You can set multiple reminders for one miss call.
• When you have a miss call, with this app you can quickly follow-up through SMS, Voice call, eMail from the application.
• Variables options available to set flexible time reminders from later today, tomorrow, this week or this weekend.
• You can search from the reminders list if you many of them with a quick search reminder option.
• Provides the option of quickly adding a custom reminder.
• Notes can be audio and text-based.
• Setting available for reminders to be not popped during the working hours set by you.
• Easy to view agenda view of upcoming and future reminders.
• You can set place from integrated Google maps at ‘where’ option.

  

Pakoomba Call Reminder Download

Pakoomba Call Reminder can be downloaded by two means –

Download it from Android Apps Labs: Simple an easy to download this app is by visiting the Pakoomba Call reminder page located at Android Apps labs which has the best collection of Android apps.

Install by QR Code: Be it a default barcode scanner or download app, you can install the app by launching the barcode reader and pointing the camera towards the below QR code.

Nokia 500 is Nokia's first 1GHz Symbian smartphone

The Nokia 500 has just been announced as Nokia latest Symbian Anna smartphone. The new phone is based on the Nokia C5-03 specs-wise but refreshes some of the key features, retaining the reportedly affordable price tag.

The Nokia 500

The Nokia 500 has a 3.2-inch capacitive screen with 640 x 360 pixel resolution and there's a 5 megapixel camera on the back. Connectivity is covered by 14.4Mbps HSDPA and 5.8Mbps HSUPA speeds, Wi-Fi (no N support here), GPS, a charging microUSB port and a 3.5mm standard audio jack. There's 2GB of internal memory and a microSD slot for adding more storage.

The Nokia 500

The Nokia 500 comes with exchangeable back covers in different colors (two extra supplied with the phone). Much like with the Nokia N79 back in the day, the Nokia 500 changes its wallpaper automatically to match the color of the back cover you put on it.

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem the 1GHz CPU has improved the performance much. If you scrub to 1:31 m in the video, you will see the presenter scrolling the News Feed in the Facebook app. Well, you can clearly see some stuttering in the scrolling action.

The Nokia 500

The Nokia 500 will launch in black in Q3 with a white version coming in Q4 too. There will be six differently colored back panels at the launch in Q3. It's supposed to cost ˆ150 before taxes and subsidies. Sounds affordable for a smartphone alright.

5 Cheap Android Phones That Won’t Break Your Budget In 2011

Ever since i got my HTC Desire Z, I've been loving the functions with each passing day, and i wish most people can enjoy the same features on their phones. Many may consider the HTC Desire Z expensive but i don't so i decided to do this article.
With smartphones quickly gaining popularity consumers are more eager than ever to get ahold of a one of the many low-priced Android devices stepping in to fill more conservative buyer’s pockets. A common misconception is that customers have to fork over a huge chunk of change to pick up a smartphone, luckily there are now many budget phones on the market with low price tags and high review ratings. If you’ve been searching for a quality Android device that won’t break the bank, here are five of my favorite picks:

RIM officially announces - the Bold 9900, Torch 9810 and 9860

The BlackBerry Media event in London just concluded and this is what we've got so far: the new BlackBerry Bold (previously known as Bold Touch) 9900/9930 (UMTS/CDMA), the BlackBerry Torch 9810 and Torch 9860/9850 (UMTS/CDMA), which was previously rumored by the names of BB Touch and Monza. All the devices are powered by single-core 1.2GHz processors with 768MB RAM and all have NFC support.

The BlackBerry Bold (also known as Bold Touch) is the thinnest BlackBerry device so far at 10.5mm. It runs the BlackBerry OS 7, and utilizes a 1.2GHz CPU, 8 gigs of expandable memory and a 2.8" VGA (640x480) 287 dpi (close to the Retina's 326 dots per inch) capacitive touchscreen. It has a 5 MP autofocus camera with 720p video recording. In terms of looks, it takes after the previous line of Bold devices with no significant changes to the exterior. It's made out of high-quality brushed stainless steel.