Everyone who buys a notebook wants to know how long its battery will last. The brief answer – it’s highly variable depending on how your use your laptop. Batteries for laptops come in three main types: nickel cadmium (NiCad), nickel metal hydride (NiMH), and lithium ion. You can recharge each of these batteries with an AC adaptor. In most cases, it will give you between one and two hours of computer use, depending on a number of factors.

Following are five tips to help you get the longest battery life possible

1. Keep Your Screen as Dim as Possible – LCD screens are one of the biggest battery drainers. Adjust your setting so you have enough brightness for comfortable computing. During an overnight flight, for example, you can dim your brightness yet still see clearly. Most notebooks have simple applications you can use to control LCD brightness; consult your user’s manual.
2. Use Power Wisely – Turn off unused devices; each of them drains power. Most notebooks have power-management options. When you’re not using your laptop, you should have it on sleep mode, or your notebook’s equivalent. This mode keeps enough power running to maintain minimal function, so you can resume full power with very little delay when you’re ready to return to your work or play.
3. Cut Down on HD Activity - You can cut down on how hard your hard drive must work by defragmenting it regularly. This can be done automatically at selected regular intervals once you’ve located the Disk Defagmenter in the Start/Programs/Accessories/System Tools menu and follow the prompts.
4. Disable Startup Items – Every time you boot up (on Windows), startup items load into memory, causing other open programs to add to your CPU’s power load. You can easily disable startup options simply by clicking Start/Run, entering C:\MSCONFIG and following the prompts.
5. Keep Your Battery Fit! - Yes, you can actually condition your battery. When you buy your laptop, charge the battery to its full capacity, then discharge it completely. Next, fully charge it again. This way your battery actually learns how much electrical charge it can hold. Always make sure when you charge your battery that it reaches 100 percent.

Your CD burner is one of the most useful and exciting innovations on your PC. It gives you the ability to create a customized music library or back up vast amounts of digital data. In fact, a compact disc can store more than 450 times as much data as a floppy disk! To help you get the most out of this powerful tool, our editors have compiled this handy beginner’s guide to burning your own CDs.
 

Some have compared it to an 800-pound gorilla. A system so huge and powerful, that it’s hard to know exactly what to do with it. So it remains in its cage… its true power and glory untapped. We’re talking about Windows. And whether you use Windows XP, ME, 2000 or 98, you know from experience that its vast wealth of features can be overwhelming. This article gives you insight on how even the simple acts of starting and stopping Windows create opportunities to get a tremendous amount of maintenance work done.