Battery Tips

Wireless internet is great. Let’s get that out of the way right now: It’s awesome.

There’s really nothing like being able to play video games online at high speed without even plugging your system in to anything, or taking the laptop with you to the bathroom, the bedroom, and everywhere in between.

If you’re still using a cable modem or DSL and are thinking about switching to wireless, and it’s within your means, stop thinking about it and make the switch.

The only real problem with switching to wireless is compatibility. Most laptops today are made with built-in Bluetooth or Wi-Fi (or both) so you can connect to the internet wherever there’s a “hot spot”, but for older computers, you’ll need to get yourself a wireless modem. Luckily, you can probably get a wireless modem for around fifty dollars, so that’s not really such a huge stumbling block.

So yes, “wireless good”, we’ve established that. Now, how do you go about selecting a wireless internet provider?

Well, let’s list the two “Big Dogs” of the wireless provider market and make some quick comparisons.

Verizon Wireless

Verizon is basically the largest wireless provider in the US, reporting the highest revenue and second highest number of subscribers. As of the merger with Alltel Wireless, Verizon has about 85 million subscribers, making them literally the largest wireless provider in the US.

If you can get past the obnoxious TV commercials, their wide network provides for incredible reliability. With the upcoming Alltel merger, they’ll have coverage of rural areas, as well (there are people in rural communities still using dialup, so if they expand their rural coverage, this could be a big plus).

Cingular Wireless

Cingular boasts 72.9 million subscribers, so they’re not quite the powerhouse that Verizon Wireless is (though it is a close race). However, Cingular isn’t plagued by the controversy that’s surrounded Verizon, either. For example, Verizon advertised a number of products as “GPS Enabled”, only to reveal that they had disabled the GPS trackers so as to later offer a fee-for-service GPS.

Of course, if we’re just talking about these two companies as wireless internet providers and not as product designers, it’s kind of like comparing apples and oranges. Both companies will probably cover you just fine.

If both of these companies cover your area, look for the plan that fits your budget. You’re not going to regret either decision any time soon. Verizon seems to have a slight edge, but it really is a neck and neck race.

So yeah, get a plan that fits your budget, and if you still can’t decide, heck, flip a coin. You might find a plan offered by one that you like a little better than anything offered by the other, but neither company is likely to let you down.

For our Friends in Rural Areas…

However, they don’t cover every town in the US (they cover the vast majority of the country, but they don’t cover every single man woman and child), so you might have to wind up settling for a smaller wireless provider, or even resorting to satellite-provided internet. A lot of small towns and rural areas just aren’t covered by Verizon and Cingular (city slickers will find that hard to believe, but you know, there are parts of the country that have never even heard of Starbucks, for that matter).

So, you should probably be armed with something of a “buyer’s guide”, in order to find the best wireless internet provider in your area if you have to go with one of these independently owned companies. There’s basically just one thing you need to do before making a decision…

Talk to your Friends in the Area

Anyone in the area with some experience with any of the local internet providers will do. First and foremost, ask them how reliable their collection is. One of the main problems with wireless providers is that they rely on outdoor antennas, which are highly susceptible to weather damage. If the company doesn’t have the money or resources to maintain a strong connection, you’ll want to look elsewhere. Second, of course, is speed. If the connection is so flaky it takes half an hour to watch a three minute youtube video, you’re better off with dialup.

Unfortunately, a lot of rural areas really only have the one independently owned wireless provider, and with no competition, there’s very little incentive for them to provide excellent service. In this case, you probably want to put satellite and cable internet back in the running, and simply select the fastest, most reliable connection out of all your choices.

Luckily, Verizon and Cingular are pretty much on a quest to cover the entirety of your area. The last couple paragraphs are probably only relevant to about twenty percent of the people reading this article, and in another couple of years, Cingular and Verizon will probably cover that twenty percent as well.

Is a composite standard lithium-ion battery (the power lithium), lithium power of the physical structure is characterized by high electricity, no memory effect. Lithium batteries must pass any battery power management controller (PMU), the effective implementation of the law charging control. Therefore,battery must be recharged using the original adapter, so as to achieve effective and safe application.



Lithium power is not the memory effect characteristics, that is not necessary to achieve the depletion capacitance charging, lithium power at any level of power, the right charged, the charge would like to charge, charge do not want to sleep on the consumption of automatic shutdown Also line up. Lithium electric charge to the general computing life cycle, the cycle is the theoretical value of 500 (+ / -15%), once considered a full cycle, spent 30% of renewable electricity charge, PMU will not count a cycle.

power battery and the PMU / SMC is the smart, as the depletion can not be 100% capacity, the PMU / SMC will continue to monitor the consumption level in a lithium battery, use up to 5% of the electricity that is, on its own Activate dormant books, forced shutdown to protect the lithium batteries will not run out dead. At this moment should take charge for electricity market, lithium battery power adapter with PMU / SMC battery management controller, in charge of the resume will achieve 70% of the fast charge, 70% will be in place to achieve slow charge, 95% of the electricity to start Filling the implementation of drip, drip filling up to 100% charge off automatically.



Therefore, regular adapter to connect the original charge, is 200% no problem. The connection electricity in the city at the same time, lithium batteries, if less than 95% of capacity, charging adapter will be implemented to drop to 100% charge after the auto-off charge.



Notebook battery dismantling do not have to, is ignorance, lost mobility of the intent of the book, lithium batteries because of the long-term storage and failure, can not charge the implemented again.

The supercapacitor resembles a regular capacitor with the exception that it offers very high capacitance in a small package. Energy storage is by means of static charge rather than of an electro-chemical process that is inherent to the battery. Applying a voltage differential on the positive and negative plates charges the supercapacitor.

This concept is similar to an electrical charge that builds up when walking on a carpet. The supercapacitor concept has been around for a number of years. Newer designs allow higher capacities in a smaller size. Supercapacitors are relatively expensive in terms of cost per watt. Some design engineers argue that the money would be better spent in providing a larger battery by adding extra cells. But the Supercapacitors and chemical battery are not necessarily in competition. Rather, they enhance one another.

Granted this is a question we hear mostly in the winter, it is however a question we get asked from time to time.

In a partially discharged state, the electrolyte in a lead acid battery may freeze. At a 40% state of charge, electrolyte will freeze if the temperature reaches approximately 16.0°F (8.9°C).

The freezing temperature of the electrolyte in a fully charged battery is -92.0°F (-68.9°C).

Don’t forget that a good percentage of the electrolyte in your lead-acid battery is water (approximately 75% in a fully charged lead-acid battery).

So those of you in colder climates give your batteries a blankie and keep them where it will not get quite as cold to prevent them from being frozen, just when they’re needed the most.

It looks like Steve Jobs has been feeling particularly festive as of late, and although reports of him strolling around LA decked out in a full Santa costume and handing out Ipods as if they were sweets are unconfirmed, what has been confirmed is that Apple will be having a Christmas sale over the holiday season.

With prices being slashed by as much as 15 per cent on selected hardware, it truly will be a Christmas to remember for fans of the brand, and Christmas lists across the country have just got a lot longer.

The news is already starting to spread, with Apple resellers advertising reductions in their stores of up to $100 (£64) off of a Macbook. This is quite a considerable bonus, with such amounts usually not allowed by Apple.

As well as this, Apple Store managers have been given express orders to make sure they match the Black Friday discounts across the country.

Apple fans are an enthusiastic lot, and you will not be at all surprised to hear that a blog exists that follows in detail the retail operations of the computer giant. I imagine posts are going through the roof on the IFO Apple Store blog this week, and it has already revealed that if a shopper brings in an advert of a better offer from a reseller, the store will drop the price to match it.

But before you get too excited, it seems that Ipods and Iphones are not on this particular Christmas list, and the offer will only apply to selected laptop models.

It is all a bit of a change for Apple, who have never previously provided Black Friday discounts. However, desperate times call for desperate measures, and I’m sure they can tempt a few more shoppers into their stores over the next few weeks with such tantalizing treats.

So one of the coolest new gizmos out is the Garmin Nuvi 880. It’s kind of a big deal, and there’s been some debate out in the forums and chatrooms as to whether or not it is, more or less, the best portable GPS out there.

We can’t put the final nail in that debate’s coffin, people will keep arguing about it until the thing becomes outdated several years from now. Any popular device is going to spark this kind of debate, and it’s certainly healthy, as it stirs up public interest.

But, we can give you the vital statistics of the product, and let you decide.

Now, usually we’d start off with the screen size or Bluetooth connectivity or something, but the first thing worth noting about the Garmin Nuvi 880 is the price. New, you might find it in the area of eight hundred bucks, but you might actually be able to snag one for five hundred. Just a few years ago, there was no way you could find such a tough little GPS for anything less than a couple grand.

So anyways, on with the technical statistics:

Display - 4.3 inch screen with a 480 x 272 resolution. The image is absolutely beautiful and crystal clear, so you’re not going to be squinting at the screen to try and figure out where you’re supposed to be going.

Dimensions - 3.10 inches tall by 4.90 inches wide by .7 0 inch thick. It’s about the size of a dollar bill, and about the thickness of an empty wallet, so there’s no worry about having a big fat brick sticking out of your pocket. In other words, it should be easy enough to take with you everywhere, from road trips to hiking excursions.

It comes loaded with City Navigator NT maps for North America, which include over six million points of interest, searchable by name. This means you can just ask the thing for directions to say, the LA Museum of Arts, and not have to go look up the address first.

Speech recognition and voice feedback means drivers won’t need a navigator referencing the device in the passenger seat. You can even ask it direct questions like “Where am I?”, and it will tell you, including street names.

Something else that’s pretty cool, the Nuvi 880 comes with an MP3 player and a photo viewer, so it’s basically the only gizmo you need to keep in your car.

It works as a hands free cell phone, it constantly updates traffic reports with MSN Direct content, it gives you realtime gas prices, movie times, audio books, it can plug into your car’s stereo system…

Is it the best portable GPS on the market? Well put it this way, if you pick up a Garmin Nuvi 880, you might never buy another portable GPS again as long as you live. To be fair, you could say that about a small handful of portable GPS units, but the fact remains that the Nuvi 880 is, at least, somewhere around the top of the food chain when it comes to portable GPS.

Granted this is a question we hear mostly in the winter, it is however a question we get asked from time to time.

In a partially discharged state, the electrolyte in a lead acid battery may freeze. At a 40% state of charge, electrolyte will freeze if the temperature reaches approximately 16.0°F (8.9°C).

The freezing temperature of the electrolyte in a fully charged battery is -92.0°F (-68.9°C).

Don’t forget that a good percentage of the electrolyte in your lead-acid battery is water (approximately 75% in a fully charged lead-acid battery).

So those of you in colder climates give your batteries a blankie and keep them where it will not get quite as cold to prevent them from being frozen, just when they’re needed the most.

I am a frequent reader of the Todaybattery.com. It is an interesting site that has various information about upcoming technology.

Today I was reading about some batteries that seem to have not been made with the best of quality control. Apparently, AT&T bought some batteries from the now defunct Avestor. So far, 4 of these batteries have decided to either catch fire or explode. Seems as one of the latest exploded with enough force to rip a 50-60 lb. steel door clean off and throw it 5 feet. It shows why we need to make sure we are getting our batteries from companies with proven quality.

If you search the web it is easy to find where some sub-standard battery fails. Unfortunately these batteries have a bad habit of catching some people unaware and have burnt a few people. The good news however, is that on a percentage, the failed batteries are actually very minimal. Even with the 4  batteries that are giving AT&T a headache they had purchased 17,000 of them that’s actually the highest ratio I’ve seen at a little over 2%. I believe the normal in failed batteries is closer to .01 to .05%.

Granted that doesn’t make you feel any better if you happen to be one of the lucky recipients of a bad battery. However if you can hit those kinds of odds you should run out and get a lottery ticket. How afraid are you of the batteries that are hiding in your pocket, purse, on your lap, or being held to your head?

Solar power is here. We’re not exactly where we were predicted to be in the early nineties, when it was assumed we’d have completely abandoned traditional energy for solar by this point, but it is an option.

Even so, you almost never see anyone actually using solar power. If yo u ask most people why not, they’ll tell you “It’s just too expensive to make the switch”.

To an extent, this is actually true. If you’re talking about switching your home over entirely to solar power, you’re probably looking at anywhere from fifteen to thirty thousand dollars. That will pay for itself in time, but it could be twenty years before you’re thanking yourself for making the switch, and let’s be honest, most of us don’t have thirty grand just laying around collecting dust, and we have no choice but to keep paying the utility bills.

But, on a smaller scale, let’s consider what you can do with far less money…

Consider the idea of just switching your water heating over to electricity. A solar water heater can cost as low as a couple thousand dollars, and can last up to thirty years. It’s hard to say exactly how much you’ll be saving, but let’s say you take two showers, do a load of laundry, and wash the dishes once a day. After a month, that could cost you anywhere from thirty to fifty bucks (these are pretty rough figures, of course, but they’re on the low end, and most people probably spend a lot more on hot water every month), so that could be as much as six hundred dollars a year.

So this means that a two thousand dollar solar water heater will have paid for itself in three or four years. After that point, you’re literally getting free water heating. Fill an entire swimming pool with hot water if you like, the heating itself won’t cost you a dime.

Solar water heaters do eventually break down, but with proper care, it’s not surprising at all to see them outliving the thirty year mark. In other words, if you bought three solar water heaters today and kept two in storage, you’d have hot water for the rest of your life for less than ten thousand dollars.

Solar power seems expensive at first, but when you consider that, after a certain point, you’re literally getting energy and hot water for free, it starts to make a little more sense.

 Welcome to: Todaybattery.COM
Now to get things straight: I’ll take a smart, funny, beautiful girlfriend over a high speed laptop any day of the week. Whatever a laptop can provide, human companionship isn’t one of them. Even that natural friction that occurs when you disagree with your girlfriend is worth the world to any sane man.

But… that said, there are also things your laptop can do for you that no dame ever could. So here are the ten ways in which your laptop one ups your gal…

10- Your Laptop is cool with Whatever Plans you Have for the Night

Wanna go out tonight? Awesome. Wanna stay in? No problem. With a long-time girlfriend, it gets to feel like you’re tied at the hip. If you want to go out, you better hope and pray she does, too. If you want to stay in tonight, same thing. A laptop is more laid back than that. Where a girlfriend says “I dunno if I feel like it”, a laptop says “Cool, bro, whatever you wanna do”.

9- A Laptop isn’t all Ticked Off at you Three Days a Month for no Reason
Right? Fellas? You know what I’m talkin’ about! Those three or so days where you can’t do or say anything without getting an earful, yeah, laptops don’t do that.

8- Your Laptop won’t ask you Why You’re Afraid of Commitment

“Because you’re going to be outdated by the 2009 model before long, duh!”

7- You can turn your Laptop on with the Click of a Button

Sorry, cheap joke, but I had to get it in.

6- Your Laptop Doesn’t Get Jealous of your iPhone and your Xbox

Your laptop understands that hey, a man’s got needs! You might fool around with the Xbox and blow up helicopters in Grand Theft Auto now and then, but that doesn’t mean you love your laptop any less!

5- Your Laptop doesn’t make you listen to Sucky Music/Watch Sucky Movies

…Unless you visit somebody’s MySpace page, that is. But seriously, having a girlfriend means learning to accept Sex and the City. Your laptop collects exactly the same kind of stuff you’re into, so you’re never arguing over the stereo, and your laptop only plays movies you want to see.

4- Your Laptop Stays the Same Size she was when you got her

3- Your Laptop Doesn’t Mind if YOU Put on Some Weight

“We’re gonna need to put you on salads, big guy! ”

With a laptop, you can get bald and chubby and not shave for a week, and you’re still the same old lovable you, as far as your rig is concerned… Of course, it wouldn’t kill you to do a few sit ups once in awhile, buddy.

2- If you see your Laptop with Another Guy, you can call the Police

End of story !

1- Your Laptop can run the Newest Games

You know, girlfriends and laptops aren’t even in competition on this one, so sorry, no double entendre in the title. But, as an obsessive gamer geek, I have to say that this is the most important part of any relationship I have with a laptop. Gears of War 2 is coming out soon, and I’m afraid that that’s going to be the deal breaker for any laptop I hope to pursue a serious relationship with.