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Laptops tend to lose their charm quickly when you’re constantly looking for the nearest power outlet to charge up. How do you keep your battery going for as long as possible? Here are 15 easy ways to do so.

1. Defrag regularly - The faster your hard drive does its work - less demand you are going to put on the hard drive and your battery. Make your hard drive as efficient as possible by defragging it regularly. (but not while it’s on battery of course!) Mac OSX is better built to handle fragmentation so it may not be very applicable for Apple systems.

2. Dim your screen - Most laptops come with the ability to dim your laptop screen. Some even come with ways to modify CPU and cooling performance. Cut them down to the lowest level you can tolerate to squeeze out some extra battery juice.

3. Cut down on programs running in the background. Itunes, Desktop Search, etc. All these add to the CPU load and cut down battery life. Shut down everything that isn’t crucial when you’re on battery.

4. Cut down external devices - USB devices (including your mouse) & WiFi drain down your laptop battery. Remove or shut them down when not in use. It goes without saying that charging other devices (like your iPod) with your laptop when on battery is a surefire way of quickly wiping out the charge on your laptop battery.

5. Add more RAM - This will allow you to process more with the memory your laptop has, rather than relying on virtual memory. Virtual memory results in hard drive use, and is much less power efficient. Note that adding more RAM will consume more energy, so this is most applicable if you do need to run memory intensive programs which actually require heavy usage of virtual memory.

6. Run off a hard drive rather than CD/DVD - As power consuming as hard drives are, CD and DVD drives are worse. Even having one in the drive can be power consuming. They spin, taking power, even when they?re not actively being used. Wherever possible, try to run on virtual drives using programs like Alcohol 120% rather than optical ones.

7. Keep the battery contacts clean: Clean your battery’s metal contacts every couple of months with a cloth moistened with rubbing alcohol. This keeps the transfer of power from your battery more efficient.

8. Take care of your battery - Exercise the Battery. Do not leave a charged battery dormant for long periods of time. Once charged, you should at least use the battery at least once every two to three weeks. Also, do not let a Li-On battery completely discharge. (Discharing is only for older batteries with memory effects)

9. Hibernate not standby - Although placing a laptop in standby mode saves some power and you can instantly resume where you left off, it doesn’t save anywhere as much power as the hibernate function does. Hibernating a PC will actually save your PC’s state as it is, and completely shut itself down.

10. Keep operating temperature down - Your laptop operates more efficiently when it’s cooler. Clean out your air vents with a cloth or keyboard cleaner, or refer to some extra tips by LapTopMag.com.

11. Set up and optimize your power options - Go to ‘Power Options’ in your windows control panel and set it up so that power usage is optimized (Select the ‘max battery’ for maximum effect).

12. Don’t multitask - Do one thing at a time when you’re on battery. Rather than working on a spreadsheet, letting your email client run in the background and listening to your latest set of MP3’s, set your mind to one thing only. If you don’t you’ll only drain out your batteries before anything gets completed!

13. Go easy on the PC demands - The more you demand from your PC. Passive activities like email and word processing consume much less power than gaming or playing a DVD. If you’ve got a single battery charge - pick your priorities wisely.

14. Get yourself a more efficient laptop - Laptops are getting more and more efficient in nature to the point where some manufacturers are talking about all day long batteries. Picking up a newer more efficient laptop to replace an aging one is usually a quick fix.

15. Prevent the Memory Effect - If you’re using a very old laptop, you’ll want to prevent the ‘memory effect’ - Keep the battery healthy by fully charging and then fully discharging it at least once every two to three weeks. Exceptions to the rule are Li-Ion batteries (which most laptops have) which do not suffer from the memory effect.

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I've long heard rumors that the fine particulate dust used in laser printer toner cartridges may be a health risk. It certainly makes sense: Not all of that stuff can stick to the paper, and if you've ever spilled toner you know there's no way it can be good for your lungs. Now a controlled study is confirming the information, saying that 30 percent of all laser printers tested emit dangerous particles described as "causing lasting damage on the scale of inhaled cigarette smoke." These tiny particles lodge deep in the lungs and can lead to anything from lung irritation to full-on cancer.


The tests come from an Australian technology university and were conducted in a "large open-plan space," and found that printers could increase particulate matter in the air by up to 400 percent.


While I'm still trying to obtain the list of high vs. low particle emitters from the university, there appears to be a lot of variability among machines and even among different toner cartridges. New cartridges, for example, produce more particle matter than old ones. Printing graphics pages also produces more particle matter than text, since more toner is used, and obviously, air quality gets worse the more pages you spit out. I'll post the full list of printers tested here (or a link to it) as soon as I can obtain one.

The upshot is that printer emissions should potentially be regulated much the way that auto emissions are, but even in the absence of government intervention, use common sense around your printer: Limit use when possible (tell the guy that prints out every single email to cut it out), sequester printers in their own rooms and away from workers, ventilate offices appropriately, and have your own air and printer tested before it becomes a serious health problem.

Source: tech.yahoo.com

Apple has responded to criticism by environmental groups by announcing plans to remove toxic chemicals from its products, including Mac computers and iPod MP3 players, as well as increase its recycling of old products.

Cupertino, California-based Apple is by no means the only computer company to be improving its environmental credentials, but the announcement of a new green strategy by CEO, Steve Jobs, is significant given the attention placed on Apple by the likes of Greenpeace.
The environmental organization has recently made Apple the focus of its attention as it attempts to persuade technology companies to reduce their use of toxic chemicals and increase recycling.

That focus appears to have had an impact, judging by the Jobs's announcement of Apple's green initiative. "Whatever other improvements we need to make, it is certainly clear that we have failed to communicate the things that we are doing well," he stated.

The announcement of "A Greener Apple" also seemed to suggest some frustration at the attention placed on Apple's environmental record, with Jobs taking a few side-swipes at the record of competitors including HP, Dell, and Lenovo.

"Apple completely eliminated the use of CRTs in mid-2006," Jobs wrote, noting that the reduction in the cathode-ray tubes has meant a reduction in lead. "A note of comparison - Dell, Gateway, Hewlett Packard and Lenovo still ship CRT displays today."

On the subject of what Apple is doing, rather than what its rivals are not doing, Jobs wrote that Apple plans to completely eliminate the use of arsenic in all of its displays by the end of 2008, and to eventually eliminate the use of mercury by transitioning to LED backlighting. The first Macs with LED backlight technology are due to be introduced this year.

Additionally, Jobs said Apple plans to completely eliminate the use of PVC and BFRs [Brominated flame retardants] in its products by the end of 2008, a year ahead of Dell and Lenovo.

On the subject of recycling, Jobs stated that Apple recycled 13 million pounds of equipment in 2006, equal to 9.5% of the weight of all products Apple sold seven years earlier - a measured proposed by Dell to reflect the lifecycle of a product.

"We expect this percentage to grow to 13% in 2007, and to 20% in 2008. By 2010, we forecast recycling 19 million pounds of e-waste per year - nearly 30% of the product weight we sold seven years earlier," he added.

Given its campaigning efforts, Greenpeace declared itself happy with Apple's new strategy as a starting point, but encouraged the company to improve its record on environmental issues even further to become "green to the core."

A merged Nokia Siemens Networks, delayed by a 420m euro ($555m) bribery scandal at German conglomerate Siemens AG, will now start operations on April 1.
The two companies are contributing their respective carrier networks businesses and assets into a 50:50 company, which will be the third largest players behind Alcatel Lucent and Ericsson
To ensure it has sufficient liquid assets, the two parents have agreed to increase their respective net asset contributions, with Siemens putting in 2.4bn euros ($3.2bn) and Nokia 1.7bn euros ($2.2bn).
The new company was originally due to begin operations in January but was held up when it emerged that the bribery probe extended to Siemens' carrier-related business