From time to time, you may notice that your laptop’s battery doesn’t stay charged as long as it should. This is sometimes due to the user constantly keeping the battery on mains power, or allowing it to only drop to 50% before recharging. Modern batteries are usually quite good at dealing with this, but every [...]

The mobile computing market changed forever a few years ago with the introduction of the netbook.  Finally a small, reasonably lightweight personal computer that could be carried by anybody.  Then the technology companies brought us a new breed of powerful ultraportables and finally tablets.  One thing to note though is that prices haven’t changed much, [...]

This has been a long time coming and, to be honest is already way behind schedule.  However Google is the first company to make it’s search page finger-friendly for tablet operating systems.  In a move that will be welcomed by almost everybody the new look will be automatically implemented when the website detects you’re using [...]

For the last few days I’ve been using the new beta update to Microsoft’s smartphone operating system, Windows Phone, on my HTC handset.  I’ve written a full hands-on review of this ‘Mango’ update at our sister website Windows7News.  It’s a great update and finally brings full cloud services to smartphones with the integration of SkyDrive [...]

Friday and Saturday have uncovered some pretty interesting things about the new contenders entering the tablet market. Both Sony and Motorola are apparently rushing towards new releases, and while both are expected to appear on the market by fall, information on each is scattered. Reports about Sony’s upcoming tablet(s) are quite literally all over the [...]

Ranked as the no. 2 PC manufacturing company in the world, Acer Inc. has announced plans to produce an ultra book which will be a super light computer model. The plan is to launch this new product as early as the fourth quarter of 2011. This statement was made by the President of Acer Inc. [...]

A new European project, kick-started by 22 European companies and organisations aims to develop an application development environment that will work across all platforms by providing a web-based approach, according to the BBC. The move which is backed by €10M in funding, aims to create apps that would work on any device from Internet TVs to [...]

Microsoft have reached a big milestone with their new smartphone operating system, Windows Phone 7.  Today, Terry Myerson the Corporate Vice President of Windows Phone Engineering has announced that it has been finalised and released to manufacturing. This means that the version of the operating system Microsoft have released today, is the same version that [...]

Google’s new Chrome OS cloud-based operating system is about to make its first appearance, not on netbooks, as was first thought, but on tablet devices instead. Engadget are reportingthat smartphone maker HTC are building the device which will sport a 1280×720 multi-touch screen, 2Gb of RAM and a minimum of 32Gb hard disk storage.  It’s [...]

Windows 7 and Windows Vista based mobile PCs may experience connectivity issues when connecting to Wi-Fi hotspots. Among the issues that may be experienced are poor network performance, and the dropping of the wireless network connection. These connectivity issues are experienced if the mobile computer is running on battery power, or if the mobile PC [...]

I’ve owned a Kindle 2 for nearly a year now. I have to say I do love it and am not impressed with the iPad’s ability to allow the user to read books. Why? The Kindle doesn’t offer distractions and I can happily sit by and and read as long as I like with no [...]

Is it really almost 2010? The first decade of 2k is nearly at an end, a decade that has been quite prosperous for the Linux operating system. A decade that saw the world’s economy plummet, giving rise to the need for more and more free, open source software. But what will the next decade bring [...]

For the longest time the only worthwhile network manage (especially of the wireless kind) was the GNOME Network Manager. Once KDE hit release 4 their network manager KNetwork Manager was plagued with issues to the point where it was nearly unusable. KDE 4.3 is out now and the KNetwork Manager has matured quite a bit. [...]

Android OS is about to make the migration from mobile phone to netbook PC (most likely thanks to Asus). If you’ve not seen an Android-based phone, you most likely are not aware just what the possibilities are. Although Android won’t take the desktop or standard laptop landscape by storm, the netbook landscape COULD be totally [...]

IBM recently announced they are pairing up with Cannonical and Red Hat to develop a Windows 7 alternative (see “IBM Client for Smart Work“). This pairing makes perfect sense as IBM has been a supporter of open source and Linux for some time now. Not only that but IBM released their office suite, Lotus Symphony, [...]

Apple has finally launched the new Macs, and as expected, the world is going crazy over comparisons and everything. Apple’s Phil Schiller has been vocal about Microsoft’s Windows 7 not having any negative effects on Apple’s sales whatsoever. In fact, he said that it would actually drive people towards Apple with the complicated upgrading procedure. [...]

With all the rumors around the device and the vast number of different sources of those rumors, it seems like Apple really is going to release the fabled tablet early next year. But will it be all that great? There is precedence of super-hyped Apple products failing spectacularly. In this context, the best example would [...]

If your laptop is running Linux you might not be happy with the battery life you are getting. There are numerous reasons for the possible extra drain on your battery. Some of the biggest issues are: Hard drive spin-downs, interrupts, and power management. Figuring out how to make these adjustments to your kernel (or subsystems) [...]

The Mozilla Weave development team has released version 0.4 of the Firefox add-on that allows users to synchronize data across multiple web browsers. It is basically a storage for user data on the Internet so that Firefox users can access the same bookmarks, passwords, preferences, browsing history and tabs on different computers and mobile devices. [...]

So you went ahead and purchased that System 76 laptop or you decided to finally install Linux on your laptop. You now have a Linux based laptop with a webcam. But how do you take advantage of this hardware? You want to be able to use that web cam to upload photos to facebook (or [...]

System 76 is a company, founded in 2005, dedicated to the spreading of Linux and open source. They are so dedicated to this cause they sell Linux-only hardware. You might be saying to yourself “It’s been tried before and it failed.” That is certainly the case if you can remember the Wal Mart/Linux failure or [...]

I know, the first thing you are asking is “Why would I want to have to connect to a wireless network from the command line?” To that question I can give you a simple answer…What if you want to create a script to run that will bring up your wireless network as soon as your [...]

I love to read. I read a LOT. I read books, news, you name it. I even have a book published for the Kindle (a super hero romp called Shero) The idea of an ereader should appeal to geeks of all ilks. Be it having all of your D&D info in an easy to search [...]

The other day my step-daughter’s Eee PC had some issues. It is a Linux-based Eee so it had the Xandros netbook distribution running. There were updates to be applied so I went ahead and allowed the updates to process. shortly after the updates failed the cursor started acting twitchy. My step-daughter, without asking, decides to [...]

One of these glorious days the PC industry will standardize hardware. When that day comes the Linux community will rejoice because there will be no need for the many, varied applications used to configure different systems on Linux. For example: I have two laptops. One one laptop I have to use nm-applet to get wireless [...]

Will we continue to produce smaller and smaller gadgets? Will Google rule the World? Will the internet get faster and faster? I’ve always wanted to ask these questions, here’s my take on some of this, please do comment, I’m really interested to know what you guys think! First of all, size. I mean the iPhone [...]

Mobile Phones, smartphones, pocket PCs and oder mobile devices have been around for a while but using them to connect to the Internet is a trend that manifested itself in the last years. Apple’s iPhone is one prominent example of a phone that offers many functions that require an Internet connection. One of the popular [...]

Laptop users love batteries that last longer. At least those laptop users who use their laptop on the road, those desktop replacement laptops are usually to big and heavy to be carried around anyway. One of the best ways to extend battery life is to reduce the cpu frequency of the laptop. That’s usually not [...]

Dell has released a Nvidia GPU (Graphics Processing Units) Bios Update for several Dell notebooks on their Dell Direct website. Nvidia confirmed earlier this month that some notebook GPUs were affected caused by a weak die packaging material set. The GPU may fail due to temperature fluctuations and users may experience symptoms like random characters [...]

Adeona is a free Open-Source software to track your computer. It works completely independent and is running in the background on the computer system. It automatically recognizes a change of location by analyzing the network connection of the notebook. If someone would connect to a WLAN the software would automatically do IP lookups to determine [...]

I want to buy a new mobile device and think that the best way to find one that suits my needs is to ask the readers here at Ghacks. If a device like this exists you will surely know about it recommend the best fit for my needs. I will start this article by describing [...]

I have been playing around with a software called Easy WiFi Radar on my notebook for quite some time which is probably the easiest way to find and use open wireless connections. The main advantage of the tool is its simplicity. All that needs to be done on the part of the user is to [...]

If you happen to use an e-mail provider that’s offering an IMAP-server (or you are boosting your own (mail-)server), this might be for you, because chances are if you are using IMAP, you’re the “portable” type of user. As some of the more regular readers may know, I’m all into the whole ‘portable’ thing, and [...]

If you travel a lot chance is that you will eventually fall victim to theft. If you happen to have your notebook or laptop with you most of the time chance is pretty high that the thief will have the desire to steal that one. Chances are pretty slim that you will see your notebook [...]

Having considered buying an Asus Eee PC I must admit that I never thought that the models could have more differences than just the color. I would have never assumed that the keyboard would be different as well depending on the color of the model that you choose. The Laptop Mag investigated black and white [...]

I’m an avid temporary file cleaner and I was delighted to find a link to the software Clear Temp at the Tip and Trick blog which was formerly known as My Digital Life. (Anyone knows what caused the domain change ?) Anyway, Clear Temp works on Pocket PCs running at least Windows Mobile 2003. It [...]

Sony is a company that is never shy when it comes to finding questionable ways to making just another buck or to annoy a large part of the Internet community by doing something stupid like the Sony Rootkit disaster last year. Their ingenious minds have come up with yet another way to make the extra [...]

I recently came upon a .lit file and was puzzled at first because I did not have any application installed on my system that could read and display the .lit file properly. A web search told me that it was a format for the Microsoft Reader, an e-book reader for Mobile PCs with another edition available for notebooks and desktop PCs.

After my last post about the powers of PuTTy in conjunction with an SSH-enabled router, I started thinking about tutorials.

If you set up some kind of SSH Connection on a windows computer over the past few years, be it to connect to the university’s network or to secure a line for an insecure FTP Transfer,you have probably encountered the program PuTTy on the way to salvation. It’s easy to use, free and OSSish powerful. What many people don’t know about PuTTy though, is what other powers aside from or better in addition to SSH slumber inside the little executable.

I really do love Sony. They do have so many innovative ways of ******* off their customers it’s unbelievable they are still in business. We have already seen proprietary formats, rootkits on CDs, the soon to be closed online music store that will leave customers who have purchased music there with not playing music if they change hardware or computer. Now there is another story emerging, this one is about Sony notebooks and how they lock out low cost batteries.

It sometimes happens by accident that the power cable gets disconnected when you work with your notebook. It does not have to be by accident though, maybe you want to use the notebook in a different location without having to save everything and boot again. The problem that arises when a power cable gets disconnected is that the notebook loses battery power which is a huge problem if the battery was not loaded fully.

Most notebooks have several hardware components installed that are not used by the user. A notebook with WLAN and network card for instance and a user that only uses the WLAN to connect to a network and the Internet. Every component installed is using battery and it is a wise step to disable those components that are not used – ever.

You might know that I’m looking for a PDA or similar device that will allow me to comfortably check and write emails, write blog posts and visit websites while on the road. I do have a Toshiba notebook but I don’t like to use it on the road. It is fine in hotels and on conventions where I can use it stationary but it really is to big to work comfortably with while walking around.

Nec announced the Lavie C series of notebooks recently which are basically standard notebooks with one features that makes them stick out from the rest. The new feature is called ‘Face Pass’ which is a biometric system that uses face recognition instead of passwords to grant access to the notebook.

I bought a Toshiba Notebook soon after Windows Vista was released and was wondering about the huge battery drain whenever I was using the Notebook without a power source. The battery drain is apparently caused by the Aero theme and the power settings for the wireless adapter. I was not even sure at the beginning if I was running Windows Aero or just a different interface but soon found out that the Aero interface, one of the few new things in Windows Vista, was active and draining battery life like crazy. I decided to disable the Aero interface because I could not see the use of it after all. Sure, it offers some nice looking effects but that is not the main purpose that I’m using the notebook after all.

I always thought that the Windows Vista sidebar was nice to look at but not very useful. It uses system resources to display a clock or some other gadgets that have pretty much no value at all in my daily routine. I did not want to just remove the sidebar without researching if there were gadgets that were actually that useful that I decided to keep the sidebar and use at least some of the gadgets all the time. Space is limited and I run some all of the time and some only if I need that information.