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 Asus Eee Pc models and discovered that the black and white models are indeed equipped with different keyboards.

They were able to compare the Asus Eee PC models 701 and 900 in white and the 701 in black. Both white models are using the same keyboard while the black keyboard looks and feels different and the assumption can be made that the black 900 model will have the same keyboard as the black 701 model.

The first obvious difference becomes obvious when you place the black and white keyboards next to each other. The black keys seem to be a bit smaller and use a wider spacing than the white ones. They also go deeper which means that the user will receive more feedback from the keyboard in comparison to the white keyboard.

continue reading "Different Keyboards on Asus Eee PCs"

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 buck, it’s really amazing in my opinion.

If you purchase a new notebook - and it does not really matter from which manufacturer you make the purchase - you notice lots of software, many call it crapware, that is preinstalled on that notebook. You get demo or trial versions of software, lots of unnecessary applications from the manufacturer and much more that slow down the computer. Many companies love to add a Norton or Symantec trial to the computer for instance.

Sony obviously thought that some customers would like the crapware removed but instead of offering this as a configuration option that is free of charge they charge $50 for it. Yes that is right. Those who add the crapware ask the customer to pay $50 for its removal. That’s a nice business model don’t you think ?

continue reading "Sony: Want us to remove our crapware for you ? Pay us !"

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.

Reports are all over the Internet (here, here or here for instance) and from the date of the news we can see that it is not really a “new” problem but one that exists for several years. If you own a Sony laptop and want to buy a separate battery you have to pay roughly three to four times the price if you buy a original Sony battery instead of a generic one.

If you make the decision to buy the generic battery you might be in for a nasty surprise. Sony is not allowing generic batteries in many of their notebooks by using software and hardware protections. The software protection is simply a file called ISBMgr.exe which prevents the usage of another battery not manufactured by Sony. Some users were able to use the battery by removing that program from their computer. (ISBMgr.exe is apparently run at system startup, use msconfig or autoruns to disable it.)

continue reading "Sorry you cannot use that battery because it is not made by us !"

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.

Battery Run is a little command line utility that checks if a power cable is connected. Once it gets disconnected it starts a user defined action and another one when the cable gets connected again. You could for instance play a sound if the power cable gets disconnected to notify you or a software that would reduce power consumption.

Usage is straightforward. Download and unpack the file on your hard drive. Use the command batteryrun load-program-when-disconnected load-program-when connected. For example: batteryrun disconnected.wav connected.wav

continue reading "Run something if battery is (dis)connected"

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.

The Wlan - Network Card example was just one possibility. Many notebooks have a card reader, DVD drive, webcams and V.90 Modems among other components. My notebook for example offers both Wlan and LAN access and I have disabled the network card which had the positive side effect that it reduced the boot time of my notebook.

I disabled the card reader and the internal modem as well because I never use those components. The DVD drive is disabled as well most of the time because I rarely use it. I don’t have the necessary test equipment to test the battery usage before and after disabling the components but I can verify that the boot process into Windows is faster than before.

continue reading "Notebook Tip: Disable Hardware that you do not use"