Your Laptop Battery - Things You Should Know

Your Laptop's Battery - a Few Important Points to Remember Your battery is low again, ah?? Here's a pack of small details you probably don't know yet, and might be helpful for you:

1. What's better : keeping the laptop plugged in to the power socket or letting it get empty and recharging it ? most of you might jump and say "sure, keeping it plugged in". Wrong! the battery is like a muscle, if it gets some training, it preserves its potency. If it's always fully charged, it gets older very fast.

2. If you think that after some 6 months with the laptop, the battery holds for less hours than when it was brand new, you're absolutely right! To know exactly how much capacity the battery has lost, you may use the following software: http://download.cnet.com/BatteryBar/3000-2094_4-10866804.html

3. Along the laptop's life, the power meter (this little meter that tells you how fully charged is the battery at the moment) gets less & less accurate. This may cause you problems like: sudden shutting down of the laptop while doing something important. You can fix this issue by "recalibrating" the battery.
How to recalibrate:
a. Charge your battery completely. Then,wait 2 hours with the laptop plugged in.
b. Drain the battery completely (till the laptop turns off). Then. wait 5 hours.
c. Charge again the battery. Now, the power meter should be more accurate.

4. When is the appropriate time to dump your battery and purchase a new one? Experts claim that it's recommended to keep the battery while it's at least 25% of its original strength. Below this point, the battery can't give you a reasonable service.

Summary - the battery is the laptop's #1 headache, but using the points I've mentioned, might prevent this pain from becoming a migraine..

What Is Computer Science

Computer science or computing science (abbreviated CS or CompSci) is the scientific and mathematical approach to computation, and specifically to the design of computing machines and processes. A computer scientist is a scientist who specialises in the theory of computation and the design of computers. Its subfields can be divided into practical techniques for its implementation and application in computer systems and purely theoretical areas. Some, such as computational complexity theory, which studies fundamental properties of computational problems, are highly abstract, while others, such as computer graphics, emphasize real-world applications. Still others focus on the challenges in implementing computations. For example, programming language theory studies approaches to description of computations, while the study of computer programming itself investigates various aspects of the use of programming languages and complex systems, and human-computer interaction focuses on the challenges in making computers and computations useful, usable, and universally accessible to humans. The term "computer science" was first coined by the numerical analyst George Forsythe in 1961. Despite its name, a significant amount of computer science does not involve the study of computers themselves. Because of this, several alternative names have been proposed. Certain departments of major universities prefer the term computing science, to emphasize precisely that difference. Danish scientist Peter Naur suggested the term datalogy, to reflect the fact that the scientific discipline revolves around data and data treatment, while not necessarily involving computers. The first scientific institution to use the term was the Department of Datalogy at the University of Copenhagen, founded in 1969, with Peter Naur being the first professor in datalogy. The term is used mainly in the Scandinavian countries. Also, in the early days of computing, a number of terms for the practitioners of the field of computing were suggested in the Communications of the ACM – turingineer, turologist, flow-charts-man, applied meta-mathematician, and applied epistemologist. Three months later in the same journal, comptologist was suggested, followed next year by hypologist. The term computics has also been suggested. In Europe, terms derived from contracted translations of the expression "automatic information" (e.g. "informazione automatica" in Italian) or "information and mathematics" are often used, e.g. informatique (French), Informatik (German), informatica (Italy), informática (Spain, Portugal) or informatika (Slavic languages) are also used and have also been adopted in the UK (as in the School of Informatics of the University of Edinburgh).] Renowned computer scientist Edsger Dijkstra once stated: "Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes." The design and deployment of computers and computer systems is generally considered the province of disciplines other than computer science. For example, the study of computer hardware is usually considered part of computer engineering, while the study of commercial computer systems and their deployment is often called information technology or information systems. However, there has been much cross-fertilization of ideas between the various computer-related disciplines. Computer science research also often intersects other disciplines, such as philosophy, cognitive science, linguistics, mathematics, physics, statistics, and logic. Computer science is considered by some to have a much closer relationship with mathematics than many scientific disciplines, with some observers saying that computing is a mathematical science. Early computer science was strongly influenced by the work of mathematicians such as Kurt Gödel and Alan Turing, and there continues to be a useful interchange of ideas between the two fields in areas such as mathematical logic, category theory, domain theory, and algebra. The relationship between computer science and software engineering is a contentious issue, which is further muddied by disputes over what the term "software engineering" means, and how computer science is defined. David Parnas, taking a cue from the relationship between other engineering and science disciplines, has claimed that the principal focus of computer science is studying the properties of computation in general, while the principal focus of software engineering is the design of specific computations to achieve practical goals, making the two separate but complementary disciplines.[26] The academic, political, and funding aspects of computer science tend to depend on whether a department formed with a mathematical emphasis or with an engineering emphasis. Computer science departments with a mathematics emphasis and with a numerical orientation consider alignment with computational science. Both types of departments tend to make efforts to bridge the field educationally if not across all research.

IPad - What Do You Need It For?

Ladies & gentlemen, my dear readers!

Today I'm going to talk a beat about the new born baby - Apple's iPad. Who really needs this toy and what can it really do?

1. Reading articles or books - iPad's screen is large and clear enough to let you read web articles, e-books or PDF/Word documents. You'll not have to ruin your eyes or suffer in any other way.

2. Games - There's a reasonably wide variety of games for iPad and it can be a substitute to game consoles (like Nintendo) for light-gamers. However, it's early to relate to iPad as a substitute to the desktop PC.

3. TV & movies - you can watch TV or videos in a reasonable quality. I wouldn't bet on it replacing your 50 inch plasma TV, but as a little TV it can do great.

4. Presenting presentations - if you need to present Powerpoint presentations outside your office or something similar, the iPad can replace a laptop and make it easier for you.

5. Basic web usage - it can replace a laptop in basic web functions, like: email, Facebook and more. It doesn't suffer from special communication troubles that may harass the web usage, and the screen is large enough not to cause you much misery.

6. Long usage without battery charging - iPad can reach 10 hours of active usage without charging, which is much longer than an average laptop.



The downsides of iPad must be taken into account:

1. iPad's screen isn't successfully suitable for usage outdoors, and you may suffer from using it at the beach or at a picnic.

2. iPad was created by nerds and it's itself a nerd: smart,skinny and fragile. Daily usage by young kids or messing otherwise with it should make its days shorter & shorter.

3. iPad isn't widely perceived as an attractive instrument, and its functionality is much better than its looks. So it might not be the ultimate purchase for making you cool.

4. iPad (as an Apple product) doesn't support Flash, which may be a nuisance for some users.

5. Above all - iPad isn't a PC: which means that you shouldn't expect it to be more than it's meant to be: a partial substitute to a laptop.