Reduce your Laptop costs | Computers

By KayBrenner
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Laptops are great if you're always out and about or want to save some desk real estate with the tiny foot print a laptop takes up as opposed to a bigger desktop system. There's just something cool about folding up your computer to go outside in the summer breeze to type up your essay or to blog about the events of the day. But there are disadvantages to having a laptop.

The main issue is represented by its battery. As they do not need to be plugged in order to work, laptops rely on the energy coming from the battery. So far, most laptops, when in use, consume their batteries in several hours. After that, you have to plug them in again, for recharge. Another great disadvantage is that laptops are easy to steal, as their weight would not encumber a swift thief. But let's see how you can enjoy your laptop at optimal parameters.

Tip: Prolong the Battery Life

As said before, laptops work with batteries that are not fit for long runs. Still, you can enjoy your laptop for a longer time, if you know how to squeeze your battery juice to the fullest. This strategy that we are about to show you can save you a few hours of stress until you reach a place with an outlet where you can recharge the battery.

Your laptop screen is the biggest energy consumer from all the components. So, in order to save some battery juice, just reduce the configuration of the screen as much as you can, and you will be able to enjoy your laptop for a longer period of time than usual.

Data Savings

Because of the fact that laptops were designed to be portable and carried around, your chances of dropping your laptop are much greater than knocking over your desktop tower. Because of the sensitivity of hard drives, a good drop on concrete can wreak havoc on your storage drives; a hard drive crash is a nightmare to deal with, believe me. Bearing this in mind, it's always a good idea to back up your data whenever you can. You can easily shuttle data back and forth via thumb drives or CD-R/DVD. It's better to be safe than sorry, so be sure to back up your data on your laptop on a regular basis.

Hire a Watchdog

Always take care when connecting to an open wireless network. Install a robust firewall, like ZoneAlarm, and make sure that you set its security settings high to get the best protection. Folder sharing on an open network is just asking for trouble, so make sure you turn this setting and others like it off.

There are even more threats to deal with concerning the documents you carry on your laptop. There is more than virtual danger, as laptops can be easily stolen. People that you do not want to rummage through your files will have instant access to all of them, if they steal your laptop. The solution is to protect the files by encrypting them and protecting them through a password that only you know about.

Keep Out From the Heat

An usual shortcoming of laptops is that they tend to heat up during usage. In order to keep all this heat away, you need to protect your lap and your knees. Some shops sell laptop sleeves that can be used to fend off the heat, but any piece of clothing large enough to cover your skin where it comes in contact with the hot laptop will do just fine.

The comfort factor is hard to take from laptops. No matter how fast desktop computers change in order to become more flexible, they still have a lot ahead if they want to catch laptops from behind. Even with an LCD screen, there is no way for a desktop computer to occupy less space than a laptop. By applying some of the suggestions above, you will have more reasons to enjoy your laptop as you should.

About the Author

Kay Brenner is a Computer problems consultant who specializes in restoring your slow PC, saving you time and money wrestling with a slow PC. To learn how to avoid computer problems, download a free PC Optimizer

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