*'Men are from Mars. Women are from Venus. Computers are from hell.'
All computers wait at the same speed.' *
INTRODUCTION
Alan Kay is a genius of sorts. He was awarded the “Nobel Prize for Computer Science”, (i.e) Turing Award in 2003. His contributions to the IT industry are phenomenal. He is the one who conceived SmallTalk that gave rise to Object Oriented Programming Systems(OOPS. No, not that stupid movie!), He, along with Douglas Engelbart can be considered as the architects of GUI with the invention of windowing GUI. This genius came up with an idea called as “Dynabook” whilst he was working at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Centre(PARC) *. This dynabook design is almost similar to today’s *Tablet PC. This dynabook also gave way to the introduction of Notebook computer concept, initially by Apple in the form of Apple IIc Portable and Osborne Inc released the Osborne 1 as well.
Since then, laptops have come a long way and what a ride it has been. It is also not far, when the laptop prices are almost equivalent of a desktop and have the same configuration as that of a desktop. Laptops offer many advantages over desktop. One such is the prevention of exposure to the x-rays from the monitors. Ease of use and mobility it offers you.
Now let me delve into the tips for maintaining the laptop
General Maintenance
~ Try to be careful and do not drop your laptop. Most of its parts are fragile(Do not drop it on your foot. It will give you Mega hurts!)
~ Do not put anything heavy on top of it.(If you really want a headache, put a big rock on top of your head, that way you will still have your laptop)
~ Always carry it in a carrying case(Even if you are a weightlifter)
~ Do not sit near a place of magnetic impacts. This can endanger your data in hard-disks(if you have one)
~ Never switch off your laptop when you see the indicator for hard-drive blinking. Always make sure it is not lit, before shutting down
~ Do not keep it in fridge or go to a desert. In other words, do not subject it to extreme temperatures. If you are comfortable in a temperature, most likely your laptop will be.
~ Do not spill coffee, soda or any liquid on your laptop. Keep them away. Do not take your laptop to starbucks and ogle at girls/guys. Most likely your coffee will ogle and drench your laptop
~ Keep it clean. Cleanliness is godliness; when it comes to laptops Dirt’s can certainly clog your laptop
~ If you encounter a battery problem always let your battery drain, before charging them up. This is because it may take a longer time to correct your problem if they are half-charged. Also, turn off power management in your OS Settings as well as in BIOS
Protection
~ Most of the laptops come with preloaded software and a set of s/w CDs and diskettes. It is always to make a recovery disks.
~ Take a backup of your data using USB drives or floppies or CDs depending upon what you have and the size of data
~ Use proper security software. You can use Norton or Symantec or F-Secure or anything of your choice. Most likely, they will give you free updates forever.
~ Get a laptop lock, if you are traveling and carry it with you. Unless you are certain to use your laptop in a awakened state, make sure you lock it, whenever you travel
~ You can have a login password(BIOS password too). They can be broken. It is always better to have something extra
~ If you are likely to have a static IP and a broadband connection, it is wiser to have a personal firewall installed.
~ You can use tools such as Ad-aware to kill the unwanted spies and ad-poppers in your laptop
~ Do not bang your keyboard. Do not type excessively fast like your normal keyboard as they are fragile.(I learned it the hard way when I lost the= button in my laptop)
Technical Maintenance Tips
~ It is wiser to buy a USB drive instead of a floppy disk as it is easy to carry and can store more data(upto 512 MB possible now)
~ Get a computer cleaning cloth(available in stores) and clean your LCD screens and your touchpads. Make it a point to clean your keyboard too, for personal hygiene
~ If you are uncomfortable using the touchpad or trackpoint, get an additional wireless/optical mouse
~ Get a USB hub, as it can be very handy to handle multiple USB connections
~ When you go for a webcam, always go for an LCD screentop webcam. I used a USB webcam once and most of the time I had to use one of my hands to focus. It was a very bad experience.
~ Get a wireless PCMCIA(802.11b) to make you WIFI. This is very helpful if you move to various places of your house/apartment. I broke a network cable slot as I walked with my laptop not knowing the cable was still attached. I had to buy a PCMCIA Ethernet card(before 802.11 that is) to replace it
~ Regarding the power supply adapter, make sure it had enough length, whilst using power supply. Again, do not move around with the cable attached. You can loosen the connection and your power supply can be distorted. My latest repair was pertaining to this. I forget sometimes that I have cable attached to my PC.:-)
~ Make sure you do not touch the reading laser tip of your CD writer/DVD ROM. If you are complacent about touching it, you will be in a conundrum later.
~ Make sure you go for “hot-swappable-drive” if you want your laptop to detect any additional hard/floppy/drives being added to your laptop.(You can reduce the weight of your laptop this way. This is a hit amongst corporate users)
~ For keyboard challenged, you can use On-Screen Keyboard in the Windows accessories(if you use windows), to key in your data. It is nice to get rid of your keyboard.(I am the total contrary. I do many of the mouse functions using the keyboard shortcuts.:-))
~ Find out the environment you will be using your laptop in, go for the LCD screen accordingly. It can be active matrix and backlit and reflective. It is better to choose the display, based on your needs
~ If you use it at your work too, it is better to use a docking station. The laptop can be effective as it emits lesser X-Rays and long-term effects can be voided thus.
CONCLUSION
Laptops/Notebooks are very costly(at present point of time). It is always wiser to take a good care of them before you end up having repairs. Prevention is always better than cure. Laptops are delicate and they need to be handled in a fragile manner. Laptops can be as effective as a desktop these days and they are more prone to issues as it is being carried around and due to the fact that its setup is disturbed more often than a desktop. So, give it a better care and it will give its worth for however long you use it(In present context, 3 years max!).
I Hope you liked my review. Do comment if time permits
KALIL
Note: All these funny quotes are from the Net
'To go forward, you must backup.'
'586: The average IQ needed to understand a PC.'
'MacOS, Windows, BeOS: they're all just Xerox copies.'
