BrianHawkinsTech

You may not give much thought to your laptop battery, until it fails.  Did you know Windows 7 now has a built in tool to give your battery a checkup?  This utility will give you information such as charge capacity (compare to its original state) and what programs are using your computer's resources.  Here are the simple steps to use this tool:

1. Click your Windows Orb (start menu icon)
2. Type cmd in the search box
3. In the results, you should see the program for cmd (dos prompt).  Right-click its icon and choose Run as administrator
4. In the new command prompt window that appears, type powercfg -energy

Hit Enter and it will begin to process.  When complete, the utility will list the number of items it found.  It will also display the path to view the complete report.  It will likely be similar to "c:\windows\system32\energy-report.html".  There you will be able to view all the dirty details of your battery and its usage. 

 

Do you have a lot of old CD's and DVD's sitting around collecting dust?  Why not cash them in for a shiny new iPod, iPhone, or iPad?  If your old discs are in good shape, you can send them in to iPodMeister.com and they will send you a brand new gadget!  There are some requirements to the condition of your discs; for example no porn, no scratched discs, and no promotional discs (see website for complete details).  If you are wondering what this company could possibly want with your old music and movies, its  very simple.  They sell these items in lower income, foreign countries where MP3 players are not common.  The iPodMeister site has a complete lookup table to show you just how many discs you have to trade in to get new gadgets.  Currently you can get an iPod Nano for 220 CDs/DVDs.  For a few discs more, they will even rip all your music to MP3 and send the digital files back to you! 

Corsair has a nifty new product out for anyone looking to add liquid cooling to their processor. The Corsair H50 CPU Cooler also happens to be well under $100. Personally, I have been interested in adding this type of cooling system to my case but am slightly intimidated by the setups. This cooler is completely enclosed; no mess, no fuss. Just mount the processor sink and the fan/radiator. No separate lines to run or reservoirs to fill. This fits several sockets both AMD and Intel (775,1366,1156,AM2, and AM3).