Types of battery

Do you know which type of battery you used?

There are many different types of batteries to meet the demands of individual appliances and their users. Always check appliance instructions and/or battery compartments for the size, chemistry and number of batteries that should be used

Lead-Acid
Energy-to-weight: Low
Self-discharge: Very Low
Rechargeable: Yes
Probably the only wet-cell battery you'll use on a daily basis, since it powers the ignition system and other electronics of your car. They can provide extremely high surges of power when required, such as activating the starter motor.

Zink-Carbon
Energy-to-weight: Moderate
Self-discharge: Very High
Rechargeable: No
Known as "super heavy duty" batteries. Extremely cheap and work well in devices that use very small power but they only last 18 month (includes manufactured date) when not in use.

Alkaline
Energy-to-weight: High
Self-discharge: High
Rechargeable: No
The most familiar disposable battery today and have many times capacity than other dry cell.

Nickel-Cadmium (Ni-Cd)
Energy-to-weight: High
Self-discharge: Moderate
Rechargeable: Yes
Provides plenty of power by weight and most significantly it is rechargeable. Unfortunately, if you recharge without properly discharging first, it wont charge up to full and have a "memory effect".

Nickel Metal Hydride (Ni-MH)
Energy-to-weight: Very High
Self-discharge: High
Rechargeble: Yes
Still suffers from memory effect but to nowhere near the same degree as Ni-Cd. Provides more energy by volume.

Lithium-Ion (Li-ion)
Energy-to-weight: Extreme
Self-discharge: Very Low
Rechargeable: Yes
The most popular battery in portable electronics. There's no memory effect so you can charge it after only a couple of hours use. Li-Ion also doesn't lose much charge when not being used.

Lithium Iron Disulphide
Energy-to-weight: Very Extreme
Self-discharge: Negligible
Rechargeable: No
Commonly used in high-end digital cameras and some watches. These batteries are capable of delivering high currents. They also last for up to ten years in a low-draw device and can operate in sub-zero temperatures. Unfortunately they cost an absolute fortune and not rechargeable.

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How to generate thumbnails at your website

Many online sites use thumbnails to raise the professional quality of their sites. Actually, this is a simple trick and can be used everywhere at your site. You don't need to provide any plugins/ add-on for generating thumbnails while you can save your server’s bandwidth.

Here’s the simple code:

<img src="http://msnsearch.srv.girafa.com/srv/i?s=MSNSEARCH&r={URL}"
alt="" />

All you have to do now is change the {URL} with the URL address needed.

Sample:

<img src="http://msnsearch.srv.girafa.com/srv/i?s=MSNSEARCH&r=http://topsites.on9trade.com"
alt="Online Ranking" />

And the result is like this:

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Skype Portable Version?

This is only a simple trick and work with Skype 1.4 and above.

• Download Skype and install it on any computer.

• Find Skype.exe and copy to any directory on your USB Drive
• i.e, C:\Program Files\Skype\Phone\Skype.exe

• Create a new directory and name it as "data"

• Now open a Notepad and create a new file called "skype.bat"

• Edit "skype.bat" file and place the following line:
• skype.exe /datapath:"Data" /removable

Done. Simply click the batch file to run Skype.

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10 tips for improving your wireless network

1. Position your wireless router (or wireless access point) in a central location

When possible, place your wireless router in a central location in your home.

2. Move the router off the floor and away from walls and metal objects (such as metal file cabinets)

Metal, walls, and floors will interfere with your router's wireless signals.

3. Replace your router's antenna

The antennas supplied with your router are designed to be omni-directional, meaning they broadcast in all directions around the router. If your router is near an outside wall, half of the wireless signals will be sent outside your home, and much of your router's power will be wasted. Most routers don't allow you to increase the power output, but you can make better use of the power. Upgrade to a hi-gain antenna that focuses the wireless signals only one direction. You can aim the signal in the direction you need it most.

4. Replace your computer's wireless network adapter

Wireless network signals must be sent both to and from your computer. Sometimes, your router can broadcast strongly enough to reach your computer, but your computer can't send signals back to your router.

Laptops with built-in wireless typically have excellent antennas and don't need to have their network adapters upgraded.

5. Add a wireless repeater

Wireless repeaters extend your wireless network range without requiring you to add any wiring. Just place the wireless repeater halfway between your wireless access point and your computer, and you'll get an instant boost to your wireless signal strength.

6. Change your wireless channel

Wireless routers can broadcast on several different channels, similar to the way radio stations use different channels. In the United States and Canada, these channels are 1, 6, and 11. Just like you'll sometimes hear interference on one radio station while another is perfectly clear, sometimes one wireless channel is clearer than others. Try changing your wireless router's channel through your router's configuration page to see if your signal strength improves.

You don't need to change your computer's configuration, because it'll automatically detect the new channel.

7. Reduce wireless interference

If you have cordless phones or other wireless electronics in your home, your computer might not be able to "hear" your router over the noise from the other wireless devices. To quiet the noise, avoid wireless electronics that use the 2.4GHz frequency. Instead, look for cordless phones that use the 5.8GHz or 900MHz frequencies.

8. Update your firmware or your network adapter driver

Router manufacturers regularly make free improvements to their routers. Sometimes, these improvements increase performance. To get the latest firmware updates for your router, visit your router manufacturer's Web site.

9. Pick equipment from a single vendor

While a Linksys router will work with a D-Link network adapter, you often get better performance if you pick a router and network adapter from the same vendor. Some vendors offer a performance boost of up to twice the performance when you choose their hardware: Linksys has the SpeedBooster technology, and D-Link has the 108G enhancement.

10. Upgrade 802.11b devices to 802.11g

802.11b is the most common type of wireless network, but 802.11g is about five times faster.

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Join Banner Exchange for free

Improve your site traffic and visibility by joining banner exchange network completely free of charge. There is no recruiting needed. All you have to do is sign up and let network do the rest by display banners on your website and earn credits for your banner displays.

READ MORE

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How Much Is Your Blog Worth?

Inspired by Tristan Louis's research into the value of each link to Weblogs Inc. When Weblogs Inc. was bought by AOL, Tristan Louis did the math. He figured out how much each blog in the Weblogs Inc. stable was worth, based on their Technorati rank. Just enter your blog URL to see how much it's "worth" using the Weblogs/AOL math. Give it a try!

My blog is worth $5,080.86. How much is your blog worth?

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The Nofollow Attribute

In early 2005, Google announced that hyperlinks with rel="nofollow" attribute, would not influence the link target's ranking in the search engine's index. Yahoo and MSN search engines also respect this tag.

The purpose of the rel="nofollow" attribute is to create HTML links which can be viewed and clicked by normal web users, but which will not be counted as a link by the search engines.
From now on, when Google sees the attribute rel="nofollow" on hyperlinks, those links won't get any credit when Google rank websites in their search results.

For example, this is how the HTML markup for an ordinary link might look:

<a href="http://ibytes.blogspot.com">ibytes</a>

This is how the link would look after the nofollow attribute has been added,
with the attribute portion shown in bold

<a href="http://ibytes.blogspot.com" rel="nofollow">ibytes</a>

This would also be acceptable, as order of elements within the anchor tag
makes no difference:

<a rel="nofollow" href="http://ibytes.blogspot.com" >ibytes</a>

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Disable USB writing

You can disable writing to the usb port to prevent user from using thumb drives.

Go to Start>Run and type 'regedit'.

Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control.

Add a new folder on the left by right click on it and selecting 'new | key'. Name this folder as "StorageDevicePolicies". Click this new folder, create a new DWORD value, label it "WriteProtect" and set value data "1". It is done. Turn the value data to "0" to make this accessible again.

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A safe on the Net

Passlet is an online password manager. Most online password managers are easy to use but they also pose their own share of problem. Nobody wants to entrust his password to a web server. Passlet deals with this problem by performing all encryption using 128bit long AES codes and decryption operations exclusively within your browser.

https://www.passlet.com

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iWebtool PageRank Predictor

Google PageRank (PR) updates about once every three months. People have come up with ways of trying to predict what your Pagerank is likely to be at the next update. If you work hard at link building you will see your predicted PageRank increase and when the next update comes you should see your PageRank increase.

"This predictor tool** does what it says, it predicts your future Google PageRank*.

*Google PageRank (PR) is a measure from 0 -10 of how important Google thinks a webpage is.
**Accuracy= 80-90%

Enter your domain name below:

Powered by iWEBTOOL

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How to show html code in blogger

Often web designers/ bloggers need to show examples of HTML code in their pages, such as:

<a href="http://ibytes.blogspot.com" target="_blank">Computers | Tech | Gadgets</a>

How do you render HTML as text not as HTML elements?

Most HTML tags require an 'opening' and 'closing'. Just replace "<" with &lt; and &gt; for ">".

or using Frontpage:

• Choose Show Design View, type your html code.
• Change to Code View and copy the selected code.
• Paste into your post in Compose Mode.
  

Another technic is using Form, ex: Text Area

[Go to Insert > Form > Text Area]

Sample Text Area

<a href="http://ibytes.blogspot.com" target="_blank">Computers | Tech | Gadgets</a>

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How to Hide Blogger NavBar

This is a simple technic but please check whether it is against the TOS (Terms of Service).

1) Go to Template > Edit Html

2) Search for the string
#header {
height: 119px;
margin: 0px;
padding: 0px;
background-color: $headerBgColor;
}

3) Paste the following code:

#navbar-iframe {
height: 0px;
visibility: hidden;
display: none;
}

4) Click Save template

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Things You Should Look For in Antivirus

Most important Antivirus features:

Scheduled Scans: Most antivirus software products will include a schedule to set when the software will automatically perform a scan. Programs vary in their flexibility of scan scheduling as well, so look for a program that will accommodate your daily schedule. Email Scanning: the program should monitor incoming and/or outgoing email traffic and file attachments. If a threat should be detected you will be notified to take action. Instant Messaging Protection: Viruses are often contracted through instant messaging programs such as AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) or Yahoo! Messenger. Some antivirus software can keep watch over instant messaging traffic to detect virus threats. Automatic Virus Updates/Program Updates: Because viruses are so rapidly and continuously developing updates to your antivirus software is incredibly important. Additionally, the program itself may be updated by the developers to increase efficiency and detection ability.

Other criteria used to evaluate anti-virus software:

• Ease of Use –Exceptional anti-virus software is simple to use, regardless of a person’s computer experience or knowledge of viruses.
• Effective at Identifying Viruses and Worms – The best anti-virus products identify infected files quickly through real-time scanning, searching for viruses in a multitude of sources, including email, instant message applications, web browsing and so on.
• Effective at Cleaning or Isolating Infected Files –Truly capable anti-virus software thoroughly cleans, deletes or quarantines infected files—keeping them from spreading throughout the hard drive or network.
• Activity Reporting – Anti-virus programs should give immediate notification of viruses found by real-time scanners and should provide an easy-to-read report of scan results, including what it found and what it did with infected files.
• Feature Set – A well-rounded feature set allows anti-virus software to provide absolute protection. The best programs are those that offer a wide variety of tools, from basic real-time scanning to more advanced, heuristic scanning and script blocking—when it comes to virus protection, the more options the better.
• Ease of Installation and Setup – Anti-virus programs should be a breeze to install, making it easy to go from installation to initial scan in just a couple clicks of the mouse.
• Help Documentation – High-end anti-virus software come with plenty of help, including support via email, online chat or over the telephone. There should also be online resources, such as knowledge bases and FAQs available for quick and convenient help.

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Optimize Your PC for Faster Start-Up

1. Tweak the PC Setup:

Your PC's hardware can keep you waiting for quite a while before Windows has a chance to start. You can reduce the delay by changing a few settings in your CMOS.

Quick Power On Self-Test: Set this to Fast or Enabled to skip some time-consuming memory and hardware start-up tests. The downside is that you might miss a developing problem with RAM or the motherboard.

Floppy Seek: If your PC's floppy has been working fine, there's no reason to test it every time you boot. Set this to Disabled.

IDE Drives: Look for a list of your Primary and Secondary IDE channels. When these options are set to Auto, your PC pauses to identify each IDE device as it boots. Set this to None on IDE channels you aren't using.

2. Check for viruses, spyware and adware:

Hidden malicious or annoying programs often load at system start-up, slowing down the process. Get rid of them by scanning for viruses and pests regularly.

Don't have antivirus and spyware utilities? You can get a free antivirus at Avast or AVG . At Trend Micro and BitDefender, you can find a free online virus check. Spybots-S&D can help you remove spyware and adware from your system, or you can try at PestScan's free online detector.

3. Eliminate unwanted start-up programs:

Go to Start, Run, typing MSCONFIG , click OK and you can see what programs load at start-up. (Msconfig isn't in Windows 2000, but programs like Startup Control Panel can fill in for it.)

Click the Startup tab to see a list of programs that launch at start-up. You'll need to experiment to see what you can do without. Just uncheck the boxes on the left-hand side of the Msconfig window to keep them from loading. The name and location of each file can help you figure out what it does.

In Windows XP, Msconfig has a Services tab that shows other application and OS components. Some can be unchecked so they won't load at start-up; others are essential to Windows.

4. Tune the Registry:

Programs like RegClean can sweep out defunct hardware and software settings that can clog up your Registry. RegClean works for older versions of Windows.

5. Defragment your hard drive:

Your hard drive doesn't always save a file in one place. Instead, it tucks parts of the file wherever there's free space. Use Disk Defragmenter on each of your drives to make those files contiguous, improving both start-up and overall Windows performance. Select Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk Defragmenter, select a drive, and click Start.

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5 tips to extend the life of your laptop battery

1 - Power down the display

Lowering the screen resolution and color depth decreases the workload on the GPU, thus extending the battery runtime. You can change these by going to Start/Settings/Control Panel/Display and clicking the Settings tab.

Disabling extra features like ClearType fonts and fade effects will cut down on the CPU’s power consumption. You can find these in the Control Panel under System/Advanced/Performance Settings/Visual Effects.

2 - Turn off unused devices

Many new notebooks provide a hard-wired On/Off switch for the Wi-Fi radio for this reason. Beyond that, you should go to the Control Panel, select System/Hardware/Device Manager, and disable the Ethernet adapter, infrared transceiver, and Bluetooth (if your notebook has one). It was designed for mobile devices, but having Bluetooth enabled actually consumes quite a bit of power.

3 - Decrease hard drive activity

To minimize the frequency with which your hard disk has to spin up to access data, defragmenting your hard drive regularly. This optimizes the placement of data on the drive so that it can be found more quickly. You can find the Disk Degfragmenter in the Start/Programs/Accessories/System Tools menu.

Also optimizing Windows paging file, which is an area of the hard drive that serves as virtual memory whenever your RAM is full. To change it, go to the Control Panel and click through System/Advanced/Performance Settings/Advanced/Virtual Memory Change and set both the initial and maximum paging file size to 1.5 times the capacity of the installed memory.

4 - Disable startup items

Startup items load into memory every time Windows boots up, which causes other open applications to spill over into virtual memory and adds to the CPU load. You can disable the startup options by opening the associated programs and going to the Options or Preferences menu. You can also remove them from the Start/Programs/Startup folder or by clicking Start/Run, entering MSCONFIG, and clicking OK. Select the Startup tab and clear the checkbox beside any unnecessary background items, like qttask (QuickTime).

5 - Condition the battery

When you purchase your notebook, charge the battery to 100 percent, discharge it completely, and then fully charge it to 100 percent again to help the battery remember exactly how much electrical charge it can hold. From then on, you’ll never need to completely discharge the battery again, but always make sure when charging it that you let it reach 100 percent.

Remember to plug in the AC adapter (or dock/port replicator) whenever you get a chance. Most notebooks will recharge quickly.

Keep your notebook cool. Exposure to high temperatures can be a battery’s worst enemy.

[Source Laptopmag.com]

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CustomizeGoogle

Google has become many people's de facto entry point to the Internet. If you want to tweak how the search site works, you'll love CustomizeGoogle, possibly the most useful Firefox extension you'll ever see.

For example, if you don't like the ads that appear on the right-hand side or at the top of the page, you can use CustomizeGoogle to make them disappear; do a search, and they're gone. The extension can also add links to other search sites, so you can use other search engines directly from Google. And if you add a History link to each search result, it can find old versions of a Web pages. Click the link, and you'll be sent to the WayBack Machine site, which caches old versions of Web pages.

Worried that Google may invade your privacy? The extension can block cookies from being sent to the Google Analytics service, which web site proprietors use to track visitor behavior on their pages.

There's plenty more here as well, such as the ability to customize Gmail by removing ads. You'll find dozens of ways to change how Google and all its services work.

[Via PC World]

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OS X (Tiger) Tips

This video makes the assumption that you are on an Intel mac running Tiger (as most new Mac users are). If you have any thing to add or a tutorial of your own, post it as a video response. Another thing I didn't mention: If you're on a MacBook go to the 'mouse and keyboard' menu, then on the gestures menu check all of the boxes and hover over them to see how to use them, then once they're all enabled, make good use of them!


<16:31>

FULL DESCRIPTION HERE: http://www.randombattle.com/osxtips.html

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Tips for Your Wi-Fi

1

Set your preferred network To make sure you always connect to the same wireless network, open the Network icon in your system tray, click the Advanced button, and under "Preferred networks," move the network to the top of the list.

2	Go stealth Tighten your home network's security by disabling its Service Set Identifier (SSID) broadcast. By default, all access points broadcast their SSID or network name to anyone within range. Disabling this feature will deter hackers.

3	Change frequencies To avoid potential interference from your cordless phone, buy one that operates on a frequency different from your network's. Companies such as Uniden now offer phones that operate on a 5.8GHz frequency; most Wi-Fi networks operate on 2.4GHz.

4	Channel surfing Too many wireless networks nearby? If you're experiencing trouble, try changing the Wi-Fi channel to avoid interference. Check your manual for instructions.

5	Repeat performance Adding a repeater is the quickest and easiest way to broaden the range of your wireless network. Just place the repeater halfway between your router and your computer.

6

Build a wall Create a virtual wall of protection between your network and the Internet by installing a firewall on every computer logged on to your network. This will keep Internet pests at bay. To enable Windows' built-in firewall, go to Control Panel > Security Center > Windows Firewall. Make sure the On radio button is selected and hit OK. For even better protection, another alternative is Zone Labs' free ZoneAlarm firewall application.

7	Opt for change Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) has been cracked before, but changing your WEP key often will add another level of protection to your network.

8	Restricted area If your access point supports it, use access lists to specify which machines can log on to your network. [Via Cnet]

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Good and Bad Passwords

Because the attacks are becoming increasingly more common, you don't want to use anything in your password that's personal and easy to guess. Keep in mind the following don'ts:

• Don't use only letters or only numbers
• Don't use names of spouses, children, girlfriends/boyfriends or pets
• Don't use phone numbers, Social Security numbers or birthdates
• Don't use the same word as your log-in, or any variation of it
• Don't use any word that can be found in the dictionary — even foreign words
• Don't use passwords with double letters or numbers

The best passwords are at least eight characters in length and use a combination of numbers, keyboard characters and upper- and lower-case letters. The longer your password is, the longer it will take someone (or more likely, some program) to crack it.

A good password is one that is easy to remember but difficult to guess. That sounds like a paradox, but it's really not.

There are a couple of different ways to create difficult-to-crack passwords. One is substituting letters with characters and numbers. To make it easier on yourself, try to use numbers and characters that resemble the letters they are replacing.

For example, you would never want to use the word "password" as your password. If you change it to p@s5w0rd!, you've got something that would take some time to crack but is fairly simple to remember.

Some of the worst passwords are: password, qwerty, admin, secret, abc123, 123456, and the name of your company or department or your car's plate number.

Finally, never leave it blank. That's a surefire way to let the bad guys into your system.

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Tips for Mozilla Firefox

1

Open tabs with one click Instead of right-clicking a link and choosing Open Link in New Tab, click a link with your mouse's scroll-wheel button to open it in a new tab. You can also click that tab with your scroll wheel to close it. (You may have to disable any function assigned to your click wheel for this to work, however.)

2	One-click combos Don't have a scroll wheel? Hold down Ctrl while left-clicking a link to open a URL in a new tab, or hold Shift and left-click to open a URL in a new window.

3

More on Autocomplete To eliminate your AutoComplete history in Firefox, go to Tools > Options > Privacy. In the Saved Form Information area, click the Clear button. To disable this feature entirely, click on the plus symbol next to the Saved Form Information area and uncheck "Save information I enter in web page forms."

4	Keep tabs on your tabs You can control how new tabs open in Firefox in one of three ways: Open the page in a new window, open the page in a new tab in the front window, or replace the current page in the front window. Click the Advanced section of the Options window to customise it to your liking.

5	Smooth sailing Put an end to jerky document scrolling by enabling Firefox's "Use smooth scrolling" feature in the Advanced section of the Options window.

6	Search in shorthand Type a word in the address bar, then hit Ctrl+Enter to automatically add http://www and .com to the beginning and end, respectively, of the word. (Ctrl+Shift+Enter adds .org, and Shift+Enter adds .net.)

7	Zoom in and out Hit Ctrl and the plus sign to increase text size on your current Web page or Ctrl and the minus to decrease it. To restore the original size, hit Ctrl+0.

8	Open a tab To open a particular tab in Firefox, hit Ctrl+1 through Ctrl+9. Tabs aren't numbered, though, so you'll have to physically count them.

9	Use live bookmarks Get the latest headlines from your favourite RSS news sites and blogs. Just click the square, bright-orange icon in the bottom right corner of your browser and click "OK to save as bookmark." The Live Bookmark will now function as your RSS aggregator.

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