Laptop market

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of the Toshiba Laptop Battery   First post by: www.batterystores.ca

Intel's contribution is developing a mobile platform technology enabling laptops to take advantage of Panasonic's battery such as Toshiba Satellite A70 Battery, Toshiba Satellite A75 Battery, Toshiba Tecra 8000 Battery, Toshiba Tecra 8100 Battery, Toshiba Tecra 9000 Battery, Toshiba Tecra 9100 Battery, Toshiba Satellite 1900 Battery, Toshiba Satellite A60-662 Battery, Toshiba Satellite A65 Battery, Toshiba Satellite 2100 Battery.

"It's not a trivial matter to get handheld devices to operate down to 2.5 volts," said Kelty, adding that most laptops are designed to shut down when a battery gets down to 3 volts.

"Intel is going to modify their platform so their chips can run off the lower voltage," Kelty said.

Independent studies of the Sony and Panasonic performance claims are hard to come by, and some scientists suspect any improvement has more to do with better power management in the design of mobile products.

Donald Sadoway, a materials scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said the only way to really test the value of Sony's new battery is to see it perform in a wide range of products.

"For all we know they could have developed more efficient displays, improved hard drives in their cameras," he said.

Finding ways of squeezing more performance from available power is a huge area of exploration for electronics makers.

For example, they tinker with a device's clockwork — the term used to describe how fast a machine performs a specific function — to speed up energy-eating chores.

They look for ways to prevent extreme temperatures from siphoning off energy.

Sometimes an executive in charge of power management employs a less scientific approach: begging designers to make room for a bigger battery in the device, said Dave Heacock, vice president of Texas Instruments' portable power division.

"Everyone is involved in the same race to lower power consumption of their products while improving them," Heacock said.

Meantime, people can always buy heavy portable batteries for backup power, extra rechargeable batteries and extra chargers. And lug them around.

Paul, the salesman, is among consumers who wonder what good mobile devices do if they need to be recharged so often.

"When you're trying to streamline our lives, the idea of keeping a backup battery, car charger and a standard charger is not the ideal solution," he said.

Electronics thirst for more juice

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of the Toshiba Laptop Battery   First post by: www.batterystores.ca

For most of us, a dead battery in our cellphone or digital camera is an annoyance. For surgical-tools salesman Jason Paul, it can cost him big money.

Paul counts on his cellphone to check his stocks and send e-mail. He logs more than 3,000 minutes a month in calls to his clients. He also uses his phone to show doctors video clips of how his products perform in the operating room.

"When I'm using it like this, which is most days, I maybe get two or three hours out of the batteries," says Paul, who works for Fremont, Calif.-based Rita Medical Systems.

"If it goes out and some doctor is trying to get a hold of me and can't, then they get angry. You're only one bad case away from losing a customer."

Paul, 29, is among a growing number of consumers becoming ever more dependent on their energy-hungry gadgets.

But cellphones, laptops, digital music players and portable video-game consoles tend to gobble up more power with every additional feature.

Battery makers are racing to keep up, finding new ways to pack more power into smaller and smaller spaces.

Technical challenges

The technical challenges are daunting. Most people have little understanding of the complex and volatile chemistry that occurs in their batteries each time they videotape the kids at soccer practice or listen to their iPod, says Brian Barnett, managing director of research and development firm Tiax.

"Can you imagine a chemical plant that has to operate in a closed condition and send energy forward and backward 500 times?" Barnett said.

"And you can't send anybody in to do maintenance. People who operate chemical plants laugh, but that's what we do with a rechargeable cell."

Much of the research is centered on improving the lithium ion battery such as Toshiba Satellite A70 Battery, Toshiba Satellite A75 Battery, Toshiba Tecra 8000 Battery, Toshiba Tecra 8100 Battery, Toshiba Tecra 9000 Battery, Toshiba Tecra 9100 Battery, Toshiba Satellite 1900 Battery, Toshiba Satellite A60-662 Battery, Toshiba Satellite A65 Battery, Toshiba Satellite 2100 Battery, which has revolutionized the electronics industry since it was widely adopted in the mid-1990s.

Found in most mobile electronics gear, lithium ion batteries are energy dense, smaller and lighter than nickel-based batteries, but are often more expensive.

They work by mixing lithium cobaltate at the positive terminal and graphite at the negative. The two materials produce a lot of energy when they react with each other.

Some of the scientists involved believe lithium ion has maxed out as a power source. And some companies are already coming up with new materials to replace cobaltate and graphite.

Sony and Matsushita Electric Industrial, which makes Panasonic brand products, each announced earlier this year that they had developed longer-lasting lithium ion batteries by tweaking the chemical equation.

Both companies say their methods can boost the life of a battery by up to 30 percent, claims some analysts question.

Sony says it replaced graphite with a mixture of tin, cobalt and carbon for its "hybrid" battery, which is being rolled out exclusively in the company's new DVD Handycam camcorders.

Mike Kahn, a Sony senior product manager, said the new materials stuff more ions into a cell, extending the life of the battery by 20 percent in normal conditions.

The hybrid outperforms standard batteries in cold weather by 30 percent and recharges faster, he says.

Kahn declined to say when Sony's innovation would be brought to cellphones, laptops or other products.

Panasonic says it's working together with Intel to develop an "all-day battery," increasing the capacity by swapping cobaltate for another material the company won't disclose.

The new material allows the batteries to be discharged down to a lower voltage, enabling users to get more runtime from their devices.

Designed to power laptops, cellphones and other mobile electronics, Panasonic's first-generation battery is scheduled to hit store shelves in April, says Kurt Kelty, director of the Panasonic Energy Solutions Lab.

Nigeria starts voter registration for April poll

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of the Toshiba Laptop Battery   First post by: www.batterystores.ca

An effort to register 70 million voters across Nigeria before its April presidential election wobbled to a start Saturday, as volunteers fought with malfunctioning equipment and frustrated people struggled to find registration stations.

The two-week effort in Africa's most populous nation will see volunteers scattered across about 120,000 locations in Nigeria's arid north, fertile central valleys and oil-rich southern delta. They'll use laptop computers, digital cameras and fingerprint scanners to register eligible voters.

But on Saturday, the drive's first day, problems began almost immediately.

At a school on Lagos' Ikoyi Island, officials argued with each other at a distribution point hours after volunteers should have staffed their locations. When workers finally opened the metal cases containing their laptops, printers and extra batteries such as Toshiba PA3399U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3395U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3250U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3356U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3291U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3506U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3591U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba Portege 4000 Battery, Toshiba Satellite A10 Battery, Toshiba Satellite A100 Battery, they discovered the electronic equipment hadn't been charged, in a country where electricity remains scarce.

Later, workers sat idle at several locations visited by an Associated Press reporter as they couldn't make the machines the government bought for more than $230 million work. At another station, Nigerian-born rapper and singer Nneka said she had waited several hours to register, but officials shut down and left. Many complaints focused on the fingerprint scanners.

"It is only people who are politicians who can afford to wait for four hours," said Oluwa Aren, one frustrated voter.

Adding to the confusion for prospective voters, the Independent National Electoral Commission has not published a list of registration points or posted the information to their website.

Commission spokesman Kayode Idowu said Saturday that Nigerians had been instructed to walk around near their homes to find a station. He called the issues Saturday as "teaching problems." However, he acknowledged that some locations had not even received their equipment yet.

"They'll be sorted out in the next 24 hours," Idowu said.

A list of registration points he previously showed to the AP identified many sites as schools. The government recently announced all schools in the nation of 150 million people would remain closed for a month to allow for the registration, angering parents and educators. Other locations on the list remained more vague. At least eighteen locations were described as being under or near mango trees.

The April elections include a presidential poll in which President Goodluck Jonathan will face opponents from minor parties. Jonathan is a member of the ruling People's Democratic Party, the only force with the money, political connections and muscle necessary to manipulate an election.

International observers called the 2007 election of the late President Umaru Yar'Adua rigged, even though it represented the first civilian-to-civilian transfer of power in the nation's history.

The registration points are staffed by members of Nigeria's National Youth Service Corps, a mandatory yearlong program for students after they graduate from university. Those volunteers also will serve as local election officials in April elections, though the corps leader recently warned: "If anybody wants to snatch the ballot box, just give them and save your life."

On Lagos Island, one registration point along a busy road did work. Muritala Okeowo, 48, held up his card to passers-by, which was simply two pieces of computer paper in a laminated cover bearing a fuzzy photograph and a barcode on the back.

"To get the card there was a queue," Okeowo said. "The machine is not working well. We've been waiting here since morning."

While organizers at the Ikoyi Island school tried to prepare, 29-year-old Remi Aderem arrived to try and register. Officials turned him away. Afterward, he said he had driven around his neighborhood to try and a registration point, but found no one. Someone finally suggested he try the school.

Aderem shrugged and accepted it in a country where parties and events routinely begin hours after their starting time.

"People want real democracy," he said. "If you invite people, they will come."

Nigeria off to a rocky start in drive to register 70 million voters

Welcome to a laptop battery specialist
of the Toshiba Laptop Battery   First post by: www.batterystores.ca

An effort to register 70 million voters across Nigeria before its April presidential election wobbled to a start Saturday, as volunteers fought with malfunctioning equipment, and frustrated people struggled to find registration stations.

The two-week effort in Africa's most populous nation will see volunteers scattered across about 120,000 locations in Nigeria's arid north, fertile central valleys and oil-rich southern delta. They'll use laptop computers, digital cameras and fingerprint scanners to register eligible voters.

But on Saturday, the drive's first day, problems began almost immediately.

At a school on Lagos' Ikoyi Island, officials argued with each other at a distribution point hours after volunteers should have staffed their locations. When workers finally opened the metal cases containing their laptops, printers and extra batteries such as Toshiba PA3399U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3395U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3250U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3356U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3291U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3506U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3591U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba Portege 4000 Battery, Toshiba Satellite A10 Battery, Toshiba Satellite A100 Battery, they discovered the electronic equipment hadn't been charged, in a country where electricity remains scarce.

Later, workers sat idle at several locations as they couldn't make the machines the government bought for more than $230 million work. At another station, Nigerian-born rapper and singer Nneka said she had waited several hours to register, but officials shut down and left. Many complaints focused on the fingerprint scanners.

"It is only people who are politicians who can afford to wait for four hours," said Oluwa Aren, one frustrated voter.

Adding to the confusion for prospective voters, the Independent National Electoral Commission has not published a list of registration points or posted the information to their website.

Commission spokesman Kayode Idowu said Saturday that Nigerians had been instructed to walk around near their homes to find a station. He called the issues Saturday as "teaching problems." However, he acknowledged that some locations had not even received their equipment yet.

"They'll be sorted out in the next 24 hours," Idowu said.

The April elections include a presidential poll in which President Goodluck Jonathan will face opponents from minor parties. Jonathan is a member of the ruling People's Democratic Party, the only force with the money, political connections and muscle necessary to manipulate an election.

International observers called the 2007 election of the late President Umaru Yar'Adua rigged, even though it represented the first civilian-to-civilian transfer of power in the nation's history.

The registration points are staffed by members of Nigeria's National Youth Service Corps, a mandatory yearlong program for students after they graduate from university. Those volunteers also will serve as local election officials in April elections, though the corps leader recently warned: "If anybody wants to snatch the ballot box, just give it to them and save your life."

On Lagos Island, one registration point along a busy road did work. Muritala Okeowo, 48, held up his card to passers-by, which was simply two pieces of computer paper in a laminated cover bearing a fuzzy photograph and a bar code on the back.

"To get the card there was a queue," Okeowo said. "The machine is not working well. We've been waiting here since morning."

Google Debuts Chromebook, the Web-Only Laptop

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of the Toshiba Laptop Battery   First post by: www.batterystores.ca

Should I use a laptop as my only computer? That's not an uncommon question these days.

Choosing a notebook as primary computer certainly is a reasonable choice, especially now that many are packed with the power and capabilities formerly found only in desktop models.

In 2000, I used a Dell laptop as my sole PC. It worked fine for a year, until the CD drive began behaving erratically and finally quit. At the same time, I started thinking the notebook's small screen, single USB port and 128 megabytes of memory weren't enough for the range of projects I wanted to do.

So I switched to a Hewlett-Packard Pavilion desktop with a 17-inch monitor, one Firewire and four USB ports, CD-RW and DVD drives, 80 gigabyte hard drive and 512 MB of memory. Laptops didn't carry all that back then, at least at any price I could afford.

My older daughter, for example, likes being able to take her Toshiba laptop to work, coffee shops and friends' houses. Still, she has complained that after a year of constant use, the CD-RW drive sometimes doesn't work. That sounds familiar.

Reader Don Brubeck wrote that his daughter "took a brand new laptop to college and within days spilled a cup of lemonade on the keyboard. If it were a desktop computer, the damage would have been a $50 keyboard. But a laptop has the motherboard under the permeable keyboard, and it was a $1,200 event, with the computer at a repair shop for two weeks. She learned a costly lesson in how to make a lemon out of lemonade."

For three years, University of Washington professor Mike Copeland has been using an Apple PowerBook to do all his work, including creating videos for teaching. He keeps a peripheral keyboard and mouse at home and another set at work to make using the laptop easier. Plus, he regularly backs up the traveling data on an external hard drive.

The only problems, he says, have been a CD drive that died (no surprise), and once he dropped the notebook in an airport and had to replace the screen.

Mac programmer Kevin Callahan says a lot of professionals use Apple's 17-inch PowerBook with FinalCut Pro to do broadcast-quality editing for video. But, he adds, no laptop can approach Apple's new 64-bit Dual 2Ghz G5 when it comes to processing video and audio.

The primary advantage of a laptop, of course, is mobility. Indeed, I started writing this column on a notebook in the lounge of the Rain City Fencing Center while my younger daughter began training for her current life's ambition to be a medieval warrior. Without the laptop, I would have had to pass three hours every day for two weeks reading magazines and novels while she learned to handle a foil.

That was in August, and I'm still procrastinating on my laptop decision.

Hmmm, the features and capabilities I would want on a laptop are different from what I'd want if I traveled a lot. If I were a frequent flier, I'd want my notebook to be light and have extended life of the battery such as Toshiba PA2487U Battery, Toshiba PA3107U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3383U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3384U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3285U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3191U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3166U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3331U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3098U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3084U-1BRS Battery and good Wi-Fi support. I'd also be concerned about theft, since more than 590,000 laptops were reportedly stolen in the U.S. in just a year.

Since I don't travel much, my laptop doesn't need to be superlight, but does need to be easily portable and must have ample battery life and Wi-Fi support. It also must have a few Firewire and USB 2.0 ports and enough speed, memory and storage space to handle large multimedia projects. That last requirement is still what makes me hesitate.

Maybe I should use a desktop for creating and saving multimedia projects, and keep it disconnected from the Internet so photos and videos will be safe. The notebook would then be the computer for daily e-mail, writing and searching the Net.

Neah Power gives charge to laptops

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of the Toshiba Laptop Battery   First post by: www.batterystores.ca

Anyone who has spent much time with a laptop or notebook computer knows intimately the frustrations of short battery life.

Whereas cellphones, personal digital assistants and cameras have made continuous progress in recent years — with batteries getting smaller, lighter and more long-lived — PCs seem stuck in recharger hell. My Sony Vaio gets about an hour and a half of continuous use from a charge. My older IBM ThinkPad gets around two hours, but it doesn't have the Vaio's power-sucking DVD drive. My Apple iBook does much better, around five hours a charge, although it shortens considerably if I'm watching videos.

It's almost as though we are gluttons for punishment. Notebooks are the fastest-growing segment of PC sales, at 30 million units last year. By 2004, 60 million Wi-Fi-capable notebooks will be in use, Intel projects. Notebooks are taking over the enterprise and mobile professional markets.

Salvation from recharger hell may be on the way — from a pioneering Bothell company called Neah Power Systems. Possessing strong tech bloodlines and financial backing from venture companies and Intel, Neah is on track to make portable PCs wireless — and cordless.

I say "cordless" because 80 percent of the time I'm running a notebook off an outlet. I'm either recharging the battery in use, charging a spare or getting work done that requires more than a couple of hours of running time.

Neah promises to make battery panic go away through use of its unique fuel-cell technology. Here's what the company foresees: eight-plus hours on a fuel cell that weighs a third as much as a conventional lithium-ion battery (remember when lithium-ion was considered the weight breakthrough?). And the fuel cell will go in the same bay as the regular battery such as Toshiba PA2487U Battery, Toshiba PA3107U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3383U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3384U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3285U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3191U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3166U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3331U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3098U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3084U-1BRS Battery.

The last point is significant because traditional fuel-cell technology isn't quite refined enough to fit in a regular battery slot. So you get ugly "growths" on a portable device with a bolt-on cell. Neah Power's technology is more compact and does away with another fuel-cell concern: the byproduct of water vapor.

Conventional fuel cells produce moisture. Not a problem in an automobile, say. But you don't want water around sophisticated microchip gear.

The Neah Power cell is sealed, drawing oxygen from a separate chamber and capturing water and carbon dioxide internally.

The secret to Neah Power's compactness lies in its fuel-cell innovation. The cell contains porous silicon substrata that pack a lot of electrochemical activity into very small spaces. The honeycomb design is intended to be more efficient as well as safer than conventional fuel cells.

So far Neah Power is making all the right corporate moves. It recently brought in as chief executive David Dorheim, whose credits include the DustBuster line at Black & Decker and managerial positions in GE's battery division. Neah's board also added Global Business Network's Peter Schwartz and former RealNetworks executive Len Jordan. Its chairman is Dan Rosen, a seasoned deal maker who played key roles at AT&T and Microsoft.

Now all Neah Power has to do is produce. Founded in 1999, it hopes to offer a demonstration product this year and ship by 2005.

The company could face some speed bumps. Lithium-ion technology could improve, although that's a long shot. Experts such as Brian Barnett, director of advanced battery technology at TIAX, are on record as saying lithium-ion is pretty much maxed out.

And pricing hasn't been set. The company says a fuel cell will cost about the equivalent of a blister pack of standard batteries — $4 to $5. Fuel cells will have to be cheap to offer a meaningful alternative.

Finally, I wish Neah Power's cells could be recharged. The technology may emerge to do so, company executives say. But I hate the thought of a "green" technology contributing to landfills.

For now, more power to Neah Power. All road warriors will appreciate any promise of recharger redemption.

FAA issues fire warning for lithium batteries

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of the Sony laptop battery   First post by: www.batterystores.ca

Federal aviation officials urged air carriers Friday to voluntarily take steps to reduce the risk of cargo fires caused by overheated lithium batteries, an indication of regulators' growing concern about the threat posed by air transport of the batteries such as Sony PCGA-BP71 battery, Sony VGP-BPL2 battery, Sony VGP-BPS2 battery, Sony VGP-BPS3 battery, Sony VGP-BPS5 battery, Sony VGP-BPS8 battery, Sony VGP-BPS9 battery, Sony PCG-R505 battery, Sony PCG-V505 battery, Sony PCG-Z505 battery.

The warning follows last month's crash of a United Parcel Service plane in Dubai that killed both pilots.

The Federal Aviation Administration acknowledged publicly for the first time in Friday's safety directive that the Boeing 747-400 was carrying a large quantity of lithium batteries. Smoke from a fire in the plane's main cabin, which was used for cargo, was so thick that the pilots told air traffic controllers they couldn't see their instruments as they struggled to land the plane.

Dubai authorities are leading an investigation of the accident with assistance from the National Transportation Safety Board and FAA. The cause of the crash hasn't yet been determined.

The safety directive urges air carriers to ask shippers to identify bulk battery shipments in shipping documents. It also recommends stowing battery shipments in cargo compartments in the belly of planes, where there are halon gas fire suppression systems. There are no fire suppression systems required in the main cabins of cargo or passenger planes.

The Air Transport Association, which represents major airlines and cargo carriers, is reviewing the safety directive and will implement the recommendations, David Castelveter, an association spokesman, said in a statement.

PRBA, which represents the rechargeable battery industry, said in a statement that the safety directive is consistent with the association's position that greater enforcement of existing safety regulations - not more stringent regulations - is the best way to address the problem.

Since the early 1990s, there have been dozens of incidents of batteries igniting in flight or during cargo handling. But exactly what triggered many of the fires is not well understood.

The FAA's safety directive said that recent research conducted by its scientists shows that when batteries are exposed to high temperatures they have the potential to create "thermal runaway," a chain reaction leading to self-heating and the release of a battery's stored energy.

A cargo compartment fire can be hot enough to ignite batteries even if they aren't involved the initial fire, "creating a risk of a catastrophic event," the safety directive said. Once one battery experiences thermal runaway, it generates enough heat to trigger thermal runaway in other nearby batteries. Lithium metal batteries - the kind normally used in watches and cameras, for example - can create explosions forceful enough to damage cargo compartments.

FAA tests of as few as six loose lithium metal batteries stored in steel containers found that when exposed to heat they created enough explosive force to blow the lids off the containers, the directive said.

"There are currently no approved and tested containers that can sufficiently contain the known effects of accidental lithium metal battery ignition," the safety directive said. "Common metal shipping containers, pails and drums are not designed to withstand a lithium metal cell fire."

The halon fire suppression systems used in the lower cargo compartments of passenger and cargo planes aren't able to put out fires caused by lithium metal batteries. However, the systems can extinguish fires caused by lithium ion batteries, which are rechargeable batteries similar to the kind used in many cell phones and laptop computers.

Lithium ion batteries are also flammable and capable of self-igniting. They can generate temperatures very close to the melting point of aluminum, which is what the exterior of airplanes are typically made of, the safety directive said.

John Cox, an aviation safety consultant and former airline pilot, said the safety directive indicates it is even easier for lithium battery fires to spread than was previously known.

The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration proposed new regulations in January that would require lithium batteries be treated as hazardous cargo. Battery shipments would have to have special packaging and workers who ship them would have to receive special training. There would also have to be special labeling and pilots would have to be told that their cargo contained lithium batteries.

The regulations, which have not yet been made final, have been strongly opposed by the electronics industry, battery makers and some cargo carriers, including UPS. Industry officials have estimated the cost of the proposed regulations at over $1 billion a year.

How to handle mothball odor and recharge batteries

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of the Sony laptop battery   First post by: www.batterystores.ca

Q: I was given some Christmas ornaments, tablecloth and napkins that had been in storage. They reek of mothballs. How can I get rid of the odor?

A: It takes time, but air will do it for you. Mothballs change from a solid to a gas. (It's the gas that makes them an effective insect repellent.)

The fastest way to get rid of mothball odor is to expose items to fresh air and sunshine. That can be hard to do now at this latitude.

Meanwhile, you can try washing the linens, wiping off the ornaments and placing them in an unused room or basement to let the odor dissipate. You may have to wait until next Christmas to use them.

Q: My husband insists on unplugging our laptop and letting the battery die, then plugging it in and recharging it. He argues that it charges better by doing this. He also does this with other rechargeable equipment. I insist that it doesn't matter and could wear the battery down. Can you settle this argument and enlighten us on the right way to recharge batteries in laptops such as Sony PCGA-BP71 battery, Sony VGP-BPL2 battery, Sony VGP-BPS2 battery, Sony VGP-BPS3 battery, Sony VGP-BPS5 battery, Sony VGP-BPS8 battery, Sony VGP-BPS9 battery, Sony PCG-R505 battery, Sony PCG-V505 battery, Sony PCG-Z505 battery?

A: He may be right. Check the laptop manual for directions on recharging the battery. The type of battery can determine how it should be charged.

The nickel cadmium battery (NiCd) is older technology, and it needs to be fully discharged before recharging to avoid the "memory effect." Memory effect is when the battery, upon charging from less than the fully discharged starting point, remembers the limited cycle and results in reduced capacity.

The lithium ion (Li-on) battery is newer technology and does not suffer from the memory effect. Lithium batteries might be affected, however, by extended time on a charger once they are charged.

Nickel metal hydride (NiMH) batteries, which have a slight memory effect, should be fully discharged prior to charging about once every 20 charges.

In any case, it's not going to hurt the battery if you let the charge drop down as far as the unit will allow (typically that's not to zero but around 15 percent power), and then recharge it. It just may not be necessary.

Tools turn laptop into power source for handheld devices

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of the Sony laptop battery   First post by: www.batterystores.ca

A few years ago, our cellphone batteries would poop out after an hour of talking or a day of standby, and our laptops could barely play CDs and handle word processing for two hours.

Today's digital devices are much more miserly power users, but digital road warriors are still stuck on every trip carrying several power bricks — those half-pound or heavier power adapters unique to each device that plug into wall outlets.

Even as we cut phone cords and connection cables by using cellphones, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, we're still tangled in power cords. (Wireless devices don't help; they need to be recharged because they suck down power constantly when in use.)

There's a solution, one that requires switching from bricks to USB (Universal Serial Bus) and similar cables that can trickle power to such devices as cellphones, personal digital assistants and MP3 players.

This approach allows you to centralize your power-supply needs in your laptop, reducing the clutter and confusion of dealing with numerous cables and differing connections.

Let's look at the options for charging via USB and FireWire, and the options that can help you keep a laptop battery such as Sony PCGA-BP1N battery, Sony PCGA-BP2NX battery, Sony PCGA-BP2NY battery, Sony PCGA-BP2R battery, Sony PCGA-BP2S battery, Sony PCGA-BP2T battery, Sony PCGA-BP2V battery, Sony PCGA-BP4V battery, Sony PCGA-BP71 battery, Sony VGP-BPL2 battery charged and ready for its trickling duties.

Universal power

The USB port on portable computers sold since the late 1990s isn't just for exchanging data. It also aids sending a nominal electrical charge to power sensors or controls on keyboards, mice and even scanners or digital cameras.

With the right adapter, you can even plug in devices that don't have USB connectors — such as cellphones — and slowly charge them from the laptop.

The only drawback of USB charging is that if you leave devices plugged in when your laptop is fully powered down, not just in sleep or standby mode, the computer's battery can drain the peripheral's power — a reverse flow of sorts.

American Power Conversion (APC), a veteran supplier of battery-backup systems, also makes some of the highest-quality USB charger cables. It has cellphone cables at $15 to $20 each for a large number of models. PDA adapters for Palm and Pocket PC models also support synchronization; they're $20 each.

Keyspan offers similar adapters in its Zip-Linq series of retractable cables . The retractable feature keeps the adapters neatly tucked away when not in use. The cellphone adapters cost slightly more and PDA adapters slightly less than APC models.

If you own an Apple iPod, you can charge it using its docking cable via a FireWire port on a Mac or certain IEEE 1394 ports on a PC. (Some FireWirelike ports, such as Sony's i.Link version, don't always provide power, only data transfer.)