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Enjoy Your Laptop Even More

By: Kay Brenner..

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.

Battery Life: More Juice

There are certain advantages of having a personal computer at home. One of them is that you can keep them plugged during usage, which means that you do not have to worry about batteries. With laptops, things are exactly the other way around. Battery life is an issue, but we can learn you how to prolong its life, in order to get more from your laptop when you are outside and away from any outlet.

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.

Backup, Backup, Backup!

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.

Laptop Security

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.

Because of the compact size of laptops, they're really easy to steal, so always know your laptop's whereabouts. Encrypting your laptop's hard drive can give you peace of mind; if your laptop gets stolen, as least the files residing on your hard drive are encrypted and cannot easily be viewed or accessed.

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.

Article Source: http://www.articleselections.com

Kay Brenner is a Computer performance consultant who specializes in restoring your slow PC, saving you from the hassles of struggling with a slow PC. To learn how to avoid computer problems, download a free PC Fix

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