Rechargeable Batteries

We've all heard a number of different tips on getting the best life out of your rechargeable batteries, regardless of if they are in your cell phone, laptop or any other device. What does it really mean when they say that charging wears away the battery? Why do I want to let the battery drain completely before recharging it? These two concepts in particular may seem counterintuitive, but when you consider the following analogy the confusion clears up. Think of a rechargeable battery as a knife. Using that knife slowly wears away at the blade and dulls it to the point where it's not useful. At this point you want to sharpen it, but doing so actually wears away a bit of the blade. You're left with a sharp, useful blade that is slightly smaller than before. Charging your battery is sharpening a knife; it eats away at the battery ever so little, but it makes it useful again.
When you are using your laptop, you are draining the battery, or dulling the knife. If it's always plugged in, all that you are using is the top 10% of the battery; that's like only using the tip of the knife for everything, and only resharpening the tip. The knife will wear away unevenly, and become shorter in the process. This is why draining the battery is recommended. Fulling draining the battery before recharging wears away at the battery evenly, and maintains better performance overall.

E-Book Readers

What is an E-Book?
In simple terms, an E-Book is any method of storing the information found in a particular book electronically, usually on a computer or on a device called an E-book reader. Until fairly recently, the most common(only?) way for accessing and reading E-Books was through a computer. For many, this was enough, but for people who liked the portability of their books, being tied to their computer for reading books in an electronic format was a burden.

Formats(Pros and Cons)An E-Book is an E-Book is an E-Book, right? If only that were true. In fact, like anything else these days, there are a number of differing "standards" when it comes to E-Books. One of the most popular, and most accessible is PDF format, which has been around for years. Chances are pretty good that you already have the software required to view these on your computer. It stands for "Portable Document Format" and is most commonly opened through Adobe Acrobat Reader, but a number of other applications are available that work just fine. The popularity of this format stems from the relatively small space these files take up and the lack of any restrictions such as DRM. You can purchase a book in PDF format and functionally have no limit to the number of copies you could create from this file, but the legality of doing so depends on the rights of the copyright owner of said book. The very practical reason why you would want to do this is to prevent yourself from losing the file forever, by making a copy and storing on a CD-R or DVD-R, if your computer fails and needs to be replaced, you still have your E-Book.

E-Pub is a popular format; hundreds of thousands of books have been published this way internationally. Between this and PDF, if the book you want has been published as an E-book, chances are strong that it has been published in one of these two formats. Again, the files are relatively small and your options for programs that will allow you to read these are not limited.

Plain Text is another format, but admittedly, you aren't likely to see it as a format for any books that aren't in the public domain. Plain Text is just what it sounds like. You won't see any illustrations or fancy layouts, just text. The files are quite small, and extremely easy to copy and redistribute, and for that reason alone aren't used in the distribution of for-sale books. Regardless of this, if you are in the market for an E-Book Reader(which we will get to below), you will want one that can handle Plain Text, and it's very likely that it won't be an issue.

Proprietary Formats: Anyone with an E-Book store is likely to have their own format of E-Book files, and this is where the similarities between E-Books and real books really fall apart. A proprietary format basically means that to read their books, you need to use their software or devices to read them. Imagine needing a special pair of glasses for reading books that you bought from one store, and another pair for books bought from another store. The main reason for this is the illusion of control. Copyright owners need to feel that they have complete control over their intellectual properties, and these proprietary formats help them feel that they retain that control, no matter how inconvenient that may be for the consumer. Aside from the already mentioned requirements of these formats, these formats also tend to restrict your ability to duplicate the files, or share them. You may be able to share an E-Book with your friend Mike once, but if Mike didn't finish reading it fast enough, he's out of luck. Some formats will only let you "share" with a certain person only once, for 2 weeks, and never again. Sounds even less like a real book than ever, doesn't it?

Another complication stemming from these proprietary formats is that publishers may choose to only release their E-Book in one format, and if it's not one that you can currently access, the burden falls on you to remedy that. This is not a big deal if you only read E-Books on your computer, it's just a matter of installing a different program. If you own an E-Book Reader however, if the book you want isn't available in a format your device can handle, they expect you to buy another E-Book Reader than can handle it.

Perhaps the most unfortunate truth about E-Books: owning a physical copy of the book does not entitle you to an E-Book version. This is the unanimous decision of publishers everywhere, particularly because they have no way of confirming every book purchase you've ever made, and there is no guarantee that every book you own is even available electronically. The bottom line is that there is no easy way to move from a physical book collection to a digital one, you are expected to purchase every book again. If you aren't dissuaded by that, or suffer from morbid curiosity, keep reading, other wise stop here, the news doesn't get better.

Reader Options: Beyond the computer
An E-Book Reader is simply a device that can display the contents of an E-Book for you to read. Beyond that basic functionality, readers differ in a number of ways, but each of them have a relatively large electronic screen that attempts to recreate the look of ink on paper, the reason behind this is that it is easier on the eyes for long term reading. If you are interested in purchasing such a device, you can expect to spend between $200 and $300, on average. Online megastore Amazon is the company behind the popular Kindle, and Barnes & Noble recently launched their competing Nook. There are a handful of other options available, but chances are if you've already heard of a specific E-Book Reader, it's been one of these two. The bad news is that no single reader supports all of the popular formats, but the good news is that there is enough overlap that in most cases this will not be an issue, and new releases are available in a number of formats.

E-Ink VS. LCD
Besides supported formats, the one element that divides E-Book readers are their screens. The two common screen types found in these devices are E-Ink and LCD. Both have their strengths and weaknesses. E-Ink displays are very easy on the eyes, as easy as print on paper, and use very little power so that these devices can go for days without recharging. The unfortunate reality of E-Ink displays is that transitioning from one page of text to another takes a second or so, if you read quickly this transition may bother you over time. The advantage of LCD displays is that they can display new information on the screen very quickly, and also use fairly low power, but not as low as E-Ink screens manage. A good LCD can still manage to sip little enough power to allow you to go a day or so without charging, but several days less than competing technology. So the trade off is speed for battery life, which is more important to you?

It's a lot to take in, but the main things that you need to remember are these: unless you already have a library of E-Books on your computer, getting a reader means starting your library from square one. Books in the public domain are free, and best-sellers are frequently $10, whereas most readers are priced in the $200-$300 range. E-Ink gives you longer times between charging your reader, but if the lag in "turning" pages bothers you, a reader with an LCD screen might be worth the shorter battery life.

In Short: E-Book Readers

If you are considering purchasing an E-Book Reader, such as the Kindle, or any others for that matter, wait. There are some ugly facts that are true about all E-Book Readers at this time. Some of them may change in the future, some of them will definitely improve. If these details listed below don't bother you, don't let me stop you, you may very well be happy with your upcoming purchase.

1. Owning a physical book does not entitle you to an E-Book version.
This means if you want an E-Book that's not available for free, even though you bought the physical copy already, you will have to buy it again. If it's in the public domain, you can find it for free.

2. In some cases, you never really own an E-Book. If your E-Books exist only on your Reader(Kindle, Nook, etc.) it may be taken away from you. I don't mean stolen; I mean the retailer or publisher can actually pull your access to it away without warning. Whenever possible, you'll want to have back up copies on your computer, and in some cases that's not possible.

3. $200-$300 to get started is a tough entry point for a lot of us. The price will go down, so unless you're in a terrible hurry it's best to hold off for a little while longer.

In Short: HDTV's

If you don't watch live sports, or movies in the genres of action, science fiction or fantasy at least once a month in the comfort of your own home, an HDTV is not a good investment for you.

If you are completely satisfied with your old VHS player an HDTV is not a good investment for you. The same goes for your DVD player.

If you do watch live sports frequently or enjoy a lot of action/SciFi/fantasy movies and are willing to invest in a new TV, higher month bills and more home theater equipment, look into getting an HDTV.

In Short:

Since there is an incredible amount of data to digest in any tech topic, these posts can get rather wordy trying to cover the pertinent bits. The truth is that you may just want the bottom line, and not the owner's manual. With that in mind we are introducing "In Short" posts as companions to our lengthier ones. What this means for you is that if you just want the bottom line on HDTV's and not the entire article, you can just look for the post titled "In Short: HDTV's" and skip a long winded explanation. If you're consistently interested in the bottom line, you can just click on the "In Short" link to the right and look at only the short explanations on these subjects. Efficient!

Tech Glossary: HDTV's

You probably know by now that HD stands for High Definition, but what about all of those other terms people are tossing around?

1080p/1080i + 720p/720i - I'm going to breeze right over this one. A higher number means a more detailed, sharper image. "p" stands for progressive scan, and "i" stands for interlaced. Progressive scan is better than interlaced in terms of visual quality. If you want a more detailed explanation, you can find one here.

Contrast Ratio/Dynamic Contrast Ratio - Contrast ratio is basically a measurement of the range between the lightest and darkest colors displayed on the screen. The larger the ratio, the brighter the brights, the darker the darks. If what your are reading says simply "Contrast Ratio" without "Dynamic", they mean the ratio of just what's capable of being displayed at the same time on screen. Dynamic Contrast Ratio is used to describe televisions where the entire screen adjusts its brightness level, and compares the darkest possible black to the brightest possible white, but those two will never be visible at the same time.

What it means to you: A fixed contrast ratio is the easier to interpret. Small numbers mean that the image on the screen will look a little faded or washed out. Blacks will glow or appear dark grey. Large numbers mean more realistic images, with truer colors. Dynamic contrast ratios really mean nothing to you as a consumer, and manufacturers will not post the meaningful ratios on the outside if they have Dynamic Contrast Ratio listed. They are intended to sound impressive without actually meaning anything about quality(like megapixels when buying a camera). You could ask to see the manuals, or you could simply just look at the display and form your own opinion of the image quality. Look at the black areas on the images, if they are dark enough for you and you can still make out everything else on the screen, that's all you really need. Ignore the numbers.

NTSC/ATSC
NTSC is the "old" analog tv signals that just disappeared from the airways, but are still being sent to your non-HD TV's from the cable/satellite companies. ATSC is the new digital signal. Any HD TV will definitely accept ATSC, and should certainly still accept NTSC, which is important if you don't plan on abandoning your VCR or DVD player anytime soon. Chances are very good that you won't need to be concerned with this for a few more years at least, as it is standard for HD TV's to accept both signals. If you are planning on buying a TV Tuner for your computer, however, you will need to remember this.

HDMI/Component/DVI
These are the commonly accepted inputs for transferring an HD signal to your TV. The main distinction here is that HDMI also sends audio across the same cable, while Component and DVI transmit only video. Technically, component is made up of 3 cables(red, green, and blue) plus whatever audio cables you need(usually the red and white RCA cables), but they tend to sell these as a single cable. There are differences in the video quality across these different cables, but if you are starting off with this guide, chances are good that any of the three would be perfect for you.
-Coax/Composite
These are the old standards of cables for your Standard Definition TV's. Any HD TV will have at least 1 coax(the round, black cord with a single pin in the middle that needs to be screwed in), and many include composite(the red, white and yellow plugs). Having these will be important if you plan on hooking up anything that's not brand new, such as a VCR, DVD player that's a few years old, or any video game consoles from more than a couple years ago. If you have your cable plugged into your HD TV via coax, there are some things to note, which I've mentioned below.

Plasma/LCD(+LED)/DLP/(AM)OLED
The two most common types of HD TV are Plasma and LCD. Plasma's will generally have better contrast ratios and truer motion than LCD and tend to cost more as a result. To address some of the pitfalls of LCD(poor contrast ratios, motion and brightness) some manufacturers are adding Light-Emitting-Diodes to the LCD TV's as a backlight which helps address some of these issues. Pricing for these generally falls between standard LCD's and Plasmas and so does the image quality. These may be marketed only as "LED" TV's but in truth, they are still LCD's, just enhanced. If you are looking for a large TV, 50 inches or larger, DLP is another option. These will not be TV's that you mount to you wall, but rather take up some floor space. They tend to be cheaper than plasmas in the same range, and have a good-quality image. At the time of writing this, any TV with "OLED" in the description is too expensive for anyone, this includes "AMOLED" as well. If future years, they may be priced more reasonably, and I may revisit this topic and speak more on them then.

Noteworthy:
-Garbage in: Garbage out - Unless you have an entirely HD package through your cable or satellite service, you will notice that some channels look horrible on your new TV. They might not be broadcast in HD, so the image quality will be poorer by comparison to everything else. Likewise, if you use coax(the screw on cable) or composite(red, white, yellow) as your inputs, the image quality will not be HD. It's no fault of the TV in these cases, it's just something that you will notice and have to accept with the purchase of your HD TV.
-Network features(Netflix/Youtube/Amazon + Media Extenders) - A number of new TV's have some added features that make use of your internet connection. If you are a Netflix subscriber, you may already be aware of their Watch Instantly feature, where you can watch their movies through their website without the DVD's. Some TV's(and Blu-Ray players) allow you to view your Watch Instantly Queue through the TV, so if you use Netflix, or were planning to, this might be a feature that is worth consideration. In addition to Netflix streaming, many models include access to YouTube or even Amazon's online movie rental service. If that appeals to you, you have some options to look for in your TV purchase. Others allow you to access videos that you may have on your computer through the network. Chances are good that setting up that feature will be a fairly intensive process, so don't expect the world of that feature unless you're willing to put in some significant legwork.
-Upscaling/Upconverting - This is a good feature to look for if you want to get some extra life out of your non-HD gadgets that are hooked up to your TV. This is the process of improving an SD signal to an approximation of an HD signal. It won't look as good as a true HD signal, but it will look better than a non-upscaled SD signal, and for many, that's good enough.
-Refresh Rates - This is simply how many times in 1 second the screen can change the image being displayed. This is important especially on LCD TV's as they can tend to have a ghosting effect, where an image fades away when it should simply disappear instantly. A high refresh
rate will eliminate or greatly reduce the ghosting effect found on
LCD's. Plasma TV's don't usually have a problem with ghosting, so their
refresh rates are not typically advertised.

Email Basics

Pretty much everyone has an email address now, even those of which we are not aware, or that have escaped our memory. If you're still new to email, or want to refresh some of the basics, this is an excellent place to start.

Personality factors:
Before we dive in, there are some important things to consider about yourself. If you're new to email, let's look at some behaviors that you already exhibit. What do you do when you get physical mail? Do you hold on to every personal letter you receive? Do you file everything away in a well organized system? Do you toss everything away as soon as you are done reading it, or are there maybe a few items that you want to hold on to while discarding the rest? Do you look through all the coupons you receive? After thinking about these questions, would you consider yourself more of a collector or a consumer(toss when done)? If you're more inclined to hold on to your letters, would you consider yourself more organized or controlled chaos? The answers to these will guide how you should and will use email.

Included Accounts with ISP's:
If you pay for internet service, you probably have an email account assigned to you by your provider. In most cases, I would recommend against using such an account. The more people know about that email address, the more susceptible you are to identity theft, or being targeted for other scams. The reason for this is that such email addresses are frequently based on your name, so if a less-than-reputable person or business were to come across your address, they could pretend that they already have a rapport with you by addressing you by name. This is not to say that this assigned account is useless, but it's certainly not Ft. Knox, and should be treated with a bit of caution or respect.

Free Email accounts: There are a number of excellent options available for free email accounts, and among the most popular are Gmail, Hotmail, and Yahoo! Mail, which are offered respectively by Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo!. Some of the advantages to using these accounts is that they are web-based: all of your mail is stored on the web, meaning that you can access it from any internet-connected computer. Local email accounts basically live on your personal computer which means they can primarily be accessed only through you own computer. Another advantage to these web-based email services is that you have some flexibility in creating your own personalized address. Picking a name that doesn't include any part of your real name is a bit of added security, and can be a simple to to express yourself in a limited fashion.

Multiple accounts(Pros and Cons)
Web-based or provided email, which should I use? Honestly, both. Web accounts are excellent for keeping in touch with friends and anything that you may do online that's "fun". But everybodyluvskittens@madeup.com(not a real email address, I hope) might not be a good thing to put on a resume. You should be very selective with you you give your email address to, especially if it includes your name. Prospective employers are a safe bet, as are banks(for setting up bill-pay), but for anything else, I would highly recommend using a separate account. There is a simple truth to remember about giving out your email address: the more you give it out, the more junk mail you will receive. Giving your web-based account to everyone that's not strictly work or bill related is a simple way of keeping all of your junk limited to one area, leaving the email you use for more professional business clean and easier to deal with.

Risks Inherent with Emails:
Junk Mail is an insidious part of any email account that's been active at all, and even the best filters are going to let some of it slip through. Most of it is just advertisements, but some of it is actually harmful to a computer. Sometimes simply opening a junk message can install a virus, and many others require you to click on a link, image, or attachment before it can install. If you don't understand the subject, or who the message is from, play it safe and delete the message without opening it. Another risk that you face with email is scammers. They have a colorful variety of names online, but they all do not mean you well. If anyone, and I mean anyone, asks you for any type of account number, password, social security number or other personal identifying information do NOT give it to them. This is the equivalent of someone in a suit or uniform asking you for your wallet. A polite, well dressed thief is still a thief. Something else to be aware of is that email is not as private as you might think. Some one with the know-how and interest can very easily read your email messages, so as long as you keep private info out of your emails, you should be fine. Don't worry, they aren't interested in any secrets of yours that aren't in the form of an account number or social security number. Your secret crush is still a secret. That video of you dancing like a fool at your cousin's wedding: well, that's probably on You Tube by now.