Notebooks | Technology Blog

SpeedswitchXP Laptop CPU Frequency Control

August 20th, 2008

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Laptop users love batteries that last longer. At least those laptop users who use their laptop on the road, those desktop replacement laptops are usually to big and heavy to be carried around anyway. One of the best ways to extend battery life is to reduce the cpu frequency of the laptop.

That’s usually not a problem unless the applications used demand lots of cpu power. That’s not the case when surfing the Internet, creating spreadsheets or writing a Word document. Both Intel and AMD provide techniques that reduce the cpu frequency of the laptop.

SpeedswitchXP is a small applet sitting in the system tray that makes use of those techniques. It provides access to four settings: Max. performance, Battery optimized, Max. battery and dynamic switching.

Free Avanquest Connection Manager

July 30th, 2008

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Business users who use their notebook to connect to the Internet and a network from different locations know about the problems, difficulties and configuration issues that can arise. It often happens at inappropriate moments and even when connection at locations that have been used in the past to connect to the network or Internet.

Problems can also arise after establishing the connection. Users might have to change certain settings like the default printer or SMTP email server that requires manual work.

Avanquest Connection Manager is a software that tackles those situations by detecting and memorizing connections and settings for the user so that future connections demand almost no attention and time.

Track the location of your notebook with Adeona

July 14th, 2008

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Adeona is a free Open-Source software that works completely independent. The application is running in the background and automatically recognizes a change of location by analyzing the network connection of the notebook. If someone would connect to a WLAN the software would automatically do IP lookups to determine the current location of the notebook.

Those information would then be compiled, encrypted and the OpenDHT distributed storage service is used to store location update of the notebook. Those location updates can then be retrieved from another computer revealing information about IP addresses (internal and external), the time, access points and nearby routers.

This information can be filtered to display only data of a specific date range. This should be tested at least once to make sure everything has been setup correctly.

Easy WiFi Radar

May 24th, 2008

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I have been playing around with a software called Easy WiFi Radar on my notebook for quite some time which is probably the easiest way to find and use open wireless connections. The main advantage of the tool is its simplicity. All that needs to be done on the part of the user is to click the button of the application to start it.

It displays a radar like image with different colors dots. Green dots mark free wireless connections while red and yellow ones mark inaccessible ones. Once a green spot has been discovered by the software it automatically tries to connect to that Wireless access point to access the Internet.

It’s opening the default browser and loading a test website. A message stating the success will be shown if the connection was successful. It is truly amazing how easy it is to find open wireless access points in towns. Should be harder if you are living in a rural area though.

Track your stolen computer with Locate PC

May 17th, 2008

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If you travel a lot chance is that you will eventually fall victim to theft. If you happen to have your notebook or laptop with you most of the time chance is pretty high that the thief will have the desire to steal that one. Chances are pretty slim that you will see your notebook again after the theft but you can increase them a bit by using Locate PC.

Locate PC only works if the thief is stupid enough to boot your computer while being connected to an internet connection. I cannot truly say how many thiefs would do that but it can happen and that’s probably reason enough to use Locate PC. A slim chance is better than no chance at all, don’t you think ?

Locate PC (via Cybernet News) will send emails periodically whenever the PC is connected to the Internet, by default one email is send per day and another one for every IP change. The application is running in the background with an obscured filename and no system tray icon making it harder to identify. I would say that you do not need to worry about that though, if the thief truly boots the PC while it is connected to the Internet then you should not fear that he will discover the little tracking application.

Sony: Want us to remove our crapware for you ? Pay us !

March 22nd, 2008

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Sony is a company that is never shy when it comes to finding questionable ways to making just another buck or to annoy a large part of the Internet community by doing something stupid like the Sony Rootkit disaster last year. Their ingenious minds have come up with yet another way to make the extra buck, it’s truly amazing in my opinion.

If you purchase a new notebook - and it does not truly matter from which manufacturer you make the purchase - you notice lots of software, many call it crapware, that is preinstalled on that notebook. You get demo or trial versions of software, lots of unnecessary applications from the manufacturer and much more that slow down the computer. Many companies love to add a Norton or Symantec trial to the computer for instance.

Sony obviously thought that some customers would like the crapware removed but instead of offering this as a configuration option that is free of charge they charge $50 for it. Yes that is right. Those who add the crapware ask the customer to pay $50 for its removal. That’s a nice business model don’t you think ?