Boydo's Tech Talk

Just wanted to share an observation I had tonight while attending a show Kathy Griffin was putting on this evening (and yes, she was hilariously inappropriate).

In venues such as the Sydney Opera House which probably doesn’t have cell sites in the building you might find that as more people gather in the area the signal starts to drop off. This may perhaps deteriorate to the point that you can’t connect to Facebook or upload photos or even perhaps make phone calls.

Wireless spectrum is finite in availability and cramming an increasing amount of people will obviously create competition for that limited resource. Usually, this is counteracted by adding more cell sites in an area to cater for the anticipated loads but in venues where this has not taken place it can be very much a futile activity.

In these situations, I recommend turning off your mobile or at least putting it into flight mode. With the apparent reduced signal that your phone is attempting to access it will attempt to boost its signal to compensate to the point where it is transmitting at its full possible power for little or no result. It’s better to save the juice in your phone for taking photos and videos (if allowed) so you can upload them after the event or for telling friends how much you enjoyed (or hated) the event.

The last thing you might want is to have your phone run flat in your pocket when you need it to coordinate a pick up from a friend or family member. Turn your phone off (or flight mode it) and have a good time!

I’ve covered batteries a bit lately including how to look after lithium ion batteries as well as how to replace a battery in a MacBook Pro but I haven’t covered how to thoughtfully dispose of batteries.

It can be tempting and convenient to throw batteries in the general garbage or try to rationalise that they might go in the recycle bin because they contain metal. However, those are not the best way to deal with sick, dying or dead batteries. You should always strive to take your batteries to a battery recycler (such as Battery World).

Any sort of battery (be it a AAA battery or a battery from a hybrid vehicle) that ends up going to landfill does end up impacting the environment however large or small. Controlling the ultimate fate of batteries and reusing their components where possible helps to minimise wastage and make the best use of finite resources on the plant (as they will run out some day).

Also, like most things, batteries will start to break down and degrade as time progresses so it’s a good idea to avoid leaving batteries lying around when they are no longer useful. Corroded batteries can be quite dangerous particularly when left near reactive things like fuel while lead acid batteries can cause damage if the fluid leaks out.

Next time you are about to throw out batteries, think about the best way to dispose of them. You might also like to round up batteries from neighbours to make the trip worth your while. To look up where you can recycle all sorts of stuff check out Recycling Near You.

Here’s a tip that might help you prevent your computer become suddenly slow and groggy.

If you leave your computer (be it a desktop or laptop with a depleted battery) unplugged for too long it can  forget about the current time and date. Usually, there is a tiny battery inside the computer that keeps this information resident and updated however it only stores a small amount of energy – perhaps enough to last a few weeks while off the grid.

You might have found when you have powered up an old computer that hasn’t been used in a while that upon boot it complains of having the incorrect date and time (usually January 1st, 1900) and to hop into the BIOS setup to set it up again. This is exactly the situation to which I am referring which can cause one particular problem with the computer – poor performance. You may find that Windows loads slower than usual, application take a while to open and the whole experience feels rather sluggish and the boot process takes a while as the computer rediscovers all of its innards.

The problem is easily fixed though. Just head into the BIOS after powering on your computer and key in the correct time. The magic key to get into the BIOS is usually displayed (perhaps briefly) in the seconds after pushing the power button. If that is too confusing, or it just flashes past too quickly you can wait until Windows loads up and update the date and time in there as they will both do the same thing.

So if you can leave a computer plugged in but switched off that will help prevent such problems from arising in the future.

These days, nearly all of our portable devices like mobile phones, tablets, laptops and music players contain a lithium ion or lithium polymer battery which have largely superseded the old NiCad (nickel cadmium) or NiMH (nickel metal hydroxide) batteries.

If you can remember back far enough, NiCad batteries suffered from “memory effect” which occurred as a result partially discharging a battery followed by a recharge. The side effect of this was the battery increasingly lost its maximum charging capacity. The best practice for these types of batteries was to fully discharge them before recharging (i.e. run them dry and then fully recharge them).

However, lithium based batteries are different. Under regular usage, lithium batteries like to remain charged and don’t mind being recharged (either partially or fully) after being partially discharged – there is no memory effect with these batteries. What is worse for lithium batteries is to fully discharge them before recharging them as this accelerates the rate of capacity loss.

In general, you can prolong the life of your lithium batteries by doing the following:

• charge your phone at your desk at work in between meetings, in the car while you drive or at home when not in use,
• if you are out and about using your laptop and there is available power then plug it in,
• avoid running batteries flat (the further away you can stay from 0% charge before recharging the better).

Last time, I covered the Panasonic washing machine that was shown off at the recent Panasonic home appliance launch last week. Today, I am going to cover off the new cordless phone that will be added to the existing lineup.

Granted, these days landline telephony might be viewed more as a legacy service compared to the convenience and relative cost effectiveness of mobile services (particularly with cap plans that can cover even the most insatiable needs for talking and texting). One thing that landline telephony does offer over mobiles is its ability to keep working despite a blackout in your neighbourhood for a prolonged period of time. Sure, you can still keep using your mobile but if your mobile wasn’t already fully charged and you have no backup charging solution (like a HyperMac external battery or a UPS) you’re going to have to make that battery last somehow (turn off data, turn off 3G, turn off mail account refreshing, turn down screen brightness, etc).

So great, landline telephones (in a pre-NBN world) can be powered over the copper lines from the telephone exchange but that does you no good if you have a cordless phone (which a lot of people have in their houses). If the base station has no power then the link between the cordless handset and the exchange is lost which means no phones calls in or out. Of course, if you have a traditional corded telephone (like the Telstra Touchfones that have hung around for years) then you’re golden but you’re also tethered to a spot with maybe a radius of a metre or two.

You’d think someone would make a cordless phone that’d work in a blackout, it’s 2011 afterall.

Well, Panasonic have come up with something to handle such a situation and it’s a simple and elegant solution called the “Power Failure Talk System”. With the new 803 series cordless phones due for release in February 2012 all you need to do is pop a handset into the base station (which is also the charging station when there is power). You can then make phone calls using the speakerphone function on that particular phone in the event of power loss. Otherwise, you can use one of the other handsets paired with the base station normally in cordless mode while a handset is in the base station providing power.

Another gripe that I have found with cordless phones is that range can be an issue if you have a multi-floor house or if you have a sparse property (so maybe a single level house with a large backyard). You might be doing some work in the backyard or up on another level in the house that is out of reach of the cordless base station. To mitigate this issue, the 803 series cordless phones also include a “location free repeater”. Much like how a repeater works for Wi-Fi this device repeats the signal from the base station to the phone and vice-versa. If you are looking to maximise range you should place the repeater towards the edge of the existing coverage provided by the base station (but not right on the edge where coverage drops off). Once you have found the best place you can hide it behind a plant or a lamp or somewhere convenient where there is a power socket.

The other main feature of the 803 series cordless phone is the inclusion of a 1.45 inch TFT LCD screen (which apparently a first for a landline cordless telephone).

Panasonic 803 Series Premium DECT Cordless Phone

It looks nice and it might be a bit easier to read in the evening if you get a phone call. The buttons are also backlit so you don’t need to reach for a light just to dial a number.

Some other notable features are:

• Answering machine (including message counter),
• Night mode (disables the ringtone during the night if you don’t fancy receiving late phone calls),
• Pairing of up to six handsets,
• Speakerphone, intercom and handset locater functionality,
• Call conferencing and call waiting compatibility.

Here’s a quick tip for those of you with Android devices.

You might be able to boost your battery life by changing your Wi-Fi sleep settings. You can look at the available settings by going into “Settings” then “Wireless & Networks”. Make sure that Wi-Fi is enabled in this screen and then tap on “Wi-Fi Settings”. On the next, tap the menu button on your phone and then tap on “Advanced”.

In this screen, you should see three options, specifically:

• When screen turns off,
• Never when plugged in,
• Never.

By default, “when screen turns off” is selected which means that when the screen turns off your Wi-Fi connection will also turn off kicking you back to a cellular data connection (be it 3G or 2G). This isn’t ideal as a typical Wi-Fi connection often uses less power to maintain a connection than a cellular connection. The easy way to change this is to select “never” and then exit back out of the screens back to your home screen. Then just leave your Wi-Fi enabled (i.e. don’t turn it off).

Personally, I have found that my overnight battery life starting on a full charge has improved considerably with overnight battery discharge remaining in the single digit range (meaning I still have over 90% battery left). Your mileage may vary depending on factors such as distance from your Wi-Fi access point and number of background applications running but you should notice an improvement nonetheless.

Here’s a heads up for those of you out there with HP laptops that are a few years old.

As is usually the case with battery recalls most are undertaken as a precaution to avoid widespread fire hazards, overheating and explosions from occurring. Unfortunately, unless the message is broadcast from manufacturers direct to consumers or the media gets wind of the information end users can often be unaware of their product being potentially defective.

It seems though that HP has had an extended history of recalling defective batteries stretching back to 2005 up until this month. The latest recall affects computer manufactured between July 2007 and May 2008 with HP estimating roughly 5% of these units having potentially defective batteries.

The best thing to do is visit this page and crosscheck your computer product number and then the battery bar code using the validation wizard. If your computer and battery are deemed to be affected then you should be notified as such upon completing the validation process.

There is one positive to take away from this process though – computer batteries tend to last two or three years before they start to severely degrade through normal use. If you do end up getting a new battery you’ve effectively got another two or three years for no additional cost. Either way, it’s definitely worth checking out as it’s better to be safe than sorry.

A quick tip for this evening.

Many of us have laptops and we do need to use them away from a power point when required. However, this often means that your laptop is running in a low power consumption mode designed to prolong battery life at the expense of performance. This can be a pain when you are doing some heavy number crunching or you are using many applications at the same time.

In these instances, the easiest way to get your laptop running at full performance again is to manually set it back to “high performance” mode. The easiest way to do this in Windows Vista and Windows 7 is to hit the Windows key then type “Power Options” and press Enter. Within the new window, simply select the “high performance” option and close the window.

Hopefully, that should give you every ounce of performance back to you but be wary of your battery consumption!

Just a quick one for tonight.

For decades there has been debate over the benefits and drawbacks of nuclear power including aspects such as emissions generated during power generation as well as control and containment when the core needs to be shutdown in an emergency.

Personally, I didn’t know where I stood on the concept of nuclear power particularly in Australia. Some people are understandably opposed to coal power plants given their emissions and then we have advocates of renewable energy sources such as solar solutions and wind farms. Then we have people for and against nuclear power.

I have been watching the television and scouring the web for information on what was going on in Fukushima. Initially, the effect of the quakes had affected the cooling mechanism of the plant which required backup generators to be restarted. However, backup generators were knocked out by the tsunami while the backup batteries were not designed for long term usage but to provide enough power to get generators going.

Unfortunately, an explosion occurred this afternoon which has raised questions over the integrity of the containment structure. It’s not known what was contained in the cloud of smoke which is a concern.

Despite being in Osaka, I have been concerned about what might happen if things took a turn for the worst. The spread of radiation and an increase in the number of compromised plants is definitely not reassuring. That, and being reliant upon the weather and the use of salt water rather than fresh water to cool the reactors down very much paints a bleak picture.

As I write this I am more in favour of less destructive and inefficient sources of power than nuclear energy. I might need to read more on more modern plant designs to better understand the mitigations against such situations and I am not a nuclear engineer or physicist by any stretch of the imagination. At any rate, this will surely reignite the arguments against nuclear power in countries around the world.

Most people would have seen or heard the news about the quakes in Japan over the last couple of days and my wife and I were certainly not expecting to be experiencing it first hand on the 35th floor of The Ritz-Carlton in Osaka. There is nothing like the sensation of a building swaying from side to side and the sound of the structure creaking as it absorbs the ground movement to make you wonder if you should say your goodbyes or make a bolt for the emergency stairs.

I guess in a way I am still processing what happened even though Osaka escaped the worst of what has hit the northeast of Japan. In the heat of the moment you can put on your bravest face or cower in indecision or be completely stricken by fear.

Who would know what they would do until you experience such an event for the first time?

Of course, technology makes the world an incredibly small place. Television is almost wall to wall with coverage of the tremors, the tsunami and subsequent aftermath. Twitter and Facebook have lit up with first hand accounts of these events and people looking for loved ones. Telecommunications networks are put to the test as people attempt to contact relatives locally or from overseas. Tsunami warnings have gone out to Pacific nations and ongoing seismic activity continues to be recorded.

Architectural technology has also played an important part over the last couple of days as buildings designed to withstand tremors test their mettle against the most powerful quake recorded in Japanese history. The Ritz-Carlton building in Osaka had its fifth floor designed to move in the event of a quake instead of being a rigid structure. People on that floor today definitely saw the building reacting as it was intended whilst those further up also experienced their fair share of the energy of the quake being absorbed and dissipated. Elevators also automatically stopped to prevent damage to the lift shafts and its cars.

Meanwhile, all of our essentials are packed and ready in the case that we need to get out quickly including mobile phones, iPads, chargers, an external battery, passports, credit cards and money.

Stay safe, folks.