Thought I’d take a moment to point out several resources you should checkout if you spend any amount of time traveling with your laptop (or any electronic device, for that matter). Many sysadmins rely on their electronic devices, and losing laptop battery power while far from an electrical plug could mean big trouble for users.
So, if you want to stay connected, follow these tips.
I first started thinking about strategies for keeping battery life maximized when I saw this post. A few I’ve found especially useful:
- Lower the brightness of your screen as low as you can reasonably go
- Do one thing at a time (do you really need your calendar, browser, email, IDE, graphics editor, and feedreader open at the same time?)
- Try to keep your hard drive accesses low (i.e. use an iPod instead of your mp3 player, and, please don’t try to defrag while on an airplane).
Another article with some useful tips is this PC World article, including:
- Adding RAM to minimize disk access
- Keeping the battery contacts clean
- Charging frequently
- Draining the battery regularly
Microsoft has a post up with some tips for minimizing Windows’ battery usage, including turning off wireless access (when you don’t need it), and how to best use the standby/hibernate options, among other tips.
There are a number of easy things to do that will conserve your laptop’s battery life significantly, especially for those long trips. Of course, having an extra battery on hand just in case is also a great idea, but getting the most from your batteries in the first place is best.
