Conserving Battery Life

If you're traveling and using your battery extensively, make sure your power saving options on your laptop are set appropriately. The basic idea is for the computer to shut itself down, incrementally, if it detects that you've stopped using it.

When running on AC current, these settings don't matter much, but when you're sitting on a five hour flight, trying desperately to maximize battery time, saving power is critical. Under Windows, you can manage these settings using the Power Schemes page of the Control Panel's Power Options applet. You can turn off the monitor or hard drive, and put your laptop into various states of conservation according to your specification.

Choosing the best mode: Most laptops have two shutdown modes to conserve batteries while still enabling fast resumption of normal operation: The first is standby mode which powers down your hard drive. Standby mode is meant to be used when you're leaving your computer, but only for a short period of time. When you power up again the laptop quickly resumes from where you left off. Because standby does not save your desktop state to disk, a power failure while on standby can cause you to lose unsaved information. Standby mode is great for when your airline meal arrives and you want a 15 minute of break; it's not good to leave it on for hours at a time.

Hibernation mode, on the other hand, is when the computer saves its state on the hard disk and then shuts down. A computer can't resume operation after hibernation as fast as it can after standby, but it's not consuming any power during hibernation. If you're not going to use the computer for a while choose hibernate.

Windows tip: You can choose power options using the Control Panel's Power Options applet. But to choose an option on-the-fly, simply choose 'Turn off the computer' on the start menu. You normally get 3 options: Standby, Turn Off, and Restart. To get the hibernate option simply hold down the Shift key. (If hibernate doesn't appear, you may have to enable hibernation using the Power Options applet's Hibernation page.)

Also, many laptops ship with customized power applets from the manufacturer, which sometimes give you more control.

Proper Disposal: Before discarding that ancient laptop, remove its battery and dispose it properly. Do not put the battery into regular trash collections as it contains hazardous materials. For a drop-off site near you, the Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation (RBRC) has a search page:

Lots of major retailers like Staples, Home Depot, and Radio Shack participate, so it's not hard to do the right thing for the environment.

Smart Links for more battery advice:

TechRepublic

Batteries in a Portable World