Mobile Computing Tips: Keep Your Notebook in Top Shape

Do-it-yourself notebook maintenance, Tablet PCs, McDonald's broadband.

James A. Martin

Feature: Spring-Cleaning Your Notebook

Summer officially begins June 21, so if you've been planning to spring-clean your notebook, you'd better get cracking.

Actually, maintaining your notebook is something you should be doing year-round. To help you get started, I asked Kevin Wentzel, technical reviews manager for OmniBook and Pavilion notebooks at Hewlett-Packard, for tips on keeping portable computers in tip-top shape.

Clean the Screen

Over time, your notebook's LCD is likely to become smudged or dirty. Wentzel recommends spraying a diluted window cleaner such as Windex onto a soft, non-abrasive cloth, then gently rubbing the cloth across the screen. It's best not to spray directly onto the screen, though, as fluid can trickle into the bezel at the screen's bottom, potentially allowing damaging moisture into the computer's circuitry.

Another caveat: Many plastic and glass cleaners (but not Windex) can leave a film on your screen, which can create an eye-straining glare, Wentzel warns. Computer-monitor cleaners are a good alternative to watered-down Windex, particularly for travelers.

Vacuum the Keyboard

A vacuum cleaner's brush attachment is ideal for getting rid of dust, dirt, and croissant crumbs that fall through the cracks between keyboard keys, Wentzel advises. A handheld vacuum specifically for PCs, such as the DataVac PC Personal Cleaner ($25), can suck up the croissant crumbs in the keyboard, too. It's available from MiniVacs.com.

When traveling, of course, any vacuum cleaner would be a tad inconvenient. Instead, use a canned aerosol cleaner to spray a blast of air between keys. Canned air cleaners are available for $10 (for a pack of two) from Office Depot and other retailers.

Mop Up Spills Immediately

Spilling coffee on your keyboard during a cramped airline flight is a business traveler's worst nightmare (or one of them, anyway). When it happens, turn the notebook off immediately, place a towel over the keyboard, and turn it upside down right away to drain the fluid and prevent it from leaking into the computer's circuitry, says Wentzel. Most computer makers today (including HP) seal off the back of the notebook's keyboard and around key switches to prevent such leakage, he adds, but it's best to be safe than sorry.

Maintain Your Battery

When you're traveling, your notebook is only as good as its battery. Fortunately, most notebooks today use lithium ion batteries, which aren't afflicted with the memory-loss problems of older nickel-cadmium batteries (which required you to regularly drain a battery to condition it and ensure a full recharge), Wentzel says. Over time, however, your notebook's battery loses its ability to fully hold a charge, so plan on replacing it every 18 to 24 months, depending upon use.

To squeeze out the maximum battery juice, reduce your screen's backlighting. "The display accounts for one-third of the notebook's power drain," Wentzel says. "Reducing backlighting can give you as much as 40 extra minutes of power." Also, configuring your power settings so that the display shuts off after inactive periods can extend battery life significantly, he adds.

Check for Errors

Windows offers a variety of system maintenance tools, including Error-checking (in Windows XP and 2000) and its predecessor ScanDisk. These tools search for OS file system errors and bad sectors (which can impede performance) and correct them. Wentzel recommends using error-checking tools once a week to keep your system humming along.

To use Error-checking in Windows XP or 2000, go to the Start menu, open My Computer, and select the disk you want to check (such as the C: drive). From the File menu, select Properties; under Error-checking on the Tools tab, select Check Now, then select the "Check disk options" you want. (All files have to be closed for this to work.)

To use ScanDisk in other Windows versions, go to the Start menu and select Programs, Accessories, Systems Tools.

Defrag Your Hard Drive

You think your office is disorganized? You should see the sloppy way your hard drive tosses files around. Over time, files and free disk space become scattered across the drive, requiring more time to access and store documents. Windows features a built-in Disk Defragmenter, which essentially rearranges your hard drive so that all files are continuous and areas of free disk space are grouped together, says Wentzel. In Windows XP and other versions beginning with Windows 95, Disk Defragmenter can be found by selecting Start, Programs, Accessories, Systems Tools. Wentzel recommends using Disk Defragmenter monthly.

For more tips on spring-cleaning your computer, check out these PCWorld.com articles:

• "Step-By-Step: Get a Free Tune-Up for Your Windows PC"
• "Clean Up and Speed Up That Sluggish PC"
• "Eight New Year's Resolutions for PC Users"

Notebooks

Tip: Back Up Online

Because of their portability, notebooks are more vulnerable to theft and breakage--which means if you aren't backing up regularly, you're heading toward heartache.

In addition to backing up key files to a CD every week or two, I back up daily to the Internet using SkyDesk's @Backup. This is what you call a "set and forget" service: Download the software and configure it to back up selected files and folders at a certain time every day, week, or other time period. As long as your Internet connection is active, the service automatically backs up your selected files at the appointed time (or whenever you want)--and it works in the background so you're not disrupted. When disaster strikes, you can restore your files to another computer. Another advantage: Your critical files are backed up offsite, which protects them in the event of fire or other calamity at your office. Annual service fees begin at $50 for 50MB and top out at $995 for 2GB; a 30-day free trial is available at the company's Web site.

Review: Toshiba's Slick Satellite

Toshiba's new Satellite 5105-S607 ($2499) is one slick-looking notebook. The new portable features a blue lower casing and silver-and-black audio controls on the front, which include five colored status lights and a small LCD that gives you the time, day, and remaining battery life. Toshiba's notebook also earns high-fives for its roof-raising speakers (powered by a subwoofer), conveniently located ports, and multimedia features.

But if long battery life and light weight are priorities, you might want to pass on this one: Battery life was only 1.5 hours in our tests, and the notebook is bulky at nearly nine pounds. Still, this is a nice option for a desktop replacement. You can go to our Product Finder for the latest prices.

News: Thin's In at Dell

The new X200 is Dell's skinniest Latitude model yet, at 0.8 inches thick and weighing in at 2.8 pounds. The notebook features include a 12.1-inch screen with a maximum resolution of 1024 by 768 pixels, a 30GB hard drive, up to a 640MB of SDRAM, an 800-MHz Mobile Pentium III-M chip combined with Intel's 830MG chip set, the obligatory 56-kilobits-per-second modem, integrated 3Com 10/100 ethernet, and two USB ports. Prices start at $1899. For more information, read "Dell Unveils Ultralight Latitude."

Handhelds

News: Tablet PC on the Horizon

With its promise of advanced handwriting recognition, electronic ink, and voice input, the Tablet PC was called the Next Big Thing in portable computing. At least that's what Microsoft said when it unveiled a prototype system last fall. Since then, the Tablet PC has remained a concept, not a reality.

A start-up company, Motion Computing, has announced it will show its prototype Tablet PC at a trade show in late June and plans to ship the slate-like system later this year. Motion Computing's Tablet PC will use the Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition operating system and offer both pen and voice input. Enthusiasts say Tablet PCs can perform the same tasks as notebooks, but are lighter and more ergonomic, and their batteries last longer.

News: E-Mail Options for Handspring's Treo

Users of Handspring's Palm OS-based Treo mobile phone/PDA now have two e-mail options: The Treo Mail Internet Edition ($50 for a one-year subscription), for users who access POP3 e-mail accounts over the Internet; and the Treo Mail Corporate Desktop Edition ($100 a year), for enterprise users who get their Microsoft Outlook, Exchange, or POP3 e-mail from behind a firewall. A 30-day free trial is available for both options.

News: Exploring Your Palm, Windows Style

Bachmann Software's new FilePoint Pro ($50; free trial available) lets you display, organize, and manipulate your Palm OS files on your Palm device and Windows computer using a Windows Explorer-like tree structure, according to the company. You can move files to a PDA's expansion card, view files on your Palm from the PC, install files and applications to a specified folder, and more.

Wireless

News: Broadband and a Burger

At selected McDonald's restaurants in ten Japanese cities, hungry customers can connect to wireless hot spots and surf the Web while chomping on a Big Mac. For the first six months, the wireless Internet access service (which uses McDonald's digital subscriber line infrastructure and the 802.11b wireless standard) will be free, followed by a charge of 8 cents for four minutes, according to a McDonald's Japan spokesperson. Meanwhile, McDonald's restaurants in the United States and other countries are testing the concept. For more information, see "McDonald's Serves up Wireless Net Access."

Sign up to have the Mobile Computing Tips Newsletter e-mailed to you each week.