BPI inside

Tag: Personal

  • How to treat your rechargeable batteries

    Recently I’ve purchased a new battery for my mobile phone. To get the most out of it I wanted to refresh my knowledge, how to treat this new energy pack correctly to keep it alive for as long as possible.

    When looking on the internet I was first presented with lots of technical information, how they work et cetera, but nowhere I found immediately how to handle them for maximum lifetime, at least not in easily understandable terms.

    So I decided to create a small list of handling tips for the different technologies of accumulators.

    NiCd (Nickel-Cadmium), NiMh (Nickel-Metal-Hydrite)

    Preparation
    Nickel-based batteries should be "primed" by applying a ~16h charge after purchasing. If not done, it won’t cause harm but the full capacity will not be available initially (but increase with usage).

    Usage
    It is not necessary to use up the whole charge before recharging every time, but this should be done every 1 – 3 months to prevent memory effect. For NiMh batteries it is even advisable to not use up all the charge as a depletion wears down the battery faster. It is still necessary to counter the memory effect from time to time. Recharging should happen without interruptions and overcharging (by leaving the the pack in the charger after being fully charged) causes harm to the battery.

    Storage
    When the battery is not used for some time manufacturers suggest a 40% charge for storage altough it is possible to store them full or completely discharged. But more important is to store them in a cool place.

    LiIon (Lithium-Ion)

    Preparation
    LiIon batteries do not need to be prepared for usage and can be used instantly out-of-the-box.

    Usage
    These type of batteries is quite forgiveable to common usage. Altough it should be avoided to deplete it completely, it may be necessary to perform a full charge-discharge-cycle if charge-indicators get inaccurate readings. When charging, it is under normal conditions not possible to overcharge, so leaving them in the charger is possible. Best performance can be expected, if the charge is kept in the range of 40%-80%.

    Storage
    LiIon should be stored at 40% and under cool conditions. If storing for a long time, recharge to 40% from time to time. If left until uncharged, internal protection circuits may fail and render the battery unusable (or even unsafe).

  • Is cursive writing dying?

    After reading this Time-article about cursive handwriting I thought a bit about my own handwriting style. And I think I can confirm that. When I learned cursive almost all of the handwritten stuff which was written on notes, papers, signs and elsewhere was a clean cursive style. Nowadays my own handwriting style has changed to a strange mixture of cursive and typed letters. I personally even have problems controlling the casing when I write by hand. I have no problem with casing when I’m typing with a keyboard but when I hold a pen in my hand I begin to mix up uppercase and lowercase from time to time. I don’t know why, but I cannot get rid of this. Furthermore my handwriting is comparable to the handwriting of a doctor. It merely reminds me of what I wanted to write when I wrote it down. But it’s not only me, I also recognized this degraded handwriting on many people, even some younger ones who have not such a long time from their learning phase.

    I already thought of improving my handwriting by practicing from time to time but other from readability for others I found no practical reason to do so and that’s why I didn’t come around to do so until today. But maybe I’ll find some time…

    (via Lifehacker)

  • Weekend workout

    Whheeeeee, the hard weekend is over and I think it has been quite successful. All exams have been held, all presentations are performed including one surprise-presentation which was scheduled just the day before.

    Since the stressful time was over, I set up a bit of sports activity. Namely playing Badminton with a studying colleague today morning.

    This was my first intensive physical exercise since quite some time (think of years), nevertheless I think I did quite well. I could keep up with the condition of the others and my reactions were fast enough I think. I just had some problems with targetting and concentration on the rules how to switch positions after each move which I think are the main reasons why I’ve always been on the team which lost each match 🙂 But I became better over time and the last match was already very close on the edge of victory.

    I hope, that this was not only a one-time event and that I continue with some sports in the future.

  • Moving is now almost completed

    Our moving action is now almost completed, just one or two boxes still not completely emptied and some waste to get rid of.

    We’ve now also got new company in the apartment, namely Blacky and Sheila, two nice and active cats which keep us busy all day long when we don’t know what to do with our time.

    Both have their specialties, as every cat has, like Sheila following anybody like a dog or Blacky always trying to cover under something like chairs, carpets or blankets. But both are very open to visitors 🙂

    There are no photos available yet, but if there is time, there will be pictures.

    On the bad side, the moving has cost us a lot of time which is missing now for the university work. A lot has accumulated but we think when we make not everything perfect and polished, it will be doable.

  • Sign of Life…

    Just a short note that this blog is not abandoned but just "on vacation". Lots of things have been going on in my private life in the last weeks and currently I’m busy with moving out from home into a new apartment.

    Furthermore my new mobile computer arrived today and there will be quite some work and setup to do until I can start getting productive with that new toy.

  • Acquiring a new laptop computer

    Just as a note of that I’m still alive and relatively well, I’d like to notice that I’ve decided to buy a new laptop.
    There is a special program at our university which allows students to buy mobile computers at a reduced price.

    As my old laptop is now slowly beginning to fall apart, I’ve ordered a HP EliteBook 8530w. My variant is with the Intel Core2 Duo T9550 processor, WUXGA Display and apparently a ruggedized case.

    I’m very curious when it’ll arrive…

  • Let the games begin…

    Ready… Set… Go! There it is, the new year. Christmas is behind us, the year-change too, so don’t be lazy and dive into it with full power.

    This year is set to hold some changes for us, so be prepared.

  • Bye bye, Rodney…

    Rodney leaves Stargate 🙁

    As sad as this is for all Stargate-Fans, including myself, I wish you good luck and that your plans work out.

    Did anyone notice, that the article at IO9 was written by a "Meredith"? 😉

  • Online payment

    Finally, they got me. I’ve recently opened a PayPal account. I’ve been forced to this step because my hoster LVCS.net, who has transferred my Freepgs-account to his servers for free until now, has decided to take 3$ per year as payment to keep up this "free" hosting.

    Three dollars is not even worth to mention, but nevertheless has to be paid somehow. And the only possibility for me is the Paypal-method as the other ones require either creditcard or giving personal data to companies I’ve never heard of.

    So I finally got over my antipathy for such online-payment-services and signed up for an account. Maybe I can then also shop a bit easier abroad. There are already some sites (here or here) where the unability to purchase without giving creditcard or other personal information prevented me to acquire something.

    For now I’ve tried to transfer 25EUR from my bank account to PayPal. It’s stated, that it can take a few days for the transfer to arrive.

    I’m curious how this works out…

  • FireSync

    Just an hour ago or so I tried to set up a backup to my NAS for some of my folders. I found the tool FireSync and its description sounded promising. I tried to find some reviews but since it has been published just today. So I gave it a shot.

    I should have been more careful and try out the backup in a dummy folder, not my main application collection. During the first run of the backup there was an error that "Disk is full" at the backup source. As if that’s not strange enough a retry just found 4 or so changed files. Hm… After some moments I checked back the source folders. The folders were still present, but not the files which were contained within them. WTF? I made sure I didn’t check the "delete after sync" checkbox and it wasn’t. Nevertheless, the files were gone.

    Currently I’m busy with recovering the deleted files with NTFS Undelete. So far everything looks good and it seems that I can restore all of my files.

    So, if you ever want to try out the backup/sync tool FireSync, test it out in a dummy directory.