It’s been a while since I last posted. Let us bring things up and running by this review post of the PowerBase C518 Charger.

I recently bought a brand new Samsung Galaxy S2 that had battery capacity of 1650mAh. I was not able to find a battery for the S2 which had more capacity so I opted to resort to portable chargers for my energy needs. That’s when I saw the PowerBase portable charger at Electronics Boutique. I had other PowerBase chargers and they work fine. That is the reason why I had no qualms in buying this C518 charger.

The PowerBase C518 Portable Charger has a capacity of 2000mAh. Do the math and you will see that its capacity is a bit higher than that of my S2 battery which could act as my backup battery on the go. I assumed that since the portable charger was 2000mAh in capacity and my battery is 1650mAh, if I used the charger to charge my empty S2 battery, I would more or less have 350mAh left in the charger while charging the S2 battery to the max. But lo and behold! I did just that but my battery was charged only up to 75% of its capacity! That is a far cry from 2000mAh specifications of the charger as stated in the manual.

I am not sure if this is a factory defect or the charger is already old or whatever. This charger has failed to live up to its expectations and is not something I would recommend to others looking for a portable charger.

Once again, I am selling one of my gadgets or should I say two (plus the home theater). The reason for this is I seldom use it. It is not connected to an antenna or a cable tv subscription. I only use it for movie showing or sometimes I use it to connect my laptop to for larger viewing. It has been in my possession for more than a year but is still in mint condition. Here are the specs of the items I am selling:

LCD TV
Brand: Samsung
Date bought: December 2009
Model: LA32B350
Screen Size : 32″
Resolution : 1,366 x 768
Dynamic Contrast Ratio : High

Home Theater
Brand: Samsung
Date bought: December 2009
Model: HTZ120
Total Power: 330W
Number of Channel: 5.1

Here are the items’ images as seen in my room:

Yup that’s my reflection

As you probably noticed, I didn’t install the home theater like how it’s supposed to be installed which is at the 4 corners of the room. I’m really just content with a larger sound and not into 3d and surround sound. But of course, if you buy this, that is what you should do. You should follow the setup below as outlined by Samsung itself for maximum theater enjoyment:

32″ LCD TV side view.

The home theater comes with a DVD player which can play DVDs (obviously) and CDs. MP3s and certain movie files such as movie files in the AVI format can be played via USB. It has radio streaming and 2 mic inputs.

I’m not really an expert or a geek when it comes to tvs and home theaters but if you have any questions about the items, then feel free to ask me via the comment section below.

How to Make Your Laptop Faster. When we buy a new laptop, we get to enjoy it in the first few months. But after 3-4 months, the laptop seems slower. Another few more months and it is as if you are running a Pentium 486. What happened? One factor could be your laptop’s cleanliness. Yes, how clean your laptop is can have a bearing on your laptop’s performance, but what we are talking about here is its internal cleanliness.

As you might or not be aware of, dust is the number 1 enemy of electronics. If you have a dusty motherboard and dirty CPU fan, then chances are your laptop is running slow. Not because you have faulty electronics but simply because they are dirty. This also causes laptop overheating. Hence, one way to make your laptop run faster is to clean it from the inside. There are various tools for doing so and since you’ll be cleaning your laptop’s electronic components, you might as well clean the whole laptop!

Here are the tools I use to clean my laptop inside and out and ultimately make my laptop run faster:

The image above shows my laptop and the various cleaning tools I use. From the top left (below the laptop) going clockwise, the items are as follows:

• Sprayway Clean Jet 100 – This is the most important tool of all. It blows off dust at a high pressure for maximum cleaning.
• WD-40 – To help unscrew tight bolts.
• Cyber Clean – A gel-like substance to clean hard to get places like the cavities of your keyboard. A complete review can be found here.
• Cotton buds – To clean off sticky dust.
• Brush – Use this to brush off anything from electronic parts.
• Soft cloth – Used to clean the laptop’s screen.
• Screw driver – Make sure this fits the screw heads of the laptop.

I won’t be explaining how to clean your laptop step by step but the tools I mentioned above should suffice. As I already said, the Sprayway Clean Jet 100 is the most important one of all. If you feel like not opening your laptop but simply want to clean your CPU fan then this is the tool to do it. A few sprays from it can clear off the dust blocking the exhaust pathway and clean the fan itself.

Based from my personal experience, cleaning my laptop caused my laptop to run much faster. It went from going blue screen after 20-30 minutes of intense gaming to uninterrupted gaming experience. Or if you are like me, I can leave my software running overnight without me worrying about the laptop suddenly shutting down because it is too hot.

Logitech Portable Lapdesk N315 and Other Stuff. I recently bought a lapdesk as seen in the image above for one reason, back pains. My computer desk was apparently too high. I had to elevate my arms just to reach the mouse and type on the keyboard. After a prolonged period of time, such computing posture would bring about back pains. There are many solutions to this problem. I could have bought a new lower computer table. But I opted to buy a lapdesk where I could put my new wireless keyboard and mouse. So in essence, my lap is now my new desk

I might as well talk about my new keyboard and mouse. It is actually called a Mini Wireless Desktop set. Its brand is A4Tech with model G6Saver. It’s a mini keyboard (no numeric pad on the right) hence it fits on the lapdesk perfectly.

See image below for wireless keyboard and mouse:

The lapdesk is actually designed for the laptop to sit on top. But of course it can be used for anything. I could put my burger and fries there and no one could stop me. That is one of the reasons I bought the lapdesk in the first place. It is flexible to be used for other purposes other than putting a laptop on top of it.

So far they have been working great. So if you are looking for a review on the said gadgets above, I give them all two-thumbs up or a 5-star rating.

I recently bought a laptop USB lamp because it looked cool. Little did I know that it would turn out very useful for me. Check the image above. That is not the lamp I bought but it looks similar to the one I have except that the trunk is silver in color. It is bendable and provides sufficient lighting for dim to dark places. So why is it useful for me?

USB lamp usages
Well, the fact that it is a lamp makes it useful. If you are using your laptop in a dim place, the lamp would bring instant light! But I was able to appreciate it because of the heat, why is that? We are currently experiencing the El Nino again and it is very hot the entire day. Now, if I open the fluorescent lights above me, this adds to the heat inside the room. Not anymore! What I do is turn off the lights and simply plug-in my USB lamp and voila cool light emits which is sufficient for me to continue my computing needs.

It also helps on reducing my electricity consumption. I have done this for a month and the savings have certainly reflected on my monthly electricity bills.

Realization
At first, I thought that I could type on the keyboard without looking at the letters. This is 95% true (percentage an approximation hehe…). But when I turned off the fluorescent lamp above me, I was not able to type as fast as I normally would. That was when I realized that I looked at the keys of my keyboard every once in a while to make sure that I was pressing the correct key. When I used my USB lamp, the keyboard got illuminated once again and my typing speed went back to normal.

There are probably other things this cool gadget is good for but I won’t be stating them here now. What I do now is that it is cool, cheap and very useful and thus would recommend it to laptop users out there.

I bought my HP 915 printer 2 years ago and used it with my old Acer laptop running on Windows Vista (ugh, I know…). This printer was a beauty and still is. Being an all-in-1 printer (printer, scanner, fax machine, photocopy machine, etc…), it has served a lot of purpose since I bought it. It is still alive and kicking and still looks new Not to mention that this model of HP printers boasts one of the cheapest ink cartridges in the market! Actually, that is the reason why I bought the printer in the first place – for the cheap ink cartridges. I have saved a lot in the long run.

The printer of course comes with the drivers and an installer of its full feature software. Via ‘HP Solutions’, the application name of the software, you will be able to do everything that the HP 915 is capable of doing. But then, I bought a new Acer 4740G laptop which runs on a 64-bit Windows 7.

Normally, 32-bit applications work fine in 64-bit operating systems. But in this case, the HP software did not work on my Windows 7 machine. Of course, I searched the internet for an official software for my HP printer but found none. What I found though is another solution to make my printer work.

The Answer – Plug n Play
For longtime computer users this should be obvious, most hardware nowadays are plug n play. I should have known better myself but common sense it seems is not without a bit of irony. If you are not familiar with the term ‘Plug n Play’, it simply refers to hardware devices which do not need any installer or whatsoever before you will be able to use it. All you have to do is ‘plug’ the device (connect it to the computer) and then ‘play’ (do whatever the hardware does).

I know the post title is a bit misleading but that is on purpose. Those searching for a Windows 7 installer for HP 915 will find this post and hopefully be helpful.

So just to reiterate, to be able to use your HP 915 printer with Windows 7, just connect your printer through the USB port, turn on the printer and voila Windows 7 will take care of the rest by auto-installing the necessary drivers to make the printer work.

But I do not have software to use the printer, what should I do?
Yes that is true, but all we need to make things work are the drivers. Since Windows 7 has already taken care of that via Plug n Play, I will show you other programs already available that we can use in place of the HP software.

Two major capabilities of HP 915 is of course the printing and the scanning. Printing should not be a problem. If you want to print anything, just do so as you normally would and then simply choose the HP 915 printer from the list of Printer options when you click the Print command.

For scanning and faxing purposes, you can use the built-in Windows Fax and Scan program available at “All Programs” when you click the Start button.

Basically that’s it. If you want detailed instructions, you can visit this page.

I recently bought a new laptop, Acer Aspire 4740G. My old laptop is still alive but I believe it will die anytime soon. It shuts off by itself sometimes and I fear the worst for it. It is also an Acer Aspire which I bought from the States. So I bought a new one for insurance purposes and so that I won’t be disturbed with my online work when its death arrives. So why did I buy another Acer laptop? Well, I like Acer because it is durable but at the same time cheap. I also like the specifications of this Acer laptop model which I am laying out below:

Acer Aspire 4740G Specs

• Intel® Core™ i3-330M (3Mb L3 cache, 2.13GHz, DDR3 1066 MHz, 35 W)
• Mobile Intel® HM55 Express Chipset
• 2.0Gb DDR3
• 500Gb SATA
• 8X DVD-Super Multi double-layer drive
• 14in. HD 1366 x 768 pixel resolution, high-brightness (200-nit) Acer CineCrystal™ LED-backlit TFT LCD, supporting simultaneous multi-window viewing via Acer GridVista
• NVIDIA® GeForce® 310M with 512Mb of dedicated DDR3 VRAM, supporting NVIDIA® CUDA™, PhysX™, PureVideo® HD technology, OpenEXR High Dynamic-Range (HDR) technology, Shader Model 4.0, Microsoft
• Dolby®7-optimized surround sound system with two built-in stereo speakers
• Optimized 3rd Generation Dolby Home Theater®7 audio enhancement, featuring Dolby® Digital Live, Dolby® Pro Logic® IIx, Dolby® Headphone, Dolby® Natural Bass and Dolby® Sound Space Expander, Dolby® Audio Optimization, Dolby® High Frequency Enhancer technologies8
• True5.1-channel surround sound output
• High-definition audio support
• S/PDIF (Sony/Philips Digital Interface)9 support for digital speakers
• MS-Sound compatible
• Acer PureZone technology with two built-in stereo microphones, featuring beam forming, echo cancellation, dynamic gain control (TBC), and noise suppression technologies
• LAN: Gigabit Ethernet, Wake-on-LAN ready
• WPAN1: Bluetooth® 2.1+EDR (Enhanced Data Rate)
• Acer InviLink™ Nplify™ 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi CERTIFIED
• 2.3 kg (5.07 lbs.) with 6-cell battery
• 342 (W) x 239 (D) x 23/38.6 (H) mm (13.4 x 9.4 x 0.9/1.5 inches)
• 48.8 W 4400 mAh 6-cell Li-ion battery pack
• Up to 3 hrs battery life
• Multi-in-1 card reader
• Acer Crystal Eye webcam with 640 x 480 resolution
• Acer PureZone technology
• Multi-in-1 card reader (SD™, MMC, MS, MS PRO, xD)
• Three USB 2.0 ports
• HDMI™ port with HDCP support
• External display (VGA) port
• Headphone/speaker/line-out jack with S/PDIF support
• Microphone-in jack
• Line-in jack
• Ethernet (RJ-45) port
• Modem (RJ-11) port
• DC-in jack for AC adapter
• Easy-launch keys: Acer Backup, WLAN, Bluetooth®, programmable, volume up, volume down, touchpad lock
• Media control keys (printed on keyboard): play/pause, stop, previous, next
• Windows 7 Home Basic
• Acer Arcade™ Deluxe featuring Cinema, Album, Music, HomeMedia,
• Acer Backup Manager
• Acer GridVista™
• Acer Crystal Eye1
• Acer eRecovery Management
• 1 Year Limited Local Warranty – Parts and Labor
• Acer 14in. Targus Carrying Case

I bought it from Electroworld ATC at the price of P40k.

What do I think of my new laptop? Awesome! It is fast, thanks to the 4 cores (2 real and 2 virtual cores) and the fact that I am using a 64-bit version of Windows 7. I have yet to test my video card to max but I have tried playing Civilization IV and it worked pretty well. The sound is fine and everything else is working as advertised.

Normally, I open a few applications at once (Firefox, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, etc…) and my new laptop is taking it quite fine. Never hanged before and no blue screen of death

All in all, I say that this is a good laptop to get especially if you are in a shoe-string budget. I give this a 9.5/10 rating.