VC’s Techie CockTail

After a post on Laptop maintenance a while back, I thought of posting thoughts on protecting not only laptop but all electronic gadgets and gizmos from the main villain “Electric Power”. Even though these gadgets nowadays needs power and comes with inbuilt stabilizers and protectors I think the main source of motherboard problems in computers is due to lack of proper ‘grounding’ of electricity.

And in India, where power supply is very irregular and prone to voltage drops and power surges proper grounding, usage of stabilizers and surge protectors will help prolong the life of our electronic gadgets based on my understanding. So I make sure a electrical technician has checked the power supply, grounding of my power supply and use a surge protector to make sure my laptop is protected from power surges and other power irregularities. And during lightning and rains, I make sure unplug the power cord and telephone cord too.Let me know your thoughts on this topic and post your comments here !!

written by Vignesh \\ tags: computer protection tips, Laptop, laptop maintenance tips

My friend who previously had a Acer Aspire 4710 wanted to upgrade to a more powerful entertainment laptop, Acer Aspire 5738 seemed to be the most value for money proposition beating out rivals like Dell Studio 15, HP etc. First here are the specs at a glance

Intel Core 2 Duo T6400, 4GB DDR3 RAM, 320GB HD,512MB Nvidia GeForce Graphics, 15.6″ LCD display (16:9), DVD Burner, 4 USB ports, 1 HDMI port, Multi-card reader, Bluetooth, Windows Vista Home premium

Look wise the overall profile was similar to the previous apsire 4710, but the top was made of a glossy blue material making it much more striking and the keyboard part of it was made of dark patterned grey material giving it a sophisticated feel. Its not as thin or svelte looking as a Dell Studio or HP DV series but its quite good. The build quality seemed ok but the hinges still seem to shake when kept under a ceiling fan.

Powering On, windows vista intialization was quite smooth and I was for the first time seeing the difference between a LED backlight LCD display and my IdeaPad’s own normal LCD display. There were quite a lot of demo games and some bloatware preloaded in the machine. The first step the laptop prompted was to create recovery cd’s (2 dvds) using the acer recovery management software and that was also when i first noticed there was no vista recovery dvd’s given in the box. Anyway after burning 2 DVD’s that step was done.

I was curios to find what it feels like to have a 512MB NVidia Geforce graphics inside the hood, the windows experience rating for Graphics and Gaming Graphics was 4.1 whereas my Intel shared graphics Lenovo Y410 was only 3.4 . The Aero interface along with other eye candy stuff of windows vista was smooth and I was able to Moto GP3 and Max Payne 2 at the highest resolution of 1366 x 760 x 32 pixels.

Since being a entertainment system with acer’s dolby digital surround system I was impressed by the sound quality from audio songs and from videos. And the HD capable 15.6″ screen was impressive to look at with nice and vivid color reproduction.

And the 15.6″ screen has also made space for a full fledged keyboard with nicely spaced out keys and a dedicated number keypad ala ps/2 keyboards for desktop pc’s. Overall I was impressed by its features and working but this is a brand new laptop which I was playing with so time only will tell about its reliability. But for a street price of Rs. 42,900/- including a bag and taxes it seems a great deal for a portable home entertainment & computing system.

written by Vignesh \\ tags: acer, acer aspire 5738, aspire 5738g, Laptop

This week, I was able to spend some time with my friend’s laptop a Compaq Presario V3777TU . Nowadays the “Value for Money” of laptops has been HOT in India with all major brands competing in the price range between 32000/- to 37000/- bucks but if you can stretch it a bit you can even have a Sony VAIO starting at 40,000 bucks. Before my thoughts on the Compaq laptop here is the specs at a glance,

• Intel Core Duo 1.73 GHz processor (Oops …didn’t note the processor number)
• 2 GB DDR2 RAM
• 14.1″ WXGA Display
• 120GB HD
• DVD Burner
• WLAN, Bluetooth, 5 in 1 Card Reader, USB, Firewire ports
• Windows Vista Basic

As my current notebook is the Lenovo Y410, I will compare it with this compaq in certain areas. First & foremost the finish of the laptop is sleek & stylish with a black glossy look with a wavelike pattern at the top of the lid. The finish is more appealing than my Ideapad but the hinge and overall solidity is better in my Ideapad. The keypad area is finished with a black matte look and sufficiently spaced but according to my friend the Y410 was bit better for typing. The 14.1″ WXGA screen was bright with good color reproduction.

The Core Duo processor was OK for all the mundane office work like e-mailing, word & spreadsheet processing and lightweight multimedia functions. The 1.3 megapixel webcamera was good with the bundled Cyberlink You Cam software pity that my Y410 doesn’t have a preloaded software for using the webcam. Even though the Y410 is supposed to have sub-woofers & all (honestly i haven’t tried it yet), the JBL speakers of the compaq was louder.

Connectivity shouldn’t be a problem as I’ve mentioned the various options available in the specs column. The DVD burner should suffice for reading / writing CD’s and DVD’s. I didn’t have enough time to test its battery strength, but at a price of 38,000 bucks (by the way 2000 bucks costlier than Iphone’s official price in India) it is worth a buy for people looking at a basic laptop with enough power to do all their regular PC stuff.

written by Vignesh \\ tags: Laptop

Hello Techies !!! Hope July is off to a wonderful start for all

One of the problems in a town like mine is the dust, and for a gadget like laptop dust can be a major enemy to the laptop’s longevity and error free running. The worst time with my previous Acer Travel Mate was the TFT screen, a combination of small greasy spots, dust & finger smudges made it a mess. First of all I had a soft lint cloth, a new paint brush to wipe and brush all the dust from the laptop screen and keyboard area. Then I got this iKlear thru my friend in America…and cleaning with this made my screen better .

But as I changed to my Lenovo Y410, the first thing I did was to get a screen protector. So on my last trip to Chennai, I went to Landmark, Spencers Plaza and got me a ScratchGard screen protector for 999/- bucks (23$). The shopkeeper after a brief struggle did a good job of sticking it or people with a certain level of skill and patience can stick it by themselves. But now i dont dread about my laptop’s screen, its easy to clean and the screen maintains its brightness and clarity. So its been a worthwhile investment.

The next thing I thought of buying was a USB vacuum cleaner, but after a extensive research on the web and from people who used it I came to a conclusion that its actually doesnt serve the purpose of cleaning keyboards. But a decent alternative in the web was to use a hairdryer in cool mode to get the dirt out.

So my laptop maintenance kit now has a lint cloth, a paint brush and some laptop cleaning kits to do the job. If you have any more ideas please share your thoughts here ….

written by Vignesh \\ tags: Laptop