January 19th, 2009
The battery in my tiny laptop has struggled to hold a charge properly for the last few weeks, so I decided now would be a great time to partake in the battery exchange programme and get this unit swapped out for a non-Sony-blow-uppable one.
I removed the battery and entered the serial numbers into the Fujitsu site, completed my name and address and submitted the form. ETA on a new battery was 4-6 weeks due to the model – which is no longer available – but I was pleasantly suprised to receive a replacement via TNT this morning, a little over a week later.
The battery already held some charge and seems to be holding well so far. With the lower risk of the thing setting fire to my nuts, I’m pretty happy with the entire situation. All that remains is for me to send the old battery back in the pre-paid TNT envelope provided, and we’re done.
Update: 20 Jan.
The new battery makes a vast, vast difference to how the laptop operates. It may be my imagination, but YouTube videos are much smoother now, and my whole usability experience is slightly less frustrating.
One this that has definitely improved is the recharge temperature. The laptop no longer tries to charge the battery when it should be full, and as a result it’s nice and cool when I go to pick it up in the morning.
Tags: Battery, Laptop, Lifebook, Recall
Posted in Computers, Hardware | No Comments »
January 10th, 2009
Microsoft have released the Beta version of Windows 7 for all to see, but for some strange reason they have decided not to use BitTorrent, but to shoulder the bandwidth themselves, making the MS download servers a bit hard to contact right now.
Here’s how I got to the download. All steps were done in Internet Explorer.
My download is still going and will continue for a few hours yet, so I have no comments on the actual use of Windows 7 Beta. Transfer speeds from Microsoft are still slow as half the developed world tries to download the image at the same time, so have patience.
Enjoy, and if you have any comments, leave them below.
Update: Installed and Working
I don’t know if it’s just me being used to Windows XP, or if I don’t have all the necessary drivers installed or something like that, but Windows 7 just doesn’t seem as snappy as I had hoped for. Obviously I will have to play with it some more…
Tags: Beta, Windows
Posted in Computers, Software | No Comments »
January 3rd, 2009
One of the traditional Christmas gifts I get these days is a few quid from my mum who [a] knows that I tend to buy/have everything I need and [b] doesn’t really like traipsing around shops on the off chance she’ll find something interesting. Still, that gave me the change to buy a new XBox game as opposed to something six months old, so I plumped for EA’s parkour-inspired Jump-em-Up, Mirror’s Edge.
There are plenty of reviews of the game kicking about the Internets for anyone who hasn’t heard of the game before, so I won’t bore you with yet more details of the same. Instead I will bring to your attention a bizarre effect I noticed the other day that occurs after an hour or so of gameplay, and that is Real-Life Runner Vision.
Observe, if you will, the following image:
How a typical street scene (left) appears to a Mirror's Edge player (right).
Heading out into the real world after a healthy hour or so playing Mirror’s Edge results in the player automatically scanning the environment for the quickest way up onto a roof. The problem is easily triggered when a bright red object is seen – such as a Post Box or Phone Booth (above), and the player feels an overriding impulse to climb up such items.
The solution is fairly straightforward: Players should not venture outside immediately after playing Mirror’s Edge and should instead sit down and have a nice cup of tea and perhaps a biscuit.
Tags: Games, Mirror's Edge
Posted in Games | 1 Comment »