Tips for maintaining your laptop battery

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_ion

Since I'm getting a new laptop with a Li-ion battery, I read up on it and found interesting tips I want to share with you.

Waiting for my next laptop

After my blue-screen experience with the previous Dell Inspiron 1420, I decided to try HP. Don't get me wrong, I received good service from Dell's tech-support. For some "unknown" reason, the three I spoke to coincidentally had Indian-sounding names and spoke with an Indian-like accent. Though satisfied with the level of service, I didn't fall in love with my Dell Inspiron 1420, therefore I decided to try HP, a brand I never had experience with. My friends recommended me a Mac. I would love getting a Mac, but I never saw it drop enough to fit my budget.

There's a similar/same deal going on with HP laptops as for the Dell laptops: get 25% off 14.1" laptops over $999. I upgraded mine to reach $1050 with a Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T8300 (2.4GHz) and 250GB of HD. There was a free upgrade to 2GB of RAM and it also comes with a free HP Deskjet D1560 Printer (value of $70), which I don't care for.

Now, I'm patiently waiting for my next toy. :D

Home Sweet Home

When I was growing up, I always wondered why people get excited when they meet someone from their home country. Especially in a Chinese community, they get very friendly when they meet people from their village and speaking their dialects.

My parents have been visiting for the past few weeks. Today, I went to SFO airport to send them off. While waiting for them to cross security, I overheard someone speaking Québécois. I turned my head to look and had a smile. This feeling of belonging to a limited group of people speaking a language with a specific accent is quite strange. You can identify where they come from almost without a mistake, they probably grew up on the same land as you did. I bet it would be even more surprising for them to hear me speak, because I just don't look like someone who speaks Québécois!