Laptop accesorise; completing your laptop

All right, you have finally made the leap to a laptop. What else do you need to make your new purchase useful? Let’s just start with the top five laptop accessories that you should rush out and get.

These are not really in any particular order. It will depend on how you are going to use your laptop. For example, you would not need a bag if you were never going to take it anywhere, but you probably would not have bought a laptop if it was going to stay on your desk at home all the time. So the following are suggested items, and you’ll have to make up your own mind according to your perceived computing habits.

A Laptop Bag
No, it’s not very exciting, but it is very important. Laptops are a bit more delicate than most things you carry around, and they need to be protected. Make sure that you get a bag with enough padding to keep the computer safe in case the bag gets dropped. Padding takes up room, but is the only safe way. Also make sure you get a bag that is comfortable to carry or wear. And, of course, make sure that your specific laptop will fit in the bag you select. Measure carefully. You want it to slip in easily, but you don’t want it to slide around too much.

There are several kinds of bags available, of course, from student bags that are half backpack and half computer bag to very sleek and businesslike bags that you would be proud to carry into the boardroom. I have a $450 natural leather bag because I decided to take a flyer one day. I could have gotten by with much less and probably should have. You can buy a reasonable computer bag for $50-75. If you use a backpack, you know that they can get pretty pricey, and that is also true of backpacks made to safely hold a computer, as many of them are.

If you’re mainly going back and forth to work with the bag, make sure it has enough room for the other stuff you carry: any computer accessories that you want to take along and any work materials you regularly carry back and forth, like papers and files. If you’re a student make sure that you have room for all of your books and class materials. And remember, you are going to have your backpack on and off all day, so buy for both comfort and performance.

Wi-Fi
This may sound redundant, but you probably should have Wi-Fi at home if you do not already have it. There is little sense in getting a laptop and then being confined to a desk in a small room somewhere in the house. I work from home, and do so from my deck at every opportunity. Certainly you have somewhere other than your office where a laptop would be useful. The kitchen? (be careful!) The television? The balcony or patio? The craft room?
Most new laptops come with the ability to hook up to 802.11n networks, so that’s probably what you should get. It costs a little more, but is a lot faster and more powerful. I have an Apple Airport Extreme, and it does an excellent job of handling my Macs and PCs, as well as other wireless devices like my cell phone. It even has separate channels for 802.11g and 802.11n, so it can work both types of devices at once. A little research will find you a highly rated wireless router in your price and speed range.

USB drive
A USB drive, even before some other accessories? Yes, it’s a safety first issue. This is especially true if the laptop is what you are going to use all the time. Often, anymore, the laptop is the only computer that people have. So you need to be able to back it up. As a rule of thumb, I try to buy a USB drive that will hold everything on my laptop three times. Then I back up the whole thing overnight about once a week, first erasing the oldest of the existing copies.
You may want to invest in a program that will make an exact mirror of your operating system and data for use in making these copies. That way you’re ready for the worst. There are a number of drive mirroring programs available for both Windows and Mac. Some of them are even free. Again, a little due diligence will find the right program for you.

External Mouse
Trackpads are great, and can get you by in a pinch, but there are times that having a mouse can be really, really handy, including those times when you have to work on graphics or other things that require a lot of cursor precision. Even with the wonderful gesture-friendly trackpads on Apple laptops, I would prefer to have a mouse if I am going to be doing much work on the laptop.
There are a lot of different mice made specifically for laptops. They are smaller in size and easier to carry around. They come in both corded and cordless and that choice is up to you. I have not gone cordless simply because the one time I need to use the mouse badly would surely be the time I was out of batteries both in and out of the mouse. You may have better luck. Certainly, though, get an optical mouse. You never know what kind of surface you may wind up with under your laptop and carrying a mousepad is a drag.

External Monitor
Although they are usable, the screens on laptops are not what we have become used to on the desktop. To be honest, 15 or 17-inch laptop monitors don’t offer much real estate, especially if your eyes are not that good. So a nice 21-24” monitor rounds out the top five. Best of all, you can almost always use both monitors at the same time when you are home (or at the office) with your external monitor, for even more real estate to work with.

By the way, you should try to get an external monitor in the same form factor as your laptop monitor. If your laptop has a widescreen, for example, so should your external monitor. Use whatever pixel dimensions work best for you, but try to get an external monitor that is in the exact same shape (ratios of side and top length) as the built-in screen on your laptop. It just makes things easier.

Bonus – External Keyboard
You will notice that there was not an external keyboard on this list. I just ran out of room. And the keyboards on laptops 14” and up are generally very workable without getting an external keyboard. The major shortfall of the laptop keyboard is the lack of a numeric keypad. If you find yourself using a lot of applications that require numeric input, like spreadsheets, you might consider getting an external keyboard after you have covered the other bases.

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Usefulness and benefits using the laptop Cooling Pad

Cooling Pad can provide a sense of cold and cool for its users. Fan in the Cooling Pad is created in such a way so that it can provide a sense of cold and cool. Users can set their own temperature and fan speed in the Cooling Pad.

Provide comfort when your activity Activities so as more comfortable work environment that supports. Mild taste provided by Cooling Pad will provide comfort when your activity. With the feeling of cool, the user can feel more comfortable when working on things, while thinking, or even when relaxing your laptop.

Living Environment Currently, the world’s problems are heating, I also called the global warming, and the use of tools and materials friendly environment is necessary and pressing to reduce the impact of global warming on the earth. Because energy and materials does not require in-use fuel oil, and no harmful waste gases such as CO2 and CFC or Freon, then this tool can be categorized as environment-friendly equipment. In addition, Cooling Pad also does not cause pollution, both air pollution and sound pollution.

Does not cause bad side effects
Each person in the purchase and use a product would expect to use the product and do not want the side effects of bad for him, both for today and in the future. Therefore, Cooling Pad is also designed so as not cause bad side effects that directly or indirectly for its users. This tool does not cause the occurrence of disease, accident, health or other interference.

Adjustable fan speed
Wind speeds generated are adjustable or can be selected according to the will users. Users can choose their own temperature resulting from Cooling Pad this setting using the buttons located in the arm of side Pad. Gust of wind can be generated from your feel like breeze like to be in the middle of storms can be generated from any tool.

Support and a comfortable Pad cushion
Back the cooling pad is designed with the appropriate thickness and material that is not sticky, and does not feel hot. Similarly, the seat cushion is also well designed, that is not too soft and not too hard, so very convenient to use. Seam used for the seat cushion and back rest made of waterproof material, scratch resistant, and fire-resistant, so it is not easily damaged when exposed to cigarette fire, sharp objects, scratches, or sprayed hot water.

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Three Laptop Tricks For Better Presentations

Some guy in a generic suit with a fake smile and a clicker stands uneasily in front of a room full of people who would rather be somewhere else. The clicker controls PowerPoint on a laptop, which sits on a nearby podium or conference table, and is connected to a projector. He slogs laboriously through slide after boring slide, glancing at them to remind himself what he's talking about. He goes through whatever's on the screen -- charts, graphs, bullet-points -- and makes comments about each item. The audience fights narcolepsy as they're gently lolled into a passive PowerPoint stupor. The slides themselves are random, artless, complex and -- worst of all -- numerous, and make a long series of points mainly irrelevant to the audience. The presentation exceeds its time, despite the fact that he glanced at his watch several times during the talk.
In addition to all that, here are three laptop tricks I use that are less well known, but will help you deliver better presentations.

1. The Dual-Monitor Trick
You can set up your laptop so your presentation doesn't appear on the laptop you're presenting from, while your slides display normally onscreen. That leaves the laptop for other uses, such as displaying your notes.
The trick is to use Windows' dual-monitor mode. To set this up, connect your projector normally through your laptop's VGA port. Right click on the desktop and select "Properties," then the "Settings" tab. Configure this tab so your laptop screen is Display 1, and the projector is Display 2. Click OK.
Now, open your PowerPoint presentation, and choose "Set Up Show" from the "Slide Show" menu. In the "Multiple monitors" area, chose "Monitor 2" from the drop-down menu, then click OK.
Now run your presentation, and you'll see that your slides display normally, while your laptop is free to run anything you like, including a Word document with all the notes you want in giant type.

2. The Giant Clock Trick
Timing is everything when you're presenting. To always end on time without glancing at your watch (a gesture that communicates to the audience that you can't wait to finish and leave), place a laptop on the floor in front of where you're speaking, and set it up to display a giant clock.
You can do this either with a second, older laptop (or the notebook of a colleague), or use the trick above to put it on your laptop screen using the same system running PowerPoint.

The best clock I've found is a screensaver called the Text-Reader ScreenSaver, which is free. You can increase the size to take up your entire screen.

3. The Laptop Cue-Card Trick
I've worked with many speakers who always run way over their time (leaving less time for remaining speakers), and who are so focused on their presentation that they don't see colleagues in the back using sign language (pointing at watch, knife-hand across the throat, etc.) tell them to shut up and sit down.
One of the tricks I've used when presenting as part of a group is to use a two-laptop system to cue to the current speaker. You place one laptop on the floor in front of the speaker, which you control via remote-control software (an application usually used for tech support). I use an old copy of LapLink, but you can use any remote-control software.
This lets you use the clock screensaver to keep the speaker on track, but interrupt that clock with giant letters that say "Five Minutes" or "speak up!" or other stage direction.

Another related trick I use to get the attention of the speaker is that I set up the laptop with a black background. Then I have a full-screen instance of Word running but minimized, containing my message to the speaker. When I want to get the speakers attention, I hover the mouse pointer over the minimized icon on the Taskbar, and click repeatedly. This makes the laptop flash like a strobe a few times before I leave the message up, which I guarantee the speaker will notice.

It doesn't matter if you like presenting or hate it, whether you're nervous about it or not. If you're going to present, do it well. Don't kill them with PowerPoint -- knock 'em dead with a great presentation they won't forget.

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