GuruNews, Volume 9 Number 31, 8-28-09

[Kevin-PC Gurus]

Welcome to GuruNews



Brought to you each week by the PC Gurus, a loose collection of volunteers from around the Kentuckiana region.

 

You can interact with the PC Guru team via our Web site, located at http://www.thepcgurus.com.  On our site you can post your computer questions, comments and rants on the forums, e-mail the PC Guru

team members and chat one on one in our nightly IRC chat beginning around 8:00 PM EDT.  You can also subscribe to our RSS feeds so you can get the latest news and forum updates from the PC Guru Web site directly on your computer.

 

If you're new to the Newsletter you can read back issues at Team member JP Durbin's website at http://www.jpdurbin.net.  There are links to all the old 84 Online issues as well as the new GuruNews missives.

 

The WHAS Crusade for Children provides year round support for needy children throughout the Kentuckiana region.  Visit http://www.whascrusade.org to make donations online.

 

USS Rover’s list of streaming computer shows is now available for download in Excel, Open Office and Linux ready formats from http://sheet.zoho.com/public/ussrover/shows. 

 

To subscribe to this newsletter just drop by www.thepcgurus.com and sign up!

 

Vol. 9, No. 31                           

8-28-09

 

1 The evil that batteries do 

2 Let me guess

3 Free=illegal, steam resurgence, MS Apple?, more workspaces

4 Handy info

5 Dead “tower”

 

Every week you see the stories all over the Internet.  Exploding cell phones, lap burning laptops and smoking AC chargers.  The commonality?

 

Lithium Ion batteries.

 

Just this year in Canada a laptop left running on a sofa started a fatal fire, killing a 56-year-old man.

 

Pilots have also experienced problems due to battery cargo, leading to at least four fires this year.  Pilot’s unions are currently lobbying to ban shipping Lithium Ion batteries in bulk by air.

 

Lithium Ion batteries work by encasing “cells” of pressurized flammable lithium-infused fluid with a fixed ribbon of metal.  A thin separating membrane lies between the negatively charged side of the cell, called a cathode, and the positively charged anode side.  

 

When a battery is plugged into a circuit electrons move from the cathode to the anode along the metal ribbon.  That movement creates electricity.

 

Electrons are built up in the cathodes and when operating on battery power they are drawn along the ribbon via the electrical potential, between the negative and positive poles.  Once the supply of electrons run out the battery is exhausted and the device goes dead.

 

When charging the electrons are built up rapidly in the cathodes, greatly increasing the negative charge and diminishing the electrical potential until it reaches equilibrium.  That means the charges are close enough together that the number of electrons drawn equals the number of new electron coming in.  At this point the battery is fully charged.

 

Heat is obviously generated in this process but usually it isn’t dangerous.  The problem lies with the manufacture of the metal ribbons.  Any metal work always results in small bits of the material flaking off and these tiny flakes just float around in the flammable fluid.  As with any liquid, the hotter the liquid the more rapid the movement of any components floating in it.

 

Think of a pot of vegetable soup on full boil.  You see the boiling water moving corn and peas and bits of cabbage all over the place.  The metal flakes are identical, and in this electrically charged chemical environment movement equals heat.  Increased heat can result in either increased pressure (if rapid) or a runaway heat “engine” (if slower).  This can cause either outright explosion or melting of the batteries.

 

The rapidly moving flakes pose yet another danger.  They can perforate the separator membranes resulting in the poles making contact.  As most of found out as kids playing with scissors, lamp cords and electrical outlets, this results in a short circuit and spark, which is obviously bad in a flammable liquid.

 

That got a lot more in-depth than I had intended but regardless, here are some ways you can lessen the danger to yourselves and your property.

 

Never use a laptop or netbook on a soft surface, such as a bed, a sofa or your lap.  Soft materials can block the vents that dissipate heat from both the battery and the electrical components.

 

Always use your portable computers on flat solid surfaces such as tables or desks and, in the case of full size laptops consider using a cooling pad.  These “pads” are short stands with one or two exhaust fans that will pull even more heat from the unit and most will connect to a USB port for power, making them easily portable.

 

For all devices just plug them in long enough to fully charge the battery, then unplug them, and unplug the charger.  Plugging a laptop or cellphone in overnight just increases power usage, even if it’s just a trickle, and a fire while you’re asleep could be catastrophic.

 

And always be aware of how the device “feels”.  If it starts to feel much warmer than normal or even hot immediately turn it off and remove the battery.

 

Be safe, we’ll see you next week…

 

Kevin Mefford, Editor

pcguru at microdome.net

 

 



 

Terry Wise

www.ratland.com

 

 

Tech News of the Week
 

Oh boy.  The government is at it again.  This time, any music you download from the Internet is illegal.  Doesn't matter if it is released into the public domain, under a Creative Commons License, or is in any way free of worrying about licensing or remuneration of the artist.  Oh, and you're supposed to shout at them "That's Illegal!":

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/08/26/1956201/US-Fed-Gov-Says-All-Music-Downloads-Are-Theft

Old technology is new again, as a steam-powered car has broken a long held steam engine speed record:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17653-steampowered-car-breaks-centuryold-speed-record.html

Microsoft in Poland got a little egg on their face for some horrible photo editing skills, and what some have perceived as racism.  Personally, I don't necessarily think anything was meant by it, other than they need to learn to take separate photo sets instead of trying to insert someone in to a photo.  Also of note, the monitor is hooked to nothing, and there's an Apple laptop on the desk as well:

http://gizmodo.com/5345418/microsoft-needs-to-hire-better-less-racist-graphic-designers

Kevin's workspace and accessory review last week got me in the mood to look at an upgrade of my own desk as part of a few things I've bought and am looking to buy.  The folks over at Lifehacker often feature reader workspaces as part of their posts.  Take a look here for some of their best:

http://lifehacker.com/tag/featured-workspace/

Keep us copied in on the good stuff.

Daniel A. Williams
daniel at thepcgurus.com

 

 

Download of the Week
 

The Belarc Advisor has been reviewed in this newsletter in the past, but it merits another mention.  Belarc Advisor creates an HTML report that not only tells you everything you could possibly want to know about the hardware on your system, but also what you might need to know about the software that's installed. Gathered info includes motherboard type and revision, CPU and GPU info, drive space, Microsoft hotfixes, operating system revision, and Web browser vulnerabilities, as well as third-party software installs. It is free and can be downloaded here: http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html 

 

Carlita Lupino

Cards57 at gmail.com

 

 

Email Question of the Week
 

Q:  Thank you for the opportunity to ask my question. One day, I went to turn my pc on and nothing. The monitor came on and nothing else. Is my tower dead or is there still hope?

 

A:  Generally speaking the entire "tower" isn't dead, only a part.  Unfortunately when one part fails it can damage other parts (most notably if the power supply fails and throws off an over-voltage) but usually that doesn't happen.

 

The first thing we'll need is a little more information.  I know the monitor doesn't get a signal and gives that message but what about the PC (tower)?  Do any lights come on on the front?  Do you hear a beep or a series of beeps?

 

If you get none of that try unplugging power to the PC and pushing the power button for five seconds (without power).  Plug it back in and hit the power button and see what happens.  Sometimes it's just an overcharged capacitor in the power supply that causes the problem and that procedure will drain it.

 

Aside from that you could start pulling expansion cards (especially ethernet cards and modems) and RAM modules to see if things change.

 

If those few simple steps don't isolate the problem you might want to take it to a local shop for evaluation.  If nothing else they might be able to access your hard drive and save your important files for you.

 

Hope that helps and keep us posted...

 

Kevin Mefford

pcguru at microdome.net

 

 

Contact info and legal stuff
 

If you have tech support questions or ideas and/or submissions for our newsletter please submit them by visiting www.thepcgurus.com and click on the “Email the Team” icon. 

  

Copyright 2001-2009 The PC Gurus, all rights reserved.  Publication, rebroadcast or storage is prohibited without prior consent, however you may freely forward this publication to friends as long as A) it is forwarded in its entirety and B) no fee is charged.

 

Information provided in this publication is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied.  Although the information provided is known to work on most systems, it may not work on ALL systems.  Make use of any information supplied at your own risk.

 

The PC Gurus are a group of volunteers who provide support for the PC, Mac and Linux users in the Kentuckiana region.

 

To unsubscribe from this newsletter visit http://thepcgurus.com/mailman/listinfo/newsletter_thepcgurus.com or send an email to microdome at seidata.com with the words “unsubscribe newsletter” (without the quotes) at the top of the body of the message.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://thepcgurus.com/pipermail/newsletter_thepcgurus.com/attachments/20090828/2aeba997/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 35949 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://thepcgurus.com/pipermail/newsletter_thepcgurus.com/attachments/20090828/2aeba997/attachment.jpe>