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Tech News & Commentary
Wendy in Norwalk, Ohio listening on CKLW 800 called and asks us: “We had a storm come through and without power, I wanted to work on my laptop. However my laptop was not charged enough. Was wondering what charging device that is portable I can use for laptop so that if I’m out in the wilderness or stranded without power, I can power up my laptop.”
You have plenty of options, but you’re going to have to make sure that one of their charger tips is compatible with your computer’s power port.
Amazon sells the Power-U Ultra High Capacity Battery Pack, it can store 33600 mAh of charge, which will likely be enough to charge a laptop battery a few times over, it comes with around 15 different charger tips, and it costs around $100.
If you’re willing to spend the money, another portable charger that you might be interested in is the Energizer xp18000. We found it on Amazon.com, this lightweight, portable charger priced at $139.95. Not only you can charge your laptop up to 6 hours extra, but you can also juice up your phone, digital camcorder, or netbook.
You can also find the Intocircuit Power Castle for about $90, and while it can’t store as much power, it is rated as a 26000 mAh battery, so it should be more than enough to keep your laptop happy for a while.
If those don’t sound too appealing to you, for about the same price you can buy a UPS unit and just plug int whatever you want, computer charger or anything else to it. The UPS has the advantage of being permanently plugged to power, so when they power does go out it will be charged. Having said that, you did say you’re looking for portable and UPS units are very heavy and not designed to be easily portable.
If you feel as though you’re likely to be without power for some time, you can check into some portable SOLAR chargers for your laptop. The unfortunate part is that good ones are expensive. A Goal Zero Sherpa 27W charger is around $250, but the Sherpa 120 battery pack to store the power costs an additional $500 or so, meaning that you’re going to pay right around $750 for the set.
You have to leave it in direct sunlight all day long, 10 to 12 hours. That will give you enough juice, Goal Zero claims, to charge your laptop to full. So charge the solar battery all day, recharge your laptop at night. It won’t keep you running 24 hours a day, but it will keep you running somewhat even during extended power outages.
For more information tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast.
Consumer Reports Feature With Terry Sullivan
Nikon is out with a new digital SLR camera that will make old-school photogs feel a little nostalgic, so says Consumer Reports. Associate Editor Terry Sullivan is here with the details on the Nikon DF.
The “Into Tomorrow” team discussed the latest apps that they have been playing with recently.
• Mark recommends: Pages, $9.99
- “This week I’m talking about the NEW Pages app from Apple for iOS 7. It’s part of the iWork suite, which also includes Numbers and Keynote. What Pages gives you is a full on word processor, complete with a wide variety of formatting tools, running on your iPad. Documents are stored in iCloud and can be opened using Pages on your Mac OS X computer, assuming that you’re running OS X 10.9 Mavericks. Pages gives you far more control over graphics and advanced layout options than Google Docs and even the mobile version of Word from Microsoft Office. New with this iOS 7 version is a redesigned interface with a plain, crisp, white background look — gone is the desktop ink blotter background. While they haven’t added a ton of new features, they have made Pages seem like an integrated part of iOS 7 and not just an app that happens to run there. If you need to do REAL writing with your iPad, the new Pages is worth the $10 price. Remember that anyone buying a new iOS 7 device now will get both iWork and iLife free of charge.” — Mark
• Chris recommends: Microsoft Mahjong for Windows 8, FREE
- “Enjoy gorgeous graphics and relaxing sounds with multiple themes to choose from. Complete E2puzzles at four levels of difficulty, perfect for mahjong beginners and experts alike. With the dynamic Undo system, you have the option of rewinding to fix mistakes.”
What are your favorite Apps? Let us know at 800-899-INTO and we’ll feature them in this segment!
- Tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast for more details
Guest Segment:
Tony Jarboe, CEO – Expertory.com
Joel from Anchorage, Alaska listening via Alaska Talks Here 700AM KBYR asked: “Looking to buy a computer running Linux, preinstalled. Then I would want to run Windows on a virtual machine on Linux. What is the best place to find a linux machine with Linux pre-installed?”
Buying a computer with Linux pre-installed isn’t that easy, a few years ago some companies tried selling to skirt the OS price and be able to sell cheaper computers, and a lot of them got hit with the “what’s wrong with my Windows? it looks funny…” question.
Then there’s the people that actually do want Linux… but “not that Linux”… “Ubuntu is dummies, I want Debian” “Debian is super complicated, I want Gentoo” there are hundreds of Linux distributions and different users have different preferences, so selling preinstalled Linux distributions is hard.
These days, your best bet is probably to go with a specialized vendor, ThinkPenguin.com will build you whatever laptop or desktop you want with whatever version of Linux you prefer, and ship it to you.
We can’t speak of quality we haven’t tested them, but their computers are not cheap, the base price looks ok, but when you open the ordering you run into “Hard Drive: 80GBs” and then options to get a bigger one and the price quickly climbs, but most Linux distributions are not too demanding so you may be ok with a more basic system.
Los Alamos computers sells pretty powerful systems, that come preloaded with free Linux distributions too, so you can have a look at what they’re offering too.
When it comes time to run that virtual copy of Windows, things might get pricey for you. There ARE some open source virtualization tools, and some of them reportedly work quite well, but you’ll be on your own for installation and support.
If you want to spend $99, you can buy VMWare Fusion, which includes the VMWare Player that lets you run Windows on Linux, or Linux on Windows.
And unless you have a Windows installation disc from somewhere, do remember that you’ll need to buy a copy of Windows, even for a virtual machine installation. It’s still going to want a product key and it’s still going to authenticate itself with Microsoft.
For more information tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast.
This Week’s Prizes for Our Listeners
Scottevest: Lola Puff Jackets for Women & Puffer Jackets for Men – Complete with pockets for all your gadgets.
iolo: Copies of System Mechanic- Fix and speed up your PC Automatically.
TYLT: An assortment of Smartphone charging accessories and bluetooth speakers.
Nite Ize Innovation: Connect Case and Connect Cradle for iPhone – Hard case with belt clip, vehicle mount and desk stand.