Hasta La Gadget!

Bill Gates’s Microsoft-running days are behind him. He’s moved on to toilets and condoms and general philanthropy. Still, Windows is his baby, so no wonder Jimmy Fallon felt the need to hide his MacBook during an interview on Late Night. Awkwardly.

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This article was written on August 26, 2007 by CyberNet.

I’m a huge fan of coming up with cheap hacks that replace otherwise expensive solutions. I thought I would use this article to discuss creating a low-cost laptop sleeve from various items, as well as picking up a nice laptop stand at the store for under $5. Hopefully these instructions will save you some time and money…

–Laptop Sleeve–

I originally saw this trick on Lifehacker, and I thought it was really clever. Someone had made a sleeve for their laptop using 3 or 4 FedEx envelopes! Directions on how to make your own are available on Instructables, and here is what the final result looks like:

Instructables also has two other alternatives for laptop sleeves: one made with a hoodie, and another made with a simple piece of fabric. Before you get going on any of these tricks you’ll want to have some sewing skills!

I, however, forked out about $25 to purchase a well-padded laptop sleeve that fits my computer very snuggly. If I’m going to be using this to transport my computer I want to have something that does a little more than just prevent scratches.

–Laptop Stand–

I had given a tutorial back in June regarding how to change your primary monitor. Since then I’ve had several people ask me what I used to get my laptop lifted off of the desk, and make it more at level with my standalone monitor:

In the photo the stand is the four white legs holding up the laptop, and it’s just a wire shelf often used in the kitchen. Here is someone selling a similar shelf on Amazon for $5, but I picked up a three-pack of these at our local Walmart for under $6 (they varied slightly in size). I recommend going to a department store and looking in the kitchen section for these if you want one yourself. It surely beats paying $32 for something that serves the same purpose.

And besides for just putting the laptop at an equal level to this monitor, it also serves a few other purposes. Since it is a wire rack it provides plenty of ventilation for the various vents on the computer, and therefore it runs cooler than normal. Not only that, but the way the rack is designed makes it possible for me to easily utilize the space underneath the computer for something else.

Tip: Some stores will have these stands in aluminum or stainless steel for a few dollars more, and that style looks a lot nicer. I decided to just go with the cheapest thing I could find though.

–Have Any Laptop-Related Tips?–

If you’ve got some sort of cheap hack that you’ve come up with for your laptop feel free to share them! I hate paying more than I have to for items that serve the similar purposes, and I’m sure plenty of you have come up with some clever setups. Hit us up in the comments below.

Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com

This article was written on February 06, 2007 by CyberNet.

Windows might be the most common operating system but there is no doubt that Linux is gaining ground rather quickly. The biggest complaint that I always hear about Linux is that the hardware on a computer never quite functions right with Linux. Ubuntu is trying to conquer that problem, but wouldn’t life be a little easier if the computer you bought was built for Linux? Then you know that everything would work how it is supposed to.

No problem! System76 has several different laptops that vary in price to accommodate nearly everyone’s needs. You can even go as far as to customize them so that they are exactly what you want…you can even get a built-in camera. Honestly though, for the operating system being free I am quite surprised that their cheapest laptop is $700…and by the time you add some of those finishing touches I’m sure you can take it over $1000. Right now, without any coupons, I can go over to dell and pick-up a Windows Vista laptop for $689. I guess if you are looking into the future then the Ubuntu laptops might be appetizing since the operating system upgrades will always be free, but it would have been nice to see these in the $500 range.

Source: Engadget (Thanks for the tip Mohan!)

Since we are on the topic of Ubuntu I thought I should mention Ubuntu’s newest pre-release of version 7.04, which is still two-months away. This pre-release is dubbed Feisty Fawn Herd 3 and sports a few new features over the previous versions. The most prominent feature is the new Control Center (pictured above) which pulls in the feature I love the most from Windows Vista…instant search! Now you can just start to type the setting or option that you are looking for and it will instantly show you the results. Figuring out how to change that one hidden setting is now going to be a thing of the past.

A lot of the other things that are new in this pre-release are updates to existing programs, so they are primarily building on what already exists. I definitely like that idea because people aren’t necessarily looking for a lot of new features, but instead they want to see the existing features and applications made even better. With the popularity of Ubuntu it surprises me that they have not integrated XGL/Beryl to spice it up with the 3D effects, but I would guess that they might be holding back until the stability of those features gets a little better.

Thanks for the tip Chris!

Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com

[CES 2014] Samsung is refreshing its ultrathin 15.6” ATIV Book 9 laptop (formerly called Series 9) with an update that will take the battery life to new levels: Samsung claims that the 15.6” ATIV Book 9 can stay up for 14 hours straight while running the standard Mobile Mark 7 battery benchmark. That’s a 40% increase of battery life over the previous model, which is quite impressive.

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Samsung ATIV Book 9 15.6-inch 2014: 14Hrs Of Battery original content from Ubergizmo.

Toshiba is coming out with a Chromebook of its own. It’s slightly larger than the Pixel, and more than a whole thousand bucks cheaper.

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