TheLaptopJunction

It's a very simple recipe to watch free local TV in Spain nowadays. With the arrival of the DVB-T standard, synonym for Digital Television, it's never been more easy to get a grasp of whats going on in the area. It's just a simple USB adapter and a small antenna away.
 

Digital TV, the replacement of analog TV, is slowly gaining popularity in Europe. It's known as DVB-T, Freeview or TNT. For those who travel, it's easy to pick up the signal and watch local television on a laptop. The ingredients for DVB-T television are simple, however there are a few things worth mentioning.
 

With the popularity of laptops, wireless Internet using WIFI technology has become immensely popular. The need for more speed over a larger distance has pushed the wireless industry to produce more powerful and sensitive WIFI equipment. The legal FCC power limit for WIFI using omni-directional antenna's stands at 1 Watt maximum. A quick scan of the market reveals several brands producing WIFI consumer market equipment nearing the FCC limit.

WIFI technology has brought many laptop / netbook travelers the joys of free Internet access. It's great to discover open WIFI networks with the opportunity to check e-mail for free and to surf the web. The same euphoria becomes frustration when the connection is suddenly lost. What usually follows are attempts to reconnect, wondering what might have happened. Here's practical info how to deal with weak or lost WIFI connections based on a 3,5 year and ongoing journey with the Machine through Asia, The Middle-East and Europe.

While bashing around with a standard DELL Latitude D610 business laptop for more than 3,5+ years in Asia and the Middle-East, how would a rugged laptop, notebook have done in the same circumstances? The questions popped to mind on several occasions when the going got pretty tough for a laptop not designed for such extreme circumstances.
 

The battery charging system used in a wide range of DELL laptops has caused quite a bit of frustration among it's customers. Top ranked is the "AC Power adapter not recognized" warning with DELL laptop batteries not being charged. This alone has triggered a quest for information in many Internet forums mainly because DELL has not come forward with a reasonable explanation into the cause(s) of the problem. So here's info about the architecture and a bit of background of the battery charging system used in DELL laptops.
 

Quite a while after replacing the LCD screen inverter the LCD screen of the Dell Latitude D610 started to have problems. After several weeks the screen died with tell tale signs of CCFL back-light tube malfunction. The screen had been used to the extreme, here the story of a dying CCFL tube.

With the arrival of the DELL Optiplex Sx280 ultra small desktop the Senao 100mW WiFi card is replaced by more powerful WiFi hardware. In 5 years the wireless network industry released new WiFi standards and produced hardware with more capabilities. The old Senao 802.11B  100 mW PCMCIA card is replaced by a Alfa Network 802.11 B/G 500 mW USB connected WiFi client. Here's a bit about both WiFi adapters, WiFi antenna's and a short performance review.
 

No doubt, the 1 TeraByte Samsung Spinpoint F1 is one of the cheapest 3,5" TeraByte disks in the summer of 2009. The disk is aggressively promoted in Europe as super savers for around € 60,- ( approx. 86 US$) . After buying 3 disks, one Samsung Spinpoint disk only lasted for 10 days in a DELL Optiplex SX280 after it caused the infamous 2 beeps with BIOS message "No Boot disk found, press F1 to retry or F2 to for setup". The other 2 Samsung disks also have issue's. Time for some digging.

During disk defragmentation on a D610 Latitude laptop, battery charging suddenly shuts down. At first it seemed like the dreaded "ID chip failure", a design fault in DELL AC adapters. but nothing like that. Read more about temperature issue's in DELL laptop series.