GSM may never crank up the power until it has scanned and found a signal it can use. This is to avoid problems in countries where GSM is not the norm, otherwise the phone would go broadcast mad using a possibly locally-illegal band and standard. Would yours in Europe or Japan?
I like this thread: the i-everything is a marketing triumph but anything that can't just present a USB drive to a pooter is of no use to me. Sony Sonic rubbish and a Philips even more horrible proprietary interface; been there, hated them all. iTunes shop, ugh. All your mp3 and mp4 are belong to Apple. Lovely interface on the iPhone but the airtime and itunes lock ins lose me.
More accurately, if the onboard electronics for an intelligent charger costs $20, whereas a crude one only costs $5, you can bet your last dollar that proverbially all of the HPs and Dells and Lenovos out there have cut that $15 out of their laptops.
For another example, take a look at the AC adaptor for the notebook computer:
if its a heavy brick, it is a cheap low tech iron core wound transformer, whereas if its small & light, its a solid state switching power supply. The solid state version costs more, but it avoids adding a pound to the total system weight of your 6lb notebook.
Hello archy, still can't hit the key and the caps lock at the same time I see. It's bad when live enroaches on one.
Any yes, eBay is like that. The run ads to glorify "winning" the auction, which is a sucker's game. I have a friend who states that he wins the lottery every week because he doesn't play. Obviously he comes out ahead. Competitive fever in an auction is a beautiful thing if you are selling.
On Wed, 01 Jul 2009 10:19:00 -0400, ZnU wrote in :
You're being disingenuous again -- battery life becomes an issue when a vendor makes it non-removable by the user, and if life isn't an issue, then the warranty should reflect that, especially since Apple has a poor track record when it comes to battery issues, as I'm sure you know.
On Wed, 1 Jul 2009 04:52:44 -0700 (PDT), -hh wrote in :
On the contrary -- Lenovo ThinkPads have long since featured state-of-the-art power and battery management, with multi-stage charging and sophisticated battery monitoring. And the benchmark is Sony, both a notebook computer manufacturer and a world leader in battery technology.
Has no bearing on battery issues, and you obviously haven't any real experience with Lenovo products; e.g.,
Hey, your TV shows are spread across several channels anyway. A similar solution could be implemented easily. A web TV guide in HTML format, that allows automatic programming of selected shows just like eyeTV provides and Helen's your aunt. Apple provides this thing called AppleScript that can nicely tie the pieces together.
I have been scrupulously avoiding this needlessly cross-posted thread, but reading this I had to reply. Mr. Navas, did you not read the quotation you cited in your last post? Speed sensitive programs in the embedded field are common and require a native serial port and a cpu and mainboard that conforms to the assumptions of the original programmer.
A modern laptop with a USB adapter _does not_ cut it for these applications.
On Wed, 1 Jul 2009 01:52:03 -0600, "Todd Allcock" wrote in :
Agreed, although poor charging, and lack of use while fully charged, were probably factors as well. For maximum life, li-ion batteries should be kept cool and only about 50% charged. Even a hot car can diminish the life of a li-ion battery.
On Wed, 01 Jul 2009 10:06:18 -0500, msg wrote in :
While there are cheap, crappy, problematic USB to serial adapters, there are also good ones that _do_ cut it for any reasonably well-written application, like my Prolific PL-2303, which is why I specially listed the part.
Sorry, but such adapters have been tried many times, by many individuals, and failed to function. The problem is not the hardware or drivers. It's the ancient and badly written Motorola programming software. The old radios are still useful and unlike computers, have a very long useful life. There are 25 year old radios still in service. However, the programming software for these was written on ancient hardware, which is no longer practical to operate. For example, the software for programming a Motorola Syntor X9000 will not run on anything faster than a 386dx33 and will only talk to a "real" serial port (8250 chip). Another aspect of the problem is that these radios do not use the pins of the RS-232 connector for RS-232 data signals. Instead, they send a bit stream to one or more of the pins using a proprietary protocol, to a RIB (radio interface box). More on this at:
There have been attempts too slow down the machine so that the old software will run such as Mo'Slo: ($15 to $25) My experience is erratic. Sometimes it works, usually it doesn't, with no discernable pattern. It has NEVER worked with a USB to any serial adapter. The author has been working on the problem since 1990 and has yet to produce a universally workable solution for turning a Core2Duo gigahertz speed demon into an 4.77MHz XT sludge box.
Also, running some software, such as for Maxtrac/Radius radios, in a DOS compatibility box under XP SP3, results in a hang with an unkillable MSDOS window. This makes testing rather tedious and frustrating and often requires a power cycle to revive the PC.
You really should run some of the early Motorola programming software to experience the totally awful user interface. Everything is done with function keys, which change radically on every page. Secret key combinations everywhere. No consistence between software for different model radios. It's kinda like the DOS version of MS Word
3.0, only worse.
Of course, more recent radios have much better software that runs on fairly modern PC's with a less irritating user interface. However, to program the old radios, there's nothing better than an old 386 laptop.
Incidentally, I have dumb and marginally related story about old laptops. When I was having medical difficulties earlier this year, and while somewhat drugged, I decided that this would be a perfect time to clean out the ancient computers and laptops that have accumulated around the house. I made a huge pile of eWaste and dragged the pile to Gray Bears for recycling. A few days later, I noticed that my old radio programming laptop, with all the software inside (not backed up), was missing. I had recycled it. To compound the error, some of the local radio geeks asked for and received all my old 286/386 laptops and portables, leaving me with nothing usable for programming old radios. I'm currently using a Compaq Lunchbox:
with an orange plasma display. Very retro but not very portable.
On Wed, 01 Jul 2009 09:14:55 -0700, Jeff Liebermann wrote in :
I'll buy the first issue but not the second issue -- there are high-end USB-to-serial adapters that fully emulate the 8250 right down to shadow registers. But not much point in even trying one unless the first issue can be solved.
As I've pointed out before, such efforts are generally pretty crude, and I'm pretty sure the problem could be solved if it were sufficiently important to justify the effort.
I've had considerable experience with similarly poor software for other devices (e.g., very old disk drive diagnostics), best characterized as "lab curiosities".
What is *today* considered State-of-the-Art battery management is now defined as it being done at the per-battery-cell level.
Whose laptops have that, John? Cite, please.
Actually, its bearing is in providing a clear illustration for how some laptop manufacturers are "cutting corners"...presumably in an area where they don't think that the average consumer will notice. The power tranformer is one and the degree of sophistication of the battery charger is another example.
Its a conspiracy that I started salting the archives with posts as far back as 2007 where I specifically mentioned that I have ThinkPad laptops.
Here's a 2008 example where I even mentioned that I was replacing an older T41p with a new T61:
Perhaps next time, Mr. Navas will take a moment of his precious time to do the tiniest bit of research before attempting to sling his ad hominem insults.
Good guess and I agree. Apparently the life is not determined by the number of charge cycles:
"How to prolong lithium-based batteries (BU34)"
"Short battery life in a laptop is mainly caused by heat rather than charge / discharge patterns."
"Keep the lithium-ion battery cool. Avoid a hot car. For prolonged storage, keep the battery at a 40% charge level."
The "Simple Guidelines" section at the bottom is rather interesting and may provide another reason why people don't buy spare laptop batteries. Li-Ion batteries also have a shelf life:
"At a 100% charge level, a typical Li-ion laptop battery that is full most of the time at 25 °C or 77 °F will irreversibly lose approximately 20% capacity per year. However, a battery in a poorly ventilated laptop may be subject to a prolonged exposure to much higher temperatures, which will significantly shorten its life. Different storage temperatures produce different loss results: 6% loss at 0 °C (32 °F), 20% at 25 °C (77 °F), and 35% at 40 °C (104 °F)."
Ok, that explains what may have happened. The stationary laptop battery was losing about 25% of its capacity per year getting cooked inside the laptop. The portable battery was not getting cooked as badly and therefore lasted longer. The only problem is that the stationary laptop was only used 8 hours per day, and should not have been self heating when turned off. I'll check the "standby" temperature to be sure.
I'm not sure how this relates to the iPhone, but I suspect carrying the phone in one's pocket (98F body temperature) will shorten battery life.
While I don't disagree in principle, when a company makes a product more difficult to service, then includes a part that is known in the design phase to fail within a time period, that's a game-changer.
Cabling-Design.com Forums website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.