Ask DACS
June 2010

Moderated and reported by Jim Scheef

Q – The screen saver section of WinXP has a Power button that controls the computer power settings. In addition to the settings to power down the monitor and hard drive, there are settings for when the computer should standby and/or hibernate when running on batteries or plugged in. What is the difference between “standby” and “hibernate”?

A – Both of these settings allow your computer to save the current state of all programs running at that moment so that it can resume running later from that exact moment in time. The difference is in how Windows saves that current status. Standby puts the computer into a low power status where the data in RAM is preserved by powering the RAM. If the computer is running on batteries, the computer continues to draw power from the batteries but as many other parts of the computer are shut down to reduce power consumption to a minimum. Hibernation goes further in that all data in RAM is written to a file on disk and the computer makes a “mental note” to restore that file to RAM when it is next turned on. The computer returns to full operation faster from standby but continues to use power and cannot remain in standby indefinitely on battery power. On the other hand, the computer is completely off when in hibernation so it can remain in that state “forever”. The down side of hibernation is that the system RAM must be restored from disk so the time to resume operation is about the same as a normal boot up. Either of these states can cause problems if the system is “saved” when connected to a network and then “restored” without the network available or where it will connect to a different network. “Unexpected behavior” can result when the computer authenticated to a domain controller and that controller is not available when activity resumes. This is not an issue for the typical home user.

Q – What is the difference between a “laptop” and a “notebook”?

A – There is no difference. The term notebook was a marketing term adopted by the industry many years ago that indicated a laptop that was about the size of a standard sheet of paper. The name stuck even as machines grew larger with 17” screens. Netbooks are a relatively new category of laptops with smaller sizes and features aimed at long battery life together with low cost. The result is lower cost (read slower) processors and reduced storage with amazing battery life.

Q – Back on power settings…  The Power applet in Control Panel has a drop-list box with options for “Home/Office Desk”, “Portable/Laptop”, etc. I selected the laptop setting and set the monitor and hard disk timeouts to 180, but the battery still drops off before that. Battery life varies greatly between laptops.

A – The drop-list in the Power applet primarily sets the default timeouts for the display and hard disk. In some machines, the drivers for the system board include additional power settings under the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) specification (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acpi). Sometimes these are exposed in the Power applet in Control Panel, sometimes they are controlled by the drop-list setting and often there is no way to know.

Q – Do Lithium-Ion batteries have a good shelf life?

A – “Good” is a relative term and not everyone at the meeting agreed with what follows. I urge the reader to visit the Wikipedia page for these batteries (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ionbatteries). Shelf life is listed under disadvantages. I will summarize here and say that shelf life is highly dependent on how and where the batteries are used. High temperatures caused by poor ventilation and constant charging will adversely affect the overall life of the battery. My advice is to remove the battery pack from your laptop when you are at home after it is fully charged. Li-Ion batteries deteriorate over time even when not in use and thus it is not advisable to buy an extra battery when you first purchase a laptop unless you need to be able to swap batteries for the extra run time between charging opportunities. There was some discussion about the non-removable batteries in Apple laptops and how this relates. Li-Ion batteries do not have the “memory effect” of Ni-Cd or nickel-metal hydride and thus do not need to be fully discharged. Li-Ion batteries may be stored in the refrigerator which will prolong life of the battery.

Q – How can I transpose rows of data in a spreadsheet into a single column with the rows “stacked” one after another in a single column?

A – A member immediately suggested the “transpose” function in Excel but this does not give the desired single column. Suggestions ranged from recording an Excel macro that would replay to move column after column, to writing a program in Visual Basic for Applications, the programming language built into all Microsoft Office applications. The consensus was that this was a non-trivial problem.

Q – My HP Pavilion desktop computer has six USB ports. Will each port provide one ampere of power or are all the ports limited to a total of one ampere? I want to use an external hard drive.

A – The USB (universal serial bus) is supposed to provide a small amount of power to devices connected to the bus. Generally a modern desktop system board will have two USB “host controllers” that are the primary interface. To these are connected two or more “hubs”. I would guess that in this case, each controller and hub is connected to four ports. The amount of power provided on port varies with the system. Look in the system specifications to see if the system provides power to each port and how much. At the meeting there was much anecdotal discussion. Newer machines seem to provide more power. In my experience, desktop machines are more likely to provide useable power from the USB ports does a laptop.

Q – Another member asked why the instructions for one of her USB devices required the device to be plugged directly into the computer (rather than into an external hub).

A – Plugging a device directly into the computer puts the device as close as possible to the host controller so that it can get the best speed possible. The device is a “Magic Jack” voice over IP telephone adapter. Call quality will suffer if it does not have adequate speed. Note that a USB bus (one host controller and all the devices connected to that controller) will be ruled by the slowest device on the bus.

Discussion – There is a new version of USB called USB Version 3 (so clever!). Devices are just beginning to reach the market. My reading of the Wikipedia article on USB looks like USB cables will not be compatible with USB versions 1, 1.1, or 2 devices. If you are interested in more on USB, Wikipedia is as good a place to start as any - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usb.

Q – When I try to view a CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corp) program, I get a black box where the video should be playing. It plays OK in Windows Media Player. What’s wrong with Firefox?

A – Most suggestions revolved around a missing codex or plug-in for Firefox. Two days after the meeting, the member emailed that he had found a Firefox plug-in for WMA/WMV files and the videos now play in Firefox.

Questions for the upcoming meeting can be emailed to askdacs@dacs.org.

Disclaimer: Ask DACS questions come from members by email or from the audience attending the general meeting. Answers are suggestions offered by meeting attendees and represent a consensus of those responding. DACS offers no warrantee as to the correctness of the answers and anyone following these suggestions or answers does so at their own risk. In other words, we could be totally wrong!