Finding a place for the laptop
Laptops can go anywhere. That means they can get up and go anywhere, anytime.
With a fully charged battery, your laptop has a home wherever you go!
Beyond that, you can place your laptop anywhere you like: the kitchen table,
the coffee table, a real desk, a computer desk, in bed with you, and so on.
I do recommend keeping the laptop on a flat, steady surface. Try to keep it
away or out of spilling range of any drinks or food you might be consuming.
When I use my laptop around the house, I like to keep it plugged in. For example,
when I’m browsing the Internet while I’m watching a football game on TV,
I’ll put the laptop on the coffee table and plug it in just behind the couch. I
keep the beer and Doritos well away from the laptop.
If your laptop doesn’t have a permanent home, then do create a consistent
storage place for it. I’ve seen laptops slid into bookcases between the
Steinbeck and Grafton novels. You can keep the laptop in a drawer or cupboard,
or in the box with the rest of the laptop stuff. But keeping it in the
same place means you’ll always be able to find it when you need it.
Avoid putting the laptop in a spot where it can overheat. Today’s laptops get
hot all by themselves. Anything you can do to help keep the laptop cool is
good.
When the laptop has a docking station or port replicator, try to keep that
part in the same place all the time. Set up a desk and put the docking station
or port replicator in one spot. You might also keep various peripherals —
such as a printer, big keyboard, mouse, full-sized monitor, scanner, and other
toys — ready to go and plugged in. Call this location your Laptop Shrine.
 One great way to set up a laptop is to place the laptop on an elevated platform
above the desktop. Then use an external keyboard to type on, resting
the keyboard on the desktop itself. That way the laptop’s screen is at eye
level, which will naturally make you sit with better posture and give you less
neck strain than keeping the laptop down on the desktop itself.
- Although you can use the laptop anywhere, be aware of ergonomics! For
example, when using the laptop on a coffee table, if you start to feel a
pain in your back from hunching over, stop! Find a better, more comfortable
place to work.
- Refer to Chapter 7 for more information on attaching devices to your
laptop.
The last thing to do: Plug it in!
When you choose your laptop’s final resting place — even if it’s final only
until you find a new resting place — plug it in, as illustrated in Figure 3-1.
Attach the power cord to the laptop’s back or side. On newer laptops, the
power cord connector may be color-coded yellow; the yellow hole is where
the power cord plugs in. Otherwise, the power connector should be unique;
it plugs in to no other hole on the laptop.
Figure 3-1:
Plugging in
your laptop.
Attach the power cord to the power brick, if necessary. Plug the power brick
into the wall. Note that the power brick may also contain the plug that connects
directly to the wall.
That’s it. The laptop is now ready for use.
“Should I plug the laptop into a UPS?”
I advise my desktop computer readers in PCs For Dummies (Wiley Publishing,
Inc.) to consider investing in a UPS, or Uninterruptible Power Supply, specifically
one with both surge and spike protection. This device both serves to
protect the computer from nasty things that can come through the power
lines as well as to provide emergency power should the electricity go bye-bye.
A UPS for a laptop is unnecessary. The main reason is that your laptop
already has a battery. Should you be running your laptop from an electrical
outlet and the electricity goes off (or some doofus unplugs it), the laptop
quickly and happily switches its power source over to the internal battery.
Nothing is lost!
- Note that while you don’t need a UPS for a laptop, I still highly recommend
plugging your portable baby into a power strip with surge protection
and line filtering. This helps keep the power your laptop uses clean and
steady.
- It would be a wise idea to use a UPS for any external storage devices connected
to the laptop. For example, plug an external disk drive into a UPS.
You’ll also do well to plug your DSL or cable modem into a UPS, as well as
the router. But there is no need to plug a scanner or printer into a UPS.
- Generally speaking, if there is a lightning storm nearby, don’t plug your
laptop into the wall unless you’re using a spike protection filter. If not,
then just run the laptop from its battery until the storm passes.
- Refer to Chapter 8 for more battery information.
What to Do Next?
My guess is that after setting up your laptop, you’ll want to turn it on and
see how it works. That’s covered in Chapter 4, which also contains details on
using Windows XP on a laptop, plus it describes the many different ways to
turn your laptop computer off — which can be confusing if you’ve never used
a battery-powered computer before.
On the subject of batteries, I also recommend that you read Chapter 8 to
bone up on how to treat your laptop’s battery in a fair and just manner.
And before taking the laptop on the road, read Chapter 15, which covers a
few nifty things you might want to consider before you venture out into the
cold, harsh world with your new computer friend.
|
