Laptop charges only when it’s off

I came across a new problem, and this time the subject was a laptop. My mission was to repair an ACER Travelmate 2200 laptop that wouldn’t charge and run on AC power. It would run fine on battery, but when you plug in the AC adapter, it does nothing. It keeps running on battery power.

The problem gets weird when you turn off the laptop. Suddenly it charges the battery. Once the battery is fully charged, you can turn it back on and keep working. However, it would be annoying if you had to do turn off the laptop every time and wait for the battery to recharge.

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The battle of the browsers, part 2

Not too long ago I wrote a post about the most popular operating systems and browsers on the Internet (read here). I quoted statistics from the w3schools Web site, which gave Firefox the number one spot among all browsers. They collected data for over 5 years and came to this conclusion. Internet Explorer (6, 7 and 8 combined) came at second place with about 35%.

However, I read an interesting article about the funeral for IE6 on the CNN web site, and their source was Netmarketshare.com. According to their browser market share information, Internet Explorer (all versions) leads the way with about 55%, and Firefox (3.0 and 3.5) is far behind with 20%. Now that’s a considerable difference to w3schools stats.

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Hide your tracks with XB browser

I have recently published a post about Ultrasurf, a program that enables you to surf the Net anonymously and securely, but now I have found something even better: the XeroBank Browser. Previously called Torpark, the XB browser is an open source browser that works similar to other ‘anonymous’ browsers, but it may be even better. Open source means it’s free.

XB browser not only allows you to hide your IP address and identity/location details, but it’s safe against spyware and pop-ups. In addition, it’s fully portable, so you can run it from a USB stick and you don’t have to install it on your hard drive. It also doesn’t store a cache or cookies on the hard drive. It’s simple to run and there’s no need to configure anything. It is actually very similar to the Firefox browser.

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Beware of these Internet scams!

Are you annoyed by the fact that there are so many scams on the Internet? Don’t you hate it when you receive an email that asks you to update your bank account or credit card details? Or when someone sends you hot tips about the share market? Or when you sell your old PC on eBay, and the buyer wants you to send it to Nigeria! No kidding! This happened to me!

I have seen many Internet scams over the last 10 years, most of them trying to get your personal information, bank account details or make you buy some fake product or service, just so they can take your money. Such offers usually come via unsolicited email.

If you do get such emails, do not respond and do not click on any links. Just delete the email.

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The most downloaded iTunes songs

Did you know which iTunes songs are most popular? I was interested to find out, and recently I came across an article at a news Web site which listed the most downloaded iTunes songs ever. I thought it would include some historically popular songs by Michael Jackson, Madonna, Rolling Stones or the Beatles, but I was rather surprised when I found out that the top 10 songs are no older than 3 years.

Since 2003, when iTunes was launched, people all over the world have downloaded close to 10 billion songs!

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