Long gone, but now back… sort of. :)
(Answer requested by Dinju Sebastian) No. Amps are amps; volts are volts; watts are watts. Doesn’t matter where they come from. Your phone treats your PC-provided power as just another recharge source. There are no unusual effects on the phone’s battery from PC-delivered power, as compared to power delivered by a wall-adaptor (or any other…
That could be problematic — how will you control the PC if none of the keys work? A better option is a software-moderated kiosk mode, which severely restricts what users can do with the PC while not preventing the PC from acting normally, outside of kiosk mode. Operating systems and browsers usually each support their…
(Answer requested by José Marulanda) The magic isn’t in having two screens, per se, but being able to see and usefully access two different things on screen at the same time. That can be accomplished with two screens; or — if it’s large enough — one screen with the two items displayed side by side….
(Answer requested by Jake Timchak) Degrade by how much? Lithium-ion batteries are “consumables” that inevitably get used up, even just sitting on the shelf. Li-ion batteries actually start degrading (very slowly) the moment they’re assembled at the factory. Each discharge/recharge cycle then accelerates the irreversible chemical changes in the battery, ever-so-slightly reducing the battery’s capacity….
(Answer requested by Natalie Hen) Keyboards primarily differ in the quality of their internal key mechanisms — how robust the springs or domes are; how much pressure and vertical key travel it takes to trigger a keystroke; how well the keys are 2-axis stabilized; how much noise they make; and how long the electrical contacts…
(Answer requested by Andrea Hemphill) Laptops usually get resold when something’s broken or becoming obsolete. Laptops can be hard to work on. Even routine upgrades — simply adding RAM or installing a faster hard drive — sometimes require special tools or knowledge, and may be actively prohibited by the manufacturer’s warranty. It’s even worse for…
(Answer requested by Chris Fisher) Hmmm. Several come to mind. There were a series of early Soviet-era PC clones I saw in Russia and Hungary in the early 90’s, shortly before the USSR dissolved. Many of the computers were in the “close but no cigar” category, superficially emulating Western PCs (IBMs, Apples, Commodores, Ataris…), but…
Um, plug it in? If the phone (or any lithium-ion device) was put away healthy, turned off, and with a reasonable charge (manufacturers use 30–40% for storage), the battery should be fine for months. If the battery was allowed to run all the way down, and the phone was stored that way, then it depends…
(Answer requested by Alejandro Calle) For any “should I add more RAM?” questions, regardless of the amount, let Windows’ Task Manager be your guide. Open Task Manager (info), select More Details, and then open the Performance tab. Position the Task Manager window so it’s out of the way, but visible. Use your PC normally for…
It might be, depending on how you set things up. Very broadly speaking, a PC works best with at least 15–25% of empty space on the drive for page files, hibernation files, caches, and such. So, a 128GB drive might be fine if you have less than maybe 100GB of live apps and files that…