Be ye Warned...

about buying things from Ebay, recently i decided to buy a battery for my Imate. Was only $22 (inc postage) however 3 days after i got it, and when i was about to leave work, my battery meter went from 100% to 0% and backup battery warning came on. After contacting the seller (who asked if i knew how to use it, yes im not kidding!) who would not offer much in the way of replacement or refund i then took the case to a higher authority and eventually (thankfully) got a refund. yet again the moral of the story is becareful what you get from Ebay, this now makes 2 for 2 as my bluetooth headphones and GPS are still working fine.

Q&A: Help! Activesync is draining the battery

Q: I have WM 5.0 and Activesync 4.0. Activesync turns itself on automatically on the PDA and drains the battery. As I read the instructions they say I should open Activesync on my PDA>Options>schedule and change the automatic to manual. The schedule function is not available (will not open).I have unsuccessfully tried to access the Schedule tab on the PC. Activesync does work fine and does what it should in terms of synchronizing. Do I have to un-install Activesync on my PDA and PC, and re-install so as to re-set the schedule function to manual?

A: The schedule tab is enabled only if when connected to an Exchange server. Obviously you're not but you can create a dummy one. Just open Activesync on your PC, click Tools and select Configure server Source. Type any name then click finish. The schedule tab should be enabled in Activesync. Just select manual from the both drop lists. Remember to delete the dummy exchange server afterwards.

Flexible see-through battery power

All is no longer as it seems – the clear flexible plastic in the image is a battery – it is a polymer based rechargeable battery made by Japanese scientists. Drs Hiroyuki Nishide, Hiroaki Konishi and Takeo Suga at Waseda University have designed the battery – which consists of a redox-active organic polymer film around 200 nanometres thick. Nitroxide radical groups are attached, which act as charge carriers. Because of its high radical density, the battery has a high charge/discharge capacity. This is just one of many advantages the ‘organic radical’ battery has over other organic based materials according to the researchers. The power rate performance is strikingly high – it only takes one minute to fully charge the battery and it has a long cycle life, often exceeding 1,000 cycles. Read more via Gizmag.com