It never fails. You are at the coffee shop and all of the outlets are taken. You meet with a client, open your laptop to go over the proposal - the very important proposal - and all the while you wonder when your laptop will lose power.

Preserving the battery life on your laptop is a simple step to making you a more efficient mobile business person. This is not a post about whether manufacturer battery-life claims are accurate or which benchmark test is better. This post assumes you are a small business person with a laptop that is probably not cutting edge and is not used (very often) in online PvP WarHammer action. You expect the laptop to last through a long lunch meeting or a mid-range flight. You are looking for 2 to 6 hours of workable time before recharging.

Here are some tips and let me elaborate:

• Make use of Power Options - Going to Start/Control Panel/Power Options (on Win XP Pro) brings up the power options screen. Here you can set options for how your computer operates and by lowering performance you can increase battery time.


• Use Hibernate - From the Power Options panel you can set your computer to hibernate rather than standby. If the laptop remains on with no activity it will shut down, rather than idle, after preserving your work.


• Make use of Manufacturer's Power Software - Most laptop manufacturers have software installed to monitor your battery and power usage. Often this software can be very helpful in identifying battery draining hardware and software functions.

I would welcome any road warrior comments to add to the list.