Monday 11 October 2010

Dell Laptop Power Supplies (PSU)

Have had a Dell Inspiron 1545 on the bench, with a few issues.

I managed to get the laptop to charge, then it started to report it didn't like the PSU and won't charge.

A bit of  a google round and found that dell and may be other laptop manufactures powers upplies are a bitsmarter than I thought. The PSU sends an ID bit or other data to the laptop to say what type of Power Supply is fitted?

"The AC power adapter type cannot be determined. Your System will operate slower and the battery will not charge."


I tried another Dell psu and the message disappears.

The Dell laptop Power Supply plug has an outer and inner metal contact, but with a PIN in the middle which send ID DATA to teh Dell Laptop.

Friday 1 October 2010

Tel domain names ?

I have had a couple of tel domain names for a while now. I was curious as to what the tel domain name had to offer over standard .co.uk etc.


The main difference was no hosting needed a definite bonus but what could I do with them?

What I wanted was an easy way to advertise phone numbers and Business address’s for small business located around Yeovil and Somerset. So I bought my first bizuk.tel, I wanted a name which appeared top level (May not be the best Choice).

One of the best bits for me is just been able to add a new folder and populate with new subfolders including local business (these folders can contain Phone numbers, web address, notes heading, a small logo, Google map and most other forms of web based communication.

I have now created a new site called repairyeovil.co.uk using my tel domains to provide the information into my standard html web site.

I have used an Iframe to display the folders I need on each page. There are other options using cgi and PHP which I plan to look at soon. There is some useful advice on the telnic.org website for developers.

You can back your domain up into an xml file so you can restore etc if things go wrong.

The tel domain has saved me from creating mysql databases and a lot of PHP.

I am looking at the SEO advantages, the main obvious one is there is plenty of text and no flash graphics.

As with most domain names the cybersquatters have taken some of the better names but I am sure there are still some good combinations to have. I managed to get caravan.tel which lists some local caravan companies.

http://www.telnic.org/tour-hub.html