Getting to the Bottom of the Box
34
Courtesy of Toshiba America, Inc.
In addition to the hardware on/off switch for the WiFi system, most lap-
tops include wireless control software provided by the wireless system
manufacturer; this software may have a feature to enable or disable the
transmitter. Shutting off the WiFi system at the software level makes it
impossible to use the wireless facilities but might not end the hard-
ware’s draw on the battery. Use the on/off switch instead.
✦ Audio input. Depending on the design and capabilities (and any extra
sound adapter software you ordered as an option), your machine may
have one or more audio input jacks. Most common is a microphone
input, used — you guessed this, right? — for recording directly from a
microphone. Many laptops use an icon of an old-style microphone to
indicate this input; see Figure 2-10. A line input port is another type,
used to record from an amplified source such as a tape recorder, digital
recorder, or home stereo system.
Courtesy of Toshiba America, Inc.
Figure 2-10:
Many
laptops use
a drawing of
an antique
microphone
as the
symbol for
microphone
input.
Figure 2-9:
A version
of a WiFi

of an icon
for the USB.
Figure 2-11:
The audio
output port,
often a set of
headphones,
can provide
a low-power
signal to an
amplifier for
use with
external
speakers or
a stereo
system.
06 140925-bk01ch02.qxp 4/8/08 12:35 PM Page 35
Getting to the Bottom of the Box
36
The first version of the USB standard was quite appropriately called USB
1.0, which was quickly replaced by USB 1.1. As this book goes to press,
the much-faster USB 2.0 is state-of-the-art, and that’s what you want to
buy. Anything slower is just a waste of good electrons. If you have an
old machine that offers USB 1.1, shop for an adapter that plugs into a
PC Card or Express Card slot and delivers much-improved USB 2.0
functionality.
✦ iLink, i.Link, FireWire, or IEEE 1394 port. Introduced at about the same
time as USB, this other near-miraculous piece of technology (under
whichever name you choose to call it) is primarily used by digital video
cameras. This technology was originally Apple’s FireWire; Sony was

and smaller version of the PC Card. Two card sizes are in use today: the
06 140925-bk01ch02.qxp 4/8/08 12:35 PM Page 36
Book I
Chapter 2
Touring a Modern
Laptop
Getting to the Bottom of the Box
37
ExpressCard/54, which is the same width as a PC Card at 54mm or
2.125 inches (although its depth is shorter and its connector is smaller),
and the ExpressCard/34, which is not much bigger than a stick of gum at
34mm wide, about 1.3 inches. See Figure 2-13.
As with PC Cards, an ExpressCard slot is a good way to add an internal
upgrade or workaround to a laptop computer; devices designed to
this specification include eSATA adapters, advanced WiFi cards, and
broadband cellular modems.
Courtesy of Toshiba America, Inc.
A workaround is a way to deal with a broken or outdated element of your
laptop without having to replace it or repair it. For example, your laptop
may have been delivered with a relatively slow and outmoded 802.11a
WiFi system, and you want to use more modern 802.11n communication.
(Don’t worry about the alphabet jungle; I’ll define 802 dot whatever in
Book VIII, Chapter 2.) A workaround is like this: Disable the built-in WiFi
system through Windows or other control software, and install an
upgrade in the PC Card or ExpressCard slot.
✦ Media card reader. Some laptops offer a tiny slot capable of accepting
one or more types of flash memory as used in audio players, digital
cameras, and other devices. The problem here is that these media come
in so many different forms, among them CompactFlash, SmartMedia,
Secure Digital, Micro Secure Digital, XD, Memory Stick, and others. And

The disadvantages of a larger screen include shortened battery life, extra
weight, and a very tight squeeze on an airliner’s tray table.
You can expect these sorts of ports on the back of the bottom box on
some models:
✦ Power connector. The business end of the AC adapter connects to most
laptops on the back plane of the bottom box. One end of the adapter
plugs into a wall current and the other end delivers DC voltage to the
computer.
Be cautious where the power connector protrudes from the back. If the
laptop tumbles or tilts too far back, if the power block falls from the
table, or if a frozen block of blue ice drops from a jet flying 30,000 feet
over your head, the connector can snap off. According to one service
company I consulted, this repair is expensive and one of the most
common causes of laptop damage.
Figure 2-14:
Many
laptops can
directly
accept one
or more
types of
flash
memory like
the ones
used in
digital
cameras
and music
players.
06 140925-bk01ch02.qxp 4/8/08 12:35 PM Page 38

the back side of the bottom box. They function just like the ones on
the sides.
06 140925-bk01ch02.qxp 4/8/08 12:35 PM Page 39
Book I: Choosing the Best Laptop
40
06 140925-bk01ch02.qxp 4/8/08 12:35 PM Page 40
Chapter 3: Microprocessors,
Memory, and Operating Systems
In This Chapter
ߜ Meeting the mother of all boards
ߜ Delving into a bit of binary
ߜ Deciding whether to get the latest operating system
Y
ou can see the external hardware — the screen, the keyboard, the ports —
and you know the software’s name and capabilities. But these things
that you can see and touch are mere slaves to three essential masters: the
CPU, the memory, and the operating system.
The central processing unit (CPU), also known as the microprocessor, is the
engine. The bigger, faster, and more efficient it is, the more powerful the
computer; think in terms of horsepower under the hood.
The memory (also called random access memory or RAM) is the brain, the
place where work gets done. Too little memory means the microprocessor
either has to make notes on “scratch paper” (by writing things to the con-
siderably slower hard disk drive) or that the memory is simply overloaded
and likely to throw a temper tantrum, start a petition drive, or otherwise
diss you in public.
And the operating system: It’s the boss of the hardware. Facing one direction,
it tells the microprocessor where to go and helps manage the huge block of
memory. Looking the other way, it maintains an index of all data and pro-
grams stored on the hard disk drive, and it receives requests from the soft-

verted to another; sent out as a command to another piece of equipment or
software, or transmitted to a storage device.
In general, faster is better than slower. Once you’re past a certain point,
though — say a speed of 1 GHz or more — other factors come into play. The
CPU has to be matched with a fast bus (a superhighway of wires) that can
move data around the machine quickly, and it has to work with memory that
can keep up with its demands. Otherwise you’ll be doing the equivalent of
trying to load and unload ten pounds of data with a five-pound bucket; it
won’t all fit at once and you’re going to quickly develop a huge backlog at
each end of the process.
Laptops use the same sort of processors that desktop machines use, and
sometimes identical models. Because laptops run on batteries and because
heat buildup within a closed little box can lead to problems, designers
generally use modified CPU designs that use less power, can switch features
on/off, or can adjust their speed (and thus power draw and heat generation)
as needed.
07 140925-bk01ch03.qxp 4/8/08 12:35 PM Page 42
Book I
Chapter 3
Microprocessors,
Memory, and
Operating Systems
Feeling the Need for Speed
43
Figure 3-1 shows an advanced laptop CPU. One of the most advanced CPUs
for laptops, as this book goes to press, the Intel Core 2 Extreme Mobile
Processor contains a pair of cores, or processors, each packing 291 million
transistors into less than one square inch. The processor runs at a speed of
2.6 GHz and can slow the speed (and power use) when not needed.
Bringing binary to the CPU

and then adds them together.
And how does your laptop multiply 7,345 times
15,237? Well, obviously: It adds 7,345 to 7,345
again and again — 15,236 times, to be precise.
Like I said, very dumb but very fast. Buy me that
drink and we can discuss the elegance and sim-
plicity of the world of binary math.
What does your laptop do with all of those 0s
and 1s? In a word, it makes words out of them.
Each of those 0s or 1s is called a
bit
and in com-
puterese, a 0 means none, no, or off while a 1
means one, yes, or on.
Depending on where it sits within a computer
word, it can indicate (from right to left, not left
to right as most of us humans count) either a 0
or a 1 or any other even number. (It only takes a
single 1 to convert an even number to an odd
number, right? And if the first bit is set at 1, the
seventh bit to the left is also set at 1, and all the
other bits are 0s, that means this particular word
means one 1 and one 64.) You and I might call
that 65, but to the computer, 01000001 could
mean the number 65. Or, it could mean the
alphabetic character
A.
It could also indicate a
very dark and dull shade of blue if that is the
value assigned to the blue component of an