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Yes, I know -- many of YOU know all these things, but not everyone does. ;)

 

 

1. You should let your phone's battery drain before recharging.

Apple A common myth surrounding phone and laptop batteries is that it's always best for the life of the battery to let it drain fully before charging it again.

This is true in some cases. When a device uses a Nickel-Cadmium battery, for example, you'd want to let your phone fully drain before charging it again. Why? Nickel-Cadmium batteries, unlike Lithium-Ion batteries, suffer from what's known as "memory effect." When they are charged and discharged hundreds of times, they start to lose the ability to charge up to 100%, draining your battery life significantly over time.

There was a time when most electronics ran on Nickel-Cadmium batteries. Cordless telephones and answering machines all ran on Nickel-Cadmium. In 2006, most NiCd batteries were replaced with technology that used Lithium-ion batteries. These can be found in all Apple devices and do not suffer from "memory effect" the way NiCd batteries do.

"Lithium-ion polymer batteries have a high power density," Apple says on its website, "and you can recharge a lithium-ion polymer battery whenever convenient, without requiring a full charge or discharge cycle."

Apple does advise, however, that you should let the device go through at least one charge cycle each month to help keep the electrons moving (as opposed to a NiCd battery which needs to go through a full charge cycle every few days). Letting the device drain from 100% to fully shutting off at 0% helps to maintain the life of the battery.

2. Jail-breaking is illegal.

It's important to note that "jail-breaking" and "unlocking" a device mean different things. Unlocking a device means you've freed your device to work on any carrier, not just the one you bought it from, while jailbreaking refers to bypassing Apple's security to install modifications that are not allowed in the App store.

The U.S. Library of Congress deemed it illegal to unlock any phone purchased after January 26, 2013 using a third-party vendor, but jail-breaking your iPhone is still legal until at least 2015 under an exemption in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Note that jail-breaking your iPad is illegal. Some catch, right?

3. More bars means more service.

Bars on your smartphone actually indicate your signal strength to the cell phone tower closest to you. Your service depends on how many devices those towers are serving at a given time.

Metropolitan areas are equipped to handle the dense population of people trying to use their phones in one confined space. In unexpected situations (say, a music festival where there are a lot of people in a small area), your phone can be showing lots of bars, but service will be impossible to find; everyone's trying to tap into that one cell tower.

4. The higher the megapixels, the better the camera.

Every year, the number of megapixels on the latest digital cameras seems to increase, with ad campaigns sending the frantic message that you need to be upgrading for the bigger and better version of your perfectly functional camera.

More megapixels mean clearer photos to a certain extent, but there is often a misconception of just how many megapixels are needed to produce a quality photo you can enjoy on your phone or computer screen. For those, just three megapixels will do the trick, and even allow room for cropping. With seven megapixels, you can blow a photo up to the size of a poster with no issue.

For the amateur photographer using a point-and-shoot device to capture casual moments, more megapixels does not translate into a better camera, or better photos.

5. Emptying the trash or recycle bin means your files are permanently deleted.

Drag a file to the trash, then empty the trash can and your files are permanently deleted, right?

Not so fast. Deleting something, and then deleting it again from trash, just frees up the space it had taken up on the hard drive, leaving fragments behind that could theoretically be revived.

On a Mac, choose "Secure Empty Trash" as a final step in the deletion process. On a PC, download a program like SDelete, which helps to securely wipe all free space.


6. Private browsing keeps you anonymous.

Setting your browser to incognito tells your browser not to save any information about where you've visited or what you've typed while you were there, but it does not keep you anonymous. Your visits can still be recorded, and files you download while incognito will still live in your computer, phone, or tablet.


7. Improperly removing a USB drive will delete all your data.

Better to be safe than sorry.

If you're working with a USB Drive and have removed it after all of the files have transferred, you should be fine. You might also be okay if you accidentally remove the USB while it's in the middle of transferring, but you run the risk of losing your data or experience software clashes.

It's best to go through the short steps to remove the USB safely, taking all of the precautions to protect your work and workstation.


8. Macs don't get viruses.

Macs can be infected by viruses. Up until a few years ago, Windows was the most common operating system. Now that Macs are becoming more and more prevalent in homes and offices alike, they're becoming a more vulnerable target.

"The OS X operating system isn?t susceptible to the thousands of viruses plaguing Windows-based computers," Apple says on its website.

But Macs are still susceptible to viruses created to target Apple products and operating systems.


9. Expensive cables are better than cheap ones.

Last year, MythBusters Jamie and Adam determined there was no difference between a cheap cable and an expensive cable.

As should be abundantly clear, expensive HDMI cables are simply not worth purchasing for normal use. In the case that you are running cable in a permanent fashion through walls or ceilings, it may be prudent to spend a little extra for heavier-duty cables for the sake of longevity, but if you?re spending extra on gold-plated connectors and the like, you are doing little more than embedding hard-earned cash in the walls of your home.

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9. It depends on whether you're sending a digital or analog signal.

My understanding is that even with an analogue signal, the difference between a cheap cable and an expensive cable can be fairly minimal. So unless you're a professional that needs perfect results on an analogue wire, you don't need the expensive stuff.

Of course for a digital signal, the quality of the wire is basically moot, so the cheaper the better :)

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letting it shut down because of low power is super damaging to the battery. but of course Apple would recommend it as a "maintenance" procedure. The only time you should do that is if your battery needs calibrating, which is certainly not every month.

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My understanding is that even with an analogue signal, the difference between a cheap cable and an expensive cable can be fairly minimal. So unless you're a professional that needs perfect results on an analogue wire, you don't need the expensive stuff.

Of course for a digital signal, the quality of the wire is basically moot, so the cheaper the better :)

 

The myth claims no difference, even if small there is a difference in analog signals in relation to cable quality.

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#7 I can't remember the last time I removed a pen drive, external HDD or camera...etc using "eject" and never had any problems. I do, however, make sure that it's not writing to the drive or "in use" before I yank it out. :)

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#7 I can't remember the last time I removed a pen drive, external HDD or camera...etc using "eject" and never had any problems. I do, however, make sure that it's not writing to the drive or "in use" before I yank it out. smile.png

 

but why would you take the risk that it's still writing something when you can be absolutely sure in 2 clicks? that's why I still safely remove my devices. especially with hard drives, you can't always be sure that it's configured for quick removal

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letting it shut down because of low power is super damaging to the battery. but of course Apple would recommend it as a "maintenance" procedure. The only time you should do that is if your battery needs calibrating, which is certainly not every month.

 

No it doesn't.  Batteries these days are designed not to go below a certain power level before they shut off.  When your phone is reading 0% and turns off, the battery itself still has juice.

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No it doesn't.  Batteries these days are designed not to go below a certain power level before they shut off.  When your phone is reading 0% and turns off, the battery itself still has juice.

Yeah, my iPhone turns itself off at 10%, I couldn't completely discharge the battery even if I wanted to.

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#7 I can't remember the last time I removed a pen drive, external HDD or camera...etc using "eject" and never had any problems. I do, however, make sure that it's not writing to the drive or "in use" before I yank it out. :)

 

How does one do that? :unsure:

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How does one do that? :unsure:

 

Most peripherals have a blinking LED that tells you if it's in use. It's not an alternative to ejecting the device correctly but I've never had a problem with it.

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Marshall, on 08 Sept 2013 - 16:50, said:

I do, however, make sure that it's not writing to the drive or "in use" before I yank it out. :)

 

Indeed! Never yank anything out while it is still in use. :drool:

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#9....tell that to the people who bought those cheapo iPhone adapters that caught or electrocuted.

 

#9 isn't about power adapters, it's about things like HDMI cables.

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Like I always say, life's too short to remove USB safely.

 

 

9. It depends on whether you're sending a digital or analog signal.

 

Except well known hifi purists, I believe including the boss of Monster, have all backed out of double blind tests between expensive high end speaker cables and coat hangers ;)

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1 i still don't agree with, i understand that it doesn't matter however i have done the method of fully charging and fully discharging, whilst hardly ever if not ever start charging at 50% and my batteries always outlast my friends / family with the same devices. I have a MacBook which i have only ever discharged and recharged and after 7 years the battery is still at 90% capacity and will easily last 2 hours. 

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1 i still don't agree with, i understand that it doesn't matter however i have done the method of fully charging and fully discharging, whilst hardly ever if not ever start charging at 50% and my batteries always outlast my friends / family with the same devices. I have a MacBook which i have only ever discharged and recharged and after 7 years the battery is still at 90% capacity and will easily last 2 hours. 

 

Lithium batteries last by cycles, and they have no memory effect.

 

If your battery outlast them it's because you use less power than them.

 

As for battery lifetime. LiIon batteries come in 300 cycles, 600 cycles(used to be most common for laptops) 900 cycles (new high end batteries about a year and a half ago) and 1200-1500 cycles, new batteries in the latest 2013 higher end Samsung laptops, and other manufacturers who buy samsung batteries(Asus I believe and possibly Apple).

 

decent manufacturers alsomake sure that their Lithium batteries with multiple cells include balancers. so that th laptop use the lithium cells in order, and don't allways start with the first cell so that one gets worn out faster than the other cells. since the average use of a laptop battery before charging is less than half, you can increase the lifetime of the lithium battery before reduction in capacity by many times over by balancing the cells. 

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No it doesn't.  Batteries these days are designed not to go below a certain power level before they shut off.  When your phone is reading 0% and turns off, the battery itself still has juice.

 

 

Yeah, my iPhone turns itself off at 10%, I couldn't completely discharge the battery even if I wanted to.

 

Mine doesn't pre-emptively shut down and I didn't know that the iPhone does. In any case using it to 10% is still more demanding on the battery than stopping earlier.

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Mine doesn't pre-emptively shut down and I didn't know that the iPhone does. In any case using it to 10% is still more demanding on the battery than stopping earlier.

 

Actually it does shut down before it's empty, it's just that your phone counts 5% or some other value as 0% as far as you are concerned. 

 

If your phone let the lithium battery run to 0% you would never be able to charge it again, a lithium battery literally dies if it ever reaches 0% as the chemical reactions stop and can't be restarted. 

 

How low you let the battery drop before chargign as long as it isn't empty doesn't affect the battery though. 

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