But you’re running into a problem: Your device’s batteries are fading quicker than ever.

Fortunately, there are several steps you can take to extend the battery life of your smartphone, tablet and laptop. Take them, and you won’t have to worry about your laptop shutting down as you’re putting the finishing touches on that report.

Your laptop

Slate Magazine recently ran an interesting feature on ways to boost the battery life of your laptop. The best advice? You can keep your laptop battery running at top power by not punishing it too much.

This means that you should never undercharge or overcharge your battery. Slate recommends that you keep your battery charged from 20 percent to 80 percent at all times. You will have to remember, of course, to unplug your computer before the battery charges to 100 percent capacity.

Slate recommends, too, that you never let your battery’s charge run all the way to zero.

Moreover, here’s a battery-drainer that few of us think about: heat. Laptops can run hot, and that can be devastating to a battery. Slate recommends that when your laptop is turned on and plugged in that you take out the battery. The magazine also advises users to charge their batteries only when their laptops are turned off.

Yes, that seems inconvenient. Nevertheless, these actions can dramatically boost the lifespan of your computer’s battery.

Your smartphone, tablet and other devices

The advice is similar for boosting the battery life of your other devices, devices such as your smartphone and tablet. Again, keep the batteries in these devices charged in the range of 20 percent to 80 percent. And do what you can to keep these devices cool.

If you make the mistake of leaving your iPad or Nook on your patio table during a sunny, 90-degree summer day, you’re just asking for a drained battery.

It’s important, too, to remember that digital cameras are notorious for running out of battery life. Make sure, then, to store your digital camera in a cool place when you’re not using it. You would hate for its battery to go kaput during your daughter’s first birthday party.

The app solution

The New York Times recently ran a blog post on several apps that can help boost the life of your smartphone, tablet and laptop batteries.

One of the best? The Times recommends Battery Doctor Pro, which costs $1 on iTunes. This app not only tells you how much time you have left on your battery, it also gives you advice on how to boost that time. For instance, it might tell you to disable Wi-Fi to extend your iPad’s battery life.

The app also comes with a “Maintain” submenu that will lead you through a process to boost the performance of your lithium batteries. Basically, this means letting your device’s battery run down to less than 20 percent power and then re-charging it to 100 percent.

Battery Boost Magic, which is free on iTunes, is another app recommended by the New York Times. The Times says that the app works in much the same way as Battery Doctor Pro, though it is designed more for less experienced device and smartphone users.

The Times also gives a positive review to the Easy Battery Saver app, which is also free on iTunes. This app allows users with just one tap to turn off such battery-draining features as Wi-Fi, GPS and Bluetooth. Users can also lower their screen’s brightness level with just one tap with this app.

Read more at …

• Slate:http://kbit.co/charging-tips
• The New York Times:http://kbit.co/battery-apps
• Lifehacker:http://kbit.co/bluetooth-tethering

Or maybe you’re a writer, and you can’t seem to type as fast as you can think.

Dictation tools can help.

As the name suggests, dictation tools allow you to speak what you want to write. The tools then put your words on your computer screen. Best of all? Dictation tools have improved immensely. You won’t struggle to get them to recognize the words you are saying.

Boosting productivity

Mashable recently ran an interesting post about just how much more productive workers can be with dictation tools such as Dragon Naturally Speaking and Windows Speech Recognition.

The Mashable story includes an infographic from the blog Accounting Degree showing that the average worker spends about four hours every day writing email messages and other forms of communication. The infographic also says that the average typing speed is just 33 words a minute, or about one word every two seconds.

But dictation tools? They can record an incredible 100 words a minute. As the infographic clearly spells out, the tongue is quicker—far quicker, actually—than the fingers.

Think, then, how quickly you’ll be able to send email messages, write memos and summarize reports with dictation tools.

The dictation tools

PC Mag understands this. The publication recently ranked Dragon Dictation as one of the best business apps for the iPad.

And why not? The app boasts accurate voice transcription and the ability to share messages through email, Facebook and Twitter.

Here are some other dictation apps, ranked by the ZeroPaid tech blog that you should investigate.

Dragon Dictation is a free app that lets you translate your speech into documents or email messages. The app also provides direct links to Facebook and Twitter, meaning that you can record verbal updates that will then appear on these social media sites as text. There is a downside to the app, though; as ZeroPaid says, you’ll need to be connected to the Internet to use it.

Voice Dictation, which costs 99 cents, is another app that ZeroPaid recommends. This app includes automatic grammar correction, a nice feature if you are dictating work-related documents.

Google Translate, which is free, not only turns your spoken words into text, it also translates them into whatever language you prefer. Be careful, though—ZeroPaid says that this app works best with short phrases and individual words. If you try working with longer, complex sentences, you might end up with odd translations.

Dictamus isn’t cheap, costing $14.99. But ZeroPaid says that is one of the highest-rated dictation apps in the App Store. If you want to make sure that this app is for you, you can download Dictamus Free. This version doesn’t cost you anything, but has limited functionality. It will, though, give you a good idea of how the app works and whether it is one you want to invest in.

Making voice dictation work

There are some tricks that you’ll have to master no matter which type of voice-dictation software in which you invest.

For instance, you’ll need to speak slowly and clearly. If you mumble, speak too rapidly or run your words together, you’ll end up with odd translations on the page. This will negate the efficiency you’re shooting for by installing dictation tools on your computer or mobile device in the first place.

Secondly, you’ll need to insert your own commas, exclamation marks, questions marks and other punctuation as you speak. For example, you might have to say, “John comma our first vice president comma completed the sales reports yesterday period the news was great exclamation point.”

That sounds weird but with a bit of practice you will get the hang of it.

Learn more:

• Mashable:http://kbit.co/dictation-mashable
• Dragon:http://kbit.co/dragon-dictation

Then there are the powerful Galaxy tablets manufactured by Samsung, not to mention countless lower-profile devices from smaller tech companies. At least one website recommends that you skip all the above-mentioned tablets and instead purchase the iPad Mini.

The benefits of the mini

Staffers at the Wirecutter blog recommend the iPad Mini for one simple reason: It’s just as powerful as its larger cousin, but it weighs a lot less.

For the staffers of the Wirecutter, the traditional iPad’s heft, as they call it, has become a serious liability. As the staffers wrote in a recent blog post, you can’t hold the traditional iPad like a magazine, which is the ultimate goal of a tablet. That’s because its weight is more similar to a hefty coffee table book.

The iPad Mini, on the other hand? It really is light.

Function

Best of all, the iPad Mini, though smaller than the iPad, performs just as well as its larger cousin. The author of the Wirecutter post wrote about toting both versions of the iPad in a bag, watching movies on both devices and carrying them around the house.

The final verdict was clear: The Mini was more comfortable to hold. And watching movies, reading books, listening to music, surfing the web and playing games were no less impressive on the smaller device.

The right recommendation?

Of course, this is just one site’s opinion. Your opinion may differ.

The best way to decide which tablet is right for you: shop around. Try out the different tablets at the nearest bookstore or technology retailer. See which ones feel too heavy, which ones boast the best graphics and which have the most intuitive web browser or greatest selection of apps.

It might seem like there are too many tablets available today. But wouldn’t you rather have too many of these amazing devices than too few?

Read more at the Wirecutter:http://kbit.co/tablet-recommendation

If you have a standard office job, the answer might surprise you. You might spend the vast majority of your days sitting down.

And that, researchers are finding, is far from healthy. Consider a recent report from NPR. Researchers at South Carolina University conducted a study showing that men who sat more than 23 hours a week faced a 64 percent greater risk of dying from heart disease than those who set less than 11 hours a week.

The good news

The message is clear: Get off your butt. Fortunately, you can greatly reduce your sitting hours by building a standing desk. A standing desk—which is exactly what it sounds like, a desk at which you stand instead of sit—is far from expensive. You can build it with cheap parts from Ikea. Here’s the recipe, courtesy of the Lifehacker blog.

The easy way

Need a simple desk for yourself? Lifehacker suggests building a standing desk with Utby legs. This will be a smaller desk, but it will give you enough room for a monitor, keyboard and laptop. For this desk, you’ll need a VikaAmon Top, Utbyunderframe, EkbyJarpen shelf and one set of Capita legs, all of which you can find at Ikea for a total of about $140. According to Lifehacker, you can put this desk together by simply assembling the main desk and platform with a screwdriver.

A bit more complicated

You can also use Ikea parts to build slightly more complicated wide standing desk, according to Lifehacker. Again, you can find the parts you need at your nearest Ikea: five VikaByske legs, two packs of Capita brackets, one Lack shelf and one VikaAmon tabletop. These items should cost you about $250. This desk will give you more space, for both your tech and your supplies. But it will be slightly more difficult to build. You’ll need a power drill. But don’t let that scare you. Lifehacker still ranks this desk as a ”medium“ in terms of difficulty.

Read more at …

• NPR:http://kbit.co/sitting-is-deadly
• Lifehacker:http://kbit.co/standing-desk-ikea

Do you know what steps to take to rescue your electronic gadgets from these watery graves? If not, you might be setting yourself up for heartbreak you don’t need. It’s true—you can often save gadgets that you’ve soaked.

Saving drowned technology

The tech website Gizmodo recently provided a good tutorial of what consumers can do to save the gadgets that they have accidentally dropped into bodies of water. First, and most important, you need to immediately shut off the device’s power.

As Gizmodo explains, it’s not the water that destroys your electronic toys—it’s the electrical shocks that the water causes. So if your device has a battery, quickly remove it. If it doesn’t, make sure to turn the power off and keep it off. Don’t be tempted to check to see if your device still works.

Other steps

Once the power is off, remove everything else that you can from your device. This means taking off back covers, removing SIM cards and taking off ear port coverings. As Gizmodo explains, there’s a good reason for this: You want to open up as many holes as possible in your device. This will allow water to dry up more quickly. It will also let more air into your device.

Next, vacuum as much moisture out of your device as possible. A vacuum with a small nozzle is ideal for this. Finally, it’s time to dry your device. Gizmodo has a surprising recommendation for this: Rice Krispies. Yes, dropping your iPad or smartphone into a bowl of dry Rice Krispies will suck water right out of them. After 48 hours, give your device a try. If you’re lucky, it might work.

Keeping it dry

Of course, better than rescuing an electronic gadget from water is keeping it dry in the first place. There are several options for this. The New York Times recently ran a nice feature ranking the various waterproof cases on the market. Such options as the LifeProof, Joy Factory Rain Ballet and Liquipel cases can come in handy if you’re hanging by the pool with your favorite e-reader.

Our advice, though, is simpler: Keep your electronics away from the water. It might be tempting to bring your iPhone to the edge of the swimming pool. But such a move might prove awfully expensive.

Read more at …

• Gizmodo:http://kbit.co/wet-gadgets-gizmodo
• The New York Times:http://kbit.co/waterproof-cases-nyt

Is it possible to add additional snoozing times to the Reminder window?

Yes and no. It is possible to snooze by a custom interval other than the ones that have been predefined (5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, etc…). However, it is not possible to have any custom snooze interval stay permanent in the list to choose from.

Type your snooze time

To set a custom snooze time in the Reminder window, simply type in the Snooze field. This can be any custom interval that you want in minutes, hours, days, weeks and even months or years.

You can also type a specific time that you want to be reminder on again. For instance; 10:30.

You can find more ways to quickly set a custom reminder without needing to do so time/date math in this Quick Tip: Quickly set dates with formulas and text

Snooze to a specific day

A feature I like about the Reminder dialog is that I can also snooze it to a specific day by just typing the name of that day. For instance, when I have a task that is due in about a month, I often do not know yet when I’ll be starting with it. I do know that I will do it in the week that it is due so I set my reminder a week in advance. Now, when the reminder pops-up, I usually know which day I’ll handle that task. To easily snooze it to that specific day, I simply type for instance “Wednesday” in the Snooze field.

This method is also great when you want to reorganize your left over reminders at the end of the week and set a new day that you will get your reminder to complete a certain task or to follow up on the flagged email.

Type in the Snooze field for a custom snooze interval or reminder time.

This morning, I received a cleverly composed and very official looking email from Experian telling me that a “Key Change” has been posted to my account.

Many of us have learned to not click links on emails, especially on ones that look fishy. Many also know to hover the mouse pointer over a link to reveal the web address, which usually points to some spurious site.

Well, this email (screenshot below) looked very official. The link looked legit. And the message is psychologically powerful – something important happened to your credit and you need to look into it right away. How? The instructions tells you to click on the attached file. What a clever way to distract and get your guard down.

Pretty sure the attached zip file contains some kind of malware.

By the way, I went to Experian’s website directly and downloaded a free credit report. Nothing unusual was in my account.

Cyber criminals are sneaky bunch. Don’t believe us? Just look at the rise in toll fraud, a scary new form of mobile malware that could be siphoning money from your wallet without you even realizing it.

The New York Times’ Brian Chen recently wrote an interesting, and frightening, story about this type of mobile malware. The story provides yet more evidence that though most cyber criminals are still focusing on PCs, a growing, and clever, group of them are turning their evil attentions to the growing smartphone and mobile device markets.

Toll fraud

Toll fraud is, as Chen writes, the most common form of malware targeted at Android devices. In toll fraud, cyber criminals snatch small amounts of money from smartphone owners by making secret charges to their phone bills.

Chen quotes a report published by mobile security company Lookout showing that toll fraud has the potential to trick a large number of smartphone owners. That’s because so many owners don’t carefully study their phone bills each month.

Because of this, they are likely to miss the small charges that toll fraud attacks levy.

A complex process

According to Chen’s story, toll fraud happens when smartphone users first download a malicious app that invisibly sends a text message to a service that uses a middleman service that has an existing relationship to the author of the malware.

A confirmation message is sent to the malware, which blocks it from the view of the smartphone owner. This message, of course, confirms the small charge to the user’s phone bill.

Once this undetected charge goes to the smartphone owner’s bill, the carrier takes its portion of the charge and gives the rest of the money to the service and the middleman. This means that the malware author eventually receives a piece of the charge.

A growing problem

Chen’s story quotes Lookout estimates that from the beginning of 2012 to the end of 2013, a total of 18 million users of Android devices might encounter malware. Lookout also reported that about 72 percent of the malware that found this year was of the toll-fraud variety.

What do these numbers mean? Only that smartphone users must be more cautious than ever. Cyber criminals haven’t yet descended on smart phones and mobile devices. But that day may soon arrive.

Read more at the New York Times:http://kbit.co/toll-fraud

Windows 8 represents a dramatic change for Microsoft’s venerable operating system: It’s designed to work not just with keyboard and mouse but also with a touch screen.

But many users who upgrade to the new operating system will not be running Windows 8 on a touch screen. They’ll be relying on older computers that still operate the old-fashioned way, with keyboard and mouse controls. Then there are tablet users, users who run Windows 8 only on tablets are also not getting the full Windows 8 experience.

There are just some functions that run better with mouse and keyboard control. That doesn’t mean, though, that users who rely either on tablets or traditional computers won’t be able to take advantage of the many features built into the new operating system. They can. They just need to purchase the right peripherals. PC Magazine recently ran a story outlining just what these peripherals are.

Microsoft Wedge mobile keyboard

PC Magazine points out that the Microsoft Wedge isn’t just a portable keyboard. It’s also an essential tool to allow tablet users to get the most of the Windows 8 experience. For one thing, the keyboard offers a better typing experience than your tablet’s onscreen keyboard. Secondly, Windows 8 features are included in the keypad. Even the cover can become a tablet stand, allowing you to approximate the desktop experience.

Logitech T650 Wireless Rechargeable Touchpad

Want to access all those touch-screen features included in Windows 8 without having to buy a tablet or other touch-screen device? Try the Logitech T650 Wireless Rechargeable Touchpad. The product works so well that the editors at PC Mag have made it their top choice for Windows 8 computer mice.

Kingston DataTraveler Workspace

It looks like a USB flash drive, but the Kingston DataTraveler Workspace actually contains Windows To Go, a portable and bootable version of Windows 8. This means that you can bring the Windows 8 operating system—or at least the portable version of it—to the PC of your choice. Best news? It has a reputation for being safe and secure.

Read more at PC Magazine:http://kbit.co/windows-peripherals

Collaborating on team projects doesn’t have to be difficult, especially if you have the right app. For a growing number of business people that right app is Notable.

Notable allows users to capture screenshots and send them to team members. These team members can then make notes right on the screenshots to further the collaboration process. Best of all? Notable is as easy to use as it is effective.

Constant feedback

Regular feedback is the secret to the success of team business projects. Whether you’re building a new Web site, designing a marketing campaign or creating a new company logo, the more input you receive from your fellow team members, the stronger your final project.

Nevertheless, collaborating can be difficult. You are often working with team members who are spread across the country. And team members are as busy as you, juggling several different projects at once. It’s no easy task to gather all team members in the same room at the same time. It’s equally challenging to get all team members to agree on a video conference or audio conference time.

That’s where Notable comes in. With this app, team members can provide feedback on screen captures whenever it is most convenient to them.

Screenshots

How multi-faceted is Notable? You can use it to upload individual screenshots, PDF files, PowerPoint slides, Photoshop pages or live Web sites. And you can set it to upload individual pages or a bulk group of screenshots.

Once team members have their pages, they can circle different sections and then make comments directly on those sections. This eliminates any possible confusion.

Best of all? Notable doesn’t clog your device’s hard drive. It exists on the cloud. Users don’t need software to access it and they can log onto their Notable accounts from any computer.

Pricing

Notable comes in three different versions at three differing price points. The basic version, which is plenty powerful, costs $19 a month, Plus costs $49 a month and Premium runs for $99 a month.

Each version comes with its own quirks. All of them allow you to sign up an unlimited number of team members to your account and all allow you to capture as many screenshots as you want. You also get unlimited sharing with each version.

Check it out:https://www.notableapp.com