Section 126. Monitor Your Laptop s Battery Life


126. Monitor Your Laptop's Battery Life

BEFORE YOU BEGIN

125 Choose a Power-Saving Profile


SEE ALSO

43 Create and Configure a Location

44 Switch to a New Location


126. Monitor Your Laptop's Battery Life


If you have a laptop Mac (an iBook or PowerBook), a crucial piece of status information for you to have available at all times is the Battery Status System Menu. This icon appears at the top right of the screen and shows your battery's current level and whether the computer is plugged in or not. The icon also gives you access to a menu that shows the battery's status in more detail. You can also use the menu to jump directly to the Energy Saver Preferences pane.

Different kinds of computing tasks can use up more battery power than others; some of these tasks might even be occurring without your knowledge. The Battery Status System Menu can help you keep an eye on how fast your battery's power is draining; if you're not getting as much life out of your battery as you believe you should be, consider a few of these tasks that may be robbing it of juice unnecessarily:

  • AirPort card turned on

  • Bluetooth devices active and connected

  • Accessing or burning CDs or DVDs

  • Heavy network access (downloading large files)

  • Processor- intensive operations (such as image or video processing)

  • iTunes visualizer running

  • Powering an external USB or FireWire device

  • Running too many applications at once (heavy disk access)

If your laptop is doing any of these things where AC adapter power is unavailable (such as on a plane), it may be best to wait until you land before you resume your power-hungry work.

1.
Open the Energy Saver Preferences

Open the System Preferences application (under the Apple menu); click Energy Saver to bring up the Energy Saver Preferences pane. Click the Options tab to show the energy-saving options.

2.
Enable the Battery Status System Menu

Select the Show battery status in the menu bar check box to enable the battery icon among the system menus in the upper-right corner of the screen.

3.
Select the Battery Level Display Format

Click the Battery Status System Menu to view the current battery status. The menu shows how much longer the battery will last at current power consumption levels, or how much longer it will take for the battery to become fully charged if the computer is plugged in.

The textual readout next to the Battery Status System Menu icon can show either the time remaining until the battery is depleted (or fully charged), or the percentage the battery has of its full charge. From the Show submenu, select Time to display the time remaining, Percentage to show the battery's charge level, or Icon Only to show no label at all and rely on the icon to tell you how full your battery is.



MAC OS X Tiger in a Snap
Mac OS X Tiger in a Snap
ISBN: 0672327066
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2001
Pages: 212
Authors: Brian Tiemann

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