Laptops are essential part of crew member’s life onboard a cruise ship. We believe that 95% of crew members have laptop or some kind of pc device. Anytime in port you will see many crew members with their laptops surfing the web or trying to find free wi fi so they can talk to their loved ones back home or find out what’s going on in their country.

Because of extensive usage and bad maintenance the laptop battery looses power. Actually the moment the battery is produced in factory it looses capacity. Here are some advices on how to extend your laptop battery life.

Charge your battery when is drained off completely. -  For your battery to last longer you need to charge it when the power is near to the end or at least 10% and turn of the power when is fully charged. Do not recharge when it has 30% left for use. After your battery is fully charged take it out of the laptop because heat damages your battery.

Take out the battery when using your Laptop as a Desktop -When you continuously run your laptop on a reliable AC power source, you should definitely remove your battery. Firstly, the battery will not be exposed to heat from your laptop. Secondly, there is not even a remote chance that it will be overcharged or exposed to high voltage.

Learn to single-task. PC memory that is in-use takes more power to hold data. Also, using more memory might mean using more swap or virtual memory space on your laptop's hard drive. All of this puts an additional drain on your laptop's battery. Instead of leaving multiple applications and windows open, use only what you need at any given time. If your laptop has plenty of memory, then keep multiple applications open to avoid loading repeatedly from the hard drive. Close all the applications that run in the background on your computer like your PDA syncing software or USB hard drive backup software.

Change the power option.- Different brands of laptops, including MAC, have developed features to help maximize battery life and efficiency. The units can be configured to enable functions such as auto-sleep 'or defining characteristics such as brightness of your screen. The idea is to ensure that the laptop will be productive throughout the day without having to worry about the battery.

Hibernate not standby – Although placing a laptop in standby mode saves some power and you can instantly resume where you left off, it doesn’t save anywhere as much power as the hibernate function does.  Hibernating a PC will actually save your PC’s state as it is, and completely shut itself down.

Keep the battery contacts clean:  Clean your battery’s metal contacts every couple of months with a cloth moistened with rubbing alcohol.  This keeps the transfer of power from your battery more efficient.