Bits and bobs

My laptop crashed for the first time in many, many months this week, and whilst there were no major ill effects (no data corruption or anything) my bookmarks did all disappear.

It had me baffled - my browser (Firefox) still had the same extensions, security settings, homepage, everything but the bookmarks. Now I don't know about you, but I have (had) ~200 bookmarks, and wasn't prepared to give them up without a fight. From past poking around I knew where Firefox stored information about my 'profile', and, lo-and-behold: automatic backups! Hurrah!

Now I have my bookmarks back, but am baffled by why Firefox doesn't have an obvious way of accessing the backups it makes. Seems rather pointless otherwise, doesn't it?
The folder where the backup bookmarks are stored, in any case, is C:\Documents and Settings\Your Name\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\Profile Name\bookmarkbackups
N.B. You can't simply do through your "My Documents" folder, because the Application Data is a hidden folder and won't show up. Instead use Windows Explorer or the like to navigate there. Final point: your profile will have a stupid name (mine was c9iuhtbc.default), and depending upon who uses your computer there may be several choices. Trial and error. The reason Mozilla names folders (and files, e.g. in Firefox's cache) is to make life harder for virii: they can't simply assume they're located in "Temporary Internet Files", when they're in randomlettersandnumbers/whatever.


Secondly, a mate at uni told me I should be removing my battery from my laptop when running it on mains power, as leaving it in will result in constant charging/discharging, thereby reducing its capacity. I thought that was bit weird, since I'd assumed laptops were smart enough to pull their power from the cord and bypass the battery entirely where possible. So, I checked it out.

I have a lithium-ion battery, like most laptops nowadays, and the wik provided its usual fine starting point. Executive summary:
Lithium-Ion batteries don't suffer from the 'memory effect' like Nickel-Cadmium (NiCad) batteries, so they can be charged even when not completely empty. In fact, this is better for them! Letting your laptop run your battery down until automatically shuts off every 30 charge cycles or so is good.
Li-ion batteries age even when not in use. The rate at which they age is influenced by their temperature and their charge level - see table from Battery University:



A laptop in a running laptop is, of course, warmer than a battery that's just sitting on your desk (or even in your freezer, as several sites recommended).

Whilst I only found one or two specific mentions of continuous charging/discharging affecting batteries in laptops running on mains, there were many general observations that leaving the batteries in reduces their life.

Finally, leaving a battery in a laptop connected to mains power when the laptop is off doesn't seem to be an issue - no heat problem, and the battery should stop charging when it's full.

Edit: Modern mobile phones also use Li-ion batteries (though of a slightly different sort), and while it's not like anyone's going to remove their phone battery while chatting on mains power, it does mean that a) running your phone down fully before charging it isn't necessarily a good idea, and b) leaving your phone somewhere where it will get hot is also not good.

Edit #1: Whaddya know? My camera (an Olympus C-760) battery is a Lithion Ion, too. That'd explain why my the capacity on my reserve battery isn't so crash hot anymore >:-(
You'd think they (the manufacturers and/or sellers) would tell you this kind of thing, wouldn't you? Hmmph.