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It's your worst nightmare. While you're standing in front of potential clients delivering your presentation, your notebook, which is attached to the projector, displays a pop-up window reminding you that the battery is about to shut down. As you rummage through your computer bag to find the power cord, the screen goes blank. You lose your momentum and the meeting screeches to a halt. You plug your computer back in, reboot and pick up where you left off, but the energy in the room is gone.

Tony Salinas, senior systems engineer and consultant at Dell, says there are a number of factors that can affect your notebook computer's battery life, including:

• Applications that run while the computer is on, such as Microsoft® Office, Netscape, Lotus Notes® or Norton™ Anti-Virus programs
• Display power (power consumed to create the image on the computer screen)
• The rest of the system (power consumed by the remaining non-specified electronics in the system such as the processor and memory)

While most computer companies advertise battery life estimates, actual battery life experienced by the end user can differ significantly, depending mainly on how the system is used.

For those not ready to buy a new mobile computer just yet, Salinas offers these five tips to help you maximize your current system battery's life cycle:

1. Manage Brightness — The single largest consumer of power is the display lamp. The brighter the lamp, the more power is consumed by the system. "At higher brightness settings, you only get up to 65 percent of the battery life when compared to reducing the brightness," said Salinas. Because the brightness setting has such a powerful impact on battery life, most portable computers are configured to automatically dim the display as the AC power is removed and to increase the brightness when plugged back into an AC outlet. To save even more power, display brightness can be manually adjusted using the Fn (down) keys on the keyboards of Dell Vostro™ and Latitude notebook computers, and Dell Precision™ mobile workstation systems.
2. Power Up; Power Down — In addition to adjusting display brightness, users can enable device power management capabilities. Microsoft® Windows® operating systems provide the ability to extend battery life by trading off power consumption and performance using Power Schemes. These are accessible through the Power Options icon in the Control Panel. Dell Latitude notebooks also come equipped with Dell QuickSet software to make managing of your settings, including screen brightness, easy. QuickSet will display battery health status by pressing Fn+F3 and will proactively warn you through a pop-up window when your battery health reaches 50 percent (or less) of design capacity. For best battery life, Salinas recommends selecting the Portable/Notebook or Max Battery power schemes, which save power by turning off devices such as the display and hard drive during periods of inactivity and adjusting processor power. Portable/Notebook dynamically adjusts processor power and performance based on the demands of the application running on the system. When performance demands are low, the processor is kept in a low power and performance state. When demands are higher, the processor runs at higher power and performance levels up to its maximum capacity.
3. Use What You Need — Turn off unused devices, advises Salinas. Good examples are WiFi devices. If it is not necessary to be connected to the Internet, disable the connection. Certain WiFi devices can consume significant power, usually because they must maintain a minimum amount of traffic between the computer and the nearby wireless access points. Good news! Newer wireless devices include power management features making this less of a concern. Many new notebooks provide a hard-wired WiFi radio On/Off switch for this reason. Salinas points to James Martin, editor for PC World, who suggests, "always turn off WiFi, Bluetooth and cellular modems when they're not needed. These wireless network technologies can be a significant drain on your notebook battery's charge. Many newer notebooks have buttons to turn wireless connections on and off. You can also go to Start, Connect To, Show all connections, and then select the connection you want to enable or disable." Salinas also mentions that it is good practice to disconnect external DVD drives, Webcams or any peripherals you are not using.
4. Manage Configurations and Your Hard Drive — Your hard drive is in constant motion while the computer is turned on, spinning to locate previously saved data. Defragmenting your hard drive (optimizing the placement of data) will allow the drive to find information more quickly and reduce the speed. If you notice a high degree of hard drive activity during normal usage, your system may be compensating for your lack of system memory, relying on its hard disk for virtual memory. In this case, adding more memory to your notebook can result in additional battery life. The same holds true if you are running multiple applications. Limit the number of applications you have opened at the same time, especially when you have limited system memory, to save on battery life. Since many applications load into system memory upon booting, it is good practice to limit the number of start-up applications to the ones you use on a regular basis. This can be accomplished by running the "msconfig" command from the "Run" feature in XP and "System Configuration" from the "search" bar in Vista. To do this, click on the Start menu. The respective commands will be featured.
5. Condition for Performance — For new notebooks, the industry standard suggests you give the battery a full charge. Then, drain the battery completely. Repeat the process at least two or three times. This helps establish a memory line and conditions the battery to hold the maximum charge possible. To prolong the battery's overall life, it is also appropriate to disconnect the battery from your notebook if it will be plugged in for extended periods of time. You can recondition older batteries as well. "My battery was not performing as well as it had in the past," said David Davis, general manager of Provençal Home, an Austin-based retailer. "By going through this conditioning process four or five times on our notebooks, we were able to carry out our daily tasks in a more efficient and reliable manner." Reconditioning will help increase battery life, though it will never be as good as if the battery were new. Depending on the productivity gains you get from reconditioning and the age of your notebook computer, you may want to consider investing in a new battery or system all together.

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In summary, to extend battery life you should:

• Lower the display brightness when running on battery power
• Enable operating system and device power management capabilities to extend battery life
• Disable devices that are not used when running on battery power

Dell continues to work with suppliers, technology partners and industry groups to drive industry initiatives and technologies that can yield power efficiencies in portable products, including extending battery life through improvements in battery technology and power management, as well as minimizing the power consumed by system components.

So the next time you are giving a presentation, keep these tips in mind to maximize your computer's battery life.

• Eventually, you will need to charge your battery more often. When the battery does not maintain at least an hour's worth of charge, it may be time to get a new battery.
• If you're buying a notebook, be sure it is equipped with a lithium-ion battery and not older nickel cadmium-based batteries.
• If you travel frequently, it's best to purchase a second battery and use both batteries equally.