has anyone noticed this on their powerbook?

[russed]

i was sitting in a dark room with my 12" rev. b powerbook resting on 2 books for airflow (rousseau and mill if anyone was interested - i wouldnt be) well back to the story, i leaned back in my chair and then under my laptop was a green glow. i thought how odd having not seen them and i was sure it couldnt be the glow from the underside of my jbl creature speakers so i decided to investigate further (the tension is building). i turned it over to discover that there are 5 green led's on the battery (ooh!), i thought how exciting and then got back on again with my work. a few days later (today) i wasnt at my desk and suddenly i got pulled to looking at my 5 mysterious led's on the battery again to find they were not on (shock), i then got drawn to a little silver button at the side of them which i promptly pressed (dum dum dum) for them to light up again (yay!). so i have worked out that they must be some form of battery power monitor. sorry about they long boring post but as you can probably tell i got quite excited by them!

 

[Zaty]

Those lights are a battery charge indicator. They're flashing when the battery is being charged.

 

[alywa]

The LEDs are on the iBook, too

Yeah, I discovered this too on my wife's iBook. Pretty cool way to tell how much charge you have without having to turn on the computer.

I recently saw a Dell with this feature too, so I guess we aren't alone!

-alywa

 

[Mark James]

Don't tell me: 'The Social Contract' and 'On Liberty'?

It's about time those two wrote something new...

 

[Makosuke]

Yep, those little indicator LEDs have been a nice feature on all Apple laptop batteries for a while now. They're usually pretty accurate, and nice for a quick check of how the battery thinks it's feeling, whether the computer is on or not.

 

[russed]

Don't tell me: 'The Social Contract' and 'On Liberty'?

It's about time those two wrote something new...

well done! yeh i agree they need to write something new and hopefully a bit more interesting if so!

 

[munkle]

Whilst we're on the subject of cool things you never knew existed on your powerbook, here are some corkers that impressed me! (I'm guessing they'll work on other macs too).

1) Press command-option-8. Then press command-option and the plus or minus keys to zoom in and out - how cool is that?!

2) Another fun one. Press command-option-ctrl-8 to make your screen freak out. Repeat to disable effect.

3) And possibly the best yet, for all your terminal geeks out there! Go to terminal and type: "telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl" without the quotation marks. Sit back and enjoy! (Only works if you're connected to the net).

Thought about starting a new thread with this but I've been taught it's always better to post in a current thread that start a new one!

 

[russed]

3) And possibly the best yet, for all your terminal geeks out there! Go to terminal and type: "telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl" without the quotation marks. Sit back and enjoy! (Only works if you're connected to the net).

wow that is quite cool!

 

[atari1356]

i then got drawn to a little silver button at the side of them which i promptly pressed (dum dum dum) for them to light up again (yay!).

Cool, I didn't know that was a button. Thanks for the tip.

 

[Abstract]

Whilst we're on the subject of cool things you never knew existed on your powerbook, here are some corkers that impressed me! (I'm guessing they'll work on other macs too).

1) Press command-option-8. Then press command-option and the plus or minus keys to zoom in and out - how cool is that?!

2) Another fun one. Press command-option-ctrl-8 to make your screen freak out. Repeat to disable effect.

3) And possibly the best yet, for all your terminal geeks out there! Go to terminal and type: "telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl" without the quotation marks. Sit back and enjoy! (Only works if you're connected to the net).

Thought about starting a new thread with this but I've been taught it's always better to post in a current thread that start a new one!

Wow, I've never even heard of these ones. I'm typing my screen in freak-mode right now. Sweet.

 

[crazzyeddie]

Its called inverse colors actually. The zoom and inverse are functions of Universal Accessibility in OS X.

 

[OldManJimbo]

The "freak mode" is good for situations when you are working in a very dark room (I use it on airplanes at night). The screen is MUCH darker on this setting and doesn't light up the entire cabin.

 

[jackieonasses]

wow that is quite cool!

i agree it is amzing!!! i am watching it now~!

 

[rfenik]

It'd be a lot cooler of those LEDs were connected to the airport card, allowing you to search for hotspots without booting up....

 

[aswitcher]

It'd be a lot cooler of those LEDs were connected to the airport card, allowing you to search for hotspots without booting up....

Yeah, in 5 years I think some notebooks/laptops will have an external button to press to check local wifi, maybe even with an LCD/OED display of names and signal strengths...its just going to be too useful not to have.