COVER STORY

Heal Your Hardware
Zack Stern

You know to call 911 in a medical emergency, but what should you do when your gadgets face a similar life-or-death scenario? if you spill coffee on your laptop, for instance, reacting quickly could save your hardware and data. The correct procedure — such as dismantling your laptop’s keyboard or installing an inexpensive battery for your iPod — can save your faltering hardware, giving it another chance to age gracefully. And the laptops, cameras, cellphones and world will thank you.

NEXT

Headliners
LG Black Label Series
HP Mini by Studio Tord Boontje

Launch Pad
Genius’ Stocking Stuffers
Canon Ups Portfolio With New Wr-Fi Printers
Lenovo Refreshes PC Lineup With Win7 Models
Apple Overhauls Its Mac Portfolio
Sony Ericsson’s New Handsets

On The Radar
Holiday Android Sneak Peek

On The MashUp

HD Pocket Camcorders: What Would You Change?

SPOTLIGHT

Mobile Phone
LG GD900 Crystal

Notebook PC
Lenovo ThinkPad T400s

Media Player
Western Digital WD TV Mini

Motherboard
Redfox TA790GX A3+

Digital Camcorder
Torque ES-5 HD

Multimedia Speakers
Altec Lansing FX3020 Soundbar

REGULARS

GeekTech
Jason Cross

Why You Should Use Sleep Mode Every Day?
With Sleep Mode, the instant-on dream is practically here, and it doesn’t use a lot of extra power.

Beta Watch
Edward N. Albro

RoboFarm Online offers protected password syncing; FanSnap aggregated the best ticket deals online; and LocateTV makes sure couch potatoes won’t spend another night aimlessly channel surfing.

With Sleep Mode, the instant-on dream is practically here, and it doesn’t use a lot of extra power.

Privacy Watch
Erik Lerkin

Firefox and safari on the iPhone can now report your physical location. But who are they telling?

Download This
Preston Gralla, Andrew Brandt & Ian Harac

Your life is already compicated– your software shouldn’t make it worse. Instead, surf the Web on a browser equipped with a built-in BitTorrent client, edit photos with a simple app that won’t slow your PC to a crawl and a utility that gives you what you need to know about the weather.

Linux Line
Keir Thomas

Wine offers the ability to run Windows programs for which there are no open-source equivalents. To get the most out of it, however, you need to hack.

Bugs & Fixes
Erik Larkin

Microsoft might be feeling like the little Dutch boy this month, plugging holes with little patches and with rare out-of-cycle fixes in an attempt to prevent attackers from pouring through.

Hassle-Free PC
Rick Broida

Few things are more irritating than starting up your computer only to be greeted by an obnoxious, incomprehensible vague error message. Fortunately, we have a fix for this common problem, as well as advice for dealing with two other everyday PC hangups.

HOW TO

Protect Your Privacy on Facebook & Twitter
Tony Bradley

How To Use Microblogging Sites Safely
Jessa dela Torre

Take Your Work Into the Cloud With a Web OS
Robert Strohmeyer

Add Photos to Your Facebook Profile Via E-Mail
Rick Broida