Laptop upgrades are not difficult to complete yourself, and there are three key upgrades that you can easily accomplish to make your laptop run faster.  These will also give your laptop a higher resale value when you decide to replace it.

One of the most simple laptop upgrades to complete yourself is to upgrade your operating system. If you are running Windows XP or Windows Media Center, upgrading to Windows Vista is a good idea.  You will be able to take advantage of the many features of Windows Vista, as well as enhance the speed of your system.  An upgrade to Windows Vista for the Home Basic edition is under $100 and is worth it to enhance the efficiency of your system. (More…)

I’ve been playing with a new toy for the last couple of days — the Stowaway Sierra Bluetooth keyboard from Mobility Electronics (aka ThinkOutside, aka iGo).  It’s a very small yet full-sized keyboard which can be connected via Bluetooth to UMPCs, Tablet PCs, PDAs, and SmartPhones.  It comes with drivers for Windows XP, Windows Mobile, Palm OS, and Symbian.  In fact, it includes several specialty keys made specifically for Windows Mobile (Pocket PC or Smartphone), but will work just fine on the other devices.

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For the ultimate in mobile W?BIC! (Why? Because I Can!), here’s something original for your UMPC or TabletPC. A RAID built from USB flash memory sticks. The good news is that it’s built from every day readily available (and cheap) components, and it actually does improve performance over a single drive. The bad news is that it’s just an experiment and doesn’t work in Windows (yet) — it’s Linux only so far.

The Thumb Drive RAID Experiment - Big Bruin

You’ve got your UMPC or Tablet PC and you’re using Skype or your favorite VoIP application, so how about completing the setup with a Bluetooth headset? And what says, “I’m talking on the phone” better than a retro-style handset? You’ll be the coolest geek at Starbucks when you whip this one out.

ThinkGeek has the specs:

• Charged via USB connection
• Make and receive calls
• Approximately 30 ft range
• Works with Bluetooth V1.0, 1.1, 1.2
• Blue LED indicates function mode
• Comes with: Handset, USB cable, instructions

ThinkGeek :: ThinkGeek Bluetooth Retro Handset

(Hat tip: Pocket PC Thoughts)

I had no idea these existed or were on the way, but the newly discovered TabletKiosk eo “bumpcases” look extremely cool and extremely functionaly. Not only will it turn an ugly white eo into something stylish, it provides an added level of protection for eo’s (and other rebranded UMPC’s of the same ilk) of any color. Also included is a handy little “hand strap” that criss-crosses the back of the case, allowing you to securely “fasten” the eo to one hand (just go look at the other bumpcase pictures to see what we mean). At $39.95, this looks like a must have for eo owners (cases are available for both models).

As promised, Ultranauts.com is expanding. You demanded it, you got it. As a result, we will be transitioning to the new Ultranauts.com today. Expect some outages and some tweaking. In the end, this will be a much better website and a much cooler community. And the changes won’t stop with just a new “look-and-feel”… we’ll be adding new features and functionality in the coming days and months. Stay tuned!

One very, very important note: The RSS Feed URL is changing. The new feed is www.ultranauts.com/feed/

Please make the change now.

This is the last post on the “old” Ultranauts.com. Goodbye, green template.. we hardly new ya. If you have any issues with the feed, make sure to visit www.ultranauts.com and resubscribe (or send a note to john@ultranauts.com). We’ll see you on the other side.

It’s hard to ponder, but your already limited UMPC battery capacity might be much less than it is today in one short year. While Ultranauts would never over-sensationalize a story (much less a headline!), did you know that the most important piece of hardware on your UMPC, the battery, is dying a slow death as you use it in conjunction with an AC Adaptor?

Neither did we, but according to “the experts,” the li-ion cells within the battery enclosure are depleted at such a fast rate that in one year its capacity will shrink by up to 50%! For exact figures and much more interesting info on your beloved li-ion batteries visit this li-ion wiki super-page.

Can any UMPC users comment on their battery’s capacity today versus its capacity on day 1?

[Thanks Alan]

All that you ever wanted to know about car mounting your UMPC, but were afraid to ask… because someone might actually answer. We’ll answer they have… for 10 minutes… and this is just Part 1.

Good stuff.