SONY make.believe

Editors Note: Backstage Technicians are here to help and in this ongoing series, they’ll offer me their favorite tips and provide answers to some of the most common service related questions they hear at both the call center and in Sony Style Stores.

When sitting at the computer, it’s important to optimize our comfort level since we’re often in the same position for hours on end.  Things to consider include how our chairs are adjusted, the position of our hands, head and legs.  The comfort of our eyes though is just as important and often overlooked.  In fact, a few minor adjustments to the brightness of your screen can help reduce eye strain and enhance your overall viewing experience.

Keep in mind not every situation calls for your screen to be at its maximum brightness.  For example, if you’re watching a movie – by all means max your display brightness out and enjoy.  On the other hand, if the light around you is dim a bright screen could be hard on your eyes, whether you realize it at first or not.

Your display also consumes a lot of battery power – the brighter the display setting, the more power it draws.  So if you’re watching that same movie on a long flight, you may want to consider dimming your screen to ensure you get to finish it with plenty of time to spare for other things.

That said, adjusting the brightness of your screen is simple.  In just a few quick steps, you can easily adjust the brightness of your display, improving both the quality of your viewing experience and the life of your battery.

You may already know how to adjust the brightness of your display through Windows, by selecting Control Panel => System and Security => Power Options, then adjusting the slider from left to right.

But did you know your VAIO PC makes this process even easier?  Your VAIO is designed to give you quick access to some of the most common function shortcuts.  You can find these shortcuts on the Function keys along the top row of your keyboard.  Simply select and hold the Function key (“Fn”) and F6 to make the screen brighter or F5 to dim the screen.  You can make changes to your screen’s brightness on-the-fly as you watch a video, browse the web, read a document or look at pictures, without disrupting your onscreen experience or PC’s performance.

You can also create brightness and power presets for the various situations you might find yourself in.  Let’s go back to the in-flight movie example.  Instead of manually making adjustments to your VAIO each time your on a flight and wanting to watch a movie, you can tweak a pre-existing power preset.  That way, when your VAIO determines you’re running on batteries but watching a movie it will automatically make all the necessary adjustments for you.  Here’s how:

1. Select Control Control Panel => System and Security => Power Options

2. Select the present you want to tweak.

• 1. For the in-flight movie example, select Interevideo WinDVD (this preset correlates with the use of the WinDVD application)
• 2. Select Change plan settings

2. Tweak the power and brightness settings as you see fit under the On battery column.

Even better, select VAIO PCs include an ambient light sensor, which detects the ambient light around your computer and adjust the screen’s brightness accordingly – taking the guess work out of setting the optimal screen brightness for your situation.

For even more tips on preserving battery life, jump over to Backstage Quick Tip #2:  5 Ways to Maximize Battery Life.

Editors Note: Backstage Technicians are here to help and in this ongoing series, they’ll offer me their favorite tips and provide answers to some of the most common service related questions they hear at both the call center and in Sony Style Stores.

Battery life is important, especially for those long flights or extended study sessions at the library. Even though battery technology and OS power management have come a long way, you always seem to need just a little more when the battery finally decides its had enough and powers down.  Because of that, I reached out to Backstage Technicians to get their top 5 tips for squeezing every ounce out of that battery.  Here are the most popular responses:

1. Adjust Your VAIO Power Plan

This is the first and easiest step. You can choose 1 of the 3 preset power options or customize your own to quickly adjust a broad range of power settings with one click.

1. Left-click on the power icon in the bottom right of your screen
2. Select Power Saver

2. Put Your VAIO to Sleep

Even if you’ll only be away for a moment, putting your VAIO to sleep can save precious battery life. Your LCD and hard drive are two of the biggest consumers of power and when you step away they continue to draw power to keep the LCD lit and hard drive spinning.

1. Click the Start button
2. Select the power icon in the lower right corner

3. Adjust Your LCD Brightness

While the VAIO Power Plan can automatically adjust your LCD brightness, you can make further adjustments with this easy keyboard shortcut to save even more power.

1. Press and hold the Fn key on the bottom left of your keyboard while selecting the F5 key simultaneously
2. Repeat step A until you reach the desired dimness – the dimmer, the more power you’ll save

4. Turn Off Unused Ports

Even when not in use, your USB, iLINK, Ethernet, Optical Drive and other inputs consume power to maintain a standby state – ready to automatically detect a device as soon as it’s inserted. However, if you’re on a long flight just watching movies and know you’re not going to be using any of these ports, turn them off! Here’s how:

1. From the Control Panel, click Hardware and Sound
2. Click Power Options
3. Click Choose When to Turn Off the Display in the left hand margin
4. Click Change Advanced Power Settings
5. In the “Running On Batteries” row set the i.LINK, built-in CD/DVD or any other input you’d like to Disable or Off.

*Don’t forget to turn these back on should you need them later.

5. Switch from External to Internal Graphics*

An external graphics card consumes a lot more power than internal integrated graphics. If you’re just browsing the internet, hammering through e-mails or taking notes in class, you don’t need the graphics performance of an external, dedicated graphics card. Sound intimidating though? Switching between the two graphic performance options is as easy as flipping a switch and here’s how:

1. Flip the hardware switch from Speed to Stamina

*Available on select models only

Buy a Large Capacity Battery

Still need more or just don’t feel like tinkering with these settings? Pick up a Large Capacity Battery from any SonyStyle store or online. On average, you’ll increase your battery life by approximately 1.5x when compared to a Standard Capacity Battery.

Of course, that’s just the tip of the ice berg. I want to hear your battery tips as well. Share them with the rest of the community and post your tips in the comment section below.

I’ve been reading a lot of chatter on the blog and forum lately about whether a customer’s specific model is either:

• Supported and upgradeable to Windows 7

• Eligible for a free upgrade to Windows 7 if recently purchased

One part of discovering information on either of these topics is locating your specific model number.  From what I’ve put together, it seems as though some customers may be incorrectly referencing a number on the bottom of the notebook as their model number.  I believe this has been creating some confusion when the assumed model number gets entered into a site like sony.com/windows7 and comes back as non-supported.  To help in the matter, this Quick Tip will offer you the facts about where and how to determine your exact model number.

To begin, VAIO PC model numbers always begin with the prefix “VGN-”, “VGC-” or “VPC”.  The PCG number on the bottom of most notebooks is not your model number; rather, it’s a reference number to an internal hardware component.

An example of a specific VAIO model number is:  VGN-Z610Y/B or VPCCW1SGX/U (newer models only)

That being said, you can always find the exact model number of your PC, starting with the prefixes above, in the lower right hand corner of your LCD bezel.  Click the photo above to zoom in and see a model number’s exact location (yes, that’s my slightly dusty work PC).

I hope you find this helpful!