They say that necessity is the mother of invention. Yesterday, this applied in no uncertain terms, and led to me learning something that I feel is worthwhile passing on. It is very basic and simple, but I am betting that most have never thought of this or if they have, not got around to implementing it.

Let me explain with some background information.

The flight from Perth to Sydney is a long one - 4hrs 10mins is not uncommon ; due to massive head winds, the one back is worse at 4hrs 55mins and sometimes more. Until recently, as this seemed to be 'the forgotten route' by Qantas especially, amenities on board were minimal. You might have a Barco projector showing a movie - one title fits all and a cricked neck guaranteed if you were lucky to sit behind someone over 5'10". And I am sure everyone has heard of, if not experienced, the 'midnight horror' also known as the 'red eye'.

A few years back, it got a bit better as 747s were introduced, so if nothing else, the flight was quicker and there was more room, but it was only recently we got the luxury of aircraft with individual screens.

Of course, in the era of the laptop/notebook, and with much of the east/west travel being business related, to say that battery power was at a premium is an understatement. Say you are not allowed to use the computer for 30 minutes after takeoff, and then shut it down 30 minutes before landing, this meant that for around half the trip, you were stuck with the movie, whatever was on the audio channels, reading the Qantas magazine or a good book. Unless you are one of those that can sleep on planes, which I am not.

So this trip - leaving Perth last Wednesday afternoon and returning on the Saturday afternoon was a delight! I had not only USB power in the seat, but laptop power as well, this being a brand spanking new Airbus A330.

Lovely then. No problem.

Except the trip back. For reasons I won't bore with, my expected 'bump' to Business Class on the way back didn't happen, and in the seat I ended with - thankfully an aisle - the power didn't work. With no spare seats on the plane (quite usual) I had no choice with a swag of work to do, than  to try and minimise all power usage on my HP MinI Note 5101. Normally I would get around 2hrs maximum, but switching Windows 7 to 'Power Saver' mode could add another 30 minutes to that. Still only half the trip, and lots of wasted time. I decided to experiment with various settings.

First, I dropped the screen brightness to about 20% and used the overhead light to maximise illumination. As the screen is an anti-glare one, with no reflection, this worked a treat.

Right, now to Advanced Power Settings. First to go was the hard disk. If I am just writing using Word, the HDD is not needed after loading the application until saving again, so I set this to turn off after one minute. Word would 'awaken it' again as needed. Next I turned off all options such as Bluetooth, WiFi and USB power as I had no devices plugged in - I detest touch pads, but needs must. I could have turned that off too in hindsight and just used keyboard shortcuts. All other options were then checked to make them as low or small as I could without actually shutting down!

Finally, I saved this as a 'Plan" so that I wouldn't need to go through these motions again; I could simply load the plan to return to this ultra-lite mode at anytime I wanted.

The difference was staggering! The power meter now told me I had 4hrs 30mins available! This turned out to be not quite accurate, as during writing of course, the hard drive was used to save files, and for an hour I plugged headphones in to use iTunes, but nonetheless I did get over 3hrs 50 mins before the boss man at the pointy end of the plane told us we had to shut off all electronic devices ready for landing. I was happy with that on all counts!

As a caveat of course, your mileage may vary, but it is certainly worth the effort to see what you'd get by experimenting.

By David Hague

David is the owner and publisher of AusCam Online. He has a background in media dating back to 1979 when he first got involved with photojournalism in motorsport, and went from there into technology via a 5 year stint with Tandy Computers. Following that, he ran a software distribution company on the Gold Coast and was one of the first to recognise the potential of Microsoft Windows.

Moving back to WA, David wrote scripts for Computer Television for video training for the just released Windows and Office 95 among others, and was then lured to Sydney to create web sites for the newly commercial Internet in 1995, building hundreds of sites under contract to OzEmail including Coates Hire, Hertz Queensland, John Williamson, the NSW Board of Studies and many, many more.

He went back into full time journalism as the Managing Editor for Channel 7's 'Gadget Guy', Peter Blasina's publications VideoCamera and Pixelmag, before starting Australasian Camcorder magazine when these publications were shelved. He lives at Sydney's Avalon Beaches nearly on the ocean front with dog Budweiser and in his spare time is a nut for motor sport, road safety, fishing, science fiction - especially Dr Who - and technology.

David can be contacted via david@auscamonline.com