Your Money In Your Hand

Adamu Fun Bala CSA Entrepreneur, IT Specialist/Strategist, Software Systems

QUICK INTRODUCTION
It is for me a duty to share with you and indeed the public this service I have enjoy for many years now. I am surprise that you don’t find this sort of articles on the internet on this issue.

For those of you looking for better and secure ways to make online transactions without the hassles of the banking hall – you have had “convenience” on your finger tips, you just probably didn’t recognize so. It is no longer news that the fast growing consolidated payment scheme that offers cardholders convenience (to securely transact on their mobile phones) and the ability to carry out ATM transactions other than cash withdrawals.

QUICKTELLER
The Quickteller increases your convenience because it gives you the room to carry out an array of transactions on the ATMs, PoS and mobile phones because it does what you do at the bank. Other services include funds transfers airtime recharge, which enables you to top up your phone either with or without a PIN; bills payment at ATMs, web, bank branches and PoS for utilities like DSTV, HiTV, PHCN, Lagos water rates, Zain, etc.

A screenshot of the services “Category” tab

Other benefits are convenience to cardholders, increased revenue to partners, cardholders engagement and loyalty schemes, consolidated view of payment reports for cardholders and partners, and improved ROI on existing technology investment for partners. It enables the cardholder view previous payments.

HOW TO GET QUICKTELLER
Go to https://get.quickteller.com to download the right app for your phone/device >> Sign-up/Register a new account >> Register for eCash >> Fund your eCash
OR
Go to https://www.quickteller.com >> Sign-up/Register a new account >> Register for eCash >> Fund your eCash

Verve eCash
Verve eCash is a simple prepaid card linked to your email address and phone number. To get it Just visit Quickteller. Or click here. You can also dial *322*60# from your phone

How to topup your eCash account?

1. Online here.
2. At an ATM. See instructions here

How to use it – See here

Presenting; The Remember Card Feature for Verve Cards! – Coming Soon!!!

 

Here at Quickteller, we are constantly trying to figure out ways to make the on-line payment experience a bit more convenient, while at the same time maintaining the security and safety of transactions. One time-consuming feature repeatedly came to mind: why do users have to repeatedly enter their full card details each and every time they have to carry out transactions?

So we gave it some more thought….hmmm…. OK.

Registered users have Quickteller accounts, why don’t we find a way to tie in their card details to their accounts and save some time?

Quickteller in conjunction with Verve presents the Remember Card feature for your Verve Cards!!!

Features:

• Faster and more convenient
• Only CVV2 and PIN are required
• Safe and secure as it uses Quickteller login & Safetoken
• Ties all your ATM cards to your unique phone number* you used to register for Safetoken**
• Available on Quickteller.com, m.Quickteller.com
• Will be available on select partner sites shortly

*Your unique phone number must have been verified by the system
**Safetoken OTP required

If you want to enjoy Remember Card when carrying out transactions, just register your Verve Card for Safetoken at the ATM using your unique phone number and then verify your phone number on Quickteller.com. If you have not verified your phone number on the system, you will be prompted to do so while carrying out a transaction on Quickteller.

How it Works:

1. Enable your Verve card for SafeToken
2. Login with your Quickteller details (i.e. username and password). If you do not have one, create one at Quickteller.com
3. Verify the phone number used for Safetoken (please note that you can register all of your cards for Safetoken using the same unique phone number)

Please note:

If you have not verified your phone number on the system, you will be prompted to do so while carrying out a transaction on Quickteller.

A Safetoken One-Time Password (OTP) is required to complete transactions over your bank’s set limit. If you have not registered your card for Safetoken, you will receive instructions on how to register for Safetoken at the ATM, via text or email.

Coming soon: An article on how to make money using the QUICKTELLER platform

Adamu Fun Bala
MD/CEO – Lynxx Systems & Comm. Tech. LTD

Disclaimer: All information herein is correct as verified. However, you are acting out of your own volition

Cultivate Your Leadership Style

Three Questions To Help Cultivate Your Leadership Style

I can tell you with absolute certainty that I didn’t think about my own leadership style for a large part of the first decade of my career.

I didn’t care at the time. It wasn’t relevant. Although in hindsight, I certainly had a style, it was more muscle than finesse.

My focus was on driving results through people and pushing, pushing, pushing. It was a simple formula. Drive results + make bosses happy = growth in responsibility and income. And it worked. The results were there, but the relationships were shallow…mostly transactional, and the work was less than rewarding. There was little consideration for the bigger picture of the people or environment I was creating.

Some Important Run Commands

These commands can be very handy to all you command nerds. I have found this priceless-ly  helpful and quick shortcuts to a many rather cumbersome procedures

RUN Commands !

1. Accessibility Controls – access.cpl
2. Accessibility Wizard – accwiz
3. Add Hardware Wizard – hdwwiz.cpl
4. Add/Remove Programs – appwiz.cpl
5. Administrative Tools – control admintools

MAKE MONEY FROM SHORTCODE

using a short code

SHORT CODE: Are special telephone numbers, significant shorter than Full telephone numbers that can be used to address SMS AND MMS messages from mobile phones or fixed phones. They are also known as short numbers. They are new, easy way for media outlets, brand owners and others to use mobile phones to reach and interact with target audience. Short codes are based on text messaging, a service available on almost all digital mobile phones. Instead of a 10-digit number, short code is five or six digit in length, and the digit can

Correspond to a brand name or phrase. They are easy to remember and

Freely Browse the Internet Using your Blackberry Plan

How to use a BlackBerry Plan on any other devices

Assorted Smartphones

BlackBerry plans are relatively cheaper than other straight data plans mostly because of the way the service is designed. Often times, I get asked if it is possible to use the a BlackBerry service plan on other phones. The answer to that is yes and no…in the sense that it is possible in some instances and won’t work in others. Again, it depends on the way the service is configured by the network in question.

Right now, here in Nigeria, it is possible on two networks, so I will share how you can on both, however, you should note that the data access via this means may be as a result of oversight, if that is the case, it could be shutdown anytime.

Airtel:

• Activate a BlackBerry plan on an Airtel Nigeria sim by texting BSM to 440 or Dial *440*4# costs N1,200. Or by texting BCM to 440 at the cost of N1,400.
• If your Phone does not have the Airtel APN set, set it up as follows APN: internet.ng.airtel.com  Username: internet Password: internet
• And that’s it. Your device will access the internet using the BlackBerry plan’s data. You should note that the Airtel plan has a 1Gb cap.
• If you exhaust the data and want to purchase another, you will have to first deactivate the current one by texting DEACTIVATE to 440.

Airtel 1+1 Offer:

To be eligible for this offer you must have  subscribed to one of the above blackberry plans at least once. After the expiry (30 days) of the bundle you do the following:

• Recharge the same Airtel SIM with a minimum of N1,500
• Dial *440*161#
• Voila!!! Your data account will be credited with 4,192MB (4.1GB) of data, valid for a hooping 60 days, (great, is it not?)
• You can now insert the SIM into the modem or any device you use for browsing
• ENJOY

Globacom:

• Activate BlackBerry Social Plan on the Glo by texting SoWeek (costs N400 and has a 700mb cap valid for a week) or SoMonth (costs N1,200 and has a 3Gb cap valid for a month) to 777.
• Change the network profile settings on your non-BlackBerry device to the following: APN: blackberry.net; Access number: *99#; leave username and password blank.
• And that’s it. Your device will access the internet using the BlackBerry plan’s data. The plan is automatically deativated when the data is exhausted, so you can straightaway activate a new one.

Update: Seems the Glo plan doesn’t work any longer, MTN though now works as described below:

MTN

• Activate BBC or BIS on the MTN by texting BBC or BIS to 21600 (costs N1000 (BBC) or 1500 (BIS) respectively and has a 2.5Gb cap valid for a month).
• Change the network profile settings on your non-BlackBerry device to the following: APN: web.gprs.mtnnigeria.net; username and password are both web.
• And that’s it. Your device will access the internet using the BlackBerry plan’s data.

Most phones require you to restart before changes to the APN are effected so if it does not work as soon as you alter the APN, restart the phone.

You should also note that I haven’t personally tried any of these so I may not be able to comment on what the experience is like. I have seen them work though, so it legit works.

BlackBerry Complete: Features: BlackBerry Messenger (BBM), BlackBerry Email and Instant

Messaging with Google Talk and Yahoo Messenger. Included is full access to browse the

internet, BlackBerry App World, Social Networking such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace

and one Web-based Email Account such as Yahoo, Gmail or Hotmail.

BlackBerry Social: Features:socializing and connecting on Facebook and Twitter and

browsing the internet, BlackBerry Messenger (BBM), BlackBerry Email, BlackBerry App World

and Instant Messaging.

We are specialists, we definitely can HELP!!!

Adamu Fun Bala CSA; MD/CEO Lynxx Systems & Communication Technology LTD; 08035158065
Information Technology Expert: Database Design, Development and Management, Webdesign, Content Management Systems (CMS), Data Analyst etc.

Android 5.0 “Key Lime Pie” UI Concepts Hitting the Web, Give Us Very High Hopes

As we approach the rumored date for Android 4.3′s launch on June 20 (at least, that’s what our sources say), many have already come to the realization that we should not expect Google to introduce a new interface for the OS. It will still be called Jelly Bean and nothing too crazy will happen. What most in the business have their money on is that we can expect to see Google change up Android’s look in the iteration after next, being Android 5.0 “Key Lime Pie.” That’s when we will see some new colors, icons, wallpapers, etc. take place. 

Graphic designers appear to be already creating their very own concepts for what they would like to see in Android 5.0, playing more with lockscreen widgets and revising the Android homescreen look. Artist Jinesh Shah took to his Google+ page recently to post up a few pictures of his own ideas, some of which we have become big fans of. While it comes off as minimal and clean, there is enough information on any given homescreen and the lockscreen to give off the sense that this concept would be highly functional and practical for users.

The lockscreen widget shows a comprehensive look at this user’s upcoming meeting, even showing a map preview of its location. Below that, we can see upcoming flight details, all of which would be able to be customized under new settings that would come with KLP. As for the homescreen changes, what sets this concept apart from others is the idea of “hidden” widgets. With swipes and other gestures, you could reveal other widgets that don’t necessarily have to be on your homescreen when not being used. It’s a fantastic concept, one that we probably wouldn’t mind seeing implemented.

Share your thoughts on the Android 5.0 concept below!

originally posted on: http://www.droid-life.com/2013/06/14/android-5-0-key-lime-pie-ui-concepts-hitting-the-web-give-us-very-high-hopes/

Who Gets Rich in the Tumblr-Yahoo Deal

Tumblr’s $1.1 billion exit has minted a number of new millionaires—and made some rich folks even richer.Here’s who made what, according to PrivCo, which studies private companies. These are the revised figures corrected by PrivCo after initial numbers showed even more lavish returns for several venture-capital firms,setting off a Twitter war.

STAKEHOLDERS	PERCENTAGE HELD	PAYOUT (in millions)
Union Square Ventures	18	198
Sequoia Capital	19.8	217.8
Spark Capital	18	198
David Karp	19	209
Other Series A individual investors	8.8	96.8
Series E venture capital firms (Greylock, Insight, CrunchFund, DFJ)	10.4	114.4
The 178 employees of Tumblr	6	66

(Data from PrivCo)

Some of the biggest winners, of course, are the venture capitalists who got in the earliest. Union Square Ventures and Spark Capital, for instance, are each pocketing a 1,423 percent return on their investments.

But a few millionaires are definitely coming from within Tumblr’s ranks as well. According to PrivCo’s data, 178 employees will take in six percent of the $1.1 billion purchase price, for an average payout of $370,787. PrivCo calculates that fully vested employees who were among the first 10 to join Tumblr would make $6.2 million each, while those within the first 30 would make $3.6 million.

Steven Johnson, the author of Future Perfect, argues in an essay on Medium that the chance for nonexecutives to get rich is what makes tech different from other generators of wealth in the U.S.:

“Sure, companies went public or sold for staggering sums, but companies have been going public or selling out for generations without creating tens of thousands of millionaires along the way.The defining difference between Silicon Valley companies and almost every other industry in the U.S. is the virtually universal practice among tech companies of distributing meaningful equity (usually in the form of stock options) to ordinary employees. Before companies like Fairchild and Hewlett-Packard began the practice fifty years ago, distributing stock options to anyone other than top management was virtually unheard of. But the engineering tradition that spawned Silicon Valley was much more egalitarian than traditional corporate culture.

It is not just startups that follow this credo. Citing In the Company of Owners, a book from 2003 about stock options, Johnson points out that the top 100 technology companies granted 19 percent of their total ownership to nonsenior executive employees, compared with 2 percent for the rest of corporate America. Johnson’s essay does not address the Tumblr acquisition directly; he was responding to George Packer’s article about the politics of Silicon Valley in this week’s New Yorker, which lamented the rising inequality of northern California, where growing ranks of poor live near startup millionaries. One solution to widespread inequality, Johnson suggests, would be “to make the rest of corporate America act more like Silicon Valley.”

Skeptics will question whether the creation of more millionaires can really be held up as a sign of progressive policy (in part, that’s what Packer’s article is all about). But it sure has proven to be a powerful way to create new tech companies. The lifecycle goes like this: Young engineer joins or founds a startup, gets equity, cashes out, and begins investing in or starting new companies that pay young engineers with equity. The PayPal (EBAY) Mafia and Facebook’s (FB) early generation of employees are two cases in point.

Tumblr’s employees are getting a relatively modest return by comparison. In part, Tumblr became so valuable with so few employees that many people came on after the stock options were worth relatively little; Tumblr had no more than a dozen employees for its first three years. A similar dynamic could mark the eventual exits of companies such as Twitter and Pinterest. Also, Tumblr raised a lot of money from investors. Several people involved in the venture capital world cited a rule of thumb that about 20 percent of the option pool would be set aside for employees. But that goes down with each subsequent investment, and Tumblr raised a lot of money.

“When you raise a lot of money, folks who came on earlier get diluted down,” says Anand Sanwal, the co-founder of CB Insights, which studies the venture capital world. “The flip side of that is when you raise a lot of money, you’re not worried about your job every day.”

Marco Arment, who worked with Karp from the beginning on Tumblr, said that he won’t make “yacht-and-helicopter money” from the acquisition. “But as long as I manage investments properly and don’t spend recklessly, Tumblr has given my family a strong safety net and given me the freedom to work on whatever I want. And that’s exactly what I plan to do,” he wrote in a post on his blog.

So Tumblr may well spawn its own diaspora of new startups and investors seeded with proceeds from the sale to Yahoo! (YHOO), even if it’s a group that doesn’t quite have the resources and reach of those who came before it.

Brustein is a writer for Businessweek.com.

You are the Product, Not Customer

Adamu Fun Bala
MD/CEO, Lynxx Systems & Comm. Tech. LTD
+234 803 515 8065

A good friend of mine sent this to me and I am sure it will make for a very important read just to say the least. I have often wondered what in heaven we are doing or indeed producing as we used our new found love “Social Media Networks”. The third world is arguably the most affected by this trend of which I can attribute to a numbers of factors, including the self-inflicted IT malnourishment we have wittingly embraced. Come’ on, my friend here has got some great thoughts that are likely going to change the way you think or what you knew about this not-noticed-time-consuming activity. By the way, this trend requires some policy related reflections.

People need to understand that they are the product of Facebook and not the customer, according to media theorist and writer Douglas Rushkoff.

Speaking at the inaugural Hello Etsy conference in Berlin, the author of Program or Be Programmed said: “Ask a kid what Facebook is for and they’ll answer ‘it’s there to help me make friends’. Facebook’s boardroom isn’t talking about how to make Johnny more friends. It’s talking about how to monetise Johnnny’s social graph.”

He added: “Ask yourself who is paying for Facebook. Usually the people who are paying are the customers. Advertisers are the ones who are paying. If you don’t know who the customer of the product you are using is, you don’t know what the product is for. We are not the customers of Facebook, we are the product. Facebook is selling us to advertisers.”

Rushkoff believes that this lack of understanding is a construct of software companies who don’t want you to understand their inner workings. He explained that in the early 1990s, to use a computer was the same thing as to program a computer. He explained: “It took anywhere from a few hours to a day to learn how to use a computer back then, but then you knew the whole thing. You were using the computer. You weren’t dependent on boxes of software you bought off the shelf, you were making that world as you went along. There was no such things as an ‘end user’, just a ‘user’. We were all equals.”

Social Media

However, he explained, companies realised it was hard to make money out of people who communicated with each other through interfaces that they made themselves. So they created more of a distance between the programmer and the user, building packages of software that were easy-to-use but removed the end user from being able to appreciate the baises embedded within them.

“I’m not asking you to know how your computer works and how to change the power supply or solder,” he said. “I’m asking that you understand the language, the interface, the software that the computer is using. You don’t want your kids to be James Joyce, you just want them to learn how to write. If you are not prepared to program then you are being programmed.”

“It’s not the difference between being a driver and a mechanic, I’m talking about the difference between being a driver and a passenger. If you depend on a driver like in Driving Miss Daisy, you’d better trust Morgan Freeman.” He said.

One of the barriers to understanding is a reticence among some programmers to reveal their processes. “I’d love everyone to document their code on their website, explaining how it works and why they made this or that decision.”

He proposes that we create interfaces that encourage programming literacy rather than protecting proprietary software. I guess he hasn’t heard about initiatives such as Codeacademy?

How do you see your relationship with Facebook? Do you realise you are being ‘sold’ to advertisers? Or are you just like poor little Johnny?

How to buy the best laptop in the age of Windows 8 -con’t

Memory

Most laptops today ship with at least 4GB of RAM. Windows 8 is more memory-efficient than earlier Windows versions, so in many instances 4GB is enough for normal office or productivity use. If you create massive spreadsheets or edit large digital photos, however, you may want more than 4GB. If so, make sure that the system you’re considering is available with (or can accommodate) larger amounts of memory. Most Ultrabooks are limited to a fixed 4GB of RAM, with no option for the user to buy more or to upgrade the system.

Display

You can’t change your laptop display, so choose the LCD panel carefully. Two factors are relevant: the underlying panel technology and the resolution.

LCD panel technologies have remained fairly stable for the past few years. Though capacitive touchscreens are becoming more common, the underlying LCD panels continue to use one of three basic technologies: twisted nematic (TN), in-plane switching (IPS, S-IPS, and related variants), or vertical alignment (MVA or PVA).

TN panels are still the most common, mainly because these panels are the least expensive. Most budget laptops ship with TN technology. These LCDs have fast response times and good power efficiency, but their color depth is lower (usually 6 bits per pixel), so color accuracy for photo editing and video editing is subpar. TN panels also have a relatively narrow range of acceptable viewing angles, with severe contrast and color shifts visible in off-axis viewing.

IPS panels tend to offer more color depth and better color accuracy if properly implemented. The range of acceptable viewing angles is wider, too. Until recently, IPS panel response times were slow, which sometimes resulted in visible “smearing” of video or game content; but newer IPS panel variants have improved on their predecessors’ response times. IPS panels are increasingly common in high-end laptop models.

MVA or PVA panels, though less common, are available on some laptops. They offer a good balance of color accuracy and response time, but don’t stand out in any one category.

The other key factor to consider when choosing a panel is resolution. With Windows-based laptops, a greater number of pixels isn’t always better. Very high pixel densitiesas, for example, in a 1920-by-1080 display on an 11-inch LCDoften results in tiny, hard-to-read text. Sure, you can increase text size, but then you have to enlarge your open windows, which means that you can’t fit as many windows on-screen, negating the benefits of the higher resolution.

On the other hand, a 17-inch LCD that offers a resolution of only 1366 by 768 creates a visible “screen door” effect in which you can easily see individual pixels. This can be particularly annoying when you’re watching video content.

Storage

Storage is one of the hottest topics related to mobile PCs today, as solid-state drives become more popular. SSDs substantially decrease boot time and improve system responsiveness because they load applications and data faster. If a manufacturer offers an SSD as an upgrade option, you may be better off skipping a processor speed increase and getting the SSD instead. Often, SSDs are tied to premium models, however.

If you decide that you want an SSD, note that the minimum useful size for most users is 128GB. If you can afford it, 256GB is better, since Windows itself consumes between 20 and 30GB of drive space.

Some laptop users need a lot of storage. If you’re a videographer or a photographer who shoots in RAW format, the data files you capture can quickly chew up a lot of drive space. In that case, you might prefer a traditional rotating-media hard drive. Modern Intel-based laptops often have an option for improving hard-drive performance by adding a small SSDtypically 16GB to 32GBto cache hard-drive data. This arrangement is well worth its modest extra cost, as the caching SSD improves boot times and application load times. It won’t help overall application performance much, however, on systems that must frequently read from or write to the hard drive. If an SSD appeals to you, consider getting a USB 3.0, bus-powered portable hard drive as an accessory for your system.

Connectivity and ports

USB ports allow you to connect a keyboard, external storage, a docking station, and even some LCD displays to your system. Unfortunately, laptops commonly ship with too few USB ports. Most Ultrabooks, for example, have only two USB ports. If you’re lugging around external storage, you’ll want at least one USB 3.0 (SuperSpeed) port to improve throughput (assuming that the portable hard drive supports USB 3.0).

How to buy the best laptop in the age of Windows 8

Laptops have changed dramatically in the past few months, making buying choices more difficult. We help you navigate the mobile PC maze.

By Loyd Case, PC World
December 06, 2012 02:01 PM ET

PC World – Laptops used to be simple. Almost all of them had a clamshell design, with a display that folded onto the keyboard. You picked the laptop you needed based on factors like price, weight, and performance. But it’s different today: New form factors, different operating systems, and disparate user needs conspire to make choosing a laptop a complex chore.

Do core processor specs matter, or has system performance reached the point where users won’t even notice a 300MHz frequency bump? Should you buy a laptop at all, or would a tablet better suit your needs? I’ll answer all these questions and more as I explore the challenges of buying a laptop (or something like a laptop) in the age of Windows 8.

WATCH: Windows 8 video roundup

Define your needs and budget

Before you pull out your credit card, consider how you’ll be using your new machine. Perhaps you do a lot of business traveling, and carrying something lighter than your current 6-pound behemoth would improve your life on the road tremendously. Or maybe you’re looking for a shared family machine, or a laptop that you can hand off to a student to do schoolwork on. Or you might want a high-performance system that can deliver high frame rates in 3D games.

Let’s look at the main buying factors for each scenario.

Business laptop: If you’re a frequent business traveler, mobility and ruggedness are important laptop features for you. Consumer-grade laptops may look sleek and attractive, but many business-oriented units are built to absorb the shocks of constant travel. Hardcore performance is less important in this scenario than portability, sturdiness, and battery life.

Shared family PC: Many families used to share a small PC in the living room or family room. Desktop replacement laptopsgargantuan systems with 17-inch or larger screensoften fulfill that same role today. For many families, roomy screens and large hard drives outweigh such factors as top-of-the-line performance and battery life.

Student laptop: High school students may need laptops that support basic mobility, but not much elseand this helps keep the cost of the laptop low. Many college students need all-purpose machine that are more robust. Performance is a bigger consideration, too, but physical desk space is likely to be limited, so a smaller machine may make the most sense.

Gaming machine: PC gamers may be willing to accept more weight and less portability if the payoff is better performance. Such performance-oriented features as quad-core processors and high-end mobile GPUs require more-elaborate cooling technologies and bulkier cases, which in turn mean increased weight. The result can be a special-purpose laptop like the Razer Blade.

Regardless of your specific needs, make sure that you understand a laptop’s target user prior to buying it. Once you settle on the features you want, from most to least important, lock down a budget. Setting a budget will help you narrow down your choices. But make sure that your budget takes essential accessories into account. For example, students may need an external, portable hard drive for quick backups, and business users may want to spring for extended warranties with overnight replacements.

Finally consider whether you even need a laptop. Tablet sales have skyrocketed in the past couple of years, and for good reason: Tablets typically cost less than a full-fledged laptop, they’re much more portable, and they boot faster than most PCs. If you’re looking primarily for a mobile device for browsing the Web, watching video, and playing some light games, a tablet might fit the bill nicely.

Evolving form factors

Windows 8 has spurred a remarkable amount of innovation in laptop design. Some new laptops, such as the HP Envy TouchSmart Ultrabook 4, integrate a touchscreen into an otherwise standard clamshell design. Other, hybrid designslike Lenovo’s IdeaPad YogaA and Dell’s XPS 12use nifty conversion mechanisms to give users a touchscreen tablet and a laptop in a single physical package. Remember to keep a cautious eye on your budget, however. Windows 8 makes touch-capable displays extremely attractive, but adding touch technology to a machine increases its cost.

When considering one of the new hybrid designs, don’t lose sight of your needs assessment. If you’re a business traveler who makes frequent presentations to clients, a hybrid equipped with a touchscreen makes sense. Using a tablet and touch control to run a presentation is far easier than huddling around a clamshell and using its small trackpad.

But even if a hybrid PC looks great, make sure that it has the basics you need. For example, the Sony Duo 11 offers a good tablet experience, but its keyboard may not satisfy touch typists who have to do a lot of writing on their laptop.

Under the hood

Once you’ve clarified your needs and established a budget, you’re ready to dive into the world of internal components. Understanding what makes a laptop tick can help you choose your system wisely.

Processors

Intel processors that have the word “Core” in their name employ the company’s state-of-the-art CPUA architecture.A A

Ultrabooks and similar ultraportable laptop PCs use ultra-low-voltageA (ULV) CPUs. They’re the most power-efficient CPUs, meaning that they run cooler and can fit into systems with very thin cases. Intel ULV processors are often labeled with a “u”for example, the Core i5 3317u. You do forfeit some raw CPU performance, as the clock speeds of ULV processors aren’t especially high, and the ones sold today have only two processor cores.

Mainstream laptop CPUs of the type found in most all-purpose laptops offer better performance, but they also require more-effective cooling systems, which makes these systems heavier. High-end systems may carry quad-core CPUs, whose four CPU cores improve the performance of applications that can take advantage of them.

Another class of processor is the accelerated processing unit (APU). Built by AMD,A these CPUs have more-powerful integrated graphics engines than equivalentA Intel processors do. As a result, graphics-intensive tasks may run better on them, though their standard CPU performance is often lower. Systems configured with Intel CPUs may also have a separate GPU from Nvidia or AMD to boost graphics performance, albeit at the cost of increased weight and somewhat reduced battery life.