Many inverters have a built-in low-battery indicator

To get into small gaps, take the tube from an empty can and heat it (outdoors) near one end with a cigarette lighter. Rotate it so it heats evenly. When it gets soft, stretch it to shrink the diameter and cut it off.

"You can take an online open house tour of James Dulley's own house and see all the money-savings improvements and products that he tests in his own home. There are nearly 100 pictures with links to the various HP Pavilion dv9500 Battery columns that describe the improvements and products. Go to www.dulley.com/house/ on the Internet to visit his home."

New building permits, a barometer of future construction activity, grew by a strong 8.7 percent in January to a seasonally adjusted rate of 1.763 million.

IBM Corp. will demonstrate one of its Thinkpad 240 laptops modified to use a processor with a radical new design that according to its maker, Transmeta Inc., uses a fraction of the power conventional processors use.

Transmeta announced the Crusoe chip in January after working in secret for several years. This will be the first demonstration of the chip in a working computer, and analysts will be watching it closely. The chip seems well placed to power handheld devices and "Internet appliances," stripped-down computers designed for surfing the Web.

With Transmeta's lineup of upcoming products, "right now it does look like Transmeta HP Pavilion DV8000 Battery has superior performance," said Rob Enderle, an analyst with the Giga Information Group in Santa Clara.The company, which employs 313 workers, just began significant shipments of its Crusoe chip last month. Sony Electronics and Fujitsu Ltd. are both using the Crusoe chip in their latest laptop computers.

"But the big issue is if this starts a trend, if other companies start backing out of their commitments with Transmeta, then there's a problem."Transmeta said it still has a good relationship with IBM, whose semiconductor division manufactures the Crusoe chip for Transmeta.

"We have seen that the companies providing the most innovation with Crusoe are focusing on the need for significantly extended battery life," said Transmeta spokesman Philip Bergman. "Companies that are not extending HP Pavilion DV1000 Battery life as a focus may look to other options. It's up to the needs of a particular customer."Bergman said he could not comment about the financial impact of IBM's decision because the company is in its pre-IPO quiet period.

For simplicity, select a model that has some type of built-in charge indicator so that you know when it is running down. Some units use a series of indicator lights and others use an actual meter. Many inverters have a built-in low-battery indicator to give you time to shut off any devices.

Even if you do not get the portable power pack, a plug-in inverter is a great item to have. Plug it into your car's cigarette lighter, and it is like being at home. It will power most 115-volt household devices.

Behind the project are 200 employees in Santa Clara, Calif., as well as in Taiwan and Japan, including superstar designers like Linux creator Linus Torvalds. Investors consist of industry barons like Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen and billionaire financier George Soros.