Genes - I did try your suggestions - and the Dell won't power up. Wiggling the adapter didn't make a difference. Kay - I'm curious why Dell thought it might be a battery? And I don't have any steps I can walk you through beyond what Genes outlined. Unfortunately, my Dell won't power up. There are replacement batteries on Amazon for just over $20 - so maybe it's worth trying that in case a Dell just won't power up if the batter is bad - whether it's plugged in or not. --------------------- On a separate note, I did get the battery replacement for my lenovo - and it works. Now I can unplug my laptop and get about 3-4 hours (which isn't great - but running on battery is not what I usually need). I did calibrate it once. Charge it fully - let it discharge fully until it shut off. Then recharged it fully. The battery came with instructions to do that once. I am confused, however, as I thought Li-ion batteries didn't need that at all - and that batteries that do need that need a few cycles of it. So I'm wondering if I should go through a couple of more charge and discharge cycles. Thank you. Lynn.

Most digital voice recorders that do allow you to transfer voice data to a PC use a USB interface. The link below explains how you record your voice to a pc, so perhaps instead of your voice, play the message from the Sony. See if that works. Here is a link that might be useful: Record-Your-Voice-on-a-Compute

Here's what you need to do in Firefox to make this particular web site work, To play Windows Media in Firefox, you need the Windows Media Player browser plugin installed. There are two different versions: The original, which is usually included with Windows up until XP. The new version, specifically developed for Windows XP and above, which is only available by download. Note: Even if you already have Windows Media Player installed, you may still be missing the plugin required to play back Windows Media audio and video embedded in web pages. This article describes how to check for and install the Windows Media Player Firefox plugin. See link. You will need to go into About: config and change a value to true, as instructed on the link I have provided. My Firefox would not work on the web page either. I went through the instructions and it works now. EDIT : I installed the plug-in from mike link that he provided, but had to do the about:config thing to make it work. Here is a link that might be useful: windows-media-files-in-firefox This post was edited by zep516 on Sat, Sep 28, 13 at 0:40

In numerous cases, Dell in particular, if you flip over the laptop there is a pushbutton on the battery and a series of LEDs that light up to indicate the level of charge when you push the button (assumes the charge circuit is operational and that the battery can hold a charge). I would start by checking Dell's website to see if the battery is part of any recall, many were. If you rarely use it on battery I wouldn't spend any extra on a larger capacity one. Third party ones should be used with caution, quality is often lacking. Personally I have used Lenmar replacements, for laptops and camcorders, when competitively priced. So far I have been lucky, some reviewers seem to diss them. I would definitely factor in the cost of a new battery vs purchase of a new warrantied unit also.