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Saturday, May 24, 2008

Computer House Cleaning Part 2

So now that your all experts at keeping you desktop clean and organizing yourselves lets move on to some other issues.

The next time you start your computer look down at the bottom right of your screen...you'll notice that right next to the time are a few icons, for some of you it'll be a ton of icons. These are the programs that start as soon as windows start. Chances are most of them really don't need to start when windows starts and stopping them from starting does not mean that you won't be able to start them at all, you can always start these programs through the start-all programs menu.

So you ask well how do I get rid of all those programs that start up and take up all my processing power while they do nothing? Well I'm gonna tell you. Most of those icons you can right click and go to the options or properties menu, in that menu it will most likely have an option that say "Start when windows starts" or something similar, simply uncheck that option and then the next time your computer starts it won't have to load that unneeded program.

Alternatively you can do it the hard way. Go to "Start" and then "Run", in the dialogue box type "msconfig". This will bring up the config menus for windows. Now allot of this stuff you don't want to mess with but I'll let you in on the secrets here. Click on the tab that says "Startup" and you'll notice a long list of programs. Simply go down the list and uncheck all the programs that you know you don't need to start when windows starts and I can tell you that it'll probably be most of them. You'll want to leave the ones for your antivirus and for your Internet connections, but most others can be unchecked in this list without ruining the operations of your computer in anyway. Having done that click "Apply" and then "ok". It'll prompt you to restart go ahead and do that. The next time windows starts a dialogue box will pop up that states that the msconfig file has been changed, just click the don't show me this again box and then click "ok".

Congratulations now you've stopped a lot of unneeded programs from starting and you will notice quite a performance boost to the operations of your computer, and for all of you still wondering why should I even do this?.....IT WILL MAKE YOUR COMPUTER RUN FASTER......

Well hope you have fun with that and as always if you have any questions feel free to comment here or start up a thread in the forum.

Happy Computing!

Monday, May 19, 2008

Computer House Cleaning Part 1

So I thought that I would cover some simple techniques today that any user can use to get rid of the junk that slows down your computer.

The First rule of thumb is this: NEVER click "ok" to any dialogue box when you don't know what it's going to do. ALWAYS hit cancel if your in doubt.

That rule will save many of you from getting Spyware and Adware on your machines as your surf the net.

Next Make SURE you have a good antivirus and by good I mean NOT Norton. Norton is probably the worst Antivirus out there and will cause you more problems than it fixes. Mcafee is a little better but still not what I would recommend. I personally use KasperSky. Kaspersky is a great antivirus always more up to date than Norton and Mcafee, in fact Norton and Mcafee get their virus databases from Kastersky's database. So that would be my choice, now if you have Norton or Mcafee don't go out and change right away, but perhaps the next time your license is due you can think of switching out.

Third: Monitor what programs get installed on your machine. One way to tell is to go to Start and then Programs and just look through the list and see what you got. I bet it's been a while since you did that. If you feel a little more comfortable with your machine you can go to Add/Remove programs in the control panel and see all the programs that are installed on your computer. Go down through the list and remove programs that you know you don't use. If your in doubt about a program WEBIT! and see what it does.

Fourth: CLEAN UP YOUR DESKTOP! Thats right I'm talking to YOU!! I know you have way to many icons just floating around on your desktop and your just holding on to them for that one fateful day when you might need it again. If you haven't clicked an Icon on your desktop for over a week then delete it off the desktop. And NEVER, I mean NEVER store files on your desktop. The desktop is the worst place to store a file. Why? The desktop is a virtual space and that means that it's the first thing to crash when your computer goes down and that means that you have a much better chance of loosing whatever files you had on the desktop. You should ALWAYS keep files that your working on in Folders on your hard drive. NEVER on the desktop. And one more thing, the more icons you have on your desktop the longer it takes your windows to load and that means more waiting time for you.

Fifth: Get organized! Know where all your files are and be able to access them easily and efficiently. Use folders names that make sense. Don't just go with what the computer chooses for you. Pick names for your folders that make sense to you and that you'll remember later. Being a well organized user will give you the best chances of not loosing files and not duplicating files or folders. That's a good thing to mention as well, Look through your files and see if your have duplicates. If you have one picture of a dog with a bone in one folder and the same picture in another, you probably don't need both so eliminate one and keep yourself well organized.

Well this has gone on longer than I thought and I have a lot more to share so we'll call this installment one on Computer House Cleaning. Happy Computing!

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

WEBIT!!

In this age of Google to many good people are being sucked in to what I call the Googloompah take over. It seems that Google has infiltrated our whole Internet existence, to the point of some losing themselves on the servers of the Google Empire. So in an effort to lead the revolution I've coined a new phrase "WEBIT".

Think about the last conversation you had with someone and your weren't quite clear on the facts, I'm sure one of you said, "I'll Google it later". Why do we do that!? Not only is Google the fastest growing company in the world probably, but they made themselves a Verb! Now don't get me wrong that is impressive, but I don't see a reason for me to follow suit. Let us not be mind numbed followers of the Internet age, let us not just Google for the mere reason that everyone else is doing it! Let us take back the Internet! I say WEBIT!

So the next time someone asks if you can look something up on the Internet, you say "Sure!, I'll WEBIT!!, or "I don't know, you should WEBIT!"

Happy Searching everyone!, see you in the WEB!

DirectX 10 Triumph

So you may or may not know that the main reason that I would even consider buying vista is DirectX 10. DirectX is a graphics engine that runs basically every visual aspect of your computer. Your graphics card uses directX to manipulate all the graphics on your computer. DirectX 9 is great and allows for some really cool visual effects, but DirectX 10 is that latest super cool directX version, the only down side is that it isn't available for XP, you have to buy vista to use it. Which I think is ridiculous, it's just another way for Microsoft to sell an OS that doesn't really match up to it's predecessors. Many programmers and developers are comparing windows Vista to the Windows ME of yesteryear. What you've never heard of windows ME. Well join the club ME was probably the shortest lived version of Windows ever simply because it wasn't any good. Vista with all it's bells and whistles is just not up to par with what the advanced consumer wants and needs. Anyway enough Vista Bashing.

On to the celebration! I found a beta version of DirectX 10 for Windows XP. It's done by a group called the Alky Project. It's fantastic, I can get the visual effects of DirectX 10 and I don't have to worry about buying vista. For those of you who know how to handle a beta just copy this: Alky Project. And look it up on the Internet. For those of you who have no Idea what a Beta version is or what DirectX 10 is all about, don't worry you probably don't need it right now.

Anyway, I was rejoicing because of this find and maybe some of you can benefit from it.