Hog In A Window

If I lived on a big farm I'd expect to see one of these peering through my window on a regular basis, but, fact is, I live in the city, and so, if I did see one I'd do a serious double-take. :)

The subject matter of this article, of course, has nothing to do with wild hogs staring through glass shields at the activities of unsuspecting humans, who would likely turn them into a nice breakfast, but, in actuality, refers to that one menacing resource hog dwelling inside of each and every computer user of Windows XP.

Outside of the fact that you can really bring your system to an almost instantaneous crawl by loading up several programs at one time, the pre-loaded activities running in windows background are already at work to do this, without you having opened anything at all. Microsoft, with each incarnation of it's new operating system, has injected more bloat than necessary.......Vista, surely, will be no different. Along with that, there have been several things implemented that leaves the operating system vulnerable to all kinds of outside attacks. Much like Internet Explorer itself, XP, as a whole, has MAJOR critical security holes in it!!

Thankfully, not long after XP was initially released, a computer whiz kid devised a way to do away with, not only the hogging of resources, but also, the doors open to security threats. If you haven't heard of this guy, his name is BlackViper. His original site is under construction, but you can find the original information about how he turned a swiss cheese, snail driven, operating system, into one that is a solid brick speeding across ice.

Here is the genius of BlackViper.

Memory Matters

Ok, you've cleaned up your (c:) drive, you've done the defrag thing, and you've run your spyware programs......but.......for some reason, your computer still doesn't seem to zip along like it should. No matter how lite on resources the program you are using is, everything just keeps going s-l-o-w.

Not to worry, there is hope. :) All you need to do is just improve your memory. What? You say what does your brain have to do with the sluggishness of your computer?........It has nothing at all to do with your brain, but rather, that it has more to do with your computer's installed memory chips.

That pic above is a computer memory chip, looks beautiful, doesn't it? Inside of your computer case, there is, maybe, one or two of these sitting side by side, parallel to each other. Adding more of these into the available empty slots, or, removing those that are currently there, then replacing them with new ones, peps things up in a hurry.

What memory does, in simple terms, is keep your computer from relying on other sources to gets tasks done. The more memory you install, the less likely it is that your computer will rely on these other sources, and therefore, the faster your computer will respond when you open a program, use a program, or even, have several programs running at one time........and that's ALWAYS a good thing. :)

Now, to take the guess-work completely out of trying to figure out which type of memory is right for your computer, there is a reputable website that does a FREE scan to figure out all of this for you. After the scan is done, it not only tells you what EXACT kind of memory you have installed, but also lets you know how many memory slots you have, how many are being used, the max amount of memory that your computer can hold, and a few other things relating to your operating system.

The site that does this for you? Crucial

Ammunition For Animation

I'm sure you've all seen "Toy Story", "Ice Age", and "Shrek". Those are all great animated movies with well written stories behind them. The thing I REALLY love about these movies though, is not necessarily the content that incompasses each, as much I am in awe about how these folks even come up with the ingenuity to put those lively characters in motion. It's just mind boggling if you ask me, wish I had talent to do that!

There may be hope though, for those of us who might muster up the courage to take a jab at it. Believe it or not, there is a FREE animation program that will allow you to bring those EXACT same kinds of animation to life, right in the comfort of your own home. The remarkable program that can do all of this?............... Blender .

Equal Audio

Most problems that people have after buring audio tracks from different sources to a cd, is that the sound levels tend to vary from song to song. You have to constantly compensate for the yo-yo effects of these levels peaking and dipping by making regular adjustments on the stereo's volume knob. Most often, the burning software one uses does have features built into them that supposedly takes cares of this during the burning process. However, in addition to enabling the feature within the program, not only does it slow down the overall time it takes to finish the burn, but also, it hardly has any effect on equalizing the sound of the actual tracks. This is because there is TOO much processing going on for that one particular area of the program to make any significant changes.

To avoid this, using a stand-alone piece of software designed to specifically lower/equal out all of the tracks is what's necessary. There is a small, very light on resources, free program that takes care of this for you.......MP3Gain.

Mac The Time

Nothing is as important as time. When you're pressed for time while working on your desktop, it's easier to view a clock that sits right there in a neatly positioned area of your screen. The clock built into Windows is hard to read, and not in a good spot anyway. You need something that is adjustable, skinnable, and has features that inform you about certain to-do things. Check out the free program, ClockX.

Glance The Days

If you're one for having important dates and events rightly available at your fingertips, then you'll want to add this nice lil calender to some area of your desktop. Rainlender is a free desktop calendar that you can easily glance at to view noted occurrences. It's also skinnable, can display alerts and alarms, and has transparency features.

Descriptions At Your Convenience

Here is a nice lil app that uses hardly any resources. It's a free program that provides you with definitions of any word you so desire to look up. The program has a number of other features as well, all in all, it's a VERY handy tool. This is WordWeb.

Information Spaghetti

This is the information age, that's for sure. Communication, however, where it has become an important role in between talks of the devices that we use, is being taken for granted, especially among home PC users. We don't necessarily pay attention to how the information we're processing daily, or, how ever often the case may be, is being handled as it zips around the hardware components that allow us to see things happen on our screens. A slight pause, delay, or break, makes us wonder what ever could there be behind the culprit of such sluggishness. There is, as most often is the case, an anticipation to see things get done, rather than investigating the process of how things actually happen.

Your home computer, believe it or not, can progressively get to a point of total confusion. How can that be, you might ask? Well, what happens is no different than a point at which a person experiences information overload. Except, that with a computer, it has more to do with the process of information that is constantly being put in, and taken out. Now, of course, we humans, don't have that to worry about.

What I'm talking about relates to the installing and uninstalling of computer software. In a normal state, the information on your hard-drive is neatly arranged so that things can be read in a cohesive manner. Once that same information gets other information installed on top, it gets jumbled around a bit. The same thing happens once the information is extracted, or, uninstalled.

To put it in simplier terms, imagine that you were using a word processing program, such as MicroSoft Word. You've type out a complete paragraph of, say, 15 lines. Now, you decide to add a few words to the paragraph, but, instead of you inserting words in accordance to the structure of the sentence, you insert them randomly. You read over what you have written and find that it is still understandable, with the exception that some things are out of place, no big deal. Now, you continue on with adding even more words, again, in random order. Once again, you read over it and find that the paragraph is getting more difficult to comprehend. Let's say now, that you add complete sentences at a time, randomly, to the paragraph. At this point, upon attempting to read the paragraph, you cant, as it's no longer understandable, words are just too jumbled about to even make out just one complete sentence. That's what happens to your hard-drive over a period of time when you install and uninstall programs without taking time out to perform a regular defragmentation of the hard-drive.

It's VITALLY important to keep up with a regular maintence of your PC, especially if you expect it to last for any good length of time. So, do yourself and your PC a favor, defrag the hard-drive from time to time, becuase, after all, it's working for you.......so, why not return the favor. :)

SlowBurn

No, this isn't an advertisement for Diet Coke, nor is it a promotional stunt for AOL, although their disks do serve a great purpose for what's being observed in the above pic. :) What this article is about actually, is the ALL too common occurrence happening all across the globe........Coaster Mania!!.

In these fast-paced times human beings have become accustomed to doing everything under the sun, yesterday. There is no time out to take a breath, go for a walk, see a nice movie, make love.....yes, I said make love, not have sex, there is a difference. :) Anyway, back to my point.......ummmm, the things I've just mentioned are also being applied to the process of authoring a cd, in other words, burning data/audio to a disk. We have just GOT to get that disk burned in less than 3 minutes, 3 minutes just seems like an ABSOLUTE eternity.........really folks, it's not. To be honest, 5 to 10 minutes is quite good, not only for the sake of the cd, but for the burner itself........I'll tell ya why.

Let me, first, offer this simple analogy..........

Let's say I have a sports car, a Jaguar to be exact. Now, obviously, the speedometer on this elegant beast says 230mph, that's the max speed folks. Ok, I'm reckless right. I don't know what speed zones are, stop signs, yield signs, construction under way, oversized loads on trucks, hell, I'm not even aware that pedestrians are even living beings roaming the streets. So, I hop into this rocket on four wheels, and put the pedal to the floor and just drive like there was no tomorrow. How long do ya think I'm gonna last zipping around at that pace? Not very long at all.......same applies to when you use your computer to burn a cd.

First of all, look at the number that is written on the package, or etched onto the cd itself. It might say either 48x, or even, 52x these days. Although those are nice numbers to go for, MAYBE, every now and then, but ya don't ever want to burn every cd at the top speed for which the cd is rated at. And, it doesn't even matter that your burner is rated at, or, exceeds what the cd itself is rated at. Both the cd and the burner are dependent on the makeup of the computer. If you have an old computer, you can't possibly arrive at the speeds at which the burner and cd are rated at, because, more than likely, either your memory or processor are not up par to handle the speed of the transfer of information. Even so, considering that the computer was a higher end model, with a fast processor with loads of memory, you would still bring the burner itself to a halt before it even had a chance to get going, if not the cd.

The MOST effective thing to do when attempting to burn any cd, no matter what the rating, either of that, or the burner itself, is just to lower the speeds to either half of what the ratings say, or even lower, just to be safer. So, set a 52x cd to 24x or 16x, set a 48x cd to 20x or 12x.

Try it, and in the time that you have while the cd takes this LONG enormous amount of time to complete it's process of burning, why not take time out and make some popcorn............the old fashioned way.........on the stove top. :)

Wall Of Tame

If utilizing 2 pieces of software to accomplish the task of cleansing one's PC of spyware is considered effective, how about taking this approach one last bit further. Let's say, instead of just cleaning the PC free of spyware, we take an extra step, now we keep that spyware that has been cleaned out from even coming back again, sounds pretty cool doesn't it? You might consider this as inoculating your PC, to be more precise. There is one free program, and one free program only, that is specifically designed to do just that particular job........"SpyWare Blaster".

Here's how it works........

Assuming that you have either of the two top-rated free spyware/adaware cleaning programs installed on your computer, Adware SE or SpyBot, update either, or, both of the definitions for these programs first. Next run a FULL scan of one, or both. Now, open up SpyWare Blaster, update it's definitions as well, apply the definitions ( remember, ALWAYS check for definition updates first). Lastly, do a system "snapshot". What the "snapshot" feature of the program does, is take a picture of your hard-drive in it's cleaned state. This memorizes the spyware definitions that were updated and installed, therefore keeping those particular spyware from ever attacking your PC again. That's VERY ingenious!!!! :)

Partner Against Grime

"Two heads are better than one", that's how an old saying goes, and it really does work it the real world, I've tried it. :) Keeping that quote in mind, it should also make sense that 2 very good programs should also work well in conjunction with each other. If you're using "AdAware Se", which is indeed, a fine piece of software, have ya ever stopped to think, "hmmm, could it have skipped over some sneaky spyware?"........it's possible. That's why, to be on the safe side, it's always good, if not necessary, to have a backup system of protection just in case one or the other, isn't exactly being as comprehensive as you'd like. I'd like you to meet my very good partner against spyware grime, "SpyBot Search and Destroy". Another EXCELLENT free spyware/adaware program that works along with Adware SE, like a glove placed carefully, and snugly, over a hand. You can't go wrong with either of these folks. :)

Parasites No More

Ever walk through a thick swamp on a hot summer's day, only to surface to dry land and find your body all covered with slithering, blood-sucking leeches?, no, well, neither have I. My point here is that, when spyware, adware, and malware attach themselves to your hard-drive, it very closely resembles having taken a walk through a nasty swamp, except, in this case, it's the Internet that is the swamp. You can be safe though, and never ever have to worry about taking a shower after your done with your online surfing, thanks to a fabulous FREE program called, "AdAware SE". It gets rid of the crap, no soap required, and no payments necessary. :)

Don't Hire A Maid

You got junk accumulating on the hard-drive of your PC right now. As a result of uninstalling programs, surfing the net, deleting files, etc., things are being left behind that you might not even know about. After so much stuff mounts up on your hard-drive, it can actually total up to mean mega-bites worth of unused space. The most EFFECTIVE cleaning program to ever grace the metallic plates of a hard-drive, is this free program called, "CCleaner". Simply put, it does for your hard-drive, what a meticulous maid would do for your mansion, not that we all have mansions, but, just think of it. :)

Intruder Alert

Keep Internet burglars out of your computer with this HIGHLY rated free firewall. It does what professional products like Sygate did, and more. Introducing SunBelt Kerio Firewall. Be safely protected from the world of the net, without ever having to reach for your check book. :)


NOTE: If you plan on using AVG anti-virus with this program, be sure to install AVG first, then install the Sunbelt firewall.

Who Needs Norton

This is THE only top-rated free anti-virus program you'll ever need. Brought to you by AVG GriSoft........ummmm.........who's Norton??..........

Twin of MicroSoft Word

Want a word processing program that does the exact same thing as Microsoft Word, and is still compatible with the formats. Look no further, pay no more........welcome to AbiWord.
Go on, get to typing.

The Adobe PhotoShop Equivalent

Why pay $1000 for Adobe PhotoShop, when you get this free version for nothing at all. Got dry pockets?, get "GIMP". It does what Photoshop does, and more.....nuff said.