Computer Maintenance tips for keeping it healthy

Maintaining your computer is the key to keeping it healthy and fully working and of course, fast. Windows 95 has most of the tools for maintaining your PC, but Windows 98 extends the possibilities and makes it even less of a hassle.  If you follow the list below and run the programs listed frequently, you will be guaranteed to have a maintained computer at no extra cost. There are, however, other programs in the market with stronger engines, but then again, they're not free (stop smiling...) 

Most of these programs can be found under the Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools folder. 

1. Disk Defrag: It is advisable to run Defrag under Windows 95 once a month or when you add/remove programs. However, under Windows 98, you can run it every week if you want because it has a new engine, which means that the more you run it, the faster your computer will get. What happens is that your programs are placed on your hard disk in a way so that the ones you use most often are easier for the hard disk to find and run.  Make sure that the 'make my programs run faster' is ticked in the 'Settings' window in Defrag.

2. Scandisk: Running a thorough check is good once a month in both Windows 95 and 98. Run this once a month if you feel that your hard disk takes a long time to load programs.  A standard check is very fast and checks for basic disk problems concerning files and folders and lost fragments.  It takes an average 2 minutes to complete so try running it often.

3. Disk cleanup: This one is good for seeing how much disk space is being used up by unnecessary files that are in the recycle bin, temp folder, or in temporary internet folders.  You can then remove them!

4. RegClean: A simple but effective piece of software this is. You can download it for free from Microsoft's web site. It is also available on many magazine cover disks. Reg Clean takes about a minute to check the registry. Then it asks whether you want to clean out redundant or orphan file. This usually helps the computer to get rid of files that have been left behind by uninstalled programs.

5. Windows update: It's a good idea to use Windows Update to make sure your computer has all the latest fixes, patches and updates.  You can do so by clicking on its icon in the Start Menu under Windows 98.

6. Tweak ALL: A very handy program that allows to change settings, which cannot be changed using Windows alone!

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Top Ten Tips to Improve System Speed

1. Let your PC boot up completely before opening any applications.



2. Refresh the desktop after closing any application. This will remove any unused files from the RAM.



3. Do not set very large file size images as your wallpaper. Do not keep a wallpaper at all if your PC is low on RAM (less than 64 MB).



4. Do not clutter your Desktop with a lot of shortcuts. Each shortcut on the desktop uses up to 500 bytes of RAM



5. Empty the recycle bin regularly. The files are not really deleted from your hard drive until you empty the recycle bin.



6. Delete the temporary internet files regularly.



7. Defragment your hard drive once every two months. This will free up a lot of space on your hard drive and rearrange the files so that your applications run faster.



8. Always make two partitions in your hard drive. Install all large Softwares (like PSP, Photoshop, 3DS Max etc) in the second partition. Windows uses all the available empty space in C drive as virtual memory when your Computer RAM is full. Keep the C Drive as empty as possible.



9. When installing new Softwares disable the option of having a tray icon. The tray icons use up available RAM, and also slow down the booting of your PC. Also disable the option of starting the application automatically when the PC boots. You can disable these options later on also from the Tools or preferences menu in your application.



10. Protect your PC from dust. Dust causes the CPU cooling fan to jam and slow down thereby gradually heating your CPU and affecting the processing speed. Use compressed air to blow out any dust from the CPU. Never use vacuum.



RAM IS THE WORKING AREA (DESKTOP) OF THE CPU, KEEP IT AS EMPTY AND UNCLUTTERED AS POSSIBLE!

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Top 20 Tips To Keep Your System Faster

Follow these tips and you will definitely have a much faster and more reliable PC!

 1. Wallpapers: They slow your whole system down, so if you're willing to compromise, have a basic plain one instead!

2. Drivers: Update your hardware drivers as frequently as possible.  New drivers tend to increase system speed especially in the case of graphics cards, their drivers are updated by the manufacturer very frequently!

3. Minimizing: If you want to use several programs at the same time then minimize those you are not using.  This helps reduce the overload on RAM.

4. Boot Faster: The 'starting Windows 98/XP' message on startup can delay your booting for a couple of seconds.  To get rid of this message go to c:\ and find the file Msdos.sys.  Remove the Read-Only option.  Next, open it in Notepad or any other text editor.  Finally, go to the text 'Options' within the file and make the following changes: Add BootDelay=0.  To make your booting even faster, set add Logo=0 to remove the Windows logo at startup.

5. Restart only Windows: When restarting your PC, hold down Shift to only restart Windows rather than the whole system which will only take a fraction of the time.

6. Turn Off Animations:  Go to Display Settings from the Control Panel and switch to the Effects Tab. Now turn off Show Windows Content While Dragging and Smooth Edges on Screen Fonts.  This tip is also helpful with Windows XP because of the various fade/scroll effects.





7. Faster Start-Menu Access: Go to the Start menu and select Run.  Now type Regedit and hit Enter.  The Registry Editor will appear on the screen.  Now, open the folder HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop.  You should see a MenuShowDelay value.  If you don't then do the following: right click on a blank space in the right pane and select New\String.  Change the name in the new value to MenuShowDelay.  Now that we have the MenuShowDelay value, double click on it and enter 0 in the value data field.  This sets the start menu delay to 0 milliseconds.





8. Resolutions: If you are willing to do anything for faster performance from your PC, then try lowering your display resolution.  The lower it is, the faster your PC.





9. Turn off Active Desktop:  Go to your Display Properties and switch to the Web tab.  Uncheck View My Active Desktop As a Web Page.  Since the Active Desktop option under Windows 98 uses a lot of system resources, this option can have a dramatic effect on the speed of the whole system.





10. Defragment Often:  Windows 98's Defrag tool uses Application Acceleration from Intel which means that when you defragment your drive, data is physically arranged on the drive so that applications will load faster.





11. Take your PC to Bed:  Using the Advanced Power Management feature under Windows 98 gives you the option to use the sleep command.  That way, you can send your PC to sleep instead of shutting it down and then restarting it.  It's as simple as pressing a button and then pressing the same button to wake it up.  You can tell Windows after how many minutes/hours of inactivity to automatically sleep the machine in the Advanced Power Management section of the Control Panel.





12. Faster Internet Access: If you use the internet for reference and the sites you visit are rarely  updated then try the following.  In IE (the same can be done in Netscape) go to Tools, Internet Options.  Next, click on Settings... in the Temporary Internet Files  section.  Finally, select Never for the first option and double the amount of storage space to use, click OK!





13. Benchmarking: Benchmarking can be very useful when run frequently.  It can tell you how your PC's components are performing and then compare them to other machines like yours.  For example, when you overclock your PC, you want to know how much more speed you have and whether it is stable.  All this and more can be discovered using benchmarking.  An excellent piece of software for doing this job is SiSoft Sandra which can be found in the Downloads File Archive!





14. Refresh the Taskbar without restarting: If you in some way change the taskbar, either in Regedit or elsewhere, you can refresh the task bar without restarting.  Hold down Ctrl Alt Del, and double click on Explorer.  Say Yes to close Explorer, but no to closing Windows.  This will refresh the Taskbar and system tray.





15. Quick CD Eject: Instead of pushing the button on your drive, right-click your CD drive letter in My Computer and click on Eject.  This will also remove any icons that have become associated with the CD drive.





16. Start Up Programs:  Windows can be slowed down when programs run on start up.  To eliminate this, check your Start up folder.  You can access it from the start menu: Start, Programs, Start Up.  Another way to eliminate programs from loading even before Windows actually starts is by doing the following: Click on Start, then Run.  Type msconfig.  It will take quite a long time for this program to load, but when you finally see it on your screen, explore the different tabs.  They all have to do with how quickly your PC boots, so select what you want, and uncheck what you don't want!





17. Fonts: When Windows starts, it loads every single font in the Fonts folder.  Therefore, the more fonts you have, the slower the booting process.  To get rid of unwanted fonts, simply go to the Fonts folder under c:\windows and remove whatever you don't want.  Fonts that have a red letter 'A' as their icon are system fonts, so don't delete them.





18. Stretching Wallpapers:  Don't "stretch" your wallpaper in Windows 98 since it actually slows Windows down when you drag icons around on the desktop.





19. RAM Matters: If you have less than 32MB then you should seriously think of upgrading it to at least 64MB.  Windows runs much more smoothly with 64MB or higher and tends to use less hard disk space for virtual memory.





20. Partitioning: A very nice little thing you can do to boost system performance.  By partitioning your hard drive, splitting one physical drive into several logical ones, you can gain several advantages.  1. If you get a virus or you accidentally format a drive, not all will be lost.  2. By placing the swap file (Win386.swp) on a separate drive, The swap file will be less fragmented and thus, faster. 3. Place Windows on a separate drive and whenever you need to reinstall it, you rest assured that your data is safe on a separate drive.  Partitioning can be done using a few programs such as FDisk which comes with DOS.  However, FDisk formats everything on the hard disk before partitioning. Alternatively, you can use Partition Magic from Power Quest to partition your hard disk without losing your data.

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Trick to Improve XP Shutdown Speed

This tweak reduces the time XP waits before automatically closing any running programs when you give it the command to shutdown.
Go to Start then select Run
Type 'Regedit' and click ok
Find 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\'
Select 'WaitToKillAppTimeout'
Right click and select 'Modify'
Change the value to '1000'
Click 'OK'
Now select 'HungAppTimeout'
Right click and select 'Modify'
Change the value to '1000'
Click 'OK'
 
Now find 'HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop'
Select 'WaitToKillAppTimeout'
Right click and select 'Modify'
Change the value to '1000'
Click 'OK'
Now find 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\'
Select 'WaitToKillServiceTimeout'
Right click and select 'Modify'
Change the value to '1000'
Click 'OK' 

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Increase your RAM by Increasing system speed

1). Start any application, say Word. Open some large documents.

2). Press CTRL+SHIFT+ESC to open Windows Task Manager and click Processes tab and sort the list in descending order on Mem Usage. You will notice that WINWORD.EXE will be somewhere at the top, using multiple MBs of memory.

 

3). Now switch to Word and simply minimize it. (Don't use the Minimize All Windows option of the task bar).

 

4). Now go back to the Windows Task Manager and see where WINWORD.EXE is listed. Most probably you will not find it at the top. You will typically have to scroll to the bottom of the list to find Word. Now check out the amount of RAM it is using. Surprised? The memory utilization has reduced by a huge amount.

 

5). Minimize each application that you are currently not working on by clicking on the Minimize button & you can increase the amount of available RAM by a substantial margin. Depending upon the number and type of applications you use together, the difference can be as much as 50 percent of extra RAM.

                In any multitasking system, minimizing an application means that it won't be utilized by the user right now. Therefore, the OS automatically makes the application use virtual memory & keeps bare minimum amounts of the code in physical RAM.

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Google Hack For Making Special Advanced Search

Google is considered as the Big Daddy of Internet.Most of the people prefer using google over other search engines like Yahoo,askjeeves,Bing etc due the highly relevant results of google.Now what to do when even google is not providing you with what you want..certainly you will feel that you have reached the end and there is no way that you can get the type of result you want.But wait Dont loose your hope because now we will be telling you some google hacks that will help you get your desired result.You will find these hacks very useful in your day to day life and you can also amuse your friends by telling these google hacks and certainly they will be amazed by knowledge.

Now Here Are The List Of Google Hacks With Their Usability

Type these searches in google

• link:url

This will give the list of sites that links to a particular site.

Example:

link:www.download.com

It will give the list of all sites linking to www.download.com

• related:url

This search will give you all sites related to the url you have entered in the above query.

• site:domain

This will show all the pages of the Domain you enter in the above query

• allinurl:search term

This will show only those results in whose url your search term will appear exactly.

• Inurl:search term

This is similar to the query allinurl but it will search only the first word of search term in url and the rest of the words will be searched in the page.

• allintitle:search term

This will show only those sites which have your search term in the tittle of website.

• Intitle:search term

This will show only those sites which have your first word of search term in tittle and the rest of the words in their page.

• spell:search term

This will check your search term for spelling mistakes and automatically perform search in google with correct words

• stocks:search term

This will show all the results with your your query in the stock index

• filetype:extension  search term

This is one of the most useful queries.It will provide you only those sites which provides a document of your extension type and having your search term in it.

Example:

Filetype:doc mother

It will show all doc files in which the mother word is used.This type of search is extremely useful for finding presentations(ppt or pptx) and e books(pdf)

• phone:number

This search query will show you the name and address of the number you have entered in the above search.

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Wibree:The Bluetooh Killing Technology

Wibree is a wireless technology for mobiles,laptops,watches for short distance communication.Its development was started by nokia in 2001 to bring an alternative to bluetooth technology.The research was by published in 2004 with the name “Bluetooth Low End Extension” .It was publicaly released in 2006 by nokia.The main purpose for introducing wibree was to create a wireless technology that consumes less energy ,more efficient and cheaper then bluetooth.As most of devices nowdays,uses the bluetooth chip the compatibility with chip was also a big requirement.Now here we will compare both bluetooth and wibree and see in what are the advantages of wibree over bluetooth.

Wibree is cheaper then the bluetooth wireless communication.It consumes less power that’s why it was named as “ Bluetooth Low End Extension “.It was built using and enhancing bluetooth features.Wibree can be integrated on the bluetooth chip.Wibree uses a small transceiver of 2.4 MHz with a physical layer of Mbs.

In December 2009 an agreement is reached between Nokia and the bluetooth manufacturing group SIG that they will add the wibree technology in Bluetooth v4.0 .The shipment of bluetooh v4.0 is expected to be started in and around the end of the calender year 2010.

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How To Verify Facebook Account And Remove Captcha

Facebook has taken a strong stand against spamming.Facebook is the hottest social networking site for marketing.To stop multiple account creation and other illegal activities like automatic account creation or automatic friends additions facebook has put captcha code on activities like sending friend request so that their automation can be stopped.But for legit users like us this seems to be too annoying that you have to fill captcha every time you send friend request.So,how can the restriction to enter captcha can be passed.Well,there is a solution for this and it is very simple one.

You need to give phone verification for your facebook account and once you have done it you will see no more irritating captcha codes popping up in your screen.It will save a lot of your precious time. It’s completely free and will take only 2 or less minutes. Now here is the step by step guide to verify your phone with your facebook account.

1.Login into your facebook account.

2.After you are logged into your facebook account click this linkhttp://www.facebook.com/confirmphone.php

3.Now you will be prompted to select your country and enter your phone number.

4.After filling the above field you will receive facebook confirmation code on your mobile.

5.Now fill this code in the code field and that’s it.You will see a prompt saying “Your mobile phone has been successfully verified”

Now you will not get any captcha codes.This will surely your enhance your facebook exprience.

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Tricks To Convert Keyboard Into Live Disco

This is a real funny trick with which you can amuse you friends.It doesnot require any programming skills on your part.This trick will make your keyboard LED’s blink like disco lights.This method is based on an a vb script.The blinking of the lights will continue until and unless you stop it.This looks more fascinating in the dark as the keyboard led’s are very small.OK,now here is the step by step tutorial with screenshots on how to convert your keyboard into Live disco.

1.Open notepad.You can open notepad by doing a right click on your desktop and then new->text document.

2.Copy and paste the code below into the notepad


Set wshShell =wscript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
do
wscript.sleep 100
wshshell.sendkeys "{CAPSLOCK}"
wshshell.sendkeys "{NUMLOCK}"
wshshell.sendkeys "{SCROLLLOCK}"
loop

3.Save the file with name disco.vbs

4.Double click on the saved file and your keyboard Led’s will start blinking like disco lights.

5.To stop the disco lights open task manager.You can open task manager by doing a right click on your taskbar and then selecting task manager.

6.Now locate wscript.exe and select it.Click on “ End Process “.

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Tricks To Spy Using Mobile Phone

You can get many softwares on Internet which claims that they can help you spy using your Mobile phone and some of the softwares are real worth their money but most of them are useless.Certainly you will feel cheated when they fail on delivering their promises.But what if you can spy with your cellphone without spending any money on softwares.This trick can be used to spy/listen the conversation going in a room without the knowledge of the other person.Using this trick you can check whether your baby is crying or not when you are not in the room.For using this trick you will need the following things.

1.Mobile handset

2.Set of Headphones

Lets begin the step by step tutorial on how to spy using your mobile phone.

1.Plug in your headset/earphone into your mobile phone.

2.Now go to settings of your mobile phone and find the setting for auto answer and activate it.

3.Now turn off the ringtone/volume of your mobile phone also make sure that the vibration is also turned off.

5.Also make sure that the lights of your phone are turned off or place it in such a place where its lights cannot be noticed.

4.Place the mobile phone in some hidden place and make sure that voices of the room can be easily heard through this mobile phone.

5.Now whenever you want to check what is going in the room just dial the mobile number with some other phone.

6.Your phone will be picked automatically and you can hear clearly what’s happening in the room.

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Tips And Tricks To Speed up windows 7

With the launch of windows 7 we have witnessed one of the fastest operating system by Microsoft.But still there are people who want more and more!.This article is for all those people who want to increase the performance/speed of their windows 7 operating system. We are not providing here any softwares for this purpose we are just giving you tips and tricks to tweak your windows 7 according to your needs and you will certainly get your desired performance from your windows 7 operating system.Here is the step by step tutorial with screenshots on how to increase your windows 7 speed .

1.Disable Startup Services

Windows startup services can be found by clicking on start and the and typing “ msconfig ” and pressing enter.Now click on services tab.Now you can disable the unwanted services by checking them and clicking on disable.While this should be done according to your requirements.Services like “Offline Files,” “Tablet PC Input Services,” Terminal Services,” “Fax” and “Windows Search. “Offline Files,” “Tablet PC Input Services,” Terminal Services,” “Fax” and “Windows Search have a large impact on windows 7 speed/performance.

2.Utilize Readyboast

Microsoft introduced readyboast service with the launch of windows vista and continued the service in windows 7.In ready boast service whenever you plugin your pendrive into your computer you will get an option to use your pendrive to speed up your windows 7 or windows vista.It will increase your windows memory.By using ready boast you can also specify how much memory of the pendrive should be used to speed up your windows 7.

3.Disable Windows transparency

Disabling the windows 7 transparency option will certainty give a good speed to your windows 7 speed/performance.Disabling transparency is very easy in windows 7.Simply right-click on your desktop, select “Personalize,” choose the active theme and then navigate to “Windows Color.” Finally, uncheck the “Enable Transparency” option.

4.Remove Unwanted Programs from Startup

Disabling unwanted programs such as messengers or other programs from startup will not only increase speed of your windows 7 it will also decrease the startup time of windows 7.

5.Disable Unwanted Features Of Windows 7

To disable unwanted features from windows 7 click on “ Start “ then on control panel.Now click on “ Programs “ then on “Turn Windows features on or off”.Now disable the features you think you dont want.We recommend you to disable the “ Indexing Service “ it will have a noticeable effect on the speed.

6.Defragment Your Windows Regularly

Adding and deleting files from drives will make your drives fragmented and it will take longer to access files so defragmenting the drive will decrease file access time.To start defragmentation click on “ Start “ and type “ Disk Defragmenter “ And press enter.Now start the defragmentation.

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