Optimize Your Computer!

I have an old laptop. Not only that, it's not exactly a high end model. I mean, it's from HP, and so far it's never failed me. It just lags... bad. And it has 40GB hard drive memory xD. Fortunately, I came across some programs that gave my laptop a performance boost. And they can work for yours as well. These are all free by the way, and use very little resources!

1. Advanced WindowsCare V2 Personal - A great utility for getting rid of spyware and freeing up some memory. The entire process takes maybe 10 minutes at the most. (ooh! Firefox 3.0.2 just released! Sorry, I blog in real time xD) You can use this with your antivirus software and there shouldn't be any problems.


























2. JkDefrag - More effective than your default Windows Defrag, this defragger is not as flashy, but it gets the job done. Cool thing about this program is that it starts defragging upon start-up! Just double click the icon and let it do it's thing! It takes maybe a couple hours if you don't defrag regularly, so the more you use it, the less time it takes to defrag. I've gotten it down to like 10 minutes!




3. RamBooster v.2.0 - What else to say about this one? You download it and it helps free up some RAM.





















Those three really helped my computer with the lag problem; now it doesn't take like a minute for the start window to load xD. Plus my applications boot up a lot faster than before. If you want Windows to start-up faster, though, you may want to disable some start-up applications. You might already know this, but you can go to Run... and type "Msconfig" to disable some of those processes you don't need. Like if you run across a print spooler, and you don't have a printer (like me), you can disable it, no problem. If you don't know what a process does, you can always Google it.

While I'm at it, I'll show you some media software I use to watch movies and listen to music. I mainly use just two, but the both of them combined still use up less resources than, say, WinAmp (I have that too, but it's very slow for me - sometimes it just freezes even before it loads!). Check these out!

1. Foobar2000 - You might already know about this one. It only plays music files, but the application is really small, so it doesn't take long for it to load - maybe 5 seconds at the very most, and uses only about 5k memory to run.




2. Media Player Classic - Plays media files, and also doubles as a dvd player. I found this while looking for a program that can play dvd's, since I'm running into problems with Windows Media Player (says I have to validate it -.-). But this player is very good, and uses little memory to run. Best of all, it's already set to play dvd's; no need to download a codec or whatever. I wanted to show you the picture quality of this player (it plays a lot smoother and the picture is a lot clearer than my other player, which won't play my dvd's at the moment -.-), but it won't show. Very easy to use - can't go wrong with this one!





















Granted, these programs don't look as flashy as other programs, but you use software for it's functionality, not it's cool looking interface, right?

Opera 9.5 vs. Firefox 3 (pt. 2) Plus Extra Tips for FF3

After about a month using Opera 9.5, I have to say it works ok. Not as great as I hoped. And here's why: Opera is not compatible with some websites! You might know this already - but I had no idea! Mapquest, for one, isn't compatible for Opera. When I'm on Mapquest, it will show the map for only 10 seconds before it closes and says that it's not compatible with my browser. That sucks.

Also, I've found more problems with using Opera 9.5 for blogging (with Blogger). There's this problem with adding a new Page Element. I have Opera set to where instead of opening a link to a new window, it will just open a new tab. For Opera, after I open the tab and make additions, it has a problem closing. Or it will have problems saving, at which point I'll close the tab and refresh on the Layouts screen. The changes are saved, it just lies to me and says it's not (o_O). Very inconvenient for blogging.

So in the first "Opera 9.5 vs. Firefox 3" post (I should have named it "Battle of the Browsers", would've been cooler), I gave a good review on Opera 9.5. But after finding these problems, I would have to say that it's still good, but there are alot of things they need to improve, far as compatibility is concerned. I still use it for casual browsing, since it works for popular websites, such as Youtube, Google, and whatnot.

A Firefox update was just released about a week ago. They supposedly fixed a couple bugs that were giving people some problems, I guess. Personally, I haven't run into a single problem as of late. Currently, I use Firefox as my default browser. Yes, it may be slow, but it works without problems. Plus it's so customizable I feel like a geek whenever I add stuff to it xD. For now, FF3 is the best browser out there. In my opinion, of course.

One thing that is very cool about Opera 9.5 is the "Speed Dial" feature. If you see a website you think you're going to check out often, just add it there, and when you open a new tab, you can select it from the "Speed Dial". Pretty cool. But I've found a way to add that feature to FF3! You have to download a couple add-ons though, but it's not intrusive, and it doesn't slow your browser. Here's how I did it:

1. Download Tab Mix Plus (Dev Build). Here's the link if you don't have it already (the link will take you directly to the download page). You can check it out on the FF add-ons page for more information. After you download it and restart FF, go to your Tools section at the top of the toolbar and go to Tab Mix Plus options, and go to the Links tab. Enable single window mode.

2. Download the Taboo add-on. This has a feature similar to the "Speed Dial" for Opera 9.5. The problem is you can't change the settings. After you download it and restart FF, you can start adding your favorite websites by going to them and clicking the new "+" button that should appear to the left side of the address bar.

3. Click the new "T" button to open your Taboos in a new tab. After that, copy the URL in the address bar.

4. Go to the Tools section and click Options. Go to Main (if you're not there already), and paste the URL you copied into the homepage section. Click OK. That's it!

Now, instead of having to click the "T" button to see your Taboos (your sites), you can just make a new tab my pressing ctrl+t and it will automatically display on the new tab! One thing about Taboos is if you click the "+" button twice, you can also add a description for the Tabooed site. You can also edit it on the Taboo page. Also, you can add as many sites to Taboo as you like!

Hope you find this tip useful! This makes browsing with FF3 all the more convenient and easy! Like to "ping" your blog? Add the site to Taboo, and you won't have to re-type the URL evertime you update your blog! If you're having trouble getting it to work (I might not explain things too good xD), just leave a comment and I'll help you out. Or if you have tips of your own, let me know about them!