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| THE BASICS 1 |
| KEEP IT FAST AND KEEP IT STABLE | |
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P2P. PEER TO PEER. FILE SHARING. |
It's all the same thing and it will probably completely destabilize your system. If you use file sharing programs to download free music or movies then be forwarned that nothing is ever free. These programs can be poorly written and almost always come bundled with additional programs that are installed without your knowledge. All these programs usually contain spyware and malware that will not only track your every movement but can also deliver payloads such as advertisements, updates, new installations and worse. As well as causing conflicts they can rob you of resources and even slow your computer down to a crawl. It's also a good way to get viruses and trojans since by using it you left the doorway to your computer wide open to the entire world. If all that isn't enough to stop you from trying to save a few dollars by stealing music and movies then be prepared for the real costs. Paying up to $100 an hour to repair your computer. Formatting your computer. Losing all your data and files. Spending weeks trying to get back and reinstall what you can. If you still insist on using them then I suggest you read my Backup page and The Tao of backup. Sooner or later you will need to. |
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A.P.M. ADVANCED POWER MANAGEMENT. SCREEN SAVERS |
Turn it all off. Unless your using a laptop computer you don't need to save power. What you do need to save is system resources to keep your computer fast. Besides it can cause some computers to lockup or freeze when coming out of hybernation or standby mode. Third party screen saver programs, usually downloaded from the internet, can often contain spyware and malware as well. (See the section above this one) Yes I have seen screen savers interfere with downloads and cause computers to lock up too. Just because it hasn't happened to you yet does not mean it won't in the future. If your still concerned with burn in on todays modern computer monitors then i suggest that you look at your monitor for an on/off button. PUSH IT. Both APM and Screen Savers usually interfere with Scan Disk and Defrag also. (In Windows XP Scandisk is called Checkdisk) Go to Power Options in the Control Panel to adjust the settings for APM and Screen Savers. |
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ACTIVE DESKTOP |
Active Desktop can sometimes cause problems too. I suggest not to use it. Using it allows you to use JPEG picture files as a desktop background. To turn it off if it is already on right click an empty area of the desktop. In the Active Desktop sub menu uncheck "Show Web Content. I'm not sure how to do it in Windows XP. You might have to switch to Classic View. Perhaps someone could inform me on this. If you want to use a JPEG image as a background just convert it to a BMP (Bitmap) file then put it in the Wallpaper folder. How to convert and save as Wallpaper |
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WINDOWS XP ME 98 WINDOWS XP ME 98 WINDOWS XP ME 98 |
Windows XP is already stable but I find it to be slower. Speed it up by turning off unneeded services. Microsoft added loads of services to XP and set most of them to be running by default whether you need them or not. I won't go into what they are or whether you need them here. Go to dead-eye's web site to configure XP instead. Windows ME is noted for being unstable by nature. Microsoft added new features to ME and shipped it with almost everything it could to be set by default to be running. So I suggest taking extra measures to stabilize ME. It'll really make it lightning fast too. Go to Trev's website to see How to run Windows ME well. 1-14 is what worked for me. Do not turn off System Restore in the steps. It's a life line. Windows 98/ME/XP. Turn off all running programs that start when you first boot your computer that aren't essential. Almost every program you install including Microsoft programs that ship with your computer assume you can't live without them running at startup. They all use resources that slow your computer if they run at startup. And many will also cause conflicts with so many programs running at once. If you can, stop the programs from running within the program settings itself. If you can't then use MSCONFIG to stop them. Do not use MSCONFIG to stop "Services" from running in XP. See above for that. To start msconfig go to Start>Run>type in "msconfig" without the quotes then click ok. click on the Startup tab then uncheck programs you do not want to run at startup. click apply ok etc. reboot your computer. In msconfig I have 11 programs running. 7 are security programs I run intentionally. How many do you have? I was able to go from 65% free resources to 89% free resources which really improved my speed and stability. To see what your startup programs are and if they are really needed go to Pacs-Portal. Scroll down to THE PROGRAMS and select the Full Program List or Start ups.exe Read the rest of the web site while your there. |
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SCANDISK CHECKDISK DEFRAG SCANDISK CHECKDISK DEFRAG SCANDISK CHECKDISK DEFRAG SCANDISK CHECKDISK DEFRAG SCANDISK CHECKDISK DEFRAG SCANDISK CHECKDISK DEFRAG SCANDISK CHECKDISK DEFRAG |
Is your computer ever so gradually getting slower and slower? Then maybe it's time to defragment the hard drive. When you use your computer it writes the information to the hard drive in a random order. When you go to retrieve information or open a program it searches all over the hard drive to find all the bits and pieces then brings them all together to run your application. The more you use your computer the more scattered the bits of information become. Over time it takes longer and longer to find them all and put it all together. So programs begin to take longer to open and work slower and slower over time. Look at it like this: Take a brand new deck of playing cards. Open it up. Find the Ace of Spades. I'll bet you found it fast. After all it was right at the top of the deck. Next look for the Queen of Spades. Only two more cards down and you knew that. So you found that fast too. Now take the same deck of cards and scatter them all over your floor face down. Look for the Jack of Spades. Took a lot longer didn't it? Defragmenting your hard drive is like putting all the cards back in order. OK it's a little more complex than that. But if you wanted complex explanations of things you wouldn't be at my web site. I'll try to complicate it just a little bit more anyway. Keep reading. Scandisk or Checkdisk as it's known in XP: Before you defrag you should always run Scandisk first. Why? Because hard drives develop bad areas called sectors. The data on the bad sectors needs to be rewritten to good sectors. Then the bad sectors need to be isolated so that no new data is written to them. After all why would you want to run defrag and rewrite all your data to put it all in order for speed if your writing it to bad sectors on your hard drive? Scandisk repairs your hard drive. Defrag optimizes your hard drive. Go to Start>Programs>Accessories>System Tools and run them both in the proper order. When running Scandisk choose "Thorough Mode" and select "Automatically fix errors". Be prepared for a long wait. Depending on the size of your hard drive this could take many many hours. Also any running proccesses on your computer will cause it to stop and restart which will slow it down even more. Usually running it while your computer is in "safe mode" is best and will work just fine. However I still get the stop/restart problem. If so do this. Start Windows in safe mode. Click Start, and then click Shut Down. Click Restart, click OK, and then press and hold the CTRL key until the Microsoft Windows Startup Menu appears. On some computers, you can use F8 instead of CTRL to bring up the Microsoft Windows Startup Menu. Enter the number for Safe mode, and then press ENTER. Start Scandisk. Choose "Automatically fix errors". Choose "Thorough". Wait a while (about an hour for me) until you get the message that it has stopped and restarted 10 times. Tick "Don't show me this again" or something like that. Go to bed or go to work and let it run. When it's done restart your computer. Make sure you're not connected to the internet. Start Disk Defragmenter. The time it takes to run depends on the size of your hard drive and how much you have done on your computer since the last time you defragmented. I have run it anywhere from 20 minutes to 80 minutes. Yours could be more. |