PC Fast Fix

Here are a few more quick little tweaks that will help to speed up Windows XP. Don’t forget to read the tips in Speed up Windows XP Part 1 and Speed Up Windows XP Part 2.

OK, lets get started:

Speed Up Folder Browsing.

This one can get really annoying. You click on a folder and there is a delay before seeing the contents. Windows XP automatically tries to find network files and printers, hence the delay. To switch this off:

1) From Windows Explorer or My Computer, click on Tools -> Folder Options
2) Click on the “View” tab
3) Uncheck the box - “Automatically search for network folders and printers”. Click OK. Done!!

Disable Indexing

Windows Indexing service is used to make searching faster and easier. Windows runs a program that indexes folders and files and then uses this index to deliver faster search results. However, the indexing process can chew up a lot of RAM and slow things down quite considerably. Depending on how often you use Windows search, turning this feature off will most likely be beneficial.

1) Go to the Windows XP control panel. Click Start -> Control Panel
2) Open “Add or Remove Programs”
3) Click on “Add/Remove Windows Components” from the left menu
4) Uncheck the “Indexing Service”, then click “Next”, then click “Finish”

Optimize Your Display

Windows XP display options are not as resource intensive as Vista, but you can still improve performance with a few display tweaks. If you really are lacking performance in XP, then try turning off some of these settings to see if things improve.

1) Go to Windows XP control panel. Click Start -> Control Panel
2) Open “System”
3) Click on the “Advanced” tab
4) Click on the “Settings” button under the “Performance” heading
5) In the “Visual Effects” tab you can try turning off certain options. You can click the option “Adjust for best performance”. You can also choose your own custom options. This may take a bit of trial and error, but try it out for some performance gains.

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Tags: PC Speedup, Windows by admin
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Mozilla Corporation on Friday released Firefox 3 RC1, more or less the final form of this iteration of the popular open-source Web browser.

RC stands for Release Candidate and represents a stage in which the browser’s features are complete and the code is stable enough for public testing. Barring any serious bugs, RC1 will become the official release version of Firefox 3, which is planned for June.

The release candidate stage is the stage right between beta and final release, and it’s the last chance for developers to test their code against the browser before it’s push out into the world full-force.

It’s also the stage at which add-on developers can update their browser extensions without worrying about further code changes.

The release of Firefox 3.1 will also mark the likely end of life for support of the current Firefox 2.x browsers. The plan (as it has been since the release of Firefox 1.5) is to have security/stability updates once every two months or so, until the next ‘feature’ release — which is Firefox 3.1

Firefox 3 comes with more than 15,000 improvements, according Mozilla, but you have to be counting tiny changes very carefully to get to that number. More likely, you’ll notice maybe two dozen new and improved features.

Click here to download Firefox 3 RC1

Tags: Internet Browsers, New Computer Products by admin
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You may have seen or used one of those ‘USB toys’ such as a fan or a rocket, but did you realize that they can be potentially dangerous to your USB ports.

A USB peripheral pretty much just sources power from your USB port and in some cases it sources way too much power which will lead to your USB port burning out and becoming useless. With the amount of these ‘toy’ being used around the world at the moment its amazing that we haven’t heard more about the potential danger of these things.

If you do run a USB peripheral you can check exactly how much power it is running in both Windows XP and Vista. To do this you must;

• Open your Control Panel
• Click Device Manager
• Go down to Universal Serial Bus Controllers and open it
• Right click on the first ‘USB Root Hub’ and select properties
• Click the Power tab
• Here you will see the power being used in your USB ports

You will see your peripheral under attached devices and the power it is using. You will also see at the top of the tab the total power available for your hubs.

Basically all you need to check is that your USB peripherals are not going close to or exseeding your total power available. If this is happening you must take out your USB peripheral immediately and find an alternate power source otherwise you will burn out your USB hubs.

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You can try a free scan here. Fix USB and PC errors and improve PC performance

Tags: PC Error Repair, Tech News by admin
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Are Windows Media Player errors slowing down your PC performance?

Over time it is common for users to experience problems with Windows Media Player. Errors can be specific or they might be increased slowness, frequent crashes, freezes and blue screen problems.

As your computer becomes cluttered and the Windows Registry fills up, it is common to experience a variety of the problems listed above. The fastest and easiest way to fix these problems is by keeping your registry clean and uncluttered. This means removing corrupt entries, deleting invalid entries and fixing existing entries.

The problem is that the Windows Registry is very difficult to edit and should only be touched by an expert. Luckily there are some great programs out there that will clean your PC registry and fix the majority of errors.

You can try a free scan here. It will detect any current PC errors and registry problems on your PC.

Tags: Computer Security, PC Error Repair, PC Optimization, Windows by admin
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