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Tips on Keeping Your Windows XP Running Smooth

Wednesday 19 August 2009 @ 2:48 am

There are numerous matters that cause a computer to perform slower than before.
It can be from software to hardware.
It can be the storage is too small or not enough RAM.
It can be your BIOS, Operating System Settings or software that are eating up your CPU and RAM.
Or perhaps it can be your network.

Here are numerous tips that can help maintaining your computer perform faster:

1. This is so classic I shouldn’t need to tell it, keep clean which ever email software you use.
I have customers who are constantly complaining, but who will resist dumping years of accumulated emails.

2. Make sure you have a great anti virus program, apply only one anti virus on each computer, make it up to date and auto monitoring.

3. Make sure you use a strong anti spyware program, utilize only one anti spyware along each computer, have it up to date and automatic monitoring.

4. Run Disk Clean Up Daily by following these steps : Start, Pograms, Accessories, System Tools, Disk Clean Up – a box opens – be certain all box is selected, click ‘OK’ – a box pops up – Click Yes).

5. Delete Cookies and Cached Files Periodically by following these steps :
Start, Control Panel, Internet Options, Delete Cookies, Click OK, Click Delete Files – select ‘Delete All Offline Content’ – Click OK, then set your clear history to no more than seven Days – Click OK.

6. A really essential measure almost everyone misses Clean The Prefetch Folder :
Start, My Computer, ‘C’ , Windows, Prefetch Folder, Edit, Select All, File, Delete – Click Yes, Close Windows.

7. Empty Recycle Bin. I believe everyone knows how to empty the recycle bin.

8. Scan drive ‘C’ :
Start, My Computer, Right Click ‘C’, Click Properties at the bottom, Click Tools, Click Check Now.
Be certain both ‘Automatically fix file system errors’ and ‘Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors’ are selected, Click Start.

9. Defrag Computer :
Start, software, Accessories, System Tools, Disk Defragmenter, Select ‘C’ Drive, Click Defragment.

The last two steps, step 8 and 9, can take a while if they haven’t been done recently.
I complete this entire routine on my computer before I finish working for the day everyday and the total steps requires no longer than twenty minutes.




Introduction to Windows Registry

Wednesday 15 July 2009 @ 3:02 am

A windows registry is a database that stores settings and options for windows base operating system.
It stores information and setting for all of the hardwares, installed softwares, user settings on your computer.
Every time user makes changes on their Control Panel settings, make a new file associations, create a new or edit an existing system policies, or installed a new software, then all the changes stored in the registry.
Windows registry is actually a file that keeps a lot of settings.

The first windows version, which is windows 3.11 used a registry called Reg.dat. The next version, which is windows 95 and windows 98, used a registry called User.dat and System.dat. Then, Windows ME released with registry file called Classes.dat, User.dat and System.dat.
The newest version of Windows, such as Windows NT, 2000, 2003 & XP stores the registry files in this folder :
%SystemRoot%\System32\Config\, there are several files called Sam, Security, System, Default, Userdiff.
There’s one more file that separated in different folder, that is NTUser.dat. It is stored in the users profile folder under the Documents and Settings.

There are several benefits of windows registry :
1. The machine configuration separated from the user configuration. Everytime user logs into windows base operating systems such as Windows NT/XP/2003, user settings are merge with system settings.
This method will keep each user configurations, and at the same time they can also keep setting that can be used for all users.

2. Group Policy on a windows based computer network allows administrators to manage centrally all the programs and policy settings.
This feature can not be use in a home edition operating system. It can only be use in corporate edition operating system where a dedicated server exist.
But why ? It’s because the registry is accessible through a special Windows API that available to scripts and remote management using WMI (Windows Management Interface).

Besides the benefits, windows registry also has weakness :
Damage to the registry can cause windows system fail to boot. In a certain extreme case, the only way to repair is to perform full reinstall windows.
This is the main reason that we need to use registry scan and repair utilities.

By using a registry scan and repair utilities, we can easily make backup registry, and restoring is as simple as clicking buttons. We can also check on the registry whether it contains an entries that haven’t been deleted while we perform an uninstallation over a certain software. Once the utilites catch entries that no longer needed, we can clean the registry to increase the performance of the whole system.




Computer and Internet Glossary

Sunday 5 July 2009 @ 4:10 pm

Computers and everything related to it tend to have their own language, and sometimes the words make you confuse. Even if you don’t want to know all of them, it will come accross sooner or later. Here are some of the important and commonly used words.

Bandwidth.
Bandwidth is the amount of data, which is counted in bytes, that your website can send each second. It is also the amount of data that the visitor can receive from your website. If your website is hosted in a limited bandwidth or doesn’t have enough bandwidth, then the website will appear slowly.
For that reason, you should choose a web host that meets your needs, of course a good and complete service web host also comes with a higher price.

Browser.
Browser is a computer software that you use to visit a website.
There are several browser released by different vendors, such as Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Opera, Safari, Google Chrome. Most of this browsers are distributed free of charge, you may download it from their official website.

Cookie.
Cookie is a file contains information about visitors of a website. Cookie can be saved automatically into your computer without you even notice about it. Sometimes a webmaster or website owner needs information on their website’s visitor about when did the visitor arrived in the website and some cookies have an expiration date depends on the website owner.

Download.
A process of transferring data from a website, or webhost to be exact, to a computer. This usually counted in bytes.
To download a file you can use a browser software, download managers or FTP softwares.
Some download managers are user friendly and easy to use, even for a user with less knowledge about computer software.

FTP.
File Transfer Protocol. This is a common method of uploading and downloading files to your website.
Filezilla is an example of user friendly FTP software, it is distributed for free.

Javascript.
A common language used to write ’scripts’ on websites. It is a script that can make a website more interactive.

JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group).
This is the most popular picture format for the web, named after the group that invented this format.
If you want to upload your pictures on your website, i believe you should save them as JPEG.

Hardware.
Hardware is computer equipment that physically exists. Hardware is the opposite of software.

Hosting.
If you have a website and you want everyone from everywhere to see your website then you should have a web server that is capable of 24/7 online, so everyone can see your website. If you are unable to provide a 24/7 online web server then you should buy a service that is specially provide such service.

HTML. HyperText Markup Language.
A simple code used to indicate how to display a web pages, using a small ‘tags’ system.
As an example, a “b” tag displays text in bold, and the ‘img’ tag displays a picture.

Hyperlink.
A hyperlink is a text on a website that can be click and take you to another site, or to another page within the same site. A hyperlink usually created by using anchor tag “a”.

Software.
Software is a program that runs on the computer or a program make your website work.
For example, Firefox is a software, Apache is also a software.

Spider.
Spider is a program or a code used by search engine to scan your site, by crawling your site it would help them decide where it should appear when people search.
Getting visited by web spiders it good, these means your website will appear in search engine in a short time.

Upload.
Uploading is a process of transfering data from your computer into your website or web server. As an example, you can upload your company logo, post an article to your website or blog.

URL (Uniform Resource Locator).
This is a simple way of saying ‘web address’. This is what you have to type in your browser’s address bar to get directly to your website.




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