Daily Archives: April 9, 2010

Posted on by

Faster Performance from your Windows OS computer

Greetings readers.

You’ve seen the commercial – I’m a Mac, I’m a PC. Well, I’m a Mac…frankly, a Mac user since 1991. I do own a Toshiba Satellite laptop loaded with Vista that I bought brand new some years ago for family usage. Since my wife’s work VPN operates on XP, I ended up buying her a very reliable, but used Dell laptop which fits the bill, functionally, for what she needs to do.

Over the years, I’ve been increasingly frustrated with Vista on this laptop, because it works sooooo slowly. Enter stage left, my super computer geek coworker with some great, but common information to share about getting better performance out of a Windows Vista or XP machine. While I know about streamlining the Mac OS to do this, I never gave thought on how to similarly do this for Windows. That being said, I thought I’d share the information with you, should you care to try the same process I will finally embark on this weekend.

Windows XP Setup
— to get some decent speed from Windows.

Clean-up, after Installation,
1. Remove the Trial and Extra Software that is part of a (e.g., Toshiba) Recovery Disk
(Start, Settings, Control Panel, Add or Remove Software)
All AOL stuff
Google Desktop
Google Toolbar
Microsoft Office (30-day trial version)
Microsoft Works
Yahoo Music Engine
Any other trial software

2. Disable unused Windows components
(Start, Settings, Control Panel, Add or Remove Software, left-column Remove Windows Components)
MSN (microsoft network)
Messenger (microsofts built-in)
Outlook or Outlook Express (e-mail)
Expand Accessories, remove Internet Games

(you get about 10% to 15% speed-up on WinXP)

3. Update Internet Exporer and Media Player from Windows site

4. Get the latest WinXP Service Pack (SP3 is old from Jan 2008)

5. Free Software to download and install
Microsoft Security Essentials (anti-virus)\
Windows Defender (anti-spyware)
Firefox web browser (safer and faster than Internet Explorer)
Open Office
Adobe Reader
Adobe Flash
Adobe Shockwave
VLC Player (the DVD player that includes foreign DVD formats)
Windows dot-Net Framework 3.5
Paint.Net (requires .Net Framework, free photoshop program)
Google Picasa (maybe, if you want a photo organizer)

6. Check-out Blackviper’s website about turning off unnecessary Services
(Start, Programs, Administration Tool, Services
Or Start Settings, Admnistration Tools, Services)

Hope you find this helpful!

peace,
F!

Posted on by

Ten Tips To Better Tweeting

Greetings readers.

Hope this post finds you in good spirits. I thought I’d take a moment to do a post about my favorite social media/networking site of all time, Twitter. November 21, 2010 will mark my fifth anniversary of tweeting, so I can safely say I am an early adopter and have seen the evolution of this micro-blogging site. I’m pretty much still subscribe to the original reasoning behind the creation of Twitter, though I’ve read more than enough times that some feel tweeting about the oatmeal you just ate is inane and boring. I beg to differ, in that it gives insight to one’s everyday activities (how’s that for “reality”?).

In any event, Twitter 2.0 (if you will) has evolved to be a major force in content and social branding. I simply love it for the info-push that I receive in various areas of technology, music production, and yes, those everyday so-called “boring” aspects of daily activities some tweet about. That being said are *my* ten tips for better tweeting.


1. Acknowledge new followers with a tweet of thanks.

2. Pay attention to the interests of your followers. If you come across information that they may be of interest to a follower, tweet it directly to that follower (or followers).

3. Follow Friday: If you’re going to suggest to your users why they should follow someone, give a reason why. A large list of IDs followed by #FF = #FAIL..

4. Retweeting someone else’s large list of #FF = #DOUBLE FAIL. Personally to see entire list of folks that I have no idea who they are is annoying. Call it a pet peeve, but hey….

5. Be courteous. Despite the origins of Twitter. It’s a social network.

6. Airing dirty laundry, twitter rage complete with expletives = #FAIL. (Yeah, yeah I know, unfollow the person – I do when it gets excessive).

7. Retweet info that you think would be beneficial to most, if not all, of your followers. If it’s just a few, try using list for that. I doubt all my followers would be interested in a retweet of how long a Shuttle EVA event lasted on an ISS mission.

8. Twitter is not a chat client (contrary to popular belief) . Though it can be done, I’ve found it difficult to carry on an ongoing conversation. The mechanism of Twitter is too dynamic (update-wise) to meaningfully keep track of one. Yahoo IM, Google Talk, AIM, MSN Messenger, BBM…you get the picture.

9. Relentless arguing on Twitter = #FAIL. You unnecessarily subject your entire list of followers to something they could possibly care less about. Doing it in real life is ridiculous enough.

10. When using URL shortners (bit.ly, etc), ensure that they point to the intended page before tweeting. Sometimes they dont always work properly.

That’s it. Have a great weekend. Oh, and if you like….retweet this (see 7). (wink)

peace,
F!