Codecs: H.264, MPEG4 and AAC replace the currently preinstall codecs. The new codecs use the hardware acceleration of the graphics card and hardly stress on the CPU.

MINWIN: Microsoft has reorganized the kernel in Windows 7. MinWin, the 25MB core, operates independent from the operating system.

Flash Disks: Windows 7 identifies an SSD installed in the computer. To increase the lifespan of SSD, the system subsequently shuts down the functions which unnecessarily induce write operations on the drive.

Windows seldom updates the data in the sidebar. The default presets are to blamed for that. Nevertheless, you can adjust them in the Internet Options.

Double click the IE icon in the Control Panel. Now switch to the ‘Contents’ tab and click on ‘Settings’ in the ‘Feeds’ area here. In the subsequent dialog, the ‘Automatically check feeds for updates’ option must be active. In the combination field ‘Frequency’, the interval is set to one day by default. This is obviously far to slow for news. Change the value to ‘1 hour’ and confirm all the open dialog with ‘OK’.

You will now be able to get the latest news update every hour. Before the first refresh, however, you need to wait for the newly set interval. Alternatively restart the sidebar.

A Digital HDMI cable will carry video and audio, unlike analogue, VGA-cables video only. But things aren’t simple as that nowadays when pairing computers and consumer electronics. You may think that digital is always better but VGA and HDMI connections from two laptops yielded about the same visual quality on a 40in. And you could have issues getting the computer’s desktop to fill the TV’s screen in either setup.

If you want to watch movie downloaded from a service that’s been locked with digital rights management usage controls, you may have to use HDMI, but you can still hit unexpected snags getting a computer to accept a display.

HDMI can be finicky even without DRM hassles; an older Sony HDTV yielded an ” Invalid Format” error with each of three laptop HDMI connections. So try to get HDMI work, but don’t feel too bad if you have to go back to VGA

Start the big clean by removing the old drivers and unnecessary software. Replace unnecessarily bloated programs with sleeker alternatives.

1. Uninstall Old and Unneeded Programs and Softwares

The greed for software can be overwhelming at times: ‘Quickly download this tool; i might need it sometime or other’. The next thing you know, the hard disk is soon filled with programs that you have used only once or will never use.Go to Control Panel and from the Programs windows, uninstall everything that is not required. You can quickly get rid of these memory hogs with Revo Uninstaller. The tool lists all the installed applications immediately after starting. Mark all programs, soft wares or applications that is unneeded one after the other and remove the unnecessary things with ‘Uninstall’.

2. Remove Old Drivers

Outdated and defective drivers are often responsible for system crashes. The Driver Magician Lite shareware updates the system with the latest drivers.

The tool immediately displays all the located drivers after starting. Click ‘Select All’ and save the files with ‘Start Backup’ on a USB stick. It took around 25MB of disk space.

Subsequently, select all the drivers once again and click ‘Update’. It would searches for latest versions on the web and offers them for download. But, this doesn’t work for the free versions. But as the tool list all the updated drivers with the version numbers and manufacturers, you can find the right file easily with the manufacturer and download it, or you can activate the update function for about USD30.

3. Replacing Bloated Programs

The real system brakes are applications overloaded with features. For example, the sleek and quick Nero has been mutated to a multimedia monster over time, which takes up a bewildering 1.2GB of hard disk in the standard installation.

Replace these bloated programs with sleek, free of cost alternatives from the freeware scene such as CDBurnerXP for Nero

Windows has the suitable tools on board - right click the icon of your hard disk that you want to check and select ‘Properties’ from the menu.

In the ‘Tools’ tab, click the ‘Check Now’ button under the ‘Error Checking’ area (For XP user, you must log on with administrator rights for the purposes, Vista verifies this with its User Account Control prompts).

Activate the ‘Automatically fix file system errors’  and ‘Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors’ options in the subsequent dialog box. Then click ‘Start’.

Windows will check the disks only if they are not being used. If this requirement is not fulfilled, Windows offers to start the check on booting the system the next time. Accept the ‘Schedule the disk check’ option in this case.

At first she thought it was just a glitch in the internet system and then she rationalized that no it maybe a glitch in the search engine she is using but the persistent occurrence of such a thing made her think that someone bugged her. We all hate bugging people us but people we can fend of. What this law student is confronted with is a computer bug that she cannot fend off. In the first place she is not a technology savvy person and in the second place she never uses her laptop for any other things than academic research and actual writing of her papers.

The situation above is not an isolated case. There are many people who find themselves caught up in technology problems that are mind boggling but actually can be answered with two words and those two words are spyware and adware. The infamous term of spyware was first coined in the year 1995 but it was popularized in the year 2000. Spyware is a computer software innocently infiltrated in a personal computer to be able to access personal information of the user.

This is done by studying logging keystrokes, web browsing history and even scanning a user’s hard drive. Sounds like something we see only in James Bond movies but apparently we are wrong for anyone can be a victim of spyware. It is safe to use the word victim because no one wants to be monitored of all their online activities. Spyware can understandably be used to spy on criminals because such use is beneficial to society but how about the use of spyware to intercept credit card details and the like. There is simply no excuse for the lax of the use of spyware.

What ordinary people can do to protect themselves is to block spyware and all other software programs similar to it like adware and malware. This can easily be done by availing adware and spyware blocker programs online. The role of these blocking programs include to remove or disable existing spyware programs or to avoid the installation of these malicious software programs.

Spyware, adware, malware are not like virus or worms that self replicate but they can be just as hassle as their counterparts for whoever wants to be disrupted of their normal personal computer activities. One of the more popular hassles cause by these infectious software programs is the slowness of the computer which can really be annoying because when you are at work you tend to want to finish things quick not just because you are required but also because you want more done or you want to be able to go home early.

In some infections, spyware is not even evident as the bad guy so it can get away with its crime. It is best then to have a ready blocker to at least do something for preventing any infection to occur in the first place.

1. Thoroughly Cleaning old Windows versions

If Windows has been used for a long time, there are sure to be dozens of useless files stored on the hard disk, which slow down the system. You can get rid of them with CCleaner

Click “Analyze” after installing and starting the tool. After a few seconds you will see how much disk space the tool clears up and which files will be deleted. Clean the disk with “Start CCleaner”.

2. Purging the Registry correctly

Vista users should now delete all abandoned and defective entries in the registry database with CCleaner via “Registry”. Under Windows XP, it is better if you use NTRegOpt because this tool closes all the loopholes that are created after the cleaning and rewrites the registry.

Using NTRegOpt is as easy as using the CCleaner. Click OK after install and start in order to start the cleaning process. Once the tool has finished its work, then reboot the computer. This process takes longer than usual because the registry is optimized during this time. To make up for that, the system works noticeably thereafter.

3. Speed up Windows start

Lots of programs saved in your computer do exactly as they please. Many applications consider themselves to be so important that they trigger an auto-start command in the system without being requested. That means that every time the computer is booted up, they are started together with Windows, which is not always the user’s intention. As a result of this, the start sequence becomes considerably longer and manually shutting down most of the unwanted windows immediately afterward because they simply aren’t needed, certainly isn’t fun.

The Ashampoo StartUp Tuner 2 lists all auto-start entries and allows them to be individually deleted or to be deactivated. If the user proceeds with caution in this area, and at least deactivates all of the unnecessary entries, then they will be able to enjoy a clearly faster start to Windows.

4. Finding Duplicates and Empty Files

Files with zero bytes confuse the user, duplicate ones occupy storage space. The only thing to do: get rid of them.

Download Duplicate File Finder , the tool does not require any installation. Specify the Windows partition in “Add Path” for instance “C:\”. Activate “include empty files in search” to get rid of empty files as well. Search the selected hard disk with “Start Search” and this process is slightly time consuming.

You can get rid of the duplicate files with “Delete all duplicates”, as long as you are not dealing with protected system files in the process. Now clean the empty files using “View and Delete empty files”. The latter doesn’t get you any storage place but keeps your drive better organized.

5. Getting Rid of Setup Files and ISOs

Do you install new tools frequently? Then it is worth tracking down old set-up files because you often forget to delete them after the installation. The same is applicable to old iso files that were once mounted in a virtual drive. Deleting this files gives you a lot of empty storage space. 84f6kiuta5

Start the big clean by removing the old drivers and unnecessary software. Replace unnecessaryly bloated programs with sleeker alternatives.

1. Uninstall Old and Unneeded Programs and Softwares

The greed for software can be overwhelming at times: ‘Quickly download this tool; i might need it sometime or other’. The next thing you know, the hard disk is soon filled with programs that you have used only once or will never use.

Go to Control Panel and from the Programs windows, uninstall everything that is not required. You can quickly get rid of these memory hogs with Revo Uninstaller. The tool lists all the installed applications immediately after starting. Mark all programs, softwares or applications that is unneeded one after the other and remove the unnecessary things with ‘Uninstall’.

2. Remove Old Drivers

Outdated and defective drivers are often responsible for system crashes. The Driver Magician Lite shareware updates the system with the latest drivers.

The tool immediately displays all the located drivers after starting. Click ‘Select All’ and save the files with ‘Start Backup’ on a USB stick. It took around 25MB of disk space.

Subsequently, select all the drivers once again and click ‘Update’. It would searches for latest versions on the web and offers them for download. But, this doesn’t work for the free versions. But as the tool list all the updated drivers with the version numbers and manufacturers, you can find the right file easily with the manufacturer and download it, or you can activate the update function for about USD30.

3. Replacing Bloated Programs

The real system brakes are applications overloaded with features. For example, the sleek and quick Nero has been mutated to a multimedia monster over time, which takes up a bewildering 1.2GB of hard disk in the standard installation.

Replace these bloated programs with sleek, free of cost alternatives from the freeware scene such as CDBurnerXP for Nero

But the fact is that most of us are more vulnerable to the prying eyes of our neighbours, bosses, friends, or the people in the coffee shops next to use who might be reading our e-mail than we are to malicious trojan horses and worms.

Secure Your File

Password-protection of files on a pc could be done at application level. That means you would use the application that created the file to create the password protection.

Use password in Word through Tool menu, select Options and then from the Security tab, put a password in the ‘Password to open’ box. Certain mainstream applications allow such security, as well. Consult the Help file of the application to find out.

One way to password-protect other kinds of files is by using a file compression utility such as Winzip or Winrar, and assign a password to the resulting Zip or Rar file. Or you could enlist the help of a third party utility that will encrypt files and folders for you such as AxCrypt or FolderLock.

Senders of spam and potentially harmful e-mail use a number of tactics to secure your e-mail address. If you have posted your e-mail address anywhere on the internet, it can be “harvested” by programs designed to scour the internet and retrieve freely available e-mail addresses.

To prevent this from happening, never post your e-mail address anywhere on the internet - including message boards and personal websites - in an altered form.

If you must post your address somewhere online, write it in a form that is understandable by humans but not by a machine, such as “yourname - at - hotmail.com”

Also, take advantage of the multiple e-mail accounts provided by most internet service providers (ISP) today, and set yourself up at least two accounts: One that you hand out only to friends and collegues, and another that you give to anyone else - including online stores.

When you give out your e-mail address to anyone online, you simply never know whether that address may ultimately end up in the hands of mass marketers or spammers.

Related Topics:

E-mail ‘Bomb’?

How Secure is the Windows Firewall?

Want Some Cookies?

Should ‘I Agree’ to Spyware