7 Tips Make your PC run as fast as new.

There could be several hardware-related reasons for a slow computer. For example, the processor, the brain of your computer, may be too slow to run today’s demanding software.

It may drag along if you have several programs running simultaneously. Then, there is RAM – the temporary memory the computer uses to do its calculations. If you do not have enough RAM, your programs will run slowly.

For better speed, you can upgrade the processor or RAM. A tune-up may also do the job. All you need to do is tweaking some settings to breathe new life into your PC.

STEP 1

For those who believe their computer lags at start up, a quick look at the MSConfig would be the place to start. MSConfig can be accessed by hitting the Windows button on keyboard along with R key.

This will bring up the ‘Run’ dialog. Type ‘MSConfig’ and you will get the ‘Start Up’ tab with a list of programs and executables that are launched when the computer starts up.

Starting up of too many programs when the computer boots could be a reason why the boot time is so long. The remedy would be to go through the entire list and uncheck the unnecessary items.

If there are entries you are not sure about, check them on the internet, as unchecking the wrong entries could potentially mess up the functionality of some of your programs.

STEP 2

Defragment the hard drive once a month. It’s like changing your car’s oil – it should be the one thing on your list even if you don’t do anything else. Windows stores information about your programs in the Registry.

This can get cluttered and affect performance. The solution is to download free registry cleaners from the internet (eg CCleaner) to remove redundant program entries.

STEP 3

Indexing Services is a nifty little program that uses a large amount of RAM. This processes indexes and updates lists of files on your computer. This is done so that when you search for something, it can search faster by scanning the index lists.

So, if you don’t search your computer often, turn it off would better performance. Simply go to ‘Start’ button on taskbar, click on ‘Control Panel’ and select ‘Add/Remove Programs’. Find the tab ‘Add/Remove Window Components’ and uncheck ‘Indexing Services’. Click Next.

Also, if there is a delay every time you open ‘My Computer’ to browse folders, try this.

Open ‘My Computer’, click on ‘Tools’, select ‘Folder Options’, click on the ‘View’ tab to uncheck the ‘Automatically search for network folders and printers’ box.

Click ‘Apply’ and then reboot your computer for changes to apply.

STEP 4

Hard drive performance plummets as you near the drive’s maximum capacity.

Assuming you don’t have an additional drive to move the content to, your choices are slim. But before you take a machete to your files, you may want to compress them.

Use the built-in compression tool in Windows, which makes accessing the files no different from it currently is. Go to ‘Disk Cleanup’ and make sure ‘Compress Old Files’ is checked.

Click ‘Options’ and specify the age of the files you want Windows to compress – Windows will compress only the files you haven’t accessed in more than six months (or as specified).

STEP 5

An important feature of Windows is its ability to return system files to the state they were in earlier. Before tweaking, users can create a new ‘Restore Point’.

Go to Control Panel>Performance and Maintenance>System Restore or Start-All Programs > Accessories > System Tools>System Restore and select ‘Create a restore point’.

If it is left alone, this can consume a good portion of your disk space with unnecessary restore points.

By default, it uses up to 12 per cent of each of your drives and, even if you have a big hard drive, many extra restore points can slow down processes like virus checking, disk-defragmenting, etc.

Typically, how much space you should allot to system restore depends on your system (200 MB – the minimum allowed – will hold 5 or 6 restore points) and should suffice for average users.

STEP 6

Also, the Windows XP (and Windows Vista) computers have features like smooth animated menus and transparent windows.

These use a processor resource, too, which means they can cause slowdown. Right-click the ‘My Computer’ icon and click ‘Properties’.

Click the ‘Advanced’ tab and under ‘Performance’, click ‘Settings’. Choose to switch off some of these effects and see the improvement in your PC’s performance.

STEP 7

Accumulated dust in computer cases a reason for over-heated PCs. Dust gets into the ball bearings in the fan and causes the fan to stop working. This may lead to overheating of processor and permanent hardware failure.

It is less common, but static charges from dust can also be a threat. A layer of dust on a memory chip can cause static electricity to build up.

This can amount to electric charge, which discharges on to your motherboard or memory chip. The best way to stop dust from building up is to open the case on your PC and vacuum it.

We recommend never tweak without knowing how to return where you began

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The future is now, folks. You can now go to your My Blogs tab, enable Post by Voice, and get a special number and code to call your blog. After you’re done, the audio file from your phone call will be posted to your blog for all to listen to and enjoy. (And added to your RSS feed for podcast support.)

So now you can post to your WordPress via the web, email, iPhone, Android, Blackberry, desktop clients, and now any telephone in the world. Of course when you post it can be pushed to Facebook, Twitter, and more using the Publicize feature. What more could you want?

Right now this is completely free, but we’ll charge you money to take down posts. Just kidding! We’re making it free and allowing recording lengths up to sixty minutes, but that limit may go down without a paid upgrade in the future. Mostly we’re just curious to see how people use this.

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On June 7th, Google’s Matt Cutts, made the announcement that Google’s latest index update was officially live. This is a change that the entire SEO community has been watching unfold since September of last year. Yet, once released, the Caffeine update wasn’t what it was described to be in September.

However, the Mayday update that took place the first few days of May, did all that Caffeine was promised to do and more. The Mayday update went so far as to devastate some site’s traffic by as much as 50%! This change was originally supposed to be part of Caffeine, but since it was released before Google went fully live with Caffeine, the industry saw it as something separate, whether Google planned it that way or not. The good news is that with the dust settling on Google’s search results there is now a whole new type of index with new rules and new top listings.

Now we know you may be a little off balance right now from these two huge updates so let’s check out what kind of things you can do to get that top spot.

• Fast Loading Time – As discussed in our May 2010 updates, delays of even less than half a second can have a negative effect on your site. Your visitor satisfaction will go down, and users will spend less time at your site and return less frequently. Remember that smaller pictures are just as good as larger pictures, and don’t sacrifice quality for speed.
• Quality Over Relevancy – This is the main point from the Mayday update. It used to be that Google seemed to treasure relevant results before everything else. Many long-tail keyword pages were lacking in quality even though they were very relevant, and were still ranking well. This is no longer the case. If you’ve lost long-tail rankings the best thing to do is increase quality by building incoming links and trying to better match those specific queries you’re trying to rank for. Always check your competition to see why they rank better.
• Metadata is Back – Google used to consider the metatags a spam technique but has now decided to start using metadata description information for its search index descriptions.
• Social Media – Cleverly using social media as a way to get some incoming links can give you a ranking boost. Asking users to Retweet or to Buzz your content can help, but remember it’s not a substitute for having a well optimized Web site.
• Standard SEO Applies – There is a small emphasis on speed, and long-tail keyword pages need to be higher quality, but don’t forget the SEO basics. Build strong incoming links, create unique content, and optimize your pages, videos, and photos.

How the new update actually works…

Sure you probably know that Caffeine is Google’s new indexing system, but do you really know what that means? Google Caffeine changes the way the index is organized so that you can get 50% fresher results. Originally the old index had several layers, some of which refreshed faster than before.

The main layer updated every two weeks, but in order to update another layer the entire Internet had to be analyzed before new content could be posted. With Caffeine, Google can analyze smaller portions of the Internet and is continuously updating and in lesser time. So now when you post something, it will be as close to instant as possible, just as you expect it to be, and Google knows that’s how you like it.

Additionally, Caffeine enables Google to index vast quantities of content every second. Google stated that Caffeine is nearly 100 million gigabytes and is capable of adding hundreds of thousands of gigabytes a day.

Remember that Caffeine is an update to Google’s search index not its algorithm. Caffeine speeds up the time it takes for Google to update its content, meaning when you publish, it will be available on Google faster. Caffeine does not affect Google’s algorithm, meaning it does not affect the ranking factors like the Mayday update did. So if you were thinking about what kind of action to take to respond to the Caffeine update, the answer is you don’t need to do anything, but because they are updating more frequently your updated content can show up sooner!

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