Raise Your Windows IQ: Advice for Newbies

I know, I know that the majority of you dig "most" of what Mr. Rick Broida clearly explains in the following well written article, however even me enjoyed reading it and brush up my brain knowledge of Windows with some of the real helpful stuff he tells us.

Just click the following and enjoy:

Raise Your Windows IQ: Advice for Newbies

George Freire

DEFRAGGLER, FREE AND VERY GOOD DEFRAGMENTATION UTILITY

Again from PC World comes another recommendation for a free utility that you cannot beat even with similar paid for programs!:

Piriform Defraggler will remove those pesky, tailed, Muppets from the your hard drive once and for...oh wait. Well, it won't do that, but it will defragment your hard drive, and it offers some features that the free defragmentation utility including in Windows does not.

First off, it's faster and prettier. The latter is important since, with large hard drives, you'll be staring at it--or any defragmentation tool--a while. Second, it has a number of nice features which can make disk maintenance...well, not fun, but easier and more focused.

For example, Defraggler will show you all your fragmented files. You can click one to see where on the disk its various pieces lie, or defragment just that one. This can be useful when dealing with very large, performance critical files such as databases.

Piriform Defraggler shows your disk layout in the traditional "large mosaic of colored squares" fashion, and the colors leap and bounce around as various sectors are read from or written to. This offers no improvement in functionality over Windows line graph style, but I find it more interesting to watch. Aesthetics matter.

Piriform Defraggler is free, fast, marginally more interesting to watch than the default, and has useful additional features. What's not to like?

Note: This program is donationware. It is free to try, but the author accepts and encourages donations towards further development.

--Ian Harac (PC World technical writer)


In order to download and install this little jewel go to:

http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_download/fid,72958-order,4-c,harddisk/download.html

Click above or copy and paste to your browser.

You'll enjoy and use it a lot.

George Freire

WINDOS XP AND VISTA START MENU ENHANCER

From our friends at PC World, here is a useful simple program for you XP and Vista users:

The Windows Start menu is a mildly useful tool for running programs and accomplishing other tasks. But what if you want something more than merely a mildly useful tool? Then get this program, which despite its name works with both Vista and XP. It puts all of your programs and important folders within easy reach, so that you can launch them quickly. It also gives you fast access to turning off, rebooting, logging off, and switching users.

It's also customizable so that you can change the size of the menu, for example, as well as decide which power management buttons to display (Switch, Logout, Stand By, Reboot, Hibernate, and Turn Off). You can also have the power management buttons either at the top or bottom of the screen.

--Preston Gralla


DESCRIPTION OF THE PROGRAM:

Vista Start Menu was specifically designed to replace the often confusing menu in Windows XP and Windows Vista. For your convenience, the interface has been developed with human psychology taken into account. Solve tasks in a simpler and quicker way. Vista Start Menu offers many new features not available in the system Start menu. You can start a program or open a document in a couple of keystrokes, without having to take your hands away from the keyboard. Easy-to-use zooming allows those with large monitors and people with poor eyesight to work with comfort. If you have many programs, they will all fit onto the screen because you will be able to stretch the Start menu and resize it any way you like. Vista Start Menu supports tabs and each menu item can contain any number of them. Start searching the Internet or your local computer right from the Start menu with just one keystroke. Those who use the extended version will also be able to use the features of one-click launch and quick un-install. Start working with pleasure.




All you have to do to download this program copy and paste or click the following address:

http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_download/fid,61290-order,4-c,desktop/download.html

Enjoy it!

George Freire

WHO WAS VISITOR # 2000?

I just checked the blog. As of this hour 2004 people have visited.

Who was # 2000? as you know there is a little surprise waiting. Send me an e-mail if you think you are the one.

George Freire

MAKE YOUR COMPUTER BOOT FASTER

As you all know and experience, all versions of Windows, (including Windows7 although this version is somewhat faster), take forever to boot. The more programs you have installed the slower your computer becomes at startup, the reason being that many of these programs force Windows to run them immediately when you startup your computer.

Many weeks ago I mentioned in this blog a free utility application that can really help your computer startup much faster. It is called "STARTUP DELAYER". I don't know how many of you saw the post and took advantage of it. For those of you who did not, here goes:

What it does is simple:

First it shows you a list of all the programs that are started at the same time by Windows when you boot your computer, (a situation that creates a slow down, like 10 people trying to enter through the door at the same time).

Second, it gives you the power to select these programs and make them start not all at the same time, but spaced out in a time frame also selected by you. You do this by dragging each program in the list to a bottom white bar. For each program you drag down, you will see a line representing the application. Then by sliding the line to the left or right you can decrease or increase the time delay for the application to start. Very easy to do.

The end result is a much faster and smoother start-up of your computer. To give you an example, in my computer, I have 10 applications that otherwise would be started all at the same time. By using "Start Up Delayer" these apps are started spaced out 10 seconds one after the other. My computer now starts-up much faster that before.

"Startup Delay" is free and very easy to install. It also has a "help" button that explains in detail how the program works. It works with Windows XP, Vista and 7 !!!

I strongly advise you all to download it from:

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/startdelay.html

Simply click the above address, or copy and paste to your browser; it takes only a minute or two to get it installed and going.

You'll be very happy with the results and your computer will startup much faster.

George Freire

Disaster-Proof Your PC: Image Your Drive, Make a Backup Plan

Here is some good advice from our friends at PC World in the words of Mr. Rick Broider:

Here's how to prepare for disaster by imaging your hard drive and setting up a data backup system.
Rick Broida, PCWorld

Jan 12, 2010 12:15 pm

Just click below and you'll be transported to the web page dealing with this subject.

George Freire



Disaster-Proof Your PC: Image Your Drive, Make a Backup Plan

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WHO WILL BE OUR VIEWER # 2000?

As of this time, 11:27 AM EST, I just checked the number of visitors to this block to be 1955.

I hope that by the end of this week we will see visitor # 2000 hit the the Blog.

You can check if you are that lucky visitor by scanning to the bottom of the Blog screen, where you'll find a number indicating how many people have visited the Blog, as of that very moment.

If you are # 2000, let me know, there will be a small surprise waiting for you.

George Freire

PARA OS NOSSOS LEITORES EM PORTUGAL QUE PREFEREM LER ESTE BLOG EM POTUGUÊS

Para aquêles nossos leitores em Portugal que preferem lêr este Blog em Português, há ainda outro método mais simples do que aquêle que sugeri no post datado de 6 de Outubro de 2009, usando "http://babelfish.yahoo.com".

É muito simples, se tiverem o "Google Toolbar" no vosso computador, que automaticamente aparece no tôpo do vosso "browser". Se não tiverem o "Google Toolbar" basta fazer o download e instalá-lo.

No toolbar do Google e logo a seguir ao bloco em branco de pesquisa, "search", há varios icons para varias funçôes. Escolham o icon "translate" e depois na barra que abre mais abaixo e que diz "Toolbar has automatically translated this page to ..........English....., é só substituir "English" para "Portuguese" clicando na pequena seta que abre uma caixa que contem um numero imenso de diferente linguas, incluindo claro "Portuguese".

Uma vêz que tenham escolhido "Portuguese" em poucos segundas o Blog por inteiro é imediatamente traduzido para Português.

Muito agradeceria que me enviem os vossos comentarios de como conseguiram fazer esta manobra.

Um abraço

George Freire

WHAT WILL COMPUTER SCIENCE BRING US IN NEAR FUTURE?

Pattie Maes is a researcher for MediaLabs at MIT, (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and is presenting us "The Sixth Sense" technology still in its infancy, but as you can all see, very close to reality. It is a wearable device with a projector that paves the way for profound interaction with our environment.

Where will we be in 10-20 more years down the road? I would not be able to guess.

Go to the following address and the demonstration will blow your mind!!!

http://www.ted.com/talks/pattie_maes_demos_the_sixth_sense.html


Have fun!

George Freire

HOW TO CREATE A SYSTEM REPAIR DISK FOR WINDOWS 7

Dear readers,

If you have upgraded to Windows 7 recently, you may not yet be completely familiar with all the available help apps. this program offers in order to keep your computer in good shape.

One of them is a very easy way available for the creation of a repair disk. (Of course other past versions of Windows also offered a similar app. but more difficult to handle).

Remember that it is always possible that a catastrophe may strike your PC, making it impossible to boot regardless of how much you try. So... Windows 7 makes it very easy for you to have a tool always available to come to the rescue. It is called a REPAIR DISK.

All you have to do, (AND I STRONGLY RECOMMEND YOU DO IT RIGHT NOW, IMMEDIATELY, BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING ELSE!!!), is to click Start, type "repair" in the "Search Programs and Files" box at the bottom of the start Screen, and then click the "Create a System Repair Disc" icon that shows at the top of the screen.

Insert a blank CD or DVD into your drive, click Create disc, and Windows 7 will do the work in a matter of a couple of minutes. That is it!

Pull the disk out, label it "Repair Disk for My Computer" or something similar, keep in a safe place and do not forget where you put it!

Should you ever come across a catastrophe moment that we all hope will never happen, my friends you have now the right tool to save the day: this disk can be used to boot the computer. it also contains the Windows System recovery tools that will help you recover the computer from whatever caused the problem, or restore the computer from a system image that you may have created with a system such as ACRONIS, which I have referred to in previous posts.

I hope this will be helpful and remember, you must do this before a problem stikes, do it right now.

George Freire

Make Your New PC Hassle-Free, Part 2: Remove the Crapware

Make Your New PC Hassle-Free, Part 2: Remove the Crapware

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The Greatest Windows Tips of All Time

The Greatest Windows Tips of All Time

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