Sunday, June 14, 2009

10 Easy Tips To Improve Computer Performance

Many computer problems can be solved with free or low-cost products or just by using a few common sense tips to improve performance and keep your PC running for a long time.
Computers often freeze or crash when one needs them the most; in the middle of an important presentation, a term paper that's due the next day, or while updating our financial software. Many computer problems
can be solved with free or low-cost products or just by using a few common sense tips to improve performance and keep your PC running for a long time.
1. Virus Scan Program - The most essential thing to have is a virus scan that is run weekly. Most new computers come with a virus scan already installed. If the computer you are using doesn't have a virus scan there are free scans available online, but one really should be installed on your computer if you spend any time at all online. Spend the time learning how to use your virus scanner. Find out how it's updated - most update automatically - and use the options to set it up to run automatically at a set time every week. Most computer problems can be prevented just by having a virus scanner installed.

2. Run the Scandisk program - At least every two months you should run a program called Scandisk. It is automatically on your computer. Scandisk actually scans your files and even your hard drive and can let you know of any problems it discovers.

To run Scandisk, first make sure everything running in the background on your PC is turned off. To do this press "Ctrl-Alt-Delete" and your close program box will appear.

Highlight each item EXCEPT "explorer" and "systray". Click on "End Task" to close the program.

Then go to your start button and choose "Programs". Choose "Accessories" at the top of the list. Move your cursor down to "System Tools" and Choose "Scandisk".

A box will appear giving your choices of what you want your computer to scan. You can have it scan your files only or your entire hard drive. Scanning your hard drive will take longer.

3. Run the Defragmenter program - Another program that you should run about every two months is called Disk Defragmenter. Defrag will arrange your files better so your PC can access them faster. It's best to run this program after the Scandisk program is finished.

To run Disk Defragmenter go back to the "System Tools" and choose "Disk Defragmenter". It's best to run this program overnight as it takes a long time.

You should not be using these programs while using other programs on your computer. If the Scandisk or Defrag program keeps starting over you may need to run the programs in Safe Mode, a special diagnostic mode. Read the manual for your PC to find out how to put your PC into Safe Mode.

4. Use a Firewall program - For anyone on a DSL or cable connection a personal firewall keeps viruses, hijackers and hackers from your computer. Since you are constantly connected to the internet by using these connections there is a constant threat that others may try to access your computer. There are free firewall programs available for download.

5. Run a Spyware program - Anyother important program is a spyware search program. When you download something from the internet sometimes other software is included. This software is called "spyware" and it can do many things to harm your computer, including letting someone from another website see what websites you surf in order to send you advertising. Other spyware tries to steal your passwords or other personal information. You should run a spyware checker at least once a month or at any time you are experiencing problems with your connection or computer speed.

6. Run a hi-jacker search program - Another important program to have is a hi-jacker search program. A hi-jacker changes your homepage to a different search engine
page and can also block links to common search pages. They are trying to force you to use their homepage. Some of the hi-jacker's homepages are not pages you would like your children to see. You should use a hi-jacker search program at least once a month or whenever you are having a problem with your homepage.

7. Clear your temporary files - Sometimes your PC's virtual memory will become full. When this happens your computer may run slow, give you error messages or freeze during a program. This happens because everything you do on your PC - every picture on every webpage, every document you type, every photo you change - is saved somewhere on your PC, even after you have left that page and closed the document. In order to erase this memory you need to do the following steps:

Open your internet browser. Go to "Tools", "Internet Options".

A box will pop open. It should be open to the "General" tab.

In the center of the box is a section marked "Temporary Internet Files".

Click on "Delete Cookies" and "Delete Files" one at a time. This will delete the temporary files that are clogging the PC's memory.

8. Change your history options - Another way to clean out your computer's memory is to change how many days it saves visited pages. You will find a "history" box in your internet options. It asks how many days you wish to keep pages in history. This is the part of the computer that saves all pages you've visited for as many days as you wish. By saving these pages for a smaller number of days you can clear up more of your PC's memory.

9. Clean out old files - Periodically going through the files in My Documents or other folders you have set up and deleting or archiving them on a CD can also help your computer's memory and performance. Do you really need to keep a saved copy of last semester's English term paper? If not, delete it. You can also go through the programs on your PC from the control panel and delete those you no longer use. Don't delete any of the shared files, though, if it asks, because that can cause more problems.

10. Reboot the PC occasionally - The last thing that is very important to do but seems simple is just to turn your computer off periodically. Your PC needs to be restarted in order to reset itself after new programs or equipment is installed. It also erases the virtual memory from the last session and goes through a self-diagnostic to look for any problems. It sounds like a simple solution, but most problems can be fixed simply by restarting your PC.

Troubleshooting your PC's problems
doesn't have to cost a lot of money or require technical expertise. By using just a few software programs and common sense most problems can be stopped and you will find that your PC has better performance and reliability.
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Saturday, June 13, 2009

Will You Ride Google's Wave?


Google merges your e-mails, IMs, Twits, Facebook and a lot of other such services and offers them under one roof, called Wave.

Google is trying to do something new and bold again. The company has unveiled one of its most ambitious projects -- Wave. Wave is a very bold way to re-write the manner in which people communicate and interact online. It is nothing conventional you can think of. Google merges your e-mails, IMs, Twits, Facebook and a lot of other such services and offers them under one roof called Wave.
You can understand Wave as a content that you have created. Let's assume this news item. Now, you can share this news with people, and your friends may keep adding content to it. They may write some more, add some pics, comment through twits and much more. According to Google Blog, "A 'wave' is equal parts conversation and document, where people can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps and more."

But, Wave is a new concept. Google needs to put in a lot of efforts to educate people about its usage. And it seems Google has started that 'education' thing already. The recent developers' meet was focussed around that only.

The flip side is Google is known to roll out a lot of new services, but only a few are successful. Most of the successful products are the ones which it acquired. How many of you use Knol? When was the last time you logged into it? Knol was once one of the most ambitious projects at Google.

But one thing is clear with the timing of the Wave announcement by Google. It has killed the hype that its rival Microsoft was trying to create with its new search engine Bing. Now, what is Bing? It's nothing but the third attempt of the doomed Vista creator to revive its search engine -- first it was MSN Search, then it became Live Search and now it's Bing. What would be the next -- ping pong?

Here's how it works:
In Google Wave, you create a Wave and add people to it. Everyone on your Wave can use formatted text, photos, gadgets and even feeds from other sources on the Web. They can insert a reply or edit the wave directly. It's concurrent rich-text editing, where you see on your screen nearly instantly what your fellow collaborators are typing in your Wave. That means Google Wave is just as well suited for quick messages as for persistent content — it allows for both collaboration and communication. You can also use 'playback' to rewind the wave and see how it evolved.

The Google Wave protocol is the underlying format for storing and the means of sharing waves, and includes the 'live' concurrency control, which allows edits to be reflected instantly across users and services. The protocol is designed for open federation, such that anyone's Wave services can interoperate with each other and with the Google Wave service. To encourage adoption of the protocol, Google says it intends to open source the code behind Google Wave.

Also, if you're a developer and you'd like to roll up your sleeves, you can start working on Google Wave with the company. Google has not yet decided the specific time frame for public release, but plans to continue working on Google Wave for a number of months more as a developer preview.

One of the dangers of Wave is, Google is integrating too many services in it which may lead to vendor lock-in and curb competition. This may make Google the Microsoft of the online world.
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Win Free Talk Time With Airtel's Talk Time Jackpot

Airtel is providing its pre-paid customers a chance to win a Talk time jackpot. This new offer guarantees the customer free talk time; the only thing that a customer has to do to avail this offer is to type 'BEST' and SMS it to 222 for knowing the Jackpot Recharge.
“We are delighted to launch this offer to all our pre-paid customers," said Venkatesh V, CEO, mobile services, Bharti Airtel Ltd, Karnataka. “After pioneering affordable mobile services, Airtel is taking another step forward to connect deeper with its pre-paid customer base and delight them. This full talk time offer helps Airtel customers communicate more with their loved ones and stay more connected, sans cost barriers. We hope all our pre-paid customers utilise this ‘full value for money’ offer and benefit immensely from it”.

Every customer will get his full talk time option by means of a return SMS. On recharging for the Jackpot amount in the SMS received, the customer will get the default talk time online. The remaining talk time will be credited to the customer’s mobile account within the next 48 hours.
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Yahoo! Cricket Becomes Top Cricket Site In India


The site attracted 2.4 million unique users per month.

Yahoo! Cricket has emerged as India's leading online destination for fans across the nation. As per Comscore April 2009 data, Yahoo! Cricket attracted 2.4 million unique users per month, emerging as the top cricket site in India.



In February this year, Yahoo! India entered into a three-year partnership with the International Cricket Council (ICC), becoming the exclusive online partner for all ICC events, including ICC World Twenty20, ICC Champions Trophy and ICC Cricket World Cup.

"cricket.yahoo.com will serve as a comprehensive online destination for cricket fans covering the history of the game as well as up-to-date statistics on cricketers. The coverage also includes features like series stats and records, data on women's cricket teams, audios, non-match and match related videos, fantasy game, amongst others," the company added.

According to Gopal Krishna, vice president and head, audience, emerging markets, Yahoo!, "We have taken the entire cricketing experience online within a short time span. Yahoo! Cricket provides compelling content and engages users with all aspects of the game, both on and off the field. Our upcoming coverage on T20 is just the tipping point for all the cricketing action that is to follow on the Internet."

"Yahoo! Cricket is now the leading cricket site in India and this is fantastic news. It shows how much the partnership between the ICC and Yahoo! has caught the imagination of the cricket-loving public in India. The reality is that not everyone in the world will be afforded the opportunity to be in England for the ICC World Twenty20 so the Yahoo! website will be an innovative and amazing way for millions of cricket fans in India and elsewhere to stay in touch. They won't have to miss a ball," added Haroon Lorgat, chief executive, ICC.

Yahoo!'s partnership with the ICC, also extends to activity in Europe this summer: with action online and at the matches Yahoo! Eurosport is the home of cricket in the EU.
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Fedora 11 Now Available


Fedora 11 features an upgraded interactive console, a redesigned virtual machine guest creation wizard and better security with SELinux support for guests.

EFY News Network (165)


Thursday, June 11, 2009: The latest version of the Fedora Linux operating system featuring the GNOME 2.26 desktop environment is now available. The Fedora Project, a Red Hat sponsored and community-supported open source collaboration project, has announced the availability of Fedora 11. The community's 11th release includes the broadest feature set to date, spotlights developments in software management and sound, improves key virtualisation components and introduces Fedora Community, a portal project beta.

"The Fedora 11 release showcases a feature set that shows the strength and diversity of Fedora contributors' interests in the evolution of open source," said Paul Frields, Fedora Project leader, Red Hat. "We've built several of the major features on the foundations established in previous releases, showing that the open source development model can provide a compelling mixture of steady advancement and rapid innovation."

Fedora 11's feature set includes substantial improvements in virtualisation, including an upgraded interactive console, a redesigned virtual machine guest creation wizard and better security with SELinux support for guests.

There are also numerous desktop improvements such as automatic font and content handler installation using PackageKit, better fingerprint reader support, and an updated input method system for supporting international language users.

The foundational work for Fedora 11's kernel mode setting feature was completed as part of Fedora 10, which supported a small subset of ATI Radeon-based video cards. The feature is designed to shorten boot times and present a cleaner interface to users by letting the kernel do the work of initially displaying a graphical screen during the startup process.

Additionally, the release supports a much broader selection of ATI cards, as well as many Intel and Nvidia cards. Similarly, the PackageKit feature for font installation builds directly on a design that premiered in Fedora 9 and was refined further in Fedora 10. Fedora 11 also includes many brand-new features, such as the ext4 file system and the MinGW cross compilation system.

Premiering alongside this release is the beta test of Fedora Community, a portal-style project that aims to streamline the interface that Fedora community members use to contribute code and interact with the community. The portal features a user-friendly, customisable dashboard that tracks contributions, conversations and updates in a simple graphical interface. The beta test of the portal focusses on software package maintainers; community members will have an opportunity to comment and improve Fedora Community as it develops throughout this year.

"The Fedora Community portal project is going to provide new ways to engage our community members and improve the way they collaborate," said Frields. "The portal project uses a new web framework, built on best-of-breed open source components, that has the capability to provide a more real-time experience. Ultimately, we intend for this portal to become a single, simple and usable online tool our community members can customise to produce and organise their Fedora contributions."

Click here
to download Fedora 11. Don't forget to read the release notes while you're downloading it.
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Friday, May 29, 2009

What Do You Know?




Google has started a new site called Knol that allows you to share your vast wealth of personal

information with the world. Everyone knows something that no one else knows. Think about it, I'm sure you can come up with something. Voice your opinion on something, or tell the world about something you witnessed. Then you can share it on Knol.

Everyone knows something. See what people are writing about, then tell the world what you know: knol.google.com


"The web contains vast amounts of information, but not everything worth knowing is on the web. An enormous amount of information resides in people's heads" ~Cedric Dupont, Product Manager and Michael McNally, Software Engineer

Then you can browse around Knol and find other articles that interest you. Make modification suggestions to the author of the article, they can then choose to use your suggestions or not. Write reviews on other people's articles.

If you choose to use ads in your Knol articles, you stand the chance of earning a little extra money. You can even add cartoons to your articles from New Yorker magazine.
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Cubestat, the free website value calculator

Cubestat is a free and perfect tool for website value calculation, estimations and information.

How does it work?
You simply enter the domain url in the search box (as shown below) and Cubestat's unique algorithm will calculate and estimate the website worth, daily pageviews and daily ads revenue of the present domain.



Among the estimation it will show precise information available for the domain including:
  • Website Worth
  • Daily Pageviews
  • Daily Ads Revenue
  • Estimated Date
  • Meta Info
  • Meta Title
  • Meta Description
  • Meta Keywords
  • Index Data
  • Quantcast Rank
  • Page Rank
  • Back Links
  • Dmoz Listing
  • IP, Host & Whois
  • Site Age
  • Rank Graphs
Read more...
 
Free Domain Name - www.YOU.co.nr!