~*~ Tips & Tricks ~*~

[Hunain]

"Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment "

:welcome;
:up; This section contains tips and tricks on a wide range of topics such as website development, browsing, searching, hardware, windows operating system and softwares.
Nuts and bolts

Startup

Q. How do I boost my startup speed? :up;
The most effective way is to upgrade your PC or buy a newer, faster machine. However not everyone can afford this option, therefore we suggest the following alternatives:

1) Increase your RAM. For Windows XP we recommend a minimum of 256MB of RAM, and 128MB for Windows 98/ME users. It is suggested that your PC have a minimum of 256MB RAM to support newer applications.

Upgrading to more memory than that will provide a minimum performance gain in terms of startup, because each operating system when booting occupies a certain size in the memory; when this requirement is met, an increase does not make a difference.

2) Use faster RAM. Memory modules measure their speed in MHz. Using a faster module will increase daily usage performance in opening applications or performing I/O operations. SDRAM comes in speeds of 100/133 MHz, while faster DDR SDRAM comes in speeds of 200/266/333 and 400 MHz. They are also denoted as PC1600, PC2100, PC2700 and PC3200 respectively. The PC number shows the maximum bandwidth in MB/s of the memory module.

For example the latest Pentium 4 machines have a 800 MHz Front Side Bus (the speed at which the processor communicates with all other devices); it is a common practice with Pakistani vendors to pair such systems with the slower 266 MHz DDR RAM to lower costs. You can therefore upgrade to DDR 400 and for the most lethal combination, use them as a pair (two modules of the same size), which is known as Dual-DDR support. Dual-DDR lets you read and write to both the memory modules simultaneously in the same clock cycle. Only newer motherboards support this feature.

For all possible RAM speed upgrades check your motherboard and processor documentation or contact your PC vendor for more details.

3) Disable Startup Items. In most cases some startup items are useful but others may just be eating up system resources. To check what loads on startup, type “msconfig” in the Start->Run dialog box in any version of Windows. You will see that in the General tab, the Startup selection will be set to normal by default. Click on the Startup tab and it will display a list of checked startup items and their paths. Uncheck the program you do not want to load and apply the changes. The computer will ask to restart to effect the changes placed.

Caution: Only disable items you are sure of. You can always come back and restore the changes. DO NOT try editing the items in the remaining tabs. (Use StartupMechanic - Ed.)

4) Use tweaking tools. Microsoft developed a tool called BootVis that arrange the files on your hard disk for faster startup. The tool is no longer available on their site but can be hunted down on the Web.

When I used BootVis, it slashed a whooping 30 seconds of boot time on my laptop running Windows XP. There are lots of other shareware tools on the net for such purposes and Norton System Works has a set of optimizing tools.

5) Another way to boost your startup speed is to periodically defragment your hard disk so that all your files are set as contiguous blocks for faster access. Boot performance also depends on which file system you use; FAT32 gives a faster boot time compared to NTFS but fragments easily over time while the reverse holds true for NTFS.

[Hunain]

"Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment "

:welcome;
:think; Which file system should I use, NTFS or FAT32? Which is better? :think;

NTFS or New Technology File System was developed and used with Windows NT 4.0 and now in Windows 2000/XP/2003 and is way advanced. Compared to FAT 32, it gives slower bootup times but applications start faster when loaded. NTFS is less prone to crashes but if your Windows does get corrupted [which is rare], you’ll get a difficult time repairing it. In this case you have to run the Recovery Console from the Windows CD, as Windows startup disks are not able to access NTFS partitions. NTFS has built-in fault tolerance capabilities that record changes to your hard disk so it can repair your data incase of power failure and therefore maintains a huge log file. NTFS repairs hard disk errors automatically. If it can’t write to a particular section it will routinely mark it as a bad sector. With NTFS, you can set permissions for accessibility on individual files and folders for security reasons, you can’t with FAT32. You can set disk quotas that let you define how much hard disk space you want to allocate to the users. With Windows XP using FAT32 you are limited to partition sizes up to 32GB. However gaming performance is better in systems using FAT32 file system than NTFS.

If you are a home user running Windows XP, you can live with FAT32. You can create users for your whole family and maintain privacy as long as each user saves personal documents in their respective namesake “My Documents” folder. If you a Network Administrator or use your computer in a work/study environment then it must have NTFS partitions in order to take advantage of the great security/access features supported with it.

[Hunain]

"Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment "

[align=center] :think; How do I permanently erase data? :think;

Did you know that deleting files from your recycle bin does not mean that they are erased and they can be recovered? They are still on your hard disk but their references have been removed from the file system and allocated as free space. They are overwritten as new files get saved. Advanced recovery software scans the physical surface of the hard disk and recovers all data, even the chat message that you deleted a year back as recovered files.

Panic! So how can I totally destruct my unwanted data? Eraser, which is freeware developed by Heidi Computers, uses pseudorandom writing techniques to overwrite your free space and totally erase data. It also lets you create a boot nuke disc to totally wipe out the hard disk and leave no traces.

[Hunain]

"Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment "

:think; How do I backup my files? :think;
Backups can be created manually or using software to automate the process. I prefer doing manual bi-monthly backups by burning all my data to a data CD, since I keep all of my stuff in one folder, with categorized sub-folders.

You can also use the backup utility built into Windows. For Windows 95/98 users, click on Tools from a drive’s properties and click Backup Now. For Windows XP Pro users Click Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Backup. Unfortunately Windows XP Home users have to install this feature from the CD; locate “CD-ROM Drive:\VALUEADD\MSFT\NTBACKUP” and click NTbackup.msi to install it. Windows backup utility will also copy system files and settings to the backup file.

You can also copy all your data, music files and other stuff to a partition other than the root (C:\) so if Windows get corrupted you can simply format the C: drive. Or better yet, copy your data to a partition on another hard disk (if you have one) in case the whole hard disk seems to be failing. This is the best, cheapest, and safest way to save all your important data.

[Hunain]

"Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment "

:think; How do I change my drive letters? :think;

In Windows XP, right-click My Computer and then click Manage. In the left pane under Computer Management click Disk Management and you will see a list of all drives in the right pane. Right-click the drive or device whose letter you want to change and click “Assign the following drive letter”. Assign the drive letter and click OK.

To change removable drive letters in Windows 98/ME, right-click My Computer and then click Properties. Click the Device Manager Tab click on CD-ROM to display the manufacturer and type, and click on Properties. Under the Settings tab, choose a new drive letter and assign the same to both to “Start drive letter” and “End drive letter”.

To change physical drive letters in Windows 95/98 requires complex sniffing into the registry, which I don’t recommend for newbies. Instead, use a neat little piece of freeware called Letter Assigner, which brings the features in XP—for changing drive letters—to Windows 95/98/ME.

[Hunain]

"Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment "

:think; How do I recover my deleted files? :think;
Files can be recovered from your hard disk as long as they have not been overwritten. The professional version of Norton AntiVirus has advanced tools, such as Norton Protected Recycled Bin, which let you undo accidental file deletes, even after you have emptied the Recycle Bin; simply right-click the bin and run the UnErase wizard. You can also try PC Inspector File Recovery, which is freeware, for restoring deleted files.

[Hunain]

"Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment "

:think; How do I make partitions? :think;
There are two major ways to partition hard drives. Either running “fdisk” from a bootable floppy, or use third-party Windows software. One of the world’s most popular partitioning programs is Partition Magic Pro 8.0. It allows you to create, resize, merge, change file systems and has other advanced partitioning features.

[Hunain]

"Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment "

:think; How do I delete temporary redundant files, so that I can free up disk space and system resources? :think;
Download DustBuster 2.8. The program checks for over 1,500 useless temporary file and folder types, and deletes uninstall files. Or, try Space Odyssey 2.0; it is pretty simple to use and runs on all Microsoft OSs.

[Hunain]

"Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment "

:think; About DustBuster :think;
DustBuster is a garbage file removing utility for Microsoft Windows operating systems. It searches for junk files and temp files that are of no use and are just taking space on your hard drive. Based on a "common sense" scanning technology, DustBuster now cleans over 1500 different types of useless temp files and directories in a single click, detecting and deleting all these unneeded files automatically. This will increase hard disk space on Windows 98/ME/2000/XP/2003.


The integrated SensibleScan™ search engine does not interfere with system files or installed applications: it gives you the freedom to clean up disk space simply and securely in no time, enhancing your system's performance, so you can focus on what's really important to you.

DustBuster analyzes in full automatic mode the content of your hard drive and finds and deletes a wide range of files while safeguarding the integrity of the operating system and the installed applications. No configuration is required as DustBuster is developed for reducing the interaction with the user.

Enjoy the power of cleaning on Windows 98 SE, Millennium Edition, 2000 Professional and Server, XP Home or Professional. DustBuster 2.8.1 conforms to the operational standards established by Microsoft for the operation on Windows XP: a further strong guarantee, although a complete compatibility with the new operating system is already guaranteed with the version 2.6.1.

A few applications are not compatible with the full automatic cleaning performed by DustBuster. There are known issues with: Paint Shop Pro 7.x, Rainbow Six Rogue Spear, Alpha CG, AOL 5.0, Microsoft AutoRoute 2002, PerfectDisk, DriveImage 7. Please make sure you are not using any of these programs. Feel free to write us to report further incompatible programs.

DustBuster should not be installed on critical systems: authors accept no responsibility for damages caused as results of use of this software.
The SensibleScan™ technology is under development and must be considered experimental. We strongly recommend to perform a complete backup of the hard drive if you are trying automatic cleaning for the first time. You can find more informations and documentation in Italian.

System Requirements:
- Windows 98 Second Edition or higher operating system
- Pentium class system
- At least 32 MB of RAM
- At least 10 MB of free disk space

~*~ Download ~*~

http://www.casperize.info/dustbuster...b_standard.zip

[Payal]

highly informative, fully loaded, thanks for sharing hunain