Computer tips, tricks and suggestions

[igotout]

Yeah, good idea to just do one thing at a time. Good advice. And backup, backup, backup.

[igotout]

Excellent site for Tweaks you can do within XP to make things run better.

However, use caution, and just do one thing at a time. and wait a few days to see if there are any problems caused by some of these tweaks. Then try another one.

Some of these are awesome. One in particular helped me solve a problem and enabled me to obtain a 50 second restart!

http://www.tweakxp.com/tweakxp/performance_tweaks.asp

Edited April 17, 2003 by Guest

[igotout]

(Got this one from Woody's, modified a bit)

CHANGING SCREENTIPS ON SHORTCUTS

You probably already have your icons and shortcuts on the Quick Launch Toolbar and other places. But I bet you're fed up with the Screentips - also known as Tooltips - the yellow messages that appear when you hover your mouse over the icons.

The Screentips for Office 2003 are particularly unbearable. Look at this one from Word 2003. It says: "Microsoft Office Word 2003 / Create and edit text and graphics in letters, reports, Web pages, or e-mail messages by using Microsoft Word." Sheeeeesh. That's even worse than the Screentips in Office XP!

It's easy to change the Screentips - if you know how.

Right-click on the icon and choose Properties. The Screentip is created by changing the text in the top box on the General tab, and appending the text in the Comment box at the bottom of the Shortcut tab. You can change either or both.

For example, I click on the General tab, and change the top box to say, simply, Word. Then I click on the Shortcut tab and delete everything in the Comment box.

Now when I hover my mouse over the Word icon in the Quick Launch Toolbar, it says "Word". (There's a nice minimalist feeling to that, eh?) Before it used to say "Microsoft Word / Create and edit text and graphics in letters, reports, Web pages, or e-mail messages by using Microsoft Word."

[Goey]

Test

[This message was edited by Goey on May 23, 2003 at 14:37.]

Edited May 23, 2003 by Guest

[Bluzeman]

Hey Steve, would you edit out the redirect to Disney now? :)-->

Rick

[Steve!]

Okay, Mr. Bluze, done.

[Bluzeman]

:)-->

Thank's!

[L.B.]

When I try to read the messages in #1 in computer tips lising it comes up only for a few seconds and then I get an AT&T site. Why can't I get it?

[Steve!]

That's because someone put a "redirect" into his/her post.

Go to that page, and hit "escape" a bunch of times, and that will keep it from redirecting to that other page.

[Bluzeman]

OK Goey, would ya un-hijack us now? :)-->

Rick

[igotout]

Thanks, moderators, for unhijacking that thread.

Goey, apparently it was indeed, one of your posts that had a redirect command in it. Were you aware of that?

Can this kind of thing happen unsuspectingly? This is the first time I have seen this on a forum. I am a member of quite a few forums other than GreaseSpot. I suppose they must have safeguards built in to prevent this.

Interesting.

[Bluzeman]

I was wondering the same thing, as far as if Goey actually put the redirect there himself or not. Goey?

[Goey]

Yup,

Guilty.

Well, it all started on May 23rd. I redirected a post on this thread to a web page on my ATT site.

Then a couple of hours later to one-up me (Show off!) - Steve edited one of his posts prior to mine to redirect all accesses to Disney.com

I thought for sure that I had removed my original redirect so as to allow the thread to conninue normally.

But something fishy is going on here or I am missing something.

Bluz asked Steve to remove his redirect on May 24th at 8:39 am. Steve complied and Bluz thanked him on May 24th at 13:28 PM, implying that the redirect to Disney was removed and this thread was ok as of May 24th 13:28 pm. Which also implies that any redirects I had embedded were removed as well by that time on May 24th.

So, in order for a redirect from one of my posts to reappear after that (as was indicated on June 5th by L.B.) I would have had to post or edit again on this thread *after* May 24th 13:28 pm when the thread was OK. Yet, according to the times and dates on the posts, I did not. My last post/edit prior to this one was on May 23rd.

Yet I see where Pawtucket edited one of my posts on June 10th, which had last been edited by me on May 23rd. If this was the culprit post then it should have redirected this thread immidiatey after Steve removed his redirect to Disney.

I am somewhat baffled.

Yes, I put the very first redirect in here as a test, but I did not put in another redirect after Steve removed his on the 24th when all was well.

Follow the trails and the times and dates and find the culptit. Is it possible that someone with moderator access was messing around also?

Goey

"Most of my fondest memories in TWI never really happened"

[pawtucket]

the rules are going to be really simple. Hijack this forum or any other forum and your posts in that particular forum will have to be approved by me.

If you are trying to demonstrate something, then start a thread and put something in the title that will indicate what you are trying to show.

[igotout]

Pawtucket - sounds like a reasonable request. I am all for having fun and testing stuff. But annnouncing it is fair I think. Or just do it real late at night and then go back and undo the damage.

I did not know that could be done. Could some of you smart computer guys please hijack TWI's site and direct people to Greasespot?

(As a test of course) :D-->

[igotout]

TURN OFF THE INDEXING SERVICE

Thanks for mentioning this one Zixar. Here are specific instructions to do what you suggested:

Windows XP keeps a record of all files on the hard disk so when you do a search on the hard drive it is faster. There is a downside to this and because the computer has to index all files, it will slow down normal file commands like open, close, etc. If you do not do a whole lot of searches on your hard drive then I suggest turnning this feature off:

1. Open my computer

2. Right click your hard drive icon and select properties.

3. At the bottom of the window you'll see "Allow indexing service to index this disk for faster searches," uncheck this and click ok.

4. A new window will pop up and select apply to all folders and subfolders. It will take a minute or two for the changes to take affect but then you should enjoy slightly faster performance.

[Click-n]

Igotout,

I couple of pages back you commented that USB 2.0 was better than Firewire.

Check this article out: http://www.digit-life.com/articles/usb20vsfirewire/

I guess it really depends on what you are using it for. Both sure are a heck of an improvment from USB 1.

[Zixar]

Good article, Click-N. When I built my external DVD writer, I used a FireWire enclosure and it's really zippy. Never had any problem with drivers or compatibility. Nothing against USB 2, but with my MiniDV camcorder and the DVD writer, I'm very much a FireWire fan now.

The fool hath said in his heart, "PFAL is the word of God..."

[igotout]

Wow, what a detailed article, Click-n. Thanks. Love those. Here is their conclusion for those who need a quick summary:

______________________________________

Conclusion

Although the USB 2.0 is speedier than the FireWire, the latter beats it when used in high-speed storage devices. Probably, future products will unveil and use the full potential of the USB 2.0 bus. If we take only the storage devices sphere, the optimal solution would be a combo USB 2.0/FireWire -IDE bridge. In this case a user would get the maximum flexibility when choosing the ways of connection of data storage devices.

______________________________________

And now.... take a look at some of these kinds of articles:

Firewire 800, twice the speed

This new Firewire format boasts twice the spped of USB2 & current Firewire!

Good days ahead for us users! But where are the Firewire "Pen Drives" like this awesome one?

1GB USB2 Pen Drive

[This message was edited by igotout on September 14, 2003 at 18:22.]

Edited September 14, 2003 by Guest

[Goey]

Just testing to see if I can post unmoderated here yet.

Edited September 29, 2003 by Guest

[Zixar]

John: You do realize it's perfectly ok to have BOTH FireWire and USB 2.0 on the same computer, right?

[igotout]

Zix - yeah, in fact my main computer appears to have USB1, USB2 (that I added) and a couple of firewire ports including the one as you informed me me is on my Soundblaster card.

I think firewire is the best for Digital video cams, while everything else (printers, mice, keyboards, pocket drives, and such) is leaning towards USB2 for some reason.

Yesterday I saw for the dfirst time a HP USB2 scanner for only $99.

Didn't scanners used to be firewire mostly?

What do you think of that article about Firewire 800??

(Hi Goey.... did you finish your boat? Looked awesome! )

Edited September 29, 2003 by Guest

[Zixar]

I'm not aware of any FireWire scanners, although they wouldn't surprise me. The original scanners were SCSI, followed by parallel, then USB 1.0 models became the norm.

FireWire 800 holds great promise for the future as memory and drive space climb, but until you have a specific need for FW800 I wouldn't worry about it too much.

The thing I love about that FireWire DVD-writer I built is that I didn't have to load a single driver to install it. I just hot-plugged it in to the FireWire card, flipped the switch, and got the familiar "da-ding" sound of a new peripheral being added. I've had to load drivers for about half of the USB peripherals I've had. Not that that's such a big deal, but it does help to be able to Plug-n-Play like that.

...scratching the itch of the mortal unknown...

[igotout]

Interesting. Today I saw an external USB 2 floppy.

Those are disappearaning anyway, kinda like Zip drives. Not sure why they would even bother.

[igotout]

I really like this site GRC.COM. It has all you ever wanted to know about internet security.

I found yet another of his invaluable little free utilities called "Dcombobulator"

To skip through all the boring technicalities for those of you who could care less, download the file called DCOMbobulator 2.0 from his site and run it.

You might want to read a little bit about it first. But basically it diables something called DCOM on your computer which can be a security breach. DCOM apparently is rarely needed or used. This utility enables you to easily turn it off (or on) to close the door to that security breach.

It can be found here: DCOM utility

Edited October 2, 2003 by Guest