Laptop Computers – Upgrade Or Replace?

Laptop computers are great. They offer convenience and flexibility to anyone who depends on a computer for their livelihood. They are also prone to annoying problems like the ones I’ve experienced lately. Here are just a few examples from the ongoing saga of my laptop:

• I had two instances of my Web browser open, along with a couple of other applications. As I ALT-Tabbed between apps, the ALT-Tab window – the one that displays all the open applications for you to move to – froze, front and center, on my screen. As I tried valiantly to work, the little window obstructed my view. When I happened to shut down one instance of my browser, the thing went away.

• I had one thin line on my monitor. It’s like some pixels went missing or something. A few weeks later, another line appeared. If this keeps going, I imagine I’ll lose a good portion of my screen by the end of the year.

• The battery conks out after less than 2 hours.

So, the question I’m left with is: should I upgrade my laptop or replace it?

Upgrading Laptop Computers – Pros and Potential Cons

The main benefit of upgrading is cost. Instead of paying for a brand new machine, I could just by a memory stick for a fraction of the price and hope that solves my problem. Memory is cheap. Refurbished memory is even cheaper. I know because my machine is ancient and, needing to look around for the right kind of memory, I checked a reseller.

For most people, memory upgrades are enough to boost performance, if performance is the real issue.

The potential con of an upgrade is that it may not fix the problem. So I could end up spending money on memory and lots of time trying to figure out how to install it, only to discover that my problem isn’t fixed.

Buying a New Laptop – Pros and Potential Cons

Money is also the main concern with buying a new laptop, but in this case, money is a “con”, not a “pro”. The costs of replacing technology can be significant for any business, big or small. Yes, it would be nice to have a new computer, and one that could actually handle running more than one application at a time, but is it better to take my chances on a memory upgrade? Is a new laptop affordable?

If you are in a similar situation to mine and you want an answer to that last question, here’s some advice. Look closely at your current and future needs. Make sure you consider a laptop that has room for expansion, in case you find yourself in this same situation a few years from now.

Laptop computers come in a wide range of sizes, from tiny netbooks to huge desktop replacements. Take a look at the price ranges for the specs you need. It can’t hurt to take a peek at the secondary market too. Used and refurbished laptop computers work as well as new ones – albeit with fewer bells and whistles due to their age.

Like all technology, laptop computers are a blessing and a curse. They make life easier, but they also make it a lot more expensive. Before you jump into a new purchase for your old laptop, be sure to research the possibility of upgrading. If you decide to buy, do your homework. Study the laptop computers on offer and choose the one that suits your work style and your budget. Read More .....

Why Is Windows Vista Slower Than Windows XP?

Many people are taking the leap and upgrading their pc operating system from Windows XP to Windows Vista, only to be very disappointed by the distinct slow-down in performance.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that Windows Vista requires twice the computing power and resources to operate at a performance level similar to that of Windows XP. So what can you do to improve this?

Firstly, it may be worth considering if you need to have all of the Vista bells-and-whistles that are turned on by default. The Aero interface in particular, although it looks pretty, requires considerable resources and it's worthwhile turning it off to see how much general performance improves. In addition many computers from manufacturers such as IBM come with a whole suite of ancillary support programs which you may not really need, such as firewall programs, antivirus programs, performance monitor programs, etcetra. Third party firewall programs in particular can use up a lot of resources. If you've been happy with the built-in Windows Firewall, then consider turning off any third party ones.

The other two areas where a significant improvement can be made is by upgrading the amount of system ram or memory, and utilising a ReadyBoost compatible flash drive or flash card.

Upgrading system memory is very straight forward. Manufacturers like Kingston make third party ram to the specifications of the big OEM's like IBM, HP, Dell, Acer, Apple and others so it's not necessary to pay hefty prices to obtain a 100% compatible ram upgrade. Kingston also guarantee their memory for life so even if the reseller you purchased it from closes up ship you can go back to Kingston for any warranty-related issues.

Upgrading system memory as high as your budget will allow is recommended, although anything higher than 4GB with the 32-bit version of Windows Vista is pointless, as it will generally only recognise around 3.5GB of the installed memory. The 64-bit version of Vista, however, can recognise over 8GB of memory, although most computers don't yet support this.

To take advantage of ReadyBoost, simply plug in a compatible USB drive or flash card into your computer, then follow the steps to configure it using the built-in wizard. Once configured, ReadyBoost serves as an additional memory cache which can significantly improve performance by reserving part of the flash drive/card for memory management.

If you are not certain about whether your pc can be upgraded with more system memory, there are many websites which make this task relatively simple to figure out. Using your favourite search engine, type in your computer brand and model followed by the words "memory upgrade" and this should give you somewhere to start. Alternatively, if you still have your user manual this should contain specifications about how many memory slots you have, the maximum memory capacity your pc can handle, and the type of memory that is compatible.

To check your currently installed memory for Windows: Right mouse-click on the "My Computer" icon and select "Properties." The total memory is calculated and displayed under the "General" tab in the system properties window. For Mac: Click "About This Mac" or "About This Computer" from the Apple menu. (Far top left of the screen). This will provide information about your Mac's total memory (built-in memory plus DIMMs installed). Read More .....

Windows 7 Performance and Productivity Tips

1. Find bottlenecks

From what we’ve seen so far Windows 7 is already performing better than Vista, but if your PC seems sluggish then it’s now much easier to uncover the bottleneck. Click Start, type RESMON and press [Enter] to launch the Resource Monitor, then click the CPU, Memory, Disk or Network tabs. Windows 7 will immediately show which processes are hogging the most system resources.

The CPU view is particularly useful, and provides something like a more powerful version of Task Manager. If a program has locked up, for example, then right-click its name in the list and select Analyze Process. Windows will then try to tell you why it’s hanging - the program might be waiting for another process, perhaps - which could give you the information you need to fix the problem.


2. Keyboard shortcuts
Windows 7 supports several useful new keyboard shortcuts.


Alt+P
Display/ hide the Explorer preview pane

Windows Logo+G
Display gadgets in front of other windows

Windows Logo++ (plus key)
Zoom in, where appropriate

Windows Logo+- (minus key)
Zoom out, where appropriate

Windows Logo+Up
Maximise the current window

Windows Logo+Down
Minimise the current window

Windows Logo+Left
Snap to the left hand side of the screen

Windows Logo+Right
Snap to the right hand side of the screen

Windows Logo+Home
Minimise/ restore everything except the current window

3. Faster program launches

If you’ve launched one instance of a program but want to start another, then don’t work your way back through the Start menu. It’s much quicker to just hold down Shift and click on the program’s icon (or middle-click it), and Windows 7 will start a new instance for you.

4. Speedy video access

Want faster access to your Videos folder? Windows 7 now lets you add it to the Start menu. Just right-click the Start orb, click Properties > Start Menu > Customize, and set the Videos option to “Display as a link”. If you’ve a TV tuner that works with Windows 7 then you’ll appreciate the new option to display the Recorded TV folder on the Start menu, too.

5. Run web searches

The Windows 7 search tool can now be easily extended to search online resources, just as long as someone creates an appropriate search connector. To add Flickr support, say, visit I Started Something, click Download the Connector, choose the Open option and watch as it’s downloaded (the file is tiny, it’ll only take a moment). A “Flickr Search” option will be added to your Searches folder, and you’ll be able to search images from your desktop.

6. Schedule Media Centre downloads

You can now tell Windows Media Centre to download data at a specific time, perhaps overnight, a useful way to prevent it sapping your bandwidth for the rest of the day. Launch Media Centre, go to Tasks > Settings > General > Automatic Download Options, and set the download start and stop times that you’d like it to use.

7. Multi-threaded Robocopies

Anyone who’s ever used the excellent command-line robocopy tool will appreciate the new switches introduced with Windows 7. Our favourite, /MT, can improve speed by carrying out multi-threaded copies with the number of threads you specify (you can have up to 128, though that might be going a little too far). Enter robocopy /? at a command line for the full details.

8. Really remove the sidebar

At first glance you might think Windows 7 has got rid of the sidebar, but don’t be fooled. Gadgets are still hosted by the Sidebar.exe process, it’s just that this is now launched automatically when Windows boots. If you don’t plan on ever using gadgets then you could delete the Sidebar Registry entry at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run, and recover a small amount of RAM. That might be a little risky, though, as we’re not quite sure what else the sidebar process does in Windows 7. The safest approach is to disable it temporarily by launching MSCONFIG.EXE, clicking the Startup tab and clearing the box next to the Startup entry. Now reboot and test Windows 7 for a day or two to confirm everything is still working, before finally deleting the sidebar Registry entry.

9. Load IE faster

Some Internet Explorer add-ons can take a while to start, dragging down the browser’s performance, but at least IE8 can now point a finger at the worst resource hogs. Click Tools > Manage Add-ons, check the Load Time in the right-hand column, and you’ll immediately see which browser extensions are slowing you down.

10. An Alt+Tab alternative

You want to access one of the five Explorer windows you have open, but there are so many other programs running that Alt+Tab makes it hard to pick out what you need. The solution? Hold down the Ctrl key while you click on the Explorer icon. Windows 7 will then cycle through the Explorer windows only, a much quicker way to locate the right one. (And of course this works with any application that has multiple windows open.)

11. Block annoying alerts

Just like Vista, Windows 7 will display a suitably stern warning if it thinks your antivirus, firewall or other security settings are incorrect.

But unlike Vista, if you disagree then you can now turn off alerts on individual topics. If you no longer want to see warnings just because you’ve dared to turn off the Windows firewall, say, then click Control Panel > System and Security > Action Centre > Change Action Centre settings, clear the Network Firewall box and click OK.

12. Parallel defrags

The standard Windows 7 defragger offers a little more control than we saw in Vista, and the command line version also has some interesting new features. The /r switch will defrag multiple drives in parallel, for instance (they’ll obviously need to be physically separate drives for this to be useful). The /h switch runs the defrag at a higher than normal priority, and the /u switch provides regular progress reports so you can see exactly what’s going on. Enter the command

defrag /c /h /u /r

in a command window to speedily defrag a system with multiple drives, or enter defrag /? to view the new options for yourself. Read More .....