2006

Speeding Up Your Windows Computer

December 30, 2006 By Terry Stockdale

Recently, I wrote about speeding up your computer. In that article, I recommended adding more memory as the cheapest and most effective way to speed up an older computer. That helps you no matter what program you are running.

There are also some Windows XP settings that you can change to speed up your computer. These do not actually make a change in its speed, but they change your perception of its speed at a critical time — while you are waiting.

Windows XP has a “Performance Options” menu that includes 16 different checkboxes for settings that affect how fast Windows itself displays items on the screen — regardless of which video card you use. You can access this menu via Start / Control Panel / Performance and Maintenance.

Filed Under: Operating System, Optimize, Speed Tweaks, Windows XP

Microsoft Windows XP Wireless Security Patch Available – NOT Automatic

December 15, 2006 By Terry Stockdale

InformationWeek pointed out today that Microsoft has posted a Windows XP SP2 wireless security patch to the Microsoft website, but hasn’t made it available via Windows Updates yet. That means that if you’ve done your Windows Updates for December (released Tuesday December 12th), you still don’t have the patch.

The patch is designed to make the Windows XP wireless connection process less vulnerable to attack when you are booting or resuming from hibernation. In particular, it’s designed to help prevent Windows XP from “advertising” which networks to which it wants to connect (which would make an attacker’s attempt easier).
This is especially important when you’re at a public access point like a coffee shop or other public hotspot.

It also “enhances” the Windows XP support for WPA2 encryption (which is only valuable if your network card supports WPA2 encryption).

If you can pass the Genuine Windows test, you can download the patch at Microsoft’s site.

Filed Under: Communications, Patches, Security, Wireless

CounterSpy, iHateSpam and Sunbelt Kerio Personal Firewall coupons

December 10, 2006 By Terry Stockdale

Sunbelt has an unadvertised coupon sale that runs until 12 midnight, Eastern Standard Time, December 31, 2006:

* Get $5 off a CounterSpy license with coupon code CSC5TY.

* Get $5 off a Sunbelt Kerio Personal firewall license with coupon code SPF5TY.

* Get $5 off a license for Sunbelt’s award-winning anti-spam program iHateSpam with coupon code IHS5TY. iHateSpam is for Outlook and Outlook Express only.

Sunbelt also has great discounts on multiple license purchases (of the same program). For example, 2 CounterSpy licenses are $29.92 instead of 2 times $19.95. Plus, you can use the discount code to get another $5 off your purchase.

Be sure to purchase by December 31, 2006 to get the coupon discount. Coupons have no cash value and are good only at the time of purchase. You can only use the coupon on one license per transaction and only one coupon per transaction.

Filed Under: Anti-adware, Anti-spam, Anti-spyware, Firewall, Windows XP

WinXP Slow Shutdown Problem — Solved!

November 27, 2006 By Terry Stockdale

Several months ago, I solved a Windows XP slow shutdown problem that had been plagueing me for about three months on my notebook.

Since I normally let the notebook run overnight or close it to let it hibernate, I wasn’t able to identify when the problem happened, so I wasn’t able to identify the change that occurred.

Read more in my article WinXP Slow Shutdown Problem — Solved!
at Terry’s Computer Tips.

Filed Under: Driver Corruption, Operating System, Registry repair, Speed Tweaks, Windows XP

Bookmark Converter – the Review

November 16, 2006 By Terry Stockdale

When you use several web browsers, whether just two such as Firefox and Internet Explorer or more, one thing you might want to do is to copy your favorites (your bookmarks) from one browser to another.

Bookmark Converter, from Magnus Brading, is a nice shareware/trialware program that will allow you to manually convert bookmarks in any direction between Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Mozilla, Netwcape v1-v4 and Netscape v5-v7.

Filed Under: Firefox, IE, Opera, Web browsing

IE7 vs Firefox 2

November 11, 2006 By Terry Stockdale

Windows Fanatics, a blog at lockergnome.com, has a very interesting article IE7 Vs. Firefox 2.0

The conclusion — install both of them and use them interchangeably. If a web site doesn’t work on one, use the other.

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But, he also had an alternative conclusion — don’t install either one — wait for a couple weeks for patches.

Personally, I don’t agree with the alternative conclusion. IE7 has huge security fixes to the ActiveX gaping security hole. If you keep using IE6 when you could change to IE7, you’re making a mistake.

Firefox 2 is much more of an incremental upgrade — but Firefox has seen a lot of new versions in the last 2 years. This is the first real IE upgrade in 5 years!

Filed Under: Communications, Firefox, IE, Security, Web browsing, Windows XP

Why I Love Firefox

November 10, 2006 By Terry Stockdale

Nice little blog entry by a Firefox “newbie” who switched from IE to Firefox for security reasons — after problems with I.E.

Why I Love Firefox — You know, I use Firefox, too. For pretty much the same reasons, too, but Ive been using it since version 0.7.

Filed Under: Anti-adware, Anti-virus, Security, Web browsing

Top 20 Tips for Keeping Windows XP Fresh

November 7, 2006 By Terry Stockdale

PC World has an interesting article Top 20 Tips for Keeping Windows XP Fresh.

While I don’t plan to implement all the suggestions, such as the registry tweak to prevent XP from using the hard drive as virtual memory unless it absolutely needs to, they make an interesting — if long — article.

The article is broken into bitesize chunks (apparently for more ad displays).

Filed Under: Memory Issues, Microsoft Updates, Operating System, Registry repair, Windows Updates, Windows XP

IE7: Now on Automatic Downloads

November 2, 2006 By Terry Stockdale

Looks like I was right the first time around — my IE7 showed up on my IE6 desktop this morning as an automatic upgrade “notification.”

I’m keeping that computer on IE6, so I’ll have to wait until it actually shows up in Microsoft Updates so I can tell it not to send it to me any more.

Read why in IE7: Now on Automatic Downloads on my PCRepairSite.info.

Filed Under: Microsoft Updates, Operating System, Web browsing, Windows Updates

IE 7 Automatic Update – Not Yet

November 1, 2006 By Terry Stockdale

Yesterday, I mentioned a blog entry that said IE7 was already pushing out as automatic updates.

I don’t think he was right — I think he had downloaded IE7 and started the install, then left and forgot about it. He did mention “…when I came back…”

But, the rest of that article is very pertinent, regardless of when you install IE7.

My desktop still has IE6 on it. I decided I needed to keep one copy of IE6 on it (but IE7 on all my other computers).

Anyway, I even tried Microsoft Updates and IE7 is not showing up there yet.

Why? I design web sites, so I need a copy of the ubiquitous IE6 to test designs, just as I look at them in Firefox (my normal web browser), Opera, and IE7.

Filed Under: Communications, IE, Web browsing, Windows Updates