Top 9 Ways to Speed Up Your Computer

What You Can Do to Make a Windows PC Faster?

 

Over time, the speed of computers with Microsoft Windows can decrease. This appears as the system taking more time to respond to a user’s actions like opening files, folders, surfing the Internet and other tasks. However, there are things you can do to speed up your computer.

The following is a list of ways you can improve your computer's performance. These steps are intended to be used in order. The key is to do the simplest and least invasive thing first until your system starts responding better.

 

Golden Rule: Do No Harm

 

If you want to improve the speed of your computer, that’s great. However, above all, do no harm and beyond the scope of this Windows forum, ask for help from those you know if you get in over your head. Remember: you have time. You can stop most processes I discuss without causing harm. Caution and common sense go a long way when working with computers; problems are often much easier to fix than they appear.

 

Steps to Speed Up Your Computer’s Performance

 

1. Make Sure Your Hardware is Sufficient 

 

Above and beyond everything you can do with software to optimize the function of your computer, making sure you have the proper hardware to support Windows is critical.

 

2. Clean Your Desktop 

 

Is your Windows Desktop dotted with files? Have you noticed that your computer has been running slower and slower? Do you see the hard drive light often flashing while you wait for the computer to respond to an action? There are steps you can take to fix it. Read this article.

 

3. Scan Your Windows System for Errors 

 

An operating system is a collection of files that perform different functions. It is possible, over time, that one or more of these system files has changed or become corrupted. If this happens, the speed of your system may decrease. By using a utility called “System File Checking”, it will inspect these files and correct any problem it finds. 

 

4. Scan for Viruses, Spyware and Adware 

 

Every Windows computer is vulnerable to viruses. Viruses are nasty little programs that cause both major and minor problems for users.

Spyware and Adware are programs created by companies to find out more information about customers, so they can better market products to them. Usually these programs are not created for malicious purposes. Spyware and Adware can load into computer memory and slow it down.

 

Periodically scanning and removal of Viruses, Spyware and Adware is a great way to improve computer performance.

 

5. Uninstall Unused Programs 

 

Over time, you may have accumulated programs on your computer that you do not use. When a program is installed, it creates connections between the program and the operating system. Even if you don’t use these programs, they can slow down your system. If you have the original program’s installation disk or file, removing programs will free up space on your computer and may speed up your system's performance.

 

6. Adjust Visual Effects for Better Performance 

 

Windows provides a number of interesting visual effects including animated windows and fading menus. If you do not have enough operating memory (see above number 1), these effects can slow down your computer. Adjusting or reducing visual effects can make a difference.

To speed up Vista computers in particular you can disable features and function that are not used.

 

7. Don’t Automatically Start Programs 

 

Programs use operating memory (RAM, also called system resources). Unless you always use these programs, you can keep them from loading at Windows startup and speed both the booting of your computer and its performance.

 

8. Defragment Your Hard Drive (After you have tried everything else)

 

The more information and programs you have on your computer, the more it is likely that Windows has placed parts of the same file in different locations on your hard drive. It may do this for hundreds of files and programs, depending on how much space is available. Defragmenting the hard drive places all information for each file in one place. The result can be a faster computer experience. 

 

Important Note: Before you even try this, backup all your work onto a different computer, hard drive, CD or disk. Also, you should only do this if you have a reliable source of power for your computer. Doing this when there is a brown out or power problem in the neighborhood, is not a good idea. If a computer turns off while it is defragmenting a drive, it will create more problems than not defragmenting it in the first place.

 

9. Reinstall the Operating System and Programs 

 

If you have done all the above steps and your computer does not become more responsive, you might consider reinstalling the operating system and programs. This is a scorched earth option - basically you backup all your data and user settings, wipe your hard drive clean and re-install the operating system with your original disks. Next, install all your favorite programs and restore all your data and user settings.

 

The nice thing about doing this is that you essentially have a new computer, free of years worth of software and registry changes, additions and errors that can turn a fast rabbit of a Windows computer into a slow turtle. The bad thing about this choice is that it takes time and planning to do it correctly. If your PC is 3 to 4 years old and continues to run slower than it did when you purchased it, this might be the only action that will make a significant difference.

 

Source : www.about.com

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Google Music vs. Amazon vs. Apple's iCloud vs. Spotify vs. Rdio vs. ...

Are you ready to join the cloud music age? Take a look at the top competitors

Network World - The cloud music age is upon us. After years of loading MP3s onto iPods and portable hard drives, there are now several options for streaming that same music to any device with an Internet connection, while gaining access to many more songs we don't already own.

Streaming services like Pandora, Rdio and GrooveShark already existed, of course, but now we have or soon will have Spotify, Google Music, Amazon's Cloud Drive and Apple's iCloud and iTunes Match.

As someone with a 60GB, 12,000-song collection, moving all my music to a cloud service would be difficult, and Internet access isn't widespread enough yet that I'd want to give up offline access. But a more portable music collection is appealing to me, and I therefore have been testing the Spotify, Google, Rdio and Amazon services to determine the best method of making my entire music collection available on any Internet-connected device while giving me access to new songs. iTunes Match isn't yet available, but we know enough about it to draw some conclusions.

In this review I will describe the process I used to upload my music collection to each of these services, and will conclude by spelling out the pros and cons of each one. I won't declare a single winner, because each accomplishes different tasks and I believe each one will satisfy different types of users. Your own listening and purchasing habits as well as the type of mobile device you own will help determine which music service is for you.

For those who prefer to skip the rest of the article, I'll say Google Music and Amazon Cloud Drive are the best services today for uploading all your music to the Web, with the caveat that Google's is available only in beta and Apple's iTunes Match could be better than both when it is released this fall. The Google and Amazon services are excellent for people who own Android devices, but users of iPhones and iPads will want to wait for iTunes Match. For purchasing new music that can be available online or offline, Amazon and iTunes will probably be the winners, but for access to large quantities of streaming music at a flat, monthly rate Spotify and its competitor Rdio get the nod.

In my mind, the ideal online music service will stream your entire collection to any Internet-connected device, provide access to new music and offer easy-to-use applications across PCs, smartphones and tablets. By that measure, the best service available today is Amazon Cloud Drive - but only for people who own Android phones, because Amazon doesn't have an iPhone app. Because no one service does everything perfectly, some users may want to use one to store all their existing music and another to access new songs.

The upload process

Google's Music service is still in beta, but as an attendee of the Google I/O conference in May I gained access. Users can hand out a few invitations, so if you know someone in the beta, be nice to them. Amazon Cloud Drive is available to all, and Amazon is, at least for now, offering unlimited music storage to anyone who purchases a subscription. Plans start at $20, but I was able to get a year's worth of unlimited storage by purchasing a Lady Gaga album for one dollar (no, I am not proud of that purchase).

Uploading to the Google Music beta and Amazon Cloud Drive is relatively easy, but incredibly time-consuming. Both Google and Amazon provide small applications that scan your iTunes library or local folders and let you choose which files to upload. Both were capable of uploading my entire music library, with the exception of a few dozen songs I purchased on iTunes before the iTunes store went DRM-free in 2009. The vast majority of my music collection is from CDs I either bought or borrowed, and songs that originated on CDs uploaded just fine.

The Google upload process stalled once or twice a day, and it always seemed to happen in the middle of the night, so I lost a lot of uploading time. It also stalled shortly after I left on a three-day trip, so a process that should have taken a few days ended up taking a week.

The Amazon tool was a lot more stable and had uploaded nearly 12,000 songs before it stalled even once, and the whole process took about three and a half days. I did the whole upload process on Amazon via Wi-Fi and the Google upload was split between Wi-Fi and a wired Ethernet connection.

With Spotify, there is no obvious way to import your music, but you can import iTunes playlists and Spotify will automatically compare the songs in that playlist to the songs on Spotify's servers and stream the ones that match. By creating an iTunes playlist of my entire 12,000-song collection, I was able to import everything into Spotify very quickly. Since you're not actually uploading any songs, the process takes just a few minutes. Unfortunately, you are limited by what music Spotify has in its own collection. Spotify claimed to match about 6,000 songs, but many are listed despite not actually being available for streaming, bringing the total number down to perhaps 5,000.

Spotify's rival, Rdio, has a much easier process for importing iTunes songs, and a better interface on mobile devices, but has a smaller catalog of music that matched only about 4,000 of my 12,000 songs. iTunes Match, when it becomes available, will be able to stream your whole collection by matching songs already on Apple's servers and letting you upload songs that Apple doesn't have. That's an option not offered by Spotify and Rdio.  

The pros and cons of each music service

Amazon Cloud Drive

Pros: As I said earlier, Cloud Drive comes the closest to offering an ideal music service, with the caveat that it's only ideal for someone with an Android phone. Amazon stores all your music for streaming and lets you buy new music for download, and offers an excellent app for Android, which lets you play music from the application or install a home screen widget to play and pause music, and skip to the next song.

Cons: DRM-protected songs I purchased from iTunes could not be be uploaded, and Amazon hasn't gotten any apps approved for the iOS App Store. Amazon did optimize its website for the iPad with great results, but it is basically unusable on the iPhone. Testing Cloud Drive on an Android tablet (a brand new Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1) I got some delays while searching my collection for specific songs.

Google Music

Pros: Allows upload of your entire collection (minus DRM-protected songs) and can stream to any device with a Web browser. Naturally, Google offers Music apps for Android devices, and the service is free while it's in beta.

Cons: The service is not available to everyone because it is still in beta, and buggy. Album cover art is often applied to the wrong album, and the upload tool stalled frequently in my usage. Google offers access to a small selection of free songs, but you can't purchase new music. There is no iPhone app, and while the website works on the iPad it's not optimized for the device the way Amazon's Cloud Player is. Just like with the Amazon service, I got the same delays while searching my music on an Android tablet.

Spotify

Pros: With 15 million songs, Spotify is one of the best subscription services for discovering new music. If you purchase a lot of music from iTunes, paying a flat fee of $10 per month to gain unlimited access to music could be a good alternative, as long as you understand that once you stop paying, you lose access to the music. On mobile devices, Spotify gives you a shuffle option that works across your whole collection.

Cons: A funny thing happened while I was using Spotify: I discovered its competitor, Rdio, and ended up liking Rdio better. The problems with Spotify are that it requires a workaround to import your iTunes collection, and the app for the iPhone lacks any way to organize music by artist and album. Perhaps even worse, there is no iPad app so to use Spotify, so on the iPad you use a blown-up version of the iPhone app, which looks terrible. In my usage, the iPhone app stalled frequently on both devices.

Rdio

Pros: Costs the same as Spotify and provides a much better mobile experience. The iPhone app sorts your music by album and artist, an obvious feature but one that Spotify doesn't offer. The app is also better than Spotify's for discovering new music from the artist you're listening to and artists similar to the one you're listening to. The ability to import your entire library from iTunes is easy to identify and use, and it has an app specifically designed for the larger screen of the iPad. The Rdio apps didn't stall on me like Spotify's does.

Cons: Rdio has a smaller music library than Spotify and the mobile apps, for all the good features they offer, lack the ability to shuffle through your entire collection. You could develop an amazing mobile experience by combining the best features of Rdio and Spotify into one. Unfortunately, the services each offer an incomplete app, but Rdio's is better.

iTunes Match and iCloud

Pros: For $25 a year, you can store your entire music collection on Apple's servers. Apple has 18 million songs in the iTunes store, and will match any song in your collection without requiring you to upload them. Apple lets you upload songs iTunes doesn't have, so you should be able to store everything you own and stream it to any Apple device or PC. Like Amazon, iTunes Match and the iCloud storage service let you purchase new music that will remain in your collection permanently.

Cons: It's not available yet so we don't know how well it will work in everyday usage, and it's unlikely Apple will release apps for Android devices. Music purchased from iTunes before 2009 may be incompatible with other services because of DRM restrictions. As I mentioned earlier, I was unable to upload older songs I bought from iTunes to the Amazon and Google clouds. Upgrading older iTunes songs to the non-DRM format costs 30 cents per song.

Conclusion

If you want to store all your music online, have a great mobile experience and be able to access new music on a whim, one service may not be enough. Android owners will do well in storing their music with either Amazon Cloud Drive or Google Music, while iPhone owners will probably be better off with iTunes Match.

Amazon and iTunes let you buy new music, but you'll pay every time you buy a song or album. For infrequent buyers that's no problem. For people who want virtually unlimited access to new music, the Spotify or Rdio subscription services are probably a better deal. For myself, I will likely use iTunes Match to store my collection and am considering an Rdio subscription to access new music.

Source : www.computerworld.com

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Make cartoon effect on your photo

Hi guys, do you interested with photoshop? or interested with cartoon?
OK, now i will invite you to learn editing a photo to be cartoon effect. Here, I used Adobe Photoshop CS5. Basicly, to edit the photo to be cartoon effect is same like drawing and painting on the paper.

Now I will give you the tutorial to do it. Here, there are 4 steps, drawing,painting,detailing,and finishing. OK, now , read below :

DRAWING
In this step, you will make the outline of the object in the photo. This step also called sketching.

• Open the photo that you want to edit with adobe Photoshop ( right click - open with -Photoshop ).
• After the Photoshop window has opened, then click new layer ( bottom-right-side ),then then rename “layer 1” with “outline”.
• In the layer “outline” you make the line arround the object in the photo. To make the line, first, click brush tool and choose the type brush “Hard Round Pressure Size” and the size 1px.
• Then click pen tool to make the line. And choose “path” as the pen type. Then make a path line on the round object.
• After make a path, right-click and choose “stroke path”.
• In the stroke path window choose brush and uncheck "simulate pressure" ( check it when make hair line and shadow line ).
• See the figure below.

make a path

• To make the eye, choose “Eliptical Marquee Tool” to selecting the eye, then painting it with black color use brush tool. See the figure below.

make selction

• Make new layer and rename it “background”. Give that layer with white color. Move it to under the outline layer. And the result like figure below.

PAINTING
After the sketch has made, now is time to painting it. The painting will devide 3 parts, painting the base color, shadow color, and brightness color. First, you must paint the base color.

• To painting the sketch, you must make new layer according to the part of the figure ( skin part, hair part, t-shirt part, etc ). See the figure below.

make new layer

• Now we ready to painting, first, paint the skin with the color base ( up to you ). Do it in the “skin base “ layer. And choose the layer type “multiply”. Then painting the sketch use brush tool ( press “[“ or “]” on your keyboard to choose the size of brush simply). Like the figure below.

skin painting

• Doing like that for other part. Like the figure below.

object painting

•  Now, painting the shadow color. Make new layer for every part ( for example, skin shadow, hair shadow, and t-shirt shadow ) and choose “multiply”. The color is same with the base color. To make the color look softer, choose Filter-Blur-Gaussian Blur, and choose the radius ( up to you ). See the figure below.

shadow painting

• Next, painting the brightness color. This step is same with the shadow color. But the layer type use “screen” type. See the figure below.

• Now, painting the lips. The painting use tracing technique. Make new layer ( multiply type ), rename it to “lips”. Unvisible the background layer ( uncheck the “eye” icon of background layer ).  Then check the “eye” icon of picture layer. After that, activate the lips layer, and paint the lips in that lips layer follow the lips figure. Then make new layer ( multiply type ) to paint the brightness of lips.

lips painting

• Then painting the eye. Make new layer ( normal type ). Choose the pupil color ( up to you ). Brush on the eye, just little , then make  it be longer use smuge tool. Finally, give the bright effect on the eye, then the result like  figure below.

eye painting

DETAILING
This third step, you will make detail  of the cartoon effect. Make some line on the hair ( doing it in the outline layer ). The size of line must be thicker than the sketch outline ( use brush size : 3-5 ). Then make the line of eye to be thicker. Then make new layer to paint the eyebrow. The result will look like the figure below.

the detail

FINISHING
This is the last step. In this step, you will add some creation ( up to you ). Here, I give the picture new background. Before do it, you must merge the layer to be one. Please unvisible the original picture layer and background layer, then on the outline layer, right-click then choose merge visible. Now you can add the new backgoround. Don’t forget to paint the white-side of eye with white color. The last result will be look like figure below.

the result

 Good luck...

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How to Do Multitasking on an iPhone or iPod Touch

iOS 4.0 (formerly known as iPhone OS) has a number of changes that enable you to do multitasking with certain features of your apps. The idea is to make your use of apps more intuitive and to allow you to pick up where you last left off, rather than having apps close down on you when you switch to another one. For example, you should be able to answer an SMS or call, keep a chat with a friend going and switch back to a suspended game when you're done. Or, you can click on an internet link in a mail you're reading and instead of closing your mail, it will simply take you to the internet link while leaving your mail open for switching back to once you're finished with the internet.

Apps are now viewed as "running" or "suspended", dependent on how much the memory of the iPhone can hold. While not "true" multitasking (as that would chew up the batteries), the applications are paused while some items such as music and ability to receive calls continue "running in the background".Here is how to do multitasking using the iPhone or iPod Touch.

Step

1. Familiarize yourself with switching between recently used apps quickly, without having to wait for reloading time.

• Double-tap the Home button. This will bring up the multitasking display, showing your "recently used" apps. The Home button works in a similar manner to the taskbar in Windows or the dock in Mac OS X.
• Scroll or flick right (horizontally) if you need to see more apps.
• Tap any app to reopen it. It will open instantly, and be exactly the same as when you left it if the app supports multitasking. This means your last game, search, news item, etc., will still be waiting for you to finish it (it is simply "suspended" or "frozen" until you reawaken it).

2. Close out of an app. If you don't want an app sitting around in its suspended state, you can close it. This is useful if you're concerned that the iPhone might be about to run out of memory and close down apps for you. Simply:

• Double-tap the Home button
• Scroll right across the icons to find the one you want to close
• Press and hold the icon
• Tap the red circle with a dash (the delete symbol). The app will close rather than remaining suspended.

Multitasking to try

1. Listen to audio while you continue to use another app. Audio can continue to stream while you are checking for emails, playing a game, surfing online, etc.
2. Answer your Voice-over-IP (VoIP) calls and keep doing whatever else you need to on other apps. A VoIP app ready for iOS 4 would no longer needs to be left open to receive calls; it can be left running in the background while you do other activities on the iPhone.Take the call, while continuing to use other apps. You can check your email, surf the internet, etc., while you continue to talk.
3. Use GPS with other apps running. Use the GPS app as usual, but leave your other desired apps running. For example, if you want to listen to music, you can leave the music app open at the same time as the GPS app. When the GPS app needs to tell you what to do next, the iPhone 4 will lower the music so that you can hear the GPS directions.
4. Allow uploads or downloads to complete in the background while you continue using other apps. Start the uploading or downloading process and check it's happening fine. Once you're reassured it's working, switch to another app, such as your email or playing a game, while the background task completes.

Tips

• Apps must be compatible with the iPhone for the multitasking to work. This means that the apps must be updated with the proper code. You'll know if your app is configured by whether or not it picks up from where you left off.
• You will be able to receive alerts without having to open the app providing the alerts. This will work for third party apps that provide you with alerts such as news, sports wins, weather, alarms, etc.
• A number of iOS 4 ready apps have already been submitted and approved for use, and the list will continue to grow.
• iOS 4 is not available as an update for the original iPhone or iPod Touch and multitasking is disabled on the iPhone 3G and the second generation iPod Touch due to speed issues.

Warnings

• Not all apps will be permitted to run in the background; this is a precaution to prevent draining of the battery. Music, VoIP and location-tracking devices will continue running while using another app such as listening to Pandora tunes or answering a Skype call. The other apps, however, will be "suspended" mode, easily resurrected using the double-tap on the Home key as outlined above.
• Apps are purged from the suspended state if the iPhone runs out of memory. Keep this in mind if there's something unfinished!
• Note that multitasking is still very new and there is no guarantee that your particular app will be running where you last left off.

Thing You'll need

• iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, or the third or forth generation iPod Touch with iOS 4
• Compatible iOS 4 ready apps

Source : www.wikihow.com

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Adding Download Link using site.google.com

do you want to add an internal download link in your blogspot?
now i will tell you how to add internal download link in your blogspot. basicly, blogspot only serve  insert images and videos, so when we want to insert the other file format, like doc,ppt,xls, etc from our computer, we will get problem. for solving it you can give a link on the certain words to URL file that we uploaded.

you can upload the file to free file uploader site such as 4shared.com, dostoc.com, ziddu.com. but now, i will tell you to upload using site.google.com. these are the steps, check this out :

1. open the google site. choose "more" menu and click site "submenu". let's see the figure below.

Google Site Interface

2. now, you must log in to your Google account, see figure below.

log in interface

3. after you log in, next, you click "create new site" button like the figure below.

create your site

4. next, you must enter your name site and verify the code,then click "create site" button. see below.

write your name site

5. if you success create your site, now you must create a page.

create a page

6. after that, will appear the page like figure below. click "File Cabinet". enter the name ( up to you ) in name box ( i suggest, the name is same with the file name ). then click "create page".

write your name page

7. then appear a page like below. in this page you will upload your file. click "Add file" to upload the file.

add your file

8. on the "Add file" window, click "Browse" to choose the file that will be uploaded. then click upload. see below.

browse your file

9. after the upload proccess done, you will get the window like below. then right click the "download" link and click copy address.

copy the download URL

10. open new tab, and you should open your blog dashboard. and click "new entry", and write the article and you should choose the word to be made a download link. in the figure below i choose "here" word. then block it and click "link" then paste the url. delete some text in that url begin from "?" until the end of url. then click OK.

block the word

delete some word

11. then publish your article, and open your blog. the result will like below

the result

 good luck!!

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