Speed up Farm Ville - Series 3

 

This is the third and final chapter in the Farm Ville Speed Up Series. Here we will talk about your computers optimization Itself.

For people who missed out on the previous chapters, Following are the links for the same.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

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Outlook 2007: Scheduling a meeting request

A meeting is an appointment to which you invite people in outlook. 

You can create and send meeting requests for face-to-face meetings or for online meetings. When you create a meeting, you identify the people to invite and you pick a meeting time. Responses to your meeting request appear in your Inbox. You can also add people to an existing meeting or reschedule a meeting.

 

How to schedule a meeting in Outlook 2007

1. On the File menu, point to New, and then click Meeting Request.

          Keyboard shortcut: To create a new meeting request, press CTRL+SHIFT+Q.

2. In the Subject box, type a description.

3. In the Location box, type a description or click Rooms to choose from rooms available for automatic scheduling by using Microsoft Exchange.

4. In the Start time and End time lists, select the start and end time for the meeting. If this is an all day event, select the All day event  check box. An all day event is a full 24 hour event lasting from midnight to midnight.  
   Note:  By default, the current time zone setting on your computer system is used to schedule meetings. If you want to schedule meetings based upon an alternate time zone, on the Meeting tab, in the Options group, click Time Zones.

5. Type any information that you want to share with the recipients, attach any files, or create a Meeting Workspace.
6.  
7. On the Meeting tab, in the Show group, click Scheduling Assistant. The Scheduling Assistant helps to find the best time for your meeting.

7. Click Add Others, and then click Add from Address Book.

8. In the Select Attendees and Resources dialog box, in the Search box, enter the name of a person or resource that you want to invite to the meeting. If you are searching with the More Columns option, then click Go.

9. Select the name from the results list, and click Required, Optional, or Resources, and then clicks OK. Required and Optional attendees appear in the To box on the Meeting tab, and Resources appear in the Location box.
    
   The free/busy grid shows the availability of attendees. A green vertical line represents the start of the meeting. A red vertical line represents the end of the meeting.

 

The Suggested Times pane locates the best time for your meeting, which is defined as the time when most attendees are available. The best meeting time appears at the top of the pane. To select any of the suggested times, click the time suggestion in the Suggested Times pane. You can also manually pick a time on the free/busy grid.

10. If you want to make the meeting recur, on the Meeting tab, in the Options group, click Recurrence, select the recurrence pattern, and then click OK. When you add a recurrence pattern to a meeting request, the Meeting tab changes to Recurring Meeting.

11. On the Meeting tab, in the Show group, click Appointment.

12. Click Send.

You can follow same steps on Windows 7 and Windows XP

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Clean Up Disk Errors in Windows 7

Run once a week

Whenever a program crashes or you experience some power outage, your computer may create errors on its hard disk. Over time, the errors can slow your computer. Luckily, the Windows operating system includes a Disk Check program to check and clean any errors on your computer and to help keep it running smoothly.

For Windows  7 User's:

1. Click the Start button, and then click Computer.

2. Right-click the hard disk drive that you want to check, and then click Properties.


3. Click the Tools tab, and then, under Error-checking, click Check now.

To automatically repair problems with files and folders that the scan detects, select Automatically fix file system errors. Otherwise, the disk check will simply report problems but not fix them.

To perform a thorough disk check, select Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors. This scan attempts to find and repair physical errors on the hard disk itself, and it can take much longer to complete.

To check for both file errors and physical errors, select both Automatically fix file system errors and Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors.

4. Click Start.

Depending upon the size of your hard disk, this may take several minutes. For best results, don't use your computer for any other tasks while it's checking for errors.

Note: If you select Automatically fix file system errors for a disk that is in use, you'll be prompted to reschedule the disk check for the next time you restart your computer.

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Ready Boost in Windows 7 to speed up performance

Windows ReadyBoost allows you to add a non-volatile USB 2.0 flash memory drive to improve memory performance on systems that have less than 1GB of memory. This is is a great feature to use if you have a computer in which a RAM upgrade is difficult or not feasible.

Windows 7 ReadyBoost is very easy to use. Once you connect a USB flash drive to your computer, Windows 7 checks to see if the performance is fast enough to work with Windows ReadyBoost. If so, you are asked if you would like to use the connected drive to speed up the performance of the Windows 7 system. You can also choose to use the complete space on the Universal Serial Bus (USB) drive or just a part of it. 

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How to back up your files to an external hard disk drive

To back up your files to an external hard disk drive:

We often have a question about how often the data should be backed up.
 
Generally, people who use their computers occasionally (5 hours/week or less) should be backing up their data on at least a weekly basis. If you use your computer more frequently however, (more than 10 hours/week), doing it daily is probably a good idea. Another variable is the type of data you store on your computer. If you continuously work on important data, then it becomes more important to do that on a more frequent basis.


There are a couple of options available to backup the data. We can backup data to external devices and media, or on to a separate partition (provided you have a lot of space to spare), or can also use on-line backup options provided by couple of vendors. For doing this, there are 3rd party softwares available but Windows also has it's own internal utility.


The below steps show you  the steps of backing up data to an external hard drive in Windows XP using the Windows Utility.


1. Click Start--> Select Accessories--> Select System Tools--> and then click Backup.

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Mozilla Firefox Tweaks for Faster Browsing

Mozilla Firefox Tweaks for Faster Browsing

We spend more time online than anywhere else, In order make browsing better we have choosen different browsers. Mozilla Firefox is widely used and its in second placed when you compare with all top browsers. Its a favorite browser for developers because of its features.


  In order to customize for our optimum usage there are few tips and tricks which you can perform on Mozilla Firefox.
The first step is to type (about:config ) in the address bar and hit enter. Check th epicture below

 Now it will list all the settings which you can modify

Some Tweaks to Customize your Firefox

1. To enable/disable Single Click Select URL of address bar
browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll = True
browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll = False

2. To auto Complete URL while typing in the address Bar
browser.urlbar.autoFill=True

3. To set the number of auto complete URL in the address bar
browser.urlbar.maxRichResults = #
(# indicates the number of auto complete URLs shown. The default is 12)

4. To disabler Browser Toolbar Tip
browser.chrome.toolbar_tips = False

5. To paste copied content by clicking the center button on the mouse
middlemouse.paste = True

6. To disable blinking text
browser.blink_allowed = False

7. To create a single close button to for all Firefox Opened Tabs.
browser.tabs.closeButtons = 3

8. To increase number of recently closed tabs.
browser.sessionstore.max_tabs_undo=15

9. Right click view source in your editor
view_source.editor.external=True
view_source.editor.path= Path of Editor

10. To enable fast scrolling across tabs
toolkit.scrollbox.scrollIncrement =75

11. To stop displaying website icon in address bar and on the tabs
browser.chrome.site_icons = False

12. To enable spell check in text fields
layout.spellcheckDefault = 2

13. To speed up the browser
network.http.max-connections 30 to 96
network.http.max-connections-per-server 15 to 32
network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server 6 to 8
network.http.pipelining false to true
network.http.proxy.pipelining false to true
network.http.pipelining.maxrequests 30 to 8
network.http.pipelining.ssl false to true
network.http.proxy.pipelining false to true

14. To disable annoying browser behavior
Change the followowing values to ‘false’
dom.disable_window_open_feature.titlebar
dom.disable_window_open_feature.menubar
dom.disable_window_move_resize
dom.disable_window_open_feature.toolbar

15. To show more tabs on single window
browser.tabs.tabMinWidth = 75

16. To display search results in new tab
browser.search.openintab=True

Feel free to ask any question in case of any doubt.

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Dangerous Celebrities in Cyberspace!!

Dangerous Celebrities in Cyberspace!!


The second quarter of 2010 has been found to report more malwares than ever earlier.

This year, the search results for celebrities are safer than they've been in previous years, but there are still dangers when searching online. "Through consumer education and tools, consumers are getting smarter about searching online, yet cybercriminals are getting sneakier in their techniques. Now they're hiding malicious content in 'tiny' places like shortened URLs that can spread virally in social networking sites and Twitter, instead of on websites and downloads.

Cameron Diaz has been named the most dangerous celebrity on the web for 2010 by a top security firm. Last year, Jessica Biel had topped the list.

Research by the security firm, which has been acquired by Intel, revealed that web users searching for images, screen savers and videos of the 'Knight and Day' actress have a one in ten chance of being presented with results that lead to malicious web pages.

According to the research, cybercriminals often use the names of popular celebrities to trick web users into visiting sites infected with malicious software. Those navigating to the site could find the malware installed on their computers.

Pretty Woman star Julia Roberts was named the second most dangerous celebrity on the web, while Justin Timberlake's current girlfriend, Jessica Biel, took third place.

Also said that while movie stars and models top the 'most dangerous' list this year politicians including US President Barack Obama and Sarah Palin are among the safest celebrities to search for on the net.

The top 10 celebrities from this year’s study with the highest percentages of risk are:

1. Cameron Diaz – Searching for Diaz results in a one in ten chance of landing on a risky site. She has most recently been in the spotlight with blockbuster movies, "Knight and Day" and "Shrek Forever After." When "Cameron Diaz and screensavers" was searched, 19% of the sites were identified as containing malicious downloads.

2. Julia Roberts – Academy Award-winning actress Julia Roberts is one of America's sweethearts, and will soon be in the spotlight with her upcoming release of "Eat, Pray, Love." The overall risk of searching for Roberts is nine percent, yet searching for "Julia Roberts and downloads" results in a 20% chance of downloading a photo, wallpaper or other file laden with malware.

3. Jessica Biel – Last year's Most Dangerous Celebrity fell two spots with searches resulting in fewer risky sites this year. Biel continues to be in the spotlight with her on-again, off-again relationship with Justin Timberlake, and appeared in "The A-Team" in June 2010. While her overall search risk is 9%, searching for "Jessica Biel and screensavers" results in a 17% chance of landing on a risky site.

4. Gisele Bündchen – The world's highest-paid supermodel moved up two spots since last year. Searching for "Gisele Bündchen and screensavers" can prove risky, 15% of the search results for this beauty can put spyware, malware or viruses on your computer.

5. Brad Pitt – Pitt is often in the spotlight with news of his movies and his personal life. It's no wonder why this leading man has been in the top ten for the past three years. He moved up in rank five spots this year. Downloading photos, screensavers, or other files of Brad can potentially put adware or spyware in your computer. Historically, he's been one of the most dangerous celebrities to appear in search results.

6. Adriana Lima – Searching for downloads of this Brazilian beauty can direct users to red-ranked sites. Lima is best known for being a Victoria's Secret Angel since 2000.

7. Jennifer Love Hewitt, Nicole Kidman – Searching for these Hollywood starlets resulted in an equal number of risky download websites.

8. Tom Cruise – With recent buzz around his MTV Awards performance as well as his movie, "Knight and Day," Cruise rises to the top ten.

9. Heidi Klum, Penelope Cruz – Both of these ladies are consistently in the spotlight, and share the #9 spot. Cybercriminals use their names to lure people to risky sites. Klum hosts "Project Runway" and Cruz has been in the spotlight recently for her role in the "Sex and the City 2" movie and is expected to be in the fourth film of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" series.

10. Anna Paquin – This "True Blood" star is as dangerous on the web as she is on the screen. Searching for screensavers of Paquin can lead you to downloads filled with malware.

Cybercriminals follow the same hot topics as consumers, and create traps based on the latest trends. Whether you’re surfing the Web from your computer or your phone or clicking on links in Twitter about your favorite celeb, you should surf safely, and make sure you’re using the latest security software.

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Reduce Recycle Bin Maximum Size

As Recycle Bin sits on your hard drive, it occupies some space. As the data we delete is something which is not required, hence why would one want to allocate more size to the Recycle Bin.
This is set fairly high by default, around more than 10% of your C Drive which will affect your speed if your available disk space is less. So you can try to set that to 3%, there's really no need to set it higher than that.

1. To do this right click your recycle bin and then click on properties.

2. Now under the tab Global in the Recycle Bin properties window, move the slider and click apply.

We should always try to see where and how we can save space on our root drive or C drive. This helps in better system performance.

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