Archive for the 'Windows' Category

Hibernation is a feature of Windows operating system. When you hibernate computer, content of RAM is saved to hard disk before power off. When you turn on your computer next time, system will be restored to the state before powering off. This means that all programs will continue executing as nothing happened. Restoring from hibernation i usually faster than normal boot. Hibernation feature takes the same amount of space on hard drive as you have RAM installed.

Follow these steps to enable hibernation:

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To simplify printing you might need to change your default printer. You can change default printer to any printer you have connected to your computer, or to network printer, or to virtual printer (such as pdf or bitmap printer).

Follow these steps:

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Firewall protects your computer from intrusion by filtering incoming and outgoing traffic. It can be implemented as software or hardware. A hardware firewall is usually a box sitting next to your physical network connection (like DSL or cable modem) and local network computers are connected to it directly or though router or switch.

Internet Connection Firewall (ICF) that is built into Windows is software firewall. This means that it is a software application that runs on your computer and filters network traffic. First you need to enable it and set it up.

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Windows operating system is using part of your hard drive as a virtual memory. When Windows runs out of physical memory it starts to swap out data to virtual memory, which is a file on hard disk (pagefile.sys). Hard disk is much slower than physical memory, so when Windows start using virtual memory everything slows down. Remember those moments when Windows stops responding and hard disk light is always on…

One solution is to add more physical memory; other is to optimize virtual memory.

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“Show desktop” icon is used for quick desktop access. But sometimes it just disappears or it gets accidentally deleted.

Question is: How do I restore “Show Desktop” icon?

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Today’s digital cameras produce large images, on average 5-6 megapixels or 2-3 megabytes (MB) in size. These images are too big for sending by email or for publishing on web. If you are sending photos for example of your family to your relatives you should shrink those images to 1 megapixel or less (size up to 1024×768 pixels and file size around 100 KB). That is the appropriate size for email. You would not want to receive 10-20 MB of large photos in your mailbox, especially if you are not on broadband.

There is a simple free utility from Microsoft that will help you shrink digital photos with few mouse clicks.

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You can burn CDs without buying expensive software. Windows XP has basic CD burning support. Everything you need is Windows Explorer. You can drag and drop files on CD/DVD burner’s icon; you can create folders and delete files. When you finish, you just click “Write these files to CD”. But first you need to enable Windows XP built-in burning support.

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If you are using an old application with old look, you might want to change it’s appearance, and make it look like Windows XP applications. You might try to change Display properties -> Appearance but it will not work on all applications.

This tweak will refresh most of the old applications.

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At some time you will find yourself with very little space available on your hard disk. Simplest thing to do is to empty your Recycle Bin. This will remove some of unwanted files. But there is much more clutter around your hard disk, like temporary Internet files, downloaded program files, office setup files, setup log files, temporary files, offline files, compressed old files….

Remove all that clutter with Disk Cleanup Tool (included with Windows XP)
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Temporary Internet files or cache is folder with copies of all web pages you visited, including images, sounds and cookies. Cache makes Internet browsing faster because browser can display files from cache instead of downloading them. If cache grows to big, it can have negative affect on browsing speed and can make IE act sluggish. If you are concerned about your privacy you should delete cookies, history, auto complete and passwords from time to time.

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If you have lots of programs open at the same time you will like this tool. Standard Alt-Tab window shows only application icon. When you have multiple windows of the same application open, it can be hard to find correct one. Microsoft PowerToy Task Switch can replace standard Alt-Tab view with one that not only shows application icon, but also preview (screenshot) of an application window.

Here is how you install this great tool.

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