Question: A question I get a lot is, "My computer starts slowly. How can I make it start up faster?"
Answer: This is a good question. There are some things to look at, but first we have to understand a little bit about how your computer starts up. Your computer's startup sequence has basically three stages. The first stage begins when you push the power button. The second stage begins when you see the Windows logo. The third stage begins when you log into Windows and your desktop begins to come up. The first stage is usually pretty quick. If the second stage is slow, try a defrag & optimize using the Auslogics defragmenter. If the third stage is slow, and you have a brand-name computer, consider uninstalling some of the Value-Added software put on by the manufacturer, like Google desktop for instance. Disable online backup utilities unless you are actually using that service; and take a look in the show notes for this week where we'll have a link to an article from Lifehacker Australia called "The Complete Guide To Speeding Up Your PC's Startup". In that article is a link to a program you can download that will let you delay the startup of some programs so that you can use the hotkeys on the keyboard, or really use Google desktop, or whatever, and still get to work faster.
Cool Site: Spendful: Well, maybe the guys in Washington need this week's site. This week's site, Spendful, helps you get a handle on where your money comes from and goes. This of course, is great information to have when you're creating a budget, and that's just what Spendful, located at www.spendful.com is for. When you first visit the website, you're prompted to enter your email address and a desired password. This sets you up an account and then you are asked to give your budget a name and starting balance. This could be your checking account balance maybe? Then you get to the next page and you can put in estimates for various income and expense items. Ideally, you'd do this at the beginning of the month. As the month progresses, the site lets you record the actual amounts of these items on the dates you did them, and it shows you how you're doing with a Profit/Loss summary on the left side of the screen. You can change any of the numbers on the screen by simply clicking the old number, typing the new number, and then press the enter key to save the value. Click the "X" at the left of any item to delete it. You can use this as a tool with your kids and their allowance, or you can use this to begin putting together a budget for yourself. There's a little gear at the bottom of the profit/loss area labeled "budget options" and when you point at it you can copy this month’s info forward to next month, or download this month's information as a CSV file, or clear the month's entries. The real challenge here is just like any other financial application: do or will you enter the data every day as it happens? If not, it really won't work for you, but it really can help.
Cool Gadget: Victorinox Slim Flash Premium Performance USB Flash Drive: This week's gadget is a flash drive, which isn't all that cool in and of itself, but this one is made by Victorinox, the Swiss Army Knife guys. As a teen, I had a genuine Swiss Army Knife that was sharp enough to shave with, and so I have a real soft spot for Victorinox. Their "Slim Flash Premium Performance" flash drive comes in sizes ranging from 4-64GB and prices starting at $39.99. You have a choice of five colors, but red isn't one of them, and the drive has the appearance of a Swiss Army Knife. The USB port pulls out like a pocket knife blade so you can plug it in. If you have Windows 7 or Vista, you can use the included software to encrypt all data on the drive, which really helps offset the cost of the device. It can be used without the encryption feature on all versions of Windows that support flash drives. The really great thing about the encryption feature is that when you use it, your data is password-protected so that you can put sensitive data on the drive without having to worry about it falling into the proverbial wrong hands if you should happen to lose it. But the software provides more than just encryption. It also features an automatic backup function, a bookmarks and favorites manager, a password manager, and synchronization both of documents and folders as well as Outlook and Outlook Express files.
It's All "Geek" To Me: Socket: This week's term is socket. This doesn't refer to the socket you plug your computer into, nor does it refer to a kind of wrench, but rather a software component that represents a connection between two computers. Programs can open sockets between your computer and programs on other computers, like how Internet Explorer opens a socket between your computer and www.techtipfriday.com, for instance, when you want to check the show notes. Another term you may have heard is winsock, which is short for Windows Sockets.
