Auslogics Blog

We are happy to present you the new Auslogics Disk Defrag 3^beta! We call it “new” because Disk Defrag 3^beta is not just a defragmenter but a fully featured disk optimizer. We’ve supplied it with advanced techniques of disk optimization that only paid analogs have. With Disk Defrag 3^beta you can replace regular data files from the MFT Reserved Zone, consolidate free space and optimize system files placement. Let’s have a closer look at how these optimization techniques may affect your PC performance.

System files smart placement

Commonly used by Windows, system files may be scattered all over the disk and intermixed with data files. Disk Defrag 3^beta arranges system files by defragmenting and moving them to the faster part of the disk.  This minimizes the time needed for HDD to access system files and improves overall computer performance.

Free space consolidation

It is not a secret that a simple defragmentation leaves the free space on the disk highly fragmented. It means that there are many free space «holes» all over the disk. Windows fills in those free spaces with newly created or extended files. The more fragmented the free space is, the more fragmented new files will be.

Disk Defrag 3^beta merges all those free space «holes» into a large contiguous block during optimization process. This allows the file system to create new files without fragmentation. As a result, free space consolidation dramatically reduces further disk fragmentation.

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Working on your computer means that there are several applications and files open, hundreds of processes and services running, not to mention disk activity, RAM and CPU usage, and Internet traffic. It’s very important to be in total control over everything that is going on, especially if you are concerned about computer security.

Of course, you can use the built in Windows Task Manager. However, it displays only a few applications and processes running on your PC. And it doesn’t show Windows services at all, despite the fact that services you never use take up a lot of RAM and can slow down your PC.  Windows Task Manager doesn’t provide any process descriptions, so it can be difficult to understand why those processes are there and what is their functionality.

Auslogics Task Manager is a brand new free Windows Task Manager alternative. It provides comprehensive yet easy to understand information about running applications, processes, and services, as well as disk activity, CPU, RAM and Internet traffic usage.

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Sometimes the Recycle Bin in Windows 7 gets corrupted and becomes pretty much unusable – it just won’t let you empty it. Fortunately, there is a quick and easy fix, which will let you reset the Recycle bin.

First of all you’ll need to make hidden and protected files and folders visible. Here’s how:

1. Click Start and go to Computer
2. Then press Alt on your keyboard to open the Menu
3. Go to Tools - Folder Options - the View tab
4. There you’ll need to find Hidden files and folders and select Show hidden files and folders
5. You will also need to uncheck Hide protected operating system files
6. Click OK to save your settings

Now you are ready to reset the Recycle Bin.

1. Go to Computer and then go to the drive where Windows is installed (usually it’s C:/)
2. Locate $Recycle.Bin and delete it
3. Confirm and click Continue if UAC prompts you so
4. Now you should get a dialog box. There you’ll need to check Do this for all current items checkbox and then click Yes
5. Reboot your PC for the changes to take effect.

The Recycle Bin should be working normally now.

Today we are very happy to inform you that we’ve released a new version of Auslogics BoostSpeed. We’ve made it more efficient, more stable, it now looks better, and has a lot of exciting new features.

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Some time ago I wrote a post describing 5 best ways to backup your files. But today I came  across a file backup and synchronization tool that is really worth mentioning – PureSync Personal. It’s reliable, very easy to use, and free.

Unlike some other similar tools, PureSync mainly focuses on local backups. For example, it’s great if you use an external hard drive to backup your files and you want to back up only files that have changed and not the whole thing. Yes, I know Vista and 7 have their own backup and sync tools, but PureSync is a lot easier to use, saves you lots of time and lets you use one program instead of two. Let’s have a closer look at it!

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Are you an active social media user? Do you have umpteen different online profiles that you want to keep up to date, but that’s just too time consuming? Not to worry! The rise of social networking provoked a fast development of services to manage your social media life. Here is a list of top 5 social network aggregators.

1. Ping.fm – a widely used service that allows you to post from your mobile phone, IMs and email, and third party apps like iGoogle, Facebook, and twhirl. It accepts text and images and soon will even accept videos. Ping.fm supports over 40 social networking sites and more are being added all the time.

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Being an active computer user I create and download files every day. I’m sure you do the same.  But then after some period of time you notice that you don’t have much disk space left – your hard drive gets packed with documents, pictures, music, movies, and other stuff. Some would just go and get a larger hard drive, a second one, or an external one – lots of options there, but they all cost money. Others start frantically deleting various files and in the end delete something important. No good. So, how about a FREE and safe way to increase free disk space?

We at Auslogics came up with a new free program – Auslogics Duplicate File Finder. With the help of this tool you will be able to recover gigabytes of space taken up by unnecessary duplicates.

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Everybody knows that the Registry is a vital Windows component. If it becomes corrupt, you are bound to start getting serious problems with your computer. That’s why it’s so important to keep the Windows Registry healthy and optimized.

1. First of all, make regular backups of the Registry. Just like any other backup it will offer you some comfort, because you will be able to restore the Registry in case something bad happens to it.

2. Keep the Registry clean. You don’t want it to get cluttered with empty keys and missing references, because that can cause problems, such as slow and freezing computer. You can use our free Registry Cleaner to do the job.

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This is just a quick post to acknowledge the fact that at long last Google removed the Beta tag from Gmail, Google Docs, Google Calendar, Gtalk and the rest of the Apps suite.

In software industry, a Beta tag means that the software is still in its testing phase. Usually Beta tags get removed after a couple of months, but Google appears to be really fussy about keeping them for a really long time – 5 years for Gmail, which became a subject for jokes!! Until yesterday, that is. Have a look at the Gmail logo – it’s Beta-less.

By the way, if you feel empty and sad without that Gmail Beta tag, you can re-enable it by going to Settings - Labs and turn on the Back to Beta feature – the tag will be back to lift your spirits.

But seriously, why did Google keep Gmail and other apps in Beta for so long? Apparently, they don’t really know themselves:

“Obviously we haven’t had a consistent set of policies or definitions around beta,” said Matt Glotzbach, a director of product management at Google. Mr. Glotzbach said that different teams at Google had different criteria for what beta meant, and that Google felt a need to standardize those. “It was time to address the issue and bring the products out of beta,” he said (via The New York Times).

I like the way he puts it – if you’re not sure what Beta means, simply pull the product out of Beta. Interesting concept, isn’t it?

Mozilla web browsers (Firefox and Flock) are my absolute favourites, so, like many of you, I’ve been waiting for Firefox 3.5 to come live. Now that we all had a chance to use Firefox 3.5 for some time,  let me share with you which of it’s new and improved features I like best.

1. I know this is not exactly a feature and it doesn’t sound too creative, but for me the number one improvement is speed. Firefox 3.5 uses the TraceMonkey JavaScript engine instead of the SpiderMonkey engine used in Firefox 3. As a result Firefox 3.5 is more than twice as fast as Firefox 3. Take a look at the SunSpider test results (in milliseconds). The test was performed on a Windows XP computer:

An additional improvement is better memory usage – Firefox 3.5 is not as heavy on RAM as the previous version.

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