Auslogics Blog

Image by mtellin

Netbooks are great, especially if you are on the move, or you’re a student, or just want to be able to browse the Internet  and be able to do some work from anywhere. And you don’t want to be carrying a big heavy laptop with you. That’s the case with me – I travel a lot and got really tired of dragging my laptop during the day and my shoulder aching in the evening!

Some people say that netbook are only for browsing the web and running lightweight applications. Of course, that’s partly true, but you can always enhance your netbook experience with a little optimization.

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Everyone needs to relax from time to time and meditation is a great way to do it. But why not meditate in a geeky way?

Geek Meditation

Thanks to Nitrozac & Snaggy from The Joy of Tech for the image!

By default your browser history is kept for way too long, which takes up system resources and slows down the browser.  Limiting history size is an excellent way to quickly speed up your browser.

Firefox users:

1. Go to Tools - Options
2. Click on Privacy
3. Then select any number under Keep my history for at least … days. I have it on 7.
4. 
5. Click OK

By the way, if you don’t want to keep any private data at all, simply check Always clear my private data when I close Firefox. To specify what you want cleared, click on the Settings button and check relevant checkboxes.

Internet Explorer 8 users:

1. Go to Tools - Internet Options
2. Under Browsing History click on the Settings button
3. Select a number to keep you browsing history
4. 
5. Before you click OK I would recommend forbidding the browser to check for newer version of stored pages (select Never) and allowing 50MB of disk space to store Temporary Internet Files (the default number is ridiculous).

Enjoy a faster browser!

Pretty much everyone knows how bad it feels if you mess up your computer. But it’s even worse if your PC gets damaged by someone else, like a family member or a friend. They can be careless enough to load it with infected software and mess around with system settings and it was next to impossible for you to prevent it.  Trust me, I know how that feels!

That’s why I was very happy to learn about a fantastic Windows 7 feature that will help you protect your PC -  Guest Mode (not to be confused with Guest Account).

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If you use Windows Vista, you know that it can be really slow on startup and take a lot of time to become responsive after the desktop loads. I’ve always found it really annoying, to put it mildly. Fortunately, it’s possible to speed up Vista startup.

The reason why Vista takes so long to load is that it does a lot in the background – it loads up processes, services, and applications, which is pretty time- and resource-consuming. The more there is to load, the longer it takes.

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So far Windows 7 is full of good surprises. There are two things that I particularly like, which offer new ways to manage and troubleshoot your PC with the help of Action Center and Windows Troubleshooting Platform.

If you need to check your PC status, just go to the new Action Center. You can find it by going to the Control Panel – System and Security – Action Center.

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Windows Vista Sidebar is a useful feature that displays all your gadgets, such as clock, mini notepad, and any other gadgets you have installed. Unfortunately sometimes the sidebar can really annoy you by crashing, playing up, or just being there, because it takes up a lot of RAM. In this post I’m going to explain how to disable, repair, and customise Vista Sidebar.

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Here are some more  tips to optimize Windows 7. They will save you a lot of time and make using Windows 7 even more enjoyable.

Hidden Send To Menu

Personally I love right-clicking because it’s such a great way to get more options quickly. For example, the Send To option when you click on a folder in Windows Explorer can save you a lot of time.

By default the Windows 7 Send To menu contains only a few locations and doesn’t give you that much choice:

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Computers are like pets  – they need care to keep them healthy, responsive, and fast. In this post I’m going to share with you some tips that will help keep your computer in top shape. If you want to improve your computer’s speed and performance – read on.

1. If your computer suddenly becomes really slow and starts acting up, the first thing you need to do is scan it for viruses and spyware, because in most cases they are the culprit. There are great free anti-virus and anti-spyware programs, just go to download.com and do a search. Remember to download only programs that got lots of positive user reviews.

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Since Google Chrome was released in September 2008 a lot of people have started using it. Chrome has a lot to offer, so I’ve decided to post five tips that I would recommend to every new Chrome user.

1. Search From the Address Bar

New Chrome users were bound to notice that Chrome doesn’t have a standard search bar. That’s simply because you can use the address bar (the omnibox) to search the Web. All you have to do is type in the search phrase and hit Enter and Chrome will perform a Google search!

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