December 18, 2010

dabbit, dabbit, oh and School

By: dab

So, I’ve been very busy lately with dabbit, dabbit and school.. During winter break. I have applied to MIT, where they require you to take 2 SAT Subject Tests. I’m not all that worried about the math one, its the science one I’m worried about. I haven’t taken enough Physics to do a test on it, otherwise I would. This leaves me with the only option of taking the Chemistry one. So I’ve been studying during my free time so I can kick these SATs’ butts!

In regards to dabbit, it has been my project for the past month or 2 (Maybe 3?). Anywho, it’s coming along greatly! I can’t wait until launch. :> It will rock your sox off!

I’ll edit with a screen shot once I remove an obvious bug… Actually no.. Here’s a screenie:

Sexy right? It’s a bit broked ’cause I updated the user list to allow me to sort them (Before it was random ) Now it sorts by privilege then by Alphabetical order.

Anyway, dabberz out. I was just staying up to get sorting working. Now I gotta fix the bugs I introduced.

September 29, 2010

Windows 7 Feeling Sluggy After Use? Speed it up!

By: dab

So, I have a lot of people talk about how their computer has been running really slow, and are considering formatting, or switching Operating Systems. I have no issue with either, but you should know the fix-all solution to Windows isn’t always reformatting. Here are some tips I recommend that will get your computer starting and running almost like new (almost being a key word).

Step 1: Perform a Virus Scan.

A Virus scan solves many, many issues on Windows. Mostly due to the fact that viruses eat up resources when performing their operations, because they try to do everything they can quickly, before you recognize them (for the most part. There are some sneaky and silent viruses but that’s a different matter all together). If you don’t have an anti virus running on your computer, I strongly recommend one. Do not run more than 1 virus protection. Multiple virus protection does not protect you more. In fact, it does the opposite. An Anti-Virus software scans your hard drive for files that match a certain signature, shall we say. If both antivirus softwares are scanning the same places, they’ll conflict with each other and get read errors. This is not the only issue, but one that comes to mind at this time.

If you don’t have Anti-Virus Software, there are several free alternatives, one being AVG Free. Personally I use Nod32, which works better than AVG in my opinion. This is however, all up to opinion. I hear Kaspersky works wonders above all others. So give one a try. If you don’t like it, try another. But in the name of all that is good, don’t use Norton. Norton merges itself so deep into Windows that it slows your computer down. I HAVE heard that its gotten better and actually is becoming preferred, but I don’t trust Norton. They mark almost all even remotely suspicious files viruses, and have many false positives. I personally don’t like my antivirus getting too involved with my whole operating system. Just enough to keep me protected, not lock me down.

Please note that scanning can take several hours depending on the size of your hard drive.

I also recommend you run some spyware checking. I use Spy Bot Search and Destroy. It has always worked well and is pretty straight forward to use.

Finally, I suggest running a scan with Windows Defender. I believe this comes with all Windows 7 installs. Just hit the Start Button, and type “Windows Defender” (Without the quotes). Hit Full Scan, and let it do its thing. This combination of 3 has kept me personally secure and I haven’t noticed anything. That goes without saying of course .

Step 2: Remove Unused Programs / Clean Startup Programs

A lot of programs, like to make themselves known to Windows, even when you have no use for them anymore. Annoying programs like Windows Live Messenger, that startup when you turn your computer on, even if you won’t be using it today, should not be started. Also, installing those toolbars to get free smilies isn’t always a good thing. So what you want to do is first remove all unused programs. To do this, goto Control Panel, Then locate Add or Remove Programs (It might have changed in Windows 7… I donno \__(O.o)__/). Anyway, look through the list of programs that are there. If you know you don’t use it or won’t have a use for it, remove it. There is one issue with programs and Windows that I don’t recommend doing. The Registry. It is true. A program really dirties up the Registry when installing. Especially big programs like Adobe and others. Uninstall programs don’t always remove the registry settings, meaning that the Registry is mucked up with unneeded items. There are Registry cleaners out there, but I have not used any of them, nor do I recommend them. The Registry is a very special place for Windows. If you mess up a needed key, you cannot start up your computer. This is why mucking around in the Registry is not a suggested idea, let alone, getting a program automate it.

The next thing you’ll want to do is disable programs you don’t need to startup, when you login. Here is how you do it. On your keyboard, hit “Windows Key + R”. This will open a Run Dialog. Type in “msconfig” (Both times without Quotes) and you should get a dialog with a bunch of tabs. Select the Startup tab, and here is where our magic begins. Select things that you DO NOT need to startup when your computer boots up. This includes Adobe “Preloaders”, Apple stuff. Things you should keep running are Driver software, Anti-virus, and programs you know you’ll use every time (for me, I know I’ll be using my localhost Apache server, so I have that stay on startup).

That should be it. A restart will deal with all un-removed options from both things.

Step 3: Perform a Disk De-fragmentation

Imagine your hard drive as a bunch of CDs layered on top of each other. When you save a file, your hard drive is constantly spinning the disks, so when it writes onto the disk, it writes it in separate pieces, purely so it can keep up with the reading/writing demand. Well, when you need that file again, the hard drive needs to search the entire disk to find all the pieces of that file. This is what we call a fragmented hard drive. This isn’t good my friend! So what we need to do is get our disk back into order. There are many paid programs on the internet, but the Windows Disk defrag program works just fine for me.

To start it go to your Start Menu, and type “Disk Defragmenter” (Without quotes). Hit enter, and it will start up Window’s own Disk Defragmenter program. Its changed a bit since Windows XP, but it works just the same. What you will need to do is find out which drive is used the most. (PLEASE NOTE: DO NOT DEFRAG Solid State Drives!!!! The firmware inside them has a file management system that places the files where it needs. SSDs have a limited number of reads and writes compared to normal drives and defragging does not benefit them.) Choose the drive you want, and click Defragment Disk. This will run. A note from me personally. Do not use your computer while this is running. Please make sure programs such as Photoshop, Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, or anything really is closed. Using files on your disk while moving them around can get dangerous and messy. I’ve had a computer (Windows 98 computer, but still) become unrecoverable because I used it during defragmenting. You have been warned again .

Step 4: Enjoy your computer. I can’t remember what else I have for suggestions. These tips should get your computer running back to normal.

I hope this helps someone! Let me know if you have any suggestions of your own that I didn’t mention, or if I mentioned something that shouldn’t be done. I’d love to hear it! Until then folks!

September 21, 2010

School, SoftModded PS2, DVD Burning, IE9!

By: dab

Anyway, I’ve also soft modded my Playstation 2! I really wanted to get back into game programming, and I figured the PS2 would be a great way to get some programming in. Plus it’d be for an ex popular console. I think it’ll be a lot of fun. Of course, this fun comes after my IRC client dabbit of course. Which is currently being designed by a friend of mine!

So, school started yesterday. I bought the eBook version so as to avoid lugging around 500 pounds of books everywhere I go. Not only is the weight difference better, but it is also cheaper. The heavy book cost about $200, while the ebook was only $50-ish. Physics books aren’t light, neither are Calculus books. The Statistics book isn’t that bad, but I still don’t want to be lugging around books this year. I have a laptop, I’m going to rape the beneifts (Macbook pro FTW, am I right?).
Anyway, I’ve also soft modded my Playstation 2! I really wanted to get back into game programming, and I figured the PS2 would be a great way to get some programming in. Plus it’d be for an ex popular console. I think it’ll be a lot of fun. Of course, this fun comes after my IRC client dabbit of course. Which is currently being designed by a friend of mine!

This morning, I got an email from Ashampoo subject: “Free: Get 50 Yiggles by opening this email”. Typically I check the email, hit delete and never think of it again. This title had me curious. I clicked it, and saw they were giving me 5 free software to me and my friends. I always wanted a piece of their software, but never could find the heart to purchase it (Especially when freebies alternatives exist). I figured this was the perfect excuse to try it. So I’ve downloaded it, and will fill out a review of it. I downloaded “Ashampoo Burning Studio 2010 Advanced”.  Seen here: http://www.ashampoo.com/en/usd/pin/2610/Burning_Software/Ashampoo-Burning-Studio-10.

On a final note, I’ve downloaded the beta version of Internet Explorer 9. They boasted a new updated UI. Intrigued by this new statement, I wanted to find out. I gave up hope after IE 7. IE8 didn’t help my endorsement either.  I downloaded the 45mb installer; on my internet, that is a PAIN! I finally get the download done, and run the exe. “Downloading Internet Explorer 9 install files…”… Seriously? So 20 minutes later, it had finished installing. “Sweet”, I thought to myself. Getting ready to open IE9, I was greeted by a popup “Windows must restart your computer”. Seriously? I hate restarting my computer in the middle of my session. When I use the computer, I have several applications open, and none of it wants to be stopped (train of thought and such). So I waited till the next day to try out the new IE9.  The next day, I opened it up. First of all, just like FireFox 4, they stole the Chrome layout, with the tabs not drooping, and the Menu bar gone. Friefox did it well. Internet Explorer, not so much. The placed them next to the URL Bar. So we have [==HTTP://google.com==]      [TAB     x][ TAB2   x ] etc…. WHY ON EARTH WOULD THEY DO THAT?! That’s what I want to know. Open more than 5 tabs and you start clipping most of the title. Faulty, faulty stolen idea. I mean, I know Microsoft tends to not re-create ideas properly (Windows), but this is sad. Not only this, but it doesn’t even render HTML 5 properly yet where as Chrome 7, Firefox 4 and Safari all render HTML 5 100% (If I recall the results correctly from other websites). Anyway, I know this is just a beta for IE9, but I really hope they make some major changes. One thing I’m glad though, is that they didn’t include the Twitter client on the browser (as an interview with a team leader for the browser project said). He mentioned wanting to place a Twitter client on the browser. Does that make sense to anyone else? I mean… how hard is it to type twitter.com in the url box?

Ok, enough rambling from me. I suppose I should let you get back to your life, as I must mine. Until later!