According to a news report from the BBC in early 2011 the hard drives we use in our machines will be undergoing one of the biggest changes in its format than has been seen in 30 some years.
Called advanced format this change will make it easier for hard drive manufacturers to produce bigger drives that use less energy.
There is only one problem: Windows XP.
Continue reading XP users face a troubled future – even hard drives won’t want them »
Some would probably say not much but Joe Wilcox over at Betanews has managed to come up with a list of ten things he things that Microsoft has done right.
You can read the complete details for each of the items over at Betanews but for those in a hurry here’s the point form version.
Apparently tomorrow Joe will be posting his 10 Things Microsoft got Wrong which should be interesting.
You’re quietly working away minding your own business when you start to find that programs are taking a coffee break amount of time to open and everything seems to be taking forever to complete (never mind the it’s Windows what do you expect jokes – heard them all).
As the frustration mounts you wonder what could be causing the problem so you fire up Task Manager to take a look (Windows 7 users will have to click on the Show processes from all users). As you scroll through the list you suddenly spot the culprit that is jacking your CPU up to a 100%.
It’s a Windows services called Svhost.exe and it’s acting like a drunk at a free bar but the problem is that this is a required service in Windows and is actually a number of Svhosts processes all rolled into one. So how does one find out which Svhost.exe is causing all the grief and then fix the problem.
Well thanks to the crew at Addictive Tips you can now use a nice little util called Svhost Viewer (which you can download here). With the utility program you will be able to find out more information about which Svhost.exe is causing the grief and then turn it off.
As an added bonus the util is portable so you can add it to your USB tool chest of handy dandy utilities.
Earlier today I wrote up a post over at The Inquisitr where I asked this question and provided some reasons as to why this might be something for them to think about. Then this evening on the Cynical Bastards Daily Edition podcast my co-host and myself hashed out the subject a little more.
So if you’re interested and have some opinions on the topic you can find the post and podcast here:
Should Microsoft be thinking about making their own PCs? – The Inquisitr
CobWEBs Daily Edition podcast: Come on Microsoft, quit being such a wuss – Shooting at Bubbles
Now back to your regularly scheduled reading.
When any flavor of Windows is booted up, there are many programs vying for the attention of your system resources. In addition to the Windows system files, many other programs you’ve installed are all trying to get loaded up…at the same time. This can result in a much longer wait than you’d like before your computer becomes available to you.
Duriosoft Indocor, based in Indonesia, offers Start-Q, Version 1.0 released on September 20, just about a week ago. Start-Q is designed to give you some control over this process via an attractive, easy to use interface.
The program can be downloaded for free (donations accepted) from the Start-Q website. It’s pretty small, and installs quickly and smoothly. A very obvious omission from the website is the lack of compatibility info, but we tested Start-Q on both Win XP and Vista and it worked well. Also omitted from the “online user manual” was the need for a reboot after installation. If you don’t, the program won’t function properly.
Once the program is open, all the startup items are visible in the top pane. You can drag/drop or double-click to move them to the startup queue at the bottom.
You can edit each item to wait a specified amount of time, fully load before moving on, or (careful with this one) set it to not move to the next item in the queue until the item has opened, run, and closed. Obviously, if you select this option on a program that stays open, the Start-Q queue will sit and wait forever.
You can also disable startup items from the Start-Q interface, but beware of programs that put themselves back in! These items should be left totally out of the queue to start on their own, with Start-Q instructed to delay the first queued item to accommodate them.
Be sure you read through the Online User Manual the first time you use Start-Q. It’s not completely intuitive, but one run through the short manual, and you’re be up to speed.
After saving and activating your queue, Start-Q will give you the option of having it run transparently, or with a small GUI. The GUI permits you to see, with a small status bar, what’s loading, and provides you with a “skip” button to discard the currently loading item, and move to the next. Once you have your queue set up the way you want it, transparent is probably the way to go. While getting things tweaked, however, the status bar is very handy.
On the XP and Vista machines, Start-Q worked a treat. I chose the “wait until..before loading next” option, and with only one exception, it flowed nice and smooth, the computer available to me during the loads. The exception on the XP box was a gaming keyboard driver that wants to connect to the ‘net and waits for the connection, but I have it blocked. I moved that one to the end of the list so it can sit and wait for the timeout all on it’s own. You’ll find tweaks that work best for your setup as well.
Overall, I feel Start-Q could be quite useful. Being a very new release, it’s not surprising, but slightly disappointing that I encountered a couple bugs, such as the program insisting on opening off the side of the screen, necessitating a drag back to the middle where I could see it.
Their website needs some work, too. The online manual references images that aren’t there, and in some places the “English as second language” is painfully confusing, in addition to being a bit short on information, such as the OS compatibility I mentioned earlier.
Start-Q may not be quite ready for mainstream yet, but it’s VERY close. It’s staying on the XP machine for a while, so I’m hoping for updates from Duriosoft!
-Bill Vincent
In a business environment, be that working for yourself in a home office or in the cubicle jungle of a multi-national conglomerate, productivity and efficiency can mean the difference between failure and success, or even your level of insanity.
The folks at Balesio know this. Based in Switzerland, Balesio was founded in 1998.
Balesio’s vision is to always provide the highest value to our customers by developing high quality, intuitive standard software which meets our customers’ needs. Our mission is to grow together with its employees, customers and partners to become the first address for small and large companies for high quality, intuitive standard software.
Powerpoint presentations and even Word and Excel docs can get pretty large when loaded up with photos, charts and graphs. A 10 meg PPT can’t be emailed in many cases, necessitating an archival utility like 7-Zip, WinRAR or Winzip. However, wouldn’t it be nice if this capability was built into MS Office?
Balesio thinks so, too, so they have create a very slick add-on for MS Office called FILEminimizer than can reduce the size of your Office docs by up to 98%
I can hear it now: “What about MS Office’s “compress pictures” feature? Belesio has an answer for this.
FILEminimizer will achieve significantly better results than the "Compress Pictures" feature in Microsoft Office. This is because FILEminimizer intelligently selects the most appropriate format and compression level for each image in your document, spreadsheet or presentation, while the "Compress Pictures" feature merely reduces the image resolution and discards any hidden information. Additionally FILEminimizer allows you to flatten any embedded documents in your file.
Without leaving Office, you can compress and/or archive any Word, Excel or PP file created using Office 97 through 2007 including the newer .*X documents. FILEminimizer can then email your file with any MAPI-enabled email solution including Outlook 2000 on up.
Here’s the kicker: unlike the aforementioned utilities, You can compress and send your documents without worry that the recipient will not have the skill or software to decompress and view the document. The original file format is preserved.
We tested FILEminimizer with Office 2007. After creating a DOCX file, heavy with JPEGs, two clicks and about 5 seconds gave me an 82% smaller file, still in the DOCX format, and opened Outlook for emailing. Drag-and-drop is also supported.
FILEminimizer works by compressing the non-text portions of your work, so there are 3 compression settings to choose from depending on whether you intend to print, view on screen, or email. There are also custom settings for the more particular among us.
Another cool point is that while FILEminimizer functions as an MS Office add-on, it runs just as well as a stand-alone, permitting you to use all of the program’s features regardless of your productivity suite. For example, OpenOffice, StarOffice and Google Docs are capable of creating many MS Office-compatible files, and FILEminimizer is ready to help whether you use any Win-OS from 98 to Vista.
The files, after being compressed by FILEminimizer, can still be edited. Structure and layout is NOT affected. Your original file is also spared, and not modified in any way.
FILEminimizer has a trial ver, with a limited number of uses, enough to determine it’s worth, I’m sure. A full registered version will run you around 45USD for a single user home license.
Other features:
Note: I am waiting to hear back from Balesio about Windows 7 compatibility.
Disclosure: Balesio provided Winextra with a full version of FILEminimizer for evaluation purposes.
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