Here are some cool Halloween wallpapers I came across to use for the Halloween holiday! I’m currently using the Pacman one. Clicking on an image will take you directly to the wallpaper’s page.
To find lots more, try the following sites:
Having been a huge fan of Diskeeper for years, it was very hard to try another software because I was always comparing to Diskeeper. I had purchased Diskeeper and then switched over to 64-bit Vista and couldn’t run the Home version that I had purchased. I wasn’t about ready to spend even more money to buy the version that supported 64-bit.
PerfectDisk 2008 Professional supports 64-bit, so I thought it was definitely worth a try, especially when I don’t currently run anything to defragment my system. Diskeeper and PerfectDisk are almost similar in functionality. They don’t look exactly the same, but there are some features that do remind me of Diskeeper, which is a good thing because it made me feel comfortable using it.
One feature I look for in most software is the “set it and forget it”. I don’t have time to worry about my system running fast and working right, so that is a must-have feature that PerfectDisk has.
After changing a default setting, I was able to see and schedule my external USB drive to be defragmented.
The defragmentation took quite a while to complete since I modify, add and remove files almost daily on it. I found the process to be slightly slower than Diskeeper, but that could very well mean it is more thorough. Since defragmenting usually occurs when I’m not using my computer (using the idle feature), it’s not really that big of a deal. Defragmenting my main hard drive didn’t take as long even though it is slightly larger; it has a lot more free space on it.
For those of you concerned about how large of a hard drive you have, PerfectDisk does not have a size limitation like Diskeeper does. You are allowed to have multi-terabyte hard drives with PerfectDisk – no need to worry about spending more money on a version that supports larger hard drives. It also allows you to defrag with as little as 1% free space available!
PerfectDisk performs file defragmentation in a single-pass unlike other software which helps improvement of drive performance. It also does a single-pass defragmentation of free space.
PerfectDisk 2008’s patented SMARTPlacement™ optimization is paired with its exclusive single-pass defragmentation and Space Restoration Technology™ to maximize PC and laptop performance.
My favorite PerfectDisk feature is that it also defragments the hibernate file. Since using PerfectDisk, I noticed that Vista resumes from hibernation noticeably faster than it did prior to using the software.
PerfectDisk has also helped Photoshop load faster and while editing several (10-20) large images for work, I don’t notice it lagging like it used to. I have always hated opening Photoshop because of how slow it was and now I can actually enjoy using it. Diskeeper has never done this much of an improvement on my system.
PerfectDisk is easy to use for anyone, very thorough and will keep your system running smooth! I recommend trying it out. Check out the comparison charts.
I am still a huge fan of Diskeeper due to its speed, but PerfectDisk has definitely improved my system in a shorter amount of time than Diskeeper has. PerfectDisk gets my vote for the amount of improvements.
Click on screenshots below:
If you use PerfectDisk 2008 Professional or older versions, I’d love to hear what you thought of it in the comments!
A while back I had found out that Vista comes with a Snipping Tool. If you’re like me, you don’t browse the Accessories folder very often, so these are considered hidden for some! I just found out there are more applications from a search for note in the Start Menu, which revealed Sticky Notes and is installed if you enable the Tablet PC Optional Components.
Curious, I quickly opened it to find that it’s a basic application that allows you to scribble notes or even record audio notes. I’m not very impressed with the appearance, because it looks like something that should be on XP. The minimize, maximize and close buttons do not match Vista at all.
There is also no choice of colors for the writing or the note itself. It’s just black on gradient yellow.
Since I had found this hidden application, I thought I would search for tablet to see if there were anything else.
Searching for tablet revealed Windows Journal. It has a piece of paper look to it. You can add images or a text box if you want to type out some text instead of just writing. Also highlight over text, images or writing. You can even change the look of the background and writing. Add multiple pages and save the journal.
And, of course, there is the Snipping Tool that allows you to take screenshots of either the whole screen or just parts of the screen, for example, just one window on the screen. Optionally, you can just press Alt + Print Screen on the keyboard and do the same thing for the active window. But Snipping Tool lets you save as an image without having to open up an image editor like Paint or Photoshop.
Snipping Tool gives you four options that can be selected under New in the menu: Free-form Snip, Rectangular Snip, Window Snip, and Full-screen Snip. See examples below of all three, except for the very obvious Full-screen Snip.
All of these can be found in Start Menu > All Programs > Accessories and Start Menu > All Programs > Accessories > Tablet PC. This applies to Home Premium, Business, Enterprise, and Ultimate.
Do you know of any other hidden, but useful applications in Vista? Let me know in the comments!
Google’s browser, Chrome, was released not too long ago and just about everyone wrote some kind of review on it. I wanted to wait to have enough time with it. I have been using it exclusively since the day it was released to know for sure if I can use a web browser that is so different from the rest. It turns out it’s my favorite browser.
A little something about me you probably don’t know. When I use a browser, I use it just for viewing websites, what it was intended for. I am not a fan of plugins and themes. A browser should be as light as possible. It makes viewing websites a lot more enjoyable. Google has created a browser that I have always wanted.
Here comes Chrome at a perfect time when we’re angry for Microsoft causing web developers nothing but problems with Internet Explorer; Mozilla pushing Firefox 3 out with its annoying bugs; and Apple with their font smoothing in Safari, which doesn’t even look good in Windows with any of the font smoothing options; and Opera, I don’t know what to say except that the last time I used it, a lot of sites didn’t work right.
So, what’s so special about Chrome? It should be very obvious when you look at it, ignoring the blue appearance of course. In Vista (with Aero enabled), it isn’t blue. In Vista, the titlebar and the tab bar both have transparency. My favorite part is that there is no menu, search or address bar taking up space above the tabs. Chrome still has an address bar, which allows you to search from it as well. And, the menu is found by clicking a couple buttons. I love having the ability to move tabs into its own window or move from one window to another one. No need for me to go into detail about every feature, you can find that on the Chrome Features page.
What makes Chrome better than others browsers (except for Lynx)? Its speed. Chrome loads very quickly. Websites appear right away. Everything is about speed today.
For those of you paranoid people (who probably have something to hide), a German security company created Iron. Quoted from the Incomplete News Project:
The “Iron” browser is based on the “Google Chromium” source code, but “Iron” does not send any user specific data to Google anymore and it does not contain a unique user ID.
And, if you’re worried about Chrome’s automatic updates, get a firewall and block it. Also, If you’re worried about Google collecting data, maybe you should be worried about your ISP, too?
I think too many people expected more from Chrome. They should realize Chrome is beta and is very new. Does beta even mean anything anymore except to say that it’s new? Every browser started off with very little features. Do you really want a browser that will just slow down as you demand more and more from it? I really hope if/when Google adds a lot of features such as themes, that they provide a light version of the browser (what it is today) and a full version, or at least an install that lets you select what you want installed.
Have you installed Chrome? Did you like it? Will you use it when there are more features? If you didn’t like it, what did you not like about it? Saying you need your Firefox extensions isn’t a good answer. That’s not a good reason for not liking Chrome, it’s just you missing your Firefox extensions.
For a long time, I have wanted a more clean and simple look that loads fast. Although I have cable internet access, websites sometimes still load slowly for me. Part of that has to do with plugins and graphics, the web host and sometimes just the connection. Not everyone that visits this site has broadband. I wanted to make it faster to view the site for the people who are still stuck on dialup. (I can only imagine what browsing the internet is like for them today.)
I used Corporate Sandbox as a base, which is based on Sandbox. I also used some elements from the new Twitter design. I even used a couple features from Fresh News. The feed icons come from DryIcons.
For the most part, it’s done. I may have a few things to correct. Let me know if you see anything broken.
Off the topic, I apologize for the lack of posts recently. I have been so busy with work.
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