Now in Part 3 we will deal with a major problem on a lot of peoples computers, a fragmented harddrive. I’m not saying that this is something that everyone has issues with, you might be like me and having your computer at peak performance is a must, but if you’ve never defragmented your computer then you probably should read this article. Especially if you use your computer quite often. For those of you who do defrag your computer on a regular basis, you should read this article because of this awesome piece of software, IObit Smart Defrag, that I show you how to use.

So what exactly is this whole “fragmented hard drive” stuff? Well you can either read the brief description I’m about to give you, or you can play this awesome little addicting game called Defrag by matthewbot (will not work with Vista – sorry), or you might even want to do both.

Your computer’s hard drive is divided into thousands of little sectors that store pieces of information. Now in a non-fragmented hard drive the disc reader can go through and read consecutive sections in order to read a file. But if your hard drive is fragmented then the disc reader has to hunt throughout the hard drive to find the different pieces of a file. This is caused from when writing a file to the hard drive it can’t fit it in just one spot and so has to use multiple spots. Of which this can make your hard drive look like a mess quite easily.

As your hard drive fragments then the time it takes to open a file will get longer because it has to hunt for the different portions of the file. The more your hard drive becomes fragmented, the more files will be affected, and the slower your computer will become.

There is a solution though, and a very one at that….Defrag Software! I’m going to show you how to use something called IObit Smart Defrag, but you can use any defragger you want, I mean Windows includes one with the Operating System.  And if you can’t figure this out, defrag software will organize your hard drive, thus speeding up your computer. So please download IObit Smart Defrag here.

The great thing I like about this software, besides it being free, having an awesome interface, and is quite easy to use – is the fact it will also optimize your hard drive and not just defragment it. Plus you can even have it start up automatically and defrag your computer in the background so you’ll never have to do it again.

When you open it up, it will look something like this:

IObit

Very easy to use, like I said. Basically all you need to do is swith the drop down menu to “Defrag & Optimize” and hit “Go”. I mean you could analyze it first if you want, but this will analyze it at the beginning also. Also be sure that you’re computers going to be on for a couple hours that are usually needed to run this. If you want you can even click the checkbox to have the computer actually turn off when its done.

The window in the bottom half will start pixelizing into various colors, it is now analyzing. Hopefully all of you are capable of reading the legend at the bottom and can’t distinguish between the colors. But if you can’t, the more red you have the more fragmented your computer is.

After it’s done analyzing it will now do a mixture of optimizing and defragging. You will be able to see the process in the pixelized bottom as it rearranged various areas. Slowly but surely the red will turn to green.

You might not be able to feel the computer speed increase at first, but after you use it for a little while you’ll realize that it is going faster. Especially when opening up the C:\ drive. Also you may feel the start menu opens faster and programs open faster also (especially ones that have a lot of files included with them).

That concludes Part 3 on how to speed up your computer. In Part 4 we will mess around with Services.

Whenever Firefox 3 came out and I heard of the news I waited very little time to download it. I’m to impatient on these kind of matters to wait for auto-updates.  Though, one of the extensions I have I knew was not going to work, and so I was a little uneasy about downloading it right away. I didn’t know how many other extensions were also not compatible with the new version. And I’m quite a big on the whole add-ons thing. Like at the time I had 28 extensions installed, and whenever they aren’t working I freak out, especially if its like the main ones that I use.

I contemplated on the issue and thought I could always use version 2 if I wasn’t yet ready for version 3. Therefore I went and downloaded version 3. Just as I suspected a lot of the add-ons were not yet compatible yet, especially the main one I use – “All-in One Sidebar”. So I decided I’d use version 2 until at least that extension got updated. Let me warn you though, only update when you feel ready to update, because switching back isn’t that easy. First off I couldn’t even find the firefox 2 download link on their website. Then once it actually got reinstalled I was having a few more issues. In the end I ended up just using Firefox 3 and putting up with the lack of my extensions.

And now that I’m done rambling about that I guess its a good time to actually tell you the new features that Firefox 3 is packed with. But obviously its got thousands of varioius fixes and new features, so I’m not gonna get through them all. Here’s the ones though that I’ve noticed on my own so far with no reading on what Firefox 3 came with or anything.

1. New Theme – This was probably the first thing I noticed. Firefox 3 comes with a new look, one of which I really didn’t like as much as the old one. For people that want something new and having a more glossier feel then you will enjoy this. For others, like myself, you may find yourself hunting for a new theme. I found one which I thought was only going to be a makeshift theme until I found something else, but Azerty III seems to have grown on me.
2. Most Visited Bookmarks Folder – A new folder has now been added into your bookmarks toolbar folder. The name kind of gives away the purpose, but inside is your most visited sites – amazing! I removed mine from the bookmarks toolbar though, it was making those bookmarks overflow.
3. Easier Bookmarking – In the URL bar there’s a new Star Icon. If its hollow then you haven’t bookmarked the page you’re at, if it’s yellow then you have. You can click it to bookmark it to a new “uncategorized” bookmarks folder. Or, if the page already is bookmarked then you can click it to change the location of the bookmark, change the tags associated with the bookmark, or to remove it.
4. Revamped Recent Sites in URL Bar – You can now type a url in the URL Bar, or you can type just a word or something. Where it used to just display a list of recent history it now displays the URL the page title, whether or not its bookmarked, etc. I like it a lot better. Plus you can now type just a word in and it will search your history and display the top results right there.
5. Revamped Extension Manager – The last big change I’ve noticed so far is the add-on manager. The main addition to it being a new tab showing recommended add-ons that you can download.

You know that doesn’t seem like much, but when you update firefox it really does feel like a new piece of software. After a while you get everything adjusted to how you want it (and all your extensions will become compatible), its just a little shocking when you first download it.

So I think a new system should be devised. That would be me just writing separate articles just whenever. I feel I could be much more consistent and be able to cover a lot more topics with this method.

It does take away though in the aspect of it looking like a newsletter type format. Of which I really liked the look of the 2 emails I got in that format of which it looked really nice.

That wont take away too much though, each separate article will look just as good. Plus it will add benefits like just reading the articles you wont and not having to search the entire post for one article. The search function will also work a lot more ergonomically.

And the next actual tech related post will be coming very soon. Thanks for reading!

As for last weeks edition, and yes that is currently their temporary name (though I may refer to it as other things sometimes), I think it went quite well. Even the small number that actually visited the site, I feel that it surpassed my expectations. Hopefully this weeks edition will be even more productive.

With that said, here is the 2nd issue of Lego Tech.

———————————————————-

Lego Tech

June 11th, 2008

This edition of Lego Tech will continue the series on speeding up your computer, and to go side-by-side with that we will also talk about computer security. Finally at the end, as always, will be the Firefox plug-in of the week.

Speeding Up Your Computer

Part 2:

Last week we talked about managing your startup entries so that unnecessary programs don’t start up when you login. To follow that, and to make your computer even faster, we will be cleaning out your registry. We will also, if needed, scan your computer for malicious software (viruses, trojans, etc). To go along there is an article following Part 2 that discusses computer security and whether or not its needed.

You might be wondering what I’m talking about when I mention the registry. Actually the chances of that happening are quite high, seeing its not a term that the average computer user knows. I know what the registry is, but probably would have a hard time explaining it, so here is a little of what Wikipedia says on the issue:

The Windows registry is a directory which stores settings and options for the operating system for Microsoft Windows 32-bit versions, 64-bit versions, and Windows Mobile. It contains information and settings for all the hardware, operating system software, most non-operating system software, users, preferences of the PC, etc.

Actually that’s a little confusing. But it basically says that various Windows operating systems store settings and options in a special directory labeled “registry”. And therefore when I mention the registry, I am referring to that location.

So what’s the problem with this, why do we need to clean it out? Just like all areas of your computer, this one also slowly gets cluttered up. Almost every change your make on your computer will affect the registry is some way. A lot of these will cause various things in the registry to become invalid, and therefore are just taking up space.

The good thing is that most of these things can be fixed. If you look around though you might notice that the things that clean up the registry (Called “Registry Cleaners”), cost money. Or most of them seem to offer a very very limited trial of what they can do. We’re not going to be using those, though, we’re going to clean your registry for free. So I will now ask you to download and install Eusing Free Registry Cleaner.

When it opens it has a message saying that the program is free, but they would love it if you registered it to help in its development. I guess if you find it extremely useful and have money to spare you can do that, but for now we’ll hit “Skip”. After that the window will look like:

Now before we actually go about scanning the registry I recommend backing it up in case you accidentally mess something up. But I am going to avoid making you do anything stupid with the registry. This software will only mess with the stuff thats already broken and leave the other stuff alone (yes I’ve had some troubles with manually editing the registry [which is for very experienced computer users only]). To make the backup, though, is quite simple. Just go into the file menu and hit “Backup Full Registry”. Save it in someplace where you’ll be able to find it if necessary, and probably with a filename actually stating that its a registry backup; you might even want to put the date. It will then show a little progress bar showing the backup, which will close when the backup is done.

This is where we get into the fun stuff. In the Tasks on the left of Eusing there is a button saying “Scan registry issue”. Click that and watch Eusing do its magic. It is now scanning the registry for invalid keys (what the little pieces of information in the registry are called). Behind the Scanning progress bar any invalid keys will be displayed. Here’s my computer in the middle of a scan:

Once the scan is over that progress bar will go away also, and you will be left with a list of invalid registry entries. We can now hit the 2nd button over in the Tasks on the left – “Repair registry issue”. If you can’t guess that will repair all of the things that were checked (which unless you have experience in managing the registry, they should have all been clicked). After that a little message box will pop up that you can read if you want, or you can just close it.

Thats its! You have now cleaned out your registry! Hopefully you can tell improvements in your computers performance immediately. My computer, that I strive to keep at its peak performance, even benefited from that scan. For some things, though, you may have to restart your computer to tell a difference. Almost always this will speed up your computer starting up and logging you in.

And, I said I would help you scan your computer for malicious programs, so we’ll do that now. But, before you do that, you may want to read the article following this one, in which I talk about the need for virus software.

We will be using a program called ClaimWin. Which is an open source (meaning the code is open for everyone to edit and change and make better) virus protection program that is free. So please download, and install it. http://sourceforge.net/projects/clamwin/

Once you open it, it may go through a process of downloading updates, of which I highly recommend you allow it to do. After that it will bring you to its main screen, which looks like this:

Before we begin the actual scan though click tools>preferences, and the preferences window will pop-up. In the “General” tab in the bottom “Infected Files” section make sure that “Move to Quarantine Folder” is selected. I am pretty sure that the top “Report Only” is the default option, but I’m not for sure. But we want ClaimWin to actually do something about any malicious files, not just tell you about them. You can then close the preferences window.

We are now going to hit the almighty and powerful “Scan” button. If you can guess, this will scan your computer. Well hopefully you didn’t change which location it was scanning (C:\ should be your main hard drive, and for most users thats what you should be scanning). ClaimWin will now do what it does best. Another window will open up with a large text area and a little animation on the left. All the results from the scan will be displayed in the large text area. On a side note, let me mention that doing this scan will most likely cause your computer to slow down, so I wouldn’t recommend doing it while having a bunch of other things happening also.

Once that is done, the scan is now complete. Hopefully ClaimWin helped rid your computer of any viruses it might have.

After dealing with registry and virus protection, your computer probably increased in speed. Next week though, we’ll deal with another important aspect in your computers performance – A fragmented hard drive.

Virus Protection

Is it Necessary?

In the couple of years that I have used a computer (this computer actually), it has gone through many challenges. Though, looking at its weird history (don’t ask what this computer’s been through), viruses don’t seem to have affected it really. Actually there has only been three cases of malicious software that I can think of. And out of those three, only one was doing major harm.

So virus equals virus protection, right? Well, I disagree. Three viruses over four years, I’m pretty sure thats a very small amount. And there was no virus protection software at all installed for multiple years. Actually I don’t really use virus protection now, I have it [turned off], only running a scan periodically (every couple months). Those scans seem to always state that no viruses was found.

If you practice safe computer usage, then that decreases your already incredibly slim chances of getting a virus even further. This includes only opening email attachments from trusted sources, not going to random websites, etc. And the purpose of the “etc” is that its hard for me to think of ways to get a virus. If you just make logical decisions while using the computer, then you should be good. One big thing that I could add to the list, though, is only install programs from trusted sources. That is probably the major one, since most viruses are usually hiding inside other programs that you might install. Don’t let this make you paranoid, but watch those things.

Another reason, besides the fact you shouldn’t have any viruses for virus protection software to remove, is that virus protection software usually takes up a large amount of computer resources. Especially real time scanning, which means it will keep track of your computer all the time. These things will start at startup decreasing boot time also. That, I feel, is unnecessary. If you have virus protection software I recommend turning off any real time scanning. If it doesn’t give you a choice in the matter then I actually wouldn’t use that software. You really only need to scan your computer every so often (your choice: every week, every month, just whenever). Also scan your computer when you feel its acting slow, and especially scan it if weird things start happening (such as ads opening up randomly).

Whether or not you get virus protection software is up to you. Just be sure you choose what you use wisely if you do use it. Take note that the chances of you actually getting a virus, and whether or not you want any lag on your computer speed because of virus protection software.

Firefox Extension:

All-in-One Sidebar

This weeks add-on is All-in-One Sidebar. This allows various things to be accessed from a sidebar, such as history and downloads. Most other add-ons that use the sidebar will usually integrate into All-in-One. I feel that it helps with the cluster Firefox might cause a provides a central location for a bunch of things. I especially use it because it handles downloads, for I really dislike the extra downloads window that Firefox has. You may or may not find this extension totally convenient, but its not something that will hurt you either.

Extension Rating – 10/10

Hopefully though you will enjoy the following post (or whatever):

———————————————————-

Lego Tech

June 6th, 2008

This issue of Lego Tech will begin a series of articles dealing with speeding up your computer, along with the Firefox extension of the week.

Speeding Up Your Computer

Part 1:

From the time that you bought your computer to now, you have probably noticed a gradual decrease in speed of your computer. This is usually caused from a buildup of various things onto your computer. Even if you haven’t changed any of your habits during the time you’ve had your computer, or installed any new software, there is still buildup behind the scenes that is most likely slowing it down.

Note: This article series is for Window’s users, and the software that is used will be for Windows. If you have a different operating system than there is probably ways to do the things described in this series, but they wont be discussed here.

Possible reasons for slow down:

• Fragmented Hard drive
• New software being installed (which can mean multiple things).
• Startup Entries Buildup
• Errors in the Registry
• Unnecessary Addons
• Viruses, Trojans, Spyware, etc

Those aren’t the only reasons, the list is huge. Like one reason could be that your hard drive is actually failing and needs replaced. And, so you’re not worried, hard drive failures are very rarely the case. Especially if the computer was just bought, hard drives normally last about 5 years before begin to degrade.

Besides the gradual slow down, you may just want to make your computer faster in general. Even new computers are not at their top speed. The question is, what can you do to make your computer faster? That is why this is being written, to show you how to do just that.

In this part of the series we will only be covering the small area of “Startup”. This may or may not speed up your computer to much depending on various circumstances, but you should still be able to see at least a small change.

When you login to your computer various programs will start up. Yes, you’re probably thinking about the “Startup” folder in the Start Menu. Part of the startup programs do come from their, but usually thats not all, a lot of times the Startup folder will be completely empty. Why is the Startup programs so important dealing with speed? Well, it takes time to actually load those programs when you login (time depends on various things), taking away time you could be doing something productive. Plus, some of those programs you don’t even use, which is especially bad if they use a lot of resources. There are also programs that you don’t even know are starting up, they just run in the background on your computer. Depending on your computers hardware and settings the affects of different startup programs will have different effects. Such a computer with a large amount of RAM, or a high processor speed.

I myself have a total of 2 programs that startup. These are MSN Messenger and a small program that changes the appearance of my system tray clock.

On a side note I would like to point out that Apple programs, such as iTunes, seem to (From past experiences) take up a good share of resources. I’m not saying that it will on your computer, it just all depends on various things, such as how many resources the other programs your run normally take. I am not saying that you should remove the Apple programs from startup, but I do recommend it, especially if your computer is quite slow. I myself actually would recommend switching software (I use Winamp [which does support Ipods]). You can always click on iTunes like any normal program to open it up, but you may want to leave the startup entry regarding Apple Devices.

Along with Apple there is also Security Software such as Norton’s that you have to think about. I do not have any realtime security software on my computer (meaning it monitors it all the time). Eventually I will discuss if security software is actually needed on your computer in a later issue. For now I would actually disable the security software from starting up. In the next article in this series I will actually have you scan your computer for viruses, and the chances of you getting any form of virus are actually incredibly small. Unless you already have one on your computer, but hopefully your security software would take care of it.

Now that you have a reasonable idea of what startup programs are, I think its time we go and look at whats actually starting up on your computer. To do so we will use Mike Lin’s Startup Manger of which I’m going to ask you to download (preferably the control panel version, which will implement itself into the control panel). There are many other startup programs available, but this one is easy to use and gets the job done. Window’s Vista itself has a startup manager built in, but you may still want to install this tool.

After installing it and successfully opening it up (from the control panel if you installed that version), you will see something like this:

After you have that up, I would uncheck all the checkboxes in each of the tabs. Don’t worry about the names of the tabs. They represent the different areas that startup entries are started. Such as the “Startup (user)” is the startup program folder, and then the “Startup (common)” is also that folder but for All Users on that computer.

Following that go into each tab and check all the things you want to start up. You should be able to tell what each entry is. Like MsnMsg is obviously MSN Messenger. A lot of things are probably printer things that are unneeded, these usually have hp or lx or something in their startup entry name (depending on the brand of the printer).

Once thats done then you can just exit the window. Now the next time you log in to your computer again those changes will take affect. And, hopefully they improved your computer speed somewhat.

There is still a lot that can be done though, next week we will do some virus scanning and cleaning out the registry.

Firefox Extension: Adblock Plus

Adblock Plus – https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1865

If you asked me to choose the most important Firefox extension, this is definitely the one I would choose. Adblock Plus is an add-on for Firefox that blocks all kinds of advertisements from being displayed.

I really don’t have to go into any more detail then that, its just an awesome extension. After installing this you really wonder what you did without it, and how many ads are actually on pages.

Adblock Plus Rating – 10/10

My name is Adam, or more noticeably recognized on the internet as Legocrazy1. This is going to be my blog on random issues dealing with technology covering a vast range of topics.

This blog will be in newsletter type fashion, of which I will have a post out each week. In fact, you can even subscribe to email updates being provided by http://feedburner.com

Some of the things I post here you may find helpful, or you may not, but there should be something for everyone.

-Legocrazy1