Find Your System’s Performance Bottlenecks
Posted by admin on Jan 25, 2008
Taken from PCWorld February 2008 Edition
Is you PC as slow as molasses on a winter morning in Manitoba? With a little detective work, you can track down the cause of your system’s sluggishness, and get it running at full speed again.
The Windows Task Manager offers a quick and easy way to check the load on your CPU. Top open it, press <Ctrl>-<Alt>-<Del> (in Vista you must then click “Start Task Manager”). Click the “Performance” tab to see graphs showing CPU usage (see the image at right). If your processor consistently runs at more than 50 percent of capacity, you may have a problem. To distinguish between your system’s CPU usage for Windows and its CPU usage for any applications, select “View”, “Show Kernel Times”. Windows breaks the CPU usage graph into a red line for Windows and a green bar for applications.
Internet Security 2.0
Posted by admin on Jan 20, 2008
(Taken from MaximumPC February 2008 Edition.
Whether you know it or not, you’re constantly under attack by nefarious netizens. Why? Because your computer contains a gold mine of goodies just waiting to be exploited by wrongdoers.
Everything from your banking information and credit card numbers to your processor cycles and Internet connection are valuable commodities sought after by online theives. We’re talking about denail of service (DoS) attacks, threats to your finances, and all-out identity theft. And if that weren’t enough, the culprits are continually developing new and increasingly complex techniques to take over your system for their personal gain, spurring an arms race between the digital crooks and the PC security vendors cashing in on the mayhem. But just how much protection do you really need?
Windows: It Hungers for RAM
Posted by admin on Dec 16, 2007
Everyone knows that PCs sold today have more RAM than they did in the olden days. The question is, why? Applications grow hungrier and RAM prices keep falling, of course, but operating system bloat is the biggest reason. A review of systems that PC World Test Centrehas evaluated since 1999 reveals that the average RAM provision has grown from 96MB to about 2GB, spiking whenever Microsoft releases a new version of Windows. For example, when Windows XP machines started appearing, system RAM increased, on average, from about 128MB to more than 256MB. When Windows Vista started shipping, our test PC’s RAM jumped from slightly more than 1GB to about 2GB. Windows’ minimum system requirements ballooned from 16MB to 1GB over the same period. So when you are ready to upgrade your PC and your OS, you can assume that you’ll need substantially more RAM.
written by Alan Stafford of PC World Magazine
Windows Vista Service Pack 1
Posted by admin on Dec 16, 2007
The first service pack for Windows Vista will not be released until early in 2008, but from what we can see, the update is more about stability and security than performance.
Many alterations will not be obvious to the regular user. In fact, you probably will not notice any interface changes at all. The main improvements focus on performance and reliability when reactiviating a machine from the Hibernate and Suspend modes. There will also be enhanced driver support (thank you!), and increased security. Read the rest of this entry »
The Benefits of a Virtual PC
Posted by admin on Oct 29, 2007
We here at ICS like to try out lots of new software and hardware. The problem is that when we constantly install and remove programs and drivers, our test system gets really buggy and slow. The fact is, we have had to reformat and reinstall everything several times to keep things running smoothly. That was until we discovered the Virtual PC.
To get started, just click here to go to Microsoft’s website and download the completely FREE Microsoft Virtual PC 2007. This program can help you set up completely independent operating systems, that run inside a window of your regular operating system.
What’s Up With Windows?
Posted by admin on Oct 29, 2007
We have been getting a lot of questions about the different versions of Windows, and the support related to them. Here is a quick break-down:
July 11, 2006 – Microsoft Ended Support for Windows 98 & ME
October 10, 2006 – Microsoft Ended Support for Windows XP Service Pack 1
January 2008 – Windows XP will no longer be available to consumers
March 2008 – Vista Service Pack 1 will be released
January 2009 – Windows XP will no longer be available to businesses
June 30, 2010 – Windows 2000 will no longer be supported
April 2014 – Windows XP will no longer be supported
Programs to Stay Away From
Posted by admin on Oct 18, 2007
We have been asked several times by our customers about the programs you see in “pop-ups” and advertisements when you are surfing the ‘net. How do you know if they are legit? Well, it is getting much harder to determine that now, since they look very professional, and even provide support information. The main problem is that these programs almost never do what they claim, and sometimes, even make the computer run worse than it did before. Of course, you usually discover this after you pay for the software. So here is a list of some of the software that we have come across that you should stay away from.
- Drivecleaner
- WinFixer and WinAntivirus
We will be updating this list as we discover more.
