by ·Comments Off on Underlying Internet economy most people don’t see

Overview

If you’ve seen the movie “The Matrix”, you may recall the part where Neo, the main character, was asked by Morpheus to take the red or the blue pill.  Taking the red pill meant he’ll wake up and see reality; blue meant he’ll remain oblivious to reality–continuing his life in the virtual world of the Matrix.
What I’m about to tell you is the reverse.  Most people are oblivious to what is happening within what I call the “real matrix” in the Internet.  I will give you the blue pill so that you may see the virtual world or community that most people don’t realize exists!  The “real matrix” is the thriving Internet economy that only a few have seen and can comprehend.
If you are like most people, When you take the blue pill, you will be enlightened.  Your view of the Internet will never be the same.  You will realize that there are a few people out there living solely on the Internet.  I’m not referring to people selling things on eBay or Craig’s list; I’m referring to those people who earn income through the pure bits and bytes that flow through the Internet. Their product is not physical, but intelectual; thus it is created out of thin air and converted into the bit and bytes of information people need or seek through the Internet.
This income generating power has been around since the beginning of the Internet, but was never easily available to anyone until the emergence of the Internet giant Google.com.  They have single handedly revolutionized online advertising and have created opportunities not previously available to anyone.  This article will enumerate the various ways people are making money online.

Opportunities Abound!

Perhaps you’ve heard of rumors about how some people were able to leave their day job because they pursued and took advantage of this underlying economy.  The interesting thing is that most people are oblivious to this–only seeing what is on the surface of their Internet browsing experience!
So go ahead, take the blue pill.
Now have a look at this link:  http://website.ws/kvmlm2
Be advised that this will show you a video of an opportunity that might inspire you.  You don’t necessarily have to sign up because the main objective is to watch the video and see what point they are making.  Note that this is in not my link nor am I endorsing the product.  Only pay attention to the video message.
Have you finished?  Are you excited?  OK.  The main point I’m trying to make is that anyone can actually improve their financial situation by taking control of life, and that age and education doesn’t matter–only the strong desire to change your destiny really counts.  And all this can be done from the comfort of your home and computer.
After I saw the video, it inspired me to dig deeper into how people made income while working from home.  What I discovered inspired me even more.  Check out these articles:
Before making the above discoveries, I really thought that blogging was an activity that people did to document their activities and thoughts online.   In reading the above articles, I quickly realized that it was more than that; it was really the strong desire to share useful information with others, and in the process earn income from web traffic–enough income in some cases to leave their day job!
At this point I thought that I needed to build myself a blog.  But before I delved into my own blog, I tried my hand at various sites that allowed me to post information and earn from those postings.  Here are some that I tried:
For some reason, my efforts gravitated only towards the following sites; it is probably because it seems to be easier to setup and create articles.
eHow.com is probably the easiest place to post useful information and get micro-streams of income from the “get go”.  Note that the income may start flowing as soon as you post your article.  There is no limit to what you can write, and this site gives you a taste of how it would feel like to generate residual income from your postings.  Imagine if you took time to write hundreds of short “how to” articles.  You might think that you don’t know anything, but everyone knows how to do many things.  Your unique perspective can give your posting a special touch of personality.  If you wrote on topics you know, there is most likely many other people interested in those topics.  When they search the Internet for that topic, yours will show up.  And through the ads within eHow, you will earn some income.  It may not be much from the start, but if you build up a good set of “how to” articles, the residual income stream can start becoming significant.  Why?  Because you earn income even when you stop writing!  This is the power of residual income generation.
Next is Helium.com.  This site is a little tougher to get into, because they require longer articles.  However, because your articles are rated and compared with others, you get that extra motivation to improve your writing.  Your own motivation will help you push for the top 5 position.  At Helium.com you earn badges and various writing recognition. You are also encouraged to review other people’s articles and rank them.  Hence the name helium–quality rises to the top.  Another way you can earn income is by writing an article through their market place section.  There you get paid a certain amount based on what the topic requester is willing to pay.  This site too has residual income generation potential because you can earn income even if you stop writing.
The third site–bukisa.com–is also relatively easy to write to.  You don’t have to write about “how tos”; you can write about almost anything.  Some people on eHow have started to replicate their articles to Bukisa.  One unique thing about Bukisa is how you can earn from others’ work if you were able to recruit them into your network–like an MLM scheme.
The fourth site–hubpages.com–isn’t bad either.  I would say that it is almost at the same level as Bukisa, but I’m making more money ther than Bukisa.  In bukisa you can have people become fans.  The more fans you have, the better as it allows you to spread your knowledge faster through your fans.
At each one of these sites, I generate microstreams of income while I sleep, eat, and go to my day job.  Imagine if I had more articles in them; over a period of a couple of years there might be enough income there to earn hundreds or even thousands of dollars a month!

Blog and Earn Money

In parallel to this effort, I was trying to figure out what my blog should be about.  After much thought, I settled on a blog that would inform the common computer user about the various technology available out there for free.  This gave birth to my main website at http://www.freetechzone.com.  Before settling on this, I tried wordpress.com and blogger.com; however, most information about how to maximize income suggests setting up a blog under my own control.
Now that I have a blog, where’s the flow of money?  Well, the real secret to making money on the Internet is “web traffic.”  One has to build traffic to a site, as I am doing now.  You’ll want to do a Google search on how to build traffic to your website.  Of course, the best way to do that is to show up on the first or second page of a Google search.  To do that, a site has to be very relevant to the search topic; and based on Google’s own documentation, that can happen if you have high ranking sites linking to your site and that your site has very relevant content.  There are many other things that Google take into account in determining your relevance; the ones mentioned are definitely what Google mentions in their recommendations.
OK, so now that I got traffic, where’s the flow of money?  Well, money wont flow unless you have some form of advertising on your site and a way for you to receive payment.  To do this, you need to do three things.
  1. Sign up for a paypal.com account.  This will allow you to have a place where your money will accumulate as income starts to flow.
  2. Sign up as a publisher for Google.com through their adsense program.  This will allow you to get ads and have them placed on your web site.  Later you can sign up with affiliate sites like linkshare.com or Commision Junction (www.cj.com).
  3. Monetize your website!  To monetize, you will need to place Google and/or affiliate ads on your website.
Note that the effort towards generating income from the Internet this way will take time and effort.  On almost all articles I’ve read from those people who were successful in doing this, they indicate that this is not a “get rich” scheme.  You must be patient and must work hard to help keep your content relevant.  The more work you put into it, the higher the chance it has being relevant to the search engines.  If your content is useful, you will have thousands of visitors daily, and you can convert those visits into income–income that keeps flowing even when you are not working.  How cool is that!

Internet Money Making Explained

If this is all confusing, let’s step back and try to explain how websites make money from the point of view of the user.
OK, almost all sites that you go to now-a-days are free.  I would even say that it is probably safe to say that 99.9% of web sites out there are free.  How then are web sites able to keep open?  As everyone really knows, nothing is really free.  All sites, have one or more form of advertising on their site.  You see it everywhere and probably don’t even notice it because you’ve just gotten used to them being there.
Anyway, those ads pay for the site and more.  Some ads provide revenue to the website publisher on a page impression basis.  Some provide revenue to the site when a user clicks through the ad.  Some ads pay the website publisher if the ad generates a lead.  Last but not least, others’ ads provide commision on actual sales resulting from users clicking and then purchasing through the ad.
Picture this…
Let us say you are a website publisher or blogger and you are using an ad that pays $1 for every lead your site is able to generate.  Let us also say that you get 100,000 hits on your web site a month.  If you are able to convert 1% of those hits into leads, then you can potentially generate about $1000/month.  This is just from one ad.  What if you had 4 ads that generated as much revenue per month?  This means that you, the publisher, is able to generate $5000 plus per month!  This can be pretty conservative, if you have a very highly visited site, and this might just be enough to make you quit your day job.

Closing Remarks

The underlying economy in the Internet is like “the matrix”.  If you take the blue pill, you will see.  Until then you will be oblivious to the fact that some people out there are actually making a living from the Internet, working from home, and are able to quit their day job.  So go ahead, take the blue pill, see the underlying Internet economy, and perhaps participate in it.
If you have any questions about this article or anything related to this topic, don’t hesitate to contact me at forlanda@gmail.com.

by ·Comments Off on Internet Explorer 8: Getting Input and Output

In this article we will quickly cover the three basic functions that allow you to get input or output from Internet Explorer 8 (IE8).  These functions are as follows:

  • RSS Feed
  • Get Mail
  • Print
IE* RSS Feed Function

IE* RSS Feed Function

The image on the left is the icon representing the RSS Feed function.  RSS

Active RSS Feed

Active RSS Feed

 stands for “Really Simple Syndication”, but lately it also has come to mean “Rich Site Summary”.  When you browse a site with RSS feed, this icon will change in color from it grey color to bright orange.  At that point, you can click it and you will be able to subscribe to the feed using your RSS reader (mine is set through Google).  Thereafter, any new update from the site will show up in your RSS feed.  Thus RSS feed is a way to get input through IE8.

IE8 Read Mail

IE8 Read Mail

Next is the Read Mail function.  This is tied to your default email program.  On my Windows Vista machine, it defaults to launching Windows Mail.  I don’t quite see how this ties to IE8, but I suppose it makes it convenient to have email readily available from the IE8 interface.

IE8 Print Function

IE8 Print Function

Last but not least is the Print function.  Obviously this is a way to get output from IE8.  When you click the Print icon, you will get three choices:  Print, Print Preview, and Page Setup.  If you select Print IE8  simply prints the page you are looking at to the default printer.  Print Preview allows you to see how the print will look like, possibly make some adjustmenets, before you commit to a print.  Finally, Page Setup allows you to make adjustments to your printing setup–to include margins, printing orientation, font to use, and header/footer information.
There are really nothing earth shattering about the functions just discussed; however, if you’ve never used them, you might not know how useful they can be–after all, these features are IE8’s primary means of inputting and outputting to its users.

by ·Comments Off on Internet Explorer 8: The Home Page

Your Internet browser’s setting for home page is your very first view into the Internet the moment the browser is opened.  It only makes sense that you set it to a page that you use most often so that you can save time in your Internet surfing activity.  This page is called your home page.

What if you have more than one page you wished you could open everytime you ran your browser?  Well, with Internet Explorer (IE) 8 (or IE 7 for that matter), you can open more than one.  As a matter of fact, you can open up to 8 home pages when you launch IE 8.

Home Page Icon

Home Page Icon

 The Home Page icon is illustrated on the left.  When you click the icon IE 8 will take you to your home pages.  If you only have one, you can add 7 more by clicking the down arrow immediately to the right of the Home Page icon.

When you click on that down arrow, you can choose from the list of your up to 8

Remove Home Page

Remove Home Page

 home pages or you can manage your home pages.  Specifically, you can

  • Add or Change Home Page
  • or Remove (a home page or all)

If you are setting your home pages for the first time, the quickest way to do it is to open IE 8, set each tab to browse to the appropriate page, then click the Tools item from the command bar, then select Internet Options from the drop down menu that shows. 

In the Internet Options window, make sure you are in the General tab.  From there, simply click the Use Current button, and that will set your home pages.  Click the OK button of the Internet Options window and you are done.

Internet Options dialog box

Internet Options dialog box

Most people don’t know these about Internet Explorer 8’s Home Page function.  You are now one of the few who does; make sure to pass this information on.

by ·Comments Off on Internet Explorer 8: An Introduction of Key Features
About Internet Explorer 8

About Internet Explorer 8

It didn’t seem like long ago since Internet Explorer (IE) 7 was released (19 Oct 2006) , and right behind it was the release of FireFox 2 (24 Oct 2006).  Then in March 2008 Microsoft released Internet Explorer (IE) 8,  which was followed by FireFox 3 on 17 Jun 2008; then Google followed suit with their own Google Chrome on 03 Sep 2008.

As you can see the battle for your Internet browsing interface is fierce, and even though Microsoft has the market dominance with respect to Internet browsers, its share is slowly being eaten away by FireFox and now Chrome.

The release of IE 8 was a major milestone in that it was apparent Microsoft was responding to user needs and competition pressure.  Microsoft claims that IE 8 is web compliant and allows you to view web sites with ease.  It is also supposed to be faster and more secure.

This article will not attempt to prove Microsoft’s claims, but will provide users with a good overview of the key features available in IE 8 that most people don’t realize exist or don’t bother to use to their advantage.

Continue reading

by ·Comments Off on Zamzar.com: The mother of online file conversion utilities

Zamzar.com is relatively new to the scene; they’ve been in the public eye since around the second half of 2007.

What is Zamzar.com?  Their company mission says it all:

“To provide high quality file conversion for as many file formats as possible.“

The interesting thing is that they are able to provide file conversion services without having to install any application on your computer.  All you basically need to do is specify the source file, select the destination format, and provide an email address so that they can email you a download link for the converted file.

Their main strength is the wide range of files they can convert.  It is pretty comprehensive!  That is why I mention that their service is the “mother of all online file conversion” services. You can convert video, image, audio, and CAD files just to name a few of the major ones.

On top of that, you can even take a Youtube or some other online video content provided you have the video URL, and download a copy of it to your computer!

There is a limit of 100MB for the free account.  You don’t even have to register to get the conversion services.   However, if 100MB is too small for you, you can purchase their service for a price.  Go to their pricing page for the latest pricing information.

For the free service, you get no online storage and you only get 5 concurrent file conversions at a time.  As for support, response time is only best effort.

Bottom line though, even the free version is a great deal since most people will only want to convert some files once in a while.

by ·Comments Off on Windows Media Encoder: A Free Multimedia Tool in Window XP or Vista

You need a tool that will allow you to record your computer screen or any part of it in order to show how to do something on a particular application. You also need to be able to edit your recording. Where can you find such a tool without having to shell out a few bucks?

Well, look no more, there is a jewel of a utility right from under your very nose. It is called Windows Media Encoder. This tool is available from Microsoft and it is free. All you have to do is download and install it and you are off and ready to do screen capture and playback.

This tool comes with the following:

  • Windows Media Encoder – main program
  • Windows Media File Editor – edit your media files
  • Windows Media Profile Editor –  use create or edit Windows Media profiles
  • Windows Media Stream Editor – use to combine or split streams

by ·Comments Off on How to tie the belt

This is an illustration of how you would tie the belt.  Please pause it where necessary so that you can see every detail of the tying process.  If you need to, replay it until you learn how to tie your belt.

by ·Comments Off on Protect Your Data from Data Wiping Worm

In the last few days there has been reports of a worm designed to wipe out your data.  CNET reports that this worm has already targetted US and South Korean web sites.  The worm travels through emails which has an attachment.  The email is basically a trojan with a payload designed to erase files on your computer–including the master boot record.  When installed on your computer, the malicious load with will basically render your computer inoperable on the next boot.

Don’t wait until this happens to you.  Take action; backup your precious files (documents, pictures, videos).  You have several options.

If you don’t have too many files to back up (i.e. less than 2GB), a free account at mozy.com would do the job.  They provide 2GB of free online backup storage space; however, for unlimited space it is only $4.95 per month!  However, if you are cheap like me, you can try to convince others to to sign up for their free 2GB as well, and you’ll get an additional 250MB of storage space for every referral!

There are other online backup solutions like elephantdrive.com and carbonite.com; however, these don’t provide an initial free online storage space.

The other approach is to simply buy a flash drive or an external high capacity USB drive.  There are many out there.  I’ve seen flash drive with capacities as high as 32GB, but I’m sure there are higher capacity units out there now.  You can buy external USB drives now with over 1TB of storage space for less than $200.  As a matter of fact, I recently purchased one at Best Buy.  Over two weeks ago, I completed a full backup of my drives containing years of accumulated documents and pictures.

I know that if by some chance my drive crashes or I am infected by one of this worm, I’ll have my backup to fall back on.

So don’t wait too long before backing up your data.  Get that peace of mind that you have something to fall back to should the worst happen to your hard drive.



Mozy Remote Backup. Free.Automatic.Secure.

by ·Comments Off on How to encrypt your Internet traffic

Encryption: key to secured data transmission

Encryption: key to secured data transmission

Not many people realize that the traffic they generate on the Internet as they check e-mail, upload files, chat, and so on are out in the clear. This means that if someone tapped into the network (wired or wireless) where your traffic is flowing, that someone would be able to capture the information flowing through that network, and possibly interpret or maybe even change the account or various confidential information that may be in that flow. One way to keep those Internet peeping toms from seeing your confidential information is by using some form of encryption technology. There are three general scenarios where encryption technology is crucial. The first is the encryption technology you must ensure is used when accessing confidential information online. The second scenario is when you are sending confidential information to someone or some organization. The third is when you are using wireless technology to access your network or someone else’s in the process of connecting to the Internet.

When accessing confidential information online, you must make sure that the site you are connecting to uses TLS/SSL (Transport Layer Security, the successor to SSL–Secure Socket Layer). You can tell this in three ways:

1) The URL for the sites starts with https://

2) There is an indication in your browser that your connection is secure—typically symbolized by a padlock icon (in Internet Explorer 8, it can be found to the right side of the address field)

3) Your browser indicates that it trusts the site you are visiting (in Internet Explorer 8, the address field background turns green)

For example, when you access your bank online, you will see that their URL begins with “https://”, and that there is a padlock symbol somewhere on the bottom or top of your Internet browser. When you’re browser is using TLS/SSL to communicate with a web server on the Internet, you are doing two things by convention—ensuring that the site you are visiting is who they say they are through the use of an SSL certificate which is certified by a trusted authority (for example Verisign) , and the data you are transmitting are encrypted and thus protected from eavesdropping exposure.

What if you need to send something to someone—like a file or an email containing very confidential information (e.g. a set of social security numbers tied to their corresponding owners’ identity)? If trust and confidentiality are important attributes needed in your communication, then there is a product called PGP Desktop that you and your receiver can use. PGP stands for Pretty Good Privacy. The way it works is as follows:

1) Each user creates two kinds of crypto keys—one key is the secret key, the other the public key

2) The public key can be used to encrypt data. The data can then be decrypted using its corresponding secret key.

3) Say that user A and B have each created their PGP key pairs. User A wants to transmit data to B, and he wants only B to be able to read A’s message. They would first need to exchange public keys. User A would then use B’s public key to encrypt his data before transmitting it. When B receives the message, he can use his secret key to decrypt the message. No one else can decrypt A’s message because B is the only one that has the corresponding secret key to decrypt the message.

The use of PGP in the above example is just one of the many ways people can use the pair of crypto keys to encrypt their Internet traffic. By the way, the existence of PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) facilitates the exchange and certification of public keys.

The third and final scenario where you can encrypt your Internet traffic is WI-FI technology use. If you are using some form of wireless technology, you need to make sure you encrypt your wireless network lest you invite your neighbors to see everything you do on the Internet. Currently, the best form of encryption one should use for your home wireless access point is WPA2. WPA stands for Wi-Fi Protected Access. It is more secure that the previous WEP (wired equivalent privacy) or the WPA standard. By using WPA2, you are ensuring that your neighbors cannot see your private Internet traffic.

Remember, Internet traffic is generally not secure. To help keep your confidential data secured when it has to traverse it, you will need to put into effect the habit of only using web sites that support TLS/SSL. And if you need to transmit data to someone, you can use PGP. Lastly, make sure to use WPA2 encryption for your wireless access point to keep your neighbors from seeing your wireless traffic.

by ·Comments Off on How to Speed up Your Computer

OVERVIEW

To make your computer run faster you need to know the following:

  1. Key resources of a computer
  2. Typical ways resources are used by your computer
  3. What can slow down your once fast and responsive computer

Once you know these, you can make a better decision about what you can do to make your computer run faster.

COMPUTER RESOURCES

To understand how to make your computer run faster, you need to understand the primary computer resources that impact the performance of your computer. These resources are what help your computer perform its job. They are as follows: processor (central processing unit or CPU, the brain and processing power of your computer), memory (your computer’s RAM, or primary memory), hard disk drive (HDD, your computer’s secondary memory), network interface (your computer’s connection to the world-i.e. the Internet). The network interface could be your modem, your WI-FI card, or the built-in fast Ethernet network interface of your computer.

If at least one of these resources gets taxed, the computer’s performance gets worse and thus the computer slows down!

Depending on what you are doing with your computer or what it is doing on its own, certain resources will get taxed first. Once a resource is taxed, your computer slows down. Here are some typical scenarios to illustrate this.

  1. Having many applications open or windows open will tax your computer’s memory. For example, if you have a lot of Internet browser windows open, your computer will start slowing down.
  2. Running a program that performs heavy calculations will tax your computer’s processor. For example, if you are running a CAD program and are doing some image rotation, you will see that your CPU usage will increase.
  3. Performing a large file download or upload will task your network interface. For example, when you upload a YouTube video, your computer’s network interface will be busy. It can impact your computer’s responsiveness.
  4. A simple file copy from your hard disk drive can impact the performance of your computer. For example, copying a huge multi-megabyte file to your flash drive will tax your hard disk drive, and thus slow down your computer.
  5. Your computer gets infected with a malicious adware or worm. Most malicious adware will cause multiple Internet browsers to open and cause memory, processor, and hard disk drive to be completely taxed-making your computer totally useless. Almost all worms will use up all of your computer’s resources causing your computer to slow down as well.

TYPICAL WAYS RESOURCES ARE USED

Unless your computer is infected with some form of malware, its resources will typically get used up in the following manner:

  • The first resource to get used up is memory-your computer’s RAM. When a computer program runs, it uses up memory and disk space for any temporary file it uses.
  • When RAM is in short supply, your computer starts using virtual memory. Virtual memory resides on your computer’s hard disk drive. The hard disk drive is the slowest of all computer resources. Thus, the moment your computer starts using more virtual memory, your computer will start to show poor performance-i.e. it will become less responsive. When the hard disk drive starts to flash frequently and you aren’t explicitly reading or saving a file, this is a sure sign your computer is depending more on virtual memory. At this point, your computer is probably running sluggishly.
  • Files on a computer’s hard disk drive are stored in storage units called blocks. A computer can extract data faster if the file is stored in a contiguous sequence of blocks. Over time, files change and thus get scattered in the hard disk over non-contiguous blocks. When this happens, the file gets fragmented. When more and more files get fragmented, the computer will take longer and longer to read files. This is why computers perform better when you first get them. Then over time, it starts to perform poorly as data and program files get fragmented on the hard disk drive.

WHAT CAN SLOW DOWN YOUR ONCE FAST COMPUTER

You might notice that when you first opened up your computer, applications and other utilities are pretty responsive. Over time, your computer starts to get sluggish. The items enumerated below will account for this sluggishness.

  • Installation of New Devices. When you install a new device (e.g. a printer) various additional programs get installed on your computer to help make it convenient for you to manage that device. For example, a printer installation will install at least a couple of programs that run in the background-a printer management utility and a printer driver/software updater.
  • Applications in General. When you install an application, the application will also install a program that will help keep the program’s version up-to-date. This program will run in the background, periodically checking for software updates. When it detects an update, it will download the update and install it.
  • Internet Browser Plug-ins. Adobe and Java are two of the most notorious plug-ins that use up your computer’s resources. These and other plug-ins typically download updates frequently and often-causing your computer to slowdown when it is downloading, probably without your knowledge.
  • * Virus Infection. Antivirus software will occasionally fail to detect a virus infection. When your computer is infected with some virus (or some type of malware or malicious adware), your computer will start to slow down. Depending on what the virus or malware is doing, your processor, memory, or network resources could easily be used up.

MAKE YOUR COMPUTER RUN FASTER

Now that you have the proper background, there are things you can do to help make your computer run faster. Some may cost you, but most can be done at no cost. Here is a quick overview of what you can do:

  • Perform a full virus scan of your computer
  • Perform a disk defragmentation
  • Uninstall or disable unnecessary programs
  • Add more RAM
  • Add faster disk drives

Before you spend money, the first thing you should do is to perform a full virus scan of your computer. To do this, you need to:

  • Make sure your antivirus program has the latest updates
  • Boot in safe mode
  • Run a complete scan of your computer; making sure all disk drives are scanned

By doing this, you will help guarantee that a virus, malware, or adware isn’t slowing down your computer.

It is generally good practice to periodically defragment your main computer disk drive. Defragmenting will help your computer load data or program files into memory faster. On Windows, you will typically find the Disk Defragmenter tool in the Systems Tools folder, under Accessories.

Uninstalling or disabling programs or services can help your computer run faster as well. There are two ways to approach this-in Windows XP they are Add Remove Programs and MSCONFIG.

Do not attempt this if you aren’t sure of what you are uninstalling, but if you are, by all means do so.

In Windows XP, the first way is to open up the Add Remove Programs utility in the Control Panel. In the Add Remove Programs utility, look for programs you no longer use, and uninstall them. By doing this, you free up disk space and possibly remove any memory resident programs that the program installed. The other approach is to use the MSCONFIG utility (Microsoft System Configuration utility). To run MSCONFIG, simply click START, select RUN, enter “msconfig” in the “Open:” field, and click OK. Look for things you don’t need in the Startup and Services tabs. In the Services tab, you can reduce the chance of disabling key services by making checking the “Hide all Microsoft Services.” This ensures you don’t impact key services used by your operating system.

If you still find that your computer is slow, it is probably because the programs you are using require more memory, or the way you are using applications require more memory. In this case, purchase and install more memory. Check how many memory slots your computer can take, then make sure to consult your manufacturer’s specifications to ensure you purchase the right type and size RAM. If you aren’t comfortable dealing with hardware, you can always get the help of someone who is.

If you use a lot of data files, it may also be to your advantage to purchase a fast disk drive. Install the fast disk drive as a slave drive and place your data there. A faster disk drive can also help speed up your computer if you replace your boot drive with a faster disk drive. Note, however, that it takes a lot of time to replace your boot drive with another. You may want to consult the help of a professional of a competent friend to do this.

SUMMARY

There isn’t one quick action you can take to make your computer go faster-aside from buying a new one. You must first have some basic understanding of the key resources that affect your computers performance-processor, memory, disk drive, and network interface. You also need to understand how these resources are typically used up, provided your computer isn’t infected with a virus. Some key examples of things that over time slow down the performance of your once fast computer can also help you understand. With the proper background, you will make a better decision about what to do to speed up your computer.