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Post by onlymark on Feb 24, 2009 17:21:17 GMT
I write this as an amateur - if anyone knows more then please help out and correct my mistakes. But this is how I understand computer things and if I'm wrong please jump in. One thing, before you do anything you're not sure of, back up any important info on to a disc.
It seems obvious but in case you didn't know, the more stuff you have on your computer the slower it is. It slows down when it's trying to run programmes all the time, when the memory is filling up and when it can't find the stuff you want, when the processor is old or not very powerful.
Using Vista, click on the icon you should have on your screen (called a desktop) that says 'Computer'. A window opens up. It'll show your 'hard disk drive (or drives) and your 'Devices with removable Storage' Look at your hard disk and the figures underneath it. Mine says - '608GB free of 690GB'
What that means is I've used approx one seventh of the computers memory. Mine, therefore, is quite quick, and so it should be it's a new one. How big is yours? Do you need to start getting rid of all those porno films? Bigger is better you know?
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Post by onlymark on Feb 24, 2009 17:29:09 GMT
On XP you virtually do the same to see what memory you've used but it might be in a column on the left side where it tells you after you've clicked on 'Computer'.
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Post by onlymark on Feb 24, 2009 18:27:37 GMT
Next - How good does Microsoft think your computer is?
With Vista - Click on 'Computer' on your desktop (same as before) You see the same as before, with the Hard Disc thingy. Look above on the line where it says 'Organise Views System Properties etc' Click on 'System Properties' A third or so of the way down the page you'll see a little blue coloured box with a number in it, between 1 and 6. To the left it'll say 'Rating', to the right a link which says 'Windows Experience Index' What does yours say? Mine says '5.4'
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Post by rikita on Feb 24, 2009 18:29:21 GMT
i am fast at filling up space. my computer is a few weeks old and already i only have 198 of 278 left... well mainly because i put a lot of music and photos on there... i will probably put them on some removeable stuff at some point, but not right now...
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Post by onlymark on Feb 24, 2009 18:35:45 GMT
It's only less than a third full approx though isn't it?
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Post by rikita on Feb 24, 2009 18:39:54 GMT
yeah... though it surprised me a bit that i filled that much space that quickly... well i guess it is mainly the music... since some of my favourite cds weren't working anymore, i panicked and decided to copy all cds i have onto the computer...
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Post by onlymark on Feb 24, 2009 18:41:48 GMT
Anyway - The Windows Experience Index measures the capability of your computer's hardware and software and expresses this measurement as a number called a base score. A higher base score generally means that your computer will perform better and faster than a computer with a lower base score. It measures things like the graphics capability, memory, processor etc and allocates a rating. The item with the lowest rating gives your base score, it's not an average. The higher the score the better.
Click on 'Windows Experience Index' and also 'What do these numbers mean?' and you'll get some more info.
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Post by onlymark on Feb 24, 2009 18:44:11 GMT
rikita - copy them back onto fresh cd's or get some form of memory stick or some way to store them away from your computer if you feel like it. At the moment I shouldn't worry too much about it though, unless you feel it's all slowing down.
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Post by onlymark on Feb 24, 2009 18:59:31 GMT
So - there's not normally much you can do with your computer about changing that score, especially on the cheap and with no technical knowledge. You have what you have. But you can try and get the best out of what you've got.
First - Memory - weed out all the old stuff you've got, all the old files, presentations, photos, music, especially videos etc. Cut down on your memory, keep it tidy and do some house cleaning. You remember that funny utube video or those photos you received in an e mail you downloaded - do you really need them? If your computer is running in an acceptable way to you, then keep them if you want.
Second - Processor - you've got what you've got, same with the graphics stuff, leave it alone unless you know what you're doing (and I frequently don't).
Third - running a lot of programmes - that's for another time.
Fourth - where is stuff on your computer and how easy is it for it to be found? Not by you, by your computer?
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Post by onlymark on Feb 24, 2009 19:12:41 GMT
Dealing with the fourth point - Your computer is not a neat freak. It stuffs things everywhere, programmes, files, bits and bobs, everything is all over the place, and not necessarily all in the same place and it will even split things up so it can stuff them in all the corners. Just like you.
But then you come along and want something. Well it struggles sometimes to find it and put it back together. You simply click on that file that says 'Abusive letters received' or 'broiled guts recipes' and it has to scurry off to find it all. It "Fragments" the information. If you've got other stuff running at the same time it gets a bit of a sweat on.
You need to help it out by "De-fragmenting" all that stuff and in effect shaking the computer by the scruff of it's neck and telling it to tidy up. It needs to put stuff together that's of the same type (like lining up your clothes in colour order) and so when it wants something it can go to where it probably is instead of hunting high and low for it.
You're best to back up your data before you do this, and run a disc cleanup, mentioned later.
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Post by onlymark on Feb 24, 2009 19:36:59 GMT
One time when you intend to be away from your computer for quite a spell run the "Defragmentation" programme. Close all open windows leaving just the Desktop showing.
Click on Start --- Programs ----- Accessories ------ System Tools and you'll see a list with "Disc Defragmenter" Click on this, give the permission necessary to open it, and a new window opens. Is there a green tick mark saying 'Scheduled defragmentation is enabled'?
What should happen is that at the day and time specified it should do it automatically, but has it? Did it do it and you didn't know? Was your computer on? It may say it did it several days ago, but I have no clue at all if it did or it didn't. My old computer, I was sure, never did. This one I don't know. If your system is quite old maybe it never did.
Anyway, no harm in letting it do it one more time. Click "Defragmentation now" Make sure all the boxes are checked and click Ok ------------------------------------- then sod off for some time until it's finished.
You can work away as normal if you are really getting withdrawal symptoms, but it's better if you leave it to do a tidy up. It groups like with like and has a right old sort out. When it's finished, follow the prompts and exit then work as normal. BUT - it doesn't throw stuff away.
More on that another time.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 24, 2009 19:59:03 GMT
I read somewhere that you should defrag frequently, even if the program says you don't need to. Thus, about once a week I tell it to defragment -- don't bother asking it to analyze first. I've never had any problem with being able to use the computer normally while it was being defragged in the background.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 24, 2009 20:39:57 GMT
My laptop is already half full. 37 Go used and 36 Go available. When should I start transferring stuff to an external hard drive to avoid problems?
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Post by onlymark on Feb 24, 2009 20:57:48 GMT
Kerouac - unless I'm told different by maybe Zonker or someone I'd go up to two thirds full and then see what I can archive somewhere else to be on the safe side. There's other factors involved as well, it's like swings and roundabouts, if you don't have many things running all at once you can go higher, if you do then it might already be affecting it, albeit in a minor way. I don't know of any exactness to it.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 24, 2009 20:59:45 GMT
Intersperses comment/question:
If everyone reduced their stored photos from the HUGENESS they are when downloaded from the digital camera, wouldn't it give them more space?
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Post by onlymark on Feb 24, 2009 21:07:22 GMT
Intersperses comment/question: If everyone reduced their stored photos from the HUGENESS they are when downloaded from the digital camera, wouldn't it give them more space? Yes, but doesn't it affect the quality as the physical size of the photo goes down, it takes up less space in kilobytes or megabytes and the number of pixels per square inch reduces?
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Post by onlymark on Feb 24, 2009 21:08:40 GMT
Or does it retain the same quality but just gets smaller? I don't know.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 25, 2009 1:55:25 GMT
Well, the size those photos come off the camera into your computer is unusably large. Typically, when I view on on the photo management program I use, on my screen it's around 26% of it's true size! And just try to send more than three of those monsters as attachments in one email.
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Post by palesa on Feb 25, 2009 5:09:40 GMT
Mark, where were you when I got my first computer, this stuff is so helpful. Things that I have learned over the years, often the hard way!
I will ask Zonker about the memory thing, but I tend to agree.
PSA: Don't forget to back up your computer regularly, especially those of you who keep all your photos on your computer, if it crashes and you do not have a backup, you will LOOOOOOSE everything. Maybe Mark can do a module on backing up.
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Post by onlymark on Feb 25, 2009 5:15:50 GMT
Let me try something, I'll get back to you.
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Post by onlymark on Feb 25, 2009 5:30:52 GMT
Well, the size those photos come off the camera into your computer is unusably large. Typically, when I view on on the photo management program I use, on my screen it's around 26% of it's true size! And just try to send more than three of those monsters as attachments in one email. I've just experimented with my camera and I'm onto something.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 25, 2009 5:46:55 GMT
I have a whole thing written out about reducing photos to a manageable size. Shall I post it here, or will it derail what you're doing?
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Post by onlymark on Feb 25, 2009 5:49:17 GMT
So - look at the following two photos, they look the same. It is an image of my desk. Notice that when I've posted them here neither have to be reduced.
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Post by onlymark on Feb 25, 2009 6:07:25 GMT
But they are different sizes. So what did I do?
The first problem with bloody great big photos is, what size did your camera take them? On my camera, as I would expect most digital ones, you can adjust the size of the photo that the camera takes. Mine goes from e mail size, 640x480 all the way up to A3 size, 3077x2304. The first one is e mail size, the second is A3. Bear in mind that when you download these to your computer they stay the size that you took them. Thus if you have them very big you take up a lot of space. The first one, on my computer is only 85kb (kilobytes), the second one is 965kb. Some of mine are nearly 2Mb.
Next - when you download them to Imageshack, Photobucket or whatever you use, does the website program re-size them? Photobucket will, my settings are to re-size them to 640x480. So - to post on here 640x480 seems ideal.
Conclusion - If you take a photo on a big setting, don't use a computer program like a Microsoft photo manager one you probably already have, download it to a web site and don't re-size it, you'll post it and it'll be massive. You can either - 1. Think sod it, the forum software will re-size it when I post it and hard luck for those on a slow connection. 2. Adjust your camera setting to take a smaller photo (which will take up less space in your camera memory and then computer) 3. Transfer it to your computer and use a program to re-size it. 4. Transfer it, whatever size it is, to Photo/Image thingy and adjust your settings to re-size it as it goes there.
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Post by onlymark on Feb 25, 2009 6:08:27 GMT
bixa - any info is welcome, post at will, I'm not exclusive on here.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 25, 2009 6:13:34 GMT
Is there a setting on the computer to give people a nasty electric shock when they post a photo that is too huge? That could be really useful for a few people on this and other sites.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 25, 2009 6:21:15 GMT
So .... what you're saying is that there is a simple, logical way to deal with this!
Okay ~~ I'm posting this for all the photos one might have already loaded on the computer, not for those taken in a decent size in the future. This is the only program I really know how to use, & I find it extremely easy. Maybe others will post how to use different programs.
RESIZING PICTURES WITH MICROSOFT OFFICE PICTURE MANAGER
For a reason I do not understand, most digital camera pictures when loaded onto the computer are huge.* This presents a problem when you want to send photos in email, since those oversized pictures can too quickly use up your attachment size limit. Also, when you post an oversized picture online, the monster will stretch the screen.
So, what to do?
You need to resize them, which can be done with a picture managing program computer which you should have on your computer.
The one I like is Microsoft Office Picture Manager. (To find: click Start; click All Programs; click Microsoft Office; click Microsoft Office Tools to see the drop-down menu. That's where you'll find Picture Manager)
Any computer picture managing program should have the capacity to re-size photos. I particularly recommend Mcrsft Ofc Picture Mngr because it is so easy to use.
When you open a photo in Pic.Mgr., it will fit nicely on your computer screen. However, if you look at the tool bar across the top, you'll see how much the pic was reduced in order to fit the screen. To fix it, all you need to do is click on Edit Pictures from the toolbar at the top of the page, then select Resize. Using the "Percentage of orignal width x height:" box, you enter the same reduction number showing in the top toolbar. Click Save & you're done. It also gives you the ability to crop, adjust brightness, color, & all kinds of other things.
*see Mark's explanation above
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Post by onlymark on Feb 25, 2009 6:26:15 GMT
Is there a setting on the computer to give people a nasty electric shock when they post a photo that is too huge? That could be really useful for a few people on this and other sites. This can be done, plus a remote switch for the moderators.
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Post by onlymark on Feb 25, 2009 7:07:52 GMT
Another thing -
Imagine you are sitting in your office. The boss keeps coming to you and telling you to get certain files. Some more than once, some only once, but you never know what they will ask for. Each time you scurry off to find them, then put them back, then go and get them again. Wouldn't it be easier to keep a copy of them, the recent ones, just on your desk so you can hand them out as needed? But then you might have a load of copy files cluttering up your desk, of which only a small percentage are ever looked at again.
Your computer does this. It keeps them in a Temporary File Folder and keeps other stuff handy as well. E.g. it keeps copies of web pages so that when you go back to a site it can quickly retrieve that page. The problem is if you surf around a lot you may have load of copies hanging around that you'll never go back to. Also, it keeps thumbnails (small pictures) of all the pictures on your computer so it can open them quickly when you open a folder. At the moment my thumbnail file is 104Mb
Also, when did you last empty your recycle bin? Do you need all that stuff that's in there? My bin has stuff in it to the size of 135Mb and there's actually not a lot in there.
What you can do is clean up your disc, empty stuff and throw it away. On Vista - Go to Start Programs Accessories System Tools Disc Cleanup
A pop will ask if for just you or all files from all users, click on for all users. Give the permission in the pop up that comes next. Another one comes asking what 'drive', leave it as the one shown and click OK. It'll then take a while to sort itself out and show you a pop up that'll tell you how much disc space you can free up. It'll list stuff and have boxes you can tick.
If you click on each item it'll tell you about it, it'll also give a size to how big the thing is. I've got ticks against Downloaded program files, Temporary Internet files, Recycle Bin and Thumbnails. I normally clean those up. The thumbnails will be remade every time you open a picture so it's no problem to get rid of them. I've checked in the bin to see if there is anything I really wanted to keep. The other stuff will sort itself out.
One thing on mine now is 'Hibernation File Cleaner' and it's pretty big, it's a new one on me and I need to research into it further before I'm happy cleaning it up and getting rid of it.
However, see what you've got and clean it up. I do the ones in the last paragraph. You can also, in the pop up, click on 'more options' tab and follow that through to delete any programs you don't use or don't need. But be careful with that as often programs are linked and the use each others stuff to work properly. It might be you delete a program and then something else doesn't now work that you need.
So, press clean up and it'll do it for you.
On XP it's virtually the same - Start Programs Accessories Systemprogram (translated from German) Disc clean up
Then it scans to find stuff and you can do as I said above.
Bixa – when the pop up comes up with the list, there is another tab for other data. Open that and there are three options. The centre one is on about software programmes and getting rid of them. Click on it where you can do so and my old XP opens up to display all the software programmes. This is what I needed you open up to get rid of the ArcSoft. If it does open up, can you do it now?
Anyway, it may pay you to clean your disc up from time to time as well.
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Post by onlymark on Feb 25, 2009 7:11:45 GMT
I read somewhere that you should defrag frequently, even if the program says you don't need to. Thus, about once a week I tell it to defragment -- don't bother asking it to analyze first. I've never had any problem with being able to use the computer normally while it was being defragged in the background. If you set it up with the scheduled defragmentation ticked and set it up so it does it every week during the day when you know you'll have it on, you'll see it do it automatically anyway. Just a thought. That what I do with mine.
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