When looking for RAM for your computer you need to start with the finding the information of manufacturer and model of the computer (ie HP dv5560), once you have found this go to a site that uses a memory configuration tool the one I use is Crucial Memory Advisor  tool found here  http://www.crucial.com/

The Advisor tool will give you important information about your system including number of memory slots available and the maximum speed and size of RAM possible.  It also can scan your system and provide a report with some helpful info like motherboard model, current memory configuration and suggested memory upgrades (just download and run their app.)

When looking at the suggested memory you will see numbers likes PC2-6400 or PC2-5300 and PC2-3200 these numbers correspond to the speed that the memory can transfer information. The higher the number the faster the RAM, fast is good but not more important than size. Size is a tricky subject mainly because different people use their computers in different ways. The person that just does email and web browsing, maybe some instant messaging or iTunes will not need nearly as much memory as someone that is going to play high-end graphics games at the maximum settings, and there is a full spectrum of users in between.  A good rule of thumb is for Windows XP anything over 1GB is good and for Vista and now Windows 7 anything over 2GB is going to help with system performance. If you have the money and want to max out the system memory, go for it can’t hurt and then you never need to worry about it again.  But if you’re like me you can work your way up as your needs increase and money allows.

I do recommend buying DDR memory in pairs because Double Data Rate memory will run twice as fast if paired but it must match in  speed and size (sometimes manufacturer) or it will not work. Also an important point to remember is that the system RAM will run at the lowest speed MHz installed, so if you have 3 PC2-5300 which runs at 667 MHz and one PC2-4200 which run at 533 MHz then all the memory will run at 533 MHz.  Also if you have an older system make sure if you system used the older DDR that this is what you purchase since DDR2 memory will not fit.

When shopping for RAM make sure you look closely at what you are buying since many times memory is sold in pairs and the packaging can be easily misunderstood. If you go to a local electronics store to buy the memory take the old memory in with you to match up to the new one to be sure it will fit if you’re not sure what type of memory you have. I don’t recommend one memory over another; you will get higher quality material with name brand memory put unless you plan on over clocking the memory any brand will work fine. And there are always sales so shop around and price compare.

When Installing make sure the notch(es) line up with the groove(s) in the slot, it will only install one way. The retaining clips should start in the upright position then pop down when the memory is snapped into the slot.  Here is a nice step by step tutorial found on lifehacker.com:

http://lifehacker.com/138665/hack-attack-how-to-install-ram

I hope this was helpful and gives you an idea of what it takes to upgrade the memory in your system. If you follow the tips in this blog post and my other posts you should expect noticeable improvement in the performance of your computer.

DDR2 speed chart

The iLike Music add on has given me the most enjoyment letting me build setlists from Youtube content. It even has an iTunes and WMP sidebar you can download and install that syncs between the player and facebook. It also lets you download free MP3 right to your music folder, so far I have downloaded 130 songs (all free and legal.)

My Band is a useful add on since it is currently the best way to upload your content to facebook. This is meant for non-copyrighted or owned by you material so don’t go uploading your whole Bob Marley collection. I have some music I wrote in Sony Acid Pro on mine. You have to signup on the website ReverbNation, the uploads are limited to 8MB each song but you can upgrade for a monthly fee. If you have material to share this is the way to go.

The Indie Tab will let you promote unlabeled or indie artists, just sign up and start adding music to your list. You can also get free MP3 of lot of the artist. Promote yourself here if you are a rising artist.

Hulu is a great way to watch online shows like Heroes and WIPEOUT! and I am happy to be able to post some of my favorite shows with the Hulu tab add-on. There are many more applications to explore and I would love to know the experiences you have had with facebook enhancements, my email is tdtechhead@gmail.com.

I see facebook as a prototype to a much more powerful communication future. Allowing people to express themselves using the internet as their medium as well as personal content. Sharing media, self expression and artistic development all with instant feedback from peers. It has a huge potential to change the way we communicate with one another.

When you get the program running you will see the main Uninstaller tab window, here you will see all the programs that are installed on you system. In this window double click an application you would like to uninstall. It will ask if you are sure you want to uninstall click YES to continue. Revo will then ask you to select the uninstall mode, the default is Moderate which is fine, occasionally I will jack it up to Advanced but I rarely see the need. In the next phase Revo will launch the application’s own uninstaller, one nice feature about Revo Uninstaller is the fact that if the application’s uninstaller package gets corrupted and will not work, Revo will still try to uninstall without the package. When the application uninstaller finishes then Revo Uninstaller will do its own search through the file system to find leftover files and folders, press Select All (unless there is a file(s) you wish to keep) then press Delete. It will also frequently but not always find registry entries once again press Select All then Delete. The application has been completely removed.

In the Tools tab you will find some useful features. The first one is Autorun Manager which will allow you to control which applications will start when the computer is turned on. When selecting the Autorun Manager icon (stop light) it will display a list of applications that are marked to run at start-up. When looking through the list you will probably see items like Adobe Reader Speed Launcher or Quicktime tasks (if using iTunes), many applications run services to look for updates. These are not necessary to be running all the time. Find the entries of applications that you feel you do not want running all the time and uncheck them. It is OK if you are not sure what to choose because if then next time you start and the icon or application you want is not available go back to this tab and turn it back on. You do not want to turn off your Anti-virus, Firewall, or Internet Security so be aware of these entries. Windows Tools is just a collection of built in tools located in one convenient location. Junk Files Cleaner will look for unnecessary files on your computer then let you delete them all or selectively. One last feature which I do not use much is the Hunter Mode which places an icon on the desktop, you can drag this icon onto an applications to begin an uninstall. Another feature I just discovered is if you right click on the hunter icon and press drag and drop it turns into a little flame window that you can drag applications to it to be uninstalled (cute!).

I have used this tool religiously for the last two years and highly recommended it as an alternative to Windows Program Uninstall(Add/Remove). Here is the link and I hope it helps.

http://www.revouninstaller.com/revo_uninstaller_free_download.html

I wanted to talk about some pretty well known tricks for keeping Windows running better. First off learn this path Start>All Programs>Accessories>System Tools, this is a folder full of very useful tools. One of these tools is Disk Cleanup. This little utility can free up space on your hard drives by getting rid of unneeded files this is always a good place to start when using these tools.

The next one I want to talk about is Disk Defragmenter; this tool will improve disk read performance by place like files consecutively on the disk. Run these tools at least once a month and this will serve as good preventive maintenance.

If you want better performance on your PC and you don’t care about all the bells and whistles you can adjust the visual effects. In XP Control Panel (you want to be in category view) click performance than Visual Effects. Choose the Best Performance (I go down and check use common task in window and drop shadow for icon labels on the desktop). In Vista do the same operation but instead Control Panel (Classic view) > System icon>Advanced System Settings under Tasks > Click continue when UAC asks > Under Performance click on the Settings button. Also check Show thumbnails instead of icons to see your pictures in explorer.

One last more advanced operation is the System Configuration tool. This will allow you to turn off certain programs at startup so as not to slow down the computer. Typing msconfig in the Run box found in the Start menu will bring up the application. In the General tab select the Selective startup button. Then go to Services tab and check Hide all Microsoft services, after that uncheck all applications that are not essential for running all the time(ie keep your firewall software checked). Then go to the Startup tab and once again uncheck unneeded programs at startup but leave Antivirus and Firewall type protection enabled. You can press OK and follow the prompts to restart. You will need to revisit as need to adjust program access. A much better tool for this is Revo Uninstaller listed on my Useful Tools list which I plan on doing a recommended software post soon.

This is a few of the tricks to help improve a PC performance I will be posting more tips in the coming posts. Please let me know if this helps.

I just recently had the chance to get an advanced copy of Windows 7 so I thought I give a review for the folks that have not had a chance to look at it yet. The install went well with a few hiccups here and there. I used Easy Transfer Wizard in my Vista OS to backup a copy of my setting to my Server I went in and unchecked a lot of stuff because the default has many included locations including files on other volumes. Office product transferred fine but I lost my Firefox bookmarks (always backup browser settings separately.) All my drivers installed automatically including my HP printer. After one of the updates I did have one BSOD but it has not occurred since.

A little history on Vista, I worked in a tech dept for a couple of years and it was during the rollout of Vista. There were a lot of people who did not want Vista on their new PC and some even requested that we downgrade the new machine to XP even with a $200 additional charge. So Microsoft was having a battle with itself old vs. new and the old was winning. The problem with technology now is that there are two side of the fence. On one side are the IT crowd excited about the prospect of advanced technology like an 128GB memory access limit, the move away from inferior less powerful program code and a push for 64bit computing. But then there is 85% of the other people that don’t know what I am talking about just want a stable computer to do simple  email, internet surfing maybe a game of online cards.

My experience with Vista and now Windows 7 is not that it is a bad OS but packed. The OS comes with a lot of services that run in the background many hidden to the user for things such as checking for updates for the OS and firewall protection. These should be ok if using the recommended hardware (not the minimum) but when you pack on the bloatware of most of the PC manufacture such as Acer and HP then you bog the computer down with too many services at startup making it run like a machine from 1996. Microsoft needs to work with these companies to ensure a better out of the box experience for the user. Microsoft did decided to pull back on some of it security and give the user more room to hang themselves (as seen in the UAC slider option) as well as pull some of the add-on like the gadget bar instead letting the user create the gadgets anywhere, they gave some upgrades to the much needed Paint as well as Calculator and upgrading WordPad to a full fledged word processor (welcome to the big time WordPad.) A side note that will not affect most people is the EULA changes that restrict the number of times the OS can be transferred. This will be a pain for people like me that build many PCs during the ownership of an OS, only two transfers of Windows 7 will be allowed. Here is an interesting article on this issue. http://windowsitpro.com/article/articleid/93896/vista-licensing-changes-alienate-tech-enthusiasts.html

There are couple of other new items to explorer such as a new networking element called homegroup which is a more user friendly way to share files and such over a network, unfortunately homegroups are not backwards compatible so it can only work with another Windows 7 machine. One of the cooler tech features of Windows 7 is the ability to incorporate sensors into the OS. The types of sensors that can be used are GPS, motion detector, RFID, traffic and on and on, the possibilities are limitless. Let say you want to know physically where all your books are in your house, put RFID tags on them then use an RFID tracking software to view their locations from your PC. A new feature to look for is jump list that can be used from the taskbar by right clicking on an app icon it gives you recently open documents with the application.

Overall the OS runs well. A couple of small complaints: 1) added Safely Remove to the context for USB attached devices but then removes it in Windows 7(Why?) 2) cannot create a folder toolbar docked to the edge of the desktop anymore, In XP I would always drag the My Computer folder icon to the top of the screen and it would dock a toolbar there with all my drive volumes and disc drives for easy access. I loved this feature they changed it in Vista that you had to create the toolbar first then drag it to where you wanted but now it is gone altogether(I am in contact with MS support about it.) It looks like the Vista memory hogging has been addressed in Windows 7 but I hope when it gets bundled with the bloatware most PC manufactures put in their machines it doesn’t cause another XP downgrade craze. I think Microsoft learned a lesson from Vista and their customers’ reaction to it, you have to give them what they want (performance, value) with what they need (more security, stability, usability) Windows 7 I think has found a good balance. Its current release date is October 22, 2009.

Minimum hardware requirements for Windows 7

Processor speed
1 GHz

Memory (RAM)
32-bit: 1 GB of RAM
64-bit: 2 GB of RAM

Graphics card
DirectX 9 graphics processor with WDDM driver model 1.0

HDD
16-20 GB of available disk space

Optical drive
DVD drive (only to install from DVD/CD Media)