My computer is slow, how can I make it go faster?

Usually what I find is that people have too many programs running.  You’ll see a lot of programs running down by your clock, and these take up memory.  When your memory is used up, your computer will start to use your hard drive as “virtual memory”.  The problem with this is that your hard drive is slower at accessing data than you RAM or memory is.  So step number 1 in speeding up your PC is close any unneeded programs.

            There can also be registry errors in Windows slowing you down.  Use a program like Ccleaner to scan for registry problems and fix them.  That’s step 2.

            Step 3 would be to defrag your hard drive.  This reorganizes the data on you drive so that the computer can access it faster.  A hard drive writes data all over the drive so eventually it will slow down because of this fragmentation.  So run a defrag!

            Step 4 would be to clean up you startup items.  You can use Ccleaner to also do this task.  You can click on any program you don’t need at the time you start your computer and either delete it or disable it (just in case).

So in summary:

Step 1: Close programs you don’t need open

Step 2: Fix registry errors

Step 3: Defrag your hard drive(s)

Step 4: Clean up you startup items

How do I add movies to my iPad/iPod/iPhone?

So you have an awesome mobile device, but you want to take some flicks with you just in case you get bored?  Awesome!  I'll show you the way I do it that give me the results.

First off, a lot of DVDs today are encrypted to prevent people from copying them.  The only person that this inconveniences is you, the law abiding citizen.  Crooks can and do get around all of the protections that companies put on their products.  Anyway, for those encrypted DVDs you'll need a program that will give you the access you need to copy the movie.  I suggest a program called AnyDVD (http://www.slysoft.com/en/anydvd.html).  It runs in the background and decrypts the movie for you so that other programs can copy the movie onto your computer for you.

Now, let's get down to business.

1.  Download and install Handbrake (http://handbrake.fr/)

2.  Insert a DVD into your computer

3.  Click ‘Source’ in the top left corner and select the drive with your DVD

(in this case D:\VIDEO_TS (TANGLED)

4.  If you want the full movie, leave these settings at their default:

5.  Next, choose a destination for the movie file to go:

6.  Under Output Settings, the container should say MP4 File:

7.  There is a preset option for many Apple products.  By selecting this, your movie will be optimized for playback on that device.  For my device I'll choose the iPad.

8.  To start the encoding process click Start

9.  The progress bar at the bottom shows the status of the encoding job

10.  Once the encoding process is done, open iTunes

11.  Click Movies in the left navigation bar under Library:

 12.  In Windows explorer (if you use Windows), click and drag the movie into your iTunes movie library.

13.  Download the movie poster from IMDB and save it to your desktop

14.  Right click on the movie you just copied into iTunes and click Get Info

15.  Click the Artwork tab

16.  Click the Add button, and select the poster you downloaded previously.

17.  Click OK

18.  Connect you iPad to you computer

19.  Click the movies tab under your device and click the checkbox to sync movies

20.  Click Sync in the lower right corner of iTunes and your movie will transfer to your iPad for your viewing pleasure.

The movie I just transferred to my iPad and it plays beautifully.

Virtual Machine Software

What is virtual machine software?


Operating system virtualization is the use of software to allow a piece of hardware to run multiple operating system images at the same time. The technology got its start on mainframes decades ago, allowing administrators to avoid wasting expensive processing power.  There are application available that allow you can run that allows you to use multiple operating systems at the same time.  Say you're main OS is Windows 7, but you also want to run Windows XP, Linux, or some version of UNIX.  You can do that without destroying data on your Windows 7 machine.  Here are the 5 most popular virtualization software available.

VirtualBox (Windows/Mac/Linux, Free)

VirtualBox has a loyal following thanks to a combination of a free-as-in-beer price tag, cross-platform support, and a huge number of features that make running and maintaining virtual machines a breeze. Virtual machine descriptions and parameters are stored entirely in plain-text XML files for easy portability and easy folder sharing. Its "Guest Additions" feature, available for Windows, Linux, and Solaris virtual machines, makes VirtualBox user friendly, allowing you to install software on the virtual machine that grants extra privileges to the host machine for tasks like sharing files, sharing drives and peripherals, and more. You can read about additional VirtualBox features here.

Parallels (Windows/Mac/Linux, $79.99)

Although best known for the Mac version of their virtual machine software, Parallels also runs virtualization on Windows and Linux. The Parallels software boasts a direct link, thanks to optimization on Intel and AMD chips, to the host computer's hardware with selective focus—when you jump into the virtual machine to work the host machine automatically relinquishes processing power to it. Parallels also offers clipboard sharing and synchronization, shared folders, and transparent printer and peripheral support. Read moreabout the Mac features here and the Windows/Linux features here.

VMware (Windows/Linux, Basic: Free, Premium: $189)

VMware for desktop users comes in two primary flavors: VMware Player and VMware Workstation. VMware Player is a free solution aimed at casual users who need to create and run virtual machines but don't need advanced enterprise-level solutions. VMware Workstation includes all the features of VMWare Player—easy virtual machine creation, hardware optimization, driver-less guest OS printing—and adds in the ability to clone machines, take multiple snapshots of the guest OS, and a replay changes made to the guest OS for testing software and recording the results within the virtual machine. You can read more about VMware Player here and VMware Workstation here.

QEMU (Linux, Free)

QEMU is a powerful virtualization tool for Linux machines built upon the back of the KVM system (Kernel-based Virtual Machine). QEMU executes guest code directly on the host hardware, can emulate machines across hardware types with dynamic translation, and supports auto-resizing virtual disks. Where QEMU really shines, especially among those who like the push the limits of virtualization and take their virtual machines with them, is running on hosts without administrative privileges. Unlike nearly every emulator out there QEMU does not require admin access to run, making it a perfect candidate for building thumb-drive based portable virtual machines.

Windows Virtual PC (Windows, Free)

Compared to the other any-OS-under-the-sun virtual machine applications in this week's Hive Five, Windows Virtual PC is a tame offering. Windows Virtual PC exists solely to emulate other—usually earlier—versions of Windows. If you need to run an app that only works under Windows XP or test software for backwards compatibility with Vista, Windows Virtual Machine has you covered. It's limited, true, but for people working in a strictly Windows environment—and most of the world still is—it gets the job done. Note: Virtual PC is availabls as Virtual PC 2004, Virtual PC 2007, and Windows Virtual PC, use this host and guest OS compatibility chart to figure out which one fits your needs.

- Jason Fitzpatrick

How do I archive movies?

There are many ways to do it, but what you need to worry about is encryption.  Movie studios place encryption protection on their movies to prevent you from copying them.  But, from everything I've read you are able to make a backup copy of your movie legally.

What do I need?
First, you will need a fatty hard drive to hold all of your movies.  I recommend 1 terabyte or more.  You'll need a DVD drive obviously.  You will also need software in most cases.

Why should I do this?
Well, if you have kids you can look at the state you DVDs may be in and cringe.  I have found it is best to store you movies on a computer where the kids can't scratch them, step on them, or break them.  If you have an Xbox, or media center PC you can play these movies directly from you computer onto you TV.  You would also want to do this because keeping a library of DVDs does not look that great in the front room.  If you have them all stored away it's more convenient to get to them, and less time consuming searching for them.

I recommend using DVDshrink for you free option.  The paid option I recommend using is a combination of two different software: CloneDVD and AnyDVD.  They both have an evaluation period of 21 days, but that should be long enough to archive your complete library of movies.  AnyDVD is a way of decrypting those protected DVDs you have so that CloneDVD can copy them.  DVDshrink may also need to have a DVD decrypted, and it is recommended that you use software called DVDdecryptor.

Here is a video tutorial on how to copy a DVD with CloneDVD:



Now, if you want to go the free route you can use DVDshrink, and here is a video tutorial on how to use it:



DvDshrink is not the only free option out there.  If you do a simple Google search you'll be able to find others.  I just like to use it.  I find it's fast and as long as the disk isn't encrypted it does a good job.

Need some great utilities?

I found some great free tools that you can use to help you in a variety of ways.  Head over to www.easeus.com for tools like:

• Data Recovery Wizard
• Partition Master
• Todo Backup

Data Recovery Wizard allows you to recover 1 GB of data. You can recover files emptied from Recycle Bin, or lost due to software crash, formatted or damaged hard drive, virus attack, lost partition and other unknown reasons under Windows 2000 and higher. It recovers data from formatted partitions with original file names and storage paths. Moreover, the free data recovery software works well with dynamic disk, RAID and EXT2/EXT3 file system..

Partition Master is a cornucopia of goodness with many capabilities. Partition Master Home Edition is a FREE ALL-IN-ONE partition solution and disk management utility. It allows you to extend partitions, manage disk space easily, settle low disk space problem on your Master Boot Record under Windows 2000 and higher. The most popular hard disk management functions are brought together with powerful data protection including: Partition Manager, Disk & Partition Copy Wizard & Partition Recovery Wizard. Copy Wizard to copy partition or migrate entire hard disk to another without Windows system re-installation.

Are your system, photos, music and financial data protected?  Todo Backup, supporting Windows 2000 and higher, and Windows Server 2000 and higher, is a potent free backup software that can perform system backups and restore, hard disk or partition backup and restore, disk clone to protect your system and disk. It backs up your whole PC, including the operating system plus your data, applications, settings and everything!  This is called a disk image.  Todo Backup is useful if you want to replace the older smaller hard disk by a newer larger hard disk or migrate/upgrade to Windows 7 without reinstalling the operating system and applications once again.

I always suggest that after you do a clean install of your operating system, drivers, and programs then take an image of your machine.  This way if anything bad happens, you will save yourself a ton of time putting your system back together.

I hope you find these tools as useful as I do.

So which internet browser should I use?

This is a great question, and it's also an important one.  The top players in the browser wars are Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Chrome.

So let's go through each of them.  Internet Explorer is made by Microsoft and is bundled with the Windows operating system.  It is the most popular browser out there, but it has been steadily on the decline with other browsers taking some of the market share.  Popular doesn't always mean better.  Internet Explorer, or IE for short, is under constant attack.  Because it is the big dog of the browsers, it is also the biggest target for hackers to try and break through and steal you information.  For many years IE has been known as the least secure browser on the market, and from my experience it is almost true.  Another browser, Safari is the least secure but I wont go into that one.  IE is the next most insecure.  IE is also the slowest of the three browsers.  When I say slowest I mean that it is the slowest to render a web page on your screen.  So with security issues, and sluggish performance I vote against IE.

Firefox is another option for your internet browsing enjoyment.  This is truly a great browser in that it's fast, more secure than IE, and has the ability to have extensions (or plugins).  Firefox will render web pages at a respectable speed.  It is more secure than IE, but that could be just because not as many hackers go after it because it's not the big dog like IE is.  Firefox also has plugins or they are also called extensions.  These extensions add to the functionality of the browser.  My favorite extension for Firefox is AdBlock Plus.  What it does is hide the ads that websites try to show you.  This is a great extension if you have kids browsing the web because some ads can be a little racy for children to see.  But, there are also other great extensions to choose from too.  The major draw back to Firefox is that it can be a memory hog, especially if you use extensions.  So if you are a little low on memory, I probably wouldn't recommend using Firefox.

Chrome is the next browser, and when compared to the other two it is the newest.  Chrome is made by Google, and it is my favorite browser.  It has all of the great features that Firefox does, but with power and security behind it.  Chrome is the most secure browser I've ever used or read about.  This is due to the way that Chrome runs.  It runs in something called a Sandbox mode.  This is a protective layer around your browser that prevents code in the browser from interacting with secure system files.  Chrome is also wicked fast.  Chrome is the faster of the three browsers in rendering web pages.  Another nice thing about Chrome is that the interface is very minimal.  You're not loaded up with toolbars that do nothing but take up screen real estate.  Chrome also has extensions that you can use, including that great AdBlock Plus.  One of my favorite features of Chrome is that if one web page crashes, your whole browser doesn't close on you.  This is because every tab and window runs in a separate process.  If that process crashes the others stay open.  The major problem with Chrome is that it is worse of a memory hog than Firefox is.  You need to make sure your system has the memory to handle this browser.

So my recommendation is to use Chrome.  I haven't been able to switch my wife over to it yet, she's still stuck on Firefox, but maybe one day.  Browsers change so often so my recommendation may change later on down the road.

So which Antivirus program should I get?

I get this one all of the time.  There are a few out there that are really good and will keep you safe from most threats.  But for someone that doesn't know much about viruses and how to stop them it can be a tough decision.

You have two options: the free antivirus program, or the paid antivirus program.  Because I don't like to spend money, I prefer to get the free ones.  But, that's not to say the paid options isn't good either.  It depends on how you feel.  There are a number of free antivirus products out there.  AVG, Clamwin, Avast, and Microsoft Security Essentials are just the few that are out there.  Some of the paid ones you'll find are Symantec, Mcafee, TrendMicro, and Nod32.

In the free column I choose Avast.  It's very lightweight and it works well in detecting malware.  When I say lightweight, I mean that it doesn't use a lot of system resources in background to slow my machine down.  I used to use AVG, but it became a resource hog.  If you don't want to use Avast, then I would recommend using Microsoft Security Essentials.  It actually performs well from what I hear.  I haven't actually used it myself, but I've heard good things about it from many different people and articles.

If you want a paid antivirus then I would suggest you go for Nod32.  It's lightweight and it catches malware really well.  The other programs are ok, but I've had issues with them in the past.  Symantec can be a resource hog.  It also alerts you to files that aren't really viruses at all.  Mcafee is ok as well, but during updates it can cripple your machine.  I have seen TrendMicro let things through that should have been blocked.  I had to clean up a mess on someone's computer that had TrendMicro.  For some reason the program didn't block the virus even when the virus definitions were up to date.

But I just got infected, what do I do?

If you have an antivirus program that can't get rid of the virus, or you somehow downloaded fake security software, you do have options.  What has worked good for me in the past is using a program called Malwarebytes to get rid of the problem.  Just install it, update the program and run a full scan.  It should clean out your computer nicely.

I hope this information has helped you.  Send me any questions you may have.