Why does it seem like every time you get a new computer it operates at lightning fast speeds for only a few months before becoming slow and laborious over its tasks? Is this just something that we have to live with or can we do something to keep our computers running at optimum speeds?
The truth is that computers do not get slower as they age, a slow computer is a sign that something is literally holding your PC back and affecting its performance. And the good news is tha...
Why does it seem like every time you get a new computer it operates at lightning fast speeds for only a few months before becoming slow and laborious over its tasks? Is this just something that we have to live with or can we do something to keep our computers running at optimum speeds?
The truth is that computers do not get slower as they age, a slow computer is a sign that something is literally holding your PC back and affecting its performance. And the good news is that you can do something about it.
There are many things that can affect your computer’s performance, from low memory to a fragmented hard drive and everything in between. The things that can affect your computer’s performance are usually of your own doing. You see, each time we download a program or delete a program, we affect the way our computer operates. This change in operation can leave holes in our PCs operating procedures or may even leave behind programs that can affect our computer’s performance.
Here are just a few things that could be making your computer slow:
· Running Background Programs – These programs are software applications that are running behind the scenes even when they are not in use. You may not even know that they are running, but they can zap precious memory and slow down your other tasks considerably. To see if you have programs running in the background, press Ctrl + Alt + Delete at the same time. The box that pops up will show you all applications that are running.
· Full Hard Drive – If your hard drive is too full of data, it will not have enough space to perform chores. Your hard drive should have at lease 2MB to 3MB in free space.
· Fragmented Hard Drive – When you download and delete programs, you create holes in your hard drive. These holes mean that your PC has to search for the files it needs over greater distance and not necessarily in the order that it needs them.
· Left Over Parts – When you install and uninstall Windows programs, they leave behind parts or applications that can slow down your computer. You may even unknowingly delete a file needed for other software applications. (Note: Spyware and viruses can also slow down your PC’s performance, but for the purpose of this article we are assuming that the problem lies in application errors.)
Make Your PC Run Like New
While it’s not rocket science, making your computer lightning fast once again will take a little work from you. Sometimes, this is as easy as running your Windows System Tools program. You can find these programs by clicking “start,” “all programs,” “accessories,” and “system tools.” Here you will find several system optimizers to help you free up your disk space, defragment your PC, and detect and repair disk errors.
In addition to tools already installed on your PC, you can opt to download additional programs to optimize your computer’s performance. These optimizers can be purchased as a set with other software programs that can help you get the best out of your computer. Here are just a few of the extra optimization programs that you may want for your PC:
· Memory Optimizer – When you are using your computer, it takes several programs and application to handle everything that you are doing. Each of these programs uses memory. When memory is short, computer response time is slow. Memory Optimizer helps to make the allotment of memory to each program more efficient. This can help you eliminate slow PC execution time, Windows hang up or crashing, loss of data and unwanted shutdowns.
· Registry Deffrager and Optimizer – As mentioned before, a registry with holes results in slow response times as your PC searches for the data it needs. This program improves the system response time and saves memory by creating a smaller registry.
· Windows Optimizer – We all use our computers differently. Some use their computer as a media and entertainment centerpiece while others use their PC for data storage and business purposes. Windows Optimizer allows you to tweak program settings so that they will perform in line with your needs.
Granted, a slow computer is a nuisance and it may leave you wanting to go out and purchase a new model. But before you give up on your current model, make sure that you have optimized it first. You may be surprised by how much life is still in your PC.
Tampilkan postingan dengan label Windows. Tampilkan semua postingan
Tampilkan postingan dengan label Windows. Tampilkan semua postingan
Rabu, 29 Juni 2011
Selasa, 05 April 2011
An inside look at the testing of Windows Phone
REDMOND, Wash.--On a rather sunny August day deep within one of the many nondescript buildings that dot Microsoft's campus, a robot taps away at a prototype Windows Phone 7 to double-check that the screen is accurately reading touch input. Another robot, affectionately dubbed Wally, tests the accelerometer and other sensors built into the new phones. A building over, thousands of phones are going through a variety of stress tests, including both automated and hand-performed tasks.
That's a major shift for Microsoft, which in the past focused on making sure its software was bug-free and left much of the testing of final phones to the partners that make the actual Windows Phone devices.
"We really felt like our product quality ensuring system infrastructure wasn't good enough," said Darren Laybourn, general manager of test for Microsoft's phone unit. Laybourn and his team allowed CNET an exclusive view inside the testing labs as the company was putting the final touches on its software and helping its phone maker partners gain approval from various cell phone carriers. "We spent over $15 million on hardware...we've added hundreds of senior people to the team, we've completely revamped our processes."
Microsoft used its beefed-up testing methods as part of its effort to convince carriers that it was serious about getting back in the phone game.
"That was kind of my story," Laybourn said, showing a slide deck he used in pitches to AT&T and other cell service providers. "Here's why we suck less, basically."
Indeed, Windows Phone 7, which went on sale in the U.S. on Monday, is arguably one of the most heavily tested products to come out of Microsoft, save perhaps a full release of Windows or Office.
With Windows Phone 7, Microsoft felt it needed to do more of the testing work in-house, both to help speed the process of getting phones approved on various cellular networks and to ensure consistent quality. As part of that effort, Microsoft employed more than 4,500 actual phones and tens of thousands of virtual devices running on servers. That's up from about 60 phones that Microsoft used to test the prior generation of phones.
In all, Microsoft ran through more than 10 million hours of automated testing, or about 20,000 phone-hours per day. Microsoft is of course, not alone in doing this kind of testing. Phone makers and carriers do this all the time. Even its software rival, Google, has been known to go through a similar approach, as the company did with the Nexus One--a process they documented in a video posted to YouTube.
Just in time?
With Windows Phone 7 though, Microsoft was in something of a hurry. After suffering through many delays and a complete "reset" of the project, the company had bet its reputation on delivering an operating system that would be on phones and on sale in time for this year's holiday season.
"It's taken a relatively long time for Windows Phones to get through trials in the past," Laybourn said. "We were on a fairly tight schedule this time for phones to get out. We would have to beat what most phones have actually ever done to meet our dates."
The company met its deadline, though to do so it did have to delay until next year its support for CDMA networks like Sprint and Verizon.
Despite all of the work and testing, though, it remains to be seen how much progress the company will make in its uphill battle to regain share in the cell phone business. Despite some positive reviews, Microsoft's phones appeared to be met with a mixed reception on their first day of sales at AT&T and T-Mobile stores in the U.S. The first Windows Phone 7 models went on sale in Europe a couple weeks ago, but Microsoft has yet to comment on sales.
Much of the testing is automated, with scripts simulating the kind of work that a person would do on his or her phone, in many cases not even making calls on a real network. Not all of the phone use can be automated, however.
"We actually have people on a real network doing real work," Laybourn said. The human testing came in handy earlier in the year when one model was producing photos that were just a bit too dark.
Microsoft also tapped its processes for testing Windows and created all kinds of automated telemetry that could notice whether, say, the battery was draining too fast and notify Microsoft (that feature has been turned off in the final phones that are going on sale to consumers.)
The company credits all of that testing with the fact that Windows Phone's battery life has gone from abysmal to something that Microsoft now feels is competitive with other phones on the market. Initially, users were getting as little as an hour and a half of battery life on the Samsung Taylor test devices. By the time Microsoft had finished testing and improving the code, battery life had been doubled, doubled again and then doubled yet again.
The physical testing of devices is just one element of what Microsoft did to prep for Windows Phone 7. Even before the company had any real code ready, Microsoft began focus group testing for the radically different look that it planned to employ. It was actually the second time Microsoft had done such work, having nearly completed focus group tests for a very different Windows Mobile 7 before Microsoft opted to scrap that work in favor of something that could better compete with the iPhone.
Starting last year, Microsoft began rapidly testing the new approach, initially having users comment on mock-ups and emulated versions of the software. It wasn't until the beginning of this year that they were able to test with actual devices running Windows Phone 7.
The company also did other types of testing on individual components of the product, such as the software-based keyboard, which has an uncanny ability to guess what word a user is typing after just a few letters--in some cases even when a user is off on several of the letters.
The 'fat finger' problem
Microsoft began with the premise that users would have the "fat finger" problem, where they were likely to mistype when entering letters on an onscreen keyboard.
"We want to consider that people are going to mistype the keys," said Parthasarathy Sundararajan, a member of the Windows Phone 7 test team. "We want to account for that."
Without changing the appearance of the onscreen keyboard, the Windows Phone software favors the user input that is most likely as a word is being typed. For instance, if someone has typed "accordio" the software could favor the next character being an "n" rather than a "b."
Tom Adams, another member of the testing team, was skeptical that he could get used to a software keyboard, having lived on a BlackJack 2 device, which had a hardware keyboard. Now, he said he doesn't even think of using a hardware keyboard. The real test, he knows, will come if he can convince his wife to go with a touch screen only phone.
"My wife has to have a keyboard," he said. "I'll be intrigued to see if she actually uses the keyboards."
The level of detail into which Microsoft went was surprising, down to researching the impact of the phone's various sounds. For instance, after some research, the company opted to have multiple touches on the software keyboard produce multiple different sounds as opposed to repeating the same tone over and over, a choice it said is both less pleasing and less tactile for the user.
The investment in testing was part of a broader effort by Microsoft to improve the quality of Windows Phone 7 over past company efforts. Another key part of the effort was Microsoft's decision to limit the variations that phone makers could have. To use Windows Phone 7 software, hardware makers agree to use one of a narrow set of specifications with room to modify only certain aspects of the device, such as whether it has a keyboard or not or which type of screen is used. That's a big contrast to past versions of the software where phone makers could change virtually everything from the chips that the phones ran on to the types of components and features included to the screen size and even the user interface.
"We had a wide open platform--unconstrained access to everything--you could change whatever you wanted," Laybourn said.
Microsoft hopes that the decision to narrow the options will make it easier for those who want to write programs, essentially ensuring that software that runs on one Windows Phone 7 device will work on any other Windows Phone 7 device.
"Android is really going down the path we were on which is they really can't promise anything to developers," Laybourn said.
That's a major shift for Microsoft, which in the past focused on making sure its software was bug-free and left much of the testing of final phones to the partners that make the actual Windows Phone devices.
"We really felt like our product quality ensuring system infrastructure wasn't good enough," said Darren Laybourn, general manager of test for Microsoft's phone unit. Laybourn and his team allowed CNET an exclusive view inside the testing labs as the company was putting the final touches on its software and helping its phone maker partners gain approval from various cell phone carriers. "We spent over $15 million on hardware...we've added hundreds of senior people to the team, we've completely revamped our processes."
Microsoft used its beefed-up testing methods as part of its effort to convince carriers that it was serious about getting back in the phone game.
"That was kind of my story," Laybourn said, showing a slide deck he used in pitches to AT&T and other cell service providers. "Here's why we suck less, basically."
Indeed, Windows Phone 7, which went on sale in the U.S. on Monday, is arguably one of the most heavily tested products to come out of Microsoft, save perhaps a full release of Windows or Office.
With Windows Phone 7, Microsoft felt it needed to do more of the testing work in-house, both to help speed the process of getting phones approved on various cellular networks and to ensure consistent quality. As part of that effort, Microsoft employed more than 4,500 actual phones and tens of thousands of virtual devices running on servers. That's up from about 60 phones that Microsoft used to test the prior generation of phones.
In all, Microsoft ran through more than 10 million hours of automated testing, or about 20,000 phone-hours per day. Microsoft is of course, not alone in doing this kind of testing. Phone makers and carriers do this all the time. Even its software rival, Google, has been known to go through a similar approach, as the company did with the Nexus One--a process they documented in a video posted to YouTube.
Just in time?
With Windows Phone 7 though, Microsoft was in something of a hurry. After suffering through many delays and a complete "reset" of the project, the company had bet its reputation on delivering an operating system that would be on phones and on sale in time for this year's holiday season.
"It's taken a relatively long time for Windows Phones to get through trials in the past," Laybourn said. "We were on a fairly tight schedule this time for phones to get out. We would have to beat what most phones have actually ever done to meet our dates."
The company met its deadline, though to do so it did have to delay until next year its support for CDMA networks like Sprint and Verizon.
Despite all of the work and testing, though, it remains to be seen how much progress the company will make in its uphill battle to regain share in the cell phone business. Despite some positive reviews, Microsoft's phones appeared to be met with a mixed reception on their first day of sales at AT&T and T-Mobile stores in the U.S. The first Windows Phone 7 models went on sale in Europe a couple weeks ago, but Microsoft has yet to comment on sales.
Much of the testing is automated, with scripts simulating the kind of work that a person would do on his or her phone, in many cases not even making calls on a real network. Not all of the phone use can be automated, however.
"We actually have people on a real network doing real work," Laybourn said. The human testing came in handy earlier in the year when one model was producing photos that were just a bit too dark.
Microsoft also tapped its processes for testing Windows and created all kinds of automated telemetry that could notice whether, say, the battery was draining too fast and notify Microsoft (that feature has been turned off in the final phones that are going on sale to consumers.)
The company credits all of that testing with the fact that Windows Phone's battery life has gone from abysmal to something that Microsoft now feels is competitive with other phones on the market. Initially, users were getting as little as an hour and a half of battery life on the Samsung Taylor test devices. By the time Microsoft had finished testing and improving the code, battery life had been doubled, doubled again and then doubled yet again.
The physical testing of devices is just one element of what Microsoft did to prep for Windows Phone 7. Even before the company had any real code ready, Microsoft began focus group testing for the radically different look that it planned to employ. It was actually the second time Microsoft had done such work, having nearly completed focus group tests for a very different Windows Mobile 7 before Microsoft opted to scrap that work in favor of something that could better compete with the iPhone.
Starting last year, Microsoft began rapidly testing the new approach, initially having users comment on mock-ups and emulated versions of the software. It wasn't until the beginning of this year that they were able to test with actual devices running Windows Phone 7.
The company also did other types of testing on individual components of the product, such as the software-based keyboard, which has an uncanny ability to guess what word a user is typing after just a few letters--in some cases even when a user is off on several of the letters.
The 'fat finger' problem
Microsoft began with the premise that users would have the "fat finger" problem, where they were likely to mistype when entering letters on an onscreen keyboard.
"We want to consider that people are going to mistype the keys," said Parthasarathy Sundararajan, a member of the Windows Phone 7 test team. "We want to account for that."
Without changing the appearance of the onscreen keyboard, the Windows Phone software favors the user input that is most likely as a word is being typed. For instance, if someone has typed "accordio" the software could favor the next character being an "n" rather than a "b."
Tom Adams, another member of the testing team, was skeptical that he could get used to a software keyboard, having lived on a BlackJack 2 device, which had a hardware keyboard. Now, he said he doesn't even think of using a hardware keyboard. The real test, he knows, will come if he can convince his wife to go with a touch screen only phone.
"My wife has to have a keyboard," he said. "I'll be intrigued to see if she actually uses the keyboards."
The level of detail into which Microsoft went was surprising, down to researching the impact of the phone's various sounds. For instance, after some research, the company opted to have multiple touches on the software keyboard produce multiple different sounds as opposed to repeating the same tone over and over, a choice it said is both less pleasing and less tactile for the user.
The investment in testing was part of a broader effort by Microsoft to improve the quality of Windows Phone 7 over past company efforts. Another key part of the effort was Microsoft's decision to limit the variations that phone makers could have. To use Windows Phone 7 software, hardware makers agree to use one of a narrow set of specifications with room to modify only certain aspects of the device, such as whether it has a keyboard or not or which type of screen is used. That's a big contrast to past versions of the software where phone makers could change virtually everything from the chips that the phones ran on to the types of components and features included to the screen size and even the user interface.
"We had a wide open platform--unconstrained access to everything--you could change whatever you wanted," Laybourn said.
Microsoft hopes that the decision to narrow the options will make it easier for those who want to write programs, essentially ensuring that software that runs on one Windows Phone 7 device will work on any other Windows Phone 7 device.
"Android is really going down the path we were on which is they really can't promise anything to developers," Laybourn said.
Kamis, 31 Maret 2011
Microsoft releases Windows Home Server 2011
(Credit: Microsoft) With the release to manufacturing, Windows Home Server 2011 is now slated to reach MSDN and TechNet subscribers in early April where they can download the software via their subscriptions. The latest version should also start to pop up on computers in May, according to Microsoft, which said that manufacturers have already been working with the new home operating system.
The official version of Windows Home Server 2011, codenamed Vail, comes almost a year after the beta was released and close to two months since the release candidate made its debut.
Using the same core operating system as Windows Server 2008 R2, the new version is designed for people who need to juggle multiple PCs, home networks, and an ever growing amount of photos, music, videos, and other hefty content. Running Windows Home Server on a dedicated PC, users can set up network shares to access all their data, back up their networked PCs, remotely access their files, and stream their music and videos. The software offers a central dashboard for people to run the various administrative tasks.
Windows Home Server has suffered a couple of setbacks in recent months.
The previous version offered a much-beloved feature called Drive Extender, which let people extend or "pool" multiple disk drives into a single large volume as they added new storage. But claiming that the drive extender technology "was not meeting our customer needs," Microsoft gave it the heave-ho from the new version late last year. Though Microsoft added a feature called the Move Folder Wizard to move content between different drives, the loss of Drive Extender may turn off many potential users of Windows Home Server 2011.
Microsoft also lost one of its key Windows Home Server hardware partners late last year when Hewlett-Packard, known for its robust MediaSmart Windows Home Server servers, announced that it would no longer make computers for the Home Server operating system. The loss of HP leaves a few key manufacturers, such as Acer, who'll be building dedicated boxes for Windows Home Server 2011.
Windows Home Server 2011 will be released in 19 languages, according to Microsoft, including English, French, Chinese, Russian, and Korean.
