Boot Disk - BIOS Update

Recently I decided to do a BIOS upgrade for ASRock K8 Upgrade- 760GX motherboard.

First of all what you need to do is to create bootable floppy disk. Download this following Boot Disk Program to your PC:

http://www.abitfaq.it/Files/drdflash.exe

Double click to start the installation process and it will ask you to insert a floppy disk into the floppy disk drive.



Once this is completed your floppy disk should have the following files/images on it:



I then downloaded zip file provided on the manufactures website containing two files:
ASRFLASH and K8UPG1.80

Extract the files from the zip file and add them to the bootable floppy disk we already created.


Next step is to make your PC boot from the floppy drive.To do this you need to enter the BIOS settings and change Booting priority.
Select floppy drive to be your 1st device.

Once PC has rebooted enter A:
and after that enter the following command:

A:\ASRFLASH K7S41GX2.00


Once the BIOS is updated (takes about 30 seconds) you can restart your PC and remove the floppy disk from the drive. Message will display the following Flash ROM Update Completed - Pass.


Now restart your PC and your BIOS will be up to date.

Boot disk images can be found on the following website:

http://www.bootdisk.com/

Flashing/Updating BIOS is a process for advances PC users and once again I cant be legally responsible if anything goes wrong.

How to speed up Firefox?

Firefox Tweaks:

To speed up Firefox browser first of all you need to type in about:config into the main URL entry box.

By doing this you will enter configuration part of Firefox browser.

1. Enter about:config in the main URL page



2. You will get a warning and select "I will be carefull, I promise".



3. In the filter box just under URL entry box type in the following text "network.http.pipelining"



4. Double click on the entry "network.http.pipelining" which should change the entry on the right hand side from false to true.

6. Double click on the entry "network.http.pipelining.maxrequests" and change that value to 30 and click OK


7. Right click anywhere in the white space click on New -> Integer, name it "nglayout.initialpaint.delay", in the next box enter value 2 and click on OK





Speeding up Firefox process is now complete and you need to close Firefox and start it up again.

This tweak is not for dial up Internet users.

Best Browser? Google Chrome

Having tried all the browser out there:
Firefox
IE 8
Opera
Safari..

I have to say that I have had the best experience with Google Chrome!
Its fast (extremely fast),responsive,very basic design but as you might have noticed i like retro software (basic but fast).
My advice is to try Google Chrome and you will not look for another browser again.

Link to download:

http://www.google.co.uk/chrome

Print screens:

Reducing amout of disk space used by system restore

I have a hard drive which has total capacity of 50 GB and having looked on my C drive I found a folder called System Volume Information which has a size of 3GB.
This folder is created by system restore function/tool which Windows uses in case your system crashes.
Having looked in system restore I noticed that I have a lot of system restore points that I don't intend to use in future.
To free your disk space this is what you do:

1. Click on Start
2. Right click on Computer/My Computer
3. Select Properties
4. Select System Restore tab
5. Click on Settings
6. Select amount of space that you want System Restore tool to use.

By doing this System Restore will keep most recent system restore points.





System tweak for increasing Hard Drive space.

Piriform Defraggler

Same people that created CCleaner have released Piriform Defraggler.Its a small program which de-fragments your hard drive.I tested and it preforms much faster then the Windows default defragmenter. It seems to compact the files much closer to each other and its faster.

Link to download the program:
http://www.filehippo.com/download_defraggler/




Print screen how Windows Disk Defragmenter display the hard drive after using this software:

Ad-aware and Zone Alarm Firewall

These are two programs that I would recommend to every Windows XP/Vista user.

1. Ad-aware by Lavasoft (Free download)

Link to free download:
http://www.filehippo.com/download_ad-aware/

First of all install Ad-aware as this is one of the most popular and one of the best anti-spyware (anti-malware)programs. It scans your PC for small programs which might be collecting your personal data...
It also has an ability to recognise some of the Trojan horse/Backdoor viruses and removes them.



Once downloaded make sure you click on webupdate so that this program is up to date with all latest malware database. Once its updated make sure you run the full system scan.

2. Zonealarm Firewall (Free download)

Link to free download: http://www.filehippo.com/download_zonealarm_free/

This program is designed to keep all unwanted traffic out of your computer. If you are not familiar with what firewall is I would recommed that you read up about it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firewall_%28networking%29

With this program you will be informed which applications are trying to access Internet.This way you get to find out more about which programs are requesting to access Internet. For example using this program you can disable some of the automatic updates for the software on your PC.



As you can see here its a list of programs that I have installed on my PC and using simple ticks I get to decide which program should be granted outside access (access to Internet).

Speeding up Firefox and blocking Flash content

Blocking Flash Content Tweak

Sometimes when you visit a page for example Myspace,Youtube.. It has a lot of videos that you might not want to load.It simply makes loading process and viewing process of the webpage much slower.
It is possible to block flash content (which if you want to view you can easily click on) using this little tool.

Link: http://flashblock.mozdev.org/



On this page click on the Install Flashblock 1.5.9 for Firefox..

Once you click there it will take you the the following page:


Click on the writing that I have highlighted and you will get a yellow bar on the top of your page.



Click on Allow for this plugin to get installed.

Next popup window:



Once this is done the plugin window will appear.After this restart Firefox by closing it.





This is what webpages look like once you installed Flash Blocker:



Until you click on the play button,flash movies will not play.It stops them automatically playing and can be easily played if the play button is clicked.

Firefox Tweak on how to stop flash loading.

HP 6735s Laptop from Ebuyer (Error Installing XP)

If you are looking to purchase laptop currently you will not find a better deal then currently offered on www.ebuyer.co.uk

I am talking about HP 6735s currently offered for £399.99 including VAT.

HP 6735s Laptop

Processor: AMD Turion X2 Dual Core RM-72 2.1Ghz
RAM: 4 GB 800DDR2
Hard drive: 320GB
DVD RW: LightScribe Writer
Additional components: WLAN, 8 Cell Battery, Webcam, Bluetooth 2.0+, Onboard ATI
Radeon HD3200
Operating System: Vista Home

After purchasing this laptop I decided to reload it with Windows XP Professional. I would get error messages.

Solution:

1. Once you power on the laptop you need to press delete key and go into bios (F10 option) and change your hard drive from SATA to IDE. Save the changes and computer will restart.
From there installation should run as normal and you should have Windows XP successfully installed.

This error happens due to incorrect SATA control drivers that are not located on your Windows XP installation CD.

After this everything worked fine and performance of Windows XP on this laptop are amazing.

Rating: 10/10

Link to purchasing this laptop:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/158887

Choosing performance over looks Windows XP

If you have a low performance PC and you are finding it that Windows XP runs slow these are the following steps you need to take:

1. Click on Start
2. Locate Computer in the menu
3. Right click on Computer and Select Properties
4. Select Advanced Tab
5. Click on Setting under Performance Box
6. Select Adjust for best performance
7. Click on ok

Your desktop will change it's appearance but you will get a faster responding PC.

Step by step instructions:







After this click on OK and your computer will prioritise performance and your computer will run faster.

Clean up junk using CCleaner

CCleaner is a freeware system optimization, privacy and cleaning tool. What it does it clears your computer of any junk files left on your PC. For example it cleans unused files from your system (temp files,files left by incorrect installations..) Program comes free of charge.

Link to download the program: (Version 2.00.500 linked here)

http://www.filehippo.com/download_ccleaner/

Link to download the program: (Version 2.18.878) Latest Version

http://www.filehippo.com/download_ccleaner/

Once the program is downloaded locate it and install.

Installation is straight forward process.

Once you open the program this is the what it looks like:



As you can see in the red square is the first tool which is used to clean up all the file relating to the junk left after browsing Internet.



Click on Analyze button and it will display all the files that can be removed.



Next thing you need to do is click on Run Cleaner and all of the junk files will be removed.



Part 2 coming up.

Getting Windows XP to boot in 20 seconds (BootVis)

My testing machine runs at 2.0Ghz and it has 512mb or RAM. It boots Windows XP in 20 seconds from moment I press the power on button to my welcome screen. Using program BootVis will greatly reduce your boot time.

What is BootVis?

Its a program developed by Microsoft which increase your boot time.

How it works? It takes an image file from your setup (scans your drivers,setup and creates an image) and optimises your system.

TUTORIAL

1. Download BootVis program from softpedia.com

http://download.softpedia.com/dl/6c88c6337e69dbfab43839fe251f753b/49de8d72/100003465/software/system/bootvis.msi

2. Install the package that you have downloaded (Double click to start the installation)

3. Once you have the package installed locate the program its located in Microsoft Bootvis on your start menu and launch the Bootvis program.

4. Once program is launched locate Trace tab and click on it

5. Click on Next Boot + Driver Delays

6. Then select OK

7. System reboot box will come up so click on reboot.

8. Computer will restart and once its fully started up wait for BootVis program to appear.

9. Once its started up it will display all statistics of your system boot.

10. Click on Trace and this time select Optimize

11. Optimizing tap appear and it takes couple of minutes to Optimize your system.

12. After completing this, a reboot will occur again. After reboot has been complete, it will take several minutes for BootVis to complete the optimization.

13. System is fully setup and on the next reboot you will notice a great difference in system boot time performance.

Combine this tutorial with my previous tutorial and you will have a very fast system.

Step by step print screens:









After system is restarted BootVis will display screen similar to this one



Then select Trace -> Optimize System



This process takes couple of minutes and after it is finished PC restarts.Boot up might take long but once Bootvis is done with optimization the next reboot should prove that your system is booting up in much shorter time period.

On my system less than 20 seconds.


Yet again I cant be legally held responsible if anything goes wrong.

Speeding up Windows XP Boot Time

In this tutorial I will explain how to speed up your Windows XP boot time. Let's say you are having a machine which is taking a long time to boot and you are fed up of waiting for it to finish the boot process. (This is the process from powering on your PC to clicking on the correct user and starting the first program)

In this tutorial I will give you instructions on how this can be done.

First of all using Microsoft provided tools:

• msconfig (Start -> Run -> msconfig)
• disk defragmenter (Start -> Run -> dfrg.msc)

Msconfig:

This little program control programs that are started automatically once you boot up your Windows XP. It provides a list of program/services which are automatically started. For example if you use Windows Live messenger it automatically loads once you start your computer it is very likely that it will be listed in startup menu of msconfig tool. More then often you will have large number of programs that startup without your knowledge.This affects your system performance and considerately slows down your computing experience. Using msconfig you can disable automatically started program and speed up your PC.

Disk defragmenter:

While using your PC your computer constantly "writes" data on your hard drive. In order to tune your hard drive for better performance you should run disk defragmenter every month. This Microsoft tool tunes up your hard drive by re-arranging files in the correct location and grouping them together.


TUTORIAL

Part 1.

In this tutorial you will learn how to disable unwanted programs of starting up and how to defragment your hard drive. Doing this will increase boot time performance of your PC and decrease waiting times on start up.

msconfig:

To view programs which are started automatically during boot time do the following.

1. Click on Start menu on the left hand side of your PC
2. Click on Run...
3. In the open box type in msconfig
4. Click on Startup tab















6. Deselect the programs that you do not want on startup.For example removing a tick from msnmsgr will stop Windows Live Messenger from starting up everytime you use the PC. You can remove more than one program and they can always be selected to boot in case you want that using the same process stated above.

7. After making changes click on apply then on OK. You will be promted to restart the computer. You can always click on Exit without Restart or if you wish to test the difference click on restart.


If you are unsure what each program does use google. For example to find out what ctfmon just type that into google and learn more about it and decide if you need it to startup. If you are still unsure about that particular program its best to leave it selected.

The less programs you have starting up faster your boot time will be.

I am sharing this knowledge but in case of any problems or issues I can not be legally held responsible.

Part 2

Disk Defragmenter

Running Disk Defragmenter:

1. Click on Start menu on the left hand side of your PC
2. Click on Run...
3. In the open box type in dfrg.msc
4. Select your C drive and click on Defragment









Defragmentation takes a while and it depends on the size of partiotion you are defragmenting.

Once it has finished it will inform you and now your hard drive will be tuned.

End of tutorial

First Blog Introduction

Hey all,
Working as Linux/Unix administrator and being a fan of latest IT equipment I decided it was time to share some of my tips/knowledge with people around the world.
I got involved with I.C.T technology at a very young age. Some of the fields that I specialise are as follows:

• Linux (Debian,OpenSuse,Red Hat,SCO Unix,BSD, Fedora,Ubuntu, LAMP)
• Microsoft (Exchange,SBS, Vista, XP, Active Directory)
• Mac OS X
• Software (Office, Open Office, E-mailing, Backup Exec, Micromedia Flash, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, VM Ware, OpenVPN, ..)
• Programming (PHP, MySQL, CSS, xHTML, Java, J2EE)
• Security (Firewalls, Routers, Network Security, Watch Guard, Ad-aware)

In my blog I will focus on sharing my knowledge and tips to help other users around the world.

Firstly I will focus on Windows XP performance and improvements.

Many thanks

Mark