0 Know The Enemy Surveillance Spyware

Have you ever read best sellers on the cold war and spies? Many of us have grown up on the thrills and chills presented by such novels where spies are watching everything and are in the know of every action or step taken by important people.

The cyber world too has such spies and, among the many kinds is surveillance software. These are designed to surreptitiously monitor a person's activities. It can, not only record keystrokes and log the content of emails but even take screenshots of what is displayed on the monitor.

Surveillance software can be used to monitor a person and steal passwords and other sensitive information like financial transactions and confidential matters pertaining to business deals. Computers are most vulnerable when used online.

Key logger programs include SpectorSoft's Spector Pro and EBlaster, XPCSpy, and Omnisquad's Desktop Surveillance Personal edition. Programs like these abound and they are used to spy on you without your knowledge or consent. In many states an employer or spouse is legally entitled to use these.

In fact, in the US many employers are using surveillance spyware to monitor their employees. Even the government has been using technology to track criminals and to spy into private communications. Surveys indicate that spyware, adware, and other malicious programs are costing victims billions of dollars every year. To fight the menace a coalition "Stop Badware Coalition" of tech companies and consumer groups has formed to stop misdeeds by companies who produce software that spies. Fighting the cause are giants like Google, Lenovo, Sun Microsystems, Berkman Center, Vint Cerf, and Esther Dyson.

Cleverly designed, most anti-spyware programs cannot detect or disable surveillance spyware efficiently. And, spywares are being improved as we speak. You can only attempt to create your own protective fortress by using multiple anti-spyware tools. For example a good workable combination according to PCworld would be Ad-ware, spybot, Pestpatrol, and Spysweeper.

You need to think like a spy to catch the surveillance software. Try and uncover the program and then disable or uninstall it. Many emerge on using specific keystroke sequences like "CTrl-ALT-Shift-S." Very often, the installer or the spyware may have altered the sequence but a bit of doggedness on your part will help you unravel the code. Please do close every application include those running in the systems tray before trying to work the magic.

If you are a bit tech savvy you can discover plenty of useful information on blogs and discussion forums. Sadly, often spyware is password protected and you will not be able to disable the software.

Your safest bet is to avoid downloading software, and use strict log on security offered by operating systems. Always use unusual passwords and make it a point to change them often. You must:

• Use a hardware router.
• Set up firewalls both hardware and software.
• Use comfortable security settings-never lower than medium.
• Never comply to return e-mail receipt requests.

Stay one step ahead and follow the rules of protecting your PC and sanity.

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0 Protecting Your Data From Digital Dangers

Viruses, spyware, hackers, data loss or theft-these are a few of the digital dangers a computer faces. Fortunately, there are some easy ways to protect hardware and your irreplaceable files. An important first step in data protection involves updating Windows with the newest security patches and ser-vice packs. You can do that by enabling the automatic update feature on Windows XP or manually downloading the patches from http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com.

Other ways to safeguard Windows XP are described in easy-to-understand language in a new book called "Geeks On Call Windows XP: 5-Minute Fixes" (Wiley, $14.95). The book also offers expert advice and step-by-step explanations of topics ranging from avoiding digital dangers to turbocharging Windows. Here are some additional tips from the book that can help you protect your data.

Backing Up Data

Protect hard drive data by backing it up on recordable or rewritable CDs/DVDs or separate hard drives. You can also use special software to create a "disc image" of your hard drive. If your hard drive ever crashes, you can simply load the disc image onto your computer, and you will be up and running as if nothing ever happened. Popular disc-imaging programs include Norton Ghost, Acronis True Image, NTI Backup NOW, and Turbo Backup.

Protecting Important Files

If you don't want to back up your entire hard drive, consider backing up your most important documents (financial information, digital photos, music files, etc.). Popular programs used for document backups include Nero Burning ROM, Nero Express, NTI CD-Maker, and Roxio Easy Media Creator. Also, be sure to protect all your data by using a password on your Windows account.

Know The Enemy

The most common reasons for data loss include:

• Dead hard drives-Hard drives can give out. It pays to be prepared.

• Viruses-Some digital threats lurking on the Internet can destroy certain files on your computer.

• Power surges-An electrical storm or fluctuation in power lines can cause a sudden burst of electricity that zaps your hard drive.

• Theft-Computers, especially laptops, are big targets for thieves.

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0 Live Chat Support tool can provide instant and speedy Customer Support.

The world is no longer the same as it was about a couple of decades ago. The world is changing at an alarming rate maybe even faster than an extremely fast train running from one city to another in Japan. Time is money. Technology helps us in accessing customers from all over the world by the click of the mouse.

Organizations are growing faster and are doubling faster than you can say "Live Chat". With this growth comes the responsibility to help customers faster than ever before or take the risk of losing them forever. Not only the huge corporate organizations but even the neighborhood shopkeeper has realized that it is many times more expensive and cumbersome to create new customers than retaining the old ones. Boundaries are shrinking and the customer is aware of what he / she can demand and get!

Enter Live Chat.

Live chat as we all know is interacting with a person anywhere in the world through the internet. It is infinite times faster than emails as both the users are logged in on the internet and can respond to each other within seconds. When a web visitor or customer seeks assistance by clicking on a link what follows is a reactive text chat session wherein queries can be addressed almost instantly. The customer support executive interacts with the customer to understand, resolve & close the query or problem. As the result is almost instant, the customer's time is given priority & a happy customer is what everyone wants

Another advantage of Live Chat is the cost saving from the organization's point of view. Even a layman will appreciate that Live Chat will be much cheaper that a technician visiting the customers house to resolve an issue

Some of the numerous ways by which Live Chat can improve customer support are:
• Help customers locate the desired product or service.
• Understand the customers' requirement to suggest various options.
• Up sell products or services to compliment those which the customer already has.
• Provide accurate and up to date information regarding the organizations products and services.
• Help customers complete incomplete forms and billing through credit cards.

The scope of Live Chat is phenomenal as the CEO of a leading MNC recently stated in one of his board meetings "We were doing reasonably well and the customers were happy. Growth was excellent and we were steadily increasing our profits and the bottom line. And than we implemented Live Chat. Now when we look back at it, the way it has changed everything seems like a miracle. We have almost increased out customer base by 18% in the last one year and the complaints have reduced by 27%. It has been so successful that I am really wondering as to why we did not think of it earlier. Live Chat has provided the thrust that has resulted in the huge bonuses we have got!"

Live Chat has arrived and is there to stay and even God cannot save those who do not jump on to the Livechat software

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0 10 Simple Ways To Speed Up Your Windows XP

1. Defrag Disk to Speed Up Access to Data

One of the factors that slow the performance of the computer is disk fragmentation. When files are fragmented, the computer must search the hard disk when the file is opened to piece it back together. To speed up the response time, you should monthly run Disk Defragmenter, a Windows utility that defrags and consolidates fragmented files for quicker computer response.

* Follow Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter

* Click the drives you want to defrag and click Analyze

* Click Defragment

2. Detect and Repair Disk Errors

Over time, your hard disk develops bad sectors. Bad sectors slow down hard disk performance and sometimes make data writing difficult or even impossible. To detect and repair disk errors, Windows has a built-in tool called the Error Checking utility. It'll search the hard disk for bad sectors and system errors and repair them for faster performance.

* Follow Start > My Computer
* In My Computer right-click the hard disk you want to scan and click Properties
* Click the Tools tab
* Click Check Now
* Select the Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors check box
* Click Start

3. Disable Indexing Services

Indexing Services is a little application that uses a lot of CPU. By indexing and updating lists of all the files on the computer, it helps you to do a search for something faster as it scans the index list. But if you know where your files are, you can disable this system service. It won't do any harm to you machine, whether you search often or not very often.

* Go to Start
* Click Settings
* Click Control Panel
* Double-click Add/Remove Programs
* Click the Add/Remove Window Components
* Uncheck the Indexing services
* Click Next
4. Optimize Display Settings

Windows XP is a looker. But it costs you system resources that are used to display all the visual items and effects. Windows looks fine if you disable most of the settings and leave the following:

* Show shadows under menus
* Show shadows under mouse pointer
* Show translucent selection rectangle
* Use drop shadows for icons labels on the desktop
* Use visual styles on windows and buttons

5. Speedup Folder Browsing

You may have noticed that everytime you open My Computer to browse folders that there is a little delay. This is because Windows XP automatically searches for network files and printers everytime you open Windows Explorer. To fix this and to increase browsing speed, you can disable the "Automatically search for network folders and printers" option.

6. Disable Performance Counters

Windows XP has a performance monitor utility which monitors several areas of your PC's performance. These utilities take up system resources so disabling is a good idea.

* Download and install the Extensible Performance Counter List(http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/techinfo/reskit/tools/existing/exctrlst-o.asp)
* Then select each counter in turn in the 'Extensible performance counters' window and clear the 'performance counters enabled' checkbox at the bottom button below

7. Optimize Your Pagefile

You can optimize your pagefile. Setting a fixed size to your pagefile saves the operating system from the need to resize the pagefile.

* Right click on My Computer and select Properties
* Select the Advanced tab
* Under Performance choose the Settings button
* Select the Advanced tab again and under Virtual Memory select Change
* Highlight the drive containing your page file and make the initial Size of the file the same as the Maximum Size of the file.

Windows XP sizes the page file to about 1.5X the amount of actual physical memory by default. While this is good for systems with smaller amounts of memory (under 512MB) it is unlikely that a typical XP desktop system will ever need 1.5 X 512MB or more of virtual memory. If you have less than 512MB of memory, leave the page file at its default size. If you have 512MB or more, change the ratio to 1:1 page file size to physical memory size.

8. Remove Fonts for Speed

Fonts, especially TrueType fonts, use quite a bit of system resources. For optimal performance, trim your fonts down to just those that you need to use on a daily basis and fonts that applications may require.

* Open Control Panel
* Open Fonts folder
* Move fonts you don't need to a temporary directory (e.g. C:\FONTBKUP?) just in case you need or want to bring a few of them back. The more fonts you uninstall, the more system resources you will gain.

9. Use a Flash Memory to Boost Performance

To improve performance, you need to install additional RAM memory. It'll let you boot your OS much quicker and run many applications and access data quicker. There is no easiest and more technically elegant way to do it than use eBoostr (http://www.eboostr.com).

eBoostr is a little program that lets you improve a performance of any computer, powered by Windows XP in much the same way as Vista's ReadyBoost. With eBoostr, if you have a flash drive, such as a USB flash thumb drive or an SD card, you can use it to make your computer run better. Simply plug in a flash drive through a USB socket and Windows XP will use eBoostr to utilize the flash memory to improve performance.

The product shows the best results for frequently used applications and data, which becomes a great feature for people who are using office programs, graphics applications or developer tools. It'll surely attract a special attention of laptop owners as laptop upgrade is usually more complicated and laptop hard drives are by definition slower than those of desktops.

10. Perform a Boot Defragment

There's a simple way to speed up XP startup: make your system do a boot defragment, which will put all the boot files next to one another on your hard disk. When boot files are in close proximity to one another, your system will start faster.

On most systems, boot defragment should be enabled by default, but it might not be on yours, or it might have been changed inadvertently. To make sure that boot defragment is enabled:

* Run the Registry Editor
* Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Dfrg\BootOptimizeFunction
* Set the Enable string value to Y if it is not already set to Y.
* Exit the Registry
* Reboot

Hope you find these 10 tips useful. Have a nice day!

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0 How To Avoid Spyware?

Spyware is a kind of software that monitors the different activities of a user, without his consent or knowledge. Spyware is a major threat and menace to your productivity as well as privacy. Many PC's are affected with spyware and it greatly hampers their performance.

Spyware can spy on your personal information, the software installed in your computer and the web pages that you visit. Sometimes spyware can even hack your username and password. Spyware is a big menace for computer users but can be controlled with the use of spyware removal techniques.

Spyware can be present in any form of harmless program or software. The spyware is capable of sending information to the creators of the software or program without your consent.

Imagine the amount of damage that can be caused to you due to this unauthorized leakage of your personal information. A resent consumer study has found that around 80% of PC's in the United States of America are infected with some kinds of spyware.

Another study has indicted that the IT managers rate spyware as the number one threat for networks.It is likely to happen that you yourself have infected your computer with spyware.

The free smileys and the cursor that you download from websites are most likely to contain spyware. Be very cautious about whatever you download from the online sites. Most free programs and downloads have spyware attached to them. It is highly unlikely that people read the contents of the different pop-ups appearing on their computer screens during downloads. Spyware distributors take into consideration this aspect and embed the spyware in such program.

Spyware puts your privacy at risk. Spyware has become a leading threat to personal computers and online privacy. Spyware interferes with normal functioning of your computer and send information about your online activities to spyware manufacturing companies.

Installation of spyware in our computer without your consent amounts to bad netiquette. It is netiquette to seek permission to use personal information of any kind for any purpose. Incorrect use of your personal information online can land you in trouble.

You can follow some common and simple steps to avoid spyware installation in your system. The basic rule for avoiding spyware is to practice safe surfing. Safe surfing ensures that you are not lured into doing anything, which you do not wish to do. Be very cautious while you are downloading any thing, as it is very difficult to tell what program contains sypware and what program does not. Many legitimate free download programs come with spyware embedded with them.

Install a good anti spyware software, such as XoftSpy, with advanced features in your computer. Do not forget to run your spyware protection every day. It is extremely important for you to read the license agreement terms and conditions very carefully, before you download anything. This can help you in preventing spyware installation in your computer. Spyware threat can greatly hamper your work and other activities.

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0 Microsoft's Encarta Premium 2007

While Microsoft Encarta Premium 2006 marked Microsoft's commitment to the Web - Microsoft Encarta Premium 2007 marks its commitments to its own technology. The new Encarta relies on Microsoft's powerful, flexible, scalable, and adaptable .Net Framework 2.0. There a price to pay, of course: the time it takes to install the product is much longer and the user is henceforth prompted to constantly download security updates from Microsoft. It is also recommended to turn off your firewall and anti-virus products during installation.

More than ever, the Encarta is a breathtaking resource. With 68,000 articles (compared to 64,000 last year), it is much expanded (though about 1000 photos and illustrations and 500 music and sound clips were removed from this edition). Certain, resource-hogging features disappeared from last year (for example: the Read Aloud and Live News functions).

The Encarta caters effectively (and, at $30-50, affordably) to the educational needs of everyone in the family, from children as young as 7 or 8 years old to adults who seek concise answers to their queries. It is fun-filled, interactive, and colorful. Kids have their own encyclopedia-within-encyclopedia, dubbed Encarta Kids with age-appropriate, appetizingly presented content and games to boot!

The 2007 Encarta's User Interface is far less cluttered than in previous editions. Content is arranged by topics and then by relevancy and medium. Add to this the Encarta's Visual Browser and you get only relevant data in response to your queries. The Encarta Search Bar, which was integrated into the product two years ago, and is resident in the Task Pane even when Encarta is closed, enables users to search any part of the Encarta application (encyclopedia, dictionary, thesaurus, etc).

The Encarta's newish Web Companion obtains search results from all the major search engines without launching any additional applications (like a browser). Content from both the Encarta and the Web is presented side by side. This augmentation explicitly adopts the Internet and incorporates it as an important source of reference.

I am not sure how Microsoft solved the weighty and interesting issues of intellectual property that the Web Companion raises, though. Copyright-holders of Web content may feel that they have the right to be compensated by Microsoft for the use it makes of their wares in its commercial products.

Encarta would do well to also integrate with new desktop search tools from Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and others. Users should be able to seamlessly access content from all over - their desktop, their encyclopedias, and the Web - using a single, intuitive interface.

The Encarta Premium includes a dictionary, thesaurus, chart maker, searchable index of quotations, games, Discovery Channel videos, 25,000 photos and illustrations, 2500 sound and audio clips, hundreds of maps and tables (with a staggering 1.8 million map locations), and 300 videos and animations. It incorporates numerous third-party texts and visuals (including hundreds of newspaper articles and a plethora of Scientific American features).

The Encarta is augmented by weekly or bi-weekly updates and the feature-rich online MSN Encarta Premium with its Homework Help offerings. Unfortunately, the Encarta still conditions some of its functions - notably its research tools and updates - on registration with its Plus Club. Moreover, last year Encarta released only 26 updates, compared to its annual average of 50-60

The Encarta is the most comprehensive, PC-orientated reference experience there is. No wonder it has an all-pervasive hold on and ubiquitous penetration of the child-to-young adult markets. Particularly enchanting is the aforementioned Encarta Kids interface - an area replete with interactive quizzes, pictures, large icons, hundreds of articles, and links to the full version of the Encarta. A veritable and colorful sandbox. Those kids are going to get addicted to the Encarta, that's for sure!

Encarta actively encourages fun-filled browsing. It is a riot of colors, sidebars, videos, audio clips, photos, embedded links, literature, Web resources, and quizzes. It is a product of the age of mass communication, a desktop extension of television and the Internet.

Inevitably, in such a mammoth undertaking, not everything is peachy. A few gripes:

As I said, installation is not as easy as before. The Encarta 2007 makes use of Microsoft's .Net technology. As most home computers lack it, the installer insists on adding it to the anyhow bloated Windows Operating System. There is worse to come: the .Net version installed by Encarta 2007 is plagued with security holes and vulnerabilities. Users have to download service packs and patches from Windows Update if they do not wish to run the risk of having their computers compromised by hackers.

Fully installed on the hard disk, the Encarta Premium 2007 gobbles up less than its predecessors but still a whopping 3 Gb. That's a lot - even in an age of ever cheaper storage. Most homesteads still sport PCs with 20-40 Gb hard disks. This makes the Encarta less suitable for installation on older PCs and on many laptops.

The Encarta DVD 3-D tours have improved but they still hog computer resources and are essentially non-interactive. Is it worth the investment and the risk to the stability and performance of the user's computer?

The Encarta tries to cater to the needs of challenged users, such as the visually-impaired - but it is far from doing a good or full job of it.

The dictionary has been greatly improved in this edition. Actually, the Encarta 2007 comes equipped with five foreign language dictionaries and verb conjugating applications. Still, the atlas, English language dictionary, and thesaurus incorporated in the Encarta are somewhat outdated. Why not use a more current - and dynamically updated - offering? What about dictionaries for specialty terms (medical or computer glossaries, for instance)? The Encarta's New English Dictionary dropped a glossary of computer terms it used to include back in 2001. All's the pity.

But that's it. Encarta is a must-buy (especially if you have children). The Encarta is the best value for money around and significantly enhances you access to knowledge and wisdom accumulated over centuries all over the world. The amount and quality of content squeezed into a $50 package (before rebate) defies belief. I am a 45 years old adult but when I received my Encarta Premium 2007, I was once more a child in a land of wonders. How much is such an experience worth to you?

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0 Maximize and Maintain your PC Performance with Reg Organizer

When you click on an icon to start a Web browser or an office application, does it start as fast as it used to when you just bought your new PC?

It is an almost inevitable natural process that, with time, your computer does not run as fast as it used to. More and more unneeded information slows down your PC's performance. Traces are left when you install and remove software. While you can usually remove most files that are left over when a product is just removed, what about the invisible traces that are left in your computer's registry?

Every Windows application uses the registry to store its configuration data. Many products do not remove the data completely, which results in residual information abandoned in the Windows registry. One or two or even three programs won't harm your registry enough to significantly slow down your computer. If, however, you use your computer for months and years, the registry becomes bloated with these residuals. This, in turn, causes major slowdowns in your PC's operation.

What would you do to stop that from happening? Limiting the number of programs you download and install is one option, but also an inconvenience. Reinstalling Windows from scratch is another option that will, for a while, restore your computer's original speed. But how much time are you going to waste reinstalling and reconfiguring Windows and all the applications you are so used to? Probably so much time that you'll decide not to bother.

Luckily, there is a solution that does not require such drastic measures. Reg Organizer by Chemtable Software will restore your PC's performance to its original level by thoroughly scanning your Windows registry, cleaning up abandoned registry keys and automatically fixing any problems and issues that your computer can acquire over time. Run Reg Organizer regularly, and your computer will stay as healthy and as fast as it was on day one!

While Reg Organizer's fully automatic mode is great, the product offers much more than just that. After all, there are many so-called 'registry cleaners', why bother with another one? Unlike the competition, Reg Organizer has many registry tweaks and tricks to allow advanced computer users to gain better control over their PC.

Reg Organizer allows you to locate and take care of all information that belongs to a specific application, even if it has been uninstalled. Get safer registry imports by allowing Reg Organizer to handle such requests; you will see clearly, in tree-like form, exactly what keys are about to be imported when you click on a .reg file. This is a feature that really should have been a part of Windows by this time!

Finally, you can set up Reg Organizer to track all changes made by software that you install or uninstall. Keep your PC pristine clean by effectively and completely removing all residual traces of information when you uninstall an application! Download your free copy for evaluation at:

http://www.chemtable.com/organizer.htm

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0 10 Simple Ways To Speed Up Your Windows XP

1. Defrag Disk to Speed Up Access to Data

One of the factors that slow the performance of the computer is disk fragmentation. When files are fragmented, the computer must search the hard disk when the file is opened to piece it back together. To speed up the response time, you should monthly run Disk Defragmenter, a Windows utility that defrags and consolidates fragmented files for quicker computer response.

* Follow Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter

* Click the drives you want to defrag and click Analyze

* Click Defragment

2. Detect and Repair Disk Errors

Over time, your hard disk develops bad sectors. Bad sectors slow down hard disk performance and sometimes make data writing difficult or even impossible. To detect and repair disk errors, Windows has a built-in tool called the Error Checking utility. It'll search the hard disk for bad sectors and system errors and repair them for faster performance.

* Follow Start > My Computer
* In My Computer right-click the hard disk you want to scan and click Properties
* Click the Tools tab
* Click Check Now
* Select the Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors check box
* Click Start

3. Disable Indexing Services

Indexing Services is a little application that uses a lot of CPU. By indexing and updating lists of all the files on the computer, it helps you to do a search for something faster as it scans the index list. But if you know where your files are, you can disable this system service. It won't do any harm to you machine, whether you search often or not very often.

* Go to Start
* Click Settings
* Click Control Panel
* Double-click Add/Remove Programs
* Click the Add/Remove Window Components
* Uncheck the Indexing services
* Click Next
4. Optimize Display Settings

Windows XP is a looker. But it costs you system resources that are used to display all the visual items and effects. Windows looks fine if you disable most of the settings and leave the following:

* Show shadows under menus
* Show shadows under mouse pointer
* Show translucent selection rectangle
* Use drop shadows for icons labels on the desktop
* Use visual styles on windows and buttons

5. Speedup Folder Browsing

You may have noticed that everytime you open My Computer to browse folders that there is a little delay. This is because Windows XP automatically searches for network files and printers everytime you open Windows Explorer. To fix this and to increase browsing speed, you can disable the "Automatically search for network folders and printers" option.

6. Disable Performance Counters

Windows XP has a performance monitor utility which monitors several areas of your PC's performance. These utilities take up system resources so disabling is a good idea.

* Download and install the Extensible Performance Counter List(http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/techinfo/reskit/tools/existing/exctrlst-o.asp)
* Then select each counter in turn in the 'Extensible performance counters' window and clear the 'performance counters enabled' checkbox at the bottom button below

7. Optimize Your Pagefile

You can optimize your pagefile. Setting a fixed size to your pagefile saves the operating system from the need to resize the pagefile.

* Right click on My Computer and select Properties
* Select the Advanced tab
* Under Performance choose the Settings button
* Select the Advanced tab again and under Virtual Memory select Change
* Highlight the drive containing your page file and make the initial Size of the file the same as the Maximum Size of the file.

Windows XP sizes the page file to about 1.5X the amount of actual physical memory by default. While this is good for systems with smaller amounts of memory (under 512MB) it is unlikely that a typical XP desktop system will ever need 1.5 X 512MB or more of virtual memory. If you have less than 512MB of memory, leave the page file at its default size. If you have 512MB or more, change the ratio to 1:1 page file size to physical memory size.

8. Remove Fonts for Speed

Fonts, especially TrueType fonts, use quite a bit of system resources. For optimal performance, trim your fonts down to just those that you need to use on a daily basis and fonts that applications may require.

* Open Control Panel
* Open Fonts folder
* Move fonts you don't need to a temporary directory (e.g. C:\FONTBKUP?) just in case you need or want to bring a few of them back. The more fonts you uninstall, the more system resources you will gain.

9. Use a Flash Memory to Boost Performance

To improve performance, you need to install additional RAM memory. It'll let you boot your OS much quicker and run many applications and access data quicker. There is no easiest and more technically elegant way to do it than use eBoostr (http://www.eboostr.com).

eBoostr is a little program that lets you improve a performance of any computer, powered by Windows XP in much the same way as Vista's ReadyBoost. With eBoostr, if you have a flash drive, such as a USB flash thumb drive or an SD card, you can use it to make your computer run better. Simply plug in a flash drive through a USB socket and Windows XP will use eBoostr to utilize the flash memory to improve performance.

The product shows the best results for frequently used applications and data, which becomes a great feature for people who are using office programs, graphics applications or developer tools. It'll surely attract a special attention of laptop owners as laptop upgrade is usually more complicated and laptop hard drives are by definition slower than those of desktops.

10. Perform a Boot Defragment

There's a simple way to speed up XP startup: make your system do a boot defragment, which will put all the boot files next to one another on your hard disk. When boot files are in close proximity to one another, your system will start faster.

On most systems, boot defragment should be enabled by default, but it might not be on yours, or it might have been changed inadvertently. To make sure that boot defragment is enabled:

* Run the Registry Editor
* Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Dfrg\BootOptimizeFunction
* Set the Enable string value to Y if it is not already set to Y.
* Exit the Registry
* Reboot

Hope you find these 10 tips useful. Have a nice day!

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