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Thursday, 29 June 2006

Virtual Memory and Low Virtual Memory Problems in Windows

Posted on 02:27 by Unknown
Virtual memory is a common part of most operating systems on desktop computers. It has become so common because it provides a big benefit for users at a very low cost.

Most computers today have something like 64 or 128 megabytes of RAM (random-access memory) available for use by the CPU (central processing unit). Often, that amount of RAM is not enough to run all of the programs that most users expect to run at once. For example, if you load the Windows operating system, an e-mail program, a Web browser and word processor into RAM simultaneously, 64 megabytes is not enough to hold it all.

If there were no such thing as virtual memory, your computer would have to say, "Sorry, you cannot load any more applications. Please close an application to load a new one." With virtual memory, the computer can look for areas of RAM that have not been used recently and copy them onto the hard disk.

This frees up space in RAM to load the new application. Because it does this automatically, you don't even know it is happening, and it makes your computer feel like is has unlimited RAM space even though it has only 32 megabytes installed. Because hard-disk space is so much cheaper than RAM chips, virtual memory also provides a nice economic benefit.

The area of the hard disk that stores the RAM image is called a page file. It holds pages of RAM on the hard disk, and the operating system moves data back and forth between the page file and RAM. (On a Windows machine, page files have a .SWP extension.)

Of course, the read/write speed of a hard drive is much slower than RAM, and the technology of a hard drive is not geared toward accessing small pieces of data at a time. If your system has to rely too heavily on virtual memory, you will notice a significant performance drop. The key is to have enough RAM to handle everything you tend to work on simultaneously. Then, the only time you "feel" the slowness of virtual memory is in the slight pause that occurs when you change tasks. When you have enough RAM for your needs, virtual memory works beautifully. When you don't, the operating system has to constantly swap information back and forth between RAM and the hard disk. This is called thrashing, and it can make your computer feel incredibly slow.

You must be logged on as an administrator or as a member of the Administrators group to complete this procedure. If your computer is connected to a network, network policy settings may also prevent you from completing this procedure.
1. Click Start, click Run, and then type sysdm.cpl in the Open box.
2. Click the Advanced tab, and then click Settings under Performance.
3. Click the Advanced tab, and then click Change under Virtual memory.
4. Under Drive [Volume Label], click the drive that contains the paging file that you want to change.
5. Under Paging file size for selected drive, click Custom size, type a new paging file size in megabytes (MB) in the Initial size (MB) or Maximum size (MB) box, and then click Set.
If you decrease the size of either the initial or maximum paging file settings, you must restart your computer to see the effects of those changes. When you increase the paging file size, you typically do not have to restart your computer.

Notes
• To have Windows select the best paging file size, click System managed size. The recommended minimum size is equivalent to 1.5 times the RAM on your computer, and 3 times that figure for the maximum size. For example, if you have 256 MB of RAM, the minimum size is 384 MB, and the maximum size is 1152 MB.
• For best performance, do not set the initial size to less than the minimum recommended size under Total paging file size for all drives. The recommended size is equivalent to 1.5 times the RAM on your computer. It is good practice to leave the paging file at its recommended size. However, you may increase its size if you frequently use programs that use much memory.
• To delete a paging file, set both the initial size and the maximum size to zero, or click No paging file. I strongly recommend that you do not disable or delete the paging file
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Posted in tricks, Windows | No comments

Saturday, 24 June 2006

EnergizeIT 2006 was awesome!

Posted on 08:47 by Unknown
Now I don't usually go to a lot of conferences, or view them to the magic of live streaming but EnergizeIT was an exception. Although I couldn't visit the seminar, because of my schedule being 'booked' right after 12:30 (so I'm going to miss the afternoon session) with my family and then my friends (hey... it's a weekend!) the live stream was just as good, plus it was being streamed at 320 K bits/second... which is awesome!

First, the Vista presentation by Barry Goffe I must say was really good.. lots of interesting stuff that informed me more about how Microsoft is catching up to Apple... and in some cases surpassing them (obviously this is bound to happen because Vista is newer... and OS X had a similar advantage over XP because it was released a little later). I'm not a Microsoft fanboy, and neither am I an apple fanboy but I'm quite sure that Vista is really nice, I'm not being biased.

After the Vista talk there was an awesome geek presentation (I'm saying that because he used really geek terms, such as TPM and what not that might be over the head of some people) by Mark Russinovich of Winternals (yeah you've probably used one of their products in your life time....). His presentation did have a little bit of glitches when Vista which was running in VMware refused to cooperate (may be because of Vista's great memory needs). Although his slides too did have a bit too much of information and no graphics (having graphics in your presentation is one of the key ingredients in order to create a really great presentation) but it was kinda nice... so I won't complain about it. Another good that was that since he wasn't a Microsoft employee... he also pointed out some key minus points in Vista. For example you won't get to edit the BOOT.INI file any more... because there isn't going to be a boot.ini file in Vista. Instead they have the BCD (boot configuration Data) that you need to change using command prompt... and it takes about 4 steps to accomplish one thing as opposed to 1 in XP. But then there were other benefits such as optimizing the I/O so that the computer can function better... you can check out the recorded presentation (please use IE though)... I'm not sure if I'm allowed to give out links (because technically you need to be registered to view any of this, but I don't mind bending a few rules to spread geekdom). And make sure that you are not sleepy because if you are then I warn you that you might fall asleep near the end where there are technical problems.... other than that just enjoy the show.

After this there was a little presentation on Office 12 with Mike Bulmer (beta of course), but although the guys didn't really explain a lot about the ribbon (which they should have to make the IT admins that had gathered there go, "cool... that's interesting) nor did they even give a demo of the interface, but overall it was kinda cool. The presentation was I'm guessing made using Office 12 to show off all the capabilities of the software... and of course they also used all kinds of colourful graphics and so on to enhance it. I really was expecting a demo but I guess not. Actually, all the people who went to conference (in downtown Toronto) probably installed it on their computers when they went there... so its really pointless to show what the people can see right in front of them.

Then there were some tips of how your can use Office Outlook web access to track lost data and what not on your own so that you don't have to call the 'IT guy' at 2 o'clock in the morning... after you've lost your laptop on the taxi while coming back from a party.

The presentation was a bit business/big organizations centric but was informative never the less. There were parts about Virtual Server by Allen Stewart and so on, which explained the benefits and so on... which are solely useful for business only. Other than that it was pretty cool. Lots of info squeezed into about a 3 hour presentation for people interested in knowing more about software and so on provided by Microsoft and what they are doing to help businesses and security and the like.
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Tuesday, 13 June 2006

Is this the end of Beyond Teck?

Posted on 12:35 by Unknown
Well, you might not know this but Beyond Teck was first published as a school project, for my business class. The main objective was to write about what we did in school, but due to my helpful nature (ok... because of my desire to do good) I decided that merely writing stuff about what happened in your life if just plain boring, and when you are publishing it on the web might as well make it something useful.

But now, after tomorrow (or the following Monday I'm not sure) this blog isn't going to be marked anymore because school has come to an end. That means that I don't have to post every 2 days on this blog... and chances are that you won't be seeing posts that often anymore.

Over the time of about 8 months this blog has gotten over 24000 unique visitors (not to mention the 16 that subscribe to this blog through RSS feeds) , and my recipes over at tech-recipes.com have been read by over 250,000 people. Along with that I've helped countless amount of people through syschat, newsgroups and the blog itself(I'm guessing) and I owe it all to this blog (and the 212 posts in it) for making it happen. Finally I would like to thank my teacher Mr. Case for making this a part of our curriculum and if not Beyond Tecknology might not have existed in the first place.

So yes, it is the end of the Beyond Teck that you see now, but I promise you that in a weeks time there is going to be a whole new Beyond Teck something that all are going to behold.
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Sunday, 11 June 2006

Blogging using Microsoft Word 2007

Posted on 05:51 by Unknown
One of the best things in Word 2007 is that the application has inbuilt blogging tools. Sort of like ecto, but ecto can be defined as more of a blog centric piece of software, without extra things such as contextual spell check and so on. Ok I’ll stop talking about the boring stuff, and let’s just dive right into how you too can start blogging with Word.

1. Get Microsoft Word 2007 (well Office 12 actually, because I do not think they have a standalone installer for Word).

2. Read the great article over at Luis's blog, which talks about how to set up a blog and post to it.

Phew, I think that was the easiest tutorial I have ever written… kind of. Oh yeah and one more thing, if you are looking for more functions like tables and what not, they are in the insert tab. Especially the hyperlink function… I think they should put it on the ‘floaty’ bar (I believe that’s the name for it) that appears when you highlight some text and hover over the highlighted text. This way you don’t have to keep changing tabs.

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Thursday, 8 June 2006

Download Microsoft Windows Vista for Free

Posted on 19:39 by Unknown
Finally some good news from Microsoft! You can now download Microsoft's 'Next-Generation' operating system, for free from their website. No piracy involved! Although this is still a beta and probably still exteremly buggy, it's still worth a try. This version is version 5384.4 I believe. My guess that Microsoft is just trying to prove that they are still ahead of the competition (namely Apple and Linux) by showboating (or giving it off for free) their new operating system.

You can find it over at their website (http://download.windowsvista.com/preview/beta2/en/x86/download.htm) or you can use these ISO download links:

Use these links if you want to use the Akamai Download Manager
  • The x86 (32) version of Microsoft Windows Vista Beta 2 - English version
  • The 64 bit version of Microsoft Windows Vista Beta 2- English
Use these links if you want to use your own download manager (because it is a 3.2 Gig file, you might not want to trust the IE or FF downloader)
  • The x86 (32 bit) version of Microsoft Windows Vista Beta 2 - English (if you dont' know which one, you should most likely get this one)
  • The 64 bit version of Microsoft Windows Vista Beta 2 - English
It won't be long, until I review the OS, and I'll also be reviewing other things like Actual Windows Manager (from Actual Tools) soon, so stay tuned!

Oh yeah by the way if you like the look of Windows Vista, then make sure you visit tech-recipes.com for this killer recipe I've written to transform your Windows XP into Windows Vista!
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Tuesday, 6 June 2006

Enable Contextual spelling in Microsoft Word 2007

Posted on 19:15 by Unknown
We all know that sometimes Microsoft invents ingenious things but doesn't like to enable them by default. I don't know why this is, but that's just how it is. Recently Microsoft released Beta 2 of their wonderful (is it really?) Office software, which is available for free to the public. It comes with the contextual spelling check feature (which means that it will try to make sure that the word you have in the sentence actually makes sense) but it isn't enabled by default, here's how you can enable it!

  1. Open up Microsoft Word 2007
  2. Click on the 'Office Button' (i.e. the button that is to the top left corner of the screen)
  3. Then click on 'Word Options'
  4. In the left column of the window that pop's up click on 'Proofing'
  5. Now check the check box that says 'Use contextual spelling', you can also press the Alt key and the n key to do the same
  6. Click on OK
Now you should be able to see the blue underlines for words that don't relate to the context. I've been using this ever since I downloaded the beta, now you too can benefit from it... especially if you are like me and always keep making stupid little mistakes.
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Sunday, 4 June 2006

Guide to learn Cryptography

Posted on 07:13 by Unknown
No, I'm not writing my own cryptography course, however I am going to give you some very valuable links today if you are interested in how crypto works. This is for beginners and people at an advanced level... well basically it's just links that I've known and when I saw a link to a crypto course on digg.com I decided to go ahead and publish this post.

  1. Familiarize yourself with this cryptography article over at wikipedia.
  2. Then go over to grc.com/securitynow.htm and listen to episodes 30-37. Yes I know Steve Gibson's voice can be annoying at times, but hey, he's a guru and you might as well listen to what he has to say.
  3. Then you are going to be ready for the advanced course over at University of Washington.
  4. Now you are ready to explore, research more about the application you are curious about, such as Skype etc.
Now, you can consider yourself a guru on Cryptography, and sure enough you are ready to take on the world. Well, if your asking your self how can this help me? Then answer is, may be since you know more about cryptography now you can be more like this guy (oh yeah and did I mention he's Canadian).

Soon enough I'll have my own article too on how this stuff works, if I can get around to write it of course. So come back in the summer... to take a crash course on Crypto if you are more interested.
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Friday, 2 June 2006

Adobe Getting Greedy?

Posted on 10:23 by Unknown
I think Adobe is getting really greedy now. Why? The answer is simple, they asked Microsoft to remove PDF support from Office 2007. Heck, they even threatened to pursue legal action. What's next? Are they going to ban all the websites like PDF Online and tools such as CutePDF, because they want people want to buy Acrobat and flash paper and all that stuff for hundreds of dollar. If Microsoft puts in their PDF exporter, then it is going to work just like Acrobat... but people don't need to pay for it.

The next thing you know... they are trying to ban OpenOffice, because it too allows people to export to PDF. That's probably the main reason that Microsoft put it in there in the first place, because they don't want to stay a step behind Open Office.

The thing that Adobe has to realize is that they can fight for all the rights they want but the problem is that, companies have to stay competitive and in order to do that only collaboration can help. What I'm trying to say is, instead of ordering Microsoft to remove the feature, they should try to work with them to add-in an optional element which incorporates something like Flash paper when you are installing it. But for some reason I don't think that things like that are going to happening soon... because of the greed factor may be?
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Thursday, 1 June 2006

I hate BSOD's

Posted on 10:46 by Unknown
I was happily working away on a Geo project that is due tomorrow... And since my group is full of so called 'rotten apples' who decided to film it on the last day. They had not idea what the hell editing was... especially if they can't say a single line without seriously screwing up. So practically I was in the infamous 'now or never situation' and was stretching the limits on my computer in order to get work done.

I was almost done compiling all the clips... and opened up Adobe Audition in order to normalize the sound and make some changes to the 'beautiful voices' of people in my group. All of a sudden... BSOD! Dang! To me the BSOD looked somewhat like this:
AHA! Gotcha sucker... trying to do some real work with Windows XP, eh? Well guess what... every time you try to do some real work, we over at M$ decided that you should die because you used Windows XP.

And since we can't actually kill you (until we make that mouse that automatically zap you) the best we can do is give you our most loved and infamous Blue Screen of Death.

This way, we can ruin your work because chances are that you haven't saved anything and you are going to loose all of it and even if you did save it, we are going to make every attempt to delete it.

Technical Information:
*** STOP: Rishi from doing anything (0xAHAHAHAHA, 0xYOUBOUGHTXP, 0xYOUSUCK, OxHAHAYOUCANTDOANYTHING)

Oh yeah and one more thing... don't bother contacting your System Administrator, because he/she can't do anything to foil our plans of ruining the world with BSOD's Muhuhahahaha.
Now, you tell me is, can this tyranny be tolerated by anyone? I say, if anything like this happens once more I'm going to start using the MAC to Video Editing and Sound Editing (although it doesn't have Audition)! And the PC gets it (by it I'm referring to Linux of course).

By the way if you 'like' BSOD's but don't like the colour of it, I recommend taking a look at this tutorial over at tech-recipes to change the colour of the BSOD and make it something like WSOD (White Screen of Death).
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