Tag: Performance
An integral part of the Software Assessment Management efforts from Microsoft, the Microsoft Software Inventory Analyzer 5.1 is available for download accompanied by a range of resources designed to streamline usage. MSIA is a tool designed to permit customers to scan either a local machine or computers connected to a network in order to identify and produce a report containing a list of core Microsoft software products installed. In addition to MSIA, the company is also offering for download documentation containing a User Guide and a FAQ. According to the Redmond giant, MSIA is capable of putting together software inventories only for networks with a maximum of 250 computers.
“MSIA reports the results of the scan in three possible formats, based on the user’s selection: HTML, Excel, and Text. These reports contain details such as the names of all the installed Microsoft products, links to the list of computers scanned, links to the error log, and so on. In addition, the summary report enables users to enter corresponding license purchase information for all software detected in the scan,” Microsoft revealed. Read More»
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The wait is over! Firefox 3.5 has reached the end of its development process. The gold build of the open-source browser from Mozilla, formerly codenamed Shiretoko, was finalized on June 29, 2009, and is now available for download (links are live at the bottom of this article). Mozilla is planning to ship Firefox 3.5 today, June 30, but at the time of this article the availability of Firefox 3.0’s successor hasn’t yet been announced officially. Still, the final development milestone of Firefox 3.5 has already been wrapped up and the bits went live on Mozilla’s FTP servers. It is only a matter of Firefox 3.5 being released to web, but you needn’t wait, just grab Firefox 3.5 from the links below for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.
“The team here at Mozilla has been working hard on creating features, enhancing performance and adding other awesomeness to Firefox 3.5, and we’re very excited about sharing it with the world,” revealed Mozilla’s John Slater on June 29. Read More»
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Come June 23rd, 2009, Microsoft will open up codename Morro, its upcoming free security solution designed to replace Windows Live OneCare 2.0, to the public. The Redmond company offered official confirmation that codename Morro had been rebranded as Microsoft Security Essentials, and that the first Beta for version 1.0 was ready to debut next week. Access to Microsoft Security Essentials 1.0 Beta will be granted to testers in the United States, Brazil and Israel, the software giant informed. The information provided by Microsoft comes after screenshots of Morro made it into the wild, followed by the actual bits, leaked a couple of days ago.
“The Microsoft Security Essentials Beta will be made publicly available in Brazil, Israel and the U.S. starting June 23 at about 9am PDT from www.microsoft.com/security_essentials, and general availability is scheduled for later this calendar year,” a Microsoft spokesman told pctipsbox. Read More»
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With the availability of the Release Candidate for Windows 7, Microsoft has also made public the system requirements for the operating system. The good news? Users who have already moved to a Windows Vista-tailored machine will not need to upgrade their hardware yet again just to accommodate Windows 7. In fact, the system requirements for the next iteration of Windows are roughly the same as for its precursor, with Beta testers indicating that Windows 7 outperforms Windows Vista on the same hardware.
Without further ado, the System Requirements for Windows 7 are “1GHz or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor; 1 GB of RAM (32-bit)/2 GB of RAM (64-bit); 16 GB of available disk space (32-bit)/20 GB (64-bit); DirectX 9 graphics device with Windows Display Driver Model 1.0 or higher driver,” according to Microsoft.
The Redmond company emphasizes that the system requirements presented above represent the bare minimum required to run Windows 7. Read More»
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1. Boost memory
The simplest way to a faster Mac is by installing extra RAM. Before you buy, check the maximum RAM capacity of your Mac. You can download a free program called MacTracker that will tell you the precise technical specifications of every Mac ever produced.
2. Install RAM in pairs
Many Macs will give you a speed boost if you install matching RAM modules in pairs. G5 and Mac Pro towers actually require the installation of pairs of modules, though most other Macs will allow the use of an odd number, with the proviso that you won’t get the fastest possible performance from them. Crucial’s website will tell you the specifics for your model.
3. Faster drive
Installing a faster hard drive as the boot drive on a tower Mac will yield performance gains, especially if you go up to a 10,000-speed drive. On a laptop, installing a 7,200rpm drive (to replace a 5,400 rpm model) will also make things faster, though older Mac portables don’t have user replaceable hard drives Read More»
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1. Enable pipelining
Browsers are normally very polite, sending a request to a server then waiting for a response before continuing. Pipelining is a more aggressive technique that lets them send multiple requests before any responses are received, often reducing page download times.
To enable it, type about:config in the address bar, double-click network.http.pipelining and network.http.proxy.pipelining so their values are set to true, then double-click network.http.pipelining.maxrequests and set this to 8.
Keep in mind that some servers don’t support pipelining, though, and if you regularly visit a lot of these then the tweak can actually reduce performance. Set network.http.pipelining and network.http.proxy.pipelining to false again if you have any problems. Read More»
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With Firefox 3.1 evolved into Firefox 3.5 in the move from Beta 3 to Beta 4, Mozilla is also looking ahead beyond Shiretoko, to the next iteration of its open-source browser. Firefox Next will be codenamed Namoroka and the version number for the project will be 3.6, although this will only be valid for the initial stages. Mozilla in fact refers to what will be the successor of Firefox 3.5 as Firefox.next. Namoroka will be based on the Gecko 1.9.2 rendering engine, and is currently planned for availability in the first half of 2010.
“In contrast to previous product planning exercises, which were declarative and relatively inflexible, we hope to develop this project in a highly iterative manner by which we initially declare project goals and prioritized areas of interest for investigation, and then spend time determining the exact shape and scope of feature development tasks. The outcome of these investigations will be a set of feature design documents (using a common template) which will be prioritized and constitute the final product development plan,” revealed Mike Beltzner, Director of Firefox at Mozilla Corporation. Read More»
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Microsoft has refreshed its lineup of DirectX offerings at the start of this week, and the company is by no means shy of focusing the spotlight on the evolution of the graphics technology as Windows 7 is contouring. The software giant is offering fresh Technical Previews of Direct2D, DirectWrite, and DXGI 1.1, but also a new TP release of Windows 7/Direct3D 11. The components are available for download as an integral part of the March 2009 iteration of the DirectX Software Development Kit, which is accompanied by the DirectX End-User Runtimes (March 2009) and the DirectX End-User Runtime Web Installer. Microsoft delivered the first taste of Windows 7 DirectX 11 through the SDK back in November 2008.
Obviously the releases are aimed at a professional audience. Developers will be able to leverage the latest release of the SDK, combining the DirectX Runtime and additional software designed to permit the building of DirectX compliant solutions. With the March 2009 DirectX update, Microsoft has refreshed the tools and utilities included with the software development kit, but also the code samples, documentation, and the 32-bit and 64-bit runtime debug files. Read More»
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At the end of the past week, Microsoft made available to the public the results of a “browser measuring contest” involving Internet Explorer 8, Firefox 3.05 and Google Chrome 1.0. What the Redmond company did was to measure the browser load times for the top 25 websites worldwide. In the software company’s own comparison, IE8 managed to come out on top of its rivals, besting the open source Firefox and Chrome which were released in 2008, and not the current 3.1/3.5 version of Firefox or the 2.0 flavor of Chrome. But the real question is does it matter?
Obviously, Microsoft is rather a new comer to the browser measuring game. Simply because Internet Explorer, while considered by rival browser makers a reference point, never actually needed to compare itself to competitive products, especially from the perspective of the dominant browser on the market. IE continues to account for the lion’s share when it comes down to browser usage share worldwide, but Firefox has made a dent in its dominance that is harder and harder to ignore. And fact is that for the first time in the long life of Internet Explorer, Microsoft has a release that it’s worth comparing, as it is bound to score at least on par with rivals, if not even best them in certain scenarios. Read More»
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If you long for the good old days of XP and still have your install CD, this step-by-step guide will help you revert to Vista’s predecessor.
These days, you have to work to find a new computer that comes with XP installed. Many PC users who upgraded their XP systems to Vista are disappointed with the newer OS’s performance and other problems. In either case, as long as you have an XP installation CD, you can kiss Vista good-bye.
“Downgrading” from Vista to XP is not as difficult as you may think, but it does entail some time-consuming operations. Many online sources claim to offer techniques for reinstalling XP without having to reformat your hard disk. Based on my research, however, deleting the Vista partition and installing XP in its place is arguably the easiest approach. Moreover, this method ensures a clean install that is uncontaminated by Vista leftovers.
Note: In certain cases, you may be able to undo an XP-to-Vista upgrade, even without an XP installation CD, by following the instructions in Microsoft article 933168. The article takes a command-line approach to the XP restoration, and also requires that you have a windows.old folder on your root drive. Read More»
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