Logical Technology: Speed

Showing posts with label Speed. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

XBMC 11.0 "Eden" Adds AirPlay Support, Speed Improvements, and Lots, Lots More [Xbmc]

Windows/Mac/Linux: XBMC, our favorite software for setting up a custom media center, upgraded to a new version this weekend with lots of new features. Here's a look at what you'll find.

If you have an Apple TV or iOS device, XBMC finally has new, official versions for you to use. Everything's been upgraded and both versions are in sync with the Windows, Mac, and Linux versions. There's also a new version of XBMC Live, now called XBMCbuntu. It's essentially an XBMC installation over an LXDE-based Ubuntu installation, and while it acts just like XBMC Live (that is, you never see the desktop if you don't want to), you now have the option of booting into a desktop and using a web browser, managing your files, and so on. It's also easier to upgrade than the old version of XBMC Live, which is great.

One of our favorite features in the new build is AirPlay support. Now, if you want to stream media to XBMC from iTunes, your iOS device, or even something like Airfoil, you can do so. XBMC should show up as a valid AirPlay destination from any AirPlay-capable device or program, for videos, pictures, and music (though XBMC on Windows does not support music yet, unfortunately). Most platforms will require a bit of setup to get this working, so check out the AirPlay entry of the XBMC wiki for more info.

Eden also has software improvements across the board, from "massive speed increases" (thanks to dirty region rendering and a new JPEG decoder) to better networking support to better unencrypted Blu-Ray playback. It also has much better remote control support in Windows and the addition of GPU video decoding for AMD devices in Linux. In short, there are a lot of technical things that will make XBMC faster and easier to use overall.

The Confluence interface, which comes with XBMC by default, has been vastly overhauled and should be a bit easier to use for newbies. Now, each option on the home screen has a number of sub-sections, so you can instantly see your "Movies", "TV Shows", and "Add-Ons" sections under Videos, for example. You can choose library mode or file mode right from the home screen without having to deal with the hidden menu, which was a big confusion point for new users. It also puts recently added items right on the home screen, which is a nice touch. Of course, you still have the option to customize the home screen as you see fit or install a new skin altogether—this is just a really nice update for people that don't like to mess with their media centers too much. You can read more about the Confluence updates over at the XBMC Blog.

Lastly, this version of XBMC introduces the ability to roll back your add-ons to a previous version. This is great if someone updates an add-on and it doesn't work well for you, or gets rid of a feature you really liked. Without any hassle, you can just head to the add-on's page in Settings and choose Rollback. You'll get a list of versions to choose from, and you can reinstall it right then and there. You can read more about this feature over at the XBMC Blog as well.

Of course, these are far from the only changes in XBMC 11, but they are the biggest. Check out the full changelog to see everything new, or head over to XBMC.org and download it for yourself. You can also check out the XBMC blog post on the subject by hitting the link below.

Monday, March 26, 2012

SpeedyFox 2.0, Speed Up Firefox, Thunderbird, Chrome and Skype

Programs like Firefox, Thunderbird or the Windows operating system tend to become slower the longer you use them. This can be partially attributed to the way these programs save and delete data. In the case of Firefox and Thunderbird, SQLite databases are used to store data. These databases grow in size over time, which in turn reduces the loading time and thus the performance of the application.

Back in 2009 I reviewed several options to optimize the SQLite database files in Firefox to improve to speed up the web browser after some time of use. The same method worked with Thunderbird as well.

Speedyfox 2.0 is a standalone program for the Windows and Macintosh operating system that can be used to run those commands more conveniently. The portable program scans your operating system for compatible programs – which at the time of writing are Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird, Google Chrome and Skype, and displays a selection menu afterwards.

Here you can select the programs and profiles that you want to optimize. You can use the SpeedyFox > Add Custom Profile menu to add custom profiles to the cleanup. This is useful for portable profiles that are not picked up automatically, or non-default profiles.

Once you have made your selection, you can click on the optimize button to run the database optimization on all selected profiles. The progress of the optimization is displayed in a log, followed by a summary in the end. It took less than ten seconds to optimize individual profiles. On a test system, I tried the optimization on Firefox and Thunderbird.

Firefox’s database was reduced to 5.59 MB from 13.5 MB, while Thunderbird’s to 131 MB from 144 MB.

The developers claim that the program can boost the startup of supported programs up to three times. While I was not able to confirm that, I cannot flat out deny it either. The effect was minimal on my system, but that may have something to do with the fast SSD that I have installed.

I’d recommend to create a backup of your profile or user directory before you run the program to be on the safe side. We have previously covered SpeedyFox here on Ghacks. Back then it was only compatible with the Firefox web browser. Support for additional programs has been added in this version which just has been released.

SpeedyFox Optimizes Firefox Databases To Speed Up The Web Browser
Firefox 3.6 And Thunderbird 3.01 Portable [Software]
How To Download Old Firefox And Thunderbird Releases
Create Custom Firefox And Thunderbird Installations
How To Speed Up Thunderbird By Archiving Emails

Friday, March 16, 2012

An Overly Cluttered Desktop Can Seriously Slow Down Your Mac—Clean it Up for a Noticeable Speed Boost [Desktop]

Weblog Mac OS X Hints reminds us that when your computer's running slower than it should, sometimes complicated maintenance isn't the answer—a clean desktop could do just as much as anything.

This supposedly isn't a problem on Windows computers, just Macs. Because of the way OS X's graphical system works, the icons on your desktop take up a lot more of your resources than you may realize:

A family member owns a Mac, and he was complaining it was getting slow - especially the Desktop. He had a lot of files on the Desktop, but none of them were visible on the Desktop itself, but only in a Finder window displaying the contents of the Desktop. The Desktop only showed two icons: the main hard disk, and a Time Machine hard disk. The Desktop itself was very slow, and often displayed a beachball.

However, when I looked in the Desktop folder, there were more than 2,700 image files. When I removed the image files from the Desktop folder, everything went back to normal.

Obviously, this isn't a problem for most of you, since you've created a clean, organized desktop for yourselves (right? right?), but your less tech-savvy friends and relatives might be guilty of this (I'm talking to you, Mom). Next time you're going through the inevitable family troubleshooting, make sure their desktop doesn't look like the picture above, and maybe even set them up with Hazel to prevent it in the future. You might be surprised at how much it can improve things.

Speed up your Mac by removing files from the Desktop | Mac OS X Hints

How to Speed Up Laundry, the World's Most Boring Chore [Video]

Laundry is easily my least favorite chore out of all of them—mostly because it always takes so long to sort, wash, fold, and iron all of my clothes. Here are a few clever tips that take little work, but can speed up your laundry doing exponentially.

The biggest thing I've learned is this: If I'm rushing to get laundry done when I could be doing other, more important/fun things, I'll hate it even more. So, now I plan ahead and do my laundry when I know I'll be doing something like relaxing in front of the TV—that way, when it comes time to fold, I don't feel like I'm taking time out of my day to do it. I've even programmed it into my Google Calendar so I remember. No amount of laundry tips can make it more fun when you'd rather be doing something else.

A bonus to this is that, by planning ahead, I can fold laundry as soon as it comes out of the dryer. That way, my clothes have fewer wrinkles and I don't have to do quite as much ironing—which is by far the biggest time suck in the process.

I have two laundry baskets: one white, one blue. It occurred to me that I could just throw whites into the white one and colors into the blue one as I take off my clothes at the end of the day, and I'd never have to pre-sort my laundry ever again. Apparently this is a somewhat common practice, but the thought had never crossed my mind before. If you don't like laundry baskets or stationary hampers, our own Alan Henry recommends this standing laundry bag from IKEA, which makes it easy to transport clothes between your closet and the washing machine.

Another good way to speed things up is to save those heavy fabrics and wash them all together. One heavy fabric item can be the weak link in a load of laundry that makes your dryer take longer than usual to finish a cycle. If you can keep them out of your regular loads, they should go a little faster.

Lastly, if you have certain fabrics that can't go in the dryer or require other special care, weblog Home Made Simple has a good way to keep track of them:

If you have clothes that need to be washed in cold water or can't go in the dryer, mark the tags with a permanent marker. You'll make them easier to identify and save yourself from having to decipher the small print on the tag.

If you have a lot of clothes that require special care, you could even use different colors to differentiate what kind of care they need. Then you can just glance at the tags as you're throwing everything in.

If Laundry is hell, then socks are the devil. Whether they're disappearing in your laundry or they just take an hour to sort, they decide how much your laundry will suck on any given day. Sure, a lost sock basket can help sort it a little, and if you have multiple people in your household, a mesh laundry bag can help keep them all together. You can even use a binder clip to keep each pair together in the wash.

However, I've found that the best thing you can do is declare "sock bankruptcy", throw away all your white socks, and buy a two or three week supply in bulk. A 6 pack of regular white socks is rarely more than $12, and if you only have one type of sock, you never have to fold them. Just take them out of that mesh bag and throw them in your drawer. From then on, each day, you just reach in and grab any two socks—if all you have is one brand, you have a 100% chance of them matching.

Folding is the most coma-inducing part of laundry, but if you've done your job and planned ahead, you should be doing this during your relaxation time. However, there are a few things you can do to make the process go by super quickly. For regular shirts and sweaters, you can fold them in two seconds flat using this Japanese method, or hang them using this speed hanging method. It won't work for your button-downs and other outerwear, but you can speed through your t-shirts, polos, camisoles, and other shirts in no time.

Lastly, I've found that because I'm always behind on laundry there are certain items of clothing that just never get washed. When paring down a load of laundry, I pick out the things I'm least likely to wear and put them back in the hamper. I now have a new rule that if they've been in the hamper for more than a few months, they migrate to the trash instead. Not only does it keep my laundry from piling up, but I don't have to go through my hamper and pick which things I want to wash—each load is much more manageable. We've discussed a similar tip using clothes hangers, but I've found that I'm much more likely to just leave things dirty than leave them hanging up, so this has made my life much easier.

Some of these tips you may have done your whole life, while others are completely new to you. We all grew up being taught different things, so if you've discovered a great laundry tip I haven't mentioned, by all means, share it in the comments.

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Increase internet Speed by 20%

Now, you can see i will open a window as shown below. Here, in the left hand side Browse to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Network > QoS Packet Scheduler > Limit reservable Bandwidth

Double click on the Limit reservable Bandwidth in the right side, it will open a window which can be used to configure Bandwidth reservation. Select the Enabled option button in the window and change the bandwidth limit value to 0% then click OK to apply the new settings.

Here, you have to restart your computer and after that surf the internet so that you can feel the internet speed is much higher than before.

Do not forget to leave your comments below.

View the original article here

Monday, March 5, 2012

Increase internet Speed by 20%

Most of internet users require internet connection with a better speed so that they usually try to increase their internet speed. By default, In Windows operating systems such as Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 etc, the system reserves 20% of bandwidth from the internet connection for various services such as windows updates and some other updates. Therefore, we can tweak internet speed by getting this 20% of bandwidth since that reserved bandwidth may not be often used. If you enable this bandwidth reservation service, then you can change the bandwidth limit to 0%. However, if you disable this setting or not configure it, the system automatically reserves 20% from the bandwidth. Let us see how to increase the internet speed by getting reserved bandwidth.

At the beginning, Simply go to the Run and then type gpedit.msc and hit Enter.
Now, you can see i will open a window as shown below. Here, in the left hand side Browse to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Network > QoS Packet Scheduler > Limit reservable BandwidthDouble click on the Limit reservable Bandwidth in the right side, it will open a window which can be used to configure Bandwidth reservation. Select the Enabled option button in the window and change the bandwidth limit value to 0% then click OK to apply the new settings.Here, you have to restart your computer and after that surf the internet so that you can feel the internet speed is much higher than before.

Do not forget to leave your comments below.