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- Cool Websites and Tools [October 26]
- 3 Top Site For Games That Involve Your Hands
- 5 Websites Where You Can Find and Write To Soldiers
- Question Of The Day – How Do You Explain the Internet To Someone?
- 9 iPhone Apps To Help Soothe You To Sleep
- Top 8 Programs That Can Make Your Computer Run Faster
- How to Install Language Packs On Windows
- How To Make Photoshop Faster On Slower Computers
| Cool Websites and Tools [October 26] Posted: 26 Oct 2009 04:00 PM PDT
(1) ChromeExtensions – Web repository of Google Chrome extensions/add-ons which can be installed in the developer version of Google Chrome. You can search for extensions, add the ones you like directly to Chrome, and rate & review add-ons after you use them. Read more: ChromeExtensions – Google Chrome Extensions Repository
(2) CheckMyTorrentIP – Free online application for torrent users. It allows you to quickly check if your torrent line is anonymous and no personal IP data is exposed publicly. This comes in handy if you are using online anonymity service like VPN or some proxy servers and want to verify whether it's actually protecting you. Read more: CheckMyTorrentIP – Check if your BitTorrent Downloads are Anonymous (3) AcceptEdge – Online tool that helps high school students get through their college applications. It works like a college matchmaker where you can browse different colleges and find a school that fits you best. The site predicts a list of colleges based on your academic and social profile. Read more: AcceptEdge – Helps You To Find A College That Fits You (4) Xm.my – Simple web tool that lets you create short map links for any location on Google Maps and easily share them online (Twitter, Facebook, Delicious, etc.) Read more: Xm.my – Create Short Map Links for Any Location (5) MySkyStatus – This online application is for the social network buffs who religiously update their status on Facebook and Twitter, they can now continue doing it even when they are at an altitude of 20,000 feet sitting in an airplane without internet access. MySkyStatus, a service by Lufthansa airlines does that for you. Read more: MySkyStatus – Auto-updates Your Flight Status on Twitter & Facebook
These are just half of the websites that we discovered in the last couple of days. If you want us to send you daily round-ups of all cool websites we come across, leave your email here. Or follow us via RSS feed. Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section! New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/ Related posts
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| 3 Top Site For Games That Involve Your Hands Posted: 26 Oct 2009 03:00 PM PDT
What you need are Hand Games! Everyone with hands can play them, and we all have hands! OK, most of us have hands. Those that don’t can referee or be enthusiastic spectators! Don’t know what a hand game is? Sure you do. We’ll start with a classic hand game. Rock, Paper, Scissors. The World RPS Society
The World RPS site is a lot of fun and little fact. They talk about how using RPS was made a legal way to make a binding decision in London, England in 1842. Not true. Entertaining, but not true. Apparently, RPS had its start in Japan as Jan Ken Pon. That’s from Wikipedia, so that might not be true as well. For some reason, it seems more logical to me though.
Nevertheless, if you are looking for a definitive guide to the Ro Sham Beau hand game, this is the site. Study the Great 8 Gambits, look into the psychology of the game and some of finer details such as ’shadowing’ and ‘broadcasting false tells’. There are also very detailed rules for the game that you might want to incorporate into your daily play. Does someone doubt the validity of a move? Maybe you can’t decide to throw on 3 or do 3 and then throw. The rules will guide you, my hand-jiving friend, the rules will guide you. Monochrom’s Massive Multiplayer ThumbwarsMaybe RPS is too hard to get a hand on. Maybe you’re just all thumbs when it comes to hand games. If that’s the case, I’m sure you’d excel at the latest in thumb wars – multiplayer! No more one on one, with your cousin with the freakishly monkey like thumb that reach your thumb even while it’s still in the air. Level the playing field by bringing in the rest of the mutated family and friends. There are oh-so-many ways to thumb wrestle, I’m surpised there isn’t a world championship for this as well. Check out the basic four-player situation:
Got a few more people to play with? Maybe your at a family reunion and all the moonshine is already gone. Uncle Bob is looking for a fight and Great Aunt Marcie is willing to give him one, so all the cousins jump in. Why have that same old fist fight again? Settle with a thumb war a la the ‘Down Under’ configuration. Everyone has their hands together so they can’t start swinging AND they are in a prime position to aspirate without starting another fight.
Seriously though, I think wearing shoes like those demands fisticuffs. MercyI would rather be in a fist fight with a multi-armed Indian god than play mercy again. Certainly this hand game is responsible for more broken and/or dislocated fingers than all the car-doors and nose-picking accidents combined. If you’ve never played – ignore what I just said. Read up on the rules and play with a friend. It’s jolly good clean fun! The point of the game is to interlock fingers as though you were intimately holding hands, and then try to crush your opponents knuckles and inflict carpal tunnel syndrome until they bellow with their last breath, “Mercy!” Apparently there are some regional differences in what is said to signify your submission: “Peanuts!” or “Danny Stavros Buck”, “Pinochle” or “Uncle”. All of which make no sense to me except “Uncle”. Who the heck is Danny Stavros Buck? By the time I spit that chestnut out, I would have lost several fingers indeed! For your entertainment, I present one of the most unique games of Mercy that I have ever seen. So now that you and your gameless buddy’s have used your hands to the limit for fun and pleasure, you might want to consider some Aspercream or Voltaren Emulgel. The Voltaren seems to work especially quick. Honestly.
Once you’ve got your fingers working again, drop us a line and let us know about your favourite hand games. Maybe you had a particularly epic one. Give a shout in the comments! Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section! New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/ Related posts
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| 5 Websites Where You Can Find and Write To Soldiers Posted: 26 Oct 2009 01:00 PM PDT
International security is a touchy subject for a lot of folks. There are skirmishes, border disputes and completely senseless attacks against innocent civilians. It’s during these violent moments that we come to appreciate the people who devote their lives to serving the public welfare. There are times when you may appreciate their hard work and sacrifice so much that you want to write soldiers and send them a token of your gratitude, but you simply don’t know where to write to these soldiers with notes of encouragement or gifts of support. With this in mind, I’d like to offer some excellent online resources that offer the public contact details or online forms where you can find and write to any soldier that you choose. Because many of these soldiers are often deployed in areas of the world that are isolated – and they miss their homes and families very much – every note of encouragement they receive becomes a godsend. One more note before we get started – this particular list turned out somewhat westernized. This was not intentional. I searched long and hard for International organizations that foster troop support. Unfortunately it’s difficult to uncover those organizations (at least online) for eastern countries. Even many western countries don’t offer many online services for citizens who are interested in contacting soldiers in duty. That doesn’t mean the services don’t exist or that these countries don’t care as much about their soldiers, it just means that I couldn’t find them. If you know of a specific organization for your country that helps connect appreciative citizens with the soldiers and forces that protect them, please add that group or organization to the comments below. Thanks! With that said, let’s get started with five great organizations where you can write to soldiers. Canada – Check Out the CFPSA FirstThe Canadians know how to keep the influx of public support for their troops well managed. The government assigned The Canadian Forces Personnel and Family Support Services (CFPSA) to the task of managing public donations to deployed troops. That means if you’re a Canadian citizen, this is the first place to stop if you want to figure out how you can write to Canadian soldiers. They’ve even created an online message board that you can use to show your support – they’ve named it the Morale by Message Board.
At least for now, the Canadian Post actually offers free delivery of mail to deployed troops, and on the page above you can get all of the guidelines for how you can write a letter to “Any Canadian Forces Member” and have it delivered to any member of the Canadian Forces who haven’t received any mail. I must add that just reviewing some of the daily entries from Canadian citizens in the CFPSA message boards makes one realize that Canadians have very good reason to be proud of their country. Israel – Write to an IDF SoldierConsidering that Israel sits in one of the world’s hottest spots for conflict, posting this next resource could come across as strong Western bias, but in all honesty I searched for soldier-writing resources for Middle Eastern countries and simply couldn’t find any. If you know of any, again please share it in the comments. This is not a vote of support for either side of any Mid-East conflicts, but only a nod to Chabad.org, a well-designed website created to assist Israelis and writing letters to IDF soldiers to boost morale and show their support.
The cool thing about this particular service is that you aren’t submitting your message electronically or even through the mail, this organization promises to “hand deliver” your message of support to an IDF soldier. You can even include you or your family’s picture so that they know you’re a real person and care about their well-being. Europe – 2 Sites to Lend Moral Support to TroopsNow, while I’m American and I’m proud of the level of U.S. support for her deployed troops, just reviewing some of the websites across the pond I have to say the level of European patriotism easily rivals the U.S. The UK was the most abundant in support websites, but I know there are more organizations out there, and I hope our readers can share them. For starters, I think probably the most vocal and active group is SOS – short for Support Our Soldiers.
This organization handles arranging for parcels where they will put together a care package for a soldier that you’ve sponsored. The site removes the need for you to try to figure out the sort of things a soldier needs – these folks know – all you need to do is help fund the care package and it gets put together and sent for you. When it comes to writing messages and letters of support, SOS partners with the next organization I’d like to cover, ForcesPenPals.
This site completely automates the process of linking up UK armed forces with the civilian population, serving as a perfect medium for civilians to exchange messages of support to UK troops. It appears that the site also serves as a dating service…interesting! United States – Send a Care Package to Any SoldierA couple of years ago, I wrote an online article titled “My Hero.” The hero that I chose was Sergeant Brian Horn of LaPlata, Maryland. A member of the 173rd Airborne Brigade in Iraq, Brian was well supported by his family and friends while serving in Iraq, but he also noticed that a lot of soldiers didn’t get any mail at all. My choice for Brian as a hero wasn’t so much for his bravery while in harms way (although that was without question), his true heroism started in 2003 when he came up with the idea to start an organization to funnel the overwhelming public support for the troops at home into material support that the deployed troops could actually see for themselves. From this simple concept, AnySoldier was born.
Through AnySoldier, you can sort through the database (shown above), filter by branch of armed services if you like, and then choose one of the contact names. The contacts are deployed soldiers who volunteer to deliver letters and care packages to other soldiers in their area who don’t normally receive much word or encouragement from home. Anysoldier remains one of the most well-run “write to soldiers” organizations that I’ve seen on the Internet. Do you know of any organization that helps citizens support the armed forces? Have you ever tried any of these yourself? Please share your own resources and experiences in the comments section below. Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section! New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too. Related posts
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| Question Of The Day – How Do You Explain the Internet To Someone? Posted: 26 Oct 2009 12:01 PM PDT
It’s been such a success that we decided to roll this feature out to our readers as well. We want to know what you think. Around two or three times a week, we will be asking you a question on some internet & technology-related subject and we hope you will respond in our comments section and generate some good discussions. So without further ado, here is the first question : Have you ever had to explain the internet to your parents, older relatives or non-techie friends? If so, how did you explain it to them, were you successful, and how would you recommend others to explain it? Tell us all your stories in the comments below. Image Credit : wheresmysocks Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section! New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/ Related posts
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| 9 iPhone Apps To Help Soothe You To Sleep Posted: 26 Oct 2009 11:00 AM PDT
I used to resort to a couple of Mac apps to help put me to sleep. Recently, I found something another tool to help me achieve blissful slumber — my iPhone. I was looking for an iPhone app that would play soothing sounds (something akin to a Sound Machine) like pouring rain or blowing wind (yeah, I’m kinda digging that) to help put my mind at ease. Coincidently, I found that listening to these sounds while falling asleep, I dream less and tend to get a better night’s rest. Although, your personal results may differ. In my quest to find these apps (the App Store is so cluttered these days), I tested several and found that most of them have slightly different sounds to offer. Each one has its own distinctive motif. So, instead of choosing the best one for me (which may not be the one for you), I decided to list them all down so that you can try for yourselves. So here they are, 9 iPhone apps to help soothe you to sleep. Custom Sounds of Nature LiteCSON Lite provides 2 very realistic sounds of nature — Calm Ocean and Mountain Stream. Within Calm Ocean, there is a selection of sounds and the option to configure their presence and volume: Ocean, Seagulls, Wind Chimes and Foghorn. Mountain Stream has a several sounds to choose from as well: Stream, Bull Frogs, Birds and Day Crickets.
Each of the selected sounds loop so they can be played endlessly. CSON Lite also has a built-in timer so that you can listen to the sounds for as long as you wish before the sounds slowly fade away. iRelax MelodiesiRelax Melodies is free for a limited time and has a collection of 16 very relaxing (indeed!) sounds to put you to sleep –River, Ocean, Flute, Rain, Winds, Music Box, Lounge, Birds, Piano, Orchestral, Waterfall, Thunder, Zen, Fire Camp, Melody and Night — all arranged as post-it notes spanning two pages. The sounds are selected by tapping on their corresponding notes and here’s the cool thing: you can select as many sounds as you want and mix your own customized track!
iRelax also offers a built-in timer albeit only as predefined time intervals of 5, 10, 15, 30, 45 minutes; 1 hour and 2 hours. eSleep LiteeSleep Lite is slightly different from your regular sound machine in the sense that it allows you to select 1 background “music” track and up to 3 “noise” tracks. Besides that, it also has a little party piece: it will let you record your own soothing sound to be played as a “noise” track.
eSleep Lite comes with built-in alarm and timer that starts to fade out in the final minute. Ambiance LiteAmbiance Lite is not your ordinary sound machine. It is a full-fledge jukebox of awesome sounds. The free app comes pre-installed with three: Large Wind Chimes, Loons and Rain and Thunder II. However, you can download as many sounds as you want for free from their online repository!
To imagine how Ambiance Lite works, think of it as an iPod. You can rate, favourite, loop and shuffle different sounds from the main playlist. It also features the usual timer and alarm functions so that you can set the app to play and drift off to sleep without a worry in your mind! Not bad for a free app! NaturespaceBoasting holographic audio, Naturespace features five stock environments with 3D sound that are accurately recorded in high definition and seamlessly reproduced to provide you with a realistic experience.
If you’re not the kind to fiddle with settings or customize sounds to perfection but rather, just want a simple app that can help calm you down instantly (and effectively), this is the one you need. Sleepmaker Storm, Stream and RainSleepmaker’s series of apps are for the serious insomniacs who know what they need to put them to sleep. These 3 apps dish out specific collections of sounds, all targeted at tranquility. Unfortunately, this is also the apps’ weakness. Because they are separated into three distinct applications, there’s no mixing and matching. You are able to only play one sound at a time.
However, the sounds that they offer are pretty realistic. Take a look at their descriptive titles. In Storm;
In Stream;
In Rain;
Sleepmaker also produces Wildlife and Waves sound packs but I have yet to review them. Personally, I think it would be easier for end-users if they made one free app with all the sounds packaged together. White Noise LiteDon’t be fooled by the name, White Noise Lite has a larger selection of sounds than just pure white noise. Actually, it has several sounds that are pretty odd like Grandfather Clock, Oscillating Fan, Train Ride and Airplane Travel. Although, I must admit, they’re surprisingly relaxing and I grew to like them, especially Train Ride — it is hypnotic!
It also has the usual calming ocean and rain sounds. My suggestion is to try out the other sounds because they may seem weird but they’re actually quite good. So which is my favourite? I can’t really say. They all have something different to offer. But I don’t see why we have to choose — they all free! Try them out and let me know how they work for you. Are you an insomniac? Do you find it hard to fall asleep? What do you usually do to get yourself some kip? Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section! New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/ Related posts
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| Top 8 Programs That Can Make Your Computer Run Faster Posted: 26 Oct 2009 09:00 AM PDT
Regular maintenance is usually required to keep a computer optimized and running at its best. Here are four programs that will make your computer faster, and four trade-offs to help make the best use out of the amount of RAM that’s installed on your computer. MSConfigFor those who despair endlessly that their computer lags too much at start up yet don’t know how to go about fixing that, taking a look through MSConfig would be the place to start. Msconfig can by accessed by hitting Windows-R, which brings up the “Run” dialog, and typing in “msconfig”. Under the “Start Up” tab, there is a list of programs and executables that are launched when the computer starts up.
CCleanerCCleaner stands for “Crap Cleaner” and that is exactly what the program is great for. Over time, temporary files bog down your system, and take up unnecessary space in your harddrive. Thus, it is good PC maintenance practice to go through your computer once every while, and delete all the temp files.
It is incredibly simple: just navigate to the Cleaner tab in CCleaner, check everything you want to clean up (it would be best to leave the “Advanced” section alone, unless you know what those entries refer to), and then clean Analyze. You’ll then see an overview of what CCleaner is about to clean up and delete, and how much space CCleaner will free up for you. To permanently erase the temp files off your computer, simply click “Run Cleaner,” and all those temp files will be history. Temp files aren’t the only junk files cluttering up your computer, however. Broken registry keys also pose a huge problem when it comes to useless files clogging up your system. Fortunately, CCleaner also has the ability to keep your registry clean.
To do this, use the “Registry” tab in Ccleaner. Once again, select all the entries you want CCleaner to prune, and let it do its thing. The only difference between this type of maintenance and clearing temp files is that if you accidentally delete a key that is still being used by your system, your computer can begin to function strangely. With that said, you should back up your registry settings before you give CCleaner the go ahead to torch everything. When you click “Fix Selected Issues” to delete the faulty registry entries, CCleaner will prompt you to back up your registry, and you should always click ‘yes’. CCleaner was also discussed by Stefan in his article How To Uninstall Applications Efficiently And Remove Obsolete Files. Revo UninstallerRevo Uninstaller is like the on-steroids version of your own Add and Remove Programs option in the Control Panel, but it also scans your computer for any files that the default uninstaller doesn’t catch, and deletes them. Revo’s layout is pretty much exactly the same as the Add and Remove Programs dialog, so it should be simple to navigate.
Revo also has a panel that lists all of the clean up tools that are provided with Windows systems. This menu can be accessed by clicking the Tools icon, and then the Windows Tools tab on the left. For a more in-depth review of Revo Uninstaller, check out Jimmy’s article Revo Uninstaller Will Hunt Down Your Bloatware. DefragglerSo once you’ve cleared all of the unnecessary files from your computer, there are now a bunch of holes where the data for those files used to be. While this may seem like no big deal to most people, having random gaps of empty space can also slow down your computer, because the rest of your files are still splintered into many different pieces, and the newly generated empty space isn’t being used efficiently. The more pieces a file is split to, the longer it takes the computer to access that file, so it makes sense to put all these pieces back together, once space has been cleared up to store whole files.
Defraggler is one of the best free defragmentation tools on the market. The visual representation of the space on the computer as pieces of files are being reunited is extremely enlightening, because most people don’t realize the extent of file splintering on their systems. But cleaning up your computer isn’t the only thing you can do to optimize how fast your computer runs. Believe it or not, the programs you choose to perform daily actions such as chatting, or opening PDFs, can also affect your computer’s running speed. Best Program Trade-OffsThis section discusses several alternative applications that perform more efficiently and provides your computer with the speed boost that it needs. Especially on slower computers, the difference is quite noticeable. Try it them out for yourselves! 1. Pidgin vs. AIMIf you don’t mind the spartan interface, Pidgin is a great multi-protocol IM client with a light footprint. Unfortunately it doesn’t natively support video chat, but it does have a plug-in for Skype (although you’ll need to have Skype running to use it). 2. Firefox or Chrome vs Internet ExplorerI recommend this switch not just based off memory footprint, but also because both Firefox and Chrome trump IE when it comes to customization and start-up times. 3. Foxit Reader vs Adobe ReaderAdobe Reader is notorious for its slow load times, especially when it comes to huge documents. Being a student, I regularly load 500+ page PDFs (the digital versions of my textbooks), so having to wait ages for them to load would be severely detrimental to my productivity. Foxit Reader, however, is so snappy that a 500+ page PDF loads almost instantly, and the browser integration is much smoother and faster than that of Adobe Reader. Once again, the interface is a bit more spartan, but Foxit definitely packs more features, and is a very worthy switch. Click here for Guy’s article on more light alternatives to Adobe Reader. 4. VLC Player vs Windows Media PlayerVLC is like the Pidgin of media players in that it supports a multitude of different video formats, and has a quick loading interface. Another great, recently implemented feature of VLC is that it can now be skinned to fit in with your windows theme! 5. Foobar2000 vs iTunesThe great thing about Foobar is that it is so customizable: everything from the layout of the interface to the plug-ins to extend the program’s capabilities can be tweaked. Many people worry that without iTunes, they wont’ be able to sync their iPod or iPhone, but Foobar actually has a plug-in to support iPod syncing. Today, I’ve covered eight of the best programs for de-crapping your computer and maximizing your available RAM. Hopefully you’ve found a few of these programs to your liking, and decide to trade out your slow, sluggish apps for something a bit more snappy. Here they are again: CCleaner – Download Try out our suggestions, and let us know if they help speed up your computer a bit. If you have your own favorite programs for speeding up your computer, let us know in the comments! Image credit: cod_gabriel Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section! New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too. Related posts
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| How to Install Language Packs On Windows Posted: 26 Oct 2009 07:00 AM PDT
MUI transforms almost the entire user interface to the language of your choice. The other option is to install what is called a language interface packs. Unlike the MUI, language interface packs are more freely available online and can be installed on Windows Home and Home Premium versions as well. One downside is that it won’t transform the entire user interface to another language. Rather, it concentrates on the most commonly used areas of the interface and makes them available in the language you choose. Language packs can help you customize your computer to display text in language of your choice. Everything from dialog boxes, buttons and windows would display text in the language you want. As I pointed out earlier there are essentially two ways you can install additional languages. Either using Windows Update, or you can download and install the language packs separately. You can find language packs over at MSDN and Technet. And of course there are thousands of other places on the Internet where you can always find them. Here are the steps you should follow to install additional language packs on your computer.
Open up Control Panel. Click on Change Display language under Clock, Language and Region section.
In the dialog that opens, see if the language you are looking for is installed on your computer. If it is you can choose it, or else click on Install and Uninstall languages. In the resulting screen you can choose to install using Windows update, or if you have downloaded the files separately you can choose the second option to Browse computer or network.
Now simply point it to the folder containing the downloaded language pack. The wizard then lists the languages that are included in that language installer pack. Choose the languages you want to install, click Next. You will be presented with the license agreement. Read through and choose to Accept or Decline the license. Naturally, you should choose to accept.
The installation will take some time. Once the it has finished, you can choose the newly-installed language. With a little effort, you can also add the required languages to installation CD/DVD, so that they can be easily installed together with the operating system every time in case you need to install them on multiple computers. It requires a bit of effort you can find the details at this TechNet page. You can find various language packs that you can use on your computer at Microsoft’s site. Do you use a language other than English on your computer? Let us know if you got it built in or installed it as an addon and the steps you took to do it. Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section! New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too. Related posts
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| How To Make Photoshop Faster On Slower Computers Posted: 26 Oct 2009 05:00 AM PDT
I'll give you some tips on how to make Photoshop faster just by tweaking some options in Preferences. Note: I am using Photoshop CS4 and the screenshots are from that version, but don't worry if you have an older version of the software – they all have those options, only the text and positioning may vary. Look around and you will find them. To bring up the Preferences dialog box go to Edit-> Preferences or click Ctrl-K:
Tip 1: Adjust the Performance settingsChoose Performance:
As you can see, you have four sections here: Memory Usage, Scratch Disks, History & Cache and GPU Settings. We'll play around with first three. Memory UsagePhotoshop uses a lot of your system’s RAM and shares it with the operating system. The amount of RAM usage is adjustable in Photoshop — you can set the limit (maximum amount) that the application uses. Depending on how much RAM you have fitted on your computer, change it to 55-65% (for those of you with up to 2 GB of RAM) and 70-75% (for 4 GB RAM and more).
Note: don’t push the slider all the way to the maximum because your system may crash. Use it wisely, leave some for the operating system. Scratch DisksIn addition to RAM, Photoshop uses Scratch Disks or so-called "virtual RAM". A scratch disk is hard drive space that is allocated for the program to as virtual RAM use while processing data. If you have more than one hard drive, allowing Photoshop to use the secondary hard drive will dramatically increase its working speed.
Set as many as you want, don't worry about the space – it is only temporary and will be wiped once you quit Photoshop. History & CacheWe are not perfect, right? And we do lots of mistakes while working on a task (I do a lot). Just imagine how would it be if there were no "undo's"? Fortunately, in Photoshop we can even set the amount of History States (undo's) but the more you set – the more memory it takes. Because every action is "remembered" in virtual memory thus, it requires more space to keep those steps available for recalling. By default, History States is set to 20, which, for the slower machines is just too much. Sad, but it really slows down Photoshop, especially when you are working with large images. Set it to 10-15 and it’ll run a lot smoother. Cache levels are used to improve screen redraw and histogram rendering speed. Choose more Cache levels for larger documents with fewer layers, or fewer Cache levels for smaller documents with many layers. You can choose from 1 to 8 levels.
Note: all these changes will take effect after you restart Photoshop. Tip 2: Purge your ClipboardHere again – RAM issues. Photoshop’s clipboard uses a lot of RAM and if you have copied several large images and pasted it to a new document, it is still in your clipboard. Free up the RAM by purging unnecessary data from your clipboard. To do that, go to Edit->Purge:
Note: this action is cannot be undone, so think twice if you don't need the data in clipboard, history, or undo's anymore. Tip 3: Defragment your hard drivesEspecially for smaller capacity hard drives, fragmentation is an issue. Use Windows Defragmenter to optimize your hard disks every once in a while. I do it once a month. Go to Start>All Programs>Accessories> System Tools>Disk Defragmenter. Choose the drive to be defragmented and then select the Defragment button. There are several great alternative defragmenting apps, like the ones Mark covered in his article Five Free Programs to Defragment your PC; or perhaps 8 Best Defragmenters To Keep Your PC Running Like New; not forgetting 3 Essentials to Keep Windows in Top Shape. Tip 4: Close unnecessary softwareThis tip is kind of obvious but sometimes we forget about it and then complain why Photoshop is running so slowly. This is due to applications that are running in the background, using up processing power and RAM. Quit everything except for the applications needed for the task. These are tweaking tips I use to speed up my Photoshop and they really are useful. If you have more tips on that let the people know, leave them in comments. Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section! New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/ Related posts
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What do you do when the XBox 360 has gone down, your Nintendo DSi is on the fritz, and even your board games aren’t around because you sold them at your yard sale? You and some friends, sitting around on your thumbs is no way to spend Saturday night.
The sheer magnitude of the Rock Paper Scissors world is beyond comprehension. I couldn’t believe what I saw at this site. Did you know that there is a $10,000 World Championship sponsored by Yahoo!?
No matter what country you live in or what part of the world you call home, the odds are pretty good that your safety and security is insured by a select group of folks who risk their lives every day. The folks who protect you and your loved ones may be a national police force, international security force or your own nation’s military. Regardless of country or region, one thing holds true for almost every citizen – we admire and appreciate the sacrifices these brave men and women make to keep our families and our homes safe from our enemies and those who would do us harm.
For the past week or so, we have been running something called “Question Of The Day” on our internal MUO writers mailing list. I started it to get all of the writers communicating more with one another and perhaps also to generate some good story ideas.
I’m a bit of an insomniac and I often have some difficulty falling asleep. Most of the time, it would take me close to an hour to drift off after hitting the bed. That’s a lot of time spent rolling around, not doing anything. I always have half a mind to get up and get some work done but that would cause me to lose even more sleep, affecting the next day’s performance.
It’s a common problem among computer users: after a few months, our computers become weighed down by programs and all sorts of other junk, and inevitably become sluggish. For the less tech-savvy users, this may induce thoughts like “Why is my computer so terrible?” or “I guess I could always upgrade this… what-cha-ma-callit RAM thing”.
If you are stuck with a non-native language on your Windows computer, there is no need to panic. You can install additional languages easily. There are two options you can look into. The first one is available to users of the Ultimate or the Enterprise edition of Windows and is called the Multilingual User Interface or MUI for short.
Of course, the easiest way to get rid yourself of almost all performance issues is to have the money to buy a new, faster computer. But it's much easier said than done, especially when you are not so financially independant. So, let's say you have an average PC/Mac and whenever you start Photoshop, it takes some time to load (enough to use the bathroom, make coffee, send an email to your loved one, etc. ) or maybe it slows down when processing high resolution images or rendering a filter.
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