The Refresh Orlando Heirs

It seems that everywhere you look, many long-standing (or short)
relationships and/or marriages are dissolving. If you’re like
most people, when this happens, you find yourself stuck in
thinking about the past, wondering what went wrong, and unable
to move from the pain of the relationship. You might even fear
that any future relationship will turn out the same.

It doesn’t matter whether you left the relationship or were
left-the best advice we can give you is to learn from the past
and not carry old “baggage” into the new life you envision for
yourself.

Here are 4 ideas to help you move forward in a more empowering
way:

Tip 1: Never look at a relationship (or anything else) that
hasn’t worked out as a failure

Often it’s the seed of a current or past “failure” that fuels
you to the very success that you’ve always dreamed of. It sounds
trite, but there’s always something you can learn from every
experience.

Past relationships give you a clearer picture of what you want
and what you don’t want in a relationship if you take the time
to examine them. It’s the power of contrast that living in an
unfulfilling relationship can give you that can lead to you
creating the relationship that you do want.

What we’ve learned is that if a relationship has ended, it is
not a bad thing or a failure that our society likes to label it.
It just may be that you have learned what it is that you were
supposed to learn by being with that other person and it’s time
to move on to other “lessons.”

It might also be a chance for both people to look at what
happened and to learn to “do it differently” the next time.

Tip 2: Turn from the past and look toward the future …YOUR
future

It’s easy to get stuck in the past when a relationship ends.

You will begin to heal and move forward when you begin thinking
and writing about what you want for your life, today and in the
future.

Setting goals is very important in this process of turning to
your new life. The famous motivational speaker, Zig Ziglar said
that he had never met a truly depressed person who had goals for
his/her life and we know that this is true. Take some time right
now to create some new goals for your new life and then start
taking small steps toward those goals.

Tip 3: Take responsibility for your part-no more and no less

When a relationship ends, very often we want to assign fault and
blame, either to ourselves or to the other person. When you are
in a healthy relationship with another person, both people are
equally responsible for the relationship. If a relationship
ends, the same thing usually applies. No matter who appears to
be at fault when challenges come up, both people are
responsible.

You can only heal when you let go of assigning “fault” and
“blame” and focus on what you want to change about yourself and
what you want to create in a relationship.

This can be a very difficult process if you are hanging on to
the need to be right, anger, judgments and unexpressed
resentments.

Taking responsibility means accepting what’s true about what you
have or have not contributed to the relationship that ended and
considering what you intend to contribute to relationships in
the future.

Tip 4: Learn from and give thanks for the lessons that you
learned and change your attitude

As painful as it is to hear, the truth is that everything in
your life (including your relationships) is a result of the
choices you have made up until now. If you don’t like the
circumstances in your life or relationships, decide to make
other choices.

This could mean changing your attitude from blame to acceptance.
It could mean opening up to bringing new people into your life.
It could mean deciding to be a better person in your current
relationships. It could mean being grateful for what you have.

Being grateful for where you are and what you’ve learned will be
a positive movement toward creating what you want in your life.
Change your attitude and you will change your life.

When a relationship ends, it’s tempting to close down and vow
never to get in another relationship again or even rush into a
new relationship. Instead, we invite you to take the time to
learn from past relationships, be in gratitude for where you are
and start moving toward the relationships and life that you
really want.

The credit card industry seems to be growing at an unprecedented rate. According to some statistical reports, the average American household has at least one credit card. In fact, from the total respondents in the survey, 81% of the households have at least one credit card.

This goes to show that more and more people are enticed to get their own credit card. The reasons for doing so are based on the fact that credit cards offer extreme cashless shopping convenience. Hence, everybody seems to be motivated to get at least one credit card.

However, the travails of the credit card industry do not end here. This is because the reality that evolves on the credit cards does not just depend on the way people use credit cards but with the way on how they use it and protect themselves.

What people do not realize is that the manner on how they use their credit cards can greatly affect the way they live. For instance, frauds and fraudulent activities are very prevalent in the industry and the best targets of the culprits are those who use credit cards whenever they are into shopping.

People should take note that one of the most prevalent credit card scams in the society today is the identity theft. In fact, it has been reported by the FBI that almost 350,000 up to 500,000 cases of identity theft are known to exist in the U.S. every single year.

Basically, identity theft is when some unscrupulous people try to get some information from you such as your social security number and other pertinent personal and financial data.

These sets of information are used deceitfully by these people for their own benefits. Hence, the poor victim does not realize that his identity was stolen and that his financial future is doomed.

For this reason, it is important to know how to avoid getting into trouble. Here is how:

1. Protect your personal data and any financial information

Never entertain phone calls that require you to give any personal data or information, even if the caller says he is from the bank that issued your credit card and that the information gathering is just some sort of verifications.

If this is the case, try to inform him that you wish to do the transactions personally. Hence, it is important to very if the caller is, indeed, a representative of the bank.

2. Avoid freebies and offers that involve credit cards

If you were offered with some promotions requiring you to give some personal information, then, it would be better not to entertain the promo at all.

Things like these will only entice you to try it. In the end, it is too late to realize that you have just been a victim of an identity theft.

3. Have a regular check up on your credit standing and bills

Most of credit card holders are so lazy to do regular check ups on their status. If you do this, it will be easier for you to detect any probable identity theft case on your part. Credit reports can definitely tell you if there were purchases that you know that you did not make.

4. Do not carry them around

The problem with most people is that they ten to carry their cards wherever they are. This is a bad habit that should be stopped. You will never know what will happen while you are in a public place, where identity theft could just be lurking around, waiting for its next victim.

The bottom line is that credit card users should be responsible enough not to allow these fraudulent activities to happen. Keep in mind that the reason why these kinds of frauds exist is that there are people who are unconsciously victimized every now and then.

Robert Thatcher is a freelance publisher based in Cupertino, California. He publishes articles and reports in various ezines and provides identity theft resources on www.about-identity-theft.info.

Junk faxes waste the resources of every business. It is estimated that they cost businesses tens of millions of dollars a year in wasted paper, toner and fax machine maintenance. There is nothing more aggravating then coming into the office each morning to find a pile of junk faxes promotion everything from mortgage refinancing to septic tank solutions. I don’t even have a septic tank!

Junk fax companies have been fined by the federal government and sued repeatedly, but has anyone noticed a reduction in the number of junk faxes? I certainly haven’t. The question for most businesses is whether there is a practical way to beat the daily waste of resources caused by junk faxes? Many businesses are using the fax-to-email solution provided through online unified messaging systems.

What is Unified Messaging?

Unified Messaging is a highly flexible communication system that ties all of your communications together. It has the capacity to centralize your voice mail, faxes and email messages in one online area through an email address and single phone number. These systems use their own phone lines and provide you with a separate number, so you don’t have to tie up your own or have an additional line installed.

Fax to Email Conversion

One of the best aspects of Unified Messaging systems is the fax-to-email conversion feature. You are provided with a phone number where people can send you faxes and leave voice mail messages. The beauty of the system is that the faxes are then automatically converted to text files and emailed to an inbox.

So, how does this save you money? You simply delete the junk faxes unless, of course, you need to “maximize the potential of your septic tank.” You then read or print out the faxes that are germane to your business. No wasted paper, no wasted toner and no smoke coming out of your fax machine!

An added advantage of the fax-to-email conversion element of unified messaging is the flexibility it gives you. Since the faxes are available to you online, you can print the ones you need at any location. You no longer have the frustrating situation where you are working at home, but need to see a fax that was just sent to your office. You just access your inbox and print it out.

The cost of using unified messaging is very low, particularly when compared to the cost of wasted paper, toner and fax machine maintenance. Depending on the service you use, you may be charged a monthly signup fee, by the minute for phone line usage or both. The best option for your business is entirely dependent upon the number of faxes you expect to receive each month.

Despite the lawsuits and fines issued by government agencies, there is little doubt that junk faxes will continue to bombard your fax machines. Unified messaging provides an inexpensive and practical way to eliminate the cost of junk faxes.

About The Author

Barry Waxler is the President of http://3in1box.com - your unified messaging solution. Visit http://www.3in1box.com to get your FREE unified messaging box or contact Barry at BarryWaxler@3in1box.com

A marketing rip-off that makes me sick! If you are interested in learning how to better promote your business, there are hundreds of “gurus” out there ready and eager to RIP YOU OFF! These “con artists” are savvy, slick, and highly skilled in the area of emptying your wallet! Fortunately, with a bit of education, you can avoid being their next victim.

For example, recently I received a phone call offering to help me make my site #1 on google. Intrigued I continued to listen. The caller told me that his company has “cracked the google code” and can easily make me #1 - leaving all my competitors in the dust.

Well, “cracking the google” code was the first tip-off - if these guys were so good at being found on google why the hell are they still cold-calling me? I kept on talking, but now I started asking questions.

“That sounds interesting. What’s your website?”

Knowing a little bit about what a marketing savvy website might look like, I new that a peek at their site would help me get a better feel if this company is for real. But instead of getting a domain name, the caller told me to go to google and type in specific keywords. He said his company would be in the top three spots.

I followed his instructions… Well, with some minor modifications…

Instead of heading straight to google’s search page, I stopped by Overture’s Keyword Suggestion page to find out how popular that keyword is.

Do you know what I discovered?

In the entire previous month only 17 people used that phrase to search the Internet! Now, being in the top three spots for these words suddenly didn’t seem like a very big deal.

The caller seemed a bit unhappy about my discovery. But sill, he offered that I search a different phrase. Following the same routine I found 42 searches in the past month. Whoopi! What a deal, right? At this point the caller simply hung up on me!

But several of my friends were not so “lucky”. They are now two or three thousand dollars in the whole. And unfortunately for them - they will never see this money again, and their site will keep getting the same lousy traffic it was getting before! What saved me was a bit of know how to properly evaluate the offer.

Because there are so many professionals and business owners who want to achieve “cheap and instant marketing miracles” the most popular scams seem to offer driving traffic to your website, helping you achieve good positioning in popular search engines, showing you how to build a massive email list, and revealing secrets to quickly making a lot of money with your own information products.

These are all needed services and good information on these subjects is invaluable to your success. Problem is how to evaluate if what you are getting is the real stuff or a bunch of bologna?

Here are a few clues to look for.

1. Use your common sense. If the offer is too good to be true - it probably is! It never hurts to ask a few of your trusted businesses advisors to take a look at it before you commit to pay any money for it.

2. Do your own homework. Don’t take what the company or person tells you for granted. Heck - we all put our best foot forward in our marketing materials. Research both online and offline.

Take a good look at the website. Does it follow the basic rules of good marketing design? Does it have good Alexa (http://www.alexa.com) ratings? Has it been online for a good length of time?

Can you find out any case studies, customer comments, or endorsements from reliable sources. And for testimonials - anything that shows me just the first and last name initials and name of the state the person is from - I completely ignore as not credible. Look for full first and last name, city and state in the testimonial. If you can find audio and video testimonials that’s even better.

Ask around to see if you can “dig out any dirt”. Ask business associates in the same industry if they have heard of the company or the person. Check out industry related discussion boards for any negative feedback from past customers.

You can also contact consumer protection organizations like Better Business Bureau, but I found that they are often more interested in protecting businesses who pay them an annual fee, than really looking after consumers’ best interest.

3. Ask a lot of questions. Don’t let them intimidate you with pre-canned answers. You are about to part with your money - make sure you know exactly what you are getting.

If the company is offering you search engine positioning - check their own results for popular and competitive keywords. (You can easily find this out with free tools like the Overture keyword popularity at
http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion or this simple free software at http://www.goodkeywords.com )

If they want to help you with your pay-per-click - ask to see their own pay-per-click ads. Find out how many different ads are they testing at a time, and - again - are they using keywords that someone is actually searching for.

If they offer to drive traffic to your site - ask how it will be done. They should give you at a least a very good idea even though they may not want to reveal all the details. Ask how targeted the traffic will be. Find out how the results are measured; in “unique visitors” (good) or in “hits” (bad) And these are just the basics…

If they offer to make you a lot of money with teaching you how to start your information selling business - find out if they themselves sell any products outside of the “how to sell your products” ebook or course… You get my drift here, right?

If you are hiring a consultant or a coach to help you out - do they have business experience and successful track record with projects like yours or did they just read an ebook about it last week. (Now, some people are just great teachers - and that doesn’t make them wrong - just know that the information will not be as hands on and real-world-tested as you might want it to be.)

4. Can you easily find the contact information? That’s a big red flag for me. When I find great deals online but I can’t seem to find the company’s mailing address or a phone number and all I get is an email - I typically walk away. I want to know that if anything goes wrong I can find the person, and pick-up the phone and try to resolve it. But it’s hard to do if they hide behind just an email.

5. Trust your instincts. OK, I know this one is highly un-scientific. But if things just don’t feel right - it doesn’t matter how good the offer is - give yourself some time to cool off and take a second look at it when you can actually think logically about it.

Fact is, because there is a huge need for marketing information and marketing help, this market attracts a lot of people who couldn’t spell “marketing” yesterday but today are eager to share their advise with you - for a lot of money.

If there is one simple answer to help you stay safe and avoid being ripped off, I believe it can be summed up in two words: COMMON SENSE and EDUCATION.

If it looks and feels unreal - it likely is. And the more educated you are about good marketing and how it works, the less likely you’ll be to waste your money on shady offers.

The author, Adam Urbanski, teaches service professionals and business owners how to develop marketing strategies that increase sales and profits. His website offers more how-to articles and free tips to create a winning marketing action plan (http://www.themarketingmentors.com).

Get ready for racing fun with this Home Made Kid Race Car!

MATERIALS

Rectangular Boxes - apple boxes, xerox paper boxes or similar
Colorful plastic or paper plates
Spray paint
Construction paper in assorted colors
Heavy ribbon

Staple gun
Brad fasteners
Craft knife
Glue and Masking tape
Markers
Foam letters and numbers to decorate

INSTRUCTIONS:

Prepare the Box - Start with one rectangular box for each party guest. If the box has flaps, cut them off with the craft knife. Turn the box upside down and cut out a square area on one side of the bottom (now the top of your race car) big enough to accommodate a child.

Paint Your Race Car - Spray paint your box a bright color - red, blue, green, yellow, or orange.

Attach “Suspenders” - Using the staple gun, staple heavy ribbon from end to end on either side of the box as “suspenders” to allow kids to wear their cars.

Add Wheels - Choose four plastic plates to make two wheels on either side of the box. Use a contrasting color to the color of the race car box itself. Fasten the plates with brads so the wheels will turn. Add another plate on top of the box to make a functioning steering wheel.

Add Headlights and Tail Lights - Cut two circles of yellow construction paper and glue to the front of the car for headlights. Cut two smaller circles of red construction paper and glue to the rear end of the car for tail lights.

Make an Exhaust Pipe - Make an exhaust pipe from a toilet paper tube with crepe paper streamers. Attach the tube to the car by making a series of cuts around one end of the tube, flaring it out against the back of the car, and securing with masking tape.

Personalize Your Race Car - using colored construction paper shapes, markers, foam numbers and letters.

Now make a race track in your yard using caution tape, old tires, hay bales, or whatever. For great ideas on incorporating this craft into a party, visit our Race Car Birthday Party page.

Patricia B. Jensen is a mother of three and kids party enthusiast. She is the webmaster and owner of Kids-Party-Paradise.com - a complete resource for kids party ideas including invitations, cakes, decorations, games, costumes, favors, and food.

Subscribe to the Kids Party Paradise Newsletter and get timely updates on popular new party ideas and themes, and so much more…

One major problem you must overcome when selling virtually
anything on the internet is that many people still don’t quite
trust it. You need to help them overcome their fears by creating
a professional image. You need to convey trust and make your
potential customers feel as though they can safely buy from you.
Everyone knows about scams. No one wants to be taken advantage
of by one.

Depending on what you’re selling, joining the Better Business
Bureau is a great idea. If your competitors are members of the
BBB, you might really consider it. Even if they aren’t, joining
the BBB certainly won’t hurt.

The Bureau will now recognize internet businesses and provide
your website with an Online Better Business icon. Call your
local agency to determine if you meet the qualifications. If
you’ve been in business long enough, you probably qualify.

Contact Info Be sure you provide adequate contact information on
your site. Consumers want to know that there is an actual person
behind the site and they may want to contact you. Otherwise,
they really don’t know if the site is current. Therefore, you
should provide several different contact methods.

For one, provide an address. A street address generally works
better than a P.O. Box.

Secondly, you definitely need to provide an email address for
customers to send their questions to. This email address should
end in your domain name. For example;
promote@buildyourwebpresence.com.

Never, ever use an AOL.com or yahoo.com account for your
business email. It won’t look professional enough for people to
believe that you are a valid company.

Alternately, you may also invest in a support desk, or even just
put a contact form on a webpage on your site. These alternatives
tend to have a more professional appearance than just an email
address and they can keep your clients’ emails from winding up
in your bulk mail folder.

Toll free numbers When it comes to entering credit card
information over the internet, be prepared to cater to skeptics.
Many consumers still do not feel the internet is a safe place to
type in their credit card number - no matter what you do.
Providing a toll free number is the best way around this. You
can get one for a relatively inexpensive cost from TTI National.

A toll free number can be conveniently routed to any phone
number you provide. So, you can have your customers ring right
to your home phone or your cell phone. Even better yet, you can
hire a phone answering company to take your calls for you. There
are many companies willing to answer phones 24 hours a day, 7
days a week. That way, customers have no excuse not to order
your product, even if they are afraid to type their credit card
number into a web form!

In addition to the added convenience of phone ordering, having a
toll free number conveys a sense of professionalism. Many
consumers will look for a toll free number before deciding
whether or not they want to buy from you. Others will want to
contact you before they purchase. No matter how complete your
sales description is, there are some people out there who just
won’t be satisfied until they hear a human voice. This is
especially true with higher priced products.

Turn-around time When people contact you by email, your contact
form, support desk or call your toll free number, make sure you
respond within 24-48 hours. This is of utmost importance. Any
longer than two days turn around time is considered unacceptable
to most people and will be considered unprofessional.

When answering questions, especially by email, be complete and
thorough in your response. Add-in whatever information may be
helpful. Be polite and courteous - most of all, listen. It
sounds simple, but you’d be surprised how rare proper manners
are in business.

Remember, think about how you would like to be treated and do
just that.

By being nice and timely in your response, you will win people
over. Most of America is run by giant corporations. Think about
the type of run-around you get by calling one of America’s
giants. It’s either the automated phone system that loops around
or the pat email responses with no personalization to them
whatsoever.

Small businesses are at an advantage in that regard. Be
different…show your customers that you actually have time for
them!

Copyright © 2005 by L A Parmley. All rights reserved.

Xbox 360 is the next generation of the Microsoft Xbox. The Xbox 360 can easily be compared to a computer designed for gamming. Most of the games available work on most of the newer Microsoft platforms, (windows).

XBOX 360

There are two versions of the Xbox 360, the “Xbox 360″ and the “Xbox 360 Core System”.

The most important difference between the two is the detachable 20 Gb hard drive. This makes the use of previous Xbox games possible.
As well as to play original Xbox game, the Xbox 360 enable you to play online.
The new Xbox 360 offers very attractive incentives for game developers to release new titles.

Technical background

The Xbox 360 can easily be compared to a media computer. The graphic card is a powerful ATI 500 MHz chip with 10MB of memory built on the chip.

The CPU itself, (actually 3 processors), is a 3.2GHz liquid cooled IBM using 512MB of memory, (shared between the graphics and the CPU).

The more expensive Xbox 360 has a removable 20GB hard drive and both system use a 12x DVD-ROM unit. Up to four controllers can be connected to the machine, all wirelessly, and there are three standard USB 2.0 port too.

As a rule of thumb, what ever you can plug in your Windows XP machine USB port can be plugged into the Xbox 360. That includes MP3 players, (like the iPod), digital cameras and so on.
This makes the Xbox 360 a very powerful tool to add.

How many games are really available?

The Xbox 360 was launched late 2005, (Xbox was discontinued in august that year), and there are well over 200 games available from the previous version.
As mentioned above only the version with the detachable hard-drive allows you to use the previous games created for Xbox.
Otherwise the current Xbox 360 only has about 15 games solely developed for the Xbox 360. But with the Microsoft muscle behind it, game developers are likely to rapidly develop new games for it.

Get a more detailed info on the Xbox 360.

Ever wanted to learn more about your computer? http://www.myoddpc.com gives you information from the history of computer to what computer memory to get. Computer software as well as everything you need to know about computer hardware. All in simple terms for the non-technical amongst us.

If you happened to be a beginner of creating website, then learn
HTML.. A lot of resources on the net where you can learn to
create your site easily.

www.Webmonkey.com

Step by step tutorial from simple HTML to advance HTML
scripting.

www.W3schools.com

Learn HTML and try it yourself with preview screen.

www.Cooltext.com

Without learning photoshop you can create your own logo easily
online !

www.Addesigner.com

FREE service that gives you the power to design and download
professional-quality, animated banner ads quickly and easily.

www.websitetips.com

Learn more about HTML, style sheets (CSS), Web site design, Web
graphics with Photoshop, PaintShop Pro and others, how to better
live with your Web site, your computer and other helpful
information.

javascript.internet.com

Get thousands of free JavaScripts for cutting and pasting into
your Web pages. Get free Java Script tutorials, references,
code, menus, calendars, popup windows, games and help.

www.htmlhelp.com/reference/css/

You can change the appearance of hundreds of Web pages by
changing just one file… Influence presentation without losing
visitors… All with the power and flexibility of Web style
sheets

I got my eyes set on a iPod mini, as it looked good for quite some reasons: it’s small enough to put inside a pant’s pocket, it has a lot of accessories to choose from and it obviously has enough hype you begin to wonder what all the fuss is about.

But you really have to see the cons of it and cut all the hype. It looked good from the start; it’s small and simple, easy to use and has that nice Apple logo. But quickly the downsides surfaced, and they sure are annoying.

Firstly, the headphones are horrible: they are so uncomfortable they are totally unusable, and also they do not sound good at all. Well, any other $5 headphone will do, so that’s not that bad. (It’s also not advisable to use them, as the white color alerts any potential muggers you have an easy sellable item.)

The interface seems a good idea, with the scroll being able to be controlled with a circular motion. For scrolling fast it’s great, but for selecting carefully one item, it’s difficult. Also, for ‘marking’ a song for how many stars, it sometimes works, sometimes you spend a full minute twiddling it to get it right. Any other player with a sensible scroller works much better.

I was excited to know it had games to play, so when I’m bored waiting in line or on a bus, it could be a great way to pass the time; but even the breakout rip-off is only entertaining for about 5 minutes.

I even thought that maybe I could upload some text files to read some e-book, but the screen is not big enough for that, and reading is so cramped it’s just not worth it.

The biggest gripe is that you cannot change the volume, unless you are on the ‘Now Playing’ menu! Any other player has dedicated buttons for this basic function, but in its decidedly minimalist point of view, it’s a pain to go search for that specific menu just to adjust for a small change in a song. It supposedly was thought out carefully, but I see a lot of problems in the interface.

Also, there seems to be a big problem with the duration of its internal, non-replaceable battery. After 2 months of use, I did notice, it does not hold a charge for long now. After two house of continuous play, it just shuts down. Other reports on the web also say the battery fails, and has to be replaced.

I have also read on the web that the headphone connector is badly soldered and you eventually have to open it up and resolder it again.

I wouldn’t buy it again. The iriver or the Creative seem to be a lot better options.

For more reviews, news and updates on the latest and best mp3 players, go to http://www.mp3playerguide.info

Freezing is also known as crashing or hanging. It’s frustrating. The computer locks up and the mouse and keyboard do not respond. You may lose data and you certainly lose time and patience. Typically, you need to press Ctrl+Alt+Del to see the programs that are running and to try to close the program that is not responding, or you need to force a restart. So why does your computer freeze up?

Common causes of freezing:

• Low memory

• Low disk space

• Fragmented disk

• Too many programs open simultaneously

• Low CPU speed

• Corrupt files

• Software bugs

• Overheating - random lockups that start several minutes after you start up the PC are often the result of the processor cooling fan not working properly

• Some non-standard applications are suspect with freezing problems

• Memory chip problems

• Virus infection

Steps you can take to minimize freezing:

There are many things that you can do to help your computer do what you want without testing your patience…

• Do a disk cleanup (cache, temp files, old or unused files, recycle bin) .. click here for instructions.

• Do not run any more applications at one time than you need to.

• If the freezing happens consistently with one application, uninstall and reinstall it - files associated with the application may have become corrupted. Always use Control Panel/ Add Remove programs, or the uninstall program belonging to the program to uninstall a program.

• If the freezing has been occurring since you installed a new program, uninstall it.

• Uninstall any programs that you may have downloaded and installed in the past, but no longer use.

• Get the latest Windows update at http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com

• Get any available patches for your software - go to the manufacturer’s websites to check for patches or updates to your programs.

• Free up resources - click on Run and type “msconfig” in the dialog box. Next, click on the “Startup” tab. All the programs listed here with check marks are running in the system memory. To free resources Windows 98 users may uncheck everything except “System Tray” . Windows ME users can uncheck everything except ScanRegistry, PCHealth, *StateMgr and System Tray. Leave your anti-virus software in the startup as well. You must restart the computer for these changes to take effect.

• Run ScanDisk (or Check Disk in Windows XP)

• Defragment your disk. Click here for instructions.

• If you have an older computer and are trying to run multiple applications, you may need to upgrade your computer… check the system specifications recommended for the applications you are running to see if your system is capable of doing what you are asking.

• Obtain the latest drivers for your hardware - go to the web sites of the hardware manufacturers and get the latest drivers for your video card, sound card etc

• Redetect your devices - remove the components from the Control Panel, System, Device Management screen. Reboot the system and let Windows redetect and add only those devices which are actually on your system.

• Make sure that you have anti-virus software installed. Set it to automatically update virus definitions, to scan all incoming files, and to do a full system check at regular intervals.

Disk Cleanup :

For Windows 98 & 2000

You have probably been downloading programs, creating and deleting files, and installing new software without thinking about the effect this has on your disk space. It’s probably time to have a clean-up. Windows 98 and 2000 have a feature that cleans up your disks for you. It removes temporary files, the recycle bin and other files - giving you the option to delete or not to delete. It is simple to run.

Do this clean-up as follows:

Start: Programs: Accessories: System Tools: Disk Clean Up

When it opens up, select the C: Drive and start it. It will pop up and show you about four types of files, each with a check box. Check the boxes for files you would like deleted and proceed. It should run through pretty quickly and then you will have more space on your computer.

For Win 95

Windows Temporary Files

Firstly, get rid of your Windows Temporary files.

Go to Start> Find> Files & Folders. Then search for “*.tmp” (minus the quotes). The * allows you to look for any file that has a temporary file type. If you have done it right, only files that have a .tmp after them should appear in the search results. Now just click on the first one, hold shift, use the scroll bar to go all the way to the bottom, then click on the last one, and press delete.

Secondly, get rid of your Temporary Internet files

Go to the Temporary Internet Files folder in the Windows directory. It should be next to the Temp folder. There shouldn’t be anything in here that can’t be deleted, so you can go ahead and delete the files in this folder.

Thirdly, empty your recycle bin. Right click on the Recycle Bin icon, select Empty Recycle Bin. Many people have hundreds of files they “deleted” but they are still taking up space in the Recycle Bin.

Run the Disk Defragmenter

Editing and deleting files as you work leaves gaps on data storage media. Instead of each file being stored in one continuous block, it ends up in several locations, resulting in inefficient retrieval of your data. As you add more data to your hard drive, the gaps left by previous deletions are filled. Your file becomes split, or fragmented. This will slow down your system – when you try to retrieve a file, the process is slower than if it was stored in one block. To make your disk storage more efficient, a process called “defragmenting” is used.

Windows has a built in defragmenter, which is located at:

Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter

It is a good idea to run this program once a month. When you run the defragmenter, close all programs including your screensaver. If programs are running it can cause data on your hard drive to be changed which makes the defragmenter start from the beginning… and never finish!

The more frequently you use defrag, the faster it will become.

About The Author

Deborah Anderson is a computer consultant who offers free email based computer troubleshooting through her website at http://www.it-solve.com. To benefit from information, advice and tips on using your computer, get a free subscription to SolveIT’s newsletter today. To subscribe, send a blank email to subscribe@it-solve.com.

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