My PC is Running Off and I Don't Know What Caused it!

Filemon is the utility that I use when I can see that my system's CPU isn't stressed and the memory looks available but my system is really slow or it seems like it is always running a lot. Besides CPU and Memory there is another thing that you should take a look at and that is what files are opening and closing on your disk. One time I had installed one of the popular antivirus software packages and I couldn't figure out why my system was slow when both my memory and CPU looked like they had plenty of availability. So I booted up Filemon and I immediately found out what was going on. I couldn't believe the amount of file open and close commands SpySweeper was initiating. It brought my system to it's knees. I don't want you to think that I have a total dog of a system. It's an average system that someone would buy, maybe a little light on RAM with only 512k and I do run more things at once on my machine than the average user but SpySweeper was killing my system with disk accesses and I didn't know what was going on until I ran Filemon. Now I use Filemon every time I see my system running amok and I can always get the answer from the utilities I run. Filemon is the probably the best way to tell what is happening to your system. It gives you a window that shows exactly what files are accessed and by what program.

Everyone should keep Filemon on hand, just in case you feel like your system is on a runaway mission and you don't know what caused it. Filemon is a small program that doesn't even require an installation. Just download the file, unzip it, and run 'filemon.exe' and the secrets will be revealed!

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/Utilities/Filemon.mspx

Got a Mic, Make a Recording, Have Some FUN!

Audacity is a really well known program for audio recording on the internet. I've used it for years just to fool around with audio tracks that I have. Besides all the make sense musical reasons to have Audacity on your PC there is also something to be said for archiving your own list of sound files. Those who are talented will enjoy turning down their favorite songs voice tracks and singing into their microphone thus substituting their own voice on their favorite rockabilly tunes. You can create your own lullabies or love songs or let your imagination go and put together God only knows what else.

All kidding aside, Audacity is a pretty powerful program and has always kept up it's freeware status. Everyone should have a copy of Audacity on their desktop, everyone should experiment with it and know what it does, and everyone should have a couple of fun, 'when I've got the time' Audacity projects. It does the soul good to stay up late the night your divorce goes through banging out the lyrics to The Guess Who's tracks. Trust me, I know... a night with Audacity can do the soul good. So download Audacity and I'll personally guaranty that someday you'll be glad you did. Oh, one more thing... buy a microphone or you're waisting your time.

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/windows


To complicate things a little for those of you who wonder what else this audio capture freeware can do... There are plug ins. There are basically three areas of plug ins; Ladspa, VST, and Nyquest and beneath those three subcategories there are hundreds of plug ins that generate sounds or arithmetically distort sounds... You could spend a lot of time on Audacity before you understood everything that it does. All this information is available via the main page that I've given you above but just in case you missed it, here is the plug in page as well.

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/plugins

Personal Diary

Advanced Diary is a product that I have used for years. When I was first looking for it I was amazed that I couldn't find something where I could store just a page of text a day and be able to recall the pages by date. When I found Advanced Diary I was over joyed because it was a feature rich program that far outweighed what I had envisioned having to put up with. I'm not aware of any other programs that provide a 'diary like' interface. So if you users know of any please list them below. Unfortunately the developer who wrote this program has gotten smart and this is the last version of this product that is free. Hopefully he will leave it out there so we can all benefit from it. To get the latest and greatest version of the product it will set you back 30 dollars, but my guess is, that the freeware version does everything most people need of it.

You can download the free version at freeware arena at the url below:
http://www.freewarearena.com/html/Downloads/details/id=1879.html

If you would prefer to stay current and want a product that has a future development cycle then you should download the shareware version and pay the 25 bucks. The developers site is listed below:
http://www.csoftlab.com/Diary.html

More ways to get great music

RaimaRadio is truly a unique and great service. I can even tag a song to be recorded in the future and this program will watch for it and record it at a future date. I couldn't believe how great this program was. Download it and tinker with it a little and I'm sure you'll find that you can add a lot of great media to your collection. I don't know how they do it but this kind of program is another nail in the coffin of the record companies trying to capitalize or restrict internet downloading. Regardless, it's great value for the user. Hopefully it will be available in the long run but I don't see how it can last when the copyright lawyers are all well employed. I was up, running, and recording in less than 2 minutes with the software. So give it a try.

http://www.raimasoftware.com/

The Only Real Choice for Browsing the Web

Are you using Firefox as your primary browser yet? In the last 2 years there has been almost no reason to use anything else. Nearly two years ago, when I first downloaded the browser, I remember thinking that 'gee this is OK but it's not that much different than Microsoft or Netscape'. That was before I knew what an extension was. Extensions are plug ins that add to the customization of the Firefox GUI. As it turns out Firefox is highly customizable. You can turn it into the safest browser for surfing the web, you can turn it into the best for downloading all kinds of pictures and movies, you can even download a really vertical browser for tracking packages, or working with spreadsheets, or blogging... or you can be like most of us and turn your Firefox browser into all those things and more. There has never been a browser as powerful and customizable as Firefox. It is by far the 'best of breed' and anyone who thinks anything different just doesn't know what they are talking about. If I were Safari or on the IE team, or involved in any way with any other browser (including Flock and Netscape) I would be crying in my beer. Because as far as I, and most others, are concerned Firefox has walked away with cake and I can't imagine anyone else ever catching them. Their user supported and developed browser 'extensions' bring such a healthy and strong feature set that it is very hard to imagine how anyone could do anything else with a browser.

Therefore, after you download the browser from the link below don't forget to work your way through some of the more popular extensions and whenever you have a need, or some free time, go back to the 'extension/addon' page and see what else is available.

I will be reviewing Firefox extensions on this site as well, so you'll get some good ideas from this blog and there are a host of other bloggers who offer comments on Firefox extensions as well. So just punch in the 'Firefox' label here and you'll get a good list of extensions and recommendations.

Get the browser itself at the link below
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

After you install Firefox you can pick out the extensions you want from this page
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browse/type:1/cat:all

There are also skins, they call them 'themes' but there are hundreds of ways to customize how Firefox looks to you. You can access everything from the home page but I'll post this link for you here as well and don't even make me think about talking about plug-ins.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browse/type:2/cat:all

What Starts When I Turn My System On?

So many applications now automatically assign themselves to your start directory so they are get executed while your system is booted up. Eventually this creates a backlog of processes that unnecessarily lengthen the amount of time it takes to turn your computer on. Another problem is that most of these programs don't just have their .exe or .lnk files executing but they also have .dll files loading and other changes to your registry. It gets to be a sloppy mess if you don't go in and delete the things that you don't need once in awhile. Today, everyone needs some kind of tool that will allow you to look in your start menu and see what is listed. The problem is that it's not just in one place. Windows has at least a dozen places where files can be input to execute on start-up and they also have a number of places where .dll files can be saved so that they load when your system executes. There are a number of tools out there that will tell you what is in the start menu but none of them do the job that the Systernals Autorun program does. It lists everything and allows you to deselect any of the files that load on startup. It also allows you to save the file off and then compare it at a later date.

There are other tools that have a nicer GUI and I use those sometimes but when I really need to pin things down this is the 'goto' program. Sadly, everyone needs to have this program loaded on their PC and they have to be familiar with running it. Otherwise, it's going to take you a long time to boot and you are going to waste a lot of resources. So download this file, run it, and be amazed at all the junk that starts when you boot your system. One word of warning... Don't shut off a bunch of the Windows services the first time you look at things. Just close the things you are sure you put on the system and no longer need. Eventually you'll get more knowledgeable and you'll know what items it makes sense to turn off. Also, after you first run of the program, save the file off somewhere. Then you'll always know that your system requires only what is listed in that first file you saved.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/Utilities/Autoruns.mspx