makeuseof extra #24

reminder: makeuseof extra lists some of the cool websites, software, and tips discovered during the previous day

  1. The complete guide to optimising windows XP – [connectedinternet.co.uk]
  2. Mux – free, web-based video transcoder (converter). HowTo: Enter any video URL(ex; youtube page), specify desired output format(wmv, mp4, flv, mov, 3gp mobile, etc) and it’ll do the rest. More similar tools here
  3. Mozilla firefox cheat sheet – firefox tips and shortcuts(general, navigation, text handling, search and mouse shortcuts). Keyboard shortcuts are major productivity boosters, definitely check them out if you haven’t done so already.
  4. Boorah – restaurant rating and review service, currently counts over 75.000 restaurants in SF, NY and LA areas
  5. SecureIX – free service that lets you surf web and download stuff(P2P, torrents..etc) anonymously. ‘…If you participate in peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, IRC chat rooms, online games or have the desire to keep your web surfing and email private then you will find our service extremely valuable…‘
  6. iLoveToComplain – open community where anyone can complain about whatever bothers him/her. Someone just said; ‘I hate not knowing what i want. I think I’ll die ignorant….’
  7. Typefaster (Windows) – free touch typing software, something very similar to previously covered Bruce’s Typing Wizard. Typefaster claims to teach you how to touch type within 20 dedicated lessons and one game
  8. Finetune – free web-based music service. Simply pick your favorite artist and it’ll build for you a custom playlist featuring songs by your artist and related artists. Features include; create playlists, add playlists to your web profile, browse cool radio stations, explore favorites of others and so on. Something similar here
  9. Hacking Skype – 25 tips to improve your skype experience [voip-news.com]

Aibek Esengulov

The guy behind MakeUseOf.com. Follow him and MakeUseOf on Twitter @MakeUseOf. For more details check out MakeUseOf about page.

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If you have any questions related to stuff mentioned in the article or need help with any computer issue, just ask it on MakeUseOf Answers.

  • http://mywebpages.comcast.net/SupportCD/XPMyths.html Andrew

    The complete guide to optimising windows XP is full of Myths:

    1. Cacheman includes a performance slowing RAM optimizer and other useless tweaks such as IOPagelocklimit.

    2. The Paging File information is total nonsense, leave it at system managed.

    3. Turning off System Restore does not improve performance.

    4. The /prefetch:1 switch is a total Myth

    5. Deleting Temp Files does not improve performance, it only improves Disk Space and irresponsibly telling people to create a useless Batch file that runs at system shutdown to delete these will REDUCE shutdown times.

    6. ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1 is a total Myth and does absolutely nothing on Windows XP.

    This guide also includes other erroneous items that have not been proven to improve performance or is simply bad advice. It should be called the “The Completely Guide to Useless and Performance Slowing Tweaks”.

    Oh and Optimising should be spelled – Optimizing

    [u][URL="http://mywebpages.comcast.net/SupportCD/XPMyths.html"]XP Myths[/URL][/u]

    XP Myths

    http://mywebpages.comcast.net/SupportCD/XPMyths.html1. Cacheman includes a performance slowing RAM optimizer and other useless tweaks such as IOPagelocklimit.

    2. The Paging File information is total nonsense, leave it at system managed.

    3. Turning off System Restore does not improve performance.

    4. The /prefetch:1 switch is a total Myth

    5. Deleting Temp Files does not improve performance, it only improves Disk Space and irresponsibly telling people to create a useless Batch file that runs at system shutdown to delete these will REDUCE shutdown times.

    6. ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1 is a total Myth and does absolutely nothing on Windows XP.

    This guide also includes other erroneous items that have not been proven to improve performance or is simply bad advice. It should be called the “The Completely Guide to Useless and Performance Slowing Tweaks”.

    Oh and Optimising should be spelled – Optimizing

    http://mywebpages.comcast.net/SupportCD/XPMyths.html

  • http://makeuseof.com Aibek

    wow Andrew, thanks for sharing. Since I am not the author of the original piece I won’t go into it.

    What I will do though is explain why I wrote ‘optimising’ and not ‘optimizing’:

    Optimizing – US english spelling.
    Optimising – UK english spelling.

    I decided to go with UK version as the article was hosted ion .co.uk domain.

    ;-)

  • Constantine

    ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1

    actually slowed my shutdown time from 10 secs to like 1 minute lol on winxp