Archive for January, 2008
My Vista Machine is slow! What can I do? What services can I stop??
Jan 31st
We covered what services can be disabled or stopped for Windows XP here and now here is your quick guide to speeding up your Vista machine the same way.
Don’t expect to have Vista flying on the same Pentium III machine – there are still system requirements. BUT these steps can significantly speed up your existing install.
This article assumes that you do know how to start/stop/disable services on your machine. (If you don’t just shout at me in the comments or via email)
The services printed in black can safely be disabled.
The ones in red are only to be disabled if you are in a single client environment – not sharing files.
The ones in blue are conditional – meaning read the statement and make sure you don’t use it!
Cryptographic Services – Vista’s built in service for checking that a driver is signed.
Diagnostic Policy Service – Watches Windows system files and try to reload them on any error. I get a lot of false positives so I disabled this.
Distributed Link Tracking Client – Allows for accessing Network Files. Don’t share files? Don’t need it!
IKE and AuthIP IPsec Keying Modules – Security protocols for file sharing/remote log on. Again if your are not using them disable it.
IP Helper – Support for IPv6 (No one uses this pseudo standard yet!)
IPsec Policy Agent – Required for some ISP’s and VPN’s
Messenger Sharing Folders USN Journal – Required by V8 or earlier of MSN for file xfers.
Network List Service – Keeps a list of networks you are connected to and watches your Internet connection.
Network Location Awareness – Shares network information with your system. Disabling kills printer and file sharing.
Offline Files – Breaks Offline files. Big boost if you don’t use them.
Print Spooler – Only Disable if you don’t print to a printer. This will slow down printing!
Program Compatibility Assistant – Kills the Previous OS Compatibility. You can still run older programs but the compatibility tab in the shortcut properties will not work.
Readyboost – If you are not using a ReadyBoost Drive Kill it!
Server – Allows you to share files and printers through your LAN. Not sharing? Kill it!
Shell Hardware Detection – Kills the auto play features for CDs, DVDs and USB drives.
Tablet PC Input Service – Are you using a tablet? This one is a no-brainer!
Windows Error Reporting Service – Does what it says no more windows error reports…
Windows Image Acquisition (WIA) – Allows for pictures to be grabbed from a scanner or camera that does not install its own browser. Disable this if you don’t use a camera/scanner or use proprietary software to download your pics.
Windows Time – Syncs up your windows time to a time server on the web. Do you need it in a home environment? Probably not! But on a network it should be running.
First disable Aero as it is a huge memory hog. Then move on to the services below.
How to disable a service in Vista:
- Click on the Start Orb
- Type services.msc in the search box
- You might be prompted by a UAC box.
- Click continue, or learn how to disable UAC here.
- Right click a service, and choose Stop to stop it immediately
- For services you are unable to stop it until after reboot. Right click and choose properties. Then select disable from the drop-down menu.
The services printed in black can safely be disabled.The ones in red are only to be disabled if you are in a single client environment – not sharing files.
The ones in blue are conditional – meaning read the statement and make sure you don’t use it!
Remember to disable the service if you do not want it to ever run again. You can also stop a service and set it to manual so if another service needs it – it can run it.
Have You Entered Our “Its A Friggin‘ Laser” Contest Yet? We are giving away a real deal Laser from Wicked Lasers!
Do you have more ways to speed up Vista? Put us on in the comments!
What The Hell is Mosio? Plus an interview and insights on this service.
Jan 31st
We did this piece on Mosio a while back and since then they have grown and we have grown to love them. Did we mention that all of the AtA guys are addicted to the Mosio? Read through our humorous rants and then check out a quick interview with Mosio creator Jay Sachdev. He tells us about whats new and how Mosio’s back end works…
Flashback October 2007…
I came across Mosio during my normal 6 hours-a-day surfing the web. I signed up for the service a few months ago and I don’t think I really grasped how cool Mosio was until I was at the bar.
A couple of my fraternity brothers were having a heated debate over the (ever so) political topic of whose breasts are bigger Pamela Anderson or Elvira. A light bulb flashed over my head and I said text that question to ask@mosio.com… No wait do it from my phone.
We did it while I was explaining that this site has a service where real live people can answer your questions via text message, and usually pretty quickly – did I mention it was Free? Yeah you knew that was coming right?!?
AskTheAdmin has covered Wikipedia’s sms app and a few others. None of them gives you that extra zing of being answered by a real live person and not a machine. The first time i hit it up I asked it if it could find a review of AskTheAdmin.com. Two people found me a review I had never seen before , and summarized it. I got back a text message that said AskTheAdmin.com is a great website there is a review about them on TechWag.com. 5 seconds later I got another one saying AtA is all over StumbleUpon. Almost makes me feel famous :) but back to my original question – the boobs…
We were drunk. So while I was explaining Mosio they had already forgotten about the boobs and were intent on asking Mosio all sorts of stupid questions! Then a text popped up on my phone…
Pamela of course have you seen her in a bathing suit?
BAM! As usual I was right but, this time the fight ended so much easier… And a lot more peaceful! Now you can’t put a price on that! Obviously you can use this for other things as well.
How about directions, movie listings, froogle prices anything you could have looked up in front of a computer – now someone else can look it up and text you! Sweet!
They also have a bunch of mobile apps here. As you can imagine the Chuck Noris Quote Generator was right up our alley but we pointed and stared at the Text reminders – another handy tool! Wow these mosio guys thought of everything!
Check it out, sign up, add them as a contact on your phone right next to goog411 and wikipedia. Hey they are free why not make use of them.
AskTheAdmin meets Mosio’s own Jay Sachdev:
AtA: Hey Jay it has been a while since AtA reviewed Mosio, what is new and exciting in question and answer land?
Mosio: We’re working on inventing a new punctuation mark that means “yes,that was sarcasm”, as we’re finding it doesn’t translate too well into text. : )
AtA: How many subscribers do you have now? How rapidly are you growing.
Mosio: While we’ve decided not to release stats like the amount of users we have, I can say that we’re growing steadily and we’re happy with our growth. We are doing what we can to increase growth, too.
We just launched Twitter Answers (mosio.com/twitter), and that enables people to link their Mosio and Twitter accounts, so you can now ask questions anyway that you can send a direct message to twitter, including international SMS, instant message, even through Twitter’s API.
Asking questions online may seem to defeat the purpose of Mosio, which thus far has served as remote hands for cell phone users, giving them access to the web, but pushing the bounds of Mosio is something we’re interested in watching.
Check out these questions:
- http://www.mosio.com/question/UCKVMB
- http://www.mosio.com/question/WBEAGT
- http://www.mosio.com/question/ENJTNM
- http://www.mosio.com/question/OTCXJW
AtA: How did you come up with the idea for Mosio?
Mosio: Well before the day of the iPhone, when even Treos & Blackberrys weren’t very common, we talked a lot about how to make our phones more useful. It really hit home one day when I was out and about, and needed a friend’s phone number – a number I knew was on her website. I called everyone I knew, but nobody was at a computer, so I couldn’t get her number. My thought was to write a script to parse phone numbers out of web pages and SMS them back to you. Noel started thinking about some other useful tools, and eventually we hit on the idea of posting the question to a site where a community of ppl know to answer it.
AtA: Can you tell our reader about your backend system? What makes the Mosio gears spin? Be as technical as you can we are all geeks here!
Mosio: We actually just moved servers the other day, so I’ve familiarized myself with the bowels of our technology. It works how you’d imagine it to work: sms’s, emails, http posts all get parsed for input, evaluated for privileges, and then entered into the database.Once in the database (MySql 5.0), the processing script (PHP 5) parses the new entries and figures out what to do with them. In the case of anew question, it gets added to the web page, then notifications are sent out: instant messages, emails, and sms’s go out to anyone who’s signed up for them, so people can answer the questions.
Our new machine is a Dual-Core AMD Opteron with 4 gigs of ram and drives arranged in Raid 1. We noticed a huge speed improvement in database-intensive page loads (mostly on the administrative side) when we switched from our old machine, which was an Intel P4 2.0GHz with only 1 GB of ram.
The changeover to the new server was, well, fun. I didn’t want any downtime, so I put up a test version of Mosio on the new server under a different subdomain. We were upgrading from PHP 4 to 5, and from MySql 4to 5, so I wanted to be sure we weren’t using any obsoleted functions.We also changed our smtp server from Postfix to Qmail, and I needed to make sure mail was properly delivering to the processing scripts.
Anyway, boring details aside, to get no downtime while swapping the DNS and without confusing users with weird subdomains, I configured both machines to use the MySql DB on the old machine, setup slave replication to the DB on the new machine to keep the two in sync, and setup the old machine to relay mail to the new machine. This did its job, but was slower than I’d hoped it would be. I only did it this way because I wanted to be able to pull back to the old machine in case the new one was misconfigured. Once it had been thoroughly tested in the live environment and dns had propagated, the old machine was pulled out of the loop altogether, and you’ve got what you see today.
AtA: What was your favorite submitted question of all time?
Mosio: The ones about ask the admin, of course : )
AtA: We heard rumors of an AtA/Mosio application… Any truth to that?
Mosio: We’re super excited about this one, building as quickly as we can and will let you know when it’s ready
Thanks to Jay, Noel and the rest of the Mosio gang!
How can i get windows xp to run on an older computer – smoothly
Jan 30th
So we heard about one way to get a slow computer up and running but it involved making the jump to Linux. Now lets say for arguments sake you can’t go the way of el di pablo and Push Ubuntu on your Woman?
This will create a decent machine for you or your significant other to browse the web and work on office documents. Who would have thought Windows XP was so bloated!
Step One Install Windows Xp on your machine as a CLEAN install. Don’t install OFFICE!
Step two Goto my computer properties, Advanced >>> Performance >>> Visual effects and turn off effects
Step Three Open up services and run through them disabling the ones on the following list
- Alerter
- Application Layer Gateway Service
(Internet Connection Sharing and the Internet Connection Firewall) - Automatic Updates
- Background Intelligent Transfer Service
Uses idle network bandwidth to transfer data. (For windows updates) - ClipBook
- Computer Browser If you are on a network with other computers, and need to see them, this may be a useful tool. Otherwise, disable it.
- Cryptographic Services
- Distributed Transaction Coordinator
- Error Reporting Service
- Help and Support
- Human Interface Device Access
- Indexing Service
- Internet Connection Firewall (ICF) / Internet Connection Sharing (ICS)
Provides network address translation, addressing, name resolution and/or intrusion prevention services for a home or small office network. We do all of this via our router. - Messenger
- Net Logon (only used in a domain)
- NetMeeting Remote Desktop Sharing
- Remote Desktop Help Session Manager
- Remote Procedure Call (RPC) Locator
- Remote Registry
- System Restore Service (This one i will leave up to you)
- TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper
- Telephony (If you use a modem to connect to the internet, leave it enabled.)
- Telnet
- Terminal Services (unless you will need to remotely connect to this machine – doubtful)
- Themes
- Uninterruptible Power Supply
- Upload Manager
- Windows Time
- Workstation
Download OpenOffice or any other variation just because MS Office is a memory hog! Use FoxIt instead of Adobe PDF reader… Thats it you should have a tight little system now. If you can bump the memory up – Do it! Old memory is cheap on eBay or you might be able to find it on Crucial.com!
After turning off the suggested services you will not be able to use Windows Updates unless you turn back on on:
- Automatic Updates
- Background Intelligent Transfer Service
Have You Entered Our “Its A Friggin’ Laser” Contest Yet?
Add visual voicemail to smartphones or blackberries
Jan 29th
AtA covered Simulscribe’s Voicemail Transcription Service here. Commodore found it to be a great productivity tool. But after chatting with David Gerzof, their Chief Marketing Officer I found out there is another great component to their service.
Can anyone say Visual Voicemail?
This was the feature that had people going ga-ga over the iPhone. You remember that thing, don’t you? Well, this small light weight application gets downloaded directly to your device from Mobile.simulsays.com. It is a small client that sort of resembles an email application. And that is actually very close to how it works as well. It works with Windows Mobile and Blackberry devices.
Simulsays will go out and check your voicemail box for new messages. It will display when and who a message was from and you can read a transcript! The transcription isn’t working for you? Is it your wife calling to yell at you? Then just click the message and listen to an audio clip. The audio clips are so super small – its baffling!
Stuck in a meeting and its not polite to check your voicemail – but somehow it is OK to check your email. Now your voicemail is sitting there giving you all the cold hard details – in writing.
But wait there is more… How about clicking on who called and being able to return the message? Clicking “Send SMS to Caller” will open a text message to them with the to field pre-populated. Or you can forward along the transcription via email.
All this and no more calling into voicemail? How will I ever cope?
Oh wait I hate voicemail and now I am hooked on Simulscribe!
Thanks guys for putting me on. Visual Voicemail (aka SimulSays) is a free add on to any of their Simulscribe plans. And you can test it out for free. Just sign up with this link and Simulscribe will give you 30 days to get hooked instead of the normal 7. Don’t say we never hook you up!
_TheServicePushingAdmiN_
Is there a GOOD FREE anti virus and firewall solution?
Jan 26th
One of my pet peeves is people with an antivirus that is not up to date. Seriously now, why even have antivirus if you are not keeping it up to date?
For those of you out there that don’t have your antivirus up to date because you are too cheap to renew your license, don’t fret! You are in good hands. I am a cheap skate as well.
Comodo is offering some fabulous FREE security software. Two of them I personally recommend, Comodo Antivirus and Comodo Firewall! Both of them come with a free lifetime license, which means no renewal fees ever! This also means, you can stay secure and still be a cheap skate!
“Who is Comodo?” you ask?
To quote their website, “Comodo is the 2nd largest Certification Authority for ensuring Identity
Trust & Assurance on the web.” Basically, they are one of the many company’s out their that secure websites for banks and other businesses that do online transactions. (Kind of like Verisign). They offer the free software to get their names out there, a sort of free branding advertising if you will. Don’t worry though, this software isn’t ad-ware, and you won’t be getting annoying “Buy me!’ advertisements.
I am currently using Comodo’s freeware on all of my computers at home, and they are working great! Uninstall your old, non-updated Antivirus now, and get Comodo in there right away! Don’t leave yourself open to an attack.
Posted By El Di Pablo, A Guest Writer For AskTheAdmin.com. Keep up with his high tech antics on his blog at Bauer-Power.net.
Can I have my cell phone voice mails sent to my email?
Jan 25th
Hello Boys and Girls,
Can you imagine a world where your voicemails are automagically transcribed by a robot and sent to your email inbox?
How would you like being able to read your voicemails instead of calling in for them?
Commodore 64 back again after a short hiatus for the holidays and a whole lot of winter fun in the snow. I’ve also spent the last month or so trying this new service called Simulscribe. If you look closely at some Yellow Cabs in Manhattan, you’ll notice some of the cabs say Simulscribe on top. They are one and the same as the company which streamlined my voicemails for the past month.
Simulscribe, from my experiences, is an awesome service for a guy like me.
I, like many other schmos, am hopelessly stuck to my PDA. I’ve been stuck to my PDA ever since it was just a PDA. I remember being so happy when I got my first used Palm Vx in the mail, and oh how I giggled like school child the first time I beamed something thru an infra-red port. Now the PDA in many cases is a mobile office, with Wi-fi, Bluetooth 2.0, Edge and G3 with simultaneous phone calls, E-mail, SMS, MMS, Spreadsheet, Word Processor, Slide Viewer and unfortunately Voicemail.
See the irony here kids? Voicemail is the dinosaur of communications. It is by far the slowest way I know to absorb information. And on top of that, it’s just one more thing you have to “check” 5 times a day, and twice a day on weekends. And who can forget the sloooooow menu systems for checking and deleting. It seems the natural order of things that a convergence is needed. In the true spirit of useful capitalism, Simulscribe came along and saved us some aggravation.
The service works like this:
You go through a one-time setup which essentially switches your phone account from using your current voicemail system, to Simulscribe’s voicemail systems. Except that Simulscribe’s voicemail systems are so much better. You basically have to enter a code in the phone that you are provided when you sign-up and Simulscribe begins to intercept any of your phone calls which would normally go to voicemail. At that point their system goes to work trying to transcribe as much of the message as it can, replacing whatever it can’t with question marks. It sends you this in a text message with the relevant caller-id included. It then sends an email to the account(s) of your choosing with the message as an ultra-small audio attachment.
The end result is that you never have unread voicemails hanging around your phone like before, which was an annoyance in and of itself. Another interesting observation I’ve made is that the Simulscribe transcription system isn’t perfect – and rightfully so. With so many possible variances in voices, background noise, heavy ethnic accents it’s no wonder the system often times sends it’s share of question marks my way, but interestingly enough, it’s good enough. The fact of the matter is, most of the time I get 2 types of phone calls: the random “hey, how’s your mum call” which usually transcribes near if not perfect, and the “context call” where, even if the system doesn’t transcribe certain more complex words, you can usually, purely from context, understand the gist of the call from the words the system was able to transcribe. In the end the point gets across, which was the main need I had. The annoying touch-tone voicemail system was eliminated, and was now replaced with a text message that is 90% or better more often than not. If that doesn’t get the point across there’s an email right behind it with the message as an ultra-compressed audio attachment. Still, no annoying touch-tone voicemail system you have to go through. Now it plays in Windows Media Player Mobile on my terms when I feel like listening, if it’s even necessary in the less than 10% of cases where transcription was less than successful.
In Simulscribe’s defense, most of the unsuccessful ones were from my father, whose heavy European accent would fool even a military grade transcription system. There is also a nifty online interface for managing your service options, as well as your transcribed messages. And if you are caught in an area where your PDA just isn’t swingin any net, their dial-in system works from any grimy payphone you can get your hands on.
Who knows? You might actually come to miss interacting with an automated system and want to call in from time to time. Simulscribe has accomodated that as well.
All in all the service is great. I’ve enjoyed using it and will definitely be subscribing. The best part is that the good peeps at Simulscribe were nice enough to extend an
Normally you get a week to try the service, but if you use any of our links to sign up today – YOU GET TO TRY THE SERVICE FOR A WHOLE MONTH TOTALLY FREE!
Free is the place for me, and aTa is the place for all kinds of cool, new free stuff.
Stay tuned kiddies, C64 is making a comeback!
Commodore64 (the one you used to play Bruce Lee on)
Special Ask The Admin Offer – Free 30 Day Simulscribe Trial for aTa readers ONLY!
