That old friend is sitting in the corner, rather morose. He has been a little slow lately, and does not have the pep he once had. Five years old, and already considered an antique. The old friend is your computer, and it is time to decide whether to upgrade it or replace it. There are options that should be considered to help decide what to do. Computers are a lot like cars. They are a mechanical device that wears out. Even with maintenance, there comes a time that major work is required, or it needs to be replaced.

1. Upgrading Your Old Computer

Adding memory is a commonplace upgrade. Memory fits in slots on the motherboard. Computer components are always changing, and today’s memory is not suitable for your old computer. The motherboard also has a size limitation on how much memory can be used. A technician can determine these things, or it can be researched. Go to the manufacturer’s web site and look for the specifications. The type, speed and size of the memory and the maximum limits will be listed. It is a simple chore to change the memory. Many stores will do it for you, if you purchase the memory from them.

2. CPU And Motherboard

Older motherboards and processors are generally not upgraded. Like memory, the physical sockets change with the newer incarnations, so today’s components will not work with the elderly machine.

3. Hard Drive

If your machine has extra bays available, it is easy to add another hard drive. Determine whether it is a SATA or IDE device. The hard drive must be formatted after installation. If a consumer wishes to replace a hard drive, he needs the Microsoft Windows installation CD to install MS Windows on the drive. Registration is mandatory, so the owner must have the key code with which to register the computer.

4. Buying A New Computer

New computers have come down in price a great deal over the last few years. Buying a replacement computer makes sense if the cost of upgrading the old machine is more than one-third to one-half the cost of a new computer. Be aware is that older software may not be compatible with the operating system of a new machine. If the software will not run on the new computer, a newer version that is compatible must be purchased. This is all part of the bottom line cost of a new computer.

Be aware of the store and manufacturer’s warranty. Sometimes it is beneficial to have a machine custom built, as often the warranties for individual components is greater than those offered by a store on a complete unit.

If you’ve decided to upgrade your computer, or need computer repairs Perth visit Austin Computers. With six conveniently located computer stores throughout the Greater Perth Metro area, there’s bound to be one close to you, and each has it’s own in-store service center.

When searching the web, you want to have a productive and pleasant experience. You may want to customize your browser to better suit your needs. If you use Internet Explorer, there are thousands of add-ons available to help you achieve whatever it is you want while browsing. Here are some of the best add-ons for Internet Explorer.

1. LastPass

This is a great add-on that will help you by remembering all your passwords. For every website you log-on to, LastPass will store your password. The next time you visit the site, you can log on with a single click. It’s incredibly secure and uses local encryption, so all your passwords are completely protected and safe.

2. IE7Pro

This is a must-have add-on for everyone that uses Internet Explorer. It will make your browsing capabilities much faster. It also adds many great features, all in one neat package. It will give you automatic spell-checking, block website advertisements, block Flash, switch proxies, recover your tabs in the event of a crash, easily manage your tabs while browsing, and much, much more.

3. Yoono

For the social networking addict, this is a very useful add-on. It will combine all your social networking sites in one place. You can quickly view what your friends are doing and update your status across all platforms at once. It works with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, AIM, Flickr, Linkedin, Foursquare, and more.

4. Define with Wikipedia

If you rely on Wikipedia to help you learn about things you come across while browsing, this add-on is perfect for you. It allows you to highlight any word or phrase on any website, and then quickly perform a Wikipedia search for the relevant definition.

5. Find on Facebook

This add-on will help you quickly and easily connect with any person, business or group. Whenever you see someone’s name or business name mentioned on a webpage, you can highlight it, and when you right-click, there will be an option to “Find on Facebook.” It’s a great way to find the Facebook profiles of people you’d like to “friend.”

6. ViLoader

This add-on will allow you to download and save any video you want directly to your computer. It works with YouTube, Google Video, and more.

7. Inline Search for Internet Explorer

This app will help you locate the exact information you’re looking for on any website. It will be integrated into your browser. Anytime you want to find a specific word or phrase on any website, just type in your search query and this add-on will find it for you inside the website you’re currently viewing.

8. McAfee Site Advisor

This is a great free security add-on. It will help protect you from adware, spyware, viruses, and other scams. It will also warn you about potentially dangerous websites, and it will give each site a security rating with a small green, yellow or red dot in your browser bar. It will also give you site ratings next to your search results.

9. ShareThis

This nifty add-on will make it quick and easy for you to share anything interesting that you come across online with your friends. You can automatically email content to your contacts, or post it to your social networking sites like Facebook and more.

Hotspot Shield is an internet connection protector that encrypts all traffic which helps shield you from all types of spying even as your PC communicates with the World Wide Web. This utility is a must have for all those who use public networks of Wi-Fi. But at the same time, it’s also an excellent program to ensure that you can connect to sites on any network connection as per your preference instead of somebody else’s.Hotspot Shield VPN (Virtual Private Network) is used by more than 10 million people which makes it the largest such network in the world.

Working

Hotspot Shield is browser independent and creates an encrypted connection to its servers, and later turns all HTTP traffic to the more secure HTTPS. Basically, it re-directs the web traffic and provides you with a new IP which is hosted by AnchorFree, the makers of this software. By doing so, the company ensures your data isn’t accessed by wireless network spying or man-in-the-middle attacks.

Performance

In a few tests, it was seen that sometimes Hotspot Shield would load pages quicker than when not connecting through it. This is mostly due to the company server’s geographic location. When tested on a notoriously intrusive public Wi-Fi network, Hotspot Shield Elite was pretty fast. Connection lags were nowhere to be seen inspite of rerouting. The program also handled remarkably well HD videos from video streaming sites like YouTube, Metacafe and Vimeo. This remarkable improvement in the speed alone is enough for its recommendation to readers, lest we forget its extra security benefits.

Hotspot Shield’s free version does have a small cost to pay though. Its installation gives you two toolbars, one of Hotspot Shield and the other from Conduit which reroutes your default homepage and search. Another irritant is that whenever Hotspot Shield is activated, it opens a new tab with AnchorFree’s website URL and automatically starts playing a video. This can get on your nerves after a while especially in a product that is so specialised and valuable. However, it must be mentioned that the reroutes and toolbars are optional.

After installation, Hotspot Shield can be seen as a red colored system tray icon that turns green once activated. It can be toggled on or off by right clicking this icon. Once you choose the properties option, a new tab will open that lets you know that your connection is active. By accessing the details link, you can know more about this connection including the data transfer figures, VPN IP address and connection duration. The data transfer rate is useful for people on data caps.

Final Words

There is also a paid version of this program known as Hotspot Shield Elite. Although it has no built-in features, there are reports of AnchorFree and Skype agreeing on collaboration wherein new Elite buyers will get two hours of free Skype talk time. AnchorFree has also created many ways to go around the download blockers in countries with tough censorship. Overall, it’s an excellent utility for all those using public Wi-Fi networks.

Though still only a rumor, Microsoft is expected to release the highly anticipated Windows 8 operating system in time for the 2012 school year. If speculation proves accurate, Windows 8, a dramatic if not revolutionary direction for PC operating systems, will be available in mid-spring. For those already using PCs and not quite ready to invest in either a new machine or upgraded operating system, weighing options comes down to three primary factors: use, machine and system.

Use

College students—and today that term encompasses a population that spans the age spectrum—are all virtually engaged in some form of online education. To that end, every student is dependent upon the technology used by their respective institutions. While that poses some restraints, most universities tend to lag behind new technology by a year or more. This lag is primarily driven by budgetary considerations of universities that mirror those of its students, namely holding off until funding allows for an upgrade, a big break for students with the tightest of resources.

Businesses not directly involved in the tech industry may not be affected—at least for some time—by the impending release of new technology. For those companies whose computer use is still mainly an efficient way to communicate, access MS Office products, or project commercial or proprietary management programs, the new features of Window 8 can largely be viewed as a luxury.

Although, as a whole, businesses may not see a need to introduce Windows 8 within their companies, sales departments might be the sole exception. It is arguable that some sales activities might benefit if sales associates can show off their technical prowess on a touch-screen PC bearing the new operating system. Such an investment might make sense given the near certainty that the rest of the PC world will eventually use Windows 8.

Machine

For PCs purchased in the last couple of years, there’s good news about Window 8. The new OS actually uses less memory than Windows 7, giving these users some flexibility as to whether or not they’ll want or need to upgrade. For older machines, the options become more complicated as the cost to add memory must be made in context of the expected life of the machine, the expected usage, and operating system requirements.

System

The system factor is listed last for a purpose. Migration to another system has to be weighed against the advisability of purchasing a new system, which follows usage. For those still using Windows XP – a majority of current users – the days of the most popular of all systems are effectively numbered. Microsoft has announced that it will no longer support the system after April 14, 2014. Now, if you’re a student finishing up your last year of school, it’s a pretty safe bet that you’ll not need to upgrade. However, if you still have two or more semesters to finish, migrating to Windows 7 may make sense.

For Windows 7 users, you are probably in better shape than others as it is likely that no hardware, memory or system changes will be necessitated by work requirements. These users also tend to have newer machines, which gives them the option of waiting until their machine is somewhat obsolete, at which time a replacement with Window 8 would be a smart move.

And what can be said about Vista that’s not been said before? Migrating to Windows 7, if fiscally practical, has never been a bad idea, and if work and machine capabilities will benefit from such a move, there’s really no need to wait.

Final Assessment

Moving forward with new technology is becoming more of a necessity as technology development accelerates. Timing when to move forward involves some careful calculations, but none too difficult if you identify where you are with your work, machine and system needs. Windows 8, barring any issues such as those associated with Vista, will change the way PCs are used if for no other reason than its user interface system. Until that time, though, there is some wiggle room for most current PC owners.

The iPad is undoubtedly the best tablet to have in 2011. But if you do not have the budget to buy it, then you can test it’s interface directly on Windows. iPadian is a free and portable software allowing you to simulate the iPad interface on Windows.

iPadian provides a own custom app store from where you can install some extra applications other than the ones which come pre-installed with it. You have to just download this software and install on your windows to run it.

iPadian Features :

• Standalone Adobe air application
• Full Screen preview
• Custom App Store
• Games, Free music & videos
• Webkit browser and Social Chat
• Support Facebook notification & messages

iPadian uses the Webkit browser and the installed apps work seamlessly with complete internet connectivity and proper performance.

The right-side window of the iPadian enables you to access Facebook, Windows Live Messenger, YouTube, Yahoo, Wikipedia, Gmail and Bing. iPadian currently works on the Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7.

Download Ipadian

VLC Media Player is my favorite player to play all types of movies. VLC media player  is a free and open source cross-platform multimedia player and framework that plays most multimedia files as well as DVD, Audio CD, VCD, and various streaming protocols. VLC is developed by the Video Lan Project as a freeware for everyone to play their videos.

VLC Media player works on most platforms including Windows, Linux, Mac OS X and Unix. It has the  best hotkey supports yet.

VLC can also be used as a server to stream in unicast or multicast in IPv4 or IPv6 on a high-bandwidth network. So have a look to the following extensions which VLC can play -

VLC can play:

• MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 / DivX files from a hard disk, a CD-ROM drive, and so on
• DVDs, VCDs, and Audio CDs
• From satellite cards (DVB-S)
• Several types of network streams: UDP/RTP Unicast, UDP/RTP Multicast, HTTP, RTSP, MMS, etc.
• From acquisition or encoding cards (on GNU/Linux and Windows only)

Microsoft already showed off the latest version of Windows 8 to developers at the BUILD conference in California this week.  The Windows Developer Preview is a pre-beta version of Windows 8 for developers. It is now available for download for all of you. So get ready to get your hands on Windows 8 Developer version.

The version  is available in three different versions. A package with developer tools, just the developer preview alone and one that runs on 32-bit computers.

About Windows 8 Developer :

These downloads include prerelease software that may change without notice. The software is provided as is, and you bear the risk of using it. It may not be stable, operate correctly or work the way the final version of the software will. It should not be used in a production environment. The features and functionality in the prerelease software may not appear in the final version. Some product features and functionality may require advanced or additional hardware, or installation of other software.

Now you can download Windows 8 Developer Preview and test it out for yourself. Head over to the developer site to grab your download of Windows 8 Develop Preview.

System Requirements

Windows Developer Preview works great on the same hardware that powers Windows Vista and Windows 7:

• 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
• 1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
• 16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
• DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver
• Taking advantage of touch input requires a screen that supports multi-touch

Download Windows 8 Developer Preview

Computer problems are a fact of life. Every day seems to bring one that causes you at least a headache, if not the loss of important files. If your computer is crashing, making noises, overheating or is just slow, then you have several options at your disposal to help you overcome the problem.

1. Slow Computer

If your computer is running slow, then you might have one of several possible problems that are, fortunately, easy to fix. Viruses, spyware, registry issues and a lack of disk space can all affect the way your computer functions. Frequent scanning for viruses and spyware can help keep your computer running the way it should.

If viruses and spyware aren’t your problem, then you may be running short on disk space. Deleting unnecessary files, defragmenting your hard drive and cleaning your registry are all easy to do and will make your computer run more smoothly.

2. Crashing

While computers often seem to crash for no reason, there is always a specific cause. If your computer is crashing frequently, then checking for faulty components should be your first course of action. If everything seems to be in working order, then try reinstalling Windows. For optimum performance, Windows should be reinstalled a couple of times each year.

3. Noises

If your computer is making loud noises that don’t sound like a fan, and you’re not running an incompatable disk, then it’s definitely your hard drive. While replacing your hard drive is probably the last thing you want to think about, sometimes they just stop working. Check to see if your computer is under warranty. If it’s not, then buying a new hard drive may be preferable to buying a new computer.

4. Overheating

One of the worst things about computers is the amount of heat they generate. If your computer is overheating, then you’ve probably left it on a soft surface that doesn’t allow it to vent properly or just left it on too long. Try turning your computer off for a while, and if that doesn’t do it, then at least make sure it’s placed on a hard surface. Constant overheating can damage your computer.

While computer problems can be annoying, they’re not the end of the world. Take a deep breath and start doing a little research. With all of the computer-related products available online, you should have no trouble finding one that can address your specific problem.

Need computer repairs Perth? If you’re having computer problems that you can’t diagnose or remedy yourself, contact Austin Computers. Their specialists can repair your PC or laptop on-site or at one of their 6 stores across Perth.

Cloud computing refers to the provision of computational resources on demand via a computer network. Cloud computing is a traditional model of computing where users can access applications via web browser, while the application is installed and stored on the server. This is a whole new form of computing and is allowing lot of users from all around the world to access something without having to download and install anything on their own computers.

Cloud computing uses high-speed computer networks providing “on demand” resources for online application development. Cloud computing is anywhere, anytime, permitting improved accessibility to application developers worldwide.

I can say Cloud Computing brings benefit for businesses since they can maximize the customer service, effective working hours and the rests. The advantages of cloud computing include reduced costs, easy maintenance and re-provisioning of resources, and thereby increased profits.

Cloud computing is rapidly growing and number of organizations like government bodies and company organizations already use this type of network for their businesses. Cloud computing does have its place, though it is not for all companies. You can find more information about cloud computing such as the risk, disadvantages , benefits and so with Custom Application Development.

We all know that uninstalling unnecessary programs speeds up a computer but what if the computer runs slow even if we uninstall all the crappy programs? The answer is, the installed programs are consuming lots of memory and that’s why even though if we uninstall some of the programs, it doesn’t have effect on the performance of the OS. Below are some of the programs which can replace the memory hungry programs.

Foxit Reader Vs Adobe Reader

Almost all the adobe products are bulky/memory consuming and Adobe reader is not an exception. Foxit reader is almost as fast as Notepad! Even though the free version is fair enough, you can try pro version through which you can remove the branding at the footer of each PDF document.

Link: Foxit Reader

HootSuite Vs TweetDeck

It is a well known fact that Adobe Air apps are memory hungry and that applies for TweetDeck too! Even though Hootsuite is not available for windows, you can try the web version (you can also create application shortcuts for Hootsuite if you are on chrome). If you are a Mac user, then you can download it for free here. Don’t forget that Hootsuite is also available for iOS, Android, BlackBerry and Keitai, More info here.

Link: Hootsuite

Firefox Vs Google Chrome

Even though chrome is blazing fast, it consumes lots of memory (Check its memory usage in your task manager). It is due to one of the chrome’s feature known as “Crash proofing technology”. With this feature each chrome tab is treated as an individual task (In task manager) so if one tab crashes there is no harm for the other tabs but at the same time memory consumption increases due to this feature. So Firefox is a better choice in terms of memory usage.

Link: Firefox

Norton/Eset Nod32 Vs F-secure/McAfee/Trend Micro

Choosing a high performance Antivirus is very important because it runs in system tray throughout the day. It is experimentally (after testing on several systems) proven that F-secure, McAfee and Trend Micro increases boot-time and startup time of the system. So, it’s better to go with Norton or Eset Nod32 Antivirus. I don’t want to comment on Bitdefender or Kaspersky Antivirus as they neither consume more memory nor less.

Links: Norton, Eset Nod32

Digsby Portable Vs Yahoo messenger/Gtalk

The name itself says that it is portable! Digsby provides one combined buddy list for all your AIM, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, Google Talk, Jabber, and Facebook friends. So there’s no need to have any other IM (instant messenger).

Link: Digsby

Glary utilities Vs Tune up utilities

Tune up utilities is packed with lots of features which are un-necessary for normal PC users.  Tune up utilities runs in the background throughout the day so it eventually slows down the system while Glary utilities don’t. Glary utilities contains all the tools necessary for PC optimization like Registry cleaner, Defragmenter, Uninstaller and many more!

Link: Glary utilities