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Optimize Windows 10 for better performance

Dave Farquhar Windows February 8, 2017April 15, 20181990s, Although Windows, antivirus, ccleaner, chrome, defragmenter, Disk Cleanup, firefox, intel, micron, print spooler, ramdisk, receipt, Task Manager, unnecessary services, Windows 10, windows 7, windows 98, xbox

When I first installed it, I thought it was pretty pointless to try to optimize Windows 10. Of course, I installed it from scratch on a computer with an SSD and 16 gigs of RAM. Then I upgraded a couple of computers from Windows 7 to Windows 10, and I started to see why some people might not like Windows 10 all that much.

Upgraded systems almost always run slow, but I’d forgotten how much slower. And while you didn’t have to do much to Windows 7 to make it fast–that’s one reason people liked it–I find some Windows 10 optimization seems to be necessary. But don’t visit dodgy sites like downloadmoreram.com. Follow these tips for things that actually work.
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Speed up Firefox

Dave Farquhar Software October 3, 2016July 27, 20171980s, chrome, firefox, optimizing windows, ramdisk, Windows 10

I’ve seen a lot of gimmicky hacks to speed up Firefox, and you probably have too. But chances are Firefox ran just fine when you started, then it slowed down over time. Here’s my collection of tips to restore Firefox’s performance if Firefox is slow.

Common AmigaDOS commands

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing August 16, 2016June 28, 2019amiga, cmd, commodore, Digital Equipment Corporation, ramdisk, TEMP, TMP, unix, unix commands

The Amiga had a command line, or CLI. It was a rather powerful CLI, especially for its time. But there are a number of differences between AmigaDOS and other operating systems you may be familiar with. These are the common AmigaDOS commands and their equivalents from other operating systems like DOS, Windows, Unix or Linux.

I’ve never seen a primer that relates or cross-references Amiga commands to Windows and Unix. So I wrote one. I hope it helps you understand your Amiga better. Because Amiga is sometimes like Windows and sometimes it’s like Unix, I think it might. And maybe, just maybe, you’ll learn something you didn’t know about Windows or Unix too.

Giving Libre Office another look

Dave Farquhar Software February 3, 2014December 5, 2015Libre Office, Microsoft Office, ramdisk

With the end-of-life of Office 2003 rapidly approaching, I’m having to look at alternatives. Even after five years, I find the Office ribbon demeaning and productivity-killing, so Microsoft’s newer products are out. With Libre Office, the price is right ($0), so I’m giving it a long look.

Clear print queue command line sequence

Dave Farquhar Windows September 16, 2013April 1, 2019cmd, command prompt, print spooler, ramdisk, Windows 10, windows 7

Here’s an old, old, but still useful tip that works on all NT-based versions of Windows (including Windows 7 and Windows 10). This is the clear print queue command line sequence for Windows, and it’s the fastest, most reliable way to recover from a hung print job. It works from the standard Windows CMD prompt.

The sequence is to stop the spooler service, delete the contents of the spooler directory (usually c:\windows\system32\spool\printers\) and then restart the spooler service.

Firefox 19 is a big security improvement

Dave Farquhar security February 21, 2013February 20, 2013chrome, firefox, IRS, NIST, ramdisk

Mozilla quietly released Firefox 19 this week. Its biggest selling point is a built-in PDF viewer (like Google Chrome does), which makes me more comfortable than having Acrobat Reader installed–Mozilla is generally faster at fixing security holes than Adobe. Besides that, the built-in reader is fast. No waiting for Acrobat to launch. Short documents like IRS form 1040 display very quickly, though it wasn’t so crazy about me throwing the 237-page NIST 800-53 (if you’d like some light reading) at it. I closed the tab and revisited it, and it loaded the second time.

So this is an update you want. You may be wise to wait a day or two for it to stabilize (Firefox 18 was rapidly updated to 18.0.1 and 18.0.2 after its release), but being able to ditch Acrobat Reader (or leave it installed but only use it when absolutely necessary) definitely is appealing. Update it this weekend, maybe.

Yes, ramdisks still make sense, especially with memory so cheap

Dave Farquhar Windows August 22, 2012classmate, firefox, print spooler, raid array, ramdisk, TEMP

A former classmate and industry colleague dropped me a line a few weeks ago. He pointed out that memory is dirt cheap, and he bought 16 GB of RAM, just because it cost him around $100 to do, and was wondering what to do with it. A ramdisk, perhaps?

My search logs prove that ramdisks are the best-kept secret in the industry (virtually nobody knows or cares about them), but they’re still the best way to increase the longevity or life expectancy of an SSD and an outstanding way to pep up performance. A ramdisk is 80 times faster than a hard drive, 60 times faster than a RAID array, and 10-20 times faster than an SSD.
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The Samsung SSD 830: A user review

Dave Farquhar Hardware May 26, 2012dell, Dell Inspiron, firefox, intel, kingston, nvidia, ocz, ramdisk, samsung, toshiba

I didn’t need much convincing to purchase a Samsung 830 SSD; I was in the market for a bigger SSD, and my short list consisted of Samsung and Intel drives. So when I found a good price on a 128 GB Samsung 830, I bought two.

The laptops I put the drives in aren’t able to fully take advantage of what the 830 brings to the table, but it’s still a worthwhile upgrade. I thought that two months ago when I installed them, and two months of living with them hasn’t changed my mind. Read more

And speaking of SSDs, here’s how Oracle performs on an SSD

Dave Farquhar Hardware April 26, 2012DBA, memory slots, oracle, ramdisk

Andy Black is a former colleague and an Oracle DBA. Several times in the last few years, I ran into problems where I wished he wasn’t a former colleague, because my team got into some jams that I was pretty sure he could have fixed. (And let’s not even mention the time I got blackmailed into building an Oracle server.)

Last year, Andy did a thorough investigation of Oracle performance on SSDs, and observed very favorable results. Read more

Intel enters the budget Sandforce market

Dave Farquhar Hardware April 16, 2012data compression, intel, ocz, ramdisk

Intel announced a new low-end SSD today, the 330, based on a Sandforce 2281 controller. The popular 120 GB capacity will retail for $149. While not as cheap as OCZ’s entry-level SSDs, it’s within striking distance. Read more

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