Jumat, 25 Februari 2011

PC Mechanic, New Article

PC Mechanic, New Article

Retro Friday: Mozilla Firefox 4 Beta 11 In Windows 2000

Posted: 25 Feb 2011 03:00 AM PST

Firefox 4 does work in Windows 2000 with no issues whatsoever, however it’s most likely true your Win2000 setup requires a browser that’s as speedy as possible to overcome slower hardware limitations. While Fx 4 is faster on startup, rendering web pages and shutdown, here are some easy things you can do to make the browser take up less physical screen space and speed up general operation.

1. Slimming down the interface

Fx by default looks like this after first run in Win2k using 1024×768 resolution:

image

Slimming it down can be done by doing the following:

1. View > Toolbars > Customize

image

2. Check Use Small Icons, click Done.

image

3. View > Toolbars > Menu Bar to uncheck:

image

4. Firefox > Add-ons

image

5. Extensions (left), Remove "Feedback 1.0.4" (right)

image

(This gets rid of the ‘Feedback’ button at far right next to the search bar.)

End result:

image

Note that tabs load above the location bar and directly to the right of the Firefox menu, a nice touch. If you hated tabs-over-location-bar before, you’ll actually like this one as it’s actually done right. Yes you can change it to go under-bar, but give the above-bar a try because it really works well in this style of layout.

2. Changing Google to Scroogle

Scroogle loads faster than Google does because it uses a lot less scripting using the same search engine. The default search in Fx is Google. To add in Scroogle, go here:

http://mycroft.mozdev.org/search-engines.html?name=scroogle

Choose the first Scroogle under Internet -Tools:

image

Check off Start using it right away, and click Add:

image

Google is now Scroogle:

image

If you want to reset your search back to Google, Manage Search Engines like this to choose which you want to go with:

image

3. Shutting off useless animations

Type address about:config and "void the warranty" by clicking the I’ll be careful, I promise! button.

image

Next to filter type anim. You don’t have to press Enter as the results will immediately show up.

Double-click browsers.fullscreen.animateUp and change value from 1 to 0.

What this does: When you press F11 to go fullscreen and again to go back, it will be much faster compared to when the animation is turned on.

Double-click browser.tabs.animate to change from true to false.

What this does: By default when you create a new tab with CTRL+T, a small sliding animation happens. This gets very annoying very quickly when working with many tabs. Disabling this animation makes tabs appear instantly.

When done, it should look like this:

image

4. Disable suggestions in the location bar

This is one you may or may not like, but it does speed up things.

By default, when typing in an address in the location bar, Fx will search your bookmarks and history and drop down a menu suggesting what it is you may be looking for, similar to what happens in a search engine. The drawback is that the more bookmarks and history you accumulate, the more Fx has to "think" and may stutter somewhat when typing in a URL; this is especially true on older/slower computer hardware.

To disable:

1. Firefox > Options > Options

image

2. Privacy (tab), Location Bar (same tab, bottom)

image

Changing to Nothing will cause no suggestions to appear in the location bar when typing a URL.

If this isn’t to your liking, you can change it back or optionally use history-only or bookmarks-only.

How good is the performance of Firefox 4 in Windows 2000?

Quite good, actually. As noted above, startup and shutdown times are notably improved over 3.6, and with useless animations turned off is very speedy overall. You’ll even notice that on script/Flash-heavy sites like YouTube that Fx 4 will run quite well on the aging Win2000 operating system.

Can the above instructions be applied to Fx 4 in XP, Vista or 7?

For XP, the instructions are identical.

For Vista and 7 it’s slightly different because of the Aero interface. By default the Firefox menu should be enabled without the need to turn off the menu bar. The color scheme and overall look of the browser will also be slightly different in an attempt to be consistent with the Vista/7 UI.

Is Fx 4 a suitable general-use browser in Windows 2000?

You have only two choices for what to use as major-offering modern browser in Windows 2000, that being Firefox 4 or Opera 11. Internet Explorer is out because in Win2000 the highest possible supported version is IE6, Apple Safari is out because it requires an XP Windows minimum, and Google Chrome is out because it also requires an XP Windows minimum.

Fx 4 is good and stable enough even in Beta 11 form to be used as a general-use browser in the Win2000 OS. Extensions work the same as they would in XP/Vista/7, and the look and feel is accommodating to the environment.

If you use the Windows 2000 OS with any frequency, Fx 4 will probably be the primary browser you choose to go with. Firefox 4 is definitely up to the job and lets you browse freely without compromise.

How low can you go with Fx 4?

The minimum requirements are here, but on the hardware end the general rule of thumb is to use a PC that was considered to be high-end for 1999. This means using a CPU that’s clocked to at least 1GHz, has 512MB RAM and a hard drive that has at least 500MB free to accommodate for not only the browser but also any add-ons/plugins you may install.

Although the bare minimum specs state you can run Fx 4 on a 233MHz CPU, I wouldn’t attempt it. Way too slow to be usable.

Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.

Retro Friday: Mozilla Firefox 4 Beta 11 In Windows 2000

Retro Friday: Mozilla Firefox 4 Beta 11 In Windows 2000

Posted: 25 Feb 2011 03:00 AM PST

Firefox 4 does work in Windows 2000 with no issues whatsoever, however it’s most likely true your Win2000 setup requires a browser that’s as speedy as possible to overcome slower hardware limitations. While Fx 4 is faster on startup, rendering web pages and shutdown, here are some easy things you can do to make the browser take up less physical screen space and speed up general operation.

1. Slimming down the interface

Fx by default looks like this after first run in Win2k using 1024×768 resolution:

image

Slimming it down can be done by doing the following:

1. View > Toolbars > Customize

image

2. Check Use Small Icons, click Done.

image

3. View > Toolbars > Menu Bar to uncheck:

image

4. Firefox > Add-ons

image

5. Extensions (left), Remove "Feedback 1.0.4" (right)

image

(This gets rid of the ‘Feedback’ button at far right next to the search bar.)

End result:

image

Note that tabs load above the location bar and directly to the right of the Firefox menu, a nice touch. If you hated tabs-over-location-bar before, you’ll actually like this one as it’s actually done right. Yes you can change it to go under-bar, but give the above-bar a try because it really works well in this style of layout.

2. Changing Google to Scroogle

Scroogle loads faster than Google does because it uses a lot less scripting using the same search engine. The default search in Fx is Google. To add in Scroogle, go here:

http://mycroft.mozdev.org/search-engines.html?name=scroogle

Choose the first Scroogle under Internet -Tools:

image

Check off Start using it right away, and click Add:

image

Google is now Scroogle:

image

If you want to reset your search back to Google, Manage Search Engines like this to choose which you want to go with:

image

3. Shutting off useless animations

Type address about:config and "void the warranty" by clicking the I’ll be careful, I promise! button.

image

Next to filter type anim. You don’t have to press Enter as the results will immediately show up.

Double-click browsers.fullscreen.animateUp and change value from 1 to 0.

What this does: When you press F11 to go fullscreen and again to go back, it will be much faster compared to when the animation is turned on.

Double-click browser.tabs.animate to change from true to false.

What this does: By default when you create a new tab with CTRL+T, a small sliding animation happens. This gets very annoying very quickly when working with many tabs. Disabling this animation makes tabs appear instantly.

When done, it should look like this:

image

4. Disable suggestions in the location bar

This is one you may or may not like, but it does speed up things.

By default, when typing in an address in the location bar, Fx will search your bookmarks and history and drop down a menu suggesting what it is you may be looking for, similar to what happens in a search engine. The drawback is that the more bookmarks and history you accumulate, the more Fx has to "think" and may stutter somewhat when typing in a URL; this is especially true on older/slower computer hardware.

To disable:

1. Firefox > Options > Options

image

2. Privacy (tab), Location Bar (same tab, bottom)

image

Changing to Nothing will cause no suggestions to appear in the location bar when typing a URL.

If this isn’t to your liking, you can change it back or optionally use history-only or bookmarks-only.

How good is the performance of Firefox 4 in Windows 2000?

Quite good, actually. As noted above, startup and shutdown times are notably improved over 3.6, and with useless animations turned off is very speedy overall. You’ll even notice that on script/Flash-heavy sites like YouTube that Fx 4 will run quite well on the aging Win2000 operating system.

Can the above instructions be applied to Fx 4 in XP, Vista or 7?

For XP, the instructions are identical.

For Vista and 7 it’s slightly different because of the Aero interface. By default the Firefox menu should be enabled without the need to turn off the menu bar. The color scheme and overall look of the browser will also be slightly different in an attempt to be consistent with the Vista/7 UI.

Is Fx 4 a suitable general-use browser in Windows 2000?

You have only two choices for what to use as major-offering modern browser in Windows 2000, that being Firefox 4 or Opera 11. Internet Explorer is out because in Win2000 the highest possible version is IE6, Apple Safari is out because it requires an XP Windows minimum, and Google Chrome is out because it also requires an XP Windows minimum.

Fx 4 is good and stable enough even in Beta 11 form to be used as a general-use browser in the Win2000 OS. Extensions work the same as they would in XP/Vista/7, and the look and feel is accommodating to the environment.

It’s probably true if you use the Windows 2000 OS with any frequency that Fx 4 will be the primary browser you use there. Firefox 4 is definitely up to the job and lets you browse freely without any annoying compromises.

Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.

Retro Friday: Mozilla Firefox 4 Beta 11 In Windows 2000

How To Stop Forced Reboots For Windows Updates

Posted: 24 Feb 2011 08:00 AM PST

When you run Windows 7, you periodically are forced to reboot because of automatic updates. There are methods to stop that however.

Disabling forced reboot for current session

1. Open a Command Prompt using ‘Run as Administrator’

2. Type sc stop wuauserv, press Enter, done.

What this does is turn off the reboot nag notices for the current logged-in session. On next reboot the service reactivates and goes back to normal.

Tip: You can create this as a desktop shortcut. Just make sure to have the shortcut run with Administrator privileges.

Disabling forced reboots permanently

Important note: The instructions below only work in Windows 7 Professional, Ultimate and Enterprise. It cannot be done in Starter, Home Basic or Home Premium because there is no Group Policy Editor in those editions (and for those of you familiar with MMC, no, it’s not available there either).

1. Run the Group Policy Editor by clicking Start / Run / type gpedit.msc, press Enter.

2. Navigate in this order: Computer Policy, Computer Configuration, Administrative Templates, Windows Components, Windows Update.

3. Disable the entry Reprompt for restart with scheduled installations.

Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.

How To Stop Forced Reboots For Windows Updates
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