Lessfeet » Tips

Tips For A New PC

Mark — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 12:56:55 +0000

Did you get a new computer for Christmas or Festivus. If you did your computer may not be ready yet. Robert Heron and Patrick Norton of Tekzilla have some tips for you most of which I completely agree.

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Windows Maintenance Tips

Mark — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 17:58:56 +0000

There is a lot of talk about Windows maintenance. What services should turn off? Which utilities should I use? To sleep or hibernate? Here’s a article from Lifehacker. It is the best article I have seen on the subject.

Here are some of the topics which I agree…

Using “Microsoft Security Essentials” is as good as using third party security apps.
Users should not have Administrator privileges.
Physically cleaning the your computer can increase performance radically.
“Registry cleaning” is over-rated. I would go a step further. Registry cleaning ranges from completely unnecessary to harmful.

Speed Up Ubuntu

Mark — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 05:58:34 +0000

There are several programs that may start up when your Ubuntu computer starts. Many of these programs are not needed. You can turn these off by going to “System, Preferences and Startup Applications”. You can turn off some of these but first you must know which applications do not have to start up so I made a list.

AT SPI Registry Wrapper – The Gnome a11y infrastructure allows end user assistive technology (AT) programs such as screen readers to get rich information about an application’s UI state. In most cases it’s OK to disable it.
Bluetooth Manager – If your computer does not have Bluethooth or you don’t use it it is OK to turn it off.
Check for new hardware drivers – keep this enabled
Disk Notifications – keep this enabled
Evolution Alarm Notifier – I do not use Evolution for email so I do not need this. If you use Evolution and want to be notified about ne messages keep it enabled.
Gnome Keyring Daemon – I do not like this application to manage my passwords so I have it disabled.
Gnome Login Sound – I don’t like the login sound I turned it off.
Gnome Settings Daemon – Keep this enabled.
Gnome Settings Daemon Helper – I have no idea what this is but I have it disable with no ill effects.
Indicator applet – I have this disabled with no ill effects.
Network Manager – Keep enabled unless you don’t use the Internet or have a network.
PolicyKit Authentication Agent – keep enabled.
Power Manager – keep enabled.
Print Queue Applet – Keep enables unless you never print.
Remote Desktop – You may disable this if you have no plan to use remote desktop.
Screensaver – disable
Seahorse Daemon – keep enabled.
Update Notifier keep enabled.
User folders update – keep enabled
Visual Assistance – disable
Volume Control – Keep enabled.

Photo Repair

Mark — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 10:25:13 +0000

Here is a recently restored photo that I have been working on. A lot of what was wrong with this photo was not fixed by Photoshop. It was very stained and very dirty. I had to remove the dirt covering the picture first. If you Google cleaning photos it will tell you much better techniques to do this. I was doing this for free so I did not want to spend any money so I used alcohol. I stared in a corner of the photo to see if there was any problems before using it before cleaning the entire photo. After cleaning the picture and scanning it into Photoshop as a color image I then used a “Hue and Saturation adjustment layer” to to take out the yellow cast. I used a second “Hue and Saturation” adjustment layer to adjust the the lightness of the yellow around the wheel area to remove a big yellow blotch. I fixed the contrast and brightness with a “Levels adjustment layer”. Then used the “Clone Stamp Tool” and finally the “Healing Brush Tool” to take out smudges, and scratches. That’s it! More Photoshop tips!

Windows 7 Book

Mark — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 11:28:47 +0000

As you may know there is a new version of Windows (Windows 7) coming out October 22. What you don’t know is there are already books on the subject. One of these is Windows 7 Secrets by Paul Thurrott (co-host of the Windows Weekly poadcast on the TWIT network and creator of the Supersite for Windows). Windows 7 Secrets is one thousand pages of instruction, tip, tricks and (Can you believe it?) secrets. This is a great book for anyone that wants to learn all they can about Windows 7 or anyone who just needs a quick reference book.

GIMP Tutorials 1

Mark — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 17:59:35 +0000

I found many GIMP tutorials on Youtube. If you don’t know about GIMP it is a great image manipulation (like Photoshop) program that is very powerful and absolutely free.