Category Archives: Microsoft

Post specific to Microsoft / Windows O/S.

XP – My Computer Speed Up

Posted on by

Our office moved to a new building, and in the process of getting all the computers setup for the network and various printers, co-workers noticed that when I open up the My Computer folder on my machine it loads very quickly compared to theirs.

Once our IT people had left, after getting everybody connected to the appropriate network modules and printers, I showed those interested how I had gotten mine to speed
up; here is how I did it.

  • Open Windows Explorer.
  • Select My Computer.
  • Click on Tools, in the menu bar.
  • Select Folder Options from the drop down menu.
  • Select the View tab.
  • Uncheck the box in front of “Automatically search for network folders and printers”.
  • Click OK.

Now the My Computer folders should display more quickly.

Firefox Add On – Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer 0.84

Posted on by

I use Firefox 2.0 on my desktop and the BPCA laptop, as well as Firefox Portable 1.5.0.8 on a USB Drive. Getting my bookmarks and RSS feeds synchronized manually was very tedious and error prone.

When I upgraded the other day to 2.0, one of the recommended add ons was the Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer, so I thought OK give it a try.

I made back ups of the various profiles, as I always do in case of a foul up and then installed the Foxmarks extension, available at , and ran the setup on each of the computers and the USB drive. Now I have the same bookmarks on each of my devices.

Part of the setup includes getting a free account at http://foxmarks.com/, where all your bookmarks are stored. Also, you can access your bookmarks from that site, using the user name and password created during setup, from anywhere, yes even using IE provided Javascript is enabled.

More in-depth information is available through the Foxmarks FAQ: .

I find this a very useful Firefox add on, making my collection of bookmarks available no matter where I am accessing the Internet from.

What are your favorite Firefox add ons?

Open Source – Firefox 2.0

Posted on by

Well I finally downloaded Firefox 2.0 and installed it.

Just for my reference, I backed up my whole PC and then just doubled clicked the Firefox Setup 2.0.exe file and ran the installer. I did not remove my 1.5.0.7 version or any of its components first.

The installer ran in less than a minute and when Firefox started up I found that everything worked must faster, and that my installed extensions (now called add ons) worked with no problems.

In regards to add-ons, I particularly like that Firefox now restarts itself, with my permission of course, and then immediately I have access to the add-on. This is much simpler and quicker than the previous versions.

All of my bookmarks and prior settings seem to have come out OK. If upon further use, any problems turn up, I will let you know about them through this blog.

All in all, I am quite impressed with the improvements I have seen so far.

I can not compare this to the new Internet Explorer 7, as I have not yet installed or tried it. I very seldom, need to use IE anymore for anything and do not even have it at work yet.

For now, I think that I will stay with my current Firefox Portable 1.5.0.7, as 2.0 is only in release candidate stages at this time, but when Firefox Portable 2.0 is put out as a full version I intend to switch over to that also.

Let me know about your experiences with Firefox 2.0, good or bad, by leaving a comment to this post.