Clean Your Windows Vista Installation Before Installing
If you are one of those people who like to squeeze every bit out of your operating system and computer, you probably have already heard of vLite, but, if not, here is a handy little tool, especially if you need to install it on multiple machines. From the article at Information Week:
vLite allows users to preselect numerous Vista features for automatic removal prior to installing the OS on their personal computers. Among them: Windows Media Player, Windows Photo Viewer, MSN Installer, Wallpapers, SlideShow, Windows Mail and other utilities.
“It’s not just about hard disk space. There is also an increase in OS responsiveness and you don’t have to tolerate all kinds of things you don’t use,” said Nuhagic, in an e-mail to InformationWeek explaining why he launched the project.
vLite, however, isn’t for the technically timid. The software warns that the changes it imposes on Vista are “permanent, so be sure in your choice.”
Software Tool Strips Windows Vista To Bare Bones
As always, read the instructions to make sure you are going about it in the recommended way, to minimize problems, and if you do have problems, their forums are located here, and they appear to be very active. If I get a chance, I will try it on my next install of Windows Vista to see if I can indeed tell a speed difference.
From their about page:
Main features are:
- hotfix, language pack and driver integration
- component removal
- unattended setup
- tweaks
- split/merge Vista installation CDs
- create ISO and burn bootable CD/DVD
Windows Vista from Microsoft takes a lot of resources, we all know that. vLite provides you with an easy removal of the unwanted components in order to make Vista run faster and to your liking.
This tool doesn’t use any kind of hacking, all files and registry entries are protected as they would be if you install the unedited version only with the changes you select.
It configures the installation directly before the installation, meaning you’ll have to remake the ISO and reinstall it. This method is much cleaner, not to mention easier and more logical than doing it after installation on every reinstall.
Categories: Windows Vista Tags:
Computer and HDTV Deals
Here are some great deals from Toshiba.com.
Here are some great electronics deals from J&R.com. These are good until January 20th, 2008.
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Top Sellers from Walmart.com.
Magnavox 47″ 1080p Full HD LCD TV w/ Digital Tuner, $1,298.00 (Top Selling HDTV)
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Here are some more great deals and some hot deals on HDTV’s for the superbowl!
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Here are some great computer deals from HP Small and Medium Business.
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These deals from Overstock.com aren’t all computer deals, but, since they are so good, I’m posting them anyway.
5% off O-Day Sale plus $1
Site Wide $1 Shipping at
15% off Area Rugs at Overstock
$6 off Yoga Toes Toe Stretchers
$50 off Tribeca Queen-size Bed
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Categories: Computer Deals Tags:
Time Warner Expanding Their Business Model
Which is really all they are doing in their latest move, they are experimenting with tiered broadband pricing, or, another way around Net Neutrality. They are testing it first in Beaumont, Texas, a town with a population of over 100,000, their website says half a million in the Beaumont area, so this is probably a good spot for Time Warner to test this. If they get through this without many complaints, and unless Beaumont is a hotbed of P2P action, they probably will, look for them to roll it out to everyone.
Time Warner said on Wednesday that it was going to start testing a new rate plan in Beaumont that would limit the amount of bandwidth each customer can use each month before additional fees kick in. Alexander Dudley, a Time Warner spokesman, said that the exact terms had not been set, but that packages would probably offer between 5 gigabytes and 40 gigabytes a month. The top plan would cost roughly the same as the company’s highest-speed service, which typically runs between $50 and $60 a month. Source: Time Warner: Download Too Much and You Might Pay $30 a Movie
The NY Times article gives an example using the Apple TV, and say you want to download a high-definition movie, if you are over your limit already, downloading that thing could cost you $30 bucks! Talk about inflation. Well, the average HD movie on iTunes is between 1 and 2 gigabytes each, so, that will limit you to downloading two or three movies a month on their lowest plan, 20 to 30 on the highest plan. Not to mention, Xbox Live, regular internet surfing, photo sharing, etc, this is total crap.
But, if they roll it out now, MOST people won’t notice because they aren’t doing that, YET. This won’t hit most people until every ISP is doing it and they start getting those Internet connected TV’s and realize the movies look better streaming from the net than they do over the normal cable system. EVERYONE who gets slapped with a service like this needs to go to another provider, if they can and complain loudly. This is just the way the cable companies are going to use to get a piece of the bigger pie that Google and other big portals have been enjoying for years. The Telco’s, cable companies, and other ISP’s think they are the Internet when they are just your connection to it, they don’t deserve to be paid multiple times for the same product. Think about it, Google already pays for their bandwidth, same as us, so, every bit is being paid for at least twice, and now they want more.
Mr. Dudley said that Time Warner wants to test bandwidth limits to crack down on a minority of customers who are heavy downloaders. Indeed, only five percent of customers use half of its total bandwidth, he said.
“This is not targeted at people who download movies from Apple,” he said. “This is aimed at people who use peer-to-peer networks and download terabytes.”
Then why don’t they raise the caps to a terabyte, or a few hundred gigs before they start charging? Because then it would only affect 5% of their customers, and that wouldn’t be a very big increase financially at all as those 5% will move to another provider, guaranteed. They oversell their bandwidth to start with, meaning, if a POP can support 10 gigs of sustained traffic, they will sell 20 gigs, because not everyone uses it at the same time and they usually don’t have to worry about it. Bell Canada is already doing this and charges almost $7.50 per gig of overage, how much does that gig cost them? I would bet the article is close to being correct when it says it costs the ISP about 10 cents a gig.
This is all about making more money off of the Internet, but, if people quit using it because it costs them too much, then they, the cable companies and Telco’s, will end up shooting the golden goose themselves.
This is crap, it needs to be treated like crap, everyone needs to complain loudly and switch to a competitor, if they can. Search your area, there may be more broadband providers than you think.
Google Enabled TV?
Just read a post on Techcrunch that says Google is entering into a deal that will allow users to access Google “content” on their flat screen TV’s.
Japanese manufacturer Matsushita (Panasonic) has signed a deal with Google that will see the company launch flat panel television sets that allow users to access YouTube and other Google services such as Picasa Web Albums. Source: Google Enabled Televisions Coming Soon
Ya, this sounds like a fantastic idea, Youtube “quality” videos and spam on my TV in exchange for them getting to see whatever I watch on TV, as well as the annoying please update your software, or even worse, we just updated your software messages. Then, when Google does finally loose all my info to some hacker, he can see all my buying habits, surfing habits, web surfing habits and all the email I’ve sent using Gmail. Sounds great.
Time to rethink careers here, if every TV ends up with something like this on it, there will bound to be a need to keep older TV’s running…..
Categories: Google, Security, Televisions Tags:
New Year Computer and Electronic Deals
Here are some great computer deals, as well as some electronic deals, from Overstock.com, HP Small and Medium Business, J&R Computers, and TigerDirect.com. We have even more available here, computer deals.
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Sony KDL-40XBR2 40″ BRAVIA 1080p HDTV LCD Television – $1499.99
Samsung LN-T4065F 40″ 1080p HDTV with Integrated ATSC Tuner – $1299.99
Antec 75004 Notebook Cooler – $9.99 after MIR (exp. 1-31-08)
Western Digital WDXMS3200TN WD Passport 2.5″ Portable 320GB Hard Drive – $199.99 and FREE Shipping
Panasonic TH-50PX75U 50″ Plasma HDTV – $1349.99
Sony VRD-MC5 DVDirect MC5 Multi-Function DVD Recorder – $199.99
PNY 4GB SD High Capacity Memory Card – $24.99
Logitech Dinovo Edge Wireless Keyboard – $149.88 and FREE Shipping
Canon PowerShot SD40 7 Megapixel Digital Camera – Olive Gray – $159.99 and FREE Shipping
Categories: Computer Deals Tags:
