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There is also a wide range of scene modes which give you leverage of photography in a range of conditions. a special ‘My Colors’ menu offer effects such as Light or Dark skin, Vivid or Neutral and other custom color adjustments.

The A530 from Canon also offers an excellent underwater scene mode that helps you adjust color balance and exposure for the same. The camera also offers a 1.8inch LCD screen, optical zoom view finder and a self timer. The optical zoom viewfinder focuses better in dark conditions thus saving battery. The camera also has a built in flash and an auto flash and the regular features like red eye reduction are also provided.

The Canon A530 comes with a 16MB SD card and storage can be upgraded with either another SD card or a Multi Media card of a higher capacity. The interfaces that the camera offers are a USB 2.0 connector, audio video interface, a Pict Bridge and even a Direct Print which allows you to take print out directly by connecting the camera to a printer.

The continuous shots feature allows you to shoot 2.1 shots per second. The batteries used are the same as the ones in all the other digital cameras of the A series which are AA batteries giving you a battery life of up to five hours.

Although the housing of this digital camera is a bit old fashioned and may not seem very attractive to many but the features are good enough for any average photographer. All in all, it is a good, responsive camera excellent for both still photography and video recording.

About the Author

Monty Alexander has written many articles on different topics including canon digital camera, mobile phones, sony digital camera, laptops etc.

Our previous report about the North American Sony Ericsson Xperia X1a said that the handset should reach the US this month. On December 7, more exactly.

Well, it’s now December 8 and the X1a is still not available for the US customers. Also, Best Buy doesn’t accept pre-orders for the handset anymore, while Sony’s US official online shop lists it as coming on January 12, 2009.

So it looks like there won’t be any Xperia X1a smartphones this Christmas for its fans over in the US.

As for the customers who managed to pre-order the handset from Best Buy (for $799.99), it’s said that they’re receiving emails informing them about stock delays.

We don’t know if all this is Sony Ericsson’s fault or not, but we do hope the X1a will reach North American shores as soon as possible.

About the Author

Our previous report about the North American Sony Ericsson Xperia X1a said that the handset should reach the US this month. On December 7, more exactly.

In this article we will take a closer look at how you can download games for your psp. We will look at the top 3 most popular ways . Unfortunately not all of these methods are good, some are actually pretty bad, you will learn which one’s which after you read this whole article.

The very first way of downloading psp games is definitely the most obvious one, which in itself is not a good thing. In this method you simply search (using a search engine) for the first things that come to your mind about psp downloads, for example ‘download games for your psp’. This method is like asking for trouble and you will soon find out why.

Of course the results will look appealing and every other page will say that it can help you download games for your psp. But the predominant majority of those websites will try to install bad malware on your computer through vulnerabilities like ActiveX. Don’t hope to download games onto your PSP for free using this method, because it’s not only dangerous for your computer, but it’s also illegal. Trust me, this method will not help you answer the how to download games for you psp question.

Another method you can use to download games for your psp is through torrent web-sites. With this method it’s even easier to infect your computer than with the first one. What’s even worse is that if you want access to semi-working files you will need to share your computer with these fellow bootleggers, you will have to start uploading every file that you’ve downloaded to improve you ‘ratio’ on the network, this will make you the distributor of stolen goods which is extremely illegal.

After seeing how risky those things are you should really question yourself if they’re worth all of the time and effort, not to mention the risk.

I strongly suggest you use a service that will allow you to get those downloads (most are paid services, but they give you a peace of mind). You might be forced to look around to find the cheapest and most reliable service, but trust me it’s well worth the effort.

Hopefully this article has clarified some things.

About the Author

Download portals like that are a different story though, visit http://pspaddicted.wordpress.com/category/download-games-for-your-psp/ for additional details.

When it comes to Sony psp game downloads you can use a one of the few different ways. Eventhough the process seems easy in reality it is not. It sometimes requires a considerable amount of research about psp games downloads and psp downloads in general. Author of this article has spent several months researching sony psp game downloads and will reveal the findings below.

There are some illegal methods out there. One of them is forum downloads. People gathered in a forum sometimes upload their own ISO files to download portals such as Rapidshare and others. These places are hard to find and often require some type of a verification process. And did we mention that’s it’s completely illegal?. Another important thing to mention is that many of the download URLs do not work and often you will spend hours downloading a file only to discover that it does not work. The sum of these ‘benefits’ make it one of the less desirable methods to get sony psp games from the internet.

Torrent communities are shady online organisms that share illegal downloads with it’s collective members through the P2P networks. These networks contain game ISO files which users can then download. Apart from being completely and utterly outlawed, it requires that you do some technical homework before using these networks. For example you will need to know how to override your firewall block (if you have one), open router ports and avoid ISP speed caps. Apart from the technical issues, you might be faced with several legal ones as well. Once you start downloading the file your computer is set to share it with others, which makes you a distributor of illegal downloads online.

If you want a working way of getting sony psp game downloads you should look into download portals. Currently if you are to search for them, you will find several ones that offer good quality service. You might be lucky and find some portals that allow you to download an unlimited amount of psp games for a small fee. Some web-sites give access to these downloads for a one time payment which means that you will not be billed in the subsequent months after you sign up. But this is not where it ends, you will still need to do some research about these download portals in order to find the ones that give you access to an unlimited amount of downloads, have additional download files such as movies and themes and also provide support.

We sincerely hope that this article has served it’s purpose and educated you about sony psp game downloads and pointed to the good and bad ways that you can get them.

About the Author

To get the names of these portals and a small overview of the good and bad ones visit this Wiki http://sony-psp-game-downloads.wetpaint.com

It is not denied that the spectacular spread of Bluetooth headsets globally and in the US wireless market is continuously growing. Bluetooth wireless headsets in actuality is capable of working with more than one type of device whether it is your PDA, your cell phone or any digital music device, it can provide you with excellent results. This very reason makes clear why such products are tremendously growing fast.

Range Of Ten Feet

The Bluetooth wireless headset can be used without it having to use wires (obviously) and in fact, you can also use any kind of handy device within a range of about ten feet that in most cases is an acceptable distance. With such great functionality available, it is not startling that the Bluetooth wireless headset is available in different styles and with diverse functionality as well.

Logitech makes one of the better Bluetooth wireless headsets that you will come across. It is a product prominent for its solidity as well as dependability and it is perfectly suited for providing good quality sound - even from your cell phone. It is compatible to other Bluetooth enabled phones and it clips easily to your ears and provides as much as seven hours of talk time.

The Motorola Bluetooth wireless headsets are very trendy; especially the HS810 and the HS820, and it is expected that soon their new offering - the HS850 - will hit the market and increase Motorola’s share in the wireless segment. Each of the two Bluetooth wireless headsets (HS810 and HS820) can work with PDAs, hand sets as well as computers and they are also compatible with earlier Motorola models.

The Jabra FreeSpeak Bluetooth headset is another good Bluetooth wireless headset and is an offering from one of the biggest manufacturers of hands-free communication devices. This Bluetooth wireless headset weighs no more than twenty-three grams and it is also very light. The Jabra FreeSpeak FS258 is the lightest offering by the company and well worth its asking price.

For many people, the Bluetooth has remained a term that implied a new and ground-breaking technology - even in spite of the fact that the popularity of Bluetooth headsets has grown over the recent past. It will therefore pay to understand just how Bluetooth wireless technology can transform your life and why Bluetooth has become so significant to so many millions of users.

State-of-the-art technology is really a big help in creating further innovative and ground breaking products such as the latest HS850 of Motorola which is a new Bluetooth wireless headset that undoubtedly captured the market. This model is an enough evidence to show how up to date technology is shaping our future.

About the Author

Andy Immotna has been maintaining a number of premium membership websites that constantly provides members with resell rights products and highly valuable information products that people use to feed their membership sites and article directories.

At first glance, perhaps the new USB LCD monitors on the shelf look just like another fanciful technology gadget. It’s pretty to look at, but you are not sure what it’s primary function is, and you don’t see how the device can fit into your life. This is a very common response. After all, we are all bombarded with new, exciting, and interesting lifestyle gadgets quite frequently. So it’s easy to look at another new gadget and come to a false conclusion.

We say false conclusion because obviously, the USB LCD monitor is not just a fanciful looking machine that does little. So what is the point of having an extra USB LCD monitor?

Before we go into that, you have to have a basic understanding of how USB LCD monitors work. The USB monitor is a small display device that you can set on your table or wall, in either landscape or portrait. It will still be able to function when left unplugged. When plugged into a computer or laptop, it can become a secondary monitor. Once you understand this, you will be able to see the various functions that this little device serves.

Displaying slideshows.

When the first USB LCD display device was conceptualized, it was meant to be a digital photo frame. It comes with it’s own built-in memory, so that you can store your most precious digital photos. You can then leave the device on the wall or on your table, and let the slideshow play back by itself. Guests who visit your home or office will be able to enjoy the photos without having to flip through thick books of dusty photo albums. You can also create a nice ambience by having some soft MP3 music play in the background as the slideshow is being displayed.

Displaying important daily information.

One of the key features of the USB LCD monitor is that it can be used as a secondary monitor. In other words, you can use it to display information from your PC in another location. For example, if you have a USB LCD monitor in your office, you can hang it in the meeting room. It can display important information like weather, stock exchange, oil prices, etc. So while you are having meetings, you can glance over to the LCD monitor to keep track of the changes. Another example use is displaying an IM client on the secondary display, and have it dedicated to communicating with others.

Travel companion.

Because of its size (about 7 inches), it is the perfect travel companion. You can bring it along with you while you travel, and it can run without your laptop or desktop. This means that the gadget is extremely useful if you want to travel light. For instance, you may be going on vacation and you don’t want to bring your work with you, so you leave your computers behind. Using the USB LCD monitor, you can always slot in your external memory card (from your digital cameras) and view the photos that you have taken.

Given the above functions, maybe it’s worth it to take a second look at the USB LCD monitor. You may just want to grab one off the shelves, since it’s reasonably priced at around $200.

About the Author

For more information the USB Monitor and Photo Frame, please visit the Gadget Advisor technology blog.

The Nokia N96 as everyone knows is the successor of the most successful Nokia mobile phones ever the N95. Being a descendent of a great phone there was a large amount of expectation from the Nokia N96. Unfortunately the Nokia N96 couldn’t keep up the glory of its predecessor.

The time when Nokia Mobile Phones released Nokia N95, it was the giant in the market, and there wasn’t any potential threat to Nokia N95 in design, features or performance but now the things are totally different. The N96 uses Dual ARM 9 264 MHZ CPU which is a slower than that of N95’s CPU. There doesn’t seem to be any valid reason for this downgrade, though on second thoughts it looks like it was done to improve battery life but the battery life is worse than that of N95. No to worry too much the mediocre battery and the CPU don’t affect the performance of the phone. The user interface is very smooth, quick and just maybe some very demanding application or game can show the difference between the performance of the two mobile phones.

The design of N96 has been inherited from the Nokia N81 and is very attractive; the build quality however is not up to the standard of a high end mobile phone. The cheaper plastic employed in Nokia N96 is susceptible to scratches.

The form factor of N96 is dual slide i.e. you can move the top slider either way up and down; pushing the panel upwards will reveal the numeric keypad and pushing it down will reveal the 4 dedicated keys used for music and games.

As far as memory is concerned the Nokia N96 is excellent. It has a large internal memory of 16GB and provides room for further expansion using a micro SD memory card. In short, you can extend the memory of N96 to 32GB. The 2.8 inches screen of N96 is marvellous; It is brilliant even under direct sunlight, no complaints from display section too.

The inbuilt 5 megapixel Carl Zeiss lens camera complemented by powerful dual LED flash captures superb pictures producing a far better quality than the pictures taken by other phones boasting a 5 mega pixel camera. The pictures are excellent in all lighting conditions, this camera can capture even moving objects with great precession. However, the capture button can be difficult to press but it isn’t a major problem.

The Nokia N96 Mobile comes with a good DVB - H tuner, enabling it to receive digital TV broadcasts. Moving on to one of the main entertainment functions of the Nokia N96 - the mp3 play, which does not disappoint with excellent all around sound quality. The loud speakers are placed on the right side, top and bottom of the phone. In landscape mode you can use the kickstand to place the phone on the desk at the best angle for watching TV / video. The loudspeakers will now be on the top left and right of the phone giving a feel of mini television, looks very attractive.

The N96 wasn’t really intended to take the market by storm and turn the world around. Maybe it was meant to quietly update the top multimedia gadget of the house. Almost every phone manufacturer has a good range of mobiles that can challenge Nokia N96 and most of them have Touchscreen, mp3 players and video playback functions. Nokia is not yet concentrating on Touchscreen which is the latest trend in mobile world. Moreover Nokia N96 has a heavy price tag compared to other mobiles with similar functionalities however the Nokia N96 has a great software package that comes in an utterly user-unfriendly shell.

Compare the best deals on Nokia N96 and other Nokia contract phones and Nokia pay as you go phones at ThePhoneNetwork.co.uk

About the Author

Get Cheap Mobile Phones by comparing the best mobile phone deals at ThePhoneNetwork.co.uk. Compare deals for Samsung, LG, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, Nokia Mobile Phones and others & choose the best mobile phone for you.

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5 December 2008 - London, UK: Online rich media is on the cusp of a revolution as average UK broadband download speeds reach 5Mbs for the first time, according to Top 10 Broadband the UK’s largest independent broadband comparison site.

A jump in average broadband download speeds in the UK from 4.1Mbps in January to 5Mbps in October 2008* has coincided in Britons move from watching predominantly low-quality video clips on platforms like YouTube to high-quality video on the BBC’s iPlayer which perform best at download speeds.

Picture quality and sound via streaming technologies is greatly improved at higher speeds and waiting for pages to load or buffer is no longer an issue. The impact that super-fast broadband such as offered by O2 and Virgin Media is having on internet usage is clearly reflected in increased consumption of rich media like high definition (HD) TV downloads. The iPlayer alone has seen daily requests to stream or download TV and radio programmes rise from 360,000 in January to 957,000 in October 2008.

The downside to this rich-media revolution is that high-resolution, quality video files and streams require more data to be downloaded than ever before meaning broadband provider download allowance limits are being reached and exceeded more than ever before. Coupled with the UK’s aging ADSL broadband network not being built to withstand the kind of capacity issues it is facing, the future will see ADSL2 and fibre-optic broadband technologies becoming the norm.

"Alongside the limitations of the existing network technology, the downside of this exponential growth in high-quality video streaming services like the iPlayer is that people are increasingly being hit with colossal, unexpected data charges for exceeding their download allowance - not ideal during this current recession" says Jessica McArdle, a spokesperson for Top 10 Broadband.

"With average speeds now over 5Mb making the rich media dream a true reality, download allowance remains the final frontier to be crossed before online HD entertainment becomes a viable option for the majority of UK broadband users. Only ISPs that can match these demands will remain viable options for the average video-hungry user."

"We’re seeing our customers spend a far greater proportion of their time enjoying entertainment and video services like the iPlayer online," said Peter Rampling, Marketing Director at O2. "But too many UK consumers are still finding their online video experience hamstrung by slow download speeds and usage limits. Sites like Top 10 Broadband are a valuable resource to help people choose a provider that will enable the best possible video entertainment experience."

* According to Speedtest.net

About the Author

Top 10 Broadband: - http://www.top10-broadband.co.uk/

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It was back in June when I decided that I was fed up with all the information on how to make money online. I was tired of being bamboozled, tricked, and lied to about how to make money using my computer and working from home. So when I landed on the Wealthy Affiliate website, I was skeptical. I had been burned before.

The first thing that struck me was that there had to be a catch to it. How could the website owners be giving away personal mentoring, an 8 week tutorial, web-hosting, website building tools, and keyword research tools all for just $30 a month? There just had to be a catch. In addition, the email that had led me to this page had promised an active forum where more experienced members could help me out any time I had questions.

For years I had been dreaming of being my own boss, free from daily commutes, corporate rules, and long hours for low pay. I had also spent 2 years online searching to create my own profitable website business — only to be disappointed time and time again.

Now, here I was faced with a website that claimed to be a complete internet marketing university, where I could learn how to be a prosperous affiliate. Could I really get rich and live the internet lifestyle simply by using some radical new marketing methods to make a commission from other people’s products?

Comforting myself with the thought that I could unsubscribe and get my money back if I didn’t like the Wealthy Affiliate membership site, I pulled out my credit card…and took the risk.
What made me sign up? The copy on the website spoke about how it was not easy to make money online and how it took hard work. They also did not promise instant riches. This absence of hype, this uncensored realism, made me inclined to believe that maybe, just maybe, they had the answers I was looking for in my quest to break free from the rat race.
Since I’m still here at Wealthy Affiliate, you’ve probably correctly guessed that the owners, Kyle & Carson, did not disappoint me. The first month, I was slightly overwhelmed by how much information they offered on the website. Besides the 8 week training, there were additional beginner, intermediate, and advanced level tutorials, ebooks, case histories, and videos. When I did have questions, either Kyle or Carson answered them.

The forum turned out to be a really lively place, too, and I found myself spending a lot of time reading the "stickies." These were forum posts that were so informative about marketing techniques that the members had voted that they be permanently kept to educate new members. These "stickies" were often case histories of those who were guided to make profitable marketing campaigns. People starting from scratch were shown how to create campaigns that made money, sometimes a lot of money.

Besides the "stickies," there was also a sub-forum where people reported their sales and what they did to achieve them. In addition, there were forums on different aspects of marketing, from how to write articles to how to set up a Google AdWords campaign.

Should you choose to follow my lead, you’ll notice something rather startling and amazing when you join. It’s called the Wealth Counter. This is where those who have made affiliate sales add the amount they’ve earned. Right now, as of today, it stands at a staggering $2,325,612.06!

If that doesn’t make your blood rush, I’m not sure what will get you enthused about your potential to make money online.

I know, in a review like this one, I should mention something negative about Wealthy Affiliate, but, to be honest, I can’t think of anything bad to say.
The only way to really find out if this is the right thing for you, too, is to check it out.

About the Author

Fedor is a satisfied Wealthy Affiliate Member

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With faster machines cropping up almost daily, the life span of a midrange PC is a little more than two years of service. Physically, the computer you bought a few years ago is just as sound as any new piece of hardware. Ideally, it could probably last you a decade or two–as long as you didn’t add any new software or surf the Net. Realistically, that’s not likely to be the case. Instead of buying a new computer, optimize your present one. The following are 11 things that Chip Manufacturers and PC Retailers don’t want you to know or how to perform. Following these advices will drastically increase your PC performance and help you regain your sanity while saving loads of money. And, if your PC is years old and can’t afford to upgrade yet, you will be able to squeeze out some more juice out of the old thing!

1. Disable file indexing. This is a tiny service that uses a great deal of RAM and induces much disk thrashing. Your system instantly becomes more responsive. Here’s how: First, doubleclick the My Computer icon. Then, right-click on the C: Drive, then hit Properties. Uncheck “Allow Indexing Service to index this disk for fast file searching.” Next, apply changes to “C: subfolders and files,” and click OK.

2. Zap the Windows Prefetch folder every week. Windows XP can “prefetch” portions of data and applications that are frequently loaded. This allows processes appear to start faster when requested the user. Over time, the prefetch folder overwhelms with references to files and applications no longer in use. Guess what happens? Windows XP wastes time and grinds to a halt by pre-loading obsolete data. It helps you gain some performance on your XP Professional to periodically empty the prefetch folder.

The prefetch folder resides on your local hard disk, under the Windows folder.
%systemroot%\prefetch
-or-
X:\windows\prefetch

Where X is the drive letter where you have Windows installed. Either path will get you to your local system. The second path is for those who have the default installation on the most commonly used drive letter, C:\

3. Optimise Display Settings. Windows XP can look sexy but displaying all the visual items can waste system resources. Kill unnecessary animations, and nix active desktop. Here’s how to do it:
1) Go to Start
2) Click Settings
3) Click Control Panel
4) Click System
5) Click Advanced tab
6) In the Performance tab click Settings
7) Leave only the following ticked:
(1) Show shadows under menus
(2) Show shadows under mouse pointer
(3) Show translucent selection rectangle
(4) Use drop shadows for icons labels on the desktop
(5) Use visual styles on windows and buttons
Feel free to play around with the options offered here, as nothing you can change will alter the stability of the computer - only its responsiveness.

4. Remove the Desktop Picture Your desktop background consumes a fair amount of memory and can slow the loading time of your system. Removing it will improve performance.
1) Right click on Desktop and select Properties
2) Select the Desktop tab
3) In the Background window select None
4) Click Ok

5. Remove Fonts for Speed Zap extra fonts fonts installed on their computer. Fonts, especially TrueType fonts, use quite a bit of system resources. The more fonts they have, the more lethargic the system will become. Anything over 300 fonts tax the system and slow down load times- especially graphic apps. For optimal performance, trim your fonts down to just those that you need to use on a daily basis and fonts that applications may require.
1) Open Control Panel
2) Open Fonts folder
3) Move fonts you don’t need to a temporary directory (e.g. C:\FONTBKUP?) just in case you need or want to bring a few of them back. The more fonts you uninstall, the more system resources you will gain.

6. Speedup Folder Browsing You may have noticed that everytime you open my computer to browse folders that there is a slight delay. This is because Windows XP automatically searches for network files and printers everytime you open Windows Explorer. To fix this and to increase browsing significantly:
1) Open My Computer
2) Click on Tools menu
3) Click on Folder Options
4) Click on the View tab.
5) Uncheck the Automatically search for network folders and printers check box
6) Click Apply
7) Click Ok
Reboot your computer
To prevent a single Windows Explorer window tanking up takes the rest of your OS down, you can launch separate folder windows in multi processes. Open My Computer, hit on Tools, then Folder Options. Click on the View tab. Scroll down to “Launch folder windows in a separate process,” and enable this option.

7. Disable Performance Counters Windows XP has a performance monitor utility which monitors several areas of your PC’s performance. These utilities take up system resources so disabling is a good idea. To disable:
1) download and install the Extensible Performance Counter List
2) Then select each counter in turn in the ‘Extensible performance counters’ window and clear the ‘performance counters enabled’ checkbox at the bottom button below

8. Optimise Your Pagefile Windows XP sizes the page file to about 1.5X the amount of actual physical memory by default. While this is good for systems with smaller amounts of memory (under 512MB) it is unlikely that a typical XP desktop system will ever need 1.5 X 512MB or more of virtual memory. If you have less than 512MB of memory, leave the page file at its default size. If you have 512MB or more, change the ratio to 1:1 page file size to physical memory size.
1) Right click on My Computer and select Properties
2) Select the Advanced tab
3) Under Performance choose the Settings button
4) Select the Advanced tab again and under Virtual Memory select Change
5) Highlight the drive containing your page file and make the initial Size of the file the same as the Maximum Size of the file.

9. Improve Memory Usage PC Washer improves the performance of your computer by optimizing the disk cache, memory and a number of other settings.

Once Installed:
1) Click the ‘Tools’ from the left menu
2) Select ‘Memory Booster’ in the tools list. A new window named ‘PC Turbo Memory’ will popup.
3) Click Defragment button in the new window.
4) Exit the program. That’s all.

10. Disable unnecessary services Windows XP loads services you will never need. To determine which services you can disable for your client, visit the Black Viper site for ideal Windows XP configurations. Here are a few services I booted off to streamline my PC:
* Alerter
* Background Intelligent Transfer Service
* ClipBook
* Computer Browser
* Error Reporting Service
* Help and Support
* Indexing Service
* IPSEC Services
* Messenger
* NetMeeting Remote Desktop Sharing
* Network DDE
* Network DDE DSDM
* Performance Logs and Alerts
* Portable Media Serial Number
* QOS RSVP
* Help Session Manager
* Remote Registry
* Secondary Logon
* Server
* Smart Card
* Smart Card Helper
* SSDP Discovery Service
* System restore Service
* TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper
* Uninterruptible Power Supply
* Universal Plug and Play Device Host
* WebClient
* Windows time
* Wireless Zero Configuration
* WMI Performance Adapter

11. Disconnect USB devices you aren’t using. When Windows starts, it must load all the drivers for the devices connected to your computer. If you have many devices connected to the USB ports, such as printers, scanners, cameras and hard drives that you don’t use on a regular basis, disconnect them. You can reconnect them when you use them. Disconnecting them when they are not in use will allow Windows to load the drivers only when needed.

The above steps should help increase the performance of Windows XP as well as keep it running with more stability.

About the Author

Duncan Kredion is a software engineer focusing on system optimization area since 1999. To read more system optimization tips, please visit Windows XP & Vista Optimization Tips Archive .