startup cleanup
I must start off today with some sad news. It has come to my attention that Symantec has discontinued the free version of Sygate. From now on I will be recommending the use of ZoneAlarm as a basic free quality firewall. While not as configurable and easy to use (in my opinion) as Sygate was, it is a quality product, and recommended by Steve Gibson.
We come to a juncture where I must discuss one of my pet peeves. Not a happy topic at all, but I feel it must be addressed: unneeded programs that run in residence. Some of you are saying, ‘wha…’, so I’ll clarify. If you look in the bottom corner of your monitor, you should see your clock. Beside that, you will see several little icons. I’m hoping that by the end of this short article, you’ll understand why these small, innocuous icons irritate me so.
To keep this short, let me just say that each of the icons there by your clock are the representatives of programs currently running on your system that do not have a window open on the desktop. What this means is that you are sharing the resources of your computer with each of these, every moment. Some programs, as we’ve discussed before, are under the impression that they are the most important thing on your computer, and will want to place themselves there ‘in residence’, just so that in case you need them, (which of course you will) they will pop right up on the screen with very little wait time. Now, if this happens to be true, it is a good idea. If not, then there it sits, using up precious system resources. The only things that I like to run are my AVG, ZoneAlarm and my Spybot S&D Tea-Timer. Anything else is superfluous, unless I’m talking to someone or expecting a message or a call, then I’ll have to run another program. Often when people tell me that their system runs slower now than it used to when it was new, I ask them how many icons they have by the clock, and many times, they have lots. I actually met one person, who thought they were cool and tried to get as many as he could in there! Good programs will ask the user if they wish to install it there in the system tray, but since that is what they assume they must do, or don’t know, they just go with whatever is recommended. What I’m recommending to you is that you always say ‘No’, unless you know that you’ll need it. Heck, I’ve even had to do a little hacking to remove MSN messenger from my system area. I don’t use it, why do I want it? I want my computer to run as fast as it can, and anything down there is just holding me back.
Now, how to remove these little system annoyances, you ask? Some of these programs play fairly, and if you right click on them, they will give you the option of being there at system startup. Others of them also will help you out by merely placing a shortcut icon in your ‘startup’ menu under ‘start’ - ‘all programs’ – ‘startup’. Then, just by deleting that shortcut, the program will no longer fire itself up as you power on your system. Still others will have options as far as to how they start themselves while the program is running. Go into the help, and see if it will detail how to remove it from your system startup. Failing all that, you may have to enter into a little hacking territory. One of my earlier recommended programs, CCleaner, will allow you to enter your system startup and remove the programs you don’t want starting. Be careful as you do this, however, as you may inadvertently remove something that you really wished you hadn’t.
Now get out there and cleanup that startup! See you next time.
We come to a juncture where I must discuss one of my pet peeves. Not a happy topic at all, but I feel it must be addressed: unneeded programs that run in residence. Some of you are saying, ‘wha…’, so I’ll clarify. If you look in the bottom corner of your monitor, you should see your clock. Beside that, you will see several little icons. I’m hoping that by the end of this short article, you’ll understand why these small, innocuous icons irritate me so.
To keep this short, let me just say that each of the icons there by your clock are the representatives of programs currently running on your system that do not have a window open on the desktop. What this means is that you are sharing the resources of your computer with each of these, every moment. Some programs, as we’ve discussed before, are under the impression that they are the most important thing on your computer, and will want to place themselves there ‘in residence’, just so that in case you need them, (which of course you will) they will pop right up on the screen with very little wait time. Now, if this happens to be true, it is a good idea. If not, then there it sits, using up precious system resources. The only things that I like to run are my AVG, ZoneAlarm and my Spybot S&D Tea-Timer. Anything else is superfluous, unless I’m talking to someone or expecting a message or a call, then I’ll have to run another program. Often when people tell me that their system runs slower now than it used to when it was new, I ask them how many icons they have by the clock, and many times, they have lots. I actually met one person, who thought they were cool and tried to get as many as he could in there! Good programs will ask the user if they wish to install it there in the system tray, but since that is what they assume they must do, or don’t know, they just go with whatever is recommended. What I’m recommending to you is that you always say ‘No’, unless you know that you’ll need it. Heck, I’ve even had to do a little hacking to remove MSN messenger from my system area. I don’t use it, why do I want it? I want my computer to run as fast as it can, and anything down there is just holding me back.
Now, how to remove these little system annoyances, you ask? Some of these programs play fairly, and if you right click on them, they will give you the option of being there at system startup. Others of them also will help you out by merely placing a shortcut icon in your ‘startup’ menu under ‘start’ - ‘all programs’ – ‘startup’. Then, just by deleting that shortcut, the program will no longer fire itself up as you power on your system. Still others will have options as far as to how they start themselves while the program is running. Go into the help, and see if it will detail how to remove it from your system startup. Failing all that, you may have to enter into a little hacking territory. One of my earlier recommended programs, CCleaner, will allow you to enter your system startup and remove the programs you don’t want starting. Be careful as you do this, however, as you may inadvertently remove something that you really wished you hadn’t.
Now get out there and cleanup that startup! See you next time.
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