COMPUTER HELP
Here are a couple of windows 95 tricks to speed up your computer. Windows 95 uses a process called caching to optimize your computer's performance. The program used for caching in Windows 95 is called Vcache and it dynamically (on its own) adjusts the amount of memory that will be used in the disk cache.
To optimize caching the file system on your hard drive and CD-ROM drive, right-click on my computer. Left-click on properties, and click on the performance tab.
Now click on the file system button to display the file system properties dialog box.Select the hard disk tab, and open 'typical role for this machine'. Select 'network server'. Below you will find a sliding switch that controls 'read ahead optimization'. Slide the pointer to the far right. Click on apply. Now vcache caches 64 directory paths and 2,729 filnames in memory. Picking network server doubles the amount of memory used for this caching. Things go faster.
Next, click on the cd-rom tab. Select 'quad or more'. Now, move the slider switch for 'supplemental cache size' to the far right for. Click on apply. Now you can click on ok and then close the dialog box. When your computer restarts windows 95 the changes will take effect. It's that simple.
Have you ever wanted to re-name some of the icons on your windows-95 desktop? I changed "my computer" to now read "kens stuff". It's easy. Left-click on the icon, then right-click. Now click on rename, and just type in the new name. See.. You've learned something new.
THE SWAP FILE.
Today I'll teach you about swapping. No, don't freak out on me. I'm talking about your swap file. Windows uses a file on your hard disk called SWAP FILE as virtual memory, and swaps information back and forth between your RAM, which is your computer's memory, and the hard disk. Windows comes set up to control the size of your swap file, and this control is dynamic, which means that the size of the swap file changes automatically, adjusting to the amount of free hard disk space Windows finds. This dynamic sizing is often the reason that your hard drive light comes on and your hard disk churns and churns for no apparent reason. If you are short of hard disk space your computer may seem to slow down to a crawl and the hard disk light will flicker like crazy.
You can take control of the swap file size. Here's what to do. First, click on and open MY COMPUTER. Now, right-click on DRIVE C, and now click on PROPERTIES. This will show you a graphic of your hard drive space, used vs. unused space. Now click on OK to close that dialog box. You are still in MY COMPUTER.
To take control of your SWAP FILE, double-click on CONTROL PANEL, and then click on SYSTEM. Now click on the PERFORMANCE tab, and click on VIRTUAL MEMORY. Select LET ME SELECT MY OWN VIRTUAL SETTINGS, and then set the minimum and maximum space for the swap file. Set aside an amount of disk space equal to about three times the amount of ram your computer has. For example, if your system has 16 Megs of ram, set your minimum and maximum swap file size to 50 megabytes. If your system has 32 Megs of ram, set the swap file to about 100 Megs. When you close these dialog boxes, you may get a warning. Don't worry, it will all work just fine.
create a rescue disk
Windows 95 will create a startup disk so that you can start your computer from the A: or floppy drive should your hard drive fail to start. That's good, after a fashion. Whatyou really need is a "rescue" disk that can start your computer and restore your original Windows 95 configuration. Now wouldn't that be great!
Microsoft, for reasons that I cannot explain, doesn't tell you that you do indeed have that capability. You'll need a system or bootable disk, and a program called "ERU.EXE". Which is located on your windows 95 CD-ROM disk, usually under \OTHER\MISC\ERU.
First, let's make a system or boot disk. Here are the steps.
1. Place a floppy disk in drive a:. (you will lose any information on that disk!) 2. Double click on my computer, and now click on the A drive. 3. Click on file, then on format. 4. Select "full" as the format type, and click on "copy system files". 5. Now click on start. When the disk is formatted, just click on close.
Now, wasn't that simple?
Here's how to turn that bootable disk into your very own rescue disk. With your newly-made system disk in the A drive, click on start, and then click on find. Select files and folders, and type ERU.EXE. Now press the Enter key. If your computer can't find that file, place your Windows 95 CD-ROM disk in your CD-ROM drive. Now click again on find, and this time type in the letter that represents your CD-ROM drive. If you aren't sure, just double-click on my computer to display all of your drive letter information. If your CD-ROM drive is drive D, then you would type "d:\eru.exe" at the Find File prompt.
When Windows 95 locates ERU.EXE, double-click on it. You will see an information screen about ERU.EXE. Click on next, then select drive A:. Now click on next. You'll be prompted through the rest of this process. When finished, you'll have a bootable restore disk, so when that dreaded day comes, you'll be prepared to restore vital system and configuration information.
If you have backed up your valuable data, you'll survive any crash. Take heed!
ALL ABOUT CACHE
Browser software introduced us to the World Wide Web, a view of the Internet with sound, motion, color, and graphics. Your browser software stores graphics and HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), a language frequently used to write Web pages, in cache. The idea behind cache is to speed up your Web access by storing these graphics and HTML segments on your hard drive. Getting this information from your hard drive is faster than having to download the information each time through your modem. Cache speeds up data retrieval, and in this lesson I'll give you information that can improve the performance of your cache.
If you frequently visit the same Web sites like I do, you should increase the amount of hard drive space reserved by your browser for cache. 10MB (Megabytes) reserved for browser cache will yield performance on the net, provided your hard drive isn't almost out of space. Here's what to do:
NETSCAPE NAVIGATOR 3.X
1. Under the Options menu, select Network Preferences, and then select the Cache tab. 2. Change the disk cache to 10,000K (10 Megabytes).
NETSCAPE NAVIGATOR 4.0
1. Under the Edit menu, select Preferences, and then double-click on Advanced. Now select Cache. 2. Change the disk cache to 10,000K
MICROSOFT INTERNET EXPLORER 3.X
1. Open the View Menu, select Options and chose the Advanced tab. 2. Click on Settings, and under 'Amount of disk space to use' drag the slider switch to the right, setting the size to between 8MB and 10MB.
MICROSOFT INTERNET EXPLORER 4.0
1. Under the View menu select Options and then chose the General tab. 2. In the Temporary Internet Files dialog box, click on Settings. 3. Drag the 'Amount of disk space to use' slider switch to a size between 8MB and 10MB
If you spend most of your Web surfing time without returning to the same sites very often, it's a good idea to flush out purge the memory cache during a Web surfing session. To clear your memory cache:
NETSCAPE NAVIGATOR 3.X
1. Under the Options menu, select Network Preferences, and choose the Cache tab. 2. Click on the Clear Memory Cache Now button.
NETSCAPE NAVIGATOR 4.0
1. Open the Edit menu, select Preferences, and double-click on Advances. Select Cache. 2. Click on the Clear Memory Cache button.
MISROSOFT EXPLORER 3.X
1. Open the View menu and select Options. Now chose the Advanced tab. 2. Click Settings and then chose the Empty Folder button. Now click Yes.
MICROSOFT EXPLORER 4.0
1. Open the View menu, select Options, and chose the General tab. 2. In the Temporary Internet Files dialog box click Settings, then click Delete files. 3. Now click on OK
Note that smart cachess, the hard disk and memory caches in your PC, read ahead, trying to anticipate what you may ask for, so that the information will be ready and waiting for you. To see smart cache in action, open you word processor. Close it now, and open it again. It loads much faster the second time because of this smart cache.
Cache in your browser software isn't 'smart' and just stores what you've already viewed. That's why you should flush out your browser cache every so often.