Brought to you each week by
the 84 Online Team, a loose collection of volunteers from around the Kentuckiana
region.
84 Online is broadcast live
each Sunday from 3:00 PM to 6:00 PM (EDT) on WHAS radio, 840 AM. You may call the show directly during
this time period at 502-571-8484 or toll free at 1-800-444-8484. You may also interact with the team
online by visiting www.84online.com and
clicking on Chat Room. IRC users
can access the room through server ucanweb.com, channel #84online. Chat hours match the show on Sunday and
generally some of the members are in weeknights from 8:00 to 9:00 PM
EDT.
If you’re new to the
Newsletter, Team member J.P. Durbin hosts back issues online at www.jpdurbin.net/84archive/.
The WHAS Crusade for
Children provides year round support for needy children throughout the
Kentuckiana region. Due to the
recent attacks on America they have also started a special Relief Fund for the
survivors and families in New York and Washington D.C. Please, when you see a Firefighter at an
intersection with a WHAS Crusade bucket or boot, have some change ready. Or visit http://www.whas-crusade.org/ to make
donations online.
Vol. 1, No.
28
10-23-01
Over the years we have answered numerous questions regarding Windows system resources, hard drive space and RAM. This is an extremely misunderstood area of how Windows works down at the gut level and has limitations (at least in 95, 98 and ME) that date back to the very first Windows program. Windows NT, 2000 and XP aren’t affected by these limitations.
Hard drive space and RAM are often confused and are the easiest to explain. The hard drive is basically a mass storage device like a really big floppy disk. All of your programs and data are stored here. When you start a program or open a file that information is pulled from the hard drive into RAM, where they will reside as long as they are open.
RAM is dynamic and totally electrical in nature. Things that reside in RAM can be accessed nearly instantaneously. Things that are stored on the hard drive are electro-mechanical in nature and depend on the speed of the motors that spin up the platters (the most appropriate description is to think of platters as extremely long play vinyl records where the music is transmitted to the stereo system by the stylus).
Sticking with the music analogy you can think of RAM as radio (you turn it on and instantly have talk or music) and the hard drive as an album, CD or cassette (takes a few seconds to get started).
Resources are a bit more
complicated. The available
resources that Windows reports represent the amount of unused space in 3
"stacks" or "heaps" of memory set aside to maintain "resource tables" for the
Operating System.
Each of
these memory areas consists of a scant 64Kb of RAM, so the amount of physical
RAM in your system, 32Mb or 512Mb, has no impact on system resources. Each
file you open, each program you open (and all the files related to those
programs), each new window or graphic you open will take only 2 bytes
each.
Adding
memory doesn't affect these "stacks" but it does affect your system's
performance. For instance Internet Explorer (at least my version) takes up
6% of my resources with my home page open. Not that big a deal. But
just the iexplore.exe file (one of many that are loaded to memory when the
program is launched) takes up 60Kb of RAM. Maybe a better example would be
if you scanned a picture at an extremely high resolution and saved it to your
hard drive. If that picture were 400Mb it would take 400Mb of memory to
open but only 2 bytes of resources.
That's
where performance comes into play. Once Windows runs out of RAM it uses
the hard drive to emulate memory. This is called a "swap" file.
Since accessing a hard drive is much slower than accessing an address in RAM,
using the swap file slows your computer's responses to commands down
significantly.
With
performance in mind, the more RAM you have the
better.
A great way to keep an eye on the resource use of individual programs is
a nifty little free utility called QuickResource available from http://am-productions.yi.org/downloads.php
. This tiny utility sits in the
system tray and displays System, GDI and User levels and allows you to monitor
resource levels to troubleshoot resource leaks.
Something to keep in mind is that programs that claim to “recover”
resources or “defrag” system memory don’t do any such thing. They simply blow holes in RAM without
freeing any resources at all.
Programs like MemMaker or MemTurbo do basically nothing to make your
system more stable.
One last explanation concerning RAM and resources: When programs load they drag all of
their vxd and dll files into RAM with them. Often when you close those programs the
various and sundry support files remain in memory, tying up valuable
space.
By default Windows allows this activity. You can add an entry to the Windows
registry to force programs to unload these files but editing the registry is
dangerous if you’re not familiar with what it is and what it does. I created a “registry hack” file that
will add it but be warned, I’ve only tested it with Windows 98 and ME. Use it at your own risk, and by all
means open the file with Notepad after you have scanned it for virii (it’s clean
but everyone needs to make this a habit) to see exactly what it
adds.
The link to download the file is www.users.kih.net/~kmefford/UnloadDLL.reg
. As I said, use it at your own
risk.
To bring this to an end, I know that some of you will send me email
telling me that I’m incorrect in some of my descriptions, examples or
explanations. I realize this. I tried to make a difficult subject as
simple as possible and I took some shortcuts. This newsletter’s mission is to make
computers easier to understand and, much like Bob’s light bulb analogy,
sometimes we tweak the facts a bit to get the point across. While not technically correct they are
realistically correct. This is
Computers 101, not Visual Basic 505 ;)
Kevin Mefford,
Editor
Download
of the Week
Two Free
Downloads
Each of these
programs has been mentioned before, but we have so many new subscribers to the
84Online Newsletter that I thought them worthy of another
article.
Still one of
the most downloaded programs on the Internet, ZoneAlarm is a free software
firewall that is consistently rated as the best
available.
ZoneAlarm is
designed to protect your DSL or cable-connected PC from hackers. This program
includes four interlocking security services: a firewall, an Application
Control, an Internet Lock, and Zones. The firewall controls the door to your
computer and allows only traffic that you understand and initiate. The
Application Control allows you to decide which applications can and cannot use
the Internet. The Internet Lock blocks Internet traffic while your computer is
unattended or while you are not using the Internet, and it can be activated
automatically with your computer's screensaver or after a set period of
inactivity. Zones monitor all activity on your computer and alert you when a new
application attempts to access the Internet.
ZoneAlarm 2.6
features a new tutorial, improved color-coded Alerts with ratings and advice, as
well as enhanced online help. ZoneAlarm 2.6 also has "hardened" security at the
operating system level to safeguard users from the latest forms of Internet
sabotage and includes improved intrusion blocking. Version 2.6.357 features
improved advice for every alert, support for Windows XP, improved stability, bug
fixes related to Windows NT and SP6A, blocking for uncommon IP protocols, and
more.
Even though a
dial-up connection is dynamic, I still recommend ZoneAlarm because it will alert
the user if a trojan or some spyware should try to call home while you are
online. Get ZoneAlarm here: http://www.zonelabs.com/.
My second recommendation this week is Download Accelerator Plus. Download Accelerator is a download accelerator/manager that can increase download speeds by up to 300 percent. It features multi-server connections to provide the best possible performance from your dial-up or broadband connection. Download Accelerator can also recover from lost connections, computer shutdowns, and other errors. This program even searches for mirror sites to maximize your download performance. It integrates fully into Internet Explorer, Netscape (including Netscape 6.x), and Opera, supports proxy servers, features automatic hang up after download completion, download scheduling, dial-up configuration, an AlwaysResume feature that will resume broken downloads from servers that do not support resume functions, and more.
Even folks with
cable or DSL connections can benefit from this fine free download. Get it here: http://www.downloadaccelerator.com
.
Art Maley
Mac Tip
of the Week
Burning Music CD's on
OSx
With iTunes it is easier than ever to burn music CD's. Insert your music
CD, select the songs you want to import, and click on the Import icon on the top
right corner. Remember to go to iTunes -- Preferences, and select AIFF Encoder
under the Importing tab (the default is MP3). Now pop in a blank CD-R, drag and
drop your songs from the Library or your Playlist (if you created a separate
one), and burn the CD.
I have noticed that some music CD's burnt on iTunes don't play on older
audio CD players, even though the CD plays fine on the computer. To fix this
problem, and to avoid making a lot of expensive drink coasters, go to iTunes
--> Preferences and click on the Advanced tab. Change the burn speed from
"Maximum" (default) to something slower such as 4x or 2x. My experience has been
that the slower the better, but obviously at 1x speed it would take you an hour
to burn a full 700 MB CD-R. Burn and enjoy your collection of songs. You may not
be able to do this in the near future.
Hash
Email of
the Week
Q: I just downloaded NET2PHONE and tried to use
it, but I could not transmit audio, I could hear (receive) OK. I have
a HP Pavilion 6644F. When I talk on the mic the audio comes out on the
speakers, it does not go out to the called party. I have a cable modem
with @HOME service.
A: You need to tweak a couple
of settings to get this thing to work.
First, double
click the speaker icon in the SysTray on the lower right side of your
desktop. Next, put a check in the
box marked “Mute” under the microphone control.
Next, begin changing the
volume level of the microphone until your called party can hear you without
feedback or an echo.
I have found that using a headset with these type applications is the most efficient. You can get a decent headset for around $20 at RadioShack or most discount stores.
If you don’t have the controls for the microphone in the Volume Control panel, click on “Options” in the upper left corner and put a check in the box marked “Microphone”.
Art Maley
If you have tech support
questions or ideas and/or submissions for our newsletter please email them to bob@iglou.com .
Copyright 2001, The 84
Online Team. All rights
reserved. Publication, rebroadcast
or storage is prohibited without prior consent, however you may freely forward
this publication to friends as long as A) it is forwarded in its entirety and B)
no fee is charged.
Information provided in this
publication is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind, either expressed
or implied. Although the
information provided is known to work on most systems, it may not work on ALL
systems. Make use of any
information supplied at your own risk.
The 84 Online Team is a
group of volunteers who provide support for the 84 Online radio broadcast. Team members are not directly affiliated
with nor employed by Clear Channel Communications or WHAS. Views and opinions voiced in this
publication do not necessarily reflect the views held by Clear Channel or
WHAS.
To unsubscribe from this
newsletter send a blank email to newsletter-unsubscribe@online.ucanweb.com
.