Windows Tools, Help & Guides

Operating systems have become more complex over time. For an every-day user, it’s really a hard task to find what programs are slowing down their machine and for what reasons.

The most common performance problems are related with physical memory.

As I wrote in a comment answering a reader, Ben, in another post:

5 Things You Should Know About Microsoft Security Essentials

Programs use more RAM (another name for physical memory) if there is more available. Thus, you cannot associate high memory usage with bad memory usage. If your machine has resources (one of these resources is RAM), there is no problem using them if they’re available for use. But what about when you hit the limits of your physical memory?

What can an every-day user do to find out if their machine is using all of it’s current physical memory and, therefore, needs more RAM?

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If you have been a regular reader here the last 6 months you have undoubtedly read many interesting articles and reviews. Some of which you thought: “Hey, that may come in handy one day, I’ll have to remember about that one”. If you are a new visitor here, you have no doubt missed out on many great programmes. Reading through all the 127 pages containing some 1200 articles will take time.

I have compiled a list of some of the software reviews that I’ve done and which I think deserves a new moment in the spotlight. Where possible I have checked to see if there have been updates and improvements since last.

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We recently launched our suggestion box (Read about it here) where we ask you to help us improve our site, and to come up with suggestions as what articles to write. In response to that Bert H. asked us to write: “A clear and concise explanation about RAM. A lot of my co-workers are clueless about what it is, what it does, and why upgrading is simple.”

RAM the story behind…

RAM (or R.A.M) is an acronym for Random Access Memory (pronounced ramm). This is, your computers short time memory, which temporarily stores important data or information while the computer is working. In the early days of Computer Development, all data and information had to be stored on magnetic tapes in reels. In order to retrieve the data, you had to rewind the tape to the beginning and then search through the tape until you found the part needed. With RAM you didn’t have to do that anymore. The CPU (Central Processing Unit, or the number-crunching part of your computer) could access “randomly” parts of the memory, without having to search through the entire thing. RAM is organized and controlled in a way that enables data to be stored and retrieved directly from specific locations. Which of course saved a lot of time and energy. Thus making the computer faster and more efficient.

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If you’ve moved from Windows Vista Ultimate to Windows 7 Ultimate, you may have noticed some games have been cut from the mix.  Most notably, Hold ‘em.

Microsoft intends to release Hold ‘em through Games for Windows as it did for Tinker but for those of you who can’t wait, here’s a way to get Hold ‘em working on your Windows 7 system.

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Not too long ago we reviewed a PDF solution suite called Foxit Phantom PDF. The developers of Foxit later announced a competition, giving away 3 full licenses to the product. I have just received word from The people behind Foxit Phantom PDF suite. They have picked their winners. .

Foxit Phantom PDF suite

This program is the ultimate Acrobat Competitor.

• Review Here

So Who won ?

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We know you love to win stuff here on Mintywhite – and we love to give stuff away. At the moment we have two competitions running.

Don’t miss out on these great opportunities.

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