Friday, October 3, 2008

Peter Costello on The Conversation Hour today at 11am

ABC Local Radio Brisbane.

The interviewer is Richard Fidler. He says he's not going to ask about the Prime Ministership because it's been done to death.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

OT - newsblog sites like Tim's and Andrew's crash my browsers - IE, firefox mozilla, now I'm Google Chrome but it doesn't matter - I can't navigate local news blog sites for more than a few minutes without freezing and crashing. I've given up bothering. I used to visit Tim's old timblair.net for hours reading the comments, and blogspot are no problem at all. Bolta's always froze. I got updated software (I'm running windows XP) and seems alright for a while but then the prob comes back.

It's all the ads. I probably need more RAM, but why bother for only 1website?

kae said...

Hi Bruce
It's a pain in the neck. When Tim first moved over to the Telly site a lot of people were having their computers crash or using up their CPU but we told him and he got rid of a lot of crap off the site.
Some sites owned by papers automatically update (refresh), which is a pain when you're reading a long, interesting item, or a long thread - and they don't need to, you can do it yourself,
I'm a bit of a luddite when it comes to the operation of the whole net/computery thingie. Some I get, but most I don't need to. Someone might have a fix for you, I'm sure they'll let you know if they can think of a fix.
You're welcome to come here and waste some time... ah, hang around and relax.

Wand said...

Bruce,

I'd guess the problem you may be having lies in your computer and it could be any one of a number of issues. Windows gradually clags as it writes registry keys, creates temporary files etc etc which over time slow the computer down.

The main system that I have is pretty well state of the art with large amounts of RAM (now 4GB - upgraded last w/e), Windows XP, dual Athlon 64 processor, all on a local network of four computers behind a common firewall to broadband cable. It all works quite well but even with this system and all the software that I run it started to slow earlier this year.

The solution that I had to the problem was to install (and purchase) and run regularly a suite of programs by Uniblue.

In addition to a normal defrag process of hard drives, these programs clean up the registry, allow a registry defrag, can speed up your pc as well as erasing spy software.

I found that by systematically running these programs to clean the registry, defrag the registry, speed up the pc, run spy eraser as well as a normal defrag the hard drive(s) and empty all trash that all speed issues have been solved.

BTW as a primary browser I use Firefox and Thunderbird as an email client. I run McAfee virus scan but in a very limited way as I prefer to vet all emails before downloading from any server.

I use most of the standard setting for Firefox and I don't block popup windows at present as the few that open are no problem. If I decided they were a problem I would just block them.

Generally Tim's and Bolt's blogs are no problem to open but occasionally they are slow. When that happens I usually go elsewhere.

Hope this narrative has been of assistance. BTW, I've 'fixed' slow speed problems of computers used by several family members using the Uniblue software where the solution previously would be to reload the operating system.

kae said...

Hi Wand
My computer, an almost new Dell Dimension 9150 with all the multimedia whistles and bells, got very slow within 18 months of first using it. I had trouble with the ISP and Dell palming me off when I had a lot of probs with the internet connections not working, first it'd be the Web, then it'd be skype, I'd have to shut it down and turn it on (soft reset). And the computer kept getting slower and slower. Eventually out of sheer frustration I reformatted the computer and reloaded all the goodies (well most of them). It worked like a charm, but the connection was still cutting out to one or two of email (from a special server), skype and/or access to the www.
Finally fixed that when Dell and I got on the phone to my ISP, Dell said "Reset your router". I did. ISP had to help me then.
Fixed.
Prior to reformatting I tried defraging but it didn't work.
It's slowing down again... perhaps I need to get that thing you suggested, Wand!

kae said...

oops, left out a g.

However, def-RAGEing is probably a better way to spell it. It certainly annoyed me.

Skeeter said...

Hi Wand.
Does the Uniblue's registry clean-up require any decision-making by the user?
I recently bought and installed RegCure in an attempt to stop a rash of crashing when using a particular DVD burner. Most reviews gave RegCure top rating but it seemed to make my problems worse.
I have no idea how the registry works so my only option is to accept all the registry cleaner's suggestions and let it do all the cleaning.

Anonymous said...

skeeter,
"I have no idea how the registry works "

It is a simple storage area (a database) for all your programmes' and operating system's settings.

There are two schools of thought about the registry, clean it or leave it alone!

Those who sell cleaning utilities say CLEAN!
Those who don't, say leave it alone.
I'm firmly in the latter group.

Same for de-fragging, modern hard drives work just fine without it
(unless you do an awful lot of installing and uninstalling programmes and I mean a LOT, the same goes for the registry)
and in extreme cases you can do more damage than good.

What does slow down a PC is the huge TEMP files you can accumulate, absolutely no danger to clean out (delete) the contents of the Temp folder
The ones in use you won't be able to delete anyway.

The other bottleneck is the browser history files, and internet temp files.
I use Firefox3 and I set it that it automatically deletes history files when I exit firefox, can't see any detrimental effect on browsing by doing this. (Same for private data in Firefox, the setting is found on the screen under Options/Privacy this is a permanent setting, or Clear private data in the tools menu clears immediately but you have to do it again)

Try the Temp files first, the one in the Windows folder, a well behaved PC shouldn't have more than a handful of files in there, at any time.

Orion

Wand said...

Hi Skeeter

The programme allows you to see the errors that it has found and then you can accept any or all of them for clean up. The simplest approach is to accept all errors and allow the programme to clean the registry. You will be asked to make either a full or partial backup of the registry prior to the registry cleaning process.

The programme also allows you to defrag the registry.

One feature that is quite nice is that you can scroll through the errors found to see what they are. When I first ran the programme it found hundreds of errors. Now I run it about once a month and for the record I just looked at the programme summary to see that it has fixed 2885 registry errors to date. I use this computer for my business and it gets a lot of work - it is (was) state of the art less than two years ago so that gives you an idea of the rate at which the registry can clog.

Minicapt said...

What's a Registry? asked the OS X user ...

Cheers

Wand said...

minicapt

Apples to you ...

A nice machine but not immune from a few issues too...

Anonymous said...

minicapt,

No,
OS X doesn't have a centralised registry but all the bits and pieces that are in a Win. registry exist in Apple, but scattered around in the application folders and in the /Library/Application Support/ etc.

When you think you uninstalled an app. in Apple, by dragging it to the trash, you only get rid of some of the working bits, lots of other stuff is left behind.

OS X has it's own problems, you just maybe lucky, or you don't do anything too adventurous.

If a Widows user would do the same he/she would not have too many problems either.

I am not defending Windows by any means.

As for Bruce and NewsLtd sites, even my old laptop, which is just a Pentium III with 384 MB of ram has no problem connecting, so there must be a problem with your PC.
Hard to diagnose, from a distance what the problem is.

Orion

Minicapt said...

Not to get on a high horse, but not bloody likely ... and I've used OS X for more than a few years. You might want to look up someone with relevant experience before you proffer mis-advice in the future.

Cheers
JMH