Firefox is a great browser. It is the first to give Internet Explorer a run for its money. According to W3Schools, Firefox has over 40 percent of the browser market. This is due in part to its usability, flexibility and speed. Although Firefox is a fast browser there are ways to make it even faster. We will show you several ways to maximize Firefox’s performance.

Disable History Cache

Every time you visit a page Firefox saves the page so when you press the back button the page will display right away. To disable this type “about:config” in the address bar. Do a search for browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers. Double-click on browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers and change the -1 to 0. Remember that this will slow down how fast pages come up when you press the back button.

Only Keep the Extensions You Need

When you have a lot of extensions in Firefox your computer needs to load the extensions to memory for when needed. The fore extensions you have, the more Firefox becomes. Go to Tools the Add-ons. Remove the extensions that you are not using. There is a possibility that one extension is causing the problem. To see if this is the case, start Firefox in safe mode. Go to the run command in Windows and type “firefox.exe –safe-mode”. Once you click on OK, Firefox will start without skins or extensions.

Change the Number of Connections

The more connections you have going out for information the faster the page will load. To increase the amount of connections Firefox uses type “about:config” in the address bar. Find and change the following:

• content.interrupt.parsing - true
• content.max.tokenizing.time - 2250000
• content.notify.interval - 750000
• content.notify.ontimer - true
• content.switch.threshold - 750000
• nglayout.initialpaint.delay - 0
• network.http.max-connections - 48
• network.http.max-connections-per-server - 16
• network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-proxy - 16
• network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server - 8
• browser.cache.memory.capacity - 65536

When done restart Firefox and check out the difference.

That’s it for this one. With these three tips, Firefox should lean and built for speed. There is a lot more you can do to tweak Firefox. These are a few of the big ones.

Bittorrent is the best way to download large files over the internet. The benefit is for both distributers and downloader’s. Distributers can deliver their content through bittorrent at high speeds at a low cost. For downloader’s, bittorrent is a flexible and fast way to get what you want. There are so many variables that determine how fast your download will be. In this guide we will show you how to get things moving as fast as possible. Please note that tuning your bittorrent speed is a trial and error process.

Understand what your ISP has to Offer

A lot of people don’t know that your internet service provider has more that is involved with your connection than is advertised. There is more that everyone should know about their “High Speed” connection. First off does your ISP throttle certain types of bandwidth? Your ISP may be trying to conserve bandwidth by slowing down bandwidth intensive applications. There are some ways around connection throttling but the best way to not be throttled is to switch to a different ISP. Second find out how much your ISP will allow you to download. Some ISP’s have a limit. Usually a download cap will be 100GB to 250GB. Both of these measures are in place to discourage software piracy and conserve bandwidth for other services.

Understand What Your Router Can Do

Have you ever wondered why your internet connection will drop when you are downloading using bittorrent over a home network? Bittorrent works by making connections with several peers at once so you can download without using up all of the bandwith of one person. With that said when you use bittorrent, your computer will make a lot of connections to the internet. When you make so many connections through your router. Your router will not be able to process all of the requests and crash. Most routers have a limit as to how many connections it can handle. Consult your vendor for the information on what your router can handle. When purchasing a new router find out how many connections it can handle. With that information, set your bittorrent client with the proper maximum number of connections.

Know What Your Operating System Can Do

Most new operating systems are really efficient in the networking department. When working with an older operating system like Windows XP you may need to make some changes to how Windows XP manages network traffic. Consult websites like www.broadbandreports.com to learn how to increase the number of connections your operating system will allow. (Windows XP will only allow 10 at a time) If you have DSL changing the operating systems MTU settings will make a difference.

Choose the Right Torrent Client

Different clients have different features. You want a client that is full of features, is efficient and uses little resources. I recommend Utorrent for Windows and Azureus for all other platforms. After installing your bittorrent client, be sure to limit your upload speed to less than half of what your internet connection can upload. Also limit the number of connections to the amount that your router can work with.

Find the Right Torrent Files

Bittorrent works better when more people are downloading the same thing you are. Look for torrents with a high number of seeds and peers. A seed is a person who had downloaded the item and stays connected to share. Peers are people who are downloading and sharing.

That’s it. There is so much to learn about bittorrent. Achieving the best possible connection is really a trial and error process. Hopefully this article gives you a good start.

What is a PC speaker?  It is a small speaker located inside a majority of desktops and laptops.  In the early days of computers these where the only source so sound from your computer.  In the late 1980’s computers started to have dedicated sound cards that produced much better sound.

Even today there still a use for the PC speaker.  It is primarily used for diagnosing hardware issues with a computer.  Some application developers still use the PC speaker for notification of an event.  If that event happens often it can get quite annoying to hear the beeping all day.  Here is how you can disable the speaker in Windows without modifying any hardware.

To Temporally Disable the PC Speaker

Go to the run command in the start menu.  In the run command type “net stop beep”.  Then click on OK.

To Permanently Disable the PC Speaker

Go to the run command in the start menu.  In the run command type “net stop beep”.  Then click on OK. Then go back to the run command and type “sc config beep start= disabled”.  Then click on OK.

That’s it.  You will never have to listen to the beeping again.  Just a note, if you are not the administrator of that computer you may not be able to perform this action.  It depends on your permissions.

Windows is an excellent environment for gaming. The flexibility of a PC offers so many ways to play games that consoles just cannot match. The only problem with a PC is with regular use your system will overtime become sluggish making the games you play run not as well as they first did. Here are some tips to get your Windows PC running up to speed.

Choose the Right Driver

Too many people make sure they have the latest driver from their hardware vendor. When doing so you risk using software that may conflict with your favorite game. It is best to go to the vendor’s site and see what they recommend for that particular game. Also do a Google search and find out what other people are suggesting. Why do the work when someone else has done it for you.

Remove Start up Items

The more programs you have running in the background the less resources your game has to use to run as smooth as possible. Go to the start menu then select run. In the run dialog box type “msconfig”. Select the Startup tab. In this tab uncheck the items that you know you don’t need to startup every time you boot your computer. Once done click on OK and restart your computer. If you have an undesired result just go back to run command in the start menu and type “msconfig”. In the startup tab put a check mark back on the program that is having problems.

Clean up the Junk

Make sure that you only have the programs that you will use installed on your computer. Remove the unwanted programs through Add/Remove programs.

Defragment

Sounds pretty basic huh? Well the faster your game can access the data it needs the better the game will perform.

Check the Network

If you are playing a network based game like World of Warcraft. Make sure you are using the fastest connection possible. If you are on a wireless network, consider a wired network. Also make sure that other computers in the home are not running network intensive applications as you are all sharing the same connection.

All of this is really simple and there is a whole lot more you can do. These are a few simple ways to make your gaming that much better.

Now that kids are growing up with the internet available to them kids are starting to show interest at a younger age. Even my son who is younger than 10 wants to go onto websites that will allow him to play games while chatting with his friends. As a parent that concerns me. The people he is talking to may be there to cause harm. Also whatever your son or daughter does online you are liable under the law for. So what does a parent do? We all are not computer savvy. Here are some tips to help you parent your kids on the web.

Learn More

Like in any activity it is best you know what your kid is doing and the computer is no exception. Sit down with your child and watch what he or she is doing. Get your kid to explain what is going on. On your own time, do some research for yourself. There may be some things that your kid either forgot to mention or doesn’t know about.

Keep in View

I am completely against kids having a computer in their room for two reasons. Keeping your computer in a high traffic area will encourage your kid not to hide and spend time with the family. Second, you are more available to spot trouble that your kid may not know he or she is in.

Talk to Your Kid

Have a conversation with your kid what your expectations are. Advise them that the rules on the internet are the same as in your home. Let’s be honest. Everyone (including children) are a little more brave on the internet.

Monitor and Block

Everyone should have monitoring and blocking software on their computers to reduce the potential of bad content coming in. All it takes is misspelling a word and your child may end up at an adult site. There are great software packages out there that will monitor every website your browser goes to and blocks the bad sites. I recommend K9 Web Protection. It is easy to setup and use. It will have everything you need and even has more features than Windows Vista’s Family Safety software. You can get K9 for free at http://www1.k9webprotection.com/.

Social Networking

Many teens are using Facebook and Myspace to communicate with their friends. There is so much that these sites are good for but a teen can get in a whole lot of trouble in these sites as well. It would be unrealistic to expect you’re teen to stay off as he or she would just go to a friend’s house to access those sites. I recommend being a frequent reader of your teen’s profile. Know what’s going on. You can even approach your teen asking if you can be their friend on the site.

With all these tips you will have the situation under control. There is a little bit of learning involved to the whole process. Look at it this way. You have the opportunity to learn while protecting your kids. It’s a win, win situation. For a whole lot more information visit http://safekids.com/.

The Linux operating system has experienced huge growth in the past few years. With excellent stability. flexibility and the free price tag. People are realizing that Linux is a great alternative. Just like Windows, users would have to learn how to use Linux. Linux developers have taken note, and have come up with several ways to allow people to try Linux without getting rid of your Windows installation. Here are a couple of ways you can get a taste of what Linux has to offer.

Live CD

Linux distributions like Ubuntu offer a feature called Live CD. Live CD allows you to boot off of the install CD instead of your hard drive. All you have to do is burn the CD, keep it in your CD drive when booting your computer and press the option to boot from CD. Now each computer is different so consult your PC manufacture for instructions to boot from CD. Once booted you will be able to use almost all of the functionality of the Linux distribution that you have on CD without impacting your Windows installation. There are two drawbacks: You cannot save your settings once you turn off your computer and the operating system tends to run slow because CD drives access data slower than hard drives. If you like what you see you can install to your hard drive from the live CD. Get more information at http://www.ubuntu.com

Wubi

Wubi is great. What Wubi does is creates a virtual hard drive in one folder stored on your Windows partition. Then Wubi gives you the option to boot into Windows or Linux upon booting by changing your boot record. Installation is easy. Just download the install file. Select the install path and what install of Ubuntu you would like. That’s it. Once complete you will have the option to boot into Linux or Windows. If you want to remove Linux just go to add/remove programs and uninstall Wubi. That’s it. No mess. There is a small risk of damage to your boot record but I have never seen it. Check Wubi out at http://wubi-installer.org/

Virtualbox

Virtualbox is really cool. Virtualbox is a piece of software that you can install in Windows and Linux that will allow you to emulate another operating system while running another. For example, if you use Windows you can install Virtualbox and install Ubuntu then run Ubuntu in a small window or full screen while being able to use everything in Windows. I hope that makes sense. The only drawback Virtualbox has is it runs slow because it has to share system resources with your host operating system. So you won’t be playing any games while running Virtualbox. If you want just learn this is a great solution. Once you are done you can close up Virtualbox to free up system resources. For more information go to http://www.virtualbox.org.

That’s it! You have three free ways to get your feet wet with Linux. If you like Linux give it an install as your main operating system. There are too many things to explore with Linux to fit in one article. I recommend trying out Ubuntu.

Internet Explorer has been in a features arms race with Firefox for a while.  More and more people are switching to Firefox because of its speed and stability.  A big reason people still use Internet Explorer is it is the first browser that a new user will see so they become familiar with it..  If Internet Explorer did not ship with Windows it would not have the amount of users it does.

If that new user wants to use Internet Explorer but wants to give their browsing a speed boost.  Here are a few tips.

If you Don’t Need a Proxy Don’t Use One.

 A proxy server is used if you have a slow connection.  If you have a high speed connection you usually don’t need it.  Here is how you remove it.  Go to tools and select Internet Options. In the Internet Options click on the Connections tab and press the LAN settings.  Just remove all of the check marks, click on OK.

Get Rid of 3rd Party Toolbars

Some software companies have learned that there is money to be made by installing their software branded toolbar.  The problem with these toolbars is when installed they take up bandwidth and computer resources while you browse the internet.  To remove the toolbars you don’t need, just identify the toolbar and remove it for add/remove programs.  If it is not listed in add/remove programs it may be spyware.  You will then need to scan your computer with your favorite spyware/malware software.

Increase the Amount of Connections Internet Explorer uses.

By default Internet Explorer only uses 10 simultaneous connections to download content from a webpage.  Here is how you can increase the amount of connections. Open notepad and paste the code below in it.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings]
“MaxConnectionsPerServer”=dword:00000020
“MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server”=dword:0000020

Save the file by clicking save as, change Save as type to All Files, name the file speedup.reg.

So there you have it.  With these few changes you can really change the performance of Internet Explorer.  If you want a completely better experience give Firefox a try. You won’t be disappointed.

Welcome to JuicyTek.com!  Your number one stop to get the most of your tech gadgets.  You will find everything here.  From computers to cell phones, Ipods to game consoles.  We will talk about your favorite tech and maybe even teach you a thing or two.
So while saying hello to the world we thought it would be great to talk about the history of the “Hello World” program.  The hello world program has been a programming tradition for years.  It serves two purposes:

• Beginners to a programming language can learn the syntax. Its best to learn anything by starting small.
• Experienced programmers to test a development and runtime environment.  Many programming languages require additional software to build and run a program.

So have you ever wondered what the hello world program would look like in a number of languages?  Well while researching this post I found the most incredible site showing the hello world program any program language we could think of.
Here it is: http://www.roesler-ac.de/wolfram/hello.htm