Steve Liddle's Tech Pages

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I used to rely on some nice sites for tech info and then find that they have been wiped and / or under construction again and the information sort of lost :(, so the information here will be added to every now and then.

Google Chrome & Blocking Adverts

Found firefox was great, but started to notice it was getting slow and crashed now and then, downloaded google's chrome and realised how bad the adverts had gotten, so found a site that mentioned privoxy

Download and install Privoxy.
Click on the Wrench icon in Chrome in the upper right corner.
Choose options>Under The Hood>Change proxy settings.
In the Internet Properties dialog's Connections tab, click on the LAN settings button.
Check off "Proxy settings" and in the address setting add 127.0.0.1 and in the port 8118.
If you have the option, you can also check off "Bypass proxy for local settings".
Click "OK," close Chrome and restart it.

It lets some adverts through, but the speed of the browser and minimal adverts are ok

Optimize your PC:

Win XP Remember to do a system restore first, XP needs at least 256 MB of Ram, but 512 MB should be minimum otherwise you can have performance issues.

Error Reporting does nothing useful and is a Microsoft feedback program, so disable it:
Control Panel > Performance and Maintenance > System > Advanced > Error Reporting > Disable Error Reporting > OK > OK .

Before playing a big game or application, remove idle tasks by typing in the Run box: 'rundll32.exe advapi32.dll, ProcessIdleTasks' (leave out the speech marks).
This frees up processor time for the game. You will only have to type this once, use the down arrow to reselect the command next time.

Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs > Add/Remove Window Components > uncheck 'Indexing services' > next. This is a huge resource drain and only needed on networked machines sharing hundreds of files. XP runs scores of 'services', most of which are not needed as above. Start > Run > type 'services.msc' > OK and set the services in the table below to 'manual', not 'automatic' (double click the service name) (windows will now start the service if it really IS needed when a program YOU launch asks for it, and NOT run it at start up just in case...)

Alerter Application Management Background Intelligent Transfer Service ClipBook
COM+ System Application Distributed Link Tracking Client Distributed Transaction Coordinator Error Reporting Service
Fast User Switching Compatibility IPSEC Services Logical Disk Manager Administrative Service MS Software Shadow Copy Provider
Portable Media Serial Number QoS RSVP Remote Desktop Help Session Manager Removable Storage
Smart Card Helper SDP Discovery Service Secondary Logon Smart Card
Task Scheduler Themes Volume Shadow Copy Windows Image Acquisition (WIA)
Windows Time Wireless Zero Configuration



Background Programs: The windows firewall and can be enabled / disabled as per:-

To configure Internet Connection Firewall manually in Windows XP or Windows XP SP1:
Click Start, click Run, type control.exe netconnections, and then click OK.
Right-click the connection on which you would like to enable ICF, and then click Properties.
On the Advanced tab, click the box to select the option to Protect my computer or network.
If you want to enable the use of some applications and services through the firewall, you must enable them.
To do this, click Settings, and then click to select the programs, protocols, and services that you want to enable for the ICF configuration.

I heard that the current estimations are of about 30 mins for an unprotected Win XP connected to the net to stay virus free, so have found that the free AVG 7 virus killer from Grisoft is worth using.
Combine this with a free anti intrusion detection program called PrevX Home which helps to stop unauthorised files from installing themselves seems to stop most problems and a personal firewall called Outpost Pro.
However due to recent problems, am trialing NOD Virus killer and Trojan Hunter. NOD managed to pick up some viri form stuff that other programs suggested were infected, AVG suggested it was fine. No longer using AVG :)

Regular scans of at least monthly with an adware and malware detector can clean the hard drive of "added value" programs that some people seem to find installed on their PC from surfing mostly adult sites, again it is free and called Lavasoft Ad-Aware.

Common Ports and what they are used for can be found here.

Some sections taken from the long departed Black Viper and others from Brother Gedeon