How do I speed up my computer? This is what I usually hear from any PC owners who are just frustrated with the slow computer performance they are experiencing. It may sound like a daunting task but with these five easy steps you can speed up your PC without needing to hire a computer technician. After reading this, you can finally say, I can speed up my computer on my own!

1. Delete unnecessary programs.

If there are programs you can live without, do not hesitate to throw it away. Here is what you should do. From the Control Panel of your computer, click the Remove Programs button to delete anything that you don’t really need.

2. Unload the hard drive of unimportant files.

Check for any data or information that should be deleted like cookies. Put your mouse pointer over Tools then click the Internet Options button. Choose General and remove all cookies.

3. Defragment your computer hard-drive.

It is just easy. Put your mouse pointer over the My Computer icon, then go to Local Disk. Just hit the Tools button and whatever steps that you will read from them, just follow it.

4. Confirm how much space you have in your RAM.

Multiple programs function properly if you have lots of space in your RAM. Otherwise, avoid opening too many programs simultaneously. The speed of your RAM will definitely increase if you do this.

5. Do a registry scan.

There might be errors or computer virus in it that affects how your Windows run. Get a high quality registry cleaning software from a trustworthy company. Scan your registry on a regular basis to identify any damaged or corrupted files hidden in it.

When facing slow computer performance, often people tend to upgrade their memory (RAM) capacity or buy new antivirus software. Although these can also be helpful to speed up computer functions, isn’t it more relieving to know that there are more affordable solutions? You no longer have to ask, how do I speed up my computer? You can also share these tips with a friend who is having similar problem.

Also Read: How to Speed up Your Windows 7 Computer

However, Google Voice isn’t coming to Google Talk, at least for now, because the focus was on the web integration. SMS is available in Gmail as a Labs feature, but isn’t part of this integration. It’s not rolling out in Google Apps today, but it will in the near future.

It’s not clear if Google Voice will be changing, or whether this new service is a completely separate offering. The user interfaces appear the same—for example, the same icons are used to label missed calls or placed calls — but Google Voice is not a VoIP service. Users of the new chat/phone call service aren’t required to have a Google Voice account, and calls placed to U.S. or Canadian numbers will be free, with discounts on international calls as compared to standard rates.

To get this new feature working, you’ll need to download install Voice and Video plug-in. Free calling is available for U.S. nationals to the U.S. and Canada for the rest of the year at least. Users based in U.S. can make calls to the U.K., France, Germany, China, Japan and many more countries at very low rates like $0.06/per minute (Rs. 2.80 approx.) right from their Gmail interface.

Google adds Phone Calling Option to Gmail; How it Works?

We wonder if this feature would be made available to Apple devices that use Gmail’s HTML5 based web interface. Google has already faced a cold war with Apple over Google Voice and we’re sure that all Android phones would be the first ones to get this feature.

If you’ve been wondering why Intel bought McAfee for this hefty price, the reasons could be many. Perhaps Intel feel that there’s good money in buying into a security firm, or possibly the acquisition paves the way to embed security software directly onto processors. Or maybe Intel just had the cash to burn.

According the statement issued by Intel, McAfee will continue to operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary, reporting into Intel’s Software and Services Group. Intel says the “acquisition enables a combination of security software and hardware from one company to ultimately better protect consumers, corporations and governments as billions of devices – and the server and cloud networks that manage them – go online.”

However, this deal, the largest in Intel’s 42-year history, sent off shock waves on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley because of a lofty 60% premium and worries that Intel is moving far beyond its expertise in designing computer chips.

“In the past, energy-efficient performance and connectivity have defined computing requirements,” Paul Otellini, Intel’s chief executive, said in a statement. “Looking forward, security will join those as a third pillar of what people demand from all computing experiences.”

The tech industry has been among the busiest for deal-makers over the past year, as the giants in the field have sought to deploy their big war chests to move into new sectors.

The deal is the latest in a series of mergers and acquisitions in the sector, including Dell’s $1.3bn purchase of data storage company 3PAR earlier this week. And has SAP has paid $5.8bn for Sybase.

With its McAfee purchase, Intel is gaining an entrance into the security tech sector, one that is expected to continue growing quickly. Based in Santa Clara, Calif., McAfee reported about $2 billion in revenue last year.

This stop motion film by Google explains (in a rather fanciful way) how Google Street View really works. It features a cute little robot puttering around town, taking film photographs and painting over license plate numbers with a marker. The video is part of an effort to make the practice appear less invasive of individuals’ privacy.

A Behind the Scenes Video from Google Street View labs.

While Google Street View is really neat, what I’d like to see more than anything is using these photos to enhance driving directions, as it’s often easier to spot an exit or street to turn on based on what it looks like rather than rely on tiny little green signs. Considering that the data has come from video footage, a quick highlight reel of turns wouldn’t be so bad either. At any rate, do you see Google as a Hungry Beast, which takes away your Privacy?

Google Wave was one of Google’s most prominent new services. Now it is one of its most prominent flops. The reason for it is quite obvious – not enough takers. Let’s be honest here, many users who have used Wave didn’t know why and what to use it for. Sure, it has some advantages but apparently not enough for an average consumer to see.

At the time of launch, Google described the tool as “how e-mail would look if it were invented today“. Google Wave combined e-mail, instant messaging and features that allowed people to collaborate on documents in real-time. Users could see edits and comments written by other “Wavers” as they were typed. As an avid Wave user, I would say that it was a powerful collaborative tool and was very good at what it did and I can think of many people and organizations who are going to miss Google Wave when it is gone.

“We don’t plan to continue developing Wave as a standalone product, but we will maintain the site at least through the end of the year and extend the technology for use in other Google projects.” — the official blog post read. The product was created by two brothers Jens and Lars Rasmussen, who were also behind Google Maps.

Unfortunately, many people who tried Wave complained that it was too hard to use or that they did not understand why they would use it. May be, Google wave was trying to do many things in a new way that people weren’t accustomed to. And while it may it have been great as a productivity tool, I don’t think Google pitched it well when they introduced it.

However, here is some consolation if you liked using Google Wave. “The central parts of the code, as well as the protocols that have driven many of Wave’s innovations, like drag-and-drop and character-by-character live typing, are already available as open source, so customers and partners can continue the innovation we began. In addition, we will work on tools so that users can easily “liberate” their content from Wave.” — the post went on to say.

So are you going to miss Google Wave — Google’s own collaborative tool that had so much of potential in it and yet ended up being a flop?

Speccy is an advanced system information tool designed by the same company responsible for the well known, and well liked, CCleaner (used to clean your computer), Defraggler (used to defragment your disk), and Recuva (used to recover deleted files). Basically, Speccy provides any information you would ever want to know about your PC in a simple, easy to use, interface.

Want to know what version of Windows you are running, when it was installed, and what your serial number is? Speccy has it! Want to know who manufactured your hard drive, what type of interface it uses, and what its current temperature is? Speccy has that too! In fact Speccy provides a succinct array of information on all of your computer’s most important parts: the CPU, RAM, graphics card, audio card, network card, and peripherals.

Not only does this fantastic little program provide you with a summary of a system’s components; it can also save a snapshot of this information This feature is valuable for both the computer novice as well as the computer repair man. Average computer users can take a snapshot before they take their computer in for repair to make sure their system isn’t modified in any way. Meanwhile, computer repair specialists can verify that they have, in no way, modified the system which they have been working on.

So enough about Speccy’s features and advantages; how does one setup and use it? Start off by going to the Speccy homepage and downloading the free application. Once it has been downloaded to your PC, install it and then run it. As soon as the program begins it analyzes your system and quickly fills in all of the information slots. From here you can select the appropriate menu item (located on the left side of the screen) depending upon which computer component you are interested in learning more about. Now, if you are ever interested in saving a snapshot simply go to the “file” menu and select “Save Snapshot”. The same goes if you wish to view a preexisting snapshot; simply go to the “file” menu and select “Load Snapshot”.

Next time you need some basic, or not so basic, computer information, go ahead and grab Speccy. Trust me; it’ll do most of the work for you!

On July 29, Neowin.net reposted some screen shots from what they believe to be a newly leaked test build of IE 9. That build includes a new download manager, but doesn’t yet feature the new user interface. For all of its improvements, there’s a good chance that Microsoft’s browser will have been surpassed by its competition by the time it finally ships.

The Web Developers are keenly waiting for the new browser. There is a significant improvement of Internet  Explorer 9 in comparison with Internet Explorer 8, with considerably improved standards compliance and functionality. The software giant has been releasing preview releases for testers and web developers. The basic idea is to  get the rendering engine correct before they put it in a useful interface.

This is a major update for the company as they are going to support a lot of new web technologies. This is going to make things easy for a lot of developers out there. One of the biggest improvements is expanded support for HTML5 and use of hardware acceleration. The stable edition is unlikely to arrive within this year though it would be cool if they can launch it by December 2010.

How to Play Flash Content on iPad Whether Steve Jobs Likes it or Not

Flash on iPad ? Steve Jobs says, “No, it can’t happen because flash is not meant for its touchscreen technology.” But he is proven wrong by a developer with his new program, the Frash. With Frash, he was able to run flash on an iPad. This is the same developer who brought us the Spirit jailbreak decided to port the mobile Flash plug-in for Android to Apple’s iOS.

He has managed to get Adobe Flash content to run on a jailbroken iPad, using a compatibility layer. He has managed this by porting Android Flash runtime to iPad. Comex is calling the port of the Android Flash runtime for the iPhone as Frash. The code is described as “extremely beta” and may not meet all the functionality of Flash on supported platforms, but frash has been demonstrated running Flash applications on the Safari browser natively.

Okay, so you have to jailbreak your iPad to use Frash. But if you don’t want to miss all those cool flash games, may consider jailbreaking the iPad. It may even work the same way on iPhone but only on the 3GS and iPhone4.

Video Demonstrating Flash Content Working on iPad’s Safari Browser

Frash won’t be able to address the issues that has prevented Apple from allowing Flash on the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch but it seems to be the best bet for users who are missing Flash.

The (iPhone 4) Problem: “The biggest problem is with the antenna, the fact that if the phone is held from the left side, covering the small black strip that will cause the phone to lose signal.  Some have dubbed it the “iPhone Death Grip,” and it seems to be a problem with just about every device.“

Apple’s Solution: “Users observing a drop of several bars when they grip their iPhone in a certain way are most likely in an area with very weak signal strength, but they don’t know it because we are erroneously displaying 4 or 5 bars. Their big drop in bars is because their high bars were never real in the first place.“

So supposedly, it’s a software problem with iOS 4 (and earlier versions), which Apple promises will be fixed in the next couple of weeks. Specifically, it has something to do with how the iPhone displays coverage and happens because, as per Apple’s claims: “iOS 4 (and earlier versions) erroneously calculated the formula which displays signal bars on the iPhone“.

This is what Apple said in a recent official announcement: “Upon investigation, we were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong. Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays two more bars than it should for a given signal strength. For example, we sometimes display four bars when we should be displaying as few as two bars. Users observing a drop of several bars when they grip their iPhone in a certain way are most likely in an area with very weak signal strength, but they don’t know it because we are erroneously displaying four or five bars. Their big drop in bars is because their high bars were never real in the first place.“

But that sounds rubbish when you consider that calls go through just fine when the iPhone 4 is placed on a table without any contact being made with the phone’s circumference, but calls drop when it’s picked up. If there really wasn’t any reception there whatsoever, neither call would go through. So basically this software update will display less bars in places where low signal reception is detected. But it will NOT stop your iPhone 4 (and earlier versions) from losing signal strengths if you hold it from the left side, covering the small black strip.

I don’t know whats more annoying – the iPhone flaw itself or the statement Apple released telling you to hold it a certain way. “Don’t hold it that way” huh? Blaming your customers for a product fault usually doesn’t end well. So it will be interesting to see how Steve Jobs digs himself out of this particular hole. Interestingly enough, Apple claims the miscalculation was present “since the original iPhone,” so the fix will apply to older generation iPhones as well. In any case, Apple has at the very least admitted that there is a problem and they’re working on fixing it.

The fix will come via a software update in the coming weeks, and will apparently show users that where they thought they had great service is probably an area with fairly weak service.  Of course, this doesn’t mean that gripping your iPhone 4 won’t degrade the signal, it probably will, but at least it won’t decrease dramatically according to what Apple is saying.

This release of Firefox 3.6.4 offers crash protection for Windows and Linux users by isolating third party plug-ins when they crash. Mac users have to wait a bit more to get this build made for Mac, though. Firefox 3.6.4 provides crash protection for several plug-ins like Adobe Flash, Apple QuickTime and Microsoft Silverlight etc. In FF 3.6.4, when a plug-in crashes, the user will be able to simply reload the tab. The browser (and the rest of your tabs) should remain untouched. Isn’t it amazing?  This would be real good stuff for the users who play online games and watch online videos.

Beta testing implied Firefox 3.6.4 to be a better and faster browser than its counterparts. It starts up a little bit quicker and it shuts down even quicker than before.

So yes, Mozilla team has done it again. They have given yet another gift to their 400 million fanboys/fangirls (users) across the globe. You have used Firefox before and what you have right now is a better, more stable and secured version of the Gem. So, what are you waiting for? Go for it. All Firefox users are encouraged to upgrade for free by using the “Check for Updates” function in the Help menu, or by visiting www.firefox.com.