You just hit the power button your PC, and now you’ve got enough time to fetch coffee for the entire office—because that’s how long it takes for your computer to go from “on” to “ready to work.” If your PC’s bogged down by a bunch of programs that automatically start up when it does, it can take forever to get started every morning. Without a major hardware upgrade, there’s not much you can do to cut the time it takes for Windows to actually boot—but you can trim and tweak the amount of time it takes for your desktop to get to a working state. Let’s take a look at a few ways you can cut your Windows’ desktop’s loading times using built-in utilities and third-party tools.
DIY home web site FineHomebuilding has a nice guide demonstrating how to wrap large cords and hoses for clutter-free storage while avoiding twists and kinks. With a medium-gauge cord, for example: I drape the line back and forth over my hand until I have a few feet left. Then I tie off the bundle with the remaining cord and create a loop to hang it with.
The post itself has more detailed instructions for medium- and heavy-gauge cords, along with air hoses. If you’ve got a preferred method you stick to when wrapping your large extension cords or hoses, let’s hear it in the comments. Wrapping cords and hoses [FineHomebuilding via Apartment Therapy]
DilbertFiles is a new paid file-sharing service from the creator of the delightful workplace satire, Dilbert. The problem: The service doesn’t offer one free account, and even the pay accounts are overpriced for personal use. So unless you think a measly 1GB of storage, 250MB of transfer, and a few mild chuckles are worth $US10/month (minimum!), I suggest you check out our Hive Five Best File-Sharing Services. [via]
Windows only: Ever update your system through Windows Update or install a new piece of software, and when the process completes, your system automatically shuts down or reboots? Of course you have. It’s annoying, right? Free application ShutdownGuard addresses this problem by preventing Windows from automatically shutting down, rebooting, or logging off without confirmation. Each time it prevents a shutdown action, you’ll see an alert in your system tray asking if you really want to shutdown. If you do, click the alert. If not, just keep on keeping on. The lightweight ShutdownGuard is a free download, Windows only. ShutdownGuard [via Download Squad]
