performance
Work
“Vacuum Places Improved” Speeds Up Firefox With One Click
8:00AM Adam Pash | Firefox only (Windows/Mac/Linux): On Monday we showed you how to speed up Firefox by vacuuming your fragmented database regularly using a copy-and-paste Error Console command. Sounds like a pain, right? Vacuum Places Improved handles it for you with a mouse click. More »
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Make Firefox Faster By Vacuuming Your Database
6:00AM Adam Pash | Firefox tip: Firefox 3.0’s Awesome Bar added all kinds of features to the ‘fox, but unfortunately it’s also created some performance issues—for example, by upping the default history time, leading to larger, fragmented databases. This quick hack speeds things up. More »
Work
12:00PM Angus Kidman | Testing your own site’s loading time doesn’t need much more than a stopwatch, but if you want to see how your site measures up against rivals, Webslug could be a handy option. More »
Webslug Rates Your Site’s Loading Time Against Others
12:00PM Angus Kidman | Testing your own site’s loading time doesn’t need much more than a stopwatch, but if you want to see how your site measures up against rivals, Webslug could be a handy option. More »
Work
Windows 7 Beta Boasts Sub-30 Second Boot Time
11:40AM Gina Trapani | The latest Windows 7 beta offers an even speedier startup than its predecessor: for me the beta boots to a fully functional desktop in under 30 seconds, faster than the preview. More »
Work
1:30PM Angus Kidman | Over at APC, I’ve looked at some of the techniques which Microsoft is using to punch up performance in Windows 7. Many of these are familiar as means of improving the responsiveness in Vista and earlier Windows versions, such as minimising the number of services loaded at start-up and not running unneeded software. However, some changes — like loading device drivers in parallel and letting graphics processors take on a prominent role — can’t be readily replicated on older systems. Doubtless Windows 7 will eventually develop its own mythology about performance tweaking (any user tweaks on the current M3 release can’t be taken too seriously since so much of the user interface is still to be implemented).
How does Windows 7 improve performance? [APC]
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Windows 7 Performance Secrets
1:30PM Angus Kidman | Over at APC, I’ve looked at some of the techniques which Microsoft is using to punch up performance in Windows 7. Many of these are familiar as means of improving the responsiveness in Vista and earlier Windows versions, such as minimising the number of services loaded at start-up and not running unneeded software. However, some changes — like loading device drivers in parallel and letting graphics processors take on a prominent role — can’t be readily replicated on older systems. Doubtless Windows 7 will eventually develop its own mythology about performance tweaking (any user tweaks on the current M3 release can’t be taken too seriously since so much of the user interface is still to be implemented).
How does Windows 7 improve performance? [APC]
More »
Work
Why TraceMonkey Is Going to Blow Your Web Browsing Mind
9:30PM Kevin Purdy | There’s a lot about the next iteration of the open-source Firefox browser to be geeked out about. From private browsing modes to tab preview panels, from punchier colours to really smart session restoring, there’s been a lot of thought put into how people want to use the web. But perhaps the greatest promise in Firefox 3.1 is the one most users won’t see at all—a serious overhaul of the browser’s JavaScript engine, newly christened as TraceMonkey. If you don’t obsessively follow the Mozilla developer’s blogs or read insider tech news, you might have a few questions about TraceMonkey—like, say, what’s different about it, how much faster is it, why that matters, and how you can try it out right now. We’ve compiled a primer on TraceMonkey’s features and uses, as well as how to experience it. Read on to see what’s new under the hood in the upcoming Firefox. Graph via Brendan’s Roadmap Updates. More »
Work
Windows 7, Vista, And XP Bootup Benchmarks Updated
5:00AM Gina Trapani | Last week we timed the Windows 7 Preview, XP, and Vista’s startup times on a single PC triple-booting the three generations of operating system. However, our tests had their flaws, we made a big boo-boo by not including Vista’s SP1 in the mix, and you all suggested ways to make them more thorough and accurate in the comments. Taking your lead, we evened up the playing field, installed the Vista service pack, added a set of tests that take Windows all the way to a fully-loaded user desktop, and updated our numbers. Turns out that the Windows 7 Preview is indeed faster than both Vista and XP, but not at all by the margin we originally published. Get our updated numbers and test details here. More »
Fix
Speed Up Linux Hard Drives By Disabling Atime
12:10AM Kevin Purdy | The Hackosis blog notes a contentious conversation thread between Linux creator Linus Torvalds and a programmer who finds that disabling the atime option, which writes a last-accessed time to every single file that’s accessed by a Linux system, nets some significant performance improvements. If you don’t use any defragmenting or mail-watching apps (like mutt) that rely on atime, you can at least try out disabling atime, and switch back if something goes wrong. Read on for simple instructions on how to do that on a Linux desktop. More »
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Microsoft’s Advice on How to Speed Up Vista
11:00PM Gina Trapani | If your Vista PC isn’t as speedy as you’d like, straight from the horse’s mouth comes a 14-page PDF document on Vista Performance and Tuning. Microsoft’s suggestions include customising Vista’s power plan, sleeping the machine instead of shutting down, turning off search indexing in folders you don’t need it, disabling visual effects, using ReadyBoost to add extra memory with a thumb drive, and disabling unneeded startup programs and services. All of these tips are old hat to seasoned Windows tweakers, but this PDF is a nicely-laid out and detailed package you can easily email to your brother-in-law. Windows Vista Performance and Tuning [Microsoft Download Centre via gHacks] More »
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