Mac: Weblog Mac OS X Hints reminds us that when your computer’s running slower than it should, sometimes complicated maintenance isn’t the answer — cleaning up the desktop could be the solution.
We all have good days and bad days at work. It’s easy to get caught up in the bad and lose confidence on the job. To help boost confidence on those days, workplace expert Lynn Taylor suggests keeping a kudos file of your achievements on hand to remind you of your accomplishments.
When my browser (Chrome, in this instance) gets its hands on a particularly meaty Flash object, the Shockwave plugin responsible goes absolutely haywire trying to render the thing at the fastest possible speed. Which is a good thing, I suppose, except when it completely dominates the CPU and causes my notebook’s temps to sore into the 70°C range. Thankfully, there’s a way to keep hyperactive threads under control.
We’ve explained before that task killers rarely improve performance on Android phones, and the same is equally true of iOS devices. Blogger and education consultant Fraser Speirs offers a well-explained summary of why shrinking the number of apps on your multitasking bar won’t help extend iPhone battery life: because it’s a list of apps you’ve run recently, not apps that are running right now.
Lifehacker reader Stuart Bowden made himself more productive and got better performance from his iPhone 3GS with a simple email tweak. It’s a tactic to consider even if you’ve got a much newer phone.
Hi Lifehacker, I recently bought an Asus U31SD, and one of the things that I love about it is the 10-hour battery life. How can I keep my battery in good condition for as long as possible? Am I better off keeping it plugged in whenever I’m near a power outlet? If I do unplug it, should I try to run the battery flat before charging again? There’s a lot of conflicting advice out there regarding battery care. Thanks, All Charged Up
Every version of Windows comes with its own promise of an improvement in boot times, an issue where PC performance still varies widely. For Windows 8, the secret sauce will be a combination of hibernating and traditional booting.
We’ve seen that wireless alternatives don’t readily measure up to the NBN, but even if you are lucky enough to actually have an NBN connection, the equipment you use can make a major difference to throughput. Blogger and PC gear distributor Raaj Menon tested 10 routers on his trial NBN connection in Willunga, and found that ASUS and Apple gear delivered the best performance.
