Enter SlimComputer, a free program that aids everyone in improving the performance of the Windows operating system. The program concentrates on removing software and disabling services to improve performance. Software in this regard includes trials and toolbars among others.

The program displays its main screen on startup. Here you can select the items that you want scanned on your computer. All are pre-selected by default and all you need to do is to click on the Run Scan button to scan the PC.

The results are displayed in a tabbed interface. Available for selection are Applications, Toolbars, Startup Items and Shortcuts, but only if items have been found during the scan that may be removed.

It is here that users come into contact with the program’s rating system. All users are allowed to rate programs on their computers. These ratings are accumulated and used in the program’s scan of the computer.

Ratings range from unwanted (red) to good (green). This plays right into the scanner threshold that users need to configure on first startup. It is always possible to change the threshold in the settings.

Applications, toolbars, startup items and shortcuts can be selected for removal. This triggers the default Windows uninstaller in the case of installed software.

SlimComputer creates restore points for uninstalled programs and changes that are made to the system so that they can be restored at a later point in time.

The program displayed three Security Updates for Microsoft .NET under Applications which should not be removed, obviously. Not sure if it is an oversight or one of the negative sides of a user based rating system.

The second feature of the program is its Optimizer. It uses the same rating system for all startup items so that it is relatively easy to optimize Windows based on the suggestions. It is still necessary to look at each item before it is removed, considering that what others may not want in their startup may be what you need after system start.

Services, strangely, are not making use of ratings. Two buttons are provided in the menu to restore the original settings and to super charge the services. There is no information on screen that explains what super charging the services does. It is likely that it will disable services that are not needed by the majority of users. A third button is available to undo the optimizations.

The third feature is an uninstaller. It taps into the standard Windows Uninstaller but displays ratings for all items on screen, which can be very helpful for users to determine if an application is unwanted by the majority of users.

All items have a more info button next to them which displays an items popularity, ratings in detail, description, comments and company or developer. These more info links are available in all listings.

There is also a Windows Tools section that links directly to Windows system tools like System Restore, Security, Hard Disk Manager or the Registry Editor.

It is possible to add a public VirusTotal API key to the program which then enables a virus scanning feature.

SlimComputer’s biggest advantage is the rating system which aids users in the decision making process. It is on the other hand not enough to rely on that solely, considering that it is user based and may offer suggestions that are erroneous at worst.

The PC optimizer is compatible with all 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Windows operating system. Additional information and downloads are offered at the developer website.

The program is developed by the same company that has created the driver updater Slimdrivers and the PC maintenance software SlimCleaner.

Whilst disk space is no longer seen as a problem, considering 1GB only costs about $0.20! However, I find it an issue on my MacBook where I only have 120GB of space and it can’t easily be expanded.

Finding hogs could be quite a task. Naturally, trawling through every directory is impractical, so automated tools must be used to find large directories and files. Software exists on most major operating systems to graphically show which folders are large and how large they are.

In 2005, gHacks reported about WinDirStat. This is freeware that shows how big directories are. WinDirStat displays everything in the C:\ (etc) drive, colour coded for the first level directory (eg Program Files or Windows), and on tiers below that it is divided as blocks. This is a easy to use visualisation. WinDirStat runs on all Windows operating systems from 95 (w/IE5) to Vista!

An OS X alternative to WinDirStat is Disk Inventory X. It is essentially identical to WinDirStat. GrandPerspective is another essentially identical option.

Linux users can choose between KDirStat or Baobab.

Another option is JDiskReport is a Java-based piece of software which analyses disk usage using pie charts. Presumably this will work on Windows, OS X and Linux.

Boot Timer is currently only compatible to Windows NT, Windows XP and Windows XP 64-bit editions but the author promises to make it compatible to Windows Vista in future updates. To use Boot Timer simply double-click the executable and the application will automatically display a popup after the next computer restart that displays the boot time of the system.

This is a great utility for users who want to optimize their boot time.There are several possibilities to reduce the boot time of a PC. I do not want to get into all of them but here are a few tips on how to reduce the boot time:

• Remove Fonts that are not needed anymore
• Remove Startup Programs that start with Windows
• Change Bios settings
• Compress the Windows Registry

Got any more tips, let me hear them !

This is of course a far better method of compressing the registry which is why I decided to write an article about NTREGOPT. Just run the software after downloading and installing it. It will automatically check and compress the registry displaying information about the reduction at the end of the process.

As you can see the size of the optimized registry is about 5 Megabytes smaller than the size of the unoptimized registry. The registry files have been replaced during the system boot which is far more comfortable than having to boot into DOS to give the restore commands manually.

Read More:

NTREGOPT

The following list consists of links to excellent freeware utilities that can be used to optimize and test your operating system. The list is divided into the categories benchmarkingand hardware tweaks. Benchmarking tools can be used to test the system before and after applying a tweak while the hardware tweak category links to programs that aid you in changing settings in the system.

Please feel free to add any utility that you are using or would recommend.

Benchmarking:

• 3D Mark 06 Basic Edition – This tool is clearly aimed at gamers and provides some stunning visuals during the tests. You need to have excellent hardware to be able to enjoy the tests though.
• Cinebench – Tests mainly the cpu and OpenGL capabilities of a computer and available for Windows and Macintosh.
• HD Tune – A program that is benchmarking your hard drives and offering a way to compare results online.
• PC Mark 05 Basic – Another utility from the makers of 3D Mark with a focus on the complete system and not only gaming performance.
• Prime 95 – Prime 95 is an extremely popular freeware used by overclockers world wide. It can be used to make sure that your system runs stable after tuning for instance the RAM settings.
• Sandra Lite – Sandra Lite tests the whole system and offers a way to compare the results with those from other users.
• SPMark Basic – Testing the Java performance of your operating system.
• What CPU – CPU Benchmark, CPU MHz and CPU type identifier.

Hardware Tweaks:

• Atitool – a utility for overclocking Ati graphic adapters.
• Atuner – A program to tweak settings on Radeon, Geforce and Quadro graphic adapters.
• Fast Defrag – I was not sure if I should add this link because I personally do not like Ram cleaners.
• NiBiTor – if you want to change the bios of your Nvidia graphics adapter you should be taking a look at NiBiTor.
• Notebook Hardware Control – Utility that aids you in reducing the power consumption of your notebook plus more.
• Rivatuner – I’m using Rivatuner to reduce the speed of the fan of my Geforce 6600 GT card. It is almost silent in 2D mode and only speeds up when I play games. Works also with Radeon 8500+ cards.
• Speedfan – Manage system fan speeds with this utility and monitor temperature levels.

Users with T1 connections, that is 1.44 Mbps would have to wait 9.28 seconds. The figures are of course only valid if they do not use part of their download speed for other transfers at the same time. The first thing that I decided to do was to enable gzip compression in the WordPress options in the reading tab. Before I enabled it I did a quick check that my server was actually able to gzip by using the simple phpinfo() command.

I tested the result and the page size went down almost 35%! It went down 58K to 108K total. The time users with ISDN had to wait before the full page is loaded was reduced by almost 4 seconds from 18.55 seconds to 14.80 seconds. The loading time for T1 users was reduced by 0.51 seconds to 8.77 seconds in total.

I still did not apply the optimization that Paul suggested and that is what I intended to do next. His suggestion was to gzip compress the css file as well to reduce loading time even further. I found a reference to a nice WordPress plugin in the comments of his post. The plugin is called css-compress. It just has to be activated in the plugin tab in WordPress. The advantage of using css-compress over Paul’s method is that css compress compresses all css files even those of third parties such as those from advertisers or other plugins.

Another check reported that the total size of my blogs frontpage was again reduced by almost 10k from 108K to 98K. Loading time was again reduced by 1.17 seconds for ISDN users and 0.65 seconds for users with a T1 connection.

I was not able to witness any negative effects on my blogs design, the functions or server load. Sure it uses a little bit processing power but this should only be a problem for weak shared hosts.

You can check the loading speed of websites using the nice script available at website optimization.