Use Google Maps to save destinations before you drive

A less common way to improve PC performance - A Hard Drive upgrade

Hard drives are classic bottlenecks, and they definitely slow down computers. But whether you can significantly open up that bottleneck depends on the speed of your current drive, how many available drive bays you have, how much storage space you need, and how much money you're willing to spend.

You effectively have three options (four if you include leaving things as they are). You can buy an SSD, buy a faster hard drive, or set up a RAID. If you are familiar with a RAID, then you already know what to do, thus making this article moot, if not, send me an email to discuss further.

A Solid State Drive (SSD) gives you the fasted storage currently available. By my own casual tests, replacing a 7200RPM hard drive with an SSD improved performance by 41 percent. I'm not talking about the speed of the drive, but of the computer overall.

So what's the downside? When you consider the price per gigabyte, SSDs are outrageously expensive. With a very quick glance at prices, I found that I could buy a 500GB hard drive for $55, but an SSD with the same capacity would put me back more than $300.

If you don't need that much space, SSD prices seem much more reasonable. You can buy a 128GB SSD for under $100. But that's not much comfort if you need significantly more storage than that.

There's one very elegant solution, but it requires having an spare drive bay in your PC. With a desktop, that's common. With a laptop, it's rare.

Rather than replace your hard drive with an SSD, augment it with one. Make the SSD your drive C:, installing Windows and your applications there. A 128GB drive should be plenty for that chore. But keep your libraries--documents, music, photos, and so on--on the hard drive (now drive D: or E:). I've seen this improve performance almost as much as putting everything on the SSD.

If an SSD isn't practical, consider investing in a faster hard drive. If you're current drive isn't spinning at 7200rpm, you might want to replace it with one that is. Or you can buy a hybrid drive. These use a small amount of flash as a cache, speeding up the drive.

Neither of these solutions will speed up your PC anywhere near as fast as an SSD.

A Word of caution...a new computer may not solve your problem

I frequently get some customers who have issues with their computer and inevitably I hear, "I'll just get a new computer".  Well, for some issues, a new computer will do you no good.  I had one customer who purchased a laptop call me up to complain about continuous requests from Java to update.  She mentioned that maybe it was time for a new computer.  Now if your computer is 13 years old (like a recent customer), often you do not need a new computer.  Constant updates to programs are a given now, regardless of how old your computer.  You buy a new computer, Java still will bombard you with update requests.  A slow Internet connection, it may be the computer, but most likely it's not.  Do not get me wrong, a new computer is great, but do not automatically assume that whatever problem you are experiencing will disappear simply because you purchased a new computer.  Check your behavior first.  Bad Internet habits will infect old AND NEW computers.

Yes, some websites are slower than others...it's not you

You can't set a clock by your Internet download speed. A great many factors make one page faster than another. And a great many other factors can make the same page fast one day (or hour) and slow the next.

Most of these variables are completely out of your control. But it's still worthwhile to understand them.

First, there's the page itself. Pictures take more time to download than text, and large pictures take more time than small ones.

A well-written page--and I'm talking about code, not text--will take less time to load than a poorly-written one.

And then there's the server. That Web page exists on some computer--a server--somewhere on the Internet. How fast is that server? And how many other pages is it sending out to other people at the same time? Your computer slows down when you're running too many programs. So does a server.

What's more, the Web page probably didn't exist on the server before you requested it. Most pages on the Web are created by a database query. The query speed is another potential bottleneck, especially if you have a slow or overloaded server.

Then the page has to get from that server to you. To do that, it goes through several additional servers, and the cables connecting them. Any one of these could be overloaded or in poor condition.

What can you do about it? Not much. If most pages download quickly, improving your own Internet connection is unlikely to help the slow ones.

But here's one thing you can do. If a page seems to be taking forever, cancel it and try again. And if that fails, try again in an hour.

Hint Everyone: Microsoft will not call you to help you fix your computer....ever!

Consumers: Hang up on anyone who cold-calls offering Windows technical support, never believe an Internet pop-up that reports your PC is infected with malware, and, above all, don't ever install software from an untrusted source who offers to rid your PC of viruses, perhaps for free.

If people followed those precepts, they'd avoid the hassle and expense of scammers out to make a quick buck. But Microsoft technical support scams continue to be alive and well, sticking victims with bills of between $50 and $450 for security smoke and mirrors, or sometimes perpetrating financial fraud that costs far more.

According to a 2011 Web survey of 1,298 people conducted by British consumer rights watchdog Which?, 3% of respondents said they'd allowed scammers to log onto their PC and 2% gave them money. Interestingly, 3% said they weren't sure if a technical support cold call had really been a scam or not.

Here's a hint: Cold callers offering tech support advice are scammers.

For some of the more common scams, check out the article under What's New

Windows Blue is officially Windows 8.1, now is it any better?

Speaking at JP Morgan's Media & Telecom Conference today, Windows CFO Tami Reller revealed that Windows 8.1 will be the official name for Windows Blue. The confirmation is not surprising given its presence in recently leaked builds, and it follows Microsoft's previous promise that developers will be able to install a Public Preview version of Windows 8.1 in late June.

Microsoft will offer Windows 8.1 as a free update to existing Windows 8 users through the Windows Store. The software giant is expected to detail the full improvements to Windows 8.1 at its Build developer conference in June. Early builds of Windows 8.1 have shown that Microsoft is aiming to improve its Start Screen interface and bring changes to accomodate additional screen sizes. OEMs are expected to release a number of 7- and 8-inch Windows-powered devices in the coming months ahead of Windows 8.1, with a big push this holiday season.