The 80kb Solution

tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5361389041945562785.post-88245715792341452582008-04-13T05:58:00.000-04:002008-04-13T05:58:00.490-04:00The 80kb SolutionI get a lot of questions from everyday people wanting to know why their computers run so slow. Most of these people are using Windows XP and are just general users. More often than not they are just using email and browsing the Internet. I've even noticed my computers from time to time seeming to bog down. One of the challenges we face is power. What's that old saying? Power corrupts and Absolute Power corrupts absolutely. We run into the same situation with our technology. In the old days (I started in the computer field in 1980), core memory was expensive and not very available. When we wrote mainframe applications we had to justify any memory use over 80kb. Eighty kilobytes - you can't even find text files that are under 80kb any more. And when I say 'justify' I mean that we basically had to admit why our programming skills were insufficient enough that we couldn't figure out an 80kb solution. Granted, those were green screens and print-outs rather than GUI's. But that is part of the challenge we face today. Every time we gain processing speed, disk space, or memory through some advance in technology we immediately slow it back down by expanding the graphical imagery of a thousand additional features. Most of what we look at on the computer screen today is entertainment more than information. There is probably a law out there that explains this - something like: Features expand to tax all available processing power. Until we figure out who might have said it, we'll simply refer to it as the Hillpond Rule. In a way, it is just a technological reiteration of "An idle mind is the playground for the Devil." Anyway, I'll jump down off my soapbox for the moment. For now I'll just say that there is an obvious need out there to be able to clean up all of this 'stuff' that is clogging up our computers. I'm going to see if we can identify some ways to help you do that. I've seen a few applications advertised lately geared towards "cleaning up Windows" or "Optimizing Windows." There seems to be quite a need out there. So, over the next few weeks, I am going to publish some ideas on what the average user can do to help their personal computer run a little (or maybe a lot) more smoothly. Stay tuned.Hillpond Consultinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15715096533480278912noreply@blogger.com