I don’t have a fast PC. Its about 4 years old, and at 2.3Ghz / 1Gig Ram its pretty slow. Everything loads slow; multi-tasking often gives it angina, and having more than 10 tabs open on Firefox often pushes it into frank heart attack mode.

What I’ve discovered — through LifeHacker, natch, is that having thousands of fonts on your PC can be a top 3 reason why windows become laggy.

According to a study, “fonts” were sandwiched between Norton Antivirus 2006 and followed by Yahoo Instant Messenger.

So — I tried it out.

On my old crotchety PC, I removed about 1000 of my 1800 fonts, and my God, its like its been given a body-transplant!

According to the PCSpy article that LifeHacker is based on, 1000 fonts can increase system delay by as much as 40%! Well, I have no numbers to back it up, but subjectively all the animations are running smoother, programs open up faster, and quite frankly, there is a nice over all sense of well being that is difficult to describe.

Sort of like a Zen-like state. ;)

Of course, the great irony is that font-hoarding is the reason why I got a new PC 4 years ago; my old one was running Windows 98 (not even “SE”), and it literally stopped adding new fonts aftre about 400. It just gave me an error.

Word to the wise: don’t delete ALL of your fonts; some of them are kept on by default, but others may be otherwise critical to other programs on your computer (i.e. firefox, word for windows, notepad) — and it may make everything else look like crap. WHICH ones i’m still sorting out by trial and error. I basically deleted my 1000 oldest fonts (some dated back to 1995!) and kept the newest ones.

A few thoughts.

* its about 3 MB: pretty small for a windows app, until you recognize that it needs a .NET framework, which is 20MB and is a pretty slow install. Since .NET (as I understand it) is a library of functions that a program can use, the ’3MB install’ is a bit misleading

* its fast: this is true; it loads quickly (ONE MISSIS — *) and it closes quickly. It uses not a heck of a lot of resources as well.

* there are tutorials: man, the existence of tutorials are so important it cannot be overestimated. Not only do the tutorials show you how to do “stuff”, but it also illustrates what the program is capable of

* its limited: if you’re used to Photoshop, there’s a learning curve, as I’m learning myself. There are quite a few things that are similar (layers), and others that are not (no blending options?!)

Now, I’m talking from the point of a ‘web designer’, and not a photoshopper here (so I’m not going to talk about “RAW” capability — although it has none, or the ability to get rid of red-eye and so on).

But the more and more you go through the tutorials, the more you begin to wonder — is Photoshop making me “lazy”? Because to do relatively easy and “built-in” functions such as a gradient fill in and shadows take multiple steps, or require separate scripts(!) to do transparency tricks. Answer: “no”. Rather, Photoshop has gone through multiple iterations to include a few really useful tools … that Paint.NET doesn’t seem to have (correct me if I’m wrong here, folks).

As with all things in life, there’s a trade off here – but for relatively simple tasks, once you’ve installed the .NET framework, its a quick program to do some quick tasks. Because its limited in other features, I wonder whether or not its worth the while to change tracks and learn another kind of program if you’ve already got Photoshop.

I think the real usage of this program is in doing small tasks, perhaps repetitive tasks that don’t require the horsepower of Photoshop or GIMP. No sense in using a Buick to swat a fly, as I always say. For example, personally, I’ll be using it to create my smarmy captioned photos that accompany my posts … but, uh … little else. ;)

Paint.NET — its not Photoshop, but its not trying to be either.

UPDATE: Not sure if its because I’ve installed hundreds of fonts on my PC, but any time I try and change the “font” it S-L-O-W-S down to an unimaginably boggy pace while it loads them up. Hmmm … Paint.NET goes to one thumb up.

I’m a bit of a tech-nut/ geeked-out-spaz, so I’ve often thought about a VOIP service as an alternative to our current almost-monopoly here in Toronto Canada (Bell, now Rogers as well).

I mean $39/ mo with unlimited calling and lots of free extras sure as hell beats our current bill every month (almost double that). But having said that, VOIP isn’t for me — and may not be for you either.

Here are my reasons.

1) 911 service is a bit crippled: Vonage has tricked out its service with a 911 feature — although this clearly has some severe limitations. Namely that the operator cannot physically trace your call unless you stay on the line and tell them. Well, I think we can all think of some emergencies where you might not have that luxury (say, for instance, getting a stroke where your ability to talk has been impaired) to either speak on the phone or grab a cell phone.
2) Dependency on your Internet connection: Assuming you DO have a broadband connection, what happens if your connection goes down? Or if there’s a storm and the power goes out? Hmmm — perhaps that might qualify as an *emergency*? Well, you might be up the creek for two reasons. One is listed in reason one, but the second is that since the power’s out you just won’t have a phone if something happens or your need help.

3) The Buzz-through Line Won’t Work in a Condo: If you live a house, ignore this one. But if you live in a condo or an apartment consider this: to let people into your condo you’ll often have to press a key on your current line when they “buzz” up. Well, most condo’s “call-up” feature is hardwired into the phone cables lining the entire building. If you’re on VOIP there is no way that it can “talk” to your VOIP line. If you’re a hermit this isn’t a problem; but if you like having people over, it might be.

I recognize that it might be feasible if you’re one of those people who only have a cell phone.
Or, just don’t have emergencies.
Or, would like to use Vonage (or its ilk) strictly for long distance calls — let’s face it $40/mo *can* be a bargain (in Canada) if you make enough calls. And the ability to travel around the world with one phone number is kind of cool.

But for me … eh.
I’ll stick to my landline and Skype (free) until I see a real difference to move over completely.
Besides, as Chris Pirillo mentions, if Vonage is anything like Skype, I’ve noticed the same thing he’s kvetching about: When my PC is doing some processor intensive stuff, like downloading, or a virus check, or turning on, or stalling because I have too many tabs open in Firefox, signal quality can suffer in a way that already makes me want to tear out my hair by its glossy raven roots. So I guess that’s reason #4) Dependency on your PC to a degree.

If its not done right, there is a noticable difference … d/l rates can go from 5kbs –> 100kbs if done right.

Currently using uTorrent: great, because its small footprint (compared to azureus), and ease of use.

There is another post on this topic somewhere (I may have to actually input into this system!) but my tips goes as follows

1) Make sure that the network IP is correct!
a) Start –> Run –> cmd –> “ipconfig”
b) Determine the ip for this machine
c) 192.168.0.3 is the most common one
d) It will dynamically change if your computer reboots.
Go to NetRouter, and change the port forwarding so it recognizes the computer you’re operating from …
… that is, give THAT ip address!

2) For uTorrent anyway — UNDO the “uPNP”
a) For some reason uTorrent tries to automatically “map” the port, which  may not be as effective as “port forwarding”, therefore (since it does this trhough upnp) UNDO this!

Have tried this with Darren, Dorothy and Jason, all to great success so far.

NB, you can even “forward” a file once you’ve “sent” it once, saving you the bother of ‘uploading’ it or ‘packaging’ it.
However — the uploaded file only stays valid for about 14d, otherwise you’ll need to do it again.

1600DPI, 5.8MP, 6400+ FPS capture, 16Bits, high motion dettection 40 inches per second

Also note:

“Razer was not only one of the first to be bold enough to release a 1600dpi mouse, but have taken it a step further with the plasma and have added the first ever infrared optical sensor for optics powered by Razer Precision.? Yes, that means it is invisible.? No more red glow emanating from the bottom of the mouse.? The bottom features some rather large Teflon feet for smooth tracking on any surface.”

Reviews:
http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/razor_diamondback_mouse_4.php

http://www.extrememhz.com/dbplasma-p1.shtml

Logitech Z4 — 80watts or 40watts each.

The last one was getting all crackly and stuff.

I think it was because I have started playing half-life 2/ counter-strike source agian … maybe the sound of guns going off or something.