How to boost Windows Vista speed

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Windows 7 with its commendable performance improvements may be on the horizon. But for now, most of us have to live with Windows Vista, which can make even the fastest computer seem slow. But you don't have to put up with Vista's sluggishness without a fight. In fact, most of what ails Vista when it comes to performance can be remedied by adjusting some settings and eliminating some features. And the good news: The whole process need not take more than half an hour. Afterwards, you'll be rewarded a computer that feels a lot faster. Turn off window animation Mail to friend Vista went overboard with window animation -- the almost slow -- motion visual effect that occurs when you minimise or maximise an application. Whether you think the animation is cool or not, it's indisputable that it slows you down -- or at least it seems to. Luckily, turning off window animation is possible, and doing so will not affect other types of interface animation that you may enjoy in Vista. Open the Windows Control Panel, click System and Maintenance, Performance Information and Tools, Advanced Tools from the task pane at the left, and then click "Adjust the appearance and performance of Windows". A user account control dialog box will prompt you, and you should click Continue. The Performance Options dialog box will open. On the Visual Effects tab of the Performance Options dialog box, you have four choices: "Let Windows choose what's best for my computer", "Adjust for best appearance", "Adjust for best performance", and "Custom". "Custom" is followed by a list of individual check boxes that allow you to determine exactly which visual effects you would like to turn on or off. To start, click "Custom", and then remove the check mark next to the "Animate windows when minimising and maximising". De-activating that option will make your applications and other windows snap into and out of view immediately rather than gradually. Changing this setting alone may be enough to make Vista feel snappier for you, and you could stop there and see how you like the change. Go to 'Adjust for best performance' Mail to friend If you're working on an underpowered or a really old machine and want to configure Vista's interface so that it uses a minimum of system resources, simply select the "Adjust for best performance" option. Doing so will remove virtually all of Vista's interface enhancements, but it will reduce the load on your computer. If you want to get rid of all of Vista's fancy - but resource zapping - visual niceties, you can revisit the Performance Options dialog box and turn off a few more of the effects. Turn off UAC (User account control) Mail to friend User account control (UAC) is supposed to keep you safe from malicious software. But the penalty is that at every turn, you're prompted to provide Windows permission to carry out some action -- from deleting files to installing applications -- that you specifically requested. It's an annoyance. You probably lived fine without UAC for many years. Plus you also likely run antivirus or anti-spyware software that keeps a lookout for possible harm. Then why not just turn UAC off? It's easy enough to do. Open the Control Panel, and click User Accounts and Family Safety. Then click User Accounts. From the resulting User Accounts screen, click "Turn User Account Control on or off". On the next screen, remove the check mark from the box labelled "Use User Account Control (UAC) to help protect your computer". Click OK. You'll have to restart your computer, but once you do, those annoying UAC prompts will be gone Optimise indexing feature Mail to friend Whether you like Vista's new indexing feature or not, you can optimise the way it works or disable it altogether. Open the Vista Control Panel, and click System and Maintenance, followed by Indexing In the resulting Indexing Options dialog box, you can control which drives and folders get indexed by clicking the Modify button. Click Advanced to specify which file types are indexed. Limiting the drives, folders, and file types that are indexed will reduce the amount of time that Vista spends indexing, and it will therefore reduce the overhead required by the indexing feature and consequently speed up your computer. Making the few interface and operational tweaks here typically allows Vista to perform on a par with Windows XP. And for now, while the world waits for the even snappier Windows 7, that's probably good enough. --IANS

World's 10 worst passwords

MELBOURNE: '123456' is the most common password used by people on the Internet.


Obscenities, names of fast cars and even ncc1701 -- the ship number for Star Trek's Starship Enterprise, have made it to the list of top 500 worst passwords of all time.

Compiled by Whatsmypass.com, the list features passwords most commonly used by Internet users.

And topping the list of the most common password is 123456, followed by "password" in second place.

Other popular password choices were first names, repeated letters and numbers, pop-culture references.

Even batman, bond007 and cocacola made it to the list, reports the Courier Mail.

The website said that almost one out of nine people use at least one of the passwords mentioned on the list, and one out of every 50 people use one from the top 20.

In fact, a study commissioned by digital communications agency @www found that an average adult had as many as 15 passwords to remember.

But 61 per cent of people used the same passwords for as many different accounts as possible in order to make life easier.

$6 bn govt projects for IT cos

NEW DELHI: The country’s information technology industry is turning its gaze inwards, as a dearth of new contracts in its core western markets e
xposes the soft underbelly of a sector long viewed as a habitual growth monster.

While there is a slump in demand from cash-strapped global customers for new technology services, the home market is increasingly looking good for these IT players, with contract sizes matching the ones available overseas.

And there seem to be quite a few big deals up for grabs, many of them from the government departments taking their baby-steps in embracing any form of technology.

The government departments have plans to spend $6 billion in 30 so-called “mission mode projects”, and there’s promise of more to come, as the federal and state governments embrace e-governance and look to digitise everything from land records to tax filing. There are scores of the government projects that relate to the filing of income-tax, central excise, transport services, computerising municipalities and the police force and developing e-district and e-courts.

Companies such as TCS, HCL and Wipro have won significant government business in recent months, and industry officials speak of the government contracts on offer ranging from as small as Rs 100 crore to multiples of Rs 1,000 crore.

Infosys has recently bid for a railway project related to creating a Locomotive Management System and ERP implementation, a project to create a billing system for BSNL and another contract from the defence forces.

Yet, a lot of the government business appears good only on paper, and is often hamstrung by a tardy pace of decision making. “In the government projects, there’s a start date but no end date,” said Tanmoy Chakrabarty, VP & head of government industry solutions unit of TCS, the largest software services company by revenues.

Nasscom’s vice-president Rajdeep Sahrawat illustrates the time taken by the government to approve projects by citing the example of the Passport Seva project to digitise passport records, which took the ministry of external affairs almost three years to conclude. TCS eventually won the Rs 1,000-crore project.

”The domestic market is growing at 20%, thanks mainly to the large government contracts. But three years is the typical time frame for project approvals,” said Sahrawat of Nasscom.

Others like HR Binod, services VP & head of the India Business Unit at Infosys Technologies, noted that it normally took at least 12-18 months for the government contracts to be awarded compared with about 1-2 months for private sector contracts.

Many others complain about the T1, L1 rule for the government projects, which stipulate contracts only go to companies that offer the best technology solutions at the lowest price. This means that the lowest bidder gets the work.

Further, in most the government contracts, separate teams look at the technical aspects and the pricing aspects of a contract, which delays decision making.

“People on technical committee are not on price committee. And for larger contracts (say over Rs 1,000 crore) approvals can take much longer,” added Binod of Infosys Technologies. But the government officials defend the decision-making process, arguing that many of these state-awarded contracts had complexities not normally associated with other contracts.

“It involves complexities. Some projects require even legal changes. Then there is an extensive vendor selection process,” said R Chadrasekhar, special secretary at the department of information technology, adding that in a few cases, an extensive selection process for vendors was required to ensure the smooth implementation of projects.

But for now, the sector has little choice to but to take it on the chin, as it braces for slower growth of less than 15% during the next few quarters.

Industry body Nasscom has already pegged the growth at under 17%, down from about 21-24% just a few quarters ago, making the prospect of business from any new quarter particularly alluring.

“It takes longer to get the government business, but from a relative perspective India has been unaffected by the slowdown. PSUs (public sector undertakings) and the government spends are on track, deal sizes are on the upswing,” said Kiran Bhagwanani, senior VP, India & Middle East at HCL Technologies, which recently won a seven-year, Rs 393-crore project from the National Insurance Company to roll out a new IT application across the company’s operations.

How to turn your iPod into iPhone

I try to keep a stiff upper lip about not having an iPhone. Just couldn't afford it -- not with the $75 a month or so AT&T charges for service on top of the $199 upfront cost for the device.

I could, however, afford the $229 iPod Touch -- and got it as a gift, as it happened. It has most of the same goodies: a Web browser, email, YouTube. And it stores way more music than the iPhone. Plus, the other day I used it to call China.

Yup, a call around the world -- on a device that doesn't have a phone. A handful of applications on Apple Inc's iTunes store will let you do this, as long as you're in a Wi-Fi hot spot.

My iPhone complex hasn't disappeared, but at least now I have a device that looks just like it, has no monthly service fees, and lets me make free or cheap phone calls.

The best part of these applications -- which require the second-generation iPod Touch that came out last year -- is that they are free to download, and calls to other people using the same app won't cost you anything.

Two of the services I've tried, Truphone and Fring, will also let you make free calls to Google Talk users and type instant messages to friends online. Both automatically queue up a list of buddies from different services you might have, including Gmail chat, AIM and MSN Messenger, once you log in.

But it's Truphone's pay feature that puts it ahead of the others. TruPhone charges you to make calls to landlines or regular cell phones, but generally at better rates than most wireless carriers. And it's upfront about what you pay.

Your balance -- which you can add to with a credit card, either on the device or on your computer browser -- pops up with the dial screen. Calls in the US are all 5 cents per minute (2 cents if you sign up to pay a $4 monthly fee).

Rates outside the US vary wildly but you can check in the application before you dial. To call cell phones in China, for instance, is only 5 cents per minute, while France is 25 cents. Antarctica? A whopping $2.25.

You can make regular calls with Fring using a Skype account, but that's another layer to deal with.