Life as I find it

Thought I’d write something different this time. As more and more users access the net from their phones, it could be a good thing to design a version of the website that is suitable for mobile browsing.

Information abounds about how to adapt an existing site to mobiles like Make Your Site Mobile-Friendly in Two Minutes. This information is easy to find, and is a good step I guess.

On my to-do list currently, is a way of identifying visitors using mobile phones and redirecting them to the mobile version. Failing that, I can always put up a link to the mobile version.

Another thing I would like to do is rewrite my content so that it is brief - in the sense that it mentions the salient points of the subject and the length of the pages is short, links are better manages, etc.

Some tips I have made out for myself to design the site:

• Planning a simple site with no columns, css, javascript, images and other stuff that could delay loading or clutter the tiny screens.
• Creating an edited version of the content to convey salient points - more information than entertainment.
• Changing the link structure to remove alt tags and using immediately relevant links with some logical deeper links, rather than the bulk of deep links available on the original site.
• I don’t use pop-ups at all, but going through the code in any case to look at links that open in new windows and stuff. I doubt if anyone is going to appreciate losing the page they were on.
• Figuring out links to switch between the mobile and normal version.

I got myself a new Lenovo laptop with a Vista pre installed. I thought this would be the ultimate in freedom, etc. Unfortunately, it is not so. My laptop runs like a bullock cart even with 1GB of RAM. Sad.

I am used to super speeds with 1GB on my desktop. So what do I do. I thought of trashing the Vista and installing a Linux OS instead, like on my desktop. But then, there is a new problem. My Ubuntu Fiesty Live CD doesn’t recognise the touchpad and keyboard on my laptop at all What do I do now?

One way is drowning myself into Linux and making it work somehow. But I don’t trust my own abilities that heavily yet. I need to figure out a way of making the thing work, or my laptop is going to remain an expensive and oversize papaer weight.

I am currently trying some “hacks” for speeding up Vista. Recording everything I’m doing, and seeing how it works as well.

Hack no 1: Enhancing the performance of my SATA disk:

Do I have one? Er…. yes I’m a total newbie about some things.

I’m supposed to “expand disk drives” in my device manager according to this article. Ok, doing it…….. Ugh. Its so slow! I took some 3 minutes getting into the device manager…. and the SH** of it is that I get “not responding” no matter what I do for most stuff.

Back! I went to Device manager> Disk Drives> Right clicked my hard drive and checked enable advanced performance

There is a warning next ot it that it isn’t a good idea for computers without a back up power source, but since mine is a laptop, that’s not a problem. Unfortunately, the machine still isn’t as fast as I like and am used to getting with this configuration.

Let’s see what else I can do.

Hack No 2: Using my pen drive as an extended RAM with the ready boost feature

This seems fairly simple. I plugin my pen drive and wait for the auto play menu to ask me what to do. Then, I pick the option to speed up my system, and that allows it to use space in that drive for disk caching, and make the whole mess a little faster.

Doing it…….. Vista is still trying to read that empty drive and come up witht he box trying to ask me what to do. Done it, but oops. This device is not suitable. According to this article, the specs are at least 64MB USB2 device abole to read at 3.5MB and write at 2.5MB. Mine is a 1GB pendrive, so I guess it fails on the other requirements. I guess Microsucks wants me to buy a new pen drive too - as though the laptop wasn’t investment enough.

Hack No 3: Disabling network printer search

Unchecking Automatically search for network printers in Explorer>Tools>Folder Options>View tab

Strange - I don’t have this option at all - either checked or unchecked. I must have lost patience and disabled printers or something before doing this. So this is also not going to gain me speed.

Now what?

Hack No 4: Disabling the welcome center

I did click something or the other that makes it stop showing on start up, but this article wants me to go into the registry and do it. I guess to kill it from the root without even bothering for it to go around figuring out if it should load or not. I normally am leery about getting into the registry, but I guess I’m not going to miss the welcome center in any big way….

So fine. Start regegit>HKEY_CURRENT_USER, Software, Microsoft, Windows, CurrentVersion, Run> Delete WindowsWelcomeCenter Key. Ok, so this is the long route method. I already don’t have that key. Clicking the box that tells it not to load on start up seems to have done the same trick.

Hack No 5: Cleaning up the Start up applications

I’ve done it already

So far, so slow. Will hunt around for more options, or for my keyboard and touch pad drivers for the Ubuntu. Let’s see what happens first.