For those who are using Windows Vista, there is an alternative boot screen that you can use intead of the current drab progress bar. The hidden boot screen is called Aurora as seen above, with the text ‘Starting Windows Vista’ at the bottom of the screen.

Here’s how to activate it:

1. Click on the Windows logo (Start) button, and type in msconfig in the search box.

2. Select the Boot tab, and check the “No GUI Boot” checkbox.

3. Click Apply and then OK. Windows will prompt to restart the PC, just hit Restart.

Upon bootup you will see the changed bootscreen. To revert back to the original progress bar boot screen, just follow the steps above and uncheck the “No GUI Boot” checkbox.

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Microsoft has released a handy 14-page pdf guide to optimize Vista performance, targeted for single user’s PC. The guide is easily readable with proper layouts and is easily understood by an average joe user for some Vista tweaking.

Some of these tweaks includes:

• power management for mobile computers
• search management
• ReadyBoost & ReadyDrive option (to increase performance PC)
• some basic tips on Vista maintenance to improve PC performance

Download the Microsoft Vista Performance and Tuning Guide here.

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In a nutshell, DNS refers to domain name system where it helps to “translate” web addresses (such as ray.my) to a bunch of numbers (IP address) to be routed to the correct IP network in the Internet. This is equivalent to the phonebook option in our handphone where we would normally just remember the name of the people we are calling instead of the number.

By default Internet users are using the DNS provided by their Internet Service Provider, however in this post I am gonna introduce an alternative DNS service, OpenDNS. Not only does the company provides a faster name resolution (hence faster webpage load), but there is a whole slew of security features to boot! Oh, and it’s free.

Here are some of the main features:

• Content filtering (levels of filtering is customizable)
• Protection from phishing sites
• Domain blocking
• Adult site and web proxy blocking
• Statistical data on the web traffic (must register)

Another feature that I personally like is the ability to add shortcuts in the account page where I could assign a short word to link to a web address. For example I would just type “goog” and it would get me to Google’s website. Excellent feature for lazy people like me.

The setting up is fairly simple by just adding the OpenDNS nameservers, either into your computer, router or the DNS server (if you plan to use it for corporate offices/networks).

The nameservers are 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220. 

Click here for detailed instruction on the 2 minute setup. 

For those who like to see the statistical data and tweak more settings, you can register to create your own account here.  

For a service that is handling over 7 billion DNS requests a month and maintaining 100% uptime, I must say it is pretty impressive. Personally I have used the service since its launch 2 years ago and found it is more stable, fast and secure than what my ISP DNS server can provide.

Try it! Go to OpenDNS website.

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