Call of Duty - Black Ops

Well the time is almost upon us! For all the Call of Duty fans out there the long anticipated sequel 'Black Ops' will be hitting the store shelves from Treyarch on Novemeber the 9th, I shall not be getting the game then as I'm a PC Gamer and shall be waiting a few months as I have other things to buy on my list but it does look like a fantastic game.

All Black Ops news and information on all of the new Perks and Weapons etc can be found Here!

Also, some new tutorials shall be coming later tonight! I'm not sure quite what yet but its sure to help some users out there!

Minecraft - Halloween Update

Well, the Minecraft Halloween update is almost upon us! (For anyone who doesn't know what Minecraft is, it is a Game which can't really be explained, but its just awesome so trust me, if you want to purchase it please do so here).

There are some sneak previews out at PC Gamer and Indiegames (Click there names to be taken to the previews of the Hell Dimension (Or the 'Slip' as its called for now to prevent Religious Upset), in my opinion, it just looks awesome, no other statement needed.

Also, My first Tutorial post is posted below this, feel free to check it out for 5 easy ways to speed up your Computer!

How to Speed up your Computer drastically - Simple

Step 1: Check for Viruses

Your first step should be checking for viruses. When it comes to system slowdown, they’re the culprit the majority of the time, and because most good anti-virus software can remove them automatically, you won’t have to invest much time in ensuring your PC is clean. For this I recommend using a Free - 90 Day Trial of Norton Internet Security 2010.

This is the software I personally use and I haven't had a Virus in 4 years, Click here to download it, That should remove 99% of any Viruses (if any) on your Computer. But as I always say, the best Anti-Virus is common sense, so do not rely on Norton 100% to stop all Viruses infecting your Computer, do not install or download any 'dodgy' looking files or programs, this should ensure your Computer will stay Virus free and a lot faster for it!

Step 2: Defragment Your Hard Drive

Fun fact: As you save and delete things from your hard drive, your data gets scattered across the drive in bits and pieces, rather than solid chunks. That means your hard drive may have to look in 15 places just to retrieve a single file, rather than one, and it slows things down in the process. Defragmenting the drive will rearrange the pieces in an order that makes more sense, speeding up access times. Just look for the defragment tool under System Tools in your Accessories folder, click “defragment,” sit back, and wait. Depending on how big your drive is, allowing it to run overnight might not be a bad idea. Click here for a more detailed guide on defragmenting

Step 3: Clean up Your Files

If your computer now runs significantly slower than when you first dragged it home from the store and plugged it in, it didn’t get there on its own. Somewhere along the line, you clicked “OK” on one too many checkboxes asking you to install something, popped in one too many CDs, and experimented with one too many pieces of “free” software. (You know what we’re talking about.) Now it takes five minutes to start up, gives you three different errors whenever you try to start your browser, and crashes every hour or so.

Many people hear this advice and take it to mean that simply having too many things on a computer’s hard drive causes it to run slow – a common misunderstanding – but in reality, how full a hard drive is has nothing to do with how faster a PC operates, unless it’s right to the brim and no longer has enough breathing room for Windows to write temporary files. The real issue is that many of the programs you install have components that run all the time, burdening your PC’s processor. For instance: iTunes is a great program, but did you know it has two components that run invisibly in the background all the time, whether you’re using them or not? Both are there to help iTunes communicate with an iPod when you plug it in, but if you don’t own one, they’re just gobbling up memory and slowing your CPU.

You can easily view a list of everything humming away in the background bring up by holding down ctrl, alt and delete to bring up the Windows Task Manager. However, we recommend a more user-friendly interface called ProcessScanner, from Uniblue. It will give you more details on vague process names (what is RTHDCPL.exe, anyway?), where they came from, whether you need them, and how to get rid of them if you don’t. Another, more complex app for this purpose is Processor Explorer, which Microsoft offers for free. You can right-click on any process and do a quick Google search for its name, which is the most comprehensive way to find out what it’s up to and how to deal with it. Windows XP users can also follow these simple instructions to effortlessly prevent unnecessary programs from loading at startup, while Windows Vista users can see here instead.

Step 4: Format your Computer - (Delete everything and start from Scratch)

This is the most effective way of speeding up your Computer, it will effectively be just like brand new again. This is the process of deleting all of your files (including your operating system) off your hard disk and re-installing your operating system and the basic programs you need on your Computer, (such as Google Chrome if your not a big fan of Internet Explorer like me). Before doing this I recommend buying an external hard drive and backing up all your important data, (only the necessity's like music and important documents though, none of the junk we're trying to get rid of to speed up your Computer!), this will allow you to put them back onto your hard drive when you've installed your OS again. To do this, once you've backed up all the files you want insert the installation disk (you should have had one with your Computer or you will need to purchase one, and choose a fresh installation, this will completely delete all data on your hard drive and install the Operating System, (e.g. Windows 7) again.

Step 5: Upgrade

This is a final resort if all else fails, Get a new Laptop/Computer or Upgrade your hard ware. For example, easy to upgrade parts of your Computer that can dramatically improve performance are your RAM, CPU (Processor), GPU(Graphics Card) and your Hard Drive (upgrading to a better RPM or a Solid State hard drive which are extremely fast but also extremely expensive, this is only recommended for serious gamers/PC users). There are many guides and much more professional advice that is available on the internet for upgrading hard ware, I would recommend searching on Google for it as its to in-depth for me to go into here.

Please feel free to leave any questions/comments in the comments section below or contact me directly with a guaranteed response at joshua.g.fish@gmail.com, Thanks for reading and I hope this helps some people

Welcome to my Blog, Startup date, 30/10/2010

Welcome to my Blog, this is the first post that is going to be on it ^^

I'm making this Blog to provide entertainment for myself and hopefully to educate other internet users, I will be posting the latest Tech and Gaming news and also posting Tutorials on speeding up your Computer and general tasks, maybe even some basic programming guides (In C#) if anybody is interested.

My first proper post is on its way right now and will most likely be a basic guide on speeding up your Computer in general and while playing games.

So once again, thank you to anyone who reads this Blog and once again, Welcome :)