Any kinds of flaws may not be tolerable by most of people. Whether it is imperfection in performance or scratch that will affect the appearance. Although some scratches might not be able to be avoided as the times go, people always crave for things that will be as beautiful as it was when it was new. For cars, people are sensitive about scratches; they will tries to protect all parts of their car as best as they can. Well, you can now, you can choose the anti-scratch parts for you car. Rims are also important to be protected from scratches, especially the chrome rims . Scratch will decrease the glow and really pop out with this type of rims.

To find the scratch-free rims, you can go to Carid.com. You can find the rims that already re-heated in special oven or scratch free rims that you want. Carid also provides rims from many brands that will be suitable to any kinds of cars. Now you can have your rims in safety.

Screen savers do offer quite a bit to the user. The obvious benefit is that the screen saver reduces “burn in” the effect that occurs when a monitor displays the same information repeatedly. Of course, you can avoid this problem by shutting the monitor down after a period of inactivity. Many corporations prefer this course because shutting the monitor down also reduces the power bill for the system.

Most screen savers also provide password protection. When the screen saver activates, you can’t get it to go away unless you enter your name and password. You can avoid this cost by logging out of the system whenever you leave the room. The time required is the same, but it’s a little more work for the user. In addition, the user might forget to log out and the screen saver is automatic.

The bottom line is that screen savers are a cheap piece of glitz and they serve a useful purpose. Generally, it’s not worth your time to remove them unless you have significant performance problems to overcome.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

One of the best places to save system resources is on the Appearance tab. One simple change from Windows XP Style to Windows Classic Style in the Windows and Buttons field can make a big difference in system performance. Click Effects and you’ll see the Effects dialog box. Clearing all of the options except font smoothing will net another big performance boost.

The second place to look for themes settings to optimize is in the System Properties dialog box that you access by right-clicking My Computer and choosing Properties. Select the Advanced tab and click Settings in the Performance section of the dialog box. You’ll see the Performance Options dialog box. The Visual Effects tab contains a number of special effects that you can remove to improve system performance. Again, make sure you keep font smoothing to help the user see well.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

Understanding Themes
You might be under the impression that themes are a complete waste of time, but they aren’t necessarily. To see for yourself what features themes control, disable the Themes service found in the Services applet of the Control Panel and reboot your machine. The rounded corners and other aesthetic features that Windows XP offers are noticeably absent, but so are some features that some people need to use the computer successfully. For example, font smoothing, a feature that makes the screen easier on the eyes, is gone. Even though the best option from a system performance perspective is to get rid of themes completely, the human using the machine probably needs a few of those features to remain comfortable.

Unfortunately, Microsoft didn’t place all of the theme support in one place. To optimize themes, you need to look in at least two places. First, right-click the Desktop and choose Properties from the context menu. The Themes tab doesn’t offer much in the form of direct optimization. However, remember that themes can consume a lot of disk space, so deleting any themes you aren’t using from the list can optimize hard drive use. Simply select the theme and then click Delete to remove it from the drive. Windows does a good job of removing the bits and pieces of the theme for you, so this is one case where a look at the hard drive probably isn’t necessary.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

Marijuana
Marijuana usually gives rise to a feeling of mild euphoria and a sensation of distance from the world that lies around the user. Although tolerance and withdrawal are milder than with alcohol, brain concentrations of cannabinoids, the active chemicals in marijuana, can reach astronomical levels.

Effects of Marijuana
Interferes with acetylcholine production and thus lowers the level of this neurotransmitter that is important for attention and memory.

High levels of cannabinoids in the brain lead to fluctuations in mental faculties, lethargy, and poor concentration, with inability to register new information and consequent memory loss.

People who quit using marijuana usually regain most of their cognitive abilities. In our Memory Disorders Center, we have seen patients in their fifties and sixties with mild memory loss who later improved when they discontinued the use of marijuana. These people had handled the drug with ease when they were young, but it finally caught up with them because the aging process in the brain made them more vulnerable to the drug’s toxic effects.

Taken From: The Memory Program How to Prevent Memory Loss
and Enhance Memory Power

Deleting Old Setup Data
Even after you uninstall an application, many applications leave registry settings in place. The most common registry entries are user or system settings. The “Working with Application Entries” section of the chapter describes how to work with these settings. However, once you get past these settings, you’ll often find other settings left behind. These settings can cause any of the following problems:

Inefficient Use of System Resources As with many other elements of the registry, Windows believes everything it has to say. When the registry tells Windows that there’s an application available to handle a particular file or other need, Windows believes it. Even when the application folder for the application is missing, Windows will faithfully search for it, consuming your time, system processing cycles, and memory. Anything you can do to keep old setup information out of
the registry optimizes Windows.

System Reliability Problems Old registry settings cause more grief than you can imagine. It’s possible for these settings to affect system stability. When your machine thinks it has a resource that no longer exists and the machine tries to use that resource, reliability problems begin to manifest themselves. You won’t always see an outright crash. For all its flaws, Windows does recover remarkably well from single or even double errors. However, as the number of registry errors increase, the fixes for the problem become more problematic and you begin to notice system glitches. At some point, the recovery system becomes overwhelmed and your system begins to crash or exhibit other strange behavior.

Application Reliability Problems Applications receive input from a number of sources in Windows. You don’t see most of the activity that goes on behind the scenes, but your application is constantly interacting with Windows, device drivers, and even other applications. As the number of resource or application interaction errors increases, the reliability of your application decreases. Imagine this scenario. You open a document that contains an embedded document from another application. The application requests server support from the other application through Windows. Unfortunately, you have already uninstalled the other application. Unless the equesting application has good error handling (most don’t) the application will crash—all because a leftover registry entry led the requesting application to believe a server was available for the embedded file.

Security Issues All of the accumulated dirt in a registry can also lead to security problems. For one thing, all of those old entries provide more places for virus, adware, and spyware application entries to hide. The extra registry entries make it harder for antivirus and other helpful applications to locate the applications you don’t want. In addition, older files often contain bugs that let these unwanted applications in the door. For example, even if you aren’t using an older DLL, a registry entry could tell Windows to load it into memory. The second this event happens, your system becomes vulnerable to the attacks the older DLL allows.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

One source of network connections you might not know about is in My Network Places. As you roam the network, Windows XP helpfully creates links such as those shown in Figure 7.19 to places you visit regularly to make it easier for you to find these locations again, even when you’ll never visit them again. The My Network Places folder appears on your Desktop, but it also appears within Windows Explorer. In fact, when you look at these links in Windows Explorer, they appear as specialized folders. Whenever you open Windows Explorer, Windows also tends to update these links. It’s possible for a system to accumulate a hoard of these helpful links that the user doesn’t even know about that end up slowing the system to a crawl.

NOTE The My Network Places links problem is especially severe when some of the links point to locations online and the user has an inactive dial-up connection. Users have reported that Windows appears to connect to the Internet for seemingly no reason at all—this is one source of that problem.

Of course, features such as Automatic Updates also play a part in the mysterious Internet connection problem.

Of course, like any tool, My Network Places does have a use. You can optimize your network browsing by adding your own custom links. Simply double-click the Add Network Place icon that appears in My Network Places. Follow the prompts to add the kind of connection you want to create (there are several). The difference between the custom links that you create and those that Windows creates arbitrarily is that you know about them, so you’re likely to use them. In addition, these custom
links actually point to locations that you want to view. Consequently, the arbitrary links are a source of system resource drain, while the custom links are an example of network connection optimization.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

The visible costs of network connections make it well worth the effort to remove unneeded connections from your machine. To remove a network connection, right-click the connection in Windows Explorer and choose Disconnect from the context menu. You can easily reconnect later if needed. Likewise, to remove a printer, fax, or other equipment connection, open the Printers and Faxes applet in the Control Panel, right-click the connection you want to remove, and choose Delete from the context menu. The act of deleting the connection doesn’t make the printer inaccessible.

TIP If you’re like me and print only about once a week, you can save additional system memory by setting the Print Spooler service in the Services applet of the Control Panel to manual. Stop the service
until you actually need it (stopping the service also releases all printer and fax connections). Start the service and create a connection to the network printer you want to use before you print. The “Clearing Unnecessary Services” section of the chapter tells more about working with services. This particular system change not only reduced memory use and made my system faster, it also reduced the amount of paper I use by about half—I find that I make fewer frivolous printouts that end up in the recycle bin.

The hidden costs of excess network connections depend on how you use your system. For example, when you use Windows Explorer to search, you could end up looking through every network drive on your system every time you perform a search unless you search carefully.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

The Startup Type field is very important for operation. Set this field to Automatic for services that you always want to start, Manual for services that you might want to start manually, at some point, and Disabled for services so dangerous that you never want them to start for any reason. The Service Status field tells you the current service status. Click Stop to stop a service that you no longer need.

The complexity of configuring a machine to use an optimal number of services has led to a number of lists online. Black Viper presents one of the better lists at http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/ servicecfg.htm. This list considers a number of factors, including how you use your system. However, no one list is perfect. You might find that you need some services that other people don’t need.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

You need to consider the ramifications of removing some services, but disabling others is a no brainer. For example, disabling the Messenger service (not related to Windows Messenger) is a no brainer because this service has been linked to a number of viruses and few people seem to use it, even on those large corporate networks. However, you wouldn’t want to disable the Internet Connection Firewall (ICF) / Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) service unless you have a third party firewall and don’t need to share your Internet connection with anyone. Unfortunately, running a firewall is going to slow your online game—you have to make a choice between a secure connection and a fast connection.

NOTE It’s possible that a service you didn’t need in the past suddenly becomes necessary after an update. For example, Windows Update version 4 will scan your system and download updates to it without having either the Automatic Updates or Background Intelligent Transfer Service services started. However, once you upgrade to Windows Update version 5 (an automatic update when you install Windows XP Service Pack 2) these two services become mandatory because Microsoft checks for them. Windows Update will complain when you try to access it without the services started. To ensure your system can remain updated and yet not use precious resources needlessly, you can keep these two services set to manual and only start them when you want to perform an update of your system.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

Notice that this console displays the status of the service—whether it starts automatically and whether it’s running now. When a service is marked as stopped, it means that you don’t have to worry about the service using any memory or processing cycles because the service isn’t loaded. Services marked Automatic always start; those marked Manual can start when an application needs them; those marked Disabled can’t start for any reason.

The biggest problem with services is that Microsoft assumes that everyone works in a large corporation with a complex network and a brutish administrator who is also a control freak. Consequently, Windows XP enables every service that provides even a dubious connection to some form of control or network connection during initial installation. In fact, when you run a stand-alone machine, you can’t even use some of these services.

NOTE Most services are obedient application slaves that wait for a request, but some are hungry monsters waiting for an excuse to gobble up system resources. For example, the Automatic Updates service will grab processing cycles and network bandwidth at regular intervals to look for Windows updates even if you disable this Windows feature. This particular service has become such a problem for gamers and others who need uninterrupted network bandwidth that you can find mentions
of it all over the Internet. The only way to get the processing cycles and network bandwidth back is to disable the Automatic Updates feature. Unfortunately, Windows XP SP2 insists on turning this service back on, so you have to reconfigure your system yet again after you install SP2.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

Car is an important part of life. We use the car to go to work or other places. Every car owner wants a car that can reflect their personal style. When people see our car, they will find our taste in the car. If you want to modify your car with your personal style, I recommend you to go to CARiD.com.

CARiD is a leading supplier for car accessories for all types of vehicles. They provide a wide range of car accessories to improve the style of the vehicle. There are also some car accessories to increase the functions of the vehicles.

Some car accessories offered in CARiD are body kits, hid kits, dash kits, grill guards, and many more. No matter what kind of accessories, you will be able to find the perfect on in CARiD. So, just go to this site and buy the car accessories for your vehicle.

You should know every entry on this tab because somewhere along the way, you installed every item on this list. When you don’t know an entry, clear its entry, reboot the machine, and see if anything is missing. Sometimes, you’ll encounter spyware, adware, or even viruses using this simple tab because it draws information from every startup location on your system.

The Startup tab includes three important pieces of information. First, it provides the human readable form of the application name. This isn’t the name that appears on the application title bar, in many cases, but the name that appears when you view the application’s properties. Second, it shows the location of the application on your hard drive, which is especially important to know when you want to remove the application. Third, you’ll see the location of the startup entry—even when it appears in the registry. This information helps you disable the startup application permanently, rather than the temporary fix that MSCONFIG provides.

If you accidentally disable a startup application you need because you don’t recognize its name, simply check the entry in MSCONFIG again and reboot your system. That’s one of the best parts about using MSCONFIG—any change you make is fixable because the entry is only disabled, not removed.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

You have to exercise care when working with WIN.INI. Microsoft has decided to change course yet again and is trying to get developers to use external storage files again so their application settings aren’t in the registry. This technique allows for what Microsoft calls XCOPY compatibility—someone can copy an application from one machine to another using the XCOPY utility (described in the “Using XCopy” section of Chapter 3). Consequently, I recently found settings for the scientific calculator that comes with Windows XP in WIN.INI, along with settings for WinSize (a program I used for sizing application dialogs precisely) and my hexadecimal (programmer’s) editor. I have no doubt that INI (initialization) files will become popular again, so you need to work with them carefully.

Avoiding BOOT.INI
The BOOT.INI tab might look like it contains interesting settings, and it does for diagnostics, but you should probably avoid it when optimizing your system. This tab shows the basic startup process for Windows XP and contains some special check boxes for performing diagnostic tasks. For example, you can check /BOOTLOG and Windows XP will record every event during the startup process. The only problem with the resulting boot log is that it’s huge and very hard to understand. You can even select the /SAFEBOOT option, but these features are available using other, less intrusive techniques, such as pressing F8 when you start your machine.

Selecting Services
Windows services are normally very stable and you won’t have any trouble with them. However, it’s possible that you’ll run into services that you really don’t want or need. You can’t remove a service using MSCONFIG, but you can disable it, reboot the machine, and discover how the machine will operate without that service. The “Clearing Unnecessary Services” section of the chapter tells you a better way to work with services on your machine. In general, the features on the Services tab are nice and you can use them for experimentation, but it’s better to work with the services directly. To remove a service temporarily, clear its entry. Check the entry again when you want to
enable the service.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

You don’t really need to remove the font entries from the list. They do consume a small amount of system memory, but you need them in some cases. The important issue is that you want these fonts available in case you do have a 16-bit application that needs them. The application can then tell you that any drivers you disabled are missing. It’s not a perfect optimization technique, but it works.

Understanding WIN.INI
Windows XP can theoretically get along just fine without WIN.INI. However, before you get rid of your file, you might want to check it out first. A few applications, especially screen savers, load themselves by using the LOAD= or RUN= lines of this file. You can get around this limitation by adding the filenames to your Startup folder and changing the application settings as needed. (You may want to get rid of a screen saver that uses these WIN.INI entries if it’s a 16-bit application. A 32-bit screen saver will be more responsive and less likely to crash your system.)

Many applications also store their file-association information in WIN.INI. Windows XP applications don’t need these entries because they already appear in the registry. Any new 32-bit applications will know to look in the registry for file association information, but some older 16-bit applications won’t. You might want to check for problems by disabling the [Extensions] section using MSCONFIG and rebooting the system. If all your applications seem to work properly, you might be able to remove this section for good.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

What If Memory Loss Persists after Depression Improves?
In some people with both depression and memory loss, the memory deficit may not improve even after the depression is successfully treated. In such a situation, the memory loss that accompanies depression may be the first sign of Alzheimer’s disease. We showed this in a community study of elderly subjects, where the presence of depression conferred a threefold increased risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease during a follow-up period of up to five years. George Alexopoulos’s research group at Cornell reported similar results in hospitalized patients who had both depression and cognitive deficits.

These results seem to run counter to the notion that memory loss is part of the depressive illness itself. The age distribution of the patients in Alexopoulos’s and my studies provides a partial solution to this riddle. Our studies were conducted in people who were all more than sixty-five years old, with an average age in the seventy-five-to-eighty-year range. The findings probably do not apply to people in their forties and fifties, as illustrated by Joan Marciano’s complete recovery from both
depression and memory loss.

Taken From: The Memory Program How to Prevent Memory Loss
and Enhance Memory Power

Understanding the MSCONFIG Basics
You might find it interesting that some Windows XP machines are still running older Windows 9x applications, some of which are 16-bit and require entries in two special configuration files: WIN.INI and SYSTEM.INI. One major hint here, 16-bit applications are excessively slow and you should do everything possible to get rid of them. These two files were the original receptacles for system information before the registry took center stage. The WIN.INI file concentrates mainly on user settings, while the SYSTEM.INI file concentrates mainly on system settings. Windows XP supports, but doesn’t need either WIN.INI or SYSTEM.INI. However, it’s important to know that these two files exist
because some applications hide there hoping you won’t find them.

It’s also possible to use MSCONFIG to view and configure other startup options. For example, all of the services appear here, as well as the startup applications your system runs. MSCONFIG retrieves information from several sources to provide you with a complete picture of your startup situation. That’s why this utility is so important; it helps you overcome configuration problems in a safe environment.

When you want to check for potential problems in these two files or monitor how Windows XP uses other boot options, run the MSCONFIG utility. Select Start
Run to display the Run dialog box. Type MSCONFIG in the Open field and click OK. You’ll see the System Configuration Utility dialog box shown in Figure 7.14.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

/O Filename Use this command line switch to redirect output from the screen to a file. When using the /F SQL option, you can also supply the name of a SQL Server database as an output. The output appears in whatever format you choose using the /F option.

/SC Samples Normally, TypePerf continues gathering samples until you press Ctrl+C to stop it. However, you can use this command line switch to define the number of samples to collect. You should always use this option when working in an automated setup to ensure TypePerf doesn’t
continue to use resources any longer than necessary to collect the required information.

/CONFIG Filename Use this option to specify the name of a file that contains all of the required configuration options. This is a good option to use when you rely on Task Scheduler to start TypePerf. All you need to do to change TypePerf behavior is modify the configuration file. The
Task Scheduler entry remains the same.

/S Computer Name This option lets you monitor a computer other than the local computer. To use this option, you must have the required rights on the remote computer. /Y Tells TypePerf to answer yes to any questions it might ask.

TIP You can monitor several computers at once by specifying the name of the computer as part of the performance counter declaration. For example, “\\Main\Process(_Total)\% Processor Time”, would tell TypePerf to monitor the _Total instance of the % Processor Time counter of the Process object on a server named Main. To change monitoring to a different machine, you simply change the name of the server. This technique lets you monitor several machines for the same statistic at one time.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

Looking for Simple Files
The example in this section discusses the flow of the TXT file extension. You can use this same technique to discover the events behind any file extension. More importantly, you can use the techniques you discover here to learn more about any complex registry entry. Obviously, the place to start is looking for the .TXT extension in the registry (note that the period before the TXT extension is important, but the capitalization isn’t). Highlight My Computer, found at the very top of the registry, to ensure you search the whole registry. Choose the Edit
Find command to display the Find dialog box. Type .TXT in the Find What field and click Find Next. The Registry Editor will take you to the .txt entry shown in Figure 6.12.

The .txt key contains three values. The first tells you the registry file type, so that’s the one you’dfollow in this case. The second entry, Content Type, tells you the Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) type, which is how Internet Explorer views the file. The third entry, PerceivedType, tells you how Windows sees the file. In some cases, this entry tells Windows to use a special add-in
application. For example, when you right-click on a MID file, Windows perceives it as audio and offers additional context menu entries for using the Windows Media Player. Likewise, some graphics files will include context menu entries for previewing the image in the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer. This key contains a number of subkeys, all of which are important, but aren’t necessary for this discussion.

TIP Notice that the .txt key includes a ShellNew subkey. This subkey tells Windows to place this kind of file on the New context menu entry you see when you right-click an open area in Windows Explorer. You use these entries to create new files using Windows Explorer. Unfortunately, this menu can get clogged with a bunch of entries you don’t want and it often seems like some of the entries you do want are missing. To remove a file from the menu, highlight the ShellNew key and press Delete. To add a new entry to the menu, right-click the file extension key and choose New
Key from the context menu. Name the key ShellNew. Select the new ShellNew key and right-click in the right pane. Choose New
String Value from the context menu. Name the new value NullFile. Close and reopen Windows Explorer to see the new entries or delete old ones.

Figure 6.12
Always search from the top of the registry down, unless you know a search term lies in a particular hive or branch.

From the current location, choose the Edit
Find command to display the Find dialog box. Type TXTFILE in the Find What field and click Find Next. You might have to press F3 several times to locate
the txtfile key shown in Figure 6.13.

This registry key defines the file type information. You can assign this file type to more than one file extension. For example, I use Paint Shop Pro for editing graphics images, so many of the image
file extensions on my system are of type PSP.Image. The file extension entry defines what to do with a particular file extension, while the file type entry provides details about a particular kind of file. As you can see, the txtfile file type defines which application to use to open the file, the default icon to display for these files, and the actions someone can perform on the file type, which includes open, print, and printing to a nonstandard location.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

/QX [Performance Object] Use this command line switch to retrieve both the counters and the instances for the requested performance object. When you use this switch by itself, you receive a list of every instance of every counter of every object on your machine—the list is immense, so only use this option when you have time to wait. Always use this command line switch with the /O option to output the data to a file. This option works best when you want to obtain the full syntax for tracking performance with TypePerf or you want to research objects used with System Monitor fully.

/O Filename Use this command line switch to redirect output from the screen to a file. The output remains the same listing format as you see on screen.

To use TypePerf to list objects, you need to decide on an object name, which might means using the /Q command line switch by itself. Once you do decide on a TypePerf object, use it along with the listing option you want to use. For example, when you choose the Job Object performance object, you type TypePerf /Q “Job Object” or TypePerf /QX “Job Object”. Always place quotes around objects that have spaces in their name. Figure 7.13 shows the results of using both commands.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

NOTE You never use the TypePerf utility by itself—you always include command line switches or other information with it. When you attempt to use TypePerf by itself, the application displays an error message.

To use the TypePerf utility, you need to decide on which task you want to perform: list the counters and instances for a particular performance object or to track performance. The two tasks are mutually exclusive and you use the utility in different ways to perform each task. The following sections describe how to perform each task.

Listing Performance Object Counters with TypePerf
You might initially think that you can’t use System Monitor and TypePerf together, but listing object counters is one place where TypePerf excels and makes it easier to work with System Monitor. When working with System Monitor, you have to spend time looking through the various counters andinstances that a particular object provides. Using TypePerf, you get comprehensive list that you can scan quickly for the information you need. Here are the TypePerf command line switches you need to perform this task.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

She was taken aback, both by my tone and the content of my little speech. Her resolve began to waver, and I pressed forward. I warned her that her only hope to save her job was to follow through with antidepressant treatment, and after some hesitation, she agreed.

After one month on 100 mg of Zoloft, she had become more energetic, her memory was now fine, and she was no longer having any trouble at her job. In fact, she was effusively grateful and was so talkative that I became worried that the medication was flipping her from depression into mania, which is a syndrome characterized by the symptoms of hyperactivity with very fast speech, elation, grandiosity (statements like: I am unique, superior to everyone else), and impulsive, reckless
behavior. I asked Joan if she would permit me to speak to her family or friends, and she gave me the telephone number of a close friend. Her friend informed me that Joan was now back to her old self, and that Joan’s bubbly, outgoing personality had always helped her to be successful in sales. I was delighted that Joan wasn’t cycling into mania. As part of the clinical study, a series of neuropsychological tests was repeated at the end of the twelve-week treatment trial. Her cognitive
performance, including the results of memory tests, showed a marked improvement compared to how she had initially tested in the depths of her depression. This helped confirm my diagnosis of major depression, because a patient with dementia would not have shown this degree of cognitive improvement.

After the twelve weeks were over, on my recommendation she continued Zoloft for another year, after which I gradually tapered off the medication and eventually stopped it. Fortunately, Joan’s depression did not return. She left treatment feeling happy, taking with her my instruction that she should call me if her depressive symptoms started to recur in the future.

Taken From: The Memory Program How to Prevent Memory Loss
and Enhance Memory Power

You also need to select an Alert condition. For example, if you’re monitoring memory, you might want to set an Alert when the amount of available memory falls below a certain level. As you can see, this tab also allows you to set the monitoring frequency and the Run As field.

The Action tab contains options for telling you when an event occurred. The following list discusses each option and explains what they mean.

Log the Event to the Application Event Log This is the best solution for noncritical alerts. You want to know the event happened, but you don’t have to fix the condition immediately.

Send someone a message Reserve this option for critical alerts that require immediate attention. For example, if a lack of memory or hard drive space will cause the system to fail, then you want to send someone a message. There are two odd requirements when sending a message. First, the message must go to a machine other than the current machine. Second, the message must go to the machine and not the person. If more than one person uses a machine, this second requirement could become a problem. If the message sending option looks like it won’t work, then you could always write a script to send the message in another way.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

You’ll also see columns for clock time (indicates the process priority), user time, and kernel time. These are the three columns of most interest for performance needs. The priority tells you how the application shared CPU cycles with other applications. If you see an application that sets a high priority, you might want to explore further and ensure the application warrants the extra processing cycles. The user time indicates how much time the application spent in user mode, generally serving user needs. The kernel time shows how much time the application spent in protected mode accessing system resources.

Creating Alerts
You’ll use the Alert folder to warn you of system conditions or to tell you when an optimization event has occurred. For example, you can use it to warn you that system memory or hard drive space is low. The alert could occur because an optimization you performed left the system too short on a specific resource. Disabling the paging file makes your system faster and reduces hard drive resource use, but at the cost of memory. When you use the technique located in the “Disabling the Paging File” section of Chapter 6 to disable the paging file, you might also want to set an alert to tell you whether the cost of the optimization is too high. Here are the techniques that an alert can use to warn you of impending disaster.

? Create event log entries
? Send you a console message
? Run an application as part of the alerting process

To create an Alert, right-click Alerts, and then choose New Alert Settings From or New Settings Alert from the context menu. Type the name for your Alert in the New Alert Settings dialog box and click OK. You’ll see a properties dialog box.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

The Advanced tab contains the buffer settings for the Trace Log. A Trace Log gathers a large amount of data. The log service saves data to temporary buffers in order to improve performance. If the settings you choose don’t meet minimum requirements, the log service will override them. Normally, the log service saves data in the buffers to disk when the buffers are full. However, you can also set the number of seconds between data transfers to reduce the risk of losing data.

TIP The settings you use for the buffers will affect the performance of your machine and the activities of the Trace Log. In some cases, providing a larger number of buffers or using a larger buffer size will allow the log service to work more efficiently and reduce system load. However, adding too many buffers increases the risk of data loss or corruption should the machine freeze or act in other unexpected ways.

Click OK. Performance Logs and Alerts will attempt to start the Trace Log if you used the default settings. Otherwise, you’ll need to start the logging process manually, or wait for the conditions you set to occur. If the Trace Log lacks the proper permissions to start, the indicator will remain red and you’ll see a warning message in the Applications folder of the Event Viewer indicating the problem. Fix any problems and restart the Trace Log manually.

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This part of the Performance Logs and Alerts snap-in creates special logs that you have to convert into human readable format using the TraceRpt utility. You can read the resulting output in System Monitor or within an application such as Excel (the preferred method in this case).

Saving the Trace Log
The process used to create a Trace Log is similar to that of a Counter Log. You begin by right-clicking Trace Log and choosing New Log Settings From or New Log Settings from the context menu. I’ll assume you’ve selected New Log Settings in order to create the Trace Log object from scratch.

When you see the New Log Settings dialog box, type a name for your Trace Log and click OK. You’ll see the properties dialog box shown in Figure 7.10. Note that I’ve selected Events Logged by System Provider to show those options clearly in the figure. You can also choose nonsystem providers to track. In most cases, you’ll need to provide a Run As entry to ensure the Trace Log works as anticipated because few users have the rights required to perform this low-level work.

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Click OK and you’ll see the static data collected in the log. Of course, this means you won’t see the Time Bar moving across the screen—System Monitor only uses the Time Bar when it has active data to read. All of the other options that you use for active data apply when working with a log. For example, you can display a graph, histogram, or report version of your log.

NOTE One change that you’ll notice is that the content of the Add Counters dialog box will change. You can only view data that you’ve recorded, which means the list of objects and counters will change. In addition, you can only select counters for computers that you logged. Any other computers will fail to appear on the list.

Creating and Converting Trace Logs
Trace Logs perform detailed system monitoring. It’s almost never necessary to use this level of monitoring to optimize your system. In fact, you normally use this level of monitoring to fix major system problems—the type that give network administrators nightmares.

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You’ll use the Schedule tab to define a starting and ending time for the Counter Log. The Start Log field contains entries that start the logging manually or on a specific date and time. The current time is the default setting. The Stop Log field contains entries that will stop the logging manually, after a specific time interval (seconds, minutes, hours, or days), a specific date and time, or when the log is full. The default setting stops the logging manually. Finally, you can set the Counter Log to perform a task automatically when the log file closes. This parameter includes creating a new log and running an application.

After you set up everything, click OK. If you’re using the default Start Log settings, the Performance Logs and Alerts snap-in will begin the logging immediately. Otherwise, you’ll need to start the logging manually by right-clicking the Counter Log object and selecting Start, or waiting until the predefined conditions occur. Active counter log entries have green icons, while stopped entries have red icons.

Viewing Counter Logs
You have a log that you created of processor activity or some other performance object. Having the log and doing something with it are two different things. You need to know how to view the log after you create it.

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TIP You need to consider the trade-offs between counters and objects. An object will require more hard drive space to store and will consume more processing cycles. However, you’ll have all of the counters for that object, so you don’t need to worry about finding a particular piece of
data. Using counters is more efficient, but lacks flexibility. If you don’t think to store a critical piece of data, it won’t appear in the log later for analysis. Generally, it’s best to use objects when you can spare the hard drive space and lost processing cycles.

After you select some objects or counters, you can set the sampling interval. Short intervals produce more data, so you’ll get results that are more precise. However, using short intervals also makes the impact of performance monitoring more severe. Again, it’s a matter of balancing system resources and performance against the performance monitoring requirements.

Notice the Run As field on the dialog box. In some cases, the person running the performance monitoring software won’t have the credentials required to perform all tasks. The monitoring will fail, in this situation, preventing you from obtaining good readings. To overcome this problem, type the name of a person with the correct rights, click Set Password to display the Set Password dialog box, type the password twice, then click OK. The counter can run now because it isn’t relying on the user’s
credentials.

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“I have to fight my problems without a crutch. I don’t want to become dependent on this medication,” she said.

“I never cease to be amazed by the number of people who religiously take their medications for heart disease, blood pressure, or diabetes, usually for years without end, and yet refuse to take a medication to treat a disorder that is affecting their most vital organ, the brain. I decided to bring up this point as a tactic to get Joan to take her prescribed antidepressant medication.

“Please tell me something, Joan. You take Prilosec for your stomach problems. And you’ve been taking it every day for how many years? Five? Okay, five years. Now would you consider that a crutch? As being dependent on the medication?’’

“No, well, that’s different,” she replied.

“How so?”

She paused, unable to give me a rational answer.

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The Graph tab contains settings that change graph display elements. The display elements include the use of a vertical and horizontal grid. You can also give your graph a title and assign a name to the vertical element (the horizontal element is always time). The Vertical Scale properties offer another chance to optimize the graph display. You can set the graph so it displays the data a little larger or smaller than the default settings allow.

Finally, the Appearance tab contains settings that change the colors used to display certain elements such as the graph background and time bar. This tab also enables you to choose a new font for the display. The use of a different font may make the information more legible or easier to print.

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Below the views are three options for displaying the Toolbar, Value bar, and Legend. The toolbar contains all of the buttons we’ve discussed to this point. The Value bar contains a list of all the vital statistics for the counter highlighted in the Legend. For example, you can learn the minimum, maximum, and average values for a particular counter. The Legend lists the selected counters. Each counter entry includes the instance, parent, object, and computer information.

The report and histogram views support only instantaneous data values. Sometimes it’s beneficial to see something other than the default data. For example, you might want to see the average data value. The next section of the General tab allows you to change the histogram and report view values. The default setting displays the current (instantaneous) values.

“The Sample automatically every setting” permits you to update the display more or less often than the default setting of 1 second. Clearing this entry will freeze the display. The “Allow duplicate counter instances” option tells System Monitor that it’s OK to display more than one instance of the same data. This feature comes in handy in report view, but is actually detrimental in other views.

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This Time, the Doctor Was Right: Joe’s Story
My most dramatic patient with cerebrovascular disease had a TIA, not a stroke. In 1981, I was on night call as the emergency room physician when a man walked in with his wife. Joe Smith, a tall, massive construction worker in his late forties, said he had only a minor problem that needed to be checked out and didn’t really feel the need to be in the emergency room. His wife, however, was very concerned and had dragged him to our ER under protest. The story that emerged started to ring alarm bells in my mind.

Joe had been doing an odd job in the house when he suddenly felt a tingling sensation in his right forearm and hand. He dropped his tools and stood up, then suddenly felt weak-kneed and had to sit down. After a minute, he felt fine, so he didn’t tell his wife about the episode and resumed his handiwork. Half an hour later, the tingling sensation again ran down his right arm, and his right leg felt a little “funny.’’ This time, he reported his symptoms to his wife. She noticed that he seemed a little confused and didn’t remember what she had told him a few minutes earlier. She also knew that he was a stoic individual, and that he rarely complained about physical symptoms. Terrified, she brought him to the ER.

All his symptoms had vanished by the time they arrived. He was emphatic that he had never had any such symptoms before. He was a smoker and had a family history of heart disease, but no family history of stroke. His neurologic examination was completely normal. The history suggested a TIA, so I immediately paged the neurology resident on call. Enter Dr. Durocel, whose energy output greatly exceeded that of the battery bearing a close resemblance to his name.

After he heard my clinical presentation, his voice came through loud and clear, “Emergency CAT scan!” He quickly pushed the perplexed Joe into a horizontal position and charged with the stretcher toward Radiology. The technician performed at a speed that matched Durocel’s, and within half an hour we had the CAT scan wet films. Joe had an aneurysm (ballooning of an artery) the size of a large peanut sitting on top of the left side of his brain. This aneurysm explained his right-sided TIA symptoms, because the left side of the brain controls the right half of the body, and vice versa. The location of the aneurysm on top of the frontal lobe also helped to explain his earlier transient confusion and memory lapses, because the frontal lobe plays an important role in long-term memory.

There was an imminent risk of aneurysm rupture and massive bleeding, which could be fatal, but Joe balked at the idea of brain surgery. Since his mild symptoms had disappeared, he was ready to pack up and go home. His wife was nonplused and a little paralyzed with fear. Durocel started screaming in frustration, and told the patient he was going to die if he didn’t agree to surgery. This got Joe’s back up even more, and I had to step in to calm things down. I took Durocel aside and suggested that we show the patient and his wife the CAT scan, where the aneurysm was clearly lit up in bright white against the gray-black of the cerebral cortex. As I had hoped, the dramatic image immediately caught Joe’s and his wife’s attention, and their mood began to change. After a few minutes of further discussion, Joe apprehensively signed on the dotted line for neurosurgery, which went without a hitch, and he was soon discharged home in excellent condition. Later, he wrote us a
thank-you note, saying that he was back at work with no more problems.

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I realized that quick action was needed and immediately arranged for a number of tests to help clarify the situation. The medical diagnostic workup was within normal limits. On neuropsychological testing, she scored slightly below normal for her age on several measures of attention, concentration, and memory. Her test performance was confusing to the neuropsychologist, who could not decide between the diagnosis of depression and the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease.

I was more confident about the clinical presentation. I made a diagnosis of major depression and asked Joan if she would agree to participate in one of my studies. The study involved twelve weeks of treatment with the antidepressant medication sertraline (Zoloft) to evaluate its effects on both depression and cognitive deficits in people who had both these problems. Joan was quite willing to do the research evaluation and interview procedures in the study, but she was reluctant to take medication, as many patients are. The situation was compounded by her insistence that she had a memory deficit, not depression, and so she did not want to take an antidepressant medication. I had to explain the relations between depression and memory loss in many different ways before she finally agreed to try the medication. I also told her that while the medication was likely to make her feel better, it wouldn’t exert its full effect for a few weeks and so she needed to be patient. She wasn’t, and skipped an appointment. Then she frantically called me to say that she had received an unfavorable report from her supervisor and was afraid that she would be fired from her job.

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Instance
In some cases, saying you want to count something such as the percentage of processor time used to handle user needs doesn’t define the problem. For example, if you have two processors and want to determine the percentage of user time, you have to indicate whether you want the user time for one or both processors. You also need to indicate which processor you want to work with if you choose only one.

As you can see, the potential number of performance monitoring combinations for a single system is immense. A typical system provides a minimum of 40 performance objects. Each of these objects have a number of counters (2 is a minimum and 30 is common). Many of these counters have at least two instances and a _Total instance (the combination of all instances of a counter). After you add the counters, click Close. You’ll return to the Performance console and see the ounters you selected displaying data.

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Why Preventing Stroke Is So Important

1. Around 2 to 5 percent of people above the age of sixty will suffer a large stroke.
2. Small or ministrokes occur in 10 to 30 percent of people above age sixty. Most ministrokes occur without any symptoms (“silent” strokes) and are discovered only if a CT or MRI scan is done.
3. Each stroke, small or large, damages part of the brain permanently. Strokes occurring in the temporal or frontal lobes, or the pathways connecting them, often lead to memory loss.

Risk Factors for Stroke

High blood pressure
Heart disease
High cholesterol
Smoking
Obesity
Lack of exercise
Diabetes
Stress

Your preventive strategy should focus on reducing risk factors for stroke: reduce stress; go for annual medical checkups if you have a strong family history of stroke; reduce your weight and the intake of saturated fats in your diet; maintain regular exercise habits; take cholesterol-lowering medicines if proper diet and exercise together are not enough to keep your levels low; stop smoking; keep your blood pressure under control with a low-fat diet, low-salt intake, and if necessary, antihypertensive medications; and control diabetes (diet and/or medications) if you have this disease.

Three forms of cerebrovascular (brain blood vessels) disease can worsen cognition, including memory: transient ischemic attacks, ministrokes or small infarcts, and frank clinical strokes.

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Using Counters
System Monitor lets you track a performance characteristic of your system over an extended time frame. For example, you might want to track how well the hard drive is performing by checking the number of disk accesses. Every characteristic you track is a counter. A monitoring session begins with the selection of performance counters. The easiest method to add counters is to click the Add button (the plus sign) on the toolbar. You’ll see an Add Counter dialog box like the one shown in igure
7.6.

The dialog box shows that you choose performance monitoring at four different levels. Each level refines the one before it. The following list describes each level in the order that you would select them.

Machine
The machine you choose to monitor depends on the circumstances. For example, one performance monitoring scenario is to compare two machines with the same characteristics and application load. If one machine performs substantially slower than the other, the statistics might indicate the presence of a problem on the slower machine. Normally, you’ll choose your machine to perform local monitoring.

Performance Object
System Monitor uses special bits of code called performance objects to
monitor each area on your machine. In addition, vendors can add other performance objects to System Monitor so you can monitor larger applications such as SQL Server. There’s a performance object for each major category of device or application on your machine. For example, Figure 7.6 shows the Process object. You’ll also find objects for the physical and logical disk drive, memory, and network. Applications appear in objects such as browser, job, and thread.

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Symptoms and Signs of Vitamin B12
(Cyanocobalamin)Deficiency

Deficits in touch, pain, and heat sensation
Unsteadiness in walking
Fatigue
Memory loss
Anemia (macrocytic type: large blood cells)
Low vitamin B12 blood levels

If You’re a Vegetarian
Vitamin B12 occurs only in animal products, so strict vegetarians are likely to develop B12 deficiency. But this standard medical explanation does not fit well with the facts: nearly a billion people in Asia practice strict vegetarianism for religious reasons, but their rates of vitamin B12
deficiency are no higher than in the United States or Europe.

There is another way to get B12 deficiency. A substance called intrinsic factor in the stomach is necessary for vitamin B12 to be absorbed into the bloodstream. So even if vitamin B12 oral intake is normal, lack of intrinsic factor in the stomach can lead to vitamin B12 deficiency. Special diagnostic tests help distinguish between these two causes. If there is intrinsic factor deficiency, swallowing more vitamin B12 doesn’t do much good and monthly vitamin B12 injections become necessary.

If Youre Older: Take a Daily Multivitamin Tablet
These vitamin deficiencies are rare but are becoming more widespread among the elderly who live alone or are disabled. They may not keep track of what they need to eat, or when they should eat. Problems with dentures also worsen nutritional deficiencies. Maintaining proper hydration and nutrition is essential. Family members who take interest, federally funded programs like Meals on Wheels, and the simple act of adding a multivitamin tablet to the daily diet are all useful and effective approaches that can prevent or reverse most of these nutritional deficiencies.

Hormones and Nutrition: Staying Well Tuned
Unfortunately, many people who develop memory loss assume that it must be due to the aging process and do not consider the possibility that reversible causes like hormonal and nutritional abnormalities may be the culprits. The good news about hormonal and nutritional abnormalities is that if they are recognized early, they usually improve and can often be completely reversed with the right treatment. For hormonal abnormalities, early recognition is the key and physician consultation is required. To prevent nutritional causes of memory loss, in addition to eating a diet low in saturated fats and rich in fruits and vegetables, taking a daily multivitamin tablet that meets the FDA requirements for the major vitamins (B1 to B12, A, C, D, E) is the best strategy. For a promemory effect, higher dose supplements of the antioxidant vitamins A, C, or E are necessary.

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Run This is the most common place to find applications you don’t want running on your system. Applications listed as values in this key run every time someone logs into the system. When you look through the list of applications stored as values in this key, you should only see applications that you installed or recognize as part of device driver installation. When spyware or adware wants to hide on your machine, it commonly uses this registry key to ensure it gets started.

RunOnce The only values you find in this key are those for applications that run one time and then don’t run again. When a value appears within this key, Windows looks for the application,
runs it, and then removes the entry from the registry. A good example of an application that could appear here is a registration or activation application. A few nefarious applications also use this key to help avoid detection. When you log in, Windows runs the application and removes the entry as normal. However, before the application ends, it adds the entry back in. Consequently, the key ends up acting like the Run key, even though it theoretically only allows the application to run one time.

RunOnceEx This key only appears in the system area ( HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion ). Some applications require extended settings to work properly and this key allows applications with those extended settings. Generally, you’ll never see a value in this key.

Not all entries in the Run key are from undesirable sources. Sometimes an uninstall application leaves a key behind. For example, Figure 6.10 shows the results of an upgrade performed on a machine. Notice the two copies of MBM.EXE in this list: the first is version 4 and the second is version 5. The uninstall program left the MBM 4 entry behind after an upgrade, so now, every time the system
starts, it looks for that entry. Windows ends up searching the entire system for that entry every time a user logs in, creating a performance problem. You should look for and remove this type of entry to improve system startup time.

Figure 6.10
Uninstall programs often leave automatic program execution crumbs
behind.

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What You Should Do about Hormone Abnormalities

If you have symptoms that make you suspect hormone abnormalities, such as thyroid deficiency, go visit your doctor. If you receive any type of hormone replacement therapy and have begun to suffer from memory
loss, report it to your doctor.

Nutritional Problems
When we think of nutritional deficiencies, malnutrition and starvation come to mind. But in the modern world of excess food production and consumption, the opposite type of nutritional abnormality predisposes people to memory loss. A diet rich in saturated fats promotes the formation of toxic free radicals in the brain. Equally important, cholesterol and saturated fats contribute to the formation of plaques that line the walls of arteries and smaller blood vessels, increasing the risk of stroke and cognitive deficits.

Niacin and Folic Acid Deficiency
In some cases, memory loss can be traced to vitamin deficiencies. The adverse effects of alcohol are partly caused by liver damage leading to deficiency of the vitamin B1, or thiamine, which is essential for the brain. Folic acid, or vitamin B7, deficiency is associated with anemia. Folic acid is known to help protect against colon cancer, birth defects in pregnancy, and possibly heart disease. Folic acid deficiency occurs in older people with poor diets, and can lead to memory loss.

Symptoms of Folic Acid Deficiency

Lethargy
Weakness
Poor sleep
Mild forgetfulness

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Figure 7.3
Use the TaskList utility to determine basic memory usage and process details.

Notice that TaskList doesn’t provide any information on CPU usage, but it does provide a mysterious Process Identifier (PID) column. Windows assigns a PID to every application that executes and uses this number to identify the application. When multiple copies of an application run, each copy has a unique PID. Other utilities rely on the PID as well for identification purposes, so knowing the PID when you want to perform detailed research is important.

Using TaskList without any arguments does net you some useful information, but it’s the command line switches that make TaskList most useful. Here’s a list of the switches with explanations of how to use them.

/S System You can use TaskList to monitor the tasks on any system to which you have access and the proper rights. An administrator could use this feature to check which machines on the network are currently running Solitaire, if desired. In many cases, you’ll need to combine this switch with the /U and /P switches to log into the system using an account with the correct privileges.

/U [ Domain Name/ ] User Name Use this switch to specify a user name and optionally, a domain name, for running TaskList. You need to include the /P command line switch when using this switch to provide a password. When you call TaskList without the /P switch, it will prompt you for the password. The only time you need to supply a domain is when you’re working on a network with a domain controller.

/P Password This command line switch lets you provide a password to go along with the username supplied with the /U switch. Don’t use the /P switch alone.

/M [ Module ] Most applications require use of one or more modules (usually DLLs) for support. When you use this switch alone, TaskList displays a list of every module used by every loaded application. It’s quite a list, so you’ll probably want to redirect the output to a file using the > or >> redirection symbols and adding a filename. The switch also lets you optionally specify a specific module name. You can use this option to determine which applications require a specific
module to execute. Often, this process can help you understand why a particular application glitches when another application is loaded (sometimes they rely on a shared module, but each application requires a different version of that module).

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Symptoms of Hypothyroidism
Mental

Depression
Memory loss

Physical

Weight gain
Feeling tired, fatigued
Puffy face and eyes
Slowing of movements
Drying and loss of hair
Brittle nails
Swollen neck (goiter)
Intolerance for cold
Constipation
Slowing of heartbeat

From this list, if you have either depression or memory loss plus two or more physical symptoms, ask your doctor to check your thyroid hormone levels.

High Thyroid Levels
The flip side of hypothyroidism is the syndrome called thyrotoxicosis, which is due to excess circulating levels of thyroid hormone caused by autoimmune or malignant disease or by excessive hormone supplementation in people with thyroid deficiency. The clinical signs of thyrotoxicosis are hyperactivity, anxiety, and emotional instability. Memory loss can accompany poor attention and concentration resulting from the hyperactive state. Physical signs include heart palpitations, muscle weakness, and sleeplessness. For those receiving too much thyroid medication, the treatment is straight-forward: lower the dose. For people with thyrotoxicosis due to autoimmune or other causes, there are effective antithyroid medications; surgical removal of part of the thyroid gland is occasionally needed.

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Unfortunately, the technique of using SVCHOST.EXE makes it difficult to determine which Task Manager entry belongs to which service. Generally, because you need all of these services or would
turn them off using entries in the Services console (see the “Clearing Unnecessary Services” section for details), you don’t really need to know the specific service name. Seeing that it’s a SVCHOST.EXE
entry is enough to tell you that it’s probably not a virus, adware, or spyware. Note that you can use the TaskList utility to make a finer determination of precisely what each SVCHOST.EXE entry does
(see the “Using the TaskList Utility” section for details).

TIP
Many people don’t trust Microsoft and with good reason—it seems as if Microsoft is always poking around on their systems. The reason for all of this information searching isn’t important. Services such as Automatic Updates use resources and could expose information that you don’t want exposed. You could manually remove all of these suspicious services by hand, but the process is time consuming and error prone. Products such as XP-Antispy ( http://www.majorgeeks.com/ download2062.html ) can perform the task for you in an incredibly short time frame. The XP-Antispy utility looks for suspicious services on your system, stops the service, and then disables it. You can always start the service temporarily when necessary.

Figure 7.2
Some services rely on SVCHOST.EXE to execute.

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After a while, I clicked the Zennioptical.com. I thought it would be just the other ordinary online optical. But guess what? I was absolutely wrong. I could find so many excellent eyeglasses in there. They even have the $ 8 Rx eyeglasses .

The best thing for me was that I finally got the thing that I have been looking for. I found My favorite high fashion eyeglasses in that site. I also visit the Cbn.com and I found perfect tips for us, the How You Can Start Spending Smart tips. That is her short story to me.

A Villager Misdiagnosed
After finishing medical school, I began my residency training at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences in Bangalore, India. I vividly remember the day in 1979 when a villager brought in his mother, Ponnamma. He stated that his mother had begun to hallucinate and talk to herself for no apparent reason, but he was a poor historian and could not specify if these symptoms were long-standing or recent. Ponnamma was obese and slow in her movements. I admitted her to
the inpatient ward with the diagnosis of psychosis, a term that covers a broad range of severe mental illnesses, including schizophrenia. I ordered a set of blood and urine tests and started treatment with
chlorpromazine (Thorazine), a medication commonly used to treat psychosis at that time. I went home quite pleased with the day’s work.

The next morning, I received a stunning jolt. My senior resident, Dr. Raghuram, who had been on night call, summoned me into his office and lambasted me. Ponnamma had become nearly comatose during the night, and he had been urgently summoned to see her. After a quick examination, he correctly identified the physical features of obesity, slow movements, and absent reflexes as signs of classical myxedema caused by severe thyroid deficiency. He immediately started her on thyroid hormone replacement therapy. The blood test results, received the next day, confirmed the diagnosis. Ponnamma made a steady recovery on thyroid replacement and was discharged to her home four
weeks later, free of psychosis and cognitive deficits.

This episode easily qualifies as the worst diagnostic mistake of my professional career, and the memory of that event is still crystal clear in my mind. The following year, I left the institute and emigrated to the United States. During my periodic visits to India, I make it a point to give a couple of lectures at my old institute and shoot the breeze with my former colleagues, including Raghuram. His clinical acumen, which helped straighten me out when I was a greenhorn, has been recognized
and rewarded. He recently became the head of the department of psychiatry at the same institute.

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CHAPTER 11
Hormonal and Nutritional Problems

HORMONES ARE SUBSTANCES SECRETED by glands without ducts, and they are transported in the blood to act at a special target organ or throughout the body.

The hypothalamus and/or pituitary gland in the base of the brain secrete their own hormones, such as thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) or adrenocorticotrophic hormone (ACTH), to stimulate (or inhibit) the corresponding hormone-producing gland— for example, thyroid or adrenals (see Figure 2). This feedback loop is delicately balanced, and changes at either the top (hypothalamus or pituitary) or bottom (thyroid or adrenal) levels can lead to illness.

Diabetes Can Cause Memory Loss
Diabetes, which is caused by deficiency of the hormone insulin produced by the pancreas in the abdomen, leads to damage to very small blood vessels in different parts of the body, including the brain. Mini-ministrokes are the result, producing cognitive deficits that include memory loss.

Diabetes usually means high blood sugar or hyperglycemia, but the opposite— low blood sugar or hypoglycemia— can also occur because of overly aggressive insulin treatment or if someone takes insulin and then skips meals. Hypoglycemia is especially dangerous to the brain, which relies almost exclusively on glucose for its nourishment. Hippocampal nerve cells have high metabolic needs and are very vulnerable to
hypoglycemia; death of nerve cells with memory loss can result. Fortunately, most diabetic patients who maintain good control over their blood glucose levels do not experience this type of brain damage.

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Two widely quoted cases of structural brain damage have taught us a great deal about the seat of memory in the brain.

A Tamping Iron Went Through His Brain
Phineas Gage was a stalwart foreman working the railroad in Burlington, Vermont, in 1848. A misfired explosive blew a long tamping iron, which is like a crowbar, into his skull and through the other side. To everyone’s astonishment, he was only stunned, got up, took a cart into town, and
walked into a doctor’s office for treatment. How could this be? The answer is simple. If the centers in the base of the brain (just above the neck) that control the heart and breathing are not affected, and there isn’t undue mechanical pressure on other brain structures, the patient can indeed survive. Phineas Gage’s injury affected the frontal lobes, and he developed a “disinhibition” syndrome with irritability and childlike capricious behavior that persisted for several decades after the injury. He constantly changed his plans and could not manage to complete even the simplest tasks. Despite the enormous size of his brain injury, many aspects of his memory remained fairly intact. This helped doctors realize that memory resides primarily in some region that was not destroyed by Gage’s injury. However, the fact that he did have some deficits in recall showed that the frontal lobes are important, though perhaps not primary, for memory functions.

The Story of H.M.
This brings us to the 1950s and the story of H.M., who had surgical removal of large parts of both temporal lobes, including the hippocampus and neighboring amygdala, to treat uncontrollable
epilepsy. His epileptic seizures stopped, but the cure may have been worse than the disease. He developed a profound defect in short-term or episodic memory, a type of severe amnesia. To this day, he cannot remember anything said to him barely a minute earlier, or recall having met a person a few moments ago. Remarkably, his recognition memory, which is distributed in many brain regions, including the frontal lobes, remains intact. Therefore, he can still choose the right answer, which he seems to have completely “forgotten,” from a multiple-choice option. This startling discrepancy in his memory test performance is still difficult to explain fully, based on our current knowledge of memory processes.
Nonetheless, his case, more than any other, helped to establish the hippocampus as the main seat of short-term memory in the brain.

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TIP
Clicking the columns in Task Manager will sort the list. You could set Task Manager to display the running processes in alphabetical order (for verification) or by the percentage of CPU time used (for performance tuning). You can also add new columns to the list using the View
Select Columns command. You’ll see a Select Columns dialog box that lets you choose all kinds of interesting information including the Process IDentifier (PID) and performance features such as the number of I/O Reads the process has performed.

You’ll find that the Task Manager display isn’t quite complete. It’s enough to help you optimize your system, but you can do better with other utilities. Here are the limitations you need to consider.

The List of Processes Isn’t Complete Task manager only displays the applications that register themselves with Windows. Generally, the list includes applications you run, some low-level Windows applications, and any services that have a user orientation. Not included in the list are device drivers and some services that have a system orientation.

Memory Requirements Reflect Current Conditions You can run into problems with the memory values listed in the display because they reflect the amount of memory the application is currently using, not the amount that it could use. For example, as you load more documents into a word processor, it uses more memory. Always remember to check your applications when they’re in the state that you normally use them or you’ll obtain false memory readers—never just load the application without opening documents or getting it into a working state.

Figure 7.1
Task Manager provides a list of applications running on your system
and their current memory cost.

Lack of Historical Data Application memory requirements can vary quite a bit over time based on background processes and other needs. Because the Task Manager lacks a historical display, you only get a snapshot of current memory usage, which might not reflect the application’s use of memory over time. Even so, application memory use won’t vary enough to make the reading useless and Microsoft designed Task Manager to provide an overview.

You should know the purpose of every application in the list in Task Manager. In fact, you should know these applications on sight. When you see an application you don’t know about, it’s time to check it out. The application could be a virus, adware, spyware, or other unwanted memory hog. Generally, the best way to locate the executable is to open a command prompt at the root folder of your hard drive and use DIR to look for it. Table 7.1 tells you about the applications listed in Figure 7.1.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

Infections
The formerly lethal bacterial infections of the central nervous system, particularly meningitis, are now invariably cured by antibiotics. Syphilis, which responds well in early stages to treatment with penicillin, is a sexually transmitted, bacterial disease that in its late stages can affect the brain. It used to be notorious for the chameleonlike quality of the different symptoms that it produced: unsteady gait, mood swings, psychosis, and memory loss. Some parasites can enter the brain and form a lesion that produces seizures and memory loss (though this is rare). Viral infections, including those caused by herpes simplex, can cause permanent scarring in the brain with cognitive deficits, including
memory loss.

Prions are fragments of proteins and do not contain any DNA or RNA, which is the counterpart or mirror image of DNA. Because prions do not possess any DNA or RNA, they should not have life, which is defined according to the rules of modern biology as the ability to reproduce and propagate like viruses, bacteria, and the rest of the plant and animal kingdom. However, Stanley Prusiner, a recent Nobel laureate, has stuck steadfastly to the claim that these protein fragments can reproduce
and cause diseases like Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a rapidly progressive form of dementia, and other slowly progressive neurologic disorders. The notorious “mad cow disease” is a close relative of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans, and may also be caused by prions. Some have begun to speculate that the elusive prion may also cause Alzheimer’s disease. And I wonder, could prions play a role in memory loss due to the aging process?

Taken From: The Memory Program How to Prevent Memory Loss
and Enhance Memory Power

If You’re Taking Two or More of the Listed Medications

The risk of memory loss increases.

Ask your doctor if all the medications are really necessary.

Manage Your Domestic Pharmacy
Maintain and update your domestic pharmacy on a regular basis, throwing away expired or unused medications. This roundup should include not only prescription medications but also over-thecounter and alternative remedies. As with prescription medications, some alternative medications contain substances that can be toxic, particularly heavy metals and anticholinergics. Since solid information on most alternative medications’ brain toxicity is lacking, I have left them out of the
table.

Environmental Chemical Damage to Your Brain Cells
Lead, mercury, arsenic, carbon monoxide, and organic solvents like benzene and toluene are toxic to the brain. Luckily, chemical exposure to large doses of toxins is largely a thing of the past, at least in the United States. Nonetheless, the problem does persist, since the control of auto emissions and industrial pollutants is far from perfect. Exposure to low levels of these toxins can cause mild cognitive deficits.

In children, nerve cells are still reproducing and growing, and heavy metals like lead wreak havoc on DNA and the process of cell reproduction. In adults, the nerve cells have already been fully
formed, so the potential for brain damage and memory loss is much lower, though it still exists. In our Memory Disorders Center, we have seen a handful of middle-aged patients with possible heavy metal or organic solvent (benzene, toluene) toxicity, usually from a work-related source. In such cases, the facts can become a little murky if workmen’s compensation claims are involved.

Taken From: The Memory Program How to Prevent Memory Loss
and Enhance Memory Power

‘‘I just can’t seem to do my job. My memory is failing me,” she said, straightening out a wrinkle in her navy blue skirt. “The young folks quietly help me out whenever I have a customer. Especially Maria, she’s only twenty-one. I’m afraid that if Maria leaves, the others may not help me as much and I’ll lose my job. And I’m barely getting by now, as it is.”

She seemed listless and said that her physical energy was down. When I asked if she had ever been diagnosed or treated for depression, she was puzzled.

“I’m not sure what you mean by depression, doctor. I don’t feel sad or blue. It’s just a lack of feeling. I have no feelings at all.”

This was a dead giveaway. Though we usually think of feeling sad or down or blue as being typical of clinical “major” depression, some depressed patients instead report a loss of all feelings in their lives.

Taken From: The Memory Program How to Prevent Memory Loss
and Enhance Memory Power

Benzodiazepines can reduce concentration and cause mild memory loss. In elderly people, benzodiazepine use can lead to confusion, unsteady gait, and falls. Benzodiazepines need to be gradually tapered to reduce the risk of severe panic or seizures that can occur after sudden
withdrawal.

Anticholinergic Medications

Acetylcholine is central to memory and attention, and it is present in high concentrations in the hippocampus and neighboring regions. Therefore, medications with antiacetylcholine, or anticholinergic, properties can produce cognitive deficits that include memory loss. As with benzodiazepines, high doses can result in confusion and disorientation, though this occurs mainly in people who overdose. A variety of medications have anticholinergic properties, including older antidepressants like imipramine (Tofranil) and amitriptyline (Elavil), as well as antipsychotics like chlorpromazine (Thorazine), thioridazine
(Mellaril), and olanzapine (Zyprexa). Acetylcholine also increases muscle activity and secretions in the gastrointestinal tract and bladder, so anticholinergics can cause the opposite: dry mouth, constipation, and urinary retention. As with steroids and benzodiazepines, if you’re being prescribed an anticholinergic medication and have begun to experience memory loss, you should report this to your doctor and ask about stopping it or taking another type of medication.

Among the medications listed here, the research data on barbiturates, phenytoin, antidepressants with anticholinergic properties, benzodiazepines, narcotics, lithium, and cimetidine are fairly convincing, but there is less evidence to show that antihypertensives and digitalis cause significant cognitive deficits. Diphenhydramine (Benadryl), which is widely used, has antihistaminic and anticholinergic properties, both of which predispose people to cognitive impairment, including memory loss.

Taken From: The Memory Program How to Prevent Memory Loss
and Enhance Memory Power

It’s time to work with the registry. Open the registry and carefully explore the areas discussed in this chapter. Remember that simply looking at the registry doesn’t modify it in any way. When you do decide to edit the registry, make sure you create a backup. In fact, you might want to practice exporting and importing simple registry entries before you perform any editing. Finally, remember the simple principle of using a tool designed to work with the registry whenever possible. Try one or more of the cleaning products discussed in this chapter on your registry.

Memory has gone down considerably in price since computers first appeared on the market, but it’s still a relatively expensive part of your system. Consequently, you’ll want to ensure that your system
uses memory for tasks you want to perform, rather than wastes it on applications you don’t know or care about. Chapter 7 looks at memory and various ways to ensure your system uses it properly.
Memory optimization isn’t difficult, but you’ll want to check for any memory-eating beasts on your system.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

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Signs of Medication Toxicity to the Brain

Any sudden worsening in concentration or memory, or onset of confusion, after starting a new medication

Any sudden worsening in concentration or memory, or onset of confusion, after a dose increase of an existing medication

Common Medication Culprits
Steroids, benzodiazepines, and medications with anticholinergic properties are among the commonly used medications that can cause memory loss.

Steroids
Steroids like hydrocortisone and prednisone are used to treat severe asthma and autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE or lupus). Many skin creams and ointments also contain steroids, but these are not absorbed in sufficient quantities to affect the brain. Steroids work by suppressing the body’s natural immune response against bacteria, viruses, and toxins, and this helps in diseases where there is a wayward, self-destructive immune response.
Steroids have a number of side effects, including stomach ulceration and weakening of bone structure (osteoporosis). In high doses, steroids can affect the brain, causing memory loss, confusion, and even psychosis. But subtle effects— particularly low-grade depression, anxiety, and memory loss— are far more common.

You may recall Sapolsky’s theory that high levels of circulating steroids causing hippocampal neuronal loss lead to memory deficits, though whether this occurs clinically remains unclear. If you’re on steroids and feel that your memory has begun to decline, report this symptom to your
doctor, who may choose to stop the medication or lower the dose.

Taken From: The Memory Program How to Prevent Memory Loss
and Enhance Memory Power

Unfortunately, clearing the page file is a time-intensive process. When you have a relatively large page file, clearing it can take a long time. It might not be practical to clear the page file before you go home each evening and it’s probably not even necessary for most home systems.

You’ll find this setting in the LOCAL MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session
Manager\Memory Management key of the registry. Setting the ClearPageFileAtShutdown value to 1 tells Windows to clear the page file, while setting it to 0 tells Windows to shut down faster.

Clearing the Open With List
Whenever you right-click a file in Windows Explorer, you see a list of standard operations for that file such as opening or printing it. You can also send the file to another location (such as an email message
or a floppy disk). Another useful option is to open the file using an application other than the standard application—these options appear as part of the Open With menu. One option always appears
in this list, Choose Program. All of the other options are optional.

Sometimes this list is filled with applications for popular files. As you remove older applications from the machine and add new ones, the list gets longer because Windows Explorer doesn’t remove the old applications from the list. At some point, it becomes a chore to decide which application to use. The only way to clear this list and make the system efficient again is to perform a registry edit beginning at theKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ FileExts branch.

The subkeys in this branch are file extensions. To edit the Open With list, locate the file extension you want to modify and click the plus (+) sign next to it. You’ll see several subkeys, one of which is
OpenWithList. The values in this key tell which applications to use to open the file. Simply delete the values that you no longer need and they won’t appear in the Open With menu of Windows Explorer any longer.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

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Narcotic Addiction

Narcotics were originally extracted as opium from poppies. Narcotics swing into action by attaching themselves to opiate (a type of chemical) receptors in the brain. Heroin, which is a first cousin of

morphine, is the most addictive of this class of drugs. Even though some people get away with using heroin occasionally, for many others the addictive power is profound. Gene Hackman gave a terrifyingly accurate portrayal of heroin addiction and withdrawal in the movie The French Connection. Heroin is a central nervous system depressant and leads to lethargy, poor attention, and secondary memory loss.

Watch Out for Prescription Narcotics

Prescription narcotics like oxycodone (Percodan or Percocet) and codeine (Tylenol 3; remember Jack Kaufman’s case in chapter 7) can produce a decline in many cognitive skills. The effects of these substances tend to be subtle, which is why most people who take them do not recognize their impact on memory. If you are taking one of these medications regularly and have begun to experience memory loss, check with your doctor for possible nonnarcotic options.

Tackling Drug-Induced Memory Loss Isn’t Easy

With these various drugs of addiction, high doses often lead to amnesia, which is a technical term for memory loss. Being unable to recall, or only partially recall, the horrible subjective experiences when the drug’s toxicity was at its peak makes it even more difficult for the addict to recognize the need to quit. Also, many addicts welcome drug-induced memory loss as a way to escape from life’s problems, and this reinforces their desire to continue their drug use. But those who are able to kick

the habit in time— alcohol and other addicting drugs alike— can regain all their intellectual abilities, including memory.

Stop the Addicting Drug and See If Memory Improves

If you, or someone close to you, are not sure if alcohol or another substance is causing subtle memory loss, there is a simple way to find out: stop taking the drug for two to three months and see if your memory improves. If it does, you have your answer, and staying off alcohol or the drug that you are using is the solution for your memory loss. But if you are unable to stop for even a few weeks, this proves that you are addicted and need to take specific steps, such as joining Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous or another addiction program, to help you get over your addiction.

Taken From: The Memory Program How to Prevent Memory Loss

and Enhance Memory Power

Drivers supplied with Windows require a different process for removal. Begin by opening the System applet of the Control Panel—you’ll see the System Properties dialog box. Select the Hardware tab and click Device Manager. The Device Manager dialog box shown in Figure 7.20 tells you the status of every device driver on the system (at least those that you need to know about). Notice that the Multimedia Controller entry in the Other Devices folder has an exclamation point next to it (some peoplesay that the entry is banged). This entry is a Windows driver that was left over when I removed adevice from my system (in this case, for experimentation because I really do need the device). To remove this driver from the system, right-click it and choose Uninstall from the context menu. Windows will remove the driver from the list.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

My Amphetamine Study
I once took a single dose of amphetamine as a “normal” subject in a placebo-controlled study (I was assigned to amphetamine, as I discovered later). Before taking the amphetamine, I did fairly well on
a neuropsychological task in which unusual shapes rapidly flashed on the computer screen. According to the rules, I had to tap an electronic button whenever I decided that the flashing shape on the display had previously been shown to me. Without my knowledge, the complexity of the shapes that were presented were automatically adjusted on-line to keep me at an 80 percent accuracy rate throughout the testing period. Later, I found out that although I scored well, the computer easily
boxed me into the 80 percent zone for accuracy.

But after I took the amphetamine, things changed dramatically. My performance became flawless and the computer could not keep up; I was getting everything right even though the computer was throwing all it could at me to try to drop my performance from 100 percent to 80 percent accuracy. The investigator conducting the experiment later told me that she had to discard my data because my 100 percent accuracy rate eclipsed the 80 percent upper limit permitted in the experiment. So my results could not be combined with those from all the other subjects who had stayed within the 80 percent accuracy paradigm set by the computer.

My performance wasn’t related to learning the test, because the shapes were truly nonsensical, even bizarre, and kept changing continuously on the computer screen. Rather, after a single dose of amphetamine, the manner in which I processed information changed dramatically. Even though the time interval between the flashing shapes was only a second or two, I felt as if I had all the time in the world to think about each shape, decide if I had seen it before (memory processing), and then respond by hitting the button if I had. The speed of processing of new information in my brain— which in this study involved registering the shape and checking it against my memory data bank of recently viewed shapes before making the decision to give the command to my fingers to tap (or not to tap) the elec- tronic button— was now so fast that the test itself seemed to have become slow. In fact, later that
same day I asked if the presentation of the nonsensical shapes had been slowed down for me, and I was told bluntly that this had not occurred.

This is a well-known effect of not only amphetamines but also cocaine. Messages are transmitted and processed much faster by nerve cells, probably because of increased dopamine neurotransmission. This effect of amphetamines has been used by students to cram for exams at the
last minute.

Taken From: The Memory Program How to Prevent Memory Loss
and Enhance Memory Power

Disabling the Paging File
If you have at least 256MB of RAM and don’t run many applications at once, you can get a performance boost by disabling the paging file. The paging file acts as extra memory when your system runs
out of physical memory. When you use this tip, you’re reducing reliability to gain speed. The best way to gauge whether this tip will work for you is to monitor how much memory Windows currently uses on your system—if you have a 40 percent or higher surplus, this tip should work. If you receive out of memory messages, however, restore the paging file setting to normal or get more physical memory.

This is a three-step process. You’ll find all of the required values in the HKEY LOCAL MACHINE\ SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management key of the registry. Begin by opening the Registry Editor. To change any entry, double-click its value and type the new
value in the dialog box provided.

1. Disable the paging executive by setting the DisablePagingExecutive value to 1. Changing this setting tells Windows XP to keep data in memory, rather than page it out to the hard drive.
2. Disable the large system cache by setting the LargeSystemCache value to 1. Changing this value tells Windows XP to keep the kernel (the main part of Windows) in memory.
3. Create a new DWORD value named IOPageLockLimit. Set this value to 10000 if you have at least 256MB of RAM or 40000 when you have more than 512MB of RAM.

Try the new settings during work to ensure you don’t experience any out of memory errors. Once you’ve worked with the settings for a while reopen the Registry Editor and locate the PagingFiles value. Remove the text from this entry and reboot. This change effectively sets the paging file size to 0 (a change you can’t make using any other method). After you reboot the system, manually erase the
PageFile.SYS file on your hard drive—the file won’t return unless you set a new paging file entry.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

Avoid caffeine (coffee or tea) late in the evening.

Keep a regular sleep schedule.

Maintain a regular physical exercise routine.

Bedtime rituals can help (not for babies only).

Have a glass of milk (hot or cold) at bedtime. Milk contains the amino acid tryptophan, which induces sleep.

If you fly across continents and get jet-lagged, several hours’ exposure to sunlight (go out during the day) helps switch the sleep-wake cycle to the new time zone.

Insomnia commonly worsens stress and vice versa. Melatonin (discussed in a later chapter) or other over-the-counter sedatives should be considered only after the above approaches have been tried and have failed. If sleep difficulties persist for more than a few weeks, go see your doctor.

Depression and Memory
Depression is a common reversible cause of memory loss. Depressed people are often slow in their thought processes, and some find it difficult to retrieve memories.

Depression causes a deficit in
attention, and hence new information is not registered properly, so attempts at recall often fail because the external stimulus— meeting someone for the first time, for example— isn’t recorded as a permanent memory in the brain. These two symptoms— slowing down of thought processes and poor attention— underlie memory loss in depression.

Taken From: The Memory Program How to Prevent Memory Loss
and Enhance Memory Power

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Figure 6.20
TweakNow RegCleaner will locate and fix the most common registry
errors.

Because this utility doesn’t look for quite as many registry faults, it’s significantly faster than Registry Mechanic. Interestingly enough, it’s also faster than Microsoft RegClean. One of the features that I especially like about this utility is that it provides indicators to show that a registry entry is either safe or not safe to delete. This feature is lacking in the other two products.

TweakNow RegCleaner automatically creates a backup before you delete any errant registry entries. It only keeps the most current version of the registry, so you have to test between cleanings.
However, this feature is possibly less confusing than the multiple backups that Registry Mechanic supports for novice and even intermediate users, so I don’t consider the single backup a problem.

TIP RegCool (http://home.tiscali.de/zdata/regcool_e.htm) is a full-featured registry editor and manager. This program adds a variety of powerful features such as the ability to export multiple keys into one REG file and a special feature that lets you work with secure registry keys. When combined, the special features help you to work faster and more efficiently when performing registry-related tasks. In addition, RegCool helps you carry out common tasks such as cutting, copying, pasting, moving, deleting, and renaming keys and values with greater ease. Unlike RegEdit, this product offers a Windows Explorer-style interface. An address bar helps you access registry
keys and values quickly. Especially practical is the option to compare registry hives—a feature that can help you fix the registry when needed (see the “Restoring Registry Settings Using Comparison” section of Chapter 12 for details).

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

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Unfortunately, Windows XP doesn’t include this easy method of determining the registry size and Microsoft seems to imply that it doesn’t matter (don’t believe them). Check the Microsoft Knowledge
Base article at http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=292726 and you’ll see that Microsoft has simply removed the size limit on the registry, rather than fix the problems of keeping it lean and trim. The Microsoft Knowledge Base article at http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=124594 provides some tips you need to know, but it’s in language that only a computer junkie would love.

Windows 98 users have access to a special utility called ScanReg. Simply type ScanRegW /Fix at the command prompt and press Enter to remove excess space from the registry. You can get a very good overview of the Windows 98 registry at http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/
98/all/reskit/en-us/part6/wrkc31.mspx. The Microsoft Knowledge Base Article at http:// support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;183887 describes the ScanReg utility in detail. Note that the Microsoft Knowledge Base Article includes links for a number of helpful articles for ScanReg, including complete documentation for the command line switches.

Figure 6.19
Registry Mechanic performs a major exploration of your registry and comes up with detailed results.

Once you get Registry Mechanic set up, click Scan and you’ll see Registry Mechanic go to work. It takes a long time to scan the registry. My advice is to get a cup of coffee and read a magazine—a scan on one machine required more than an hour, which is why the scan during startup feature is of dubious benefit. However, the scan is incredibly comprehensive and it’s unlikely that you’ll find a better
utility. To repair all of the errors that Registry Mechanic can find, you do need a registered version, which means you’ll need to spend a little to get full use from this utility.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

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Always begin your search by looking for personal settings and then system settings—applications use both, so you have to check both areas to remove all of the registry entries. Restoring Application Settings At some point, you’ll want to restore the application settings that you archive. You might think that the best course of action is to simply place the application files on your hard drive and restore the registry settings, but that technique won’t work, in many cases, because application files are missing or the application isn’t set up correctly in other ways. The best way to restore the application is to reinstall it. During installation, the application makes registry entries that will overwrite any archived settings you restored, so it doesn’t pay to restore these registry settings until the application is ready for use.

After you reinstall the application, make sure you also install any service packs and updates you had installed at the time you archived it. This activity points out the need to maintain good archive notes. Don’t install newer service packs or updates and don’t open the application (either action can cause the restoration to work less effectively than you might want). At this point, use one of the techniques described in the “Importing Data” section to import the registry keys that you archived earlier. The act of importing the registry settings restores the application to its former state.

Your application still might not be ready to go at this point. Make sure you recover any templates or other special files from your archive and place them in the application folder. For example, Microsoft Word has a special template called Normal.DOT . To ensure the application works properly, you must restore this template after you reinstall the application. You’ll want to restore any other templates you use, but Normal.DOT influences everything, so it’s the most important file to archive.

You can open the application at this point. However, you shouldn’t try to use it immediately. Before you begin working, check the application settings to ensure they really are in place. Check for
settings that you might not have archived to ensure the application is ready for use.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

Using RegClean
Microsoft produces RegClean http://www.majorgeeks.com/download458.html). When you first
start this utility, it scans the entire registry on your system. After what seems like an eon, the Reg- Clean utility completes the scan and tells you that it’s ready to fix errors. This is where you have to
take it on faith that RegClean has not only done its job, but can fix your registry without any help. The only option is to click Fix Registry (to fix the errors that RegClean found) or Cancel (assuming you don’t believe that RegClean can do the job).

This particular utility has been around for years and many people, including myself, have used it with numerous versions of Windows with good success. However, it’s a little disappointing that you don’t get to see a list of fixes it will provide. In general, RegClean is extremely safe, but won’t do more than repair problems it finds and get rid of a little of the grime. RegClean skips any registry entries
it doesn’t understand and concentrates its efforts in the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT hive.

One of the features that you could easily miss about this product is that it creates an UNDO.REG file. To restore the registry to its previous state, all you do is double-click this file. Consequently, even if RegClean makes a change you don’t like, you can easily reverse it.

Using Registry Mechanic Registry Mechanic (http://www.winguides.com/regmech/) has the look and feel of a major cleaning tool. During installation, you can even choose to have Registry Mechanic scan your registry for potential problems every time you start Windows. This level of scanning verges on overkill and is probably more than most users will ever want, but it’s nice to know the option is available. Fortunately, you can try this product before you buy it—the vendor includes a free trial download version.

When you open Registry Mechanic, you’ll see a display similar to the one shown in Figure 6.19. The first thing to look at is the impressive list of items that Registry Mechanic scans. This comprehensive list covers most of the issues described in this chapter and the common issues that cause major Windows problems. Second, notice that this utility lets you create a backup of the registry before you even scan the system. You can set Registry Mechanic to create a new backup every time you perform any repairs using it. Restoring a backup is simply a matter of clicking Backup and choosing the registry version you want to restore

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

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“Oh, I have a coupla beers in the evening. Just to keep her company. Never more than a coupla beers. That’s about it.”

“I’d like to switch gears for a moment, Mr. O’Brien. You know the line about children doing what their parents do and not what their parents say?”

Sean O’Brien nodded with a quiet chuckle. “You’re sayin’ I’ve gotta stop first, right?”

‘‘Exactly.”

True to his word, he stopped drinking altogether. He also brought in a reinforcement; his oldest daughter joined the prohibition campaign against her mother. To my pleasant surprise, at her next visit Mary told me that she had cut back to two drinks a day. Sean confirmed that she had indeed reduced her alcohol intake. Eventually, she was able to stay off alcohol completely. Over time, her short-term memory gradually began to get better. During the following year, her memory showed modest further improvement, and during the next five years she maintained this performance level on tests of memory. Significant improvement in memory is virtually unknown in Alzheimer’s disease,
particularly over a prolonged period of time, while partial recovery after the patient stops drinking is typical of Korsakoff-type alcohol-brain syndrome. I was finally certain about the accuracy of my
diagnosis.

Alcohol-Induced Brain Damage: A Clinical Chameleon
Mary O’Brien illustrates that steady, moderate- to high-volume alcohol consumption can affect your memory. But why some people are more vulnerable than others remains a bit of a mystery. Genetic factors can play an important role; people from a few Native American tribes are so genetically sensitive to alcohol that they can lose control and become violent after only one or two drinks. Clearly, psychological and social influences are also important.

More puzzling is alcohol’s range of effects within the brain. Some people blithely consume vast quantities with no problems at all, some develop memory loss, others develop tremor and poor coordination because of damage to the cerebellum— a walnut-shaped structure in the lower, back part of the brain— and still others experience hallucinations. Research has taught us a great deal about the complex actions of alcohol at the molecular level, but we still don’t know why such vastly different clinical disorders occur when people abuse the same substance in a similar fashion.

Taken From: The Memory Program How to Prevent Memory Loss
and Enhance Memory Power

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If you truly want to avoid reinstalling Windows, make sure you create a backup of any registry branches you modify using the procedure in the “Exporting Data” section and archive them safely
before you make the change. Try to test the change as thoroughly as possible before you reboot the machine. When you reboot the machine, check for possible errors. Don’t continue using the machine
if you spot any problems—reverse the registry edit instead and reboot the machine again. Make sure that reversing the registry edit actually fixed the problem.

Never modify a registry setting that you don’t understand thoroughly. This might seem like a straightforward bit of advice, but many machines end up unusable because someone wanted to see
what a registry change would do. Professionals who dig up the interesting registry edits that you seemingly find everywhere commonly use an experimental machine for their work. It doesn’t matter if the machine dies and they have to reinstall Windows to revive it because the machine doesn’t have anything of value installed on it. You can’t afford to experiment with your machine because it contains a wealth of personal information that you can’t easily replace.

Experiment on a test machine if you have that luxury. Sometimes, even the best advice from experts will backfire on a particular machine configuration because of interactions between registry
settings. Whenever possible, test a new setting on an experimental machine configured precisely like the one you normally use. In most cases, you can move successful changes to your production system
without any harm.

Always perform a backup of your system before you optimize it, but especially before you change anything in the registry. A failed registry change can cause significant problems, but the when you
have a backup to use to restore your system the problems are greatly reduced. Yes, you’ll still spend several hours fixing the error, but you won’t lose any data and might even save time reconfiguring
applications and performing other tasks required for a complete restoration.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

The neuropsychologist had concluded that Mary’s test performance was consistent with a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease, but her history of alcohol consumption made me think otherwise. So I decided to launch a systematic campaign to get Mary to stop drinking, or at least to reduce her alcohol consumption. Getting people to stop drinking or smoking is never an easy task, and these efforts are often doomed to fail. When I broached the subject, Mary fussed that there was nothing wrong in having a few “tonics” every day. After some thought, I realized that her husband, Sean, was the key. I spoke to him alone.

“Mary’s four or five drinks a day are probably the cause of her memory loss,” I said. “With age, her brain cannot handle the same amount of alcohol, which didn’t create a problem when she was younger.”

He paused to digest this new information. “I think I understand what you mean, doc,” he ventured. “To tell you the truth, I was getting a little worried about that. But I can’t get her to stop. She won’t admit that she’s drinking too much for her age.”

Taken From: The Memory Program How to Prevent Memory Loss
and Enhance Memory Power

Working with Application Entries
The two application entry sections on your system are generally the easiest to understand because you made the entries while working with an application. Simple applications are generally the easiest to learn with, but you can eventually decipher the entries for any application. The first application entry section appears in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software , which stores all of your personal settings.

The second application entry section is HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE , which stores application settings that affect everyone who uses the machine (system settings). Each application vendor will have a separate entry in this section, normally followed by the application name, and then the application version as shown in Figure 6.9. Drilling down into the registry information you need tells you a lot about the vendor and the application. For example, you might see entries for multiple versions of a product after an upgrade—you can usually delete the old version information even though the upgrade application didn’t perform the task.

Figure 6.9
The registry organization tells you a lot about the entry that you see.

Saving Application Settings for Later
When you intend to reinstall an application later, look for the registry entries for that application. In most cases, it’s going to be very simple. Look for the vendor, then the application, and then the version keys. Use the method described in the “Exporting Data” section to save the settings for later. When naming your REG file, make sure you use unique names for the personal and system settings. Always save both the personal and system settings or you won’t get a good restoration later. Applications use both sets of settings to create the application environment.

Some applications become almost devious in the way they save and restore settings to the registry, making it very hard to save your settings for later. For example, an application could come with what
the vendor considers an add-in, even though you consider it part of the application. Office 97 comes with Microsoft Reference. Even though Microsoft Reference links appear as part of the application
and you install both applications together, the registry entries are separate. When you want to reinstall Office 97, you must not only install the Office key settings, but also the Microsoft Reference key
settings. Consequently, you have to check for four sets of keys (Office personal and system, and Microsoft Reference personal and system)

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

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Do you drink every day?

Has anyone ever told you that you drink too much?

Do you tell family or friends that you drink less than you really do?

Do you have gaps in recent memory, especially after drinking heavily?

If your answer to any of these questions is yes, and you suffer from memory loss, then alcohol becomes the prime suspect. During the aging process, the brain becomes much more sensitive to the effects of alcohol, as one of my patients illustrates.

“I’ve Always Had a Few Drinks at Night”: Mary’s Story
Mary O’Brien, a sturdy, jovial, sixty-four-year-old woman, complained of a gradually worsening memory over a three-year period. She lived with her husband and was close to her four grown children and nine grandchildren. I completed an extensive neurological, psychiatric, and
neuropsychological evaluation that showed moderately severe deficits in recent memory associated with generalized brain atrophy on MRI scan. These results strongly suggested Alzheimer’s disease. But as I usually do before I drop this diagnostic bombshell, I spent a little extra time double-checking all aspects of the patient’s history.

Taken From: The Memory Program How to Prevent Memory Loss
and Enhance Memory Power

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? Vendor name
? Application name
? Application executable filename
? Application-specific file extension
? DLL filenames
? Component GUIDs
? Application URLs
? Unique application setting data

You can also check for several symptoms of old setup data with certain types of applications. For example, some types of complex applications and device drivers will leave Control Panel entries behind. The application file appears in the \Windows\System32 folder with a Control Panel (CPL) file extension. You can normally verify that the file is the correct one by double-clicking the CPL file—
you’ll see the familiar Control Panel applet appear. However, removing the CPL file doesn’t get rid of the problem. The registry keys that affect the Control Panel appear in the HKEY_CURRENT_
USER\Control Panel branch for each user as shown in Figure 6.16. There aren’t any system level Control Panel settings.

Figure 6.16
Make sure you remove any old Control Panel settings as part of removing an applet.

Notice the settings in the right pane in Figure 6.16. Like any other part of the registry, you always want to export Control Panel settings and archive them for future use when you remove an applet you no longer need. Saving this information will reduce the work needed to configure your system later.

One of the interesting things about spending time looking through the registry is that you can sometimes find interesting entries that lead to the source of a problem or at least some additional dirt. For example, many applications today register a special set of events in the HKEY_CURRENT_ USER\AppEvents branch shown in Figure 6.17.

The Schemes key can lead you to some interesting discoveries. A client was having a mysterious glitch that occurred when using an online communication program. The glitch didn’t damage anything; the system would simply take a break. In this case, the system didn’t have NetMeeting installed, yet many of the entries in the event system pointed to a nonexistent NetMeeting folder on the target machine. Somehow, this other communication application was triggering a NetMeeting event. Removing the NetMeeting-related Conf key resolved the issue—no more glitches. The moral of this story is that careful observation and knowing what the “user” sections of your registry contain can help you localize and fix many Windows problems.

Figure 6.17
Errant event entries can cause system glitches, so you need to remove them.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

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Action Steps to Prevent and Treat Depression

Stress reduction (detailed earlier in this chapter) is good prevention.

Maintain strong interpersonal relationships and social supports.

If someone close to you says you’re depressed, take the comment seriously and act on it because you may not recognize depression in yourself. Confide in family, friends, and religious advisers in whom you trust.

If major depression is present, or if milder forms of depression last for more than several weeks, treatment with medications and/or psychotherapy is necessary.

If you have recurrent depressive illness, the best prevention is to remain alert to identify the early signs of depression, such as dwindling interest in activities, feeling a little low, and sleep disturbance. If you recognize warning signs and symptoms based on your own experience
during earlier depressive episodes, it is essential that you promptly seek treatment.

Taken From: The Memory Program How to Prevent Memory Loss
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The Truth about the Prozac Controversy
I am still astonished by how the media hype about Prozac has succeeded in misinforming depressed patients. The pro-Prozac crowd believes that it is a miracle drug. In reality, there is no basis for this
notion. Scores of studies have shown that Prozac is as effective as, but not superior to, other antidepressant medications. The opposite myth, propagated by the anti-Prozac crowd, is that it is a highly dangerous and toxic drug. Nothing could be further from the truth. After the hue and cry about the possibility that Prozac may increase suicidal or homicidal behavior, the FDA carefully reviewed the available information from thousands of patients on this medication and concluded that the risk of either suicide or homicide was no greater with Prozac than with older antidepressants. The irony is that Prozac became popular precisely because it was nontoxic and easy to use, which is why so many primary care physicians prescribe it. More recently it has been claimed that long-term use of Prozac causes neurologic toxicity, and it remains to be seen if this is another myth that will be dispelled. Over twenty other FDA-approved antidepressant medications are also available. These prescription medications vary in their possible side effects, and require medical monitoring.

St. John’s Wort and SAM-E
What about hypericum, otherwise known as St. John’s wort? Many patients are already taking this agent when they first come to our depression clinic (I codirect both the Memory Disorders Center and the Late Life Depression Clinic at our hospital). Some people report minimal to mild improvement on St. John’s wort, and others report no change whatsoever in their depression. The National Institute of Mental Health is now supporting a large-scale clinical trial to find out if St. John’s wort really works. Another substance called S-adenosyl methionine (SAM-E) is also gaining popularity, but clinical studies with this substance have been very limited. More information from systematic studies is needed before I can recommend these alternative medications as treatments for
depression.

Taken From: The Memory Program How to Prevent Memory Loss
and Enhance Memory Power

Your system could contain all kinds of unnecessary drivers and Windows XP might hide some of them from sight. For example, the “Understanding SYSTEM.INI” section of the chapter tells you how to remove some of the remaining 16-bit drivers from your system. That’s right, Windows XP, the 32- bit operating system, could have 16-bit drivers still hanging around for compatibility purposes. Those older drivers are going to slow down your system.

Sometimes, a 32-bit device driver also hangs around long after the device is gone. These device drivers consume memory and other resources, can cause system instability, and make life interesting in other ways. Always remove any custom third party software before you remove the device by using the entry the software provides in the Add or Remove Programs applet (look at the “Removing Unneeded Applications” section of Chapter 4 for details). Common devices can come with any number of device drivers for it. For example, my DVD drive works best with a third party DVD driver— the original vendor device driver is fast, but it’s unreliable and makes my system unstable, while the Windows driver is both generic (it doesn’t use all of the device features) and slow. You usually find out about these third party device drivers from newsgroups or list servers on the Internet. As with the vendor driver, remove the third party driver before you uninstall the device using the Add or Remove Programs applet.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

DSM-IV Symptom Criteria for Major Depression
Major depression is indicated by the presence of either persistent depressed mood or pervasive lack of interest or pleasure in activities, accompanied by four or more of the following symptoms:

loss of sleep or excessive sleep
loss of appetite or excessive eating
poor concentration
excessive guilt
suicidal thoughts or actions
a feeling of hopelessness
psychomotor (physical) retardation (slowing down) or agitation
diurnal variation of mood (consistently feeling worse every morning or evening)

Most depressed people do not have such severe symptoms. Many people function moderately well but have always had a negative attitude toward life— the glass is always half empty. These people
used to be classified as having “depressive personality” or “depressive neurosis,” but now we think of them as having low-level forms of depressive illness that can respond to treatment. All of us can point to family members, friends, and coworkers who tend to be grouchy and grumpy— people with a negative approach to every task that they face. Their numbers have diminished in recent years, probably because many of them are taking antidepressant medications. In fact, in the mid-1990s, the Wall Street Journal ran a front-page article suggesting that widespread use of the antidepressant Prozac had led to less absenteeism and improved labor productivity in the United States. But if
you’re not depressed, these medications are not going to be of much help to you— unlike cocaine or amphetamine, they do not induce euphoria, and they are not addictive.

If You’re Persistently Depressed, Get Treatment
Another issue is that as people grow older, there tends to be undertreatment of depression because many patients and physicians believe that depression is a normal reaction to the aging process. The
argument against this belief is simple: if depression were indeed a normal part of the aging process, all the retirees in Florida and Arizona would be depressed and the beaches and golf courses would be
empty year-round.

Taken From: The Memory Program How to Prevent Memory Loss
and Enhance Memory Power

Figure 6.13
Each file type entry defines actions for a particular kind of file.

Figure 6.14
Complex file types define a number of entries that are unique to that file.

The “Working with Components” section tells you that some applications separate the user interface from one or more components that perform the actual work. A Word document is one such file type. Notice the CLSID key in Figure 6.14. This key tells you about the component used to interface with Word documents. It includes a special number called a Globally Unique Identifier (GUID) that identifies the component within Windows—no other component has that number. Consequently, a GUID is a very easy way to track components and trace them in the registry.

To search for a GUID, highlight the CLSID key and double-click the (default) value it contains. You’ll see an Edit String dialog box and a number inside it highlighted that looks like {00020906- 0000-0000-C000-000000000046} for a Word document. Press Ctrl+C to copy the number to the clipboard and then press Cancel to exit the Edit String dialog box without changing any entries. Highlight the My Computer entry at the top of the registry. Choose the Edit
Find command to display the Find dialog box. Press Ctrl+V in the Find What field to paste the GUID from the clipboard to the search field and click Find Next.

You’ll find that the first occurrence of this number selects a key that tells you it is a Microsoft Word Document. Additional searches will locate additional information about the key. As you search through the registry, you’ll discover many things about Microsoft Word documents that you never knew before, such as the sequence of events that occurs when you convert an older document to the new format. However, the most important entry appears in Figure 6.15. Notice that this entry tells you about the various servers (components) that fulfill specific Word needs, such as when you embed a document in another application. The bottom line is that all file types eventually tell you about the application or component used to manage that file. You can use this information when searching for details about the application. These details define how the application works so you can extricate it from your system or augment it as needed.

The point of this particular part of the exercise is that the Word document GUID appears all over the place in the registry. That’s why you need a registry cleaning kit to remove especially nasty entries that include components and file types when the uninstall program fails to do it for you.

Figure 6.15
Components make it easier to perform a number of tasks with a single file type.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

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TIP You’re looking at a friend’s machine. The machine is running a common application faster than your machine will run it despite having the same processor and amounts of memory in both machines. Your machine might not simply be slow, you might be the victim of a problem with vendors who say they’re providing a high performance part, but use a lower cost part instead. Fortunately, you can verify that you received the processor you paid for using the Intel Processor Frequency ID Utility (http://www.majorgeeks.com/download2343.html). The application will tell you all about your processor, such as the frequency at which it runs. All of this information helps you decide whether you received the processor that you paid for.

Understanding SYSTEM.INI
The SYSTEM.INI tab shown in Figure 7.15 contains device driver entries and settings needed to configure them. For example, you’ll find both the wave file and windows timer entries on this tab and in the associated file. In general, these settings are for 16-bit applications. When you don’t have any 16- bit applications on your system, you can free memory and improve system performance by removing these entries. Unbelievably, Windows XP loads these drivers when you start the system even if you’ll never use them.

Generally, you don’t want to get rid of these entries because you might need them sometime in the future. However, when you clear the check in front of the two entries, so Windows XP doesn’t load them, the system will ask you about using the Selective Startup option every time you start your machine. A good alternative to this problem is to place a semicolon (;) and a space in front of each entry that you don’t want to use in SYSTEM.INI. This way, the entry is still there, but Windows XP
ignores it. Adding the semicolon disables the entry. To perform this task, select the entry and click Edit. Place the semicolon and space in front of the entry, as shown in Figure 7.15. The entry is now disabled, but still present should you need it later.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

Tracking Performance with TypePerf
Let’s face it, the output from TypePerf is a little bland compared to System Monitor for real time viewing. However, TypePerf makes the perfect low cost method of gathering statistics for later analysis. From a resource perspective, TypePerf has a much lower impact on system resources than System Monitor does and you can run it as a scheduled task. You can even manage it using a script—all good reasons to use TypePerf for automation. With this in mind, here are the command line switches you use for working with TypePerf to accomplish performance tracking.

/F CSV or /F TSV or /F BIN or /F SQL These four command line options let you choose the output format of TypePerf including Comma Separated Value (CSV), Tab Separated Value (TSV), binary, or Structured Query Language (SQL). The only option that works well for a screen display is CSV, the default format. Use the TSV, BIN, and SQL formats for file output only.

/CV Filename You might want to monitor more than one counter at a time. This command line switch lets you create a list of all the counters that you want to monitor. Supply the filename as part of the input and TypePerf will monitor all of the counters you requested. This command line switch also reduces the work required to automate the use of TypePerf because you simply change the content of the file to change what TypePerf automatically monitors on the target system.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

Run an Application You’ll reserve this action for situations when an application can fix the problem automatically. For example, you might set an alert for a condition when a hard drive nears its capacity. The alert could start an application to clean up temporary and other unneeded files. A higher-level alert could tell you that the action was ineffective and you need to look at the machine.

The final tab, Schedule, works the same as every other performance monitoring tool discussed in this section. Just set a starting and ending time. You can also set the Alert for a manual start or stop. Once you complete the Alert setup, click OK, start it, and hope you don’t see a message.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

The easiest of these three issues to resolve is the errant entry. Some applications will actually help you to remove them. For example, when you try to execute the add-in, some applications will note that the add-in is no longer available and ask whether you want to remove the entry, as shown in Figure 6.11. In other cases, you can remove the remnant by using one of the customization options the application provides. For example, when working with Word, you can right-click anywhere in the toolbar area and choose Customize from the context menu. Now, simply drag the errant entry off the affected menu or toolbar to get rid of it.

The second easiest problem to remedy is one in which the registry entries and the component remain intact on the system. Getting rid of the component and the entries is easy. Simply type RegSvr32 –u ComponentName.DLL and press Enter at the command prompt in the directory where the component appears. This action removes the registry entries. You can then simply delete the component. The problem is in finding the name and location of the component in the first place. If you know enough about the component, you can use the methods discussed in the “Using Find and Find- Str” section of Chapter 3 to locate the DLL. When you aren’t sure about the add-in, you need to use the “Following the Flow of Registry Entries” section of this chapter to trace the component through the registry. As a last ditch effort, you can use the techniques in the “Relying on Registry Cleaning Products” section to locate the name and location of the DLL, but never remove the DLL using this technique. Always rely on the RegSvr32 utility to remove the registry entries for you.
The third problem is going to be difficult to solve. The only way to clean up the mess is to rely on the techniques found in the “Relying on Registry Cleaning Products” section of the chapter. This is a strong measure, but it’s the only option you have. Don’t attempt the remove the entries by hand— you’ll definitely miss some entries and could end up damaging the system.

NOTE After a long time, even if you maintain a clean system, these extra little registry entries accumulate and begin to cause system glitches. At some point, you need to reinstall Windows to counteract
the damage created by the entries. How long you can go before a reinstall depends on your system, how much you use it, and how well you maintain it. One test system I own lasted 6 years before it required a new Windows installation. Most organizations get rid of their computers before 6 years are up, so with proper maintenance, you might never have to reformat your drive. Typically, you can expect a Windows installation to last about a year if you don’t maintain it and four years when you do, so it really is worth the effort to maintain your system.

Figure 6.11
Some applications ask whether you want to remove errant addin
entries.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

Application Subcomponent When you embed a picture in a Word document and then use the controls from the application that created the picture within Word to make additional changes, you’re seeing the effects of a component. In this case, the component is associated with Word through the special file you embedded within the Word document. The component is tightly associated with the server application, rather than the host application.

Stand-alone Component Another example of a component is the
ZIPFLDR.DLL file that lets you look at ZIP files from within Windows Explorer, rather than using a separate application to perform the task. In this section case, Windows Explorer acts as a host for the
ZIPFLDR.DLL file. A component is usually part of an application solution, not an application itself. Using a component is akin to working with just the part of an application that manages a resource, instead of interacting with the user interface. The association between the component and the application is loose—
the only way the application knows to host the component is through registry settings. In addition, a component of this type could execute within more than one host container because the vendor designs the component to work as an augmentation, rather than as a strict enhancement to the application environment.

Standardized Add-in Component Vendors design certain kinds of applications to provide a hosted environment for specially designed components. The application may have functionality beyond hosting the component, but sometimes it doesn’t. The component never has any functionality beyond the hosted environment the vendor designed it to occupy. One common example of such an application and component environment is the Microsoft Management Console (MMC). This application relies on specially designed DLLs to provide access to Windows settings. Every console within the Administrative Tools folder of the Control Panel executed a copy of MMC with one or more snap-in components loaded. Another good example of this component type are the add-ins used with a browser.

Unlike applications, components wind their way throughout the registry in more ways that you’ll ever want to know. Generally, when you remove an application from your system, the uninstall program
also removes the associated components. The uninstall program also removes the registry entries that make the component function—that attaches it to a particular file extension or makes it part of a host application.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

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Creating Counter Logs
The Counter Logs folder performs essentially the same task as System Monitor. It relies on the same counters as the System Monitor, but stores the data it collects on disk, rather than displaying it immediately.
You’ll view the data created by this snap-in using the System Monitor and a few special settings that we didn’t discuss earlier.

Storing the Counter Information
You begin creating a log by right-clicking Counter Logs and choosing either New Log Settings or New Log Settings From. When you choose New Log Settings From, you’ll see an Open dialog box from which you can choose an HTM or HTML file containing the appropriate settings.
You’ll generate this HTM or HTML file by right-clicking an existing Counter Log entry, then selecting Save Settings As from the context menu.

The New Log Settings entry displays a New Log Settings dialog box. Type a name for the counter log and click OK. You’ll see a properties dialog box like the one shown for My Counter Log in Figure 7.9. Notice that I’ve already added a counter to this dialog box. Normally, you’d see a blank dialog box and would need to add counters to it.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

This brings up an important point. You don’t want to overload a single display with too many counters. Tracking five or six of these counters is difficult on some displays. Adding more than that makes the information hard to track. Select carefully the counters you want to see. If you find that you’ve selected too many counters, remove a few by highlighting them in the listing shown at the bottom of Figure 7.5 and clicking Delete (the X next to the Add button). Once you find settings that you like, you can save the settings to disk using File
Save As and reopen them later.

Even with the few counters displayed in Figure 7.5 (the counters show the amount of processor time the applications I have open use), you still might have a hard time seeing a particular counter line. System Monitor fixes this problem with the Highlight button, which looks like a little light bulb. Click Highlight and the associated counter line will become wider.

Sometimes you need to study the information you’re seeing on screen for a while without interruption. If so, click Freeze Display (the red circle with an X in it). Click Freeze Display a second time to restart the display. Freeze Display just stops the display; System Monitor continues to collect data in the background. If you want to update the display quickly, click Update Data (the camera next to Freeze Display). Click Clear Display if you want to start the entire sequence over again. This method allows you to see an entire screen without interruption.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

/SVC Task Manager won’t tell you which services each of the
SVCHOST.EXE entries hosts. Use this command line switch to display that information. You’ll find that each SVCHOST.EXE entry supports
one or more services. Figure 7.4 shows typical output with this switch. Now compare this output with Figure 7.1 and you’ll discover why one of the SVCHOST.EXE entries is so much larger than the other entries.

/V This switch adds information to the display shown in Figure 7.3, including the application status, name of the user running the process, the amount of processor time the application is using,
and the name of the application window. You might be surprised at how many of the applications listed are run by the system on your behalf or to maintain Windows. One of the most useful columns for optimization purposes is Window Title, which tells you the human readable name of the application. The connection between the executable and window names can help you locate viruses, adware, and spyware on your system.

/FI Filter It’s possible to filter the information TaskList provides so you see just the entries you want. The filters can become complex, so read the text that appears after this list for additional information. Table 7.2 describes the filter criteria.

Figure 7.4
The /SVC command line switch tells you how the services are loaded.

/FO Format You don’t have to display the TaskList output as a formatted table (TABLE format), as shown in Figures 7.3 and 7.4. In fact, you can use the LIST format to display the entries as single
entries and the CSV format to display the entries in Comma Separated Value (CSV) as input for a database. Combine the /FO CSV
and the /NH switches to create output that you can place in a file and output to a database. For example, to create a complete view of the current tasks, type TaskList /V /NH /FO CSV > InputData.CSV
and press Enter.

TIP
You’ll be able to import the CSV file that TaskList creates directly into databases such as Access and SQL Server, or an application such as Excel without any problem. These applications can help you maintain a history of task lists and perform comparisons of various application loads on your system. Keeping track of the task list also makes it easier to detect when another application has “magically” appeared on the list.

/NH Tells TaskList to display the output without any header information. This switch only works for the TABLE and CSV formats.

TaskList also supports a number of filters. A filter helps reduce the number of outputs by comparing the entry against criteria you provide. The filters can use comparisons such as equal (eq), not
equal (ne), greater than (gt), less than (lt), greater than or equal to (ge), and less than or equal to (le). You just use the two-letter comparison when working with TaskList. Table 7.2 lists all of the filters, describes them for you, provides a list of comparison operators for that filter, and tells you which values are valid.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

The only problem is that it isn’t easy to find all of those automated programs. In many cases, it’s a matter of knowing where to look for the required entries. For example, most people know to look in the Start
Programs
Startup folder for application entries. Windows automatically starts any applications found in this folder. When the application is located in the All Users Startup folder, rather than your personal Startup folder, Windows starts that application for veryone who logs into the machine. You can determine whether an application affects all users by right-clicking Start and choosing Explore All Users from the context menu. Windows will open a copy of Windows Explorer that displays the settings shared by all users on the machine.

TIP
You don’t have to look all over the system for most startup settings. Microsoft includes the MSCONFIG utility to make it easier to locate startup settings. The “Using MSCONFIG” section of Chapter 7 describes this utility in detail.

Another source of automatic startups is services. Although a service doesn’t usually support any kind of user interface other than the one that Microsoft provides, vendors often couple services with applications. For example, when you install support for an uninterruptible Power Supply, you see an application, but the application relies on an underlying service. Without the service, the application won’t start. You can learn more about getting rid of annoying services in the “Clearing Unnecessary Services” section of Chapter 7.

Device drivers can also cause applications to run automatically. For example, when you install a new display adapter, the associated software disk includes a combination of applications and device
drivers that help you make better use of the new display adapter. Unfortunately, especially in the case of display adapters, the new software can actually decrease system performance. The “Locating
Unnecessary Drivers” section of Chapter 7 describes how to manage this source of performance killing software.

At this point, you might wonder where the registry connection is in all this. For one thing, the registry normally holds all of the settings for the previously mentioned sources of irritation. Unfortunately,
uninstalling the software might not clean up the settings. Forever afterward, your system takes on the appearance of a punchy boxer on the ropes, but it doesn’t have to be that way. The “Relying on Registry Cleaning Products” of this chapter tells you how to rid yourself of these nasty remainders

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

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Fortunately, you can hunt the beast down, assess its threat, and remove it from your system. This chapter discusses a number of unruly beasts that attack computer systems—everything from device
drivers to gizmos that you installed, at some point, because they looked interesting. In fact, many useful applications turn into beasts through neglect. Often, someone thought they would use the application, found out later that the application really didn’t do the job, and then failed to remove the application from the system.

Understanding How Much an Application Costs
Every application you start costs something in system resources. You can’t start an application without using memory and processing cycles at a minimum. Applications also require hard drive space, network bandwidth, and access to various connections (such as the serial or parallel ports). Without resources, applications can’t run and perform useful work. Unfortunately, this simple principle eludes many people and they stare in horror at the message that’s bound to appear—the one that tells you that Windows has run low on a particular resource, usually memory. In fact, memory is one of the most used resources on your system, so managing it is especially important. However, before you can manage something, you need to know how much it costs and this information is surprisingly difficult
to track down.

NOTE
Many application packages tell you how much memory the vendor recommends for a particular application. Unfortunately, these numbers rarely reflect reality. You really don’t know how much memory an application requires based on these recommendations. The only way to understand how much memory an application requires is to measure the memory in some way and then write the value down for future use.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

To make this change, locate the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\
SearchUrl branch of the registry. You’ll see a display similar to the one shown in Figure 6.21. What you’re seeing are the automatic and optional searches for Internet Explorer. The automatic search relies on the values in the SearchUrl key and the subkeys hold optional searches. To use an optional search, type the key for that search in Internet Explorer, followed by the search value. For example, af in Figure 6.21 is associated with Acronym Finder. When I want to search Acronym Finder for an acronym, I type af Acronym in the Internet Explorer Address field and press Enter.

Figure 6.21
Adjust your Internet searches to meet specific needs.

Constructing a search requires two kinds of values in most cases. The (Default) value for the key is the URL of a search engine. You provide the URL and a special %s entry that Internet Explorer
substitutes with the search term you provide. For example, for Acronym Finder, you would use http://www.acronymfinder.com/af-query.asp?String=exact&Acronym=%s as the (Default) value.
Beneath this value are several character replacement values. For example, you’ll normally need to replace a space with a plus sign (+). Figure 6.21 shows the most common replacements you need to make. However, some search engines could require other replacement

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

Alcohol withdrawal causes severe tremor, anxiety, sleeplessness, and occasionally hallucinations, together with severe craving for alcohol. Many alcoholics are terrified of reexperiencing these withdrawal symptoms and try to avoid them by never staying sober. Alcohol withdrawal symptoms require aggressive treatment, including hospitalization. Over the long term, many people benefit by
joining Alcoholics Anonymous.

Caffeine
Caffeine dilates the blood vessels and increases blood flow in the brain, which may explain why it seems to improve cognitive performance, at least in low doses. Caffeine also increases arousal and speeds up communication among nerve cells in the brain. This increase in alertness, a sense of being sharper, is what leads to better performance on cognitive tests, including tests of memory. But high doses can lead to adverse effects, including tolerance and even withdrawal, as any heavy user can testify.

On average, one cup of coffee contains the same amount of caffeine as three cups of tea. Caffeine is most commonly used to wake up in the morning, but some people drink coffee as a way to reduce stress. High doses of caffeine can lead to anxiety, jitteriness, and tremor of the hands. In other words, instead of reducing stress, caffeine can increase the sensation of being wired, resulting in difficulty concentrating and consequent memory loss. Therefore, as with many other substances, if you are a caffeine lover, moderation is the key.

Taken From: The Memory Program How to Prevent Memory Loss
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You can reassign file associations in many ways. Using the registry is the most precise and fastest technique, but you could make a mistake. To change a file association using the registry, simply
modify the (Default) value of the file extension key (see Figure 6.12) to point to a different file type. Double-click the (Default) entry and you’ll see the Edit String dialog box. Type a new file type name in the Value Data field and click OK. When you don’t have a new file type to assign to the extension, clear the Value Data field and click OK. The registry will display (value not set) as the value. Make sure you clear any subkeys from the file extension key to ensure Windows Explorer handles the file extension properly.

An easier way to perform this task, in many cases, is to choose the Tools
Folder Options command in Windows Explorer. When you see the Folder Options dialog box, select the File Types tab. Windows Explorer will display the hourglass for several seconds (up to a minute) as it searches the registry for file types to display—be patient. When Windows Explorer displays the file type list, you can select the file extension you want to change as shown in Figure 6.18.

To modify the application used to work with the file extension, click Change. You’ll see an Open With dialog box where you can choose a new application to service the file extension. When you don’t have a new application to service the file extension, click Delete in the Folder Options dialog box. This act removes the file extension completely from the registry. The only way to set a file extension to a null (no application support) setting is to use the Registry Editor.

Figure 6.18
Use Windows Explorer whenever possible to modify old file associations.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

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While many of these life events are unavoidable, maintaining an active social life can help prevent both mental and physical decline. You can get away with a solo existence when you are young, but such a lifestyle can become an albatross around your neck when you are older. Physiologically, social isolation leads to sensory deprivation and understimulation of brain centers, which in turn causes cognitive, including memory, impairment.

Insomnia
After reading that taking a brief nap in the middle of the day reduces stress and improves productivity, I’ve tried to implement this in my own work schedule, whenever possible. I must confess that I am unable to really nap in the required fashion, so what I do is put my legs up on a
chair, close my eyes, concentrate on breathing slowly but steadily, and basically “veg out” for a few minutes. It definitely helps to reduce my stress level, keeps me refreshed for the rest of the day, and probably increases my productivity. Try this and see if it works for you as well.

Taken From: The Memory Program How to Prevent Memory Loss
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By securing the registry, you make it more difficult for users to install just anything on the system or at least clutter the registry with the results of the installation. You can also reduce the risk of an overzealous user removing or modifying settings that seem like they’ll make all the difference in the world on system performance. Finally, you’ll reduce the risk of adware and spyware finding a way to entrench itself in the system.

To work with registry permissions, open the Registry Editor using the technique found in the “Exploring the Registry Editor” section of the chapter. Highlight a key or value of interest. For example, the
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce key is one point of interest for many crackers and other nefarious sorts. Choose the Edit
Permissions command to display
the Permissions dialog box shown in Figure 6.7.

The top of this dialog box contains a list of people and groups that can access the registry key. Administrators always have full access to the registry, but other groups don’t. For example, you can set the user to have read access only, which means applications setup for that machine will start fine, but adding new values to the RunOnce
key won’t work—at least not with the user’s account. Click Add to add new users or groups to the list and click Remove to remove the selected user or group from the list.

The bottom of this dialog box shows the permissions of the selected user or group. To change these permissions, click Advanced. You’ll see the Advanced Security Settings dialog box shown in Figure 6.8.

Figure 6.7
Select the files you want to import into the registry from the list provided.

Figure 6.8
View, modify, and test permissions using the options in this dialog box.

Use the options in the Advanced Security Settings dialog box as you normally would to set security on the registry key. Providing detailed security information is outside the scope of this book. However, you can learn more about auditing user actions in the “Auditing User Actions” section of Chapter 9. Here’s a brief overview of the tab functions.

Permissions This tab helps you set security for each of the users or groups that have access to the registry key or value. Click Add to add a new user or group. Click Edit to change the permissions of an existing group. Clearing the first option tells Windows not to allow inheriting of permissions from previous registry levels—Windows checks this setting by default as shown in Figure 6.7. Checking the second entry will copy any permission changes you make to subkeys.

Auditing Even when you don’t want to change the user settings, it pays to monitor certain keys, such as RunOnce , for changes. The options on the Auditing tab let you monitor activity on the various keys and take action as needed. All of the change notifications appear in the Event Log. In some cases, it pays to monitor everyone, even administrators. Activity on some registry keys is a
definite indicator of virus infection or download of applications you don’t want on your system.

Owner Use this tab to change the owner of a registry key. Normally, there isn’t a good reason to use this feature with the registry.

Effective Permissions Testing permissions is very important because you don’t know what permissions someone has acquired from previous registry areas. To use this tab, click Select to display
the Select User, Computer, or Group dialog box and choose a user or group to test. Click OK. The entries on this tab tell you the true permissions of the selected user, computer, or group for the selected registry key.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

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Action Steps to Reduce Stress

Focus on reducing not only the big but also the small sources of stress. Try to mentally compartmentalize the stimuli that engulf you; focus on the immediate task at hand, one at a time.

Constantly prune extraneous information to keep your life from being overloaded.

Avoid conflict over trivial matters; let them drop.

Be aware of the impact of high levels of anxiety, and emotional states more generally, in distorting the memory of specific events. This knowledge can help you deal with faulty memories (yours or others’) that cause stress in close relationships.

If you’re in a boring job, seek other outlets and stimulating pastimes. If you don’t have a hobby, start one.

Avoid social isolation and maintain strong relationships: these factors are critical to prevent cognitive decline.

When faced with high stress or anxiety, avoid overeating. If you’re a frequent business traveler, watch out! A diet high in saturated fat accompanied by lack of exercise is bad news for both your heart and your brain.

Keep regular bedtime hours; avoid alcohol and caffeine at least four hours before bedtime.

Go back to the tried and true; whatever worked for you before in reducing stress will likely work again.

A complete stress management program should also include other methods— yoga, meditation, prayer, and deep muscle or deep breathing relaxation, depending on your preferences.

Talk about your problems; intimacy and sharing with your loved one or a friend often relieves stress. If this doesn’t work, consider psychotherapy.

Taken From: The Memory Program How to Prevent Memory Loss
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String
This is easiest data type to read. A string is simple text that you can read and normally understand with ease. The registry often uses strings for descriptive needs.

Binary This is a series of 1’s and 0’s. The binary values normally appear in a byte (8-bits), word (16-bits), or DWORD (32-bits) format, but the registry reads them as individual bits. The registry
normally uses binary values for flags—essentially on/off switches for an application or Windows setting. In some cases, the registry will also use binary values for nonnumeric information, such as an application key or other complex information. You always need a map to read binary values to ensure you understand the individual switch settings or the overall value of the binary string.

DWORD This is a double word or 32-bit value. The registry normally uses DWORD values for numbers. A DWORD can store any value between 0 and 4,294,967,295. When you double-click a DWORD value, the registry displays a dialog box that lets you read it in hexadecimal (base 16 format) or decimal. Because a DWORD stores a number, you can usually read it directly as long as you know what the number means.

Multi-String This is a series of strings. Each string is a separate entry associated with the same value. The strings appear on separate lines when you double-click the value in the Registry Editor.
Each string is separated by a null or 0 at the end of the string. The Registry Editor adds these nulls for you, but you still need to know they exist.

Expandable String This type is a string that includes a special expansion element. For example, the special text %WinDir% defines the location of the Windows folder on your machine. When a string contains this value, it can point to locations without having to know where these locations actually are on the machine. Windows automatically expands the special text when it reads the string from the registry. For example, %WinDir%\MyFlower.BMP might actually point to C:\Windows\MyFlower.BMP on your system. Although the registry normally uses expandable strings for data paths on your machine, they can expand to any environmental value. For example,
the %OS% expandable string refers to the operating system installed on your machine.

TIP
Most expansion strings appear as environmental variables on your machine. To learn what the expansion string means, right-click My Computer and select Properties from the context menu. Choose the Advanced tab and click Environment Variables. The Environment Variables dialog box contains a list of environmental variables on your machine—some are personal (only used by you) and others are system (used by everyone). Look near the bottom of the system list and you’ll see the windir environmental variable.

It’s important to note that you can only add common value types to the registry. The registry also includes specialized values that only an application can make. For example, the REG_FULL_ RESOURCE_DESCRIPTOR value shown in Figure 6.1 isn’t accessible to you. When you open this value, you see a Resources dialog box similar to the one shown in Figure 6.6. Because these special values
aren’t easily to duplicate, make sure you save them before you make any changes (see the “Exporting Data” section of the chapter for details). In addition, use great care in editing such values—never edit
them just to see what will happen.

Figure 6.6
It’s best to leave special registry values alone, rather than risk a machine meltdown.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

1. Corticosteroids cause damage to the hippocampus.
2. Chronic stress increases toxic free radical formation.
3. Stress stimulates the sympathetic nerves, which in turn leads to high blood pressure and heart disease, thereby increasing the risk of strokes in the brain.

The scientist Robert Sapolsky developed the first theory: excessive stress leads to increased production of corticosteroids, which inhibit the utilization of blood sugar, which in turn leads to death of nerve cells in the hippocampus. These provocative findings have convinced a whole slew of basic researchers to tackle this area of research, but the clinical data are not yet conclusive. Nonetheless, this theory suggests that the use of steroids, even when given for medically indicated conditions such as severe asthma, may not be very good for your brain.

Animal studies show that chronic stress can lead to increased formation of free radicals. As previously discussed, these free radicals, including “bad” oxygen, can inflict damage on vulnerable cells in the hippocampus and other brain regions. The outcome, not surprisingly, is memory loss.

There is a third, indirect, way in which stress can induce memory loss. Stress stimulates the sympathetic nerves that supply the heart and affect blood pressure. As a result, chronic stress increases the likelihood of heart disease and high blood pressure. High blood pressure and heart disease can, in turn, lead to the development of strokes, including ministrokes, in the brain that can affect memory.

So whichever way you look at it, high levels of stress are not good for your memory.

Taken From: The Memory Program How to Prevent Memory Loss
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TIP
You can often use REG files as diagnostic aids. Export the branch of a problem registry entry on an operational machine and use it to compare entries on a machine that isn’t working. In some rare cases, you can actually import the known good registry branch to fix the broken machine.

Sometimes you want to see a before and after picture of a registry change, so you import the REG file using the Registry Editor. To perform this task, open the Registry Editor using the technique found in the “Exploring the Registry Editor” section of the chapter. Choose the File
Import command and you’ll see the Import Registry File dialog box shown in Figure 6.5. Locate the folder that contains the REG files you want to import and select one. Click Open to import it. You can only import one REG file at a time using this dialog box, so working with a number of files can be frustrating.

Figure 6.4
Double-clicking a REG file in Windows Explorer displays this dialog box.

Figure 6.5
Select the files you want to import into the registry from the list provided.

The results of the import won’t appear right away when you have the keys you want to monitor selected. Instead, you’ll need to choose the View
Refresh command to refresh the content. By comparing the before and after views of the registry, you can see the changes the REG file made.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

When experiencing extreme emotional states, a person’s recall can be quite different from what really happened at the time of the incident. Conflicts between family and friends are often precipitated by such highly emotion-laden events, and the warring parties may have completely different memories of the same incident. These contradictory memories lead to opposite viewpoints, which escalates the battle, because each side is convinced that the other side is lying outright or blatantly distorting the facts.

How does recall of an event become so far removed from the truth? The best explanation is that the nerve connections from the limbic system that convey emotional tone to a memory become so overwhelmed by the intensity of the emotions felt during the event that they either begin to misfire or are recorded inaccurately in the hippocampus, frontal lobe, and related regions. In other words, instead of the initial memory trace becoming accurately hardwired into long-term storage, the
extreme emotional state drastically alters the course of nerve transmission and a distorted memory becomes hardwired in the brain. After this faulty memory is deposited in the brain bank, it becomes extremely difficult to change the individual’s perception of what really happened, as I am sure you recognize from highly stressful episodes in your own life. The same process can occur in a court of law, where a witness who saw an event in a state of extreme emotion has inaccurate recall on the witness stand. This distortion may not be deliberate perjury but a direct result of the memory trace having been hardwired improperly into the witness’s hippocampus and frontal lobes. Similar
mechanisms can distort the recall of repressed memories of perceived, or real, sexual or physical abuse.

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WARNING
Always save a copy of any key that you want to modify to disk—even when you’re certain that you know precisely how the values in the key work. Everyone has accidents. Saving the current key values provides a quick method of returning the system to a known good state when you make a mistake. A little time exporting the registry key now will save you a lot of time reinstalling Windows later.

When you want to save a registry branch, highlight the starting key and choose the File
Export command to display the Export Registry File dialog box shown in Figure 6.2.

Figure 6.2
Export registry settings to a registry file to save them for future use.

Notice the Export Range options shown at the bottom of the dialog box. You can use this dialog box to save the entire registry by selecting All or a particular piece of the registry by choosing Selected Branch. Within the Selected Branch option is the path to the starting registry key. The path looks like any path you might have used in Windows Explorer. However, instead of starting with
a drive letter, this path starts with a hive name. The hive entries follow the same name structure, as shown in Figure 6.1. You separate each key level by a backslash (\).

To export a branch, select a location for the file, type a name for the registry file, and click Save. The Export Registry File dialog box will disappear.

It’s interesting to look at the exported file to see how Windows saves the information. To view the exported registry file, find its location on the hard drive. Right-click the REG file and choose Edit from the context menu. Windows will open the REG file in a copy of Notepad (or another editor when you don’t have Notepad installed on the system) as shown in Figure 6.3.

The file begins with the version of the Registry Editor used to create it. The first key in the branch you selected comes next. Notice that keys appear within square brackets in the file and include the entire path for that key. Directly below the key entry are the value entries. Notice that the SystemBiosDate value appears in the list and that it has the same value, as shown in Figure 6.1.

The subkeys appear in the same order in which they appear in the registry. The values for each subkey also appear in the file, so you end up with a complete view of that branch of the registry.

Figure 6.3
View the REG file you exported using Notepad or another text editor.

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In the next few chapters you will learn about these specific causes of memory loss and the optimal therapeutic strategies to reverse them. I will focus on common disorders that frequently lead to memory loss, and will not discuss less common causes of memory loss, which include cancer (spread to the brain or general toxicity), multiple sclerosis, HIV infection, and Lyme disease. High fever and other conditions can cause acute memory loss as part of “delirium,’’ but these illnesses tend to occur in hospitalized patients and are easily identified; hence they won’t be discussed in this book.

CHAPTER 8
Stress and Depression

BOTH STRESS AND DEPRESSION can cause memory loss. They share one common feature: reduced attention and concentration with poor registration of the event or episode in the brain. As a result, the fragments that are recorded do not solidify into a piece of memory. Naturally, such a fragmented memory cannot be recalled accurately, and sometimes cannot be recalled at all.

The Stress-Memory Connection
A widely accepted definition of stress is that the demands you need to meet exceed your ability to perform them. While this definition does not cover all types of stress, it is simple and consistent with what most of us consider stressful in everyday life.

During periods of great stress we tend to make more mistakes than usual and don’t remember things well, such as where we put our keys or tracking our appointment schedules. However, high stress levels do not always lead to memory loss. For example, most occupants of the White House have reveled in the challenge and have not broken down under the stress of all the responsibilities that are thrust upon them. Their stress is offset by the gratification that comes from the power, importance, and control in the presidential role. Also, these people have a great capacity to withstand and overcome stress, which is why they became successful politicians in the first place. At the opposite end of the spectrum, an employee performing boring, repetitive tasks— a postal worker is a prime exam ple— may feel severely stressed because of monotony and lack of stimulation.

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IMAGENAME Use this filter to locate a particular application in the list based on its file name. eq, ne The executable file name

PID Use this filter to locate a particular instance of an application when there’s more than one copy of the application running. eq, ne, gt, lt, ge, le Program Identifier

SESSION Unless you’re using a sharing application such as Terminal Services, this filter is useless because every application running is for the current session. eq, ne, gt, lt, ge, le The session number

SESSIONNAME Unless you’re using a sharing application such as Terminal Services, this filter is useless because every application running is for the current session. eq, ne The name of the session

CPUTIME This filter can help you locate applications that have just started or have been running a long time. For example, you might notice a sudden drop in system performance and can use this filter to locate applications that have just started to help determine which application might have caused the performance problem. eq, ne, gt, lt, ge, le The amount of time that the application has used the CPU in hours, minutes, and seconds since the session has started

MEMUSAGE Sometimes you have more applications loaded than the system can comfortably support. This filter helps you locate applications that you can end or possible candidates for removal from the system.
eq, ne, gt, lt, ge, le The amount of memory the application uses in KB

USERNAME Use this filter to separate applications that the user starts from those the system starts. eq, ne The name of the user who started the application

SERVICES Use this filter to locate the application hosting a particular service on the system. eq, ne A service name

WINDOWTITLE This filter can help you locate a particular application based on the name it displays to the user. eq, ne The name the application displays to the user on the title bar

MODULES This filter can help you locate applications based on the modules they use. You can use this filter to help locate a variety of problems, including DLL conflicts (when two applications use the same DLL, but they each need a different DLL version). eq, ne The filenames of any modules that an application uses

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1. Memory loss due to the aging process itself.
2. Potentially reversible memory loss caused by a specific abnormality (Jack Kaufman).
3. Dementia, where Alzheimer’s disease is the most common type.

If You’ve Developed Mild Memory Loss

If you are in your forties to fifties, you are likely to have an identifiable, reversible cause of memory loss.

If you are in your sixties to eighties, memory loss due to either the aging process or dementia is much more common.

If there is a relatively rapid onset (weeks to months) of symptoms, a potentially reversible cause of memory loss is more likely.

A fluctuating course of symptoms, with periods of clear memory and cognition intervening between episodes of confusion or memory loss, is more likely to be due to an identifiable, reversible cause.

A gradual dwindling in memory over many years, even decades, is characteristic of memory loss due to the aging process.

A steady decline with mild symptoms progressing to severe symptoms of memory loss within a few years suggests Alzheimer’s disease.

The Aging Process Worsens Reversible Causes of Memory Loss
Some people with chronic depression or low-level medication toxicity develop mild memory loss for the first time in their sixties and seventies. Many of these people chug along for years with minimal memory loss induced by a specific, reversible cause, like depression or medication toxicity, because it is too subtle to affect daily functioning. Then the process of agerelated memory loss, which has been progressing slowly but steadily in the meantime, catches up and adds an extra wallop that leads to clear-cut memory loss. In other words, the two types of memory loss may each be very mild, but when added together they cross the threshold above which most people recognize the presence of memory loss.

Clearly, it can be risky to assume that subtle memory loss is always due to the “normal” aging process. As Jack Kaufman’s story illustrates, medication toxicity is a common, often unrecognized cause of generalized cognitive decline, including memory loss. Medication toxicity is only one of the common causes of memory loss that can be reversed by early recognition and intervention. Another example is when older people cannot recall what was said, because they suffer from a hearing loss. In these situations, the solution is a hearing aid, not treatment with memory-enhancing medications.

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Exploring the Registry Editor
Before you do anything else with the registry, you should explore it a little. It’s important to become familiar with the various components the registry contains and see how Microsoft constructed it.
In order to begin this process, you need some kind of viewer to see the registry, which is the Registry Editor. To start the Registry Editor, select the Start
Run command. You’ll see the Run dialog
box. Type RegEdit in the Run field and click OK. Windows will start the Registry Editor shown in Figure 6.1.

This view shows several important registry features. All of the top-level entries that include an H in front of their name, such as
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT , are registry hives. Each hive contains a different kind of information that affects a particular part of the machine and can even appear in a different file from the rest of the registry. For example, the HKEY_CURRENT_USER hive appears in the
D:\Documents and Settings\ Your User Name folder as NTUSER.DAT
. However, for optimization purposes, it’s not very important to know the location of the data.

Each of the hives contains one or more keys. For example, look in Figure 6.1 and you’ll see that HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE has a key named HARDWARE . All of the non-hive entries in the left pane are keys and each represents a data storage container of some type (even if it’s only to store other keys).

When you select a key in the left pane, you see the values it stores in the right pane. A value consists of a name and value pair. The name of the value defines what kind of information the value contains. For example, in Figure 6.1 there’s a value named
SystemBiosDate with a value of 03/03/00 . This value tells you that the Basic Input/Ouput System (BIOS) chip for this system was originally manufactured on 3 March 2000. It doesn’t tell you about any updates to that chip, but at least you know when the manufacturer created the chip.

Figure 6.1
Use the Registry Editor to explore and to add, remove, or modify entries.

TIP
To keep track of registry sections that you visit frequently, use the options on the Favorites menu (not to be confused with Favorites in Internet Explorer). The Add to Favorites command displays a dialog box where you can add a new favorite to the list. The favorite will appear on the Favorites menu as an option you can select. When you find that you no longer need a favorite, select the Remove Favorite command to display Remove Favorites dialog box. Select the favorite you want to remove and click OK.

You’ll find a lot of interesting information about your system in the registry just by exploring the various keys. The “An Overview of Interesting Registry Sections” section of the chapter tells you
about areas that you’ll want to look at carefully for potential optimization needs. For now, however, try looking at the upper levels of the registry to get familiar with the kinds of data that each hive contains. Look especially in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER hive because that contains your personal settings.

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But my curious diagnostic mind wasn’t yet ready to accept defeat. Earlier, Jack had downplayed the impact of migraine headaches that occurred at a frequency of once or twice a month. On further investigation, he divulged the truth. Although the migraine attacks were not frequent, he often took painkillers as soon as he felt that an attack might be coming on. These included not only acetaminophen (regular Tylenol), but also Tylenol 3, which contains a small dose of codeine in
addition to acetaminophen. Codeine is a narcotic that belongs to the same chemical class of substances as morphine and heroin, though it is much weaker in its effects. For most people, the codeine dose in Tylenol 3 is too small to have any impact on memory, but Jack sometimes took up to four tablets in a single day when he sensed the “aura” of an impending migraine attack. On days when the attacks did occur, he sometimes exceeded this dose.

Jack was unable to identify a clear time relationship between taking Tylenol 3 and his loss of memory, because his medication intake was erratic and unpredictable, which is why he hadn’t reported it to me during the initial evaluation. I explained to him that there was a distinct possibility that the codeine in Tylenol 3 was having a subtle impact on his memory. Jack had obtained the prescription with multiple refills from an internist whom he saw barely once a year. Jack agreed with my recommendation to get an opinion from a headache specialist. The headache specialist stopped Tylenol 3 and switched him to sumatriptan (Imitrex), a powerful antimigraine medication that should
be taken only just before or during a migraine attack, because frequent use is potentially risky. Jack had to adjust his approach to this new reality, but the great advantage was that when he took sumatriptan at the start of an attack, the migraine literally disappeared. Over the next few months, his cognitive abilities steadily improved, and he had no further incidents or episodes of memory failure. On repeat neuropsychological testing conducted a year later, he performed significantly better than he had when he first came to see me. We were both delighted with the result, and Jack expressed his heartfelt gratitude to me. He was now confident that he wasn’t developing Alzheimer’s disease or at risk for a stroke, but being a realist, he also knew that there was no guarantee he would be shielded from these conditions for the rest of his life.

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This chapter is all about discovering which areas of the registry you can edit and learning which areas to avoid. While you take your tour of the registry, you’ll also uncover new techniques for cleaning the registry and keeping it working right. A registry clogged with old and useless entries makes Windows slow and could cause stability problems. Unfortunately, Microsoft doesn’t provide much in the way of registry cleaning products, so to get out the last bit of dirt, you usually need to turn to a third party product.

Although optimization is a wonderful goal, the registry also serves another important purpose. Most applications store your personal settings in the registry. Consequently, when you want to optimize
your hard drive by temporarily removing an application, you should save those personal settings so you can easily restore them later. In most cases, restoring the settings in the registry, along with any special files the application requires, will return the application to the same state that it was in before you uninstalled it.

WARNING
Modifying the registry isn’t something you should do without making a backup of the section you plan to edit and knowing precisely what the change will do. Never modify the registry unless you know how to make the required backup and you understand how the registry section works. The “Exporting Data” section of the chapter tells you how to make the required backup. Many of the other areas of the chapter discuss safe edits you can make. When in doubt, however,
don’t edit the registry.

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Based on my interview, I determined that he had a very mild level of anxiety that did not meet diagnostic criteria for any psychiatric disorder. On neurologic examination, he had a generalized increase in deep tendon reflexes that could have been due to the presence of multiple small strokes in the brain. The MRI scan suggested the possibility of a very small stroke in the depths of the left frontal lobe, but the finding was so unclear that the radiologist hedged his bets and refused to call it a small stroke in his written report. I dredged up the scan from an obstinate medical records clerk and couldn’t see any abnormality either (the radiologist was obviously much better at this than I, but it’s a good idea for the patient’s physician to also take a look). It seemed more likely that these abnormal reflexes, because they were widespread and not localized, were caused by heightened anxiety.

Neuropsychological testing produced a profile of no memory loss with mild deficits in attention and in the ability to change between ‘‘sets,” which means that the rules of the test are changed in midstream and the subject is forced to readjust quickly and answer correctly according to the new rules. These deficits in “executive function” can be caused by a disease of the frontal lobe, that huge part of the brain sitting directly behind the forehead that is vital for intelligence and decision making, as well as storage of long-term memories. Sometimes, these frontal deficits are associated with specific neurological signs on physical examination, but these were totally absent in Jack’s case. His
performance could also have been caused by a lack of focus while doing the tests.

I wondered if his symptoms were all due to anxiety or if he had early signs of frontal lobe dementia, of which Pick’s disease (microscopic structures called Pick’s bodies are seen on brain autopsy) is one of the more common types. Or was he having ministrokes, which could give rise to a similar clinical picture, even though the MRI results did not clearly confirm this?

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Now you’re at the point where you need to do some work. The first step is to decide what to archive and consider how to archive it. You need to define the kind of archival you want to perform,
whether you’ll place the data in a ZIP file, and precisely how long you’ll keep that file. The next step is to consider a storage media. Although CDs are insanely cheap, you might not want to trust your
data to them when you plan to keep the information for several years. Sometimes storing the information to tape really is the best choice.

Chapter 6 opens a new vista into the inner workings of Windows—one that many people find quite scary, the registry. This chapter helps you discover that the registry is merely a database. Sure,
the registry is complex and a misstep can cause problems, but when you approach it correctly, the registry is quite manageable. The secret is to perform specific tasks—just the ones you know about,
and avoid changing anything you don’t understand. The focus of Chapter 5 is to remove some of the mystery from the registry so that you can optimize it with greater ease and with less danger of doing something you’ll regret later.

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CHAPTER 7
Mild Memory Loss: Fix Reversible Causes
First

IT IS LIKELY THAT anywhere from 20 to 40 percent of cases of memory loss are due to specific, reversible causes. Therefore, if you suffer from mild memory loss, it is essential that you read this part covering potentially reversible causes of memory loss, because there is a distinct possibility that identifying and treating one or more of these factors will completely reverse your memory deficits. And even if you are not currently experiencing memory loss, you should be aware of the negative
impact of factors like stress, alcohol abuse, depression, nutritional deficiencies, and hormonal changes on memory, so that you can reduce or eliminate their influence, both now and in the future.

A Case of Subtle Brain Toxicity: Jack’s Story
Jack Kaufman, a tall, slim fifty-three-year-old bespectacled man living alone, came to see me in a state of considerable agitation. The previous week, he had lost the keys to his house and was forced
to retrieve the duplicate keys from a neighbor, who luckily still had the extra set that Jack had entrusted to her. A few days later, Jack discovered that he had made a major error in his calculations for an office budget. He worked as an accountant and couldn’t recall ever having made such a mistake. He said that his fear about losing his memory was disrupting his sleep, and that he could no longer concentrate on his work or his personal life.

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You do have a few problems to overcome when working with online accounts. Sure, you’ve optimized hard drive usage more than any local application would allow, but now you have to consider the fact that your data is online—on someone else’s machine. It’s not a very secure environment for the most part. In fact, Google’s Gmail is going to search through your messages whether you want them to or not. Some of these privacy incursions should make you think twice about using free online accounts. You can read the full story on the Computerworld site at http://www.computerworld.com/
securitytopics/security/privacy/story/0,10801,92279,00.html?nas=PM-92279.

Even though you do optimize hard drive usage, you also trade one performance problem for another. Now instead of just downloading your messages from the Internet, you also have to download
all of the user interface elements. Consequently, viewing email online can be time consuming even with a high-speed connection. In addition, you can’t count on the availability of the online service,
so you might not have access to your email when you need to view it in a hurry.

All of these negatives aside, online email has proven very popular because it also has several advantages. For example, you can check your email from any location that has an Internet connection.
In addition, online email lets you maintain several accounts (for different purposes such as business and personal) without incurring additional fees from your ISP.

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In this context, I once had the misfortune of having a research coordinator (on one of my projects) who systematically wrote down every instruction on a notepad and then generated computerized list
after list that she could never keep track of. This became a recipe for disaster— luckily minor disasters— until I insisted that she change her system and keep only one comprehensive computerized list that she updated regularly.

Trash the Junk
People who walk into my office are often shocked to see hardly any loose papers on my desk and conference table, especially those people who know how many clinical, research, teaching, and administrative balls I juggle simultaneously. My secret? When in doubt, throw it out! This is one motto that has stood me well over the years. I contrast this approach with that of some of my colleagues who keep wading through mountains of paper in their offices to try to find what they want; they always seem to be under stress and often cannot find what they want or need.

But what has this to do with memory? The fact is that you cannot hope to remember every little message, every small detail that bombards you every day. Clearing the debris in your mind is necessary in order to absorb and retain new information, just as you need to clean your desk
regularly or clean out a house before you move in. So to keep your memory fit and ready to absorb new, important information, it is necessary to periodically extinguish useless lists, stickies, messages,
stacks of papers, articles, and magazines.

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Other email programs make life a little more interesting. For example, to recover an Outlook Express archive, you need to make Outlook Express think the data was there all along. To begin, create a new folder in Outlook Express with precisely the same name as the archive you want to restore. For example, if the name of the archive is My Folder.DBX, you need to create a folder in Outlook Express named My Folder. Select My Folder after you create it and you’ll see that it’s blank. The act of selecting the folder creates a new file in the Outlook Express storage location (see the “Archiving Email Files” section for tips on locating the storage location).

At this point, close Outlook Express. Copy the archived file over the new file that Outlook Express just created. Windows will even ask if you want to copy over the existing file (if it doesn’t, then you
weren’t successful creating the blank file). When you reopen Outlook Express and select the folder you created, you should see the archived data.

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Planning: Pen and Paper Are Better Than Your Head
Planning is an integral part of getting organized. Spend the extra time you need to prepare for what you need to do before rushing headlong into it. Reducing your stress level will help you avoid making mistakes due to hasty action, be it at work, at home, or in the stock market.

Don’t feel shy about using pen and paper! Notebooks (paper/pen or computerized) and lists are excellent memory aids. And if you suffer from moderate memory loss, you need to take this a step further: keep detailed lists and schedules, and paste important information in prominent places around the house.

Memory Helpers
Choose from this list of lists to suit your individual needs:
1. Daily planning list.
2. Weekly planning list.
3. If a list is too long, classify it into categories, for example, people to contact (call, E-mail), meetings to attend, business trips to make. A computerized word-processing or spreadsheet list is the best solution if many items need to be added and deleted frequently on an ongoing basis.
4. Calendars, appointment books, electronic organizers: make sure you refer to them after you actually make the entries. Stick with what makes you comfortable; the latest technology isn’t the best for everyone.

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Some email applications require a different approach. For example, many people use Outlook Express, which despite the name, has many differences from Outlook. Outlook Express stores each folder you create individually, rather than in a central database as Outlook does. To archive a folder in Outlook Express, you locate the storage location (normally in the \Documents and Settings folder hierarchy) and look for DBX file that has the same name as the folder. Archive this file and then delete it from Outlook Express. (Don’t simply delete the file from the storage folder or Outlook Express will recreate it.) The DBX file will disappear from the storage location.

TIP Archiving email files using the default Outlook Express setup can be difficult to say the least because even finding the email folder is hard. The default location for your email files places them deep within the \Documents and Settings folder hierarchy, which makes finding the file hard. To solve this problem, change the location of the email folder on your system. Select the Tools
Options command to display the Options dialog box. Select the Maintenance tab and click Store Folder. You’ll see the Store Location dialog box. Click Change and find a new location for the email files on your system. Moving the email files makes them much easier to locate and work with regularly.

When you have trouble locating the Outlook Express storage area, use the Dir command to locate it. Type the name of the folder with a DBX extension. For example, if the name of the folder is My Folder, you would type Dir “My Folder.DBX” /S at the command prompt and press Enter. Note that you must include quotes around a folder name that includes spaces and need to include the /S command line switch to tell Dir to search subdirectories. The Dir command will tell you the location of the storage area and you can use Windows Explorer to locate the file.

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Go Slow: Don’t Try to Remember Everything All at Once
This dictum may seem self-evident, but many people do not recognize that the speed at which you can process information, more than the actual volume of data that can be handled by the brain, slows down considerably with age. An older person can learn the same amount as a younger person; it just takes longer, and this slowing down begins in middle age. This is because neuronal network data transfer has slowed down due to gradual decay of brain cells. So if you set unrealistic timetables for yourself that are based on your capabilities from twenty years ago, you increase the likelihood of failure. Pace yourself, because otherwise you may lose confidence and give up by thinking you
cannot accomplish a task when, in fact, you can do it if you give yourself a little more time. This applies to both the speed of doing a specific task and the number of tasks that you expect to complete
within a specified time period.

Organize, Organize, and Stay Organized
This is one area where aging actually confers an advantage; people above the age of forty are usually much better at getting organized and staying organized than teenagers or college students. This means that even if your hippocampal memory is not as good as it used to be, your “effective” memory in day-to-day living may actually improve as you utilize planning and organization to improve your executive skills and your ability to remember.

It is important to give yourself time to get organized. If you need to clear your head to get organized, lock your door, don’t answer when someone knocks, and let the answering machine pick up your messages.

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One of the best ways to organize email is to create a folder for it. Unfortunately, there isn’t one “best” way to perform this task. Because of the work I do, I have several kinds of organizational folders. Figure 5.10 shows the two most common types.

The folders on the top are project folders. When I start a new project, such as a new book or client relation, I create an email folder for it. All of the folders I create for that project have the same number, making them easy to differentiate and sort. When I finish the project, I archive the email files for that project (see the “Archiving Email Files” section for details). Consequently, the email for that project is always accessible, but it only consumes space on my hard drive while I work on that project.

Figure 5.10
Use folders as helpful aids for organizing your email.

Sometimes a project folder will include subfolders. For example, I might find some interesting threads on a newsgroup, so I’ll create a subfolder for them. Generally, I try to assign the folder a specific
use. A book might contain information in a specific chapter, so I’ll assign the subfolder to a specific chapter. When I complete that chapter, I decide whether any of the remaining information is
useful and get rid of it when the information isn’t useful. These folders are temporary and I never archive them.

The Computer News folder is a topical folder. In this case, it holds all of the trade press emails that I’ve saved for research purposes. Within this folder are subfolders—one for each trade press magazine
I receive through email. Once a month my reminder program displays a message that it’s time to remove the old messages from the trade press folders. Depending on the trade press folder, I remove messages that are either a year or two old. This section folder type is an example of one that doesn’t end—it’s continuous and you have to maintain it in order to maintain some kind of information viability.

Note that some email applications provide an automatic archiving feature. For example, when working with Outlook 2003, you can right-click a folder and choose Properties from the context menu. Select the AutoArchive tab and you’ll see a number of archiving options for that folder as shown in Figure 5.11. In fact, you can simply tell Outlook to erase the messages in the folder after a
specific time interval.

A third type of folder doesn’t appear in Figure 5.10. It holds proposal information. Someone writes to me about an idea that they want to pursue. We haven’t decided to proceed with the project yet, so
I don’t assign it a project number. Only after the idea becomes a project do I move it out of the proposal folder and into a project folder. About once a month, I also go through my proposal folder and
remove old ideas that just didn’t work out for some reason.

Figure 5.11
Some email applications help you keep your system clean through automatic archiving.

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How to Keep Track of Titles of Movies, Books, Authors

When reading a book or seeing a movie, we all start by registering the title or name in our minds, but then we get engrossed in the content of what we read or see, and the title begins to evaporate.

There are several methods you can use to improve your memory for titles or names:

When you finish the book or the movie is over, make it a habit to spend an extra minute memorizing the title or name.

You won’t forget the main actor in a movie or the main character in a book, so another approach is to link the main character with the title by making up a little action-story in your mind.

Using a link with something familiar works well. For example, I will never forget the movie The Ice Storm because it immediately conjures up the stark beauty of a magnificent ice storm that I lived through in New Haven, Connecticut.

Like forgetting names, forgetting titles of movies or books by itself usually does not indicate that anything more serious is happening in your brain.

Taken From: The Memory Program How to Prevent Memory Loss
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One interesting format is RAR. A few companies are using this format for public distribution of files. The main reason that companies use RAR is that like the CAB format, it provides good support for multiple volumes (learn more at http://www.rarlabs.com/rar_file.htm). The originator of this archive provides a special application for it named WinRAR (http://www.rarlabs.com/). However, other vendors have already added the RAR format to their repertoire.

The point you have to consider is which of these formats you should support as part of your archiving scheme. When you want to create a personal or company archive, you should focus on one archive and not confuse things by supporting other formats. However, it’s important to know that these other formats exist when you work with other people.

Preventing Email Overload
Email has become the lumbering elephant of data storage for most people. It’s slow, it’s large, and it’s hard to manage—just like the animal. Even with careful management, your email can quickly grow
to gargantuan proportions because email has become central to many communications today. Don’t get the idea that just business communication is affected either—email affects personal communication and even research to a great degree. One of my best research sources now are the trade press newsletters I received and carefully store in my email. In a matter of seconds, I can locate a story that I remember reading some time ago.

Despite careful management, my email often exceeds 360MB of storage space. That’s a lot of space to devote to data. Yet, if I hadn’t carefully managed it, my email could have easily ballooned to 1GB or more. In fact, email has become such a problem, that many administrators now consider 10GB or more of storage space, average. Imagine that—email consumes more space that many people have in all other kinds of data combined!

The following sections provide some ideas you can use to optimize your email. These sections provide great ideas, but I encourage you to experiment on your own because everyone’s email needs are
different. When you come up with some new ideas you’d like to share, let me know about them at JMueller@mwt.net. I’m always looking for new ways to manage my email and will definitely share
them through my Web site.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

Visual Imagery
See it. People with a good visual memory can see things in their heads, and these memories stay long and firm in the hippocampus and frontal lobes, and can be retrieved later more easily. If you have this type of skill, you can use photographic or film techniques to boost your memory. The photographic technique is to consciously register each event as a photographic image in your brain, retaining all the elements as they actually occurred: the main person or centerpiece of the action plus all the surroundings. This strategy can be extended to the movie technique, because movies, after all, are a series of still images blending in sequence into one another. Some people have the ability to make up a story connecting various events and spin it into a movie sequence in their minds.

Visual imagery is much richer than verbal strategies where only the words are remembered and linked in some way. Unfortunately, only a minority of people have the aptitude, perhaps genetically inherited, to optimally use these visual imagery techniques.

Taken From: The Memory Program How to Prevent Memory Loss
and Enhance Memory Power

Figure 5.8
You can create archives on the fly using products such as WinZip.

Most of these archive programs provide features you need to send data to someone else, such as data encryption and password protection. You may need these features in a local archive as well, but generally, you protect a local archive using physical security, so encryption and password protection isn’t as important.

WARNING Beware of compatibility problems with ZIP files. Originally, everyone used the same version of the ZIP standard, so you could archive files using one ZIP program and expand them using any other application that supported ZIP. Vendors want to differentiate their products, so the ZIP standard has fragmented. One of the biggest areas of contention according to an InfoWorld article(http://www.infoworld.com/infoworld/article/03/06/10/HNzipsplinters_1.html) is the use of new encryption technologies (you must be an InfoWorld member to view the article, but registration is free). Another problem is the use of new compression methods that help you gain a little more disk space. You don’t have to use these new features and most vendors will warn you about compatibility problems when using new features, but it never hurts to exercise a little extra care.

One of the most important features of GUI-based archive utilities is convenience. To add a file to an existing archive, all you need to do is drag it and drop it on the archive file in Windows Explorer.
Most archive utilities display a dialog box similar to the one shown in Figure 5.9. Even if you don’t understand all of the fancy options presented by the dialog box, you can click Add to add the file to
the existing archive. When you use a utility such as MakeCab you always have to build the archive from scratch.

Figure 5.9
Many GUI archive applications provide a means to add files to an existing archive.

Notice that this product also lets you set a number of options. For example, you can choose the level of compression the utility employs. It’s also possible to encrypt the data to protect it from prying eyes. A special feature saves only the DOS-formatted (8 letter filename and 3 letter file extension) filename.
You can retain other features such as the name of the folder in which the file appears so you can restore the directory structure later. All of these features are available through a few clicks—no odd
command line switches to memorize, no special configuration files to create.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

In the loci technique, you create an imaginary house and place items you need to remember in specific rooms, using visual imagery. The peg technique involves the mental use of pegs or anchors for each event, and is similar to the loci technique. To work well, the loci and peg techniques require both an aptitude for visual memory as well as considerable mental effort. Teenagers and young adults are able to take advantage of these methods better than middle-aged or older people.

I will now discuss simpler mnemonics that include associations or links, rhyming and letter association, imagery and visualization, chunking, and lists and memory assistants.

Associations or Links
When you experience a new event, the hippocampus starts communicating with the parahippocampus, which is a big part of the neighboring “association cortex” in the brain, to see if the new event can be associated or linked with an older memory in storage. If it can be linked, the event is easier to remember and a new “memory link” is formed in the hippocampus and parahippocampus, which may in turn link up to even older memories stored in other parts of the temporal lobe or the frontal lobe. We all use associations or links, sometimes without even consciously knowing that it’s happening. For example, some physical feature of a new person you meet, such as the eyes or forehead, can trigger a memory of a completely unrelated person who had similar eyes or forehead. This is a useless association because it doesn’t help you in any way. On the other hand, linking a new acquaintance with another “memory storage” person with the same
interests or in the same profession may give you a head start on dealing with this new acquaintance.

Taken From: The Memory Program How to Prevent Memory Loss
and Enhance Memory Power

The ZIP file is so popular, that Windows XP even includes resources for working with it as part of the operating system. However, the Windows XP ZIP support isn’t going to be good enough for most
uses because it doesn’t provide a convenient means of creating an archive. The only real functionality is the ability to move files in and out of an existing ZIP archive as you would out of any other folder
in Windows Explorer. Generally, you’ll want to buy something better.

TIP Many people find they don’t like the ZIP support provided by Windows XP. Using the default setup, you can view ZIP files as a folder using Windows Explorer. Unfortunately, this feature slows
down searches because Windows Explorer looks through every ZIP file on your system. It can also cause Windows Explorer to crash at times, seems to interfere with some backup utilities, and can cause other problems when you have a dedicated ZIP application installed. To remove this feature, open a command prompt in the \Windows\System32 folder. At the command prompt type RegSvr32 -u ZIPFldr.DLL and press Enter. You’ll see a success message. Close and reopen any copies of Windows Explorer you have open.

The “Using the MakeCab and Expand Utilities” section of the chapter discusses the only true archiver that Windows supports. This utility creates cabinets that can exist across disk boundaries and provides all of the support required for application installations. When you need to create a permanent store for your data, you should consider using a product like MakeCab because it can help you organize the information into multiple disk sets. However, MakeCab isn’t very good for creating compressed archives on the fly, which is why you need a product such as WinZip shown in Figure 5.8.

WinZip and other products like it serve a different purpose from MakeCab. I’ll use WinZip as the example as the discussion progresses, but you can be sure that other products offer similar features. For example, you can’t password protect an archive with MakeCab, but you can with WinZip. In addition, WinZip integrates directly into Windows Explorer. You can select one or more files, rightclick, and choose a ZIP archive option from the context menu. In fact, you don’t even have to create a permanent ZIP file when you want to email the file to someone because WinZip provides an option for creating the email with the ZIP attachment in place. (Depending on which version of Windows and the archive program you use, the archive program might create a disk version of the archive before it creates the email for you—you’ll want to remove any disk files after you send the file.)

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

/R Rename the expanded files. The only problem is that this feature doesn’t appear to work. The best way to rename the files is to ensure you place them in a separate directory and rename them
by hand after you expand them.

/D Display a list of the files in the cabinet, but don’t expand them. This command lets you review the content of a cabinet before you do anything with it.

/F Files Lets you selectively retrieve files from a cabinet. In some cases, you might want just one or two of the files, rather than expanding all of them. You must use this option when working with a cabinet that contains multiple files. When you want to expand all of the files in an archive, use the /F * command line switch.

To use the Expand utility on a single file archive, simply type the name of the archive. For example, if the name of the archive is Test1.TX_, you would type Expand Test1.TX_ and press Enter. You
don’t need to provide a destination directory or any other information unless you want to.

When working with a multiple file archive, you must provide both a file list and a destination folder. For example, when you have a cabinet file named MyArchive.CAB and you want to extract all of the files, you type Expand /F:* MyArchive.CAB . and press Enter. Notice that I’ve used a wildcard character, the asterisk, to tell Expand to expand all of the files. In addition, I’ve specified the destination
using a period (.). The period tells Expand to use the current directory. Figure 5.7 shows typical results from expanding files from a multiple file cabinet.

Notice that the output shows that Expand placed the files in the current directory as signified by the period. When you what to expand files into the parent (one level up) directory, you can use two
periods (..). It’s also possible to use wildcard characters in various ways to define the files you want to expand. For example, when you want to expand all files that begin with the word Test, contain a
single character as a suffix, and have any file extension, you’d use Test?.* as the file definition. To put this all together, you’d type Expand /F:Test?.* MyArchive.CAB .. and press Enter.

Figure 5.7
Expanding a multiple file archive means including a file list and a
destination directory.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

; Provide a list of files to archive.

Test1.TXT
Test2.INI
Test3.HLP
Test4.TST

When you create a DDF for archiving purposes, you essentially define two sections. The first section contains all of the MakeCab variable settings and the second contains all of the files you want to
archive. You can also add comments as shown by preceding the line with a semicolon (;).

The keyword, .Set (always include the period), tells MakeCab that you’re about to set a variable. Then comes the variable name, an equals sign (=), and the value. Most values are single words, so you
don’t need to enclose them in quotes. Some values are multiple words, however, so you need to enclose them in double quotes so MakeCab accepts the entire value as shown for the DiskLabel variable.

Generally, you’ll place all of your archive files in the same folder, so you don’t need to provide anything more than the filenames. When you want to include files in multiple folders, you can use a path as normal. For example, when the Temp.TXT file appears in the \Temp folder of the D drive you could include the file using D:\Temp\Temp.TXT as the DDF entry.

To create the archive, you use the /F MakeCab command line switch. For example, when your DDF file is named MyCatalog.DDF, you would type MakeCab /F MyCatalog.DFF and press Enter. Figure 5.6 shows typical results of using this command.

Notice that the output is far more complex than using the command line version of MakeCab. Using the /V2 command line switch tells you a lot about how MakeCab works without burdening you with too many details. In this case, you see all of the variable settings take effect along with the comments you provided in the code so it’s easy to compare the output with the code you typed.

TIP Creating the DDF file need not be a long and complicated task of typing filenames by hand. Use the Dir command to create the file for you. For example, when you want to archive all of the files in
a directory, type Dir *.* /B >> ACatalog.DDF and press Enter. The ACatalog.DDF file will receive the list of files you want to archive. Simply open this file and place any variable declarations you want to use at the top and then feed it to the MakeCab utility.

Figure 5.6
Using a DDF file creates a standard CAB file with multiple files in it.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

UniqueFiles X Use this variable to determine whether the destination
can include duplicate filenames. Normally, you want to set this option to On to ensure that the filenames are unique.

Table 5.2:
Common MakeCab Variables
(continued)
Variable
Command
Line DDF Description

To try the command line version of MakeCab out, open a command prompt in a folder that contains a test file. At the command prompt, type MakeCab /D Compress=On /D CompressedFile- ExtensionChar=# /D CompressionType=LZX /V3 Test1.TXT and press Enter. This command line will produce a single file cabinet that uses compression, has an output name of Test1.TX# , and relies on the Lempel-Ziv-Welch (LZW) compression method. MakeCab will also provide verbose output so you can see the details of the compression. Figure 5.5 shows typical output from this command.

Figure 5.5
Use the command line version of MakeCab to compress single files
quickly.

Creating Cabinet Files with MakeCab
From a usage perspective, MakeCab is a little limited when you use the command line approach. The greatest number of files that your cabinet will ever contain is 1. Although that’s nice, creating cabinets
with a number of files is better. To create a multiple file cabinet, you must create a DDF. Using a DDF opens all kinds of new possibilities. In fact, you might be surprised to find that many professional developers create installation programs and utilities based around MakeCab and the DDF. However, the purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate how to catalog and optionally compress files.

TIP Microsoft provides limited documentation for working with CAB files and creating the DDF that extends MakeCab. You can find the one piece of arcane documentation that Microsoft does provide on the topic at ttp://home.hiwaay.net/~pittman/archive/makecab.doc. This document is a tad difficult to read—make sure you understand how the extended DDF features work before you use them on a real archive.

One significant advantage of MakeCab is that you can use it to build multiple disk archives. When a file is too large for a single disk, MakeCab automatically compresses the file in such a way that it
spans the multiple disks. MakeCab also uses cabinet space efficiently by continuing to add files until the cabinet is full, even if this means that part of the file resides in one cabinet and part in the next.
Finally, MakeCab performs the compression across file boundaries, which means that compression continues from one file to the next without stopping. Theoretically, this technique improves the compression ratio, but in reality you won’t notice too much of a difference between the output from Make- Cab and other products.

The example in this section shows a simple DDF. The DDF can become quite complex, but usually you don’t require that level of complexity for a simple archive. Listing 5.1 shows the DDF file I created for the sample files.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

So I do some researches on the credit cards offers, and find out that we actually can have an easier way to compare, assess and pick the right credit card with the help of CompareCards.Com. In this website, we can find a lot of credit cards offer which available for any individual needs.

We can find the low interest credit card which will be very good choice to save your money. Compare Credit Cards help me to find the right credit card and help me switch from the old one easier with the online application. You just have to fill out the form provided and submit it once you have already completed it and let them handle the rest for you. It is fast and convenient. Just try it!

]]> http://www.unitetoendthewar.com/?feed=rss2&p=208 http://www.unitetoendthewar.com/?p=129 http://www.unitetoendthewar.com/?p=129#comments Tue, 17 Mar 2009 09:29:00 +0000 admin http://localhost/wp/?p=1319 DiskDirectory X Defines the name of the directory used to store each
disk in a multiple disk compression. For example, if you defined the name as MyArchive, then the first disk in the set would use a directory named MyArchive1.

DiskLabel X Set the printed disk label information using this
variable. MakeCab uniquely labels each disk using a disk number. For example, when you set this value to My Archive, the label for the first disk is My Archive 1.

GenerateInf X Determines when MakeCab generates an INF
(information) file for the archive. The INF lets you expand the cabinet and retrieve the files without using the Expand utility (see the “Retrieving Files from Cabinets with Expand” section for details).
There are a number of INF variables you can also use, but these values are generally used for production installation programs, so you can safely skip them in this situation.

MaxCabinetSize X Use this variable to define the largest cabinet that
MakeCab should create. When a file won’t fit in a single cabinet, MakeCab fills the cabinet with as much of the file as will fit and then starts a new cabinet with the remainder of the file. The process
continues until the file is complete.

MaxDiskSize X Set the disk size for a cabinet using this variable. The
MaxDiskSize variable ensures that the content for each cabinet will fit on a separate disk. MakeCab doesn’t currently support DVD recordings directly, but it does support CDs. Use the special CDROM,
1.44M, 1.2M, 720K, or 360K values to specify standard disk sizes, or you can define unique sizes by providing the number of bytes.

RptFileName X Use this variable to define the name of the report for
the cabinet building process. The report tells you about any errors that MakeCab encountered and provides status information.

Table 5.2:
Common MakeCab Variables
(continued)
Variable
Command
Line DDF Description

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

This condition, of course will bring disadvantages on you. People will not trust you anymore if you are asking for loan, and you will find it more difficult to apply for credit for any purposes. If you wan to repair credit, then you have to find the right place which will be able to fix the inaccuracies that may occurred in your credit report to the three credit report bureaus.

Repairyourbadcredit.Com is the right place for this purpose. Here, you are not only able to ask for credit repair service, but you also have the change to gain more advantage through the e-book “The Insider’s Guide to Success”. They can fix credit and increase your credit score while providing you the knowledge you need to be a success and debt free person.

If you look for the best brokerage, you can open the website firstrade.com. You will meet the online broker that will help you to trade stocks, options, mutual funds, ETFs and fixed incomes at competitive cost. You can do the online trading and you will get the same benefits like your friend got. You also will meet the online broker and they will help you to trade the stocks. You also can get the discount for your stocks trading. You only need to read the reviews. After that, you can get ready to do the stock trading.

You can do the stock trading very well if you open the website and join them. The brokerage will help you do it easily and you will get the profit to your account. There is no reason for you to wait, just join it now.

The /D switch is a bit of a mystery because there isn’t any documentation for it included with Windows. MakeCab includes variables that you can modify to change its behavior. Some of these commands make sense when you use MakeCab from the command line, but others are better suited to working with MakeCab through a Diamond Directive File (DDF). (See the “Creating Cabinet Files
with MakeCab” section for details on working with DDFs.) Table 5.2 describes the most important variables and tells whether you can use them in a DDF or at the command line.

Table 5.2:
Common MakeCab Variables
Variable
Command
Line DDF Description
Cabinet X Use this variable to set the cabinet mode on or off.
CabinetFileCountThreshold X This variable defines the number of files that can appear in a cabinet before MakeCab creates a new
cabinet.
CabinetName X This variable defines the name of the cabinet file,
which always has a CAB extension. You can also assign a number to the cabinet name when creating multiple cabinets.
Compress X X Use this variable to turn compression on or off.
When compression is off, MakeCab creates cabinets that simply archive the data.
CompressedFileExtensionChar X Normally the command line version uses an underscore for a replacement character. For example,
Test1.TXT would appear as Test1.TX_ as an archive. This variable lets you use a different replacement character.
CompressionType X X The standard compression method for cabinets is MSZIP. Most ZIP archive applications can read this form of compression with ease, but the method is a little slow when you have a lot of files to compress. However, you can use the LZX method, in many cases, where speed is the factor and not the amount of compression. This method is not compatible with some ZIP archive applications.
DestinationDir X X Set the destination directory using this variable. The default setting uses the current directory as the destination.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

TIP
Although most ZIP applications today will read CAB files as well, it pays to know how to use these utilities when your copy of Windows encounters a problem. You can use MakeCab to archive files that you suspect are damaged and obtain new copies from the Windows CD using Expand. Because these utilities work from the command prompt, you can use them when other utilities fail (there’s no guarantee the GUI will work during an emergency).

Using MakeCab from the Command Line
The MakeCab utility creates a cabinet file from a file that you define. The two common outputs are either a cabinet file with a CAB extension or the file with the last letter of the extension replaced with an underscore (such as Test1.TX_ instead of Test1.TXT ). You can only place one file at a time into the cabinet, which makes for a slow archiving process. The MakeCab utility has the following command line switches:

/D Variable=Value Defines a MakeCab variable that you want to change. You define which variable to change and what value to assign to it. For example, if you want to turn off compression,
you would type /D Compression=Off . The command line can contain as many of these switches as needed to configure MakeCab.

/F Directives Accepts the name of a file that contains the directives for compressing a file. Normally, you’d need to use this switch from the command line. Simply provide the name of a directive file and MakeCab will process it.

/L Directory Defines the output directory for the cabinet. The default setting places the output in the current directory.

/V Level Sets the verbosity level of MakeCab. The default level is 1. You can also set levels 2 and 3.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

Here’s a scenario to consider. A company archives a Word document for later use. Five years later, someone decides to take the company to court based, in part, on that document, so the document becomes a crucial piece of evidence. The problem is that no one can view the document anymore. Even though the company has a template with the same name, it has gone through so many changes that it no longer works with the old document. In short, when you archive, you take a snapshot of everything the involves the ocument
so that you can restore the same setup later.

However, templates aren’t the only document features you need to consider. Sometimes a vendor will stop supporting a specific version of a document when it updates an application. At this point, you have to consider archiving the entire application to ensure you can read the associated documents later. The tool that created the document becomes a resource that you must have in order to read it.

The document tool consideration extends to other kinds of tools too. For example, a word-processed document might have embedded graphics created with a second application. When the graphics are in a standard format, it’s possible to open and view them with any application. However, specialized graphics formats require a specific tool to read, which means you also have to consider archiving the secondary tool as the need arises.

All of these document requirements point to the need to open the document, review the resources needed to work with the document, and then record those requirements before you archive the document. Placing this information in a central database ensures you can evaluate specific needs quickly and archive everything needed to work with the documents.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

The dual tasks of cataloging and archiving data you don’t need now, but will need later, are something you should perform together. It’s easier to get all of the data for a specific project together and
immediately archive it than it is to accumulate the data and hope it remains together until you get around to archiving it. The second method almost never works because some of the data is bound to get scattered, unintentionally deleted, or simply damaged in some way. The catalog provides a view into the data, while the archive provides a snapshot of the data at a specific moment in time. Even if
you change the data later, you still have information about its origins and original content.

Unfortunately, most archive programs don’t provide any kind of cataloging feature, so you should set up a database of some kind to hold the information. Anything will work. Some of the best catalogs
I’ve seen reside in Excel spreadsheets or Access databases. Of course, making the catalog accessible and protecting its content are prime considerations when working in a group.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

TIP
Free might sound great, but it isn’t necessarily a good deal. When you use an online storage solution, make sure you find one that guarantees specific levels of up time (a time frame when you can
connect and work with the online data). In addition, make sure the vendor guarantees that your data will be safe, that you’ll receive compensation when something damages your data, and that the vendor will protect the data from prying eyes. None of the free sites I checked will offer such guarantees, making them unsuitable for most data archiving needs. You could use such a site, however,
as a temporary data store while on the road or for noncritical data stored on a home computer.

Although this sounds like a perfect solution to the problem of archiving your data, it isn’t. You have a number of hurdles to overcome and some issues you can’t solve—at least not easily. The
biggest problem is security. Whenever you place your data on someone else’s machine, you have to assume that they can access it. Even if you encrypt the data and protect it in other ways, you can’t assume that data is safe. Consequently, you don’t want to put the data for your latest invention on such a system, nor would you want to put your company’s finances there. This kind of storage is only good for the kind of data that the public will likely know about anyway.

Another problem is reliability. If your system experiences a catastrophic failure, it’s going to be very hard to get online to restore the data. You also can’t guarantee that the online storage vendor won’t suffer some type of connectivity problem. An Internet glitch or other problem could make the site unavailable, which means you’re completely vulnerable during the time the communication
problem persists. Any loss of connectivity can easily translate into lost employee productivity and a lot of wasted time.

Transfer speed is another problem. If you think tape is slow, even the slowest tape is going to be faster than an Internet connection. Even a high-speed connection is lower than any tape drive on the
market. You’ll spend considerable time making backups and restores will take even longer. Consequently, any savings you experience due to reduced hardware and maintenance costs could get eaten
by the time required to perform simple archiving tasks.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization

However, I don’t recommend using floppies for backup. They pose a number of problems, not the least of which is finding a place to store them. A floppy backup can consume a large number of disks even on a single system when you perform a proper backup. Floppies are subject to more damage than other media described in this chapter, making them the least reliable option. Because you have to swap floppies in and out of the system, they’re also time consuming, making it less likely that someone will backup a system faithfully.

At one time, long ago, people considered floppies an acceptable form of backup because data files were smaller, as were hard drives. Today, however, systems are larger and store a lot more data than ever before. Although you could use floppies as an extremely cheap backup method, I encourage you to try one of the other solutions described in the chapter.

Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization