Mobile Stew

Firefox's memory leakage problems are well documented.  This tip from gHacks should reduce Firefox's memory usage to under 10MB.  It's very simple to implement:

1. write about:config in your firefox address bar and hit enter.

2. right click and select new Boolean.

3. Paste config.trim_on_minimize in the field and hit enter again

4. Select True from the list.

5. Restart Firefox.

I've been thinking recently about getting a hardware firewall as in my mind it should offer a better level of protection for my home network (currently I have 2 PCs, a Xbox 360 and 2 Modded Xboxs running XBMC connected to a Netgear WPN-824 router), whilst freeing up resources on my PCs. 

It just seems to make more sense to stop attacks at the 'edge' of my network rather than letting them through to PCs.  I also wouldn't have to fiddle around with setting up firewall rules on each PC, instead just setting rules at a network level.

Has anybody else done this or considered this?  Can you recommend any devices?

Whilst I was off work ill I spent a lot of time watching DVDs on my new HD Plasma TV and I decided to load all of my collection onto my PC.  Copying some of my DVDs posed a problem until I discovered DVDFab Decrypter, which copies the complete disk including special features, trailers and menus getting around any disc protection.  All you have to do is insert the DVD disc, choose a directory for the copy and press Start.

Google are quite slow at rolling out new Gmail features to international users.  Thanks to one of my readers, Jez,...

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This tip looks like it could be quite useful and I'm going to try it out myself when I get home.  Did you know that unless you uninstall a device driver on a Windows XPmachine that it still may be sucking up valuable system resources?

TechRepublic has step-by-step instructions on how you can view and remove theseunnecessary devices.

More: TechRepublic

I decided to get some new ringtones to freshen up my phone and I was amazed by how much mobile companies charge for what are essentially 15-30 second clips, so I decided to make my own.  I've posted below how I did this if you want to make your own mp3 ringtones.

First off download and install Audacity and also download and extract Lame_enc.

Once you've done this open up Audacity.


Step 1: Go to 'File' then 'Open' and find and select your source mp3

Step 2:  Once the file is open listen to the mp3 and note on the waveform where the section is that you want to make into a ringtone

Step 3: Select the section you want to use by dragging your mouse over the section ...

I've featured some of these tweaks previously, in my PC optimisation guides, but some of these are new to me, particularly the tweaks to improve page file performance.  The 10 tweaks are:

1. Disable Short Filenames
2. Name Your Files Appropriately
3. Use More Folders
4. Use More Partitions
5. Plan Your Cluster Size
6. Defragment Regularly
7. Reserve Space for the MFT
8. Disable Last Access Time
9. Turn Off (or On) the Indexing Service
10. Use FAT32 for the Paging File

For instructions on how to implement each tweak click here

Related Posts: 10 Simple Ways To Speed Up Windows XP, 10 Intermediate Ways To Speed Up Windows, More Ways to Speed Up Windows XP

As most of my regular readers know I'm in love with Project Gotham Racing 3 on my Xbox360, and it is definitely one of my top games of all time. 

I decided this morning that I wanted to use one of the in-game videos as a screensaver but couldn't find any, so I set out to try and create my own.

It took a while to find a free tool, as most were screensaver tools are shareware, but eventually I found this great tool for creating Free Video Screensavers.  'My Video Screen Saver' supports the following features:

It seems like everyday there is a new extension created for Firefox.  Although some of these are quite cool, I try to avoid rushing to install them, as at the end of the day I don't actually need them.

It's a shame that everyone seems to focus on the newest and shiniest extensions, so I've decided to take it upon myself to promote some of the lesser known extensions that I believe really make Firefox a joy to use, rather than just something to show off to non-Firefox users who haven't seen the light yet.

1.

I managed to track down some good flag images so I've now added  Dutch, Greek and Russian translations of Connected Internet, taking the total number of languages up to 12  It'll be interesting to see how many more visitors I get as a result.