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JACK KAPICA

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Latest comment posted at 4:39 AM EDT 07/02/08

Three tools to speed up a sluggish PC or perform a rescue operation on a seriously damaged PC ...Read the full article

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  1. The Wet One from Edmonchuk, Canada writes: Could there not have bee an article that wasn't an advertisment for software?

    Honestly, there are a few things that you could have discussed that don't cost anything that would have been helpful to the masses, but nooooo, that wouldn't cost anything.

    Jeez, how disappointing!
  2. diane marie from calgary, Canada writes: The Wet One:-- Of course, they could have recommended a Mac. The word sluggish only applies to PCs ;-).
  3. Rollo Tomasi from Belgium writes: Freebie: clear your cache regularly by deleting temp files.
  4. Lydia von Schreiber from Toronto, Canada writes: So, spend the extra couple of dollars and go Mac!
  5. Paul B from Vancouver, Canada writes: Chances are, if your kid knows about 'HALF-LIFE 2' and 'Maximize FPS' you don't have to spend 29.99~99.99.
  6. zipi dachimp from Canada writes: the answer of course is 'linux mint 4.0' ! none of that pc crap is necessary.
  7. Bob Van Derlay from Toronto, Canada writes: Ccleaner is an excellent safe free alternative.
  8. Dave Scott from Ottawa, Canada writes: Just run a Linux system, its a better solution. When I install Windows I can have a virus in two minutes the first time you connect to the internet. Linux you I can connect for two years and have none.
  9. L.B. MURRAY from Canada writes: Run CCleaner before shutdown and your computer will work like a charm. CCleaner is free, highly recommended by geeks...It's free but donations are always welcome. If you do a lot of banking, run CCleaner after completing your transactions.
  10. John Kuehn from Halifax, Canada writes: What about Adaware by Lavasoft and Spybot Search and Destroy? These are free and very effective alternatives. For antivirus, what about AVAST! another very effective freeware alternative. This articles continually talk about the relatively expensive alternatives. Can someone please do a side-by-side comparison with these?
  11. I. Con O'Clast from Canada writes: Ccleaner is good and free. I also use the Eusing free registry cleaner. I have tried some of the commercial stuff, and I see no benefit over the free stuff.
  12. Retired Guy from Canada writes: What a load of crap!
  13. A C from Albertario, Canada writes:
    Kapica writes: In an ideal world, we should not have to deal with these issues. But because all software makers have their own notions of what we want, computers will inevitably become sluggish without telling you why.

    News Bulletin, Jack:
    In the real world we don't have to deal with these issues.

    Want proof? Try writing the same column for the iMac or Macbook and see how ridiculous your suggestions are.
    In brief, start by avoiding the problem in the first place and you won't need any of these 'cures.'
  14. Granny Rose from Saint John, Canada writes: That's a nice advertisement masquerading as news, but perhaps some useful people out there would be kind enough to share their favorite programs that do the same cleanups for free?
  15. Eric the Red from Canada writes: This article contributes very little, apart from the blatant plug for that kind of software that is otherwise free or does little to help your computer.

    1.) Type services.msc in the Run command, and you'll end up seeing a dozen different services that you most likely do not need - if you don't print, you don't require print spooler, as well as things like remote registry, etc.

    2.) Ccleaner is good, same with Diskclean. Spybot S & D is free, as is Lavasoft's Adware cleaner. Clean regularly and clean often.

    3.) Defrag your computer

    4.) Back up everything regularly and reinstall Windows once a year, if you're up to it.

    5.) My Uninstaller PRO is a pretty good proggie - removes much more than Microsoft's Add/Remove.

    6.) Unless your computer has 1 gig of Ram, I would keep to a minimum the amount of startup programs. To see what's showing up on your startup list, type msconfig in the Run command box and then select STARTUP to see what is configured to start up with Windows.

    Seriously Jack - not all of us are Luddites when it comes to computers.
  16. Walter Granger from Central Canada, Canada writes: I don't think we should be so hard on the author of the story. He's just trying to educate the average user about software that 'may' speed up their PC. It sounds like most of the people replying here already know what they're doing.

    Personally one of my favourite PC utilities is called WinPatrol. It's freeware and it will really open your eyes as to what's installed and active on your PC. I highly recommend it.

    As a final note to you LINUX enthusiasts, yes it's stable and virus free but for the average user it's too complicated and comes with ZERO technical support. (And just how many versions are there??? about 700?)

  17. Eric the Red from Canada writes: Walter,

    Yes I have WinPatrol as well and it's an invaluable tool. I'll make a list of what I have that's freeware.

    -Winpatrol - great little proggie that monitors startup programs and will let you know asap once a program attempts to insert itself in the start up registry entries
    -Spybot Search and Destroy - freeware that is update able that scans for adware, spyware and other nasties.
    -AVG AntiVirus Free edition - among the freeware AVs out there, it isn't bad, low on system resources. People might disagree but I have no complaints.
    Dclean http://www.diskcleaner.nl/support.php - small freeware program that will clean your comp of temp files, etc.
  18. A. Nonymous from LinuxVille, United States writes: 'As a final note to you LINUX enthusiasts, yes it's stable and virus free but for the average user it's too complicated and comes with ZERO technical support. (And just how many versions are there??? about 700?)'

    As opposed to the 8 versions of VISTA, and everyone knows how competent Microsoft's technical support people are.

    'Reboot / Reinstall' parrots.
  19. Lowen Wrainger from Canada writes: Wow, online AD creep! It's getting just like those 'Free' daily papers one peruses on the TTC. Many moons ago, they used to have real news, now it's just more advertising to further ruin our forests. Pretty soon, the GAM will start charging us to post these comments. Oh no! I said it, didn't I?
  20. Mister J from Canada writes: I found the article useless since I wouldn't buy any of this stuff. Checked out Ccleaner and it's awesome! I don't like Windows because there's sooo much that they refuse to really tell you about (when I run msconfig or hit ctrl alt del there are so many things running of which I have no idea about, and I suspect that most are unnecessary.) I suppose I could learn, but I'm more into philosophy :)

    I've had a computer with internet since 1997 and I've NEVER had anti-virus software. I once got a bug, but it was my own fault (clicked a .exe link in an email that looked like it was from my school!). I'm convinced that viruses only infect computers with anti-virus software, or with retarded users. haha
  21. Confucious Smith from Toronto, Canada writes: Eric the Red writes: 'This article contributes very little, apart from the blatant plug for that kind of software that is otherwise free or does little to help your computer.
    1.) Type services.msc ...'

    I'd say there is more practical information in Eric the Red's post than what Jack Kapica has written in all of 2007.
    Seriously, what the heck are the requirements for being a G&M journalist??
  22. Chris Gover from writes: Maybe instead of checking out the odd crap software that you seem to endorse, you should learn to turn on the grammar checker in your word proccessor or maybe you're just too lazy to proofread your articles before posting them - OR G&M's standards for literacy are just too low....

    maybe fix these sentences and repost your article, Jack.

    'Of course, you have to trust Business Logic's selections first (hard-core geeks won't like that.' - need a closing parenthesis...

    'It is rarely needed, but when it is, it becomes is heaven-sent.' - 'it becomes is heaven sent'??? Maybe drop the 'is' near the end...

    'The software itself hasn't changed its design much since then, and it's looking a antique.' - Looking a antique... first 'a' never goes before a word that starts with a vowel...use 'an' instead. nest, the sentence makes no sence as is... maybe you dropped 'bit' after the 'a'...

    'The user then recovers the rescued files, photos and music from the shared folder, where they are in the same directory structure they were lost in.' - ...'lost 'from'... not 'in'.
  23. Albin Forone from Toronto, Canada writes: For XP systems, let me add a vote for CCleaner which I've been using without any harm for about six months - make a (easy ticklist) choice whether to include browser cookies since it will rub them all out unless configured otherwise. Also free and high impact goodware are the separate AusLogic Disk and Registry Defragmenters - the dialog boxes pimp for a non-free 'optimizer' I haven't tried. I'm also partial to CacheMan XP though I know these cache management tools are much debated. These things have made my old 866mhz 512RAM notebook sing, curing the gradual Windows accretion of useless files and remnant reg entries. (I also used them on my new laptop, out of the box, and was surprised how much fluff was already there.) Of course all of this is separate and distinct from virus/ad/malware scanning - another topic for another day - but equally good free solutions are available.
  24. Kevin Desmoulin from TO, Canada writes: The Biggest and best Tech Tips I love are the ones that are free, their lots of tools and tutorials on the net to learn from use then these.
    Registry Defrag/cleaner is a good one.
    Ram Defrags too, some times best to back up everything Reformat the harddrive and load the ops again too.
  25. Jack Robinson from London, Canada writes: As one Jackass to another Mr. Kapica... this is the crappiest column I've read on Windoze dysfunction in some time. With a subversive salute to previous poster 'Eric the Red', allow me to offer some freeware advice:

    Having battled the XP kraken on two computers for several years, my tickety-boo solution is to back-up yer goodies, do a clean formatted drive re-install and disable (Micro)dick's auto update function... which will contaminate your system registry with more nefarious crap-code than even Mr. Bilious hisself could conjure on a Jolt Cola jag.

    Then, having taken the expunge plunge... disable the Dick's sieve-like security apps... unless you enjoy being routinely hijacked to the Redmond Homepage whilst on-line for a friendly scan and butt-jam.

    Go to a secure download site like Snapfiles.com (my fave), peruse the freeware and open source options for system utilities, security walls and a host of other 'non-partners-in crime' options and make some informed choices.

    Purchase (yipes... 50 Buckaroos!) a system utilities suite such as Iolo's System Mechanic... actually spend a few nano-seconds of yer precious time learning how to protect, tweak and maintain the expensive Pandora's Shitbox you're cursed with establish a regular, 20 minute a week monitored maintenance programme.

    Surf the Net with a browser not exploit-targeted by hackers and corporate click-sharks... i.e. K-Meleon.

    Actually build an effective moat combining firewall, anti-virus, malware detection and... whoa... a virtual desktop like Sandboxie to conduct your evil activities both on and off-line.

    And just fer laffs, if you're really anal... run Ubuntu Linux on yer PC as a partitioned dual-boot system just to piss-off/impress every other geek in the neighborhood!

    10/4 Good Night and Good Luck!
  26. Mike L. from Canada writes: I vote with the Mac crowd: A quad-core Mac Pro for dad (work and play) and iMac for the kids.

    With the greatest reluctance I had to resurrect a retired PC to solve a homework conflict with the kids, as I could not afford to buy another Mac this month. It will, essentially, only be used for light internet research for school projects, and word processing. So I cleaned it up as best I could short of reinstalling the OS; I replaced IE with Firefox, I got rid of a major virus called McAfee Virus Scan and replaced it with (free) AVG anti-virus and anti-spyware, and I got rid of another major virus called MS Office and replaced it with Open Office (free). It's still pretty sluggish, I suppose I will have to take a trip through the registry at some point to clean it up, but for now, it serves the purpose quite well, and I won't be too bent out of shape if it dies. I refuse to add any software to it that I have to pay for.

    But as soon as possible, 100% Mac (except for the wretched Windoze laptop my employer gave me; I'm pushing to have it replaced with a MacBook Pro next time around). Then I can retire as the family tech support guru.
  27. Michael Snider, Technology Editor from Canada writes: Well, you guys are really worked up today.

    Thanks for all of the comments -- some of them were constructive and presented good arguments.

    There's value is reviewing software that actually costs something simply because few people will pay to try it. How else will they know if the software does what it says it does. However, as the critics have pointed out, a review such as this would have been more complete if it had included a free competitor. Fair enough.

    A couple points of order:

    I've removed two posts that suggest Jack was somehow compensated financially by the software makers for writing this review. Comments like that are considered attacks on the reporter and contravene the comments policy.

    And thanks to copy-editor-in-training Chris Dover for pointing out syntax errors that should have been caught.
  28. Albin Forone from Toronto, Canada writes: Mac people are a nice crowd, but until recently they've been a bit silly about the practicality of owning Mac at home while using Win at work. I had an Apple 2e and a Mac through grad school but had to go to Windows 3.x and thereafter to integrate with work PCs. Such is life for most people. Mac snobs were simply people who never, for whatever very happy or very sad reason, had to coordinate home work with a PC work computer. File translation between Mac and Windows was a joke for all but the simplest files. Since Mac's move to Intel (something some Mac snobs knew better about) and real dual OS computing power, it's now become practical to own a dual boot Mac at home to do Windows for work.
  29. Kevin Desmoulin from Canada writes: John Kuehn from Halifax, Canada writes: What about Adaware by Lavasoft and Spybot Search and Destroy? These are free and very effective alternatives. For antivirus, what about AVAST! another very effective freeware alternative. This articles continually talk about the relatively expensive alternatives. Can someone please do a side-by-side comparison with these?

    I use all these Their are ok
  30. IT Manager from Hamilton, Canada writes: I have to agree with all the other's who say buy Mac. Because of my Job I use XP Pro, Vista, Linux, Solaris, Irix, and Leopard on the Mac. I have in a previous job taken care of over 200 Macs/PC's and 20 servers. Therefore my friends and family all come to me with their computer problems. Only those with Widows PC's ever have an issue. I bought my wife a new Imac and put XP Pro on it for her job. She never needed it so I have removed it.

    I will never spend money on Windows again. I have better things to do than fight Viruses and clean up registry files.
  31. Doug Haworth from Canada writes: I know I'll get blasted by all the Mac users out there, but what the hey. I own 2 Macs and 1 Windows based PC - all laptops. The Mac is better, but honestly I have crashes with my Macs- just not as many - but still I get crashes - and the MAC students at my university, which are a just a handful as most are windows based PC's - they too have the odd crash. I would agree that the Mac crashes less - but my latest Laptop is windows VISTA Home premium and it hasn't crashed yet and I'm into 4 months of daily use. But for some reason we Mac users just kind of think we are superior - probably because we paid more for our Laptops than the Windows based users. That's why my last one was windows VISTA - I bought an HP dual2core 14.1 inch screen 12 cell battery, 2 gigs ram, 250 gig HD, firewire, 4usb, webcam, DVD burner, etc etc - cost $799.00. I couldn't find a Mac that even came close. Just my 2 cents - and now I'm sure I'll get blasted by Mac users - but remember I use two of them all the time at work - so I am on your side (sort of lol)
  32. Albin Forone from Toronto, Canada writes: For me, operating system "crashes" ended in 2002 with my first XP laptop - what continues to happen is some individual applications get indigestion now and then which can be cured only by a system reboot. I bought a new laptop in December similar to Haworths, bigger hi-res screen and probably faster HDD, for more money, but bought XP again, figuring MS will support XP and move on from the Vista mistake in the three or four years I will depend on this one. Vista looks to me like XP in a convex mirror (puff your cheeks out, or eat 5000 calories/day for a year.)
  33. Peter Kells from Bytown, Canada writes: I found and even cheaper solution. We switched our small consulting business over to Linux over a year ago and have never looked back. I did it myself and I have very limited computer skills.
  34. brian bishop from Brantford, Canada writes: All this to plug a registry cleaner-defragger for $30 to $40, haven't you heard of NTREGOPT, if that's all you want look no further & it's free!

    Seriously the only tool you need to keep windows working great is Norton Ghost 2003 & a understanding of how to install a OS & applications right the first time around.

    Macs, well their great for people who have no idea about PC's & want to let someone else take care of all the little details, essentially you run your programs & all the bugs & viruses are taken care of by Apple, it's a no-brainer OS.

    Linux is great & with the introduction of the Ubuntu & Kubuntu distros has made huge strides forward, still it requires people willing to learn, therefore it excludes most Mac users & those windows users who just don't get it anyway, pretty much the people this article is targeting.
  35. harry carnie from Northern, B.C., Canada writes: Lydia von Schreiber...Mike L.......agree ...after years of PCs and windows crappy os bought a new iMac last Sept. and until now anyway, do NOT regret it one bit.
  36. Wu'kong Sun from Burnaby, Canada writes: brian bishop: I'd recommend Acronis over Ghost -- I haven't recommended a Symantec product in years.
  37. Gerry H from Burnaby, Canada writes: > Doug Haworth from Canada writes: I know I'll get blasted by all the Mac users out there, but what the hey. I own 2 Macs and 1 Windows based PC - all laptops. The Mac is better, but honestly I have crashes with my Macs- just not as many - but still I get crashes - and the MAC students at my university, which are a just a handful as most are windows based PC's - they too have the odd crash. I would agree that the Mac crashes less -
    >
    Wish I could see your Mac setup Doug, because if all is well MacOS X (Tiger X.4) doesn't crash. Whose ram do you have?
    I have a 2003 G4 MDD which is on 24/7 and my wife has a G4 mini which is booted the days she wants it.
    My G4 is used very hard, my wife's mini is used by house guests as well, many learning the MacOS X way on it.
    OS X crashes not here!
  38. brian bishop from Canada writes: Wu'kong Sun - I tried Acronis As I did DriveImage before Symantec bought them out & had the same problem with both, corrupt images with both Acronis & DriveImage.

    It's the same problem many others have come across when using the live image methods of Acronis & the now defunct DriveImage. Even newer versions of Ghost suffer the same fatal flaw, you can't create perfect usable images while within windows.

    You can get lucky for awhile but your playing with fire & will eventually get burnt, there's simply to many software configurations & possible running processes when dealing with windows. This is why Ghost 2003 is & has remained the de facto number one imaging program to date & why Symantec included Ghost 2003 within subsequent versions of Ghost.

    Acronis & newer versions of Ghost perform perfectly provide you heed the warning & don't tempt fate by creating live images.
  39. Sancre Tor from Ann Arbor, United States writes: I must confess, i've never heard of the programs in the main article.

    I use the following programs for maintenance/optimization, and they do a fantastic job as far as my requirements are considered:

    (1) Ccleaner for disk cleanup. Nifty little program.

    (2) Spybot S&D for anti-malware/spyware scans. It's essential to run scans atleast once a week.

    (3) AVG anti-virus. Good compromise between detection rates and resource usage.

    (4) Opera for secure internet browsing. Incomparably better than IE.

    (5) Diskeeper 2008 Pro for defragmenting my 3 drives. File fragmentation can lead to lowered performance, reduced drive life (and increased hardware replacement costs), and decreased chances of data recovery if the drive crashes. Diskeeper helps to prevent these problems and keeps the drives optimized using only very few resources. This is the only payware program in my list, but worth every penny.

    I don't use registry cleaners at all!
  40. Tim Swinarton from Canada writes: Geez, write one article and slagged for weeks!

    I think it's great that there are Mac Users and Linux users out there, but you're comments are going to convert me.

    I did find this article interesting and I do appreciate all the suggestions for alternative software. There is so much software out there, that I don't think any review should be done without comparing it to the most commonly used alternatives. That way as a consumer I could see the pros and cons to each side and decide which is the best for me.

    ps. Most software that can be purchased comes with a trial version, perhaps that could also have been included in the review. If I was "sold" on the software, I'd still like to take a test drive before buying.
  41. Jan Steinman from Salt Spring Island, Canada writes:
    I'll fan the flames on the Mac vs PC thing with an actual corporate experience.

    I worked for a telecom in the Ottawa area in the early '90's. They developed software for UNIX and Sun workstations, but used Macs for everything except development. There were perhaps 150 seats. They had a one-person IT support, who split his time between the Suns and the Macs, supplemented from time to time by an external contractor who helped him install upgrades.

    At some point, senior management decided they needed a "corporate IT strategy." Some ambitious middle-manager got promoted to head the new IT department. He started out with expensive external studies that indicated the Mac was dead and Windows was the future. He went about implementing this "strategy."

    Soon, the Macs were out the door and shiny new PCs were on every desktop. And work ground to a halt, as might be expected in any such transition. It became necessary to hire several people to massage these new machines, supplemented by an equal number of "contractors." New office space was required, and the IT manager moved from the "cube farm" into a corner office.

    Two years later, their installed base had grown to about 180 or so, BUT the IT department had swelled to five full-time and four contractors. The developers had all revolted, and had set up their own email and IT systems on their Suns, and had piled the hated PCs in a corner. The IT manager had gotten nice raises and bonuses, and was embarking on "IT Strategy II: A Plan For The Future."

    Bottom line: corporate IT guys LOVE Windows because it justifies their existence. Although there are studies that show total cost of ownership is lower for Macs, and the average useful lifetime of Macs is longer, it's easier to build an empire based on Windows. Thus articles like this one, which you won't ever see for Macs.
  42. Second Look from Canada writes: There is always an upside to everything: I, too was disappointed to see this column was REALLY an ad. . . but, look what the reaction produced!

    I am a relative newbie to cyberspace only being online for about 4 years. Here is my little gem from experience:

    Early on I stumbled upon Cloudeight Internet, operated by 2 people who provide an easy to understand Newsletter, Forum -( not to mention great stationary etc) . - that is a treasure trove of ethical guidance & support. I really get a good feeling from their style & perspective.

    Cloudeight developed Zappit which is FREE & easy to use for cleaning. Also, I have followed their advice re: anti-virus & adware programs (many of which are free & clearly popular with many of the posters above: WinPatrol, Avast, SpyBot - all work wonderfully well at the right price: FREE. It is simply not necessary to PAY for many programs that often times are not as good as the FREE ones.

    Cloudeight has a huge following & I highly recommend them & hope that many of you check them out. You might save yourselves a lot of hair pulling as I did . . . even you, Jack!!!
  43. Colin Davis from Canada writes: There are some very good suggestions for free programs in here, but I was surprised no one mentioned COMODO. Now, I'm not any sort of technical genius, but I know a thing or two about pcs at least, and I've found COMODO to be quite handy. It's a completely free firewall that seems to offer just as much as Norton ever did. Worth looking into for anyone that wants good protection without the price.
  44. Retired Guy from Canada writes: Jack Kapica, 26/02/08 at 11:10 AM EST

    As a journalist, I sometimes sympathize with spammers and scammers. Like reporters, they have to keep finding something new to grab my attention to squeeze my money out of me.

    Now i get it!
  45. Some Guy from Ottawa, Canada writes: To borrow a phrase from my 16 year old daughter: Are you kidding me right now?

    One cannot get a virus simply by connecting to the internet. There must be action in order to get a virus code and an additional action to then execute that code.

    These $29-$99 programs are not necessary. Get to know your computer using the suggestions above e.g. check your services and startup lists, delete temp folders, use Firefox, Avast and Defender, and you'll be safe. Any other system lag is due to either a lack of resources or deficiency in system requirements for a specific application.
  46. Lawrence Davis from Denver, United States writes: Great blog with lots of useful information and excellent commentary! Thanks for sharing.

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