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Tuesday, November 6, 2012

The Assumptions You Make About Your Slow PC (and Why They're Probably Wrong)

November 6th, 2012Top Story

The Assumptions You Make About Your Slow PC (and Why They're Probably Wrong)

By Whitson Gordon

The Assumptions You Make About Your Slow PC (and Why They're Probably Wrong)Computers are supposed to make our lives easier, yet sometimes it feels like they exist only to cause us endless amounts of frustration. Popular advice for slow computers includes antivirus, RAM upgrades, or even reinstalling Windows from scratch, but these make a lot of assumptions about what's wrong with your computer (that may not be true). Here's how you actually get your PC running fast again.

Assumption #1: You Need to Load Up On Expensive Antivirus to Keep Your Computer Fast

The Assumptions You Make About Your Slow PC (and Why They're Probably Wrong)When a computer starts to feel a little sluggish—particularly if it's getting a lot of popups—many people jump directly to the conclusion that they must have a virus or other malware. Usually, this means buying antivirus software, sometimes even a second piece of antivirus software to make sure you're "doubly protected." However, malware protection is a lot simpler than most people make it out to be.

Why It's Wrong: First of all, let's talk about what it takes to get infected. Start by learning a bit more about viruses and what they do—we recommend reading our guides to malware, virus myths, and false positives in antivirus apps. Your first line of defense should be safe browsing. If you're downloading shady files, clicking on internet popups, or opening links from unknown email, you'll greatly increase your chances of getting one. But if you're even mildly responsible, it's unlikely you'll ever get an infection.

The Assumptions You Make About Your Slow PC (and Why They're Probably Wrong)Now let's talk about antivirus. It's not only important to have antivirus software installed, but it's important to have the right kind. Check and see if you have a trusted, updated antivirus program running on your machine. If you do, and it says your computer is uninfected, then you're probably safe. Next, find out what antivirus software you're using. Some programs, like Norton or McAfee, are remarkably slow and bloated. In fact, they're probably one of the reasons your computer is so slow. We recommend ditching other antivirus apps and using Microsoft Security Essentials. It's free, lightweight, and will let you know if you download anything suspicious. (Note that Windows 8 users already have Windows Defender built-in, so they don't even need to install anything). You should never have two antivirus apps running at once.

Exceptions: While a good, lightweight antivirus program will protect you from malware, it won't protect you from the much more common crapware, which is another beast entirely. Crapware isn't malicious by nature. Instead, it's software that you don't want but were probably tricked into installing, and it can slow down your computer. We'll talk a bit more about this in the last section, but for now, take a look in the Control Panel under Add/Remove Programs—if you see programs you don't recognize and aren't from trusted developers like Microsoft, it's probably something you don't want on your machine.

Assumption #2: You Need a Bunch of Extra RAM and Hard Drive Space

The Assumptions You Make About Your Slow PC (and Why They're Probably Wrong)Another common "fix" that people turn to is hardware upgrades, specifically easy ones like RAM and hard drives. Many people think that the more RAM and hard drive space you have, the faster your computer will be. Unless you have an older computer that is filled to the brim, however, upgrading won't give you the boost you want.

Why It's Wrong: Installing more RAM gives your computer greater multitasking abilities, particularly when running resource-intensive applications. Unless you're using particularly RAM-hungry programs—like Photoshop, for example—you probably only need 2-4GB of RAM, which most modern computers should already have. Similarly, hard drive space is only a problem if your hard drive is filled up to the brim. If you still have 10% of your space free, you don't need to upgrade.

Exceptions: Upgrading your RAM will help if you have 1GB or less in your system. If you multitask a lot, you'll probably even notice a difference upgrading from 2GB to 4GB. You're best off checking the resource monitor(or Activity Monitor on OS X)" to see how much you use on a regular basis. If your RAM usage isn't running up against its limit, then you're probably fine.

Also, RAM upgrades do benefit more resource-intensive work like image or video editing, so consider upgrading even further to 8GB. Just make sure you're using a 64-bit operating system so you can actually make use of it.

When it comes to hard drives, remember we're talking about space here—hard drive upgrades can, in fact, be beneficial if you upgrade to a faster hard drive like an SSD. In fact, it's one of the best upgrades you can make to speed up a slow computer.

Assumption #3: Your Hardware Is Just "Wearing Out" Over Time

The Assumptions You Make About Your Slow PC (and Why They're Probably Wrong)Many people think that the components inside your computer get slower gradually over time, just due to wearing out. While your computer won't last forever, the hardware should stay the same speed until it dies. It doesn't get slower the more you use it.

Why It's Wrong: The main reason your computer slows down over time—even if you don't have a lot of apps—is that your software updates regularly, becomes more feature-filled, and needs more power to function. In theory, if you did a clean install and never updated any of your software, everything would run as fast in year four as it did on day one. But that's not exactly a feasible—or secure—way to use your computer. Your hardware will wear out, but you won't notice a gradual slowdown. Instead, it'll just die a quick, painless death one day and stop working. In fact, this quick death is a good reminder that you should back up regularly.

Update: Many of you have pointed out that there is a big exception to this rule and that is hard drives. Hard drives can start to slow down as they reach the end of their life, but if this happens to you, that means your drive is at risk for corrupting important files (at best) or dying at any time (at worst)—a much more pressing issue. You can check your disk regularly for bad sectors by opening up a Command Prompt and running chkdsk c: /r. If it finds errors it can't fix, back up your data and upgrade your drive, or you could run into much bigger problems. Thanks to everyone who cleared this up.

Exceptions: The other exceptions are small. Some old SSDs, for example, can slow down over time. The other parts in your computer, though, will not experience this phenomenon of gradual slowdown. Photo by Axonite.

Assumption #4: You Need to Regularly Reinstall Your OS

The Assumptions You Make About Your Slow PC (and Why They're Probably Wrong)While a clean installation of Windows or OS X can speed up your machine (not to mention help clear your mind), it isn't something you have to do. Like we said before, your computer will slow down over time because of newer and more power-hungry software. If you find that a clean install speeds things up, though, it's because you're installing junk programs that slow down Windows or OS X more than necessary.

Why It's Wrong: A clean installation runs faster because it no longer has all the apps, plugins, and other tweaks you've installed that can slow down your machine. When you do a clean install, those apps go away—until, of course, you build them back up again and start the vicious cycle once again. Instead of regularly reinstalling your OS, pay attention to what programs you use and try and keep them to a minimum. Pay particular close attention to Windows Explorer plugins, bloated antivirus apps, and other things that run in the background.

Exceptions: If you get a new computer that comes packaged with tons of crapware, doing a clean install can help (though so can uninstalling those programs). In addition, it's also worth mentioning that if you like doing clean installs, we're not saying you shouldn't—it just isn't something you have to do.

Assumption #5: You Need to Defrag/Clean the Registry/Tweak Prefetching/etc.

The Assumptions You Make About Your Slow PC (and Why They're Probably Wrong)You've probably heard of countless different tweaks disguised as "maintenance" that claim to speed up your machine. Rarely will these revive a truly bloated machine. These tweaks include, but aren't limited to:

  • Defragmenting: Windows Vista, 7, and 8 (and Mac OS X) automatically defrag your hard drives, so you shouldn't have to do it manually. If you're still on XP, however, you're an exception—you'll still have to defrag regularly.
  • Cleaning Your Registry: When you uninstall programs, they're more than likely to leave a few things behind in the Registry. It's annoying, but it isn't going to slow down your computer. Registry cleaners are unnecessary and a tad risky, so you're better off leaving the Registry alone.
  • Cleaning Windows Prefetching: Prefetch is a Windows feature that keeps track of what apps you run in order to start them faster. We don't know where people got the idea that cleaning it out would somehow help, but it doesn't. In fact, it'll not only slow things down but could even cause problems.
  • Disable System Restore (or Really, Any Other Windows Services: Windows may run some services you don't need, but stopping them probably isn't going to speed it up enough to make you happy. In fact, if anything, you run the risk of stopping something important and causing more problems.

In short: if it sounds like snake oil, it probably is.

So How Can You Fix a Slow Computer?

So we've spent a lot of time telling you what not to do, but your computer's still slow and you want a solution. You can start by running a few diagnostics, but chances are, you just have too many apps running at once (especially poorly made ones). Here's what we recommend you do:

The Assumptions You Make About Your Slow PC (and Why They're Probably Wrong)Stop Running So Many Apps at Once: Take a look at your system tray (or menu bar). If you have more than a few icons there, you have too many. If something is running that you didn't start, take it out of your startup queue. If you don't know what something is, find out if it's something you really need. If it's something you know you don't want, then uninstall it completely.

Stop Installing Crappy Programs: Sometimes, a single app can bring your entire computer to a screeching halt. This includes programs that run unnecessary services in the background, hook themselves into the Windows Shell (like Windows Explorer plugins), or are just plain slow.

The Assumptions You Make About Your Slow PC (and Why They're Probably Wrong)If you're skeptical about an app, ask yourself: Does your computer run faster when you close that program? If so, then surprise: you should probably ditch it. "Crappy" doesn't always mean "sketchy," either. After all, we'd consider iTunes a pretty crappy app since it injects itself into every corner of your computer and slows it down a ton when you run it. If you can't live without it, at least use a different player for listening and only open iTunes when you have to sync.

Stop Bloating Up the Programs You Have: The more work you heap onto an app, the slower it's going to run. Your music player will be slower if you have a huge library, so clean out that music you don't need. Your browser will struggle the more add-ons and plugins you install, so clean it out to speed it up. The less work you make your apps do, the faster they'll run.

Perform Regular Maintenance: While there are a lot of maintenance myths out there, you do need to perform a little regular maintenance once in awhile. Most of it involves keeping your software updated, your programs list trim, and your temporary files emptied. Check out our guides to Windows and Mac maintenance for more info.

Of course, this all assumes you have a relatively new computer that can handle the work you need to do. If you're trying to run the newest version of Photoshop on a 10 year old machine, no amount of responsibility will make it run fast—you'll need a new computer (and you can repurpose that old one). But, barring really old hardware or other special circumstances, you should be able to take any computer and get it running fast again with a bit of care and common sense.

Title image illustrated by Dominick Rabrun. You can find his illustrations on his personal web site, or works in progress on his blog.

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A Big, Leaked Update About The Next Game From The Halo-Makers At Bungie. Plus: More Gaming Secrets.

November 6th, 2012Top Story

A Big, Leaked Update About The Next Game From The Halo-Makers At Bungie. Plus: More Gaming Secrets.

By by Superannuation

A Big, Leaked Update About The Next Game From The Halo-Makers At Bungie. Plus: More Gaming Secrets.Editor's Note: If people in the gaming industry really wanted to hide stuff, they're going to have to do better. The one and only Superannuation keeps digging and keeps finding gems. Today, on the day that 343 Industries' Halo 4 is out, Superannuation has a massive update about how Destiny, the next game from the people who made Halo is shaping up. And there's more about Beenox, Take Two and...Links??

Three weeks ago, a job opening appeared for a Vancouver-based senior online systems programmer for Bungie's technically-still-unannounced new franchise Destiny. While the studio is unnamed, it is presumably the satellite Vancouver office of Demonware, which handles the online infrastructure for Activision's titles and also lists Bungie as one of the firm's partners on its website.

Demonware's involvement is a tad interesting considering that the terms of the leaked Bungie-Activision contract suggested that Bungie is responsible for Destiny's server and service maintenance operations, and indicated they had some autonomy in choosing the datacenters for the game. Additionally, the Demonware posting mentions that a preference for PS3 experience for applicants, seemingly implying a PS3 SKU for the game is indeed in development—something that was not necessarily a given in the contract.

A Big, Leaked Update About The Next Game From The Halo-Makers At Bungie. Plus: More Gaming Secrets.

Until sometime in the past few weeks, among the first ten entries of Google results for a very simple search of Demonware and Bungie was a since-removed blog post (Google text cache pictured below, annotated for reference) about a visit to Bungie's headquarters for the studio's Bungie Day on what appears to have been a publicly accessible copy of Demonware's internal blog. Ironically, the confidential information-filled post has the warning that "If you cannot find [information contained within this post] on Google you should not talk about it to non Demonware employees."

The author, a senior Demonware employee, begins the post with a confirmation that the firm has indeed been involved with Destiny from the project's early stages, with a handful of principles helping with the game's features; however, very few people outside of Bungie—Demonware included—have seen the game in any sort of presentable state. The Bungie Day presentations would be the Demonware employees' first chance to get a real glimpse at the game.

His account of Bungie Day includes a remarkably frank description of the day's first event:

The day started in the Bungie offices (a converted cinema) with a bizarre "Knighting of the Noobs" ceremony, where anyone who started at Bungie within the last 6 months was presented with a signed wooden sword, and asked to kneel in front of Harold Ryan (President) while he read a pseudo oath, culminating in "be brave", a term they have trademarked for the game.

Following this, the group went to a local movie theater "for a few hours of presentations covering everything from game story, factions, art, engineering, tool chain, graphics, audio, player investment mechanisms, player progression, UI, and web and mobile apps." Many presentations featured video footage, but the author lists "a live scene walk through demonstrating lots of atmospherics, huge amounts of trees and foliage (SpeedTree), particle effects, dynamic lighting and dynamic time of day ending in a sun set" as the highlight of that portion of the day.

After the theater presentation, the Demonware employees got a chance to have some hands-on time with Destiny at Bungie's offices, with the author describing his experience with the game thusly:

This is not a dedicated server game, but there is some simulation and coordination running in their server infrastructure. The game was up and down a lot, playing in a team of 3 we did manage to experience entering a zone to find other players already taking on the bad guys, it's cooperative so we helped out (mostly [name removed], I just died) before both groups went their separate ways. Which is a pretty cool experience, making you feel you are part of a much larger populated world.

…At the end of the day I was excited about the game, I like the feel of being in a large world with different destinations and the interactions along the way. It actually brought back a sense of exploration I recall from playing [Elite] many years ago, although there was no opportunity to shoot aliens in the face in Elite. I'm not fully sold on the appeal of being able to change the colour of a weapon, but I guess it works in China, and customization and individual identity is a big theme for the game.

He also gathers that the general consensus from others is that Destiny is "still quite like Halo" and "there is a lot of work still to be done." And he concludes with a confirmation of an old rumor that the project previously codenamed "Tiger" is now referred to as "Destiny."

According to the copy on a Destiny-related marketing job posting at Activision's Santa Monica HQ from two weeks back, the publisher hopes to establish "the biggest new entertainment property in the history of video games." The leaked contract stated that the first game's budget could be as much as $140 million including marketing, and in any case, the game quite likely has one of the highest budgets for a new intellectual property ever.

With a massive budget and an apparent fall 2013 release date, it seems plausible that Activision would like to start building hype and officially announce this new franchise sometime soon. Perhaps in the coming weeks Geoff Keighley will tease a look at "Bungie's next universe" that will be officially unveiled at the VGAs?

* * *

A few months ago, Take-Two filed a fairly broad new trademark registration for "Links," presumably in relation to the long-dormant golf franchise owned by the company. One of three sports IPs acquired from Microsoft in late 2004, Links is the only one of those three brands (the other two being Top Spin and Amped) that Take-Two never actually brought to market; however, Indie Built, the Utah-based developer of the golf series, was working on an Xbox 360 version of Links prior to its closure in April 2006.

A new Links game wouldn't be the first time Take-Two released a new entry in a presumed-dead sports franchise after shuttering its developer—last year's Top Spin 4 was handled by Mafia creators 2K Czech, three years after Take-Two closed the PAM Development, the Parisian studio behind the first three Top Spin games. What form a Links revival would take is a bit of a mystery, particularly as 2K Sports launched its first free-to-play mobile and social games.

In May, Take-Two filed another new registration for another venerated albeit inactive franchise, "Midnight Club," primarily in relation to online and digitally-distributed products. The new filing could mean any number of things—Take-Two simply wants to protect the logo, some sort of digital re-release is on the way, or a perhaps even a mobile or free-to-play iteration of Rockstar Games' street racing series.

* * *

Several weeks back, reports questioning the future of Activision's current Spider-Man house Beenox popped up in the French-language Quebec City paper Le Soleil, prompted by founder Dominique Brown's decision to reduce his involvement in the studio's operations for the very first time in its history. While the province's favorable tax incentives suggest that a closure of any sort is unlikely, the studio does very much appear to be in turmoil.

Since the beginning of the year the Quebec City studio has lost: a programmer of seven years, a PR officer of four years, a concept artist of nearly four years, a game designer of nearly five years, a 3D animator of four years, a 3D artist of nearly three years, another programmer of nearly five years, an administrative assistant of four years, a game designer of seven years, a lead game designer, an associate producer of four years, a recruiter of five years, a lighting artist of three years, a producer of seven years, an art director, a lead narrative designer, lead level designer, another PR officer, another game designer, and an audio lead.

That is 20 out of around 170 employees at the two-team studio departing in 10 months. In addition, a Le Soleil report claims that a handful of ex-Ubisoft employees leading a new project that fell into disarray were recently asked to resign after their working methods apparently came into conflict with Beenox's corporate culture.

superannuation is a self-described "internet extraordinaire" residing somewhere in the Pacific Time Zone. He tweets, and can be reached at heyheymayday AT gmail DOT com.

Read more Assorted Scoopery! Secrets lurk within.

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Abolish the Electoral College (And The U.S. Senate)

November 6th, 2012Top Story

Abolish the Electoral College (And The U.S. Senate)

By Hamilton Nolan

Abolish the Electoral College (And The U.S. Senate)Democracy is not very hard to understand. Its simplicity is a big part of its appeal. One citizen, one vote. Even representative democracy, necessary for unwieldy, far-flung populous nations like ours, is pretty easy: the candidate who gets the most votes wins. Representatives represent the will of the people.

To the extent that this is not true, a political system is not democratic. Like America's, for example. That's why need to stop twiddling our thumbs, and abolish the Electoral College, already. And the U.S. Senate, while we're at it.

Can you BELIEVE that after the 2000 election fiasco, we still haven't gotten around to abolishing the Electoral College? What the fuck is wrong with us? It's been 12 fucking years, already. We are the national equivalent of a guy who never got around to fixing that old fuse box that electrocuted his child, because he was too busy sitting on the couch playing XBox. For twelve years. We have seen the disaster happened, and yet we are too paralyzed by a sense of inertia to fix the problem. We, collectively, are pitiful.

Why? Why? Why has the Electoral College not been abolished in the past 12 years? Or, for that matter, in the century prior to that? While we were working on women's suffrage and ending literacy tests at the polls and passing the Voting Rights Act, it might have been beneficial to slip in one extra line there, at the very bottom, abolishing the Electoral College as well. Because the Electoral College does nothing but pervert democracy, shift our nation away from the "one person, one vote" standard, and effectively disenfranchise many of us. There is absolutely nothing good about it.

Fine, the god damn framers of the Constitution created the Electoral College as a compromise, at a time when there were only 13 states and only white men could vote. Fine. Too late to go back and re-argue that. It's a historical relic. The fact that it still exists is outrageous. Here is how the US president should be elected: by national popular vote. Whoever wins the popular vote is president. Each vote counts equally. All of us, as Americans, are presumed to be equally important. In a popular vote system, all of our votes are also equally important. But not in the Electoral College system. It is a system in which we—the majority of us!—accept that our votes are not really important.

Here are the five most populous US states: California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois. Of those, only Florida is considered a "swing state" in this election. That means that the four other most populous states—and their citizens, and their needs—are effectively ignored by the presidential candidates during their campaigns, as a result of the realities of the Electoral College system. If we had a popular vote, the candidates would campaign most frequently in the most populous states, because that is where the most people live. WHICH MAKES BASIC FUCKING LOGICAL SENSE. "Oh, but what would it mean for Iowa and New Hampshire??" It would mean that Iowa and New Hampshire have less impact on our national elections than do California and Texas, because FEWER PEOPLE LIVE IN IOWA AND NEW HAMPSHIRE. Which makes perfect sense. Our representatives represent people, not lines on a map.

And while we're at it, let's abolish an equally undemocratic institution: the U.S. Senate. The House of Representatives awards representatives based on population. The U.S. Senate, insanely, awards two representatives to each state regardless of population, meaning that each citizen of Wyoming and Vermont has almost 60 times the proportional representation as a citizen of California. It means that the 684,000 citizens of North Dakota are awarded the same amount of political power as the 25,675,000 citizens of Texas. It means that each resident of Montana has twenty times more voting power than me, a New Yorker. It is outrageous and, like the Electoral College, it effectively serves to take power away from the majority in favor of the odd geographic minority. It is plainly undemocratic. And, like the Electoral College, it is only tolerated because it has been a custom for so long that most people have never even considered its implications. It is assumed to be a timeless and immutable feature of the United States of America, like Old Faithful. In fact, it is a virulently unfair manmade practice, the result of a centuries-old power grab, which has persisted for far too long. Like some other unsavory American practices that any student of American history can name.

This election day, ask yourself: why is it that my vote probably doesn't mean shit? And then ask yourself: wouldn't it be nice if my vote did mean something? And finally: wouldn't it be even nicer if everyone's vote meant exactly as much as everyone else's vote? You are evil, Electoral College. You are pernicious and unfair, U.S. Senate. One day, some day, we should take a little time to realign our system with our ideals.

Image by Jim Cooke.

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