Lenovo has been “tweaking” its laptops and PCs in preparation for Windows 7, heavily improving startup and shutdown times.

Some of the methods, however, can be easily transferred to any Windows system – in this post I’ll be concentrating on XP, but I’m sure many of these will work on other versions.

So, here are some of the things that Lenovo did and what you can do that’s similar…

Fixed the drivers of on-board hardware components that were cumulatively causing massive delays.

Ok, so there’s not much we, as individuals, can do to fix drivers. However, it is important to stay on top of Windows drivers to ensure that you benefit changes of this type.

Personally, I have a spreadsheet of download links for my drivers and regularly check them. The other option is to use software that will look for updates for you. DriverMax is a popular example, although others are available.

Tweaked the BIOS phase of startup to temporarily hide some devices from Windows 7, so that the OS only loads the drivers after the boot is finished.

What they’re doing here is hiding hardware devices from Windows until its loaded. This may be a webcam, CD drive, etc. Now, there are some things you can do here for yourself…

1. Create a secondary hardware profile. This gives you an additional boot option where, say, lesser used hardware devices won’t be loaded. This is done by turning off different services (and having different startup options too). I used to have one for gaming, whereas non-gaming services would be disabled, saving memory and boot time.
2. Switch hardware off that you don’t use very often. No, ok, this won’t stop the drivers from loading but there may be some exchange (or handshaking) of information that may be reduced. My scanner and lazer printer, for instance, are used only occasionally, so are left unplugged when not in use. Of course, this also saves on electricity!
3. Uninstall old drivers. When you change hardware, you often leave the old drivers behind. Plug everything in, start up your PC and then find and uninstall any old drivers.

Tweaked Windows 7 to delay the loading of non-essential services and applications until after startup.

Ah, now this is definitely something we can do ourselves.

The first thing I’d recommend you do is to go through the various startup programs and disable those you don’t feel you need (RealPlayer, Quicktime and Java update checkers are popular ones to disable). You can use msconfig, but I find the option within the Tools section of CCleaner a better option.

A quick tip… you’ll find some startup options that don’t appear within the “Startup” folder in your Start Menu. If one of these is only relevant to particular users, who have their own profiles, then note the URL that this startup is running. Disable it and then create the relevant shortcut within the appropriate profile startup folder.

You can also delay when various startup options execute. So, lets say you REALLY want Quicktime, et al, to do their online checks, do they have to do them as soon as the computer starts? Programs such as Startup Delayer will allow you to delay startup tasks.

That’s applications. Now services. You have to be careful with these, but its still worth going through all your services and looking for those that are best set to manual or disabled entirely. There are many websites dedicated to which ones should be changed.

And that’s it. If you have any suggestions on how to improve startup and shutdown, feel free to contact me (or add a comment to this post).

The Sony VAIO VGF-CP1

My bargain of a photo frame turned up last week, and it’s a corker.

The frame is very square in appearance with a clear plastic section at the top. This contains status lights and the whole section can glow blue¹. Unlike other frames there is no bevel between the screen and the surrounding frame, which makes it look like a single piece. Indeed the screen quality is so good, it looks like a printed photo stuck to the front of a slab of plastic!

The menu options aren’t overly intuitive but it doesn’t take long to work it out. Coming from a “normal” photo frame one thing you need to grasp initially is Sony’s concept of “Frames”. These are collections of photos and you can easily flip between frames, via the included slimline remote control, or timed. Yes, timed. The timing function will even bring the frame out of standby. Thankfully, Sony have thought to have a timed power-off function as well, meaning that you can set the entire device to start and end at particular times of day (saving you have to turn it off overnight, and making a useful security function as you can have the frame left on whilst you’re out).

Back to the frames – you can set different types up based on templates. These can be tweaked a little, but not to a great extent. For example, one such template is “Photo and Info” which will add a clock and scrolling RSS data to the photo. By use of the remote you can turn on or more of these “extras” off. However, if you don’t want these then the basic photo template would sound the better option. Except the photo display options with this are limited. So I ended up using the Photo and Info option and then turning the latter off. Hmmm. It works, but is a strange way to do it.

Yes, it has Wi-fi, and I immediately set it up to connect to my network and my Picasa Web Albums account. So, right now, it’s displaying photos from my Picasa account.

The photo frame also comes with a CD-ROM that allows you to set up your PC as a photo and music server – a useful function if you leave your PC on all the time but as I don’t, I’ve not made use of it. However, it does include streaming radio functionality (and the speakers in the frame are rather good considering their size) via SHOUTcast. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work – a post on a forum would suggest this is due to the SHOUTcast URL changing. A firmware update from Sony would be the solution but as this frame now appears to be discontinued, I’m guessing one is not forthcoming.

I have a NAS drive connected to my wireless network and the frame immediately recognised this. In fact, it also found the NAS’ in-built music server and connected to that.

One problem I did have was registering the product. The Sony UK site doesn’t seem to know of the product when you search for it. It’s a VAIO, but when you go into the VAIO part of the site, it’s to do with the branded computers and not photo frames. General product registration, again, didn’t recognise the product.

So, I gave Sony a call and, credit where it’s due, immediately sorted the issue out. Although a touch confusing, it’s covered by the VAIO brand – however, all their other photo frames are not. Anyway, there is a specific page for VAIO registrations² and once the model details are entered, the product is recognised and registered.

There are video demonstrations available, and also the inevitable “unboxing“.

Ok, so the crux of this is… it’s a great frame and needs snaping up whilst at a brilliant price. In the US Sony are selling this for £250. Dabs has this for £83. A bargain.

1. you can have it on all the time, off all the time or get it come on when there’s some kind of status update [↩]
2. although is does seem to be PC-centric [↩]

I use the simple, but configurable, WP YouTube plugin for WordPress to embed YouTube videos in my posts.

It hasn’t been updated since the beginning of 2008 but, hey, it works¹. Well, it did. I have a post in draft in which I wanted to embed two videos. Sadly it won’t work and it appears to be down to the use of hyphens in their ID. When you look at the source code for the resultant post something has converted the hyphens to HTML friendly characters.

So, for instance, an ID of 7Yapo–1OaE is being embedded in the code with the “double dash” converted to &#8211. The ID of oatks-1×8U8 is having the dash converted to &#215.

I’ve contacted the plugin owner, via his site, but due to the lack of recent activity on this plugin, I’m not sure what response I’ll get.

Meantime I’ve been looking at other YouTube plugins that do what I need them to do (i.e. have some basic configuration options for colour, auto-start, etc). Few have been changed recently (and therefore, I’m guessing, will have picked up on what I assume is a recent change to ID formats) and only YouTuber sprang out as being a reasonable alternative. Sadly that has the same issue, and I’ve reported that via the forum on WordPress.

I had a play with WP YouTube last night but was unable to sort the problem out – I suspect the conversion is happening to the URL before it’s being passed into the plugin. However, none of the PHP commands that will decode these seemed to work.

If anybody has any ideas, I’m keen to hear them.

1. well, okay, it doesn’t support HD videos [↩]

Simply visit play.com between now and the end of September and use code VOGUESEP09 to get 10% off clothing.

This offer is to celebrate the release of The September Issue on DVD.

The latest news about OfQuack (aka the Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council) is not looking promising…

OfQuack was set up with the help of £900,000 of public money to try to give all sorts of AltMed quackery some kind of credence and legitimacy. It is backed by Prince Charles’s Foundation for Integrated Health and considering their other bastard child, Dodgy Originals, has just had to be bailed out the runes may not be falling in OfQuack’s favour!

Their failures have been highlighted by Le Canard Noir and the Lay Scientist in various blog posts. In Martin’s last post, he highlighted the problems with OfQuack’s last set of Board minutes and the pitiful numbers of quacks who have signed up since they opened shop in February.

Le Canard Noir has highlighted the way OfQuack re-wrote their press release, downsizing their estimate of numbers of members they were aiming for by the end of 2009. This started out at an ambitious 10,000, but was recently downsized to just 4,000. Even that looks a tad optimistic!

If they continue at their current rate, by the end of this year, they will have amassed just 986 followers, not even 10% of their initial target.

So far, they have averaged less than 20 registrations a week: to reach the dizzy heights of even 4,000, they would need to get to over 40 registrations a day!

Perhaps all is not lost, however. According to their buddies at the FIH, they hope to recruit cranial sacral practitioners, naturopaths, bowen practitioners, reiki practitioners and Alexander technique teachers by the end of this year.

Then again, 2010 may be a bumper year for them — assuming they’re still in business. They plan to bring micro-systems acupuncturists, hypnotherapists and professional healers into the regulatory fold. Thank goodness they aren’t letting the amateur healers in…