Optimizing Your Computer’s Resources
Even
if you have a powerful, fast computer, once you’ve installed
a bunch of programs and have used it for a while, it may start to
slow down. These are some general recommendations that everyone
can use to optimize their computer’s performance, whether
you’re using Photoshop, Illustrator, or any other “resource
intensive“ (also known as “memory hog”) application.
Lots 'o RAM
Random Access Memory (RAM) is the air that
applications breathe, and you can't have too much of it.
Wonder how much memory you’ve got on that PC? Choose Start>Control Panel>System and on the General Tab you should see the amount of memory your computer has. These days, you’ll want to have at least 256 MB as a minimum.
If you're on a Macintosh, you can manually allocate memory to different applications. For Windows users, certain applications allow you to do this as well. For example, in Photoshop, you can go to the preferences (Edit>Preferences>Memory Cache) and dictate what percentage of the available RAM Photoshop should use when it is running. It’ll need quite a lot, which leads me into my next point...
Avoid Multitasking
You should try to avoid running programs
require lots of your computers resources simultaneously. These programs
include Photoshop, Illustrator, Quark Xpress, Microsoft Office applications,
and more. If you must run two or more or them at the same time,
be aware that they are taking a toll on your machine. If things
start to bog down, close any extra programs down.
You may not be aware... that even when you're not running any "extra" applications, your computer is running a handful (or more) of little programs all the time, like the operating system, an anti-virus program, system utilities, etc. Some of these are necessary, but you might also be able to set some to run only when needed. Some constantly running utilities that you might consider shutting down when necessary. You can view these extra programs that are running in the background using the Task Manager, which can be launched by simultaneously holding down CTRL ALT DELETE.
Some examples of extraneous programs that run in the background include CDR/CDRW utilities, PalmPILOT synchronization software (which you can set to run only when you're in the Palm desktop application), "Real Player" Startup Center, and OCR (Optional Character Recognition) programs. All of these programs take a bite out of the available resources.
If you're wondering how your system is doing, go to Control Panel>System>Performance. There you can see how "free" your system resources really are. You might be surprised.
Fast Hard Drive
If you are ever upgrading your hard drive, one of the specifications
you should pay attention to is the speed of the drive. Hard drives
that are 7200 rpm (revolutions per minute) will record and retrieve
data faster than 5400 rpm drives.
Also, it can be preferable to have a fast hard drive because some programs (such as Photoshop) will use your hard drive as virtual memory. When your computer runs out of RAM (it always does at some point), it will use your hard drive as Virtual RAM (in Photoshop, this is called the "scratch disk").
Clear out temp files
Temporary files have a way of building up
over time. Your broom for sweeping them out comes in the form of
a utility called Disk Clean Up. You can find it in Programs>Accessories>System
Tools>Disk Clean Up. And after
you run Disk Clean-up, you can use his cousin, Disk Defragmenter!
Which leads me to my next point...
Run Defragmentation
Programs Regularly
If you are using the Windows 98 operating system or later, there
is a defragmentation application built into your system utilities.
You can find the defragmentation program inside of the “System
Tools” folder or thereabouts. To launch, choose Programs>Accessories>System
Tools>Disk Defragmenter.
You might want to start this program at the end of the day and let it finish overnight. The procedure can take several hours, depending on the size of the hard drive being defragged and how often you defrag it.
Why is this important? Defragging helps your hard drive store and retrieve information faster. How?
Imagine that your computer's hard drive is a baseball stadium. The space for the data are the seats in the stadium, and the people represent the data stored. Every time you record data, you‘re sending, say, 50 more people into the stadium. Unless you’re attending a Mets game, empty seats may be hard to find all together in a group... you may find 3 seats here, 4 seats there, a couple more seats elsewhere, etc. Even though there may be plenty of empty seats, it can take a while find a spot for everyone. The same is true for your hard drive. Your computer is constantly erasing and revising old and new data, which creates little pockets or “empty seats” on your disk. After normal usage, any hard drive will have lots of little gaps in it.
Defragmentation re-stacks all of your data so that the free space (the empty seats) is consolidated in one big section and is easier for the computer to locate. It’s akin to making everyone in the baseball stadium to stand up and move together so that all of the empty seats are in one big section and all of the filled seats are next to each other. That way, it’s easier to seat newcomers quickly.
Regular Maintenance
Lastly, you should regularly run useful programs like Disk Clean
Up and Disk Defragmenter. But if you’re the forgetful (or busy)
type, Windows has made it easier for you by including a utility
called Task Scheduler. This utility allows to schedule programs
to run automatically at certain times... like every week, every
first Tuesday of the month, etc. Just make sure your computer will
be on when you schedule the task. You can access the schedule utility
(where else?) in... Programs>Accessories>System
Tools>Scheduled Tasks.