TechTips

Slow computer may not be

what you think

If your computer suddenly, mysteriously slows down, don't just curse at the stupid machine - find out what program gummed up the works. In Windows, hit the Ctrl, Shift and Esc keys to bring up the Task Manager. In that window, click the "CPU" heading to see which program, as identified by the name of its .exe file, is keeping the processor too busy (note: if "System Idle Process" tops the list, you should be fine). Then click "Mem Usage" or "Memory," depending on whether you use XP or Vista, to see which application is eating the most memory. On a Mac, go to the Utilities folder and select Activity Monitor; click the "CPU" and "Real Memory" (sometimes abbreviated as "RSIZE") headings to see each program's processor and memory use. Once you've identified an offender, you can quit that program, complain to its developers or just swear at it by name.

Too much

of a good thing?

The Facebook social-networking site can be a wonderful thing, but there's such a thing as too much of it. That's especially true when it comes to the "news feed" - the stream of updates about your friends' Facebook activity that fills the site's home page - if too many of your pals spend their spare moments playing random games and quizzes. You may not care to find out that your buddy from high school just collected a new Cadillac in Mob Wars, while your co-worker down the hall would be Swiss if she were a kind of cheese.

In that case, park the cursor to the right of a news-feed item, and you should see a little "Hide" menu appear. Click that for options to hide all news generated from that game or quiz. You can also use this menu to hide all of a person's updates from your feed ... though if somebody's that annoying, it's worth considering if you should keep him or her on your friends list at all.

Going digital

Most digital cameras are noisy creatures out of the box - they beep when you turn them on, change a setting, focus a picture and take the actual shot. This soundtrack may help you get used to their controls, but it's distracting and rude in a lot of social settings. (Especially weddings.) It's also worse than redundant. Not only does this computerized cacophony fail to tell you anything that you can't learn from the symbols on the camera's screen, it usually provides less information.

The beep that reports that the camera has focused on a subject doesn't indicate what subject it's selected, unlike the green rectangle on its display. On most cameras, you'll find an option to silence its audible alerts only a tap or two away from its Menu button; a new Canon model, for example, has a "Mute" setting as the first item under its system-tools menu.

Could Bing make it easier?

In the week since Microsoft Corp. launched Bing, its new search engine, the software maker's share of U.S. Web searches has crept into double digits for the first time in two years.

But Bing's early gain is no predictor of future success.

Bing went live June 3, though some people had access earlier. According to a report Tuesday from research group comScore Inc., Microsoft snagged 11.1 percent of U.S. searches from June 2 to June 6. A week earlier, its share was 9.1 percent.

That still leaves Microsoft a distant third behind Google Inc., which was used for more than 60 percent of searches in April, and Yahoo Inc., which topped 20 percent. ComScore did not release more recent figures for those companies.

It remains to be seen if Bing.com will be a better search engine for users but the only way people can find out if they like it, is to try it.