The full range of female athletes on the 2008 Olympic teams makes it clear that age and family responsibilities are not the barriers to participation in the Games they used to be. Stories from Beijing highlight the courage and resolve of the mothers of the world – as they demonstrate their athletic prowess and win gold or silver medals.

Significant are the 20 mothers on the USA Olympic team, including past medalists – swimmer Dara Torres, basketball player Lisa Leslie, and softball player, Jennie Finch. Dara Torres stands out as a role model for any mother wondering if it is too late to begin again. Now age 41, she began participating in the Olympics twenty-four years ago, swimming in the 1984, 1988, 1992 and 2000 Games. Retiring, getting married and wanting to start a family, she skipped the 2004 Games and had a child two years ago. Swimming for fitness after the birth of her daughter, Tessa, she thought she was done with competitive swimming. But she found that her times were better than ever.

Eight long years after her last Olympics, Dara marched in the Beijing opening ceremonies with 9 medals to her credit, the most of any USA athlete in these Games. Swimming in individual and relay team competition, she won 3 silver medals, losing gold in the freestyle individual event by only one one-hundredth of a second. She now can now be proud of a record 12 Olympic medals in her career – so far! Asked “what will you tell your daughter about your record at this Olympics,” Dara said, “You don’t have to put an age limit on your dreams.”

Constantina Tomescu-Dita of Romania, a 38-year-old mother of a 13-year old son, was the triumphant gold medal winner of the women’s marathon in Beijing. Four years ago in Athens she had to relinquish her dreams of an Olympic medal at mile 20 due to heat exhaustion. But even then she did not completely quit. She walked for a mile – then started running again, coming in 20th in the 2004 competition. This time she was determined to win the race. She practiced and practiced in hot weather, firmly focused on avoiding another injury. Learning from her past failure, Constantina refused to give up on her dreams and worked hard to achieve her goal of Olympic gold.

Another mother, 33-year-old Oksana Chusovitina, took the silver medal for Germany in individual women’s vault. Older than most of the other gymnasts by ten years, Oksana had participated in four previous Olympics, representing the former Soviet Union and winning a team gold. What brought her to Germany at this stage of her career? For the past 6 years her 9-year-old son, Alisher, has been treated there for leukemia. When he was first diagnosed, Oksana could not get help for him in her native Uzbekistan. Not one to be stopped by the challenges she faced, she and her husband moved to Germany to train while Alisher was in treatment. Oksana demonstrates her commitment to family by competing for Germany in Beijing.

If you’ve ever questioned whether you’re too old to reach your goals, you can learn a lesson from these athletes and mothers. It’s never too late to challenge yourself. With maturity, drive and focus, you can achieve your dreams. As Dara Torres said, “To me, if it helps anyone else out there who is in their middle-aged years, putting off something they couldn’t do because they thought they were too old or maybe because they had a child, they thought they couldn’t balance things as a parent – if it shows anyone you can do it, I’m absolutely thrilled.”

© 2008, Her Mentor Center

There's no such thing as a free lunch- it's a sentiment as old as time itself, however it still holds as true as gravity. In a business model, if someone is getting something free, then another party is footing the bill. Over the last five or so years, organizations have found the 'free', multi-sided platform very innovative and effective, turning traditional ways of conducting transactions on its head.

In a free business model, a substantial customer segment continuously benefits from a free offer, which is financed by another part of the model or customer segment. For example, RealEstate.com.au is a platform which lists properties for sale and rent for people to browse and apply for free of charge, instead charging the Real Estate Agencies to place their properties on display.

The most popular and captivating of these models, however, is the 'Freemium', which is where you get the basics for free and pay for the full version. Often, the free offer is offset by featuring paid advertising which is displayed to users as they use. It's quite effective when marketing Smartphone apps and software to the masses because there's no risk to the customer to give the product a try, therefore maximizing uptake, and then once they enjoy the features, they will continue to use it. This leads to either revenue from advertising or users paying for the full version. Now, while customers were quite content enjoying the free versions for years, they are starting to change their behavior.

Take Spotify, the popular music streaming service, as an example. It offers users free access to almost all music tracks, artists and podcasts on demand, right at their fingertips. It's free to use if you do not mind the occasional advert here and there between your playlists. Or even YouTube, which provides free access to endless amounts of video content for you to watch and get lost among, but be prepared to sit through adverts at the start and pop-up banners during.

That's all well and good, however with the saturation of adverts across all of these platforms moving in and really pushing the limits of customer experience and usability, the market trends are starting to shift again. People are beginning to see the value in ad-free subscriptions so they can gain all the benefits of the product without the interruptions and distractions of ads. So instead of just putting up with loud, jarring advertising in-between a customer's music streaming at the gym, they're now electing to pay the monthly subscription to gain the premium benefits.

This is an interesting shift for Marketing, as only years ago, the customer was being pleasantly surprised by receiving effectively a service for nothing. It caught marketers and organizations off guard as it was revolutionary to not charge customers for a product. Most digital products and some innovative physical ones allowed for this paradigm shift, and it was highly profitable, however after the years of this, the average person is becoming fed up with the extrinsic, non-monetary costs associated with their free use, and organizations are now seeing a demand for ad-free versions. This means that the typical modern customer who is quite accustomed to not paying, is now learning to pay again because the 'cost of free' is lowering their utility.

What a crazy, confusing and logically defying statement! Never-the-less, it's happening.
Truth be told, it's not like the cycle has exactly reversed to how things were before the free trend; all industries are seeing an advancement in the way customers interact and use these products. For example, with music, it's not like people are going back to paying $ 30 for a physical CD again. The overall market and the way a customer consumes music went from being free to now subscription-based, ad-free streaming. This seems to be the new and highly accepted trend now, which is being embroced all over the world.

There has also been a rise in ad-blocker software which is another threat to the Freemium model, especially on social media platforms such as Facebook or YouTube, as these 'cheating' customers are receiving all of the benefits for free without having to 'pay 'the trade-off of adverts.

It's an interesting trend, and it will be even more interesting to see where innovative thinkers will take organizational models to next.

â € <What are your thoughts?

Starting a home-based business has a considerable amount of financial benefits in the long run. This is due to the fact that home-based businesses provide more opportunities to transform your lifestyle and become financially independent. If you’re considering starting a new business and you don’t have sufficient resources to purchase an office space, starting a home-based business could give you some financial leverages.

Here are some benefits of owning a home-based business:

It saves you money on rent

Since this business is ran from your living room or garage, it will save you the upfront expenses you would have if you were renting an office space.

You will save on transportation expenses

A study conducted by Work From Home magazine shows that Americans spend an average of 50 minutes commuting to and from their offices. This type of business can save you a considerable amount of money because you will not have to travel as much anymore. In addition, the time you are saving by not commuting as much also helps you to be more productive. You are able to be more productive because instead of being stuck in traffic on the way to work, you can stay home and use those extra 50 minutes to promote your marketing campaign.

you can also save on additional taxes

There are numerous tax benefits that come with operating this type of business. If your business is qualified, you might be allowed to deduct a portion of your home’s expenses. Some expenses that can be deducted are mortgage interests, property taxes, utilities, and maintenance. However, to enjoy these tax benefits, your home office must be your principal place of business.

Low overhead expenses

A home-based business will reduce your overhead expenses since you will only pay the usual bills for your home. No additional bills for gas, electricity, telephones, internet connection, and other overheads you would have paid in case you’re opening an office.

Home-based businesses offer a lot of financial benefits for startup owners. It gives you multiple opportunities to test the waters and position your business on a low budget before launching on a full scale. However, I would recommend that you consult with some experts before you start.

According to Work From Home magazine, the average rate of success is low in this industry and you will need to proper guidance if you want to avoid being another failure statistic. Lastly, I would also recommend that you go to the Better Business Bureau’s website to get a non-biased review on whether the business you choose is legit or not.

Comprehensive and well-coordinated Infrastructure planning is a prerequisite in developing a new town or housing estate and is carried out in tandem with the master town planning and well in advance of any physical developments. It serves to establish the full infrastructure requirements and guide their timely implementation thereby ensuring quality, efficiency and cost-effectiveness in the infrastructure provisions for the proposed development.

Specific functional modes of Infrastructure can be listed as Streets, roads, water supply and water resources, waste water management, sewage treatment plants, solid-waste treatment and disposal, electric power generation and transmission, telecommunications and hazardous waste management etc.

Infrastructure planning can be conceived as a multi-stage process. Each of these stages varies in duration. The greater the time spent on project preparation and structuring, the more likely it is that the project can be implemented smoothly and in a cost-effective manner. Hasty project preparation often leads to rework of documents, leads to false or missing information, and leads to project delays.

The planning process must to take into the local context. More specifically;

• Local needs should be satisfied.

• The project should comply with the existing institutional and legal frameworks

• The project should align with political objectives and ideology

• The project should be technically and economically feasible

Various stages of planning are listed below:

a) Preliminary Feasibility Study

The preliminary feasibility stage of the project establishes the need for the project. Existing information as well as field visits are conducted to substantiate the need for a project. This phase also determines the kinds of detailed studies that need to be undertaken.

b) Detail Study and Project Structuring

This stage is most time consuming. During this stage various technical studies like Geotechnical, land surveys are taken up. Economic market study, Environmental compatibility, Environmental Impact Assessment, Socio-economic Cost Benefit Analysis, Financial Analysis.

c) Detailed Project Report (DPR)

At the conclusion of the above stage, a Detailed Project Report (DPR) is also prepared with detailed technical specifications Financial Engineering and Structuring must also be done during this stage. Lenders, Terms of Loan (Tenors and Rates of Interest), mix of debt and equity, and user charges can all be modelled to determine the financial viability of the project. For Private participation in infrastructure, the private sector may be tasked with many of these studies.

d) Contracting and Procurement

Once the DPR is prepared, the project can be contracted out. Expressions of Interest are sought, Requests for Proposals are sought. Pre-bid conferences are held to clarify terms of the project. Proposals are evaluated and a successful bidder is selected for execution. In the case of Private Provision of Infrastructure, a winning bidder is selected based on their ability both to build and operate the infrastructure.

e) Construction

The successful bidder then proceeds with the construction of the project. Material, manpower and productivity risks must be managed in this phase. Once the project has been built and commissioned, operations can commence and the infrastructure service can be availed by the citizens.

f) Operations and Maintenance

An Operations and Maintenance Contract can be given to a separate party. Maintenance Parameters can be fixed well in advance. Technical Maintenance and quality issues, Revenue generation issues and Administrative risks must be considered in this phase.

Editor’s Note: Masters has been involved with several township developments these include Batanagar Township at Kolkata, IQ City at Durgapur. In addition we have executed large-scale developments such as L&T Phoenix SEZ at Hyderabad, Godrej Prakriti at Kolkata and Godrej Anandam at Nagpur and Riverdale at Pune all of which had considerable infrastructure requirements.

I see it all too often; do this job or do that job, become this because because it will give you a good living. A good living? To me good means OK, average, expected, and mediocre. That does not sound to inspiring does it? So why do we continue to live mediocre lives? Is that what society in America has come to? Oh get a job that you can put up with and give you a comfortable living. That is not the American Dream, it sure as hell is not my dream, and I would be willing to bet it's not your dream either.

In life we ​​all want to accomplish great and magnificent things. How do we achieve great things with a mediocre lifestyle? You can not. To achieve greatness you must be great at what you do and with who you are.

To live a life by design you must develop the right mindset, the right mental frameworks. You will have to retool your skillset. Perhaps most of all you will have to take a long hard look at the world around, and ask yourself, "am I moving in the same direction as everyone else?" Chances are you're in the exact same line, on the exact same road as everyone around you. To live a life by design you must break free from the pack, take the exit on the road you're on, stop and turn around, whatever analogy you choose to use for "I can no longer do what everyone else is doing."

So how do you start building a life by design, and more importantly start living it? I know from experience it's hard, and takes time. But when put in perspective it takes a hell of a lot less time than working 20 plus years to create a living. To create a life by design it will take anywhere from 3 to 10 years, it all depends on how ambitious you are. I know your thinking that is still a good chunk of time, why can not it be done sooner. The answer is, you will have to deconstruct what you have been led to believe, and then build a whole new foundation, and framework to support your new design for life, and that takes time. You will also have to develop a new process for your approach to your end result, and be consistent in its follow through.

What worked for me, and this is my experience yours will most likely be different, was I started listening to motivational speakers to get me in the right state of mind. I then started listening to audio books of successful people or people who have what I want. I then turned to personal development speakers, and books, from there I read inspirational, non-fiction, firsthand account stories where the main character overcame extreme adversity, and lived to tell about it. I have always believed that if another person can do something, I can too, so I would model these people. I would take the best characteristics from those I look up to and I would do my best to make them a part of me.

Now if you are not someone who learns from hearing something, then you will need to read a lot of books. Me I am an audio visual learner, it is hard for me to comprehend books, so I turn to audio. I do practice my reading comprehension, it is difficult but I know it is an extremely valuable skill to have. That statement leads me to this; never stop developing who you are, you can always better your best. Never be satisfied with where you are, because to be satisfied is to complain, and complacency means you have stopped growing. Never stop growing, never stop developing, and never stop believing in yourself and what you can accomplish. That is what it means to live a life by design!

PS4 and Xbox are two of the most popular game consoles in the world. Due to their popularity, many people do not know the console that they should go for. Here is a comparison of the main specifications that will help you in making the right decision.

GPU

Xbox One and PS4 GPUs are technologically very similar; however, the PS4 GPU is a little bit larger. According to the creators, the Xbox GPU is similar to the Bonaire GPU that can be found in Radeon HD 7790. The PS4 GPU on the other hand is similar to the one found in HD 7870.

Creators of PS4 GPU say that the GPU is almost 50% more powerful than Xbox one. This means that games will have plenty of available graphics power on tap. Although, this is the case, Xbox One has a slightly higher GPU unlock speed.

Other than these differences, the two GPUs are identical as they are both based on the Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture because they have the capability of supporting OpenGL 4.3, Direct3D 11.2, and OpenCL 1.2.

RAM

Both consoles have an 8GB RAM. The PS4 has 5500MHz RAM while the Xbox uses 2133MHz DDR3 RAM. Use of this type of RAM by PS4 gives the console a bandwidth advantage. For example, the PS4's CPU and GPU will have 176GB / sec of bandwidth to system RAM, while Xbox will only have 68.3GB / sec.

CPU

Just like GPU, both consoles have similar CPUs. Although, the CPUs are essentially identical, they have a number of differences. For example, the PS4 CPU is clocked at 1.6GHz while Xbox is clocked at 1.75GHz. Since Xbox one has a larger space, it's expected to be much faster.

Setting up the consoles

It's very easy to setup PS4 as you do not have to go through the trouble of installing a power supply brick; all you need to do is to plug the power cord from the PS4 to the wall and hook up the HDMI to your TV. The good side is that PS4 is easily recognized by many TVs; therefore, you do not have to fiddle with settings.

It's also easy to setup Xbox one; however, you have to deal with the power brick that needs to be placed in a well-ventilated area in order to protect it from overheating. The power brick also gives the Xbox console an ugly look.

Conclusion

These are the main differences between PS4 and Xbox one. Which is the best console for you?

A person having no technical coding experience can operate the store built with the Magento platforms and can even create the entire store on his own having little coding experience. Magento themes and templates are available available to create the online store. The templates as well as the themes can be customized to any degree. The customization can relate to developing the store front-end as well as the backend admin panel. Since Magento is based on the PHP language and it is a customizable platform, one can write any PHP code and integrate to customize the template. There is a feature of Magento platform that allows it flexible to any kind of front-end or backend customization.

In spite of having Magento platform advantages, the release of Magento 2 version accounts to the platform version having some advantages as well as disadvantages. Magento 2 is recently released and there are many websites still being developed in the Magento 2 platform. Here are some of the Magento 2 advantages listed below.

Improved UI / UX at the Admin backend: If we check the backend admin panel and compare both Magento platforms, then it is clearly visible that Magento 2 platform has improved UI / UX screens at the backend for utter significant management of the store by the admin . The Magento 2 platform has the minimized dashboard and can be easily sorted out for developing any number of stores at the backend of the Magento 2 platform easily. Also, Magento backend used to be confusing backend admin panel for the non-technical admin of the site.

Performance of the Magento 2 platform compared to Magento: On comparing the performance of the Magento 2 based web-store with the Magento based web-store, it has been found that Magento 2 has improved performance over the earlier version. Magento 2 platform has much faster results.

However, the Magecore's performance has resolved into conflicting results. In a scenario having the same load, Magento 2 has performed slower that the anticipated. Notably, the Magento 2 platform does not cache results. Secondly the production mode is faster than the developer mode for the Magento 2.

Shopper Experiences: The modern day e-commerce solution results from the customer convenience during the online buying and payment process. Magento 2 has replied in the below mentioned advantages.

Product images and improvement in the order summary: At the time of addition of products in the shopping cart, the entire process is much improved and includes the products' images in the cart.

Streamline Checkout Process: The checkout process is limited to 2 steps. The first step involves the collection of the customer data and the second step relating to the payment option and the final billing made at the end.

Payment methods: All the payment options could be integrated to the platform backend.

Improvements in the framework: The framework is refactored using the new coding implemented to improve the system. A lot of mess is removed from the platform leading to the major data grid enhancement system. The modules can now be enabled or disabled in the Magento application. Also, it is compatible with the PHP7 version and HHVM.

Extension for Magento 2: Magento Connect is a vast marketplace of Magento related applications standard products known as extensions. These extensions are the ready to be installed standalone product that leads to new functionalities or features in the Magento. Magento developers have implemented new rules and guidelines for Magento extensions such that there are no bugs and the coding has great quality.

Buggy Admin Panel (The Only concern): Since the Magento 2 platform is still under development, the admin panel of Magento 2 has still some bugs. There can be many errors faced by the admin at the backend of the store as well as the database connectivity. Overall, Magento Custom development relating developing Magento 2 with quality coding minimizing the bugs of the admin panel.

Who does not love a great hairdo? When you are looking to get decked up for any occasion or even if you are really bothered about the way your hair looks, you may need to fix an appointment to a hair salon shortly.

Let us take a look at 5 of the key ingredients which paves the path for success when it comes to hair salons.

1. Style

Of course, you need to be well versed in a lot of different hairstyles. There are quite a lot of different patterns which you can use and the amazing ways by which you can have a hair cut is whopping. So, you need to bane sure that your style quotient is pretty high.

2. Personalization

One of the best hair salons would be the one where you can get personalized haircuts. The type of hair cut which suits a person varies a great deal based upon the face cut of a person and their personality and hair type and texture as well. So, you should be able to guide people by offering them apt tips for personalization.

3. Pricing

Of course, you need to ensure that you have priced your hair salon services in an apt manner. Look at the basic industry rates and then you can price your services accordingly. There is no point charging exorbitant money for your different hair services as this will cut down on the total clients you can get.

4. Conjoined services

If you want to emerge as one of the leading hair salons, you need to offer varied type of services. If you only specialize in hair cut, you will end up losing on a list of clients who may not be able to avail the rest of the services. So, if you are looking to improve your reputation and emerge as one of the pioneer hair salons, you need to offer a set of services together. Maybe, you could team hair cut with hair spa, hair color and more.

5. Special treatments

Also, you could chip in a few special treatments and more so for your loyal customers. This is an excellent way of winning your loyal customers. You could give them a special 10% off on their next visit or whatever it is that fits your service list. You will have plenty of different options. With the finest offers and a little special treatment, your hair salon is sure to emerge as one of the top options.

These are five of the best ways by which you could push your hair salon up in the list and this makes it one of the top names to be reckoned with. With the increasing level of competition, it is getting really hard to stay at the top of the ranks.

Good packaging and luxuriously wrapped product ensures great sales

Somehow a product that is wrapped luxuriously seems to appear more promising than the other products. Luckily, you can upload more than one photos of the product you are listing which mean that you also have the opportunity to show the buyer the kind of packaging boxes the products will be delivered in. The sellers selling stuff from home are not paying a lot of attention to the packaging of the handmade product and this is where they lose many prospective buyers. Buyers always want to buy stuff that is a brand and is wrapped nicely with brand logo on the packaging and maximum branding. You can turn into a brand overnight by giving the proper product packaging to the buyers.

Be a top seller to meet more interested buyers

More uses of the product you are making, you surely need to invest a little on the custom packaging of the product. The more attention you give to the packaging, the more reliable your store and product appears to new buyers. You can become one of the shops where people come just to look at pretty things and in no time your product listing can go higher. Custom boxes with a brand logo on them have to play a very important part in making your product look good quality and very exquisite.

Be an overnight hit and a people’s favorite store

You must wander through articles to be a top store overnight and you want to do all that is suggested, but the most important thing you need to do to become a people’s favorite store is to offer very attractive and appealing custom printed boxes to the buyers who are viewing your products. A number of sellers must be selling the kind of stuff you are selling with us, so your product needs to show up differently and not something that everyone else is making. A good packaging can surely make your product appear very promising and packing boxes with your own brand logo and its initials will be very helpful in doing so. Where the whole world comes to buy handmade and different stuff, bespoke items and vintage ornaments, let people know though your packaging that there is no other brand like yours by getting a professional logo made and by getting custom printed boxes made to deliver the products in them.

Secure products while shipping by offering sturdy logo boxes

Apart from the good impression that a buyer gets while looking at your store gallery, you must also secure your product during delivery and the buyer must receive the product in the perfect state. Ensure that sturdy packaging supplies must be sourced from the manufacturers that offer the best-priced custom boxes and get your packaging material printed to suit your business.

Use a Flash Drive with Ready Boost

If your computer just doesn’t have enough memory to keep up with today’s Memory hungry applications, you might give Ready Boost a try. Simply plug in a flash drive, and in the Autoplay dialog under general options click “Speed up my system”. Then in the Properties dialog box click on the Ready Boost Tab choose how much of the flash drive to use and then click “OK”. Your system will start using the flash drive as extra memory.

Disk Cleanup to Remove Old Files

The Disk Cleanup utility removes old temporary files that are taking up space that could be used by the operating system to improve performance. If you have used your system a lot than you probably have a lot of temporary files just taking up space.

To remove these files click on the Windows button and type Disk Cleanup. Then open the Disk Cleanup application. Windows will ask you which disk to run the cleanup utility on. Select your Operating System drive (usually c:) and click “OK”. Windows will then analyze your disk drive and show you how much space can be reclaimed using the Disk Cleanup utility. Select the temporary items you want to remove and click “OK”. Windows will ask you for a confirmation and then will go to work. When the cleanup utility finishes you should have more disk space for your Operating System to use.

Disable Fancy Visualizations

Windows 10 has very fancy visualizations such as transparent window boarders and fading system messages. Your computer has to render all these visualizations. This is OK if your system is higher end, but if your computer is on the older side you might want to disable these visualizations to gain back system performance.

To disable the Windows Visualization effects and speed up your computer click on the Windows button and type “sysdm.cpl” without the quotes. Then click on the Advanced tab. Then click on the Performance Box Settings button. Finally, select “Adjust for best performance” and click OK. Alternatively, you can deselect each item manually if you want to fine tune your optimization. Windows won’t look as pretty, but it should run faster.

Windows Troubleshooter

Windows now has a built in tool to find and fix common problems. Since it’s already installed and available for use it’s worth a try. If you experiencing stability problems or noticing system errors, it could be caused by a system configuration issue or a corrupted file.

To run through the built in Windows troubleshooting software click on the Windows Key and type “find and fix” (without the quotes) and click on the “Find and fix problems” link. Then click through the category and descriptions to try and resolve any system issue you may be experiencing.

Uninstall Unneeded Software

Installed software takes up resources such as disk space. Also if the program has a service that runs a process on boot up it is taking up CPU time that could be used for other things. One or two applications aren’t too bad, but when you have 20-40 applications they add up.

To remove unneeded applications, click on the Windows button and then click on settings. Next click on System, and finally click on Apps & features. Look through the list of all the installed software and remove anything you don’t need anymore. After you are done give your system a fresh reboot to ensure your System memory gets cleared out.

Get an SSD

So one of the biggest thing I noticed about Windows 10 so far is that it can be very disk active. After upgrading a Windows 8.1 laptop to Windows 10 I discovered the disk usage was getting 100% use almost all the time. This laptop had a magnetic based platter style hard drive which are a lot slower than system memory. This caused it to have trouble keeping up with the demanding Operating System. If your system is on the older side, you are probably in the same boat and have a magnetic based platter hard drive too.

Solid State Disks (SSDs) use non-volatile flash memory to store information. Basically they are fast really big USB Flash drives. If your system disk is causing your operating system to slow down than you can definitely notice an increase in system performance. Your system will boot way faster and will be more responsive.

To see if your system is suffering from high disk usage open Task Manager by holding down Ctrl+Alt+Delete (without the + signs) then click on Task Manager. Then click on the Performance tab. If your disk drive/s show close to 100% most of the time than you will benefit from a SSD upgrade.

Disable any Unneeded Processes on Startup

It seems like every piece of software wants to run a process on startup to you know “update”. How often do you think updates come out? All the other time the process is checking for updates, checking for updates, and who knows what else. You don’t need it running all the time especially if you are low on system resources already.

To disable processes from running on startup open the task manager by holding the keys Ctrl+Alt+Delete (without the + signs). Then select Task Manager. Click on the Startup tab. Now review the list of software and disable as needed. Hopefully this will buy you back some system resources and cause your system to become more responsive.

Disable Unneeded Services

This is a big one. Enabled services means processes running all the time and taking system resources away from the user. Not only are they running on startup, but they keep the process going even if it gets stopped from Task Manager or crashes. A lot of services are necessary for the operating system, but third party applications can setup services when they are installed. If you are not running a server of some sort than you most likely don’t need that software running all the time.

To disable services from running automatically click on the windows button and then type msconfig and hit enter. Click on the Services tab. Then I recommend checking the box to “Hide all Microsoft Services” to ensure you don’t stop a critical service that the Operating System depends on. After hiding the Microsoft services, you will get a list of services to go through. Most of these can be safely disabled. If you are in doubt leave it enabled, or disable it and see what happens. You can always re-enable the service using the same process. Once you are done click on the OK button. Windows will prompt you for a reboot. This is necessary for the changes to take effect, so go ahead and reboot. After a reboot you will get a pop up indicating that system settings were changed. Since you caused the changes you can safely ignore that message. If you were able to disable a decent amount of services, you should notice a bump in system performance.

Use a Different Browser for Internet Surfing

So far my experience with Microsoft Edge (the new built in Web browser in Windows 10) is that it’s buggy and slow. So much so that I have begun using Google Chrome for all my web browsing. It doesn’t have to be chrome, but if you are frustrated with a slow buggy internet browsing experience you might try installing a third party browser.

Upgrade versus a Fresh Install

So you took Microsoft up on the offer for a free upgrade and now your system is slow? If you have ever had any experience with Windows upgrade installations, you might have experienced a slow system or errors that popped up for seemingly no reason. I have never had great luck with Windows upgrades and if you ask any IT guy they will probably tell you to avoid them and opt for a full fresh install. Windows 10 appears to be no different to its predecessors. Using a fresh install versus an upgraded install can improve your system performance, and if you have exhausted all other options you might want to give it a try.