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Thursday, August 03, 2000
Q: How do I find a company on the Internet?
A: In many cases, the fastest way to find a company is to type into the address field of your browser the name of the company without spaces, preceded by "www." and followed by ".com". If this does not get you to the home page of the correct company, go to the Dot Com Directory ( www.dotcomdirectory.com), which is operated by Network Solutions, the company that keeps the database of dot.com domains.
In theory, if the company you seek has an Internet domain, you'll find it at Dot Com Directory, including the domain name and other information.
Here are some other ideas
If you're looking for financial information about a public company, try one of the business directories such as biz.yahoo.com or www.hoovers.com. These Web Sites typically provide information that public companies register with the SEC as well as news items. For a list of business directories, see my archives at www.insiderradio.com.
Q: My PC is getting slow. How do I fix it?
A: Your PC could slow down for a number of reasons -- or might just seem slower.
Your system might seem slower if you build bigger spreadsheets, write longer documents and keep more e-mail in the e-mail system. In many cases, your system is just doing more. So it takes longer. Similarly, when you open lots of Windows, you degrade performance, again because you're causing your computer to do more. In this case, you're using more random access memory with each open Window. And often, when you reach your memory limit, your system must move data from RAM to disk to free up working space. This causes tremendous slowdowns as the system "pages to disk."
You might be able to fix these types of performance issues with a simple memory upgrade. Go to
Have a question for David Radin? Contact him at his Web site
www.pcpitstop.com to test whether you need more memory.
You also can slow your system by inadvertently creating fragments on your disk as a normal part of daily system use. Fragmentation occurs when files are physically split on your disk during the saving process, often because the spot in which the computer attempts to save the file is not big enough for the whole file. So it puts whatever portion fits into that space, then looks for the next available space to place the rest of the file. The more often you save data, the more fragmented your disk becomes.
To increase performance on a fragmented disk, defrag your disk. Windows 95 and 98 comes with a defrag utility that makes it easy. (Sorry, NT users. You'll have to buy your own.) To use the Windows' Disk Defragmenter, click on your [Start] button, then select [Programs], then [Accessories], then [System Tools]. Click on [Disk Defragmenter] to start the utility.
The first time you use the utility, click on the [Settings...] button. Then make sure that you have check marks next to both "Rearrange program files so my programs start faster" and "Check for drive errors." Then select the option to use these settings every time you defrag your hard drive. Using these settings will increase defrag time, but enhance your system performance. Once you've clicked [Okay] to accept these settings, you can select the drive you want to defrag and start it working. (Next time, you'll skip the settings step.)
Don't expect to work while defragmenting your disk. Instead, start your defragmenter when you're planning to be away from your system for a while. If you defrag often, it won't take too long. But if you haven't defragmented your disk for a while, it will probably take a few hours.
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