Why Windows runs out of memory and how to solve it easily in 5 steps

Windows is an impressive piece of software with dozens of millions of lines of code but it’s not perfect, especially after installing dozens of programs for your work. Sometimes it runs out of mermory, aparently for no reason, but we are going to solve that.

1. Check the Windows update, especially in Windows 8

After leaving the computer ON for several days, the updates are not fully installed because Windows needs to reboot the computer to finish the update install. If you don’t reboot the system for several days or weeks, chances are memory will be a problem. Open the task window. If memory is above 85% with almost no applications running, Windows has software to install. The best way to solve this problem is to run Windows Update and install everything there, even the optional updates. It will take some time, depending on the computer speed and the size of the updates, but after a few minutes Windows is likely to ask to reboot the computer. Save all your work, close the applications and reboot the computer normally. Windows is going to work on the updates before rebooting and after rebooting. When Windows loads again, the memory problem is likely to be solved.

2. Remove all the programs you don’t need or replace them by online versions

Most programs we install in the computer we don’t use anymore. I am talking about all those cool freeware from Softpedia or Cnet. The problem is we don’t use them anymore and they are using resources such as second plan running resources like RAM and hard disk usage. Leave on your computer only the programs you must use for your work on a daily basis. All the rest, chances are you don’t need or there is the online solution that does almost the same thing without having to install a thing. The best way to remove the programs is to use Ccleaner that will remove them program and also clean the hard disk files such a cache and temporary files. It’s not unusual to double the computer speed after this step because RAM is very important to computer speed, sometimes even more than the processor.

3. Reduce the cache for programs and the browser

Many years ago, computers were slow, the internet was even slower than you can imagine, and cache made things a little faster by storing the files in the RAM for future usage. Now the cache is almost useless. Windows does have cache it needs for some key files and applications but most programs do also have cache they don’t need to have, especially the browser which is the application you probably use the most. Internet cache these days is totally useless with fiber internet. You can use applications to reduce the cache. In case you open and close the browser several times a day, just empty the cache and the temporary files after each use. The browser and the entire computer will speed up.

What Windows 10 Should Have

Windows 10 is said by Microsoft to be the best Windows yet. Windows 8 compared with Windows 7 might be a bit faster, but the lack of the start menu made people very angry because they can't find what they want really fast. The new search in Windows 8 is slower, lags too much, takes a lot of time to find what you want and there's not the possibility to open the search results on a new window to continue to search or just refine the query. No wonder Windows 8 has the worst market share ever.

Windows 10 promises to change that. It introduced a whole new start button and it seems that now the start button is the most important feature of Windows. It's the window to everything even to the cloud, with the search feature. I hope that Microsoft makes cloud search easier than before so we don't have to open the folder or the browser to quickly find a file we need.

As for the speed there are no tests yet to see if it's faster than Windows 8 and 8.1 but I hope it is. The cloud needs more speed especially in terms of response time. Cloud services still take a lot of time to respond and in many cases they crash and we have to reboot the browser.

Another thing that Windows 10 could come with is automatic cleaner for Windows, browser and applications. We have to rely on third party software. That's OK because Ccleaner does a great job but it's not a native application. Windows always writes thousands of files it won't need again. After all these years Microsoft still does not have a complete cleaning tool.

Now that we are connected all the time everywhere, Windows needs to be more secure than ever. There are yet no tests because the new version is not yet shipped. Only when people use it we will see if security has been improved, especially in terms of intrusions blocked.

Another important feature I read is that Windows 10 is probably the last Windows version and from now on it will be fully updated with Windows update so we have the best version all the time, just like cloud applications. I hope this will become a reality because installing everything again takes a lot of time and it's costly in terms of time spend upgrading the entire system.

Let's just wait until Windows 10 is released!

Microsoft OneDrive vs Google Drive: Can you move everything to the cloud?

Cloud computing is amazing. All your files can be accessed from any device anywhere in the world as long as you have an internet connection. With two step security no one can see anything unless they have the password and the email or the mobile phone.

So far sounds perfect.

I tried Google Drive for a while and I am surprised to see what we have been missing. We no longer need to have pen drives everywhere, moving and updating the files manually like in the 90's or forgetting files at home while we are in the office. Now with the cloud all the files are up to date all the time and pretty secure.

The cloud has a few problems. One is you don't have the same processing power like when using the desktop on a fast computer. Things take longer to move, read, write and access because of the cloud system and because you are using a browser. Another problem is it takes time to get used to use the files on the cloud and forget about easy copy paste, creating and deleting files very fast. For heavy computer users it takes a lot of time to adapt to this new work system.

Google Drive is a "true" cloud solution. I say true because Google does the best to move all your work entirely to the cloud to eliminate the need to have a desktop. You have all the files in the drive. To create or delete a document you just need to access the drive. The same is true for a spreasheet or a presentation. The advantage is clear, you can create (for free) documents and work together with anyone you want. All the files are in the cloud all the time (free from the desktop) and can be accessed anywhere.

Drive search is like in Gmail, very fast and accurate even when there are thousands of files inside the Drive. The disadvantage is simple, it does not have a lot of power to work with heavy files. Even simple sheets take several seconds to load and to update especially when there is a lot of math involved. Since you work with a browser everything moves a bit slower than on the desktop. You will take some time to get used to it, but once you master the Drive, it's hard to want to go back to the desktop.

Why?

Everything is secure, search is very fast even with a large number of files whereas on the desktop once you start having thousands of files search takes several seconds even a minute to complete. The files on the cloud are updated all the time. You don't have to worry about updates, security (just keep the password and the mobile phone safe) backups, multiple files on multiple devices and out of date versions.

The only thing Google should improve is the response speed especially when using large files.

Microsoft Drive wants to be the best in the cloud and it offers Word, Excel and Powerpoint online. These free online versions are a bit slower than on the desktop, don't have all the features but are more powerful and complete than Google's solution. Just like other solutions, Microsoft offers for free plenty of space, access from anywhere, two step security and another thing the competition does not have yet which is the full power of the desktop software to work on the files on the cloud, giving the best of both.

With Office 365 you can have all the features of Microsoft Office suite, for a reasonable monthly price and save all the files on the cloud. The advantage of this system is clear, work on the desktop or on the cloud with the online suite, save the files in the cloud (or on the desktop) share and collaborate, move from computer to computer and everything is there and don't worry about backups and file versions.

Think of OneDrive as the cloud solution for heavy work.

Is this the right time to move everything to the cloud?

The answer I see from specialists on magazines, blogs, forums is it depends on the kind of work you do and how sensitive it is. My experience is the peace of mind of having everything important to your work available all the time.

Is water cooling necessary for high performance computers?

Water cooling is much better than it was 10 years ago. Back in 2004 and 2005 when the first end user water coolings were sold they were something like a high risk system. It was new, the tech was low tech and it was really water that was running inside the system. If you did something wrong, the house could be on fire.

Today things are different. Most water cooling systems are not water cooling but a liquid that cannot conduct electricity so if there's a leak, the computer won't be damaged, at least that's what they say.

But do you really such costly, high performance and expensive system to cooldown and 8 Core AMD or the latest Intel i7?

You don't.

If you like silence, air cooling is still the best you can install. I have one computer with liquid cooling. The temperature is perfect all the time and even with the air temp is at above 35 ou even 40ºC, the computer runs almost at 0ºC. Incredible. The problem is the noise. You almost can't hear music because the fans are running at peak speed all the time. The system does not come with software to control the maximum temperature or the fan speed/noise.

Air cooling, the best big fans, run much slower and they are capable of cooling even the fastest processors, for almost the same cost and with the advantage of being almost completely silent. Air cooling also has the advantage of lasting much longer in terms of lifetime and they don't require as much maintenance.

For mid performance computers liquid cooling is "out of question" simply because normal, even stock, air coolers are more than enough.

Is Google Drive the end of desktop computing?

Google Drive recently unleashed some updates to their product that, in my opinion, makes Google Drive the best place to have your files and work both online and offline.

In some posts before I wrote about how the cloud is never going to replace the desktop and I thought the desktop was and would be always the best place to work of all. It simply depends on what kind of work you do. People who work with video edition won't have much advantage using Google Drive except to backup some small videos. People working in an office will have a lot more competitive advantage working with the Drive.

What are Google Drive advantages?

1. Work anywhere and collaborate. Anywhere means you can work even from the metro if you have batery and internet connection. There are no limits or barriers. The drive works just like Gmail does. You access your files fromt he cloud, they are encrypted between the Google servers and your computer and working with any document, spreasheet or presentation is very easy. Collaboration is easier than ever before. Do you remember the good old times when you had to send an email for your time with the sheets and then have each of them work individually and send back the file to you? Version after version, mistake after mistake and the work would be finally done. Now it's simple, just share a file and everybody can work on it in real time at the same time.

2. Use multiple computers. If you are like most people you have a desktop, a laptop and a tablet. Using a pen drive (you can lose) to have the work ready on (almost) all devices is something of the past. Drive allows to work on all computers, at the same time if you want, and get the work done no matter what the computer is, as long as it has internet.

3. Security. It's hard to hack a desktop and today so is hacking the cloud. Google recently released a new feature so anyone trying to hack into your account will have to have your mobile phone as well. Google is serious about security and hacking Google servers is pratically impossible. Your work is safe.

4. Work offline. With Google Drive for the desktop getting everyone on the cloud and working on the desktop is amazing.

5. No cost. How much do you have to pay for an office suite? Probably hundreds of dollars. How much do you have to pay for computer security suites? Almost that amount again. With the cloud for documents and sheets and then some presentations you have to pay nothing. The storage is huge.

For offices and students I predict the desktop does not have a lot of value anymore.

Will the cloud ever replace the desktop?

I don’t think so. Security will always be a problem, speed another and lack of internet yet another one.

Everyone with a state of the art computer knows that nothing can match the speed of the SSD hard drive combined with 16 GB of RAM and an 8 core computer. No matter how fast the optic fiber is or the servers, there will always be more delays in the cloud than in your own machine.

I think that as the amount of data and information explodes inside companies, they will tend to use bigger and faster hard disks. Companies simply don’t want to give all their data to a cloud solution no matter how cost effective it may seem. The desktop system will always be faster than any cloud system even with 1GB internet speed. There are always delays when it comes to travel thousands of miles to reach the server.

One indicator of how people prefer to have their data inside the hard disk is the Chrome Notebook. People didn't mass buy them (at least yet) because they are not comfortable giving so much power to Google. They want to choose what operating system they want to have, what browser and what search engine and email solution. They don't want to be attached to Google forever nor to online services.

The clould storage is quite limited in mobility and file edition. You can't simply open and edit files inside the cloud, unless the service has applications installed for that end. You have to download the files to the computer, edit, then save again in the cloud. That's a problem I have not seen a solution yet.

The importance of desktop search

Google Desktop Search was the best software to search your computer. The results were super fast, faster than any other technology at that time. Ther results were very accurate. You could even search your web history which was perfect to find a page you visited but forgot to save and wanted to visit again. You would see the results in the browser with Google search results style. It was the perfect desktop search tool. Unfortunatelly Google decided to stop the development of this software. People who still want to search the computer have to buy the Google Enterprise Search. The reasons given by Google were that people have less information inside the computer and more in the cloud so it made no sense to continue the development of Google Desktop Search.

I don't agree.

Desktop search continue to be one of the most important tools in the computer. To have a small idea of how important search is, just go to your Windows 8 machine and try to find a file you don't know where it is. You can't find it. Windows 8 does not have a general desktop search engine. You need to open the folders one by one and search inside them. It's true people have more and more information inside the cloud and not inside the computer, but security problems, lack of speed and support make most people continue to use their computers for file storage, especially companies. Big companies probably don't live without enterprise search. They have hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of documents to search and without search, their productivity would be wasted. Google has a product for them.

Let's see if Windows 10 comes with a better search engine with the new Start Menu because if it doesn't because it's trying to make people use One Drive, I think Chrome OS and Linux will be the operating system of the future.