Lazy Sunday freebies!
Five++ Defrag Programs
Today at MakeUseOf.com, there's a post titled "Five Free Programs to Defragment your PC" which lists five free defrag programs (duh!) for your PC.Defragging basically keeps files on your harddisk in order instead of leaving files strewn all over the place. In theory, this should speed up file access as files are located in the same place instead of hundreds of different areas. In my opinion, defragging does help in some way, as my harddisk is always quieter (less seeking) after it has been defragged.
Out of the five, I've used Contig and PageDefrag before and can say that they are wonderful for keeping your PC in shape. The reason I used Contig is exactly why Contig was developed - to defrag a couple of files. Sometimes when you are dealing with large files such as databases or media files, defragging just those critical files can net you a significant performance boost. PageDefrag's story is similar - I've used it to quickly defrag my page file.
If you're looking for more free defrag programs, checkout The Great Defrag Shootout: all the defragmentation utilities I can find @ Insights and Rants. Dozens of commercial and free defrag programs are listed along with their reviews by the author.
WorldCat
Looking for a book/CD in your library? Can't find it there? Why not search on WorldCat? WorldCat is the world's largest network of library content and services. WorldCat libraries are dedicated to providing access to their resources on the Web, where most people start their search for information.
And it isn't limited to only the United States, Australia or just a single country. The entire world's libraries are at your fingertips when you search with WorldCat. Well, those that participate in WorldCat anyway. :)
WorldCat even provides search plugins/toolbars for you to install in your browser so that search junkies don't need to type in the URL to start searching. If you don't have time to browse through all your search results, simply register for a free account and save your search results into lists. You can also get your friends involved by sharing those lists if you want.
Like many other beta services, WorldCat has some hiccups to take care of. While I was testing out WorldCat, when I clicked on certain results, some redirected me to non-existent sites (holding pages) while others left me at the initial search page of the library (where the material was found) instead of the library's result page. The latter meant that I had to execute the search again, only this time I was searching in some library instead of WorldCat. However I didn't bother to carry out the same search again at an external library page (since that really isn't the point). :)
No more freebies for today! Be back on Monday for more! Yesterday's freebies still work fine!