RJ’s Geeky Explorations #8 Dec 2023-Jan 2024

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This linkdump is kind of random, so my numbering is off (won’t make this mistake again).

Fun with MS Word Wildcards. It took me several days to write up this guide which was a lifesaver when using a book scanner.

Climate Change Cheatsheet (2023 Edition).

I wish to give an update about my April 2022 lament about a sluggish PC.

First, an underlying nasty problem is that my Google Drive Windows app has been crashing. (So if I try to save to it, it throws up an error message). That might aggravate the sluggishness. Fortunately all I need to do is to kill the phantom process and restart the app.

Second, I have changed all my default download locations so that downloads get sent automatically to my Downloads directory. That saves a lot of time especially on Chrome (though it’s inconvenient to have to sort them and move them elsewhere).

Third, in Win Explorer I’ve been drilling down into directories on the left panel — not the right — and that seems to proceed more quickly.

Fourth, I now see that Windows Explorer lets you open in new tabs — showing more than one view in a single instance. It still can be slow, but it’s faster than two instances or doing everything in a single window.

Fifth, I delay the task of moving things from one directory to another so I can do it all in one batch. If I do it after a fresh boot, it is particularly fast.

Sixth, I’ve been searching for a way to extract multiple zip files simultaneously, and I think I’ve found the best solution (good on all platforms): 7 Zip This also appears to save time.

Seventh I’ve noticed that certain websites tax system resources more quickly than others. For some reason it’s worse on Chrome, so I generally divide things among three different browsers. Generally web pages that need constant updating of state have better performance on Edge than Chrome.

Finally I’ve been more inclined to restart Windows if I see things are getting too sluggish.


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