Como surgiu o primeiro e-mail?

Fonte:http://openmap.bbn.com/~tomlinso/ray/firstemailframe.html

The First Network Email

Ray Tomlinson

During the summer and autumn of 1971, I was part of a small group of programmers who were developing a time-sharing system called TENEX that ran on Digital PDP-10 computers. We were supporting a larger group working on natural language. Earlier, I had worked on the Network Control Protocol (NCP) forTENEX and network programs such as an experimental file transfer program called CPYNET.

I was making improvements to the local inter-user mail program called SNDMSG. Single-computer electronic mail had existed since at least the early 1960's and SNDMSG was an example of that. SNDMSG allowed a user to compose, address, and send a message to other users' mailboxes.

A mailbox was simply a file with a particular name. It's only special property was its protection which only allowed other users to append to the file. That is, they could write more material onto the end of the mailbox, but they couldn't read or overwrite what was already there. The idea occurred to me that CPYNETcould append material to a mailbox file just as readily as SNDMSG could. SNDMSG could easily incorporate the code from CPYNET and direct messages through a network connection to remote mailboxes in addition to appending messages to local mailbox files.

The missing piece was that the experimental CPYNET protocol had no provision for appending to a file; it could just send and receive files. Adding the missing piece was a no-brainer -- just a minor addition to the protocol. I don't recall the protocol details, but appending to a file was the same as writing to a file except for the mode in which the file was opened.

Next, the CPYNET code was incorporated into SNDMSG. It remained to provide a way to distinguish local mail from network mail. I chose to append an at sign and the host name to the user's (login) name. I am frequently asked why I chose the at sign, but the at sign just makes sense. The purpose of the at sign (in English) was to indicate a unit price (for example, 10 items @ $1.95). I used the at sign to indicate that the user was "at" some other host rather than being local.

The first message was sent between two machines that were literally side by side. The only physical connection they had (aside from the floor they sat on) was through the ARPANET. I sent a number of test messages to myself from one machine to the other. The test messages were entirely forgettable and I have, therefore, forgotten them. Most likely the first message was QWERTYUIOP or something similar. When I was satisfied that the program seemed to work, I sent a message to the rest of my group explaining how to send messages over the network. The first use of network email announced its own existence.

These first messages were sent in late 1971. The next release of TENEX went out in early 1972 and included the version of SNDMSG with network mail capabilities. The CPYNET protocol was soon replaced with a real file transfer protocol having specific mail handling features. Later, a number of more general mail protocols were developed.

The First Email Computer

The first email was sent between the two machines shown in this photograph. They were (obviously) side-by-side, but the only connection between them was through the ARPANET. In the foreground is BBN-TENEXA (BBNA for short). Host names in 1971 had no .com or dot anything; DNS came along later. BBNA was the machine on which the first email was received. In the background is BBN-TENEXB (BBNB) from which the first email was sent. On the left, foreground, is the Teletype KSR-33 terminal on which the first email was printed. Immediately behind and largely obscured is another KSR-33 on which the first email was typed.

Photograph courtesy of Dan Murphy

BBNA was a Digital Equipment Corporation KA10 (PDP-10) with 64K (36-bit) words of (real magnetic) core memory. In modern measure, that's 288 KBytes. BBNB was smaller with only 48K words. Both machines ran the TENEX time-sharing monitor.

Did you send the first network email?

As far as I know, yes. However, there are a few qualifications. Network should be included because there were many earlier instances of email within a single machine. Computer networks, in any real sense, didn't exist until theARPANET was built starting in 1969. Dick Watson proposed a form of email in July 1971 (RFC 196). I don't think that was ever implemented. It differed in that the mail was directed to numeric mailboxes. RFC 196 also suggests that the final product would be a printer output (i.e. ink on paper). SNDMSG sent messages to named individuals (computer users).

Why did you do it?

Mostly because it seemed like a neat idea. There was no directive to "go forth and invent email". The ARPANET was a solution looking for a problem. A colleague suggested that I not tell my boss what I had done because email wasn't in our statement of work. That was really said in jest because we were, after all, investigating ways in which to use the ARPANET.

Why did you choose the at sign?

The primary reason was that it made sense. at signs didn't appear in names so there would be no ambiguity about where the separation between login name and host name occurred. (Of course, this last notion is now refuted by the proliferation of products, services, slogans, etc. incorporating the at sign.) The at sign also had no significance in any editors that ran on TENEX. I was later reminded that the Multics time-sharing system used the at sign as its line-erase character. This caused a fair amount of grief in that community of users. Multics used IBM 2741 terminals which used EBCDIC character coding. They did not have a "control" modifier key and didn't have many (any?) non-printing characters beyond space, backspace, tab, and return. The designers of Multics were constrained to using printing characters for line-editing.

What was the first message?

The first message of any substance was a message announcing the availability of network email. The exact content is unknown, but it gave instructions about using the at sign to separate the user's name from his host computer name.

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Did you receive any rewards, patents, etc.?

Not unless you consider the current interest in the origins of email a reward.

---

What were the early uses of email?

The early uses were not terribly different from the current uses: The exceptions are that there was only plain text in the messages and there was noSPAM.

As cinco diferentes atitudes

Fonte: http://colunas.g1.com.br/paulocoelho/

Postado por Paulo Coelho em 29 de outubro de 2009 às 00:13 O texto a seguir é adaptado de uma história de Portia Nelson: 1 - Eu caminho pela rua. Existe um buraco na calçada. Eu estou distraído, pensando em mim, e caio lá dentro. Me sinto perdido, infeliz, incapaz de pedir ajuda. Não foi minha culpa, mas de quem cavou aquele buraco ali. Eu me revolto, fico desesperado, sou uma vítima da irresponsabilidade dos outros, e passo muito tempo lá dentro. 2 - Eu caminho pela rua. Existe um buraco na calçada. Eu finjo que não vejo, aquilo não é meu problema. Eu caio de novo lá dentro. Não posso acreditar que isto aconteceu mais uma vez, devia ter aprendido a lição, e mandado alguém fechar o buraco. Demoro muito tempo para sair dali. 3 - Eu caminho pela rua. Existe um buraco na calçada. Eu o vejo. Eu sei que ele está ali, porque já caí duas vezes. Entretanto, sou uma pessoa acostumada a fazer sempre o mesmo trajeto. Por causa disso, caio uma terceira vez; é o hábito. 4 - Eu caminho pela rua. Existe um buraco na calçada. Eu dou a volta em torno dele. Logo depois de passar, escuto alguém gritando - deve ter caído naquele buraco. A rua fica interditada, e eu não posso seguir adiante. 5 - Eu caminho pela rua. Existe um buraco na calçada. Eu coloco tábuas em cima. Posso seguir meu caminho, e ninguém mais tornará a cair ali.

Gamer evolution

Sid Meier bringing Civilization to Facebook

by Don Reisinger

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Civilization Network is coming to Facebook in 2010.

(Credit: Firaxis Games)

Famed video game developer Sid Meier, best known for the Civilization franchise, announced on a Civilization Facebook page Thursday that a new title called Civilization Network is on its way to the social network.

According to Meier, he has been "looking at ways of expanding the Civilization gameplay experience to include solo, competitive, and cooperative play to take advantage of the uniqueness of social networks." Civilization Network will allow users to join with friends to "create the world's most powerful, richest, smartest, or just plain coolest civilization," Meier said.

Like so many of its predecessors, Civilization Network will welcome users into a life-like world. Players will be able to take on others in battle, share technological innovations, form a government, win elections, manage growing cities, and more. Meier also said that users can "spy on enemies and work with friends to create the great Wonders of the World." He didn't say how users will control elements of the game.

Civilization fans will be happy to know that users can play as often as they'd like in the game's "fully persistent environment" for free.

Meier wrote on the game's Facebook page that he'll be looking for beta testers, once the closed beta is ready. Civilization Network will launch in 2010 on Facebook.

If you want to stay up-to-date on Civilization Network happenings, join its Facebook fan page here.

Fonte: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10381071-2.html

Using the Internet makes people smarter, study finds

Fonte: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9139632/Using_the_Internet_makes_people_smarter_study_finds

UCLA research finds that online searching can increase brain activity in older adults

By Sharon Gaudin

October 20, 2009 01:33 PM ET

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Computerworld - Could it be that the Internet actually -- gasp! -- makes you smarter?

That's the word from a team of scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles, who reported this week that new Internet users between the ages of 55 and 78 improved their scores on decision-making and complex reasoning tests after just seven days online. The researchers said they found that surfing the Web seemed to stimulate neural activity and possibly enhance cognitive functioning in those mature Internet beginners.

Just a week online increased brain activity twofold in the oldest Internet users studied, according to the scientists.

"The results suggest that searching online may be a simple form of brain exercise that might be employed to enhance cognition in older adults," said Teena D. Moody, a UCLA senior research associate, in a statement.

The researchers reported that using the Internet triggers key centers in the brain that usually atrophy with age and lack of use. However, when people begin using the Internet, it positively affects cognitive functions and alters the way the brain encodes new information.

"We found that for older people with minimal experience, performing Internet searches for even a relatively short period of time can change brain activity patterns and enhance function," saidGary Small, a professor of psychiatry at UCLA and the study's author, in a statement.

The UCLA team studied 24 adults; half of the participants were daily users of the Internet, and the other half had very little online experience.

At the start of the program, the volunteers did online searches for information while undergoing MRI scans that recorded brain circuitry changes. They then went home and conducted Internet searches for an hour a day for seven days over a two-week period.

After the two weeks were up, the participants underwent a second brain scan. According to the researcher, the volunteers who had little Internet experience showed a marked improvement in areas of the brain that control memory and decision-making.

The UCLA team now plans to investigate the affects of online search on younger adults.

Welcome to the world of sci-fi science

Fonte: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8310420.stm

One of these devices may actually send things through time By Ian Stewart Teleportation, time travel, antimatter and wireless electricity. It all sounds far-fetched, more fiction than fact, but it's all true. Everybody is used to science fiction featuring science that seems, well, not very scientific. But you might be surprised at the way some things that seem fantastical have a solid grounding in actual science. TIME TRAVEL Actual Tardis-style time travel won't be materialising any time soon The theory: Build a machine that lets you change the past or visit the future. The science fiction: The Time Machine by HG Wells, where the Time Traveller visits humanity's far future and doesn't like what he finds. In practice: Einstein's relativity allows time travel in extreme circumstances. Some interpretations of quantum mechanics permit particles to travel backwards in time. Two physicists recently suggested that the Large Hadron Collider may have malfunctioned because a Higgs boson particle, travelling back in time from a future experiment, wrecked the machine. The layman's explanation: Time travel seems paradoxical - what happens if you go back in time and kill your own grandfather? But current physical theories do not forbid it. In relativity, particles can travel along "closed timelike curves", going round a time-loop from past to present to future and back to the same past. One theoretical method uses a wormhole, which is a black hole linked to its time-reversal by a tube. If you pull the black hole around near the speed of light, you get a time machine. However, you need a special kind of matter to keep the wormhole open, and we don't yet have any. Quantum mechanics involves a fundamental symmetry in nature. If you swap positive and negative charges, reflect the universe in a mirror, and reverse the flow of time, then the laws of physics don't change. So a Higgs boson travelling backwards in time is the same as an anti-Higgs travelling forwards. Coming to a shop near you?: In about 15,000 years at this rate, assuming new laws of physics don't rule it out. WIRELESS ELECTRICITY This wireless electricity would probably not charge your mobile. The theory: Plug your gadgets into the mains without using a cable. The science fiction: Isaac Asimov's 1941 story Reason is about a solar power station run by robots that transmits energy to Earth. In practice: Electricity and magnetism are "fields" in space, and can be converted into each other. Electromagnetic radiation is a wave, and can travel from one place to another. So in principle wireless transmission of electrical power should be a doddle. Edison thought about it in 1875. The layman's explanation: If you move a magnet, it creates an electrical field. If you move an electrical field, it creates a magnetic one. The two are different aspects of one basic force of nature - electromagnetism. In particular, electrical currents can be transported from one gadget to another over a distance, a process called induction. Electrical generators and motors use this. Microwaves, which are effectively light with a very long wavelength, are a practical way to transport electrical power. It is also possible to turn electricity into light, using a laser, and then reverse the process at the other end. Coming to a shop near you?: In 1975, an American team showed that it's possible to transmit tens of kilowatts of power using microwaves. A few months ago a Japanese consortium announced a plan to build a $21bn facility in space to beam solar power to Earth - within 30 years it could supply 300,000 homes with electricity. This year, at the TED conference in Oxford, the company Witricity demonstrated a wireless power system that can recharge mobile phones and TV sets. In Tesco in time for Christmas. ANTIMATTER These three thought of antimatter as we think of super unleaded The theory: There is a special kind of matter which explodes violently on contact with ordinary matter, producing more energy than a hydrogen bomb. The science fiction: Star Trek uses antimatter to power its warp drives. In practice: Paul Dirac should have predicted antimatter using quantum mechanics in 1928 but he fluffed it. Carl Anderson spotted the first antiparticle, the positron, in 1932. In 1995, the CERN particle accelerator facility in Geneva created atoms of antihydrogen. The layman's explanation: Matter is made of extremely tiny particles, which have various masses, electric charges, spins, and so on. Associated with each particle is an antiparticle with the same mass but opposite charge. If the two collide, they annihilate in a burst of energy. A small mass produces a lot of energy thanks to Einstein's famous equation - energy = mass times the square of the speed of light. The Big Bang somehow produced a billion and one particles of matter for every billion particles of antimatter. No one really knows why, but if it hadn't, we wouldn't be here because there wouldn't be a here for us to inhabit. You might think of antimatter as a compact source of almost unbounded energy. Put some in a magnetic bottle, a magnetic field that confines the antimatter in a cavity so that it doesn't touch any normal matter - the only way known to be able to contain it - and then release it very slowly, allowing it to react with normal matter. It would make fusion power seem like a car battery. Coming to a store near you?: Positrons are very ho-hum. They occur in radioactive decay and are used routinely in medical PET (Positron Emission Tomography) scanners. Beyond those, it gets hard. Expect a few thousand atoms of antihydrogen within the next 50 years, costing the GNP of a small country, and an atom or two of heavier elements. Mass production looks like a long shot. TELEPORTATION The theory: Going from here to somewhere else without passing through anywhere in between. The science fiction: Beam me up, Scotty. In practice: Take two particles of light and entangle them - now you can teleport quantum information - such as what their spin is - from one to the other, instantaneously. The layman's explanation: Photons, particles of light, have a property called "spin". This can be up, down, or a mixture of the two. Alice has a photon, and she wants Bob to have one with the same spin. She can't send him hers because the Post Office is on strike, and she can't measure her spin and phone him, because the measurement can change the spin. Fortunately, the last time she met Bob she gave him one photon from an entangled pair, and kept the other. "Entangled" means that the two photons were prepared so that their states were related in a special way. Alice lets her photon interact with her other photon from the entangled pair. This instantly teleports information about the spin to Bob's half. However, he can't "read" that information until a message arrives by more conventional means. A quick call on Alice's mobile, telling him some measurements she has made, now puts his entangled photon into the desired state. Quantum "teleportation" destroys the original state and can't be used to send messages faster than light. It doesn't actually teleport matter - just quantum information. Coming to a store near you?: In 1998, the quantum optics group at Caltech used "squeezed light" to teleport the state of a photon in a laboratory. It's now been done with atoms, too. In 2004 Austrian physicists teleported the state of a photon across the Danube river. Within another century it will be an amoeba. But be warned: when you are teleported, your body will be ripped to shreds and rebuilt at the other end. Ian Stewart's latest book is Professor Stewart's Hoard of Mathematical Treasures, published by Profile. Below is a selection of your comments. NiKola Tesla patented a method of "broadcasting" electrical power wirelessly in the early 1900s. It was proved to the point of building a number of transmission buildings/aerials in the US. I've had a look at a number of Mr Tesla's patents but not, I admit, this one. I'm an engineer by training and they do seem to hold water. I rather suspect that "free" electrical power in the US wasn't an idea that would be welcomed by some of the power generation companies at the time. However, one of his patents, a non-silicon and very cheap solar panel, would certainly be worth looking into. Martin, Henley Brill! We shouldn't get hung up on practicalities; there are plenty of political and commercial filters that will stop us wasting all of our GDP on making antimatter in fuel-like quantities anytime soon. But it's great to dream of possibilities, and to keep alive the sense of exploration. Today's problems are horribly real and need solving, of course, but these far-off futurescopes are the ideas that will inspire people to study, research, develop and invent. Paul Staples, Honley, West Yorkshire, England In Nikola Tesla's experiments in Colorado over a century ago, he successfully transmitted sufficient power by wireless to light 10,000 watts of electric light bulbs at a distance of 26 miles. See The Man Who Invented The Twentieth Century by Robart Lomas. Peter, Nottingham, England Tesla could easily have transmitted electricity... it's how a radio works after all. The problem is that if he received 10,000 watts he must have broadcast about a million watts. Hardly eco-friendly and in a world where you can't put up a phone mast near a school not very popular. I wonder what radio or TV reception would be like during the experiment too. Peter, Notts I have been already fascinated by inventions or events once imagined by writers like Jules Verne and Arthur C. Clarke. As I read through my dad's collections of sci-fi books, ideas like time-travel and "anything to everything converter" are etched in to my mind. These are what I think before I fall in to sleep everyday even now. Science is surely one of my religions. David P Shenba, Chennai, India I don't understand any of it, but I can't be the only person who is awaiting the implementation of wireless electricity with anticipation; imagine how much more space we'd have behind things like computers and televisions. Kate, Oxford, UK You can already buy shavers and the like that charge with wireless electricity. It's just over longer distances where the (many) problems start Alex, Southampton As a teacher of physics none of these are worthy, as they are either wasteful of energy or far too embroiled in unimaginable complexity and unproven theory. Even "charge your mobile phone without a lead" uses more energy than if you plugged it into the mains. As a keen follower of sci-fi, I would love for teleportation to become a reality, but can you imagine putting all our atoms and molecules back in the right order after beaming from the Earth to the Moon. Furthermore, which nutcase would volunteer to be the first? Alan Jones, Lee on the Solent, UK Why cant we leave sci-fi for the movies and comic books? These inventions etc will not bring anything good out of them, radiation, worm-holes, microwaves and the cost implications will be ridiculous, do we not have better things to solve such as curing diseases and making life more bearable in times like these? Jamie McLeod, Aberdeen James McLeod, science does have its uses. Antimatter, in the form of positrons, is used in PET scanners. Radiation is used to cure certain cancers. One of the major spin-offs from the space race is cheap water purification. Pushing the boundaries of science produces countless benefits for everyone, often in unexpected areas. If we didn't experiment with new ideas, we'd still all be living in caves. Glyn, Derby All very interesting, but not much hope here. What about fusion? Cold fusion would be comparable to this list, and fusion (any sort) may be one significant real hope for the future. And I'd be interested in some recent scientific evaluation of it. Kevin Pudney, Nottingham "Quantum mechanics involves a fundamental symmetry in nature. If you swap positive and negative charges, reflect the universe in a mirror, and reverse the flow of time, then the laws of physics don't change". That was the layman's explanation? Liz, Belfast It makes me laugh when people cling on to the likes of Einstein. Yes time travel is possible - it's a fundamental principle of relativity. This is totally different to how the layman sees time travel. It is totally impossible to send me, you or anyone back to the 1920 like in Back to the Future - end of. Moving clocks run slowly, that pretty much sums up time travel. Gareth Mangnall, Bolton If time-travel were possible, wouldn't someone have come back from the future and told us by now? Lee, Manchester The "Black and Decker Pizza Hydrator" is what we're all waiting for as seen in Back To The Future II. Andrew, Swindon I loved this article, it's just so funny, from the reason why the Hadron Collider didn't work to the descriptive words of what will happen to your body when we can eventually teleport something bigger than an atom. Thanks, that's brightened my Friday. Sarah Arrow, Essex I am still waiting for flying cars which, by the way, were supposed to be in service by 2010. Kaleem Khan, Toronto, Canada Imagine the food problems we could solve in the world with a Star Trek style replicator. That one next please. Tea, Earl Grey, hot. Steve Beck, Northampton

Confira dicas simples para deixar seu computador mais rápido

Fonte: http://g1.globo.com/Noticias/Tecnologia/0,,MUL1346400-6174,00.html

Colunista ensina como fazer 'faxina' em PCs com Windows. Procedimentos simples podem ser realizados mensalmente.

Fernando Panissi*Especial para o G1

Tamanho da letra

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Olá, leitores. O desempenho do computador sempre foi um dos grandes motivos de reclamação dos usuários, seja em empresas ou em casa. Essa queixa frequentemente é acompanhada da expressão: “quando eu comprei não era lento assim”. A afirmação tem seu fundo de verdade, pois o computador vai acumulando “lixo”, que compromete seu desempenho. Por isso dedico a coluna a dicas válidas para Windows XP e Windows Vista de como deixar seu PC mais rápido, apenas com ajustes e limpeza no sistema.

>>> Faxina geral

Com o passar do tempo, o computador começa a ficar lento por uma série de fatores: arquivos temporários em excesso, resquícios de softwares instalados e depois removidos nos registros do Windows e muitos programas iniciando juntamente com o computador, por exemplo. Veja abaixo como resolver. 1) Faxina no registro O registro do Windows é responsável por armazenar uma série de parâmetros indispensáveis para que o sistema operacional e muitos aplicativos funcionem. À medida que instalamos programas, algumas informações são armazenadas no registro e nem sempre são removidas quando os programas são desinstalados. O MVRegClean faz uma varredura completa, procurando registros fantasmas e oferecendo a possibilidade de limpeza. Na interface do aplicativo existe um botão de backup -- recomendo que ele seja usado antes da limpeza. A imagem abaixo mostra um PC depois de muito uso sem qualquer limpeza no registro. Repare na quantidade de problemas.

MVRegClean em ação: programa encontra diversos problemas no registro do Windows, que certamente deixam o Windows mais devagar. (Foto: Reprodução )

Se você não quiser usar o MVRegClean , pode optar pelo RegSeeker, que também é gratuito e tem opção de idioma em português. 2)Faxina no PC A eliminação de arquivos temporários e outros arquivos que podem deixar o PC lento pode ser executada manualmente. Porém, a tarefa fica mais fácil se usarmos alguns programas para desempenhar essa função, como o CCleaner.

Ele é completo e possui diversas configurações interessantes, como a opção de remover os desinstaladores de pacotes de atualizações, que retira do HD (disco rígido) os programas responsáveis pela remoção das atualizações do Windows.

Que fique claro: remover esses pacotes impossibilita que qualquer atualização do sistema seja desfeita. Desde que o risco seja entendido, essa é uma pratica que recomendo em sistemas que não apresentam instabilidades após uma atualização.

O CCleaner é uma ferramenta bastante útil para a faxina do PC. (Foto: Reprodução )

Outros programas com essa mesma função são o Glary Utilities e o Advanced Systemcare. Por fim, não posso deixar de falar de uma ferramenta interessante e da própria Microsoft, oWindows Live OneCare. Para realizar a instalação dele é preciso usar o Internet Explorer, pois o aplicativo roda on-line diretamente do navegador. 3) Remoção de programas e componentes do Windows Ao abrir o painel de controle (clique em iniciar > configurações > painel de controle) abra o atalho para Adicionar e Remover Programas e siga os passos abaixo: - Clique em adicionar e remover componentes do Windows e desmarque os programas que você não usa. Recomendo remover o Outlook Express (caso não use) o Windows Messenger (versão antiga para o atual Windows Live Messenger) e, se estiver habilitado, recomendo também remover o serviço de FAX e o Internet Information Services. Clique em avançar e siga os passos apresentados na tela. - Finalizada a remoção, será necessário reiniciar o PC. Quando o PC reiniciar, o próximo passo é remover programas que você não usa. - Veja na lista de aplicativos o que não usa no PC e remova. Muita atenção com programas antivírus e principalmente o Java e o Microsoft.NET Framework. Esses programas são básicos para que diversos outros softwares venham a funcionar. - Após remover os programas é importante realizar novamente o rastreamento e limpeza do registro do Windows. 4)Desfragmentação do disco Apesar de o Windows ter um desfragmentador de disco próprio, recomendo usar o Defraggler, que é simples e executa a desfragmentação de forma rápida a eficiente. Após a instalação do programa, basta clicar no botão analisar para que ele verifique o disco do PC. Em seguida, clique em desfragmentar. Sugiro que não use o PC durante esse processo. O computador ficará sensivelmente mais lento, pois o acesso ao HD será muito intenso.

Defraggler é do mesmo desenvolvedor do CCleaner e cumpre bem seu papel na hora de desfragmentar o disco. (Foto: Reprodução)

Todos esses procedimentos irão remover os lixos do PC e trará uma sensação de melhor desempenho. Recomendo que eles sejam executados pelo menos uma vez por mês, evitando que o constante uso venha a prejudicar o desempenho do PC.

>>> Sistema mais leve e rápido

Mesmo o sistema estando limpo não é garantido o máximo desempenho do PC. Existem dicas e macetes que podem deixar o computador mais rápido, como explico abaixo. Indico o programa TweakNow PowerPack, uma ferramenta completa para refinar o sistema Operacional. Na verdade, essa ferramenta agrupa diversos tipos de configuração que ficam alojadas em lugares não tão triviais do sistema, deixando tudo a mão para o usuário.

O TweakNow PowerPack agrupa diversas configurações do Windows em uma única tela. (Foto: Reprodução )

Após a instalação, a primeira coisa a fazer é conferir a aba startup manager para retirar programas desnecessários da inicialização do computador. Observe a lista de aplicativos que iniciam com o PC e deixe marcado apenas aquilo que julgar essencial. Eu costumo deixar a lista vazia, reduzindo ao máximo o tempo gasto com a inicialização do sistema. Outra ferramenta interessante do TweakNow PowerPack é o Quick TuneUp, que faz uma varredura do PC para deixar seu desempenho mais satisfatório. Basta clicar no botão analyze e depois no botão fix and clean. A aba Windows Secret tem diversas configurações do Windows, como, por exemplo, as configurações do menu iniciar (startup menu), onde é possível diminuir a quantidade de itens exibidos no menu. Aspectos visuais são determinantes no desempenho do sistema. Por isso é sempre bom pesar o que vale mais: um computador rápido, mas com visual prejudicado, ou um PC lento com visual rebuscado. Se você tem um hardware mais limitado pode abrir mão de efeitos visuais para deixar o sistema mais rápido. Para isso, faça o seguinte. - Clique em Iniciar > Configurações > Painel de Controle > Sistema. - Na janela que se abrirá, selecione a aba Avançado. - Na opção Desempenho, clique em Configurações. - Na aba Efeitos visuais, desabilite os efeitos que você considera menos importantes — se preferir desabilitar todos, basta selecionar ajustar para o melhor desempenho. - Desabilite também o recurso de Desktop Offline - Clique em Iniciar > Configurações > Painel de Controle > Vídeo. - Clique na aba Área de Trabalho e, na sequência, no botão Personalizar Área de Trabalho. - Clique na aba Web e, em seguida, no botão Propriedades. - Desabilite o item Tornar esta página disponível offline. - Clique em OK. - Volte na aba Geral. - Aproveite para desabilitar o campo Executar o assistente para limpeza a cada 60 dias, que também consome recursos de seu PC. Para melhorar o desempenho do PC é imprescindível entender como funciona a memória virtual. Para isso, clique aqui e leia uma coluna sobre o tema.

>>>Considerações finais

Não posso deixar de dizer que é imprescindível manter o sistema operacional sempre atualizado com um programa antivírus rodando e também atualizado. Também é importante ficar atendo à idade do hardware. As peças sofrem desgaste natural com o passar do tempo e podem apresentar mau funcionamento ou lentidão. HDs antigos podem ficar lentos, começam a falhar e o risco de perder os dados passa a ser grande. Você tem dúvidas sobre tecnologia ou internet? Use o espaço de comentários abaixo. * Fernando Panissi é especialista em tecnologia e internet, formado em Sistemas de Informação com extensão em gestão. É professor universitário e ministra cursos de extensão em desenvolvimento de sistemas. Vive a internet e suas excentricidades desde 1995 e, nesta coluna, irá compartilhar suas experiências e conhecimentos sobre os mais variados temas ligados à internet, computação e tecnologia. Também tira as dúvidas deixadas pelos leitores na seção de comentários.