Prather Graphix

Recently I have been asked to fix a number of PC’s – and the number one complaint seems to be how slow their computer is, so here are a few things you can do to speed it up. These are simple things you can do yourself does not require purchasing more memory, or hiring someone to “fix” it. You may be surprised how much of a change you will notice.

#1 = Clean off your desktop.

No matter how organized you are, it’s easy to save a file on your desktop that you plan on getting to at a later date. The later date never comes, and you end up with a desktop that has a sea of icons all over it.

Take a few minutes and go through them, file the ones you want to keep somewhere such as your documents folder, and throw the rest into the recycling bin. Even if you don’t have the time right now, at least make a new folder on your desktop, such as “To Sort” and put all of those files in there for now.

Your computer wasn’t meant for all of those icons to be there. It has to work harder for you when you leave them there – plus, you will feel better when your desktop is all fresh and clean, and you can see that darling photo you chose two years ago that has been berried underneath.

#2 = Turn off the indexing function.

Your computer most likely has the indexing function turned on. It sounds like a good feature = you need to find a file on your computer, you do a search, and it spits one out pretty fast.

The problem is that is slows your computer down all of the time indexing, for that search you may do once and a while. Personally I prefer a computer that goes faster while I’m working on it the majority of the time, and a little slower for a search I may do once every week or two.

Here are the simple steps you take to do this:

Open “My Computer” via the desktop, or the “Start” menu. Right click on “Local Disk (C:) and go down to “properties.” Make sure you are in the “General” tab, it will be the one with the pretty blue and pink pie chart. Go to the bottom and make sure that both of the check-mark boxes are NOT turned on. When both are empty white boxes, click on the “Apply” button in the lower right corner. You will have an error box come up most likely – don’t panic – just click on the “Ignor All” button.

#3 = Turn off all of the fancy stuff.

Everyone loves the sleek new look that Windows has added, but it really slows your computer down to have those fancy rounded box corners with that nice little drop shadow behind … along with all of the other visual bells and whistles. For a little more simplicity in looks, it’s time to simplify and speed up.

Go to the “Start” menu > Settings > Control Panel > System. When the System Properties box appears, click on the “Advanced” tab (doesn’t that make you feel important and smart!). The first listed item is “Performance” – click on its “Settings” button. When the next box appears, make sure you are in the “Visual Effects” tab, and click on “Adjust for best performance” and then click on “Apply” in the lower right corner. You can now close all of the windows.

At this point, I prefer to go ahead and restart the computer for good measures.

… and I will continue to help you speed up your PC in the next post – stay tuned!

This is one of the top ten questions I am asked when working in the digital print arena, so I thought it may be useful to explain a printing bleed in plain layman’s terms. Designers will sometimes over-explain what a bleed is, and in fact, it is a very simple printing technique to understand and use.

Inkjet printers “spray” ink on the paper, therefore having a greater ability to print to the edge of the paper. However, most standard digital printers and printing presses must have a very small area on the edge that is unprinted. For the digital printer, it needs this area for rollers and grippers that move the paper through the machine. For printing presses, if the ink goes off the edge, it will build up on the rollers and cause a mess.

So, if you want a finished product where some or all of your image goes off the page without that white border, you must print on paper that is larger than your finished piece will be, and cut the white border off. This is where the “bleed” comes in.

The most common mistake with a bleed is to design a piece with type or artwork that goes right to the edge of where it will be cut. This will not work! Digital printers and presses will always have a little bit of shift as the paper is going through the machines. Even if this shift is very minimal, it will show on some of the prints when they are cut in a large stack unless it is cut smaller than designed for.

To create a “bleed,” you must make sure you set up your design to go about .125 inches outside of where you want it cut. This will allow for a good clean look for your finished product. Most layout software is made to add a bleed into the design. If you are creating, say, a business card in Microsoft Word, you will want to make your design larger than 3.5 x 2 keeping in mind it will be trimmed down from what you are seeing when you have it on the screen. It is also a good practice to keep any type .125 to .25 inches inside the cut area so it will not be trimmed off in finishing.

I will post some examples soon to further illustrate.

Hope this will help someone out.