Use GMail offline with Google Gears

Gmail has introduced its latest Labs feature called offline Gmail to enable e-mail access even when you are not connected to the Internet.

While this might sound uber geeky, the concept is simple enough when you actually use it. Oh, and the “offline” mode is already available in a simpler form if you happen to use Outlook or any other email client with Gmail POP access.

Gmail uses its Google Gears open source web application to enable the “offline” mode. Currently, Google lists Firefox 2, 3, and the Internet Explorer 7 in its list of supported browsers. Strangely, there is no mention of Google’s own, the Chrome! However, it might be because Chrome support is obvious.

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Increase HDD Performence

Win9x sets DMA to OFF by default. You have to switch it on. In theory, enabling DMA increases UDMA Hard Disk access to 33.3 MB/sec. In practice, speed will increase substantially from the old standard of 16MB/sec. Furthermore, DMA uses only 25% of CPU resources compared to 40% normally. Nearly all 5400rpm/7200rpm, and some lower speed, drives, support DMA.

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Boot Windows XP Faster

First of all, this tweak only apply to those who only have one HDD on their primary IDE channel (nothing else on device 0 or 1) and a CD-ROM and/or DVD-ROM on the secondary IDE channel. Each time you boot Windows XP, there's an updated file called NTOSBOOT-*.pf who appears in your prefetch directory (%SystemRoot%Prefetch) and there's no need to erease any other files as the new prefetch

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