When travelling, you are working
with an inefficient notebook/netbook
under Vista or Windows 7. It boots up
very laboriously and slowly and the
operating speed is also painfully slow.
The performance of a computer
mainly depends on its working memory
(RAM). If it is 1 GB or less, then clearing
is a frequent burden on the hard disk
which can slow mobile devices down
considerably. From Vista onwards,
there is a method called ReadyBoost
which is improved in Windows 7 to
provide additional flash memory as RAM
supplement for the system. You can
enable it with a USB pen drive or even
with a fast SD card.
Here, the additional memory should be
2x or 4x the RAM capacity. Moreover, the
reading and writing speed must fulfil the
specified minimum requirements so as to
ensure proper functioning. Only then can
considerable acceleration be achieved.
An SDHC card with 4 GB memory and at
least a ‘Class 6’ rating is practical in most
cases. This shows that the card attains a
writing speed of at least 6 MB/sec.
Insert the card in a slot on the mobile
computer and then click ‘Accelerate
System’ in the ‘Autorun’ dialog. Here, the
card need not be empty but should have
sufficient free memory space.
The ‘Properties’ dialog of the new
drive then opens automatically to the
‘Readyboost’ tab. Activate the option
‘Use this device’ and define the reserved
memory size with the slider. A minimum
of 230 MB is required but it is better to
have more. Confirm the settings with
‘Apply’ and ‘OK’.
The drive can also be used normally
with any remaining space. The reserved
memory is present in the file ‘ReadyBoost.
sfcache’ which you cannot delete from
this computer during operation. The file is
deleted after the drive is properly ejected
and is automatically created on the
original computer on connecting again.
Disable ReadyBoost in the same dialog
for if you subsequently need to release
the occupied space.
You must try what the acceleration
does for your system and which setting
is optimal. But if you surf with many
tabs open, you will mark a noticeable
improvement. SD cards are extremely
price-worthy nowadays as a result of
which this is absolutely worth a try.
Type ‘about:memory’ in the
address bar and press Enter in order
to get information about how much
memory Firefox has reserved and how
much memory is the browser actually
using at the moment. You can get cache
information on the screen with the
command about:cache. You will come to
know where Firefox buffers its data (RAM,
hard disk and network), how memory
space is utilised on the whole and how
much memory is still unused. If you want
to know this in detail, you need to also
know which entries are saved. They are
listed as links on request (click the link).
