I’m used to putting my laptop to sleep/hibernate, and often times, Firefox stays open in a single session, until I restart the machine eventually. However, I noted that some websites didn’t update automatically when their tabs were closed and re-opened later on, and that a click on the refresh button was needed in those cases.

To make cache work as it should when Firefox is left open for ages, modify the browser.cache.check_doc_frequency setting in about: config. Its values can be set as follows:

0 – once per session (default)
1 – every time
2 – never
3 – automatically

Changing the setting to 1 does the trick.

I registered and have been using WinZIP for several years, and mostly didn’t have issues with it for the longest time. Then, a few months ago, as I attempted to unzip the latest WordPress package for a local installation, it failed repeatedly (cringed at seeing plugins.php and a few others, if I remember correctly). Not only was the problem reproductible on the .tar.gz file even after I re-downloaded it, the very same issue also occured on my older WinXP laptop.

Today, I tried unzipping the latest XOOPS — a 3.6 Mb .tar.gz file… –, and WinZIP just went unresponsive, sending the drive on what appeared to be infinite R/W access. Had to kill the process. It seems to be an issue with the untarring process.

7-Zip has been on my hard drives for a while. Hasn’t been complaining at all. Is generally faster.

Quite a few people have experienced Vista disk thrashing at intervals. There can be multiple reasons for this, as Microsoft has tried to be very thorough with security and enables, by default, the following:

• Index build for faster search: if you don’t search your computer for files every other day, might be a good idea to disable it. Runs in low priority.
• Drive defragmenting is typically scheduled once a week, set to Wednesday evening by default on my machine. Runs in normal priority, can effectively make your computer grind to a halt. Either set an idle date when you’re not at your desk to run it, or disable it and run the defragmenting manually.
• System restore points also run at intervals, typically when you’ve just installed a new piece of software. Best keep that going, it’s a nuisance at times but can save you a lot of trouble later on.