cleaning

It's always exciting when you bring home a new computer. It feels so powerful and fast; you can't imagine ever needing to buy another one again. Unfortunately, neither your excitement nor your PC's performance lasts.

Whether your hard drive is running out of space or your system takes forever to run simple tasks, it might be worth your time to try and revive it before replacing it. Here are some spring cleaning tips to revive your Windows PC:

Free up disk space The enormous size of modern multimedia files can eat up your hard-drive storage quickly. What … Read more

How do you feel when you're tossing food into the garbage or the waste disposal?

Do tinges of guilt bubble in your throat? Does a soupcon of self-loathing slither around your brain, as you pour that curried cauliflower soup into an unknown beyond?

I bring you news that might assist your psychological health. For just this week, some British people from a clean-tech company called SeaB have been sliding around the Bay Area, trying to get our eco-princes to invest in MuckBusters.

These artfully named objects are containers into which you can shove your leftover spaghetti, tacos, or duck a l'orange and expect, after a little technical machination, to get electricity.

If you believe the estimates, all you need is half a ton of unwanted food to run about 150 computers. Which presents a sobering counterpoint to the impression one has that 150 people sitting at computers in the average office consume at least 150 tons of food.

Some will be wondering how this machine busts your meatballs. Well, you shove your food in at one end and it gets chewed up by bacteria. As often with chewing, a lot of gas emerges. Your friendly MuckBuster does a little filtering, gets itself a methane stream and then slips that gas through a heat and power system. … Read more

The Internet, as a tool, has been largely beneficial for people and businesses, but it has also exposed us to new security threats like never before. If you happen to be a Google Chrome user, then Mixesoft's Click & Clean is specially made to make your Internet surfing experience a little bit safer.

While it is possible to manually clean out traces of online activity with currently available programs, Click & Clean is an extension that is designed to automate this process, saving the user a little bit of that very precious commodity, time. The tool is available for … Read more

Apple earnings reach record highs, Xbox rumors ramp up, and Obama tackles energy and tech industry concerns in his State of the Union address.

Links from Wednesday's episode of Loaded:

Much like our desks, it doesn't take long for our computers to become cluttered with junk if we're not careful. There's a huge market for utilities that will tidy your registry, get rid of junk files, delete broken shortcuts, and generally attempt to give your computer that like-new feel again. JetClean is one of the better options we've tried; it's straightforward, doesn't do things without your permission, and seems to do an especially thorough job of scanning.

JetClean has an attractive interface with its functions separated into five collapsible menus: Registry Clean, Windows Clean, … Read more

Whether you need to quickly access something on your desktop or just need a quick way to hide an open window from prying eyes, there are better ways to accomplish this task than with a keyboard shortcut. One of these is Zigzag Cleaner, a clever little utility that will minimize any open windows with just a swipe of the mouse. But that's not all it does: Zigzag can also be used to quickly accomplish a variety of common desktop tasks.

Zigzag Cleaner appears as an icon in the Windows system tray; right-clicking on it brings up a configuration menu … Read more

BlueSprig, one of the newer PC utility developers on the block, is today pushing out full versions of its JetBoost and JetClean apps, both of which launched in beta earlier this year.

Tipping the scales at around 3MB each, JetBoost and JetClean are meant to be lightweight, easy-to-use utilities that can speed up and clean out your computer with minimal input.

At a click, JetBoost scans your PC and selectively halts active processes and services in order to boost your performance. You can choose to optimize your computer's performance for work or gaming, or you can manually halt processes … Read more

High-tech air filtration systems and HEPA filters are becoming standard fare in luxury vehicles these days, but what are you going to do about that funny smell in your 2004 Chevy Aveo? There's only so much that a pine tree air freshener can do.

Perhaps you should check out the newly announced Philips GoPure Automotive Clean Air System.

The GoPure was the odd bird in Philips' booth at the Automotive Aftermarket Products Expo (AAPEX) in Las Vegas, which was otherwise filled with the manufacturer's line of automotive lighting products. This portable air filtration system is aimed at motorists with allergies, drivers with small children who may be sensitive to airborne germs and particles, and people who want to remove bad smells from the air in their car.… Read more

The venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, long an investor in clean tech and global firms, is launching a $250 million fund to invest in Chinese companies.

According to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the fund is called the KPCB China Fund II. Unsurprisingly, it's the firm's second such fund. In 2007, KPCB launched its first China fund, raising $360 million, according to the Wall Street Journal.

KPCB Managing Partner Ray Lane told the Journal in May that the China and U.S. teams will work closely together and that the opportunities to invest … Read more