Since this is first posts on Photoshop Gradients ,lets have a quick look for the sake of new Photoshop users on how to use the Gradients tool in Photoshop.

Note:-You can use the gradient tool in a lot of ways but here I’ll only be showing how to add the new gradients to you Photoshop installation and how to use it on a background.

How to Install Gradients in Photoshop

Beautiful Twitter bird icons PSD files that you might like and being in the PSD format you have the options to tweak these twitter bird icons to your likening.

Twitter birds are really beautiful and too cute to be missed even on single sight.Their have been a lot of icon sets made specially for twitter and many of them are too  cute(I feel like gobbling them up).Since some of us may have different purpose of using these twitter bird icons ,it is not absolute that you will find the twitter bird icons that will necessarily be what you want.

Thinking of that I have collected some beautiful (at least I think they are) twitter bird icon set PSD files from some really amazing blogs.The purpose these files PSD files is  giving you the freedom of making these nice looking twitter icons into something you like.

Without any further a do ,here are some of Twitter Birds PSD Icons that you might like.

PSD web templates (sometimes referred to as PSD website templates) are really nice and easy way to lay down the blueprint design of any blog.

Every website or blog needs a framework before you can start designing it,and to do so you need to have some idea on how exactly you would want your blog to look and more then that how the things will be organized.Their are a lot of software’s that that can help you lay down the design blueprint of the blog . Here are some Web templates that I think might help you to design your blog and thus make things a bit easier. All of these web templates are in PSD format and some of them are also available as separate Wordpress themes.

You might also want to have a look at some other PSD templates/files of twitter bird.

Most of the times the reason for slowing down of your computer is a small one but it often is ignored and hence your computer or pc is running slow. Here are 22 tweaks to fix a slow computer and some insights on what exactly might be causing your computer to slow down. To begin with the reason for a slow computer may be due to a software's(most of the times) or might be due to some hardware reason.]]>

How to fix a slow computer or pc ?

This same question or some other variant of it such as why is my computer   running slow? or may be my computer is running slow what should I do ? are asked time and time again by many people.

Most of the times the reason for slowing down of your computer is a small one but it often is ignored and hence your computer or pc is running slow.

Here are 22 tweaks to fix a slow computer and some insights on what exactly might be causing your computer to slow down.

To begin with the reason for a slow computer may be due to a software’s(most of the times) or might be due to some hardware reason.

Most common reasons for a computer or a pc running slow are:-

Your computer’s performance is set to high- Its not always right for your computer to be running at high performance.

You Hard disk drive is running short in storage space.

Its time for your to have a fresh install of your operating system ,as your computer might need some clean up.

Software tweaks to fix a slow computer.

1. Stop unnecessary applications to run when your Computer boots up.

To see which programs run at the start up of your computer press the windows key and R at the same time ,a dialog box will open up.

In this type msconfig and hit enter.

Now go to the start up tab and then uncheck the programs that you do not use at the start up of your computer.

This will certainly improve the boot time of your computer.

2. Make some space in your hard disk.

Make sure your hard drive always has some space in it and try to do disk clean up once in a while and remove unnecessary junk files that are eating up your disk space.

To open disk clean up go to the start menu and type disk cleanup.Select the drive that you want to clean up and then have a decide what files are not needed and delete them.

3. Hard drive defragmentation.

Try to defragment your computers hard drive every 2-4 months.
Defragmentation helps you do get rid of all the unnecessary files and also keeps you hard drive in good shape

To launch defragmenter go to start menu and type defragmenter and then defragment your hard drive.

4. Adjust the performance of your computer.

You computer can really be slow it it is doing a lot of graphical tasks and at times computers with high range configurations also slow down due to this reason.

To adjust what animating and graphical features are being run you can

Right click on my computer properties under advanced settings select performance settings turn off the features that you do not want.

5. Get more physical / virtual memory.

You can also choose to increase your computers virtual/physical memory , this memory is simply spare space on your hard drive Windows uses just as it would use spare memory/RAM.

To change the virtual memory of your computer

Right click on my computer properties under advanced settings go to virtual memory adjust the amount of RAM used according to your needs.

6. Make sure that you do not a virus slowing down your computer.

One of the most common reasons for a computer running slow or may be even going dead at times is that your pc has been infected with some nasty virus and it is duplicating and/or using up the resources of your computer.

MacAfee provides a free scan for your computer to see if it has been infected with any spy ware or a virus.

7. Disable unused network ports or other controllers running uselessly in your computer.

8. Check your drives for any bad sectors by running scan disk.

File errors and bad sectors to contribute to slowing of your pc.
To check your drives for file errors :-
Right click on your drive properties select error checking in tools.

9. Update your operating system.

Sometimes their are security updates or bug fixes that are necessary for your operating system to function properly .It is advisable to update your OS manually ,as we need to avoid unnecessary updates.

10. Hide the hidden files.

Though it is sometimes helpful to show the hidden files but your computer has to work harder to find these random hidden files (some of which are only temporary).

So keep the hidden files hidden by going to tools and folder options.

11.Ensure that no unnecessary program is running.

To see what services are being run currently on your computer go to run by pressing windows key plus the “R” button and then type msconfig and hit enter.

In this window go to the services tab and tick the button that says hide Hide all Microsoft Services ,now you can turn of any service that you want to (You will have to reboot your computer).

To see what programs are running go press ctrl+alt+delete to open the task manager. And go to the programs tab.

Before you end up any of the programs being used by your operating system it is highly advisable to first do a little search in Google ,as to why is the program running and what is it needed for.

12.Sacrifice a little quality for a much better speed of your games.

You will need to adjust your video card settings.To do so :-
Right click your desktop properties Settings Advanced look for your graphics card control panel .Great fix for slow PC while playing games.

13.Speed up the Boot Sequence if you have multiple operating systems installed in one computer.

When you start your computer ,it takes some time for your computer to select the operating system (In multiple OS installation), you can decrease this time by :-
Go to Run, then type msconfig and under Boot.ini you will see timeout 30 seconds change that to around 3-5 seconds.

14.Your operating system needs to be installed afresh.

Finally you should wipe out your years old installation of the OS install it afresh.

As I have said above also  you should re-install or make fresh installation of your operating system  every couple of months.

It doesn’t mean you have to loose all your files or anything like that you can make backups or just simply partition your hard drive into two and do a fresh install on a separate partition to where all your backup files are. Find out how to do a Fresh Install.

15.Format your drives as NTFS and not FAT32.

Remember to choose NTFS and not FAT32 ,16 or anything else when you are formatting your hard drive.The reason I am telling is because NTFS formatted hard drives are much much faster than the older FAT32 format.

Hardware Methods to fix a slow computer.

16. Overheating of your CPU

Overheating of CPU most of the times is due to some dust obstructing the air flow from your computer to outside.So make sure to clean up your computers vents every couple of months(especially if your computer is in a dusty place)

Overheating does occur more in hot weather so do not worry much about it ,but if does heat in normal temperatures also then you may need to get a coolant for your computer.

Here is how you can check your CPU temperature using some software’s.

17. Hard drive is dying.

If you start to hear weird noises from your hard drive like the disc is not spinning inside it properly or unusually loud noises this could be a sign of a hard drive near death or overheating.

18. Increase the RAM of your computer.

With the cost of RAM being so low ,their is no reason for you not to have a decent RAM for your computer.
More RAM is faster computer.
Remember to check the type of RAM  your computer is using and it is advisable to get the new RAM of the same brand the one already their in your computer(to avoid any possible conflicts)

19. Bios Settings.

Go into your BIOS settings(see the start up of your computer to know which button you need to press to go to BIOS) and check that your computer is set to function at high performance.

20. Overclocking

One of the well know methods of fixing a slow computer is to increase the speed of your CPU.

Some motherboards allow you to do so via BIOS and some do not allow you do it at all.

Remember, doing this as you need to monitor the health of CPU carefully and ensure it doesn’t overheat. Heat is the biggest danger to overclockers.

Here are some of the image editing software's that are really compact and light weight and open up pretty fast,to make some quick and fast changes to your images.]]>

Image Editing software’s are in abundance today and many of these software’s are so complicated that if a user wants to make some simple changes the picture or image he has to first spend some time with these software’s,before her can do so.

Here are some of the image editing software’s that are really compact and light weight and open up pretty fast,to make some quick and fast changes to your images.

You can also take these as free Photoshop alternatives as some of these image editing software’s target some specific image editing features only.

10 Free Photoshop Alternative Software’s that are compact and make image editing a piece of cake.

1. Artweaver

One of the Free image editing alternatives (Despite its small size) to Photoshop that comes close to what Photoshop CS4 has to offer.

Their is also a portable version of Artweaver.

Size:- 6.3 MB

Operating Systems Supported:- Windows 2000 to Windows 7

Download Artweaver Image editor

2. XnView

XnView is around the same size as compared to Artweaver and does what artweaver can do.

Support for around 45 Languages (For windows format only).

Their is also a portable version of XnView

Size:- 6.1 MB

Operating system Supported b:- Windows,Linux, Mac

Download for Windows, Mac or Linux

3. FastStone

Their are four different formats that Faststone is available in .

Their is a image viewer, image capture, Maxview and a Faststone photoresizer.

The basic difference between all these versions of Faststone image editor is that every one does the best what it has been named and is complemented by other features of other image editors.

You can also create Slideshows with 150+ transition effects and music support.

Support for 15 Different languages.

Portable version is also available.

Size:- 4.5 MB

Operating system supported:- Windows

Download Faststone

4. Fotografix

Fotografix is not so attractive in terms of its interface but has some pretty cool features.

Their are a set of painting tools ,image selection tools including the magical magic wand tool.

Support for multiple languages.

Considering the small size of this image editing software I don’t think that their is a need for a portable version.

Size:- 353 KB

Operating system supported :- Windows

Download Fotografix

5. Splash up

Splash up light is a Adobe Air based image editor and so has a nice looking interface. You can the images taken directly from web cam and edit them on Splash up.

With such a small size of only around 95 KB  their is not much you do with splash up light but then it does offer some pretty basic image editing features.

No portable version.

Software Size:- 93.5 KB

Operating systems supported :- Mac,Windows ,Linux

Download Splash up

6. i.MAGE

i.Mage is a small and fast graphics editor slanted towards quite and easy pixel editing, ala DPaint from the DOS/Amiga days.Instead of being a bloated behemoth with a zillion plugins it starts in under a second and it does a lot of the tough jobs of image editing quickly and without fuss. The right tool for simple jobs.

No portable version

Software Size:- 730 KB

Operating systems supported:- Windows, Linux(Stable ’04 version)

Download i.MAGE

7. Paint.net

Everyone has heard about or used this image editing software and it does deserve a mention as one of the best and yet simple image editing tool present in the market today.

With the evolution this image editor had evolved as well and their are some nice plugins for it which are meant for some specific image editing tasks.

Software size: – 4.8 MB

Operating system supported:- Windows xp SP3 to windows 7

Download Paint.net

8. Irfanview

It is a simple image editor for beginners and a powerful one for professionals.

Irfanview is one of the oldest image viewer that was meant for Windows and was basically meant for image viewing only.
But now you can also do some nice image editing as well and that too for free.
Their are some Plugins also available and it supports many languages as well(around 32 languages).

Software size:- 1.3 MB

Operating system supported :-Windows only

Download Irfanview

9. Easy Photo Editor

Some what limited in features in terms of image editing but does the most basic jobs of image editing.You can edit up to 6 images at a time ,but if you want to edit more then that at a time then you have to pay $29.95 for a full version of this software.It supports the major image formats like BMP, JPEG, GIF, PNG, and multipage TIFF. Images can be converted, resized, rotated, and stamped with text or graphics. Lastly, Easy Photo Editor makes it easy for you to email your edited images via the Internet.

Size of the software:- 1.25MB

Operating system supported :-Windows only

Download Easy Photo Editor

10. Free Image Editor

Free Image Editor is a simple image editor that lets you edit your  photos or create your own graphics from scratch. You can start a new project from step 1, capture the current window, scan an image from your scanner, or use the contents of your clipboard.One of the features that free image editor is really good at is that you can take screenshots of a the full screen or a part of your desktop.

Software size:- 1.53 MB

Operating system supported:- Windows only

Download Free Image Editor

11. PhotoFiltre

A nice and clean interface for some basic image editing,but lacks the layers option (may not be good for advanced image editing).

Like  Free Image Editor you can stamp your images,change the contrast,saturation and do a couple of more image tweaking.

Software size:- 1.75 MB

Operating system supported:- Windows only

Download Photfiltre