Soluto Boot optimizer

This is a nifty freeware application. It does several things

• It analyzes your PC as it boots and lists down all the programs that load on startup
• It tells you how many seconds each program adds to your boot time
• It gives you an estimate of how long it will take your PC to boot
• You can disable a program from loading on startup or delay it from loading until your PC is idle
• It uses a wiki style database to categorize each program into "optional", must load during boot and "you can disable this if you know what you're doing"
• It also uses the database to tell you what will happen if you do disable that program
• You can add comments to the database. This helps the website recognize more programs
• The program monitors all programs you install on your PC and it even graphs the boot time so you can see how installing the program affects your boot time.

Soluto - How to use Soluto Beta from Soluto on Vimeo.

Link to website.

the end

UPDATE: the new soluto has 2 new features
1. remove unnecessary addons from your browser. I've tested it on firefox so far
2. a still buggy function that detects and attempts to help you if a program crashed

a utility for keeping a window on top

Have you ever wanted to do two things at once with your PC? Like maybe watch a youtube video while typing in Office? Well this program does just that.

Run it and you the program runs in a small resizable semi transparent window that always stays visible. You can select which window or even which part of a window you want to see there. You can even scale it up or down.

This is a pretty useful utility for multitaskers. And its freeware! Here's a sample screenshot.

Website link

Smart Wimax launched

Finally, smart has updated their website to show the new product, wimax.

Plan 999
Speed : Up to 1 Mbps
No. of Hours use : Unlimited
Requirements : Proof of identification and Proof of Address
Total Initial Payment :  P999
Plan 799
Speed : Up to 512kbps
No. of Hours use : Unlimited
Requirements : Proof of identification and Proof of Address
Total Initial Payment :  P799

The lock in period is not shown on the website but it is 2 years. The areas covered are not indicated but its probably on a phased rollout. First metro manila then nearby areas and eventually nationwide after maybe 1-2 years.

For further information and actual reviews, read the tipidpc smart wimax thread.

my PLDT DSL

Sorry smart bro, but because of the aggravating disconnections and ang variable speed (from > 1 mbps to 200 kbps), I got PLDT DSL. This is plan 999, I'll upgrade later to plan 1995.


So far my pldt dsl uses the white modem, ZyXEL p-600. No dialer or password. Just plug in the LAN port. AFAIK my area is not NGN in san fernando pampanga so I was expecting a dialer like my old one. I used to have plan 999 non NGN from 2000-2009 in manila. My speed then was ~ 500 kbps

Thats a belkin wifi router attached to the PLDT. It isnt load balancing so for now desktop is connected to PLDT dsl and laptop is connected to smart bro share it.

For smart bro I'm getting DL = 400-700 kbps, UL = ~ 300kbps. Sometimes I get spikes of > 1 mbps during non peak hours.

For PLDT DSL, DL = 400-450 kbps, ping 53s, UL = 550 kbps

As a bonus, utorrent is green and no more shared IP address

Browsing was difficult until I erased my firefox cache

I'll get rid of smart bro share it after a couple of months of testing. I might either get smart bro prepaid or sun bro postpaid so I will have internet in my office


UPDATE: after 2 days, speed went up to 1-1.4 mbps. I was lucky because PLDT had no open slots for DSL but one subscriber terminated his subscription so I took his slot. I think he had a 512kbps plan and it took PLDT 2 days to reset the speed to plan 999 speeds.

I had a lot of problems browsing initially  with my vista based desktop (however utorrent had no problem).  My laptop had no problem. After hours of fruitless tweaking I decided to reinstall windows. Its fine now.

Saints Row 2 review

I bought this game as a buy one take one sale on Steam. It came with Dawn of war 2: chaos rising. The wikipedia link for this game is here.

I'm not really a fan of the Grand theft auto series so I wasnt sure what to expect. I expected lots of driving, profanity and over the top violence and yes I was not disappointed. The story is a continuation of the first game in the series and since that was a console only exclusive, I wont be able to play it. No matter, the story can stand alone.

The story and the voice acting is not bad. Its even funny sometimes due to the over the top violence and situations. The side missions have enough variety to avoid being repetitive and boring. You can skip the side missions but they give extra money and you get bonuses to stats and bonus items so its worth it.

The controls on the other hand are bad if you only use the keyboard and the mouse. On foot and fighting its OK. Driving is difficult, flying a helicopter is very difficult and flying a  plane is very difficult. This game seems to be designed for a gamepad or a sterring wheel attachment

I give this a 3 out of 5.