Fox Walking

So what is fox walking?
Here’s a video to demonstrate how u can fox walk too!

And what are the benefits of fox walking?
Learning to walk Oh…

2008 Trek Fuel Ex

Suspend conventional Thought

To get you as excited about the new bikes and their new technologies as I am here’s a video of the 2008 Fuel EX overview:

Here’s a sampling of what went into bringing you the highly polished Fuel EX website:

And here are some wallpapers of the bikes to get you thinking about them all the time.

Rear wheel drive: Better love it!

Rear wheel Drive Benefits-

-Better weight balance. Most rear wheel drive cars have the engine in the front and the drive components in the rear. Front drive cars have everything up front. By properly balancing the front and rear of the car you can improve the handling, acceleration, braking, and thus safety of a car.

-Better acceleration. On all but the slipperiest surfaces rear wheel drive cars accelerate faster than a front drive car from a stop. This is because when you accelerate quickly from a stop the weight of the car transfers to the rear of the car. In a rear drive car this places extra weight on the rear of the car, essentially jamming the tires in to the road greatly increasing traction. In a front drive car, when the weight goes to the rear, weight is taken off of the front wheels. The front wheels spin thus losing traction. If the wheels are spinning not only does this slow you down but it also makes it difficult to steer the car. In the rear drive car the front tires are available for steering even if the rears have lost traction.

-Better Road Holding. The better weight balance of rear wheel drive allows the car to handle better. The more even weight allows the car to drive neutrally through a corner. This means both the front and rear of the car have near equal loads acting upon them. In a front drive car the the heavy front end causes the front end to have a higher load on it. This will cause the front tires to eventually lose grip well before the rear tires are fully loaded. Front tires on front drive cars do much more work than the rears causing them to wear out much faster. It is best to balance the load as best you can among the four tires. If you are accelerating or slowing down (engine braking) these forces will act upon the already heavily loaded front tires of a front drive car. In a rear drive car the front tires are left for steering even when accelerating or engine braking. Sharing the work among all four tires is the key.

-Better Stopping. Because of the better balance rear drive cars brake better. When you stop a front drive car the excess weight in the front of the car allows the force on the front tires to exceed the limits of the tires. The relatively low weight on the rear of a front drive car does not allow the tires to be used to their maximum ability. When panic stopping weight will transfer to the front in both rear and front drive cars but there is more weight left for rear braking action in the rear drive car.

-No Torque Steer. Front wheel Drive cars have a problem known as Torque Steer. This occurs when the acceleration of the engine effects the cars steering. Since the driveline is connected to the steering wheels the torque of the engine applies force to the front wheels causing the car to pull to the right during acceleration. Rear Drive cars do not have this problem since the engine is not connected to the steering gear.

-Better Ride and Feel. The light front end of the car allows it to “turn in” to a corner easier. The car feels more nimble and controllable. Since the front is not so heavy it is not burdened by needing strong springs to keep it under control. This allows the suspension to be set up softer while maintaining good control ability. The absence of drive shafts (half shafts) and CV joints in the front of the car allows the front suspension to be designed for maximum steering efficiency. The lower rotating weight of the front wheel assemblies improves steering response and ultimate grip. Granted that a rear drive has more weight at the rear of the car but it can be handled by the underutilized (in a front driver) rear tires.

-Better Serviceability / More Rugged. Ever notice that cops and taxis avoid front wheel drive like the plague? That is because rear wheel drive cars are more rugged and easier and cheaper to fix.

-Better Ultimate Ability. Purpose built race cars are almost always rear wheel drive. In production based racing series Front Wheel Drive cars are given a performance advantage to make them equal to Rear Drive Cars. Usually this is in the form of a weight break. Granted we shouldn’t be driving our cars like race cars on the street but in an emergency having the extra ability in the car is an advantage I would like to have.

Some enjoyable RWD cars 

Mazda MX-5 Miata

BMW 335i

So why do automakers use front drive cars?

-Traction in Snow and Ice. When not under hard acceleration front drive cars have more weight over the front wheels. This gives more traction for acceleration in very slippery conditions. This is the biggest perceived advantage to a front drive car. However, today’s rear wheel drive cars with traction control and independent suspension do very good in the snow. For areas that have extreme amounts of winter weather this may be enough to justify a front wheel drive car.

-Packaging. In front drive cars the engine and drivetrain can be pre-assembled as one unit and then popped in to the car during assembly. This probably leads to a more efficient assembly operation. Cost. Due to easier manufacturing and a few less components it may be cheaper to manufacture a FWD car.

-Passenger/Trunk Space. Since you do not need to run a driveshaft down the middle of the car you may be able to get more interior room. Funny that front drive cars have a hump down the middle anyway! Not having a rear suspension can allow the trunk area to be larger.

-Demand. Still, some consumers are skeptical of rear wheel drive. Perhaps they are the victims of clever marketing by Madison Ave, that tried to get people to accept fwd and forget all about the virtuous rear wheel drive. They did a great job. Perhaps too good.

*If you felt this comparison to be biased, here are some reviews that maybe explain it better Canadiandriver.com or why rear-wheel drive is coming back

Blade XT3 electric motorcyle

Accelerating from 0-30 mph in 4 seconds, reaching a top speed of 45mph, all with a simple twist of the wrist – no clutch, no gears and NO-NOISE ! . . . . the XT range of bikes (XT3 & XT4)have a runtime of up to 3 hours . . . that’s similar to the runtime you’d get from a tank full of petrol on a conventional MX bike. Re-charging the XT will take approx 60 minutes from a domestic power supply . . .at a cost of around 50 pence !

E-style is the freedom to ride when and where you want. The ‘range issue’ is countered by the access benefits. You get to ride electrics just about wherever you please. Campgrounds, backyards, parking lots, horse trails, bike paths, woods trails, parks, BMX tracks; the list goes on. E-style provides more access than gas-engined moto-ing, so you get to ride a lot more. Lunch breaks, after work, whatever. No more waiting for the weekend and driving off to the desert or recreational riding area.

ELECTRICMOTO XT3 BATTERY ELECTRIC MOTORCYCLE

The media has written off battery electric vehicles as an experiment that failed so all the attention is being given to fuel cell vehicles. For true long range electric vehicles the future can only be Lithium ion batteries since these combine the high power density of Lead Acid batteries with the highest energy density of any battery type. Lithium has particular appeal for use in batteries for two reasons; first, it is the most electro-positive metal, which means it can be used to make batteries with higher terminal voltages (typically, four volts rather than 1.5 volts) than other designs. And, second, it is the lightest metal, having the capacity to store 3,860 amp-hours of charge per kilogram of weight compared with 260 amp-hours per kilogram for lead.  Electricmoto introduced the XT3 (extended time) model in April 2006 at a price of £3400 plus VAT. You can see a picture and specifications of the XT3 here:

www.goblade.co.uk

The Lithium ion battery has not been specified except to say that it has a total capacity of 1200Wh which is 50% greater than the capacity of the Lead Acid battery of the Blade yet doubles the run time. Typical heavy-duty vehicle lithium ion batteries for vehicles have an energy density of 125 Wh/kg compared to the energy density of 35 Wh/kg for Lead Acid batteries. This allows 4 wheeled vehicles to have a range of 120 miles. Vehicle Li-ion batteries are designed to have a service life of 8 years but if you are prepared to sacrifice some of the battery’s service life then range of up to 280 miles is possible in electric cars. You will get the most bang for your buck with the cylindrical 18650 camcorder battery, but it has to be the 2200 mA hr version. As these super high energy density Li-ion batteries can be unstable they have developed flat ones with a solid polymer electrolyte. Here is a range of 3M Li-poly cells for RC cars. Their main disadvantage is that their higher internal resistanc means that they cannot supply the high currents required by vehicles during acceleration.

www.maxamps.com/index.html?lmd=38722.504028

There have been experimental vehicles built using thousands of such cells wired together but this is very expensive as you can imagine.

The XT3 also uses a Lynch ‘pancake’ motor but it is the more powerful LM200 model. Read the specifications here:

www.lemcoltd.com/performance.htm

The 21.2 kW specified as the power output of the XT3 cold only be maintained for a short time without burning out the motor. The maximum steady state power is actually 8.5 kW which is consistent with it’s top speed of 40 mph. Another more advanced option would be the brushless synchronous motor with neodymium permanent magnets for the rotor and electronic commutation using a transistor inverter. This would have the advantage of low noise, no maintenance, programmable torque/speed curve and regenerative braking. When power is cut off the motor acts as a generator and the inverter becomes a converter to recharge the battery. This form of braking can be so efficient that you may never have to replace your brake discs. The disadvantage of AC synchronous motors is that they require a bigger and more expensive controller, which makes more noise than the simpler type used in the XT3. The Blade has a noise level of 60 dB incidentally.

If the XT3 has a three-hour running time for ordinary trail riding then it should have a range of at least 60 miles. This would make it suitable as an urban runabout and casual off-roading at a special site having been taken there on a trailer. Combined with it’s cool styling this makes it a desirable acquisition for someone with £3995 to spend. The dilemma for me would be should I buy one now or wait another year for the next model with a greater range. As this model only weighs 83 kg there is the potential for beefing up the frame, wheels and forks to carry the weight of a bigger motor and battery pack. This would make a bike that would be comparable in performance and range to typical 200cc trail bikes, although a 15-minute boost charge may be necessary for a days riding. As it is the XT3’s light weight, mountain bike tyres, and low noise output would be ideal where a machine of low impact is required such as mountain bike trails. With such a machine you could say ‘up yours’ to GLEAM, the Ramblers and the government.

Fuel cell on the ENV bike

The fuel cell unit is a stack of hundreds of individual cells consisting of a plastic membrane coated with a platinum membrane that lets only hydrogen nuclei (protons) pass through cathode and anode. This is sandwiched between a cathode and anode onto which are etched channels for the passage of gases. When hydrogen is fed into a fuel cell and Oxygen the other side, a reaction triggered by a catalyst. The hydrogen ionizes into electrons and protons. Protons pass through the membrane, but the elctrons – generating an electric current – can rejoin them only by a roundabout route, after they power a light or motor. They then react with the protons and Oxygen to form water. The fuel cell in the ENV bike is a 1kW version of the polymer electrolyte type. You can see a 3kW version of this type of cell with a higher power density here:

www.mhtx.com/novars/index.htm

The fuel is compressed hydrogen in a composite carbon tank. This means of storing Hydrogen has the advantage of allowing quick refilling but at 5000 psi you can only achieve a gas density of 23 grams per litre. The other means of storing hydrogen as utilized in a fuel cell scooter is for atomic Hydrogen to be chemically bonded to a metal hydride and then released with heat. The density of gas that can be achieved this way is 125 grams per litre, but the weight of the metal hydride means that the overall energy density is not much better. The metal hydride storage system has the advantage that it requires a lower pressure and it can recycle heat from the fuel cell to release the Hydrogen.

The motor is a Lynch ‘pancake’ axial gap brushed DC motor whose maximum power output is 6kW. This brand of motor is noted for it’s excellent power to weight ratio, but the noise from the mechanical commentator is a rather obtrusive whining sound. You can read the specifications here:
LEM 170 electric motor specifications
www.lemcoltd.com/lem_170.htm

There are 4 12 volt 15 Ah batteries on board, continually charged by the fuel cell, to provide a reservoir of energy for peak power demands like accelerating. The total capacity of the batteries is 720 Wh, which is slightly, less than the 800 Wh of the Electricmoto Blade bike.

In my opinion Fuel Cell vehicles are not the way forward for silent, pollution free motoring. They have the disadvantage compared to batteries of not being able to deliver peak currents on demand. In practice there is a delay between the speed control and the vehicle’s acceleration. Hence the need for a reservoir of energy in a battery to deliver peak power. This means that there is an extra energy conversion stage compared to battery electric vehicles, which reduces the vehicle’s power to weight ratio. Also, I am skeptical of the ability of a 1 kW cell to provide enough power to sustain 40 – 50 mph. When the battery is fully charged it could provide the 6 kW needed to reach a speed of 50 mph but at this speed I would expect the battery to lose charge at a faster rate than the FC could recharge it. I would expect the same limitation to apply when hill climbing so not much chance of getting up Walna Scar then.

Making Your Own Photoshop Brushes

We’ll be using a bunch of techniques that involve making a new brush. Okay, technically, it’s called defining a brush preset, but many people refer to it as making a brush since it also can involve tweaking the settings in the Brushes palette. You start with a photo or paint a shape, make a selection, and then choose Edit>Define Brush Preset. Here I made a small selection in a photo (shown in Quick Mask mode, just so it’s easier to see). After choosing Edit>Define Brush Preset, name your brush and click OK. In order to make the new brush more interesting, I used the Brushes palette (docked in the Palette Well by default) to change some settings. I used the Brush Tip Shape options to rotate the brush slightly and increase the spacing. In the Shape Dynamics options, I changed the Size Jitter to 3% and increased the Angle Jitter to 29%.

I created a new blank document and, using the Brush tool with my new brush shape, I clicked once on one side of the new document. Then while pressing-and-holding the Shift key, I clicked on the other side of the document. This painted a straight line but as you can see, the brush rotated and changed size slightly based on my settings in the Brushes palette.

Another way to make a brush shape is to start with a blank document and create a painted shape. Here I used a standard brush to paint a few lines in black, applied several filters (Motion Blur, Glass, and Dry Brush), and then finished it off with Threshold and a little Gauss-ian Blur. (I’m deliberately not giving you step-by-step instructions here because I want you to start experimenting and making brushes.) Once you’ve created a shape you like, again use Edit>Define Brush Preset to create the brush shape, and then if you like, tweak the settings in the Brushes palette.

© 2007 ScottKelbybooks.com

Man captures Loch Ness Monster on Video!

An amateur scientist has captured what Loch Ness Monster watchers say is among the finest footage ever taken of the elusive mythical creature reputed to swim beneath the waters of Scotland’s most mysterious lake.

Sightingings have become a well
known phenonmena in Loch Ness,
a deep fresh water in the Scottish Highlands, whose deepest point
sinks down to over 700 feet.

The description of these sightings
are often accompanied by hoax videos
and photos of the monster, resembling
Plesiosaur, a long-necked aquatic
reptile that became extinct during the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event.

For those of you interested in sighting this creature, the Loch Ness tourism welcomes you to come sit on the shore of Loch Ness, just after midnight, alone. And have a few glasses of the finest pure highland malt whisky, and then you just might see this mysterious beast.

For further information on holidaying in Loch Ness, click here: Loch Ness tourism.
*note: I am in no way affiliated with this program.

Stay, the movie

This is a review for the movie Stay, and  I’ll be breaking it into two parts. The first is for those of you who haven’t watched it and the second is for us who have watched it but need an explanation to understand the movie. (cause the movie’s too smart for most of us, me included)

Stay(2005) is directed by Marc foster, starring Ewan Mcgregor, Naomi Watts, and Ryan Gosling. You can catch the trailer by clicking the pic on your right.
Stay is a story of a psychologist (Ewan McGregor) trying to unravel the twisted trauma of a suicidal young man (Ryan Gosling) and convince him that life is worth living, Stay is a mystery wrapped in a dreamy enigma.
Right from the start, Stay demands our attention. You are compelled to take in every visual clue given and try to make sense of it all. This is cause you get the feeling that something isn’t right, the visual pieces do not add up (this is why it frustrates many, cause people don’t like to think when watching a movie). The transitions from one shot to the other are swift and suble at the same time, a visual strategy so well done by Mark Foster, which isn’t there for show rather is crucial to understanding the meaning and perspective of the movie. If you pay close attention to the movie, you’ll probably feel like you’ve seen a character before; there are also a few instances where you see doubles or multilples of the same person, all this seems odd, but hold on to those things till the end for an explanation.
Another odd thing you notice about the movie is that the characters do not evolve. They seem to have a specific role to play and do just that to further the story as Dr.Sam (Mcgregor) tries to solve the reason behind Henry’s (Gosling) words, who claimed to having hurt some people, and had to kill himself on saturday midnight. Ultimately when we come to the end, things seem to finally tie up. To understand why we were led to this, we have to think back through the whole movie, to reveal the purpose of it all.

Part 2: Breaking Stay

Ok, so you’ve watched the movie. But it still leaves you puzzled, had me too the first time I watched it, so I watched it again, and the revelations was very satisfying. This is the only movie I really enjoyed watching it a second time. Ok the below explantion’s a bit of rambling excuse my bad writing.
The entire movie is Henry’s Stream of conciousness, all the characters who surround him in the last scene are given a role by Henry. They present various aspect of Herny’s character. Beth, was the 1st person at the site of the accident, but she didn’t help instead she cried “i didn’t move him, i know your not suppose to move them”. Hence Henry gave her the role of a psychiatrist whom he intented to meet in the start of the movie but wasn’t available, instead Dr. Sam who was the first person to help Henry in the accident scene, fills in for Dr.beth(whom Henry makes her to be suffering from trauma or some psychological breakdown). From what I can tell, Henry probably entered into this dream when he heard dr.sam tell Nurse Lila that the others in the car didn’t make it. So that’s probably why he struggles with the decision to live or die after having killed the people he loved.

In case you were thinking Why is Sam’s trousers 3inches too short, well the reason could be because when Henry first sees Sam he sees him from that particular low angle making his trousers too short and also making his jacket too large. Many shots of the movie have that awkward low tilted shot, giving us Henry’s perspective. You’ll also notice that some of the same actors keep appearing with different roles, which are some how connected with what they do or say in henry’s dying moments, like that black woman, also the guy instructing the lifting of the piano, who later opens the door to henry’s apartment or the old man who mutters”his’s not gonna make it” and the mom and the kid with the balloon. You’ll also see many doubles and triples, easily noticed in the scene where the students exit the lecture hall.

Often you’ll hear that the background sound has got the sounds of cars screeching, or muffled voices, and traffic – those are instances where real world events leak into Henry’s dream, no wonder he says he hears things. What about all those spiralling stairs, hmm, my take is that to give us a sense of dreams within a dream, making it obvious to us, just like those strange transitions and the manatee on Beth’s apartment window. There are a few references to Buddha in the movie, like when Henry heals his dad’s blindness, he does a namaste with the hands, hmm… more closly associated with Hinduism and yoga i guess. But yeah later when Henry’s dad meets with Sam, he quotes Buddha’s saying “the world is an illusion”, this brings me to an ealier scene where Henry mutters Your troubles will cease and fortune will smile upon you, then later Sam gets those same lines from his fortune cookies, hmm… Then there’s Athena, who is cast as Ophelia (who is doomed to die), but would rather be in Hamlet’s shoes (debating death, as Henry is) HAMLET: O God, I could be bounded in a nut shell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams… lots of speculations but I’ve gotten this far and it’s been good.

I guess the moral of a movie like this would be: Do not blindly trust what you see

CSS resources and inspirations to style sheets

Online Resources

These sites are good starting points for online exploration of style sheets.

W3C (www.w3c.com/Style/CSS)

The World Wide Web Consortium is where the standards, including CSS, are developed and overseen. Go right to the source for the nitty-gritty details and latest developments.

A List Apart (www.alistapart.com)

This online magazine features some of the best thinking and writing on cutting-edge, standards-based web design. It was founded in 1998 by Jeffrey Zeldman and Brian Platz.

css-discuss (www.css-discuss.org)

This is a mailing list devoted to talking about CSS and how to use it.

 Inspirational CSS showcase sites

If you are looking for excellent examples for what can be done with CSS and standards-based design, check out these sites:

CSS Zen Garden (www.csszengarden.com)

This is a showcase site for what can be done with CSS, a single HTML file, and the creative ideas and techniques of hundreds of designers. Its creator and keeper is standards expert Dave Shea. See the companion book listed above.

CSS Beauty (www.cssbeauty.com)

A showcase of excellent sites designed with CSS.

The Weekly Standards (www.weeklystandards.com)

This web site highlights recently launched corporate web sites that take advantage of standards-based development techniques.

Informative personal sites

Some of the best CSS resources on the Web are the blogs and sites of individuals with a passion for standards-based design. Most feature articles, tutorials, and lists of links to other great online resources. These are only a few of the many inspirational blogs, but from these, it’s easy to access the CSS community network.

Stopdesign (www.stopdesign.com)

Douglas Bowman, CSS and graphic design guru, publishes articles and trend-setting tutorials.

Quirksmode (www.quirksmode.org)

His own description says it best: “QuirksMode.org is the personal and professional site of Peter-Paul Koch, freelance web developer in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. It contains more than 150 pages with CSS and JavaScript tips and tricks, and is one of the best sources on the WWW for studying and defeating browser incompatibilities.”

Mezzoblue (www.mezzoblue.com)

This is the personal site of Dave Shea, the creator of the CSS Zen Garden.

Meyerweb.com (www.meyerweb.com)

This is the personal site of the king of CSS, Eric Meyer.

Tantek Çelik (tantek.com/log)

Tantek was the developer of Internet Explorer 5 for the Mac, an author of the W3C CSS Recommendations, and the creator of the famous “Box Model Hack.” He’s got his finger on the pulse, to say the least.

Molly.com (www.molly.com)

This is the blog of prolific author and web-standards activist, Molly E. Holschlag.

Simplebits (www.simplebits.com)

This is the personal site of standards guru and author, Dan Cederholm.

Speed up Windows XP

Eliminate programs that run at start-up
Stopping programs from running at start-up is especially daunting because there is no single place you can go to halt them all. Some run because they’re in the Startup folder, others because they’re part of logon scripts, others because of Registry settings, and so on. But with a little bit of perseverance, you should be able to keep them from running.

1. Start by cleaning out your Startup folder. Find it in C:\Documents and Settings\username\Start Menu\Programs\Startup, where username is your Windows logon name. Delete the shortcuts of any programs you don’t want to run on start-up. As with any shortcuts, when you delete them, you’re deleting only the shortcut, not the program itself. (You can also clear out the start-up items by going to Start > Programs > Startup, then right-clicking items you want to remove.)
2. Next, clean out your Scheduled Tasks folder. Go to C:\Windows\Tasks, and delete the shortcuts of any programs that you don’t want to run automatically on a schedule.

Note: You can bypass all the programs in your Startup folder on an as-needed basis. To stop XP from loading any programs in the Startup folder, hold down the Shift key during bootup. No programs in the Startup folder will run, but the items will still remain there so that they will start up as they would normally the next time you boot.

Using the system configuration utility
Taking the previous steps will stop the obvious programs from running at start-up, but it won’t kill them all. The best tool for disabling hidden programs that run on start-up is the System Configuration Utility. To run it, type msconfig at a command prompt, and press Enter. (If that doesn’t work, first do a search for msconfig.exe; when you find the file, double-click it.)

1. To stop a program from running at start-up, go to the Startup tab in this utility, and uncheck the box next to the program. It can sometimes be difficult to understand what programs are listed on the Startup tab. Some, such as America Online, are clearly labeled. But often, you’ll see a phrase or collection of letters, such as fs20. That’s the name of the running file–such as fs20.exe, which is Free Surfer mk II, an excellent free pop-up killer.
2. To get more information about a listing, expand the width of the Command column near the top of the Startup tab. Expand it enough and you’ll see the start-up command that the program issues, including its location, such as C:\Program Files\Free Surfer\fs20.exe. The directory location should be another hint to help you know the name of the program.
3. When stopping programs from running at start-up, it’s best to stop them one at a time rather than in groups. You want to make sure that you’re not causing any system problems by stopping them. So stop one, then restart your PC. If it runs fine, then stop another and restart. Continue doing this until you’ve cleared all the programs you don’t want to run automatically.

Each time you uncheck a box and restart your PC, you’ll get a warning that you’ve used the System Configuration Utility to disable a program from starting automatically. If you don’t want to see that warning, disable it by checking the box in the dialog itself.

After you’ve used the system configuration utility to identify programs that run on start-up, you may want to try disabling them from with the programs themselves. So run each program that starts automatically, and see if you can find a setting that allows you to prevent it from running on start-up.

Speed up shutdown times

It’s not only start-up that you’d like to speed up; you can also make sure that your system shuts down faster. If shutting down XP takes what seems to be an inordinate amount of time, here are a couple of steps you can take to speed up the shutdown process:

1. Don’t have XP clear your paging file at shutdown. For security reasons, you can have XP clear your paging file (pagefile.sys) of its contents whenever you shut down. Your paging file is used to store temporary files and data, but when your system shuts down, information stays in the file. Some people prefer to have the paging file cleared at shutdown because sensitive information such as unencrypted passwords sometimes ends up in the file. However, clearing the paging file can slow shutdown times significantly, so if extreme security isn’t a high priority, you might not want to clear it. To shut down XP without clearing your paging file, run the Registry Editor (click Start > Run, then type regedit in the Run box) and go to:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management
2. Change the value of ClearPageFileAtShutdown to 0. Close the Registry, and restart your computer. Whenever you turn off XP from now on, the paging file won’t be cleared, and you should be able to shut down more quickly.

Note: Please be careful when editing the Registry; you can do a lot of damage here. Don’t change or delete anything unless you know exactly what it is.

Disable services that run at start-up
Constantly running in the background of XP are services–processes that help the operating system run or that provide support to applications. Many of these services launch automatically at start-up. While you need many of them, some are not required, and they can slow down your system when they run in the background.
You can disable services at start-up by using the system configuration utility, similar to the way that you halt programs from running at start-up, except that you use the Services tab instead of the Startup tab. But the system configuration utility doesn’t necessarily list every service that launches on start-up. A bigger problem is that disabling services is more of shot in the dark than disabling programs. When you disable a program, you can get a sense of what the program does. But when you disable a service through the system configuration utility, there’s often no way to know what it does.

1. A better way of disabling services at start-up is via the Services computer-management console. Run it by typing services.msc at the command prompt. The Services computer-management console includes a description of all services so that you can know ahead of time whether a particular service is one you want to turn off. It also lets you pause the service so that you can test your machine and see whether that service is needed.
2. After you run the console, click the Extended tab. This view will show you a description of each service in the left pane when you highlight the service. The Startup Type column shows you which services launch on start-up–any with Automatic in that field. Click that column to sort together all the services that automatically launch on start-up. Then highlight each of those services and read the descriptions.
3. When you find a service you want to disable, right-click it and choose Properties. In the Properties dialog box that appears, choose Manual from the Startup Type drop-down list. The service won’t start automatically from now on, but you can start it manually via the console. If you want the service disabled so that it can’t be run, choose Disabled. To test the results, turn off any services that you don’t want to run by clicking Stop The Service in the left pane, or by right-clicking the service and choosing Stop.

Here is a list of some common services you might want to stop from running at start-up. 

Service	What it does
Portable Media Serial Number	Retrieves the serial number of a portable music player attached to your PC.
Task Scheduler	Schedules unattended tasks to be run. If you don’t schedule any unattended tasks, turn it off.
Uninterruptible Power Supply	Manages an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) connected to your PC.
Automatic Updates	Automatically checks for Windows updates. (You can check manually by going to http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/.)
Telnet (service available on XP Pro only)	Allows a remote user to log in to your computer and run programs. (This will not be found on all versions of XP Pro.)
Wireless Zero Configuration Service	Automatically configures a Wi-Fi (802.11) network card. Disable this only if you’re not using a Wi-Fi network card.

Hope u find this as useful as I did, courtesy cnet insider’s secrect.