Tips&Tricks regarding computer usage

http://home.comcast.net/~SupportCD/OptimizeXP.html
This site looks awsome a must read!
Thanks to IzzyCraft

protip: To make your internet browsing faster using firefox.
1. in the address bar type about:config
2. in the search bar that comes up within that window type "http"
3. double click all the lines that have anything to do with pipelining so that they're true.
4. look how fast you can get to google
Thanks to DeathSpank

To make winxp run slightly faster: (taken from wiki how, tips i've implemented)
Disable the Indexing Service. The indexing service scans your hard drive and indexes files to help speed up searching. It runs in the background using up memory and processor time, and is generally thought to be unnecessary by most geeks. It can also wake you up if your hard disk is noisy and you leave your machine on at night. To disable the Indexing Service, open My Computer, Right-click on the hard drive, go to properties and click on the check box to clear the check mark next to "Allow indexing service to index this hard drive for faster searching". Click OK. It may take a while for the operation to complete.
Thanks to Railxp

To make menus load faster, go to Start, click on Run, and then type regedit and press Enter/Return. Now find "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop", Select MenuShowDelay, right click and select “Modify’, reduce the number to around 100, but not too less.[
Thanks to Railxp

Disabling unnecessary services. Windows XP has to be all things to all people it has many services running that take up system resources that you may never need. Below is a list of services that can be disabled on most machines: Alerter, Clipbook, Computer Browser, Distributed Link Tracking Client, Indexing Service, IPSEC Services, Messenger, Netmeeting Remote Desktop Sharing, Portable Media Serial Number, Remote Desktop Help Session Manager, Remote Procedure Call Locator, Remote Registry, Secondary Logon, Routing & Remote Access, Server, SSDP Discovery Service, Telnet, TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper, Upload Manager, Universal Plug and Play Device Host, Windows Time wireless Zero Configuration (Do not disable if you use a wireless network). To disable these services go to Start Run... and type services.msc, double click on the service you want to change, change the startup type to Disable.
Thanks to Railxp

have My Computer as a tool bar on the taskbar. Makes browsing for folders very very easy (you can open a folder by double clicking on it, not just files)
Thanks to: stet_tcl

alt+D or F6 they both work
Thanks to Eternity241

<SearchPlugin xmlns="http://www.mozilla.org/2006/browser/search/">
<ShortName>Google</ShortName>
<Description>Google Search</Description>
<InputEncoding>UTF-8</InputEncoding>
<Image width="16" height="16">data:image/x-icon;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAABAAAAAQCAIAAACQkWg2AAAAGXRFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG9iZSBJbWFnZVJlYWR5ccllPAAAAaRJREFUeNpiVIg5JRURw0A0YAHio943kYV%2B%2Ff33%2BdvvX7%2F%2FMjEx8nKycrGzwKXOiPKzICvdeezLhCV3jp15%2Bfv%2FX0YGhv8MDDxMX2qKTIw0RK10eYD6QYqATvoPBkt3f5K0W9Ew4fjTFz%2F%2Bw8Dm3W8UPeZxqFa%2BevsFyD0twgfVsOfkRxHrtfV9u5BVQ8Crd98%2FffkGYQM1QJ20%2FfSPv79eNxQGYfpSVJADmcvEAHbr7oOX2dj%2FERNKIA2%2F%2F%2Fz%2FxfCDhYVoDUDw5P6vf9%2B5iY0HVmZGQWm%2BN3fff%2Fn2k4eLHS739x%2FDiRs%2Ff%2F%2F5x8HO%2FOHzN3djfqgNjIwMgc6qzLx%2Fpy47j2zY%2Feff06tXhOUucgxeun33AUZGpHh4%2Bvo7t8EyIJqz%2FhpasD59%2B5dNrqdnznZIsEL9ICXCsWuBCwvTv%2FymS5PWPP32ExEALz%2F%2BB5r848cPCJcRaMP9xaYQzofPPzfuvrnj0Jst%2B5%2F8%2Bc4sLPeDkYlRgJc93VPE18NIXkYUmJYQSQMZ%2FP3379uPH7%2F%2F%2FEETBzqJ0WqLGvFpe2LCC4AAAwAyjg7ENzDDWAAAAABJRU5ErkJggg%3D%3D</Image>
<Url type="application/x-suggestions+json" method="GET" template="http://suggestqueries.google.com/complete/search?output=firefox&amp;client=firefox&amp;hl={moz:locale}&amp;q={searchTerms}"/>
<Url type="text/html" method="GET" template="http://www.google.com/search">
<Param name="q" value="{searchTerms}"/>
<Param name="ie" value="utf-8"/>
<Param name="oe" value="utf-8"/>
<Param name="aq" value="t"/>
<!-- Dynamic parameters -->
<Param name="rls" value="{moz:distributionID}:{moz:locale}:{moz:official}"/>
<MozParam name="client" condition="defaultEngine" trueValue="firefox-a" falseValue="firefox"/>
</Url>
<SearchForm>http://www.google.com/ig</SearchForm>
</SearchPlugin>

Really sweet imo. Just press CTRL+ALT+T and all your firefox tabs and windows are displayed as icons. So if you have 25 tabs you can still easily find the one you want

Works well. Easy to setup exceptions or play any flash at will.

No more clicking 'back' or 'forward', just hold right mouse button (anywhere on the screen), make a very very small gesture (im talking milimeters, or you can drag it out longer if you want) and firefox performs an actoin. I use it for 'back', 'forward' and 'new tab', but any possible action can be done with a gestures, 100% customizable. This is my absolute number one addon for firefox.
Thanks to Gnojfatelob

For playing music, just enter a name of a band you like and it plays songs from that band and other similar bands. It uses the site last.fm if you ever heard of that. Great for discovering new bands. Used to be my number one for months, but it seems after a while my trial is now over nd i gotta pay 3$ a month. Still its awesome for a couple of months while it is free.
Thanks to Gnojfatelob

Very good adblocker, very very good. Gets updated frequently. Should be standard. Is there an advertisement anywhere on tl.net??? I wouldnt know, I never see one.
Thanks to Gnojfatelob

As it name suggest customize the results page when you google something. e.g. remove adds, amount of results on a page, etc... Lots and lots of options, comes in handy as a one time tweak for google so it looks better and is adjusted to your needs.
Thanks to Gnojfatelob

If you google something it gives a small thumbnail version of all the resulting sites. Combine this with Customize Google and tweak your googling.
Thanks to Gnojfatelob

Gives all tabs a different colour, but groups tabs from same sites with similar colours. I used to have this enabled, but with my current skin (Foxdie) it doesnt look very pretty so i disabled it. I is still there because i might change my skin one day and start using this again.
Thanks to Gnojfatelob

Do whatever you want whenever you want it in Firefox. It lets you program your own javascripts, or you can download one from the thousands of user created scripts. If you dont like something about Firefox, just search the web for a Greasemonkey javascript. I am sure someone else had the same problem and solved it already.
Thanks to Gnojfatelob

Gives the ultimate protection by disabling all javascripts by default. You can easily enable the ones u need and add them to the trusted list ofc. Remember Zangoo anyone, get rid of things like that with noscript.
Thanks to Gnojfatelob & wo0py

As the name suggest, download any pdf file in different formats or different ways. There is no harm in having it installed and it comes in handy now and then.
Thanks to Gnojfatelob

Use a Firefox add-on like CookieMonster or CS Lite to quickly control your cookies. Have cookies disabled by default and only allow them for specific sites. This should be common knowledge.
Thanks to Scorch

lets you download Flash videos from Youtube and other popular sites. On top of the flash videos, you can download music too. Just go to playlist.com and type in a song/artist. Then preview the song by hitting play and the download helper icon will start moving. You can then select the .mp3. If you play multiple songs the newest song is always at the bottom.
Thanks to Scorch & Amber[LighT]

This lets you search without having to actually do any work (you hit ctrl+space and ubiquity comes up in Firefox, and allows you to google search or go to any relevant pages based upon a specific search. You can immediately send web-content to an e-mail message and locate directions easily. It looks up the weather too with simple commands.
Thanks to Amber[LighT]

generates disposable temporary e-mail addresses for you, which is useful if you need to specify your address for registering somewhere or so.
Thanks to Scorch

I use this for HTML/CSS/Script editing. It's a great little tool and helps correct errors in your pages. It does real-time inspection so you can drag your mouse over what you want to check and it highlights it for you.
Thanks to Amber[LighT]

On mac, I find MenuMeters very very useful.
For those who are used to using OSX but use Windows for games, you can use AutoHotKey to switch the windows and control keys.

LCtrl::LWin
LWin::Ctrl
RCtrl::RWin
RWin::Ctrl

XButton1::Shift
XButton2::Shift

(the last 2 lines are to disable the squezebuttons on the mightymouse, because they would make the browser go back, and my mightymouse's squeeze buttons are shot)

If you generate an exe of this script and put it in User folder/Start Menu/Programs/Startup it will start automatically.
Thanks to -fj