tidbits

this site is designed to speed up your PC sorry mac users, windows only.



url: http://www.jasonn.com/turning_off_unnecessary_services_on_windows_xp



head on over there, it has some good info that you should look at, but read the warnings. seriously, disableing services is a bad idea unless you know what your doing.



here is a piece

• Alerter
  
  
  Notifies selected users and computers of administrative alerts. If the
  service is stopped, programs that use administrative alerts will not
  receive them. If this service is disabled, any services that explicitly
  depend on it will fail to start.
  

  Comment: I don't want my personal computer telling me
  anything, ever. Shut up and work! There's few things I find more
  annoying than a computer
  constantly wanting to interact with me while I'm using it to do work
  or entertain myself. A computer is a tool, not a friend or work
  companion. No Hal, I don't want to talk to you. Perhaps there's a
  software vendor that can give you a compelling reason why you need
  this service, but for most home and SOHO PC use it's just an
  unnecessary service taking up resources and providing risk. Unless
  you are running a product that requires this service, disable it.

  
  
• Application Layer Gateway Service
  
  
  Provides support for 3rd party protocol plug-ins for Internet Connection
  Sharing and the Internet Connection Firewall
  
  

  Comment: Do you want to share your internet connection? That's an article
  waiting to be written. Let me be clear. Since you can buy a router
  for $50 or less, and Windows does an awful job routing, using a
  computer to gateway your other computers to the internet is just
  stupid. "What about firewalling and admission control?"
  Well, that's not going to be done through the built-in internet
  sharing tools. So, we''re not talking about that. If you use a
  personal computer to gateway your other computers to the internet
  (and calling it a server doesn't change the reality), you are wasting
  resources. Buy a $50 router, or a $1000 router for that matter.
  But, buy a discrete device that is designed to do the job. Use
  hardware based firewalling (OK, it's all based on software - but I
  mean a boxed solution, not software installed on a PC that's prone to
  lose autonomy). And, what about all those cute third-party
  firewalling tools that plug in to this thing? Man, give me a break.
  If it runs on top of your Windows installation, it's not a real
  firewall. Unless this is required by a product you think is
  necessary, disable it.

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