xSpeedPlayer is a free Android app capable of increasing/ decreasing playback rate of MP3 audio files by up to 4 times the original speed. The app allows you to save the altered audio file in both MP3 and WAV audio formats and with an audio quality of your choice (not applicable to WAV files). What’s best about xPlaySpeed is that it encodes music at the desired playback speed without shifting the pitch. That is, the app only speeds up, say, the beats in a song without making the result sound shrill compared to the original.

With xSpeedPlayer, setting the desired audio playback speed and encoding it with those settings is fairly simple. From the xSpeed tab on the app’s homescreen, import/select a file from your SD card by tapping the Select File button. Specify the playback speed on the slider. If you wish to re-encode it as an MP3 file, then navigate downwards on the screen and adjust the preferred MP3 Output Quality.

The app, by default, uses the /sdcard/xSpeedPlayer/audio folder to store all the encoded files. To specify a different directory, tap on the Change Directory button and pick a folder of your liking.

The Playback button under the Output Type menu can be used to preview the audio output at the specified settings. Once satisfied, tap on the required output format (MP3/WAV) and finally tap the Change Speed button to begin encoding.

Through a status bar notification, you can check the progress of the encoding process. In case you wish to cancel the process, tap the Cancel button from the app’s homescreen.

We put the encoding mechanism of xSpeedPlayer to test on our HTC Desire Z with a couple of MP3 tracks. The encoding process took almost as long as the duration of the song itself (4:58). Increasing the speed of the audio reduced the size of the exported file quite significantly (mainly because of the length being reduced) despite its quality being set to ‘high’.

Apart from the aforementioned xSpeed tab on the app’s homescreen, there’s an Album button that can be used to quickly navigate to and import your preferred track into the app through the app’s built-in file explorer. This makes the process of importing and converting multiple files much easier and faster.

XSpeedPlayer can be downloaded from the Android Market free of cost. Link and QR code to the app’s Android Market page are provided below.

Download xSpeedPlayer

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When you perform a search in Windows 7 / Vista using the Start Search in Start menu, it automatically searches for the file and at the same time displays various similar programs installed. This causes significant delay especially when you have tons of files in your hard disk. For example when I search for Google Talk, I get two other results which are totally useless and not needed at all. One way to speed up Start Search is to narrow the scope of the search so that it includes only the exact file and does not include other similar files on the hard drive.

If you are feeling a notable delay while searching, you can speed up Windows 7 / Vista’s Start Search using the following fix.

Use any one of the following method.

Start Menu

Right-click on the Start button and select Properties.

Click on the Customize button.

Uncheck Search Communications.

Set Search Files to Don’t Search for files.

Registry Tweak

Open registry editor by typing regedit in Run dialog box or Start Search.

Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Software > Microsoft > Windows > CurrentVersion > Explorer and select Advanced.

Find and right-click on Start_SearchFiles and select Modify

Set the Value to 0 and reboot the computer.

Always backup your Registry before making any changes.

How To Backup Registry

In order to backup your registry, follow  these simple steps:

Open Start menu and type Run in Start Search, type regedit and select OK.

In Registry Editor go to the File Menu and select Export.

Under the export range select All.

Put an appropriate file name and save as file type Registration Files(*.reg).

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If you are sick of slow loading speed or want to increase the performance of your Windows further, then turning off Indexing of your local drive is another simple way of boosting the performance. This option is automatically set in Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. Indexing is enabled because it helps Windows index your files and folder for  faster search.

You must be thinking why turn it off, Microsoft enabled it due to a reason? Well, yes, basically you are right here but sometimes Microsoft doesn’t use it’s brain. Microsoft might have forgot to make their search better and more powerful because they were focused more on releasing Windows on time. You can use Google Desktop or Windows Search alternatively which are both faster than the build-in search and ofcourse more powerful.

To Turn Off Indexing on your local drive open My Computer, right-click any Local Drive(C, D, etc) and go to Properties.

Now in the General tab you will find a checkbox at the bottom named “Index this drive for faster searching”, uncheck it as shown in the screenshot below.

It will now ask if you want to turn off indexing only in the root of the drive or you want to turn off indexing for all files and folders? Select “Apply changes to all files and folders” and click OK as shown in the screenshot below.

If you select the option saying “Apply changes to root of the drive(C:\, D:\, etc)” then Windows will still index your files and folders, so please do not select this option.

Now sit back while Windows turns off indexing for each and every file, it might take few minutes because every file has a system attribute that tells Windows if it can be indexed or not, so it has to be updated for all files.

Note that if you turn of Indexing where your Windows is installed, in suppose lets say drive C, then it will not effect other drives, other drives(D, E, etc) will still be indexed by Windows. If you want to completely turn off indexing then you will have to do it turn by turn with every drive.

To enable indexing, just follow the above procedures, but instead of unchecking, just check the box where it asks if you want the drive to be indexed.

For further tips to increase the performance of your computer, have a look at this post “How To Manage Your Startup Programs Easily, An Easy Way To Increase System Performance”

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The best way to start your computer faster and improve the overall system performance is to reduce the number of programs that load when Windows start. Reducing the number of startup programs can help you in loading the Windows faster, saving RAM, and faster loading performance. Many people will be familiar with the way that requires installing and running Windows Defender, going to Tools > Software Explorer and from category selecting Startup Programs. This method works for many people but is not very effective.

Many people do not have Windows Defender and many don’t want to install it either. Well you don’t even need too. Follow these basic steps for managing the startup programs.

For Windows XP: Click Start and then Run, in the dialog box type msconfig and click OK.

For Windows Vista: Click Start and in the search bar type Run and in the dialog box type msconfig and click OK. The quickest way is to simply type msconfig in the search bar and press Enter.

Now in the System Configuration click on the Startup tab and you will see the list of startup programs as shown below.

You can uncheck any program that you feel you don’t need on Startup. These programs that are listed here are installed on your computer and remain installed. So do not worry, even clicking Disable all button will not screw up your computer. It does not remove the program but only disables it from loading on Startup.

After unchecking the programs that you don’t need, click OK. Now it will ask you for the computer to be restarted. Restart your computer and you will see your speed while logging in to be faster than before.

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Are you tired of your computer that loads your Windows slowly? You can increase the performance slightly by disabling the visual effects, this process does not require any software to be installed. But there is one thing that you should remember, Disabling the Visual Effects in Windows XP and Vista will make your Windows look more like Windows 2000. You can always add new theme to add new looks later, so this is not a big problem. I remember disabling Visual Effects when I was using Windows Vista on my crappy Asus laptop which had only 512MB ram. Anyway this is how you do it.

For Windows XP: Right click on My Computers, and click on Properties. This will bring you to System Properties dialog.

For Windows Vista: Click Start on taskbar and Right click on Computers and select Properties. Now on the left sidebar click on Advanced System Settings. This will bring up System Properties dialog.

Now in the System Properties dialog, navigate to Advanced tab as shown below.

Now click on Settings which is under the Performance heading. A Performance Options dialog will open as shown below,

Select “Adjust for best performance” and click OK. And click OK again in System Properties dialog.

By selecting “Adjust for best performance”, it disables all Visual Effects. If you don’t want to disable all of it, but only few of it, then you can do this by clicking on “Custom” and then doing everything yourself. I recommend that you restart your PC after doing this.

If you don’t like the looks, you can always revert back the settings by following the same procedure and selecting “Let Windows choose what’s best for my computer”.

If this helps you let us know, and if you have any questions, feel free to ask us.

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