On my Windows XP system, I keep getting a message that says: “Please wait while we remove AOL art files and increase available space on your computer disk. Increasing the amount of art that you store on your disk can speed up your online experience.” What does this mean?
A: To help speed up the time it takes for its pages to download to your screen, America Online’s software stores some of its graphics on your computer’s hard drive in an artwork database. As you move around AOL’s different areas, you download more art files, and the artwork database gets full and the software deletes the old images.
If you keep getting the message, the database is either filling up fast or you may have some damaged files inside. Manually emptying out the AOL Artwork Database might help. To do so, start the AOL program but do not sign on.
Click the Settings icon in the AOL 9.0 toolbar (or the Settings menu in earlier versions) and click on Offline Storage or the Font, Text & Graphics link, depending on which version you have. In the Graphics Settings area, decrease the setting for maximum disk space to use for art to the lowest number you can. Click the Save button and quit the AOL program.
Next, restart the AOL software, return to the Graphics Settings box and restore the amount of disk space to the original value and click Save.
Q: I am considering purchasing an HP Pavilion laptop using an AMD Turion 64 processor rather than an Intel processor. I’ve never heard of AMD – is this a decent chip?
A: The AMD Turion 64 processor from Advanced Micro Devices is a competitor to the Intel Pentium M processor. Both are intended for use in light, thin mobile computers and are designed to use power efficiently to help maximize battery life.
Intel processors have long been used in computers running Windows and Linux systems (and are starting to show up in Mac models), but some computer-makers use AMD chips in many of their products. AMD chips are used in desktop computers as well, including high-powered gaming systems. Hewlett-Packard introduced its first Turion-based laptop last year and included the processor in a special-edition “Live Strong” laptop that benefited the Lance Armstrong Foundation.
The AMD Turion 64 is a 64-bit processor, which can handle bigger and more complex processing chores than the 32-bit processors used by many computers designed for consumers. There is information about AMD’s processors at www.amd.com/processors and details on Intel’s mobile processor offerings at www.intel.com/products/centrino.