Workaround for dreadful Vista Search Engine

I can't believe how awful the Vista search engine is. That's not to say it doesn't find things quickly (it does); it's just that it doesn't find anything I want it to find, and it doesn't allow me to refine my search. Two things drive me around the bend:
1) It doesn't update its indexes, meaning that if you search for a string in a document that you've moved or deleted, it'll find the old location and give you an error when you click on the document.
2) If you press "return" (as I *always* do) after typing in the search term, it'll churn everything on the hard drive, finding files that have no connection to your search, and send ten (or thirty) seconds doing it.

I finally found my solution: install a new search engine! In my case, I've been delighted by "File Locator Lite", available for free at www.mythicsoft.com. You have to pay for the pro version, but I've seen no need for it yet, as I'm not doing massively complicated searches. What I like about it is that you can narrow your search to particular drives or folders and by size and date. You can also do a regex search for strings in the title or in the document.

Much better than the Microsoft search engine, and a great replacement.

Improving Video on the Dell Latitude D630

For several months I have been having video problems with my Dell Latitude D630, a Laptop. After fifteen minutes, streamed video would start to stutter, while sound remained good.

These laptops have had problems for some time with the GPU overheating (Google the problem and you'll find talk of class action suits), and this was causing video problems in many models. The A12 BIOS update claimed to fix that problem. I rolled my BIOS back to A12, but the problem resolved itself for only a few days before recurring.

In the end, the real problem is that the laptop, particularly if heavily used (as mine is), is just showing its age. Overburdening the video chips will cause them to overheat and malfunction.

The solution isn't ideal, but streaming video will no longer stutter. Go to the Control Panel and open the NVIDIA Control Panel. Select "Adjust Image Setting with Preview" and click the "Use My Preference emphasizing:" radio button. Pull the slider to the left so that Performance is emphasized, not quality.

That should take some pressure off the video circuitry. For "Display Resolution" pull the slider to the middle and select 1280 x 720. This will make the text on your screen a bit bigger and fuzzier.

For "Color Quality" pull the slider to the middle and select "Medium" (16-bit color). This will make your video image a little less than excellent, but fine for everyday viewing.

After I had done these things my video streamed as normal.