When you're running a Virtual Machine, you don't always need all the trimmings--usually your goal is to get a particular set of tasks done, and a full-fledged install of Windows has a lot that gets in the way of that and can slow you down. Jeff Atwood has a great tutorial at his blog about creating smaller virtual machines. He says that since Microsoft made the Windows version of Virtual PC free, he's "become obsessed with producing the smallest possible Windows XP Virtual PC image." While your run-of-the-mill XP install takes up more than 1GB, Atwood's tutorial squeezes it down to 758MB. Still big, but better. One of his steps involves the use of XPlite, an app that will cost you $39.95, which might not be an investment more casual VMers would want to make. His tutorial is aimed at Microsoft Virtual PC, but it's probably applicable to other virtualization solutions as well.

Every one of use uses DNS every time we connect to the internet, yet it's been decades since anyone has made any improvements to the end-user experience. In case you're scratching your head (or saying, "DNS? Isn't that the thing that happens when Internet Explorer can't connect?"), DNS is the system that, among other things, translates the addresses you type into your browser into the IP numbers that let your computer to connect to web (or e-mail, or IM, etc.) servers. So how can such a basic service be improved for the end-user? Direct your gaze toward OpenDNS, which adds some features to DNS that immediately make the lives of users easier. In particular, it adds phishing protection and address spell-checking to every web site request your browser makes, without you having to install any software. All you have to do is configure your browser or OS to point to OpenDNS' DNS servers, and the next time an email points you to a phishing site, OpenDNS will block it, and the next time you accidentally type downloadsquad.cmo, OpenDNS will automatically direct you to .com. On top of that, OpenDNS claims to be faster than other DNS servers. On top of that, you can configure which features you want to use (e.g. if you don't want phishing protection, turn it off) without even registering. It's also totally free to use--OpenDNS makes money by placing advertisements on those typo pages. WordPress developer Matt Mullenweg wrote a mini-review of the service and says it's "a great idea, well-executed" and "invisible in all the right ways." I'm sold.

I haven't tried it out to see if it works yet, but it looks promising: User Profile Hive Cleanup Service is a free  utility from Microsoft that's supposed to speed up Windows XP shutdown times considerably. The article at IntelliAdmin says the biggest culprit for slow shutdowns "is a problem unloading the current user's profile," and what the User Profile Hive Cleanup Service does is in the background and cleans up user profiles automatically. I'm not convinced that it will reduce my ~1.5 minute shutdowns to a few seconds, but every little bit helps. Oh, and FYI, after you've installed the app you'll have to reboot once before it will kick in.

Is it possible to build a profitable web startup in seven days on a budget of $500? Jason L. Baptiste and Brian Breslin think so. On Saturday Breslin, CEO of Viral Ventures (which owns uGather.com) and Baptiste, CEO of Miami web design firm Infinimedia, set out to build WeblogWire from scratch in a week, and in true Web 2.0 style they're blogging as they go. WeblogWire will be "a system that would be a newswire for bloggers and online media outlets," basically providing a direct line between them and companies and PR firms. With five days left to turn out a working prototype I can't wait to see what they come up with. (Hey Breslin and Baptiste, you ought to have a countdown clock.

[Via Nestcape]

The standard del.icio.us bookmarklet is great—I especially like the auto-complete for tags—but sometimes it can be slow to load, which is a pain if you just want to slap a few new tags on a bookmark. John Resig has created the solution: the Super-Fast Delicious Bookmarklet. Once you've installed it—which is only slightly more involved than your usual bookmarklet—you can now bookmark a page in del.icio.us simply by typing "d", followed by your tags, into your address bar.