WHAT SHOULD I DO TO KEEP MY COMPUTER RUNNING WELL?
Daily: Back up your data every day. This cannot be emphasized enough. Hard drives fail and often they give no warning. If you don't have a current backup, you may lose all your documents, music, pictures, emails, etc. Read more about having a backup plan here.
Weekly: Clean up the detrius that collects on your computer from regular web surfing and general use. Download CCleaner, a great program for cleaning unused and temporary files from your system. Before running, we uncheck the boxes next to "Cookies", "History", "Recently typed URLs" and "Autocomplete Form History" so we don't loose all of our saved passwords and information in our browsers.
Scan for malware. No anti-virus program is perfect so get a second opinion every week. You don't have to pay for that second opinion, either. Two programs we recommend are Malwarebytes and SuperAntiSpyware. Both are free and are incredibly good at sniffing out malware (trojan horses, spyware, adware, etc) and removing it from your computer.
Make sure your anti-virus program is up-to-date. Also, make sure you've installed any Microsoft updates, Adobe updates and Java updates.
Monthly: Defragment your hard drive. With Vista and Windows 7, this can be done automatically so you don't have to pay attention. With Windows XP, you'll have to manually run the defragmenter. Over time, files become fragmented, split over multiple physical parts of the hard drive. Defragmenting is like organizing a closet, except it's your hard drive!
Weekly: Clean up the detrius that collects on your computer from regular web surfing and general use. Download CCleaner, a great program for cleaning unused and temporary files from your system. Before running, we uncheck the boxes next to "Cookies", "History", "Recently typed URLs" and "Autocomplete Form History" so we don't loose all of our saved passwords and information in our browsers.
Scan for malware. No anti-virus program is perfect so get a second opinion every week. You don't have to pay for that second opinion, either. Two programs we recommend are Malwarebytes and SuperAntiSpyware. Both are free and are incredibly good at sniffing out malware (trojan horses, spyware, adware, etc) and removing it from your computer.
Make sure your anti-virus program is up-to-date. Also, make sure you've installed any Microsoft updates, Adobe updates and Java updates.
Monthly: Defragment your hard drive. With Vista and Windows 7, this can be done automatically so you don't have to pay attention. With Windows XP, you'll have to manually run the defragmenter. Over time, files become fragmented, split over multiple physical parts of the hard drive. Defragmenting is like organizing a closet, except it's your hard drive!
