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Thursday, February 28th, 2008
at 12:39am
Even though it has all been said many times and in many places, it will never be enough until every computer user knows exactly how to properly care for their computer… inside and out. One of my regular community members who goes by the handle of Night sent in the following list. These are ten excellent ways to take good care of your computer.
I am avid about my computer’s performance and so I take a great deal of care in keeping it running smoothly. It is often little more than running a scan once every week or taking 5 minutes out of your schedule to wipe your computer case’s exterior of dust. I have several friends who several times within a year find themselves with a system full of spyware/adware, occasionally in a completely un-usable state. I rack my brain trying to figure out how the heck this is possible if I’ve never had any major incidents; we’ve all had one or two in our life since being online, but repeatedly is counter-productive and unnecessary.
Stick to what you know and trust. Often times we have friends who spend their days doing God knows what, visiting websites that are unknown or full of ads. There’s a reason they have so many ads, pop-ups, etc. Sites that are heavily covered in advertising are dependent on it for maintaining their service online, however, some merely use this to make money. I am not going to put down other search engines, but I am going to say, stick to Google. I have always used Google as my primary search engine since it came online years ago and have yet to be directed at a site that caused me any types of issues. It was when visiting sites that were out of the ordinary that i found myself at risk.
Don’t download everything you see. Just because it’s freeware does not mean you must have it. Several of these programs come with a catch. Real world rules apply online, trust no one or only those you know, but always be wary. Some things you really need, you shouldn’t cut corners on. Sure, that program does the same thing as this, and yes it’s free, but it comes full of spyware and internet trackers. I’d rather pay $10 and have my peace of mind.
Be paranoid. More often than not, this alone will keep your system safe and clean. Can you afford down time? Maybe you can. But it’s time wasted over poor judgment.
How well do you know this person? I must confess, one time several years ago I met this person online. I had a program I wanted to try out. It was a netbus trojan. Sure enough, I gained their confidence, had them try it out, disguised as a fun game. I had them visit a site through which I was able to capture their IP address. It was all for fun, all I did was open their tray a few times, scare them a little. And after, well, I felt bad, and worried. It’s easy to trust someone you’ve never met based on their word, however, it’s a bad call on your part. If someone sends you something always, always, ALWAYS scan it before you run it. And if it’s an *.exe file, don’t run it. Ask them for a link to the site where they got it from and try it there. If they can’t provide one, you’re better off missing out on the “fun”.
Scan your system. There are a multitude of free applications from known and trusted developers available online. AVG, Avast!, DrWeb CureIt!, SuperAntiSpyware, Comodo, etc.. the list goes on. There is no reason for you not to have at the very least an Anti-Virus. Nevermind the fact that some of the more well known products are resource hogs that just bog down your system, people have them installed. If you bought a new pc recently, chances are it came with your system. For those of you who don’t have one already, get one. AVG and Avast are free Anti-Virus programs. I use AVG myself and i am firm on what i run on my hardware. If it slows my system down at all, I’d rather not run it. If you’re paranoid about being online from hackers, you can try Comodo firewall. It’s free for personal use and it’s among the best, if not the best. A simple scan once a day will keep you safe.
Defrag your drive. It can be scheduled to run once a week at any time, I’d suggest while you’re sleeping or when you’re away from home as it can take several minutes to an hour or two if you have a large drive. This is important in maintaining an optimal running system. Heck, do it right now, go get some air, go grab a bite away from the screen for a few, talk to your siblings, or your parents, give that friend a call like you’ve been meaning to.
Organize your files. If you were more strict about where you put this and that, you wouldn’t waste time having to search through entire folders to find a single file. Keep a folder for your downloads, a folder for your documents, a folder for your programs, etc. It’s a bit of work at first to set up, but once it’s in place, you’ll be so much more efficient you’ll wonder why you hadn’t done it sooner. This also makes it easier when using applications that scan for a certain type of file ie: Winamp, WiMP, etc. These programs will offer to scan your entire computer looking for specific files, now, if you kept them all in a specific folder, you just point it there, it does its job and you’re able to enjoy it rather than having it scan your entire system pointlessly.
Finally, just learn when to say no. If it looks questionable, just say no and go elsewhere. You know when you’re somewhere you shouldn’t be. A folder on your system or a site online. Give a 5 year old a box of crayons and put him in a room with no paper and blank white walls, what’s gonna happen? Don’t be that 5 year old. You receive an email from someone you don’t know, it has an attachment..hmm, what should I do? you know what to do. Curiosity is a dangerous thing here too.
In closing, what else can I say but, be aware of your surroundings. You know some people here, you know there are bad among the good, don’t forget that and you should be okay. I’ll add one more pun to this, it’s like the ad for safe driving, “Just because you’re a good computer user, doesn’t mean your friends are”. How do you think most of the major viruses/worms have spread so fast? Let your friends know what you know so they can be safe as well. If they put you at risk, maybe you should be more careful about how you interact with them. Just a thought.
Oh, and if you’re gonna keep your computer on the floor, have a can of compressed air handy, blast them every now and then and airflow should not be a problem. Think of it as keeping your computer’s pores clean, you don’t want it getting a pimple do you?
Use Optimize 3.0 to clear out your registry, and get rid of pesky errors that can threaten the stability of your machine. It's also easy to use to kill off unneeded processes that may be hogging up your memory - and will help speed up your boot times.
16 Comments
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February 28th, 2008
at 10:14am
Posted on February 28th, 2008 in 1964 No Responses TechnoratiJuha-Matti Lauriowrote an interesting post today on Here’s a quick excerpt Tips for Keeping your Computer Running Perfectly Even though it has all been said many times and in many places, it will never be enough until every computer user knows exactly how to
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February 28th, 2008
at 8:29am
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dGnome33
February 28th, 2008
at 11:10am
I go a little further than this. I follow most of the principles detailed above, but as an expansion to the file organisation, I use partitions for different purposes, instead of folders. For example, drive C: would be my OS (kept as clean as possible, naturally), D: would be for applications except games which are stored on my RAID 0 array. I also have a 10Gb partition for downloads. Anything really important also gets backed up onto dvd, AND and external HDD. So in effect I have a 3-way backup.
This way, should anything ever go wrong and my OS needs to be reinstalled, I always have access to everything I need to restore back to how my system was. No lengthy downloads required. Job done!
joelg88
February 28th, 2008
at 2:26pm
These are great tips. Many people have slow systems because they download everything they see or dont need. Then they get Spyware and all that junk and they end up with SLOW systems. People should learn to take care of there computers because if not your going to end up with a slow computer.
Luis rodriguez
February 28th, 2008
at 9:31pm
Chris i repair pc on my spare time and i have to say nobody follows these rules.Unfortunately.
Joseph Kankowski
February 28th, 2008
at 10:25pm
Nice tips chris, i never thought that dusting a pc regulary would keep unwanted performance avoided. And That was funny to what u did to that guy you met online, it made me pee myself laughing!! Keep it up chris!!
Brightstar
February 28th, 2008
at 10:28pm
Another addition to this would be to run a chkdsk/scandisk with a thorough setting. That way you can make sure your hard disks are doing fine and you won’t be surprised if you start hearing a bad scrathing sound one day.
Ziegler
February 29th, 2008
at 12:23am
These tips are great,I follow them all the time.I also sometimes wonder how is it possible that my friends face all these strange computer issues and I have no problems what so-ever. Oh and its nice to know that I’m not the only one whos paranoid when it comes to computer safety,lol ;)…
Hammer_of_Dawn
February 29th, 2008
at 12:50pm
Essential software for PC maintenance
-Scans: AVG, Spybot, HijackThis
-Safe browser : Opera
-Disk cleanup : Ccleaner
-Defragmentation: Diskeeper 2008 Pro.
Also remember to update drivers as new ones are released.
Thats’ all I use. Number of viruses in 1 year since the current windows install : zero
shawn
February 29th, 2008
at 8:44pm
i was not running my comp right and payed for it drely my comp went into pc recovery and everything i had was gone so if you wont to keep downloading thingd and not doing a system check for a long time then you may be screwed like me
kaleltr00p3r
February 29th, 2008
at 8:54pm
Chris i like your tips and to tell all that READ this do not download and you will be fine!!!!! and dont use p2p thats like lime wire or kazza so ya nice work Chris
DJ124
February 29th, 2008
at 8:58pm
Hey chirs i agree with what u say but i think if you have windows then you can use the updates to keep your computer safe and use a password to protect your computer because i know many people that don’t use password and thats a problem and lastly you should always update your anti-virus software and if you don’t have it then you should get a anti-virus software to help your computer. and just to add like chris said don’t download programs that you don’t use at all.
^ir|sh^
February 29th, 2008
at 9:07pm
I swear my day is not complete if i dont get some chris info.. this is great!
Robin
March 30th, 2009
at 1:09am
Keep your computer running like new.
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