Routine Maintenance
Today, I will talk about Routine Maintenance. ''Interesting topic,'' as we all need to keep our system running smooth and virus-free!
''Warning! The use of this section is at your own risk and should only be used after backing up your computer.''Today, most of us uses of computer to write/read Emails, surfs the net, or doing some research on your school works, and downloading music, files, and games. However, sometime you may find your System running slow due to Viruses, errors, and pop-ups.
Unfortunately, a computer is just like an automobile. It needs maintenance like changing oil, rotate tires at every 6,000 miles, and an annual check-up. Therefore, if we don’t maintain our car, what would you think it will happen? It will eventually start giving us some problems. Although the computer does not have oil to change but there are several maintenance steps you should use to keep your computer running smoothly and reduce the number of day-to-day headaches.
Tips:
Keep It Running Cool
System needs to keep cool due to high-volume of usage. In one sense, overheating is due to clogged vents, especially laptops. Using ''Air Duster,'' gently blows all vents and an openings place on your computer including the screen. Better still, if you feel comfortable with removing the cover on your computer, you can clean-out all dust from the inside as well.
Backing up Data
This is the (Not-To-Ignore) methods. A virus, power-shortage or a hard drive failure could wipe out everything you had in your computer. Therefore, backing up your computer is critical. Please don’t wait until it is too late. There are dozens of ways to backup you data. Some offers an online storage services, or you can just simply copy everything you had on your hard-drive to a DVD disc. But make sure to give your disc a name like ''Back-up Data'' so that you’ll know the disc containing data.
Complete Recovery or Reinstalling stage
A Complete Recovery is a way of restoring your computer. No one wants to do this of course, but sometimes restoring your computer is a way to return a computer its original stage. This process is done only when your computer has viruses, spyware, adware, malware and when you accidently delete the system files.
Routine Maintenance Instructions
Step 1: Clean your Recycle Bin
The Recycle Bin is where Windows stores everything that you have deleted and it needs to emptied every once and awhile. To do this, you would double click the Recycle Bin and the Windows is open-up, there, you will have to click on Empty Recycle Bin option on top. However, if you run Disk Clean-up, you will also have an option to clean this out at the same time while cleaning other unnecessary data.
Step 2: Clearing Internet Cookies/History/Temporary Internet Files/ Form data/Passwords
This is a small tidbit of information that is placed on your computer by some website to perform certain jobs. Have you ever wonder why your user name still saved at certain site log-in? Well, this information has been stored in the Cookies. Therefore, if you surf the net a lot this information can really build up and you may want to clean these out. To do this, simply start your browser ''Internet Explorer'', ''Fire-Fox'', ''Opera'' ..ect, and click on Tools > Internet Options, then in General tab select Delete. There, you will have five Delete options, click on Delete Cookies button, and validate the option by clicking ''Yes''.
Follow the same process to delete History, Temporary Internet Files, Form data, and Passwords: Internet History is where you computer keeps track of pages you have visited on the internet over a period of time. Temporary Internet Files is a place holder for all you temporary website, images, and media that are saved for faster viewing. Form data, this is where your personal information has typed in certain pages. Password is a place where all your passwords are stored. By deleting these options, your computer will enhance its performance, and to secure your personal information as other person may gets on your computer and see these information.
Step 3: Checking Antivirus Status
Antivirus software like ''Norton Internet Security'' is the important software that keeps you system from getting viruses. Make sure this software is enabled, and are up-to-date and has not expired. Today, most viruses are targeting the antivirus software to disable them, so, make sure to check this carefully and scan you system at least once a week.
Step 4: Defrag you Hard-drive
Defrag you Hard-drive is the must use process. Defragging you Hard-drive will enhance your system performance by 65%. This is because of over time, your hard drive becomes fragmented which means that the data that is stored on you hard drive is spread out to different locations and take-up Windows spaces and looses it performance.
Step 5: Run Spyware software
Spyware software is one of your most important tasks in removing any spyware/adware on your computer. If you don’t have one installed on your computer you can download it free at www.download.com.
Step 6: Updating Windows
You must always keep your Windows up-to-date by updating them. Click on Start > All Files in the option list look for Windows Update. This will validate if your Windows is up-to-date. Also, go on to Control Panel to make sure the Automatic update option is checked so that Windows will automatically update it for you.
If you have any question you may also post your comment in the Discussion Forum.
March 2, 2009
By: William nguyen
|
Discuss this |
