Speed Up Your Computer

If your computer is bogging down in software and who knows what, and you're tired of watching lines fill across your screen or rotating little icons, or whatever it takes to open applications you double-clicked on five minutes ago! ARGH!
That's it. Let's speed up the computer to get it to some sort of median usability again. Here's how.

Remove spyware, and help protect your computer from viruses

Spyware collects personal information without letting you know and without asking for permission. From the websites you visit to user names and passwords, spyware can put you and your confidential information at risk. In addition to privacy concerns, spyware can hamper your computer's performance. 

Download Microsoft Security Essentials for free to help guard your system in the future from viruses, spyware, adware, and other malicious software (also known as malware). Microsoft Security Essentials acts as a spyware removal tool and includes automatic updates to help keep your system protected from emerging threats.

The Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool is another utility that checks computers running Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows 2000, and Windows Server 2003 for infections by specific, prevalent malicious software, including Blaster, Sasser, and Mydoom, and helps remove any infection found.

 Free up disk space

The Disk Cleanup tool helps you to free up space on your hard disk to improve the performance of your computer. The tool identifies files that you can safely delete and then enables you to choose whether you want to delete some or all of the identified files.

Use Disk Cleanup to:

• Remove temporary Internet files.
• Delete downloaded program files, such as Microsoft ActiveX controls and Java applets.
• Empty the Recycle Bin.
• Remove Windows temporary files, such as error reports.

Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, point to System Tools, and then click Disk Cleanup. 

Remove the bloat

It's inevitable that over time you're going to collect a nice long list of applications you installed and used once out of curiosity. It's time to clean up the mess.
Head to your Control Pqnel > Uninstall a program (Windows Vista or Windows 7) or Add and Remove a Program (Windows XP). Start editing from the top of the list. Windows makes it easy to see what you use and don't by adding a column indicating the last time you used the program. A good rule of thumb: delete everything you haven't used in a month. If you miss it, you can always reinstall it later.


Defragment your hard drive


The more you use your hard drive, the more disorganized it can get behind the scenes. You don't see defragmentation in typical operating system usage. However, over time, the more spins your hard drive has to make in order to find the information you're looking for, the longer you have to wait.
Defragmenting your drive will reorganize and clean up your data so it is easily accessible and, therefore, faster to access.
Windows comes with an application that will defragment your hard drive for you. It's appropriately called Disk Defragmenter and you can find it in your Utilities folder.


Install More RAM


You can't beat physics. Your hard drive contains moving pieces and is slower than RAM. When you open applications and need more RAM than what you've got on your system, your operating system will partition a chunk of your hard drive to use as RAM in order to keep your applications running.
So while you're operating system doesn't grind to a halt (that's good), it slows to a snail's pace (that's bad). Remedy the situation by upgrading your RAM. RAM is getting cheaper, and really, you can't have enough.

From a Wiki How To Article and Microsoft At Work. http://www.microsoft.com/atwork/maintenance/speed.aspx

10 Technologies About to Go Extinct

1. Landline phones: Walk into any college dorm room and ask to use a landline. You'll be met with blank stares. With cell-phone technology continually evolving, it seems that these days only a handful of people are still moving into a new house and having the landline turned on.

2. Floppy disks If you still have a few lying around, they make great coasters.

3. Wristwatches: Throwing on a fancy watch may make you look professional, but let's be honest. Cell phones and iPods tell you the time when you're out and about, and virtually every appliance in your home — from your refrigerator to your coffeemaker to your television and your DVD player — has a clock. No one wears a wristwatch anymore, unless he or she grew up with one.

4. VHS tape and VCRs: Many people still keep VCRs around for when grandparents ask to see that old tape of little Bobby — who's now 22 and fresh out of college — shoving cake into his mouth on his first birthday. And you could always turn your VCR into a toaster.

5. Beepers: Annoying devices designed to beep any and every time anyone felt like reaching you, it wasn't sad at all to see these disappear when cell-phone plans dropped below $50 a month around the year 2000.

6. Film cameras: When Polaroid announced in February 2008 that it would stop selling its famous instant-developing film, people ran out to buy up the remaining stock in order to preserve this unique form of photography. Kodak and Fuji still make film, but they, like Polaroid, are counting on their digital-camera lines to keep them afloat.

7. Typewriters: Once one of the most powerful means of mass communication, the typewriter claimed a spot near the top of the technological food chain for more than 100 years.
Today, all that remains is the illogical QWERTY keyboard, which was created to force the typist to go more slowly so the keys wouldn't jam up.

8. The Walkman, Discman and MiniDisc player: The multitasker's dream, the Sony Walkman portable cassette player changed the way the world listened to music in 1979, quickly becoming the hottest accessory of the early 1980s.

9. Dial-up Internet access: It's hard to see why anyone would use a phone line to connect to the Internet when there are so many feasible alternatives.

10. DVDs: What's that, you say? How can DVDs be obsolete? Facts don't lie — DVD sales fell off the proverbial cliff in the first three months of 2009, with some retailers reporting a 40 percent drop from the same period a year earlier.

The fact is that with broadband Internet, you don't need a disc to watch a movie any more. Netflix and Blockbuster have recognized that by rapidly ramping up their online-download services.

Excerpts from a 2009 Fox News Story

Read the story in its entirety at http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,515647,00.html