 | June 29, 2007
Clean up to speed up!
 Jay, a.k.a. “The Cubicle Superhero”, is a self-professed tech junkie with a passion for music and culture  Email Jay
As the Tech Mates Summer Tune-Up 2007 series continues to heat up, we'll be highlighting key techniques to improve your Rogers Yahoo! Internet experience. Today's lesson may save you cost of a new computer, if not your sanity. We're talking, of course, about computer cleanup.
Beyond wiping off the keyboard every now and then, dusting off the screen or vacuuming out the dust bunnies from the fan, your PC's digital parts need attention too.
Prevention is the best medicine
Without a healthy operating system, well-organized hard drive and up-to-date security, you're at a huge and dangerous disadvantage. It's akin to walking into a football game without a helmet, and later wondering why your head hurts. A computer "tune-up" through LiveCoach or local computer shop might be a good idea to deal with a critical virus infection or system problem (the headache), but with a little self-maintenance, and care, most infections can be handled at home (the helmet).
Know thy enemy
Let's get your computer running in tip top condition. We'll start with the serious stuff: infections. Spyware causes issues like strange browser toolbars, pop-ups, or problems loading web pages. Beyond these minor annoyances, spyware creates performance issues and privacy risks. In serious cases spyware payload can even harvest user information and track your activity on the web. Nasty stuff.
Malware and Viruses are malicious programs designed to enter and infect your computer in thousands of different ways. Despite their ingenuity, the two most overwhelming sources of infection continue to be Email and Peer-to-Peer applications.
Stranger danger
Clicking on images, links or attachments within messages from senders you don't know is never a good idea. You computer-based email users (Thunderbird, Outlook, Outlook Express, Incredimail) might consider moving to the Rogers Yahoo! Beta online email system. Every attachment is scanned by the Rogers email servers using reliable Symantec anti-virus filters. Also, storage limits have just been removed, meaning you can leave all your mail online, just as you do with the email client on your computer. Using the web-based email system also makes your secure address book and login available wherever you log on.
Grey areas cost you green
Avoiding P2P programs like Gnutella, LimeWire, Kazaa, Shareaza, BearShare and Bittorrent apps will make you far less susceptible to infection. Many of the programs themselves contain Spyware, and adware that chokes your Internet connection, and bogs down your processor. And once you get these running, the files they pull down are often laced with viruses planted by hackers and artists themselves. Get them off your system; they are bad news all around. For movies, check out the ubiquitous Zip.ca and for music consider an all-you-can-eat subscription to the Rogers Yahoo! Music Unlimited. You'll fall in love with it...I did.
Free healthcare
All of this is fantastic, unless you feel you may have already been infected. We have tested many programs in the LiveCoach centre and by far our favorite for dealing with spyware is Spybot Search and Destroy. Spybot's "immunize" feature intercepts requests to known-bad web pages before they load on your machine. This link from the University of Washington will walk you through the installation and setup. A good online scanner, although slower, will also help to clear out issues. Check out the extensive Microsoft Live scanner or the tried and true Housecall scanner.
Slim down your Start Up
OK let's assume any Spyware on the machine has been cleaned out. From the Control Panel, click on Add or Remove Programs and glance through the list. Are there any programs you no longer use? When in doubt it's best to leave the program installed.
Other serious resource hogs are programs set to start when Windows launches. Take a look to the bottom right, by the clock. See those little icons? They represent programs that are running right now. Right click on any one of them and see if the program allows you to deselect the option to "Launch when Windows starts." Also check under Start-> All Programs -> Startup. If you're certain they're not needed, items can be removed from this directory too.
Double-click MyComputer and say "ahh"
Okay, let's take a look at the actual hard drive itself. Before we really dig in, this step will correct any errors found on the surface of the disk, or in the file structure. It could take a few hours for larger drives, but can run pretty much unattended:
- Open My Computer
- Right click on the icon for your C: drive and click Properties
- Click the Tools tab, and click Check Now
- Tick both options and sit back as your drive is repaired
Take out the trash
In the next two steps we're going to get rid of all those little useless files that windows piles up during operation. You'll be amazed how these things pile up. For example, I regularly see customers with enough data to fill a DVD clogging up their computer:
- First open up Internet Explorer and click Tools from the Menu bar
- Click the General Tab (you should be there by default)
- Click the Delete Files button and wait for the hourglass icon to disappear
- Click OK to close the menu
Now we'll use the Windows Disk Cleanup utility to remove temporary files from the rest of the computer:
- Click Start -> hover over All Programs
- Hover over Accessories -> System Tools -> Disk cleanup
- Place a tick in each box for the items you would like to remove
Get it together
Next we'll defragment the drive. This process groups programs into the same physical area on the drive. Like a record, data is organized in this way, the hard drive's read head doesn't have to work quite as hard and speeds up access.
Various add-on software packages will do this for you, but Windows XP's Disk Defragmenter will quite capably handle the job. First you'll need to ensure you're logged in with an Administrator username. Again this one may take over an hour. - Click Start -> hover over All Programs
- Hover over Accessories -> System Tools -> Disk Defragmenter
- Click the drive to check, click Analyze and if recommended, Defragment
Secure your investment
At this point, you should see a performance improvement, especially once you restart your machine. You'll want to protect your hard work in the future, and for this, Rogers Yahoo! Online Protection is an excellent choice. Tech Mates has covered this in previous pieces, so you might want to read over the instructions before you wade into it.
If you don't meet the minimum system requirements, it may be time to consider a memory upgrade. A small investment of less than $100 for RAM memory will noticeably improve your machines ability to handle today's intensive, sophisticated programs. AVG is a good free alternative if you fall below the minimum system requirements.
Phew, with all that hard work out of the way, it's time to sit back and enjoy what your fresh, clean computer can do now. Grab a cool beverage and head on over to the exclusive Rogers Yahoo! Movies site. You've earned it.
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