Recently I asked everyone that I could think of, “Are you having any computer problems?” Here are the top five responses:
- My computer is slow at start up.
- Why is my computer slow to start?
- My computer is running very slow.
- My computer has become slow.
- How do I speed up my computer?
It didn’t take me long to realize there was a theme here… so I thought I would put together all my best computer tips and hints in one place for people to easily find. Computers today are so much more powerful than those of just a few years ago and programmers are so lazy.
Couple that with the viral explosion of the Internet and you get a much more difficult situation for any computer manufacturer, that being to get a product onto the market that just about anyone can use straight out of the box without expert knowledge and tweaking.
We also have to consider the way advertising revenues can be made on the Internet. If, as an advertising agent, you can show that millions of computers have displayed your customers ad, then you get paid and get paid big!
All these things result in loads of automated systems running around on the Internet looking for computers that they can manipulate. If you are one of the unlucky people that have no idea that any of this is happening and no idea what to do about it then you may find this site extremely enlightening.
Has your computer become slower? Are you having problems running the programs that used to work flawlessly? Have your kids gone back to college leaving your computer rendered useless?
These things happen, but if you follow the simple guidelines that we are going to offer, then you should be able to improve your current situation and protect against future set backs.
Good luck
John
I would love to hear your opinion. Please add your comments below.
Filed under Computers, Welcome by on Nov 4th, 2009. Comment. 
Going Back In Time
We are going to put your system through it’s paces in this course.
We will be tweaking and cleaning and adjusting and testing and then tweaking some more until we get it running the way we want it.
During this process it is feasible that something won’t go according to plan or may have some unexpected consequences that are undesirable so we need to be able to get back to a point in time where things were better.
So what we need to do is to set a restore point BEFORE we get into any trouble.
It would be a good idea to check and see if the time and date are correct on your computer as the system will time-stamp the restore point.
Right click on the system clock in the bottom right hand corner of your screen and select “Adjust Date/Time” adjust the settings as necessary and click OK. Then we can proceed to set the restore point.
Here’s how:
Go to “START -> ALL PROGRAMS -> ACCESSORIES -> SYSTEM TOOLS -> SYSTEM RESTORE”
In Windows XP…
Click the “Create a restore point” radio button and then click the “Next” button
In Windows Vista…
Click on the link that says “open System Protection” then pick where you want to create your restore point and click the “Create…” button.
In the Restore point description box type something like
“Working well, about to install Microsoft Updates”
or maybe you could describe the particular problem you are experiencing like
“Screen resolution bad, webcam not working, system slow”
or anything else that will let you know what you were about to do, or what problems you were trying to repair, the current date and time will be automatically added to your comment so that you will know when the restore point was created.
Click the “Create” button and you will soon get a message telling you that your restore point has been created.
Click the “Close” button (“OK” button in Vista) and you are done.
Good Luck
John
I would love to hear your opinion. Please add your comments below.
Filed under Backup, Computers by on Nov 5th, 2009. Comment.
Go Back In Time
In a previous lesson we learned how to set a restore point in case things went wrong.
Before we start tweaking things we should know how to use that restore point to return from any troubles. So now we are going to learn how to use that information to effectively “turn back the hands of time” and remove any tweaks that we may have applied that really just made things worse rather than better.
Here is what you would do.
Go to “START -> ALL PROGRAMS -> ACCESSORIES -> SYSTEM TOOLS -> SYSTEM RESTORE”
In Windows XP…
Click the “Restore my computer to an earlier time” radio button and then click the “Next” button.
Click the “Restore my computer to an earlier time” radio button and then click the “Next” button.
Select the restore point of your choice and click on the “Next” button.
This action will bring you to a screen explaining what will happen next and advising you to save any open work and to close any running programs. Follow the instructions and click on the “Next” button.
Your computer will reboot and present you with a screen explaining that it has just performed a restore, click on “OK” and you are good to go.
In Windows Vista…
Choose either the “Recommended restore” radio button or the “Choose a different restore point” radio button, click the “Next” button you will see a list of restore points available, click on one of them, then you will have to confirm that you want to do this and then restart the computer.
Good luck,
John
I would love to hear your opinion. Please add your comments below.
Filed under Computers, Restore by on Nov 6th, 2009. Comment.
Is your operating system up to date?
Well, the way the Internet is being used by hackers, crackers, crooks and thieves it had better be!
Nowadays Internet Explorer has a pretty rough reputation and many so called “experts” are recommending that you use a different browser for surfing the Internet.
That is all well and good, feel free to use whatever you want but just remember one little thing…
To upgrade Microsoft Windows you need to use Microsoft Internet Explorer.
Have you heard of “PATCH TUESDAY”?
Every second Tuesday of the month, Microsoft releases any security patches that they have been working on, sometimes, if a dangerous enough exploit has been found, they release patches on other days of the month as well.
Everything happens at light speed nowadays and that includes the bad stuff, so it is really, really important to keep your computer up to date with the latest security updates, this means that you should check at least on a monthly basis.
But you should make it a habit to not just check for but also to download and install ALL the updates from Microsoft for your system.
If you are running Windows XP, fire up Internet Explorer and click on “TOOLS -> WINDOWS UPDATE” this will bring you to the Microsoft Update site.
For Vista users, go to “START -> CONTROL PANEL -> WINDOWS UPDATE” this will bring you to the Microsoft Update site.
Click on the “Custom” button, yes, I know, Microsoft recommend you click on the “Express” button, but you do want to fix your problems don’t you? Then you are going to need the latest and greatest drivers and software versions available so click the “Custom” button.
Remember, if you just click on the “Express” button or worse yet if you rely on the automatic function of Windows Update you may NOT get all the security updates you need only the ones that Microsoft in their infinite wisdom decide are “critical” and lets face it, with all the security patches they are releasing on their own products do you really want to let THEM decide what is critical for YOUR system?
Select and install everything they offer. You may need to reboot your computer a number of times but just keep going until there are no more updates available.
Good luck,
John
I would love to hear your opinion. Please add your comments below.
Filed under Anti Virus, Browsers, Computers, Internet, Malware, Spyware, Updates by on Nov 7th, 2009. Comment.
Check Your Hard Drive(s)
Now that we have a mechanism in place to return to “normal”
if we break something, we should make sure that the hard drive is in
good shape.
Here is what we do.
Go to “Start -> My Computer”
Right click on Disk (C:)
Select “Properties”
Select the “Tools” tab
In the “Error-checking” box select the “Check Now” button
Check the “Automatically fix file system errors” box and the
“Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors” box
Click “Start”
You will get a message saying that the disk check can only be
performed by restarting Windows and ask if you want to schedule the
disk check for the next reboot. Choose “Yes” and restart your computer.
When your computer comes back after the check, if you have
other hard drives or partitions, repeat the disk check on those as
well. You will probably not get the warning message requiring a reboot
for these disks or partitions, instead the check will just run.
If you have Internet access and your computer is still able
to download files then you may want to get the free utility called HD
Tune. You can get this from
With HD Tune you can perform benchmark tests on your hard
disk, examine any partitions there, check on the health of your disk as
reported by the hard disk’s internal S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring
Analysis and Reporting Technology) software and perform an error scan
on the drive. The HD Tune utility also displays the current temperature
of the drive so that you can see if there may be any troubles coming up
in the future.
If you do discover that there are problems then I am afraid
it is time to open up the wallet. The first thing I would recommend is
Spinrite from Gibson Research Company. This is the best ever hard drive
diagnostics and repair tool, very reasonably priced it is a must have
purchase for anyone who wants to maintain their own equipment.
If Spinrite can’t fix it, then you have two options left,
either send the drive out to a recovery company who may charge you
hundreds of dollars and they will get what they can off the drive, or
bin it and buy a new one.
Good luck,
John
I would love to hear your opinion. Please add your comments below.
Filed under Computers, Hard Disks, Hardware by on Nov 8th, 2009. Comment.
Empty The Recycle Bin And Lose The Temp Files
Now we know that the hard drive is running OK, it’s time to ditch the junk.
Empty your recycle bin. Get rid of all the temporary files that you don’t need and lazy programmers leave behind.
Just a word of caution:
If you use your computer on banking sites or other sites that require a password to log-in and your computer automatically enters your password, make sure that you know what that log-in and password is because the steps outlined here can cause your computer to “forget” those log-in details.
Got all your password info?
Great, let’s move on.
Go to “Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Disk Cleanup”
Select the disk you want to clean from the drop down menu and click “OK”.
The system will gather some information and present you with a list of file locations that it can clean up for you.
If you highlight the location you can click on the “View Files” button to see what it has found.
Check the boxes for the locations you want to clean and click “OK”.
You will get a message asking if you are sure you want to do this, if you are sure than click “OK”
It’s surprising how much junk just gets left lying around isn’t it?
There is also a great utility program available for this called CrapCleaner, (now CCleaner) available from
One added bonus with CCleaner is that it has a great Registry Cleaner built in, you are going to need one of these later, so why not get it now?
When you run CCleaner you are presented with lots of check boxes where you can specify what you want to clean. Until you get practiced with CCleaner you should first
use the Analyze button which will allow you to see what CCleaner thinks it should remove, nothing will actually be deleted until you hit the Run Cleaner button.
Don’t forget to get all your password info first, once it’s gone, it’s probably gone for good.
Good luck,
John
I would love to hear your opinion. Please add your comments below.
Filed under Cleanup, Computers, Software by on Nov 11th, 2009. Comment.
Remove Unwanted Programs
OK, so we are all guilty of installing programs on our computers and then forgetting all about them. You know the story, you see a link and you think you just have to have that program, it will solve the problem that you are having and you just have to get it right now! Only to find that either it didn’t live up to the hype, or it didn’t work properly, if at all, or it worked and you never needed it again.
Well now is the time to go looking for any programs that fit those descriptions and get them out of there!
This is what we do:
Go to “Start -> Control Panel -> Add or Remove Programs”
(In Vista it’s called “Programs and Features”)
You will see a list of the programs installed on your computer which Windows thinks it knows how to remove.
Up in the top right hand corner you get the option to sort the program list by either Name, Size, Frequency of Use or Date Last Used. You also get a check box which will display any updates to your programs. Pick your poison.
Highlight any of these that you don’t want or use anymore and click the REMOVE button, the program should get uninstalled.
There is also an option here where you can Add or Remove Windows Components. Take a look in there and see if there are any Windows Components that you don’t need.
Caution, don’t be tempted to get rid of Internet Explorer, you are going to need to keep that around even if you prefer to use a different browser, you need it to update Windows.
Guess which other utility has an add/remove programs tool… Yes, it’s our favorite all purpose tool, CCleaner! Fire up CCleaner and click on Tools then click on Uninstall, highlight the program you want to get rid of and click the “Run Uninstaller” button.
Good luck,
John
I would love to hear your opinion. Please add your comments below.
Filed under Cleanup, Computers, Software by on Nov 12th, 2009. Comment.
Check Your Start-up Programs
Programmers just love to have their stuff start up in the background every time you boot up your computer. Who needs that? It’s your computer not theirs.
I’ll start my own programs when I need them thank you very much.
We will use the Microsoft System Configuration utility to see which programs are starting up every time we boot.
Here is how:
Go to “Start -> Run”
Type “msconfig” in the box and click “OK”
Click on the “Start-up” tab and uncheck any programs that you do not want to start automatically when Windows boots up. This will not uninstall the programs it will just prevent them from running at boot up time.
Click on the “OK” button.
Now reboot your computer and make sure everything is working the way you want it to.
If anything got broken, you can always go back into MSConfig and recheck the items in the “Start-up” tab and reboot again.
There are some other free ways of accomplishing this as well:
SysInternals Autoruns.
If you want to know everything about the startup process then this is the program for you, you can get it here
http://download.sysinternals.com/Files/Autoruns.zip
You will be stunned by the amount of startup entries there are for a typical system, and like MSConfig, you just uncheck the ones that you do not want to start on bootup.
CCleaner.
Get it here
Yes good old CCleaner has a Startup tool built into it, simply start CCleaner, go to “Tools”, click on “Startup” and in this utility you highlight the entries that you do not want to start and then hit the disable button.
Good luck,
John
I would love to hear your opinion. Please add your comments below.
Filed under Cleanup, Computers, Software by on Nov 13th, 2009. Comment.
Check For Viruses
Everyone, I mean EVERYONE needs to be running a good antivirus program. It’s just too dangerous out there not to do this.
What do I mean by a good antivirus program and how do you tell? It needs to update itself on a regular basis. Every 4 hours is what some so called “experts” recommend, but hey, once a day would probably be OK for most people. If you want to play it safe then run the update sequence first whenever you turn on your computer and if you are going to be downloading anything or surfing to sites that you are not sure about.
Most new computers nowadays come with a trial subscription for an Antivirus program, if yours did and it hasn’t run out yet, make sure that it is up to date. If your subscription has expired or you never had one to begin with you can run online antivirus scans from most of the big antivirus vendors websites, here are a few of them:
Trend Micro HouseCall
http://housecall.trendmicro.com/housecall
Kaspersky Lab Online Scanner
http://www.kaspersky.com/virusscanner
McAfee FreeScan
http://us.mcafee.com/root/mfs/default.asp
ESET Online Antivirus Scanner
http://www.eset.com/onlinescan/
These can get you out of a quick jam, but you really need to have an antivirus program installed on your computer.
There are some free ones out there such as:
AVG available from
http://free.avg.com/ww.download-avg-anti-virus-free-edition
Or my personal favorite avast! antivirus available from< /p>
http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html
If you have a preferred vendor that you are comfortable with then go with them.
Either free or paid for, antivirus software is a MUST HAVE, MUST USE!
JUST DO IT!
One little word of caution. You only want ONE antivirus program installed on your computer, if you have more than one they will fight each other so pick the one you like and go for it. You can however run the online scanners from different companys without causing problems.
Good luck,
John
I would love to hear your opinion. Please add your comments below.
Filed under Anti Virus, Cleanup, Computers, Software by on Nov 16th, 2009. Comment.
Check For Spyware
You need a good anti spyware program, again it should update itself or be updated by you on a regular basis.
Spyware is more difficult to protect against than a virus because the definitions of spyware have different meanings to different people and software providers.
Some remote control programs that Network Administrators find invaluable are considered spyware by some software vendors because they allow remote control of the computer but hey, that is their purpose in life! So anti spyware programs can alarm you with their results if you don’t take the time to carefully analyze those results.
In most cases there is a way to flag your useful programs if they do cause an alert so that it won’t keep happening, of course it is a double edged sword, if you use too broad of a flag then you may lower your detection rate to a point that something bad gets ignored. Hey, no one said this would be easy!
Free Anti Spyware programs include:
Lavasoft’s Ad-Aware SE, Personal Edition
http://www.lavasoft.de/software/adaware/
Microsoft Windows Defender
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/computer/default.mspx
Spybot Search & Destroy
http://www.safer-networking.org/
But if you feel better paying for software then there are these:
Navarre Webroot Spy Sweeper
http://www.webroot.com/En_US/index.html
Macafee Virus Scan and Anti Spyware
Get one or more of these, run them and see what you find, it may have amazing results.
Now, unlike antivirus programs you can have as many antispyware programs installed as you like.
My personal favourite is MalwareBytes available here
Good luck,
John
I would love to hear your opinion. Please add your comments below.
