2012 has come and gone. For most of us, it was a year to be celebrated, while for others we struggled to come out of it with a long list of factors to avoid this New Year.
While I had my share of mouth-watering success last year, I must acknowledge the fact that among the factors that gave me hard time was computer catastrophes; errors, bugs with computer utilities, crashes due to foreign programs and sluggishness due insufficient memory and depletion of system resources.
Perhaps all this happened due to over-use, which I don’t see as a good excuse – what do you expect of us that work online. We are always with our PC and do always want it at its best, and when it comes short of its expectations, it sucks our time away and goes onto waste other resources.
Hence as part of my initial actions to make 2013 the best it can be, here are few things I’ve done which I suppose will give you a lead on pc optimization and tuning.
Clean Up My Disk
Chances are, your computer have accumulated a lot of dusts since last year. From abandoned project folders to files that never get touched again after creation; we really need to wipe out all these electronic debris off our PC to free up more space for the processing of our input/output commands.
Defragment Files
As you continue to use your PC, files get broken into disparate units and scattered around the hard disk. This tends to reduce the access time to these files at request which in turn leads to a slower pc. Defragmenting ensures that all the particles of a file are arranged in a single block to speed up easy access.
Increase My RAM
Random Access Memory is a very important part of a PC. It is the component that holds data and programs when the system is working on them. When the user works on different items at a time, the memory may be used up causing the PC to resort to paging; shifting data to the hard disk, which makes it difficult to complete any useful task.
On the other hand, foreign programs like virus, spyware and adware programs may also use up the available memory when they run on the background, leaving the user wondering what might actually be slowing down the PC.
One step towards solving this problem is to increase the Random Access Memory (RAM). In most cases, this involves buying a RAM with higher storage space and manually installing it in the computer. The next action you need to take to cube this is to…
Install Anti-Virus and Anti-Spyware Programs
There are many anti-viruses and anti spyware programs out there that you don’t have to leave your computer unprotected. If you can’t buy a license for one that matches your needs, get a free security suite.
This may not provide you complete protection but it will help shield off attacks to its wit. Once you have installed a security suite, run a complete system scan. If the program has it adjust the security settings and schedule automatic system scan at strategic points – most internet security tools these days has automatic modes.
This will help enforce added protection and detect and flush out any creeping program that may have gained their way onto your computer.
And last but not the least; be cautious of pop-up programs and other prompts asking to be granted permissions. Even when some of those requests carry genuine ‘faces,’ most of them do hide some malicious codes that does something different from what may be stated.
Be cautious of the permissions you are granting a program or an app, especially when you don’t trust or haven’t used the website. And if you ask me, its better you download whatever programs, apps or utilities you want from the vendor website or licensed distributor sites.
So this is what I have to give for now… Add your own list to these and refer to it as you count down into 2013. Let’s make this year the best year ever.