10 Things To Do For A Healthy & Secure PC

Titleprinters are notorious for this. Be very aware of
10 Things To Do For A Healthy & Secure PCwhat it is you are loading and only load those
A Top 10 List That Can Save Your Computercomponents that you need. Even some
Many who read this article may find theseoff-the-shelf software packages load adware and
recommendations to be old news. However, thinkother not so helpful applets. Also, when you
about the number family, friends, and associatesuninstall software, not all the software gets
that ask you for help fixing their PC and I believeuninstalled in many cases. One thing I suggest is
you will understand why I chose to write thisto purchase a registry cleaner. This can
article..dramatically decrease boot times and in many
This list of recommendations for a healthy &cases increase the overall performance of your
secure PC is by no means a complete list ofPC.
everything you can and should do. It is however a6. Purchasing & Downloading Items On The
great start if you want to keep your computerInternet
running properly for an acceptable period of time.When you download or purchase any software
It will also help prevent some of the mostfrom the Internet, make sure you pay close
common issues related to PC security.attention to everything you are agreeing to or
1. Hard Drive Fragmentationchecking off on the various pages that lead up to
Believe it or not, many people have never eventhe final purchase or download. As with
heard of hard drive fragmentation, or the processeverything else, make sure you read the fine
of Defragmentation. In a nutshell, when you installprint. You may be agreeing to download and install
software or create files and data, the Operatingsomething you don't need or may impact the
System stores this data on your hard disk drive.security and performance of you PC. Also, how
The most efficient way of storing this data wouldmany more mailing lists do you really need to be
be in one continuous disk file. However, files areon? How many Internet Explorer tool bars do you
not always stored this way, or are initially storedneed? Most of these tool bars should be renamed
this way and later become split up, orto "adware / spyware bars"
fragmented. Because of this, when the data or7. Installing Operating System & Application
file is retrieved, the hard drive must be searchedPatches
in multiple places just to combine data that makesIn a nutshell, if you are using Windows XP, make
up one file. This slows things down tremendously.sure that automatic updates are turned on. This is
If you are running Windows 2000 or Windows XP,very important. Microsoft releases security and
you should perform a disk defrag at least oncebug fixes routinely and some of them are critical
every two weeks, more if possible. All of myin nature. Something people tend to overlook is
systems run this process automatically onceupdating and patching their applications. For
every week in the evening hours.instance, Microsoft Office has critical security
2. Installing Games & Disk Intensive Softwarepatches and performance enhancements available
If you're a gamer, or regularly use disk intensivein the form of patches and service packs. It's not
software, the above Defragmentation process willjust Operating System bugs that can put you at
help. However, you can also take another step torisk, applications can too.
make things move a little faster. If you have two8. Updating Drivers
physically separate disk drives in your system, ISimilar to the above, hardware manufacturers
suggest that you use one primarily for theroutinely update their drivers. This includes video
Operating System and related software, andcards, sounds cards, capture cards, system
devote the other physical disk for installing gamesboards, you name it. Some manufacturers have
and other disk intensive applications. This cutsstarted to release automatic updates for their
down on the competition for disk resourceshardware, but many have not. Make sure you
between your Operating System and othercheck these sites regularly and when a driver
applications. There are other things you could doupdate is available, install it.
as well, such as configuring the appropriate type9. What Do Your Children Download
of RAID where multiple disks appear to theThis is a really big one. I can' tell you how may
operating system as one big logical disk drive. Thistimes I have been told by people that they have
takes a little more planning to get the most outno idea how something got installed on their
of your drives so I'll cover that in a future article.computer. Usually their second sentence contains
3. Virus & Spyware Protection"one of my children must have downloaded it".
The bottom line here is; make sure you haveThe first thing that comes to mind is "why do
installed some sort of anti-virus and spywareparents let kids download what ever they like in
protection. Furthermore, don't just assume thatthe first place". Not only can this severely impact
the default configuration of the program is bestthe security and performance of your computer,
suited for your environment. For instance, I can'twho knows what your kids are getting their
tell you how many people I know whosehands on. Do you know what one of the most
computer has contracted a serious virus becausefrequently installed application installs I see on a
of just one minor but very important task. Whenteenagers machine is? Kazaa, BearShare,
the anti-virus software pops up a message andeDonkey, all P2P file sharing programs. I don't care
tells you that your subscription is about to expire,what anyone says regarding how convenient and
don't just hit the ignore button. Take a fivesafe these applications are now, they are wrong.
minute break from what you are doing andMonitor what your children are doing /
renew your virus signature subscription. Not onlydownloading on the Internet. Install a parental
will this keep you up to date on newer viruses, itcontrol software package if need be.
will allow your software package to update to10. Rebuilding Your Operating System
newer versions. The same thing goes forIf you are not familiar with system imaging
spyware protection. There are plenty of freesoftware, I suggest you read up on them. One of
spyware protection solutions out there, none arethe most popular packages is "ghost" and it's been
perfect, but most do the job. I suggest usingaround for quite some time. I rebuild my systems
Microsoft's AntiSpyware Beta package at thepretty much on an annual basis. When I first
least.configured them, I used an imaging package to
4. Software & Hardware Firewall Protectioncreate a complete image of the basic OS and
If you are not using a firewall, then you are justapplication install. This allows you to not only
asking for trouble. Actually, there is a significantre-install the base operating system and
chance that your system is already compromisedapplications by hitting just one button, but can
if you have no firewall protection at all. Many cablesave you big time in the event of a system
DSL router combo devices have built in firewalldisaster.
protection, and this is at least a good start.Conclusion
However, if you have Windows XP SP2, go aheadMany of my peers and other technical people will
and enable the built in firewall as it will provide youread this and say it's all common sense and very
another level of protection. Oh, yes, and when thebasic. Well, if this is what you do for a living then
system pops up a message about whether oryes, it is. But many people don't know these
not to allow a certain application or communicationthings or did know about them and have
to take place, don't just hit the ok button, read itforgotten. So many PC are in such bad shape and
thoroughly then make a decision.it's beyond me how the average person even
5. Installing & Uninstalling Applicationsdeals with it. It has to be frustrating not knowing
Just about every time you install a new applicationwhere to turn or what to do, especially if you
or piece of software you increase the time itdon't have a tech friend or family member to call
takes to boot your PC and in some caseson. I hate to sound pessimistic, but things are not
decrease its performance. On thing that drivesgetting better for the average home or small
me crazy is printing software. For the life of me Ibusiness person. Technology should not be this
cannot understand how or why printer supportdifficult to maintain. The average person just
software could total 400MB in size, but theywants something that will work, and stay working.
sometimes do. Not only that, they tend to load allYou may reprint or publish this article free of
kinds of unnecessary real-time running applets. HPcharge as long as the bylines are included.