any useful tips to keep computer healthy and efficient throughout my use?

Question

i live with a family of four. everyone uses computer. it is updated with all the latest software, mozilla firefox, windows live messenger, etc..etc.. we all use it a lot. it almost runs a whole day, since my mother is a house wife. the others including me as well use it very much indeed. we watch movies, play games, download stuff, add new programmes etc.. there must be a lot of waste material and also an extent of slowness by now. so any tips in general to keep it neat and clean and efficient and satisfactory. please do not suggest spyware cleaners, anitivirus, or anything. i want advice from what exists..in terms of windows xp..eg. recycle bin, internet explorer, control panel..etc..how to maintain it and keep my computer a healthy being in my house?

Answer 1

Clean out your temporary files, get rid of the cookies, clean out the trash can, use PKZip to shrink files that you don't use anymore, and transfer some of those files to Cds or a DVD (which has more storage space). The defragment the hard drive.

Go to the desktop and double click on the My Computer Icon, then select the drive and right click on it. A drop down menu will appear and you have to click on the Properties option. This will open a new dialogue box with a large pie chart in the middle. This pie chart tells you how much space you have used on the hard drive; blue = used, magenta = free. Then click on the Disk Cleanup button below the pie chart.

There is an option that will let your compress the files on the Hard Drive. However, this will make all of your computer run slower, and I know an expert that doesn’t trust the disk compression program, use PKZip instead and don’t compress any programs that you use, except for backups of them.

This operation will clear out the temporary and install files that you no longer need, automatically. It will not touch your other files. It will also clean out the cookies directory. If you have been to a website, then the record of that might be destroyed. If you have made some selections on a website, and if you save your password and username on that website then this information may be lost. The passwords and usernames won’t change though. When you return to that site and log back in then you can select the save option to save your password again; which will write another cookie on your computer. Cookies are harmless text only files used to monitor where you have been on the web and some things that you have done at the websites. They need to be cleaned out occasionally. Cookies cannot carry a virus, but they can carry tracking information so that companies like Doubleclick know when you have been at a website. It is a good idea to set Internet Explorer to refuse 3rd party cookies, which will help with this problem.

Once you have finished here open the trashcan and delete its contents. When the computer “erases” a file it really doesn’t get rid of it, it only forgets where the file is. Other programs can find that data, unless the computer overwrites it.

Close out the Trashcan and see if the pie chart has changed. That will show you the current state of the drive. If not then close the dialogue box and reopen it with a right click on the hard drive.

PKZip and other archive programs takes a group of files and condenses them into one file. The program uses up all the space for its larger single file that the smaller files might have wasted. The larger the zip file is the more space it can save. Once a file is zipped it cannot be read, unless you unzip it and return it to its original size and format. If you are zipping compressed files like mp3 files then you are not going to get much extra space out of it.

If you have a CD burner or a DVD burner (which normally burns both CDs and DVDs) then you can transfer some files to the hard media to store them. Always make a backup of the CD or DVD since errors or minor damage can ruin some of the information on it. If you have a lot of text or picture files then you can put them on the CD or DVD and still access them. If you have a lot of data files that you don’t use often then you can transfer them, or you can Zip them and then transfer them to the hard media. Store these copies in a cool dry and safe place. Check on their contents every year or two to see if the files could be damaged. If so then get your backup and make another copy of it.

When a file is put onto the hard drive it isn’t always put together, sometimes (like when the Hard Drive is getting full) the computer has to find any spare sector to place that file. The Defragment operation will pull all those files and write them so they are all together and so save you space. If you do a lot of file moving, installing a lot of files, or any other operation similar to this then you should do a Disk Defragment.

Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter
This will open a new dialogue box. Select the drive that you want to defragment and press the Analyze button at the bottom left of the dialogue box. This will tell you how fragmented your drive is. The more Red the worse your drive is fragmented.

If your drive is fragmented then you need to run the defrag program. This will take a while, depending on the size of the hard drive, and it will slow down other operations on the computer so you should do it just before you go to bed and let it run all night.
When the Analysis is completed then a small dialogue box will appear. Use the mouse to grab the title bar and move it away so you can see the bar chart underneath. Even if the Disk Defragmenter Program says that you don’t need to defragment your hard drive look at the bars and the amount of red on the bar graph. If you see a whole lot of red then defragment it anyway. It will clean up the files, and put them all together, in a row. This will take less space and it will make programs run faster, or allow you to access the data quicker so it is a good thing to do on a semiannual basis (depending on how often you change, transfer, install or move files).

Close the Disk Defragmenter and open Windows Explorer (Desktop > double click on My Computer > select the drive.) Open up the Windows Directory and look for any folder labeled Temp, Temp Files, or Temporary Files. You can delete the contents of these folders safely. This is where the Windows Operating system stashes data that it needs for one operation and is now not needed.

Answer 2

Click My Computer then right click Local Disk (c:) then left click on Properties then left click Disk Clean Up tab (Follow Instructions) Go back to Local Disk Properties then click on Tools, click on the Defragmentation tab then click Defragment,this will take about 30Mins, after Defragment has finished follow same procedure back to Local Disk Tools then click on the Error-Checking tab, tick the boxes that appear next then click ok to restarting computer, this procedure will take 30-45Mins. Then Delete any unwanted unused software . All together will take about 1-2Hrs to complete depending on memory size and processor speed, recommend once a week

Answer 3

Congrats on your new betta! They are one of my favorite fish. A few things you can do (if you haven't already) are the following- #1. House him in at least a 2.5 gallon aquarium, 5 gallon is my preference though. Do not believe the bowl or vase myths! Only betta breeders with bettas that have extremely frail fins and tails can do this, and trust me, they know how to take care of them in that small of room. #2. Make sure the aquarium has filtration. It doesn't matter whether you have undergravel or a power filter, as long as the flow isn't really strong. #3. Provide a varied diet. I feed my bettas a diet of pellets in the morning and freeze dried bloodworms at night. A nice little treat is a monthly treat of frozen bloodworms. Bettas will just gobble them up! #4. Use a heater in the tank. Bettas like the water around 78-82F, unlike all the myths that say bettas are fine in room temperature. They can survive, but not thrive which is what you are aiming for and seem more prone to disease and are sluggish with out one. #5. Change 25% of the water weekly. I found a gravel vacuum works nice for this task, but don't vacuum all the gravel; because it houses beneficial bacteria that you don't want to destroy. I usually vacuum about 1/2 of the gravel. #6. Test the water weekly for nitrate, nitrite, pH, and hardness levels. Bettas like the following levels- Nitrate=20 is safe Nitrite=0 is safe pH= 6-7.5 Hardness- up to 20 dGH They have 5 in 1 test strips at Wal-Mart for 11 bucks that covers all of this #7. Probably the most obvious, use fish dechlor in your water for your fish. I like the Wardleys and aquasafe, Hope This Helps!!!! Good Luck!!!! :)

Answer 4

System tools - Run disk clean weekly and disk defragmenter weekly.
Firefox - Tools - Clear Private data
Empty Windows Temporary Files folder regularly.
Run error checking on your hard drives monthly (My computer - right click drive - properties - Tools tab).
These should help keep your PC running smoothly without downloading/using other system type programs.
You should always have anti-virus and spyware tools anyway but choice ultimately is yours.

Answer 5

I dont know this will be helpful or not but i want to suggest u to download "system mecahnic". It is a software that cleans you computer. It delete the broken shortcuts, defragment effectively and if u copy files and forget to deletet, it shows u the files that are identitical with other file(s). it also erases the clutter on you system and clean up your PC. i think it is a good software. You can try it. Good luck! You can download it in www.iolo.com/sm/index.cfm

Answer 6

Sorry to say it but the biggest problem today I see is virus and spyware. So keep your antivirus up to date and do regular scans each week. Also do a spyware scan too. Next is disk cleanup and defrag etc. The second most important thing is to save your important files to a disc.

Answer 7

No point in telling you how to keep your PC clean, with 4 of you there's not a cat in hell's chance. Simple rules really work best and you've got em all in your replies. You spill something on the floor, you clean it up so make a rule for each of you or appoint one of you to take control of usage and set some rules.

Answer 8

You need to defragment the disck each week. and use the desk clean up tool. They can be found in Programmes, Accessories, System tools. This should keep everything running smoothly

Answer 9

Defragment it, it is supposed to increase speed. Do the defragmentation after you have gone to the control panel then to add or remove software that gets rid of programs that you want off the computer.

Answer 10

De frag and disk clean.