Good house keeping

Your computer is a valuable tool. It will appreciate some tender loving care every now and again.

For your own protection you should use an effective anti virus tool if you are using the internet at all, similarly you should also get a good anti spyware tool. Let them earn their keep by scanning your computer at least once a week, you can always run them while you sleep and in some cases they wil automatically switch themselves off after completing their task. There are free versions of this type of software available on the internet, but make sure that you choose the correct one, as some of them do not “do what they say on the outside of the tin”.

You can also help speeding up your computer operating system by running a defragmentation routine periodically. Try looking in Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragment, although it takes ages to complete it is often worthwhile, or let us do it for you, or show you how to do it.

Keep it simple. Create short meaningful folder names. Print out details that you might need to refer to again and keep them in a safe place. Make a copy of things before you start to “improve” them, some software can do this automatically for you. Throw out anything that you do not use and try to maintain a clutter free desktop; tricky huh?