Tips on Maintaining a Healthy Computer
Tips on Maintaining a Healthy Computer
By Andre’ Gilkey
In this week’s edition of the Onyx Newsletter, I was tasked to provide an article relating on something most of us use every day: a computer. Most of us live on them, but sometimes they can give us grief when the unexpected happens, such as crashing due to viruses, or merely locking up when there is simply not enough RAM to run your system. So in this article I will explain things—in layman’s terms– you could do to speed up your computer to get the most out of your web surfing experiences, as well as maintenance.
RAM—This is an acronym for “random access memory”. Before you can open up a browser or a program, it has to be put in RAM first before it can be shown on your computer screen. Simply put—the more RAM you have, the more programs you can run at once. If you open more programs than your RAM can support, your computer will freeze, causing you to have to reboot your computer. So that being said, always upgrade with ample ram, and know it’s always better to have more than you need, rather than not enough. 2GB (gigabytes) or more is plenty.
Virus Protection—You should never operate a computer on the web without proper protection that fights adware, malware and viruses. Most computers ship with protection, but have 30-60 trial periods. After the trial is up, it will prompt you to purchase. There are several companies out there that offer protection packages, and I am partial to ‘Malwarebytes Anti-Malware’, which is free, but you can also get a paid version which enables you to perform deeper scans/cleanings, and also have it to automatically scan on the intervals you choose. Norton’s and Symantec also have decent virus protection packages. Once enabled and in place, these protection packages will keep you safe. Sites like Facebook, Twitter and other social media places are FULL of viruses, so you have to be cautious of the links you open, click on or even attachments emailed to you. If you are unsure of the content someone sent you, reach out to the sender to verify if the attachment is safe.
Data Backups—It is always important to protect the photos, documents, videos and data we spend so much time creating on our computers. There are different options on backing up our information. Some may like “the cloud”, which is storing data online, and retrieve that information from anywhere. The only downfall– if there is not an internet connection, you won’t be able to get to your files. I prefer external hard drives, which are pretty inexpensive, mobile and USB powered. Plug them to your computer, and it enables you to drag-and-drop files from your computer to the external hard drive. If your computer ever crashes, all your files are backed up on the mobile drive, and your files are safe.
Defragmentation—On a hard drive when you delete, move files, or modify files, it creates “hole” where the files were. When you defragment the drive, it moves bytes of data into those holes and moves the empty spaces to the end of the drive. This will make reading the data on the drive faster. This operation is found on all computer systems and free. Some manufacturers preset their computers to actually perform this action weekly or monthly out of the box. To run or check to see if yours is activated, go to the start menu, choose all programs, accessories, then system tools. You will see the option to defragment.
Disk Cleanup-–Run this program on your computer to free up space that is taking up room on your computer. You’ll be surprised how much space ‘temporary files’ takes up. These are accumulated anytime you install a new program, or even just surfing the internet. Every site you go to generates ‘cookies’ and temporary internet files that compile, and will stay there unless they are cleaned. To remove these, go to the start menu, choose all programs, accessories, then system tools. You will see the option for disk cleanup.
Hopefully the steps above can help you maintain a healthy computer, and even speed it up. If you perform the steps above and still are dealing with a very slow computer, the chances are you may have a virus. Symptoms are extended wait times on booting up, opening new windows, frequent pop-up windows, etc. If you think you have a virus, I can be of service and can fully remove them for you. I can also extract data from a crashed computer in the case you want to move that data to another drive. I can be contacted at gboardz@gmail.com.
