Another Day With My PC

You don’t have to read every post in this blog to realize that running a full virus and registry scan at least once a week is as imperative as taking a bath at least once a day (I really hope that you do). We’ve devoted almost every article in this blog to campaign for PC optimization and security, and you cannot attain either if you don’t check your PC regularly for viruses and other malware.

At first glance, it seems that there’s no excuse for us to skip or fail to run a full system scan. After all, it takes just one click to scan your whole PC for malware. However, a typical hard drive contains thousands of system and other data files. Depending upon the depth or thoroughness of the scan that you’ve set, the antivirus software would generally rummage through every item in your computer. This process would definitely be time-consuming.

In this era where time is more valuable than gold, many simply cannot afford to freeze their tasks just to make way for their antivirus and anti-spyware programs to do their job. While there is such a thing as multitasking, sharing PC resources with an antivirus could be a problem since a security suite that’s running a full system scan would be very jealous of anything that tries to get the CPU’s attention.

Deadlines and other tasks should not be made as seemingly reasonable excuses to skip a full system scan. Unless you’re working 24 hours a day, there will definitely be pockets of time where your PC’s CPU would feel useless or neglected. Make use of these periods to flex your antivirus and registry scanner’s muscles. Schedule scans during lunch breaks or even after office hours. Every PC task can be done automatically, so you don’t have to baby sit the whole process. Trust everything in your anti-malware programs or to your task scheduler. It will take care of everything.

Programming is not that esoteric. While applications are made up of ones and zeroes, modern programming tools or languages already allow us to create software using words that do not compete with Morse codes as far as understandability is concerned.

Many of today’s viruses or spyware infect programs by inserting seemingly meaningless words or series of characters into the lines that make up the application. If you want a hands-on experience in removing malicious codes, then you could do so by opening up the program into its bare essentials. All you have to do thereafter is to look for the line that is not included in the original make up of the software. This may seem easy if the lines or codes are just a page long. However, most applications nowadays contain kilometers of programming sentences.

Malware that strikes Windows registries also perform their pernicious act in similar fashion. You may remove the malicious line or instruction by yourself without the aid of any tool, but this is very dangerous as any erroneous alteration could lead to a system crash. This is the reason why you should leave Windows registry cleaning to RegCure. RegCure eliminates unwanted instructions inside your system’s registry, thereby enhancing your PC’s performance and ensuring the integrity of your operating system.

Don’t you just hate it if Windows greets you with a sluggish start? No matter how powerful your processor may be, too many applications in your startup list would definitely drag your system down.

You should live with this if the programs are necessary ones. However, you should be indignant and furious if those applications are useless sets of zeros and ones. Unkempt registries often make the CPU perform tasks that are not needed anymore. This usually happens when a software was not uninstalled properly as some if its files, especially the drivers, are left undeleted in the system. As a result, the computer still tries to run these programs or load their drivers as if they’re still there or are still active.

Run your registry cleaner regularly in order to ferret out unwanted lines in your Windows registry. This would save your system from allocating precious memory space for programs that are not used or needed anymore. You may also check what programs are being loaded during startup through a freeware called Autoruns.

One’s marriage to a computer only lasts for about 2-3 years on the average. The union gets rocky after a year, with the human spouse beginning to complain that his or her electronic partner is not as sweet and reliable as it was when they first tied the knot. By the second year, a divorce is already in the works. Depending on how patient the human husband or wife is, the tie is usually severed by the third year.

If actual human divorces weren’t so expensive, I think that it would be much shorter than the separation of the union between man and computer. Clothes are not the only items that people change frequently. Everybody or everything seems to be expendable nowadays.

Needless Change

Unless you’re a collector of vintage items, you’ll definitely prefer an electronic partner that’s younger and faster. The desire to quickly ditch the one you have is made even much stronger by the fact that computers are being sold at very tempting prices. It’s not surprising then that many people treat their laptop, desktops, and other electronic gadgets as sort of wardrobes that they could quickly change every time their whim demands it.

For those who do not have the resources to shuffle PCs as if they’re cards, all they could do is either minimize their expectations or decrease their reliance on their e-spouse. This may be a cost-effective way of saving the marriage. However, this stagnates the union and the growth of both partners, especially for the one who’s breathing. But this doesn’t mean that one should immediately jump on the gun when his partner becomes a drag. There are ways by which such relationship could be revitalized.

Mindful

Many attribute their computer’s sluggishness to old age. Processors usually become obsolete after 2-3 years, while RAMs shrink in comparison with new models. As with humans, old age also brings about poor or deteriorating memory. Physicians usually solve this problem through food supplements and series of mental aerobics. For PC technicians, they tackle this problem by simply increasing the computer’s memory.

PC users often commit the mistake of tagging their aging processor as the culprit in their unit’s constructive demise. While they do get a bit of improvement in speed after a processor “transplant,” they soon realize that their computer’s old illness comes back to haunt them. The solution to this problem doesn’t lie on Intel’s new creation. It may surprise many and disappoint those who went through several processor and peripheral upgrades to know that all it takes to give their PC a shot in the arm is by injecting a gigabyte or two of RAM into their system. This cheap and simple band-aid beats most types of upgrade by about a mile and a half.

Before conducting a major upgrade on your PC, make sure that you’ve considered all the simple and cost-efficient solutions first before digging deep into your pockets, as well as into your PC’s casing. PC Optimization is not an esoteric or an expensive endeavor.

The thing that I really hate about malware attack or OS malfunction is data loss. I could deal with having to reinstall applications or even reformat my hard drive. While they may be time-consuming, they’re nothing compared to the time that you’ll spend in rewriting or recreating the files that have been damaged or deleted.

Antivirus

There are many ways by which one could prevent data loss, first and foremost of which is by installing security suites. The saying that “an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure” also holds true with regard to PC health. Indeed, why flirt or invite disaster when you could rid yourself of the worries from the start by making sure that no unwanted programs would be able to access your system. True, antivirus programs could cure and treat infected files. However, there are cases where files get corrupted beyond repair.

Backup

While antivirus programs are very effective in keeping your PC secured from unwanted intrusions, they are not 100% fool-proof. There will come a time when malware would be able to break through the wall and infect your system. When this happens, there’s pretty much nothing that you could do about it other than to resort and to restore the second or third copies of the files that got destroyed.

Since security suites are not a hundred percent reliable, you have to take another precautionary measure in order to ensure that you won’t lose the precious files in your hard drive. A very simple but efficient and practical solution to possible data loss is by backing up. This task or procedure is not complicated. Backing up data simply means making second copies thereof and saving them in another media.

Brainless Task

You don’t need a program in order to perform this task. However, doing it manually can be quite tedious, especially if you have thousands of files saved in your hard disk and scattered in different folders. This is the reason why there are several back up programs in the market despite the fact that the task simply involves dragging folders into the disk where you intend to save your data.

You don’t need a third party software if you’re using Windows Vista, though. Backing up in Vista is an effortless task. Its back up feature takes care of everything from file selection to file destination. All you have to do in the process is to change the disks or drives whenever they’re already full. It’s as simple as that.

Save Often

Back up regularly. Take note that you’re adding new files or modifying existing ones everyday. The file that you’ve saved a month ago might already be entirely different from the one that you have right now. Make sure that the media where you’re going to save the file is reliable. DVD disks, as well as external hard drives, are among the dependable storage devices. Flash drives could also be viable alternatives. However, data could be easily erased therein.

It’s Christmas Eve. The last thing that I should be doing is discussing PC problems with you guys. However, I can’t contain my excitement in sharing with you the gifts that I think I would be receiving.

On top of my list is a Mac notebook. Although many consider a Mac as a novelty rather than as a real functioning computer, I’m still excited with the thought of owning one. I’ve never had a Mac desktop or notebook before. My first PC was a 386SX clone. My mom almost bought me a Mac, but unfortunately (or fortunately), it was the Intel-based unit that was on sale.

While the PC and the Mac are starting to blend or morph into something that could seamlessly work together, differences still abound. This makes file sharing very difficult. And since 95% of the computers in the office are PC-based, the chances of successfully or productively using a Mac at the office are as slim as the latter’s new notebook.

Another present that I think I would be getting is a copy of Vista Ultimate. What I have in my new notebook is just a registered copy of Vista Home Basic. While the copy has already satisfied my curiosity as to how the new Microsoft OS looks and feels, it hasn’t allayed my fears with regard to dependability. If just for my peace of mind, I want the full (licensed, of course) copy Vista.

The license of my other system and security suites are already expiring, so I guess a good present for myself would be a new set of PC defenders. I’m thinking of trying a new antivirus for a change. Norton has already been my companion for almost a decade. While many regard it as the most reliable antivirus in the market, many are complaining that it’s making their system slow. I might try McAfee’s. Hmm maybe I’ll even try the freeware available in www.cnet.com or www.pcworld.com.

All of these might just be wishful thinking, though. I haven’t seen any box under our tree yet. Who knows, I might just be receiving gift checks or coffee mugs (again). I guess I’ll just be getting software license renewals (from me!!). While I may be contemplating on changing my antivirus, I will definitely be retaining my registry cleaner. RegCure has effectively kept my PC free from unwanted instructions brought about by malware attack or incomplete uninstall procedures.

My friends at the office usually wonder as to why their unit runs slower than mine considering that we’re using the same type of laptop. Even the applications that we have are also the same, except for the registry cleaner. The antivirus came in free when our boss gave the laptops to us. However, that was the only sentinel that came with the unit. My officemates were already contented in having a lone antivirus to protect their unit. I wasn’t. Judging by the way our units are running, I could definitely conclude that an antivirus is not enough in keeping and protecting a computer from things that could slow it down.

Before you attribute slow browsing to a virus or spyware, there are a couple of things that you have to consider first. It’s very easy to blame it all on malware. However, you might be wasting your time scanning your entire hard drive for something that may not even be there.

Your ISP may claim that it’s making a 1mbps room for you, but more often than not, their claims are not exactly a hundred percent true or accurate. There are a number of reasons why this is so. First, your ISP may actually be cheating on you. Second, your DSL cable or modem may not be of a good kind. Third, your PC or software may already be obsolete and cannot recognize the new innovations that your ISP is using in providing you with high speed Internet access.

There are many tools or software that you could easily download on the Internet in order to determine the actual bandwidth that you’re receiving from your ISP. Check www.cnet.com for one.

Is your computer suffering from memory loss?

If I’m not mistaken, the minimum memory requirement for Windows XP is 128MB. That was quite big during the time when Vista’s predecessor was first released. Those who upgraded from 64MB to 128MB even thought that any application would run seamlessly in their unit considering that the amount of their RAM could virtually hold almost any application regardless of their size.

Unfortunately for us, software developers created programs which are RAM-gluttons. 128MB of RAM now seems to be inadequate. Despite the limitation, Windows could still keep things going through its ability to create virtual memory by using available space in the hard drive. While this solution saves users from having to purchase additional memory modules, it creates another problem – laggardness.

Accessing information in the hard drive is not as fast as when it is done in your system’s RAM. As a result, pages freeze for a few seconds whenever it is being written and accessed in the virtual memory.

Thanks to the development of flash drives, the new Microsoft OS does not have to rely on the old technique of expanding limited RAM. Windows Vista can now use flash drives as alternative RAMs to boost system performance. All that has to be done is to activate the OS’ ReadyBoost feature to utilize the flash drive as an additional memory module.

While Vista is a performance-hogger, it does make up for its gluttonous tendencies by utilizing peripherals as means or tools by which it could optimize the performance of the PC. I’m glad the guys who made Vista came up with this idea. It’s quite hard and expensive to add a few memory modules. This goes double for those who use laptops like I do. With ReadyBoost, all I have to do to spare my hard drive from being overworked is to stick a flash drive in my USB port. It’s that simple.

If you’ve been following the entries in my blog since its inception, you would notice that I couldn’t seem to emphasize enough the importance of defragging your hard drive. I guess any computer analyst or aficionado, both budding and established, shares the opinion that this method of optimization is sometimes the only option as far as improving the performance of your disks is concerned.

The hard disk is the most important storage device in your PC. It houses the most important application in your system (the OS), and the other programs that you frequently access. Windows also frequently resort to it in case your actual physical memory is too small. I have no reservations then in saying that the hard disk is an indispensable PC component.

You may contend though, that your DVD drive could easily take the cudgels for your hard drive in case the latter decides to take the day off and conks out on you. Indeed, the capacity of current optical drives could already rival the size of a standard fixed disk. However, it cannot match the role or functionality that hard disks offer. For one thing, the capacity of their latest models is exponentially larger than that of their optical counterparts’.

A disk cannot be considered as a primary storage device if it doesn’t have the size and speed to store and read all the applications that you’re using or may want to use. Sure, other disks could match the fixed ones in this category by adding numbers. The numbers here don’t refer to their capacity though, but to their quantity.

I was fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to have been able to live during the time when it was a luxury to have a drive. Old PCs didn’t automatically come with hard drives. All they usually have is a floppy drive slot. The applications weren’t that large then, so shuffling floppies to load and run programs were not so frustrating or impractical. Everything changed when programs bloated. DOS was dethroned as the OS king, and Windows paved the way in making hard drives a staple in every PC package.

While a DVD disk is fairly large enough to house several software, it cannot conveniently serve as the primary storage device because it’s simply just not big enough. You may contend that you could always imitate the disk shuffling of old, but this is inconvenient and time-consuming. The fact that multi-tasking is the order of the era makes that old practice impossible. Doing several things at the same time would then require you to have several optical drives. People just don’t have the time or the patience for this.

I don’t see the hard drive being replaced by a new type of storage media anytime soon. I know it’s an old technology. But then again, so is the monitor. Of course, there will definitely be new innovations as far as its architecture is concerned. However, the concept would still be the same. The primary storage devices of the future would still be more or less permanent. It would still remain fixed no matter how big or efficient other portable media would become.

Do you remember the days when the floppy disk was the most preferred (if not the only) portable storage device on the planet? This question of mine might have fished a nostalgic smile from those who grew up during the days when 1MB seemed to be an enormous storage size already. But for the current USB-drive generation, the floppy disk days seem like an awful time to be in.

I remember that data was always at risk back then. It’s easy to write data on floppy disks, but it’s hard to keep them in it. The Norton Disk Doctor was a hit back then. The chances of having a bad sector on your disk is as big as getting a pimple on a hot humid summer.

Defragmenters were also a hit during those days. It might seem absurd to defrag a storage space that can’t even sufficiently host a standard MP3 file. However, floppy disk drives were not as fast as the optical ones that we have today as far as reading and writing data are concerned. Hence, it could definitely use all the help it could get, even if it’s just arranging the files sequentially.

Bu don’t think that present storage devices don’t need help from defrag programs. Applications today are sometimes preposterously large. It’s important then that their files are arranged in such a way that the data reader won’t have to rummage through the whole media just to piece through all the related files to load and run the software. There’s always a need to optimize regardless of the speed of your processor or storage device.