Keeping Your Computer Healthy!

I'll get straight to the point here: there are a few things you can do to maintain your computer's health. For this purpose, I would like to illustrate this through the analogy of household upkeep!

1) De-Cluttering the Place First

Before you start cleaning your house, you might get rid of any belongings and clutter that you really don't need anymore, right? Maybe you throw a yard sale? You can do the same with your computer.

First, you want to uninstall any programs or software you don't need and/or want anymore. You can usually do this by searching for, "Add or remove programs" in your start menu. This will bring up a window in which you can search for different programs you want to uninstall or simply scroll through the list. Click any program you want to get rid of, and select, "Uninstall".

You can also delete old files, pictures, videos, music, etc. from your computer that don't need to be taking up space.

If you have nothing you want to delete or uninstall, no worries! But, if you are running out of space, I would recommend purchasing an external hard drive on a reliable website (I just use Amazon). I have a 2 TB Seagate external hard drive as storage so that I don't have to keep everything on my main drive.

That leads me to Step 2!

2) Keeping Your House Clean Inside and Out

If you want your household to function as well as it possibly can, you want to keep it reasonably clean, right? You might dust, vacuum, sweep, wash dishes, etc. Your computer is no different: both digitally and physically.

With a desktop PC (laptops don't have this problem really), you want to literally keep the dust out of your computer. Given that you don't want to physically touch or wipe the internal hardware (such as your motherboard), you need to use something harmless that can clean without requiring actual hand contact. I would use compressed air; you can find canisters of it easily (online, at Wal-Mart, etc.).

Second, digitally, you also want to clear the clutter. Your system will run much more smoothly if it doesn't have to dodge around "rooms" crammed full of needless files, programs, or even fragmented files (a result of deleting things). This can be accomplished with defragmenting your computer. I recommend downloading the free version of Smart Defrag. (It might also try to install something like the Dashlane Plugin, but just say no to options like that unless you want those additional installations! I wouldn't recommend it).

Once you have downloaded and installed Smart Defrag, all you have to do is run the process (big button in the middle) on your hard drive and any other disks it thinks you need to clean out (such as external/backup hard drives).

That is how you keep your "house" clean!

3) Eradicate the Termites and Unwanted Guests

Just as there are visitors you enjoy coming to your house (even if you're an introvert and it's only a pizza delivery guy you want to ever open your door to), you should feel free to visit websites and install software and games. That's what a computer is for, right?

So how do you open your doors to wanted visitors without unwanted guests creeping in unseen? I recommend installing three programs: SUPERAntiSpyware, Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, and Adblock Plus. All three are free, though there are premium options.

With the first two, you install them as programs and run a scan now and then. You can leave them running in the background to keep an eye out for unwanted viruses and such, but that is optional.

With Adblock Plus, you add this to your default web browser, and it will prevent invasive ads and other such unwanted nuisances. You can furthermore disable it for any website you want to allow to show its ads.

Thanks so much for reading!