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Optimizing Your System
If your system is virus and spyware-free and it's still running slow, you
are in need of optimization. I've met many people who will simply go out
and buy a new computer in this situation. That is the most pointless waste
of money ever. If you truly want a brand-new system, use the restore CD's
that came with it. But you probably don't want a new system, because your
old one can work just fine.
Before we do anything, though, we'll optimize your Internet connection.
If you aren't already using it,
. Use it from now on instead of Internet
Explorer. I'd give you a detailed analysis of Firefox's benefits, but
it's all on their website now, so I won't repeat it. Once you're in
Firefox, point it to about:config. This is a list of every option
available to Firefox. Don't be scared; you'll never have to use it again
after this, as all the normal options are convienently available under
Tools->Options. Filter the list by "pipel" and change the three options
that are shown to true, 30, and true. Finally,
right-click on the list, go to New, and click Integer. Enter
"nglayout.initialpaint.delay" as the name, and 0 as the value. Restart
Firefox and head to Google. Isn't that speed amazing?
The first step in optimization is to defragment your system. However, in
order to defragment reasonably quickly, you need to clean off your hard
drive. You wouldn't believe the amount of junk that's on your system,
provides no useful purpose, and that you aren't even aware of. To find
most of this garbage, you need to download and install a tool called
CCleaner (Crap Cleaner) and run it.
On the left side of the program is a series of checkboxes. Check them all,
even the ones with warnings. Do the same under the "Applications" tab.
What they are telling you is that, for example, the ordering of your start
menu might be changed, or that your saved forms in your browser will vanish.
In other words, no real damage. Click "Run Cleaner" and let it go. Do it
again, just to be sure.
Now, reboot your machine. Go back into CCleaner, and on the left, click
"Issues". Click "Scan for Issues" at the bottom, and when it finishes,
click "Fix selected issues...". It will pop up a dialog, asking you if
you should back up registry changes. You probably don't need to, but go
ahead, just in case. After you agree, you'll get another dialog, showing
you the registry issues. Click "Fix All Selected Issues". It will ask if
you are sure, and yes, you are. Reboot the machine again, just to make
sure you didn't hurt anything. If the system won't boot, force-restart it
by unplugging it and plugging it back in. Windows will give you a list
of options on how to boot. Select "Last Known Good Configuration", and
Windows will automatically undo CCleaner's registry changes. Note that
this scenario has never happened, to the best of my knowledge, but it is
theorietically possible.
At this point your hard drive will be much cleaner. We're going to go a
few steps further in the next paragraph, and if you'd like, you can skip
to the next.
Clean out your system. Uninstall any never-used programs, or ones that
duplicate other functionality. Then, find all of your files. A lot of
them you'll never want to edit, but simply to read (or view, or listen
to). Get them off the system. If you've got a USB hard drive, move them
there. Otherwise, burn them to DVD's. If your music collection is under
5Gb, that's a prime candidate. If your photo collection is under 5Gb,
or organized into subcollections that are, do the same. Finally, move
any old documents that you are keeping for posterity. This includes old
budgets, tax forms, web receipts, manuals, and pretty much anything.
These documents should have backups anyway! Be sure to label all of your
DVD's, as well as timestamp them so that you can differentiate when you
make new copies.
Now that your system is fairly clean, you can defragment it. Head over
to www.raxco.com and download a trial
version of PerfectDisk. It will ask for your email address, and you might
as well give them a real one: you'll almost certainly want to buy their
product, and they're always having sales.
Since the PerfectDisk UI changes a bit with every release, I can't give
you a detailed explanation of what to click. Experiment a bit to find
out what's available, and then run a SmartPlacement defragment on your
C drive. You might want to call us over to show you more features of the
program; there's a lot more than can be done. It's well worth the $40USD
that it costs for the full version. But even so, wait a month or three
for a sale. I got my version for $20.
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