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Computer Hygiene - Take Out The Trash!
By Earl Gooch
Do you find that your computer exhibits one or more of the
following behaviors?
- Inexplicable message or warning pop-ups
- Frequent unsolicited reboots
- Your favorite application often crashes
- Applications now start up sluggishly
- Your computer seems to take forever to boot up
- You find new software running which you did not expressly
install, and you cannot explain it's existance
Your computer may simply have become cluttered with software to
such a degree that all those programs now fight with each other
for resources, or a particular type of software installed (with
malicious intent or otherwise) could produce adverse side
effects and may even compromise your system's health and
security. Even if your PC does not appear to suffer from any of
the symptoms above, chances are over time one or more of these
issues will surface.
So where should we look to find the root cause of such
problems? In short, we can attribute this abnormal behavior to:
1) Our not being vigilant in monitoring the list of software
running (or not running) on our system
2) Not being sufficiently mindful of how the installed software
got there and why
Let me explain further. When one purchases a computer (or you
inherit that “hand-me-down” from your relative) you will
typically find a potpourri of software already installed.
Furthermore, you will probably never use 80% of it. In
addition, you may find yourself unable to resist the temptation
to download and install freeware/shareware from the internet.
All too often we really do not need the programs we download,
but refraining from doing so can be difficult due to the
software's enticing promo. And regardless of the utility of
these programs, many times we don't bother to uninstall them,
thinking we may find a use for them in the future.
Just recently while browsing through a forum, I saw a post with
the following opening line: I just had to reformat the family
computer for the second time in three months because of my
brother's blatant ignorance of general computer hygiene. I can
assure you that such behavior is commonplace. The various
computers in my own home are a prime example. On numerous
occasions my two children, who by the way, are old enough to
know better, downloaded and installed software which
essentially rendered their PCs unusable, thus costing me hours
of work to get them back into working condition.
If you take nothing else away from this article, try to embrace
the following two thoughts:
- Not being aware of every program installed, and particularly
which ones get invoked by default at startup time, could cause
your system to become highly unstable, resulting in frequent
crashes, loss of data, or possibly even irreparable hardware
damage.
- Try at all costs to refrain from installing non-essential
software.
While you may very well find an overabundance of non-essential
software installed, even more important is the fact that there
may NOT be antivirus, firewall, or other security/protection
software running. Consider this point CRITICAL. The absence of
such software or it being improperly configured can set you up
for disaster! In an upcoming article we'll discuss the various
“sleuthing” techniques for determining just what software
resides on your computer.
The object of the second point above is to simply use good
judgment in deciding which software goes and what stays on your
computer. Sure, there's no harm in keeping reputable software
around such as that favorite game or multimedia player, given
that you know where it came from and you do at least use it
occasionally.
OK, let's summarize our discussion. Start thinking now about
your current software and which programs you consider as really
important to you or your family. Remove everything else you can
bear to part with. Furthermore, of the types of software you
feel you must keep, evaluate it's “utility”. Some programs you
may have obtained and installed, and others were probably just
pre-installed on your PC. You may want to consider upgrading
existing packages, or particularly in the latter case, other
similar software may exist which has a better feature set that
can serve you better.
Now go ahead. Take out the trash!
Stay tuned for the next installment coming shortly.
About the Author: Earl Gooch is an engineer who has been
involved in the high tech industry for over 23 years, working
in various capacities including design of both computer
hardware and software, web development, system engineering,
customer support, and marketing. http://www.softwarehelpme.com
Source: http://www.isnare.com
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