With all of the resources available to you, you may well ask
yourself, "Why do I need a computer expert to maintain my computer ?" The
short answer is, you don't. Just like you don't need a technician to
fix your car, repair your furnace, or do any other maintenance or
repairs. If you have the knowledge and the time, you can easily repair
and maintain your own computer.
But be warned, there are several
potential "gotchas" involved in maintaining your own computer. If you
decide to repair your own automobile, a company won't sell you a
carburetor what will break your car. Unfortunately, that's not true of
computer maintenance. There are many programs out there that either
don't do what they purport to do, perform unnecessary functions, or are
just plain dangerous to install. It's up to you, the computer
maintenance technician, to determine what programs you can safely use in
what manner.
In this article, we'll discuss some of the programs out there and what the do-it-yourselfer needs to watch out for.
Registry Cleaners
Websites such as Finally Fast.com and Double My Speed.com have been
promoting themselves heavily of late. These (and other) sites offer
products to download and install that purport to improve your computer's
performance. These programs are mostly registry cleaners. The Windows
registry is simply a database that the operating system uses to store
everything it needs to know to run as per your specifications. In
addition, it's available to any other program to write their information
in there as well. Since Windows 95, the registry has been the
recommended repository for user preferences, settings, and any other
variables a program has to remember.
Over time the Windows
registry will become cluttered with unneeded information, most
frequently caused by uninstallation programs not removing all of the
data they should. The concept of a registry cleaner is that it will
detect and remove these orphan settings, frequently improving computer
performance.
The problem with registry cleaners is that they will
often incorrectly detect a setting as unneeded and delete it, causing
problems with either installed programs or the Windows operating system
itself. Registry cleaners are good, but you should never blindly take
their advice as to what to delete. You should always review each entry
to verify that it can be deleted safely.
And keep in mind there
are freeware applications that do an excellent job of cleaning your
Windows registry. Ccleaner is the one recommended by The Computer
Psychic. (Go to Google and search for ccleaner.)
Anti-Malware Applications
Malware (spyware and virus) cleanup and prevention is one of the most
important aspects of computer maintenance. If you catch a virus on your
system, you leave yourself open to all sorts of mischief - including
having files deleted, getting your address book scammed and spam e-mails
being sent in your name, and even having your credit card and banking
information stolen! Spyware can be just as bad - it typically "watches"
what you do on your computer, down to even logging keystrokes, and thus
stealing your passwords. In addition to these problems, spyware and
viruses are often poorly written, causing performance problems in your
system.
