I get inundated with emails, messages from facebook, and tweets from twitter followers on what to do when they get hit with a virus.  It really is a daily occurance.

Even though the statistics prove it, I still get amazed (and somewhat peeved) when I find out that most people have little to no protection on their pc AT ALL!

First thing you should do is CLICK THIS LINK AND BOOKMARK IT! (it opens in a new window).  It’s step-by-step instructions on how to clean your pc of an infection using FREE SOFTWARE and it is a great first step to protecting your pc even if you don’t have a virus!  RUN THROUGH THESE STEPS TODAY!  IT WILL CLEAN OUT YOUR PC OF ANY DANGEROUS FILES AND GARBAGE FILES!

Second, even though some of these virus scams have been around for years – some of us still need to be warned again and again.

• Don’t open attachments in an email – ESPECIALLY FROM SOMEONE YOU KNOW!
  • If you really want to view it, save the attachment to your pc’s desktop (or wherever you prefer), run a virus scan on the file or files, and then if all is safe-then you may open it.
• Stop clicking on Pop-Ups!  ESPECIALLY ANTI-VIRUS/ANTI-SPYWARE POP-UPS.
  • If you click ANYWHERE on one of these pop-ups, you will get the infection.  Click the big red X in the top right hand corner – OR – use the ALT-F4 keystroke to close the window without using your mouse.
• If you are on sites dedicated to password cracks, hacking warez, and adult based sites – you have a much greater chance of getting infected with viruses and trojans! You probably shouldn’t be on those sites anyway, so don’t be surprised if you get hit.

There on hundreds of other ways your pc can get infected, but if you fall for the EASY TRICKS – why would hackers need to get elaborate?

So you may be like a lot of other people that got a new computer in the last year or two, and now that computer is slow, sluggish, and takes forever to load.  It happens gradually, so you don’t really notice it until you have something to compare it to – like another fast computer!

Here are some steps to take to speed up your computer, most can be done with free software or following simple steps. Some require hardware upgrades.

CLEAN OUT GARBAGE FILES
Windows XP and Vista both get very dirty through constant usage.  Most of the things that you do on your computer create “dirt”.  Email, office apps,  games, and especially surfing the web.  Your computer will collect “dirt” in many different places and in many different ways and all of them impact your computer’s performance.

PC Cleaning BASICS

• Clean out your Web Browser’s cache (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Chrome)
  • Use CCLEANER (here is an article and video on the app) to do this for you.  It will clean out many other garbage files as well!
• Clean out your TEMP files (here is my post on how to do it)
• Empty your Recycle Bin

Run your SPYWARE/MALWARE apps often

Removing Spyware from your pc will speed up your pc significantly.  Click here to learn how to install and run Spyware software.

Defragment your Hard Drive

As you use your computer, the files on your computer change.  They are created, modified, and deleted.  The way Windows works, it saves these file changes but also keeps old versions of the file for recovery purposes. Because of this it has to put file changes on other parts of the hard drive.

The next time you load that particular file, Windows has to search different areas of the hard drive to get all of the fragments of that file.  Now this is a little time time consuming if your file is split up into three or four fragments on your hard drive, but it get’s much worse when your file is in fragmented in HUNDREDS of different places on the hard drive.  The more file fragments, the slower it loads.

How to Defragment your Hard Drive.

• Right Click on the My Computer icon
• Select MANAGE
• When the Computer Management window opens, find Disk Defragmenter in the left pane under STORAGE and click on it.
• In the Right Pane, find the defragment drive button and click.

Following these steps will definitely help your computer operate at much more optimum level, and you should see a nice performance increase if you haven’t run any of these steps before.

We’ll review some more advanced options in the next article.

Now if you have been reading any of my posts, I preach about two things:

• Protecting your pc from viruses, trojans, hackers, etc.
• Backing up your pc data

Now there is THIRD issue that I need to really pound on and that is keeping your pc CLEAN!  I’ve already shown you how to clean out your TEMP files in XP and in Vista which helps out your performance a bit (Click this link to read it), but that is only the one step in keeping your pc clean!

Another step would be to clean out your internet cache, but since we all use different browsers to surf the internet (I actually use a few, IE, Firefox, Google Chrome, and Opera) it makes it difficult to go into 4 different places just to clean out cache.

There are other garbage files that your pc keeps “hidden”, especially if you use Microsoft Office apps like Word or Excel.  Many other programs do the same thing, and even I don’t know where they all are!

Well there is a great tool available that will clean all of these files up off of your pc.  CCleaner.  (short for Crap Cleaner!).  This is one of the most valuable apps that I run.  I have it on every pc that I own, I often put it on my “Emergency” Flash Drive an use it on clients pc’s as well.

It will go out and find ALL of the garbage files on your pc and remove them.  It will also clean out entries in your registry (you registry is basically the list of instructions and permissions that your computer needs to run).

After running CCleaner and a few anti-spyware apps on a pc that is running very slow, I can see a DRAMATIC difference is speed and response.

I love this app, and HIGHLY RECOMMEND that you use it to clean your pc.  I would suggest running it at least once a month.

Watch the video below as I show you how to find the app, download it, install it, and run it.  (Be kind, this is one of my first vids)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ay67_rpljy8

I have a few other videos on YouTube.  Click the Subscribe button to show your support!