Sluggish computer performance is one of the most annoying things folks today have to confront at home and at work. As technology gets faster and the interfaces get sleeker, people have become accustomed to a lightning fast reaction from their computer. When the system gets bogged down with unnecessary files and malevolent viruses, the performance inevitably suffers. With a few simple maintenance steps it is possible to keep your machine running like the lean and mean creature that it is.
The first thing you should do is clean up unnecessary files. Having extraneous files means the computer has to search through more places to find whatever it is it is trying to locate. This adds time to each search. Cleaning out these extra files saves time and speeds up each search. Once extra files are cleaned out, run the defragmentation program in your computer’s control panel. This will consolidate files from the same program. Not only will future searches be quicker and more efficient, but this process will also allow the computer to file later additions to the hard drive together. They’ll be easier to find as well. It is a smart move that will help your computer run faster almost immediately.
Accessing regular updates will help keep your system running at its peak performance. Update all applications, browsers and other programs. Update Windows weekly to ensure that it remains secure. Update your drivers as prompted. Make sure your anti-virus software is updated regularly. (And make sure you have good anti-virus software in place; nothing slows a system down as much as a devastating virus attack.) Keep open windows and tabs to a minimum. Each running program requires a portion of the processor to keep it running. Also make sure to use applications that have less memory overhead. Let me share some good everyday use applications that are not only memory efficient but are open source, free and user friendly as well.
Open Office- You can replace your iWord or Microsoft Office with Open Office, which is a very useful and memory friendly tool to create word files, spreadsheets, and presentations.
VLC- A good media player that can be used to play media files efficiently in a memory friendly manner. VLC is loaded with advanced video codecs so that you could play VCDs, DVDS, web streams, TV cards etc. If you are satisfied with your existing media player then rather than installing multiple codecs at different times to support different video formats, you can think about installing Xvid codecs.
FileZilla- A good FTP file transfer application that lets you connect with FTP servers efficiently making file transfers easier.
Ares- A good file sharing P2P network that you can trust for file sharing and making it easier to swap media files. Ares is free of adware and includes a built-in chat service.
By following all these tips you can optimize your computer’s performance quickly and cheaply. And a faster computer makes for a happier worker.