| • | Defragment your Pc's hard disc after you have deleted any temporary or unwanted files. This will speed up defragmentation time and help speed up your PC. |
| • | Memory -You want your PC to run at its highest speed then its Memory and more Memory. Install the maximum your PC will allow BUT don't forget to check the maximum memory supported by the operating system installed on your PC. Otherwise your wasting your money. See this Microsoft How To |
| • | Electrical items give off heat and do NOT like getting over heated. Please make sure that your PC (especially Laptops) can circulate air easily. Therefore DO NOT put laptops on quilts or other soft surfaces. Failure to follow this will shorten the life of the PC. |
| • | Graphics - If you save pictures to a web site (e.g. Facebook ) there is no need to have high resolutions as they will still look fine and you will save time both uploading and viewing them. I am refering to the DPI (dots Per Inch). Making this about 96 DPI will be fine for non printed items. Using this size of DPI will make the files smaller and so faster to load. You can find numerous programs that will convert and compress pictures for web publication. |
| • | USER ACCOUNTS - Most users either log on automatically or only have one user name. It is a good idea to have more than user name(i.e. Account name) that you can use to login into Windows. One should be an everyday account name which DOES NOT HAVE administration rights and the other should be used to install/change the operating system and therefore will need "'administrators privilege's". In fact you really need to account names that have Administrators privilege's just in case you forget the password. Using the approach means that the Kid's or any malicous software shouldn't be able to cause your PC to malfunction and make it harder to introduce virus's. More work but alot safer! |
| • | ALWAYS USE PASSWORDS - Make all user names / account names, that you use, have a password. Do not use the most obvious - e.g.PASS , Birthdays , sibling names , etc. Choose something you can remember easily and add a number to it e.g. Battlemug9 or 9battlemug. |
| • | Don't let your free space drop below say 5gb else your PC will slow down considerably. Tidy your system by removing unused programs (safely!),remove temporary files especially those created by Internet browsers. So long as you are comfortable in what you are doing. See Here |