|
|
|
Welcome!
|
 Welcome to the first edition of Raxco Software's e-newsletter about PC health. We want this newsletter to be an easy way for the "everyday" computer user to learn - quickly - how to keep his or her PC running like new --as fast as when it was purchased.
Who is this "everyday" user? In our mind, it's those of you who have basic computer knowledge - not a "power" user, not a computer or IT professional. You're someone who uses your PC or laptop for fun, hobby, or unrelated business pursuits.
Do you use your computer mainly to communicate with your family and friends? To store and organize all those digital pictures, videos, and music? To pay a few bills and surf the web? To write that novel you've been thinking about for years? To catch up on your expense reports and other annoying tasks that don't seem to get done at the office? If so, and you want some simple advice on how to keep your computer running like new all the time, then this newsletter is for you. If you have suggestions or comments, we'd love to hear them too.
If you'd like to sign up for regular delivery of the newsletter, click on "Join Our Mailing List!" button above, to the left.
Thanks for checking us out! |
| You've Cleaned Up Your Pictures, Now What? |
 If you're like most of us, you're basking in the holiday aftermath with all those great digital pictures you took, maybe even a fair amount of videos. As you realize that you might be able to reduce the actual pictures you keep from a few hundred to maybe a few score and still not lose any memories, you may have deleted hundreds, or are in the process of doing so.
But then, there's the school play with your kids, a mid-winter visit to see the grandkids, and you find yourself collecting even more pictures! So what's the effect of this on your PC?
Well, while not damaged, it's not in an optimal state. It's as if you've taken your car for a long trip, with stop-and-go traffic, side trips on less-than-smooth roads, and lots of wear and tear. It could use a tune up. The constant deleting of picture files, adding new ones, and deleting again and again creates lots of holes on your computer's hard drive.
The Windows operating system (whether Vista, XP, or any other) does not do a good job of housecleaning your drive. When you delete a file (e.g. picture), a gap is created on your disk drive. Actually, if the drive was fragmented to begin with, there could be several gaps, even hundreds. And when you store your next picture, there's a good chance that the picture will be broken up into several pieces (fragments), and when you go to view that picture, it will take much longer than it should. That's the pain that a fragmented drive will bring you.
Running a disk defragmentation utility, like PerfectDisk, puts your files back together so that they are in a single piece. This makes it much easier for Windows to read the file, so you'll view your pictures much more quickly. You'll move between pictures more quickly as well. And just about everything you do on your PC will be faster and easier. |
|
| Clean Up Those Internet Files! |
The Windows operating system tries to help us out by making it faster for us to view a page of one of our favorite web sites. How does it do this? It keeps a copy of the web pages we've viewed recently in a folder of Temporary Internet Files. When you go to view a web site, Windows then only has to retrieve what has changed since it stored the page in the temporary file. It seems that Microsoft means well, but.
After a while - days become weeks, weeks turn into years - we have LOTS of temporary files taking up lots of space. And they become a hindrance to performance at some point. It's best to delete them from time to time, defragment your drive to tidy up that newly acquired free space, and start from scratch with a clean drive.
To delete your temporary files, follow these few steps:
- Quit Internet Explorer and any instances of Windows Explorer
- Click Start, click Control Panel, and then double-click Internet Options
- On the General tab, click Delete Files under Temporary Internet Files.
- In the Delete Files dialog box, click to select the Delete all offline content check box, and then click OK.
- Click OK.
|
|
