How To Speed Up Your Computer: In 30 Minutes Or Less

Revealed...

"Discover A Few Simple Methods To Speed Up Your Slow Computer And End Your Frustration Today..."

Resources

Note: These are not the techniques in the book, but other free/paid products that can help with specific aspects of cleaning your computer and increasing your productivity.

Install AVG Antivirus Software

There are many antivirus software programs available that one can pay for, but this one is free.

Simply download it from the above link and install it on your computer. Ignore the messages that tell you to upgrade and pay XX amount of dollars. While this version of AVG is free, it does have an annoying habit of scanning your hard drive at a set time each day. (No, you can't turn it off, but it's a small price to pay.)

Install Spyware Removal Software

Spyware is one of the worst offenders which causes computers to slow down. For those of you who don't know what spyware is, it's software that covertly gathers user information through the user's Internet connection without his/her knowledge, usually for advertising purposes.

It resembles a Trojan horse in some ways as users unwittingly download the software. Among other things, spyware steals steals from resources on your computer and also eats up bandwidth. The result can be a slow running computer, system instability and crashes.

Spybot Search & Destroy

Spybot Search & Destroy is a free spyware removal program, but just because it's free doesn't mean that it's ineffective. Some users, like one of the experts I interviewed, use it and nothing else.

WebRoot Spy Sweeper

Spy Sweeper offers three main features: Sweeps and quarantine, shields and subscription updates. Sweeps can be scheduled to run at times of your choosing, while you're not at your computer, or on-demand.

Defrag Your Hard Drive Automatically

An ongoing speed issue problem is defragging your hard drive which needs to be done on a regular basis. Unfortunately, Windows does a poor job of it. Instead, I recommend Diskeeper Pro.

You can purchase all of the above programs at:

Buy a Router

Which type of router to buy depends on your setup, as to whether that's for a LAN with cables only or a wireless setup for the home or office. For the most part we're going to look at the home setup. On the PC side of the equation, those would be D-Link and Linksys. I personally use the Linksys Broadband Firewall Router, with 4 port switch/VPN Endpoint. This type of firewall is relatively easy to use and set up.

If you're in an office setting with multiple machines, printers, etc., you'll need a switch, more routers, and print server.

One option that I like in particular for a wireless router (for both PC and Mac users) is the Airport Express and the Airport Extreme. These are easy to set up and are an excellent option

If you use a laptop and travel quite a bit, a good option is the ASUS WL 330GE Wireless Access Point. This device is small, compact and offers a firewall. It's had some great reviews. I recommend Buy.com for these products. I've bought many items from them and I'm satisfied with their service.

Buy a Fast Hard Drive or Solid State Drive

If you want to speed up your computer, the first place to look is at your hard drive. The hard drive governs how fast your data is accessed. If your hard drive is slow, your system will be slow, it's that simple. Generally, I recommend that you buy a hard drive with a speed of no less than 7200 RPM and make sure it has a fast cache (the cache is an important factor in determining how fast the data is transferred).

One big thing that will improve your performance is to add one or two extra drives. Consider using a dedicated swap drive. When applications exceed use files that exceed your memory, a swap drive is used. The default is the C:\ drive which is used by Windows and many other applications.

For a swap drive (or a system drive), a 10,000 RPM hard drive is an option, though you may run into cooling and noise issues. Another option is a Solid State Drive. Either one of these options will increase the speed in working with large files. The last option is a 7,200 RPM drive (with a fast cache) for a swap drive.

If you use Photoshop CS4, a dedicated graphics card with plenty of RAM on the card can also boost your performance considerably.

Note: Use IDE, SATA, or eSATA drives. Don't use USB or Firewire drives. These act as bottleneck and will slow your system down. An external drive is good for data backups, though, which is how I use them.

Check out the drives offered by

Update Your Hardware

A huge problem that contributes to productivity issues is having old hardware. If your computer is more that 3 years old, the incidences of hardware related issues goes up considerably. It's wise to consider replacing your components - or even the entire computer system every 2-3 years. It's also useful to note that since hardware prices have dropped so much, replacing a component or two isn't much. Be aware though that since hardware is now so inexpensive, one servicing bill could easily match the price of a new system.

Another option is to have another complete computer system with the same setup as your main system in your office. If one goes down, you can switch over to the other system.

Upgrade Your RAM

After the hard drive, the next bit of hardware to look at is the amount of RAM you have on your computer. The amount of RAM is another important factor governing how well your computer will run. To find out what type of RAM your machine will support, visit:

Online Storage Solutions

A crucial step to securing your data is to use backups, not only in your home or office, but also online. I've explored several types of online storage services and the ones I like are IDrive and Both work well, however, one caution is necessary. If you're on the road and you're using wireless, you'll need a fast connection, especially if you're transferring large amounts of data, otherwise the progress could slow to a crawl. Whenever possible, use a LAN connection.

Web Hosting

If you work with a lot of web sites and you're looking for hosting, I recommend GoDaddy, not just for hosting, but also their great pricing for domain names. They have saved me hundreds of dollars and the support has been impeccable. I highly recommend their service.

Other Resources

eLibrary - Open Ebooks Directory - includes most of the ebooks sold on the internet. Free for addition of one's own ebooks.