The Lady Programmer

I was offline yesterday. I decided to do put in some downtime and do preventive maintenance work. In the long run it does wonders.

What’s my preventive maintenance duty like?

• Recovering hard disk space
• deleting unneeded personal files (to make my files more manageable)
• deleting old installers, drivers and updates (they take too much space and I download new versions anyway with my fast internet connection)
• uninstalling all programs that I don’t use
• clearing out the temp files folder (which had grown to a gigabite of space) 
• clearing the trash bin
• Checking my firewall settings – making sure that it is set to optimum, just enough to let my torrents, downloads, file transfers work I still use the free Comodo personal firewall at its optimum defense setting.
• Switch to using a free antivirus program. I settled for Avira AntiVir Personal. I have a firewall anyway. It is also important to run a full scan once in a while.
• Defragmenting the hard disk. Very important. Diskeeper 2008 is still my favorite because it allows me to leave autodefragmentation on; it is also possible to defragment the page file too – which results to a faster performance that I experience myself. 
• TuneUp Utilities is an all-in-one nifty utility where I can do most tune ups like unchecking or removing programs that run on startup, optimizing my internet speed, repair, clean and reduce registry size and do check disk operations. What’s great is that I don’t need to hunt for separate programs to do each of those operations. I can even configure it to do automatic tuneups in the background.

Doing preventive maintenance regularly is one way to take care of the PC and detect any potential problems that can be seen.

Are you doing regular PC maintenance? Or do you wait for your PC to be broken? Share your thoughts.

I call myself a paranoid before I entered the world of blogging. I’m afraid to trust the internet. Although I have started my career in IT (instead of pursuing my original course as an engineer), I immersed myself with all the IT magazines that I could read. I learned about the perils of using the internet.

These words blared out at me: hacking, password theft, online security breach

These antivirus, firewall and software manufacturers have to come up with ways to make it easier for the end user. Zone Alarm did not work for me as a personal firewall, I find BitDefender and Kaspersky antiviruses with built-in firewalls consuming much of my PC’s resources. Right now I dumped my ESET Smart Security and used the one with out any built-in firewall instead. Why? Because its built-in firewall blocked me off from using the internet, and I had mistakenly blamed it on my good performing ISP.

Comodo Free Firewall is probably a good alternative to those that I have used so far. I guess their mission on making a trusted internet for the end users worked well for them. When I checked CNET, my favorite download site for almost a decade, their free firewall software is the second most downloaded firewall software next to Zone Alarm.

Right now, I’m taking this Free Comodo Firewall for a spin. I turned off my default Windows XP firewall then proceeded with the installation. The interface of this firewall look a bit advanced, so I think ordinary users might get lost at first.

first look at Comodo after installation

I think that using third party firewall like Comodo is a suitable option than relying on old Microsoft to patch up vulnerabilities in their Windows firewall, which comes in every Windows XP package. I guess hackers and virus writers figured out ways to always take out that Windows firewall’s defenses. Not all network administrators and home PC users want to perform those pesky Windows updates.

I’d probably stick with Comodo’s firewall for a while, and see how it fared. I still like Windows XP but I think the Windows XP firewall lacks the security that I need. I am one among those people who need to check seemingly secure bank accounts and Paypal money.

Comodo is not limited to their famous free firewall product: they also have antivirus malware, antivirus and if you are designing a secure website, they can also provide Comodo HackerProof certificate authority.

I’ve been troubleshooting my very slow PC today. I could not really bear the slow response of my computer. I just have a very slow computer and I do not really know what’s causing it: fragmented files, installed antivirus, full hard disk may have caused this slowdown.

photo credit: erwinbacik (SXC)

I had to start with the basics first and I’ve mentioned these simple steps in this blog. But it seemed that my own simple advice was not working. Reformatting the whole machine may be the next step that I may do. Adding new hardware may have solved my woes. But I find it better to do the simpler steps that I can still do. Not all of the things that I did are for the faint hearted.

• Defragment. The built-in Windows defragmenter does a fair job of defragmenting files on the hard disk. But I prefer using Diskeeper 2008 to analyze and defrag my old hard disk. Diskeeper does a great job of showing a map of my hard drive: I could see where my page file, folders, system files and other non-system files in place. I could even choose to have autodefragmentation on and forget about it. I could even do a boot defragmentation to defrag my MFT and page files.
• Change Antivirus (with Firewall). Bitdefender and Kaspersky are two leading antivirus programs that eats a lot of resources. I prefer the ones with the firewall versions because I like the seamless connection between the antivirus and its firewall. I switched to ESET Smart Security, another leading antivirus program, and I kept it since because it does not slow down my PC.
• Uninstall Unnecessary applications. A full hard disk results a fragmented paging file. A fragmented paging file results to a slower response when the RAM tries to read data from the hard disk.I decided to remove all the applications that I do not need anymore to free up much space and make it easier for the paging file and other applications that temporarily use the hard disk as scratch, such as Photoshop. The huge free space also makes it possible to perform hard disk defragmentation.
• Deleting unnecessary and temporary files. The built-in disk cleanup in the accessories section does a good job of removing unnecessary files. But there are other utilities that even clears up all the unnecessary files in place. TuneUp Utilities provides all-in-one computer utilities and can be easily used by basic computer users. This software not only delete unnecessary files but also lets me cleanup the registry and repair errors. It even lets me optimize the use of windows and customize it so that I use my own customized icons for “My Computer” and “Recycle Bin”.
• Reinstall hard disk IDE driver. I’m still using my old IDE hard disk, but I should be shifting to a SATA one soon. The IDE channel transfer mode was down to PIO mode. It should be in DMA so that I get to have a faster access. The easiest way for me to shift back to DMA mode is to reinstall its driver. The change may have been caused by read errors that may be creeping into my old hard disk. I would be needing a new hard disk soon.

I got my PC faster with the steps that I did above. It seemed that my computer seems to be as fast as a newly reformatted one and I’m happy with it.

What are your own tips?

I encounter occasional computer slowdowns. I’m quite fortunate that I get one problem after the next, but I still have great hope that there will come a period when I am left with no problems to solve – for a break.

Of course, troubleshooting computer problems is a task that I should do. I’m a technical person, being previously in the field of maintenance engineering and IT software development. I work around with computers and I do not mind getting my hands dirty on fiddling with the insides of my own computer.

Part of the maintaining my computer is making sure that it runs well. I do a lot of tweaking and optimizing just to squeeze out more power from it. I’ve seen so many notebook computers whose desktops run using the default driver and do not perform up to the expected functions that are provided with the drivers. Technicians at computer repair shops always say that the default settings are fine for them. I do not agree with this. Technicians are more concerned in building up a PC and keep it functioning – they think that this is enough to make computer users happy.

photo credit: sue_r_b (SXC)

I’ve got something to say for PC users who prefer to get more power from their PC without getting through the hassle of an upgrade:

1. Install the latest drivers provided by each hardware manufacturer. I would recommend this highly if you got a fast internet connection. Even if Windows (or other OS) installs a default driver for your motherboard and other add-in cards, most special functions and optimized settings are not available. If you do not have a fast internet connection, the drivers provided in the CDs will do.
2. Turn off unnecessary services. In Windows XP, I often turn off several services that I do need like System Restore, Help and Support, Fast User Switching, Remote Registry and IIS. There are many guides in the Internet that leads to which services are safe to turn off – just do a Google search for it. Enabling unnecessary services not only slows down the PC but exposes it to virus attacks.
3. Kill all viruses and malware. The present-day viruses often slows down the PC and are often difficult to remove once that these offending software had settled-in. Consider investing into leading antivirus software with built-in internet security settings (not the plain ones). BitDefender, Kaspersky and ESET are leading antivirus software that are worth having. Online virus scanners are also available and are good for getting “second opinion”.
4. Disable unnecessary programs that load at startup. Slow startup time is often the result of too many programs that load up at startup. Get into these programs one-by-one and try to disable loading up at startup through its settings.
5. Turn off eye candy. The default settings of Windows always enable the effects, which slows down the response time of the PC. Turning it off can help reduce the load in loading windows of software. Or better yet, turn off the Themes services in the Administrative Tools.
6. Uninstall unnecessary browser toolbars. Not all toolbars are worth running at the same time in Firefox and IE. Turning off some of the toolbars will do wonders on loading up the browser the next time around.

These are simple tips that I can share which, I believe, can do significant changes to the speed of the PC.