10 Ways To Make Your Computer Run Faster

After a while all computers will tend to start to run slower and slower. This is most commonly due to the build up of software that runs in the background without the user knowing. This is why when you first get your computer it will run much faster then after a few years. So in the steps below I will show you how to slowly reverse this process of computer sinus congestion!

1. Download CCleaner

CCleaner is a piece of free software that will scan through your computer and find old temporary and other unnecessary files. It will analyze and report what files are simply wasting your computers resources. It will then ask if you would like to remove the unnecessary files. This will free up some hard drive space as well as help your computer perform faster.

2. Use CCleaner to clean Start-Up programs

Many programs (especially Instant Messengers) will add themselves to your computers start up programs list. This list is a list of programs that will automatically start and run when your computer is turned on. Most of the time it is a list of unnecessary programs that are wasting your computers resources. In CCleaner there is a tab that deals with start up programs. You can go into there and disable all of the programs that you do not use. Now be careful here, a few of the programs in this list should be started when your computer turns on. In order to determine if the start up at boot of a certain program should be allowed, look at the location of the file. First of all, avoid disabling anything in the “Windows” folder. If the program is not in the Windows folder then look and see if you can tell what program it is. If it sound familiar and you know you don’t use it anymore, it is most likely safe to disable.

3. Defragment Hard Drive

After a while the files and sectors on your hard drive can be scattered around in an un-orderly fashion. Basically as your computer uses files and new files are added they can be put back in different sectors or places on your hard drive. This means that your computer is going to have to go and search for the files every time it wants to run a program. This is because the files are scattered through out different sectors on the hard drive. Now what I am talking about isn’t saying that the files are scattered in different folders on your hard drive. I am saying that they are scattered around physically on the hard drive. This can lead to more of a larger problem if you have a larger hard drive. To do this you can (in Windows XP) go to the Start>All Programs>Accessories>System Tools>Disk Defragmentation. Then you will run the defragmenter. You may notice your hard drive space increase, or in some cases, decrease. This is because the files on your hard drive are being re-ordered in a more efficient way.

4. Uninstall Unnecessary Software

This one is very simple. Junk software can clog up and slow down our computers. This is why it is important to go through and remove all unnecessary software. CCleaner will do this but if you do not want to download any software you can use Windows built in program remover. All you have to do is go to your start menu and select “Add/Remove Programs” then from there you will be able to remove all unneeded programs.

5. Hibernate/Standby

If your computer takes a long time to turn on due to having a lot of programs starting up when you turn on your computer, you can hibernate your computer or put it into standby. Standby is a low power consuming state. When you move you mouse the computer will com out of standby within second and will be ready to use! The only downside of standby is that if you leave your computer on in standby it will consume power, that is why I recommend hibernate. Hibernate is basically turning off your computer but it saves everything that is going on to your hard drive. So the computer will take about half the time to turn on as it would a normal boot. The good part, as I mentioned, is that it does not use any power when it is in hibernate. If you decide to do one of these, I would still recommend giving your computer a cold turn off every so often to unload the memory!

6. Check Virus Scanner

Sometimes your virus scanner will perform scans in the background without you knowing. This is good as far as keeping your computer virus free but it can cause your computer to run slowly. This is why I recommend you schedule your computer to run scans when you know you will be not using your computer as much.

7. Clean Your Computer

I would only attempt this if you know a good deal about computers and how to take them apart and put them back together again. After a while dust can build up and cause connection on the motherboard to not work properly. I would recommend taking a can of compressed air and spraying the insides of your computer. Just be careful where you spay so you don’t harm anything. If you are afraid of harming something with the high pressure in the can of air then you can take your lungs and put them to use. Just blow really hard into your computer and clear out all of the dust manually. I would also recommend you do this outside as there will most likely be a lot of dust coming from the inside of your computer.

8. Re-Install

I myself do not like this option but other may enjoy the idea. Basically if you purchased your computer at a popular retailer it most likely came with an installation disc for the operating system. What you can do is completely re-install your operating system which will allow your computer to run as if it was brand new! Just make sure you back up all of your files as the re-installation will delete and erase everything on the hard drive. This is why I recommend using this option with caution.

9. User Lower Graphics Settings

If you are just an average user browsing the web and using Microsoft Office then you could lower the graphics setting on your computer. Most computers will start to use the computers memory if the graphics memory isn’t enough when running graphic intensive settings. This is why you should try using a more basic theme or color settings on your computer. But if you are a gamer or graphics or video editor I wouldn’t recommend taking this route.

10. Upgrade

This is one option that you could take to help your computer run faster. The only problem with this is that it requires some extra money to be spent. If you have the money and are willing to rip open your computer and upgrade it physically then you should give this a try. You can upgrade the RAM which will help your computer load graphics and browse faster. You can also upgrade your processor (let a professional do this) which will help your overall computer performance.

Ø CCleaner Download

Top Three URL Shortening Sites

There are so many of them. They are very useful and make sharing web-sites extremely easy. There are many different services that provide a way for you to take a website link or its URL and shorten it. This allows you to send a link to a site that may have a link of thirty or forty characters but you will only have to send a link with about 10 or so characters.

How They Work
What these websites do is they will take you longer URL and they will give it a set page using their site and redirect to the page that you want to link to. For example, lets take this extremely long link, http://computersight.com/software/how-to-partitionformatdelete-a-hard-drive-partition/, if you past that into a site that will shrink it for you it will come out looking something like this. http://tinyurl.com/y49qhsa. It took 80 characters and cut them in half!

Different URL Shortening Sites

TinyURL.com
In the example above you can see that I used a site that shrinks longer link to shorter ones called TinyURL. TinyURL has some nice bonus features such as letting you create a preview link. It also lets you create a custom link where you can put any text you want after the “TinyURL.com” part.

Bit.ly
Bit.ly is another free site that will shorten your links. It also has features such as making custom links. The best part about this one is that you can sign up for an account. With an account you can keep a record of all the link that you have ever made on your account. It will also track how many clicks each link gets which can be useful for seeing if the link has received any hits over the past few days.

Hoot Suite
Hoot Suite is a site that will shorten your URLs. It will use a “ol” or “owl” extension. Hoot Suite also will track clicks on different links. The best part about Hoot Suite is that it is a Twitter Management site. You can manage different twitter account all from one Hoot Suite account for free. It has a built in tweeter and URL shorten-er. This makes getting those long URLs into your 140 character or less tweets very easy!


As you can see there are many different ways to get those extremely long link to websites down to only a few characters. The best part is that they are all free! So now hopefully all of you can start using more smaller and convenient links!




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The Best Password for You – Making The Most Safe & Secure Password!

A strong, secure password is the most important thing that someone who surf the Internet and has accounts that hold important information can have. You want to make sure that your password is very unique and that it is something that no one would think about. Everyday there are many people who are victims of theft on the Internet. People will continuously try to guess the password to your bank account on-line. Eventually one of them may get in, that should only happen though if you have a poor password. So here are some tips that will help you create the absolute best password!

Passwords should consist of at least 3 different parts. A word, symbol, and numbers.

Part One - Word(s)
A word in your password will help you better remember the password itself. You are going to want to pick a word that doesn’t relate to you. Do not let it be your name, nick-name, favorites, hobbies, and other stuff like that. Pick something completely opposite you or even better, pick a random word out of the dictionary. Just make sure it is at-least 4 or 5 characters long, it can be longer but 4-5 is the smallest it should be. Once you find the right word, learn how to spell it backwards. This will just add a little more difficulty and complexity in your password.

Part Two - Symbol(s)
Once you have selected an appropriate word your password you are going to want to add one or more symbols after it. You can choose any symbol from the top of your keyboard. If you choose to use the number symbol, “#”, make sure you use at least one more after or before that. I say this because if you are going to add numbers for the final part of your password, adding a number symbol may not be very effective.

Part Three - Numbers
As you can see I said numberS. You have to make sure you have at least four numbers. Numbers are a key part of the password because there can be an unlimited amount of them. You are going to want to choose some numbers that also have no relation to you. Don not let it be your age, birth year, or any other date of any other family member. Try your best to just make it a few random numbers. If you want you can just close your eyes and clatter away at the number pad and see what you come out with!

So if you follow these three simple steps you should be able to make a very secure password that you can use to protect your most important accounts! Below is an example of a password I made to give you an idea. (It’s not one I use) As you can see I spelled the word “tree” backwards and I added a dollar symbol followed by a number symbol. Then I added 6 numeric characters.

eert$#627589

Good luck with your password!





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How to get more Swagbucks Faster! [Free Video Download]

Want to start to win swagbucks more quickly? Check out this video to learn how you can earn thousands of free prizes every single day! Click Here To Download The Video For Free!!!

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How To Learn How Fast Your COmputer Is [Free Video Download]

Check out this video to learn how you can check the specs of your computer. If you are wondering how fast your CPU is or want to know how much RAM you have, check out this video to learn how! Click Here To Download It Now For Free!

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Check The Speed Of Your Internet Connection [Free Video Download]

Wondering how fast your internet connection is? Do you think your ISP (Internet Service Provider) is ripping you off? Take a look at this video and learn how to exactly test your Internet connection speed! Click Here To Download The Video!

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How To Change The Ram In Your Computer [FREE VIDEO DOWNLOAD]

Unsure about how exactly to change the RAM in your computer?

Learn how to change the amount of RAM in your Computer with this video! Click Here To Download For Free!


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Computer Pranks - How To Rotate Your Friends Screen With The Keyboard [FREE DOWNLOAD]

Learn how to rotate your victims computer screen! He will return to a computer with all the graphics flipped up-side-down! AND he wont have clue how to fix it! You will be the only one that knows and that can fix it! Give it a try, especially with April Fools day coming up! Click Here To Download The Video And Plans For Free

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Binary Screen Saver

Check out this Binary Screen Saver! It scrolls green binary 1's and 0's down your screen! Check it out!
Download it here! http://tinyurl.com/ykt9tfk






All Credit Goes To Mike Lin - http://www.mlin.net

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Attaching a USB Flash Drive to a Network as a NAS

Today I have a neat device that you can use to take any ordinary USB flash drive and share it on the network as a Network Accessible Storage (NAS) device. It is a small, $34.99, device that you can use that will take any storage device and attach it to an existing network so that it may be written and read from any computer on the Network.

This device also acts as a Print Server for popular models of common printers. So if you detest having to turn your main PC on every time you want to print from another PC on the network you can use this and share your printer on the entire network.

So overall I would suggest that you take a look at this and possibly buy it as an add-on to your Home Network!

Here is the link! EZ-NAS USB to NAS

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Website update (March 5 2010)

So many of you have probably heard about my website at webs.com. (If you haven't, use the links at the bottom of this post to get there!) I have recently been thinking about what I am going to do when I move the site over to a new hosting service and to a new domain. What really worries me is all of the good links I have built up to the new site. I am afraid of them just getting lost in cyberspace once I move the site over. I could put a re-direct on the webs.com website but I don't think that the webs.com Terms of Service allow you to do that. So what my final plan is that I am going to stay away from the old webs.com website. I will leave the content that is on there for now and in a few years I will launch the new site fully re-done with hundreds of pages for your entertainment. Also the blog will have more and more writing on it. Since I am going to still be wanting to share my ideas and thought as well as some useful information with my online friends I will keep the blog updated. My hope are to have at least a weekly update on the blog to keep you guys up to date. Also check out the Twitter page (link at bottom of post) for even faster, more current updates! Thanks guys!

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LASER is an acronym!

Did you know that LASER is actually an acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. I found it interesting that we go around using the word LASER not even thinking about what it means. Now you may think that by Radiation it means harmful stuff that can give you cancer, luckily that is not true, other wise we would probably all be dead. In this case Radiation is simply another fancy word for light. All a laser does is emits a different type of light that we can still see but is much stronger and can travel farther distances.


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Free Web Hosting

I found this new web hosting site called 000hosting.com or $0.00 hosting. They give you many benefits including PHP and MySQL all for free. Plus 1.5 Gigabytes of Space and 100,000 Gigabytes of bandwidth! All of this is free!




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Daily Tip

I am soon planning to try to have a daily tip on the BestComputerGeek Twitter account. It can be for just about anything but it will mainly be some cool tips or applications that you guys may be interested in! If you have any ideas for tips or anything just let me know and also give me your twitter account name and I will give you a shout out along with your tip! If you need to contact me with a tip you can just message me on twitter or send me an E-Mail. My contact address is on the website!

Google Indexing?

Hey guys, So I have been trying to get my new website indexed by Google but they has still not yet decided to index it. I head that Google will index your site faster and you will see results sooner if you have more inbound links that point to your site. Now I know I have posted a few links to my site in the past few days (or weeks) but I don't think it has been enough. Now I know that my site still needs a little TLC but hopefully I can get it indexed with your guys' help. I am asking all of you amazing people out there to just link to be once. I don't care where it be or what you say but please post a positive link to me somewhere on the Internet. Hopefully Google will notice that my site is increasing in popularity and they will decide to finally index it for me. Thanks Guys! (and Gals!) Just link to my website with this link! Thanks!

http://bestcomputergeek.webs.com

IDE to USB converter

I found a cool device that lets me connect my internal IDE hard drive to a USB port and run it externally on my computer! Check it out!

BestComputerGeek Website

Check out my new website! I have been working on an all HTML website for fun! Just Click Here To Go!

RedGage - Being Featured

So today I was featured on RedGage and I earned myself a $2 bonus onto of the extra views I got on my link. All it was that got me featured was a link to a recipe I wrote for Drop Donuts! I'm am so very pleased with this site and I would recommend it for all of you to try!

Drop Donuts

My RedGage Profile

Sign Up For RedGage

RedGage - Day Two

Hey guys! Well today is now my second day working with RedGage and I am quite pleased with it. I have so far only earned about a quarter but that's great in my eyes. I have been on e site for less then 24 hours and I am already seeing some income which is nice to see! I also have noticed my views go up on all the sites that I have listed there on RedGage. So it has not only gotten me some more money but it has also drove viewers to my other sites and publications on the internet. One more thing that I found nice about the site was the community. The second I signed up I was getting friend requests and comments from many different people. It is nice to see such kind hart-ed people on the internet which is sometimes rare. So overall I am very please with my second day on RedGage and I am looking forward to bring you guys more news and facts about the site! Thanks!

RedGage

Hey guys, So today I got a message from one of my friends on Triond and she recommended I try RedGage. So I followed her link and found myself on the RedGage site. I looked around and found it to be an interesting site. I guess I can submit links to my sites on triond and to my blog posts and for every few clicks I get through there website I get paid. So I gave it a try and I think the site is going to pull through and just might get me some extra money! I hope to let you guys know once I get to the pay-out minimum to see if the site really does pay you. They don't send cash or check but they will mail you a visa debit card. They mail it to you once and whenever you have enough money in your on-line account you can ask them to deduct a certain amount and deposit it onto your card. The card can be use anywhere you can use a visa card so it sounds good! I can't wait to let you guys know how it turns out!

If you want to sign up just use the link below!

http://tinyurl.com/yk67mdl

Setting up a Virtual Private Network

To start of with I will go over what a VPN or virtual private network is. A VPN is a home network but shared over and on the Internet. Basically if you have a printer shared on your home network at home that all the computer in your house can print to, with a VPN you will be able to share that printer on the Internet to certain people. This is basically adding computers from outside of your home network to your network.
To do this you are going to use a product that LogMeIn offers. It is called Hamachi. Hamachi is free VPN software the LogMeIn provides. It will allow you to control up to 16 computers on the same virtual network.
To set up this software you are first going to have to download it. Here is the link so you don't have to go out and try to find the right version for yourself. CLICK HERE to download.


Image via Wikipedia
Once you have gone to that link you are going to want to click on "Get Started." The next step is up to you. It will ask you if you want to set it up as managed or un-managed. Managed just allows you to customize your VPN more. For now we can just select un-managed unless you want to tackle the managed version which really isn't very different. Now you we be prompted to download the software. Download it and go through the set up. You will have have the computer you are currently using set up on the VPN.
To add other computer go to the "Networks" spot over to the left of the screen once you have installed the software on one computer and have logged in or created a new account. Under the networks area go to "My Networks" and under that screen you should see a spot to add a client. You can add another computer that you are using or you can activate a special link that will last for a certain amount of time that will allow you to create an account.
Hope this helps you lean what a VPN is and how to set one up! And remember if you have any questions or need help with any of this just please send me a message or leave a comment below! Have Fun!