Recommendations for your PC

Has your PC gotten slower with age? Do you wonder where the speed went? This site has 9 specific things you can do with advice on how to go about it.

PC Tuneup - Speed up your slow PC

New programs are larger, run more services and tax the memory of an older PC. To effectively operate today you need at least 512 MB to 1 GB of RAM. Check your RAM size and consider an upgrade. In XP you can easily see how much memory you currently have: Click "Start", select "Control Panel", select "System" to see RAM installed.

Buying RAM is easy. Since there are several types of memory chips, you do need to be sure to match the right memory with your PC.

Another consideration is add or replace. You can often add to the existing memory if there are slots available on your system board. You can also replace the existing small chip(s) with a single but larger capacity memory chip.

Buying on-line is safe and easy. The good vendors make it easy for you to pick the right memory, place the order, and also advise on the installation.

RECOMMENDATION - I have been buying memory from Crucial Technologies for years. They have been reliable, fast and economical.

Click here for Crucial Technologies

Control is the operative word, as Email spam is as unstoppable as an ant swarm. Think containment. I get no spam in my Inbox. I still have to deal with the spam messages, but I keep their numbers as low as I can, and I easily keep them out of my Inbox. My Inbox is for Email that I want to receive for my business, interest areas, or from family and friends. Here are the steps I take:

1) When a junk email offers you the chance to get your name taken off their list by "click here". Don't do it! Some bulk mailers can be trusted, but too many can't. They take your click as a confirmation of a live Email address. Then spam multiplies.
2) Pass on my ISP's offer to look for spam and label it for me. All this does is give me spam in my Inbox with ***SPAM*** in the subject line. I can recognize spam; I don't want it in my Inbox.
3) Use an alias Email address that I can access from webmail for requests that may end up with my Email address being sold as part of a list.
4) Use a "whitelist" spam manager. This manager only puts mail from trusted Email addresses in my Inbox. I decide which are trusted Email addresses. Everything else goes into a quarantine folder. I read my Inbox for action and interest items. I quickly scan the quarantine folder for any stray "friends" with a new Email address and dump the rest.

I put spam management programs into two categories:
A) Most try to figure out spam from the contents, and from lists that you have to actively manage. Too much work for me and I hate the idea that good mail can easily slip away while some junk still creeps into my Inbox.
B) A whitelist program keeps one basic list - all the good email addresses. Decisions are simple, and almost risk free. If a good message gets into quarantine, then I simply approve it and that address now goes into the good people list.

RECOMMENDATION - The spam manager that I've used for quite a while and install for clients is eTrust Anti-Spam (formerly called Qurb). It has a one-time nominal cost, but I rely on it. You can trial the software before buying.

Click here to download a free trial version Anti-Spam software (ond other CA products)

If you have a hard drive crash, disabling virus, crippling spyware, or just make a bad choice in installing or operating you could lose your operating system and have to start over. It takes too long to setup a PC with all the software, settings, and customizations required.

Make a disk image after setting up a PC, and before disaster strikes. Reloading the image gets you back in operation faster. Disk imaging software makes a file that is a true image of your complete hard drive. Instead of copying individual files it makes a snapshot of the entire disk surface. We do an image on new office systems, and recommend it for home systems as well.

RECOMMENDATION - Acronis is one of the simplest and most versatile imaging packages.

Use this focused search engine to explore topics. You can also expand to a comparison search with Google.

Check out the PC Search Engine

For the code to add this focused search engine to your site, click
here

I've tried several and settled on StatCounter. I currently use the free version that has a 100 count limit. One project can track many different web sites, so you can have a counter on each lens, blog, or web site.

The major drawback in using it for Squidoo lenses is that you cannot get referring link information, apparently because Squidoo doesn't allow the necessary javascript.

RECOMMENDATION - Click the StatCounter Icon below and create a tracking project for yourself. Follow the StatCounter steps and paste the code into a Squidoo Write module or your web site's home page.

Microsoft is beta testing a new product/service called Office Live. In a nutshell you get your own domain name, tools to make you own web site, and you get that site hosted for free. Based on my experience, you can have a web site up in less than an hour and live to the world in less than a day.

This product is not for everybody. Get more detail on the product, gotchas and suggestions here. Lens into Office Live

See an example of a quick web site here. Stankevicz web site - Office Live experiment

This is the process I've followed to add Technorati to my Squidoo lenses:
1) Open Technorati in one browser window, and your Squidoo lens in another browser window.
2) Enter your full Squidoo URL to claim it.
3)You get a Quick Claim page that says you are a WordPress user. Scroll to the bottom of this page and "Skip this step".
4)You get a Technorati Embed page. Scroll to the bottom of this page and "Skip this step".
5)You get a Technorati Link page. Copy the code into a Squidoo Write Module.
6) Save and Publish your lens.
7) On Technorati click "Claim your blog now".
8) You should get a success message, and then can enter your description and tags.

A Lens is a focused site that explores or introduces a topic for you. It can be a research starting point, a reference point, or just an interesting diversion.

Learn about Squidoo:
About Squidoo (the Organization)
Everyone's an Expert (Free Ebook)
Create a Squidoo lens (Share your expertise)

Look through some lenses:
Hydroculture - How to grow houseplants in water
Retire in Arizona
Arizona Cities
Maps of Arizona
Homeowner's Associations (HOA)
Computer Consultant - Outsourced IT
Texas Hold'em - the real deal
PC Recommendations

Related Blog and Web Sites:
One stormy day%u2026
SAI Consulting
PC Tuneup - Speed up your slow PC

Computer Technical Support and Information by pctech [ Join Now | Ring Hub | Random | << Prev | Next >> ]