Care & Feeding Of Your Computer

Care & Feeding of Your Computer

Presented by Don Hazelwood

Computer Maintenance

File & Folder Maintenance

Disk Defrag

UpdatesPhotography by Darren Hester Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 Generic

File & Folder Maintenance

Desktop is not for storage

Store files in My Computer

This makes backing up a BREEZE

Photograph by singleframe Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License

My Documents Folders

a folder is an object that can contain multiple documents.

Folders are used to organize information.

Files Almost all information

stored in a computer must be in a file.

There are many different types of files:

data files program files

Different types of files store different types of information.

Files & Folders

Create Rename Delete Move Copy

Shortcuts To place a shortcut icon

on the desktop Locate the folder or file in

My Documents If making a shortcut for an

application - this will be found in Program Files

right click the icon Select ‘Send To’ Select ‘Desktop (create

shortcut)’ A shortcut is now on your

desktop Photography by ISphoto Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic

Backing Up Your Data

It is not IF your going to have hard drive failure – rather it is WHEN

The data you create is PRICELESS

Have a planPhotography by orangejack Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic

Backing Up Your Data (cont.) Windows XP comes with a built in backup

utility To get to Backup

Click StartClick All ProgramsClick AccessoriesClick System ToolsClick Backup

For more info: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/320820

Disk Defragmenter Process that reduces the

amount of fragmentation of files on our hard drive

Fragmentation occurs when the OS can’t allocate enough contiguous space to store a complete file as a unit

instead parts of files are stored all over your hard drive

Larger files, lots of files & accessing files a lot contribute to fragmentation and consequent performance loss

Defragmentation attempts to alleviate these problems

Disk Cleanup The Disk Cleanup tool

helps you free up space on your hard disk by searching your disk for files that you can safely delete

You can choose to delete some or all of the files Photograhy by jpstanley Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic

Disk Cleanup (cont.)

You can start Disk Cleanup, by doing any of the following:

Click Start, and then click Run. In the Open box, type ‘cleanmgr’, and then click OK

Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, point to System Tools, and then click Disk Cleanup

In Windows Explorer or My Computer, right-click the disk in which you want to free up space, click Properties, click the General tab, and then click Disk Cleanup

Remove temporary Internet files

Remove downloaded program files. For example, ActiveX controls and Java applets that are downloaded from the Internet

Empty the Recycle Bin

Remove Windows temporary files

Remove optional Windows components that you are not using

Remove installed programs that you no longer use

For more info: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310312

Running Defrag

Open Disk Defragmenter by selecting the Start Button in the bottom left corner of your screen, and then selecting in order: All Programs Accessories System Tools Disk Defragmenter

Automating Defrag & Cleanup With Scheduled Tasks, you can schedule defrag

& disk cleanup to run at a time that is most convenient for you

Scheduled Tasks starts every time that you start Windows XP and runs in the background, and it starts each task that you schedule at the time that you specify when you create the task

For more info: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308569

Updating

Operating System Updates

Application Updates

Anti-Virus updates

Photography by ISphoto Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic

Why update? To fix bugs, install patches,

add new features and protect your computer

Install updates as soon as they become available

OS, applications & Anti-Viruses all need to be updated regularly

Photography by davidsonscott15 Attribution 2.0 Generic

Microsoft Update

Turn on automatic updates

Install updates as soon as possible

Microsoft releases updates on Tuesdays

Photography by timhulmephotography Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic

Anti-Virus Updates

It’s imperative in this day and age of instant on Internet to have an anti-virus working at ALL times!

Your computer is completely vulnerable without an UP TO DATE anti-virus

There are fantastic FREE anti-viruses!

Anti-Virus Updates (cont.)

Your anti-virus is only as up to date as it’s definitions

Definitions are used by the program to find viruses

Definitions are & needed to be updated regularly If your definitions are old, your anti-virus can not

catch new viruses. New viruses are released into the wild daily!

Anti-Virus (cont.)

AVG http://free.avg.com/

Zone Alarm http://

www.zonealarm.com

Follow what you’ve learned for a happy computer!