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Throughout my time as the one that answers that call that says I need a computer tech I see a lot of people that don’t really know how to take care of their computers. I have found 5 things that I would recommend anyone practice to help keep their computer in top shape. Here they are.
There really is a lot that can be done to keep your computer going at top speed and we are going to discuss the basics here.
Disk Space – A staple of computer optimization is to keep the disk as free as possible of "junk" (that is a very technical term by the way). By that I mean all the files that accumulate in your computer over time. There are utility programs out there that can delete the files that are not needed and there will be no concerns that anything valuable is in jepordy.
File Order – Anytime a new program is accessed or added or deleted from your hard drive the parts of that file get scattered sometimes the caller will call me and say something like my file has disapeared from over the hard drive. As these files get spread out it becomes harder and more time consuming to reassemble them. There are ways available to bring all the parts of these files back together and put them in nearly a solid block again so the hard drive can easily access the information.
Get Rid of Spyware – Spyware is a program that will do bad things to your computer by design; many times it gets installed with your consent. They can take advantage of the fact that people will click "I Agree" to software agreements without reading them. The best method to rid yourself of this sort of spyware programs is to scan your computer like an anti-virus program. Be careful if you do this yourself as lot of the spyware programs out there are of themselves malicious and will put the viruses into your PC in order to create a problem they can solve after you buy something.
Find and Repair Disc Errors – Another computer issue that needs precaution are disk errors. Your computer or your hard drive as it gets older may encounter errors that need to be repaired. There are certain ways we scan the disk and repair those errors but most people are a little afraid of doing this because they imagine working on the drive itself.  Most repair businesses are able to do this with little or no risk involved.
Buy a External Hard Drive – When you add a external hard drive to your PC you can clean out most files that shouldn’t really be on your main hard drive. Like pictures and music files that are not used a lot yet they can occupy a lot of space. These files are exactly what you want to move onto your new hard drive because they are clogging up the hard drive and making it difficult to use. Many other kinds of files also qualify for being stored on an external hard drive too.
Many companies that work on computers will provide the hardware to make the changes you need and you can also go to many computer stores to have them install the new hardware as needed. Just make sure you are not sold a bill of goods that is not necessary. Other than upgrades to memory or unless the computer mother board is burnt out, in most cases upgrades should be minor.  Find someone qualified to ask that doesn’t have a profit motive for their advise. This post brought to you by NickC for Computer Repair Las Vegas rel 67113
 

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In my work I run across a lot of people that have severely neglected their computer for years. Here is a list of the top five tips as a computer tech that I would recommend for any user to help maintain their computer and keep it running great. 

There really is a lot that can be done to keep your computer going at top speed and we are going to discuss the basics here.

Space on Your Hard Drive – As a tech, one of the first things that comes to mind to check when we have computer problems or when we are checking a computer in general is how much space on the hard drive is taken up by files that shold be deleted. Temp files and others that once used need to be deleted. There are programs to do this sort of thing safely and securily.

File Arrangement – A big problem with the way hard drives handle information is that they are not able to access whole files at once but instead they access little chunks of it at a time. To complicate matters even more, when they put those chunks back on the hard drive they scatter them to the closest space available instead of where they were orginally stored. There are programs on the market that will de-chunk a file and put it back into order like it was intended. This makes the whole process of disk access easy and quick.

Get Rid of Spyware – Spyware is a program that will do bad things to your computer by design; many times it gets installed with your consent. They can take advantage of the fact that people will click "I Agree" to software agreements without reading them. The best method to rid yourself of this sort of spyware programs is to scan your computer like an anti-virus program. Be careful if you do this yourself as lot of the spyware programs out there are of themselves malicious and will put the viruses into your PC in order to create a problem they can solve after you buy something. You may end up calling my mobile computer repair service if you are not.

Mark or Repair Disc Errors – The hard drive of your computer is made up of discs that can over time get bad spots on them and in those spots it is possible to loose data if the computer attemptts to write to them. The program that locates these will not only locate them but will also identify if they can be fixed or if they need to be marked as bad sectors and it will no longer use that sector. This check should be done monthly on a newer computer and even more often on a older computer.

External hard Drive – because your hard drive is constantly being accessed the ideal situation is to have only the most used files on the main hard drive. That way the amount of information accessed is minimized. Ideally you want to have a  separate storage space for all the rarely used files. Files like pictures and music should definitely be stored on another hard drive as this makes for a lean mean main drive and otherwise you only go get the info when you need it.

Many companies that work on computer will provide the hardware to make the changes you need and you can also go to many computer stores to have them install the new hardware as needed. Just make sure you are not sold a bill of goods that is not necessary. Other than upgrades to memory or unless the computer mother board is burnt out, in most cases upgrades should be minor.  Find someone qualified to ask that doesn’t have a profit motive for their advise. This post brought to you by NickC for Computer Repair Las Vegas rel 67112

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