Your computer is your friend. Like all friends, however, sometimes it can bog you down and prevent you from getting useful things done. Thus, like your friends, you need to make sure that it's neat, tidy and in good repair.
Okay, maybe you don't really do that with your real friends, but you should take good care of your computer. Here are a couple tips to keep things running as quickly as possible.
1. Defragment Often - if you're running a modern operating system such as Mac OS X, Windows 7, or any distribution of Linux, you shouldn't have to worry about this, as it is automatic. However, if you're running Windows XP or any other older operating system, defragmenting from time to time will keep your hard drive snappy and new.
2. Uninstall Old Programs - if there's a game you're finished with or an old program that you haven't used for a long time, pay a visit to the Add/Remove programs menu and uninstall it. Keeping a minimal amount of programs installed on your system means that the registry will remain uncrowded and quick as it was fresh out of the box.
3. Upgrade your RAM - RAM is very cheap nowdays, and having more RAM on an older computer is one of the biggest things that will speed it up. Make sure that you're buying a type that's compatible with your computer!
4. Careful of Start-Up Programs - there are a lot of programs that, once installed, will run every time you start up your computer, and will sit in the background slowing things down without you even knowing about them. Check your computer's Startup folder and make sure nothing is in there that you don't need to have run when you start the computer up!
5. Upgrade to an SSD - this is a bit of a larger and expensive upgrade, so this might not be the best option, but it'll definitely speed your computer up considerably while doing normal tasks such as browsing files or the internet. And SSD is a new type of harddrive that uses flash memory - that's the same kind that's found in iPhones. SSDs are quiet, very fast, and very hard to break. On the down side, they're pretty expensive, and are usually much smaller than regular HDDs (that's the normal kind of hard drive you probably have in your computer right now.)
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"It needs to be about 20% cooler." --Rainbow Dash
Of course you should listen to me. Have I ever lied to you before? I mean, in this topic.