Clean Up Your PC

Summer clean up isn’t just for the house and yard anymore.  Over the winter months our personal computers seem to get used more often.  Well, just like the clutter that accumulates in our homes and around the yard over the winter months our computers accumulate clutter too. That means three things, dust, dirt and unused data files. All three of these can slow down your computers performance. So don’t just get the broom and dust pan out. You’ll also need the PC cleanup kit. These are a few of the tools needed to do the job. There are several products available, from software suites that can do just about everything needed to a good collection of standalone applications (many of which are free). Products differ depending on the type of cleanup you’re planning to do.
Duplicate-File Deleters will scan your hard drive for duplicate files you may have saved to your hard drive.  These files are eating up space that could be used by other data.  A list of the duplicated files will be presented after the scan so that you can then decide whether you want to delete any unintentional twins.
File Shredders will delete and overwrite deleted files so that the original data can’t be recovered (or it becomes very difficult to recover). Most users think when a file is deleted from their hard drive it is gone for good. That’s not necessarily true. What happens is Windows just erases the “bookmark” but the file remains on the hard drive until the data is over written by new data.
Internet History Erasers & Temporary-File Deleters know where all your temporary files are stored and will automatically delete them for you. Every time you visit a Web site or click a link, you leave a trail showing where you have been on your computer. Text, images, and even personal passwords are stored in various places on your hard drive. Here is one you might what to try for starters. CCleaner (free www.ccleaner.com )
This will remove all of the tracks left by Internet Explorer while also deleting a variety of temporary files.
Defraggers are another way you can clean up your hard drive space. Defragging your hard drive takes files that you have saved to the hard drive that may be scattered all over and then moves the files altogether so that there is no wasted space.
The price of a clean hard drive is eternal. You should do a good clean sweep once a month. What are you waiting for, it’s “Summer Clean Up Time”