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For the next couple weeks I plan to be posting How To articles on computer tips and optimizing tricks. I don’t plan on getting into the eternal argument of what programs are better. So in that sense I plan to stay away from Anti-virus programs, music players, firewall programs, and internet browser recommendations.
I started a computer technician business when I was 16, by the time I was 19 I had over 3000 customers and was very active with my business, and I did this with no formal education in computers. So what I am planning to do is to teach people the easier ways to fix a computer, without the need of a computer degree to understand the why and how for.
These articles will be based around using software programs to fix problems. I will only talk about programs that I know work in Windows, and I will specify which OS version the programs will work with. In most cases the programs work in all versions including vista. It will be hard for me, but I plan to not go into detail about how much I despise, the beast of an operating system called, Vista.
I am against formating a hard drive and reinstalling all your programs to fix a problem. Most of the tricks that I list, will fix most problems one time around. As long as it is not a hardware issue, you will be able to fix it with the programs that I mention. Each program is freeware, but I highly recommend donating to the creators for making such amazing software tools.
On a side note about hardware, the most common things to break in a computer are CD-DVD drives, floppy drives(not in use very much now a days), power supplies, RAM (Memory), and power supplies. After these the next common item to go is the hard drive. Luckily all of the hardware items are fairly good at telling you when they are going to break. I want to add another item that is common to break, and that is, external hard drives. Over the last few years, I have had to do the most amount of data recovery on external hard drives. How external drives are made is by taking a hard drive, that is meant to be protected inside a computer case, and put it in a plastic casing. Because of the moving parts inside of a hard drive, cylinders, headers, etc, they are not made to handle being outside the case. Drives such as flash drives, always known as a jump drive, and solid state drives(upcoming technology) are much more reliable for portable storage use.
The intended propose of these articles are to help people to Clean Up, Speed Up, fix their computers, and ultimately avoid problems with their computers. But to be able to do it in such a way, that they do not become a tech head, IE a geek. I am also against people being charged for something they themselves could’ve easily fixed and not have been taken advantage of by a so called computer guru.
To continue to Computer Optimizing in Layman Terms – Lesson 1 Ccleaner – follow this link
I also have a friend who enjoys nothing better than spending a weekend reformatting his harddrive and reinstalling windows and all his programs. He used to work at microsoft, and for some reason or another, he believes the only way to fix windows is to wipe it out and rebuild it. No matter what argument I use to stop him from doing this, and spending 2 days of his time and becoming upset at all the programs he has to reload on his computer, he still continues to do it.
To bad I don’t make money every time he calls me to help him fix the problems he causes when he reinstalls, I would be a very rich person…
Nice to see someone that understands most problems can be fixed. I just shudder when friends say they had some silly problem and they called tech support and before you know it they are formatting their drive or reinstalling Windows, often losing time and/or data needlessly. Not that I want them calling me all the time, but…
Pretty good story for those out there just getting into PC’s or don’t know much about them. Great post!