Well bearing in mind the news stories of computer hacks in the last 12 months .............Sony .ect a word on computer safety and maintenance

First maintenance.............
If like me you are old fashioned enough to still run a desktop computer then no doubt someone in your household goes around with a duster and some polish every now and then to get rid of the dust .....................but when was the last time you dusted inside the base unit ?

If you drag it out from wherever it lives and look on the back left side there should be 2 hand screws that undo ........once removed the left side casing can be lifted off

Turn off the power and unplug before starting

once the side is removed you can get a small soft paint brush into the various fans and clean out the dust .......including the power supply unit fan .......................you can then hoover out the resulting dust ...............including the air intakes on the cover and any other dust you can see

If worried about doing this your local computer shop will do the work for a small fee

Blocked vents and cooling fans can cause over heating if not dealt with on a regular basis ..........................I always use the new year as a time to do this work once a year.


Computer protection

By definition we are all on the forum somehow .................. me with a laptop or usually a desktop computer .........however you access someone out there is trying to spoil your experience sad bast**ds maybe but we still need deal with them

The minimum you need is an active virus scanner and a firewall

Microsoft offer a free firewall with most of their software these days as do most anti virus software ................you can get some anti virus software free but the paid for ones are usually better

I'm not here to advertise any make in particular ............but do make sure you have one and its updated regular and run regularly too
Also concider getting an anti malware program too I use a free one called malwarebites (there is also a premium paid version )

Another program I would not be without is spywareblaster
Which if I understand it correctly alters the hosts file (sorry is this sounds too technical) and can be found here

http://download.cnet.com/SpywareBlaster/3000-8022_4-10196637.html

All this program needs is to be updated regularly and the protection to be enabled

So keep it clean and stay safe .................

Another thing I do regularly is back up all my data to an external drive

I regularly cleaned out my computer using a cut down water carrier fill up pipe,
this fits in the flexible nozzle of our Dyson vacuum cleaner the tap adapter makes
a good seal. It would suck a coin from a celts tightly closed fist.
Unfortunately my graphics card has its own fans built into a close fitting duct and
I did not notice the build up of cat fur felt (despite regular cleaning) that took place
inside the result was a trashed GPU. So if you have a similar card it needs removing
and carefully cleaning even removing the cowl if necessary.
The fans can also pick up dirt on their blades to an extent that prevents them starting
up in some cases.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGRxlSjEFq8

Check with your Bank as many of them supply an Anti Virus suite, I get Kasperski free
from mine.
A good Free Antivirus
http://www.avg.com/ppc/gb-en/av_download...CFe3MtAodLS4Acw

Do I need to put it on ramps?

I had the impression that Malwarebytes was now an Antivirus program so perhaps even better.
CC cleaner and Defraggler (from the same stable, Piriform) are really good.

Sound advice for your normal desk top PC's - a good clean out of the cooling system works wonders - but a little more difficult with i Macs

On the subject of anti- virus programmes in my experience they can be 'killers' to pc's - i've had bad experience,particularly with Norton ! Wouldn't touch it with a barge-pole, let alone my PC ! ! !

After having removed all traces of A/V programmes (with great difficulty !) I run my old XP PC with NO Anti Virus -runs better now than ever - but must take care what I open Makes me wonder if most of the viruses and adware don't actually originate from the AV sellers themselves !

My Mini Mac died 2 yrs ago and now lumbered with a laptop therefore the pain that as PC, Microsoft and Windows etc etc. If I could afford another Mac I would.
Never had a worry or problem with it.

Viruses and more often Trojans come looking for you,
I once uploaded a photo of a caravan on a very small ferry,
it contained a Trojan, my antivirus automatically neutralised it
but it set off alarms with other "makes" of antivirus used by the
recipients

Just installed and run Ccleaner on both of our PCs. What a difference - Mozilla was really sluggish to open but now starts in a flash. Thanks for the tip.

" CC cleaner and Defraggler".........Do you need either, or both ?......mines really slow, and don't know what does what........so I tend to do nothing, rather than balls it all up. ......Ian.

Quote: Vanman wrote in post #11

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Just installed and run Ccleaner on both of our PCs.

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If you have not defraggled your computer for a long time, run CCleaner
then afterwards defraggler this takes a fairly long time, dependent on
your hard drive space. It will reunite files that get spread across the drive
and the then tidied files make the computer access to programs quicker

Like Pete I use the Free CCleaner and Defraggler , downloaded direct from Piriform
https://www.piriform.com/ccleaner

Edit; read the instructions carefully.