Defragmenting your hard disk

My friend and fellow blogger Doris wrote about this in a timely post. I defragment (or defrag, for short) my hard disk religiously, at least once a week. This is akin to doing a full-scale tidying of my teenage son’s bedroom, which looks like a war-zone (perhaps someone someday will write a defragmenting program for untidy bedrooms and what have you) in the virtual world. I use O & O Defrag myself, but there are plenty of freeware defrag programs around, an excellent one is Defraggler.

Doris has explained it with unequalled precision so please read her post for complete information about this. There’s just one thing you have to remember before doing a defrag: get rid of all those pesky junk and unneeded files first. I’ve always found CCleaner to be tops in this. It’s freeware, and you can download it from here. No point of defragmenting junk files, is there?

So defrag your hard drives at least once a week for a smoother and faster computing experience.

How to keep your computer (and yourself) happy

Well first, here’s the stuff that I have in my PC. I built it myself (ta-dah!)

• Intel Pentium 4 3GHz processor with Hyper-Threading
• Intel D915GUX Motherboard
• Western Digital 80GB SATA Hard Disk
• 2 GB of Kingston RAM
• Lite-On DVD Writer
• nVidia GeForce 7200GS graphics card with 256MB RAM
• Windows Vista Ultimate

And this is what I have to keep my computer (and myself) happy:

• Comodo Firewall Pro 3.0.22.349. This firewall is free and doesn’t consume a lot of system resources. During the first week or two after installation, it will bug you about allowing or denying events, but once it’s learnt what goes in and out of your computer, it just keeps a silent watch in the background. If you’re connected to the Internet (and who isn’t nowadays) you need a firewall.
• AVG 8 Free. Again, if you’re connected to the net, you need antivirus protection, period. I’ve used AVG 7.5 in the past, and it does a pretty good job, so does the new version 8. Just remember to keep it updated and scan through your system at least once a week. The new AVG 8 comes with built-in spyware protection as well.
• CCleaner v2.07.575. Everyone needs a program to clean through the junk files that get deposited on our hard disks every time we visit the Internet and do stuff in Windows. CCleaner is free, and does an excellent job in the housekeeping area. You can even set it to run automatically every time Windows starts.
• O & O Defrag 10. Again a defragmenting program is necessary due to the fact that Windows throws and scatters files willy-nilly throughout a hard disk. Defragmentation re-sorts and consolidates files so it’s easier for Windows to find them. Think of Windows as a very untidy teenager throwing stuff around the house; a defragmenting program is the housekeeper that tidies up after him. O & O is not free, but there are plenty of free defragmenting programs around. Defraggler is a good one to use. Defrag your hard disks at least once a week and you’ll be ok. HOT NEWS O & O Defrag 4 is now available for free! Register here to get your free copy, with no limitations.

Now where’s my coffee?