I.T.'s in the Gulch!

I met new Gulch resident and great guy Nick Jensen at G-O-R this past weekend. He's a computer technician by trade and has just started his own company here in the Gulch, Kumo Tech. Nick has given my PC a new lease on life with these handy computer tips. I hope they'll do the same for you. And by all means give him a jingle if you have a more serious computer malady. As a Gulcher, he's only a few steps away!

Clear Your Internet Browser Cache
Most people with computers use them to get on the Internet. When we browse there are hundreds of little files we collect along the way. Images, cached pages, cookies, all sorts of things. These things clutter up the back of your computer’s storage and can bog it down pretty easily. Here are some quick and easy instructions for clearing your internet browser cache. If you haven’t cleared these files out in a while, this could take a few minutes.
Internet Explorer -
Click on “Tools” then “Internet Options”. A window will popup, with several categories. Under the “General” tab, the second set of three buttons contains the ones we want. Click on “Delete Cookies” and “Delete Files”.
Chrome/Firefox - Press these three keys at the same time: Control + Shift + Delete, a window pops up - click “Clear Browsing Data”/”Clear Private Data Now” and done!

Uninstall Unused Programs
Through the course of regular computing we decide we need programs installed on our computer for whatever reason. No matter if they are casual games or a program we needed once to open that file our colleague sent us and wont send it in a proper format, a few of them can probably be deleted. Doing this saves our computers resources and helps it along the way.
Do this by going into “Start”/Windows menu - “Control Panel” then “Add or Remove Programs” or just “Programs”. Remove what you don’t need or recognize (leave updates alone), just be careful to not remove programs you use every day.

Disk Cleanup
Probably the easiest to do is Disk Cleanup utility. It doesn’t get everything, but sometimes gets things that are easily missed. Just open “Start”/Windows Menu - “All Programs” - “Accessories” folder, “System Tools” folder, then “Disk Cleanup”

Malware Scan
Malware is software with malicious intent, usually downloaded unknowingly from web sites you visit. It is caught with programs like Spybot S&D, Adware, and many others. Performing regular scans for Malware keeps it off your computer, using up less of your computer’s resources.

Virus Scan
Virus scanning is very important. Even if you have a virus protection software suite that offers Active Protection, you should still preform scans weekly. Sometimes viruses and other malware gets past active protection and needs to be scanned to get caught and removed. Performing manual scans, or if your software supports it automatic scans, can keep your computer clean of viruses and running like a well oiled machine.

If your computer still feels sluggish, it may need some advanced tweaking and cleaning to get it running back to normal. Feel free to call me if you feel the need for an expert to step in and remove that huge computer-aided headache you are getting.

Nick Jensen 360-989-8999
Kumo Tech