by Jerry Stern
Webmaster, PC410.com
Westminster, Maryland

There are only a few things that you have to do as a computer owner to keep it running longer, reduce your repair costs, and avoid malware infections.

• Keep the PC off the floor.

The floor is for the dog, and the vacuum cleaner, also known as Sir-Ram-a-Bot. Computers left on the floor, especially carpeted floors with pets, accumulate dust, lint, and random debris inside, run hotter, sometimes become more noisy as the system automatically adjusts the fan speed up, and generally fail more often.

However, don’t put a computer inside a cabinet if it wasn’t designed for it, using a ‘green’ processor and ‘green’ hard drive–these energy-efficient parts use less power, and run cooler. All cabinets used for computers should have an open back, and the computer should be pushed back enough to make the rear computer vents line up snugly with the open area.

• Defragment the drive regularly.

Defragmentation is like moving the junk on your desk into a filing cabinet–it positions files on the hard drive as single items, not scattered fragments. (Hence the name.) Most Windows XP computers I see brought in for repairs haven’t been defragmented, ever, and they’re slow. Way slow, even if they’re not infected with malware.

Here’s how to defragment your PC’s Windows XP drive, directions by Microsoft:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/305781
Here are defragmenting instructions for Windows 7:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/Improve-performance-by-defragmenting-your-hard-disk

• Use Windows Update to keep Microsoft Patches up-to-Date

Windows and Microsoft Office are both patched frequently, usually every second Tuesday of the month for Windows, and most fourth Tuesdays for Microsoft Office. Your computer should be set to either automatically update, or at least to notify you to update when new patches are ready. These patches are not new features–they are fixes to errors in Windows, and safety updates to close security flaws (think torn screen doors…). Skipping these is not safe.

Here’s how to set your computer to install Windows patches:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306525

• Update the Plugins

Plugins are the programs that run in the browsers. Browsers are Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera, Safari, and a few others. These plugin programs include Adobe Flash, Adobe Shockwave, Adobe Reader (it’s also a standalone program), Sun Java, and Apple iTunes. Those are the most popular; there are many, many more.

These plugins have to be kept up-to-date. The malware merchants (think bad guys) are using known bugs (think open doors) in many plugins to run install programs that add their evil wares to your computer. Under their influence, your computer becomes their worker, their spam-bot, and your doorstop. Not good.

Here are two easy ways to keep the plugins up-to-date. The Mozilla page is very easy to use and checks only the browser for plugins that need updating. The Secunia check is more thorough and more complex, and will find many more programs.

Mozilla’s Plugin Check Page:
http://www.mozilla.com/plugincheck
Automated listing of plugins, that will check your browser for you to see what’s installed, what’s up-to-date, and what’s old. This is the easiest option–go to the page, and look for the red Update buttons. Remember to visit this page with each browser you use–scans are done only for the current browser.

Secunia’s Online and Offline Testers:
http://secunia.com/vulnerability_scanning/online/
The Online Software Inspector (OSI), checks your PC for out-of-date software, from inside the browser. This page requires some manual approvals for software to run; recommended for advanced users.

http://secunia.com/vulnerability_scanning/personal/
The Personal Software Inspector (PSI) is very thorough in scanning for out-of-date programs with security issues. This is a free standalone program, not an online reference or scanner. Recommended for system administrators; this program is not trivial to run.