Running In The Background

I am not a computer professional. I don’t write code, I don’t design, I don’t do web as a profession. (Heck, it is barely a hobby). I am a writer and web reader. I am a regular guy. I have a computer. I need stuff as an above average, to average, user to keep it all up and running.

I was having some computer issues last week. The computer was trolling along and I was having to stop the words from flowing to the keyboard because I needed to take some time to fix stuff on the ol’ box.

In my pursuits, came across a lot of fun stuff that has been part of my life for a few years, but I have fogotten about and simply taken for granted. Time to share.

Here are some things I have, over the years, downloaded and installed on my computers to help keep them running smoothly. (My previously described “trolling” computer was a new laptop and I hadn’t taken the time to get it up to speed with its brothers and sisters. Time I took my own advice (!)

At “The Farm” ( A term for my LAN, given by Pamela when she was shocked at how far I lived from downtown, many, many years ago.) At “The Farm” I have four computers and two printers all connected on a wireless and wired LAN. Sometimes things can go awry with so many systems trying to talk to the cable modem.

I run all the traffic through a d-link 524 “g” router. Very smooth sailing. It is a very, very popular wireless router and for a very good reason. Turn it on and basically forget it. I manage the four computers through the router using “Network Magic.” I have the paid version but you can run yours with the free version and still experience great performance. It makes setting up and managing a home network a breeze. Point and click goodness.

For each desktop I run a “compromised” version of Diskeeper, to enable some solid defragmentation. It works so much better than the Windows Defrag utility – the comparison between the two is such a foolish conversation, I won’t even begin it.

I also run Cacheman to keep the RAM memory under control. MS has some wacky ideas about how to manage your memory. Cacheman keeps the RAM constant and grabs more from the system when it needs it.

For stabilty I run Sysinternals PageDegrag, which runs very, very quickly during start up. It keeps the page file and various system stuff stable and working like a top. (Didn’t I read somewhere that MS bought Systinternals? This can only be a good thing for us Windows users.)

Throw in CCleaner – a nice freeware application that cleans out the junk in your temp folders and other areas where you don’t want people poking around, and where you don’t want to use valuable RAM. Everyone should add this, if they take no other advice from this system.

AVG provides very solid virus protection without taking over all your resources like some of the bigger name Anti Virus software packages. And, once again it is free. And unlike of its competitors, the updates are also free.

And toss in Adaware. Adaware has an amazing addon for those willing to pony up for the paid version – Adwatch. Adwatch sits in the system tray and blocks any kind of spyware or tracking cookies from ever getting to your system. The newest verision also blocks pop ups and any attempt at getting to registry. Very nice.

I have no Mac advice for folks like TonyMo who are addicted the fluid like beauty of the Mac. I like Macs but am not running one. No, astrofizzkid, I am not hip to Linux. I am sure it is also full of little tricks, but that is not by bag.