It's Valentines Day! We Heart Today!

Today is a day dedicated to reminding that special someone just how much you care. It's a day full of hearts and flowers, chocolates and champagne, overhauls and updates! I'm such a romantech. How else are you to let your computer know how much you care? Here are 5 things you can do to make this a special day for your Windows computer.

1. Install and run LavaSoft's Ad-Aware. It's free for personal use and can really make a difference if your computer is doing "weird little things".
2. Install and run SpyBot's Search and Destroy. Ditto points on #1.
3. Give your PC some breathing room! Get rid of unnecessary old files and junk:
   1. Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Cleanup
   2. Click OK to select the C: Drive
   3. You can read a little explanation about each choice by clicking on it once and decide what to check or not. I would suggest to check everything except "Office Setup Files". Go ahead and leave those. You'll need them for step 5 and any future repairs you might make.
4. Organize your PC's living space by running a Disk Defrag
   • Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter
5. If you use any of the Office products (Outlook, Word) - you can even do a little maintenance on them by running the "Detect and Repair" utility on them. From within any of those programs  go to Help > Detect and Repair

Couple of things:

• All of these activities take a while, so have some patience.
• Restart your computer when you're done. (If you're feeling REALLY sweet, restart after each one.)
• If you're in a firm with an I.T. department, check with your IT contact or Help Desk about these tips. They may already have some processes in place.
• Be sure to close all programs while you do this and LEAVE YOUR COMPUTER ALONE while they run.Why dont you do something else like hand write your Human Sweetheart a poem or go out and buy something in a Little Blue Box.