I spent most of my working hours optimizing my computer today. I thought before that my fan was going out, but it seems I had a lot of programs that have been interacting badly and I was trying to get that mess cleaned up. I downloaded a free program called Optimizer XP and that helped.

I’m seriously looking at PC Pitstop because it found a lot of things wrong that needs to be fixed and I couldn’t fix them, but it cost 30 dollars and I don’t know if I can afford that right now with taxes coming up, so I’m weighing what is most important and what needs to be done first. Well, I know I need my PC in good working condition so I can work on my site so I can make that money to pay taxes.

Windows XP and the new Vista have a personal firewall that is built into the operating system and by default it’s automatically turned on, but most people turn it off and leave themselves vulnerable because they don’t like all of the popup windows.  The Windows firewall default of “on” should be maintained until and unless you find another software or hardware firewall to protect your system.

Like I said before I was using Zone Alarm and everything went crazy on my system. I am now using the original window firewall instead of Zone Alarm and I have stopped several virus programs from running at the same time. I have downloaded too many programs over the years that are simply creating problems with each other.

You  need a good anti-virus program to go after any viruses that may inevitably bypass your firewall. It should be programmed to either quarantine or, preferably, destroy them, which I prefer. You know that it’s essential to always keep your anti-viral and firewall programs up to date with the newest patches and security updates.

Viruses always target your C: drive, so you should always scan it daily. And never, ever open any unsolicited emails or the attachments that come with them, but if you have a good program it will scan automatically and after you get your pc in good shape then you should consider doing a few things with your site.

Like reducing the number of images on your website. They make your site load very slowly and more often than not they are very unnecessary. If you think any image is essential on your site, make sure you optimize them using image editing programs so that they have a minimum file size.

Keep your text paragraphs at a reasonable length. If a paragraph is too long, you should split it into seperate paragraphs so that the text blocks will not be too big. This is important because a block of text that is too large will deter visitors from reading your content.

However you feel and whatever any marketing people tell you they do not like music interrupting their surfing or browsing experience unless they choose it. So if you have music on your site make sure it doesn’t load the minute your visitor hits your site. You want to keep them awhile with your content and not annoy them with your choice of music.