Step 1: Buy a can of air and blow out the dust inside of your computer. (Do this outside) It is amazing how much dust, bugs and other things will get inside a computer. Everyday we see computers performing poorly because they are overheating due to dust clogging up the cpu fan and heatsink, and for those of you who smoke around your pc constantly, when you open up your case you will see what your lungs are looking like.

Step 2: Its time to backup your files. All those Christmas photos you took need to be backed up. You can do this many ways. You can buy an external hard drive and copy and paste them to it. Or you can burn cds or dvds of your precious files and photos. You can also choose to do an online backup through companys like carbonite.

Step 3: Remove old programs and files. There is an add/remove programs or uninstall programs icon in the control panel of every windows based operating system. This icon will bring up a list of all the programs you have installed on your pc. It is time to go through it and uninstall any old program that you don’t use or don’t need anymore. Just hit remove or uninstall and follow the instructions. Also, look at your files in your user account and delete what you dont need anymore.

Step 4: Perform a disk defragment, Check disk, and a disk cleanup on your hard drive. These tools can be found in the accessories>system tools. Check disk can be found by right clicking on the c drive. Click on properties>tools>check now under error checking. You will have to restart your pc to run this.

Step 5: Updates. Update windows and update your existing programs. If you open up Internet explorer you can click on tools or safety and select windows updates. It will find and install the updates you need to keep your microsoft products up to date. You can update your other programs with built in update features within the program itself. Most programs can be updated however there are those that can’t be.

Step 6: Check your security software to make sure it is up to date and has a valid subscription. If it isn’t buy some and get protected.

These are the basic steps for spring cleaning your pc. Now it is time for your house.

Step 1: Find a blog or website about spring cleaning.

Lets compare game ratings to video rating. The game rating of EC is safe. There is no content to be worried about. It would probably not even be rated as a video. The game rating E would be like the rating G is for video. E10+ would be like PG. The game rating T would be like PG-13. The game rating of M would be like that of the video rating R. Finally, the game rating of AO would be that of the videos in the back of the video store that people try to sneak in and out without being seen by someone they know, like their pastor. So, again, do you know what your kids are playing? You can always go to www.esrb.org and search for a game title and get ratings and info on the game about why it got that rating. The rating is marked on the game itself and the game case. It is on the front and back of the game case.

Here are some popular titles:

Call of Duty Black Ops (pc) Rated Mature

World of Warcraft (pc) Rated Teen

Starcraft II (pc) Rated Teen

Grand Theft Auto (pc)  Rated Mature

Dragon Age II (pc) Rated Mature

What is stopping people from texting while driving? I am not sure. I heard there was a fine if your caught but I haven’t seen that fine given to any of the people behind me in traffic. Is the fine big enough? Probably not, since it hasn’t really stopped anyone that I have noticed.

What should be a penalty for texting while driving? What should be the penalty for hitting someone else while texting and driving?

Is me and my family worth your text?

Its time to stop, put down the cell phone and keyboard and mouse and look around. You might discover you have a group of people in your house that miss you and haven’t seen you in awhile. You will be amazed how big your kids have gotten. This is s little exaggeration but you see my point. Modern technology has taken over family time.

Take your family back by having technology free nights.  Turn off all the cell phone for the night. However, if your like me and have no home phone leave one on vibrate for emergencies. Now, go eat dinner and catch up on what has been happening the past 5 months since you last spoke to each other. This may seem awkward at first since verbal communication has been very limited. So try how was your day? Oh yes and “fine” is not an answer to that. After some lovely dinner conversion bring out the games. I would say try a board game. Yes, that is correct a board game they still make those. A round or two of friendly family competition is always good to increase fun during family time. Remember the days when the kids didn’t know what cell phones and facebook were and you played games together, good times. Now, I am not bashing technology. It pays the bills at my house. I am just saying family is more important. So, my next suggestion if board games isn’t your thing then use technology. Well, one type of technology called game consoles. In particular the Nintendo Wii. It has less buttons on it which mean less confusion for the older generation of folks who didn’t grow up with this stuff. You can do anything from bowling to boxing. The benefit of boxing is you can beat the mess out of your kids without a call to social services and burn calories while doing it. So, give technology free nights a try. You can have as many as you want or just once a week. If your brave and don’t think the kids wont go into technology withdrawal try a Saturday or Sunday. So., remember you do have a family and there just in the other room.

To prevent this from happening starts with responsible internet surfing (stay off the gambling, porn and free download sites). If you see a pop up that looks like windows is telling you something, stop and read what it says. If it sounds fishy its probably malware trying to trick you. Hit ctrl+alt+delete and select the web brower(s) you are using and click end task. Most of the time the dialog box with the message is a web browser window (Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, etc.).  This is not 100% effective but does help in most cases. Just don’t click on ok, cancel or the “X” in the corner of the dialog box. They are all programmed to install the program.

Typical signs you have malware. Most malware is in your face with pop-ups saying your infected or your system is in need. Other signs are you can only go to certain sites or no sites at all. This is because the malware setup a proxy on your internet connection. Malware will also not allow you to run programs like your actual antivirus program or any other removal program. Malware has the tendency to run under the radar of most antivirus programs. This is because most malware is not a virus it a program. Your antivirus cannot tell if it is a harmful program or one you intended to put on your computer.

What to do if you are infected with malware. Take it to your local pc repair shop like PC Complete LLC or if you want to try to get rid of it yourself you can try this website. I have found it very helpful at times. www.bleepingcomputer.com. Just be warned, if you are not fully comfortable doing it yourself, don’t. Take it to a professional we remove these this on a daily basis.