Keeping Your PC Clean  Inside  Outside  Do the right thing

Outside  Use a can of compressed air or a small vacuum cleaner to remove dust from all external parts you can see  Use a soft cloth and plain water or glass cleaner to remove rubbed in dirt from the keyboard  Use a soft cloth and glass cleaner to remove material from the monitor screen

 Always spray any cleaner on the cloth, not the computer component  If you use swabs, use foam not cotton  Never use an abrasive on the computer or the monitor  Always turn off the power before cleaning your computer system, including peripherals like printers

Inside  Delete unwanted files when you think about it  Empty your Recycle Bin weekly  Empty Internet Explorer files monthly

 Empty IE files as follows: With IE open, click Tools→Internet Options→Delete Files→Clear History→and finally OK With IE open, click Tools→Internet Options→Delete Files→Clear History→and finally OK

Defragment  After deleting all of those files, you need to remove the space on the hard drive where the files had resided or defragment  Defragmentation speeds up your hard drive a great deal  Defragmentation makes your programs run faster

To defragment  At the Windows XP desktop, click Start→Programs→Ac- cessories→System Tools→Disk Defragmenter→and Defragment

 This process is similar in Windows 95, 2000, and XP  Be prepared to wait several minutes for the process to complete

What’s it look like?  The following slide is a screen capture of a separate program which also defragments hard drives called PerfectDisk  I usually use the Windows application or Norton SystemWorks application called Speed Disk  These and others all work well

Conclusions  Cleaning the outside or exterior of your PC makes it look better to you and others  Cleaning the inside of your PC makes you and your computer happy because everything works better so you don’t end up like this lady

Bye now!