How To: Clean up yer crap

Now that I need to take out third and fourth mortgages on my property in order to be able to afford to take my car to the gas station every now and again, I've become a bit cost conscious these days. In the old days, when my laptop started getting a little boggy and slow-running, I'd just, well, run out and buy a new one.

Can't do that any more.
Yeah.

So the other day I donned coveralls, heavy-duty rubber gloves, face mask, bandanna and eye-protection then grimly set to work cleaning out my computer.

The very very first thing I did was download a wonderful freeware app called CCleaner (Crap Cleaner).

The blurb from their site pretty much says it all, and accurately:

CCleaner is a freeware system optimization and privacy tool. It removes unused files from your system - allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space. It also cleans traces of your online activities such as your Internet history. But the best part is that it's fast (normally taking less than a second to run) and contains NO Spyware or Adware!

I learned about it from one of Kojo Nnamdi's Computer Guys. In this case it was John Gilroy, the Director of Business Development at a company called SolutionsDevelopers (provides software development and IT consulting for the Microsoft platform) who touted this lovely little app and he's mentioned it on several of the shows. He knows his Windows crap.

Since installing and running it, my laptop shed fifteen pounds of unsightly fat. Its keys are dazzling and the whole system has a much more cheery disposition. Yeah, and it runs better than it did. Better, stronger, faster.

This is a no-brainer. It's so easy, even my techno-ignorant father could run it.

Did we mention that it's free?

Look for the button in my side bar and go get you a copy of CCleaner, too. It's free, but you can donate via Paypal to help them out if you wish. It's nice that you don't have to, but when you can, hell, it's worth saving the thousand on the new laptop, innit.

Turns out I didn't need the gloves and eye protectors after all!