The Healthy PC: Preventive Care and Home Remedies for Your Computer (Consumer Education) [Paperback]

Learn routine maintenance as well as desktop basics, hard drive care and defragmentation, and plenty more to make your PC more efficient and keep it running smoothly. Learn software management, tame the Internet, secure your machine, deal with downloads, and much more.

·Offers the reader a tour of desktop basics (changing your screensaver, adding programs to your Quick Launch Toolbar, and setting your monitor for optimal performance).
·The book takes the convoluted workings of the Windows PC and walks the reader through routine maintenance resulting in a more stable and more efficient PC.
·Covers defragmenting the hard drive, deleting temporary files, removing old and unused programs. All this helps to speed up the PC and prevent crashes.
·Shows the reader how to secure data by explaining the use of cookies, the need for product updates and where they can be found, and how to restrict access to certain Internet sites, which is especially useful for families.
·The book's author is an instructor at Computer Career Center, a Long Island NY training company.

Keep Your PC Running Smoothly--Without Spending a Lot of Money!

Solve everyday PC problems, improve performance and speed, and protect yourself from malicious attacks with the helpful tips in this user-friendly guide. Easy-to-follow "recipes" show you, click-by-click, how to prevent computer catastrophes and recover completely from unavoidable disasters. If you've had a hard time understanding other computer guides, you'll love this book's clear, accessible approach. PC guru Carey Holzman dispels common myths and explains complicated issues in language that anyone can understand, regardless of their computer experience. Don't be held hostage by hackers or overpaid computer technicians. Learn how to maintain and upgrade your own PC and have fun in the process.

Inside, you'll learn to:

• Avoid disasters caused by computer viruses, hackers, and hard disk crashes
• Use Scandisk and Defragment to find and repair hard drive problems before it's too late
• Remove spyware, Trojan horses, unnecessary temp files, and unused programs
• Eliminate pop-ups, spam, email hoaxes, and unwanted Internet solicitations
• Manage cookies, temporary Internet files, and Web browser preferences
• Defend against worms and Denial-of-Service attacks with firewall and anti-virus software
• Understand and optimize DMA, Active Desktop, animations, fonts, and swap files
• Tweak power and hardware settings, screen savers, and start-up routines
• Back up and restore Windows configurations, files, and applications
• Obtain and install Windows, application, and driver upgrades
• Optimize your Internet connection

About the Author:

Carey Holzman, A+, IBM Quality Service Skill Certified, HP Laserjet Hardware Certified, is the owner of Discount Computer Repair, in Phoenix, Arizona. He also hosts his own Internet radio show featuring the latest computer news, and has been an operating systems beta-tester for Microsoft since Windows 95.

Robert J. Shimonski (East Meadow, NY) [Truesecure TICSA, Cisco CCDP, CCNP, Nortel NNCSS, Microsoft MCSE, MCP+I, Novell Master CNE, CIP, CIBS, IWA CWP, Dell CSE, Prosoft MCIW, SANS GSEC, GCIH, CompTIA Server+, Network+, Inet+, A+, e-Biz+, Symantec SPS and NAI Sniffer SCP] is a Lead Network and Security Engineer for a leading manufacturing company as well as a part time instructor and trainer. Robert is known for his troubleshooting skills, being able to find and resolve problems very quickly and bringing them to successful resolution. Robert has spent many years as a System Engineer building solutions with Microsoft, Novell, Linux and Apple solutions as well as having them all integrated as well. He has spent time as a developer and most recently as a full-fledged Web designer using technologies such as JavaScript, Flash, XML and scripting with Perl. Robert is the author of many articles and published books on a wide variety of many products and services revolving around information technology.