It may come as a surprise, but owning and maintaining a personal computer requires as much dedication as owning and maintaining a car.  Outside of putting gas into our cars, many of us are pretty much in the dark on the inner workings of our autos. Some have had to learn the hard way – that preventative measures can go a long way in eliminating big costly problems down the road.The same holds true for our computers.  When it comes to your PC, you have to watch out for viruses, worms, spyware, trojans, backdoors and dialers that are now worse then ever. These bugs not only can slow your computer down, they can destroy your machine
In addition to intruders there is the “dust factor” which is the actual physical maintenance of your computer. 

• Use a clean cloth with rubbing alcohol to clean the exterior of the case.
  
• Clean out dust from the interior using a vacuum or canned air paying close attention to all cooling fans.  If they don’t spin freely, replace them.  Never open the power supply.
  
• Refresh the read/write heads on your floppy drive and lens of your CD drive with retail cleansing kits.
  
• Blow out the keyboard with compressed air to remove dust and hair or buy a replacement for less than $15.00.

• Have a good Anti-Virus program installed and make sure it is UP TO DATE!  The updates are sometimes called the virus “definitions”.
  
• Install and run a Personal Firewall application to help prevent unauthorized access to your computer.
  
• Use a good Anti-Spyware program that is updated to scan and clean out malicious objects. Using your internet browser of choice, delete all internet temporary files and cookies.
  
• Using the link on your “All Programs” list, connect to the Windows Update website and download all available critical updates.
  
• Empty the Recycle Bin on your desktop.
  
• Run the Disk Defragmenter.