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Most of this does not apply to Apple Computers or Laptops/Notebooks

The first rule of desktop PC buying is to never buy a Dell, HP, Compaq, Gateway or other big name brand desktop computer.

Unfortunately, this is the age of the internet. Most large companies do everything they can to drive traffic to their website, track what you're doing, collect and sell your personal information and what you do with your computer/printers/digital cameras, and put you on spam (junk mail) lists.

These, and other, useless programs that do things you don't want them to are known as "crapware" or "parasite programs."

To see how much crapware your compute is running, press these three keys all at the same time only once: Control, Alt, and Delete.

Click the Processes tab. The amount of processes running should not be more than a couple dozen (or 40 on a notebook). Anything more, then you have parasite programs the computer manufacturer is forcing your computer to run. If you have kids that game online/use social sites, then there's probably dozens of crapware programs running.

These programs don't do anything you want them to do, so all they do is make your computer run slower, crash, collect information about you/steal your privacy (spyware), and drive you to their useless websites.

What to do about this: Go to Start, Run, and type in "msconfig." A program will run. All of these parasitic programs start up because MSCONFIG tells them to. You can manually turn them off in both the Services and Startup tabs. You cannot just go and turn these things off without knowing what you're doing, or most everything thing will stop working (don't uncheck everything in Services, but you can probably set everything in Startup to not start up, and things will be fine. Try it and see, you can always reboot and set everything back to starting up)!

The thing to do is to Google each process, and then decide whether or not you want to try turning them off. We're so anal about this that we turn off the Morningstar Principia parasite in the Startup tab that's put there whenever it's installed monthly. When you do this, be prepared to spend some time at it. You'll also need to keep track of what you're doing, so use the Print Screen key and then paste this into a Word doc, so you can see what you did. When you mess up, don't worry, just turn that process back on and reboot. When you've eradicated as many parasites as possible, your computer will run way way way faster.

There's nothing magic or hidden about this (like there is with index.dat and desktop.ini), so it's just a matter of doing the work needed to get rid of everything useless, while not harming anything that will make things not work right. You just have to invest the time experimenting. It's well worth it. When you have things the way you want them, do screen prints into a Word doc and save it so you can always go back if needed.

Because the OEM vendor has modified Windows, you can't eradicate most of them.

Companies like the ones listed above customize their motherboards and Windows to do all kinds of worthless things - like drive internet traffic to their, and their "partners" websites.

This is annoying, but even worse, it makes the computer slow, makes it incompatible with other software you may want to install, and makes it crash all the time.

Anyone familiar with AOL, Earthlink, Norton/Symantec, Adobe and similar software knows about these programs taking over your computer. Nothing good ever comes of this.

About anti-virus and anti-spyware software: Norton/Symantec is almost useless. Instead, get Computer Associates. Not only will it eradicate spyware, it won't take over your computer like Norton, but you'll have to live with a bunch of stupid errors from their program not knowing how to load right.

So here's what to do: Go to a good local PC shop that puts PCs together from scratch. Tell them you want a genuine unmodified Intel motherboard, with a genuine Intel CPU, and get a brand new original Microsoft Windows CD.

Then when there's a problem, you can call them, or just drive the PC to the shop, and/or you can call Microsoft.

Actually, all of this changed recently. Now when you buy a clean computer with clean Windows, you have a choice. You can buy it so you'll get a non-OEM serial number, and you can call Microsoft for support for 90 days for free. After 90 days, you'll be charged $95 an hour for help. This version of Windows costs more. Or you can get the same Windows with OEM in the serial number, and when you call for help, you'll be charge $95 an hour from day one. This is cheaper. The concept is the same even though Microsoft is now charging for support  - the clean, non-modified, version of Windows is the biggest factor when it comes to having a PC that won't annoy you with crashes and stupidity all day.

This way:

· Your computer will rarely crash or do stupid things to you all day (compared to the name brands with an altered OEM version of Windows).

· You'll be able to upgrade Windows without having to take it back to the store (if you can). Because these firms modify Windows, you can't just buy and install the latest version of Windows because it doesn't have all of their modifications. It may run, but it will crash constantly.

You can't install clean Windows on an OEM computer (HP, Dell, Compaq, Gateway, etc.). because they modified their mother boards to only run on their modified version of Windows. You can only run their version of Windows.

· You'll be able update Windows and other programs via Microsoft's free update site.

If you do that with OEM operating systems, it will just make things worse (like make everything like wireless drivers stop working), because pure MS code won't run on motherboards that have been modified (by Dell/Gateway/Compaq/HP/Etc.). You have to go to the vendors website to get updates, and they're usually full of bugs and "patches."

· You get a free copy of WinZip - the file compressor and decompressor. When you buy something like a Dell, you don't get it for free, and have to pay to get it. The same with Windows Media Player, which comes as a freebie with a pure version of MS Windows.

· Your computer will be much faster (because it's not running tons of useless crapware parasite programs in the background). No more having to pack it up, spend a fortune sending it in the mail, and wait weeks to get it back.

· The service will be better (because you can just drive it over to a real human in your community). Then you can wait for it to be repaired and have it back the same day.

· You won't get the constant parade of "patches" that you need to install to keep your computer running.

· The PC will be cheaper even after the local sales tax.

· Useless background programs won't take over your computer and drive you to their useless websites. It also won't go to websites automatically anymore, updating things you don't want.

· There won't be unwanted icons and favorites all over the place.

· You'll be putting money into your community instead of reinforcing the name brand's bad behavior.

· You can try to eradicate parasites one at a time, but only if you know what you're doing.

First, to see what parasites are running on your computer, press Control-Alt-Delete ONCE. This is a list of everything that's running on your computer. Now you can help your PC by getting rid of the bad ones.

Most are needed by Windows and can't be stopped. Most everything else can be eradicated.

First, go to the top of the list and press the Print Screen key. Now go to MS Word and open up a blank document. Please control V to paste. What was on your screen pastes into the doc. Scroll down the list so you can see more, and repeat. When all of the programs are in the doc, save it.

Now input the name of each program that's running into a Google search. If it's a parasitic program, then there will be tons of things to read that tells all about it and how to remove it.

If you know what you're doing, you can decide whether or not to deinstall programs, or delete the files.

If you have a kid using your computer, and they're going online all the time playing games, then this is a hopeless battle. The best thing to do is to get the kid their own computer to destroy.

Miscellaneous PC Tips and Info

Before you buy any hardware or software, make sure it's not made in China or Taiwan. There's too many problems with all that.

if you've noticed, you can't eradicate cookies and the tons of useless and dangerous crap websites load on your PC anymore. When you Delete Cookies and all of that from your browser, it doesn't get rid of hardly any of them. Then when you try to use Windows Explorer, these files in Documents and Settings don't even display so you can delete them. There is only one way around this, and that's to use your CD burner program to hunt these files down and delete them manually. This way you can eradicate everything except the infamous index.dat files. You have to hunt for them in dozens of folders under Documents and Settings, but it's worth it to do it monthly at least. Be sure to delete all of the desktop.ini files too.

AMD processors are a lot more buggy than Intel processors. Of all of the computers we've had, the one with the most stability problems has been the one with the AMD processor.

And if you didn't know - Macs are only good for people that do nothing but create artsy graphic images. They're like swimming in mud when it comes to getting any real work done. So never ever buy a Mac unless ALL you do are graphics. People that do nothing but graphics even say these days that enough software they need runs on PCs. So they are really no applications that could justify the unbelievable non-stop parade of annoyances and limitations that are Apple computers. They're getting better, but still compared to having a pure Microsoft/Intel system, working on an Apple is like swimming in mud.

If you have XP, you should consider turning off the "Send Error Report" function. It is very annoying,  may break Internet Explorer, and is prone to spyware viruses that let bad people into your PC when it's sending the error report. This happened to our Compaq Presario and it sat and the evil-doers downloaded 200Mb of stuff before we realized it wasn't sending an error report and killed it. So it's best to just turn it off. Go to Control Panel, System Properties, and at the bottom there's a button for Error Reporting.

If you're annoyed because Standby/Sleep doesn't work right, because it comes out of Standby for no reason, or because the mouse moved, then the problem is your Logitech mouse. Get a Microsoft mouse (3000 v1.0) and all of your mouse and standby annoyances will go away (including the problem where the mouse jumps all over the screen for no reason).

We've also found that Microsoft keyboards work the best. The Mail and Web keys are cool, and they just feel the best. Get the spill-resistant one. We had to trash a whole notebook just because a few drops of beer spilled on the keyboard once.

On all of our keyboards, you'll find several keys have been removed. They are rarely used, and only serve as targets for making mistakes. For example, we popped out all of the following keys: Caps lock, Number lock, the Start menu key, Break, Scroll, F1, and the two keys next to the Print Screen key. If you gently pop them out, then they easily pop right back in. Popping out these useless keys will greatly improve your typing speed and efficiency. If you need to use them temporarily, you can just insert a pencil or pen tip. You'll be amazed at how your life will improve without these keys!

Always use a good power surge strip for your PC and monitor. Even better is using even the cheapest battery backup unit. Plug power strip surge protectors into the battery backup so you'll have two in series.

Tips for working with and saving files can be found here.

You should make CD backups of all of your work at least on a monthly basis, and store the CD in a safe location, but not where your computer is. It's critical to back up your data, but not programs. At any time, your hard drive could crash, there could be a fire, flood, burglary, power surge, or any number of things that would make the data on your hard drive irretrievable. Get one of those 8Gb flash drives, and use that as a weekly backup (again don't keep the drive in the same physical location as your computer).

Don't forget to backup your MS Outlook Express e-mail folders too. Do a search for *.dbx files to find them. You can also backup your Favorites files and Desktop folder by looking in the folder Documents and Settings, Owner. Backup the star-shaped folder named Favorites and the whole folder Desktop.

You should also create a new system restore point monthly. To do that (in XP), go to Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, System Restore, and then ensure you click "Create a Restore Point," and not the other choice. Then when your computer dies, you can easily restore most everything in a minute.

Try to keep your desktop box a few inches off of the floor to keep the dust down. Then use a vacuum to dust only the exterior air intake. Never try to use a vacuum for anything inside the box, as the static electricity will fry your motherboard and/or hard drive.

If you don't like Adobe taking over your computer, and sucking up your bandwidth by updating constantly updating, then here's how to help stop all of that: Go to Program Files, Adobe, Reader. Find the file AcroRd32.exe, and rename it (we rename it to AcroRd32.foo. Then go to My Documents and find the Updater5 folder. Delete it (it will be recreated the next time you use Adobe). When you want to use the Adobe Reader, then rename the file back to AcroRd32.exe. This will help stop tons of annoying things, and will give you more internet bandwidth.

With some annoying work, you can also stop your anti-virus program from taking over your PC and sucking bandwidth. You really don't need to let it run amok and go online to update daily. So you can turn all of this off using switches in the program. We just disable everything in every program that says "Automatic Update."

Using desktop shortcut keys helps too. This makes it so you can open programs way faster using your keyboard, instead of hunting for the icons to double click on with the mouse. For example, go to your desktop. Find the Internet Explorer icon. Right click, and choose Properties. Now type the letter "I" in the Shortcut key: field. Close. Now when you press Control, Alt, and I all at the same time Internet Explorer opens. It's faster and easier once you get used to it. Great summaries of Microsoft shortcut keys

If you've had it with spam, here's what to do. You have to delete your e-mail address so all new e-mails sent to it will get a failed mail e-mail back. If you just try to turn up your spam blocker, then too many real e-mails will be blocked. Flagging e-mails as spam doesn't work, because they use a different domain name daily.

After you've deleted the old address and made a new one, you'll have to manually tell people about the new one. Do it one at a time over a month. Then if you start getting tons of spam all of sudden you can narrow down who's doing it. Sometimes people have a virus on their computer that lives in their Outlook address book, self-replicates and automatically puts your e-mail address on a master spam list. Tell them to get their computer fixed.

After a few months, then reactivate the deleted e-mail address. Then wait a few days and check it. If there' no new spam, then it's safe to use it again. If there's any new spam, then delete it again. Most of the time, you'll still be on the spam list even if the address has been deleted for years.

We used to do this with addresses on the main domain, like support@toolsformoney.com. It turns out that spammers send to dozens of generic names at domain names automatically (like info, sales, or help). So once they have your domain name on their list, there's nothing you can do - their robots will spider your website daily and collect all addresses to put on their list. Then they'll sell it to other lists.

Another way to control spam: Get a GMail account. Go to your e-mail server control program, and set your regular e-mail to auto-forward to the new GMail account. Then tell Outlook/GMail to leave e-mail on the server after Outlook downloads it. Then tell Outlook to only get e-mail from GMail. Most spam will automatically be blocked. Then when you get spam, you can go to your GMail account and delete it as spam there (since you can't report spam from Outlook). You'll just have to remember to clean out your GMail every so often so it won't clog up, and also to check the spam folder for non-spam.

How to make all of the stupid Windows open maximized:

1) Right click on the desktop icon, and go to Properties. under, Run, choose Maximized.

2) That probably didn't do anything, so open the program again. Then resize it to where you want it. Now hold the shift and control key down at the same time when you close.

3) If that didn't work either, then try doing the same thing, but this time open the programs from the Start menu.

If that worked, but you still can't get it to work right from the desktop, then delete the desktop icon and make a new one from the Start menu (just drag it to the desktop).

4) If that didn't work, then the only other remedy is to edit the registry. Thanks again Bill Gates, you suck!