David Steves's Page

What to look for when buying a new computer
The following guide will help you to answer the questions of what you need, what do I upgrade, and more.

The first thing you need to consider is what you will be doing with the computer. Will you need to store a lot of video, pictures, and music? Will this be a media center PC? Or will this computer just be a basic email, websurfing, and word processing machine? Answer… Continue

Why Computer Backup is important

Backing up your computer should be done by everyone with a computer. A hard drive can go out at any time without much warning. I have had quite a few family members and friends come to me after losing pictures from big trips, financial documents, and tax records from a computer hardware failure. You can breath much easier if you know that all of these files and documents are not in danger of… Continue

1. Clear up some hard drive space.

No matter how big your hard drive, it will slow down once it reaches 90% capacity. Free up hard drive space by removing unused programs. Click Start, Control Panel (in Windows 98/ME, Start, Settings, Control Panel). Double-click Add or Remove Programs.

If you have Windows XP, you'll see the size of the program, how often it's used and the date it was last used. This is helpful information, bu… Continue

I am working on a list of services for my article about disabling unnecessary services. So far I have the following services:

Indexing Service
Messenger
NetMeeting Remote Desktop Sharing
Performance Logs and Alerts
Protected storage (this service stores passwords and enables auto-complete for web forms)
Remote Registry (this service allows remote access to your registry)
Routing and Remote Access (this service enables… Continue

Here are a few basic computer tips to try before paying a computer expert to come to your house to fix your slow computer. The steps or tips below can be done by the average user for the most part. If you are not great with computers, it is not a bad idea to get someone to help you through these following tips.

Defrag and Delete unused Files and programs
The hard drive is the slowest component on a… Continue