Oct 15

How To Make your Computer Faster, Part 1.5: Cleaning the junk

As we mentioned in the previous post on this topic, Junk is the number one cause of slow computers. It also encompasses a lot of things! Temporary files, cache files, pointless (or worse) programs, the list goes on. I strongly suggest that you check out my posts Removing old Antivirus that cause slowness and instability and Junkware and Adware Identification and Cleaning, as both of them cover different types of junk that can accumulate. I highly recommend removing anything that even resembles what is seen in the Junkware and Adware Identification and Cleaning post, and if you are up to the task, then clean out old antivirus programs too.

If you have two or more antivirus programs installed, it only hurts the computer. I regularly wipe an expired antivirus, and remnants of two or more old antivirus programs off computers, and install the Microsoft Security Essentials. This in itself makes them run faster!

To really do a thorough clean up, I prefer to use a simple program called CCleaner. You can get it at for free Piriform.com. If you use This Link it’ll take you to the Slim version where you can download the version that doesn’t install any other “partner” software on your computer. I typically use the default settings, except I leave only the Temporary Internet Files checked in the browser sections. Look in Advanced, too. I don’t want it cleaning cookies. This is better because cookies don’t really slow things down, and they are just as useful as they are anything else. If you do clean the cookies out, you’ll have to login at all your favorite sites again. I don’t want to bother, and neither do most of my clients. You can of course clean the cookies if you like. I like to do this at least once a month.

The other section of CCleaner that I find useful is the Registry cleaner which cleans unused parts of the registry. This will help more if you’re using or working on a computer that has limited resources such as a slow processor and low ram. Otherwise this is less critical. I still clean it every few weeks. This completely negates the need for any of the free registry cleaners that you can get, or even the ones you have to pay for.

Piriform has added many other good features to CCleaner over the years. Its got an excellent startup manager. Go to Tools, and it opens up the Uninstall dialogue. This is also very good, and much faster than the built in Windows Add/Remove programs. Go to Startup and you are at the startup manager. You can manage startups for Windows, and you can also disable browser addons, scheduled tasks, and you can even remove things from Windows Explorer context menus here. I consider this tool to be every bit as powerful as Autoruns.exe, unless you’re fighting Malware. Then, Autoruns wins because it is exposes so much more.

I could probably write a whole post just on the subject of junkware prevention.  But it boils down to this: Never, ever, without exception, use the word “free” when doing a web search that is in the context of computers. Try doing a search for “free computer cleaning software” on Google. I tried it for the sake of this article and the first result was to CNet.com who likes to bundle 3 or 4 junk programs with every useful program that you download. That’s how they get paid. And don’t bother clicking on advertisements. They are at least as bad. So, be careful what you click on! Stay away from sites like CNet. If you need to download a program, go to the company that makes it, not some distribution site that makes money on advertisements.

Our next installment will talk about viruses, rootkits, and other malware. Click Here to continue to Part 2: Disabling Startups and Malware

Oct 10

How to Make your Computer Faster, Part 1

The two top reasons for computer repair these days is viruses, and a slow computer. It seems to be natural almost that a computer gets slower as it gets older. But lets analyze that notion for a moment: Computers are machines with very few moving parts. It isn’t as if the processor starts getting slower with age, or that the memory shrinks as time goes by! What generally happens is that we start asking more of the computer now than we did when it was new and the computer can’t keep up with the new workload. When somebody asks me to make their computer faster, there are a few basic things that I go through. Time and again I hear “Wow, my computer is so much faster!” or “It hasn’t been that fast since I bought it!”

Really, it isn’t very hard. Lets take a look at a few things we can correct that will help a computer to be faster.

1) Junk (this encompasses a lot of things!)
2) Viruses
3) Genuine applications
4) Hardware failure

Number 1: Junk

This is a pretty big subject, but I’m going to keep it short and sweet. If you don’t need something on your computer every day, and it is running anyway, it’s junk. That’s not to say that the software itself is useless, but if you don’t use it regularly then why is it running constantly? You don’t tow a heavy trailer with your truck all the time, do you? No, you use it for its purpose and then park it. But imagine hauling it full time. Your truck would get poor mileage, be sluggish and handle badly. Does this mean you need to throw away the trailer? No, it means you need to leave it at home when you’re not using it. And that’s the number one principal to making a computer faster: Disable (but not uninstall) programs that don’t need to be running all the time.

Then, there’s the real junk. The curb feelers and fuzzy dice that make your computer slow. They are programs that you installed and didn’t even realize it. Maybe you installed a free game that installed 2 or 3 other things at the same time (which is very common). A word to the wise: Don’t search the Internet using the word “free”. It’s synonymous with “here’s my computer, load it up with junk addons!” That’s not a good way to keep Windows fast.

So there are two aspects. First, we need to disable programs that are harmless but don’t need to run full time and then uninstall the garbage software. But wait, there’s more. There’s actually a third aspect: Temporary files. Have you ever had a desk that was cluttered with old stuff? You have to sort through stuff you don’t need to find the stuff you do need. That is shockingly easy to do. In our next installment, we’re going to cover which free program you should use, and how to use it to make Windows faster.

Continue to the Next Installment: Part 1.5: Cleaning the junk

Oct 06

Using AutoHotKey to assist the Elderly, Disabled and more.

In this article I’m going to introduce you to a powerful program called AutoHotKey. Please take a moment and go to their site at http://www.autohotkey.com/ and view its capabilities. We’re going to focus on the simpler, but very powerful things it can do. But first, proper introductions are in order.

My journey to AutoHotKey started with a simple desire. “I wish I could remap the keyboard the way I want it to be.” In my case I thought it would be neat to make F3 and F4 the same as Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V, copy and paste. I ended up not using this, but it opened me up to a program that I don’t want to be without. The possibilities are incredible.

If you checked out the site, you see this:

  • Expand abbreviations as you type them. For example, typing “btw” can automatically produce “by the way”.
  • Remap keys and buttons on your keyboard, joystick, and mouse.

Those are the two things I want to focus on and share with you. At my day job, I have to do a whole lot of typing every day. Much of it is repetitive. I had originally planned on using a text file that it would be easy to copy and paste common elements from, but AutoHotKey (also known as AHK) presented a solution to my needs that was beyond what I expected.

Doing tech support via email, I write the same things over and over again. With AutoHotKey, I no longer have to type out each individual sentence. I use its extended abbreviations to replace small keywords like “hello1” with “Hello, I hope you are well today. I’ll be glad to assist you with your problem”. Notice I put a 1 after hello, so that I don’t get that whole sentence every time I write “hello”. In AutoHotKey, that is simply expressed as

hello1::Hello, I hope you are well today. I’ll be glad to assist you with your problem.

See how easy that was? I have over a dozen of them that I use. I also use it to correct ‘teh’ with ‘the’ and others of my own common typos. But, there’s another use that is wonderful. Do you have something that you have to copy/paste a lot like I did? Rather than copy/pasting it, create a replacement for it. For example, in my job I use shell scripts that aren’t necessarily on the server I’m using. I don’t want to have to refer to documentation to locate the URL, then download it, etc. Instead, for the most common ones, I type something like “fixmystuff1” and there typed in my terminal is “curl -s http://url.to.script/scriptname.sh | sh” and I am off to the races. I no have to remember or go find the URL or the script name. I just need to remember my ‘fixmystuff1’ keyword and AHK does the rest.

The more typing and mousing it can save me in a day, the better. I have a bad shoulder that is made worse the more I type and mostly the more I use the mouse. Saving me from the whole highlight/copy/paste routine is very helpful and my shoulder loves it.

But now lets get into the main reason I decided to write this article.

Assisting the Elderly and Disabled using AutoHotKey

Now, I’m not going to lie to you. I don’t expect anything I’ve written thus far to help the elderly. I suppose some of it could apply if circumstances are similar, but there’s something I’ve been able to do that surpasses it. Allow me to explain.

I have worked with the elderly for many years doing computer work. They have unique needs and fulfilling them can be a challenge. The one that AutoHotKey can help with is input. Using the mouse can be very difficult for those who are very old, and yet their computer is a much needed lifeline to their family and often the outside world in general.

More than once I have seen folks who, due to various circumstances, unable to differentiate between clicking the left mouse button and the right. One gentleman in his mid 90’s was plagued with clicking both buttons at once. My own grandfather (and the inspiration for this article) has trouble with clicking the correct button because he can’t feel his hands very much. Another issue is that of moving the mouse while clicking. It can be challenging for those with limited dexterity to hold the mouse still while they click. One of my clients has severe rheumatoid arthritis, and must use two hands to use the mouse, hold it still and click.

Would you believe that AutoHotKey can solve these usability problems? It can. Would you believe me when I told you it can be done in just a few lines of AutoHotKey code and is 100% customizable for each individual case? It’s true.

In my grandfathers case, he asked for help with getting his mouse to only right click when he wanted to right click. The solution was to make both mouse buttons be the same as a left button click. But then how could he right click? The solution was equally simple: Move the right button to the keyboard. We found a key he never uses (the + key on the number pad) and mapped it there. The AutoHotKey script was this:

Rbutton::LButton
NumPadAdd::Rbutton

That’s it. If I wanted to use a different key for the Rbutton (right button) then I could refer to Keylist and modify the script accordingly. This was a huge leap forward for my grandfather as it will allow him to be more productive. He doesn’t have a lot of energy to be at the computer as much as he used to, so every little bit of assistance really makes a difference.

In the case of the woman with rheumatoid arthritis, I still need to set it up for her, but I’m going to use AutoHotKey to map her mouse buttons to the keyboard so she doesn’t have to hold the mouse still to click. To use the Number Pad + as left and – as right click:

NumPadAdd::Lbutton
NumPadSub::Rbutton

That’s really it. If I needed to disable the mouse buttons altogether, that would not be difficult either. Now she’ll just move the cursor where she wants, press + once or twice (to double click) and she can use one hand rather than constantly missing the target with two.

As you can see AutoHotKey offers the flexibility to make a computer do what you need it to do. Its a great tool for power users, but its also simple enough that anyone can benefit from it. I hope you’ve found this useful. If you have any suggestions or questions, please feel free to use the comments below.