A Windows Chronology

Computer Care: Looking back through Windows, and what lies ahead

	By Arthur Glazerglazer.tech@gmail.com

POSTED: February 17, 2012 11:59 p.m.

	It seems like I just recently upgraded my computer's operating system. Windows 7 came out in October of 2009, yet here we are with Microsoft announcing the release of its successor already, slated for the fourth quarter of this year. That's about the same amount of time between the releases of Windows 95 and 98 and of 98 and XP. So I guess we are due. Although XP is over a decade old, I along with millions of users still have it installed on a computer. As of eight months ago, 75 percent of businesses in the U.S. still used XP on their computers. With 450 million boxes of Windows 7 sold, it only recently exceeded overall use over XP. In January, XP was reported to still have a worldwide market share of almost 50 percent. I have XP Pro on my desktop and Win 7 on my laptop and am quite content with both installations. It's doubtful that I will jump on the Windows 8 bandwagon this winter. Back in the early '90s, home computing really took off. Windows came out a decade before, but until version 3.0 or really 3.1, did it go mainstream. It was the first graphical user interface or GUI (pronounced "gooey") for the PC. Simultaneously, Apple had the MacIntosh. Almost each new version of Windows brought novel innovations to the table. Windows 95 had Plug and Play, integrated Internet and showed us the Start Menu and Task Bar. Win 98 introduced us to the Universal Serial Bus, better known as USB. The Millennium Edition had but one use for me: I used the installation CD for a coaster. Aside from my beverage, all else on it was junk. I think Microsoft must have agreed, as it was gone as quickly as it appeared. XP had a refined GUI, an easy to use Network Wizard, Media Player and Movie Maker. It was the first Windows to have wireless networking support. The much-maligned Vista was next. They should have put a fork in it; it wasn't ready. Although high on security, it is slow on speed and is a clunky, overburdened operating system that manages memory poorly. Personally, I'd rather use XP. Its successor, Windows 7 is everything Vista tried to be and wasn't. It was like going from black and white to color; from four cylinders to eight. It is smart, secure and stable; it is quick, easy to control and has cloud capabilities. I enjoy Win 7 so much that I see no need to upgrade to 8 when it comes out. I'll wait until I get my next computer, which will have it pre-installed. Windows 8, or Metro, as they are calling it, will still function with a mouse and keyboard, but will also offer support for tablets and other touch screens. It will supposedly be offered in various incarnations, depending upon the way you will be using it, touch or otherwise. Picture your smartphone on steroids, 10 times the size for your next personal computer. But they don't stop there. Touch screens are used from 4-inch smartphones to 60-inch classroom/boardroom presentation screens. You may have already seen these large displays on network news shows. Aside for the business and home computer market, I believe we will see Microsoft give Android and Apple and run for the smart phone market with Windows 8 as well. Currently, cell phone use is dominated by Android, which is a Linux-based operating system for mobile devices or iOS if you have an iPhone. Windows has a small share as does Blackberry, and a few others. Almost 500 million smart phones were sold in 2011, so the market is rapidly growing with Microsoft and Android battling for placement in it. Android and Linux are forces to be recognized. You may not see Linux-based PCs when you go shopping, but they are around. The Department of Defense and the U.S. Navy, as well as many municipalities, schools and businesses use it. I tried Windows on my phone, but like Droid better. On my PC I prefer Windows over Linux. The new version of Windows is supposed to have enhancements other than those for touch screens. It should run more efficiently, using less memory. It will have a new user interface. The start menu will be gone, to be replaced with a tile-based grid of images including your applications and photos. To log on, you will click a series of points on an image, not unlike some smart phone logons we use already. Much of what we will need will be a la carte via a Microsoft website, Window Live, rather than clog the operating system with things that we may or may not use. Windows Live currently has a half billion accesses monthly. It sounds like Windows 8 has gone through a major overhaul, but until I find myself showing up at clients' homes with my touch screen tablet computer, I'll think I'll stay with Windows 7. Arthur Glazer is a freelance writer and computer technician in Gainesville. His column appears biweekly on the Business page and on gainesvilletimes.com.

What you can do online beside check email

Computer Care: Behold the wonders of the Web By Arthur Glazerglazer.tech@gmail.com POSTED: February 4, 2012 1:00 a.m.

Did you know that Finley Stephens of Weston, Mo., lays claim to the largest ball of string (not twine) at 19 feet in diameter, weighing 3,712 pounds? How about the fact that it would take about 80,000 years to travel to the nearest star in Alpha Centauri with the technology that we have today? Australian shepherds don't come from down under but originate from Colorado. Really? Yes. I didn't know those facts, either, but I found them quickly (with multiple sources) on the Internet. Many of my clients tell me all they need their computers for is email, and they don't know what else they can do with them. I often sleep but five hours a night because I get caught up in Internet searches. Much of my computing knowledge I've learned from websites. I read news stories online, watch missed TV shows, do comparative research for products I want to buy, find programs for my computer and apps for my cellphone, learn how to repair things that I break and sell things that I no longer need. I have booked vacations, sold cars and artwork and bought cameras and laptops, all online. Most of the electronics I need for my computer business are purchased online at better prices than I can get locally, even considering the shipping costs. My point is that if all you use your computer for is email, then you need to take your mouse out for a ride. There is a world out there just waiting for you to explore. Too often I hear excuses like, "I am too old to learn," or "I don't know how." Well, bunk. (Synonym I found online for a more aromatic term I usually use.) When I was a kid, the only research I had access to was the World Book Encyclopedia. Each year, my parents would buy the annual supplement and I was thrilled. It was nice, but limited, and it cost a small fortune. By comparison, today the Internet is huge and it is free, aside from your connection fees. The information is literally available at our fingertips and is enormous, almost infinite. You don't need any special knowledge, only a desire to know or want something. Just ask Google a question. Speak like you would to a friend. Type your query in question form. Don't worry about grammar or using caps. If I want recipes with broccoli, but without cheese, that's what I would type: I would ask, "What are broccoli recipes without cheese?" (without quotes). Have a hankering to understand Einstein? Type, "Explain the Theory of Relativity." You will get pages of hits to your queries; the first few on the first page will usually answer your question. Avoid responses that say "ad," as they are paid-for responses and will steer you astray to the sponsors' product pages. Look at a few pages and save them as bookmarks or favorites, depending on what your browser calls them. Shop online. Do comparisons between products and stores and read what shoppers say about what you want to buy. If you buy online, you can have your purchase shipped or pick it up at local stores like Target, Sears and Wal-Mart, to name a few. Use snopes.com to dispel those email rumors we all get. (Bill Gates will give you $50 if you forward this column.) Feeling bad? Look up your symptoms online. Did your doctor prescribe some new medications for you? See what you shouldn't mix with them on the pharmaceutical's website. Discover which foods are antioxidant-rich or low in fat. Aside from Google, I like ask.com, howto.com and youtube.com. You'll find that many queries will refer you to these three sites often. You Tube is great if you need to know how to do things like fix a leaky toilet, change your car's water pump, refill your inkjet cartridges or install RAM in your computer. If you are a DIY enthusiast and a visual learner, you will like their videos. Watch, pause and rewind them. Bookmark the videos and watch them again. Are you tired of the bar scene? Internet dating has increased over the years. Approximately 5 million singles use online dating services worth about $4 billion worldwide. (Yes, these statistics come from the Internet.) If you have a webcam, download and install Skype, a free video-conferencing application. You will truly enjoy chatting with your dates or your out-of-town children and be able to see them at the same time. Welcome to the 21st century. The Internet works. My wife and I met online back when the information superhighway was but a dirt road. We have watched the Web and our marriage grow for almost 20 years, although I do believe Teressa knows more trivia than Google. If all you go online for is email, live dangerously. Go look up something. You can't break your computer — not like that, anyway. You don't need a Ph.D. or any special knowledge. The latter is what you'll gain. Arthur Glazer is a freelance writer and computer technician in Gainesville. His column appears biweekly on the Business page and on gainesvilletimes.com.

Did you know that Finley Stephens of Weston, Mo., lays claim to the largest ball of string (not twine) at 19 feet in diameter, weighing 3,712 pounds? How about the fact that it would take about 80,000 years to travel to the nearest star in Alpha Centauri with the technology that we have today? Australian shepherds don't come from down under but originate from Colorado. Really? Yes. I didn't know those facts, either, but I found them quickly (with multiple sources) on the Internet. Many of my clients tell me all they need their computers for is email, and they don't know what else they can do with them. I often sleep but five hours a night because I get caught up in Internet searches. Much of my computing knowledge I've learned from websites. I read news stories online, watch missed TV shows, do comparative research for products I want to buy, find programs for my computer and apps for my cellphone, learn how to repair things that I break and sell things that I no longer need. I have booked vacations, sold cars and artwork and bought cameras and laptops, all online. Most of the electronics I need for my computer business are purchased online at better prices than I can get locally, even considering the shipping costs. My point is that if all you use your computer for is email, then you need to take your mouse out for a ride. There is a world out there just waiting for you to explore. Too often I hear excuses like, "I am too old to learn," or "I don't know how." Well, bunk. (Synonym I found online for a more aromatic term I usually use.) When I was a kid, the only research I had access to was the World Book Encyclopedia. Each year, my parents would buy the annual supplement and I was thrilled. It was nice, but limited, and it cost a small fortune. By comparison, today the Internet is huge and it is free, aside from your connection fees. The information is literally available at our fingertips and is enormous, almost infinite. You don't need any special knowledge, only a desire to know or want something. Just ask Google a question. Speak like you would to a friend. Type your query in question form. Don't worry about grammar or using caps. If I want recipes with broccoli, but without cheese, that's what I would type: I would ask, "What are broccoli recipes without cheese?" (without quotes). Have a hankering to understand Einstein? Type, "Explain the Theory of Relativity." You will get pages of hits to your queries; the first few on the first page will usually answer your question. Avoid responses that say "ad," as they are paid-for responses and will steer you astray to the sponsors' product pages. Look at a few pages and save them as bookmarks or favorites, depending on what your browser calls them. Shop online. Do comparisons between products and stores and read what shoppers say about what you want to buy. If you buy online, you can have your purchase shipped or pick it up at local stores like Target, Sears and Wal-Mart, to name a few. Use snopes.com to dispel those email rumors we all get. (Bill Gates will give you $50 if you forward this column.) Feeling bad? Look up your symptoms online. Did your doctor prescribe some new medications for you? See what you shouldn't mix with them on the pharmaceutical's website. Discover which foods are antioxidant-rich or low in fat. Aside from Google, I like ask.com, howto.com and youtube.com. You'll find that many queries will refer you to these three sites often. You Tube is great if you need to know how to do things like fix a leaky toilet, change your car's water pump, refill your inkjet cartridges or install RAM in your computer. If you are a DIY enthusiast and a visual learner, you will like their videos. Watch, pause and rewind them. Bookmark the videos and watch them again. Are you tired of the bar scene? Internet dating has increased over the years. Approximately 5 million singles use online dating services worth about $4 billion worldwide. (Yes, these statistics come from the Internet.) If you have a webcam, download and install Skype, a free video-conferencing application. You will truly enjoy chatting with your dates or your out-of-town children and be able to see them at the same time. Welcome to the 21st century. The Internet works. My wife and I met online back when the information superhighway was but a dirt road. We have watched the Web and our marriage grow for almost 20 years, although I do believe Teressa knows more trivia than Google. If all you go online for is email, live dangerously. Go look up something. You can't break your computer — not like that, anyway. You don't need a Ph.D. or any special knowledge. The latter is what you'll gain. Arthur Glazer is a freelance writer and computer technician in Gainesville. His column appears biweekly on the Business page and on gainesvilletimes.com.

Computer Care: Stop Online Piracy Act takes things too far

	By Arthur Glazerglazer.tech@gmail.com

	POSTED: January 23, 2012 1:41 p.m.

	Could you imagine if we had newspapers that had items blacked out, censored by someone other than its editors? What if society allowed wealthy members of the business community or authoritative politicians the power to oversee the printed page? What if it were up to them what was considered fit for publication? Censorship controlled by the wealthy, with the endorsement and consent of the government? What are the chances of that happening? After all, this is the United States of America. Should House Bill 3261, better known as SOPA or the Stop Online Piracy Act pass, it could set precedent for censorship in this great country of ours. Its aim is to deliver massive control to certain industries over Internet content. It will start with the Internet and who knows where it can go from there. The Senate has its own bill, the Protect IP Act or PIPA, S 968. The bills call for domain blacklisting, which could stop Internet Service Providers from allowing access to certain Internet addresses. It blocks search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo) from linking to those sites. Chinese and Iranian governments endorse this practice. That's quite an elite club to be part of. I am not in favor of piracy. Every author, artist, performer and creator has the right to profit from his or her work. However, these two congressional bills go way beyond demanding fair pay for fair work. The current drafts allow record companies and movie studios not to just have objectionable copyrighted content removed from websites but to see the sites shut down completely. Should these bills pass as they stand, unprecedented powers would in the hands of the Hollywood entertainment companies, artists and organizations like the MPAA and RIAA. For now, it seems the only ones to profit would be the lawyers. It would make more sense and appear more appropriate to request the site owners to remove the materials in violation of copyright laws. But taking down infringed songs, books or movies is apparently not enough for them. They wanted and received the authority to shut down entire websites. Any Internet-savvy web surfer could circumvent this obstacle by entering the numerical address of the suspect website instead of its name, rendering the whole ban mute. It may stop some, but not all from accessing a site. It is overkill to allow termination of a website in the name of piracy prevention. That means sites such as YouTube could be shut down because a ninth-grader posted a video he created with a Michael Jackson song in the background. Although a site as large as YouTube may be able to withstand that type of threat and survive it, a small startup site could not. It wouldn't stop there. Advertisers would be prohibited from selling their wares on those websites. Untold numbers of technicians would be out of work. In protest Wednesday, Google had its search box covered with a black band and asked Web surfers to tell Congress that censorship is wrong. Google reports that they collected over 7 million signatures in protest over these two bills. Wikipedia and thousands of other websites shut down for a day in protest this past week. Wikipedia briefly blocked content, and said afterward, "The problem with SOPA is that it prevents the "loss" of money, at the expense of knowledge and freedoms ... we care passionately about the rights of authors, because we are authors." Others in opposition to the bills include eBay, AOL, Mozilla, Facebook, Yahoo, Twitter and Linkedin, to name but a few. Those in the entertainment business in favor of the bills have already spent a whopping $100 million on lobbying for their cause to date. They may need to spend more. So far, the protests appear to have had a huge effect. After seeing all the public resistance, Congress is busy reworking the bills. Considering where they were a week ago, they have a lot of rewriting to do. There is also a compromise bill in the works. A group of House members is drafting a bipartisan piece of legislation called the Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade Act. We'll see. Quite a few members of Congress have reconsidered their "yay" vote on this controversial bill. Three co-sponsors have already dropped support of their bills, perhaps more by the time you read this. There are others yet who are waiting to make up their minds, waiting to hear from their constituency until they decide. That puts it in our hands, where it should be. We have the power, we the people. Write to your congressional representatives, sign online petitions and email the White House. Should these bills pass as they stand, this could be the beginning of the end of freedoms that this country was built upon. Don't let it happen. Arthur Glazer is a freelance writer and computer technician in Gainesville. His column appears biweekly on the Business page and on gainesvilletimes.com.

	Computer Care: Look for more QR codes in the future By Arthur Glazerglazer.tech@gmail.com POSTED: January 7, 2012 1:00 a.m. Everyone has seen them. They are in newspapers and magazines and on websites. No, I'm not talking about celebrities or politicians. I refer you to Quick Response Codes. They are those two-dimensional square mazes of black lines and white spaces that you may have seen. For the longest time, I had no idea what they were. I felt the same way many years ago when bar codes initially came out on products at the supermarket. They were on things like Cheerios long before the stores even had bar code scanners. What were those lines, I wondered. Those original vertical bar codes' design included a minimal amount of information embedded in them. Those initial bar codes are high-tech price stickers. They tell the customer what an item costs and allows a merchant inventory control. The purpose of the new QR codes is to show us products and educate us about them. We can also get discount coupons via a scan, go to a website, buy something, read an article or watch a video. QR codes have the ability to store more information in them than bar codes and will soon be seen on just about anything consumers use, from drink cups to business cards; anything they may read from periodicals to websites; and television to storefronts and even restroom walls. They are already in use at trade shows and conventions. I have seen them in brochures and flyers. They have even made it to billboards in some cities. The QR is easier to scan than the ones at the self-checkout counter. You can do it from a distance. Currently, a common use of the QR code is the ability to get apps for your smart phone. New York City's Central Park adapted them as park codes to show tourists more about the park. They are strategically scattered around the park on signs for visitors to scan. See the video here. According to my wife's friend, Kathy, the Weight Watchers bar code scanner app for use at the supermarket will help you make smart decisions while shopping for food. Whether you're in the store or at home, you can easily scan foods to keep track of the points in your diet. I thought calculators on the buggies were high-tech. Although this technology is new in our country, it's been around for a while in Canada and Japan, where it was invented in 1994 for use in the automotive industry. These soon-to-be-ubiquitous codes will be a boon to advertisers, but will create yet another source of possible malware. As long as you trust the source, just as in web browsing, this shouldn't be an issue. However, if you scan a code that you don't know, there is the possibility it will direct your phone to an infected site. You will then have what is known as a "brick." Your phone will be useless. To be clear, the code is not what is malicious; where is sends you to is what may be. To answer your next question, yes, cellphone infections are absolutely something we should be concerned about. The more mobile we become, the more we become dependent on our phones for information. It is simply easier to scan a website address (the code), than to type in the address on a tiny mobile keyboard. Although it is more efficient, it is yet another possible source of infection for us. Many anti-virus applications now include protection for your mobile device as well as for your computer. If you haven't yet considered this, perhaps now is the time. Check your anti-virus suite. You may already have protection for your mobile phone. If you don't yet have an app for your smartphone that reads QR codes, you can download a free one. Be sure you get the app specific for your platform, whether iPhone, Android, Windows, Blackberry or Palm. Use the link to your app store on your mobile phone to get the download. In most cases, the scan will activate the software. You usually don't even have to click the shutter release button on your phone. All you need to do is accept or deny redirection to the link that the QR code wants you to go to. Should you want your own QR code, there are many websites that offer them at no cost, with no strings attached. A few of the many sites that will allow you to create them are qrstuff.com,quikqr.com and qrcode.kaywa.com. Simply tell the code generator if you want an email, text or a URL (web address) embedded in your code. Create it and right-click the newly generated image, then save it to your computer to use as you wish. You may not have seen many economical comprehensive data plans for your phone lately, but I think you will be seeing a bunch more QR codes in the coming year. Arthur Glazer is a freelance writer and computer technician in Gainesville. His column appears biweekly on the Business page and on gainesvilletimes.com.

Vipre is currently having a

 "Buy one year, get another free" Sale.

I like it because it doesn't slow my system down. You, my readers will like it because it is a great deal.

Care for your new computer

Computer Care: Boot up, connect, protect that new computer properly By Arthur Glazerglazer.tech@gmail.com POSTED: December 24, 2011 1:00 a.m. Whether you celebrate Christmas, Kwanzaa or Hanukkah, chances are someone in your family is either giving or getting a computer for the holidays. Setting up a new computer, transferring data from an old one or adding new peripherals can be a daunting experience for anyone not comfortable with technology. Connecting your devices to the computer, if you have a desktop, is easier than it appears. Most cables will connect to only one port; just be sure the plugs are oriented properly. USB plugs can go in any USB port and audio cables are color-coded. The Ethernet or Internet plug is like a phone plug on steroids and will fit in only one port. If you got a new monitor, it is probably high definition. Use the new cable that came with it and connect it to the corresponding port on the computer. You can use the VGA cable if the new computer has no HD port. Plug in the power last. Know where to connect your printer, but don't plug it in yet. Install it through the software on its CD and wait until it says to plug it in. If using an existing printer, go to the (HP, Lexmark, Epson, Canon) website and download an installation program and driver compatible with your new operating system. The old XP disc that came with your printer will probably not work with Win 7. Also, be sure to choose whether it's 32- or 64-bit. After you get all the cables and devices connected, Windows 7 will walk you through the initial setup. All you will need to do is name the computer, chose a time zone (Greenwich/GMT minus 5 hours for Eastern/EST) and hit "Next" a few times. Reboot the computer and customize your settings and your desktop. More important is to be sure you have an anti-virus program installed prior to any Internet browsing. You may have one that came pre-installed on your new computer, but realize it is a trial version and will be good for only a month. Just because it's there doesn't mean you have to use it. Other programs may be cheaper or more thorough. Be sure to include a malware utility, whether incorporated with the anti-virus or a standalone. After the above installation is finished, take time to configure it. I find more computers that fail to have a schedule set up for any scans other than a defrag. The network setup is easier than ever with Win 7. If you have a laptop and need the wireless capabilities of the operating system, it will walk you through it. Windows will detect your network for you. You just need to know what its name is and make sure it is set up with encryption to keep the e-prowlers out. The next step is to create system emergency discs, usually two. One will boot up the computer in an emergency, the other will have an image of all of your stuff should you experience a techno-disaster. Look under "Maintenance" in the program menu to find how to create these discs. The first one will require a CD, the second a DVD. If you have lots of programs installed and have transferred old data to the new system, that second disc may turn into multiple discs, depending on how much stuff you have to save. If you plan to give away your old computer, be certain that no sensitive data remains. Just dragging files to the recycle bin isn't the most secure way to erase your data. Any good hacker could still access your files if they really wanted to. The truth is, Windows simply deletes the file's name, but the file remains on your drive. Download Eraser, a free open-source utility that writes random data across yours, ensuring nobody could have access to it. When you install programs to your new computer, add a good utility to help keep it in good shape. Advanced System Care from Iobit is a good one. If you video conference, don't forget to install Skype if it didn't come on the new computer. Foxit Reader is a faster pdf file reader than Adoble Reader. Also, download Google's Chrome or Mozilla's Firefox. Both are better browsers and faster than Microsoft's Internet Explorer, in my opinion. Let me add one piece of advice about installing programs: Be careful about allowing them in your startup group when running the installation. By default, they all want to go there. This will slow down your system. So whether you are hanging stockings or lighting candles this weekend, if your gifts come from under a tree or you get one each night, may your computing be happy and may your troubles be slight. Arthur Glazer is a freelance writer and computer technician in Gainesville. His column appears biweekly on the Business page and on gainesvilletimes.com.

Defrag your hard drive

Computer Care: Keep your cheese clean by defragging often

	By Arthur Glazerglazer.tech@gmail.com POSTED: December 10, 2011 1:00 a.m. For the moment, let's say your hard drive is a block of Swiss cheese. If you could somehow relocate all of the holes to one corner of the block, then theoretically you'd be able store something where all the holes are, right? Yes, you could, and no, this is not the Cheese Corner. I am simply making a cheesy analogy about hard drives and defragmentation or defragging, as we geeks refer to it. Defragging places data (the cheese) on one part of the drive and free space (the holes) on another. It also keeps individual files in good shape, while deleting remnants left behind from downloads, installations and abrupt shutdowns. Naysayers believe that defragging is no longer necessary. I say it is. Even with the new generation of hard drives with their huge capacities, (Muenster drives?) defragging can still prove to be beneficial. Even a large drive will fill up eventually. By keeping contiguous free disc space, all the data resides on one part of the drive. When you install a program to a clean, optimized drive, all of its folders go to the same locale. Thus, when you click an icon to call up that application, it will open more quickly because the files are all together. In a badly fragmented hard drive, you could spend a minute or more watching the hourglass tumble, as the system looks for parts of your program that are scattered all over the drive. I'm not saying your defrag utility should run nightly. However, to keep your computer running more efficiently, I would suggest you run it at least every couple of weeks, adding additional scans if the system becomes sluggish. You can't over-defrag it and the scan can be paused or terminated at any time without incurring any damage to the file structure. All defrag utilities have buttons that will stop and pause the scan function, similar to that of your CD/DVD player. The only downside to defragmenting is that as with scanning for viruses or malware, system resource use is high. It can be difficult to check your email or do anything else while a scan is running, defrag included. There is a defragmentation utility incorporated into Windows, but there are better ones that you can get online, some at no cost. Many free utilities lack the bells and whistles that come with the paid versions. In this case, what you really need a scheduler so you can set it and forget it. Windows 7 does allow you to schedule a defrag session, albeit with limited choices. Technical support is also something you get only with the paid versions. As always, with the freebies, you're on your own. This shouldn't be an issue with a defrag program though; they are pretty straightforward and easy to use. The more elaborate programs provide more options and let you choose how the disc is defragmented, from placement of free space to choosing varying degrees of disc optimization. Some let you choose where to allocate more resources, to the utility for a faster scan, or the system to let you continue to work while it scans. Some may defrag the boot portion of the drive, making Windows load more quickly. Others will offer to defrag an external drive, not just the "C" or "D" drives, while a few will hone in on specific files of your choice, even the Windows Registry. If you have an all-in-one utility suite, scrutinize the menus. You may find a defrag program built into it. Smart Defrag from Iobit.com, Disk Defrag from auslogics.com and Defraggler from piriform.com are three of the top free defrag utilities available for download. UltraDefrag is an Open Source (free) alternative that will also defrag the registry and page file. Find it and much more good free Open Source programs at sourceforge.net. As always, also check download.com for more programs and see how their editors rate them and what users are saying about them. Any of the paid versions will allow you to try before you buy. You may decide that $24 is not too much to pay for a good utility. Keep in mind that your computer is an expensive piece of technology and you have valuable data on it. Sometimes it's worth getting a better mousetrap to keep it safe. All defrag utilities will suffice, free or otherwise. Some may do it quicker, others more thoroughly, but using any is better than using none. Should you decide to not buy or download one, there is always the Microsoft version. In all versions of Windows, find the native defrag utility in "All Programs," then go to "Accessories," then to "System Tools." Before you run any defrag scan, it's best to ensure your system is in good shape. Clean the drive of junk files first; there's no point in organizing garbage. Even if you have a terabyte drive with tons of free space, it's still a Gouda idea to run defrag every now and then. Arthur Glazer is a freelance writer and computer technician in Gainesville. His column appears biweekly on the Business page.