danny’s space

Thankfully not much has started in terms of research for my PhD, so I can still have proper weekends. A relaxing day at home, dealing with computer maintenance (that actually relaxes me, how weird is that…) and using my favourite power tool, the chainsaw. Not related of course. Our dog’s sleeping posture nicely sums up the day.

Also, while we’re at it, might as well sum up my n3rdy tips for good computer health…

• Use legit Windows - no fiddling with cracks or the like
• Use Norton Internet Security - and keep it automatically updated to keep most nasties out
• Run AVG AntiSpyware free - do a scan every couple of weeks to kill the other nasties
• Use Windows Defender - keep it in the background to stave off spyware and other dodgy software
• Defrag once in a while - although Windows XP does a bit of defragging in idle time, a defragged hard disk can greatly improve performance
• Run HijackThis weekly, and analyse the log file produced - HijackThis can pick up other nasties that other programs don’t detect
• Back up regularly - invest in an external hard disk drive (300gb+ is the way to go these days) or burn things to DVD - a damaged hard disk can really stuff you up - and instead of doing a scary full-system backup, just backup the Documents and Settings folder, the ’system state’ (in Windows Backup), and your data directories