Here you will find many links that we believe can be useful. Also, listed below are brief tips on some basic techniques on troubleshooting your own PC. Links: www.pcworld.com - A good source for PC articles. www.mcafee.com - Excellent virus protection software. www.lavasoftusa.com - Free adware software. office.microsoft.com - Office suite templates and downloads. www.cnet.com - General review site. Brief Tips: Many users have superflous programs running on startup. To remove these items click on the start button then click run. Then type msconfig into the dialog that appears, and hit OK. Click the start up tab in the dialog that appears. Click (deselect) the checkbox next to programs that you know you do not want to start when your computer first boots up. Make sure that your virus scan software is up-to-date and you check for viruses once a month. Get a free email account at either hotmail.com or yahoo.com and use that email account for signing up for info on the web. This helps to prevent unnecessary traffic to your permanent email account and spam. If you're having trouble with hardware try removing it and reinstalling the driver. You can get the latest drivers from the manufactures supports sites. When all else fails, give us a call and we might just be able to walk you through answering a quick question over the phone for no charge. How to tell if you have spyware/ad-ware: Does your computer run slower than when it was new? Do pop-up ads suddenly appear from nowhere? Does your system start up (boot) slower than when it was new? Do random windows quickly open and close during startup? Do unknown icons appear on your desktop, system tray or toolbar? Does your home page suddenly change? Do Google and Yahoo! searches take you to a different search page?