In our previous blog post, we have learned how to defragment your hard drive using windows defragmenter. We have another alternative to defrag a hard drive, which is using UltraDefrag. You might be wondering why we need to use UltraDefrag instead of the built-in windows defragmenter. It’s not just a matter of preference off course but we like the full optimization functionality which in our opinion doing a better job in organizing the fragments into contiguous region and it’s algorithm to create larger white space region. Also we like the visualization that UltraDefrag can provide

First of all, you need to download UltraDefrag from its website. You can just Google for UltraDefrag and find its site that is hosted on SourceForge

Once you have downloaded it, install the software. The installation process is very straightforward. Just continue to click next until you find the Install button. 

After the installation, run the program, you will see a window as follow.

To perform a defragmentation, go to Action and select Defragment. You can also use F6 from your keyboard.

UltraDefrag will now perform an analysis on your hard disk sectors and map out the data fragmentation. This will take a few minutes depending on the size of your hard disk.

Once the analysis is completed, UltraDefrag will start defragmenting your hard disk. This will take minutes depending on your disk size as well as available free space on your disks.

Note:
If you notice in the above picture, the blue represents the files and red is fragmented files. Defragmentation phase eliminates little fragments by joining the together making access to individual files faster.

To better optimize your disk performance, we will recommend running the Full Optimization or F7.  Here is what full optimization algorithm is (taken from UltraDefrag handbook)

• The analysis phase is the same as for defragmentation. 
• The next phase moves all small files and fragments to the end of the disk to free space at the beginning of it. 
• The third phase moves small files back, sorted by user-defined criteria (by path in ascending order by default). This speeds up access to groups of files. 
• The last phase defragments all files. 

Running a full optimization will speed up your disk access much better. So when you open smaller files such as pictures and web files, it is much faster than before. Full optimization will also make sure that you have a continuous running free space as represented by the white spaces in the above picture. Having a continuous free space means that the disk can now write a full file in a continuous block instead of in fragments where the white space is available.

Do take note that since the behavior of Full Optimization algorithm is to move files to free up space, it is advisable for you to run it when you are not using the computer as it will degrade your computer performance when its running. Remember to defrag your hard disk regularly to avoid unnecessary laptop repair.

"Urgh! What’s with my PC getting these pop-ups every time I start my computer?"  

Surely most of us have faced this situation before and it's common anywhere in the world today. One of the common laptop repair request is virus removal. Hackers with malicious intention LOVE these computers that aren't protected enough. For them, it's like sucking nectar out of flower, in your case the nectar might be your credit card information, Gmail password, Paypal password or even live feed of your webcam! 

If you don't want to be a victim of blackmailing, spam or scam, protect yourself by making sure your computer is installed with latest security updates and install with credible Antivirus program. While some of us with extra dough don't mind spending a few dollars for an antivirus program, there are a number of us which looking for a more cost effective alternatives or in most cases, FREE.

Afraid not, nowadays a lot of computer security company offers a FREE version of their antivirus/anti-malware program, with a limited function of course.

Here are 5 FREE antivirus programs that you can use for your personal computers. For smartphones antivirus program, we will have it in another blog post.

Microsoft Security Essentials

AVG is one of the pioneers of FREE antivirus program. It's popularity soars during the time when worms and malwares at large and most of the computer security companies charged for their antivirus program. It provides real-time protections and proven to be an effective common antivirus blocker and cleaner.

Microsoft has always known for charging their products but in recent years, it has changed a lot. More and more free product and tools published by the Microsoft team in an effort to provide more value towards their customer. Microsoft Security Essential is one of the examples. The product doesn't come by default when you purchased it. You need to download from their website.

In September 2013 Holly Stewart, Senior Program Manager of the Microsoft Malware Protection Center, told Dennis Technology Labs that the product was merely "a baseline", providing only a first layer of protection. Microsoft subsequently clarified that its "anti-malware solutions provide strong, comprehensive defences against malicious code and attacks".

AVG Antivirus Free 2014

AVG is one of the pioneers of FREE antivirus program. It's popularity soars during the time when worms and malwares at large and most of the computer security companies charged for their antivirus program. It provides real-time protections and proven to be an effective common antivirus blocker and cleaner.

Avast Free Antivirus 2015

I have been using Avast a number of times during the past 10 years. For a free program, it has done a really good job detecting and cleaning up my messy infected machine. You can perform a boot-time scan and this what set it apart from other free antivirus program. A lot of modern rootkit is running in kernel-mode instead of user-mode thus making it harder to detect and cleaned. With the boot-time scan, you can get rid of these annoyances once and for all.

Panda Free Antivirus 2015

Panda antivirus is known for being the first cloud antivirus program. The new version is an evolution of it's first generation of cloud antivirus program. The uniqueness of this system is in detecting and disinfecting viruses and other threats that feed off from other users information shared in real-time through crowd-sourcing.

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware 2.0

While Malwarebytes Anti-Malware 2.0 is not exactly an antivirus, it is worth a mentioned here. What is great about this tool is that it clean up viruses and rootkit effectively. Tech support staffs often turn to this tool when other antiviruses fails to clean up those viruses. It’s FREE, easy to use and the new version comes with a nice interface.

One way to keep your computer speed up to date is to defragment your hard drive regularly. This is to re-organize the files in your hard disk and making it easy for the hard disk to access them. A regular defragmentation and antivirus softwares can protect your PC and avoid the need to send your computer for repair.

First of all open the windows start button on the bottom left corner of your screen. You will see the start menu. Click on the Computer icon.

All of your hard drives will be shown, just like in the image below. 

Right click on the drive that you want to defragment (in this case is drive C). A menu will open up.

Click on Properties, which the last item in the menu. The properties of drive C will be shown. It will be similar to the image you see bellow.

You can click Tools to open the tools menu. Here are some of the tools that you can use to manage the hard drive.

To do defragmentation, click on the button in the middle that says Defragment now... Another windows will open once it is clicked.

Choose the drive that you want to defragment and press Defragment disk button. You can also press the Analyze disk button if you want to check if defragmentation is required. Once defragment process started, It may take awhile to complete. You can view the progress under the Progress column.