Saving RAM: To keep a smooth running computer you should keep the amount of RAM you are using to a minimum Other wise you will do something stupid like have someone over go to show them something and you will be using up so much RAM you end up yelling I hate this useless machine or something when really it's your fault for it running so slow.

 

Now lets start with that System Tray

you know the thing in the bottom right where on some computers 500 different things go in there (that's obviously an exaggeration). Everything in there is using RAM try to keep those programs to a minimum obviously you don't want to shut off your anti virus software and leave yourself wide in the open. some anti virus software use so much RAM like Norton anti virus but its to much of a risk to shut it down for most people you can always try switching to lower RAM users like Avast Anti virus ,a wonderfully free anti virus software, long as you stay smart it does most the protection for you and uses little thinking space. Now things like your audio icon obviously you don't want to remove that you need it for your computer to process any audio files. I'm sure there's always the personal favorites of IM programs aim, icq, msn, yahoo, myspaceim, and things like trillion. if you aren't talking to anybody for a long time or don't expect anybody to be on in the very early morning or late at night shut these down sign out then close them in the task bar by right clicking and close. Some people using HP printers will have some software from those running if you aren't printing shut these off you don't need them just take note of what the name of the program is and find where it is located on your computer so you can start it back up if you need to print something up. really if you aren't using it close it don't keep it open if your computer needs it it will prompt you that so and so software needs to be running it will either open it itself or you just have to open it. Just use common sense and there will be no problem if anything goes wrong just restart your computer and everything will boot back up ok unless you told something not to auto load on start up again then its up to you to find where the program is stored.

 

Desktop

ok one thing that drives me nuts "why is my computer running slow" before I even look at someone's computer I make the prediction your desktop is cluttered or your system tray is overloaded. Almost every time it has to do with how people store files and there well keeping of there pc (I think there should be a license to buy computers like you have to pass some test because if you don't know how to use the tech you are wasting it and driving the rest of us nuts when we look at what you have done to the beautiful tech masterpiece). Whatever is on your desktop most computers are programmed to keep all those things loaded somewhere so you can use them when you try to access them. Bad place to store things I've seen how much they slow you down i tried myself once. Playing F.E.A.R when my info is stored correctly on the pc the game runs at its highest quality with no problem at all. as an experiment i stored my files like most computer illiterates and the computer had nearly no room to think very slow nasty results.

 

try storing files like this on your desktop you should keep three things "My computer, Recycling bin, and a folder titled 'folders'". Now inside of the folders make some more to keep yourself organized keep everything in categories and if its music put it where it belongs in the my music folder in your documents folder in your start menu. and the same goes for pictures and videos.