With the New Year coming, why not start it off with a faster computer? Run your defrag program (windows has one built in). It may take a while, so start it before you go to bed. Fragmented files take up a lot of space on a computer and if that's something you don't have a lot of any way, reclaiming that space will help your computer run faster. (My defrag is STILL running, at 84%. I had 35 gigs of fragmented space, eek!).
While you are at it, download all the recommended updates for your system. And make sure your anti-virus is up to date. If it's expired, go buy a new one. I hear so many people grumble about how anti-virus is a money sink, but it's amazing how much worse that grumble is when they find they've a virus and that it's going to take 72 hours to clean their computer and a whopping $110. Buy the anti-virus. Most software comes with multi-computer licenses. Split the cost with another family member or a good friend. When the subscription comes up for renewal at the end of the year, you only have to renew it once, so you can split the cost again ;) It really is a wise investment.
And don't forget to back everything up! External and portable hard drives are cheap now, if you don't have one go get one. I can personally tell you how heartbreaking it is to have your hard drive fail and lose every photo you've taken over the last 5 years! I was lucky, most of them had been copied to a disk for the grandparents, but some of them are lost forever :( Not to mention if you move some of those photos off your computer you can open up some valuable free space on your computer again :)
