You can just call me a computer genius

I am complete idiot when it comes to maintaining computers and my MO until this point has been to just get a new computer every couple of years.  Every time my computer starts slowing down or has trouble starting I just head out and for $400 get a brand new one--works like a charm.  This last couple of weeks my computer has been annoyingly slow.  It's 3 or 4 years old, missing the 'm' key and the battery is shot but it has served me well.  The trouble is that thanks to what I like to call, "the plumbing problem that can not be resolved" there isn't $400 in the budget to get a new one. 

And things were starting to get serious.  I have not been able to watch netflix at all while other programs are running for a week. The agony.

So today I took matters into my own hands. I removed old, unneeded programs, I made sure that there weren't any unneeded programs starting automatically at startup, I defragmented the memory and I did something else that I don't even know what it was but it told me that it freed up memory space.  I worked and worked.

Don't be too dazzled because I'm quite sure that I could not recreate the effort. But it worked.  Like some kind of computer miracle I am watching Netflix and blogging at the same time. 

My small victory has inspired me.  Maybe I don't need to buy a cheap laptop every couple of years and instead I can just learn to take care of this one.  It's good for the environment, good for my brain and good for my pocketbook.

My next project is to see if I can get more RAM and install it.  Let the researching begin.

I'll have to take a lesson from Claire who at our trip to the San Diego Mission insisted on reading, carrying and interpreting the only map they gave us.