It’s that time of year again, is it not? That time of year when we all have to come to grips with the inadequacies of our hardware setups, our electronic gadgets, and our software. Who among us can say that they have not railed against the computer gods because the software simply refuses to bend to their will? What can one do against such diabolical forces as the slow internet connection, long load time, or any other of the hordes of little technological demons that haunt the lives of those of us bound to the use of man’s most versatile (both in functions and in malfunctions) device?

There is, of course, always the well-traveled path – upgrade! Say goodbye to waiting by spending a few hundred dollars on that shiny new processor (don’t touch the bottom, no matter how much it shimmers), the multiple gigabytes of RAM (No touching the pins! And watch that PCI card, do you want to break something?), or that ultra high power graphics card you’ve always wanted (Why does my screen not light up when I turn it on anymore?).

Before anyone asks, yes, there was computer hardware work done in my unit this week. Anyone who says they have built a system without any problems at all is a liar or works for a company with an assembly line.

Of course, these measures are all highly expensive. The RAM is the cheapest option by far, running anywhere from $30, but it still involves cracking the case, and the mystic domain within the computer is a place some do fear to tread. Software, though, requires no opening of any part of the computer but the optical drive, and it’s nothing physical so it must be cheaper, right?

I think I hear Microsoft executives laughing.

A new copy of Microsoft Office will run you around $200, even wholesale, and software rarely if ever comes cheap – but there are still options. So, as an easy (and free) countermeasure to the expensive hardware upgrades and the inflated cost of brand-name software, here are some cheap-as-free software downloads that will cut your load times and take a load off your processor.

Firefox: The free, open source, and awesome browser by Mozilla Corporation. Most of you, I imagine, going to a school populated with as many engineers as this one, have heard of this program before, but perhaps have never really heard a good explanation of why it is we mozillaphiles keep bringing it up. I won’t go into the details of it, but suffice that Firefox loads pages faster, has far fewer popup issues, and is more customizable than Internet Explorer. If you suffer from long load times online, give it a try – it helps. Avaliable – free – from www.mozilla.com

Auslogics Disk Defrag: If you are asking at this point: “What is defragging?” then you should get this right away. In short, defragmenting is a process by which the computer takes all the bits and pieces in which it sometimes stores files, and organizes them in a more logical and easy to access manner. Think of it as your hard drive cleaning its room. Nothing will change for you, your files stay in the same place (as far as you can tell), but your drive will have an easier (and faster) time finding them all. Windows comes with its own defrag program, but this one does the job faster and better, and is more user friendly. Avaliable – yes, free – at www.auslogics.com

CCleaner: No, the two capital Cs are not a typo, no matter how much Word is trying to convince me otherwise. CCleaner is a program that goes through your computer, finds all the temporary files, cookies (No. Don’t say it.), and other unnecessary odds and ends your computer accumulates over time, and gets rid of them. This reduces hard drive clutter, and frees up space (I used this last weekend after neglecting to do so for almost six months, and freed nearly a full ten gigabytes of space. It adds up.) Free download at www.ccleaner.com

These are just three programs that have helped me out, and hopefully they will for you as well. The improvement may not be as dramatic as a full system upgrade, but they work, they make the computer run smoother, and - as always, when you’re in college, free is the best possible price. 

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