1. Upgrade your memory (RAM). You should have at least 8GB of ram (random access memory). This is what is actively used by your applications to process information. Whether you can upgrade or not, depends on the design of your motherboard. Never buy a computer with a limit of just 4GB of memory! Applications today demand a higher level of system resources to perform at a high level.
2. Hard drive space. Make sure you have a big hard drive. I would recommend 1 terabyte, ie 1000GB hard drive. The reasoning here is simple. The more files you have, the more cluttering you get and when you call for a particular application, cluttering will slow the capacity of an application to find what you have asked for. It’s like trying to find your friend in a crowded field!
3. Multi-tasking, ie working with several applications at the same time. A lot of computer companies like to brag about the multi-tasking capabilities of their machines. This is often just noise. The more applications you open up, the slower will be your computer. The reason is simple. Most of the software depend on the same system resources to do their work. How many times have you opened an application, only to be told that it will not open because another application is open! Aya!
4. Software Upgrades. Make sure you have the latest version of your operating system. Any operating system when it is first launched, does have a lot of “bugs” (ie problems) that are addressed by subsequent revised versions. These are what are labeled as “upgrades”. Microsoft is notorious for launching software that is full of “bugs” and when people start complaining, they “rescue” their clients with software upgrades. This part of the dense jungle of computing in which companies are driven by competition to launch “dirty” products (ie products with bugs). Ordinarily companies would suffer for this, but not Microsoft. Why: their monopoly position insulates them against being punished by consumers. It is because of this many people have gravitated towards “Linux” operating systems as an alternative to Windows.
5. Driver updates. Wikipedia {A driver provides a software interface to hardware devices, enabling operating systems and other computer programs to access hardware functions without needing to know precise details about the hardware being used.} You should always have the latest drives for your particular operating system–whether you have Windows or Linux.
6. In today’s computing, system clean up utilities are critical. These will clean up registry, memory, viruses, hard drives and optimize your system. There are “free” utilities such as CClean (they actually have advertisers galore underwriting the costs). Commercial software include such prominent names like McAfee, Norton, etc. I am cheap, so I have been using Spyhunter for years. It’s not the best, but does what I need to do!

DON’T BE A SUCKER, SO KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN AND ASK FOR HELP IF YOU NEED IT!

Prof. Ronald Edari

A credit score is based on a person’s ability to pay back what he/she has borrowed. The critical component of a credit score is the credit history, essentially your sins or virtues of the past, based on how you have made your regular payments to your creditors–banks, mortgage lenders or credit card companies. Now, here is the glitch. If you have a checkered or erratic history of paying back what you owe (especially for credit card holders), or you default on your loan by declaring bankruptcy or failure to pay your mortgage, your credit score will go down. That means you are a “bad risk”, an economic “goat” who financial institutions and other lenders have to avoid. That will be reflected on a low credit score.

What if you are economically conservative and try to live within your own means by avoiding borrowing, or if you borrow, you pay on short notice. This means that you will have no track record that credit analysis evaluators can base their judgment on. An unknown “economic animal” is a “bad risk” that should also be avoided. This will be reflected in a low credit score. In fact in extreme cases where people have never borrowed any money, then they have no “economic existence”. They have moved into the pale of humanity and heavens forbid if they show up at a financial institution to borrow money. They will meet with the proverbial brick wall and will politely be shown the door!

The Moral

You are damned if you are poor or struggling financially. But you are also damned if you are financially secure,  and refuse to be ripped off by financial institutions whose profits depend on extending credit and charging interest! Personally I fall in this category and when I showed up at a dealership to buy a car, I had a hard time securing an auto loan. But I persuaded a credit company to lend me the money so that I can establish my “economic existence”. This year I will sell my house and pay off the remaining modest balance on my auto loan. When I do this, I will also fall off the radar of the credit analysis snoops. That does not matter, because I will completely relocate to Kenya and come back to the US for health check ups and visiting with my children.