Here are some tools that are great in optimizing the speed of your PC.

1. CCleaner (Free)

This tool is the easiest way to cleanup junk files on your system that are left over from internet caches, hiding in the Recycle Bin, and other temporary files on your system. Easy and it works.

2. Speccy (Free)

Speccy gives you an at-a-glance view of your system specs, including your CPU, RAM, Motherboard, Graphics card, and more. It even gives you advanced info, such as CL clocks, cycles, temperature, physical memory usage, and more.

3. WinDirStat (Free)

This is a great tool for finding where the largest files are on your drive. Have you ever wondered why your disk drive was full and didn’t know where to look? WinDirStat is very helpful for finding large files and presents it in a visually-helpful way.

4. PerfectDisk ($29.99) or Defraggler (Free)

If you feel like paying for your disk to really be optimized, I recommend PerfectDisk. It deeply cleans and defragments your drives, far beyond the capabilities of the Windows defragmenting tool. If you’d like a free alternative, Defraggler works well, too. 

How often have you gone to class without your paper? We all forget to print our work off sometimes, but there’s something that can help you with that…

It’s called Dropbox. You can get it here. 

What does it to? Basically, it creates a new folder on your computer that syncs with the cloud. Every document or picture you save will be saved in your online Dropbox account. 

If you arrive at class with no paper, no worries! Just jump on a computer and sign into your account at dropbox.com and you can print your paper straight from your Dropbox. It’s that simple. 

When I fixed computers for Northwest University Information Services last year, a reoccurring problem among students is their hard drive would crash and they would lose all of their school work. If they had just used Dropbox, their papers would be safe and sound in the cloud.

It also helps you organize your work across multiple devices. For example, you can use your tablet or laptop to take notes in class and have it all synced on your desktop PC when you back to your dorm room to study your notes. 

Tip: Organize your notes

I made a folder called “2012-2013 Spring Northwest University” with all of my classes as sub-folders, and they sync with all of my devices.