My computer is running slowly

A frequent comment I get from friends and family is that their computer was working fine yesterday, but today it is so slow! I like to find out what is taking up the cpu usage. If you are running a Windows Operating System, you can check the cpu usage in Task Manager. Open it by right clicking on the task bar at the bottom of the screen (Hitting ctrl/alt/delete also works). Select Task Manager which opens to the Applications tab: Click on the Processes tab, then click on the column that says CPU. There will be a long list, but most show 0 cpu usage. That's normal. You may need to click CPU twice in order to see the processes using the cpu (the numbers will not be 0). The Processes will bounce around depending on which one is using the cpu at any given moment. This can make it difficult to see, but once you see what you're looking for you can click 'Image Name' to sort alphabetically. Mostly it should say System Idle Process. Then, I recommend searching the internet (if you can) for that process and finding out what it does and where it came from. You can hit the 'End Process' button and this normally clears up the problem.
Next I like to clean up some of the temporary files stored on the computer. You can do this many different ways. I like to go to Start/All Programs/Accessories/System Tools/Disk Cleanup.
If you have a lot of time to spare, you may also want to defrag your computer after you cleanup. Go to the same System Tools and choose Disk Defragmenter. You can choose 'Analyze' and you will be told whether you need to defrag or not. Lots of red means you need to! This will take fragments of programs, files, pictures, etc and bring them all together so they are accessed faster.