Is your desktop or laptop computer starting to feel a little poky? Even after just a few months of use, your PC or Mac may start to lose steam thanks to a fragmented hard drive, too many programs running in the background, or even a rogue piece of malware.
开始察觉到你的台式机或笔记本电脑变的有那么点儿不好用了?只用了几个月,你的PC或MAC就失去了它的锐气,“感谢”硬盘驱动器中的某块碎片吧,这可能是因为太多程序同时在后台运行,或者是一个恶意软件在“淘气”。

This week on Upgrade Your Life, Yahoo! News' Becky Worley serves up some quick and easy tricks for speeding up your PC or Mac, starting with …
在这周的“提高你的生活质量”栏目中,来自雅虎新闻的贝奇·沃利给大家提供了一些快速又简单的小把戏,让你的电脑健步如飞,现在让我们开始吧。

1. Clean out your startup items
1.清理你的开机启动项目

How long do you have to wait after hitting your PC's power button before you can actually get to work? Thirty seconds? A minute? Two minutes?
More?
在按下开机的按钮后,你要等多久才能真正开始工作?30秒?1分钟?2分钟?难道更多?

If you find yourself routinely twiddling your thumbs while your PC or Mac painstakingly boots itself up, maybe it's because your system is
trying to fire up a slew of programs at the same time (and indeed, some programs will set themselves to launch at startup by default). Here's
how to ease the frantic rush of competing startup programs:
如果你发现在等待电脑艰难的发动时,你都习惯玩着你的手指了,这也许得归因于你的系统正在尝试同时发动一堆程序(一些程序会默认设置它们为开机启动,这是一定的)。下面就是如何轻松的和这些开机启动程序斗争的方法:

For Windows: Click the Start menu, then select Programs (or All Programs in Windows 7), open the Startup folder, and then—as Becky suggest—
delete mercilessly. (Don't worry; you're not deleting the programs themselves.) Note: if you see a program sitting in the Startup folder
and you don't know what it's for, search on the Web to see what it does before hitting the "delete" button.
Windows系统的做法:点击“开始”菜单,选择“程序”(或Windows 7中的“所有程序”),打开“启动”项目,接着——像贝奇建议的那样——毫不留情的删掉它们。(不要担心;你不会真正从系统中删除这些程序的。)

*小贴士:如果你看到“启动”项目栏里面有一些程序你不清楚是干啥用的,在你删掉它之前上网搜搜它的功能。

For Mac: Open System Preferences under the Apple menu, click the Accounts icon, and then click the Login Items tab. You may find a
variety of arcane programs and helper apps lurking inside (such as the mysterious iTunesHelper), but again—search before you zap an unknown program. (Disabling the iTunesHelper app, for example, will prevent iTunes from opening automatically when you connect an iPhone or iPod.)
苹果电脑(MAC系统)的做法:打开“苹果”菜单下的“系统偏好”选项,点击“账户”图标,接着单击“登录项目”标签。这下你可能会找到好些埋伏在这里的神秘项目和帮助应用(例如“神秘的”iTunes帮助),但是同样的——删除之前上网搜搜那些你不知道功能的程序。(比如说,禁用iTunes帮助应用,将阻止iTunes在你连接iPhone或iPod时自动启动。)

2. Check for running apps in the Windows task bar
2.检查任务栏上正在运行的程序

Got a Windows-based PC? See that little row of tiny icons in the bottom-right corner of the screen? Over the course of weeks, months, or years,
the number of icons sitting in the Windows task bar has probably grown larger and larger—and many of those icons represent programs that are
running in the background and consuming your PC's limited resources.
你的电脑使用Windows系统?看到电脑右下角那排小小的图标了吗?在日复一日,年复一年的运行中,Window任务栏上的数量很可能越来越多——而其实大多数图标代表着正在后台运行的程序,它们都在占用着电脑有限的资源。

Expand the task bar by clicking the little arrow on the side, then right-click each icon in succession. If you find, for example, that
programs like Skype and iTunes are whirring away even when you're not using them, right-click and select "Close"—or, better yet, open the
program and uncheck any "launch at startup" settings in the Preferences or Options menu.
点击任务栏最左边的那个小箭头以展开它,然后用鼠标右键一个个的点击这些图标。如果你发现,比如说,当你没有在用的时候,“Skype”或 “iTunes”图标仍然存在,右键点击它们,然后选择“关闭”选项——或者,最好是在关闭之前,打开这个程序,在设置中找到“开机启动”选项,并取消勾选。

3. Turn off P2P applications
3.关掉所有使用P2P(点对点下载)的应用程序

Programs like BitTorrent and Skype work their magic with "peer-to-peer" technology, meaning they leverage the combined computing power and
bandwidth of every PC or Mac running their software for such uses as massive file transfers (in the case of BitTorrent) or high-quality, Net
-based voice and video chat (for Skype).
类似于“BT(点对点下载)”或“Skype”的程序,在运行它们神奇的“点对点”功能的同时,正影响着所有电脑(PC和MAC)的网络带宽平衡,这些软件在启动后,将使用例如“多文件转换”(BT下载的做法)或“高质量依靠带宽的视频聊天”(如Skype)来抢占网速。

But while sharing the P2P burden qualifies you a good Netizen, it can also put a significant dent in your system's performance. If you've got
programs like BitTorrent and Skype running all day, every day in the background, Becky suggests shutting them down until you really need them.
但当你共享P2P源时(这说明你够格做一名称职的网民),它还算为你系统的“劣迹”做了些有意义的削减。但如果你有类似“BT”或“Skype”的程序并整天运行时,整天在后台运行,贝奇建议还是关掉它们吧,等你需要时再打开。

4. Root out viruses and malware
4.清除根目录中的病毒和恶意软件

Nothing will slow your system down like a virus, a Trojan horse, or other types of malware. Plenty of commercial antivirus applications are available for Windows PCs, but Becky recommends trying Microsoft's free Security Essentials suite, which will sweep your system for any unwanted, nefarious software and provide ongoing protection via regular updates. Just visit Microsoft's Security Essentials website, download and install the software, and follow the instructions.
没有任何东西比病毒,特洛伊木马或者其他恶意软件更能减慢你系统速度的了。现在市面上有各式各样的Windows杀毒软件,但是贝奇推荐你试一试微软的免费安全套装,它将扫除你系统中所有不想要的东西和不法软件,并通过提供定期更新来保护系统。只需要访问微软安全网站(译者注:已链接到中文版地址),按照指示下载并安装该软件即可。

Anti-virus packages from the likes of Norton and McAfee are also available for Mac users, but there's an ongoing debate about whether virus protection on the Mac is more trouble than it's worth, given that malicious hackers are far more focused on Windows than they are on Mac OS X systems.
包括“诺顿”和“迈克菲”(译者注:已链接到中文版地址)在内的杀毒软件对于苹果机也很有用,但是有一个正在进行中的关于是否真的值得在苹果机上安装杀毒软件的讨论,因为那些制造恶意程序的黑客们更多集中于Windows系统而不是苹果机使用的Mac系统。