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。）

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.清除根目录中的病毒和恶意软件

4. Root out viruses and malware


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。

5. Clean up your hard drive

5.清理你的硬盘

The more junk you have cluttering up your hard drive, the longer it takes for your system to access the data it needs—and that's a great reason to regularly scan your folders and toss out files and programs you don't need, or move them somewhere else to make more room.

你硬盘上积累的垃圾越多，你的系统找到需要数据的时间就越长——这就是定期检查文件夹设置和移除不需要的文件和程序的原因，或者将它们放到其他地方，以给电脑留出更多空间。

One easy (and relatively cheap) solution, says Becky, is to buy an external hard drive for your music, photos, and videos, which can hog a surprisingly large amount of disk space (particularly when it comes to HD-quality TV shows and movies). You can find 500GB external hard drives online for as little as $50, while plenty of 1TB drives (or 1,000 gigabytes) sell for south of $100. Most USB 2.0 external drives are plug-and-play, meaning you just plug them into your PC's USB 2.0 port and you're ready to start dragging and dropping.

一个简单（又相对便宜）的解决方法，在贝奇看来，就是为你的音乐，相片和视频购买一个去外接硬盘，它能保存让你惊讶的大量硬盘空间（尤其是在高清电视节目和电影时代时）。在网上，你会发现一个能容纳500GB的外接硬盘只需要50美元，同时还有很多可容纳1TB的移动硬盘（即1000GB）正在销售，这意味着你只需要把它们插入电脑的USB 2.0接口即可，而且还可以随时更换它们。

Another options: online storage sites, such as Dropbox and Carbonite.

另一个选择：使用在线存储网站，比如“Dropbox”和“Carbonite”。（译者注：类似中文网站中的“115网盘”等）

Becky also recommends dumping any old programs that you no longer use. For Windows, click the Start menu, open the Control Panel, and select Add/Remove Programs (or "Uninstall a program" in Windows 7). Mac users can look in the Applications folder, which you can open in the Mac OS X Finder by clicking the Window menu and clicking Applications. See a program you simply never use anymore? Consider tossing it in the trash—although again, never throw away an application without knowing what it does first.

苹果机的使用者们则可以找到“应用文件夹”，在那里，点击“窗口”菜单和“应用”按键后，你可以打开苹果操作系统查询。找到你一个基本不用的程序了吗？考虑把它扔到垃圾桶吧——再次强调，不要删除一个你不知道是什么的程序。

6. Turn off Mac Dashboard widgets

6.关掉苹果系统中的“仪表盘”工具

One of the more recent features in Mac OS X is the Dashboard—a layer of handy widgets that you can call up by clicking the Dashboard icon in the Dock. But while Dashboard widgets might be great for a quick check on the weather or to track the Dow, they also eat up a decent chunk of system resources.

苹果操作系统的一个最新特征就是“仪表盘”了——一个半透明图层的手动小工具，你可以随时通过点击“仪表盘”图标召唤它出来。但当你通过它们快速的查看天气或其他条目时，它们也在“吞食”着你的系统资源。

Do yourself a favor and deactivate the widgets you don't use all that often, Becky advises. Activate the Dashboard, then click the "plus" sign in the bottom-left corner of the screen; next, click the "X" in the upper-left corner of any widgets that you won't miss.

为你自己做件好事吧，贝奇建议说，把这个小工具移除，如果你用的不是那么频繁的话。激活“仪表盘”，点击屏幕底部左边的“+”号；然后点击任何你可以在右上角看到的“X"符号，你不会错过它们的。

7. Try a new browser—or update your old one

7.尝试一个新的浏览器——或更新你现在用的

Has your browser been slowing to a crawl lately? Maybe it's time for a new one. Both Firefox and Google's Chrome Web browsers are popular—and powerful—alternatives to Internet Explorer, and don't forget that there's a Windows version of Apple's speedy Safari browser.

你的浏览器最近运行很慢很慢了吗？也许是时间换一个新的了。不论是火狐浏览器还是谷歌的“Chrome”浏览器都很流行——且很强大——都足以代替IE浏览器，哦，不要忘了，苹果的“Safari”浏览器还有Windows界面呢。

Want to stick with the browser you have? Make sure you're using the latest version. For Internet Explorer, fire up the Windows Update app under the Start Menu. For Firefox, select "Check for update" under the Help menu. Got Chrome? Select "About Google Chrome" under the wrench icon in the Windows version, or under the Chrome menu in Mac OS X. For Safari, launch "Apple Software Update" under the Start menu in Windows, or select Software Update under the Apple menu on the Mac.

还是想使用现有的浏览器？那就确定你用的是最新的版本吧。对于IE浏览器来说，打开开始菜单里的“Windows更新”应用。对于火狐浏览器来说，选择帮助菜单下的“检查更新”项目。如果是Chrome浏览器？选择Windows界面中的“关于谷歌Chrome”选项，或苹果操作系统中的“Chrome”菜单。对于Safari浏览器来说，运行开始菜单窗口中的“苹果软件更新”项目，或选择桌面苹果菜单里的“软件更新”选项。

One more thing: make sure you have the latest version of Adobe's Flash Player installed. Visit Adobe's Flash site to download the latest and greatest version (10.2, as of this writing).

另：确保你安装了最新的“Adobe's Flash Player”。访问 Adobe's Flash网站，下载最新的版本（目前是10.2）。

8. Defragment your hard drive

8.重新整理你的硬盘

Your computer's hard drive is a lot like a closet: the more cluttered it is, the longer it takes to find stuff. One of the easiest (and most effective) ways of tidying up your hard drive is to defragment it, a process that involves consolidating scattered blocks of data into a larger chunk, resulting in bigger swaths of free disk space.

你电脑中的硬盘已经更像一个橱柜了：它越是乱，找东西所花的时间就越长。让你的硬盘变整洁，有一个最简单（也是最有效率的）的方法，那就是重新整理它，帮助整合分散的数据区块成一个大块，使你拥有更整齐的列表和更多空间。

Luckily, defragmenting your hard drive in Windows is a snap. Select Computers from the Start menu, right-click on the icon that represents your hard drive, select Properties, click the Tools tab, and click the Defragment Now button.

幸运的是，在Windows系统下重新整理你的硬盘只不过是小意思。从开始菜单中进入“我的电脑”，右键点击需要整理的硬盘图标，选择属性，然后点击其中的“工具”一栏，最后单击“开始整理”即可。

Got a Mac? Thanks to the disk optimization features built into Mac OS X, there's "little benefit" to manually fragmenting your hard drive, Apple says. But if you're feeling the need to try it anyway, there are several third-party defragmenting utilities for the Mac, including iDefrag and Drive Genius; just make sure to back up your data before giving them a go.

你用的是苹果机？那感谢苹果操作系统的磁盘优化特征吧，苹果说，手工整理硬盘是会对你有“好处”的哦。但如果你认为仍然值得尝试一下自动化，那么，这里有一些针对苹果系统的第三方整理应用，包括“iDefrag”和“Drive Genius”；只要确保在使用他们前备份好了你的数据就行。