Tune up

I subscribe to WebUser magazine. I suppose you could say it's a useful and topical magazine put together by keen amateurs - at least that's how it reads. Preferable to the professional mags that assume you can reprogramme a network in three minutes.

This half-month it gave a tip that I actually got round to trying out. It applies to Vista, and allows you to switch off the 17,952 programmes that start up automatically with your computer whether you need them or not.

Just click the Windows button at the bottom left-hand corner, and type "MSConfig" - with capitals - in the search box. It will appear at the top of the screen. Click on it, in the box that appears, go to Startup, and disable the things you don't think you need. Don't do too much at first. I'm sure I'm not alone in not knowing which of these programmes I definitely need at startup, but I do know a few that I don't need every time I log on.

When you've done, the next time you log on Startup will be quicker. The more you disable the quicker it will be. And if you disable something you find you need, you can just re-enable it!