New Year's resolutions aside, it's time to take inventory...did you achieve everything you planned in this year? What do you plan to do differently (better) in the New Year?

After becoming a better person, losing weight and getting a handle on my budget , there's still a couple of things on my list left to do. A big one is to clean up my computer, make it run faster, safer and make sure that my files are backed up in case of a "melt-down".

Now, in the interest of full disclosure these items have been on my "list" in past years as well and I was only partially successful in achieving my goals. One of the biggest obstacles to making headway on my computer was confusion about which programs would achieve what I wanted - without breaking the bank and slowing the performance of my computer to something comparable to molasses.

PC Magazine has come to the rescue with a great article on available products to clean-up, optimize and protect our computers. The link is below for you to check out the pros and cons of each program and suite.

I'm a long time user of AVG for my antivirus. It is minimally invasive and did not noticeably slow my computer. So I was happy to see that AVG scored well in the overall tests. The big news this year, however, is that the free version (yes it's free) has the same engine as the Pro version. The Pro version is a suite with other great programs and features as well. But if you have several computers (that's not unusual in this day and age) and you're going broke on antivirus software, you might want to check it out. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2372364,00.asp

This quote from PC Magazine says it all. "In fact, the free AVG is so feature-rich that it almost overshadows the company's security suite. Its scores in my malware cleanup tests are the best among free products.

The article highlights a lot of other great products as well, so it's worth the time it takes to read it. I hope this helps.... Enjoy!